THE PLAIN OF ORCHOMENUS, LIVÁDIA, CHÆRONEA.
The road from Thebes to Lebadea (Livádia) leads along the foot of Helicon
all the way—Helicon, which, like all celebrated Greek mountains, is not a
summit, but a system of summits, or even a chain. Looking in the morning
from the plain, the contrast of the dark Cithæron and the gentle sunny
Helicon strikes the traveller again and again. After the ridge, or saddle,
is passed which separates the plain of Thebes from that of Orchomenus, the
richness of the soil increases, but the land becomes very swampy and low,
for at every half-mile comes a clear silver river, tumbling from the
slopes of Helicon on our left, crossing the road, and flowing to swell the
waters of Lake Copais—a vast sheet with undefined edges, half-marsh,
half-lake—which for centuries had no outlet to the sea, and which was only
kept from covering all the plain by evaporation in the heats of summer.
Great fields of sedge and rushes, giant reeds, and marsh plants unknown in
colder countries, mark each river course as it nears the lake; and, as
might be expected in this lonely fen country, all manner of insect life
and all manner of amphibia haunt the sites of ancient culture. Innumerable
dragon-flies, of the most brilliant colors, were flitting about the reeds,
and lighting on the rich blades of grass which lay on the water’s surface;
and now and then a daring frog would charge boldly at so great a prize,
but retire again in fear when the fierce insect dashed against him in its
impetuous start. Large land tortoises, with their high-arched shells,
yellow and brown, and patterned like the section of a great honeycomb,
went lazily along the moist banks, and close by the water, which they
could not bear to touch. Their aquatic cousins, on the other hand, were
not solitary in habit, but lay in lines along the sun-baked mud, and at
the first approach of danger dropped into the water one after the other
with successive flops, looking for all the world a long row of smooth
black pebbles which had suddenly come to life, like old Deucalion’s clods,
that they might people this solitude. The sleepy and unmeaning faces of
these tortoises were a great contrast to those of the water-snakes, which
were very like them in form, but wonderfully keen and lively in
expression. They, too, would glide into the water when so strange a thing
as man came near, but would presently raise their heads above the surface,
and eye with wonder and suspicion, and in perfect stillness, the approach
of their natural enemy. The Copaic eels, so celebrated in the Attic comedy
as the greatest of all dainties, are also still to be caught; but the
bright sun and cloudless sky made vain all my attempts to lure this famous
darling of Greek epicures. We noticed that while the shrill cicada, which
frequents dry places, was not common here, great emerald-green
grasshoppers were flying about spasmodically, with a sound and weight like
that of a small bird.
As we passed along, we were shown the sites of Haliartus and
Coronea—Haliartus, where the cruel Lysander met his death in a skirmish,
and so gave a place in history to an obscure village—Coronea, where the
Spartans first learned to taste the temper of the Theban infantry, and
where King Agesilaus well-nigh preceded his great rival to the funeral
pyre. As I said before, all these towns are only known by battles. Thespiæ
has an independent interest, and so has Ascra. The latter was the
residence of the earliest known Greek poet of whose personality we can be
sure; Thespiæ, with its highly aristocratic society, which would not let a
shopkeeper walk their place of assembly for ten years after he had retired
from business, was the site of fair temples and statues, and held its
place and fame long after all the rest of the surrounding cities had sunk
into decay. There are indistinct remains of surrounding walls about both
Haliartus and Coronea, but surely nothing that would repay the labor of
excavations. All these Bœotian towns were, of course, fortified, and all
of them lay close to the hills; for the swampy plain was unhealthy, and in
older days the rising lake was said to have swallowed up towns which had
been built close upon its margin. But the supremacy of Orchomenus in
older, and Thebes in later days, never allowed these subject towns to
attain any importance or any political significance.
After some hours’ riding, we suddenly came upon a deep vista in the
mountains on our left—such another vista as there is behind Coronea, but
narrower, and inclosed on both sides with great and steep mountains. And
here we found the cause of the cultivation of the upper plain—here was the
town of Lebadea (Livádia), famed of old for the august oracle of
Trophonius—in later days the Turkish capital of the province surrounding.
