“The future will wonder at us as the present wonders at us now.” So spoke Pericles twenty five centuries ago.

And if we today have only a dim idea of Pericles’ speech over the Athenian dead during the war with Sparta– the Peloponnesian War –Lincoln surely knew it. He knew what ground he stood on and what surrounded him. Every turn of phrase in the Gettysburg Address can be attributed to one classical rhetorical device or another, all of them common in Athens 2,500 years ago.

The previous speaker at Gettysburg was Edward Everett. Lincoln’s speech towers over Everett’s in every way.

But Everett was the draw. A Harvard professor who taught Emerson, he was a polished public speaker, in demand at just such events as this. Commanding top billing, he was largely responsible for the vast crowd, upwards of 20,000 people. Lincoln was the afterthought. His invitation came months after Everett’s place had been secured.

But it’s important to know what joined them on the same platform. Opening acts tell us something and set a frame. And sometimes less experienced players are unexpected surprises who steal the show. In a world where newspapers were the only mass media, and were often weeks behind and frequently unreliable, a public speech in front of a large crowd was the prosaic version of Ancient Drama – part information, part illumination and part theater. Everett’s historical synopsis of the war and his day by day replaying of the battle would have struck a chord with the crowd, as would his folksy style, staggering command of detail and emotion laden rhetoric.

It barely needed mentioning that the historic model for Gettysburg was the battle of Marathon, but that’s where Everett began. The fight for freedom and ideals, the noble sacrifice for a “light to all coming time,” the choice to bury the dead where they fell, Everett made the connection for the crowd. Set in a battlefield that would become a monument, within a cultural setting of the Greek Revival movement, Everett knew his audience, and he knew what they knew. The moment must have seemed eerily similar to the ancient story for the assembled. Although in our ironic and minimalist way we scoff at the length of the speech – two hours from memory – this would not have bothered the crowd or Lincoln himself one bit. This was our Marathon. And they knew it. As Jefferson and Washington looked to Rome, this new century had looked to Greece.

And then there is Euclid

We are all familiar with the stories of the young Lincoln and his hunger for knowledge. School was intermittent, but young Abe borrowed books from anyone he could and sat reading by candlelight. But how many of us know of his constant desire to self educate throughout the rest of his life? Here again he becomes an Athenian, this time in his restless desire to know. His candle light reading never stopped.

As a law student, Abe carried the mathematical works of Euclid in his saddle bag. Realizing the deficiency in his reasoning ability, he set his mind to mastering these most fundamental geometric principles. Most scholars believe Euclid’s style of reasoning and search for mathematical equalities informed not only Lincoln’s days as a lawyer but his political reasoning as well.

Lincoln writes

“At last I said,- Lincoln, you never can make a lawyer if you do not understand what demonstrate means; and I left my situation in Springfield, went home to my father’s house, and stayed there till I could give any proposition in the six books of Euclid at sight. I then found out what demonstrate means, and went back to my law studies.”

The model is Marathon, the form and ideals, Pericles. The reasoning is Euclid, and the techniques, the rhetorical devices of the Athenians. The flavor is pure American, as it should be. But the style, the substance and the sentiment is all Ancient Greece.

And let’s not forget Lincoln’s last line, “Government of the people by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth.” Pericles risen from the grave.

The Greek  mechanism for punishment ? Cheaters were required to commission a bronze statue of Zeus paid for with their own money. The base of these statues were inscribed with the cheater’s name and offense. Today only the bases are left.

But for a thousand years these statues lined a walkway approaching the stadium for incoming athletes and spectators–a permanent headline for future generations of those who disgraced the games. If you cheated, your neighbors and compatriots as well as your descendants got to see testimony of your dishonesty every Olympiad – there were statues, but no statue of limitations.

Added to each statue was an admonition in verse. One declared Olympic victory is to be won not by money but by fleetness of foot and strength of body. Another said this statue is a “terror to those who transgress.” A third was “a warning to all Greeks not to give money for the purposes of gaining an Olympic victory.”

The first recorded Olympic cheat was Eupolus, a boxer who bribed three opponents on his way to victory in 388 BCE.  They all paid a hefty fine and statues were erected in their “honor.”

The most famous Olympic cheat was the Roman Emperor Nero who came to the Games in 67 CE, raced in the chariot race, fell off his chariot, and had himself declared winner. Apparently no one had the nerve to fine the mad Emperor.

There were other instances of recorded cheating, but surprisingly few. Most athletes and judges were thought to be honest. After all, the gods were watching.

