Monuments Episode 4: The Acropolis of Athens

Hello everyone, just a quick reminder before the episode starts that my second book, the most interesting people you've never heard of releases on the 29th of September, it's coming up very soon. You can pre-order the book right now if you're so inclined. Otherwise, keep an eye out for it in your local bookseller. And of course, I'm going on tour in support of this book's launch with shows in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, and right here on the Sunshine Coast. If you'd like to come along to any of these shows, tickets are available at halfassistory.net and almost all the shows are free to attend. So you've got absolutely no excuse mate looking forward to seeing you there. FX is American Horror Story Returns for an unrivaled 13th installment with the iconic horrors you love to fear and an all-star cast reprising fan favorite roles. Light your candles, draw your pentagrams, and prepare for a supreme surprise. FX is American Horror Story 13, now streaming on Hulu. Checking off the boxes on your to-do list is a great feeling. That's why a state farm agent is there to help you choose a coverage option that's right for you. Whether you're getting a new house, car, boat, or RV, helping protected is important. And state farm is there to help you choose the coverage you need. Whether you prefer talking in person, on the phone, or using the award-winning app. And with so many coverage options, it's nice knowing you have help finding coverage that best fits your needs. So you can continue to focus on what's most important to you. Like a good neighbor, state farm is there. The Acropolis of Athens is a hilltop citadel built thousands and thousands of years ago that overlooks the Greek city of Athens. And the reason I'm calling it the Acropolis of Athens, and not just giving it its normal name, the Acropolis, is that there were actually a great many Acropolis layers. There you go. Apparently the plural for Acropolis isn't Acropolis's. It's Acropolis layers. I don't know. Yet another little corner of your brain filled up with thoroughly useless knowledge. You're very welcome. Anyway, most major ancient Greek cities had an Acropolis. And while the Acropolis of Athens is far and away, the most famous, there are plenty of other examples that have survived through to the present day. There's the Acropolis of Lindos in Rhodes. There's one in Thieves. There's one in Corinth. And honestly, depending on how strict we're going to be with the definition of an Acropolis, if all an Acropolis is, is a hilltop citadel overlooking a city, then there's one in Edinburgh. There's one in Jerusalem. We could even have one here in Australia, if only someone would build something on top of Mount Ainsley in Canberra. How about that? The Canberra Acropolis finally a reason to actually visit the capital. Anyway, no. The Acropolis of Athens, the Acropolis. It is without a doubt the most famous Acropolis in the world, seated as it is on top of the hill, overlooking the Greek capital. The hill itself is around 150 meters above sea level, and it commands a beautiful view of the city below. It is an instantly recognizable aspect of the Athenian skyline. Even today, and of course, is a huge tourist attraction. I've been there myself. I highly recommend it to anyone who is in the area. It's well worth a visit. And while visiting there, you'll probably discover and understand a great deal of its history. History that we're going to talk about here and now. Because while the ruins that you'll find that make up the Acropolis today, while the ruins that you'll find there date back specifically to the 5th century BCE, there were almost certainly buildings atop the hill that predate even those ruins. Over 3,000 years ago, it's thought there was a large palace on top of this hill, surrounded by a thick wall, although it obviously didn't stand the test of time. It's likely that an earthquake brought it tumbling down at some point. Between the 7th and the 5th centuries BCE, a handful of buildings were built and then later destroyed. There were walls and gates and temples and shrines and all sorts of stuff. But to begin the history of the Acropolis proper, the remnants of which are still around today, we head to the latest stages of the 5th century BCE. During the Greco-Persian Wars, episode 184, 186 get across them, the Athenians had been vaguely working on a few different building projects on top of the hill that overlook their city, but in the wake of this war, and it's somewhat improbable victory, they changed their plans. Athens enjoyed something of a golden age during this time, and so it was decided by people such as the famous Pericles that the Acropolis should be rebuilt to reflect that golden age. And so construction began on an all-new, all-improved Acropolis, with some of the most famous architects and sculptors and craftsmen of the time being brought to Athens to bring this vision that the Athenians had into reality. Temples, shrines and gates and all sorts of other buildings sprang up between 460 and 430 BCE, don't forget we're counting backwards because it's BCE. And some of these structures have stuck around to the present day and remain extremely famous. There's the Temple of Athena Nike, a small but exquisitely decorated temple on the edge of the hilltop directly overlooking the city below. There's also the Eric Thion, the Temple of Athena Polyas, they really love Athena and Athens, surprise, surprise. Which is a building unusual for its asymmetric design, not something that you see in classical architecture very much. Or there is the proper layer, an enormous gate house to the west of the Acropolis that seemed to go through so many different iterations and changes throughout its design and its building process that it doesn't actually seem to have been properly finished. There's also notably and tragically not there today, the giant statue of Athena. Yes, Athena Promacos, a huge, big bronze statue depicting Athena with her classic shield or classic helmet. And in her other hand, maybe an owl or maybe a spear, we're not 100% sure. But this statue, it was enormous, maybe up to 10 meters in height. Perhaps the tallest thing on the Acropolis altogether, but sadly, it hasn't survived. After around a thousand years atop this hill, this statue was taken from the Acropolis in 465 CE and moved to Constantinople. Where, many centuries later, it was ultimately destroyed in a riot in 1203, a terrible terrible shame. But of course, while we can't talk about all the very many buildings that were built as part of the Acropolis, I do have to mention the largest and the most famous structure overlooking Athens, the Parthenon. Now, I talked in pretty great detail about the Parthenon in episode 285, the Elgen Marbles, Elgen, get across it definitely, Elgen, Elgen. So, you can have a listen to that for more in-depth information about it in its history. But put concisely, the Parthenon is one of the, no, it's not even one of the most. It is the most