PAESTUM AND THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE
In these days of easy travelling there lies a choice of two routes to
Paestum and its temples: one by driving thither direct from La Cava or
Salerno, in the mode of our forefathers; and the other by taking the train
to the little junction of Battipaglia, and thence proceeding southward by
the coast line to the station of Pesto itself, that stands almost within a
stone’s throw of the chief gate of Poseidonia. A third, and perhaps a
preferable way, consists in using the railway beyond Battipaglia to Eboli,
a town of no little interest in the upper valley of the Silarus, and
thence driving along the base of the rocky hills that enclose the maritime
plain and through the oak wood of Persano that was brigand-haunted within
living memory. But though the scenery between Eboli and Paestum
undoubtedly owns more charm and variety than the marshy flats can boast,
yet the strange loneliness of the sea-girt level has a fascination of its
own, which will appeal strongly to all lovers of pristine undisturbed
nature. For the larger portion of these Lucanian plains still remains
uncultivated, so that thickets of fragrant wild myrtle and lentisk, of
coronella and of white-blossomed laurustinus, stud the landscape; whilst
the open ground is thickly covered with masses of hardy but gay flowering
weeds. The great star-thistles run to seed unchecked by the scythe, and
the belled cerinthia and the glaucous-leaved tall yellow mulleins seem to
thrive heartily on the barren soil. Boggy ground alternates with patches
of dry stony earth, and in early summer every little pool of water affords
sustenance to coarse-scented white water-lilies, and clumps of the yellow
iris that are over-shadowed by masses of tall graceful reeds. These
_arundini_, which are to be found near every water-course or pool
throughout Italy, are characteristic of the country with their broad grey
leaves, their heads of pink feathery bloom, and their mournful whispering
answers to the question of every passing breeze; elegant in their growth,
they are also beloved by the practical peasant who utilizes their long
slender stems for a variety of purposes in his domestic economy. For the
reeds, stripped of their foliage, support his tender young vines and make
good frame-work whereon to train his peas and tomatoes; the longest canes
of all, moreover, serve well as handles for the long feather brushes which
are used so extensively in all Italian households. Other floral denizens
of the plain are the great rank _porri_, or wild leeks, conspicuous with
their bright green curling leaves issuing from globe-like roots above the
ground, and of course, the asphodel, the plant of Death. For the asphodel
is pre-eminently the flower of Southern Italy and of Sicily, since it
presents a fit emblem of a departed grandeur that is still impressive in
its decay. How beautiful to the eye appear the dark grey-green sword-like
leaves from the centre of which up-shoots the tall branching stem with its
clusters of delicate pink-striped blossoms, that show so lovely yet smell
so vile! Apart from its fetid odour, the asphodel is a thing of intense
beauty, so that a long line of these plants in full bloom, covering some
ridge of orange-coloured tufa or the velvety-grey crest of some ancient
wall, with their spikes of starry flowers standing out distinct like
floral candelabra against the clear blue of a southern sky, makes an
impression upon the beholder that will ever be gratefully remembered.
But flowers and shrubs are not the only occupants of the Poseidonian
plain, for as we proceed on our way towards the Temples, we notice in the
drier pastures large herds of the long-horned dove-coloured cattle of the
country, whilst in marshy places our interest is aroused by the sight of
great shaggy buffaloes of sinister mien. The buffalo has long been
acclimatized in Italy, though its original home seems to have been the
trackless marshes of the Tigris and Euphrates. The conquering Arabs first
introduced these uncouth Eastern cattle into Sicily, whence they were
imported into Italy by the Norman kings of Naples. In spite of its
malevolent nature and the poor quality of its flesh and hide, the buffalo
came to be extensively bred in the Pontine and Lucanian marshes, where the
moisture of the soil and the unwholesome air always affected the native
herds unfavourably. For hours together these fierce untameable beasts love
to lie amidst the swampy reed-beds, wallowing up to their flanks in slimy
malodorous mud and seemingly impervious to the ceaseless attacks of the
local wasps and gad-flies, which try in vain to penetrate with their
barbed stings the thick hairy covering of defence. Perchance between
Battipaglia and Paestum we may encounter a herd of these shaggy beeves
being driven by a peasant on horse-back, with his _pungolo_ or small lance
in hand: a human being that in his goat-skin breeches and with his
luxuriant untrimmed locks, seems to our eyes only one degree less savage
and unkempt than the fierce beasts he guides. As cultivation has made
progress of recent years and the unhealthy marshes of the coast line are
being gradually drained, the numbers of buffalo tend to decrease, whilst
the native Italian oxen are being introduced once more into the newly
reclaimed pastures. That former arch-enemy of the cattle in the days of
Vergil seems to have disappeared: that “flying pest,” the _asilo_ of the
Romans and the _aestrum_ of the Greeks, which in antique times was wont to
drive the grazing herds frantic with terror and pain, until the valley of
the Tanager and the Alburnian woods re-echoed with the agonised lowing of
the poor tortured creatures. And speaking of noxious insects, a general
belief prevails in Italy that their bite—as well as that of snakes and
scorpions—becomes more acute and dangerous when the sun enters into the
sign of Lion, so that human beings, as well as defenceless cattle, must
carefully avoid all chances of being bitten during the months of July and
August.
