Discovering the Agora: what was it for, why did it exist?
In Selinunte, near the Archaeological Park, has just been discovered the largest Agora never found. At 33,000 square meters, the area is located in a place closely related to Greek traditions.
In a previous article we discussed its discovery, today we ask: what was the purpose of an agora? Why did it exist? Let us provide clarity by answering these questions together.
What is the Agora?
Let’s start with the term Agora, which in Greek means. I gather, gathering. A term used in ancient Greece to refer to the main square of the polis, or Greek city.
Even before those of the Greeks, it was in the Minoan Cretan squares that the first agoras took place. One of the oldest dates back to the 6th century BC and stood in Argos near a necropolis, as it was associated with rites and devotions to the dead. In addition, entertainment centers, games and theater were also located near the square.
As time went on, the agora became the center of the polis from an economic and commercial point of view, as it was the seat of the market, and from a religious point of view, as it housed the places of worship of the city or the patron deity. In addition, it had a strong political connotation, since it was the symbolic place of democracy, and it was also the seat of the citizens’ assemblies, which gathered there to discuss about community problems, make decisions about laws, and talk about any interest related to the city.
The first step toward urban planning
The agora can be described as the first real urban planning invention, which is unmatched elsewhere in the world.
Major urban planning changes began during the age of Pericles, an Athenian politician and military man who participated in the Persian and Peloponnesian wars. And around the fifth century B.C. we came to have the definition of three main types of the agora: the mercantile agora at the maritime cities, the commercial agora located at the city gates, and the politico-religious agora in the city center.
During the same period of change, the agora was bordered by porticoes and often rested on a main thoroughfare.
The function of the Agora
The main function of the agora was the maintenance and creation of numerous interpersonal relationships. Many decisions were made there, but women were excluded from them.
In the polis, all those who possessed the status of citizens enjoyed the same rights and duties, such as meeting in assemblies and electing magistrates, the executors of the collective will. The polis were city-states in which they found their independence in every respect: political, economic-commercial and educational.
The newly discovered agora at Selinunte remains a mystery as to why it was made so large or why it had such a precise trapezoidal geometry. Another mystery remains the presence of structures or tombs from the classical period. In addition, it is surrounded by residential and public buildings connected by a piece of land that ran northward, overlapping with a preexisting village of Siceliotes.
At this urbanistic junction between different areas of the city, the major collective activities of the community were concentrated. Archaeologists delineated the presence of a sacred enclosure for ancestor worship with a center, a heroòn, a typical memorial for a person of importance to society, and several remains of stone structures and animal bones suggest structures for sacrificial altars used to sanction the partitioning of the land.
Giulia Nari