Athenian Odyssey: A Unique Guide to Experiencing Ancient Athens

What was built, why it mattered, and how it still speaks to us today.

Athenian Odyssey, written by William M. Taylor and first published in 1977, is a profound and accessible guide to 5th-century BCE Athens — a time and place many consider the pinnacle of human achievement. More than a tour, this is an odyssey into the soul of a civilization: its politics, art, myth, and philosophy.

Unlike conventional guidebooks that list dates and monuments, Athenian Odyssey explores how ancient sites were used, what they meant to the Athenians who built them, and how those meanings still echo in us today. Drawing on ancient texts, dramatic speeches, and thoughtful commentary, it invites you to walk the same roads as Pericles and Socrates, not just to see where they stood — but to consider why they still matter.

Whether you’re standing on the Acropolis or reading from home, this journey into Athens' Golden Age reveals the symbolic and psychological power of its temples, theaters, and ceremonies — and the tension between reason and myth that still shapes Western consciousness.

“It helps to breathe life into those cold stones… Athenian Odyssey will be stimulating and challenging to the thoughtful reader.”
— Stephen G. Miller, Ph.D., emeritus director of excavations at Nemea, Greece, UC Berkeley

How The App Works

Follow curated Journeys anchored in geography and history
Dive into narrative Passages with ancient context and modern insight
Unlock Supporting Passages for deeper site-specific reflection
Explore interactively with rich imagery and map-based navigation

What You Will Explore

Main Journey: Athenian Odyssey

A Geographical Overview of 5th-Century BCE Athens
The Agora – Marketplace of Ideas and Democracy
The Areopagus – The Road to Reason and the Unconscious
The Acropolis – Sanctuary to Athena
The Pnyx – The Right to Speak
The Theater of Dionysos – The Theater of Catharsis
The Kerameikos – The Speech from the Graves

Second Journey: The Rise and Fall of Athens
A 26-step timeline tracing key events from the Battle of Marathon to the trial and death of Socrates.

Powered By Journey Maps

Built on the Journey Maps platform — a patent-pending system for immersive geographic storytelling — Athenian Odyssey blends narrative, location, and reflection into a living, guided experience of the past.

Why It’s Different

This is not a logistics-focused travel guide. It’s a philosophical and symbolic pilgrimage. Through it, you’ll explore Athens not only as it was — but as it lives within us now.

“All of us, to some extent, are what we are because of the Greeks.”
— William M. Taylor, 1977

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Privacy Policy

This app does not record, store or communicate off-device user data of any kind. Should you turn on location services, your position will estimated and shown to you only, and only when you are within the apps mapped region.

Support

Support is available by email. Contact us at info@athenianodyssey.com

About the Author

William M. Taylor was raised in Southern California’s San Fernando Valley and proudly fulfilled a youthful dream by becoming a nationally ranked half-miler at the University of Southern California. After earning a graduate degree in theology, he taught high school history and engaged in politics, experiences that shaped his intellectual perspective. His deep interest in Ancient Greece took root during a series of family trips to Greece in the 1970s, culminating in the writing of Athenian Odyssey in 1977. Though his professional career was in financial advising, Mr. Taylor is best known for coaching high school cross country and track for over 40 years in Marin County, California. During that time, he founded Arete West, through which he personally led 20 historically and athletically themed youth trips to Europe.

Original Book Reviews

“All too many leave Greece with the feeling that there is little significance to be derived from old marble. Such disappointment is due partly to the fact that very few Americans have a sufficient background in the history and literature of the Golden Age of Greece to appreciate fully its material remains, and partly to the over-glorification of Classical Greece which has been common since the Renaissance. Athenian Odyssey cannot full solve those two problems, but it can help to correct them. It provides a background which is necessarily incomplete, but which helps to breathe life into those cold stones. It also provides a balanced picture of the vices as well as the virtues of 5^th Century Athens. Athenian Odyssey will be simulating and challenging to the thoughtful reader.”

Stephen G. Miller, Ph.D. Director of Excavations at Nemea, Greece, University of California.

“This mini classic is a new genre of guidebooks, bringing to light the statures, the buildings, and the people that made Athens a primal symbol of civilization. Even the Greeks will want to look in this well-polished mirror. Surely, they will want to translate this book into their own tongue to remind them of who they are. And I doubt that any new traveler will try to experience Athens without it.”

Edward V. Stein, Ph.D., Chairman, Department of Theology and the Personality Sciences, The Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California.

“The beauty that was ancient Greece is brilliantly mirrored in William Taylor’s very contemporary Athenian Odyssey.”

Sol Kaufler, Professor of Economics, Pierce College, Woodland Hills, California.

Acknowledgments by the Author

My wife Patricia and our two sons, Jess and Cory, were very much a part of my Greek odyssey. They traveled joyfully and with great enthusiasm for Greece. Their interest contributed significantly to the writing of this book.

