This...is...Sparta!

I apologize for my inability to live in the present (perhaps a good trait for an historian), but it seems as though I am always two weeks behind on this thing. Since these events are becoming more and more distant, I might as well narrate them now, however imperfectly.

After another week of class, our next visit was to Mystra, a small medieval town near Sparta. Mystra was built by the Crusaders after the sack of Constantinople in 1204. It is actually better described as a fortress; it was built on the slopes of a mountain offering a commanding view of the sorrounding countryside. The photos I took really don't do the site justice, but here are some nonetheless. As someone who backpacks frequently up and down mountains like this, it is difficult for me to overstate how troublesome it would have been to attack this fortress. The angle of ascent is such that it is very hard to keep one's footing, and the streets of the fortress, which are stone and very smooth, are easy to slip on--in fact one of the program participants nearly fell on me as we were walking around. Interestingly, it is much more difficult to walk down these streets than up them.

We of course also saw more churches, which I found interesting, but I won't describe them in detail. One curiosity I will share, for those with an interest in theology, is that Mystra is the only Byzantine church I know of with a fresco which depicts the Trinity with God the Father represented as a man--an old man, of course. This is heretical to Orthodoxy, because showing God the Father as an old man suggests two things: 1) that he ages, and is hence subject to corruption and 2) that he is older than the Son, which suggests that he existed prior to the Son, thereby contradicting the Trinity's co-eternity. I took a Byzantine history seminar last year in which someone found an image of God the Father in a Russian monastery, but no one could recall having seen a Byzantine representation of the God the Father as a man. Since we couldn't use flash in this particular church, the pictures of this heterodox fresco did not turn out so well. I will Photoshop when I get back to the States, but here is the best one I took (one can just make out the yellow halos of the members of the Trinity; the figure on the right is the Holy Spirit, represented by a dove):

So for me that was really cool. We spent the night in Sparta after spending half a day at Mystra. For those of you who have seen the movie 300 and expect Sparta to be a thriving metropolis atop glorious ruins, let me be the first to tell you that neither is true: Sparta is tiny and the classical ruins are meagre. The next day we journeyed to the American School's excavations at Corinth and the Acro-Corinth. The Acro-Corinth was unbelievable. It is a hilltop fortress similiar to Mystra but several times as large, and again many of the fortifications were probably built by the Crusaders.

Neat, right? Five of the students (including yours truly) hiked to the top of the Acro-Corinth, and were treated to a spectacular view of the Gulf of Corinth (which we would swim in the following week). This is the view from the top.


We decided to swim near Athens at the conclusion of the trip, and swimming in the Aegean was quite a treat. The water is much saltier than I expected, and swimming is effortless. In addition, the water is very warm, comparable to that of a heated pool. With a feeling of euphoria and elation, I looked forward to a night's rest after two days of travelling (yes Paul, I do keep dragging this out)...