The Aegean Sea and its collection of beautiful islands are framed
by the coastlines of mainland Greece and Turkey.
Millions of tourists, of all nationalities,
come here every year.
3,000 years ago, it was just as popular.
The ports of the Aegean would've been crammed
with families, workers, soldiers and kings,
travelling for trade, and to fight.
The cities of ancient Greece were often at war
with each other.
I want to find out more about this vast
and complicated civilisation,
to dig out the real stories behind the myths.
And I'm not just going to the well-known tourist spots,
of course not - I'm headed off the beaten track.
I'm Alice Roberts,
and I'm travelling hundreds of miles through what is now Greece
and Turkey,
looking in to the flowering of classical civilisation,
from ancient Greece, to the Romans.
Oh, my goodness! That's wonderful.
To discover this region's vital role
as the birthplace of Plato, Socrates
and Alexander the Great,
mythology, theatre, and democracy.
I'm really excited to get this journey started.
There's always this sense of anticipation.
I know where I'm going, I know where I'm headed,
I know who I'm going to meet at each destination along the way,
but I don't know exactly what I'm gonna see
and what I'm gonna learn.
But I know that it's going to be incredible.
And what I'm hoping for, by the end of it,
is that I come away with a better understanding
of how this incredible ancient civilisation,
this Hellenistic culture, spread out through time
and across such a huge geographic area
with the Aegean Sea binding it all together.
I'm starting in the north, in what is now modern Greece
but used to be ancient Macedonia.
The home of kings like Philip II, and of course, Alexander the Great.
I start my Greek adventure in Thessaloniki.
And then I'll be heading south
on the train towards Athens and Corinth.
From the port of Piraeus, I'll take to the sea,
to Paros and its surrounding historic islands.
And then back on the train, northwards
along the Anatolian Coast in Turkey,
concluding my odyssey in Troy.
And my first stop is Thessaloniki.
I'm hoping to see the Romans arriving in Greece,
a beautiful Roman palace in the city.
But also, I can't wait to see
one of the absolute masterpieces of the ancient world.
A beautiful, beautiful object that I've only ever seen photographs of,
and I want to see it for real.
I know it's in the Archaeological Museum in Thessaloniki.
it's called the Derveni Krater, and it looks incredible.
I'm arriving in Thessaloniki for the first time,
and already I'm intrigued.
This is Greece's second city after Athens.
Visitors are drawn to Thessaloniki's vast promenade,
which spans six kilometres,
hugging the Aegean Sea.
Two and a half millennia ago, this was the centre
of a minor ancient Greek state called Macedon,
the home of Alexander the Great.
We all know something about ancient Greece,
from the story of Troy to the Acropolis in Athens,
and philosophers like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
Their names come down to us through the centuries,
preserved in ancient manuscripts,
but I'm starting with a much newer source of information,
social media,
where I find an archaeologist called Ted.
Ted uses social media to explain ancient Greek history
and archaeology in a very accessible way.
I've arranged to meet him
to get his advice in helping me understand
this fascinating civilisation.
Aah! Hi! How are you?
I'm very well, lovely to meet you. Welcome to Greece.
It's so lovely to be here.
This is fantastic, I want to chat to you about this.
Thank you so much. Shall we go and get a table? Yes.
I've been stalking you on Instagram.
For the entire world, archaeology and our past
is very, very important.
Mm. Cos we're looking, we're digging to find ourselves.
It's like a huge collective psychotherapy session
to find out what went wrong,
and we have the most weird form of life in the entire solar system.
Yeah, yeah. Cos that's what we are.
For example, Greece has a tendency of idealising its past.
Mm. Which can be good and bad... Yeah.
..because you end up thinking that
whatever happened in antiquity is good. That's not right, though.
There were no female voting, for example, in classical Greece.
Yeah. There was slavery in the Ancient World.
Yeah, they had democracy, but democracy in a very narrow sense...
Exactly, yes. ..of the word.
Of course, they created philosophy and theatre and that... Science.
And science. But you have to pick and choose
and see all the colours of the rainbow.
Ted advised the same rationale to his assessment
of Macedon's most famous son.
Alexander the Great fought against Athens, for example.
Mm. If you were pro classical Athens with democracy
and theatre and everything,
perhaps you'd end up hating Alexander,
but that's just silly nowadays. Mm. It's been 2,500 years.
