Note: In October/November 2012 Professor of Forest Ecology Glenn Juday participated a private trip (pilgrimage) following the route of St. Paul, through Turkey, mainland Greece, Aegean islands and Rome. As time permits he will post some sketches of the history, geography and natural history and contemporary observations of this route.
PART 1 of a 3-part series
The setting and origin of the Parthenon
The Parthenon (in Greek: Παρθενων) is one of the most famous buildings in the world. It’s situated in a spectacular setting, and is a tangible part of ancient Greece that allows a visitor of today an immersion experience in a long lost time. The Parthenon sits atop the Acropolis (in Greek: Ακρόπολις), a term compounded from the Greek acro = upper/edge or extremity, and polis = city. Many larger Greek cities in classical antiquity had an acropolis. Originally such a district served as a defensive fortification to which the population could retreat during a raid or attack. Over time, the acropolis of a city often assumed political/religious significance as an expression of power, sovereignty, and social ideals.
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| North side of the Acropolis of Athens, October 2012. The forest here is made up of pine, olive and cypress. |
The Parthenon was ordered constructed
by the Athenian leader Pericles beginning in 447 B.C. The structure was built to
commemorate the defeat of the Persian invasion of the Greek lands, including
Athens, in 480 B.C., and specifically to replace an older temple destroyed by
the Persians. The Parthenon that sits on top of the Acropolis of Athens was
built as a temple to the mythical virgin (parthenos
in Greek) goddess Athena, at least nominally. There is little evidence that
the Parthenon generated, or was fully meant to generate, the cultic following
easily identified at other ancient religious temple structures. In Greek
mythology, Athena contested with Poseidon for the right to be the patron god/goddess
for the city-state. Athena won the contest, and the city adopted her name,
Athens. She was the goddess of intellectual insight and disciplined spiritual
development, and her temple was designed to stimulate these qualities in its
visitors. In an important sense the Parthenon might be thought of as a
celebration in art and architecture of the emerging cultural vitality, political/military
power, and artistic prowess of Athens. Of course it is a modern mistake to try
to fully separate religious, civic and political ideals in the minds of
ancient people – they did no such thing. The Parthenon was probably/apparently
built for all of these reasons.
The replacement temple structure built to
commemorate victory over the Persians, the Parthenon, was designed to house a
40-foot tall of “Athena Parthenos” (literally Athena the Virgin) and to surpass
previous structures on the site. The names of the architects of the project are
known to us today - Iktinos and Kallikrates, as is the name of the sculptor of
the giant statue of Athena, Pheidias. The
proportions of the Parthenon are considered the definitive expression of the
Doric order, and its construction signaled the rise of a talented, confident,
and powerful society in its golden age that rightly is identified as making a foundational
contribution to western civilization.
A small
(about 1/12th scale) marble replica of the great Chryselephantine
(gold-encrusted ivory) stature of Athena that formerly occupied the Parthenon
of Athens. This replica was produced at the Varvakeion School (an art training
center) during the Roman era in the first half of the 3rd century
A.D. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NAMA_Athéna_Varvakeion.jpg (National Archaeological Museum in Athens, Photo by Marsyas, Creative Commons Attribution-Share
Alike 3.0 Unported license).
The flowering of ideas and material culture in
classical antiquity that produced the Parthenon has maintained a powerful hold
on the imagination of the world for nearly 2,500 years. Although the
Parthenon began its long life as a Greek temple, as the parade of history
passed through it also has been a treasury (for money), a church, and a mosque.
Today, the Parthenon is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the
world and a major income producer for Greece, a country struggling with a
crippled economy, as was painfully obvious on my visit.
A
personal encounter with the Parthenon
This Alaskan’s expectation for early November weather
in Athens was for moderate – even pleasant – fall temperatures. But the Greek
sun that was piercing a well-entrenched high-pressure system over Athens was
delivering summer-like conditions. It was another warm temperature anomaly like
we had experienced for the week we had been following the route of an ancient
Jewish tentmaker and pivotal religious scholar, Saul of Tarsus, also known as
St. Paul. After several days of pilgrimage excursions along the shore of the
Aegean Sea and inland I had learned my lesson for dealing with this heat. On
midday walks, I would dispense with the backpack if possible. So when the
pilgrimage group arrived at the base of the Acropolis of Athens and was
preparing to hike the path up to the Parthenon on top, I left most gear behind
on the coach where it would be secured by the driver.
