In antiquity, on the eastern side of the Acropolis, the Ilissos river flowed. Within its lush and temperate valley, a religious centre took form with the construction of temples dedicated to deities associated with nature. One of them, on the west bank of the river, was dedicated to Artemis Agrotera (huntress), the goddess of hunting and wild animals. The traveller Pausanias notes that in this area of the Ilissos, known as Agrae, the goddess Artemis hunted for the first time upon arriving from Delos, her birthplace. Consequently, the statue within the temple portrayed her holding a bow.

Today only remains from the foundation of the temple survive. However, its form is known from engravings as well as the drawings of the monument by the English travellers Stuart and Revett who visited Athens at the end of the 18th century. It is a small Ionic temple with four columns on either side and two between the pilasters of the cella (amphiprostyle, tetrastyle in antis). The sanctuary had no opisthodomos, it had a deep pronaos and the cella, in which the cult statue of the goddess would stand, had a square plan. The parts of the frieze, made of Pentelic marble, that survive in fragments with their reliefs worn away, cannot help to determine its subject. Some scholars identify Theseus and Pirithous in slabs originating from the temple, now located in Berlin and Vienna. The building shares architectural similarities with the temple of Athena Nike on the Acropolis, though it surpasses it in size. Traditionally attributed to the architect Kallikrates in the mid-5th century BCE, more recent research places its construction in the 430s BCE.

Although the identification of the temple is not certain, most scholars believe that Artemis Agrotera, associated with the victorious battle of the Greeks against the Persians at Marathon, was worshipped there. From the literary sources, we learn that the Athenian warlord Kallimachus had made a vow to the goddess before the battle, promising to sacrifice to Agrotera as many oxen as the enemies’ casualty would be. However, since the fallen opponents numbered around 6.400, it was decided to sacrifice 500 goats to the goddess every year. According to another story, this particular temple was the Metroon en Agrais, dedicated to the goddess Demeter and known from ancient texts, where preparatory rituals for the Eleusinian Mysteries, specifically the Lesser Mysteries or Mysteries en Agrais, took place.

In the 5th or 7th century CE, the temple suffered serious damages when it was converted into a Christian church with a funerary character, as indicated by the graves found in its vicinity. During the Ottoman period, another church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary and known as Panagia stin Petra (Virgin Mary on the rock) was built. This church was completely destroyed in 1778, when the Turkish governor of Athens issued an order to demolish it so that its materials could be used for the construction of the “Wall of Haseki”, for the fortification of the city.