A Roman Athena from the Pnyx and the Agora in Athens

by Aileen Ajootian

Hesperia, Volume 78, Issue 4
Page(s): 481-499
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25622709
Year: 2009
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ABSTRACT:

Two fragments of marble sculpture, one found in late fill on the Pnyx and the other in the Athenian Agora, join to form part of a large helmeted head, probably from a Roman statue of Athena. Unusual, wavelike curls escaping from beneath the helmet suggest a date in the mid-1st century a.d. The Pnyx/Agora statue may have been commissioned in Athens during a period of renewed interest in the Panathenaic festival by Athenians who saw the promotion of their city's religious traditions as a way of enhancing their own status and that of their city.