Finding Plato’s Academy where you least expect it.
My leg hurts. Walking can be tough, standing in museums is tougher. There are a lot of museums at Athens—you may have heard—I mean a lot. A lot. I went in some of them. Once inside, when I needed a rest I’d find a seat and adopt the ancient attitude of despair—leaning forward, elbows on thighs, legs spread, head resting in hands—which gives a gentle stretch to the crease at the top of the thigh, easing where I hurt. I’m not complaining, I had a wonderful time, and I saw some remarkable things, things I’d only read about before.
We all like things. Things help to define us. That’s my thing, not yours. If you want my thing you can ask for it or you can demand it. Then I have a choice, I can give you my thing or exchange it for something of yours that we decide defines its value. You make an offer, I accept or not. It could be two thousand dollars for an off-Broadway option on a play or, scaling up, you could invade Ukraine. The ancients liked things too, that much seems clear. The cities were forever taking up arms against their neighbors, to grab things that didn’t belong to them—cattle, goats, women—so they could gloat and sell the spoils. To escape slavery or death, the defeated left behind smashed pots and broken spears, things they’d once held dear. All this is very much on display in the museums of Athens, cleaned and restored, filling glass cases, sometimes bringing you up sharp as you glimpse that most rare thing, through the medium of clay, or cloth, or marble, you sense a life being lived.
We need to agree that not everything in a museum needs to be a masterpiece; not every vase, jar, or pot; but considering how few are left out of all that were manufactured in the workshops of Athens and elsewhere—I read somewhere that a reasonable estimate could be placed at 0.02 per cent of production survives in one form or another—maybe anything, in whatever shape, no matter how much it’s not a masterpiece, the fact that it’s here at all makes it worthy of being behind glass. Or on a pedestal.
At the National Archeological Museum, standing on one leg, having slogged through several galleries of Cycladic and Neolithic objects, spending some time at the smaller than expected ‘Mask of Agamemnon’, (It’s not: reason one, it’s too early; reason two, there was no Agamemnon) I realized I’d have to be selective. I did want to see the pots of the Classical period since that’s mostly where my interest lies, but even so… things are everywhere. Things with discrete blurbs to explain what these things are and how they relate to other things. One case alone held five or six genuine masterpieces that I’ve seen much reproduced, standing side by side. In a crowded gallery it’s difficult to know how to respond. The museum is a repository, intended to house the nation’s history, preserving it for the future. So let us look at pots. All these pots. Have we noticed that on some of the extra big ones the potter didn’t finish painting the back? That’s somehow encouraging, that he had too much work to get through and it wasn’t going to be moved, no one would see so why bother? I would be interested in seeing a gallery of the unfinished or half-finished backs of pots.
But let us also look at the statues! These are more selective. I’m guessing their survival rate is even less. To find one intact and undefaced seems like something of a miracle. Never mind if so many are Roman copies of the Greek originals, I hadn’t expected the faces! The faces took me completely by surprise.
The museum at the Ancient Agora has its share of pots too, but also some downright homely stuff that I particularly liked; for example, a pair of baby booties made in terra-cotta the way we now bronze baby’s first shoesies. A shallow red-figure bowl for drinking wine, with the image of a young man at its center, an athlete in the full bloom of his physical beauty, holding a hare, a portrait? A love-gift sent to him by his would-be lover? A man who can’t sleep at night for thinking of him, who stands all day outside his house hoping for a glimpse, who, when his beloved comes out onto the narrow street heading for the gymnasium with a gang of noisy friends, follows, hoping for a smile at least, some sign that his love has been recognized. Later, when the the bloom of youth has left him and the athlete is now a full grown man with a man’s responsibilities, when he’s killed at a skirmish during the Corinthian War—his father inconsolable, his mother speechless with grief but grateful that his friends had brought his body back for them to bury—his special drinking bowl was maybe buried with him, a few cups might be added, that ring he liked, because he was going to need nice things. No one could tell what he’d be faced with in his shadowy new world, good to remind him that once he’d been adored.
Hanging over the oldest districts of the city is the biggest thing of all, the Acropolis, symbol of Athens’ wealth and power, a fortress crowned by the Parthenon. I didn’t go up my first full day because I’d mixed up the tickets and times and didn’t feel much like dealing with the heat or the lines. Plus there was my leg to consider and a hat to buy to replace the one I forgot. Then I thought, reasonably enough, I’d save it to the end, cancel a planned side-trip, and instead spend my last two days on the Acropolis and its museum, though, to be honest, some of this came from my reluctance to deal with the traffic, and having to drive through what seemed like the crazily narrow streets of the Plaka district where my hotel was located.
You can’t book morning tickets to the Acropolis online so I went into the museum early, not knowing quite what to expect. If the National Archeological Museum intends to be encyclopedic, the Bernake to charm you (and it does), the Museum of the Acropolis is intended to overwhelm you—and it does. As I realized later when I went up the real thing, the entrance with its long ramp that is revealed in stages, lined with cases displaying treasures like offerings to draw you upwards, you experience the same awe, I’m guessing, that would have been felt by an out-of-towner ascending the steep (murderous) steps up into the Propylaea, where you first glimpse the Parthenon as it is revealed almost as a reward for your labors, bigger and more splendid than you ever thought it could be. The ramp entrance to the museum recreates this experience of slowly growing awe till you arrive at the top and a reconstructed pediment is before you, with gaps for statues stolen by the English. Elgin’s looting of the Parthenon is a motif in the museum that is used to great effect.
