User:Paul August/Altar of the Twelve Gods

Altar of the Twelve Gods

=To Do=

Get

 * Thompson, BU Mugar
 * p. 98 [re Altar of Pity]

Read

 * Long, The twelve gods of Greece and Rome (BU Mugar, Tufts Tisch BL727 .L67 1987  c.1)
 * pp. 161, 163, 164ff.?, figs 130, 131, others?

=New text=


 * Add cites to Long, 163
 * The altar was dismantled c. 267 AD. Add Crosy, p. 99, other?

Ancient
[Plato?],  Hipparchus 228d–229a

c. 522–443 BC Pindar

 * fr. 75 Maehler [= 75 Snell, 68 Bowra. See Wycherley p. 12, Note, following no. 378]
 * Race, pp. 318–321
 * Come to the chorus, Olympians,
 * and send over it glorious grace, you gods
 * who are coming to the city's crowded, incense-rich navel25
 * in holy Athens
 * and to the glorious, richly adorned agora.
 * Receive wreaths of plaited violets and the songs plucked in springtime,
 * and look upon me with favor as I proceed from Zeus
 * with splendor of songs secondly26
 * to that ivy-knowing god,
 * whom we mortals call Bromius and Eriboas27
 * as we sing of the offspring of the highest of fathers
 * and of Cadmean women.28
 * 25 Perhaps the altar of the twelve gods in the agora.
 * 26 The meaning of "from Zeus" and "secondly" is not clear. Perhaps the poet begins his song with Zeus before turning to Dionysus.
 * 27 "Loud-Roarer" and "Loud-Shouter" are cult names of Dionysus.
 * 28 I.e. of Zeus and Semele.

490–480 BC Inscriptiones Graecae

 * I3 950; [= Agora III 378, Wycherley, p. 122 = Agora I 1597= Long, p. 64 14 G]


 * Gadbery, p. 447
 * [Λ]έαγρος ∶ ἀνέθεκεν ∶ Γλαύκονος
 * δόδεκα θεοῖσιν.


 * Leagros, son of Glaucon, dedicated [this]
 * to the Twelve Gods


 * Wycherley, p. 122 no. 378
 * [Λ]έαγρος ∶ ἀνέθεκεν ∶ Γλαύκονος
 * δόδεκα θεοῖσιν.


 * Leagros son of Glaucon dedicated this to the twelve gods.

5th c. BC Herodotus

 * 2.7.1 [= Agora III 364, Wycherley, p. 119 = Long, pp. 62–63 14 B]
 * By this reckoning, then, the seaboard of Egypt will be four hundred and fifty miles in length. Inland from the sea as far as Heliopolis, Egypt is a wide land, all flat and watery and marshy. From the sea up to Heliopolis is a journey about as long as the way from the altar of the twelve gods at Athens to the temple of Olympian Zeus at Pisa.
 * 6.108.4 [= Agora III 365, Wycherley, p. 119 = Long, pp. 62–63 14 B]
 * So the Lacedaemonians gave this advice to the Plataeans, who did not disobey it. When the Athenians were making sacrifices to the twelve gods,1 they sat at the altar as suppliants and put themselves under protection. When the Thebans heard this, they marched against the Plataeans, but the Athenians came to their aid.
 * 1 The twelve gods were Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Apollo, Artemis, Hephaestus, Athena, Ares, Aphrodite, Hermes, Hestia. The βωμὸς was a central altar in the agora, from which distances were reckoned.

[Plato?]
Hipparchus
 * 228d–229a
 * [228d] [Hipparchus] proceeded next, with the design of educating those of the countryside, to set up figures of Hermes for them along the roads in the midst of the city and every district town; and then, after selecting from his own wise lore, both learnt from others and discovered for himself, the things that he considered the wisest, he threw these into elegiac form and inscribed them on the figures as verses of his own and testimonies of his wisdom, so that in the first place


 * [228e] his people should not admire those wise Delphic legends of ““Know thyself”” and ““Nothing overmuch””, and the other sayings of the sort, but should rather regard as wise the utterances of Hipparchus; and that in the second place, through passing up and down and reading his words and acquiring a taste for his wisdom, they might resort hither from the country for the completion of their education. There are two such inscriptions of his: on the left side


 * [229a] of each Hermes there is one in which the god says that he stands in the midst of the city or the township, while on the right side he says:“The memorial of Hipparchus: walk with just intent.

c. 400 BC Inscriptiones Graecae

 * II2 2640 [= Agora III 374, Wycherley, p. 121 = Long, pp. 64–65 14 I]
 * [ἡ πόλις] ἔστ[η]σ[έν με β]ροτ[οῖς] μνημεῖον ἀληθές
 * [πᾶσιν] σημαίνε[ιν μέ]τ[ρον] ὁδοιπορίας·
 * [ἔστιν γὰρ τ]ὸ μεταχσὺ θεῶμ πρὸς δώδεκα βωμόν
 * [πέντ’ ἐπὶ?] τεσσαράκοντ’ ἐγ λιμένος στάδιοι.


