A Day at Delphi

(ATHENS, GREECE) Wednesday Dec. 16, we took a day trip to Delphi. Our driver was named Mike and he was excellent. Along the way--it was about two and half hours outside Athens--we stopped at the new Olympic stadium, an olive oil factory, a cheese store, a touristy place in this skiing village where we bought a pair of gloves and a statue of Hermes. At Delphi, the main attraction is the Temple of Apollo where oracles would breath in fumes and make with the prophesies. As I said in my previous Athens post, this reminds me on when Steeve Reeves went to the Oracle at Delphi and she told him something about not displeasing his father Zeus. He was to stay on earth for a while. Then it rained and Steeve got all those gorgeous muscles soaking wet and... but I digress.

There was also the temple of Athena and a museum with the finer pieces and statues found at the temple. The temple was set in a mountain and it meant a long climb up. Afterwards, as it was getting dark, one of Jerry's therapist colleagues wanted to see the crossroads where Oedipus killed his father Laius. Mike was not familiar with the spot, but he found out from another driver named George where it was. Evidently, once in 15 years someone had asked to see it. There is no sign or plaque or anything to mark the legendary encounter. There was a memorial to an accident victim (pictured). There are dozens of these along the road from Athens to Delphi. Simple boxes mounted on poles with pictures of the victim, flowers, icons, etc. They are like folk art and I took a picture of the one by the Oedipus crossroads. If I were a professional photographer I would go to Greece and take pictures of all these home-made memorials.

One more thing about Hercules: I used to watch the TV cartoon series in the 1960s and it totally departed from the classic myths. In this version, which came on Sundays on this cheesey local Philadelphia kid's show hosted by a clown named Lorzeno,Herc has a magic ring which gave him his super strength and an annoying sidekick--a centaur named Newton. There was also a girlfriend named Helena, an evil wizard named Daedalus, and a witch named Wilhelmina who has a parrot. None of these elements occured in ancient Greece, except Daedalus was a kind inventor who was the father of Icarus.

Stopolis at the Acropolis or It's Just a Big Pile of Rocks

(ATHENS, GREECE) I arrived here in Athens Sunday morning after a flight which left JFK on Saturday afternoon. I took some anti-jet lag pills and felt fine. (Delta is pretty cheap by the way, they don't even have those TV sets in the back of the seats.) Jerry and his colleagues were off to their conference, so I looked in the guide book and discovered the guard was changed in front of the Parliment building at 11AM every Sunday. If I hurried I would just make it. I found the metro (notice that only in America is it called the subway) and saw the elaborate ceremony with the soliders in their traditional uniforms with the white skirts, tasselled slippers, and funny hats. There are 400 pleats in each skirt for the 400 years of Turkish occupation.

Then I walked to the flea market and from there to the Acropolis area. It was a long walk, but I finally found it. Across the street was Hadrian's Gate and the remains of the temple of Olympian Zeus which is a series of huge columns and a pile of rocks as a result of earthquakes. I then walked up the hill to the Acropolis--steep and tiring. It was actually warm, a shock considering how cold it was in NYC. The Acropolis is a series of temples erected to the gods. The main one is the Parthenon, built to honor Athena, goddess of wisdom and the protector of the city. The pediments--which are reconstructed in the new Acropolis museum--depict the birth of Athena and her contest with Poseidon, her uncle, for the right to be patron of the new city later called Athens in her honor.

The legend goes that Zeus, king of the gods, had a terrible headache. Hepheseus, god of fire and the forge, split his head open with an axe to relieve the pain (they obviously didn't have a public option) and out sprang Athena, fully grown in armor and full of her father's wisdom. I'm sure Zeus said, "What the hell was that?" The other pediment depicts Athena's contest with her uncle Poseidon, Zeus's brother, for control of the city. Poseidon struck the earth and produced a sword. Athena did the same and out sprang an olive tree-symbol of peace. Athena won!

My quesion is how does this jibe with all those Hercules movies starring dreamy Steeve Reeves? And does it overlap with the Thor comics where Hercules fights Thor and somehow Asgard and Mount Olympus both exist in the modern world? Jack Kirby later offers a different explanation in his The Eternals.

Anyway, we all got together and had drinks at the Hotel Bretany. On Monday, we visited the Archaeological Museum with plenty of hot male statues. Tuesday, we went back to the Acropolis--I was the only one who had already been. We--myself, Jerry and two colleagues--hired a guide named Athena who explained quite a bit while the winds howled and dogs followed us barking and humping each other. There are a lot of stray dogs and cats around the Acropolis, but not as many as in Istanbul. I was surprised there was no audio guide you could rent. After all, this is one of the most famous--if not THE most famous--spots in the world. Probably guides like Athena who are unionized fought tooth and nail to prevent this potential dent in their income.

After the Acropolis, we walked through the Agora, the ancient marketplace where most of the Athenians did their daily thing. The most interesting site was the prison where Socrates was executed for thinking a bit too freely. He drank hemlock. There was nothing left of the site. But it was moving to think a philosopher could be killed for exercising freedom of thought--and it still happens today.

The next day we took a day trip to Delphi which I will detail in the next post.