Map of the Acropolis of Athens in Socrates and Plato's time

Credits : this map has been adapted from the map on p. 12 of "L'Acropole, Nouveau guide des monuments et du musée", by Dr G. Papathanassopoulos, Éd. KRÉNÉ, Athens, 1991.

Aglaureion

This sanctuary, built in a crack of the cliff on the northern side of the Acropolis, was dedicated to Aglaurus, one of the daughters of Cecrops, the first king of Athens (see Herodotus' Histories, VIII, 53). It is there that the Athenian ephebes used to take the pledge of allegiance to their homeland, invoking in it Aglaurus, along with Ares and other local and more "universal" divinities.

Altar of Athena

This was a very ancient altar to Athena and Erechtheus, that was used by the various temples that replaced one another on the Acropolis.

Chalcothece

This building, whose name means in Greek "case for bronze (chalcos) vessels", was used as a store-house for bronze artifacts offered to Athena.

Eleusinion

This location, at the foot of the Acropolis below the Propyla, was the probable location of the sanctuary of Demeter, the Goddess whose mysteries were celebrated at Eleusis. It was the starting point of the official precession taking place during the celebration of the Great Mysteries and leading to the Telesterion in Eleusis via the "Sacred Way".

Erechtheion

This temple was built to replace the older temple of Athena and was also dedicated to (and named after) Erechtheus, one of the legendary kings of Athens, later divinized and sometimes identified to Poseidon himself. Its construction started during the peace of Nicias (421-415 B. C.), was interrupted by the resumption of the war and was not completed until 406. At that time, it took over the role of the older temple of Athena as temple dedicated to Athena Polias. The temple was said to be built at the location where Poseidon, in his contest with Athena for the dominion over Attica, in the time of king Cecrops, had struck the rock to make sea water flow and Athena had grown an olive-tree to win the contest (see Herodotus' Histories, VIII, 55).

Odeum of Pericles

See commentary on the map of Athens intra-muros for more on the Odeum of Pericles.

Older temple of Athena

This is the location where several temples to Athena Polias (protector of the city) were successively built, taking advantage of the leveling of the ground that had been done earlier for a Mycenæan palace. The last of these temples dated back from the VIth century B. C., in the time of the Pisistratidæ and had probably been built toward 525 B. C. The temple hosted a wooden statue (xoanon) of Athena that was said to have fallen from the sky. The temple and the statue were destroyed and burned down by the Persians in 480 B. C. After the Medean wars, the temple was partly restored and stayed in use till 406, at which date the xoanon of Athena that had replaced the one burned by the Persians was moved into the Erechteion, now completed.

Panathenaic Way

See commentary on the map of Athens intra-muros for more on the Panathenaic Way.

Pandroseion

This sanctuary was dedicated to Pandrosus, one of the daughters of Cecrops, the first king of Athens . It seems that mystery cults were associated with her name.

Parthenon

The temple of Athena, the Virgin ("parthenos" in Greek) Goddess, protector of Athens, at the top of the Acropolis. Its construction, on the site of two earlier temples to Athena Parthenos, the second of which was yet unfinished when it was destroyed by the Persians in 480 B. C., was ordered by Pericles and took 10 years, from 447 to 438 B. C., date of its inauguration during the Panathenæa of that year, but the decoration was not completed until 432. The architects who built it were Ictinus and Callicrates, working under the leadership of Phidias, a friend and art councelor of Pericles, who sculpted the chryselephantine (meaning "plated with gold ("chrusos" in Greek) and ivory ("elephas, elephantos" in Greek)") statue of Athena that was inside the temple (Thucydides tells us in his Histories, II, 13, 5, that forty talents of pure gold had been used for the plating of the statue, and could be removed in case of financial need).

Peripatos

This Greek word meaning "walk around" was the name of the walkway circling the foot of the Acropolis.

Propyla

The Greek word propulaia means "entrance", or, more specifically, "what stands before the doors (pro-pulai)". The propyla of the Acropolis were built by Pericles as part of his plans to enhance the site and constituted the doorway to the flat top of the sacred rock. Construction started in 437 B. C. and was paid for with the money from the tribute levied on "allies" of the Delian League (see Thucydides' Histories, II, 13, 3). It lasted until 432, but it is possible that the project was never completed because of the Peloponnesian war that broke out soon after.

Sanctuary of Asclepius

This set of buildings, also called Asclepieion, were built close to a spring after the cult of Asclepius, the son of Apollo and god of medicine, had been introduced in Athens in 420 B. C. (Asclepius is the god to whom, according to Plato (Phædo, 118a), Socrates, in his last words before drinking the hemlock, asks Crito to sacrifice a cock.)

Sanctuary of Artemis Braurônia

Braurôn was a location, east of Athens, where the cult of Artemis was celebrated around a statue of the goddess which was said to be the one brought back from Tauris by Orestes and Iphigenia (see Herodotus, VI, 138). Artemis, though often associated with virginity, was celebrated there as the protector of women about to give birth. In the time of Pisistratus, her cult was moved to Athens and this sanctuary built for her.

Sanctuary of Pandion

This sanctuary was dedicated to king Pandion, the father of Erechtheus, or to his great-grandson, aslo named Pandion, who was the grandson of Erechtheus and the father of Ægeus (himself father of Theseus).

Sanctuary of Zeus Polieus

This sanctuary was dedicated to Zeus as protector of the polis (the city), hence the name "polieus".

Statue of Athena Promachos

This gigantic statue (7m high on top of a 2m base) that could be seen from the sea by travellers doubling Cape Sunium, was one of the first works of the great sculptor Phidias. It was erected as a tribute to Athena, the goddess who had "fought for (pro-machos in Greek)" Athens, after the naval victory of Eurymedon over the Persian fleet in 466 B. C. and paid for with the spoils from that victory. It was one of the most famous statues of antiquity.

Temenos and theater of Dionysus Eleuthereus

See commentary on the map of Athens intra-muros for more on the Temenos (Greek of "sacred grounds") and theater of Dionysus Eleuthereus.

Temple of Athena Nike

The construction of that small temple dedicated to Athena as provider of victory (nikè in Greek) was planed in the time of Pericles, and its plans probably drawn by Callicrates, the architect of the Parthenon, but, for lack of money and because of the war, it was not undertaken until 427, that is, two years after Pericles' death, and it was not completed until much later, toward 410.

Tripod Road

This street leading from the agora to the theater of Dionysus by the eastern side of the Acropolis, owed its name to the fact that monuments and tripods erected in memory of their victories at the theater by wealthy citizens selected as choirmasters (chorègoi) were lining up on its sides. It was one of the busiest streets of ancient Athens.