Saméans, suddenly revolted, from some motive not yet ascertained. They
said that as their city was commodiously situated they were afraid the
Romans would compel them to remove from it. But whether they conceived
this in their own minds and under the impulse of a groundless fear
disturbed the general quiet, or whether such a project had been
mentioned in conversation among the Romans and reported to them, nothing
is ascertained except that, having given hostages, they suddenly shut
their gates, and would not relinquish their design even for the prayers
of their friends whom the consul sent to the walls to try how far they
might be influenced by compassion for their parents and countrymen. When
no pacific answer was given, the city began to be besieged.
“The consul had all the apparatus, engines, and machines which had been
brought from Ambracia, and the soldiers executed with great diligence
the works necessary to be made. The rams were therefore brought forward
in two places, and began to batter the walls.
“The townsmen omitted nothing by which the works or the motions of the
besiegers could be obstructed. But they resisted in two ways in
particular, one of which was to raise constantly opposite the part of
the wall attacked a new wall of equal strength on the inside; and the
other was to make sudden sallies at one time against the enemy’s works,
at another against his advanced guard, and in those attacks they
generally got the better. The only plan that was invented to confine
them within the walls, though ineffectual, deserves to be recorded. One
hundred slingers were brought from Ægium, Patræ, and Dymæ
[Peloponnesus]. These men, according to the customary practice of that
nation, were exercised from their childhood in throwing with a sling,
into the open sea, the round pebbles with which, mixed with sand, the
shores were generally strewn; therefore they cast weapons of that sort
to a greater distance, with surer aim and more powerful effect, than
even the Balearian slingers. Besides, their sling does not consist
merely of a single strap like the Balearic and that of other nations,
but the thong of the sling is threefold and made firm by several seams,
that the missile may not, by the yielding of the strap in the act of
throwing, be let fly at random; but, after sticking fast while whirled
about, it may be discharged as if sent from the string of a bow. Being
accustomed to drive their missiles through circular marks of small
circumference placed at a great distance, they not only hit the enemy’s
heads, but any part of their faces that they aimed at. These slings
checked the Saméans from sallying either so frequently or so boldly;
insomuch that they would sometimes from the walls beseech the Achæans to
retire for a while and be quiet spectators of their fight with the Roman
guards. Samé supported a siege of four months. When some of their small
number were daily killed or wounded, and the survivors were, through
continual fatigues, greatly reduced both in strength and spirits, the
Romans, one night, scaling the wall of the citadel which they call
Cyatides (for the city, sloping toward the sea, verges toward the west),
made their way into the forum. The Saméans, on discovering that a part
of the city was taken, fled with their wives and children into the
greater citadel; but, submitting next day, they were all sold as slaves,
their city being plundered.” (Bohn’s translation.)
It is only by conjecture we can distinguish between the two hills, both
being covered with ruins; and the walls are so broken in their circuit,
and so complex as well as various in their epoch of construction, that
no plan of the siege could be made, but the above indicates the
westernmost as first captured.
The city must have been very wealthy, if we may judge from that
generally excellent indication, the tombs, which line the roads and the
sea-shore beyond the city (looking from the point where the general view
is taken), and by the enumeration of the booty taken by the Romans,
which is given as follows: Two hundred golden crowns of ten Roman pounds
each, eighty-three thousand pounds of silver, two hundred and
forty-three pounds of gold, one hundred and eighteen pieces of Athenian
money, two thousand four hundred and twenty-two of Macedonian, two
hundred and eighty-three statues of bronze, two hundred and thirty of
marble, besides the money distributed to the army.
