The Market of Athens Topography and Monuments

R. E. Wycherley

doi:10.1017/S0017383500012997

The Market of Athens Topography and Monuments

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2009

R. E. Wycherley

Article contents

Extract
References

Get access

Rights & Permissions

Extract

Athenaeus (xiv. 640 b–c) quotes from the Olbia of Euboulos, the Middle Comedy poet, some lines which begin ⋯ν τῷ γ⋯ρ αὐτῷ πάνθ' ⋯μο⋯—a phrase reminiscent of Anaxagoras for ancient hearers and for modern readers—and which continue, παρ⋯ προσδοκίαν, as follows: ‘“Everything together in the same place” will be for sale at Athens, figs, summoners, bunches of grapes, turnips, pears, apples, witnesses, roses, medlars, haggis, honey-combs, chick-peas, lawsuits, beestings, beestings-pudding, myrtle-berries, allotment-machines, irises, lambs, water-clocks, laws, indictments.’

Type: Research Article
Information: Greece & Rome , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , March 1956 , pp. 2 - 23

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0017383500012997 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Classical Association 1956

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

^{page 2 note 1} Fr. 74 (Kock, T., Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta [Leipzig, 1880–1888], ii. 190).Google Scholar

^{page 2 note 2} Cf. Plato, , Apol. 26dGoogle Scholar; Gorg. 465 d.

^{page 2 note 3} Which suggest συκΦάντης.

^{page 2 note 4} See below, p. 7.

^{page 2 note 5} See below, p. 14.

^{page 2 note 6} See p. 20.

^{page 2 note 7} See below, p. 13. In front of the Eponymi notices of lawsuits were posted; this place was probably what Aristophanes, Knights 979, calls τ⋯ δεῖγμα τ⋯ν δικ⋯ν, the place where lawsuits were displayed, as wares were displayed for sale, the term having the same kind of implication as Euboulos' gibe.

^{page 3 note 1} Hesperia viii (1939), 205; ix (1940), 266; Suppl. iv (1940), 107.

^{page 3 note 2} See p. 13. For a similar ambiguity concerning the perfume market (see n. 5 below), contrast Aristophanes, Knights 1373 and 1375, with Lysias xxiv. 20.

^{page 3 note 3} Lysias, xxiii. 3, xxiv. 20Google Scholar; Aristophanes, , Birds 1441, Plutus 337Google Scholar; Demosthenes (?) xxv. 52 (cf. Plutarch, , Nicias 30Google Scholar, though this is at Piraeus).

^{page 3 note 4} Lysias, xxiv. 20; see also below, p. 3.Google Scholar

^{page 3 note 5} Aristophanes, , Knights 1375Google Scholar; Eupolis, , Fr. 209 (Kock, i. 315)Google Scholar; Pherecrates, , Frr. 2Google Scholar (Kock, i. 145; here we also hear of people gossiping in the wreath-market——⋯ν τοῖς στεφανώμασι) and 64 (Kock, i. 162); Polyzelus, Fr. II (Kock, i. 792); Philemon, in Page, D. L., Greek Literary Papyri, i. 238, no. 50)Google Scholar; Lysias, , xxiv. 20Google Scholar; Demosthenes (?) xxv. 52, xxxiv. 13; Theophrastus, , Char. xi. 8.Google Scholar

The metal-workers' shops were also frequented by loungers; see Andocides, i. 40Google Scholar (and cf. Hesiod, , Works, 493).Google Scholar

^{page 4 note 1} The word ergasterion may be translated simply ‘shop’; it includes places of business and industry of pretty well all kinds. Pollux (vii. 193) uses it of a wine shop (kapeleian); cf. also vii. 201. Note also the passages quoted below, notes 2 and 3.

I.G. ii². 1013, the inscription of the late second century b.c. about weights and measures, is of interest; the magistrates are to enforce their proper use on το⋯ς πωλο⋯ντάς τι ⋯ν τ ⋯γορ ἢ ⋯ν τοῖς καπηλείοις ἢ τοῖς ⋯ργαστηρίοις ἢ οἰν⋯σιν ἢ ⋯ποθήκαις Such fine distinctions belong probably to legal rather than colloquial language.

^{page 4 note 2} Theophrastus, (?), Char. viii. 14.Google Scholar

^{page 4 note 3} vii (Areopag.), 15; contrast 48.

^{page 4 note 4} Diogenes, , ii. 122Google Scholar; cf. below, p. 13.

^{page 4 note 5} Mem. iv. 2. 1 and 8.

