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    28 views34 pages

    The Idea of Town

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    Rykwert

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Joseph Rykwert The Idea of a Town The Anthropology of Urban Form in Rome, Italy and the Ancient World Princeton University Press Contents The Ritual Bos 3 The New Commnity ° Planaing Techniques: Raional and Leeson) t and the Cit 4 i) The Theor 7 Root again ‘* Haroptclen q Grthogonal Panning and the Surveyors 7 Casrum ‘The Benes Mareaboto Myth and Rite The Boundary of the First Rome Lapel and Laperead Boundary and Conve: Mundus and Te Troy: Trajan Horse and Trojan ( Boundary, Strength and Festi Tae Boundary ad the Cae Te Ride andthe Mare Mase, Dance, Ci The Guilty Founder ae Fe The Pas pase 63 llustrations Mandala 8 The Bros Rie ‘ Te So sn he aig af hms ri stipe epaation, Guilt and Reconciliation 3 2 Romulus and Rems By Serger bay ara lure ote Woeld Ms jean 3 The Has % {Anau 2 The Dosen 2 Tosa with hy pits 7 The Breyday Moca “a 8 The Templum ofbe sy The Gre Pan 79 y nw cm , — % Sie The City as 8 Curable Disease : Ritual and Hysteria 188 ‘9 The face ofthe sundial divided up S The Ft Blders we 10 The Roman spine a work 3 The Sign ra Town ca {2 Theale fie geen La Auto Paste i neta 104 1g Ascone of iver divination 2 Sue 204 15 A dvinatary liver S Tie 33 18 ‘The camino of eri and econ of vines s 18 ‘The enaibdeton Humbaba 5s 1 Mota dng ter ® 12 Bintan mote of er % The Pacem er z 423 The Severan Forma Urbis Romac o 2 Aputic balding & 33 Tet sre Grashan Cs 27. The enntryside between Montdimar and Orange 22 The oarlle map ofthe dint between Perla and Donaice $0. “Hud Tomes onthe Fara? "3 The founder ofthe town performing the eating of he sear St Gaim of Berytas 30 Coin of Casaren Augusta 3 Coin of Caran Agta 3B Gaerne a plow Pieris restoration of Catellaero dk Foutanclea {9 Pigorins reconstruction ofthe timber caine at Catone 41,42, Taowations at Cartellaeza dt Foctanelaa 44. Soene probably showing dhe construction of hut a $5 Howse with sais a 48 Sctios ofthe Great Naquane rock u $7 Marsaloto: present sate of excavations 6 {8 Marzabotn: acral photograph ofthe ste 9 40-51 Marabou: acropal or $3 ‘The town fram the Acropolis a 33, Spina remain of pile supports of « dweling & HH The harbour quarter of Spm 83 56. Forum Romanum 93 5158 The Saians moving the ance * - mA Preface We think of the town as issue of buildings which grows more oF less unpredictably and is traversed by roads, pierced by squates, or else at a mesh of roadways fringed by building at the outskirts and webbed by them at the centre. Although we regard them as natural phenomena, governed by an independent, uncontrollable and sometimes unpredie able law of growth or expansion, ike that of natural organisms, the truth is that towns do not grow by interior and inscrutable instinct. They are built, piece-meal by individual inhabitants, in larger tacts by speculators or authority. Now and then, particularly when a new town is Founded, the authorities. whether loeal or national, on the advice of theic experts teat the public toa asp of embarrassment. Tt appears that evie authorities, or even the planners themselves, are notable to think of the new town as a totality, ae @ pattern which might carry other meanings that the commonplaces of zoning (industry, habitat, Ieisure, ete.) circulation. To consider the town or city a symbolic pattern, asthe ancients di, sem utterly alien and pointless, Nowa: days if we think of anything as ‘symbolic’ itis practically always an objector action which ean he taken at single view The conceptual poverty of our city discourse is exposed even when we look atthe reoene past. In the ninetenth century the eter for ‘etablishing its terminology were perhape still more directly ‘positive than they are now. The distinction between town or city would be made, for instance in terms of che paving of sees Going further back, however, the tne of the discourse changes, as might have been expected. Charles Daviler, a French seventeenth. ‘entury theorist, defines a town in his dictionary of architectural terms as ‘an ordering of blocks and quarters disposed vith symmetry and decorum, of stzvets and public squares opening in straight lines with a fine and healthy orientation and adequate slopes for the draining of ‘water... But his desription stands at the end of tradition. “The ty, proposes a recent write, sist of alla physical reality: a more or les sizeable