To this the roads of all the neighborhood converge, and from this a small
force can easily command the deep gorges and high mountain passes which
lead through Delphi to the port of Kirrha. Even now there is more life in
Livádia than in most Greek towns. All the wool of the country is brought
in and sold there, and, with the aid of their great water power, they have
a considerable factory, where the wool is spun and woven into stuff. A
large and beautifully clear river comes down the gorge above the town—or
rather the gorge in which the town lies—and tumbles in great falls between
the streets and under the houses, which have wooden balconies, like Swiss
châlets, built over the stream. The whole aspect of the town was not
unlike a Swiss town; indeed, all the features of the upland country are
ever reminding the traveller of his Swiss experience.
But the people are widely different. It was a great saint’s day, and all
the streets were crowded with people from many miles round. As we noted in
all Greek towns, except Arachova, the women were not to be seen in any
numbers. They do not walk about the streets except for some special
ceremony or amusement. But no women’s costume is required to lend
brightness to the coloring of the scene; for here every man had his
_fustanella_ or kilt of dazzling white, his gray or puce embroidered
waistcoat, his great white sleeves, and his scarlet skull-cap, with its
blue tassel. Nothing can be imagined brighter than a dense crowd in this
dress. They were all much excited at the arrival of strangers, and crowded
around us without the least idea or care about being thought obtrusive.
The simple Greek peasant thinks it his right to make aloud what
observations he chooses upon any stranger, and has not the smallest idea
of the politeness of reticence on such occasions.
We were received most hospitably by the medical officer of the district,
who had an amiable young wife, speaking Greek only, and a lively old
mother-in-law, living, as usual, permanently in the house, to prevent the
young lady from being lonely. Like all the richer Greeks in country parts,
they ate nothing till twelve, when they had a sort of early dinner called
breakfast, and then dined again at half-past eight in the evening. This
arrangement gave us more than enough time to look about the town when our
day’s ride was over; so we went, first of all, to see the site of
Trophonius’s oracle.
As the gorge becomes narrower, there is, on the right side, a small cave,
from which a sacred stream flows to join the larger river. Here numerous
square panels cut into the rock to hold votive tablets, now gone, indicate
a sacred place, to which pilgrims came to offer prayers for aid, and
thanksgiving for success. The actual seat of the oracle is not certain,
and is supposed to be some cave or aperture now covered by the Turkish
fort on the rock immediately above; but the whole glen, with its beetling
sides, its rushing river, and its cavernous vaulting, seems the very home
and preserve of superstition. We followed the windings of the defile,
jumping from rock to rock up the river bed, and were soon able to bathe
beyond the observation of all the crowding boys, who, like the boys of any
other town, could not satisfy their curiosity at strangeness of face and
costume. As we went on for some miles, the country began to open, and to
show us a bleak and solitary mountain region, where the chains of Helicon
and Parnassus join, and shut out the sea of Corinth from Bœotia by a great
bar some thirty miles wide. Not a sound could be heard in this wild
loneliness, save the metallic pipe of a water ouzel by the river, and the
scream of hawks about their nests, far up on the face of the cliffs.
As the evening was closing in we began to retrace our steps, when we saw
in two or three places scarlet caps over the rocks, and swarthy faces
peering down upon us with signs and shouts. Though nothing could have been
more suspicious in such a country, I cannot say that we felt the least
uneasiness, and we continued our way without regarding them. They kept
watching us from the heights, and when at last we descended nearer to the
town, they came and made signs, and spoke very new Greek, to the effect
that they had been out scouring the country for us, and that they had been
very uneasy about our safety. This was indeed the case; our excellent
Greek companion, who felt responsible to the Greek Government for our
safety, and who had stayed behind in Livádia to make arrangements, had
become so uneasy that he had sent out the police to scour the country. So
we were brought in with triumph by a large escort of idlers and officials,
and presently sat down to dinner at the fashionable hour, though in
anything but fashionable dress. The entertainment would have been as
excellent as even the intentions of our host, had not our attention been
foolishly distracted by bugs walking up the table-cloth. It is, indeed,
but a small and ignoble insect, yet it produces a wonderful effect upon
the mind; for it inspires the most ordinary man with the gift of prophecy:
it carries him away even from the pleasures of a fair repast into the
hours of night and mystery, when all his wisdom and all his might will not
save him from the persistent skirmishing of his irreconcilable foe.
