that road goes on further to Olympia itself. The venerable spot can
therefore be reached in a carriage. The question might, however, be
raised whether a carriage journey over such a road as that between
Pyrgos and Olympia--a journey moreover modified by occasional spaces
where it is better to go on foot--is not at least as tiring as the ride
from Mykênê to Corinth. But, as the traveller goes along from Pyrgos to
Olympia, especially as he nears the immediate object of his pilgrimage,
he can hardly fail to draw the comparison between the nakedness of
Attica and the land through which he passes, rich with trees and with
cultivation, the bleak mountains replaced by lower hills which are
often green with verdure, with villages scattered thick among them,
the scenery in many places coming nearer to that of the hillier parts
of England than might have seemed possible in Greece. It is only here
and there, when the eye catches some of the more distant points of the
landscape, especially when the vast heights of Arkadia come in view,
that it is brought strongly home to his mind that it is through Hellas
that he is journeying. At last, however, he reaches the spot which was
the religious centre of Hellas, and there the Arkadian heights, soaring
over the lower hills which surround the Olympian plain itself, fully
remind him where he is. Here is the spot where, more than in any other,
every Greek was reminded that, however war and policy might divide
them, he was still a sharer with every other Greek in a heritage of
language, religion, and general culture in which the barbarian had no
share, where the Greek from the Spanish Zakynthos and the Greek from
the Tauric Chersonêsos could feel themselves, if not countrymen, at
least brethren, before the temple of the common Father of Gods and men.
Here were the victories won which were recorded in the odes of Pindar;
here, we would fain believe, Herodotus recited his history to assembled
Greece; here the Macedonian King had to prove his descent from an
Argeian stock before he could be admitted as a worthy competitor of
Hellenic freemen; here Alkibiadês made that display of lavish splendour
which at least proved that the resources of Athens were not worn out.
And as we read inscription after inscription recording the name of Elis
and her citizens, our thoughts go back to the never-forgotten claims
of the true people of the land. We remember how Pisa--the name may
almost seem strange in this, its more ancient seat--deemed herself to
be the lawful President of the Olympian feast by an older right than
could belong to the intruders from Aitolia. And we think too of that
one day in later times when the arms of Thebes won back for them their
ancient right for one passing moment. All this might press on the mind
as we look on the plain by Alpheios, and people it in imagination with
competitors, spectators, worshippers, the very realm and trysting-place
of the scattered Hellenic nation. All this we might call up, even if no
actual monument of those days were there to remind us of them. Yet it
is something to think of all this beside the uncovered foundations of
the great Pan-hellenic temple; and it is something more still to trace
out all that Olympia suggests in the presence of remains which tell us
of the times when the Pan-hellenic temple and its festival had passed
away.
The foundations of four principal buildings have been brought to light
by the German diggings. Two of them belong to the days alike of pagan
worship and of Hellenic freedom. There is the lesser, the older temple,
the temple of Hêrê, in the spreading capitals of its massive Doric
columns--capitals, be it remembered, now lying shivered around their
feet--carrying us back to the solemn and solid style of Poseidônia
and of Corinth. Side by side with this venerable fragment we find
inscriptions of Roman date, bearing witness to the unity of history,
and showing how Olympia still remained holy after captive Greece had
led captive her conquerors. Hard by stands the great central monument
of all, the temple of Zeus itself, not a column of its vast ranges
standing perfect, but with, frequently enough, capitals of less antique
form than those of the lesser temple, to show the date and style and
character of the building which held the greatest work of Pheidias.