group of buildings, of habitations and. public build ings... . The city begins only when paths are tansformed into roads..." He follows his nineteenthcentury predecesors. ‘This definition is along way ftom Nicis's rousing words to the Athenian soldiers on the beach at Syracuse: "You are yourselves the town, wher fever you choose to sete». itis men that make the cy, not the wall and shipe without them. Traffic in cities has today become so thick ancl cloted thae it is hurd suprising to find this eoncentraton on the road pattern among ‘our contemporaries. Trafic engineering is regarded as having super: sede town planning; the street pattern, che railway or underground, ate superimposed on eachother, and together become that aspeet ofthe city which has the greatest notional and conceptual validity. As trac ‘congestion and ch atendant problems mou, so traffic surgery assumes an increasing importance inthe public ming. Nori this the only aspect of city planning which has turned into erat of keeping one step only behind current development. Reasomiss have for nearly two hundred years encouraged us (0 think thatthe rate of growth of urban popula tion isto be equated with the groweh of te gross national product (sthich they seem to consider good in itself, however ie affects the Individual). In spite therefore, af the complaints about erses in tralfc for about the shortage of city space, complaints which planners ter ritually whenever these problems are under discussion, when a town fail 1 expand at an even rate (as has boon the case of the Rhine Randstad), the same planners confess themselves dismayed by such nptom of economic eri 1t is commonly assumed, not only by planners, but by public authorities and even by the general public, hat future expansion will fo on at the prevent rate, forecasting the future by simple statistical inference. The posibility of new developments i clded from the argue ment by silence. The conceptual framework within which planners work has been designed to evade the iaue of imposing aay order of an cextra-economic nature on the city. Fear of restriction often appears in the form of a fear of eramping an autonomous growth. ‘That ie why toyn planners, when talking about the way towns live and grow, invoke images drawn from nature when they consider town plans: a tre, & leaf, piece of skin tse, a hand and so on, with excursions into pathology when pointing to erses. But the town is not really ike a natural phenomenon. [eis an artefct an arteict of » curious kind, ‘compounded of willed and random elements, imperfeedy controlled, I itis related to physiology at all ite more like a dream than anything ke, “Although the lst half century has accustomed us to regard dreams as objects susceptible of serious, even scientific, study, yt the suggestion faftantasy which the word implies ie regarded s offensive in the contest ‘of urban planning. This is partly because ic is a matter where capital invesuncatis hug, and partly because the well-being of masts, well being equated with physical amenity, is at stake ere again we are up against the poverty of much wrbanistc discourse. The way in which space is occupied is much studied, but txclusively in physical terms of cccupation and amenity. The pycho- logical space, the cultura, the juridical the religions, ane not treated ae aspects of the ecological space with whose economy the urbanist is con- femed. His attention is focused on the more immediate. physical problems, the resolution of which seems most urgent. But the solutions ‘proposed, because oftheir physical presence, impinge on the symbolic world of the citizens; and often the arbitrary forms thrown up by hharased planners and architects are evolved om an irrational residue, ‘morivated by unstated spiritual as well as esthetic prejudice where very ivationality contributes further to the instability of the com: ‘munity, and may ret up a pattern of interaction between the cot munity and its outward shell which will be disastrous foe both Such procedures have been criticized by a number of sociologists. WO 0 0 OO OO oO Te seems to me that they are sight: that some consideration must be given to the model, tothe conceptual prottype ofthe town whieh its inhabitants construct mentally, and which i often exemplified in their Jhomes. So often the home i felt tbe a miniature ofthe city: not a it is, ue as we want it. Patterns of Beliaviour, even of movement may sometimes be explained at being attempts to reconcile such a con ‘eptual model with the actual, with the physical structure ofthe city, of which the inhabitants may be aware only in the fran of diagrams 8 of underground trans or bus routes ‘The conceptual model T spoke of is rarely derived fom such iggrams. More commonly i is related to views we hold about the space and the time we inhabit. And itis intended to anchor our views toa specific place: a particular home, a particular town, ‘The very statement of the problem suggest that there fs no im- ‘mediate solution 10 hand. I therefore propose to examine a closed Tecause past) situation, which is apparently familiar, and ye fll of implications for anyone thinking about the way in which we take possession of our homes. The recttinesl patterns of the Roma towns, Which survive inthe street patterns and even the country lanes of oe imperial lands, feom Scotland to Sudan, are often thought to be the by- product ofa tiltarian surveying technique, Thisis ot how the Romans Themselves sae it: the city was organized according to divine laws, The Ihome was governed by the father ofthe Family athe city was by the ‘magistrates; and the paterfamilias performed in his home the complex rituals of the state religion which the colleges of priests performed for the state. The analogy between city nd home, a city and land wat familiar tothe Romans as ic probably was tothe Etrusean before them, efore the Roman cites asumed the geiron pattern familia to us now, the idea ofa regular ety plan had to be formed in, their minds. The reetilineal city was not something at which they arrived by hitor- iss experimentation, and explained afterwards. Oi the contrary it Seems to me that such a device would have to have arisen fom just uel 4 model as T have mentioned. Tis origins are therefore primarily intresting to me because they show the elaborate geometrical and topological structure of the Roman town growing out af and grow round a system of eustom and belief which made ita perfet vehicle for sv eulture and for 8 way of ie (Over the millennium of Roman imperial rise aa decline, the city ‘underwent many changes, interpretations became increasingly elaborate and even conflicting, the vtes whose meaning was sometimes forgotten were reinterpreted anachronstcally. I wil not be concemed with Roman and Etruscan history, except incidentally, a they bear on the development ofthe model and ie tansformation in time, whichis much slower, much more gradual (as is always the cae of ritualized. ar, ritualized procedure) than ehe changes in paliial and sometimes also religious ideas. T have chosen to deal primarily with Roman tons Decause thers was an aserively urban civilization, entirely different from the one which we inhabit, and yee very amply, very accessibly documented. But Ido not think the Roman’ customs and ideas can be tndertood without comparing them with those of other peoples usually weaker and sometimes f the most primitive savagery—or s0 they would have seemed 10 the Romans, The Romans were not alone among ancient peoples in practising 3 form ofrecitineal planning and frientation. AU! the great civilizations practise it, all have mythical Accounts ofits origins, and rituals whieh guide the planner and the builder. T propose also to consider such parallel accounts to arrive at some estimate of the enormous value which the Romans, and such fncient peoples as have let us records oftheir bei, place not only fn these forms, but abo on the procedures by which the forms were ‘raven, However, always iti the conceptual model and its relation to the place and the plan shape which interest me, rather than the Inateral remains with which the archaeologist must concern himself Aefinite patterns, definite, asertive configurations of street and squares, private and public buildings, which will ot yield their meaning tothe common means of urban analysis, One nd Res ‘Town and Rite: Rome and Romulus ‘The remains of Roman towns at still visible, are stil part of everyday experience in Western Europe and round the Mediterranean and the more closely they are examined, the more puzzling they appear: In aminiag them T shall often appeal to associations established by ‘asonance and rhythm, thyme, alteration, allusion or simply physical resemblance—all the apparatur of dream analysis, in fate We have frown 30 accustomed to one word per meaning, one meaning per word, in any context, thatthe reader such semingly vague connections. But in antiquity the idea that every thing meane itself and something ele