Latrines, Clocks and Mosques in the Roman Agora of Athens

Posted by Lito Apostolakou Nov 4, 2009

The imposing marble gate of the Roman Agora of Athens opens to a layered landscape. There were Romans here mixing with Greeks in the large rectangular building of which only columns and fragments remain. In the 1st century BC there were offices, storerooms, shops, an agoranomeion, a fountain, public latrines, a sundial and water clock; then workshops, churches; then mosques; a wheat and flour market; an islamic school; a prison.

Of them the sundial-and-water clock, the Tower of the Winds, stands almost intact with the eight winged wind gods peering from its eight sides. It was used later by the Ottomans as tekke (dance hall) by Derivishes.

Across it the beautifully restored but sadly disused Fethiye Mosque, built in the middle of the 17th century. In the post-Ottoman era it was used as a prison, army barracks, school, flour storeroom and army bakery. Between the clock and the mosque, the Roman latrines, one of Rome's contribution to civilized urban life.

And on the left of the Tower of the Winds a mysterious, almost haunted structure: another door more humble perhaps compared to the Gate of the Roman Agora but no less imposing. The door and the bit of wall remaining is what's left of the 18th-century Islamic school (Mendrese). During King Otto's time it was used by the Bavarians as a prison.

The Roman Agora and surrounding area is scattered with Greek, Roman, Ottoman, Muslim and Christian remains and is a graphic example of the layered nature of the past.

• On the Tower of the Winds see Ancient Clock of the Roman Agora, Athens: Boreas and Zephyros in the Tower of the Winds.
• On the Roman latrines, see Roman Sewers in the Athens Agora: Latrines of the Ancient Romans