Archaeology Magazine - March/April 2000 - 42

EBÜB11

Fallen

Heroes
Bones

of Pericles'

to New

York

by Mark

soldiers
for

come

analysis.

Rose

It is for such a city ; then, that these
men nobly died in battle,
it right
thinking
not to be deprived
of her, just as each
should
be willing
to toil
of their survivors
for

her sake.

(Funeral Oration of Pericles)

1997, construction of a theater at 35 Salaminos
Street in downtown Athens was halted when four
polyandreia (communal burials) were discovered.
Subsequent excavations, directed by Charalambia
Stoupa of the Third Ephoreia (Department) of
In
Classical Antiquities, yielded ashes and burned
human bones, along with pottery that was initially dated to
ca. 430 b.c. A fifth polyandreion , found under a building
adjacent to the site, has not been excavated. The bones,
which may represent as many as 250 individuals, are now
in the forensic lab at Adelphi University in Garden City,
New York, where anthropologist Anagnosti Agelarakis has
begun to analyze them. One question is simply, to whom
do they belong?
The location of the tombs and the date of the pottery
found in them provide tantalizing evidence about the identity of the remains. The road leading out of Athens' main
west gate passed through the Academy, the olive grove
sacred to Athena where Plato taught. On either side of the
road was the Dêmosion Sèma (Peoples Grave), a state burial ground for notable statesmen, generals, cultural figures,
and Athenian citizen-soldiers who died in battle. In his
Guide to Greece , the first-century a.D. traveler Pausanias
described the Dêmosion Sèma:
Outside the city of Athens in the country districts and beside
the roads there are sanctuaries of gods and of heroes and the
tombs of men.. . . There is a memorial to all the Athenians who
42

died in battles at sea or on the land except for those who
fought at Marathon. Their tomb is in that place, in honor of
their courage, but the rest lie beside the road to the Academy;
tombstones stand on the graves to tell you each man's name
and district.
Pausanias then lists more than 40 monuments he saw
between the city wall and the Academy, ranging from the
tombs of the tyrant slayers, Harmodios and Aristogeiton
(514 b.c.), to the great statesman Pericles (429), other
leaders such as Conon (392) and Thrasyboulos (388), and
later cultural figures such as the fourth-century painter
Nicias and the philosophers Zeno (263) and Chrysippos
(207). The Academy Road, now beneath modern buildings, follows the route of Plataion and Salaminos streets,
and during the recent excavations its retaining wall was
discovered near the polyandreia. From their location, it is
probable that the polyandreia found beneath Salaminos
Street are state burials.
The initial dating of the pottery, around 43Ó b.c., corresponds to the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, a protracted struggle from 431 to 404 b.c. between Athens and
her allies and a coalition whose chief members were
Sparta, Thebes, and Corinth. The war had several causes:
the Athenian leader Pericles' use of funds intended for the
general defense of Greece against the Persians for the
Parthenon and other public buildings in Athens; intervention by Athens on behalf of Kerkyra (Corfu) in a dispute
with Corinth in 433; and Athens' attack on the Corinthian
colony of Potidaea in 432. After futile attempts at negotiating a settlement, Sparta and her allies declared war.
Sparta invaded Athenian territory the following year. The
"truest cause" of the war, wrote the historian Thucydides,
was Sparta's anxiety about the growing power of Athens.
Despite the plague, which broke out in 430 and lasted several years, Athens continued the struggle, fortune favoring
Archaeology * March/April2000

Archaeology Magazine - March/April 2000

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - March/April 2000