Unknown God, our traveller passes on and enters with a beating heart
the charmed precincts of the Acropolis itself. The Propylæa, which he
has been accustomed to regard too exclusively as a mere entrance-gate
to the glories beyond, impresses him with its size and grandeur, and
the little temple of Victory by its side with its elegance. But the
steepness of the ascent perplexes him. It seems impracticable for
horses, yet he knows by unexceptionable testimony that the Athenian
youth prided themselves upon driving their matched steeds in the
great Panathenaic procession which once every four years wound up
the hill, bearing the sacred peplus to the temple of the goddess. A
closer examination reveals the transverse creases of the pavement
designed to give a footing to the beasts, as well as the marks of the
chariot-wheels. Nevertheless, the ascent (and much more the descent)
must have been a perilous undertaking, unless the teams were better
broken than the various accounts of chariot-races furnished by the
poets would indicate.
Entering beneath the great gate, a little distance forward to the left
may readily be found the site of the colossal bronze statue of the
warrior-goddess in complete armor, formed by Phidias out of the spoils
taken at Marathon. The square base, partly sunk in the uneven rock,
is as perfect as if just put in readiness to receive the pedestal of
that famous work. A road bending to the right and slightly hollowed out
of the rock leads to the Parthenon. The outer platform which sustains
this celebrated temple is partly cut from the rock of the hill and
partly built up of common limestone. The inner one of three courses,
as well as the whole superstructure, is formed of Pentelic marble of a
compact crystalline structure and of dazzling whiteness. Long exposure
has not availed to destroy its lustre, but only to soften its tone.
The visitor, planting himself at the western front, is in a position
to gain some adequate idea of the perfection of the noble building.
The interior and central parts suffered the principal injury from the
explosion of the Turkish powder magazine in 1687. The western front
remains nearly entire. It has been despoiled, indeed, of its movable
ornaments. The statues which filled the pediment are gone, with
the exception of a fragment or two. The sculptured slabs have been
removed from the spaces between the triglyphs, and the gilded shields
which hung beneath have been taken down. Of the magnificent frieze,
representing the procession of the great quadrennial festival, only the
portion surrounding the western vestibule is still in place. Still, as
these were strictly decorations, and wholly subordinate to the organic
parts of the structure, their presence, while it would doubtless
greatly enhance the effect of the whole, is not felt to be essential
to its completeness. The whole Doric columns still bear the massive
entablature sheltered by the covering roof. The simple greatness of the
conception, the just proportion of the several parts, together with the
elaborate finishing of the whole work, invest it with a charm such as
the works of man seldom possess,--the pure and lasting pleasure which
flows from apparent perfection.
Entering the principal apartment of the building, traces are seen of
the stucco and pictures with which the walls were covered when it was
fitted up as a Christian church in the Byzantine period. Near the
centre of the marble pavement is a rectangular space laid with dark
stone from the Peiræus or from Eleusis. It marks the probable site of
the colossal precious statue of the goddess in gold and ivory,--one of
the most celebrated works of Phidias. The smaller apartment beyond,
accessible only from the opposite front of the temple, was used by the
state as a place of deposit and safe-keeping for bullion and other
valuables in the care of the state treasurer.
Having examined the great temple, and tested the curvature of its
seemingly horizontal lines by sighting along the unencumbered platform,
and having stopped at several points of the grand portico to admire
the fine views of the city and surrounding country, the traveller
picks his way northward, across a thick layer of fragments of columns,
statues, and blocks of marble, towards the low-placed, irregular, but
elegant Erechtheum, the temple of the most ancient worship and statue
of the patron-goddess of the city. This building sits close by the
northern as the Parthenon does by the southern wall of the enclosure.
It has suffered equally with the other from the ravages of time, and
its ruins, though less grand, are more beautiful. Most of the graceful
Ionic columns are still standing, but large portions of the roof and
entablature have fallen. Fragments of decorated cornice strew the
ground, some of them of considerable length, and afford a near view of
that delicate ornamentation and exquisite finish so rare outside the
limits of Greece.
