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 into 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.
SHE SPEAKS GREEK
Taking the train is such a brilliant way to explore a country.
I love finding quirky, rural stations...
..and then seeing how the landscape gradually changes.
I started my journey in Thessaloniki,
and from there I took the train to
the historic sites at Vergina and Delphi, home of the Oracle
and the temples of Apollo and Athena.
Today, I'm on a 90-minute train journey from Livadia to
the Greek capital.
Heading away from those lovely mountains,
and the Temple of Athena, but I'm now on my way to
the city that bears her name - Athens itself.
Halfway to Athens, and Delphi is still very much on my mind.
It's such a stunning mountainside city,
with incredible examples of precious ancient architecture
and thousands of tourists.
It's such a difficult balance to strike - making these sites
accessible to the public, while protecting their heritage.
It's a hot topic in Greece, and one I hope to discuss
with the Greek Minister of Culture.
Arriving into the metropolis of Athens,
and new renovation at the station reminds you of
the depth of history here.
As they work to build two new platforms,
every scoop of earth is monitored by archaeologists.
Athens is an ancient city with a history dating back
thousands of years.
It's had a huge influence on western civilisation,
in everything from art and science to philosophy and politics.
My first meeting, though, is some distance away
in the Pentelic hills, just 15 minutes from the city centre.
These small mountains are all part of the Mount Penteli,
which is the source of the famous, famous Pentelic marble,
the beautiful white marble that was used to build
the Parthenon on the Acropolis, and as you can see,
the quarries are still busy today.
Alongside this road is an archaeological site
rarely visited by tourists.
I'm heading to the Sanctuary of Dionysus
that dates to the 8th century BCE.
I'm meeting Nicky, who's spent years researching here
and has a fascinating theory
about the origins of theatre and democracy.
Nicky. Hello.
Hi. Kalispera. Yasu. Hello.
Tell me about this place, then, cos it's meant to be
the birthplace of theatre.
Yes, indeed. This is the birthplace of Thespis.
You may know of the word "thespian", so it comes from him.
Thespis lived here, this is his home village... Yeah.
..and this village happened to have a very important
cult of Dionysus, the God of Wine.
So, Nicky, where are we standing right here, then?
There's archaeology all around us.
Yes. So you can notice, there are these stone seats.
This is certain that it was a small theatre. OK.
It's a local theatre. Oh, so this is the stage, here?
Yes. We're standing on the stage. More or less, yes.
More or less.
So we have to think in terms of small-scale activity,
but of extreme importance because this is where it all began.
Yeah. And is it... There must be a settlement, then. There must be...
Yes, of course. There is a... Must be a town around it.
Of course, there's a town. It's not...
It hasn't been excavated fully, only this area,
and you see the site also looks kind of abandoned.
Legend has it that Thespis invented theatre when he stepped away from
a chorus of dancers and singers to speak to them, and it's somehow
connected to the Greek God Dionysus, the God of Wine.
So you have to imagine a group of revellers,
Thespis jumped out of this little crowd, and addressed a question,
and the group answered the question. Yes.
So this is a rudiment of Greek theatre -
the actor and the chorus.
And the reason why it is so important is
because the actor represents the individual... Yeah.
..and the chorus represents a collecting.
And it starts with a drunken dance? A drunken dance, absolutely.
A drunken dance gives birth to theatre. Yes. It's brilliant.
We shouldn't think of theatre as secular,
the way we do today. Yeah.
It was under the protection of this very important God, Dionysus...
Yeah, yeah. ..who is a protector.
That's all part of the religious worship? Absolutely, yes.
Yeah. Yes, yes.
The site was first discovered by a German archaeologist
in the late 19th century,
and then excavated by an American team.
How do you know that Dionysus was worshipped here?
Because right where this big rectangular stone is,
we found the archaic statue of Dionysus was discovered.
And it's recognisable as that particular God?
Yes, absolutely, because he's holding the kantharos,
the drinking cup.
And of course, there are always the stylistic criteria
to recognise Gods when you find the statues,
let alone the fact that he's larger than
the natural size, so... He's in the National Museum.
