Download ANCIENT GREEK CULTURE AND THE ART OF ORATORY

ANCIENT GREEK CULTURE AND THE ART OF ORATORY
Rose Moloney
2008
ANCIENT GREEK CIVILIZATION
With special reference to Cleopatra VII and the Art of Oratory.
GREECE
In this theater of man's life, it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers-on.
Pythagoras
I started my journey in ATHENS the city of Pericles where the great playwrights Aeschylus,
Euripides and Sophocles wrote their tragedies 5 centuries BC and Socrates taught Plato. It
was with excitement I walked round the lower levels of the Acropolis and found the Theatre of
Dionysius where the great competition of tragedians happened ( a phenomenon that would not
happen again till the Elizabethan theatre in England .) Here I saw the seats of honour where
Mark Anthony and Cleopatra sat when they visited the city in 31 BC. All performances were
done as an offering to Dionysius whose temple I saw close by. I scanned the crumbling cliffs of
the Acropolis wondering where Mark Anthony fashioned a cave into a Dionysian dwelling lined
with leopard skins when he embodied the God on his earlier residency of the city. I recalled
how Cleopatra had been rebuffed for the citizens loved Octavia - the wife Anthony had first
brought there. The famous lovers were on their way to the battle of Actium then and their tragic
death a year later so I started at the end of their story.
Wisdom comes only through suffering. AESCHYLUS, Agamemnon
The WCMT had agreed for me to make a preliminary trip so that I might go to the THEATRE
OF EPIDAURUS and attend a performance of the Tragedy of Agamemnon by Aeschylus in the
very place where it was performed ! I took a coach on my second day to Epidaurus travelling
through CORINTH where I glimpsed the marvelous canal from the road. The coach reached
the tranquil pine tree groves of Epidaurus - the first surprise was to find the theatre was part of
a healing centre of Aesclepius - an Aesclepion - with sleeping cubicles where patients received
divinely inspired diagnostic dreams. Was the theatre only entertainment to amuse patrons or
was the purging effect of tragedy part of the cure ? This was the source of several other
Aesclepion I was to visit hundreds of miles away in Ionia and others all over the Hellenic world.
The acoustics of Epidaurus not only allow the audience to hear the actors without microphones
but it actually creates amplification - this I experienced at last. Thousands of spectators filled
the steep auditorium in the hillside - I was sitting where a Greek had sat 2300 years before to
hear the same words !
But no goat was sacrificed to Dionysius as the tragedy or goatsong began. Above us the night
sky and beyond the backdrop of Nature green and restful. The play was one of a trilogy on the
Trojan war - Agamemnon returns with a concubine, the prophetess Cassandra. His wife
Clytemnestra, murders him in revenge for the human sacrifice he made of their daughter
Iphrygia on the way to Troy. Unspoken, the name of Helen is suspended over the action - this
is a women’s play. As the lights went out at the end we saw the stars glittering down on us.
Silence.
Above the cloud with its shadow is the star with its light. Above all things reverence thy
self. Pythagoras of Samos
MEDITERRANEAN SEA - in the wake of Cleopatra
I took a ship from Piraeius bound for the ISLAND OF SAMOS. It had been once a great
Hellenic city to match Ephesus or Athens where civilized Greeks and Romans often wintered
to enjoy baths, philosophy, poetry, theatres, symposia, libraries, gymnasia, the Games and all
the pleasures of civilization ( incredible to think most Europeans were at that time living in
skins and cannibalism was rife.) On board I met Lena, a Greek Architect living in Paris. On
arrival at the island she invited me to join her family for a wonderful Greek meal in a café by
the quay and took me across the island.
In my hotel there was a book left in the library as if providentially, a new novel of Anthony and
Cleopatra, which incensed me so much that it inspired me to finish my book. Still no sign of the
great city of Samos which produced Pythagoras ! I took a taxi to Pythagoria on the other side
of the island and found a small seaside resort of great charm. The ancient city of Samos ! In
my hotel there was a book left in the library as if providentially, a new novel of Anthony and
Cleopatra, which incensed me so much that it inspired me to finish my book. Still no sign of the
great city of Samos which produced Pythagoras ! Lena took me to Pythagoria on the other side
of the island and found a small seaside resort of great charm once the ancient city of Samos !