^{page 4 note 6} Lysias, xxiii. 3Google Scholar; cf. the meeting place of the Plataeans ‘at the fresh cheese’ (xxiii. 6).

^{page 4 note 7} Theophrastus too, in the Characters, gives many direct and vivid glimpses. Relevant passages in later writers such as Plutarch or Diogenes Laertius are concerned with earlier incidents, of the fifth and fourth centuries b.c. The letters of Alciphron, composed in the second century a.d., have their supposed setting in the society of New Comedy. The dramatic dates of Lucian's dialogues vary and are sometimes doubtful; the Lexiphanes (see below, p. 8) has a contemporary setting but Lexiphanes deliberately affects a language taken largely from comedy.

^{page 5 note 1} Fr. 304 (Kock, , i. 339).Google Scholar

^{page 5 note 2} Ibid. See also below, p. 8, for gelge (haberdashery); and for the meaning of the word note Pollux, iii. 127 (cf. vii. 198).

^{page 5 note 3} Fr. 203 (Kock, , ii. 98Google Scholar). We frequently hear of the hire of cooks for special occasions in comedy; and Alexis, , Fr. 257Google Scholar (Kock, , ii. 391Google Scholar), also speaks of a place where the cooks themselves could hire crockery (keramos). In connexion with cooks, note also the phrase ‘goods from the carbonate-of-soda shop’,τ⋯κ το⋯ νίτρου, included in a list of μαγειρικ⋯ σκεύη by Anaxippus (quoted by Athenaeus, iv. 169 c; cf. Hesychius, s.v. τ⋯κ το⋯ νίτρου). See also Theophrastus, vi. 9 for mageireia, mentioned with ichthyopolia and tarichopolia. Pollux, , vii. 25Google Scholar, by contrast says that meat-sellers, kreopolai, are sometimes called mageiroi.

^{page 5 note 4} Teles ii (ed. Hense, , pp. 12–13).Google Scholar

^{page 6 note 1} De Tranqu. Animi x. 470 f.

^{page 6 note 2} Plato, N. B., Rep. 372 cGoogle Scholar; and see Athenaeus viii. 338 e and 342 c; Pollux, ii. 76, vii. 26.Google Scholar

^{page 6 note 3} xix. 229; cf. Plutarch, , Quaest. Conviv. iv. 4. 2 (668 a).Google Scholar

^{page 6 note 4} Timocles, , Fr. 11Google Scholar (Kock, , ii. 456Google Scholar); cf. Aristophanes, , Wasps, 493 (tyranny is much talked of in the Agora; if anyone buys όρφώς and refuses μεμβράδες he is accused of aiming at tyranny).Google Scholar

^{page 6 note 5} Erotian, , Gloss. Hippocr. 82. 8Google Scholar (Aristophanes, , Fr. 693Google Scholar (Kock, , i. 561)).Google Scholar

^{page 6 note 6} Aristophanes, , Birds 13–14Google Scholar, and Schol.; Pollux, vii. 197–8Google Scholar; Hesychius, Photius, and Suidas, s.v. πινακοπώλης.

^{page 7 note 1} For a concise list, with references, see Judeich, W., Topographie von Athen² (München, 1931), 359–60Google Scholar; add ‘the wreaths’ (p. 3, n. 5 above; Aristophanes, , Eccles. 302Google Scholar; cf. Diog. Laert. v. 66); the exomides (p. 6 above); ‘the lamps’ (Cratinus, , Fr. 196Google Scholar (Kock, , i. 73Google Scholar)); ‘the books’ (p. 5 above). For further details see Wachsmuth, C., Die Stadt Athen (Leipzig, 1874), ii. 463 ff.Google Scholar

^{page 7 note 2} p. 14

^{page 7 note 3} Ps.-Plutarch, X Orat. 849 e; Hypereides took his walk every day ⋯ν τ ἰχθυοπωλίδι (se. ⋯γορ).

^{page 7 note 4} Pollux, vii. 78.Google Scholar

^{page 7 note 5} Id. x. 18 (see below, p. 9); Theophrastus, , Char. ii. 9, xxii. 10.Google Scholar With the passage from the Frogs quoted above cf. Aeschines, i. 97.Google Scholar

^{page 7 note 6} See also p. 2 above. For the incident mentioned see Diog. Laert. ix. 114; and, for the proverbial use of the term, Zenobius, i. 5Google Scholar; Diogenianus, i. 3Google Scholar; Suidas, s.v. ⋯γορ⋯ Κερκώπων

^{page 7 note 7} Hesychius, s.v. ⋯γορ⋯ 'Αργείων; cf. Bekker, , Anecd. Gr. i. 212. 23Google Scholar; a note on the Kerkopes in Cramer, , Anecd. Oxon. iii. 413. 10Google Scholar, describes them as ⋯πίορκοι κα⋯ ⋯ργοί; the last word suggests that the name ⋯γορ⋯ 'Αργείων may have arisen by confusion with ⋯ργοί.

