The Temple and Cult of Apollo Patroos in Athens

Apollo Patroos, the ancestral Apollo, was unique in the Classical period to Athens, where the god was worshipped by kinship groups and by the state. Synthesis of the substantial archaeological, artistic, epigraphical and literary documentation for the cult permits reconstruction of its development and place in Athenian history. An examination of the remains of the Temple of Apollo Patroos in the Athenian Agora and of the objects (inscriptions, statues, etc.) which have been associated with it leads to a questioning of the reconstruction of an Archaic temple on the site and the identification of the Temple of Zeus and Athena Phratrios. The relationship of Apollo Patroos to Pythios and Alexikakos is examined. It is likely that the god in all three manifestations originally found his home in the Pythion, on the banks of the Ilissos river. The cult was transplanted from this shrine to the Agora. Finally, the chronological development of the cult of Patroos, from its probable beginnings under the Peisistratids through the fourth-century reforms of Lykourgos, is outlined.