Archaic Athens II - The Birth of Democracy (528 BC -494 BC)
ARCHAIC ATHENS II - THE BIRTH OF DEMOCRACY (528 BC -494 BC)
It could fairly be said that Peisistratos laid the foundations of future Athenian greatness. He was undoubtedly a man of great ability, and perhaps for that reason, his tyranny was generally accepted.
After Peisistratos’s death in 527 BC the Athenians, having appreciated his work, confided the government of the city in his sons, Hippias, Hipparchos, Hegesistratos (widely known under the appellation ‘Thessalian’), and Hiophon. His successors are known as the
Peisistratidai. Hippias was at the head of political planning, Hipparchos became known for his intellectual interests, while Hegesistratus was a man of military virtue. The fact which put their tyrrany under tottering was the assassination of Hipparchos at the Leokoreion in the Agora by Harmodios and Aristogeiton in 514. The motives for the murder were personal, since Hippias prohibited Harmodios’s sister participation as a kaneforos at the festival of Panathenaia of that year; however, the nomination of the two young men as glorious conveyors of the ideal of democracy (‘Tyrannicides’) and the erection of two statues in their honour in the Agora (490 BC) imply that political causes, too, had a share in this violent act. Hippias continued to rule for 30 years thereafter, using violence frequently and under pressure to increase taxes, since the Persians forbade the exploitation of the rich deposits of Mt. Paggaeon. In 511-10 BC, Ηippias fortified the hill of Munychia, overlooking Phaleron, where the warships were beached. The powerful Alkmeonid family then engineered his overthrow by calling upon the aid of King Kleomenes of Sparta. Wealthy patrons of Delphi, the Alkmeonids bribed the oracle to urge the Spartans to free Athens. Two attempts were necessary, but a Spartan army drove away the Thessalian cavalry which Ηippias had summoned to his aid, and besieged him on the Acropolis. When some of his children, hiding in the lower city, were caught by the besiegers, he surrendered and left under safe conduct.
The Spartan king then tried to interfere in the internal affairs of Athens in support of his ally Isagoras, in his rivalry with Kleisthenes, head of the powerful Alkmeonid clan, and expelled the latter, but when the Spartans withdrew, Kleisthenes placed himself at the head of the people against the return to power of the discredited aristocracy. He ostensibly 'took the people into partnership' and profoundly reformed the government of Athens in 507 B.C. These changes clearly had two purposes: to destroy once and for all the persistent and divisive loyalties to rival local leaders, and to create a situation of isonomia, or equality before the law, with an equal chance for everyone to participate in the government of the city. In this way he sought to defuse the divisions between rival families and between social classes which had so rent the life of the city before Peisistratos had imposed his tyranny, and at the same time remove the local bases of their power.
Every Athenian citizen was enrolled in one of the new 'tribes', depending upon where they lived. The land of Attica was divided into three large areas representing the power bases of the main rival clans: the south-western shore, the city and its surrounding plain, and the land beyond the surrounding mountains. Each of the tribes was allotted people who lived in one area of each of these regions, and these areas were deliberately not adjacent to each other.
The ten tribes each sent fifty members, chosen by lot, to a new council, called the Boule, or Council of the Five Hundred. The year was divided into ten parts, and one tenth of the council, the Prytany, would meet during each period. The Prytany would prepare the agenda for the ekklesia, a function they probably took over from the Areopagus, which retained only limited judicial functions. Α Bouleuterton was built for the meetings of the council on the west of the agora. As a further measure against the division of the people into factions by the ambitions of powerful rival individuals, Kleisthenes also introduced the legal process of ostracism. The Assembly would vote each year on whether to hold an ostracism. If the vote was positive, a day would be appointed upon which the people would vote whom to exile. They would write the name of their choice on an ostrakon, or potsherd. If 6,000 citizens participated, the person whose name appeared on most ostraka had to leave the city within ten days, and could not return for ten years.
Although Kleisthenes' motives may have been limited to gaining short-term advantage against rivals, his reforms provided the foundations for the world's first known democracy. It is one thing to empower the people, and another for them to possess the self confidence to employ that power. It was to be twenty years before these new rights were exercised, but by that time events had conspired to endow the people of Athens with precisely that spirit of self-confidence which would enable them to take their destiny into their own hands.
URBAN ACHIEVEMENTS OF THIS PERIOD:
During this whole period, the image of the city was enriched. A great emphasis was shown for the execution of public works, which now acquired monumental proportions.
At the sanctuary of the Acropolis, as at other contemporary sanctuaries, an intense building activity is noted. Amongst the preserved remains we can make out those of two temples of big dimensions: of the
Old Temple of Athena (529 BC - 520 BC – according to a group of scholars this was the second phase of the temple after a former phase around 570 BC); of the
Hekatompedos (570 BC – 566 BC), built at the north part of the rock, next to the older temple of Athena of the 8th century BC, and rebuilt several times, the Parthenon being its splendid upshot. A rearrangement of the entrance of the Acropolis to the east and the foundation of a nearby altar to the cult of Athena Nike should be dated to the second quarter of this century. In parallel with the great temple or temples, there have also been found several architectural fragments and architectural sculptures of the mid-6th century BC which appertained to smaller structures of obscure position and function, the
oikimata; in terms of morphology they are reminiscent of the treasuries of the panhellenic sanctuaries and might have sheltered offerings and valuable objects. Besides, in the 6th cent. the space of the Acropolis began to be rife with votive offerings (e.g the Korai ) which surpassed those of the preceding years in wealth, in size and in artistic value and demonstrated the city’s political power and economic prosperity. The establishment of the sanctuary of
Dionysos Eleuthereus and the construction of a small temple in honour of the god at the South Slope of the Acropolis also dates back around the end of the 6th century BC, in the governing of the Peisistratids or a little later.
In the second and third quarter of the 6th century BC the Agora was extended gradually eastward and southward. Older wells were covered and earlier houses were demolished in order to facilitate the erection of new buildings and other structures at the place previously used for settlement and as a burial ground. The
Altar of the Twelve Gods (522/1 BC) at the northwest entrance of the Agora, placed at the junction of the main communication lines of the city, served as an asylum (place of refuge) and as a starting-point for the measurement of the road distances. Very close to the Altar traces of the
Leokoreion were tracked down. It was located at crossroads of today Ermou and Melidoni streets next to Kerameikos.