^{page 7 note 8} Under 'Αργεῖοί φ⋯ρες

^{page 7 note 9} The People of Aristophanes ²(Oxford, 1951), p. 133.

^{page 8 note 1} Aristophanes mixes everything up with excellent comic effect in Lysistrata, 457–8:

ὦ σπερμαγοραιολεκιθολαχανοπώλιδες

ὦ σκοροδοπανδοκευτριαρτοπώλιδες

But he hardly means that the same women sold all these things. Note also p. 9 and n. 4 for general dealers.

^{page 8 note 2} Lucian, , Lexiphanes 3. See also below, p. 23 and n. 3.Google Scholar

^{page 8 note 3} Cf. Isaeus, vi. 20Google Scholar, τ⋯ς ⋯ν Κεραμεικ συνοικίας τ⋯ς παρ⋯ τ⋯ν πυλίδα, ο ⋯ οἱνος ⋯νιος;and Aristophanes, , Knights 1247, where the sausage-seller sells his wares ⋯π⋯ ταῖς πύλαισιν, ο τ⋯ τάριχος ⋯νιον.Google Scholar

^{page 8 note 4} Lysias, xxiv. 20Google Scholar implies that there were shops in other parts of the city. Boethius, A. (Am. Journ. Phil. Ixix (1948), 396 ff.)Google Scholar contrasts the typically Greek concentration of shops in a bazaar quarter, in and around the Agora, with the Roman system of shops in the ground floor of residential insulae, distributed about the city. The contrast is real, but should not be pushed too far. There were shops let off from houses at Athens (see p. 17) and at Olynthus; see Am. Jaunt. Arch. lv (1951), 232.

^{page 9 note 1} Fr. 99 (Kock, , ii. 331).Google Scholar

^{page 9 note 2} Fr. 55 (Kock, , ii. 559).Google Scholar

^{page 9 note 3} Fr. 456 (Kock, , iii. 130).Google Scholar

^{page 9 note 4} For pamprasia see Pollux, vii. 196Google Scholar, κα⋯ ⋯ παμπρασία δ⋯ ⋯π⋯ τ⋯ν πάντα πωλούντων λέγεται. Note also vii. 16. Ehrenberg, , People of Aristophanes², p. 122Google Scholar, suggests that such general dealers were re-retailers. The scene of the pamprasia could no doubt be described as a kyklos; cf. the use of κήρυξ here and ⋯ν τοῖς κύκλοις κηρύττοντος in Aelian (p. 10, n. 1 below).

^{page 9 note 5} Cf. also Suidas, s.v. κύκλος

^{page 9 note 6} Fr. 195 (Kock, , iii. 56).Google Scholar

^{page 10 note 1} Var. Hist. ii. 1.

^{page 10 note 2} It would probably also be fanciful to see any reference to the kykloi in Xenophon's kyklios choros (see p. 8).

^{page 10 note 3} Topographie von Athen ², p. 359.

^{page 10 note 4} See Judeich, , op. cit., p. 137, Abb. 10.Google Scholar

^{page 11 note 1} Himerius, , Orat. iii. 12Google Scholar; Pausanias (i. 2. 4–5) says that various shrines were attached to the stoas.

^{page 11 note 2} Op. cit., p. 364. The evidence for the site of the Makra is Schol. Arist. Birds 997, where we are told that the so-called Kolonos (i.e. the Kolonos Agoraios) was behind it. Cf. I.G. ii². 968. 14.

^{page 11 note 3} See below, p. 18.

^{page 11 note 4} Dial. Meretr. 8. 2; cf. Navig. 13 We also find a money-lender at the Diomeian Gate (Alciphron, , Epist. iii. 3).Google Scholar

^{page 11 note 5} Op. cit., p. 359.

^{page 11 note 6} See p. 4, n. 6; and cf. I.G. ii². 1237 (396/5 b.c.), where a meeting-place of the Deceleans is mentioned, without reference to the barber's shop or the Herms.

^{page 11 note 7} Menecles or Callicrates in Harpocration and Photius, s.v. 'Ερμαῖ.

^{page 11 note 8} Andocides, i. 40.Google Scholar

^{page 11 note 9} Bekker, , Anecd. Gr. i. 316. 23.Google Scholar

^{page 13 note 1} Hesperia, vi (1937), 14 and vii (1938), 339. After the sack of Athens by the Persians in 480 b.c. bronze-workers and potters even encroached on the west side of the Agora itself for a time, before the Stoa of Zeus was built there.