aswell, was general and ingrained: it was taken for granted. In the specific instance of the town pla its laying-oue according to a model was hedged about with elaborate cecremonial, the words and actions of which constitted the conceptual ‘model. ‘The foundat festivals, and permanently enshrined in monuments whose physical presence anchored the ritual 9 the soil and tothe piysieal shape ofthe Instate to place any reliance on mn Wwas commemorated in regularly recurring Fonds and buildings. The moa familie story connected with such a foundation isthe account ofthe death of Remus in Phtarch’s ‘Life of Romulus. “As Romulus was ch says, where le designed the foundation of casting up ditch,’ Pt the city wall, [Rem] turned some picces of work into ridicule, ant obstructed others at last, ashe was in contempt leaping over it some say Romulus himself stuck him, others one of his companions. He fel ‘There is nothing unusual about the combination of murderer, fiaticide and town founder. In seripeue, to, the first founder of @ town isthe archetypal fratricide, Cain.* But from the oust there are flaring absurdities in the story: the ny moat and wall, dhe gratuitous Killing the hesitant explanation, make one suspect that this is an allusion to a forgotten ritual. ‘The allusion seems reflected in two fbscurer legend! fistly Oeneus, the Calydonian wine-god, killed his fon Tonens for jumping over the dite he had dug rod his vineyard? ‘and secondly the hero Poimander aimed a stone atthe cynical architect Polycrithos who jumped aver the new walls of his fortes. He mised, hovtever, and hit the architect's som Leucippus, killing him instead. Plutarch hiawelf knew that his account ofthis incident in his ‘Life of Romulus as inadequate. In another book, Roman Questions, he s4ys of Romulus and Remus: Ti scemeth that this was the eause why Romulus Killed his owne brother Remus for that he presimed to leape over an holy and inviolate place... .” Rem Uhen was killed for sariege. "This explains the king, but does not account forthe tiny wall, simall enough 10 jump aver, nor for ita sacred character, Tn fat Dhutareh is here considering Yr what reason they (the Romans) con. sidesed the walls of the city to be sacred and inviolable, but not cheir fates». and he wonders: "sie (at Varro sid) because we ought co think che walls oly that we will die generously in their defence fon the other hand ie wat not penile to consecrate and bles the gates, through which many necestes were teansported, and in particular che hodies of the dead. which does not endrely satisfy him. But the Roman Quesins are not intended to be conclusive, and Plutarch says Tite more onthe ubjec, but describes the foundation rite to which the The Ritual Books incident draws attention: ‘and therefore, they who begin to found a site, environ and compase fst with a plough all chat purprse and precinct wherein they'mean fo build. He refers to thierite in even sreater detail in the “Life of Romulus”. “The founder’, he says, releting to Romulus, “ted a brazen ploaghshare to the plough, and, yoking together a bull and a cow, drove himelf a deep line or furrow round the bounds; while the busines ofall there that followed alter was to see that whatever was throwin up shoul be turned all invards cowards the city, and otto let any clod ie outside. With this ine they described the wall and calle it by a contraction pomeeriam —that is, primar, after or besides the wall; ad where they designed to make agate, there they took out the share, carried the plough over, and left apace; for which reason they consider the whole wall ae hay, except where the gates are.» And in Ronn Quins he ends his more abrupt des fription with an almost velfevident rider: ". . . because they con sidered all ploughed land sacred and inviolate -- ~” Many other Greek and Latin authors allude to or give some account ofthis ite, which the Romans were sid to have imported from Etruria. Te was performed at the foundation or refoundation of any town which aspired to the tide ‘of urbe? The ancients thought it a using af capital importance for the ‘whole religious and social life of the community; i is dificule for ws how to accept their asesment oft, Any account ofthe ceremony must inevitably begin by setting such ritual formulae against the hody of Roman religious Kterature. The Romans inherited most of their ‘seiptures from the Etruseans. They were apparently written down at an early stage of Latin Hteracy in archaic Latin, They consisted of Tablets, presumably of bone or bronze, and were in the care of the poncifeal college. ‘These writings took the form of ritual recipes and formulae, form of contract with divine powers (many Roman prayers were of this Kind), and some hymns, Several instances of «pontiff Aictating the for of prayer tothe officiating magisteate fom a written text are recorded by historians, sich as Decius Mus’ dato before his siidal change at the bate of Veseri.