CHAPTER 15: Pergamon.

The ride to Bergama is eight kilometers of panic as the driver sideswipes each bar ditch, his oscillation synchronized with oncoming car lights by some psychic radar. I sit in the front seat with him, my daypack and camera case at my feet, the glow of his cigarette in the corner of my eye and wishing desperately for a seat belt. Dark shapes appear out of darkness then flash out of existence behind us. Just before we get into Bergama, I’m at the point of hoping he is a mugger and will take my money, camera and leave me at the side of the road. He slows as we enter the city, and a marked civility comes over his driving. I tell him I need a pension, and he drops me off along the side of the street.

The pension is an old Greek-styled mansion. I enter a quiet courtyard where I’m met by quiet amorphous sounds and the clack of shoes against stone, a hollow emptiness. The rooms have high ceilings and private baths and are centered around an open courtyard. I leave my daypack and camera case in my room and go out into the dark in search of dinner, thankful to have survived the ride.

My daughter, Cyndi, came to see me during Christmas following the spring her girl friend disappeared. I had been in San Diego a year and a half. She seemed better adjusted than I had anticipated. We talked, went to movies, shopping. Then late one evening as we watched videos on MTV, we heard a knock at the door. I opened it to find a young man staring at me. “Is your daughter at home, sir?” he asked. I figured he had the wrong apartment, but my daughter was right behind me claiming she knew the guy. The two of them talked for a while in the hall, and she came to me. “Dad,” she asked, “can I go out with him for a few minutes?”

It was almost ten o’clock. “No,” I said, annoyed she would ask at that hour. “Tell him to call tomorrow.” She looked at me straight, a look I’d never seen from her before. “I know this guy, Dad. I’m not a little girl and I’m going,” she told me. “I only asked as a matter of courtesy. I’ll be back by midnight.”

I was so taken aback by the transformation in her, I wouldn’t have questioned it if she had told me she was going to rob a bank. But she didn’t return by midnight, not by one o’clock, not by two. By three, I had my hand on the telephone rehearsing my speech to the police. And a miserable speech it was. I had no idea who she was out with, no name, address, license plate number.

A little after three, she strolled in as though nothing was wrong. I lit into her, and we had a knockdown drag-out verbal battle. She ripped into me as if she was the parent, deeply offended I should question her judgement. I was overmatched.

I didn’t realize that the guy Cyndi was out with wasn’t from San Diego, and she had never seen him before that night. She wasn’t even interested in him. She had in fact anticipated that knock at the door. During the hours between ten and three in the morning, she had visited with an old friend, and they laid the groundwork for what was to come four months later. I was so naive as to believe our confrontation had been simply a teenage daughter rebelling against her father.

25 Nov, Thursday

I’m up later than I would have liked, grab all my bathroom articles and scurry down the hall to the community toilet. Just when I get my clothes off, I realize I forgot my soap. I wrap a towel around me and hurry back to my room. When I return, the door is locked. I pound on the door and shout, and finally an angry voice shouts back that if I’ll just let him pee he’ll let me have it. Shortly a gray-haired American emerges murmuring to himself and staring daggers at me.

Today is Thanksgiving, for those of us who are Americans. For the rest of the world, it’s just another day. I have breakfast off the courtyard with sparrows on the windowsill and a couple from Germany who speak little English. My German is only enough to create embarrassing silences, but just as I abandon the conversation, in comes the man I had the confrontation with over the bathroom. He’s with his wife and seems to have calmed some although he’s still stiff faced. They sit at the long table across from me, and I feel guilty about being so pushy with him. She has the brightest shiniest face I’ve seen since I’ve been on the road, and immediately wants to know who I am, where I’m from. They’re from Long Island, New York, and I mention that I used to travel there frequently during my days in San Diego before the Challenger disaster, overseeing a subcontract Grumman Aerospace had with us. Finally her pokerfaced husband gives me a glance. He’s an aerospace engineer also and works at Grumman. We compare notes and learn that I know his boss quite well. When we break company, we’re on much better terms than when we met with the bathroom door between us. It was like meeting myself on the road.

