THE PHILOSOPHICAL SCHOOLS OF ROMAN ATHENS

JOHN McK. CAMP

In considering the Greek renaissance in the Roman Empire, it is hard to over-estimate the role
played by Athens. Her reputation as a center of culture and learning carried her through several
disastrous political decisions in the first century BC, when she picked the losing side in three
successive conflicts involving Rome. Despite this poor judgement the city flourished under the
Empire, and by the 2nd century she was adorned with odeia, gymnasia, libraries, and lecture
halls, buildings which accurately reflect Athens’ role as cultural and educational center of the
Roman world. Her philosophers held chairs endowed by Rome; schools of both philosophy
and rhetoric flourished for centuries, and Athenian schools and Roman empire are often
regarded as coterminous.’
The identification of the schools of Athens has long been a problem for the topographers and
excavators of the city, and the farther down in time one comes, the harder the task. The
Academy and Lyceum of Classical Athens are moderately well fixed, and in all probability the
Stoa Poikile - birthplace of Stoic philosophy - can be recognized in the recent excavations
along the north side of the Agora.2 By the second century after Christ, however, the teaching of
rhetoric and philosophy had spread well beyond the gymnasia and stoas of the city. Despite the
difficulties, several of the buildings excavated in and around the Agora may be identified as
having housed the schools of Roman Athens.
Dating to the early years of the second century is the archaeological find which, to my mind,
most typifies Athens’ role in the Roman world (Fig. 1). Found in the Agora in 1933, it is a
large marble lintel block recording the benefactions of one Titus Flavius Pantainos in the years
around AD 100. It reads as follows:
The priest of the philosophical muses, Titus Flavius Pantainos, the son of Flavius
Menander the diadoch, dedicated to Athena Archegetis, the emperor Trajan, and the
city of Athens the outside stoas, the peristyle, the library with the books, and all the
furnishings, together with his children Flavius Menander and Flavia Secundilla.
Here is the essence of Roman Athens: a priest of the philosophical Muses, the son of the head
of a philosophical school (a diadoch), making the gift of a library to the city. The wording of
the text and its disposition on the stone deserve further comment. First, the text of the

I The line between sophist and philosopher, though clear enough in theory, seems somewhat fuzzy in reality, both in
antiquity and modem times. The confusion can be seen in both Philostratos (Lives, 479-81, 484-7, 489) and
Eunapius (Lives, 482, 493, 498-9). For some recent commentary: J. Oliver, “The Diadocht: at Athens”, AJP
(1977), 160-78; I. Avotius, “Holders of the Chairs of Rhetoric at Athens”, HSCP (1975), 313-24; G. Bowersock,
Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire (Oxford, 1969); and E. L. Bowie, “The Importance of Sophists”, YCS 27
(1982), 29-59. The distinction often seems to hinge on the eloquence of the philosopher in question. In this paper,
concerned as it is with schools as places of more or less formal education, the distinction is not as crucial as that
between pagan and Christian teachers.
For the Academy, J. Travlos, Pictorial Dicronary of Athens (1971), 42-51, and the Lyceum, fhid., 345-7 and J.
Lynch, Aristotle’s School (Berkeley, 1972). For the Poikile, T. L. Shear, Jr., Hesperia 53 (1984), 5-19, and J.
Camp, The Athenian Agora (London, 1986), 68-72.

