Seeing Europe with Famous Authors Volume VIII Part 8

It was our fortune to come into Greece by night, with a splendid moon shining upon the summer sea. The varied outlines of Sunium, on the one side, and aegina on the other, were very clear, but in the deep shadows there was mystery enough to feed the burning impatience of seeing all in the light of common day; and tho we had pa.s.sed aegina, and had come over against the rocky Salamis, as yet there was no sign of Peiraeus. Then came the light on Psyttalea, and they told us that the harbor was right opposite. Yet we came nearer and nearer, and no harbor could be seen.

The barren rocks of the coast seemed to form one unbroken line, and nowhere was there a sign of indentation or of break in the land. But suddenly, as we turned from gazing on Psyttalea, where the flower of the Persian n.o.bles had once stood in despair, looking upon their fate gathering about them, the vessel had turned eastward, and discovered to us the crowded lights and thronging ships of the famous harbor. Small it looked, very small, but evidently deep to the water's edge, for great ships seemed touching the sh.o.r.e; and so narrow is the mouth, that we almost wondered how they had made their entrance in safety. But we saw it some weeks later, with nine men-of-war towering above all its merchant shipping and its steamers, and among them crowds of ferryboats skimming about in the breeze with their wing-like sails. Then we found out that, like the rest of Greece, the Peiraeus was far larger than it looked.

It differed little, alas! from more vulgar harbors in the noise and confusion of disembarking; in the delays of its custom-house; in the extortion and insolence of its boatmen. It is still, as in Plato's day, "the haunt of sailors, where good manners are unknown." But when we had escaped the turmoil, and were seated silently on the way to Athens, almost along the very road of cla.s.sical days, all our cla.s.sical notions, which had been seared away by vulgar bargaining and protesting, regained their sway.

We had sailed in through the narrow pa.s.sage where almost every great Greek that ever lived had some time pa.s.sed; now we went along the line, hardly less certain, which had seen all these great ones going to and fro between the city and the port. The present road is shaded with great silver poplars, and plane trees, and the moon had set, so that our approach to Athens was even more mysterious than our approach to the Peiraeus. We were, moreover, perplexed at our carriage stopping under some large plane trees, tho we had driven but two miles, and the night was far spent. Our coachman would listen to no advice or persuasion. We learned afterward that every carriage going to and from the Peiraeus stops at this half-way house, that the horses may drink, and the coachman take "Turkish delight" and water. There is no exception made to this custom, and the traveler is bound to submit. At last we entered the unpretending ill-built streets at the west of Athens....

We rose at the break of dawn to see whether our window would afford any prospect to serve as a requital for angry sleeplessness. And there, right opposite, stood the rock which of all rocks in the world's history has done most for literature and art--the rock which poets, and orators, and architects, and historians have ever glorified, and can not stay their praise--which is ever new and ever old, ever fresh in its decay, ever perfect in its ruin, ever living in its death--the Acropolis of Athens.

When I saw my dream and longing of many years fulfilled, the first rays of the rising sun had just touched the heights, while the town below was still hid in gloom. Rock, and rampart, and ruined fanes--all were colored in uniform tints; the lights were of a deep rich orange, and the shadows of dark crimson, with the deeper lines of purple. There was no variety in color between what nature and what man had set there. No whiteness shone from the marble, no smoothness showed upon the hewn and polished blocks; but the whole ma.s.s of orange and crimson stood out together into the pale, pure Attic air. There it stood, surrounded by lanes and hovels, still perpetuating the great old contrast in Greek history, of magnificence and meanness--of loftiness and lowness--as well in outer life as in inward motive. And, as it were in ill.u.s.tration of that art of which it was the most perfect bloom, and which lasted in perfection but a day of history, I saw it again and again, in sunlight and in shade, in daylight and at night, but never again in this perfect and singular beauty....

I suppose there can be no doubt whatever that the ruins on the Acropolis of Athens are the most remarkable in the world. There are ruins far larger, such as the Pyramids, and the remains of Karnak. There are ruins far more perfectly preserved, such as the great Temple at Paestum. There are ruins more picturesque, such as the ivy-clad walls of medieval abbeys beside the rivers in the rich valleys of England. But there is no ruin all the world over which combines so much striking beauty, so distinct a type, so vast a volume of history, so great a pageant of immortal memories. There is, in fact, no building on earth which can sustain the burden of such greatness, and so the first visit to the Acropolis is and must be disappointing.

