A nation's influence is not dependent on its size. Its glory is not
measured by square miles. Greece is the smallest of all European
countries, being not larger than the State of Massachusetts. Yet, in
the light of what a few Athenians accomplished in the days of Phidias,
China's four hundred millions seem like shadows cast by moving clouds.
China compared to Athens! The enlightened world could better lose
the entire continent of Asia from its history than that little area.
Better fifty years of Athens than a cycle of Cathay. In the historic
catalogue of earth's great cities Athens stands alone. The debt which
civilization owes her is incalculable. For centuries Athens was the
school of Rome, and through Rome's conquests she became the teacher
of the world. If most of her art treasures had not been torn from
her, first to embellish Rome, and subsequently to enrich the various
museums of the world, Athens would now be visited by thousands instead
of hundreds. But even in her desolation Athens repays a pilgrimage.
Were absolutely nothing of her glory left, it would still remain a
privilege merely to stand amid the scenes where human intellect reached
a height which our material progress has not equaled. They err who say
that Greece is dead. She cannot die. The Language of Demosthenes is
still extant. Not only are its accents heard within the shadow of the
Parthenon; it is so interwoven with our own, that we unconsciously make
use of its old words, as one walks on a pavement of mosaic, unmindful
whence its pieces came. The Greek Religion lives in every statue of
the gods, in every classical allusion, in every myth which poets weave
into the garland of their song. What could a sculptor do without the
gods and heroes of old Greek mythology? Hellenic Architecture lives
in every reproduction of Doric column or Corinthian capital. The Art
of the Acropolis remains the standard for all time. The History of
Greece still gives to us as models of heroic patriotism, Thermopylæ and
Marathon. Even her ideas live,—the thoughts of Phidias in marble; of
Plato in philosophy; of Socrates in morals; of Euripides and Sophocles
in tragedy.
[Illustration: ATHENE.]
[Illustration: OLD AND NEW.]
[Illustration: VIEW OF MARS HILL FROM THE ACROPOLIS.]
What, then, if it be true that Greece has greatly changed in twenty
centuries? The influence of ancient Greece comes down the ages to us
like the light from a fixed star. The star itself may have gone out
in darkness years ago; but waves of brilliancy which left it previous
to its destruction are traveling toward us still, and fall in silvery
pulsations on our earth to-day. The best way to approach the shores
of Greece is over the classic Mediterranean and Ægean seas. Around
these oceans gather more thrilling and inspiring associations than
cluster about any others on the globe. Upon no equal area of the
earth's surface have so many mighty events happened or deeds been
enacted as around these inland seas. Every keel that now cleaves their
waters traverses the scene of some maritime struggle or adventure of
ancient times, or glides by shores forever hallowed to the scholar and
historian by the memories of the genius and grandeur that have passed
away. To sail on Grecian waters is to float through history. The seas
of other countries gleam with phosphorescence; hers sparkle with the
scintillations of a deathless fame. The very islands they caress have
been the cradles of fable, poesy and history. From each has sprung a
temple, a statue, a poem, or at least a myth, which still exists to
furnish joy and inspiration to the world.
[Illustration: THROUGH GRECIAN WATERS.]
It is with the liveliest anticipations of pleasure that one who is
inspired by these memories, arrives at the port of Athens, which
still retains its ancient title,—The Piræus. Its appearance is not
especially attractive, and yet I gazed upon it with profound emotion.
Still are its waves as blue as when Athenian vessels rode at anchor
here, or swept hence to the island of Salamis to aid in the destruction
of the Persian fleet and cause the mad flight of the terror-stricken
Xerxes. Around them History and Poetry have woven an immortal charm,
for in their limpid depths have been reflected the forms of almost
every famous Greek and Roman of antiquity.
But the Piræus, after all, is merely a doorway to glories beyond. Hence
one quickly leaves the steamer here, and hastens to the capital itself,
six miles away. A train of street-cars, drawn by a steam-engine, was
one of the first objects that confronted us in the streets of Athens,
but even this reminder of the nineteenth century could not dispel the
fascination of antiquity. It all swept back upon me. The locomotive
and the tram-cars faded from my view, and in their place I saw again my
school-room, with its rows of well-worn desks. Once more was felt the
summer breeze, as it stole through the open window, and lured me from
my lexicon to the fair fields. Xenophon's graphic prose and Homer's
matchless verse at last seemed real to me; for over the shop-doors were
the Greek characters that I had learned in boyhood, and on the corners
of the streets were words once uttered by the lips of Socrates.
[Illustration: THE DISTANT CITADEL.]
