Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-wg55d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-09T22:24:30.477Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Koprologoi at Athens in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

E. J. Owens
E. J. Owens
Affiliation:
University College of Swansea
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The collection and disposal of rubbish and waste and the maintenance of a decent standard of hygiene was as much a problem for ancient city authorities as for modern town councils. The responsibility for the removal of waste would often be dependent upon the nature of the rubbish and the facilities which city authorities offered. Thus early in the fourth century B.C. the agoranomic law from Piraeus prohibited individuals from piling earth and other waste on the streets and compelled the offender to remove it. The astynomic law from Pergamon, which probably dates originally to the Hellenistic period, similarly forbade the dumping or piling up of earth or the mixing of mortar on the streets of the city. As one of Demosthenes' speeches indicates, the effect of dumping rubbish indiscriminately was to raise the level of the road surface, which consequently restricted access and endangered adjacent property. Excavation of a triangular hieron to the south west of the agora at Athens further illustrates the results of dumping. Here it was found that, between the construction of the hieron in the late fifth century B.C. and the beginning of the fourth century B.C, the road surface on its northern side rose more than half a metre and covered the lower part of the wall of the hieron and its boundary marker. The accumulated fill included a deep layer of marble chips, which had been dumped in the area by marble workers. The laws from Piraeus and Pergamon were thus designed to keep streets passable, protect adjacent buildings, and safeguard pedestrians.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , January 1983 , pp. 44 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1983

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Dittenberger, , SIG 3313Google Scholar. 25–8 = IG II2 380. 25–8.

2 Dittenberger, , OGIS 483Google Scholar. 38–40, 60–5; for discussion of the date, see Klaffenbach, G., ‘Die Astynomeninschrift von Pergamon’, ADAW (1954), 19–25Google Scholar.

3 Demosthenes, 55. 22.

4 See Lalonde, G. V., ‘A triangular hieron south west of the Athenian Agora’, Hesperia 37 (1968), 123–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Lalonde, pp. 132–3.

6 See Strabo's comments on the new town of Smyrna, in which he expressed surprise that when the town was rebuilt an underground sewer system was not constructed, with disastrous results for the streets, 646 (14. 1. 7). See also Strabo's, comparison of Greek and Roman towns, 235 (5. 3. 8)Google Scholar

7 Vatin, C., ‘Jardins et services de voirie’, BCH 100 (1976), 555–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Vatin, pp. 558–9, quoting Dittenberger, , OGIS 483. 79–84Google Scholar.

9 Vatin, pp. 560–4, quoting IG XII 8 265.

10 Vatin, p. 558, quoting Caillemer, Dictionnaire des Antiquites s.v. ‘astynomoi’. This is the accepted view of arrangements at Athens; see Martin, R., L'urbanisme dans la Grèce antique 2 (Paris, 1974), p. 63Google Scholar.

11 Vatin, p. 557.

12 Strabo, 397 (9. 1. 19) notes a comment of Callimachus on the pollution of the Eridanos stream in the third century B.C.

13 Dittenberger, , SIG 3313Google Scholar. 38–40 = IG 2 II 380. 38–40.

14 Dittenberger, , SIG 3313Google Scholar. 20–2, 30–3.

15 Aristophanes, , Eccles. 320–2Google Scholar.

16 See Vatin, p. 556.

17 Aristophanes, , Eccles. 312–19Google Scholar.

18 Eccles. 329–35.

19 Eccles. 351–3, 372.

20 Aristophanes, , Pax 1265–6Google Scholar; Nubes 1384–5; Theophrastus, , Characters 14. 5Google Scholar; Herodotus, 2. 35; Lloyd, A. B., Herodotus Book II (Leiden, 1976), p. 150Google Scholar.

21 Aristophanes, , Pax 167–9Google Scholar.

22 IG I3 4.

23 See Travlos, J., A pictorial dictionary of ancient Athens (London, 1971), p. 341 fig. 442Google Scholar.

24 Sokolowski, F., Lois sacrées des cités grecques, supplément (Paris, 1961), p. 107 no. 53Google Scholar.

25 Sokolowski, p. 59 no. 24 = IG IV2 I 45.

26 IG XII 5 107.

27 Insc. Cret. IV 73A. 7–10. Line 8 reads αἱ μἕ; δ⋯κα πο[… and suggests a minimum distance often feet. Although the commentary to the text notes laws regarding the sanitary arrangements of other cities, it is possible that this law is concerned with the damage which might be caused to neighbouring property by locating a koprion or an ipnion near a wall, rather than specifically with hygiene. For legislation on party walls at Pergamon, see Dittenberger, , OGIS 483Google Scholar. 100–37.

