DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.800#0025
CITY ON WESTERN HILLS.
11
communication, and are much more tortuous than the main roads.
They have no traces of foot pavements, like those at Pompeii. Both
these and the high roads were very narrow, which may account for a
law passed in the time of Pericles,1 when we may suppose that the traffic
had a good deal increased, forbidding that the doors of houses should
open outwards. The third class of streets, or rather lanes, were natu-
rally more numerous; they were scarcely broad enough for two persons,
and wound among the houses in a singular fashion. They were often
provided with steps cut in the rock. Many such steps are seen on the
east side of the Pnyx, but these were evidently intended for persons
going to or from the ecclesia.
Nearly sixty cisterns (Xukkoi) may be observed on the hills, large
pear-shaped excavations in the rock resembling a huge amphora. They
vary in size, the average depth being thirteen or fourteen feet, while
some have a depth of twenty. M. Burnouf is of opinion that they were
intended only for water, as there are marks of ropes at their mouths,
and their concave sides seem designed to avert collision with the
pitcher. There is a depression round the mouth for a cover. Dr.
Curtius thinks they may have also served as cellars, or for fruits, and
Photius indeed says (voc. \ukkos) that the Athenians made broad or
roomy excavations (opvyfiara eupv^wpfj), both square and oval, which
they plastered over, and kept wine and oil in them. This sort of XaKico?
seems to have been a usual appendage to an Athenian house.2 But
those in question are rather deep than broad, and some of them were
evidently intended for public use. We sometimes read of vhcop \aic-
kcuov. It is also remarkable that there are none of these Xukkoi
inside the circuit of the walls, and this circumstance, as well as the
fashion of them, seems to show that they were reservoirs for water ; for
on those arid rocks outside the walls there could have been none but
that supplied by the rain, whilst the inhabitants of the inner town
would have had access to wells and fountains.
There are 111 tombs; but these also are all outside the wall, and
there are none on the Areiopagus, the Observatory Hill or the northern
1 According to M. Burnouf, p. 81. ' See Demosth. c. Aphob. p. 845, Kciskc.
11
communication, and are much more tortuous than the main roads.
They have no traces of foot pavements, like those at Pompeii. Both
these and the high roads were very narrow, which may account for a
law passed in the time of Pericles,1 when we may suppose that the traffic
had a good deal increased, forbidding that the doors of houses should
open outwards. The third class of streets, or rather lanes, were natu-
rally more numerous; they were scarcely broad enough for two persons,
and wound among the houses in a singular fashion. They were often
provided with steps cut in the rock. Many such steps are seen on the
east side of the Pnyx, but these were evidently intended for persons
going to or from the ecclesia.
Nearly sixty cisterns (Xukkoi) may be observed on the hills, large
pear-shaped excavations in the rock resembling a huge amphora. They
vary in size, the average depth being thirteen or fourteen feet, while
some have a depth of twenty. M. Burnouf is of opinion that they were
intended only for water, as there are marks of ropes at their mouths,
and their concave sides seem designed to avert collision with the
pitcher. There is a depression round the mouth for a cover. Dr.
Curtius thinks they may have also served as cellars, or for fruits, and
Photius indeed says (voc. \ukkos) that the Athenians made broad or
roomy excavations (opvyfiara eupv^wpfj), both square and oval, which
they plastered over, and kept wine and oil in them. This sort of XaKico?
seems to have been a usual appendage to an Athenian house.2 But
those in question are rather deep than broad, and some of them were
evidently intended for public use. We sometimes read of vhcop \aic-
kcuov. It is also remarkable that there are none of these Xukkoi
inside the circuit of the walls, and this circumstance, as well as the
fashion of them, seems to show that they were reservoirs for water ; for
on those arid rocks outside the walls there could have been none but
that supplied by the rain, whilst the inhabitants of the inner town
would have had access to wells and fountains.
There are 111 tombs; but these also are all outside the wall, and
there are none on the Areiopagus, the Observatory Hill or the northern
1 According to M. Burnouf, p. 81. ' See Demosth. c. Aphob. p. 845, Kciskc.