In Athens: Theater of Dionysos, Asklepion, Areopagos, Cave of the Furies

On May 4th, the “Theater & the Arts of Healing” students, plus Jaxon who wanted to join us, walked with Nancy and me through pauses in Athens’ mad traffic to the Theater of Dionysos and other sites at the base of the Acropolis. The proximity of theaters and healing centers in several ancient places—including Corinth, Epidauros, and Amphiareion, as well as here—first suggested to me the major theme of this course, and today’s walk helped us to explore that theme on the ground. Founded in 420-19 B.C.E. in response to the plague that ravaged Athens during the Peloponnesian War, the Athenian Asklepion was built above and immediately adjacent to the Theater of Dionysos on the south-facing slope of the Acropolis. Under gradual reconstruction, its ruins are not open to visitors, but the students viewed them from above on a plenary excursion a month ago. Today marked a special opportunity for our class to speculate on ways in which the cult of Asklepios, treating patients by a process of dream therapy, connected to the dream-work of the Great Dionysia: the dramas staged annually for the social health of the body politic.

One such drama was Aescylus’ Eumenides, which we had just read and which framed our other focus. For the play concludes with a solemn procession as the women of Athens escort the Furies—now renamed the “Kindly Ones,” to their cave beneath the Areopagos, the “rock hill of Ares” where Athena convened the trial of Orestes, who is hounded by the Furies for having slain his mother Clytemnestra in the prequel, Choephori, for her having, in its prequel Agamemnon, slain her husband / his father in the bath just home from Troy, an act of matriarchal vengeance for Agamenon’s having sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia so that the fleet could sail to Troy (the Oresteia delivers a long back-story!)—as the women of Athens, I say, and the members of the audience join a torch-lit procession along the lower slopes of the Acropolis to the Furies’ new home. There, having threatened Athens with blight and plague for blocking their vengeance on Orestes (his turn on vendetta’s wheel), instead they will bless the land and its people forever: so, at least, Athena prophesies. One wonders about that these days, with the implosion of credit, the EU’s begrudging bailout, and national strikes over the forthcoming austerity measures in Greece.

We had already followed Orestes into Athens from Delphi, site of a recent group excursion (see below). Orestes takes initial sanctuary from the Furies in Delphi, and Apollo refers him to Athena and a court of law in Athens. Today, as best we could—impeded by the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, built c. 160 C.E.—a “Roman amphitheatre, a trellis-work of heavy brown stone arches one upon another,” Robert Byron described it (Europe in the Looking Glass, 1926)—which structure compelled us to climb high up the slope and down again, we followed the footsteps of the play’s concluding procession. This was a rare opportunity to ground a great piece of literature and theater in the terrain for which it was composed.

The orchestra space and the stage fragments of the Theater of Dionysos are roped off, so we could not perform there. Instead we sat on the weathered marble bleachers and read the play’s finale aloud, joining our voices in the chorus, sounding in a modern tongue the words Aeschylus composed for this place long ago. (Our thanks the late Robert Fagles, a great translator.) Then we climbed up above the theater, paused in the shade at the Asklepion to discuss it, and made our across to the Areopagos. We climbed it, discussed the Athenian court that presided here and the mythic defeat of the Amazons here, and enjoyed the view of the Propolyaia, the ancient Agora, the Hill of the Muses, and the horizon of modern Athens.

Then we descended towards the cave where ancient Athenians imagined the Furies to have returned to the earth to empower their city. Alas, no such deep cavity is intact today. A fig tree sprouts from within a wide gap in the rock. Further along the slope, silt and a cement wall occlude much of the base. Among the many ruins that Athens frames for one’s consumption—ancient building projects excavated, reassembled—the Cave of the Furies rests neglected. The slope of the hill is set off by a shabby metal fence in the weeds. Above that perimeter, however, curving into the outcrop of the north face are deep declivities, dark hollows in the rock. This must be the place.

Link to Aegina Photo Album

Aegina, 30 April

On Wednesday, our “Theater & the Arts of Healing” class enjoyed the company of Melanie Harmon, Director of Communications at AHA International in Portland, visiting to experience the Athens program first hand for future recruitment. A Master of Arts in theater who ran a theater company in Colorado before her career turn towards AHA, Melanie was a welcome participant in our reading and discussion of Aeschylus’ Eumenides. Yesterday she joined the full group of students, with Michael Wedde and Nina Lorum from the Athens Centre, on our day-trip to the island of Aegina—the maritime rival of Athens in Aeschylus’ day, now a ninety minute ferry ride from Piraeus. Michael’s predecessor, the late Ann Blasingham, lived on Aegina and, when Nancy and I were here for the Fall 2001 session, used to commute to the Athens Centre to teach “Monuments of Greece.” Now buried on the island, she was in our thoughts.

