{"id":3623,"date":"2011-09-03T17:42:56","date_gmt":"2011-09-03T21:42:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=3623"},"modified":"2018-08-04T20:25:31","modified_gmt":"2018-08-05T00:25:31","slug":"saturday-september-3-2011-athens-redux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=3623","title":{"rendered":"Saturday, September 3, 2011 \u2014 Athens Redux"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>

Tem\u00adple of Haephestos<\/p><\/div>\n

The first things we noticed about Athens were the unmis\u00adtak\u00adable signs of a police state. Cops every\u00adwhere, in gear more appro\u00adpri\u00adate to an invad\u00ading army, some\u00adtimes tot\u00ading machine guns. Parked near the Uni\u00adver\u00adsi\u00adty, and around Syn\u00adtag\u00adma Square, were the riot wag\u00adons \u2014 sin\u00adis\u00adter armoured bus\u00ades full of gas masks (clear\u00adly vis\u00adi\u00adble through the slit win\u00addows) and god knows what dis\u00adsent-crush\u00ading tools. On a back street, we found a home-made mon\u00adu\u00adment to a six\u00adteen-year-old shot by the cops. The city is dirty and run down. The Metro is closed \u201cfor repairs\u201d, but actu\u00adal\u00adly for a strike. Most peo\u00adple look like they\u2019re grudg\u00ading\u00adly mark\u00ading time rather than plan\u00adning for the future. I saw more ragged peo\u00adple, addicts open\u00adly plung\u00ading nee\u00addles into their flesh, and des\u00adper\u00adate-look\u00ading young men than I\u2019ve seen in any Euro\u00adpean city.  Fil\u00adip, in an ear\u00adli\u00ader search of the chan\u00adnels, could not find any tele\u00advi\u00adsion news, and the local papers did not seem to cov\u00ader inter\u00adna\u00adtion\u00adal affairs. The Nation\u00adal Muse\u00adum of Archae\u00adol\u00ado\u00adgy, sup\u00adposed to be a major cul\u00adtur\u00adal fea\u00adture, is closed for the week\u00adend and appar\u00adent\u00adly on reduced hours the rest of the time.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

The Acrop\u00ado\u00adlis of Athens<\/p><\/div>\n

But we made for some to the sites that inter\u00adest\u00aded me. The Parthanon, of course, but I was more keen to see the build\u00adings in the Ago\u00adra, espe\u00adcial\u00adly the Stoa of Atta\u00adlos. This last was no dis\u00adap\u00adpoint\u00adment. Back in the 1950s, this struc\u00adture was painstak\u00ading\u00adly restored by the Amer\u00adi\u00adcan School of Clas\u00adsi\u00adcal Stud\u00adies, and it con\u00adtains a muse\u00adum show\u00ading arti\u00adfacts from every stage in the city\u2019s his\u00adto\u00adry up to the Byzan\u00adtine. There were many democ\u00adra\u00adcy-relat\u00aded objects that delight\u00aded me. Too bad the idea does\u00adn\u2019t hold much sway in the town today.<\/p>\n

The Tem\u00adple of Hep\u00adhaes\u00adtus is bet\u00adter pre\u00adserved than the Parthenon, and, since you can get much clos\u00ader to it, gives the vis\u00adi\u00adtor a bet\u00adter idea of what a Greek tem\u00adple was like in antiq\u00adui\u00adty. The Tem\u00adple of Olympian Zeus, built under the tyrant Hip\u00adpias and Hip\u00adpar\u00adchos, is only frag\u00admen\u00adtary, but quite has quite spec\u00adtac\u00adu\u00adlar columns. It is men\u00adtioned in Aris\u00adtotle\u2019s Pol\u00adi\u00adtics<\/em> as an exam\u00adple of mega\u00adlo\u00adma\u00adni\u00adac pub\u00adlic works used by tyrants to dis\u00adtract the peo\u00adple from rebel\u00adlion. When democ\u00adra\u00adcy was restored in 510 BC<\/span>, con\u00adstruc\u00adtion ceased for more than 300 years. It was com\u00adplet\u00aded in Hel\u00adlenis\u00adtic times, by a Roman archi\u00adtect. We also vis\u00adit\u00aded the Muse\u00adum of Cycladic Art, which con\u00adtained many exquis\u00adite objects that I had before only seen described in words, or poor\u00adly photographed.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

The Tem\u00adple of Olympian Zeus.<\/p><\/div>\n

We end\u00aded the day\u2019s explo\u00adration on one of the few hills that held no mon\u00adu\u00adments, but offered a splen\u00addid view or the Acrop\u00ado\u00adlis and most of the city. Hot and tired and thirsty, we made our way to the docks of Piraeus, and I\u2019m typ\u00ading the entry on the ferry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first things we noticed about Athens were the unmis\u00adtak\u00adable signs of a police state. Cops every\u00adwhere, in gear more appro\u00adpri\u00adate to an invad\u00ading army, some\u00adtimes tot\u00ading machine guns. Parked near the Uni\u00adver\u00adsi\u00adty, and around Syn\u00adtag\u00adma Square, were the riot wag\u00adons \u2014 sinister \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,927],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-blog","category-ap-blog-2011"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3623"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7667,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3623\/revisions\/7667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}