FOOTNOTES
1 Though this statement is broadly true, it requires some
modification. I should be sorry to be thought insensible to the
beauties, not only of Ravenna, with its mosaics and its pines, but
of Ancona, of the splendid Monte Gargano, of Trani and Bari, and of
the rich gardens and vineyards of Apulia.
2 Cf. Strabo, viii. c. 2, _ἐστι τοίνυν ἡ Πελοπόννησος ἐοικυῖα φύλλῳ
πλατάνου τὸ σχῆμα_.
3 These words were written in 1873. On a later occasion, our ship was
obliged to run into this bay for shelter from a storm, when we found
some cultivation along the coasts, and a village (Koron), with
extensive fortifications above it, said to be Venetian. The aspect
was by no means so desolate as appeared from a passing view outside
the headlands. Coasting steamers now call here (at Kalamata) every
second day.
4 Which the reader will find best portrayed in Prosper Mérimée’s
_Colomba_.
5 See the remarks of Polybius, who was himself witness of this great
change, quoted in the last chapter of my _Greek Life and Thought,
from Alexander to the Roman Conquest_.
6 We hailed him with a steam whistle in 1886, in vain; so it may be
that he has passed to some newer and more social kind of life.
7 A closer view of Crete disclosed to me the interesting fact that the
island is turned to the north, as regards its history. It is barred
on the south by great walls of rock, with hardly any landing-places,
so that all traffic and culture must have started from the slopes
and bays on the north side, where the Cyclades are its neighbors.
8 I should except the splendid _Venus victrix_, as she is called,
found at Capua, and now in the Museum of Naples.
9 In my _Social Life in Greece, from Homer to Menander_.
10 The words are M. About’s.
11 I beg to point out to a learned and kindly critic in the _Athenæum_,
who corrected several faults of spelling in the first edition, that
this is the form of the name warranted by inscriptions, and now to
be received by scholars: cf. Wachsmuth’s _Stadt Athen_, i. p. 49.
12 This beautiful monument has been so defaced and mutilated that the
photographs of to-day give no idea of its decoration. The careful
drawings and restorations of Stuart and Revett were made in the last
century, when it was still comparatively intact, and it is through
their book alone that we can now estimate the merits of many of the
ancient buildings of Athens. It should be added that there was a
solitary Corinthian capital found in the temple of Bassæ, which I
will describe in another chapter. But this still affords an unsolved
problem. The Philippeion at Olympia (built by the famous Philip of
Macedon) also contained an inner circle of Corinthian pillars, while
the outer circle was Ionic.
13 The following remarks on the polychromy of Greek art are not
intended for Professors of Fine Art, to whom, indeed, few things in
this book, if true, can be new, but for the ordinary reader, who may
not have seen it discussed elsewhere.
14 By the way, the appellation “Temple of Theseus” is more than
doubtful. The building fronts towards the east. This is proved by
the greater size and more elaborate decoration of the eastern
portal. It is almost certain, according to an old scholion on
Pindar, that the temples of heroes like Theseus faced west, while
those only of the Olympian gods faced the rising sun. The temple,
therefore, was the temple, not of a hero, but of a god. Probably the
Temple of Heracles, worshipped as a _god_ at Athens, which is
mentioned in the scholia of Aristophanes as situated in this part of
Athens, is to be identified with the building in question. But I
suppose for years to come we must be content to abide by the old
name of Theseon, which is now too long in general use to be easily
disturbed.
15 I was since informed at Athens that this complaint had not been
without results, and that steps are being taken to prevent quarrying
at random on classical sites.
16 Even the marble statue set up to the patriot Botzari over the grave
of the heroes of Missolonghi was so mutilated by the inhabitants
that the authorities have removed it from mere shame.
17 It is fair to add that an exception has been made for the
discoveries at Mycenæ, which have been almost all brought to Athens;
and that a handsome museum has now been built at Olympia, and a good
road from Pyrgos, which has a railway to the sea.
18 Since this was written there have been published (in German) two
careful catalogues of the sculptures of Athens by V. Sybel and by
Milchhöfer (1881), and there is besides the excellent _Handbook for
Greece_ by Dr. Lolling (Bædeker). The new edition of Murray’s
Handbook is very dear and not very satisfactory. There is a small
Greek Catalogue published by Stanford, translated by Miss Agnes
Smith. The Mycenæan antiquities are described in a separate book by
Schliemann, and by Schuchhardt.
19 There is no more pathetic instance than that described by Mr. Squier
(in his admirable work on Peru) of the tomb of a young girl which he
himself discovered, and where he comments on the various objects
laid to rest with the dead: cf. Squier’s _Peru_, p. 80. There has
since been found at Myrina, on the Asiatic coast, a great store of
these clay figures, also in tombs. Some sets of them were made to
represent the sculptures of a pediment, such as that of the
Parthenon, or rather of the east front of the temple of Olympia.
20 If I mistake not, Mr. A. S. Murray seems disposed to date them about
the first century either B. C. or A. D., thus bringing them down to
about the time of Strabo.
21 There is already quite a large collection of them in the British
Museum, _e. g._ Vase Room I., case 35, where there are many of these
figures from Tanagra. In Room II. there is a whole case of them,
chiefly from Cyrene, and from Cnidus.
22 No. 53, Mus. Pio Clem., in a small room beside the _Apollo
Belvedere_ and _Laocoon_.
23 There is now an excellent publication of the archaic statues found
in the Acropolis, by Cavvadias (Wilberg, Athens).
24 I endeavored to examine these drums by looking down through a hole
in the wall over them. They seemed to me not fluted, and rather of
the shape of barrels, very thick in the middle, than of the drums of
pillars in temples.
25 It is asserted somewhere by a Greek author that the temples burned
by the Persians were left in ruins to remind the people of the
wrongs of the hated barbarians. But we have distinct evidence, in
some cases, that this assertion is not true, and besides, using the
materials for other purposes is not the same thing. We now know that
a quantity of mutilated statues were shot as rubbish into the space
between the old Parthenon and the wall, to make a terrace for the
newer and greater building. Here they were found in the recent
excavations.
26 Aristion is also mentioned among the artists of the period.
27 “Vultum ab antiquo rigore variare.”—Plin. xxxv. 35.
28 They have been published in the first part of an excellent work on
the treasures of Athens, reproduced in phototype by Rhomaïdès
Brothers, with an explanatory text by various Athenian scholars.
29 I cannot do better than quote the admirable description of M. Ch.
Diehl: “C’étaient surtout de nouvelles statues de jeunes femmes, au
mystérieux sourire, à la parure étincelante, de ces idoles fardées
et peintes, bien faites, par leur saveur étrange, pour tenter le
pinceau d’un Gustave Moreau ou la plume d’un Pierre Loti. Comme
leurs sœurs, ces nouvelles venues ont la même attitude et le même
costume, les mêmes coquetteries de parure, le même soin de leur
chevelure, la même expression aussi; pourtant à la série déjà connue
elles out ajouté quelques œuvres exquises, et trois d’entre elles en
particulier méritent d’être signalées. L’une est une merveille de
coloris; sa tunique à large bande rouge, sa chemisette d’un vert
foncé, bordée de pourpre, son manteau orné de méandres du dessin le
plus fin, ses vêtements parsemés de croix rouges ou vertes, qui se
retrouvent sur le diadème de ses cheveux, sont d’un incomparable
éclat. Sous les tons chauds de ces riches couleurs disposées avec un
goût exquis, il semble que le marbre s’anime et fasse la chair
vivante; et un charme étrange émane de cette figure. Celle-ci (cf.
