CHAPTER 6: Sparta.

The bus traverses the Arkadian plain, and we ascend through mountains as a series of upland plateaus, tall pines shadowing dense underbrush. I lean back in my seat and contemplate Hermes, who was born in a cave on Mt. Kyllene, just a short distance north of Tripoli. Hermes was also a phallic god, and this aspect of his character showed up in his children. Hermes had two sons, Pan the goat-footed god of shepherds, and Priapos a phallic god of fertility. Priapos was a small, little-heard-of god with a huge perpetually-erect phallus, a deformed freak used by some as a scarecrow. But Pan was widely know and much loved. Pan’s mother was Dryope, the fair-tressed daughter of the Arkadian shepherd Dryops, the “oak-man.”[1] Hermes was pasturing sheep for Dryops when he fell in love with Dryope. True to his nature, Hermes swiftly mated with her and a divine child was soon born. Pan’s appearance terrified his mother:

                                                                ... she bore
to Hermes a dear son, from birth monstrous to behold,
with goat’s feet and two horns, boisterous and sweet-laughing.
His mother sprang up and fled; the nurse in turn left the child behind
because she was afraid when she saw his wild and well-bearded visage.[2]

But swift Hermes came to the rescue and carried his son to Olympos for the other gods to see, proud that he was of him:

Helpful Hermes quickly received him [Pan] into his arms,
and in his divine heart the joy overflowed.
He wrapped the child in snug skins of mountain hares
and swiftly went to the abodes of the immortals.
He then set him down beside Zeus and the other gods
and showed them his boy: all of them were delighted
in their hearts and Bacchic Dionysos above all others.
They called him Pan because he cheered the hearts of all.[3]

Though bearded, sweet-laughing Pan is the archetypal abandoned child,[4] who spread panic not only in his mother and nurse but also in the hearts of mortals. Pan was “dark, terror-awakening, phallic,”[5] the goat-god, a hot, hairy, animal-smelling god with an erection.[6] His favorite companion was Dionysus, god of madness; where one appeared, the other was sure to be close by. Pan saved Dionysus from being eaten by the Titans after they had dismembered and roasted him and were feasting on his limbs. The sound of Pan’s conch horn filled them with panic.[7]

Pan danced mountainsides, through clouds of valley-clinging mists and waterfalls inhabited by nymphs. The inhabitants of Arkadia heard haunting Pan piping in the Arkadian crags.[8] He had an oracle here in Arkadia, and his prophetess was Erato,[9] the muse of dance and “awakener of desire.”[10] The most striking image of sharp-eyed Pan is of him on a mountaintop, hand shading his eyes peering into the distance as he watched over his goat herd.

Like Apollo, Pan was unlucky in love. Though he cavorted with nymphs, his true loves were elusive. From one such encounter, with the woodland nymph Syrinx, he invented the flute. Syrinx was a follower of Artemis, the virgin goddess of wild animals. Pan chased Syrinx, but as he drew close she resisted him by changing shape:

                        ... when Pan had caught her
And thought he held a nymph, it was only reeds
That yielded in his arms, and while he sighed,
The soft air stirring in the reeds made also
The echo of a sigh. Touched by this marvel,
Charmed by the sweetness of the tone, he murmured
This much I have! and took the reeds, and bound them
With wax, a tall and shorter one together,
And called them Syrinx, still.[11]

My parent’s first son they named him for my mother’s older brother, and before I was born, my father’s older brother demanded they name me for him. Uncle Jud was the family black sheep, an alcoholic hobo who hopped freight trains along the Pacific coast to pick fruit. In stature, he was tall and lean, a little stooped due to an animal-like, ungainliness. His heavily-tattooed skin had leathered from the sun. He drank cheap wine and lived in lean-to’s in sloughs among the tulles and cattails. If he was around, you knew a bottle of wine was close by, Pan and Dionysus ever close companions. After months on the road, he’d come home drunk, beat up, another tooth missing, crazy from bad wine. He liked to get drunk and invade my grandmother’s kitchen, fry onion-potatoes and catfish, chase her screaming round the house with a butcher knife. He’d hum and old country tune while dancing a foot-stompking jig, chewing on a stick of salami and eating garlic by the clove, shouting lewd remarks to anyone within hearing distance. He was a whoremonger, a champion of loose women and a good time. He never hurt anyone, just loved the bloodcurdling scream, the terror-filled home, the smell of flesh sizzling on the stove.

