Poem: Sailing To Athens

By Jack Brummet

In a pale grey fog, ghosts

Of Helleniki mariners

Wheel phantom sloops, prams, dories,

Catamarans, dinghies, and sailboats,

Across the cerulean blue sea,

Trawling for long-gone  fish.
 ---o0o---

The Temple of Olympian Zeus in Athens

The Temple of Olympian Zeus - click to enlarge

The Temple of Zeus, a/k/a The Olympieion, is a massive ruins in the heart of Athens, a couple of blocks from our hotel in The Plaka. The temple was once dedicated to Zeus, king of the gods. Construction began in the 6th century BC but was not completed until the reign of Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century AD (650 years later!). It was famous as the largest temple in Greece and its Zeus sculpture was one of the largest cult statues in the ancient world.

The temple was pillaged in a barbarian invasion in the 3rd century AD and was probably never restored or repaired. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the temple, like so many acient monuments, was used as a makeshift quarry for marble and stone for other projects. However it still stands, more or less, and is one of the more impressive ruins in Athens, aside from the buildings on The Acropolis.



The Temple of Olympian Zeus (Ναός του Ολυμπίου Διός) with the fallen 16th column - click to enlarge

The temple is maybe half a mile or less from the Acropolis, and was built on the site of another building or monument. After the death of Pisistratus, his sons, Hippias and Hipparchos began building the temple. They hoped to outdo two famous contemporary temples, the Heraion of Samos and the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus (which we visited in June, in Turkey/Asia Minor), which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (the second of the seven wonders we have seen on this trip).



Fifteen columns are still standing today. A sixteenth column lies on the ground where it fell during a wind storm in 1852. A wind storm! That column (you can clearly see it in one of my photos) has been on the ground for 156 years now. 156 years ago, the neighborhood I live in was an old growth forest.
---o0o---

Last day in Athens: The National Archaeological Museum and ruminations of the renaissance of Athens

You may have noticed already, but one of my favorite modes of ancient art is the relief frieze. This is an excellent example of one, and yet they still lose their extremities...fingertips, nipples, noses, and penises seem to suffer the most from those tumbles to the ground, and from being battered by other marbles. Click to enlarge.

On our last day in Athens (July 17th), we went, via bus, to the National Archaeological Museum. This massive and comprehensive museum would take three days to go through wth any real scrutiny. We did it in a few hours, by focusing on the artifacts and antiquities we were really interested in, and especially those from the many ruins and excavations we had visited the previous month in both Asia Minor and in Greece.

The best part of the museum, by far, is the massive collection of statuary from Cycladic and earlier periods, up to a huge collection of Roman and Greek sculpture. You see a lot of the statuary you've seen in books, in art history class, and on book covers (of Penguin books and literary anthologies). After three hours, you are completely weary and there are still whole collections and periods of antiquity you've missed. I am posting photos of some of my favorites...but hundreds of my favorites aren't here. You'll just have to go to the museum if you get the chance. If you ever do get to Athens (and I highly recommend it), and you only have a day, split it between the Acropolis and the Museum.

Before I go onto the handful of photos, I wanted to say one thing about Athens. When I was there 25 years ago, it was a congested, hot, smelly, polluted town. Over the years, and especially before the Olympics, they have fixed a lot of that. The pollution was not all that much more than any city. They have implemented restrictions on cars, and they have created many pedestrian streets with no cars at all. And on top of that, for the first time in a month, we could actually drink tapwater! And it was great. It was such a great surprise to see the progress Athens had made. When Keelin originally scheduled us for three days there, I was very skeptical. As it turns out, I could have stayed there a week. The subways and buses are good, and if you stay in the Plaka, you can walk almost anywhere you need to go. Highly recommended!



Cycladic statuary (from the Cycladic Islands, like a couple we visited, Santorini and Rhodes). One of my favorite schools of sculpture. I love the abstracted, gestural figuration. Click to enlarge.


A bronze Zeus. You've seen this one on the cover of Penguin Books and literary anthologies. Click to enlarge.


Jack Brummet on the rooftop of our hotel, with a close view of the Acroplis' less-flashy backside.