^{page 13 note 2} Pollux vii. 132–3; Hypothesis II to Sophocles' Oed. Col.; cf. Harpocration and Suidas, s.v. κολωνέτας.

^{page 13 note 3} Hesperia, vii (1938), 1 ff.

^{page 13 note 4} Harpocration, s.v. Εὐρυσάκειον; Plutarch, , Solon 10. 2.Google Scholar

^{page 13 note 5} Hesperia, xv (1946), 201, no. 41, lines 47, 97, III, 138 (xxiv. 220); cf. I.G. ii². 1008, lines 42, 73, 87. The reference may, however, be to Salamis.

^{page 13 note 6} Schol. Aristophanes, , Knights 1312Google Scholar; Etym. Magn., Hesychius, and Photius, s.v. θησεῖον Plutarch, , Theseus 36. 6Google Scholar; Pollux, vii. 13.Google Scholar

^{page 13 note 7} Hesperia, xxiii (1954), 54.

^{page 13 note 8} Ibid., xx (1951), 135 ff.

^{page 14 note 1} De Gen. Socr. 10 (580 d–f); Hesperia, xx (1951), 139, 151.

^{page 14 note 2} Ibid., xx (1951), 168ff.

^{page 14 note 3} Ibid., xxiii (1954), 38.

^{page 14 note 4} Hesychius; Eustathius on Od. ii. 7.

^{page 14 note 5} Hesperia, xix (1950), 94, 140.

^{page 15 note 1} Cf. Martin, R., Recherches sur l'agora grecque (Paris, 1951), p. 306Google Scholar; in this excellent book, particularly in the chapter referred to, Martin has much to say about the interplay of religious, political, and commercial functions of the Agora.

^{page 15 note 2} Harpocration (quoting Phanodemus), Hesychius, Photius, and Suidas, s.v. Λεωκόρειον; Strabo (ix. 1. 16, 396) implies that it was a familiar landmark.

^{page 15 note 3} Alciphron, , Epist. iii. 5 (iii. 2). 1Google Scholar; cf. Theophylactus (seventh cent. a.d.), Epist. xii (ed. Boissonade, , p. 76Google Scholar); in Quaest. Phys. i. 5 (ed. Boissonade, , p. 5Google Scholar). Theophylactus speaks of encounters with philosophers near the Poikile and the Leokoreion.

^{page 15 note 4} If we can stretch the Agora so far; Hesychius, s.v. Φερρεφάττιον, says that it was ‘a place in the Agora’.

^{page 15 note 5} See Judeich, , Topographie ², p. 338, n. 8.Google Scholar The statement of Thucydides, i. 20. 2, and Aristotle, , Ath. Pol. 18. 3Google Scholar, that Hipparchus was killed near the Leokoreion while marshalling the Panathenaic procession implies that the shrine was near the Panathenaic Way, now interpreted as the road running diagonally across the Agora.

^{page 15 note 6} Isocrates, xvii. 33Google Scholar; cf. Harpocration and Suidas, s.v. σκηνίτης, and note also I.G. ii². 1672. 13 ff. and 171 for this word.

^{page 16 note 1} ⋯νεπεττάνυσαν for ⋯νεπίμπρησαν (Girard). Cf. Demosthenes lix. 90, and Schol. Aristophanes, Acharnions 22; see further J.H.S. lxxv (1955), 117.

^{page 16 note 2} Pausanias, , x. 32. 15Google Scholar, speaks of skenai made of reeds κα⋯ ἄλλης ὕλης αὐτοσχεδίου for the occasion of fairs (panegyreis) at Tithorea.

^{page 16 note 3} Fr. 64; see above, p. 3, n. 5.

^{page 16 note 4} Pollux, vii. 192–3Google Scholar; Alexis, , Fr. 9Google Scholar (Kock, , ii. 299 f.).Google Scholar

^{page 16 note 5} Plato, , Apology 17 cGoogle Scholar; Hipp. Min. 368 b; Theophrastus, , Char. v. 7Google Scholar; on the other hand Demosthenes xix. 114 certainly refers to money-changers.

^{page 17 note 1} Knights 152, 169.

^{page 17 note 2} See above, p. 13, n. 8.

^{page 17 note 3} Hesperia, xx (1951), 142, 151.

^{page 17 note 4} Hermes, xxii (1888), 117 ff.; cf. Hesperia, xx (1951), 142, 271.

