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[Illustration: THE PARTHENON FROM THE PROPYLÆA (EARLY MORNING)
The pale golden light on the architraves within the Posticum is
reflected from the east side of the west front of the Temple. The
scarped rock to the right is the boundary of the precinct of Artemis
Brauronia. The drum of a column in the right-hand corner of the drawing
represents the southernmost column of the eastern portico of the
Propylæa. For obvious artistic reasons the whole column could not be
included in the drawing. The pedestal before the column is that of the
statue of Athene Hygieia by the sculptor Pyrrhos. Two or three paces in
front of it are the remains of a large free-standing altar.]
GREECE · PAINTED BY
JOHN FULLEYLOVE, R.I.
DESCRIBED BY THE REV.
J. A. M‘CLYMONT, M.A., D.D.
PUBLISHED BY A. AND C.
BLACK · LONDON ·MCMVI
[Illustration: colophon]
Author’s Note
Among the authorities consulted by the writer of the Text (who has had
the advantage of a recent visit to Greece) special acknowledgments are
due to Grote’s monumental _History of Greece_, and to J. G. Frazer’s
lucid and searching Commentary on _Pausanias’s Description of Greece_.
ABERDEEN, _April 1906_.
Contents
PAGE
INTRODUCTORY 1
CHAPTER I
THE IONIAN ISLANDS AND THE “ODYSSEY” 7
CHAPTER II
DELPHI AND ITS ORACLE 18
CHAPTER III
OLYMPIA AND ITS GAMES 34
CHAPTER IV
ARCADIA AND ITS ABORIGINES 51
CHAPTER V
SPARTA AND ITS DISCIPLINE 71
CHAPTER VI
ARGOLIS AND ITS ANTIQUITIES 94
CHAPTER VII
CORINTH AND ITS CANAL 111
CHAPTER VIII
ATHENS AND ITS ACROPOLIS 124
CHAPTER IX
ATHENS AND ITS GODDESS 146
CHAPTER X
ATHENS AND ELEUSIS 167
CHAPTER XI
ATHENS AND ITS DEMOCRACY 183
CHAPTER XII
ATHENS--ITS DECAY AND ITS REVIVAL 206
INDEX 229
List of Illustrations
1. The Parthenon from the Propylæa _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
2. The Acropolis from the Site of the Temple of Olympian Zeus 2
3. Corfu. The Old Fort from the West 8
4. Corfu. The Old Fort from the South 10
5. The Temple of Athena at Sunium 14
6. Sunset from the North-Eastern Corner of the Acropolis 16
7. Delphi from Itea 20
8. Delphi. The Castalian Gorge and Spring 24
9. Delphi. The Portico of the Athenians 28
10. The Ancient Quarries on Mount Pentelikon 32
11. Olympia. The base of the Kronos Hill with the remains
of the Temple of Hera and the Philippeion 36
12. Olympia. The Palæstra and remains of the Temple of Zeus 40
13. The Temple of Hera at Olympia 44
14. The Bastion and Temple of Wingless Victory viewed
from the ascent to the Propylæa 48
15. Colossal Head of Despoina 52
16. The Temple of Apollo at Bassæ in Arcadia, with distant
view of Mount Ithome 54
17. Site of Megalopolis in Arcadia 58
18. Megalopolis in Arcadia 62
19. Andritsæna. The resting-place for the Temple of Apollo
at Bassæ 66
20. The Castle of Karytæna in Arcadia 70
21. Interior of the Temple of Apollo at Bassæ in Arcadia 72
22. The Laconian Gate of Messene 74
23. Kalamata on the Gulf of Messene 76
24. Mount Ithome from the Stadion of Messene 80
25. Triple Bridge over the Mavrozoumenos River 84
26. Sparta and Mount Taÿgetus 86
27. Mistra, near Sparta 90
28. Mistra and the Valley of the Eurotas 92
29. Argos and Larissa 96
30. The Acropolis of Mycenæ from South-West, with Mount Elias 100
31. Mycenæ, showing the site of the famous discoveries
of Schliemann 104
32. Tiryns. The Gate of the Upper Castle 106
33. Nauplia and Tiryns from the Road to Argos 108
34. The Theatre of Epidaurus 110
35. The Temple at Corinth 114
36. The Temple of Athena at Sunium from the North 118
37. Off Cape Matapan 122
38. The Western End of the Acropolis seen from below the Pnyx 124
39. The Temple of Theseus from the South-West 128
40. The Temple of Theseus from the North-West 130
41. The Areopagus and the Theseum 132
42. The Battle-Field of Marathon from Mount Pentelikon 136
43. The Seaward End of the Plain of Attica looking towards Salamis 140
44. The Temple of Athena on the Island of Ægina 144
45. Vista of the Northern Peristyle of the Parthenon looking
westward 146
46. The Western Portico of the Parthenon from the South 148
47. The Acropolis and the Temple of Olympian Zeus from