But it is not only the days of Pheidias, the days of free Greece, the
days of Athenian, Spartan, and Theban rivalry, which are represented
in their remains with that memorable precinct. Two periods of the
history of Greece and the world have still to be represented. There
is that vast semicircle of Roman brickwork, looking like the apse of
a vast basilica, but which is in truth the exedra of Hêrôdês Atticus;
for the bountiful man of Marathôn extended his bounty to the shrine
of the common gods of Hellas as well as to the temples, the theatres,
and all the public works of his own city. But the cycle is not yet
complete; there is one age more to be represented, one phase more of
the history of man to furnish its contribution to the architectural
remains of Olympia. And that age, that phase, has, from one point of
view at least, the highest claims on us of all. We take our chance
of being set down as irreclaimable barbarians when we say that, after
all, the building of highest interest of which the remains are now to
be seen at Olympia is the admirable basilican church which occupies the
site of the temple of Hippodameia. Enough remains to enable us to make
out nearly the whole of its arrangements. It marks a very narrow view
of things, a strange imprisonment of thought within a few arbitrarily
chosen centuries when we see not a few who reverence every stone of
the great and the little temple, even, it may be, every brick of the
_exedra_ of Hêrôdês, but who seem to turn up their noses at a monument
at least as historical as any of them. No doubt the special interest
of this particular building is largely due to the place where it is
found. It is because it is found in the Altis of Olympia, because
it is built on the site of one of the ancient temples of Olympia,
because its materials have been supplied by that and by others of
those temples, that the church which now stands as a ruin alongside
of them has much of its special charm. To take the lowest view, it is
a memorial of the greatest revolution of the whole course of history,
the revolution which installed the worship of Christ and the Panagia on
the site of the shrines of Zeus and Hêrê and Hippodameia. The classical
purist cannot get rid either of the general history of mankind or of
the more enlarged view of the history of art merely by shutting his
eyes to both of them. The basilica is there; it is a fact; it is also
a fact that those who placed it there had a special motive in placing
it there--that of specially marking the triumph of the new faith by
setting up its altars on the site of the fallen altars of heathendom.
And it is a fact also that, however mere classical pedantry may
despise the style in which that basilica was reared, it is simply
pedantry that will despise it. The style, constructively perfect in
itself, contained in itself the germ of all that was to come after. We
cannot reach Köln and Westminster, except by the necessary stages of
Spalato and Olympia.
We may for a moment sympathize with the pedants as we read the
inscription of Jovianus at Corfu. Jovianus destroyed, and he put very
little in the place of that which he destroyed. We treasure his work
and his boast as pieces of history; but we must allow that art, as
such, has no reason to thank him. But the case is quite different with
the basilica of Olympia. Its architect may take his place alongside of
those who did the bidding of Diocletian and Theodoric. He destroyed
indeed, but he destroyed only to put to new uses. The shrine of the
new faith was reared out of the very stones of the shrine of the old.
The columns which, in a past state of things, had known only how to
bear the dead weight of the entablature, were now taught to lift up
the arch, as a living thing rising from their own substance. Enough is
left of the basilica of Olympia to show that it might have held its own
even among the basilicas of Ravenna. But at Olympia the name of Ravenna
seems to awake no echo, to carry with it no meaning. In all accounts
that we have seen the building is said to be Byzantine. That perhaps
simply means that it is Christian and not heathen. Byzantine, in any
architectural sense, the church assuredly is not. It is essentially
basilican, without any Byzantine features. Nor can the date be late
enough to be called Byzantine in any political sense. We may talk about
Byzantine after the final separation of the Empires in 800; before
that time the word leads to confusion. One cannot conceive this church
to be later than Justinian’s time; it may well be earlier. When could
such a building have been so utterly overthrown and swallowed up? We
can think of no time so likely as the Slavonic and Avar inroads of
Justinian’s own day and of the days of his immediate successors.
The church itself is a not very large basilica of the purest and
simplest type. There is no dome, no approach to Byzantine arrangement,
not even the _chalkidikê_ or transept. Two arcades supported by the
smaller columns of the former building, showing Ionic capitals of
two types, led to an apse of which the arch of triumph has unluckily
together vanished. But of the well-wrought _cancelli_, carrying the
mind across the sea to St. Clement’s, a large part still remains. The
apse has its windows divided by what at first sight seem to be coupled
columns--the type which ranges from St. Constantia to the Moissac
cloister--but which really form a single block within and without.
The walls are of brick; several of the windows are preserved, and in
their jambs we see long stones set upright, just as in the primitive
work both of England and Ireland. Everywhere we find these witnesses
to the universality of the earliest form of Christian architecture.