I worked with Grumman on that subcontract for a couple of years. Part of the time, someone else was also living in Flushing, not far from Shea Stadium. I passed within a mile of where she was staying several times. I would have given anything to know she was there and alive.

Bergama is warmer and dryer than Canakkale yesterday and more than I bargained for, certainly more picturesque with the akropolis at the northeastern edge of the city. Though the road from the coast to Bergama is east-west, just before entering the city the road turns northward. The town sprawls along the akropolis’ western edge. The huge mountain stands over this city like some amorphous dark-faced earth goddess. The sun pokes its bright head through fast-moving thunderheads as I cross the busy street in old town in search of Kazil Avlu, Red Basilica. I find it at the foot of the mountain. The structure is a huge crumbling monolith formed of flat red brick from which it takes its name.

In Revelations, St. John mentioned the seven Christian churches of Asia, and one of them was here in the ancient city of Pergamon. In John’s vision, the Son of Man told him that this is “where Satan dwelleth,”[1] and that the people here held the doctrine “to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.”[2]

The red-brick Basilica sits astride two vaulted tunnels through which the water of the ancient Selinus River, now called Bergama Cayi, passes underneath the ruins. The structure was originally built as a temple to the Egyptian gods Isis and Serapis.[3] Only small remnants of the wall of the Christian church remain. It’s a stark presence rising into the morning sky casting long shadows across the flowing water. The remains of pale brick walls tower above me like the bleached red bones of some prehistoric creature.

At the end of the Trojan War, Hektor’s wife Andromache was awarded to Neoptolemus, son of Achilles. She accompanied him back to Thessaly on the Greek mainland where he was king. Neoptolemus married Hermione, the daughter of Menelaus and Helen, but she bore him no children. Andromache, as Neoptolemus’ slave and concubine, however, bore him three male children. Hermione accused Andromache of casting a secret spell to make her barren, and with help from her ruthless father, Menelaus, planned to kill Andromache and her children. But Achilles’ father, aged Peleus, who was also Andromache’s children’s great grandfather, protected her until word came that Agamemnon’s son Orestes had killed Neoptolemus at Delphi. The throne again returned to Peleus who then helped Andromache and her children escape. Eventually she returned to the western coast of Asia Minor with her son Pergamus.

At the time, the town was called Teuthrania and ruled by a king named Areios.[4] Pergamus engaged Areios in one-to-one combat and killed him. Pergamus renamed Teuthrania, calling it Pergamos after himself. This would have been shortly after 1200 BC. Andromache lived out her life here at Pergamos. The remains of the ancient city of Teuthrania, have never been found. Some believe it was closer to the coast although it could have been here at the akropolis.

I leave the ruins of the basilica and cross the bridge over the Selinus river, taking a footpath at the southern foot of the akropolis at the site of the Lower Agora and walk among the huge stone blocks beside reconstructed columns of ancient two-story shops. Shortly I’m high above the city looking down on flattop buildings and bright-white spires. Along the southern flank of the mountain, past the ruins of a small temple dedicated to Hera and another to Cybele, I come to a naturally formed terrace where the ruins of the temple of Demeter, which date from the 3rd century BC, lie scattered about.

This site is the major reason I’ve come to Pergamon.

Demeter was the sister of Zeus and lived on Mt. Olympos with the rest of the Olympian gods, but she was concerned with the earth and not the shenanigans of the more social and political gods and goddesses. She was the goddess of vegetation and in particular, farm crops except for the bean which she considered impure. She caused all green things to grow. Cultivation of the soil was a holy act presided over by Demeter.[5] She’s frequently associated with corn, but not the corn we know in America because corn was developed by Native Americans and not taken to Europe until Columbus returned from America in 1492 AD. “Corn” to the ancient Greeks meant either wheat or barley.