the Hill Ardettos 150
48. The Parthenon from the Northern End of the Eastern
Portico of the Propylæa 152
49. Mount Pentelikon and Lycabettos from the North-Eastern
Angle of the Parthenon 154
50. The Propylæa from the Northern Edge of the Platform
of the Parthenon 156
51. The Southern side of the Erechtheum, with the foundations
of the earlier Temple of Athena Polias 158
52. The Caryatid Portico of the Erechtheum from the West 160
53. The Northern Portico of the Erechtheum 162
54. The Eastern Portico of the Erechtheum viewed from
the Northern Peristyle of the Parthenon 164
55. The Dipylon at Athens 168
56. The Street of Tombs outside the Dipylon at Athens 172
57. Athens from the Road to Eleusis 174
58. Convent of Daphni 176
59. Sacred Way from Athens to Eleusis, looking towards Salamis 178
60. The Great Temple of the Mysteries, Eleusis 180
61. The Hall of the Great Temple of the Mysteries, Eleusis 182
62. The Acropolis from the base of the Philopappus Hill 184
63. The lower part of the Auditorium of the Theatre of
Dionysos at Athens 188
64. The Cavern Chapel on the South Side of the Acropolis 190
65. The Choragic Monument of Lysicrates 194
66. The Pnyx; or Place of Assembly of the People 198
67. The Acropolis with Kallirrhoè in the Foreground 202
68. Athens. The Monument of Agrippa and the Pinacotheca 206
69. The Tower of the Winds 208
70. The Portico of Athena Archegetis 210
71. The Stoa of Hadrian 212
72. The Arch of Hadrian 216
73. Columns of the Temple of Olympian Zeus from the North-West 220
74. The Square in front of the King’s Palace at Athens 222
75. The Stadion at Athens 226
_Sketch Map at end of Volume._
_The Illustrations in this Volume have been engraved and printed in
England by The Hentschel Colourtype, Limited._
GREECE
INTRODUCTORY
More perhaps than any other country in Europe, Greece owes its charm to
the traditions of a remote past. It has no lack of fine scenery, and
there is much that is interesting in its modern life; but what chiefly
distinguishes it from other countries is the rich and beautiful
mythology which is reflected in its poetry, its art, and its philosophy,
and was to a large extent the inspiration of its glorious history.
It will not be expected that any attempt should be made in these pages
to give an adequate account of the artistic and architectural creations
which, even in their ruins, form the chief attraction of the country.
For detailed information on these matters, the reader must be left to
consult such guide-books as Baedeker and Murray, or works specially
devoted to archæology or art. The object of the present writer will be
attained if he succeed in providing a congenial intellectual atmosphere
for the scenes and objects to be presented by the artist. For this
purpose it will be necessary, among other things, to recall many of the
ancient legends, as well as the historical events associated with the
places referred to. The history cannot be understood apart from the
mythology, for the latter is a key to the religious faith as well as to
the patriotic sentiment of the nation.
Opinions may differ as to the right interpretation of many of the myths,
but whatever explanation we may be disposed to give of them, whether we
regard them as allegorical, semi-historical, or purely poetical, they
are generally full of human interest, and they were very dear to the
Greeks as the embodiment of their earliest thoughts and cherished
memories. Embalmed in their poetry, consecrated by their temples, and
signalised by many other monuments, the Greek mythology formed for
centuries the chief intellectual wealth of the nation. Even when history
and philosophy had begun to make their influence felt, the old stories,
dramatised by the tragic poets, still continued to fill the imagination
and to occupy the attention of all classes of the people. Though Plato
had a good deal to say against some of them from an ethical point of
view, he did not propose in his ideal Republic to do away with them
altogether, he only wished them to be so corrected and purified as to
promote the interests of a sound morality and a reasonable theology.
