White plaster or cement Goddess statuettes stand on sale on the forecourt of a garden art business in an Athens suberb, Marathonas Avenue - the original Marathon route of 490 BC. The mostly female figurines are in various poses but are all nudes and are in various gestures of a classical heroic style. Those in the foreground have their arms at the heads and moulded breasts and bodies to show the perfect female form while further to the back are male Gods placed on plinths and in recesses. The 29th modern Olympic circus came home to Greece in 2004 and the birthplace of athletics and the Olympic ideal, amid the woodland of ancient Olympia where for 1,100 continuous years, the ancients held their pagan festival of sport and debauchery.
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