Demeter’s ancient Mysteries were practiced her. They were best kept secret of all antiquity. The Mysteries were unveiled in an elaborate ceremony, that was so secret it continued uninterrupted two thousand years[6] without leaving enough clues for archeologists and scholars to decode it. The ancient Greeks believed the Mysteries made existence possible and held the entire human race together.[7]

Demeter’s temple, as with the rest of the site, has been destroyed, the only remains are architectural fragments, portions of walls and a few remaining columns standing vertical but now supporting nothing but blue sky. I enter the temple through the propylon and down a flight of ten stone steps between two tall marble columns. The ruins lying before me are the size of a football field and sparsely covered with tender green grass beneath the tall coarse shafts of last years crop. To my left at the edge of the site, the mountain falls precipitously away to the vast open expanse above the city, giving me a touch of vertigo.

I’m here a little later in the year than I would like because the Mysteries were celebrated during the autumn month of Boedromion 12-23, the late summer or early autumn of August-September, the time of desolate fields and prior to renewal, the sprouting of all things green.

The Mysteries were practiced in several locations throughout ancient Greece: here at Pergamon, on the nearby island of Samothrace where Poseidon watched the Trojan War, and in Crete where they originated.[8] When Jason and the Argonauts sailed the northern edge of the Aegean on their way to the far side of the Black Sea to retrieve the golden fleece, Orpheus had them stop off at Samothrace before entering the Dardanelles to be initiated into the Mysteries. That way, if they died in the attempt, they would have the consolation of eternal life. During the Mysteries here in Pergamon, the Orphic Hymns were sung by the initiates.

Orpheus was the earliest of all religious figures, labeled “famous Orpheus” even when his name first appears in writings of the 6th century BC.[9] He was the mortal son Apollo and the muse Kalliope. Apollo taught him to play the lyre. He was the earthly prophet of Dionysus, serving to moderate the ritual madness of his cult and make it more civilized. Orphism had a code of conduct and was ultimately moral in its belief. Orpheus was a gentle shepherd and minstrel who played a golden lyre and whose music made rocks move, trees congregate and wild beasts lie together at his feet. Dionysus also played a major role in the Mysteries.

The Orphic Hymns are prayers directed to eighty-seven different deities. The hymn To Dionysus recognized his wild side but called upon his softer nature:  

I call upon loud-roaring and reveling Dionysos,
primeval, two-natured, thrice-born, Bacchic lord,
savage, ineffable, secretive, two-horned and two-shaped.
Ivy-covered, bull-faced, warlike, howling, pure,
you take raw flesh, you have triennial feasts, wrapt in foliage,
     decked with grape clusters.
Resourceful Eubouleus, immortal god sired by Zeus
when he mated with Persephone in unspeakable union.
Hearken to my voice, O blessed one, and with your fair-girdled nurses
breathe on me in a spirit of perfect kindness.[10]

The Mysteries were based on the disappearance of Demeter’s daughter, Persephone, and Demeter’s search for her, Demeter’s wandering and grieving. The story was ritualized as was the death of Jesus by Christians: the last supper, his crucifixion and resurrection. Persephone was abducted as she played in a field of flowers, snatched as she reached for a narcissus blossom. Mother Earth and Zeus participated in the abduction. Zeus okayed the his daughter abduction, and Mother Earth caused the narcissus to bloom as a snare to attract Persephone and gaped so her abductor could spring from the Underworld to grab her.

Everyone understood what was happening but Persephone and her mother. Even those who heard and saw the abduction did nothing to prevent it, and the story takes on a lighthearted sense of tragic necessity even though they were concerned about the grief of Demeter and her unnecessary pain. From her cave Hekate, a torch-bearing goddess of the Underworld, heard Persephone’s scream. Helios, the sun god, saw and heard the abduction from his brilliant orbit high in the heavens. Too late, her mother heard her shrill cry. Neither of them helped Demeter find her daughter, “... none of the gods or mortal men wanted to tell her the truth and none of the birds of omen came to her as truthful messenger.”[11]

Persephone had been abducted by Hades, lord of the Underworld. Afterward, Persephone herself became so feared no one was permitted to speak her name in public.

The most famous site for initiation into the Mysteries is Eleusis, on the coast just west of Athens where people came from all over the known world in search of life after death. I hope to see Eleusis in a few days.

