Ancient Greece Was a Debauched Disney Trip for Romans

Ages before modern tourists flocked to Greece to enjoy its sun, sea, antiquities, and adventure, people of the Roman Empire descended on Greece for the same reasons. Antony and Cleopatra headed for a romantic island tryst on Samos; the emperor Tiberius preferred Rhodes.

Some Romans attended the famous philosophy schools and drenched themselves in Greek history; others came for the Olympic Games; still others were attracted by the sensational—a chance to gawk at the egg hatched by Leda after her affair with Zeus in the guise of a swan, to dip a toe in the spring where Helen had bathed, or to gasp as professional divers jumped off the notorious “Lover’s Leap” of Leucadia, a 200-foot promontory where Sappho was said to have ended her life. And they all lugged home souvenirs: terracotta statuettes, trinkets, pots of Hymettian honey, silk scarves from Cos, gnarled walking sticks from Sparta, copies of racy Milesian love stories, and entire temple columns and thousands of statues.

Greek hospitality was renowned long before the Roman sightseers arrived. People who traveled often had “guest-friends” in Greek cities, and as early as the fifth century B.C. innkeepers let rooms in towns and along roads. Famous temples and sanctuaries provided public accommodations run by the host city or by other cities for their own citizens visiting the shrine. The fourth-century politician Demosthenes mentioned a hotel popular with ambassadors near the Temple of the Twins in Pherae on the northern coast of Greece, and the remains of an ancient hostel for visitors to Athens was found in Plateia in modern times.

Herodotus was one of the first ancient writers to travel purely for curiosity and pleasure in the fifth century B.C.. His books related the many strange customs and marvels he saw and heard about on his tours (see chapters 1 and 21). By the fourth century B.C., foreign travel was becoming more common, as diplomats, messengers, mercenaries, tradespeople, merchants, poets, philosophers, musicians, artists, actors, and athletes all traveled for business, education, or pleasure. Ordinary and rich folk alike made journeys to attend festivals and religious celebrations.

In the fifth century B.C. Sparta allowed visitors only short, rigidly supervised tours of its sights and restricted the travel of its own citizens. By Roman times, however, Sparta had become a sort of “theme park,” a must-see on every tourist’s list, where Old Sparta’s myths, legendary austerity, and harsh discipline were glorified. Gullible tourists could view Leda’s Egg (out of which Helen of Troy hatched; sophisticated travelers dismissed the large beribboned egg as that of an ostrich). Those familiar with the verses of the popular Roman poet Ovid probably hoped to see beautiful Spartan women wrestling in the nude, but they had to settle for statues of clothed female runners or women warriors brandishing swords. Tourists could watch endurance contests in which stoic Spartan teenagers were flogged, in the theater built by Roman entrepreneurs to accommodate hundreds of spectators. Or they could witness puppy sacrifices, exciting boar hunts, and brutal mock battles; visit the cave where criminals were confined, the altar where human sacrifices took place, and the notorious gorge where weak children were left to die. They could admire “vicious Laconian hounds” paraded on leashes; and wander through the impressive “victory” colonnade displaying Persian spoils and columns in the forms of chained captives.

Princeton University Press

Many of the bloodthirsty images of ancient Sparta current today actually come from descriptions of these commercialized sideshows created to entertain the Roman tourists.

Travelers stayed at inns along roads, near the city gates, or in the town center. Then, as now, the comforts of these lodgings varied enormously. In the cheapest, travelers had to provide their own food and linens, and they could expect to encounter hard beds, bedbugs, mosquitoes, little privacy, shady characters, and brawls. Wealthier tourists avoided these quarters and booked accommodations in luxurious converted mansions, with garden patios or dining rooms catering to Romans used to reclining during dinner. Wayfarers could buy simple snacks and wine at a modest café called a kapilos. All inns of the day provided sexual companionship of varying standards and costs.

Rich, famous, and powerful globe-trotters, such as Cleopatra and Antony, who cruised the Aegean in 40–30 B.C., traveled first class. In April of 32 B.C. the pair sailed from Ephesus to Samos, bringing with them a retinue of popular actors, comedians, and musicians. For three weeks their revels were the talk of Greece: the island resounded with the sounds of pipes and lutes; there were sumptuous drunken banquets and all-night performances. Cleopatra’s souvenirs from Samos included life-size bronze statues of Zeus, Athena, and Heracles taken from the Temple of Hera. She…