Among internet cafes and hotels priceless pillars and foundations of great building were strewn
carelessly. By the bus stop The Temple of Aphrodite looked like a recent bombsite… One
evening Lena took me there to a café for live music and we drove up a street full of sunshine
with a sign Basilica at the top. Later I returned there and found the ‘ church ‘ had first been a
Greek palace overlooking the deep blue sea and mountains of Asia Minor beyond….it was an
evocative place…the stumps of pillars were red crystal - here I later read was the place where
Cleopatra and Mark Anthony stayed on their way to Athens before Actium. Her dynasty, the
Ptolemies had formerly owned the island and kept their fleets here. But it was for the cult of
Dionysius that they had chosen to celebrate here before the battle with an arts festival theatre, song and joyous revels and the famous Samian sweet wine beloved of the God - all
perhaps to invoke his support. They were defeated by propaganda not warfair. With foreboding
I made my way on a local bus one hot afternoon to see the most illustrious building of the great
city - the Herian - temple to Hera, queen of the Gods.
I alighted at the old entrance. Surly workmen glowered through the locked gate - but I saw all I
needed to see through the wire fence - stumps of castrated pillars, a desolate pool of stagnant
water from which one enormous ugly pillar had been cobbled together from mismatched
fragments. Designed in 570 BC by Roikos and Theodorus, Master architects who later built the
foundations for the Artemisia of Ephesus this was the largest temple ever built in the Hellenic
Age. Here Octavian came the year after he defeated Anthony and made his wife, Livia, a
goddess, even bedecking her with a cornucopia, the symbol of Cleopatra’s dynasty. He also
stayed in 29 BC at the palace where the Lovers had stayed in 31 BC as if to obliterate them - a
pattern I was to observe in every site Anthony and Cleopatra loved. (Yet Shakespeare has
immortalized them….)
From a hill above the city among olive trees I found the remains of the theatre, now small but
still in use. I gazed at the scenery that the audience must have enjoyed as backdrop to the
plays - the blue sea and the vast buildings of the wonderful metropolis, now ruins strewn
across the shore. I could see the public baths donated by Cleopatra, roofless today like
exposed gaping decayed molars. And beyond - the distant scenery which the spectators in the
auditorium would have seen, the mountains of Ionia presiding, home of the first philosophers.
Once this small resort had been a thriving port and centre of culture of 50,000 people or more.
Now less than 5000 remain, but whose descendents could they be ? I returned to Athens by
sea, unable to forget that last unhappy voyage from Samos to Piraeus made by the famous
couple. Yet the sea had suffered a sea-change in 2039 years,
The crew of the ferry were strangely hostile to everybody and I recalled how much Cleopatra
had been used to the enmity of those who hated the Romans. I flew from Athens airport now
better prepared for the next phase of my journey. I would travel in the colder months to
conserve precious energy.
No man steps twice in the same river. Heraclitus
EGYPT
It was January when I arrived in ancient THEBES ( Luxor) now welcoming the warmth
of the sun. Those of us bound for the Royal Barque river cruiser were shepherded onto
coaches heading to the quays of the Nile. A new ship on her third voyage I had chosen her
carefully for my journey down the Nile in the wake of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar. The Barque
Royal was smart and the bathrooms were ultra modern, the water filtration systems the same
as Voyager space vehicles, the buffet food sumptuous. I also made more true friends, Janet
and Mike Robson who have held a lifeline for me ever since as my journey extended.
I will not dwell on our call at the Valley of the Kings or the temple of Hapshepsut which
preceded Cleopatra‘s Greek dynasty though she may have displayed these wonders to Caesar
on their honeymoon knowing he was an anthropolgist and historian.( He was descended from
survivors of the Greek- Trojan war. ) But at the Temple of Horus at Edfu they surely did stop
for her ancestors had started it and her father Ptolemy XII had completed it and his effigy
strode warrior-like across the entrance pylons. It is still impressive.
KOM OMBU Temple of Healing was our next mooring - again dedicated to Horus but also a
temple of healing. We saw one wall which depicted a birthing stool and forceps, thousands
made pilgrimage here for healing. Cleopatra was by now pregnant with Caesar’s child who
would be the next Horus, as all male Pharaoh’s were. Offerings would have been made. Again
the Ptolemies had built this and Auletes, Cleopatra’s father was depicted being blessed by the
Gods. Our guide made no mention of Auletes relationship to Cleopatra or indeed mention of
her voyage down the Nile with Caesar. I was to learn that they deflect all non-Egyptian history
especially the Greeks, thus most Nile voyagers never get the true picture.