 * Camp, 2003, p. 8
 * On a milestone dating to ca. 400 B.C. we read: "The city set me up, a truthful monument to show all mortals the measure of their journeying: the distance to the altar of the twelve gods from the harbor is forty-five stades"


 * Wycherley, p. 121
 * Found near the outer gate to the Acropolis. The spelling μεταχσὺ indicates a 5th century date.

c. 460 – c. 395 BC Thucydides

 * 3.68.5
 * "Such was the fate of Plataea, which5 was overthrown in the ninety-third year after the Plataeans entered into alliance with Athens6.
 * "5 B.C. 519.
 * "6 Cp. Herod. 6.108


 * 6.54.6-7 [= Agora III 368, Wycherley, p. 120 = Long, p. 62 14 A]
 * "The city meanwhile was permitted to retain her ancient laws; but the family of Pisistratus took care that one of their own number should always be in office. Among others who thus held the annual archonship at Athens was Pisistratus, a son of the tyrant Hippias. He was named after his grandfather Pisistratus, and during his term of office he dedicated the altar of the Twelve Gods in the Agora, and another altar in the temple of the Pythian Apollo. [7] The Athenian people afterwards added to one side of the altar in the Agora and so concealed the inscription upon it; but the other inscription on the altar of the Pythian Apollo may still be seen, although the letters are nearly effaced. It runs as follows:—
 * Pisistratus the son of Hippias dedicated this
 * memorial of his archonship in the sacred precinct
 * of the Pythian Apollo.

5th-4th c. BC Xenophon
Hipparchicus 3.2 [= Agora III 203, Wycherley, p. 78 = Long, p. 68 16 A]
 * As for the processions, I think they would be most acceptable both to the gods and to the spectators if they included a gala ride in the market place. The starting point would be the Herms1; and the cavalry would ride round saluting the gods at their shrines and statues. So at the Great Dionysia the dance of the choruses forms part of the homage offered to the Twelve and to other gods.
 * When the circuit is completed and the cavalcade is again near the Herms, the next thing to do, I think, is to gallop at top speed by regiments as far as the Eleusinium.
 * 1 The Herms stood in two rows between the “Stoa Basileios” and the “Poicile.” The Eleusinium, probably lay at the western foot of the Acropolis. See Frazer, Pausanias vol. 2., p. 121 and p. 131. Some think the site was at the east foot.

330 BC Lycurgus of Athens
Harvard University Press Online version: p. 81

Against Leocrates  93 (330 BC) [= Agora III 366, Wycherley, p. 120 = Long, p. 63 14 C]
 * "Who does not know the fate of Callistratus,1 which the older among you remember and the younger have heard recounted, the man condemned to death by the city? How he fled and later, hearing from the god at Delphi that if he returned to Athens he would have fair treatment by the laws, came back and taking refuge at the altar of the twelve gods was none the less put to death by the state, and rightly so, for “fair treatment by the laws” is, in the case of wrongdoers, punishment.
 * 1 Callistratus, an orator whom Demosthenes much admired, was instrumental in building up the Second Athenian Confederacy. After a raid by Alexander of Pherae on the Piraeus he was condemned to death by the Athenians (361 B.C.); and, though at first he fled to Methone, he returned later and the sentence was carried out. His name is mentioned by Hyperides (Hyp. 4.1)
 * ["About 355 BC": Agora III 366, Wycherley, p. 120]

1st c. BC Diodorus Siculus
12.39.1 [= Agora III 363, Wycherley, p. 119 = Long, p. 63 14 D]
 * Oldfather
 * The statue1 of Athena was a work of Pheidias, and Pericles, the son of Xanthippus, had been appointed overseer of the undertaking. But some of the assistants of Pheidias, who had been prevailed upon by Pericles' enemies, took seats as suppliants at the altars of the gods; and when they were called upon to explain their surprising action, they claimed that they would show that Pheidias had possession of a large amount of the sacred funds, with the connivance and assistance of Pericles the overseer.
 * 1 The gold and ivory statue in the Parthenon.


