Olive is a tree sacred to the Greeks, a tree of life. Without it, one cannot imagine the Greek valleys, sandwiched between the mountains and the sea, and the rocky slopes of the mountains themselves, where olive groves alternate with vineyards. Olives rise almost to the very peaks, they dominate the plains, brightening the yellowish soil with their juicy greenery. They surround the villages in a dense ring and line up along the city streets.
The birthplace of the sacred tree is considered to be the Athenian Acropolis - the hill around which the Greek capital is spread. The cities of the ancient world, as a rule, appeared near a high rock, and a citadel (acropolis) was also erected on it, so that residents could take refuge there when the enemy attacked.
Initially, the entire city consisted only of a fortress, only later people began to settle around the Acropolis, flocking here from all over Greece as a place safe from the invasions of nomadic tribes. Over time, groups of houses were formed here, which were later combined together with the fortress into a single city. Tradition, which was followed by Greek historians, indicates that this happened in 1350 BC. e., and attributes the unification of the city to the folk hero Fezey. Athens then lay in a small valley, surrounded by a chain of rocky hills.
The tyrant ruler Pisistratus was the first to transform the Acropolis from a fortress into a sanctuary. But he was an intelligent man: when he came to power, he ordered all the idlers to be brought to his palace and asked them why they did not work. If it turned out that this was a poor man who did not have an ox or seeds to plow and sow a field, then Pisistratus gave him everything. He believed that idleness fraught with the threat of a conspiracy against his power.
In an effort to provide the population of Ancient Athens with work, Pisistratus launched a large construction in the city. Under him, on the site of the royal palace of Cecrop, Hecatompedon was erected, dedicated to the goddess Athena. The Greeks revered their patroness to such an extent that they set free all the slaves who took part in the construction of this temple.
The center of Athens was the Agora - the market square, where there were not only shops; it was the heart of the social life of Athens, there were halls for popular, military and judicial meetings, temples, altars and theaters. During the time of Peisistratus, the temples of Apollo and Zeus Agorai, the nine-stream fountain of Enneacrunos and the altar of the Twelve Gods, which served as a refuge for pilgrims, were erected on the Agora.
The construction of the temple of Olympian Zeus, begun under Pisistratus, was then suspended for many reasons (military, economic, political). According to legend, from ancient times this place was the center where they worshiped Olympian Zeus and the Earth. The first temple there was built by Deucalion - the Greek Noah; later, the tomb of Deucalion and the crack into which water flowed after the flood were indicated there. Every year, on the February new moon, the inhabitants of Athens threw wheat flour mixed with honey there as an offering to the dead.
The temple of Olympian Zeus began to be built in the Doric order, but neither Pisistratus nor his sons managed to finish it. Construction materials prepared for the temple in the 5th century BC e. began to be used for the construction of the city wall. The construction of the temple was resumed (already in the Corinthian order) under the Syrian king Antiochus IV Epiphanes in 175 BC. e.
Then they built a sanctuary and a colonnade, but because of the death of the king, this time the construction of the temple was not completed. The destruction of the unfinished temple was started by the Roman conqueror dictator Sulla, who in 86 BC. e. captured and plundered Athens. He took several columns to Rome, where they decorated the Capitol. Only under the Emperor Hadrian, the construction of this temple was completed - one of the largest structures in ancient Greece, in size equal to a football field.
In the open sanctuary of the temple towered a colossal statue of Zeus, which was made of gold and ivory. Behind the temple were 4 statues of the emperor Hadrian, besides this, many statues of the emperor stood in the fence of the temple. During the earthquake of 1852, one of the columns of the Temple of Olympian Zeus collapsed, and now it lies, disintegrated into its constituent drums. By our time, only 15 of the 104 columns, which were the largest in Europe, remained.
Scientists have suggested that the famous Parthenon, later destroyed by the Persians, was also laid by Peisistratus (or under Peisistratus). In the time of Pericles, this temple was rebuilt on the basis of twice the previous one. The Parthenon was erected in 447-432 BC. e. architects Iktin and Kallikrat.
On 4 sides it was surrounded by slender colonnades, and between their white marble trunks, gaps of blue sky were visible. Permeated with light, the Parthenon seems light and airy. Its white columns do not have the vivid drawings that can be found in Egyptian temples. Only longitudinal grooves (flutes) cover them from top to bottom, which makes the temple seem taller and even slimmer.
The most famous Greek masters took part in the sculptural decoration of the Parthenon, and the artistic inspiration was Phidias, one of the greatest sculptors of all time. He owns the overall composition and development of the entire sculptural decor, some of which he personally performed. And in the depths of the temple, surrounded on three sides by 2-tier columns, the famous statue of the Virgin Athena, created by the famous Phidias, proudly stood. Her robe, helmet and shield were made of solid gold, and her face and hands shone with ivory white.
The creation of Phidias was so perfect that the rulers of Athens and foreign rulers did not dare to erect other structures on the Acropolis, so as not to violate the general harmony. Even today, the Parthenon amazes with the amazing perfection of its lines and proportions: it looks like a ship sailing through the millennia, and you can endlessly look at its colonnade permeated with light and air.