Plate) d’une date plus récente, probablement l’une des plus jeunes
de la série, montre l’effort d’un artiste habile pour créer une
œuvre originale. Dans ces formes élancées, dans cette tête petite et
fine, dans ces bras jetés en avant du corps, on sent la volonté du
maître qui cherche à faire autrement que ses devanciers; le sourire
traditionnel est devenu presque imperceptible, les yeux, qui
souriaient jadis à l’unison des levres, out cessé de se relever vers
les tempes; les joues creuses se remplissent et s’arrondissent; avec
des œuvres de cette sorte, l’archaisme est prêt à finir.... La
troisième enfin est une des œuvres les plus remarquables de l’art
attique. Plus ancienne que la précédente, elle est d’une valeur
artistique bien supérieure. Le modelé en est exquis, et son
irréprochable finesse fait un contraste singulier avec les procédés
qui sentent encore les conventions de l’école. Suivant les
traditions de l’art antique, les yeux sont obliques et bridés, le
sourire fait toujours grimacer les levres; mais dans les yeux le
regard n’est plus indifférent et fixe; il brille d’une lueur de vie
et de pensée; le sourire de ces levres n’est plus sec et dur, il
semble avoir une douceur attendrie. Certes il n’y a dans cette
sculpture nul effort pour chercher des chemins nouveaux; mais parmi
les œuvres de l’art archaïque, parmi celles où le maître a
docilement suivi la route frayée et battue, cette sculpture à
l’expression candide et presque attristée est l’une des plus
admirables.”—_Excursions archéologiques en Grèce_, p. 104.
30 When I revisited Athens in the spring of 1889, the National Museum,
which is a fine and spacious building, was quite an orderly museum,
and it was easy to see and enjoy the works of art preserved in it.
The archaic things were, moreover (as in the Acropolis), placed by
themselves; so were the tombs, and so were most of the portrait
busts. All that was still wanting was a good and complete catalogue.
31 These panegyrics—_λόγοι ἐπιτάφιοι_ they were called—were a favorite
exercise of Greek literary men. There are five classical ones still
extant—that mentioned, that in the _Menexenus_ of Plato, that of
Hypereides, and those ascribed (justly) to Lysias and (falsely) to
Demosthenes. That of Hypereides, very mutilated as it is, seems to
me the finest next to that of Thucydides. But they are all built
upon the same lines, showing even here that strict conservatism in
every branch of Greek art which never varied, for variety’s sake,
from a type once recognized as really good.
32 Roubillac’s monuments in Westminster Abbey, which excited the
admiration of his contemporaries, are the best example I know of
degradation in public taste on this question.
33 I did, indeed, see one relief at Athens, in which the relatives are
represented as rushing forward in agony, as it were to delay the
departure of the fainting figure. It is right that this exception
should be noted, as it shows that they understood what violent grief
was, and yet avoided representing it as a rule.
34 I fancy, from the unity of type shown in many of them, that they may
even have been designed by the artist without regard to the special
case, and purchased by the family of the deceased ready made. The
figures upon them do not seem to me personal likenesses.
35 In the _Adonais_, Shelley affords a curious contrast to the somewhat
morbid prominence of the poet in the case before us. The
self-effacement of Shelley has centred all our interest on his lost
friend.
36 He also supposed that the tower was Frankish, and built long before
the Venetian conquest. But here he was wrong. The stones inside the
tower, when taken down, showed clear traces of gun-powder, as was
clearly shown in a learned refutation of his views, printed at
Athens.
37 Other specimens are preserved in the little Turkish house on the
Acropolis, and should be noted by the visitor, who may easily pass
them by.
38 I speak, of course, of the copies of these famous statues which are
to be seen in the Vatican Museum.
39 The illustrated work of Michaelis is probably the most complete and
critical account both of the plan and the details, which have often
been discussed, and especially with great accuracy by Mr. Penrose,
whose monumental work, the _Principles of Athenian Architecture_,
has recently been republished. Among the many newer works, I would
call special attention to the first volume of Viollet-le-duc’s
_Entretiens sur l’Architecture_, already translated into English,
which is full of most instructing and suggestive observations on
Greek architecture; also to M. E. Bournouf’s _Acropole d’Athènes_.
40 They will be most readily consulted in the plates of Michaelis’s
_Parthenon_.
41 The discovery of the figures from the western pediment of the temple
at Olympia, carved by Alcamenes, a contemporary of Phidias, will
hardly lead us to modify this judgment. For though they show a great
talent in the composition, the defects in execution are so grave as
to lead many critics to suspect that we have in them the work of
mere local artists, certainly not the masterful hands that adorned
the Parthenon.
42 It is very uncertain, perhaps unlikely, that any of the
architectural sculpture we possess was actually finished by
Phidias’s own hand. But there can be no doubt that he directed it,
and must have designed much of it in detail, since the general
composition was certainly his creation.
43 This very pattern, in mahogany, with cane seats, and adapted, like
all Greek chairs, for loose cushions, was often used in eighteenth
century work, and may still be found in old Irish mansions furnished
at that epoch.
44 I state this because many critics have drawn an opposite inference
from a mistranslation of a passage in Plato (_Apol._ 26, E).
45 The exact number, according to Papadakis (cf. A. Müller,
_Bühnenalt._, p. 47), is stated at 27,500. But I am convinced this
is a great exaggeration. I should rather give 15,000 as a liberal
estimate; and this agrees with the measurements made for me by Dr.
Dörpfeld in 1889. This mistake is also due to misunderstanding a
passage in Plato’s _Symposium_, which says that “Agathon, whom
30,000 citizens hear——”. It is not said that they heard him at the
same time.
46 Cf. on this point my _History of Greek Literature_, i. p. 345.
47 Cf. on the details of Greek painting the last chapter of my _Social
Life in Greece_.
48 The actual passage is well worth quoting—“Au reste, je n’ose encore
ajouter que cette pièce soit en effet la meilleure de mes tragédies.
Je laisse et aux lecteurs et au temps à décider de son véritable
prix. Ce que je puis assurer, c’est que je n’en ai point fait où la
vertu soit plus mise en jour que dans celle-ci; les moindres fautes
y sont sévèrement punies; la seule pensée du crime y est regardée
avec autant d’horreur que le crime même; les faiblesses de l’amour y
passent pour des vraies faiblesses; les passions n’y sont présentées
aux yeux que pour montrer tous les désordres dont elles sont causes,
et le vice y est peint partout avec des couleurs qui en out fait
connaître et haïr la difformité. C’est là proprement le but que tout
homme qui travaille pour le public se doit proposer; et c’est que
les premiers poètes tragiques avaient en vue sur toute chose. Leur
théâtre était une école où la vertu n’était pas moins bien enseignée
que dans les écoles des philosophes.... Il serait à souhaiter que
nos ouvrages fussent aussi solides et aussi pleins d’utiles
instructions que ceux de ces poètes. Ce serait peut-être un moyen de
réconcilier la tragédie avec quantité de personnes célèbres par leur
piété et par leur doctrine, qui l’ont condamnée dans ces derniers
temps, et qui en jugeraient sans doute plus favorablement, si les
auteurs songeaient autant à instruire les spectateurs qu’à les
divertir, et s’ils suivaient en cela la véritable intention de la
tragédie.”
49 Racine is here the exception.
50 Alfieri, though starting with a violent feeling of reaction against
some of the faults of the French drama, was wholly trained upon it,
and only knew the Greek plays through French versions until very
late in life, when most of his works were already published. I
therefore class him unhesitatingly as an offshoot of that school.
51 There is now (1891) a controversy raging concerning the height of
the Greek stage and its arrangements, owing to the researches of Dr.
Dörpfeld. I cannot enter upon it here.
52 This was written before the very interesting revivals of Greek plays
which do such honor to Cambridge. Those who had the privilege of
seeing them can judge not only how far a reproduction was possible,
but how far it can succeed, for never will it be more ably
undertaken and carried out.
53 The reader who cares to consult the various prices cited in my _Old
Greek Life_ will see the grounds for assuming some such change in
the value of money between the fourth century B. C. in Greece and
the nineteenth A. D. in England.
54 I perceive that M. Renan, who alone of skeptical critics is
persuaded, possibly by the striking picturesqueness of the scene, to
accept it as historical, considers it not impossible that S. Paul
may have been actually brought before the court. He notices that in
later days it assumed a general direction not only of literature,
but of morals, and that any new teacher might fairly have been
summoned before it to expound his views. This does not seem to me to
agree with the ironical and trivial character of the whole audience,
as intimated by the historian. The author of the work called
_Supernatural Religion_, when analyzing, in his third volume, the
Acts of the Apostles, is actually silent on this speech, though he
discusses at great length the speeches of S. Paul which he thinks
composed as parallels to those of S. Peter. Most German critics look
on the passage as introduced by the author, like the speeches in
Thucydides or Tacitus, as a literary ornament, as well as an
exposition of the Apostolic preaching of the early Church. They also
note its many contrasts to the teaching of such documents as the
Epistle to the Romans. I have assumed, as even M. Renan seems to do,
that the Apostle told Timothy, or Luke, or some other follower, the
main purport of this memorable visit, and also the headings of the
speech, which is too unlike his received writings to be a probable
forgery.