 * Wycherley, p. 119
 * Some of the fellow-workers of Pheidias, harassed by the enemies of Perikles, sat upon the altar of the gods.


 * In 431 B.C. Cf. Plutarch, Perikles, 31, where we hear that Menon, one of the fellow-workers of Pheidias, was persuaded to sit as a suppliant ἑν ἀγρᾷ.

1st-2nd c. AD Plutarch

 * Nicias 13.2 [= Agora III 367, Wycherley, p. 120 = Long, pp. 63–64 14 E]
 * For no signs could deter the people from the expedition, were they never so obvious and clear such as, for instance, the mutilation of the ‘Hermae.’ These statues were all disfigured in a single night except one, called the Hermes of Andocides, a dedication of the Aegeid tribe, standing in front of what was at that time the house of Andocides. Then there was the a affair of the altar of the Twelve Gods. An unknown man leaped upon it all of a sudden, bestrode it, and then mutilated himself with a stone. ["In 415 BC" Agora III 367, Wycherley, p. 120]


 * Pericles 3.2
 * But the worst charge of all, and yet the one which has the most vouchers, runs something like this. Pheidias the sculptor was contractor for the great statue, as I have said, and being admitted to the friendship of Pericles, and acquiring the greatest influence with him, made some enemies through the jealousy which he excited; others also made use of him to test the people and see what sort of a judge it would be in a case where Pericles was involved. These latter persuaded one Menon, an assistant of Pheidias, to take a suppliant's seat in the market-place and demand immunity from punishment in case he should bring information and accusation against Pheidias.

Pseudo-Plutarch
Vitae decem oratorum (Lives of the Ten Orators)
 * 8 [= Agora III 559, 698, Wycherley, pp. 170, 210–211 = Long, p. 64 14 F]


 * [847a] And with that he called for a writing-table; and if we may [p. 50] credit Demetrius the Magnesian, on that he wrote a distich, which afterwards the Athenians caused to be affixed to his statue; and it was to this purpose:
 * Hadst thou, Demosthenes, an outward force
 * Great as thy inward magnanimity,
 * Greece should not wear the Macedonian yoke.
 * This statue, made by Polyeuctus, is placed near the cloister where the altar of the twelve Gods is erected. Some say this writing was found: ‘Demosthenes to Antipater, Greeting.’




 * [847d] Afterwards, in process of time, the Athenians decreed nourishment to be given to the kindred of Demosthenes in the Prytaneum, and likewise set up a statue to his memory, when he was dead, in the market, in the year of Gorgias [280/79 per Wycherly, p. 211],6 which honors were paid him at the request of Demochares his sister's son.


 * 11
 * [850f] Demochares, the son of Laches of Leuconoe, requires that a statue of brass be set up for Demosthenes, the son of Demosthenes the Paeanian, in the market-place,
 * [See Wycherley p. 211 no. 698 n]

Agathe.gr

 * "Altar of the Twelve Gods"
 * Search

Camp 1980

 * p. 17
 * An altar to the Twelve Gods, perhaps, but not certainly, the Olympians, was set up in the Agora by the grandson of the tyrant Peisistratos in 522/1 B.C. (Thucydides, VI.54.6–7). Most of it lies under the electric railway, but the southwest corner of the enclosure wall and an early statue base (33) dedicated to the Twelve may still be seen. It was a common place of asylum for suppliants and refugees and, in one respect at least, was the heart of the ancient city. All distances from Athens were measured from the altar: The city set me up, a truthful monument to show all mortals the measure of their journeying; the distance to the altar of the Twelve Gods from the harbour is 45 stades (9 kilometers).' From a milestone of the 5th century B. C. (I.G. II2, 3640).
 * 33.Statue base: 'Leagros, the son of Glaukon, dedicated this to the Twelve Gods.' Early 5th century B. C.