I really recommend that you visit him.
So, this is extraordinary.
You've got a really wonderful connection here between
archaeology and history and mythology. Yes, yes.
It's all coming together. Of course.
Nicky has written extensively about
the surprising link between theatre and democracy.
So when democracy was founded a few years later,
democracy utilised this very important dialogue
between individuals and collectives... Yeah.
..as a foundation for tremendous intellectual growth
and political growth.
And what I've found interesting, looking at Hellenistic towns,
actually, into the Roman period, is that you have the...
..the buildings, the architecture kind of reflects that link,
because you have the buildings,
which are the odeion or the bouleuterion,
where the town council sits, and it looks like a small theatre.
Yes. Yeah.
I can show you this pillar here, it has been identified and read.
It has letters here, as you see. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yes.
Cor, they're really subtle, aren't they, underneath that lichen?
Do we know how old this is? This dates... Do you have any idea?
Yes, yes, we do. We know very well.
It dates all the way from the 4th century BC.
OK. So you've got some letters on here. Yeah.
What does this relate to? Is it readable, is it legible?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was much more legible.
Those are names of the sponsors. Oh, OK. Yes.
The patrons of the theatre, effectively. Yeah, patrons.
The patrons of the theatre here, held here.
So the patrons get their names here. Exactly.
That's the important thing, isn't it? This is the important thing.
You write it in stone, you make sure everybody knows.
Everybody knows. Yeah.
And then this gave you a lot of social visibility.
Status. Yeah. A status, exactly.
And then setting up a monument to say, "I've done this."
Yes, yes, yes. Yeah.
Does every village have a theatre? We think so.
This just happens to be a very exceptional village
because it produced the birth of theatre.
Does it mean it becomes a really important central pillar
of Greek culture? Absolutely. Yeah, yeah.
Well, Plato was annoyed by that.
He talked about theatrecratia, like we say democratia. Yeah.
You know, this is like the overpowering theatre,
you know, addiction.
Being ruled by theatre. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Did he go to the theatre, though? Do you think he...?
We don't know if he went, but he must have.
He sounds a bit miserable, Plato, I always think.
He is a little bit, yes, detached. Yeah. And too intellectual.
I like... I prefer Aristotle. NICKY LAUGHS
I think he'd have been more fun. I would've liked to have met him.
Yes. Yeah. It would be nice to meet any of them.
Yeah, it would, wouldn't it?
I'd like to meet some of the playwrights, though.
Yes. Aristophanes, he'd have been a laugh. Oh, my God.
He would have been a real treat to meet. Yeah.
It's a very quiet archaeological site.
Very, very much so, yes. Yeah.
Which would be nice if more people knew about it.
Yeah. If, as you say, this really is the birthplace of theatre. Yeah.
It's an important place. Very much so, yes. Yeah.
Back in the city centre of Athens and I'm in the district of Plaka,
famous for its narrow, winding streets, bars and cafes.
Plaka sits in the shadow of the Acropolis,
which dominates the skyline.
It seems a bit strange to find a street here named after
the English romantic poet, Byron, but he was here in Athens
200 years ago, and he was a champion of Greek independence
from the Ottoman Empire.
He was also very critical of the British diplomat, Lord Elgin,
about removing marble sculptures from the Parthenon
and taking them back to Britain.
It's a controversy that rumbles on,
and that I want to understand more about.
Hello.
Are you gonna come and man my bag?
Efharisto.
Mm...
Tomorrow, I'm going to look at some very ancient inscriptions
which hold clues to Athens' power and wealth.
But for now, I'm just going to enjoy the evening light
with my new friend, and raise a glass to Dionysus.
CAT PURRS
I'm in Athens, looking for evidence of this city's ancient past.
Today, Athens has a population of just over three million,
but it brings in twice as many visitors.
Some six and a half million tourists come here each year.
I want to discover what lies behind its success.
Five metres below street level, ancient Athens reveals itself.
In the 1990s, engineers extending the metro came face to face with
the engineering of their ancestors.
