Papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (4.1885-1886)

236

THE ATHENIAN PNYX.

tioned in classical writers. As investigations advanced, it became
necessary to change many of the names which had been given to
places and buildings in the city. Thus the Pnyx at different times
bore names corresponding with the conjectures of successive trav-
ellers. Areopagus, Odeum, Theatre of Bacchus, Theatre of Regilla,
and Theatre of He rode s Atticus are all names which have served at
different times to designate it. Chandler was the first to suggest
that this place was the Pnyx. His opinion was at once adopted ;
and until about the middle of our own century it has been the one
entertained by nearly all writers on tlie topography of Athens. How
thoroughly satisfied they were with this opinion is seen from the fol-
lowing notes from some of the different writers mentioned above.1
Clarke and Mure believed the Pnyx to be the place in which
Demosthenes and other Greek orators delivered their orations.
Clarke says the site of the Pnyx may perhaps be regarded as more
certainly settled than that of any other structure not determined by
an inscription.

In the last edition of Stuart's works the editors still adhere to the
opinion that it would be in vain to undertake to prove that this ruin is
anything else than the ancient Pnyx. Leake, after stating briefly the
evidence presented in the first part of this paper for believing this
ruin to be the Pnyx, says, " All these data accord so exactly with the
remains of a monument still existing on a height to the north of the
Museum and to the west of the Areopagus, that it is singular there
should ever have been a difference of opinion in regard to those
remains."" Leake has for almost half a century been one of the
highest authorities on all questions of Attic topography. Wilkins
says, "A public assembly is comfortably accommodated in a structure
similar in form to the theatre, which was afterwards appropriated to
this use. Such is the form of the building about whose remains we
are speaking. It is so constructed that the orator on the bema had a
position similar to that of an actor on the stage."'1 Bartholdy says,
" The appearance of the place forbids us to take the Pnyx for the
remains of a temple, or the bema for an altar." ' Goettling says, "The

1 Welcker, Der Fehaltar, u.s.w., p. (30) 294 ff.

2 Topography of Athens, p. 41 (1821).

:i Welcker, Der Fehaltar, u.s.w., p 32, note.
4 Welcker, Der Fehaltar, u.s.w., p. 295 (31).