On the Acropolis there was also the Erechtheion temple ensemble with the world-famous portico of the Caryatids: on the south side of the temple, at the edge of the wall, six girls carved out of marble supported the ceiling. The portico figures are, in fact, supports that replace a pillar or column, but they perfectly convey the lightness and flexibility of the girlish figures. The Turks, having captured Athens at one time and did not allow images of a person according to their Islamic laws, did not, however, destroy the Caryatids. They limited themselves only to cutting the faces of the girls.
The only entrance to the Acropolis is the famous Propylaea, a monumental gateway with Doric columns and wide staircase. According to legend, however, there is also a secret entrance to the Acropolis - underground. It begins in one of the old grottoes, and 2500 years ago a sacred one crawled along it from the Acropolis, when the army of the Persian king Xerxes attacked Greece.
In ancient Greece, the Propylaea (literal translation - "standing in front of the gate") was the name given to the solemnly decorated entrance to the square, to the sanctuary or fortress. Propylaea of the Athenian Acropolis, built by the architect Mnesicles in 437-432 BC. e., are considered the most perfect, the most original and at the same time the most typical building of this kind of architecture. In ancient times, in everyday speech, the Propylaea was called the "Palace of Themistocles", later - the "Arsenal of Lycurgus". After the conquest of Athens by the Turks, an arsenal with a powder magazine was actually built in the Propylaea.
On the high pedestal of the bastion, which once guarded the entrance to the Acropolis, there is a small graceful temple of the goddess of victory Nika Apteros, decorated with low bas-reliefs depicting the themes of the Greco-Persian wars. A gilded statue of the goddess was installed inside the temple, which the Greeks liked so much that they innocently begged the sculptor not to make her wings so that she could not leave the beautiful Athens. Victory is fickle and flies from one enemy to another, therefore the Athenians portrayed her wingless so that the goddess would not leave the city, which won a great victory over the Persians.
After the Propylaea, the Athenians went to the main square of the Acropolis, where they were greeted by a 9-meter statue of Athena Promachos (Warrior), also created by the sculptor Phidias. It was cast from captured Persian weapons captured in the Battle of Marathon. The pedestal was high, and the gilded tip of the goddess's spear, sparkling in the sun and visible far from the sea, served as a kind of beacon for sailors.
When in 395 the Byzantine Empire separated from the Roman Empire, Greece became part of it, and until 1453 Athens was part of Byzantium. The great temples of the Parthenon, Erechtheion and others were turned into Christian churches. At first, this pleased and even helped the Athenians, newly converted Christians, as it enabled them to perform new religious rituals in a familiar and familiar environment.
But by the 10th century, the greatly reduced population of the city began to feel uncomfortable in the huge majestic buildings of past times, and the Christian religion also demanded a different artistic and aesthetic design of churches. Therefore, in Athens, they began to build much smaller Christian churches, moreover, completely different in terms of artistic principles. The oldest Byzantine-style church in Athens is the Church of St. Nicodemus, built on the ruins of a Roman bath.
In Athens, the proximity of the East is constantly felt, although it is difficult to say at once what exactly gives the city an oriental flavor. Perhaps these are mules and donkeys harnessed to carts, which can be found on the streets of Istanbul, Baghdad and Cairo? Or are the minarets of mosques preserved in some places - mute witnesses of the former dominion of the Great Port?
Or perhaps the outfit of the guards standing guard at the royal residence - bright red fez, skirts above the knee and felt shoes with upturned toes? And of course, this is the oldest part of modern Athens - the Plaka area, dating back to the days of Turkish rule. This district was preserved in the form in which it existed until 1833: narrow, dissimilar streets with small houses of old architecture; stairs connecting streets, churches … And above them rise the majestic gray rocks of the Acropolis, crowned with a powerful fortress wall and overgrown with rare trees.
Behind small houses there is the Roman Agora and the so-called Tower of the Winds, which in the 1st century BC. e. was presented to Athens by a rich Syrian merchant Andronicus. The Tower of Winds is an octahedral structure with a height of just over 12 meters, its edges are strictly oriented to the cardinal points. The sculptural frieze of the Tower depicts the winds blowing from each side.
The tower was built of white marble, and at the top of it stood a copper den with a rod in his hands: turning in the direction of the wind, he pointed with the rod to one of the eight sides of the Tower, where 8 winds were depicted in bas-reliefs. For example, Boreas (north wind) was portrayed as an old man in warm clothes and ankle boots: in his hands he holds a shell, which serves him instead of a pipe. Zephyr (western spring wind) appears as a barefoot youth who scatters flowers from the floor of his fluttering mantle …
Under the bas-reliefs depicting winds, on each side of the Tower there is a sundial showing not only the time of day, but also both the rotation of the sun and the equinox. And so that you can find out the time in cloudy weather, a clepsydra - a water clock is placed inside the Tower.
During the Turkish occupation, for some reason, it was believed that the philosopher Socrates was buried in the Tower of the Winds. Where Socrates died and where exactly is the tomb of the ancient Greek thinker - you can't read about it from ancient writers. But a legend has survived among the people, which points to one of the caves, consisting of three chambers - partly natural, partly specially carved into the rock. One of the outermost chambers also has a special inner compartment - like a low round casemate with an opening at the top, which is closed by a stone slab …
It is impossible to tell in one article about all the sights of ancient Athens, because every stone here breathes history, every centimeter of the land of the ancient city, which cannot be entered without trembling, is sacred … No wonder the Greeks said: “If you have not seen Athens, then you are a mule; and if you saw and was not delighted, then you are a stump! N. Ionina