Spring 2007 -- Please note, these links are active only when the course is being taught

1. Archaeological Toolkit: Dating
   Summary: The stratigraphic sequence at a site captures the relative chronology of that site. Pottery typologies and assemblages also provide relative dates for the site. Absolute dates are established through elaborate correlations with other sites and other methods.
2. Geography & the Environment
   Summary: The geography, landscape, and climate all play crucial roles in development of Greek culture in general and in the development of the city of Athens in particular. Of equal importance is the role played by the sea.
3. Neolithic - Bronze Age Athens: The Beginnings of the City
   Summary: In Athens in the Prehistoric period, there is evidece of occupation and/or burial on slopes of Akropolis and within area of later agora; Akropolis probably had Mycenaean palace on its summit and, by 13th century BCE, a massive fortification system and a protected water supply. Prehistoric remains in the "agora" consist of MH Minyan ware found under later streets, suggesting the presence of some habitations whose structures were later destroyed. In the LH/Myc period, the "agora" was used as a burial area; this is confirmed by the discovery of tumulus tombs and cist burials there; burial activity was fairly extensive (47 burials known; 12 cist and 22 tumulus); grave goods suggest presence of rich, thriving Mycenaean community (n.b. the ivory pyxis & Canaanite jar), but no Mycenaean habitations per se have been discovered in agora area. There are, however, 4 Mycenaean wells from area N of Akropolis (at edge of later agora). To judge from evidence of the wells, however, the main habitation area in Mycenaean period were to the S of Akropolis, for numerous wells have been found there. Compare with Thucydides: "in time prior to that of King Theseus, what is now the Akropolis was the city, together with the region at the foot of the Akropolis toward the South" (2.15.3).
4. Athens in the Dark Ages
   Summary: Most of the information from Athens in the Dark Ages comes from graves and wells around the Akropolis, Areopagus and area of the later agora. There is quite a bit of evidence for dramatic change in the nature of occupation at this time, though little evidence for the arrival of new peoples. Of particular interest is how the scenario in Athens compares with that elsewhere in Greece.
5. Geometric Athens
   Most of the information from Athens in the Geometric period comes from graves and wells around the Akropolis, Areopagus, Kerameikos, and area of the later agora. The largest class of material from the graves and wells is Protogeometric and Geometric pottery. A close reading of the pottery and burial patterns in Athens allows us to reconstruct some forces that may or may not have affected the patterns of occupation and settlement in Athens. Camp's discussion of a possible drought deserves special analysis.
6. Introduction to Architecture
   The architectural forms that dominated the cityscape of Athens developed in the Archaic period. In preparation for looking at the extant architecture of the city, it is necessary to look at the Doric and Ionic orders and to learn how temples, among other buildings, were constructed in Athens.
7. Archaic Agora of Athens
   Summary: The agora was developed in the early period as a potent architectural expression of the polis, defined as the community of citizens. Peisistratos and his coterie seemed to have played a particularly important part in architecturally defining and elaborating the agora. A spacious area with many functions (e.g., political, economic, religious etc.), the agora was off-limits to some people (e.g., “Draft dodgers,” cowards, deserters, murderers, mistreaters of parents, others who were polluted). To be banned from the agora was to be denied a share in public and social life of the city; indeed, the citizen group was defined, in part, by access to agora.
8. Archaic Akropolis I and Archaic Akropolis II
   See my summary of various scholars' hypothesis about the archaic buildings on the Akropolis.
9. Athenian Festivals
   Summary: The primary sources for Athenian festivals are sculpture, pottery, literature, and epigraphy. One particularly important source is the so-called Calendar Frieze from Aghios Eleutherios, a small 12th century church in Athens that reuses an ancient frieze illustrating a religious calendar of Athens. This lecture focuses on two festivals, the Dipolieia or Bouphonia to Zeus Polieus and the Panathenaia to Athena Polias. Both festivals serve to define and delimit the Athenian polis which is under the protection of both Athena and her father Zeus. The Bouphonia occurs in the last month of the Athenian year, reifies notions of community, communal sacrifice and citizenship and is essentially an inward-looking festival. The Panathenaia, by contrast, occurs in the first month of the Athenian year and though it, too, reifies notions of community, communal sacrifice and citizenship, it is essentially an outward-looking festival. This public persona is particularly evident in the post-contest lives of Panathenaic amphoras.