At ASWAN, Nubia, we visited the famed Temple of Isis at PHILAE by boat. Relocated to
another island because of the Aswan dam, the site of the temple has been lost. This temple
was of special importance to Cleopatra who was the avatar of the goddess Isis, like one of her
forebears, a previous Cleopatra. Although Cleopatra was born here the guide did not even
mention her. She and Caesar sailed further south to Ethiopia until his men ( in 400 boats )
refused to go further.
We too sailed back to LUXOR to see the wonder of the ancient world - KARNAK. I felt sure
Caesar must have visited the Karnak Temple complex of Amun especially since his hero
Alexander the Great made an altar there. Cleopatra regarded Caesar as an embodiment of
this father God. Karnak is still gigantic, the largest religious building ever built, I was inspired to
return by night for the thrilling Sound and Light show. A temple to Isis with a headless Isis
dressed in Greek drapes is little visited, was this Cleopatra’s addition to the complex ? I said
farewell to my fellow passengers on the Barque Royal and moved to a hotel on an island in the
Nile in order to visit Denderah downstream towards areas forbidden to tourists.
THE TEMPLE OF HATHOR DENDERA was also built by Cleopatra’s family and was
dedicated to Hathor, goddess of Love and Music and Happiness. I was thrilled to be able to
examine a vast outside wall of the temple on which Cleopatra had inscribed her concept and
thealogy with lifesize portraits of herself and Caesarion, Caesar’s son. I returned twice to
Denderah, once on the Lotus, a cruise ship and then on a land tour for I realized there was
more there about her than anywhere else.
On my second visit I was rewarded by an ancient Arab who beckoned me into a small chapel
next to the Cleopatra Wall, this is actually an Isis Temple, completely ignored by tour guides
but of vital importance, surely built by Cleopatra herself. Nearby is the sacred pool of the
temple, now called Cleopatra’s Pool. I descended the steps of the empty pool where the
sacred drama of Osiris and Isis was re-enacted annually. I sensed that Cleopatra herself
played the part of Isis, for she was sincere in embodying that power. Her great theaphony wall,
I mentioned above, survives intact. We know Octavian was paid a great sum by a supporter of
Cleopatra to keep all her statues intact, none survive except this wall. The zodiac on the ceiling
of the rooftop sanctuary may well be Cleopatra’s coronation horoscope.
ABYDOS was farther north in an area generally off limits to tourists due to past attacks by
militants. Peasant life seemed little changed by time in the last 2000 years with hand
cultivation and donkeys everywhere. I was thrilled to see a sign to Nag Hammadi en route
which showed how close to the cult centre of Osiris there were early Gnostic Christians. THE
TEMPLE OF OSIRIS was the cult centre of the Gateway to the afterlife ruled by Osiris. This
concluded my researches on the Nile.
I then moved on to GIZA on the perimeter of CAIRO to see the pyramids though we do not
know if Cleopatra ever saw these, she ruled as Pharaoh for 20 years and curiosity must surely
have drawn her there. Finding Cairo unbearable I changed my plan to speak at Toastmasters
there but did meet Marjorie Barratt, mother of a friend from Toastmasters Findhorn and Forres,
who is married to a member of the former royal house. It was her birthday and we made an
expedition to the Oasis of Fayoum south of Cairo. We had lunch at the grand hotel Auberge du
Lac where Sir Winston Churchill met King Farouk in 1942 for secret conference. I was shown
the meeting room, and was pleased to see a portrait of Sir Winston in the Churchill Lounge.
This was the only evidence I saw of the British Empire days. We saw the ruins of a Greek city,
KARANIS, built by Cleopatra’s dynasty, where as the only tourist I was protected by several
armed men. I understood at last how Egypt was the bread-basket of Rome. It had puzzled me
how a desert land with only the Nile area for food production could possibly export hundreds of
tons to Rome weekly - now I saw how vast and fertile were the Oases, Fayoum is enormous,
and I read that Karanis was a major grain producer.