Stephen G. Miller, Director of the Excavations at Nemea, Greece, through the University of California, Berkeley, shared in the initial conceptualizations of the book, and then provided valuable criticisms and suggestions on the manuscript.

Conversations with Joseph Henderson, M.D, Stella G. Miller Ph.D., T.L. Schoenberger, M.D., Pericles Kolas, Charles H. Kahn, Ph.D., Edward V. Stein, Ph.D., Charles Garfield, Ph.D. and other professionals have helped me with perspective, enthusiasm and source materials.

I want to thank Sol Kaufler for the encouragement he gave me to keep writing over the last nine years, and Peter Edwards for providing a writing medium during this period.

The long and careful hours that Mary Ellen Sellery put into the map/sketches are deeply appreciated.

The San Francisco Theological Seminary Library and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens contributed timely materials and service.

Finally, to those friends who have taken an interest in my explorations of Greece I want to express my gratitude.

William M. Taylor

Original Bibliography

(1) The Athenian Citizen, The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Princeton, New Jersey, 1960.

(2) Boardmen, John, Greet Art, Frederick A Praeger, New York, 1964.

(3) Brenner, Charles M.D., An Elementary Textbook of Psychoanalysis, Anchor Books, New York, 1974.

(4) Cirlot, J.E, A Dictionary of Symbols, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1962.

(5) Fromm, Eric, The Forgotten Language, Grove Press, Inc., New York, 1951.

(6) Godolphin, Francis R.B., ed. The Greek Historians, Vols I & II, Random House, New York, 1942.

(7) Harrison, Jane, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, Meridian Books, Inc., New York, 1955.

(8) Hill, Ida Thallon, The Ancient City of Athens, Argonaut, Inc., Chicago, 1953.

(9) Miliadis, Yiannis, A Concise Guide to the Acropolis Museum, Department of Antiquities and Restoration, Athens, 1971.

(10) Podlecki, Anthony J., Age of Glory, Macmillian Publishing Co, Inc., New York, 1975.

(11) Thompson, William Irwin, At the Edge of History, Harper & Row, New York, 1971.

(12) Travlos, John, Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens, Thanes Hudson, London, 1971.

(13) Wycherley, R.E, The Athenian Agora, Vol III and Wycherley, R.E. & Thompson, H.A., The Athenian Agora, Vol. XIV, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Princeton, New Jersey, 1957.

References By Chapter

The original book illustrations have been retained and were produced by Mary Ellen Sellery.

Chapter 1
(1) "Aeschylus, Persians, Greek Literature in Translation, ed. Michael Grant, Penguin Books, London, 1973. pp. 117-118. Paraphrased by the author."

(2) "Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, ed. Sir Richard Livingston. Oxford University Press, New York 1960, Book II. Paraphrased by the author."

(3) "Xenophon, Hellenica, I, II, Greek Literature in Translation, ed. Michael Grant, Penguin Books, London, 1973. p. 208. Paraphrased by the author."

Chapter 2
(1) "Liddell, Henry George, and Robert Scott. A Greek-English Lexicon. Revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones. With the assistance of Roderick McKenzie. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940."

(2) "Plato, The Unfair Methods of Socrates, Greek Literature in Translation, ed. Michael Grant, Penguin Books, London, 1973. pp. 257-258."

(3) "Plato, The Apology, Plato: The Complete Works, Benjamin Jowett & George Burges, Titan Read Classics, 2015."

(4) "Plato, The Apology, Plato: The Complete Works, Benjamin Jowett & George Burges, Titan Read Classics, 2015."

(5) "Plutarch, Life of Alcibiades, Chapter 16.3, Paraphrased by the author."

(6) "Plutarch, Life of Alcibiades, Chapter 19.2, Paraphrased by the author."

(7) "Plutarch, Life of Alcibiades, Chapter 14.3, Paraphrased by the author."

(8) "Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Book VIII, Chapter 1, Rex Warner Translation, Penguin Books, 1972."

(9) "Plato, The Unfair Methods of Socrates, Greek Literature in Translation, ed. Michael Grant, Penguin Books, London, 1973. p. 248."

(10) "Plutarch, Aristides, The Harvard Classics, Vol 12, ed. Charles W. Eliot, P.F. Collier & Son Corp., New York, 1937, p. 85."

(11) "Nietzsche, “Homer’s Contest” The Portable Nietzsche, ed. Walter Kaufman. The Viking Press, New Your 1954, p. 36."

(12) "Nietzsche, “Homer’s Contest” The Portable Nietzsche, ed. Walter Kaufman. The Viking Press, New Your 1954, p. 36."

(13) "Personal communication from Joseph Hernderson, M.D. 1976."

Chapter 3
(1) "Travlos, John, 1971. Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens, Thames and Hudson, London."

(2) "Jung, Carl G., Man and His Symbols, Dell Publishing Co., Inc., New York, 1964, p. 68."

(3) "Campbell, Joseph, The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology, The Viking Press, New York, 1965. Paraphrased by the author."

