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                     First International Ancient Hellenic Festival

1. Purpose

To celebrate the history, language and culture of Ancient Greece through Re-enactment, Living History, and Drama. To provide spectacular entertainment and inspirational education for the public.

To bring together interested parties, including those whose field of expertise is in the civilisations contemporary to Ancient Greece, to share knowledge and skills relevant to the theme. To conduct experiments in the use of period weapons, armour and tactics in order to learn more about these things and to demonstrate our findings immediately to the public.

2. Date

Sat./Sun., 3^rd/4^th June, 2006.

3. Content

The festival will include: - a) Living History. Costumed performers presenting aspects of Ancient Greek daily life, such as cooking, spinning, weaving, hairstyling, dancing, music-making, games and sports. b) Drill. Displays of military drill. c) Combat. Free-style individual and group combat and re-enactment of battle tactics. d) Drama. Plays will be presented in the Ancient Greek style and drama will also be featured in story-telling and sketches, designed to tell Greek legends and teach some simple Ancient Greek phrases. e) Crafts. Practitioners of period crafts, such as potters, fletchers and shield-makers will be invited to demonstrate their skills and sell their wares. Workshops will be held for those wishing to learn craft skills. f) Games of Zeus and Hera. Prizes will be on offer for these events. The traditional prize of olive oil will be brought from Greece and I will be offering a shield worth £400 for the winner of the Race-in-Armour (Heavy Category). Manning Imperial of Australia will supply a set of bronze Long-Jump weights to be used in the event and awarded to the winner.

Opportunities will be created for members of the public, especially children, to participate actively in as many aspects of the event as is possible, consistent with safety.

It may be possible to provide catering of a distinctly Ancient Greek nature.

The festival will portray Greeks of all states and every age, from Mycenae to Macedon, as well as their contemporaries; Trojans, Persians, Scythians, Romans and Egyptians.

4.      Venue  

We have been offered the facilities of Watford Boys’ Grammar School, Rickmansworth Road, Watford, for this event. These include playing fields, a sports hall, theatre, classrooms with interactive whiteboards and overhead projectors and an assembly hall. The school has extensive parking spaces and can create more, on site.

We may need more space for our major combat and drill displays.

5.      Accommodation

Re-enactors frequently camp at show sites and part of the school grounds will be available for this. We hope that UK participants and supporters will be able to accommodate some of our foreign visitors. There are many hotels, campsites and houses offering Bed and Breakfast accommodation within the area.

6.      Contributors

The Hoplite Association has agreed to take part, as has the Historical Enactment Group (“Time Tarts”). We expect The Hoplites Mores and other native Greek groups as well as Britons of Greek descent, French musician/re-enactors and a number of Americans, including the Spartan War-band and Joel Alvarez, from Cleveland, Ohio, portraying Philip of Macedon. Others attending include Greek-Australians, Germans, Dutch, Belgians and Spaniards. This list is continually growing. The Event has generated tremendous interest and excitement among re-enactors, students of History, Classicists, Greeks and Philhellenes around the world. We are particularly proud to have recruited a group of Iranian students to give the Persian perspective.

Paul Allen, Director, Breath of Life Historical Re-Creations. In association with the Classics Department of Watford Boys’ Grammar School.

Hellenes, We call to You

Beyond the Pillars of Herakles, in chilly England, a small but courageous band of men and women strives to revive the glory of the Hoplites of old.

With love and care, we seek to recall the heroes who saved the culture of Hellas as a legacy for all the world. In Summer, we have bared our pale, northern skin to the burning sun and in Winter we have walked the wet ways of England, clad only in chiton and linothorax.

It is our desire to celebrate the courage and the cunning of Hellas’ hoplites; the way of war that saved a way of life. It is the way of our people to remember the past by acting out the great events thereof. We began with the wars of our English and British ancestors, but now we turn to the time that changed the tide of History, when the heavy Hoplite phalanx of Hellas mangled the might of Persia and preserved the genius of the ancients to make our civilization what it is today.

Now we would show this story to the world, and we invite the world to celebrate the gifts that Hellas gave us. On June the 3^rd and 4^th, 2006, the First International Ancient Greek Festival will be held here, in England, where we will demonstrate, for all the world, the wonders that were given us by Sophocles and Socrates, Euripides and Euclid, Pythagoras and Plato.

Here, too, we will honour the memory of those who fought and died to keep Hellas free; the Hoplites, for whom our Association is named.

Those who honour the legacy of the Hellenes will come from Britain and France, Holland and Germany-our call will go out to Europe and all the world, to nations unborn in the Classical Age, who owe their democracy to you, oh Hellas.

And to you, Hellenes, we say, “Come, join us.” Let your young men come to march in the ranks of the Phalanx we seek to re-create. Let your young women take part in our Games of Hera. Let your actors come to play out the tragedies and comedies that founded the Theatre. Let your musicians come to play the ancient instruments and your philosophers teach us the origin of their doctrine. All these things will be part of the Festival.

England is far and the panoply of a Hoplite costly; let the wealthy man equip and bring himself, as did the Hoplites of old. But perhaps each Polis might send some of its sons. Can Athens afford to field some soldiers for the Phalanx? Will Sparta not spend some of her wealth to send her sons to soldier, her daughters to run and wrestle? Pella, we pray for your Phalangites. Let Phocis and Locris, Plataea and  Thebes send their ephebes, Argos her athletes and her white-shielded warriors, Corinth her courageous citizens. And thou, oh Thespiae, generous giver of your children, will you send us some of those men who never fled or flinched, though they were the last upon the field?

Who will be a brave man? Who will follow? Who will be first to strike down his foe? Like the cities of Ionia, we call to you for aid. Hear us, oh Hellenes and come!

Paul Allen, sometimes Pollis of Thespiae

Details of the Festival may be obtained from the author by e-mail at paul_a_allen@hotmail.com

1st, in the middle of month Gamelionos, of the year 2782 after first Olympiada