55 The fact that the title of Menander’s famous play was _Δεισιδαίμων_
has escaped the commentators. S. Paul must have meant “rather
superstitious,” as the A. V. has it.
56 Though _ἄγνωστος_ may surely have this meaning, I do not find it
suggested in any of the commentaries on the passage. They all
suppose some superstitious precaution, or else some case of the real
inscription being effaced by time, and supplied in this way. The
expression in Pausanias—the gods called unknown, _τοῖς ὀνομαζομένοις
ἀγνώστοις_—seems to suggest it as a regular title, and we know that
there were deities whose name was secret, and might not be
pronounced. But in the face of so many better critics I will not
insist upon this interpretation.
57 This depends on no mere accident, but on the essential features of
the spiritual side of Greek character, on which I will quote an
admirable passage from Renan’s _S. Paul_:
“Ce qui caractérisait la religion du Grec autrefois, ce qui la
caractérise encore de nos jours, c’est le manque d’infini, de vague,
d’attendrissement, de mollesse féminine; la profondeur du sentiment
religieux allemand et celtique manque à la race des vrais Hellènes.
La piété du Grec orthodoxe consiste en pratiques et en signes
extérieurs. Les églises orthodoxes, parfois très-élégantes, n’ont
rien des terreurs qu’on ressent dans une église gothique. En ce
christianisme oriental, point de larmes, de prières, de componction
intérieure. Les enterrements y sont presque gais; ils ont lieu le
soir, au soleil couchant, quand les ombres sont déjà longues, avec
des chants à mi-voix et un déploiement de couleurs voyantes. La
gravité fanatique des Latins déplaît à ces races vives, sereines,
légères. L’infirme n’y est pas abattu: il voit doucement venir la
mort; tout sourit autour de lui. Là est le secret de cette gaieté
divine des poëmes homériques et de Platon: le récit de la mort de
Socrate dans le _Phédon_ montre à peine une teinte de tristesse. La
vie, c’est donner sa fleur, puis son fruit; quoi de plus? Si, comme
on peut le soutenir, la préoccupation de la mort est le trait le
plus important du christianisme et du sentiment religieux moderne,
la race grecque est la moins religieuse des races. C’est une race
superficielle, prenant la vie comme une chose sans surnaturel ni
arrière-plan. Une telle simplicité de conception tient en grande
partie au climat, à la pureté de l’air, à l’étonnante joie qu’on
respire, mais bien plus encore aux instincts de la race hellénique,
adorablement idéaliste. Un rien, un arbre, une fleur, un lézard, une
tortue, provoquant le souvenir de mille métamorphoses chantées par
les poëtes; un filet d’eau, un petit creux dans le rocher, qu’on
qualifie d’antre des nymphes; un puits avec une tasse sur la
margelle, un pertuis de mer si étroit que les papillons le
traversent et pourtant navigable aux plus grands vaisseaux, comme à
Poros; des orangers, des cyprès dont l’ombre s’étend sur la mer, un
petit bois de pins au milieu des rochers, suffisent en Grèce pour
produire le contentement qu’éveille la beauté. Se promener dans les
jardins pendant la nuit, écouter les cigales, s’asseoir au clair de
lune en jouant de la flûte; aller boire de l’eau dans la montagne,
apporter avec soi un petit pain, un poisson et un lécythe de vin
qu’on boit en chantant; aux fêtes de famille, suspendre une couronne
de feuillage au-dessus de sa porte, aller avec des chapeaux de
fleurs; les jours de fêtes publiques, porter des thyrses garnis de
feuillages; passer des journées à danser, à jouer avec des chèvres
apprivoisées—voilà les plaisirs grecs, plaisirs d’une race pauvre,
économe, éternellement jeune, habitant un pays charmant, trouvant
son bien en elle-même et dans les dons que les dieux lui ont faits.
La pastorale à la façon de Théocrite fut dans les pays helléniques
une vérité; la Grèce se plut toujours à ce petit genre de poésie fin
et aimable, l’un des plus caractéristiques de sa littérature, miroir
de sa propre vie, presque partout ailleurs niais et factice. La
belle humeur, la joie de vivre sont les choses grecques par
excellence. Cette race a toujours vingt ans: pour elle, _indulgere
genio_ n’est pas la pesante ivresse de l’Anglais, le grossier
ébattement du Français; c’est tout simplement penser que la nature
est bonne, qu’on peut et qu’on doit y céder. Pour le Grec, en effet,
la nature est une conseillère d’élégance, une maîtresse de droiture
et de vertu; la ‘concupiscence,’ cette idée que la nature nous
induit à mal faire, est un non-sens pour lui. Le goût de la parure
qui distingue le palicare, et qui se montre avec tant d’innocence
dans la jeune Grecque, n’est pas la pompeuse vanité du barbare, la
sotte prétention de la bourgeoise, bouffie de son ridicule orgueil
de parvenue; c’est le sentiment pur et fin de naïfs jouvenceaux, se
sentant fils légitimes des vrais inventeurs de la beauté.
“Une telle race, on le comprend, eût accueilli Jésus par un sourire.
Il était une chose que ces enfants exquis ne pouvaient nous
apprendre: le sérieux profond, l’honnêteté simple, le dévouement
sans gloire, la bonté sans emphase. Socrate est un moraliste de
premier ordre: mais il n’a rien à faire dans l’histoire religieuse.
Le Grec nous paraît toujours un peu sec et sans cœur: il a de
l’esprit, du mouvement, de la subtilité; il n’a rien de rêveur, de
mélancolique. Nous autres, Celtes et Germains, la source de notre
génie, c’est notre cœur. Au fond de nous est comme une fontaine de
fées, une fontaine claire, verte et profonde, où se reflète
l’infini. Chez le Grec, l’amour propre, la vanité se mêlent à tout;
le sentiment vague lui est inconnu; la réflexion sur sa propre
destinée lui paraît fade. Poussée à la caricature, une façon si
incomplète d’entendre la vie donne a l’époque romaine le _græculus
esuriens_, grammairien, artiste, charlatan, acrobate, médecin,
amuseur du monde entier, fort analogue à l’Italien des XVIe et XVIIe
siècles: à l’époque byzantine, le théologien sophiste faisant
dégénérer la religion en subtiles disputes; de nos jours, le Grec
moderne, quelquefois vaniteux et ingrat, le _papas_ orthodoxe, avec
sa religion égoïste et matérielle. Malheur à qui s’arrête à cette
décadence! Honte à celui qui, devant le Parthénon, songe à remarquer
un ridicule! Il faut le reconnaître pourtant: la Grèce ne fut jamais
sérieusement chrétienne; elle ne l’est pas encore. Aucune race ne
fut moins romantique, plus dénuée du sentiment chevaleresque de
notre moyen âge. Platon bâtit toute sa théorie de la beauté en se
passant de la femme. Penser à une femme pour s’exciter à faire de
grandes choses! un Grec eût été bien surpris d’un pareil langage; il
pensait, lui, aux hommes réunis sur l’_agora_, il pensait à la
patrie. Sous ce rapport, les Latins étaient plus près de nous. La
poésie grecque, incomparable dans les grands genres tels que
l’épopée, la tragédie, la poésie lyrique désintéressée, n’avait pas,
ce semble, la douce note élégiaque de Tibulle, de Virgile, de
Lucrèce, note si bien en harmonie avec nos sentiments, si voisine de
ce que nous aimons.
