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ARCHiPELAGOS | Passagens (Crónica)

Posted by michales loukovikas on 2020/07/25

Posted in: Reflections on our work. Tagged: Agora, Alexandria, Amélia Muge, Ana Dias, Andreas Karakotas, Antígona, Antístrofe, António José Martins, António Quintino, ARCHiPELAGOS, Ares Alexandrou, Argonautas, Armando Soares, Arquipélago, Atenas, Ítaca, Balcãs, Bouzouki, Bulería, Campos Elísios, Cantiga de amigo, Catarina Anacleto, Catarina Moura, Cesária Évora, Christos Megas, Corifeu, Coro, Cramol, Cristiana Serejo, Democracia, Diatónico e cromático, Dimitris Mystakidis, Eros, Escala diatônica, Esmirna, Estásimo, Estrabão, Estrofe, Euripides, Fernando Lopes-Graça, Fernando Pessoa, Filipe Raposo, Flamenco, Flauta doce, Friedrich Hölderlin, Gênero cromático, Giorgos Andreou, Giorgos Mitsakis, Harris Lambrakis, Hélia Correia, Heavy metal, Helena, Hesíodo, Hesperides, Hino Hurrita, Homero, Hurritas, Ilhas AfortunadasIlhas Afortunadas, Ilhas Egeias, J. M. Barrie, Jasão, Jónia, João de Deus, José Gomes Ferreira, José Manuel David, José Niza, José Salgueiro, José Saramago, Katolophyromai, Kosmas Papadopoulos, Kostas Hanis, Kyriakos Gouventas, Luís de Camões, Ludwig van Beethoven, Lusofonia, Macaronesia, Manos Achalinotopoulos, Manos Hadjidakis, Mar Egeu, Marcia funebre, Maria José Muge, Maria Monda, Mariana Abrunheiro, Martin Codax, Medeia, Meninos Perdidos, Michales Loukovikas, Mikis Theodorakis, Modulação, Ney, Nikkal, Niovi Benou, Odisseia, Odisseu, Orestes, Orquestra de Cordas Palhetadas, Paló, Panaiotis Tountas, Partenon, Pã, Pedro Casaes, Penelope, Pericles, Peter Pan, Pilares de Hércules, Pink Floyd, Polis, Povos do Mar, Prémio Camões, Queima de livros, Rebético, Ricardo Parreira, Rita Maria, Rosalía de Castro, Rui Vaz, Safo, Salonica, Segue-me à Capela, Sines, Sininho, Sofia Adriana Portugal, Sofia Vitória, Sopa de Pedra, Sotto voce, Susana Quaresma, Tânia Cardoso, Teresa Campos, Terra do Nunca, Thanassis Tsipinakis, Thomas More, Thomás Natsis, Trácia, Transilvânia, Ugarit, Ulisses, Utopia, Vasilis Tsitsanis, Violeta Parra, Zonaradiko. Leave a comment

ARCHiPELAGOS | Passagens (Crónica)

Amélia Muge | Michales Loukovikas

/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ ΑΡΧΙΠΕΛΑΓΟΣ | Δίαυλοι (Χρονικό)
/ENGLISH/ ARCHiPELAGOS | Passages (Chronicle)

Sobre as ilhas do Egeu | – vem cá fora e vê! –
os anjos batem as asas | espalhando rosas…

Michales Loukovikas

I. REVISITANDO O ARQUIPÉLAGO
1. O arquipélago
(a. Está a Jónia em flor? / b. Onde está Atenas?)
2. Κατολοφύρομαι (Katolophýromae: É tão profunda a dor)

Hélia Correia está nos nossos corações; e no coração deste Archipelagos. A nossa sequência mais longa é quase toda baseada no seu extenso poema A Terceira Miséria, que começa com uma citação de Friedrich Hölderlin do seu poema Pão e Vinho: Para que servem os poetas em tempos de indigência? Seguindo os passos de Hélia, o nosso ponto de partida foi O arquipélago, também deste poeta. Durante uma viagem ao norte de Portugal, onde vivia sua mãe, Maria José, já com 96 anos, Amélia Muge convenceu-a a recitar com ela alguns excertos deste poema. José Martins lá estava para as gravar. Começámos bem… Agora que penso nisso, sinto que foi uma pena que a filha de Amélia, Cristiana, não tivesse participado também: teríamos três gerações a recitar em conjunto!

O arquipélago, como nos lembrou Hölderlin, era originalmente o Mar Egeu e as suas ilhas. Como introdução, acho que não podíamos encontrar melhor melodia para evocar a música do Egeu do que a desta bela canção tradicional, em versão instrumental, mas cuja primeira estância se pode ler acima. Faltava o “toque” português: ao lado do violino de Kyriakos Gouventas, convocámos a guitarra portuguesa de Ricardo Parreira. Excelente combinação!

Depois havia que resolver o problema do mar. Inicialmente, adicionei sons do mar (ondas, gaivotas, etc.), mas Amélia reagiu: Demasiado realista, disse. Então teve uma ideia fantástica: E se fossem vozes em vez de ondas? Eu e José respondemos em coro: Vamos a isso! Esse coral das ondas, concebido pelo José e cantado em coro por Maria Monda (Sofia, Susana, Tânia), Cramol e Teresa Campos, fez-me sentir que não são apenas ondas do mar, mas também esses anjos voando sobre o Egeu espalhando rosas…

Eurípides

Este foi o primeiro, brilhante, florido excerto do poema (Está a Jónia em flor?). Para o segundo, escuro e sombrio (Onde está Atenas?), fiz novo arranjo de uma antiga composição minha (no Ouro do Céu, para poesia de Ares Alexandrou), que abre caminho a Eurípides e à sua tragédia, Orestes. O stasimon Katolophýromae, introduzido por Harris Lambrakis no ney e flauta de bisel, é cantado em grego antigo por um coro composto por Amélia, Andreas Karakotas, Manos Achalinotópoulos, e eu próprio no papel de corifeu. (Escrevemos sobre Eurípides e Orestes na nossa Arquipédia, uma das secções do eBook que acompanha o CD, onde se pode encontrar muita informação complementar sobre o ARCHiPELAGOS. Muito desta informação é também apresentada aqui no nosso blog, se seguirem os links que estão nos títulos de cada sequência).

1. Friedrich Hölderlin (Der Archipelagus, 1800-1801, excertos, adaptação para português: Amélia Muge) | a. Tradicional do Egeu / b. Michales Loukovikas | Arranjo: M. Loukovikas, A. J. Martins
2. Eurípides (Orestes, 408 AEC, fragmentos: estrofe e antístrofe) | Adaptação-Arranjo: M. Loukovikas

II. CANTOS DA ARGILA
3. Embalar meninos, acordar adultos
11. Μάγισσα Θάλασσα (Νέοι Λαοί τής Θάλασσας) | Mar feiticeiro (Novos Povos do Mar)

Hino hurrita a Nikkal, Ugarit (séc. XIII AEC)

Num navio do tempo /espaço, viajámos um milénio para trás, de Atenas do séc. V AEC. até Ugarit, Síria, c. 1400, para ouvir um Hino hurrita. Na verdade, depois de Eurípides, não fiquei assim tão fascinado quando o ouvi; mas Amélia quedou-se espantada, pela semelhança com um outro hino, anti-fascista, Acordai!, de José Gomes Ferreira e Fernando Lopes-Graça, escrito por volta de 1946, uma década antes da publicação do hino hurrita. O meu coração oriental, por outro lado, foi sendo tocado por algumas versões do hino no género cromático. O problema era que as mesmas o afastavam de Acordai. Por isso, fizémos duas variações: uma, diatónica, próxima de Acordai (Canção de embalar meninos e acordar adultos), e outra, como lamento diatónico-cromático sobre a tragédia dos refugiados (Mar feiticeiro).

Cabeça de mulher chorando com lenço (1937, possivelmente um estudo para Guernica),
de Pablo Picasso

Foi para mim um choque tremendo ver, na orla de uma praia, a foto do corpo de uma criança que se afogou quando a família tentava passar da Turquia para a Grécia. Os meus versos começam com uma frase que ouvi a outro refugiado, em Marrocos, que não conseguiu atravessar o Estreito de Gibraltar para a Espanha: Quando miro o mar, os meus olhos ficam cheios d’água… Que tocante é a interpretação do meu amigo Andreas Karakotas, tele-dirigido por mim: eu em Lisboa, ele em Salónica! Ana Dias, na harpa, criou o pano de fundo apropriado tanto aqui como no tema Utopia (Ilhas Imaginárias).

3. Amélia Muge / José Gomes Ferreira (Acordai!, excerto) | Anónimo (Hino hurrita antigo, fragmento) / Fernando Lopes-Graça (Acordai!, excerto) | Adaptação: A. Muge. Αrranjo: A. J. Martins
11. Michales Loukovikas | Anónimo (Hino hurrita antigo, fragmento) | Adaptação-Αrranjo: M. Loukovikas

III. MACARONÉSIA (Macárōn Nẽsoe: Ilhas Afortunadas)
4. Ali no meio do mar
5. Dança do trigo
6. Um gingado lamento

Cesária Évora

A Macaronésia é composta por quatro arquipélagos no Atlântico norte: Açores e Madeira (Portugal), Canárias (Espanha) e Cabo Verde. O nome deriva do termo grego Μακάρων Νῆσοι (Macárōn Nẽsoe, Ilhas Afortunadas ou Ilhas dos bem aventurados), usado pelos geógrafos para as ilhas Elísias, ilhas a oeste dos Pilares de Hércules (Estreito de Gibraltar), um paraíso terrestre sem inverno. De acordo com Hesíodo, eram os Campos Elísios, habitados por heróis. Estrabão identificou-as com as ilhas das Hespérides.

Gingado Lamento, de Amélia, dedicado a Cesária Évora, tem este toque mágico. Encantou-me, desde a primeira vez que o ouvi. Assim, como o finale da saga da Macaronésia, que é ainda melhor! Nesta sequência são solistas Amélia e Rita Maria (que canta a Dança do Trigo em castelhano) sendo os coros feitos por Maria Monda e por mim.

4. Amélia Muge / Tradicional (Canárias, Açores) | Arranjo: A. J . Martins, A. Muge
5. Amélia Muge / Tradicional (Canárias) | Arranjo: A. J. Martins, A. Muge
6. Amélia Muge | Arranjo: M. Loukovikas, A. J. Martins

IV. PENAS DE AMOR O QUE SÃO?
7. A tentação
8. Δέδυκε ἀ σελάννα / Lua desceu, mergulhou
(a. A lua mergulhou / b. Sentidos divididos / c. Eros)

Safo de Ereso, cópia romana de
um original grego (séc. V AEC)

A Tentação, é, a meu ver, uma das melhores composições de Amélia, feita para este poema de Hélia. Disse-lhe muitas vezes ser uma pena não estar num dos seus álbuns. Pronto, aqui está ela! E em boa companhia: a de Safo.

Graças a Amélia, que teve a ideia de a incluir, pesquisei bastante, lendo a poesia Sáfica; para compor, acabei por combinar três fragmentos:(*) A Lua baixou, Sentidos divididos, e Eros. Além do mais convenci Amélia que conseguiria cantar em helénico antigo – experiência que descreveu depois como… um salto sobre o abismo! Neste “salto” é acompanhada por Rita Maria, Catarina Anacleto e Maria Monda.

(*) Embora a sua poesia fosse bem conhecida e grandemente admirada na antiguidade, quase toda chegou até nós em fragmentos, principalmente por a Igreja cristã desaprovar a sua moral e as autoridades eclesiásticas adorarem queimar as suas antologias…

7. Hélia Correia | Amélia Muge | Arranjo: F. Raposo
8. Safo (em grego antigo e português – adaptação: Amélia Muge) | Michales Loukovikas | Adaptação-Arranjo: M. Loukovikas

V. CANSAÇO DE SER
9. Sono de ser
10. The Hours (As horas)

Fernando Pessoa

Esta sequência é dedicada a Fernando Pessoa. Começa com Sono de ser, outro dos meus temas favoritos, que já tinha sido editado, com outro ambiente musical, no seu CD A Monte. Aqui, o canto de Amélia cria um daqueles raros momentos. É excelentemente acompanhada por Filipe Raposo.

The Hours, um dos Poemas Ingleses de Pessoa, destaca-se também. Compus o tema para Sofia Vitória (CD Echoes, dedicado aos poemas ingleses de Pessoa). Como acabou por não entrar no seu trabalho pude, felizmente, tê-lo aqui com o meu arranjo… heavy metal, reforçado pelo vibrafone de Kostas Hanís e o contrabaixo de António Quintino! Amélia e eu sincronizámos as nossas vozes e o coro (Maria Monda) sintonizou-se connosco.

O modo como compus esta canção foi, para Amélia, fascinante. Durante um dos meus passeios de fim da tarde pela vizinhança, com o The Hours sem me sair da cabeça, lembrei-me do Time dos Pink Floyd com os relógios a tocar logo que a música começa. Decidi então ter um clique de relógios marcando os segundos, os minutos, As horas… Fui acelerando o passo, murmurando as palavras de Fernando e, de repente, a linha do baixo apareceu! Continuei a repetir esta linha até chegar a casa, pois não tinha nada aonde apontar e iria esquecer. Ao chegar, Fernando também me ofertou a linha melódica básica! Trabalhei furiosamente durante… Horas; Só parei quando até o arranjo ficou pronto. Mandei-o imediatamente, felicíssimo, para Amélia…

9. Fernando Pessoa | Amélia Muge | Arranjo: F. Raposo
10. Fernando Pessoa | Michales Loukovikas | Arranjo: M. Loukovikas

VI. NA TAVERNA DO PORTO
12. Versos quaisquer (Pedidos com instância)
13. Ο Νικόλας ο ψαράς (Nicolas, o Pescador)

É a sequência do… fadobetiko (termo cunhado por Amélia). O seu tema, à la fado corrido, é baseado num poema satírico de João de Deus, um dos maiores poetas portugueses do séc. XIX. A introdução, feita por Kyriakos Gouventas, tem um sabor a norte dos Balcãs, em acordo com a referência poética à Transilvânia.

Giorgos Mitsakis (E) and Vasilis Tsitsanis (D)

O trágico Nicolas, o pescador, combina dois dos maiores compositores de rebético: Vasilis Tsitsanis, um dos fundadores do rebético moderno (abrindo o caminho a grandes compositores como Manos Hadjidakis e Mikis Theodorakis); e Giorgos Mitsakis, um hábil compositor e letrista, apelidado de o mestre como tocador de bouzouki.

Muito emocionado (desfiz-me em lágrimas ao cantá-la no estúdio; Amélia e o engenheiro de som, Christos Megas, pensavam que eu me estava a rir…), descrevo a trágica figura de uma mãe vestida de negro que durante meses, de pé, em frente ao mar, aguardava a chegada da pesca de seu filho, Nicolas, sem que ninguém tivesse coragem de dizer-lhe que se tinha afogado… Esta canção também comoveu os portugueses. Falaram-me de outras mulheres vestidas de negro que ainda permanecem de pé, à beira-mar, fixando o longe de olhos vazios…

12. João de Deus | Amélia Muge | Arranjo: A. J. Martins
13. Giorgos Mitsakis | Vasilis Tsitsanis | Arranjo: M. Loukovikas

VII. ILHAS IMAGINÁRIAS
14. Uma ilha, Utopia
15. Penélope de Ítaca
16. Meninos perdidos

Ulisses entre os Feácios, de Jean Broc. Odisseu mostra seu areté físico ao vencer o concurso de arremesso de disco depois de ser desafiado por um atleta Feácio. Muito antes de Platão, Homero
é o primeiro a descrever a Utopia, ou até a Atlântida, que ele chama Esquéria, a terra dos Feácios.

O nosso fascínio pelos lugares míticos e imaginários. Fico contente que acabe musicalmente na Trácia, onde nasci, com esta dança lendária, zonarádikos, onde se destacam Amélia e Maria Monda (vozes), Manos Achalinotópoulos (clarino/clarinete folk) e Harris Lambrakis (ney). Viajamos antes disso pela Utopia de Thomas More (onde Amélia evoca a Caixa vazia de Ares Alexandrou) e ainda por Ítaca de Penélope e Ulisses, para, finalmente, encalharmos na Terra do Nunca, de J. M. Barrie, encontrando não Peter Pan ou Sininho, mas uns muito especiais Meninos Perdidos.

VIII. EM TEMPO DE INDIGÊNCIA
17. Sem Deuses
18. Nós
19. Feitiço / Experimentos
20. As ilhas do Egeu
21. A ruína da Grécia
22. Falamos de sombras (Democracia)
23. Um início

Esta sequência tem por base excertos dos poemas de Hélia: Indignação (Nós e Feitiço) e A Terceira Miséria (restantes excertos). N’A Terceira Miséria, poema dedicado à Grécia,(*) começa por citar, como já foi dito no início, Hölderlin: Para quê, para que servem os poetas em tempo de indigência? O poeta alemão é referido várias outras vezes, especialmente quando ela fala de Atenas. Senti-me lisonjeado quando vi o Partenon na capa do livro. Ficou Amélia sem palavras, quando leu o poema. Por tudo isto, esta é a nossa sequência principal.

(*) Como expliquei ao falar de Periplus, nosso trabalho anterior, Hélia é uma entusiástica helenista e filelena, reinterpretando os mitos helénicos e dando destaque a heroínas como Antígona, Helena, e Medeia. Tanto no seu poema maior, A Terceira Miséria, como também na Indignação, ela refere-se aos Argonautas de Jasão, à antiga Ágora das poleis helénicas, à Odisseia de Homero, às Ilhas do Egeu e Ruína da Grécia, aos deuses antigos, Pã e Alexandria, a Péricles e à democracia. Quando foi galardoada com o Prémio Camões (2015), a mais prestigiada distinção do mundo Lusófono, dedicou-o à Grécia, de onde vem a poesia, sem a qual não seríamos nada, nem teríamos nada, como disse na cerimónia de entrega do prémio, exclamando no final: Viva a Grécia! Por tudo isto, é uma tristeza que ninguém tenha publicado A Terceira Miséria na Grécia. Enfim, é a quarta miséria da parte da Grécia moderna…

Friedrich Hölderlin, o poeta fileleno, por Johanna Ebertz (1979)

A citação de Hölderlin em Sem Deuses é repetida em Ilhas do Egeu, numa paisagem sonora completamente diferente. Aqui, depois de muitas experiências, usei como modelo a introdução a Eco, composição de Manos Achalinotópoulos, desenvolvendo-a mais no sentido uma improvisação livre. Como Manos está na nossa equipa, foi possível trabalhar com ele esta ideia, que também teve improvisos de Harris Lambrakis, Amélia e Kyriakos Gouventas. Que prazer, ter aqui Hélia recitando a sua própria poesia!

Nós e A Ruína da Grécia são duas canções gêmeas; os poemas da Hélia são aqui gémeos também! Lembro-me de ouvir dentro de mim a melodia da Ruína desde a primeira vez que li Nós, os ateus, nós, os monoteístas… Depois, mudando o compasso de cinco para seis tempos, rearranjei-a para os versos de Nós.

Para ser sincero, não conhecia quase nada sobre Hölderlin. Tentando saber mais, leio na ficha de informação básica da Wikipedia: “Nascimento – 20 de Março…” (Oh, pensei, no mesmo dia que eu!); “… 1770” (Ena! No mesmo ano de Ludwig!!) Imediatamente a seguir tive uma ideia completamente louca: Bem, e depois? Terceira miséria… Terceira sinfonia! Deixa-me ver… Na verdade, não tinha grandes expectativas. Comecei a entoar a Miséria com a melodia da Marcia funebre de Beethoven no Segundo movimento da Eroica. Principiei com a 25ª parte do poema, “Sim, falamos de sombras”… que me pareceu mais adequada. Fiquei espantado! Mas havia mais melodia. Então, agora vamos voltar atrás e tentar a 23ª parte, “A terceira miséria é esta”… Impressionante! Um pouco mais e terminamos a primeira parte da Marcia, pensei. Esse pouco mais foi encontrado na 32ª parte da Miséria: “Estão as praças como ágoras de outrora”… E o mais fantástico de tudo isto: a melodia de Ludwig acabava com a frase de Hélia: “fervilhante palavra própria da democracia” – Inacreditável!!! UM MILAGRE!..

