Category Archives: Science

Written by Ed Whalen, Contributing Writer, Classical Wisdom

The ancient Agora of Athens is one of the most influential archaeological sites and says a lot about the life of the Greeks. ‘Agora’ literally meaning ‘a place of gathering.’ It was a marketplace where every Athenian citizen participated in governance, overlooked judicial matters, traded commodities, exchanged ideas, or worked together to build the most dynamic society in the world.

In fact, the Agora of Athens is the birthplace of democracy. It is at this place that brilliant minds like Aristotle and Socrates gained popularity, taught their disciples, and eventually died.

An imaginary depiction of the Agora of ancient Athens at the time of Pericles.

For centuries, this area served as a common ground for merchants, artisans, politicians, and intellectuals. It was considered an honor to participate in such ‘common activities’ that led to the development of society. (A quick fact: the term ‘idiot’ or idiotis, was coined to mock people who avoided participating in such common activities.)

The history of ancient Agora of Athens stretches from prehistoric times to the modern age. For centuries, the marketplace was a hub of ideas and trades. The present archaeological site saw some devastating years when Persian invaders destroyed the structures completely in 490 BC, but rose again in the 5th century BC with the flourishing of Athenian culture.

Ancient Agora

Agora of Athens – the Archaeological Site 

The Agora was built on flat area with a main street that hosted a market and philosophical activities. In the Agora of Athens, the two main structures were the Temple of Hephaestus and the Stoa of Attalos.

The construction of the Temple of Hephaestus began in 450 BC and still stands intact today. It is one of the most well-preserved Greek temples of the classical period. Being constructed in Doric order, the temple houses two bronze statues of the goddess Athena and Hephaestus. This north-western area of Athens was once a center of ironworking foundries; hence, the temple honored the god of fire and metal-smithing.

The Stoa of Attalos sits on the east end of the site and was built around 150 BC. It is an outstanding exemplar of ancient Stoa architecture and today it houses the Agora museum. Stoas were huge porticos where merchants stalled their goods. They also provided shelter for people during scorching summer days.

The reconstructed Stoa of Attalos

Another magnificent structure that punctuates the archaeological site is the Byzantine era Christian Church of the Apostles. Many other temples formerly stood in the Agora dedicated to Zeus, Apollo, and Ares.

These remained a mystery until 1934, when thousands of artifacts, Amphora pots, marble statues, and reliefs were found during excavations by the American School in Athens, providing a glimpse of life in ancient Greece.

Activities in Ancient Agoras

Apart from being a political hub, the Agora also acted as a communal place for religious activities. Every Greek city had an Agora, which consisted of a massive compound with a main road in the center surrounded by structures for social activities.

The Agora was easily accessible to every citizen, and people would meet there daily. It was the heart of the city that brought the society together. In addition, the Agora road led to the main gate of the city, serving as a sacred travel route for the Panathenaic festival, held in the honor of Athena every four years.

Representation of ancient Greek agora

Athenian citizens took pride in being democratic. Their Agora acted as a space where great ideas, politics, judgments, and legal processions took place. Some of the world’s most important ideas, such as democracy and trigonometry, were probably discussed on its streets. City law courts and senate were located in the Agora, where political proceedings were held openly. Every Athenian had the right to vote for anything he believed in. Laws were posted in the Agora for the public to see.

Aristotle and Socrates frequented the Agora of Athens to discuss life and philosophy. Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, and the mathematician Pythagoras were some other famous figures who instructed and shared their ideas in the Athenian Agora.

The activities that took place in the Agora went beyond mundane transactions. The ideas and philosophies born there have literally shaped the modern world. It is almost unimaginable to live in a world without democracy or mathematical formulas to calculate the sides of the triangle. The Agora was a provenance for life-altering principles for which Western civilization is forever indebted.

Written by Danielle Alexander, Contributing Writer, Classical Wisdom

Zeus features heavily in a lot of starlore, and the Eagle constellation is no exception.  The predominantly accepted mythos for this constellation is the abduction of Ganymede. Zeus had facilitated the kidnapping, fancying the beautiful mortal boy as his personal cup-bearer.

In the constellation, which is situated south of Cygnus on the equator, making it visible from both the Northern and Southern hemispheres, poor Ganymede can be seen hanging from the claws of the eagle as he is swiftly taken to the heavens.

The constellation appears alongside several other bird constellations. The Eagle’s wings are spread, giving it the appearance of gliding through the stars. As Hyginus states, the beak is separated from the body by a milky circle. It was also said to set “at the rising of the Lion and rises with Capricorn”. (Hyginus, Astronomy, 3.15)

An artist’s impression of the constellation showing Ganymede being forcibly escorted to the Heavens. Image: Geoffrey Cornelius, 2005:43

Greek astronomy

Humans have a natural urge to identify familiar things amongst the twinkling stars of the mysterious abyss above us. These narratives came out of astronomical observations and ancient time tracking. The study of the sky began long before the earliest Greek sources that (sparsely) discuss them, Homer and Hesiod. They likely developed during the transition from oral to written transmission, but to what is extent is unknown.

