DOI chapter:
Division A: The Agora and adjacent buildings lying to the west and north of the Acropolis, from the city gate to the Prytaneion
DOI chapter:Section VII
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61302#0313
SEC. VII
OF ANCIENT ATHENS
141
moment. The train of thought is obviously this : Seleucus was a
pious king ; he restored the statue of Branchidae and left the
sanctuary of Bel ; but don’t let me, now I’m writing a book
about Athens, forget that the Athenians are pious too. They
have in this very agora I am just leaving an altar to Mercy, which
shows their concern for man, and various other altars which show
their pious tendency to acknowledge divine manifestation disre-
garded by religions less delicate ; such are Aidos, Pheme, and
Horme (Reverence, Rumour, and Impulse).
From the fact that Pausanias mentions the altar of Mercy at
this point, and also for the first time speaks of the Kerameikos by
its other name, Agora, Dyer would conclude that he passes at this
point into the new Roman Agora. As a matter of fact it seems
clear to me that he sees none of the altars at all; they are only a
reminiscence recalled by the piety of Seleucus. A like remembrance
of the distinctive piety of the Athenians overtakes him, as will be
seen, on the Acropolis.
Where this altar of Mercy actually was, is another question.
Statius 286 has a long rhetorical passage on the altar, and he states
that it stood in the middle of the city, “ urbe fuit media,” but the
whole is too obviously poetical to be taken as evidence. It is
noticeable that in the passages cited from the tragedians and
comedians to prove the existence of this altar, it is always the
scholiast,287 not the writer, who gives the altar the actual name of
Mercy. The conjecture of Wilamowitz,288 that the altar to which
the name of Mercy was attached was the same as the altar of the
Twelve Gods, though it is only a conjecture, is one that has much
to commend it. This altar of the Twelve Gods, Thucydides 289
distinctly states, was dedicated by Peisistratos during his term of
office, and it was in the agora. “ The Athenian people,” he
says, “ afterwards added to one side of the altar in the agora
and so concealed the inscription upon it.” This altar, like the gilt
pillar in the Forum at Rome, was used as a milestone. Herodotus 290
says that the length of the road from the sea up to Heliopolis is
almost exactly the same as that of the road which runs from the
altar of the Twelve Gods at Athens to the temple of Olympian Zeus
at Pisa, and this is confirmed by inscriptions291 relating to the
distance of the Peiraeus. The natural place for the altar on which
the stranger suppliant would sit was, not the middle of the market,
but before the city gate. There we have to picture the Hera-
kleidae ; there the Laconian herald, Perikleidas. The suppliant
must cling to the altar till the people within the citadel gate
OF ANCIENT ATHENS
141
moment. The train of thought is obviously this : Seleucus was a
pious king ; he restored the statue of Branchidae and left the
sanctuary of Bel ; but don’t let me, now I’m writing a book
about Athens, forget that the Athenians are pious too. They
have in this very agora I am just leaving an altar to Mercy, which
shows their concern for man, and various other altars which show
their pious tendency to acknowledge divine manifestation disre-
garded by religions less delicate ; such are Aidos, Pheme, and
Horme (Reverence, Rumour, and Impulse).
From the fact that Pausanias mentions the altar of Mercy at
this point, and also for the first time speaks of the Kerameikos by
its other name, Agora, Dyer would conclude that he passes at this
point into the new Roman Agora. As a matter of fact it seems
clear to me that he sees none of the altars at all; they are only a
reminiscence recalled by the piety of Seleucus. A like remembrance
of the distinctive piety of the Athenians overtakes him, as will be
seen, on the Acropolis.
Where this altar of Mercy actually was, is another question.
Statius 286 has a long rhetorical passage on the altar, and he states
that it stood in the middle of the city, “ urbe fuit media,” but the
whole is too obviously poetical to be taken as evidence. It is
noticeable that in the passages cited from the tragedians and
comedians to prove the existence of this altar, it is always the
scholiast,287 not the writer, who gives the altar the actual name of
Mercy. The conjecture of Wilamowitz,288 that the altar to which
the name of Mercy was attached was the same as the altar of the
Twelve Gods, though it is only a conjecture, is one that has much
to commend it. This altar of the Twelve Gods, Thucydides 289
distinctly states, was dedicated by Peisistratos during his term of
office, and it was in the agora. “ The Athenian people,” he
says, “ afterwards added to one side of the altar in the agora
and so concealed the inscription upon it.” This altar, like the gilt
pillar in the Forum at Rome, was used as a milestone. Herodotus 290
says that the length of the road from the sea up to Heliopolis is
almost exactly the same as that of the road which runs from the
altar of the Twelve Gods at Athens to the temple of Olympian Zeus
at Pisa, and this is confirmed by inscriptions291 relating to the
distance of the Peiraeus. The natural place for the altar on which
the stranger suppliant would sit was, not the middle of the market,
but before the city gate. There we have to picture the Hera-
kleidae ; there the Laconian herald, Perikleidas. The suppliant
must cling to the altar till the people within the citadel gate