What about today’s cheaters – those that are doping, fixing games, and generally behaving badly. Imagine if each time we walked into a  stadium, any stadium, or turned on a game, we were reminded yet again of who cheated the gods, the games, and us – our own contemporary scoundrels and their crimes permanently recorded by the very best graphic artists, composers, video people and the like, all paid for by the crooks and cheaters themselves.

I won’t even bother to list all the ignoble characters who would qualify. It would be a long walk into the stadium. At home,  parents would point to the pre-game show to teach kids a moral lesson. More jaded teens and adults would have their finger on the mute button for a long time while the parade of past cheats strolled past.

I’d like to think eventually the numbers would drop off, and cheating would be a rare and embarrassing thing. Most athletes, Olympic and otherwise, are honest, and the fence sitters who follow the crowd just might be shamed and frightened into doing the right thing.

But I wonder if in our attention seeking world the notoriety would become its own kind of fame and honor. Like seeing a twisted version of some bad Hollywood gossip, we would watch in a more or less neutral state to see how bad it really was and after a while become numb to it all.

But when it’s all said and done, I am not a cynic. It’s too easy and contributes nothing. I have always loved watching athletes at the top of their game. In the 2004 games in Athens, a Greek woman won a silver medal in a foot race. She was  asked what it was like. Instead of thanking people – good – or bragging – not so good, she said she felt like she was running twenty five centuries ago in the Pan Athenaic games in Athens to honor  Athena.  She could feel it surging inside her. That’s the spirit.  Enjoy the games.

As far back as Homer, athletic contests for honor and prizes were part of the Greek world. In fact games were so important to the Greeks they dated the beginning of their calendar from the 1^st Olympiad – our year 776 BCE. The festival at Olympia, although not the only games in Greece, was surely the most famous and well attended.

Once every four years a truce was declared amongst the quarrelsome Greek city-states and with safe passage guaranteed, athletes, spectators, vendors and just plain folks flocked to the peaceful bucolic village of Olympia. There they sang, danced, feasted, argued, and of course played games, all to honor Zeus, the supreme god.

Along with athletic games, there were poetry and music contests, new ideas were exchanged, rumors were spread and sometimes peace treaties were declared, during the week long festival. Thales, the father of the scientific method, died of heat stroke at the games around 546 BCE. A century later Herodotus, the father of history, came and read from his works. Plato attended, as did Aristotle. Phillip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great competed.

The prize to the victor was a simple crown of olive leaves. But upon returning to his native city the champion was treated to a hero’s welcome- presented with jars of valuable olive oil, honor and fame amongst his fellow citizens, and free meals for life provided by the city-state.

Poets sang the champion’s praises, among them Pindar, whose work represent some the finest examples of early Greek poetry.

And when a man has triumphed
and put his toil behind,
it is time for melodious song
to arise, ………….

For Olympian victors, such acclaim
is laid in store
without limit, and I
am eager to tend it with my song.

Pindar 522-443 BC

While the games were greatly entertaining and festive, they also reflected a deeper level of the Greek world.  Athletes journeyed to Olympia a month before the games and had to meet the highest physical and moral standards. An Olympic champion represented the personification of an ideal in Ancient Greece–an honest and virtuous soul, using their body in the pursuit of excellence to honor the gods.

For more on Ancient Olympia

]]> http://eyeofzeus.com/2012/07/olympic-games-now-and-then/feed/ 0 http://eyeofzeus.com/2012/06/there-is-an-ill-wind-blowing/ http://eyeofzeus.com/2012/06/there-is-an-ill-wind-blowing/#comments Fri, 29 Jun 2012 18:08:11 +0000 admin http://eyeofzeus.com/?p=2325 Greek stories are full of hybrid characters, usually man-gods or man-beasts. They represent our mixed nature – something of the gods and something of the animals – and their stories frequently serve as cautionary tales. In more recent times another breed has appeared with another warning – man/machines. But the recent film The Hunger Games draws a whole new creature in our midst.

The monsters are a 3D graphic – animal mix with the human element completely lacking – part ferocious animal and part CAD creation come to life. With ruthless efficiency and jungle like menace they stalk the hero back to the mother ship in a terrifying chase scene. When one is not enough, another appears. The ease with which the techno council of engineers summons them – effectively cloning them at will – gives them an even more menacing quality.

A few centuries ago Dr Frankenstein had to work a lifetime to make a monster. Now a council of engineers can set them loose with the wave of a hand.

