From Winter to Spring: Notes on the Academic Program
Regular Member Michael Leese reports on the Philopappos Monument
March 17, 2012 The last few weeks of the academic program were especially intense, as we needed to make up sessions that had been postponed by blocked roads (because of snow) or strikes. At Piraeus we saw the Arsenal of Philo, the Ship sheds, much of Conon’s wall, and the Olympias, the reconstructed trireme. We went to Megara and Salamis on a rainy day, and from Salamis looked out across the way toward where Xerxes’ throne would have been placed, and visited the Cave of Euripides. On the day of our visit to Border Forts, it was cold but beautiful, and we explored the Dema Wall (amid the garbage dump of west Attica), Phyle, Eleutherai, Oinoe and the Mazi Tower, and Aigosthena, with a side trip to Hosios Meletios. The trip to Aigina is traditionally the last day, and fortunately it was beautiful. Wildflowers were everywhere.  In the Sanctuary of Zeus Hellanios on Aigina, Regular Member Nicholas Swift divided the group into three parts and directed our performance of Pindar’s Nemean 5, likely composed and then sung in this sanctuary. We arrived back in Athens rather late, the term now nearly over. Next, many of us will visit Egypt, or Rough Cilicia, and the excavations at Corinth will be starting soon. Read previous Program Note. (All photos by M.M. Miles)