[Illustration: ACROPOLIS AT ATHENS, GREECE]
The elevated porch of the Caryatides, lately restored by the
substitution of a new figure in place of the missing statue now in
the British Museum, attracts attention as a unique specimen of Greek
art, and also as showing how far a skilful treatment will overcome the
inherent difficulties of a subject. The row of fair maidens looking out
towards the Parthenon do not seem much oppressed by the burden which
rests upon them, while their graceful forms lend a pleasing variety to
the scene. Passing out by the northern wing of the Propylæa, a survey
is had of the numerous fragments of sculpture discovered among the
ruins upon the hill, and temporarily placed in the ancient Pinacotheca.
The eye rests upon sweet infant faces and upon rugged manly ones.
Sometimes a single feature only remains, which, touched by the finger
of genius, awakens admiration. A naked arm severed from the trunk, of
feminine cast, but with muscles tightly strained and hand clinched as
in agony, will arrest attention and dwell in the memory.
Northwest of the Acropolis, across a narrow chasm, lies the low, rocky
height of the Areopagus, accessible at the southeast angle by a narrow
flight of sixteen rudely-cut steps, which lead to a small rectangular
excavation on the summit, which faces the Acropolis, and is surrounded
upon three sides by a double tier of benches hewn out of the rock. Here
undoubtedly the most venerable court of justice at Athens had its seat
and tried its cases in the open air. Here too, without doubt, stood the
great apostle when, with bold spirit and weighty words, he declared
unto the men of Athens that God of whom they confessed their ignorance;
who was not to be represented by gold or silver or stone graven by art
and man's device; who dwelt not in temples made with hands, and needed
not to be worshipped with men's hands. In no other place can one feel
so sure that he comes upon the very footsteps of the apostle, and on no
other spot can one better appreciate his high gifts as an orator or the
noble devotion of his whole soul to the work of the Master. How poor in
comparison with his life-work appear the performances of the greatest
of the Athenian thinkers or doers!
A little more than a quarter of a mile west of the Acropolis is another
rocky hill,--the Pnyx,--celebrated as the place where the assembly
of all the citizens met to transact the business of the state. A
large semicircular area was formed, partly by excavation, partly
by building up from beneath, the bounds of which can be distinctly
traced. Considerable remains of the terrace-wall at the foot of the
slope exist,--huge stones twelve or fourteen feet in length by eight
or ten in breadth. The chord of the semicircle is near the top of the
hill, formed by the perpendicular face of the excavated rock, and is
about four hundred feet in length by twenty in depth. Projecting from
it at the centre, and hewn out of the same rock, is the bema or stone
platform from which the great orators from the time of Themistocles and
Aristides, and perhaps of Solon, down to the age of Demosthenes and
the Attic Ten, addressed the mass of their fellow-citizens. It is a
massive cubic block, with a linear edge of eleven feet, standing upon
a graduated base of nearly equal height, and is mounted on either side
by a flight of nine stone steps. From its connection with the most
celebrated efforts of some of the greatest orators our race has yet
seen, it is one of the most interesting relics in the world, and its
solid structure will cause it to endure as long as the world itself
shall stand, unless, as there is some reason to apprehend will be
the case, it is knocked to pieces and carried off in the carpet-bags
of travellers. No traces of the Agora, which occupied the shallow
valley between the Pnyx and the Acropolis, remain. It was the heart of
the city, and was adorned with numerous public buildings, porticoes,
temples, and statues. It was often thronged with citizens gathered for
purposes of trade, discussion, or to hear and tell some new thing.
Half a mile or more to the southeast, on the banks of the Ilissus,
stood a magnificent structure dedicated to Olympian Zeus,--one of the
four largest temples of Greece, ranking with that of Demeter at Eleusis
and that of Diana at Ephesus. Its foundations remain, and sixteen of
the huge Corinthian columns belonging to its majestic triple colonnade.
