MARSEILLES.
The three islands Phoenice, Phila, Iturium--Marseilles first a Phoenician
colony--The tariff of fees exacted by the priests of Baal--The arrival
of the Ionians--The legend of Protis and Gyptis--Second colony of
Ionians--The voyages of Pytheas and Euthymenes--Capture of Marseilles
by Trebonius--Position of the Greek city--The Acropolis--Greek
inscriptions--The lady who never "jawed" her husband--The tomb of the
sailor-boy--Hôtel des Négociants--Ménu--Entry of the President of
the Republic--Entry of Francis I.--The church of S. Vincent--The
Cathedral--Notre Dame de la Garde--The abbey of S. Victor--Catacombs--The
fable of S. Lazarus.
The traveller approaching Marseilles from the sea observes three islets
of bare limestone rock that are apparently a prolongation of that rocky
promontory now crowned by the fortress of S. Nicolas, and that act as a
natural breakwater against wave and storm from the S.E. They go by the
names of Pomègue, Ratonneau, and Château d'If. But the classic geographers
called the group the Little Stoechades, and named these islets Phoenice,
Phila, and Iturium; and these three appellations give us in a compact form
the story of ancient Marseilles, founded by the Phoenicians, refounded by
the Greeks, and then made a dependency under the Roman empire.
That Marseilles was a Phoenician colony before the Phoceans settled there
is shown by the monuments that have been exhumed from the foundations of
the modern houses, and are now collected in the museum. There are some
curious images of Melkarth and Melita, the Hercules and Venus of these
Asiatic traders, known also to us through the Bible as Baal and Ashtaroth.
But most curious of all is a long Phoenician table of charges made by the
priests of Baal for the various sacrifices and oblations offered by the
people. This tariff of charges was found in 1845. It consists of twenty-one
lines, and begins:--
"The Temple of Baal.--This is the regulation relative to the dues legally
established by Italis-Baal, the suffete, son of Bod-tanith, son of
Bod-Milcarth, and by Italis-Baal.
"For an entire ox, the ordinary sacrifice, the priests are to receive ten
shekels. At the sacrifice, in addition, three hundred mishekels of flesh.
"Item. For the ordinary sacrifice, of cereals and flour of wheat, also the
hide, the entrails, and the feet of the victim. All the rest of the flesh
goes to the master of the sacrifice."
So it continues to regulate the fees for a calf, a ram, a bird; also for
cakes, and for offerings made by lepers and by common people. The table of
fees is extremely curious and is, I believe, unique.
The Phoenician colony at Marseilles was probably in decline when, in B.C.
599, a Greek fleet left the port of Phocæa, one of the twelve Ionian cities
of Asia Minor, seeking new homes in the West. The colony was under the
command of an adventurer named Protis. Attracted by the Bay of Marseilles,
and the basin surrounded by hills that lay in its lap, the Greek colony
disembarked.
And now for a legend.
The first measure taken by the new arrivals was to send a deputation to the
King of the Segobrigæ, a Keltic race occupying what is now called Provence.
The king was at Arles, which was his capital; his name was Nannos. By a
happy coincidence the embassy arrived on the day upon which Nannos had
assembled the warriors of his tribe, for his daughter, Gyptis, to choose a
husband among them.
The arrival of the young Greek, Protis, in the midst of this banquet was a
veritable _coup-de-théâtre_; he took his place at the board. His natural
grace, his easy and polished manners, the nobleness and elegance of his
person and features, contrasted strangely with the savagery and coarseness
of the Gaulish warriors.
Free to choose whom she would, Gyptis rose from the table, filled a cup,
and made the circuit of the board. Every eye was fixed on her; he was to be
her choice to whom she offered the bowl. She did not hesitate for a moment,
she went to the Greek stranger and extended it to him. Protis put the
goblet to his lips, and the alliance was concluded.
The example of Gyptis was followed by some of her maidens. The Gauls agreed
to receive the Greeks, and suffer them to colonise the basin of Marseilles.