* The ‘Gubbio tablets’ may well bbe a fragment ofthe analogous ‘ritual books’ ofthe Iguvine people, The Roman ritual books are usually divided into two portions: the abt Taga, called after Tages, a dwarf who jumped from under the plough of the augur or facumon ‘archon? inte morning, dictated bis laws and disappeared in the evening, and the libri Vege called er the shadowy nymph Vegoia or Beyoia.!! The Tagetic hooks deal testy with the reading of omens in general and the appeasing of the ‘god libri Fatale), with che dead and the underworld (libiActenti), ‘nd with the interpretation of sacrificial entrails (bri aru) *© The iri Veginses contained instructions about the interpretation of lightning (ib Fidgurae),%¥ and the clleetion of ritual rigs with ‘whieh T shall be most concerned, the libri Riuale.¢ The ancient Texicographer Festus says something about their contents: "Rituales fninantur Etrusconim libri in quibus pracsciptim est quo ritu ‘ondantur ures arae aedessacrentur, qua sanctitate muri, quo inre The New Commasity portac quomodo tribus, curiae centuriae dstbuantur, exerctus com Fitwant{ur] eedinentur, evteraque eiusmodi ad bellum ac pacem pertinentia. 2 "Those books ofthe Eeruseans called ritual in whieh fre set out the rules for the sites by which towns are founded, temples and shrines conseerated, and wall are hallowed, what the las ofthe fates are, how tribes, curiae and centuries are co be distributed, the army constituted, and how other things pertaining to war and peace tte to be arranged. 218 When compared with Plutarch’s or Livy's secount of the doings of Romuls, this summary will appear to be a fair abstract of his lav-giving. So it is hardly surprising that che fire thing mentioned hy Festus ete rite by which cites are founded. What hhappens before this rite is before recorded history began, and belongs to hearsay, 0 legend, Commenting on a similar matter i another con {ext the great historian Fuset de Coulanges wrote: "Ancient history vas sacred and local history, Tt began with the foundation ofthe city because everything prior to that eas of no interest—that is why the ancients have forgotten the origins of thee race. Every city has its own Calendar, religion, history." The foundation rites of city provide a Key to its history. Ab urbe condita the Romans reckoned theirs.” Hf the annals! circumstantial fecount of the foundation i compared with the vague and cursory Feference othe early days of Rornulus and Remus and the even vaguer accounts of their antecedents, i wil become evident that for them the "tes of foundation really were the key to the town's history. Moreover, tanyof the puzaling features of ancient towns ean be explained i they fre related to thee rites. Such a confrontation may even provide a tide to the orm of the ancien city, because the performing of the Fits actually fixed the physical shape of the city Plutarh’s marin his Romon Question, andin the ‘Life of Roms? are only brief allusions to the rte of foundation. And although he has more to sty about it elsewhere, the founding of a Roman or Etruscan own was much more itapressive and ceremonious than he might lead ‘one to believe. Unfortunately itis rather dificult to get a clear picture tof what happened on such an occasion, The libri Riles are lost; any Feport mist be composed from twenty or so fragmentary descriptions. 1* My account is intended to give some idea of what the ancients thought and let about their towns, and how these ideas related to their general fcmeeption ofthe world, the dead and the immortals. New communities were begun ia various ways, Tt seemed to be a {general custom in Taly, for instance, that victors should impose the Surrender of one-third of the vanquished teritory, and there found Colones ® The Romans vested power fist in the king, probably; later proceedings would be initiated by a consul or atibune of the people, fr posibly even by the senate corporately; ultimately it became 3 prerogative of the emperor, But there was a custom, to which the wide tifuson of che Osean-Umbrian peoples has