10. Athens, the Persians and the Aftermath of the Destruction
    Summary: After the victory at Marathon, Athens built buildings and dedicated votives on the Akropolis extolling the defeat of the barbarians and equating the valor of the Marathonomachoi to that of the legendary heroes. These new buildings included some on the Akropolis: new entrance, so-called Older Parthenon etc. Unfortunately the Persian sack of the Akropolis in the summer of 480 BCE damaged many of the buildings on the Akropolis and the so-called Oath of Plataia meant that they were never finished. After the final Persian defeat at Plataia, the Athenians returned to Athens, fortified the city, & cleaned the debris from the Akropolis. Some damaged buildings remained on the Akropolis for a full generation as a war memorial and as a reminder of the hybris of the Persians and the debt owed to the gods for their ultimate defeat. In addition, the nature of the votives dedicated on the Akropolis in the post-Persian war period changed dramatically.
11. Periklean Athens
    Summary: Under the leadership of Perikles, Athens became the center of an empire, the recipient of a rich and vibrant intellectual life, and an economic powerhouse. Once the Peace of Kallias cleared the decks, so to speak, releasing the Athenians from their pledge not to rebuild the temples damaged by the Persians, Perikles turned his attention and that of his fellow citizens to creating a city that looked as if it ruled an empire, a city that, to borrow Thucydides' paraphrase of Perikles, was the "school of Hellas." Plutarch's life of Perikes gives us a general sense of what Perikles intended and how he accomplished it, though he is undoubtedly wrong about some of the details. The services of Pheidias, Mnesikles, Iktinos, and probably Kallikrates, along with approximately 5000 Talents of League money, and a band of skilled workmen (slave, free and metic) turned the Akropolis into a visual celebration of Athenian power, creativity, heroic valor, and aretê. This lecture looks in detail at the Propylaia, the temple of Athena Nike and the Erechtheion.
    For a complete desciption of all the buildings on the Akropolis during the High Classical period, see Hurwit's Catalogue of the Major Buildings on the Akropolis.
    Also useful is Pausanias' description of the Akropolis (I.22.4 - 1.28.3).
12. The Periklean Parthenon
    Summary: The Parthenon constructed by the Athenians during the time of Perikles is considered by many to the "jewel in the crown" of Greek public architecture. We know more about the Parthenon than about most other Greek buildings but some issues of fact and matters of interpretation remain in dispute. What can not be disputed, however, is that the building is the largest and most sumptuous of its kind on the Greek mainland in the 5th century. Built entirely of Pentelic marble, it dominated the Akropolis and its rich (exceedingly so) sculptural program drew upon the earliest myths of the Athenians and extolled the conquest of Athenian/Greek values over the forces of barbarism. The statue of the Parthenos installed inside the Parthenon brought the myths depicted on the exterior of the Parthenon inside the building for a second viewing. Taken all together, the building is an eloquent expression of Athenian myth, tradition, wealth and power.
13. Burying the Athenian Dead
14. The Laws & Athenian Democracy
15. Eleusis I: The Mysteries
16. Eleusis: The Archaeology
    Summary: The sanctuary of Demeter at Eleusis was the home of the Eleusinian Mysteries. The festival known as the Greater Mysteries was held on the 14th through 22nd days of Boedromion and attracted visitors from all over Attica and the Greek world to Athens and Eleusis. The festival was organize to explore the geography of Athens and Eleusis and required that participants spend many days in community with each other and the goddesses, traverse a great swathe of territory, experience a wide variety of emotions, and engage all of the their senses. Initiation was open to anyone, except barbarians, murderers and those who did not understand Greek. The festival attracted people from all over the Mediterranean basin and thus both raised the profile of Athens in the wider Greek community and signalled the unusual power and facilities of Athens. Excavations at Eleusis have elucidated the various building phases of the sanctuary, from the Bronze Age (when occupation at the site seems to have been essentially domestic) to the 4th c CE destruction by the Visogoths. The earliest period of certain cult at the site appears to be the 8th c BCE; the Archaic period sees considerable expansion of the facilities and a new focus on the NE area of the precinct facing Athens. In the fifth c BCE, the telesterion is enlarged once again. There is also consider Roman construction at the site.
17. The Peiraieus
    Summary: After Themistokles convinced the Athenians to invest in building a fleet, the demos turned its attention to fortifying and improving the port facilities on the Peiraieus peninsula, especially the three harbors (Kantharos, Zea and Mounychia). In the mid-fifth century BCE, a new city plan was developed for the Peiraieus under the leadership of the great urban planner, Hippodamos of Miletus. Hippodamos not only "cut up" the city; he also created a theoretical framework for zoning and urban planning. The extant horoi suggest that his plan was predicated on establishing divisions between religious, public and private spaces and on segregating distinct sectors of the Peiraieus and laying out broad streets to communicate between them. When the decision was made to build the so-called Long Walls--a decision that was motivated in part by political factors--it clearly reflects an increasing confidence in the ability of the fleet to protect and feed Athens’ population. Although it is difficult to trace the archaeological remains of the ancient Peiraieus because of modern occupation of the site, extant inscriptions provide a wealth of information about the diverse population and religious activities on the peninsula.