Procurei a partitura de Beethoven. Tinha adaptado de memória a mesma melodia no meu trabalho O Ouro do Céu; mas desta vez queria ser rigoroso. Meticulosamente rearranjei a partitura, atribuindo as linhas melódicas a outros instrumentos, sem deixar nada de fora (espero). O confronto final veio quando apresentei a minha loucura à Amélia. Como não falo português, só então percebi que várias palavras ou frases estavam fora do lugar, não muito bem adaptadas à música. A ajuda dela neste aspecto foi crucial. Depois, foi a minha vez de a convencer de que não queria aqui uma voz operática – talvez até nem Ludwig a quisesse, ou então, porque teria ele acrescentado Sotto voce sob o título? Queria ter a voz dela habitual. Feito! E estou muito orgulhoso do resultado – mesmo que alguns puristas se possam vir a queixar…

Posso dizer aqui o que disse anteriormente a propósito de Eurípides: Se Ludwig nos pudesse ouvir, espero sinceramente que tivesse sorrido e aplaudido aprovadoramente, apesar das pedradas dos puristas! Participaram também, para lá de Maria Monda, Rui Vaz, José Manuel David e Pedro Casaes no coro, Filipe Raposo ao piano, bem como o meu amigo Kosmás Papadópoulos no clarinete.

O que é que alguém poderia compor depois de tal música? Acho que a Amélia nem sequer pensou nisso – e fez ela muito bem; apresentou uma melodia tão primorosa para Um início, que a coloco ao lado de Ludwig! Considero esta sua composição como a melhor do nosso Archipelagos.

17. Hélia Correia | Amélia Muge | Arranjo: A. Muge, A. J. Martins, M. Loukovikas
18. Hélia Correia | Michales Loukovikas | Arranjo: M. Loukovikas
19. Hélia Correia / A. Muge | Amélia Muge | Arranjo: A. J. Martins, F. Raposo
20. Hélia Correia | Manos Achalinotópoulos, Amélia Muge | Arranjo: M. Loukovikas
Improvisos: H. Lambrakis, M. Achalanitópoulos, A. Muge, K. Gouventas
21. Hélia Correia | Michales Loukovikas | Arranjo: M. Loukovikas
22. Hélia Correia | Ludwig van Beethoven (Terceira Sinfonia, Eroica, 1804, Segundo movimento, primeira parte: Marcia funebre, Adagio assai, Sotto voce) | Adaptação-Arranjo: M. Loukovikas
23. Hélia Correia | Amélia Muge | Arranjo: A. J. Martins, F. Raposo

IX. JÁ SE DÃO AS VOLTAS TODAS
24. Νοσταλγία: Το παράπονο του μετανάστη | Nostalgia: A queixa do emigrante
25. Nostalgia: Cantar de emigração
(a. Sodade / b. Run-Run se fue pa’l norte / c. Cantar de emigração / d. A queixa do emigrante)
26. Alegria

Rosalía de Castro (E) and Violeta Parra (D)

É a nossa sequência sobre migrações e regressos a casa (nostalgia e nostos). Abraçando várias ideias da Amélia, combinei um rebético de Vasilis Tsitsanis (também conhecido pelo título de Como um banido, à deriva), com Cantar de emigração de Rosalía de Castro e José Niza, Run-Run se fue pa´l norte de Violeta Parra e Sodade de Armando Soares. Amélia tinha-me escutado, tempos atrás, a cantar o referido rebético e enviou-me uma adaptação que me lembrou o fado, também aqui incluída como instrumental. Além disso, estou muito feliz por ter connosco representantes dos quatro coros femininos que Amélia convidou para o projeto De Viva Voz (emocionei-me tanto neste concerto!): Cramol, Maria Monda, Catarina Moura (Segue-me à Capela) e Teresa Campos (Sopa de Pedra). Ainda Rita, Rui, David, e Pedro, Paló e Mariana Abrunheiro, Amélia e eu próprio – começando esta aventura Como um banido, à deriva…

José Saramago, por Carlos Botelho

A sequência termina com outra adaptação de Amélia, onde combina a Alegria de José Saramago com uma excelente melodia do nosso amigo Giorgos Andreou, que aqui também dirige a Orquestra de Cordas Palhetadas de Patras.

24. Vasilis Tsitsanis | Arranjo: M. Loukovikas
25. a. Armando Soares (adaptação: M. Loukovikas) / b. Violeta Parra / c. Rosalía de Castro (adaptação para português: J. Niza) | José Niza / d. Vasilis Tsitsanis (adaptação: A. Muge) | Arranjo: M. Loukovikas, A. Muge
26. José Saramago | Giorgos Andreou | Adaptação: A. Muge, A.J. Martins. Arranjo: G. Andreou

X. O QUE AS ONDAS CONTAM
27. Κύματα μύρια τού πελάγου / Ondas do mar de Vigo
28. Contas do mar (Bulería de Sines)

Exuberância, de Penny Warden

A nossa última sequência começa com outra adaptação de Amélia, combinando uma Cantiga de amigo de Martín Codax, com um rebético de Esmirna de Panaiotis Tountas e que cantamos aqui nas duas línguas. Como na altura estava a trabalhar nas canções de Tountas, Retratos de Mulheres do Rebético, “pintados” com a sua excelente Arte de Modulação, costumava enviar cópias do meu trabalho para a Amélia; no dia dos meus anos, agradeceu-me desta forma, com esta excelente adaptação em forma de presente de aniversário.

O finale é uma peculiar Bulería que compus em Sines, em 2012, quando lá fomos preparar o nosso concerto de apresentação de Periplus, no Festival Músicas do Mundo. Nesse concerto, tocámos esta bulería na sua forma inicial. Daí para a frente mudámos a canção tradicional portuguesa interposta; a que temos agora é mais adaptada à bulería, com um certo sabor espanhol. Eu chamo-lhe pan-ibérica, daí ter combinado a guitarra portuguesa de Ricardo Parreira com a guitarra flamenca de Thomás Natsis. E que bem cantada por Catarina Moura e Teresa Campos, juntamente com Maria Monda, Amélia e, por fim, um coro de crianças. Como Maria Graciete Besse acertadamente comentou analisando o ARCHiPELAGOS:

“O disco começa com uma voz da sabedoria que recita versos de Hölderlin (a mãe de Amélia, com 98 anos) e termina com um coro infantil, desenhando assim um itinerário que se projecta no futuro.”

Desfrutem!

27. Martín Codax (adaptação em grego: Michales Loukovikas) | Panaiotis Tountas | Adaptação: A. Muge. Arranjo: M. Loukovikas (Cantiga de amigo de um dos melhores trovadores medievais combinada com a melodia do maior compositor do rebético de Esmirna)
28. Amélia Muge | Michales Loukovikas, Tradicional Português | Arranjo: M. Loukovikas, A. Muge

Outubro 2017

● Ver também: PERIPLUS | Luso-Hellenic Wanderings (Chronicle) | GIORGOS ANDREOU on ARCHiPELAGOS
| MARIA GRACIETE BESSE on ARCHiPELAGOS | MARIA DO ROSÁRIO PESTANA on ARCHiPELAGOS

ARCHiPELAGOS | Passages (Chronicle)

Posted by michales loukovikas on 2020/07/04

Posted in: Reflections on our work. Tagged: Aegean Islands, Aegean Sea, Agora, Alexandria, Amélia Muge, Ana Dias, Aníbal Cavaco Silva, Andreas Karakotas, António Quintino, Antigone, Antistrophe, Archipelago, ARCHiPELAGOS, Ares Alexandrou, Argonauts, Aristeion, Armando Soares, Athens, Aurora, Azores, Balkans, Book burning, Bulerías, Byzantine Empire, Camões Prize, Canaries, Cantiga de amigo, Cape Verde, Catarina Anacleto, Catarina Moura, Cesária Évora, Chorus, Christos Megas, Chromatic genus, Coryphaeus, Cramol, Cristiana Serejo, Democracy, Diatonic and chromatic, Diatonic scale, Dimitris Mystakidis, Elysium, Eros, Euripides, Fado, Fernando Lopes-Graça, Fernando Pessoa, Festival Músicas do Mundo, Filipe Raposo, Flamenco, Fortunate Isles, Friedrich Hölderlin, Funeral March, Genus, Giorgos Andreou, Giorgos Mitsakis, Harris Lambrakis, Hélia Correia, Heavy metal, Helen, Hellenistic period, Hesiod, Hesperides, Homer, Hurrian songs, Hurrians, Ionia, Ithaca, J. M. Barrie, Jason, João de Deus, José Gomes Ferreira, José Manuel David, José Martins, José Niza, José Salgueiro, José Saramago, Katolophyromai, Kosmas Papadopoulos, Kostas Hanis, Kyriakos Gouventas, Lanzarote, Lisbon, Lost Boys, Luís de Camões, Ludwig van Beethoven, Lusophone, Macaronesia, Madeira, Manos Achalinotοpoulos, Manos Hadjidakis, Maria Graciete Besse, Maria José Muge, Maria Monda, Mariana Abrunheiro, Martin Codax, Medea, Michales Loukovikas, Mikis Theodorakis, Modulation, Neverland, Ney, Nikkal, Niovi Benou, Nobel Prize in Literature, Odysseus, Orestes, Paló, Pan, Panaiotis Tountas, Parthenon, Pedro Casaes, Penelope, Pericles, Periplus, Peter Pan, Philhellenism, Pillars of Heracles, Pink Floyd, Plucked Strings Orchestra of Patras, Polis, Portuguese guitar, Rebetiko, Recorder, Rita Maria, Rosalía de Castro, Rui Vaz, Sappho, Sea peoples, Segue-me à Capela, Sines, Smyrna, Sodade, Sofia Adriana Portugal, Sofia Vitória, Sopa de Pedra, Sotto voce, Stasimon, Strabo, Strait of Gibraltar, Strophe, Susana Quaresma, Tânia Cardoso, Teresa Campos, Thanasis Thipinakis, Thessaloniki, Thomas More, Thomás Natsis, Thrace, Tinker Bell, Transylvania, Ugarit, Utopia, Vasilis Tsitsanis, Vigo, Violeta Parra, Zonaradiko. Leave a comment

ARCHiPELAGOS | Passages (Chronicle)

Amélia Muge | Michales Loukovikas

/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ ΑΡΧΙΠΕΛΑΓΟΣ | Δίαυλοι (Χρονικό)
/PORTUGUÊS/ ARCHiPELAGOS | Passagens (Crónica)

Over the Aegean islands | – come out and see! –
angels are flapping their wings | scattering roses…

Michales Loukovikas

I. REVISITANDO O ARQUIPÉLAGO | THE ARCHIPELAGO REVISITED
1. O arquipélago | The Archipelago
(a. Is Ionia in Bloom? / b. Where Is Athens?)
2. Κατολοφύρομαι (Katolophýromae) | I’m Wailing in Lament (Orestes)

Hélia Correia is in our hearts; she’s also in the heart of our Archipelagos! Our longest sequence is mainly based on her long poem, The Third Misery, which she begins citing Friedrich Hölderlin (from his poem Bread and Wine: What’s the use, what is the purpose of a poet in times of such indigence?). We followed in her steps and chose to have as a starting point his poem, The Archipelago. Then, during a trip up north, Amélia Muge convinced her old mother, Maria José, to recite with her some parts of the poem, and José Martins was there to record them. Good material to begin with… Now that I’m thinking about it, I feel it was a pity that Amélia’s daughter, Cristiana, did not take part, as well: we would have three generations reciting together!

The Archipelago, as Hölderlin reminded us, was originally the Aegean Sea and its islands. Therefore we had to start with Aegean music. I think we could find no better melody as an introduction than the beautiful traditional song whose first stanza you can read above. Yet, we felt that some Portuguese flavour was needed. So, next to Kyriakos Gouventas’ violin, we added the guitarra of Ricardo Parreira. Excellent combination!

Then we had to solve the problem of the sea. Initially, I added sea sounds (waves, seagulls, etc.) but Amélia objected: Too realistic, she said. And then she had an excellent idea: What about voices instead of waves? José and me replied in chorus: Yes! That’s it! Well, these choral waves, designed by José, and sung by Maria Monda (Sofia, Susana, Tânia), Cramol and Teresa Campos, made me feel they’re not only sea waves, but also those angels flying over the Aegean, scattering roses…

Euripides

That was the first, bright, rosy part of the poem (Is Ionia in Bloom?). In the second part, the dark, gloomy one (Where Is Athens?), I rearranged an old composition of mine (from The Gold in the Sky, on poetry by Ares Alexandrou) to pave the way to Euripides and Orestes, his tragedy. The stasimon Katolophýromae, introduced by Harris Lambrakis on the ney and recorder, is performed in ancient Greek by a chorus composed by Amélia, Andreas Karakotas, Manos Achalinotópoulos, and me as the coryphaeus. (We write about Euripides and Orestes in our Archipaedia, in the eBook accompanying the CD, where there is a wealth of information around Archipelagos. Much of this information is also presented here in our blog, following the links you see in the titles of each sequence).

1. Friedrich Hölderlin (Der Archipelagus, 1800-1801, excerpts, adapted into Portuguese by Amélia Muge) | a. Aegean traditional / b. Michales Loukovikas | Arranged by M. Loukovikas, A. J. Martins
2. Euripides (Orestes, 408 BCE, fragments: strophe–antistrophe) | Adapted-Arranged by M. Loukovikas

II. CANTOS DA ARGILA | SONGS OF CLAY
3. Embalar meninos, acordar adultos | Lullabying Children, Waking Up Adults
11. Μάγισσα Θάλασσα (Νέοι Λαοί τής θάλασσας) | Sorceress Sea (New Sea Peoples)

Hurrian hymn to Nikkal, Ugarit (13th century BCE)

Entering a time/space ship, we voyaged a millennium back, from Athens in 408 BCE to Ugarit, Syria, ca. 1400, listening to a Hurrian hymn. To tell you the truth, after Euripides, I was not so much fascinated; but Amélia was amazed, struck by its similarity to a Portuguese anti-fascist hymn: José Gomes Ferreira and Fernando Lopes-Graça’s Acordai! (Wake Up!). My oriental heart, on the other hand, was moved by some renditions of the Hurrian hymn in the chromatic genus. The problem was that these renditions moved away from Acordai. That’s why we decided to have the hymn in two variations, as a diatonic lullaby close to Acordai, and as a diatonic-chromatic lament about the refugees’ tragedy.

Weeping Woman’s Head with handkerchief (1937, possibly a study on Guernica),
by Pablo Picasso

I was so shocked when I saw by the seaside the body of an infant who drowned while his family tried to pass from Turkey to Greece. My lyrics begin with a phrase I heard from another refugee in Morocco, who could not cross the Gibraltar Strait to Spain: Every time I turn and see the sea, tears start falling down… My friend Andreas Karakotas interpreted the song so well tele-directed by me: I was in Lisbon, he was in Salonica! Ana Dias with her harp created the proper background here, as well as in the Imaginary Island of Utopia.

3. Amélia Muge / José Gomes Ferreira (excerpt from Acordai!) | Ancient Hurrian hymn (fragment) / Fernando Lopes-Graça (excerpt from Acordai!) | Adapted by A. Muge. Αrranged by A. J. Martins
11. Michales Loukovikas | Ancient Hurrian hymn (fragment) | Adapted-Arranged by M. Loukovikas

III. MACARONÉSIA | MACARONESIA (Macárōn Nẽsoe: Fortunate Isles)
4. Ali no meio do mar | Out There Amid the Sea
5. Dança do trigo | Wheat Dance
6. Um gingado lamento | Swinging Lament

Cesária Évora

Macaronesia consists of four archipelagos in the North Atlantic: the Azores and Madeira (Portugal), the Canaries (Spain), and Cape Verde. The name is derived from the Hellenic term Μακάρων Νῆσοι (Macárōn Nẽsoe, or Fortunate Isles, Isles of the Blessed), used by geographers for the Elysian islands to the west of the Pillars of Heracles (Strait of Gibraltar), a winterless earthly paradise, which according to Hesiod were the Elysian Fields, inhabited by heroes. Strabo identified them with the isles of the Hesperides.

Amélia’s Swinging Lament, dedicated to Cesária Évora, has this magic touch: I’ve loved it since the first time I listened to it. As the finale of a Macaronesian saga, it’s even better! Featured in this sequence is Amélia in the lead voice – together with Rita Maria who sings the Castilian part of the Wheat Dance – as well as Maria Monda and me in the vocals.

4. Traditionals of the Canaries & the Azores, Amélia Muge | Arranged by A. J . Martins, A. Muge
5. Traditional of the Canaries, Amélia Muge | Arranged by A. J. Martins, A. Muge
6. Amélia Muge | Arranged by M. Loukovikas, A. J. Martins

IV. PENAS DE AMOR O QUE SÃO? | WHAT IS TO SUFFER FROM LOVE?
7. A tentação | Temptation
8. Δέδυκε ἀ σελάννα / Lua desceu, mergulhou | The Moon Has Set Down
(a. The Moon Has Set Down / b. Meanings Are Divided / c. Eros)

Sappho of Eresos, Roman copy of a 5th-century-BCE Greek original

Temptation, written by Hélia, is for me one of Amélia’s best songs. I told her many times it’s a pity it’s not in one of her own albums. So, here it is! And in a good company: that of Sappho’s.

Thanks to Amélia, who had the idea about her, I searched a lot, reading Sapphic poetry, and combined three fragments to compose:(*) The Moon Has Set Down, Meanings Are Divided, Eros. Moreover, I convinced Amélia she can also sing in ancient Hellenic (something that she described as… jumping into the abyss)! In this “jump” here, she is accompanied by Rita Maria, Catarina Anacleto and Maria Monda.

(*) Although her poetry was well-known and greatly admired in antiquity, most of it survives only in fragments, mainly because the Christian Church disapproved of her morals and the ecclesiastical authorities loved to burn her anthologies…

7. Hélia Correia | Amélia Muge | Arranged by F. Raposo
8. Sappho (in ancient Greek – and in Portuguese adapted by Amélia Muge) | Michales Loukovikas | Adapted-Arranged by M. Loukovikas

V. CANSAÇO DE SER | WEARINESS OF BEING
9. Sono de ser | Slumber of Being
10. The Hours

Fernando Pessoa

This sequence is dedicated to Fernando Pessoa. Slumber of Being is another favourite song of mine composed by Amélia. Her singing here is one of those rare moments; she’s accompanied excellently by Filipe Raposo.

The Hours, one of Pessoa’s English Poems, stands out, as well. I composed it for Sofia Vitória’s Echoes. I’m happy it was finally left out, so we can have it here with my… heavy metal arrangement reinforced by Kostas Hanís’ vibraphone and António Quintino’s double bass! Amélia and I synchronized our voices while the girls (Maria Monda) tuned themselves in chorus with us.

