The Koprologoi at Athens in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C.

1983 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. J. Owens
Keyword(s):  
Deep Layer ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Road Surface ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
The Road ◽  
South West ◽  
Ancient City ◽  
Northern Side ◽  
The City

The collection and disposal of rubbish and waste and the maintenance of a decent standard of hygiene was as much a problem for ancient city authorities as for modern town councils. The responsibility for the removal of waste would often be dependent upon the nature of the rubbish and the facilities which city authorities offered. Thus early in the fourth century B.C. the agoranomic law from Piraeus prohibited individuals from piling earth and other waste on the streets and compelled the offender to remove it. The astynomic law from Pergamon, which probably dates originally to the Hellenistic period, similarly forbade the dumping or piling up of earth or the mixing of mortar on the streets of the city. As one of Demosthenes' speeches indicates, the effect of dumping rubbish indiscriminately was to raise the level of the road surface, which consequently restricted access and endangered adjacent property. Excavation of a triangular hieron to the south west of the agora at Athens further illustrates the results of dumping. Here it was found that, between the construction of the hieron in the late fifth century B.C. and the beginning of the fourth century B.C, the road surface on its northern side rose more than half a metre and covered the lower part of the wall of the hieron and its boundary marker. The accumulated fill included a deep layer of marble chips, which had been dumped in the area by marble workers. The laws from Piraeus and Pergamon were thus designed to keep streets passable, protect adjacent buildings, and safeguard pedestrians.

Life and death in ancient Hermione. Excavations in the necropolis

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 157-167
Author(s):  
Angeliki Kossyva
Keyword(s):  
Collaborative Research ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
The Road ◽  
Ancient City ◽  
The Social ◽  
Continuous Use ◽  
The City ◽  
East West

The wealth of ancient Hermione is no longer visible: continuous habitation from c. 3000 BC down to the present day has obliterated most traces. Important information on the social organization and economy of Hermione can however be drawn from the tombs that have been unearthed. A large cemetery was discovered in the early 20th century just outside the city gate, stretching along the road leading to ancient Mases and in continuous use for a period of 1,500 years. It covers an area of 1.5 km east–west along the modern Hermione–Kranidi rural road, taking in the terrain to either side to a width of 160 m and extending south to Pron Hill and north to a patch of level ground some 60 m wide. In this article we focus on cemetery finds unearthed in the area south of the present-day Gymnasium-Lykeion school of Hermione, as they typically reflect the urban organization and economic development of the ancient city. These two themes comprise some of the goals pursued in the collaborative research programme between the Ephorate of Antiquities of the Argolid and the Swedish Institute at Athens.

Troas

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clyde E. Fant ◽  
Mitchell G. Reddish
Keyword(s):  
Julius Caesar ◽  
Western Coast ◽  
Alexander The Great ◽  
The Road ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Ancient City ◽  
New City ◽  
The One ◽  
The City ◽  
Trees And Shrubs

Called Alexandria Troas to distinguish it from other cities named Alexandria, the city is often referred to simply as Troas. (“The Troad” is the name used for the area around the ancient city of Troy.) What was once a large and important city on the western coast of Asia Minor has today been reduced to a few ruins overgrown by trees and shrubs, receiving only a cursory visit from a small number of sightseers. Troas was an important city in antiquity because of its location. Situated on the Aegean coast almost directly opposite the island of Tenedos (modern Bozcaada), the city became a major trading center. To reach the site of ancient Troas, take highway E87/550 to Ezine. In Ezine turn west onto the road marked for Geyikli and Odunluk Iskelesi. In Geyikli turn south toward Odunluk Iskelesi. The ruins of Alexandria Troas are by the highway that continues south to Gülpinar. Troas was founded circa 310 B.C.E. by Antigonus I Monopthalmus (“the One-Eyed”), one of the successors of Alexander the Great. Antigonus created the new city by forcing the residents of several smaller neighboring towns and communities to move to the new location. Antigonus named the new settlement after himself, giving it the name Antigonia. When Antigonus was killed in 301 by the Macedonian king Lysimachus at the battle of Ipsus in Phrygia, Lysimachus took control of the city and renamed it Alexandria in honor of Alexander the Great. Because of its proximity to Troy, the city became known as Alexandria Troas. With its artificial harbor, the city grew as a commercial and transportation center, becoming the leading city of the Troad during Hellenistic times. Eventually Troas developed into one of the most important cities in the Greco-Roman world due to its command of the western entrance to the Hellespont. Claims were made in the ancient world that Julius Caesar considered moving the capital of the empire to Troas, as also reportedly did Augustus (and, even later, Constantine). Whether true or not, that such ideas circulated in the Roman era and were believed by some people indicates the importance of the city.

