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The Great Altar of Zeus
About
King Eumenes II raised this altar on the acropolis to celebrate Pergamon's victories over the Galatians, wrapping its base in a 113-meter marble frieze of gods battling giants — one of the largest sculptural friezes to survive from antiquity. Worshippers climbed a broad staircase on its western face to reach the sacrificial table inside a colonnaded court. It had already stood for nearly three centuries by 117 CE, still in active religious use. Only its foundations remain on the hill today; 19th-century German excavators shipped the sculpted superstructure to Berlin, where it now anchors its own museum.
What happened here
It was put up to be argued with. Public monuments carry an inscription at eye height naming who paid, what for, and by whose authority, because being read is the whole return on the investment. People meet at them, give directions by them, and shelter under them. Children climb them. The bronze fittings are stolen often enough that they are re-attached with lead. On anniversaries the base is garlanded and the local council makes a short speech nobody listens to. Monuments also date the town for you: a run of them along one street shows which families were rising in which decade, and which ones stopped. When a family falls out of favour, the name is chiselled out and the stone is quietly reused.
Sources
Nearby
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Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →