Beulé Gate

Beulé Gate

Photograph of the Beulé Gate from the south-west.
Location of the Beulé Gate in central Athens
Location	Acropolis of Athens, Greece
Coordinates	37.9716°N 23.7247°E / 37.9716; 23.7247
History
Material	Marble
Founded	3rd–4th century CE
Periods	Roman
Cultures	Classical Greece
Site notes
Excavation dates	1852–53
Archaeologists	Charles Ernest Beulé
Public access	Yes
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Designated	1987
Part of	Acropolis, Athens
Reference no.	404

The Beulé Gate is a fortified gate, constructed in the Roman period, leading to the Propylaia of the Acropolis of Athens. It was constructed almost entirely from repurposed materials (spolia) taken from the Choragic Monument of Nikias, a monument built in the fourth century BCE and demolished between the second and fourth centuries CE. The dedicatory inscription from Nikias's monument is still visible in the entablature of the Beulé Gate.

The gate was integrated into the Post-Herulian Wall, a late Roman fortification which reinforced the Acropolis as a military stronghold in the years following the city's sack by the Germanic Heruli people in 267 CE. Its construction marked the beginning of a new phase in the Acropolis's use, in which it came to be seen more as a potential defensive position than in the religious terms that had marked its use in the Classical period. During the medieval period, the gate was further fortified and closed off, before being built over with a bastion in Ottoman times.

The monument was discovered by the French archaeologist Charles Ernest Beulé in 1852, and excavated between 1852 and 1853. Its discovery was greeted enthusiastically in France among the scholarly community and the press, though archaeologists and Greek commentators criticised the aggressive means – particularly the use of high explosives – by which Beulé had carried out the excavation. In modern times, the gate has served primarily as an exit for tourists from the Acropolis.

Description

The Beulé Gate is situated at the bottom of a monumental staircase, which led to the Proplyaia approximately 37 m (121 ft) to the east. The staircase was constructed in the later 1st century CE, possibly at the instigation of the emperor Claudius (r. 41–54 CE). The gate itself consists of two pylon-like towers, which project around 5 m (16 ft) from the structure. These towers are in turn joined by walls to the terraces above, including that of the Temple of Athena Nike. The gateway itself is set into a marble wall and aligned with the main route through the Propylaia.

The gate is almost 23 m (75 ft) in width, with a central part around 7 m (23 ft) in both height and width. The gateway itself is 3.87 m (12.7 ft) high, 1.89 m (6.2 ft) in width at its base, and 1.73 m (5.7 ft) at the top. The area above the central doorway is decorated in the Doric order, and consists of an architrave in Pentelic marble, topped with marble metopes and triglyphs and made from a variety of limestone known as poros stone. Above the metopes and triglyphs is a geison with mutules, itself topped with an attic.

Entablature inscription

Detail of the wall over the gateway, showing blocks reused from the Choragic Monument of Nikias and part of the dedicatory inscription

The inscription visible on the entablature was originally the dedicatory inscription of the Choragic Monument of Nikias, a structure built shortly after 320 BCE to commemorate the Athenian choregos Nikias and his victory in the choragic competitions of that year. It reads as follows:

Nikias, son of Nicomedes, of the deme of Xypete, set this up having won as choregos in the boys' chorus for Kekropis. Pantaleon of Sicyon played the aulos. The song performed was the Elpenor of Timotheos. Neaechmos was archon.

Nikias's monument was built in the form of a Greek temple in the Doric order, consisting of a square naos with a prostyle hexastyle pronaos (that is, a front porch with six columns). The inscription would originally have been placed across the architrave of Nikias's monument, and represents one of the latest such inscriptions from Hellenistic Athens. Under Demetrios of Phaleron, who governed Athens between 317 and 307 BCE, sumptuary laws to control aristocrats' ostentatious spending meant that no further choragic monuments were constructed.

Date

Plan of the Acropolis of Athens: the Beulé Gate is numbered 19

The gate's discoverer, Charles Ernest Beulé, erroneously believed the gate to have been the original entrance to the Acropolis. Later research, beginning with that of the archaeologist Paul Graindor in 1914, established it as belonging to the late Roman period (c. 284 – c. 476 CE), but scholarly opinion remains divided as to the precise date of its construction. The towers flanking the gate predate the main phase of its construction; they date to the middle of the 1st century CE, and are contemporary with the staircase beyond the gate.

The Beulé Gate is constructed almost entirely from marble spolia originating in the Choragic Monument of Nikias. Nikias's monument was demolished at an uncertain date: the archaeologist Wilhelm Dörpfeld suggested 161 CE, on the grounds of his belief that a foundation discovered underneath the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, constructed in that year, had originally belonged to the monument. In 1910, the architectural historian William Bell Dinsmoor disproved Dörpfeld's hypothesis by demonstrating that the Nikias monument had originally stood at the eastern end of the Stoa of Eumenes. Dinsmoor alternatively suggested that the demolition may have dated to the late 3rd or early 4th centuries CE, a view since established as the scholarly consensus. More precise proposed dates for the gate include the reign of the Roman emperor Valerian (r. 253–260 CE) and the period around the sacking of Athens by the Heruli in 267 or 268 CE – either slightly before the sack or around ten years afterwards.