famous and enduring example of ancient Greek architecture built as a temple to, guess who? Yes, Athena, once again, the Parthenon, it was an example of the proportional perfection that ancient Greek buildings are known for. It has its iconic columns, its rich decorations and sculptures, it's, well, these days also it's largely ruined condition. But the Parthenon, it has a long and a controversial history. Once again, I'll point you to episode 285, an interesting episode, even if I do completely mispronounce Elgen, the whole way through. Sorry everyone, it's just as annoying for me as it is for you. Anyway, these and so many other buildings made up the Acropolis by the end of the 5th century BCE, and so it wasn't just one building, as you might have thought, if you didn't know too much about the Acropolis, it was a citadel. You'd walk all the way up the hill, you'd walk through the proper layer, and then you'd explore the streets and the buildings and everything else on foot. And as the years passed, as the Greek world fell into the Roman sphere of influence, the Acropolis, it underwent some change. Its buildings were kept in good repair, but more and more structures were constructed as part of it, more shrines, more statues, even odions, colonnades, other structures as well on the sides of the hill itself. But largely speaking, it remained more or less the same. In the 3rd century CE, it was fortified to serve more as a fortress rather than just a citadel, but major change didn't come to the Acropolis until after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. As the Christianised Byzantines took charge of Athens, the Acropolis became both a Christian place of worship with the Parthenon being used as a church, and a government centre, with administrative offices and even a jucle palace being established up there on the hill. But then years later, along came the Ottomans, who converted the Parthenon into a mosque and repurposed many of the buildings to serve military functions. Even the Parthenon itself, in time gunpowder was stored in it, and in the 17th century this gunpowder was hit by a Venetian mortar during a siege. The Parthenon suffered heavy damage as a result, but honestly by this stage the whole place is really not a good nick. The Ottomans didn't really look after the Acropolis, and it wasn't until an independent Greece emerged in the early 19th century that action was taken to once again restore the Acropolis at least to a fraction of its former glory. The Greeks, once they regained their independence, they decided to try to return the Acropolis as much as possible to its original form as an ancient Hellenistic city. site. And to do this, they demolished and destroyed a lot of the later additions to the Acropolis. For instance, the Byzantines had built a tower up there that ended up being ripped down as did more or less everything else that wasn't thousands of years old. The Greeks really did clean house. They tried to take the Acropolis back to its roots by removing everything that had been added more recently, including, of course, the leftovers from the Ottomans. The Parthenon had all of its Islamic trappings removed, including even a minaret. But after having done all this, the Greeks brought in classical scholars and architects to try to restore these buildings as much as they could, which is a daunting task, and not only because of the damage that the Acropolis had suffered, but also because of the fact that half the bloody stone used to build it had been nicked and looted and repurposed to build other buildings elsewhere, not to mention the fact that many of the exquisite decorations of buildings like the Parthenon had been nicked and bunged in museums far across the other side of Europe in Britain. Ultimately, this left the Acropolis in a pretty poor condition, and while work has been done to try to restore it, the condition in which you'll find today is still one. Well, I don't know. It's not a total ruin, but it certainly doesn't look as it did when ancient Athenians were kicking about worshipping Athena in all these different buildings it built. But still, I think it's better say, after two and a half thousand years, the places in all that bad, and especially in recent years when you think about it being Athen's premier tourist attraction, the Acropolis is still relatively well looked after. These days, historians and archaeologists and conservationists, they all work tirelessly to preserve and maintain the Acropolis. In many instances, working with the very same tools and the very same techniques that were used thousands of years ago to maintain the authenticity and the integrity of the site. Although, controversially, there is some work that's been done to the Acropolis with modern techniques. Reinforce concrete has been used to bolster access paths to the monument, for instance, and this really didn't go down too well amongst many scholars and experts and archaeologists. But happily, much of the more modern work done by conservationists has been designed to be fully reversible. For instance, a bunch of titanium has been employed to strengthen some of the ruined buildings and structures, but it's been done in such a way that this titanium can be removed down the track without causing further damage. So, in future years, if better techniques emerge to conserve this monument, then the former work that was done on it won't stand in the way of keeping these buildings as authentic and as true to history as possible. It's a very good thing that the Acropolis does seem at last to be in somewhat safer hands. Conservationists take the Acropolis as longevity very seriously indeed. They work constantly to keep it in the best condition possible, and they do this even as millions and millions of visitors stream through its gates every day, all seeking to marvel at this incredible example of ancient Greek architecture and culture. In 2009, the nearby Acropolis Museum opened up, housing not only innumerable artifacts, but also endless information about the site. It's only a short walk away too, so it's definitely the sort of place you want to visit in addition to the Acropolis to get a full understanding of the place. Because it really is remarkable that after almost 25 centuries overlooking Athens, the Acropolis still stands as an incredible example of the splendor of ancient Greek civilization. The Acropolis has survived earthquakes and fires and wars and seages and explosions and all the ravages of time for two and a half thousand years. It's been put to so many different uses across the centuries from religious to cultural to governmental to military. It's been looted, it's been pillaged, it's been damaged and yet after all of this, it remains still standing today. And hopefully with the careful oversight of conservationists will remain standing for a very long time. Hello, I'm Monica Reinagle, host of the Nutrition Diva podcast. Summer is here and with it, the hot and sticky weather. 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