Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks

Space and Time 41
according to its Classical plan, the Kerameikos is today a tranquil
oasis of peace amid the bustle of modern Athens. In the Eridanos
brook that ambles through it, tortoises wade and frogs frolic, just as
they did in antiquity.
The Agora
The road from the Dipylon Gate joined the Panathenaic Way,
which was one of the few paved roads in Athens. This was the route
taken by the Panathenaia or All-Athenian Festival, held annually in
honor of Athene and every four years with special pomp and circumstance.
As it wound its way up to the Acropolis, the Panathenaic
procession passed through the Agora, a flat, open space roughly
rectangular in shape and lined on all four sides with administrative
buildings.
The Agora, which has no equivalent in the modern world,
occupied a central position in the life of the community until the
destruction of Athens by a Germanic people from Scandinavia
known as the Herulians in c.e. 267. It was the civic, commercial,
administrative, social, legal, and political heart of the city. The
Altar of the Twelve Gods in the northwest corner of the Agora
marked the spot where all roads converged and from which measurements
to other parts of Attica were taken. Temporary stalls
selling agricultural produce and manufactured goods were also
set up here. In addition, the Agora provided the setting for most
trials. Its unique combination—or, more accurately, jumble—of
functions is captured in a fragment from a lost play by the comic
dramatist Euboulos, who lists the following assortment of items
and persons on hand there (quoted in Athenaios, Professors at Dinner
14.640b): figs, issuers of summonses to attend the law courts,
grapes, turnips, pears, apples, witnesses, roses, medlars, haggis,
honeycombs, chickpeas, lawsuits, beestings, curds, myrtle berries,
ballot boxes, bluebells, lamb, water clocks, laws, indictments.
The Agora was amply provided with colonnaded walkways or
stoas, of which the Stoa of Attalos, reconstructed down to the last
detail by the American School of Classical Studies, is the finest and
most spectacular example. Originally financed by Attalos II of Pergamon
in about 150 b.c.e. , it is over 115 meters in length and dominates
the east side of the Agora. Provided with shelter from the
elements, Athenians gathered in the Agora to engage in their favorite
pastime—lively and animated discussion. Here, at the end of the
fifth century b.c.e., the philosopher Sokrates was invariably to be