The Archaeology of Beirut: A Report on Work in the Insula of the House of the Fountains

2003 ◽  
Vol 83 ◽  
pp. 195-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominic Perring ◽  
Paul Reynolds ◽  
Reuben Thorpe
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Interim Report ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Western Margin ◽  
Post War

This insula, which lay on the western margin of the earlier Iron Age city, was uncovered during post-war reconstruction work carried out in Beirut during 1994–6. Laid out in the Hellenistic period, the insula was filled out with a series of small courtyard houses after the Roman annexation. A public portico was added along a main street in the second quarter of the second century, before a period of relative inactivity. The district was revived and rebuilt in the middle of the fourth century and was home to a series of handsome town houses in the fifth century, before being devastated by earthquake in AD 551. The site was then left derelict until the early nineteenth century. This interim report sets these findings within their broader historical and archaeological context, as well as summarizing the results of recent work on the site's ceramics and stratigraphy.

A Road Trip with Strabo

Mnemosyne ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-225
Author(s):  
Sarah Pothecary
Keyword(s):  
The South ◽  
Road Trip ◽  
Euphrates River ◽  
The Road ◽  
The North ◽  
South West ◽  
Explicit Reference ◽  
The City

A number of places that feature in Strabo’s description of the Asian peninsula were situated on the ancient road that ran between the Euphrates river and the city of Ephesus. It is likely that Strabo journeyed along the entire thousand-kilometre length of the road, even though he makes explicit reference to his presence in only a few locations. He most probably made the journey as a youth on his way to Roman Asia, in the south west of the peninsula, from Pontus in the north. Decades pass before Strabo, as an old man, writes the Geography and includes in it the memories of places he had visited. The outdated tone of some of his descriptions reflects this passage of time.

ΜΑΚΕΔΟΝΙΚΑ: Notes on the Macedonians of Philip and Alexander

1957 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 3-10
Author(s):  
G. T. Griffith
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Solid Metal ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Philip Ii ◽  
Military Aid ◽  
Expensive Equipment ◽  
Metal Type ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Military

It seems uncertain whether the Macedonian infantrymen of Philip II had breast-plates or not. How much it matters, too, is also perhaps uncertain, though obviously it mattered not a little to the men themselves at the time, whether or not they carried on them that combination of strength and of weight, of moral comfort and physical encumbrance, that a breastplate meant to the man inside it. There may perhaps be something in this question, too, for the social historian as well as for the military specialist.That Greek hoplites of the archaic period normally wore breastplates appears from vase-paintings, especially those proto-Corinthian examples which show combats not of individuals but of opposing phalanxes: it appears, too, from Tyrtaeus. Xenophon in theAnabasis, when he makes a passing remark about casualties on one occasion, gives the same impression about the Ten Thousand, who were predominantly a hoplite force. But breastplates were not uniform. Metal ones could vary greatly in weight, and there were variants (πĩλοι, σπολάδες) that were probably quite light in metal, on linen or leather. It has been suggested with some likelihood that in the fifth century the solid metal type virtually went out of use. If this were so, then the peltasts of the early fourth century would represent a logical development from a hoplite who had already become lighter than of old. It would seem logical for the pekast to have no breastplate at all, an arrangement incidentally that might suit well the mercenaries of the day who often were peltasts, and who were often poor men unlikely to own expensive equipment. But in spite of their occasional spectacular successes even against hoplites, the peltasts did not supersede them, so far as can be seen, in the citizen armies of the Greek cities. Indeed in the Hellenistic period still, in a treaty of about 270 B.C. between the Aetolians and the Acarnanians, the clause providing for reciprocal military aid distinguishes between three classes of infantry: (1) those who wore breastplates (πανοπλίαν), (2) those wore τὸ ἡμιθωράκιον, and (3) those who had no defensive armour (ψιλῲ). The first class is presumably, still, the hoplite.

