KYNURIA—SPARTA—MESSENE.
Whatever other excursions a traveller may make in the Morea, he ought not
to omit a trip to Sparta, which has so often been the centre of power, and
is still one of the chief centres of attraction in Greece. And yet many
reasons conspire to make this famous place less visited than the rest of
the country. It is distinctly out of the way from the present
starting-points of travel. To reach it from Athens, or even from Patras or
Corinth, requires several days, and it is not remarkable for any of those
architectural remains which are more attractive to the modern inquirer
than anything else in a historic country.
Of the various routes we choose (in 1884) that from Nauplia by Astros, as
we had been the guests for some days of the hospitable Dr. Schliemann, who
was prosecuting his now famous researches at Tiryns. So we rose one
morning with the indefatigable doctor before dawn,(173) and took a boat to
bring us down the coast to Astros. The morning was perfectly fair and
calm, and the great mountain chains of the coast were mirrored in the opal
sea, as we passed the picturesque rocky fort which stands close to Nauplia
in the bay, the residence of the public executioner. The beauty of the
Gulf of Argos never seemed more perfect than in the freshness of the
morning, with the rising sun illuminating the lofty coasts. Our progress
was at first by the slow labor of the oar, but as the morning advanced
there came down a fresh west wind from the mountains, which at intervals
filled our lateen sail almost too well, and sent us flying along upon our
way. In three hours we rounded a headland, and found ourselves in the
pretty little bay of Astros.
Of course, the whole population came down to see us. They were apparently
as idle, and as ready to be amused, as the inhabitants of an Irish
village. But they are sadly wanting in fun. You seldom hear them make a
joke or laugh, and their curiosity is itself curious from this aspect.
After a good deal of bargaining we agreed for a set of mules and ponies to
bring us all the way round the Morea, to Corinth if necessary, though
ultimately we were glad to leave them at Kyparissia, at the opposite side
of Peloponnesus, and pursue our way by sea. The bargain was eight drachmas
per day for each animal; a native, or very experienced traveller, could
have got them for five to six drachmas.
Our way led us up a river course, as usual through fine olive-trees and
fields of corn, studded with scarlet anemones, till after a mile or two we
began to ascend from the level of the coast to the altitudes of the
central plateau, or rather mountain system, of the Morea. Here the flora
of the coast gave way to fields of sperge, hyacinths, irises, and star of
Bethlehem. Every inch of ascent gave us a more splendid and extended view
back over coasts and islands. The giant tops of the inner country showed
themselves still covered with snow. We were in that district so little
known in ancient history, which was so long a bone of contention between
Argos and Sparta, whose boundaries seem never to have been fixed by any
national landmark. When we had reached the top of the rim of inland Alps,
we ascended and descended various steeps, and rounded many glens, reaching
in the end the village of Hagios Petros, which we had seen before us for a
long time, while we descended one precipice and mounted another to attain
our goal. It was amusing to see our _agogiatæ_ or muleteers pulling out
fragments of mirror, and arranging their toilette, such as it was, before
encountering the criticism of the Hagiopetrans. One of these men was
indeed a handsome soldierly youth, who walked all day with us for a week
over the roughest country, in miserable shoes, and yet without apparent
fatigue.
Another, a great stout man with a beard, excused himself for not being
married by saying he was _too little_ (_εἶναι μικρός_), and so we learned
that as they are all expected to marry, and do marry, twenty-five is
considered the earliest proper age. One would almost think they had
preserved some echo of Aristotle’s views, which make thirty years the best
age for marriage—thirty years! when most of us are already so old as to
have lost interest in these great pleasures.
At Hagios Petros we were hospitably received by the demarch, a venerable
old man with a white beard, who was a physician, unfortunately also a
politician, and who insisted on making a thousand inquiries about Mr.
