Aphrodite inside the City Wall

Original title: Η Αφροδίτη εντός των τειχών

Abstract The aim of this paper is to examine the cult of Aphrodite in Attica and most of all her cult inside the city wall, in the Agora and below the wall of the Acropolis, where the number of her sanctuaries is impressive. The course of approach to the shrines starts from the Pompeion and leads to the Panathenaic Street up to the point the street reaches the Peripatos, along which several of them lay below the foot of the Acropolis on its North and South Slopes. In discussion are the surnames of the goddess, the form of the sanctuaries, the type of offered worship and the finds, that all point to the chthonic side of Aphrodite. New identifications are put forward for some sanctuaries of the goddess. The cult of Aphrodite proves to be extremely old and important both for the private and civil life of the city of Athens, which explains its central location inside the city wall.

Keywords Peripatos, Sanctuary of Eros and Aphrodite, Sanctuary of Aphrodite Urania en Kepois, Arrhephoria, Sanctuary of the Nymph