I leave the temple of Demeter and struggle up the slope, past more ruins of a gymnasium and magazines imbedded in the side of the mountain, walk the stone-paved road to the temple of Dionysus. Here, Dionysus’ position as god of wine comes into full focus. The people of ancient Pergamon came here to eat food and drink wine left on the marble podium. The worshipers lay down and got drunk, thus opening the door to Dionysus, his joy, his madness.

From the temple of Dionysus, I wind along the western slope, the walkway formed of huge flat stones buried in earth with green sprigs of grass growing between them. I come to an ancient theatre carved out of the mountain overlooking the modern city, a view to strike awe in anyone. Along the lower edge of the theatre are the ruins of a long promontory lined with ancient shops. At the far end of the 250 meter promontory is another temple of Dionysus, patron deity of theatre and god of the mask, gateway into madness. The priests of Dionysus conducted bloody sacrifices here prior to each performance.

The theatre, which seated 10,000, is more dramatic than that at Ephesus because of its commanding height on the mountainside. The steep-sloping seats fan outward from the stage, the first cupped funnel ending at a terrace only to resume climbing the mountain to another terrace and above it the largest fan of seats dominating the entire expanse of city and countryside. The two upper sections are partial fans, lying flatter on the decreasing slope of the mountain. The acoustics were poor and walls were built along the edges to hold in the sound.

I walk around the theatre, up the slope to the remains of the temple of Zeus, its ruins dominated by two large oak trees. The oak was sacred to Zeus, the rustle of their leaves being read by seers as the voice of Zeus. I walk above it to the temple of Athena and look down on the theatre. The view is even more dramatic, the entire countryside now visible. Four tumulus’s, ancient grave sites, pock the plane. The city is an amorphous sprawl of white and red speckles.

Next to the temple of Athena are the ruins of the famous Pergamon Library which was home to 200,000 books. The term “book” originally applied to clay tablets and papyrus rolls. The ancient Greeks wrote on papyrus which was manufactured in Alexandria, Egypt. But the library here in Pergamon came to rival that in Alexandria, so Egypt placed an embargo on papyrus about 190 BC, thus forcing Pergamon to switch to parchment which was made form animal skins. The word parchment evolved from the name “Pergamon”. Parchment was used in the form of a codex, the pages both sides of which could be used for writing. Consequently, the modern form of the “book” was invented here at Pergamon.

Above the temple of Athena are the remains of the Royal Palace and beyond it, at the top of the akropolis, the arsenal where food, weapons and ammunition were stored. Much of the ammunition was stone-size shots which were hurled from the city walls by catapults.

I stand at the summit of the akropolis and survey the landscape. The region is more mountainous than I thought from the plane below. To the north the Bergama Cayi flows through a ravine cut sharply into the mountains. To the south, rolling hills are now turning a faint green. To the west, the plane along which runs the road to the coast lies between rolling hills. Perhaps I’m kidding myself, but I believe I can see the island of Lesbos in the distance. Lesbos has a rather bizarre connection with Orpheus. I hope to be there in a few days.

I grab a bite to eat at a dive off the main drag, give up looking for something exotic and have pide, a small elongated Turkish pizza, tourist food. Afterward, I make the long trek to the western part of town to the other significant archaeological site in Bergama, the Asklepion. This huge site is tucked into the fold of rolling hills. The earliest remains date from the 4th century BC.

I enter the site at the entrance by a car park. I walk an ancient Sacred Way, which is paved with large, uneven blocks of andesite and lined with tall-standing portions of columns. The propylon or entryway contains a few pieces of large marble monuments. The Asklepion is a huge rectangle. The entry side was reserved for buildings, and the other three sides were colonnades, many of the slender columns with Ionic capitals still stand. They enclosed galleries. At the far side of the site to the northwest, a small theatre is recessed in the hillside. In the middle of the site is a Sacred Fountain.

