Rhamnous

The site of Rhamnous (Greek: Ῥαμνοῦς), also Ramnous or Rhamnus, was an ancient Greek city in Attica. It was situated on the coast, overlooking the Euboean Strait. Its ruins are found northwest of the modern town Agia Marina in the municipality of Marathon in the modern region Attica, Greece.

Rhamnous was strategically significant enough to be fortified and receive an Athenian garrison of ephebes (young men). A fortified acropolis dominates the two small harbors, into which grain was imported for Athens during the Peloponnesian War. These harbors are located on either side of the fortified hill and have extensively silted up since antiquity. The site was known in Antiquity for its sanctuary of Nemesis, the implacable avenging goddess whose sanctuary here was the most important one dedicated to her in ancient Greece. Many grave monuments have been recovered from burials along the road between Rhamnous and Marathon, on which the sanctuary was also sited.

The sanctuary of Nemesis

On the road between Rhamnous and Marathon, around 630m south of the fortified deme site, there was a sanctuary of Nemesis built between 438 and 431 BC on a platform with a well-built 44m terrace wall at 38°13'3.88"N, 24° 1'37.07"E. During its time of use the sanctuary was not isolated, but rather was in close proximity to a number of houses and other structures scattered in the vicinity. In the Roman period c. 46 CE, dedications were made to the deified Livia, the wife of Augustus, and to the emperor Claudius. In the 2nd century CE, Herodes Atticus made dedications of busts of the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus as well as a statue of his pupil Polydeucion. The cult of Nemesis at Rhamnous came to a formal end with the decree of the Byzantine emperor Arcadius in 382 CE that ordered the destruction of any surviving polytheist temples in the countryside.