[161] κυκλόεντ᾽ ἀγορᾶς θρόνον = κυκλοέσσης ἀγορᾶς θρόνον: cp. Soph. Ant. 793 “νεῖκος ἀνδρῶν ξύναιμον,” Soph. Trach. 993 “ὦ Κηναία κρηπὶς βωμῶν.” “Round throne of the marketplace” means simply （I now think） “throne consisting of the round marketplace.” The sitting statue of Artemis is in the middle of the agora; hence the agora itself is poetically called her throne. The word κύκλος in connection with the Athenian agora, of which it perhaps denoted a special part; schol. Aristoph. Kn. 137 “ὁ δὲ κύκλος Ἀθήνησίν ἐστι καθάπερ μάκελλος, ἐκ τῆς κατασκευῆς” （form） τὴν προσηγορίαν λαβών. ἔνθα δὴ πιπράσκεται χωρὶς κρεῶν τὰ ἄλλα ὤνια, καὶ ἐξαιρέτως δὲ οἱ ἰχθύες. Cp. Eur. Orest. 919 “ὀλιγάκις ἄστυ κἀγορᾶς χραίνων κύκλον,” “the circle of the agora,” i.e. “its bounds”: cp. Thuc. 3.74 “τὰς οἰκίας τὰς ἐν κύκλῳ τῆς ἀγορᾶς,” “all round” the agora. In Hom. Il. 18.504, cited by Casaubon on Theophr. Char. 2.4, ἱερῷ ἐνὶ κύκλῳ refers merely to the γέροντες in council. This is better than （1） “her round seat in the agora”— κυκλόεντα meaning that the pedestal of the statue was circular; （2） “her throne in the agora, round which κύκλιοι χοροί range themselves.” This last is impossible. εὐκλέα, alluding to Artemis Εὔκλεια, the vipgin goddess of Faip Fame, wopshirred esr. by Locpians and Boeotians: Plut. Arist. 20 “βωμὸς γὰρ αὐτῇ καὶ ἄγαλμα παρὰ πᾶσαν ἀγορὰν ἵδρυται, καὶ προθύουσιν αἵ τε γαμούμεναι καὶ οἱ γαμοῦντες”: also at Corinth, Xen. Hell. 4.4.2. Pausanias saw a temple of Ἄρτεμις Εὔκλεια, with a statue by Scopas, near the Προιτίδες πύλαι on the N.E. side of Thebes. Near it were statues of Apollo Boedromios and Hermes Agoraios. The latter suggests that the Agora of the Lower Town （which was deserted when Pausanias visited Thebes） may have been near. In mentioning the ἀγορά, Soph. may have been further influenced by the fact that Artemis was worshipped as Ἀγοραία: thus in the altis at Olympia there was an Ἀρτεμίδος Ἀγοραίας βωμός near that of Ζεὺς Ἀγοραῖος （Paus. 5.15.4）.
This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
Professional Data Entry.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.