It may be here worth giving a word of encouragement to the sensitive
student whom these hints are apt to deter from venturing into the wilds of
Greece. In spite of frequent starvation, both for want of food and for
want of eatable food; in spite of frequent sleeplessness and even severe
exercise at night, owing to the excess of insect population;(102) such is
the lightness and clearness of the air, such the exhilarating effect of
great natural beauty, and of solitary wandering, free and unshackled,
across the wild tracts of valley, wood, and mountain, that fatigue is an
almost impossible feeling. Eight or ten hours’ riding every day, which in
other country and other air would have been almost unendurable, was here
but the natural exercise which any ordinary man may conveniently take. It
cannot be denied that the discomforts of Greek travelling are very great,
but with good temper and patience they can all be borne; and when they are
over they form a pleasant feature in the recollections of a glorious time.
Besides, these discomforts are only the really classical mode of
travelling. Dionysus, in Aristophanes’s _Frogs_, asks, especially about
the inns, the very questions which we often put to our guide; and if his
slave carried for him not only ordinary baggage, but also his bed and
bedding, so nowadays there are many khans (inns) where the traveller
cannot lie down—I was going to say to rest—except on his own rugs.
The next day was occupied in a tour across the plain to Orchomenus, then
to Chæronea, and back to Livádia in the evening, so as to start from
thence for the passes to Delphi. Our ride was, as it were, round an
isosceles triangle, beginning with the right base angle, going to
Orchomenus north-east as the vertex, then to Chæronea at the left base
angle, and home again over the high spurs of mountain which protrude into
the plain between the two base angles of our triangle. For about a mile,
as we rode out of Livádia, a wretched road of little rough paving-stones
tormented us—the remains of Turkish engineering, when Livádia was their
capital. Patches of this work are still to be found in curious isolation
over the mountains, to the great distress of both mules and riders; for
the stones are very small and pointed, or, where they have been worn
smooth, exceedingly slippery. But we soon got away into deep rich meadows
upon the low level of the country adjoining the lake, where we found again
the same infinitely various insect life which I have already described. A
bright merry Greek boy, in full dress (for it was again a holiday),
followed in attendance on each mule or pony, and nothing could be more
picturesque than the cavalcade, going in Indian file through the long
grass, among the gay wild flowers, especially when some creek or rivulet
made our course to wind about, and so brought the long line of figures
into more varied grouping. As for the weather, it was so uniformly
splendid that we almost forgot to notice it. Indeed, strangers justly
remark what large conversation it affords us in Ireland, for there it is a
matter of constant uncertainty, and requires forethought and conjecture.
During my first journey in Greece, in the months of April, May, and June,
there was nothing to be said, except that we saw one heavy shower at
Athens, and two hours’ rain in Arcadia, and that the temperature was not
excessively hot. I have had similar experiences in March and April during
three other sojourns in the country.
In two or three hours we arrived at the site of old Orchomenus, of late
called Scripou, but now reverting, like all Greek towns, to its original
name. There is a mere hamlet, some dozen houses, at the place, which is
close to the stone bridge built over the Kephissus—the Bœotian
Kephissus—at this place. This river appears to be the main feeder of the
Copaic lake, coming down, as we saw it, muddy and cold with snow-water
from the heights of Parnassus. It runs very rapidly, like the Iser at
Munich, and is at Orchomenus about double the size of that river. Of the
so-called treasure-house of the Minyæ, nothing remains but the stone
doorposts and the huge block lying across them; and even these are almost
imbedded in earth. It was the most disappointing ruin I had seen in
Greece, for it is always quoted with the treasure-house of Atreus at
Mycenæ as one of the great specimens of prehistoric building. It is not so
interesting in any sense as the corresponding raths in Ireland. Indeed,
but for Pausanias’s description, it would, I think, have excited but
little attention.
