ALTAR OF TWELVE GODS

statue at some time was carefully removed.30 The top of the base shows considerable wear and was obviously tramped over after the statue had been taken away. The wear on the inner edge must have occurred before the sill blocks of the second period were set in place beside it since the outer edge of the sill course shows no sign of wear.

A rectangular base of yellow poros ³¹ with a circular cutting in its top (Figure 2 and Plate 12, 3) lies just west of the Leagros base and is centered on it. Rising some ten centimeters above the ground level established for the first peribd and the Leagros base, it seems clearly to be associated with the statue base. A layer of earth that accumulated during the construction of the second sill course covered its top.

A slightly curving rubble wall ⁸² at the southwest corner of the peribolos (see photograph Plate 12, 1) probably represents the bedding of a monument. It was built almost entirely of the fragments of re-used poros which we have assigned to the orthostates of the original altar. It was bedded at the same level as the bottom of the first course.

Against the outside of the east wall part of the top of a large rough block of red breccia was exposed and against the north wall a packing of small stones as shown on Figure 1. The blocks near the southeast corner shown on Figure 2 are supplied from the sketch at the German Institute (Plate 11, 1). Those shown north of the northwest corner in Figure 2 were exposed in 1934 and seemed to be part of a large monument or building continuing to the northeast. Both these monuments were oriented with respect to the Panathenaic Way rather than the peribolos.

Two other monuments perhaps to be associated with the Altar of the Twelve Gods in Athens, although not found during the current excavations, may best be discussed here.

A round base with the Twelve Gods in low relief on its sides, found in 1877 just north of the peribolos near the church of St. Philip, has generally been described as an altar, but the proportions (diameter of 0.83 m. to a height of 0.44 m.) seem more appropriate for a base than an altar.33 The top, preserved only near the center, is a smooth-finished flat surface. Whether base or altar, or base of altar, it is almost certainly to be associated with this sanctuary, although no trace of a circular bedding for it was found either inside or outside the peribolos.

30 Only the lead packing of the dowels under the heels of the statue remains in place, whereas the lower ends of the iron dowels for the balls of the feet are still preserved in the lead. The rear dowels were chipped free, those in front broken off. Cf. Hesperia, V, 1936, p. 359.

81 It measures 0.65 X 0.65 X 0.45 m. deep; the circular cutting is 0.40 m. in diameter, 0.05 m.

deep. A strip of lead was found lying in the cutting. Compare the very similar base found under the stoa of Zeus (Hesperia, VI, 1937, p. 8, figure 4 on p. 10).

82 This wall was ca. 0.40 m. wide, 0.25 m. high; a length of ca. 1.20 m. was preserved. There was clearly no continuation to the east, at least at the same level; a continuation of the firm-packed earth on which it was set suggests that it extended at least another meter to the west.

83 National Museum in Athens, no. 1731; Svoronos, Das Athener Nationalmuseum, pp. 158- 163, Abb. 110, Tafel XXVI. G. Becatti (Annuario della R. Scuola Arch. di Atene, nuova serie, I-II, 1939-40, pp. 85-138) assigns this altar to the neo-Attic period; a re-examination of the relief, however, seemed to support the earlier attribution to the fourth century ^B.C.

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M. CROSBY

The second monument is a marble relief from Tarentum, now in the Walters Art Gallery at Baltimore, with a procession of the Twelve Gods.34 It probably is an archaizing Greek original of ca. 460 ^B.C. Weinreich ⁵ has suggested that this was copied from reliefs on the altar dedicated by Peisistratos. The poros fragments-if correctly assigned to the altar-suggest that the sides of the altar proper were flat, perhaps painted, but not carved. That representations of the gods formed some part of the altar decoration is however suggested in some of the lines in Aeschylus' Sup- pliants. It seems probable that the KotvoIt9ofia demanded by the play (line 222) was patterned somewhat on the " common altar " known to all Athenians, the Altar of the Twelve Gods.36 The mention of the divine attributes, such as the bird of Zeus (line 212) and the trident (line 218), and of the images (lines 429-463) shows that for the stage at least actual representations were visualized. The six slabs along the front of the enclosure, i. e., the west side, used in both periods and apparently of the same length in both periods, would have been admirably suited to the representation of the Twelve Gods arranged in pairs, either painted or carved. The archaistic relief with the standing gods in procession does not seem to reflect directly such an arrange- ment by pairs, although the original of the relief may have played some part in the decoration of the sanctuary. The position of Athena next to Zeus suggests an Attic origin. In the later reliefs of the Twelve Gods, so popular in neo-Attic art, the only example of the gods in pairs is on the Ara Borghese at the Louvre: a three-sided base with two pairs of standing gods and goddesses on each face.37 This seems to be a much-restored eclectic piece and has no obvious connections with our sanctuary.

