Paths of the Gods

How it began

“The whole story began two years ago,” George Petritsis told a Greek magazine in 1995. “I had gone to Germany to meet Peter Ustinov, and there I saw for the first time parts of his Russia. Greek mythology had occupied me for years, so when Ustinov came to Athens last year, I discussed it with him. He was enthusiastic, because he is a lover of the ancient classical spirit, and he told me that he too had wanted to do something on it.”

The series was directed by the Canadian John McGreevy, a close collaborator of Ustinov’s, with whom he had made films on Russia, on the Vatican and on the Orient Express. Paths of the Gods was a co-production of George Petritsis and McGreevy for ET1, made with the strong support of ERT’s president, Evgenios Giannakopoulos.

Eight paths through Greek mythology

The eight half-hour episodes set the stories of Greek mythology against the beauty of the Greek landscape and its archaeological sites. Filming began in March 1995, at sites and museums from Samothrace to Crete and Cyprus, among them the ancient theatre of Epidaurus and the sanctuary of Delphi. Ustinov was taken with the beauty of the olive grove of Amfissa.

The production cost around 140 million drachmas, one of the most expensive ever made for Greek television, and ERT planned to present it at Cannes that October to sell it to international networks.

Greece is naturally a magnet for those who love history. The ancient Greek spirit has influenced me very deeply. I would prefer to say that ancient Greece should be an example for all of us.

— Sir Peter Ustinov, 1995

Working with Ustinov

“It is a pleasure to work with him,” George Petritsis said. “He is an inexhaustible source of humour, knowledge and witty observations. He is extremely easy-going and simple. He likes the taverna, he is mad about tzatziki and dolmades. He can stay in a suite, or in a village room without complaining at all.” He raised no objection to the directors’ instructions, even on difficult days of shooting. “It is amazing how he transforms in front of the camera. When we started the work he looked tired. When he left he was fresh and rested. He left a different man.”

When a road near Pyrgos was blocked by striking farmers, Ustinov got out and talked with them. They recognised him, and although they refused to let the crew through, he was tired but amused, and later wrote about the episode in the newspaper The European.

At an evening in his honour in Athens, Ustinov told the newspaper Ta Nea the series was a welcome change after the series he had made on the Vatican: “This production interests me. It reminds me of soap operas, the intrigues and passions of the gods of Olympus. And a series on Greek mythology is interesting because people in antiquity lived without guilt and sin, which the monotheistic religions developed much later.”

Ustinov and George Petritsis

The collaboration did not end there. Ustinov was one of the international personalities in George Petritsis’s series Rendez-vous with Greece, and he narrated two more of his one-hour documentaries on the ancient world: Hippocrates in Olympia, on the medical care offered at the ancient Olympic Games, and The Quest for the Athlos, a journey to the stadiums and gymnasiums where ancient Greeks worshipped the spirit of peaceful athletic competition.