The Odeion, or Music Hall, was built soon after Pericles had got rid of his opponent Thucydides ( 442) and was able to indulge more freely his wish to spend public money on splendid structures. Its site was on the south-west slope of the Acropolis, not far from the theatre of Dionysus. (A far greater Odeion was built three centuries later near the Propylaea by Herodes Atticus.
In passing note that the theatre of Dionysus, in which all the masterpieces of the Attic drama were first performed, was at this time only a somewhat primitive stage facing the Acropolis, on the natural slope of which the audience was accommodated with wooden benches or dug-out seats. The huge auditorium, capable of holding 30,000 spectators, was excavated and furnished with stone seats in the fourth century.)
The Hall of Mysteries at Eleusis was constructed about the same time to replace the old building destroyed by the Persians. The design was by Ictinus, and the superintending architect was Coroebus. The inner temple (Telesterion, or ‘Place of Initiation’) was partly built into the rock of the Eleusinian acropolis. It was afterwards (c 310) furnished with a fine Doric colonnade. The Mysteries were celebrated here down to A.D. 396, when the building was burnt by Alaric.
Visits: 181