Despite this map shows how Athens looked like during the Classical and Hellenistic times it gives us some hints of the later 6th century look of the city, so you can compare it with the descripitions given in the above paragraph as well as the one below.
At the south edge of the west side
Building F (550 BC – 525 BC), destroyed by the Persians in 480, might have been used as a palace or as headquarters of Peisistratos and his successors. At the southwest corner of the Agora square there was the lawcourt of
Heliaia (middle of 6th century), while at the southeast corner, where some of the houses remained in use during the third quarter of the 6th cent., the Southeast Fountainhouse was built (530 – 520 BC). In the centre of the Agora, an area which hosted various theatrical-dancing events and exhibitions, a circular
Orchestra was constructed (6th cent. BC) where dramatic and musical competitions took place. Close to it, at the spot much later occupied by the
Odeion of Agrippa, there might have been the shrine of
Dionysos Lenaios. The
Panathenaic Way crossed the Agora diagonally, thus connecting the northwest part of the city with the Acropolis. Two inscriptions from the Agora make mention of a repair of the
Dromos of the Agora, which the great procession crossed during the celebration of the Panathenaic festival. The beginning of the Dromos must have been a little north of the Altar of the Twelve Gods, in front of the
Hermai, and its end near the Eleusinion. Along with the erection of new buildings, an embellishment of the whole space of the Agora was attempted. In the last quarter of the 6th century BC a big sewage system, which flew into Eridanos river, was constructed at the west side of the Agora to drain away rain waters. Thus, during the second half of the 6th cent. BC the Agora acquired its basic form, on the plan of which it developed in the subsequent centuries.
Southeast of the Acropolis, in the area of thr Olympieion, the Peisistratids initiated the project of the erection of the huge temple of Olympian Zeus, emulating the gigantic temples of Samos, Ephesos and Miletos. The temple remained unfinished and was never completed in practice until the Roman times (in the reign of the emperor Hadrian, 2nd century A.D.). At short distance from the Olympieion, near the bed of Ilissos River, an irrigation work of paramount importance was constructed, the so-called Enneakrounos (fountain with nine water-spouts), into which the water of the spring Kallirhoe was canalized. At the same side of the city Peisistratos the Younger consecrated a monumental altar to Apollo Pythios (522/1 BC). Southwest of the later temple of Apollo Delphinios and in contact with it lay the Lawcourt at the Delphinion, a late archaic structure (around 500 BC) which was repaired between the end of the 4th and the beginning of the 3rd century BC.
The widening of the Athenian influence on the Greek political scenery during the second half of the 6th cent. is vividly reflected in Delphi as well. The aristocratic family of the Alkmaeonids, being antagonistic towards the tyrants, strived to obtain political benefits from their active involvement in the political life and in the external affairs of Athens; therefore they undertook the funding of a big part of the works for the erection of the fifth temple of Apollo (the denominated ‘temple of the Alkmaeonids’) between the years 525 BC – 505 BC, after the destruction of its predecessor because of a fire in 548 BC.
By contrast to public architecture, the number and form of the private houses of this period cannot be determined but only approximately. With the exception of a few sporadic remains at the whole north side of Areopagus, no other traces of residences have come to light in the immediate environs of the Agora. Our knowledge of the layout of archaic Athens is equally limited. No concrete town planning appears to have existed; the streets of the city were in their majority narrow and irregular in shape, while the inhabitants built their houses arbitrarily (an inference also drawn from the extremely stringent rules issued by Hippias on this matter).
It seems that from the beginning of the 6th cent. BC most of the burial spots had been transposed out of the city walls; the only organized (family) cemetery of these years has been located west of the Areopagus. From the middle of the century onwards another organized cemetery was in operation in the outer Kerameikos, near the Dipylon.
The periphery of the rest of Attica was treated with special care by the tyrants. The old sanctuary of Demeter in Eleusis was enclosed by a big surrounding wall, while an early temple was built at the sanctuary of Artemis in Brauron in honour of the goddess and the demos of Thorikos was adorned with the oldest known theatre of Attica (late 6th century BC). In the 6th cent. BC the three most famous Gymnasia of ancient Athens (those of Academy, of Lykeion, and of Kynosarges) were founded by the state at a considerable distance from the city.
Through all these interventions and modifications, Athens began to achieve specific form as a city in the 6th century BC After the end of the tyrannical regime and the experience the citizens had on every type of institutional change, the transition to political stability and, finally, to democracy was to be undertaken by Megakles’s son and Alkmeon’s grandson Kleisthenes.
This period is characterized by the scheme for the social and political reorganization of Attica. As far as the city of Athens is concerned, in this whole period a startling development in population and in settlement rates took place which, unfortunately, could not be fully imprinted in the archaeological record because of the evacuation of the city, the movement of its population to Troizen, to Salamis and to Aegina and the subsequent destruction of the city by the Persians in 480/79 BC. From the excavation data we are informed that in the lower city new public buildings were raised to shelter various branches of the new polity, thus rendering the Agora the political nucleus of Athens on permanent basis. The limits of the Agora were formally defined by a series of marble boundary stones, the horoi(ca. 500 BC), which were placed at the entrances of the square and served religious and practical expediencies. The
Old Bouleuterion (ca. 500), along the west side, was destined to accommodate the members of the Athenian Boule of the 500. At the northwest corner of the Agora, the
Royal Stoa (around 500 BC – according to others in the mid-6th century BC or even after 480 BC) constituted the seat of the archon-king, the second in hierarchy official of the city; close to it the elaborate
Altar of Aphrodite Ourania was built (around 500 BC), yet it is unknown whether it was accompanied by a temple. A new place for the gathering of the Athenians was established on the
Pnyx Hill, where the citizens’ Assembly would hold their meetings at regular dates thereafter. What is more, apart from the old temple of Athena south of the later Erechtheion, whose construction is dated to these years by some researchers, numerous votive offerings adorned the Acropolis.
In the echo of the decisive prevalence of the Greeks over the Persians at Marathon (490 BC), a series of buildings were constructed in Athens in commemoration of the glorious victory.
At the field of Marathon, where the great battle took place, the dead Athenians were cremated and buried at the spot where they met death; a massive mound covered their remains as a tumulus (Tomb of Marathon), and at the same time a victory trophy was set up at the same area. A second burial place, discovered at the neighbouring region of Vrana, has been reluctantly identified as the Tomb of the Plataians, allies of the Athenians at Marathon. Miltiades, the leader of the Greek army during the battle, who might have been buried at the battlefield as well, dedicated his bronze helmet at the sanctuary of Zeus in Olympia in token of his gratitude to the god.
