Spolia in the Garden This summer I got a chance to hang out a
bit with Jon Frey at the site of Isthmia. For the past several
years, he’s been working on understanding the use of spolia —
that is bits and pieces of older monuments — that were built
into the Hexamilion wall in Late Antiquity. His interests derive
from his excellent dissertation on the topic: Speaking through
spolia : the language of architectural reuse in the
fortifications of late Roman Greece. In Late Antiquity, the use
of spolia became a regular practice in monumental architecture.
Scholars from the “bad old days” understood this Late Antique
practice as evidence for the decline in skills among Late
Antique craftsmen and the weakness of the Late Roman economy.
For this earlier generation of scholars, the use of spolia
reflected the decline of ancient culture. Now most scholar
recognize the use of spolia as an intentional choice on the part
of Late Antique architects, and the combination of old blocks,
columns, and even inscriptions gave Late