FROM CONSTANTINOPLE TO ATHENS.
A Stormy Day on Marmora—Sunrise on Mount Olympus—Brusa, the
Ancient Capital of Turkey—Ancient Troy—Homeric Heroes—Agamemnon’s
Fleet—The Wooden Horse—Paul’s Vision at Troas—Athens—A Lesson
in Greek—The Acropolis—The Parthenon—Modern Athens—Temple of
Jupiter—The Prison of Socrates—The Platform of Demosthenes—Mars
Hill and Paul’s Sermon—Influence of the Ancients.
THE clouds are low thick and heavy, and the rain is falling fast; but
the time of our departure has arrived, we must start. In one hour
after we set foot on deck, our gallant ship is gracefully gliding over
the smooth waters of the Sea of Marmora. Constantinople, the city of
Constantine the Great, soon fades from our view, and we are again
“rocked in the cradle of the deep.”
The night brings welcome rest. I am up with the morning. About sunrise
we pass Mount Olympus, in Asia Minor, at the foot of which is the city
of Brusa, the ancient capital of Turkey. We now enter the Hellespont,
and pass close to ancient Troy, the city of Priam. Here, too, are the
tombs of Ajax, Hector and Achilles. On our left, is the bay where
Agamemnon’s fleet once lay at anchor. There, also, is the island of
Tenedos, where the treacherous Greeks concealed themselves when they
pretended to abandon the siege of Troy. The ghost of Virgil’s wooden
horse now rises up before me, and I quote to a Greek naval officer,
standing by my side, this sentence from the Latin poet: “Timeo Danaos
et dona ferentes.”
[Illustration: MODERN ATHENS.]
It was here that a vision appeared unto Paul by night. “There stood a
man of Macedonia and prayed him, saying, ‘Come over into Macedonia and
help us.’ Therefore loosing from Troas (Troy), we came with a straight
course to Samothracia, and next day to Neapolis, and from there to
Philippi.” Then followed the imprisonment, earthquake, etc. (Acts XVI).
We are sailing close along the coast of Macedonia, but Philippi is not
visible. We have a delightful day on the Archipelago, and about eight
o’clock on the second morning we land at Piraeus. Here we take train,
and twenty minutes later we are in Athens. Here the newsboys crowd
around with Greek papers to sell. The bootblacks speak Greek, hotel
porters speak Greek, the streets are named in Greek—everything is
Greek. I am in a new world, and the trouble is that the Greek of to-day
is so very different from that used by the classic writers, that my
knowledge of the language helps me but little.
[Illustration: THE ACROPOLIS.]
Breakfast being over, I start out to “do the city.” Where do I go? I
care little for the present museums and art galleries, and still less
for King George, his Palace and the Royal Park. I came here not to see
modern Athens, but that city
“On the Aegean shore,
Built nobly; pure the air and light the soil,
Athens, the eye of Greece, the mother of arts
And eloquence.”
[Illustration: THE PARTHENON OF THE ACROPOLIS.]
Hence I go at once to the famous Acropolis. The Acropolis is a hill,
or a great rock three hundred feet high, jutting out of the valley
in which Athens is situated. This rock is oblong in shape, measuring
1,100 feet north and south, and about 500 feet east and west. Its sides
are everywhere steep, and on the north perpendicular. This Athenian
rock, the Acropolis, was once crowned by five marble temples, the most
splendid of which was the Parthenon.
[Illustration: THE ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS AS IT WAS.]
The Parthenon has justly been called “the finest edifice on the finest
site in the world, hallowed by the noblest recollections that can
stimulate the human heart.” This wonderful temple was 100 by 250 feet,
built of the purest Pentelic marble, and surrounded by eighty huge
columns. The Parthenon, like most of the other Grecian temples, is now
partly in ruins. It has been standing twenty-five hundred years, and
yet, despite the combined onslaught and united ravages of the Persian,
the Turk, time, war, earthquake, flood and fire, these stately walls
and lofty columns still stand to attest the energy, taste, skill and
culture of the ancient Greeks. They were
“First in the race that led to glory’s goal,
The Parthenon, the Parthenon!
