Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T11:36:17.532Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Twelve - Sulla and the Siege of Athens

Reconsidering Crisis, Survival, and Recovery in the First Century B.C.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2021

Sylvian Fachard
Affiliation:
University of Lausanne
Edward M. Harris
Affiliation:
University of Durham
Get access

Summary

Exhaustive archaeological assessment of the damage sustained by Athens during the Sullan siege of 86 B.C. and the city’s subsequent recovery in the Roman period.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Destruction of Cities in the Ancient Greek World
Integrating the Archaeological and Literary Evidence
, pp. 288 - 318
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alcock, S. E. 2012. “Spare Values: The Decision not to Destroy,” in The Construction of Value in the Ancient World, ed. Papadopoulos, J. K. and Urton, G., Los Angeles, pp. 9096.Google Scholar
Alcock, S. E. 2015. “Kaleidoscopes and the Spinning of Memory in the Eastern Roman Empire,” in Cultural Memories in the Roman Empire, ed. Galinsky, K. and Lapatin, K., Los Angeles, pp. 2432.Google Scholar
Antela-Bernárdez, B. 2009. “Sila no vino a aprender historia antigua: El asedio de Atenas en 87/6 A.C.,” RÉA 111, pp. 475491.Google Scholar
Antela-Bernárdez, B. 2015. “Athenion of Athens Revisited,” Klio 97.1, pp. 5980.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Antikas, T., Wynn-Antikas, L., Naylor, J., and Stefani, L.. 2004. “Perimortem Weapon Trauma to the Thoracic Vertebrae of a 2nd Century BCE Adult Male Skeleton from Central Macedonia, Northern Greece,” Journal of Paleopathology 16.2, pp. 6978.Google Scholar
Armstrong, J., and Trundle, M.. 2019. “Sieges in the Mediterranean World,” in Brill’s Companion to Sieges in the Ancient Mediterranean, ed. Armstrong, J. and Trundle, M., Leiden, pp. 117.Google Scholar
Assenmaker, P. 2013. “Poids symbolique de la destruction et enjeux idéologiques de ses récits: Réflexion sur les sacs d’Athènes et d’Ilion durant la première guerre mithridatique,” in Destruction: Archaeological, Philological, and Historical Perspectives, ed. Driessen, J., Louvain, pp. 391414.Google Scholar
Barrandon, N. 2018. Les massacres de la république romaine, Paris.Google Scholar
Baziotopoulou-Valvani, E., and Tsirigoti-Drakotou, I.. 2001. “Kerameikos Station,” in Athens: The City Beneath the City. Antiquities from the Metropolitan Railway Excavations, ed. Parlama, L. and Stampolidis, N. C., Athens, pp. 264275.Google Scholar
Belli Pasqua, R. 2014. “La continuità delle botteghe greche in età imperiale: il caso di Atene,” in Gli ateniesi e il loro modello di città, ed. Caliò, L. M., Lippolis, E., and Parisi, V., Rome, pp. 251262.Google Scholar
Bevan, R. 2016. The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War, 2nd expanded ed., London.Google Scholar
Bonazzi, M. 2020. “The End of the Academy,” in Plato’s Academy: Its Workings and Its History, ed. Kalligas, P., Balla, C., Baziotopoulou-Valavani, E., and Karasmanis, V., Cambridge, pp. 242255.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borg, B. E. 2011. “Who Cared about Greek Identity? Athens in the 1st century BCE,” in The Struggle for Identity: Greeks and Their Past in the 1st century BCE, ed. Wiater, N. and Schmitz, T., Stuttgart, pp. 213234.Google Scholar
Brice, L. L. 2020. “Indiscipline in the Roman Army of the Late Republic and Principate,” in New Approaches to Greek and Roman Warfare, ed. Brice, L. L., Hoboken, NJ, pp. 113126.Google Scholar
Bugh, G. R. 1992. “Athenion and Aristion of Athens,” Phoenix 46.2, pp. 108123.Google Scholar
Camp, J. M. 2001. The Archaeology of Athens. New Haven.Google Scholar
Campbell, D. B. 2011. “Ancient Catapults: Some Hypotheses Reexamined,” Hesperia 80, pp. 677700.Google Scholar
