Hermes, the messenger of ancient Greek Gods, Ancient Olympia and me .
." Every time i visit Ancient Olympia i wonder what makes me visit it so often . .
Is it the germ of origin and nostalgia ? ... But whatever it is, this time for one thing i was sure . I was going to try the new app, which presents Ancient Olympia using artificial intelligence .
... Usually, i visit the archaeological site in the morning,to avoid the crowds, but this time something strange was happening along the way, so i was late, finally arriving at noon ανδ ςιτη enough heat .
After all, we are in the middle of the Greek summer .
I hesitated for a moment . I had better think of visiting the Archaeological Museum with its air-conditioned rooms .
But i had come to walk mainly around the archaeological site using the new app . I convinced myself that is better to go now . There will be fewer people and so i will be able to move more freely . And so it happened . But come on, the excessive heat of the last few days has been here .
I greeted people at the entrance and started using the app..
Nice i said to myself. That's great .
Immediately afterwards i wondered . What did the ancient traveler Pausanias feel when he first visited Ancient Olympia in the 2nd century after Christ ?
Okay, i said, he will have described it himself in the second volume of his books about ancient Olympia .
He was amazed to see the gold-elephant statue of Zeus adorning the interior of his temple . Immediately afterwards, it came to my mind what i felt when i visited our school trip to the archaeological site as a primary school student .
... ruins everywhere, some small restoration efforts seemed unfinished . Fortunately, the description of the place by our teacher restored things .But
the question is, why don't we restore the ancient monuments? It remained unanswered in me until the last few years .
Yes, i said to myself that there should be no extensive restoration, we have no reason to compete with the ancients . I felt a joy in giving answers that were convenient for me and i closed my eyes for a minute .
then something really strange happened: Hermes, the messenger of the ancient Greek Gods : He appeared in front of me with his well-known playful mood from mythology .
Here you are again, he told me . What anyway do you mortals want to know about ancient Olympia ?
I seized the opportunity to tell him the truth, that this time I'm here to write something fresh for my site .
I want to learn more about the things that don't exist . He was upset. Okay, he said, first told about the things you know well . Don't mention ( he told me ) in detail .To rely on what is widely circulated, folk tradition and so on, told me .Besides, he told me he was in the place to rest for a while, being on a secret mission, carrying a message from Zeus .
I paused and turned to Hermes looking at me in wonder .
What do you mean ? he told me, when you say that they once existed ? Don't see around you that everything is working normally ? Look across from Pheidia's workshop .
But this was destroyed by the first Christians, i had time to chants . They built a Christian temple on top of it .
I turned to Pheidias'workshop . I was speechless . Everything working normally . Workers went back and forth repairing statues . Look he said to me towards the stadium, you don't hear the celebrations, we have the Olympic Games .
What kind of Olympic Games is this ? i replied without a ceasefire and without the participation of all countries .
After all, the Olympic Games are taking place in Paris this year . Impressed as I was, I turned my gaze toward the Temple of Hera. Oh, it was there. It stood proud, with each one of its columns different from the other. This happened because the columns, which in the original temple were wooden, were replaced over the years with stone ones, thereby following the prevailing architectural style of each era .
Everything was in its place and continued to function. 'It's not possible,' I exclaimed, but I immediately understood the trap. The cunning Hermes wanted to throw me into the space-time trap, a subject that goes beyond the scope of this blog. I had to find a way to extricate myself. Yes, but how?
In these cases, the Ancient Greeks had invented the deus ex machina (god from the machine). That is to say, where no other solution existed, it was provided by a god who appeared out of nowhere.
Continued . ..