Delphi

February 28, 2007

Delphi, Greece

Yesterday was one of the longest on-site days that I think we have had this entire trip. We spent longer at Delphi than we would have spent in class in a week at Davidson. I will never complain about a long Tuesday/Thursday or seminar class ever again. Not that I really minded: Delphi is one of the biggest sites that exists in the ancient world, and there is so much to do and see that we couldn’t help but be absorbed by it all day.

We woke up early as usual at the hotel, grabbed our breakfast and packed our lunch—on a kind of random side note, the yogurt that they have here in Greece is really thick and unflavored, which I did not like at first, but at breakfast yesterday I realized that I really liked being able to add just a little bit of honey and jelly to the yogurt to make it sweet, but not sickly sweet. I’ll have to try it when I get home. We bundled up and headed out to the site, which was a short walk away along a mountain road overlooking a steep valley with a blue panorama of the sky and the clouds above. The morning was slightly overcast and gave the whole atmosphere a muffled feeling that lent an air of secrecy and mystery to the whole morning. In my mind’s eye I could see that priestess of Delphi seated atop her chair with vapors swirling around her spitting out cryptic utterances and swaying back and forth in the fits of a trance. The day was ripe for it, and the setting was no less appropriate.

The first part of the site we visited was the area called the sanctuary of Athena Pronaia, which means “foresight”. Located at the far eastern end of the whole complex, this place was the entrance area for all those seeking the oracle of Apollo. We walked down an embankment on the side of the road and entered a place with tumbled down rocks clinging to the edges of the mountain, and a tholos where three lonely columns had been reerected and stood in stark white contrast to the dark aged stones which lay in the grass around us. There were remains of numerous temples and treasuries here, but the tholos was by far the most impressive, probably because it remained the most complete. Very similarly to the tholos at Epidauros, this tholos was a circular building with a peristyle of columns on the outside of the Doric order, and an inner engaged collonade of Corinthian columns. Like the other tholos, we generally have no idea what this one was used for, except that it probably served some religious or ritual function. I just liked the image it presented among all of the dreary grays and overgrown nature of the other stones—this had been reerected and a shadow of it was still proud enough to face the sky. The rest of the stones lay like so many scattered blocks, covered with bold spots of lichen and half buried in the grass. One of the old temples that lay on this part of the site had been rebuilt a few times, and the scattered capitals of the temple gave evidence to its development. Lying side by side in the grass were two versions of the Doric capital—one large squat and bulging, and the other slim and straight. Both, however, had not stood the test of time and lay just like the columns that had supported them, lost and forgotten…

We moved through the rest of this lower complex to see the gymnasium facilities, which consisted of a number of square internally colonnaded courtyards, and a building called a xyxtos which was essentially the Greek version of a covered track—a stoa that had been modified to contain no internal divisons that the athletes could use to run the stadion when it was raining outside. Running parallel to the xystos we could see a path for the outdoor track, and a little bit farther away was the palaestra, a building used to train for the combat events. Close into the slope of the hill, and used as a retaining wall for the necessary terracing of the site (it is too steep to build without such retaining walls here, the buildings need a level foundation and so end up in a series of levels depending upon where they are placed on the hillside) is the remains of a Greek bath, complete with holes for water spouts and a small circular pool to wade or bathe in. The whole area was completely self contained—bathe, exercise, and change all in the same location, just like modern gyms tend to be. No modern gymnasium, however, has the air of majesty that surrounds this place. We could look down from the running track and see the entire valley spread out below us. Pretty cool.

On the way to the big part of the site, we passed a small but essential place for the ancient Greeks—the Castalia spring, which was supposedly situated on the place where the god Apollo killed an evil dragon that had been causing sickness throughout the country. Here where the dragon fell, a spring of fresh sweet water emerged that was used for ritual purification and it was believed that if you bathed in the spring, you could become a poet. Although there was a security guard nearby preventing us from actually being able to douse ourselves in the water, we moved to where a man made spigot brought the water past the fence blocking us from the fountainhead and we all took a sip of the water, which really was quite sweet and refreshing.

