Greece Trip: Day 2

Sorry it has been a bit to get this posted but due to moving hotels lacking decent internet and the timeline of getting these written, here they are and plenty long to chew on.

1896 Olympic Stadium

Today we started by driving to the old Olympic stadium from the first modern Olympics in 1896. On the way , and yesterday as well, I noticed there is a lot of graffiti in Athens. Probably 1/3 of it is in English as well, from what I can read it seems to be a result of the protests, they are usually not flattering of government, police, rich, etc. But it is everywhere, ever Kiosk on the road has it on their doors/covers they put down at night. Many walls and especially corrugated metal doors in the sides of buildings. While maybe not as big a deal to Greeks, but certainly seems to at least to me, many stone and marble surfaces have been tagged. Many marble walls of buildings and even some statues have phrases, etc tagged on them. I suppose it certainly gives some character to the city, but is kind of sad too. On the way, Yonni also made some comments about mass transit in Athens, they have around 60,000 taxis and the subway when built had to be diverted around or sometimes go as deep as 20 meters, he said, in order to not have the vibrations from the trains destroy ancient buildings and structures. The original olympic stadium is the only one in the world built entirely of white marble, seats 70,000 people, and cost 1 million golden pounds. The first olympics were fashioned after a world exhibition in some ways, they lasted for five months.

Trireme Olympia

We then headed down to the cost of the Saronic gulf on the Aegean sea. On the Yonni made some interesting comments on universities. Due to Greek law only the state is allowed to have universities in Greece, though due to the power of European law now other European universities can have branches in Greece, but be solely there. While it seems unfortunate only the state can run universities, they do have an interesting provision that Greek police are not allowed on university campuses, with the original intent of allowing free speech, a kind of asylum for people to say what they want without fear of problems, but of course that rule has been abused. Down at the gulf we saw briefly a couple retired Greek naval ships and a recreated Trireme. It is an accurate recreation of a trireme built from ancient descriptions and sculptures. It was built by Greek and british researchers, partly as a means to test claims that it could go as fast as 14 knots, it can. This was an ancient warship with 3 rows of oars for propulsion and its means of attack was a ram on the front with wich to ram other ships at full speed. These were used solely for fighting, for defensive purposes. While they had 170 rowers and 30-40 other crew members, there was no place for sleeping and eating and living, that would all be done on shore. And in comparison to the Persians, all the rowers were freemen. It was this type of ship that helped the Athenians defeat the Persians at the Battle of Salamis. The Olympius, the recreation was used to help carry the flame for the 2004 Athens Olympics, it is now on display and is cared for by the Navy.

The Parthenon on the Acropolis

The rest of the day was spent at the Acropolis. Athens has been occupied somehow since around 3000B.C. And the first religious buildings and temples were built on the Acropolis around 600B.C., before that it had been a place for kings and rulers. The term Acropolis though simply means the high place in the city, and every Greek city had one. In 480 B.C. the temples were destroyed by the invading Persians. Afterwards in rebuilding the City the effort to build the current acropolis, and in particular the Parthenon, was lead by Themistocles, a leader in Athens.

The Parthenon from below and from the West

Greek architecture was a presentation done while at the Acropolis. The famous aspects of Greek architecture are the column types: Ionic, Doric, and Corinthian. The Ionic style, primarily from Greeks living in Asia minor, is defined by the curls, like scrolls, at the top, on the capitol. The Doric, the oldest and from the Peloponnese, is described by the very plain style over all with simply a large bead for the capitol. Finally the Corinthian was the fanciest with flowers and such for the capitol. When temples were built, they're designs were rather standard, they had an entrance, the Cella, and an inner area for the statue of the god to be. A temple was a pacle or the god to live, not a place to worship in, the sacrifices and worship was done outside, which is why the decorations mostly appear on the outside. In the Doric style if the front (facing east) and back of the temple had N number of columns, the sides would have 2N+1.For example, the Parthenon has 8 columns on the front and back and 17 on the sides. In the corinthian style, if the front had N, the sides had 2N+4. In the center of the temple is where a large statue of the god, for whom the temple was built, would reside. In the cities there would also be theaters and stadiums. The theaters were for plays and speakers while the stadiums were for athletic events. At different time periods of Greece it was done differently, but while at some times the Rich tended to have bigger fancier house, particularly later Greece, older times they would spend their riches on sponsoring events for the city, such as theater or games, etc. A huge part of being a citizen of a Greek city was loyalty and love for one's city, one desired above all else for one's city to do well and be successful and be a great place.

One of many wild dogs around Athens

The acropolis was had many functions. On a part of the hill which is the Acropolis is the Penyx (sp?), this was a place where the citizens would come to discuss and vote on the important issues that weren't dealt with by the parliament/delegates. Citizens were only free men from Athens (in respect to this particular site). It is said if not for this it couldn't function, i.e. if the slaves, etc voted. Part of this is that for a democracy to function, the citizens need to be educated and informed (actually George Nicholas a lawyer and statesman from the late 18^th century in America said something similar "An enlightened people will never suffer what was established for their security to be perverted to an act of tyranny."), this was something the slave and lower class weren't. It was very interesting that in the referendum votes citizens could not abstain or stay neutral, they had to pick a side, they had to say yes or no. While that may put on some pressure, it's not all bad. It could have some advantages if people in the modern democracies had to do that. Sure there could be downsides that those who didn't care would vote for the first guy or the slickest easiest guy, but it might push people to participate more early on. Say, in the primaries, if they knew they had to vote they would work harder to make sure someone who represented their views was in the final running. I think there are ups and downs to both aspects. The delegates that formed their parliament were chosen more or less at random from a pool of screened and eligible (i.e. had to have paid their taxes) candidates, they were only allowed to serve one year, they didn't want professional politicians.In Athens, daily judges were chosen at the Agora (city square and market place) and they made many decisions on daily issues.