I mean, come on. Yeah. No, you can't import those feelings...
Exactly, yes. ..into the modern day,
but what you can do is look at it from the perspective
of those people back in the past, can't you? Exactly.
Ted's interested in the breadth and diversity of opinions
held by those living in ancient Greece over the centuries.
There's this inscription about a person,
an ancient Greek, from Thessaloniki,
who dedicated to the Romans,
saying how all of Greece is so thankful to the Romans
for liberating us from the kings and everything.
There was resistance against Roman rule in Greece,
which later on diminished
cos they found out that they love each other, after all.
So they created the Greco-Roman world.
But up until then, they had some fights.
Yeah. So there was this, at least that one person
from Thessaloniki who tried to...
He was saying, "I'm in." Yeah, to compliment the Romans, yes.
"I love the Romans. The Romans are so nice." Yeah.
As well as using the tools of social media
for his stories on ancient Greece,
Ted has turned to a more traditional method -
he's written a book.
And your book is being translated into English -
tell me about your book. My book,
How To Fit All Of ancient Greece In An Elevator.
No, was that the name? Because I wanted something very surreal.
You can't fit the Parthenon in an elevator.
No, you can't fit all ancient Greece, that's a spoiler.
Because, yeah, you can't fit...
But you can fit all of ancient Greece in your imagination.
Yeah. That's the whole point. Yeah, yeah.
And after all, what I'm trying to do is convince people
that archaeology in the past is not just Alexander the Great,
or Pericles, or Sophocles, or just the main figures,
it's everybody.
We'd focus mostly on the great battles.
Enough with the battles. They're important, yes,
but what about other parts of life in ancient Greece?
What about how ordinary people lived? Exactly. Yeah.
You'd have all kinds of people, just like today.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Exactly.
And have you found any resistance from
the broader archaeological community to what you're trying to do?
I'm very happy and surprised, myself
to say that my project was very well received by
the academic community in Greece.
As popularity progressed,
more and more people from the academic community contacted me
and gave me their support, and I'm very thankful for that.
Yeah, so you've had to prove that it works.
It goes to show that academia isn't always what we think it is. Yeah.
Later, I'll be taking a guided tour of Thessaloniki's ancient sites...
Wow! That's incredible.
..I come face-to-face with Alexander the Great,
and take a train to the royal burial sites.
I'm in Thessaloniki, in northern Greece.
The city was founded in 315 BCE by Philip, King of Macedon.
Today, this region is known as Greek Macedonia.
The King named the city after his daughter,
the half-sister of Alexander the Great.
Alexander himself would become King of Macedon
at the age of 20, and I want to know more about him.
But first, I want to see one of ancient Greece's
most astonishing treasures.
I'm meeting local historian Angeliki.
Angeliki. Hello! Welcome to the museum, to Thessaloniki.
Kalispera. Thank you.
Oh, what have we got glowing in the dark here?
Gold! It's the gold.
There are so many astonishing, beautiful objects here,
but one stands out.
This is our masterpiece.
Do you know, I didn't realise it was so large.
The Krater was found in 1962
in a burial chamber in Derveni, just outside Thessaloniki.
It was made more than 2,300 years ago.
Originally, they used it to make wine.
In the top, they put cremated bones from man and a woman inside.
It's absolutely stunning. I mean, you know,
something that would've been used to mix wine and water,
and then it's repurposed as a funeral urn.
And it's very intriguing.
The body is hammered from two bronze leaves,
and only the handles,
the rim and the base are cast-made from mould.
This golden colour is from a high amount of tin
in the bronze alone.
We have Dionysus, he is nude, with his wife, Ariadne.
She's removing her veil. Yes. And we have around the vase...
It's absolutely stunning. ..the men that...they are dancing.
They're holding a deer by the legs. They're holding the deer.
In the other they are holding a child.
You see? Over here.
There's violence in this. Yeah, there's...
Yeah. So this was found in a tomb?
Yes. All artefacts here were in the same tomb.
It's an astonishing amount of wealth to consign to a grave.
Yes. I mean, that takes that wealth out of circulation.
It's their ideology.
The remaining family are saying, "We can consign all this wealth
"to the grave." Yes. "We're still wealthy."
Yes, "We are still wealthy." Endless wealth.