50
 J. McK. CAMP 51

inscription does not fit, but runs up onto the decorative mouldings of the lintel, perhaps
indicating that the inscription was a later addition. Secondly, Pantainos lists the various parts
of a building which he gave - outside stoas, peristyle, and library -rather than just saying he
gave the whole building. It sounds as though he is making additions to a pre-existing building,
which lay along the Panathenaic Way just south of the Stoa of Attalos (Fig. 2), and indeed the
excavations have shown that the original marble chip floor of the open courtyard was replaced
by a peristyle floored with marble slabs. Along with its usual nomenclature ‘the library of
Pantainos’ , perhaps the building could equally well be considered the philosophical school of
his father, Flavius Menander.3
A second building in the Agora also has some claim to having served an educational function
in the 2nd century. Philostratos tells us that the theater in the Agora which was known as the
Agrippeion was a lecture hall used for declamations by sophist^.^ The date of the collapse of
the roof and the subsequent rebuilding which led to the shift in function from odeion to lecture
hall has been dated on the basis of stamped roof tiles attributed to the second phase. In
particular, the name Dionysios, found with the ligature AP or APX (Figs. 3, 4) has been
associated with an archon of the year 173/4. But if, as is clear from similar tiles found at Argos
and Sparta, the ligature refers not to an archon but simply to the APXITEKTRN (contractor or
fabricant), then perhaps we should settle for a less precise date sometime in the second century
for the conversion of the building5
It is clear that philosophers and sophists could and did teach in a wide variety of buildings;
identifying their schools archaeologically is further complicated, for, already by the second
century as we learn from Philostratos, they might make use of their own houses:
Proclus laid down the following rules for attendance at his school of declamation. One
hundred drachmas paid down gave one the right to attend his lectures at all times.
Moreover, he had a library in his own house which was open to his pupils and
supplemented the teachings in his lectures.6
The search for the schools of Roman Athens must thus be expanded to include private houses
as well as public buildings. With the passage of time the philosophers and sophists had
compelling reasons to teach at home, according to Eunapius’ description of conditions in the
4th century:
In those days, so bitter was the feud at Athens between the citizens and the young
students, as though the city after those ancient wars of hers was festering within her
walls the perils of discord, that not one of the sophists ventured to go down into the
city and discourse in public, but they confined their utterances to their private lecture
theaters and there discoursed to their students. Thus they ran no risk of their lives, but
there competed for applause and fame for eloquence.’