On to the acropolis and the parthenon. Much restoration work has been done on it and it is continuing all the time. As pieces are found they try to put them back in their original place. If at least 2/3 of the piece is their they reconstruct the rest; sculpted by hand from the same type of marble, but of a whiter color so that you know what is new and what is old. The parthenon was built by Themistocles and the people of Athens in only 9 years in the second half of the 5^th century BC. Since then there have been turkish homes and harems on the acropolis destroying many other buildings and their materials used for construction, but the Parthenon survived nearly perfectly intact until 1687 when the Turks, while fighting, stored gunpowder in it and it blew up destroying vast amounts of it. The parthenon had a Doric style, with 8 columns wide (30m) and 17 columns (70m) long which follows the 2N+1 method. The aesthetics were very important to the Greeks, that is why they have columns and decorations when walls would work as well. And the top step before reaching the columns is actually curve down at the ends by 15cm that was from a little bit off it looks level, if it truly was level an optical illusion would make it appear not level. Also, the columns were about 2cm wider in the middle to counteract the illusion of being skinnier and they tilted inward a few degrees so they didn't look like they were leaning outward like they would actually straight, the til was slight enough that if they extended upward until they met, it would be 1700m high. The columns were 2m in diameter and 5m apart. It was built at the site where Athena and Poseidon battled to be the deity of the city, as the legend goes. Below the acropolis is the theater of Dionysus, it is the oldest in the world from the 7^th century BC.

Group Picture from the Entrance to the Parthenon

On a hill on the edge of the Acropolis is Mars Hill. This is the place where the Apostle Paul gave his famous talk about the Unknown God in Acts 17:22-31. We had a site presentation here about this. This hill was called the Areopagus by the Greeks first and it was where trials would happen. Ares was the god of war, and mars was the Romans god of war, hence why they called it mars hill rather than area hill The council of areopagus met there and was composed of citizens voted there who had tenure for life and had to have served a public office before then, and there was no size limit. There were two rocks up there, the rock of wrath and rock of shame where the accuser and defendant would stand, respectively. Many scholars and philosophers would gather here and that is who Paul talked to. They had a shrine to the unknown god there to make sure they didn't leave out any deities in their worship, so as Paul was waiting in Athens for Silas and Timothy after leaving Berea he gave this speech there. It was really neat to stand there near where Paul gave this speech, though it looks different than it did back then because of an earthquake in 1651. Because of the old court there, the supreme court of Greece today is called the Areopogus.

Mar's Hill

The Acropolis Museum

We then went to the Acropolis museum after lunch. This new museum just opened in June 2010. It is built on 96 pillars over and excavated ancient city next to the acropolis. It is a fantastically designed museum with many statues and artifacts found and near the acropolis from the temples before the Parthenon and the Parthenon. On the third floor is a life size layout of the Parthenon and around this is placed the actual recovered pieces of the frieze (continuous stone mural around the top of the inner building of the Parthenon) and the metopes (blocks of sculpted murals around the outside of the Parthenon) and the Pediments the big triangle shaped massive sculpted stories at each end of the Parthenon (East and West, one telling of the birth of Athena, the other the battle between Athena and Poseidon). Nearly half of the frieze is in a museum in London from a long time ago, so replicas are here at this museum. The rest is attempted reconstruction or simply blank sections with names. The information for reconstruction and names comes form ancient myths and descriptions and from a detailed painting done by a frenchman a couple years before the Turks blew it up. Some sections are very full, others empty. The West pediment is reasonably intact while the East pediment is nearly completely destroyed and gone. The friezes are important in the art world and history. They are the first known art to depict movement and life in it, the movement and action of horses and men, a very realistic depiction as well. The Greeks were very much about a realistic depiction in their art, in their horses and perfectly proportioned bodies in their statues, etc. On a side note, it is important to remember all the statues and the Parthenon were all painted brilliant colors when they were made and are the simple white marble because of time other than a few small pieces here and there. To finish the day of learning a presentation was done on Greek education. Education in Greece was more than just school, it was the process of training a man into his real form, of raising up future citizens for the city (like mentioned earlier, welfare of the city was extremely important). They were taken to school by an elderly trusted family slave known as a pedagogue, this person was intended to be a positive moral and character role model in the child's life. They started school at age 7 and focused in 3 equal areas to have a balanced education: letters, music, and gymnastics. The letters were reading and writing and would involve memorization of passages as well. The music, interestingly enough, was not for becoming professional musicians (that was for slaves, etc), but for giving an understanding of harmony and rhythm, and the harmony between man and nature. The gymnastics was to provide physical training for the body. After completing this schooling around 14-16 years of age the poorer students would begin the family trade while richer students would mess around and enjoy life for a coupe years. At 18 they would serve in the military for 2 years before becoming full fledged citizens. While this training was only for men, women were taught in the home. This could be just household duties, but if that father wanted to, he might teach grammar, etc to the women. A side note that was given is that this wasn't a dishonoring of women by the Greeks, their way of honoring women, etc was by defining specific roles for people within a society.

That night after dinner, some of us walked downtown Athens for a few hours. It was about a 25 minute or so walk. When we were down there we got to see the tomb of the unknown solider the the ceremonial guards. It was neat, as we were getting ready to come back all of a sudden several hundred bicycles go riding past down the street blocking traffic for several minutes with lights on and blowing whistles and horns. According to a fellow there it is a weekly ride they do every Friday night for around 6 hours (assuming nothing was lost in translation). Very unexpected, but pretty cool.