The Ancient Agora of AthensIf you look outside your door, you may notice the houses around, the perhaps natural landscape of the field across the street, maybe it's even your neighbors walking their dogs in the street. But I implore you to try to look outside and imagine what it would have been like in this place a hundred, or even a thousand, years ago. What would it have been like seeing the horse drawn carriages, street markets of locals selling and bartering for their daily wages, children running in the streets or even people harvesting the fields of their farmlands. Now try doing the same thing in the Ancient Agora of Athens. This is what I will help you do today by showing you the history of the Agora and its architecture through its monuments. I hope that through this article you can stand in the Ancient Agora of Athens and imagine what it would have looked like over the hundreds of years that it was occupied, from 500 BC to the end of the 5th century BC. Many monuments from these centuries were important to the history and use of the ancient Athenian Agora; however I will only use four to show you the importance and history of the Ancient Agora. The four monuments I will talk about are the Altar of the Twelve Gods, the Stoa of Attalus, the Odeion, and the Hippodrome. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essayThe first monument of importance begins in five hundred BC and was used, we believe, until at least the end of the fifth century, the Altar of the Twelve Gods. The altar was built in 522 BC by Pisistratus during his reign. (Ministry of Culture and Sports) It was built with ashes and bones from other sacrifices at the site. When discovered, two walls were found with the base of a marble statue dedicated by a man to the twelve gods, clearly identifying this as the exact location of the previously unknown site of the altar of the twelve gods. Historically, there are many reasons why the altar was so important, given that it was a house of refugees for people fleeing those who enforced justice like Pericles and Pheidias. (Ministry of Culture and Sports). The altar also served over time as the altar. geographical center of Athens, the point by which all other structures are measured, this made the altar a place of great religious importance throughout the city, as it became the navel of the entire city. (“Agora.”) It was one of the first structures located within the boundaries of the ancient Athenian Agora among the temples, the Helia, the Eschara and the Prytanikon. It ran into the street of the Panathenaic Way and the grassy knoll that was a scared piece of land on which nothing was supposed to be built. It was one of the most sacred spaces in the entire city, and with such an important site nestled right up against it, the whole thing is of immeasurable importance to the city. With the Panathenaic Path right next to it, as well as the road on which the entire city would walk to the Acropolis during the festival celebrating the birthday of Athens' patron goddess Athena and the anniversary of the start of the battle between the gods and the giants. (Ancient Greece-The Acropolis) All this added to the prestige of the altar of the twelve gods. Since it was then seen by everyone who went to this festival and by everyone who came from all over the city-state to participate in the Panthenaic games that were played once every four years. (Ministry of Sports and Culture). to the increased prestige of the Athenian Agora as a whole, which led to aincreased funds and an increase in construction projects within the boundaries of the Agora. Over the next three hundred years, the Agora would be built entirely around the sacred space within the Agora and establish boundaries within it. At the beginning of the third century BC, the Agora as it was known would change forever, when the Macedonians conquered the Greek city-states and unified them under a single territory. With the original purpose of the Agora now gone, it was built and its prestige continued to grow despite the decline in import from the city of Athens itself. The Stoa of Attalus was built by King Attalus of Pergamum, who reigned between 159 BC and 138 BC, and was built as a gift to the city of Athens and all Athenians for the education that King Attalos received at the university. of Attalos) The description that can be seen near the border wall of the modern reconstruction indicates that the Stoa, or covered portico, was built and paid for by Attalos II of Pergamon. So in a modern sense, this Stoa was essentially another alumnus paying for a new wing at the old alma mater. (Diamond) Once built, the Stoa would have been immensely more elaborate than most other buildings in the Agora or even Athens itself. Its immense size and location make it an important place within the Agora. ("Agora.") It is on the eastern side of the Agora with its southern end adjoining the Panathenian Way, it appears as a sort of wall to show the boundary of the Agora and align the sacred space with the gods in the middle. what he looked like. The building would have been incredible to look at for the Athenians of the time. It was immensely large at 115 m by 20 m and measured two stories, which was literally unheard of for monumental structures before. (Stoa of Attalos). Which means the building itself would have been large and tall enough to tower over the rest of the building. Agora. You could look down from the second floor of the building and most likely see everything that would have happened in the Agora at any given time, the sacrifices, the debates, the trains of thought, even the tribunal that meted out justice to the criminals of the city. everything would have been easily visible. ("Agora.") The Stoa is believed to have been used continuously for many things, including shopping as well as socializing, until its destruction in 267 AD during an attack by an East Germanic tribe. (Stoa of Attalos) With the construction of the Stoa and the subsequent wall around the Agora it created, the general appearance of the place within would have changed as it was now contiguous to such large stoas on either border. Then, the subsequent construction of the Stoa would have given the Agora ever-increasing grandeur. In the second century BC, the Romans defeated the Greeks and Athens was again under the rule of a foreign hand. The city of Athens was massively declining at this point due to its overall importance other than being a tourist place to visit for many Romans, but despite its ever-decreasing lack of importance, the best and most powerful continued to relying on the Agora of Athens as a means of showing off their power and money. Perhaps this is why the Romans decided it was now acceptable to build on the previously vacant sacred land reserved for the gods, and allowed it to be filled by the Odeon, the Temple of Ares and the Altar of Zeus. . The Odeon was a theater built in 15 BC by Marcus Agrippa, general of the Roman army, as a gift to the people of the city of Athens. It was a two-story theater that could seat about 1,000 people, it had a raised stage and a paved orchestra.?