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Epirus: Land of Legends

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Epirus: Land of Legends Travel Epirus: 1 his year Epirus, a land of mountainous region in north-western Greece, cel- Tebrates its liberation from Ottoman rule and incorporation into the Hellenic Republic. Besides the attractions of its rugged natural legends beauty, Epirus is a land steeped in ancient myths, where the modern traveller can follow in the footsteps James Beresford follows in the footsteps of of Classical heroes. Emptying into the Ionian Sea just Classical heroes across a largely forgotten region a few miles south-east of the pretty of Greece where some of the great events of seaside town of Parga, the Acheron, or ‘River of Woe’, was regarded ancient myth and history were played out by ancient and medieval writers as 2 one of the principal waterways of the Underworld. Virgil described upstream in the wake of Charon 1. View of the Epirot Although recent research has cast Charon the ferryman transporting and the innumerable ancient Greek coast from the some doubt on the sacredness of the the souls of the dead to the Halls pilgrims who also made this journey crumbling battlements site, votive clay figurines featuring of Parga castle, with of Hades across the Acheron, while in order to commune with the dead Persephone, the reluctant bride of the clear waters of Dante wrote of the river forming the at the Nekromanteion, or ‘Oracle of the Ionian Sea below. Hades, dating from the 7th to 5th boundary of Hell. Today the trans- Death’ (6). Picture courtesy of centuries BC, discovered nearby, lucent water and reed-lined banks Set back a little over a mile from Jennifer Slot. strongly support the belief that this of the Acheron rarely appear woe- the river, an 18th-century monas- was indeed the ancient portal to ful or threatening to modern travel- tery now all but covers the site of 2. Local fishing boat the Underworld. lers who can catch one of the small the Nekromanteion, but the polyg- on the River Acheron. Today the focal-point of the sanc- fishing-boats from the coastal vil- onal stone blocks ringing the com- Today we can follow tuary is found in the crypt of the in the wake of the lage of Ammoudia, before chugging plex date to the 4th century BC. monastery’s church where the eerie wandering king Odysseus, sailing up lighting and frequently chilly atmo- the river to the temple sphere of the subterranean vaulted of the Necromanteion. room still fuel the imagination (2). It is down here on the far wall of 3. Roman mosaic, the chamber that the long vertical showing Odysseus fissure is found; an opening that still and the Sirens, 3rd threatens to open into a cruel maw century AD. Tunis- that could devour the souls of the Bardo National Museum. Photograph: living and send them plummeting James Beresford. down into Hades. The Nekromanteion’s most famous ancient visitor was the wan- dering hero Odysseus (3) who, on the advice of the sorceress Circe, came to the threshold of Hades to 3 seek the counsel of the dead seer, 16 5 5. Tiresias appears assumed when the horse of her hus- to Ulysses during band, Philip II of Macedonia, tri- the sacrificing’ umphed at the Olympic Games of (1780-1785), Johann 356 BC; the same year in which Heinrich Füssli (1741- their son, Alexander the Great, was 1825). Watercolour also born. and tempera on Given his mythical family con- cardboard, 91.4 × 62.8cm. Albertina nection to Achilles, it was of little Museum, Vienna, surprise that Alexander should so Austria. readily identify with the greatest of Homeric warriors. Sleeping with 6. The subterranean a copy of Homer’s Iliad under his chamber of the pillow, Alexander visited Troy at Nekromanteion the very beginning of his Persian in Epirus showing Teiresias (5). While there Odysseus survives in Proclus’ Chrestomathy), campaign, bearing away with him the crack in the also encountered the wraiths of Odysseus sailed to Epirus and wall leading to the sacred arms and armour of many of the greatest warriors of married Kallidike, queen of the the Underworld. Achilles. While at Troy, he also the Heroic Age – such as mighty Thesprotians, with whom he Photogrpah courtesy ‘offered sacrifice to Priam upon Heracles and the recently murdered had a son, Polypoites. It seems of TijsB. the altar of Zeus to appease the King Agamemnon. It was, however, that Odysseus spent many years wrath of the Trojan king against the soul of Achilles who provided in Epirus and it was only when the progeny of Neoptolemus, from the bleakest impression of the after- Kallidike was killed during a war whom Alexander himself was life: ‘Subtle and overbold Odysseus, with a neighbouring tribe that descended’ (Arrian, Anabasis of what venture will ever tempt your the old hero returned to Ithaca, Alexander, 1.11). mind more reckless than this? What allowing Polypoites to assume the The rumours that Alexander daring has led you down to the Thesprotian throne. house of Hades, the dwelling-place But Odysseus was not the only 6 of the dead who have no under- Homeric hero to put down roots standing, of the wraiths of mortals in Epirus. After the end of the who have perished?