KAISARIANI
Attica, Greece.
To the E of
Athens on the W slopes of Mt. Hymettos, at an altitude
of 350 m, is the famous Kaisariani monastery set within
a sequestered glen. In the outer face of the surrounding
E wall is a spring, with water flowing through a marble
ram's head. This sculpture, insofar as comparison is
possible, is similar to the fragments of a water spout
found on the Athenian Acropolis belonging to the Old
Temple of Athena, ca. 525 B.C. Architectural pieces of
Roman date can be found in the principal church, courtyard and refectory, and in the walls of two ruined
churches half a km to the W.
It is extremely tempting to identify Kaisariani as
Κύλλου Πήρα, “a place on Hymettos,” according to Suidas,
“with a sanctuary of Aphrodite and a spring, drinking
from which women have easy delivery and the childless
become fertile.” But the spring called Kallopoula, half
a km to the E, is another possible candidate. However,
it is only at the monastery that one can visualize Ovid's
setting for the tragic death of Prokris in the arms of her
faithful Kephalos (
Ars Am. 3.687-746).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. Milchhöfer,
Karten von Attika. Erläuternder Text 2 (1883) 23-25; T. Wiegand,
Die Archaische Poros-Architektur der Akropolis zu Athen (1904)
125; A. A. Papagiannopoulos-Palaios,
Καισαριανή (1965)
I.
C.W.J. ELIOT