So where does all this wealth come from?
How does Macedonia become so immeasurably wealthy?
After the campaign in Asia.
Alexander's campaign? Yes.
Ah, we're allowed to go through here...
Yes. ..because I'm with you.
So beautiful, yeah. I'll put that back.
It's very exciting to be getting this sneak peek
of the museum's new exhibition,
which shows how Greek culture persisted under Roman rule.
This mosaic tells the story of Ariadne,
seen here sleeping,
being stalked by the Greek god Dionysus.
It's beautiful.
And isn't it interesting that this story just carries on going?
Carries on going.
It doesn't matter that Macedonia's now part
of the Roman Empire,
they're still telling the same stories.
And here, looking like a god, is Alexander.
From the end of the 4th century, during Roman times and later,
it's the first time that the historical personality,
the first time that a human being gave individuality
in the iconography of gods and heroes.
He began to portray gods like Dionysus,
like Helios, like Achilles,
as heroes, with the personal features of Alexander.
Because he was worshipped, because he was god himself.
It's the story that became a legend.
Yeah. And did that happen during his lifetime?
Was he encouraging... Yes. ..people to see him as a God?
He declared himself a god.
He put standard for the representation of the ruler.
Young, dauntless, and with passion, with charisma and all this.
And the Roman Emperors... That's interesting.
..they liked to be like Alexander.
So you can have authority whilst being young.
Yeah. You don't have to be an elder.
It was like an Alexandromania.
Yeah. All they wanted to be like Alexander.
He's Macedonian. Yeah.
He takes over all of what is now Greece,
and then goes over into Asia Minor,
that becomes part of his empire as well,
all the way down,
through the eastern Mediterranean, down to Egypt.
Yes. Vast empire. Yes, and very quickly. Yeah.
He was only 20 when he began. Yeah. Only 20,
and he died at 33.
Yeah. It was a short span of time, but he made a lot.
And he's building on what his father had already done in terms
of expanding... Yes. ..that Macedonian kingdom.
He's building on the legacy of Philip II.
Yes. Philip was great, also a great ruler.
He made the base for him to continue.
In fact, Alexander's empire was extremely short-lived.
But by the second century BCE,
the Romans had arrived in Thessaloniki,
and they had big plans for the city.
It would become an important strategic location
for their ventures further eastward.
I'm looking for Betina,
a leading archaeologist who's been working on restoring
Thessaloniki's remaining ancient sites.
Hello, Alice. Hello. Welcome to Thessaloniki.
Thank you very much.
In the Hellenistic period,
we know that this area was chosen by the Romans
to have their administration and economic centre.
This was the hub of the ancient city,
a town square, meeting place
and marketplace rolled into one, the Agora.
This is not the end of the Agora. Right.
To the west, it extends about 70 metres.
So it's almost twice as long? Yeah. Yes.
And what's that over there?
It looks like a small theatre, but is it a town hall?
It was an odeion. An odeion. Yeah. It was...
Would it have been a bouleuterion?
The bouleuterion is beneath. Right. OK.
There is a series of shops.
And there is a street, here, you can see?
Oh, yes. A street. Yes. Yeah, yeah.
It is... So that paving, that is Roman? Exactly.
Can we walk down in there?
No, not now. We are in the middle of a project,
and now we have to put the new glass floor there.
I'll have to come back when you've finished the restoration.
I think so, yes. Cos I want to walk round it.
Next summer.
Presumably there's archaeology everywhere under our feet?
There are, yes.
Thessaloniki has a history for thousands of years. Yeah.
It started in 316, and life continues from that.
Next, we are going to a rotunda.
It was built by Galerius. Ah!
Built in the early 4th century CE as a temple or mausoleum,
the rotunda was converted into a Christian church,
then into a mosque, then back into a church again.
Its walls are six metres wide,
helping to explain how it managed to survive several earthquakes.
Wow! That's incredible.
It's so perfect, it's magic, isn't it?
It's magnificent.
What a huge dome.
It's just beautiful.
I mean, look at that. Isn't it? Yeah.
During the earthquakes, part of the dome was destroyed,
and then the Ottomans called an Italian, who painted this part,
and this is why it is different from... Ah.
This is not mosaic. No. It is painting.
So that dome would've been completely covered in mosaic?
Yes. Yes. Yeah. And this up above...
