Mars Hill was important to the public life of Athens after the monarchy was abolished.
Mars Hill overlooks the square of the Athenian Agora.
Remember the Bema, of course (and the Bema in Philippi, Greece that you have already seen.)
Read the sign there and look at this rectangular and very humble platform, which is just one step higher than the ground level you see as a frame all around it today. This platform correctly applies the meaning of the word Bema. This is the Bema, and this is where the Athenian citizen stood to deliver his speech, his logos, of six minutes to the assembly. Although it is a very humble monument, it is at the same time the most important monument, the epicenter of what happened in Athens. Because of the speaking at the Bema, we have democracy, and because of that, we have philosophy. Because of that, we have all the terminology, the concepts, and the illustrations used later in the New Testament. Very humble, yet extremely important for all Western culture, this is the Bema of Athens.
And there is another Bema, which is developed in three steps at the top of that rock, after 500 BC, where the called-out assembly of Athens met.
The Stoa of Attalos, built in the second century before Christ, was a monumental gift to the city of Athens.
This building, constructed by Attalus II, a king of Pergamum who studied in Athens, borders the eastern edge of the square. It is a typical stoa. The American Archaeological School fully reconstructed it in 1952 with a donation from Rockefeller.
Thus, we see this building almost as the Apostle Paul saw when he visited the city, as it had been standing for nearly 200 years.
During the reconstruction, all existing pieces of marble were incorporated, which is why you can see both old and new pieces of marble on the Stoa.
The Greeks highly valued their relationship with nature, considering it their natural home. For this reason, every house had an atrium, and family life developed outside, using rooms only when necessary. Similarly, the agora served as the atrium for the city.
When weather conditions did not permit public life in the square, they used the stoa. The stoa had one of its long sides closed with a colonnade, so someone under its roof still felt like they were outside, unlike being inside the Basilica. Think about the Basilica of St. Demetrius.
Flavius Josephus mentioned that when Herod the Great remodeled and redecorated the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, he built a stoa, or porch, on the southern edge of the hill, using the Stoa of Attalos in Athens as a model. This porch in Jerusalem, known as Solomon’s Porch, is mentioned in John’s Gospel as the place where Jesus often taught and performed miracles during his visits to the temple. It is also described in the book of Acts as the first meeting place of the church of Jerusalem. Today, this building in Jerusalem no longer exists. Part of it is occupied by the Mosque of Al Aqsa, with some original parts incorporated into the mosque. Here, you have an idea, a picture, an illustration of this very important place on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Let’s enter inside the Museum of Ancient Agora, in Athens.
This is the broken cult statue of Apollo from the Temple of the Agora. Unlike what was common at that time, we see Apollo dressed in a long garment down to his feet. It was more common to depict even the gods naked (athletic and heroic nudity).
The most unusual thing of this statue is that his sash, his belt, is not around his waist, but below his chest, the most uncomfortable place for a man to keep his sash or belt. Now, why? Apollo was considered to be the forefather of the entire tribe of Ionians. These were the Greeks of Asia Minor, and also the Athenians here, who honored Apollo as the supreme King Priest. In official temples in the Agora, where he was worshiped as the patron god of Athens and as the supreme King Priest, he was dressed in the long priestly garment with this sash below his chest. This was because Apollo was a musician, a lyre player, and his lyre had a hook. People who visited the Museum of Thessaloniki saw this lyre with the tortoise shell, so it has a hook, and he had to fix it here to be able to play it. This is why Apollo kept the sash below his chest.
Now, I would like you to open the Bible to Revelation 1:13: “…one like a Son of Man clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest.” Do you see the similarities between this verse and the statue? Why? Because the Apostle John describes in the book of Revelation Jesus not as the poor barefoot Rabbi of the Lake of Galilee, but as the coming supreme King Priest. This was the image of the King Priest in the whole of Ionia, and remember, the book of Revelation was written on the island of Patmos, which was part of Greek Ionia, and the capital of Greek Ionia was the city of Ephesus. Now you know why this verse is so unusual. It gives the illustration of the King Priest, as the people of the place had that in their mind.
Before we enter the museum, I would like to tell you that before the seventh century BC, the square was the cemetery of the city. The city was on the slopes closer to the Acropolis. When they decided to use the flat area, which was closer to the city, for other purposes, they removed the gravestones but left the graves underneath intact. “Archaeologists were thrilled to find intact graves under the classical level of the square of the Agora, covering a period from 4000 BC to 700 BC.”
Inside of the museum there is an inscription from the fourth century BC, the time when Athenians decided to reconstruct democracy, to protect democracy and give the ultimate and most responsible rights for its protection not to the army or the police, but to the citizens. The law even allows the citizen to assassinate a person who makes serious efforts to become a dictator. This Athenian law from the fourth century BC, (with some modifications since the American Revolution) is the last paragraph of many Western European and American constitutions. It assigns the final and most important responsibility for the protection of democracy to the citizens, not the army or the police.
The first part of this museum focuses on burial goods. Remember, the Greeks always believed in life after death, unlike the silence on this topic in the Old Testament. For that reason, they placed burial goods in the graves, even for slaves and infants, to help them continue their journey beyond. You will see some very interesting little objects. Here we have a reconstruction of a chamber grave from the Mycenaean Period, found in the Agora. The date is 4th millennium BC, and there are the burial goods all around. You can see how the burial goods were placed inside, including ivory pieces from the Mycenaean time. The date here is 14th century BC, the time of the Trojan War and the Exodus in the Bible.
In the museum there is the grave of an infant with burial goods as well. See exhibition number 4 if you go there and you can see a fitting bottle for a baby, the terracotta boots of wooden dolls, also burial goods, accompanying a young girl. Something very necessary for a baby or an infant is the baby pot, the potty. Look for a sketch of it at the museum. Yes, the most difficult thing for a mother is finding the best way for the infant to sit. Look how this problem was solved with this baby potty.
Here we have the public scales of measurement. In the area of the Agora, there was an office where people could go to recheck the articles they had just bought to find out if they were deceived or not.
Here, we have the tablet, the accurate scales, and measurements. When you are at the museum find the assembly of Athens depicted as a human body, as a man with the concept of all being parts of the same body, with democracy as a lady crowning the assembly, the body. The excavation brought to light sandal nails and sandal bottoms. The identification was done because of a broken part of a wine cup where we see scratched on it “I belong to Simon,” something very common in antiquity for identifying personal wine cups.
Now, from the prison, we have these little cups here, which look like communion cups.
They were used in medicine a lot to measure the dosages of different herbs for medical reasons. In the prison, they were used to measure the dosage of hemlock, the poison given for executions in Athens. Athenians considered even executions something to be conducted with dignity and modesty, so they gave hemlock to the people being executed. This is how Socrates was executed. Since Socrates, very cold, got the cup with the hemlock in private, the “cup of death” became a proverb, and much was spoken about the cup of death with symbolic and metaphoric meaning. Remember Jesus during His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane spoke about the death cup, and you can see what that cup looked like, similar to the communion cups used in Protestant churches.
And here is a reconstruction of an original late 5th century clay water clock, called klepsydra.
Here is a weather warning for your time on Mars Hill. For us, in March, it was very windy.
Paul’s Sermon on Mars Hill | Acts 17: 22-31 NASB
22 So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious in all respects. 23 For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything that is in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made by hands; 25 nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; 26 and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, 27 that they would seek God, if perhaps they might feel around for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28 for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His descendants.’ 29 Therefore, since we are the descendants of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by human skill and thought. 30 So having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now proclaiming to mankind that all people everywhere are to repent, 31 because He has set a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all people by raising Him from the dead.”