The recreated frieze that once ran around the whole building under its eaves (there’s a term: I forget), lets you experience the physical dimensions of the building, its length and width. Done in a shallow, sharply cut relief, it begins with naked young men scraping their bodies clean, dressing with care, calming their horses before they mount them, no saddles, no stirrups, gathering in procession, slowly at first, till the excitement of the event, the great Panathenaea, the city’s most important multi-day religious and social event causes the horses to break into a canter, surging forward, the riders fighting to keep control, leaning backwards as the horses pick up speed, till they arrive at the great temple where the sacrificial bulls are being led forward as women arrive with offerings, leading to the gods themselves, Athena and Zeus seated, smiling, blessing the city. The same progression happens going the other way from the same starting corner so they too arrive at the gods, encircling the whole building with this marvel of design where the angle of the horses’ forelegs, their bodies, and the angle at which their riders are seated, leaning slightly back, together create an illusion of forward unstoppable motion. The whole of the Acropolis’ rebuilding was designed by Pericles’ buddy Phidias. There were accusations of cronyism and muttered threats of lawsuits but they came to nothing and the building went up in nine years which, given its complexity seems like a marvel. Socrates’ father was a stonemason, a master builder who worked on the Acropolis project, was friendly with Pericles, and it’s thought that perhaps the young Socrates himself had a hand in its building.
Thing is, today, making the climb, getting to the top, climbing that final flight of stairs, registering the shock of the temple’s impact, walking round to its side, falling over (I’ve been doing a lot of that, no damage done but I sure scared a Spanish family), what happens is there comes over you a feeling of Now What? Yes, there’s the view, the sense of achievement for being there, all of that’s true and real enough, and yes, he buildings are beautiful and the reconstructions too, but the real reason for being there, the reason it was built in the first place and what gave the building its purpose no longer exists. The faith of the Twelve Gods is gone, Athena means nothing, there will be no sacrificial animals—just as well so far as I’m concerned—no prayers for peace or victory, no prayers at all. Like the empty theaters—sometimes resurrected for special performances done on our terms not theirs—the shattered temples are archeological sites, roped off to save them from damage caused by people, people touching them, people, their first, their only reason to be.
But then, after my stint up top, after I’d seen what I could and came limping down (like a fool I wasn’t yet using my hiking sticks) I wanted to see the Areopagus and what is said to be Socrates’ prison, or rather where he was imprisoned, it being the town jail. Climbing the Hill of the Muses—I don’t know if that’s how it was known then or if it’s a recent invention—was arduous and slow but then, reaching the top I finally saw what I’d only glimpsed from the Acropolis and could finally say ‘The sea! The sea!’ There it was! There was the whole city, glittering as shiny metal cowls spun on AC vents. After some wandering about I did find the prison, or what’s thought to be the prison, two small chambers cut into rock, with a smaller niche between; square holes cut for joists show where it’s thought a second story might have been—like much of the ancient past it’s guesswork. Like the site of Plato’s Academy that lasted for a thousand years, till Christianity became the official religion of the empire and the old philosophical schools were closed. I asked the courtly Athenian at the hotel’s front desk if he might know of it because I’d like to see it if possible. He was gentle, yes he did know, and he wanted me to know that there was nothing there, the attribution was speculative, if it was the old Academy it had been overbuilt as a Roman gymnasium and, it was thought, a barracks. Still. The Academy. Coming back from Sunion and the Temple of Poseidon could I drive there? It was a detour, but yes. No problem. In fact he lived out that way so he knew it. It’s a park, he warned, you won’t see much. If you see anything.
Siri got me through the city, bringing me to a back street in a small, light-industrial, commercial area. Not seeing how this could be it, I turned to head back to the hotel. But then, still curious, going up another street for no real reason, I noticed a wrought-iron gate and a park beyond, shadowy, cool-looking. I parked and walked towards it. Once through the gate, looking to my right, not quite believing it could be the simple I saw it. Was it? Was this the dig that had revealed the latest layer to be found that connected with the Academy? A large rectangle, seven or eight feet below ground level, site of the Roman gymnasium. A cat was curled up asleep in an empty stone cistern, once placed so the men could wash after a work out. And there were stones, the remains of old walls. Going further into the park I found a couple of dusty, scrappy, open patches of dried grass and packed dirt, there were more lines of old stones. Three dorks like me seemed to be looking for signs of where Plato might once have taught, after the disaster of Socrates’ death and the period he’d spent away from Athens. I found the official panel installed as a guide by the department of archeology to explain what was known and where it was, and how little was left from the Academy if anything at all.
The emotion I brought to such an insignificant stumbling-upon was, is, my own but it was enough to let me feel that I was leaving the city on a high—because honestly? nothing else could top it. Perhaps the three dorks might have understood—looked like a father and two almost grown children—but they would, of course, have had their own reason(s) for being there, which needn’t coincide with mine. That the Academy should now be a park seemed fitting. It was busy enough, with people walking their dogs after work, jogging, playing with children, on their way to someplace else, a group of four young men working out with home-made equipment.
I limped back to my car and headed for the hotel, driving happily through the comically tiny streets of the Plaka district to park and get ready for the morning and my drive up to Delos. ‘I found it!’ I told the clerk. ‘It’s nice there,’ I said. And he seemed happy.