Camp 2003

 * p. 4
 * A gradual change from private to public land seems to have occurred during the middle of the 6th century, and the first certain public buildings or monuments (Southeast Fountain House [15], Altar of the Twelve Gods [2]) were erected in the 520s, during the tyranny of the Peisistratids.
 * p. 8
 * Altar of the Twelve Gods 2
 * Near the middle of the open square, somewhat to the north, lay the Altar of the Twelve Gods (Fig. 7), today largely hidden under the Athens–Piraeus railway (1891). A corner of the enclosure wall survives, along with the inscribed marble base for a bronze statue that reads "Leagros, the son of Glaukon, dedicated this to the twelve gods." Thucydides tells us the younger Peisistratos, grandson of the tyrant, established the altar in the Agora during his archonship (522/1 B.C.). The upper surface of the present sill (4th century B.C.) preserves traces of the stone fence that would have defined the sacred area around the altar, now missing.
 * The altar was one of the few monuments permitted within the open square and it served as the zero milestone or center of the city. Herodotos (2.7), when giving a distance in Egypt, tells us that it is as far from Heliopolis to the sea as it is from the Altar of the Twelve Gods in Athens to Olympia. On a milestone dating to ca. 400 B.C. we read: "The city set me up, a truthful monument to show all mortals the measure of their journeying: the distance to the altar of the twelve gods from the harbor is forty-five stades" (I.G. II2 2640). Physically, we are at the heart of the city.

Crosby 1949
[In folder]

Gadbery 1992

 * "The Sanctuary of the Twelve Gods In the Athenian Agora: A Revised View"
 * PDF
 * p. 447
 * THE SANCTUARY OF THE TWELVE GODS was once one of the more distinguished precincts in the Athenian Agora, the central marker for calculating distances from the city and an important place of refuge.1 Today, very little meets the eye (Figs. 1, 2, P1. 106:a). Nearly nine-tenths lies concealed beneath the Athens-Piraeus Electric Railway. The remaining portion, just south of the railway, is unprepossessing: no superstructure exists; the two sets of superimposed sill blocks from the enclosure wall and the few slabs of the interior paving which were once fully exposed by excavation have been judiciously reburied to a level reflecting the last building phase of the sanctuary, some 0.30m. higher than the line recorded in Plate 106:a. The casual observer, accustomed to more substantial architecture, probably would be surprised to learn how much this sanctuary has enriched general knowledge of Athenian history, art, and topography. ...
 * "Two short sections of the enclosure were revealed in 1891 during construction of the railway, but the sanctuary remained unidentified and undated until the American School of Classical Studies at Athens began excavation to the south of this railway in 1931.3 During their fourth year of excavation, the Americans exposed the southwest corner of the enclosure, which preserved along the exterior of its west side a large statue base of Pentelic marble, presumably in situ (Pls. 105, 106:b). This base carried the following inscription across its front face:4


 * [Λ]έαγρος ∶ ἀνέθεκεν ∶ Γλαύκονος
 * δόδεκα θεοῖσιν


 * Leagros, son of Glaucon, dedicated [this]
 * to the Twelve Gods


 * p. 450
 * [the excavators] dated the construction of the earlier parapet, as represented by the lower sil, to the year 522/1 B.C., the most likely date for the archonship of the younger Peisistratos,8 and linked the lengthening of the altar mentioned by Thucydides with the construction of the later parapet, as represented by the upper sill, which they placed in the last third of the 5th century B.C.9...

Garland 1992

 * p. 38 ff.
 * The Peisistratid tyranny ...


 * p. 41
 * Although doubts have been voiced concerning the exact identity of the twelve, it is likely that they were identical with those depected on the east frieze of the Parthenon, namely Zeus, ... Ares. The only god whose inclusion is in the group is a little suspect is the perennial late-comer Dionysos, but given the fact that choruses at the City Dionysia performed dances at the altar of the Twelve Gods there are no good grounds for excluding him ( Xen, ''Hipp.' 3.2; cf. Lewis 1988, 296).

How and Wells 1928

 * 6.108.4
 * This altar, like that in the Pythium (cf. Hicks, 10), was set up by Pisistratus, son of Hippias, as archon in the Agora, and was afterwards enlarged (Thuc. vi. 54). It was the ‘miliarium aureum’ of Athens, whence roads in all directions started and distances were measured (ii. 7. 1; Arist. Av. 1005; C. I. A. ii. 1078). It was specially honoured with offerings and processions (Xen. Hipp. iii. 2; Pind. fr. 45). For its use as an asylum for suppliants cf. Diod. xii. 39; Plut. Per. 31.
 * The twelve gods (ii. 4. 2) at Athens were Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Apollo, Artemis, Hephaestus, Athene, Ares, Aphrodite, Hermes, Hestia. Cf. the Borghese altar in the Louvre and Baumeister (s. v. Zwölfgötter).


