In Greece, you can find more than 8.500 natural caves, subterranean and underwater, which were created as a result of the country’s rich geological structure and history, formed both on the mainland and on the islands.
Many of them are still unexplored, though the ancients held swimming in them as a skill. worth high regard.
- The escape of enemies across a river” depicts men using floatation devices to cross a river in the 9 th century BC (or men diving underwater and using air-filled bladders as breathing gear). Credit: © Trustees of the British Museum
A compelling section from The Odyssey ,is a portrait in heroism.
Odysseus is trying to find his way home—after ten years of war at Troy and seven yrs of sea travel—when Poseidon stirs up a battering storm.
The weary warrior is tossed into the wine-dark waters for more than 2 days.
A friendly goddess, gives him a life-saving scarf, and Athena calms the winds, but what ultimately powers Odysseus through the murderous waves is his own extraordinary skill.
He “dove headfirst into the sea,” Homer tells us, “stretched out his arms, and stroked for life itself.”
And on the walls of the so-called Cave of the Swimmers, in the Eastern Sahara, images of plump bodies jauntily stroke, through the prehistoric waters, that once irrigated the area.
- The Cave of Swimmers is a cave with ancient rock art in the mountainous Gilf Kebir plateau of the Libyan Desert section of the Sahara.
At least one archaeologist, suggests, the blissful figures may be gliding to the underworld, not the next beach, but even that would have required, knowledge of strokes.
When Alexander the Great was coming through Corinth,to gather the Greeks, for his invasion of Persia, he saw Diogenes on the beach.
Diogenes had a reputation for being the happiest man in the world, but when Alexander came to him and offered to give Diogenes anything he desired.
Diogenes asked only for Alexander to step aside, he was blocking the sun.
“Why, pray, have I not learned to swim?”
For Socrates, it was a critical life skill. …“Swimming, he said, “saves a man from death.”
Though, men of antiquity addressed themselves only to other men, it didn’t stop many women—real and imagined—from doing as they pleased.
In the same manner, Herodotus recounts the story of Hydna of Scione (alternately called Cyana 480 BC) was an ancient Greek diver, given credit along with her father , Scyllias , for the destruction of the Persian navy in 480 BC.
Skandalopetra, has its origins in the culture and history of ancient Greece when fisherman, sponge harvesters and warriors used this technique, to increase their breath-hold time and depth, while working.
Usually made of marble or granite, as additional ballast, during descent and are hoisted to the surface, by a team-mate.
The stone is flat and smooth, with curved edges for streamlining and a hole through the middle, to attach a rope to the surface, and to the diver themselves, for safety.
During the descent, the diver uses the stone, as a helm or ‘steering wheel’ ,to control their direction in the water, or as a brake, to slow descent for equalization.
Xerxes , King of Persia is also mentioned in the Christian Bible, as the husband of Esther,had spent years planning his invasion of Greece.
It was to be his ‘divine punishment’, for his father Darius‘ crushing defeat at Marathon, in 490 BC.
Now, a decade later, he spared no expense in preparing a vast expeditionary force.
Xerxes’ venture was indeed not only directed against, the whole of Hellas (Greek world) , but against the entire part of the world, which so far, remained ungoverned.
In Herodotus’s work, the role of bad adviser, is assumed by Mardonius.
As soon as the intention was expressed, to put down the rebellion in Egypt, Mardonius insisted on marching against Athens .
Once again, the primary motive was revenge, but Herodotus instantly discerned, Mardonius’s deeper motives:
in fact, all Hellas were to be subjected.
Xerxes first marched against Egypt.
Afterwards, the council was convened, to which Xerxes submitted, his plans for a campaign against Athens.
Xerxes not only intended to join the tradition of the great conquerors:
Cyrus, Cambyses, and Darius
, but wanted immediately to march against the whole of Europe.
Persian soil was to reach the god’s heaven; thus he openly sought world domination.
A speech by Mardonius directly followed, which supported these plans.
The decision was to be carried out, on the sea and on land , as had already been predicted by Aeschylus.
When Mardonius pointed out the weak points of the Greeks, Herodotus may also have been expressing some criticism, directed against contemporary Athenian imperialism .
It is said the oracles, predicted Xerxes defeat, but with the largest known ancient army to assemble, he may have chosen to ignore this.
Across the Hellespont, the narrow channel of water separating Europe from Asia, he had constructed two bridges, each made of over 300 ships, tied together by a network of ropes.
