Cape Sounion is a promontory located 69 kilometres south-southeast of Athens, at
the southernmost tip of the Attica peninsula in Greece.
Cape Sounion is noted as the site of ruins of an ancient Greek temple of
Poseidon, the god of the sea in classical mythology. The remains are
perched on the headland, surrounded on three sides by the sea. The ruins bear
the deeply engraved name of English Romantic poet Lord Byron.
The site is a popular day-excursion for tourists from Athens, with the sunset
over the Aegean Sea, as viewed from the ruins, a sought-after spectacle.
Legend According to Greek Mythology, Cape
Sounion is the spot where Aegeus, king of Athens, leapt to his death off the
cliff, thus giving his name to the Aegean Sea. The story goes that Aegeus,
anxiously looking out from Sounion, despaired when he saw a black sail on
his son Theseus's ship, returning from Crete. This led him to believe that his
son had been killed in his contest with the dreaded Minotaur, a monster that was
half man and half bull. The Minotaur was confined by its owner, King Minos of
Crete, in a specially designed labyrinth. Every year, according to the
myth, the Athenians were forced to send seven men and seven women to Minos as
tribute. These youths were placed in the labyrinth to be devoured by the
Minotaur. Theseus had volunteered to go with the third tribute and attempt to
slay the beast. He had agreed with his father that if he survived the contest,
he would hoist a white sail on his return. In fact, Theseus had
successfully overcome and slain the Minotaur, but tragically had simply
forgotten about the white sail. The earliest literary reference to
Sounion is in Homer's poem the Odyssey, probably composed in the 8th century BC.
This recounts the mythical tribulations suffered by Greek hero Odysseus in a
gruelling 10-year sea-voyage to return to his native island, Ithaca, in the
Ionian sea, from the sack of Troy. This ordeal was supposedly inflicted upon him
by Poseidon, to whom the temple at Sounion was dedicated.
We are told that, as the various Greek commanders sailed back from Troy, the
helmsman of the ship of King Menelaus of Sparta died at his post while rounding
"holy Sounion, cape of Athens". Menelaus landed at Sounion to give his companion
full funeral honours. The Greek ships were then caught by a storm off Cape
Malea and scattered in all directions. History
Archaeological finds on the site date from as early as 700 BC. The 5th-century
BC historian Herodotus tells us that in the sixth century BC, the Athenians
celebrated a quadrennial festival at Sounion, which involved Athens' leaders
sailing to the cape in a sacred boat. The original, Archaic-period temple of
Poseidon on the site, which was built of tufa, was probably destroyed in 480 BC
by Persian troops during Xerxes I's invasion of Greece. Although there is no
direct evidence for Sounion, Xerxes certainly had the temple of Athena, and
everything else on the Acropolis of Athens, razed as punishment for the
Athenians' defiance. After they defeated Xerxes in the naval Battle of Salamis,
the Athenians placed an entire captured enemy trireme at Sounion as a trophy
dedicated to Poseidon. The later temple at Sounion, whose
columns still stand today, was probably built in ca. 440 BC. This was during the
ascendancy of the Athenian statesman Pericles, who also rebuilt the Parthenon
in Athens. In 413 BC, during the Peloponnesian War
against the Spartans, the Athenians fortified the site with a wall and
towers to prevent it from falling into Spartan hands. This would have
threatened Athens' seaborne grain supply route from Euboea. Athens' supply
situation had become critical since the city's land supply lines had been cut by
the Spartan fortification of Dekeleia, in north Attica. However, not long
after, the Sounion fortress was seized from the Athenians by a force of rebel
slaves from the nearby silver mines of Laurium.
Temple of Poseidon Coordinates: 37.650407°N 24.024776°E﻿ /
37.650407; 24.024776 Ancient Greek religion was essentially
propitiatory in nature, i.e., based on the notion that to avoid misfortune, one
must constantly seek the favour of the relevant gods by prayers, gifts and
sacrifices. To the ancient Greek, every natural feature, e.g. hill, lake, stream
or wood, was controlled by a god. A person about to swim in a river, for
example, would say a prayer to the river-god, or make an offering to that
god's shrine, to avoid the chance of drowning. The gods were considered
immortal and could change shape, become invisible and travel anywhere
instantaneously. But in many other respects they were considered similar to
humans. They shared the whole range of human emotions, both positive and
negative. Thus, in their attitudes towards humans, they could be both
benevolent and malicious. Also like humans, they had family and clan
hierarchies. They could even mate with humans, and produce demi-gods.
