August 16th/'06: Ghosts of Ancient Greatness

As you walk the streets of Athens, the real Athens, the old storied streets of one of the world's greatest centres, not the sprawl that lies beyond, like a hideous, ravenous beast, the feeling of age and history washes over you. It is impossible to escape it. The Ancient Agora, once the throbbing heart of the Classical world, now in ruin, a skeletal reminder of mortality. As you ascend the Panathanian Way, the street that was the central thoroughfare to the Acropolis, you wonder who may have passed over those very same stones. What feet, what kings, what conquerors, what poets, philosophers, thieves, and condemned men? For as surely as the sun rose, those stones could relay a tale if they could but speak it out loud. Now, of course, little of the greatness remains in the city; it is a sprawl of dirty humanity. But once, when it was 1/20th the size, it was a capital of mankind. Those days of grandeur are far removed, but the stones of the Agora remember it, whisper it to ears that can listen, like a sigh in the breeze. "Socrates", it says, "Plato, Philip, Alexander, Hadrian". There, amongst the ruins, greatness is recalled, and the imagination can reform the fallen temples, rebuild the gymnasium, and clear the dust from the columns. I believe that the "Speech of a Dying Philosopher" captures the essence of Greece:

"I strove with none, for none was worth the strife.
Art I loved, and after art, beauty.
I have warmed both hands before the fire of life,
It dims, and I am ready to depart."

Geoff