This is a well-produced volume (there are few Attic flaws), with an accurate subtitle, from a set of alumni of varying seniority of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. The main title was chosen no doubt with an eye to salesworthy ‘Athens’; however, about half the contributions are more Attic than Athenian (and in a few autopsy is not at the heart of the matter); the bulk of the contributions refer to topography and cult.
Attica has of course been ravaged by construction work of all kinds since the 1960s, even if more recent projects have in broad terms respected archaeological aspects. Much remains to be properly published, though preliminary work is available in, for example, Athens: the City beneath the City (2000) and the Athens Airport Museum. Good use is made of what is available and provided by local authorities.
Individually, the fourteen articles range from what are more or less reviews of the particular situation (never without some new thoughts) to the substantially novel, by way of fresh material or interpretation.
N.L. Klein notes patches and repairs on Archaic buildings on the Akropolis; B. Tsakirgis ponders on the use of the tools excavated at the house of the (small-scale?) sculptors Mikion and Menon; J. Neils, D. Reinbold and R. Sternberg interpret metopes 15 and 16 at the east end of the Parthenon as Helios in his chariot rushing to help a beleaguered Hephaistos (but the latter does not seem at all in any trouble, despite Ap. Rh. 3.332–4, cited as a relevant passage). Three pieces involve Asklepios: C.L. Lawton suggests a leading role for him in the city Eleusinion, judging from the find-spot of reliefs depicting him from the Agora excavations, and in consideration of the probable route taken by the god, plus Telemachos, to the Akropolis in 420/19 b.c.; the statement that ‘affinities between Asklepios and Demeter are notable’ (p. 31) smacks of petitio principi; have not all such combinations of two deities been used in modern scholarship? J. Lamont usefully compiles the dossier on the Asklepieion in the Peiraeus, pointing to a relief from the site and the (original?) production of the Ploutos to suggest a start date around 420; one may ponder how much building activity is indicated by oikodomian in IG II2 47 (p. 41). B.A. Martens persuasively urges the interpretation of Agora S 1068, second–third century a.d., as part-Serapis, part-Asklepios, on good iconographic grounds, and reviews the association of the two in Greek areas. Substance is literally added by J. Morton, who describes his suitably repeated experiments of ‘sacrificing’ lamb's thigh-bones and tails wrapped in various fats over on ASCSA ‘eschara’. R. Kousser has a review of the mutilation of the herms, and A. Rosenberg-Dimitracopoulou returns to the burial of Phrasikleia and her ‘brother’; a pit nearby contained late black-figured lekythoi, which, if related to the unusual interment of the statues, suggests that they were treated as embodiments of the individuals, whose tomb(s) were destroyed by the Persians, and ‘re-buried’ c. 480–470 (if the pit is related); it can hardly be said that the signature of Aristion is ‘in much better condition’ (p. 85) than the epitaph. J. Best has a good compilation of ‘roadside shrines’ around Athens – but are there shrines not on a road?
J. Paga reviews building projects in late Archaic Attica, arguing that they reflect a new Cleisthenic feeling of Atticness, akin to the (partial, surely) use of the demotic; of necessity much of the relatively close dating here is problematic. Less so the competent review of the Attic road system by S. Fachard and D. Pirisino, who reasonably temper P. Siewert's assertion that their main use, even raison d’être, was military. K. Lorenzo boldly tackles the question of the dedication of warships captured in 480 at Salamis, Isthmia and Sounion; he argues that logistically some degree of portioning and final re-assembly was necessary and points to suitable display areas; the problems of the terrain at Sounion could have been better illustrated, even if the proposed site alongside the temple of Poseidon is suitably presented. Two architectural studies complete the volume; M. Fisher has a review of non-peripteral temples, stressing the slight interest they aroused in many writers of handbooks (and leaving mention of their frequency in Sicily till late in proceedings), while M. treats the double stoa at Thorikos, its history and environmental isolation, while pointing out the evidence for a door in the central wall, making it a form of propylon; the Corcyraean stoa at Elis (p. 176) may have been a more or less contemporary parallel, but one could have expected a proper citation of Pausanias (6.24.4, with its lacuna), rather than mis-dated and probably irrelevant passages in Thucydides.
While some use of (American) English has an ‘ouch’ factor, sense is rarely lost; ‘plateia’ on p. 100 clearly must mean ‘square’, not ‘main street’; p. 121 n. 65, ‘deme’ should be ‘deme center’; ‘graffitied’ on p. 164 is a monster, and the article by Fachard and Pirisino has various minor lapses; a sentence on p. 145 has been garbled nearly out of recognition. Occasionally a text figure could have been better placed, cross-referencing is good, and there is an adequate index; a single rather than individual bibliographies would have saved much space, but that is a well-known, vexed question.
In sum, a volume which, even if no literary masterpiece, does indeed enhance the role played by ASCSA in the study of the area over the generations with something for all to savour.
