Southport : Original Sources in Exploration

Primitive Athens as described by Thucydides 

Jane Ellen Harrison


Chapter 1 (part 2)  (p.19)

It may seem strange that Kleisthenes, or whoever built the earlier Parthenon, did not at once utilize the Pelasgian wall and boldly pile up his terrace against its support. But it must be remembered that the space between the Parthenon and the Pelasgian wall was very great; an immense amount of débris would be required for the filling up of such a space, and it was probably more economical to build the polygonal supporting-wall nearer to the Parthenon. Anyhow it is quite clear that the polygonal wall was no provisional structure. Its facade shows it was meant to be seen, and that the terrace was meant for permanent use is clear from the fact that it is connected by a flight of steps with the lower terrace under the Pelasgian wall (fig.8). It is clear that whoever planned these steps never thought that the lower terrace would be levelled up.

Doubtless whoever filled in the terrace to the height of the raised Pelasgian wall believed in like manner that his work was complete. But Kimon thought otherwise. We know for certain . that it was he who built the great final wall, the structure that re-mains to-day, though partly concealed by mediaeval casing (fig.7). 

(p.20) Plutarch [21] tells us that after the battle of Eurymedon (469 BC.) so much money was raised by the sale of the spoils of the Persians. that the people were able to afford to build the south wall. We know also that this wall of Kimon was at least as much a retaining wall to the great terrace as a fortification. For the filling up of the space between the Pelasgian fortification and his own wall Kimon had material sadly ample. He had the débris left by the Persians after the sacking of the Acropolis.

Fig.8: Pelasgian wall with flight of steps.

The fragments of sculpture and architecture that bear traces of fire are found in the strata marked IV, and there only, for it is these strata only that were laid down after the Persian War [22].The last courses of ‘Kimon’s wall’ (5) were laid by Perikles, and he it was who finally filled in the terrace to its present level (V).

The relation of the successive walls and terraces is shown by (p.21) the ground-plan in fig.9 [23]. The double shaded lines from A to E and D show the irregular course of the old Pelasgic wall. The  dotted lines from B to F show the polygonal supporting wall of the first terrace. It ran, as is seen, nearly parallel to the Parthenon. Its course is lost to sight after it passes under the new museum, but originally it certainly joined the Pelasgic wall at C. At B was the stairway joining the two terraces.

Next came the time when, as the rubble fell over the wall, larger space was needed, and a portion of the Pelasgic wall was utilized and raised. This is shown by the thick black line from B to E coinci-dent with the Pelasgic wall; the masonry here was of quadrangular poros blocks, The coincidence with the Pelasgic wall was only partial.

Fig.9: Ground plan of Parthenon and old Pelasgic wall.

At GH there jutted out an independent angular outpost, and again at EF the new wall is separate from the old; at FD it coincided with the earlier polygonal terrace wall. Kimon’s wall is indicated by the outside double lines, and in the space between these lines and the wall HEK lay the débris of the Persian War. Above that débris lay a still later stratum, deposited during the building operations of Perikles.

The various terraces and walls have been examined somewhat in detail, because their examination helps us to realize as nothing else could how artificial a structure is the south side of the Acropolis, (p.22) and also—a point, to us, of paramount importance—how different was the early condition of the hill from its later appearance.

Before we pass to the consideration of the second clause in the historian’s statement, ‘ together with what is below it towards about south, it is necessary to say a word as to when the old fortress walls were built and by whom. Kimon and Themistocles we know, but who were these earlier master-builders ?

Fig.10
:
Red-figured vase painting on  skyphos showing Athena with giant workman carrying rocks (5th c. BC).

A red-figured vase painter of the fifth century BC. gives us what would have seemed to a contemporary Athenian a safe and satisfactory answer—‘There were giants in those days.’ The design in fig.10 is from a skyphos [24] in the Louvre Museum. Athena is about to fortify her chosen hill. She wears no aegis, for her work is peaceful; she has planted her spear in the ground perhaps as a measuring rod, and she has chosen her workman, A great giant, his name Gigas, inscribed over him, toils after her, bearing a huge ‘Cyclopean’ rock, She points with her hand where he is to lay it.


