Day Six
(Transcribed from notebook)
Spent much of the day in a coach (frequently asleep or reading Herodotus, *coughs*), so this entry's likely to be briefer than most. Main points? 1. The sanctity of the the Delphic oracle is not aided by noisy school trips, and 2. the landscape around Delphi is stunning. The way there is lovely, through the plain of Boetia, covered in fertile ground and bright green wheat, and banded by dramatically craggy mountains. We went past Mt. Helicon, home of the muses, and Mt. Cithaeron, the main mythological site of ancient Thebes, where Pentheus and Actaeon were killed and Oedipus abandoned. The mountains are lovely - all silvery olives and straggling pines, with the dark vertical strokes of cypresses standing out against them. Okay, so that sounds somewhat purple prose-ish, but it's true. It's easy to see why Greece spawned so many gods and poets.
The Delphic sanctuary was pretty damned good - the setting, high up in the mountains above a deep valley, meant that today there were clouds floating among the columns of Apollo's temple. You can see why it was considered such a sacred site - even with damned noisy kids everywhere, there was still an odd feel to the place. The site's especially odd for me, because I've been reading in my Herodotus about the offerings various states made to the Delphic oracle - and then I get to see the very treasuries they left them in.
The museum was largely closed for renovation, but a couple of rooms with the most notable finds were left open. Undoubtably the most striking was the Charioteer - an offering from c.475BC of a life-sized statue of a charioteer standing in his chariot with six horses and two attendants. Only the main figure and some fragments survived, but it's a lovely statue, especially the beautifully expressive face and hand. The other highlighs had to be the statue of Antinoos, a rather handsome young man who was 'beloved of the Emperor Hadrian', as the guide-book rather coyly put it. Apparently Hadrian was so devestated when he died that he had him deified. Some day I'll write a novel about them...
Last full day today - home tomorrow evening. It's been good, but I shan't be sorry to go home.