“La même différence se retrouve entre la piété de saint Bernard, de
saint François d’Assise et celle des saints de l’Église grecque. Ces
belles écoles de Cappadoce, de Syrie, d’Égypte, des Pères du désert,
sont presque des écoles philosophiques. L’hagiographie populaire des
Grecs est plus mythologique que celle des Latins. La plupart des
saints qui figurent dans l’iconostase d’une maison grecque et devant
lesquels brûle une lampe ne sont pas de grands fondateurs, de grands
hommes, comme les saints de l’Occident; ce sont souvent des êtres
fantastiques, d’anciens dieux transfigurés, ou du moins des
combinaisons de personnages historiques et de mythologie, comme
saint Georges. Et cette admirable église de Sainte-Sophie! c’est un
temple arien; le genre humain tout entier pourrait y faire sa
prière. N’ayant pas eu de pape, d’inquisition, de scolastique, de
moyen age barbare, ayant toujours gardé un levain d’arianisme, la
Grèce lâchera plus facilement qu’aucun autre pays le christianisme
surnaturel, à peu près comme ces Athéniens d’autrefois étaient en
même temps, grâce à une sorte de légèreté, mille fois plus profonde
que le sérieux de nos lourdes races, le plus superstitieux des
peuples et le plus voisin du rationalisme. Les chants populaires
grecs sont encore aujourd’hui pleins d’images et d’idées païennes. À
la grande différence de l’Occident, l’Orient garda durant tout le
moyen âge et jusqu’aux temps modernes de vrais ‘hellénistes,’ au
fond plus païens que chrétiens, vivants du culte de la vieille
patrie grecque et des vieux auteurs. Ces hellénistes sont, au XVe
siècle, les agents de la renaissance de l’Occident, auquel ils
apportent les textes grecs, base de toute civilization. Le même
esprit a présidé et présidera aux destinées de la Grèce nouvelle.
Quand on a bien étudié ce qui fait de nos jours le fond d’un Hellène
cultivé, on voit qu’il y a chez lui très-peu de christianisme: il
est chrétien de forme, comme un Persan est musulman; mais au fond il
est ‘helléniste.’ Sa religion, c’est l’adoration de l’ancien génie
grec. Il pardonne toute hérésie au philhellène, a celui qui admire
son passé; il est bien moins disciple de Jésus et de saint Paul que
de Plutarque et de Julien.”
58 The reader will find in my last chapter some further information
concerning the remains of mediæval Greece.
59 I have seen it very full in June; I have also seen it almost dry in
April, so that it depends upon the season whether the traveller will
enjoy the coolness of the river, or turn with disappointment from
its stony bed.
60 On a fine summer’s day, in the meadows about Eton, I was struck with
the truth of this phrase. A light breeze was making all the poplars
shiver beside the great elms, which stood in silence.
61 This was the military harbor, at least in the fourth century, B. C.,
when the architect Philo built a famous arsenal (_σκευοθήκη_) at its
north-east corner, of which the plan and even details have been
reconstructed by Dr. Dörpfeld from an important inscription
recovered in 1881.
62 Thucydides, followed by modern historians, has nevertheless been
inaccurate in his use of the expression _Long Walls_. He sometimes
means the north and Phaleric wall, sometimes the north and south
parallel walls, to the exclusion of the Phaleric wall. The long
walls rebuilt by Conon were the latter pair, and thus not the same
long walls as were finished in 456 B. C.
63 The reader who desires to see the best poetical picture of modern
Athens should consult the tenth chapter in Mr. Symonds’s _Sketches
in Italy and Greece_—one of the most beautiful productions of that
charming poet in prose.
64 IX. § I. p. 244 (Tauchn.).
65 He reads, however, _φρίξουσι_, instead of Herodotus’s _φρύξουσι_.
66 There is now a railway from Athens to the mines (1887).
67 The earliest allusion to them is a line in Æschylus’s _Persæ_, where
they come in so peculiarly, and without any natural suggestion, that
they must have been in his day a new and surprising source of
wealth. Atossa is inquiring of the chorus about Athens, and whether
it possesses any considerable wealth. The chorus replies (v. 238):
_ἀργύρου πηγή τις αὐτοῖς ἐστι, θησαυρὸς χθονός._
This inference of mine, made years ago, is now strongly confirmed by
the recovered _Polity of the Athenians_, which says (chap. xxii.):
“In the archonship of Nicodemus [484–3 B. C.], when the mines at
Maroneia [as he calls them] were discovered (_ἐφάνη_), and there was
a profit of 100 talents from the work, Themistocles,” etc.
68 It is possible that in the days of Eretria’s greatness, when she
ruled over a number of the Cyclades, Eretrians may have worked the
mines. These occupants probably preceded the Æginetans. But the
strange thing is, that the mines and their large profits appear
suddenly, and as a novelty, at a particular point of Greek history.
69 Arist. _Œcon._, II. 4.
70 Since I visited the place there are actually five companies—two
Greek and three French—established to work the district.
71 There is also a quotation in Strabo (iii. 3, § 9), from Demetrius
Phal., implying their activity in the third century B. C. Plutarch
(_de defectu or._ 43) speaks of them as having _lately_ failed.
72 Byron, who loved this spot above all others, I think, in Greece,
speaks of sixteen as still standing in his day.
73 Dr. Dörpfeld has since shown that the marble temple at Sunium was
built on the site of an older temple, with a very slight but
distinct enlargement of the plan. The older temple was of the
ordinary poros-stone found on the site.
74 “Aujourd’hui tout ce district est presque désert; seuls, quelques
archéologues et quelques artistes affrontent ces gorges pierreuses
et ces scabreux sentiers; on prend alors ce chemin pour aller de
Marathon à Chalcis et revenir à Athènes par Décélie, entre le
Pentélique et Parnès. Ces monuments de Rhamnunte offrent des traits
curieux qui les rendent intéressants pour le voyageur érudit; mais
de plus les ruines mêmes et le site ont assez de beauté pour
dédommager de leur peine ceux qui recherchent surtout le
pittoresque. Je n’oublierai jamais les quelques heures que j’ai
passées là, il y a déjà longtemps, par une radieuse matinée d’avril.
Pendant que nous examinions ce qui restait des anciens sanctuaires
et de leurs défenses, notre guide songeait au déjeuner; il avait
acheté un agneau à l’un de ces pâtres appelés _Vlaques_ qui, avec
leurs brebis et leurs chèvres éparses dans les buissons de myrtes et
de lentisques, sont à peu près les seuls habitants de ce canton.
Quand nous revînmes, l’agneau, soutenu sur deux fourches fichées en
terre par un jeune pin sylvestre qui servait de broche, cuisait tout
entier devant un feu clair, et la graisse coulait à grosses gouttes
sur les charbons ardents. Devant notre tapis étendu à l’ombre avait
été préparée une jonchée de verts branchages sur lesquels le
succulent rôti, rapidement découpé par le coutelas d’un berger,
laissa bientôt tomber côtelettes et gigots.
“Ce qui nous fit prolonger là notre halte après que notre appetit
fut satisfait, ce fut la vue magnifique dont on jouissait de la
plate-forme où nous étions établis, dans un coin de l’acropole. A
nos pieds, c’était la mer, veloutée de chatoyante reflets par le
soleil, par la brise, par les nuages qui passaient au ciel. En face
de nous se dressaient les hautes et sévères côtes de l’Eubée,
dominés par la pyramide du Dirphys. Ce fier sommet était encore tout
blanc des neiges de l’hiver; au contraire, si nous nous retournons
vers les gorges qui se creusaient autour de nous dans la montagne,
entre des parois de marbre rougies et comme hâlées par le soleil,
c’était le printemps de la Grèce dans tout son épanouissement et son
éclat. Dans le fond des ravins, là où un peu d’eau filtrait sous les
cailloux, arbres de Judée et cytises mêlaient leurs brillantes
couleurs au tendre feuillage des platanes, et sur les pentes les
plus âpres des milliers de genêts en fleur étincelaient parmi la
verdure des genévriers, des chênes et des oliviers francs.
“Dans l’antiquité, toute cette portion du territoire athénien, qui
faisait partie de ce que l’on appelait la _Diakria_ ou le ‘haut
pays,’ sans avoir de gros villages ni une population aussi dense que
celle des plaines d’Athènes ou d’Eleusis, devait pourtant présenter
un aspect assez diffèrent de celui qu’elle offre aujourd’hui; je me
la représente assez semblable à ce que sont maintenant certains
districts montueux de la Grèce moderne où le désir d’éviter le
contact des Turcs avait rejeté et cantonné les Hellènes: il en était
ainsi du Magne, de la Tzaconie, des environs de Karytena en Arcadie.
