Looking at Athens through the lyric lens

In the archaic age Athens had a rather different appearance from the one it was gradually to acquire over the course of the fifth century. As some recent studies on Athenian topography have shown, the main civic and religious spaces of the polis were located either on the Acropolis or in the area to the south-east, delimited by the river Ilissos. Located there were the Old Agora (with the city’s most important buildings), the temple of Zeus Olympios, the Delphinion, and the Pythion (the two major shrines of Apollo). Lyric poets, active between the end of the sixth century and the first half of the fifth, provide information on the archaic layout of the city and make implicit references to the monuments located in the Old Agora or on the banks of the Ilissos. Examples will be made particularly concerning the works of Solon and Bacchylides. The aim of this chapter is to detect the intervisual allusions to Athenian public spaces in the works of lyric poets, in order to create a sort of map of late-archaic Athens, highlighting the deep relationship between the poets and the city.