By now, however, the overcast skies had turned a good deal more threatening looking, and we walked up toward the main part of the sanctuary dreading the possibility of taking notes in the rain all day. Especially with such a big site. Sam started to deliver his report on oracles and divination and about half way through it started sprinkling. We all hunched farther over our notebooks feebly trying to protect them from the rain, but it was of no avail. I was writing over pages that had been wetted by the rain and were unusable—the ink ran transparent and started running down the page. Toumazou luckily saw the state of events and the looks on our faces and suggested that we go to the museum while the weather was bad, returning to the site when (hopefully) it had stopped raining. So we entered the museum.

The museum was pretty big and contained objects from a number of different time periods. There was, as always, the requisite koroi statues that seemed to be present in every single Greek archaeology museum. This time it was a set of twins, perhaps representing the sons of Helen, Castor and Polloux, who stood rigidly side by side in their wooden poses. We saw a number of statues from the numerous treasuries that dotted the site. The Athenain treasury, done in Doric style, showed a number of metopes dealing with the adventures of Herakles and Theseus, including an excellent metope that appears in many art history textbooks of an extremely muscled Herakles in an arching jump over the Carynean Hind, sword in hand (now broken), about to deliver the death blow. The metope is impressive for the bold stance of the hero and the dynamism of the pose, as well as the obvious knowledge of musculature, but still shows some awkwardness in movement that would not disappear until after the Parthenon sculptures about 80 years later. We saw sculptures that once resided on the Tholos, and large portrait like sculptures done by the famous sculptor Lysippos, who was also responsible for the famous sculpture of the Apoxyomenos (the oil scraper), a sculpture that once and for all broke the tradition of frontality that began with the kouroi. This particular sculpture was of an athlete belonging to a wealthy family in Thessaly, and contains the new canon of proportions that we saw the previous day in the statue of Hermes by Praxiteles, a taller, leaner frame and softer modeling, and a small head with eyes that conveyed the beginnings of pathos. Later, the types of expressions that we see only hinted at on the faces of these heroes and athletes will explode when we enter the Hellenistic period, but they are starting here. The indifference of the statuary is gone, replaced with the beginnings of an idealized, dynamic humanity.

To continue, we passed a statue of Antinoos, Hadrian’s lover, a young man with a touseling of locks over his ears, and a strong straight aquiline nose characteristic of the Romans, to see the main exhibit of the whole museum—the Charioteer of Delphi. This scupture dates to around the same time period as the Zeus/Poseidon that we saw in the National Museum, and is important because like that other sculpture, this is an original bronze and NOT a Roman copy. The charioteer is impressive for his size and for his rarity, but other than that I found him to be kind of disappointing. He stands kind of boringly columnar, and not in an archaic/primitive way like the Kouroi but rather a person who has been caught in the act of standing still. His clothes fall straight down around him and he stares off into the distance, his one remaining hand clutching the reins in front of him. I suppose it is important to remember that this statue was originally part of a larger group that included horses and a chariot, which would have made him seem less static. After seeing the Charioteer, we saw the sculpture of the Siphnian treasury, which held a wonderful frieze depicting scenes from the Trojan war, including the fight over Hector’s body after Achilles had so unceremoniously dragged it behind him outside of the walls of Troy.

By this point it was past 1 pm and our eyes were starting to glaze over, and as much as I enjoyed seeing the statuary I was very happy to be out of the museum and let my eyes and feet rest. We were given an hour !!! break and several of us camped out on the steps of the museum to eat the lunch that we had packed and vegetate for a few minutes. The sun had come out and the place was slowly beginning to dry out.

