Ἑλλας (Greece): Athens, Part I

Finally! (Wow, how long did that take me?) I'm going to talk about Greece.
As a self-diagnosed Classics geek (which is now official, since I'm an Ancient Studies major) I was extremely excited to finally be going to Greece. I had been to Rome several times and loved it, but Greece seemed to be a whole new level, in a way. This is where it all really started. The Romans were relative latecomers, whose society was largely influenced by Greek society (even if some of them didn't like to admit it). It's where my religion came from (I'm a Reconstructionist Greek Pagan- THAT'S how much of a Classics geek I am). It's where half of my favorite historical events took place and half of my favorite historical figures lived (I had visited the home of the other half the week before). And it promised to be warm. How much more could I ask for?
I had one day of relaxation... or, rather, unpacking all of my long-sleeved shirts and sweaters and packing all of my T-shirts... between returning from Russia and going out to the airport to fly to Athens.

I didn't get to sit near the window so I didn't take particularly good pictures from the plane, but the view coming in to land was incredible. Just sea and mountains. And tiny buildings. If there's one thing I learned from the trip, it's that the Greek landscape is ridiculously dramatic. I could see that from the plane flying in, and only saw more and more evidence throughout the trip.  

After we landed we had to wait around in the airport for a while, which gave me plenty of time to enjoy being surrounded by yet another alphabet. I looked for words that I recognized from Ancient Greek. A few of the little words had persisted, but a lot of the words I saw were ones I didn't know. Plus, I was horrified to learn that the pronunciation of some of the letters had changed! I guess two thousand years will do that to a language. 

As we drove into Athens I was practically jumping out the window of the bus. Everything was absurdly picturesque. And there were mountains everywhere! After three months in flat, flat Denmark, the mountains startled me.

This was a sign we passed on the way into the city. I had completely forgotten that, in addition to all of the exciting Ancient Greek ruins in and around Athens, there was also a modern Olympic stadium around there somewhere.

I love ancient Athens. It was a fascinating city with a rich culture, exciting history and one of the biggest collective egos in Ancient Greece. And so it's kind of painful for me to admit that I... er... didn't really like modern Athens. It is a large city of narrow, somewhat grubby roads and more tourist shops than you could possibly imagine. I had never been in a city where the people were so desperate and determined to sell me stuff.
    I mean, it's not like this took me by surprise. With the combined effects of Greece being a major tourist destination and the abysmal state of the Greek economy, it makes perfect sense that everyone would be trying to sell random junk to anyone who looked vaguely foreign. But... that didn't make it pleasant.
    On the bright side, the city smelled strongly and startlingly of flowers.

As I mentioned before, though, the one thing that does make Athens awesome are the ruins, and none moreso than those on the Acropolis. And the great thing is that they catch you by surprise. We were going down the street and then suddenly, out of nowhere, there in front of us was the Acropolis, with the Parthenon perched on top. It was, like almost everything else in Greece, dramatic.

As if we were following a theme that had begun on the Russia trip, one of the first things we saw on our preliminary walk around Athens was a war memorial.

I liked the classical style that they had chosen for it.

Before we arrived at the memorial our teacher told us not to laugh at the guards. Once we got there I understood why he had said this. The two guards were wearing rather entertaining uniforms, with hats with long tassels and shoes with big puff balls on the ends. And they stood there wearing completely deadpan, serious expressions, which made them look even funnier.
And then they started their marching routine, which consisted of a goose step-type-thing back and forth in front of the memorial. In slow motion. It was kind of cool, but I had a hard time not laughing. It looked like a Monty Python routine.

On our second day we headed up the Acropolis to visit the religious center of ancient Athens.

So just like in Russia there isn't just one kremlin, in Greece there isn't just one Acropolis. Of course, when people say "the Acropolis" they are usually referring to the one in Athens, but the word "acropolis" (ακρóπολις) literally means "high city" and refers to any hill in the center of a city. Most cities in Ancient Greece had one because... well, there are a lot of hills in Greece, and because putting your city on a hill made it easier to defend.