An important feature of Greek mythology was its close connection with
the received genealogies. These nearly always terminated, at the upper
end, in a god or a hero, after whom a family or a group of families was
named, with the curious result, to our modern
[Illustration: THE ACROPOLIS FROM THE SITE OF THE TEMPLE OF OLYMPIAN
ZEUS
The two detached colossal columns belong to the west end of the southern
peristyle of the Temple. To the right is the Arch of Hadrian. The
striking form of the masses of rock, which constitute the natural
defence of the Acropolis on its eastern side, shows with great effect in
this drawing.]
mind, that the shorter the pedigree the more honour it conferred upon
its living representative. The public genealogies were thus an incentive
both to the piety and the pride of the more influential classes, and
they help to account for the reverence in which the ancient mythology
was so long held by such an enlightened nation as the Greeks.
With the exception of Palestine, there is probably no country that can
compare with Greece for the influence it has exerted on the life and
thought of the world, in proportion to its size and population. In area
it was never so large as Scotland, and its population, which is now
under two millions and a half, was probably never much greater.
How far the influence of ancient Greece was due to the racial
characteristics of its inhabitants, which they brought with them from
other parts of the world, and how far to the peculiarities of the
country itself, is a question which it is not easy to determine. To some
extent, no doubt, both causes operated. The inhabitants belonged to a
good stock, the Indo-Germanic, while their geographical position and
surroundings were well fitted to develop a high type of manhood. The
beauty of the scenery, the purity of the atmosphere, the geniality of
the climate, the fertility of the plains and valleys, the grandeur of
the mountains,--more numerous and widespread than in any other part of
Europe of similar extent except Montenegro,--the bracing influence of
the sea, and the commercial advantages afforded by its coasts, which are
more extensive than those of any other country in proportion to its
size, looking in the direction of Europe, Asia, and Africa--all these
things no doubt helped to make the ancient Greeks the great nation that
they were, though their comparative obscurity in modern times shows that
something more is needed to produce a similar effect.
If we would form an adequate conception of the nation’s influence, we
must take into account the numerous Greek colonies which were planted in
Asia Minor and on the southern shore of the Black Sea, on the coast of
Macedonia, along the Hellespont and Bosporus, and also in Sicily and
Italy, where a new Greek world sprang up, which received the name of
_Magna Græcia_. Hundreds of years before Athens reached the height of
its glory, there was a Greek city in Italy, Cumæ (founded by colonists
from Chalcis and Cymæ in Asia Minor), which held the first place in the
peninsula for wealth and civilisation; while another Greek settlement
was to be found as far west as Marseilles, which had been colonised from
Phocæa in Asia Minor about 600 B.C.
The inhabitants of Greece in this wider sense not only spoke the same
language (whose preservation was largely due to the influence of Homer),
but were also bound together by fellowship in blood, in religion, and in
manners. They were hardly more distinguishable from the rude and
ignorant tribes of Europe than from the more civilised Orientals who
practised human sacrifice, polygamy, and the mutilation of enemies. But
perhaps the most marked characteristic of the Greeks was their love of
local autonomy, and their rooted aversion to anything like imperial
rule, such as prevailed so widely in Asia. Their attachment to an
individual city, as the capital of a small district, was doubtless due
in great measure to the divided nature of the country, which is broken
up by mountains and rivers and arms of the sea into numberless plains
and valleys only a few miles in extent. While this had the effect of
fostering a spirit of independence, combined with a sense of civic
obligation, which helped to develop the energies and capacities of the
individual, the proximity to each other of so many rival states bred a
great amount of jealousy and strife, which frequently led to bloody and
destructive wars. Such disintegrating tendencies were too much even for
the consolidating force of a common language and literature, or of
voluntary confederations for the purpose of worship or amusement.
Occasionally a great national emergency, such as the Persian invasion,
might force the Greeks to join together for the resistance of a common
foe, but it was almost inevitable that sooner or later they should fall
into the hands of a great military power, such as Macedonia, and lose
the civic liberties of which they were so proud. The political decay of
Greece, however, only widened the scope of its influence. As the
dissolution of the Jewish polity was followed by the rapid spread of a
religion which had its roots in the Jewish Scriptures, so the national
degradation of the Greeks led to a still wider diffusion of their
language, their literature, and their civilisation.
CHAPTER I
THE IONIAN ISLANDS AND THE “ODYSSEY”
The first place in Greece on which a traveller from the West usually
sets foot is Corfu, one of the Ionian Islands, which were given up by
Great Britain in 1864 to gratify the patriotic aspirations of the
Greeks. The sacrifice was not without its compensations, as it relieved
Britain from an annual outlay of £100,000, which had been the cost of
administration.