Amélia was fascinated by the way I composed this song. It was during one of my afternoon walks around my neighbourhood and I had The Hours stuck in my mind. I remembered Pink Floyd’s Time and the clocks ringing as soon as it started, and I decided to begin with clocks clicking the seconds, the minutes, The Hours… I walked that fast murmuring Fernando’s words and, all of a sudden, the bass line appeared! I kept on repeating this line, as I had nothing on me to record it, lest I forgot it until I reached home. By the time I arrived there, Fernando also offered me the basic melodic line! I worked furiously for Hours; I stopped only when I had even the arrangement ready. Overjoyed, I sent it immediately to Amélia…

9. Fernando Pessoa | Amélia Muge | Arranged by F. Raposo
10. Fernando Pessoa | Michales Loukovikas | Arranged by M. Loukovikas

VI. NA TAVERNA DO PORTO | IN A HARBOUR’S TAVERN
12. Versos quaisquer (Pedidos com instância) | Verses Whatever (Insistent Requests)
13. Ο Νικόλας ο ψαράς | Nicolas, the Fisherman

That’s the sequence of… fadobetiko (a term coined by Amélia). Her song, à la fado corrido, is based on a satiric poem by João de Deus, one of the greatest Portuguese poets of the 19th century. The intro to the song, played by Kyriakos Gouventas, has North Balkan flavour, because the poem starts with a reference to Transylvania.

Giorgos Mitsakis (L) and Vasilis Tsitsanis (R)

The tragic Nicolas, the Fisherman combines two of the greatest rebetiko composers: Vasilis Tsitsanis, one of the founders of modern rebetiko (paving the way for great composers such as Manos Hadjidakis and Mikis Theodorakis); and Giorgos Mitsakis, a skillful composer and lyricist, nicknamed the master as a bouzouki player.

With throbbing emotion (I burst out in tears while singing in the studio; Amélia and the sound engineer, Christos Megas, thought I was laughing…), I present the tragic figure of a black-dressed mother who is standing for months by the seaside, waiting for her son, Nicolas, to return to shore, as no one has the courage to tell her he drowned… This song moved the Portuguese, as well. I was told of black-dressed women who are still standing by the seaside gazing at the sea with empty eyes…

12. João de Deus | Amélia Muge | Arranged by A.J. Martins
13. Giorgos Mitsakis | Vasilis Tsitsanis | Arranged by M. Loukovikas

VII. ILHAS IMAGINÁRIAS | IMAGINARY ISLANDS
14. Uma ilha, Utopia | An Island, Utopia
15. Penélope de Ítaca | Penelope of Ithaca
16. Meninos perdidos | Lost Kids

Ulysses among the Phaeacians, by Jean Broc. Odysseus shows his physical arete by winning the discus-throwing contest after being taunted by a Phaeacian athlete. Long before Plato, Homer seems to be the first to describe Utopia, or even Atlantis, which he calls Scheria, the Phaeacians’ land.

Our fascination with imaginary and mythic places. So good that musically it ends up in Thrace, where I was born, with a… legendary zonarádikos dance, sung by Amélia and Maria Monda, and played by Manos Achalinotópoulos and Harris Lambrakis on the clarino (folk clarinet) and ney. But before that, we voyage to the islands of Thomas More’s Utopia (with Amélia also recalling Ares Alexandrou’s empty Mission Box), Odysseus and Penelope’s Ithaca, until, finally, we run aground on J. M. Barrie’s Neverland, finding not Peter Pan and Tinker Bell there, but some very peculiar Lost Kids.

VIII. EM TEMPO DE INDIGÊNCIA | IN TIMES OF INDIGENCE
17. Sem Deuses | Without Gods
18. Nós | We
19. Feitiço (Experimentos) | Spell (Experiments)
20. As ilhas do Egeu | The Aegean Islands
21. A ruína da Grécia | The Ruin of Hellas
22. Falamos de sombras (Democracia) | We Talk About Shadows (Democracy)
23. Um início | A Beginning

Hélia’s sequence based on excerpts from her poems The Third Misery and Indignation (We and Spell are from Indignation; the rest are from The Third Misery). As I have said, she begins citing Hölderlin: What’s the use, what is the purpose of a poet in times of such indigence? She also refers to him several times, especially when she speaks about Athens, as her poem is dedicated to Greece.(*) I was flattered when I saw the Parthenon on the cover of the book; Amélia was left speechless when she read the poem. We both decided this would be our main sequence.

(*) As I explained talking about Periplus, our previous work, Hélia is an enthusiastic hellenist and philhellene, who reinterpreted Hellenic myths from the point of view of female heroines, such as Antigone, Helen, and Medea. In her major poem, The Third Misery, and also in Indignation, both dedicated to Greece, she refers to Jason’s Argonauts, to the ancient Agora of the Hellenic poleis, to Homer’s Odyssey, to The Aegean Islands and The Ruin of Hellas, to the ancient gods, Pan and Alexandria, to Pericles and democracy. When she was awarded the Camões Prize (2015), the most prestigious literary distinction in the Lusophone world, she dedicated it to Hellas, where poetry comes from, without which we would be nothing and have nothing, as she said, concluding her speech with the exclamation Long live Greece! Therefore it’s a double pity that no one is interested in publishing The Third Misery in Greece. Well, this is a fourth misery on the modern Greeks’ part!

The Philhellene poet Friedrich Hölderlin, by Johanna Ebertz (1979)

Hölderlin’s citation in Without Gods is repeated in The Aegean Islands, in a completely different soundscape. Here, after many experiments, I used as a model the introduction to Echo, a composition by Manos Achalinotópoulos, developing it further as a free improvisation. As Manos is in our team, I was able to work on my idea with him. Harris Lambrakis, Amélia and Kyriakos Gouventas improvised, as well. So good, Hélia recited her own poetry!

We and The Ruin of Hellas are twin songs; Hélia’s poems here are also twins! I remember hearing inside me the melody of the Ruin already from the first time I read “Nós, os ateus, nós, os monoteístas,” (We, the atheists, we, the monotheists)… Then, changing the rhythm from five beats to six, I rearranged it to the verses of We.

I admit I knew almost nothing about Hölderlin. Trying to learn more in Wikipedia, I saw the card with the basic information: “Born – 20 March…” (Oh, I thought, same day with me!) “… 1770” (Gee, same year with Ludwig!!) At once, I thought of something that was more than crazy: Well, how about it? Third Misery… Third Symphony! Let me see… To tell you the truth, I didn’t expect much. I started humming the Misery to Beethoven’s Marcia funebre, in the Second Movement of his Eroica. I began with the 25th part of the poem, “Yes, we talk about shadows”… as it seemed to me more suitable. I was amazed! But there was more melody. So, now let’s go back and try the 23rd part, “The third misery is this one”… I was astonished!! A little more and we finish the first part of the Marcia, I thought. This little more was found in the 32nd part of the Misery: “All the squares seem like agoras of yore”… Most fantastic of all: Ludwig’s melody finished with Hélia’s “fervent word of democracy” – incredible!!! IT’S A MIRACLE!..

I searched for Beethoven’s score. I had adapted by heart the same melody in a previous work of mine (The Gold in the Sky); but this time I wanted to be precise. I meticulously rearranged his score, assigning his melodic lines to other instruments, leaving nothing out (I hope). The final crash test came when I presented my loucura to Amélia. As I don’t speak Portuguese, I realized that several words or phrases were out of place, not well adapted with the music. Her help in this matter was crucial. And then it was my turn to convince her that I did not want an operatic voice, I would hate such a voice, and perhaps even Ludwig might not like it – or else, why did he write Sotto voce under the title? I meant to say, I wanted her voice. Done! I’m very proud of the result – even if some purists will moan…

I can say here what I said before about Euripides: I do hope that if Ludwig listened to us, he would smile and applaud approvingly, despite the brickbats thrown by such purists! Featured also here, except Maria Monda, are Rui Vaz, José Manuel David and Pedro Casaes in the vocals, Filipe Raposo on the piano, as well as my friend Kosmás Papadópoulos with his clarinet.

What can anybody compose after such music? I guess Amélia did not even think about it – and she did very well; and presented such a graceful melody for A Beginning, standing next to Ludwig as equal! I consider this composition of hers as the best in our Archipelagos.

17. Hélia Correia | Amélia Muge | Arranged by A. Muge, A. J. Martins, M. Loukovikas
18. Hélia Correia | Michales Loukovikas | Arranged by M. Loukovikas
19. Hélia Correia (A. Muge) | Amélia Muge | Arranged by A. J. Martins, F. Raposo
20. Hélia Correia | Manos Achalinotópoulos, Amélia Muge | Arranged by M. Loukovikas
A free improvisation by H. Lambrakis, M. Achalanitópoulos, A. Muge, K. Gouventas
21. Hélia Correia | Michales Loukovikas | Arranged by M. Loukovikas
22. Hélia Correia | Ludwig van Beethoven (The Third Symphony, Eroica, 1804, Second Movement, first part: Marcia funebre, Adagio assai, Sotto voce) | Adapted-Arranged by M. Loukovikas
23. Hélia Correia | Amélia Muge | Arranged by A. J. Martins, F. Raposo

IX. JÁ SE DÃO AS VOLTAS TODAS | NOSTALGIA AND NOSTOS
24. Νοσταλγία: Το παράπονο του μετανάστη | Nostalgia: A Migrant’s Yearning
25. Nostalgia: Cantar de emigração | Nostalgia: Singing of Emigration
(a. Sodade / b. Run-Run se fue pa’l norte / c. Cantar de emigração / d. A Migrant’s Yearning)
26. Alegria | Jubilation (Alegria)

Rosalía de Castro (L) and Violeta Parra (R)

Our sequence about Migrations and Homecomings. Embracing several ideas of Amélia’s, I combined a rebetiko by Vasilis Tsitsanis (also known with the title Like an outcast I’m drifting about), with Rosalía de Castro and José Niza’s Cantar de emigração, Violeta Parra’s Run-Run se fue pa´l norte, and Armando Soares’ Sodade. Amélia had listened to me singing this rebetiko and sent me an adaptation of hers that reminded me of a fado. This was also included as an instrumental part. Moreover, I’m so happy to have here representatives of all four female choirs that Amélia invited for the project De Viva Voz (I was so deeply moved in that concert!): Cramol en masse, Maria Monda, Catarina Moura from Segue-me à Capela, and Teresa Campos from Sopa de Pedra, plus Rita, Rui, David and Pedro, Paló and Mariana Abrunheiro, Amélia and me – starting off in this adventure Like an outcast drifting about…

José Saramago,
by Carlos Botelho

An Amélia’s adaptation sums up this sequence, where José Saramago’s Alegria coexists with a fine melody by our friend, Giorgos Andreou, who is directing here the Plucked Strings Orchestra of Patras.

24. Vasilis Tsitsanis | Arranged by M. Loukovikas
25. a. Armando Soares (adapted by M. Loukovikas) / b. Violeta Parra / c. Rosalía de Castro (adapted into Portuguese by J. Niza) | José Niza / d. Vasilis Tsitsanis (adapted by A. Muge) | Arranged by M. Loukovikas, A. Muge
26. José Saramago | Giorgos Andreou | Adapted by A. Muge, A.J. Martins. Arranged by G. Andreou

X. O QUE AS ONDAS CONTAM | SEA WAVES TELLING TALES
27. Κύματα μύρια τού πελάγου / Ondas do mar de Vigo | Myriad Waves of the Sea of Vigo)
28. Contas do mar (Bulería de Sines) | Sea Tales of Pearls (Bulería of Sines)

Exuberance, by Penny Warden

Our last sequence begins with another adaptation of Amélia’s, combining a Cantiga de amigo by Martín Codax, with a rebetiko of Smyrna by Panaiotis Tountas, sung in both languages. Working at that time on Tountas’ songs, Women’s Portraits of Rebetiko, “painted” with his excellent Art of Modulation, I used to send copies of my work to Amélia; she thanked me, and wished me well on my birthday, with this beautiful adaptation.

Our finale is a peculiar Bulería I composed in Sines in 2012. We had gone there to arrange for our performance, presenting Periplus in the Festival Músicas do Mundo. We played the Bulería in its initial form in that concert. Since then we have changed the interposed song; what we have now is more suitable for a bulería as it also has a Spanish flavour, and I consider it Pan-Iberian; that’s why I combine Ricardo Parreira’s guitarra portuguesa with Thomás Natsis’ guitarra flamenca. It is sung so beautifully by Catarina Moura and Teresa Campos, together with Maria Monda, Amélia and, at last, a children’s choir. As Maria Graciete Besse aptly remarked analyzing Archipelagos:

“The disc begins with a voice of wisdom that recites Hölderlin’s verses (Amélia’s mother, aged 98) and ends with a children’s choir, thus designing an itinerary that is projected into the future.”

Enjoy!

27. Martín Codax (also adapted into Greek by Michales Loukovikas) | Panaiotis Tountas | Adapted by A. Muge. Arranged by M. Loukovikas (A major medieval Galician minstrel’s Cantiga de amigo combined with a melody by the greatest composer of the rebetiko of Smyrna)
28. Amélia Muge | Michales Loukovikas, Portuguese traditional | Arranged by M. Loukovikas, A. Muge

October 2017

ARCHiPELAGOS • VIII. IN TIMES OF INDIGENCE

Posted by michales loukovikas on 2017/11/08

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AMÉLIA MUGE & MICHALES LOUKOVIKAS

ARCHiPELAGOS / Passages

VIII. IN TIMES OF INDIGENCE

● Without Gods ● We ● Spell
● The Aegean Islands ● The Ruin of Hellas
● We Talk About Shadows (Democracy)
● A Beginning

/PORTUGUÊS/ ARCHiPELAGOS • VIII. EM TEMPO DE INDIGÊNCIA

/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ ΑΡΧΙΠΕΛΑΓΟΣ • VIII. ΣΤΗΝ ΕΠΟΧΗ ΤΗΣ ΕΝΔΕΙΑΣ

ARCHiPELAGOS / Passages: AMÉLIA MUGE & MICHALES LOUKOVIKAS

Hélia Correia: The Third Misery & Indignation (excerpts)

• Adapted into English by Michales Loukovikas

17. Without Gods

– Hélia Correia / Amélia Muge
• Arranged by A. Muge, António José Martins, Michales Loukovikas

What’s the use, […] what is the purpose
Of a poet in times of such indigence?

[…] without gods, without even
Feeling their absence, we are born,
And unable to remember, draining,
Sucking everything, even that which do not
Serve us as aliment, whatever circulates
In the bowels of the earth, its own lymph,
The one that the Argonauts even saw
Exuding, like blood, from rocks and stones
When everything sang, got injured and wounded.

• Voice: A. Muge / Vocals: Maria Monda, A. Muge • D. Bass: António Quintino
Percussion: José Salgueiro / Violin: Kyriakos Gouventas

Argo, by Konstantinos Volanakis

● Hélia Correia (born 1949): a Portuguese novelist, playwright, and poet. She reinterpreted Hellenic myths from the point of view of female heroines, such as Antigone, Helen, and Medea. The sequence In Times of Indigence is mainly based on her acclaimed poem A Terceira Miséria (2012), a tribute to Greece, following in Friedrich Hölderlin’s footsteps. She was awarded the Camões Prize, the most prestigious literary distinction in the Lusophone world, which she dedicated to Hellas, where poetry comes from, without which we would be nothing and have nothing, as she said, concluding her speech with the exclamation Long live Greece! Therefore it’s a double pity that no one is interested in publishing The Third Misery in Greece. Well, this is a fourth misery on our part! ● Argonauts: heroes in Hellenic mythology who, in the years before the Trojan War, around 1300 BCE, accompanied Jason to Colchis, on the Black Sea coast, in present-day Abkhazia and western Georgia, in his quest to find the Golden Fleece. The term comes from their ship, Argo, named after its builder, Argus. Thus Argonauts literally means Argo sailors. ● While sailing by eastern Phrygia, they encountered stormy weather and, advised by a prophet, they climbed Mount Dindymon, sacred to the mountain mother, Cybele, whom the Hellenes identified with Rhea. There they offered sacrifices to the Dindymene mother and, commanded by Orpheus, they danced in full armour and clashed with their swords on their shields… Hence from that time forward the Phrygians propitiate Rhea with the rhombus and the drum. And the goddess responded: the trees shed fruit, the earth put forth flowers, and wild animals came up wagging their tails. And she caused yet another marvel; for hitherto there was no flow of water on Dindymon, but then an unceasing stream gushed forth from the peak, and the dwellers around called that stream Spring of Jason. And then they made a feast in honour of the goddess on the Mount of Bears, singing the praises of Rhea most venerable; at dawn the winds had ceased and they rowed away from the island. (Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica)

18. We

– Hélia Correia / Michales Loukovikas
• Arranged by M. Loukovikas

We, the abandoned ones, those who do not
Even perceive in what way to placate
And whom,
We, the dumbfounded,
Fraternized with all the landless, we,
The destined for a bleak starvation,
Barbarians with our feet in the black tar,
Heavy drinkers of petroleum, how can it be that

Once more the square,
The Agora, unites us?

• Voice: Amélia Muge / Vocals: Maria Monda, A. Muge • D. Bass: António Quintino
Guitar: Dimitris Mystakidis / Percussion: José Salgueiro / Piano: Filipe Raposo

● Agora: a central spot in ancient Hellenic poleis. Literally it means gathering place, assembly. The agora was the centre of political, artistic, spiritual and athletic life of the city. Later, it also served as an economic centre, as a marketplace, where merchants kept stalls or shops to sell their goods. This attracted artisans who built workshops nearby. From this twin function of the agora as a political and commercial space came the two Greek verbs ἀγορεύω, agoreúō, I speak in public and ἀγοράζω, agorázō, I shop, I buy.

An imaginary depiction of the Agora of ancient Athens at the time of Pericles

19. Spell

– Hélia Correia / Amélia Muge
• Arranged by António José Martins, Filipe Raposo

All those – not in existence
Those who have left us terrified, alone,
With no proper tools and devices,
Without thinking,
Without these temperamental gods
Who liked to take sides during the battles.

Being transformed into pigs, by a spell,
Due to malevolence,
Oh, yes, exactly
Just like in the Odyssey,
We do not know
– and the Greeks cannot remember –
What can we do so as to
Break the spell?

Circe Invidiosa, by John William Waterhouse

Experiments
– Amélia Muge

The ear of a pig
Plus a cat’s paw
The eye of a mouse
A crooked branch
Half of the beak of a skylark

Rosemary dried
A pomegranate
A lame’s nail
The leg of a frog
Grandma’s tongue,
preferably twisted

A drop of spit
A cactus peak
And a fish scale
A pussy’s fur
Wings of a fly bound in a bundle

An arm and a leg
A rubber check
A coin with a hole
The belch of a banker
An entire year’s sweat

• Voice, vocal effects, recitation: A. Muge
• Percussion: José Salgueiro, A.J. Martins
Synthesizers: F. Raposo

● Odyssey: see Homer in ARCHiPELAGOS • VII. IMAGINARY ISLANDS.

●

20. The Aegean Islands

– Hélia Correia / Manos Achalinotópoulos, Amélia Muge
– A free improvisation
by Harris Lambrakis, M. Achalinotópoulos, A. Muge, Kyriakos Gouventas
• Arranged by Michales Loukovikas

[…] Only later […]
He who did not know how to be docile […]
Became conscious of the howl that was emitted
From all the islands, with their shorelines
And their deserted forests. […]

[…] Yes, that was
The initial misery, the desertion of
The gods. The second one, their death,
That on Pan’s death was announced
With the lament of the forests, the mournful
Clamour of the Aegean Islands. […]

What’s the use, […] what is the purpose
Of a poet in times of such indigence?

• Recitation: H. Correia / Voice: A. Muge / Vocal impros: M. Achalinotópoulos, A. Muge
• Instrumental impros: H. Lambrakis, ney; M. Achalinotópoulos, clarino; K. Gouventas, violin
Drones: K. Gouventas, viola; António Quintino, d. bass; Catarina Anacleto, cello

Pan and Syrinx, by Jean François de Troy.

