Thiseio

This guide to Thiseio in Athens explains how the neighborhood took its name from a mistaken belief: that a king lay buried beneath the ancient temple uphill, honoring Hephaestus and Athena but carved with friezes of the hero Theseus. It follows how the district built its identity around that error, from tanneries and workshops in the nineteenth century to the promenade planners began laying out in the 1840s. Cine Thissio has been throwing films onto an open-air screen here since 1938, audiences watching beside a temple named for a myth that never happened.