Aphrodite here, as she came, foam-born and sea-borne, to found her
religion in the Greek worlds.[7] The first who are traditionally
reported to have colonized the island are the Phœnicians; but it is
impossible to ignore the previous coming of the Pelasgi, who have left a
well-marked ruin of the earliest type. To see the traces of the antique
settlements, one had better go to Port San Nicolo if provided as we
were; but secure an intelligent guide previously from Cerigo, as the
country people, as in other islands, while pretending to know all about
the antiquities, really know absolutely nothing. They know the tombs
because they serve as sheep-folds, and they have sometimes a curious
knowledge of the relative antiquity of the ruins; but they have heard
modern myths, and apply them with the least possible regard to
archæological facts, and invariably assure you that they know
everything.
So it happened that I was again, for want of choice, out on a search
with an ignorant guide. There had been some excavations commenced on the
site of what is now known as Palaiopolis (the old city), which evidently
was Phœnician, and was occupied down to Roman times. There were some
columns of Roman or Byzantine work unearthed, and from mere curiosity to
know _his_ notions, I asked a shepherd boy watching his sheep near by
what they were. “This,” he said, “was the palace of the king.” “Of what
king?” I asked. “Don’t you know?” he said, opening his eyes at me as if
this were the very _a b c_ of history. “Why, the palace of Menelaus.”
There is an old tradition that it was the place of residence of Menelaus
and Helen, and all the objects to be seen are attributed to them. The
Phœnician city is close to the sea; the Pelasgic site is several miles
back, and looms up on the highest mountains in the vicinity. In a
previous visit I had seen but had not explored it; but now I determined
to see the whole extent of it. My guide, who brought a donkey for my
occasional changes of mode of locomotion, pretended to lead me to the
ancient citadel; but when we reached the hill on which I knew it to be
better than he, he began to inquire about it of the women at work in the
fields; thereupon I, as usual, took the lead. Guided by the nature of
the ground, I found all that remained of the ancient citadel wall—a
fragment kept up by the chance of its being the limit of a field, and so
kept in repair, but in such a state of dilapidation that but for the
evidences of the continuity I would not have been sure that it was a
wall. I followed the main wall a mile or more along the edge of the
precipitous slope, and saw that it bore testimony to the importance of
the ancient city, for it was wide in its compass and massive, with
towers, gates, and flanking towers of the true Pelasgic style, but in
most places only two or three stones high. I got an imposing view of the
hill from below the lowest trace of wall, showing its position with
reference to the valley below, through which ran once a river of some
volume, if we may judge by the alluvial plains at its mouth, but which
at the time of my visit in midsummer, was dry as desert dust. A strip of
white pebbles shows where it still runs in winter-time. On the hills
close to the sea-side, and on both sides of the mouth of this ancient
river, used to lie the old Phœnician, Greek, and Roman city, whatever it
was originally called,—probably Cythera, like the island. As I have
said, it is now called Palaiopolis. The temple of Aphrodite, the people
pretend, was on the hill near the citadel where now is an insignificant
chapel, but with no evidence of antiquity except that there are in the
construction of the chapel some large stones which are evidently of
Hellenic cutting; but as the Greeks had the habit in all ages of keeping
up the temples of their gods, there is nothing to show that it was a
temple of Aphrodite rather than a Pelasgic god, which Aphrodite-Astarte
was not, and her temple must have been near the sea.
The site of Palaiopolis is marked by a quantity of tombs, most, if not
all, of Hellenic date. There are now no temple remains there; but Spon,
who visited the spot two hundred years ago, says that he saw the statue
of Aphrodite, which was very ugly and of coarse brown stone, which
reminds us of the statues of Cyprus. The rock is a soft conglomerate
which the sea cuts away very rapidly, and apparently there has been a
subsidence of the soil, since they say that when the sea is tranquil
there may be seen beneath the water, some distance out from the actual
shore, the ruins of a city. This may have been the port of
Cythera—scarcely a fortified city, as the site must have been too low.
