Athens

I'm a little tardy with a summary of my trip to Athens, but here goes.  I was there September 26-29.  Judge Barbour arrived on the 27th.   The morning of the 27th I went to the Archeological Museum, which was worth the trip.  It contains much statuary from various Greek sites.  There were a couple perfectly preserved sculptures, but most had missing noses, arms, penises, fingers -- some had obviously had a rough 2500 years.

Athens itself was settled by 8000 BC, or, according to Sarah Palin, about 4000 years before the world was created.   Its post-creation history as we know it, however, is mostly the Hellenic and Hellenistic periods, approximately 600 BCE - 250 BCE, followed by a Roman period, a Byzantine period, an Ottoman Turk period, and after World War I, the modern Greek period.  

The top picture is of Judge Barbour and me standing on Mars Hill with the Acropolis in the background.  Mars Hill is a large rock outcropping in the Agora and was used as an open air courtroom.  It is where Paul preached to the Athenian philosophers, called Aeropagus in Greek, the hill of Ares.  Ares was the Greek god of war, Mars in Roman mythology, thus Mars Hill.  So we wanted to have our picture taken in one of the world's first courtrooms, and a couple of Canadian tourists took our picture, and we reciprocated.  (I remember in London on the bridge by Parliament a tourist asked me to take his picture, which I did, and a line quickly formed and I took pictures for five or six more groups.  I fled at the first chance I got.)  

Mars hill is marble, and over 2500 years it has become fairly slick marble.  I would not go there on a rainy day.  I wonder if Socrates was "tried" there or somewhere else close by.  (I put it in quotes since by most accounts the outcome was never in doubt.  Corrupting the morals of the  youth of Athens would be a hard charge to defend.)

The second picture is on top of the Acropolis itself, with the Parthenon straight ahead and the Erecthion to the right.  Erecthion  comes from another name for Poseidon.  The Parthenon managed to survive undamaged until 1687, when the Turkish defenders of Athens (against the Venetians) had stored gunpowder inside.  An Italian cannonball went through the roof and ignited the powder, and the explosion left it pretty much in the shape it's in now.  

The middle picture is of the Agora from Mars Hill.  The long red-roofed building is the Stoa, market place.  It is a reproduction from the 1920s and houses a museum -- more statues and things.

The fourth picture is of an excavated wall.  I was struck by the construction artifacts used in the wall -- a broken Corinthian  capital right in the middle, but look closely and you'll see other things.

The last picture is right at the edge of the Greek city and the Roman city.  This column fell and the pieces came apart, but it's still lying in place.  A good way to see how a column was assembled.