Gladstone and Prince Bismarck, while we were starving and longing for
dinner. Some fish, which the muleteers had providently bought at Astros
and brought with them, formed the best part of the entertainment, if we
except the magnificent creature, adorned in all his petticoats and colors
and knives, who came in to see us before dinner, and kissed our hands with
wonderful dignity, but who turned out to be the waiter at the table. We
asked the demarch how he had procured himself so stately a servant, and he
said he was the clerk in his office. It occurred to us, when we watched
the grace and dignity of every movement in this royal-looking person, how
great an effect splendid costume seems to have on manners. It was but a
few days since that I had gone to a very fashionable evening party at a
handsome palace in Athens, and had been amused at the extraordinary
awkwardness with which various very learned men—professors, archæologists,
men of independent means—had entered the room. The circle was, I may add,
chiefly German. Here was a man, ignorant, acting as a servant and yet a
king in demeanor. But how could you expect a German professor in his
miserable Frankish dress to assume the dignity of a Greek in palicar
costume, in forty yards of petticoat, his waist squeezed with female
relentlessness, with his ruby jacket and gaiters, his daggers and pistols
at his belt. After all, manners are hardly attainable, as a rule, without
costume.
We were accommodated as well as the worthy demarch could manage for the
night. As a special favor I was put to sleep into his dispensary, a little
chamber full of galley-pots, pestles, and labelled bottles of antiquated
appearance, and dreamt in turns of the study of Faust and of the
apothecary’s shop in Mantua, which we see upon the stage.
Early in the morning we climbed up a steep ascent to attain the high
plateau, very bleak and bare, which is believed by the people to have been
the scene of the conflict of Othryades and his men with the Argive 300. A
particular spot is still called _στοὺς φονευμένους_, _the place of the
slain_. The high plain, about 3500 feet above the sea, was all peopled
with country-folk coming to a market at Hagios Petros, and we had ample
opportunity of admiring both the fine manly appearance and the excellent
manners of this hardy and free peasantry. The complex of mountains in
which they live is the chain of Parnon, which ultimately extends from
Thyreatis through Kynuria down to Cape Malea, but not without many breaks
and crossings. The heights of Parnon (now called Malevo) still hid from us
the farther Alps of the inner country.
After a ride of an hour or two we descended to the village of Arachova,
much smaller and poorer than its namesake in Phocis (above, p. 274), and
thence to the valley of a stream called Phonissa, the murderess, from its
dangerous floods, but at the moment a pleasant and shallow brook. Down its
narrow bed we went for hours, crossing and recrossing it, or riding along
its banks, with all the verdure gradually increasing with the change of
climate and of shelter, till at last a turn in the river brought us
suddenly in sight of the brilliant serrated crest of Taygetus, glittering
with its snow in the sunshine. Then we knew our proper landmark, and felt
that we were indeed approaching Sparta.
But we still had a long way to ride down our river till we reached its
confluence with the Eurotas, near to which we stopped at a solitary khan,
from which it is an easy ride to visit the remains of Sellasia. During the
remaining three hours we descended the banks of the Eurotas, with the
country gradually growing richer, and the stream so deep that it could no
longer be forded. There is a quaint high mediæval bridge at the head of
the vale of Sparta. On a hot summer’s afternoon, about five o’clock, we
rode, dusty and tired, into Sparta.
The town was in holiday, and athletic sports were going on in
commemoration of the establishment of Greek liberty. Crowds of fine tall
men were in the very wide regular streets, and in the evening this new
town vindicated its ancient title of _εὐρύχορος_. But the very first
glance at the surroundings of the place was sufficient to correct in my
mind a very widespread error, which we all obtain from reading the books
of people who have never studied history on the spot. We imagine to
ourselves the Spartans as hardy mountaineers, living in a rude alpine
country, with sterile soil, the rude nurse of liberty. They may have been
such when they arrived in prehistoric times from the mountains of Phocis,
but a very short residence in Laconia must have changed them very much.