Before our goal can be reached it is necessary for us to cross the broad
willow-fringed stream of the Sele, the Silarus of antiquity, which
according to the testimony of Silius Italicus once possessed the property
of petrifying wood. In the distant days of the eighteenth century, the
traveller to Paestum had to endure amidst other difficulties and dangers
of the road the disagreeable business of being ferried across the Sele,
which was then bridgeless. Owing to the malaria and the loneliness of the
spot, the acting of ferryman over this river was not an agreeable post,
and Count Stolberg, a German dilettante who has left some memories of his
Italian wanderings, relates how a feeble dismal soured old man, a
veritable Charon of the upper air, had great difficulty in conveying
himself, his horse and his servant across the swollen stream. The old
man’s age and misery aroused the Count’s compassion, so that he asked him
why he continued thus to perform a task at once so arduous and so
distasteful. “Sir,” replied the boatman, “I would gladly be excused, but
that my master compels me to undertake this work.” “And who, pray, is this
tyrant of a master of yours?” indignantly enquired the Count. “Sir, it is
my Lord Poverty!” grimly answered the old ferryman, as he pocketed the
Teuton’s fee. Times have changed with regard to the necessity of a ferry
over the Sele, but to judge from the appearance of the people and from the
accounts in the journals, we much doubt if my Lord Poverty’s sway has been
much weakened in these parts.
At length we reach the tiny hamlet and station of Pesto, surrounded by its
groves of mournful eucalyptus trees, and if we visit the station itself,
we cannot help noticing the fine gauze net-work over every window and
door, also the veiled faces and be-gloved hands of the station-master and
his _facchini_. It is not difficult to gauge the reason of the eucalyptus
trees at Pesto, an alien importation like the buffalo, for these native
trees of Australia have been planted here with the avowed object of
reducing the malaria, for which the place is only too renowned. Scientists
have positively declared that the mosquitoes which rise in clouds from the
poisonous swamps at sunset are directly responsible for this terrible form
of ague, and a paternal Government has accordingly introduced gum-trees to
improve the quality of the air, and has presented gloves, veils and fine
lattice work to its servants in the hope of protecting them from the bites
of these tiny pestilence-bearing insects. We do not wish to dispute the
wisdom of modern bacteriologists, but somehow we have no great faith in
this elaborate scheme for battling with Nature; and indeed not a few
persons who have studied the matter declare that though the reeking
marshes are certainly productive of malaria in themselves (so much so that
it is dangerous to linger amidst the ruined temples of an evening), yet
these spiteful little creatures are at least innocent of innoculating
humanity with this particular disease. Moreover, a plausible idea that is
now largely held insists that the recent spread of cultivation over the
Lucanian Plain is itself largely responsible for the increase of malaria;
it is the up-turning of the germ-impregnated earth that has lain fallow
for centuries, say the supporters of this theory, which awakens and sets
free the slumbering demon of fever in the soil, so that the speeding of
the plough on the Neapolitan coast must inevitably mean also the spreading
of this fell and mysterious sickness. Let us therefore give the devil his
due: the mosquito is a hateful and persistent foe, and his sting is both
painful and disfiguring, but do not let us accuse him of carrying malaria
until the case can be better proved against him. But enough of fevers and
doctors’ saws! Let us turn our willing eyes towards the three great
temples that confront us close at hand. Before however proceeding to
inspect these great monuments of Grecian art and civilization, which rank
amongst the most venerable as well as the most beautiful relics of
antiquity, it is only meet that we should carry with us into their ruined
halls a few grains of historical knowledge, whereby our sense of reality
and our appreciation of their greatness and splendour may be increased.
