MEDIÆVAL GREECE.
When I first went to Greece, nearly twenty years ago, the few travellers
one met in the country never thought of studying its mediæval remains. We
were in search of classical art, we passed by Byzantine churches or
Frankish towers with contemptuous ignorance. Mr. Finlay’s great book,
indeed, was already written; but those who knew German and were bold
enough to attack the eight volumes which Ersch and Gruber’s _Encyclopædia_
devote to the article on Greece, had been taught by Hopf’s _Essay on
Mediæval Greece_ to fathom what depths dulness could attain. Whether the
author, or the odious paper, and type in its double columns, contributed
to this result, was of little consequence. The subject itself seemed
dreary beyond description. All the various peoples who invaded, swayed,
ravaged, colonized the country in the Dark Ages, seemed but
undistinguishable hordes of barbarians, of whom we knew nothing, about
whom we cared nothing, beyond a general hatred of them, as those who had
broken up and destroyed the splendid temples and fair statues that are now
the world’s desire. Even the very thorough and learned scholars, who
produced _Bædeker’s Greece_, a very few years ago, never thought of
putting in any information whatever, beyond their chronological table,
upon the many centuries which intervened between the close of paganism and
the recent regeneration of the country. The contempt for Byzantine work in
the East was in our early days like the contempt of Renaissance work in
the West. We were all Classical or Gothic in taste.
Now a great reaction is setting in. Instead of the dreadful Hopf, we have
the fascinating Gregorovius, whose _Mediæval Athens_ clothes even dry
details with the hue of fancy; the sober _Murray’s Guide_ includes Mt.
Athos and its wonders as part of its task. Recent travellers, and the
students at the Foreign Schools of Athens, tell us of curious churches and
their frescoes, and now Mr. Schultz, of the British school, has undertaken
to reproduce them with his pencil. Following the example of Pullen, whose
pictures have secured for posterity some record of the churches of
Salonica, so often threatened by fire, he will perpetuate the remnants of
an architecture and an art which were rapidly perishing from neglect. When
I was first at Athens men were seriously discussing the propriety of
razing to the ground the most striking of all the Byzantine churches at
Athens, because it stood in the thoroughfare which led from the palace to
the railway station! Historians tell us the dreadful fact, that over
seventy of these delicately quaint buildings were destroyed when the new
cathedral, a vulgar and senseless compromise in style, was constructed. A
few more years of Vandalism in Greece, a few more terrible fires at
Salonica and at Athos, and the world had lost its best records of a very
curious and distinctive civilization.
There are indeed no mean traces of this art in Adriatic Italy; the
exarchate at Ravenna, the eastern traffic of Venice, have shown their
influence on Italian art and architecture. The splendid mosaics of
Ravenna, nay, even the seven domes of S. Antonio at Verona, the frescoes
of the Giotto Chapel at Padua, above all, the great cathedral at Venice,
are all strongly colored—those of Ravenna even produced—by Byzantine art.
Yet most travellers who visit S. Mark’s at Venice have never seen a
Byzantine church, and do not feel its Eastern parentage; still fewer visit
the splendid basilica of Parenzo, which is a still more unmistakable
example. But to those who have turned aside from Olympia and Parthenon to
study the early Christian remains in Greece, all this art of Eastern Italy
will acquire a new interest and a deeper meaning.
These are the reasons which have tempted me to say a few words on this
side of Greek travel. I do not pretend to speak as an authority; I only
desire to stimulate a nascent interest which will presently make what I
say seem simple and antiquated. But as yet even high authorities are very
much in the dark about these things. What would a student of Gothic
architecture say to a discussion whether an extant building belonged to
the fourth century or the eleventh? and yet such divergent views are still
maintained concerning the origin of the Athenian churches.
Let us begin with the best and quaintest, the so-called _Old Cathedral_,
which was fortunately allowed to stand beside its ugly and pretentious
successor. The first thing which strikes us is the exceeding smallness of
the dimensions, it is like one of the little chapels you find in
Glendalough and elsewhere in Ireland. I do not know whether the Greeks
contemplated a congregation kneeling in the open air, as was the case
around these chapels in Ireland, but such edifices were certainly intended
in the first instance as holy places for sacerdotal celebrations, not as
houses of prayer for the people. I was told on Mt. Athos that it was not
the practice of the Greek church to celebrate more than one service in any
one Church daily. Hence the monks, who are making prayer continually, have
twenty or thirty chapels within the precincts of each monastery. Perhaps a
similar motive may have led to the construction of a great number of
smaller churches at Athens, where seventy have already been destroyed, and
at Salonica, where remains of them are still being frequently discovered.
Perhaps, also, that desire to consecrate to the religion of Christ the
hallowed places of the heathen, which turned the Parthenon and the temple
of Theseus into churches, also prompted the Byzantine bishops to set up
chapels upon smaller heathen sanctuaries, where no stately temple existed,
and mere consecration would have left no patent symbol of Christian
occupation.
But if this Cathedral is small, it has the proper beauty of minute art; it
is covered with rich decoration. All its surfaces show carved fragments
not only of classical, but of earlier Byzantine work—friezes, reliefs,
inscriptions, capitals—all so disposed with a general correspondence or
symmetry as to produce the effect of a real design. Moreover, this foreign
ornament is set in a building strictly Byzantine in form, with its rich
doorway, its tiny windows with their high semicircular arches supported on
delicate capitals, and toned by the centuries of Attic dust to that rich
gold brown which has turned the Parthenon from marble almost to ruddy
gold. Never was there greater harmony and unity attained by the most
deliberate patch-work. In the earlier works on Byzantine art, this church
was confidently assigned to the sixth century. Buchon found upon it the
arms of La Roche and of Villehardouin, so that he assigned it to the
thirteenth. The character of the other buildings of these knights makes me
doubt that they and their friends could have constructed such a church—the
Western monks then built Latin churches in Greece—and I suppose that the
arms, which I could not find, were only carved by the Franks upon the
existing building. But I will not therefore subscribe to the sixth-century
theory.
Of the remaining churches three only, the Kapnikarea, the Virgin of the
Monastery, and S. Theodore, are worth studying, as specimens of the
typical form of such buildings. The main plan is a square, surmounted by a
cupola supported on four pillars, with a corridor or porch on the West
side, and three polygonal apses on the East. Lesser cupolas often surround
the central dome. The height and slenderness of this central dome is
probably the clearest sign of comparative lateness in these buildings,
which used to be attributed to the fourth and fifth centuries, but are now
degraded to the eleventh. The earliest form is no doubt that of the
massive S. George’s at Salonica—a huge Rotunda covered with a flat dome,
not unlike the Pantheon at Rome, with nothing but richly ornamented
niches, and a splendid mosaic ceiling in the dome, to give relief to a
very plain design. The successive complications and refinements added to
this simple structure may be studied even in the later churches of
Salonica.
The traveller who has whetted his taste for this peculiar form of mediæval
art, and desires to study it further, will find within reach of Athens two
monasteries well worth a visit, that of the Phæneromené on Salamis, a very
fair specimen of an undisturbed Greek monastery, and that of Daphne, which
may be ranked with the ruins of Mistra as showing clear traces of the
conflict of East and West, of Latin with Greek Christianity. This
sanctuary, with its now decaying walls, succeeded as usual to a pagan
shrine with hardly altered name. The Saints, still pictured in black and
gold upon the walls, and worshipped upon their festivals, have become
fantastic and unreal beings, well enough adapted to that mixture of
superstition and nationalism which is the body of the Greek religion, and,
despite a purer creed, not very far removed from the religious instincts
of the old Hellenic race. Five or six wretched monks still occupy the
dilapidated building, vegetating in sleepy idleness; they do nothing but
repeat daily their accustomed prayers, and receive dues for allowing the
people of the neighboring hamlets to kiss, once or twice a year, a
dreadful-looking S. Elias, painted olive-brown on a gold background, or to
light the nightly lamp at the wayside shrine of a saint black with smoke.