When I was in the Peloponnese, Letizia and I visited Epidaurus, the most famous of all sites devoted to Asklepios, the god of healing. Asklepios was the divine healer, the physician, who had been educated by the centaur Cheiron. Asklepios’ two mortal sons, Machaeon and Podaleirius, were among the Greek forces at Troy. Machaeon was killed in the war by Eurypylus the son of Telephus, but was himself killed by Neoptolemus. Machaeon was the first surgeon. He had been coerced into fighting in the Trojan War because he was a suitor of Helen.

Hypocrites, the father of modern medicine, was a member of Asklepios’ cult, the Asklepiadae, sons of Asklepios, as I related when we docked at Kos on our way to Patmos. Hypocrites gave us the Hippocratic oath which some physicians still take before starting practice. Galen (130-200 AD), Greek founder of experimental physiology and the most famous physician of the Roman empire, was born and received his training here at Pergamon. Thus the tradition that began with the centaur Cheiron was passed on to Galen and disseminated to the Romans. I would expect more a than coincidental connection between Achilles’ cure of Telephos using rust from the sword that caused his wound to a modern treatment technique for diseases, inoculation.

Asklepios’ downfall as a mortal was due to his extraordinary healing powers. He was not content to head the living sick and injured and started resurrecting the dead. Zeus was afraid he would let the race of men live forever and killed him with a lightening bolt. But Apollo rescued him and made him immortal.

Asklepios is closely related to Demeter by his snake aspect, which the ancients believed to be connected with healing because snakes live both above and below ground as do herbs with their healing powers.[12] During the Mysteries, the following hymn was sung to Asklepios:  

Asklepios, lord Paian, healer of all,
you charm away the suffering of men in pain.
Come, mighty and soothing, bring health,
and put and end to sickness and the harsh fate of death.
Helper, blessed spirit of growth and blossoming, you ward evil off,
honored and might scion of Phoibos Apollon.
Enemy of disease, whose blameless consort is Hygieia,
come, O blessed one, as savior and bring life to a good end.[13]

Asklepios’, like Dionysus, was born of a mortal mother who died from a lightning bolt thrown by Zeus. Both of their births occurred during their mothers’ deaths. Asklepios was originally mortal whereas Dionysus was always a god. But Asklepios was the god who healed the human psyche through dream therapy. A belief held in Pergamon was that Hades, Lord of the Underworld, could not enter the Asklepion; therefore, no one ever died here.

I walk through the site to the north corner where the small theatre sits recessed into the hillside. The theatre was used for concerts and plays connected with the treatment of patients. It seated 3,500. The grandeur of the theatre on the akropolis is not present here. The small theatre projecting an intimate, quiet atmosphere as a part of the rolling hills.

I walk diagonally across the quadrangle to its center where I hear the gentle gurgle of healing water flowing from the Sacred Fountain. The water is slightly radioactive which is supposed to give it healing qualities. Just beyond the sacred spring is the cryptoportico, a stone enclosed walkway eighty meters long and built below ground, a man-built cavern. Water from the sacred spring ran down the center of the cryptoportico causing small waterfalls and playing musically with the damp dark atmosphere. It leads to the south corner of the quadrangle and the temple of Telesphorus. Telesphorus was a dwarf-like, nocturnal companion of Asklepios, a child-god in a hooded cloak[14] and known as the Bringer of Fulfillment.[15] Telesphorus, being nocturnal, was complementary to Asklepios whose epiphany came with sunrise. The proper sacrifice to Asklepios was a rooster.[16]

The round building dedicated to Telesphorus is known as the Therapy Building. Next to it is another round building, the temple of Asklepios. Patients slept in both buildings, praying until they fell asleep. The next morning attending physicians interpreted their dreams. Treatments also consisted of “faith healing, self-suggestion, psychology, sports, mud baths, and baths in the water from the sacred spring.”[17] The round building and adjacent structures are a maze of large stacked stones forming arches, walls, stairs. Large amorphous crumbling sections of walls made of small rocks and dirt rise up into the afternoon air.

Asklepios’ daughter was Hygieia who frequently accompanied him and was his feminine counterpart, the archetype of the modern nurse.

