Christmas Tree at Syntagma Square, Athens

Public Domain Photo: Syntagma Square in central Athens at night with a huge illuminated Christmas Tree, 21 December 2005.

Syntagma Square, located in central Athens, Greece, is named after the Constitution that King Otto was forced to grant the people after a popular and military uprising on September 3, 1843.

Syntagma Square, a site of political demonstrations, is quite near Syntagma station of the Athens Metro, with the Greek Parliament across Amalias Avenue. It is a hub for many forms of public transportation with a stop for the Athens Tram and buses or trolley-buses plying to several locations in Athens. Travel between Syntagma Square and the Eleftherios Venizelos Airport is available via special airport buses and metro lines. Free wireless Internet access at high speeds is offered by the Municipality of Athens at the Square.

Syntagma Square is also located near many of Athens' most famous neighborhoods and tourist attractions such as Plaka, Monastiraki, Psiri, Kolonaki, and sites of ancient Athens including the Acropolis, the Theater of Dionysus, the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the Philopappos Monument on the Hill of the Nymphs, the Areopagus, the Ancient Agora of Athens, the Tower of the Winds in the Roman Agora, the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, the Arch of Hadrian, the Pnyx, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and Lycabettus Hill, and historic churches dating from the Middle Ages.

DOWNLOAD the original photo for free (1600×1200 pixels, 869 KB)

Orestes Pursued by the Furies by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

Image: The Remorse of Orestes or Orestes Pursued by the Furies (alternate titles in other languages - French: Les Remords d’Oreste, Portuguese: O Remorso de Orestes, and Spanish: El Remordimiento de Orestes), a 1862 oil on canvas painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905), dimensions 227 cm x 278 cm, located in Chrysler Collection, Norfolk, Virginia.

According to Greek mythology, Orestes was the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Orestes was absent from Mycenae when his father Agamemnon returned from the Trojan War with the Trojan princess Cassandra as his concubine. But Agamemnon and was murdered by his wife Clytemnestra, in retribution for his sacrifice of their daughter Iphigeneia to obtain favorable winds for the Greek’s voyage to Troy. Eight years later Orestes returned from Athens and with his sister Electra avenged his father's death by killing his mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus.

According to Pindar, the young Orestes was saved by his nurse Arsinoe or his sister Electra, when Clytemnestra planned to kill him. He escaped to Phanote on Mount Parnassus, where King Strophius sheltered and raised him. When he was twenty years old, his sister Electra urged him to avenge his father's death. So he returned home along with his friend Pylades, son of King Strophius.

In ‘The Greek Myths’ the poet Robert Graves translates and interprets the legends and myths about Clytemnestra, Agamemnon and Orestes. Graves asserts that the sacrilege, for which the Erinyes (or Furies or Dirae in Roman mythology who were female chthonic deities of vengeance or supernatural personifications of the anger of the dead) pursued Orestes, was actually the killing of his mother, who symbolized matriarchy.

In Aeschylus's Eumenides, Orestes went mad after killing his mother and he was pursued by the Erinyes. He took refuge in the temple of Delphi. But, even though Apollo had ordered him to kill his mother, he was powerless to save Orestes. At last Athena received him on the acropolis of Athens and arranged for a formal trial of the case before a jury of twelve judges, including her. While the Erinyes demanded their victim, Orestes pleaded the orders of Apollo. When the votes of the judges were counted the result was a tie, and then Athena cast the last vote for the acquittal of Orestes.

The same myth is told differently by Sophocles and Euripides in their plays on Electra. Many other authors also wrote on the story with more details, and even contradictions.

The Parthenon dominates the skyline of Athens

The Parthenon's position on the Acropolis allows it to dominate the city skyline of Athens, the city whose name is evolved from the Greek Goddess Athena.