Getting water into and out of the growing city was a challenge,
and amongst these remains of ancient Athenian buildings
are stone channels, including a very large one dating to the 5th century,
called the Great Drain.
One of the reasons we know so much about Ancient Greece
is because of their obsession with writing things down.
Public notices, new laws, and as I saw at the Sanctuary of Dionysus,
lists of patrons who funded the arts were all written on stone
and have lasted thousands of years.
There's a whole museum dedicated just to inscriptions on stone in
the city centre north of the Acropolis.
I'm meeting the museum director, Dimos,
who has a team of people still working on conserving
and decoding many of these texts.
Dimos. Hi.
Good morning. Kalimera. Oh, it's very nice you speak Greek.
A little bit. A very tiny bit. OK.
And I can read it a little bit as well. Yes, this is very good.
And it is good here, because it's all about... Yes, it's...
..inscriptions. ..all about inscriptions
and a lot about writing.
It was founded in 1886.
It's a museum that has Greek inscriptions, mainly,
from 8th century to modern times. Yeah, yeah.
How many inscriptions have you got here?
14,000. 14,000 inscriptions. Have you read them all?
Me, personally? Yeah. Not all. Not all of them.
Not all. I know most of them, but I have not read them all.
Do you hope to read them all? Yes, of course. Yeah?
I have some years in front of me. Yeah, yeah.
So, I have to read some inscriptions that I have not read yet. Yeah.
So these inscriptions relate to lots of different things.
Some of them are decrees, or... Decrees.
..laws carved in stone. Decrees, laws, catalogues,
what we call catalogues that are usually the catalogue
to many things.
And they had many things from the sacred...from the temples.
And I presume that they're put up in public places where...
Yes, of course. ..where people can read them.
Acropolis, usually on Acropolis... Yeah.
..on Acropolis it was written... HE SPEAKS GREEK
.."put them on Acropolis".
Because when you look at these inscriptions,
there are no gaps between the words.
Yes, of course. The way they were writing had no gaps.
Yeah. I find it very difficult because I can read the letters,
I studied Ancient Greek, but when they're all just
in a string, I find it really difficult.
OK. You, with the years, you are used to.
You're just used to it. You're used to read them.
It is not... Even if you come here and you stay one month,
after one month, you are going to read them easily.
Yeah, yeah.
So what should I look out for as I'm wandering round?
Well, from there, that are the earliest inscriptions
and afterwards you have the room back there from here, that there.
OK. I'll go and explore. Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
There are four large galleries containing inscriptions on smaller
and larger stones.
And back rooms where the researchers decode the texts
and carefully catalogue each item.
I'm looking, though, for the oldest piece in the collection.
This is one of the smallest fragments in the museum,
but definitely not to be missed cos it's also the oldest,
dating back to the 8th century BCE.
So this is incredibly early Greek writing.
I can make out a kappa there, and an alpha.
What they're doing is they're taking a written language
that already existed, the Phoenician language,
the language of trade around the eastern Mediterranean,
and they're adapting it to the language that they're speaking.
They're adapting it to that Greek spoken language,
using those Phoenician letters but also adding in new ones,
because Phoenician didn't have any vowels.
And so the creation of the Greek alphabet also involves
vowel sounds as well as consonants.
8th century? I mean, that's mind-blowing.
We're seeing the origins of the Greek alphabet here,
and it really caught on.
There's something amazing about still being able
to read these words today.
But some inscriptions are harder to decode than others.
These earlier ones look like they're back to front.
It's mirror writing.
This is from the 7th century BCE,
and it's read from right to left,
so this is a gravestone for Keramosstebe.
And then in this inscription of the 5th century,
the direction of the writing changes every line,
so you can just see that they're going this way,
left to right, then we're going right to left.
And left to right.
And this style is called boustrophedon
because it's like cattle pulling a plough,
and turning at the ends of the field.
Tall stone slabs covered in inscriptions
were erected in public spaces.
They're called stele.
They'd inform the citizens of new laws, treaties,
or record financial dealings, a bit like a newsletter.
