Traveling Via Egnatia via Egnatia Odos: A Journey through Northern Greece
As travellers we use roads; good roads make travel easier, bad ones make the journey more difficult. Some roads are new and their construction uncovers or destroys the old, such as the M2 in Ireland that has made travel easier today, but has obliterated part of the country’s heritage, and others that are renovations of older paths, trying to honor that which went before us. The Egnatia Odos in Northern Greece is an example of the latter. It is a modified version of the ancient Via Egnatia that once connected Constantinople with Dürres in Albania and from across the Adriatic to the Via Appia and Rome. Portions of the road from Constantinople to Thessaloniki were probably built by the Romans on top of earlier pathways, but the Via Egnatia was definitely a major Roman corridor for merchants, soldiers, and preachers. Along its almost 700 miles, Caesar and Pompey marched their armies as did Octavian and Marc Anthony. St. Paul walked along its stones to preach in Philippi and Thessaloniki and the Crusaders brought goods and knowledge, as well as war, back and forth across its length. This was the road I wanted to follow to see what stories from the past are still visible.
My journey started in Thessaloniki as it is the major city of Northern Greece. The main road through town is the Via Egnata and is probably part of the original one. There are Roman ruins to the side of the road in the middle of the city, including the theater where St. Paul preached, and Valerian’s Gate which announced arrival into the city center. Emperor Valerian had the gate constructed to celebrate his victory over the Persians, and as you can read in the Bishapur blog, it didn’t last long nor end well for him. Thessaloniki has been a major trading center since at least the 6th C BCE as it provides easy access to the sea and hill stations and remains so to this day.
My plan was to follow the Egnatia Odos, the new highway, with stops at places where the old Via Egnatia would have gone, on the way east towards the Turkish border and then on the way back to the west coast of the country leave the Via Egnatia after Pella and follow the new highway with detours to places of particular importance, such as Dodoni, the Oracle of Necromanteion, Meteora, Mt. Olympus and Dion. The Egnatia Odos eastwards from Thessaloniki to Alexandroupoli has major towns every 50-54 kilometers, that remind one of the way stations for troops that the Romans had along all their corridors. Today, there are also toll stations (2.40E) at each of them. Archeological sites are scattered throughout the countryside and it would take at least a complete year to see them all. Needing to be selective I stopped at just a few.
The first was at Philippi, the site of St. Paul’s epistle and the first European Christian Church. It was also here that Marc Anthony and Octavian as allies had a decisive battle with Cassius and Brutus. It is a rather large complex with a few acres of structures on the plains while the church and earlier sanctuaries dot the hillside. The museum is at the back of the complex on the hill; it houses artifacts that have been uncovered from the site itself and is nicely laid out over two floors by era. Going back through the ruins after visiting the museum one can better picture where the sculptures would have stood and the glistening white marble of the buildings in the sun that would have made this such an important city in the ancient world. St. Paul chose his sites carefully, knowing that converting those in influential cities would get the ‘Good Word’ out more effectively and efficiently. His method apparently worked.