The pavement contains many inscribed stones of various dates. Some
are Pagan, recording votes of the city of Elis in the days of the
early Emperors; some are Christian, as that which records the zeal of
a certain pious reader ἀναγνωστής towards the making of the pavement
itself. To the west of the nave is a range of Ionic columns forming
the portico, but their arches or entablature has perished. But to the
south-west is an attached building where alone the arches are preserved.
They are set on the Ionic columns with an intervening stilt set
crosswise in a most ingenious fashion. The column becomes a mid-wall
shaft.
Such a building, on such a site, found in such a case, suggests
thoughts which bring all the ages of the world together. The old glory
of Olympia passed away; free Elis--whatever we say of free Pisa--no
longer gathered the competitors of free Hellas from Massalia to
Trapezous to strive in a national solemnity before the national gods
of Hellas. But Olympia lived on as long as the Roman masters of Hellas
clave to the gods of Rome, and saw the gods of Rome in the gods of
Hellas. A day came when the lord of Rome cast away his faith alike in
Zeus of Olympia and in Jupiter of the Capitol; a day followed when a
later prince forbade either worship, when the games of Olympia ceased
as a rite of the forbidden worship, when her temples were forsaken or
destroyed or made into materials for new temples of the new creed.
Presently barbaric invasions swept away the new temple and the old
alike. Zeus was still worshipped on Tainaros; St. Andrew still helped
his votaries at Patras; but the temples, pagan and Christian, of the
Olympian Altis lay hidden and forgotten, and the hill of Kronos looked
down on solitude instead of on the great religious centre of the
Hellenic race. Ages after, the zeal of strangers working on Hellenic
ground brings to light the ruins of the pagan temples, and with them
the ruins of the Christian Church. We rejoice in both discoveries; only
let it be remembered that each alike is part of the history of Hellas
and of the history of man. We will at least believe that there is no
fear that the recovered church of Olympia may share the same fate which
the narrowness of classical barbarism decreed for the ducal tower of
Athens.
INDEX.
A
_Acciauoli_, Nerio, his bequest of Athens, 26
_Achaia_, League of, 209;
cities of, 212;
contrasted with Aitôlia, 213, 214
_Ægæan Sea_, islands of, 14;
Greek colonies on, 204
_Ælfred_, King of the West Saxons, his view of the rule of Odysseus,
3, 4
_Agamemnôn_, “Schliemann’s,” preserved at Chorbati, 126, 149, 160
_Aigina_, position and history of, 73-77;
compared with Salamis, _ib._
_Aitôlia_, League of, 209;
her legendary fame, 210;
contrasted with Achaia, 213, 214
_Akarnania_, not in the Homeric Catalogue, 215, 216;
special character of, 216
_Akrokorinthos_, pre-eminence of, 182, 186, 189, 199;
its historical associations, 190-194;
compared with Glastonbury Tor, 195
_Akropolis_ of Athens, how its history should be studied, 18-24;
its position, 33, 35
_Aktê_ (Argolic), 77, 117
_Alaric_, King of the West-Goths, at Athens, 24;
at Corinth, 192;
at Eleusis, 236
_Andronikos Kyrrhestês_, octagonal tower of, 38-40
_Appian Way_, the, its analogy with the Sacred Way of Athens, 226
_Aratos_, deliverer and betrayer of Corinth, 190, 212
_Arch_, the pointed, as old or older, in its constructive form, than
the round, 89, 99, 153, 154;
its beginning in the sally-port of Tiryns, 97;
earlier perfection of the round arch in Italy, 99, 100, 119;
development of the arch at Spalato, 118, 154;
its perfection in the Eastern Churches, 119
_Argos_, contrasted with Mykênê and Tiryns, 86, 90, 93, 96, 97, 106,
121, 123;
increase of her power, 93;
modern Argos contrasted with modern Athens, 106, 107;
Turkish influence on modern Argos, 107, 108;
its later history, 108;
use of the name Argos, 110;
Homeric position of, _ib._, 113;
her destruction of Mykênê, 111, 112, 120, 124, 158;
her early history and its continuity, 112-115, 162;
ancient wall and theatre of, 118;