So this is the stele that relates to the first Athenian League,
and this is when the city states came together
in an alliance against the Persians.
And Athens was at the heart of that alliance,
and what Athens was doing was asking for money
from the other city states. So it was asking for a tribute.
And what we've got here, then,
are all of these tributes recorded.
So it is the kind of accounts that go
with this Athenian League, with this alliance.
And what we've got here are numbers,
a little bit like numbers in Latin,
but instead, here, we've got Greek letters, so...
..each one of these represents a hecton,
so that's actually 400,
so it's basically saying how much
each city should be paying to Athens.
And you can see some of the names of cities round here.
They're arranged geographically, look,
so we've got cities around the Hellespont.
"Hellespontios."
And they're all listed here, like Neandreia.
And then every few years, Athens has a reassessment,
and decides that everybody should be paying a bit more tax.
Themos said I can go in here, in to the research lab,
it says "No entrance. No photos."
I'm going in anyway.
Now, that's lovely. A little grave marker
with somebody's name on it, look, Zosime Heraklionos,
so Zosime, daughter of Heraklion,
Apamitis, from Apamea.
And these two hands are praying,
so hands raised in vocational prayer.
That's lovely.
Politics, ancient lives, deaths, they're all here.
And they'll be here long after I've gone.
The centre of Athens has three huge hills,
completely uninhabited today.
The most famous is the Acropolis, but I'm heading
to a neighbouring hill.
And here, I'm on the edge of the old city.
This is part of the ancient fortifications of Athens.
There was an enormous, long wall, and then this is
the remains of one of the gates into the city.
In fact, one of the towers at the gates.
It had two towers, or dipylon.
Look at the city.
It's like a vast sea, lapping up against these islands.
The Acropolis is of course the most famous landmark in Athens,
but I think, in some ways, this hill is even more important.
It's called the Pnyx.
Seems to come from a word that means "tightly packed together"
because throngs of people would gather up here
and this was where the Athenian assembly met.
This is the beginning of the world's first democracy.
Thousands of people could fit in to this semi-natural hollow,
and the speaker, whoever it was that was going to address the crowd,
would step on to that platform there, called the vima,
and a really important principle was that everybody had
the right to speak to the assembly.
Although, when I say everybody, it was every citizen,
and not everybody was a citizen.
So if you were a slave, you were not going to be able
to speak to the assembly.
And also, you had to be a man.
But apart from that, it is the beginnings of democracy.
Tomorrow, I have a very important meeting with
a minister in the Greek government.
I want to talk about the challenges of protecting
Ancient Greek archaeology, the effects of tourism,
and, hopefully, the Parthenon Marbles that ended up in London.
I love the way that people come out at night and sit
on these little rocky islands that poke up over the city.
There's a few people up here, but there's loads of people on
the Areopagus rock over there. That's a favourite spot.
And it gets even more spectacular as the sun goes down
and they light up the Acropolis.
The Acropolis - literally, "the high city" -
still dominates Athens.
Its crowning glory is the Parthenon, the temple dedicated
to Athena herself.
There are other monuments up there, too,
all dating to the 5th century BCE.
The Parthenon looks remarkably intact,
but it's been reconstructed.
It was damaged by earthquakes in antiquity,
and in the 17th century it was used as a gunpowder store by the Ottomans
and was blown up by Venetian artillery.
In the 19th century, the British Ambassador, Lord Elgin,
claimed to have made a deal with the Turks,
allowing him to take marble sculptures from the site,
which he did.
And they ended up a long way from the Parthenon,
in the British Museum.
The debate about their return has been rumbling on ever since.
I'm in Athens and I have an important meeting.
I've got to be at the Minister of Culture's office at 12 sharp.
To get to the Ministerial Department of Culture,
I'm walking through the National Gardens,
a calm and peaceful short cut through the city centre.
It wasn't always open to the public like this, though.
It was the Royal Gardens originally, and reserved for
the exclusive use of the royal family.
The park ends at Hadrian's Gate, also known as the Arch of Hadrian,
a classic example of Roman Athens.
