Thursday, May 23, 2024

A Journey Around Greece And Cyprus

We recently visited Athens and the nearby port of Piraeus. Let's have a look around the rest of mainland Greece, Crete and, Cyprus.

Thessaloniki, in the northern Greek region of Macedonia, is the country's second-largest city. It has a long history of being an important city. There are extensive Roman ruins. When the Jews went into exile, following the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., many settled in Thessaloniki and it is a central place in the story of the Jewish diaspora. It was also important to other historical powers, the Byzantine Empire, the Venetians and, the Ottomans.

The name of Thessaloniki will sound immediately familiar to readers of the Bible. St. Paul sent two letters, or epistles, to the Thessalonians. The First Book of Thessalonians is believed to be the first book of the New Testament to be written. The Gospels are placed first in the order of the New Testament, but this letter to the Thessalonians was almost certainly written before that.

The Ninth Century brothers named Cyril and Methodius were natives of Thessaloniki. These were the famous missionaries who introduced the Slavs to Christianity. Cyril had to create a new alphabet in order to translate the Bible into the Slavic language. That is why the Russian alphabet is known as the Cyrillic Alphabet today.

The northern part of Greece was known as Macedon. Certainly it's most famous native is the conqueror known as Alexander the Great. Alexander is a phenomenon in military history who conquered one of the few largest empires that the world has ever seen while never suffering a defeat. He conquered the Persian Empire, and continued on into India. That is why the Persian historical city of Persepolis has a Greek name.

Alexander had plans for more conquests but turned back because his soldiers were homesick, and wondering if they would ever see Greece again. But he left Greek-speaking kingdoms in what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan. There are people in India today who are descended from Alexander's soldiers.

The conquests of Alexander is also the reason that the later Byzantine Empire would speak Greek. The Byzantine Empire had been the eastern half of the Roman Empire, centered around the city of Constantinople, which had continued long after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The underlying reason for the difference between the two, which would ultimately lead to the Great Schism of 1054 that would separate the Eastern Orthodox Church from the Catholic Church, was that the west spoke Latin while the east spoke Greek.

There were Greek-speaking communities in what is now Turkey, dating to the time of Alexander, until the "population exchange" between the two countries in 1923.

Who knows what an empire Alexander might have built if he had not died of a fever at age 32.

Alexander had been tutored by the famous philosopher Aristotle. The series of three philosophers that I remember by the acronym "SPA" began with Socrates, who is really the founder of western philosophy. Socrates was very concerned with ethics in philosophy, and started the procedure of arriving at the best conclusion by successively eliminating different arguments.

Socrates taught Plato, in fact what we know about Socrates comes from the writings of Plato. Plato pioneered the logic of dealing with two opposing viewpoints.

Plato taught Aristotle, who dealt more with the actual science of the world around us as opposed to pure logic. Aristotle had  a great influence on both Christian and Islamic thought and would greatly affect western Europe when his writings were brought there during the Renaissance.

After the death of Alexander his vast empire did not hold together. Several of his generals, known as diadochi, took control and ruled different parts of the former empire. The two best-known of these fragments of Alexander's Empire were those taken over by the generals Seleucus I Nicator and Ptolemy I Soter.

The period of time from the breakup of Alexander's empire to the rise of the Roman Empire is known as the Hellenistic Era. It revolved around Greek culture and language, although Greece itself was not as important as previously. "Jesus" is actually a Greek name, the Greek form of the Hebrew "Joshua".

Seleucus had been one of Alexander's generals who began the Seleucid Empire that would rule Israel until the time of the Romans. It was against the Seleucids, based to the north of Israel in what is now Syria, that the Jews would launch the Maccabean Revolt. The Jewish holiday of Hanukkah is a commemoration of the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem, after it had been desecrated by the Seleucids.

Control of Egypt was taken by the general Ptolemy I Soter after the breakup of Alexander's empire. This was the beginning of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, a Hellenic dynasty that would rule Egypt from 305-30 B.C. The central city of the Ptolemies was Alexandria, the city founded by Alexander that bore his name.

The great Library of Alexandria was where so much of the Hellenistic intellectual development that would shape the world took place. Eratosthenes found a way to measure the circumference of the earth by comparing the lengths of shadows at different latitudes.

Euclid founded geometry. The so-called Euclidean Geometry that is taught in schools is based on two presumptions: 1) That the surface is flat. 2) That when there is a point outside of a straight line, there will be one and only one straight line that can be drawn through the point which will be parallel to the given line. Although this cannot actually be mathematically proven it is the starting point for Euclid's geometry.

There was a thriving Jewish expatriate community in Alexandria. As their children spoke Greek, and forgot how to speak Hebrew, the Jews decided to have their holy scriptures translated into Greek. The result was the Septuagint, so-called because it was translated by seventy scholars. The Septuagint was to be the foundation of the Christian adaptation of the Hebrew Bible, what would become known to Christians as the Old Testament.

