Commercial Fortune in Late Archaic Athens: A New Shop Building North of the Eridanos River (20 min)

Presenters

Brian Martens, University of St. Andrews

Abstract

Recent excavations in the Athenian Agora, in the area north of the Eridanos River, have brought to light new evidence for the topography and monuments of the late archaic city. Among the major contributions is the identification, proposed by John Camp, of an enclosure discovered in 2018 as the Leokoreion—one of the most famous shrines of the ancient city center, where, in 514 B.C.E., Harmodios and Aristogeiton assassinated the brother of the tyrant. The Leokoreion was, however, only one monument in what the excavations have revealed to be a developed neighborhood in the years before 500 B.C.E. This paper presents one building that, by chance, was well preserved due to the sloping terrain of the Eridanos River Valley. A structure located behind the Stoa Poikile comprises three rooms that I interpret as a series of shops in operation on the eve of the Persian Wars. The earliest phase of the building dates to ca. 520 B.C.E., on the basis of ceramic material and sequenced floor levels. The building was damaged during the Persian sack and promptly rebuilt. Finds from the rooms attest to an industrial and commercial purpose, and the separate stratigraphic lives of the rooms suggest they functioned as independent units. The overall character accords with the post-Persian reuse of the building, when, by the later fifth century B.C.E., it was incorporated into the so-called classical commercial building. After presenting the new shop building, I discuss its implications for the development of the Agora as a commercial space. By gathering the wider evidence—for example, other commercial structures, early coins, and the cult of Hermes Agoraios (established before 481 B.C.E.: FGrH 328, 31)—I demonstrate that the Agora was a commercial heart of Athens prior to the Persian Wars.