The island of Delos was one of the most important places
in the ancient Greek world...
with temples honoring the birthplace of the twin gods
Apollo and Artemis.
Centuries before Christ,
Delos attracted pilgrims from across the Western world.
♪♪
Delos was important in three different ancient eras,
first as a religious site,
then as the treasury of the Athenian League.
That was sort of the Fort Knox of the ancient world.
And later, during Roman times, this was one of the busiest
commercial ports in the entire Mediterranean.
Delos ranked right up there with Olympia, Athens, and Delphi.
Survey the remains of the ancient harbor,
foundations of shops and homes,
and hillsides littered with temple remains.
♪♪
The iconic row of sphinx-like lions
still heralds the importance of the place.
This was one of the Aegean world's finest cities.
Imagine Delos in its heyday, a booming center of trade,
streets lined with 3,000 shops
where you could buy just about anything,
dazzling mansions of wealthy merchants
with colonnaded inner courtyards.
There were fine mosaics like this one of the god Dionysus
riding a panther.
Culture thrived here enough to keep this theater,
which could seat 6,000, busy.
Innovative cisterns collected rainwater.
These round arches date from the third century B.C.
Plumbing ran under the streets, and water was plentiful.
Local guides demonstrate still-working wells.
-One of the 200 wells and cisterns in the city,
fresh, drinkable water from the rich aquifer underneath us,
and it was enough to supply the 30,000 people
at the peak of the flourish of the city.
-30,000?
-So for more than 2,000 years, water has come out of this well.
You can still drink if you want. -Very nice.
About a century before Christ,
Delos was devastated by a terrible war.
It never recovered and was eventually abandoned.
After 14 centuries of silence and darkness,
it was finally excavated in the late 1800s,
and today, the ruins of Delos are ours to explore.
♪♪
I cap my visit by climbing to the summit of the island.
My reward: one of the Mediterranean's great
king-of-the-mountain thrills.
As you observe the chain of islands
dramatically swirling in 360 degrees,
you can understand why historians believe
that these Cycladic Islands got their name from the way
they make a circle -- or a cycle -- around this
oh-so-important little island of Delos.
♫
The sanctuary at Epidavros
with the best-preserved theater in the ancient world
surrounded by the scant remains of its city.
In 400 BC, Epidavros, with a sprawling complex
of hospitals and sick wards,
was the most famous healing center
in the Greek world.
It was a place of miraculous cures
and comfortable benches where the sick came
to be treated by doctor priests doing the work
of Asklepios, the Greek god of medicine.
The highlight of Epidavros is its fine theater,
which provided entertainment for those who made
the pilgrimage here from all over Greece.
It continued to operate until 426 AD,
when Emperor Theodosius II, who was a Christian,
closed it down along with all other pagan sanctuaries.
Given its size, over 12,000 seats,
and obvious lack of modern amplification,
the acoustics needed to be perfect,
and they still are.
Friends, Greeks, wayfarers.
In these times of discord,
fear is rampant in our society.
I contend that the flip side of fear
is understanding, and those who travel
will reap great understanding by meeting people
who find other truths to be self-evident
and God-given.
[ cheers and applause ]
The rugged, sparsely populated terrain
of the Peloponnese evokes ancient times
when Greeks considered this
a mysterious and frightening land --
a mythic world of terrifying creatures.
No wonder it was here that Hercules was sent
to perform most of his daunting labors.
Ancient athletes were tested here, as well.
The Sanctuary of Olympia
was the birthplace of the Olympic Games.
Despite the tourist crowds, it remains
an evocative place nestled among shady trees.
Wandering its extensive ruins, its clear
Olympia was much more than a stadium.
Yes, Zeus.
Local tour guide Niki Vlachou helps explain.
So, it's called the "sanctuary" of Olympia.
Yes, but it was primarily a religious place
dedicated to Zeus and the rest of the gods
with temples all over, and it was only
open to people during the games...
Okay. For over 1,000 years.
Steves: The Temple of Zeus was magnificent
in the 5th century BC, and reminds us that
the games were held in honor of the supreme deity
of the Greek pantheon, or "world of gods."
Inside this temple was that amazing statue of Zeus
which was considered to be one of
the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Gold and ivory towering in the temple
that made the Greeks lose their minds
by seeing Zeus alive in front of them.
This was one of their chances to meet
the god in person, as they thought.