This is the Theater of Dionysus, a very typical but extremely important Ancient Greek theater nestled into the side of the Acropolis. One important thing to note is that this is not an amphitheater. This is a theater. An amphitheater is two theaters put together to form a circle or oval, like the Colosseum.
 Anyway, the Theater of Dionysus was a very important theater in the Ancient Greek world. Great playwrights traveled to Athens to present their plays in theater competitions held here, in honor of Dionysus who, among other things, is the god of theater. A lot of well-known playwrights took part in these competitions, including Aeschylus and Sophocles.

The middle section was called the "orchestra" and this is where the Chorus would stand in a typical Greek play. The Chorus was a group of people who narrated the play and made sure the audience understood what was going on, as well as supplying the Crowd of Random People that was sure to be in at least one scene of every play.

Most of the action took place on a two-story wooden set that stood behind the orchestra. It was usually build to look like a house and was equipped with all sorts of things, including a trapdoor in the roof for a god or goddess to rise dramatically out of.

There are some of the extra fancy seats from the first row. These were reserved for priests and important government officials. You can even still see the names on some of them!

The view of the theater from the top of the Acropolis.

This is the Propyleia, the entrance to the top of the Acropolis. It's designed so that everything beyond is hidden from view until you get to the doorway. To increase the suspense. The Athenians knew how to be dramatic.










   The top of the Acropolis was the religious center of Athens. It was what you saw when you approached the city. It was used to display the wealth and power of Athens to the rest of the world. In other words, it's pretty darn cool. The temples that are up there today are great examples of Ancient Greek architecture and are incredible to see up close. And the greatest thing is that there are far more stones that have been found up on the Acropolis than there are temples to put them on, so it's likely that there was more up there than we know about.
    There have buildings on the Acropolis for a long time. There was once a Mycenean citadel there. In the late sixth century BCE the tyrant Peisistratus set out to build a bunch of new temples, which were subsequently burned when the Persians sacked Athens in 480 BCE. Then in the 430s Pericles started a big building project, which resulted in most of the temples that are still on the Acropolis today, including the Parthenon. But then the Peloponnesian War began in 431 and Pericles died of the Athenian Plague in the same year, and so some of the buildings, like the Propyleia in the picture above, were never completed.

A section of the top of the Acropolis.

This is the Erechtheion, the most important temple on the Acropolis. It was the center of worship for a lot (we don't know how many) of different gods and goddesses, and it held countless sacred artifacts. The most notable of these was the xoanon. This was a small wooden statue of Athena Polias (her aspect as Guardian of the City). The statue's peplos (er, robe) was changed every four years as part of a huge religious ceremony.

A closer view of the Erechtheion.

This is the Porch of the Caryatids- the most famous section of the Erechtheion. Caryatids are columns that are shapes like people. They are usually (but not always) in the shape of young women. Specifically, they are brides who killed their husbands on their wedding night, who were then fated to serve as columns as a punishment.

This is an olive tree that stands next to the Erechtheion. An olive tree, not the olive tree. However, it was planted on the spot where the olive tree originally grew. The olive tree was a gift from Athena.

Story time! Back when Athens was a relatively new city, a very important competition was held on the Acropolis. The city needed a name and, more importantly, a patron god or goddess. Athena and Poseidon both had their eyes on the city and so they decided to have a friendly contest in order to resolve things in a peaceful and non ten-year-war-or-storms-or-anything-else-that-would-end-up-with-hundreds-of-mortals-dead-and-Greece-in-ruins way, which was how arguments between the gods often tended to be settled. Instead, Athena and Poseidon decided that they would both offer a gift to the city. The citizens would judge which gift they liked best, and that god/goddess would become the city's patron.
On the day of the competition everyone from the city gathered on the Acropolis. Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and cracked the earth, and a saltwater spring leapt up from the crack. Well, the citizens thought that was pretty cool. But then Athena stepped forward and planted a new kind of tree- an olive tree- in the ground. And the citizens judged that, while the saltwater spring was very nifty and impressive, the olive tree was a more useful gift. Athena became the patron goddess of the city which was then named Athens in her honor.
     In ancient Athens the saltwater spring was in one of the rooms of the Erechtheion and the olive tree was just outside it. And while the olive tree that's there now isn't the same one, its still great to have it there.  I was very happy to see it. It's a small but meaningful sign that the overwhelming Christianity of modern Greece hasn't quite stifled the country's old religion.
    Oops, did I say that? Not that there's anything wrong with Christianity, of course.

