Athens’ greatest treasure, many Athenians would say, is the National Garden, the former private garden of the King and Queen, situated behind the Greek Parliament on Amalias. To escape the hectic pace of the city, we wander through the garden gates into a hushed world where narrow pathways wind round sub-tropical trees. Designed by Queen Amalia, first Queen of Greece and lover of gardens, the National Gardens originally contained over 15,000 flowers and trees from around the world. In The Colossus of Maroussi (1941) Henry Miller wrote that the Gardens remained in his memory like no other park. Modern statuary of celebrated Greek poets and national leaders stand round sudden corners amongst fountains and wildlife. Ancient fragments and a mosaic floor of a Roman villa lie hidden near a duck pond. Peacocks strut round a neoclassical pavilion and the sounds of fun and laughter further along the secluded, tree-lined paths lead us to a small lake near a tiny monkey zoo and a children’s playground.
On leaving this haven we walk along heavily-congested Amalias in the shade of yellow cassia and green fig trees, before reaching recently discovered Roman baths and Hadrian’s Arch at a traffic-filled junction. Revered by the Greeks and Romans, the fig of Attica, so sacred was it held, had in the sixth century BC been banned from export out of Greece. And it is said that Xerxes’ plans to invade the country centered around his passion for the figs of Attica. Soft pink-blossomed Judas trees, efflorescent and in full bloom, line the noisy avenue; as we pass the statue of Lord Byron dying in the arms of Greece, the scents of pink oleander cross our path.
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Hadrian’s Arch, connecting the Emperor’s new town to ancient Athens, marked an ancient road linking the Acropolis to the Olympeion. The land slopes down from Lykabettos to the riverbed of the sacred Ilissos. The gateway, close to the river, was built by the Athenians in 131 in honour of their emperor. Surrounded by wild flowers, it consists of two layers, a lower Roman arch through which people and animals could pass, crowned by a series of Corinthian columns and a pediment. Through the upper arches of the pediment can be seen the long ridge of Hymettos. Two inscriptions are carved on the architrave, the Acropolis side reading ‘This is Athens, the ancient city of Theseus’; the second, on the side facing the new city reads ‘This is the city of Hadrian and not of Theseus’.
Beyond this monumental entrance soar the Corinthian columns of the Olympeion. Situated outside the city, the temple was built on the site of an earlier temple dedicated to Zeus. Set against the blue-grey slopes of Hymettos, the remaining fifteen columns present a vision of majesty and power. Begun by the Peisistrati tyrants in the sixth century BC and frequently abandoned, the temple was finally completed over six hundred years later in 131 by Emperor Hadrian, one of the great benefactors to Athens and the Roman Empire.
Honoured as a god by the Athenians, set to make the city the cultural capital of the Empire, Hadrian set up the Panhellenion League, an organisation of Hellenes from Greek city-states across the Greek-speaking world, its purpose being to unite all Greeks reconciled under Roman rule. A huge enclave was installed round the temple within which, perhaps, meetings of the Panhellenios and the annual Panhellenia festival took place. Embellishing the city with a Pantheon, aqueducts, a library and a nymphaeum, he extended his new town to the other side of the Ilissos, doubling the size of the city. An admirer of Greek culture, Hadrian encouraged the growth of philosophical schools and revived the sciences. Restoring beauty to the city of Athens at the time of an expanding empire, he revitalized Athenian life.
The Olympeion consisted of 104 columns arranged in double and triple colonnades. It contained a huge gold and ivory statue of Zeus seated on an elaborate throne. Half-draped, the god held a Victory in one hand, and a sceptre in the other. It was modelled on the Phidias statue of Zeus at Olympia, carved around 432 BC, and considered one of the seven wonders of the world. The largest cult statue of antiquity, the statue of Zeus stood next to one of Hadrian himself, identified with the Olympeion Zeus. Numerous statues of the emperor, dedicated by Greek cities, were scattered around the forecourt of the Olympeion and throughout the city. How magnificently carved are the remaining Corinthian capitals, decorated with the Egyptian acanthus motif. What authority. Everlasting symbol of imperial power, in 131 the temple was referred to by the Roman poet, Julia Babilla, as absolute perfection and beauty, created by power, described by Elizabeth Speller in her interesting book, Following Hadrian (2004).
By the mid-fifteenth century eighty of the temple’s columns had collapsed. Having fallen into disuse over time, the neglected temple was eventually used as a church. The Italian traveller, Cyriacus of Ancona, in 1436 saw only twenty-one of the original 104 columns. Another column was ground down in 1760 by the Turkish governor to be used in the construction of the Tsisdarakis mosque in Monastiraki, for which the culprit was eventually punished. Strewn across the ground, the massive drums of another column blown down in a hurricane remain as they fell.
