Some settlements on offshore islands and promontories which extended down towards nearby rivers began to shift their focus towards these rivers and deltas during the late Iron Age and early archaic period. The most prominent are Athens, Eleusis, and Skala Oropos in Attica, and Eretria in Euboea. The fact that these four important settlements are situated on riverbanks is rarely underlined in handbooks. In Athens, the dominant rock of the acropolis is normally highlighted, due of course to the later importance of its sanctuaries, but it should be remembered that Athens, and in particular early archaic Athens, was also - and especially - a riverbank settlement. Three rivers determined its immediate environment. First and foremost the huge Kephissos river which sprang from the foothills of Mt. Parnes and emptied into the bay of Phaleron. Secondly, the Ilissos river which sprang from Mt. Hymettos, and thirdly the Eridanos river which sprang from the hills of Lykabettos and joined the Kephissos. Our image of the modern city of Athens makes it difficult to grasp the impact which these rivers had on the landscape. Plato’s description of the Ilissos river bank as an idyllic wooded area (Phaedrus 227c) and photographs from nineteenth-century Athens are helpful in recalling the vigor and greatness of the rivers and the fertility of nearby land (figure 10.1).
In the early Iron Age, large cemeteries extended on either side of the two rivers and all the way around the acropolis, indicating that settled areas lay to the north, east and south-west of the acropolis and probably also to the north of the Eridanos (Papadopoulos 2004, fig. 5:15). The acropolis itself was probably inhabited. In the late Iron Age and early archaic period, Athens developed urban characteristics. An extremely large amount of late Geometric pottery and a wealth of bronzes from the acropolis indicate that a highly important sanctuary had now been established on the rock (Hurwit 1999: 85-98). Below it, along the banks of the Eridanos in the area of the classical Agora and Kerameikos, pottery and dye workshops mingled with a hero shrine and old and new cemeteries.31 New investigations of wells and other deposits in this area proved them to be either refuse wells or rubbish pits, while some yielded large quantities of potter’s refuse, such as test-pieces and draw-pieces. These wells, and the frequent mention of burials in older excavation reports, show that the area of the classical agora was not inhabited in the late Iron Age - as hitherto thought
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Figure 10.1 The river Illissos in Athens in 1906
Source: Photo from the collection of Haris Yiakoumis, photographer unknown; after H. Yiakoumis, Apo tin Olympia stin Athina (Toubis 2004), fig. 113.
Figure 10.2 View from the Acropolis over the “heart” of early archaic Athens, between Artemis Agrotera, above the Illissos river and the possible site of the early archaic Agora Source: Photo by Sanne Houby-Nielsen.
- but used both as a burial ground and for the pottery industry (Papadopoulos 2003: 271-5).
Furthermore, new studies in the topography of the old agora, mentioned by Apollodoros (FGrH 244 F113), place this to the east of the acropolis under present-day Pl. Ay. Aikaterini, on the grounds of new inscriptions and architectural finds (Papadopoulos 2003: 282, with references). This agora accordingly formed an extension of the actual “heart” of early archaic Athens, namely an old sanctuary complex situated in the marshes along the River Ilissos, to which we shall return below (see figure 10.2). This complex comprised sacred springs, one of which, the Enneakrounos-Kallirhoe fountain (Thuc. 2.15.4-5), later became the most venerated of all Athenian public monuments. Also, it was in this area that a truly monumental temple, perhaps the earliest in Athens, was erected: a massive M-shaped foundation 2.5 m thick beneath the enormous late archaic temple for the Olympian Zeus probably stems from an earlier huge temple-related structure (Parker 1996: 68). Similarly, the earliest sanctuary in the late archaic and classical Agora situated to the north of the acropolis - the altar of the Twelve Gods - was located on the banks of the Eridanos river (Camp 2001: 32-4). To the north-west of Athens, the Poseidon Hippios cult on the Kolonos Hippios overlooked the Kephissos river in much the same manner as the Poseidon cult in Helice in Achaea or the Artemis Laphria cult in Calydon in Aetolia overlooked the deltas of huge border rivers.