The cults of several minor divinities, semi-gods and heroes (e.g. Theseus, Pan, Nemesis) were in blossom after 490 BC, as they were thought of by the Athenians as helpers of the Greeks during the battle of Marathon. One of them was Pan, to whose cult was dedicated a small cave on the North Slope of the Acropolis. Herakles, who was very popular in Athens already from the time of Peisistratos and his sons, acquired an extra bond with Marathon; not only had the Athenians encamped at Herakles’s sanctuary before the battle, but also the spring of the area was named Makaria after Herakles’s daughter.
Soon after 490 BC a new temple was raised on the Acropolis in honour of Athena, the
Pro-Parthenon, predecessor of the classical Parthenon which occupied the space where the latter was later built. The sanctuary of Zeus Polieus on the rock must have been founded around these years, too. On the contrary, reduced mobility is observed in the Agora.
Aside from Marathon, important projects were implemented in the rest of Attica and outside it. On cape Sounion the erection of the temple of Poseidon was inaugurated, while the sanctuary of Nemesis in Rhamnous was adorned with a small Doric temple which housed the marble cult statue of Nemesis made by Agorakritos. At the panhellenic sanctuary of Apollo in Delphi we find around these years the Treasury of the Athenians (others claim that it had been dedicated already from 507 BC), as well as bronze statues which depicted Apollo, Athena, old kings of Athens and the general Miltiades along the Sacred Way (Iera Odos).
HOW THE ACROPOLIS LOOKED LIKE BEFORE CLASSIC TIMES:
The columns of the northern wall were first studied in 1807 by the eminent W.M. Leake, who climbed the steep rock. Leake, concluded that: the columns drums should belong to that older temple, that mentions Esyquios when he refers to the newly constructed Parthenon.
Thus began the study of the Proparthenon that, according to Leake, it was slightly smaller than the Parthenon and certainly a previous to the Persian wars construction. The Leake’s job was continued by Ross, in 1835, with excavations to the west and to the south of the Parthenon, revealing us the following:
- The foundations of Parthenon is in the biggest part that of an older temple. This part constitutes the visible pedestal of an older temple. From the dimensions of pedestal (31,4x76,8 m.) it is concluded that this temple was also very big and with rather oblong proportions.
- In the Eastern part of the Parthenon the huge pedestal does not fit the classic temple, as it is longer, by almost 5 metres, than the first level of the stairs.
- The foundations of Parthenon is in the biggest part that of an older temple. This part constitutes the visible pedestal of an older temple. From the dimensions of pedestal (31,4x76,8 m.) it is concluded that this temple was also very big and with rather oblong proportions.
- In the Eastern part of the Parthenon the huge pedestal does not fit the classic temple, as it is longer, by almost 5 metres, than the first level of the stairs.
Today the crowds that visit the Acropolis, after having passed through the Propylaia, trample upon the ruins of a temple without any suspicion that they are in a place of particular significance, noticing only the Erechtheion to the left and the Parthenon to the right. But this very fact indicates that in the plan of the Acropolis as conceived by Pericles these ruins occupied a central position. When the Acropolis was rebuilt in the second half of the fifth century B.C., in the wake of Athens’ final victory over the Persians, the Propylaia were given a new orientation in order to direct attention to these ruins. Those who ascended the Acropolis, after having passed through Pericles’ Propylaia, had their view and way barred by the wall that supported the Terrace with the ruins of the Old Temple of Athena. This temple had been sacked, burned and wrecked by the Persians when in 480 B.C. the Athenians, for the sake of the national resistance to the barbarian invaders, made the extreme sacrifice of abandoning their homes and temples to the enemy. The ruins of this temple were the monument of Athens’ greatest claim to glory, a claim that was used to justify Athens’ assumption of the leadership of the Greek world and further to justify the transformation of this leadership into imperial domination. The Athenians wanted to bare their wounds, wounds that were proffered as the main rationale for Athenian policy in the fifth century B.C. Because the Athenians did not want to obliterate the memorial of the Persian invasion, the temple that was intended to replace the destroyed temple, the one popularly called the Parthenon, was not erected on top of the old one, as might have been expected, but to the south of it.
The ruins were given further emphasis by placing against their supporting Terrace and on the axis of the Propylaia a bronze statue of Athena, known as Athena Promachos, that reached the colossal height of about thirty meters. Since it was erected when the construction of the Parthenon was beginning, it follows that statue and temple were part of a single conception. The ancient visitors to Pericles’ Acropolis, after having been properly impressed by this towering statue, directly on the axis of the new Propylaia, had to continue their way by turning to the right and passing between the long side of the ruins of the Old Temple and the long side of the Parthenon.
The route taken by the ancient visitors was substantially the course of the Sacred Way, designed for Athens’ greatest ceremony, the Panathenaic Procession. After having formed outside the main gate of the city on the bank of the river Eridanos, which represented the westernmost limit of the world, the procession reached the end of its trek by passing between the ruins of the Temple of Athena that had been destroyed by the enemy and the Temple of Athena that had been erected as a piously necessary replacement for it. Upon reaching the top of the hill, the procession reached its final goal by turning to the right to encounter the image of Athena Parthenos in the Parthenon. In earlier times, before the destruction of the Old Temple, the procession had passed through the earlier Propylaia in a more northerly direction and, after ascending the Terrace, continued along the northern flank of the Old Temple, before turning right to reach the image of Athena Polias inside this temple. It is remarkable that the altar of Athena, as far as we are able to establish, continued to be in front of the ruins of the Old Temple. If the modern visitors to the Acropolis were forced to follow the Sacred Way, instead of swarming like a mob of barbarians over the ruins of the Old Temple, not only would they be taught the proper respect for the views and feelings of the ancient Athenians, but also would be led to grasp the esthetic organization of Pericles’ Acropolis as a whole.
The modern visitors cannot be blamed if they look at the Acropolis without any sense of its religious and intellectual significance, because this is the way in which it has been seen by archaeologists. The present conception of ancient studies manifests itself most clearly in the way the Acropolis is seen by scholars: it is seen as a living room full of bric-a-brac displayed for its supposed antiquarian, sentimental or decorative value in order to enhance the prestige of its owner. Not one scholar has even tried to see the Acropolis as an organic structure. But if we consider with unprejudiced eyes the spatial organization of the Acropolis, it becomes clear that the heart of the Acropolis is the Terrace of the Old Temple.
