Since the 4th B.C., the space of the Agora in Athens housed multiple honorary portraits of women and men deemed worthy of memory. The statues, however, were not randomly arranged in the public square, but were strategically placed at epiphanestatoi topoi, ensuring maximum visibility and prominence on political, ideological, or religious levels to attract the dedicator (Di Cesare 2014).

Arranged in isolation, grouped or in series, the statues could be erected near other statues of deities, illustrious figures, buildings or monuments (Ma 2013). Every portrait, where it was placed and how it looked, played a big role in giving a strong character to the city's landscape, shaping its appearance and connecting its meaning to specific values. At the same time, each statue took on significance depending on its topographical location and the complex system of interactions it became a part of.

While the topic has garnered attention since the mid-twentieth century, it is only in the last three decades that a shift toward topographical analyses, emphasizing the semantics of space, has occurred (Oliver 2007, Dickenson 2017 and 2021, Leone 2020). However, what is lacking is a comprehensive analysis of the spatial displacement and semantics of honorary statues to capture changes in the landscape and the observer's gaze over time.

To this end, available literary, epigraphic, and archaeological sources were selected and overlaid. From this cross analysis it was possible to identify 17 preeminent locations among the central area, the northwest corner and the southeast sector of the Agora.

These spaces, where honorary dedications were polarized, seem connected more by their prominent positions concerning the main axes of transit or the central sector of the square than by function. Such positioning allowed high visibility without obstructing daily activities as people passed through the Agora or utilized the buildings.

Examining data across five phases of consistent space usage (4th-2nd centuries B.C.; 1st century B.C.; 1st century A.D.; 2nd century A.D.; 3rd-4th centuries A.D.) reveals forms of continuity and discontinuity. In particular, the survey makes it possible to highlight how: a) some sectors are preferred to others over time (the northwest sector in the 4th cent. B.C. as opposed to the southeast sector in later centuries, with exceptions of continuity related to specific categories of effigies, e.g., Eleusinion; b) some preeminent places maintain continuity of use throughout the entire history of use of the Agora as a space of representation (Stoà of Attalus) as opposed to others recovered over time according to certain ideological-political messages to be expressed (Stoà of Zeus Eleutherios, monument of the Eponymous Heroes).

In conclusion, the choice of the space for the dedication of honorary statues was on the one hand influenced by historical-political factors, which partly explain the predilection of certain areas in critical phases (the eastern area after Sillan sack), and on the other hand related to dynamics of ideological and religious association with the monuments as well as visibility and perception of the space.

Bibliographical references

Di Cesare 2014 = Di Cesare, R. (2014). Il gruppo dei Tirannicidi e le statue onorarie e votive nella piazza. In SATAA 1.3:1074-1082.

Dickenson 2017 = Dickenson, C. P. (2017). The Agora as Setting for Honorific Statues in Roman Greece. Heller, A & van Nijf O. M. (edd.), The Politics of Honour in the Greek Cities of the Roman Empire, Leiden, Boston: 432-454.

Dickenson 2021 = Dickenson, C. P., (2021). Public Statues Across Time and Cultures, Routledge.

Leone 2020 = Leone, S. (2020). Polis, Platz und Porträt. Die Bildnisstatuen auf der Agora von Athen im Späthellenismus und in der Kaiserzeit (86 v. Chr. – 267 n. Chr.), Berlin, Boston.

Ma 2013 = Ma, J. (2013). Statues and cities: honorific portraits and civic identity in the Hellenistic world, Oxford.

Oliver 2007 = Oliver, G. J. (2007). Space and the visualization of power in the Greek polis: the award of portrait statues in decrees from Athens. In Schultz, Hoff, Early Hellenistic Portraiture: Image, Style, Context: 181-204.