I’m back on the main road sitting on the bus to Izmir and Seljuk, a few kilometers from Bergama. This time I avoided a dolmus by taking the bus. I changed buses here at the roadside stop, and now I’m on a high-riding Mercedes. The silence is only faintly penetrated by a baby crying a few seats from me and a snoring Turk up front, the murmur of a few random voices. The sun is set, but the glow of twilight has turned the landscape surreal. I should get to Seljuk by nine o’clock tonight.

After the Trojan War, a great upheaval came to the Mycenaean world, and sometime around 1190 BC, the civilization progressively declined and gradually collapsed, thus ending the Bronze Age.  In the years following the Trojan War, a strange Sea People, many of whom were aligned with the ancient Greeks, plundered throughout the Mediterranean. Once Ares, god of war, had been wakened, he couldn’t be put to sleep again. All over Greece kingdoms were sieged and burned to the ground. A great migration occurred in the 11th century BC, and a “Dark Age” fell on Greece during which they lost the ability to write. The pictographic scripts of Linear A, which was used on Crete, and Linear B, which was used on mainland Greece, had been used primarily for official documents and inventories, and was preserved on clay tablets that were baked in the conflagrations of the cities during siege.

Many Mycenaeans, particularly those from Athens, resettled in Asia Minor and the entire western coast Turkey became Greek. They called the central coastal area Ionia, along with the two islands Samos and Chios. Greek Ephesus was founded by Androclus a hundred years later. Androclus was the grandson of Melanthus, a legendary king of Athens. To become king, Melanthus had killed Thymoites, the last descendant of Theseus.[18] Melanthus was succeeded by his son Codrus and Codrus’ son was Androclus who lead the expedition to Ionia and founded Greek Ephesus in 1087 BC.

King David of the Bible, circa 1000 BC, fought against the Philistines, an evil enemy in the eyes of ancient Hebrews, but now we can put a face on that enemy, one more objective than that provided 3000 years ago by the Hebrews. The face is that of an ancient Greek. Goliath calling out a Hebrew to fight him one-on-one is similar to the time-honored custom of the ancient Greeks;[19] for example, Polyneices against Eteocles during Seven Against Thebes, Menelaus against Paris, and Achilles against Hektor during the Trojan War. Goliath’s armor was also similar to that of Achilles:[20]

And he had an helmet of brass upon his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail; and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of brass.

And he had greaves of brass upon his legs, and a target of brass between his shoulders.

And the staff of his spear was like a weaver’s beam; and his spear’s head weighed six hundred shekels of iron; and one bearing a shield went before him.[21]

Goliath may have been a rather recent descendent of the Mycenaeans.

The Dark Age lasted four hundred years. Pergamon and Ephesus were but two of many new Greek colonies. From archeological excavations, we know that many of them also resettled in Phoenicia, the homeland of Kadmos and Europa, and what was at the time called Canaan by the Hebrews. For the descendants of Kadmos and Europa, it must have been like a homecoming of sorts.

The Mycenaeans gradually merged into the cultural landscape. During the Dark Age, which was marked by poverty and social chaos, stories of the Greek gods and the Mycenaean kings, Oedipus, Theseus, Achilles, Agamemnon, Odysseus, Menelaus, were sung in the ruins of ancient palaces and about the campfires during the long night of Greek civilization. Stories passed from generation to generation through this oral tradition gradually consolidated, and around 750 BC the works of Homer and Hesiod were written on tablets, perhaps a century after their verbal composition. A new civilization emerged from the Dark Age, one no longer based on palace-centered bureaucratic states[22] but on the polis or city-state.[23]

As the Mycenaean Greeks merged with the local communities on the coast of Asia Minor, Cypress and Phoenicia, so the Greek gods merged with the eastern religions and thus Artemis merged with the Great Mother goddess of the East, Cybele. Ephesian Artemis became the heart and soul of that city. This was the situation when St. Paul came here in 53 AD, hot on the trail of all idolaters.

