Karia and the Dodekanese: Cultural Interrelations in the Southeast Aegean I Late Classical to Early Hellenistic

By John Lund

The papers in Karia and the Dodekanese, Vol. I, focus on regional developments and interregional relations in western Asia Minor and the Dodekanese during the Late Classical and Early Hellenistic period. Throughout antiquity, this region was a dynamic meeting place for eastern and western civilizations. Cultural achievements of exceptional and everlasting importance, including significant creations of ancient Greek literature, philosophy, art and architecture, originated in the coastal cities of western Anatolia and the adjoining Aegean islands.

In the fourth century BC, the eastern cities experienced a new economic boom, and a revival of Archaic culture, sometimes termed ‘The Ionian Renaissance’, began. The cultural revival furthered rebuilding of old major works such as the Artemision at Ephesos, the embellishment of sanctuaries and a new royal architecture, such as the Maussolleion at Halikarnassos. The rich cultural revival was initially promoted by the satrapal family of the Hekatomnids in Karia and in particular by its most famous member, Maussollos, whose influence was not confined to Asia Minor, but included the Dodekanese islands Kos and Rhodos. Partly under the influence of the Karian satrapy, a number of cities were founded on a new common urban model in Rhodos, Halikarnassos, Priene, Knidos and Kos. When Alexander the Great conquered the satrapies in western Asia Minor in 334 BC, the culture initially promoted at the satrapal courts was carried on by gifted thinkers, poets and architects, preparing the way for Hellenistic cultural centres such as Alexandria.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Release date: Jan 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781789255119

Book preview

Introduction

Poul Pedersen, Birte Poulsen, and John Lund

The eastern Aegean and western Asia Minor together constitute a geographical and cultural border zone between the East and the West, where the Greek poleis met the world of small Anatolian kingdoms and great eastern empires like the Persian Empire. It is one of the areas where great cultural interchange took place with profound historical consequences. From here, eastern civilizations imported Greek motifs and inspiration, as demonstrated e.g. by the Archaic and Classical art of Xanthos in Lykia, the tombs and architectural terracottas from Lydia, the pottery of Phrygia, and the extraordinary Polyxena sarcophagus from the Granikos Valley in Hellespontine Phrygia. The Graeco-Persian grave stelai constitute an example of such a synthesis of Greek style and eastern content. The Persian king called for Greek craftsmen from Ionia to work on his building projects in Pasargadae and Persepolis and employed Greek mercenaries in his armies. The local Persian governors, the satraps, acted likewise and attracted Greek intellectuals to their courts, employing Greek artists and architects to plan their cities, construct their buildings, and adorn their monuments with paintings and sculptures.

It is of no less importance that the complex and highly developed Hellenistic Greek culture, which the Romans took over and developed further, owed essential traits to Anatolia, the Near East, and Egypt. Of decisive importance for Greek art and writing were the encounters between the Greeks and the Phoenicians and their neighbours on the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean, in Greece, or wherever else tradesmen might meet across the Mediterranean. The cultural debt owed to eastern civilizations in this period was fully acknowledged when classical scholars termed this epoque the Orientalizing period. Of comparable importance was the meeting of the Greeks with the art and architecture of Egypt in the Orientalizing and early Archaic periods, and Greeks returning home were inspired to raise temples and to carve effigies of humans and gods in Greek limestone and marble.

In the eastern Aegean and on the coasts of western Asia Minor, Greeks and Anatolians met continuously over the centuries and inspired each other. Sometimes themes and motifs became common to both, as illustrated in an exemplary way by the motif of the reclining banqueter. This motif flourished for centuries on both sides of the Aegean with interesting variations in meaning when used in Anatolian kingdoms and Persian satrapies, in democratic Athens, or in the funerary grave stelai of the aristocracy of the Hellenistic cities of the eastern Aegean, where it attained a particular popularity.