But the chiefs who had been set aside by the fair Gyptis bore a grudge
against the new-comers. The growing prosperity and rapid development of
the new settlement aroused their jealousy, which was probably augmented by
the defection of some of their wives and daughters. Profiting by the Feast
of Flora in May, they presented themselves at the gates of Marseilles in
attendance on some waggons laden with green boughs, under which were their
arms concealed. But love, that had founded the Ionian colony, was destined
to save it. A young Gaulish woman revealed the plot to her Hellenic lover,
and the Greeks laid their hands on the arms that were to have been employed
against them, turned them against the intrusive Gauls, and massacred them
to a man.
But having thus saved themselves from one danger they felt that they had
incurred another. They had provoked the deadly animosity of the whole tribe
of the Segobrigæ. They therefore appealed to their countrymen in Ionia to
come to their aid. The appeal met with a ready response, a second fleet of
colonists arrived. Marseilles was encompassed with walls on the land side,
and thus made secure against the assaults of undisciplined barbarians.
Such is the graceful legend of the origin of Marseilles. It is only so far
historical that it gives us in poetic and romantic form the main facts,
that the first colony settled at Marseilles without opposition, that after
a while it got embroiled with the Gaulish tribes of the neighbourhood, and
that a second Ionian colony came to strengthen the first. But this second
colony arrived B.C. 542, fifty-seven years after the first, and was due to
the taking of Phocæa by the Medes and Persians.
As a Greek mercantile colony Marseilles flourished, and sent forth other
colonies, that formed settlements along the Ligurian coast, as a Literal
crown from Ampurias and Rhodé in Catalonia to the confines of Etruria.
Free, rich, protected by the Roman legions, these Greek settlements
cultivated the arts and sciences with ardour, as well as carrying on the
trade of the Mediterranean.
In the year B.C. 350 two of her most illustrious citizens, Pytheas and
Euthymenes, explored the northern and southern Atlantic. Pytheas was
charged to make a voyage of discovery towards the north. He coasted Spain,
Portugal, Aquitania, Brittany, discovered Great Britain, coasted it, and
reached Thule, which some have supposed to be Iceland, but others the
Orkney Isles. In a second voyage he penetrated the Baltic by the Cattegat
and Sound, and reached the mouths of the Dwina or the Vistula. On his
return he composed two works, records of his discoveries, of which precious
fragments have been preserved by Pliny and Strabo. Thanks to his labours,
Marseilles was the first town whose latitude was determined with some
precision.
About the same time, Euthymenes was commissioned to make explorations in
the opposite direction. He sailed south-west, traced the western coast of
Africa, and penetrated the mouths of the Senegal, whence he brought back
gold dust.
Marseilles was taken, B.C. 49, by Trebonius, the lieutenant of Julius
Cæsar. Two naval battles ruined her fleet; and, but for the clemency
of Cæsar, the doom of the city would have been sealed. She had
enthusiastically taken the part of Pompey, and had resisted Cæsar with
unusual determination. But he appreciated the importance of the colony and
the mercantile energy of her inhabitants, and he did not lay his hand in
retribution too severely upon her.
[Illustration: Ancient Massilia.]
The old Greek city of Massilia occupied the promontory which is still old
Marseilles, clustered on the Butte St. Laurent and Butte des Moulins, where
was the Acropolis, with the temples of Apollo and Diana, and the Butte des
Cannes. The harbour was the natural fiord, which is now the Vieux port;
and the modern splendid street Canebière runs along the site of the old
shipbuilding-docks of the Greeks. Here was found a few years ago an ancient
galley with keel and ribs of cedar, and coins in her of the date of Julius
Cæsar. She is now in the museum. To the south of the old port was a marsh;
the rectangular canal and the Bassin du Carénage mark the position of this
marsh, now built over--a marsh that reached to the base of the limestone
hills that rise to the peak now occupied by Notre Dame de la Garde.
The old Greek walls of Massilia ran in a sweep along where is now the
Boulevard des Dames, Rue d'Aix, and reached the Vieux port at the Bourse.