The vale of Sparta is the richest and most fertile in Peloponnesus. The
bounding chains of mountains are separated by a stretch, some twenty miles
wide, of undulating hills and slopes, all now covered with vineyards,
orange and lemon orchards, and comfortable homesteads or villages. The
great chain on the west limits the vale by a definite line, but toward the
east the hills that run toward Malea rise very gradually and with many
delays beyond the arable ground. The old Spartans therefore settled in the
richest and best country available, and must from the very outset of their
career have had better food, better climate, and hence much more luxury
than their neighbors.
We are led to the same conclusion by the art-remains which are now coming
to light, and which are being collected in the well-built local museum of
the town. They show us that there was an archaic school of sculpture,
which produced votive and funeral reliefs, and therefore that the old
Spartans were by no means so opposed to art as they have been represented
in the histories. The poetry of Alkman, with its social and moral freedom,
its suggestions of luxury and good living, shows what kind of literature
the Spartan rulers thought fit to import and encourage in the city of
Lycurgus. The whole sketch of Spartan society which we read in Plutarch’s
_Life_ and other late authorities seems rather to smack of imaginary
reconstruction on Doric principles than of historical reality. Contrasts
there were, no doubt, between Dorians and Ionians, nay, even between
Sparta and Tarentine or Argive Dorians; but still Sparta was a rich and
luxurious society, as is confessed on all hands where there is any mention
of the ladies and their homes. We might as well infer from the rudeness of
the dormitories in the College at Winchester, or from the simplicity of an
English man-of-war’s mess, that our nation consisted of rude mountaineers
living in the sternest simplicity.
But if I continue to write in this way I shall have all the pedants down
upon me. Let us return to the Sparta of to-day. We lodged at a very bad
and dear inn, and our host’s candid excuse for his exorbitant prices was
the fact that he very seldom had strangers to rob, and so must plunder
those that came without stint. His formula was perhaps a little more
decent, but he hardly sought to disguise the plain truth. When we sought
our beds, we found that a very noisy party had established themselves
below to celebrate the Feast of the Liberation, with supper, speeches, and
midnight revelry.
So, as usual, there was little possibility of sleep. Moreover, I knew that
we had a very long day’s journey before us to Kalamata, so I rose before
the sun and before my companions, to make preparations and to rouse the
muleteers.
On opening my window, I felt that I had attained one of the strange
moments of life which can never be forgotten. The air was preternaturally
clear and cold, and the sky beginning to glow faintly with the coming day.
Straight before me, so close that it almost seemed within reach of voice,
the giant Taygetus, which rises straight from the plain, stood up into the
sky, its black and purple gradually brightening into crimson, and the cold
blue-white of its snow warming into rose. There was a great feeling of
peace and silence, and yet a vast diffusion of sound. From the whole
plain, with all its homesteads and villages, myriads of cocks were
proclaiming the advent of the dawn. I had never thought there were so many
cocks in all the world. The ever-succeeding voices of these countless
thousands kept up one continual wave of sound, such as I suppose could not
be equalled anywhere else; and yet for all that, as I have said, there was
a feeling of silence, a sense that no other living thing was abroad, an
absolute stillness in the air, a deep sleep over the rest of nature.
How long I stood there, and forgot my hurry, I know not, but starting up
at last as the sun struck the mountain, I went down, and found below
stairs another curious contrast. All over the coffee-room (if I may so
dignify it) were the disordered remains of a disorderly revel, ashes and
stains and fragments in disgusting confusion; and among them a solitary
figure was mumbling prayers in the gloom to the image of a saint with a
faint lamp burning before it. In the midst of the wrecks of dissipation
was the earnestness of devotion, prayer in the place of ribaldry; perhaps,
too, dead formalism in the place of coarse but real enjoyment.
We left for Mistra before six in the morning, so escaping some of the
parting inspection which the whole town was ready to bestow upon us. The
way led us past many orchards, where oranges and lemons were growing in
the richest profusion on great trees, as large as the cherry-trees in the
Alps. The branches were bending with their load, and there was fruit
tumbled into the grass, and studding the ground in careless plenty with
its ruddy and pale gold. In these orchards, with their deep green masses
of foliage, the nightingales sing all day, and we heard them out-carolling
the homelier sounds of awakening husbandry. During all the many rides I
have taken through Greece, no valley ever struck me with the sense of
peace and wealth so much as that of Sparta.