The principal Ionian Islands are five in number, namely, Corfu
(Corcyra), Santa Mauro (Leucas), Ithaca, Cephalonia (Cephallenia), and
Zanté (Zacynthus). They represent a territory of more than 1000 square
miles, with a population of about a quarter of a million, who are mainly
dependent on shipping and on the trade in oil, wine, and currants.
A romantic interest attaches to the promontory of Leucas, which
terminates in what is still known as Sappho’s Leap, in allusion to an
old tradition which tells how the famous poetess, who shares with Alcæus
the chief honours in Æolian lyric poetry, here put an end to her life to
escape from the pangs of unrequited affection. In Zacynthus we have an
illustration of the historical accuracy of Herodotus in the existence of
some curious springs on the south-west, from which the water comes out
mingled with pitch.
From an antiquarian point of view, however, still greater interest
attaches to Corcyra, Ithaca, and Cephallenia, as they have Homeric
associations which carry us back to a still earlier period.
Corfu or Corcyra, although not the largest, is the most populous of the
whole group. It is a beautiful island, with a beautiful situation,
looking out on the blue waters of the Southern Adriatic, with the snowy
mountains of Epirus in the distance. It has two commodious harbours, in
which the shipping of many nations may be seen. The streets of the city
are narrow and old-fashioned, but it has an interesting old fortress
with a handsome esplanade. Near the harbour is the former residence of
the British High Commissioner (an office once held by Mr. Gladstone),
with beautiful public gardens in front of it. The environs of the city
are charming, with orange-groves here and there glowing in the brilliant
sunshine, amid a profusion of roses, geraniums, and other blooms almost
growing wild, with miles on miles of olive-trees in the background.
From the earliest times the island was a place of importance to the
shipping world, as the ancients, in sailing, liked to keep near to land,
and generally put in to shore at night, unless they wished to take
advantage of some favourable breeze which did not
[Illustration: CORFU. THE OLD FORT FROM THE WEST
To the left the Albanian Mountains.]
rise till after sunset. In this way the island afforded convenient
shelter for those who were sailing from the Peloponnesus to Italy, and
facilitated Greek traffic with Epirus. It became the seat of a
Corinthian colony in 734 B.C., when Syracuse was also founded, but it
never showed much sympathy or affection for the mother-city. Indeed, the
first sea-battle we read of in authentic history took place between the
ships of Corinth and Corcyra (_c._ 665 B.C.), when the latter came off
victorious. Before the Peloponnesian war broke out there were great
complaints on the part of Corinth on account of due respect not being
shown to her representatives at the public festivals in the
daughter-city; and the subsequent action of the latter in putting
herself under the protection of Athens, when she became involved in
difficulties with Corinth and Epidamnus, was largely the cause of the
great war which proved so injurious to the prosperity and power of
Athens. In the course of its early history Corcyra was the scene of some
terrible conflicts and cruel slaughters, almost without a parallel in
any other part of Greece. Since that time it has passed through many
vicissitudes under Roman, Byzantine, Crusading, Venetian, French, and
British rule.
But the greatest interest of the place arises from the tradition which
identifies it with the Phæacian island _Scheria_, on which Odysseus was
cast after his stormy voyage from the island of Calypso. No remains have
been found of the palace of Alcinous, where Odysseus met with such
generous hospitality, but about two miles from the esplanade at
_Canone_ (One-Gun Battery), near the end of a promontory, we get a view
of the secluded bay or gulf (Lake of Kalikiopoulo) on which the weary
voyager is said to have been cast ashore, at the mouth of a brook
(Cressida), which falls into the lake, and where Nausicaa and her
maidens were amusing themselves after their great washing was over. At a
little distance from the shore lies the rocky islet of Ponticonisi
(“Mouse-Island”), which tradition identifies with the Phæacian ship that
was turned into stone by the wrath of Poseidon, as it was beginning its
homeward voyage to Ithaca with Odysseus on board.
All this local tradition, however, is rejected by a recent explorer, M.
Victor Bérard, who has taken enormous pains to investigate the matter.
He is convinced that the palace of Alcinous and the whole scene
described by Homer in connection with the visit of Odysseus lay on the
western side of the island, near the Convent of Palæocastrizza, and he
concludes from indications in the poem that the Phæacians had come from
the ancient city of Cumæ (Hypereia), driven out by the Œnotrians
(Cyclopes). But whatever view we may take on these points there can be
little doubt that Corfu, which lay as it were on the outskirts of the
ancient Greek world, and not far from Ithaca (to which Odysseus sailed
from it in a night), is the island which Homer had in view when he
described the home of the Phæacians.
