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Restored facade of Oikos 9, constructed during the first half of the 5th century B.C. [ |
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Oikoi is the plural form of the Greek word oikos, meaning "house" but also used to denote tent, room, chamber, estate and others. As an architectural unit, an oikos had no fixed features and it may have served more than one purpose. The word is used generally to describe a building set up within a sanctuary by a city-state. The nine Nemean oikoi formed a unit of similar buildings arranged in a line along the south side of the sanctuary. The Nemean oikoi were meant to be impressive only from the front facing the square, thereby displaying the wealth of the city-state which had erected each one. The Nemean oikoi may have been used as storerooms, embassies, and/or meeting halls and not simply as treasuries like those at Olympia. In support of this interpretation, no dedications survive in connection with the Nemean oikoi. Due to their poor state of preservation a precise date of construction cannot be established for each, but all nine oikoi were all built at roughly the same time in the first half of the 5th century.
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