In the Mycenaean Age, even before the Acropolis became a citadel by the construction of a defense wall around it, its most important structure was a terrace which with slight modifications became the Terrace of the Old Temple. Archaeological investigations have revealed that the Terrace of the Old Temple is the oldest known substantial construction on the Acropolis; it dates from the very close of the Bronze Age, presumably about 1300 B.C. At that time the Acropolis was not fortified. Access to the Terrace was gained by ascending the Acropolis from the north side and then stepping onto the Terrace by a staircase, oriented from north to south, which ended where there was later the east side (backside) of the rectangle of the altar.
At the close of the Mycenaean Age, presumably ca. 1000 B.C., the Acropolis was fortified by constructing a megalithic wall, the Pelasgic Wall, which extended the area of the Acropolis to the maximum allowed by the natural features of the ground. This wall followed an irregular curved course determined by the need to exploit the characteristics of the rock. The entrance was rotated ninety degrees to the west and was made to run between the supporting wall of the Terrace and the new line of fortification. The wall was similar in conception and in type of construction to the fortification wall of Tiryns. At this time the Acropolis became a place of refuge for the surrounding population in case of attack, whereas before it must have been merely a religious and political center.
Either at the time of the construction of the fortification wall or soon thereafter, the Acropolis was provided with a second gate, located at the southwest corner, where the ascent is more gentle. Today visitors ascend from this side. In order to protect this entrance which, for the same reason that it was more convenient was most dangerous in case of attack, there was constructed a bastion (pyrgos), extending to the west, which later became the support of the Temple of Athena Nike. The gate was just to the north of this bastion.
Practically nothing is known about the history of the Acropolis from the close of the Mycenaean Age to the Persian invasion of 480 B.C. As far as we know, the system of fortifications was still the original one at the time of the Persian invasion. The only modification was the opening of the fortification line in correspondence with the western gate.
The opening of the fortifications of the Acropolis was achieved by constructing a decorative entrance hall with columns, the propylaia, which replaced the fortified western gate. The foundations of these Propylaia have been found below the foundations of the much larger and more monumental Propylaia constructed later by Pericles. Apparently the Propylaia were erected by the early democracy, damaged by the Persians, repaired in some way after their withdrawal, and finally demolished when Pericles sponsored the construction of completely new Propylaia, designed by the architect Mnesicles (437-432 BC).
Whereas the later Propylaia of Pericles were oriented so as to face the western wall of the Terrace of the Old Temple, the first Propylaia were oriented about 30 degrees more to the north. This indicates that at the time the most important area of the Acropolis, after the Terrace, was that north of the Terrace, between the north wall of the Acropolis and the north wall of the Terrace. The pre-Persian Propylaia were oriented to what was then the most important area of the Acropolis and remained forever the most holy one, the side against the north wall. They were aimed exactly to a point just north of the present North Portico, where the olive of Athena grew inside the ancient Erechtheion. After the Persians reduced this temple to rubble and the olive tree to a smoldering stump, the Erechtheion was rebuilt so that its western wall came to form a backdrop for it, allowing visitors to admire its new shoots (Herodotos VIII.55). Earlier, there had been a road that went from the Propylaia to the olive tree, coasting the north side of the Terrace that supported the Old Temple of Athena. We may presume that within the original fortified Acropolis the main internal road went from the north gate to the west gate, passing along the north side of the Terrace. At the time of the construction of the first Propylaia there was a staircase of access to the Terrace from the north side. It was only after the withdrawal of the Persians, when the area of the Acropolis was extended to the south in preparation for the construction of the Parthenon, that the most important road within the Acropolis, that followed the Panathenaic Procession from the western gate to the altar, was made to skirt the south side of the Terrace. Let us remember that the Terrace of the Old Temple was still standing in the Periclean age, although at the middle of it there were only ruins. The Persians had razed the Old Temple to the ground, or almost to the ground.
There is an extreme conservatism in the history of the architectural arrangement of the Acropolis. When the Acropolis was built up in the Mycenaean Age, before it was surrounded by a fortified wall, the main structure was the wall that retained the Terrace which became later the Terrace of the Old Temple. This Terrace was still the main feature of the Acropolis when the Persians seized Athens in 480 B.C. At the time of the Persian invasion the circuit of the walls of the Acropolis was essentially what it had been at the end of the Mycenaean Age and the Temple of Athena was about at the center of it. This fortified wall remained substantially the defense line when the Persians stormed the Acropolis. When the Acropolis was rebuilt after the Persian destruction, the line of the walls was radically changed on the west by the construction of the Periclean Propylaia and on the south side by the erection of the Cimonian Wall, but on the north side it remained essentially what it had been in the Mycenaean Age. In the Periclean Acropolis the Terrace of the Old Temple was no longer the main element, but it remained the focal point around which all the rest was organized spatially.
This architectural conservatism of the Athenian Acropolis affects the matter that concerns us the most here. We shall see that the Old Temple of Athena shows characteristics that are unusual in a Greek temple, but are the result of the fact that this temple follows closely the internal organization and dimensions of a Mycenaean Royal Megaron. We shall see that the Periclean Parthenon was planned to follow many of the internal details and dimensions of the Old Temple, so that one must turn to Mycenaean architecture to explain some of the aspects of the Parthenon.
The Old Temple of Athena:
In the preceding pages it was have emphasized that for the ancient Athenians the remains of the Temple of Athena destroyed by the Persians in 480 B.C. were the most important monument of their history. Not only was the Old Temple the center of the Acropolis before 480 B.C.; its ruins remained the focus of the reconstruction of the Acropolis after the Persian Wars. These fundamental points have been obscured by the circumstance that the true location of the Old Temple was established late in the history of the investigations of the monuments of the Acropolis.
In the course of the nineteenth century scholars searched for the ruins of the temple destroyed by the Persians (Old Temple) under the foundations of the Parthenon. Since the ancient texts emphasize that the Parthenon was a larger replacement for the destroyed Old Temple, it seemed logical to assume that the new temple was built on top of the temple it was intended to replace. But what was not realized was that the ruins of the Old Temple had become sacred as such, as a monument to the Persian destruction. For this reason the Parthenon was built to the south of the Old Temple parallel to it. We shall see that the placing of the new temple in this location created serious engineering problems and a costly extension of the area of the Acropolis to the south. But the Athenians could not conceive of obliterating the area of the Old Temple under the foundations of the Parthenon.
