Canning was Premier at the time of the Battle of Navarino in 1827 when the combined Russian, French, and British fleet destroyed the Turkish fleet and thus insured the independence of Greece.
‘We recognized Canning/ Karamanlis replied, ‘by giving his name to a large square in Athens [Platia Kaningos]. Now, if you will solve the Cyprus crisis we will name an even larger square after you.’
There has been some speculation as to which square Mr. Karamanlis had in mind. He surely could not have been thinking of renaming Constitution Square. Although Mr. Wilson set the offer aside, he repaid the compliment by saying, ‘If there were a Nobel Prize for Democracy (and there certainly should be), it would be given to the man who brought back democracy to its cradle.’
Tempest in a Trireme
FOR THE past ten weeks the normally tranquil columns of The Times of London which, even in periods of historic crisis rarely reach a mild zephyr force, have been stirred by a high meltemi of passion. The greatest squall to ruffle the pages of The Times since the ‘Great National Debate On Whether Or Not Kippers Should Be Served On The British Railways’ some years ago, it is already known as the ‘Great Trireme Controversy’. By general consensus, it has aroused the greatest concern in England’s naval affairs since the ‘Pursuit and the Sinking of the Bismarck’. Cambridge oarsmen, Oxford classicists, and correspondents from other seats of learning have hotly. exchanged fine scientific points of velocity, aerodynamics, and hyd-rodynamics with even finer Latin puns.
Like most Aegean storms, it seemed to blow up suddenly out of nowhere. In a letter dated mid-August, Mr. Sean McGrail, chief archaeologist of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, described modern research’s growing knowledge of boat building methods and boat handling techniques practised in ancient times. By the end of the month, while aging British seadogs and Hellenists were musing over old Aegean memories, Mr. Eric Leach — in the spirit of Eris, Goddess of Discord — noted that our present knowledge of the trireme (a sea vessel equipped with three rows of oars on either side) which was ‘the backbone of Greek supremacy in the Mediterranean from the Fifth to the Third Century B.C., comes from ‘conflicting descriptions, vase paintings, sculpture and coins, most of which lean heavily on artistic license for their suitable presentation to the scale and shape of their compositions’. Mr. Leach then threw down the apparently innocuous remark that the ancient Greek trireme must have been a ‘much more sophisticated man o’ war than we have given the ancient Greeks credit for’.
After several days of stunned silence, during which the Letters to the Editor reverted to the happy pursuit of mushroom-collecting, the storm struck with sudden Olympian violence. Throughout September opinions on biremes, triremes, tetraremes and even 15-emes and 16-emes came crashing in like thunderbolts causing the greatest, inexplicable, nautical bedlam since the Battle of Navarino. Much talk of waveration, oar propulsion, and horsepower was followed by a scholarly onslaught in which many a dog-eared and spine-broken edition of Herotodus, Thucydides and Xenophon were hurled about, alternately supported, refuted, quoted and (worse) misquoted.
In early October, despite the great authoritative statements of E.C.B. Corlett, A.R. Burn, Rex Warner and other worthies of the world of classics, the battle reached its zenith when Messrs. Hood, Tenison and Coles took the naval war into the air with these winged words:
We would like to draw attention to the fact that Minoan aviation suffered a fifty percent rate of attrition. Nevertheless the advantages of flight are obvious … Even considering that Daedelus and Icarus belonged to the age of heroes, and thus handsomely surpassed the sustained 0.1 horsepower of contemporary athletes, the efficiency of wing propulsion must have considerably exceeded the trireme’s seventy percent. Despite the inherent limitations of wax and feathers, the hypothetical twelve-knot trireme would have taken slightly over three times as long to cover the same distance.
By the middle of October the ‘Great Trireme Controversy’ seemed to have blown itself out, and The Times of London returned to its former halcyon days, stirred only by the cool zephyrs of Mr. Constantine Karamanlis, who was then visiting London. As far as we know, he did not join the Times Debate.
Futuristic Fantasies
SEVEN years ago a group of scientists from UNESCO made a general study of the damage caused by pollution to the monuments on the Acropolis. Last month UNESCO returned to Athens, at the invitation of the Ministry of Culture. The experts, including an architect, a seismologist, and a specialist in the preservation of stone, consulted with those studying the restoration and upkeep of the monuments. Their report, when it was issued, was not only pessimistic (that was to be expected), but desperate.
The plain fact is that many of the sculptures exposed on the Acropolis are in danger of immediate destruction. A single hailstorm (not an uncommon phenomenon during an Athenian winter) could break off large pieces of the Caryatids, the ladies who serve as columns on the Erechtheum, and do irreparable damage to the remaining frieze and pediment sculptures on the Parthenon.
The experts came to the following conclusions: the Caryatids must be enclosed in wooden casings for the winter and moved in the spring, with all the other architectural sculptures, to workshops for restoration. Furthermore, they recommend that these sculptures be housed in museums and that copies be placed in their stead.