Even though the Greeks were late to the constellation conversation (500 BC), they received a lot of their knowledge from their Eastern neighbors. The Greeks introduced the word katasterismos, or catasterism, which refers to the process of being set in the heavens. Constellations were used for navigation and an indication of seasonal change; many extravagant mythic connections were added later.

Today, there are 88 constellations officially defined by the International Astronomical Union, and many of them have been accepted since Ptolemy’s The Almagest (A.D 150).

Constellations created by the Mesopotamians between 1300-1000 BC originate in older lands, but the Greek astral mythos canon was solidified by Eratosthenes, in a work now lost to us.

Ganymede Waters Zeus as an Eagle by Bertel Thorvaldsen (Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN). Image: Wikipedia

Zeus and his trusted companion

The myth of Ganymede is very ancient lore, being told in the tale of Troy by Homer (Illiad 20.298ff) – albeit with no mention of an eagle escort. In the fifth Homeric Hymn to Apollo, Ganymede was said to be whisked off to Olympus by a ‘heaven-sent whirlwind’.

The eagle was not connected to this tale until the 4^th century BC. The constellation was accepted as an eagle prior to this, so it is presumed that this addition was made to make the story fit the stars, probably because Ganymede is said to feature in his own nearby constellation, the water-pourer (Aquarius).

The eagle is said to have been chosen by Zeus, as ‘strives to fly straight into the rays of the rising sun’ (Hyginus, Astronomy 3.15). This association is linked to the origin of the Olympian rule; Zeus had been hidden from his father and when he left the island of Naxos to confront, the Titans, an eagle took flight with him. He regarded this as a favorable omen and deemed the eagle his sacred bird.

It’s not always about Zeus

Another variation sees this constellation representing the eagle that tore at the insides of Prometheus. As a descendant of Gaia and Uranus, he was a Titan whose name meant ‘foresight’ and was considered a protector of humanity. He taught the humans how to use the arts and sciences, much to Zeus’ chagrin, but pushed too far when he gave them fire, smuggled to the earth from the sun in a hollow fennel stem.

Zeus punished the Titan ferociously – he was chained a pillar in the Caucasus Mountains, and from dawn to dusk his insides were torn apart by a predatory bird. He healed each night, fresh for the onslaught of torture the following sunrise. Hercules pleaded with Zeus for mercy, which was granted. The wise centaur Chiron removed the Titan’s immortality in exchange for his freedom, and Hercules shot the eagle.

The punished Titans; Atlas and Prometheus. The eagle is shown to be eating Prometheus’ liver after he stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. Medium: A black-figure Lakonian kylix, c. 570-560 BCE. Image: Karl-Ludwig G. Poggemann via Mark Cartwright

On the other hand, this could be the story of how Hermes met Aphrodite. He fell head over heels in love with the goddess of beauty and her rejection to his advances were beyond disheartening – they were insulting.

Zeus took pity on the rejected Hermes. He sent an eagle to steal Aphrodites’ slipper as she bathed in the river Acheloos. He then gifted it to Hermes who was in Amythaonia, Egypt. She searched for her slipper and met her admirer, where romance bloomed. Grateful for the eagle’s help, Hermes placed its image in the sky.

Hermes’ tale, while referenced in the Odyssey, is heavily folkloric in structure. A very similar story features a courtesan Rhodopis, whose slipper is stolen and dropped onto the lap of the Egyptian pharaoh, who demanded the owner be found so he could wed her. This folkloric theme is likely known to the modern reader in the Disney adaptation of the Brothers Grimm retelling of Cinderella.

Hermes, Aphrodite, and Eros. Image: Louis-Michel Van Loo (1748)

What about a mortal man?

It is also said that the Eagle constellation is about Merops, a moral placed amongst the stars by Hera.

Merops was married to Ethemeia, a nymph who rejected the worship of Artemis. She was felled by arrows by the vengeful goddess of the hunt, but was whisked away by Persephone, still alive but in the Underworld. Merops mourned, and his grief was so deep he yearned to join his wife. Moved by the bond the couple clearly shared, the goddess of marriage transformed him into an eagle and placed him in the heavens, hoping to free him from his memories.

However, why an eagle? Merops means bee-eater in Greek, so potentially he was transformed into a different bird until the eagle variation emerged to fit the constellation.

The European bee-eater inhabits the southern Mediterranean and North/West Africa, with fossils extending from Israel to Russia. Potentially it was involved in mythos concerning love due to its’ magnificent beauty. Image: Otto Plantema via Oiseaux Birds

The Egyptian Eagle

For the Egyptians, this constellation was part of another they named ‘the Giant’, aptly named as it stretched from Aquila (Eagle) to Pegasus. The Mesopotamians identified a ‘Dead Man’ with their Eagle and attributed it para-zodiacal status, its ascension potentially due to housing the ‘royal’ star, Altair. It held special importance around the winter solstice and featured in several major astronomical lists from the time.

