To say the Saudi led coalition and who 3 rebels have made little effort to minimize civilian casualties in mission folks reports from Geneva the unit best gaiters point to the indiscriminate bombing and shelling of schools hospitals and markets in which thousands of Yemen civilians have been killed while who 3 rebel groups have also used disproportionate weapons in urban areas this report says most civilian deaths have been caused by coalition airstrikes the investigators at that the effect of the coalition's a are a naval blockade may also be a war crime because it prevents food and medicine reaching civilians the French environment minister Nicolas has announced his resignation in a live radio interview without telling president tomorrow will mark wrong the prime minister Eduardo Phillipe beforehand was said he was frustrated that he'd only been able to make a few small steps towards improving the environment and sound on support of the government maneuvering a medical charities says Children as young as 10 have tried to kill themselves in a camp housing migrants and refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos m.s.f. Workers have told the b.b.c. The conditions at Moria are among the worst they've seen the site is overcrowded with poor sanitation and frequent violence it has capacity for 2000 people but nearly 8000 currently live there b.b.c. News a new system for predicting where cholera outbreaks will occur has led to a sharp fall in the number of cases in Yemen is down by as much as 95 percent this is Tim combines rainfall forecasts with a computer model looking at local information such as population density access to clean water and seasonal temperatures. The British prime minister Theresa May is starting a tour of Africa during which she announced plans to boost investment there in a speech in the South African city of Cape Town she's expected to say that Britain should be the biggest g 7 investor across the continent within 4 years overtaking the United States the chippings to expand trade with Africa as Britain prepares to leave the e.u. Next year here's Jonathan Blake the prime minister will be holding face to face talks with her counterparts in South Africa and also in Nigeria and Kenya this is an ambitious visit in the way that Downing Street is describing it it is aimed at deepening ties and strengthening links with these countries in Africa after BRICs it which will mean of course that the guy has to renew its relationships on trade terms in economic terms with all kinds of countries around the world a group of 14 supporters of the banned Cambodian opposition party the c.n.r. P.c. Have been celebrating their release from prison they were convicted 4 years ago of insurrection those freed do not include the party leader chems a car he was jailed last year in the run up to elections in which the ruling party won every seat the ousted Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has said he will stand down from parliament on Friday triggering a by election Mr Turnbull who was replaced by Scott Morrison last week after a major bout of infighting there's a cripple the center right government that by election could put his successors slender parliamentary majority at risk b.b.c. News. It was the birthplace of democracy and indeed a fear to nearly 2 and a half 1000 years ago. But even today the Acropolis still dominates the horizon in modern Athens. Perched on a rocky outcrop above the city by the ruins of ancient monuments made from golden white marble and these talent over by the iconic passing on temple with its stately colonnades and pediment which have been copied the world over. Now the Greek word Acropolis simply means high city that hate the Acropolis of Athens is so significant in the realms of history culture and politics that the very word itself without qualification has come to symbolize so much about our civilization. Hello I'm writing data and welcome to the forum where experts share their knowledge with us and today joining me to discuss the in Jurong influence of the Acropolis are Professor Paul cartledge senior research fellow at Clare College Cambridge University and author of democracy a life Dimitrios Papa George a professor of applied mathematics at Imperial College London and Dr and only plays member of the Greek epigraphic society and co-director of the Hellenic Education and Research Center in Athens Well let's go back to the very beginning of the story of the Acropolis and like so much of ancient Greek civilization it began with a myth now Paul please begin by telling me how the Acropolis is linked to the Goddess Athena and the naming of the city of Athens you're quite right the city took its name from Athena she is i Phones she is symbolically represents affirms she's a perpetual virgin and she's a worrier goddess as well as a god. Of craftsmanship and she was involved in a divine contest which took place on the Acropolis this was with Poseidon another god to see who would become patron of this city Tell me about that well Poseidon is among other things God of the sea and the Greeks knew that Poseidon therefore is a very important God to get on your side if you're Athens where things on the sea sea are quite likely to want to use the sea for peaceful as well as military purposes of persones very crucial and he offered to the Athenians in this contest with Athena Of course a myth he offered salt sea So in other words he would guarantee that they would do stream me well if they had any dealings with the salt sea Athene or rather smartly in a way but. It's nevertheless I think sign of what the Greeks called mate it's all me too sculling intelligence offered the olive tree now only voile has multiple functions both for cooking and for lighting for heating and for annoying to your body as well as for just eating so thin are offered the olive tree and the well there was a little bit of a disputed debate in the in one version of the myth it was the wimmin of Africans who have the decisive vote for the woman the theme over the present and this contest took place on the Acropolis in the tree was planted there is that ideology Well the Athenians says We're coming right down into historical times I'm in believe that was some sort of Aboriginal olive tree and it is a functional feature of the old if it lives for hundreds of years sometimes thousands of years and it's almost impossible to destroy all the tree in that you can cut it down you can try to burn it it's almost impossible to get its roots up so you can have a myth that in some symbolic sense there is earth sacred all of which is Earth. Hundreds of