Partout là, une industrieuse persévérance a mis à profit tout ce que
pouvaient offrir de ressources le sol et le climat. Sur des pentes
abruptes et presque verticales, de petits murs en pierres sèches
s’efforcent de retenir une mince couche de terre végétale; malgré
ces précautions, les grandes pluies de l’hiver et les vents de l’été
en emportent une partie jusqu’au fond de la vallée, sans jamais se
lasser, hommes, femmes, enfants, travaillent sans relâche à réparer
ces dégâts. Que de fois, admirant la patience de ces sobres et
tenaces montagnards, je les ai suivis des yeux pendant qu’ils
allaient ainsi lentement, le dos courbé sous leurs hottes pleines,
gravissant des sentiers sablonneux ou d’étroits escaliers taillés à
même la roche qui leur renvoyait touts les ardeurs du soleil! Au
bout de quelques années, il n’est pas peut-être une parcelle du
terrain dans chacun de ces petits champs qui n’ait fait plusieurs
fois le voyage, qui n’ait glissé jusqu’au bord du torrent pour être
ensuite ramenée pelletée par pelletée, sur une des terrasses
supérieures. Ces sacrifices sont récompensés. Le long du ruisseau,
là où les côtes s’écartent et laissent entre elles un peu d’espace,
l’eau, soigneusement ménagée, mesurée par heures et par minutes à
chaque propriétaire, court bruyante et claire dans les rigoles; elle
arrose des vergers où croissent, suivant les lieux, soit l’oranger,
le citronnier et le grenadier, soit les arbres de nos climats
tempérés, le pêcher, le pommier et le poirier; à leur ombre
grossissent la fève et l’enorme courge. Plus haut, sur les versants
les moins roides et les moins pierreux, là où la légère charrue
inventée par Triptolème a trouvé assez de place pour tracer le
sillon, l’orge et le seigle verdissent au printemps, et, dans les
bonnes années, profitent pour mûrir des tardifs soleils d’automne.
Ce qui d’ailleurs réussit le mieux dans ces montagnes, ce qui paye
vraiment les habitants de leurs peines, c’est l’olivier, dont les
puissantes racines étreignent le roc et semblent faire corps avec
lui; c’est la vigne, qui, d’étage en étage, grimpe presque jusqu’aux
sommets. A l’un et à l’autre, pour donner une huile et un vin qui
seraient les plus savoureux du monde, s’ils étaient mieux préparés,
il suffit de beaucoup de soleil, d’un peu de terre et de quelques
coups de hoyau qui viennent à propos ameublir le sol et le dégager
des plantes parasites.
“C’est ainsi que dans l’Attique, au temps de sa prospérité, même les
cantons aujourd’hui les plus déserts et les plus stériles devaient
être habités et cultivés. Sur beaucoup de ces croupes où le roc
affleure presque partout, où verdit à peine, aux premiers jours du
printemps, une herbe courte, diaprée d’anémones et de cistes, qui
jaunira dès le mois de mai, il y avait jadis une couche plus épaisse
de terre végétale. Dans les ravins, là où j’ai perdu plus d’une fois
mon chemin en poursuivant la perdrix rouge ou la bécasse à travers
des maquis touffus, on a, pendant bien des siècles, fait la vendange
et la cueillette des olives; c’est ce dont témoignent, sur les
pentes les mieux exposées aux rayons du midi ou du couchant, des
restes de murs et de terrassements que l’on distingue encore dans
l’épaisseur du fourré. Dans les endroits où la culture était à peu
près impossible, des bois de pins, aujourd’hui presque entièrement
détruits, empêchaient la montagne de se dénuder; dans les clairières
et entre les rocs mêmes poussaient la sauge, la campanule et le
thym, toutes ces plantes aromatiques, tous ces vigoureux arbustes
que se plaît à tondre la dent des moutons et des chèvres.”
_ 75 πολλαὶ δ’ ἁμὶν ὕπερθε κατὰ κρατὸς δονέοντο_
_αἴγειροι πτελέαι τε· τὸ δ’ ἐγγύθεν ἱερὸν ὕδωρ_
_Νυμφᾶν ἐξ ἄντροιο κατειβόμενον κελάρυζε_
—THEOCR. VII. 135.
76 Since M. Trikoupi’s long and effective administration, brigandage
was so effectually put down that, although there were plenty of
brigands in Mount Olympus close to the frontier, it was perfectly
safe to wander about in Northern Greece up to the vale of Tempe.
Such was the state of things in 1889. Whether his recent successor
will keep as good order remains to be seen.
_ 77 Social Life in Greece_, p. 23.
78 Xen. _Hell._, iv., 3, § 1. To cite a parallel in modern history: a
writer in the _Pall Mall Gazette_ (July 12, 1876) says: “I witnessed
a battle during the War of Greek Independence. It lasted three days;
the quantity of ammunition expended was enormous, and the result was
one man wounded!”
79 So Strabo describes it, IX. 1, § 12. For further details consult the
_Guide Joanne_ for Athens (1888), p. 201.
_ 80 De Legg._, II. 14, § 36.
_ 81 in Cer._ v. 480.
_ 82 Thren._ (frag.)
_ 83 Œd.__ Col._ 1042.
_ 84 Ran._ 455.
_ 85 Phæd._ cc. 29, 30.
_ 86 Paneg._ § 6.
_ 87 Etym. Mag._, s. v. _τελετή_.
88 There seems no doubt that some of these symbols, derived from old
nature-worship, were very gross, and quite inconsistent with modern
notions of religion. But even these were features hallowed and
ennobled by the spirit of the celebrants, whose reverence blinded
their eyes, while lifting up their hearts.
89 In the fragments of Plutarch’s _De anima_ there are some very
striking passages on this subject. “After this,” he says, evidently
describing some part of the ceremony, “there came a great light,
there were shown pure places and meadows, with dances, and all that
was splendid and holy to see and hear, in which he who is now
perfected by initiation, and has obtained freedom and remission,
joins in the devotions, with his head crowned, in the company of
pure and holy men, and beholds from thence the unclean uninitiated
crowd of mortals in deep mire and mist, trodden down and crowded by
each other, but in fear of death, adhering to their ills through
want of faith in the goods beyond. Since from these you may clearly
see that the connection of the soul with the body is a coercion
against nature.”
90 The Greeks always regard these nomads as foreigners in race, and
incapable of any settled or civilized life. They do great mischief
to young trees and fences, which they never respect. Yet when
arrested for doing mischief they are protected by the sympathies of
the Greeks, who hate all coercion, however reasonable.
91 Colonel Leake already felt these difficulties, and moves Eleutheræ a
few miles to the south-west. But Œnoe and Eleutheræ must have been
close together, from the allusion in the _Antiope_ of Euripides. Cf.
Eurip., frag. 179 (ed. Nauck), and the passages quoted there.
92 This the Peloponnesians did at Œnoe, according to Thucydides;
perhaps therefore at this very place.
93 There was no photograph of this very fine building existing when I
was in Greece. The only drawing of it I have seen is in the plates
of Dodwell’s _Archæological Tour in Greece_—a splendid book. The
fort of Phyle, though smaller, possesses all the features described
in this fort, and shows that they represent a general type.
94 This pass (seized by the Persian cavalry before the battle of
Platæa, in order to stop the Greek provision trains) was called
_τρεῖς κεφαλαί_ by the Thebans, but _δρυὸς κεφ._ by the Athenians
(Herod. IX. 39)—evidently the same old name diversely interpreted by
diverse _Volks-etymologien_. _τρεῖς_ and _δρυός_ are pronounced
almost alike in modern Greek, probably therefore in old Greek
likewise. But I will not touch the thorny question of old Greek
pronunciation.
95 Cf. what I have said in relation to Polybius’s account of it in my
_Greek Life and Thought_, pp. 534 _sq._
96 Cf., for example, the figures in the recent (1891) _Guide Joanne_,
ii. xxxvi.
97 There was, indeed, a splendid _pleasaunce_ built at Thebes by the
Frankish knights, which was completely destroyed by the grand
Catalan company. It is described by their annalist Ramon Muntaner.
The remains of one Frankish tower mark the place.
98 See his life in Gregorovius’s _Athen_, vol. i. pp. 144 _sq._
99 The legend of the name is now fully explained in the fragments of
the _Antiope_ published by me in the _Petrie papyri_ (Williams &
Norgate, 1891).