The structure as we now see it is chiefly the work of the Cistercians who
accompanied Otho de la Roche from Champagne to his dukedom of Athens, and
was established round a far older Byzantine church and monastery. Like all
mediæval convents, it is fortified, and the whole settlement, courts and
gardens included, is surrounded by a crenelated wall, originally about
thirty feet high.
There are occasional towers in the wall, and remains of arches supporting
a passage of sufficient altitude for the defenders to look over the
battlements. The old church in the centre of the court has had a narthex
or nave added in Gothic style by the Benedictines, and here again are
battlements, from which the monks could send down stones or boiling liquid
upon assailants who penetrated the outer walls. Three sides of the court
are surrounded by buildings; beneath, there are massive arcades of stone
for the kitchen, store-rooms, and refectory; above, wooden galleries which
supplied the monks with their cells. Most of this is now in ruins,
occupied in part by peasants and their sheep. But the church, both in its
external simplicity and its internal grandeur, is remarkable for the
splendid decoration of its walls with mosaics, which, alas! have been
allowed to decay as much from the indolence of the Greeks as the
intolerance of the Turks. In fact, while some care and regard for
classical remains have gradually been instilled into the minds of the
inhabitants—of course, money value is an easily understood test—the
respect for their splendid mediæval remains has only gained Western
intellects within the last two or three years, so that we may expect
another generation to elapse before this new kind of interest will be
disseminated among the possessors of so great a bequest from the Middle
Ages.
The interior of the church at Daphne is a melancholy example. From the
effects of damp the mortar has loosened, and great patches of the precious
mosaic have fallen to the ground. You can pick up handfulls of glazed and
gilded fragments, of which the rich surfaces were composed. Here and there
a Turkish bullet has defaced a solemn Saint, while the fires lit by
soldiers in days of war, and by shepherds in time of peace, have, in many
places, blackened the roof beyond recognition. Within the central cupola a
gigantic head of Christ on gold ground is still visible, or was so when I
saw the place in 1889; but the whole roof was in danger of falling, and
the Greek Government, at the instigation of Dr. Dörpfeld, had undertaken
to stay the progress of decay, and so the building was filled with
scaffolding. This, however, enabled us to mount close to the figures,
which in the short and high building are seen with difficulty from the
ground, and so we distinguished clearly round the base of the cupola the
twelve Apostles, in the bay arches the prophets, in the transepts the
Annunciation, the Nativity, the Baptism, and the Transfiguration of
Christ—all according to the strict models laid down for such ornaments by
the Greek Church. The drawings are indeed stiff and grotesque, but the
gloom and mystery of the building hide all imperfections, and give to
these imposing figures in black and gold a certain majesty, which must
have been felt tenfold by simple worshippers not trained in habits of
æsthetic criticism.
We have, unfortunately, no records of the history of these convents, as in
the case of many Western abbeys, and the old chronicles of wars and
pestilences seldom mention this quiet life. We should fain, says M. Henri
Belle, have followed the fortunes of these monks who left some fair abbey
in Burgundy to catechise schismatics in this distant land, and bring their
preaching to aid the sword of the Crusaders; but these Crusaders were
generally intent on changing their cross for a crown, and were therefore
not at all likely to favor the rigid proselytism of the Cistercians. It is
very interesting to know that Innocent III., that great pope, who from the
outset disapproved of the violent overthrow of the Christian Empire of the
East, was the first to recommend, both to the conquerors and their clergy,
such moderation as might serve to bring back the schismatic Greeks to the
Roman fold. There are still extant several of his letters to the abbeys of
the Morea, and to this abbey of the duchy of Athens, showing that even his
authority and zeal in this matter were unable to restrain the bigotry of
the Latin monks. There were frequent quarrels, too, between these monks of
Daphne and their Duke, and frequent appeals to the sovran pontiff to
regulate the relations between the civil authority, which claimed the
right of suzerain, and the religious orders, which claimed absolute
independence and immunity from all feudal obligations. Still, in spite of
all disputes, the abbey was the last resting-place of the Frankish Dukes
of Athens, and in a vault beneath the narthex were found several of their
rude stone coffins, without inscription or ornament. One only has carved
upon it the arms of the second Guy de la Roche, third Duke of Athens—two
entwined serpents surmounted with two fleurs-de-lis. Guy II., says the
chronicle, behaved as a gallant lord, beloved of all, and attained great
renown in every kingdom. He sleeps here, not in the darkness of oblivion,
but obscured by greater monuments of the greater dead. Yet I cannot but
dally over this interesting piece of mediæval history, the more so as it
explains the strange title of Theseus, Duke of Athens, in Shakespeare’s
immortal _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, as well as the curious fact, at least
to classical readers, that the poet should have chosen mediæval Athens as
a court of gracious manners, and suitable for the background of his fairy
drama.
Neglecting geography, I shall carry the reader next to the very analogous
ruins of Mistra, where, however, it was rather the Greek that supplanted
the Latin, than the Latin the Greek ecclesiastic.
When the Franks invaded Greece a very remarkable family, the
Villehardouins, seized a part of the Morea, and presently built Mistra,
above Sparta; it was adorned with fair Gothic churches and palaces, and
surmounted by a fortress. Sixty years after the conquest, William
Villehardouin was captured by a new Byzantine emperor Palæologus, who was
recovering his dominion. The Frank was obliged to cede for his ransom the
forts of Mistra and Monemvasia, which from that time were strongholds of
the Byzantine power till the conquest of the Turks. Still the
Villehardouins long kept hold of Kalamata and other forts; and to the pen
of one of the family, Geoffrey, we owe the famous old chronicle _La
Conquête de Constantinople_, which is unique in its importance both as a
specimen of old French and a piece of mediæval history.
The architecture of Mistra, begun at a noble epoch by the Latins, was
taken up by the Byzantine Greeks, so that we have both styles combined in
curious relics of the now deserted stronghold. For, since 1850, when an
earthquake shook down many houses, the population wandered to the revived
Sparta, which is now a thriving town. But as the old Sparta in its
greatest days was only a collection of shabby villages, showing no outward
sign of its importance, so the new and vulgar Sparta has no attractions
(save the lovely orange and lemon orchards round it) in comparison with
the mediæval Mistra. The houses are piled one above another till you reach
the summit crowned by the citadel which, itself a mountain, is severed
from the higher mountains at its back by a deep gorge with a tumbling
river. “The whole town is now nothing but ruined palaces, churches, and
houses. You wander up rudely-paved streets rising zigzag, and pass beneath
arches on which are carved the escutcheons of French knights. You enter
courts overgrown with grass, but full of memories of the Crusaders. It is
the very home of the Middle Ages. Passing through these streets, now the
resort of lizards and serpents, you come upon Frankish tombs, among others
that of Theodora Tocco, wife of the Emperor Constantine Palæologus, who
died in 1430. The Panagia is the only church well preserved—a Latin
basilica, with a portico in the form of an Italian loggia, and a Byzantine
tower added to it. This building is highly ornamented with delicate
carving, and its walls are in alternate courses of brick and stone, while
the gates, columns, and floor are of marble. The interior is adorned with
Byzantine frescoes of scenes from the Old Testament. Higher up is the
metropolitan church, built by the Greeks as soon as William Villehardouin
had surrendered the fort in 1263. This great church is not so beautiful as
that already described, but has many peculiarities of no less interest.