Fig.11Red-figured vase painting on reverse side of skyphos, showing Phlegyas and younger man with staphyle or measuring line (5th c. BC).

On the obverse of the same vase (fig.11) we have a scene of similar significance. To either side of a small tree, which marks the background as woodland, stands a man of rather wild and (p.23) uncouth appearance. The man to the left is bearded and his name is inscribed, Phlegyas. The right-hand man is younger, and obviously resembles the giant of the obverse. He is showing to Phlegyas an object, which they both inspect with an intent, puzzled air. And well they may. It is a builder’s staphyle [25], or measuring line, weighted with knobs of lead like a cluster of grapes; hence its name. Phlegyas [26] and his giant Thessalian folk were the typical lawless bandits of antiquity; they plundered Delphi, they attacked Thebes after it had been fortified by Amphion and Zethus. But Athena has them at her hest for master-builders. All glory to Athena!

 It is not only at Athens that legends of giant, fabulous work-men cluster about ‘Mycenean’ remains. Phlegyas and his giants toil for Athena, and at Tiryns too, according to tradition, the Kyklopes work for King Proetus [27], and they too built the walls and Lion-Gate of Mycenae [28], At Thebes the Kadmeia [29] is the work of Amphion and Zethus, sons of the gods, and the fashion in which art represents Zethus as toiling is just that of our giant on the vase. The mantle that Jason wore was embroidered, Apollonius of Rhodes [30] tells us, with the building of Thebes, 
(p.24)

 " Of river-born Antiope therein
 The sons were woven; Zethus and his twin
 Amphion, and all Thebes unlifted yet
 Around them lay. They sought but now to set
 The stones of her first building. Like one sore
 In labour, Zethus on great shoulders bore
 A stone-clad mountain’s crest; and there hard by
 Amphion went his way with minstrelsy
 Clanging a golden lyre, and twice as vast
 The dumb rock rose and sought him as he passed. "

Sisyphos, ancient king of Corinth, built on the acropolis of Corinth his great palace, the Sisypheion. He is the Corinthian double of Erechtheus with his Erechtheion. Strabo [31] was in doubt whether to call the Sisypheion palace or temple. Like the old Erechtheion, it was both fortress and sanctuary. In Hades for eternal remembrance, not, as men later thought, of his sin, but of his craft as master-builder, Sisyphos [32], like Zethus, like our giant, still rolls a huge stone up the slope. Everywhere it is the same tale. All definite record or remembrance of the building of ‘Cyclopean’ walls is lost; some hero-king built them, some god, some demi-god, some giant. Just so did the devil in ancient days build his Bridges all over England.

Tradition loves to embroider a story with names and definite details. The prudent Attic vase-painter gives us only a nameless ‘Giant.’ Others knew more. Pausanias [33] had heard the builders’ actual names and tried to fix their race. He tells us—just as he leaves the Acropolis -"Save for the portion built by Kimon, son of Miltiades, the whole circuit of the Acropolis fortification was, they say, built by the Pelasgians, who once dwelt below the Acropolis. It is said that Agrolas and Hyperbios...and on asking who they were, I could only learn that in origin they were Sikelians and that they migrated to Acarnania."

Spite of the lacuna, it is clear that Agrolas and Hyperbios are the reputed builders. The reference to Sicily dates probably from a time when the Kyklopes had taken up their abode in the island. The two builder-brothers remind us of Amphion and Zethus, and of their prototypes the Dioscuri [34].  Pliny [35] tells of a similar pair, (p.25) though he gives to one of them another name. "The brothers Euryalos and Hyperbios were the first to make brick-kilns and houses at Athens; before this they used caves in the ground for houses."

The names of the two ‘Pelasgian’ brothers are, as we know from the evidence of vase-paintings [36], ‘giant’ names, and Hyperbios is obviously appropriate. The names leave us in the region of myth, but the tradition that the brothers were ‘Pelasgian’ deserves closer attention.

