miércoles, 6 de agosto de 2008

Athens


The city with the most glorious history in the world, a city worshipped by gods and people, a magical city. The enchanting capital of Greece has always been a birthplace for civilization. It is the city where democracy was born and most of the wise men of ancient civilization of ancient world flourished in Athens.
Who hasn’t heard of the Acropolis of Athens? Photos and history of the most archaelogical monument in Europe have made the world tour causing feelings of admiration by thousands of people. Acropolis is nominated to be one of the seven wonders of the Modern World. In fact, the trademark of Athens is one of the favourites. The Holy Rock of Acropolis dates back to the 5th BC, the famous Golden Age of Periklis.
The Propylaea are the monumental entrances to the sacred area dedicated to Athena, the patron goddess of the city. Built by the architect Mnesicles with Pentelic marble, their design was avant-garde. To the South West of the Propylae, on a rampart protecting the main entrance to the Acropolis is the Ionian Temple of Apteros Nike. The inscrptions on the numerous and precious offerings to the sanctuary of Athena (marble korai, bronze and clay statuettes and vases) indicate that the cult of the city’s patron goddess was established as early as the Archaic period (650- 480 BC)
Athens met times of bloom and decline, but still shines under the Attic sky gazing the future. Still sparlkling like the marbles of the Parthenon and the limpid white of Pentelic marble.
Athens is situated in the prefecture of Attica and extends to the Peninsula that reaches up to the Central Greece. It is surrounded by mountains. The sun is shining over Athens all year round.
Athens is constantly inhabited since Neolithic Age. The 5th century was the time of its ultimate bloom, when moral values and civilization surpassed city limits and became the mother land of western civilization.
In the centuries that followed, many conquerors tried to take over Athens. In 1834 Athens was chosen to be the capital of the newly established Greek State.
The city that now hosts more than 4,5 million people was constructed around the Acropolis walls. Today is the political, social, cultural, financial and commercial center of Greece.
Athens is a city of different aspects. Plaka, the old neighbourhoods, reveal the coexistence of different eras. Old mansions, well-preserved one and other worn down by time. Luxurious department stores and small intimate shops, fancy restaurants and traditional taverns. The heart of Athens beats in Syntagma Square where Parliament and most of the ministries are. Monastiraki, Kolonaki and Lycabettus Hill are also there. Athens and Attica in general have the most important archaelogical monuments (Acropolis, Odeion of Herodes Atticus, Olymbion, Roman Market, Panathinaiko Stadium, the Temple of Poseidon in Sounio)
In the capital you will admire many imposing neoclassic buildings, true ornaments of the city (the Greek Parliament, Athens Academy and University) and the museums of our cultural inheritance (Archaelogical Museum, Military Museum, Byzantine Museum)


Homer (ancient Greek: Ὅμηρος, Homēros) is an ancient Greek epic poet, traditionally said to be the author of the epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey. The ancient Greeks generally believed that Homer was a historical individual, but some modern scholars are skeptical: no reliable biographical information has been handed down from classical antiquity. According to Martin West, "Homer" is "not the name of a historical poet, but a fictitious or constructed name."[1] The poems are now widely regarded as the culmination of a long tradition of orally composed poetry, but the way in which they reached their final written form, and the role of an individual poet, or poets, in this process is disputed. By the reckoning of scholars like Geoffrey Kirk, both poems were created by an individual genius who drew much of his material from various traditional stories. Others, like Martin West, hold that the epics were composed by a number of poets. Gregory Nagy maintains that the epics are not the creation of any individual; rather, they slowly evolved towards their final form over a period of centuries and, in this view, are the collective work of generations of poets.
The date of Homer was controversial in antiquity and is no less so today. Herodotus said that Homer lived 400 years before his own time, which would place him at about 850 BC;[2] but other ancient sources gave dates much closer to the Trojan War.[3] For modern scholarship, "the date of Homer" refers to the date of the poems' conception as much as to the lifetime of an individual. The scholarly consensus is that "the Iliad and the Odyssey date from the extreme end of the 9th century BC or from the 8th, the Iliad being anterior to the Odyssey, perhaps by some decades."[4],i.e. somewhat earlier than Hesiod[5], and that the Iliad is the oldest work of western literature. Over the past few decades, some scholars have been arguing for a 7th-century date. Those who believe that the Homeric poems developed gradually over a long period of time, however, generally give a later date for the poems: according to Nagy, they only became fixed texts in the 6th century.[6]
Alfred Heubeck states that the formative influence of the works of Homer in shaping and influencing the whole development of Greek culture was recognised by many Greeks themselves, who considered him to be their instructor.[7]

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