The Stadium and Gymnasium - Heroon
 STADIUM AND GYMNASIUM
The Stadium and Gymnasium count among the most impressive and well preserved building complexes of the site The northern horse shoe-shaped end of the Stadium includes 18 wedge-shaped divisions of seats with 18 rows of seats divided by stairways. It is enclosed on its three sides by doric stoas with most of their columns standing in place. The northern colonnade is double, while the eastern and western ones are simple. The colonnades belong to the Gymnasium which together with the Stadium formed one single architectural unit. The western stoa terminated at a distance of 110m. from its northern end. At this point a doric peristyle court is located which is identified as the palaistra. Bases with honorary inscriptions are located between the columns of the western stoa and used to bear statues of gymnasiarchs (Gymnasium officials). Also other inscriptions bearing lists of ephebes were found in the area. Behind the western colonnade was the sanctuary of Heracles and of Hermes with their cult statues
Behind the west stoa of the Gymnasium a funerary monument came to light (K3) including eight cist graves in its interior axially arranged around a small cist. The numerous surviving members of its upper structure suggest that it had the form of a square-shaped chamber (approximately 4.80m. X 4.80m.) with a conical roof which bore on its top a column probably supporting an ex voto. On the geison around the chamber appear the names of the deceased, both of men and women honored with this impressive monument.
 A Π- shaped monument (Kl) located further to the north of K3 is also funerary; its eastern side was crowned with an animal frieze and a sculptured complex representing a lion devouring a deer. In the interior of the chamber of monument Kl which had a stone door (like the Macedonian tombs), seven cist graves were revealed; they were plundered but they still preserved important terracotta, metal and glass grave offerings.
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Grave monument Κ3 |
Grave monument Κ1 |
THE HEROON AT THE STADIUM
The Heroon is part of the Stadium, with which it is connected both architecturally and in terms of its function. The building is a Doric temple with four columns in front, made entirely of local limestone. It stands on the south side of the Stadium, just to the right of the axis of the race-course, on a rectangular podium that projects like a bastion from the city wall. The building in the form of a temple was a funerary monument, a kind of Heroon-Mausoleum. It belongs to the tradition of similar monuments from Asia Minor, like the monument of the Nereids at Xanthos and the Mausoleum of Halikarnassos. Some of its features also relate it to the Heroon at Kalydon. According to the testimony of Pausanias (4.32.2), one personality of great wealth and influence to whom the Messenians accorded the honours appropriate to a hero, was the Messenian life high priest and helladarches Saithidas. The Heroon-Mausoleum in the Stadium belonged most likely to the family of the Saithidai. Distinguished members of this family were buried in it and received a hero's honours from the date of the foundation of the Heroon in the 1st century BC, at least down to the time of Pausanias's visit to Messene (AD 155-160).
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The Theater - The Arsinoe fountain house