Even before the tourist reaches the outskirts of the city of Minerva,
he plainly sees rising in bold relief against the sky, what was in
ancient times the gem of Athens, the casket of the rarest architectural
jewels in the world,—the temple-crowned Acropolis. It is a memorable
moment when one first beholds it. No other citadel in the world has
embraced so much beauty and splendor within its walls. Not one has
witnessed such startling changes in the fortunes of its possessors. Its
history reaches back over a period of two thousand four hundred years.
Wave after wave of war and conquest have beaten against it. It has
been plundered by the Persian, the Spartan, the Macedonian, the Roman,
the Venetian and the Turk. Yet there is now a modern city at its base,
astonishingly new and fresh, compared with its historic background. The
buildings of to-day and those of two thousand years ago seem gazing
at each other with surprise. Yet there is no hostility between them.
Despite her tattered robes of royalty, Old Athens sits enthroned as
the acknowledged sovereign. New Athens kneels in reverence before
her. For the modern Greeks still cling with pride to the memories of
Pericles and Phidias, and sigh when they think of the glory that once
was theirs.
[Illustration: A WALK AROUND THE ACROPOLIS.]
A walk around the Acropolis reveals the fact that it is a natural mass
of rock, built up in places by substantial masonry. On three sides it
is practically perpendicular. Two thousand years ago its summit rose
toward heaven, like a magnificent altar consecrated to the gods. There,
elevated in the sight of all, and overlooking the adoring city on the
one side and the blue Ægean on the other, stood those incomparable
specimens of architectural beauty, grace and majesty, which have made
Athens immortal. Even now, although its temples are in ruins, the few
remaining columns of the Parthenon stand out in delicate relief against
the sky, like strings of an abandoned harp, which even the most skilful
hand can never wake again to melody.
[Illustration: THE PROPYLÆA.]
In making the ascent of this historic eminence by the only avenue of
approach, the traveler soon finds himself before the ruined entrance to
the Acropolis,—the Propylæa. This was originally a majestic gateway of
Pentelic marble, crowning a marble staircase seventy feet in breadth,
which led up from the city to the brow of the Acropolis. Its cost
was two and a half millions of dollars. It was considered, in its
prime, equal, if not superior, to the Parthenon. Nor is this strange,
for this portal was a veritable gallery of art. Along its steps were
arranged those chiseled forms that almost lived and breathed in their
transcendent beauty,—the masterpieces of Praxiteles and Phidias, the
mutilated fragments of which we now cherish as our most perfect models
of the beautiful.
[Illustration: THE SUMMIT OF THE ACROPOLIS.]
Yet there was nothing effeminate in this magnificence. Solidity and
splendor here went hand in hand. When the Propylæa was finished, under
Pericles, more than four centuries were still to pass before the birth
of Christ; yet so much strength was here combined with beauty, that, if
no human hands had striven to deface it, its splendid shafts would, no
doubt, still be perfect. The columns that remain appear to stand like
sentinels, guarding their illustrious past. It thrills one to reflect
that these identical pillars have cast their shadows on the forms of
Phidias, Pericles, Demosthenes, and indeed every Greek whose name has
been preserved in history.
[Illustration: THE PARTHENON, EXTERIOR AND INTERIOR.]
When I passed on beyond the Propylæa, and gained a broader view of the
Acropolis, I looked around me with astonishment. The whole plateau is
literally covered with headless statues, fallen columns and disjointed
capitals. Some of them bear unfinished sentences, as though these
blocks would speak, if they were properly restored. Their power of
speech, however, has been forever paralyzed by the destructive blows
they have received. This rugged rock is nevertheless an illustrated
volume of Greek history bound in stone. Its letters are disfigured,
its binding is defaced, but the old volume is still legible; and it
assures us that this tiny platform, scarcely one thousand feet in
length and four hundred in breadth, is richer in some respects than any
other portion of the globe, for in the golden crucible of memory, Art,
History and Poetry transmute each particle of its sacred dust into a
precious stone.
[Illustration: THE ACROPOLIS.]
It is, however, to the highest point of the plateau that the tourist's
gaze turns with keenest interest, for there stood what was formerly
the crown of the Acropolis, the architectural glory of the world,—The
Parthenon.
[Illustration: A PORTION OF THE FRIEZE.]
No photographic view can do it justice. Pictures invariably represent
its marble columns as dark and dingy, like the sooty architecture of
London. But such is not the case. The discolorations are so slight as
hardly to be blemishes. The general appearance of the edifice is one
of snowy whiteness, softly defined against the clear, blue sky, and I
have seen its columns in the glow of sunset gleam like shafts of gold.
