The Odyssey -- Athens Day 2

 Day 2 in Athens would be a humdinger. All about the Acropolis. The itinerary said:

'We will arrange a private walking tour of Athens for 5 to 6 hours if you are up to it to visit all the important sites including the Acropolis and the New Acropolis Museum.'

We met our guide Theodora at the hotel and walked the 5 minutes along the street to the entrance to the Acropolis. There were lots of people. Theodora said today would likely be the busiest day of the year as a number of cruise ships had arrived at Piraeus with passengers’ first stop likely to be the Acropolis. 

Viv and I wondered why we would visit today then, or rather this morning as we could easily have visited in the afternoon. Oh well. 

The Acropolis hill is big. And tall. It was tough going slowly dragging ourselves up hill in the heat. Theodora told us the story as we went along.

Nearly there! First selfie du jour at the Greek theatre on the south side of the Acropolis

This is what it looked liked during the Hellenistic Period

The Acropolis had been populated for possibly 4,000 years initially as a fortress for people in the surrounds to retreat to at times of trouble and war. It certainly was imposing yet Theodora advised us that the Acropolis had been attacked, sacked and destroyed many times. Huh?

Very true. 

The Acropolis and the temple on the top known as the Parthenon (there are several other temples on the top but smaller) are relatively recent creations. One may think it looks like something of a rocky ruin, but in fact it’s only about 1,000 years old.

After the Persians attacked Athens, defeated them (Thermopylae was lost if you remember) and occupied Athens, they destroyed everything they could before they left the following year of 480 BC. That included the buildings on the top of the Acropolis hill. These included a partially built Parthenon as well as several other temples. The entire site was ruined.

The Athenians together with a full compliment of Spartans this time (not just the famous 300), annihilated the Persians the following year in 479 BC at Plataea removing all threats to the independent Greek states. To show that they were now the big dogs on the block, the Athenians immediately embarked on rebuilding on an immense scale.

The building of the Parthenon was completed in only 9 years while the crafting of the wondrous sculptures took a further 6 years. Marble was brought from a mountain 17 Kms away and was laboriously lugged up the hill that we were now stumbling up. 

Theodora continued with gusto. 

She certainly had a huge passion about the subject and had definite views on things that had impacted the Acropolis over the years. 

First were the Romans. Of course it would be. For some reason, the Greeks thought they could beat the Romans in the first century BC but the Roman tyrant general Sulla in 87 BC routed them, captured the entire region which wasn’t yet a country including Athens, sacked it thoroughly and enslaved the population. That is the entire population including all those philosophers that were still around.

Greece remained a Roman possession until 1458. 

Huh? I hear you say. What about the Byzantines? There were never any Byzantines. That is the name historians gave the eastern Roman Empire looking backwards at some point. The Romans themselves always called themselves Romans, even until the Ottomans took Constantinople in 1453. Byzantium was the name of the original Greek settlement that the Roman Emperor Constantine renamed in the 4th century AD when he moved the capital of the entire Roman Empire to Constantinople. So forget Byzantium. Actually you can't for every guide book says Byzantine this or that, mainly churches, so it is most confusing. Best to see Rome at the same time as you see Byzantium. 

When I was in Rome a couple of weeks ago I found a wonderful excerpt from a 2nd century AD travel book comparing the architecture of Greece and Rome. In typically patronising fashion, the writer said that the Greeks do build some pretty impressive structures but the stench, the disorganisation and the overall mess of Greek cities was something beyond the comprehension of a Roman. Happily Rome provided aqueducts so that every villa has its own water source for their fountains. Sewage for the endless ordure and stench. Plumbing so that buildings would remain well serviced during the wet season…. And so on. 

It was a Roman traveler from the 2nd century, one Pausanias, whom we all should thank for even the possibility of reconstruction and renovation. For it is only his writings and the earlier Herodotus (the Greek historian from centuries earlier) that give us the idea what these buildings and monuments look like. Fortunately both wrote at very great length and in Pausanias' case drew thousands of sketches and drawings, many of which survive.

