Rhamnous
Rhamnous ( ancient Greek Ῥαμνοῦς , modern Greek Ραμνούντας ) is an archaeological site near the northeast coast of Attica . Here was a cult site of Nemesis , goddess of compensatory justice and righteous anger (who became the goddess of vengeance), who was worshiped here together with Themis .
The name Rhamnous is derived from the Greek "rhamnos" = hawthorn , a shrub that occurs frequently here.
location
The ancient Demos Rhamnous, of which the remains of a theater and the foundations of several houses have been preserved, lay on a gentle hill above the Gulf of Evia .
The sanctuary of the two goddesses is located south of the acropolis of the ancient community, 39 km northeast of Athens and twelve kilometers north of Marathon, on an artificially created platform on the slope, held by a retaining wall.
history
Rhamnous was fortified as an outpost in the 5th century BC and expanded into a coastal fortress in the 4th century. The fortifications covered an area of about 230 × 270 m. The walls were built from polygonal marble blocks from Agia Marina . The fortress was of strategic importance for the protection of shipping in the Euripos . Protected by the fortified Acropolis, there were two small harbors - one on either side of the fortified hill - through which Athens imported grain during the Peloponnesian War . In the fortress there was a garrison of young Athenian ephebes .
The place from which the orator Antiphon (* 480 BC) came was a popular summer retreat for the Athenians until the 2nd century AD.
The place was already known in antiquity for its sanctuary, described by Pausanias , one of the oldest cult sites of Nemesis, the goddess of revenge. The Greeks regarded nemesis primarily as a concept and deified personification of the moral sense of justice and just retribution.
In the early 5th century BC a small temple (6.15 × 9.9 m) was built, the polygonal masonry of which is still 2 m high right next to the ruins of the Nemesis temple. A local dark marble was used for construction. According to dedicatory inscriptions on two marble armchairs, this temple was dedicated both to the goddess of vengeance, Nemesis, and to Themis , who personified the righteous order. A Themis statue and various other consecration offerings have been unearthed in the cella .
An inscription from the Nemesis temple found in 1989 shows that the Hellenistic king Antigonus II Gonatas received ritual honors from the Athenians in the 3rd century BC together with the goddess Nemesis in Rhamnous. Livia Augusta, the deified wife of Emperor Augustus and Emperor Claudius also received dedications in Roman times . In the second century AD Herodes Atticus donated busts of the emperors Mark Aurel and Lucius Verus as well as a statue of his pupil Polydeukion .
The nemesis cult in Rhamnous was ended in 399 AD by the decree of the Byzantine emperor Arcadius , who ordered the destruction of the remaining pagan temples.
The Temple of Nemesis and Themis
At the site of the Nemesis and Themis temple, a temple with two columns in antis ( Ante temple ) was first built in the 6th century . This was probably destroyed by the Persians in 480.
The destroyed temple was replaced in the late 5th century by a 10.05 × 21.4 m marble temple built on the same site. This was against 440 BC. Erected as a Doric peripterus during the reign of Pericles , when the Parthenon was built in Athens.
The floor plan with surrounding pillars, six of them each on the front and back, is typical of the period of its construction. It is believed that it was designed by the architect Kallikrates , according to whose plans the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens, the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion and the Temple of Ares in Acharnes were built.
The lowest level of the stereobat was built from a local dark marble, the rest of the structure from white marble.
After 440 BC Construction that had begun was interrupted shortly before completion when the Peloponnesian War broke out (431 BC). There were no sculptures on the gable or metopes , but the roof was decorated with figural acroteries . There are no channels on the pillars.
The cult image of the nemesis
The cult image erected in the cella of the temple on a base decorated in relief is described by the travel writer Pausanias from the imperial period as a famous work of colossal proportions. Agorakritos of Paros, a master student of Phidias , executed it in Parian marble. Allegedly a block of marble was used that the Persians, who were certain of victory, had already provided for a triumphal stele.
Numerous marble fragments of the original statue from Rhamnous were used together with a 44 cm high head fragment to reconstruct the 3.55 m high statue; it stood on a base about 90 cm high and 240 cm wide, which could also be reconstructed from original fragments and with the help of Roman relief copies. Original fragments of the cult image, which was smashed by Christians in late antiquity, made it possible to identify a total of eleven Roman copies repeating the original on a smaller scale. The goddess, standing in classical contrapost , held a flat sacrificial bowl ( phial ) in her outstretched right hand and an apple branch in her lowered left hand. An original, but heavily rubbed fragment of the head of the cult image in the British Museum makes the stylistic similarity to the period between 440 and 432 BC. BC gable sculptures of the Parthenon .
literature
- Pausanias: Travels in Greece, Book I (Athens / Attica). Zurich and Munich 1986
- B. Knittlmayer: Cult image and sanctuary of the nemesis of Rhamnous at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War. in: JdI 114, 1999.
- V. Petrakos: Rhamnous, Athens 1991 (English)
Web links
- Sanctuary of Nemesis, Rhamnous in the Arachne archaeological database
- Aerial photography
Single receipts
Coordinates: 38 ° 13 ′ 4 ″ N , 24 ° 1 ′ 37 ″ E