From 1885 to 1889 the Curator of Antiquities Panagotis Kavvadias, assisted by the German architect Georg Kawerau, conducted a systematic campaign of excavations on the Acropolis, which in most areas removed the entire soil to reach the level of natural rock. This process of removing all accumulated layers of material was conducted with particular thoroughness around the Parthenon. As an immediate result of these excavations Wilhelm Dörpfeld was able to recognize that the Old Temple, the temple destroyed by the Persians in 480 B.C., was located in the middle of the Terrace, to the north of the Parthenon. Up to the time of these excavations, nobody had thought of searching in this area, even though the Periclean Propylaia point to it as the key location of the Acropolis.
The Persians did such a thorough job in wreaking vengeance on the Athenians who had eluded them, that Dörpfeld did not find in place any element of the Temple structure above ground level, except for an occasional piece of the stylobate of the peripteros. Even though only the foundations of the Old Temple remained in place, Dörpfeld proved his exceptional skill in tectonic archaeology by reliably reconstructing the main features and dimensions of the Old Temple from these remains. One can gather a great deal of information from his report, although it has been marred by his having started his observational task with the preconceived notion that the Old Temple was planned by the so-called Aiginetic foot of 328 mm. This made even more difficult the already arduous task of inferring from the foundations the arrangement and structure of the visible parts; but in spite of this Dörpfeld produced a masterpiece of archaeological documentation. There is general agreement that the discovery and reconstruction of this temple is one of the major achievements of Dörpfeld. Today nobody disputes the main points of his reconstruction, and my metric analysis proves that it is even sounder than may have been believed.
Dörpfeld was able to establish that the Old Temple underwent three stages of construction.
a) In a first phase, which we will call Old Temple I, the temple was a simple rectangular construction without outside columns, of the type that archaeologists call megaron. Dörpfeld understood that this temple was planned in what he called Solonian feet (Roman feet in my terminology), and therefore dated it in the age of Solon. But this temple can be dated a century earlier because of its archaic features.
b) In a second period this temple was completely remodeled by adding to the original structure a colonnade an each of the two fronts, which changed it into an amphiprostyle temple (Old Temple II). Since a very substantial part of the decoration of this temple, made of painted poros limestone, has been found scattered through the Acropolis, it is possible on stylistic grounds to set the date of construction in the first third of the sixth century B.C. Since we know that the festival of the Panathenaic Pro-cession began to be celebrated in 564 B.C., there is a possibility that this is the date of the consecration of Old Temple II.
c) Finally the temple was changed into a peripteral one by erecting a colonnade all around it. The new peristyle, supporting a magnificent polychrome pediment and roofing, surrounded and enshrined the older structures. The older amphiprostyle temple became the cella of this peristylar temple. The fragments of this temple permit dating it in the very last years of the rule of the tyrants, a few decades before the beginning of the Persian Wars.
It appears that the Persians destroyed a temple which had been started rather humbly and had been made larger and more splendid by two successive alterations. A number of scholars have assumed that the eastern part of the Old Temple was intended to overlap the megaron of an ancient palace, this room having been the sacred area in prehistoric times. Two Mycenaean round bases, made of poros stone, for wooden columns, have been found in place under the level of the eastern part of Temple I. The soundness of this hypothesis was further strengthened by Iakovidis, who established that the terrace of the Old Temple dates back to Mycenaean times, being one of the very oldest constructions of the Acropolis. But what has not been noticed is that the plan of Old Temple I copies both in structure and in dimensions the royal megarons of Mycenae, Tiryns and Pylos.
Old Temple I consists essentially of two square rooms. The eastern room corresponds to the throne room of a Mycenaean royal megaron; the western room is further divided into two halves by a wall, running in the sense of the width, of which one corresponds to the vestibule and the other to the porch of a royal megaron.
All of this indicates that in Mycenaean times the location of the Old Temple was occupied by a royal megaron which faced west. Iakovidis has established that in early Mycenaean times there was on this side of the terrace a monumental staircase which gave access to the terrace. It may be assumed that the staircase was in front of the porch of the Mycenaean royal megaron, the plan and dimensions of which were copied in Old Temple I.
At this point it is necessary to discuss the problem of the orientation of the temples of the Acropolis. The casual visitor to the Acropolis is surprised when he is told that the main front of the Parthenon is the eastern one, since the natural inclination of the ground, combined with the orientation of the Propylaia, makes the western front strikingly more prominent to the observer. In reality, the Parthenon can be considered to be a double temple, since its cella is divided into two separate parts by a wall without openings. The part of the Parthenon to the east of the separation wall is the temple, or neos in the narrow sense of the term. The part to the west was called the opisthodomos. The Greek term opisthodomos, like its Latin equivalent posticum, means an additional part of a building attached to the rear and to which entrance is gained from the rear. Therefore the Parthenon in a sense can be said to have two fronts.
Dörpfeld concluded that the Old Temple was similarly divided by a separation wall without openings. The part to the east of the separation wall was the equivalent of the neos part of the Parthenon, and like it contained the image of the goddess. The part to the west of the separation wall corresponded to the opisthodomos part of the Parthenon and like it was used as the place of safekeeping of the treasury of the city of Athens. There is no reason to doubt that the Old Temple was so divided; the Erechtheion, which in size and ground plan is most similar to the Old Temple, is also divided by a separation wall without openings between a temple facing east and rooms directed in the opposite direction.
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As far as we know, there were no rules regarding the orientation of Mycenaean royal megarons. The royal megaron of Athens was oriented to the west, because this gives greater prominence to the facade, since the plateau at the summit of the Acropolis has an inclination from west to east. As noted above, in Mycenaean times there was a monumental scalinade in front of the porch of the royal megaron. We may compare this scalinade with the row of steps which we see today in front of the western front of the Parthenon.
When the Mycenaean royal megaron was rebuilt as a temple in the seventh century B.C., the builders had to conform to the rule that Greek temples face east. The solution was found by dividing the rectangle of the temple into two parts. The part which used to be the throne room became the temple in the narrow sense of the term and was opened to the east. This arrangement was functional because the original gate to the Acropolis was from the north, just east of the Old Temple. The same pattern was repeated in the Parthenon, even though by then the entrance to the Acropolis was from the west. The existence of a western gate in the fortifications of the Acropolis, in addition to the original north gate, further contributed to making the temples Janus-like.