St. Paul tried to convince people to give up their gods, but those gods persisted for a long time after him, and one of the places where they dwelled was in the Sanctuary of the Gods on the island of Samothrace. He tried to convert people here too. To get to the island one has to take a ferry from Alexandroupoli, a nice little town not far from the Turkish border. I say ‘nice’ now, but this entire region was far from that during the Greco-Turkish Wars. Thrace is the name of the geographical region that historically incorporated parts of the mountain area in what is now Bulgaria, Northeastern Greece and Northwestern Turkey. It was split up in 1878 through the Congress of Berlin, but both Greece and Turkey have provinces of that name and the sibling animosity, based on religion, but also on land, runs deep. Prior to the 19th C, however, this was always one country, at times ruled by the Hellenes, the Romans, the Byzantines, or the Turks, but since at least the 6th C BCE, it has been Greek at heart. And the Greeks are a deeply spiritual people. Perhaps it comes from living so close to the elements and so close to pending disaster from conquests and economic exploitation, that they developed a deep sense of a love of life and of the invisible mystical world. For the ancient Greeks of the classical world, Samothrace was one of these mystical places. It is a rocky island, with Mt. Saos, the highest in the Aegean jutting into the sky. At the foot of the mountain near Palaiopolis is the Sanctuary where the Kaviria Mysteries, similar to the Eleusinian Mysteries were performed. The gods, especially the Mother of the Gods, were worshiped here from around the 7th C BCE until the 4th C CE. A Byzantine church was constructed on the site in the 5th C. to commemorate St. Paul’s visit. The Sanctuary is a little over 6 km from the ferry port and as it was drizzling, I took a cab to the site. When I arrived, it started to torrent, but there was a little chapel at the base by the parking lot that was warm and dry, and I was very lucky and grateful to find shelter from the proverbial storm under the watchful eyes of a Byzantine icon of Mother and Child. After about an hour, the rain lessened enough to see something and I was able to explore the site in peace. At the top of the hill within the sanctuary is the spot where the Nike of Samothrace would have stood if she were not robbed from the spot and taken to live in the Louvre. I kept trying to imagine her in her natural setting looking out over the entire sanctuary to the sea below. She must have been very happy where she was, and I’m not at all sure she is where she currently resides. The Sanctuary is in a little bowl, formed by the hillsides and is a natural place for clouds to hang out, which would enhance the sense of mystery surrounding the site. There is a sacred stream that runs through it separating the hill on the right with the agora from the sacred space on the left. I had just enough time to see the entire site before it closed at 3pm, and before it started to pour again.
Near to Alexandroupoli one can drive on the ancient Via Egnatia for a few kilometers and there are lots of archeological and rather old and some nice new Byzantine churches along the way. The next major stop, however, was Kavala for the ferry to Thassos, another island of the gods, this time, dedicated to Dionysus. The ferry from Kavala to Skala Prinos on Thassos takes a little over an hour and costs under E5 one way. There is a different ferry from Keramoti to Thassos city that only takes a little over a half hour and costs a little less. As the museum and archeological site are in Thassos city, that is what I should have done, but didn’t do sufficient research to find out about. As it was I ended up taking the bus for E2 each way to and from Skala Prinos and Thassos City. The city was a bit of a disappointment as I had thought that the archeological site would be larger and more interesting than it was. There are scattered places of ruins throughout town, with the most interesting section right by the museum, but the majority of that section hadn’t been mowed, so the ruins were hidden by meter high grasses. The museum, however, is excellent as is the rest of the island. The museum has sixteen galleries laid out both by era and by theme, with special rooms for clay artifacts, others for marble, others for funerary objects and so on. Alexander the Great figures prominently in the museum as he must have done in the site, as this was the place where he was first worshipped as a god. One can fantasize about what Dionysus and Alexander might have had in common….
One thing that Dionysus gave the island was a fertile area for grapes and Thassos produces excellent wine. The island is really a delight, with pine trees and vineyards covering the hillsides, and nice mostly pebble beaches along the shore. In contrast to the rocky Samothrace, it offers visitors, excellent hiking as well as water sport activities. It is an island to return to.
From Thassos and Thrace it was on to the province of Macedonia and the dual cities of Pella and Vergina. Pella was on the ancient Via Egnatia to the west of Thessaloniki and Vergina, southwest of Pella, is just off the Egnatia Odos. Pella is famous as the city of Phillip II, Alexander the Great’s father. It was built before his time, but he and his successors made it the richest city of the empire. The Agora is huge, the largest of any of the ancient cities in Greece, and is overseen by the Sanctuary of the Mother of the Gods. She looks down from a slight rise over the entire agora and administrative complex to the wealthy residences below and the plebian residences a bit farther away. On the other side of the sanctuary further up the hill, almost a kilometer away is the site of the former palace, which is now their excellent museum. I know Greece is broke, but they have spent their money on museums and they are very very good. This one is based on themes with rooms relating to daily and public life, to the decorative arts including mosaics and vases, funerary objects and the last to weaponry and defense. As the masters of this city were all soldiers, the last gallery has an impressive collection of swords, knives and other implements of terror. The soldiers went by foot as well as by boat and it is hard to imagine that Pella was ever connected to the Aegean, but there used to be a navigable port nearby, which has long since silted up. Today, there is no water anywhere in the vicinity.
