The two Agoras in ancient Athens, a new commentary on their history and development, topography and monuments

Description

THE THESIS OF Oikonomides' book is that not until after the Persian Wars was the Athenian Agora established in the area east of the Colonus Agoraeus, where the American excavations have been concentrated. No attempt, however, is made to disprove the evidence discovered and published by the American excavators for civic buildings predating 480 B.c.; the author merely asserts (e.g.) that "no public building or shrine in the excavated area has been found antedating the early fifth century B.C." (p.viii), or that the Athenians buried their dead here "as late as the late sixth century B.C." (p.xiii). His chronological treatment of boundary stones is also individual. He remarks that "the boundary stones of the Agora, as well as those from Kerameikos, and many others found in Athens, are roughly dated in the 'first half of the fifth century B.c.' A good many of them can be dated more specifically between 479-475 B.C., the years during which the new city plan of Athens was approved by the boule and put into motion by the placement of these markers amidst the ruins of the old city as well as out in the new fields which were to be newly incorporated within the enlarged area surrounded by the new city wall." The single Agora boundary stone found in situ has been securely dated by the strata in which it was embedded to c. 500 B.C. and the letter-forms are suitable to this dating; while the boundary stones found in situ in the Kerameikos have been assigned to the fourth century (cf. Judeich, Top. von Athen2, p.167). No references are cited, nor explanation given, how the author arrived at the remarkably specific date of 479-475 B.C. so convenient for his theory.