In describing the old wall we have spoken of it as ‘ Pelasgian,’ and in this we follow classical tradition. Quoting from Hecataeus (circ. 500 BC), Herodotus [37] speaks of land under Hymettus as given to the Pelasgians "in payment for the fortification wall which they had formerly built round the Acropolis."  Again, Herodotus [38] tells how when Kleomenes King of Sparta reached Athens, he, together with those of the citizens who desired to be free, "besieged the despots who were shut up in the Pelasgian fortification."

A Pelasgian fortification, a constant tradition that Athens was inhabited by Pelasgians—we seem to be on solid ground. Yet on a closer examination the evidence for connecting the name of the fortification with the name ‘Pelasgian’ crumbles. In the one official [39] inscription that we possess the word is written, not Pelasgikon, but Pelargikon. In like manner, in Thucydides [40], where the word occurs twice, it is written with an "r". Pelargikon is "stork-fort," not Pelasgian fort. The confusion probably began with Herodotus, who was specially interested in the Pelasgians.

Why the old citadel was called "stork-fort" we cannot say— there are no storks there now—but we have one delightful piece of evidence that, to the Athenian of the sixth century BC, "stork-fort" was a reality.

Immediately to the south of the present Erechtheion lie the foundations of the ancient Doric temple [41], currently known by a (p.26) pardonable Germanism as the "old Athena-temple."  For its date we have a certain terminus ante quem. The colonnade was of the time of Peisistratos; it was a later addition; the cella of the temple existed before—how much before we do not know. The zeal and skill of Prof. Dorpfeld for architecture, of Drs. Wiegand and Schrader for sculpture, have restored to us a picture of that ancient Doric temple all aglow with life and colour and in essentials complete [42].

Of all the marvellous fragments of early sculpture recently discovered, none is more widely known nor more justly popular than the smil-ing, three-headed monster known throughout Europe as the "Bluebeard." He belongs to the sculptures of the west pediment of the inner pre- Peisistratean cella of the "old Athena-temple," a portion of which  is shown in fig.12.

Fig.12:  Drawing of sculptures of west pediment of the Old Athena temple.

It is tempting to turn aside and discuss in detail the whole pediment composition to which he belongs. It will, however, shortly be seen (p. 37) that our argument (p.27) forbids all detailed discussion of the sanctuaries of Athena, and the pediments of her earliest temple have therefore, for us at the moment, an interest merely incidental.

Thus much, however, for clearness sake may and must be said. The design of the western pediment fell into two parts. In one angle, that to the left of the spectator, Herakles is wrestling with Triton; the right-hand portion, not figured here, is occupied by the triple figure of "Blue-beard", whose correct mythological name is probably Typhon [43]. He is no protagonist, only a splendid smiling spectator. The centre of the pediment, where, in the art of Pheidias, we should expect the interest to culminate, was occupied by accessories, the stem of a tree on which hung, as in vase-paintings, the bow and arrows and superfluous raiment of Herakles.

It is a point of no small mythological interest that in this and two other primitive pediments the protagonist is not, as we should expect, the indigenous hero Theseus, but the semi-Oriental Herakles; but this question also we must set aside; our immediate interest is not in the sculptured figures of the pediment, but in the richly painted decoration on the pediment roof above their heads.

The recent excavations on the Acropolis yielded a large number of painted architectural fragments, the place and significance of which was at first far from clear. Of these fragments forty were adorned with two forms of lotus-flower; twenty had upon them figures of birds of two sorts. Fragmentary though the birds mostly are, the two kinds (storks and sea-eagles) are, by realism as to feathers, beak, legs, and claws, carefully distinguished. The stork (πελαργός) in the Pelargikon is a surprise and a delight. Was Aristophanes [44] thinking of this Pelargikon when to the building of his Nephelokokkygia he brought "For brickmakers a myriad flight of storks."
(p.28) One of the storks is given in fig.13. The birds in the original fragments are brilliantly and delicately coloured. Their vivid red legs take us to Delphi. We remember Ion [45] with his laurel crown, his bow and arrows, his warning song to swan and eagle.