When the traveler reflects how all the Old World's culture culminated in Greece--all Greece in Athens--all Athens in its Acropolis--all the Acropolis in the Parthenon--so much crowds upon the mind confusedly that we look for some enduring monument whereupon we can fasten our thoughts, and from which we can pa.s.s as from a visible starting-point into all this history and all this greatness. And at first we look in vain. The shattered pillars and the torn pediments will not bear so great a strain; and the traveler feels forced to admit a sense of disappointment, sore against his will. He has come a long journey into the remoter parts of Europe; he has reached at last what his soul had longed for many years in vain; and as is wont to be the case with all great human longings, the truth does not answer to his desire. The pang of disappointment is all the greater when he sees that the tooth of time and the shock of earthquake have done but little harm. It is the hand of man--of reckless foe and ruthless lover--which has robbed him of his hope....

Nothing is more vexatious than the reflection, how lately these splendid remains have been reduced to their present state. The Parthenon, being used as a Greek church, remained untouched and perfect all through the Middle Ages. Then it became a mosque, and the Erechtheum a seraglio, and in this way survived without damage till 1687, when, in the bombardment by the Venetians under Morosini, a sh.e.l.l dropt into the Parthenon, where the Turks had their powder stored, and blew out the whole center of the building. Eight or nine pillars at each side have been thrown down, and have left a large gap, which so severs the front and rear of the temple, that from the city below they look like the remains of two different buildings. The great drums of these pillars are yet lying there, in their order, just as they fell, and some money and care might set them all up again in their places; yet there is not in Greece the patriotism or even the common sense to enrich the country by this restoration, matchless in its certainty as well as in its splendor.

But the Venetians were not content with their exploit. They were, about this time, when they held possession of most of Greece, emulating the Pisan taste for Greek sculptures; and the four fine lions standing at the gate of the a.r.s.enal in Venice still testify to their zeal in carrying home Greek trophies to adorn their capital.

In its great day, and even as Pausanias saw it, the Acropolis was covered with statues, as well as with shrines. It was not merely an Holy of Holies in religion; it was also a palace and museum of art. At every step and turn the traveler met new objects of interest. There were archaic specimens, chiefly interesting to the antiquarian and the devotee; there were the great masterpieces which were the joint admiration of the artist and the vulgar. Even all the sides and slopes of the great rock were honeycombed into sacred grottos, with their altars and their G.o.ds, or studded with votive monuments. All these lesser things are fallen away and gone; the sacred eaves are filled with rubbish, and desecrated with worse than neglect. The grotto of Pan and Apollo is difficult of access, and when reached, an object of disgust rather than of interest. There are left but the remnants of the surrounding wall, and the ruins of the three princ.i.p.al buildings, which were the envy and wonder of all the civilized world.

The beautiful little temple of Athena Nike, tho outside the Propylaea--thrust out as it were on a sort of great b.u.t.tress high on the right--must still be called a part, and a very striking part, of the Acropolis. It is only of late years that it has been cleared of rubbish and modern stone-work, thus destroying, no doubt, some precious traces of Turkish occupation which the fastidious historian may regret, but realizing to us a beautiful Greek temple of the Ionic Order in some completeness. The peculiarity of this building, which is perched upon a platform of stone, and commands a splendid prospect, is that its tiny peribolus, or sacred enclosure, was surrounded by a parapet of stone slabs covered with exquisite reliefs of winged Victories, in various att.i.tudes. Some of these slabs are now in the Museum of the Acropolis, and are of great interest--apparently less severe than the school of Phidias, and therefore later in date, but still of the best epoch, and of marvelous grace. The position of this temple also is not parallel with the Propylaea, but turned slightly outward, so that the light strikes it at moments when the other building is not illuminated. At the opposite side is a very well-preserved chamber, and a fine colonnade at right angles with the gate, which looks like a guard-room. This is the chamber commonly called the Pinacotheca, where Pausanias saw pictures or frescoes by Polygnotus.

A WINTER IN ATHENS HALF A CENTURY AGO[43]

BY BAYARD TAYLOR

Our sitting-room fronted the south (with a view of the Acropolis and the Areopagus), and could be kept warm without more labor or expense than would be required for an entire dwelling at home. Our princ.i.p.al anxiety was, that the supply of fuel, at any price, might become exhausted. We burned the olive and the vine, the cypress and the pine, twigs of rose trees and dead cabbage-stalks, for aught I know, to feed our one little sheet-iron stove. For full two months we were obliged to keep up our fire, from morning until night. Know ye the land of the cypress and myrtle, where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine? Here it is, with almost snow enough in the streets for a sleighing party, with the Ilissus frozen, and with a tolerable idea of Lapland, when you face the gusts which drive across the Cephissian plain.

