Nashville’s Parthenon

 by Pat Simpson

   Back in July of 1999, my wife Anne and I were on summer vacation at a convention in Nashville, Tennessee. the heart of the country-music scene, with its long-running Grand Ole Opry and Country Music Hall of Fame. Also on our bucket list was the city of Memphis, the home of Elvis Presley’s Graceland, the rock-and-roll pioneering Sun Studio and the blues clubs of Beale Street.

   During a “break in the action” we took a little walk in Nashville’s nearby Centennial Park, just to see what we could see.

   And what we saw we could scarce believe – even today, almost 25 years later.

   There before us was what looked like the Parthenon, just like the one in Greece – and the sign out front said just that. The original Parthenon is a former temple on the Athenian Acropolis in Greece, dedicated to the goddess Athena, whom the people of Athens considered their patroness. Construction started in 447 BC when the Delian League was at the peak of its power.

    We had stumbled on to the world’s only full-scale replica of the Parthenon, modeled after the original ancient Greek temple in Athens. 

    Turns out this Parthenon was originally constructed as part of the Tennessee Centennial and Exposition that was held in 1897. It’s the only structure preserved from that historic event.

   Why the Parthenon, you may ask? And what on earth was the Parthenon doing in Nashville?

   Well, it seems that back the 19th century, Nashville earned the nickname “The Athens of the South” because of the number of colleges and universities located within the city and the surrounding areas. It was also highly regarded for its public school system and commitment to education. So when the time came to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Volunteer State’s admission to the Union, an exposition committee was formed and the director suggested that the city erect a full-scale replica of the ancient Parthenon in Athens to represent the city and state at the festival.

   While many of the exposition buildings were based on ancient designs, Nashville’s Parthenon was the only exact replica. As the first building erected for the exposition, the Parthenon was originally constructed from plaster, wood and brick. The planners never intended that the building remain as a permanent structure after the exposition ended. However, the cost of demolition and the popularity of the building saved it from being knocked down. After standing in its original form for over 20 years, it was reconstructed in 1920 until 1925 using concrete so that it would be permanent. Today, the temple is considered the pinnacle of classical architecture.

   But what made our jaws drop was what we saw inside the Parthenon. As we entered through the massive 7-ton bronze entrance doors, the largest doors of their kind in the world, we came upon a massive statue the likes of which we’d never seen before. Towering over us was the 42-foot-tall grandeur of Athena Parthenos, the tallest indoor artistic work of its kind in the Western Hemisphere. Tipping the scales at approximately 12 tons, the figure was re-created based on a careful study of the long-lost original statue by Phidias that had adorned the ancient temple. Athena carried a shield in her left hand and a life-sized statue of Nike, the goddess of victory, in her right hand. A 20-foot-tall serpent appeared between her body and her shield. Surrounded by smaller sculptures, it took Nashville sculptor Alan LeQuire eight years to create.

   Athena became the goddess of crafts and skilled peacetime pursuits in general. She was particularly known as the patroness of spinning and weaving and, ultimately, the symbol of wisdom and righteousness. She was also the city protectress, goddess of war, handicraft, and practical reason, identified by the Romans with Minerva.

   The unveiling on May 20, 1990 was a huge affair, with more than 5,700 people filing into the Parthenon to walk by and view the statue. During the unveiling ceremony, country music star Jeannie Seely sang, and King Constantine II, the exiled king of Greece, addressed the crowd, according to a front-page story in The Tennessean.

  “What you are doing here will remind everyone the world over of Greek history and culture,” Constantine said. “This represents the bond between the oldest democracy and the most powerful democracy in the world.”

   While most were wowed by Athena, not everyone thought the goddess was so godly.

   Three protested the debut of the statue, including the Rev. Mel Perry, who held signs that read “Athena = Antichrist” and “Idolatry came to Nashville in the guise of art.”

   “The Bible condemns the making of images, and they made an image here,” he told The Tennessean.

   Regardless, the sight of that giant statue is a sight I’ll never forget.

   Athena is no longer marble white, however; in 2002 She was gilded entirely in 23.75 carat Italian gold leaf. (See photo – right).

The Pecan Tree – by Frank Howes

    When I was a boy, I used to like going to my grandfather’s farm. It was a time of plenty. He was a small farmer with a big garden and a bigger heart. I’m reminded of those times during the hot July weather.

   One of the things I remember most was the pecan tree. I remember he had two Mercury automobiles that he parked under it, one black whale type that was made into 50s. He replaced that one with a blue Mercury that was made into 60s. The pecan tree was a center of activity during the summer.

   During those times we prepared vegetables for year-long eating. We snapped beans, shelled butter beans, shucked corn, capped strawberries, and many other activities. I remember the pecan tree because it was so cool under it, amazing how a little bit of shade makes the day more pleasant.