The subsequent excavation of it by Dr. Schliemann yielded but poor
results. The building had fallen in but a few years ago. A handsome
ceiling pattern, to which a curious parallel was afterward found at
Tiryns, and some pottery, was all that rewarded the explorer.
On the hill above are the well-preserved remains of the small Acropolis,
of which the stones are so carefully cut that it looks at first sight
modern, then too good for modern work, but in no case polygonal, as are
the walls of the hill city which it protected. There is a remarkable tower
built on the highest point of the hill, with a very perfect staircase up
to it. The whole of the work is very like the work of Eleutheræ, and seems
to be of the best period of Greek wall-building. Nothing surprises the
traveller in Greece more than the number of these splendid hill-forts, or
town-fortresses, which are never noticed by the historians as anything
remarkable—in fact, the art and the habit of fortifying must have been so
universal that it excited no comment. This strikes us all the more when so
reticent a writer as Thucydides, who seldom gives us anything but war or
politics, goes out of his way to describe the wall-building of the
Peiræus. He evidently contrasts it with the hurried and irregular
construction of the city walls, into which even tombstones were built; but
if we did not study the remains still common in Greece, we might imagine
that the use of square hewn stones, the absence of mortar and rubble, and
the clamping with lead and iron were exceptional, whereas that sort of
building is the most usual sort in Greece. The walls of the Peiræus cannot
even have been the earliest specimen, for the great portal at Mycenæ,
though somewhat rougher and more huge in execution, is on the same
principle. The only peculiarity of these walls may have been their height
and width, and upon that point it is not easy to get any monumental
evidence now. The walls of the Peiræus have disappeared completely, though
the foundations are still traceable; others have stood, but perhaps on
account of their lesser height.
In a large and hospitable monastery we found the well which Pausanias
describes as close beside the shrine of the Graces, and here we partook of
breakfast, attended by our muleteers, who always accompany their employer
into the reception-room of his host, and look on at meat, ready to attend,
and always joining if possible in the conversation at table. Some
excellent specimens of old Greek pottery were shown us in the monastery,
apparently, though not ostensibly, for sale, there being a law prohibiting
the sale of antiquities to foreigners, or for exportation. In their chapel
the monks pointed out to us some fragments of marble pillars, and one or
two inscriptions—in which I was since informed that I might have found a
real live digamma, if I had carefully examined them. The digamma is now
common enough at Olympia and elsewhere. I saw it best, along with the
_koph_, which is, I suppose, much rarer, in the splendid bronze plates
containing Locrian inscriptions, which are in the possession of Mr.
Taylor’s heirs at Corfu. These plates have been ably commented on, with
facsimile drawings of the inscriptions, by a Greek writer, G. N. Ecnomides
(Corfu, 1850, and Athens, 1869).
It was on our way up the valley to Chæronea, along the rapid stream of the
Kephissus, that we came, in a little deserted church, upon one of the most
remarkable extant specimens of a peculiar epoch in Greek art. As usual, it
was set up in the dark, and we were repeatedly obliged to entreat the
natives to clear the door, through which alone we could obtain any light
to see the work. It is a funeral _stele_, not unlike the celebrated
_stele_ and its relief at Athens, which is inscribed as the _stele_ of
Aristion, and dates from the time of the Persian wars. The work before us
was inscribed as the work of Anxenor the Naxian—an artist otherwise
unknown to us; but the style and finish are very remarkable, and more
perfect than the _stele_ of Aristion. It is a relief carved on an upright
slab of gray Bœotian marble—I should say about four feet in height—and
representing a bearded man wrapped in a cloak, resting on a long stick
propped under his arm,(103) with his legs awkwardly crossed, and offering
a large grasshopper to a dog sitting before him. The hair and beard are
conventionally curled, the whole effect being very like an Assyrian
relief; but this is the case with all the older Greek sculpture, which may
have started in Ionia by an impulse from the far east. The occurrence of
the dog, a feature which strikes us frequently in the later Attic tombs,
supports what I had long since inferred from stray hints in Greek
literature, that dogs among the old Greeks, as well as the modern, were
held in the highest esteem as the friends and companions of man. This
curious monument of early Greek art was lying hidden in an obscure and
out-of-the-way corner of Greece; isolated, too, and with little of
antiquarian interest in its immediate neighborhood.(104) On my second
visit (1884), I found a cast of it in the Ministry of Public Instruction
at Athens. On my third I found the original removed to a prominent place
in the National Museum at Athens, where the traveller may now study it at
his ease.
