[Hilary]

We saw this Plane tree near the village of Karies , Lakonia.
It is supposed to be 2,500 years old and planted by Menelaus.
According  to the notice near the trees it is mentioned by the historian Vitrubios
The web site of the village states that Pausanias mentions it.
I would love to read the actual quotation if anyone knows exactly in which book I could find it
Hilary
Also posted photos of the notice near the trees, in Greek.

[Joanna Savage]

Hilary, I have a copy of Pausanias here. I'll see what I can find. I like the idea that Menelaus planted the tree, it certainly makes a good story. And it is a most wonderful tree. More soon, Joanna

[Joanna Savage]

Hello Hilary, The Pausanias reference is BookIII 13.7 (p.35 of this 1979 Penguin translation). Pausanias talks about the place called Karyai and the sanctuary of Artemis . Lakonian girls danced traditional dances there every year. I didn't find any mention of plane trees, although the editor,
Peter Levi says in a note that karyai means walnut trees. He also suggests that Artemis Karyatis is the origin of the architectural word  caryatid. My ancient Greek dictionary seems to think that  karyai can be other nuts as well, e.g. hazel, so perhaps it could even be stretched to nuts from plane trees. Perhaps modern research has discovered more, it would be interesting to know.

 

[JTh]

I would not be surprised if somebody several hundred years ago made a mistake and translated karyai as a plane tree, then this has been referred to by everybody else since then, since nobody went back to the original text. This has happened before.

There are quite a few free e-downloads of some of the 10 volumes of Pausanias' Description of Greece, translated into English here: http://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22Greece+--+Description+and+travel%22

[Hilary]

Joanna and Jorun,
Thanks for  trying.
Still nothing about  Menelaus, like today's royalty and politician's, planting trees.
The karyai mentioned are actually walnut trees
Apparently the area has lots of walnut trees Karidia in Greek.
Hilary

[Alice]

Very interesting, Hilary.

Here is a loose translation of the text on the notice board for the benefit of non-Greek speakers:
"The Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary was built in 1900 on this site, on which, according to historical references, was situated the ancient temple of Artemis Caryatis, and where an annual festival, The Caryateia, in honour of the goddess, took place. The Caryatids, priestesses at the temple, used to dance the "Dance of the Caryatids", originally a local dance but later danced all over Greece, up to our times. The ancient temple and the statue of the goddess Artemis were situated above a water source. Ruins of the temple can be seen in the stone structure of the newer temple (church?). In the church courtyard there are 4 plane trees, known as the Ancient Plane Trees of Menelaus. Their age can not be determined with accuracy but they are estimated to be approx. 2500 years old. According to the Roman historian Vitruvius, Menelaus had planted these circa 1100 BC".

Perhaps somebody can dig up the Vitruvius reference. (Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, 1st century BC).
As to karyon = nut in ancient Greek (Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon), as opposed to karydi = walnut in modern Greek.
This was also the case for melon (milon)= fruit rather than specifically an apple. Hence the golden apples of the Hesperides, which Heracles had to steal as one of the 12 labours, were probably oranges.

[JTh]

http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Mythology/Menelaus.htm
Pausanias 8.23.4

A little beyond the city is a spring, and by the spring grows a large and beautiful plane tree. They call it Menelais, saying that the plane was planted by the spring by Menelaus, who came to the spot when he was collecting his army against Troy. To-day they give the name Menelais to the spring as well as to the plane.

[Hilary]

Alice,
Thanks for the wonderful translation.
I knew some one would do it!
We mustn't have read the notice properly when we were there as I didn't go looking for the pieces of ancient stones in the walls of the " new " church.

Jorun,
You found the Pausanias reference to Menelaus and the plane tree.
I thought he had planted it on his way home from Troy.
Many thanks both of you

[Hilary]

By the way, for anyone interested in reading more about the plane trees  and the village.
This is their  web site


www.karyes.gr

[Umbrian]

What a fascinating topic, full of interesting information, thanks to everyone who contributed, it made good reading whilst housebound by snow !

[John J]

Just catching up with this thread. Another theory regarding the identity of the golden apples, Alice, is that they were apricots, still known as chrysomila (golden apples) here in Cyprus.

[Alice]

There seems to be a confusion about the locality of these plane trees. The first Pausanias reference relates to Artemis Karyatis, the Karyatids etc in Karyai in his book on Lakonia (no mention of plane trees) whereas the second reference mentions the Menelais plane tree near the city of Kaphyai, described in his book on Arkadia (area N/NW of Lakonia). We don't know what Vitruvius had to say about these elusive trees...
Yes, John, the golden apples of the Hesperides could well have been apricots, especially when you consider their modern name  - local to Cyprus, I assume. Other theories suggest they were pomegranates. Who knows? But fun speculating.

[Joanna Savage]

CARYAE
An online translation of Vitruvius' Ten Books on Architecture is available on the Project Gutenberg site. Book 1. 1.5 talks about the caryatids as 'images of eternal servitude'. But the editor of the Oxford Classical Dictionary has doubts and says that Vitruvius was inventing after the facts had happened. I found no mention of Menelaus. He is not in the index and I scrolled through quickly, perhaps someone else might find him.

The following dates might be helpful, they are very approximate;
MENELAUS Spartan King c.12th c BCE (probably contemporary with Late Bronze Age Mycenae).
HOMER author of Iliad and Odyssey c.8th c. BCE
VITRUVIUS 1st c. BCE
PAUSANIAS 2nd c. AD

Homer writes about Menelaus and the Trojan War. While much of Homer's text refers to events approximately contemporary to his life time it has been shown that some references have been passed down to Homer's time from the Late Bronze Age time of Menelaus by word of mouth. So a conclusion might be that if oral tradition was successful between 1200BCE and 700BCE then it could also continue via Pausanias to the present day, and Menelaus might have planted the plane tree under discussion.

How to test the hypothesis? It would help if the sanctuary turned up some LateEarly Bronze pottery. I don't know if the sanctuary has been excavated. Maybe a linguist could trace elements of the today's dialect back into Linear B, the written text of the Myceneans. But it's a long long shot. Here's a project which would need a month or two in a library in Athens. An inviting prospect.

[Alice]

To continue on the topic of ancient trees, I thought the following might be of interest.
I quote from footnotes from Peter Levi's translation of Pausanias's Guide to Greece. Referring to the Menelais plane tree  he says "Menelaos as Helen's husband had married into a tree-cult. Theophrastos says Agamemnon planted this tree, and so does Pliny..."  "I have seen at different places in the Peloponnese a vine and a plane tree currently pointed out as having been there since Pausanias's time, and people used to be told that the olives in the Garden of Olives were the ones that Christ saw. There used to be and still are a large number of King Alfred's oaks in England. But Pausanias's venerable trees are all religious".
Nice little stories, which might or might not have some truth in them, but which add spice to history.

[Trevor Australis]

  What a terrific thread this is. I just love all the detail and knowledge that contributors have shared. Do you think that any other garden society could have such a discussion? I doubt it. tn