The Athenian Prytaneion Discovered?

by Geoffrey C. R. Schmalz

Hesperia, Volume 75, Issue 1
Page(s): 33-81
Stable URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.2972/hesp.75.1.33
Publication Date: 2006

Period: Archaic, Classical
Site: Athens
Subject: architecture, topography

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ABSTRACT:The author proposes that the Athenian Prytaneion, one of the city's most important civic buildings, was located in the peristyle complex beneath Agia Aikaterini Square, near the ancient Street of the Tripods and the Monument of Lysikrates in the modern Plaka. This thesis, which is consistent with Pausanias's topographical account of ancient Athens, is supported by archaeological and epigraphical evidence. The identification of the Prytaneion at the eastern foot of the Acropolis helps to reconstruct the map of Archaic and Classical Athens and illuminates the testimony of Herodotos and Thucydides.