"There see! the birds are up: they fly
Their nests upon Parnassus high
And hither tend. I warn you all
To golden house and marble wall
Approach not. Once again my bow
Zeus’ herald-bird, will lay thee low;
Of all that fly the mightiest thou
In talon! Lo another now
Sails hitherward—a sw
an!
Away Away, thou red-foot!"


Fig.13: Stork on painted architectural fragments found on Acropolis.

(p.29) In days when on open-air altars sacrifice smoked, and there was abundance of sacred cakes, birds were real and very frequent presences. To the heads of numbers of statues found on the Acropolis is fixed a sharp spike to prevent the birds perching [46]. They were sacred yet profane.

The lotus-flowers carry us back to Egypt. The rich blending of motives from the animal and vegetable kingdom is altogether ‘Mycenaean. Man in art, as in life, is still at home with his brothers the fish, the bird, and the flower. After this ancient fulness and warmth of life a pediment by Pheidias strikes a chill. Its sheer humanity is cold and lonely. Man has forgotten that "Earth is a covering to hide thee, the garment of thee."

There are two sorts of birds, two sorts of lotus-flowers, and there are two pediments. It is natural to suppose, with Dr Wiegand, that the eagles belonged to the east, the principal pediment. There, it will later be seen (p. 47), were seated the divinities of the place. Our pediment decorated the west end, the humbler seat of heroes rather than gods. There Herakles wrestled with the Triton; there old Blue-beard—surely a monster of the earlier slime—kept his watch; and over that ancient struggle of hero and monster brooded the stork.

The storks themselves are there to remind us that the old name of the citadel was Pelargikon, and that Pelargikon meant "stork fort"; by an easy shift it became Pelasgikon [47], and had henceforth an etymologically false association with the Pelasgoi. Etymologically false, but perhaps in fact true, for happily the analogy between the Pelargic walls and those of Mycenae is beyond dispute, and if the ‘Mycenaeans’ were Pelasgian, the walls are, after all, Pelasgic.

We have seen that both Thucydides and the official inscription write Pelargikon; their statements will repay examination. Thucydides, after his account of the narrow limits of the city before Theseus, returns to the main burden of his narrative, the crowding of the inhabitants of Attica within the city walls.

(p.30) "Some few," [48]  he says, "indeed had dwelling places, and took refuge with some of their friends or relations, but the most part of them took up their abode on the waste places of the city and in the sanctuaries and hero-shrines, with the exception of the Acropolis and the Eleusinion, and any other that might be definitely closed. And what is called the Pelargikon beneath the Acropolis, to dwell in which was accursed, and was forbidden in the fag end of an actual Pythian oracle on this wise, 'The Pelargikon better unused,' was, notwithstanding, in consequence of the immediate pressure thickly populated."

The passage comes for a moment as something of a shock. We have been thinking of the Pelargikon as the Acropolis, we have traced its circuit of walls on the Acropolis, and now suddenly we find the two sharply distinguished. The Acropolis, though closed, is surely not cursed. The Acropolis is one of the definitely closed places, to which the refugees cannot get access; the Pelargikon, though accursed, is open to them, and they take possession of it; the two manifestly cannot be coincident. But happily the words "below the Acropolis" bring recollection, and with it illumination. What is called the Pelargikon below the Acropolis is surely that appanage of the citadel which Thucydides in his second clause mentions so vaguely. The ancient polis comprised not only "what is now the citadel," but also together with it, "what is below it towards about south"? Thucydides would have saved a world of trouble if he had stated that "what is below towards the south" [49] was the Pelargikon; but he does not, probably because he is concerned with dimensions, not with nomenclature.

The Pelasgikon meant originally the whole citadel, the ancient city as defined by Thucydides. This was its meaning in the days of Herodotus. In the Pelasgikon the tyrants were besieged (p. 25). But by the time of Thucydides the Acropolis proper, i.e. much the (p.31) larger and more important part of the old city, had ceased to be "Pelasgic"; the old fortifications were concealed by the new retaining walls of Themistocles and Kimon. It was only at the west and south-west that the Pelasgic fortifications were still visible, hence this portion below the Acropolis took to itself the name that had belonged to the whole; but this limited use of the word was at first tentative. Thucydides says, "which is called the Pelargikon."