Vergina is built on the ancient city of Aigai and has the honor of housing a tumulus with Phillip II’s tomb among others. The tumulus itself is now a museum, and the tombs are openly on display as are the artifacts with which the royalty was buried. The tombs include those of the Temenids, an early dynasty, of a queen and her husband, Phillip II, and probably Alexander IV, Alexander the Great’s son with Roxane, who died an early death. One of the tombs that I found most interesting to learn about was that of the supposedly Thracian wife of Phillip II, who following local custom, had herself cremated along with her husband. It seems Sati wasn’t just a Hindu practice. Phillip’s tomb is the most impressive with the high walls still in place and some of the paint still visible on the façade. The archeologists didn’t disturb the entrance but went into the tombs from above to extricate the artifacts, among them incredibly finely wrought gold leaved wreaths as crowns, and the purple-gold cloth that the queen was buried in to enter Hades and Persephone’s realm. Alexander the Great built the tomb for his father and the queen and spared no expense. Where normally a king would be buried with one suit of gold armor, Phillip II had four, and they are accompanied by an incredible array of riches. Alexander left no doubt as to his respect and wish to honor his father and his step-mother.
Stepping out of the Macedonian tumulus and the underworld, I headed back into the light of the modern world and got into the car to continue on the Egnatia Odos to the next stop, Ioannina in Epirus.
Ioannina is a large city about 100 km from the Ionian coastal city of Igoumenitsa. It is on the edge of a very big deep lake surrounded by steep lush green mountains. Stories say that the people who lived in the region of the modern city during the classical period had no knowledge of the sea; the mountains kept them completely isolated from the rest of the Grecian world. The landscape is reminiscent of the Salzkammergut, with the exception of the Venetian castle, remnants of the Doge’s conquests, on a spit that extends into the lake. This region was jostled among conquering foreigners since Roman times. After the Romans, came the Byzantines, followed by the Venetians, with an interlude with the Genoese, and then the Turks, before the region and country finally achieved independent status, which was again threatened in WWII by the Nazi invasion. Today, the lakeside area is growing with new shops, delightful restaurants and cafes, which are in part supported by a vibrant university with students from all over. It is a wonderful city, but a confusing one for driving given all the one-way streets.
The Archeological Museum of Ioannina is a bit difficult to locate by car as it is in the middle of the city’s main park, Litharista, and not particularly well marked. When I asked people, they didn’t know there was an archeological museum in town and instead kept sending me to the Municipal Museum which is located in the Venetian Castle. That museum provides an overview of the city’s history, but doesn’t go into the Neolithic and Classical finds from the region. The Archeological Museum covers the entire province and the seven rooms are organized by period as well as by place. There is a separate room just for the artifacts recovered in Dodona, which is now listed as Dodoni on most maps.
The Oracle of Dodoni was one of the most important in the ancient world. People came from all over the Grecian world and from neighboring territories in what is now modern day Albania, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria and Turkey to ask for guidance. The origin of the Oracle is shrouded in mystery, but prior to the construction of temples, an oak tree was the center of the cult. The tree’s roots connected the Mother Earth goddess to the people. Priests would divine her responses to pilgrims’ questions, often engraved on lead sheets, from the way the wind rustled through the leaves, from the cooing of the doves in the branches, from the rippling of water near the roots, from the sounds of the tripod bronze cauldrons that surrounded the tree and functioned like Tibetan songbowls, or from the way the leaves fell in particular patterns. This same principle is still used in Peru by shaman with coco leaves or in Cuba by indigenous priests with a particular kind of shell, the name of which now escapes me. While we do not have any record of the wishes of the modern seekers, in the Ioannina museum there is an entire wall covered with a case containing lead sheets with wishes, questions, and pleas. Most of them are concerned with issues that affect everyone, the desire for a child, for a good marriage, whether one should move, whether one should open a new business, requests for money, and for a home. A few wished for peace. This request was a poignant reminder that these people, whose desires are the same as ours, lived in highly turbulent times. The museum also showcases much of the armor and weaponry that has been taken from the ancient gravesites and cemeteries and put on display. As with almost all ancient sites, what we know of Dodona comes from the archeological excavations, the artifacts found at the site, local lore, and written texts. The Oracle of Dodona was visited by Herodotus and Polybius, as well as many other ancient writers, and referred to by many more.