The Beulé Gate shows architectural similarities, such as the use of alternating courses of differently coloured marble, with the Post-Herulian Wall, built around the Acropolis about two decades after the sack of 267 or 268. Although the gate's date is not absolutely certain, it is generally agreed that the demolition of the Choragic Monument of Nikias, the construction of the Post-Herulian Wall and the building of the Beulé Gate were approximately contemporary. Most modern scholars consider that the gate was built in the aftermath of the sack. The archaeologist Judith Binder has suggested that the gate may have been constructed by Dexippus, the Athenian general who successfully defended the Acropolis against the Heruli during their invasion.

A stone later reused in the Ottoman fortifications of the Acropolis preserves an inscription commemorating Flavius Septimius Marcellinus for having constructed "the gateway to the Acropolis from his own resources". The inscription gives Marcellinus's rank as lamprotatos (Ancient Greek: λαμπρότατος), a title equivalent to the Latin clarissimus and customarily used, after the early second century CE, to refer to men of senatorial rank. It also identifies him as a former agonothetes (ἀγωνοθέτης), a title given in Roman Athens to the officials responsible for funding and organising religious festivals, including the Panathenaia, the Dionysia and games in honour of the imperial family. The inscription has been dated to the mid-4th century CE, after 325; it is generally, though not universally, assumed to be associated with the construction of the Beulé Gate.

History

The archaeologist and philologist Walter Miller suggested in 1893 that the gate may have been built to replace an older, now-lost gateway, which he hypothesised would have been less strongly fortified. The Beulé Gate is believed to have been intended to safeguard the approach leading to the Klepsydra, a spring on the Acropolis which provided it with a safe supply of water in case of siege.

Reconstruction of the Acropolis in the 3rd century CE, showing the Beulé Gate (foreground, centre) with the Propylaia behind

During the demolition of the Choragic Monument of Nikias, the structure's geisa were numbered while still in situ, allowing them to be correctly reassembled within the gate. The Doric frieze of the Choragic Monument, built from limestone and marble, was reconstructed along the top of the Beulé Gate, though the architrave of the Choragic Monument, which originally formed a single horizontal beam, was divided into two parts, one above and one below the gate's frieze. The archaeologist Jeffrey M. Hurwit has described the re-use of the Choragic Monument as a "twice-told Classicism", since the original monument was itself modelled on the Propylaia, and so its re-use created architectural harmony between the Beulé Gate and the Proplyaia to which it led.

Hurwit has called the construction of the gate a "turning point" in the Acropolis's history, suggesting that it represented a renewed emphasis on the Acropolis's role as a strategic fortification rather than as a religious sanctuary — making the site now "a fortress with temples". During the third or fourth century CE, a wooden roof was constructed along the gate's inner face; under the emperor Justinian (r. 527–565) an additional lintel was fitted to the gate's doorway, reducing its height. The gate remained the main entrance to the Acropolis during the Middle Byzantine period (c. 843 – c. 1261): during this time, a wooden roof was added to the whole structure, and a barrel vault, running from north to south, was constructed against the inner (eastern) side of the towers and the gate wall. Tanoulas has suggested that this work may have been carried out by Leo, the Metropolitan of Athens between 1060 and 1069.

In 1204, after the Fourth Crusade, the Byzantine Empire was partitioned between Venice and the leaders of the crusade. Athens became the centre of the Duchy of Athens, a lordship initially held by the Burgundian aristocrat Othon de la Roche. Between the 13th and 15th centuries, the city's Frankish rulers gradually refortified the Acropolis; the Beulé Gate was closed off during the reign of Othon's descendants, the de la Roche family, which lasted until 1308; a vaulted structure was also built in the gate's north tower to brace it during the same period. The medieval period also saw the closing off of the Propylaia, which was further reinforced with the Frankish Tower at an uncertain date.

The gates' previous role as an entrance to the Acropolis was taken over by the gate situated at the western foot of the large classical bastion on which the Temple of Athena Nike was built. The medieval notary Niccolò da Martoni, who visited Athens in February 1395, wrote an account suggesting that the Beulé Gate was still visible, though no longer used. At some point in the Ottoman period (1458–1827), the gate's towers were heightened and a bastion was constructed on top of it: this bastion was visible in drawings made by the British antiquary William Gell in 1801–1806. When Beulé excavated the bastion, he found evidence that the gate had been damaged by bombs prior to the bastion's construction. By the 19th century, knowledge of the gate's existence was lost.

Excavation

Beulé's plan of the entrance to the Acropolis of Athens. The Beulé Gate is at the bottom (south) of the image.