The great value of these reliefs consists (apart from their artistic
value) in their undoubted genuineness. For we know that in later days,
both in Greece and Italy, a sort of pre-Raphaelite taste sprang up among
amateurs, who admired and preferred the stiff awkward groping after nature
to the symmetry and grace of perfect art. Pausanias, for example, speaks
with enthusiasm of these antique statues and carvings, and generally
mentions them first, as of most importance. Thus, after describing various
archaic works on the Acropolis of Athens, he adds, “But whoever places
works made with artistic skill before those which come under the
designation of archaic, may, if he likes, admire the following.”(105) As a
natural result, a fashion came in of imitating them, and we have,
especially in Italy, many statues in this style which seem certainly to be
modern imitations, and not even Greek copies of old Greek originals. But
these imitations are so well done, and so equalized by lapse of centuries
with the real antiques, that though there are scholars who profess to
distinguish infallibly the _archaistic_, as they call it, from the
archaic, it is sometimes a very difficult task, and about many of them
there is doubt and debate.
But here at Orchomenus—a country which was so decayed as to lose almost
all its population two centuries before Christ, where no amateurs of art
would stay, and where Plutarch was, as it were, the last remains in his
town of literature and respectability—here there is no danger whatever of
finding this spurious work; and thus here, as indeed all through Greece,
archaic work is thoroughly trustworthy. But the unfortunate law of the
land not often violated, as in this case—which insists upon all these
relics, however isolated, being kept in their place of finding—is the
mightiest obstacle to the study of this interesting phase of culture, and
we must await the completion of the Hellenic Society’s gallery of
photographs, from which we can make reliable observations. The Greeks will
tell you that the preservation of antiquities in their original place,
first of all, gives the inhabitants an interest in them, which might be
true but that there are very often no inhabitants: and next, that it
encourages travelling in the country. This also is true; but surely the
making of decent roads, and the establishing of decent inns, and easy
communications, would do infinitely more, and are indeed necessary, before
the second stimulus can have its effect.
Not far from this little church and its famous relief, we came in sight of
the Acropolis (called Petrachus) of Chæronea, and soon arrived at the
town, so celebrated through all antiquity, in spite of its moderate size.
The fort on the rock is, indeed, very large—perhaps the largest we saw in
Greece, with the exception of that at Corinth; and, as usual in these
buildings, follows the steepest escarpments, raising the natural precipice
by a coping of beautifully hewn and fitted square stones. The artificial
wall is now not more than four or five feet high; but even so, there are
only two or three places where it is at all easy to enter the inclosure,
which is fully a mile of straggling outline on the rock. The view from
this fort is very interesting. Commanding all the plain of the lake
Copais, it also gives a view of the sides of Parnassus, and of the passes
into Phocis, which cannot be seen till the traveller reaches this point.
Above all, it looks out upon the gap of Elatea, about ten miles
north-west, through which the eye catches glimpses of secluded valleys in
northern Phocis.