Oh, yeah, there's a foot, over there. Yes!
So we've got layers and layers... Yeah.
..of archaeology here, Roman and then Roman Christian...
Mm-hm. ..and then Ottoman.
And those cracks from the earthquake.
That's 1,600 years of pretty much continuous use.
It's incredible.
It's incredibly opulent. It is.
It shows you the wealth and power of the Romans.
The glory of the emperor, yes.
Yeah, and then the wealth of the early church,
in order to decorate it in this way. Yes.
Can you see the small windows at the base of the dome?
That's mosaic as well? Yes. That's mosaic too.
The colours are superb.
The blue and the gold and the green, and...
It's really beautiful. There are birds over there,
and this is the reason the Muslims did not destroy it.
If it's just geometric... Yes.
..or nature, that's fine. If it's figures...
Nature is OK. Figures are not OK.
Isn't it interesting to see those links
from the Roman architecture through to churches and mosques? Yes.
There's a lot of change, politically.
Sometimes you have polities joining together,
sometimes fragmenting,
but the culture joins everyone together. Yes.
Art and culture. Just carries on.
Yes. We cannot say, "OK, now Hellenistic stops,
"Roman starts..." Yeah.
.."Roman stops." No, it isn't like that.
Culture never stops. It's an evolution.
Ideas feed in, don't they? It is an evolution...
Yeah. ..where everything is mixed.
Look, that is the Arch of Galerius.
Some metres further is the Palace of Galerius.
Can you imagine, the processions would come
all this way here, and enter?
Galerius was the emperor
ruling the eastern half of the Roman Empire.
And his arch is one of the most famous landmarks
in Thessaloniki.
Now you see only part of the arch.
It was originally, there were eight piers.
Huge! Yes. They were in two rows, and there were three entrances.
Can you imagine how it was? Yeah.
Everything was painted. Yeah. We know that. Yes, yeah.
And originally, the main street, Decumanus Maximus, passed by and...
Through this arch? Yes, exactly, this.
So you've got this east-west road.
Exactly, exactly. And then this south-north route. Yeah.
So what have we got here?
What we've got, what we've got, can you see?
Glory. Battles, birds, because we have living monuments.
Yeah.
It is trials, propaganda.
Roman soldiers stamping on barbarians. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
And then we have two Augusti and the Caesars here.
Finally, we're approaching Galerius's palace.
The palace complex really extended to...
I mean, it was really large. Huge.
And to the east was the hippodrome -
you understand that it extends underneath.
Yeah, so all underneath where we are at the moment? Yes, yes.
So this wouldn't have been open,
this would've been a roofed building then?
Yes, yes, yes, it was roofed.
Vast, I mean it's vast. That's huge.
The palace once covered 12 and a half acres.
Nowadays, its remains are hemmed in by modern apartment blocks.
It's been partially reconstructed
to make it accessible to the public.
You grew up in Thessaloniki? Yes.
So do you remember these remains?
When I was very, very young, I used to play here.
Did you? Oh, yes.
They were digging and it was really an expedition.
Did you see the archaeologists working here?
No, I don't remember. You don't remember.
Probably I did, but I was so young.
It wasn't... It didn't inspire you?
No, I didn't, no. No, no, it didn't inspire me.
But it was a nice place to play.
So this octagonal building, what was this, do you think?
Probably it was an audience hall and a throne hall.
And presumably there was a dome on the top?
Of course, there was a dome, yes.
The floor was with, you see, with slabs, marble slabs.
Beautiful marble.
And the mosaic. The mosaic is covered now,
it's very sensitive.
Of course, there is an idea to remove the mosaics
and move them to museums.
Modern archaeologists avoid such things.
Yeah. And so we have it here, we see what we can do.
Preserve it in situ. Yes, in situ. Yeah.
Isn't that interesting?
So Thessaloniki could've ended up being the capital of
the Roman Empire, actually, as it was under Constantine?
The Roman Empire, exactly.
Because Constantinos was a Roman emperor.
And so he doesn't choose Thessaloniki,
he chooses Constantinople.
Yes. Which becomes Istanbul.
What happens to Thessaloniki? Does it...
Thessaloniki remained a very important city.
It's called Silva Silevousa, that means co-capital,
it comes to the Ottoman period,
and then modern Thessaloniki. Yeah.
