Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A public hall in ancient Greek states and cities, housing and typifying the common ritual or official hearth of the community.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Gr. Antiq.) A public building in certain Greek cities; especially, a public hall in Athens regarded as the home of the community, in which official hospitality was extended to distinguished citizens and strangers.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The town hall in an ancient Greek city.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Ancient Greek πρυτανεῖον (prytaneion, "town hall")

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Examples

  • He himself often passed his hours there, disputing with the learned in the walks, and giving his advice to statesmen who required it, insomuch that his house was altogether a home, and in a manner a Greek prytaneum for those that visited Rome.

    The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans Plutarch 2003

  • And it is stated, that his two daughters were publicly married out of the prytaneum, or state-house, by the city, which decreed each of them three thousand drachmas for her portion; and that upon his son Lysimachus, the people bestowed a hundred minas of money, and as many acres of planted land, and ordered him besides, upon the motion of Alcibiades, four drachmas a day.

    The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans Plutarch 2003

  • And it is stated, that his two daughters were publicly married out of the prytaneum, or state-house, by the city, which decreed each of them three thousand drachmas for her portion; and that upon his son Lysimachus, the people bestowed a hundred minas of money, and as many acres of planted land, and ordered him besides, upon the motion of Alcibiades, four drachmas a day.

    Aristides Plutarch 1909

  • Corinthian prytaneum, with his colleagues all breathing forth their wrath against Dorian stupidity and evasiveness.

    A Victor of Salamis William Stearns Davis 1903

  • These men you should entertain at the prytaneum, not put under indictment.

    The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 10 Prince Otto Von Bismarck, Count Helmuth Von Moltke, Ferdinand Lassalle Kuno Francke 1892

  • He therefore destroyed the prytanea, the senate house, and the magistracy of each individual township, built one common prytaneum and senate house for them all on the site of the present acropolis, called the city Athens, and instituted the Panathenaic festival common to all of them.

    The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 01 Rossiter Johnson 1885

  • And it is stated, that his two daughters were publicly married out of the prytaneum, or state-house, by the city, which decreed each of them three thousand drachmas for her portion; and that upon his son

    The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch; being parts of the "Lives" of Plutarch, edited for boys and girls 46-120? Plutarch 1884

  • He therefore destroyed the prytaneia, the senate house, and the magistracy of each individual township, built one common prytaneum and senate house for them all on the site of the present acropolis, called the city Athens, and instituted the Panathenaic festival common to all of them.

    Plutarch's Lives, Volume I 46-120? Plutarch 1839

  • He ordered that all his laws should remain in force for a hundred years, and he wrote them upon triangular wooden tablets, which revolved upon an axis in oblong recesses, some small remains of which have been preserved in the prytaneum down to the present day.

    Plutarch's Lives, Volume I 46-120? Plutarch 1839

  • Another peculiarity of Solon's laws was the public dining-table in the prytaneum.

    Plutarch's Lives, Volume I 46-120? Plutarch 1839

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