Priene and Magnesia on the Meander

March 5, 2007

Selcuk, Turkey

Today started out nicely. I have been rooming with two of the girls I have been closest to on the trip, Jess and Katie, and we have gotten into the habit of playing music in the mornings as we are getting dressed for breakfast, which makes the entire experience infinitely more enjoyable, especially when we have to wake up as early as we do. This morning I came down to breakfast with Sister Hazel, N’Sync, and random bits of “Walking on Broken Glass” going through my head. We were bubbly and cheerful and greeted the morose and the tired at the breakfast buffet with a smile and a perhaps too-loud “Good Morning!” And we were off for the day.

I started reading Procopius’ Secret Histories on the bus, which is a story about Justinian and his wife Theodora, who apparently was a real ball-buster, to be crude. She directed his entire strategy in controlling the Roman empire, and tortured numerous people to death. She even helped his military general’s wife, another rather horrid woman, to cheat on her husband with her adopted son. I haven’t read much of it so far, but it seems to me that the “Holy Roman Empire” that they speak of was far from Roman, existing as it was in the 500s BC in Constantinople, and obviously VERY far from holy, because adultery and deception and corruption was rampant. This secret history was written by Procopius and was apparently not mean to be punished until after Justinian’s death, but after the death of Theodora, who really masterminded everything in his reign, and basically dished out all of the dirt that everyone knew but no one would talk about in the doings of the Emperor and his wife and the people that surrounded them. I became so engrossed in the story that I was almost disappointed when we reached the site.

That is, until we reached the site. The first place that we saw was the theater at Priene, a town which had origins in the archaic period but was relocated in Hellenistic times to its current location, which was on the top of a hill overlooking the harbor somewhere in Turkey. The theater itself was pretty standard for Hellenistic theaters of its time. Slightly over semi circular, with angled paradoi and a small diazoma, it was later modified in Roman times to include a proskene that effectively raised the stage level up five steps. As a result, the privileged seating that originally rested in five armchairs around the perimeter of the orchestra was abandoned in favor of a row of benches with backs that were installed on the fifth row of seats to afford for a better view of the stage production. We heard about the history of Priene from this location, and then moved onto the main event: the temple of Athena Polias.

This temple stands like so many tumbled and jumbled blocks around a platform which only contains five columns still standing. The day was very warm and a little windy, but the skies were clear and we soaked up the sun as we took in the majesty of the temple. According to Jarrett the temple was the canonical Ionic type temple, with signature column bases of the Asiatic style that have two inverted toruses and one torus stacked above, which differs from the construction of the Attic style base the alternates between an inverted and torus shape. The temple underwent three major phases of construction which is evident in the shapes of the sculptural decoration rimming the top of the temple, called the egg and dart frieze. The sun was shining and we walked around the whole perimeter of the temple, climbing around the spikes of the column drums, which looked like the cogs to a huge clock that had been dismantled by a giant and left to bake in the sun. Farther off the ridge that the temple was situated upon dropped down to a low slope of houses on one side, and on the edge of the temple to a grassy embankment that flowed down to the valley below. Ambrice and I met Dan and Chris and walked down to the row of houses, set in a series of blocks alongside a narrow cobblestone thoroughfare. I was reminded of the smoky walls in the Appalachians, scattered among the pine needles were bits and pieces of walls, and the sun shone filtered through the thick foliage above. If I had been examining Hellenistic ruins, I would have sworn that I had stumbled upon the foundation walls of an old farmhouse. But as it was, we were walking in the ruins of buildings that were thousands of years older, and far more mysterious. We walked down along the slope dotted with the foundations of house ruins, picking our way among the trees, and all of the sudden Ambrice burst out of the bushes to show us something.

Curious, we picked our way among the ruins and the trees and ended up on that grassy knoll we had spied above, and turned to our right to see a pair of lovers laying among the ruins. Ambrice giggled and pointed and I could not help but feel embarrassed for them. For, despite the wonderful romance of the remote setting, the clear blue day and the amazing view, they had picked a spot where they could be seen by everyone who was looking down from above. Rather unfortunate for them. We left them to their oblivous embraces and scrambled back up the slope.

I emerged on the top of the temple platform, crossed over to the far end, and descended on the other side, making my way to the agora, past the stoas and the numerous pieces of fallen marble slabs to a far promontory with the remains of a Byzantine construction, a building which contrasted greatly to the carved and fixed stones of the Hellenistic ruin. This was a building composed of arches made out of crude irregular blocks of stone, inset with mortar and rubble, that rose massively and a bit clumsily out of the landscape. Only the fact that the ruins were beginning to crumble in and some of the arches were opening to the sky gave the place a sense of the romantic loss that accosts me every time I see a ruined temple. Perhaps it is the western predisposition toward the classical ideal that prejudices me in such a way, although I do appreciate the Byzantine domes for their opulent solid beauty. But the ruins of scattered columns affect me in a majestic and melancholy type of way. A lost elegance.

