VERSIONS AND CONCESSIONS > TEMPLE OF APOLLO PATROOS
The older theory, according to which in the 6th cent. BC an arched temple stood in the same place was not adopted; on the contrary, we regarded that earlier building as a workshop abandoned in the 5th cent. BC, leaving the site empty, thus allowing the viewers seated in the ‘synedrion’ visual contact with the square [Hedrick, Ch.W. Jr., ‘The Temple and Cult of Apollo Patroos in Athens’, American Journal of Archaeology 92 (1988), pp. 185-210]. Only one building is represented for both phases, the Hellenistic and the Roman, but two different versions were used. With respect to the shape of the pronaos there are two views, and these have affected the suggested represantation. According to the first view, adopted by the excavators of the Agora [Thompson, H., Wycherley, R., The Agora of Athens. The American Excavations in the Athenian Agora, vol. XIV, American School of Classical Studies at Athens (Princeton 1972)], the pronaos was a tetrastyle in antis, of the Ionic order. This is a perfectly reasonable view, but does not rest on any finds. It contradicts another view for the shape of the temple, put forward by W.Dörpfeld [‘ Funde’, Athenische Mitteilungen 21 (1896), pp. 107-109 and 22 (1897), p. 225], according to which the temple was a hexastyle prostyle. Nowadays, researchers return to this view, thanks to the observation [Knell, H., Athen im 4. Jahrhundert v. Chr. Eine Stadt verändert ihr Gesicht. Archäologish-kulturgeschichtliche Betrachtungen (Darmstad 2000), p. 84, fig. 53-54] that the temple was in fact copied in the east prostasis of the Erechtheion and has the exact same dimensions (if we reconstruct it as a hexastyle). We have preferred this view as more convincing, although we have also produced the alternative representation for historical reasons. In this decision we were also influenced by private discussions with the persons in charge of the excavation, especially with the architect R. Anderson, who has pointed out certain unpublished drawings of J. Travlos, where the temple was represented as a hexastyle, drawings which were rejected by H. A. Thompson, then head of the excavation.



Temple of Apollo Patroos, 3D representation (1st version)



Temple of Apollo Patroos, 3D representation (2nd version)
 
 
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