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Athens in the Late Bronze Age

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Oscar Broneer
Oscar Broneer*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Extract

The Athenians of the classical era were deeply conscious of the fact that the history of their city was different from that of the rest of Greece. They were the autochthonous settlers of the land, and their orators and writers kept forever reminding them that Athens and Attica were not subdued when the Dorian invaders gained possession of most of the Peloponnesus at the end of the Bronze Age. Was this an empty boast, the kind of historical error that Thucydides (1, 20) attributes to a people's readiness to accept uncritically the old traditions about their own country or those of others? The historian (1, 2) makes it clear that he himself believed in the tradition that Attica was the original home of the Athenians of his day, and he found an explanation for this phenomenon in the poverty of the soil which made the conquerors pass by Attica for richer sections of the country. Archaeological research has confirmed Thucydides' conclusions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 30 , Issue 117 , March 1956 , pp. 9 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1956

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References

1 The information has often been given that both bases were found in situ; Lester B. Holland, A.J.A. XXVIII, 1924, p. 162; XLIII, 193g, p. 289; Judeich, Topographie von Athen, p. 259; and cf. Kawadias and Kawerau, ’Aυασκαφὴ τᾒς ’Aκρоπόλ∊ως, p. 84. I have heard Dörpfeld in his Acropolis lectures question whether the northern column basis is in its original position, and the present underpinning would indicate that it has been disturbed. Its top is 0.076 m. above that of the southern base, an unlikely discrepancy if both bases were in situ. The question is discussed at some length by James M. Paton, Erechtheion, pp. 427 ff.

2 Anton Raubitschek, Dedications from the Athenian Acropolis, p. 359.

3 Arch. Anz., 1939, pp. 1 ff.

4 See references in Ernst Curtius, Stadtgeschichte von Athen, p. LXXVI, and Sam Wide, Pomerium och Pelargikon, pp. 26-8.

5 Lester B. Holland, A.J.A. XXVIII, 1924, pp. 143 ff.

6 Hesperia II, 1933, pp. 351 if.; IV, 1935, pp. 109 ff.

7 Hesperia VIII, 1939, pp. 317 ff.

8 Hesperia XII, 1943, pp. 201 ff.

9 Hesperia IX, 1940, pp. 274 ff.

10 Hesperia XXI, 1952, p. 107, pl. 26a.

11 Ibid., pp. 107, pl. 26c.

12 Kraiker and Kübler, Kerameikos 1, plates 1 ff.; George Karo, An Attic Cemetery, pp. 5 ff.

13 See Hesperia VIII, 1939, pp. 379, 391 f.; and cf. A.J.A. XLIV, 1940, p. 553, 558, LII, 1948, p. 109; B.S.A. XLII, 1947, pp. 10 ff.

14 Cf. Martin P. Nilsson, Historia III, 1955, pp. 263 f. For a divergent interpretation see Alan B. Wace, Viking, 1954, p. 222, who would deny ‘that the Mycenaean Culture decayed in the later stages of the Bronze Age’.

15 A. J. B. Wace, Historia II, 1953, p. 91; Viking, 1954, p. 222.

16 Historia II, 1953, p. 92.

17 The quotations are from the late Franklin Daniel, A.J.A. LII, 1948, p. 109. This talented scholar, whose untimely death was a great loss to Homeric scholarship, was deeply conscious of the chronological problem involved and sought in this way to reconcile the conflicting records.

18 Hesperia VIII, 1939, p. 426; A.J.A. LII, 1948, p. 113.

19 Studies presented to D. M. Robinson, 1, pp. 135 ff.

20 Poseidon uni die Entstehung des griechischen Götterglaubens, pp. 190 ff. Cf. Martin P. Nilsson’s review in A.J.P. LXXIV, 1953, p. 167, who expresses a cautious agreement with the author’s interpretation of the myth of the wooden horse.

21 I have had the privilege of discussing the problems raised by this article with Professor Martin P. Nilsson, who kindly read the manuscript and made valuable comments on its contents. For the permission to reproduce the plan, Fig. 1, and three photographs, from the Agora, I am indebted to the Director of the Excavations, Professor Homer A. Thompson. The photograph for PLATE III was kindly supplied by the Editor, O. G. S. Crawford.