We stepped back from the outcrop and made our way to the bouleterion, a smaller type of theater that had three sides enclosed by seating, the open end overlooking the promontory and rising in a series of very steep steps. We stopped here and picnicked—and at the end of the wonderful meal of gnutella and bread and cucumber and tuna and kiwi I sat and stretched out my legs, took off my long sleeve shirt, and let the sunshine in. It felt so good! After so many cold and huddly days in Athens and around the Peloponnese I was so ready for short sleeve weather, and this was just warm enough that in the sun and without a breeze I was perfectly comfortable.

We continued to explore the site after lunch, and Krentz let us split off as we wanted. Of course, I decided to make my way down to the ruins of the stadium, which were located down the steep slope past the old Byzantine ruins and was a steep scramble with tons of rocks and brush to impede the way. However, it was worth it as we stepped down to the ledge that the stadium was located upon and could stand at the starting gate and look down the entire length of the stadium. This stadium was simpler than most, containing seating only on the side that was set into the hillside, and I could perceive no privileged seating for special spectators. Unless, of course, the few rows of stone seats that were discernable were the ones that were reserved for the important ones and all of the rest had to content themselves with the grassy hillside. I walked down the whole length of the stadium, down to where the edge of the hillside met fortification wall and turned to walk back the way I had come. At the starting line, closest to the gymnasium which lay one level above, was a series of stone blocks with rectangular cuttings, presumably to be used as starting gates. Gulen, our tour guide, showed me a reconsruction of the facility which showed a collonade of the Roman type, with the spaces in between the columns used for the starting blocks for the athletes. All of these blocks contained square holes in the ground to be used for a type of starting mechanism. However, after I had passed the initial square row of blocks, a few feet in front of them in the grass were the remains of another, smaller set of starting blocks, which I later read had dated from the earlier Hellenistic period, before the addition of the big collonade. The whole stadium complex could be reached by a series of steep stone steps that led the scramble down the hillside, which we in our descent had managed to completely bypass. However, once we were on the stadium floor they could easily be seen. The uphill side of the stadium contained the remains of a colonnaded building, probably a stoa of the Doric order, with its back carved into the hill.

I wandered around a bit, taking pictures, and then Sam, Anne, Jess and I scrambled up the slope again, arriving huffing and puffing at the top to overlook the rolling hills and the fantastic scenery. Then, because we still had a considerable amount of free time, I wandered back to the temple area to draw the fallen column drum pieces, before meeting up with the group to get back on the bus.

We made a small detour stop on the way home to see the ruins of another fantastic Ionic Temple. This temple, at Magnesia on the Meander, lay like so many others in scattered ruins. Unlike many of the other temples which stood sometimes in fenced enclosures in the middle of the city, or in the center of an entire complex, this temple stood among a vast field of yellow and white flowers. The pediments of this temple were highly unusual and contained three holes in the center for the placement of windows, which may have been used to capture the moonlight and direct it toward the cult statue placed in the cella, which faced west, another unusual feature. The pediment had been reconstructed an lay like a doorway to nowhere, with the slanting afternoon sunlight adding a sense of depth and mystery to the scene. We ran and frolicked among the flowers, and some of us made some grass-angels before scrambling over the temple base and walking around the ruins of some old baths, before walking over to a shed that housed the capitals of all of the temples.

Each of the column capitals were different. Looking at the scrolled volutes on the side one could differentiate slightly different patterns, depth of line, and cutting in the stone. Unlike some other Ionic capitals which tended to be carved in rounded forms, these were flat faced to catch and highlight the sun, admirably demonstrated in the obliging light. By this time, however, it was getting very late, and our attention spans wandered as much as our feet as we circled around and around the fallen stones.

And then, at last, it was a return to the bus. On the way we spotted an old man driving a herd of cattle across the interstate and stopped to take pictures, and a tour bus of Asians pulling into the site stopped and took pictures of us taking pictures of the man and the cow. What goes around comes around, I guess.

We returned to the hotel with just enough time to check our emails before another fabulous three course dinner that contained delicious shish kebabs and thick French fries, and was concluded with a nice brownie and ice cream concoction.

After dinner, I did some reading, and then headed up to the roof where a group of us had grabbed some beers, including a mini keg, and proceeded to play really bad early 90s music and dance and talk about Davidson and impending spring break until it grew much too late. Then it was a nice pillow talk with both of my roommates, Katie and Jess. And far too late, bed.