On the coast a fleet of some 1,200 ships amassed, while on land over 100,000 (or 1.7 million according to Herodotus‘ exaggerated account) soldiers made camp at Sardis in Turkey, awaiting their orders.
Faced with such an overwhelming force, only a small confederation of city-states, led by Athens and Sparta, determined to resist Xerxes.
At most they possessed, some thirty thousand men, and a few hundred ships.
By the spring of 480, Xerxes‘ army had reached Macedonia ,in the north of Greece.
In response, a contingent of 300 Spartans and several thousand allies, were sent to occupy the narrow mountain pass of Thermopylae, not far from the Greek fleet anchored off the nearby coast, at Artemisium.
Scyllias or Scyllis, who was a celebrated Greek diver of Scione in Macedonia.
During war , Greeks often employed divers, to cut ships loose from their moorings, so the ships would drift into rocks and reefs.
When the Persian fleet of Xerxes was wrecked off Mount Pelion, and the Promontory of Sepias, much treasure was sunk with the vessels, overtaken by the storm ; Scyllias recovered much of this treasure, for the Persians and obtained a considerable amount, for himself.
It may be, for this reason , Xerxes held him as prisoner on a ship, along with Scyllias ‘ daughter, Hydna.
After defeating the Greeks at Thermopylae, Persian king Xerxes I,
moored his ships off the coast of Mount Pelion,to wait out a storm, prior to the Battle of Salamis.
Hydna was well-known in Greece, as a skilled swimmer, having been trained by her father, a professional swim instructor, from a young age.
She was known for her ability to swim long distances and dive deep into the ocean.
According to Pausanias , prior to a critical naval battle with the Persians, Hydna and her father, Scyllis, volunteered to assist Greek forces, by vandalizing the nearby Persian naval fleet.
The Persians commenced a search for the two, but could not locate them and assumed they drowned.
Under cover of darkness , Scyllias returned, using a hollow reed as a snorkel.
On the night of the attack, wishing to escape, father and daughter swam under water from Aphette to Artemisium ,roughly ten miles through rough, choppy waters, to reach the ships and communicated to the Greeks the plans of the Persians.
They silently swam, among the boats, using knives to cut the moorings and dragging away the submerged anchors.
Without anchors and moorings to secure the ships, they crashed together in the stormy water.
Most of the ships, sustained considerable damage and a few sank.
It was a suicide mission, designed to detain the Persians just long enough, for the rest of the Greek allies to gather their forces.
Led by King Leonidas, the Spartans heroically held the Persians at bay, for nearly a week until – outnumbered, betrayed and outflanked – they were finally defeated.
The resulting delay, allowed the Greek navy more time to prepare and ultimately led to a victory for Greek forces at Salamis.
In gratitude for the heroism shown by Hydna and her Father, the Amphictyons dedicated statues to them at Delphi, the most sacred site of the Greek world.
Pausanias tells us that “beside the statue of Gorgias, is a votive offering of the Amphictyons, towards father and daughter”.
In an acient saga, a sea-god, Glaucus fell in love with Hydna, daughter of Scyllias , according to Aeschrion the Samian (cited by Athenaeus)
There also is an epigram, by Apollonidas, on this famous diver .
It is thought the Roman Emperor Nero, plundered her statue and returned with it, to Rome in the first century AD.
Naqsh-e Rostam, a listed World Heritage Site by the UNESCO, has always been a sacred and symbolic place, for the ancient civilizations of the Iranian plateau.
Apart from the remnants of a rock relief of the Elamite period (2nd millennium BC), and other reliefs dating from the Persian Sassanid era (3rd to 7th century AD), plus a fire altar from the same period, contain several elements, from the first Persian empire, the Achaemenid Empire.
Such elements, are a Zoroastrian temple (Kaaba ye Zartosht) and four royal rock cut tombs all made on an identical plan.
Such style reflects ,an official royal art, whose canons have been set by Darius the Great.
Breaking with the tradition of the first Achaemenid kings that saw at least, Cyrus the Great buried in a mausoleum in Pasargadae,
Darius, built Persepolis at the foot of the neighbor, Kuh-e Rahmat mountain, ordered his grave to be cut in the rock of a nearby cliff.
Darius, is the only king whose grave is attributed with certainty, because of a long inscription, in three languages.
The three other tombs, those of the successors of Darius whose reigns have been significant:
Xerxes I, Darius II (Codomanus), and Artaxerxes I (Makrocheir or “long hand”).