Pariusve lapis

Tuesday 2 September 2025

A characteristically white building with a white fence and a blue gate. A paved path leads to the entrance door. The building is festooned with bougainvilleas and the blue-and-white Greek flag is flying to the left of the doorway. — The front entrance to Pelagos Studios hotel

It’s my last day on the island of Paros. It’s quiet time in the hotel, between 3 PM and 6 PM, and I’m sheltering from the heat and brightness for a couple of hours before heading off for an evening walk.

According to Greek Wikipedia, Paros is the third largest island in the Cyclades, about 150 kilometres southwest of Piraeus, which is the port near Athens where I boarded the ferry that brought me here. Paros is an island made of marble, which is how I first heard of it.

In this passage from Book 1 of Virgil’s Aeneid, Aeneas, the son of Venus, appears out of thin air before speaking to Queen Dido for the first time. He is beautiful.

Aeneas stood there, shining in the bright daylight,
like a god in shoulders and face: since his mother
had herself imparted to her son beauty to his hair,
a glow of youth, and a joyful charm to his eyes:
like the glory art can give to ivory, or as when silver,
or Parian marble, is surrounded by gold.

Virgil, Aeneid 1.588–593, Translated by AS Kline

Fifteen years ago, when Calvin and I lived in Marrickville, our next-door neighbours were Nick and Dina. When Nick told me he was born in Paros, and that he spent a few months a year there, I told him that I knew about the island and its marble from its mention in the Aeneid. He told me about the quarries there, and after his next visit, he brought me back a little figurine of Parian marble, a bust with a round face whose only feature was a long straight nose.

Yesterday, I went and visited Nick and Dina in their home near Marmara, a small village on the other side of the island. (In both Greek and Latin, the name Marmara means marble.) Nick showed me the house where he was born and drove me around to show me where he grew up and to give me the chance to take some photos.

A view from the hilltop monastery of Agios Antonios, looking out over a dry valley. There is a village made up of white buildings and a mountain in the distance; the sky is blue with one or two small clouds.

Another view from Agios Antonios. The same dry valley and the same distant mountain, but this time there are the white buildings of three small villages. To their right there is a patchwork of fields.

Another view from Agios Antonios. There's a patchwork of fields, some empty, some with rows of olive trees. Scattered among the fields are small white houses.

Another view from Agios Antonios. A dry promontory juts out into the sea, with a small white chapel on its tip. There are a few white buildings in the middle distance and some buildings near the shore on the left. The sea is deep blue. In the distance is the island of Naxos is hazily visible.

After that, Nick and Dina took me to lunch outdoors at a taverna in Marmara — a massive lunch of Greek salad and grilled meat. And then Nick drove me back to the port of Paros in Parikia, when I’m staying. But not before he carried out a plan he might have conceived more than fifteen years ago.

A dirt road whose surface consists of crushed marble leads into the distance, surrounded by wooded hills.

Looking down into the quarry. There's a pathway lined with low walls made of marble stones leading down into a dark hole in the ground.

A cliff wall, red with iron oxide, fenced off with a wire fence. A dark hole leads under the cliff wall into the quarry.

A wooded hillside, with the red stone of a cutting visible.

In Marathi, about five kilometres from here, there is an extensive complex of marble quarries, where Parian marble was mined as early as the 7th Century BCE. There are open cut mines, and a complex of underground mines, including the mines of Pan and the mines of the Nymphs. Sadly, these are too dangerous for the public to visit; they apparently extend hundreds of metres underground, supported by pillars of marble that have been left there to support the roof.

The marble from these quarries was famous for its translucency and used in sculptures throughout the Greek world, including the pedimental sculptures from the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, which I was lucky enough to see during the School’s Classics Tour last year.

A week ago, I left Sydney’s wettest August in thirty years. Here in Greece, it’s blisteringly sunny every day. After Nick dropped me off in Parikia, I stopped at a bar for a drink and then walked back to the hotel. An hour or two later, before the sun set, I was asleep.

2025 Long Service Leave