THE PARTHENON, HISTORY ON THE ATHENIAN ACROPOLIS

Today, The Grandma has continued her English classes with The Bishops in Castelldefels.

They have been practising some oral English and the have done some exercises to learn the articke 'The' in English.

More info: Definitive Article

Today, The Grandma has been reading about the Parthenon, the former temple on the Athenian Acropolis in Greece, dedicated to the goddess Athena.

The Parthenon, in Ancient Greek Παρθενών, is a former temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, that was dedicated to the goddess Athena during the fifth century BC. 

Its decorative sculptures are considered some of the high points of Greek art, an enduring symbol of Ancient Greece, democracy and Western civilization.

The Parthenon was built in thanksgiving for the Hellenic victory over Persian invaders during the Greco-Persian Wars. 

Like most Greek temples, the Parthenon also served as the city treasury.

More information: History

Construction started in 447 BC when the Delian League was at the peak of its power. It was completed in 438; work on the decoration continued until 432. For a time, it served as the treasury of the Delian League, which later became the Athenian Empire. In the final decade of the 6th century AD, the Parthenon was converted into a Christian church dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

After the Ottoman conquest in the mid-fifteenth century, it became a mosque. In the Morean War, a Venetian bomb landed on the Parthenon, which the Ottomans had used as a munitions dump, during the 1687 siege of the Acropolis. The resulting explosion severely damaged the Parthenon. 

From 1800 to 1803, the 7th Earl of Elgin removed some of the surviving sculptures, now known as the Elgin Marbles, reportedly (but controversially) with the permission of the Ottoman Empire.

The Parthenon replaced an older temple of Athena, which historians call the Pre-Parthenon or Older Parthenon, that was demolished in the Persian invasion of 480 BC.

Since 1975, numerous large-scale restoration projects have been undertaken to preserve remaining artefacts and ensure its structural integrity.

More information: Smart History

The origin of the word Parthenon comes from the Greek word parthénos (παρθένος), meaning maiden, girl as well as virgin, unmarried woman. The Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek-English Lexicon states that it may have referred to the unmarried women's apartments in a house, but that in the Parthenon it seems to have been used for a particular room of the temple.

Although the Parthenon is architecturally a temple and is usually called so, some scholars have argued that it is not really a temple in the conventional sense of the word. A small shrine has been excavated within the building, on the site of an older sanctuary probably dedicated to Athena as a way to get closer to the goddess, but the Parthenon apparently never hosted the official cult of Athena Polias, patron of Athens. 

The cult image of Athena Polias, which was bathed in the sea and to which was presented the peplos, was an olive-wood xoanon, located in another temple on the northern side of the Acropolis, more closely associated with the Great Altar of Athena.

The colossal statue of Athena by Phidias was not specifically related to any cult attested by ancient authors and is not known to have inspired any religious fervour. Preserved ancient sources do not associate it with any priestess, altar or cult name.

More information: Smithsonian Magazine

Earth proudly wears the Parthenon
as the best gem upon her zone.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

ATHENS 1896, THE FIRST MODERN OLYMPIC GAMES

Today, The Grandma has been remembering her participation in the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games. It was an amazing and unforgettable experience, and she has great memories about it.

The Grandma has read about the first International Olympic Games held in modern history, celebrated in Athens that started on a day like today in 1896.

The 1896 Summer Olympics, in Greek Θερινοί Ολυμπιακοί Αγώνες 1896, officially known as the Games of the I Olympiad, was the first international Olympic Games held in modern history.

Organized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which had been created by French aristocrat Pierre de Coubertin, it was held in Athens, Greece, from 6 to 15 April 1896.

Fourteen nations (according to the IOC, though the number is subject to interpretation) and 241 athletes (all males; this number is also disputed) took part in the games. Participants were all European, or living in Europe, except the United States team. Over 65% of the competing athletes were Greek.

Winners were given a silver medal, while runners-up received a copper medal. Retroactively, the IOC has converted these to gold and silver, and awarded bronze medals to third placed athletes. Ten of the 14 participating nations earned medals.

The United States won the most gold medals, 11, while host nation Greece won the most medals overall, 46. The highlight for the Greeks was the marathon victory by their compatriot Spyridon Louis. The most successful competitor was German wrestler and gymnast Carl Schuhmann, who won four events.

More information: IOC

Athens had been unanimously chosen to stage the inaugural modern Games during a congress organized by Coubertin in Paris on 23 June 1894, during which the IOC was also created, because Greece was the birthplace of the Ancient Olympic Games.

The main venue was the Panathenaic Stadium, where athletics and wrestling took place; other venues included the Neo Phaliron Velodrome for cycling, and the Zappeion for fencing.

The opening ceremony was held in the Panathenaic Stadium on 6 April, during which most of the competing athletes were aligned on the infield, grouped by nation. After a speech by the president of the organizing committee, Crown Prince Constantine, his father officially opened the Games. Afterwards, nine bands and 150 choir singers performed an Olympic Hymn, composed by Spyridon Samaras, with words by poet Kostis Palamas.

