Sounion

View of Cape Sounion
Sunset at Cape Sounion.

Cape Sounion (Modern Greek: Aκρωτήριο Σούνιο, transliterated Akrotírio Soúnio, pronounced [akroˈtirʝo ˈsuɲo]; Ancient Greek: Ἄκρον Σούνιον, Άkron Soúnion; Venetian: Capo Colonne, "Cape of Columns") is a promontory located 69 kilometres (43 mi) south-southeast of Athens, at the southernmost tip of the Attica peninsula in Greece.

Cape Sounion is noted as the site of ruins of an ancient Greek temple of Poseidon, the god of the sea in classical mythology. The remains are perched on the headland, surrounded on three sides by the sea. The ruins bear the deeply engraved name of English Romantic poet Lord Byron (1788–1823).

The site is a popular day-excursion for tourists from Athens, with the sunset over the Aegean Sea, as viewed from the ruins, a sought-after spectacle.

Legend

Theseus slays the Minotaur. Detail from Attic red-figure pelike. ca. 470 BC. From Cerveteri, Italy. Museo Gregoriano Etrusco
The Artemision Bronze, a bronze statue of deity, either Poseidon or Zeus, about to hurl a missing projectile (either a thunderbolt, if Zeus, or a trident if Poseidon). Height: 2.1 m. ca. 460 BC. Found in shipwreck off Cape Artemisium. Athens National Archaeological Museum

According to Greek Mythology, Cape Sounion is the spot where Aegeus, king of Athens, leapt to his death off the cliff, thus giving his name to the Aegean Sea. The story goes that Aegeus, anxiously looking out from Sounion, despaired when he saw a black sail on his son Theseus's ship, returning from Crete. This led him to believe that his son had been killed in his contest with the dreaded Minotaur, a monster that was half man and half bull. The Minotaur was confined by its owner, King Minos of Crete, in a specially designed labyrinth. Every year, according to the myth, the Athenians were forced to send seven men and seven women to Minos as tribute. These youths were placed in the labyrinth to be devoured by the Minotaur. Theseus had volunteered to go with the third tribute and attempt to slay the beast. He had agreed with his father that if he survived the contest, he would hoist a white sail on his return. In fact, Theseus had successfully overcome and slain the Minotaur, but tragically had simply forgotten about the white sail.[1]

The earliest literary reference to Sounion is in Homer's poem the Odyssey, probably composed in the 8th century BC. This recounts the mythical tribulations suffered by Greek hero Odysseus in a gruelling 10-year sea-voyage to return to his native island, Ithaca, in the Ionian sea, from the sack of Troy. This ordeal was supposedly inflicted upon him by Poseidon, to whom the temple at Sounion was dedicated.

We are told that, as the various Greek commanders sailed back from Troy, the helmsman of the ship of King Menelaus of Sparta died at his post while rounding "holy Sounion, cape of Athens". Menelaus landed at Sounion to give his companion full funeral honours (i.e., cremation on a funeral pyre on the beach).[2] The Greek ships were then caught by a storm off Cape Malea and scattered in all directions.

History

Archaeological finds on the site date from as early as 700 BC. The 5th-century BC historian Herodotus tells us that in the sixth century BC, the Athenians celebrated a quadrennial festival at Sounion, which involved Athens' leaders sailing to the cape in a sacred boat.[3]

The original, Archaic-period temple of Poseidon on the site, which was built of tufa, was probably destroyed in 480 BC by Persian troops during Xerxes I's invasion of Greece. Although there is no direct evidence for Sounion, Xerxes certainly had the temple of Athena, and everything else on the Acropolis of Athens, razed as punishment for the Athenians' defiance.[4] After they defeated Xerxes in the naval Battle of Salamis, the Athenians placed an entire captured enemy trireme (warship with three banks of oars) at Sounion as a trophy dedicated to Poseidon.[5]

The later temple at Sounion, whose columns still stand today, was probably built in ca. 440 BC. This was during the ascendancy of the Athenian statesman Pericles, who also rebuilt the Parthenon in Athens.

In 413 BC, during the Peloponnesian War against the Spartans, the Athenians fortified the site with a wall and towers to prevent it from falling into Spartan hands. This would have threatened Athens' seaborne grain supply route from Euboea. Athens' supply situation had become critical since the city's land supply lines had been cut by the Spartan fortification of Dekeleia, in north Attica.[6] However, not long after, the Sounion fortress was seized from the Athenians by a force of rebel slaves from the nearby silver mines of Laurium.[7]

Temple of Poseidon

Coordinates: 37°39′01″N 24°01′29″E / 37.650407°N 24.024776°E / 37.650407; 24.024776

Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion, from the East.
Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion, built circa 440 BC.
Greek hexastyle temple with Doric columns. The Temple of Hephaistos in the Agora of Athens (ca. 450 BC). Built in the same period and to similar plan (and probably by the same architect), this structure closely illustrates the appearance of the Temple of Poseidon at Sounion when it was intact. Note the surviving naos (internal hall of worship)

Ancient Greek religion was essentially propitiatory in nature, i.e., based on the notion that to avoid misfortune, one must constantly seek the favour of the relevant gods by prayers, gifts and sacrifices. To the ancient Greek, every natural feature, e.g. hill, lake, stream or wood, was controlled by a god. A person about to swim in a river, for example, would say a prayer to the river-god, or make an offering to that god's shrine, to avoid the chance of drowning. The gods were considered immortal and could change shape, become invisible and travel anywhere instantaneously. But in many other respects they were considered similar to humans. They shared the whole range of human emotions, both positive and negative. Thus, in their attitudes towards humans, they could be both benevolent and malicious. Also like humans, they had family and clan hierarchies. They could even mate with humans, and produce demi-gods.[8]

In a maritime country like Greece, the god of the sea occupied a high position in the divine hierarchy. In power, Poseidon was considered second only to Zeus (Jupiter), the supreme god himself. His implacable wrath, manifested in the form of storms, was greatly feared by all mariners. In an age without mechanical power, storms very frequently resulted in shipwrecks and drownings.