Chapman, H. H. 2009. “What Josephus Sees: The Temple of Peace and the Jerusalem Temple as Spectacle in Text and Art,” Phoenix 63, pp. 107130.Google Scholar
Cline, E. H. 2010. Jerusalem Besieged: From Ancient Canaan to Modern Israel, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Closs, V. M., and Keitel, E., eds. 2020. Urban Disasters and the Roman Imagination, Berlin.Google Scholar
Connor, A. 2017. The Political Afterlife of Sites of Monumental Destruction: Reconstructing Affect in Mostar and New York, London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conwell, D. H. 2008. Connecting a City to the Sea: The History of the Athenian Long Walls, Leiden.Google Scholar
Costaki, L. 2009. “Οδικό δίκτυο των Αθηνών,” in Αττικής Οδοί: Αρχαίοι δρόμοι της Αττικής, ed. M. Korres, pp. 96111.Google Scholar
Dawdy, S. L. 2016. Patina: A Profane Archaeology, Chicago.Google Scholar
de Callataÿ, F. 1997. L’histoire des Guerres Mithridatiques vue par les monnaies, Louvain-la-Neuve.Google Scholar
Deeg, P. 2019. Der Kaiser und die Katastrophe: Untersuchungen zum politischen Umgang mit Umweltkatastrophen im Prinzipat (31 v. Chr. bis 192 n. Chr.), Stuttgart.Google Scholar
Dickenson, C. P. 2017. On the Agora: The Evolution of a Public Space in Hellenistic and Roman Greece (c. 323 BC-267 AD), Leiden.Google Scholar
Dobbins, J. J. 1994. “Problems of Chronology, Decoration, and Urban Design in the Forum of Pompeii,” AJA 98.4, pp. 629694.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Driessen, J. 2002. “Towards an Archaeology of Crisis: Defining the Long-Term Impact of the Bronze Age Santorini Eruption,” in Natural Disasters and Cultural Change, ed. Torrence, R. and Griffith, J., London, pp. 250263.Google Scholar
Eckert, A. 2016. Lucius Cornelius Sulla in der antiken Erinnerung: Jener Mörder, der sich Felix nannte, Berlin.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eckert, A., and Thein, A., eds. 2020. Sulla: Politics and Reception, Berlin.Google Scholar
Eleftheratou, S. 2019. Μουσείο Ακρόπολης: Η ανασκαφή, Athens.Google Scholar
Empereur, J.-Y. 1981. “Collection Paul Canellopoulos (XVII). Petits objets inscrits,” BCH 105.1, pp. 537568.Google Scholar
Engels, D., Martens, D., and Wilkin, A.. 2013. “Pratiques et discours de la destruction: Quelques réflexions introductives,” in La destruction dans l’histoire: Pratiques et discours, ed. Engels, D., Martens, D., and Wilkin, A., Paris, pp. 939.Google Scholar
Ficuciello, L. 2008. Le strade di Atene, Athens.Google Scholar
Gatzke, A. F. 2013. “The Propaganda of Insurgency: Mithridates VI and the ‘Freeing of the Greeks’ in 88 BCE,” AncW 44.1, pp. 6377.Google Scholar
Geagan, D. J. 1965. The Athenian Constitution after Sulla. Hesperia Suppl. 12, Princeton.Google Scholar
Geagan, D. J. 2011. Inscriptions: The Dedicatory Monuments. Agora 28, Princeton.Google Scholar
Giannikapani, E. 2017. “The Historical Development of the Spring of Klepsydra on the North Slope of the Acropolis of Athens,” in Cura Aquarum in Greece, ed. Wellbrock, K., Siegburg, pp. 133170.Google Scholar
Gilliver, C. 2007. “Battle,” in The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare: Volume 2, Rome from the Late Republic to the Late Empire, ed. Sabin, P., van Wees, H., and Whitby, M., Cambridge, pp. 122157.Google Scholar
Greco, E., ed. 2015. Topografia di Atene. Sviluppo urbano e monumenti dalle origini al III secolo d.C. Tomo 5: Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Athenarum, Athens.Google Scholar
Grigoropoulos, D. 2016. “The Piraeus from 86 BC to Late Antiquity: Continuity and Change in the Landscape, Function, and Economy of the Port of Roman Athens,” BSA 111, pp. 239268.Google Scholar