When I was six months old, my parents were traveling from Carlsbad, New Mexico to California, and as they passed through El Paso, they saw a hitchhiker standing at the opposite side of the road. As they whizzed passed, they thought they recognized him, thought it couldn’t possible be, then turned back to make sure. It was Uncle Jud, AWOL from Fort Bliss and trying to get back to Carlsbad. He wasn’t particular which way he went and continued on to California with them. He turned on the radio to verify a news story he’d heard at a coffee shop. The date was December 7, 1941, the day Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. America was at war, and this was the first time I saw my namesake.

Of course, I don’t remember my reaction to him that day because I was only six months old, but I was afraid of Uncle Jud and ran from him like Pan’s mother and nurse had run from him. I’d slink away into the corners or hide behind my mother, his course voice growling after me. He was abrasive, belligerent toward adults, and perpetually teased us kids. He always used the most offensive language. When I was a teenager, he was fond of asking me, with my parents close by, if I was getting any pussy from my high school sweetheart. But in the summertime, he’d take us kids into the potholes of Snelling at the edge of the Sierra Nevada, gold country, where at night we’d put out a trot line and listen to the rubber-throated bullfrogs while leaning back on our sleeping bags to watch the constellations of stars cut arcs across the black sky. He told mysterious stories of the creation of the universe and questioned the meaning of life. He was loved by everyone in our hometown. Whenever I’d meet someone on the street, they’d always ask, “How’s ol’ Jud doing?” When he was sober, he was quiet, gentle, reverent in his respect for my father and his family. Uncle Jud died of prostate cancer a few years ago, his body swelled badly from a liver ailment.

I didn’t go to Uncle Jud’s funeral. I always disavowed him, even using my middle name to avoid the association. But during the few years since his death I’ve received an unwanted inheritance. I’ve been forced to realize I have a little of his nature, and since I’ve suppressed it, I’ve been blindsided by it at the most vulnerable times.

The bus rounds the final ridge and descends into a large valley. We’ve left Arkadia and are now in Lakonia Nome. Before us to the southwest, stand the majestic jagged-peaked Taygetos mountains, the wildest range in Greece.[12] A touch of snow lingers there even in late October. To the southeast lie the less impressive Parnonas mountains. Both ranges converge in decreasing cascades forty kilometers to the south at the edge of the sea. The Eurotas river winds along the floor of the valley southward between the mountain ranges. On the west bank of the river, sprawls modern Sparta, an undistinguished metropolis at the head of the Eurotas alluvial plain. The entire valley is a monument to the Earth goddess, Gaia, her rich soil there still among the most fertile in Greece.

The legends of Sparta go far back into antiquity. According to Pausanias, the river received its name from Eurotas. the son of Gaia.

... [Eurotas] channelled away the marsh-water from the plains by cutting through to the sea, and when the land was drained he called the river which was left running there the Eurotas. As he had no male children he left the crown to Lakedaimon, whose mother was Taygete after whom the mountain was named and whose father is supposed to have been Zeus; Lakedaimon had married Sparta, the daughter of Eurotas. Once he was in power, he first of all renamed the country and the people after himself, and then founded a city and named it after his wife: the city is called Sparta to this day.[13]

The bus takes a road west off the main road and soon I feel as though I’ve reentered Athens, the roar of motorbikes comes at us from all sides as we snake though the city streets and the bus drops us at the station. I retrieve my pack and walk south a couple of blocks to Lykourgou Street where I turn west toward Mt. Taygetos in the distance, past shops and tavernas, past a large plateia and the town hall to Hotel Cyprus and soon have a cramped room with a balcony and clothesline. The clothesline makes the place worthwhile because I’ve got to do laundry.

After slumping my backpack against the wall, I hit the street again, walk north from the plateia to the Akropolis Lakedaimonia. The low-lying hill is the site of a 1st century BC theatre, half-hidden in an olive grove, and on past it, the foundation of the temple of Athena. At the very top of the akropolis, shadowed by eucalyptus and pine trees is and old Byzantine monastery. During Byzantine times the theatre was raided for building materials for use in nearby Mysra.

