The Ancient Agora & Stoa of Attalos: The Cradle of Democracy

Why is it significant?

Walk under the colonnade of the Stoa of Attalos and look out across the green groves and marble ruins of the Ancient Agora. For over a thousand years, this very valley was the civic, political, and philosophical heart of Athens.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Walk under the colonnade of the Stoa of Attalos and look out across the green groves and marble ruins of the Ancient Agora. For over a thousand years, this very valley was the civic, political, and philosophical heart of Athens. Here, citizens gathered to debate legislation, vote on war, and hear trials in open court.

In the shade of these stoas, Socrates spent his days interrogating shoemakers, politicians, and youth, asking what constitutes virtue and justice. The reconstructed two-story Stoa of Attalos, originally a gift from King Attalos the Second of Pergamon in the second century BC, was rebuilt in nineteen fifty-six by the American School of Classical Studies.

Inside the Agora museum, you can see the kleroterion, a stone allotment machine used by Athenians to randomly select jurors and prevent bribery, as well as the ostraca—shards of pottery scratched with names used to exile dangerous tyrants from the city for ten years.

Walk up the gentle pine-covered knoll of Agoraios Kolonos to the Temple of Hephaestus.