 * Gutenberg PDF
 * This altar, like that in the Pythium (cf. Hicks, 10), was set up by Pisistratus, son of Hippias, as archon in the Agora, and was afterwards enlarged (Thuc. vi. 54). It was the “miliarium aureum” of Athens, whence roads in all directions started and distances were measured (ii. 7. 1; Ar. Av. 1005; CIA ii. 1078). It was specially honoured with offerings and processions (Xen. Hipp. iii. 2; Pind. frag. 45). For its use as an asylum for suppliants cf. Diod. xii. 39; Plut. Per. 31.
 * The twelve gods (ii. 4. 2) at Athens were Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Apollo, Artemis, Hephaestus, Athene, Ares, Aphrodite, Hermes, Hestia. Cf. the Borghese altar in the Louvre and Baumeister (s.v. Zwölfgötter)

Kosmin [in folder]
PDF


 * p. 148
 * Most importantly, the new Altar of the Twelve Gods, close to the Orchestra and the Tyrannicide statues, was selected as Athens' geographic node, to and from which all distances were measured;213 Pindar terms it the city's omphalos, "navel".214


 * 213. Camp 1986: 42; Shear Jr. 1994: 231. Note that the democrats erased from the Altar of the Twelve Gods the dedicatory inscription of Pisistratus, son if the tyrant Hippias (Thuc. 6.54.7), demonstrating to Athennians the symbolic power of names and their removal at this very spot.
 * 214. Pind. F75. Note, however, that Neer and Kurke 2014 have argued that the Altar of the Twelve Gods was originally erected in the old Agora, to the east of the Acropolis, and relocated to the markedly democratic space of the new Agora at some point in the fifth century.

Lang 1978

 * p. 3
 * "3. Restored drawing of the Altar of the Twelve Gods, the center from which distances were measured, established in 522/1 BC, destroyed by the Persians in 480/79 BC and rebuilt in the latter part of Socrates' lifetime."

Long
Literary and epigraphic testimonia

Long, pp. 62 ff.


 * 14 A = W 368
 * 5th c. BC; Thucy. 6.54.6-7; dedication
 * Timeline: 522/1 BC
 * Mentioned


 * 14 B = W 364, 365
 * c. 485 - c. 425 BC; Herod. 2.7.1-2: distance from the Altar to Pisa; 6.108.4: Plataians as supplicants
 * Mentioned
 * Timeline: 519 BC [see Thucy 3.68.5]


 * 14 C = W 366
 * 4th c. BC; Lycugus, Leocrates 93: Callistrtos supplication
 * Timeline: c. 355 BC


 * 14 D = W 363
 * 4th c. BC; Diodorus Siculus, 12.39.1: co-workers of Pheidias supplication
 * Mentioned
 * Timeline: 431 BC


 * 14 E = W 367
 * c. 46 AD - after 120; Plutarch, Nicias 13.2: Mutilation
 * Timeline: 415 BC
 * Not mentioned
 * New text: [see above]


 * 14 F = W 698, 533 559
 * 1st-2nd c. AD; Ps. Plutarch, Vit. X Orat. 847a = W 698, 533; 847d, e = W 559, statue of Demosthenes
 * Timeline: probably 280/279 BC [per Long, p. 64 16 F, p. 160; Wycherley, p. 211 no, 698 n; but 271/0 BC per Wycherley, p. 210 no. 559]
 * Not mentioned
 * New text: [see above]


 * 14 G = W 378
 * 490-480 BC; dedication by Leagros
 * Mentioned


 * 14 H = W 370 = IG I2 310 line 64 = IG I3 383 line 327
 * Accounts of the Treasures of the Other Gods for 429/428 BC
 * Timeline: 429/428 BC
 * Not Mentioned


 * 14 I = W 374 = IG II/III2 2640
 * 5th c. BC milestone found near outer gate of the Acropolis
 * mentioned


 * 14 J = W 371 = IG I2 829
 * 2nd half of 5th c. BC Dedication by an atheletic victor, found at Salamis near the harbor, possibly from Athens
 * Not mentioned
 * New Text: [see above]


 * 14 K = W 376 = IG II/III2 4564
 * c. 370 BC [long], 1st half of 4th c. BC [Wycherley]; dedication by naval commander
 * Not mentioned
 * New Text: [see above]


 * 14 L (not in W)
 * ?, right half of dedicatory base.
 * Not mentioned


 * 16 I = W 377 = IG II/III2 5065
 * 2nd c. AD, reserved seat at the Theater of Dionysus for the priest of the Twelve Gods
 * Not mentioned


 * 16 F = W 375 = IG II/III2 2790
 * 357/356 BC; Boule dedication
 * Not mentioned
 * New Text: [see above]

Neer and Kurke

 * p. 529
 * As for the [cont.]


