Temple of Poseidon & Cape Sounion

King Aegeus, father of Theseus is believed to have plunged to his death from the cliff here. After killing the minotaur, Thesaus' ship returned with black sails, which implied he was killed, (which was not the case). A heartbroken King couldn’t take it and jumped from the cliff to his death. The Athenians named the Aegean Sea after this mighty King and loving father.

The Temple was built to honor Poseidon, the god of the sea. In fact, inside the temple stood a 20-foot bronze statue of Poseidon, surviving in parts and preserved in the Archeological Museum of Athens. Being a seafaring nation, Athens had incredible faith in Poseidon and built the temple right near the sea and appeased him with offerings to keep them safe while at sea.

In 1884, German archeologist Wilhelm Dorpfeld discovered that the current temple stood on top of an archaic temple of similar dimensions. It is believed that this archaic temple was razed to the ground by Persians in 480 BC while still under construction. In 479 BC, when the Greeks defeated the Persians, they placed the captured Persian warships at Sounion, as a trophy for Poseidon.

Homer’s masterpiece, 'The Odyssey', mentions that Menelaus of Sparta on returning from Troy, stopped at the temple to bury his helmsman. Herodotus’ and Homer’s accounts affirm that the temple’s site was holy ground. The poet Lord Byron’s signature is engraved on one of the columns and he immortalized the temple in his poem, 'The Isles of Greece', with the lines “Sunium’s marbled steep”.

Pericles rebuilt the Temple of Poseidon around 440 BC with 34 columns, of which only 16 stand today. It is believed that the architect Iktinos (unconfirmed), is the same person who designed the Temple of Hephaestus and the Parthenon. Athenians were quite attached to this Temple, as it was the first and last sight of home for seagoing mariners.