100 I trust none will imagine that I intend the least disrespect to M.
Boulgaris, who was, according to far better authority than that
quoted in the text, an honorable and estimable man. But some of his
Ministers have been since convicted of malpractices concerning
certain archbishoprics, which were bought for money. The trial is
now a matter of history, to which an allusion is sufficient.
101 Since that time, the chief power has for the most part been in the
hands of M. Trikoupi, an honest patriot. Yet it was the misfortune
of the country to be reduced by M. Delyanni to the verge of
bankruptcy through his absurd war policy against Turkey. It is
probable enough that he did not lead, but was carried along by this
policy, with which all the Athenian “Jingoes” were possessed.
102 This plague seems unavoidable in a southern climate, wherever the
houses, however good, are built of wood, and does not imply any
ungrateful reflection upon my refined and generous hosts. In the
Morea, where houses are built of masonry, even badly-kept houses are
comparatively safe.
103 Cf. Polygnotus’s picture of Agamemnon (Paus. x. 30, 3), _σκήπτρῳ τε
ὑπὸ τὴν ἀριστερὰν μασχάλην ἐρειδόμενος_.
104 Since these words were written, M. Holleaux’s researches at Akræphiæ
have not only discovered the inscription containing the Emperor
Nero’s speech to the Greeks, but also many curious remains from the
temple of Apollo Ptoos.
_ 105 ὅστις δὲ τὰ σὺν τέχνῃ πεποιημένα ἐπίπροσθε τίθεται τῶν ἀρχαιόητα
ἡκώτων, καὶ τάδε ἐστιν οἱ θεάσασθαι._ I. 24. 3.
106 Cf. Plut. _Agesilaus_, chap. xvii.
107 An account of the discovery, by the only surviving member of the
party, Mr. G. L. Taylor, has been published by Mr. W. S. Vaux in the
_Trans. of the Roy. Soc. of Lit._, 2nd series, vol. viii. pp. 1,
_sqq._ The latter gentleman called attention to his paper when the
subject was being discussed in the _Academy_ in 1877. A very
different story was told to Colonel Mure, and has passed from his
_Travels_ into Murray’s _Guide_. The current belief among the Greeks
seems still to be that a Greek patriot called Odysseus, perceiving
the stone protruding from the clay, and, on striking it, hearing its
hollow ring, dug it out and broke it in pieces, imagining it to be a
record of Philip’s victory over Hellenic liberty. Some ill-natured
people added that he hoped to find treasure within it.
108 Mr. Taylor and his friends thought it must have stood in the
attitude of the now abolished lion on Northumberland House. This did
not appear so to us; but it is difficult to decide. The restoration
by Siegel in the _Mon. of the Soc. Arch._ of Rome, for 1856, of
which Mr. A. S. Murray most kindly sent me a drawing, makes the
posture a _sitting_ one, like that of the sitting lion in front of
the Arsenal at Venice. There is a small sitting lion from Calymnæ,
of the same posture, in the Brit. Museum. The Greeks, when my
account was first published in their papers, became fully alive to
the value of this monument, and anxious for its restoration. There
had been a custodian appointed to watch over it, even when I was
there, but he chanced to be absent when we paid our visit.
109 Since these words were written, the labors of the Greek
archæologists have discovered the great _polyandrion_ or common tomb
of the dead, which the lion commemorated. They lay in rows, many of
them with broken bones, showing how they had received their
death-wound, and with them were fragments of broken weapons. Never
have we come closer to an ancient battle, or discovered more
affecting records of a great struggle.
110 This seems to be implied in the account of the murder of Laïus by
Œdipus, on this very road, as it is described in Sophocles’s _Œdipus
Tyrannus_.
111 Indeed Tripolitza lies between the ancient sites of Mantinea and
Tegea, and quite close to the latter.
112 This was done by the monks at Athos, when Mahomet II. was
threatening Constantinople. They foresaw his victory, and by early
submission made their own terms, and saved both their liberties and
their property.
113 Cf. also Plutarch’s tract _de Pyth. orac._ for details of _ciceroni_
and visitors in his day.
114 The hippodrome for the chariot races was, however, in the plain
beneath, as Pausanias tells us (x. 37, 4).
115 This journey I since made by rail, in this place a harmless
innovation.
116 Cf. the passage quoted from M. Georges Perrot above, p. 185.
117 A commodious stone museum has since been built, and the treasures
are doubtless by this time transferred to it. But the great
earthquake of 1885, so near Olympia, makes us tremble for the safety
of any sculpture in a stone building under a solid roof. How
terrible if the house were to fall on the _Hermes_!
118 This judgment of mine has since been confirmed by the authority of
Overbeck. It is indeed very hard to estimate rightly a new discovery
of this kind. I rated the work of Alkamenes, perhaps, too highly.
119 The student who desires to prosecute this difficult subject should
study Overbeck’s _History of Greek Sculpture_, or the works of Mr.
A. S. Murray, or Mr. Copeland Perry, on the same subject.
120 The fact that some of these public meetings are associated with the
fall of tyrants does not, I think, disprove what is here advanced.
121 I have not room here to give in full my reasons for rejecting the
earlier part of the Olympic register, as being the manufacture of
Hippias of Elis, later than 400 B. C. But the reader who is curious
on the subject may either consult my article in the _Journal of
Hellenic Studies_ for 1881, or the appendix to my _Problems in Greek
History_ (1892). He will then see that there is no direct evidence
whatever for any early list, and that the antiquarian Pausanias, in
his hunt after ancient monuments at Olympia, could find nothing
earlier than the so-called 33d Olympiad. Plutarch, moreover, in the
opening of his _Life of Numa_, tells us plainly that the list was
the manufacture of Hippias, _and based on no trustworthy evidence_.
To accept the list, therefore, in the face of these objections, is
to exhibit culpable credulity.
122 So also under the early Roman Empire the exiles on the barren
islands of the Ægean seem to have been allowed this indulgence. Cf.
the curious passage from Plutarch I have quoted and explained in my
_Greek World under Roman Sway_, p. 261.
123 The very stringent laws quoted by Æschines _in Timarchum_ may
possibly be spurious, since we know from other allusions that they
were not enforced. But more probably they existed as a dead letter,
which could be revived if occasion required.
124 The modern Greeks make their cheese for keeping, even now, in wicker
baskets, and distinguish it from _χλωρὸς τύρος_, which now means
cream cheese, and which they carry to market in woollen bags. There
was a special market for it in Athens in Aristophanes’s day, but not
in woollen bags; for, as Mr. Pickering (of Shrewsbury School)
pointed out to me, the cream cheese of Aristophanes’s day was kept
in wicker work. I gladly here acknowledge this correction of the
note in my former edition.
125 I should, however, call attention to an exceptional vase in the
little Turkish house on the Acropolis, probably of late date, in
which a runner is represented with his elbows back and hands closed,
and near his sides, in very good form.
126 Pausanias is responsible for the date, which he probably copied from
Hippias of Elis. It is noted as a special wonder that the same man
should win the sprint and long races at Olympia, which shows that
the latter must have been mainly a test of staying power. The
Spartan Ladas died at the winning-post, and this endurance was
thought rather a wonderful feat, but of course his death may have
resulted from bad training, or from heart disease.
127 “Know ye not,” says St. Paul, “that all run, and _one_ receiveth the
crown?”—a quite different condition of things from that of the
Iliad, where every competitor, like the boys at a private school,
comes off with a prize.
128 Possibly this special sort of wrestling has been confused with the
_pankration_, from which it can have differed but little, if it
indeed subsisted permanently as a distinct form of wrestling.
129 The single competitions in running and wrestling were distinct from
those in the pentathlon, and rewarded by separate crowns.
130 This is the moment chosen by Canova in his celebrated representation
of these boxers in the Vatican, a fact of which I was ignorant till
it was pointed out to me, in correcting an error I had made about
them, by Mr. M’D. Campbell, of Glasgow.
131 The first case of cheating was said to have taken place in the 98th
Ol. (388 B. C.), when the Thessalian Eupolos was convicted of
bribing the three boxers opposed to him, one of whom had won at the
previous meeting. Such crimes were commemorated by bronze figures of
Zeus (called _Ζᾶνες_ at Elis), which were of the value of the fines
inflicted, and had inscriptions warning all athletes of the dangers
and the disgrace of cheating.
132 The reader will find some illustrations of it in my _Social Greece_,
6th edition, p. 96.
