Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion
Ναός Ποσειδώνα (Σούνιο)
Interesting facts
- Excavations by Valerios Stais between 1897 and 1915 found inscriptions proving the clifftop temple was Poseidon's, not Athena's as the ancient writer Pausanias had claimed.
- About two-thirds of the clay animal figurines offered at the sanctuary are horses or chariot groups, fitting for Poseidon, who was also god of horses.
- A pit of offerings uncovered in 1907 held scarabs, seals and faience figurines, along with an 8th-century BC bronze figure of an eastern warrior god.
- Wilhelm Dörpfeld found evidence in 1884 that the temple was first planned with six by twelve columns before being built with six by thirteen.
- The marble ceilings over the side colonnades are unusual in Greek temple building, according to the architectural historian William Dinsmoor.
- Two of the temple's columns collapsed in 1825, and one was taken away the next year on the orders of an Austrian naval commander, Amilcare Paulucci.
- The column taken to Venice now stands in the garden of a palazzo belonging to Ca' Foscari University, its drums still carved with graffiti by French sailors from 1816.
- Four drums in the garden at Chatsworth House support a bust of the sixth Duke of Devonshire and probably come from a single column of the temple.
- Wooden dowels recovered from one of the columns were still intact and bore letters carved in the early-to-mid 5th century BC.
- Sounion was a place of worship long before the marble temple: cult activity on the levelled summit goes back at least to the late 8th century BC.
Why it is worth it
At the southernmost point of Attica the land ends in a steep headland above the Aegean, and on its crest stand the white marble columns of the Temple of Poseidon. Roughly fifteen of the original Doric columns are still upright, enough to trace the outline of the building against the sky from far out at sea. That was the point. Every ship bound for Piraeus had to round this cape, and the temple was the first sign of Athens for sailors coming home and the last for those leaving. The Greeks chose places that suited their gods, and for the lord of the sea there could hardly be a better one.
The present temple was built around 444 to 440 BC, in the age of Pericles, when the Parthenon was also rising in Athens. It stands on the ruins of an earlier temple of limestone, never quite completed, which was probably destroyed by the Persian army in 480 BC; the new marble building was laid so that it enveloped the old foundations, and two blocks of the older base can still be made out beneath the south-east corner. The marble came from the nearby Agrileza quarries and is coarser than the stone of the Acropolis, which gives the columns their slightly granular, weathered texture. Inside once stood a bronze statue of Poseidon about six metres tall. After the victory at Salamis, the Athenians dedicated an entire captured Persian warship here as a trophy.
Legend attaches itself easily to such a spot. The best known story says that King Aegeus waited on this cape for his son Theseus to return from Crete, saw a black sail and threw himself into the sea, which took his name. Later travellers added their own marks: the columns are scratched with the names of visitors, and one inscription is traditionally attributed to Lord Byron, who visited in 1810. Other pieces of the temple travelled further, a column taken to Venice in 1826 and drums now in the garden at Chatsworth and in the British Museum. Come in the late afternoon: the marble turns gold, and the sun goes down over the sea beyond the promontory.
Getting there
Cape Sounion is at the southern tip of the Attica peninsula, about 28 km from the town of Vari. Athens International Airport Eleftherios Venizelos (ATH) is about 33 km away. KTEL Attica buses run to Sounion from the Pedion tou Areos terminal in central Athens, a ride of about two hours along the coast.
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From the encyclopaedia
The Temple of Poseidon is an ancient Greek temple on Cape Sounion, Greece, dedicated to the god Poseidon. There is evidence of the establishment of sanctuaries on the cape from as early as the 11th century BC. Sounion's most prominent temples, the Temple of Athena and the Temple of Poseidon, are however not believed to have been built until about 700 BC, and their kouroi date from about one hundred years later. The material and size of the offerings at the Temple of Poseidon indicate that it was likely frequented by members of the elite and the aristocratic class.
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