Sparta

February 23, 2007

Sparta, Greece

Yesterday was another bright and early wake up call, some quick packing and another bus trip to another area on the Peloponnese—the city of Sparta, which was well known for its strong fighters in ancient times.

Our first stop was at Tegea, the site of an ancient greek temple dedicated to the goddess of Athena Alea. We stopped by a roadside in the center of the city and piled out of the van to walk to an area with tons of scattered blue stones. Only the platform of the temple is still remaining, the rest of the column drums are scattered in massive blocks around the perimeter of the platform. It looked as though we were playing jenga and we had finally reached the point where the last block is removed and the entire tower comes tumbling down. The sky was misty and the fog hung around the scattered stones. This temple looked like it must have been huge, we could stand on the column drums two at a time with no problems. After playing in the ruins for a bit, we continued on to our next site—ancient Sparta.

Disppointingly, Sparta does not contain a huge amount of mounuments like Athens does on its acropolis. In fact, much of the remains date to the Roman period, during which Sparta was a pretty important city. We moved to the remains of the theater in Sparta, which was claimed to be the second largest theater in the peoloponnese, but it did not look so big to me—not nearly as big as the theater of Epidauros. However, much of the stone seating had been erased with time so it was difficult to tell how big the actual theater was. As we were sitting getting lectured, from the top of the theater came a whistling noise, and we looked up to see a strange little man gesticulating wildly at us from his high perch. We all looked, and he shouted again and began dancing and throwing his hands in the air. He descended the slope, singing and dancing the entire way down, and came and addressed the group completely in Greek. Toumazou was looking at him the whole time with a puzzled expression on his face; apparently all that the old man was doing was speaking in gibberish. Eventually he seemed satisfied with whatever one sided conversation he was having with us, so he left, and Toumazou resumed the lecture.

Apparently one of the special things about this theater, built in the Roman period, was that it employed an elaborate skene (the building that sat behind the stage and looked like background decoration) that could be pulled on tracks to the parados, behind the seating area. We walked around all of the buildings in search of the tracks, eventually finding a bit of an entablature piece that might have had grooves in it, an ancient roman brick building with holes in the roof that we were actually standing upon—better hope that the famous roman barrel vauting holds after so many thousands of years—before finally finding what looked like tracks in the ground. After exploring for a bit, we walked up to the same area that the strange man had come from and walked to the top of the theater and over to some more ancient buildings. We walked through a grove of trees that contained the ancient blocks to some building that were laid out in neat rows, like someone had assembled the parts but had not figured out how to fit them all together yet.

The next place we visited was located in modern Sparta proper. Called the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, it was a prominent place for a mystery cult for Spartan men. The sanctuary is located down this dusty dirt road, and we had to hop over the fence to enter the sanctuary, which consisted of the remains of a rather odd temple that contained no peristyle around it, a theater that enclosed the temple on two sides, and a small altar. The temple dates from a much earlier time than the theater area, and was constructed when the Romans got wind of the religious rite that would take place there and decided that it would be fun to watch.

The religious ritual that took place at the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia was a very odd one, and perhaps added to the image that we have of the Spartans as being kind of crazy and bloodthirsty. Orthia was a local goddess of fertility and the harvest that was joined with the panhellenic goddess Artemis, and at some ancient point in Spartan history the Spartans offended the goddess. She sent a plague to punish the city, and the city consulted an oracle to rid them of the plague. The oracle told them that they needed to “wet the altar of Orthia with blood”. To the early Spartans, this meant human sacrifice. However, later, in order to tone down their brutality, the ritual changed into a form of bloodletting through whipping. According to legend, the Spartans would place a block of cheese on the altar. Spartan boys who had been left hungry for a while would run up to the altar and try to steal the cheese, but in order to do so they would have to pass through a gauntlet of elders who would whip them, sometimes to the point of death. This was viewed by many as a kind of initiation rite in which the Spartans would prove just how tough, or how hungry, they really were. If you weren’t brave, you wouldn’t get fed.

On the way out of the sanctuary, we noticed a small group of gypsy kids (which Toumazou had told us inhabited the area) who waved and started yelling at us in Greek. One of the little girls was brandishing a small hand saw, and they all pointed and laughed very loudly as us as we left the area. None of us could understand what they were saying, but Toumazou informed us later that it was some of the filthiest language you could use. Ouch.

Continuing on, we made our way up to the Menelaion, which was supposed to be the mycenean palace in which King Menelaeus lived. The walk was very long and VERY severely uphill, but it was all worth it once we got to the top of the hill and could look out over the whole area of ancient and modern Sparta set out below us. This was a true panorama of unobstructed views—the city nestled down between two soaring mountain ranges, the river running between, and the ruins and modern buildings with the white walls and the red roofs. The site was not much to see—the ruins of another temple base and a megaron that was added to in a few phases that were very difficult to distinguish from one another. On the far edge of the site from the ancient ruins was a small Greek orthodox temple with a terracotta roof and a bell that we could ring. After walking around the ruins, we made the long journey down the very steep slope. Me and Katie and Dan lagged behind a bit, and I collected wildflowers along the way… I even spotted a wild iris that smelled wonderful, and took pictures and admired the views until we reached the bottom.

That night, I took my test, so nothing really that special happened. After the test I felt really restless and amped up, so I went down to the mezzanine level to begin reading A Room of One’s Own. I really just wanted to do something for myself instead of for class, I needed a break from constant ancient sites and ancient literature. However, I had not gotten far before I ran into Jarrett, who had returned from poaching internet from outside. We got into a long conversation about Davidson and the strangeness of the trip and the fact that the 20 of us are going to be stuck in a self contained social circle for 4 months (which when you think about it is a very unusual condition), and places in Europe. I had not really gotten a chance to talk to him much yet, and I really enjoyed being able to talk to him, especially as a Davidson Grad who was making his way in the world. Very cool.

Then it was bed—a later wake up call for today! I slept all of the way until 7:30.

Today we visited Mystras, which although is a little bit out of the timeframe of classical studies was probably one of my favorite sites to visit so far. If I had felt earlier like I was stepping out of time, this was a real time warp, as we moved into the medieveal Byzantine empire.

More on this tomorrow.