They were not Magi, nor members of an ancient caste. They were Bavarians: an astronomer, a watchmaker and a doctor. Nor did they follow a star. They came instead at the bidding of Otto of Bavaria, Greece’s first modern day King, and arrived by boat, landing at Patras on December 24, 1834. Their missions — perhaps conceived of by the young monarch as a Christmas present to the good citizens of his fledgling nation — were to minister to the ills of the people, their watches, and to reintroduce astronomy. The level of medicine then practised in Greece — primarily by Kombogiannitesox charlatans — was very low, their methods roughshod and relying heavily on herbs, potions, and the grace of God. Watches were owned by few and worn more for prestige than for telling the time of day. When they broke down, they were discarded or worn as decoration because it was difficult to have them repaired since qualified watchmakers were virtually nonexistent. (The story had often been told about a watchmaker who on one occasion returned a watch to a client along with a tiny package with extra parts that had been left over from the works — a measure of his thriftiness, he proudly noted.) As for astronomers, few if any existed here at the time.
This situation was now to be corrected with the arrival of the Three Wise Men from Bavaria summoned by the King. Disembarking at Patras tney immediately set off by mule for the capital hoping to arrive there in time for the Christmas Day festivities. By nightfall, however, it was clear that they would have to interrupt their journey and so they stopped at a mill for the night, where the miller welcomed them and set about preparing a dinner of chicken and bougatsa which he presented to his guests along with a local wine.
The visitors thus attended to, he settled himself in front of the fire with his own dinner, an immense tray of cheese pie from which he hacked off huge wedges which he washed down with wine, wishing his guests kali orexi between mouthfuls. As he advanced through quantities of pie, the Bavarians’ anxiety mounted. The doctor predicted he would never survive such gluttony and advised his companions that they would be wise, indeed, to flee early in the morning lest they, as strangers, be accused of having had a hand in his demise. Nor did they wish to remain in the same room for the event and asked the miller still tucking away his dinner if he would prepare beds for them in a room attached to the tiny mill. Its roof, the miller informed them, was in poor condition and inasmuch as it was going to rain during the night he advised against it. The astronomer stepped outside, noted the cloudless sky and informed his companions that the proprietor was talking nonsense. They retired to the shed and had just fallen asleep when they were awoken by the sound of heavy rain and splatters falling on them. They sheepishly returned to the mill where the miller was alive to welcome them back. He was still alive when some time later the watchmaker woke him and the others and asked that breakfast be prepared so that they could set off by dawn. The groggy miller informed them it was only two a.m. and, indeed, when he fetched a candle and the watchmaker consulted his watch, that is what it was. They returned to bed, awoke at dawn, and prepared to resume their journey, but before leaving the Three Wise Men wished to satisfy their curiosity.
‘Do you not feel ill after last night’s heavy dinner?’ asked the doctor.
Of course not,’ laughed the miller. Ί drank some water from the spring under the plane tree. It solves all digestive problems.’
‘How’, asked the astronomer ‘did you know it would rain last night?’
‘Because of my pigs,’ came the reply. ‘They were restless in the evening. That’s a sure sign of bad weather.’
Next came the turn of the watchmaker: ‘How did you know it was two o’clock when I awoke you in the night?’
The miller looked at him with astonishment. ‘But my donkey had just brayed,’ he explained. ‘He always brays at that hour.’
Thus enlightened the Three Wise Men from the West mounted their mules and set off. This time they rode away from Athens and back towards Patras where they boarded the next boat for home. Their services, it was apparent, would be superfluous in Greece.
Greece Comes of Age
A GENERATION ago Greece was considered, anthropologically speaking, one of the youngest countries in Europe. Although its rich neolithic culture was well established, there existed no evidence that Greece had been inhabited by man before 6000 B.C. In 1960, however, some inhabitants of the village of Petralona, thirty miles south of Thessaloniki in the peninsula of Halkidiki, began digging a well on the slopes of Mount Katsika. Instead of finding water, however, they stumbled upon a cave which, as a result of geological disturbances, had been sealed thousands of years before. Here anthropologists discovered imbedded in a stalagmite the skeleton of a youth which was at first believed to have been an example of Neanderthal Man, whose skull has been discovered in many parts of Europe. This fact alone would have pushed back man’s first habitation of Greece by over fifty thousand years. Later studies, however, by the Greek Anthropological Service under the direction of Aris Poulianos, which included radioactive carbon tests of the stratification and the discovery of a second skull, proved the first assumption to be mistaken and established that man first inhabited the Petralona Cave at least three hundred thousand years ago and perhaps as long ago as six hundred thousand years. Vertical cuts into the stratification of the cave have revealed twenty different geological layers each of which has yielded evidence of animal fossils, bone and traces of fire. Professor Poulianos is now defining a chronology of the cave which will confirm that it has been continuously occupied by man through both temperate and ice ages down to the last glacial period when erosion in the cave’s roof forced the Petralona Man to move out, taking with him the knowledge of fire and the use of stone tools which he had mastered there thousands of years before.