Roman remains in, _ib._, 120;
Byzantine church at, 119, 120
_Arta_, modern Greek frontier fixed at, 1
_Athens_, continuity of its history, 16-22, 247, 248;
the birthplace of political history, 16, 204;
contrast between old and new Athens, 17, 32, 34;
compared with Rome, _ib._;
results of Turkish rule in, 18;
her primæval and later walls, 19, 20, 22;
historical importance of the earliest wall, 20, 22;
her position in the Homeric Catalogue, 21;
visit of Basil the Second to, 23, 24, 26;
Alaric at, 24;
extinction of her schools by Justinian, _ib._;
bequeathed by Nerio Acciauoli to Venice, 26;
fame of, under foreign Dukes, 27;
a piece of history wiped out by the destruction of the tower of the
Dukes, 28-31, 274;
temple of Olympian Zeus at, 32, 33, 38;
how Athens differs from other cities, 34, 35;
growth of art in, from Aristiôn to Pheidias, 37;
one remaining mosque at, 41, 50;
variety of remains in the _agorê_, 42;
study of Christian-Greek architecture in, 43-50;
metropolitan church at, 45, 47;
date of Byzantine architecture in, difficult to fix, 46, 47;
latest buildings at, not less worthy of study than the earliest, 50;
the practical centre of modern Greek travelling, 68-70;
modern Athens contrasted with modern Argos, 106;
its geographical separation from Eleusis, 230, 231
_Attica_, 15;
not mentioned as a land in the Homeric map, 21;
merged in Athens, _ib._
B
_Basil I._, the Macedonian, converts the Mainotes, 9
_Basil II._, the Slayer of the Bulgarians, visits Athens after his
Bulgarian conquests, 23, 24, 26
_Blakesley_, Dean, value of his comments on the narrative of Herodotus,
61, 63;
on Zôstêr, 242
_Byron_, at Mesolongi, 2;
application of “the curse of Minerva” to the destroyers of the ducal
tower, 31
C
_Carthage_, her fate compared with that of Corinth, 187
_Cashel_, Rock of, serves as a parallel to the Athenian Akropolis, 33,
194
_Cerigo_, 6, 13
_Cheddar_, pass of, its Mykênaian character, 128
_Chorbati_, 125, 164
_Commonwealths_, Greek and Lombard, compared, 70-73
_Constantine Porphyrogennêtos_, his use of the name _Hellênes_, 8-10
_Corinth_, her position in Grecian legend and history, 183, 184,
195-198;
taken by Mummius, 185, 198;
her final overthrow by earthquake, _ib._;
her origin Hellenic, not Phœnician, 186, 187;
her fate compared with that of Carthage, 187;
temple of Athênê at, 188, 189, 198, 201;
her freedom proclaimed by Flamininus, 198;
absence of “Corinthians” in, 199, 200;
special vocal powers of man, beast, and fowl in, 200, 201;
her western position, 206
_Corinthian Gulf_, the, its historical position, 215
D
_Daphnê_, church of, 226, 228, 229
_Dawkins_, W. Boyd, on the retreat of the lion from Europe, 171
“_Druidical_,” abuse of the name, 89
E
_Eirênê_, Empress, her marriage with Leo the Fourth, 25, 26, 47
_Eleusis_, not in the Homeric Catalogue, 21, 60;
its geographical separation from Athens, 230, 231;
tomb of Stratôn at, 232;
temple of Dêmêtêr and Athênê at, 233, 235, 238;
its akropolis, 233;
Roman period of its history, 235, 236;
Alaric at, 236;
modern Eleusis, 237
“_Epeiros_,” use of the name, 216
_Epidauros_, city of Asklêpios, 77
_Epidauros_ (Dalmatian), 77
_Epidauros_ (Lakonian), 14, 77. See _Monembasia_.
F
_Flamininus_, proclaims the freedom of Corinth, 198
G
_Glastonbury Tor_, compared with Akrokorinthos, 195
_Greece_, Ionian Islands ceded to, 7;
origin of cities in, 176;
history of eastern earlier than that of western, 203-209, 214;
western, position of her religious centres, 205, 206;
leagues in, 209
_Greek_ hill-cities, compared with Italian, 88, 90;
colonial cities mark a later stage, 91
_Grote_ George, on the position of Argos in Peloponnêsos, 113
H
_Hadrian_, Arch of, at Athens, 24, 38;
_Stoa_ of, reproduces the Doric order, 40
_Helenê_, her island off Sounion, 245;
her place in Attic legend, 246
_Hellas_, insular, more striking than peninsular, 5
_Hellênes_, use of the name, 7;
confined by Constantine Porphyrogennêtos to the Mainotes, 8-10
_Hêraklês_, 36;
worship of, at Marathôn, 59, 60;
at Tiryns, 96
_Hermoupolis_, 15. See _Syros_.
