The Heart of the Ancient Agora

The low circle of stone on the western side of the Ancient Agora marks the plan of the Tholos; its only passage still breaks the circle of the foundation. Fifty members of the city’s Council kept a constant watch here: they handled urgent decisions, envoys, and matters that could not be left until the next meeting. In the noisy marketplace, the city had a small service room where power never stopped working.

Among the low stone foundations on the western side of the Ancient Agora, a circle about eighteen meters in diameter has survived. This is the Tholos, a service building where the fifty prytaneis, the on-duty section of the Council of Five Hundred, ate at public expense and took turns remaining on standby. They convened the Council, received envoys, and dealt with matters that could not be postponed. While people traded, went to court, and made sacrifices in the square, someone in this round room was always responsible for the city’s next order.

Late in four hundred four BCE, Athens lost the Peloponnesian War. Democratic institutions were removed, and the city was governed by an oligarchic commission of thirty Athenians, known as the Thirty Tyrants. They executed opponents without the usual trial and tried to involve other citizens in the killings: it was harder for an accomplice to claim no involvement.

One day, the Thirty Tyrants summoned five men to the Tholos. Among them was Socrates, about sixty-five years old and known to Athenians for his public conversations. They sought obedience from him, but he wanted to avoid taking part in a killing. The five men were ordered to go to the island of Salamis, arrest Leon of Salamis, and bring him back for execution. Leon was a respected Athenian; no specific crime was held against him. The wording of the order left him no hope of a hearing: they were required to bring back a man whom they had already decided to kill.

The five left the Tholos together. Four went after Leon. Socrates went home.

This refusal did not save Leon. The others arrested him, brought him to Athens, and the Thirty Tyrants ordered his execution. Socrates risked becoming the next victim: he later said that he survived only because the regime soon fell. A few years later, at his own trial, Socrates reminded the judges of what had happened here, arguing that fear of death had not made him carry out an unjust order. He was not acquitted and was executed on another charge.

All that remains of the room where the Thirty Tyrants tried to make five Athenians into accomplices is the circular foundation. Through its only entrance, four men went after Leon, and the fifth went home.