Choragic Monument of Nikias


The choragic monument of Nikias is a memorial building built in 320/319 BCE to commemorate the choragos Nikias, son of Nikodemos. It was situated between the Theatre of Dionysos and the Stoa of Eumenes where its foundations remain along with some fragmentary elements of the structure. It was built in the form of a substantial hexastyle Doric temple with a square cella and might have been surmounted with the prize tripod of the Dionysia. The monument was dismantled at some point in late antiquity and the masonry reused in the Buelé Gate.
Most of the surviving architectural remains of the choragic monument are built into the central portion of the Buelé Gate which was uncovered and identified by its inscription by Charles Ernest Beulé in 1852.
The original site of the monument, however, was not excavated until 1885 by Wilhelm Dörpfeld, who four years later discovered the foundations of the building and some other fragmentary members. William Dinsmoor confirmed Dörpfeld's conclusions in a detailed analysis and associated the foundations with the epistyle preserved on the Buelé Gate. The exact date of the destruction of the monument is unknown, however, Dinsmoor argued that it might have been at the same time as the demolition of the Stoa of Eumenes either in the late Roman period or at the time of the reconstruction of the Theatre of Dionysos by Phaidros in the 3rd or 4th century CE.
Two of the major choragic monuments that have survived belong to the period of oligarchic rule under the Macedonian regency, and it is perhaps significant that these are not on the Street of the Tripods, where most choragic prizes and monuments were placed. The conspicuous display of wealth and prestige they represent may have been an attempt to further the political careers of the choregoi and as such prompted the sumptuary law of Demetrios of Phaleron.