But in my concern to travel light in the heat,
I suddenly discovered that I had left my camera on the bus. Here I was at an
icon of western civilization and one of the highlights of the trip, and I had
left my camera behind! I sprinted from the ticket entrance back to the bus staging
area, and saw the bus in motion already well beyond the exit. But rather that continue
the sprint down the street to catch it, something prompted me to just relax (somewhat
uncharacteristically, my students and colleagues might say) and go back to rejoin
the pilgrimage group. And so I did.
Up the steep incline the group walked, rewarded
with a spectacular view of Athens and the Aegean shore. Our guide’s commentary began
to fill in the skeleton of information my wife and I had picked up a few days
before at the New Acropolis Museum just below us in a hasty tour of with a
group of early arrivals for the pilgrimage. Now, here at the Parthenon I simply
engaged the moment, trying not to think about the camera. And then my wife had
an idea.
Following our tour of the Parthenon, which was
at midday, the pilgrimage group had a brief (and welcome) afternoon break
before a late afternoon lecture back at the hotel. She suggested that during
the lecture I take a taxi back to the Parthenon and wander about on my own
until the early evening closing time. And in doing so I was richly rewarded.
The Propylaea (Greek:
pro =in front, pylon = gate) at
the entrance to the Acropolis of Athens, November, 2012. Scaffolding on the
right is part of the process of continuous repair that is carried out on the
structure.
I arrived back at the Acropolis just 30 minutes
before the last entrants were allowed to start into the site for the day.
Logically enough, the crowds were dramatically thinned out in comparison to
midday. Who would choose to pay the full entrance fee only to be herded out
before sunset - not all that much later? Not many, it turned out. It was as if
I had much of the place to myself.
And instead of the harsh vertical midday sun
glinting off the marble of the columns, stones and statues and washing out
their features, the slanting rays of the late afternoon light worked a kind of
magic on the lifeless rock, breathing new depth and texture and color into
everything. As the background sky assumed a deeper azure blue with the
declining sun angle, the marble began to glow in pigments of cream, yellow,
tan, tawny. The evening breezes cooled the Acropolis that sits so commandingly
above the city. I could imagine many ancient Athenians would have found it
their favorite time of the day on the sacred site.
All the day’s lessons came back to me as I
slowly walked about photographing, finding scene after scene essentially
framing my thoughts. After a while I had the pictures I wanted. I found an
ancient marble bench and sat to pray the Rosary in the dimming light before the
site guards began herding stragglers back to the exit (“exodus” in Greek).
Later, I discovered I sat at a place that, in
the long and varied history of the site, had been an Eastern Christian church,
then Catholic cathedral. History and continuity combine in a complex, and
significant, way in this part of the world.
The Propylaea
on the west side of the Acropolis of Athens, October 2012. Horizontal lines or
breaks in the fluted or grooved columns mark the stacked sections of “drums”
that form the tall columns, indicating how these tall pillars were constructed
in ancient Greco-Roman architecture.
Power
versus Wisdom
People are predisposed, of course, to read the
past in terms they are familiar with from the present. From today’s
perspective, many assume that the cultural peaks in Athenian democracy (from the
Greek demos = people, and kratos = power) represented by the construction
of the Parthenon were bright markers on a straight path to secular American and
western democracy, a path that broke decisively at its origins from the myths
and superstitions of primitive religions. But the past was a different place
and the story was not that simple. The starting point on that path was perhaps
not where some today may suppose.
The mythos (μῦθος; Greek = word,
speech, tale, saying) behind the Parthenon operates
at many levels. In any event, the story is instructive, as it was intended to
be. The Athenians at the time of the construction
of the Parthenon looked to mythic King Cecrops (Κέκροψ)
as a founder Athens. He was supposed to have introduced Athenians to the
institution of marriage (as contrasted to promiscuous coupling that occurred
before), reading and writing, and dignified ceremonial burial of their dead. It
was clear to Athenians that these civilizational traits were foundational to
their power and success, especially in comparison to surrounding peoples. Also, according to the mythos, Cecrops was said
to have been the first to set up altars and
statues to the gods, and offered them sacrifices, although he was said to have
forbidden the sacrifice of any living creatures. King Cecrops was said to have
taught his subjects the art of navigation, so useful to a people inhabiting a peninsula.