But now time is tight, and I want to look smart for my meeting.
So, I've got an appointment to see Dr Lina Mendoni,
who is an archaeologist with a special expertise
in ancient inscriptions.
She also happens to be the Minister for Culture.
I want to talk to her about inscriptions,
but I'm also wondering if she'll answer a question
about some very particular marbles.
As with all politicians, time is very precious.
The minister has two meetings today with her Turkish counterpart,
so I'm very grateful that she has managed to squeeze me in.
We have just a few minutes to get our cameras in place,
and then...it's on.
Dr Mendoni, I wanted to ask you about inscriptions -
that is your particular passion, your particular expertise.
So what is the importance of inscriptions
to understanding Ancient Greek culture?
I mean, I think that's what's incredible, is being able
to read the words that were written in antiquity.
It's like somebody in the past talking to you.
Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Exactly.
I thought it was interesting at Delphi,
the importance of protecting that landscape
so that you do feel like you're stepping back in time, actually.
And an important part of your job now is
looking at how you can achieve that balance of making these sites
accessible to the public, but protecting the archaeology.
That must be a huge challenge.
Yeah. So new policies are making a difference, then, yeah.
I would like to ask you one final question... Please.
..and you can say that you don't want to answer it
if you don't want to.
In your lifetime, would you like to see the marbles come back
from Britain to the Parthenon?
Hmm...
What would it mean to Greece to have those marbles back?
Absolutely.
I don't know why it seems so complicated.
To me, it is very straightforward - they should be back here in Athens.
Yeah, yeah.
Amazing. Thank you.
You're very welcome.
The minister dashed off to her next meeting.
The impression I have is that she's a politician
who likes to get things done.
I've just two hours left in Athens before I'm back on
the train for my next destination.
Ancient Athens was a cosmopolitan city where people from
different regions and cultures mixed.
I'm on my way to a museum dedicated to
the history of one community that thrived here 2,000 years ago.
Along the avenue, down to the metro is an arts and crafts market.
I'm suddenly surrounded by characters from Ancient Greece.
And here is the legendary Theseus - the man who went to Crete
to slay the minotaur, and he's credited with founding Athens.
There's no evidence for any of that, of course, but it's a good story.
As well as the bronze statue, he has his very own metro station.
Thiseio Station is just a couple of stops from my next destination.
I'm going to see a new exhibition that reveals
the fascinating story of the Jews in Ancient Greece.
A five-minute walk brings me to the Jewish Museum.
DOOR BUZZES
It was founded in 1977 to house thousands
of artefacts from Jewish communities across Greece,
stretching back from the modern era, through the Middle Ages,
to antiquity.
And here's one object that captures centuries' worth of history.
There's a great story of recycling right here.
This piece of stone has had at least three cultural lives,
if I can describe it in that way.
It was most recently, before it ended up in this museum,
part of a Venetian fort at Halkis, but you can see
there's writing on it, and that writing is in Hebrew.
So, before it was part of the fort, it was a tombstone.
And it was a tombstone of, obviously, a Jewish person
in the 16th century.
Before that though, it was part of a bit of Ancient Greek architecture -
it's an Ionic capital from the top of a column.
So it's interesting to see this Jewish re-use of this earlier
Ancient Greek bit of stonework, but I know there are much older
inscriptions in this museum which evidence Jews in Greece
going back more than 2,000 years ago.
Occupying what seems to be an old townhouse,
the museum has four floors arranged around an octagonal staircase.
The collection here consists of ritual objects from synagogues
from all over Greece.
There are also personal items, rare books and a collection
of beautiful textiles from the Ottoman period.
But it's the new exhibition on the very top floor
that I've come to see.
I'm meeting the museum's director, Zanet.
Zanet. Hi. Hello. Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you. Very good to see you.
I've found an inscription downstairs but it dated to the 16th century,
which is a bit later for me. Yes, quite.
This gallery is dedicated to inscriptions,
but this time, Jewish inscriptions.
These artefacts have been collected
from mainland Greece and the islands,
and span different periods of antiquity.
