6 September 2022. Kerameikos.

Last night when we returned to the Airbnb from dinner, we busied ourselves packing as much stuff as we could in preparation for our car trip to Delphi today. Upon awakening, we packed the remainder of our gear so that we would be ready to depart immediately for the airport upon our return from our last tourist stop in Athens – the cemetery of Kerameikos. We hopped a taxi for the cemetery, and it dropped us off on the street outside the entrance.

The Sacred Way ran from the Eleusinion near the Acropolis out of the Sacred Gate and to the Telesterion at Eleusis, and the main road exited the city through the Dipylon Gate in the Themistoclean city wall. The Dipylon Gate and road was also used for the Panathenaic Way which led to the Acropolis. The cemetery itself is located outside the Themistoclean Wall along the Street of Tombs that splits off from the Sacred Way, the Sacred Way itself, and the Academy Road.

“Our form of government does not enter into rivalry with the institutions of others. Our government does not copy our neighbors’, but is an example to them. It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few. But while there exists equal justice to all and alike in their private disputes, the claim of excellence is also recognized; and when a citizen is in any way distinguished, he is preferred to the public service, not as a matter of privilege, but as the reward of merit. Neither is poverty an obstacle, but a man may benefit his country whatever the obscurity of his condition. There is no exclusiveness in our public life, and in our private business we are not suspicious of one another, nor angry with our neighbor if he does what he likes; we do not put on sour looks at him which, though harmless, are not pleasant. While we are thus unconstrained in our private business, a spirit of reverence pervades our public acts; we are prevented from doing wrong by respect for the authorities and for the laws, having a particular regard to those which are ordained for the protection of the injured as well as those unwritten laws which bring upon the transgressor of them the reprobation of the general sentiment.”

Excerpt from: Thucydides, “Pericles’ Funeral Oration,” spoken at Kerameikos at the end of the first year of the Peloponnesian War ca. 430 BCE

Where the Sacred Way splits to become the Sacred Way and the Street of Tombs is located the Tritopatreion, or shrine of the Tritopatres (Τριτοπάτορες), where the Athenians worshipped their ancestors. A sacred temenos forbidden to the living enclosed a grove of olive trees dedicated to the dead. A tumulus located to the north of the temenos was provided with a vothros pit for making libation offerings to the dead. See photos, below.

The Street of Tombs contains many funerary monuments to individuals from wealthy families of the 5th to 4th centuries BCE. Some of the statuary has been replicated, with the originals having been removed to displays in the Kerameikos Museum where they are protected from the weather. See photos, below.

It’s just as well that the museum was closed. We were running late and had to get back to the Airbnb to meet the taxi that was taking us to the airport to pick up our rental car. As it was, we arrived after our taxi did and had to hurry upstairs to grab our bags. Once at the airport, we went through the usual rigmarole to get a car, including upgrading it to a larger size to accommodate four adult gay men and our luggage. The agent looked at us and our luggage and gave a sardonic head shake when we asked if the mid-sized SUV we had reserved was big enough – something that I had feared. But it was all squared away for an extra €8 a day. We mounted up and then it was off to Delphi, with multiple stops along the way.

— Να εχεις μια ωραια μερα. —