In the Late Classical period, the cultural exchange in the south-eastern Aegean increased, reaching an importance almost comparable to that of the Orientalizing and Archaic periods. At this point, the Persian supremacy in the East and the presence of wealthy satraps in western Asia Minor brought about a new royal culture related to the satrapal courts. In this mixed Greek-Oriental environment, important new trends in art emerged, and a ruler iconography, new royal types of architecture and monuments, and new visions in urbanism were introduced into the Greek world, accompanied by a vigorous revival of the artistic and architectural language of the Archaic art and architecture of western Asia Minor. This Late Classical Ionian Renaissance found fertile ground in the empires of Alexander and his successors. The flourishing Ionian Renaissance resulted from a remarkable general rise in wealth after a century of cultural and economic recession in western Asia Minor in the 5th century BC. The change happened approximately at the same time as Persian sovereignty was reintroduced by the Antalkidas Peace in 387/86 BC, and it was possibly connected to the new and stable conditions for trade and economic development resulting from this peace.

While this Late Classical flourishing is clearly a phenomenon common to all of western Asia Minor, the Hekatomnid satraps of Karia seem to have held a particularly important role in the start. Most famous of the Hekatomnids is Maussollos, who initiated a number of large building projects – including his own tomb, the Maussolleion – and who founded a new capital of the satrapy at the site of the old city of Halikarnassos. The Hekatomnids are known to have built at a large scale all over the satrapy, and it is becoming increasingly clear that their works had influence outside of Karia, in Ionia and the islands of the Dodekanese, several of which are historically known to have been under the political influence of the Karian satraps. These close relations, especially between Kos and Karia, in Late Classical times and later is attested both by historical and archaeological evidence, as demonstrated in several papers of this volume. After Alexander, the Dodekanese and not least Rhodos gained political and economic importance compared to the former realm of the Hekatomnids, and from the Early Hellenistic period this south-eastern Aegean area seems to have formed a kind of cultural koine, from which personalities of highest rank and importance emerged. Among the individuals who contributed to the formation of the intellectual life and culture of the Hellenistic world and specifically for the new capital of the Hellenistic world, Alexandria, may be named Eudoxos from Knidos, Philetas from Kos, Deinomenes from Rhodos, Apollonios Rhodios, and Sostratos from Knidos. It is hardly a coincidence that four of the Seven Wonders of Antiquity are of Late Classical and Early Hellenistic date and relate to south-western Asia Minor and the Dodekanese.

In addition to forming part of a borderland between Eastern and Western civilizations painted on the larger canvas, Karia and the Dodekanese had an everyday life in which the sea did not constitute a boundary but a convenient and effective means of communication. The distances between the main cities are short, and there is intervisibility between Kos, Knidos, Halikarnassos, and Kalymnos, with Rhodos only a little further away. It is no wonder that the most important cities at an early period formed a Dorian Hexapolis – later reduced to a Pentapolis when Halikarnassos was expelled – with a common festival and games at the sanctuary at the Apollo Triopion on the Knidos Peninsula. Sailing was easily practiced within this area, and what promoted the unity and uniformity of the culture of Karia and the Dodekanese were everyday interactions, which produced common traits in the cultures of the cities on the Karian coast and the Dodekanese. The trade in wine, food products, pottery, and other goods from one city to the other, as well as the artisans travelling easily from one place to the other for work, connected the cities culturally in Antiquity as it has done up until recent times. The characteristic bucrania altars provide an explicit sign of these close cultural connections. This kind of evidence can be studied and interpreted by archaeology and epigraphy, and it contributes in essential ways to the political and cultural history of Karia and the Dodekanese in the Southeast Aegean.

Hopefully, these two volumes of conference proceedings and their accounts of current international research will contribute to the illumination of this fascinating and important part of the ancient world.

The articles of the first volume are loosely organized in chronological order. No papers were presented on the difficult 5th century BC, which means that the first articles are geographically focused on Karia because of the dominating role of the Hekatomnid satrapy in the first half of the 4th century. However, two introductory articles contribute with a broader historical and geographical perspective. L. Caliò discusses and analyses the numerous new city foundations in Karia and the Dodekanese in the 4th century BC, with special focus on the cities of Knidos, Rhodos, Kos, and Halikarnassos. He observes that these cities have a new monumentality and theatricality different from the kind of urbanism in which the citizens of fifth-century Athens expressed themselves. The new kind of cities are sometimes described as theatroeides, which according to Caliò originally meant worthy of being seen. He sees the new type of city as an essential innovation in ancient city planning, which was initiated by Hekatomnid architects and planners and was to become of great importance for the layout of the Ptolemaic capital of Alexandria and other Hellenistic cities in the eastern Mediterranean. The royal city of the Hekatomnids was a new type of urbanism, which Caliò suggests was brought to completion at Sicily in the West at the time of Hieron.