Some touristy bugger obscuring the view of the Erechtheion.

Greece was full of stray dogs. And not dirty, mangy, flea-ridden stray dogs either. Most of them looked pretty well-fed and content. And all they seemed to do was sleep. It was a strange day in Athens when we didn't pass at least three dogs lying flat on the pavement on the way to the hotel. And not just in Athens. There were sleeping dogs everywhere. We let them lie. It seemed better that way.

This is one I saw snoozing on the Acropolis.

And here it is. The building that most people come to Athens to see. This is the Parthenon, and the first thing I'm going to say is that it is impossible to take pictures of this thing. It's too big and impressive to fit into a picture.

So... here's one end of it.

The Parthenon was undergoing massive renovations while we were there, so there was a lot of scaffolding, which was a little unfortunate. But it's good that they're renovating it, so I can't complain too much.

The Parthenon was part of Pericles's pet construction project to show off Athens's wealth and might with intricate, impressive architecture. As you probably know, it was dedicated to Athena and contained a huge gold leaf covered statue of the goddess, designed by the architect Phidias. Sadly, this statue disappeared long ago, as things covered in gold leaf tend to do.
  The reason that Athens had the money to spend on such a huge venture was due to a fun little thing called the Delian League. Also known as Athens's Not an Empire at All, What are You Talking About? At the end of the Persian War, when King Xerxes's heinously large army had been driven out of Greece, Athens and a few other city-states formed an alliance with a goal of preventing the Persians from ever invading again. Sparta, unsurprisingly, didn't join. They formed their own league. And it was better that that dumb Athenian league. So there.

While the Delian League started out harmlessly enough, it soon shifted in Athens's favor. Athens offered it's formidable, Persian-defeating naval fleet up as protection to the other cities in the league. All that was required in return was a tribute. So in other words, Athenian ships would be stationed near all of the city-states who were members of the league... as protection, of course... and then Athens demanded money. And when these other city-states started to realize what was going on and refused to pay the tribute, or attempted to leave the league, Athens... gave them a little demonstration of Athenian naval power. For their own protection, of course. And so, before too long, Athens controlled quite a few other city-states, and became one of the most powerful cities in Greece. But- and this is the important bit- it wasn't an empire. Oh no. Not at all.
With all of this money pouring in from members of the Not an Empire at All, Pericles had more than enough money to build as many temples as he wanted on the Acropolis, including the huge Parthenon.

Of course, not too long after Pericles came to power and commissioned the temples, Sparta finally got off it's bum and decided to stand up for all of the city-states that were being threatened by Athens's increasing power and influence, and the Peloponnesian War started. Thirty years later, when the war ended, Athens was almost completely broke and had lost it's empi- sorry- the Delian League. So that was the end of that.

The Parthenon was finished in 432- the year before the Peloponnesian War began. This means that, unlike many of the buildings on the Acropolis, it didn't suffer from the effects of the war draining Athens's economy. Most notably, it was actually completed, unlike the Propyleia and the Erechtheion.

The Parthenon was adorned on all sides with friezes, most likely painted in bright colors. The frieze on the east pediment (the triangular bit on top) showed Athena's birth from Zeus's head. The frieze on the west pediment showed the competition between Athena and Poseidon for patronage of Athens. This is part of the west side of the temple. Pretty much all that is left of the frieze is that horse head you can see peeking over the edge.

As I mentioned before, there are more stones on the Acropolis than there are buildings to stick them on. The holes that you can see in the stones were to help secure the rocks into the machine that would lift them onto the building. You might not be aware, but the Ancient Greeks had heavy machinery. That's just how awesome they were.

And, last but not least, the view from the Acropolis is pretty cool.

Well, that's it for now. More about Athens next time!

Xaire!