● Aegean Islands: see ARCHiPELAGOS • I. THE ARCHIPELAGO REVISITED. ● Pan: the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, mountains, and pastoral music, connected to fertility and spring. He had the hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat, just like a satyr. The Greeks also considered him to be the god of theatrical criticism. His name originates from the Greek verb πάειν, páein (to pasture); the word panic is derived from his name, due to the sudden fear the people felt in the mountains hearing strange animal sounds. Syrinx, a nymph known for her chastity, was also panicked when she was chased after by Pan. In order to escape, she was transformed into hollow water reeds that made a haunting sound when the god’s frustrated breath blew across them. He cut the reeds to fashion the first set of pan pipes, which are also known as syrinx. Pan became a significant figure in the Romantic movement in the 18th and 19th centuries, and also in the Neopagan movement of the 20th-century.

●

21. The Ruin of Hellas

– Hélia Correia / Michales Loukovikas
• Arranged by M. Loukovikas

We, the atheists, we, the monotheists,
We, anyone reducing sheer beauty
Down to petty chores, we, the poor but
Well-adorned, the poor but feeling cozy,
Who are always willing to delude ourselves
Amazed while gazing upwards, at the towers,
Supposing that inside we could reside,
Glory of eagles with no eagles there,
We suffer, yes, from the one and same indigence,
From the ruin of Hellas.

● Atheism: the absence of belief in the existence of deities, the rejection of belief that any deities exist. It is contrasted with theism, which is the belief that at least one deity exists. The etymological root for the word originated before the 5th century BCE from the Greek ἄθεος (atheos), meaning without god(s). The actual term atheism emerged in the 16th century. ● Monotheism: the belief in the existence of only one god that created the world, where he interferes and is all-powerful. A distinction may be made between exclusive monotheism, and both inclusive or panentheistic monotheism which, while recognizing various distinct gods, postulate some underlying unity. Monotheism is distinguished from henotheism, a religious system in which the believer worships one god without denying that others may worship different gods with equal validity, and monolatrism, the recognition of the existence of many gods but with the consistent worship of only one deity.

• Voice: Amélia Muge / Vocals: Maria Monda, A. Muge • Clarino: Manos Achalinotópoulos
D. Bass: António Quintino / Guitar: Dimitris Mystakidis / Ney: Harris Lambrakis
Percussion: José Salgueiro / Piano: Filipe Raposo / Violin: Kyriakos Gouventas

22. We Talk About Shadows (Democracy)

– Hélia Correia / Ludwig van Beethoven
• Adapted/Arranged by Michales Loukovikas

The Third Symphony (Eroica), Second Movement, first part
Marcia funebre, Adagio assai, Sotto voce (1804)

Yes, we talk about shadows. Thinking twice,
We did burn every thing: Alexandria,
The sages and the women, […]
The noble heart. We have on our shoulders
The apparatus of the destroyers, […]:
That kind of arrogance
Out of which the Occident has been lost.

The third misery is this one, […].
That of those who just don’t listen nor ask questions.
[…] don’t remember. And, contrary
To the exalted Pericles, they turn to
Be one with […] those who surrender,
Those who shall mix themselves like a liquid
Within a liquid mass, the form is lost,
The statue is turned into dust.

All the squares
Seem like agoras of yore, astounded
By the concentration of organisms,
By the use of the word, the passionate
And fervent word of democracy […]

Monument to Beethoven, by Francesco Jerace (1895)

• Voice: Amélia Muge / Vocals: Maria Monda, A. Muge, Rui Vaz, José Manuel David, Pedro Casaes
• Cello: Catarina Anacleto / Clarinet: Kosmás Papadópoulos / D. Bass: António Quintino
Ney: Harris Lambrakis / Percussion: José Salgueiro / Piano: Filipe Raposo
Violin, Viola: Kyriakos Gouventas

● Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827): a German composer and pianist, a crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music. He remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers. ● His Third Symphony, a large-scale composition completed in early 1804, is one of his most celebrated works. Initially he dedicated it to (Napoleon) Buonaparte (its original title), who he believed embodied the democratic and anti-monarchical ideals of the French Revolution. He tore off the dedication when he learned that Napoleon had declared himself Emperor. The score was published in 1806 under the Italian title Sinfonia Eroica, composta per festeggiare il sovvenire di un grande Uomo (Heroic Symphony, composed to celebrate the memory of a great Man). When informed of Napoleon’s death (1821), Beethoven said, I wrote the music for this sad event 17 years ago, referring to the second movement, Marcia funebre, funeral march; Adagio assai, very slow; Sotto voce, low voice: intentionally lowering the volume of one’s voice for emphasis, giving the impression of uttering a truth which may surprise, shock, or offend. In music, it is a dramatic lowering of the volume, vocal or instrumental – not necessarily pianissimo, but definitely a hushed tonal quality.

Hypatia, by Charles William Mitchell (1885)

● Alexandria: founded circa 331 BCE by Alexander the Great, it became an important centre of the Hellenistic civilization. It was famous for its Lighthouse (Pharos), one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and its Great Library, the largest in antiquity, which was burned repeatedly by Romans, Byzantines, and Arabs. Its demise has become a symbol of knowledge and culture destroyed. It was part of a larger research institution, the Musaeum, where many of the most famous thinkers of the ancient world studied: Archimedes, Aristarchus, Ctesibius, Eratosthenes, Euclid, Hero, Hipparchus… Most of the books were kept as papyrus scrolls. Estimates range from 40,000 to 400,000 scrolls at its height. After the main library was destroyed, scholars used a daughter library in a temple, the Serapeum, located in another part of the city. ● In 391 CE the Serapeum and the remnants of the Great Library were looted and burned by army troops and Christian fanatics, at the decrees of the Emperor Theodosius and Pope Theophilus. In The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon described Theophilus as the perpetual enemy of peace and virtue, a bold, bad man, whose hands were alternately polluted with gold and with blood. ● The Great Terror in Alexandria climaxed in 415 with the brutal murder of the philosopher, mathematician and astronomer Hypatia, instigated by Cyril, Theophilus’ nephew and successor, counted among the Church Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and canonized as a Saint! In his Historia Ecclesiastica, Socrates of Constantinople, a contemporary Christian historiographer, testified that Cyril agitated a mob of 500 fanatic monks possessed “by a fierce and bigoted zeal [… They] waylaid [Hypatia] returning home and, dragging her from her carriage, they took her to the church called Caesareum [Cyril’s headquarters], where they completely stripped her, and then murdered her with ostraka [potsherds]. After tearing her body in pieces, they took her mangled limbs to a place called Cinaron, and there burnt them.”

Cleisthenes

● Democracy (δημοκρατία, rule of the people) was conceived in classical Greece as a system of government where the citizens exercised power directly, not through representatives. The first democracy in the world was established in Athens in 508 BCE under Cleisthenes as a direct, participatory system, in which the citizens voted themselves on legislation and executive bills, while those selected for office served collectively. The selection was done mostly by lot, not election, because the latter favours the rich, noble, famous, educated, eloquent, and handsome. Allotment was regarded as the most democratic means to prevent the corrupt purchase of votes and give citizens a unique form of political equality. In this way more and more citizens were engaged in politics, ruling and being ruled in turn, as Aristotle wrote. Elected rather than chosen by lot (therefore coming from the higher classes) were the ten generals, due to their necessary expertise in matters of politics and war, and also those who handled large sums of money: any embezzlement could be recovered from their estates. The contempt the first democrats felt for those who did not participate in politics is obvious in the word idiot, from the Greek ἰδιώτης, i.e. a private person, someone who is not actively participating in politics. We do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business, Pericles declared; we say that he has no business here at all. ● Pericles (c. 495 – 429 BCE): a prominent, influential statesman, orator and general, between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, whose name is connected with the Golden Age of Athens.

Pericles’ Funeral Oration, by Philipp Foltz (1852)

23. A Beginning

– Hélia Correia / Amélia Muge
• Arranged by António José Martins, Filipe Raposo

What are the arms at our disposal, if not these
We find inside the body: our own thinking,
The idea of polis, but redeemed
From a great abuse, the very notion of home and
Of hospitality, too, and of commotion
From which we see the rise of the poem, from which
We’ll see the rise of the collection of our deeds
And misdeeds as humans, a beginning.

• Voice: A. Muge / Vocals: Maria Monda • Cello: Catarina Anacleto / D. Bass: António Quintino
Ney: Harris Lambrakis / Percussion: José Salgueiro / Piano: F. Raposo / Violin, Viola: Kyriakos Gouventas

● Polis literally means city in Greek, but referring mainly to the body of its citizens rather than its area; it can also mean citizenship. The Hellenic term that specifically means the totality of urban buildings and spaces is ἄστυ (ásty). Before the Battle of Salamis e.g., the Persians managed to occupy the ásty of Athens, but not the polis, as the citizens boarded the ships of the Athenian fleet and left. In modern historiography, polis is used to indicate a Greek city-state, though this term is inadequate. The Greek poleis were not like the Phoenician city-states, which were ruled by a king or a small oligarchy, with their inhabitants being mere subjects. Thus the term polis came to signify state: politeia in Hellenic means city, but also state, republic, polity, government, governance, etc. while politeuma means regime. Not to mention politics…

●

The Library of Alexandria during its heyday, its acme

>> ARCHiPELAGOS • IX. NOSTALGIA AND NOSTOS

<< ARCHiPELAGOS • VII. IMAGINARY ISLANDS

Chronicle 4. ON DEMOCRACY

Posted by michales loukovikas on 2014/10/18

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Chronicle 4. ON DEMOCRACY

/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ Χρονικό 4. ΠΕΡΙ ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑΣ

● Authentic Democracy: Direct and in No Way “Representative” ●
Castoriadis and Chaos ● The Trial of Socrates ● Ecclesia and Heliaea
● French and Haitian Revolutions ● Plato’s Republic

The Parthenon: the symbol of Athenian democracy.

Michales Loukovikas

“ΟNE OF THE SEVERAL HISTORICAL PARADOXA” of antiquity, I underlined in Chronicle 2, “concerns the differences between the Aegean and the Orient in their political structures: the decentralized Grecian city-states”, on the one hand, and the “centralized empires” in the East, on the other. I tried to explain these differences as a result of objective conditions prevailing in the Orient vis-à-vis those in the Aegean, in order to speak about the birth of democracy –⁽¹⁾ the pure, direct and participatory, in contrast to today’s so-called “representative democracy” that was imposed on us. Here’s to you, my fellow voyagers: especially now, because of the crisis, it is good to make comparisons and have some reflections

OΝ DEMOCRACY

⁽¹⁾ Cornelius Castoriadis, nevertheless, attributed the birth of democracy to the realm of ideas. The Greeks, he said, differed from other societies due to their ideal of autonomy. The Cosmos, they imagined, stemmed from Chaos, while in contrast, the Hebrews believed it stemmed from the will of a rational entity, God, as described in Genesis. Thus the former developed a system of direct democracy, where the laws were ever changing according to the people’s will, while the latter a theocratic system, according to which man is in an eternal quest to understand and enforce the will of God. This radical idea of a “cosmos out of chaos”, as found in ancient Hellenic philosophy and cosmogony, means that the world was created out of nothing; therefore man can model it as he sees fit, without trying to conform on some “divine law”. Castoriadis rejected as well the term “city-state” used to describe ancient Greek cities, since the Hellenic poleis were autonomous. During colonization e.g., we observe for the first time in history that the Hellenes, instead of transferring the social system of the metropolis to the newly established colony, they legislated anew from the ground up. On the contrary, the Phoenicians, with a similar expansion then in the Mediterranean, were monarchical till the end, and their colonies paid tribute to the metropolis.

view of the acropolis of athens-Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1841-1849)

View of the Acropolis of Athens, by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1841-1849)

LIFE IN ANCIENT HELLAS was generally not a “test for some happy afterlife” – an idea the common people of the “Asiatic mode of production” should necessarily entertain. The Greeks were shaped and inspired by Hellenic Nature. They philosophized and discussed public issues under her beneficial influence. She “dictated” the forms of their state and political organizations – regardless if they both fomented discord. Their model was the polis; democracy was their ideal; freedom their highest virtue – regardless if they lived in a slave and “male” society. It seems contradictory.

Additionally, their democracy was pure, direct, and authentic; today’s so-called “democracy” is the so-called “representative”, where power is not exercised by the people anymore but by their so-called “representatives”, contrary to the very definition of democracy.⁽²⁾ More and more oxymora and paradoxa… Let’s try to make them clear:

⁽²⁾ Democracy (δημοκρατία, “rule of the people”, from demos = people, and cratos = power) is a synonym to the Modern Greek λαοκρατία (“people in power”), and an antonym to ἀριστοκρατία (aristocracy, “rule of some elite”), and ὀλιγαρχία (oligarchy, from oligoi = few, and archō = to rule). Which one represents our so-called… “representative” system, even a little child can say!

● The “father of Athenian democracy” was Cleisthenes, and its symbol was the Parthenon. A hill of Athens, the Pnyx, was the meeting place of the Ecclesia, with the speaker’s platform or bema. It is where the political struggles of the “Golden Age” were fought; from this bema, the speeches of the great figures of the time were delivered – but also of many ordinary citizens, who raised their hands responding to the question: “Τίς ἀγορεύειν βούλεται;”, “Who wishes to speak?”

Pericles’ Funeral Oration, by Philipp Foltz (1852)

As much as the Ecclesia of Demos can be related to the Ecclesia
of Christ, so much the pure and direct democracy can be related to
the so-called “representative democracy” – which is an oligarchy.

A deficit in democracy is accompanied by similar deficits in politics and justice. An entire country, Greece, was devastated by the politicians with the judges’ consent – i.e. by persons who are absolutely useless and extremely dangerous to democracy. Democracy has no need of politicians: the citizens themselves, as “political animals”, according to Aristotle, are involved in politics; they are the ones who decide. Democracy has no need of judges: the citizens themselves administer justice. Democracy – if it is indeed a state of the people in power – does not delegate such powers to anyone, not even to a Pericles! The memoranda of austerity would have no chance in the Ecclesia of Demos (that of Christ, the Church, I’m sure, would bless them)! The court of Demos, Heliaea, would have never sentenced Kolokotronis,⁽³⁾ let alone to death! We have no democracy, let’s accept it! It’s the prerequisite for us to obtain it someday…

⁽³⁾ General Theodoros Kolokotronis, the pre-eminent leader of the Greek War of Independence against the Ottomans (1821–1829), was jailed (1825), sentenced to death and pardoned (1835).

Trial of Socrates

● But if Socrates was sentenced to death, why should Kolokotronis fare better? First of all, let’s make clear that Socrates was tried by democracy, while Kolokotronis by oligarchy. The people’s sense of justice was for Kolokotronis, but against Socrates. Why? Let’s have a look at the trial of Socrates, which took place in 399 BCE, after the defeat of the Athenian democracy by the Spartan oligarchy in the Peloponnesian War. It was a political trial in disguise because of the amnesty given to the oligarchs after the overthrow of the Thirty Tyrants, who were puppets of the Spartans. That’s why the charges against him were: asebeia (impiety) to gods, and corruption of the youth of the polis of Athens. Note that what we know about Socrates’ trial and verdict is mainly derived from the Apology of Socrates, by Plato, and the Apology of Socrates to the Jury, by Xenophon – both students of Socrates, hence anything but impartial sources.

Socrates Tears Alcibiades from the Embrace of Sensual Pleasure, by Jean-Baptiste Regnault (1791)

In Socrates’ face, democracy prosecuted its demons: specifically two other of his dear friends and students, Alcibiades and Critias.⁽⁴⁾ Alcibiades was the main proponent of the absolutely disastrous Sicilian Expedition (415-413 BCE) during the Peloponnesian War, where almost all Athenians participating, more than 50,000 men, were killed or captured and enslaved. After being summoned to trial, Alcibiades defected to Sparta, then to Persia, returning with false promises to Athens, where he was driven out after another defeat by the Spartans, who finally killed him in Phrygia in 404 BCE.

⁽⁴⁾ The close relationship between Socrates and Alcibiades is clearly reflected in paintings such as: Socrates Tears Alcibiades from the Embrace of Sensual Pleasure (Jean-Baptiste Regnault, 1791). Other painters (Jean Léon Gérôme, Francesco Hayez, etc.) show Socrates Seeking Alcibiades in the House of Aspasia… Discovering Him in Women’s Quarters… in a Hetaera’s House… or in a Brothel… and Reprimanding Him. The two of them are also depicted in The School of Athens, by Raphael, in company with Aeschines and Antisthenes (or Xenophon).

Critias, who appears in Socratic dialogues by Plato, one in his name, was the blood-thirsty leader of the Thirty Tyrants, who were installed by the Spartan occupation army as an oligarchic regime in 404 BCE, after Athens’ defeat in the war. Not only Critias, but also several other tyrants were students of Socrates, as well. They were in power for only eight months, but in this short period, they managed to kill 5% of the Athenians, exile a lot of others, and seize the property of the dead and exiled. Many wealthy citizens were executed or murdered by the oligarchs just to confiscate their property and share it among themselves, giving a portion to their followers. It was a terror regime, led by Critias, who became notorious for his cruelty and inhumanity, as he was determined to put an end to democracy – regardless of human cost. The uprising that overthrew the tyrants in 403 was organized by a group of exiles led by Thrasybulus. Critias was killed in the initial combats. Xenophon may have played an important part in this regime, as one of the two commanders of the cavalry, which were the Thirty’s militia.

Socrates

Many prominent Athenians, who were opposed to the regime of terror, left the city. Socrates, however, chose to remain and his attitude was interpreted as acceptance of the tyrants – indirectly but clearly. The philosopher espoused anti-democratic ideas, such as the view that it’s not majority opinion that yields correct policy but rather genuine knowledge and professional competence, which only a few experts possess. He often praised the laws of oligarchic Sparta. Plato reinforced these anti-democratic ideas in the Republic, advocating rule by an élite of so-called enlightened “Philosopher Kings”. This might have also been Socrates’ idea of himself, going as far as claiming in his apology he had been a “gods’ gift” to the Athenians… There’s a view that “Socrates’ real crime [was] preaching a philosophy that produced Alcibiades and Critias… but of course, under the amnesty, he couldn’t be prosecuted for that”. This is a rather favourable view about Socrates. Because there are some other views, as well, that the Republic of both, Socrates and Plato, may have been… implemented by the Thirty Tyrants, and that this “Philosopher King” was finally none other than Critias himself!

This crisis would be unthinkable in ancient Athens: the Ecclesia of
Demos would have never accepted what the creditors dictated.

UNDER THE SO-CALLED “REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRATIC” SYSTEM, the people, who supposedly “rule”, are in fact powerless and unable to rule out all those dire consequences of the crisis we are experiencing now. In ancient Athens, on the contrary, as in any other democratic Hellenic city-state, such a crisis would be unthinkable: the Ecclesia would have never accepted what the creditors dictated. The decision would not be taken by some president or prime minister, government or House of Representatives, court or even banker, but by the citizens themselves.

Of course, there were officials, but for limited periods of time, alternating and revocable at any time. Their powers were precisely defined and their capacity for initiative limited. They just administered rather than governed. They could not decide “for the people”, but simply acted on decisions already taken by the people’s Ecclesia. Before taking over, and after leaving office, the citizens were subject to scrutinies, reviewing their abilities beforehand (δοκιμασία = trial), and their performance afterwards (εὐθύναι = responsibilities).

The Ecclesia and Heliaea are the pillars of democracy.
Without one, democracy is lame; losing both, it’s dead.

Cleisthenes: the “father of Athenian democracy”

There were no judges, just jurors, numbering hundreds, even thousands in the most serious cases. The Ecclesia-Assembly, with a quorum of 6000 (around 10-20% of the citizens), and the people’s courts, the Heliaea (6000 jurors) were the pillars of democracy. Without one, democracy would be lame; losing both (as in our so-called “representative” system), there would be no trace of democracy left… The 400-member Boule’s work was more or less bureaucratic overseeing and coordinating the state institutions, while some older ones, e.g. the Archons and Areopagus, were gradually stripped of real powers.⁽⁵⁾

⁽⁵⁾ The Areopagus (from Areios Pagos, i.e. “Ares’ Rock”) is a rocky hill, NW of the Acropolis, where the court met. In pre-democratic Athens, it was the elders’ council, similar to the Roman Senate. Its membership was then generally restricted to former archons. There were three archons at a time: archon basileus (king ruler, a relic of monarchy), archon eponymous (chief magistrate) and polemarch (war ruler).

