Kynosarges

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Votive stele : a young man brings a bull as a sacrifice for Heracles. Probably from the sanctuary of Heracles Kynosarges. 4th century BC Chr.

The Kynosarges ( Greek  Κυνόσαργες = where the dog stayed ) was one of the three grammar schools in ancient Athens , located in the Demos Diomeia . The Athens district of Kynosargous was named after him.

Sanctuary of Heracles Kynosarges

It owes its name to the sanctuary of Heracles Kynosarges originally located on this site, built by Diomos . According to tradition, Diomos is said to have made a sacrifice to Heracles at his father's hearth. A dog grabbed an offering, ran away, and eventually settled in one place. Diomos followed him and founded the sanctuary of Herakles Cynosarges at this point , as he interpreted what had happened as a divine sign.

This sanctuary was probably located on the hill where the Plateia Kynosargous is today. Cecil Harcourt Smith suspected that the temple of Heracles Kynosarges was in the small park on the site of the church ruins.

Athens high schools

The academy , named after the ancient hero Akademos , whose grave was nearby, was in the northwest of the city, the Lykeion was on the east side and the Kynosarges in the south. The Gymnasion Kynosarges was assigned by the Athenian city administration to the “fake” Athenian citizens, that is: the Athenians who came from mixed marriages with foreigners, for their exercises. Plutarch explained that Heracles, whose sanctuary was named, was not a legitimate god either, since his mother was a mortal. Hard training can help overcome the difference between foreigners and Athenians.

All three grammar schools have become famous for philosophical schools that used the existing space to offer their lessons: the academy by Plato and the Platonists or academics, the Kynosarges by the Socrates student Antisthenes , the founder of the Cynic philosophy, whose mother Thracianess was, and the Lykeion by Aristotle and the Peripatetics .

location

The Kynosarges Gymnasium was south of the Ilisos outside the city wall in front of the Diomese Gate. To the east of the church of Agios Panteleimon on Kallirois Street, a building from the classical period was found , which was covered with a bath in Roman times. A high school was also found 70 m to the east, which is identified with the one mentioned by Pausanias . It is said to have been built by Hadrian and 100 columns are said to have been imported from Africa.

An inscription that was found mentions a dromos, i.e. a stadium , towards Agrai . This stadium was certainly part of the Kynosarges Gymnasium. Since a large flat area was required for a stadium, it can only have been located on the southern bank of the Ilisos between Kallirrhoë and the church of Agios Panteleimon. An inscription forbidding tanners to tan skins on the Ilisos above the Heracles sanctuary was also found. This shows that the sanctuary was also in this area.

history

Tombs from the 10th to 7th centuries BC were found under the foundations of the building identified as the Kynosarges. About this was probably in the 6th century BC. The Kynosarges built. When Athens was sacked by the Persians in 480 BC. BC it was destroyed and shortly afterwards rebuilt by Themistocles . An Ionic capital was found from this period . 200 BC It was destroyed by Philip V. In Roman times, a building was erected on this site, which was converted into a church in Byzantine times . To the east of it, Hadrian built a new gymnasium in 131/2. The road to Sounion ran between the old and the new grammar school .

Both high schools were excavated from the British School at Athens in 1896 and 1897 . At that time this area was still undeveloped - today it is in the middle of Athens. Unfortunately, the excavation results were never published in full and the plans made were lost. In 1969, the archaeologist Olga Alexandri discovered walls between residential buildings, which she could identify as the walls of Hadrian's High School described by Cecil Harcourt Smith.

literature

  • Marie-Françoise Billot: Le Cynosarges. Histoire, mythes et archeology. In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques. Volume 2, CNRS Éditions, Paris 1994, ISBN 2-271-05195-9 , pp. 917-966.
  • Theodoros Eliopoulos: Athens: News from the Kynosarges Site. In: Heide Frielinghaus , Jutta Stroszeck (ed.): New research on Greek cities and sanctuaries. Festschrift for Burkhardt Wesenberg on his 65th birthday (= contributions to the archeology of Greece. Volume 1). Bibliopolis, Möhnesee 2010, ISBN 978-3-933925-91-6 , pp. 85-91.
  • John Travlos : Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens. New York 1980, ISBN 0-87817-267-X , pp. 291, 340-341.
  • Campbell Cowan Edgar: Two Stelae from Kynosarges in Journal of Hellenic studies , Volume 17, London 1897, pp. 174–5 ( online )
  • Ioannis Travlos: Το γυμνάσιον του Κυνοσάργους (The Gymnasium of Kynosarges) in Αρχαιολογικά Ανάλεκτα εξ Αθηνών , Volume 3, Part 1, Athens 1970, pp. 6-14
  • Olga Alexandri: Θεοφιλοπούλου και Κοκκίνη in Αρχαιολογικον Δελτιον Volume 24 (1969), Part B1, Athens 1970, pp. 49-50

Web links

Commons : Kynosarges  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heinrich Wilhelm Stoll : Diomos . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 1,1, Leipzig 1886, column 1027 ( digitized version ).
  2. ↑ Cecil Harcourt Smith: Annual Meeting of Subscribers in Annual Of The British School At Athens , Volume 2, London, p. 23 ( online )
  3. ↑ Plutarch: Themistocles 1,2.
  4. ^ Pausanias: Travels in Greece 1,18,9.
  5. ↑ IG II² 2119, line 128.
  6. ↑ Epigraphic Museum of Athens No. 12553.
  7. ^ John Travlos: Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens. New York 1980, p. 340.
  8. ^ John Percival Droop : Dipylon Vases from the Kynosarges Site in Annual Of The British School At Athens , Volume 12, London, pp. 80–92 ( online )
  9. ↑ Pieter Rodeck: The Ionic Capital of the Gymnasium of Kynosarges in Annual Of The British School At Athens , Volume 3, London, pp. 89-105 ( online )
  10. ↑ Titus Livius : The History of Rome , 31, 24, 17
  11. ↑ Cecil Harcourt Smith: Annual Meeting of Subscribers in Annual Of The British School At Athens , Volume 2, London, p. 24
  12. ↑ Theofil Sauciuc-Saveanu : A Hadrian letter and the Hadrian School in Athens in communications from the Imperial German Archaeological Institute, Athenian department , Volume 37, Volume 1, Athens 1912, p 183 ( online )

Coordinates: 37 ° 57 ′ 57 ″  N , 23 ° 43 ′ 55 ″  E