Word: stoa
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Fuzzy charges, of course, are hardly new to the Greek judicial tradition. In Athens, archaeologists have discovered the ruins of the Royal Stoa, where Socrates was tried and sentenced to death 2,369 years ago. Recently, Ioannis Ze-ghinis, deputy prosecutor of the Athens appeals court, took the occasion of the find to recall in a speech that the charges against Socrates-disbelief in the gods and the corruption of youth-were "imprecise," that there was no prosecutor and no defense counsel, and that no witnesses were ever produced. All in all, concluded Zeghinis, it was "a great miscarriage...
...must present myself at the Stoa of the Basileus to meet the indictment of Meletos, which he has brought against me. -Theaetetus, Plato
...that he had stumbled on the locale of Socrates' trial in new excavations just north of the ancient Athenian marketplace and civic center. Professor T. Leslie Shear Jr. of Princeton University and the American School of Classical Studies in Athens identified the area as the site of the Stoa (or portico) of the Basileus. As the No. 2 man in the nine-man elected Athenian hierarchy, the basileus often acted as the city's chief magistrate. It was in this capacity that he presided over the Athenian judges who ordered Socrates to take his own life by drinking...
Just across the Athens-Piraeus electric railway, the dig looks more like the excavation for a large new office building than the repository of one of ancient Greece's most famous sites. But the signs of the celebrated stoa-which was about 60 ft. long and 20 ft. wide-are clearly apparent to the trained eye. Still visible amid the rubble are the base outlines of twelve Doric columns that ancient chronicles say guarded the eastern base of the portico. So too are markings from the three walls that enclosed the rest of the building. In fact, the north...
...first time," says Papadimitriou, "we can get a complete picture of the private life of ancient Athenians, especially the women." One relief from the stoa-as fine as anything that adorned the Parthenon-shows Zeus, Hera, Apollo and Artemis, all figures of commanding grace. But the statues of the children are the most endearing of the discoveries. For all the black talk of orgies, the boys and girls are sweetly innocent, fashioned with gentle care by artists of extraordinary talent. They sing of youth, not just that of individuals but of Western civilization itself-"the spring aroma," says Papadimitriou...