The Romans in addition to their renowned organisation, also introduced a fully integrated taxation system that lasted until 1458 and beyond for the conquering Ottomans discovered they couldn’t do any better.

Specific to the Acropolis though were the changes wrought by the Romans to the amphitheater, the new theatre and performing arts centre that was built. Where the Greeks starting with Thespis, a comic writer of the golden age, wrote monologues, dialogues and drama, the Romans dug a big ditch, raised up a marble wall around the orchestra (aka stage) and staged mock naval battles and gladiatorial combat. The walls enabling the area to be filled with water for the first, and prevent blood spatters covering the 5,000 person audience in the second. Who needs monologues! 

Theodora was not impressed, then moved onto the Emperor Justinian (6th century emperor). She was even less impressed by Justinian. I couldn’t figure out exactly why but as he was the mover and shaker in rejigging the imperial tax policy for the final time, perhaps it was this. Certainly the Byzantines which Justinian was about to morph into (even I am falling into this Rome vs Byzantium thing), as opposed to the eastern Roman Empire, were not fans of the old pagan gods still widely revered in Greece. Under the ‘Christians’ (spoken with gritted teeth) they basically trashed everything to do with the old Gods. This is why most of the faces on statues have been disfigured. I didn't ask about why the male genitalia were also missing from most statues.

We hadn’t reached the entrance to the Acropolis at the top yet and Theodora wasn’t slowing down.

The British didn’t miss out either. Theodora was scathing about Elgin and his plundering of Greek antiquity in 1801 (this is the so called Elgin Marbles in the British Museum). Yet less so for the French who even before Elgin stole everything that was not nailed down (this in an instruction specifically written by the French ambassador in 1784 to an expedition in that year). And almost glossing over the Venetians who in their sack of Athens in 1687 had fired cannons at the defending Ottomans who’d retired to the Acropolis which they used as magazines. This cannon fire hit the magazines which exploded and destroyed about one third of the Parthenon. They then tried to take the remaining massive sculptures from the mantles which caused them to fall 30 feet and be irredeemably smashed. 

An even minded person may consider deliberate cannon fire, explosions and wanton destruction of rather more concern and remark than removing a few bits of marble that had been lying around anyway for centuries, a practice I should note that continues to this day.

We reached the entrance with some hundreds of other tourists and snaked past the temple to Nike and made it to the top of the Acropolis.

Athens' Acropolis is huge. About 3kms long by 1.5 kms wide. Lots of room for lots of temples, and there are lots of temples in varying levels of decay. Impressive. 

The Acropolis during Roman times

Theodora was a fantastic source of information and could talk on almost any related subject. She had artists' reconstructions of what the buildings may have looked like. They looked spectacular. Check out www.ancientathens3d.com to take a look. They may not be entirely accurate but are best guesses. 

The top temple is one to the goddess Athena who supposedly gave the gift of the first olive tree to the city, whilst the bottom temple is the Parthenon from the end where Elgin supposedly cut down all those marbles. Imagine the temple with a triangular shape on top of those flat bits. Inside that triangle were dozens of massive sculptures. It was these the Venetians and French could not cart off. It was Elgin's crew that devised the method of cutting the carved frontispiece off the monster 12 ton lump of marble that solved the logistics impasse. These statues we saw in the museum.

By now we were fading so decided to head for the Acropolis Museum which had A/C and a cafe to take a few minutes rest. There we had Freddo Capuccinos which are worthy of conversation in and of themselves.

The museum contained many of the remaining statues from the Acropolis where Theodora was able to demonstrate which were original and which were reconstruction due to either being plundered (yawn) or destroyed. It was all very interesting.

View from the museum coffee shop

What is not understood is the size of the statues. They are truly enormous and in marble which means every block weighs some 12.5 tons. The practicality of how the blocks were transported was fantastic. Each block was dragged 17 kms and when the oxen could go no further up the hill, the carts carrying the blocks would be attached to a pulley system and a herd of mules would be encouraged to pull ropes that were at the other end of the pulleys. As they descended, the cart ascended. Thousands upon thousands of blocks.