Still more interesting, from a Homeric point of
[Illustration: CORFU. THE OLD FORT FROM THE SOUTH]
view, is the small island of Ithaca (about 37 square miles in extent),
where the poet locates the home of his wandering hero and his wife
Penelope, the one the early Greek ideal of practical sagacity, as
Achilles is of martial impetuosity, and the other the model of conjugal
devotion, as Nausicaa is of maidenly grace. The identity of the island
has recently been called in question by an eminent archæologist
(Dörpfeld), who regards Leucas as the island referred to in the
_Odyssey_. But it would require strong evidence to overcome the
presumption in favour of the island which now bears the name of Ithaca,
and which corresponds to the poet’s description as well as we have any
right to expect, considering the want of maps and guide-books at the
time that he wrote. Perhaps its claim may yet receive fuller
confirmation as the result of excavations; but in the meantime it is
interesting to know that a terrace wall built of rough-hewn blocks has
been discovered on the west coast, in the neighbourhood of a port to
which the name Polis (City) is still applied, though there is no modern
town to justify the name.
In this connection some interest also attaches to Cephallenia, the
largest island of the group. There is a little village on its east
coast, called Samos, from which the boat sails to Ithaca, and as an
island called Samé is often mentioned in the _Odyssey_ in connection
with Ithaca, and the subjects of Odysseus are sometimes called
Cephallenians, we are evidently not far from the scenes depicted by the
great poet.
It would scarcely be possible to exaggerate the influence which the
Homeric poetry has exercised on the intellect and imagination of the
Greeks, and it is impossible for any one to enter into the spirit of
Greek history and literature without some acquaintance with it. Homer
has often been called the “Bible of the Greeks,” and there is truth in
the saying both from a religious and a literary point of view. Herodotus
was mistaken when he said that Homer and Hesiod had created the religion
of the Greeks, but they certainly did much to systematise it, and, by
giving Jupiter a place of supremacy among the gods, they paved the way
for the triumph of monotheism.
In course of time Homer came to be regarded by his countrymen as their
chief authority, not only on religious subjects but in almost all
matters of interest to a thoughtful and inquiring mind. The reading and
hearing of his poetry was the chief means of education. It was no
uncommon thing for a boy to be able to recite both the _Iliad_ and the
_Odyssey_ from memory. Classical writers speak of Homer in terms not
only of admiration but of reverence. Æschylus said that he had gathered
up the crumbs from Homer’s table; and Sophocles was so much in sympathy
with the _Odyssey_ that he was spoken of as “the tragic Homer.” There
was, therefore, nothing strange in the sentiment which led Alexander the
Great to carry about with him in his eastern campaigns a copy of Homer,
said to have been edited for him by his old tutor Aristotle, and kept in
a precious Persian casket. About a third of the recently discovered
Egyptian papyri are inscribed with passages from the _Iliad_ and the
_Odyssey_.
While the oldest poetry of Greece, as of other countries, was probably
of a lyric character, called forth by the joys and sorrows of common
life or by the festive celebration of the seasons, the more stately
epic, dealing with grander themes, and chanted rather than sung, with
occasional accompaniment on the harp, found more favour with princes and
their nobles, and attracted the most gifted authors to its service, till
it reached the high stage of development which we find in the writings
of Homer. These poems may be described as the oldest literature in
existence, but they were doubtless the result of many previous efforts
of a more archaic character, traces of which may be found in the older
bards and legendary themes that are mentioned by Homer himself.
The _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ show to what a high degree of civilisation and
culture the Hellenic race had attained not much later than 1000 B.C. In
the freeness of their spirit, combined with reverence for law, and in
their vivid portraiture of the different members of the Pantheon, seen
through the medium of a rich and sympathetic humanity, the poems present
a pleasing contrast to all other heathen pictures of things human and
divine. Their language is as admirable as the thought,--so rich and
flexible, entirely free from the crudities that might have been expected
in such primitive literature. Matthew Arnold sums up Homer’s
characteristics from a literary point of view, as rapidity, plainness
of thought, plainness of style, and nobleness. These qualities give the
poet as strong a hold on the sympathies of his readers as he assigns to
the minstrel in the _Odyssey_, when he makes Eumæus say of his old
master, now returned, but still in disguise: “Even as when a man gazes
on a minstrel whom the gods have taught to sing words of yearning joy to
mortals, and they have a ceaseless desire to hear him as long as he will
sing, even so he charmed me, sitting by me in the halls.”
