Little seen but long present are graves of the ancients and a human-scaled agora, a gathering place for all.

By Howard Shapiro
Inquirer Staff Writer

ATHENS, Greece - After more than 3,000 years, can a city still hold any secrets?

I almost blushed as I put the question to Elena Korka, Greece's director of antiquities. I was sitting across from her overloaded desk at the Ministry of Culture. I never expected that her answer would lead me to the home of the city's ancient dead.

From almost the minute the modern, independent Greek state was founded in 1830, and set upon restoring the magnificent mountaintop that is Athens' Acropolis, the city has been giving up its secrets dig by dig. The process accelerated this decade, when Athenians - suffering from decades of unfettered sprawl and nearly absent city planning - used the impending 2004 Summer Olympics for two opportunities: a chance to host an international event, plus an occasion for massive urban renewal.

All through the city - Philadelphia's spiritual sibling in that both are cradles of liberty and repositories of history - shovels began unearthing the past in the name of moving forward. This is a constant in Athens, Olympics or not, and something Korka sees routinely. It's not just the nuts and bolts of her job - she's officially called Greece's director of prehistoric and classical antiquities. It's the legacy of being an Athenian, any Athenian.

This process of revealing the city's secrets, which are also a part of civilization's heritage, even has its own mantra. In Korka's recitation, it goes like this: "Remove the material. Determine if it's worthwhile. Photograph it. Map it. Then allow modern life to continue."

So my question to Korka was not about the secrets Athens was yet to give up. Who can say, until they are unearthed? My question, which I feared was silly on its face, amounted to: After all this time, does Athens have ancient secrets that tourists don't know about? Travel secrets. Something off the path - so well-beaten in Athens, I believed Korka would laugh at my naivete.

She didn't. Nor did she pause a beat. "Oh, yes," she said, in the way that a conspirator is about to reveal a plan. "One of the most special places in Athens is a place that tourists often do not visit.

"It's called the Kerameikos, and it is the ancient graveyard of the classical Athenians. When you walk through it, and go by the graves of these people - in the center of Athens - there is a certain atmosphere. It's dry, open. Lovely. See for yourself.

"You can walk there from the Acropolis, and when you come down you can walk through another place more travelers to Athens should see - what you would call, from your question, a secret. It's the ancient Greek agora, the market."

The ancient market is different from the nearby Roman agora, built in the first century B.C. after the Romans conquered the city and now well-trod primarily because of a ruin called the Tower of the Winds. The Roman area is basically an extension of the Greek agora, which is emptier in both recognizable monuments and tourists.

"The ancient Greek agora was the civic, political and commercial center," Korka explained. "The Romans built big buildings, but Athenians were rather simple. What they built for the center of their civic life was mostly in the spirit of the person who played a role in that life - it was about the possibility of the individual, a very human notion. When you're walking through these areas and you see all that's there, remember that notion. That is the cradle of democracy."

I got my secrets, and I went on my way.

I was last in Athens 33 years ago, when it was only beginning to recover from seven years of miserable junta rule and its residents were celebrating democracy with renewed political argument and ouzo through the night in the tavernas of the Plaka - a neighborhood like Philadelphia's Old City, but really old.

On this trip, I stood on the Acropolis mount, looking down over the Plaka, much less a home these days to rowdy bars, which have been replaced by restaurants, some with brave kitchens that put their own twists on Greek cuisine. They bustle, much as Greece is stirring in post-Olympic ways.

Athens' port is super-busy, a trading post enriched since the Olympics by about $4.4 billion U.S. New roads have eased the once-constant choke of vehicles, now down to an annoying, not enraging, congestion.

Olympics by-products abound: a spiffy airport; two new subway lines that join an updated old one for swift mass transit; a trolley line that links downtown to the popular beach area. A lot of private investment followed all this, and so did visitors; after the Olympics, tourism in Greece was up more than 300 percent.

Nowadays, Athens has a buzz that tells you something's always going on. The city is a natural mix of hip late-nighters and classical statues of gods who watch over them as they shop the high-end and hilly district of Kolonaki, or stream through Psiri's twining network of shops and tavernas, or seek the best souvlaki in bustling Monastiraki. Modern life, as Elena Korka noted, continues.