The palace of the Frank princes was probably at the wide place on a higher
level, where the ruined walls show the remains of many Gothic windows. The
citadel was first rehandled by the Greek Palæologi, then by the Turks,
then by the Venetians, who in their turn seized this mediæval ‘Fetter of
Greece.’ And now all the traces of all these conquerors are lying together
confused in silence and decay. The heat of the sun in these narrow and
stony streets, with their high walls, is intense. But you cannot but pause
when you find in turn old Greek carving, Byzantine dedications, Roman
inscriptions, Frankish devices, emblazoned on the walls. The Turkish baths
alone are intact, and have resisted both weather and earthquake. But the
churches occupy the chief place still, dropping now and then a stone, as
it were a monumental tear for their glorious past; the Greek Cross, the
Latin Cross, the Crescent, have all ruled there in their turn. Even a pair
of ruined minarets remain to show the traces of that slavery to which the
people were subject for four hundred years.”
The occupation of the Frankish knights had not found an adequate
historian, since old Villehardouin, till Gregorovius wrote his _Mediæval
Athens_. The traveller still sees throughout Greece frequent traces of
this short domination, but all of one sort—the ruins of castles which the
knights had built to overawe their subjects, and of which Mistra was
perhaps the most important. The same invaders built the great towers at
Kalamata, and most picturesque of all is the keep over the town of
Karytena in Arcadia, the stronghold of Hugo de Bruyères. But the Frankish
devices which adorned these castles have been mostly torn down by the
Turks, or replaced by the Venetian lion, according as new invaders turned
the fortifications of their predecessors to their own uses. Nor are any of
these castles to be compared in size or splendor with those of northern
Europe. The most famous of them, the palace at Thebes, was so completely
destroyed by the Catalans, that all vestige of it has disappeared, and we
owe our knowledge of it to the description of the Catalan annalist, Ramon
Muntaner, who tells of the ravages of his fellows not without some stings
of his æsthetic conscience.
But let us pass from these complex ruins, which speak the conflict of the
East and West, to the peculiar quiet homes of the Greek monk, who spends
his time not in works of charity, not in labors of erudition, not in the
toil of education, like his western brother, but simply in performing an
arduous and exacting ritual, in praying, or rather in repeating prayers,
so many hours in the day, in observing fasts and vigils, above all in
maintaining the strict creed which has given the title of orthodox to his
Church. These resting-places (_μόνη_ is the suggestive word) are of course
settled in quiet regions, in the mountains, upon the islands, so that we
cannot expect them near a stirring capital like Athens. Yet in the gorge
of the defile which leads up to Phyle there is a little _skete_ (the house
of _ascetics_) lonely and wild in site; and by the sea on Salamis, nearly
over against Megara, the traveller will find a small but very
characteristic specimen of the Greek monastery, the _Panagia Phæneromené_.
There he will see the tiny cells, and the library, almost as small as any
of them, at the top of dark stairs, and containing some twenty volumes; he
will be received by the Hegoumenos with mastic and jam, and then with
coffee, and strive to satisfy the simple curiosity of the old men, who
seem so anxious to hear about the world, and yet have turned away their
eyes from seeing it. Above all, he will find in the midst of the enclosure
a little model Byzantine Church, built with the greatest neatness, of
narrow bricks, in which string courses and crosses are introduced by an
altered setting of the bricks. Here too he will see the curious practice,
which led to marble imitations at Venice, of ornamenting the walls by
building in green and blue pottery—apparently old Rhodian ware, for it is
not now to be found in use. It is a simpler form of the decoration already
described in the Cathedral of Athens, that of ornamenting a wall with
foreign objects symmetrically disposed, and no one who sees it will say
that it is inartistic. Within are the usual ornaments of the Byzantine
Church, but not in mosaic; for all the walls are covered with frescoes by
a monk of the early eighteenth century, a genius in his way, though
following strictly the traditions of the school of Athos. The traveller
who ascends the pulpit will thence see himself surrounded by very strange
pictures—over the west door, as is prescribed, the Last Judgment, with the
sins of men being weighed in a huge balance, and devils underneath trying
to pull down the fatal scale. The condemned are escorted by demons to an
enormous mouth breathing out flames—the mouth of hell. Beatitudes and
tortures supply the top and bottom of the composition. Even more quaint is
the miracle of the swine of the Gadarenes running down a steep place into
the sea. They are drowning in the waves, and on the head or back of each
is a little black devil trying to save himself from sinking. Similar
creatures are escaping from the statues of heathen gods which tumble from
the walls as the infant Jesus passes by on his flight to Egypt. This
points to the belief that the statues of heathen gods were inhabited by an
evil spirit, and so far actually bodies with souls within them!
These few details are sufficient to tempt the reader to visit this
monastery, which is far better worth seeing than the beautifully situated
and hospitable Vourkano described elsewhere in this work. I have no space
to speak of Megaspilion, for this book must be kept within handy limits,
and can never aspire to even approximate completeness. So also will I here
pass by with a mere mention the eyries of Meteora in Thessaly, perched
upon strange pinnacles of rock, like S. Simeon upon his pillar. The
approach to, and descent from, these monasteries in a swinging net is
indeed a strange adventure to undergo, and more painfully unpleasant than
most such adventures, but at the top there is little of interest. The
hoards of precious MSS. which Curzon describes in his delightful volume,
over which the monks quarrelled when he offered gold, and would not sell
them because none would allow his brother to enjoy the money—these
splendid illuminated books have either been cozened away by antiquarians,
or are gathered in the University Library at Athens. They are there in
their right place. I understand the peaks of Meteora, when the present
occupants die out, are to receive not holy men, but criminals, who are to
suffer their solitary confinement not in dungeons beneath the earth, but
far above the haunts of men.
But all these monastic settlements pale into insignificance when we turn
to Mount Athos, the real Holy of Holies of the Greek Church, which is
indeed far from the kingdom of Greece, and therefore beyond the scope of
this work, and yet a chapter on the mediævalism of Eastern Europe can
hardly be written without some consideration of this strange promontory,
in its beauty surpassing all description, in its history unique both for
early progress and for subsequent unchangeableness, in its daily life a
faithful mirror of long past centuries, even as its buildings are now
mediæval castles inhabited by mediæval men. I will here set down the
impressions, from a visit made in 1889, not merely of the art, but of the
life of this, the most distinctive as well as the largest example of Greek
monasticism.
_Velificatus Athos_ is an expression which has a meaning even now, though
a very different one from that implied by Juvenal. The satirist would not
believe that Xerxes turned it into an island, though the remains of the
canal are plainly visible to the present day. But now the incompetence of
the Turkish Government has turned Athos, for English travellers, into an
island, for it may only be approached by sea. If you attempt to ride there
from Salonica or Cavalla, you are at once warned that you do so at your
own risk; that the tariff now fixed by a joint commission of Turks,
dragomans, and bandits for the release of an English captive is £15,000;
that you will have to pay that sum yourself, etc. etc. This is enough to
drive any respectable and responsible person from the enterprise of the
land journey, and so he must wait for the rare and irregular chances of
boat or steamer traffic. It was my good fortune to find one of H. M.’s
ships going that way from Salonica, and with a captain gracious enough to
drop me on the headland, or rather to throw me up on it, for we landed in
a heavy sea, with considerable risk and danger, and the _τρικυμία_, as
they classically call it, lasted all day, and raged around the Holy
Mountain. Yet this adventurous way of landing under the great western
cliffs of the promontory, with the monasteries of S. Paul, Gregory, and
Dionysius, each on their several peaks, looking down upon us from a dizzy
height through the stormy mists, was doubtless far the most picturesque
introduction we could have had to the long-promised land.
