Meta Description: Join Ad Navseam Ep. 189 as Dr. David Noe and Dr. Jeff Winkle explore R.E. Wycherley’s How the Greeks Built Cities, covering agoras, temples, and Greek homes.
Welcome back, classical gourmands, to episode 189 of the Ad Navseam podcast! Get ready to get your fill with another delectable discussion of Greco-Roman civilization, stretching from the ancient Minoans and Mycenaeans straight through the Renaissance and right down to the present day.
Broadcasting from the central bunker—Parnassus Vomitorium Central—your devoted hosts, Dr. Jeffrey T. Winkle and Dr. David C. Noe, return to the microphones. With the Michigan weather hitting blisteringly warm, record-breaking temperatures in the nineties, Dr. Noe (where the “C” stands for “Cooling my heels”) is staying out of the heat. Meanwhile, Dr. Winkle (taking “Turbulent” as his middle name today) is restless, eager for the fall semester to begin, and driving his family slightly crazy in the process.
Apostles, Insomnia, and the “Brown Sound”
Before delving into antiquitas and ancient architecture, the hosts share some personal updates. Jeff has been diving into his summer reading stack, currently enjoying The Fate of the Apostles by Sean McDowell. A deeply footnoted apologetic text, the book explores the literary, legendary, and archaeological evidence regarding the martyrdom of the original Twelve.
Jeff has also been battling a bout of insomnia. When Dave suggests using white noise like a fan, Jeff admits he has never been comfortable with the concept, preferring the famous “brown sound” pioneered by the legendary guitarist Eddie Van Halen. While colors might not literally have a sound, the warm, fuzzy, rough-around-the-edges tone of Van Halen seems a fitting metaphor for the Ad Navseam audio experience!
We also have a fantastic listener shout-out this week going to Byron Snellings, a stone cutter who listens to the podcast while working and going on long runs. A dedicated student of Moss Method for Greek, Byron’s favorite piece of advice from Dr. Noe is: “If you don’t know what construing means… well, God has blessed you with the Internet, so you can go and look that up.” Byron shared an incredible photo of his MossMethod mug resting on a tombstone he hand-carved with the inscription, Death by Chocolate. Keep the classical flame alive, Byron!
The Civic Heart: The Agora
The core of today’s episode is Part Two of our review of R.E. Wycherley’s classic 1962 text, How the Greeks Built Cities. Moving into Chapter Four, the discussion centers on the absolute hub of the ancient polis: the Agora.
Wycherley opens with a quote attributed to Cyrus the Great by Herodotus. The Persian despot famously expressed his contempt for the Greeks, stating he never feared men who “have a place set apart in the middle of the city in which they get together and tell one another lies under oath.” While a totalitarian ruler would naturally despise the messy reality of free speech and democratic institutions, Cyrus accurately recognized that the Agora was the defining characteristic of Greek civic life.
Initially, the Acropolis served as the stronghold and home of the king. However, as the polis developed, a centrifugal shift occurred. The Acropolis was relegated to a purely religious center, while the true activity of the state moved down into the open, level space of the Agora. Everything happened here: politics, philosophy, and intense commerce.
This leads our hosts into a fascinating discussion on urban design. Dave reminisces about the mid-19th-century main streets of small American towns—like the one in Belding, Michigan, which was tragically bulldozed in the 1970s to build a “Covered Village” mega-mall that now sits completely desolate. The modern longing for walkable cities perfectly echoes the ancient Greek invention of the Agora: a unified place for shopping, working, and engaging in civic duties.
Of course, the Agora had its limitations. Aristotle famously noted that the size of a democracy is strictly limited to the space that can hold all its voting citizens. Furthermore, the Agora was a loud, nerve-wracking place. The fishmongers had a particularly terrible reputation in Greek comedy, known for glaring at customers like Gorgons and faking the freshness of their catches.
Eventually, the elegant simplicity of the Agora was lost. By the second century AD, Emperor Hadrian and other Roman rulers introduced a “more is more” philosophy, flooding sites like Miletus with functionless architectural elaboration that destroyed the original spaciousness of the Greek design.