Considering the importance of the Greek city, its wealth and splendour,
it is surprising to find nowhere in Marseilles any ruins of its ancient
founders. But Marseilles has traversed every historic period, in the midst
of storm; and after a voyage of three thousand years through history, she
has been plundered of every fragment of her ancient treasures. In Rome
the Colosseum and the tomb of Augustus were robbed of their materials for
the construction of houses; and in Marseilles every stone of her ancient
temples and acropolis have been appropriated for baser purposes. She has
passed through twenty fires, and as many sieges. Taken, sacked, decimated,
she has been rebuilt over and over again, always hurriedly, consequently
always with material taken where nearest at hand, without respect for her
monuments and historic recollections. The disturbed soil of Marseilles
is not even a heap of ruins, for every stone found in the soil has been
utilised as material for construction. Nevertheless some traces of the
Greek founders remain in the beautiful coins of the colony, and in
inscriptions that have been picked out of the walls or foundations of
mediæval houses. The coins, stamped with classic beauty, are well-known to
numismatists.
We have space to notice only one or two inscriptions. One is the sign of
Athenades, son of Dioscorides, professor of Latin grammar, probably set
up two thousand years ago over his door; another is a notice of a young
lad, Cleudemos, son of Dionysius, having gained a prize. A curious Greek
inscription is found at Carpentras, a colony from Marseilles, that
illustrates the manner in which foreign religions got mixed up with those
that were proper to the Greeks.
"Blessed be Thebe, daughter of Thelhui, laden with oblations for the God
Osiris--she never jawed her husband--she was blameless in the eyes of
Osiris, and receives his benediction."
Truly such a wife deserved that her conduct towards her husband should be
commemorated through ages upon ages, and we may thank good fortune that it
has preserved to us the name of this incomparable lady.
As I am on the subject of Greek inscriptions, I may quote the following
touching one, that has been found built into the wall of a house at Aix.
"On the banks, beaten by the waves, a youth appeals to thee, voyager! I,
beloved by God, am no more subject to the domination of Death. I passed my
life sailing on the sea, myself a sailor, like to the youthful gods, the
Amyclæans, saviours of sailors, free from the yoke of matrimony. Here in
my tomb, which I owe to the piety of my masters, I rest sheltered from all
maladies, free from toil, from cares, from pains; whereas in life, all
these woes fall on our gross envelopes of matter. The dead, on the other
hand, are divided into two classes, of which one returns to the earth,
whereas the other rises to join the dance with the celestial choirs; and it
is to this latter class that I belong, having had the good fortune to range
myself under the banners of the Divinity."
Clearly this was the tomb of a young sailor-boy, a native of Aix, who had
served in a merchant vessel of Marseilles. There is something graceful and
pathetic in the monument.
But enough of the past. Now for the present, and in considering the present
let us attend to that which feeds and builds up that gross envelope of
matter the young Greek sailor had laid aside.
At Marseilles I put up at the Hôtel des Négociants, in the Cours Belzunce.
Let me observe that I do not see the fun of going to hotels of the first
class. Not only is one's expense doubled, but one is thrown among English
and American travellers, and sees nothing whatever of the people in whose
country one is travelling. Now, here in this commercial inn, I had for
dinner the following dishes, which I am quite sure I should not have had in
the Grand Hôtel de Noailles, where a dinner is six francs, whereas at my
inn I paid just half. I must also observe that the dinners were abundant
and excellent, but among the dishes were some that were peculiar to the
Provençal cuisine, for instance:--
Bread slices sopped in saffron, with fish, garnished with small crabs, to
be chewed up, shell and all.
Artichokes, raw, with oil and vinegar.
Oranges with pepper and salt.
On the table were glass jugs with tar-water, and I observed that over half
those present drank their wine diluted with this tar-water.
One day in summer I was at table-d'hôte in France when I saw a very fine
melon on the table. Said I, in my heart of hearts, "I'll have some of you
by-and-by!" But, to my consternation, the melon was taken round with stewed
conger eel, and eaten with salt and pepper. I could not summon up courage
to try the mixture, and the whole melon was consumed before the next course
came on.
I was at Marseilles when M. Carnot, the President of the Republic visited
it, April 16th. Great efforts were made to give him a splendid reception.
