Ancient World Review

Ancient Helike - A Real Atlantis

Video from 2009. Edgerton searched for the site back in the Sixties.

"There is little to see today of Helike, just a few walls and artefacts scraped clean by archaeologists. The great Greek city, famed across the classical world, sunk into the coastal mud of the Gulf of Corinth in 373 BC during a terrible earthquake. Writers still recalled its fate hundreds of years later." Source: Archaeology News Network.

According to Wikipedia, "Helike was founded in the Bronze Age, becoming the principal city of Achaea. The poet Homer states that the city of Helike participated in the Trojan War as a part of Agamemnon's forces. Later, following its fall to the Achaeans, Helike led the Achaean League, an association that joined twelve neighboring cities in an area including today's town of Aigio. Helike, also known as Dodekapolis (from the Greek words dodeka meaning twelve and polis meaning city), became a cultural and religious center with its own coinage."

In 2001, after decades of searching, the ruins of the city were discovered "buried in an ancient lagoon near the village of Rizomylos. To further confirm that the discovered site belongs to Helike, the earthquake destruction layer consisting of cobblestones, clay roof tiles, and pottery was uncovered in 2012. This destruction layer is in good agreement with ancient texts on the location of Helike and earthquake effects to the city." (Wikipedia)

The search for Helike is a story in itself and led to several other interesting discoveries. For instance, "in 1979 in the Corinthian Gulf, the Greek undersea explorer Alexis Papadopoulos discovered a sunken town and recorded his findings in a documentary film which shows walls, fallen roofs, roof tiles, streets, etc. at a depth of between 25 and 45 m" and a 1994 magnetometer survey "carried out in the midplain of the [Helike delta] revealed the outlines of a buried building. This target (now known as the Klonis site) was excavated and a large Roman building with standing walls was found. Also a well-preserved settlement of the early bronze age was uncovered." (Wikipedia) More information can be found here.

Next video (2009) shows the discovery of an ancient Roman artifact from a dig conducted during the hunt for Helike. I'm not sure if this particular site was Helike or turned out to be something else.

Helike is commonly referred to as a "real Atlantis." This thriving city was literally destroyed overnight:

"One night during the winter of 373 B.C., the city of Helike was obliterated. Some signs of the city’s impending doom were recorded, including the appearance of ‘immense columns of flames’ and the mass migration of small animals from the coast to the mountains several days prior to the disaster. A major earthquake, followed by a large tsunami from the Gulf of Corinth, wiped the city of Helike from the face of the earth. The rescue party that came in the following morning found no survivors." (Ancient Origins)

The sunken city could still be seen under the water for hundreds of years:

"Around 174 AD the traveler Pausanias visited a coastal site still called Helike, located seven kilometres southeast of Aigio, and reported that the walls of the ancient city were still visible under water, 'but not so plainly now as they were once, because they are corroded by the salt water'." (Wikipedia)

^"For centuries after, its submerged ruins could still be seen. Roman tourists frequently sailed over the site, admiring the city's statuary. Later the site silted over and the location was lost to memory."

Related: Discoveries at Ancient Helike (2005).

The Argonautica By Apollonius Of Rhodes

Note: The rest of this 5-part series can be found here. Scroll down to "Uploads" section.

The Argonautica: "The Voyage of Argo," aka The Argonautica, by Apollonius of Rhodes (3rd cent. BC) is one of my favorite books from the ancient world. The story of Jason and the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece is one of the greatest adventure stories ever told and reading its descriptions of battles and monsters and sacrificial rites is like traveling thousands of years back in time. If you're interested in this classic story, I can recommend the Penguin Classics edition (1959,1971), translated by E.V. Rieu, which is particularly clear and easy to follow. The book is full of luminous scenes like this one where the Argonauts, having just landed on the island of Thynia after passing through the Clashing Rocks, see Apollo pass to the north:

"But at that time of day when heavenly light has not yet come, nor is there utter darkness, but the faint glimmer that we call twilight spreads over the night and wakes us, they ran into the harbour of the lonely isle of  Thynias and went ashore exhausted by their labours. Here they had a vision of Apollo on his way from Lycia to visit the remote and teeming peoples of the North. The golden locks streamed down his cheeks in clusters as he moved; he had a silver bow in his left hand and a quiver slung on his back; the island quaked beneath his feet and the sea ran high on the shore. They were awe-struck at the sight and no one dared to face the god and meet his lovely eyes. They stood there with bowed heads while he, aloof, passed through the air on his way across the sea." -- The Voyage of Argo, Book II, pp. 89-90.

