by the people, and signifies that by means of donations from Julius Cæsar and Augustus, the building had been raised in the archonship of Nicias, son of Serapion of Athmona, when Eucles, son of Herodes, of Marathon was strategus of the hoplita, and who on returning from an embassy had succeeded his father Herodes in the superintendence of the work'. Such an inscription would have been unexampled on a temple; at the same time, as every building in Athens was dedicated to some protecting deity 2, the mention of Minerva Archegetis was perfectly appropriate, Minerva having been supposed to preside over markets, and hence sometimes bearing the epithet of Agoraa: at Athens, however, the higher and more appropriate title Archegetis was naturally preferred 3.

1 Ὁ δῆμος ἀπὸ τῶν δοθεισῶν δωρεῶν ὑπὸ Γαΐου Ἰουλίου Καίσαρος Θεοῦ καὶ Αὐτοκράτορος Καίσαρος Θεοῦ υἱοῦ Σεβαστοῦ ̓Αθηνᾷ ̓Αρχηγέτιδι, στρατηγοῦντος ἐπὶ τοὺς ὁπλίτας Εὐκλέους Μαραθωνίου, τοῦ καὶ διαδεξαμένου τὴν ἐπιμέλειαν ὑπὲρ τοῦ πατρὸς Ἡρώδου, τοῦ καὶ πρεσβεύσαντος. Ἐπὶ ἄρχοντος Νικίου τοῦ Σαραπίωνος Αθμονέως.

2 The Prytaneium was sacred to Minerva (IIaλλádos iεpóv. Schol. in Aristid. Panath. I. p. 103, Jebb): The Pnyx to Jupiter the Supreme (Au Yiory), as we perceive from numerous votive offerings in marble, which occupied niches in the rock, and several of which are now in the British Museum.

3 Stuart found the following on a fragment of an entablature at Athens, as follows,

̓Αθηνᾷ ̓Αρχηγέτιδι καὶ Θεοῖς πᾶσι)

Taрyýrτшs Tòν . . . . Ant. of Ath. I ornament, p. 1. Alcibiades remarked, among his reasons for not playing on the flute, that Athens was under the peculiar protection of Minerva Archegetis and Apollo Patrous, one of whom threw away the flute, and the other flayed the flute-player (v μèv ëßpi‡e tòv αὐτὸν, ὁ δὲ καὶ τὸν αὐλητὴν ἐξέδειρε. Plutarch. Alcib. 2). Minerva Archegetis was represented with an owl in her hand. Schol. in Aristoph. Av. 515.

If the principal inscription on the architrave was inappropriate to a temple, still more so would have been a statue of Lucius Cæsar, the grandson and adopted son of Augustus, on the summit of the pediment. But the third and fourth inscriptions leave no doubt when compared with the building itself, that it was the Propylæum of the Agora. The third, which is on the jamb of the doorway, is an edict of the emperor Hadrian respecting the sale of oils, and the duties to be paid upon them'. In the fourth inscription, which was on the pedestal of a statue of Julia Augusta, standing within the Propylæum, the magistrates particularly named are the two agoranomi, although one only was at the expense of raising the monument'; in like manner

On the front of the Acroterium is the following: 'O dipoc Λούκιον Καίσαρα αὐτοκράτορος Θεοῦ νοῦ Σεβαστοῦ Καίσαρος ὑόν. 2 Κε. νο. θε. Αδριανοῦ αὐτοκράτορος

Οἱ τὸ ἔλαιον γεωργοῦντες τὸ τρίτον καταφερέτωσαν, &c. For the entire document, see Boeckh, C. Ins. Gr. No. 355.

3 Ἰουλίαν θεὰν Σεβαστὴν Πρόνοιαν ἡ βουλὴ ἡ ἐξ ̓Αρείου πάγου καὶ ἡ βουλὴ τῶν ἐξακοσίων καὶ ὁ δῆμος, ἀναθέντος ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων Διονυσίου τοῦ Αὔλου Μαραθωνίου, ἀγορανομούντων αὐτοῦ τε Διονυσίου Μαραθωνίου καὶ Κοΐντου Ναιβίου Ρούφου Μελιτέως. Stuart, who first published this inscription, judiciously suggests that this was one of several statues of the Octavian family standing within the Propylæum. It is not surprising that the Athenians, after their unsuccessful alliances in opposition to Julius Cæsar and Augustus, ending in both instances in a submission which was followed by clemency and even munificence on the part of the victorious Cæsars, should have endeavoured to propitiate Augustus and his family, by every kind of servility and flattery. In these inscriptions he is styled a god, the son of a god; and Julia Augusta, a goddess, and a personification of Providence. Possibly the embassy which is alluded to on the architrave of the Propylæum, produced the gifts which defrayed

the strategus of the hoplita is the magistrate named in the principal inscription, and had the care of erecting the monument, because he was superintendent of the supply of provisions'.

The Propylæum faces the west the Agora, therefore, of the Augustan and subsequent ages was to the eastward of it. But other evidence places the Agora in a very different situation, namely, at the foot of the ascent to the Acropolis, including a part of that slope: for we find that the celebrated statues of Harmodius and

Aristogeiton were in the Agora, in an elevated situation near the temple of Victory, which stood immediately in front of the left wing of the Propylæa3, and that the temple of Venus Pandemus,

the completion of the building; and that hence Eucles, on his return, was appointed to the office of strategus, and superseded his father as superintendent of the work. Herodes and Eucles were probably of the same family as the celebrated T. C. Atticus Herodes, his demus as well as theirs having been Marathon.

