Ancient Empires of the Eastern Mediterranean

By Ronald Joseph Tocchini

The action began in Venice, Italy, in August of 2013. Sailing southward along the Adriatic, we headed for the Ionian Sea. Our first stop was Olympia, Greece, site of the original Olympic Games. After spending a day there, we left for Athens, city of Gods. We docked at Piraeus, Athenss port, and we visited the Ancient Metropolis. Next, we sailed for Istanbul, Turkey. What a sight to behold! After having been transported in antiquity at Olympia and Athens, the skyscrapers, mansions, and chic restaurants of the Turkish City begged our attention. We marveled at its views while riding the ferry along the Bosphorous Sea. There was so much to see and do in Istanbul that we spent two full days there. Afterward, we visited the islands of Santorini and Lesvos before returning to Athens.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Jan 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781490751009

Ronald Joseph Tocchini

Ronald Joseph Tocchini is not a stranger to his craft as an author. “Ancient Empires of the Eastern Mediterranean” is his fourth publication. Furthermore, the writer’s work is complemented by forty-three years of instruction. He taught in the university, the community college as well as the secondary levels of instruction. His subjects were as follow: Spanish, Italian, English as a secondary language, and American history. He attended Saint Ignatius College Prep in San Francisco, California, the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, and he did graduate work at the University of San Francisco. At the University of California at Berkeley, he completed all required courses for a doctorate in romance languages and literatures. Ron, as his friends and colleagues knew him, was also an athlete. As a result of his accomplishments in athletics, he was awarded a full, four-year scholarship at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana.

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Copyright 2015 Ronald Joseph Tocchini.

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isbn: 978-1-4907-5102-3 (sc)

isbn: 978-1-4907-5101-6 (hc)

isbn: 978-1-4907-5100-9 (e)

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Contents

Athens, Piraeus

Turkey

Ephesus

Having sailed from Venice in the early afternoon of August 7, 2013, we headed south along the Adriatic in the direction of the Ionian Sea. The bow of our ship, the Nieuw Amsterdam, sliced the calm blue waters, and gradually, we lost sight of the Italian coast off our starboard and that of Yugoslavia off our port.

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After venturing forth all night long, we anchored off the west coast of the Peloponnese and visited ancient Olympia, the sanctuary in use for two millennia as a religious and athletic center. Of all the Hellenic competitions associated with shrines, the Olympic Games, held every four years at the late summer with a full moon, were the most prestigious. Moreover, they are the most ancient of their kind. Note that although the first verified games date back to 776 BC, the Altis, a sacred forest at the base of Krónio hill, was consecrated to pre-Olympian deities as early as the second millennium BC.

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The most salient monuments of the site are (1) the Palaestra training center, whose courtyard has been reerected; (2) the workshop of Phidias, a celebrated sculptor (identified by a cup found with his name inscribed thereon; (3) the archaic Hera temple with its dissimilar columns; (4) the enormous Zeus temple, now reduced to column sections; and (5) the stadium with its 192-meter running course and surviving vaulted entrances.

Athens, Piraeus

O ur visit to Olympia was brief but interesting. The next stop on our itinerary was Athens, Greece’s capital. To get there from Olympia, we sailed east through Korinthiakos Kolpos , a sizable body of water that separates Peloponnisos from Greece’s mainland.

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Having docked at Piraeus, the capital’s