Although Sparta was a powerful military state, and in 404 BC captured even Athens, Sparta’s reputation as a highly-disciplined, war-obsessed state where children were introduced to the rigors of military discipline from birth has been grossly exaggerated. Evidence has surfaced rather recently to dispute this claim.[14] Through the arts, another side of Sparta has emerged and is particularly displayed in the poetry of Alcman, who wrote during the 7th century BC. He had a sharp eye for a pretty girl and was fond of good food and the easy life and is now known for his gay and lively maiden songs, of which many fragments have been recovered. The lightness and gaiety of his compositions certainly belie the traditional image of Sparta. Here’s one that demonstrates his use of the language of love which he wrote for maidens to sing while dancing:

Olympian Muses, fill my heart with longing for a new song: I am eager to hear the maiden voice of girls singing a beautiful melody to the heavens ... it will scatter sweet sleep from my eyes and leads me to go to the assembly of Antheia [Hera of the flowers], where I shall rapidly shake my yellow hair ...[15]

Sparta’s agricultural valley, produced better food and had a better climate than most localities throughout Greece and resulted in a rather laid-back lifestyle. The image of an extremist, military Sparta was generated for internal political consumption and for export as propaganda to the rest of Greece.[16]

I stay long enough among the eucalyptus trees to watch the sun prematurely disappear in a blinding flash behind Mt. Taygetos. I’ve one more quick stop before I can try to find something to eat. To the west of here is perhaps the most famous temple in Sparta, the temple of Artemis where, according to legend, many evil deeds were imposed on children. This is the site that will give us a different view of the goddess than we've seen before.

I leave the akropolis and walk west, the late afternoon traffic frantically seeking its destination. On the outskirts of town, I enter the ruins of the temple of Artemis Orthia, “upright Artemis,” so called because her statue was found standing. During classical times, Sparta was know as a fierce military power. Our word "Spartan", meaning simple, frugal but also marked by strict self-discipline and denial, comes from the characteristics of this Sparta. Both sexes were subjected to intense physical training. According to legend, boys were flogged here as a public spectacle. The victims maintained a cheerful outward appearance even unto death.

The temple is on the bank of the Eurotas river, among oleanders and rushes. The river used to run though the temple but has now been diverted a little east. Archaeologists uncovered carved bone and ivory objects here which show close connection with Ephesus, a major city on the western coast of Turkey during antiquity which was also devoted to Artemis worship, although not the . Sparta had its connections throughout the Mediterranean.

The shadows have deepened considerably, and I feel a chill. I make the kilometer walk back to the hotel and shower, change clothes. I spend an hour washing my underclothes in the sink with what’s left of the small white bar of soap. The clothesline sags under with weight of wet cotton.

I step out into the night air, whiffs of exhaust blasted about by motorbikes. I make the short walk to the plateia where it seems the entire town has congregated, a much larger scene than that on election night in Thebes. I stop at an outdoor taverna and take a seat at a metal table. Shortly I’m gorging myself on tasty baked chicken and potatoes. Afterward, I have a Greek coffee and watch the young girls walking to the plateia in the company of their mothers.

After eating I walk to the center of the large plateia where a tremendous volta is taking place. The entire city must be here, promenading back forth along the courtyard in front of the courthouse. Young girls stop to fuss over each other, and the men greet each other as of they haven’t seen each other in ten years, much handshaking and all are dressed to the nines, suits high heels.

The coffee keeps me awake in spite of my weariness after a long day. I lie awake with the image of Mt. Taygetos, which looms over this city in the background of my thoughts, imagining what it would be like up there now. I’ve spent many nights in a tent in Colorado’s mountains. Perhaps its my homesickness for Colorado that won’t turn loose of that mountain image. The night scene on Mt. Taygetos was described by the 6th century Spartan poet, Alcman:

And the mountain-peaks are asleep and the ravines, the headlands and torrent-beds, all the creeping tribes that the black earth nourishes, the wild animals of the mountains, the race of bees and the monsters in the depths of the surging sea; and the tribes of long-winged birds are asleep.[17]

Eleven kilometers south of here, along the south-flowing Eurotas, are the ruins of ancient Amyclae. Amyclae was the home of Hyacinthus, a beautiful youth with whom Apollo fell in love. One day while throwing the discus together, Apollo accidentally killed the lad. The crimson flower which sprang up from his blood was name the Hyacinth.

