Areopagus

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Areopagus

The Areopagus or Areios Pagos (Greek

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
) is the 'Hill of Ares

Ares

In Greek mythology, Ares is the son of Zeus and Hera. Though often referred to as the Twelve Olympians God of warfare, he is more accurately the god of bloodlust, or slaughter personified: "Ares is apparently an ancient abstract noun meaning throng of battle, war."...
', north-west of the Acropolis, which in classical times functioned as the high Court of Appeal for criminal and civil cases in Athens

Athens

Athens , the Capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the List of cities by time of continuous habitation, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
. Ares was supposed to have been tried here by the gods for the murder of Poseidon

Poseidon

In Greek mythology, Poseidon was the god of the sea and, as "Earth-Shaker," of earthquakes. The name of the god Nethuns in Etruscan mythology was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon....
's son Alirrothios (a typical example of an aetiological

Etiology

Etiology is the study of Causality. The word is derived from the Ancient Greek , aitiologia, "giving a reason for" .The word is most commonly used in medical and philosophical theories, where it is used to refer to the study of why things occur, or even the reasons behind the way that things act, and is used in philosophy, physics, psy...
myth). In The Eumenides of Aeschylus

Aeschylus

Aeschylus was an Ancient Greece playwright. He is often recognized as the father or the founder of tragedy, and is the earliest of the three Greek tragedy whose Play survive extant, the others being Sophocles and Euripides....
(458 BC), the Areopagus is the site of the trial of Orestes

Orestes (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Orestes was the son of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. He is the subject of several Ancient Greek theatre and of various legends connected with his madness and purification....
for killing his mother (Clytemnestra

Clytemnestra

Clytemnestra was the wife of Agamemnon, king of the Ancient Greece kingdom of Mycenae or Argos. In the Oresteia by Aeschylus, she was a femme fatale who murdered her husband, Agamemnon—said by Euripides to be her second husband—and his concubine Cassandra....
) and her lover (Aegisthus

Aegisthus

In Greek mythology, Aegisthus was the son of Thyestes and of his daughter, Pelopia.Thyestes felt he had been deprived of the Mycenae throne unfairly by his brother, Atreus....
).

Phryne

Phryne

Phryne was a famous hetaera of Ancient Greece ....
, the hetaera

Hetaera

In ancient Greece, hetaerae were courtesans, that is to say, sophisticated companions and prostitutes....
from 4th century BC Greece and famed for her beauty, appeared before the Areopagus accused of profaning the Eleusinian mysteries

Eleusinian Mysteries

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The Areopagus or Areios Pagos (Greek

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
) is the 'Hill of Ares

Ares

Athens

Poseidon

Etiology

Aeschylus

Orestes (mythology)

Clytemnestra

Aegisthus

In Greek mythology, Aegisthus was the son of Thyestes and of his daughter, Pelopia.Thyestes felt he had been deprived of the Mycenae throne unfairly by his brother, Atreus....
).

Phryne

Phryne

Phryne was a famous hetaera of Ancient Greece ....
, the hetaera

Hetaera

Eleusinian Mysteries

The Eleusinian Mysteries were initiation ceremony held every year for the Cult of Demeter and Persephone based at Eleusis in ancient Greece. Of all the mysteries celebrated in ancient times, these were held to be the ones of greatest importance....
. Legend has it that she removed her cloak, so impressing the judges with her almost divine form, that she was summarily acquitted.

The origin of its name is not clear. In Greek pagos means big piece of rock. Areios could have come from Ares

Ares

Erinyes

In Greek mythology the Erinyes or Eumenides or Furies in Roman mythology were female, chthonic deities of revenge or supernatural personifications of the anger of the dead....
, as on its foot was erected a temple dedicated to the Erinyes where murderers used to find shelter so as not to face the consequences of their actions. Later, the Romans

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC....
referred to the rocky hill as "Mars Hill," after Mars, the Roman God of War. Near the Areopagus was also constructed the basilica of Dionysius Areopagites

Dionysius the Areopagite

Dionysius the Areopagite was the judge of the Areopagus who, as related in the Acts of the Apostles, , was converted to Christianity by the preaching of the Paul of Tarsus....
.

In pre-classical times (before the 5th century BC), the Areopagus was the council of elders of the city, similar to the Roman Senate

Roman Senate

The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic. According to the Greek historian Polybius, our principal source on the Constitution of the Roman Republic, the Roman Senate was the predominant branch of government....
. Like the Senate, its membership was restricted to those who had held high public office, in this case that of Archon

Archon

Archon is a Greek language word that means "ruler", frequently used as the title of a specific public office. It is the masculine present participle of the verb stem ???-, meaning "to rule", derived from the same root as monarch, hierarchy and anarchism....
. In 462 BC, Ephialtes

Ephialtes

Ephialtes of Trachis was the son of Eurydemus of Malis. He showed the Persian Empire forces a path around the allied Greek position at the pass of Thermopylae, which helped them win the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BCE....
put through reforms which deprived the Areopagus of almost all its functions except that of a murder tribunal in favor of Heliaia

Heliaia

Heliaia or Heliaea was the supreme court of ancient Athens. ?he generally held scientific view is that the court drew its name from the ancient Greek verb , which means , namely congregate....
.

In an unusual development, the Areopagus acquired a new function in the 4th century BC, investigating corruption, although conviction powers remained with the Ecclesia

Ecclesia (ancient Athens)

The ecclesia or ekklesia was the principal assembly of the Athenian democracy of ancient Athens during its Age of Pericles . It was the popular assembly, opened to all male citizens over the age of 18 by Solon in 594 BC meaning that all classes of citizens in Athens were able to participate, even the thetes....
.

The Areopagus, like most city-state institutions, continued to function in Roman

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the Roman Republic phase of the Ancient Rome, characterised by an autocracy form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
times, and it was from this location, drawing from the potential significance of the Athenian temple to the Unknown God

Unknown God

In addition to the Olympian twelve and the innumerable Greek mythology, ancient Greece worshiped a deity they called Agnostos Theos, that is: the Unknown god....
, that the Apostle Paul is said to have delivered the famous speech, 'Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.'

The term "Areopagus" also refers to the judicial body of aristocratic origin, the power of which was enhanced by Solon

Solon

Solon was an Athens statesman, lawmaker, and lyric poetry. He is remembered particularly for his efforts to legislate against political, economic and moral decline in Archaic period in Greece Athens....
, or the higher court of Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , is a country in southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the Balkans. It has borders with Albania, Bulgaria and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to the north, and Turkey to the east....
.

Footnotes

External links

A Biblical account of St. Paul discussing with the Areopagus the nature of the Christian God. Also referred to is the story concerning the altar to "The Unknown God." See also: Agnostics.