Skias (Sparta)

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Plan of Sparta, No. III, location of the Skias proposed by Emanuele Greco

The Skias ( ancient Greek σκιάς skiás "shade roof ") was an assembly building in ancient Sparta . According to Pausanias , the Ekklesia , the people's assembly, of the city met here .

Sources

When describing the city, Pausanias mentions that on a street leading away from the agora there is a building called Skias for the Ekklesia , the people's assembly, which was still used as such in his time. It was built by Theodoros of Samos , who also invented the smelting of iron and the making of figures from this material. The Spartans hung up the kithara of Timotheos of Miletus here to express their displeasure with his innovations in music, because Timotheus had increased the classical number of seven strings of the instrument by four.

Theodoros of Samos was an architect, versatile inventor and artist who was mentioned many times in ancient sources from Herodotus to Pliny , who soon after the middle of the 6th century BC. BC experienced its heyday . The design of the Skias in Sparta is given in the Etymologicum magnum , a medieval dictionary of the Greek language , as an odeion with a round outline. It is therefore usually assumed that it was a tholos-like rotunda. The indication of the Etymologicum is suggested by ancient lexicons, which equate the term Skias with the term Tholos . In the case of the Tholos on the Athens agora , they even indicate that their real name was Skias . Nonetheless, Conrad M. Stibbe , for example, contradicted this, who considered this reconstruction approach to be erroneous. Overall, the research community agreed that a people's assembly could not be held in a Tholos-like building. On the other hand, the skias must have been covered, which is not only suggested by the name "shade roof", but also by the fact that a kithara that had to be permanently protected from the weather was hung here.

Archaeological evidence

In 2011, Emanuele Greco and Enzo Lippolis came to the conclusion independently of one another that they identified the Skias of Sparta with a circular structure known since 1893. Charles Waldstein excavated a large round building in 1893 and interpreted it as the round building ( οἰκοδόμημα περιφερές ) next to the Skias, which housed the statues of the Olympian Zeus and the Aphrodite . Most of the time, Waldstein's interpretation was approved; with a few exceptions, no further discussion about the interpretation of the findings took place.

The building, whose stratigraphic findings up to the middle of the 6th century BC. Dating back to BC, had a diameter of 41.30 meters. Due to the different floor levels, an almost 5 meter high wall surrounding the round building complex can be reconstructed. The inner walking horizon may have to be set a little lower so that the wall there also formed a low parapet. In the center there was a wall-free circular building built from columns with a radius of 8.58 meters. The distances between the column bases that have been preserved allow the reconstruction of 16 column positions. Due to the small base width of 0.40 meters with a column spacing of about 3.37 meters, it can be assumed that the following beam was made of wood. Weak foundations between the column bases could be due to heavy walls, with the help of which the intercolumns were closed to an indefinite height. Emanuele Greco and Ottavia Voza suggested using the entire facility as follows: The cithara of Timotheos hung in the inner, tholos-like, but wallless rotunda, the interior itself served musical lectures, while the surrounding round platform accommodated the audience. In this sense he served the “people's assembly”. At the same time, the building formed the early form of an odeion - a building for performances of singing and instrumental music as well as for recitations. A use comparable to the Tholos of Athens, however, is to be excluded.

literature

  • Emanuele Greco: With Pausanias (and Others) in the Agora of Sparta. In: Andrea Ercolani, Manuela Giordano (Ed.): Submerged Literature in Ancient Greek Culture. Volume 3: The Comparative Perspective. De Gruyter, Berlin et al. 2016, pp. 113–130
  • Emanuele Greco, Ottavia Voza: For a Reconstruction of the “Round Building” at Sparta as the Skias. In: Costas Zambas, Vassilis Lambrinoudakis, Evangelia Simantoni-Bournia, Aenne Ohnesorg (ed.): Architekton. Timetikos tomos gia ton kathegete Manole Korre (Honorary volume for Professor Manolis Korres). Ekdotikos Oikos Melissa, Athens 2016, pp. 343-350 ( digitized version ).

Remarks

  1. ↑ Pausanias 3:12, 10.
  2. ↑ Heiner Knell : Theodoros 1. In: Der Neue Pauly (DNP). Volume 12, Metzler, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-476-01470-3 , column 322 f.
  3. ↑ Etymologicum magnum sv Σκιάς ( digitized version ).
  4. ↑ For example, Photios sv σκιάς , and Suda sv σκιάς ; see also Valerius Harpokration , who refers to Ammonios' von Lamptrai work περὶ βωμῶν (About Altars) from the 1st century: Valerius Harpokration sv θόλος .
  5. ^ Conrad M. Stibbe : The other Sparta. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1996, p. 306.
  6. ↑ Enzo Lippolis: Κυκλικά κτήρια και πολιτικές λειτουργίες στις αγορές της Ελλάδας (Buildings of Circular Plan and Political Functions in the Agorai of Greece). In: Aggeliki Giannikouri (ed.): Η Αγορά στη Μεσόγειο από τους ομηρικούς έως τους ρωμαϊκούς χρόνους χρόνους (times The Agora in the Mediterranean from International Homeric to Roman. 2011), 14-17 April 2011 Αρχαιολογικό Ινστιτούτο Αιγαιακών Σπουδών , Athens 2011, pp. 15-30; Emanuele Greco, Ottavia Voza and others: Per un nuovo rilievo dell'edificio circolare sull'acropoli di Sparta. In: Annuario della Scuola archeologica di Atene. Volume 87, 2009, pp. 1163-1166 ( digitized version ).
  7. ↑ Pausanias 3:12, 11.
  8. ^ Charles Waldstein: Reports on Excavations at Sparta in 1893. In: American Journal of Archeology . Volume 8, 1893, pp. 410-428; the same: The Circular Building of Sparta. In: American Journal of Archeology. Volume 9, 1894, pp. 545 f. ( Digitized version ).
  9. ↑ Fernand Robert: Thymélé. Recherches sur la signification et la destination des monuments circulaires dans l'architecture religieuse de la Grèce (= Bibliothèque des Ecoles françaises d'Athènes et de Rome. Volume 47). Boccard, Paris 1939, pp. 110-117.
  10. ^ Emanuele Greco, Ottavia Voza: For a Reconstruction of the "Round Building" at Sparta as the Skias. In: Costas Zambas, Vassilis Lambrinoudakis, Evangelia Simantoni-Bournia, Aenne Ohnesorg (ed.): Architekton. Timetikos tomos gia ton kathegete Manole Korre (Honorary volume for Professor Manolis Korres). Ekdotikos Oikos Melissa, Athens 2016, pp. 343–350, here p. 349.