Greek mythology contains many stories of men's love for boys. Zeus' favorite was Ganymede, a royal Trojan, who Zeus kidnapped and made his lover and cup bearer. So Fred's sexual orientation is not without precedent, even archetypal in heritage. But so is the damage done to the youth involved. Laius' male love committed suicide. Even classical Greece was much a bisexual society, and the kidnap and rape of boys institutionalized. According to Ephorus, a 4th century BC ethnographer, in some Greek societies, as a youth's initiation to manhood, an older man kidnaps him with only feigned family opposition, and takes him into the mountains for two months of feasting and hunting together. During this time, the youth is homosexually ravished. Afterward, the youth is given presents, including a military uniform, and sent home.

This is just another of the many mythic parallels that have popped up in and around my life. All these atrocities would appear to occur within the realm of Dionysus, the madness he brings. In the ancient Greek world, it seems even this practice was viewed as a necessary mechanism for the youth to become fully adult.

For the life of me, I can't understand how that could possibly be true. All it caused in my family is pain, emotional scars, and difficulty in later life.

22 Oct, Friday

I’m up early this morning and in a run to get to the Menelaion and back to catch the bus to Mycenae. After a quick breakfast of fruit and bread, I exit the hotel into the cool morning air with the sun just breaking the mountaintops. I walk Geraki road across the Eurotas river and turn south on my way to the Menelaion where speculation tells us Menelaus castle stood. Helen and Menelaus lived in the 13th century BC, long before Sparta got its reputation as a military power.

During the Bronze Age, Helen was Sparta’s most famous citizen, and her birth was as bizarre as any in Greek mythology. Zeus was infatuated with and pursued Nemesis, goddess of retribution, who ran frantically from him. She changed herself into a goose, but Zeus changed himself into a swan and raped her anyway. Nemesis then laid a hyacinth-colored egg[18] in a Spartan grove, where shepherds found it and gave it to Leda, the wife of king Tyndareus. Helen hatched from the blue egg. Though some say she was born of immortals, Helen was mortal and other said her parents were Leda and Tyndareus.

Helen had a traumatic childhood and narrowly escaped death during a human sacrifice to save the city during time of plague:  

When a Plague had overspread Sparta, the god gave an oracle that it would cease if they sacrificed a noble maiden each year. Once when Helen had been chosen by lot and had been led forward adorned for the sacrifice, an eagle swooped down, snatched up the sword, carried it to the herds of cattle, and let it fall on a heifer; wherefore the Spartans refrained from the slaying of maidens.[19]

Even Helen’s beauty was to cause her pain. When Theseus the king of Athens was fifty, he and his friend Pirithous came to Sparta. They didn’t come on a friendly visit but to kidnap Helen, who at the time was only twelve but already had a reputation for great beauty. Theseus and Pirithous attended a maiden dance at the temple of Artemis Orthia. Such a maiden dance is described in Aristophanes play Lysistrata. The play was written in 411 BC, some 800 years after Helen was kidnapped:

      Now the dance begin:
Dance, making swirl your fringe o’ wooly skin,
     While we join voices
To hymn dear Sparta that rejoices
        I’ a beautifu’ sang,
        An’ loves to see
Dancers tangled beautifully,
For the girls i’ tumbled ranks
        Alang Eurotas’ banks
        Like wanton fillies thrang,
        Frolicking there
An’ like Bacchantes shaking the wild air
        To comb a giddy laughter through the hair,
Bacchantes that clench thyrsi as they sweep
        To the ecstatic leap.

     An’ Helen, Child o’ Leda, come
Thou holy, nimble, gracefu’ Queen,
Lead thou the dance, gather thy joyous tresses up i’ bands
An’ play like a fawn. To madden them, clap thy hands,
And sing praise to the warrior goddess [Athena] templed i’ our lands,
        Her o’ the House o’ Brass.[20]

During one such ceremony, Theseus snatched up Helen and took her to Aphidnae just north of Athens, the small town I passed two weeks ago during my bus ride to Thebes. Helen’s brothers, Castor and Polyduces, retrieved Helen and the ensuing war with Athens resulted in Theseus being exiled to the island of Skyrus where he was murdered.