As the other guests were Greek, our mode of living was similar to that of most Greek families. We had coffee in the morning, a substantial breakfast about noon, and dinner at six in the evening. The dishes were constructed after French and Italian models, but the meat is mostly goat's flesh. Beef, when it appears, is a phenomenon of toughness.

Vegetables are rather scarce. Cow's milk, and b.u.t.ter or cheese therefrom, are substances unknown in Greece. The milk is from goats or sheep, and the b.u.t.ter generally from the latter. It is a white, cheesy material, with a slight flavor of tallow. The wine, when you get it unmixed with resin, is very palatable. We drank that of Santorin, with the addition of a little water, and found it an excellent beverage....

Except during the severely cold weather, Athens is as lively a town as may be. One-fourth of the inhabitants, I should say, are always in the streets, and many of the mechanics work, as is common in the Orient, in open shops. The coffee-houses are always thronged, and every afternoon crowds may be seen on the Patissia Road--a continuation of Eolus Street--where the King and Queen take their daily exercise on horseback.

The national costume, both male and female, is gradually falling into disuse in the cities, altho it is still universal in the country. The islanders adhere to their hideous dress with the greatest persistence.

With sunrise the country people begin to appear in the streets with laden donkeys and donkey-carts, bringing wood, grain, vegetables, and milk, which they sell from house to house....

Venders of bread and coffee-rolls go about with circular trays on their heads, calling attention to their wares by loud and long-drawn cries.

Later in the day, peddlers make their appearance, with packages of cheap cotton stuffs, cloth, handkerchiefs, and the like, or baskets of pins, needles, b.u.t.tons, and tape. They proclaim loudly the character and price of their articles, the latter, of course, subject to negotiation. The same custom prevails as in Turkey, of demanding much more than the seller expects to get. Foreigners are generally fleeced a little in the beginning, tho much less so, I believe, than in Italy....

The winter of 1857-58 was the severest in the memory of any inhabitant.

For nearly eight weeks, we had an alternation of icy north winds and snow-storms. The thermometer went down to 20 degrees of Fahrenheit--a degree of cold which seriously affected the orange-, if not the olive-trees. Winter is never so dreary as in those southern lands, where you see the palm trees rocking despairingly in the biting gale, and the snow lying thick on the sunny fruit of the orange groves. As for the pepper trees, with their hanging tresses and their loose, misty foliage, which line the broad avenues radiating from the palace, they were touched beyond recovery. The people, who could not afford to purchase wood or charcoal, at treble the usual price, even tho they had hearths, which they have not, suffered greatly. They crouched at home, in cellars and bas.e.m.e.nts, wrapt in rough capotes, or hovering around a mangal, or brazier of coals, the usual subst.i.tute for a stove. From Constantinople we had still worse accounts. The snow lay deep everywhere; charcoal sold at twelve piastres the oka (twenty cents a pound), and the famished wolves, descending from the hills, devoured people almost at the gates of the city. In Smyrna, Beyrout, and Alexandria, the winter was equally severe, while in Odessa it was mild and agreeable, and in St.

Petersburg there was scarcely snow enough for sleighing. All Northern Europe enjoyed a winter as remarkable for warmth as that of the South for its cold. The line of division seemed to be about the parallel of lat.i.tude 45 degrees. Whether this singular climatic phenomenon extended further eastward, into Asia, I was not able to ascertain. I was actually less sensitive to the cold in Lapland, during the previous winter, with the mercury frozen, than in Attica, within the belt of semi-tropical productions.

THE ACROPOLIS AS IT WAS[44]

BY PAUSANIAS

To the Acropolis there is only one approach; it allows of no other, being everywhere precipitous and walled off. The vestibules have a roof of white marble, and even now are remarkable for both their beauty and size. As to the statues of the hors.e.m.e.n, I can not say with precision whether they are the sons of Xenophon, or merely put there for decoration. On the right of the vestibules is the shrine of the Wingless Victory. From it the sea is visible; and there aegeus drowned himself, as they say. For the ship which took his sons to Crete had black sails, but Theseus told his father (for he knew there was some peril in attacking the Minotaur) that he would have white sails if he should sail back a conqueror. But he forgot this promise in his loss of Ariadne. And aegeus, seeing the ship with black sails, thinking his son was dead, threw himself in and was drowned. And the Athenians have a hero-chapel to his memory. And on the left of the vestibules is a building with paintings; and among those that time has not destroyed are Diomedes and Odysseus--the one taking away Philoctetes's bow in Lemnos, the other taking the Palladium from Ilium. Among other paintings here is aegisthus being slain by Orestes; and Pylades slaying the sons of Nauplius that came to aegisthus's aid. And Polyxena about to have her throat cut near the tomb of Achilles. Homer did well not to mention this savage act....