Entering the sanctuary, we pass part of the ancient city wall and a Roman bath complex, before following the route round the temple that the Roman emperors would have followed. Ahead rises the peak of Lykabettos, crowned with the white chapel of St George, from where at midnight on Easter Sunday, hundreds of Orthodox candle-holding worshippers will wend their way down the slopes into the streets of the city below. Looking back, between the tall office blocks of modern Athens, the sheer rock of the Acropolis is barely visible, whilst before us lies Hymettos. Further on (across the river in Hadrian’s time) sits the Stadium on the edge of Ardettos Hill and to our left, spreading outwards, the modern city. Walking round behind the temple, on the south side, we look over the Ilissos valley excavation site. Near the river bed ran the fountain of Kalirrhoe, the ‘pleasantly flowing’ spring, which supplied the ancient city with drinking water. It was on the banks of the Illisos, Plato wrote in Phaedrus (370 BC), that Socrates strolled with his pupils and prayed at the cave of Pan, the shepherd god. From along these banks, legend tells us, Boreas, Greek god of the north wind carried off the beautiful maiden Oreithia, daughter of King Erechtheus, whilst she was gathering flowers.
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Leaving the Olympeion, we walk round the south side towards the nineteenth-century church of St Foteini, sole survivor of a series of churches and monuments in the valley, destroyed by the Ottoman governor to build a defense wall. The sounds of a howling baby draw us down a deserted path where around a hundred brightly-dressed guests have gathered for a baptism, a major event in a Greek Orthodox family. Pausing to peer inside to see an Orthodox Baptism ceremony, we glimpse a world of silver and candles, the aroma of oil permeating the air. In the centre a Pappas in a long black cassock and surrounded by admiring relatives, immerses a screaming baby three times into a large baptismal font, symbolizing the three days that Christ spent in the tomb. A Godparent, waiting to receive the baptized child, holds out a large white towel to wrap the infant in. Tip-toeing away from the family occasion, the scent of almonds draws our eyes to a recessed buffet display of traditional gifts and bundles of coloured, freshly-sugared almonds and sweets. Easter desserts wrapped in frilly pink tulle and baptismal candles tied with satin ribbons represent a 3,000 year old tradition and symbolize the hope that life will be blessed with more sweetness than bitterness.
Within a few meters of the church, cut into a rock, can be seen the bare cavern dedicated to Pan. Not far off, a short section of the riverbed of the Ilissos which flows down from Hymettos, is just visible amongst reed beds under a modern flyover. A strong reminder of what was one of two streams that flowed through Athens, this patch of river bed evokes an area that was in the past both a holy precinct and a stretch of idyllic landscape.
We continue on our way eastwards towards a modern athletics track and the foundations of what was the most glorious church in Byzantine Athens. On an islet on the dried-up Ilissos, lie the ruins of the Ilissos Basilica next to the tomb of the martyred Bishop Leonides of Athens (closed to public at time of writing). Traditionally founded around AD 400 at the beginning of the Christian era by the pious Empress Eudocia, the basilica was built as a shrine to the bishop. The oldest surviving remains of a Christian church in Athens, the walls and floor were decorated with marble and colourful mosaics of plants and birds. These remnants of carved decoration and detailed mosaic pavement, now in the Byzantine Museum, bear witness to what must have been a wonder for all to see and visit. In the museum’s Mosaic Collection are displayed marble and glass decorations combining Roman and Christian traditions from the entrance and sanctuary area of the Ilissos Basilica.
Across the dual carriageway, on what was the north river bank, lie the scant remains of the temple of Artemis Agrotera, Greek Goddess of Hunting. The rural goddess Artemis was commemorated annually here with the sacrifice of five hundred goats on the anniversary of the Battle of Marathon. Transformed into a Christian basilica in the fifth century, converted into a Roman Catholic chapel by the Venetians, it was rebuilt in the seventeenth century as the domed Blessed Virgin on the Rock (Panayia stin Petra). It was named, one tradition says, after a stone where Demeter, goddess of vegetation and farming, sat mourning the abduction of her daughter Persephone by the smitten Hades, Lord of the Underworld.