I'm here, and I don't know, I see the Romans,
I see the Byzantines, the Ottomans,
the Jews that came here.
It's all culture of Thessaloniki, and everything is mixed.
Nothing is excluded.
And this is the wealth of culture, this is what...
We are lucky, I mean, working with culture,
working with civilisations, working with antiquities,
we're really lucky... Yeah. ..because we study and we feel it.
Look at that sunset. What an amazing sunset.
In the morning, I'll be back on the railway,
but before I leave,
I've come to visit Alexander the Great again,
this time on his horse,
on the fabulous Thessaloniki promenade.
What an incredible first day on my journey.
I'm here in Thessaloniki,
which is an incredibly important city.
But tomorrow, I'm going to head west,
I'm going to Aegis,
which is the ancient capital of Macedonia,
and the place where the kings of Macedonia were buried,
including the father of Alexander the Great.
SHE SPEAKS GREEK
Now, seven o'clock.
11 euro 76.
Go to platform three.
This part of northern Greece, known in ancient times as Macedon,
is the greenest part of the country.
I'm on the early morning train, heading west.
Would you like coffee? Yes, please. OK.
Thank you.
Whoa, whoa. Efharisto.
Here I am, on my way to one of the most ancient sites in Greece,
but one of the newest museums, that only opened
in the last year, at Vergina,
which is the site of the ancient Aegis,
the ancient capital of Macedonia,
including the tomb of what is thought to be Philip II of Macedon.
Morning, doggy. Hello.
The museum breathes new life into the ancient city of Aigai,
abandoned and forgotten for centuries.
But this was once the royal seat of Philip II of Macedon,
and his son, Alexander the Great.
I'm meeting archaeologist Ava.
Welcome, Alice. Kalispera. Kalispera.
Beautiful museum. It's quite new, isn't it?
It is new, it is the central museum building
of the polycentric museum of Aigai.
And so tell me about Aigai,
cos it's the ancient capital of Macedonia. Yes.
Here is where all the ancient kings of Macedonia
had to come and bury.
Right. OK, so there's a royal necropolis here.
This is the royal necropolis.
And when did Aigai start to be important?
We don't know exactly when it was founded,
probably in the middle of the 7th century BC.
So a few centuries before Philip II, then? Yes.
I believe that Alexander wouldn't be Alexander
if there weren't Philip II.
He reorganised the city, built the palace,
and also the temples, and he made the army very strong.
Yeah. And started expanding?
Yes. But... CHUCKLES
..he was murdered.
And he was murdered here?
Yes, he was murdered in 336 BC.
The museum is sited right next to where there was once
a glorious royal palace.
Do you think he intended for Alexander to be his heir? Yes.
There were other potential heirs? Yes, there were,
and this is why his colleagues took him to the palace,
and named him the next King of Macedonia
right after the assassination of Philip.
And then he sets off to create the empire. Yes.
Sometimes through battles, sometimes through alliances...
Yes. ..and that empire is created,
but then it very quickly gets divided up after his death.
Nobody was Alexander. SHE CHUCKLES
I believe he was a genius. Not only like a warrior.
What he did was very important.
He created cities,
and he put in charge people who lived there,
not Macedonians.
But he tried to do, let's say, the Greek system of city,
he built temples for the ancient gods,
he created the big roads, streets, and...
But when you say "he's" building these things -
he's moving from one place to another so fast,
he's not doing any of this.
Not him, but he organised it. SHE CHUCKLES
Yeah. With his team, let's say that.
Was it with a huge team? Yes.
And he tried to unite all people,
that they were all equal, and that was very important.
I think this is the most important thing
that Alexander did, and gave to us.
The galleries house a huge range of items uncovered
in the excavations here.
Weapons, pottery, and even nails.
There's also a lot of gold.
The riches in these royal tombs is just incredible.
This is probably the most opulent of them all
amongst the female graves, the so-called Lady of Aigai.
And you can see elements of her head-dress
and this gold applique that would've come down on her veil.
Bracelets. Even gold on her shoes.
And a silver spindle at her feet.
And here, we've got little fragments, parts of the ivory
and amber that decorated her sceptre.
We're getting close to the most powerful women in this society.
The queens, the wives of kings, the daughters of kings,
the mothers of kings.
As well as being queens, they were high priestesses.