There is a peculiar reference to this problem of orientation in Herodotos: in speaking of the area where there are to be seen the charred remainders of the Persian destruction, he mentions ”the megaron which is turned to the west”. It is generally understood that here Herodotos refers to the western half of the Old Temple, and that he refers to the eastern half of it when he speaks of ”the adyton of the goddess”. The term adyton, which literally means ”not to be entered,” refers to the innermost temple, the true abode of the divinity.
Greek temples used to face east because they were conceived as the abode of the divinity, whose image had to face the rising sun. When the Parthenon was converted into a Christian church, the issue of orientation arose once again, since early Christian churches used to face west, in order that the congregation might face the rising sun. Given the ambiguity of the orientation of the Parthenon, Christians had no difficulty in solving the problem: the eastern door of the cella was closed by a semi-circular apse, the separation wall was pierced by doors, and the western front of the Parthenon became the facade of the Church of Holy Wisdom. In thus restructuring the Parthenon, the Christian builders reintroduced the architectural scheme which had been characteristic of the Mycenaean royal megaron about two millennia earlier. They did it unwittingly, but they were guided by the very nature of the physical arrangements.
Dörpfeld recognized that the original part of the Old Temple was 50 feet wide, even though it was not a matter of the 50 feet he expected. From the foundations Dörpfeld estimated the width at 13.45 m. Now, 50 trimmed lesser feet correspond to 13,872 mm. This is a very important fact, because the trimmed lesser foot (277.4489 mm.) is the standard of Mycenaean sacred monuments, and because both the royal megaron of Mycenae and that of Pylos, which the Old Temple resembles in its internal structure, were 50 trimmed lesser feet wide. The royal megaron of Tiryns was narrower, being 45 such feet, because it was calculated sexagesimally as 30 cubits, instead of being calculated centesimally as the other two, and the Old Temple of Athena.
As mentioned earlier, about the middle of the sixth century B.C. or a few decades earlier, the megaron was changed into an amphiprostyle temple by adding at each end a porch of 4 columns. Dörpfeld does not mention directly any figure for the length of the megaron, but he states that the amphiprostyle temple had a length of 34.56 m., with two porches 2.70 m. deep, so that he implied that the length of the original part was 29.16 m. It appears that each of the two added porches measured 10 trimmed lesser feet, or 2,775 mm, so that the amphiprostyle temple had a total length of 125 trimmed lesser feet (34,681 mm). This length gave a proportion of 2:5 to the sides of the amphiprostyle temple. Thus the original part of the temple had a length of 105 feet (29,132 mm).The megaron as a whole had been planned as two near-squares of 50 x 52½ trimmed lesser feet, that is, 13,872 x 14,566 mm.
It can be concluded that the main dimension of the megaron, which proves to have been the width, had been set at 50 feet (trimmed lesser feet). Dörpfeld recognized by implication what was the real unit of measurement when he observed that the front of the temple was 50 feet wide. He based his conclusion on the famous entry in the dictionary of Hesychios, which explains the phrase ”hekatompedos neos” in these terms: ”hekatompedos neos: a one-hundred foot temple erected for the Maiden on the Acropolis by the Athenians, being fifty feet greater than that burned by the Persians.” Hesychios refers to the fact that in the Parthenon, which doubled the dimensions of the Old Temple, the width was 100 feet.
On architectural grounds, the megaron of the Old Temple can safely be dated in the seventh century B.C., a hundred years before Solon. Unfortunately it has not been possible to date it by pottery sherds or any other stratigraphic datum.
The two parts of the megaron of the Old Temple were conceptually unrelated: to the east there was the neos, or ”shrine” and to the west there was the
opisthodomos. What Dörpfeld did not realize is that the
neos measured 50 trimmed lesser feet in both directions. He reported only the inner dimensions of the neos as 10.5 x 10.65 m. Most likely the neos was a square with a side of 10,543 mm., or 38 feet as measured on the inside. With walls 6 feet thick the outer dimensions come to be 50 x 50 feet. Leicester B. Holland has observed that the square shape of the neos of the Old Temple is unusual. Archaic temples usually are long and narrow. The square shape and its division by two rows of columns suggests that the neos was modeled after the throne rooms of Mycenaean palaces.
The neos was divided lengthwise by two rows of stylobate blocks which supported columns. The space between the stylobate blocks, that is, the nave of the inner temple, appears to have been 18 feet, or 4,994 mm. The stylobate blocks were apparently 5 feet (1,387 mm.) wide and the space between the inner stylobate and the lateral walls 5 feet as well.
The neos consisted of a unit of 50 feet square (surface of ¼ plethron). To this square with sides of 50 feet there was attached another structure called opisthodomos. Since it was an additional building, it did not include in its dimensions the separation wall. Without this wall it had a length of 55 feet, of which the western wall of the opisthodomos accounted for 5 feet (1,387 mm.). Dörpfeld reports the thickness of this wall as 1.35 m. The total temple thus had dimensions of 50 x 105 feet, conforming to the usual pattern of a double near-square.
The opisthodomos was divided into two rooms of equal size by a wall running north-south. Dörpfeld reports that the rooms are 6.20 m. wide, but does not provide any figure for the thickness of the wall between them. The two rooms have a length of 22½ feet (6,243 mm.) each, the wall between them being 5 feet (1,387 mm.) thick.
As we have seen, the partitions of the Old Temple are most symmetric and regular, but there is one partition which is odd and irregular. The inside half of the opisthodomos is subdivided into two cubicles by a small wall running east to west, in the direction of the length of the temple. These two cubicles are not equal in size: according to Dörpfeld the northern one has a width, from north to south, of 4.50 m., and the southern one of 4.85 m.
Since in the Parthenon the western part, that is, the opisthodomos, was used as the place of safekeeping of the state treasury of Athens, it can be presumed that the western part of the Old Temple served a similar purpose. It may also be presumed that within this area there was built a cubicle as the safe vault of objects of particular value.
There is a text that provides us with information about the location of the original safe vault of Athens. The climax of Aristophanes’ comedy
Plutos is provided by the establishment of the worship of the god Plutos, ”Wealth,” in the opisthodomos ”where it was worshipped originally, ever watching over the opisthodomos of the goddess.” (lines 1194-95). This seems to imply that there was a time, earlier than the construction of the opisthodomos of the Parthenon, when Plutos was worshipped in the opisthodomos of a temple of Athena. A scholium on these lines of Aristophanes explains the term opisthodomos as follows: ”In the back of the neos of the temple of the so-called Athena Polias there is a double wall with one door, where there was the treasury-safekeeping.” The reference to the double wall fits well the internal divisions of the opisthodomos of the Old Temple. It is possible that for the sake of security the larger cubicle, which was used as a safe vault and apparently had been sacred to Plutos, did not have any opening to the west, but had a single door which opened into the smaller cubicle, which served as a sort of hallway. Thus in order to gain access to the larger cubicle, one had to open the door of the opisthodomos, and then open another door to the smaller cubicle, to finally arrive at the door of Athena’s treasury.
