Historical story

The weather of the column and Voidopnichtis

It was the middle of October, 1852, when a terrible storm broke out. The storm was so strong, it swelled the river. The bridge was swept away, cutting the town in two. The news spread by word of mouth, spreading fear among the residents. When and where did this happen? In 1852 in Athens. What was the river that swelled? The current Stadiou street. Where at the height of Arsakeion there was also a bridge that was carried away by the torrent. In the first years of Otto's reign, Stadiou street was nothing more than a deep ravine. Voidopnichtis started from Lycabettus, which split into two. One part of it passed through Demokritou Street and another through Akadimias Street in the direction of Arsakeio.

One of these bridges of the time was also at the height of Arsakeion, which was not yet finished, but some classes had been transferred to the completed part of the building. Most of the female students of Arsakei lived in the area of ​​old Athens, (Plaka – Monastiraki – Psirri) and fewer in Neapolis, the new student quarter that had begun to be created behind the University. To get to their school they used this little bridge, just like most Athenians did to go to work.

A strong disturbance that came from western Greece and was accompanied by bad weather fronts hit Piraeus first with very windy south winds, where trees were uprooted, all the municipal lighting of the city was destroyed, but the port was also hit particularly hard. That night in Piraeus a French steamer drifted ashore and another Greek steamer, the "Ludovikos", sank. Two other ships that were loaded with 15,000 kg of wheat each sank and the wheat floated on the surface of the sea covering the entire sea inside the port.

It was the night of October 14 to 15 (October 27 is written with the new calendar in the above reanalysis) when, in addition to the other disasters, one of the three columns that stood apart from the rest in the temple of Olympian Zeus, in the center of the city, fell. This event was considered so significant by the Athenians, that for many decades later, when they wanted to define that era, they characteristically said:"the time of the column". The terrible disasters brought about by the extreme weather phenomenon are described in his diary by the Finnish academic Wilhelm Lagus:"Everything was rattling, even in our apartment, which was inside. The wind was blowing the chimneys, the windows were shattering and the terrible storm was raging all night with all its force".

Two pillars of the Erechtheion fell with him. As George Tsokopoulos recounts, all the Athenian people went to the Olympia and wept over the unpleasant event. In fact, in the following days, a dilemma arose, that is, whether the fallen pole of the Olympian should be restored. Queen Amalia asked the Archaeological Service what was best to do, but archaeologists Pittakis and Ragavis thought it would be better not to erect it, so the queen did not insist.

This omen was associated with the birth, on that very day, of Dimitrios Gr. Kambouroglou in the home of the Revolutionary fighter Rigas Palamidis on Akadimias Street, and in fact in the same room where four years earlier (1848) he had breathed his last famous leader of the Maniacs Petrobeis Mavromichalis. The accuracy of Kambouroglou's date of birth has been disputed by some, but he himself never thought to discuss the possibility that he had been born on another day; so much did he believe in the "connection" of his birth with the fall of the pillar.

As he commented with a cheerful mood in "Memoirs of a long life" "Since everything started on that day, it seems that the day of my birth also started, and I am one of the few people, therefore, who cannot, even if they want to, hide their years." The poet Georgios Drosinis, a close friend of Kambouroglou, on the occasion of the latter's eightieth birthday, had sent the following verse to the magazine "Nea Estia" (issue 141, 1/11/1932):

"On the day you were born / the pillar fell.

In her place you were styled / you will reach the century!”

As for Kambouroglou himself, as he stated in his "Memoirs":"What is certain, however, is that while so many have visited and are visiting the "fallen pillar", it only whispers something to me. That's why I visit her very often."

The fall of that pillar, apart from the fact of sadness caused by the destruction of an ancient monument itself, also caused fear as there was a prevention, a prophecy so to speak that all the Athenians of the time believed in. They said that once a Monk (Calogeros) lived for years on the pillars (stylitis). He had spread the word that great evil would befall the city if one of those pillars ever fell! Imitating, therefore, the life of Saint Symeon the Stylist, the aerial ascetic "did not descend even once for twenty whole years", as the English writer Elizabeth Craven was informed in 1786! It was said that he only carried up and down a basket tied with a rope twice a day, in which the pious Christians deposited whatever food they chose. With these few goods the ascetic managed to survive. The French traveler Louis Jacques Lacour reports that the hermit had lived for eighteen years in the portico of the fifth and sixth of the columns of the east front. According to Lacour, the ascetic used a windlass from which he was sent the week's supplies, without himself having to descend for six consecutive years. There were several stylists, succeeding each other until the end of the Ottoman times, and they were not only Christian but also Muslim.

So when they saw the fallen pillar the next day, the Athenians "needed" them. Priests were brought to the site of the fallen pillar and supplications were made.

When only two years passed and the summer of 1854 arrived, when together with the French occupation of Piraeus, the first victims of cholera arrived, everyone remembered the prophecy of the fallen pillar! The evil that was emboldened by the fallen pillar, came full force and momentum. And after the years passed and the French left Piraeus, and after the cholera took those it could grab, he wrote Valaoritis in 1874.

"Incomprehensible, anger, wrath of God, Curse."

There are always unexpected thunders, earthquakes, storms,

and let us be thrown to the ground, the ΄na sima from' the other,

that we have high, visible, big"

But before all these evils attributed to the fallen pillar, let us say that the year after its fall, that is in 1853, there was a debate in the Greek Parliament (Session of January 13, 1853), where, after fierce disagreements, a fund of 5,000 drachmas to the Archaeological Service, for the purpose of erecting the column of Olympian Zeus. Some of the MPs claimed that the column should be left down to provide more admiration than its architectural structure, as being on the ground, it was better for observation!!

Then someone said in the hall of the Parliament "Then, O wise men of Athens, we must also bury the Parthenon, so that we can admire the works of our ancestors up close"

The fact is that the marble pillar remains lying down to this day, perhaps so that we Greeks of today can better observe this ancient construction!!!