Dodona is about 17 miles southwest of Ioannina in a stunning mountain setting. Archeological work is on-going and a crane was functioning as if it were a performer in the theater when I was there. It looked like it was hooking the past to the future and vice versa. From the entrance there is a paved walkway that leads through the site with descriptive signs in key areas. Each of the temples and main buildings has an engraved block with the name of the former structure in Greek and English, so one cannot get lost. Dodona was a worship site; so far no general residential areas have been located. It was originally a site dedicated to Mother Earth, represented by the oak tree, then with the arrival of the Greeks, probably sometime in the 5th C BCE, Zeus Dodonaios, also known as Naios, became a central figure through his marriage with the Great Goddess, she was then renamed Dione, taking it from him, Deus. They became the holy couple, the integration of earth, sky and storm, and the first temples were built in the early 4th C BCE in their honor; hers is still around the oak tree, his next door; although his Naios name came from the idea that he lived alongside the goddess in the roots of the sacred oak tree. Over time, came additional first Greek, esp. Aphrodite, Themis and Hercules, and then more oriental deities, like Isis and Seraphis. According to the site brochure “the sanctuary assumed its final form in the late 3rd C BCE. “ In the 5th C CE a Christian Basilica was built near the ruins of the Temple of Hercules and probably took much of its building material from the earlier oracle site just a few meters to the left.
The Oracle of the Sacred Oak Tree was interpreted by the Selli, the priests of Zeus, who never washed their feet so that they would always have contact with Mother Earth. Dione was assisted by three priestesses, who are called prophetesses (or doves) by Herodotus. The Oracle site was visited by people from the Bronze Age to the end of the 4th C, when Christianity supplanted the ancient deities and a new form of worship began. As all religions deal with questions of the afterlife, the next stop on my itinerary was the Springs at the River Acheron, the Styx of ancient lore.
Charon, the ferryman of dead souls in Greek tradition, had to be paid to take the souls across the River Styx into Hades and the Great Lake Acherousia. If he wasn’t paid and if the proper funerary rites were not performed, the ancient Greek souls (and those of Barbarians, i.e., any non-Greek) would not find rest in Hades, but would wander the riverside as a ghost. Even today, those ghosts are visible in the expressively tormented twisted tree trunks and branches that line the side of the riverbed. Charon, however, is nowhere to be found near the Springs, having been replaced by children playing in the icy cold shallow waters cascading over the rocky bottom, and by kayakers and rafters, who pay only E 6 for the joy of a Class 1 float from the springs to the outlet in Ammoudia Bay.
The topography of the region has changed dramatically since the Classical authors composed their works. Today, the Lake Acherosia, which was a marshland, is no more. It was drained by the British in 1948 as it was infested with malaria infecting mosquitoes. Today what was the lake is green farmland. The Mavros, ancient Cocytus, and Vouvos, ancient Pyriphlegethon, both still merge into the Acheron, but Ammoudia Bay into which the Acheron and other rivers of Hades flows is far from what it was. Thucydides described the site as having 150 Corinthian and allied ships anchored in the Bay on the eve of the Corinthian naval battle with the Corcyraeans. There is no way that number could fit in the current inlet. It is only when one drives outside of town up the hill and that it is possible to get a sense of what the Classical authors saw. The current fields, farmland and villages sit in a basin surrounded by hills that would have been entirely filled in by the sea. As with many of the places on the Ionian coast of Turkey, the silt has built up over the past two millennia so that the classical coastline is now a few kilometers inland. Nonetheless, the Bay today is incredibly beautiful, the beaches are golden sand, and the water delightful. Charon does still exist here, but he is not taking dead souls across the river, but instead the ferryman has turned to the boat captain taking tourists around the bays in the area for sightseeing.
