On the trail of Aristotle

Aristotle stares across the pine-clad peaks of his homeland towards the Aegean sea. Around him on the grass are 10ft-tall scientific experiments into the nature of the physical universe – how tornadoes whirl through air, how sound carries in space, how the rays of the sun can measure time. Behind him soar mountains that hide the gold mines of Alexander the Great, his most famous pupil. I step forward and whisper into one of his parabolic discs – a stone shaped like some ancient satellite dish – and hear its echoes bouncing in the distance, circling like the ripples of history.

Welcome to the Aristotle Park, in Aristotle district, north-east Greece. In this little-visited area of hill villages and chestnut forests, one of the world’s greatest thinkers was born 2,400 years ago. And here, in the ruined coastal village of Stageira, archaeologists claimed last week to have discovered his long-lost tomb among the broken stones of the Greek, Byzantine and Ottoman empires. So I’ve come here to explore the region that he called home.

“Aristotle was not just for Greeks,” says my guide, Dimitris Saris, as we walk around the park with its life-size statue of the great man. “He belonged to the whole world. He wrote and thought about everything that was then known – perhaps the last man able to do this – and his ideas still affect our lives. Not just in science, but in philosophy, art, politics. Democracy, if we have it in Europe, came out of his ideas.”

I gaze at the timeless panorama of woods and farms and curving coast, now called Halkidiki but once the kingdom of Macedonia. In the distance rise the slopes of Mt Athos, where Orthodox monasteries perch on cliffs in a living remnant of Byzantine times. This is Greece, but not as we know it from sun-splashed holidays on island beaches: it’s the Balkans, where Europe and Asia overlap, and its sleepy villages are built on a dazzling overlay of cultures.

We bump into this at the edge of the park, when we start to walk the Aristotle Trail through the woods. In a clearing of chestnut trees and butterflies we find a handsome red-brick building with domed roofs. It’s a Turkish hammam or bath house built in 1487. Inside there are rooms for hot and cold pools, with lovely arabesque ceilings. Next door is a ruined mosque. “This area was part of Turkey until 1912,” says Dimitris. “My family came here as refugees from south of Istanbul in 1923. We ask ourselves, what is a Greek?”

We hop back in his car and head for Stageira. En route we pass Arnea, a perfectly restored Ottoman village where each half-timbered house carries a plaque explaining the history of its family. A wall of black-and-white photographs shows how they used to live: men scything corn by hand, women weaving in their kitchens. 

Stageira itself is a scatter of rubble on a headland over the sea. The water is pistachio green with perfect coves of yellow sand. Nightingales sing in the trees. We cross a huge defensive wall and enter a grand square dating from 650 BC, where a stone altar was used to sacrifice animals. This is the town where Aristotle was born.

At its summit is a strange ruin that Dimitris cannot explain. It has a square Greek floor and a ragged Byzantine tower, with a circular wall curling around them. In front is a rectangle of marble where an altar might have been. He stands on the base and sighs. “Somewhere here is the grave of Aristotle. But it’s lost. The ancient authors say his bones were brought back here, and an English traveller in the 11th century claimed to have visited his altar. But no one knows where it is.”

Unknown to us, the week after my visit a local archaeologist would announce that this is the exact location of the grave. Kostas Sismanidis told an Aristotle conference in nearby Thessaloniki that he had enough circumstantial clues to conclude that this was the spot. “I have no hard proof,” he admitted, “but strong indications lead me to almost certainty. It all points towards this theory.”

Dimitris and I walk down to the village of Olympiada, where he runs the Akroyali Restaurant, one of the best in Halkidiki. We sit on its sundeck by the beach, slurping bowls of mussels. “We have the best mussels in all of Greece,” he beams. “In the Second World War when there was no food, the villagers survived on them. But if you want to know how the ancients ate, you should talk to my sister Loulou at the hotel.”

Loulou is a smiling grey-haired woman who owns the Liotopi Hotel, a pretty white-walled place in flowering gardens by the beach. She offers to cook me a traditional dinner that’s been eaten here since Aristotle’s time: octopus with figs in white wine. “The ancient Greeks used a lot of dried fruit,” she explains, sizzling a vast tentacle in a pan. “They had a sweet and sour cuisine. So I’m cooking fish from the sea with herbs from the mountains.” It tastes sticky-sweet, fresh from the fish and salty from the sea, great with a glass of tsipouro, the local version of ouzo.