Venetian masts were set up, strings of fairy lamps were suspended between
them, and tricolours were hung as banners to the masts, or grouped together
in trophies. But alas! No sooner were all preparations made, than a furious
gale broke over the coast, the venetian masts swayed in the wind and were
upset or thrown out of the perpendicular, the little lamps jingled against
each other and were broken, such as were not shivered were filled with
rain, the banners were lashed with the broken wires and torn to shreds, and
when M. Carnot arrived, in a pouring rain, it was amidst a very wreckage of
festival preparations, and he was received by a crowd of umbrellas. Under
such circumstances enthusiasm was damped and ejaculations of welcome
were muffled. The President occupied an open landau, and drove along the
boulevards without umbrella or waterproof, bowing to right and left in a
slashing rain. A deputation of flower women presented him with a sodden
bouquet, by the hand of a dripping little girl in white that clung to her
as a bathing gown. The President insisted on the maid being lifted to him
into the carriage, where he hugged and kissed her, whilst the moisture ran
out of her garments like a squeezed sponge, and this demonstration provoked
some damp cheers.
I bought Henri Rochefort's paper next day, to see what his correspondent
had to say about the visit. Some passages from it are too racy not to be
quoted.
"Il faisait un temps à ne pas mettre un ministre dehors, lorsque le train
présidentiel est arrivé en gare, et le défilé à la détrempe était pitieux
à voir dans _le gargouillement et la transsudation de ce dégorgement
cataractal_. Sadi Carnot avait donné l'ordre de laisser son landau
découvert, afin de recevoir les ovations enthousiastes des parapluies.
"Bref, la Présidence est arrivée à la préfecture _trempée comme une soupe à
l'oignon et fortement dessalée_."
Verily there is no tongue like the French for saying nasty things in a
nasty way.
I do not know whether it is fair for one to pass an opinion on a man from
a sight of his face overrun with rain-water, and with his nose acting like
a shoot from a roof; but certainly the impression produced on me by M.
Sadi Carnot was that his features were wooden, and that he was but a very
ordinary man--intellectually. I pass this opinion with hesitation. When
dried possibly the sparks of genius may be discovered and may flare up;
they were all but extinguished in the downpour when I saw him.
That cheerful king, Réné of Anjou and Provence, paid a visit to Marseilles
in 1437, and made his royal entry on Sunday, December 15th. He was
delighted with the reception accorded him, and in a gush of kindly feeling
promised to make Marseilles his headquarters. But he forgot his promise, or
circumstances were against his keeping it. He never revisited Marseilles.
On January 22, 1516, Francis I. entered the town and was received by
children carrying banners and garlands, and troupes of young girls in
white, then followed archers, arquebusiers, the consuls, and the clergy
bearing the relics of S. Lazarus and S. Victor. A theatre was erected at
every street corner, on which were presented to his sight incidents from
the life of S. Louis. The procession ended with a battle of oranges and
lemons, in which the king gave and received a good many blows on the head
with the golden fruit.
At the head of the Allées des Capucins, a fine street planted with trees
and with a handsome fountain in the place where the Allées de Meilhan
unites with it, is a really fine modern Gothic church with twin west spires
of open tracery. They are perhaps too thin, a usual fault with modern work,
but otherwise the church is very good and stately. It is as fine within
as without, but sorely disfigured by the coloured glass, which is garish.
French painted glass is very bad. It is precisely the sort of stuff that
was turned out by English glass-painters about thirty years ago, the
colours crude and distressing to the eye--windows that our more cultured
taste cannot now endure. But the French artists have not advanced, the
windows put in to-day are as detestable as those they put in at the
beginning of the revival. Unfortunately, every cathedral is crowded through
the length and breadth of France with this abominable stuff, that is only
tolerable in a modern tasteless church, vulgar in its architecture and
insipid in its sculpture, but is painfully out of place in a venerable
minster.
The city of Marseilles has been lucky in securing a good architect for
the Church of S. Vincent de Paul, but in another architectural venture
Marseilles has been unfortunate. She was resolved to have a cathedral,
and she gave the designing of it to a man void of taste, who has built a
hideous erection on the quay in what he is pleased to call Byzantine style.