… Odysseus, do Trojan War, Neoptolemus, son of not gloss over death. I would rather Achilles, came to the region, bring- be above ground still and labouring ing with him the captive princess, for some poor landless man, than Andromache. It was their son, be lord over all the lifeless dead’ Molossus, who gave his name to (Odyssey, 11.405-532). But long one of the most powerful of Epirot after his visit to the Nekromanteion, tribes, the ruling dynasty of which the fate of Odysseus continued to would ever after claim descent from be intimately bound up with that of these mythological ancestors. By Epirus. Following the blood-soaked the mid-fourth century BC, one of conclusion of the Odyssey, the king the most prominent members of of Ithaca soon returned to his wan- this Molossian royal household was dering, womanising ways; in the lost Polyxena, more famously remem- tale Telegony (a summary of which bered as Olympias, the name she 7 was the son of Zeus, rather than 7. The theatre of new capital in 295 BC. Visitors to which once burned the holy flame of Philip, may also derive from Kassope. Over the the site can still see the remains of of Hestia, goddess of the hearth, Epirus and the nearby? sacred site centuries boulders buildings, such as the temple of whose fires ensured the contin- have broken away of Dodona where it was claimed Apollo, the theatre, and parts of the ued survival and well-being of the from the rocky Zeus communicated with mortals. outcrop towering circuit walls all of which date to this city. Nearby are the well-preserved It was possibly here that Olympias above, tumbling early Hellenistic period. remains of a large building usually first began her strange relationship through the lichen The most evocative ancient city in interpreted as the katagogeion, the – be it as acolyte or lover – with the covered limestone Epirus is, however, that of Kassope, hostel that provided accommoda- Father of the Gods. While the sacred benches before dramatically situated on in the tion for dignitaries and their reti- oak tree in which Zeus was said coming to rest in the Zalongo Mountains and reached by nues visiting Kassope (10). On the to reside has long since vanished, area of the orchestra. a narrow road that twists and turns western edge of the city, a large the- Photograph: courtesy the impressive Hellenistic ruins of up the pine-covered slopes. First atre with seating for 2,000 specta- of Razvan Orendovici. Dodona provide clear testament to excavated in the 1950s, with later tors (7) has been carved into the the wealth and esteem of the sanctu- 8. The Late Roman/ archaeological research carried out mountainside. Over the centuries, ary’s oracle and priesthood. Byzantine walls of between 1977 and 1983, the fine the southern and western edges of The greatest of the Epirot kings Nikopolis. Photograph: state of preservation and regularity the city have eroded and tumbled was also born from the royal line of courtesy of Thomas of the street pattern makes Kassope over the steep cliffs that gave the Achilles. Second cousin to Alexander Quine. one of the finest surviving examples city a naturally fortified position. the Great, Pyrrhus (319/18–272 of an ancient city laid out using the But even these precipitous crags 9. Battle of Actium, BC) would prove himself one of the theoretical principles formulated by could not save Kassope in 167 BC Lorenzo Castro, 1672. most astute generals and statesmen Oil on canvas. National Hippodamus of Miletus, the 5th- when the Roman army of Lucius of the early Hellenistic period. From Maritime Museum, century philosopher who is con- Aemilius Paullus arrived, sacked 280 BC until his death eight years Greenwich. sidered to be the founder of urban the city and enslaved at least later, Pyrrhus inflicted a string of planning (10). 100,000 Epirots. defeats on the armies of the Roman 10. Katagogeion of Located in the south-east section Kassope offers wonderful Republic, victories that were, how- Kassope with 17 of the city, not far from the entrance views across to where the Gulf of ever, hard won and costly in the ground-floor rooms to the archaeological site, is the Ambrakia meets the Ionian Sea facing on to a central lives of his own soldiers, leading agora, or market-place, the beat- and it was on this stretch of water peristyle court.
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