Habicht, C. 1997. Athens from Alexander to Antony, trans. Schneider, D. L., Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Heijnen, S. 2018. “Athens and the Anchoring of Roman Rule in the 1st century BCE (67–17),” Journal of Ancient History 6.1, pp. 80110.Google Scholar
Hoff, M. C. 1989. “The Early History of the Roman Agora at Athens,” in The Greek Renaissance in the Roman Empire: Papers from the Tenth British Museum Classical Colloquium, ed. Walker, S. and Cameron, A., London, pp. 18.Google Scholar
Hoff, M. C. 1997. “Laceratae Athenae: Sulla’s Siege of Athens in 87/6 B.C.,” in The Romanization of Athens: Proceedings of an International Conference Held at Lincoln, Nebraska (April 1996), ed. Hoff, M. C. and Rotroff, S. I., Oxford, pp. 3351.Google Scholar
Hoff, M. C. 2005. “Athens Honors Pompey the Great,” in The Statesman in Plutarch’s Works, Volume II: The Statesmen in Plutarch’s Greek and Roman Lives, ed. de Blois, L., et al., Leiden, pp. 327336.Google Scholar
Kallet-Marx, R. 1995. Hegemony to Empire: The Development of the Roman Imperium in the East from 148 to 62 B.C., Berkeley.Google Scholar
Karanika, A. 2019. “Troy as Trauma: Reflections on Intergenerational Transmission and the Locus of Trauma,” in Emotional Trauma in Greece and Rome: Representations and Reactions, ed. Karanika, A. and Panoussi, V., London, pp. 210224.Google Scholar
Kennell, N. 1998. Rev. of M. C. Hoff and S. I. Rotroff, The Romanization of Athens, in BMCR 1998.10.8.Google Scholar
Kleinschmidt, T. 2011. “Die Sylleia und die attischen Tetradrachmen der Münzmeister Eumelos und Theoxenides,” Keraunia 298, pp. 131159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klooster, J., and Kuin, I. N. I.. 2020. “Introduction: What Is a Crisis? Framing versus Experience,” in After the Crisis: Remembrance, Re-anchoring, and Recovery in Ancient Greece and Rome, ed. Klooster, J. and Kuin, I. N. I., London, pp. 314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kohler, T. A., and Bocinsky, R. K.. 2017. “Crises as Opportunities for Cultural Change,” in Crisis to Collapse: The Archaeology of Social Breakdown, ed. Cunningham, T. and Driessen, J., Louvain, pp. 263273.Google Scholar
Kreimerman, I. 2017. “A Typology for Destruction Layers: The Late Bronze Age Southern Levant as a Case Study,” in Crisis to Collapse: The Archaeology of Social Breakdown, ed. Cunningham, T. and Driessen, J., Louvain, pp. 173203.Google Scholar
Kuin, I. N. I. 2017. “Anchoring Political Change in Post-Sullan Athens,” in Strategies of Remembrance in Greece under Rome (100 BC-100 AD), ed. Dijkstra, T. M., Kuin, I. N. I., Moser, M., and Weidgenannt, D., Leiden, pp. 157167.Google Scholar
Kuin, I. N. I. 2018. “Sulla and the Invention of Roman Athens,” Mnemosyne 71, pp. 616639.Google Scholar
Kuin, I. N. I. 2020. “Sulla and the Philosophers: The Cultural History of the Sack of Athens,” in Sulla: Politics and Reception, ed. Eckert, A. and Thein, A., Berlin, pp. 143158.Google Scholar
Levithan, J. 2013. Roman Siege Warfare, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Levithan, J. 2020. “Roman Siege Warfare: Moral and Morale,” in New Approaches to Greek and Roman Warfare, ed. Brice, L. L., Hoboken, NJ, pp. 139148.Google Scholar
Lynch, K. 2011. “Depositional Patterns and Behavior in the Athenian Agora: When Disaster Strikes,” in Pottery in the Archaeological Record: Greece and Beyond, ed. Lawall, M. L. and Lund, J., Aarhus, pp. 6874.Google Scholar
Mango, E. 2010. “Tanta vis admonitionis inest in locis. Zur Veränderung von Erinnerungsräumen im Athen des 1. Jahrhunderts v. Chr.,” in Die Akropolis von Athen im Hellenismus und in der römischen Kaiserzeit, ed. Krumeich, R. and Witschel, C., Wiesbaden, pp. 117155.Google Scholar
Mayor, A. 2010. The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy, Princeton.Google Scholar