[Illustration: THE TEMPLE OF NEPTUNE, PAESTUM]
Although we do not possess a definite history of Paestum, similar to that
of Rome or of Athens, yet from the many allusions to be found scattered
throughout the pages of classical historians, as well as from the various
inscriptions and devices found upon ancient coins of this city, it is not
a difficult task to piece together the main features of Poseidonian
annals. From a very remote period of antiquity there was undoubtedly a
settlement on or near the coast to the south of the river Silarus, whilst
it is commonly held that this spot was called Peste—a name almost
identical with the modern Italian appellation—many hundreds of years
before the arrival of Doric settlers on the shores of the Tyrrhene Sea.
Late in the seventh century before Christ, the Greek colony of Poseidonia,
the city of the Sea God, was founded on or near the site of Italian Peste
by certain Hellenic adventurers from Trœzen, who were amongst the
inhabitants of Sybaris, at that time one of the most flourishing of the
famous cities of Magna Graecia: and this new colony of Trœzenians
henceforward was accounted one of the twenty-five subject-towns that
recognised Sybaris for their metropolis, or mother and suzerain city. We
have no details of its early history, but it is quite certain that under
the protection of Sybaris the new city of Poseidonia rose by degrees to
such wealth and importance that in course of time it gave its own name to
the whole Bay of Salerno, which henceforth became known to the Greeks as
the Poseidonian Gulf and later, to the Romans, as the Bay of Paestum. With
the fall of the mother city, this flourishing colony was left alone to
face the attacks of the Samnites, the native barbarians who peopled the
dense forests and the barren mountains of Lucania; yet it somehow
contrived to retain its independence until the close of the fourth century
B.C., when the Samnite hordes, forcing the fortified line of the Silarus,
made themselves masters of Poseidonia, and put an end, practically for
ever, to its existence as a purely Hellenic city. From its Lucanian
masters the captured town received the name of Paestum, and its
inhabitants were at once deprived of their independence, were forbidden to
carry arms, and were probably in many instances reduced to the level of
serfs. A large number of Samnites also settled within the walls of the
town, and compelled the former owners to surrender to them the larger and
richer portion of the public and private lands upon the maritime plain.
The use of the Hellenic language and public worship were however
permitted, and, strange to relate, no interference was made with a solemn
annual festival, which the depressed and enslaved population now
inaugurated with the confessed object of remembering for ever their Greek
origin and their former greatness. For once a year at a fixed date all
Greeks were wont to gather together and to bewail in public, outside the
great temple of Poseidon, their lost liberty and their vanished power. It
is evident that the Lucanians did not fear the tears and lamentations of
this unhappy subject state, for this custom continued to be observed
throughout the whole period of Samnite oppression, and survived even till
Roman times—perhaps to the very end of the city’s existence,—although in
the course of passing generations there could have been but few persons of
pure Greek descent left in the place.
With the advent of Alexander of Epirus, who had been called into Italy by
the Greeks of Tarentum in order to assist the sorely-pressed colonies of
Magna Graecia, Epirot troops were landed at the mouth of the Silarus.