● One of the “privileges” left to the Areopagites was to enjoy the beauty of… Phryne, the famous hetaera, stripped in front of them, when she was accused of impiety. The orator Hypereides, one of her lovers defending her, used his best “argument” to save her from death: he removed her robe before the judges to… “arouse their pity”! Her beauty (not his rhetoric) was so “convincing” that she was acquitted! The episode inspired Jean Léon Gérôme in his painting Phryne Before the Areopagus (1861).

Jean-Léon Gérôme - Phryne before the Areopagus - 1861

Phryne Before the Areopagus, by Jean Léon Gérôme (1861)

What’s been left from ancient democracy in today’s political
system is the least democratic procedure: election…

Athenian democracy was participatory: the citizens selected for office served collectively. The selection was done mostly by lot, not election, because the latter usually favoured (and still favours) the rich, noble, educated, eloquent and famous. Each citizen could serve (in the real sense of the word) only once, in some cases twice, in such positions. Allotment was considered as the most democratic means to prevent the corrupt purchase of votes and give citizens a unique form of political equality. In this way, more and more Athenians were engaged in politics, “ruling and being ruled in turn”, as Aristotle wrote. It is not a surprise that what’s been left from ancient democracy in today’s political system is the least democratic procedure, that is, election – which has become almost a synonym for “democracy”…

Elected rather than chosen by lot (therefore, coming from the higher classes) were the ten generals, the strategoi, due to their necessary expertise in matters of politics and war, and also those who were obliged to handle large sums of money: any money embezzled could be recovered from their estates. Elected officials, too, were subject to review before holding office and scrutiny after that. And they, too, could be removed from office at any time. Citizens held to be acting against the interests of the polis, the demos, e.g. in cases of abuse of power or embezzlement, faced penalties that could be very severe, such as death, huge unplayable fines, confiscation of property, permanent exile and loss of citizens’ rights through atimia (disgrace), a form of disenfranchisement.

Pnyx,_Athens_-_Panorama with the carved steps of the speaker's platform

The Pnyx with the speaker’s platform, the bema

“We do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all.” (Pericles)

A good example of the contempt the first democrats felt for those who did not participate in politics can be found in the modern word “idiot”, from the ancient Grecian term ἰδιώτης, meaning a private person, someone who is not actively participating in politics. Pericles, according to Thucydides, declared: “We do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all.”

The intelligentsia of the time was mostly aristocratic. Hence, among the ancient Greek critics of democracy we can find Socrates (the most well-known victim of democracy), Plato, and Aristotle – i.e. the “heavy artillery” of Hellenic philosophy was anti-democratic – dramatists, such as Aeschylus and Aristophanes; and also historians, such as Thucydides, Xenophon, or even Polybius, who firmly believed that every democracy eventually decays into “a government of violence and the strong hand,” leading to “tumultuous assemblies, massacres, banishments.” (So: Down with democracy! Long live aristocracy! The aristocrats, the oligarchs, have a “mutual understanding”, a modus vivendi, without resorting to “excesses”!)

The victory against the Persians, the birth of drama, the great acme
of Hellenic civilization, would be unthinkable without democracy.

Epidauros theatre: the best… loudspeaker ever!

All the above “forgot” that the victory against the Persians, the birth of drama, and even the great acme of Hellenic civilization, would have been unthinkable without democracy. However, despite all precautions, we now know there was no check on the dangers of demagogy: that was democracy’s Achilles’ heel. Two notorious Athenian demagogues (from demos and the verb agō = manipulate, thus “people’s manipulators”) during the Peloponnesian War were Alcibiades and Cleon.⁽⁶⁾

⁽⁶⁾ This Chronicle’s aim was not a critical evaluation of direct democracy. I just wanted to show its colossal differences from the so-called “representative democracy”. I presented in broad terms how it worked to assess the feasibility of its implementation today if it’s appropriately adapted. Among its victims were not only anti-democrats, like Socrates, but democrats, as well, such as Pericles, or his tutor and friend, the philosopher Anaxagoras. They were both accused by Cleon, the demagogue – the former for maladministration of funds (he was soon reinstated), and the latter for “impiety”. Pericles was obliged to send Anaxagoras, for his own safety, to Lampsacus, where he lived the rest of his life.

● On the relation between democracy and art, see the conclusion of Chronicle 12.

Imaginary depiction of the Agora of ancient Athens at the time of Pericles

The ancient Grecian polis died out together with Athenian democracy: it was the end of an era for this form of government that ceased to be a model, because no one really cared or was interested to counter the negative accounts of the ancient writers. The classical model that inspired revolutionaries and radicals in Europe and America was Rome, not Athens – although Res publica Romana was no democracy. Thus, the Founding Fathers of the USA in 1787 set up a Senate, not an Ecclesia, which eventually met on the Capitol… But times changed and Athenian democracy was gradually appreciated for the high level of cultivation that her citizens enjoyed. Since the middle of the 20th century, every politician declares he is a “democrat”, every country claims it is a “democracy”, regardless of the actual makeup of its government.⁽⁷⁾

⁽⁷⁾ The failure of democracy, as well as of the last two centuries’ revolutions that were described as “socialist”, aiming at communism, was, in essence, a failure homo “sapiens”, or a failure of man as a “political animal”. His inability to create democratic, or even classless societies, is ultimately blamed on his own inability to rise to the occasion.

Revolutions in France (1789) and Haiti (1791)

Battle of Vertières in 1803-last battle of Haitian_Revolution

The last victorious Battle of Vertières (1803) in the Haitian Revolution.

NEVERTHELESS, THERE are still many “sensitive souls” who lament on the “impurity” of Athenian democracy because it excluded women, slaves and foreigners, exercising “imperialist” policies – as if patriarchy, slavery, racism and imperialism were all born out of democracy! Patriarchy is still going strong; the same applies to racism and imperialism. Slavery was abolished quite “recently”, though I’m afraid it is also going strong under disguise… But where or when did you see slaves voting?(!) As for universal suffrage, Finland was the first nation to give all adult citizens (men and women) the right to vote and run for office in 1906. Greek women voted for the first time in 1953. Note that the First French Republic, after the French Revolution (1789), was the first nation that adopted universal male suffrage in 1792, i.e. excluding women – let alone the slaves.

Apropos, have our “sensitive souls” ever heard of the great Haitian Revolution (1791), the only successful slave insurrection in history? It broke out two years after the equally great French Revolution and with precisely the same slogans: “liberté, égalité, fraternité”; but the Haitian aspirations for Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood, were denied by the great French revolutionaries on the basis of their… armed forces – sending even mercenaries (e.g. Poles) to Haiti to suppress the insurrection: such privileges were meant exclusively for the “noble, white Frenchmen”, not for negro Haitian helots!⁽⁸⁾

⁽⁸⁾ What was their reward? The country where the only victorious slave revolution ever took place is now probably the poorest all around the world. The so-called “international community” never forgave them for their heroism and punished them severely because they raised their heads in their desire to live free.

Plato’s Republic: a Dictatorial Monarchy!

● Plato’s Republic, the first recorded utopian proposal,⁽⁹⁾ is one of the most influential works on philosophy and political theory. The “citizens” are categorized into a rigid class structure of golden, silver, bronze and iron socio-economic classes with limited social mobility (reminding us of the Indian caste system). Golden citizens are trained in a rigorous 50-year-long educational program to be benign oligarchs, philosopher kings.⁽¹⁰⁾ The wisdom of these hereditary rulers will supposedly eliminate poverty and deprivation through fairly distributed resources. Yet, true knowledge is reserved for the élite, while the lower classes are expected to fulfill their functions to the state loyally until the end of their lives. Censorship is common, to prevent impiety and immorality from corrupting the youth. The Platonic Republic has few laws, practices a form of eugenics to weed out the disabled, and deliberately hires mercenaries to conduct wars in the hope that the more warlike populations of nearby countries will be eliminated (what the Punics did until finally Carthage was razed to the ground). Indeed, who would like to live in such a harsh, unfree utopia, if his/her metal were not noble? In his book The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945), Karl Popper singled out Plato’s Republic as a “totalitarian dystopia”, with a distinct hereditary governing ruling class, while the lower working class is given no role in decision making, and treated as “human cattle”. Undoubtedly, the greatest utopia is to expect solutions from such “philosopher kings”, even if they are world-famous and have influenced generations upon generations of thinkers.

A group of philosophers from the Academy in Athens,
mosaic found in Pompeii (1st century CE)

⁽⁹⁾ Utopia: an imagined community or society with highly desirable or nearly perfect conditions for all its citizens. Utopian ideals place emphasis on egalitarian principles, with the method of implementation varying according to the ideology of each proposal. The term utopia was coined by Thomas More for his book Utopia (1516), describing a fictional island society in the Atlantic. The word comes from the Hellenic οὐ (not) and τόπος (place) and means no place. Eutopia, from the Greek εὖ (good) and τόπος, meaning good place, is the correct term to describe a positive utopia. Utopia and eutopia in English are homophonous; so they became synonymous, as well. The opposite of eutopia is dystopia, from the Hellenic δυσ- (bad) and τόπος, i.e. cacotopia or anti-utopia.

⁽¹⁰⁾ Finally, the Platonic Republic is in fact a monarchy, or a dictatorship, since the “philosopher king” resembles another equally imaginary being: a “benevolent dictator”…

● The Republic was written around 380 BCE, more than twenty years after its implementation in practice by the Thirty Tyrants, in 404-403. Therefore, we conclude that Plato was an unrepentant anti-democrat all his life… He even attempted to spread his ideas to Syracuse, even though he was disgusted with the “sensual” life in Sicily. According to Diogenes Laërtius, Plato initially went to Syracuse while it was under the rule of Dionysius. The latter’s brother-in-law, Dion, became one of Plato’s disciples, but the tyrant himself turned against him. Plato almost faced death, and was sold into slavery. Anniceris, a Cyrenaic philosopher, subsequently bought his freedom and sent him home.⁽¹¹⁾ After the tyrant’s death, according to Plato’s Seventh Letter, Dion requested him to return to Syracuse to tutor and guide Dionysius II to become a “philosopher king”! Dionysius seemed to accept Plato’s teachings, but he became suspicious of his uncle and exiled him. Dion would finally return to overthrow Dionysius and rule Syracuse for a short time before being in turn… overthrown and assassinated by a fellow disciple of Plato, Calippus, who had traveled with Dion to Sicily to capture Syracuse! Calippus also ruled briefly before being ousted from power himself. Afterwards he commanded a band of mercenaries, who later killed him with the same sword that he used to kill Dion! That was the end-result of the second attempt to implement the Republic!… Plato reminded me of Pythagoras who also tried to combine his philosophy with the politics of Crotone, in Magna Graecia. The consequences would be disastrous for himself and his disciples. I wonder. How would Aristotle rate the two of them as “political animals”?

⁽¹¹⁾ What a disgrace for Plato! He was saved by Anniceris, a representative of a philosophic school he despised, as the Cyrenaics were famous for their sensual hedonism!

>> Chronicle 5. IBERIA’S ODYSSEY

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MICHALES LOUKOVIKAS – bio

Posted by michales loukovikas on 2013/04/01

Posted in: About Us. Tagged: Aegean Islands, Aegean Sea, Agora, Aktis Aeliou, Alexandria, Algarve, Alte, Amália Rodrigues, Amélia Muge, Andalusia, Andreas Karakotas, António Quintino, Archipelago, ARCHiPELAGOS / Passagens, Archipelagus, Ares Alexandrou, Argonauts, Aristotle University, Armando Zeferino Soares, Athenian democracy, Athens, Azores, Benfica, Bulerías, Canaries, Cape Verde, Carlos Paredes, Catarina Anacleto, Catarina Moura, Centro Cultural Vila Flor, Cesária Évora, Chile, Constantine Cavafy, Cramol, Crónicas da Terra, Culturgest, Delphi, Dimitria Festival, Donn Pohren, Eleni Tsaligopoulou, Elysium, Euripides, Eurydice, Fernando Pessoa, Festival Músicas do Mundo, Festival Tão Longe Tão Perto, Filipe Raposo, Film score, Flamenco, Friedrich Hölderlin, fRoots, Galicia, Giorgos Andreou, Giorgos Mitsakis, Gold in the Sky, Guimarães, Harris Lambrakis, Hélia Correia, Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation, Hurrian songs, Ianos, INATEL, International Delphi Meeting on Musicology, Ithaca, João de Deus, José Niza, José Salgueiro, José Saramago, Kostas Theodorou, Kostis Palamas, Kyriakos Gouventas, Lisbon, Ludwig van Beethoven, Macaronesia, Madeira, Makedonia (newspaper), Manos Achalinotopoulos, Manuel Maio, Marcia funebre, Martin Codax, Música Surda, Mediterranean, Michales Loukovikas, Miguel Tapadas, Modal music, Mundofonias, Neverland, Nikos Paraoulakis, Nikos Vergitsis, Nostos, Orestes, Ouro do Céu, Outra Voz, Pan, Panagiotis Tountas, Parallel Lives, Paris Paraschopoulos, Penelope, Pericles, Periplus, Periplus / deambulações luso-gregas, Periplus / Luso-Hellenic Wanderings, Pillars of Hercules, Plucked Strings Orchestra of Patras, Polis, Puppetry, Rebetiko, Ricardo Parreira, Rio de Janeiro, Rita Maria, Rock, Rosalía de Castro, Ross Daly, RTVE, Sappho, Shadow play, Sines, Smyrna, Sociedade Portuguesa de Autores, Songwriter, Sopa da Pedra, SPA, Teatro São Luiz, Teresa Campos, Thanasis Tsipinakis, Theatre music, Theme music, Thessaloniki, Thomas Korovinis, Thrace, Thracian, Uma Autora - 202 Canções, University of Brazil, Utopia, Vasilis Tsitsanis, Violeta Parra, Womex, World music. 4 Comments

MICHALES LOUKOVIKAS – bio

/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ ΜΙΧΑΛΗΣ ΛΟΥΚΟΒΙΚΑΣ – βιογραφικό

photoMICHALES-light MICHALES LOUKOVIKAS, born in a Thracian musical family, was taught music by his father, with whom he made his first professional steps at 15, as a musician (accordion, guitar) and singer, taking an interest in various genres: varied world music, rock, music based on poetry, songwriting, theatre and film music, rebetiko, especially the school of Smyrna, and modal music.

Studying in Thessaloniki, he directed student musical ensembles, and later participated in rebetiko and popular musical groups. He was a member of the Eurydice company, writing and producing plays for various genres (theatre, puppetry, shadow plays), where he also composed or selected musical themes. Besides, he contributed to the soundtrack of the film Stories of a Honeycomb (1981), by Nikos Vergitsis, as a composer (theme music), singer and musician.

He graduated in English Language and Literature from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and worked as a teacher and translator of English, publisher (Research publishers), and journalist (Macedonia, Thessaloniki, and Angeliophoros newspapers, Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT) radio stations), specializing on the international arena, and culture (news, analyses, chronicles, music, art, education, and editorials). He wrote texts on music for special publications, and collaborated on radio educational programs (texts, selection of music, presentation).

Wishing to delve into the differences between the Oriental and Occidental music, he focused on the modal tradition, folk or classical. Turning points in his research were his acquaintance with Ross Daly in 1987, and his participation in the International Musicological Symposium at Delphi on Mediterranean music in 1988.

A series of articles on cultural exchange in the Mediterranean, entitled Mediterranean Paraplus (a term similar to Periplus, Thessaloniki newspaper), evolved into a successful radio program lasting for more than twelve years (1998-2010, 9.58 fm, ERT3). It followed programs such as Flamenco: the Rebetiko of Andalusia, where he adapted Donn Pohren’s The Art of Flamenco, indicating the similarities between the two genres. In addition, he took part, together with other musical producers of the radio station, in the album Radio… com+positions (2002).

He worked as a musician with the composer and musical producer Paris Paraschópoulos for the theatrical play Alexandria–Athens (2003), on the Parallel Lives of the poets Constantine Cavafy and Kostís Palamás, produced by the art company Aktis Aeliou, Thessaloniki. He also teamed up with the writer, researcher and songwriter Thomás Korovinis in concerts.

A result of his research in modal music was The Gold in the Sky (2008), a West-to-East musical voyage based on Ares Alexandrou’s poetry, featuring 35 distinguished musicians (such as Manos Achalinotópoulos, Giorgos Andreou, Ross Daly, Kyriakos Gouventas, Andreas Karakotas, Harris Lambrakis, Kostas Theodorou, and Eleni Tsaligopoulou). He presented the Gold (voice, piano, accordion) in the Small Theatre, Thessaloniki, in company with K. Theodorou (double bass, guitar, percussion).

His meeting with Amélia Muge in the “Internet sea” led to a productive partnership, initially with his English adaptation of her songs in Uma Autora, 202 Canções (2009), and then with her Portuguese version of The Gold in the Sky poems, in the bilingual book-disc O Ouro do Céu / Ares Alexandrou por Michales Loukovikas (2011), presented in the bookstores Buchholtz, Lisbon. Amélia and Michales appeared for the first time together in the same hall, playing in company with the pianist Filipe Raposo in 1910.

Adapting ancient and traditional songs, as well as composing originals on line, Amélia and Michales carried out their Periplus / deambulações luso-gregas (Luso-Hellenic Wanderings in the international edition, 2012), with the poetess Hélia Correia, the singer E. Tsaligopoulou, and the vocal ensemble Outra Voz, as special guests. Periplus was presented in Guimarães (Centro Cultural Vila Flor), Lisbon (Culturgest), Sines (Festival Músicas do Mundo), Thessaloniki (Demetria Festival, Womex), Athens (Ianos bookstores), and Rio de Janeiro (Festival Tão Longe, Tão Perto, on music and poetry, at the University of Brazil, in four concerts, two of them together with the ensemble Música Surda.

Michales participated in Amélia’s work on Amália Rodrigues’ verses, Amélia com versos de Amália (2014), as artistic co-director, composer, arranger, and with Amália’s verses adapted into an English version. He also took part as a guest in Amélia’s concerts in Alte (Algarve), Auditório Carlos Paredes (Benfica, Lisbon), and City of Traditions (INATEL, Lisbon).

Amélia and Michales’ latest project, ARCHiPELAGOS / Passages (2017), was premiered at the Sãο Luiz Theatre, Lisbon, in November 2017, with excellent reviews in the press. In Greece, it was presented at Ianos, Athens, in May 2018, with equal reception. Special guests in this venture were the poetess H. Correia again, the composer G. Andreou, the singers Teresa Campos, A. Karakotas, Catarina Moura and Rita Maria, the women’s traditional vocal ensemble Cramol of the Workers’ Library in Oeiras, and the Plucked Strings Orchestra Thanasis Tsipinakis of the Municipality of Patras.

The voyage goes on…

● With Friedrich Hölderlin’s Archipelago (i.e. the Aegean) as a starting point, and deeply moved with Euripides’ tragedy Orestes (408 BCE), we voyage to Syria to listen to an ancient hymn (1400 BCE) as a lullaby of… awakening, or as a lament on the Sorceress Sea and the refugees’ drama. Crossing the Mediterranean and the Pillars of Heracles, we sail around Macaronesia (Macárōn nẽsoe, or Elysium: the Azores, Madeira, the Canaries and Cape Verde) in search of Cesária Évora.

We sail back to Greece, with Sappho singing about love (Eros) and loneliness, or to Portugal, with Fernando Pessoa’s weariness of being. From a harbour’s tavern, where João de Deus, Giorgos Mitsakis and Vasilis Tsitsanis sing of voyages with no return, we fly to imaginary islands: Utopia, Ithaca of Penelope, and Neverland, where lost kids dance a… Thracian traditional dance!