The two cubicles of the Old Temple would not have been made of different sizes unless there was a reason why one of them or both of them should have particular dimensions.
The Hekatompedon:
A location on the Athenian Acropolis for the Hekatompedon area is suggested north of the Peisistratid temple. This location is based on both epigraphical and archaeological evidences. It also identifies some of Wiegand's minor buildings as part of the Hekatompedon. An architectural reconstruction of this religious area is given for the sixth century BC.
Because the Hekatompedon is mentioned together with the Kekropion we will focus on the area north of the temple for a location of the Hekatompedon. This area was of special interest for the Athenians. Besides the grave of the mythical king Kekrops there were many ancient cults. This was the place where the holy olive-tree of Athena stood, and where Poseidon or Zeus struck Erechtheus. This spot was marked by five peculiar holes in the rock, which were said to be made by Poseidon's trident or Zeus' thunderbolt.
In both versions of the legend they mark the spot of the hero's grave; if Poseidon drove Erechtheus into the rock with his trident it is obviously the hero's grave, and if Zeus struck the hero with a thunderbolt he should have been buried there, since a person who was struck by lightning was buried on that very spot 3). Another holy place north of the temple was the so- called thalassa, a salt-water spring. This was probably more a token for Aphrodite; the element from which she was born, than for Poseidon 4). Both Aphrodite and her parents, Zeus Naios and Dione Naia according to one Athenian tradition, have been worshipped in the Erechtheion, while there are no reverences to Poseidon on the Acropolis besides the holy marks of his trident 5). Traces in the foundations of the Erechtheion indicate the existence of a temenos on the site of the cella of the Erechtheion 6). This temenos preceded the Erechtheion as a place of worship for the ancient cults. This religious area north of the temple was limited to the west by the building of the temenos-wall of the Pandroseion in the fifth century B.C.
The placement of the west-wall of the Pandroseion temenos was not arbitrary. It was placed on that spot were according to the religious tradition the area had its boundaries.
When we look for a Hekatompedon in this area we must look at the fifth century B.C. boundaries and take their location as pre- existent. The inscription text starts with the area between the temple and the altar, and proceeds with the Kekropion and the Hekatompedon, so describes the several entities from east, from the front-side of the temple. Following the text and starting from the front-side of the temple, the religious area measures from the eastern orthostate of the Peisistratid temple to the west-wall of the Pandroseion temenos about 100 Attic feet (i.e. 32.7 m.).
This makes this location highly probable to be the Hekatompedon. So far nothing is said about the appearance of the area. The inscription gives only one clue; the existence of treasuries.
The structures found in the area north of the Peisistratid temple go back to the Mycenaean city. Just northeast of the Erechtheion are the remains of a fortified entrance. This entrance, which was built like the gate of the lions in Mycenae, once formed one of the main entrances to the citadel. It was built on the lower terraces just underneath the Mycenaean palace. From this gate ran a narrow road to the west, which was widening into a small plaza just north of the later Erechtheion. This plaza was enclosed by terraces on the east and the south-side, forming some sort of theatral area, recalling on a modest scale the areas for public spectacles which have been found in Crete in connection with the palaces of Cnossos and Phaestos. In the west this plaza was limited by the cultplace of Poseidon or Zeus, marked with the holes in the Acropolis rock. Because the theatral area laid some 50 cm higher than the Acropolis rock, we must assume that some coffer-dam of stone surrounded the cultplace keeping the rock free from invading earth (VII).
The theatral area was still existing in the fifth century B.C. It then became paved with poros slabs and surrounded by steps, which replaced the old Mycenaean ramps, on which spectators could sit (VI). It is most probably that this area was also in the Archaic period in use for religious ceremonies. To the north this theatral area was limited by the Acropolis wall. Other evidence for the reconstruction of the Hekatompedon is found in the foundations of the Erechtheion. Where the foundations of the east-wall reaches the foundations of the south-wall cavities in the stones show that there might be a low parapet of upright slabs when the Erechtheion was built (at point B).
The altitude of these cavities show that this parapet stood on a low terrace above the theatral area north of it. This parapet enclosed a temenos which later became the Erechtheion. This temenos was narrower than its successor because there are no similar cavities in the foundations of the north-wall of the Erechtheion. This give the opportunity to reconstruct a ramp from the theatral area to the terrace of the temenos. From a point in line with the eastern jamb of the door to the Porch of the Maidens (from point A) eastward the wall of the foundations of the peristyle of the Peisistratid temple is dressed to an even face (III). This dressing is visible for about 2.5 m. before the Erechtheion walls come to close to the temple terrace. The dressing of this wall shows that from that point eastward it must have been visible. The dressed surface probably continues to the point where the eastern parapet is reconstructed (IV). Together with the cavities which mark the eastern limits the temenos might be almost as large as the Erechtheion (V). This temenos probably housed many of the cults of its successor. L.B. Holland stated in his Erechtheum Papers that the existence of the Porch of the Maidens indicate that the stairs inside this porch must have been pre-existing. The building of the porch was required to camouflage these stairs, otherwise they would leave the Erechtheion through a simple door in the wall. Building the Porch of the Maidens gave them a better appearance, incorporated in the new building. These stairs were probably the successors of the Mycenaean stairs from the lower terraces to the terrace of the palace. The megaron of this palace is reconstructed just west of these stairs, underneath the west-cella of the Peisistratid temple. If these stairs indeed go back to LH III, they might have existed also in the Archaic period, leading from the Hekatompedon to the temple terrace. In that case there must have been a second flight of steps to climb the ramp to the temenos terrace from the Hekatompedon level, otherwise they would have ended right in the ramp of the temenos terrace.