Another great scene describes the Argonauts conducting an animal sacrifice to Triton, the son of Poseidon and the messenger of the sea:

"They urged Jason to kill the best of their sheep and hold it out to the god with words of praise. Jason hastily selected one, lifted it up and killed it over the stern, praying in these words: 'God of the sea, you that appeared to us on the shore of these waters, whether the Ladies of the Brine [Nereids?] know you as that sea-wonder  Triton, or as Phorcys, or as Nereus, be gracious and grant us the happy return that we desire.

"As he prayed he slit the victim's throat and threw it into the water from the stern. Whereupon the god emerged from the depths, no longer in disguise but in his own true form, and grasping the stem of their hollow ship drew her on towards the open sea."

Great stuff. Highly recommended. The 1963 movie with stop-motion effects by Harry Harryhausen is a classic. The scene where Talos wakes gave me the shivers when I first saw it as a kid.

Cannabis In Ancient Greece: The Smoke Of The Oracles?

The audio here is pretty bad, but this is an interesting documentary. There's a lot of speculation that the fumes inhaled by the oracle at Delphi could have been from burning marijuana or some other kind of psychotropic plant, and the use of psychedelic mushrooms has been suggested to explain the trances that priests were said to enter at various sites, but the whole subject of drug use in ancient religions is extremely obscure.

Marijuana was known and used in the ancient world. According to The Apples of Apollo: Pagan and Christian Mysteries of the Eucharist (footnote, p. 147), the Scythians used a kind of "cannabis steam bath" for ritual purification (Herodotus), and the ancient Hebrews might have done something similar. "The first solid evidence of the Hebrew use of cannabis was established in 1936 ... Cannabis, usually thought to be of Scythian origin, has a much earlier occurrence in Semitic languages and appears several times throughout the Old Testament."

The theory that marijuana was used by the ancient Greek oracles may sound absurd, but the idea isn't really all that outlandish. If the Scythians and Hebrews used the plant, there's no reason why the Greeks couldn't have been aware of its psychotropic properties as well. I don't have any particular evidence to support this, but the use of marijuana and other drugs may go all the way back to the Stone Age shamanic rituals which some scholars believe were the distant ancestors of all our modern religions.

The Cult Of Dionysus - The God Of Wine

Notes: "Throughout antiquity, [Dionysus] was first and foremost the god of wine and intoxication. His other provinces include ritual madness or ecstasy (mania); the mask, impersonation, and the fictional world of the theater; and, almost antonymically, the mysterious realm of the dead and the expectation of an afterlife blessed with the joys of Dionysus." -- Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised).

Dionysus was a foreign, perhaps Thracian god, a barbarian deity whose "wild nature was ultimately civilized and sublimated with the help of the Delphic Apollo," according to the German classical scholar, Erwin Rohde (OCD). The rites of the Dionysian Mysteries were "based on a seasonal death-rebirth theme (common among agricultural cults) and spirit possession" (Wikipedia) and centered around wild, trance-inducing processions and ceremonies:

"Following the torches as they dipped and swayed in the darkness, they climbed mountain paths with head thrown back and eyes glazed, dancing to the beat of the drum which stirred their blood' [or 'staggered drunkenly with what was known as the Dionysus gait']. 'In this state of ekstasis or enthusiasmos, they abandoned themselves, dancing wildly and shouting 'Euoi!' [the god's name] and at that moment of intense rapture became identified with the god himself. They became filled with his spirit and acquired divine powers." -- Hoyle, Peter, Delphi, London : Cassell, 1967. Cf. p. 76. 

The cult of Dionysus is said to have included slaves and (according to the myths) women known as maenads who engaged in orgies of irrational, bloody slaughter while possessed by their god. In The Bacchae by Euripedes, for example, the hapless king of Thebes, Pentheus, hides in a tree to spy on the secret rituals, only to come to a very bad end.  According to Wikipedia, "Dionysus, revealing himself, called out to his followers and pointed out the man in the tree. This drove the Maenads wild. Led by Agave, [Pentheus's mother], they forced the trapped Pentheus down from the tree top, ripped off his limbs, his head, and tore his body into pieces."

