My City and The Ancient Greek Connection

Several weeks ago I received an introductory e-mail from a gentleman in Greece named Christos. Christos is also a blogger. He has two, one on politics and another with his poetry, and both are in Greek. I have joked that native speakers of languages like Greek or Arabic have to be born smart to become fluent in such wonderfully complex and complicated languages.

The roots of Christos' family are in Turkey. In 1917 they were forced to leave during one of a series of population exchanges between the crumpling Ottoman Empire and Greece. His family had held prominent positions under several Sultans. He has worked several times in Istanbul and loves the city, so down the drain goes comments I have heard from some Turks that all Greek people despise Turks.

In 2003 I traveled to Greece and later on to Turkey with a group exploring the regions where the early church germinated, traveling in the footsteps of early founders of the church like the Apostles Paul and John. Our first leg of the trip took us to Athens, Greece. When Christos wrote me, I could not resist telling him that my hometown and present location is named after his country’s capital city, Athens (Athina). Athens, Georgia has a population of about 110,000. My Athens is called “the classic city.” Athens was the chief city of classical/ancient Greece being its’ cultural and intellectual heartbeat and moving on to be the birth place of Western civilization. The concept of democracy was birthed in the Greece of the ancients.
In front of one of Athens, Georgia’s newer cultural centers which is The Classic Center stands a statue of the Greek goddess Athena. I told Christos about the statue and I also told a few other Greeks about it when I was in the country nearly 5 years ago. Here are some photos I recently took of my city’s statue of Athena.

In the last few weeks the classic and classy Romantic crooner Engelbert Humperdinck has performed at The Classic Center. Academy Award nominated actess, singer, and dancer Debbie Reynolds sung there last night. The last show was a few years ago when I attended The World Famous Lipizzaner Stallions show which was pure magic with horses leaping in the air, "doing ballet," and "dancing" to classical music like that of Johann Strauss the waltz king.

The goddess Athena was called Minerva by the Romans and she represented wisdom and the arts and sciences. She was the companion and supporter of Greek heroes. The city of Athens was named in honor of her, and the Parthenon or the Temple of Athena on the Acropolis towering above Athens was dedicated to her. She was the protector of the city. Athena was called Athena Parthenos or “Athena the virgin” during high point of her popularity as the patron goddess of ancient Athens. She was indeed a virgin goddess like Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt, the hills and the forests. There were numerous cults to Athena throughout the ancient Greek world.

Several variations on Athena’s origins exist. One of the most well-known is that her father Zeus on learning that the offspring the goddess Metis was carrying by him would be more stronger and powerful, swallowed Metis in the hope that the prophecy would not come to pass. His consuming of Metis was fertile because Athena was born anyway, bursting forth out of Zeus’ forehead as a fully developed adult and fully armed. What a headache that must have been for poor philandering and conniving Zeus! Later Athena became one of Zeus’ favorite children.

At the base of the statue of Athena here in my town is The Athenian Oath which all the young men of ancient Athens had to take on reaching the age of 17.

For the lover of Greek mythology, loads of information can be found on this web shrine to Athena.