Searching for Aristotle in Lesbos

Map of Lesbos by Giacomo Franco, 1597. Courtesy Wikipedia.

Like most Greek islands, Lesbos has been lost in the obscurity of global wars, politics, and the insignificance of modern Greece. 

Greece without sovereignty

Since 2009, the country’s debt to European and American banks has dragged Greece to the Third World. The lenders demanded Greece abdicates its sovereignty to them. Greek politicians obliged and Greece has become the first European country to submit to the humiliations of being a dependency of Brussels. To the eternal shame of “civilized” Europe, anonymous bureaucrats from the troika – a cabal of the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission – have been running the country.

Rubble and war refugees in the Middle East

Lesbos would have maintained its silence had it not been for the American invasion and destruction of Iraq in 2003. This American war gave birth to Moslem civil wars. 

The civil wars in Iraq and Syria did more than filling those countries with rubble and death. They triggered a river of refugees heading for Europe. An endless stream of those displaced persons have been walking to Turkey, which, conveniently, is dumping them in flimsy plastic boats for the Greek Aegean islands. 

Lesbos has lots of these destitute war migrants. The numbers rage from 6,000 to 10,000.

Rural Lesbos

I went to Lesbos for Aristotle but found migrants instead.

I flew from Athens to Mytilene, the beautiful capital of Lesbos. The airplane was full of tourists and Greeks. One had the feeling of business as usual. I detected none of the dread of visiting an island with thousands of illegal Moslem victims of war. 

I arrived at Mytilene around one in the afternoon. It was hot and shiny. I phoned my friend John Hatzopoulos, emeritus professor of environmental studies at the University of the Aegean. Within minutes, he arrived at the airport and drove me to my hotel. 

I rented a car, had lunch, relaxed, and waited for my friend. He agreed to use the rented car and show me the island.

We started seeing Lesbos with a visit to his home on the outskirts of Mytilene. This is olive tree country as goddess Athena would have loved it. The countryside is crisscrossed by narrow roads and small traditional homes buried behind trees and gardens. Here one hears birds singing and smells the aromas of fruits and wild flowers. Rural Lesbos is ancient Greece.

Olive trees in the front yard of the house of John Hatzopoulos outside Mytilene. Photo: Evaggelos Vallianatos

Hatzopoulos explained he built his four-floor house himself. His land is large enough for dozen of olive trees, fruit trees, vineyards and a vegetable garden.

The moment we reached his secluded green grove, we walked straight for the fruit trees. I are plums, peaches and apricots. Biting the peaches was eating sweetness and aroma. 

Now, in rural Lesbos, I started dream walking to my youth, without shoes running to fig trees and vineyards. In fact, I would crawl under the vineyard and eat bunches of grapes slowly, enjoying each little sphere of pleasure.

After a while, I returned to reality and followed John entering his house. His wife had prepared a delicious tomato, cucumber and feta cheese salad with fried local fish.

Mytilene

After dinner, John and I drove to the seashore of Pyrgon Thermis where we walked near the water. However, it was getting dark and the natural world was fading. We then drove to downtown Mytilene and walked the streets in the harbor. I admired several houses, including the City Hall, built with the grace and beauty of classical architecture. 

I also walked those streets the next day in the sunlight. The main attraction in the harbor were two large warships, one from the UK and the other belonging to the Greek national guard of Lesbos. 

Harbor of Mytilene, capital of Lesbos. Photo: Evaggelos Vallianatos

“These ships,” John said, “regulate the illegal migrants from Turkey.”

I got up early next morning. I walked on the road in front of my hotel overlooking the sea and Mytilene. I noticed a large truck parked not far from the entrance of my hotel The truck carried “liquid food” and belonged to the United Nations. A flag of the European Union flattered in the winds. 

I kept looking in the neighborhood and, suddenly, in a wooded area, I saw an entire camp of tents. I learned later, this was the place for migrant women and children.

Tents for war refugees in Mytilene, Lesbos. Photo: Evaggelos Vallianatos

The mystery of foreign migrants in Lesbos lasted a little longer. 

John and I went to the University of the Aegean where I spoke on the politicization and corruption of environmental policies. The organizer of the conference demanded I speak in English, which, reluctantly, I did.

Evaggelos Vallianatos is speaking about the politics of environmental protection at the University of the Aegean in Mytilene, Lesbos. Photo: John Hatzopoulos

The sanctuary at the center of Lesbos

After lunch at the university cafeteria, John and I left for the center of Lesbos. We visited the Messon sanctuary, a fourth-century BCE large classical Greek temple built at the strategic middle of Lesbos (ἐν τῶ ἲρω τῶ ἐμ Μέccω – in the sanctuary, which is in the middle). This temple was dedicated to the worship and celebration of Zeus, Hera and Dionysos.