Representations of Children in Ancient Greece

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olympia Bobou
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Vase Painting ◽  
Funerary Reliefs ◽  
The Relationship

Children’s representations appear early in the Greek visual material culture: first they appear in the large funerary vases of the geometric period, while in the archaic period they appear in funerary reliefs and vases. To the representations in vase painting, those in terracotta statuettes can be added in the fifth century, but it is in the fourth century bc that children become a noteworthy subject of representation, appearing both in small- and large-scale objects in different media. This chapter considers the relationship between changing imagery of children in ancient Greece and social and religious developments from the geometric period, through the Hellenistic period and into the Roman period in Greece.

Endings (c. AD 380–400)

2021 ◽  
pp. 377-388
Author(s):  
Dominic Perring
Keyword(s):  
Urban Infrastructure ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Public Buildings ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The City ◽  
The Town ◽  
Reduced Scale

The evidence for London’s late fourth century decline is put under the microscope. The paucity and problematic interpretation of dating evidence is discussed, but it is concluded that important elements of London’s urban infrastructure were in serious disrepair from as early as the 380s. Some main roads could no longer have carried regular wheeled traffic. Sites of former public buildings on the margins of towns were converted into small cemeteries in the late fourth century, showing that the city was still populated but on a reduced scale and hinting at a closer relationship between communities of the living and communities of the dead. Rich assemblages recovered from within some wells within the town are thought likely to represent termination rituals, as properties were closed and households departed. Abandonment horizons can also be described from the finds left behind over the latest floors of some houses. These acts of closure and departure may also have begun in the 380s, perhaps under Magnus Maximus who had briefly revived London’s mint but also withdrew troops and administrators from Britain. Whilst the city may still have been occupied into the fifth century, this is far from certain, and there is no evidence of repair and refurbishment of urban properties beyond the last years of the fourth century. This evidence of redundancy and retreat seems consistent with the interrupted history of the diocesan administration. London had become marginal city of relatively little importance to Rome.

Laodicea

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clyde E. Fant ◽  
Mitchell G. Reddish
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
River Valley ◽  
Small Rivers ◽  
Book Of Revelation ◽  
Commercial Success ◽  
The Road ◽  
Pliny The Elder ◽  
Ancient City ◽  
The Village ◽  
The City

Ancient Laodicea, once a thriving city, now lies in ruins, awaiting a more thorough excavation than it has so far received. Overshadowed by the more spectacular nearby site of Hierapolis (Pamukkale), Laodicea receives the occasional busload of tourists who stop to view the remains of this city that the book of Revelation imagined as having boasted, “I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing” (3:17). Laodicea is south of the modern village of Goncalï and north of the village of Eskihisar. The site is located on a plateau between two small rivers that are tributaries of the Lycus River. The Asopus River runs along the western part of the ancient city, while the Caprus River runs along the east. To visit the site, take the road from Denizli that leads to Pamukkale. Two different roads from the Denizli-Pamukkale highway lead to Laodicea, both of which are on the left and marked with a sign indicating the way to Laodicea. Laodicea is situated 10 miles from Colossae and 6 miles from Hierapolis. This area was a part of the region of Phrygia, although it was sometimes considered a part of Lydia or Caria. Pliny the Elder claims that Laodicea was built on the site of an earlier settlement known as Diospolis and later as Rhoas (Natural History 5.105). Because of its location near the Lycus River, the city was known as Laodicea ad Lycum in order to differentiate it from several other cities named Laodicea. Of particular importance to the commercial success of the city was its position at the junction of two roads—one that ran from the Aegean coast near Ephesus through the Meander River valley and on to the Euphrates, and another that ran from Pergamum to Sardis and then to Perga and Attalia (modern Antalya). Antiochus II, the Seleucid king (r. 261–246 B.C.E.), founded the city during the middle of the 3rd century B.C.E. He named the city in honor of his wife Laodice, whom he later divorced. After the Romans, with the aid of the Pergamene kingdom, defeated Antiochus III at Magnesia in 189 B.C.E., Laodicea came under the control of Pergamum.

