By 400 BC, had the Greek Ekklesia (Assembly) moved their meetings to Pnyx hill or was it still meeting in the Agora?
Lumpy
August 25, 2023, 2:48am
2
Wikipedia says assemblies were being held at Pynx as early as 500 BC.
The following doesn’t seem to have the answer to your original question but it’s an excellent five-part essay on ancient Greek (particularly Athenian) government:
This is the first of a planned three part (I, IIa, IIb, IIc, III) look at the structure of the ancient Greek polis, the self-governing ‘city state,’ as part of a larger series on civic …
Wikipedia says the ekklesia met in the Agora from 508 BC to the early 5th century (i.e. some time around 500-450 BC), then moved to the Pnyx hill, with two annual meetings at the Theater of Dionysus. Then, in around 300 BC, the meetings of the ekklesia were moved to the theater.
So in 400 BC, the ekklesia would be meeting at the Pnyx hill, with two annual meetings at the Theater of Dionysus.
The Pnyx was the official meeting place of the Athenian democratic assembly (Ancient Greek: ekklesia). In the earliest days of Athenian democracy (after the reforms of Kleisthenes in 508 B.C.), the ekklesia met in the Agora. Sometime in the early 5th century, the meeting place was moved to a hill south and west of the Acropolis. This new meeting place came to be called “Pnyx” (from the Greek word meaning “tightly packed together”.
The Pnyx (/nɪks, pəˈnɪks/; Ancient Greek: Πνύξ [pnýks]; Greek: Πνύκα, Pnyka) is a hill in central Athens, the capital of Greece. Beginning as early as 507 BC (Fifth-century Athens), the Athenians gathered on the Pnyx to host their popular assemblies, thus making the hill one of the earliest and most important sites in the creation of democracy.
The Pnyx is located less than 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) west of the Acropolis and about 2 km south-west of the Syntagma Square in the centre of Athens.
The ...
In ancient Greece, an ekklesiasterion was a building specifically built for the purpose of holding the supreme meetings of the ecclesia. Like many other cities, Athens did not have an ekklesiasterion. Instead, the regular meetings of the assembly were held on the Pnyx and two annual meetings took place in the Theater of Dionysus. Around 300 BC, the meetings of the ekklesia were moved to the theater. The meetings of the assembly could attract large audiences: 6,000 citizens might have attended in Athens during the fifth century BC.
The ecclesia or ekklesia (Greek: ἐκκλησία) was the assembly of the citizens in city-states of ancient Greece.
The ekklesia of ancient Athens is particularly well-known. It was the popular assembly, open to all male citizens as soon as they qualified for citizenship. In 594 BC, Solon allowed all Athenian citizens to participate, regardless of class. The assembly was responsible for declaring war, military strategy and electing the strategoi and other officials. It was responsible for nominating ...