Right and left of the rivulet which now represents the ancient river are
bluffs of conglomerate, that on the left honeycombed by tombs, some of
which have fallen with the rock, but of which others are still visible,
opened to the elements but showing within the rock-cut graves. Many
valuable articles of gold work have been found in past times, but the
treasure seems to have been exhausted. These two bluffs are the lineal
representatives and successors by right of position of what Aphrodite
must have seen as she came ashore on the foam, otherwise they have no
interest.
The two low hills which were included in the city of Cythera are covered
with fragments of building and traces of tombs, but, so far as I could
find, no wall. This is all that is left of Aphrodite, Helen, and
Menelaus in their land of fabled existence. The coming ashore of
Aphrodite undoubtedly indicates, like that of Europa at Gortyna in
Crete, the landing of a colony from Phœnicia, bearing the worship of
Astarte, who became later assimilated to Aphrodite. Of the presence here
of Helen and Menelaus there is no evidence in any trustworthy tradition.
The subjection of Cythera to Sparta is of historic date. My conclusion
as to the island is that in Homeric times it was Phœnician in its
relations as Melos was at one time, as well as Santorin and other
eastern islands, and that, like Corfu, it did not come into the Greek
system.
Opposite Cerigo, and with its snowy peaks glistening under the noonday
sun, lies Crete. The strangest omission of the Odyssey would have been
that of the island of Minos from its reminiscences, if the author had
known of it; but, as we have seen in his interviews with Athene, Ulysses
did not fail to include it in his geography though he had apparently
never visited it, and like Egypt and Lotophagitis it was known by
report. Of Egypt we had heard mention through the visit of Helen and
Menelaus. Of the country where subsequently was established the Great
Greek-African colony, Cyrene, we have no hint, yet the inhabitants of
the Peloponnesus knew of Libya earlier than the Dorian invasion—as
early, in fact, as 1500 B. C., as we know by the Karnac inscriptions.
The story of Eumæus shows knowledge of the ways of that race of
merchants and pirates, the Phœnicians, but nothing of their country.
The questions of the personality and date of Homer and of the reality of
the Trojan war are utterly diverse, and not, in fact, interdependent. As
to the latter we have thus far no direct evidence whatever, beyond
poetic traditions in which the supernatural is so strongly and
inextricably involved with the pretense or actuality of history that no
inferences can be drawn from any part of the narrative, though from its
_ensemble_ we are assured that in its ancient form it was accepted as
history by the entire Greek world as early as we know anything of that
world with historical certainty. But that is no criterion. Even at this
day myths grow and crystallize in the Oriental mind with a rapidity
which leaves the ancients without any advantage. The universal belief
from the first to the eighth century B. C. that the Iliad was history
need not weigh with us. Scientific investigators differ so widely that
we have no general inference to draw from their arguments. The most
recent excavations leave a grave doubt whether any of the ruins
excavated in the Troad can by any reasoning be admitted to be as old as
the Iliad, and the remains on Hissarlik hill which Schliemann _more suo_
has identified with Homer’s Troy are clearly the remains of the city of
Crœsus, being of brick, which does not appear in the classic traditions
or structures until his time, and we know by authentic history that he
did build a city on this hill. Professor Jebb, one of the most acute of
the literary investigators of the question, is convinced that the
topography of the Iliad is eclectic, some of its indications suiting
only Hissarlik and others only Bunarbashi; Max Müller maintains that the
whole story is a solar myth; while Nicolaïdes, a patient and thorough
Greek student of the Iliad, believes that he can follow the whole
strategy of the poem on the plain of Troy. But the main questions
involved in the Odyssey are of a different character and determined by
different criteria. I offer my suggestions as to some of them with the
deference due my masters in archæology.
[Illustration: LANDING-PLACE OF THE CYPRIAN APHRODITE OR ASTARTE.]