Thessalonica

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clyde E. Fant ◽  
Mitchell G. Reddish
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Alexander The Great ◽  
Northern Greece ◽  
Philip Ii ◽  
The Road ◽  
Ancient City ◽  
The Family ◽  
New City ◽  
The City ◽  
Point Of Departure

In 315 B.C.E. Cassander, king of Macedonia, once a general in the army of Alexander the Great, founded a new city in his kingdom. He named it for his wife, Thessalonike, daughter of Philip II of Macedon and the half sister of Alexander. In the centuries that followed, Thessalonica became the premier city of northern Greece, enduring and flourishing under Hellenistic, Roman, and Greek control. Many famous figures in world history played important roles throughout its lengthy and colorful existence, including Alexander the Great, Cleopatra, Cicero, Pompey, and Sulëyman I the Magnificent, among others. But no resident or visitor to Thessalonica had a greater influence on the city than an obscure Christian missionary who visited there in the first century, Paul of Tarsus. The first New Testament writing is believed to be Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians. Modern Thessaloniki (biblical Thessalonica), second only to Athens among the cities of Greece, is easily reached by automobile or by frequent flights from Athens. Although its ancient ruins and monuments are overshadowed by those of Athens, this city is well worth visiting for its fine archaeological museum and as a point of departure for the spectacular Royal Tombs at Vergina, home to the amazing riches of the family of Alexander the Great. Increasingly, more of ancient Thessalonica is being unearthed by archaeologists and made available to public view. According to Strabo, Thessalonica was established at the site of ancient Therme and formed from the incorporation of twenty-five smaller villages. The ancient city was laid out according to the Hippodamian plan, that is, in rectangular blocks. Its development was encouraged by its fine port and, during the Roman period, by being made the capital of Macedonia. When the Romans connected the Via Egnatia, the historic road linking east and west, to Thessalonica, the city prospered even more. The Roman orator Cicero was exiled in Thessalonica (58–57 B.C.E.) and wrote to his friend Atticus on July 21, 57 B.C.E., that he had delayed leaving the city “owing to the constant traffic along the road” (the Via Egnatia; M. Tullius Cicero, Letters 69).

A new Inscription of the Deme Halimous

1921 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 151-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. J. E. Hondius
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Large Block ◽  
The South ◽  
South Side ◽  
The Road ◽  
British School ◽  
Formed Part ◽  
Sketch Plan

Early in 1921 the Neuchâtel Asphalte Company, in beginning the construction of the new coast road from Old Phaleron to Vouliagmene(see map, Fig. 1), found not far inland from the small promontory of Hagios Kosmas some ancient foundations, and by them the inscription, which is here published. The discovery was communicated by Mr. Bottomley, Manager of the Company, to the British School, and to him I am indebted for permission to publish it, and also for the sketch plan of the ancient foundations here shown (Fig. 2). On the top of a low hill the line of a wall (about 1·50 m. thick) of the late fifth or fourth century B.C., built of rectangular blocks of poros, appeared, and on the top of this the inscription was found as indicated in the plan (Fig. 2). Slightly north of the inscription was a large block running out westwards at right angles to the main wall. If the main wall is the boundary of the Shrine of Dionysos mentioned in the inscription, it is possible that this big block formed part of the shrine itself. In any case it seems likely that we should recognise in these remains, scanty though they are, the ruins of the Dionysion in which the inscription was to be erected. On the south side of the road a double tomb came to light (Fig. 2). In the upper tomb, which was covered by a large tile so curved that it was in section half an ellipse, a small aryballos with a simple anthemion ornament in a very late red-figure style was found with a few much-decayed bones, perhaps those of a child; but in the lower tomb, which was made of two shallow rectangular troughs of terra-cotta, there were only a few bones. The tomb, which cannot be earlier than the late fifth century B.C., would not be likely to have any connection with the Dionysion, and was in any case outside it.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document