Chapter Four - Selinous

Summary

By analyzing the topography of Selinous, a colonial foundation of the late seventh century BC, the chapter explores the way in which temple building and sacred architecture became subordinated to urban design. From the sixth century BC onward, Greek cult places and temples were increasingly seen as an expression of the urban rather than the natural landscape. This holds true for altars and temples at the center of cult places, but also for fountain houses that replaced or were built over natural fountains. The sacredness of a place was increasingly represented and communicated through monumental stone architecture. At the same time, the novel use of man-made images in Greek sanctuaries contributed to a radical change in which the presence of the gods was imagined and experienced. All this went along with a shift of power and agency from local groups to urban elites, who had the means to control the restructuring and reorganization of sacred landscapes. The violence of this shift is reflected in the iconography that tends to rationalize and sublimize violence against the non-Greek, non-urban, and non-male.