The Dipylon gate, situated sixty metres to the north of the Sacred Gate, was the grandest gateway of ancient Athens, serving as the starting point for roads leading to the Peloponnese, Eleusis, Megara, Boeotia, and northern Greece since the Mycenaean era. Its design echoed that of the Sacred Gate, with larger towers, gates, and an inner courtyard. Originally named the “Thriasian Gates”, this entrance marked the beginning of the road to the Thriasian Plain. A surviving pedestal at the outer gates possibly supported a funerary monument. Beyond the inner gates stands a round altar dedicated to Zeus, Hermes, and Akamantas. The first was the patron of the fortified space, the second traditionally was a protector of gates and the third was the hero of the tribe of the deme Kerameikos, the Akamantis tribe.
Though the Sacred Way started or ended at the Sacred Gate, the Greater Mysteries procession most likely also included the Dipylon. The area encompassing the Dipylon, the Sacred Gate, and the cemetery was part of the Kerameikos deme. This area retained its natural allure, despite being bisected by Themistocles’ wall into Inner and Outer Kerameikos. The Eridanus river, flowing through Kerameikos and exiting at the Sacred Gate, was polluted with urban waste but stayed vital for local potters (kerameis), who used the clay deposited on its banks to craft the famous Attic vases.
Kerameikos, densely populated, was integral to Athens’ political, social, and religious spheres. However, it was also a site of historical assassinations: Harmodius and Aristogeiton killed tyrant Hipparchus there, a foundational myth of Athenian democracy. Centuries later, during Sulla’s 86 BCE siege of Athens, his troops breached the wall, entering Kerameikos to commit a massacre that soaked the district in so much blood that it flowed through the Dipylon.