Look on its broken Arch, its ruined wall,
Its chambers desolate and portals foul.
Yes; this was once ambition’s airy hall;
The dome of thought, the palace of the soul.”
Standing on the Acropolis and looking toward the north, I see modern
Athens, with its seventy-five thousand inhabitants. To the east, are
the remains of the “Temple of Jupiter.” This immense structure was once
surrounded by one hundred and fifty Corinthian columns, seven feet
in diameter and sixty feet high. Sixteen of these columns, and one
triumphal arch, still stand in a perfect state of preservation. They
are wonderful to behold.
Looking in the same direction, but beyond the temple of Jupiter, I see
the Stadium, which consists of a natural amphitheatre, formed by three
hills, united and modified artificially. This is where the gymnastic
contests and Olympic games took place.
Southwest of the Acropolis, is the rock-hewn prison of Socrates where
the grand old philosopher drank the fatal hemlock. Directly west, is
the platform with a stone pulpit from which the destinies of Athens
were swayed by the matchless eloquence of Demosthenes. Between this
pulpit and the Acropolis is the Areopagus, or Mar’s Hill. When Paul was
in Athens, “they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying,
‘May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is?’ Then
Paul stood in the midst of Mar’s Hill and said, ‘Ye men of Athens, I
perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For, as I passed
by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription:
‘To the Unknown God.’ Whom, therefore, ye ignorantly worship, Him
declare I unto you.’” (Acts xvii: 15-32.) I stood “in the midst of
Mar’s Hill,” and read Paul’s speech in Greek to some “men of Athens,”
who, in all probability, had never heard it before.
I have now been in this classic land many days, during which I have
lost no time. I have seen much of the people. On Tuesday and Saturday
afternoons of each week, the royal band discourses music from a grand
stand occupying the centre of one of the public squares. During these
concert hours, from five to ten thousand Greeks assemble in this open
square. Here they meet and mix and commingle and commune in the freest
and easiest manner imaginable. They sit, stand, promenade, or dance,
as they like, but all of them are all the time laughing and talking. I
never saw a better-natured crowd. I miss no opportunity like this to
study Greek life and character. One cannot be thrown among this crowd
for an hour without observing among the women the same traits of female
beauty that we have been studying all our lives in models of art and
sculpture. The men, I take it, have degenerated more than the women. A
modern Diogenes might walk the streets of Athens for a week, _without
finding a man_ like those of olden times. I am glad to add, however,
that the present king is doing much to elevate his subjects.
I have wandered through and around these majestic ruins all day, and
then gone back at night and viewed them by the pale moonlight. As I sit
in the quiet stillness of this midnight hour and think of the past,
“Memory approaches,
Holding up her magic glass,
Pointing to familiar pictures,
Which across the surface pass.”
In the stately procession which sweeps across the stage of my
imagination, I see Socrates, Zeno, Plato, and Xenophon; I see
Aristotle, Solon, Pericles, Sophocles, and Demosthenes. These are the
men that gave Greece her glory; these are the men who, with the fulcrum
of thought planted their feet upon the Acropolis and moved the world.
Borrowing the thought from Canon Farrar, though not using his exact
language, I may say, “Under Greek influence human freedom put forth its
most splendid power; human intellect displayed its utmost sublimity and
grace; art reached its most consummate perfection; poetry uttered alike
its sweetest and sublimest strains and philosophy attuned to the most
perfect music of human expression, its loftiest and deepest thought.
Had it been possible for the world, by its own wisdom, to know God;
had it been in the power of man to turn into bread the stones of the
wilderness; had perfect happiness lain within the grasp of sense, or
been among the rewards of culture; had it been granted to man’s unaided
power to win salvation by the gifts and graces of his own nature, and
make for himself a new Paradise in lieu of that lost Eden before whose
gates still wars the fiery sword of the Cherubim,—then such ends would
have been achieved by these old Athenians. Nor did their influence die
with their bodies; it is alive to-day, and it will be transmitted from
generation to generation, until the stars grow dim and moons shall wax
and wane no more.”