Anemoi – Greek Wind Gods and Turbulent Myths
The Anemoi, in Greek mythology, are the four chief and the four minor wind gods, each one corresponding to the direction from whence they came. All are depicted as having large wings...
Category: Greece: ancient and modern
The Unique Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae
The Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae is a unique, one-of-a-kind ancient Greek sanctuary, dedicated to the god Apollo Epicurius (“Apollo the helper”). It is located approximately 230 km south of Athens,...
Theodoros Stamos – Important First Generation Abstract Expressionist Painter
Greek-American Theodoros Stamos, the youngest member of the original group of abstract expressionist painters, the “Irascibles”, which included Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko, is recognised as one of the...
Pyanepsion – 4th Month of the Ancient Greek Attic Calendar
The Attic or Athenian calendar (one of many ancient Greek calendars), a Festival calendar (lunisolar), with twelve months, each named after a festival or a god, was exclusive to the goings on...
The 1687 Explosion That Destroyed The Parthenon
Today, the Parthenon, built on the Acropolis of Athens between 447 and 438 B.CE, is more or less a collection of roofless pillars. However, although over the years there had been many...
The Peripatetic School of Aristotle – The Wandering School of Philosophy
Greek philosopher, Aristotle (384–322 BC), one of the greatest and most influential philosophers of all time, as well as being an important figure in the history of science, mathematics and theater, founded...
The Great Fire of Thessaloniki – 1917
On the 18th of August 1917, Thessaloniki, the second-largest city in Greece, home to thousands of refugees and one of the largest and most modern cities in Europe at the time, went up...
Acanthus Motif – Greek Origins and Meanings
The Greeks have regarded the acanthus as a symbolic, medicinal and healing plant since the times of the ancients. The acanthus, a hardy flowering perennial plant, sometimes also referred to as “bear’s...
The Rise and Fall of Constantinople
How did a small ancient Greek colony, located in an eastern corner of the Mediterranean, known to the Greeks as Byzantion, come to be the capital of the mighty Roman Empire? It’s...
Who Destroyed the Sacred Herms of Athens?
One bright and sunny morning in June, the seventh to be exact, in the year of 415 B.C., the citizens of Athens, awoke to the news, that during the night, all over...