I know of no place where the ruins of all epochs are so well indicated
as at Samé. The large fragment of wall of the best Hellenic time which
runs down the slope of the eastern hill is one of the finest, if not
_the_ finest, I have ever seen. Its stones are perfectly hewn, and some
of them are twelve to fourteen feet long, and the highest portion still
standing is not less than twenty feet high. At other points are various
examples of the Pelasgic, similar to that of “Ulysses’ Castle,” but of
better work. There are magnificent subterranean passages, one of which
leads to the citadel on the easternmost hill, the more remote in the
distant view, but the higher and probably the site of the greater
citadel, being marked by the most imposing ruins and remains of works,
and without doubt the locality of the original settlement. On the lower
hill stand some interesting remains—a tower and remains of city wall of
mixed Hellenic and Pelasgic, the tower being of the very latest
Hellenic, showing the beginning of “rustication.” It was built upon in
the middle ages, and the whole mass of buildings transformed into a
fortress and afterward into a convent. Samé must very early have been a
large and important city, as the whole of the space, including the two
hills and the land between them, shows traces of Pelasgic construction,
and one fragment on the brow of the hill near the tower is one of the
most perfect examples of the best Pelasgic work one can find away from
Mykenæ and Argos. The stones in the illustration range about five feet
in length, and are faced with exquisite exactness. A wild fig-tree has
taken root in the interstices of the stones, and the roots have pushed
the masses of rock apart, but in several places it is difficult to see
the junction when the light is flat against them. Of Roman work there is
little; but some thermæ walls on the plains by the sea and some tombs
show a considerable Roman occupation. Livy says that Marcus Tullius, the
conqueror of Samé, went over to the Peloponnesus “after having placed a
garrison in Samé.” This negatives the notion that the walls were razed
to the foundations, as is asserted by La Croix; and it is also rendered
improbable by the existing ruins, though it is not impossible that so
much of the wall was destroyed as made the defense of it temporarily
impracticable. There are, however, some slight traces of rubble-wall on
the old ruins, which show a Roman (or possibly middle-age, though I
incline to the former) construction, which negative any supposition that
the _enceinte_ was rendered useless for defense; for no one would repair
a wall which was not tolerably complete in its circuit. The remains of
the Roman time, however, are insignificant compared with those of the
Pelasgic, either as to preservation or quality.
[Illustration: VIEW OF SAMÉ FROM THE WEST,—WITH PARTS OF PELASGIC AND
HELLENIC WALLS.]
At present Samé is an insignificant village, consisting of twenty or
thirty small houses stretched along the beach, with a tiny port formed
by a breakwater constructed from the stones of the city wall, the
fairest and best cut that could be found. The people are a thievish
clan, who set on any chance comer, like mosquitoes on a solitary and
bewildered fisherman in a swampy land. They have coins and antiquities
to sell, for which, as everywhere else in Greece, they demand the most
absurd prices; and they beset one with offers of service as guides,
etc., etc., etc., till they weary all human patience. This may be said
of the Ionians in general, but less of the people of Cerigo, perhaps,
than the others. We found, however, a grateful exception. We had
wandered along the beach to the furthermost houses of the line, and on
passing a very respectable-looking house, the owner, sitting in the
coolness of the twilight at his gates, seeing two strangers, rose to
salute us and invited us to enter; an invitation so amiable and earnest
that we accepted, and were ushered into the guest-chamber, clean and
furnished with divans in eastern fashion, where we were entertained with
the usual sweetmeats and coffee, while the daughter of the house went
into the garden and collected for each of us a bouquet of roses, the
most fragrant I ever remember to have seen. Our host narrated many
incidents of the English rule in Cephalonia, and when we rose to go
urged us to take up our quarters in his house; and finally, as we stood
before the gates, as a last favor, offered me two beautiful Greek stelæ,
memorials of the ancient dead, possibly of the period of the heroic
defense of Samé. He had found them in digging his house cellar, and they
were the ornaments of his court-yard; but learning that we were in
search of antiquities, he offered them freely as his contribution. I
shall not soon forget him or his fragrant roses and the dark-eyed Saméan
girl who offered them to us.
Of Crané scarcely a trace remains, even of the Pelasgic walls. It stood
originally on the Lake of Argostoli (to which place we drove from Samé
across the island), but at a point now far from the water’s edge. The
lake is a singular geological phenomenon, formed by a number of springs
bursting out from under the hills on which Crané lay, with a force
sufficing to drive mills and form a strong current over the whole extent
of the lake, which is a mile or more in diameter, though the surface of
land to be drained by these subterranean outpours is, one would say,
utterly inadequate to the quantity of water delivered.