Steves: Six centuries after Christ,
earthquakes sent its columns tumbling.
Today, they lie here,
as if to illustrate how Greek columns
were stacks of fluted limestone drums
held together with square pegs.
The popularity of the games grew rapidly,
attracting athletes from throughout the Greek world
to compete in an ever-increasing number of events.
There was javelin, discus, boxing.
There was a sprint of one stadium length,
the two-stadium sprint, even two-stadium sprint
naked with all your armor.
The last of the ancient games were held in 393 AD,
not to be started again for 1,500 years.
So, why the games?
Vlachou: To unify the Greeks, to strengthen the Greek culture,
and to also teach all these young boys
the military skills they needed.
Plus, they had all these classrooms here
to teach them the Greek philosophy.
So the Olympic Games actually made
the Greek culture stronger.
The idea was that if the Greeks are to fight,
they better fight in the stadium
and be united against the rest of the world.
It's brilliant, and this worked for 1,200 years.
Yes.
Steves: The most vivid remnant of the games is this --
the original Olympic stadium.
Visitors just can't resist the chance to line up
on the marble starting blocks and imagine athletes
from around the Greek world doing the same thing
at those first games back in 776 BC.
Like other hilltop sites in the ancient Greek world,
Athens' Acropolis, or "high city,"
was both a place of worship
and of refuge when under attack.
Crowned by the mighty Parthenon temple,
the Acropolis rises above modern Athens,
a lasting testament to Greece's glorious Golden Age
in the 5th century BC.
Grand processions followed the Panathenaic Way,
which was a ceremonial path connecting the town below
and the Acropolis.
They'd pass through this imposing entryway
and up to the religious heart of the city
in the Parthenon.
The Parthenon was perhaps
the finest temple in the ancient world.
Valiantly battling the acidic air of our modern world,
it still stands, with the help of ongoing restoration work.
It was constructed in the 5th century BC
and dedicated to the virgin goddess Athena.
Seeing it today is awe-inspiring,
but imagine how striking it must have looked
when it was completed, nearly 2,500 years ago,
in all its carved and brilliantly painted splendor.
The adjacent erect is famous
for its Porch of the Caryatids --
six beautiful maidens functioning as columns.
Dedicated to Athena and Poseidon,
this was one of the most important
religious buildings on the Acropolis.
This, rather than the Parthenon,
was the culmination of the Panathenaic Procession.
At the foot of the Acropolis,
the Ancient Agora, or "marketplace,"
sprawls out from its surviving temple.
This is where, for 3,000 years,
Athenians gathered.
While the Acropolis was
the center of ritual and ceremony,
the Agora was the beating heart of ancient Athens.
For some 800 years,
starting in the 6th century BC,
this was the hub of commercial, political, and social life.
Visitors wander the remains
of what was the city's principal
shopping mall and administrative center.
Exploring the Agora,
it's fascinating to ponder
the world of Plato and Aristotle
and the age which laid the foundations
for Western thinking about economics, democracy,
logic, and more.
The Stoa of Attalos, from the 2nd century BC,
was rebuilt in modern times to house the Agora's museum.
With so little of the Agora still standing,
this reconstruction
makes it easier to imagine the site
in its original glory.
Crowds would gather in shady porticos like this
to shop, socialize,
or listen to the great philosophers of the age.
In fact, Socrates spent much of his life right here,
preaching the virtues of "nothing in excess"
and urging those around him to "know thyself."
The Temple of Hephaestus,
one of the best preserved and most typical
of all Greek temples,
dates from about 400 BC.
Like the Parthenon, it's constructed
in the simple Doric style.
It housed big, bronze statues
of Hephaestus -- the blacksmith god --
and Athena, patroness of the city.
Greek architecture evolved in stages.
The capitals, or tops, of the columns,
were both functional and decorative.
While just the tip of the architectural iceberg,
these are handy indicators, helping us identify
the three main architectural "orders," or styles.
The earliest style, Doric,
has flat, practical plates as capitals.
In the next order, ionic,
the capitals are decorated with understated scrolls.
The final order, Corinthian,
popular later on with the Romans,
features leafy capitals,
boldly decorative, with no apologies necessary.
How to remember all these?
As the orders evolve, they gain syllables.
Doric, Ionic,
Corinthian.
But for most travelers, the Agora
is more than an architectural review.
Strolling in the footsteps of Socrates
is your best opportunity
to commune with the epic Greek past.