The general knowledge shown in the Odyssey divides itself into kinds:
that which was part of the general geography of the day, and this
included the coasts shown on our route map; and that of which the poet
had personal cognizance, which is limited to Corfu, Ithaca, Nericus, and
possibly Pylos; and this exclusiveness suggests to us that Homer, a
stranger in the West, had come, as I did, simply to follow and study the
traces of Ulysses’ wanderings, and that he did so in obedience to a
clearly preserved tradition as to his great exemplar, which was almost
impossible without the still remembered personal presence. What he
describes is admirably told, even to the “sandy shore” of Pylos, in a
world whose sandy shores are rare; but Homer does not seem to have any
mental vision of the lands and islands of which Ulysses only speaks in
his story—the lands of the Cimmerians, of the Læstrygonians, the
Cyclops, the Lotophagi, the homes of Circe and Calypso, are only heard
of. Cythera, close by, is not named, and Crete and Egypt are only named.
This kind of fulfillment, as well as this kind of omission, gives a tone
of personality to the poem, as the composition of one person, and that
one familiar with the scene of its major events, and it strengthens my
belief in the hypothesis of the presence of Homer in Ithaca, and of the
early date of the Odyssey, and by a certain implication argues for a
logical relation between the hero and the Trojan war, implying the
actuality of both.
THE SO-CALLED VENUS OF MELOS.
In the year 1820, before the struggle between the Hellenic population of
the Turkish empire and the Porte had begun, and when all that attracted
the notice of the civilized world to modern Greece was the little
preserved to us of her art,—occasionally and fragmentarily found in the
ruins of her great communities,—a peasant of Melos whose name was
Theodore Kondros Botoni, working in his field to enlarge it by clearing
away the _débris_ of the walls and structures of ancient Melos (which
had been built on a steep hill-side, on a series of terraces, more or
less natural or artificial, so that the ruins of one terrace fell down
upon and encumbered that below it), saw, to his great bewilderment, the
heap of rubbish which he was digging away at the bottom suddenly crumble
down and display the upper part of an antique statue. The peasant
hastened to the French consul to inform him of the discovery, and the
latter negotiated the purchase of it for five hundred piastres and a
complete dress of the fashion of the country. This was the statue known
as the Venus of Melos.
So far, there are no variations of the history, but one account says
that the first or upper part was found several days before the lower,
and the other, that they were found together; but the inexactitude of
the documentary contemporary evidence is clear from the examination of
the ground to-day, and from the contradictions contained in it. Dumont
d’Urville, the commander of the _Chevrette_, a French man-of-war which
visited Melos after the statue was found, alluding to the discovery of
the theatre, says: “All the ground is covered with drums of columns and
fragments of statues. One finds here and there great pieces of wall of a
very solid construction, and many important tombs have been opened
through the curiosity of strangers, and the cupidity of the
inhabitants.” But neither the wall nor the tombs, nor any drum of column
or fragment of statue (if any was found), could have had anything to do
with the theatre. The theatre is very late work, and was never nearly
finished, so could have possessed neither columns nor statues. This
shows that the idea the commandant carried away was confused and
untrustworthy as to details. He goes on to say: “Three weeks before our
arrival at Melos, a Greek peasant, digging in his field inclosed in this
circuit, struck some pieces of cut stone. As these stones, employed by
the inhabitants, have a certain value, this induced him to dig farther,
and he thus happened to uncover a species of niche, in which he found a
marble statue, _two Hermes_, and some other marble fragments. The statue
_was in two pieces, joined by two strong iron clamps_. The Greek,
fearing to lose the fruit of his labor, had carried the upper part to a
stable. The other was still in the niche.... It represented a naked
woman, _whose left hand raised an apple and the right held a
drapery_,[8] well composed and falling negligently from the hips to the
feet. For the rest, _they are both mutilated, and actually detached from
the body_.”
I note by italics the points which are to be contrasted with other
evidence.
M. Dauriac, captain of the frigate _La Bonté_, writes from Melos, date
11th of April, 1820: “There has been found, three days ago, by a peasant
who was digging in his field, a marble statue of _Venus receiving the
apple from Paris_. It is larger than life; _they have at this moment
only the bust as far as the waist_. _I have been to see it._” Mr. Brest
again writes, 12th of April: “A peasant has found in a field which
belonged to him three marble statues, representing, one Venus holding
the apple of discord in one hand, the other represents _the god Hermes,
and the third a young child_.” The correspondence shows that Mr. Brest
was entirely ignorant of everything connected with archæology or art. He
probably heard one of the officers say that one of the objects was a
Hermes, and he changes it into a statue of the god Hermes, but we see
that there was only one Hermes. November 26th, Brest again writes: “His
Excellency has left me orders to make researches in order to find the
arms and other _débris_ of the statue, but to do that it is necessary to
obtain a _bouyourouldon_ which will permit us to make excavations at our
own expense, _because in the same niche where it was found there is
reason to hope that we might find other objects_.”