P. Pedersen’s contribution supplements in certain ways the article by Caliò. He not only maintains Caliò’s view of the innovative role of Hekatomnid urbanism but argues that recognition of the importance of the Hekatomnid architects and artists should also be extended to other fields. He demonstrates that several significant technical inventions in architecture, as well as innovations in architectural styles and building types that served to satisfy the Hekatomnid demand for royal monumentality, were taken over by the successors of Alexander. This, he argues, can be seen also in sculpture, where new styles and new themes serving the self-representation of the ruler were introduced in the Greek world and adopted by Hellenistic kings and Roman emperors. He expresses some criticism towards what he sees as a general lack of recognition by most modern writers of the importance of the 4th century BC Ionian Renaissance and its huge production of architecture, art, and literature, as well as of the importance of its introduction of an innovative ruler iconography and a monumental, royal architecture in Hellenistic art and culture.

Next follows a group of articles related to the most famous monument in the south-eastern Aegean in the late Classical period: the Maussolleion, which lay at the centre of the Hekatomnid capital, Halikarnassos. A. Corso takes up the difficult questions of the identity of the sculptors who adorned the Maussolleion with sculptures and to whom among these the most noteworthy, free-standing sculptures should be attributed. He points out that because of the difficult times in Mainland Greece, many sculptors and artists undertook work in the eastern Aegean and in the western satrapies. Several of the Maussolleion sculptors are known to have had other commissions in Rhodos, Knidos, and Kos in addition to their work in Halikarnassos. Corso argues that all of the five famous sculptors mentioned in relation to the Maussolleion worked on the monument; Praxiteles, however, probably only worked on the free-standing sculptures and Timotheos on the reliefs, while the others worked on both free-standing sculptures and reliefs. Based on a stylistic analysis, Corso then discusses in detail the sculptures from the Maussolleion and manages to attribute the most prominent sculptures to the five masters of the Maussolleion sculptures in accordance with the testimony of the ancient written sources.

Very few remains of the original contents of Maussollos’ tomb chamber were unearthed during the excavations of the Maussolleion. In addition to some ornaments of gold leaf, however, small pieces of colourless glass were found, which were originally analysed and published by D. Ignatiadou. In this article, the author revisits the colourless glass from the Maussolleion, which represents an impressive collection for the period and is of extraordinary importance due to its well-dated context. The forms of the original glass vessels are determined, and the material is compared to other known examples of early colourless glass and placed in a wider Greek-Achaemenid perspective. The chemical composition and some traits of the style, as well as parallels from Rhodos and Macedonia, suggest the possibility that production may have taken place in the western satrapies or adjoining Greek islands. The possible existence of a Rhodian-Karian workshop is mentioned.

Turning to other finds from Jeppesen’s Maussolleion excavations, J. Lund presents some results of his studies of the non-architectural small finds from the Maussolleion terrace outside of the tomb building. These finds originate from 72 trenches excavated during the Danish Maussolleion excavations directed by K. Jeppesen from 1966–1977. They comprise a number of different types of ceramics, of which many have to do with drinking and feasting. Interestingly the finds include more than 800 stamped amphora handles, of which the majority are from Rhodos, but the closer neighbours of Halikarnassos, Kos and Knidos, were also important suppliers. Lund discovers that the finds derive from a period of almost three centuries, beginning at the time of the Hekatomnids and continuing into the first century BC. As some of the amphora stamps make almost annual sequences, Lund concludes that they must reflect an annual cultic event. This, he reasons, was most likely a cult for the dead and heroized Maussollos, which may have lived on until shortly after Halikarnassos fell into Roman hands in 129 BC. Lund’s suggestion for a hero-cult for Maussollos continuing into the 1st century BC constitutes a highly interesting parallel to the ideas presented by A. Diler elsewhere in this volume for a hero cult in Mylasa for the heroized Hekatomnos. In fact, Diler suggests that the so-called Building F on the Maussolleion terrace may have been an altar for the hero-cult similar to the altar-like structure probably dedicated by Maussollos on the Hekatomneion terrace in Mylasa.