been atribute,!? which is particularly interesting in thie connection: the er sacnan.3* As its natne implies, ie was a springtime consecration, and the ritual was, it Planting Techies: Rational and Tratnal seems, orginally tale. Al the produce ofa given town and ts teeitory uring 2 nominated spring was consecrated to a got in some great national emergency, AMier a ine had pasted, the animale and corn were sacrificed and the children boen during the specified time expelled From the home town. Livy has recorded the details ofthe rite when describing the last time it was performed in Rome.t® On thie last foceatio no human beings were incuded in the sacrifice. But ancient writers record the normal presence of human victims. And a number ft peoples recorded ther origin ina ser sae, particularly the southern (Oscan-Umbrian peoples: the Hirpiai* the Samni!¥ the Picentes,*® the Mars? the Mamerdni?# and the Sacr.® In mot of thee names the reference to Mary andl to the ania sacred tien, the wolf and th woodpecker, ae reiterated. March was also the month in which the sserifice was normally performed, and it stl bears the name of the god to which it was particularly sacred among the various people in Italy The Grecks had no exactly corresponding custom. The Chalidians, at one poing, vowed every tenth man to Apollo ‘Tor the fertility ofthe field’, and sen them off to Delphi where the oracle commanded them to foul a new town in Bruttum, the modern Calabria hiss the myth of the origin of Reggio.” Although Strabo speaks ofthis as a unique tate in Greece, Dionysius of Halicaraasus deseribes it as most popular ong Greeks and barbarians; moreover the sacrifice ofa tthe was ‘otherwise losly associated vith Apolo! Moder writers will ways se irrelevant fummery behind what seem to them pedestrian motives: avoidance of wverpupulation or cron expansion. They are right of enare, nor do T wish to oppose economic to ritual consideration. But the economic and hygiene factors were always scen by the ancients in mythical and ritual ters. Cicero, foe instance, lists the various sensible eographie, economic and hygienic reasons which led Romulus to found his ew town where he did but tae prefies this acount with the legend about the choice ofthe st, of which T shall speak later. 29 “The relationship between such common-sense factors as thor Hited by Gioero and the ritual performance is often dispatehed suzamatily by rodetn writers, They se the religions duties asa perfunctory introduc tion to the real business in hand, This could never have been the aittude ofthe ancients. Its remarkable how thorough and rational, it their premises are accepted imaginatively, their treatment of myth and ritual appear, even in'a matter ax laborate in point of ritual as the foundation ofa cown. On the other hand, their treatment of technolog- ial points is very often hesitant and elusive. "The onder sometimes appears to be topey-curvy. While myth and ritual are discussed Fationally and in detail, all that we would exploee systematically rowalays seems to be muddled and insecure. The assumption which lies a¢ the haze of this confusion is dhe relatively modern one of con- tinuity between seientife explanation and technological development. This, however, was never achieved in antiquity: while cieniic thought ‘moved in the precise realm of mathematically formulated explanation ‘ch ema nthe serena api, Ta tcehogy wan more closely connected wth the formulation of ritual, sve terrence in he natural order, than with sient thinking Tn any em, even when the to ways of thinking overlapped, thet ‘catnip wo lvaysaalate, Hew this was doves demonsrated In an intrutive story tok by Pivarch in his Life of Pericles: my sample, thereto though rtring othe casa period in Gree, tras nrten under the Flvian Emperor, even if by a hellnistc Inocua There is story he ways that one Prices had broth him om a couney farm ois aa’ ead with one hor, and tha {Lampon he divine, on ecing the hora grow strong and solid ow of the snide ofthe forehead, gave a hisjudgement that, tere being at that Tie evo potent fins in hes the ne of Thucyies and the ter Peis, he goscnment would come to that one of hem irshowe ground or esate ti token or idicaton of fate had shown ie butte Ansvagors, ang the ln snder, showed the Mtr tht the rain hd ld nat s eng Chong ean eg, had elleted, onal ars f the veel which con tuned ia pant to that place om whence the oot of he hor tok {rn And Uta that tne Anoagors ea mich adie fr bis Ccrlanaton by