In the western part of the Ancient Agora, the foundations of a building have been located, which has been safely identified thanks to the discovery of an inscription. This is the Bouleuterion, the first one in Athens, built to house the meetings of the Boule, the council of five hundred citizens. It was a democratically elected civic body created after the reforms of Cleisthenes in 508/7 BCE.
The Council of Five Hundred, this numerous civic body that replaced Solon’s Council of Four Hundred, possessed extensive powers. The five hundred members were chosen by lot, fifty from each of the ten tribes, received a salary from the state and were exempt from military service so that the Boule could operate in full composition. The work of the Boule was legislative, administrative and judicial. It prepared the laws that the Ekklesia (Assembly of the Demos) would decide upon and issued the decrees. It exercised control over the rulers and authorities that managed public finances, supervised public works, public festivals and ceremonies, and played a significant role in the realms of foreign policy and defence.
The Bouleuterion, where the sessions were held, was a large building, approximately square in plan (dimensions 23.3 by 23.8 metres), with 5 columns in the central hall supporting the roof. On the three sides of the hall, the wooden seats of the members were arranged in a Π-shaped formation. On the south side, free of seats, there was a long narrow vestibule through which one entered the main hall. The facade of the building is restored with a Doric colonnade of 5 columns.
The building functioned as the seat of the Boule until around the end of the 5th century BCE, when it was replaced by the New Bouleuterion to its west. The Old Bouleuterion retained the city’s official records and at the same time housed the worship of Rhea, the Mother of the Gods. Consequently, it was named Metroon, and Rhea became the patroness of the official archives. The statue of the goddess inside the building was the work of a great sculptor, either Phidias or Agoracritus. The Old Bouleuterion was demolished and replaced by a new Metroon for the safekeeping of public documents after the middle of the 2nd century BCE.
The New Bouleuterion served the needs of the Council of Five Hundred. The new building had a rectangular plan measuring 16.9 by 21.5 metres and its roof was supported by four Ionic columns. The entrance was probably from the south, where a portico was later added along the entrance; the members of the council would sit on wooden benches possibly arranged amphitheatrically on the east, north and west sides of the hall. During the Hellenistic period, the wooden benches were replaced by twelve rows of stone seats that scholars believe were placed in a U-shaped arrangement. Ancient sources inform us that, in the centre of the hall, there was an altar dedicated to Hestia Boulaia and that inside the building was the sanctuary of Zeus Boulaios and Athena Boulaia.
The New Bouleuterion suffered damages during the invasion by Sulla in 86 BCE, and possibly during the raid of the Heruli in 267 CE. The building was partially reconstructed during the 5th century CE, but its use remains unknown. The adjacent buildings of the Ancient Agora had already lost their public character, so the same could be assumed for the New Bouleuterion.