    See the list of horos stones from R. Garland, The Piraeus. (Ithaka: Cornell Univ. Press, 1987).
18. Hellenistic Athens I
19. Hellenistic Athens II
    Summary: In the Hellenistic period, the center of gravity of the Greek world shifts east and Athens becomes a relatively minor player on the military, political and economic stages of the period but continues to maintain its position as an intellectual and cultural capital. As a result a steady stream of Hellenistic kings travel to Athens to bestow benefactions on the city and receive, in return, tokens of gratitude from the Athenians. These tokens range from the divine honors given to Antigonos and Demetrius (including the addition of their portraits to the Panathenaic peplos of 306 BCE) to the naming of new tribes after a variety of Hellenistic kings. Athens is no longer a venue primarily for Athenian display but finds itself at the center of a round of competitive gift giving between Ptolemies, Seleucids, Antigonids and others. These Hellenistic rulers seek to equate themselves with the great figures of Athenian myth and history and simultaneously to equate their cities to an idealized image of Athens by "quoting" Athenian monuments and topography at home. The most skillful at playing this game were the Attalids who both installed copies of the statues of Athena Promachos and Athena Parthenos on the Akropolis of their capital city Pergamon and who dedicated a remarkable collection of statues on the Akropolis of Athens. These statues, known as the Lesser Attalid Group, were designed to promote the idea that Pergamon was the “New Athens” and that Attalid victories over the Gauls were the equivalent of both the Athenian historical victories over the Persians and the Athenian/Greek mythical victories over the Amazons, Trojans, giants etc. This lecture examines in detail the benefactions to Athens of Ptolemy, Seleukos and the Attalids. Also consult the slides showing the Korres / Stewart reconstruction of the Lesser Attalid dedication in Athens.
20. Augustan & Roman Athens
    Summary: Two important questions to ask are 1) "what role did Athens play in the Roman empire?" and 2) "how did Roman emperors use Athens?" Though there were several distinctly philhellenic Roman emperors (e.g., Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius) who visited or otherwise paid honor to Athens, this lecture focuses on Augustus. It looks at the ways that Augustus quoted Athens in his building program in Rome -- specifically his claim to have left Rome "a city of marble" and two of his important building projects, his Forum and the Ara Pacis. It then turns to the issue of Augustan building and commemorative activity in Athens itself, including that undertaken by his friend and general, Agrippa. Special attention is paid to the Attalid statues (that originally commemorated Attalid equestrian victories in the Panathenaic games of 178 BCE) that were re-inscribed to honor Augustus and Agrippa and thus inserted these two prominent Romans into the overarching victory narrative of the Akropolis. Also examined is the shift in focus in the Agora occasioned by the construction of Agrippa's odeion (dedicated to the pursuit of otium, leisure), the inclustion of numerous statues of members of the imperial family (signalling the rise in the importance of flattery in the new imperial order), and the transplantation of the temple and other architectural members from Attica into formerly open areas of the Agora (echoing the mythic synoikism of Theseus and complementing Augustus' claim in Rome to have restored and revitalized old temples). In short, the democratic spaces of the Agora were glossed over and filled up, and the Agora during the time of Augustus was turned into a sort of memory theater for Athens' golden age. Further, in keeping with the same principles of urban development seen in Augustan Rome and other eastern cities during his rule, many of the commercial aspects of the Athenian Agora were moved out of the Agora to the so-called Roman market.
21. Byzantine Athens
    Summary: This lecture discusses Athens in the Byzantine era, focusing on the post-Herulian invasion wall, the conversion of the Parthenon into a church, and other churches built in Athens during the Byzantine era. Several threads are interwoven into the discussion: the expansion and contraction of the city during this period, the conversion of pagan temples or other areas into Christian churches (and the continuity of "cult" that is often implied by that action), the construction of new churches (especially those that cannibalize elements from pagan structures), and the decline of Athens as an intellectual capital. The lecture ends with a brief discussion of Michael Choniates, the last Archbishop of Athens.
22. Athenian Twilight & the Antiquarians
    Summary: This lecture charts the fortunes of the Akropolis from the late antique period to the modern. It takes the story of the Parthenon down from its use as a Christian church and later as an Islamic mosque, to the Venetian explosion of 1687 that gave it its distinctive gutted profile, and finally to its much contested position in contemporary scholarship, art, and politics. Over the centuries the Parthenon has been the object of both intellectual and emotional responses and has been used as a symbol by the many people who have exercised political control over the city. This lecture looks at how each successive generation of thinkers and visitors to the building has created an image of the Parthenon that reflected its own perception of the past, its own relationship with it, and its own image of the present. For pagan, Christian and Moslam viewers alike, the Parthenon was praised as the very "best" monument of its kind and the symbol par excellence for the competing visions of Athens that were created in the late antique and modern eras.