Amid the city's whirl, I made my way down from the Acropolis on a busy, warm afternoon. As soon as I strolled into the ancient Greek agora, I understood what Korka was saying: I was suddenly one of only a few people around.

The agora's ancient spots are mostly foundations. But for three major buildings, you have to use some imagination while exploring. Socrates philosophized here, St. Paul converted people to Christianity here, and just about everyone considered the place the city center for about 850 years, beginning in the sixth century B.C. It's actually been occupied since 3000 B.C.; when excavations began in 1859, modern buildings were raised to uncover it.

Markers label what once stood in certain spots, such as a long, fence-like structure, the base of a long-gone monument. It's essentially an ancient newsstand, the markers told me, where public notices were posted.

The best way to orient yourself is to enter the restored stoa, a long, colonnaded building, that stands to one side. It's the reconstructed Stoa of Attalos, an imposing building amid the ruins and now the agora's museum, with pottery and sculpture and information.

The Church of the Holy Apostles also stands - an 11th-century building with lots of stone masonry. But the must-see building, on a hill to a far side of the agora, is a Doric-columned temple that is among Athens' best preserved and most visible. It's generally called the Theseion; its full name is the Temple of Hephaistos. Construction began in 449 B.C., part of a building program overseen by Pericles.

The temple was dedicated to two gods, Hephaistos (the mythical god of fire, metalworking, stonemasonry and sculpture) and Athena (goddess of wisdom and war and patron of the city). When I walked around the temple - visitors cannot walk past its columns and onto the temple floor - I was struck by its age and continuing grandeur. I could sense the once-lively beat of the agora on the grounds below.

It's a few minutes' walk to the ancient graveyard, the Kerameikos, where Athenians began burying their dead in the 12th century B.C. Kerameis in Greek means "potters," and the cemetery neighborhood housed artisans who made many of the vases exhibited today. In modern Athens, it's a busy neighborhood, a mix of commerce and small residential side streets.

In the small museum at the cemetery's gate, off Ermou Street, I got a sense of the cemetery layout and discovered that its ground contained the remains of the city's wall and the foundations of its two great gates, entries for official processions and everyday visitors.

Korka's description of the cemetery, which I explored nearly alone in the heat of the afternoon, was on target. "Dry, open. Lovely," she'd said about the serene spot, with its rows of ancient pediments that poke up here and there, and monuments and bas-reliefs. A few, I learned, are replicas; the real things are in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens. But most are originals.

I took my time walking the pathways. The cemetery sits on a slope lower than the rest of the neighborhood, and once you're inside, it envelops you. Spending a little time with the Athenians of 3,000 years past was calming, inspiring.

At this spot, Pericles honored the dead and celebrated Athens after the first year of the Peloponnesian Wars in 431 B.C.: "In doing good, we make our friends by conferring, not by receiving, favors." In its well-plied walks and little secrets, Athens confers its favors still.

Three airlines - Lufthansa, British Airways and TAP Portugal - operate one-stop flights between Philadelphia International Airport and Athens, Greece. The lowest recent round-trip fare was about $650.

* The ancient Greek agora and its museum in the Stoa of Attalos, 24 Adriannou St., are open in winter from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. - although they may close as early as 2:30 p.m. In summer, hours are 8 a.m. to

7 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays. Entrance is about $5.75 U.S., or free with the purchase of an Acropolis ticket (about $16.50 U.S.) to many sites and museums.

* Kerameikos Museum, 148 Ermou St., is also called the Oberlaender Museum. Both the museum and the cemetery are open in winter from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. - although they may close as early as 2:30 p.m. In summer, hours are 8 a.m. to

7 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays. Entrance is about $2.75 U.S., or free with the purchase of an Acropolis ticket (about $16.50 U.S.) to many sites and museums.

More information

Athens Tourist Information

www.athensguide.org

Guide to Athens

www.greece-athens.com

Greek National Tourism Organization

www.gnto.gr

Wonderful Greece

www.greektourism.com