The contradictions are so palpable that it is clear that these documents
are only of value as secondary archæological evidence. No one seems to
have made an observation with exactitude.
We have the whole statue found, in one, bound together by iron clamps;
in another, only half had yet been found; in one, the statue is found
holding the apple of discord in one hand; in another, receiving it from
Paris; and in another still, we are told that search has been ordered
for the arms, etc.
In 1865 I visited Melos, and having made the acquaintance of Mr. Brest,
son and successor of the French consul who secured the statue for the
Louvre, he politely offered to guide me through the ruins of the ancient
city. Among other things, we visited the locality where the statue was
found, and he showed me the niche still standing as when the discovery
was made.
It was a slightly built work, of the height, _as nearly as I can
remember_, of ten or at most twelve feet, and about five wide. It formed
a part of an old boundary-wall of the field on which it opened, and
above it the ground was level with the crown of the arch of the niche.
It had no suite or connection with any other structure, except the
boundary-wall in which it was, and there were no evidences of ruin or of
foundation of antique buildings about it. The opening had been closed
with rubbish, not with masonry, as was evident from the face of the side
walls, which were of smooth, if not carefully laid, masonry. If as I
believe not built for the concealment of the statue, it had been made
for some unimportant purpose; perhaps the protection from the weather of
the poor Hermes which is said to have been found with it. C. Doupault,
architect, has published a _brochure_ with what he supposed important
evidence on the question, in which, from data given him by old Brest
twenty-seven years after the discovery, he reconstructs the apse of a
seventh-century church, in which he places the statue. The whole study
has no value whatever, as the sketch does not correspond with the ruins
which I saw, and looking back to the correspondence quoted, it is clear
that Brest, knowing nothing of archæology or art, caught at certain
suggestions of the officers who saw the statue, and affirmed what they
surmised. As to the fragments found, to which constant reference is
made, there is not the slightest evidence that they were found in any
connection with the statue, as none of the early evidence indicates that
they were known when the statue was first taken under notice—on the
contrary, it is said explicitly by Brest that he had orders to make
researches to find the arms and other portions of the statue; indicating
clearly that the arms alluded to had not been found with the statue, and
that the connection between them and it was an after-thought, either of
the peasant, who wished to increase the value of the statue by
connecting with it fragments which he had found in other parts, or of
the archæologists, who, seeking to restore the statue to what they
judged to be its true action, connected the arm found, no one knows
where, except at Melos, with the statue. It is undeniable that when the
letters before quoted were written, there had been only conjecture as to
the arms. Dauriac, writing on the 11th of April, says that they have
only found the bust. Brest, November 26th, says that there is reason to
hope that they might find other objects _in the same niche_—proof that
it had not even then been cleared out. In fact, all we have of
documentary evidence goes for nothing beyond showing that the statue was
found at a certain place on a certain date; and if the two halves of the
statue did not fit exactly we could not be certain that they were found
at the same time and place. The hypothesis of the apple of discord is
based on a conjecture of some of the officers, and has no further
confirmation than that an arm and hand, with what may be an apple or a
cup, seem to have been found somewhere in the island about the same
time; but they evidently are not of the statue, nor even of the same
epoch.
Over or somewhere near the niche an inscription was said to have been
found which records the dedication of an exedra by a gymnasiarch to
Hercules and Hermes. The date of this inscription, according to
conjecture based on the inscription itself, is about a century before
Christ, _i. e._, long after any possibility of such a work being
produced had gone by.
These are all the positive data we have to work on. They suffice,
however, for about twenty monographs in French, German, and English; and
a late German work, by Dr. Goeler von Ravensburg, exhausts all the
possible and impossible conjectures to establish its character in
accordance with the original attribution of a Venus receiving the apple.
