Travellers’ journals are useful historical resources for the student of social history in that they provide an insight into not only forgotten social practices but also different social perspectives and values. In the case of the Athens historic Carnival celebrations what strikes today’s researcher is the integration of ancient sites into the fabric of daily life of 19thC Athenians – a far cry from today’s obsession with conservation and display.
The Temple of Olympian Zeus
Built between the 6thC BC and the 2ndC AD, the colossal Temple of Olympian Zeus was considered the largest temple of Greece during Roman times. When Swedish traveller, Fredrika Bremer, visited Athens in 1859-1860, it “stood on a lofty terrace, raised on the margin of the river-bed of Ilyssus” and featured a delightful café with seats and benches “among the columns... for the use of pleasure-seekers and coffee-drinkers”.
Only 15 out of the original 104 columns are still standing, the 16th having already collapsed in 1852 due to an earthquake and the Temple of Olympian Zeus was now host to those “inclined to enjoy here the beauty of the evening”, the sound of wind instruments “which play modern favourite pieces” and the “excellent ices”. And once a year, the Temple was host to the Greek Mardi Gras.
Greek Mardi Gras, Historic Carnival of Athens
“The Greek carnival is a miserable farce, a wretched imitation of that of Rome”, exclaims Bremer in disgust in her journal entry of 20-27 February 1860. But after the young men and boys were done with all the roaming in the streets donning “the most repulsive masks”, they join the two to three-thousand-person strong crowd in the culminating point of the Mardi Gras at the Temple of Olympian Zeus.
The spot has been chosen “from time immemorial” for this celebration, which marks the beginning of the 40-day fast that ends on Easter Day, writes Scottish traveller Felicia Mary Skene in 1847. Amidst the stately ruins, men, women and children descend with their donkeys laden with provisions and carpets and “spread along the myrtle-clad banks of the Ilissos... for a long day of enjoyment “.
Bremer describes in her Greece and the Greeks the variety of costume, the manner of dance, the food to be had and the animated atmosphere of the Athens historic Carnival. Skene provides some interesting descriptions of Carnival participants in her Wayfaring Sketches among the Greeks.
People are dancing in rings of 50 to 100 persons to the sounds of drum, flute and clarinet; family groups picnicking on oranges and onions; young girls wearing their little coquettish red caps; infants swaddled from head to foot like mummies; young men performing impressive dancing feats. And at midday, a “grotesque figure, representing the late carnival, is carried to his grave in procession, with a great deal of merriment and glee”.
Travellers’ Journals on Athens Mardi Gras as Historical Resources
Far from being a place of conservation and antiquities’ display, the site of the Temple of Olympian Zeus was appropriated by the 19thC Athenians for a celebration that formed part of the fabric of their daily lives and annual rituals. A festival of pagan origins the Greek Carnival is endorsed by the Greek Orthodox Christians of 19thC Athens as part of their heritage despite it being “annually anathematized by the Greek Patriarch”.
These travellers' journals are valuable historical resources in that they provide an insight into the times before the ancient Greek monuments became untouchable sites of veneration: Greeks of all classes and origins gave a Christian Orthodox character to the pagan Carnival and celebrated it under the columns of the Temple of Olympian Zeus and in the presence of their Roman Catholic King and Protestant Queen. “It was one of the most joyous and most inoffensive popular festivals that it was possible to imagine”.
Sources
Felicia Mary Skene, Wayfaring Sketches among the Greeks and the Turks by a Seven Years’ Residence in Greece, London 1847.
Fredrika Bremer, Greece and the Greeks. The Narrative of a Winter Residence and Summer Travel in Greece and its Islands, vol. I, trans. Mary Howitt, Hurst and Blackett: London 1863.
Image of wood engraving by C. Maurand reproduced with permission.
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