This gap is, indeed, the true key of this side of Bœotia, and is no mere
mountain pass, but a narrow plain, perhaps a mile wide, which must have
afforded an easy transit for an army. But the mountains on both sides are
tolerably steep, and so it was necessary to have a fortified town, as
Elatea was, to keep the command of the place. As we gazed through the
narrow plain, the famous passage of Demosthenes came home to us, which
begins: “It was evening, and the news came in that Philip had seized, and
was fortifying Elatea.” The nearest point of observation or of control was
the rock of Chæronea, and we may say with certainty that it was from here
the first breathless messenger set out with the terrible news for Thebes
and Athens. This, too, was evidently the pass through which Agesilaus came
on his return from Asia, and on his way to Coronea, where his great battle
was fought, close by the older trophy of the Theban victory over
Tolmides.(106)
Having surveyed the view, and fatigued ourselves greatly by our climb in
the summer heat, we descended to the old theatre, cut into the rock where
it ascends from the village—the smallest and steepest Greek theatre I had
ever seen. Open-air buildings always look small for their size, but most
of those erected by the Greeks and Romans were so large that nothing could
dwarf them. Even the theatre of such a town as Taormina in Sicily—which
can never have been populous—is, in addition to its enchanting site, a
very majestic structure; I will not speak of the immense theatres of
Megalopolis and of Syracuse. But this little place at Chæronea, so steep
that the spectators sat immediately over one another, looked almost
amusing when cut in the solid rock, after the manner of its enormous
brethren. The guide-book says it is one of the most ancient theatres in
Greece—why, I know not. It seems to me rather to have been made when the
population was diminishing; and any rudeness which it shows arises more
from economy, than want of experience.
But, small as it is, there are few more interesting places than the only
spot in Chæronea where we can say with certainty that here Plutarch sat—a
man who, living in an age of decadence, and in a country village of no
importance, has, nevertheless, as much as any of his countrymen, made his
genius felt over all the world. Apart from the great stores of history
brought together in his _Lives_, which, indeed, are frequently our only
source for the inner life and spirit of the greatest Greeks of the
greatest epochs—the moral effect of these splendid biographies, both on
poets and politicians through Europe, can hardly be overrated. From
Shakespeare and Alfieri to the wild savages of the French Revolution, all
kinds of patriots and eager spirits have been fascinated and excited by
these wonderful portraits. Alfieri even speaks of them as the great
discovery of his life, which he read with tears and with rage. There is no
writer of the Silver Age who gives us anything like so much valuable
information about early authors, and their general character. More
especially the inner history of Athens in her best days, the personal
features of Pericles, Cimon, Alcibiades, Nicias, as well as of
Themistocles and of Aristides, would be completely, or almost completely,
lost, if this often despised but invaluable man had not written for our
learning. And he is still more essentially a good man—a man better and
purer than most Greeks—another Herodotus in fairness and in honesty. A
poor man reputed by his neighbors “a terrible historian,” remarked to a
friend of mine, who used to lend him Scott’s novels, “that Scott was a
great historian,” and being asked his reason, replied, “He makes you to
love your kind.” There is a deep significance in this vague utterance, in
which it may be eminently applied to Plutarch. “Here in Chæronea,” says
Pausanias, “they prepare unguents from the flowers of the lily and the
rose, the narcissus and the iris. These are balm for the pains of men.
Nay, that which is made of roses, if old wooden images are anointed with
it, saves them, too, from decay.” He little knew how eternally true his
words would be, for though the rose and the iris grow wild and neglected
and yield not now their perfume to soothe the ills of men, yet from
Chæronea comes the eternal balm of Plutarch’s wisdom, to sustain the
oppressed, to strengthen the patriot, to purify with nobler pity and
terror the dross of human meanness. Nay, even the crumbling images of his
gods arrest their decay by the spirit of his morals, and revive their
beauty in the sweetness of his simple faith.
There is a rich supply of water, bursting from a beautiful old Greek
fountain, near the theatre—indeed, the water supply all over this country
is excellent. There is also an old marble throne in the church, about
which they have many legends, but no history. The costume of the girls,
whom we saw working in small irrigated plots near the houses, was
beautiful beyond that in other Greek towns. They wore splendid necklaces
of gold and silver coins, which lay like corselets of chain mail on the
neck and breast; and the dull but rich embroidery of wool on their aprons
and bodices was quite beyond what we could describe, but not beyond our
highest appreciation.