One of these is fallen. Breaking up into the numerous disks of which
it was composed,--six and a half feet in diameter by two or more in
thickness,--and stretching out to a length of over sixty feet, it gives
an impressive conception of the size of these columns, said to be the
largest standing in Europe. The level area of the temple is now used
as a training-ground for soldiers. Close by, and almost in the bed
of the stream, which is dry the larger part of the year, issues from
beneath a ledge of rock the copious fountain of sweet waters known to
the ancients as Callirrhoe. It furnished the only good drinking-water
of the city, and was used in all the sacrifices to the gods. A little
way above, on the opposite bank of the Ilissus, is the site of the
Panathenaic stadium, whose shape is perfectly preserved in the smooth
grass-grown hollow with semicircular extremity which here lies at right
angles to the stream, between parallel ridges partly artificial.
Northward from the Acropolis, on a slight elevation, is the
best-preserved and one of the most ancient structures of Athens,--the
temple of Theseus, built under the administration of Cimon by the
generation preceding Pericles and the Parthenon. It is of the Doric
order, and shaped like the Parthenon, but considerably inferior to
it in size as well as in execution. It has been roofed with wood in
modern times, and was long used as a church, but is now a place of
deposit for the numerous statues and sculptured stones of various
kinds--mostly sepulchral monuments--which have been recently discovered
in and about the city. They are for the most part unimportant as
works of art, though many are interesting from their antiquity or
historic associations. Among these is the stone which once crowned the
burial-mound on the plain of Marathon. It bears a single figure, said
to represent the messenger who brought the tidings of victory to his
countrymen.
Near the Theseium was the double gate (Dipylum) in the ancient wall of
the city whence issued the Sacred Way leading to Eleusis, and bordered,
like the Appian Way at Rome, with tombs, many of them cenotaphs of
persons who died in the public service and were deemed worthy of a
monument in the public burying-ground. Within a few years an excavation
has been made through an artificial mound of ashes, pottery, and other
refuse emptied out of the city, and a section of a few rods of this
celebrated road has been laid bare. The sepulchral monuments are ranged
on one side rather thickly, and crowd somewhat closely upon the narrow
pavement. They are, for the most part, simple, thick slabs of white
marble, with a triangular or pediment-shaped top, beneath which is
sculptured in low relief the closing scene of the person commemorated,
followed by a short inscription. The work is done in an artistic style
worthy of the publicity its location gave it. On one of these slabs you
recognize the familiar full-length figure of Demosthenes, standing with
two companions and clasping in a parting grasp the hand of a woman, who
is reclining upon her death-bed. The inscription is, _Collyrion, wife
of Agathon_. On another stone of larger size is a more imposing piece
of sculpture. A horseman fully armed is thrusting his spear into the
body of his fallen foe,--a hoplite. The inscription relates that the
unhappy foot-soldier fell at Corinth _by reason of those five words of
his!_--a record intelligible enough, doubtless, to his contemporaries,
but sufficiently obscure and provocative of curiosity to later
generations.
There are other noted structures at Athens, such as the Choragic
Monument of Lysicrates--the highest type of the Corinthian order of
architecture, as the Erechtheum is of the Ionic and the Parthenon of
the Doric,--but want of space forbids any further description.
THE ISLES OF GREECE.
HENRY M. FIELD.
[History and poetry alike celebrate the beauty of those charming
isles, which fill with their sunny grace and rich fertility
the seas of Greece, and on which many of the poets of that
song-girdled land were born. No work on general travels can be
complete without some description of these celebrated islands,
and we select from Dr. H. M. Field's "The Greek Islands" an
appreciative account of their aspect to the modern traveller.]
In the old picture-books there used to be a picture of the Colossus of
Rhodes, which stood bestriding an arm of the sea with ships in full
sail passing between his mighty legs. Though it was a picture for
children, yet to some who are not children the chief association with
the island of Rhodes is the place where the Colossus stood; and there
are travellers still who come on deck, and look round inquiringly for
some fragment of a ruin which should mark the site of that majestic
figure. But not a vestige remains. Though "His Highness" lifted his
head so proudly, as if he disdained the earth on which he stood, he did
not hold it up very long. Pride must have a fall. He did not live even
to the allotted age of man. He had been standing but fifty-six when an
earthquake shook him down, and for nearly a thousand years he lay like
Dagon, prone upon the ground, with all his glory buried in the dust,
his _disjecta membra_ being trodden underfoot by the barbarous Turk,
till at last they were sold to a Jew(!), who broke them up as men break
up the hull of an old ship, and, packing them on the backs of nine
hundred camels, carried them away. Such was the ignominious end of one
of the Seven Wonders of the World.