Meyer, M. 2019. “The Acropolis Is Burning! Reactions to Collective Trauma in the Years after 480/79 BCE,” in Emotional Trauma in Greece and Rome: Representations and Reactions, ed. Karanika, A. and Panoussi, V., London, pp. 95109.Google Scholar
Miles, M. M. 2008. Art as Plunder: The Ancient Origins of Debate about Cultural Patrimony, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Miles, M. M. 2012. “Entering Demeter’s Gateway: The Roman Propylon in the City Eleusinion,” in Architecture of the Sacred: Space, Ritual, and Experience from Classical Greece to Byzantium, ed. Wescoat, B. D. and Ousterhout, R. G., Cambridge, pp. 114151.Google Scholar
Ñaco del Hoyo, T., Antela-Bernárdez, B., Arrayás-Morales, I., and Busquets-Artigas, S.. 2009. “The Impact of the Roman Intervention in Greece and Asia Minor upon Civilians (88–63 B.C.),” in Transforming Historical Landscapes in the Ancient Empires, ed. Antela-Bernárdez, B. and Ñaco del Hoyo, T., Oxford, pp. 3351.Google Scholar
Palagia, O. 1997. “Classical Encounters: Attic Sculpture after Sulla,” in The Romanization of Athens: Proceedings of an International Conference Held at Lincoln, Nebraska (April 1996), ed. Hoff, M. C. and Rotroff, S. I., Oxford, pp. 8195.Google Scholar
Palagia, O. 2018. “The Elgin Throne and the Tyrannicides,” in Γλυπτική και κοινωνία στη ρωμαϊκή Ελλάδα: καλλιτεχνικά προϊόντα, κοινωνικές προβολές, ed. Karanastasi, P., Stefanidou-Tiveriou, T., and Damaskos, D., Thessaloniki, pp. 6774.Google Scholar
Parigi, C. 2015. “Die Entwicklung des Kerameikos innerhalb und außerhalb der Befestigungsmauern zwischen dem 1. Jh. v. Chr. und dem 1. Jh. n. Chr.,” in Im Schatten der Alten? Ideal und Lebenswirklichkeit im römischen Griechenland, ed. Fouquet, J. and Gaitanou, L., Mainz, pp. 171186.Google Scholar
Parigi, C. 2018. “Ancora sulla datazione di IG II2 1035: alcune note alla luce di un riesame del period post-sillano ad Atene,” ZPE 206, pp. 83101.Google Scholar
Parigi, C. 2019a. “Athen und die Plünderung durch Sulla: Archäologische und topographische Überlegungen,” in Argonautica: Festschrift für Reinhard Stupperich, ed. Fouquet, J., et al., Marsberg, pp. 158174.Google Scholar
Parigi, C. 2019b. Atene e il sacco di Silla: Evidenze archeologiche e topographiche fra l’86 e il 27 a.C., Wiesbaden.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perego, E., Scopascasa, R., and Amicone, S.. 2019. “Introduction. Collapse or Survival? Crisis and Social Change in the Ancient Central Mediterranean,” in Collapse or Survival: Micro-dynamics of Crisis and Endurance in the Ancient Central Mediterranean, ed. Perego, E., Scopacasa, R., and Amicone, S., Oxford, pp. xixxxix.Google Scholar
Pretzler, M. 2019. “Pausanias and the Intellectual Travelers of the Roman Imperial Period: The Acropolis and Historical Imagination,” in Ascending and Descending the Acropolis: Movement in Athenian Religion, ed. Friese, W., Handberg, S., and Kristensen, T. M., Aarhus, pp. 103118.Google Scholar
Raja, R. 2012. Urban Development and Regional Identity in the Eastern Roman Provinces, 50 BC–AD 250, Aarhus.Google Scholar
Rakoczy, L. 2008. “Introduction,” in The Archaeology of Destruction, ed. Radoczy, L., Newcastle upon Tyne, pp. 15.Google Scholar
Rizakis, A. D., and Zoumbaki, S.. 2017. “Local Elites and Social Mobility in Greece under the Empire: The Cases of Athens and Sparta,” in Social Dynamics under Roman Rule: Mobility and Social Change in the Provinces of Achaia and Macedonia, ed. Rizakis, A. D., Camia, F., and Zoumbaki, S., Athens, pp. 158180.Google Scholar
Rogers, D. K. 2020. Rev. of Parigi 2019b, in BMCR 2020.10.13.Google Scholar
Rogers, D. K. 2021. “Roman Athens,” in The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Athens, ed. Neils, J. and Rogers, D. K., Cambridge, pp. 421–436.Google Scholar