Now I headed for the city of ALEXANDRIA, once the greatest of Hellenic cities and ‘ Pearl of
the Mediterranean ‘. The dazzling white marble city founded by Alexander the Great and which
reached its zenith under Cleopatra. I knew nothing remained there and only stayed one day,
during which I discovered that the only relevant museum, the Graeco Roman, is closed for two
years, a fact not mentioned on their website ! There is however an atmosphere of bright
breeziness which is stimulating after the claustrophobic fumes of Cairo - certainly Alexander
had a genius for choosing sites for cities as well as battles. It seemed an auspicious sign that a
one day seminar on Cleopatra was held at the New Library of Alexandria while I was there but
sadly it was in Arabic with no translation. Nothing remains of the great Lighthouse, a wonder of
the ancient world, but Cleopatra’s palace has been located under the sea by Frank Goddio. In
the Museum of Alexandria, which I visited next, his photos were on view. Here in the city of
Cleopatra she is not honoured with a statue or anything.
MARSA MATROUH lies 90 km to the west of Alexandria on the coast. I traveled on by
battered bus. It was a surprise to me for I now learned this too was founded and designed by
Alexander as a port and has the same bright Mediterranean atmosphere. I took a taxi to see
the ‘Cleopatra Beach ‘ where local tradition maintains she swam and slept in a natural rock
room in the shallows. I explored this, If true was her action something to do with her role as Isis
Navigans who blessed the boats annually ? The sea runs into the man made windows but
without them it would have been safely sealed from the sea which crashes against the walls A
wild elemental place to go in time of deep trouble - some say she came here in that last year of
waiting for the final blow from Rome. A tourist guide states that she had a palace built nearby
for Anthony and herself to retire to but they did not live long enough to use it. A magnificent
herm of her head guards entrance to the beach - here she is better remembered than in her
capital.
SIWA OASIS: THE WESTERN DESERT. Alexander the Great brought the Hellenic
civilization to Egypt in 330 BC and founded Cleopatra‘s royal house. She was the guardian of
his crystal tomb. I surmised she might have followed in his steps from Marsa across the
Western Desert to visit the famed Oracle of Amun in the Oasis of Siwa as he did. Again a
battered 1960s bus took me and 50 Muslim men, this time across flat desert wastes, only wild
camels grazing on rock, A nightmare all night journey then at dawn - the forbidden city, Siwa ! I
lingered long with the Berber people, among palm gardens, swimming daily in hot mineral
pools. One was named Cleopatra’s Pool - for if any image has lodged in the collective psyche
it is of her in mineral pools so I discovered.
Previously it was named for one Juba, the name of a Berber King of Numidia who married her
daughter Cleopatra Selene. Did she then come here to visit the Oracle ? By coincidence on
that very day a French Algerian traveller told me Selene’s grave is a pyramid in the Algerian
city of Tipaza which he had seen. I walked to the village of Aghoumi 6 kilometers to see the
oracle and temple of Amun. Climbing a rocky crag I entered the Oracle temple first, now a bare
ruined choir. Here Alexander asked, not as is popularly repeated, if he was the son of God, but
who murdered his father (King Philip of Macedonia). The reply was…Your Father is not dead
for I am He……… It occurred to me there that Cleopatra might well have asked Amun if he
would father her son and the next pharaoh - for later she was utterly convinced that when
Julius Caesar entered Alexandria with the bull of Amun on his legions‘ standards that he was
the avatar of Amun. He did indeed rescue her like a divine intervention. I walked on to the
Temple of Amun, now a sorry jumble of fallen stone blocks where locals fear to go…tales of
some tourists unable to approach. Donkey taxis, women shrouded in black, dwellings of mud
and salt, cheap hotel rooms, interesting travellers, empty wheely bins and rubbish everywhere,
trips into the dunes ( fossilized skeletons of whales !) made this an exotic interlude.
SINIAI
A Lebanese Christian man, Bashir, gave me a lift several hundred kilometers across Egypt
from the Western Desert to the Eastern Desert of Siniai. At Sharm El Sheyk I took a bus to
NUWEIBA on the RED SEA. Here I found a Bedouin village, Tarabin which is near the spring
of Miriam, sister of Moses and faces the mountainous coast of Saudi Arabia - from a map I
saw we were very close to Mecca and Medina as birds fly across the Red Sea. Here I stayed
in a beach camp - you hire a beach hut with communal showers, electricity and mosquito net
for as little as 3 UK sterling a night, whilst spending more on food from their cafes. The Blue
Bus Camp proved a good choice, friendly and safe. I was invited to a Bedouin wedding but
turned back at the gate when I saw the sheep-roast was still alive and bleating desperately at
its tether by the spit. Equally unsettling was the news that girls and boys are still circumcised in
Siniai. A third of Cleopatra’s Alexandrian citizens were Jews who eventually turned on her and
helped the Romans in her downfall. I took a bus for a day in Eilat, Israel from Nuweiba - a
decision which cost me dear because with my Israeli passport stamp I was later on unable to
enter Syria on my way west.