_Hêrôdês Atticus_, theatre of, at Athens, 24, 42;
his _exedra_ at Olympia, 265, 266
_Herodotus_, his account of Marathôn, 61, 62;
range of the lion fixed by, 171
_Homer_, his description of Tiryns, 87
_Homeric Catalogue_, the, position of Athens in, 21;
Marathôn and Eleusis have no place in, _ib._, 60;
Tiryns how described in, 105;
Akarnania has no place in, 215, 216
_Hydra_, its history, 78-81
I
_Ionian Islands_, 7;
merged in the Greek kingdom, _ib._
_Isthmian Games_, the, strange application of the name to Epsom races,
220
_Isthmus of Corinth_, its varied history, 197
_Ithakê_, Homeric, 3, 217, 218
J
_Johnson_, Samuel, application of his saying on the battle of
Marathôn, 55, 56
_Justinian_, fortifies Athens and extinguishes her schools, 24
K
_Kalaureia_, 78
_Kallimachos_, fate of Europe decided by the casting vote of, 53
_Kanarês_, Constantine, compared with Theseus, 50, 51;
his death, _ib._, 66, 67;
his home in Psara, 80
_Kapnikarea_, the, church of, at Athens, 47;
its _narthex_ compared with the west front of Peterborough, 48, 49
_Kephallênia_, 3, 5, 217
_Kyklopês_, their change of character, 94
_Kymê_, contrasted with Mykênê, 158, 159;
her western position, 205
L
_Larissa_, the, of Argos, 86, 109, 110, 116, 120, 182
_Laureion_, mines of, 241, 255
_Leake_, Colonel, on the battle of Marathôn, 61, 63;
on Tiryns, 102, 104;
on the worship of Poseidôn at Sounion, 254
_Lion_, the, range of, in Europe, 171;
cognate forms of his name, _ib._
_Lowe_, Robert (late Lord Sherbroke), his view of the battle of
Marathôn, 52
_Lysikratês_, choragic monument of, 38, 39
M
_Mahaffy_, J. P., his views on the destruction of the tower of the
Dukes in Athens, 28, 29;
his illustration of the position of the temple of Olympian Zeus,
33, 144;
on the physical position of the Greek commonwealths, 71;
on the geographical separation of Eleusis from Athens, 230
_Maina_, name of Hellênes confined to, 8
_Mainotes_, their independence, 8;
how distinguished from the Slaves by Constantine Porphyrogennêtos,
8;
their conversion, 9
_Marathôn_, not in the Homeric Catalogue, 21, 60;
the most historic spot in Attica, 52;
battle of, the most memorable in the world’s history, 54 _et seq._;
the earliest and the latest fight compared, 57, 58;
geographical use of the name, 59;
its mythical history, _ib._;
temple of Athênê at, 60;
named in the Odyssey, _ib._;
earliest historical notices of, 61;
the marshes not mentioned by Herodotus, 62;
Pausanias’ account of the battle, _ib._;
site of ancient Marathôn uncertain, 63;
the barrow of the one hundred and ninety-two at, 64;
grave of Miltiadês at, _ib._
_Mavrokordatos_, at Mesolongi, 211
_Mesolongi_, two sieges of, 2, 211
_Methana_, 77
_Miltiadês_, influence of his arguments on Kallimachos, 53;
his success at Marathôn largely owing to the nature of the ground,
63;
his grave, 65
_Monembasia_, Latin conquest of Peloponnêsos completed by the taking
of, 14
_Morea_ (Môraia), earlier application of the name, 3
_Morosini_, Francesco, Venetian occupation of Athens under, 28, 31
_Mykênê_, contrasted with Argos and Tiryns, 86, 90, 93, 96, 97, 121;
history of, 95, 126;
its point of likeness with New Grange, 101, 155;
destroyed by Argos, 111, 112, 120, 124, 158;
preserved by destruction, 123;