After an hour or so we reached the picturesque town of Mistra, now nearly
deserted, but all through the Middle Ages the capital of the district,
nestled under the shelter of the great fortress of the Villehardouins, the
family of the famous chronicler. Separated by a deep gorge (or _langada_)
with its torrent from the loftier mountain, this picturesque rock with its
fortress contains the most remarkable mediæval remains, Latin, Greek,
Venetian, Turkish, in all the Morea. Villehardouins and Paleologi made it
their seat of power, and filled it with churches and palaces, to which I
shall return when we speak of mediæval Greece. An earthquake about fifty
years ago destroyed many of the houses, and the population then founded
the new Sparta, with its wide, regular streets, on the site of the old
classical city. This resettlement is not so serious a hindrance to
archæology as the rebuilding of Athens, for we know that in the days of
its real greatness Sparta was a mere aggregate of villages, and the walls
and theatre which are still visible must have been built in late Greek or
Roman times. The so-called tomb of Leonidas, a square chamber built with
huge blocks of ashlar masonry, of which three courses remain, appears like
building of the best period, but its history is wholly unknown.
We reached in another hour the steep village of Trypi, at the very mouth
of the great pass through Taygetus—a beautiful site, with houses and
forest trees standing one above the other on the precipitous steep; and
below, the torrent rushing into the plain to join the Eurotas. It is from
this village that we ought to have started at dawn, and where we should
have spent the previous night, for even from here it takes eleven full
hours to reach Kalamata on the Gulf of Messene. The traveller should send
on his ponies, or take them to Mistra and thence to Trypi on the previous
afternoon. The lodging there is probably not much worse than at Sparta.
From this point we entered at once into the great Langada pass, the most
splendid defile in Greece—the only way from Sparta into Messene for a
distance of thirty miles north and south. It is indeed possible to scale
the mountain at a few other points, but only by regular alpine climbing,
whereas this is a regular highway; and along it strings of mules, not
without trouble, make their passage daily, when the snow does not lie,
from Sparta and from Kalamata.
[Illustration: Langada Pass]
Nothing can exceed the picturesqueness and beauty of this pass, and
nothing was stranger than the contrast between its two steeps. That which
faced south was covered with green and with spring flowers—pale anemones,
irises, orchids, violets, and, where a stream trickled down, with
primroses—a marsh plant in this country. All these were growing among
great boulders and cliffs, whereas on the opposite side the whole face was
bleak and barren, the rocks being striated with rich yellow and red veins.
I suppose in hot summer these aspects are reversed. High above us, as it
were, looking down from the summits, were great forests of fir-trees—a
gloomy setting to a grandiose and savage landscape. The day was, as usual,
calm and perfectly fine, with a few white clouds relieving the deep blue
of the sky. As we were threading our way among the rocks of the
river-course we were alarmed by large stones tumbling from above, and
threatening to crush us. Our guides raised all the echoes with their
shouts, to warn any unconscious disturber of this solitude that there were
human beings beneath, but on closer survey we found that our possible
assassins were only goats clambering along the precipice in search of
food, and disturbing loose boulders as they went.
Farther on we met other herds of these quaint creatures generally tended
by a pair of solitary children, who seemed to belong to no human kin, but,
like birds or flowers, to be the natural denizens of these wilds. They
seemed not to talk or play; we never heard them sing, but passed them
sitting in curious vague listlessness, with no wonder, no curiosity, in
their deep solemn eyes. There, all the day long, they heard no sound but
the falling water, the tinkling of their flocks, and the great whisper of
the forest pines when the breeze touched them on its way down the pass.