For this had been many years my desire, not only to see the strangest and
most perfect relic now extant of mediæval superstition, but to find, if
possible, in the early MSS. which throng the libraries of that famous
retreat some cousin, if not some uncle or aunt of the great illuminated
MSS. which are the glory of the early Irish Church. The other travellers
who have reached this place have done so by arriving at some legitimate
port on the tamer eastern side; the latest, Mr. Riley,(186) by landing at
the gentlest and most humane spot of all, the bay of Vatopédi. We, on the
contrary, crept into a little boat-harbor under the strictest, the most
primitive, and far the most beautiful of the western eagles’ nests,
whither English pickles, tinned lobster, and caviare have not yet
penetrated. We were doing a very informal and unceremonious thing, for we
were invading the outlying settlements, to demand shelter and hospitality,
whereas we should have first of all proceeded to the capital, Karyes, to
present pompous letters of introduction from Papas, Prime Ministers,
Patriarchs, and to receive equally elaborate missives from the central
committee, asking the several monasteries to entertain us.
But we took the place by storm, not by regular siege. We showed our
letters, when we climbed up to Dionysiu, as they call it, and prayed them
to forestall the hospitality which they would doubtless show us, if we
returned with official sanction. The good monks were equal to the
occasion; they waived ceremony, though ceremony lords it in these
conservative establishments, and every violation of it is called a
_προσβολή_, probably the greatest sin that a monk can commit. At every
step of our route this obstacle stood before us, and had we attempted to
force our way past it, no doubt our dumb mules would have spoken, and
reproved our madness. Yet when they had before them all the missives which
were to be read at Karyes next day, to be followed up by a letter
addressed to themselves, they actually antedated their hospitality and
made us feel at home and happy.
Nowhere have I seen more perfect and graceful hospitality in spirit,
nowhere a more genuine attempt to feed the hungry and shelter the outcast,
even though the means and materials of doing so were often very inadequate
to Western notions. But let me first notice the extant comforts. We always
had ample room in special strangers’ apartments, which occupy the highest
and most picturesque place in every monastery. We always had clean beds to
sleep in, nor were we disturbed by any unbidden bedfellows, these
creatures having (as we were told) made it a rule of etiquette never to
appear or molest any one till after Pascha, the Feast of the Resurrection.
The feast was peculiarly late this year, and the weather perfect summer;
still the insects carefully avoided any such _προσβολή_ toward us as to
violate their Lenten fast. In addition to undisturbed nights—a great boon
to weary travellers—we had always good black bread, and fresh every day;
we had also excellent Turkish coffee, and fortunately most wholesome, for
the ceremony of the place requires you to drink it whenever you enter, and
whenever you leave, any domicile whatever. Seven or eight times a day did
we partake of this luxury and without damage to digestion or nerves. There
was also sound red wine, and plenty of it, varying according to the
makers, but mostly good, and only in one case slightly resinated. There
were also excellent hazel-nuts, often served hot, roast in a pan, and very
palatable.
What else was there good? There was jam of many kinds, all good, though
unfortunately served neat, and to be eaten in spoonfuls, without any
bread, till at last we committed the _prosvolé_ of asking to have it
brought back when there was bread on the table. There were also eggs in
abundance, just imported to be ready for Easter, and therefore fresh, and
served _au plat_. Nor had we anywhere to make the complaint so pathetic in
Mr. Riley’s book, that the oil or butter used in cooking was rancid. This
is the advantage of going in spring, or rather one of the many advantages,
that both oil and butter (the latter is of course rare) were quite
unobjectionable.
When I say that butter was rare and eggs imported, I assume that the
reader knows of the singularity of Athos, which consists in the absence of
the greatest feature of human life—woman, and all inferior imitations of
her in the animal world. Not a cow, not a goat, not a hen, not a cat, of
that sex! And this for centuries! Three thousand monks, kept up by
importation, three thousand laborers or servants, imported likewise, but
no home production of animals—that is considered odious and impious. And
when, in this remote nook of extreme conservatism, this one refuge from
the snares and wiles of Eve, a Russian monk seriously proposed to us the
propriety of admitting the other sex, we felt a shock as of an earthquake,
and began to understand the current feeling that the Russians were pushing
their influence at Athos, in order to transform the Holy Mountain into a
den of political thieves.
Nothing is more curious than to study the effects, upon a large society,
of the total exclusion of the female sex. It is commonly thought that men
by themselves must grow rude and savage; that it is to women we owe all
the graces and refinements of social intercourse. Nothing can be further
from the truth. I venture to say that in all the world there is not so
perfectly polite and orderly a society as that of Athos. As regards
hospitality and gracious manners, the monks and their servants put to
shame the most polished Western people. Disorder, tumult, confusion, seem
impossible in this land of peace. If they have differences, and squabble
about rights of property, these things are referred to law courts, and
determined by argument of advocates, not by disputing and high words among
the claimants. While life and property is still unsafe on the mainland,
and on the sister peninsulas of Cassandra and Longos, Athos has been for
centuries as secure as any county in England. So far, then, all the
evidence is in favor of the restriction. Many of the monks, being carried
to the peninsula in early youth, have completely forgotten what a woman is
like, except for the brown smoky pictures of the _Panagia_ with her infant
in all the churches, which the strict iconography of the orthodox Church
has made as unlovely and non-human as it is possible for a picture to be.
So far, so well.
But if the monks imagined they could simply expunge the other sex from
their life without any but the obvious consequences, they were mistaken.
What strikes the traveller is not the rudeness, the untidyness, the
discomfort of a purely male society, it is rather its dulness and
depression. Some of the older monks were indeed jolly enough; they drank
their wine, and cracked their jokes freely. But the novices who attended
at table, the men and boys who had come from the mainland to work as
servants, muleteers, laborers, seemed all suffering under a permanent
silence and sadness. The town of Karyes is the most sombre and gloomy
place I ever saw. There are no laughing groups, no singing, no games among
the boys. Every one looked serious, solemn, listless, vacant, as the case
might be, but devoid of keenness and interest in life. At first one might
suspect that the monks were hard taskmasters, ruling their servants as
slaves; but this is not the real solution. It is that the main source of
interest and cause of quarrel in all these animals, human and other, does
not exist. For the dulness was not confined to the young monks or the
laity; it had invaded even the lower animals. The tom-cats, which were
there in crowds, passed one another in moody silence along the roofs. They
seemed permanently dumb. And if the cocks had not lost their voice, and
crowed frequently in the small hours of the morning, their note seemed to
me a wail, not a challenge—the clear though unconscious expression of a
great want in their lives.
How different were the notes of the nightingales, the pigeons, the jays,
whose wings emancipate them from monkish restrictions; and whose music
fills with life all the enchanting glens, brakes, and forests in this
earthly Paradise!
For if an exquisite situation in the midst of historic splendor, a
marvellous variety of outline and climate, and a vegetation rich and
undisturbed beyond comparison, can make a modern Eden possible, it is
here. Nature might be imagined gradually improving in her work when she
framed the three peninsulas of the Chalcidice. The westernmost, the old
Pallene, once the site of the historic Olynthus, is broad and flat, with
no recommendation but its fertility; the second, Sithonia, makes some
attempt at being picturesque, having an outline of gently serrated hills,
which rise, perhaps, to one thousand feet, and are dotted with woods.