Rotroff, S. I. 1997a. “From Greek to Roman in Athenian Ceramics,” in The Romanization of Athens: Proceedings of an International Conference held at Lincoln, Nebraska (April 1996), ed. Hoff, M. C. and Rotroff, S. I., Oxford, pp. 97116.Google Scholar
Rotroff, S. I. 1997b. Hellenistic Pottery: Athenian and Imported Wheelmade Table Ware and Related Material. Agora 29, Princeton.Google Scholar
Rous, S. A. 2019. Reset in Stone: Memory and Reuse in Ancient Athens, Madison.Google Scholar
Ruggeri, C. 2006. “Silla e la conquista di Atene nell’86 a.C.,” in Italo-Tusco-Romana: Festschrift für Luciana Aigner-Foresti, zum Geburtstag am 30. Juli 2006, ed. Amann, P., Pedrazzi, M., and Taeuber, H., Vienna, pp. 315324.Google Scholar
Santangelo, F. 2007. Sulla, the Elites, and the Empire: A Study of Roman Policies in Italy and the Greek East, Leiden.Google Scholar
Sassù, A. 2016. “Note sul bottino di Silla ad Atene,” in ΔΡΟΜΟΙ. Studi sul mondo antico offerti a Emanuele Greco, ed. Longo, F., Di Cesare, R., and Privitera, S., Athens, pp. 155164.Google Scholar
Schmaltz, G. C. R. 2009. Augustan and Julio-Claudian Athens: A New Epigraphy and Prospography, Leiden.Google Scholar
Schwartz, G. M. 2006. “From Collapse to Regeneration,” in After Collapse: The Regeneration of Complex Societies, ed. Schwartz, G. M. and Nichols, J. J., Tuscon, pp. 317.Google Scholar
Spawforth, A. J. S. 2012. Greece and the Augustan Cultural Revolution. Greek Culture in the Roman World, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Stefanidou-Tiveriou, T. 2008. “Tradition and Romanization in the Monumental Landscape of Athens,” in Athens During the Roman Period: Recent Discoveries, New Evidence, ed. Vlizos, S., Athens, pp. 1140.Google Scholar
Strozeck, J. 2014. Der Kerameikos in Athen. Geschichte, Bauten, und Denkmäler im archäologischen Park, Möhnensee.Google Scholar
Tatum, J. 2011. “The Late Republic. Autobiography and Memoirs in the Age of the Civil Wars,” in Political Autobiographies and Memoirs in Antiquity, ed. Marasco, G., Leiden, pp. 161187.Google Scholar
Teets, S. C. 2020. “The Trauma of Autopsy and the Transgression of History in Josephus’ Jewish War,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 51, pp. 261284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Theocharaki, A. M. 2020. The Ancient Circuit Walls of Athens, Berlin.Google Scholar
Thompson, H. A. 1940. The Tholos of Athens and Its Predecessors. Hesperia Suppl. 4, Princeton.Google Scholar
Thompson, H. A. 1960. “Activities in the Athenian Agora: 1959,” Hesperia 29, pp. 359363.Google Scholar
Trümper, M. 2019. “Crisis and Decline in Morgantina under Roman Rule: A Reassessment,” in Collapse or Survival: Micro-dynamics of Crisis and Endurance in the Ancient Central Mediterranean, ed. Perego, E., Scopacasa, R., and Amicone, S., Oxford, pp. 97138.Google Scholar
Vogeikoff-Brogan, N. 2000. “Late Hellenistic Pottery in Athens: A New Deposit and Further Thoughts on the Association of Pottery and Societal Change,” Hesperia 69.3, pp. 293333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Worthington, I. 2021. Athens after Empire: A History from Alexander the Great to the Emperor Hadrian, Oxford.Google Scholar
Ziolkowski, A. 1993. “Urbs direpta, or How the Romans Sacked Cities,” in War and Society in the Roman World, ed. Rich, J. and Shipley, G., London, pp. 6991.Google Scholar
Zoumbaki, S. 2018. “Sulla, the Army, the Officers, and the Poleis of Greece: A Reassessment of Warlordism in the First Phase of the Mithridatic Wars,” in War, Warlords, and Interstate Relations in the Ancient Mediterranean, ed. Ñaco del Hoyo, T. and López Sánchez, F., Leiden, pp. 351379.Google Scholar
Zoumbaki, S. 2020. “Sulla’s Relations with the Poleis of Central and Southern Greece in a Period of Transition,” in Sulla: Politics and Reception, ed. Eckert, A. and Thein, A., Berlin, pp. 3354.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×