Next morning I set off for the ancient city of Pella, where Aristotle was summoned by King Philip II of Macedonia to teach his son Alexander. It’s a fine drive along the shore then inland past dreamy lakes and farming villages filled with orchards and roses. After two hours I stop at the seaside city of Thessaloniki, to see Philip’s royal treasures at the Museum of Archaeology.

They are extraordinary. In dark glass cabinets, spotlights catch the gleam of gold on imperial crowns and wreaths of metal flowers, on exquisite earrings and delicate necklaces. Iron swords and rusted helmets hint at the military power behind this wealth. The highlight is a shoulder-high wine bowl, decorated with scenes of semi-nude men and women eating grapes and flirting. Apparently they are gods, but they look fairly human to me.

I walk outside and find myself staring at a statue of Alexander on a horse. This city was founded by his successor Cassander and named after his half-sister Thessalonica, and it’s been a hub of the Balkans ever since. The Romans built their main highway from Rome to Constantinople through here, and their Via Egnatia is still the main drag, known today as Egnatias Street. In fact, Thessaloniki was the capital of Byzantium before Constantinople was chosen, and it’s studded with fine Byzantine churches. Today it’s still a major player, hosting the largest university in the Balkans – called, of course, Aristotle University. Its 95,000 students crowd the bars and nightclubs and have helped turn this city into the foodie capital of Greece.

Past the statue is the waterfront, a three-mile arc of art deco apartments built in the 1920s, lined with trendy cafes. It leads to Aristotle Square, an elegant concourse with a 10ft statue of the man himself, gazing out to sea. I follow his glance and see across the glittering bay a mountain peak crowned with snow. It is Mt Olympos, the home of the gods of ancient Greece. 

Next morning I drive an hour west to Pella. I find its ruins among fields of rippling wheat. Here Philip held court in the fourth century BC and Aristotle founded a Lyceum or school. Today it’s a low-walled grid of streets, with fine mosaics in the grander houses. Up the hill is a museum rich with jewellery, ceramics and armour. It shows a map of Alexander’s conquests, from Egypt to Afghanistan, including 17 cities named Alexandria. In all these places, he spread the ideas of ancient Greece, including those of his former tutor. Beside the map a plaque explains that his innovative policy was to welcome all into his kingdom, foreigners and Greeks, as equal citizens judged by their virtue not their origins. It’s a concept still contested in modern-day Europe.

I drive on to my final stop. Thirty miles across the ripe farmland of deepest Greece is Vergina, a site that brings all this history to life. Here in the largest burial mound in Greece, archaeologists have discovered the tomb of Aristotle’s great patron, Philip II – unrobbed, intact, filled with his possessions since 336 BC. They have built a museum to show these finds inside the original mound. 

I walk down a tunnel and into the underworld. Here are Philip’s iron armour and his giant shield, his golden quiver decorated with scenes from the siege of Troy. There are the ashes from his funeral pyre, alongside cremated horses and goats. In a golden casket lie his bones, identified by a scar on the skull. Nearby sits the casket of a barbarian princess who chose to die with him. Above her hangs a wreath of golden flowers. 

These pious relics are a far cry from the rational world view developed by Aristotle, who argued that beliefs must be based on observation and logic – a system we now call science, the basis for our modern world. Here in Vergina, among the ashes and crowns, you realise how far he advanced. 

I step down one more level to see the tomb itself. At the end of a ramp shines a white stone wall, 20ft high and pierced by doors of marble. It has been left as it was found. You cannot go inside, but you can stand and gaze at this unbroken link to the origins of our culture. Across the top is a painted frieze of a hunting scene, with Philip and Alexander on rearing horses hurling spears at wild creatures. It’s an image of power and order imposed upon a turbulent world, an image that we still crave today from our leaders and our scientists.

How to get there

Jonathan Lorie travelled with Greece specialist Sunvil (020 8758 4758; sunvil.co.uk), which offers seven nights in Halkidiki from £739 per person (two sharing). The price includes b&b at the Bristol Hotel in Thessaloniki and half-board arrangements at Liotopi Hotel in Olympiada, return flights from London Gatwick, and car hire.