Anywhere else, Sithonia may take some rank, but within sight of the mighty
Olympus, and beside the giant Athos, it remains obscure and without a
history. Athos runs out into the Ægean, with its outermost cone standing
six thousand five hundred feet out of the sea, and as such is (I believe)
far the most striking headland in Europe. You may see higher Alps, but
from a height, and with intervening heights to lessen the effect; you may
see higher Carpathians, but from the dull plain of land in Hungary. Here
you can enjoy the full splendor of the peak from the sea, from the fringe
of white breakers round the base up to the pale-gray, snow-streaked dome,
which reaches beyond torrent and forest into heaven. Within two or three
hours you can ascend from gardens of oranges and lemons, figs and olives,
through woods of arbutus, myrtle, cytisus, heath, and carpets of
forget-me-not, anemone, iris, orchid, to the climate of primroses and
violets, and to the stunted birch and gnarled fir which skirt the regions
of perpetual snow. Moreover, the gradually-increasing ridge which forms
the backbone of the peninsula is seamed on both sides with constant glens
and ravines, in each of which tumbling water gives movement to the view,
and life to the vegetation which, even where it hides in its rich
luxuriance the course of the stream, cannot hush the sounding voice. Here
the nightingale sings all the day long, and the fair shrubs grow,
unmolested by those herds of wandering goats, which are the real locusts
of the wild lands of southern Europe.
Each side of the main ridge has its peculiarities of vegetation, that
facing north-east being gentler in aspect, and showing brakes of
Mediterranean heath ten or fifteen feet high, through which mule paths are
cut as through a forest. The coast facing south-west is far sterner,
wilder, and more precipitous, but enjoys a temperature almost tropical;
for there the plants and fruits of southern Greece flourish without stint.
The site of the western monasteries is generally on a precipitous rock at
the mouth of one of the ravines, and commands a view up the glen to the
great summit of the mountain. To pass from any one of these monasteries to
the next, you must either clamber down a precipice to the sea, and pass
round in a boat commanded by a skipper-monk, or you must mount the mules
provided, and ride round the folds and seams of the precipices, on paths
incredibly dangerous of aspect, and yet incredibly free from any real
disasters. When you come to a torrent you must descend by zigzag winding
till you reach a practicable ford near the sea-level, and cross it at the
foot of some sounding fall. But the next projecting shoulder stands
straight out of the sea, and you must climb again a similar break-neck
ascent, till you reach a path along the edge of the dizzy cliff, where you
pass with one foot in the air, over the sea one thousand feet beneath,
while the other is nudged now and then by the wall of the rock within, so
that the cautious mule chooses the outer ledge of the road, since a loss
of balance means strictly a loss of life. It was a constant regret to us
that none of the party could sketch the beautiful scenes which were
perpetually before us, or even photograph them. But the efforts of
photographers hitherto have been very disappointing. There are indeed
pictures of most of the monasteries, taken at the instigation of the
Russians, but all so wretchedly inadequate, so carefully taken from the
wrong point, that we deliberately avoided accepting them, or carrying them
home. Mr. Riley too, a man of taste and feeling, had essayed the thing
with leisure and experience in his art, and yet the cuts taken from the
photographs, which are published in his book, are also hopelessly
inadequate. When, for example, approaching from the north, we suddenly
came in view of Simópetra—standing close to us, across a yawning chasm,
with the sea roaring one thousand feet beneath, high in the air on its
huge, lonely crag, holding on to the land by a mere viaduct, and behind it
the great rocks and gorges and forests framed by the snowy dome of Athos
in the far background—we felt that the world can produce no finer scene,
and that the most riotous artistic imagination, such as Gustave Doré’s,
would be tamed in its presence by the inability of human pencil to exceed
it.(187) The plan of this monastery and its smaller brothers (I was going
to call them sisters!) is that of a strong, square keep, rising straight
from the sheer cliffs, with but a single bridge of rock leading landward,
and when the wall has been carried to a height far more than sufficient
against any attack save modern artillery, they begin to throw round it
stories of balconies, stayed out from the wall by very light wooden beams,
each balcony sheltered by that above, till a deep-pitched roof overhangs
the whole. The topmost and outermost corner of these balconies is always
the guest-chamber or chambers, and from this lofty nook you not only look
out upon the sea and land, but between the chinks of the floor of boards
you see into air under your feet, and reflect that if a storm swept round
the cliff your frail tenement might be crushed like a house of cards, and
wander into the sea far beneath. To me, at least, it was impossible to
walk round these balconies without an occasional shudder, and yet we could
not hear that the slender supports had ever given way, or that any of the
monks had ever been launched into the air. On the divans running round
these aerial guest-chambers are beautiful rugs from Smyrna and Bulgaria,
the ancient gifts of pilgrims and of peasants, which were thrust aside in
the rich and vulgar Russian establishments for the gaudy products of
modern Constantinople and Athens, while the older and simpler monasteries
were content with their soft and mellow colors. The wealth of Athos in
these rugs is very great. There were constantly on the mules under us
saddle-cloths which would be the glory of an æsthetic drawing-room.
But it is high time for us to take a closer view of the inside of these
curious castles, some of which, Vatopédi, Ivíron, Lavra, are almost towns
surrounded by great fortifications, and which possess not only large
properties, outlying farms, dependencies, but within them a whole
population of monks and their retainers. Let us first speak of the
treasures accumulated within them, relics of ancient art and industry in
the way of books, pictures, and work in precious metals. The reader will
doubtless appreciate that the estimate of some of these things depends
largely on the taste and education of the visitor. Mr. Riley thinks it of
importance, in his excellent work, to enumerate the exact number of
chapels contained in, or attached to, each monastery, whereas to me the
exact number, and the name of the patron saint, seems about the last
detail with which I should trouble my readers. So also some sentimental
travellers enumerate with care the alleged relics, and Mr. Riley lets it
be seen plainly not only that he is disposed to believe in their
genuineness, but that, if proven, it is of the highest religious
importance. Seeing the gross ignorance of the monks on all really
important matters of history on the real date and foundation of their
several monasteries, the ascription of a relic to some companion of our
Lord, or some worthy of the first four centuries, seems to me ridiculous.
With this preamble I turn first to the books. Every convent we visited had
a library containing MSS. The larger had in addition many printed books;
in one, for example, which was not rich (Esphigménu), we found a fine
bound set of Migne’s “Fathers.” The library room was generally a mere
closet with very little light, and there was no sign that anybody ever
read there. The contents indeed consisted of ecclesiastical books,
prayer-books, lesson-books, rituals noted for chanting, of which they had
working copies in their churches. Still they are so careless concerning
the teachings of their old service books that they have completely lost
the meaning of the old musical notation, which appears in dots and commas
(generally red) over their older texts, and they now follow a new
tradition with a new notation. When one has seen some hundreds of these
Gospels, and extracts from the Gospels, ranging over several centuries,
some written in gold characters on the title-page, with conventional
pictures of the Evangelists on gold ground, one begins to wonder what
could have possessed the good monks to occupy themselves with doing over
and over again what had been done hundreds of times, and lay before them
in multitudes of adequate copies. I suppose the nature of their religious
worship suggests the true answer. As they count it religion to repeat over
and over again prayers and lessons all through their nights of vigil and
their days of somnolence, so they must have thought it acceptable to God,
and a meritorious work, to keep copying out, in a fair hand, Gospels that
nobody would read and that nobody would disturb for centuries on dusty
shelves.
In the twelve libraries I examined I did not find more than half a dozen
secular books, and these of late date, and copies of well-known texts.
There may of course be some stray treasures still concealed in nooks and
corners, though a good scholar, Mr. Lambros of Athens, has spent much
labor in classifying and cataloguing these MSS. But I saw chests here and
there in out-of-the-way lumber rooms, with a few books lying in them, and
believe that in this way something valuable may still be concealed. In
general the monks were friendly and ready to show their books, or at least
their perfect manners made them appear so; but in one monastery
(Stavronikíta) they were clearly anxious that none of these treasures
should be studied. They had not only tossed together all their MSS. which
had been recently set in order by Mr. Lambros, but had torn off the labels
with which he had numbered them, without any attempt, or I believe
intention, of replacing them with new ones.