133 It has been since inserted from my notes in the English translation
of Bædeker’s _Greece_.
134 Polybius, iv. 70.
135 By this time (1891) there are probably three or four rivals, which
the traveller will see noted in his guide-book, provided he does not
depend on the _Guide Joanne_, which neglects to give such
information. The house to which I allude in the text is the Hotel S.
George.
136 This is not contradicted by the fact of there being isolated
Arcadian poets, such as Echembrotus and Aristarchus, distinguished
in foreign schools of art.
137 The _Eclogues_ of Petrarch are modelled upon those of Vergil to the
exclusion of the most characteristic features borrowed by the latter
from Theocritus.
138 The following extract from the first prose piece of the book will
show how absolutely imaginary is his Arcadia, with its impossible
combination of trees, and its absence of winter:—
“Giace nella sommità di Partenio, non umile monte della pastorale
Arcadia, un dilettevole piano, di ampiezza non molto spazioso,
peroche il sito del luogo non consente, ma di minuta e verdissima
erbetta sì ripieno, che, se le lascive pecorelle con gli avidi morsi
non vi pasceresso, vi si potrebbe d’ogni tempo ritrovare verdura.
Ove, se io non m’inganno, son forse dodici o quindici alberi di
tanto strana ed eccessiva bellezza, che chiunque le vedesse,
giudicherebbe che la maestra natura vi si fosse con sommo diletto
studiata in formarli. Li quali alquanto distanti, ed in ordine non
artificioso disposti, con la loro rarità la naturale bellezza del
luogo oltra misura annobiliscono. Quivi senza nodo veruno si vede il
dritissimo abete, nato a sostenere i pericoli del mare; e con più
aperti rami la robusta quercia, e l’alto frassino, e lo amenissimo
platano vi si distendano, con le loro ombre non picciola parte del
bello e copioso prato occupando; ed evvi con più breve fronda
l’albero, di che Ercole coronare si solea, nel cui pedale le misere
figliuole di Climene furono trasformate: ed in un de’ lati si scerne
il noderoso castagno, il fronzuto bosco, e con puntate foglie lo
eccelso pino carico di durissimi frutti; nell’ altro l’ombroso
faggio, la incorruttibile tiglia, il fragile tamarisco, insieme con
la orientale palma, dolci ed onorato premio dei vincitori. Ma fra
tutti nel mezzo, presso un chiaro fonte, sorge verso il cielo un
dritto cipresso,” etc., etc. The work is, moreover, full of direct
imitations of Vergil, not, I fancy, of Theocritus also, as the
Italian commentators suppose, for that poet was not adequately
printed till 1495, which must have been very near the date of the
actual composition of the _Arcadia_.
139 It is worth noting that the Arcadian vision in the _Shepherd of
Hermas_, describing a scene of twelve mountains of varied and
contrasted aspect, though intended for an allegorical purpose, is
really faithful to nature, and suggests that the author knew
something of the country he describes.
140 Pausanias places the source of the Alpheus higher up, and close to
Tegea in the eastern plain.
141 This is what Pausanias says, though modern scholars seem very
doubtful about it.
142 Several details, such as the unusual length in proportion to the
breadth, the engaged pillars inside the cella, and the forms of the
capitals, have now been explained as deliberate archaicisms on the
part of Ictinus, who here copied far older forms. The curious Ionic,
and even the Corinthian, capitals, may point back to old Asianic, or
Assyrian, models, and the proportions of the cella with its engaged
pillars have their prototype or parallel in the curious old _Heræon_
(cf. p. 304) found at Olympia. This seems to me a very happy
solution of the difficulties, and shows us Ictinus in a new light.
Another specimen of his art, with unexpected features, may be the
newly unearthed Hall of the Mysteries at Eleusis, already described,
if indeed this be his work, and not a late copy of it.
143 The same must have been the case with Messene, which was laid out
likewise by Epaminondas on an absurdly large scale, as the remains
of the great walls still show. They seem intended to enclose a whole
parish, and not a city. But of these I shall speak again, p. 452.
144 The results hitherto attained are still uncertain, owing to an
active controversy between Dr. Dörpfeld and the English explorers,
which has not yet (1892) been settled. I forbear entering upon it
here.
145 It is usually forgotten in recent accounts that this sacking of the
town was no more than a retribution for the hideous massacre of the
whole Turkish population, including women and children, in cold
blood, by the insurgent Greeks. The details may be had in General
Gordon’s _Memoirs_ or in Finlay’s _History_.
146 Strabo mentions that the new settlers, coming upon old tombs in the
digging for new foundations, found there quantities of graceful
pottery, which was sold to Romans, and became the fashion there.
Hence it was diligently sought and sold under the title
_νεκροκορίνθια_. We may be sure that every ancient tomb was rifled
in this way.
147 On the foundation of the new Greek kingdom, it was seriously debated
whether Corinth should not be the capital; but the constant
prevalence of fever in the district, together with sentimental
reasons, determined the selection of Athens in preference.
148 Even the new railway has not altered this. The journey up and down
the bay in a coasting steamer is still well worth undertaking.
149 M. Viollet-le-duc, in his _Entretiens sur l’Architecture_, vol. i.
p. 45, explains the reason of this. Apart from the greater facility
of raising smaller blocks, most limestones are subject to flaws,
which are disclosed only by strain. Hence it was much safer to
support the entablature on two separate beams, one of which might
sustain, at least temporarily, the building, in case the other
should crack.
150 Cf. pp. 370 and 433.
151 Strabo, who had apparently travelled but little through Greece,
speaks with admiration of this view, which he had evidently seen.
The fortress of Karytena is some twenty or thirty feet higher in
situation and far more picturesque from below, but is too much
surrounded by other high mountains to admit of a prospect like that
from the Acro-Corinthus.
152 See also _Guide Joanne_, ii. p. 197.
153 This is just what Strabo says (viii. 6, § 21): _ἔκρυσιν μὲν οὐκ
ἔχουσαν μεστὴν δ’ ἀεὶ διαυγοῦς καὶ ποτίμου ὕδατος_, and Corinth was
one of the few Greek places he visited.
154 So also learned men speak about the amphitheatre. Herzberg (ii. 253)
says: “Seine Ruine steht noch heute.” Cf. also Friedländer, ii. 383,
but I could not find it.
155 Part ii. p. 198, _sq._ (1891).
156 The reader who performs this journey by train may consider whether
what here follows is not an older and better way.
_ 157 πολλὸς δὲ καὶ ὡς ῥόδα κίσθος ἐπανθεῖ_.—THEOCR. v. 131.
158 There is a tract of sea-coast on the east side of Italy, about
halfway between Ancona and Monte Gargano, which has this Theocritean
character to perfection. Even the railway passenger can appreciate
the curious contrast it affords to the splendid orchards and gardens
about Bari, which are still farther south.
_ 159 οὐ θέμις, ὦ ποιμήν, τὸ μεσημβρινόν, οὐ θέμις ἆμμιν_
_συρίσδεν. τὸν Πᾶνα δεδοίκαμες· ἦ γὰρ ἀπ’ ἄγρας_
_τανίκα κεκμηὼς ἀμπαύεται, ἐστι γὰρ πικρός,_
_καὶ οἱ ἀεὶ ὁριμεῖα χολὰ ποτὶ ῥινὶ κάθηται._—THEOCR. i. 15.
_ 160 τοὺς μὴν ὄγε λάεσσιν ἀπὸ χθονὸς ὅσσον ἀείρων_
_γευγέμην ἄψ ὀπίσω δειδίσσετο, τρηχὺ δὲ φωνῇ_
_ἠπείλει μάλα πᾶσιν, ἐρητύσασκε δ’ ὑλαγμοῦ,_
_χαίρων ἐν φρησὶν ᾖσιν, ὁθούνεκεν αὔλιν ἔρυντο._
THEOCR. xxv. 73, and cf. _Odyss._ xiv. 29 _sq._
161 Pausanias speaks of Mycenæ and Tiryns as of like structure, which is
not true. He often refers with wonder to these walls, and reflects
upon the care with which Greek historians had described foreign
curiosities like the Pyramids, while equally wonderful things in
Greece were left unnoticed. Thus, he says that no pair of mules
could stir from its place the smallest of the blocks in the walls of
Tiryns. Cf. ii. 25, 8; and ix. 36, 5.
