DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.800#0109
92
JIENT ATHENS.
been altered. For the whole hillock on which the church of Agia
Triada stands is made ground, as appears from the ancient tombs dis-
covered near it a few years ago, of which we shall speak in the sequel,
buried at a depth of about thirty feet. These could not have been
within the walls, because burial inside the city was not permitted.
The nature of the soil, and the fact of the lower and more ancient
tombs having later ones, of the Eoman period, above them, show that the
tumulus is artificial. There are two occasions on which it may pro-
bably have been made: the siege of Athens by Philip V. in b.c. 200,
and that by Sulla in b.c. 86. It may perhaps be referred to the former.
Sulla captured Athens by throwing down part of the wall near the
Heptachalcum, probably between the Peiraic Gate and Dipylon,1 which
he had learnt was not sufficiently guarded. The making of the mound
not only for the purpose of attack, but also of destroying the celebrated
tombs before the Dipylon and spoiling the finest approach to Athens
is quite in accordance with what we hear of Philip's spiteful proceedings.2
However this may be, a new Dipylon seems to have been erected, not
very far from the original one. Curtius, in the map of Athens in his
'Attische Studien' (No. 1), and also in his 'Sieben Karten,' included Agia
Triada and the tombs near it in his line of wall, but in his plan in the
' Erlauternder Text' to the latter (p. 38) has drawn a new and doubtless
more correct line, two or three hundred yards to the east. It is not at
all likely, as he suggests there, that the law forbidding burials in the
city had been altered before the time of the Corinthian war (b.c. 394).
At the spot indicated near the foot of the Nymphs' Hill there are
evident remains of a gate, as well as vestiges of a wall in the direction
of the Dipylon. Now, what was the name of this gate ? Forchhammer,
who is followed by one or two writers, placed here what he calls the
Sacred Gate; not indeed precisely at the spot where the vestiges of one
exist, but in conformity with his arbitrary hypothesis for enlarging
the circuit of the wall some two hundred yards before it, where there
1 Plut. Sitll. 14. quam pra» impotcnti ira est servatum."—
' " Diruta non tecta solum seel etiam Liv. xxxi. 25.
gepulcra; nee divini hunjamve juris quid-
JIENT ATHENS.
been altered. For the whole hillock on which the church of Agia
Triada stands is made ground, as appears from the ancient tombs dis-
covered near it a few years ago, of which we shall speak in the sequel,
buried at a depth of about thirty feet. These could not have been
within the walls, because burial inside the city was not permitted.
The nature of the soil, and the fact of the lower and more ancient
tombs having later ones, of the Eoman period, above them, show that the
tumulus is artificial. There are two occasions on which it may pro-
bably have been made: the siege of Athens by Philip V. in b.c. 200,
and that by Sulla in b.c. 86. It may perhaps be referred to the former.
Sulla captured Athens by throwing down part of the wall near the
Heptachalcum, probably between the Peiraic Gate and Dipylon,1 which
he had learnt was not sufficiently guarded. The making of the mound
not only for the purpose of attack, but also of destroying the celebrated
tombs before the Dipylon and spoiling the finest approach to Athens
is quite in accordance with what we hear of Philip's spiteful proceedings.2
However this may be, a new Dipylon seems to have been erected, not
very far from the original one. Curtius, in the map of Athens in his
'Attische Studien' (No. 1), and also in his 'Sieben Karten,' included Agia
Triada and the tombs near it in his line of wall, but in his plan in the
' Erlauternder Text' to the latter (p. 38) has drawn a new and doubtless
more correct line, two or three hundred yards to the east. It is not at
all likely, as he suggests there, that the law forbidding burials in the
city had been altered before the time of the Corinthian war (b.c. 394).
At the spot indicated near the foot of the Nymphs' Hill there are
evident remains of a gate, as well as vestiges of a wall in the direction
of the Dipylon. Now, what was the name of this gate ? Forchhammer,
who is followed by one or two writers, placed here what he calls the
Sacred Gate; not indeed precisely at the spot where the vestiges of one
exist, but in conformity with his arbitrary hypothesis for enlarging
the circuit of the wall some two hundred yards before it, where there
1 Plut. Sitll. 14. quam pra» impotcnti ira est servatum."—
' " Diruta non tecta solum seel etiam Liv. xxxi. 25.
gepulcra; nee divini hunjamve juris quid-