After the ancient Charon had led one into Hades, there was no escape. But as we continuously seek help from the beyond, there are those who try to defy death to commune with those who have passed on. Near the merging of the Acheron and the Bay is the Oracle of the Dead, the Necromanteion. This is the place Odysseus went to on his way to ask the deceased blind prophet Teiresias for help. The site sits on a small hill behind the village of Mesapotamos very close to where the ancient Cocytus and Pryiphlegethon thunderously merged into the Acheron. The ancient seekers had a very strict period of initiation they needed to undergo. The courtyard was available for all visitors and it had a storeroom for supplies and a residence area for the priests. Once one entered the gate, however, one entered into a different world. The outside mundane world was left behind and one prepared for a visit to Hades. Upon entering the sanctuary, there were two lodging rooms off to the left of the corridor that were covered with wood ceilings and very dark. The petitioner would stay in one of these rooms for 29 days meditating, chanting/praying, listening to the priests’ stories, and following a strict diet that followed the classical authors’ ideas of a banquet of the dead consisting of herbs, beans, vegetables, shellfish and barley bread. To drink there was milk, honey and water. After 29 days in the lodging rooms, if they had successfully completed them and not gone stir-crazy, they went on to the third room at the end of corridor, the purification room, where they would stay for three more days in silence and darkness with even less food, but more stories. It was a process of brainwashing in order to prepare the supplicant for the test ahead. To get to the test one was led by the priests through a short but very dark three curved labyrinth on the other side of the complex that took one into the sanctuary room where the priest stood near a sulphur emitting hole at the back of the chamber and the petitioner away from it near the front. It was from here that the priests interpreted the responses from the deceased to the living. This was the place of the Oracle. There was another chamber, however, that was reserved for special visitors, and it is this one that it seems is referenced in the ancient epics. Below and to the side of the Oracle Sanctuary is a large tunnel like room with 15 perfectly symmetrical tall arches. There is a complete lack of acoustical reverberation in the room. Once the room is closed, without light, without sound, it is a large damp isolation tank. Psychologists have said that if one stayed in there for two to three hours one would hear one’s blood flow and hair grow; if one stayed for a week one would go mad. There are no written references as to how long anyone survived in the crypt, if they did at all. Throughout the site, artifacts have been uncovered and many of them were in the underground chamber. One of the most unusual was a kind of a crane that seemed to have been used to make images of the deceased person appear to the petitioner. There were also secret passageways in the thick stone-walls for the priests/deceased to seemingly appear and disappear instantly. The diet and deprivations the seeker had gone through made them susceptible to priestly, if not divine, messages. After receiving the communication, the visitor left the Oracle from a separate entrance and was sworn to secrecy. They had entered the realm of Persephone and Hades and survived, but the next time they wouldn’t, and the consequences of divulging secrets would be eternal.
Architecturally the site is fascinating for a number of reasons, not the least of which is its tripartite structure. There are three preparatory rooms, three doors in each passage and in the labyrinth, three sections in the main sanctuary and three rooms on both of the corridors and pilgrims went through three stages of preparation before entering the inner sanctum, entering from the north and turning continuously right into increasing darkness. This is a motif that appears in many cultures, where north represents the darkness and the unknown, the land of the dead.
Even the land of the classical dead, however, is subject to earthly and divine conquest. The Romans burnt down the Nekromanteion in 167 BCE and a church dedicated to St. John the Baptist was built over the ruins in the 18th C. There is also a small box shaped room/fortress that the Turks left from their dominion over the area. Communing with those who walked the earth millennia ago is fascinating, but one does live in the present and for me it was on to Parga, a rocky crop of coastline about 30 km from Ammoudia Bay.
Parga defies the borders of earth, sea and sky; they all merge with one another in the reflections of light dancing on the waters and glistening from the rock massives in the bay. It is a stunningly beautiful area. The coastline, however, would have given ancient mariners pause as the sharp edges of the rocks would slice a boat, or a man, in two. Today, boatmen ferry people between the three different beaches that make up the town, each separated by a grey mass of stone, and to the island of Paxos across the waters.
