Dear @mariandavp, I apologize for highjacking your mind and Steemit account. I‘ve been watching you for weeks, so I know how obsessed you’ve become over this platform. But I promise you; when I’m done writing this post, you will appreciate that my story can be much more thrilling, romantic and adventurous than anything you could ever writen yourself.
But allow me to follow the standard Steemit practice and introduce myself. My name is Caryatid n.2. I am from Athens, Greece. For the last 200 years I’ve been staying in the British Museum. How did I end up here? Well, how do all women end up in the wrong places? They fall for the wrong guy. And I was no exception. You may have heard of him. His name was Thomas Bruce the 7th, also known as Lord Elgin. But I refuse to call him Lord. To me he was nothing more than an ex; a lying cheating bastard who convinced me that he loved me, forced me to follow him to England, and then, after he had his fun with me, he sold me out to repay his debts. Nowadays, a man who did this to a woman he would be considered no less than a pimp. But I’ m out of marble, so in human perception he is still considered a collector. Anyway, I know I have to leave all this bitterness behind but it’s just that this whole thing is very recent for me.
Two hundred years may sound like a long time to you, I however have been around for …umm let me think…about 2.430 years. This means, that at least for the first 2.215 years of my life I lived in Athens. They weren’t all happy years. They were mostly tough to be honest. I have watched humanity evolve through its painful experiences. But at least I have watched it at home with my mother and my five sisters. And the early years were just magical. I won’t bore you with my childhood memories; I was never a child anyway. I was born a beautiful adult woman. Just like my mother, Goddess Athena. Although, I didn’t directly come out of Zeus head, I did cpme out of a man’s vision. This man, my father, was Pericles.
Unfortunately I never got to meet him. He died few years before I was born. Somehow though, I have a vivid memory of him. A memory that has remained strong over the centuries; stronger than the marble I’ m made of. I remember him on acropolis, when he first saw us standing on the south porch of Erechtheion. Oh, he was filled with such pride, such lust! Such love for the power of art. And was the true nature of his spirit, pure love glowing and uncorrupted throughout eternity. Phidias, the mandated sculptor, stood proud next to him. He couldn’t see Pericles but he knew he had justified his friend’s trust.
Our beauty could not be matched. Our strength could not be matched. Our fame would never be matched. Our long wavy hair, our big eyes, our strong shoulders and our wonderful draped dresses bedazzled the spectator to such extent that often men -and occasionally women, fell in love with us. They came to see us all the time, they wrote poems, the painted us on ceramics... But we weren’t loved equally. Among the six, for no obvious reason, I was the most adored. [Steemit put, I had the most followers and reputation status 70.]
One of my first followers was Aspasia, former lover of my father. Aspasia sensed my fate from the very start. On our first ceremony, when everyone else was paying gratitude to Athena and Poseidon, Aspasia approached me. She stood on my side. She placed her right hand on my left knee and looked up to me. I could feel a tender sorrow in her soul. I couldn’t speak to her but I could hear her clearly.
“You are so beautiful! So graceful!” she said. “Among your sisters, you will be longed the most. Believe me, I know what men want. But men are not to be trusted when their motive for love is as Socrates suggests –beauty. Oh beauty is a curse. May Athena defend you, because as strong as you may be, you won’t be able to defend yourself.”
My sisters, who overheard her “ prophesy”, said that it was just the usual human nonsense. Aspasia had become over-emotional after Pericles death. They had a point. After all, we all looked the same. Why would someone like me more than my sisters? And if someone did, how could this be a bad thing? What on earth could someone do to a statue that would require action from my part?
We are strong,
We are immune,
We will live forever
Worshipped and adored! …my sisters sang in one voice.
On top, Erechthus was there to protect us if needed. A king reincarnated into a serpent, he dwelt close by and guarded us. Who would dare to challenge the sacred snake?
And at least for the first two years, nobody did. Time passed by elegantly for us. I wish I could say the same for the Athenians, who suffered from the plague and the Peloponnesian War. My mother told me that never before had she seen so many shrines and rituals being organized on the Acropolis hill. It was the ultimate pop scene of the city, and we, the Caryatides were the super stars. We were at the top of the world.
Unfortunately nothing lasts forever, so when I turned three years old, Athens fell to the Spartans. It was not that we were not respected or highly regarded anymore. But things had changed. We would always be Pericles children. We would always reflect the vision of the Lion. And lions are a threat to the less-than-perfect mankind. The Athenians had lost their children to the plague, their best men to the war, their freedom to the Spartans. Their spirits were low and their faith in gods was suffering. However, humans always find their way around. They are fluid, the open their own roads as the flow through their life’s obstacles. On the contrary, we are not. We are physically immovable. So when the temple caught fire, we were entrapped by our own nature.
You never know when something like this will happen. You are caught off-guard. Me and my sisters were standing gracefully on the porch gossiping about Aspasia and her new lover Lysicles. My sisters were somewhat bitter about her, but I respected her. I always stood up for her and I believe it was just when our debate was heating up, that I felt certain warmth approaching my back.
“Do you feel that?” “What?” “Heat on your back and legs” “I feel it!” “What’s happening?”
I tried to look down. Erechthous the Snake crawled spasmodically around my feet. His tale was caught in flames. He screamed in pain and struggled to put out the fire. But he was a snake. His motions were limited. Mine were non- existent. I was desperate, I wanted to help him. But my hands couldn’t move.
[to be continued]