The Bacchae is a fantastic play, by the way. Very dark and violent. Highly recommended.

In the myths the followers of Dionysus took "delight in eating raw flesh," but this probably never happened in real life (?) According to the OCD, "in poetry and vase-painting, Dionysus and his mythical maenads tear apart live animals with their bare hands and eat them raw. But the divinely inflicted madness of myth was not a blueprint for actual rites, and the notion that maenadism 'swept over Greece like wildfire' is a Romantic construct that has to be abandoned along with the suggestion that the maenads sacramentally consumed Dionysus in the shape of his sacred animal."

The Romans called Dionysus Bacchus and his rites the Bacchanalia. Always suspicious of private organizations, both religious and secular, the Roman authorities saw the cult as subversive and morally degenerate:

"In early Rome, the cult of Bacchus had a presence among the people of central and southern Italy by the 3rd century BC. Like its Greek counterpart, it soon came under suspicion by the ruling class. The cult was divided into local cells with their own hierarchical structures and oaths of loyalty (1). Most of the members were women and their Bacchanalia festivals were believed to include animal sacrifices and sexual orgies. The Roman Senate viewed these gatherings as a threat against Roman authority, banning the cult and the Bacchanalia in 186 BC." Source: Ancient Peoples.

(1) The Roman government had good reason to be suspicious of underground groups like this. In their experience, private organizations such as craft guilds and trade associations (which usually had a religious component) had a tendency to become centers of political agitation. The cell structure of the Dionysian cult in Rome was a bad sign as well, at least from the Senate's point of view (cells are a common feature of espionage networks and terrorist groups). Note that the organization of the cult was almost identical to the organization of early Christianity, another cult surrounded with rumors of foreign rituals and bizarre sexual practices.

Ancient Greek Ritual Animal Sacrifice

"Preparatory: An animal was led to the altar, usually in a procession. The participants assembled in a circle, rinsed their hands in lustral [purifying] water, and took a handful of barley grain from a basket. Water was sprinkled on the victim to force it to 'nod' agreement to its own sacrifice. The main sacrificer (not necessarily a priest) then cut hair from the victim, put it on the altar fire, and uttered a prayer which defined the return that was desired [...] for the offering. The other participants threw forwards their barley grains.

"The kill. The victim's throat was cut with a knife; larger victims had been stunned with a blow from an axe first. Women participants raised the cry known as ololyge [shrill cry]. In Attic practice, it was important to 'bloody the altar;' small animals were held over it to be killed, the blood from larger ones was caught in a bowl and poured over it."

Treatment of the meat. There were three stages to the treatment of the meat after the sacrifice. "First the god's portion, typically the thigh bones wrapped in fat with (in Homer) small portions of meat cut 'from all the limbs' set on top, was burnt on the altar fire. Wine was poured on as it burnt. [...] Then the entrails were roasted on skewers and shared among all the participants. Finally the rest of the meat was boiled and distributed [...]; in contrast to the entrails, this boiled meat was occasionally taken away for consumption at home, though a community feast on the spot was the norm. Omens were often taken both from the burning of the god's portion and from the condition of the entrails."

Source: "Sacrifice, Greek," Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd Ed. Revised.

Comment: Blood sacrifice, especially animal sacrifice, was an integral part of religious practice all over the ancient world. This is something that modern "neopagans" don't seem to grasp. A true pagan revival would necessarily mean a revival of these ancient rituals and it would also mean dropping all of the "belief systems" of modern paganism.

Real pagan religions, especially in the Mediterranean region, were entirely ritualistic. They weren't dogmatic or ideological. For instance, adherents didn't have to subscribe to a particular set of teachings like they do with Christianity. They didn't have to be believers to sacrifice to the gods; that's why Roman aristocrats who thought the gods were just superstitions useful for controlling the masses could serve as priests without being hypocrites.

Modern neopagans will never take the step into real paganism, however. They're too "civilized," whatever that means, so they will never advance beyond the stage of role-playing when they get together at sites like Stonehenge to celebrate the solstices and equinoxes. Whether this is a good thing or not depends on your point of view.

Alexander The Great: One Of History's Most Ruthless Kings?