They took little heed of us as we passed, and seemed to have sunk from
active beings into mere passive mirrors of the external nature around
them. The men with us, on the other hand, were constantly singing and
talking. They were all in a strange country which they had never seen; a
serious man with a gun slung around his shoulder was our guide from Trypi,
and so at last we reached the top of the pass, about four thousand feet
high, marked by a little chapel to St. Elias, and once by a stone pillar
stating the boundary between Sparta and Messene. It was then up this pass,
and among these forests, that the young Spartans had steeled themselves by
hunting the wolf and the bear in peace, and by raids and surprises in days
of war.
The descent was longer and more varied; sometimes through well cultivated
olive yards, mulberries, and thriving villages, sometimes along giant
slopes, where a high wind would have made our progress very difficult.
Gradually the views opened and extended, and in the evening we could see
down to the coast of Messene, and the sea far away. But we did not reach
Kalamata till long after nightfall, and rested gladly in a less
uncomfortable inn than we had yet found in the journey.
The town is a cheery and pleasant little place, with remains of a large
mediæval castle occupied by Franks, Venetians, Turks, which was the first
seat of the Villehardouins, and from which they founded their second fort
at Mistra. The river Nedon here runs into the sea, and there is a sort of
open roadstead for ships, where steamers call almost daily, and a good
deal of coasting trade (silk, currants, etc.) goes on. The only notable
feature in the architecture is the pretty bell tower of the church, of a
type which I afterward saw in other parts of Messenia, but which is not
usual in these late Byzantine buildings.
As there was nothing to delay us here, we left next morning for the
convent of Vourkano, from which we were to visit Mount Ithome, and the
famous ruins of Epaminondas’s second great foundation in Peloponnesus—the
revived Messene. The plain (called _Macaria_ or Felix from its fertility)
through which we rode was indeed both rich and prosperous, but swampy in
some places and very dusty in others. There seemed to be active
cultivation of mulberries, figs, olives, lemons, almonds, currant-grapes,
with cactus hedges and plenty of cattle. There were numerous little
pot-houses along the road, where mastich and lucumia were sold, as well as
dried fruit and oranges. If the Nedon was broad and shallow, we found the
Pamisos narrow and deep, so that it could only be crossed by a bridge. A
few hours brought us to the ascent of Mount Ithome, on a high shoulder of
which is situated the famous and hospitable convent of Vourkano (or
Voulkano).
The building, very picturesquely situated high on the side of Mount
Ithome, commands a long slope covered with brushwood and wild-flowers, the
ideal spot for a botanist, as many rills of water run down the descent and
produce an abundant and various vegetation. There is not a sod of soil
which does not contain bulbs and roots of flowers. Below stretches the
valley of Stenyclarus, so famous in the old annals of Messene. It was
studded with groves of orange and lemon, olive and date, mulberry and fig.
The whole of this country has an aspect far more southern and subtropical
than any part of Laconia.
The monks treated us with great kindness, even pressing us to sit down to
dinner before any ablutions had been thought of, and while we were still
covered with the dust of a very hot and stormy journey along high roads.
The plan of the building, which is not old, having been moved down from
the summit in the last century, is that of a court closed with a gateway,
with covered corridors above looking into the court, and a very tawdry
chapel occupying its centre. It seemed a large and well-to-do
establishment, a sort of Greek Monte Cassino in appearance; and with the
same stir of country people and passing visitors about it. Far above us,
on the summit of Mount Ithome—the site of human sacrifices to Zeus
Ithomates in days of trouble—we saw a chapel on the highest top, 2500 feet
over the sea. Here they told us that a solitary anchorite spent his life,
praying and doing service at his altar, far above the sounds of human
life. We made inquiry concerning the history of this saint, who was once a
wealthy Athenian citizen, with a wife and family. His wife was dead, and
his sons settled in the world, so he resolved to devote the rest of his
years to the service of God apart from the ways of men. Once a fortnight
only he descended to the convent, and brought up the necessary food. On
his lonely watch he had no company but timid hares, travelling quail, and
an occasional eagle, that came and sat by him without fear, perhaps in
wonder at this curious and silent friend. The monks below had often urged
him to catch these creatures for their benefit, but he refused to profane
their lofty asylum. So he sits, looking out from his watch upon sunshine
and rain, upon hot calm and wild storm, with the whole Peloponnesus
extended beneath his eyes. He sees from afar the works and ways of men,
and the world that he has left for ever. Is it not strange that still upon
the same height men offer to their God these human sacrifices, changed
indeed in appearance, but in real substance the same?