In a maritime country like Greece, the god of the sea occupied a high position
in the divine hierarchy. In power, Poseidon was considered second only to
Zeus, the supreme god himself. His implacable wrath, manifested in the form
of storms, was greatly feared by all mariners. In an age without mechanical
power, storms very frequently resulted in shipwrecks and drownings.
The temple at Cape Sounion, Attica, therefore, was a venue where mariners,
and also entire cities or states, could propitiate Poseidon by making animal
sacrifice or leaving gifts. The temple of Poseidon was constructed
in 444–440 BC, over the ruins of a temple dating from the Archaic Period.
It is perched above the sea at a height of almost 60 metres. The design of the
temple is a typical hexastyle, i.e., it had a front portico with six columns.
Only some columns of the Sounion temple stand today, but when intact it would
have closely resembled the contemporary and well-preserved Temple of Hephaestus
beneath the Acropolis, which may have been designed by the same architect.
As with all Greek temples, the Poseidon building was rectangular, with a
colonnade on all four sides. The total number of original columns was 34: 15
columns still stand today. The columns are of the Doric Order. They were made
of locally-quarried white marble. They were 6.10 m high, with a diameter of 1 m
at the base and 79 cm at the top. At the centre of the temple colonnade
would have been the hall of worship, a windowless rectangular room, similar to
the partly intact hall at the Temple of Hephaestus. It would have contained, at
one end facing the entrance, the cult image, a colossal, ceiling-height)
bronze statue of Poseidon. Probably covered in gold leaf, it may have
resembled a contemporary representation of the god, appropriately found in a
shipwreck, shown in the figure above. Poseidon was usually portrayed carrying
a trident, the weapon he supposedly used to stir up storms. On the longest day of
the year, the sun sets exactly in the middle of the caldera of the island of
Patroklou, the extinct volcano that lies offshore, suggesting astrological
significance for the siting of the temple. The temple of Poseidon was
destroyed in 399 by Emperor Arcadius. Archaeological excavation of the site in
1906 uncovered numerous artifacts and inscriptions, most notably a marble
kouros statue known as the Sounion Kouros and an impressive votive relief,
both now in the Athens National Archaeological Museum. A column from the
temple can be seen in the British Museum.
Byron inscription The inscribed name of the famous
Romantic poet George Lord Byron, carved into the base of one of the columns of
the Temple of Poseidon, possibly dates from his first visit to Greece, on his
Grand Tour of Europe before he acquired fame. Byron spent several months in
1810–11 in Athens, including two documented visits to Sounion. There is,
however, no direct evidence that the inscription was made by Byron himself.
Byron mentions Sounion in his poem Isles of Greece:
Place me on Sunium's marbled steep, Where nothing, save the waves and I,
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep... Heidegger's visit
The philosopher Martin Heidegger visited Sounion during his journey to Greece in
1962, as described in his book Sojourns. He refers to the "gleaming-white ruins
of the temple". In the strong sea breeze "these few standing columns were the
strings of an invisible lyre, the song of which the far-seeing Delian god let
resonate over the Cycladic world of islands". He marvels at "the way that
this single gesture of the land suggests the invisible nearness of the divine and
dedicates to it every growth and every human work". He goes on to reflect "the
people of this country knew how to inhabit and demarcate the world against
the barbarous in honour of the seat of the gods. ...they knew how to praise
what is great and by acknowledging it, to bring themselves in front of the
sublime, founding, in this way, a world".
Sounion today Apart from its world-renowned
archaeological site, Sounion is also an upscale summer home location for
Athenians. Construction flourished between the 1960s and 1970s, with
massive yet minimal villas and condos erected. Sounion is one of the most
expensive areas in Greece, with the value of some homes exceeding twenty
million euros. Notes
References The following are reference sources, in
alpha order: Athens National Archaeological Museum,
items NM 2720 and NM 3344. Lord Byron, Don Juan, 1818–1819.
W. Burkert, Greek Religion. Herodotus, Histories, Volumes VI & VIII,
"The History of Herodotus", 440 BC, webpage: Fordham-HH.
Homer, Odyssey, Volume III & IX. Ovid, Metamorphoses, 2–8 AD.
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, article "Sunium", 1911.
Perseus Digital Library @ www.perseus.tufts.edu
Plutarch, "Theseus" in Parallel Lives, 75 AD.
Romantic Circles, The Byron Chronology, webpage: RC-UMD.
Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, Volume VII and VIII, 431 BC, webpage: MIT-Thuc.
External links 360 Panorama from Temple of Poseidon
Sounion 3D