DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.804#0110
VOTIVE OFFERINGS FROM THE PNYX. 103
the world might be witness to the justice of their
decrees. In the middle is a kind of tribune cut in
the rock, with a wall at the back made of the same
rock, and a bench cut at its sides, where the senators
sat. Near this terrace there are two or three vaults
cut in the rock, which some suppose to have been
prisons."
We now contemplate in this rude enclosure the
Pnyx, the ordinary place of antient assemblies of
the people, and in the Bema we see the spot from
which Demosthenes addressed some of his fiercest
declamations to the sovereign people of Athens.
Dodwell says, the blocks of which it is composed are
not all perfectly rectangular, nor of equal dimensions,
but partake of that irregularity which is remarked in
the walls built prior to the time of Pericles; resembling
the south-west side of the gate of the lions at Mycenae,
the stones being nearly equilateral. He adds, this is
probably one of the few antiquities which escaped the
destructive fury of the Persians, and of the last King
of Macedon.
On each side of the Bema the rock is cut down
perpendicularly, and contains several small cavities or
niches whence the votive offerings about to be enu-
merated were taken *. One niche, much larger than
the others, is supposed to have contained the statue of
'he divinity to whom the offerings were dedicated, who,
from the recurrence of the name upon several, seems
to have been Jupiter the most highf.
* See Dodwell's Tour through Greece, vol. i. p. 402 ; Boeckh,
Corpus, Inscr. Grate, vol. i. p. 475. They were discovered in the
Progress of the excavations made at the Pnyx in 1801. by the Earl
°' Aberdeen. See Dr. E. D. Clarke's Travels, 4to edit. vol. iii.
P. 465.
f An ty'iffra). Jupiter was worshipped under this appellation,
as Zsij p$iB&ffi at Thebes, Corinth, and Olympia. See Boeckh,
Corpus, lnscr.Gr. ut supr. Osani), Sylloge Inscript. Antiq. p. 225.
o3
the world might be witness to the justice of their
decrees. In the middle is a kind of tribune cut in
the rock, with a wall at the back made of the same
rock, and a bench cut at its sides, where the senators
sat. Near this terrace there are two or three vaults
cut in the rock, which some suppose to have been
prisons."
We now contemplate in this rude enclosure the
Pnyx, the ordinary place of antient assemblies of
the people, and in the Bema we see the spot from
which Demosthenes addressed some of his fiercest
declamations to the sovereign people of Athens.
Dodwell says, the blocks of which it is composed are
not all perfectly rectangular, nor of equal dimensions,
but partake of that irregularity which is remarked in
the walls built prior to the time of Pericles; resembling
the south-west side of the gate of the lions at Mycenae,
the stones being nearly equilateral. He adds, this is
probably one of the few antiquities which escaped the
destructive fury of the Persians, and of the last King
of Macedon.
On each side of the Bema the rock is cut down
perpendicularly, and contains several small cavities or
niches whence the votive offerings about to be enu-
merated were taken *. One niche, much larger than
the others, is supposed to have contained the statue of
'he divinity to whom the offerings were dedicated, who,
from the recurrence of the name upon several, seems
to have been Jupiter the most highf.
* See Dodwell's Tour through Greece, vol. i. p. 402 ; Boeckh,
Corpus, Inscr. Grate, vol. i. p. 475. They were discovered in the
Progress of the excavations made at the Pnyx in 1801. by the Earl
°' Aberdeen. See Dr. E. D. Clarke's Travels, 4to edit. vol. iii.
P. 465.
f An ty'iffra). Jupiter was worshipped under this appellation,
as Zsij p$iB&ffi at Thebes, Corinth, and Olympia. See Boeckh,
Corpus, lnscr.Gr. ut supr. Osani), Sylloge Inscript. Antiq. p. 225.
o3