When Manto, the daughter of the Theban seer Teiresias who came here from Delphi, first reached the coast of Asia Minor, she encountered a colony of Cretans, possibly those who came with Miletus. She married one of them, Rakios, and had a son. She named him Mopsus.

Manto founded Colophon, just a few kilometers from Ephesus, several years before the Trojan War. In addition to being a seer, Manto was famous for her poetry. Diodorus Siculus says she wrote some of Homer’s best lines:

This maiden possessed no less knowledge of prophecy than her father [Teiresias], and in the course of her stay at Delphi she developed her skill to a far greater degree; moreover, by virtue of the employment of a marvellous natural gift, she also wrote oracular responses of every sort, excelling in their composition; and indeed it was from her poetry, they say, that the poet Homer took many verses which he appropriated as his own and with them adorned his own poesy.[24]

Homer was also from this area, lived in Smyrna (Izmir), where I’m now headed, around 750 BC, almost 600 years after Manto. Manto’s son followed in his mother’s footsteps and became a gifted seer himself.

Calchas, the seer who went to Troy with Agamemnon, saw into the future and realized the problems the Greeks would have returning home because of the rape of Cassandra at Athena’s temple during the siege of Troy. He wandered south along the coast of Asia Minor along with some of his followers and also settled at Colophon where he met Manto’s son, Mopsus. Calchas was jealous of Mopsus’ powers of prophecy and challenged him to a duel of the seers. Calchas asked Mopsus:  

... how many figs were growing on a wild fig tree nearby, Mopsus answered, “Ten thousand and a bushel and one fig over,” and the answer turned out to be correct. Mopsus then asked Calchas how many pigs a pregnant sow was carrying in her womb and when was she due to give birth to them. When Calchas answered eight, Mopsus smiled and said, “Calchas, you fall short of true prophecy but I, who am the son of Apollo and Manto, have a wealth of keen vision. I say that there are not eight, as Calchas says, but nine in the womb, all males, and that they will be born tomorrow exactly at the sixth hour.” When it turned out to be so, Calchas died of a broken heart...[25]

Thus brought to an end one of the most notorious seers of Mycenaean Greece.

But Mopsus’ story doesn’t end there. He drifted along the southern coast of Asia Minor and eventually into Phoenicia. According to the ancient Lydian historian Xanthus, he went to the Philistine city of Ashkelon and quarreled the priests of the local goddess. In an event reminiscent of St. John’s encounter with Cynops on Patmos, Mopsus threw her into the city pond, thus destroying her power.[26]

The legend of Mopsus has striking parallels to that of Samson from the Bible.[27] Samson’s tribe, the Dan, was much like the Danaans and apparently not always one of the tribes of Israel.[28] Samson’s physical strength and sexual exploits are characteristics of the ancient Greeks, not the Hebrews. Eventually he was betrayed by the Philistine Delilah which led to his death. Samson was fond of riddles. Since the time period for both Mopsus and Samson overlap, some believe they may have been the same person.[29]

The bus is very quiet, everyone lost in their own thoughts. Darkness has consumed the landscape and all that’s visible is car headlights whizzing past us on the left and bright-red taillights in front.

I sit on the bus in Izmir. We leave for Seljuk in just a few minutes, at eight-thirty. A Turkish game show shouts from a TV up front. Game shows have taken over the world. The bus from Bergama had isles so small I had to turn sidewise to walk through. This bus is the most plush I have been on, a brand-new Mercedes. The seats are gray felt with a stripe of geometric design down the middle, purple, blue and red. The interior of the bus is gray. The paneling on the sides below the windows is dark violet as are the drapes which are pulled open and belted to the posts. I should be at the New Zealand Pension by 10:00 PM. We’ve started to move, only ten minutes late.

We should be in Seljuk by now but we’ve stopped at a gas station, which is also a market, fast food restaurant and fruit stand, just up the road from Seljuk. I’m impatient and irritable, sitting on the bus alone in the dark. I’ve got to get a bed at the New Zealand pension before they all go to sleep. The passengers are now reboarding the bus. The bus starts and begins to move. Off to Seljuk.