I am quite sure any Byzantine architect would cheerfully have jumped into
the Bosphorus rather than disfigure a city with such a structure as Notre
Dame.
The Germans have a saying that the higher a monkey climbs the more he
exposes his monkeyishness; and unfortunately this architect has been
allowed to climb very high. He was given the peak of Notre Dame de la
Garde, that towers over Marseilles, on which to erect a church. The site is
exceptionally good, one on which a man of ordinary genius would have done
something, could hardly have failed to have done something, that would have
been picturesque. But such is the perversity of this unfortunate man's
talent that he has erected a structure on the limestone crag, of almost
miraculous hideousness. It is also in so-called Byzantine architecture.
There is a dish-cover which serves as a dome, and a tower which would be
comical if it were not irritating. It resembles the handle of a renaissance
knife or fork stuck into a sheath and standing upright with a figure at
top. We have made a blunder at South Kensington in setting side by side
a depressed dome--the Albert Hall, and the acute pinnacle of the Albert
Memorial; but a road runs between them, and it is possible to shut one eye
and see one of these two structures apart from the other. But in Notre Dame
de la Garde the two are combined in one building, and tease the eye from
every point in Marseilles.
[Illustration: Abbey of S. Victor, Marseilles]
I ascended the steep crag to the church and found it full of a devout
congregation. The service was the "Salut," and the Host was being elevated
to the strains of "The Last Rose of Summer," on the hautbois stop of the
organ.
The view from the platform of the church, of Marseilles, the coast, the
blue Mediterranean and the islands is beautiful. Below Notre Dame de la
Garde, and above the old port, stands the ancient Abbey of S. Victor;
this abbey, of which the church alone remains, occupies a site where the
successive generations of Massaliots buried their dead from the earliest
pagan times, and here the first Christians formed catacombs of which
some traces remain under the church, subterranean passages bearing some
resemblance to those in the outskirts of Rome. The abbey itself was
founded by Cassian, in the fourth century, over these galleries containing
the bones of the first Christians, but his monastery was wrecked by the
Saracens four hundred years later, and it was rebuilt in the eleventh and
thirteenth centuries. What remains of this famous Abbey of S. Victor has
rather the appearance of a fortress than a church; the walls and ramparts
date from 1350, and were the work of William de Grimoard, who was prior of
the monastery before he was elevated to be pope under the title of Urban V.
The heavy, clumsy pile is a type of the architecture, at once military and
ecclesiastical, that characterises most of the churches along the coast.
Externally the venerable church is devoid of beauty. No attempt at
decoration has been made. It seems a shapeless pile of towers and
machicolated and battlemented curtains, falling into almost complete
ruin. But on passing through the single entrance, one finds oneself in a
well-proportioned church of nave and side aisles, a south chapel, and an
apse. Each buttress of the apse is battlemented outside and forms a turret,
and two strong towers are adapted internally to serve as a transept and a
porch.
Marseilles claims to have had as its first apostle Lazarus, whom Christ
raised from the dead. The foundation of this myth is that in the fourth
century it perhaps had a prelate of the name of Lazarus, though the
earliest known bishop was Orestius, A.D. 314. The fact is that the
existence of S. Lazarus at Marseilles was unsuspected till the eleventh
century. When Cassian founded his abbey he dedicated it to S. Victor. If he
had known anything about Lazarus, almost certainly he would have dedicated
the church to him; he erected moreover, two other chapels, one to SS. Peter
and Paul, the other to the Blessed Virgin and S. John the Baptist. When, in
1010, Benedict IX. enumerates the glories of the abbey restored after the
destruction by the Saracens, he does not make the most transient allusion
to S. Lazarus. However, Benedict IX., in 1040, does mention the passion of
this Lazarus raised from the dead by Christ, as one of the causes why the
abbey was venerable. His relics were said to have been transported thence
to Athens, to preserve them from the Saracens. We shall learn more about
this fable when we come to the Camargue.