Prytaneion

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Prytaneion

• The Prytaneion. Its Function and Architectural
  Form, by Stephen G. Miller (1978).

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Plutarch, Life of Aristides 27 Moreover, his
tomb is pointed out at Phalerum, and they say the
city constructed it for him, since he did not
leave even enough to pay for his funeral. And
they tell how his daughters were married from the
prytaneium at the public cost, the city bestowing
the dowry for the marriage and voting outright
three thousand drachmas to each daughter,
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Plutarch, Life of Solon 25 1 All his laws were
to have force for a hundred years, and they were
written on axones, or wooden tablets, which
revolved with the oblong frames containing them.
Slight remnants of these were still preserved in
the Prytaneium when I was at Athens, and they
were called, according to Aristotle, kurbeis.

• Plutarch, Life of Theseus 18 When the lot was
  cast, Theseus took those upon whom it fell from
  the prytaneium and went to the Delphinium, where
  he dedicated to Apollo in their behalf his
  suppliant's badge. This was a bough from the
  sacred olive-tree, wreathed with white wool.
  Having made his vows and prayers, he went down to
  the sea on the sixth day of the month Munychion,
  on which day even now the Athenians still send
  their maidens to the Delphinium to propitiate the
  god.

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Ath. pol. 3.5 And the Nine Archons were not all
together, but the King had what is now called the
Bucolium, near the town hall (as is indicated by
the fact that even at the present day the union
and marriage of the King's Wife with Dionysus
takes place there), while the Archon had the
President's Hall, and the War-lord the Epilyceum
(which formerly used to be called the War-lord's
House, but because Epilycus on becoming War-lord
rebuilt and furnished it, it received the name of
Epilyceum) and the Legislators had the
Legislators' Court.

• Suda At the prytaneion A lawcourt. It decides
  homicide cases when the lethal missile is
  clearly a stone or suchlike, and there is no
  human perpetrator. For judging even inanimate
  objects is an ancient custom, to determine
  whether they should be cast beyond the borders.
• pretrial Those sc. in Athens with homicide
  suits being brought against them live at the
  prytaneion1 for three months before the trial
  during that time speeches are delivered on either
  side. This is what they call a pre-trial.

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prytaneion

• Suda, prytaneion Among the Athenians a small
  public building, where those who attain the
  appropriate honor among them were given a dinner
  at public expense Attaining such a reward was
  sought-after for on the occasion of great
  successes they used to bestow such a privilege.

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Geoffrey Schmalz, The Athenian Prytaneion
Discovered? Hesperia 75 (2006) Pages 33-81

• The author proposes that the Athenian Prytaneion,
  one of the citys most important civic buildings,
  was located in the peristyle complex beneath the
  Plateia Agia Aikaterini, near the ancient Street
  of the Tripods and the Monument of Lysikrates in
  the modern Plaka. This thesis, which is
  consistent with Pausa- niass topographical
  account of ancient Athens, is supported by
  archaeological and epigraphical evidence. The
  identification of the Prytaneion at the eastern
  foot of the Acropolis helps to reconstruct the
  map of Archaic and Classical Athens and
  illuminates the testimony of Herodotos and
  Thucydides.

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