those that were present, aed Lampon no les itl {ie ater wen Thueydides was overpowered and the whole ais {the sate and government came into the hands of Pers, "And yin my pao tis aur oy tha hey were both in the right oth atoral philosopher and divine, ne july detecting the me of sevens by which twas oe the other the end fo ‘etc was dg, For ir waste Dns ti ne to Bind out and {frean acon’ of what iewas mae, and in what manner and by what ea grew fe dyad othe ober to fort what end and rove torso mde, and what it might mea ox portend, Those who Aya ond the ease oa pod iin eft eo destroy its supposed “Sifeation as suc, do not take notice that ate same ine, ogether ‘avin prodigies they alo do sway with igs and signals ofan rand eomeert a fr instance the clashing of quot Gre beacons, and ieshadows ofan every oe of which an 18 case and by that se and contivance ia sg of something che Ptah taking a defemive postion on two ont: natal science js ot Bpemous hile divination not iron "The defence ‘rowl have been unthinkable before the ie of the Blate eol, en'in the time of Prices, outside nelle. cles with 0 ‘Sint interest The bbl tn divination fone f the mvs hardy of the primitive belies of humanity, andy although thas been frowned tom fr the bos part of evo milena y the ‘aor religion stil neste pratnd by a lange proportion of many one rm or another. Tina seme, statistical forecasting i schematized form of divination. Being schematic, it leads to a degree of overconfdence which some- times proves fatal tothe caleulator. In antiquity the approach to most matters which we treat with systematic asurance was often extremely The Che of Sit insecure. Often it coud only be by guesswork or by inherited ‘knack’; the erraticforees of nature, above al, could only be understood interme of personality or be dealt with by some form of addres or be coneiisted fn the form of drama, Modern waiters always consider the chive ofa site for a town in terms fof economy, hygiene, traffic problems and faites. Whenever the founder ofan ancient town thought in those terms he could only do s0 alter having transated them into mythical terms. Even when faced with the matter direcdy, as Archias and Myscellus were, dhe choice is ‘of oue virtue as agains the other. The Pythia at Delphi offered the wo potential oeciss @ choice between health and wealth. Archiss chove Wealth (Uhe obvious choice for a Corinthian) and was sent off t0 Syracuse, while Myscellue became the founder of Croton, the town where Pythagoras setled and which nurtured a famour school of medicine." "Even ithe traditional Delphic pronouncement which Strabo quotes ‘on the authority of Antiochus isa forgery, iis clear that even at late date the advantages of particular ste were revealed to the colonists a8 2 dircet and arbitrary gilt of the gods, and not asa caleulated gain ‘obtained by the oecst for his colony. Myscellus, according to another leaditon, male to farther vss tothe Delphic orate, fist beesue he could not late the site which the oracle had given’ him, and vecondly because it looked to him, on reaching it that the site of Sybare as altogether preferable, He returned to Deiphi, but the oracle snubbed im: *Myscellusshor-inthe-back, hunting for other things besides the ‘god command, you are finding lamentations Meise the gift the gos give" Tn the story of Archi and Myscells, the oecise chooses outright for the colonists. The oocist was either the leader ofa dissident faction in the metropolis, or if the metropolis was sending out a colony by legislation, was an appointed magistrate. After his death he was nally paid the honours of hero, including a state banquet at which he was ‘tually present, The oecit was himell 30 eponymous hero or some other founding father deawn from myth Hercules, or one of the Trojan War heroes whether Trojan or Greek, the Norte, ehe Argonauts, or even Cretan figures. The eponymous hero or founder was also worshipped in the metropolis, Indeed, when CGleisthenes reformed the Athenian constitution, he appealed to the Dythia to select ten eponymous heroes from a list of a hunded names Which he submited to the oracle. ® There was an altar to these heroes in the Athenian agora, and statues of them by Phidia, #0 Pausanias said, wore also comtecrated at Delphi. Alko in the agire was an lear to the ‘Archegete’, cither the eponyms of the ewelve tribes into which the Athenians were organized before the Cleisthenian reform, or of the twelve towns which took par in the Thesean sik. Theseus’ tomb and altar were near by.