Roman Agora: Hadrian's Heritage

Time to leave the musea and go outside again! We walked quite a bit as you can see: The Orthodox church close to the Kerameikos is on the hill to the right, the Greek agora to our feet on the left, and here we were overseeing it all. However, soon we went down to see the Roman agora (marketplace).

Following the Roman conquest of Athens in 146 BC, the Romans did not hesitate to leave their traces in the city, such as this marketplace. It is significantly smaller than the Greek one (as Roman culture was in the beginning a copy of Greek culture), however the olive tree giving really good oil is common to both cultures. Yum! (No seriously, they also gave us olive oil soap and lotion in the hotel ... everything olive oil!)

Not really in the picture is the octogonal Tower of the Winds, a meteorological and astronomical tower with a sun dial ... crazy technology!

Imperator Hadrian (who reigned in the early second century AD - yes, the guy who also built the wall in the north of England and the Pantheon) built a library here that was later used as a church (like so many other buildings) so that it survived for some time.

It was part of the city walls, but fell with the rest of the city when the Herules attacked ... uncultured swine :P

Hadrian also built this arch reading "This is the city of Theseus, son of Zeus" in the front (to appease the local traditions) and "This is the city of Hadrian and not of Theseus" in the back (to show who has the power). Get trolled, Athenians!

Next, we went to see the mighty temple of Olympian Zeus!

Photo gallery