Further along from the basilica on King Constantine Avenue sits the Kallimarmaro, the ‘beautifully marbled’ stadium, home in 1896 of the revival of the ancient Olympic Games. Celebration of the human body and athletics had been a central part of ancient religion, each event being devoted to a different god or goddess. Bronzed, stripped athletes aimed for one of the highest honors of the ancient Greek world – to be the winner in a Greek religious, athletic contest, earning the esteem of fellow countrymen and the award of a laurel wreath. Gymnastics, an essential preparation for life, entailed a disciplined mind and the spiritual and physical perfection of the body, and was deemed crucial to defend the city.
Built for the athletic competitions of the Great Panathenaia, the 60,000 seater modern stadium was rebuilt at the end of the nineteenth century by the Alexandrian Greek benefactor, George Averoff, and coincided with the growing popularity of athletic competitions across Europe. Modelled on the rebuilding undertaken by Herodes Atticus in the second century and set in a natural hollow alongside the Ilissos, the structure under the Romans was used for gladiatorial contests and wild beast shows. One thousand animals had been introduced and slaughtered for the Athenians by Hadrian. Closed by a portico with mosaic-floored side-rooms, the stadium with its Doric colonnade was described by Pausanius as a glory to behold. Entered by a temporary bridge thrown over the river for the crowds to enter in March 1896, the Kallimarmaro held the first officially recognized Olympic Games since the banning of pagan practices by Emperor Theodosius I in 393/4.
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We cross the square towards the Zappeion exhibition buildings, constructed for the fencing competitions of the revived Olympic Games and in which the Council of Europe meets. Cutting into the gardens, drawn by the indistinct sounds of Athenians lingering over coffee, we pause at the garden café for a break, treating ourselves to coffee and yoghurt with honey syrup and cinnamon, before venturing up Irodhou Attikou, past the Presidential palace towards the Byzantine Museum. Before reaching Vasilissis Sophias, we turn right into Rigilis to look for the foundations of the wrestling school and Lyceum of Aristotle, the greatest thinker of his time. Built within a sanctuary to Apollo Lykeios, the site included a gymnasium, military and athletic training facilities and an area for meetings of the Athenian Assembly. Having studied at Plato’s Academy in the mid-fourth century BC and served as a private tutor in Macedonia to the young Alexander the Great, Aristotle returned to Athens, and taught at the Lyceum before founding the 334 BC Peripatetic School of Philosophy. After visiting the ruins we turn right up Vasilissis Sophias towards the Byzantine Museum. Constructed in 1848 over an aristocrat’s villa on the banks of the Ilissos, part of the courtyard entrance is made up of late Roman pavement mosaics.
Tracing the rise of art from the ancient Greek world to the twentieth centuries, the Byzantine Museum with multilevel underground galleries exhibits architectural and devotional objects from Christianised temples throughout the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine worlds. Rooms laid out like Byzantine churches include an adaptation of an early Christian basilica, a typical mid-Byzantine cruciform church, and a post-Byzantine single-aisle chapel. All three churches demonstrate the gradual changes in church interiors over the centuries, revealing the transformation of the ancient Greek spirit into an expression of deep spirituality. A collection of 3,500 Icons, an integral part of the Orthodox faith, are exhibited alongside sculptural decoration of churches including the Christian Parthenon and Erechtheion. Illuminated manuscripts, fragments of frescoes, mosaics, sarcophagi and artefacts of everyday life illustrate how the Christian church absorbed pagan symbols.
Individual items of interest are the fourth-century marble statues, The Good Shepherd and Orpheus Playing a Lyre to Animals. Noteworthy is the marble relief of the Virgin Hodegetria (‘Leader’) from Thessaloniki, an eleventh-century marble slab with a relief Tree of Life between lions. Noteworthy Mosaic Icons of the Virgin Mary and Child, frescoes and artefacts representing the empire’s one-thousand year history and the post-Byzantine period are: the thirteenth century double-sided Icon of St George (one side painted, the other sculpted) and the Mosaic Icon of the Virgin Glycophilousa (The Sweetly Kissing Virgin), brought over from Asia Minor in 1922 by refugees; many fourteenth-century double-sided processional icons of the Virgin Hodegetria from Constantinople workshops; a full-length Franco-Byzantine wall-painting of St Catherine. Not to be missed are: the fourteenth century gold and silver embroidered three-panelled epitaphios from Thessaloniki, depicting the Lamentation over the body of Christ; the eighteenth century mosaic of the Virgin Galaktotrophousa (Mary Breastfeeding her Child); Post-Byzantine wall paintings including seventeenth-century frescoes from the Church of Episcopi and from Saint Andrew’s convent, and the Franco-Byzantine Virgin of the Catalans, found in the ruins of St Elijah Church in the Athenian Agora.