In the 19th century, historical interest in the south-eastern Aegean greatly increased, and important British investigations were conducted around the middle of the century in Karia and the Dodekanese. The names of T. Spratt, C.T. Newton, and A. Biliotti are intimately connected to the archaeological exploration of Karia and the Dodekanese, and their publications are still indispensable for research in the area. Among the more famous finds brought to the British Museum from Halikarnassos during this period are two less known pieces of a small amazon frieze, which are for the first time published in detail by P. Higgs in this contribution. Despite their small scale, the reliefs are highly significant and interesting examples of architectural sculpture from the time of the Maussolleion. Higgs has discovered information in the archives, which indicates with great certainty where and from whom the reliefs were acquired. To which Late Classical building in Halikarnassos they may originally have belonged remains uncertain, however, although Higgs mentions several possibilities, including the tomb chamber of the Maussolleion.

A. Diler’s article on Karian ruler cult practiced at the Hekatomneion in the old Karian capital, Mylasa, offers an important aspect of the royal culture that was introduced into the Aegean world by the Hekatomnids. Diler starts with a general introduction to the huge terrace sanctuary and its monumental, unfinished tomb-structure, which is believed to be the tomb of Hekatomnos, the father of Maussollos. The main aim of Diler’s contribution is a thorough discussion of the cult related to the Hekatomneion, for which there is varied evidence, including a big altar-like structure between the propylon and the tomb building. Diler argues that on the terrace a Karian ancestor cult was practiced to the daimones agathoi of deceased and deified Hekatomnid rulers. The finds suggest that the Hekatomneion maintained its sacred character until the beginning of the Roman imperial period in the first century BC. Diler believes that a similar ruler cult was performed at the Maussolleion in Halikarnassos, and he suggest that the poorly preserved foundations for Building F on the Maussolleion terrace may be remains from an altar-like structure similar to that on the Hekatomneion terrace. The studies of Diler presented here form a very interesting parallel to the ideas presented in this volume by J. Lund concerning an ancestor cult performed for Maussollos on the Maussolleion terrace.

Labraunda, located in the vicinity of Mylasa, was the most important sanctuary of Hekatomnid Karia, and an impressive and varied group of monumental buildings were constructed here. They are typical of Hekatomnid architectural style and techniques, yet in some cases they display differences and variations, possibly reflecting the experimental process connected to the genesis of the Ionic Renaissance in Hekatomnid architecture. A prominent feature of these buildings are their lavishly decorated anta-capitals. P. Hellström and J. Blid offer a useful survey of Doric and Ionic antae before the Hekatomnids and go on to analyse the antae of buildings in antis at Labraunda according to their chronology. They succeed in demonstrating that a new Labraunda-type anta with a rectangular plan was developed by the Hekatomnid architects, and afterwards was applied in both the in antis temple south of the Agora at Iasos and in Temple B in the Asklepieion on Kos, while the typical Hellenistic anta of square plan was applied possibly for the first time in Andron A. The Hekatomnid antae and their florally decorated capitals constitute a significant element of Hekatomnid architecture that strongly influenced Ionic architecture of the Hellenistic period.

C. Wilkening-Aumann’s article on the Temple of Hemithea at Kastabos finishes this group of articles related to Karian architecture and monuments by adding one new important building to the latest phase of the Hekatomnid period. The sanctuary of Hemithea is situated near Bybassos on the Karian Chersonesos, opposite the northern tip of Rhodos, and constituted a very important regional sanctuary including a theatre and other structures. The temple has 6 x 12 columns of the Ionic order and was first excavated and studied by J.M. Cook and W.H. Plommer in 1959–1960 and at that time dated to the early 3rd century BC. It was re-examined and studied by Wilkening-Aumann in relation to a field survey conducted by W. Held during the period 2005–2015. The new studies by the author have necessitated a revision of Plommer’s reconstruction against the background of the increased research on Karian architecture since the time of Cook and Plommer. It now seems that the temple should be understood in the context of the architecture of the Hekatomnids and of the so-called Ionian Renaissance to which it adds valuable new evidence from the second half of the 4th century BC.