So the simple art of pillaging was also very difficult. Lord Elgin was ambassador to the Ottomans based in Constantinople in 1799, this during the Napoleonic Wars. He canvassed the Caliph to enable him to survey some Greek sites with a view to removing any interesting objects. Silver smoothed the way and the Caliph, very keen to stay out of the way of the war as the Ottoman Empire had begun to weaken irredeemably, agreed. Elgin sent in a crew to see what they could find. 

What they found were the debris from previous multiple lootings and occupations from over the centuries. Athens had been sacked by the Herulians in 267 AD, by the Huns in 396 AD, the Goths in the 5th century, by the Slavs in the 7th century and so on. Long list. The Franks occupied the city in 1204 during the 4th Crusade and fortified it whilst the later occupying Byzantines built over original Greek structures. As well the locals had simply taken building materials just lying around for their own home construction. No metal. This had already gone. So not much in perfect condition. (Not many people either. Athens had become depopulated over time and it wasn't until 1834 when it was named capital of a newly independent Greece that people began to return to the city. Many government buildings for example date from after this date. Not antiquity at all).

What Elgin's crew did find were portions of sculptures and depictions of events carved into the marble blocks. However each weighed tons. Literally. So they cut the front of the blocks to save weight and shipped what they could back to England. In the museum today, on display are the original part blocks with plaster casts of the bits Elgin's crew took stuck on top. From my uneducated perspective it does look like bits and pieces of rubble. Sort of 'Oh look, Hercules' left shoulder' that sort of thing.

Several years later in 1816, Elgin canvassed the British Government who paid 35,000 GBP for the items which were then immediately displayed in the British Museum.

View from the Museum

These are the friezes taken down from the side of the Parthenon. Restoration is slow for a decision was taken by the EU (if you can imagine) that restoration should only happen when over 70% of the original materials of say a column are found. If these are lying around nearby then the columns can be put back together which is what happened. If not they are left to lie around, which explains the endless piles of rocks everywhere. Very timely, costly and difficult. Greece is a poor country so often has other priorities. 

Statues taken from the ends of the Parthenon, in those triangular parts I described before. If the sculptures are white, that means they are recreations. Often plaster casts taken from the originals in what ever museum they are currently displayed. Yes that means the Elgin Marbles but also the French, Germans and Turks hold plenty. As for the Venetians, well half the city is decorated with Greek stuff looted from their various occupations. If the sculptures look old and yellow, that is because they are the originals. The museum hopes to get back all the other yellow and old bits.

Theodora says that attempts are being made to recover these items which the British Museum is resisting. The French are not being pressed to return their pillaged items. Nor are the Turks who took over the items already removed by the Byzantines and Ottomans in centuries past. Just the British. Probably think the British are the softest touch. Could be right.

Fantastic day. So much history to absorb. Very painful on the brain cells.

The flowers were gorgeous, particularly the Bougainvillaea. The colours were so intense and vibrant.

We's asked Yiannis and Anthony at the travel agent for recommendations for a good restaurant that locals would go to. Trying to avoid the tourist traps. Mistake actually as we discovered many of the tourist traps turned out mostly to be as good as the local spots. But anyway, Anthony suggested Dionysus as an option. We had a reservation at 9 pm.

Short walk near the Acropolis again and in a big car park this restaurant grew up the hill opposite to the Acropolis. It was rammed with people at a special event with many guards preventing the hoi pilloi getting in. It was a shipping company event obviously with some politicos or other big wigs. Armed guards at the front. Flunkies carried champagne on trays. Amazingly we were allowed entry, but turned away to the non event section. 

What a view of the Acropolis!! The menu was a typical fine dining menu from anywhere in the world but with a couple of local things. The 22 hour braised lamb was finished sadly. 

Fish soup and the other lamb option for me. Salad for Viv. Bottle of white wine, different grape for us. Chocolate soufflé to follow.

Very nice walk back along the ‘most beautiful street in Europe’ per Theodora. We decided we would not eat at such a place again. Bring on the tourist traps and grilled meat!