Choragic Monument of Lysicrates
The world's first building with Corinthian columns on the outside — put up by a wealthy Athenian to show off a music-contest trophy.
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In 335/334 BCE, the choregos Lysicrates won a dithyramb competition at the City Dionysia and marked the victory with this circular monument on Tripodon Street — the ancient "Street of the Tripods" that once ran to the Theater of Dionysus. Its exterior Corinthian columns were the first of their kind on any building, making it a template copied across European architecture for two millennia.
What to look for
- The carved frieze running around the drum: it depicts the myth of Dionysus and the Tyrrhenian pirates, drawn from the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus
- A second, narrower frieze of choragic tripods set between the column capitals and the architrave — a reminder that a bronze tripod prize once crowned the top
- The inscription carved into the stone, naming Lysicrates as sponsor, the winning tribe (Akamantis), the pipe-player (Theon), the director (Lysiades), and the archon who dated the victory
Find it in its small garden on Tripodon Street, a short walk southeast of the Acropolis; the exterior is visible from the street at any hour.
Choragic Monument of Lysicrates is one of 36 sights worth the detour in Athens, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Athens pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Athens
- ParthenonA temple built to celebrate a war victory that went on to become a church, a mosque, and a gunpowder depot — blown apart in 1687 and still being reassembled.
- Acropolis of AthensA flat-topped rock 150 m above the city where Pericles spent the 5th century BC erecting the buildings that still define Athens.
- Platonic Academy (Akadimia Platonos)Aristotle studied here for twenty years before leaving to found his own school — and the word "academy" has followed ever since.
- Classical AthensDemocracy was invented here in 508 BC — and it took a bribe at Delphi to get it started.
- Olympic Stadium Athens "Spyros Louis"Santiago Calatrava's white steel roof arches over the same track where Athens opened the 2004 Olympics — and hosted three Champions League finals.
- ErechtheionThe one Greek temple that broke every rule of classical architecture — and scholars still can't agree on what it was actually called.