Temples, Shrines, and Miami Vice Colors
In Chapter Five, Wycherley explores Shrines and Official Buildings. Crucially, in ancient Greece, there was absolutely no clear dividing line between the religious and the secular. The entire city belonged to the gods.
Physical features often dictated where a shrine was placed—caves, groves, hilltops, and springs naturally excited veneration. Furthermore, the Greeks revered historical sites. Dave points out that standing on the Colonos Hill at Thermopylae is a profoundly moving experience for those studying military history, even if the ancient Greeks never built a massive, monumental tower there to commemorate the event. They preferred to let nature guide the reverence of the space.
Perhaps the most surprising revelation for modern readers is the true function of the Greek temple. Today, we view churches and mosques as gathering places for large congregations. However, the Greek temple (based on the ancient Megaron form) was literally built as the house of the deity. You did not go inside to worship; you stayed outside in the open air to offer prayers and sacrifices.
Furthermore, our neoclassical obsession with pure, blindingly white marble is historically inaccurate. The Parthenon and other temples were painted in bright, garish primary colors—reds, whites, and blues that Jeff jokes would look right at home alongside the pastel suits and Ferraris of Miami Vice!
Gymnasiums, Stadiums, and Modest Homes
Moving into the latter chapters, Wycherley covers the essential athletic and domestic spaces of the polis. Physical education was the beating heart of developing a free citizen, meaning every single Greek town required a gymnasium. While the Athenians debated in the Agora, the Spartans fought ferociously at the Platanistas, a specialized space ringed by plane trees and a moat where young men hurled each other into the water.
The stadium was equally central, designed primarily for the stade race (a sprint of roughly 200 yards). Yet, even at Olympia—the site of the greatest national games in the ancient world—there was a total lack of comfortable seating. The entire population simply sat on the grassy embankments of a natural bowl in the earth. Jeff compares the scene to Georges Seurat’s famous Impressionist painting, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, imagining the leisurely crowds watching naked athletes sprint by.
Finally, the hosts tackle the Greek house. Compared to the massive, sprawling Hellenistic and Roman villas discovered at Pompeii or Oplontis, the classical Greek home is an archaeological anticlimax. Consisting of a few small, unadorned rooms built around an inward-facing courtyard, these homes lacked external windows, symmetry, and architectural ornamentation.
Because the Greek climate was incredibly pleasant, and because a citizen’s worth was entirely determined by their public life among peers, the private home was a complete afterthought. If an ancient Greek wanted to keep up with the Joneses, they didn’t build a massive estate; they demonstrated their wealth through their eloquence in the Agora or by constructing massive, elaborate funerary monuments for their ancestors.
Sponsors and Support
We must pause to extend our deepest gratitude to the sponsors keeping the Ad Navseam bunker fully operational!
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If you want to dive into Latin or ancient Greek, head over to latinperdiem.com. Dr. Noe offers self-paced masterclasses where you can learn directly from an expert. As the physicist Niels Bohr once said, “An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a narrow field.” Dr. Noe has made the mistakes so you don’t have to! Starting in September, he will also be hosting a Thursday evening Zoom class on the Satires of Juvenal. Use the code 10PLUS for 10% off any order.
Credits & Gustatory Parting Shot
Suddenly, a pounding at the door interrupts the hosts! The National Union to Prevent Amateur Podcasting (NUPAP) has arrived to revoke their licenses, forcing Dave and Jeff to make a hasty escape through the opisthodomos (the back porch).
A massive thank you goes to the podcast’s audio wizard, Mishka, for her top-tier engineering, and to Jeff Scheetz for bringing the ultimate rock energy to the intro with his track, Thrillseeker.
We leave you today with our Gustatory Parting Shot, pulled from Paul Rudnick’s I Shudder and Other Reactions to Life, Death and New Jersey:
“I believe in a benevolent God, not because he created the Grand Canyon or Michelangelo, but because he gave us snacks.”
Thanks for reading, and be sure to catch the next episode as the hosts finally get around to reading some Plato with Part One of the Apology of Socrates!