Both animal and animation have the same Latin root – anima – meaning breath or soul. The word comes from the Ancient Greek for wind – anemos and herein lays a tale – and a warning. Both Mythology and Philosophy – the twin towers of Ancient Greece – have something to say about this new animating breeze.

The most famous Greek story of the wind is from the Odyssey. The King of the Winds made a gift to Odysseus of all the winds. He placed them in an ox hide bag, keeping out only the gentle West Wind to loosen the sail. With a gentle breeze at his back, Odysseus faithfully kept one hand on the rudder of his ship and the other clutching the bag for nine days as he sailed home. On the tenth day when  Odysseus heartbreakingly fell asleep in sight of shore, his men, looking for gold, gave way to their greed and opened the bag. The winds roared into a great storm, and the ship was driven back into the chaos of the open sea.  More harrowing adventures were yet to come.

Greece’s most famous Philosopher’s might also have something to say about this new animating power.

Socrates taught about the danger of facility without a moral compass. In his day it was the power of persuasive speech sweeping through the market place that got his attention. What dangers would he point to today?

We hear a lot about the importance of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math for our future, and rightly so. Technology might be our only way out of the labyrinth we’re in. With the STEMs people leading the charge, we could wake up again to our beautiful world cleansed by our own hand, full of enchantment and freedom and beauty.

But will rigorous training and knowledge and expertise be enough?

Or are we destined to come all this way only to forget that opening the bag will cause us to lose sight of our home and drive us back into chaos? Can our STEMs friends alone put the gentle West Wind at our backs without a Socrates badgering them and fretting over our moral compass or the self control and courage of Odysseus tightly clutching the ox hide bag closed? Or will we one day find a council of new  wizards sitting in a room, blithely conjuring up monsters, the empty bag torn and tossed on the floor, without a compass in sight – technique without animus– animators without souls.

While the outlier distinct is pure Appalachia, and the opening ceremony has all the pomp of imperial Rome, the story is pure Greek.

Wielding the bow of Artemis,  the Hunger Games heroine walks  the familiar ground tread by Theseus on the famous dancing floor so many centuries ago.

Entering the maze to protect innocence and put an end to human sacrifice, she will strive to bring her comrades home, although unlike in its more optimistic prototype, they are doomed. She is thrown into the hunt, relying on her wits and learning as she goes, complete with doubts, guides, lesser monsters and adventures.

This time the Labyrinth is a forest with no escape – the paradise of nature turned into an unpredictable web of terror. In an even darker turn the comrades, instead of being huddled together in the ship, are turned loose on each other. The   monster is a pack of wolfish panthers, part ferocious animal – part 3 D computer graphic, summoned at will by a council of techno engineers.

In the climatic chase scene these modern day Minotaurs pursue the hero as she races back to the mother ship with her new friend and lover. Together they defeat the monsters and flee back to a more civilized world.

The triumphant return to adoring crowds, the ceremonial crowning, all that’s missing is old King Aegeus leaping from the cliffs into the sea that still bears his name.

For millennium each generation has altered the Theseus tale to fit its own rhythm and circumstance while maintaining its essential kernel. In this telling the story is live and instant, watched on TV through out the empire, with a select few sitting in luxury boxes influencing the story as it unfolds. The common folk cheer and weep every twist and turn, just as they always have.

It’s all presided over by game show hosts – our new priests – conducting the ceremonies. With the wisdom of an old the bard, these tradition keepers  give us the visual and the back story, narrating the events and sharing in the triumph.

But this is a dark telling of the tale – in some sense we are a long way from the sunny lands of Greece. There in might lay its value to us – and its controversy.

The acoustics in Epidaurus are clear, sharp and beautiful and people often test them  by whispering or dropping a coin on the stage (see previous post - Now We Understand ). But if you walk into a modern concert hall  and whisper or drop a coin on a stage today, you do not always feel the love.

Major concert halls from  New York to  San Francisco have been famous for  bad acoustics  and people have dropped a lot  of coins on stage to fix them. New York’s Alice Tully Hall renovation at Lincoln Center cost 159 million US dollars and  took 22 months.The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. is still a mess.

With some of the best engineering, computer modeling, and acoustic science brains trying to get things right  -and a lot of coins dropped -the question is : Why do they ever get it wrong ?

The senior acoustician of Davis Hall in San Francisco, Robert B. Newmann, states ” the acoustics of every new concert hall is an experiment”  The acoustician never knows beforehand how it will turnout.

But the sound at  Epidaurus is as clear  and pristine as the Mediterranean  summer sky. And it sounds like more than just an experiment.

Next time – How we think they did it.