 * p. 530
 * performance context, the prominent references to Dioysos and the coming of spring strongly suggests a Dionysiac festival. This is more likely to be the City Dionysia in late March than the Anthesteria in late February; for the latter festival, in fact, we have no certain evidence for dithyrambic performances.3
 * Gien Pindar's openoing invocation of the Olympian gods to come to the "all-decorated agora," most scholars have taken the "much-trodden, fragrant-with-incense omphalos" of line 3 ... to designate the Altar of the Twelve Gods in the Athenian agora.4 This Altar was the [cont.]


 * 4 Thus U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Pindaros (Berlin 1992) 274; ...


 * p. 531
 * 'kilometer zero' of Athens, the notional center of the polis as a whole&mdash;or, in Pindar's figure, its omphalos or "navel."5 A natural consequence is that the poem was, in fact, intended for that spot. This venue is not, in itself, especially remarkable. Although one might expect dithyrambs to be performed in the Theater of Dionysos, Xenophon mentions a tradition of choruses "goin around in a circle" in the agora during the Dionysia. These choruses, he says, gratify in addition the other gods and especially the Twelve by singing and dancing."6 As L. R. Farnell [cont.]


 * p. 532
 * and others have argued, Xenophon is probably referring to performances that formed part of the great festal procession that opened the City Dionysia (the pompê). This lavish parade included sacrifices, offerings, and probably both phallophoroi and dithyrambic choruses led by their khorêgoi in their full regalia.7


 * Such a performance context would accord remarkedly well with what we have of Pindar's dithyramb. It helps to explain, for instance, the poems opening invocation of the Olympian gods in a song ostensibly in honor of Dionysos; it might also account for the syntactic simplicity of this song.8 This is then not a dithyramb composed for cometition by one of the tribal chorus of men or boys in a given year, but instead a poem intended for performance by a (perhaps smaller?) choral group circling [cont.]


 * p. 533
 * around the altars od various gods as part of the festival pompê.9 Indeed, if fr. 75 SM was intended to be performed in this way, it is tempting to suggest that Dionysios of Halikarnasos might be quoting a substantial portion of the full texrt of the song (at least a third or a half of the whole), and that it might have been a composition that was performed regularly for many years at the Dionysia (hence its familiarity).10


 * p. 534
 * Thus we consider the identification of Pindar's omphalos with the Altar of the Twelve Gods compelling. But it is worth pausing over the poet's ... Thucydides (6.54.6-7) describes ...


 * p. 535
 * In what follows, we shall argue that Pindar's dithyramb was indeed performed by a kuklios khoros circling the Altar of the Twelve Gods, as most scholars have assumed. But we shall suggest that, in Pindar's lifetime, this monument was located in the old agora of Athens to the east of the Acropolis.

Rutherford 2010

 * [In folder]
 * Online version
 * p. 43
 * It is surprising that an idea apparently so central to Greek religion as the twelve gods or Dodekatheon can be traced back no further than the late sixth century BC. This is when an altar of the twelve gods was set up in the agora at Athens by the archon Peiistratos, son ofHippias, and grandson of Peisistratos the tyrant, in 522 BC, during the regime of Hippias.1 It was a modest square structure, situated in the northwest corner of the agora, discovered during the construction of the Athens-Piraeus railway, and now bisected by it. The altar was the symbolic center of the city: in one of his Dithyrambs for Athens (fr. 75) Pindar calls on the gods who come to the 'incense-rich navel in holy Athens and the glorious, rich adorned agora', on the occasion of the ritual reception of Dionysos there at the Dionysia festival. The striking word 'navel' (ὀμφαλός) suggests Delphi, the navel-stone and the exact centre of the earth, where two eagles let go from the East and West met.2 Distance was measured from the Athenian altar: Herodotus (2.7.1) points out that the distance from the city of Heliopolis in Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea was almost exactly the same as that from the altar of the twelve to Olympia.3 A verse inscription from the fifth century specifies the distance from the altar of the twelve to Peiraeus.4" One gets a glimpse of a well-organized measuring system. Peistratos, who set the altar up, may well have promoted it as the centre of the city and the reference point for measurements. His family seems to have been given to [cont.]


 * 1. Thuc. 6.54.6-7.
 * 2. C. Sourvinou-Inwood, Tragedy and Athenian Religion (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2003).
 * 3 Texts in C. L. Long, Twelve Gods of Greece and Rome (Leiden: Brill, 1987), pp. 62-72.
 * 4. IG II2.2.2 2640; Long, Twelve Gods, pp. 64-5


 * p. 44
 * acts of lasting cultural significance. It was his uncle Hipparchos, after all, who was reputed to have attempted to canonize the performances of the Homer poems.