Hélia Correia “takes us down to earth” in times of indigence, without gods or Argonauts, polis or agora, with Pan dead on the Aegean islands, in the ruin of Hellas, or in Alexandria engulfed in flames, in the antipode of Pericles’ democracy, to the accompaniment of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Marcia funebre.

In the songs of nostalgia, Tsitsanis meets Rosalía de Castro, José Niza, Armando Soares, and Violeta Parra, as Greece, Galicia, Portugal, Cape Verde, and Chile are joined together. Joys and dances of nostos follow, with José Saramago and Giorgos Andreou. Another meeting, on the sea waves, is that between the medieval minstrel Martín Codax and the rebetiko composer Panagiotis Tountas, concluding the voyage in a feast with a peculiar Greco-Portuguese and Afro-Andalusian bulería: o come, all ye faithful (to art) – you are all welcome!

●

Some concerts and festivals

• February 2012: Centro Cultural Vila Flor (Guimarães, Portugal).
• February 2012: Culturgest (Lisbon, Portugal).
• July 2012: Festival Músicas do Mundo (Sines, Portugal).
• October 2012: Womex (Thessalonica, Hellas).
• October 2012: Ianos (Athens, PERiPLUS).
• May 2013: Festival Tão Longe, Tão Perto (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil).
• October 2013: Demetria Festival (Thessaloniki, Hellas).
• November 2017: Teatro Sãο Luiz (Lisbon, ARCHiPELAGOS).
• May 2018: Ianos (Athens, ARCHiPELAGOS).

Periplus in Guimarães with: Manos Achalinotopoulos (folk clarinet, voice), Kyriakos Gouventas (5-string violin, mandolin), Harris Lambrakis (ney, blockflute), Ricardo Parreira (guitarra portuguesa), António Quintino (double bass), Filipe Raposo (piano), José Salgueiro (percussion), and the choir Outra Voz participating en masse.

Periplus distinctions

• The Society of Portuguese Authors (SPA) selected the disc among the three best albums of 2012.
• The jury of the Sopa da Pedra blogspot elected it as the best album of the year.
• The Expresso newspaper as the 2nd best disc.
• Crónicas da Terra of Terra Pura radio as the 2nd best folk album in Europe.
• Mundofonias of RTVE selected it among the best discs of 2012 in the world.
• Periplus was also nominated for the British fRoots charter with the ten best albums of the year.

●

Discography

Lullaby’s Intro from The Gold in the Sky

• 2002: Radio… com+positions, 9.58 fm music producers
• 2003: Alexandria – Athens, Paris Paraschopoulos, Actis Aeliou theatrical company
• 2008: The Gold in the Sky, Michales Loukovikas, Ares Alexandrou
• 2009: Uma Autora, 202 Canções, Amélia Muge
• 2011: O Ouro do Céu / Ares Alexandrou por Michales Loukovikas
• 2012: Periplus / deambulações luso-gregas, Amélia Muge, Michales Loukovikas
• 2012: Periplus / Luso-Hellenic Wanderings (international edition)
• 2014: Amélia com Versos de Amália, Amélia Muge, Amália Rodrigues
• 2017: ARCHiPELAGOS / Passagens, Amélia Muge, Michales Loukovikas

Periplus at Sines Músicas do Mundo with: Catarina Anacleto (cello), Manuel Maio (violin, mandolin), Nikos Paraoulakis (ney, blockflute), António Quintino (double bass), José Salgueiro (percussion), Miguel Tapadas (piano).

>> AMÉLIA MUGE – bio

AMÉLIA MUGE – bio

Posted by michales loukovikas on 2013/04/01

Posted in: About Us. Tagged: A Monte, A Presença das Formigas, Académie Charles Cros, Aegean Islands, Aegean Sea, Agora, Aigues-Mortes, Alexandria, Algarve, Almada, Amancio Prada, Amália Rodrigues, Amélia com Versos de Amália, Amélia Muge, Amilly, Amsterdam, Ana Laíns, Ana Moura, Archipelago, ARCHiPELAGOS / Passagens, Archipelagus, Ares Alexandrou, Argonauts, Armando Zeferino Soares, Athenian democracy, Aveiro, Azores, Évora, Barcelona, Barnasants, Blitz, Bourg-en-Bresse, Brigada Víctor Jara, Bulerías, Calenzana, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Camané, Camerata Meiga, Canaries, Cape Verde, Casa da Música, Córdoba, Centro Cultural Olga Cadaval, Centro Cultural Vila Flor, Cesária Évora, Cité de la Musique, Coimbra, Coliseu, Concertgebouw, Corsica, Cristina Branco, Cultural Centre of Belém, Culturgest, Dimitria Festival, Elena Ledda, Eleni Tsaligopoulou, Elysium, Ester Formosa, Euripides, European Capital of Culture, Expo '98, Expresso, Fado, Faro, Fausto Bordalo Dias, Fernando Alvim, Fernando Pessoa, Festival Músicas do Mundo, Festival Tão Longe Tão Perto, Friedrich Hölderlin, fRoots, Gaiteiros de Lisboa, Galicia, Giorgos Andreou, Giorgos Mitsakis, Gold in the Sky, Guimarães, Habelas Hailas, Hélia Correia, Hurrian songs, Institut du Monde Arabe, Irmãs Muge, Ithaca, Júlio Pereira, João Afonso, João de Deus, José Barros, José Mário Branco, José Saramago, Kronos Quartet, Lucilla Galeazzi, Ludwig van Beethoven, Lusophone, Macaronesia, Madeira, Madrid, Mafalda Arnauth, Maio Maduro Maio, Maputo, Martin Codax, Mísia, Múgica, Michales Loukovikas, Montpellier, Mozambique, Mundofonias, Não Sou Daqui, Neverland, Nostos, Novas vos Trago, O Dono do Nada, O Ouro do Céu, Orestes, Outra Voz, Pan, Panagiotis Tountas, Paris, Público, Pedro Moutinho, Penelope, Pericles, Periplus / deambulações luso-gregas, Periplus / Luso-Hellenic Wanderings, Pillars of Hercules, Pirin, Pirin Folk Ensemble, Polis, Porto, Prague, Rennes, Ricardo Tesi, Rio de Janeiro, Rosalía de Castro, Rouen, RTVE, Ruelles, Rui Júnior, Sappho, Sérgio Godinho, Seixal, Sicily, Sines, Sintra, Sociedade Portuguesa de Autores, Sopa da Pedra, Taco a Taco, Teatro Aveirense, Teatro Garcia de Resende, Teatro Lethes, Teatro Sá da Bandeira, Teatro São Luiz, Teatro Viriato, Terras de Canto, Thessaloniki, Thracian, Todos os Dias, Uma Autora - 202 Canções, Utopia, Vasilis Tsitsanis, Violeta Parra, Viseu, Zeca Afonso. 2 Comments

AMÉLIA MUGE – bio

/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ AMÉLIA MUGE – βιογραφικό

Amélia Muge started singing and composing while studying piano, guitar and music education in Mozambique where she was born. She also studied History, communication and training for development in the University of Maputo, as well as music for animation, design, drawing and audio-visual arts in Portugal where she moved in 1984.

She has participated in projects related to music, poetry, dance, theatre, animation, multimedia, visual arts, training for local development, and also written and drawn books for children. She has worked with musicians such as José Mário Branco, Fausto, Júlio Pereira (Portugal); Amancio Prada, Ester Formosa, Camerata Meiga (Spain); Elena Ledda, Lucilla Galeazzi, Riccardo Tesi (Italy); and Pirin Folk Ensemble (Bulgaria). She has composed for other artists such as Mísia, Ana Moura, Cristina Branco, Camané, Pedro Moutinho, Gaiteiros de Lisboa, Mafalda Arnauth, Ana Laíns, and produced other artists’ discs.

Múgica, her first solo album, was released in 1992, followed by Todos os Dias two years later. The latter was included in the “100 best Portuguese music albums ever” by the Público newspaper; she was also nominated for the Blitz review prizes as best female singer. Around that time she started directing and adapting TV cartoon soundtracks into Portuguese – a work that lasted for almost ten years.

Taco a Taco

She was awarded the Zeca Afonso Prize twice: in 1995 for Maio Maduro Maio, dedicated to Zeca’s work and presented together with J.M. Branco and João Afonso, and for her new disc, Taco a Taco, in 1998. That year she also collaborated in Novas Vos Trago, where traditional romances were recreated, in Terras de Canto with E. Ledda and L. Galeazzi, and in As vozes embarcam with the Pirin Bulgarian Voices in the Lisbon Expo ’98. In 2002 she released A Monte in Portugal and Germany.

Her children’s play O Dono do Nada was staged in Sintra in 2003 and three years later in Lisbon. Her album Não Sou Daqui was released in 2007, followed by the disc-book Uma Autora, 202 Canções – as many as her songs registered in the Society of Portuguese Authors (SPA) in 2009. The next year she was invited by the Guimarães European Capital of Culture 2012 to direct the vocal group Outra Voz, while in 2011 she was honoured as one of the most important fado lyricists and composers by SPA.

Working with Michales Loukovikas, she adapted into Portuguese his book-disc The Gold in the Sky (O Ouro do Céu), based on Ares Alexandrou’s poetry, and published in Portugal in 2011. This partnership continued with Periplus / deambulações luso-gregas, released in February 2012, featuring music and poetry from Portugal and Hellas, with Hélia Correia, Eleni Tsaligopoulou and Outra Voz as special guests. Its international edition, Periplus / Luso-Hellenic Wanderings, was released in Greece in October. In the meantime, Amélia participated in the production of Ruelles in France, where children interacted with guest artists from Lusophone countries and sang their songs.

Her next work Amélia com versos de Amália, based on Amália Rodrigues‘ verses, was released immediately after her collaboration with Kronos Quartet in their Lisbon concert in November 2014. It was presented in Culturgest in January 2015, and rated as the best album of 2014 in Portugal (Expresso and Público).

Amélia Muge and Michales Loukovikas’ latest project, ARCHiPELAGOS / Passages, issued in November 2017, was premiered at the Sãο Luiz Theatre, Lisbon, with excellent reviews in the press. In Greece, it was presented at Ianos, Athens, in May 2018, with equal reception. The voyage goes on, with stops at several other places in Portugal, including Madeira, in Paris, France, and – who knows? – maybe elsewhere in Greece, as well.

● With Friedrich Hölderlin’s archipelago (i.e. the Aegean) as a starting point, and deeply moved with Euripides’ tragedy Orestes (408 BCE), we voyage to Syria to listen to an ancient hymn (1400 BCE) as a lullaby of… awakening, or as a lament of the Sorceress Sea about the refugees’ drama. Crossing the Mediterranean and the Pillars of Heracles, we sail around Macaronesia (Macárōn nẽsoe, or Elysium: the Azores, Madeira, the Canaries and Cape Verde) in search of Cesária Évora.

We sail back to Greece, with Sappho singing about love (eros) and loneliness, or to Portugal, with Fernando Pessoa’s weariness of being. From a harbour’s tavern, where João de Deus, Giorgos Mitsakis and Vasilis Tsitsanis sing of voyages with no return, we fly to imaginary islands: Utopia, Ithaca of Penelope, and Neverland, where lost kids dance a… Thracian traditional dance!

The voyage goes on…

●

Some Festivals and Venues

• Portugal, Lisbon: Misty Fest; Culturgest, Centro Cultural de Belém, Gulbenkian Grande Auditório, Teatro São Luiz. Sintra: Centro Cultural Olga Cadaval. Almada: Solar dos Zagalos, Auditório Lopes Graça. Seixal: Festival Cantigas do Maio. Porto: Festival Inter-Céltico; Teatro Sá da Bandeira, Palácio de Cristal, Casa da Música, Coliseu. Coimbra: Festival Zeca Afonso; Teatro Gil Vicente. Guimarães: Centro Cultural Vila Flor; European Capital of Culture final show. Viseu: Teatro Viriato. Aveiro: Teatro Aveirense. Évora: Teatro Garcia de Resende. Sines: Festival Músicas do Mundo. Algarve: Encontros do DeVIR; Faro: Teatro Lethes.
• France, Paris: Cité de la Musique, Institut du Monde Arabe, Méditerranée, Méditérranées. Bourg-en-Bresse: Les Temps Chauds. Rouen: Tranches d’Europe Express. Rennes: Les Tombées de la Nuit. Aigues-Mortes: 7 Nuits d’Encens. Montpellier: Les Voix du Sud. Amilly: Fête de l’Europe. Corsica: Rencontres de Musiques Classique et Contemporaine de Calenzana.
• Netherlands, Amsterdam: Concertgebouw; Wereldmuziek, Musical Meetings of the European Tradition.
• Spain, Madrid: Festival Folk. Barcelona: Barnasants. Córdova: Grande Teatro de Córdova.
• Italy: Sete Sóis, Sete Luas; Itinerari Folk. Sicily: Festival Novas Musicas.
• Czech Republic, Prague: Lusophony meetings.
• Brazil, Rio de Janeiro: Festival Tão Longe, Tão Perto.
• Greece, Thessalonica: Demetria Festival, Womex. Athens: Ianos.

●

Main Distinctions

• 1994-1995: Todos os Dias was included in the “100 best Portuguese music albums ever” by the Público newspaper; Amélia was also nominated for the Blitz review prizes as best female singer.
• 1995/1998: she was awarded the Zeca Afonso Prize twice: for Maio Maduro Maio and Taco a Taco.
• 2011: she was honoured as one of the most important fado lyricists and composers by SPA.
• 2013: SPA selected Periplus among the three best albums of 2012; the jury of the Sopa da Pedra blogspot elected it as the best album of the year; Mundofonias of RTVE selected it among the best discs of 2012 in the world; Periplus was also nominated for the British fRoots charter with the ten best albums of the year.
• 2013: Amélia won the Académie Charles Cros Award for Ruelles.

●

Selected Discography

• 1992: Múgica, Amélia Muge
• 1994: Todos os Dias, Amélia Muge
• 1995: Maio Maduro Maio, Amélia Muge, João Afonso, José Mário Branco
• 1996: Ó Tambor, Rui Júnior
• 1997: Rosas a Rosalía, Amancio Prada
• 1998: Taco a Taco, Amélia Muge
• 1998: Novas Vos Trago, Amélia Muge, Brigada Victor Jara, Gaiteros de Lisboa, João Afonso, Sérgio Godinho
• 1999: Habelas Hailas, Camerata Meiga
• 2002: A Monte, Amélia Muge (Πορτογαλία και Γερμανία)
• 2003: A Ópera Mágica do Cantor Maldito, Fausto
• 2006: O Dono do Nada, Amélia Muge
• 2007: Não Sou Daqui, Amélia Muge
• 2008: Meu Bem, Meu Mal, José Barros e Navegante
• 2009: Uma Autora, 202 Canções, Amélia Muge
• 2011: Os Fados e as Canções do Alvim, Fernando Alvim
• 2011: Ciclorama, A Presença das Formigas
• 2012: Periplus / deambulações luso-gregas (Luso-Hellenic Wanderings), Amélia Muge, Michales Loukovikas (Portugal-Greece)
• 2012: Ruelles, Amélia Muge, Teófilo Chantre, Magna Fereira, Roda do Cavaco, Choeurs d’enfants de l’Ain
• 2014: Canto & Autores 06, Amélia Muge
• 2014: Amélia com Versos de Amália, Amélia Muge, Amália Rodrigues
• 2017: ARCHiPELAGOS / Passagens, Amélia Muge, Michales Loukovikas (Portugal-Greece)

●

>> MICHALES LOUKOVIKAS – bio

Chronicle 22. AN IBERIAN PERIPLUS REVIVAL

Posted by michales loukovikas on 2013/03/22

Posted in: CASSITERIDES archipelago. Tagged: Abdera, Abderus, Abyla, Achaea, Adra, Aegean, Agde, Agora, Akra Leuké, Aléria, Albert Einstein, Algeciras, Algeria, Alicante, Aljaraque, Almuñécar, Alonis, Altea, Amalthea, Amazons, Amyclas, Anacreon, Anatolia, Anaxarchus, Andalusia, Antaeus, Antibes, Apollonius of Rhodes, Argo, Argonautica, Argonautica Orphica, Argonauts, Aristotle, Aristoxenus, Artemis, Assyrian, Athenian democracy, Athens, Atlantis, Atom, Atomic theory, Atomism, Augustine, Avienus, Azov, Évenos, Babylon, Badajoz, Baelo, Baltic, Barcelona, Bastetani, Berber, Bireme, Bolonia, Book burning, Brittany, Bronze Age, Bronze Age collapse, Burgundy, Cadiz, Caesar, Callípolis, Canaan, Carlo Rovelli, Cartagena, Carteia, Carthage, Caspian Sea, Castilians, Catalonia, Catherine Nixey, Celts, Ceuta, Chaldean, Channel, Charles Ebel, Cicero, Claudius, Cleinias, Colchis, Contestani, Cornucopia, Cornwall, Corsica, Costa Daurada, Crete, Cyrus, Darkening Age, Darwinism, Dénia, Democritus, Determinism, Diana, Diogenes, Diomedes, Don, Dorians, Elche, Eminent Philosophers, Empúries, Emporium, Encyclopaedia of Religion, Epic, Epicurus, Erytheia, Etruria, Euxenus, Extremadura, Freedom of speech, Freedom of thought, Friedrich Nietzsche, Gaia, Galicia, Galileo Galilei, Gaul, Geography (Ptolemy), Geryon, Gibraltar, Greco-Iberian alphabet, Greece, Greeks, Guadalete, Gyptis, Hamilcar Barca, Hannibal, Hecataeus, Helen, Helice, Helike, Hellas, Hellenistic period, Hellenization, Helvetii, Heraclea Pontica, Heracles, Herodorus, Hesperides, Hippodamus, Hippolyta, Homer, Huelva, Hyères, Hylas, Hēmeroskopeion, Iberia, Iberians, Idealism, Indigetes, Iolcus, Ionia, Iran, Isaac Newton, Istres, Jason, Klazomenai, Kura, Labours of Hercules, Lady of Elche, Laietani, Laws, Leucippus, Libya, Ligures, Livy, Llobregat, Lucentum, Lucretius, Macedonians, Maeotis, Maghreb, Magi, Magna Graecia, Mainake, Mares of Diomedes, Marseille, Martigues, Massalia, Massaliote Periplus, Mastia, Materialism, Mauritania, Málaga, Medellín, Mediterranean, Mellaria, Melqart, Menestheus, Meroë, Michales Loukovikas, Miletus, Minoan, Monaco, Monopoly, Montgó, Moors, Morocco, Murcia, Mycenaean, Nestos, Nice, Oceanus, Olbia, Ora Maritima, Orpheus, Paco de Lucía, Palimpsest, Parchment, Pausanias, Peloponnese, Periplus, Petta, Phasis, Phocaea, Phoenicia, Phrygia, Pierre Gassendi, Pillars of Hercules, Pindar, Planisphere, Plato, Platonism, Pliny, Plutarch, Portus Menesthei, Poseidon, Protagoras, Protis, Provence, Ptolemaic Egypt, Ptolemy, Puerto de Santa María, Punic Wars, Punics, Pythagoras, Pythagoreanism, Pytheas, Pythian Games, Quintus Sertorius, Red Sea, René Descartes, Rhodes, Rhone, Rioni, Rome, Roses, Saône, Sagunto, Salou, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Santa Pola, Sardinia, Sea of Marmara, Sea peoples, Second Punic War, Seine, Sexi, Sicily, Smyrna, Strabo, Stymphalian birds, Symplegades, Syria, Tanais, Tangier, Tanit, Taormina, Tarifa, Tarraco, Tarragona, Tartessos, Tauromenium, Teleology, Teos, Thasos, The Republic, Theophrastus, Theseus, Thrace, Thracians, Timaeus, Timosthenes, Tin, Toulon, Trojan War, Tyrian purple, Urban planning, Valencia, Valencian, Vélez-Málaga, Velia, Vera, Villajoyosa, Villaricos, Vinalopó, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Volga, Western Sahara, Xanthi, Zakynthos. 6 Comments

Chronicle 22. AN IBERIAN PERIPLUS REVIVAL

/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ Χρονικό 22. ΑΝΑΒΙΩΣΗ ΠΕΡΙΠΛΟΥ ΤΗΣ ΙΒΗΡΙΑΣ

● Tartessos (B) ● Colonies in Provence, Iberia, Maurusia ●
Tin Route ● Democritus and Plato ● Topography Beyond
the Pillars of Heracles

Michales Loukovikas

AFTER THE SEA PEOPLES’ RAIDS and the following Bronze Age collapse in the 12th century BCE, the Phoenicians started setting up their sea-trade monopoly. Carrying out their “master plan”, and enjoying a free hand, as their antagonists were passing through a long “Dark Age”, “they headed straight for the gold, silver, and tin of Iberia”, and became “partners” with the Tartessians. At last, they were masters of the Mediterranean! A lot of Phoenicians chose to settle in local towns, profiting from their hospitality. That’s what Strabo implied writing that “the best cities of Tartessos were inhabited by the Phoenicians”.