Paxos has a number of caves and lagoons, which are often the highlight of a visit to this part of Greece. The water is a deep turquoise blue and so clear that one can easily see the seabed thirty to forty feet below. On the boat there, we had a school of dolphins playing with the boat, teasing the people trying to capture images with their cameras as the dolphins leapt out of the waters, then gracefully dived back in, and cruised under the boat from one side to another head tilted so that they appeared to laugh at us. The day trip to Paxos costs anywhere from E15 to E25 depending on the boat one takes. The sailboat costs more, but can’t enter the blue lagoon because of the height of the masts.
Parga, and Paxos, was the furthest west this trip was taking me. The Via Egnatia goes both ways, though, so it was back on the highway now heading east for a visit to the monasteries in the sky, Meteora. From the highway, one turns south at the E6 following the winding mountain road down to the Thessalian Plains. It takes about 35 minutes from the highway through the mountains to the flatlands, to reach Kalambaka, the main town for Meteora excursions.
According to legend, Meteora was named by Athanasios from the Mt. Athos monastery. It is said that he called the mountain rock “Meteora” as it looked if it were floating in air. On one of the peaks, he built a chapel and a few cells and invited meditating monks from surrounding caves to join him in a community. Over time a number of distinct communities were established, many of which have since fallen into disarray. Six rock summit Byzantine monasteries are, however, open for visitors. The oldest, perhaps 11th C, is the one with the least elevation, but some of the most authentic frescos, Agios Nikolaos Anapafsas. It is also the first one on the road from Kastraki, a small peaceful village at the foot of the monasteries. The largest is Megalo Meteoro, which has a number of rooms that function as an monasterial ethnological museum. All six monasteries are still functioning, though two of which are now nunneries. The two nunneries, Roussanou and Agios Stefanos, are indicative of the differences among all six sites. Roussanou, similar to Nikolaus, has an older more authentic feel to the site and the frescos. Agios Stephanos, like Meteroro and the others has been restored fairly recently and the images, while amazing and overwhelming, look like they belong in a modern gallery rather than a church. The views from all six, however, are spectacular, and it is a testament to the monks, and nuns, dedication that they had themselves hoisted up the sheer rock-faced cliffs by ropes until fairly recently. The monasteries were constructed between the 11th, although there are some that say the 9th C, to the 16th , centuries. Renovations have been on-going and continue to do so today. Now however, the renovations appear to be for the tourists who come to visit the sites, including new pathways connecting the road to the monasteries that will alleviate the need to climb hundreds of steps.
The reason to visit Meteora is not just for the incredible views, but for the frescos themselves. As with many Byzantine churches the images are often the same as there is a set pattern for the depiction of Biblical stories and figures. The layout within the church is also dictated by convention and doctrine. Byzantine Orthodox images have multiple functions. They are part of the liturgy in that by viewing the images one is transported from the material to the spiritual realm. There is a different kind of perspective in Byzantine art, as time and space go beyond human understanding. Byzantine figures float in space and have no physical size relationship to one another, but instead a symbolic relationship. The images educate the viewer into the mysteries of the faith as well as to the stories of the saints and Biblical characters. They also visualize what is sung in many of the hymns, creating a multi-sensory spiritual cocoon around the faithful. According to a booklet I bought in Agios Stefanos on one of their frescos, “Depiction of The Second Coming or The Last Judgement” {sic}, St. John of Damascene said that sacred art is used “in order to acquire knowledge …, for spiritual profit and salvation of the soul.” The icons teach, urge to good deeds or dissuade the faithful from sin, they lead to moral speculation and repentance. The icons are ‘the unceasing preachers who teach the people looking at them without any audible utterances.” The paintings are laid out in a particular manner in order to acqiure the ecclesiastical message that is to be shared. This is known as an “iconographical program” and consists of dogmatic, liturgical, and historical cycles, with specific images in predetermined places. The set placement for images of the martyrs and the Last Judgment is in the narthex or entranceway, where those who entered the womb of the church would be confronted with the glory of the Second Coming and the fate of sinners. I almost became one. I was admiring a newly painted image with the fire breathing dragon of Hell and wanted to take a photo of it, which is not permitted in any of the churches, when a young nun came up to me and said very pointedly, “NO Photos!”. I explained I wanted to take it to show my students, and she said I should buy the book. Obviously, I did and the image in the photo gallery is a snapshot of the one from the book not from the one on the wall. The book is also interesting because it was written by the Abbess and not by a scholar so the perspective is from one who lives with and within the images and not someone like me who simply studies them. From the book, we learn that there are various aspects to the icon: Deesis or Supplication, Preparation of the Throne of God, the Scales of Justice, the River of Fire, Paradise, the categories of the Righteous, the damned , the Dragon, who is Hades, and other symbolic details, including the use of colors. Most of these elements are common among Second Coming paintings, but the dragon spouting fire capturing souls that is so vividly portrayed in this painting seemed unique to me. Apparently, there are other such images, starting with a 9th C fresco in Cappadocia, but I hadn’t noticed them before. Perhaps it was the bright colors that caught my attention; this painting was done in 1991 by Vlasios Tsotsonis, a famous icon-maker. Icons are produced by the religious in the monasteries as well as by lay people in the workshops in Kalambaka. They follow set patterns the way thangka painters in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition do, and may not deviate from that pattern. Nonetheless, the artistry of the painter comes through the way a master bringing a Chopin etude to life does versus someone who just hits the notes.
