Athena Chalcioecus

Athena Chalcioecus (Chalkioikos ) (ancient Greek Ἀθάνα Χαλκίοικος) is the ancient popular name for the city goddess of Sparta, Athena Poliuchos ("city keeper"). The expression means something like "Athena of the house made of ore" and comes from the temple renovation or new construction of the local architect, bronze caster and poet Gitiades, who built the building with plates made of ore (probably copper or bronze) around the middle of the 6th century. decorated with mythological scenes carved into the metal. He also made a new statue of the goddess out of ore (or metal-coated wood) and composed a hymn in praise of her.

The temple complex, to which various outbuildings belonged, stood on the highest point of the hill known in modern times as the Acropolis in the north of the urban area of ​​Sparta.

The Athena Chalkioikos district was an asylum that was used several times by high-ranking people. So Pausanias, the victorious general of Platäa, fled to an outbuilding after his second trial when he learned that he would be arrested again and charged (presumably because of medismos). The entrances to the temple were walled up until Pausanias was starved to death. King Leonidas II, who died in 242 BC. Chr. Sought asylum in the temple when he got caught up in the gears of slander and accusations in the turmoil of radical reform attempts and was deposed by the popular assembly, was reinstated as king the following year.

The temple of Athena Chalkioikos was one of the most important sanctuaries of Sparta and existed (at the latest) since the 8th century BC. Until at least the 2nd century AD. The modern excavations uncovered only a few remains, including some undecorated bronze plates.
literature

Otto Jessen: Chalkioikos. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classical antiquity science (RE) Volume III, 2, Stuttgart 1899, Col. 2077.
Hermann Steuding: Chalkioikos. In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Ed.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology. Volume 1,1, Leipzig 1886, column 869 (digitized version).

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