And there is a small stone such as a little man can sit on, on which they say Silenus rested, when Dionysus came to the land. Silenus is the name they give to all old Satyrs. About the Satyrs I have conversed with many, wishing to know all about them. And Euphemus, a Carian, told me that sailing once on a time to Italy he was driven out of his course by the winds, and carried to a distant sea, where people no longer sail.

And he said that here were many desert islands, some inhabited by wild men; and at these islands the sailors did not like to land, as they had landed there before and had experience of the natives; but they were obliged on that occasion. These islands he said were called by the sailors Satyr-islands; the dwellers in them were red-haired, and had tails at their loins not much smaller than horses....

And as regards the temple which they call the Parthenon, as you enter it everything portrayed on the gables relates to the birth of Athene, and behind is depicted the contest between Poseidon and Athene for the soil of Attica. And this work of art is in ivory and gold. In the middle of her helmet is an image of the Sphinx--about whom I shall give an account when I come to Boeotia--and on each side of the helmet are griffins worked. These griffins, says Aristus the Proconnesian, in his poems, fought with the Arimaspians beyond the Issedones for the gold of the soil which the griffins guarded. And the Arimaspians were all one-eyed men from their birth; and the griffins were beasts like lions, with wings and mouth like an eagle. Let so much suffice for these griffins.

But the statue of Athene is full length, with a tunic reaching to her feet; and on her breast is the head of Medusa worked in ivory, and in one hand she has a Victory four cubits high, in the other hand a spear, and at her feet a shield; and near the spear a dragon which perhaps is Erichthonius. And on the base of the statue is a representation of the birth of Pandora--the first woman, according to Hesiod and other poets; for before her there was no race of women. Here too I remember to have seen the only statue here of the Emperor Adrian; and at the entrance one of Iphicrates, the celebrated Athenian general.

And outside the temple is a brazen Apollo said to be by Phidias; and they call it Apollo, Averter of Locusts, because when the locusts destroyed the land the G.o.d said he would drive them out of the country.

And they know that he did so, but they don't say how. I myself know of locusts having been thrice destroyed on Mount Sipylus, but not in the same way; for some were driven away by a violent wind that fell on them, and others by a strong light that came on them after showers, and others were frozen to death by a sudden frost. All this came under my own notice.

There is also a building called the Erechtheum, and in the vestibule is an altar of Supreme Zeus, where they offer no living sacrifice, but cakes without the usual libation of wine. And as you enter there are three altars: one to Poseidon (on which they also sacrifice to Erechtheus according to the oracle), one to the hero Butes, and the third to Hephaestus. And on the walls are paintings of the family of Butes. The building is a double one; and inside there is sea-water in a well. And this is no great marvel; for even those who live in inland parts have such wells, as notably Aphrodisienses in Caria. But this well is represented as having a roar as of the sea when the south wind blows.

And in the rock is the figure of a trident. And this is said to have been Poseidon's proof in regard to the territory Athene disputed with him.

Sacred to Athene is all the rest of Athens, and similarly all Attica; for altho they worship different G.o.ds in different townships, none the less do they honor Athene generally. And the most sacred of all is the statue of Athene in what is now called the Acropolis, but was then called the Polis (city) which was universally worshiped many years before the various townships formed one city; and the rumor about it is that it fell from heaven. As to this I shall not give an opinion, whether it was so or not. And Callimachus made a golden lamp for the G.o.ddess. And when they fill this lamp with oil it lasts for a whole year, altho it burns continually night and day. And the wick is of a particular kind of cotton flax, the only kind indestructible by fire.

And above the lamp is a palm tree of bra.s.s reaching to the roof and carrying off the smoke. And Callimachus, the maker of this lamp, altho he comes behind the first artificers, yet was remarkable for ingenuity, and was the first who perforated stone, and got the name of "Art-Critic," whether his own appellation or given him by others.

In the temple of Athene Polias is a Hermes of wood (said to be a votive offering of Cecrops), almost hidden by myrtle leaves. And of the antique votive offerings worthy of record, is a folding-chair, the work of Daedalus, and spoils taken from the Persians--as a coat of mail of Masistius, who commanded the cavalry at Plataea, and a scimitar said to have belonged to Mardonius. Masistius we know was killed by the Athenian cavalry; but as Mardonius fought against the Lacedaemonians and was killed by a Spartan, they could not have got it at first hand; nor is it likely that the Lacedaemonians would have allowed the Athenians to carry off such a trophy. And about the olive they have nothing else to tell but that the G.o.ddess used it as a proof of her right to the country, when it was contested by Poseidon. And they record also that this olive was burnt when the Persians set fire to Athens; but tho burnt, it grew the same day two cubits.