its primæval relics, 126;
position of the akropolis, 127 _et seq._;
the walls, 130, 131, 137;
the lion-gate, 132, 134-136, 159;
the tombs and treasures, 132;
gateways of the treasuries, 133, 134;
the inner fortress, 136-138;
Homeric description of, 138;
the treasuries and treasures, 140 _et seq._;
use of the word “treasures,” 141;
process of burial, 143;
striking effect of the masks, 144, 146;
beginnings of the arch, 154;
its special primæval character, 158-161;
carriage-road practically ends at, 164
N
_Naupaktos_ (Lepanto), 210
_Nauplia_, high position of, under the Venetian and Turkish power, 82,
83
_Navarino_ (Pylos), battle of, 11, 13
_Neale_, J. M., his _History of the Holy Eastern Church_, 46, 47
_Nemea_, temple of Zeus at, 169, 170, 174, 178, 179;
the seat of Pan-hellenic worship, 169, 175;
legendary lion of, 169-172;
theatre at, 170, 180;
modern fauna of, 173
_New Grange_, its point of likeness with Mykênê, 101, 155
O
_Olympia_, the religious centre of Hellas, 261-264;
temples of Hêrê and of Zeus at, 264;
_exedra_ of Hêrôdês, 265;
special interest of the basilican church at, 266-274;
desolation of, 273
P
_Parnassos_, 181
_Parthenôn_, the, 17, 22;
its continuance as such in different ages, 23, 25, 27, 36;
thanksgiving of Basil the Second in, 23, 24;
changed into a mosque, 30;
its destruction in the Venetian occupation, 31
_Patras_, siege of, 2, 210, 273
_Patroklos_, Admiral of Ptolemy Philadelphos, his island off Sounion,
247
_Pausanias_, how his story of the battle of Marathôn differs from that
of Herodotus, 62;
Greek travelling in his day, 68, 69, 166, 168;
his description of Tiryns, 92;
on Argos, 120;
on the treasuries of Mykênê, 150, 151, 156;
distinguishes the treasuries of Mykênê from the tombs, 150, 156,
157;
records the tombs of the Sacred Way, 227;
the temple of Philê-Aphroditê, 230;
the worship of Poseidôn at Eleusis, 232;
his description of Sounion, 240
“_Pelasgian_,” abuse of the name, 88, 89, 100, 101
_Peloponnêsos_, southern, characteristics of its coastline, 5, 6;
lack of good roads in, 12
_Pentedaktylos_, 5, 8, 10, 13
_Periklês_, works of, how they should be studied, 18, 22
_Peterborough_ Cathedral, its west front compared with the _narthex_
of the Kapnikarea at Athens, 48
_Philé-Aphroditê_, temple of, 227, 230
_Pôros_, 78
_Poseidôn_, his worship at Eleusis, Sounion, and the Isthmus, 224,
225;
at Sounion, 241, 253, 254
_Poseidônia_ (Pæstum), contrasted with Mykênê, 158;
with Kymê, 159;
analogy between its temples and the temple of Athênê at Corinth,
187, 264
_Psara_, under the Turk, 80
_Psyttaleia_, 76, 77, 222
_Ptolemy_, gymnasion of, at Athens, 42
_Pylos_, occupation of, 11, 13. See _Navarino_
_Pyrrhos_, his death at Argos, 114
_Pythionikê_, tomb of, 227
R
_Rome_, her unbroken series of historical monuments, 17
S
_Sacred Way_, the, of Athens, 225 _et seq._;
its analogy with the Appian Way, 226
_Saint Andrew_, his defence of Patras, 2, 210, 273
_Saint Theodore_, church of, at Athens, 47, 49
_Salamis_, how her history differs from that of Aigina, 74-76;
battle of, 74, 76, 197
_Scheriê_, whether Corfu, 60
_Schliemann_, Dr., his share in the destruction of the ducal tower
at Athens, 29;
his work at Mykênê, 126, 129, 130, 134, 140, 157
_Scotia_, use of the name, 45
_Sikyôn_, 212, 221