That Greece has now been established as an important centre where the species man has long been in a state of continuous development is heartening news and thoroughly in accord with the country’s present political alignment towards Europe and its future expectation of joining the Common Market. It seems especially fitting at this time to realize that Greece, far from being a new-comer to Europe, in fact produced its first homo erectus about half a million years ago.
Journey Into the Unknown
ON A FRIDAY night at eight o’clock in the evening, just a few days after the Government announced its intention to nationalize the last vestiges of privately-owned public transportation in Athens, we came upon one of the blue and white buses in Kolonaki. It was wedged kitty corner across Elvetias, the narrow street that runs behind Evangelismos Hospital, at the point where it meets Marasli. The driver—a dolt, an idiot and various unmentionables if we were to judge from the more polite remarks being hurled at him by the passengers on the bus, other drivers and passersby — had miscalculated while turning left onto Elvetias thus inextricably lodging his vehicle at an angle blocking both pedestrian and motor traffic.
We regretted having missed what must have been a masterfully executed manoeuvre but paused to witness the resultant melee which was nothing to be sneered at. Up and down Marasli rows of cars, their horns blaring, were solidly jammed — blocked above Elvetias by the tail end of the bus, and below by taxis abandoned by their drivers who were now rushing over to the bus driver to tell him what they thought of him for obstructing traffic.
If the government follows through on its threat to streamline and modernize public transportation, we reflected, another era will have made way to progress. The flowers, koboloi, icons, baby pictures, and soccer-star pin-ups decorating the windshields of buses will no doubt be hauled down and carried off by ministerial decree. Signs that now delicately announce that seats are reserved for women ‘in an interesting condition’ will be replaced with coldly bureaucratic ones calling a spade a spade. Nosey conductors eager to listen to everyone’s woes and ready to counsel on all matters from corporation law to marital problems will be replaced with sleekly uniformed, clean-shaven civil servants qualified only to collect fares and to ask black-gowned and bearded priests to produce identity cards to certify their calling when they look around expectantly for someone to offer them a seat.
Drivers may even by ordered to observe the sign which announces that talking to them is forbidden, depriving us of those breathtaking moments when their hands are off the wheel and busy waving in the air as they turn around to chat with passengers. Worst of all, bureaucratic efficiency experts may provide them with maps of the city, their routes carefully charted, to make sure that they do not stray off course.
Indeed, many citizens in search of diversion travel by bus for the sheer adventure. Among them is our old friend Kyria Koula, the highlight of whose week is her excursion from Patisia to her son’s home in Politia. Although her son maintains that public transportation is not a proper means of travel and that she should either take a taxi or allow him to send his car to pick her up, our friend will have none of it. Instead, weighed down with bags of freshly baked cookies and cakes for her grandchildren, she hops on a bus with the expectation of a child waiting for Santa Claus and begins her weekly journey into the unknown. The trip through central Athens is usually fairly dull, she has told us, the monotony relieved only by the occasional traffic snarl that leads to a fist fight (although she excitedly recounts the time she witnessed a taxi driver trying to stab the driver of a stalled car with a screwdriver), or the occasional appearance of non-Greek speaking tourists — the signal for everyone on the bus to come to their aid. (Our old friend presents guests to our country with a cookie and, as a gesture of good will, offers — she speaks only Greek — to give them the recipe.) Otherwise, the buses are usually crowded with enough passengers familiar with the route to direct the driver if he gets lost.
Once in Kifissia, however, the suspense begins and if she is lucky she goes on a free Cook’s tour. Very often it is some time before unwary passengers notice that the driver is visibly confused and has already made several wrong turns. When finally roused, they race to the front of the bus and begin to deliver instructions, in complete disagreement with each other, of course, so that it may be hours before the flustered driver is back on course. As a result, our old friend is an authority on the topography of the area in, around and beyond Kifissia. On one occasion that she recalls fondly, they had made their way uneventfully past Kefalari when, just before reaching the terminus at the square in Politia, the driver took an unscheduled right-hand turn. In a few minutes they were winding their way through the upper reaches of Politia and driving past her son’s house. Realizing that the situation held all sorts of promise, she had no intention of getting off. Ignoring the yaps of recognition from her son’s dogs, she averted her eyes not to see the startled and quizzical looks of her grandchildren expectantly waiting for her at the garden gate, and concentrated on the bonus sightseeing tour included in the eleven drachmas fare.
On another occasion when she was the only passenger, she noted that the driver was new. Questioning him carefully, she was delighted to hear that he was from Piraeus and had never before set foot beyond Marousi. She kept her peace as he drove through Kifissia, Kastri, and Ekali — distracting him with animated chatter whenever they passed a road sign — and soon they were on their way to Marathon. They eventually returned via the National Road, but not before the driver got lost in Varibobi. That Kyria Koula informed us afterwards was the best trip of all.
OUR reflections came to an end as minor conflagrations were breaking out here and there while the bus driver valiantly tried to extricate his vehicle without driving over the gesticulating citizens surrounding it. We made our way down Marasli Street, climbing over an official car neatly parked upon the sidewalk infront of a shop, its driver sitting at the wheel waiting patiently for his passenger to emerge. There was no need to abandon hope, we decided. The chances of the Government making good its threat to present us with a modern, efficient transport system that runs on time and along prescribed courses were in the realm of the improbable.
