Acts 17:22 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill. — Better, Areopagus, as before. The Court sat in the open air on benches forming three sides of a quadrangle. A short flight of sixteen steps, cut in the rock, led from the agora to the plateau where the Court held its sittings. If it was actually sitting at the time, the temptation to have recourse to it, if only to cause a sensation and terrify the strange disputant, may well have been irresistible. As the Apostle stood there, he looked from the slight elevation on the temple of the Eumenides below him, that of Theseus to the east, and facing him on the Acropolis, the Parthenon. On the height of that hill stood the colossal bronze statue of Athena as the tutelary goddess of her beloved Athens, below and all around him were statues and altars. The city was “very full of idols.”