The ground level of this western part of the Hekatompedon was probably on about the same height as that of the Pandroseion. In the foundations of the north porch of the Erechtheion a poros step of pre-Periclean and post-Persian date is found which indicates the entrance of the Pandroseion temenos in the beginning of the fifth century B.C. This step probably dates from the comparatively cheap and rapid restoration of the sanctuaries after the Persian sack. It is unlikely that the area was raised during this restoration, so the step not only indicates the early fifth century level, but also that of the sixth century B.C. (level II). If so, the western part of the Hekatompedon laid about 2.30 m. lower than the temple terrace. Another importing architectural feature of the Hekatompedon was the existence of treasuries. The existence of treasuries is in a religious area as described above very likely, e.g. the treasuries in Olympia, Delphi and on Delos are all set in or at the rim of religious areas. The finding of various architectural remains of small buildings and the various small fragments of pediment sculptures indicate the existence of treasury-like buildings on the Athenian Acropolis. These fragments, described by Wiegand are said to come from at least five minor buildings: Wiegand's building A-E.
Further studies by Heberdey, Dinsmoor and Beyer distinguish Wiegand's Building A into two separate buildings; Building A and Building Aa. This distinction is based on the several pediment sculptures to be reconstructed on these buildings. Heberdey distinguished Building A into three different buildings, based on the remains of the sculpture, but Dinsmoor's distinction based on the architecture is more likely. Wiegand's Building B stood probably outside the citadel, on the terrace were Mnesikles' Pinacotheca was built. Of the other five buildings Building D and E were built long after 480 BC.
For a reconstruction of the Hekatompedon in the sixth and early fifth century BC. we must focus on the Buildings A, Aa and C.
Based on the measurements of the triglyphs and architrave Wiegand calculated the width of his Building A as about 5.00 m., keeping the possibility for a pediment with a length of 3.80 m. This width is calculated with the premise that the building have had four supports in the front. In analogy with the known treasuries it is likely that this building was distyle in antis. One of the pediment sculptures that Beyer reconstructs on these buildings is the so-called 'Baum' pediment. This pediment, with an image of a olive-tree suggests a strong link between this building and the holy olive-tree of Athena. Therefor this building, might have been a small temple for Pandrosos. This temple probably stood in the northeast corner of the Pandroseion area (XI). This temple might have survived the Persian sack, or else was reconstructed in the temenos after 480 B.C., because it is mentioned in texts of later date. The other buildings were the treasuries mentioned in line 14 of the inscription. The building which Dinsmoor calls Building Aa was of the about the same size and proportions as the temple for Pandrosos described above; also about 5 m. wide. The exact length is unknown, but when we take the proportions of the triglyphs as a standard proportion for the entire building, it was about 6.6 m. long. This building might have had the painted lioness in the pediment.
Building C was considerably larger: based on the width of the triglyphs and metopes it was about 7.3 m. wide when distyle in antis. This width allows the Hydra pediment to be reconstructed on this building. The length of this building would then be about 11.7 m., again taken the proportion of the triglyphs as a proportion for the entire building. Both these treasuries can be placed in the open space north of the cult area, between the later Pandroseion temenos and the Acropolis wall (X).
West of these treasuries a line of poros foundations of post-Persian date is found running from the Acropolis wall towards the northwest corner of the Pandroseion temenos-wall.
This probably was a fifth century retaining wall which formed a boundary of the religious area. In earlier days this boundary could have been formed by the westernmost treasury. This reconstruction of the area matches the inscription text and fits in the 100 Attic ft. area discussed above. This makes this area very likely to be the Hekatompedon. Another proof might be found in the social-historic context of the inscription.
The Mycenean Wall
One of the most important discoveries of the excavations south of the Parthenon was also the Mycenean wall. Most parts of it were found inside the southern wall of the Acropolis. Parts of it were found even in the area, which at the moment of the excavations, was already occupied by the museum. It was possible to follow the course of the wall; only after the floors of certain rooms of the northern side of the museum were temporarily removed and some excavations between its foundations were performed.
Now, regarding the course of the wall, it must be mentioned that most of it coincides with the steep limits of the Acropolis rock, however in the area of the museum it changes its way inwards the rock; resulting in a longer wall as well as leaving an open area of a few hundreds of square meters; matching more or less with the land occupied nowadays by the museum.
The reason for which they made a niche in this area; is due to the presence of a defensive gate exactly in the southern part of the Acropolis during the Mycenean times. It is well known that back in those days the construction of such defensive gates in the deepest part of the front yards, increased substantially the defensive results of the walls; so the existence of such a niche as an entrance was extremely required and explains the reason of its inwards change of direction.
Unfortunately, the results for the area where that gate was most probably located in, were not quite satisfactory due to the impossibility of performing substantial excavations in the area; because of the presence of the foundations of the museum as well as because of the bad state of that part of the ancient wall.
So, the aforementioned gate as it is shown in the sketches of J.A. Bundgaard are Hypothetical but still highly probable. On the other hand there are many evidences that prove the existence of such a defensive wall.
It must be noted also that back in the Mycenean days the southern side of the rock was more accesible than its western side. Nowadays, for those who are familiar with the topography of the rock, it might be seem as an incredible view; but we should keep in mind the 5th century BC additions and the artificial morphological changes and adaptations performed by engineers during the Hellenistic times.
One of the most concerning matters among scholars is the bad preservation conditions of the Mycenean wall. In some sections the level of destruction is so high that there are only just a few remaining stones or just traces of it. One of the arising questions is, if this sort of destruction is the result of natural erosion:
The time span separating the moment of its construction in the 13th century BC with the classical age is of just eight centuries, not enough for a substantial process of erosion, taking into consideration the resistence of these kind of wall, as it can be easily proven by the excellent state of preservation of the walls in Mycenes and Tyrinth. This kind of constructions cannot be eroded that easily. So it rather must be the result of human intervention. From this conclusion another question arises; who are the responsibles of such a destruction:
One thing is for sure, that it wasn’t a result of the Persians attack to Athens. That is proved by the southwestern angle of the stereobate of the Parthenon which was constructed over a section of the destroyed wall, that leading us to the conclusion of by the time of the arrival of the Persians it was already destroyed. Otherwise it should have been constructed after their arrival in 490 BC; but from chronological studies we clearly know that the stereobate was built previously, during the 6th century BC.
So the resulting arising question remains unanswered; who destroyed partially that wall:
There is a possibility that it was destroyed during an invasion; but from historical and archeological evidences we know the Dorians never invaded the region of Attika or at least they didn’t cause any, destruction to the area of the Acropolis; another possibility might be that it was torn down by the Athenians during the transition from a monarchical system during the proto-archaic period; in order to avoid the restitution of such a political system.
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