As I am not now addressing learned readers, I need not go into details
about the particular books which interested me. My main object had been to
find, if possible, at Mount Athos some analogy, some parallel, to the
splendid school of ornamentation which has left us the _Book of Kells_,
the _Lindisfarne Gospels_, _St. Chad’s Gospel_ at Lichfield, and other
such masterpieces of Irish illumination. I have always thought it likely
that some early Byzantine missionary found his way to Ireland, and gave
the first impulse to a local school of art. That there is a family
likeness between early Irish and Byzantine work seems to me undeniable. I
can hardly say whether I was disappointed or not to find that, as far as
Athos went, the Irish school was perfectly independent, and there was no
early book which even remotely suggested the marvellous designs of the
_Book of Kells_. The emblems of the Evangelists seemed unknown there
before the eleventh century. There was ample use of gilding, and a good
knowledge of colors. In one or two we found a dozen kinds of birds
adequately portrayed in colors—the peacock, pheasant, red-legged
partridge, stork, etc., being at once recognizable. But all the capitals
were upon the same design, all the bands of ornament were little more than
blue diaper on gold ground. There were a good many books in slanting
uncials, probably seventh to ninth century; an occasional page or fragment
of earlier date, but nothing that we could see of value for solving the
difficulties of a Scripture text. Careful and beautiful handwritings on
splendid vellum of the succeeding centuries were there in countless
abundance. They are valuable as specimens of handwriting and as nothing
else. In many of the libraries the monk in charge was quite intelligent
about the dates of the MSS., and was able to read the often perplexing
colophon in which the century and _indiction_ were recorded. But the
number of dated MSS. was, alas! very small.
I now turn to the _κειμήλια_ or treasures in precious metals and gems,
which have often been described and belauded by travellers. Each visitor
sees something to admire which the rest pass over in silence, or else he
is shown something not noticed by the rest. So the reader must consult
first, Curzon, then Mr. Tozer, then Didron, then Mr. Riley, and even after
that there remain many things to be noted by fresh observers. The fact is
that the majority of these reliquaries, pictures, and ornaments of the
screen are tawdry and vulgar, either made or renewed lately, and in bad
taste. It is only here and there that a splendid old piece of work strikes
one with its strange contrast. Far the most interesting of all the
illustrations given by Mr. Riley is that of the nave of one of the
Churches, which are all (except the old Church of Karyes) built on exactly
the same plan, with small variations as to the lighting, or the outer
narthex, or the dimensions. An architect would find these variations
highly interesting; to the amateur there seems in them a great sameness.
But among the uniform, or nearly uniform, features is a huge candelabrum,
not the central one hung from the middle of the dome, but one which
encircles it, hung by brass chains from the inner edges of the dome,
consisting of twelve (sometimes only ten) straight bands of open-worked
brass, of excellent design, joined with hinges, which are set in double
eagles (the Byzantine emblem), so that they form large decagons or
duodecagons, in the upper edge of which candles are set all round. The
design and work of these candelabra appeared to me old. But the monks
affirmed that they were now made in Karyes. This I did not believe, and in
any case my suspicions as to the antiquity of the design were confirmed by
one I found in St. Paul’s (Agio Pavlo), which bears on one of the double
eagles an inscription that the Hegoumenos had restored and beautified the
church in 1850. But this eagle joined brass bands on which was a clear
German inscription stating that they were made in Dresden in the year
1660.
By far the finest embroideries in silk were at the rich convent of Iviron,
and indeed the main church there has many features worthy of note. The
floor is of elaborate old mosaic, with an inscription of George the
Founder, which the monks refer to the tenth century. There are quaint
Rhodian plaques, both set in the outer wall, and also laid like carpets,
with a border of fine design on the walls of the transept domes. Beside
them are remarkable old Byzantine capitals designed of rams’ heads. But
the great piece of embroidery is a _πόδια_ (or apron of the Panagia). The
ground is gold and green silk, on which portraits of the three imperial
founders are worked, their crowns of pearls, their dresses of white silk,
their beards of brown silk, and their faces painted most delicately in
colors upon silk. Never in my life have I seen any embroidery so perfect
and so precious. There were also occasional old crosses of great
excellence, but to describe them here would be tedious and useless, unless
it be to stimulate the reader to go out and see them for himself; nor can
I recommend this, if he be not a well-introduced traveller, ready to rough
it and to meet with good temper many obstacles. Travelling in Turkey,
where time has no value, and where restrictions upon liberty are both
arbitrary and unjustly applied, is a matter of great patience.
What shall we say of the services which go on most of the day and night in
these monastic churches, and which seemed to Messrs. Riley and Owen so
interesting and so in harmony with the Church of England, that they were
never tired of regretting the separation of Anglican from Greek
Christianity, and hoping for a union or reunion between them? Mr. Owen
went so far as to celebrate the Eucharist after the Anglican ritual in one
or two of these churches before a crowd of monks, who could not understand
his words, far less the spirit with which our Church approaches the Holy
Table.
Yet here are large companies of men, who have given up the world to live
on hard fare and strict rule, spending days and nights in the service of
God, and resigning the ordinary pleasures and distractions of the world.
Surely here there must be some strong impulse, some living faith which
sways so many lives. And yet after long and anxious searching for some
spiritual life, after hours spent in watching the prayers and austerities
of the monks, we could not but come to the conclusion that here was no
real religion; that it was a mountain, if not a valley, “full of dry
bones, and, behold, they were very dry.”
It is of course very hazardous for a stranger to assert a negative; there
may be, even in this cold and barren ritual, some real breath of spiritual
life, and some examples of men who serve God in spirit and in truth. But
the general impression, as compared with that of any Western
religion—Roman Catholic, Protestant, Unitarian—is not favorable. Very
possibly no Western man will ever be in real sympathy with Orientals in
spiritual matters, and Orientals these monks are in the strictest sense.
They put a stress upon orthodoxy as such, which to most of us is
incomprehensible. They regard idleness as not inconsistent with the
highest and holiest life. They consider the particular kind of food which
they eat of far more religious importance than to avoid excess in eating
and drinking. How can we judge such people by our standards? To them it
seems to be religion to sit in a stall all night, perhaps keeping their
eyes open, but in a vague trance, thinking of nothing, and not following
one word that is said, while they ignore teaching, preaching, active
charity, education of the young, as not worthy of the anchorite and the
recluse. To us the _ἀγρυπνία_ which we attended seemed the most absolute
misconception of the service of God; to the monks this was the very acme
of piety.
I have spoken unreservedly of these things, as I learned that these gentle
and hospitable souls were impossible to please in one respect—they think
all criticism of their life most rude and unjust. They complained to me
bitterly of Mr. Riley’s book, which they had learned to know from extracts
published in Greek papers, and yet could there be a more generous and
sympathetic account than his? If, then, I must in any case (though I
deeply regret it) incur their resentment, it is better to do so for a
candid judgment, than to endeavor to escape it by writing a mere
panegyric, which would mislead the reader without satisfying the monks.
Indeed, in one point I could not even satisfy myself. No panegyric could
adequately describe their courteous and unstinted hospitality.
INDEX.
About, M. E., 24, 28.
Acro-Corinthus, 395 _sq._
Acropolis of Athens,
first view of, 34, 89 _sq._;
bombarded by Venetians, 91;
by Turks, 98;
works on, 103;
excavations about, 122, 123;
the view from, 152 _sq._
Adler, Dr., his theory concerning Mycenæ, 486.
Ægina, 171, 428 _sq._
Æschines, 294, 324.
Æschylus, 82, 112, 130.
Æsculapius, temple of, at Athens, 139.
Agatharchus, scene-painter, 128.
Air, lightness and clearness of, 255.
Alfieri, 134.