This is a Hebrew inscription, dating from 1611... OK.
..from the castled city of Mystras where there was
a strong and vibrant Jewish community. Yeah.
So here we are moving to the 5th century Common Era,
and this is a fragment from the Agora of Athens.
That's a menorah, isn't it? Yes, it's a menorah, and a lulav.
You see part of a lulav here to the right. What's a lulav?
It's a bunch of plants, a bouquet of plants that's used
for their holiday of Sukkot.
And the menorah is that typical Jewish candle.
Yes. Yeah. Typical. Yeah.
And do you think they were Greek-speaking?
Are we talking about people who were,
you know, part of that wider Hellenistic culture?
We know they were Greek-speaking. Yeah.
They had already been Hellenised by coming into contact
with the Greek language of the time, and they were speaking Greek,
Hellenistic Greek, amongst themselves in their everyday life.
It was something like English today.
If you wanted to be part of a social milieu
and participate, you know, in socials and in business,
you had to speak Greek at that time.
Like you do now - you have to speak English. Yeah, yeah.
So, they're speaking Greek on a day-to-day basis... Yes.
..but speaking Hebrew in a synagogue?
Exactly. And worshipping in Hebrew. Yeah.
This is very special.
This is the oldest inscription in this exhibition,
but also the oldest archaeological evidence of
the presence of Jews on Greek soil.
Really? Yep. And when does that date to?
It dates from the end of the 4th to the first half of the 3rd century
Before Common Era, which means... BCE. BCE, that's right.
So we're talking, you know, round the time of Aristotle,
around the time of Alexander the Great. Yeah. Yeah.
That's incredible.
It was found at the Temple of Amphiaraos
in a small town called Oropos, about an hour and a half
from Athens. Yeah.
It's a Manumission inscription. Quite rare.
OK, so freeing a slave. Yes.
It concerns freeing a slave, and the text tells us -
in great detail, because it's actually a legally binding text -
that a man, Moschos, son of Moschion the Jew,
will be liberated by his master, Phrynidas,
a year after his inscription is put up at the wall of
the temple where it was found. Yeah.
So a year after that, he must be liberated.
So this legal document written in stone... Exactly.
..is the first...is the first inscription that we have
relating to a Jewish person?
Show me, show me where the word is that says that...
It's right here. ..he's a Jew.
"Moschos Moschionos..." Yes. ..meaning son of Moschion,
"..Ioudaios." Ioudaios, I can see that. The Jew.
Yeah. That's incredible.
So based on what we know from the historical documents,
and then this amazing new work on the epigraphy,
the inscriptions, do you think there were Jews,
there were Jewish communities in most Greek cities?
Yes, if we... Especially if we speak about the time,
in the long term - we're talking about 2,500 years,
so it is a long term - yes, absolutely.
They settled in Greek cities and the islands,
and traded there and made lives for themselves,
professions they took up.
All the way from Crete, right to the north. Yeah.
Maybe not in every city, but in most cities, yes. Yeah.
That's beautiful, thank you very much.
My time in Athens has come to an end.
I'm back at the station to catch the train away from the capital.
I've seen amazing archaeology here...
..including inscriptions revealing the political power
of Ancient Athens and the presence of Jewish communities
in Greek cities.
And I learnt how theatre and democracy emerged here.
I've caught the train heading westwards out of Athens,
and you quite quickly get out of the city and into the countryside.
Lovely hills, dotted with olives and cypress trees.
And I'm going to be crossing across a very narrow isthmus which connects
to the Peloponnese.
I'm heading for another ancient city, the city of Corinth,
and I've found an ancient philosopher to be my guide -
a man called Socrates.
Next time, I come face-to-face with the Greek Gods...
That's incredible, isn't it? Yes.
..meet the workers piecing together the past...
Are you getting near the end? Er, no. Oh, no?
SHE LAUGHS
..I take to the seas...
OK. I'm in charge now.
..and meet the archaeologist with the keys to the city...
Oh, it's lovely.
..searching for more evidence of ancient Greek civilisation.
Subtitles by Red Bee Media