People frequently test the acoustics of the ancient theatre at Epidaurus standing in the performing space  and lighting a match, or dropping a few  coins, or rattling some paper. On my honeymoon I whispered “I love you” to my wife sitting in the top most row. Amazingly, even the slightest subtleties can be heard with perfect clarity anywhere in the theatre.

For centuries people have puzzled over how the Greeks accomplished this engineering and  acoustic wonder. Recent science has some new theories. Researchers think that the limestone composition and the design of the seats filtered out certain frequencies to cut down on crowd noise. At the same time they reflected others to help project the sound of the actors on stage.

Contemporary speculation is that the Greeks weren’t aware of how it all worked. I wonder. We have underestimated them before.

Learn More at Live Science

A Deeper Look at Georgia Tech Research

I don’t think we have the same experience going to the theatre today as the Greeks did in the ancient world. As moving as it may be, theatre is more of a private or an intimate experience now. We might chat amiably with a stranger before the show, all turn off our cell phones in unison, and even share popcorn with a friend, but when the lights dim we are in our own world.

Recently I went to a baseball game and wonder if the experience has some connection to ancient  drama as the Greeks knew it. While sitting in the upper deck, I felt the intensity and single minded focus of the crowd suddenly raise me up in a collective sense of awareness. My senses were sharper and clearer and yet I felt I was resting in something. Things looked clearer, sounds seemed sharper. We all seemed to follow the action with one collective mind -the dramatic climax of the game or what one young person I knew dubbed “that hold your breath moment.”

Imagine this same moment with 14,000 people in a beautiful natural setting, in the presence of great art and a god you fervently believe in. Nature, art, group connection and belief are some of the natural healing therapies and healthy life style choices we have begun to recover and embrace in our world today. Although their science was not on the level of ours, the ancient Greeks seemed to understand the power and importance of these powerful forces, particularly when they worked together. On weekend nights during the summer you can still see productions of ancient Athenian plays at Epidauros, high in the mountains of Greece. The site is about 150 kilometers, or 90 miles from Athens. It’s quite a place. If you can’t get there, maybe you can get some of the flavor at the closest ballpark. I did.

Art as a healing presence continues to move towards the mainstream and grow in popularity, whether it is Sophocles with war vets, Shakespeare in prison, the need for less anesthesia with music in the operating room, or harp music in hospice care. The Greeks seemed to be in touch with this same arts – healing connection that we are only lately discovering.

Drama in Ancient Greece was a public, multi-sensory, multi-arts experience, filled with music and  dance, poetry and  stories, and masks and costumes. It was meant to stimulate catharsis- a purging or release of emotions and performed to honor the god Dionysus. 

At the center of Epidaurus –  the most famous healing shrine in Ancient Greece -lay a great open air theater. Was it more like TV in a hospital room – a mere distraction- or intensive therapy – powerful and potentiality life altering ?

Imagine healer and healed alike swept up and transformed by the spectacle of Ancient drama. The power and magic of the ritual raises the crowd to a soaring level of intensity, unleashing spiritual energies, transforming minds and souls, and even bodies in some mysterious way, contributing to the healing forces at the shrine.

Our ability to respond to the presence of art in so many ways creates a wide open field  in our new understanding of health, illness and art. How this arts and healing connection will impact and compliment 21st century medicine is still an open question. But lots of people are giving it a look. (See Links below)

Harps in  Hospitals

Shakespeare in Prisons

Anesthesia and Music abstract of Yale study

Anesthesia and Music general readers

Sophocles with war vets

The theatre of Epidauros is the most perfectly preserved in Ancient Greece. Built in the 4^th century BC, it seats 14,000 and is listed as a World Heritage site. The theatre draws thousands of visitors a year, who marvel at its architectural perfection, its beautiful natural setting and its stunning acoustics. The theatre is located on the grounds of the most sacred healing shrine of the ancient world.

You are free to walk about the ancient site unhindered, and visitors often take the opportunity to spontaneously perform in the open air theatre. On one  visit  I heard a monologue from Sophocles’ Antigone in German, an American gospel singer, and two sweet girls singing an English folk song. The crowd, scattered about the seats, applauded each performance, all under a deep blue sky and brilliant sunlight.

The theater is part of a  shrine  dedicated to the healing god Asclepius which predates the theater itself by about two centuries. Although the shrine also had an athletic stadium, a place of lodging and a temple to the god, the theater was the center of the site, both geographically and spiritually.

In our next few posts we will be exploring this ancient site and connections between theatre and healing in both Ancient Greece and today’s world.