Fourth-century BCE sanctuary of Zeus, Hera and Dionysos in the center (Messon) of Lesbos. Photo: Evaggelos Vallianatos

But the Messon sanctuary had an additional quality and practical usefulness. It served like the Olympics in Greece. It was an inducement to reconciliation and peace between the city-states of Lesbos, especially the powerful and competing poleis of Mytilene, Methymna and Eressos. The Messon temple is 35 kilometers from Mytilene.

I was astonished by the attractiveness of the natural world embracing the Messon temple – a natural world that almost certainly must have attracted the passion and scientific curiosity of Aristotle. It is a valley surrounded by foothills of mountains with ancient Greek names like Lepetymnos and Pyrraion. Pine trees and olive trees are everywhere. In addition to the mountains, the valley is graced by the Kalloni lagoon and the nearby ancient polis of Pyttha and the colorful villages dotting the seaside of Kalloni. This is where, from 345 to 342 BCE, young Aristotle did most of his biological research.

Aristotle in Lesbos

Aristotle lived in the fourth century: 384-322 BCE. He is by far the greatest natural philosopher of ancient Greece. His philosophy is not abstract thought but thought tempered by observation and intimate knowledge of the natural world. That’s why Aristotle invented science. 

He taught Alexander, son of the Macedonian King Philip II, from 342 to 335 BCE. Alexander conquered the world and became Alexander the Great. Alexander’s generals, especially Ptolemaios in Egypt, established scientific institutions in Alexandria for studying the world and the cosmos. Those institutions, the Mouseion (university) and Library, were gifts of Aristotle. The Antikythera Mechanism, a marvelous modern-like astronomical computer with gears dated in the second century BCE, came out of the Mouseion and Library. 

Aristotle’s research in Lesbos and other regions of Greece became his monumental History of Animals, Parts of Animals, and Generation of Animals. These are original scientific treatises on the natural world and animals in particular. Aristotle describes more than 500 animals, telling us something of their origins, behavior, anatomy and purpose. He urged humans to love animals  because they are beautiful and teach us truth. He taught that Nature does nothing in vain. Every living thing in the natural world has a purpose.

The Christians destroyed Aristotle’s world in Lesbos. They nearly wiped out even the stones of the Messon temple.  The columns and stones they did not use for the Christian basilica they built over the Messon temple they burned or smashed to very small pieces. This dreadful fact comes from a relatively recent Greek archaeological study of the Messon sanctuary (Greek Ministry of Culture, ἐν τῶ ἲρω τῶ ἐμ Μέccω, Mytilene, 2004, pp. 22-25, 76-81).

My friend and I went to Kalloni and ate fish like sparos and kephalos Aristotle studied. We then visited the wetlands in the lagoon of Kalloni and admired the grace and beauty of grebes, ducks, herons, stilts and flamingos.

Flamingos and other wetland birds Aristotle studied in the lagoon of Kalloni and the coastline near the ancient polis of Pyrrha. Aristotle did his biological studies in this region of Lesbos. Photo: Evaggelos Vallianatos

Moslem war refugees in Lesbos

Finally, before I left Lesbos, we visited Moria. This village has two legacies. One of having the impressive ruins of a Roman aqueduct. The other legacy is that of shame.

Moria has become the dumping ground for several thousand Moslem migrants. The refugees live in airconditioned containers. EU funds pay each migrant about 400 euros per month. I saw plenty of refugees with their wives and children walk in the streets of Moria.    

The Greek state, incapable of protecting its borders, has become, in the words of one Greek guard in a refugee camp,  “a warehouse of souls.”

An evening in the front porch of my hotel, I joined the talk between  three Greeks. One of them was particularly agitated about refugees. He said: 

“I have worked all my life and now in my retirement I receive around 500 euros per month. Why should we pay 400 euros to each migrant per month and provide him with free airconditioned housing, iphones, blue jeans, food and health care? In an emergency, the migrant has priority over us Greeks. I don’t like this at all. We must ship all these Moslems back to their countries.”

Beautiful Lesbos is mesmerized by these existential realities. The EU-funded Moslem migrants have no future in Lesbos and, as of this moment, nowhere else. Philoxenia (hospitality) is imploding in Lesbos. 

Aristotle has nearly vanished from this Lesbos.