This is quite different from the definite "the Pelasgian citadel" used by Herodotus. The neuter adjectival form is, so far as I know, never used of the whole complex of the Acropolis plus what is below. From Thucydides we learn only that what was called the Pelargikon was below the Acropolis. "Below" means immediately, vertically below, for when, in Lucian’s Fisherman [50], Parrhesiades, after baiting his hook with figs and gold, casts down his line to fish for the false philosophers, Philosophy, seeing him hanging over, asks, "What are you fishing for, Parrhesiades? Stones from the Pelasgikon?"

An inscription [51]of the latter end of the fifth century confirms the curse mentioned by Thucydides, and shows us that the Pelargikon was a well-defined area, as it was the subject of special legislation. "The king (ie. the magistrate of that name) is to fix the boundaries of the sanctuaries in the Pelargikon, and henceforth altars are not to be set up in the Pelargikon without the consent of the Council and the people, nor may stones be quarried from the Pelargikon, nor earth or stones had out of it. And if any man break these enactments he shall pay 500 drachmas and the king shall report him to the Council." Pollux [52]  further tells us that there was a penalty of 3 drachmas and costs for even mowing grass within the Pelargikon, and three officers called paredroi guarded against the offence. Evidently the fortifications of the Pelargikon, partially dismantled by the Persians, had become a popular stone quarry; as evidently the state had no intention that these fortifications should fall into complete disuse. The question naturally arises, what was the purport of this surviving Pelargikon, why did it not perish with the rest of the Pelasgic fortifications ?

The answer is simple: the Pelargikon remained because it was (p.32) the great fortification of the citadel gates. According to Kleidemos, it will be remembered (p. 11), the work of the early settlers was threefold; they levelled the surface of the citadel, they built a wall round it, and they furnished the fortifications with gates. Where will those gates be?

A glance at the section in fig.1 shows that they must be where they are, ie. at the only point where the rock has an approachable slope, the west or south-west. We ‘say advisedly south-west. The great gate of Mnesicles, the Propylaea which remain to-day, face due west; but within that great gate still remain the foundations [53] of a smaller, older gate (fig.2, G), built in direct connection with the great Pelasgic fortification wall, and that older gate, there before the Persian War [54], faces south-west.

This gate facing south-west stands on the summit of the hill, and is but one. Kleidemos (p.11) tells us that the Pelargikon had nine gates. That there should be nine gates round the Acropolis is unthinkable, such an arrangement would weaken the fortification, not strengthen it. The successive gates must  somehow have been arranged one inside the other, and the fortifications would probably be in terrace form. The west slope of the Acropolis lends itself to such an arrangement, and in Turkish days this slope was occupied by a succession of redoubts (fig.14).



Fig.14: Sketch of 17th century Athens showing fortifications on Acropolis.

(p.33) Fortified Turkish Athens is in some ways nearer to the old Pelasgian fortress than the Acropolis as we see it to-day. We  shall probably not be far wrong if we think of the approach to the ancient citadel as a winding way (Fig. 15), leading gradually up by successive terraces, passing through successive fortified gates [55], and reaching at last the topmost propylon which faced south-west. These terraces, gates, fortifications, covering a large space, the limits of which will presently be defined, formed a whole known from the time of Thucydides to that of Lucian as the Pelargikon or Pelasgikon.

Lucian indeed not only affords our best evidence that, down to Roman days, a place called the Pelasgikon existed below the Acropolis, but is also our chief literary source for defining its limits. We expect those limits to be wide, otherwise the refugees would not have crowded in.

The passages about the Pelasgikon in Lucian are two. First in the Double Indictment [56], Dike, standing on the Acropolis, sees Pan approaching, and asks who the god is with the horns and the pipe and the hairy legs. Hermes answers that Pan, who used to dwell on Mt Parthenion, had for his services been honoured with a cave below the Acropolis "a little beyond the Pelasgikon." There he lives and pays his taxes as a resident. alien. The site of Pan’s cave is certainly known; close below it was the Pelasgikon. This marks the extreme limit of the Pelasgikon to the north, for the sanctuary of Aglauros (p.81) by which the Persians climbed up was unquestionably outside the fortifications. 