But though the Colossus did not stand long, the mere fact of its
standing at all--that a figure over a hundred feet high, wrought in
bronze, like the column of Trajan at Rome, should have been reared
nearly three hundred years before Christ--is a proof of the degree of
civilization attained at that early period. It was a statue to the sun,
and stood in front of the city, where its head would catch the first
rays of the sunlight as it came over the hills of Asia Minor, which lay
on the eastern horizon.
Rhodes is second to Cyprus (if it be second) in antiquity, and its
civilization may be traced to the same sources. Its position at the
mouth of the Ægean Sea, whose waters here mingle with those of the
Mediterranean, invited immigration both from Asia and Africa. The
Phoenicians, sailing westward, landed on its shores; while from farther
south men of another race brought to it the wisdom of the Egyptians.
At the same time, as one of the islands of the Greek Archipelago, it
shared in the intellectual influences of Greece. It stood "where two
seas met," or two civilizations. Like the Channel Islands, which look
upon two kingdoms, it was joined by a chain of islands to Greece,
while it was in full sight of Asia, to which it was nearer than the
white chalk cliffs of Dover to the shores of France. Probably the
island was settled as early as the siege of Troy, though the city was
not founded until about four hundred years before Christ.
It was in the century following that Alexander the Great conquered the
world, and Rhodes bowed to a power which it could not resist, and was
held in awe by the terror of his name, even while he was pursuing his
conquests in the heart of Asia. But as soon as he breathed his last
the spell was broken. The people rose against the Macedonian garrison,
and drove them out, and with recovered liberty came new and increased
prosperity, and the city rose to its greatest splendor. Then was reared
the mighty Colossus; and then sculptors who rivalled those of Greece
filled the city with the products of their art. It was said to contain
not less than three thousand statues. The famous group of the Farnese
Bull--the largest antique sculpture which has been preserved to us, and
which, having once adorned the baths of Caracalla at Rome, is now the
pride of the museum at Naples--was the work of two sculptors of Rhodes.
Such noble statues, adorning the public places of the city, showed that
in the cultivation of art Rhodes, if not the equal, was at least a
worthy imitator, of Athens itself.
All this has passed away. But though despoiled of its treasures; though
the conquerors, who
"Brought many captives home to Rome,"
brought the sculptures of Rhodes with those of Greece; yet the island
itself remains, fair as when it first rose from the bosom of the Ægean
Sea. Never was it fairer than this morning, as the sunrise, flashing
across the blue waters, lighted up the gray old town, with its walls
and towers, which stand out from a background of hills. The island
rises abruptly from the sea. Beyond the walls of the town houses are
sprinkled over the hill-sides, that are covered with olive-groves,
which at this season are fresh and green. Behind these lower hills are
others that are higher, whose steep sides and rocky crests reminded our
good Dr. Wylie of Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags.
The chief remains of historic interest are those connected with the
Crusaders, when the island was ruled by the Knights of St. John, who
took it, however, not in the advance to the Holy Land, but in the
retreat. When they were driven out of Syria by Saladin, they fell back
upon Rhodes, which they conquered from the Saracens, and held for over
two hundred years,--from 1309 to 1522,--when Solyman the Magnificent
came against it with two hundred thousand men. Then followed a siege
in which men took courage from despair. The city had a garrison of but
six thousand men; yet for six months, in spite of repeated assaults,
it defied the besiegers,--a courage which compelled the respect of
the conqueror, who after the city fell permitted its brave defenders
to retire in safety. A few years later the Emperor Charles V. gave
them the island of Malta, which they fortified till it was one of the
strongest places in the world, and held it till the close of the last
century.