Under the very walls of Paestum there now took place a stubborn fight
wherein the army of the Samnites was completely routed, and its survivors
driven in confusion from the coast into the wild woods and rocky valleys
of the Lucanian hills. For a brief interval of years Poseidonia regained
its lost liberty and its Hellenic name, but with the overthrow and death
of Alexander of Epirus, the scattered hordes pressed down once more from
their mountain fastnesses upon the rich plain, and the city was for the
second time enslaved by the ruder conquering race. Forty years later,
after the Pyrrhine war, all Lucania fell under the rising power of Rome, a
change that was by no means unacceptable to the Greek cities, which were
groaning under the rude tyranny of the Samnites. A Latin colony was now
planted at Paestum, to form a convenient centre whence the neighbouring
district could be kept in order and peaceably developed according to Roman
ideas. These Roman colonists, although they did not restore the lands and
buildings held by the expelled Samnites to their rightful owners, yet
lived on terms of amity with the Greek population, with whom they must
have freely intermarried. The original Hellenic inhabitants, relieved of
the bonds of servitude, were now placed on an equal footing with the new
colonists, partaking of political rights in the city thus freshly
re-created under the supremacy of Rome, and soon they grew to imitate the
speech and manners of their new masters, so that as an immediate result of
the expulsion of the barbaric Samnites and the entry of the progressive
Romans, Paestum began to recover a considerable portion of its ancient
splendour.
During the course of the second Punic War the name of Paestum is not
unfrequently mentioned in Roman annals, and owing its revived prosperity
to its annexation by Rome, it is not surprising to find the existence of a
strong feeling of gratitude amongst the inhabitants. At the date of fatal
Cannæ this faithful Greek city sent assurances of unswerving allegiance to
the Senate, and also more substantial help in the form of all the golden
vessels from its temples. It was Paestum also that early in the third
century B.C. supplied part of the ill-fated fleet of Decius Quinctius,
that was raised to run the blockade of Tarentum. But even the loss of its
ships and men did not deter this loyal city from coming forward a second
time with expressions of fealty and promise of further aid to the great
suzerain city in this dark hour of its difficulties. From this point
onward till the close of the Republic, History is almost silent with
regard to Paestum; but its numerous coins go far to attest its continued
welfare, for it now shared, together with Venusia, Brundusium and Vibo
Valentia, a special right to strike money in its own name and with its own
devices. Under the Empire, Paestum managed to uphold its size and
importance, so that it became the capital of one of the eight Prefectures
into which the district of Lucania had been divided. At this period, there
can be no doubt, the surrounding plain was in the highest state of
cultivation, whilst its prolific rose-gardens—_biferi rosaria Paesti_—have
supplied the theme of every Roman poet from Vergil to Ausonius. Yet in
spite of its apparent prosperity, the seeds of coming decline had already
been sown. Strabo tells us that even in early Imperial days the city was
obtaining an unenviable reputation for malaria: a circumstance that was
due to the over-flowing of the unwholesome streamlet, the Salso, whose
reeking and fever-bearing waters began to impregnate the earth.
Engineering works on a large scale were planned to remedy this drawback,
but these were never executed, and in consequence the unhealthiness of the
place increased. With the decline of the Roman power the population and
prosperity of Paestum likewise tended to lessen, so that its citizens were
placed in a worse position than before with regard to the carrying out of
this vast but necessary scheme of sanitation.
In a spot so accessible to external influence, it is easy to understand
that Christianity early took root in Paestum, which in the fifth century
of our own era had already become a bishopric. The story of the growth of
the Faith in Lucania is closely connected with a legend that centres round
a native of the place, a certain Gavinius, a general in the army of the
Emperor Valentinian, who whilst serving in Britain against the Picts by
some means succeeded in obtaining a valuable relic, supposed to be nothing
less than the body of the Apostle Matthew, which he brought back with him
to his native place. Early in the ninth century there appeared a fresh
cause of alarm, more serious and far-reaching even than the dreaded
malaria, for plundering Saracens, foes alike to the old Roman civilisation
and to the new Christian creed, now began to harass the Tyrrhenian shores.