Herodotus [57] (p.34) distinctly says, "In front then of the Acropolis, but behind the gates and the ascent, where neither did anyone keep guard, nor could it be expected that anyone could climb up there, some of them ascended near the sanctuary of Aglauros, daughter of Kekrops, though the place was precipitous."

Fig.15: Plan of gates on western slope of Acropolis.

A second passage [58] in Lucian gives us a further clue. Parrhesiades and Philosophy, from their station on the Acropolis, are watching the philosophers as they crowd up. Parrhesiades says, "Goodness, why, at the mere sound of the words, 'a ten-pound note,' the whole way up is a mass of them shouldering each other; some are coming along the Pelasgikon, others and more of them by the Areopagos, some are at the tomb of Talos, and others have got ladders and put them against the Anakeion ; and, by Jove, there’s a whole hive of them swarming up like bees."
 A description like this cannot be regarded as definite proof; but, taking the shrines in their natural order, it certainly looks as though in Lucian’s days the Pelasgikon extended from the Areo-pagos to the Asklepieion. The philosophers crowd up by the regular approach (ἄνοδος) to the Propylaea; there is not room for them all, so they spread to right and left, on the right to the Asklepieion, on the left to the Areopagos; some are crowded out still further on the right to the tomb of Talos [59], near the theatre of Dionysos; on the left to the Anakeion [60] on the north side of the Acropolis.

Yet one more topographical hint is left us. In a fragment of Polemon [61] (circ. 180 BC), preserved to us by the scholiast on the Oedipus Coloneus of Sophocles, we hear that Hesychos, the eponymous hero of the Hesychidae, hereditary priests of the Semnae, had a sanctuary. Its position is thus described: "it is alongside of the Kyloneion outside the Nine-Gates"
. It is clear that in the days of Polemon either the Nine-Gates were still standing, or their position was exactly known. It is also clear that, whatever was called the Nine-Gates was near the precinct of the Semnae. The eponymous hero of their priests must have had his shrine in (p.35) or close to the sanctuary of the goddesses. Moreover the Kyloneion or hero shrine ties us to the same spot. When the fellow-conspirators of Kylon were driven from the Acropolis, where Megacles dared not kill them, they fastened themselves by a thread to the image of the goddess to keep themselves in touch; when they reached the altars of the Semnae the thread broke and they were all murdered [62]. The Kyloneion must have been erected as an expiatory shrine on the spot.

When we turn to examine actual remains of the Pelasgikon on the south slope of the Acropolis (fig.2), we are met by disappointment. Of all the various terraces and supporting walls, only one fragment (P) can definitely be pronounced Pelasgian. The remaining walls seen in fig.16 date between the seventh and the fifth centuries. The walls marked G in the plan in Fig. 16, but purposely omitted in Fig. 2, are of good polygonal masonry, and must have been supporting walls to the successive terraces of the Pelasgikon; they are probably of the time of Peisistratos [63]. but may even be earlier. It is important to note that though not ‘ Pelasgic’ themselves they doubtless supplanted previous ‘ Pelasgic’ structures. The line followed by the ancient road must have skirted the outermost wall of the Pelargikon; later it was diverted in order to allow of the building of the Odeion of Herodes Atticus. The Pelasgikon of Lucian’s day only extended as far as the Asklepieion; the earlier fortification must have included what was later the Asklepieion [64], as it would need to protect the important well within that precinct.

Thucydides has stated the limits of the ancient city, "what is now the citadel was the city together with what is below it towards about south." We nowadays should not question his statement. (p.36) The remains of the Pelasgian fortifications disclosed by excavation amply support his main contention, namely, that what is now the citadel was the city, the conformation of the hill and literary evidence justify his careful  together with what is below it towards about south.

