Oedipus
"Like a wild bull he wanders now
hidden in the untamed wood, through rocks and caves, alone with his despair on joyless feet, |
Menelaus painter circa 440 BC.
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Tyrannus
keeping his distance from
that doom uttered at earth’s central navel stone." |
Temple at Corinth.
Thebes - the Elektra Gate, one of seven into the city, 8th century BC.
Thebes - ruins of Cadmus' palace.
The field of Cadmus where he
sowed the dragon's teeth. |
The Royal Line of Thebes
"...Where do I go?"
"How can the wings of air sweep up my voice?" |
The hill of Iphigenie at Thebes where Oedipus' children are buried.
"Who gave birth to you, my child?" Thebes - the megaron, or great hall of Cadmus' palace.
Thebes - ruins of Cadmus' palace.
Boetia near Thebes, location of the Sphinx .
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Grave circle at Mycenae, 1550 BC.
Mycenae - Agamemnon's palace by legend.
The Lion Gate, entrance to the palace and citadel at Mycenae, is the sole surviving monumental piece of sculpture from Mycenaean ancient Greece as well as the largest sculpture in the prehistoric Aegean. Erected during 13th century BC Bronze Age Greece, it is 10 feet wide and 9 to 10 feet high to the lintel. The lintel rock or block is another 2.5 feet high, and weighs about 2 tons. The lions stand another 3 feet or so high. Their heads are missing and believed to have been bronze.
Personal note from Ms. Audino: I stood beneath it, having arrived by way of a car-less road up the mountain during the midday heat of Greece in July. What began as a casual hike to an ancient site ended somewhere else -- I suppose I could say it was the first place I personally understood 3,500 years viscerally. The blacktop switchbacked and melted underfoot, its surface rising in white hot heat waves that pushed up and into the cicada tymbals, their noise a flood of sound that swallowed everything -- intention, thought, breathing. The citadel is impregnable, approached only by that road, at the end of which the lions wait, still today. |
The sanctuary ruins at Epidavros, site of the largest and most celebrated healing center or asclepieion of the ancient world, dedicated to the god Asclepius. The rod of Asclepius, a serpent-entwined staff, remains the symbol of medicine today.
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The Asclepieion, or healing sanctuary ruins, at Epidavros.
Personal note from Ms. Audino:
The breezes from the plain circle unabated through the pines framing the asclepieion --
unceasing, the sound moves like tidal water along a quiet shore.
Personal note from Ms. Audino:
The breezes from the plain circle unabated through the pines framing the asclepieion --
unceasing, the sound moves like tidal water along a quiet shore.
The ancient amphitheater at Epidavros is the best preserved ancient Greek theater, seating more than 15,000. The theater was designed by Polykeitos the Younger in the 4th century BC. The original 34 rows were extended in Roman times by another 21 rows. The theater was discovered in 1881 by Panadis Kavadias, a prominent Greek archaeologist of the 19th century out of curiosity. It took him six years to excavate an almost intact theater. Its virtually flawless acoustics permit almost perfect intelligibility of unamplified spoken word from the proscenium or skene to all 15,000 spectators, regardless of their seating. A 2007 study by Nico F. Declerq and Cindy Dekeyser of the Georgia Institute of Technology indicates that these astonishing acoustic properties are the result of advanced design: the rows of limestone seats filter out low-frequency sounds, such as the murmur of the crowd, and amplify high-frequency sounds from the stage.
Personal note from Ms. Audino: I heard a coin drop on the stage amidst the overlapping echoes of tourist voices -- each clink of the coin on the stage reverberated like a perfectly plunked note. I was standing at the very top of the amphitheater, and the guide on the stage was a tiny figure far below.
Personal note from Ms. Audino: I heard a coin drop on the stage amidst the overlapping echoes of tourist voices -- each clink of the coin on the stage reverberated like a perfectly plunked note. I was standing at the very top of the amphitheater, and the guide on the stage was a tiny figure far below.