The next articles widen the perspective to areas outside of the Hekatomnid satrapy, although not outside of its range of influence. E. Donato examines possible Karian influences in Early Hellenistic Kos and starts with establishing that interrelations between Kos and Karia already existed in the Archaic and the Early Classical period. During the first half of the 4th century BC, the island’s dependence on Athens gradually weakened, and during the Social War (357–355 BC), Kos finally opposed Athens, together with Rhodos, Khios, and Byzantion. This no doubt was paralleled by an increasing dependence on Karia and especially Maussollos. After investigating literary and epigraphical sources and examining aspects of art and architecture, Donato concludes that Karian influence may in fact be detected both in the process of the foundation of the new capital of Kos, as well as in several aspects of Koan culture and society, architecture, art, and not least religion. For instance, the importance of Asklepios could perhaps be related to the strong position of healing gods in Karia, such as Hemithea at Kastabos.

Eireni Poupaki address the question of Karian and Koan interrelations on the extremely concrete level of building stones and rock formations on Kos and the opposite coast of Karia. She has observed that the early structures built immediately after the synoikism of Kos, such as the city wall, were to great extent made of stones quarried on the Karian coast, which holds a wide range of volcanic stones suited for various specific purposes. Significant among these is the so-called prasinopetra and the remains of large, ancient quarries of this stone exist on the Halikarnassos Peninsula north of Myndos. It was also used in huge amounts for the foundations and the core of the Maussolleion at Halikarnassos. Poupaki argues that it is likely that not only building stones, but also experienced stone masons came from Karia to Kos, and while applying here the masonry techniques and architectural methods from their homeland they influenced the work of the Koan quarrymen, stone carvers, and sculptors. These afterwards made use of these skills for working on local Koan types of stone, such as the marble of Mount Dikaios.

In the contribution by H. Fragaki, the question of cultural interrelations in the Southeast Aegean is taken one very important step further to focus on the architectural relations between this area and the Ptolemaic capital of Alexandria. Connections between the Southeast Aegean and Egypt are attested from the 7th century BC, but in the 3rd century BC the military, political and intellectual interrelations increased strongly. In architecture, the influence of Karia and the Dodekanese in Alexandria is reflected in the names of Deinokrates from Rhodos and Sostratos from Knidos. The written sources are supplemented by Fragaki with a study of the architectural remains, in particular those of a large unfinished temple of the Ionic order in the royal quarter of ancient Alexandria. The temple was furnished with column capitals of the Maussolleion-type of capitals comparable to those of the Ptolemaic two-column monument in Olympia and the Hellenistic temple of Apollo in Didyma. Fragaki’s contribution presents fresh evidence for the importance of the Ionian Renaissance in the architecture of Alexander’s successors in line with what Pedersen attempted in his paper.

The reclining banqueter is an extremely widespread but still enigmatic sculptural motif that was also used by the Hekatomnids. In his article, P. Ruggendorfer discusses the diversity of the motif and especially its specific meaning for the Hekatomnids. The motif constitutes an unusual example of cultural exchange between East and West. It was used by the social elite in Anatolian societies under Persian supremacy, as witnessed by the Greco-Persian reliefs and Lykian funerary monuments, and it was used in democratic Athens, although predominantly for hero-reliefs. It reached its most prolific use in the Hellenistic eastern Aegean in the form of funerary reliefs traditionally referred to as Totenmahl reliefs. The motif evidently varied in meaning and had different connotations according to its historical and social context. Ruggendorfer focuses on two Hekatomnid representations: the banquet relief on the sarcophagus in the so-called Hekatomneion at Mylasa, and the relief showing a reclining banqueter found in the Bouleuterion in Iasos. Ruggendorfer argues that the two representations have different meanings. The representation on the sarcophagus showing the satrap together with his family belongs to a context of ruler-iconography and, like the reliefs on other sides of the sarcophagus, forms part of a royal program of self-representation that had a long and continuous history in Anatolian iconography. The Iasos relief with only one single banqueter, however, represents the banqueter as a heros – presumably a heros oikistes. According to Ruggendorfer, the Hekatomnids adopted the iconography of the Archaic Heroenmahlreliefs for this representation, which consequently belongs to another iconographical tradition than that of the sarcophagus. Ruggendorfer’s thoughts about a cult for the heros ktistes and his royal representative can interestingly be related to the archaeological evidence for cult at the Maussolleion and the Hekatomneion presented by J. Lund and A. Diler in this volume.