Seaford 2012

 * p. 79
 * The City Dionysia was established, or at least reorganized and expanded, in the second half of the sixth century (5A0, and may have been susceptible to change thereafter as well. From about the same period there occurred a partial shift of the imagined centre of Athens from the are of the Prutaneion to the agora.21 The Prutaneion traditionally contained the 'common hearth' of the city, and had politically central functions; in uniting Attika Theseus established 'one Prutaneion and one bouleuterion' (Thuc. 2.15). But some of its functions were transferred to the agora, to the prutanikon in its south-western part22 and to the altar of the twelve gods in its north-western part.23 This altar was dedicated by the tyrant Hippias' son Peisistratos, who held high office (archōn) in 522/1, and became the central point of the city from which distances to the city were measured.24 This was probably the 'fragrant navel of the town in sacred Athens' to which in a dithyramb Pindar summoned the gods,25 in all likelihood at the City [cont.]


 * 21 E.g. Hölscher (1991).
 * 23 Fr. 75.3: Lavecchia (2000) 257–60.


 * p. 80
 * Dionysia.26 It seems that one of these 'twelve gods' was Hestia (the goddess who embodies the hearth),27 and moreover that towards the end of the sixth century there was built, in front of the altar of the twelve gods, a ground altar of the type called eschara,28 a word that can be synonymous with hestia, 'hearth'. Traditionally supplication was at the hearth of the house, like that of Odysseus in the house of Alkinoos (IC) and we hear of supplication at the hearth of a Prutaneion (on Naxos).29 But it was at the altar of the twelve gods, not long after its foundation, that the Plataians took up position, when the Athenians were sacrificing there, to ask them for protection.30


 * 26 Sourvinou-Inwood (2003a) 97-8.

Sourvinou-Inwood 2003

 * 
 * p. 69
 * I have argued,9 and will be arguing in a wider context below, that ... the eschara referred to was the eschara in the Agora, near the Altar of the Twelve Gods, where the statue was brought to from the Academy prior to its transfer to the sanctuary.


 * p. 70
 * Xenophon mentions12 in a context in which he is speaking of processions, which, he argues, ought to include a ride around all the shrines in the Agora, that at the Dionysia (which in the context can only mean the Dionysia procession), the dances of choruses gratified in addition (to Dionysus) the Twelve Gods and other gods.


 * p. 91
 * One structure in the Agora which we know had something to do with the Dionysia was the Altar of the Twelve Gods, since, we saw, Xenophon mentions, in a context in which he is speaking of processions, that at the Dionysia, which in the context can only mean the Dionysia procession, the dances gratified in addition to (Dionysos)mthe Twelve Gods and other gods. The formulation may suggest a special emphasis on the Altar of the Twelve Gods, which may indicate that, whatever significance of the choruses dancing at various shrines may have had, other than simply honoring the gods,127 it would have been stronger in the case of the Altar of the Twelve Gods.


 * If, as, we shall see below, is certain, the dithyramb by Pindar to which fragment 75 S-M belongs, was performed at the Dionysia, rather than the Antesteria,128 it would confirm the importance of the [cont.]


 * p. 92
 * Altar of the Twelve Gods at the Dionysia. For the Altar in the Agora referred to could only have been the Altar of the Twelve Gods: only two altars in Athens could have possibly have been called asteos omphalon thyoenta, the hestia at the prytaneion and the Altar of the Twelve Gods; and of the two only the altar of the Twelve Gods fits the overall description and context.


 * Get page 93 ff.?


 * p. 96
 * This brings us to Pindar's dithyramb in praise of Athens to which fragment 75 S-M belongs. I submit that it is likely that this dithyramb was performed at the rite of the xenismos at the eschara in the Agora, in the City Dionysia, that this is the dithyramb sung by the chorus approaching the altar during the sacrifice,143 since this dithyramb is processional.144
 * Δεῦτ ...


 * p. 97
 * That the context for this dithyramb was the City Dionysia is indicated by a series of arguments,145 which I will briefly list here. First,146 it is not ....


 * p. 98
 * In these circumstances, I suggest that there is a strong case in favor of the view that this dithyramb was performed during the xenismos sacrifice at the City Dionysia.154 On my reconstruction this has taken place at the eschara in the Agora. In Pindar's dithyramb the Olympian gods are going to the Altar of the Twelve Gods, with which the eschara formed one cultic complex. So, once again, there is a convergence in the results of the two independent arguments; and this, I submit, offers confirmation for both.


