An Afternoon with Socrates in Athens - Spring 399 BC

I had imagined Athens differently. More monumental, perhaps, more sublime, like the busts in museums, those marble faces with their empty eyes. But when I stepped through the Dipylon Gate that spring afternoon in 399 BC, I was greeted first by the smell: olive oil, fried fish, goat dung, and above it all, the dry dust of the Attic soil, carried down from the hills by a light breeze. The sun was low over Mount Hymettus, bathing everything in that light the Greeks called "honey-colored"—and they were right.