That means goodbye.
What conclusions come from all this activity?
I have a better appreciation of the scale and durability of Athens of the Classical Age. There is a lot of it and it was built to last, that is, using stone which itself took time to quarry, transport, shape, and mount. More importantly it went far beyond the functional needs of the place and time; it was built to impress, first the Athenians themselves and then visitors, which it still does. I knew some of this intellectually but it is another kind of knowing through the skin to walk the steps up to and around the Acropolis. Or to know through my tired old feet. By the way, I am not just referring to the Acropolis here, but more importantly to the Themistoclean Wall which was extensive, and beneath all the domain it fenced in were two systems of pipes for water and waste, built even earlier.
Likewise, I knew the importance of the funeral rites, but it is another kind of knowing to stand in the valley of shadows between the Acropolis on the right and the Pnyx on the left in the Kerameikos, and recall Pericles’s speech, and the others like it. Likewise, I knew about the assemblies on the Pnyx, but to stand at the Bema and look at the area is quite something else. And so on, for Socrates’s cell, Plato’s Academy, Aristotle’s Lyceum….
I had not realized that the temple of Zeus had been left purposefully incomplete but now I do and I think I know why: a break with the past: the rule of tyrants, despite its aesthetic appeal. It would have been completed sooner had the Athenian lost at Marathon, since the pretext of the Persian invasion was to restore the displaced Athenian ruler Hippias who had been befriended by the Persian emperor on the principle that my enemy’s enemy is my friend.
I am truly glad I did see the Parthenon replica in Nashville because it offers a something of what a spectacle the Acropolis must have been. We are so used to seeing the weathered bones of these buildings, that we forget that in their day they would have been painted, and even adorned with music floating in the air. The Acropolis would have been as colourful both outside an inside as say a catholic cathedral like St Peter’s.
The visit to Chaoronea also brought home the scale of that lion standing in a field. As a tribute to his enemies it still makes quite an impression, and it is as close to Alexander the Great as I will ever get.
Delphi is ethereal and seeing it makes me understand all the more why the Athenian robbery of the treasury was beyond the pale. Delphi represented, at its best, the Greeks ability to cooperate while still competing. But when Athens got desperate it all came down to the drachmas.
Speaking of drachmas, I also saw a bronze talent in the Numismatic Museum, which I forgot to mention in that post, that made me realize how big the things were. Now pile up 12,000 gold ones in the Parthenon, and silver without number and don’t even bother to count the bronze ones would have been one great big pile of wealth. This is one estimate of Athenian wealth at the start of the War without End with Sparta – 12,000 gold talents. Talk about gold-pressed latinum! (Don’t get it? Too bad.)
One look at Marathon makes clear the tactical situation. There was no where for the Persians to go; no way to use superior numbers. The Persian general would have taken second thought, but not the Persian emperor who had brought with him the marble to build a victory monument (I did not know this until the day I went to Marathon). After the Persians were defeated the Athenians found the marble on a sunken ship and used to build the Temple of Nemesis at Rhamnous. What stimulated me about Marathon many years ago was that one could stand next to history by going there. In that mound is the brother of Aeschylus, who himself also fought that. Nor did I know about the Plataean mound until I got there. I checked it is mentioned in Bury’s book but it does not sink in from the page the way it does from the eye.
Melos now seems to be more important to me, because of the obsidian tools and weapons, though nothing is ever said about that in Thucydides or the army ants surrounding him, and Bronze Age weapons went beyond stone ones. It also seems big and rugged with more than one settlement, that is, more than one source of water: Plaka high on the hill with Kastro on top to which we climbed, Klima down at the water’s edge where first Nicias and then Alcibiades must have landed. I would have thought some Melians could have taken to the hills and caves and hidden from the Athenians or even fought them off. Maybe that is why Nicias left. Even today the West end of the island has no roads. maybe because it has no water, true. Alternatively, the second Athenian mission must have been very determined to root them out, where the first mission had found it too hard and pulled out. It was also compelling to see the urn in the museum thought once to contain Alcibiades’s remains. It was rather fun at the Hellenic Cosmos to vote for ostracizing him and to win. Democracy is fun! The boys in the Lord of the Flies were right.
Since star dust (matter) is constant, best of all was simply to breathe the air where Socrates and company had breathed the air in their turn. To stand in front of the olive tree at the Temple of Athena on the Acropolis is to be but three tree-generations from the day the first stone was laid, given that olive trees live about one thousand years. Or to be in the Benaki Museum with objects behind a glass that might have been handled by Plato or Diodotus sends shivers down one’s back. That was something to fire the imagination once again.
For the Athenians today, it must be hard to live with so much history. Every time a spade is sunk into the earth an artifact may be found. Down tools and wait, and wait for the archaeological police to come and evaluate it, and that can take eight years I was told. Only to tell you cannot dig further here. The story of building the two new metro lines makes that very clear. New techniques had to be developed to cope with the archaeological circumstances.
If and when next I teach political theory, I will be better able to explain some aspects of both the great war of Thucydides, its precursors in those temples on the Acropolis, and the consequences in the theories of Plato and Aristotle. Indeed this experience makes me want to teach political theory just so I can do that. Motivation!
Disappointments, there were a few. Somewhere I had hoped to see hoplite armor with details about cost and weight. Why? With reference to Thucydides. To explain why there was so little hoplite battle, why hoplites could not fight lightly armed enemies, why only the wealthy could be hoplites, etc. Ditto for triremes, some account of the development of these craft and how they worked, how long and heavy were the oars of the top row compared to the bottom row. I had also hoped for more from the IMAX at Hellenic Cosmos about these and other subjects.
I also formed a very high opinion of ease of travel in Greece except for the plumbing. All the arrangements went smoothly. The driver and car were faultless. On time every time. Helpful and friendly and almost disinterested in the money. The hotel staff were efficient and courteous, ready to help in the three hotels. On the street, it was easy to get along in English, easier than, say, Italy or France.
Other musings are many. I relished reading the International Herald Tribune every day, and missed it sorely on two days on Melos when I did not get it, as the ferry did not run those days. It is compact and dense, and not a single stupid joke headline trying to appeal to non-existent eighteen year old readers. It is an adult newspaper for adults, but this is a dying breed.
I also found Greek television of note. There were numerous public affairs programs morning, noon, and night, each featuring four to six talking heads, and they did. The four or six all talked at once. Most of them at full volume. That was the standard. The chorus just would not shut up.
One major disappointment was Greek coffee which I persistently drank until the last few days, by which time I had given up. All too often I was all but certain the Greek coffee I got was Nescafé, a suspicion born of a newspaper piece I read in Athens about the astounding success of Nestlé in marketing in Greece. Awful! No amount of sugar can suppress that dirty taste.
We made this trip without carrying around a computer. I swore off carrying a laptop years ago. We made do with the hotel service and an internet cafe (which in the Plaka turned out to be up as many steep steps as the Acropolis). Wi Fi is nice but who carries the laptop and its implementa? Not me, that’s who!
For those who were not taking notes, a summary table is here Download file
It will be on the final examination!
Our step count is recorded in this table: Download file
My costs were funded from my outside earnings and Kate’s we paid for, so relax taxpayer.
For a day-by-day account see Kate’s blog knittatpug. http://knittatpug.blogspot.com/