A glance through the vase paintings, however, shows a sudden appearance, near the end of the sixth century of the Olympian deities seated in pairs. In earlier repre- sentations they had been placed in line one behind the other as on the Francois vase.

It is not impossible that these pairs of seated divinities reflect the original decoration of the slabs. At any rate they offer adequate parallels for the gods arranged in pairs as early as the late sixth century.38

The base of the statue dedicated by Leagros, which would have partially con- cealed the lower part of the slabs of the first period, is not exactly centered on a post.

Conceivably it was placed so as to leave a clearer view of what may have been the more relevant parts of each of the two adjacent slabs.

34Brunn-Bruckmann, Denkm. Gr. Rom. Skulpt., 660; Ed. Schmidt, text to B-B 660 and

38 Note particularly the pairs of divinities seated side by side either on the same or overlapping stools: the Sosias Berlin cylix (Furtwiingler-Reichhold, Taf. 123); the Nikoxenos amphora at Munich (ibid., Taf. 158); and the Oltos cylix from Corneto (Cook, Zeus, III, ii, p. 1050, figure 843). A single such group with Athena and Zeus is found on a late black-figured hydria at Berlin (Cook, Zeus, III, ii, p. 1049, figure 842).

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ALTAR OF TWELVE GODS

CHRONOLOGY

The peribolos in its first form with the single course of yellow poros surmounted by a parapet was built in the archaic period as is clearly shown by choice of material, ground level, and orientation. External evidence for dating is slight, for excavation of the lower levels in the vicinity has not been completed and very little undisturbed earth was found against the peribolos walls. Scattered prehistoric sherds in the area suggest habitation from an early period but no clear trace of any building antedating the lower sill course has been found on the site. The few scraps of pottery that can be associated with the construction of the first period are consistent with a date in the second half of the sixth century. The details of construction indicated by the cuttings on the sill course can be paralleled in this same period. A step block of Kara limestone39 almost certainly to be assigned to the Peisistratid fountain house in the Agora40 preserves evidence of a dowel hole with bored pour channel. Another block,4 part of a parapet from a water basin in the same building, was cut with a tongue-and- groove joint.

The closest parallels for the hawksbeak moulding on the altar fragment (Figure 7) are found in the second half of the sixth century. There are no very close parallels that can be dated precisely for this form of hawksbeak below a projecting fascia.

Better-dated examples are found in the hawksbeak used as geison crowns. Those illustrated in Shoe, Profiles of Greek Mouldings, pl. LIII, 2-6, have a form very like our hawksbeak with deep top and undercut of similar proportion.42 The first, from the Treasury of Selinus at Olympia, is dated in the second half of the sixth century;

the next two, one from Halae, one from Perachora, belong to the third quarter, and the last two, from the Treasury of Sikyon at Olympia, are placed in the last quarter.

Thus we may assign our moulding to the second half of the century and probably to the latter part of that period.43

The only parallel I have found for a disk, or true circle, used as the end ornament of an altar instead of the usual volute is in two poros fragments of an altar gable

39 Inv. no. A 1270 (unpublished). It is a comer step block with a dowel hole, 0.06 X 0.015 X 0.06 m., on its bottom surface set in 0.04 m. from the edge. Although the front surface of the block is broken away at this point, the hole clearly could only have been reached by a bored channel.

For other examples of bored pour channels in the archaic period see Miletus, I, iv, p. 451; Richter, Archaic Attic Gravestones, pp. 34, 81, figure 6 b on p. 30.

40 Hesperia, IV, 1935, p. 360, and VI, 1937, pp. 3-4.

41 Inv. no. A 1269 (unpublished). At one end of the block, which is 0.153 m. thick, there is a tongue 0.06 m. wide projecting ca. 0.04 m.

42 A hawksbeak with projecting fascia above differs from the contemporary moulding without the fascia only in being more deeply cut at the top; these geison crowns, therefore, although not as deeply cut back as the altar fragment, can be used as parallels.

43 Miss Shoe, to whom I am indebted for most of the references above, concludes her dis- cussion of the altar moulding: " Therefore, I feel quite safe in agreeing to a 523-512 date for the hawksbeak."