A bust of Caligula (or head from a statue), from the 1st Century. Click to enlarge. This is one of my favorites, probably because I've read a few books about this mad emperor.


This is allegedly (although highly unlikely) Agamemnon's pure gold death mask, recovered from Grave Circle V, from the 15th Century BC. Note: the two holes were used with string to hold the mask to the deceased's face. Click to enlarge.


I loved this fantastically sculpted bronze of a horse and jockey recovered from a shipwreck. This was sculpted sometime in the second century BC. Click to enlarge.

I'll post some more favorites when I get out photos sorted out... /jack, in Seattle
---o0o---

Aristophenes' Play Plutus at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus

Odeon of Herodes Atticus, shot from up the hill, on The Acropolis - click to enlarge

Tonight, we will go see Aristophane's last play, Plutus at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, just a few blocks from our hotel. The play is being put on, oddly enough by the Cyprus Theatre Organisation. It is part of a drama, music and arts Athens Festival that takes place most of the summer in Athens.

When Pausanias visited Athens during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, he described the Herodeon as "the finest building of its type". I was not longer after destroyed by fire, and later, rebuilt in 161 AD by Herodes Atticus in memory of his wife. It was originally a steep-sloped amphitheater with a three-story stone front wall and a wooden roof, and was used as a venue for music concerts with a capacity of 5,000. It was later buried, plundered for its stone, and restored in the middle 20th century. It is probably best known (is this pathetic or what) as the venue for Yanni's Live At The Acropolis in the early 1990's.

Here are the opening lines of Aristophenes' play, Plutus [1]. We will be watching it in Greek, but I do have an English text. We suspect it will somehow be captioned (like they do in opera).

[The Orchestra represents a public square in Athens. In the background is the house of CHREMYLUS. A ragged old blind man enters, followed by CHREMYLUS and his slave CARIO.]

CARIO What an unhappy fate, great gods, to be the slave of a fool!
A servant may give the best of advice, but if his master does not
follow it, the pool slave must inevitably have his share in the disaster;
for fortune does not allow him to dispose of his own body, it belongs
to his master who has bought it. Alas! 'tis the way of the world.
But the god, Apollo, (in tragic style) whose oracles the Pythian
priestess on her golden tripod makes known to us, deserves my censure,
for surely he is a physician and a cunning diviner; and yet my master
is leaving his temple infected with mere madness and insists on following
a blind man. Is this not opposed to all good sense? It is for us,
who see clearly, to guide those who don't; whereas he clings to the
trail of a blind fellow and compels me to do the same without answering
my questions with ever a word. (To CHREMYLUS) Aye, master, unless
you tell me why we are following this unknown fellow, I will not be
silent, but I will worry and torment you, for you cannot beat me because
of my sacred chaplet of laurel.

CHREMYLUS No, but if you worry me I will take off your chaplets,
and then you will only get a sounder thrashing.

CARIO That's an old song! I am going to leave you no peace till you
have told me who this man is; and if I ask it, it's entirely because
of my interest in you.

CHREMYLUS Well, be it so. I will reveal it to you as being the most
faithful and the most rascally of all my servants. I honoured the
gods and did what was right, and yet I was none the less poor and
unfortunate.

CARIO I know it but too well.

CHREMYLUS Others amassed wealth-the sacrilegious, the demagogues,
the informers, indeed every sort of rascal.

CARIO I believe you.

CHREMYLUS Therefore I came to consult the oracle of the god, not
on my own account, for my unfortunate life is nearing its end, but
for my only son; I wanted to ask Apollo if it was necessary for him
to become a thorough knave and renounce his virtuous principles, since
that seemed to me to be the only way to succeed in life.

CARIO (with ironic gravity) And with what responding tones did the
sacred tripod resound?

CHREMYLUS You shall know. The god ordered me in plain terms to follow
the first man I should meet upon leaving the temple and to persuade
him to accompany me home.

CARIO And who was the first one you met?

CHREMYLUS This blind man.

CARIO And you are stupid enough not to understand the meaning of
such an answer! Why, the god was advising you thereby, and that in
the clearest possible way, to bring up your son according to the fashion
of your country.

CHREMYLUS What makes you think that?

