deme. Only a few of these houses have been excavated, but many more have been recog-
nized from their surface remains. They usually consist of the house itself, made up of sev-
eral rooms grouped around an open courtyard; a well-built tower of several stories for se-
curity and storage; and a threshing f loor nearby to process grain.
The house most extensively excavated and published on is situated below the cave
at Vari: see J. E. Jones, L. H. Sackett, and A. J. Graham, “An Attic Country House Below
the Cave of Pan at Vari,” BSA 68 (1973), pp. 355 –452. There has been considerable dis-
cussion recently over whether the Athenians in Attica lived in these isolated farmsteads
or primarily in nucleated deme centers. Some thirty farms have now been located
throughout Attica, a substantial number considering how many deme sites remain un-
recognized. See R. Osborne, “‘Is It a Farm?’ The Definition of Agricultural Sites and Set-
tlements in Ancient Greece,” in Classical Landscape with Figures (London, 1987), and Os-
borne in Agriculture in Ancient Greece, ed. B. Wells (Stockholm, 1992), pp. 21–25. Also M.
Langdon, “The Farm in Classical Attica,” CJ 86 (1991), pp. 209 –213, and J. Roy, “The
Countryside in Classical Greek Drama, and Isolated Farms in Dramatic Landscapes,” in
Human Landscapes in Classical Antiquity, ed. G. Shipley and J. Salmon (London, 1996),
pp. 98–118.
ACHARNAI
DESCRIPTION, HISTORY, AND SIGNIFICANCE
Acharnai was by far the largest deme of Attica. It sent twenty-two representatives
annually to the boule, which suggests its population amounted to around 4 percent of the
total citizen population of Athens. Thucydides (2.20) refers to the three thousand hop-
lites Acharnai provided for the army, and a count of preserved Athenian names indicates
that the Acharnians were, in fact, the most numerous. Despite its large size, Acharnai
has been almost invisible archaeologically, a problem for those who put faith in surface
surveys alone. Thucydides locates it precisely 12 kilometers north of Athens. Two impor-
tant inscriptions have come from the area, but little else. One inscription carries a ver-
sion of the ephebic oath as well as a version of the oath which was taken by the Greeks be-
fore the Battle of Plataia in 479 b.c. The other inscription concerns the founding of an
altar for Ares and Athena Areia, one of the few Athenian cult monuments for the god of
war.
Acharnai was in the direct line of fire during the Peloponnesian War, and it was occu-
pied and ravaged by the Spartans during their first invasion of Attica. They approached
274 SITE SUMMARIES