The Ptolemies styled themselves as Egyptian pharaohs, although they continued to speak Greek. This is why the Egyptian city of Thebes has it's Greek name, which is also the name of an ancient city in Greece. The most famous name from the Ptolemaic era in Egypt is that of Cleopatra. She was actually Cleopatra the Seventh and was the final ruler before Roman control. Unfortunately, she ended up on the losing side in a Roman civil war.

Here is a look at the city of Thessaloniki. The cylindrical stone tower, in the first two images from Google Earth, is called the White Tower and was built by the Ottomans.



There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >,  After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.6340631,22.9426076,3a,75y,355.18h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1syZtPAM2SvN-dPAnG5eXhHg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DyZtPAM2SvN-dPAnG5eXhHg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D356.3356%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Here is more of Thessaloniki. Much of the extensive walls of the city are still remaining. The first image, from Google Earth, is of the Heptapyrgion Fortress.


https://www.google.com/maps/@40.6432607,22.9570509,3a,75y,72.55h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sczrmDENz4s1-ttil6_y6Jg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DczrmDENz4s1-ttil6_y6Jg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D67.49964%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Mount Athos is located on a peninsula not far from Thessaloniki. This has been considered as a holy place since the early days of Christianity, and is especially holy today to the Eastern Orthodox Church. There are many monasteries on the peninsula. Greece is generally an Eastern Orthodox country but there is also a Greek Catholic Church, which is one of the "Eastern Catholic Churches" that is in communion with the pope but does not use the same rites as the majority Latin Catholic Church.

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.1349945,24.2962532,3a,75y,40h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOVJ64_vHrcEDX9VmXHBZP1Fgc5Rf1rGOAxfwfJ!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOVJ64_vHrcEDX9VmXHBZP1Fgc5Rf1rGOAxfwfJ%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya196.09602-ro-0-fo100!7i9728!8i4864

The highest point of elevation in Greece is one of the peaks of Mount Olympus. This was the fabled home of the Greek Pantheon. The first two images are from Google Earth.






https://www.google.com/maps/@38.2464072,21.7352981,3a,75y,100.82h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s7Ex7lFVgqWBvgXVBA_wVLw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D7Ex7lFVgqWBvgXVBA_wVLw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D103.677376%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

This is more of Patras.

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.2310258,21.7326977,3a,75y,74.36h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sKET0O57b5ugivHQ7v6Hfdw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DKET0O57b5ugivHQ7v6Hfdw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D74.3645%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

On the island of Crete the Minoan civilization, named for the legendary king Minos, far pre-dated the Mycenean civilization on mainland Greece. The major city of Crete is now Heraklion, but nearby is the ruins of Knossos which was Europe's first city. The ruins of the famous Palace of Knossos have been discovered. These two images are from Google Street View.



The writing system of the Minoans, called Linear A, has never been deciphered, unlike the Linear B of the Myceneans on the mainland. The Greek alphabet, that is the predecessor of the Latin alphabet that we are using now, came much later.

Heraklion is a city of Arab origin, from the Ninth Century. Before becoming part of modern Greece, Crete was under Byzantine, Venetian and, Ottoman control. Crete was a theater of the endless battles between Venice and the Ottomans. The major Venetian fortress still stands at the harbor. The wall in the first of the following images, from Google Street View, is from the time of the Venetians. The second image, from Google Earth, is of Heraklion.






https://www.google.com/maps/@35.5167976,24.0209501,3a,75y,127.37h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sSMfpcoDqGGxUq5K_WyPZyA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DSMfpcoDqGGxUq5K_WyPZyA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D133.17487%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Further east in the Mediterranean is the island of Cyprus. It is an independent country, and not part of Greece. Cyprus goes far back into ancient times and was once ruled by the Assyrians. Greeks settled there in early times and there was a movement for political union with Greece, called Enosis.

But Cyprus was later controlled by the Ottomans and people from what is now Turkey settled there. Like Crete, Cyprus was a theater of conflict between Venice and the Ottomans. The walls built by the Venetians are still a prominent part of the cityscape. A coup attempting to unite with Greece led Turkey to invade the island in 1974, in a declared effort to safeguard the Turkish Cypriot community.

The result was a division of the island into Greek and Turkish sectors. A new nation was declared, called Northern Cyprus, but no nation except Turkey recognizes it. Nicosia was made the capital city of Cyprus by the Byzantines, and is today divided into north and south much as Berlin was once divided into east and west.

This is a national flag. The reason that you do not see it very often is because Turkey is the only country to have given diplomatic recognition to Northern Cyprus as a nation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Cyprus#/media/File:Flag_of_the_Turkish_Republic_of_Northern_Cyprus.svg

Here is a look at the Greek Cypriot side of Nicosia. The first image is from Google Street View.


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