It doesn't make sense to judge an ancient figure like Alexander the Great by modern standards, but there's no doubt that he could be extremely ruthless under certain circumstances. For example, when his Macedonian troops staged a second mutiny at Opis in Babylon (324 BC) after their earlier, successful mutiny in India, Alexander "confronted their contumacious demands for repatriation with summary executions and a devastating threat to man his army exclusively from Persians," according to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised).

Alexander and his snake-handling mother, Olympias, may have been behind the assassination of his father, Philip II of Macedon, but Philip's death remains one of those ancient murder mysteries which may never be solved. Whatever the case, "Alexander was proclaimed king against a background of dynastic intrigue, in which his rivals ... were eliminated. A show of force in southern Greece saw him acknowledged Philip's successor ... and in 335, [when the Thebans rebelled], he destroyed the city and enslaved the survivors." (OCD)

Alexander was more interested in creating a new empire than in butchering his enemies, but he was responsible for several massacres, most of them in response to stubborn resistance. For instance, when the Macedonians finally defeated the city of Tyre after a long siege, "[s]ix thousand Tyrians were slaughtered ... and another 2,000 crucified on the beach. A further 30,000 were sold into slavery," according to the Ancient History Encyclopedia. (These figures are probably exaggerated).

Alexander could be just as ruthless when dealing with rebellion in his own court. For example, "he isolated and struck down Parmenion because of his resistance to imperial expansion, and the adolescent pages, who seriously threatened his life for reasons which are obscure (but probably based on empathy to the new absolutism), were tortured and stoned to death." (OCD)

Note: Parmenion, one of Alexander's most trusted generals, may have simply been murdered to prevent his taking revenge for the execution of his son, Philotas, for treason.

To Alexander, "insubordination was as intolerable as conspiracy," according to the OCD. "Alexander's return to the west in 325/4 witnessed a spate of executions of [puppet] satraps who had exceeded their authority or arrogated power." 

Alexander was a violent ruler, but he wasn't Ramsay Bolton. His use of violence was always calculated. There was nothing mindless or sadistic about it. Executing his internal enemies was necessary to maintain his power and, in some cases, to protect his own life, and massacring the populations of cities that refused to submit was standard operating procedure in the ancient world. Maybe the Dali Lama wouldn't approve, but as a practical matter harsh measures were required to send a message to other cities that might be thinking about resistance.

Alexander was ruthless, but was he "one of the most ruthless kings in history?" Not by a long shot. I wouldn't call him "moderate" by any means, but he was nothing compared to Vlad the Impaler, for instance, or the bloodthirsty rulers of ancient Assyria who had a well-deserved reputation for cruelty and violence.

All things considered, Alexander showed a surprising amount of tolerance and diplomacy in his conquests. He wasn't a liberal, though. He didn't live on the UC-Berkeley campus. Like all rulers throughout history, he had to use violence to maintain order and some of the things he did like executing corrupt politicians is a practice that we would do well to emulate today.

The Ancient Georgian Kingdom Of Colchis

Documentary from 2008. Part Two here.

"Colchis was a region in the Southern Caucasus that appeared in the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece, in Greek mythology. It was on the area where modern-day Georgia is now located." Source: Greek Mythology.

"According to the Greek mythology, Colchis was a fabulously wealthy land situated on the mysterious periphery of the heroic world. Here in the sacred grove of the war god Ares, King Aeëtes hung the Golden Fleece until it was seized by Jason and the Argonauts. Colchis was also the land where the mythological Prometheus was punished by being chained to a mountain while an eagle ate at his liver for revealing to humanity the secret of fire." Source: Wikipedia.

Colchis was also said to be the homeland of Medea, a sorceress and priestess of Hecate, the goddess of "crossroads, entrance-ways, light, magic, witchcraft, knowledge of herbs and poisonous plants, ghosts, necromancy and sorcery." (Wikipedia) The daughter of King Aeetes, Medea is one of the most notorious women in Greek mythology. According to the play by Euripedes, she was a witch who married Jason and later killed their children after he abandoned her.

