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…