The 1896 Olympics were regarded as a great success.

 

The Games had the largest international participation of any sporting event to that date. The Panathenaic Stadium overflowed with the largest crowd ever to watch a sporting event.

After the Games, Coubertin and the IOC were petitioned by several prominent figures, including Greece's King George and some American competitors in Athens, to hold all the following Games in Athens.

However, the 1900 Summer Olympics were already planned for Paris and, except for the Intercalated Games of 1906, the Olympics did not return to Greece until the 2004 Summer Olympics, 108 years later.

During the 19th century, several small-scale sports festivals across Europe were named after the Ancient Olympic Games. The 1870 Olympics at the Panathenaic stadium, which had been refurbished for the occasion, had an audience of 30,000 people.

Pierre de Coubertin, a French pedagogue and historian, adopted Dr William Penny Brookes' idea to establish a multi-national and multi-sport event -the ancient games only allowed male athletes of Greek origin to participate.

In 1890, Coubertin wrote an article in La Revue Athletique, which espoused the importance of Much Wenlock a rural market town in the English county of Shropshire. It was here that, in October 1850, the local physician William Penny Brookes had founded the Wenlock Olympian Games, a festival of sports and recreations that included athletics and team sports, such as cricket, football and quoits.

Coubertin also took inspiration from the earlier Greek games organized under the name of Olympics by businessman and philanthropist Evangelis Zappas in 1859, 1870 and 1875.

The 1896 Athens Games were funded by the legacies of Evangelis Zappas and his cousin Konstantinos Zappas and by George Averoff who had been specifically requested by the Greek government, through crown prince Constantine, to sponsor the second refurbishment of the Panathenaic Stadium.

More information: Pierre de Coubertine, The Modern Olympic Games

On 6 April, 25 March according to the Julian calendar then in use in Greece, the games of the First Olympiad were officially opened; it was Easter Monday for both the Western and Eastern Christian Churches and the anniversary of Greece's independence.

The Panathenaic Stadium was filled with an estimated 80,000 spectators, including King George I of Greece, his wife Olga, and their sons. Most of the competing athletes were aligned on the infield, grouped by nation.

On the morning of Sunday 12 April or 3 April, according to the Julian calendar then used in Greece, King George organized a banquet for officials and athletes even though some competitions had not yet been held.

During his speech, he made clear that, as far as he was concerned, the Olympics should be held in Athens permanently. The official closing ceremony was held the following Wednesday, after being postponed from Tuesday due to rain. Again the royal family attended the ceremony, which was opened by the national anthem of Greece and an ode composed in ancient Greek by George S. Robertson, a British athlete and scholar.

More information: Independent

 The most important thing in the Olympic Games
is not winning but taking part;
the essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well.

Pierre de Coubertin

PERICLES: THIS IS ABOUT DEMOCRACY, THEN AND NOW

Pericles, Περικλῆς

Pericles (Περικλῆς Periklēs, c. 495–429 BC) was a prominent and influential Greek statesman, orator and general of Athens during the Golden Age, specifically the time between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars. He was descended, through his mother, from the powerful and historically influential Alcmaeonid family. 

Pericles had such a profound influence on Athenian society that Thucydides, a contemporary historian, acclaimed him as the first citizen of Athens. Pericles turned the Delian League into an Athenian empire, and led his countrymen during the first two years of the Peloponnesian War. The period during which he led Athens, roughly from 461 to 429 BC, is sometimes known as the Age of Pericles, though the period thus denoted can include times as early as the Persian Wars, or as late as the next century. 

Pericles promoted the arts and literature; it is principally through his efforts that Athens holds the reputation of being the educational and cultural center of the ancient Greek world. He started an ambitious project that generated most of the surviving structures on the Acropolis, including the Parthenon. This project beautified and protected the city, exhibited its glory, and gave work to the people. Pericles also fostered Athenian democracy to such an extent that critics call him a populist. Pericles' most visible legacy can be found in the literary and artistic works of the Golden Age, most of which survive to this day.

More information: History.com

The Acropolis, though in ruins, still stands and is a symbol of modern Athens. Paparrigopoulos wrote that these masterpieces are sufficient to render the name of Greece immortal in our world. In politics, Victor L. Ehrenberg argues that a basic element of Pericles' legacy is Athenian imperialism, which denies true democracy and freedom to the people of all but the ruling state. The promotion of such an arrogant imperialism is said to have ruined Athens. Pericles and his expansionary policies have been at the center of arguments promoting democracy in oppressed countries.

Other analysts maintain an Athenian humanism illustrated in the Golden Age. The freedom of expression is regarded as the lasting legacy deriving from this period. Pericles is lauded as the ideal type of the perfect statesman in ancient Greece and his Funeral Oration is nowadays synonymous with the struggle for participatory democracy and civic pride. 

What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, 

but what is woven into the lives of others.  

Pericles