Mount Nemrud: The Throne Of The Gods

Notes: "The Sanctuary of Nemrud Dagi is one of the most remarkable, best preserved, but least known monuments of Asia Minor.  The site, called by its builder a hierothesion, or 'common dwelling place of all the gods next to the heavenly thrones,' is situated 2150m above sea level atop one of the highest peaks in the Anti-Taurus Mountains of southeastern Turkey near the banks of the Euphrates River.  The monument is one of the premier sites of the Late Hellenistic period.  It was constructed by King Antiochus I of Commagene in the mid-1st century BCE to command a 360o view of the ranges, plains, and towns that comprised his ancient kingdom.  It became the main sanctuary of his ruler cult to which worshippers from all over this kingdom were expected to go on the monthly and yearly anniversary of the king's birth and his accession to the throne." Source: Learning Sites - The Virtual World of Nemrud Dagi.

The Hallucinogenic Honey That Poisoned A Greek Army

"When bees feed on the pollen of rhododendron flowers, the resulting honey can pack a hallucinogenic punch." Source: Atlas Obscura.

"It’s called mad honey, and it has a slightly bitter taste and a reddish color. More notably, a few types of rhododendrons ... contain grayanotoxin, which can cause dramatic physiological reactions in humans and animals. Depending on how much a person consumes, reactions can range from hallucinations and a slower heartbeat to temporary paralysis and unconsciousness."

"The intoxicating effects of mad honey have been known for thousands of years. Not surprisingly, there have been many famous episodes of human inebriation caused by its consumption. Xenophon, Aristotle, Strabo, Pliny the Elder and Columella all document the results of eating this 'maddening' honey, believed to be from the pollen and nectar of Rhododendron luteum and Rhododendron ponticum. According to Xenophon, an invading Greek army was accidentally poisoned by harvesting and eating the local Asia Minor honey, but they all made a quick recovery with no fatalities. Having heard of this incident, and realizing that foreign invaders would be ignorant of the dangers of the local honey, King Mithridates later used the honey as a deliberate poison when Pompey's army attacked the Heptakometes [1] in Asia Minor in 69 BCE. The Roman soldiers became delirious and nauseated after being tricked into eating the toxic honey, at which point Mithridates's army attacked." Source: Wikipedia.

[1] "In about 65 BCE, Pompey's army was approaching Colchis.  Mithridates' allies there, the Heptakometes, were described by Strabo as 'utterly savage' mountain barbarians, dwelling in tree forts and living on 'the flesh of wild animals and nuts.'  The tribe was feared for attacking wayfarers - suddenly leaping down on them like leopards from their tree houses.  The Heptakometes may have received specific orders from Mithridates on how to ambush the Roman army.  What we do know for a fact is that they gathered up great numbers of wild honeycombs dripping with toxic honey and placed them all along Pompey's route.  The Roman soldiers stopped to enjoy the sweets and immediately lost their senses.  Reeling and babbling, the men collapsed with vomiting and diarrhea and lay on the ground unable to move.  The Heptakometes easily wiped out about one thousand of Pompey's men." - Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World by Adrienne Mayor. (Source: Roman Times)

Taking mad honey sounds like a dangerous way to get loaded. According to the Drug Classroom, "[t]he core symptoms of mad honey poisoning include nausea, vomiting, salivation, headache, blurred vision, sweating, weakness, circumoral paresthesia, tongue numbing, fainting, drowsiness, drunkenness, tingling, and seizures." The toxins in the honey can also cause "1st to 3rd degree heart block, asystole, and myocardial infarction."

Sophisticated Technology Unearthed Beneath Ancient Greek "Pyramid"

Video from 2018.

"Archaeologists excavating an ancient pyramid-like structure on the Greek island of Keros have found evidence that its creators were far more sophisticated than previously thought." Source: RT.

"The builders of the settlement of Dhaskalio carved the headland into stepped terraces, and added approximately 1,000 tons of white stone to make it look like a giant, gleaming, stepped pyramid. The stone was transported from 10 kilometers away.

"New research on the 4,000-year-old site has revealed a range of impressive features, including a complex series of drainage tunnels, and metalwork that was 'unusually sophisticated' for the time."

Note: Keros is the site where the Keros Hoard was discovered. This is a "very large deposit of ... Cycladic figurines [see next video], vessels and other objects made of marble, all broken prior to deposition and most likely broken elsewhere and brought to Kavos for deposition." (Wikipedia)

Related: The Cambridge Keros Project