Ruins

As a child in Malaysia, I used to read everything I could find about the Ancient Romans and Greeks. I knew all the stories of daring heroes and jealous gods, beautiful women and powerful goddesses - Theseus and the Minotaur, Diana the huntress, Zeus and his desire for women, Helen of Troy. Their world, in my mind, was one of craggy mountains and turquoise seas, bright meadows and dark caves; these humans and gods glowing with bronzed skin against white tunics. There was also something about the idea of long-gone civilizations that was haunting to me back then as a child - and is still haunting to me now as an adult. I could not imagine back then how it could be that great cities that had once flourished and thronged with people could somehow be forgotten and lie undiscovered for centuries - and even millenia. Looking around at the city I lived in then, it seemed impossible that it might one day crumble to dust and be erased from memory.

We spent a week on Crete recently and all these haunting thoughts came back to me during our holiday on this bright Mediterranean island, once the crossroads at the centre of the Ancient World. Today, it is part of Greece, one of the newest members of the European Union and also among its poorer nations. For much of the last century, it was primarily an agricultural economy and while many coastal villages and towns are thriving from tourism as seaside resorts, it is still relatively unspoilt inland and retains its rural charm. In contrast to the wealthier First World European regions like the UK, Germany and France, Crete felt like a step back into the Third World. Whole families ride around on one scooter, the kids jammed between their parents; food is very cheap; decor is plain and simple; traffic is chaotic; buildings and houses look tatty and laid-back. There are still many sleepy villages surrounded by olive groves and orange trees where herds of sheep are shepherded down the main street and may wander into your garden to eat the geraniums.

Crete is also the home of Knossos, the home of the legendary King Minos who is said to have kept the Minotaur in the labyrinth beneath the palace - the hero Theseus slayed the monster with the help of the King’s daughter Ariadne and escaped with her to Naxos. The palace and its surrounding city was at its height 3,000 years ago and was an astonishingly beautiful multi-storyed complex of courtyards and decorated rooms. At the opposite end of the island, near where we were staying, was the thriving commercial city of Aptera, a busy urban centre with Roman baths and bustling streets. Both now lie in ruins, undiscovered for thousands of years, their stones taken by locals to be used in building houses and other structures.

Wandering around Aptera, with its amazing view over Souda Bay in one direction and a vista of the mountains in the other, I was struck by the poppies and wildflowers fluttering in the wind amid the empty stones. This is all that is left of a nation that was once the most powerful and wealthy in the Western world, its heirs now among the poorest Europe. We came across the remains of a villa, just a handful of stone pillars now. We sat down for a rest and had a drink from our water bottles. I noticed a carved pattern on one of the pillars and wondered who the man was who carved it those thousands of years ago - I pictured him on a particular day at a particular time, just doing his job, perhaps thinking of his family or telling a joke to his fellow artisans as he worked. For him, that city he lived in would have seemed as infinite and permanent as I feel London and Kuala Lumpur is today. I wondered who lived in this villa with its stunning view of the mountains and how that family might have stood out on its terrace and looked at the ageless hills as I was looking out at them now. Perhaps they too felt how life was good, as I did in that moment - how fortunate they were to have this villa and the riches of their lives.

I thought of Shelley’s poem Ozymandias:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

For me, that moment by the villa made me somewhat melancholy but it also heightened my appreciation of our week’s holiday - and the fullness of all that I had to enjoy in my life. I think that’s why the Romantics kept a skull on their desk and built fake ruins in the gardens of their estates - to be reminded that “nothing beside remains” and so to feel more keenly the sensations of being alive. There’s nothing like a touch of mortality to wake one up to the vibrancy of life.

Photo 1: ruins of villa, Aptera

Photo 2: detail of carved pillar

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For more on Ozymandias, see http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/shelley/section2.rhtml

For more on Aptera, see http://www.greekisland.co.uk/wcrete/aptera.htm