The young man sitting next to me opens his pack, takes out a candy bar and offers two squares of chocolate to me. After refusing once, I accept because they looked so delicious and I’m so hungry. After putting the creamy milk chocolate in my mouth, I chide myself for accepting candy from a stranger. He asks in French if I speak French, and I tell him no in English. We sit quietly for a while, and I keep checking my condition to ensure I’ve not been drugged.

When I see buildings in the dark at the side of the road, I ask him if we’re in Seljuk. “Seljuk?” I ask. He says something which I interpret as yes. Evidently he’s getting off also because he closes his pack, puts on his coat. He says a few words to the bus steward and the bus slows, stops. “Seljuk,” he says to me as he gets out of his seat. I look out the window at the buildings in the dark, and nothing looks familiar. I shake my head no. “This isn’t Seljuk,” I say, knowing my words are useless. Then the bus steward steps forward, “Seljuk,” he says and motions me off the bus.

Both of them are insistent I should get off, but I’m really at a loss. I know this isn’t the main intersection in Seljuk, where the road from Izmir crosses that from Kusadasi, but then I think maybe they only make one stop in Seljuk, and perhaps the intersection is a short walk away. I grab my coat and daypack and exit the bus behind the young man who shared his chocolate with me.

As the bus roars off in a cloud of smoke, I realize I’ve done the wrong thing. I’m nowhere near the New Zealand pension or carpet shop. The darkness about me fills with all the bad stories I’ve heard of the violent, murderous Turks. The young man walks away from me, and I’m glad because I was beginning to believe he was in cahoots with the steward to get me off the bus so he could mug me.

But the young man looks back, sees me stand at the side of the road befuddled and walks back. “Monsieur, pension?” he asks. “New Zealand pension,” I answer. “Ah,” he says, and motions for me to follow. “Taxi,” he says, “taxi.”

I’m relieved that he understands my predicament, but I see no taxi and assume he’s taking me to a phone booth so I can call one. I follow with him emitting a stream of French, all comforting sounds, but totally lost on me except for an occasional “Monsieur.” But he doesn’t take me to a phone booth or a taxi. He takes me to his car.

All this is happening so rapidly with my misgivings mounting exponentially. Here is a man who has insisted I get off the bus at the wrong place, insisted I follow him under the pretext of getting a taxi for me, and now expects me to get into a car with him. He unlocks the passenger door, throws it open and walks to the other side, unlocks his door and crawls inside.

I’m now at the decision point, and I realize most emphatically I could be putting myself in danger. I’m losing control of the situation. But the young man is nicely dressed, dark suit and tie, and his car, although not a Mercedes, is almost new and looks expensive, well kept.

What the heck. I slip in the passenger seat and put my daypack on the floorboard in front of me, buckle my seat belt, still with considerably misgivings. He turns the ignition key, the motor roars to life, and the tape deck immediately starts playing a Mozart piano concerto. I convince myself muggers don’t listen to Mozart on their car stereos.

He drives in what I believe is the direction of Seljuk although I’m no longer certain of anything. I could have stayed on the bus too long and passed the intersection I’m looking for. As we come into the downtown area, a welcome sight appears, the New Zealand carpet shop. I now know where I am, but when I motion for him to turn left to the New Zealand Pension, he turns right, out to what I know is open country, dark open country toward the ruins of Ephesus. Then he makes another right up a dark alley, all the time a stream of what to me is unintelligible French coming from him, makes another right up an even darker alley and stops the car.

All my uncertainty has evaporated. I brace myself knowing this is where he mugs me. I look to see if he has a gun or a knife. Is mugging all he has on his mind? Does he just want my wallet, or does he also want my life?

But he says “New Zealand Pension, okay?” I say “No,” the word coming out in a little frightened squeak, and then he sees a sign, “Australian-New Zealand Pension,” and realizes this is the wrong pension.

He drives back to the center of town, me pointing and shouting to show the way. I tell him to stop, shake his hand, thank him very very much, and walk through the dark to the New Zealand Pension, thrilled I’m still alive.