Settling at Agropoli to the south of the Bay, these Oriental freebooters
found little difficulty in effecting a landing on the Poseidonian beach,
and in raiding the weakened and almost defenceless city. Able-bodied men
and young maidens were forcibly carried off to the pirates’ nest at
Agropoli, or perhaps even to the distant coast of Barbary, to be sold into
perpetual slavery. Alarmed beyond measure by this raid, the remaining
inhabitants of the place, at the advice and under the guidance of their
bishop, now decided—wisely, for they had to choose between immediate
flight or gradual extermination by disease, slavery and the sword—to
remove themselves to the barren mountains in their rear, once the haunts
of the Samnites, and to build a new Paestum on a site at once more healthy
and better protected by Nature against the raids of infidel corsairs. In a
body therefore the remaining citizens amid deep wailing left for ever the
ancient city with its glorious temples, and retired to a strong position
to the east. The spot chosen for the new residence of these exiles lay
close to the source that supplied with pure water their ancient aqueduct,
known for this reason as Caputaqueum, now corrupted into Capaccio. A link
with the old city, that lay deserted in the plain below, was still
retained by the bishop of the newly founded town in the mountains, who
continued to be known as _Episcopus Paestanus_. In the eleventh century
Robert Guiscard systematically plundered the ruins of Paestum in order to
erect or embellish the churches and palaces of Salerno and Amalfi. Every
remaining piece of sculpture and of marble was removed, and it was only
the vast size of the pillars of the three great temples, and the
consequent difficulty attending their transport by boat across the bay or
along the marshy ground of the coast line, that saved from destruction
these magnificent relics of “the glory that was Greece.” But even humble
Capaccio did not afford a final resting-place to the harried Paestani, for
in the year 1245 the great Emperor Frederick II., who had been defied by
the feudal Counts of Capaccio, besieged and utterly destroyed this
stronghold of the mountains that had been the child of Poseidonia of the
sea-girt plains. Another and a yet loftier retreat had to be sought by the
survivors of the Imperial vengeance, so that the ruined Capaccio the Old
was abandoned for another settlement, which still exists as a miserable
village amidst those barren hills that had ever looked down with jealous
envy upon the proud city with its pillared temples. One curious
circumstance with regard to Paestum must finally be mentioned, in that the
existence of its ruins, the grandest and most ancient group of monuments
on the mainland of Italy, remained unknown to the learned world until
comparatively modern times. Only the local peasants and the inhabitants of
the poverty-stricken towns in the Lucanian hills seem to have been aware
of the presence of the gigantic temples standing in lonely majesty by the
shore and as the superstitious nature of these ignorant people attributed
these structures to the work of a magician—perhaps to the great wizard
Vergil himself—they were shunned both by night and by day as the haunt of
malignant spirits. Poor fisher-folk and buffalo-drivers, who had of
necessity to pass near the ruined fanes, were wont to slink by in fear and
trembling, and doubtless they brought back strange stories of its ghostly
occupants with which they regaled their friends or families by the
fire-side of a winter’s evening. Yet it is most strange that during the
period of the Renaissance, at a time when enthusiastic research was being
made into the neglected antiquities of Italy, this unique group of Doric
temples should have escaped notice. For neither Cyriaco of Ancona nor
Leandro Alberti, who visited Lucania ostensibly for the sake of recording
its classical remains, make mention of “the ruined majesty of Paestum,”
and it was reserved for a certain Count Gazola (whose name is certainly
worthy of being recorded), an officer in the service of the Neapolitan
King, to present to the notice of scholars and archaeologists towards the
middle of the eighteenth century the first known description of what is
perhaps Italy’s chief existing treasure of antiquity. From Gazola’s day
onward the beauty and interest of Paestum have been appraised at their
true worth, and numberless artists and writers of almost every nationality
have sketched or described its marvellous temples.
With this brief introduction to the history of a city, whose chief
building is still standing almost intact after a lapse of 2500 years, let
us take a rapid survey of Poseidonia as it exists to-day. Its walls, of
Greek construction but probably built or restored as late as the time of
Alexander of Epirus, who gave the captured town a fleeting spell of
liberty, form an irregular pentagon about three miles in circumference,
whereon the remains of eight towers can be observed, whilst the four
gates, placed at the four cardinal points of the compass, are clearly
traceable. We enter this _città morta_ by the so-called Porta della
Sirena, the eastern gate that faces the hostile Samnite Hills and (oh, the
prosaic touch!) the modern railway-station. This gate remains in a
tolerable state of preservation, and draws its name from the key-stone of
its arch, which bears in low relief a much defaced design of a mermaid or
siren, its counterpart on the inner keystone being a dolphin: two devices
very appropriate to the entrance of a city dedicated to the Lord of Ocean.