As the day was waning, we were obliged to leave this most interesting
place, and set off again on our ride home to Lebadea. We had not gone a
mile from the town when we came upon the most pathetic and striking of all
the remains in that country—the famous lion of Chæronea, which the Thebans
set up to their countrymen who had fallen in the great battle against
Philip of Macedon, in the year 338 B. C. We had been looking out for this
monument, and on our way to Chæronea, seeing a lofty mound in the plain,
rode up to it eagerly, hoping to find the lion. But we were disappointed,
and were told that the history of this larger mound was completely
unknown. It evidently commemorates some battle, and is a mound over the
dead, but whether those slain by Sylla, or those with Tolmides, or those
of some far older conflict, no man can say. It seems, however, perfectly
undisturbed, and grown about with deep weeds and brushwood, so that a
hardy excavator might find it worth opening, and, perhaps, coins might
tell us of its age.
The mound where we found the lion was much humbler and smaller; in fact,
hardly a mound at all, but a rising knoll, with its centre hollowed out,
and in the hollow the broken pieces of the famous lion. It had sunk, we
are told, into its mound of earth, originally intended to raise it above
the road beside, and lay there in perfect safety till the present century,
when four English travellers claim to have discovered it (June 3, 1818).
They tried to get it removed, and, failing in their efforts, covered up
the pieces carefully.(107) Since that time they seem to have lain
undisturbed, and are still in such a state that a few days’ labor, and a
few pounds of expense, would restore the work. It is of bluish-gray
stone—they call it Bœotian marble or limestone—and is a work of the
highest and purest merit. The lion is of that Asiatic type which has
little or no mane, and seemed to us couchant or sitting in attitude, with
the head not lowered to the forepaws, but thrown up.(108) The expression
of the face is ideally perfect—rage, grief, and shame are expressed in it,
together with that noble calmness and moderation which characterize all
good Greek art. The object of the monument is quite plain, without reading
the affecting, though simple, notice of Pausanias: “On the approach to the
city,” says he, “is the tomb of the Bœotians who fell in the battle with
Philip. It has no inscription; but the image of a lion is placed upon it
as an emblem of the spirit of these men. The inscription has been
omitted—I suppose, because the gods had willed that their fortune should
not be equal to their valor.” So, then, we have here, in what may fairly
be called a _dated_ record, one of the finest specimens of the sepulchral
monuments of the best age of Greece. It is very much to be regretted that
this splendid figure is not put together and photographed. Nothing would
be more instructive than a comparison with the finest of modern
monuments—Thorwaldsen’s Lion at Lucerne—the work, too, of the only modern
sculptor who can for one moment be ranked beside the ancient Greeks. But
the lion of Chæronea now owes its existence to the accident that no
neighboring peasant has in old times lacked stones for a wall, or for a
ditch; and when Greece awoke to a sense of the preciousness of these
things, it might have been gone, or dashed into useless fragments.
As we saw it, on a splendid afternoon in June, it lay in perfect repose
and oblivion, the fragments large enough to tell the contour and the
style; in the mouth of the upturned head wild bees were busy at their
work, and the honeycomb was there between its teeth. The Hebrew story came
fresh upon us, and we longed for the strength which tore the lion of old,
to gather the limbs and heal the rents of his marble fellow. The lion of
Samson was a riddle to the Philistines which they could not solve; and so
I suppose this lion of Chæronea was a riddle, too—a deeper riddle to
better men—why the patriot should fall before the despot, and the culture
of Greece before the Cæsarism of Macedonia. Even within Greece there is no
want of remarkable parallels. This, the last effulgence of the setting sun
of Greek liberty, was commemorated by a lion and a mound, as the opening
struggle at Marathon was also marked by a lion and a mound. At Marathon
the mound is there and the lion gone—at Chæronea, the lion is there and
the mound gone.(109) But doubtless the earlier lion was far inferior in
expression and in beauty, and was a small object on so large a tomb. Later
men made the sepulchre itself of less importance, and the poetic element
more prominent; and perhaps this very fact tells the secret of their
failure, and why the refined sculptor of the lion was no equal in politics
and war to the rude carver of the relief of the Marathonian warrior.
These and such like thoughts throng the mind of him who sits beside the
solitary tomb; and it may be said in favor of its remoteness and
difficulty of access, that in solitude there is at least peace and
leisure, and the scattered objects of interest are scanned with affection
and with care.