the Aboriginal sacred all they've which Athena had bestowed upon the Athenian people and just to clarify what was the city of Athens state or a city because there's no such thing as a nation of grass but instead hundreds of city states and so tell me about the scenario there when we talk here so I things like historical reference becomes a political community that we recognise round about 700 b.c. There is a long prehistory and there were indeed of course people living in and around the things including possibly on the top of the Acropolis at least some elite person some royal persons because of course those in the Athenian myth history they had a royal family as many of the big cities in ancient Greece do but through historical says we take as a baseline round about 700 b.c. So we've been hearing there how the city of Athens was was starting to valid even then and there isn't even a building boom from the focal point of the Acropolis to beyond and exactly when all this happened is uncertain but we know that a tyrant called keel on trying to seize the Acropolis was stopped by the thing in people in 630 b.c. The 1st example of people power Good to be more about this underneath it's a younger man Keilar who was a noble young man who was also a Victorian in the early games so he had the self-confidence because of his athletic victory he decided they're there to take over the city it's a form of cool I would say today and the way to do these is by seizing the Acropolis but it was not so easy for him to succeed the Athenians blockade of the Acropolis and the call for a. And now we also know that towards the end of the 7th century b.c. Public law was well written and displayed for the 1st time on physical objects located on the Acropolis and underneath it tell me more about this and the significance of that one has to do Think how important it is for us States to have laws rate then and publicly displayed and what is this must have meant to s.c.t. When it happened for the 1st time it's the moment when the rule of law becomes sovereign So this happened the nation the authors towards the end of the 7th century and the beginning of the 6 would have to legislators one is called Draco and the date of his legislation is 621 b.c. Followed by saw alone in the year 595 most likely b.c. Those laws are where inscribed on physical objects we know about them from other literary sources and there have been many at them so I understand how these physical objects would have looked at anyway the 2 terms. X. Are ness and Kier base their actions are made of wood that one has to imagine for side the pieces of wood that are mounted on a frame the thanks is read then on each of these are 4 sides the other physical object the Cavies e's most probably looked like that imagine I'm a dog shaped with the inscription under the laws described on each of the 3 or 4 sides could be made of stone or of bronze. So you've been explaining and unique how these laws were physically placed on the Acropolis and how they were written by 2 legislators called Draco and so on and we talked today of draconian measures or policies which relates to Draco who was the harsh lawmaker of the 2 but if we take so lot who came later what did he achieve in terms of improving the lives of ordinary people yes a solid knowledge of selection was a very fundamental because at that time there were many I thin us who were impoverished they had lost their land and there were land owners who where the so-called I stuck at the I think the answer who possessed large plots of land so that the poor thing in the ass who had to work for them and if they didn't manage to pay off debts they went in slaves to their each other Athenians so we had a situation with a citizen slavery and that Athena see those who didn't have any land at all and also who had severe debts incurred Saarland sorrow digital ation brought blankets gas or lation of vets and for Beda citizen slavery so we're now talking about a major step towards a kind of democracy but this road towards progress was then dramatically interrupted by the Persian Wars. After being beaten by the Greeks at the Battle of Marathon 10 years later in 480 b.c. The Persians led invasion of Greece with one of the largest Ancient Armies ever assembled the Athenians was so alarmed they consulted the Oracle Delphine to get advice from the gods. Messages from Delfi were known for being cryptic. And this one told him to build a wooden move according to the Greek historian what it says what exactly was meant by wooden move provoked heated debate among the Athenians. Many and various Were the interpretations which men put on the wooden wall to especially seem to be directly opposed to one another certain of the old men were of the opinion that God meant to tell them the citadel of the Acropolis would escape for this was a play defended by a palisade and they supposed that Beria to be the wooden of the Oracle others maintained that the fleet was what the god point to that and their advice was that nothing should be thought of except the ships which had best be at once got ready. Well fortunately most of the thing is didn't up interpretating the Oracle to mean that they should reinforce the Navy a decision which later proved decisive in their final victory over the Persians but others did still attempt to build a wooden wall around the Acropolis made of all bits of doors and logs they assembled together Sadly this proved ineffective and when the Persians invaded the Acropolis and those sheltering that were destroyed mercilessly those who wrote it just does say it was one glimmer of hope when the Persians had leveled everything they plundered the sacred precinct and set fire to the entire Acropolis. But in that Acropolis is a shrine 2 and in the shrine are an olive tree and a pool of salt water. The story among the Athenians is that they were set there by Posidon And Athena as tokens when they contended for the land it happened that the olive tree was burnt by the Persians with the rest of the sacred precinct but on the day after its burning when the Athenians went up to the Acropolis they saw a shoot of about a cube its length sprung from the stone 2. So perhaps as you alluded to earlier Paul there was a resilience to the olive tree and it did mean something even though the Acropolis was left in rubble for the next 30 years Athens was becoming more and more powerful now this was thanks to the formation of the Delian League an alliance set up to protect Greek city states from the threat of Persian invasion but it was an alliance that Athens soon dominated Is that right. Yes we call it with the