28 e.g. see Aristophanes, , Eccles. 1059Google Scholar (ἄφοδος Ach. 81 (⋯π⋯πατος); Plutus 815 (ἳπνος); Pax 99, 158 (λα⋯ρα); Thesm. 485 (κοπρών); see also LSJ ed. 9 (Oxford, 1940) s.v. βολ⋯ων.

29 Aristophanes, , Thesm. 483–5Google Scholar; see Vatin, .BCH 100 (1976), 556CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 e.g. ἄμις for men and σκ⋯πωον for women; see Aristophanes, , Thesm. 633Google Scholar, and generally Henderson, J., The Maculate Muse (London, 1975), p. 191Google Scholar; for an example of an ἄμις see Sparkes, B. A. and Talcott, L., ‘Pots and pans of Classical Athens’, Athenian Agora Excavations, Picture Book 12 (Princeton, 1958)Google Scholar, fig. 22; for child's commode see Thompson, D. B., ‘The Athenian Agora’, Athenian Agora Excavations, Picture Book 12 (Princeton, 1971)Google Scholar, figs. 39, 40.

31 Thompson, H. A., ‘Activities in the Athenian Agora’, Hesperia 28 (1959), 98–105CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Thompson, pp. 101–2.

33 Although the existence of the pipe is not mentioned in the text; see Thompson, , Hesperia 28 (1959)Google Scholar, pl. XXIa.

34 Thompson, , op. cit. 102Google Scholar n. 26, quoting Young, , Hesperia 20 (1951). 194. 201Google Scholar.

35 Euboulos 53 = Athenaeus, 10. 417d.

36 See Thompson, , op. cit. 102Google Scholarn. 26, quoting Boehlau, J. and Schefold, K., Larissa am Hermos I (Berlin, 1940), p. 88 fig. 5Google Scholar.

37 Robinson, D. M. and Graham, J. W., Excavations at Olynthus XII (Baltimore, 1938), 205–6Google Scholar; for examples of the so-called Olynthian bowls see also Robinson, D. M., Excavations at Olynthus XII (Baltimore. 1946), pp. 163, 178–80Google Scholar.

38 Aristophanes, , Pax 9Google Scholar.

39 Aristotle, , Ath. Pol. 50. 2Google Scholar.

40 See Dittenberger, , OGIS 483. 14–20, 54–5Google Scholar; Plato, , Leges 6Google Scholar. 759A; for Piraeus, see Dittenberger, , SIG 3313. 19–21, 41–5Google Scholar.

41 Homer, , Od. 17. 296–9Google Scholar; see also Xenophon, , Economicus 16Google Scholar. 12, for the use of the word kopros as grass fertiliser.

42 e.g. Finley, M. I., Studies in land and credit in ancient Athens (New York, 1952), p. 142 no. 86 = 1G II2 2742Google Scholar; Finley, , op. cit. 186Google Scholar no. 86A = Fine, J. V. A., Horoi. Studies in mortgage, real security and land tenure in ancient Athens, Hesperia Suppl. 9 (1951), no. 16Google Scholar.

43 Finley, p. 260 n. 116 suggests that the koprones in these texts might have involved easement rather than outright ownership.

44 IG II2 2496.

45 Demosthenes, 25. 49; Vatin, , BCH 100 (1976), 558CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46 Compare Aristophanes, , Pax 99–100Google Scholar, in which Trygaeus pleads that koprones should be well secured with bricks.

47 Dittenberger, , OGIS 483. 36, 44Google Scholar.

48 Plutarch, , Moralia 811BGoogle Scholar. A position once held by Epaminondas.

49 For Rhodes see Kondis, I. D., ‘Zum antiken Stadtbauplan von Rhodos’, MDAI(A) 73 (1958), 152–3Google Scholar.

50 e.g. Young, R. S., ‘An industrial district of ancient Athens’, Hesperia 20 (1951), 205–6, 218CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lauter, H. and Laute-Bufe, H., ‘Wohnhäuser und Stadtviertel des klassischen Athen’, MDAI(A) 86 (1971), 113Google Scholar; for Olynthus, see Robinson, and Graham, , Olynthus VIII, 158–9Google Scholar.

51 e.g. Young, , Hesperia 20 (1951), 174–5, 199, 201, 205, 206, 213, 240Google Scholar. Stone-built channels, inverted roof tiles and U-shaped porous blocks were used as drains.

52 See Martin, R., ‘Sur deux expressions techniques de l'architecture grecque’. Revue Archeologique 31 (1957), 66–9Google Scholar, quoting Aristotle, , Ath. Pol. 50Google Scholar. 2.

53 Young, , Hesperia 20 (1951). 256Google Scholar.

54 Young, , op. cit. 257–62Google Scholar.

55 Compare IG XI 287. 62–3, which records payment to a certain Nikias for removing pigeon droppings from roofs and kopros from the agora at Delos.