 * p. 122
 * He [Schnurr] denies any connection between the Dionysia270and the New Agora; this means he is obliged to argue that Zenophon Hipparch. 3.2 is not relevant to the city Dionysia procession, and that the fragment of Pindar's dithyramb in praise of Athens, fr. 75 S-M, which he appears to accept pertains to the Dionysia, refers not to the Altar of the Twelve Gods, but to an altar in the Old Agora.271


 * p. 124
 * 10. A sacrifice by the ephebes is mentioned in IG II2 1011. DFA 60 n. 2 suggests that the sacrifice may not have been ...
 * 11. Alkiphron iv.18.16. Of cources ...
 * 12. Xen. Hipparch. 3.2.

Wilson 2003

 * p. 315 n. 34
 * 34 The altar of the Twelve Gods in the Agora is likely to have had an important early role as the conceptual 'centre' of the kyklioi khoroi: the most extended remains of Pindaric dithyramb for Athens call all the Olympians to the khoros at 'the city's crowded, incense-rich navel ... and to the glorious, richly-adorned Agora' (fr. 75, 3–5 M). ... In Xenophon's day there was a choral performance in the context of the City Dionysia's procession which paid special honors to the Twelve Gods (Hipparkh. 3.2).

Wycherley 1957
JSTOR
 * p. 119
 * The altar was set up by the younger Peisistratos in the agora and its length was later increased (Thucydides). The statue of Demosthenes was near the altar and the perischionisma ([Plutarch]).
 * The altar served as a central milestone (Herodotos, I.G. II2, 2640). Its suppliants included the Plataeans (Herodotos), the associates of Pheidias (? Diodorus), and Kallistatos (Lykourgos); cf. Plutarch, Nikias.
 * We hear of dances in honor of the twelve (Xenophon); their priest (I.G. II2, 5065); sacrifices (Herodotus, I.G. II2, 30a); dedications (I.G. I2,829; I.G. II2, 2790 and, with Agathe Tyche, 4564; Agora I 1597); prayers (I.G. II2, 112, 114); treasures (I.G. I2 310).
 * For the site of the altar and for its possible identity with the Altar of Eleos, see '''378n.
 * 363. Diodorus Siculus, XII, 30, 1. 1st c. B,C.
 * In 431 B.C. Cf. Plutarch, Perikles, 31, where we hear that Menon, one of the fellow-workers of Pheidias, was persuaded to sit as a suppliant ἑν ἀγρᾷ."
 * 365. Herodotus, VI, 108, 4 5th c. B.C.
 * In 519 B.C., the Plataeans, opressed by Thebes, appeal to Athens; cf. Thucydides, III, 68, 5.


 * p. 120
 * 366. Lykourgos, Leokrates, 93, 330 B.C.
 * About 355 B.C.
 * 367. Plutarch, Nikias, 13, 2. 1st-2nd c. A.D.
 * In 415 B.C.
 * (698). [Plutarch], Vit. X Orat., 847a. 1st-2nd c. A.D.
 * The statue of Demosthenes stood near the perischoinisma and the altar of the twelve gods.


 * p. 122
 * 378. Agora I 1597. 490–480 B.C.
 * Leagros son of Glaucon dedicated this to the twelve gods.
 * On a base of Pentelic marble set against the west side of a square enclosure in the middle of the northern part of the agora (K 6). The site and the date and character of the remains are appropriate to the shrine of the Twelve, and this inscription makes the identification almost certain; see Hesperia, V, 1936, p. 358; VIII, 1939, p. 160; XXI, 1952, p. 49; Supplement VIII, p. 94. The site is also suitable for the altar of Eleos, in general and particularly with reference to its place in Pausanias' description (177); and the view, already put forward on general grounds, that "altar of Eleos" was a name given in later antiquity to the altar of the Twelve, is now strengthened.


 * NOTE. The opening lines of Pindar, frag. 75 (Snell; 68 Bowra) dithyramb for the Athenians) have been associated by some editors with the altar of the Twelve. The poet invites the Olympian Gods to a festival, apparently of Dionysos (cf. 203)




 * Come hither to the dance, and send us your glorious favor, Olympian gods, who in holt Athens approach the navel of the city, fragrant with incense, and the famous richly adorned agora, to receive garlands of violets and songs gathered in spring.
 * However Pindar's language is quite vague; the altar now proves to be something quite different from a Delphic omphalos; and ἄστεος ὀμφαλόν may mean nothing more precise than "heart of the city."