For the building and its dedicatory inscription: H. A. Thompson and R. E. Wycherley, Agora XIV (1972), 114-5
with earlier bibliography, and J. Camp, The Athenian Agora (1986), 187-91.
Vit. Soph. 571 and 597.
For the Odeion see H. A. Thompson, “The Odeion in the Athenian Agora”, Hesperia 19 (1950), 31-141. For the
subsequent dating of the archon Dionysios to AD 173/4, S. Follet, AthPnes U M IIe et au Ille sikcle (Paris, 1976), 6-7
and “La datation de I’archonteDionysios”, REG 90 (l977), 47-54. For stamped roof tiles referring to the architect,
from the Argive Heraion, IG IV, 541; BSA (1921/23), 337, AJA (1894), 341 and AJA (1896), 59, no. I . For a
similar tile from Sparta, IG V, 1, 892, where the dating magistrate’sname appears at the top, virtually ensuring that
the subsequent alpha-rho ligature refers to the &pp~E.mov.This disassociation of roof tiles from the archon
Dionysios thus leaves open the interesting question of the chronological and functional relationship of the Agora
Odeion in its second phase and the Odeion of Herodes Atticus, built ca. AD 160-174.
Philostratos, Vit. Soph. 604 (Loeb trans.).
Eunapius, Vit. 483 (Loeb trans.).
52 THE GREEK RENAISSANCE IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Himerios and Libanius also refer to the disruptions which led many philosophers and sophists
to remain at home while teaching during the 4th and 5th centuries AD.X
The task of identifying a philosophical school of late Roman Athens becomes more difficult
when virtually any large house is a candidate, and earlier attempts to do so by previous
excavators of the Agora have not met with much enthusiasm. One house, however, excavated
in 1970 and 1971, on account of its interior appointments and unusual history, carries a strong
claim as one of the private schools of at hen^.^
The building in question is a Roman house of the 4th century, which lies on the north slope
of the Areopagus, in section omega of the American excavations. It is a large establishment,
measuring 25 by 35 meters, with some 22 rooms in all, grouped around two peristyle
courtyards (Fig. 5). The house is unusually well-preserved by Agora standards and its great
size is complemented by the richness of its decoration, particularly in a suite of rooms in the
southeast comer (Fig. 6). These rooms were approached through the east colonnade of the
main courtyard, where four marble steps, flanked by Ionic columns, led down to a pair of
rooms set at a lower level. The first room is among the most luxurious preserved from Roman
Greece. The west half is paved with a mosaic floor of blue, red, white, and black tesserae, laid
in diamond patterns around a central panel which is set off by a guilloche (Fig. 7). The eastern
half of the room is given over to a small horseshoe-shaped swimming pool (Fig. 8) which,
despite its small size, was clearly intended to be used. Painted the standard turquoise in color,
it has three steps leading down into it, their edges picked out in red paint to ensure their
visibility. Unusual for Athens is the preservation in situ of marble revetment on the west wall
of the room (Fig. 9). Here nine different colored marbles were used for their decorative effect,
and traces indicate that the entire room was once similarly revetted. The western end is not a
full wall, but rises only ca. 1.50 meters, is crowned by a moulding and opens directly into the
adjoining room above. The crowning course carried an open-work fence so one could look in
without falling in. A marble herm of Silenos (Fig. 10) served as one of the fence-posts.
Opening off the apsidal room to the east was a second room, equipped with a series of benches
set into large arched niches (Fig. 8). It originally served as a simple single-room fountain-
house or nymphaion, set beneath the ancient ground level and approached by a staircase set
along its north wall. It was incorporated into the later house and its aqueduct was used to feed
the apsidal pool.
A second suite of rooms is also of interest, for it comprises all the elements of a small private
bath with frigidarium, tepidarium, and caldarium. The bath represents a later addition to the
original structure of the house; pottery from associated floor levels date its construction to the
first half of the 6th century.
The architectural richness of the house is matched by a large collection of sculpture
assembled by the owner. Altogether, eleven pieces were found, ranging in date from the 4th
century BC to the 3rd century AD: two reliefs, two statues, six busts, and the herm.
Remarkable, and surely of significance for our understanding of the house, was the final
disposition of this collection, for eight of the eleven pieces were thrown down three separate
wells within the house. The well at the south-west comer of the large peristyle court contained
the small relief of Artemis (Fig. 11). The well in the eastern colonnade of the peristyle held a

Himerios, Orat. 18.3 and Orat. 19; Libanios, Orat. IV. 9.

T. L. Shear, Hesperia 42 (1973), 156-64; The Athenian Agora, Guide3 (1976), 148-50; J. Camp, The Athenian
Agora (1986), 202-1 1, and Alison Frantz, The Athenian Agora XXIV, Late Antiquity A.D. 267-700 (Princeton,
1988), 37-47.
 J. McK. CAMP 53