The temple at Cape Sounion, Attica, therefore, was a venue where mariners, and also entire cities or states, could propitiate Poseidon by making animal sacrifice or leaving gifts.

The temple of Poseidon was constructed in 444–440 BC, over the ruins of a temple dating from the Archaic Period. It is perched above the sea at a height of almost 60 metres (200 ft). The design of the temple is a typical hexastyle, i.e., it had a front portico with six columns.[9] Only some columns of the Sounion temple stand today, but when intact it would have closely resembled the contemporary and well-preserved Temple of Hephaestus beneath the Acropolis, which may have been designed by the same architect.

As with all Greek temples, the Poseidon building was rectangular, with a colonnade on all four sides. The total number of original columns was 34: 15 columns still stand today. The columns are of the Doric Order. They were made of locally quarried white marble. They were 6.10 m (20 ft) high, with a diameter of 1 m (3.1 ft) at the base and 79 cm (31 inches) at the top.[10]

At the centre of the temple colonnade would have been the hall of worship (naos), a windowless rectangular room, similar to the partly intact hall at the Temple of Hephaestus. It would have contained, at one end facing the entrance, the cult image, a colossal, ceiling-height (6 metres (20 ft)) bronze statue of Poseidon.[11] Probably covered in gold leaf, it may have resembled a contemporary representation of the god, appropriately found in a shipwreck, shown in the figure above. Poseidon was usually portrayed carrying a trident, the weapon he supposedly used to stir up storms. On the longest day of the year, the sun sets exactly in the middle of the caldera of the island of Patroklou, the extinct volcano that lies offshore, suggesting astrological significance for the siting of the temple. The temple of Poseidon was destroyed in 399 by Emperor Arcadius.

Archaeological excavation of the site in 1906 uncovered numerous artifacts and inscriptions, most notably a marble kouros statue known as the Sounion Kouros[12] and an impressive votive relief,[13] both now in the Athens National Archaeological Museum.[14] A column from the temple can be seen in the British Museum.[15]

Byron inscription

Byron's name carved into temple of Poseidon

The inscribed name of the famous Romantic poet George Lord Byron, carved into the base of one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon, possibly dates from his first visit to Greece, on his Grand Tour of Europe before he acquired fame. Byron spent several months in 1810–11 in Athens, including two documented visits to Sounion. There is, however, no direct evidence that the inscription was made by Byron himself. Byron mentions Sounion in his poem Isles of Greece:

Place me on Sunium's marbled steep,
Where nothing, save the waves and I,
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep...[16]

Heidegger's visit

The philosopher Martin Heidegger visited Sounion during his journey to Greece in 1962, as described in his book Sojourns.[17] He refers to the "gleaming-white ruins of the temple". In the strong sea breeze "these few standing columns were the strings of an invisible lyre, the song of which the far-seeing Delian god let resonate over the Cycladic world of islands". He marvels at "the way that this single gesture of the land suggests the invisible nearness of the divine and dedicates to it every growth and every human work" (ibid.). He goes on to reflect "the people of this country knew how to inhabit and demarcate the world against the barbarous in honour of the seat of the gods. ...they knew how to praise what is great and by acknowledging it, to bring themselves in front of the sublime, founding, in this way, a world" (ibid.).

Sounion today

Apart from its world-renowned archaeological site, Sounion is also an upscale summer home location for Athenians. Construction flourished between the 1960s and 1970s, with massive yet minimal villas and condos erected. Sounion is one of the most expensive areas in Greece, with the value of some homes exceeding twenty million euros.

Notes

  1. ↑ Plutarch, Theseus
  2. ↑ Homer, Odyssey III. 278
  3. ↑ Herodotus, Histories VI.87.
  4. ↑ Herodotus, Histories VIII.53.
  5. ↑ Herodotus, Histories, VIII.121.
  6. ↑ Thucydides, Peloponnesian War VII.28 and VIII.4.
  7. ↑ 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, article: 'Sunium'
  8. ↑ Ovid, Metamorphoses.
  9. ↑ Perseus Digital Library @ www.perseus.tufts.edu (search term: 'Sounion').
  10. ↑ Perseus Digital Library, for search term 'Sounion
  11. ↑ W. Burkert, Greek Religion (1987).
  12. ↑ David Gill, webpage: .
  13. ↑ David Gill, webpage: .
  14. ↑ Athens National Archaeological Museum, items NM 2720 and NM 3344.
  15. ↑ British Museum Collection
  16. ↑ Byron, Don Juan, Canto the Third "The Isles of Greece"
  17. ↑ Sojourns: The Journey to Greece, translated by J.P. Manoussakis, State University of New York, 2005, p.43 ff.

References

The following are reference sources, in alpha order (cited in Notes):

External links

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Coordinates: 37°39′02″N 24°01′29″E / 37.650572°N 24.024586°E / 37.650572; 24.024586

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