An Ancient Stadium

One of the joys of our trip to Athens was visiting the Panathenaic Stadium, or the Kallimarmaro Stadium. None of us had ever been there, and it was well worth the time we took to walk to it (we walked about 10 miles a day while we were in Athens.) A wonderful audio tour is included in the price of admission, and as we listened to it, we were immersed in ancient Greece.

The stadium, built in the 300's BC for the Panathenaic games, was allowed to fall into disrepair until it was renovated in the 1890's for the Olympics. It was used in the 2004 Olympics for the archery competition, and the marathon also finished there. When it was redone in the 1890's,

the architects used marble. Imagine an all-marble stadium - it was gorgeous.

There were several very interesting architectural points in the stadium. First, the walls were curved so that every person in the stadium could see the action on the field. Second, the track around the playing field is about one foot below the playing field so that people could walk in front of the stands (between the playing field and the seats) without interrupting the spectators' line of sight. Third, the rows were not numbered but were lettered in the Greek alphabet, and the seats were numbered in Roman numerals. Finally, the tunnel into the stadium (that the gladiators used when walking into the stadium) created quite the entrance.

Diana and I took a picture while sitting in the Kappa, Kappa, and Gamma rows; we pretended to be winners of an athletic event; and I found our K-State football seats in section 16. Those seats are appreciably better than the ones at KSU - they are the equivalent of being on the 50-yard line!