After the break, we continued into the big part of the sanctuary, which was laid out in a zig zag path up the side of the mountain to the Temple of Apollo, and beyond it to the theater and the stadium. We made the hike past tons of dedications and monuments, all designed to showcase the prominence of the city-state that had donated them. Most of the cool stuff from these treasuries is gone from the actual site and only visible in the museum, only the ruined foundations actually remain at Delphi, with the exception of the Athenian treasury which was reconstructed and stands on the terrace just below the Temple of Apollo. It is a Doric treasury, with no exterior collonade, just two columns in antis on the front porch. The sides of it are clean and neat and the building stands in stark contrast to the texture of all the worn stones that lay tumbled around the outside. Continuing on the ascent, we passed another building, a stoa dedicated to the Athenians, that stands in a position of prominence just below the temple itself. And the we passed the stoa, rounded the corner and confronted the Temple itself. This temple is not in as good a state of repair as many of the others we had seen, a few columns remain upright but the rest are scattered around the temple base, but from the plans we could tell that the temple was a longish 6 x 15 with a back porch that was sunken into the ground. Called the adyton, or holiest of holies, this was where the priestess sat and delivered her messages to be interpreted for the oracle. The view from the temple is spectacular though—the few columns stand truncated at different lengths and ascend into the sky, behind which yawns a huge void and then out over empty space the mountains rise in the distance. The day was warm ad sunny by now and the light turned the tops of the stones white in the sun.

We kept ascending the steep slope to be confronted by a great theater, set into the slope of the hillside and containing a nearly complete set of steps that faced out into the valley below. The greeks sure knew how to take advantage of the scenery; I am not sure if I would actually watch the play going on below me or the natural play of the light upon the cliffs behind. We continued walking up an even steeper cliff, past the theater and up behind it, getting to the point where we could look down from below and see the entire theater laid out below us and beyond it the temple and the cliffs and the sky. We were going up to the stadium, and the climb itself was enough to make us all start breathing hard.

We arrived huffing and puffing to the open end of the U of the stadium. Here was the entrance, and I could see the starting blocks at one side, behind which were some niches for statuary, probably added in Roman times. The stadium is very well preserved, and like everything else lies terraced into the side of the mountain. The south side, the one not set into the hillside, has collapsed with the passing of time and only a few of the seats remain. The north side, by contrast, has 12 rows of steps carved into the hillside with a retaining wall to keep the earth back, added much later.

Some notes:
- at the sphendome part of the stadium, two staircases allowed access to the floor of the arena, but the one on the north side has been blocked by the later addition of a wall, and the retaining wall above the bleacher area has been framed by an arched niche that may have held statuary? The arch strikes me as a roman addition, and perhaps the wall dates to the same time period.

-the judges seating is on the north side, at around the same place as at Epidauros and Nemea, but instead of having an entrance tunnel there was simply a way to enter at the open end, similar to at Olympia

-no ceremonial entrance tunnel

-starting blocks at both ends, which also existed at Olympia and at Nemea

This was the last stop of our circuit, and we descended exhausted but happy to have seen all that we saw. I snapped pictures and gawked at the lovely view the whole way, and the entire walk back to the hotel. The sense of vertical space here is awesome, the cliffs just seem to so casually present themselves to the viewer, unaware of their own majesty.

After returning to the hotel, I changed and went out on a run, back toward the sanctuary, and then past it, down a small country road and into the valley. The light was growing more horizontal in the sky and the light started to warm as it came slanting in to greet the cliffs. I descended into the valley and looked around me at the rising cliffs on both sides and the spreading valley below, passing small farmhouses and buildings as I went. I ran all of the way until I could no longer see Delphi, and a small white church rose up ahead of me. When I reached it, I realized that the light was fading fast enough that I needed to turn around and head back. The run back uphill was one of the hardest but one of the most scenic ones I have been on. The light turned the sides of the cliffs red, and as I approached the sanctuary of Delphi I could see the whiteness of the marble and limestone columns stand out against the dark of the hillside behind them. I stopped to drink once again at that sacred spring, and continued my ascent, running right along the edge of the mountain and only stopping when I turned the corner and could see the whole view the opposite direction from the sanctuary, down into the harbor that served Delphi, where the cliffs framed blue green hills that sloped down into the misty water below. Small buildings could be distinguished from the incoming darkness. I continued running back to the hotel and showered quickly.