While pondering this disturbing news, and trying to envision plaster cast reproductions holding up the Erechtheum, all sorts of questions and wild fancies went flying through our minds. Would the replicas’ weather-beaten noses be restored to the former glory of the originals? Would the British Museum magnanimously present us with duplicates of the Parthenon friezes to nail up on the monument? Would the entire Parthenon some day be removed to safety and a copy (perhaps in hard impact plastic designed to take the wear and tear of pollution and tourists) be placed on the Acropolis? With the Acropolis on the move, anything could happen. Our minds boggled at visions of the Parthenon, complete with a bulletproof shield, embarking on cultural exchanges and Westminster Abbey and the Eiffel Tower arriving for exhibitions in Athens. The church of Agia Sofia was just pulling into Piraeus for a goodwill visit when our future-shock musings were interrupted by the mailman who presented us with a letter from a Mr. Tom Borden in California. We reproduce it for the others like us, who are still impressed with the enterprise of ants and believe that before any sculptures are removed from the Acropolis they should be consulted.
There are ants on the Acropolis. Little black fellows; a whole stream going down past my rock. I’m sitting on a 2500-year-old rock looking at the Parthenon. The ants aren’t looking, they’re working, carrying little bits of white stuff down the hill. Could it be marble? Have they been nibbling away at the Parthenon all these years, carrying it down, bit by bit, building their own exact replica four inches high? Looking over their shoulders and, spotting technical consultants nearby, speeding up their work?
There go two ants carrying a big piece — looks like the base of a column. 1 wonder if they take a break between one and five, go home, have some moussaka and beer, and sleep? One ant is going up the hill with a slide rule. My God! They’re going to build in that twelve-inch difference between the front and the back end! The World’s Most Perfect Building! Ants from all over the world will come to see it! From Daphne, from Piraeus, and little tour buses from Sounion. They will probably charge admission — two crumbs each — kid-ants free — discounts for tour groups.
Do ants need a temple? Do they have Gods — a God of Sugar, a God of Garbage, a God of Picnics? Is there an ant named Socrates?
The moral, Mr. Borden says, is ‘Don’t go to the Acropolis on the night of the Full Moon.’ Or, we might add, read UNESCO reports.
Finito La Siesta
THE Government’s proposal for a continuous, five-day, work week only emphasizes that a way of life has been slowly passing out of existence. Although other countries in the world have continued to observe a six-day work week, ours has been different. Each day has enjoyed its own special schedule and character which has changed from season to season, year to year and area to area. The only thing that has remained constant has been the siesta, and now economic development, traffic congestion, urban pollution, and the steep rise in petrol prices are all conspiring to put an end to that, too. The social ramifications of a five-day, “siestaless” week will be considerable. In the first place, the nomenclature defining the various parts of the day has been determined by the daily rhythm which has, in turn, been more or less dictated by the siesta and the rituals that lead up to it and follow it. Proi (morning) lasts until shops close at one, one-thirty, or even three o’clock in the afternoon. Then comes mesimeri (midday), a rather vague and soporific chronological unit that goes on until at least five p.m. by which hour the apogevma (afternoon) is still not underway because it must first be briefly preceded by apogevmataki, the little afternoon, which might accurately be called a post-siesta recuperation interval. This is when shops reopen. Afternoon (in winter, at least) commences at dusk and goes on until shops close at eight, half-past eight, or nine o’clock. This is followed by that period known as vradaki (little evening). In towns and villages people at this hour join the promenade, and in the cities men stop off for an ouzo and meze on the way home from work. Vradi (evening) only seriously begins with dinner which might take place at ten but sometimes later. Finally night (nihta) comes — some time after midnight.
This pattern has meant up to now that the average man has his main meal of the day and sees his children sometime during the first part of the mesimeri after which he is free to climb into his pyjamas and to concentrate on the sacred ipnaki (little nap) from which he emerges only after a leisurely, delicately sipped coffee. Thus refreshed, he is ready for a lively pace that takes him into the wee hours of the night — or morning, by other nations’ reckoning. (If such a man claims that he will settle for a yoghurt for supper, this is in fact rarely true and more often he and his wife join their friends and go out to a taverna to dine.)
All this has been changing for some time. Most factories have been on a continuous workday for many years and executives all too often find themselves straddling both the old and the new work schedules (a full day at the office or factory but meeting their directors or lawyers in the evening). Civil servants, professionals in private practice, and shopkeepers, however, have clung to the old pattern. Whether or not the average man will now submit to a snack lunch, English tea, or early dinner remains to be seen. The Greek worker has always been a genius at improvisation, however, and we are not likely to see, quite yet, the disappearance of the promenade or the taverna evening. As for the siesta, we feel certain it will continue after lunch, if need be at desks, work benches, or improvised beds tucked behind store counters. And That Man in Pyjamas, sitting on his balcony and sipping his coffee in the afternoon, will be around for some years to come.