Nuweiba is the port for ferries to Aqaba, Jordan, my next destination, and so I departed from
Egypt by ship. I had met Nubians, Berbers and Bedu as well as Egyptians descended from
those of Cleopatra’s Egypt and I now sensed how alien these tribes were from her natural
culture of the Hellenes and the Mediterranean.
JORDAN
Syria- Palestinia was once ruled by Cleopatra’s family, the Ptolemies, and later parts of it were
given back to her by Mark Anthony thereby antagonizing another tribe - the Nabatean Arabs.
WADI MUSSA. By teaming up with 3 other travellers on the boat to Aqaba I had a cheap taxi
ride to Wadi Mussa - the place of the spring of Moses - and found my fellow travellers had
taken me to another Bedu accommodation, Bedu from a different tribe. This time a budget
hostel which had Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail playing every night because it featured
Petra. That night my legs gave way, drunken men abused me from a car and I began to regret
leaving Egypt where I had never seen alchohol on display. But instead of resting I was
determined to take the free shuttle to the famous siq of Petra, the rose-red city of rock. As at
the pyramids of Giza horses were suffering in the rocky tracks hauling tourists uphill in the heat
- I felt proud of the Brooke Hospital for Horses and Donkeys in Cairo - a British charity - who
minister to them at Giza, in Petra and the donkeys of Siwa Oasis.
PETRA - I felt convinced that the famous Treasury building - once known as The Pharaoh’s
Treasury significantly, and the House of the daughter - from which the adjective Pharaoh’s has
lately been removed and the so-called monastery were entirely built by the Greeks and
Romans though Nabatean workmen may have been used. The dynasty of Cleopatra ruled
here before her time. The water irrigation systems I felt sure were built by the Romans who ran
the city for 300 years. I feel inspired to write about this - the patriotic Jordanian guide books
claim the tent-dwelling Nabateans built it all - however the Statue of Isis on the Treasury holds
a cornucopia and is the emblem of the Ptolemies on their coinage. Their other emblem, the
eagle, is represented by three large eagles on the façade. Nikes and Amazons complete the
Greek statuary of the building - it is obviously Ptolemaic. I returned to Petra for the candlelit
Sound and Light - an eerie and marvellous experience. The Nabateans took revenge on
Cleopatra, because Anthony had given her rights to bitumen for ship water-proofing on their
lands. Later elephants hauled her warships over the desert to the Red Sea they set them afire
- her last plan of escape foiled.
After a day spent in bed because of my painful legs, I headed north towards the great
Decapolis Greek cities built after Alexander’s eviction of the Persians 2330 years ago. I was
still on Ptolemy territory and somewhere here Anthony had called for Cleopatra to meet him for since Pompey‘s conquest of these lands around the time she was born - it had become
Roman. He gave her Jericho which Herod the Great possessed thereby completing with
Herod’s jealousy the ring of fire around her at the end.
In AMMAN I was given the opportunity to practice the part of my project devoted to The Art of
Oratory in Greek culture. Here is the article for the Jordan Times :
________________________________________________________________
CHURCHILL TRAVEL FELLOW AT AMMAN TOASTMASTER CLUBS
Rose Moloney, a public speaker from the UK has been in Amman for two weeks researching
the Ancient Greek history of Jordan and speaking at Amman Toastmasters Clubs. Rose, who
lives in an eco-village in the Highlands of Scotland, has been awarded a Winston Churchill
Travel Fellowship in History. She said, ‘ Amman was built as Philadelphia, by the family of
Cleopatra, the Greek Pharaohs of Egypt, Cleopatra is one of my subjects of interest, the other
is the Greek Art of Oratory.’
She first spoke at the International Toastmasters Club of Jordan on her Winston Churchill
Travel Fellowship which has taken her to Athens, Epidaurus, the Nile, Alexandria and
Ephesus, Turkey, to see the remains of Greek civilization.
‘ This was a friendly and elegant club to start my tour, they really allowed me a lot of
opportunities to speak. I am interested in the predecessors of today’s Toastmasters Clubs
which were the teachers of Oratory in Greek cities - the Odeon of Amman would have been
used by orators giving public speeches and there would have been teachers of public speaking
here in the Odeon in down-town Amman.’