The urban history of an important ancient city at Burgaz, in the very centre of the Karian-Dodekanese area, is the subject of the article by L. Radloff, E.S. Greene, J. Leidwanger, N. Atıcı, and N. Tuna. This study analyses the infrastructure and the circulation-pattern within the ancient city by streets and passages connecting the centre to its four harbours and its agricultural hinterland. The settlement of Burgaz, sometimes thought to be Old Knidos, emerges in the Archaic period and declines at the end of Antiquity. It has been extensively excavated in a project directed by N. Tuna (METU). As part of the METU project, a team from Brock University, Stanford University, and the Institute of Nautical Archaeology investigated submerged and seashore remains in 2011–2015. The complete project has established a detailed picture of the socioeconomic changes and use of the city area during its existence. By applying a method of space syntax analysis, the authors reveal the role of maritime space in the development of infrastructure and demonstrate how the settlement at Burgaz adapted its spatial organization to maintain connectivity as the settlement evolved from a small urban centre in the Archaic period to an industrialized Hellenistic settlement with a large harbour serving the city’s exports.

The 14 articles presented in Vol. 1 deal with important aspects of the art and culture of Karia and the Dodekanese from the Late Classical to Early Hellenistic periods. It is not possible, however, to establish a clear and strict chronological delimitation of the period, which is characterized more by continuity than by ruptures. Vol. 2, From Early Hellenistic to Early Byzantine, therefore begins with articles from the same period with which Vol. 1 finishes.

Cities and monuments in Classical Karia and the Dodekanese

1

Theatroeideis poleis. Cities and urbanization in Eastern Greece

L.M. Caliò

Despite the urban experiences of the 5th century BC, the definition of the Greek city, intended as an architectural and monumental structure, occurs in the 4th century BC. In this regard, the Karian experience, which thanks to Maussollos implements a very strong urbanization process, represents a particularly meaningful episode for the definition of urban centers in the Greek world. Some of the cities established by Maussollos are called theatroeides, an adjective that could be translated as worthy of being seen. A particular feature of this new type of city is the presence of large public spaces and of monumental architectures that manage them. The theatroeideis cities are the first step towards the definition of the Hellenistic city in the Mediterranean world, and seem to represent the beginning of a process that was brought to completion in the western Mediterranean world, most notably in Sicily at the time of Hieron.

A new image of the city emerged during the 4th century BC. These were monumental and architectural cities that substantially changed the culture of the Classical city. A new urban model was born that the ancient sources called theatroeides.¹ It is significant that all the cities called theatroeideis were located between the Dodekanese and Karia and dated to the Hekatomnid period. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role of Karia in the process of defining a new Greek urban model.

A discussion about Karian cities during the Hekatomnid period should be carried out in the light of the general concept of urbanization in ancient Greece. In the context of the eastern Mediterranean, Karia cannot be regarded as a Greek region, since the Hekatomnid kingdom was a satrapy of the Persian state. Greek ancient sources were aware of the diversity of the Karian kingdom, and especially of the rise of a new form of city in the central region of Asia Minor.² For the first time, Karia established a new image of the city as a walled, monumental entity, through which a new visual concept of the city itself was codified.³