But on approaching it more closely, one sees that nothing can conceal
the ravages of time and man. Yet, only two hundred years ago it stood
comparatively unchanged in its unrivaled beauty. The Turks were then
the masters of this classic land. They showed their appreciation of
the Parthenon by using it as a powder-magazine! In 1687 an army of
Venetians recklessly bombarded Athens, and one of their shells exploded
in this shrine. Instantly, with a wild roar, as though Nature herself
shrieked at the sacrilege, the Parthenon was ruined. Columns on either
side were blown to atoms, the front was severed from the rear, and
the entire hill was strewn with marble fragments, mute witnesses of
countless forms of beauty lost to us forever.
[Illustration: FRONT VIEW OF THE PARTHENON.]
One of these fragments is a portion of the frieze that once surrounded
the entire edifice like a long garland of rare beauty. How careful were
the old Greek artists of their reputation; how conscientious in their
art! The figures in this frieze were fifty feet above the ground, where
small defects would never have been noticed, yet every part of each
was finished with the utmost care. While they remained there for two
thousand years, this trait of old Greek character was unperceived; but,
with their downfall and removal, the sculptor's grand fidelity to truth
was brought to light,—as death sometimes reveals the noble qualities
which we in life, alas! have not observed.
Enough of the Parthenon remains to show the literal perfection of
its masonry. It has, for example, in its steps, walls, and columns,
curves so minute as to be hardly visible, yet true to the one-hundredth
part of an inch. They show alike the splendid genius of the architect
and the wonderful skill of the workmen. For all the curves are
mathematical. The reasons for them can be demonstrated like a problem
in geometry. Once fifty life-size statues stood upon its pediments.
Around it ran a sculptured frieze, five hundred and twenty feet in
length, carved mainly by the hand of Phidias; while the especial
treasure of the temple was the famous statue of Athene Parthenos, made
of ivory and gold. The value of the precious metal used in this one
figure was seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
[Illustration: FRAGMENTS.]
It is a marvel that any fragments can be gathered on the top of the
Acropolis, after the persistent spoliation which Greece has undergone
for more than eighteen centuries. From the one city of Delphi alone
Nero is said to have carried off to Rome five hundred bronze statues.
How many beautiful works in marble, gold and ivory he removed, we
cannot tell. And when the Roman conqueror, Æmilius Paulus, was borne in
triumph up the Appian Way, exhibiting the spoils of conquered Greece,
there preceded him two hundred and fifty wagons filled with the rarest
pictures and statues of Greek artists, after which came three thousand
men, each bearing some gold or silver ornament taken from Hellenic
cities. Yet this was merely the beginning of the plundering, which
practically ended only fifty years ago, when Lord Elgin carried off to
London over two hundred and fifty feet of the beautifully sculptured
frieze of the Parthenon. Opinions differ in regard to the propriety
of this act on the part of Lord Elgin. Defenders of his conduct urge
that, had this not been done, these works of art would have been ruined
by the Turks. Others maintain that they would have remained intact,
and point to some of the comparatively uninjured decorations of the
shrines of the Acropolis, such as the Caryatides of the Erectheum,
which have at least never been injured by the Turks, though one of
them was removed to England by Lord Elgin. At all events, it would be
a noble and graceful act on the part of England particularly, and of
many other countries also, to restore some of her lost art-treasures
to Greece,—now that she has risen again to the rank of a well-governed
and progressive nation. It is sad indeed to see in Athens only plaster
casts of the incomparable works of her old sculptors, the originals of
which enrich so many European capitals.
[Illustration: SOME OF THE SPOILS.]
One of the most beautiful of the ruined shrines of the Acropolis
is the "Temple of Wingless Victory;" so-called because the statue
of the goddess was represented without wings, in the fond hope that
Victory would never fly away from the Athenian capital. Most of the
beautiful statues which adorned this building were carried off to
the British Museum seventy years ago, and some were ruined in the
process of removal. One exquisite portion of the frieze, which had
for twenty centuries stood forth resplendent over the historic city,
was carelessly dropped and broken into atoms. A Greek who was standing
near, watching this shameful devastation, brushed away a tear, and with
a sob exclaimed pathetically: "Telos!" (That is the end of it!) and
turned away.
No one has condemned the plunder of the Acropolis more trenchantly than
Byron, in the lines:
"Cold is the heart, fair Greece! that looks on thee,
Nor feels as lovers o'er the dust they loved;
Dull is the eye that will not weep to see
Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed
By British hands, which it had best behooved
To guard those relics ne'er to be restored.
Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved,
And once again thy hapless bosom gored,
And snatch'd thy shrinking Gods to northern climes abhorr'd!"
[Illustration: THE CARYATIDES OF THE ERECTHEUM.]