I took a guide at Argostoli, a man of the usual type of Greek guide, who
assured me that he knew the ancient city, and had often guided strangers
there. On arriving at the head of the lake I found him taking useless
détours to bring me to the mills, which were driven by the springs; and
on asking him what he went there for, he replied that he supposed I
wanted to see the mills—since that was what other people had come for. I
gave him an energetic sample of modern Greek, and ordered him to show me
the way to the ancient city—Palaiokastron. “Palaiokastron!” he
ejaculated with surprise and bewilderment in his eyes, and turned to ask
some shepherd boys or other vagabonds, who were sauntering near by and
watching us, where the Palaiokastron was. They declined to give any
information, probably regarding him as a poacher on their preserves. I
had, therefore, to depend on my antiquarian instincts, and, taking the
lead, climbed over the heights above until, guided by the nature of the
ground, I found the traces of the old wall.
[Illustration: CRANÉ FROM THE SEA SHORE.]
The position of the city was entirely characteristic of the sites of the
Pelasgic epoch: a bold, double peak, almost inaccessible on the
sea-side, and on the two flanks still very precipitous, but connected
with higher land on the side opposite the water. On the side from which
the view is taken none of the ancient walls remain. The movement of
earthquakes, the gradual fall of the rock at the precipitous edge, or
the leveling labor of man has carried away all the blocks that made this
side of the _enceinte_; but many of the stones may be recognized at the
foot of the slope, some worked into modern walls, and some in the débris
of the hill. On the opposite side the traces are more distinct, and the
wall may be traced a long way, and the site of the citadel determined,
with a gate and the angles of some of the towers. From near the citadel
a view is obtained which shows a long line of the débris with a distant
view of the town of Argostoli and the lake, and far beyond the lines
that form the western shore of the superb harbor of Argostoli, almost
without a rival in the Adriatic. The mass of wall is hardly to be
distinguished from mere decomposed rock; so much have time and frost,
the great demolishers, split and crumbled the flinty, massive limestone,
the preferred material of the Pelasgi. On the further shore shown in the
view may be seen, when the air is clear, the houses which form a modern
village on the site of the ancient Palé. Here were Jason and his fellow
adventurers entertained on their search after the golden fleece,—an
expedition which perhaps we may translate from myth into probability, as
an expedition to obtain an improved breed of sheep, a finer-wooled
stock, from one of the northern and inland countries.
At Argostoli I inquired about the ruins of Palé, but was told that they
are mainly built over, and what is visible is only of the Roman period.
I attempted, however, on our return to Samé, to run around in the
_Kestrel_, as the voyage across the bay from Argostoli is neither
pleasant nor sure in the small boats that make the service. We got up
anchor as the land breeze began to blow at midnight, and I went to bed,
having given orders to anchor in a little bay about half-way to the
southern extremity of the island near which some ruins are indicated on
the map. Awaking in the morning and finding a most suspicious
tranquillity prevailing, I took a look at the outside surroundings, and
found the yacht quietly moored on the same spot she had occupied the day
before. A furious sirocco had sprung up and met us half-way to our
destined anchorage, and after beating for an hour in vain, our little
boat nearly buried in the seas, we were compelled to retreat and run
back to our former place of refuge. There is no getting ahead in such
small craft against the sharp, violent seas of the Mediterranean.
Three days the sirocco blew, and we tried in vain to pass the time
fishing. The Ionians have adopted dynamite so universally to catch their
fish that they are as scarce as honest people on shore. One does find
them sometimes, and we caught a shark about four feet long and a half
dozen red mullet where, before dynamite was discovered, we could have
caught in the same time a hundred-weight.
The third night we got under way again, and, with a heavy swell still
on, ran down to our harbor, reaching it as a flaming, splendid
thunder-storm was coming up, the finale of our southern blow. We moored
with cables out in three directions, and when the storm had all gone by
I went ashore to hunt my ruins. A vagabond Cephalonian offered his
services to carry my camera and guide me; but his crafty and evasive
face, coupled with the assurance with which he clung to me, so irritated
me that to rid myself of him I plunged into the pathless thicket.
