The Deme of Phrearrhioi and Its Thesmophorion

Abstract

This contribution discusses the archaeological and literary sources for the ancient deme of Phrearrhioi and its Eleusinion located beside one of the main roads of Attica, the Ἀστικῆ Ὁδός. Famous Archaic sculptures, indications of the wealth of the aristocrats living in this area, once stood on grave tumuli next to this road. The fertile plain between the mountains, the Attic Olympos and the Paneion, belonged almost entirely to the deme of Phrearrhioi and constituted the economic basis of this wealth. The remains of a sanctuary, which Hans Lauter studied in the 1970s, still stand atop a rocky hill in the centre of this plain. This article identifies the cult place with the Eleusinion of Phrearrhioi. Lauter proposed a date for the sanctuary in the early Hellenistic period, but on the basis of literary evidence concerning Themistokles Phrearrhios, this contribution proposes that the Eleusinion existed already in the Archaic period.