162 The same effect is observable in Staigue Fort, in the county of
Kerry, and has led some people to imagine that its stones were
rudely fashioned. Cf. the splendid photographs of this Irish Tiryns
in Lord Dunraven’s _Notes on Irish Architecture_.
_ 163 πολυδίψιον_. A fragment of Hesiod (quoted by Eustathius in _Il._,
p. 350) notes this epithet, in order to account for its being no
longer true, _Ἄργος ἄνυδρον ἔον Δαναὸς ποίησεν ἔνυδρον_. Strabo
(viii. p. 256) explains it by confining the epithet to the town of
Argos, which Homer certainly did not, and by admitting that the
country was well watered. Pausanias (ii. 15, 5) says that all the
rivers ran dry, except in rainy weather, which is seldom true now.
_ 164 ἀλλ’ ἀνθηρῶν λειμώνων, φύλλων τ’ ἐν κόλποις ναίω,_
_ἡνίκ’ ἄν ὁ θεσπέσιος ὀξὺ μέλος ἀχέτας_
_θάλπεσι μεσημβρινοῖς ἡλιομανὴς βοᾷ._ (_Aves_, 1092–8.)
The little-known lines in the _Shield of Hercules_ are also worth
quoting (393, _sqq._):—
_ἦμος δὲ χλοερῷ κυανόπτερος, ἠχέτα τέττιξ,_
_ὄζῳ ἐφεζόενος, θέρας ἀνθρώποισιν ἀείδειν_
_ἄρχεται, ᾧ τε πόσις καὶ βρῶσις θῆλυς ἐέρση,_
_καί τε πανημέριός τε καὶ ἐῷος χέει αὐδὴν_
_ἴδει ἐν αἰνοτάτῳ, ὁπότε χρόα Σείριος ἄζει._
165 These Cyclopes, cunning builders, and even workers in metal, are to
be carefully distinguished from the rude and savage Cyclopes
represented in Homer’s _Odyssey_ as infesting Thrinacria, in the
western seas.
166 In the days of the composition of the _Iliad_ we see the power and
greatness of Mycenæ distinctly expressed by the power of Agamemnon,
who appears to rule over all the district and many islands. Yet the
great hero, Diomedes, is made the sovereign of Argos and Tiryns in
his immediate neighborhood. This difficulty has made some critics
suppose that all the acts of Diomedes were foisted in by some of the
Argive reciters of the _Iliad_. Without adopting this theory, which
seems to me extravagant, I would suggest that, in the poet’s day,
Argos was rapidly growing into first-rate importance, while all the
older legends attested the greatness of Mycenæ. Thus the poet, who
was obliged to put together the materials given him by divers older
and shorter poems, was under the difficulty of harmonizing the
fresher legends about Argos with the older about Mycenæ.
167 I prefer this view even to that from the theatre of Taormina in
Sicily, which is so justly celebrated, and which many people think
the finest in Europe.
168 Cf. his exhaustive article on the Mediæval History of Greece, in
Ersch and Gruber’s _Encyclopædia_, vol. lxxxv., and more especially
his refutation of Fallmerayer’s theory, pp. 100–19.
169 A great authority, whose opinion I deeply respect—Prof. Sayce—goes
so far as to say that language is by itself no proof of race, but
only of social contact. I will not venture to deny that there are
instances where this is so, and where invading strangers have
adopted the language of the vanquished, though quite foreign to
them. But surely this is the exception, and not the rule, and there
is a _primâ facie_ probability in favor of a well-preserved language
indicating a well-preserved race.
170 This fact strengthens my conviction that at an early period Ægina
worked the silver-mines of Laurium.
171 Cf. Pindar’s frag. for the Corinthian _ἑταίραι_.
172 The bronze cow of Myron seems also to have been a wonderfully
admired work, to judge from the crowd of epigrams written upon it,
which still survive.
173 Cf. the account of his habits in his work, _Tiryns_, cap. I.
174 I have made special inquiries for these, but without any result.
They seem to be lost.
175 Cf. p. 389, and the outrages of the Galatian mercenaries under
Philip V. of Macedon.
_ 176 Mycenæ_, p. 49.
177 According to Pausanias, the treasury of Minyas was differently
built; for the top stone of its flat dome was the keystone
(_ἁρμονία_) of the whole. This is not true. The stone roofs in
Ireland seem to me far more curious in construction, for two
reasons: first, because the stones used are so very small; and
secondly, because there can be, of course, no pressure on a roof
like the pressure brought to bear on a subterranean chamber from
above.
178 Cf. Macpherson’s _Antiquities of Kertch_.
179 There has been strange diversity of opinion about the nature of this
stone. Dodwell and Leake call it basalt. Moreover, Dodwell thought
it greenish. Some one else thinks it yellowish. The French
expedition and Curtius call it limestone. Dr. Schliemann says it is
the same breccia as the rest of the gate. It is in the face of these
opinions that I persist in the statement that it is bluish, and
limestone.
It is owing to this note that it was again critically examined by
Mr. Tuckett, who published his result in the _Architect_ of 19th
January, 1879, and who had fragments of the stone analyzed, which
justified my observation. He also notes that several observers erred
as to the shape of the central pillar, which does not diminish in
bulk downward.
180 This, I perceive, is Dr. Schliemann’s opinion also. He was the first
to show that along the entrance-wall the fine building with square
blocks was only a facing laid on irregular building with small
stones. This points clearly to two successive stages in the work.
181 These analogies are brought out by Mr. A. S. Murray, in the
_Academy_, No. 29. Cf. also Dörpfeld in _Schuchhardt_, p. 161.
182 This is not true of Irish designs, which I compared carefully with
the Mycenæan, and failed to find any identity, though many close
resemblances.
183 It agrees with that of Schuchhardt (in _Schliemann’s Excavations_,
1891), and of Busolt in the new edition of his Greek history, 1892.
184 This theory of mine, stated in my first edition, is strongly
supported by Dr. Adler in his preface to Schliemann’s _Tiryns_
(1885).
185 This has all been done, and alas! many of the gold cups have been
polished by the barbarous zeal of the curators, so destroying the
exquisite red bloom which made them so remarkable.
_ 186 Athos, or the Mountain of the Monks._ By Athelstan Riley. Longmans,
1887. This is the newest and best book on the subject.
187 The very few travellers who have seen this, the most picturesque of
all European buildings, must have heard with a painful shock that it
was burned down in the spring of 1891.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
The illustrations in the original volume were printed on separate, not
paginated plates. The captions were printed on the reverse side of the
plates.
The following changes have been made to the text:
page 59, apostrophe added in “à l’ Eugénie”
page 101, “Erectheum” changed to “Erechtheum”
page 125, period added after “Bühnenalt”
page 140, “Anaxgoras” changed to “Anaxagoras”
page 144, “than” changed to “that”
page 147, “fueillages” changed to “feuillages”, “caractèristiques”
to “caractéristiques”
page 188, “aujhourd’hui” changed to “aujourd’hui”
page 197, “pollared” changed to “pollarded”
page 201, period added after “23”, “Xenophen” changed to “Xenophon”,
single quote changed to double quote before “I witnessed”
page 211, “Oed.” changed to “Œd.”
page 213, “initation” changed to “initiation”
page 216, “Emile” changed to “Émile”
page 263, period added after “originals”
page 282, comma changed to period after “memory”
page 369, “Basse” changed to “Bassæ”
page 471, “haraldic” changed to “heraldic”
page 481, quote removed before “but”
page 519, “still” changed to “till”
page 531, comma added after “Alkamenes”, period added after “154”,
semicolon changed to comma after “_sq._” and “321–324”
page 532, “plagues” changed to “plaques”, “Copias” changed to
“Copais”, period added after “131” and “246”
page 533, dash added between “425” and “427”, period added after
“505”, semicolon changed to comma after “_sq._”
page 534, “Pausanius” changed to “Pausanias”, “Mycenæn” changed to
“Mycenæan”, “151,;” changed to “151;”
page 535, semicolon changed to comma after first “_sq._”
Variations in hyphenation (e.g. “prehistoric”, “pre-historic”; “halfway”,
“half-way”) have not been changed. Neither have variant spellings in the
captions to the plates and in the index.