At the Black Iris Toastmasters Club on Monday May 4th Rose gave a speech from the
Advanced Manuel ’ A Dramatic Talk ’ on how the Nabatean Arabs of Petra cut off Cleopatra’s
last escape route by burning her ships as they were hauled across the desert from the
Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea. Rose also took part in the Creative Toastmasters Club on
Monday and gave an evaluation for another member’s speech.
‘Every Amman club has a unique character and the Creative TM Club is like a salon for lovers
of culture much like symposia of the Ancient Greeks. Black Iris is a new club with a younger
membership and I like the way they experiment with debates as well as speeches. “
The Amman Division N competition was held at the Geneva Hotel on May 1 st and Rose
attended as an observer.
“The hospitality of the Amman Toastmasters Clubs I have visited has been so heart-warming
and the standard of clubs so high, I will encourage other Toastmasters in the UK to come to
Jordan and visit the clubs. ‘
See www.toastmasters.org for the list of all 11 Jordan club contacts and venues.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------DECAPOLIS CITIES
There are 8 Decapolis cities in Syria- Palestinia, now Jordan, and here at last - not in Greece
or Egypt - I found Greek-Roman cities with astonishingly complete remains of baths, latrines
with flushing systems, mosaic floors, theatres, stoas, bouletarions, odeons, forums, , temples,
sacred ways, agoras, nymphaeums, aquaducts, libraries, gymnasia, stadia, hippodromes. At
last I could see how Alexandria must have looked in its glory.
GADARA City of Philosophers was of particular interest :
Rhetoricians of Gadara: The founder of a famous 1st century B.C. rhetorical school, was
Theodorus of Gadara, whose inscription was found at Athens - and who taught the future
emperor Tiberius rhetoric. A less famous later rhetorician, called Apsines of Gadara (190-250
A.D.) taught oratory at Athens about 235 A.D. and has left us a handbook of Rhetoric.
However most people know Gadara as the place where Jesus sent 2000 pigs over the cliff.
(Thanks to Ken Humphry.)
JERASH compares with Ephesus for the size of the remaining city, its great Temple of Athena
is better preserved. The Nymphaeum is staggering. Another tour to MADABA a Christian city
famous for mosaics in churches from the first century - oddly temples of Venus and Bacchus
were labeled churches ! I also gradually discovered, through forays from my room, the Greek
city over which AMMAN sits - delighted to find the Acropolis with its Temple of Zeus right
above my budget hotel, the Nymphaeum in the market and a superb Odeon, Theatre and
Forum in down-town.
A tour to the DEAD SEA showed me the area given contentiously to Cleopatra for its bitumen
used for building her fleet of 200 ships. I enjoyed black mud therapy and a float in the mineral
rich waters which probably she also used for health. On my last day I attended 2 Toastmasters
Clubs, gave two speeches and had a delicious lunch with Haifa who had been such a support,
and her husband a Bedouin professor of economics who showed me the name of his tribe in
the Book of Genesis. Then farewell to Hiba who treated me to an eco dinner at Wild Jordan. I
felt enormous affection for the people of Jordan who are so pro- British, I had even heard an
anecdote about Sir Winston Churchill during the TM competition from another speaker.
ASIA MINOR. Syria will not let pass those with Israeli passport stamps, I therefore had to miss
Tarsus in Eastern Turkey where Anthony and Cleopatra made their sensational meeting, she
arrayed as Aphrodite with small boys dressed as Eros fanning her on a golden barge. However
there is nothing original left there. I flew on to Istanbul..
IONIA (TURKEY)
I flew to Turkey instead on the 3rd phase of my project and took an express train to Izmir for
Ephesus and its modern extension Selcuk, a charismatic place housing the Efes Museum and
delightful quirky guest houses, mine was the closest to the ruin of the Temple of Artemis. This
became my home for trips to the remarkably preserved cities of the Ionian League and glories
of Asia Minor as it was.
EPHESUS, was visited at least twice by Cleopatra, in 41 BC and 31 BC when it is said she
made a ‘triumphal entry from the harbour along the Arcadian Way to the theatre. Here also her
treacherous sister Arsinoe was granted refuge, which she ungratefully misused by setting
herself up as queen of Egypt. The true story I have researched and intend to publish, sadly
thousands of visitors hear the misleading description on the audio tour that Cleopatra
murdered her sister, a false account which has been further misrepresented by the BBC and
press since the possible tomb of Arsinoe has been recently investigated. (NB see end - I
interview the professor who proposes this theory.)