Before the mental vision of the traveler, who muses thus upon the crest
of the Acropolis, there naturally rises the form of the goddess Athene
(or, as the Romans called her, Minerva), who gave the name Athens to
the city which she specially protected. Who can forget how this old
classic citadel, within whose shrines this goddess was adored, remained
for many centuries, even in its ruin, a beacon light of history? Its
radiance pierced even the darkness of the Middle Ages, when, over-run
by conquerors, pillaged by barbarians, assailed by fanatics, the world
of art lay buried beneath the rubbish of brutality and ignorance. Under
the blows of the iconoclasts, the pulse of artistic life had almost
ceased to beat. But, though the fire of genius seemed extinct, there
was still vitality in its dying embers. The light which came from the
Acropolis gave its illumination to the Renaissance. Without an Athens
there had been no Florence; without a Phidias no Michael Angelo.
[Illustration: PORTAL OF THE ERECTHEUM.]
Almost as interesting as a visit to the summit of the Acropolis is a
walk around its base. A part of it is lined with ruins, many of them
being demolished theatres. Upon the hill the drama of the gods went
on: below it were performed the tragedy and comedy of man. One of
these theatres, called the Odeon, was of Roman origin, built by the
conquerors of Greece when they were masters of the world. Its rows of
massive arches, climbing one above another up the cliff, remind us of
the Colosseum. Above them was the classic Parthenon, which Phidias
had built five hundred years before. This theatre could accommodate
eight thousand people, and doubtless was magnificent and imposing; but
amid such surroundings it must have seemed to the Athenians like an
interloper and intruder,—a gilded fetter on a lovely slave.
[Illustration: THE STAGE OF THE THEATRE OF BACCHUS.]
Vastly more interesting, however, than the Odeon is the edifice which
adjoins it,—the ancient theatre of Bacchus,—built by the Greeks two
thousand four hundred years ago. It was excavated from the side of
the Acropolis, just below the Parthenon. Its rows of seats were partly
sculptured from the solid rock and partly built up of Pentelic marble,
and thirty thousand people could be seated here. Its form was a perfect
amphitheatre, a model for all others in the world. How grand was its
simplicity! Its light was furnished by the sun. God was the painter
of its drop-curtain, which was the sunset sky; the scenery was that of
mountains and the sea; its only roof was the blue dome of heaven.
[Illustration: ATHENE.]
[Illustration: MERCURY.]
[Illustration: AN ANCIENT CHAIR.]
[Illustration: THE ODEON.]
A portion of the front of the old stage is still intact. If the old
Greeks had needed footlights, they would have placed them on this
marble parapet. It sends the blood in a swift current to the heart to
think that all its kneeling or supporting statues have listened to
the plays of Aristophanes or Sophocles, and have beheld innumerable
audiences occupying the marble seats which still confront them. Alas!
What have they not beheld here since those glorious days! In this,
the earliest home of tragedy, how many tragedies have been enacted!
Directly opposite this parapet is one of the ancient marble seats.
It was occupied by an Athenian magistrate more than two thousand
years ago. His name is still inscribed upon it,—perfectly legible,
and defiant of the touch of Time. Standing in this amphitheatre, one
realizes as never before, how, in an epoch of great intellectual
activity, genius does not confine itself to one particular line.
Whether it be the age of Pericles, the Renaissance, the era of
Elizabeth, or the magnificent century of the Moors, a wave of mental
energy rolls over an entire nation. Thus here, at Athens, it was not
only sculpture that attained such excellence, but painting; not only
painting but architecture; not only architecture but oratory; not only
oratory but philosophy; and in addition to all these, this wonderful
city gave mankind the drama, so perfect at the start that even the
modern world, with all its literary culture and experience, regards
the old Greek dramatists as its masters. Filled with such thoughts, one
seems to see, while lingering here, the form of Sophocles, the greatest
of Greek tragic poets. For more than two thousand three hundred years
his plays have been admired as almost perfect models of dramatic
composition. There is hardly a university in the world that has not
one of his magnificent tragedies in its curriculum of study. His play
of "Œdipus the King," which is so well interpreted by the French
actor, Mounet Sully, is still a masterpiece of strength and majesty;
and all his other plays, together with those of Æschylus, Euripides,
and Aristophanes, have in their lofty sentiments never been surpassed,
unless, indeed, by those of Shakespeare. Inspired by the memory of
these Hellenic heroes, I approached (still almost in the shadow of the
Acropolis) a rocky ledge, known as the "Platform of Demosthenes." Rough
and unshapely though it be, in view of all that has transpired on its
summit it is of greater value to the world than if the entire hill were
paved with gold and studded with the rarest gems. From this rock the
orators of Athens spoke to the assembled people. Before it then was the
Athenian market-place,—the forum of the city. The site is perfectly
identified, and one can look upon the very spot from which Demosthenes
delivered his orations, still unsurpassed in ancient or in modern times
even by those of Cicero and Burke.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE ODEON.]
[Illustration: SOPHOCLES.]
[Illustration: THE THEATRE OF BACCHUS.]