Date: March 31
Partners for the day: Katherine (text) Nkosi (images)
Site(s): Areopagus, Akropolis, Pynx, Mouseion Hill, road through the deme of Koile
Museum(s): Akropolis Museum
Principal Buildings/Monuments: Propylaia, Temple of Athena Nike, Parthenon, Monument of Philopappos, “Prison of Sokrates,” the “Kimoneia”
Time Spent on Each Site: Akropolis: from ca. 8:30 to ca. 11:30 [ __3__ hours], Pynx and surrounding area: from ca. 12:30 to ca. 2:30 [ __2__ hours]
Weather: Mostly Cloudy, Windy, Chilly, Scattered Showers
This morning we climbed up to the Akropolis, stopping for a short break at the Areopagus (meeting place of the council of elders) along the way. We were allowed special access to areas of the Propylaia normally restricted to visitors (this included climbing down behind the south wing), though we were denied access to the bastion of the Temple of Athena Nike. We also had special access to the Parthenon. We were able to go behind the ropes right up to the building, and actually go inside (followed by a dog that joined us for most of our Parthenon tour). We took a quick tour through the Akropolis Museum, which we will return to tomorrow, then headed back down to warm up and take a lunch break. After lunch, we met our guest lecturer, Björn Forsén, who took us to see the site of the Pynx (meeting place of the assembly), as well as several other sites and monuments in the area, including an ancient road through the deme Koile, the “Prison of Sokrates” (which was never a prison for Sokrates), the “Kimoneia” (which was a tomb once thought to be associated with the famous Kimon), and the Monument of Philopappos (a tomb for a wealthy member of the former royal family of Commagene, built during the Roman period).
Today gave us our first taste of the variable climate of Greece. Our first few days here had been mild, but today was cloudy, cold, and windy. We were practically blown off the Areopagus, and the wind was very strong on the Akropolis as well. Most of the pictures we had seen in our classes showed the Parthenon gleaming brightly in the sun, but there was no sun today. We actually caught a few drops of rain when we were at the Pynx. The sunny Greece of our collective imagination was slightly different today. We learned the hard way that the ancient Greeks had to contend with the same elements that we do.
Today also gave us a huge sense of perspective. This is particularly true concerning the spatial relationship of well-known ancient Athenian sites. In our classes, we often treated individual sites or monuments separately, in order to look at them in-depth. Seeing so many sites today really gave us a better sense of how the ancient city worked together as a system. The Areopagus is right below the Akropolis, and overlooks the Agora. The Akropolis is high enough that you can see the port of Piraeus and the sea from the top. The Parthenon was used as a powder magazine under the Ottoman Empire, and was damaged in an explosion caused by Venetian cannonballs in 1687. The cannons were stationed on Mouseion Hill, near the Monument of Philopappos, and the damage to the Parthenon can clearly be seen from the hill. We also gained perspective in terms of the scale of the architecture, from the massive column drums of the Parthenon to the huge blocks used in the third stage of the Pynx, to the small size of the Nike temple (or rather, the site of the Nike temple, since the temple itself has been removed).
The difference in size between the ancient city and the modern city can be difficult to comprehend. This difference was driven home today not only by the proximity of the sites to each other, but also during Dr. Forsén’s lecture. He told us that the orientation of the Pynx was changed between its first and second building stages. The reason Pausanias gives for this was that the new orientation would face the speakers’ platform out onto the country. Dr. Forsén pointed out away from the speakers’ platform as he said this. Today the platform faces not the countryside, but the sprawling modern city of Athens, with buildings in every direction, right up to the mountains. Guest Lecturer Leda Costaki told us a few days ago that Athens had actually been rather small until it was chosen to be Greece’s new capital after the Greek Revolution in the 19th century. The discrepancy between the size of the ancient city and that of the modern really helps you to appreciate the ancient Athenian (and really, all Greek) achievements all the more.