But, as noted before, the readers of Thueydides were not in our position, they knew less about the boundaries of the ancient city, and though they probably knew fairly well the limits of the Pelasgikon, even that was becoming rather a matter of antiquarian interest. Above all, they were citizens of the larger city of Themistocles, the Dipylon was more to them than the Enneapylon. Thucydides therefore feels that the truth about the ancient city needs driving home. He proceeds to give evidence for what was, he felt, scarcely self-evident. If we feel that the evidence is somewhat superfluous, we yet welcome it because incidentally he thereby gives us much and interesting information as to the sanctuaries of ancient Athens.

The evidence is, as above stated (p.8), fourfold.



Footnotes:

21. Plut. Vit. Cim, 13,
22. Unfortunately at the actual time of the excavations the chronology of the various retaining walls was not clearly evident and the precise place where many of the fragments excavated were found was not noted with adequate precision.
23. A, Mitt. xxvu. 1902, p. 398, Fig. 5.
24. F. Hauser, Strena Helbigiana, p. 115. The reverse was first correctly explained thro’ the identification of the σταφύλη by Dr O. Rossbach, ‘ Verschollene Sagen und Kulten,’ Neue Jahrbiicher f, Kl. Altertumswissenschaft, 1901
25. Tl. τι. 7θὅ., ἵπποι σταφύλῃ ἐπὶ νῶτον ica.
26.  See Roscher, Lex. 8.0.
27.  Paus, II
. 25. 7,
28.  Paus. II. 16. 5.
29.  Paus. IX. 5. 6.
30.  Apoll. Rhod. I. 736.