The gate is named for Charles Ernest Beulé, a member of the French School at Athens, who discovered the gate in 1852. The first of Athens's foreign schools of archaeology, the French School had been founded in 1846 with the aim of carrying out excavations and classical scholarship, as well as of enhancing French prestige, particularly vis-à-vis British archaeology. Beulé had joined the French School in 1849, and discovered the gate while excavating the approach to the Proplyaia under the direction of Kyriakos Pittakis, the Greek Ephor General of Antiquities. The historian Jean-Michel Leniaud has called the excavation "the first of the great archaeological transformations" carried out on the Acropolis; Tanoulas has described it as the most important archaeological project of the mid-nineteenth century at the site.

The existence of a lower route to the Propylaia had become evident during the operations to clear and repair the monuments of the Acropolis following the end of the Greek War of Independence in 1829. In 1846, the architect and archaeologist Auguste Titeux began to reveal the staircase leading up to the Propylaia, but archaeologists did not generally consider that there had been a second gateway below it. Titeux died in 1846 with his work on the staircase unfinished: in 1850, Pittakis completed the work of clearing it and partially reconstructing the steps.

Pittakis enlisted Beulé to assist with the removal of medieval and modern structures from the remaining parts of the Propylaea in 1852. Beulé, against the prevailing scholarly opinion of his time, believed that Mnesikles, the architect of the Propylaia, had originally constructed a second gateway, and secured Pittakis's blessing as well as support from Alexandre de Forth-Rouen, the French ambassador to Greece, to investigate his hypothesis. On 16 May [O.S. 4 May], the excavators discovered additional steps leading towards the gate, and by 29 May [O.S. 17 May] it had become clear that they had found the edge of a fortified wall around the Acropolis, and within it a gateway. The site was visited by King Otto and Queen Amalia of Greece, and the discovery made Beulé's scholarly reputation.

Beulé left Athens for France at the beginning of June, returning in December to direct renewed excavations, now focused on the gate. On 5 January 1853 [O.S. 24 December 1852], work was temporarily halted when the Greek Minister for War ordered the excavators to leave, concerned that the excavation would destroy the Acropolis's defensive value in case of a future invasion; Beulé, with the support of the French embassy, was able to persuade the Greek authorities that the Acropolis had little military value anyway, and "would not hold out for twenty-four hours against an assault".

When work was able to resume in 1853, the excavators encountered a particularly stubborn block of mortar through which their tools could not penetrate. Beulé secured a batch of explosives from sailors of the Station du Levant, a fleet of the French Navy tasked with patrolling the Aegean Sea, and used 150 lb (68 kg) of gunpowder to blast through the block. Contemporary archaeologists criticised his actions, as did the Greek newspapers, one of which had previously accused Beulé of wanting to blow up everything on the Acropolis. Pittakis, who had been watching the operation, was almost struck by a fragment of the debris which pierced his hat: reports circulated in the aftermath that he had been killed.

The commemorative inscription erected by Beulé in 1853

By 12 April [O.S. 31 March] 1853, the two towers had been fully revealed, followed by the gateway itself on 13 April [O.S. 1 April]. Beulé fixed a commemorative stone to the gate, inscribed in Ancient Greek and reading:

Η ΓΑΛΛΙΑ ΤΗΝ ΠΥΛΗN ΤΗΣ ΑΚΡΟΠΟΛΕΩΣ, ΤΑ ΤΕΙΧΗ ΤΟΥ ΠΥΡΓΟΥ, ΚΑΙ ΤΗΝ ΑΝΑΒΑΣΙΝ ΕΧΩΣΜΕΝΑ ΕΞΕΚΑΛΥΨΕΝ. ΒΕΥΛΗ ΕΥΡΕΝ.

France unearthed the hitherto-buried gate of the Acropolis, the walls of the tower, and the ascending road. Beulé found it.

Beulé also reported having inscribed a French translation of the same inscription below the Greek text. The discovery of the gate prompted scholarly celebration in France, and was reported with enthusiasm in the French press. The writer and philhellene Jean Baelan has written that Beulé's work turned him into "the standard-bearer for national honour in the field of archaeology". In recognition of Beulé's discovery, the Académie Française made the Acropolis of Athens the topic for its Grand Prize for Poetry in 1853, which was won by Louise Colet. The British historian Thomas Henry Dyer praised Beulé's discovery, but correctly questioned his assertion that the gate had been built under Mnesikles, and criticised Beulé's commemorative inscription, calling it "somewhat vainglorious".

After its excavation, the Beulé Gate resumed its original function as a monumental gateway for the Acropolis. In the 1960s, the main entrance was moved to the south-east side, leaving the Beulé Gate as primarily an exit.

Gallery

• 
  Photographed between 1875 and 1893
• 
  View of the gate from the north-west
• 
  Back of the gate, viewed from the north-east
• 
  French troops during the 1917 occupation of Athens
• 
  A stone of the gate, repurposed from an older monument: an inscription, now upside-down, is visible

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