Later they secured a harbour of their own nearby. It was Gadir, the “walled city”, called Gádeira by the Hellenes, and Gades by the Romans (modern Cádiz).⁽¹⁾ Its founding is dated traditionally to 1104 BCE, although no archaeological strata there can be dated earlier than the 9th century. Therefore, we assume that in its earliest days, it was merely a small seasonal trading post. According to a Grecian legend, the city was founded by Heracles on Erytheia, Geryon’s island, when he killed him. One of its notable features in antiquity was a temple dedicated to the Phoenician god Melqart, who was associated with Heracles by the Greeks. It was still standing during the 1st century, and some historians believe (based in part on this information) that the columns of this temple were the origin of the myth about the Pillars of Heracles.

!los dos delfines uno de los símbolos de Gadir

Phoenician gold ring with two dolphins, a symbol of Gadir

⁽¹⁾ Gadir means wall, fort, and this in turn means the walls were the distinctive feature of the city in an area and era when cities were probably not walled. It also implies that the Phoenicians felt the need of such protective walls. Consequently, their relations with the locals were based on anything but in good faith since the beginning.

● The Phoenician settlement was built on one of three neighbouring islets in the Gulf of Cádiz, known as Erytheia, Cotinussa, and Antípolis, which are all Greek toponyms.

Soon the entire coastline around this strategic area, on both seas and continents – the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, Europe and Africa – was full of Phoenician settlements. However, they were more densely concentrated there, in the south, than further up the coast. So, the Hellenes, when they finally re-appeared on the scene, were able to establish their own trading emporia along the northeastern coast before venturing into the Phoenician zone. Encouraged by the Tartessians, who strongly desired an end to the Phoenician economic monopoly, the Greeks stepped on Andalusian soil and founded Maenaca (Mainakē), very close to the Phoenician Malaca, on the coast of Málaga, possibly at modern Vélez-Málaga. The Massaliote Periplus, which gave an account of a sea voyage round Iberia in the 6th century BCE, placed Maenaca in the dominion and under the aegis of Tartessos: the peninsula was a magnet for everyone due to its great wealth and strategic importance.

Tartessos, with Phoenician and Greek colonies: its core area is shown in green,
with its sphere of influence spreading in the entire southern Iberia.

Regarding the uncertainty on the whereabouts of Maenaca, Strabo pointed out in his Geographica that its ruins, close to Malaca, could still be seen in his time (64 BCE – 24 CE); he additionally collated the regular Greek urban plan versus the haphazard Semitic layout of the Phoenician site, whose location suggests it was a more dense and irregular urban cluster than neighbouring Maenaca.⁽²⁾ But even if we are still puzzled about the latter’s exact site and life span, the Hellenic cities on the Mediterranean coast of Iberia probably appeared on the “map” after the foundation of Massalia (modern Marseille), c. 600 BCE, by Phocaeans from Ionia in Asia Minor – something that the Punics had tried but failed to prevent. This city gradually became a thriving trading centre and a major rival of Carthage for the Iberian markets, and especially the tin trade through Gaul-France.

^(b) The father of urban planning was Hippodamus (Ἱππόδαμος, 498-408 BCE) from Miletus, an urban planner, architect, mathematician, physician, meteorologist and philosopher, hence the Hippodamian plan of city layouts. Most impressive in his plan was a wide central area that was kept unsettled and in time evolved to the agora, the centre of both the city and its citizens.

Pierre Cécile Puvis de Chavannes, The Greek Colony, Marseille, 1869

The Greek Colony of Marseille, by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1869)

Later on the Phocaeans founded Alalia in Corsica c. 566 BCE and moved towards Iberia. Some popular theories claim that at least one of their settlements, Rhode (modern Roses), at the northeastern tip of Iberia, dates back to the 8th century, as a colony of the Aegean island of Rhodes; but in fact, it seems it was founded in the 6th century BCE by Massaliotes, perhaps with some admixture of colonists from nearby Emporion (today’s Empúries). Still, as in the case of the Phoenician settlement in Gadir, Rhode might have been nothing more than a small seasonal trading post of Rhodes in the 8th century; or perhaps, the colonists that settled there, two centuries later, were mainly Rhodians serving in the Massaliote army, along with Cretans, in a special force charged with surveying vigilantly the Punic movements in southern Iberia.

Nevertheless, popular theories should not be discredited and discarded without serious thought or research, just because they are “popular”; those concerning Rhode, for sure, were not born out of nothing. Sailing towards Provence, we can see that traders from Rhodes were visiting this coast since the 7th century BCE. Rhodian pottery from that century has been found in the area of Marseille, near Istres and Martigues, and at Évenos, near Toulon. The Rhône (Greek Rhodanós), the main river of Provence, and the ancient town of Rhodanousia, were named after the island of Rhodes. There is still a problem of a time gap of one century with the supposed Iberian settlement of Rhode; but, at any rate, the traces left by Rhodians in Provence (and elsewhere) precede those of the Phocaeans, the founders of Massalia.

Hellenic colonies in Provence and Corsica

Hellenes from other cities of Ionia also traded in the western Mediterranean, as far as Iberia, but very little remains from that period. As regards the Phocaeans, it is obvious they went there not just to trade, but also to settle. A foundation myth reported by Aristotle in the 4th century BCE, and by Latin authors later on, symbolizes the intermarriage between Hellenes and locals, recounting how a Phocaean, named Protis (or Euxenus), married a local princess, called Gyptis (or Petta), thus giving him the right to receive a piece of land where he could found a city. Contacts developed undisputedly from 600 BCE onwards between Celts, Ligures and Greeks in Massalia and other colonies such as Agde (Agathē Tychē), Nice (Nicaea), Antibes (Antípolis), Monaco (Mónoecos), et al. An Olbia (modern Hyères) was founded here in Provence, and another one in Sardinia.

A Tin Route linked Cornwall to Massalia through the Channel,
the Seine valley, Burgundy and the Rhône-Saône valleys.

The Vix Krater, an imported Greek wine-mixing metal vessel, the largest known from antiquity (1.63 m in height), found in the famous grave of the Celt “Lady of Vix”;
ca 500 BCE

“Massalia was not an isolated Greek city, but had developed an Empire of its own along the coast of southern Gaul by the 4th century”, claimed Charles Ebel in the 1960s. Nevertheless, this idea of a Massaliote Empire is no longer accepted by several skeptical scholars in the light of recent archaeological evidence, which shows that Massalia’s chora (agricultural territory under its direct control) was never large enough. The same skeptics also dispute the idea of a Hellenization of southern France due to Massalia. However, its influence was felt all through Gaul to Brittany, because of the trade relations of the Massaliotes with the Celts, especially for the transport of tin from Brittany, or even Cornwall. It seems that a Tin Route, indispensable for the manufacture of bronze, was established at that time from Cornwall, through the Channel, along the Seine valley, Burgundy and the Rhône-Saône valleys to Massalia. Caesar reported (during his conquest of Gaul) that the Helvetii were in possession of documents in Greek, and all Gaulish coins used the Hellenic script until about 50 BCE. The Massaliote coinage by that time circulated freely in Gaul, influencing coinage as far afield as Britain. Hellenic Marseille eventually became a centre of culture, and that is why several Roman parents sent their children there to be educated.

The Massaliote Periplus Revival

ΟUR MASSALIOTE PERIPLUS REVIVAL SETS SAIL from Massalia’s harbour. Leaving both Rhode and Emporion behind us, we drop anchor between Barcinōn and Callípolis. Legends say that Barcinōn, modern Barcelona, was founded either by Heracles, in the middle of 12th century BCE, or Hamilcar Barca, Hannibal’s father, in the second half of 3rd century BCE. At that time, the Laietani, defined as a Thracian–Iberian people, settled in this area. Some scholars identify Barcinōn with Callípolis, a small Greek colony, which was founded in the 6th century by the Llobregat river. It is described by Avienus in his Ora Maritima (Sea Coast), based on the Massaliote Periplus. But Callípolis should have been at some distance off Barcelona, between Tàrraco (Tarragona) and another Hellenic port, that of Sálauris (Salou), on the Costa Daurada (or Golden Coast) of what is now Catalonia.

The Argonauts’ route according to Apollonius: they never got close to Iberia…

● The legend about Heracles as a founder of Barcelona is unrelated to his colonizing effort in Andalusia following two of his labours there (10th and 11th: Geryon and the Hesperides). His passage from Catalonia is linked to a different version of the myth of the Argonauts, in which Jason’s expedition involved not only the Argo, but nine ships in all. One of them was lost during a storm off the Catalan coast, and Heracles eventually found it wrecked by a small hill, but with the crew saved. These Argonauts were so taken by the beauty of the place that they founded the city of Barca Nona (“Ninth Boat”). Well, it is not only that the city’s name resembles that of Barcelona only in Latin; we also need to remember that Heracles deserted the Argonauts (or… they deserted him) while he was searching for his companion, Hylas, in the outset of the expedition, when the Argo was still in the Sea of Marmara. Others, however, say that Heracles went as far as Colchis with the Argonauts, got the Girdle of the queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta, and slew the Stymphalian Birds (his 9th and 6th labours respectively, organized not in a chronological order). Whatever the case, he could not build Barcelona because he was not among the Argonauts when they fled from Colchis, wandering afterwards in the Mediterranean. But do we know how they fled?

The secret of the Orphic song was not loudness: just one male voice against so many Sirens could never prevail. The secret was its quality, a kind of music they had never listened before,
that drowned out their song and eventually the Sirens themselves.

● There have been several versions of the Argonauts’ expedition – about their route, even crew (see Chronicle 15, footnotes 7 and 8). There is unanimity on the way they voyaged to Colchis; but differences appear about their way back. Pindar (6th–5th centuries BCE), the celebrated lyric poet, sang in his Fourth Pythian Ode that Jason moved eastwards (not westwards) and, through the Phasis and Cyrus (Rioni and Kura) rivers, sailed out to the Caspian Sea. Then, based on the geographic knowledge of the time, he found himself in the Oceanus River encircling the earth, turned south and west, voyaging as far as the Red Sea, and in this way he returned to the Mediterranean. Herodorus of Heraclea (between 6th and 4th centuries BCE) adopted a more realistic approach that the Argonauts used the same route to go back home. The historian Timaeus of Tauromenium (modern Taormina in Sicily, c. 345 – c. 250 BCE), maybe inspired by the great European periplus of his contemporary Pytheas of Massalia (see Chronicle 16, Peripli of the Classical and Hellenistic eras), gave a wider scope to the Argonauts’ nostos. Through the Maeotis (Azov) lake and the Tanais (Don) river, he maintained, Jason found his way up to the Baltic Sea and, sailing by round Europe, he returned home to Iolcus. The Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes (3rd century BCE), the only surviving Hellenistic epic, is far more detailed and adventurous, but never sails beyond Italy. Finally, the Argonautica Orphica, written much later (5th–6th centuries CE) but in the name of Orpheus, who was one of the Argonauts, borrows from all the above, emphasizing the role of the Thracian musician, poet, and prophet. The narration is more mythological, probably because of the anonymous author’s everyday life in a hostile Christian environment, after the old gods were violently thrown out (see our additional Chronicles 23-24: The Genocide of the Hellenes, and The Triumph of Cretinism). In the beginning, he adopts the Pindaric version, but as soon as he finds himself on the Caspian waters, he follows in Timaeus’ steps and turns north, not south: the river now is not the Don but the even longer Volga, and the result, of course, is another periplus of Europe.

In memory of the Zácantha citizens who determined to die rather
than fall into Punic hands in 218-19 BCE, by Agustín Querol

BACK TO OUR IBERIAN PERIPLUS. Sailing on while keeping a steady course to the southwest, we arrive at Zácantha or Arse, founded by Greeks from the island of Zácynthus in the 7th century BCE. Captured and destroyed by Hannibal during the 2nd Punic War (219 BCE), after eight months of the citizens’ heroic resistance related by Livy, it was rebuilt by the Romans who transcribed it as Saguntum, hence its current name of Sagunto.

After Valentia (Valencia), our course turns southeast due to a headland jutting out on the coast of Iberia. Sailing past this area formed by Montgó Massif, we stop at the first port marked on the map of Tartessos, Hēmeroskopeion, located at modern Dénia, in the Valencian province of Alicante. It means Watchtower in Hellenic and it reflects the first use of the lofty promontory as such. According to Strabo, the town was also called Artemisium, because there was a temple of Artemis on the cape where it was situated. Hēmeroscopeion was another colony of the Massaliote Greeks, along with two more small settlements in the area, the names of which have not survived. The Romans called it Dianium, whence its modern name, from Diana, i.e. Artemis in Latin. Apart from its strategic location, the city was equally important for some iron mines nearby.

Lady of Elche

Althaea (today’s Altea) was located further down the road, and then Acra Leucá, also built by the Massaliotes on a White Promontory, or Acropolis, as the name indicates, c. 325 BCE. The city passed to the Punics who used it as a military base and trade post. Its Carthaginian name did not survive, but the Romans called it Castrum Album, meaning almost the same. Most archaeologists agree that the Roman town Lucentum, or Lucentia (Luminous city), is Acra Leucá – what is now the modern city of Alicante.

Helice, modern Elche (Elx in Valencian), was founded around 600 BCE near Acra Leucá to the South. The Achaean settlers named it after their native city.⁽³⁾ Here, too, Hannibal was a fateful man. It was rebuilt by the Romans as Ilici. There was also a small walled coastal settlement, the Roman Portus Ilicitanus, Harbour of Helice, mentioned by Claudius Ptolemy in his Geography; it’s today’s Santa Pola. Built with a regular layout in the Grecian tradition near the Vinalopó river in the 4th century BCE, it served as an emporium oriented to Greek-Iberian exchange. But its life span was brief (c. 80 years), which is inconsistent with the hypothesis that the Massaliote colony Alonís, or Alonae, was there. So, despite Ptolemy’s mention that created more confusion, attention was recently turned to a nearby town, La Vila Joiosa, as a possible location of this colony. The increasing amount of archaeological evidence for Greek presence in Santa Pola, combined with the Graeco-Iberian script used in Alicante and Murcia, confirm the long-term direct contact between Hellenes and Iberians in this area. The celebrated Lady of Elche (Dama de Elche, or Dama d’Elx in Valencian), a once polychrome stone bust of a woman, is the most important find there. It’s considered as an excellent example of Iberian sculpture with strong Hellenic influence. It is claimed (Encyclopaedia of Religion) that the Lady is “directly” linked to the Punic goddess Tanit. If so, then perhaps, in the absence of Phoenician sculptural standards, the Grecian model was unchallenged.

bronzehelike-Poseidon & inscription ELIK, reverse trident flanked by dolphins

Bronze coin with the patron Poseidon and the inscription ELIK(e), and a trident flanked by
dolphins on the reverse

⁽³⁾ Helice (Ἑλίκη) was an ancient Hellenic city in Achaea, in the north of the Peloponnese, which disappeared a winter night in 373 BCE. It was thought to be a legend like Tartessos until 2001, when it was rediscovered in the Helice Delta. The catastrophe is attributed to an earthquake and accompanying tsunami, causing the area to sink into the earth and be covered by the sea. All the inhabitants perished without a trace, despite a search and rescue effort involving 2000 men. The only thing that was left there were a few building tops projecting from the sea. Around 174 CE, Pausanias reported that the walls of the ancient city were still visible under the water. Others said that Roman “tourists” frequently sailed over the site, admiring the city’s statuary! As time passed by, the site silted over and the location sank into oblivion. Modern scholars argue that the submergence of Helice might have inspired Plato to write his story about Atlantis.

Mastia (Massia) > Qart Hadasht > Cartago Nova > Cartagena

The trading contacts of southeastern Iberia with Tartessos, Hellas, Phoenicia and Magna Graecia, together with the absorbed influences, gave rise to an Iberian culture that Pliny and Strabo called the Contestani. Cartagena, originally named Mastia, or Massia, is located here. Mastia (or Massia) was also the name of an Iberian tribe allied with the Tartessian confederacy. The first description of this city with high walls appears in the Massaliote Periplus, and then in Avienus’ Ora maritima. Mastia is also mentioned in a treaty between Carthage and Rome in 348, marking the boundary between them in Iberia. Its mineral wealth, fisheries, agriculture, and harbour, one of the best in the western Mediterranean, made the Punics re-found it in 228 BCE as Qart Hadasht (“New City”), honouring it with a name identical to the metropolis. The Romans renamed it as Carthago Nova in order to distinguish it from the mother city. The importance the Punics attached to their “New City”, so as to serve as their local capital and springboard for the conquest of Iberia, shows that Gadir could not serve this purpose, among other things, due to antagonisms with the Gaditan Phoenicians, which would explode – even before the Punic Wars – in open hostilities.

Greeks and natives “became united in a single state,
consisting of barbarian and Hellenic laws.” (Strabo)

Serapis or Asclepius, Hellenistic sculpture in a temple of Emporion.

Entering the Punic sphere, we come to realize the way the Phoenician colonial network was created: through infiltration of already existing settlements that soon passed under their full control – without excluding the use of violence in case the locals resisted. By contrast, the Hellenes, especially the Ionians, such as the Phocaeans and the Massaliotes, contrary to the tactics of the Dorians, had a quite different approach. Referring to the foundation of Emporion, Strabo wrote:

“The Emporians lived before on an islet off the coast that now is called Palaiápolis [old city]; for they now live on the mainland. Emporion is a double city (a dipolis), divided by a wall, having before, as neighbours, some [indigenous] Indigetes… Because they became united after some time in a single state, consisting of barbarian and Hellenic laws, as it also happened in many other cities.”

Therefore, there were three phases of colonization: a) a separate settlement; b) peaceful coexistence after a spirit of mutual trust had been established through cooperation; and c) a commonwealth.

