Presidential fanfare, where President of the Hellenic Republic Konstantinos Stephanopoulos then also arrives on the stadium floor. The three presidents meet the young boy, before Hymn to Liberty, the Greek national anthem was performed a cappella with the raising of the Greek Flag. Artistic section The segments that followed were divided in two main parts. The first part of the main artistic segment of the opening ceremony was called "Allegory." "Allegory" introduced the main conceptual themes and ideals that are going to be omnipresent throughout the entire opening ceremony, such as the confluence of the past and present, love and passion as the progenitors of history, and humanity's attempt to understand itself. The second part, called the "Clepsydra," or "Hourglass," celebrates the themes introduced in the "Allegory" section through a portrayal of Greek history from the ancient to the modern times. Allegory The "Allegory" segment began with a recitation of a verse from Nobel Prize-winning Greek poet George Seferis' poem "Mythistorema 3." As the verse is being recited on the speakers, the spotlights are focused upon a woman clad in a black gown looking out to the water. Holding a marble sculpture head, the woman seems to be entering into a dream. As she looks into the dark water, a centaur appears whose human and animal parts supposedly symbolize the duality of spirit and body. The centaur then walks about and then throws a spear of light into the center of the stadium, from which a giant statue that exemplified Cycladic art (and thus one of the first depictions of the human form in Greek art) emerged. This Cycladic head also represents one of the first attempts of humanity to understand itself. With the use of lasers, geometrical shapes and other scientific images (such as a stylistic representation of the Solar System) were displayed on the figure's face. The statue then broke into pieces that floated away, and from within it emerged a smaller kouros statue from the Archaic Period of Greek sculpture, which in turn broke apart to reveal the depiction of man in a sculpture of the classical period, symbolizing the dawn of individuality and extolling human scale, one of the principal themes of the 2004 Olympics. At the end of this sequence, a cube arises from the water, and a man starts slowly balancing himself on the rotating cube while representations of human kind's greatest achievements, contrasted