1

στρατηγήσας (Lollianus sc.) τὴν ἐπὶ τῶν ὅπλων· ἡ δὲ ἀρχὴ αὕτη πάλαι μὲν κατέλεγε καὶ ἐξῆγεν ἐς τὰ πολέμια· νῦνι δὲ τροφῶν Émiμedeirai kaì oírov ȧyopās. Philostrat. Sophist. 1, 23.

2

Αγοράσω τ' ἐν τοῖς ὅπλοις ἑξῆς ̓Αριστογείτονι, Aristoph. Lysist. 634.

Αρμόδιον καὶ ̓Αριστογείτονα τὸ ἐν ἀγορᾷ σταθῆναι. Aristot. Rhet. 1, 9.

...

̓Αριστογείτων . . . νῦν ἕστηκε χαλκοῦς ἐν τῇ ἀγορᾷ μετὰ τῶν Tαidikov. Lucian. Parasit. 48.

3 Pausan. Attic. 22, 4. See above, p. 143. Arrian de Exp. Alex. 3, 16. See below, p. 221, n. 3.

In the Ecclesiazusæ of Aristophanes (678), Praxagora declares her intention of placing herself aloft in the Agora, near Harmodius, for the purpose of making a proclamation (KЯrα σrýσασα παρ' Αρμοδίῳ κληρώσω πάντας).

In the Lysistrata (317), the chorus of old men who had sta

which was very near the same part of the Acropolis', was also in or very near the Agora'. Apollodorus, in describing the temple of Venus as thus situated, designates the place as the ancient Agora (ru apxalar ayopav), as if this had not been the frequented Agora of his own time. There can hardly be any doubt that the earliest Agora was in this situation, and that it originated in the assemblage of the people of the surrounding part of Attica, for the most ordinary purposes of traffic, immediately without the gates of the city, when it was confined to the Cecropian hill: here stood some of the most ancient and revered of the Athenian sanctuaries, and here in consequence were placed the statues of the tyrannicides, to the exclusion of all other statues of men 3.

tioned themselves near the statue of Aristogeiton, address themselves to Victory Δέσποινα Νίκη ξυγγενοῦ.

1

According to Euripides (Hippol. 30) Phædra founded the temple of Venus πέτραν παρ' αὐτὴν Παλλάδος. Compare Pausanias 22, 3 (see above, p. 141).

̓Απολλόδωρος ἐν τῷ περὶ Θεῶν, Πάνδημόν φησιν ̓Αθήνησι κληθήναι τὴν ἀφιδρευθεῖσαν περὶ τὴν ἀρχαίαν ἀγορὰν, διὰ τὸ ἐνταῦθα πάντα τὸν δῆμον συνάγεσθαι τὸ παλαιὸν ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις, ἃς ἐκάλουν ἀγοράς. Harpocr. in Πάνδημος ̓Αφροδίτη. V. Suid. in Пár. 'Ap.

An inscription in the collection of George Finlay, Esq., at Athens, among other favours conferred upon some person, whose name is wanting, gives him permission to erect an equestrian statue of himself in any part of the Agora except near Harmodius and Aristogeiton (καὶ εἰκόνα στῆσαι ἑαυτοῦ χαλκῆν ἐφ ̓ ἵππου ἐν ἀγορᾷ, ὁποῦ ἀμ βούληται, πλὴν παρ ̓ ̓Αρμόδιον καὶ ̓Αριστογείτονα).

The same situation is alluded to in the extract from a decree in favour of Lycurgus, son of Lycophron, to whom a statue was ordered to be erected in any part of the Agora, except where it

If, therefore, we have monumental evidence which proves the existence of an Agora in Roman times eastward of the extant portal of Augustus, and written records not less conclusive in showing that the ancient Agora was westward of the ascent to the Acropolis, we are led almost inevitably to the conclusion, that during the many centuries of Athenian prosperity, the boundaries of the Agora, or at least of its frequented part, underwent considerable variation. When the chief sacred buildings were first erected, as Thucydides informs us, on the southern side of the Acropolis', and the city began to spread itself over the low grounds to the southward and westward of that height, and round the Areiopagus, the Agora was gradually extended from its earliest position in the hollow, which lies between the Acropolis and Areiopagus, into that on the south-western side of the latter height, having that most ancient place of political assembly, the Pnyx, in a conspicuous position on one side of the hollow, and some of the other buildings connected with the government in or near it, as will be seen hereafter. By degrees the city stretched round the Acropolis to the northward, and the Agora became enlarged in the same direction, until it surrounded the Areiopagus; the circuit around which appears to have been that κύκλος τῆς ἀγορᾶς alluded to by Euripides, as well as by Xenophon in a passage of the Hipparchicus, which will be more particularly

was forbidden by law (καὶ στῆσαι αὐτοῦ τὸν Δῆμον χαλκῆν εἰκόνα ἐν ̓Αγορᾷ πλὴν εἴπου ὁ νόμος ἀπαγορεύει μὴ ἱστάναι. Psephism. 3 ad fin. Vit. X. Rhet.).