The Temple of Apollo Patroos (meaning "from the fathers") is a small ruined temple of
Ionic order
The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan (a plainer Doric), and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite or ...
built in 340–320 BCE. It is 10 m wide and 16.5 m long, and is located north-west of the
Ancient Agora of Athens
The ancient Agora of Athens (also called the Classical Agora) is the best-known example of an ancient Greek agora, located to the northwest of the Acropolis and bounded on the south by the hill of the Areopagus and on the west by the hill kn ...
, near the
Stoa of Zeus.
Apollo
Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...
was considered to be the founder of the Ionian race and protector of families. The temple's interior had a
cult statue
In the practice of religion, a cult image is a human-made object that is venerated or worshipped for the deity, spirit or daemon that it embodies or represents. In several traditions, including the ancient religions of Egypt, Greece and Rom ...
dedicated to the god and made by the famous
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
sculptor
Euphranor
AGMA Apollon Patroos Euphranor.
Euphranor of Corinth (middle of the 4th century BC) was a Greek artist who excelled both as a sculptor and as a painter.
Pliny the Elder provides a list of his works including a cavalry battle, a Theseus, and the ...
.
Pausanias Pausanias ( el, Παυσανίας) may refer to:
*Pausanias of Athens, lover of the poet Agathon and a character in Plato's ''Symposium''
*Pausanias the Regent, Spartan general and regent of the 5th century BC
*Pausanias of Sicily, physician of th ...
described the temple in the second century:
:Euphranor also wrought the Apollon surnamed Patroios (Paternal) in the temple hard by
he Painted Portico oin the marketplace of Athens And in front of the temple is one Apollon made by Leokhares; the other Apollo, called Alexikakos (Averter of evil), was made by Kalamis. They say that the god received this name because by an oracle from Delphoi he stayed the pestilence which afflicted the Athenians at the time of the Peloponnesian War.
[Pausanias, Description of Greece 1. 3. 4]
If still in use by the 4th-century, the temple would have been closed during the
persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire
Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire began during the reign of Constantine the Great (306–337) in the military colony of Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem), when he destroyed a pagan temple for the purpose of constructing a Christian church ...
, when the Christian Emperors issued edicts prohibiting all non-Christian worship and sanctuaries.
See also
*
Ancient Greek temple
Greek temples ( grc, ναός, naós, dwelling, semantically distinct from Latin , "temple") were structures built to house deity statues within Greek sanctuaries in ancient Greek religion. The temple interiors did not serve as meeting places, ...
*
List of Ancient Greek temples
This list of ancient Greek temples covers temples built by the Hellenic people from the 6th century BC until the 2nd century AD on mainland Greece and in Hellenic towns in the Aegean Islands, Asia Minor, Sicily and Italy ("Magna Graecia"), wher ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Temple Of Apollo Patroos
Landmarks in Athens
Ancient Greek buildings and structures in Athens
Apollo Patroos
Patroos
Ionian mythology
4th-century BC religious buildings and structures
Ruins in Greece
Ancient Agora of Athens