And next to the temple of Athene is the temple of Pandrosus; who was the only one of the three sisters who didn't peep into the forbidden chest.

Now the things I most marveled at are not universally known. I will therefore write of them as they occur to me. Two maidens live not far from the temple of Athene Polias, and the Athenians call them the "carriers of the holy things"; for a certain time they live with the G.o.ddess, but when her festival comes they act in the following way, by night: Putting upon their heads what the priestess of Athene gives them to carry (neither she nor they know what these things are), these maidens descend, by a natural underground pa.s.sage, from an inclosure in the city sacred to Aphrodite of the Gardens. In the sanctuary below they deposit what they carry, and bring back something else closely wrapt up.

And these maidens they henceforth dismiss, and other two they elect instead of them for the Acropolis.

THE ELGIN MARBLES[45]

BY J. P. MAHAFFY

Morosini[46] wished to take down the sculptures of Phidias from the eastern pediment, but his workmen attempted it so clumsily that the figures fell from their place and were dashed to pieces on the ground.

An observing traveler[47] was present when a far more determined and systematic attack was made upon the remaining ruins of the Parthenon.

While he was traveling in the interior, Lord Elgin had obtained his famous firman from the Sultan, to take down and remove any antiquities or sculptured stones he might require, and the infuriated Dodwell saw a set of ignorant workmen, under equally ignorant overseers, let loose upon the splendid ruins of the age of Pericles. He speaks with much good sense and feeling of this proceeding. He is fully aware that the world would derive inestimable benefit from the transplanting of these splendid fragments to a more accessible place, but he can not find language strong enough to express his disgust at the way in which the thing was done.

Incredible as it may appear, Lord Elgin himself seems not to have superintended the work, but to have left it to paid contractors, who undertook the job for a fixt sum. Little as either Turks or Greeks cared for the ruins, he says that a pang of grief was felt through all Athens at the desecration, and that the contractors were obliged to bribe workmen with additional wages to undertake the ungrateful task. Dodwell will not even mention Lord Elgin by name, but speaks of him with disgust as "the person" who defaced the Parthenon. He believes that had this person been at Athens himself, his underlings could hardly have behaved in the reckless way they did, pulling down more than they wanted, and taking no care to prop up and save the work from which they had taken the support.

He especially notices their scandalous proceeding upon taking up one of the great white marble blocks which form the floor or stylobate of the temple. They wanted to see what was underneath, and Dodwell, who was there, saw the foundation--a substructure of Peiraeic sandstone. But when they had finished their inspection they actually left the block they had removed, without putting it back into its place. So this beautiful pavement, made merely of closely-fitting blocks, without any artificial or foreign joinings, was ripped up, and the work of its destruction began. I am happy to add that, tho a considerable rent was then made, most of it is still intact, and the traveler of to-day may still walk on the very stones which bore the tread of every great Athenian.

The question has often been discust, whether Lord Elgin was justified in carrying off this pediment, the metopes, and the friezes, from their place; and the Greeks of to-day hope confidently that the day will come when England will restore these treasures to their place. This is, of course, absurd, and it may fairly be argued that people who would bombard their antiquities in a revolution are not fit custodians of them in the intervals of domestic quiet. This was my reply to an old Greek gentleman who a.s.sailed the memory of Lord Elgin with reproaches.

I confess I approved of this removal until I came home from Greece, and went again to see the spoil in its place in our great museum. Tho there treated with every care--tho shown to the best advantage, and explained by excellent models of the whole building, and clear descriptions of their place on it--notwithstanding all this, it was plain that these wonderful fragments lost so terribly by being separated from their place--they looked so unmeaning in an English room, away from their temple, their country and their lovely atmosphere--that one earnestly wished they had never been taken from their place, even at the risk of being made a target by the Greeks or the Turks. I am convinced, too, that the few who would have seen them, as intelligent travelers, on their famous rock, would have gained in quality the advantage now diffused among many, but weakened and almost destroyed by the wrench in a.s.sociations, when the ornament is severed from its surface, and the decoration of a temple exhibited apart from the temple itself. We may admit, then, that it had been better if Lord Elgin had never taken away these marbles. Nevertheless, it would be absurd to send them back. But I do think that the museum on the Acropolis should be provided with a better set of casts of the figures than those which are now to be seen there. They look very wretched, and carelessly prepared....