Acropolis. Detailed history

In Greek cities, the citadel was typically known as the acropolis or “High City,” and usually built on the city’s highest spot and fortified. In times of trouble, the inhabitants of the city and its surrounding area could find refuge behind the acropolis’s walls. The acropolis was usually not meant to be an inhabited area, although in some cities at different times, a king or tyrant might set up his official residence there.

The term is derived from the Greek akro, meaning “high” or “extreme,” and polis, meaning “city.” Typically, the acropolis became the city’s religious site where its main temples were located. Famous cities such as Athens, Thebes, Corinth, and Aegina each had a notable acropolis; one city that seems not to have had one was Sparta.

The Acropolis of Athens

The most famous acropolis is the Acropolis of Athens. In antiquity, it was also named the Cecropia, after the legendary serpent-man Cecrops, the first king of Athens. Inhabited since the early Neolithic Age, the site underwent several changes determined by the political climate of the area. The site is about 500 feet above sea level in the center of Athens. The rock is flat, which allowed for different buildings over its span until the fifth century, when its final form took place.

During the Bronze Age, a Mycenaean palace was situated with a large fortress wall, some 30 feet high by 2,000 feet long and between 10 and 20 feet thick. Its gate was located on the south side, and a tower on the approaching right side ensured an adequate defense since an attacker would be exposed on that side and vulnerable to counterattack. This wall would protect the citadel until the fifth century.

During the Archaic period (the eighth to fifth centuries), the area grew into a religious center with an early temple to Athena, the titular goddess of Athens. During the late sixth century, the tyrant Pisistratus and his family built the Propylaea (or entry gate), another temple to Athena, and other gates. Persia attacked and captured Athens in 480, burning the temple of Athena on the Acropolis and looting the site. After Persia was beaten back, the Acropolis’s walls were rebuilt and a new building program ensued.

Many of the building materials were used to make the Acropolis level, which allowed the site to be enhanced and increased the construction there during the fifth century, from 480 to 406. Debate among the Athenians raged for several years as to what to do with the Acropolis between one group wanting to preserve the ruins as a memorial and another wanting to rebuild the Acropolis.

Ultimately, the group wanting to move forward and transform the Acropolis won out; and it was during the fifth century, when Athens controlled the Aegean Sea, that the Acropolis took on its final form. Under the statesman Pericles, the Classical Age of Athens (460-430) saw its greatest achievements. Using tribute from its allies, Athens under Pericles’s direction led a grand rebuilding of the Acropolis to include a series of temples and shrines that not only glorified the gods, especially Athena, but also Athens as a great empire.

Pericles’s plans included a complete reworking of the Acropolis. The Parthenon, or Temple to Athena, was rebuilt, and the Athenian sculptor Phidias and two architects, Ictinus and Callicrates, ensured that the temple was one of the most famous throughout antiquity. The Propylaea was rebuilt out of Pentelic marble and greatly enhanced with two colonnades.

To the south of the Propylaea was the small Ionic temple to Athena Nike, or Victorious Athena. On the west side of the Acropolis, where the ground was uneven, stood the Erechtheion, built between 421-406 during the height of the Peloponnesian War. The entrance faced east and had six Ionic columns and not one but two porches, one on the northwest and the other on the southwest, supported not by columns but by huge female figures called the Caryatids.

This structure was actually a double temple, with the western section for the cult of King Poseidon-Erechtheus and the eastern part dedicated to Athena Polias. The region between the temple of Athena Nike and the Parthenon was the Brauroneion, or sanctuary of Artemis Brauronia. Other religious structures completed the Acropolis.

It was during this great age that the artistic accomplishments on the Acropolis were achieved. For example, Polygnotus, a Greek painter, decorated many of the parts of the Propylaea. He may have been the teacher of Phidias (480-430), who was a sculptor, painter, and architect already known for his great statue of Zeus at Olympia.

Polygnotus also designed the gold statue of Athena for the Parthenon, as well as a bronze statue of Athena Promachos in the area between the Propylaea and Parthenon. This statue, one of his earliest works, was dedicated to “Athena who fights in the front line.” It probably was a statue of thanksgiving for the victory over the Persians.

One of the highlights for the Athenians was the Panathenaic festival instituted by Pisistratus in 566 and held during the next few centuries. The festival highlighted Athena’s preeminence not only in Athens, but also in the Aegean. The Acropolis was continually maintained after the fall of the Athenian empire, and it became more of a museum during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Today, the Acropolis stands as a remembrance to Athenian power and Greek civilization.