head of Nike (Fig. 12),1°a male portrait head (Fig. 13), and a bust identified as Helios (Fig. 14).
A well in the nearby service court produced two female portrait busts (Figs. 15, 16), a bust of
the emperor Antoninus Pius (Fig. 17), and a small statue of a youthful Herakles (Fig. 18). Of
especial significance is the fact that all this sculpture was discarded before the house went out
of use during the Slavic invasion of AD 582/3. In the east peristyle well the three busts were
found two metres below the destruction fill of the house and the situation of the service court
well is even clearer. Here, soon or immediately after the three portraits and the Herakles were
thrown in, a marble slab was laid over the mouth of the well and the north wall .of the caldarium
pool of the bath was built over it, sealing the well in the first half of the 6th century.
In short, we have a particularly rich house of immense scale, with marble walls, a mosaic
floor, and a swimming pool, adorned with a large collection of handsome “antique” marble
sculpture. The house was built in the middle of the 4th century, extensively remodelled in the
first half of the 6th century with the dispersal of the sculpture and the addition of the bath, and
was finally destroyed, possibly by the Slavs in AD 582/3.
As to who may have owned this house and how its later history is best explained, the
philosophers and sophists of the late Roman city should certainly be considered. As we have
seen, they were not poor men, some holding endowed chairs, others charging fees for their
teaching. To be sure, Eunapius calls the house of Julian of Cappadocia poor and humble, but
he then goes on to describe its collection of sculpture and the private theater of polished marble
which adorned Furthermore, many of these men were pagans, often enthusiastic ones,
worshipping especially Hermes and Herakles, the old guardians of gymnasia, and the Muses.
In the end, of course, their very popularity proved their downfall, leading Justinian in AD 529
to order the closing of the Academy of Athens and to forbid any pagan to teach there. Those
who refused to be baptized were to be exiled and their property confiscated.I2
With a statue of Athena found in the central courtyard (Fig. 19), the terminal figure of
Silenos, the relief of Artemis, and the bust of a woman apparently connected with a pagan cult
(Fig. 15), the collection of sculpture from the villa indicates an owner comfortable with pagan
iconography. The figure of Herakles, given his association with gymnasia, is even more
suggestive. The chronological correspondence is of interest as well, for the collection, as we
have seen, was disposed of in the first half of the 6th century, a time when pagan philosophers
were subject to exile and confiscation.
Nor should there be much doubt that the house was in Christian hands in the later 6th
century, between the time of the deposition of the sculpture and the arrival of the Slavs. From
the uppermost levels of the house come several examples of lamps with crosses, indicating that
the final owners were at least not adverse to Christian symbolism. Also from the topmost
layers comes a sigma table, of thin polished marble with hollows cut out for individual diners
(Fig. 20). Though the significance of these tables is not universally agreed upon, many
scholars identify them as playing a role in early Christian liturgy, as offering tables or altars in
the form of the dining table used at the Last Supper; a great many have been found in
ecclesiastical contexts.” Finally, the treatment of the sculpture may well indicate Christian

lo E. B. Harrison, “Two Pheidian heads: Nike and Amazon”, The Eye of Greece (Cambridge, 1982), 53-88.
I Eunapius, Vit. 483.
l2 Alan Cameron, “The Last Days of the Academy at Athens”, PCPS 195 n.s. no. 15 (1969), 7-29, with references
and discussion.
l3 For sigma tables, their origin and use: A. A. Barb, Journal of Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 19 (1956), 40-67;
also, from Corinth, R. Scranton, Corinth XVI, Medieval Architecture (19S7), 139-40; from Argos, G . Akerstrom-
Hougen, The Calendar and Hunting Mosaics of the Villa of the Falconer in Argos (Stockholm, 1974). 101-10 and
116-7; from Delos, W. Deonna, Le Mohilier Delien (Delos, 1938), 76ff.; from Delphi, G . Roux, BCH Suppl. IV
54 THE GREEK RENAISSANCE IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE

activity in the house. The Athena, for instance, was not thrown down a well but was beheaded
and then used in the final phase set face down as a step-block. Similarly, the small relief of
Artemis had its features mutilated. Another piece, most likely part of the sculpture collection
and showing a scene of Hermes handing over the infant Dionysos to the Nymphs in the cave of
PanI4(Fig. 21), seems also to have been used as a step-block in the last phase: it was found, not
in situ, in the large peristyle court. It is inscribed with the name of the dedicator, Neoptolemos
son of Antikles of Melite, a rich man known from both Demosthenes and epigraphic evidence
to have been active in the 4th century BC. It may well have been set up originally in the Cave
of Pan on the north slopes of the Acropolis, not far above the house. Of interest to us is the
generally fresh condition of the figures which contrasts sharply with that of the heads, which
have been carefully and deliberately mutilated. It does not take much imagination to see here
the hands of a zealous Christian at work.
If these indications of Christian activity are accepted, then we should look again at the
mosaic floor (Fig. 9), where the diamond patterns lead up to the guilloche border which
surrounds the central panel, incongruously set with marble slabs. Far better, surely, to imagine
in the original phase an offensive pagan scene, such as those of Dionysos on a panther or
Ganymede and the eagle, ripped up and replaced by these innocuous marble slabs by the new
Christian owners of the house.
Years ago Homer Thompson and Alison Frantz proposed that several of the large villas north
of the Areopagus and south of the Acropolis could usefully be thought of as private
philosophical schools. The suggestion was not universally accepted, largely on the grounds of
insufficient evidence.” With the excavation of the present villa, however, the picture may be
said to be in sharper focus and the evidence far stronger. A large, rich villa in use in the 4th
and 5th centuries, adorned with marble walls, mosaic floor, a swimming pool, and a large
collection of pagan sculpture accords exactly with what we might expect from literary
descriptions of a house belonging to a philosopher or sophist, used as a private school to avoid
the disruptions common at that time. The deposition of the sculpture and its mutilation, the
items with Christian symbols, and the resetting of the mosaic floor all indicate new and
determined Christian owners at just the period when the pagan teachers of Athens were under
particularly severe attack in the 6th century. What we have here is archaeological evidence for
the shift from paganism to Christianity in late Roman Athens, a shift which was rendered the
more violent and traumatic by the tenacity of the pagan teachers of Athens who had, for
centuries, played a key role in the Greek renaissance in the Roman empire.

American School of Classical Studies. Athens

(1977), 453ff.; and from Cyprus, G. Roux, Sulamine de Chypre IV (1973), 113-96. See also, against a solely
Christian function, J.-P. Sodini, “L’Habitat Urbain en Grkce 2 la Veille des Invasions”, in Villes et Peuplement
duns l’lllyricum Protobyzantin, Ecole Fragaise de Rome 77 (1984), 341-97.
l4 H. A. Thompson, “Dionysos among the Nymphs in Athens and Rome”, Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 36,
73-84.
Is A. Frantz, “From Paganism to Christianity in the Temples of Athens”, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 19 (1965), 197;
H. A. Thompson, “Athenian Twilight”, JRS 49 (1959), 70; and A. Frantz, “Pagan Philosophers in Christian
Athens”, PAPS (1975), 29-38. Against, see Alan Cameron, above (n.12) and J.-P. Sodini, above (n.13).
 J. McK. CAMP 55

Illustrations (Plates 8-12)

Fig. 1. Dedicatory inscription of the Library of Pantainos (I 848).

Fig. 2. Plan of the Library of Pantainos.
Figs. 3 and 4. Stamped roof tiles from the Agora Odeion with the names of Dionysios and
Diodoros.
Fig. 5. Plan of the Omega House.
Fig. 6. Aerial view of southeast part of the Omega House, north at top.
Fig. 7. Mosaic floor in Omega House, from north.
Fig. 8. Swimming pool with nymphaion beyond, looking east.
Fig. 9. Mosaic floor with revetted half-wall beyond, looking west.
Fig. 10. Terminal figure of Silenos used as a fence-post (S 2363).
Fig. 11. Marble relief of Artemis (S 2361), from southwest well.
Fig. 12. Head of Nike (S 2354), from peristyle well.
Fig. 13. Male portrait (S 2356), from peristyle well.
Fig. 14. ‘Helios’ (S 2355), from peristyle well.
Fig. 15. Female portrait (S 2435), from service court well.
Fig. 16. Female portrait (S 2437), from service court well.
Fig. 17. Antoninus Pius (S 2436), from service court well.
Fig. 18. Herakles (S 2438), from service court well.
Fig. 19. Athena (S 2337), reused as a step-block in the large courtyard.
Fig. 20. Sigma table (A 3869).
Fig. 21. Cave of Pan relief (I 7 154).