The controversy which has been going on for more than a hundred years
regarding the authorship of the poems does not much affect their
interest for the general reader. Similar questions were raised more than
two thousand years ago. Even before Plato’s time there had been a
sifting process by which a number of hymns and minor poems formerly
attributed to Homer (as the whole book of Psalms used to be to David)
were found to be the work of unknown authors of a later date. A century
or two later there were Alexandrian critics who denied that the _Iliad_
and the _Odyssey_ could have come from the same author. But modern
critics have assailed the integrity of the two great poems themselves.
They have based their theories partly on the improbability of such long
poems being composed and transmitted before writing had come into
general use (an argument which has lost its force owing to recent
discoveries of early writing), and partly on the apparent repetitions,
interpolations, and discrepancies, which are supposed to have been
[Illustration: THE TEMPLE OF ATHENA AT SUNIUM (CAPE COLONNA)
Distant view over the hills.]
due either to the accidents of compilation or to the need for adaptation
to suit the varying tastes of readers in different parts of the Greek
world. Perhaps the strongest proof of composite authorship is to be
found in the different stages of civilisation and religion which are
discernible in different parts of the poetry, and the marked
inconsistencies in certain of the leading characters. It is also very
significant that Mount Olympus, the dwelling of the gods, is at one time
the snow-clad mountain in the north which still bears that name, and in
other and later passages is a bright and gladsome region, free from rain
or snow or stormy wind. It is now generally agreed that the nucleus of
the _Iliad_ was a series of ancient lays concerning Achilles, derived
from Northern Greece, and moulded by Æolic art, while the remainder of
the poem and the bulk of the _Odyssey_ were of a considerably later
date, and came from an Ionic source. The poems as a whole were probably
touched up and put into their present form by some one living on the
coast of Asia Minor (perhaps at Smyrna, the meeting-place of Æolic and
Ionic traditions), who sang of the glories of a by-gone age with the
patriotic pride of a colonial. Whether his name was Homer is a different
question, for it is quite possible the word may have been, as some
maintain, a common term, meaning “compiler.” It is well to remember that
the “blind bard who dwelt in rocky Chios,” so often identified with
Homer since Thucydides set the example, is merely the description
applied to himself by the writer of the Hymn to the Delian Apollo, whom
no one now believes to have been the author of the _Iliad_ or the
_Odyssey_. We know that the Great Unknown, whoever he may have been, was
succeeded by the Homeridæ of Chios, and these again, by the Rhapsodes or
professional reciters, whom we come across in the pages of Plato and
Xenophon.
Another subject of controversy has been as to whether the Homeric
narratives have a historic basis to rest upon. Some have gone so far as
to doubt whether the Trojan War ever took place; and it has been
suggested that many of the stories in the _Iliad_ are due to solar
myths. But the excavations of Schliemann at Ilium and Mycenæ have rather
discredited such scepticism; and the recent explorer already mentioned
(Bérard), who has sailed over the course which appears to have been
taken by Odysseus,--extending from Troy to Gibraltar,--has found the
topographical and maritime allusions so accurate as to come to the
conclusion that the poet must have had the benefit of some ancient book
of reference, corresponding to the _Pilot’s Guide_, and drawn up in all
probability by the Phœnicians, who were masters of the Mediterranean
before the Greeks. But while the main thread of the narrative in the
_Odyssey_ may be historical, the poet has worked into it many fanciful
legends, like those to be found in the literature of many nations.
Indeed the story of Odysseus’ adventures as a whole is perhaps no more
historical than the tale of Robinson Crusoe, created by Defoe out of the
experience of Alexander Selkirk on the island of Juan Fernandez.
[Illustration: SUNSET FROM THE NORTH-EAST CORNER OF THE ACROPOLIS
To the left, a bit of the east front of the Parthenon; to the right, the
precipitous north side of the Acropolis; in the middle distance the
Erechtheum, showing all three of its porticoes; in shadow, between the
Parthenon and the Erechtheum, the upper part of the Propylæa].
No criticism, however, can alter the fact that we have in the _Odyssey_
some of the most charming pictures of social and domestic life that are
to be found in any literature, touched up with a colouring of the
strangest old-world romance, and deriving lustre from a religion which,
however defective from an ethical point of view, was wedded to an
imagination so rich and powerful as almost to efface in the mind of the
reader the distinction between the natural and the supernatural.