Amphiareion of Oropos
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 Amphiareion (Αμφιαρειον Οροπου) |
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| Country | Greece |
| Region | Attica |
| Elevation | 154 m |
| Controlling City | Athens |
| Peak Period | Hellenistic to Roman |
The Amphiareion of Oropos (Greek: Αμφιαρειον Οροπου), situated in the hills 6km southeast of the fortified port of Oropos, was a sanctuary dedicated to the hero Amphiaraos where pilgrims went to seek oracular responses and healing. This hero was a descendant of the seer Melampos and initially refused to participate in the attack on Thebes (detailed in the Seven Against Thebes of Aeschylus) because he could foresee that it would be a disaster. [1] In some versions of the myth, the earth opens and swallows the chariot of Amphiaraos, transforming him into a chthonic deity. [2] The sanctuary is located 37.2km NNE of Athens and contained a temple of Amphiaraos (with an acrolithic cult statue), as well as a sacred spring, a theater, a stoa, and associated structures. The sanctuary extended for c. 240m northeast from the Temple of Amphiaraos along a streambed. The cult dates to the 5th century BCE, and there was an upswing in the sanctuary’s reputation as a healing site during the plague that hit Athens in the late 5th BCE. Herodotos relates that the oracular response of this shrine was one of only two correct answers to the test put to them all by the Lydian king Croesos. [3] There were many dedications from Greeks, notable Romans, and others, many with inscriptions. [4] On the southeast side of the streambed there are extensive remains of domestic structures as well as an unusually well-preserved klepsedra (water clock). Amphiaraos was also worshiped at the site of Rhamnous c. 17.5km southeast, as well as at Athens, Argos, Sparta, and other sites. The cult at the Amphiareion came to an end by the 5th century CE.
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[edit] Sanctuary of Amphiaraos
At the Temple of Amphiaraos, the site is c. 154m in elevation, with a gentle slope to the northeast, as it fills the northwest bank of a small ravine between two hills. The sanctuary was located near the border of Attica and Boiotia, the respective spheres of control of Athens and Thebes; control over the site passed back and forth between the rival cities until Alexander the Great destroyed Thebes in 335 BCE. In the 2nd century CE, the Greek periegetic writer Pausanias stated:
I think that Amphiaraos most of all dedicated himself to interpreting dreams: it is clear that, when he was considered a god, he set up an oracle of dreams. And the first thing is to purify oneself, when someone comes to consult Amphiaraos, and the purification ritual is to sacrifice to the god, and people sacrifice to him and to all those whose names are on (the altar), and - when these things are finished – they sacrifice a ram and spread out its skin under themselves, lie down waiting for the revelation of a dream.
Description of Greece 1.34.5
An inscription from the site, however, states that each man may sacrifice what he wants. Some variation in practice during the nine centuries of cult activity at the sanctuary may be expected. The baths of the site were famous in antiquity. The locations of a stadion and a hippodrome are unknown.
[edit] Temple of Amphiaraos
The early 4th century BCE temple of Amphiaraos was of an unusual Doric hexastyle in antis plan: i.e. it has six columns across the front façade between small projecting walls. The antae were capped with half columns, giving the appearance of a octostyle façade. It measures 14 by 28m. Behind the columns was a pronaos, leading into a cella with two rows of five un-fluted internal columns. Alongside the second pair of columns back from the pronaos there was a base for the acrolithic cult statue of Amphiaraos of which one arm remains in situ. In the rear wall of the cella, there was a threshold, perhaps a later addition.
On axis with the center line of the temple, and about 10.5m northeast, are the remains of the altar divided into sections with inscriptions to a number of gods and heroes. [5] Wrapping around the altar on the west side is a stepped structure that may have served as an early theatral area before the construction of the theater. Immediately to the east is the sacred spring, where Pausanias says worshipers threw coins when they were healed of a disease. [6] Immediately northeast of the spring is the structure traditionally called the men’s bath.
To the northeast of the Temple was a line of dedications of statuary, of which the bases have largely survived, that stretched for around 70m along the road into the sanctuary. Among the more notable dedications:
- 42 BCE inscription honoring Marcus Junius Brutus as a Tyrannicide
- 86-81 BCE inscription for the Roman dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla
- post 27 BCE inscription for Marcus Agrippa
- 1st BCE inscription for Appius Claudius Pulcher
- Gnaius Calpurnius Piso
There are also the remains of a small temple at the southwest extremity of this area.
[edit] Theater
The theater is dated to the 2nd century BCE by inscriptions and the seating area was likely composed of wooden seats on stone supports. Five marble prohedria (seat of honor at the front of the seating area) were discovered placed around the orchestra, which had a radius of 12.4m. Two parodoi (side entryways) led off from the orchestra between the seating area of the cavea and the stage building. The Doric order proscaenium of the stage structure (c. 12m wide) is well preserved and thus important for the study of theater design. The theater would have held approximately three hundred spectators.
[edit] Stoa
Dating to the mid-4th century BCE, the stoa measured 11 by 110m with 39 exterior Doric columns and 17 internal Ionic columns. [7] There were stone benches set into the back walls of the structure, perhaps where the suppliants of the god slept and awaited their dreams. The sexes may have been segregated as may have been the case for the bath to the northeast of the stoa, which is traditionally called the women’s bath.
[edit] Klepsedra
On the southeast side of the streambed opposite the sacred spring are the remains of an unusually well-preserved klepsedra (water clock). This instrument is important in the study of ancient methods of timekeeping in that it is an example of an inflow water clock. Since an inflow clock measures time by the filling of a known volume from a constant rate of inflow, it is much more accurate than an outflow water clock in measuring the gradations between full and empty. [8] The klepsedra was composed of a central, square resevoir with a steep stairway on the south side to allow access to the bronze plug at the bottom of the resevoir. Domestic structures for the operation of the sanctuary are closely-packed along the southeast side of the ravine, both north and south of the klepsedra.
[edit] Images of the Amphiareion
 View SE from the top of the cavea of the theater |
 Bench along the rear wall of the stoa. |
 The bronze plug at the bottom of the klepsedra resevoir. |
 Marble prohedrion seat in the theater. |
[edit] Notes
- ^ The Roman poet Statius wrote an epic poem on this myth in the 1st century CE .
- ^ Pausanias 1.34.2
- ^ Histories, 1.47-49: Croesos asks what he will be doing on a predetermined day. The oracle answered correctly that he would be boiling a tortoise and a lamb in a bronze pot with a bronze lid.
- ^ In Histories, 1.92.2, Herodotus says that Croesos made a dedication at the Amphiareion.
- ^ Pausanias (1.34.3) says that the altar was dedicated to:
- Heracles, Zeus and Apollo the Healer
- Heroes and heroes’ wives
- Hestia, Hermes, Amphiaraos, and the children of Amphilochos
- Aphrodite, Panacea (all-cure), Iaso, Health, and Athena the Healer
- Nymphs and Pan; the rivers Achelous and Cephisus
- ^ 1.34.4
- ^ The stoa is dated by the shape of the Doric capitals.
- ^ An outflow water clock has a rate of outflow that is dependant on the mass of water remaining in the resevoir; the less water remains, the slower is the outflow.