In fact, before the end of the Peloponnesian War, ancient theoretical reflection on the city focused mostly on the political sphere, investigating the issue of the coexistence of different social classes.⁴ The need for the diversification of work as the first step of an urbanized city was contemplated in the philosophical thought of Hippodamos of Miletus, but it was not a necessary prerequisite to the organization of a new model for building cities. Opinions on this new urbanization concept greatly diverged during the 5th century BC. Before the affirmation of a Platonic political viewpoint, the urbanized city was considered an insane place in which to live an eleuthera life. The Asian cities were considered counterparts to the Greek way of life as early as the 6th-century poet Phokylides, who called the Assyrian city aphrosune (senseless) and the 5th-century historian Herodotos, who described the eastern towns. Babylon (Fig. 1.1), Nineveh (Fig. 1.2), and Ecbatana were colossal urban and monumental structures, but were described as inadequate for the human life. In fact, the inhabitants were slaves and unable to live a proper political life.⁵

According to Aristotle, the Greek philosopher Hippodamos first linked the social form of the city to the asty, i.e. to the urban form of the polis in the early 5th century BC.⁶ In fact, Aristotle used the word diaresis (division), writing about the partition of the polis’ population inside the civic body, and in the same passage he wrote about the urban conception of the city, the diaresis of Piraeus.⁷ In no case was there a mention of a monumental city, only of an urban complex born from a social body. A different view of Piraeus comes from Thukydides, who described the walls of the Athenian harbour as so large that two chariots could pass by on their summit,⁸ a description that clearly recalls that of Herodotus about the walls of Babylon.⁹ Periklean Athens represented the prototype of a new city concept. Perikles compared the city to an island; in Periklean discourse, the idea of the urban form – a city protected by walls and without a relationship to the chora, similar to an island surrounded by the sea – takes shape from a new economic idea: the city as the centre of a Mediterranean network. Social and political transformations were not explained in his speech, but in this brief passage Perikles offered a new image of the city. The logical consequence was the creation of a monumental and architectural city as representative of a renewed economic plan. Plutarch’s list of the monuments built and the description of workers involved is an important testimony of the degree of conurbation in the city in the second half of the 5th century BC:

Fig. 1.1: Axonometry of Babylon (according to R. Koldewey, from Matthiae 1996).

He boldly suggested to the people projects for great constructions, and designs for works which would call many arts into play and involve long periods of time, in order that the stay-at-homes, no whit less than the sailors and sentinels and soldiers, might have a pretext for getting a beneficial share of the public wealth. The materials to be used were stone, bronze, ivory, gold, ebony, and cypress-wood; the arts which should elaborate and work up these materials were those of carpenter, moulder, bronze-smith, stonecutter, dyer, worker in gold and ivory, painter, embroiderer, embosser, to say nothing of the forwarders and furnishers of the material, such as factors, sailors and pilots by sea, and, by land, wagon-makers, trainers of yoked beasts, and drivers. There were also rope-makers, weavers, leather-workers, road-builders, and miners. And since each particular art, like a general with the army under his separate command, kept its own throng of unskilled and untrained labourers in compact array, to be as instrument unto player and as body unto soul in subordinate service, it came to pass that for every age, almost, and every capacity the city’s great abundance was distributed and scattered abroad by such demands.¹⁰

Fig. 1.2: Relief of the city of Nineveh(?). Quyunjiq (Nineveh), Northern Palace, 7th century BC (from Matthiae 1996).

The image of Athens left by Plutarch in the Life of Pericles, in fact, is that of a city rich in resources and raw materials, but also of skilled craftsmen who take part in the great construction projects and drawings of works promoted by Perikles himself and controlled by Phidias.¹¹

The most famous foundations of the 5th century BC are linked to the activity of Athens: Piraeus (Fig. 1.3) and Thurioi (Fig. 1.4). The spatial extension of both cities was an important novelty in the urban history of the Greek world. The urban grid of Piraeus was crossed by a north–south plateia 17 m wide and an east–west plateia 25 m wide. In Piraeus, the roads not only connected the harbours to the public spaces, but also were impressive routes used during major community events, such as the procession of the goddess Bendis observed by Sokrates at the end of the 5th century BC.¹²

Thurioi’s city plan was characterized by orthogonal roads of 100–120 ft (30–36.5 m), and insulae of 1000–1300 ft (304–396 m), as reported in Diodorus’ description, and partially confirmed by the archaeological excavations.¹³ The monumentality of the city, with streets 1500 m long and 30 m wide, rivals the later Hellenistic capital cities, and its foundations assumed an