Traveling by compass, and searching long and closely, I found at last
the remains of an early Pelasgic wall on a magnificent site, with a
breezy outlook to sea north and west and overlooking a fertile valley
inland, not especially pictorial, for it was too regular and too
thoroughly cultivated, but through it ran a bright crystal brook
overhung by huge pollard sycamores and fringed with oleanders just
bursting into blossom and making the valley look like a rose-garden.
Beyond the hill on which the city stood is a wild ravine through which
runs the brook, which in Greek would naturally be dignified by the name
of a river. Only a narrow neck, as usual, gave access to the site. It is
impossible to ascertain with any kind of assurance what the name of the
city was. It could not have been Nesia, the only one of the four
principal ones we have not visited, for no ruins are visible approaching
so late an epoch as the Roman, and it was probably Heraclea. Its
position was magnificent for defense and on account of the fertility of
the country behind it, but the site was probably abandoned very early
for one further inland, where I was assured there were ruins of an
ancient city. But my time had been so invaded by the loss of three days
through the storm, and I was already so behind my programme, that I was
not able to give the time necessary to the search and examination, or,
indeed, to follow my plan of visiting Palé.
[Illustration: DISTANT VIEW OF PALÉ FROM THE CITADEL OF CRANÉ.]
We climbed down to the brook, and I enjoyed the pastime of wading in the
gurgling water as if I were a boy—it was so long since I had had that
pleasure! We followed it into a close and gloomy gorge, where the crag
of the ancient site overhung us like a huge, rough wall, almost a sheer
precipice, and down at the foot ran the brook, which we followed to the
sea. The sun was setting as we reached the yacht, and before we waked
from sleep next morning we were bounding toward Zante.
In Zante (Zakynthos) there is, so far as I could find, no ancient ruin
whatever. The character of the rock explains this; for, except at the
extreme southern end of the island, there is no stone which would resist
even the weather-wear since the Roman epoch. The island seems to be a
bed of sand raised from the sea and slightly hardened, so that, though
the citadel hill is imposing enough as a mass, the material of it is
being continually dissolved, and looks at a distance more like a bank of
clay than like rock.
[Illustration: ZANTE.]
Zante is rhymingly called the “fior di Levante” (flower of the Levant),
but it is difficult to see wherein it surpasses Corfu in any flowery
attribute. I guess that, as in many other cases, the rhyme went for more
than the fact, poetical or otherwise. It is fertile, and the land
extends in an immense unpicturesque plain covered with olive-orchards
and vineyards for miles from the port. Its history is unimportant and
its mythology not interesting. It was said to have been colonized by
Zakynthos, son of Dardanus of Troy, about 1500 years before Christ; but,
as I have before said, all Greek dates and traditions of migration
earlier than 1000 B. C. are purely conjectural. Zante suffered with the
other islands from the endless and furious feuds of the Greek states;
ravaged by turns by Athenian and Lacedæmonian, it came down to the
Romans an unruly subject province, conquered and reconquered, and
finally lay still in the tranquillity of slavery until Geneseric, king
of the Vandals, began an epoch of devastation, which only concluded with
the purchase, by the Venetians from the Sultan, of its soil depopulated
by the sword and slavery.
