Circumspencing the Globe

 

Greece is the Word 

Eastern Europe had been “the word” for the last month, but that ended on Thursday, November 8.  That afternoon I took a plane from Bucharest to Athens.  The adventure through former Soviet bloc countries–through nations that didn’t even exist as such only 16 to 18 years ago–was over.  There was plenty more to see there; my stint was a mere sampler.  But I felt a measure of relief moving on to a Western European country, one that uses the euro and has hosted a steady stream of tourists for a long time. 

I had anticipated traveling overland from my starting point in Scandinavia (excluding Iceland) all the way to Greece.  But because my booked flight out of Athens on November 12 was fast approaching, my time in Greece would be shorter than hoped.  Fortunately, I found a decent flight out of Romania, and that saved me two full days that otherwise would have been consumed by two consecutive overnight train rides, one into Sofia, Bulgaria and the next into Thessaloniki, Greece.  The Bucharest-Athens flight was a boon.

Of Mycenae and Men

Although I felt some relief moving from Eastern to Western Europe, Greece itself certainly does not have a reputation of being a haven of tranquility.  Historically, it’s been wracked with military and political conflict, and that’s true of both ancient times and modern times.  Greece did enjoy prolonged peace for about 300 years, from the mid-first century BC to AD 250, when the Romans ruled the land.  This “Pax Romana” period resulted from the great respect the Romans held for Greek culture.  After they sacked Athens, that is.  Here’s what happened, in a nutshell, up to that point.

Before the Pax Romana, you’d have to travel back in time to roughly 2000 BC to find persistent peace in the land.  Two Bronze Age (3000 BC to maybe 1100 BC) civilizations–the Cycladic and the Minoan–thrived as commercial traders in the land later called Greece.  But not the Mycenaeans.  From the thick-walled hill-perched palaces they built, it appears things weren’t so peaceful any longer when they were on the scene.  Then a warrior group called the Dorians invaded the land and ruled the roost from 1200 BC to 800 BC.  The militaristic Spartans descended from the Dorians.  By that time, Sparta was one of several coexisting autonomous city-states, including Athens.  When the Persians attacked Athens, Sparta stepped in and defeated the Persians.  Over time Athens became expansion-minded and eventually clashed with Sparta in the Peloponnesian Wars in the 400s BC.  Then another group, the Macedonians, rose to power, beat Athens and won the allegiance of many of the Greek city-states.  Their famous leader, Alexander the Great, humbled even the Persians and conquered much of the world.  But when he died, the empire crumbled into multiple kingdoms.  It was then that Rome sacked Athens and the Pax Romana came.

The Pax Romana began to end when the Goths invaded Greece in AD 250.  Then Emperor Constantine institutionalized the Christian religion and moved the capitol from Rome to Byzantium (AKA Constantinople AKA Istanbul), Rome steadily declined, Byzantium prospered, the Crusaders clobbered Byzantium, the Venetians snatched up much of Greece, the Turks knocked out Constantinople, the Venetians and the Turks fought, Russia entered the frey to dispel the Turks, the Greeks and the Turks clashed a lot, the Greeks cried “independence,” the Turks held on, and then, well, things got really messy, with presidency, anarchy, monarchy, autocracy, democracy, neutrality then Allies-backing in WWI,  population exchange with Turkey, poverty, coups, counter-coups, more monarchy, dictatorship, neutrality then victimization by the Nazis in WWII, communism, civil war, more monarchy, exodus, martial law, socialism, scandal.  In case you were wondering.  So, while it was nice to be in Western Europe, Greece has had its issues.

Acropolis Now

I spent all of my time in Athens while in Greece.  Athens is the oldest city in Europe, first inhabited in Neolithic times (7000 to 3000 BC).  (Greek, by the way, is Europe’s oldest written language, second in the world only to Chinese.)  The city was dedicated to the cult of Athena, the helmet-wearing, spear-clutching, yet peace-loving goddess of wisdom.  According to mythology, she was born from the head of Zeus (god of the heavens and supreme deity) with the assistance of Hephaestus (god of crafts), who acted as a midwife of sorts.  (Hephaestus is the god who created, as a punishment to mankind, Pandora, the one with the box full of evil.)  