*# Thesew's body had previouly been hidden, fon Skyros where he died and Cimon had brought the relics to Athens a5 fan ancient oracle required.*# But there is some doubt about the twelve sims overshadowed by an The Founder and the City towns which ‘Theseus united, fr the sia was a destruction, if only hhominal, ofthe separate towns, and was conecived by the Greeks this Grattan thatthe separate forms did in fac lose their identity. The [hula the lore of colony and torn foundation, would have been much ‘tore familiar tous had Aristotle's book on colonies survived, or perhaps ‘he book on city founding by the shadowy Trisimachus.*® As itis, we ‘cn only guess atthe exact part which the oracle played in foundations the procedure and ceremonial which was followed atthe foundation, indeed there. was a snorial! form of procedure, such as the its Binet, or atthe nature ofthe founder's heroe status from allusions dispersed in Hterary and epigraplic remains. (On the founder's relationship to his ety we have, for instance, the ‘ategoric nmerion of an old choliast on Pindar: “. . . according 40 faustom the founder was buted in the centre of the city... 8 Phis svar by way of comment om Pindats desription of the monument to Pelops at Olympia: ‘Near the ford of Alpheus, by the altar many rangers venerate, stands his much-feequented tomb.‘ Though Pauanias” and the archacologst® have described and located this monument, he practice of burying the herofounder was not quite as fgneral as the seholisst seems to imply. Like the Romans, the Grecks CTsapproved of burial within the city walls, even ifthe Greek probibi- tions were never as categorie as those ofthe Twelve Tables. ® And yet fir heroes the prohibition didnot obtain. Indeed, the Delphic oracle on ‘one ocetion ordered the building ofa bovleterion over the burials of Some unspecitied heroes! The number of heroes worshipped or buried in the ana! of vations Greck cities is quite consierable.® They were fot always city founders, they may have been athletes, particularly ‘sinners im one ofthe national games, oF great poets, or ust very Koos Tooking But city founding, and te fahering of tribes, s well as the invention of skill and trades ate among the ‘typical’ characteristics of heroes." Heroes ate moet ofen thought of as warriors, but this is only fan aspect ofthe hero ie; chey have the strongest conneetion with al ‘matters concerning death, the hunt, games, divination, healing and. mystery cults. City founders, therefore, entering on the satus of hero, tended to have such matters awociated with them, And there is a corollary to be noted: cities which were not known te have been founded by a “historical” hero may well have devited one from fagments of myth, But historical persons who founded towns were, during their Iietime, given semicheroie status and honoured as heroes after their sath T's nota case of arguing causally. The ety had toe founded by a heros only a hero could fond a city. In the same way the Pindavie scholiaa’+ awertion implies « polarity: the herofounder had 10 be buried at the hear of the city only the tomb ofthe hero-founder enue fuarantee thatthe city lived. Indeed, the assembly of the primitive fzora, in the sense in which the word signifies the men and not the place, was often in early Hiterature atwacted to a pre-existing tomb. ‘The Greek agora continued to have connections with funerary cults long as the pols remained a religious as well asa polical force. The founder's co ntriking instance ofthis side of civie religions life. At Amphipois the ‘ect Brass was buried in fall armour at place facing what i now the ager” Thucydides goes on to describe the moniment and the feast! ‘And they enclosed his monument and have ever since made ‘offerings him as a hero, offering him worship, and instituting games land yearly sacrifices’ Brides, the vetor of the bat of Amphiplis in {422 .,, was adopted as patron and Miser ofthe city sta declaration of Aefianee by a colony founded by the Athenian Haguon,#* whose shrine had been destroyed. Here the ritual act is used to. yert political independence. A monument recently discovered at Pacstum sems to provide another variant on this feature of the Greek city. Bordering both agora and the great temas, a litle fenced shrine (18% 15,6 m), a small independent tomes, ras discovered just after the Second World War. Offcentre in it was a small building, completely sealed. A short

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