The bema
The stone platform Athens's orators stood on.
CC BY-SA 3.0 ยท George E. Koronaios โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท George E. Koronaios โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท George E. Koronaios โ CC0
Because it **doesn't look like anything**. A visitor expecting columns and marble sees a dusty hill and a flat rock and won't understand why anyone stood here. There is no ticket office, no large signage and no guards, so it is absent from coach itineraries. That works entirely in your favour: **a site of this importance with you almost alone in it** โ impossible on the Acropolis. Read about the Ekklesia before you climb, then stand on the bema and look at the slope in front of you; the place becomes something else entirely.
The three adjoin and are walked together in **two hours, entirely free**, and it is among the best things to do in Athens. Start from **Thissio** and climb **Philopappos Hill** (the highest, with the Philopappos monument at its summit and the most famous Acropolis photo angle), drop to the **Pnyx** where the assembly met, then to the **Hill of the Nymphs** with its old observatory. The paths are dirt among olives and pines with intermittent shade. โ Go **late in the day**: better light, less heat, and you finish at sunset above the Acropolis.
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A low rocky hill west of the Acropolis, holding a plain stone platform and a natural auditorium cut into the rock. No columns, no marble, no ornament โ and yet this may be **the most important political site in the history of the world**. Here the **Ekklesia**, the popular assembly of the citizens of Athens, met from the late sixth century BC. Thousands of men sat on the rock slope, and any citizen had the right to climb the **bema** โ the stone platform still standing โ and address them, after which they voted by show of hands on war, peace, taxes and exile. From this platform **Pericles**, **Demosthenes** and **Themistocles** spoke. What we call democracy was first practised here in its direct form. The place today is **open, free and almost empty** โ you climb to it in ten minutes on a dirt path and stand on the platform itself. And from it comes an **exceptional view of the Acropolis** at close range, among the best photographic angles in Athens, and it costs nothing.
The stone platform Athens's orators stood on.
The slope where thousands of citizens sat to vote.
One of the best photographic angles in Athens โ free.
Pnyx Hill, 11851 Athens