Dinner was a group affair—our bus driver Spiro had recommended the next town over from Delphi as a good place to eat, so we went and all sat together and ate some traditional greek food. I ordered Spinach Pie, which turned out to be rather too cheesy for my taste, but Scott had some great Pastichio and there was good Souvlaki also. We walked around after dinner, the whole place looked like a little ski town—Columbia and Northface shops alternated with local groceries and confectionaries and greek themed stores. The night was cold but clear and we all stopped at the confectionary for some dessert and coffee before taking the bus home and going to sleep.

The next day we woke up to pack and leave Delphi, on the road to Athens. The day was relatively uneventful, we stopped at two places: Thebes and Eleutherai. The stop at Thebes was very disappointing. For all of its prominence in Greek tragedy—this was the setting for Oedipus and Antigone, as well as the home of Cadmus, the brother of Europa—but everything was buried under the modern city. We were going to stop at the museum, but it ended up being closed, so we sat outside and watched the modern city work as Toumazou lectured on Thebes’ history and the elementary school children walked by and shot us crazy Americans strange looks. Then it was back on the bus.

Eleutherai was a bit more scenic—but before we got there I had my first shocking bathroom experience. We stopped at a little gas station and we walked into the bathroom and opened the stall door to be confronted with a hole in the ground. Complete with little footprints for balance and stability. We were expected to squat and dangle our bottoms over the hole in the ground. The group of us exchanged semi-horrified glances, but we gritted our teeth and did our business. I will never complain about another toilet seat again. Anything beats squatting over a hole in the ground.

Eleutherai was beautiful, although the site pretty much just consisted of a massive fortification wall set into the hillside. We left the bus and trudged up the rocky slope, avoiding numerous cow or goat or some animal piles, picking our way up the hillside, until we got to the top. From there we could see the landscape spread out below us—the moutain pass between Attika and the neighboring region of Euboeia. The walls were regular blocks of stone, punctuated by rectangular towers, and we could scramble up and walk along the top and make our way along the top of the whole mountain to survey the land on both sides below. The view as always was spectacular, but not as rocky as Delphi—here was rolling bright green hills that spread far into the distance. We scrambled around and took pictures for a while and then headed back to the bus, where I promptly fell asleep.

Arriving in Athens was like a type of a homecoming. It felt so nice to be able to recognize and know exactly where I was going and where the grocery store was. Ambrice and Katie and some others went shopping for a while when we arrived at Athens, revisiting the stores that we had seen only a few weeks before and were shocked at the complete change in stock. We tried some different outfits on and laughed at some of the crazy European styles, which seem to have included a large number of huge baggy tops and tights in crazy patterns.

After that, we went grocery shopping and had a “picnic” in the hotel room. We started this a bit earlier once we had left Egypt and realized that we could actually buy fruit that wouldn’t make us sick, and since Greece has some of the best tomatoes and cucumbers ever, Ambrice and I made a Greek salad and bought some canned meatballs and veggies and had a feast! Sam and Chris and Anne and Scott and Jess joined us and brought some Pita Gyros that we had bought and we ate and talked and laughed for a few hours. I had also made an impulse purchase at the grocery store—some dark colored hair dye, and when the rest of the group went out to get dessert Ambrice dyed my hair a lovely shade of dark brown. When in Athens…. Look like a European! The funny part about the whole experience was that although we bought a brand name dye that we recognized—Loreal—the instruction booklet only came in two languages, Greek, which we expected, and Portuguese, which struck us both as really odd. However, we both had enough knowledge of Spanish and enough experience with hair dye in general that we were able to figure it out. Thank goodness, because I did NOT want to come out of the experience with skunk hair or anything crazy, although it seemed that judging from some of these Europeans’ hair that a skunk head probably would have fit right in. But Ambrice knew what she was doing and we mixed the right bottles together and now I have a lovely head of dark brown hair.

The rest of the night was spent hanging out, the next day was a free day so we all gave ourselves a little bit of a break. I think we all needed it. Turkey tomorrow, and an off day. It dosen’t get much better.