Below the Acropolis is the Theater of Dionysius. Good Lord, what a lot of history has been lived in a small span. Up and to the west is the hill of Mars where Paul the Apostle preached the gospel in the very shadow of the Parthenon. And here was held the debut of Oedipus and Antigone, where Socrates laughed good naturedly - so he claimed - whenever Aristophanes made fun of him in one of his plays.The stage itself was roped off. "Don't go onstage!" Nancy warned me. But what I wanted more than anything was to go onstage, to stand where Medea showed Jason the penalty for faithlessness, where Oedipus learned the shocking truth of his parentage, where Lysistrata brought an end to a war by a sexual embargo.
But I didn't do it. I didn't risk having a whistle blown at me by a groundskeeper. Still. On this ground walked Socrates, Sophocles, Pericles, St Paul, Plato, and Alexander the Great. And me.