^{page 17 note 5} See Robinson, D. M., Excavations at Olynthus (Baltimore, 1929–), Parts viii and xii.Google Scholar

^{page 17 note 6} Hesperia, xx (1951), 202.

^{page 18 note 1} Cf. Lysias, xii. 8.Google Scholar

^{page 18 note 2} Cf. Lucian, , Lexiphanes 22Google Scholar, τοῖς ὑπ⋯ τ⋯ν κοροπλάθων εἰς τ⋯ν ⋯γορ⋯ν πλαττομένοις; Aristophanes, , Frogs 1346–51 (see p. 7, above)Google Scholar; Menander, , Fr. 962Google Scholar (Kock, , iii. 246Google Scholar), εἰς ⋯ γορ⋯ν ὑφαίνειν.

^{page 18 note 3} Hesperia, vii (1938). 325 f.; viii (1939), 215; ix (1940). 269; xxi (1952), 100, 120; xxiii (1954), 51; xxiv (1955), 54; see also above, p. 13, n. 7.

^{page 18 note 4} De vectig. 3. 13 (possibly not by Xenophon).

^{page 18 note 5} Corinth: Results of Excavations (Cambridge, Mass., 1929–), 1. i. 212 ff.

^{page 18 note 6} See above, p. 11. We are told of a telia (Schol. Aristophanes, Plutus 1037; Etym. Magn., s.v. τηλία), an enclosure of planks to prevent the meal spilling, in which meal was sold, in the Agora; whether this was in the Alphitopolis one cannot be sure.

^{page 18 note 7} Eustathius on Iliad xi. 630; contrast Aelian, Vor. Hist. iv. 12; Cicero, de Invent, ii. 1; Pliny, , Nat. Hist. xxxv. 64, 66.Google Scholar

^{page 19 note 1} Hesperia, xxiii (1954), 39 ff.

^{page 19 note 2} Cf. Martin, , Recherches sur l'agora grecque, p. 456.Google Scholar

^{page 19 note 3} Hesychius, s.v. πρυτανεῖον; gloss on Herodotus i. 146. 2; Schol. Plato, , Protag. 337Google Scholar d (see Greene, W. C., Scholia Platonica, p. 127Google Scholar, for an elucidation of these notes).

^{page 19 note 4} Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 3. 5; Suidas, s.v. ἄρχων: Schol. Plato, , Phaedrus 235 dGoogle Scholar; cf. Plutarch, , Quaest. Conviv. vii. 9.Google Scholar

^{page 20 note 1} Hesperia, xix (1950), 320 ff.; xxi (1952), 99 ff.

^{page 20 note 2} Ibid. xix (1950), 324; xxi (1952), 100.

^{page 20 note 3} Ibid. xxiii (1954), 59.

^{page 20 note 4} Ibid. xix (1950), 320; xxi (1952), 101.

^{page 20 note 5} Ibid. xxii (1953), 36 ff.; xxiii (1954), 48 ff.

^{page 21 note 1} See my How the Greeks Built Cities (London, 1949), pp. 69 ff.

^{page 22 note 1} Hesperia, vii (1938), 324; Athenaeus v. 212 e, f.

^{page 22 note 2} I.G. ii². 1043. 68–69; Hesperia, xvii (1948), 29, no. 13, lines 6–10; see also ibid., xix (1950), 318–19.

^{page 23 note 1} Ibid., xx (1951), 269; cf. 139, 270.

^{page 23 note 2} Judeich, , Topographie ², pp. 371 ff.Google Scholar U. Kahrstedt, in an interesting article, ‘Die Stadt Athen in der Kaiserzeit’ (Mitteil, des Deutschen Arch. Inst, iii (1950), 52) says that the old Agora now lost its character as Handelsstätte; ‘Kauf und Verkauf wandern auf den neuen augusteischen Markt’; but at this stage too one may doubt whether the market was capable of such compression and confinement, and repeat the objections made on p. 21.

There is also evidence that the office of the market officials called agoranomoi was at this time in a building east of and closely associated with the Roman Market (see Judeich, , Topographie ², p. 374Google Scholar); where it was earlier is uncertain.

See also Robinson, H. S., Amer. Journ. Arch, xlvii (1943), 291 ff.CrossRef Google Scholar

^{page 23 note 3} Schol. Odyssey viii. 260; Eustathius on Odyssey viii. 264.

Article contents

The Market of Athens Topography and Monuments

Extract

Access options

References

Save article to Kindle

Save article to Dropbox

Save article to Google Drive

Reply to: Submit a response

Your details

You have entered the maximum number of contributors

Conflicting interests