The ancient monuments on the Acropolis (considered the most important ancient monuments in the Western world), and many of the ruins dotting the landscape in Athens, date back to a “golden era” when the city was ruled by Pericles from 461 to 429 BC.  Long before that, in 1400 BC, the Acropolis had been a powerful Mycenaean city.  But in 480 BC, the Persians destroyed all of the buildings on the Acropolis.  So Pericles embarked on a building campaign, utilizing the best artists, sculptors, architects and materials around.

I stayed for four nights at an ideally located hostel, just in the shadow of the Acropolis, in an area called Placa.  I was going to move around and had booked a one-day excursion into ancient Mycenea and other nearby historical sites, but the tour company cancelled the excursion.  I also contemplated some quick island-hopping, but the ferries run infrequently in the off-season.  So I hung out in Athens.  I had some Greek food and heard some Greek music and strolled through the central marketplace, but mostly I just gazed at the ancient ruins and visited museums. 

Here are some of the things I saw.

In order from left to right:  (1) Parthenon on the Acropolis (built 447 to 438 BC), the largest “Doric” (austere columns) temple ever completed in Greece, which housed the great statue of Athena (one of the wonders of the ancient world) until AD 426, when she was moved to Constantinople and then disappeared; (2) Odeon of Herodes Atticus (built AD 161) and named after a welathy Roman who dedicated the theatre to his late wife’s memory; (3) Erechtheion (built 421 to 406 BC), a “Ionic” (graceful columns) temple named for mythical king Ericthonius, which, more importantly, marked the sacred spot where Poseidon (god of the sea) and Athena competed for reign over Athens, Poseidon striking his trident on the rock and causing a horse to spring forth, symbolizing strength, and Athena producing an olive tree, symbolizing peace, something regarded as more important than strength, and thereby winning the city; (4) Temple of Hephaestus (built 449 BC), the best preserved Doric temple in Greece and located in ancient Agora, Athens’ lively meeting place, where Socrates taught and the Apostle Paul preached; (5) Zappeio Palace (built in the 1870s), named after Konstantinos Zappas, a wealthy Greek-Roman benefactor, and used for EC meetings and as a media center during the Olympics; (6) Temple of Olympian Zeus (built beginning in the 6th century BC but not completed until AD 131), the largest temple in Greece (originally made of 104 “Corinthian” columns (ornate), with 14 still standing and one lying on its side in pieces), which housed a colossal statue of Zeus and, by the time of its completion, an equally colossal statue of not-so-humble Emperor Hadrian; (7) Parthenon at night; (8) Parliamentary guard.

These next shots are either random or from the National Archeology museum, including an ancient mirror (not a ping pong paddle!), Mycenaean bling bling, sandal souls from 400 BC and a Spartan shield from 425 BC.

The last pic is of me on Aereopagus Hill.  This is the very site where the Apostle Paul entreated the Greeks to worship the living God, Creator of all things, rather than man-made gods.  His sermon had mixed results.  Much as today, some mocked what they heard, some wanted to hear more, and some embraced the message.  The world has never been the same.

FYI, here’s an English rendition of Paul’s appeal to the Athenians from the midst of the Areopagus, made about 2,000 years ago:

“Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects.  For while I was passing through and examing the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’  What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.  The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; neither is He served by human hands as though he needed anything, since He Himself gives to all life and breath and all things; and He made from one, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitations, that they should seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His offspring.’  Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.  Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”

I’ve just written this from somewhere nothing like Greece.  I’m in Thailand now and sleep-deprived.  I’m here with my brother and as much as I’d like to embellish my entry about Greece, Bangkok is knocking…

Tags: Athens, Greece, Travel

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 13th, 2007 at 2:13 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.