The Contestani’s neighbours to the southwest were the Bastetani or Bastuli, and their towns, Baria, Ábdera, Sexi, Malaca, Carteia, Bailo, are mostly mentioned as Phoenician colonies. Baria (present-day Vera, or the fishing village of Villaricos), is said to have financed Hannibal’s campaigns from the local silver mines. There follow Ábdera (today’s Adra), and Sexi (Ex), modern Almuñécar, whose residents sometimes still call themselves sexitanos; a Phoenician settlement was “planted” there in about 800 BCE. As for the seaport town of Ábdera, it was used by the Punics as an emporium. Very few make clear it was a former Grecian colony…

Break: Ábdera, Democritus and Plato

Diomedes Devoured by His (man-eating) Horses,
by Gustave Moreau

● It is not the first time that places allegedly connected with Phoenicians or Punics are known by Hellenic names. We can see that in the case of Ábdera in either Thrace or Andalusia. According to myth, both cities were founded by Heracles in memory of his companion, Ábderus, who was devoured by either Diomedes’ mares or Geryon’s cattle, during the 8th or 10th Heraclean labour respectively. Historically, Ἄβδηρα, a city-state on the coast of Thrace, 17 km northeast of the mouth of the Nestos River and almost opposite Thasos, in today’s prefecture of Xanthe (where I was born), was a colony of Clazomenae, founded in 654 BCE. Its prosperity, however, dates from 544 BCE, when most residents of Teos (including the poet Anacreon) migrated to Ábdera to escape the Persian yoke. Clazomenae and Teos were Ionian cities of Asia Minor in the Smyrna area. Ábdera became a wealthy city, the second richest among the allies of Athens, as it was a prime port for trade with the interior of Thrace. As a valuable prize, it was sacked repeatedly by Thracians, Macedonians (from several areas, such as Macedonia, Thrace, Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt) and Romans. The result was a decline in the second half of the 4th century BCE – which was attributed to other reasons, as well: the air of Ábdera, claimed Cicero, was proverbial in Athens as causing stupidity. Yet, it was the place of birth of several philosophers, such as Democritus, Protagoras, Anaxarchus, or Hecataeus of Ábdera, who was also a historian. In addition, Anacreon lived there for some time, but showed no signs of idiocy…

Democritus on an old Greek coin of 10 drachmas

● Democritus (Δημόκριτος, “chosen of the people”, c. 460 – c. 370 or c. 357 BCE), the “father of modern science”, was ignored in Athens. Plato, though he never mentioned him (but, on the contrary, he devoted a dialogue on Protagoras), disliked Democritus so much that he asked from his pupils to burn all his books!⁽⁴⁾ They proved to be very effective: we now know just citations of his works, since all of them disappeared in the Dark Middle Ages. Democritus and his master, Leucippus, from Miletus, or from Ábdera, were those that formulated an atomic theory of the universe – the idea that everything is composed of various imperishable, indivisible elements called atoms. Democritus travelled a lot spending the money his rich father left him. He praised the Egyptian mathematicians and became acquainted with the Chaldean magi. He was cheerful and always ready to see the comical side of life – but was intentionally misunderstood: they claimed that he laughed at the foolishness of men. That’s why they described him as the laughing philosopher, with Abderitan (incessant) laughter, and also an Abderite, meaning a scoffer, or mocker. The Athenian stupidity about the Abderitan air must have jumped from Plato’s mouth into Cicero’s writings because of Democritus…

Democritus was ignored in Athens. Plato, though he never mentioned him, disliked him so much that he asked from his pupils to burn all his books!

⁽⁴⁾ No wonder that Plato, who rejected the Athenian democracy as prone to anarchy, is included in a list of major advocates of anti-democratic thought (see Chronicle 4. On Democracy), together with: Friedrich Nietzsche (German philosopher, who discarded the so-called “democracy” of his time as “Christianity’s heir”); Charles Maurras (French writer, monarchist and fascist, who asked for the assassination of his opponents); Hubert Lagardelle (French syndicalist, a Proudhonist who later degenerated into a fascist); Robert Michels (German-Italian sociologist, who passed from socialism and revolutionary syndicalism also to fascism); Oswald Spengler (German historian, a “critical” supporter of Hitler, although he considered him vulgar); Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt (German Nazi philosophers); Elazar Shach (Israeli fundamentalist rabbi, a champion of Judaic law and an enemy of democracy). Within this framework, with this “company” (except, of course, Nietzsche), what is the real meaning and worth of the Platonic Republic?

● See the next two additional Chronicles 23-24, on the incessant struggle between the defenders and the opponents of Freedom of Thought and Speech.

The scientist philosopher was a determinist and materialist, believing everything to be the result of natural laws. Unlike Aristotle or Plato, he tried to explain the world without reasoning to a purpose, or final cause. The idealists became so pre-occupied for centuries with the teleological question that hindered progress. Democritus, with Leucippus and Epicurus, proposed the earliest views on the shapes and connectivity of atoms. Therefore, their theories appear to be more aligned with those of modern science than any other theories of antiquity. Yet, the so-called “exile of atomism”, after its rejection by authorities such as Aristotle, Plato, and the Christian Church, as well, lasted too long, until the 17th century, when it was resurrected by Gassendi and Descartes. In the meantime, all writings by Leucippus and Democritus, and most of Epicurus, were “lost”. The loss is irreplaceable if we take into account the vast scope of the Democritean work regarding ethics, natural science, mathematics, cosmology, music, art and literature, etc. Suffice it to say that among the works of this traveller-scientist-philosopher, there was one entitled Ocean Periplus… Other titles we’ll never read: Pythagoras, The Horn of Amalthea, On the Planets, On Nature, On the Mind, On Rhythms and Harmony, On Homer, On Poetry, On Song, On History, On Painting, On the Sacred Writings of Babylon, Planispheres, Chaldaean Account, Phrygian Account…

Ο Δημόκριτος σε παλιό χαρτονόμισμα των 100 δραχμών

Democritus on an old Hellenic banknote of 100 drachmas

● Book burning, suggested by Plato, was included among the favourite “sports” of the Christian Church. But it wasn’t the only one. Another method of censorship was copying classical works in the medieval monasteries. Behold the grim, dismal picture Catherine Nixey has painted in her thorough research, The Darkening Age / The Christian Destruction of the Classical World (see also our next two Chronicles):⁽⁵⁾

⁽⁵⁾ Catherine Nixey – how ironic! – is the daughter of a nun and a monk. However, her parents were anything but dogmatic (a rare exception); thus she was not indoctrinated (brainwashed).

Medieval scribe copying manuscripts
(19th-century illustration)

“In the silent copying-houses of the monks… gestures were used to request certain books: pagan books were requested by making a gagging gesture.⁽⁶⁾ Unsurprisingly, the works of despised authors suffered. At a time in which parchment was scarce, many ancient writers were simply erased, scrubbed away so that their pages could be reused for more elevated themes. Palimpsests – manuscripts in which a text has been scraped (psao [ψάω]) again (palin [πάλιν]) – provide glimpses of the moments at which these ancient works vanished… The work of Democritus, one of the greatest Greek philosophers and the father of atomic theory, was entirely lost.”

⁽⁶⁾ “Books approved by the Church would be stamped or marked by the word ‘Imprimatur’ – ‘Let it be printed’.” (C. Nixey). Centuries later, Mayakovsky would suffer due to similar stamps or marks.

“This theory – an Epicurean one [in Roman times] – offered an alternative view to the idea of a ‘Creation myth’, and stated that everything in the world was made not by any divine being but by the collision and combination of atoms… These particles were invisible to the naked eye but had their own structure and could not be cut (temno [τέμνω > ἄ-τομον, a-tom]) into any smaller particles… Everything that you see or feel, these materialists argued, is made up of two things: atoms and space… The distinct species of animals were explained by a form of proto-Darwinism… ‘No thing is ever by divine power produced from nothing’, wrote Lucretius in his great poem, On the Nature of Things, and ‘no single thing returns to nothing’. Atomic theory thus neatly did away with the need for and possibility of Creation,⁽⁷⁾ Resurrection, the Last Judgement, Hell, Heaven and the Creator God himself.

⁽⁷⁾ “Creation happened, as a Christian theologian infamously stated, on 23 October, 4004 BC”. (C.N.)

Book burning: the favourite “sport”
of the Christian Church…

“In the ensuing centuries, texts that contained such dangerous ideas paid a heavy price for their ‘heresy’… Some of the greatest figures in the early Church rounded on the atomists. Augustine disliked atomism for precisely the same reason the atomists liked it: it weakened mankind’s terror of divine punishment and Hell.

“Democritus had perhaps done more than anyone to popularize this theory – though not only this one. Democritus was an astonishing polymath who had written works on a breathless array of other topics. A far from complete list of his titles includes: On History; On Nature; The Science of Medicine; On the Tangents of the Circle and the Sphere; On Irrational Lines and Solids; On the Causes of Celestial Phenomena; On the Causes of Atmospheric Phenomena; on Reflected Images… The list goes on. Today Democritus’s most famous theory is his atomism. What did the other theories state? We have no idea: every single one of his works was lost in the ensuing centuries. As the eminent physicist Carlo Rovelli wrote, after citing an even longer list of the philosopher’s titles: ‘the loss of the works of Democritus in their entirety is the greatest intellectual tragedy to ensue from the collapse of the old classical civilisation’. (See the Appendix on Democritus at the end of this Chronicle).

“Democritus’s atomic theory did, however, come down to us – but on a very slender thread: it was contained in one single volume of Lucretius’s great poem, that was held in one single German library, that one single intrepid book hunter would eventually find and save from extinction. That single volume would have an astonishing afterlife: it became a literary sensation; returned atomism to European thought; created what… was called ‘an explosion of interest in pagan antiquity’, and influenced Newton, Galileo and later Einstein.”

The Rock of Gibraltar at sunset

Capitel” protoeólico” de una columna hallada en Cádiz de influencia orientalizante

Proto-Aeolic or Proto-Ionic capital with oriental influences from the Santuary of Baal Hamón in Gadir (7th century BCE)

SAILING PAST MAENACA AND MALACA, after this highly instructive break, we finally drop anchor at the Bay of Gibraltar. Carteia was built at its most northerly point, about halfway between the modern cities of Algeciras and Gibraltar, on elevated ground, at the confluence of two rivers, overlooking the sea. According to Strabo, it was founded circa 940 BCE, as the emporium of K’rt, meaning “City” in Phoenician (compare Qart Hadasht, i.e. Carthage, “New City”). The area had much to offer a merchant; the hinterland behind Carteia was rich in wood, agricultural products, lead, iron, copper, and silver. Dyes were another much sought-after commodity, especially those from the murex shellfish, used to make the prized “Tyrian” purple.⁽⁸⁾ Due to its strategic location, the city played a significant role in the Punic Wars. In the Battle of Carteia in 206, the Punic fleet was defeated by the Romans, who captured the colony circa 190 BCE.

⁽⁸⁾ The “Tyrian” purple was, in fact, Minoan: see Chronicle 19, footnote 6.

The Bay of Gibraltar: Algeciras (W), Calpe (E)
and Carteia (in the middle?)

Passing through the Strait and into the Atlantic, we are surprised to hear that Bailo was none other than Gadir. The information, however, cannot be verified, and the closest to the name “Bailo” we can find is Baelo, near the present-day village of Bolonia, around Tarifa, at the southernmost point of Europe – but rather far from Gadir. The town served as a trade link with northern Africa (Strabo: “hence the crossings to Tingis of Maurusia”);⁽⁹⁾ nevertheless, it was abandoned because of earthquakes. Eventually, we realize we’re sailing in an area colonized by Heracles – or, in other words, by the Mycenaeans: not only Ábdera (or Ábderos), but also Carteia (Carpeia, Carpaea or Carthaea), and Bailo-Baelo or Belōn, appear to have links to the great hero. Carteia, wrote Strabo citing Timosthenes of Rhodes, was previously called Heraclea, after its founder. Some identify it with Algeciras, Paco de Lucía’s hometown, on the west side of the bay, others say on the contrary it was located on the east side, on Calpe, i.e. the Rock of Gibraltar; there are those also who connect it to Tartessos claiming that once the latter disappeared, many confused it with Carteia (e.g. Pausanias: “Tartessos, some people say, used to be the old name of Carpeia”). Other settlements of the Heraclean colonizing labour were Mellaria (Menlaria, or Melouria, modern Tarifa), and also Gadir; sometimes even Tartessos is included in the list. Some, very few, on the other hand, identify the legendary city with modern Sanlúcar de Barrameda. Wishful thinking, most probably, on either side…

⁽⁹⁾ Strabo’s “Maurusia”: Mauritania, Western Sahara, Morocco, and northern Algeria.

Gulf of Gadir and the three islets with Greek names:
Erytheia, Kotinoussa, Antípolis

As for the Pillars of Heracles, the northern one on European soil is called Calpe, or Alybē (Gibraltar), “small in size but rising sharply to a great height and looking like an island from afar” (Strabo), while the southern one, Abylē or Abyla (Ceuta), is rather low. Their peculiarity is that their sovereignty is exercised nowadays by foreign powers: Gibraltar, on Spanish territory, is controlled by Britain; Ceuta, on Moroccan soil, by Spain. The Phoenician Abyla, founded in the 7th century BCE, passed under the control of the Phocaeans who renamed it as Heptá Adelphoí (Seven Brothers). The Romans, as usual, transcribed the Grecian toponym into Latin as Septem Fratres, or simply Septem (hence perhaps its current name), and used Ceuta almost exclusively as a military post. The strategic importance of the Strait was obvious to everyone.

There is another settlement, beyond the Pillars and on African soil, presented as a Punic colony of the early 5th century, possibly with prior Phoenician presence, called Tingis (today’s Tangier). Taking advantage of Carthage’s crushing defeat in Sicily in 480 BCE, the Phocaeans should have taken control of this town, too, dominating – at least for a while – in that area of strategic importance, during the Punics’ isolationist period after their defeat. Like so many other towns, Tingis in fact was neither Phoenician, nor Greek, but, in this case, Berber. According to a Graeco-Roman mythological tradition, cited by Plutarch, Tingis was the wife of the giant Antaeus, king of Libya (Maghreb) and son of Poseidon and Gaea, who was killed by Heracles. In Berber mythology, the founder of the city was Syfax, son of Tingis and Heracles. The tomb of Antaeus, with his giant skeleton, was found in Tangier by the Roman rebel Quintus Sertorius in the 1st century BCE, while the “cave of Heracles”, where the hero supposedly slept before he stole the apples of the Hesperides, is located 14 kilometers from the city to the west.

The Strait of Gibraltar with the Pillars of Heracles

The colonizing activity apparently continued after the Trojan War, since we are told that, despite the reports to the contrary, there were Hellenic (later Roman) settlements beyond the Pillars of Heracles. One of them was located between Gadir and the city of Tartessos, at the mouth of the Río Guadalete: it was Portus Menesthei (Μενεσθέως Λιμήν), probably the present-day El Puerto de Santa María, locally known simply as El Puerto.⁽¹⁰⁾ Even the Gaditan Phoenicians, wrote Strabo, offered sacrifices in Menestheus’ oracle. As one of Helen’s suitors, he fought in the Trojan War. But afterwards, according to some writers, he was expelled from Athens by the descendants of Theseus, and found refuge with his entourage in Iberia. (See Chronicle 26, Odysseys in the Aftermath of the Trojan War: Colonization of Iberia). Lastly, there was another Hellenic settlement located next to Huelva to the West: it was Calathussa, today’s Aljaraque.

⁽¹⁰⁾ The word “Port” is preserved in the toponym throughout its history: the Arabs (Moors) invaded Iberia in 711 CE and renamed the port to Alcante or Alcanatif, meaning Port of Salt, due to the production of salt since the time of the Phoenicians. Finally in 1260, the Castilians, who occupied the city, renamed it to Santa María del Puerto.

The Lioness of Baena (Córdoba) 6th c, Greek and oriental influences

The Lioness of Baena (Córdoba) with Greek
and oriental influences (6th century BCE)

Portus Menesthei, in “historical terms”, might not be that old, since the Hellenes of the Homeric era (at least their goods) arrived at Iberian ports later, in the 9th – 8th centuries BCE. Those who transported the Greek ware and other products might very well have been the Phoenicians, due to their artistic quality, which the Canaanites were unable to achieve. Such an excellent ceramic, an Attic cylix, a wine-drinking vessel, was found in Medellin of Badajoz, in Extremadura. The presence of such a beautiful cup so far from the coastline is explained by the so-called Silver Route that probably crossed western Iberia from north to south to facilitate transport of mineral wealth from Galicia to Tartessian harbours.

Hellenic culture, art, ideas, habits, etc. could not be transported on
Phoenician ships, making the Greek presence in Iberia necessary…

What the Phoenician ships could not transport and, therefore, made the Greek presence absolutely necessary in Iberia, was Hellenic culture, art, ideas, models, architecture, burial habits, etc. Taking into account that perhaps the Minoans were not Greeks, it seems that Iberia was found under Hellenic influence for the first time during the Mycenaean period. But this is half-true and, therefore, half a lie (at least), given that the Mycenaeans were civilized thanks to the Minoans. Consequently, Minoan and Mycenaean influences on Iberian cultures were very similar, if not identical. At that time, there was perhaps no Tartessos. Minoans and Mycenaeans inseminated the local cultures they found in Iberia, and the Tartessian civilization germinated some time later, when there were no Greeks around anymore. It took them at least half a millennium to wake up from their lethargic “Dark Ages” and re-appear in the peninsula. In the meantime, the rich rewards were reaped by the Phoenicians and Punics…

Major Hellenic colonies in Iberia before the Punic conquests (c. 300 BCE): Rhode, Emporion, Callípolis, Sálauris, Zácantha, Hēmeroscopeion-Artemisium, Acra Leucá, Alonís, Helice, Ábdera, Maenaca, Portus Menesthei, Calathussa: they are all located in Spain. So, the Iberian periplus
I’ve tried to revive in this Chronicle ended up as just a circumnavigation of Spain.

Appendix on Democritus

“Aristoxenus, in his Historical Notes, affirms that Plato wished to burn all the writings of Democritus that he could collect, but Amyclas and Cleinias, the Pythagoreans, prevented him, as it would be of no use, for the books were already widely circulated… Plato, though he mentions almost all the early philosophers, never once alludes to Democritus, not even where it would be necessary to controvert him, obviously because he knew he would have to match himself against the greatest of philosophers”… (Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, by Diogenes Laërtius)

Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laërtius

Avoiding the encounter, Plato passed the torch to Aristotle who wrote a monograph on Democritus, praising him for arguing from sound considerations appropriate to natural philosophy, and regarding him as an outstanding rival. This may be the reason why this monograph, albeit Aristotelian, was “lost”; only a few passages quoted in other sources have survived. The predominance of Platonic philosophy in the 4th century BCE, and the spread of Platonic schools must be the reason why Democritean thought and work was brushed aside and vanished. What survived could not pass through the “Symplegades” of Christian “zealots”; and what has been brought down to us includes many fragments, most of which, however, are on ethics and not physics.

Democritus on a Greek stamp

● The world is born when many atoms of various shapes gather and produce a whirl, separating the fine bodies, while bringing together the heavier bodies at the centre in a first sphere (earth). As long as the atoms are infinite, and the void is also infinite, our world is anything but a unique phenomenon. Thus, the atomists are the first thinkers to have clearly put forward the idea that there are infinite worlds. In their system there are three eternally existing elements: the atoms, the void, and motion-change (kinesis). Proposing that motion-change is eternal, Democritus was aware that in this way he removed all anthropomorphic elements from the natural world.

Portrait of a philosopher,
probably Democritus

The mechanisms of nature function without being regulated by any higher power. Can it be that everything in nature happens without order, or by chance? Judging by Plato and Aristotle, many after Democritus have interpreted the atomist theory in this way. Plato launches a harsh attack in his Laws against Democritus (without mentioning his name), and the “wicked, disrespectful” philosophers, who claim that the greatest and finest things came to be with no intervention of some intellect or god, and are works of nature and chance. These philosophers, claims Plato, are wrong in underestimating the role of the soul, to which they attribute a material substance, but also of the “intelligent purposefulness” governing the universe. The controversy with Democritus must be the motive for the late Plato to write Timaeus, in an attempt to construct a teleological cosmology in contrast to the supposedly “mechanistic” Democritean universe. Once more, Plato does not mention his rival directly, not even when he adopts a peculiar system of mathematical atomism, in which the atoms of Democritus are replaced by elementary triangles.

Hylas and the Nymphs, by John William Waterhouse (1896)

Diogenes details the Democritean opera

The other works which some attribute to Democritus are either compilations from his writings or admittedly not genuine, adds Diogenes.

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