Union League because the over the religious in the name of the gods was sworn in on the and deals but it was very much an Athenian centered organization the Athenians themselves provided all the executive offices the admirals all generals the Athenians chose who would be the delegates sitting in the loss and how they would decide matters by and large the 1st 1015 years or so typically Athenian projects differentially benefited the Athenians. And so to promote an increasingly assertive Athens it was the politician Perry CLI's who initiated the massively ambitious building programme on the Acropolis what was perhaps most galling for the other members of the dealing league was it was largely funded by their taxes and in fact one reason the pardon was built was to Hell was the taxes from the city states is that right Paul Well it isn't it isn't in other words the Parthenon is the temple we call it the Parthenon they didn't call the whole thing the Parthenon the Parthenon was just the bit of it in which the cold statue designed by 5 d.s. Was erected the whole thing is the temple of theme of the Virgin Athena paf knots means virgin and indeed it did come to have the function after the Treasury was moved from the Los to Athens in the 4 fifty's but what was interesting as well about the building of the monuments like the Parthenon was it was actually highly democratic process because it was actually the Athenian people Paul who took the decision to have them constructed get a meal that worked in Iraq ordinary people meeting in assembly regularly once a month probably could actually have a say and have their votes counted there were perhaps as many as $2530000.00 Athenian citizens adult male free legitimate correctly and that it on the various electoral rolls and so for Mr please who was the principal politician of the Persian Wars period apparently in the 4 sixty's and following would have to make their views known and persuasive to public mass meetings of the Athenian people in the symbole once a month when and how do people make their decisions are they to let you put their hands up in the air in the literally put their hands up in the air democracy in action there it's important to remember that women. We're not allowed to vote and to major in today's terms do we know how much money was being spent on these monuments we can make an estimate and or one way to do this is to see what the sources say and the sources say that it cost about $340.00 to $800.00 Palance that were called at the time now according to my knowledge is called us he was the chief architect of the restoration for about 20 years one talent was worth the wages of one man in a lifetime. So if we translate that to you u.k. Terms that's roughly 342800 1000000 pounds so that's what we're saying either cause the total cost of all the buildings there which is about a 1000000000 and a half dollars or less than that yes yes yes and to put it in perspective that's the cost of about $2.00 Airbus a $380.00 s. When we're talking a big expenditure and just outlined to me Demetrius What were the most important monuments that were constructed during this massive building programme. The entrance to the site then to the right of that was the temple of Finland Nikky which is the. Victorious to the left of the observer coming onto the site would be the air x. Feet on which was a penpal shared between a fiend and Poseidon and then straight ahead imposing on high piece of ground on the holy Rod was the Parthenon moving on to the creation of the actual monuments I understand there is no water or concrete used in the construction so how do they measure when they place the column drums on top of each other they smoothed the surfaces with a system where they would spring calls onto the marble and then use a metal spade to smooth it down to a precision of about the hand from the millimeter now to put that in perspective that's the width of a human hair and they took any credible amount of time to do this how did they do that by smoothing it with sand and then the quick test to see what the imperfections were and then they would smooth it again and keep doing this until they got it down they even had a special word for it in Greek. The word is Omonia which is harmony so this process was called Harmony and it's believed through computational models actually that are used in present times people are people modeling this mathematically and trying to simulate that it's believed that. Having such a perfect fits is incredibly good for earthquake resistance to moving on with that mathematical theme and in a sense on to geometry Let's talk about the way that the the buildings were laid out in relation to each other which also had a kind of precision to it didn't it yes this is a very fascinating geometrical observation but that has been made that by about 70 years ago was the 1st time this was made by 2 great Kharkiv Hecht's cause them the nose looks yeah this and his mentor Dimitrios began he's now what they did is measured out the position of the various buildings and they found that there's a very strong evidence of a very beautiful mathematical enjoy metrical balance of the buildings as viewed by the observer who 1st banters the site. Every single building is viewed by the observer in the 3 quarter view and if you draw lines from the observer to each one of the corners a little bit like the spokes of a bicycle wheel you're at the center and the spokes of a cordon of lines then if you join these lines and you have these 3 points then there are exactly 30 degrees apart one for the other for all the buildings geometrical beauty Absolutely but poor to me about the actual path and on itself because it was one of the 1st buildings to move a completely out of marble and is a woman to be able sculptures what's depicted on the part of the setting of the decorative scheme is in 3 parts pediment metal and free use so the freeze and metal are horizontal and square panels of sculpted decoration and the pediment are the large triangular shapes at each end of the pattern and yes the east pediment showed the birth of Athena the West showed the rivalry the contest between Athena and pursue the meto piece of which the originally over 100 go all round the building on all 4 sides on the east side it we think and this is not certain depicted the battle of the gods and the Giants because the gods won. The West metal hopes it depicted a battle between no humans Athenians and another mythical people the Amazons who were of course female and so you've got a series of struggles between 2 groups in which the good guy is the Gods and the Athenians