31. Strabo, σι. 21 ὃ 379. See my Prolegomena, p. 609.
32. Od. x1. 594. Mr Salomon Reinach in his ‘‘Sisyphe aux enfers et quelques autres damnés,’ Rev. Arch. 1903, has established beyond doubt the true interpre-tation of the stone of Sisyphos. 3
33.  Paus, 1. 28. 3.
34.  Dr Rendel Harris, The Dioscuri, p. 8.
35.  Plin. Nat. Hist. VII  57.
36.  For Euryalos see Eph. Arch. 1885, Taf. v. 2and 3. For Hyperbios, Mon. ἃ. Inst. v1. and vit.
37.  Herod. νι. 137 μισθὸν τοῦ τείχεος τοῦ περὶ τὴν ἀκρόπολίν ποτε ἐληλαμένου.
38.  Herod. v. 64 ἐπολιόρκεε τοὺς τυράννους ἀπεργμένους ἐν τῷ Πελασγικῷ τείχει. All the mss. except Z have Πελασγικῷ: Z has been corrected to Πελαργικῷ.
39.  CI. 4. tv. 2. 27. 6...é€v τῷ Πελαργικῷ...ἐκ τοῦ Πελαργικοῦ.
40.  In the best ms. (Laur. C). -
41. For details of this temple, see: my Myth. and Mon. Anc. Athens, p. 496. For its ground-plan, see below p. 40, Fig, 18.
42. Wiegand-Schrader-Dorpfeld, Poros-Architektur der Akropolis. For any realization of pre-Periclean architecture a study of the coloured plates of this work is essential.
43. Typhon and Tritons appear together on the throne of Apollo at Amyclae. The artistic motives of this Ionian work are largely Oriental. The conjunction of Typhon and the Tritons is not, I think, a mere decorative chance, Attention has not, I think, been called, in connection with this pediment, to the fact that in Plutarch’s Isis and Osiris (xxxu.) Typhon is the sea into which the Nile flows (Τυφῶνα δὲ τὴν θάλασσαν, els ἣν ὁ Νεῖλος ἐμπίπτων ἀφανίζεται. The Egyptian inspiration of the Isis and Osiris no one will deny, and on this Egyptianized pediment with its lotus-flowers the Egyptian sea-god Typhon is well in place. His name is doubtless, as Muss Arnolt Semitic Words in Greek and Latin, p. 59 points out, connected with Heb. }}D¥ hidden, dark, northern. The sea was north of Egypt.
44.  Ar, Av. 1139 ἕτεροι δ᾽ ἐπλινθοποίουν πελαργοὶ μύριοι.
45.  Kur. Jon 154, trans.b y Dr Verrall.
46.  See Lechat, Au Musée de l Acropole d’Athénes, p. 215.
47.  Any learned blunderer might write Πελασγικόν for Πελαργικόν, but if Πελασ- γικόν were the original form it would be little likely to be changed to Πελαργικόν.
48.  Thucyd. τι. 17 τό τε Πελαργικὸν καλούμενον τὸ ὑπὸ τὴν ἀκρόπολιν, ὃ Kal ἐπάρατόν τε ἦν μὴ οἰκεῖν καί τι καὶ Πυθικοῦ μαντείου ἀκροτελεύτιον τοιόνδε διεκώλυε, λέγον ὡς τὸ Πελαργικὸν ἀργὸν ἄμεινον, ὅμως ὑπὸ τῆς παραχρῆμα ἀνάγκης ἐξῳκήθη. Thucydides calls ‘7d Πελαργικὸν ἀργὸν ἀμείνον ᾽ a final hemistich. Mr A. Β. Cook kindly points out to me that it is in fact a complete line of the ancient metrical form preceding the hexameter and known as paroimiac.
49.  καὶ τὸ ὑπ᾽ αὐτὴν μάλιστα πρὸς νότον τετραμμένον.
50.  Lucian, Piscator, 46. 2 0.1.4.
51.  C.I.A. IV: 2. 27: 6.
52.  Poll. On. vu. 101.
53.  Dorpfeld, ‘Die Propyliien 1 und 2,’ A. Mitt. x. x. 1885, pp. 38 and 131 and see my Mon. and Myth. Ancient Athens, p. 353.
54.  Dorpfeld, A. Mitt. xxvm. 1902, p. 405.
55. The number of these gates is of course purely conjectural. The sketch in Fig. 15 which I owe to the kindness of Prof. Dérpfeld gives five only on the western slope. The line of the walls HJK is suggested by remains of the 6th century B.C. which probably occupy the site of still earlier Pelasgic fortifications (see p. 35 note 2). Of the remaining gates one would probably be near where the Asklepieion was later built and one or more on the north slope.
56. Lucian, Bis Accus. 9 μικρὸν ὑπὲρ τοῦ Πελασγικοῦ.
57. Herod. vit. 52. H. 3
58. Lucian, Piscator 42.
59. See Mon. and Myth. Ancient Athens, p. 299.
60. Op. cit. p. 152.
61. Polem. ap. Schol. Oed. Col. 489 καθάπερ Πολέμων ἐν τοῖς πρὸς ᾿Ερατοσθένην φησίν, οὕτω.. κριὸν “Hotxw ἱερὸν ἥρω...ο ὗ τὸ ἱερόν ἐστι παρὰ τὸ Κυλώνειον, ἐκτὸς τῶν ae ΒΡ: The ms. has Κυδώνιον, the emendation, which seems certain, is due to . O. Mueller.
62. Plut. Vit. Solon. x1. and Thucyd. 1. 126.
63.  For these details about the date of the various walls I am indebted to Professor Dorpfeld. Dr F. Noack holds that the nine-gated Pelargikon was not of Mycenaean date but was built by Peisistratos, the earlier Pelargikon being a much simpler structure. Prof. Dorpfeld also holds that there was no nine-gated Pelargikon in Mycenaean days, but he believes that the Peisistratids only strengthened an already existing fortification, building perhaps some additional gates. The Enneapylon would then have its contemporary analogy in the Enneakrounos. See F. Noack, Arne, A. Mitt. 1898, p. 418.
64. A protest was raised against the building of the Asklepieion after it was begun ; possibly this was because of its encroachment on the Pelargikon. See A. Koerte, A. Mitt. 1896, pp. 318—831. 3—2




[Continue to Chapter 2]

[Return to Table of Contents]



Southport main page         Main index of Athena Review

Copyright  ©  2023    Rust Family Foundation.  (All Rights Reserved).

.