Alkamenes, 107, 307, 312.
Alpheus, the, 302, 317, 342, 357.
Alpine character of Greece, 154.
Altis, the, at Olympia, 302 _sq._
Anaxagoras, 138.
Apollo, temple of,
at Delphi, 283 _sq._;
at Bassæ, 264 _sq._
Arachova,
in Phocis, 276 _sq._;
in Kynuria, 440.
Arcadia, 351 _sq._;
the ideal, 352 _sq._;
description of, 358, 382.
Areopagus, the, 139 _sq._
Argion, 457.
Argos, 410 _sq._
Aristion, stele of, 68.
Aristophanes, 408.
Art, Greek,
reserve of, 79, 80 _sq._, 113, 114;
progress of, 110–112.
Aspendus, theatre of, 127.
Assyrian features in old Greek art, 261.
Astros, 436.
Athena Nike, temple of, 117.
Athens,
faces eastward, 3;
museums of, 51, 55 _sq._;
ancient synœkismos of, 171;
Byzantine art in, 496;
dukes of, 502.
Athletics, Greek, 321–324, 340–342.
Attica, 152 _sq._
Barathrum, the, 86.
Bassæ, 364 _sq._
Bath-room, archaic, at Tiryns, 487 _sq._
Beulé, M., quoted, 342, 358.
Boating, 430.
Bœotia, 229 _sq._
Book of Kells, 470, 524, 525.
Bournouf, M. E., 103, 419.
Boxing, 334.
Brauron, 153, 198.
Brigands, 185, 194–197, 200, 360.
British Museum, 99.
Bruyères, Hugo de, 505.
Bugs, 254.
Bull, fresco of, 489.
Byron, Lord, 29, 200, 205.
Byzantine architecture and art in Greece, 494 _sq._, 496, 507.
Camels, 296.
Canaris, M., 240.
Canon statue, the, 63.
Canova, 336.
Caryatids on Erechtheum, 101, 103.
Cashel, rock of, 120.
Castalian fount, 289, 293.
Castroménos, M., 343.
Cella frieze, of Parthenon, 109 _sq._
Cerigo, 12.
Chæronea, 264 _sq._
Charos, 282.
Cheese, used in training, 326.
Christ,
the Passion of, 81;
in Arcadia, 363.
Christian antiquities of Athens, 145.
Cicada (Tettix), 409.
Cicero, 210, 320.
Cithæron, Mount, 219, 223, 229.
Clarke, Dr., 460.
Cleonæ, 404.
Cockerell, Mr., 368.
Cocks at Sparta, 444.
Coins, 391.
Comedy, Greek, 137;
at Cambridge, 137.
Constantine, the Emperor, 291.
Convent Libraries, 522;
metals and gems, 526;
embroideries, 527;
plaques, 527.
Copais, Lake, 248, 249.
Corinth, 20, 392 _sq._
Corinthian order, 36, 369, 434.
Coronea, 250.
Costume, 268, 279, 379, 437.
Crete, 14, 15.
Curzon, M., 509.
Cyclades, 14, 166, 182.
Cyclopean walls, 472, 473.
Daphne,
pass of, 205;
church at, 500.
Delphi, 282 _sq._
Dionysus (_see_ Theatre).
Divri, 345.
Dodwell, quoted, 96, 228, 464, 471.
Dogs, 32, 301;
on tombs, 261.
Dorians, 442.
Dorian states and their art, 420–423.
Doric order, 34, 37, 98, 304, 407, 474.
Dörpfeld, Dr., 314, 487, 490.
Dramatic competitions, 131.
Eagles, 232.
Earthquakes, 277, 289, 305, 454.
Easter, 361, 383.
Elatea, 265.
Eleusinia, the, 210–214.
Eleusis, 207 _sq._
Eleutheræ, 223–229.
Elgin, Lord, 97, 98, 460.
Elis, 299 _sq._
Entrances, plan of, in Greek palaces, 487–489.
Epaminondas, 241, 242.
Epicureans, 144, 145.
Epidauros, 429, 432 _sq._
Erechtheum, the, 101.
Ergasteria, mines of, 167 _sq._
Erymanthus,
Mount, 343;
river, 345, 347, 358.
Euripides, his art, 129, 130, 321.
Eurotas, the, 440.
Events, the, at Olympic games, 331–333.
Expression in art, 114 _sq._
Fallmerayer, 415.
Forts
at Phyle, 215;
Eleutheræ, 226;
Karytena, 373;
Staigue, Kerry, a comparison, 407;
Tiryns, 405;
Mycenæ, 457.
Freeman, Prof.,
on restorations, 93;
criticised, 93, 246.
French tragedy, 134.
Frieze
of Parthenon, 105;
at Tiryns, 489.
Funeral orations, 75.
Games, the Olympic, 318 _sq._
Glendalough, chapels in, 495.
Gods, the unknown, 143.
Gold cups, polishing of, 485.
Greece,
faces eastward, 2;
routes to, 2, 18–20;
first aspect of, 4;
depopulation of, 11, 232;
permanence of inhabitants, 24, 414–419.
Greek art,
polychromatic, 40–46;
notions of death, 77–79 (cf. Art);
travel, 494.
Greeks,
character of, 21, 146 _sq._ (note) 360;
courage of, 201.
Guide-books for Greece, 53.
Gregorovius, Mr., 493.
Hadrian’s temple of Zeus at Athens, 34–37.
Hagios Petros, 438.
Handbooks for Greece, 53, 54.
Helicon, 248.
Helmet of Hiero, 317.
Heræon, the, at Olympia, 314, 371.
Heraldic ornaments, 482.
Hermes
of Vatican, 63;
archaic at Athens, 68;
of Praxiteles, 313.
Herodotus, 423.
Hesiod, 408.
Homer, 77, 284, 403, 409.
Honey
of Hymettus, 156;
of Laurium, 176.
Hopf, 415.
Hydra, the island of, 183, 425–427.
Ictinus, 364, 370.
Iliad, the, 284, 318, 334, 411, 466.
Inns, 361.
Ionic order, 116.
Ireland, resembles Greece in various natural features, and in its
art, 5, 17, 121, 407, 464, 468–470, 478.
Italy, faces westward, 1.
Itea, 297.
Ithome, Mount, 449 _sq._
Iviron, Monastery, 527.
Jealousy, Greek, 245.
Julian, the Emperor, 292.
Julius Cæsar, 390.
Kalamata, 449, 505.
Karytena, 372, 505.
Katakolo, 299, 381.
Kephissus, the,
near Athens, 157;
in Thriasian plain, 219;
at Orchomenus, 257.
Kirrha, 295.
Kladeos, the, 302 _sq._, 343.
Koron, Gulf of, 6.
Krissa, 294.
Kynætha, 354.
Kynuria, 435.
Ladon, the, 358, 359.
Lala, 344.
Lambros, Mr., 524.
Langada Pass, 446.
Laurium, 169–172;
its mining companies, 173–179.
Lechæum, 390–392.
Lechouri, village of, 347.
Legends, 282, 411, 478.
Lion
of Marathon, 199;
of Chæronea, 268 _sq._;
of the Arsenal, Venice, 270;
of Lucerne, 271.
Lionardo da Vinci, 419.
Lion-gate at Mycenæ, 471.
Livádia, 251 _sq._
Locrian inscriptions, 260.
Lycabettus, 189.
Lysicrates, monument of, 36, 47, 150.
Mænalus, Mount, 381, 387.
Maina, 7.
Malea promontory, 13;
hermit of, 13.
Marathon, 153, 198, 199, 203, 204.
Marble,
Greek, 40;
Pentelican, 190, 304.
Mars’ Orchestra, 243.
Mediæval Greece, 492 _sq._
Medicine in Greece, 362.