No doubt to us, in this practical and prosaic age, there is something
fantastic and absurd in the institution of the Knights of St. John,
an order in which the profession of arms was strongly united with the
profession of religion. But was it so very absurd, in an age full of
oppression and cruelty, that manly strength and courage should be
devoted to the protection of women against brutal tyranny? For such
was the purpose of the institution of chivalry, which figures so much
in the Middle Ages, where it often supplied the place of a civilized
government. Or when the Moslem conquered Western Asia and threatened
Europe, was it strange that men devoted to arms should band together
for the defence of their faith? This order of St. John was not made up
of carpet knights. No braver men ever fought on bloody fields. Now,
indeed, their wars and battles and sieges are over.
"The good Knights are dust,
Their armor rust,
Their souls are with the saints, we trust."
Though the order still exists, it is not for purposes of war, but of
peace. Its only war is against human misery. This, indeed, was always
a part of its design. There are few things in history more touching
than the solemn vow of those armed knights, which they took "as the
servants of the poor and of Christ." How well that vow has been kept to
this day, the traveller may see who visits the Hospital of the Knights
of St. John in Beirut. True, the order remains, as it has always been,
a very aristocratic one, composed largely of nobles and princes. Its
Grand Master is the Emperor of Germany. But when kings and princes
care for the poor and the sick, when they found hospitals and seek
to relieve human suffering, they deserve the honor and gratitude of
mankind.
When these gallant Knights of St. John took their sad farewell of
Rhodes, they left behind them traces of their occupation which still
remain in the long sea-wall which guards the city's front, to keep out
an enemy as it keeps out the dashing of the waves. This castellated
wall is a very picturesque object, as it not only lies along the sea,
but turns at either end, winding up the sides of the hill till it has
compassed the city round with its lines of defence, which did such
valiant service in the memorable siege. But apart from its look of a
fortified place, there is nothing warlike in the city of Rhodes. I did
not see a single sentinel keeping guard on the walls, nor see a gun
mounted, nor hear a drum beat. There was nothing to break the silence
of the sleepy old town; and over the wall, which once swarmed with
Crusaders, hurling defiance at the besieging Moslems, there are no more
formidable demonstrations than those of the windmills, which brandish
their long arms against invisible foes.
The "port," if such it may be called, is a diminutive little loch of
water, shut in by a projecting mole, or ledge of rocks, at either end,
on which stands a round tower, a picturesque object in the landscape,
but not very formidable in case of war. One broadside from a man-of-war
would make it a heap of ruins. Indeed, when a fort is converted into a
light-house, it seems to abdicate its martial design, and to be devoted
to the purposes of peace,--all that it is good for now.
It was tantalizing to lie but two or three hundred yards off, and not
be able to land; but there was a high sea, the waves were dashing on
the rocks, tossing their white crests in the air, and if we had gone on
shore it might be difficult to get off in time for the steamer. So we
lay broadside to the town for two or three hours, looking wistfully at
the gates we could not enter.
But though we did not go on shore, we had visitors from the shore. The
Greek boatmen are at home in any sea, and never miss an opportunity
to visit a ship. They came on board to sell little boxes of olive-and
lemon-wood, and other small wares, which the passengers purchased as
souvenirs of Rhodes.
Apart from these petty traffickers, there was a grand old Turk, who
sat gloomily in conversation with one who knew him. He was a pasha who
had been high in power in Constantinople, but for some cause lost the
favor of the Sultan, and was banished to Rhodes. Whether he was guilty
of any crime we knew not, nor did it matter whether he was guilty or
innocent. Perhaps he had been too inflexibly honest, and so encountered
the ill-favor of the Grand Vizier. In either case he had to suffer. The
Turkish rule knows neither justice nor mercy. However, his fate was
lighter than that of many. He was not kept a prisoner, shut up in a
fortress; there was no chain upon his hand; and yet we could not look
upon that sad face without feeling how bitter was the bread of exile.