means ‘the Virgin’s Place.’ It was built in honor of Athene, the patron goddess of
Athens. The huge marble structure does not have a single straight line; all four sides
are slightly curved to make the building appear less heavy. In spite of its colossal
dimensions, it gives the impression of lightness. In other words, it presents an optical
illusion. The columns lean slightly inwards, and would form a pyramid 1,500 meters
high if they were continued to a point above the temple. The temple contained nothing
but a twelve-meter-high statue of Athene. The white marble, which in those days was
painted in vivid colors, was transported here from a mountain sixteen kilometers
away.”
Sophie sat with her heart in her mouth. Was this really the philosopher talking
to her? She had only seen his profile that one time in the darkness. Could he be the
same man who was now standing at the Acropolis in Athens?
He began to walk along the length of the temple and the camera followed him.
He walked right to the edge of the terrace and pointed out over the landscape. The
camera focused on an old theater which lay just below the plateau of the Acropolis.
“There you can see the old Dionysos Theater,” continued the man in the beret.
“It is probably the very oldest theater in Europe. This is where the great tragedies of
Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides were performed during the time of Socrates. I
referred earlier to the ill-fated King Oedipus. The tragedy about him, by Sophocles,
was first performed here. But they also played comedies. The best known writer of
comedies was Aristophanes, who also wrote a spiteful comedy about Socrates as the
buffoon of Athens. Right at the back you can see the stone wall which the actors used
as a backdrop. It was called skene, and is the origin of our word ‘scene.’ Incidentally,
the word ‘theater’ comes from an old Greek word meaning ‘to see.’ But we must get
back to the philosophers, Sophie. We are going around the Parthenon and down
through the gateway ...”
The little man walked around the huge temple and passed some smaller temples
on his right. Then he began to walk down some steps between several tall columns.
When he reached the foot of the Acropolis, he went up a small hill and pointed out
toward Athens: “The hill we are standing on is called Areopagos. It was here that the
Athenian high court of justice passed judgment in murder trials. Many hundreds of
years later, St. Paul the Apostle stood here and preached about Jesus and Christianity
to the Athenians. We shall return to what he said on a later occasion. Down to the left
you can see the remains of the old city square in Athens, the agora. With the
exception of the large temple to Hephaestos, the god of smiths and metalworkers,
only some blocks of marble are preserved. Let us go down ...”
The next moment he appeared among the ancient ruins. High up beneath the
sky—at the top of Sophie’s screen—towered the monumental Athene temple on the
Acropolis. Her philosophy teacher had seated himself on one of the blocks of marble.
He looked into the camera and said: “We are sitting in the old agora in Athens. A
sorry sight, don’t you think? Today, I mean. But once it was surrounded by splendid
temples, courts of justice and other public offices, shops, a concert hall, and even a
large gymnastics building. All situated around the square, which was a large open
space ... The whole of European civilization was founded in this modest area.
“Words such as politics and democracy, economy and history, biology and
physics, mathematics and logic, theology and philosophy, ethics and psychology,
theory and method, idea and system date back to the tiny populace whose everyday
life centered around this square. This is where Socrates spent so much of his time
talking to the people he met. He might have buttonholed a slave bearing a jar of olive
oil, and asked the unfortunate man a question on philosophy, for Socrates held that a