It is of importance for the development of Athens that much the same city plan is found in Eretria and to some extent right opposite Eretria on the Attic coast, at Skala Oropos. Iron Age Eretria was situated in the very delta of a river. In fact, in the early part of the Iron Age, the settlement was encircled by water as it was situated in between a branch of the river, the river itself and the coast of the Euripos Sea (Auberson and Schefold 1972). The poor burials, pottery and other finds clearly show that the early Iron Age settlement was small and insignificant, and hardly extended beyond the river and its branch. In the late Iron Age, however, there is a clear boom in material. Rich late Geometric layers were found in all trenches of the excavations, indicating that the settlement now extended from the seashore all the way up to the acropolis, situated about 1.5 km inland, amounting to a habitation area of about 45 ha. As in Athens, the sacred, “public” and industrial heart of the settlement was situated on the riverbank, and the industrial quarters lay near or among rich cemeteries and a hero shrine.
Right opposite Eretria, a very similar settlement has been excavated in recent years at Skala Oropos. Early Iron Age remains are few, while the site clearly blossomed in the late Iron Age and early archaic period. The settlement lies in flat, marshy territory at the outlet of a large river. Again a cluster of apsidal buildings for cultic and industrial purposes extended along the river, among which metal industry was prominent. A spring near the river was perhaps the object of veneration, as in Athens: the large peribolos structure enclosing finds of cultic character may have been devoted to the nymph Alia, later named Leukothea, to judge by an inscription of the Hellenistic period found in the vicinity (ArchRep 1997/8, 17-18).
This sudden focus on rivers, producing hero shrines, industries and complex sanctuaries on the actual riverbanks, probably also emerged elsewhere in Greece. Many classical sanctuaries situated on rivers were originally - that is, in the late Iron Age and early archaic period - “sacred hearts” of urban communities which became “suburban” or “extra-urban” after the community had moved to a larger center as a result of a synoecism process and thus “left them behind.” This was the case, for example, with the Artemis Triklaria and Larisaean Athena sanctuaries in Achaea, on the banks of the Meilichos and Larisa rivers, respectively (Paus. 7.20.7-9; 17.5), and probably the Artemis Limnatis and Artemis Nemydia sanctuaries in the same region.32 The late Geometric-early archaic sanctuaries in the plains of the Acheloos river - the largest river in Greece - revealed by surveys in the region of Stratos in Acarnania could be yet other examples.33 Other cities at large rivers such as Trikala, Arta, Orchomenos and Larisa are likely to have a similar prehistory, and striking parallels in the Mediterranean make the Attic-Euboean and Greek riverbank communities stand out as a “settlement type.” Apart from Phoenician or Phoenician-influenced forerunners in Cyprus such as Ledra (Nicosia) which was divided by the Pedieos river and Salamis at the outlet of this river, one thinks of Greek parallels such as Ephesus and Miletus on the Maeander, Naucratis in the Nile delta, or the Greek ports at Agde and Narbo on the Iberian coast in the delta of the Herault and the Atax rivers respectively. Greek-influenced centers such as Lydian Sardis and Etruscan Rome provide other parallels. In the latter, a strongly Greek-influenced archaic sanctuary complex has been excavated at St. Omobono on the banks of the Tiber, with architectural decoration which partly recalls the Artemis temple in Corfu (Bartoloni 1982: 115-21).
All in all, the riverbank settlement became formalized in Attica and neighboring regions at a time when contacts between the East and the West of the Mediterranean were intensifying and Greek colonial enterprises had started in earnest; Eretria and Skala Oropos, supported by Athens, appear to have been greatly involved. Studies of archaic Athens which overlook the location of Athens on rivers, therefore, omit one of the most important and characteristic aspects of archaic Attic social life.34
World History