Kind of goddesses in their own right.
This incredibly frail gold wreath of oak leaves
and tiny acorns was in this cinerary vessel,
that means it's a cremation vessel.
So you've got the cremated remains of
the individual in there, with this beautiful crown.
A mile away from the museum are the royal tombs.
Found by Greek archaeologist Manolis Andronikos,
who discovered them completely untouched in 1977.
I'm looking for what's thought to be the tomb of Philip II.
It's extremely unusual for such prestigious tombs
to have survived the centuries without being looted.
So this is the facade of what we think is
the tomb of Philip II of Macedon.
Stunning, isn't it?
Columns on either side, flanking this great marble door.
And then a series of triglyphs,
these three-columned details which are familiar from temples.
And this incredible painted frieze.
And even though the paint has flaked off,
we can still see it.
Hunters on their horses come springing out at you,
carrying their spears.
When Andronikos first discovered this tomb,
and got inside it, he thought it was empty.
But it wasn't.
In the main chamber, there was a gold larnax,
a box like this,
which contained fragments of cremated bone,
and when they were analysed,
those were the bones of a man believed to be Philip II.
This slightly smaller gold chest, gold larnax,
was found in the ante-chamber to the tomb,
along with this beautiful gold diadem.
And in this one, again,
there were cremated bones that belonged to
a young woman who was in her 20s,
so perhaps one of Philip's younger wives.
It's all incredible.
I mean, imagine.
Imagine being Andronikos and discovering this.
I'm travelling through this beautiful countryside,
I've got the sea on my left,
and on my right, that is Mount Olympus rising up,
its top hidden in the clouds.
And it looks mythical - you can just imagine Zeus
and the whole Pantheon sitting up there.
I was thinking about Vergina
and I'm wondering if I really have seen
the tomb of Philip II of Macedon.
It doesn't say that on it, but it's the biggest tumulus,
the most richly furnished burial that's been found,
surely it must be Philip II of Macedon.
Anyway, I'm leaving that behind,
I'm now following Philip's son, Alexander,
and I'm continuing on my journey.
My next stop is Delphi, the belly button of Greece.
The home of the Oracle.
Perhaps she'll tell me where to go next.
I'm getting off this southbound train at Livadia,
the nearest stop to the ancient site of Delphi.
I'm on my way to the modern town.
Delphi high street is lined with hotels,
restaurants and gift shops.
I've started early to get ahead of the crowds.
"Veranda with a view," it says.
Kalimera.
Oh, wow!
Well, it said it had a view.
Look at that. That's incredible.
All the way down to the sea there,
and then the mountains just rise up.
Stunning. Beautiful.
What a lovely place to wake up in.
I can't wait to visit the site.
It's early morning at the ancient site of Delphi.
Busloads of tourists are arriving.
It's one of the most popular tourist destinations in Greece,
but was a real draw for the ancients too.
I'm meeting a historian called Yanis to find out why.
Yanis. Hi, Alice.
Lovely to see you. Nice to see you.
I arrived in the darkness last night... Yes, there was nothing
to see... ..and then you wake up and you go, "Wow!"
This is one of the best archaeological sites in Greece.
I think what's incredible about this site is that it's up here
in the mountains. Why is it here?
It's a very important location because it's really central -
it's central Greece, people can come by road,
and also they see it's not very far, so Delphi was really a hub
for central Greece and Greece in general.
We had an important institution
for the Greek world, which was the efenteone,
some kind of UN of ancient Greece, United Nations,
and it was a union of cities
and nations around the Greek world from east to west.
This sounds really important, politically and economically,
that you've got different city states coming here... Yes, yes.
..to work out how they're interacting with each other. Yes.
Sometimes they didn't find solution, there was war -
we have a lot of sacred wars.
They never formed a complete unity... Yeah.
..but they were trying to find a panhellenica,
which is pan-Greek aspect to the cult of Apollo.
Ancient Greek city states were often at war with each other,
but their representatives could gather at Delphi safely.
Each city state had its own treasury,
like a small embassy and bank combined.
We're in front of one of the most important buildings,
it's the Treasury of the Athenians.
There are lots of inscriptions... Yeah.
..it was a kind of archive for the city of Athens.
What kind of things does it say? What are they saying here?
Privileges to the Athenians, the citizens of Athens,
about the sanctuary.