My son, a history student, joined me for a week and we explored together Ephesus and the
great Ionian cities. The great Temple of the Mother Goddess Cybele-Artemis is utterly
devastated, ransacked for Christian and Muslim buildings, only a small pillar in a dark pool and
debris remain of this Wonder of the World. My son and I wandered among tiny frogs, and saw
storks nesting on the one wonky reassembled pillar. Here we were treading where Alexander
the Great worshipped, Cleopatra saw the statue of herself, Julius Caesar, Mark Anthony and
all the leading Greeks and Romans gazed in awe. And Arsinoe was murdered.
Our visit to MILETUS made me appreciate its importance - it preceded Athens with its school
of philosophers, Thales the first of them, and like Samos with Pythagoras can claim to be the
source of the stoa. Here too I saw the palatial Baths of Faustina, wife of Marcus Aurelius. I
understood then how women of influence could donate public facilities. Scholastica of Ephesus
had also donated baths, and Varius was named as co-benefactor with her husband in the
donation of the Gymnasium at Ephesus.
The healthy and well-educated man is a happy man. Thales of Miletus
An illuminated sacred way of 15 kilometres, led from Miletus to DIDYMA - A thrilling sight ! For
here is a staggering shell of the great temple of Apollo, the best preserved in Turkey, from
which we could imagine the glory of Ephesus’ Artemisia and the Herian of Samos. Like Siwa
this was an Oracle where rulers consulted the god Apollo for help.
I made a trip to HIERAPOLIS at Pamukkale a sacred city and healing centre - here is another
Cleopatra Pool in which I soaked myself for mineral therapy; swimming among fallen pillars.
Situated on a very high Acropolis the city is truly awesome. Uniquely it has a Plutonium or
temple for the God Pluto whose statue presides in the Theatre, with a suggestive underground
entrance to the Underworld. The ruins are magnificent and below, like an ice palace, shelves
of fossilized salts create an arctic landscape. Distant mountains ring Hierapolis, the air is rare
and it is truly a holy place. Mark Anthony came here with, possibly, his scholarly consort.
MAGNESIA I was the only visitor to this beautiful rural site from which the mineral is named.
‘These were the very mountains they saw daily….‘ I thought. The presiding Goddess was
Artemis and again a vast edifice lies in pools of water. Most extraordinary was the walk up the
hill to the stadium and theatre attesting to the size of the city, now being uncovered by
archaeologists on site. The rich carvings of the theatre seats and stone thrones for dignitaries
or priests were very similar to those on the Acropolis of Athens in the Theatre of Dionysius.
Higher quality than Ephesus. A very helpful custodian showed me the fabulous statues of
Magnesia which are held in Germany.
Among the wealth of great cities in Ionia which I saw, pine- sheltered PRIENE with its temple
to Athena was my favourite, secured on a mountain ledge. A stone for the speaker in its
parliament is still in situ. This city is entirely Ionian Greek, the Romans did not develop it, so it
is important for my project - Ephesus having been rebuilt extensively by RomansAD is less like
the cities Cleopatra knew. Priene has a Temple to Demeter, Aesclepion healing centre, and
Temple to Alexander the Great who loved the city and had used it as a house.
Lend a helping hand to the fallen. Phocylides
PERGAMON. It was Mark Anthony’s generosity with other people’s possessions that doomed
Cleopatra and attracted enmity from Rome, the Nabateans, Herod of Judea, the Cyreneans,
and surely the people of Pergamon for he sent her their great library of 200,000 books. These
grand gestures, I realized on my travels, ensured her destruction when he lost power. I saw
the site of the library ! It is attached to the temple of Athena who was the presiding deity. On
the mountain-top Acropolis I saw the temple of Zeus, famous for its great altar, now in Berlin,
while an eagle, bird of Zeus flew over me. I marvelled at the Theatre with the steepest
auditorium in the world. I walked down the steep Acropolis passing the eerie Serapeum, red
brick and titanic in size. If anywhere looked like the ‘ Seat of Satan ‘ as Pergamon is described
in the Book of Revelation, this is it, though ironically it was by then the seat of the church itself !
The cockerel, herald of Aesclepios, was crowing as I reached the Aesclepion where thousands
found therapies and healing. Here I saw the unique 260 foot tunnel where patients were given
natural state-altering herbs before entering a circular sanctuary with six rooms for different
cures - music, herbs, massage, mud-therapy etc. Here too the cubicles where patients slept to
receive diagnosis. Another magnificent theatre, library, baths and springs for purification are
discernible but shells of their former glory.