(4) "Singer, June, Androgyny, Anchor Press / Doubleday New York, 1976, p. 70. Paraphrased by the author."

(5) "Mylonas, George E., Eleusia and the Eleusinian Mysteries, Princeton Press, 1964, p. 249. Paraphrased by the author."

(6) "Dodds, E.R., The Greeks and the Irrational, Beacon Press, Boston 1957, p. 254."

(7) "Jung, Carl G., Man and His Symbols, Dell Publishing Co., Inc., New York, 1964, p. 84."

(8) "Auden, W.H., ed. The Portable Greek Reader, The Viking Press, New York, 1948, p. 38."

(9) "Freud, Sigmund, The Future of an Illusion, Anchor Books / Doubleday, New York, 1957, p. 99."

(10) "Dodds, E.R., The Greeks and the Irrational, Beacon Press, Boston 1957, p 254. Paraphrased by the author."

Chapter 4
(1) "Kazantzakis, Nikos, Report to Greco, Bantam Books, New York, 1965, p. 129."

(2) "Pausanias, Description of Greece, Book 1, Attica, G.P. Putnam & Sons, New York, 1955, p. 46."

(3) "Singer June, Androgyny, Anchor Press / Doubleday New York, 1976, p. 61. Paraphrased by the author."

(4) "Personal communication from Joseph Henderson, M.D., 1976."

(5) "Burn, A.R., Pericles and Athens, Collier Books, New York, 1948, pp. 135-136."

(6) "Xenophanes, Greek Literature in Translation, ed. Michael Grant, Penguin Books, London, 1973, p. 80."

(7) "Dodds, E.R., The Greeks and the Irrational, Beacon Press, Boston 1957, p. 181."

(8) "Dialogues on the Acropolis: Scholars and Experts Talk on the History, Restoration and the Acropolis Museum, Skai Books, 2010, Article 4, p. 143."

Chapter 5
(1) "Arendt, Hannah, On Revolution, Viking Press, New York, 1963, p. 273."

(2) "Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, ed. Sir Richard Livingston. Oxford University Press, New York 1960, Book III. Paraphrased by the author."

(3) "Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, ed. Sir Richard Livingston. Oxford University Press, New York 1960, Book III. Paraphrased by the author."

(4) "Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, ed. Sir Richard Livingston. Oxford University Press, New York 1960, Book III. Paraphrased by the author."

(5) "Aristophanes, The Acharnians, the Complete Greek Drama, Vol. II ed. Whitney J. Oates & Eugene O’Neil, Jr., Random House, New York, 1938, pp.429-430."

(6) "Aristophanes, The Acharnians, Greek Literature in Translation, ed. Michael Grant, Penguin Books, London, 1973, p. 161."

(7) "Aristophanes, The Acharnians, Greek Literature in Translation, ed. Michael Grant, Penguin Books, London, 1973, p. 162."

Chapter 6
(1) "Bowra, C.M., The Greek Experience, The New American Library, New York, 1957, p. 152."

(2) "Harrison, Jane Ellen, Epilegonena to the Study of Greek Religion, University Press, Cambridge, 1921, p. 25."

(3) "Harrison, Jane Ellen, Epilegonena to the Study of Greek Religion, University Press, Cambridge, 1921, p. 25."

(4) "Auden, W.H., ed. The Portable Greek Reader, The Viking Press, New York, 1948, p 13."

(5) "Auden, W.H., ed. The Portable Greek Reader, The Viking Press, New York, 1948, p 13."

(6) "Sophocles, “Oedipus the King”, The Complete Greek Drama, Vol I., ed. Whitney J. Oates & Eugene O’Neil, Jr., Random House, New York, 1938, pp 407-408. Paraphrased by the author."

(7) "Euripides, “Trojan Woman”, in The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton, W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., New York, 1930, pp. 168-169"

(8) "Euripides, “Trojan Woman”, in The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton, W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., New York, 1930, pp. 169"

(9) "Aeschylus, The Eumenindes, The Complete Greek Drama, Vol. I, ed. Whitney J. Oates & Eugene O’Neil, Jr., Random House, New York, 1938, pp. 296-296."

Chapter 7
(1) "Mylonas, George E., Eleusia and the Eleusinian Mysteries, Princeton Press, 1964, p. 254."

(2) "Bakewell, Geoffry, “I Went Down to Piraeus Yesterday”: Routes, Roads, and Plato’s Republic, Hesperia, Volume 89, Number 4, The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, October – December 2020."

(3) "Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, ed. Sir Richard Livingston. Oxford University Press, New York 1960, Book II. Paraphrased by the author."

(4) "Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, ed. Sir Richard Livingston. Oxford University Press, New York 1960, Book II. Paraphrased by the author."

(5) "Tillich, Paul, The Courage to Be, Yale University Press, Connecticut, 1952, p. 83"

(6) "Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, ed. Sir Richard Livingston. Oxford University Press, New York 1960, Book V. Paraphrased by the author."