So decision-making, politics, laws, written in stone?
Yes, from different periods.
So how many treasuries were there?
More than 20, who are the Thebans,
who are the Siphnians from the islands,
also from Asia Minor,
and also western Greece, from Sicily.
But as well as the treasuries, Delphi was home to an Oracle.
Rulers of city states could come here to seek
a stamp of divine approval for their actions.
So here, you can see another important part
of this archival wall -
it's a decree by the city of Delphi,
Delfoi, you can see. Yes, I can see that.
"Edocan," they have given, "promanteia".
What's that?
The privilege to skip the queue and go first for the Oracle.
So you could kind of win queue jumping? Yes. Yeah? Yes.
The Oracle gave answers only once per month.
And this is how... I mean, this is how we can be
absolutely sure that this archaeological site is...
Delphi. ..the historical Delphi,
because actually, it's written on it.
There you go,
the privilege of jumping the queue for the Oracle.
It was a very important privilege.
And a really... To be first.
..amazing opportunity for making money out of it.
Yes, yes! Yeah. Of course.
I'm fascinated by the Oracle.
You could come here and ask her for the answers
to difficult questions,
but it's surely about justifying political decisions,
claiming divine approval and authority.
This is where the Oracle was.
Yeah. The process is not very well-known.
Presumably, even back then, it was quite secret?
It was a secret process,
and there are different theories about how
the Oracle worked, if they used drugs to be inspired.
It has to be mystical. Yes.
Got to create an air of mysticism around this.
Yes. And of course,
Christians believed that it was demonic cos it represented...
Well, basically anything that's not Christian is demonic. Yes, that's right.
Delphi was presumed to be the centre of the world,
and this centre was symbolised by the Omphalos, the belly button of...
The belly button! ..of the world, of the Earth.
It's wonderful, the idea that the world is a body. Yes.
And that the belly button is right at the centre.
And with the centre, is Delphi.
So it was really important for Alexander to come here.
Yes, yes. Alexander came,
but the Oracle didn't want to give him an answer,
and the priestess said, "You're invincible,
"I cannot get any more of you,"
and it was perceived by Alexander as a good sign,
as a good Oracle. Yeah.
That's the story told by the writer.
I mean, these priestesses had to be quite careful about what they said.
Yes, of course. Because they had to say things
that were equivocal, that...
Yes. ..could be read either way.
And when people were coming to Delphi in ancient times,
presumably there was more here than just the sanctuary?
A small city, but an important one. Yeah.
It's a bit of a walk from upper Delphi to the lower site.
The tour guides tend not to come down here,
as it takes too much time, which means they lose money.
This is the sanctuary of Athena, Goddess of Wisdom.
The cult here begins earlier, maybe,
because we have found traces of the Mycenaean civilisation.
We're talking about around 1,300 BC.
Oh, OK. Very early. Rather early.
Yeah. And this is reconstructed, those columns...
This is mainly reconstructed.
..are largely reconstructed, aren't they?
Just before the Second World War,
there was an important reconstruction...
I mean, it gives us an impression
of what this structure would've looked like when it was complete.
Athena has also treasuries,
and here there is an example from the people of Marseilles.
Marseilles was of course a Greek colony.
Yeah, the fact that you've got these,
you know, these Greek-speaking colonies,
trading across the Mediterranean,
and you've got colonies over in Asia, Asia Minor...
Asia Minor. ..modern Turkey,
that have then colonised... Yeah. ..what is now France. France.
Gold and, yes, they went very far,
and Delphi was really a hub for this process of colonisation. Yeah.
And we've reached the end of Delphi,
the end of the sanctuary. Yes, here we are,
we are at the end, yes, we are.
I mean, it's wonderful to look up there.
It would have been even more magnificent in ancient times
with all these bronze and golden statues... Yeah, glittering.
..that would be glittering in the sun. Yeah, yeah.
Very nice, very beautiful. Absolutely wonderful, Yanis,
thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.
I've got one favour to ask you though. Yes?
D'you mind dropping me at the train station? Of course, of course.
Would that be all right? Of course, that would be great.
Let's go.
It's been a fascinating start to my ancient Greek adventure.
Next time, I'll be in Athens,
learning about the birth of theatre and democracy.
And I've even managed to arrange a meeting with
the Greek Minister of Culture.
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