In September 1904, Sigmund Freud set out with his brother Alexander on their annual Mediterranean holiday. They were aiming for Corfu, but the heat was so intense they took a ship from Trieste to Athens instead. The two men climbed the legendary hill above the city to visit the Acropolis and it was there that Freud became overwhelmed with a strange and bewildering sensation. “By the evidence of my senses I am now standing on the Acropolis,” he later wrote, “but I cannot believe it.”
This was not just the tourist’s usual expression of amazement: here we are at Machu Picchu, Petra, the Pyramids – and it feels so unreal! Freud experienced a complete incredulity that the Acropolis actually existed at all. He had read about it from childhood, studied engravings and daguerreotypes of the Parthenon, so elegant, grave and stoic; but now that he was here the strongest feelings were of filial guilt (that his father never saw it) and powerful disbelief. The experience would baffle him for decades.