The “Phaedra” (a name packed with mythic associations) carried us to Aegina town escorted by a wheeling convoy of gulls. We disembarked mid-morning on a clear, sunny day. The winds were vigorous, the waters ink-blue at depth and turquoise near shore, and a regatta of ten or twelve identical twin-sailed boats, white canvas bright against the sea, pulled past the promontory towards which we made our way outside town: the ruins of Kolona. The settlement here dates from the Bronze Age, with traces of Minoan influence (an “X” mason’s mark on a large stone in an outer wall; pottery shards, etc.). The most striking feature of Kolona (from the Italian, colonna) gave the place its current name: the sole surviving column from the 5th century B.C.E. Temple of Apollo. Hewn from a single stone, not erected by the stacking of barrels, it still stands, greatly weathered, narrowed to a sharp asymmetric tip. Multiple layers of habitation, the effects of various invasions, and successive construction projects are evident here, cogently explained by Michael. One of the great pleasures of the site is its immediacy. Unlike the more trafficked ruins of the Acropolis or Delphi, roped off and prowled by guards with hair-trigger whistles, Kolona—Nina having paid our entry fees—stood quiet and available to us. One could lean against Apollo’s column or touch a surviving patch of water-tight plaster in the Byzantine cistern. The place was open to us as the Acropolis had been to Mark Twain or Lord Byron in the nineteenth century, whose accounts we read and discussed in the “Greek Journeys” class. Thus Kolona adds another welcome layer of time-travel to its ruins.

The crown jewel of Aegina is the Temple of Athena-Aphaia, located several miles up a winding road we climbed by bus. This mountaintop is the ideal place to explain Aegina’s rivalry with Athens, directly visible across the Saronic gulf: amidst the great white reticulated expanse of concrete, one can make out Lycabettus Hill and the Acropolis. If Pericles dubbed Aegina “the eyesore of Piraeus,” as Michael noted, the Aeginians had an equal and opposite answer. The metopes of the Temple of Athena-Aphaia have long since vanished, but the sanctuary itself, while much smaller than the Parthenon, is more complete, with a large number of original columns and entablatures still standing.

On the way back to Aegina town, we stopped at the workshop of Mr. Nektarios, the island’s primary surviving potter, a man in his late fifties who smokes cigarettes and scorns apprentices. An ancient tradition is withering but, at present, in sure hands. He welcomed us into his cramped space lined with unfired jugs, pitchers, and pots of many sorts. Then he proceeded to turn a few on his wheel, commenting in an amiable gruff voice while Nina translated. Huddled in a semi-circle, we watched him work the clay: after kneading it, he placed a moist lump on the plate and, the wheel turning, palmed the pile into a column, then thrust thumbs in from above to hollow out the interior. Swiftly, an attractive shape emerged, wobbling into sudden symmetry, touched up with a blunt straight-edge. With one hand inside, he thinned the walls into shape and, with a small blade of wood, inscribed a tight, then widening spiral down along the form. The objects took shape quickly and without false moves. After four throws, he took us outside, down through dried grasses, thistles, and scattered red poppies to his kilns: a traditional wood-fired oven and, inside a shed nearby, a modern green metal kiln still cooling from last night’s firing. One jarring element on the grounds here: from a pole on the roof of a nearby home dangled the body of a crow, a striking species with gray body and black head & wings that Nancy and I have admired since first seeing them on Crete. It was a stark advisory to all such birds to stay clear.

We stepped over to Mr. Nektarios’ crowded little display room bright with glazed items and his fenced yard jumbled with others largely unglazed, and several students made purchases. Then we all enjoyed a few hours of free time back in Aegina town. We embarked for Athens on the 6:00 ferry, the “Agios Nektarios,” a vessel owned by the island. The “Nektarios” coincidence is but briefly surprising: the name is widely shared. One of the island’s major luminaries was Saint Nektarios (1846-1920), who founded a monastery on Aegina in 1904 and, like Ann, rests there.

