elysian: athens

THE WINDS OF ATHENS

19:00:00

BLOODLESS EXECUTIONS: THE DARKER SIDE OF ATHENIAN JUSTICE

17:00:00

"The death of Socrates" Jacques-Louis David, Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Stoa of Attalos in Athens ( a reconstructed building of around 150 B.C. ) houses the Museum of the Ancient Agora. Its exhibits are mostly connected with the Athenian democracy, as the Agora was the focus of the city's public life. The collection of the museum includes clay, bronze and glass objects, sculptures, coins and inscriptions from the 7th to the 5th century B.C., as well as pottery of the Byzantine period and the Turkish conquest.

Among them, there are some black-glazed medicine bottles from the area of the “Desmoterion”(:jail) - 5th century B.C. that used to hold the hemlock or Conium macelatum employed in executions. Conium comes from the Ancient Greek κώνειον - kṓneion: poison hemlock, a herbaceous and poisonous biennial flowering plant. This may be related to konas (meaning to whirl), in reference to vertigo, one of the symptoms of ingesting the plant.

In ancient Greece, hermlock was used to poison condemned prisoners. The most famous victim of hemlock poisoning is the philosopher Socrates. After being accused of impiety and corrupting the young men of Athens, in 399 B.C., his trial (where he easily refuted these charges) resulted in his being condemned to death. Socrates was given a potent infusion of the hemlock plant. Plato described Socrates' death in the Phaedo:

“The man...laid his hands on him and after a while examined his feet and legs, then pinched his foot hard and asked if he felt it. He said “No”; then after that, his thighs; and passing upwards in this way he showed us that he was growing cold and rigid. And then again he touched him and said that when it reached his heart, he would be gone. The chill had now reached the region about the groin, and uncovering his face, which had been covered, he said – and these were his last words – “Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius. Pay it and do not neglect it.” “That,” said Crito, “shall be done; but see if you have anything else to say.” To this question he made no reply, but after a little while he moved; the attendant uncovered him; his eyes were fixed. And Crito when he saw it, closed his mouth and eyes…”

archaeology

LA ESFINGE GRIEGA

22:00:00

archaeology

WHEN ARROGANCE GENERATES BEAUTY...

15:38:00

Passing by Amalias avenue it's impossible not to notice the huge Columns of the Olympian Zeus! Located south- east of Athens' acropolis, near the river Ilissos, the Temple of Olympian Zeus, also known as the Olympieion would become the largest temple the city had ever seen…

The building of the temple actually began in the 6th century by the tyrant Peisistratus, but the project has never been completed. The Greeks of the classical period left it unfinished because they believed it was too big and symbolized the arrogance of people who believed they were equal to the Gods. Aristotle in his “Politics” cited the temple as an example of how tyrannies engaged the populace in great works for the state and left them no time, energy or means to rebel.

However, the temple was not finished until the emperor Hadrian, the great philhellene, finally brought to completion one of the biggest ever ancient temples in 131 AD, 638 years after the project had begun! Hadrian dedicated the colossal marble temple to Zeus after he associated himself with the father of the gods and adopted the title of “Olympios”. So he erected a giant gold and ivory status of Zeus inside the temple with an equally large one of himself next to it. Nothing remains of the interior of the temple. Nearby the columns stands the Arch of Hadrian which was erected in 132 AD as a gate between the ancient city and the Roman city of Athens.

In the centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, the temple was extensively quarried for building materials to supply building projects elsewhere in the city. Today only 15 of the 104 temple’s Corinthian columns (17 meters high) are still standing. One of the columns actually blew down in a storm in 1852 and it is still lying where it fell.

In the early 1800s, a “stylite” (the word comes from the Greek “stylos” for column and refers to the group of ascetics who spent long periods standing on the top of columns) built his dwelling on top of one of the columns of the temple. This unusual incident can be seen in early paintings and drawings.