In the year 1880, I made another visit to Melos, on commission from “The
Century” magazine, to photograph whatever might remain which had any
connection with the statue; but found the niche gone, and no trace of
foundations of any kind, or walls, city or other, very near the spot
which was again pointed out to me as that where the Venus was found.
It would seem that in the energetic excavation that followed the last
great archæological revival, everything that was suspected to conceal
works of art had been dug away.
I found an old man, a pilot well known in our navy, Kypriotis, who had
seen the statue when it was brought out, being a boy of about fourteen.
At that time Mr. Brest was a child, and retained only slight personal
recollection of the event; but it was evident that he, like his father
in 1847, had mingled in his impressions conjecture of others and his
own, with facts perverted, and details conceived without sufficient
basis. Nothing new was to be got.
The old Melos is utterly deserted, and the modern town is built on a
pinnacle above it, which does not seem ever to have been included in the
range of the city. The port is changed from the ancient site, where now
a breakwater would be needed, as the land seems to have sunk greatly,
and the old basin of the port is silted up to a point at the bottom of
the bay, where a comparatively modern village has grown up, called
Castro.
The magnificent harbor used to make of the island an important station
before telegraphs were established, and might again, if the telegraph
were laid to it; but now a man-of-war rarely calls, except to take a
pilot for the Archipelago, and a Greek steamer stops once in a
fortnight. But in heavy weather, any ship caught near runs for Melos.
This keeps the place alive, but it has dwindled to a mere island
village, where the vast labyrinths of tombs which perforate the hills
show more human industry than the dwellings of the living. Earthquakes
and malaria have desolated and almost depopulated it.
We had left Cerigo for Crete, and intended to take Melos on our return
to Peiræus, but when within an hour of land we were caught by a terrific
south-wester, the most to be dreaded of all the winds of the Ægean, and
in spite of all we could do we were obliged to give up and run before
the gale where it would send us. It was late in the evening when its
fury came down on us, and taking in all sail except a small storm-sail
at the foot of the mast to keep from coming up into the wind, we ran
before it into the black night. I knew that there were no rocks ahead
before Melos, and if we only made the island by daylight, we could
easily fetch the port; but if not, and the yacht ran at night into the
little archipelago of which Melos is part, it would be next to
impossible to choose where our bones should be laid, for there are no
lights, and many islands and rocks. The sea was, for our little
twelve-ton craft, something fearful, and we thumped and hammered till
the little thing quivered, when a wave struck her, almost as if we had
come to the rocks. Sleep was out of the question—to sit or stand,
equally so, and we kept to our berths, as the only way to avoid being
pitched about like blocks. How long that night was! and in the middle of
it I attempted to get up, and when I put my foot on the cabin-floor,
found myself stepping into the water. We had sprung a leak with the
straining.
But day came and cheerfulness. We ran in between the huge cliffs which
form the portal of Melos harbor, with the wild surges beating against
them till the spray flew high enough to have buried a larger craft than
ours. Tired, aching, and hungry, for nothing could we get to eat till we
arrived in port, we cast anchor in the welcome harbor late in the
afternoon. Even then, the sea ran so high that we could not land until
the next day.
Castro is a pile of white houses, rising in terraces from the shore; the
streets mostly stairways, and the houses all whitewashed till they blind
one in that rarely broken sunlight.
[Illustration: THE SO-CALLED VENUS OF MELOS. (DRAWN BY BIRCH FROM A
PHOTOGRAPH.)]
I landed, and, as usual, went to the little café, where the magnates of
the village were discussing the arrival and the storm—the worst, they
said, for many years. I called, of course, on Brest, who, to my
surprise, remembered me after eighteen years; and we made an appointment
to revisit together the sites I knew, and to see those I had not known
before,—important excavations having been made since my former visit.
We went first to the new port, where some admirable statues, since taken
to Athens, had been recently found. The owner of the little field by the
water, which occupies the site of the inner port, having occasion to
sink a well, struck the ruins of a temple of Neptune, and three statues
were found, one of Neptune, a female goddess draped, but lacking the
head, and a mounted warrior, apparently Perseus.