The main excursion from the monastery is over the saddle of the mountain
westward, and through the “Laconian gate” down into the valley beneath, to
see the remains of Epaminondas’s great foundation, the new Messene. There
are still faint traces of a small theatre and some other buildings, but of
the walls and gates enough to tell us pretty clearly how men built
fortifications in those days. The circuit of the walls included the fort
on the summit, and enclosed a large tract of country, so much that it
would be impossible for any garrison to defend it, and accordingly we hear
of the city being taken by sudden assault more than once. The plan is very
splendid, but seems to us rather ostentatious than serious for a new
foundation liable to attacks from Sparta. The walls were, however,
beautifully built, with towers at intervals, and gates for sallies. The
best extant gate is called the Arcadian, and consisted of an outer and
inner pair of folding-doors, enclosing a large round chamber for the
watch. The size of the doorposts and lintels is gigantic, and shows that
there was neither time nor labor spared to make Messene a stately
settlement. There was almost enough land enclosed within the walls to feed
the inhabitants of the houses, for their number never became very great.
If Megalopolis, a far more successful foundation, was far too large for
its population, how much more must this have been the case with Messene?
In military architecture, however, we have no other specimen of old
Hellenic work equal to it, except perhaps Eleutheræ, which resembles it in
style strongly, though the enclosure is quite small in comparison.
[Illustration: Arcadian Gateway, Messene]
We could have gone up from Messene by a very long day’s ride to Bassæ, and
so to Olympia, but we had had enough of riding and preferred to make a
short day to the sea at Kyparissia, and thence by steamer to Katakolo,
from which rail and road to Olympia are quite easy. So we left the convent
in the morning and descended into the valley, to turn north and then
north-east, along the river courses which mark the mule-tracks through the
wild country. We crossed a strange bridge over the junction of two rivers
made of three arches meeting in the centre, and of which the substructure
were certainly old Greek building. We then passed through bleak tracts of
uncultivated land, perhaps the most signal case of insufficient population
we had seen in Greece. All these waste fields were covered with great
masses of asphodel, through which rare herds of swine were feeding, and
the sight of these fields suggested to me that by the “meadow of asphodel”
in Homer is not meant a pleasant garden, or desirable country, but merely
a dull waste in which there is nothing done, and no sign of human labor or
human happiness. Had there been night or gloom over this stony tract, with
its tall straggling plants and pale flowers, one could easily imagine it
the place which the dead hero inhabited when he told his friend that the
vilest menial on earth was happier than he.
After some hours the mountains began to approach on either side, and we
reached a country wonderful in its contrast. Great green slopes reached up
from us far away into the hills, studded with great single forest trees,
and among them huge shrubs of arbutus and mastich, trimmed and rounded as
if for ornament. It was like a splendid park, kept by an English magnate.
The regularity of shape in the shrubs arises, no doubt, from the constant
cropping of the young shoots all round by herds of goats, which we met
here and there in this beautiful solitude. The river bank where we rode
was clothed with oleander, prickly pear, and other flowering shrubs which
I could not name.
At last woods of ancient olives, with great gnarled stems, told us that we
were nearing some important settlement, and the pleasant town of
Kyparissia came in view—now, alas! a heap of ruins since the recent
earthquake. Here we took leave of our ponies, mules, and human followers;
but the pathos of parting with these intimate companions of many days was
somewhat marred by the divergence of their notions and ours as to their
pay. Yet these differences, when settled, did not prevent them from giving
us an affectionate farewell.