Jessica Paga provides a clear statement of intention in the introduction to her first book, Building Democracy in Late Archaic Athens: she seeks to establish a connection between building activities and the nascent democracy in Athens and its surrounding territory following the reforms of Kleisthenes in 508/7 BCE and before the Persian occupation of the city in 480/79. While scholars have long turned to ancient authors and inscriptions to understand this period, they have less frequently consulted architecture as a primary source. Johannes Boersma’s Athenian Building Policy from 561/0 to 405/4 B.C., published in 1970, was among the first scholarly studies to analyze the architectural developments in relation to Athenian society.1 Paga aims to demonstrate the central role of buildings, in “their forms, locations, ornamentation, and functions, as active participants in the evolving dialogue of change and continuity” (2). Her goal is to make a connection between...
University of California Press