Delphi Photos

link to Delphi Photo Album

Osios Loukas & Delphi, 26-27 April

We boarded the bus at 8:30 Monday morning and departed Athens along the lower slopes of Mt. Hymettus—near where Nancy and I hiked the day before on trails through groves of pine, olive, and stunningly tall cypress to the Kaisariani Monastery—and drove towards the oracle of Apollo at Delphi. As we traversed Boetia, Hesiod’s land, a strong wind began buffeting the bus. It stayed with us all day, tearing through the landscape, pulling trees wildly. We stopped for a tour and picnic at a beautiful Byzantine monastery on the slopes of Mt. Helicon—a mountain sacred to the muses—Osios Loukas, founded in the early 10th century by a monk who had spent a decade as a hermit atop a pillar: St. Loukas, a driven man. As we descended the stone steps towards the monastery grounds, the winds almost blew us back up the hill, and on the main square they tore through an enormous plane tree at the valley’s edge with a great roar and alarming force, the massive limbs tossing. Very dramatic. The view from the monastery is mesmerizing: great-shouldered mountains stand opposite; a large valley spreads beneath, its expanse of grasses, olive groves, and occasional cypresses pushed into frenzied, sinuous dance by the wind. The monastery too is beautiful. The remains of the titular saint, scarcely visible in a recess, still reside in the sanctuary, along with better preserved frescoes and mosaics. Apparently pilgrims used to sleep beside his relics in hopes of a cure for whatever ailed them: a process of dream therapy called "incubation" that derives directly from the cult of Asclepius.

After roaming the grounds & the interiors, the students retreated from the wind for lunch to a small room prepared for us by the man in the gift shop. Nancy and I arrived a bit late, found the space full, and took our picnic in an alcove near the monastery’s fountain, good potable water.

Then we proceeded to Delphi, one of the earth’s rare places. If Apollo no longer speaks here, it remains a site of great spiritual power. When Zeus released two eagles to fly around the world, they met at Delphi: for the ancient Greeks, this was the center of the world. In many respects, it still is. In Greece, pivotal Mediterranean space, "East" and "West" still meet. On my hotel balcony early this morning, as the sunlight reached down along the slopes of the great ravine opposite and struck the olive-carpeted valley below, pushing cloud and earth-shadows out of its way, I realized anew why this place was sacred to Apollo—Phoebus, the radiant one, the young sky-god—the embodiment of the sacred light of Greece.

Michael Wedde organized our information-packed tour of the grounds. Monday afternoon we visited the lower site—the Temple of Athena, the Gymnasium, and the Castalian spring, where we filled our water bottles—and, after rest and free time, shared a taverna dinner (mixed reviews on the food—Nancy was served moldy tiropita, the salad must have been Sunday’s, the grilled chicken was dry—but the company was good), and gelato elsewhere afterward. This morning we climbed the sacred way, examined its numerous treasuries, viewed the Sybil’s rock, the Temple of Apollo, and the theater above it, before descending to the museum. High points indoors included the Sphinx of Naxos—a great lion-bird-woman who radiates a beautiful indifference, disconcerting calm—the Sifnian treasury metopes, which depict the abduction of Helen, the war between the gods and giants (with Dionysus following Cybele's chariot, whose lead lion tears into the thigh and torso of a smallish giant), Heracles’ disruptive arrival at Delphi, and more; the exquisite white-ground kylix of Apollo playing a tortoise shell lyre and pouring a libation of wine, a black crow watching; and of course the bronze charioteer, his tall clean form, laser eyes (even to the eyelashes) and steady gaze intact.

Delphi! Do not miss it while you live.

On the way home, we stopped for lunch in Arahova, a lovely hillside town with spectacular views of the gorge that leads to the oracle. The town also produces cylinders of sheep's milk cheese that you can slice and fry in olive oil, especially delicious when splashed with lemon juice.

Update on Crete, 7 to 11 April

Our excursion to Crete began on an overnight ferry, the Knossos Palace. After checking into our rooms, our group gathered spontaneously on the windy fore-deck, starboard side, to watch the lights of Athens recede. The light of another ferry far ahead of us remained. (Peering out of my porthole in the wee hours, I glimpsed what I first took for an island: the slender wedge of the moon on the horizon, blood red, rising as in a poem by Sappho we had discussed the day before:

Now among Lydian women she in her
turn stands first as the red-
fingered moon rising at sunset takes

precedence over stars around her ...)

We arrived in Heraklion early on 8 April and boarded our bus to breakfast at the Olympic Hotel downtown, located just off the old Venetian section with extensive pedestrian markets that reach back down towards the port. After breakfast, our bus took us to the remains of the actual Knossos Palace, excavated and partially reconstructed by Sir Arthur Evans, whose bust overlooks the entry area and whose vision still frames what one sees there. While duly impressed by the extensive palace and its uses as Michael Wedde explained them, many students found themselves more deeply engaged by the Palace of Phaestos, visited the next morning, whose excavators did not so presume to place their speculative reconstructions atop intact remains. The imagination roams freely at Phaestos. Following our group tour, the students wandered there independently. Sometimes wind lifted through the pines at the edge of the plateau with a timeless sound.