INTERVIEW WITH DR HILKE THUR
I found the Crisler Library an American history resource centre in Selcuk and met one of the
founders Janet Crisler who invited me to use the resources. She introduced me to Prof Dr
Hilke Thur of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, an architect whom I had seen on the BBC
documentary on Arsinoe, sister of Cleopatra < Cleopatra: Portrait of a killer > about the
octagonal Tomb in Ephesus, which she claims is that of Arsinoe. It was exciting to enter The
House of the Archaeolgists, owned once by the first to dig here, it adjoined my guesthouse. In
the interview I raised several challenges to her theory that such a mausoleum would honour a
rebel :
I pointed out that the octagonal shape of the tomb could be traced to the Tower of the Winds in
Athens instead of the Pharos of Alexandria.
She directed me to an article she knew which explains the Pharos could have been based on
the Tower of the Winds.
However I knew the Lighthouse was built first !.The Pyramid roof I queried, a pyramid has 4
sides not 8, furthermore no-one at that time used pyramids to represent Egypt. The emblems
of the Ptolemies, the eagle and cornucopia are not in the tomb,
Ms Thur had no answer but claimed a papyri shape torch was Egyptian.
The skeleton bears no signs of a violent death and is too young at 15 -21 to have led the revolt
of AD48 as Arsinoe did, Hilke conceded this.I pointed out that far from being an innocent victim
Arsinoe had in 48bc put Antilla her general to death.
Hilke had not heard of this - said that sources were written after the event and probably others
ordered that death not Arsinoe. Why ? How unfair - when sources say Mark Anthony ordered
Arsinoe‘s death Hilke does the reverse, blaming Cleopatra. Anthony was recorded as having
put Arsinoe to death in 41bc, he was Lord of Asia and Ephesus for 11 more years till 30bc, it is
inconceivable that the Ephesians would risk insulting him by putting up a mausoleum to her in
a place of great honour. Furthermore he was there for several months with Cleopatra in 31bc.
Her reply was that his successor, Octavian, might then have allowed it - Octavian had just
murdered the last of the House of Ptolemy and refused to look at their tombs in Alexandria so I
was doubtful.
Hilke agreed with my next objection that Arsinoe had done nothing for the city unlike the very
few others buried within the walls accorded that honour. Everyone else was buried outside the
walls.
Her next point that members of foreign dynasties could also be buried in places of honour,
needs proving with examples, I shall research. The BBC documentary claimed the RomanGreek world was outraged by the killing on temple precincts - I asked for records of this - she
conceded there were none. The sensational claim that the skeleton had African ancestry was
based on a skull which no longer exists, those who reconstructed it said Ancient Egyptians
also had this skull type yet the BBC skimmed over this. Hilke agreed.
Several questions Ms Thur deflected saying she was not a historian but an Architect and had
little knowledge of the era. She agreed to let me mention in my letter to the BBC producer her
objections about the sensationalizing of her archaeology. Yet again an accusation of Cleopatra
has been fixed in the minds of the public - by someone who admits they do not know history.
I had put up a defence for my subject Cleopatra. I can also refute now the statement on her
documentary that Arsinoe is the only remaining body on Earth from which the DNA of
Cleopatra is found - see above:- my meeting in Siwa - the tomb of Selene, Cleopatra’s
daughter exists in Tipaza. I can make the case that since Cleopatra was beside Caesar at His
Triumph when Arsinoe was released and beside Mark Anthony during the years Arsinoe’s
mausoleum was built in Ephesus that she was responsible for both events.
It was an exciting climax to my project. I thanked Prof Hilke Thur for her interview.
EPHESUS……………………..farewell
As the muezzin calls the worshippers to prayer I write from the roof terrace of the guesthouse
on the site of the sanctified precincts of the Temple of Artemis. Swallows sacred to Isis flit
around the roof terrace to their nests outside our rooms.
This has been a journey that has changed my life - I have found a new base here for future
years from where to study further the glories of Asia Minor and the Aegean. I found new
perspectives for my book and speeches. Inner shadows have vanished in sunshine and blue
skies, a healing journey. All of us who are persisting late in life to achieve our aspirations are
encouraged by Sir Winston Churchill’s heroic example. I am grateful to Sir Winston, the great
orator of the twentieth century, and the Memorial Trust whose faith in me has given me a new
impetus in my career.