When Helen became of marriageable age, Tyndareus invited all those interested in vie for her hand. Odysseus was among the suitors but realizing his lowly status as king of a small island, that he could never win the vain woman’s heart. Noblemen from all of Greece came to plead their cause for the ravishing beauty, and when hostilities broke out between the suitors, Odysseus, the man of many wiles, was quick to offer Tyndareus a solution in exchange for his support in gaining the hand of Penelope, Helen’s cousin. He advised Tyndareus to make the suitors swear to protect the winner against any harm caused by his marriage to Helen. Helen chose the wealthy Menelaus, brother of Agamemnon the powerful king of Mycenae.

Menelaus didn’t have a kingdom, so when Tyndareus’ two sons, Castor and Polyduces, were killed in a battle with their cousins, Tendareus gave the throne to his daughter’s husband. Thus the line of descent of Sparta in Mycenaean times was matrilineal as it was at Thebes, Oedipus gaining the throne there by virtue of his marriage to Jocasta.

Shortly thereafter, Odysseus came to Sparta seeking the hand of Penelope. Tendareus paid his debt by speaking for Odysseus in his desire for Helen’s cousin. But Odysseus didn’t get by so easily when he came to pickup Penelope. He still had to win her in a foot race.[21]

Though the Trojan War was caused by events here at Sparta, the events were put into motion by problems in Greek heaven. All the gods and goddesses assembled up north in Thessaly for the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, the parents-to-be of Achilles, the greatest warrior of all time. Peleus, a mortal was marrying Thetis a beautiful sea nymph on Mt. Pelion. All the gods and goddesses were invited with one exception. The goddess Eris, “Strife,” wasn't invited but crashed the party anyway. When she was barred entry, she threw a golden apple into the crowd. Inscribed on the apple were the words, “To the Fairest.” The vain goddesses squabbled over it, Hera, Athena and Aphrodite, all claiming the apple was for them. To settle the dispute, Zeus told Hermes to take the three goddesses to Mt. Ida in the land of Troy where Paris, the world’s most handsome man, lived. All three goddesses tried to bribe Paris, but Aphrodite offered him the hand of the world’s most beautiful woman. Tales of Helen’s beauty had spanned the Aegean to Phrygeia, the land of Troy. Aphrodite, in offering Helen to Paris, ignored the fact that Helen was already married.

After four and a half kilometers walking the road south along the bank of the Eurotas river, I turn east onto a footpath past a chapel and ascend a hill to the remains of Menelaus’ castle. When the site was excavated in 1973, underneath the ruins of a 5th century BC building, archaeologists found the much older ruins of a Mycenaean complex which they assume to the home of Helen and Menelaus.

The hill, known as Mt. Therapne, is arid and scrub covered, not an impressive sight until I turn to look back west from where I’ve come. From my vantage point, I overlook the entire Eurotas plain, and in the back ground the looming presence of Mt. Taygetos has been unmasked by the morning sun, and the peaks glow brilliantly, its height forming a wall of impenetrability to protect Sparta. Though the site seems sparse compared to the legends which form its infamy, the breeze whispers its greatness, bird calls breaking the near silence.

I mount one ancient wall’s foundation to rest my weary feet. Two bees buzz me aggressively and ants make for me like I may be their last chance for a meal.

Paris, knowing he could win the heart of Helen, built a ship and sailed to Sparta on a princely visit. As fate would have it, Menelaus was called away in Crete where his grandfather had died, and while he was gone, Paris stole Menelaus’ treasure and stole Helen. The code of conduct governing hospitality to strangers was strong in ancient Greece, and Paris’ violation of Menelaus’ trust demanded severe retribution. Even Menelaus’ reason for being gone from Sparta, his grandfather’s funeral, added to the outrage. Paris may have been handsome, but he was indeed a lowlife.

The archaeological remains from the Bronze Age, the age of Helen and Menelaus, indicates it was well populated and prosperous. But the Bronze Age settlement came to a mysterious end just after 1200 BC, perishing by fire,[22] following which it disappeared as a city state, only a few stragglers living in poverty among the ruins of old homes.[23] Menelaus and Helen were buried at the Menelaion.[24]

After spending an hour on the hilltop, I suddenly realize the time and gather up my pack and camera and start back down the hill, the hot sun sporadically blocked by drifting puffs of clouds.