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from Aegina.44 Both are disks with incised concentric circle and both pieces preserve part of the curving surfaces of the top and side walls. Welter assigns them to the opposite ends of a gable and dates them in the middle of the sixth century, on the evidence of style and place of finding. A somewhat later date, however, is suggested for our disk because of its association with the hawksbeak moulding.

Thus from the archaeological evidence it seems possible to date the peribolos of the first period and the altar fragments to the later part of the sixth century ^B.C.

The statue dedicated by Leagros was set against the west face of the peribolos between 490 and 480 B.C., as shown by the lettering of the dedication.45 Wear on the top of the marble base and on the lower sill course of the south side shows that after the statue was removed and the parapet damaged, a considerable interval elapsed before the rebuilding. This state of affairs, a sanctuary in the Agora damaged and then not rebuilt for some time, clearly suggests the Persians' visians visit in 479 B.C. The delay in rebuilding is perhaps explained by the oath taken oGreeks by the after Plataea, not to rebuild their sanctuaries.46

The small amount of undisturbed earth that could be associated definitely with the addition of the second sill course produced no figured pottery. The few scraps of plain black-glazed ware susceptible of dating seem to find their closest parallels in the period between 430 and 420 ^B.C. Similar fragments wer fragments were found in the footing trench beside the curved foundation to the southwest of the peribolos. Inside the peribolos, where the paving slabs were bedded below the level of the original dirt floor, no relevant pottery was found, either for paving or for second sill course. Some grey poros chips-a stone used apparently only in the second period-were found in the packing along the west side where the floor slabs were missing. This indication that the paving is to be associated with the second sill course is supported by the fact that its top is flush with the top of the first sill course blocks and about ten centimeters higher than the earlier floor. A higher floor level would have necessitated changes in the altar, and the use of the fragments of the poros altar as packing under the paving slabs, and of other fragments probably to be assigned to the altar in the curved bedding contemporary with the second period, not only shows that the original altar was rebuilt or replaced by the time of the second period, but also suggests that the earlier altar may have been essentially intact until that time; otherwise the fragments would scarcely have been so available or so fresh. The very distinctive finish of the grey poros blocks of the second sill course (see Plate 13, 3) finds its closest parallels in the temple of Hephaistos and the Nike Bastion, the former built between 449 and

44 Welter, Arch. Anz., 53, 1938, cols. 23-24, figures 15-17 in col. 26.

45 Hesperia, V, 1936, p. 359.

46 Judeich, Topographie2, p. 72, note 2; cf. also Dinsmoor, Studies in the History of Culture, 1942 (presented to Waldo G. Leland), p. 214 and note 38; Parsons, Hesperia, XII, 1943, p. 230, note 84.

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ALTAR OF TWELVE GODS

444 and the latter probably before 437/6 ^B.C.47 Thus the rebuilding of the peribolos, with additional sill course, poros paving and changed altar, clearly dates from the third quarter of the fifth century and probably from close to the end of the quarter, to judge from the few scraps of pottery which cannot be much if at all earlier than the decade 430-420 B.C.

At some later date the posts on the south side were re-set, as shown by the second set of dowel cuttings in the sill; but the tops of the blocks are so battered that no deduction as to date can be drawn from the cuttings. West of the peribolos, however, lay a mass of filling, characterized by many animal bones, metal waste, and much broken pottery. The latter dates from about the end of the fourth century ^B.C. and is very like the pottery associated with the construction of the porch and propylon of the Bouleuterion.48 Scattered pieces of similar pottery were found in several dis- turbed spots beside the bottom of the lower course, which suggests that some changes were made not only west of the peribolos, but also along the wall itself at this time.

The posts on the south wall thus may have been re-set in consequence of some dis- turbance at the beginning of the third century.

No details are known of further changes in the peribolos. The blocks as found were covered with a layer of earth containing sherds of the second and third centuries

A.D. The peribolos apparently remained essentialy intact until the sack of the Heruli in 267 A.D. forced the abandonment of abandonment of the Agora. The parapet blocks and some of the the paving slabs presumably were taken for the construction of the " Valerian Wall."

When this part of the Agora was rebuilt at about the end of the fourth century A.D., the northeast corner of a large building, its floor level a meter above the top of the later sill of the peribolos, was laid over the southwest corner of the enclosure, and cement foundation walls were poured directly over the surviving blocks of the earlier structure (see Plate 12, 1 and Figure 2).