Portland’s Greek Lighthouse

The Portland Harbor Light, better known as Bug Light (left), is a 13-foot cast iron and brick copy of the ancient Choragic Monument of Lysicrates (right) located below the Acropolis in the old Plaka section of Athens. The two structures are not exact – the Athens monument is taller and slimmer with a small sculpture on the top. Bug Light was a working lighthouse with a Fresnel lens until it was deactivated during World War II.

The inspiration for Bug Light, the Monument, was erected by an ancient and wealthy patron of the arts, Lysicrates, to commemorate the prize he was awarded in the dithyramb choral contest during the city’s Dionysia in 334 BCE. Each year Athens held theater competitions in honor of the god, Dionysus. The patron who sponsored the winning performance that year was given a large trophy in the form of a bronze tripod. Lysicrates had a marble pedestal built to hold that tripod on the top. (It is no longer there and has been replaced by a later sculpture.) The entablature, that surrounds the top portion of the column, contains scenes from the winning play and include Dionysus defeating pirates and turning them into dolphins.