The Monument of the Eponymous Heroes, located in the Ancient Agora of Athens (No. 10 on the map on the right), Greece and adjacently situated near the Metroon (old Bouleuterion, No. 11), was a marble podium that bore the bronze statues of the heroes representing the phylai (tribes) of Athens. The monument was surrounded by a wooden fence on stone posts. All that remains on the modern agora are pieces of a long (over ) statue base with the space for ten statues and two tripods at the ends with partially restored fence. Large size and prominent position make the monument into a landmark for the agora visitors.
Bulletin board
Being an important information center for the ancient Athenians, the place was used as an ancient bulletin board where proposed legislation, decrees and announcements were posted on wooden tablets.
Evolution
The remaining base is from the mid-4th century BC. The earliest known mention of the monument is almost a century older: Aristophanes in 424 BC refers to it as "place where lawsuits are displayed". No remains of an earlier monument were found at the current spot. A smaller, long, base was located about to the south under the Middle Stoa. While it can be argued that this was the site of the earlier monument, the identification is uncertain.
Cleisthenes had set up a new system of ten (instead of four) phylai around 508–507 B.C. (see Deme). The version of monument of mid-4th century BC (so called Period I) therefore included ten statues, one for each hero designating a phyle.
The late 4th century BC saw two statues added, representing Macedonian kings Antigonus I and Demetrius I Poliorcetes (two new tribes were added at this so-called Period II). Ptolemy III was added to the group some 80 years later (Period III). The Period II addition was reversed after the next 20 years, when Philip V of Macedon besieged Athens during the Second Macedonian War, followed by adding a sculpture of Attalos I (Period IV). Finally, in the 2nd century A.D., a statue of Hadrian was installed (Period V).
Identification
The archeologists unearthed the unusual structure during the excavation of 1931; this was one of the first major finds. While not immediately identified (for tens of years the researchers referred to it as "Periphragma" or "Fenced Peribolos", the original report simply stated that this was not the Stoa of the Herms), the importance of the monument was clear due to its large size (the length of the fenced area was over long at the maximum, apparently during Period V), location next to Bouleuterion, and openness to the center of agora.
It appears that there was no quick breakthrough in the monument identification. Instead, as the archeologists understood the layout of agora better and better, the fact that "peribolos" represent the ruins of the Monument of the Eponymous Heroes became "increasingly clear". Several post-Second World War excavation maps routinely marked the location as such since at least 1947. attributes the first detailed explanation of the identification to the 1949 article by Eugene Vanderpool, where the author, among other considerations, had dealt with the remark by Pausanias that the monument was located above the Tholos (No. 8 on the map). This remark, if interpreted literally, would have placed the Eponymous Heroes out of the main area of the agora. Vanderpool suggested to read (anōterō), 'above' as (apōterō), 'further away'. Vanderpool also explains the words of unknown commenter of Aristophanes' Peace that the monument was close to Prytaneion (Pausanius places the latter on the northern slope of the Acropolis). Vanderpool agreed with earlier commenters that there was a confusion between Prytaneion and Prytanikon, a section of Tholos.
Exploration
The monument was the first major discovery of the first archeological season in 1931, with a detailed study of foundation of the still unidentified structure published in 1933 by . Few pieces of stone posts and capping blocks were used to reconstruct the fence panels on the western side in 1951. An additional major probing of the fill in the area dates back to 1967.