For example, an Old Babylonian (c.1830-1530 BC) text reveals a ‘Prayer to the Gods of the Night’, invoking the constellations to bless an entrail divination. Studying the stars was important in Mesopotamian culture, and they kept astronomical ‘diaries’ well into the Hellenistic Age, with the last example being after Persian conquest and dating to 75 AD. The emphasis placed by them on astronomy, and its’ primordial relationship to the gods and divination, is still seen today in certain places within the region.

It is not uncommon to find the eagle associated with solar or victory symbolism cross-culturally, both in the ancient and modern world. This association can be seen in several Eastern cultures, whereas the Western world has the Greek and Roman connection to Jupiter and the rays of the sun as well as the eventual appropriation of the eagle symbolism by right-wing propaganda (most memorably, Nazi Germany).

However, this constellation and its symbolism began with victory over those who would bring darkness and evil. Ningrisu, patron god of Sumerian Lagash, was the god of fertility, war and notably, the storm. In inscriptions, he is described as the master of the heavens and is shown with, or sometimes as, a lion-headed eagle named Imdugud. This divine bird is associated with the rays of the sun and Ningrisu himself was identified as a vanquisher of demons, darkness and evil. This aquiline and solar/storm symbolic connection had been cemented by the 3^rd millennium BC – the same time that Babylonian seals start depicting a hero amidst the wings, a potential prototype for Ganymede.

The Akkadian ‘Seal of Adda’ dating from c.2300 BC potentially shows Aquila on the palm of a gods’ hand. Image: (BM 89115), The British Museum

The Eagle constellation shows how stories morph over time, and how they can be shaped to fill a required mould. It also shows the continuity of symbolism and its impact throughout the centuries and countries. Even the stars within the constellation are linked to the word ‘eagle’ despite being of various linguistic origin. The same sky really does lie above us all.

1. Parthenon, Acropolis

The Parthenon

2. Temple of Hephaestus

The Temple of Hephaistos in Athens

3. Paestum

View of Paestum.

4. Temple of Apollo Epicurius

The Temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassae, east colonnade, Arcadia, Greece

5. Segesta 

The Doric temple of Segesta

6.   Erectheum

Temple of Erectheum

7. Temple of Poseidon at Sounion 

Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion

• https://factsanddetails.com/world/cat56/sub405/entry-6185.html
• https://medium.com/in-medias-res/the-12-best-greek-temples-to-visit-6009d63d7107

The Rosetta Stone

Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics

The Battle of the Pyramids

One possible reconstruction of the original stele

Experts inspecting the Rosetta Stone during the Second International Congress of Orientalists, 1874

Visitors viewing the stone at the British Museum

References
Ray, J. D. (2007). The Rosetta Stone and the Rebirth of Ancient Egypt. Harvard University Press.

Seven bright stars are indicating Ursa Major. (Image: ESA Science & Technology)

Ptolemy with an armillary sphere model, by Joos van Ghent and Pedro Berruguete, 1476, Louvre, Paris

Mapping the stars and their movements likely developed alongside lunar monitoring. The skies were not only used for navigation and tracking time but also for inspiring awe and sparking the imagination. The star clusters became associated with mythic figures, legendary tales or, simply, aspects of daily life. The astral mythology that is most commonly known today had its canon unintentionally cemented by Eratosthenes in a work that is now, tragically, lost to us.
However, that does not mean we are without insight into ancient astral mythology!

Showing the Bear image of the Constellation. (Image: Little Astronomy)

Diana and Callisto by Rubens, c. 1635

Callisto and Arcas by Hendrik Goltzius (1590) (Image: The British Museum)

“And thou, born of the transformed Lycaean nymph,
Who, snatched from the frozen heights of Arcadia,
Was forbidden by Tethys from ever bathing in the ocean,
For daring to consort with the husband of her foster-child.” (Mythical Tales 177, Callisto)

Cornelius, G. (2005). The complete guide to the constellations. London: Duncan Baird.
Boutsikas, E. (2011). Astronomical Evidence for the Timing of the Panathenaia. American Journal of Archaeology, 115(2), pp.303-309.
Schaefer, B. (2006). The Origin of the Greek Constellations. Scientific American, 295(5), pp.96-101.
Gibbon, W. B, (1964). Asiatic Parallels in North American Star Lore: Ursa Major. The Journal of American Folklore, 77(305), pp.236-250.
Graves, R. (2012). The Greek myths. New York: Penguin Books.
Ératosthène, Hygin, Aratus and Hard, R. (2015). Constellation myths. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ruggles, C. (2005). Ancient Astronomy. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, pp.378-380.