Many of us are heading to the beach to bask in the sun and unwind as part of our summer vacations. Research has shown that spending time at the beach can provide immense relaxation for many people. Staring at the ocean puts us in a mild meditative state, the smell of the breeze soothes us, the warmth of the sand envelops us, and above all, the continuous, regular sound of the waves allows us to fully relax.
But beach vacations only became popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries as part of the lifestyle of the wealthy in Western countries. Early Europeans, and especially the ancient Greeks, thought the beach was a place of hardship and death. As a seafaring people, they mostly lived on the coastline, yet they feared the sea and thought that an agricultural lifestyle was safer and more respectable.
As a historian of culture and an expert in Greek mythology, I am interested in this change of attitude toward the beach.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The sensory experience of the beach
As I write in my 2016 book, “The Sea in the Greek Imagination,” Greek literature discounts all the positive sensations of the beach and the sea and focuses on the negative ones in order to stress the discomfort the ancient Greeks felt about the beach and the sea in general.
For instance, Greek literature emphasizes the intense smell of seaweed and sea brine. In the “Odyssey,” an eighth century B.C.E. poem that takes place largely at sea, the hero Menelaus and his companions are lost near the coast of Egypt. They must hide under the skins of seals to catch the sea god Proteus and learn their way home from him. The odor of the seals and sea brine is so extremely repulsive to them that their ambush almost fails, and only magical ambrosia placed under their noses can neutralize the smell.
Similarly, while the sound of the waves on a calm day is relaxing for many people, the violence of storms at sea can be distressing. Ancient Greek literature focuses only on the frightening power of stormy seas, comparing it to the sounds of battle. In the “Iliad,” a poem contemporary with the “Odyssey,” the onslaught of the Trojan army on the Greek battle lines is compared to a storm at sea: “They advanced like a deadly storm that scours the earth, to the thunder of Father Zeus, and stirs the sea with stupendous roaring, leaving surging waves in its path over the echoing waters, serried ranks of great arched breakers white with foam.”
Finally, even the handsome Odysseus is made ugly and scary-looking by exposure to the sun and salt of the sea. In the “Odyssey,” this hero wanders at sea for 10 years on his way home from the Trojan War. At the end of his tribulations, he is barely hanging on to a raft during a storm sent by the angry sea god Poseidon. He finally lets go and swims to shore; when he lands on the island of the Phaeacians, he scares the attendants of the Princess Nausicaa with his sunburned skin, “all befouled with brine.”
Carole Raddato/flickr, CC BY-SA
The sand of the beach and the sea itself were thought to be sterile, in contrast to the fertility of the fields. For this reason, the “Iliad” and “Odyssey” regularly call the sea “atrygetos” – meaning “unharvested.”
This conception of the sea as sterile is, of course, paradoxical, since the oceans supply about 2% of overall human calorie intake and 15% of protein intake – and could likely supply much more. The Greeks themselves ate plenty of fish, and many species were thought to be delicacies reserved for the wealthy.
Death at the beach
In ancient Greek literature, the beach was frightening and evoked death, and in fact, it was common to mourn deceased loved ones on the beach.
Tombs were frequently located by the sea, especially cenotaphs – empty graves meant to memorialize those who died at sea and whose bodies could not be recovered.
Manfred Werner (Tsui) via Wikimedia, CC BY-SA
This was a particularly cruel fate in the ancient world because those who could not be buried were condemned to wander around the Earth eternally as ghosts, while those who received proper funerals would go to the underworld. The Greek underworld was not a particularly desirable place to be – it was dank and dark, yet it was considered the respectable way to end one’s life.
In this way, as classical scholar Gabriela Cursaru has shown, the beach was a “liminal space” in Greek culture: a threshold between the worlds of the living and the dead.
Revelation and transformation
Yet the beach was not all bad for the Greeks. Because the beach acted as a bridge between sea and land, the Greeks thought that it also bridged between the worlds of the living, the dead and the gods. Therefore, the beach had the potential to offer omens, revelations and visions of the gods.
For this reason, many oracles of the dead, where the living could obtain information from the dead, were located on beaches and cliffs by the sea.
The gods, too, frequented the beach. They heard prayers and sometimes even appeared to their worshippers on the beach. In the “Iliad,” the god Apollo hears his priest Chryses complain on the beach about how his daughter is being mistreated by the Greeks. The angry god retaliates by immediately unleashing the plague on the Greek army, a disaster that can only be stopped by returning the girl to her father.
Besides these religious beliefs, the beach was also a physical point of connection between Greece and distant lands.
Enemy fleets, merchants and pirates were all apt to land on beaches or to frequent the coasts because ancient ships lacked the capability to stay at sea for long periods. In this way, the beach could be a fairly dangerous place, as military historian Jorit Wintjes has argued.
On the bright side, flotsam from shipwrecks could bring pleasant surprises, such as unexpected treasure – a turning point in many ancient Greek stories. For example, in the ancient novel “Daphnis and Chloe,” the poor goatherd Daphnis finds a purse on the beach, which allows him to marry Chloe and bring their love story to a happy conclusion.
Perhaps something remains today of this conception of the beach. Beachcombing is still a popular hobby, and some people even use metal detectors. Besides its demonstrated positive psychological effects, beachcombing speaks to the eternal human fascination for the sea and all the hidden treasures it can provide, from shells and sea glass to Spanish gold coins.
Just as it did for the Greeks, the beach can make us feel that we are on the threshold of a different world.
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