He who goes about in the Mediterranean has great chance of seeing bad
weather, for it is the reverse of a pacific sea, and in a scrap of a
boat like the _Kestrel_ the phenomena are sometimes interesting. Our
course from Zante to Cerigo (ancient Cythera) leads by Cape Mátapan,
opposite Cape Maleá, the two southern points of Greece, which enjoy a
reputation of the kind that the American proverb gives to Hatteras and
Lookout. The _Kestrel_ was again baffled, and, after beating for hours
to get past the point, we had to put up the helm and run back to
Navarino, the nearest shelter, before a gathering southerly blow. We lay
in our old anchorage another day, and as the wind fell at night we beat
out again and ran through the little archipelago of barren and desolate
islands which lie off this part of the Morea. The weather still looked
ugly, and thunder-clouds were gathering on the hills of Lacedæmon, and
we could see the storm creeping down toward the sea, but the wind was
fair, and we hoped to make Kapsali, in Cerigo, before the squall came
down. Already the heights of Cerigo loomed before us, and we had begun
to look for the landmarks, when the wind struck us. All hands made what
haste was possible to get in sail and get up a small storm jib to lie to
under, and not too quickly, for no common canvas would have stood that
blast when it struck us. The sun was setting, and soon we were out of
sight of all land in the driving spray and rain. The lightning was such
as only they who sail in semi-tropical seas can have known, blinding and
incessant; it seemed to have gathered around the mountains of Cerigo as
a centre, for it went and came and still hung there as the rain swept
down the coast and up again. As the wind fell off with the down-pouring
of the torrents we got off again and pointed our bowsprit for Kapsali;
and as the waters above and those below seemed to have formed an
alliance against us, we went below and shut the hatch. Fortunately the
wind was off shore and we had little sea, and managed to creep along
nearly as much as we had drifted to the leeward; so that when the storm
broke and the rain held up we were able to see the rocks off the coast,
and finally to grope our way into the little port of Kapsali, which is
secure against everything but a southerly blow. The wind, always
contrary, fell off as we drew near the light-house, and we had to get in
with our sweeps in the small hours of the morning, wet, cold, hungry,
and jaded from the excitement of the night; for, though it is simple and
safe in the telling, a large Greek brig foundered only two miles from us
in the squall, and we had experienced the worst weather we had yet felt,
and since the storm began no one had been able to eat or even get a cup
of coffee.
At Kapsali one begins to see the antique sailor ways and the evidence of
the intense conservatism of the eastern world. The ships are drawn up on
the beach at night as of old, and this necessitates a construction of
the hull which cannot be far removed from that of the antique. Indeed, I
have seen fishing-boats which might have served for the models of the
galley on the Roman coins. The rigging, again, is of the simplest, and
fitted for these seas, where the sudden squalls and the “meltem,” or
gusts which come down from the mountains with no warning but a little
cloud appearing on the summit, sometimes leave brief space for the
taking in of sail. On the whole, wherever we look we see ample evidence
that in the whole Levant, where the original population exists in a
considerable proportion, the ways of life and thought are the same as
those of Homer’s day. Nature has changed more than man. Where the
Venetians came they brought new habits of military life and
construction, and demolished all the old ruins to make fortresses; but
on the domestic life and on the character of the Greek they had little
or no influence.
Whether Kapsali, a mere village, the port of Cerigo, had any ancient
existence, we do not know. Cerigo lies on the high rock above it, and is
a Venetian fortress; and, as is generally the case with Venetian
fortresses, has used up all ancient masonry, if any existed, in its
construction.
[Illustration: CITADEL OF CERIGO.]
The road from Kapsali to the town of Cerigo is of Venetian construction,
kept in repair by those fitting successors of Venice, the English, who
certainly left the Ionian Islands in a state of prosperity higher than
that of to-day. Good roads were almost everywhere provided, and good
ways of other kinds, now lost entirely, if I might believe the
complaints of the people. The position of Cerigo is very strong for the
days of Venetian rule, and it overhangs the port and country round on
every side, except one, like a Pelasgic site, but I could find no stone
of that date. It is not likely that there was any very ancient city
there, as no tombs or evidences of a necropolis have been found. The
formidable character of the position in the times of the Venetians is
shown by the view from the road above the ravine which severs the
mountain from the lesser hill over the port—a ravine whose existence is
quite unsuspected from the port.
The city itself is without interest except as the first really Eastern
city one will see coming from the West, and as an example of Venetian
fortress-building. The view from the citadel is fine and breezy, the
islands of Ovo, Cerigotto, and Crete being visible, and a great expanse
of that sea which, on sunny days, is in itself so beautiful from its
color. You look down on the houses, white as continual whitewashing will
make them, whose flat, terraced roofs serve in the hot and rainless
summer as sleeping-places for the whole family. How many nights I have
dragged my mattress from the bedroom out on this delightful substitute
and let the night breeze fan me to sleep!