Some stories make him the founder of the areopagus. Areopagus, is the composite
form of the Greek words Areios Pagos, or the Rock of
Ares (Greek: Ἄρειος Πάγος). It is located north-west of the Acropolis of Athens,
and was the final court of appeal for criminal and civil cases.
Areopagus,
or the Rock of Ares, also known from the Latin as “Mars Hill,” north-west of
the Acropolis of Athens, October 2012. This was a place where arguments were
presented in legal appeals. This was the location of the scene involving St.
Paul as described in the Book of Act, Chapter 17.
King Cecrops, a demi-god himself, called upon
Athena and Poseidon to see which of them would become protector/patron god of
the city. Athena and Poseidon developed an intense rivalry over this honor and
were about to attack each other – always an occasion for otherwise inexplicable
human suffering in the form of earthquakes, storms, volcanoes, floods and other
disasters. But Athena, with her characteristic wisdom, suggested instead that
they should stage a contest for the city, with King Cecrops as the judge.
Whoever provided the best gift to the city would gain the reward of the city
itself as the prize.
As a huge crowd of citizens of Athens watched,
the two gods went up to the Acropolis to present their gifts. Poseidon, the god
of the sea (and sometimes of earthquakes) went first. He lifted his
three-pointed spear (trident) and struck the ground, causing the earth to
tremble. A spring burst forth and produced a sea. The people were delighted,
until they went close to it and found the water salty – an inevitable
consequence of a gift from the god of the sea.
Plaster reconstruction
of the sculptures that formed the apex of the west pediment of the Parthenon,
New Acropolis Museum, Athens. Athena (with spear and shield, left) and Poseidon (with trident, right) are contesting
for the patronage of the city of Athens. The gift of Athena that determined the
outcome, the olive tree, is seen between and behind the two contesting deities.
The Parthenon was a tangible reminder and exhortation to the citizens of
Athens, built at the very height of its golden age, to value wisdom over raw
power, however, superficially attractive the latter.
Athena, on the other hand, was far less
dramatic. Armed with a spear, she quietly knelt on the ground and either
inserted the spear into the rock or buried something. It grew to be an olive
tree. The people of Athens gained olives to eat, olive oil for lamps and to
cook food, and wood for their houses and boats. They saw her gifts as much more
useful. Cecrops declared her the winner and patron goddess of Athens. As a
final act of rage for his loss, supposedly Poseidon cursed the city with a lack
of fresh water, which continues to this day. In this way, quiet wisdom defeated
the superficial attraction of raw power.
At the most fundamental level, this origin mythos
poses the idea that it is better for a people to grow their own food (and thus
take control of their own fate) than to seek even unstoppable power to plunder
neighbors for what they need. The basis for making this distinction is not as
far-fetched as it may at first seem to a modern reader. The neighboring Greek
city-state of Sparta was built on military power, institutionalized slave
labor, and political power monopolized by a highly restricted elite. Taken
further, the Golden Age of Athens (sometimes called the Age of Pericles) was
built on civic wisdom, literary and artistic works, many of which survive to
this day, and the strength that comes from civic pride. The people of Athens
were reminded, in a particularly visible way by the Parthenon, to take this
lesson to heart, and it became part of the civic cult of Athenian, western, and
world civilization.
The temple
building known as the Erectheum, at the Acropolis of Athens, October 2012.
The Erectheum was built between 421 and 406 B.C. and held some of the
most ancient and holy relics of the Athenians, including (1) the supposed marks
from Poseidon’s trident and the salt water well or salty sea that sprang up
from Poseidon's strike, (2) the claimed sacred olive tree that sprouted when
Athena struck the rock of the Acropolis with her spear and (3) the supposed
burial places of the mythical kings Cecrops and Erechtheus.
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