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This marketplace area was lined with stalls selling sacred objects, where visitors could buy last-minute offerings to the Oracle.

Roman rule began in 146 BC and lasted five centuries. Athenians initially maintained good relations with their rulers, but in 86 BC a potential move towards Athenian independence was brutally crushed by the Romans. Emperor Hadrian (AD 76–138) remained a great admirer of Greek culture, however, and together with Greek scholar Herodes Atticus he set up various building schemes, including the great theatre (see Herodes Atticus Theatre).

One of the most interestingly layered sites. Buildings and remains include the ingenious Tower of the Winds from 50 BC, the first-century AD Roman forum, and a mosque built by the Ottomans. (see Roman Forum & Tower of the Winds)

The sanctuary to warrior-goddess Athena was believed to protect the Sanctuary of Apollo from invaders. Though many of the buildings have been destroyed, those that survive are among the finest examples of ancient Greek architecture.

This rock circle surrounding an opening in the earth celebrated the earliest deity associated with the Delphic Oracle: the matriarchal earth goddess. The tradition of the Oracle and priestesses continued, but the ruling deity later become Apollo.

This temple-like marble structure, built by envoys from Sifnos, was the richest and most beautiful of several similar treasuries, all constructed as offerings to the Oracle. Its statues are now displayed in the museum.

Though Socrates himself wrote nothing, his teachings, recorded in the writings of historians and especially his pupil Plato, have earned him the title of the forerunner of Western philosophy. At the height of the Golden Age of Athens, the original marketplace philosopher debated the great meanings in the Agora, and was eventually tried and put to death for corrupting the Athenian youth (see Socrates’ Prison).

Draco’s laws were made less severe by Solon (c.638– 559 BC); he also extended citizenship to the lower classes.

Only seven of Sophocles’ plays survive, but his reputation rests securely on three: Antigone , Oedipus at Colonus , and Oedipus Rex . The last of these, the story of a king bound hopelessly by fate to murder his father and marry his mother, is the greatest masterpiece of Greek tragedy.