Medusa, 419.
Megalopolis, 374.
Melos, 15;
Venus of, 16.
Messene, walls and gates of, 452.
Messenia, 449 _sq._
Meteora Monastery, 528.
Michaelis, 103 _sq._
Mistra, 445, 503.
Monasteries,
Scripou (Orchomenus), 260;
Vourkano, 450.
Morea (_see_ Peloponnesus).
Mount Athos, 509 _sq._
Munychia, 160.
Murray, Mr. A. S., 61, 270, 313, 476.
Museums,
subdivision of, 50–54, 151;
of Athens, 55 _sq._, 74;
of Acropolis, 118;
of Olympia, 306.
Music, 280–282;
in Arcadia, 353, 372.
Mycenæ, 456 _sq._
Myron, 423.
Mysteries, the Eleusinian, 210 _sq._
Naples, museum of, 44.
Natural beauty, exhilarating effect of, 255.
Nauplia, 423, 429.
New Grange, 464, 468.
Nicias, a slave-owner, 177, 178.
Nike of Pæonius, 306, 316.
Oaks, 344, 366.
Œnoe, 224.
Old Cathedral, Athens, 495.
Olive-trees, in Attica, 158, 197.
Olonos, Mount, 343, 347, 348.
Olympia, 303 _sq._
Olympiads, the, 318 _sq._
Oracle, Delphic, 285 _sq._
Orchestra, the, 140.
Orchomenus, 257 _sq._
Ornamentation of temples, 105, 106.
Ostrich egg, at Mycenæ, 478.
Owen, Mr., 528.
Pæonius, 307, 316.
Pæstum, temple of, 394.
Pan, 353, 387.
Panagia Phæneromené, Monastery of, 497, 507.
Panathenaic procession, 109.
Pankration, the, 329, 337.
Papalexopoulos, Dr., 387, 410.
Parnassus, Mount, 274, 281.
Parnes, Mount, 154.
Parthenon,
the older burnt, 66;
account of, 90 _sq._;
sketched by Carrey, 104;
decorations of, 105, 369.
Paul, S., at Athens, 141 _sq._, 389.
Pausanias, King, 292.
Pausanias quoted, 263, 284, 291, 307, 308, 311, 312, 328, 329, 368,
377, 408, 464, 465.
Pediments,
of Parthenon, 105 _sq._;
of temple at Olympia, 308 _sq._
Peiræus (Piræus), 31, 32, 159–161, 206.
Peloponnesus, the, 6.
Penrose, Mr., 102.
Pentathlon, 320, 331.
Pentelicus, Mount, quarries of, 190–193.
Perrot, M. G., quoted, 185–189.
Perseids and Pelopids, 486.
Petrachus, the fort of Chæronea, 264.
Phædriades, the, 289.
Phalerum, 161.
Phayllus, 333.
Phidias, 107, 115, 303.
Phigalia, 364.
Phocians, the, 291.
Phocis, 274 _sq._
Phœnicians, in Greece, 12, 170.
Phyle, pass of, 215.
Pickering, Mr., 326.
Pindar, 242, 294, 316.
Pirene, fountain of, 397.
Platæa, 223, 231.
Plato, 138.
Plutarch, quoted, 213, 265.
Politics, modern Greek, 236–240.
Polyandrion, at Chæronea, 272.
Polybius, 346, 353.
Polychromy, Greek, 39 _sq._
Pompeii, statues from, 70.
Praxiteles, 112;
his Hermes, 313;
his Faun, 353.
Propylæa
at Athens, 100;
at Eleusis, 208, 209.
Psophis, 346.
Psyttalea, 31.
Pullen, Mr., 493.
Pylæa, the, 294, 295.
Pyramids, 465.
Pyrgos, 300.
Pyrrhic dance, 280.
Pythian games, 285, 310, 311.
Racine, his estimate of tragedy, 132–134.
Rain, 346.
Renan, quoted, 141, 246 _sq._
Rhamnus, 185.
Riley, Mr., 519, 522, 526, 528.
Roads, Greek, 190, 220, 256.
Routes, through Greece, 296, 343, 349, 380, 396, 424.
Salamis, 207, 209.
Salonica churches, 497.
Salzburg, compared to Athens, 152.
Sannazaro, Jacopo, 355.
Sayce, Prof., 416.
Schliemann, Dr. H.,
his Mycenæan treasure, 151;
at Nauplia, 435;
excavations at Orchomenus, 258;
Mycenæ, 458 _sq._, 464, 473 _sq._
Schultz, Mr., 493.
Sepulchral monuments, county Meath, compared, 468.
Scott, Sir Walter, 267.
Sculpture, in relation to other arts, 316, 321.
Shelley, 86.
Shepherd children, 448.
Sicily, 63, 404.
Smith, Adam, his theory of sympathy, 80.
Socrates, 138.
Sophocles, 130.
Sorrow, its expression in art, 83.
Sparta, 9, 10 _sq._
Spartans, 320, 325, 441.
Squier, Mr., 60.
Stadium, at Delphi, 293.
Stage, the Greek, 128.
Statues,
various types of, 65;
votive, 315;
archaic, 65–70, 71, 72;
at Argos, 418;
archaistic, 70.
Stele,
of Aristion, 68;
of Alxenor, 261.
Stoics, at Athens, 144.
Strabo, 389, 396, 408.
Sunium, temple of, 166, 179–181.
Swinburne, Mr., his Greek plays, 135.
Tactics, old Greek, 203.
Tainaron, promontory of, 9.
Tanagra, figurines of, 59–62.
Taygetus, 443.
Tegea, 385.
Temple of the Winds (Athens), 47, 150.
Tennyson, his _In Memoriam_ criticised, 84.
Tettix, the (_see_ Cicada).
Theatre of Dionysus at Athens, 122 _sq._;
size of, 125;
at Argos, 413.
Thebans, character of, 241–243.
Thebes, 233–237, 241.
Theocritus, quoted, 192, 336, 353, 402.
Theodosius, 292.
Therasia (Thera), prehistoric discoveries at, 16.
Theseus, temple of, 37, 38, 46, 47.
Thespiæ, 242.
Thucydides, quoted, 207, 259.
Thyreatis, 440.
Tiryns, 405 _sq._, 487 _sq._;
destruction of, 484, 490, 491.
Tomb of S. Luke, 235.
Tombs,
defaced, 47, 48;
the Attic, 74 _sq._;
at Mycenæ, 474 _sq._
Treasury
of Minyæ, 258, 464;
of Atreus, 457 _sq._
Trikoupi, M., 237, 240, 244.
Tripod of Delphi, 292.
Tripolitza, 278, 381, 384.
Tripotamo, 345, 346.
Trophonius, oracle of, 251.
Trypi, 446.
Turks, in Greece, 3, 10, 26, 55, 281 _sq._
Umpires, at Olympia, 337, 338.
Vegetation,
in Arcadia, 366, 367;
Argolis, 401, 429, 458;
Kynuria, 436;
Laconia, 444, 447;
Messenia, 453, 454.
Venetian tower at Athens, 93.
Venetians,
bombard the Acropolis, 91;
destroy sculptures, 100.
Venus, various types of, 113, 114.
Vergil, quoted, 335, 354.
Villehardouins, the, 445, 503.
Viollet-le-duc, M., 393.
Vourkano, monastery of, 449, 508.
Walls, 159, 162;
Peiræic, 259.
Wedding scene, 279.
Wood, use of, in archaic buildings, 491.
Xenophon, cited, 201.
Zea, harbor, 160, 161.
Zeus,
temple of, at Athens, 46;
temple and statue of, at Olympia, 303 _sq._;
bronze figures of (_Ζᾶνες_), 338.