ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE OF THE ANCIENT MESSENE

This little-known but spectacular site (Αρχαιολογικός Χώρος Αρχαίας Μεσσήνης/Archaiologikos Choros Archaias Messinis) has been on Unesco's World Heritage Tentative List since 2014. In a beautiful natural setting, remains ranging from the foundation of Messinis by the Theban general Epaminondas (369 BC) to the Byzantines are intermingled. The tour begins with the theater (early ^3rd century BC). Well-preserved, it is one of the largest in the region at 98 m wide. Set against an artificial hill, it could accommodate 5,000 spectators and is now used again for summer performances. To the east, a wall and two raised columns mark the sacred fountain of Arsinoe (^3rd century BC), 40 m long. Here, Arsinoe's son was honored: the healing god Asclepius, a native of Epidaurus... or Messene, according to local tradition.

Agora and sanctuary of Asclepius. Following on from the fountain is the agora, a marketplace and public square. The north portico (^3rd century BC) stretches 196 m in length and featured workshops and stores fronted by two colonnades and bronze statues. To the south, you pass the 14 columns of the Butchers' Portico (^3rd century BC) and the ruins of a Byzantine basilica (^7th century) to reach the sanctuary of Asclepius (^4th century BC), the city's main place of worship: a peristyle of 132 columns surrounded a large Doric temple. It is flanked by the ekklesiasterion ("theater" where citizens voted) and the bouleuterion (where the city council sat). Away to the southeast, a Roman villa (^1st-4th centuries AD) houses a large mosaic. And to the south of the sanctuary of Asclepius, the hierotheion (^3rd century BC) was dedicated to the twelve gods of Olympus. It was also here that the founder Epaminondas was honoured.

Sublime stadium. The tour ends to the south, in the most impressive part: the stadium. Built from the ^3rd century B.C. and remodeled until the ^4th century A.D., it is the most striking stadium in the Greek world. Its U-shaped grandstands could accommodate 45,000 spectators (as many as at Olympia) around a 182-m-long track. Not only have 18 stone rows been preserved, but the whole complex is framed by three immense porticoes: a veritable forest of columns that were raised and restored between 2006 and 2013. The western portico is flanked by two training halls: the long gymnasium and the palestra, with its superb peristyle almost entirely restored. But that's not all. Two mausoleums complete the stadium complex. The Saithidai heron (^1st century BC), a small Doric "temple" with four columns where the "heroes" of an influential family of priests and governors of the Roman province of Achaia were buried, stands in the extension of the track. And, to the east of the gymnasium, stands one of the most unusual monuments of ancient Greece: the "K3" tomb, with its strangely conical 6 m-high roof topped by a Corinthian capital. Restored in 2018, it housed eight graves that were used by the same family until the ^1st century A.D. They were probably descendants of exiles from Ithômé who lived in southern Italy, where similar structures are found.