Anne's Daily Encounters

By dutchdelight

Place me on Sounion's marbled steep...

Lord Byron's words on his visit to Poseidon's temple, this temple!

It's been long time ago that I visited Sounion's cape with Poseidon's with my children.

My first visit here was in 1966 and then we could  walk across the temple's marble floor and touch its pillars and sit between them.
Since decades this is not possible anymore and rightly so, coz we tourists come in our millions here every year.
Lord Byron carved his name in the 2nd pillar to the right from its entrance... not to be seen anymore by us tourists of today.

There are 15 Doric columns (pillars) each of 6 metres in hight. Their white marmor came from nearby Lavrio. In 483 BC the Athenians discovered that the soil of Lavrio had silver (and lead)... Lavrio became Athens' treasure whose silver served for its coins with the Athenian Owl marked in them. Silver coins that made Themistocles pay with for the ships he needed for his sea-battle against the Persians in the Bay of Salamis.

backblip 16
Here backblip 15

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