From Phaestos we made our way to Agia Triada and, for the heart of the afternoon, the beach at Matala. The hitherto windy day had turned warm at last, prime for sunbathing and a swim.

On the 10th we enjoyed a similarly absorbing visit to Tylissos, an extensive sub-palace located high in the hills; a long bus ride along the north coast of Crete to Rethymnon, where we picnicked on the grounds of a spectacular, wind-buffetted Venetian fort above the sea; and then proceeded to Hania, where we set up the Kydon Hotel, a fine establishment a few blocks from the lovely, much-photographed port that features good tavernas and interesting shops. Hania’s small but marvelous archaeological museum was our next morning’s destination.

A bus took us that evening to Souda port, where we boarded another overnight ferry for Piraeus.

6:00 AM, Monday, April 12: Good morning Athens!

Photos from Crete

Highlights: the first two weeks

We've settled into the rhythms of life in Greece, and classes are in progress. We sail to Crete this evening!

The highlight of our orientation session on Tuesday, 24 March was Ioannis (John) Zervos' talk on ancient and contemporary Greece, or Hellas as he prefers to name it, a young, teeming country famed for its classical greatness whose latter and more recent history he sketched for us: the four centuries of Ottoman occupation; Byron and English philhellenism in the Romantic era; the struggle for independence from Turkey; the Smyrna debacle and the convulsive population shifts between Greece and Turkey early in the 20th century, w/ the sudden, enormous growth of Athens; the Italian-then-Nazi occupation during WW II, then the terrible civil war; then the junta, finally a restored democracy and inclusion in the EU. A master raconteur-improvisateur, Mr. Zervos held us fascinated and helped us to understand what it is to be Greek, and to visit Greece, today. Several students attended the Independence Day parade the next day, and it meant much more to them for this introduction.

The evening of the 24th, we enjoyed a welcome dinner at the Vyrinis Taverna down Archimidous Street from the Athens Centre (our options delicious roast lamb and chicken), and the next night, site-director Rosemary Donnelly invited us and the Penn State students over for a mixer with hors d'oeuvres and krasi at her home. On Friday, one of Rosemary's staff, Aphrodite, led us on a walking tour of central Athens: through Syntagma Square, Monastiraki, finishing w/ lunch at a good souvlaki place.

Saturday evening (27 Mar), Nancy and I had the students over around 5:00 for pizza, and we took advantage of our proximity to First Cemetery to tour those amazing grounds together at dusk. The highlight was our discovery of a small new section of recent plots (all 2009) outside the wall up beyond the massive tomb of Heinrich Schleimann, with a stirring view of the Acropolis and the Hill of the Muses in the late light. "I could stay here forever!" Tricia remarked. "It's so beautiful." "A lot of people are staying here forever," I kidded her.

The next week classes began, and the students enjoyed their first major excursion on Wednesday with archaeologist Michael Wedde, who took them up to the Acropolis, down to the Theater of Dionysus, and into the great Acropolis Museum, which deserves an essay of its own. It is the most elegantly conceived, brilliantly executed museum I've ever stepped into, with clear floors offering vertiginous display of ruins beneath and tall windows inviting contemplation of the slopes and the plateau where the marbles and other artifacts on display were found. The top, Parthenon floor holds a true-to-scale abstraction of the Temple of Athena, oriented exactly to the points of the compass like the original, with the metopes hung where they would have been on that building, the white plaster casts of those in the British Museum staring down in mute but compelling argument that it is time now to return the Parthenon marbles to the place of their making.

This was Easter Week in Greece, and most of us found our way to ceremonies like the parading of the epitaphios (a symbol of the crucified savior) through the city. The ritual in First Cemetery was quite moving, with the epitaphios carried on a bier by six pall-bearers and preceded by a marching band, the cortege followed by hundreds of people carrying long, thin, beige candles and winding past the flower-adorned tombs of the extensive cemetery. The band at one point played Chopin's Funeral March as they made their way back towards the sanctuary, where the service continued. On Saturday night, following a long service of priestly chanting, at midnight Easter Sunday began with a lighting of candles--everybody had one, slender white ones now--from a flame flown in from Jerusalem and distributed to all the churches, and the congregations spilled out onto the streets and plazas to light up the night together as bells clanged deafeningly, priests continued their chants, and fireworks boomed. Welcome back to the world of the living! Custom holds that if you make it home with your candle still burning, and don't put it out for a good 15 minutes, your luck will be good this year. We saw people drive off with lit candles in their cars.

Photos:
Acropolis Field Trip
Easter Week