CARIO Is it not evident to the blind, that nowadays to do nothing
that is right is the best way to get on?

CHREMYLUS No, that is not the meaning of the oracle; there must be
another that is nobler. If this blind man would tell us who he is
and why and with what object he has led us here, we should no doubt
understand what our oracle really does mean.

CARIO (to PLUTUS) Come, tell us at once who you are, or I shall
give effect to my threat. (He menaces him.) And quick too, be quick,
I say.

PLUTUS I'll thrash you.

CARIO (to CHREMYLUS) Do you understand who he says he is?

CHREMYLUS It's to you and not to me that he replies thus: your mode
of questioning him was ill-advised. (To PLUTUS) Come, friend, if
you care to oblige an honest man, answer me.

PLUTUS I'll knock you down.

CARIO (sarcastically) Ah! what a pleasant fellow and what a delightful
prophecy the god has given you!

CHREMYLUS (to PLUTUS) By Demeter, you'll have no reason to laugh
presently. . .

[1] The plot: The plot is of the simplest. Chremylus, a poor but just man, accompanied by his body-servant Cario--the redeeming feature, by the by, of an otherwise dull play, the original type of the comic valet of the stage of all subsequent periods--consults the Delphic Oracle concerning his son, whether he ought not to be instructed in injustice and knavery and the other arts whereby worldly men acquire riches. By way of answer the god only tells him that he is to follow whomsoever he first meets upon leaving the temple, who proves to be a blind and
ragged old man. But this turns out to be no other than Plutus himself, the god of riches, whom Zeus has robbed of his eyesight, so that he may be unable henceforth to distinguish between the just and the unjust. However, succoured by Chremylus and conducted by him to the
Temple of Æsculapius, Plutus regains the use of his eyes. Whereupon all just men, including the god's benefactor, are made rich and prosperous, and the unjust reduced to indigence.
---o0o---

Athens/Athinai, Hellas: It will hit 40 degrees celsius today (e.g., 104 fahrenheit)

The Acropolis

We are in our first full day in Athens, where it will hit 40 degrees celsius this afternoon (104 fahrenheit),

f = 9/5 c + 32

We will be visiting the fantastic and huge museum we went to last time, as well as visiting the Acropolis and its excellent ruins at least a couple of times.

Tomorrow night, on our last night here, we currently plan to attend a play in an ancient theatre. Aristophenes. And in between, we will visit other ruins, if possible, try to keep cool, and face up to our trip coming to an end, about which, more later.
---o0o---

A few random pictures from Greece

click these to enlarge. A picture we took that turned out colored like a 1960's postcard


On the beach at Naxos yesterday before we sailed to Athens


The dome and stone set in masonry walls of the tiny (no longer used) St. Giorgio's Greek Orthodox church at Hilka


Some of the very intact female statuary recovered from Knossos


some of my favorite faces from the fallen friezes at Afrodesia


Colum with an old still at the Citron shop in Hilka (msp?). Let me publicly apologize to Colum because I just discovered that I have frequently been writing his name as Column! You don't know how many columns I've looked at in the last month!


Love and Mercy,

Jack in Athens, July 15th, 2008 (two days to go...).

Poem: Sailing To Athens

1.

In a pale grey fog,
I see the ghosts
Of ancient Helleniki mariners

Sailing phantom steamships, sloops,
Prams, dories, catamarans, dinghies,
Trawlers, purse-seiners, frigates and tugboats

Across the cerulean blue sea,
Trawling for the fish
That are phantoms now too.

2.

Wine, saffron, ruby-red, pale lemon;
Emerals peppers, rocket, and capers;
Pink carpusi, crystal white Ouzo;

Cheeses in every tint
From snow white to ivory,
Cream, tan, grey, and muted gold.

3.

Gifts of olive oil, wine, raki, ouzo,
Apricots, plums, cake, ice cream,
Citron, carpusi, sorbet, wildflowers,

More caprusi, poetry, more ouzo, and songs
Sung on the street
Direct from the heart.

4.

I leave with a song in my heart
And knowing whatever we sing, eat, play,
Drink, wear, smoke, worship, or dream,

They're all just people
Like you and me.
Amen. Selah. Namaste.
---o0o---