   This time of year, tobacco season was starting. Tobacco season began with the “croppers” pulling lugs (the lowest leaves) from the stalks. The workers hit the field shortly after daybreak. The men cropped tobacco, and the women strung it on sticks. The little ones handed tobacco to the women so they could tie it. Then they hung the tobacco temporarily on racks in preparation for putting it into the barn for curing.

   My grandfather was great at curing tobacco. He turned the leaves from a light green or yellow brown to a deeper mahogany color. It was a fragrant process. When you went into the tobacco barn, the scent was incredibly delicious, even for a non-smoker. When the tobacco was cured, it was temporarily stored in a pack house. Later, it was put into a pit where the cool moist air added a little weight to the tobacco, and made the leaves pliable. After that, the tobacco was pulled from the sticks and graded and prepared for market – a long lucrative process that happened all over eastern North Carolina.

   I miss my mother’s parents. I miss her loving, affection, and I miss their little farm. We still have the farm in the family, but there are no little farmers anymore.

Baalbek – by Richard Smalto

   The greatest Roman temple ruins are not in Rome. They are located in a remote mountain area. Among the temple ruins is the temple to Jupiter, the greatest temple ever built anywhere in antiquity to honor one god. Roman rulers, over four centuries, toiled to glorify it. Emperors and generals came to it to determine their fate and legionaries, the devout and the curious to see it with their own eyes. European travelers eventually risked life and limb to confirm its existence! The site is in the mountains of Lebanon. The ruins were the remains of three imposing temples, the least one of which (the temple to Mercury), was larger than the spectacular Parthenon situated on the Acropolis which still dominates the plain of Greece. The Greeks and Romans called this place Heliopolis.

   The ruins stand catatonically, upon the largest known stones in the world and a few of the columns are among the tallest from those times. There is no apparent reason why such a gigantic effort, in such an unknown place, in an unimportant province was undertaken by the Romans, except that the ground was considered hallowed by the Greeks that preceded them. It is certain however that whatever shrines the Greeks may have erected there and the Romans thereafter, those edifices were only being raised on top of earlier foundations that can only be considered colossal.

   Modern scholars have tried to shed some light on the age-long worship of this place by studying archaeological evidence from nearby sites. These scholars have helped establish the conclusion the Roman Greek triad of gods stemmed from earlier Semitic beliefs which were based on a Sumerian pantheon.

   Was this then a place that was worshipped from the earliest of times? Archaeologists who have studied the physical features of this site have found the Romans and Greeks built their temples upon a paved platform which existed from the earliest of times, constructed of large thick stone blocks, so tightly put together, that to this day cannot be penetrated to see the chambers that lie below them.

   Large as these stones are they are not the largest slabs of granite that were being used or being processed to be used at this site.  Above the platform, lying side by side, are three stone blocks, precisely shaped and perfectly fitted together, weighing over thousand tons each the size of which are found nowhere else in the world. Ancient historians called them Trilithon-the Marvel of the Three Stones.

   Partly in the ground, lying elsewhere, is another colossal granite slab, fully shaped and perfectly cut whose length and girth are staggering. It has been estimated to weigh over 1200 tons! Wherever the leftover colossal stone was intended to be used it is a mute testimony to the gigantic size of the site in Lebanon. The stunning fact is even today there is no crane, vehicle or mechanism that can lift a weight of 1000-1200 tons, let alone carry it over valley and mountainside to place it in position many feet above the ground. Yet in ancient times, before the advent of modern machinery, such things were being done. By whom?  Tradition says it existed from the time of Adam and was built by his son Cain as a refuge and then rebuilt by Nimrod after the flood in an effort to scale the heavens. To scale the heavens, to sustain heavy weights; for this reason there are some that say the site was built by giants to scale those heavens and is named in honor of the ancient God Baal. Perhaps this explains why natives stopped calling it Heliopolis and resumed the tradition of calling it Baalbek after the Greeks and Romans departed.

The Honey bee – by Margie Lewin

   Before he became known as the “Beeman” Brady Mullinax was a 9-year-old boy who was fascinated by honeybees. To Brady, the inner workings of the hives were mesmerizing. No matter how big the swarm, each bee had a job, a purpose that helped maintain the health of the hive. The honey bee may not be a North Carolina native, but this crucial pollinator has earned the title of state insect. Today, the honeybee remains our state insect. The North Carolina State Beekeepers Association is one of the largest and oldest of its kind in the country, with more than 5100 members. And in 2023 our Beekeepers produced nearly 500,000 pounds of honey. Enjoy a little spoonful with your next cup of hot tea.