From the monasteries in the sky it was on to the home of the gods, Mt. Olympus. Zeus, however, did not want to have me invade his space and decided to fertilize Demeter’s fields with rain. Respecting his wishes, and not wanting to be caught in his lightning bolt, I headed for the ancient site of Dion instead. Dion was both a large city and a sacred sanctuary from about the 5th C BCE until the 2nd C AD. It hosted one of the ancient Olympiad games as it lies at the foot of Mt. Olympus. There are a number of sanctuaries in the swampy marshlands of the site, including two to Zeus from different periods, a large one with numerous rooms to Demeter, an even larger one that is now almost completely submerged to Isis, (where I found two weasels swimming amidst the broken statues), one to Dionysus, and another to Aeschylus. It also has both a Greek and Roman theater and Roman baths. Artifacts and sculptures from the city and sanctuaries are now in the local museum. Most of that which has been recovered from the residences came from the Villa Dionysus, so named for a large almost completely intact mosaic floor with the face of Dionysus and his less intact naked sculpture. From the sanctuaries 27 statues were recovered from the Isis Temple alone. Both temples to Zeus and Demeter also provided rich finds. What I find interesting is that there are votive figures in the shrines to Isis that are of Zeus, or Demeter, or Aphrodite and not just images of her. It seems that there was no idea of exclusivity in these sanctuaries the way there is today.
(Update: On the way to the airport, the skies cleared and I was able to get up to the first refuge on Mt. Olympus, which was beautiful. The steep crags are covered with foliage near the end of the road on up to the refuge. From there it looked like the vegetation became considerably more sparse. On the road up the mountain is a 16th C Monastery of St. Dionysus that is worth visiting with a ‘holy cave’.)
So comes to an end this journey across time through Northern and Central Greece on an ancient and modern highway. From Dion, I went to a small town on the coast, Platamanos, where I am writing these notes and grading final exams to the crashing of Aegean waves before heading back to Thessaloniki tomorrow for the flight to Vienna. Traveling along the Via Egnatia gives one the sense of timelessness of a Byzantine icon that connects the ancient spiritual world, the clear depths of the waters of the Ionian and Aegean Seas, with the vast blue horizons defying space and place. It is an unforgettable experience.
References:
Site brochures for Samothrace, Thassos, Philippa, Pella, Vergina, Dodona, Necromanteion, Meteora and Dion.
Dakaris, Sotirios. Dodona, Ministry of Culture, Athens 2000
Dakaris, Sotirios, The Nekyomanteion of the Acheron, Ministry of Culture, Athens 2000.
Moyselimis, Syros. The Ancient Underworld and the Oracle for Necromancy at Ephyra. Ioannina 1989
Pispas, Ioannis S. The Church of Dormition in Kalabaka, Kalabaka, 2012.
Provatakis, Theocharis M. Meteora: History of the Monasteries and Monasticism. Athens: Toubi’s ed.
The Depiction of the Second Coming or The Last Judgement, Holy Meteora, 2010