As I turn north along the Eurotas river, I reflect on the last great legend of the Bronze Age here at Sparta. This legend fits in well with Mycenae, where I’m headed. Agamemnon, the king of Mycenae who led the Greek forces at Troy, was murdered when he returned home. His son avenged his father’s death. The son’s name was Orestes. After the deaths of Agamemnon and Klytemnestra, Menelaus and Helen, Orestes who'd married, Hermione, the daughter of Menelaus and Helen, became not only king Mycenae but also of Argos and Sparta. He died in Tegea, an ancient city just south to Tripoli, from a snake bite. Centuries later, Sparta tried to conquer Tegea without success, and the generals finally went to the oracle at Delphi to see what it would take. The Pythia told them to bring the bones of Orestes back to Sparta. His bones were surreptitiously located in Tegea, and in 550 BC the city finally fell to Sparta’s forces.

I quickly check out of the hotel and lumber under my pack to the bus station. My pack feels twice as heavy after my long morning walk, and I’m sweating profusely. The bus station is dark and crowded, smoke filled. I buy my ticket and stand for a half hour in the shade outside trying to dry my sweat-soaked shirt.

During the bus ride back into Arkadia, Pan country, thoughts of my Uncle Jud return. Pan was often in the presence of the Earth goddess, or as she’s also called, the Great Mother who played such a prominent role in the prosperity of Sparta. Pindar spoke of the two of them in his maiden songs:

O Pan, that rulest over Arcardia, 

and art the warder of holy shrines ... 

thou companion of the Great Mother, 

thou dear delight of the holy Graces![25]

Pan’s flirtation with her is understandable when you consider that he was also the frequent companion of Dionysus, the god of madness. The Earth goddess also had her influence on madness as evidenced by Agamemnon’s son Orestes. When Agamemnon returned home after the Trojan War, his wife Klytemnestra killed him and Orestes avenged his father’s death by killing his mother. This act ran counter to everything the Earth goddess stood for and she sent her Furies after him. The Furies were the avenging fiends of the Great goddess, and they punished wrongs against parents committed by their children. They drove Orestes mad. He wandered throughout the Aegean but was cured at a sanctuary just to the west of here which has a small tumulus with a finger of stone. During his madness, Orestes bit his finger off there. Close by the finger stone, another sanctuary was dedicated to the Furies. The place is called the Cure, because Orestes was cured of his madness there when he saw the Furies turned from black to white.[26]  

The drab bus station in Tripoli seems an old acquaintance after being here with Hans and Margo yesterday, though it still doesn’t seem friendly. No bus goes from Tripoli to Mycenae, so I have to catch the train but don’t know the location of the station. I finally find a man who’s directing passengers about and ask him if he speaks English. He says no, so I try my Greek. “Trano staqmoV. Pou einai;” I ask. He understands me immediately, repeats my question to make sure, and points in the direction of the train station. “Einai konta;” I ask, wanting to know if it’s close. He takes out an ink pen and writes 200 on his hand, 200 meters. “Eucaristw,” I say. I hoisting my pack and hit the fresh air for my walk to the train station. (This boundary between world is more evidence of Hermes. So will be the crossing into Sparta from Arkadia.)

Without thinking about it, I’ve adopted a way of communicating with Greeks who do not understand English. When I ask if they speak English and they answer no, I speak to them in Greek. Invariably, they answer in English. Most them know a little. They continue speaking their pidgin English and I speak my pidgin Greek. We are confined to a very limited vocabulary in each other’s language, a demilitarized zone of communication, but it works wonderfully.

I walk straight to the train station, asking one person to get confirmation I’m going in the right direction, and soon I’m inside a large red brick building standing in line to get a ticket. I ask the man behind the window if he speaks English and again get “No,” for an answer, a very emphatic “Oci!” this time. He turns his head as if I should get away from the window, but when I say “Esitiria, ArgoV, Mikhnai,” he immediately turns back, grabs a ticket and starts writing on it. The change in him when he realized I speak a little Greek was amazing. He motions for me to give him a 1000 dr bill from which he returns 350 dr in change. I asked him “Ti wra;” and he shows me where he has already written the train’s departure time on my ticket. Just as I get my pack straps zipped inside their pouch, the train pulls up. I climb onboard, asking frantically if it’s the train to Argos and Mycenae (my insecurity knows no bounds) and I’m assured it is by two Greeks. I navigate my big bag through the crowded car toward the front and take a seat by a huge young man who looks like he would rather have both seats for himself. If Hermes hadn't been with me I would have had to wait two hours for the next train.

On to Mycenae.