Passing the picturesque yellow-washed Villa Salati, with its high walls
and iron-barred windows testifying only too plainly to the lawlessness
that once reigned in this district, we find ourselves face to face with
the great temple of Neptune or Poseidon, and its companion-fane, the
so-called Basilica. The Temple of Neptune (for in this instance at least
the popular appellation chances to be the correct one), in all probability
co-eval with the first Greek foundation of the city, formed the central
point of the life of Poseidonia during the 1400 years of its existence as
a Hellenic, a Samnite, and finally a Roman city. In its simple grandeur
and its perfect proportions this wonderful temple possesses only one rival
outside Greece itself: the Temple of Concord at Girgenti, which the poet
Goethe compared to a god, after designating the building before us as a
giant. Superiority in grace is therefore a disputed point between the two
great structures of Poseidonia and Agrigentum, yet in every other respect
the temple of the Lucanian Plain surpasses its Sicilian rival.
To-day, after more than a score of centuries of exposure to the salt winds
and to the burning sunshine of the south, the walls and pillars of these
great buildings have been calcined to a glorious shade of tawny yellow,
fit to delight the soul of every artist, whether he views their Titanic
but graceful forms outlined against the deep blue of sky and sea on the
western horizon, or against the equally lovely background of grey and
violet mountains to the east. But it was not always thus. The porous local
travertine that gave their building material to the Greeks of the sixth
century before Christ was once carefully stuccoed, and, in the manner of
Hellenic art, painted in the most brilliant hues of azure and vermilion,
so that it becomes hard for us to realise the original effect of such
gorgeous masses standing erect in a landscape that is itself fraught with
glowing colour. But better to appreciate the magnificence before us, let
us give a brief technical description of the greatest of the temples in
the choice words of an eminent French antiquary.
“The largest and most elegant, and likewise the oldest of the Temples of
Paestum, is that commonly known by the name of the Temple of Neptune. This
building shares, together with the Temple of Theseus at Athens, the honour
of being the best preserved monument of the Doric order in existence, and
the impression of grandeur that it gives to the spectator rivals even the
first sight of the Parthenon itself. In front of the building is a
platform in the midst of which can be seen the hollow space that formerly
held the altar of sacrifice, for according to the practice of the Greek
religion, these rites of blood-shedding took place in the open air and
outside the temple. With a length of 190 feet and a breadth of 84 feet,
this building is hypoethral, which means that the _cella_, or sanctuary
that held the statue of the deity, was constructed open to the sky. It is
peripteral, and presents a row of six pillars fluted at base and top, with
twelve on each side, making thirty-six in all. The _cella_ itself in the
interior is upheld by sixteen columns about six feet in diameter, which in
their turn are surmounted by two rows of smaller pillars above that
support the roof. With the exception of one side of the upper stage of the
interior every column of the temple remains intact, as do likewise the
entablature and pediments. Only the wall of the _cella_ has been pulled
down; doubtless to supply material for building.”(8)
Having quoted Monsieur Lenormant’s careful description of the chief pride
of Poseidonia, we shall confine ourselves to as few remarks as possible
concerning the two remaining temples. The Basilica, a misnomer of which
the veriest amateur must at once perceive the absurdity, is inferior both
in size and in beauty of proportion to its close neighbour of Neptune. Its
chief peculiarity from an architectural point of view will be at once
remarked, for it has its two façades composed of seven—an odd number—of
columns, so that its interior easily divides itself into two narrow
chambers of equal length, affording ample ground for the theory, now
generally held, that this building was not a hall of Justice, or
_Basilica_, but a temple intended expressly for the worship of dual
divinities. Almost without a doubt it was erected—probably not long after
the Temple of Poseidon—in honour of Demeter (Ceres) and of her only child
Persephone (Proserpine), who was seized from her mother’s care by the
amorous god of the Infernal Regions, as she was plucking anemones in the
verdant meadows of Enna. We all know “the old sweet mythos”; we all
understand its hidden allegory with regard to the sowing, the up-springing
and the garnering of the yellow corn, that spends half the year in the
embraces of the earth, the palace of Pluto, and half the year on the broad
loving bosom of Mother Demeter. Here then within these bare and ruined
walls were mother and daughter worshipped by the people of Poseidonia, who
reasonably considered that the two goddesses of the Earth should have
their habitation as near as possible to the Sanctuary of the Sovereign of
Ocean.
Much smaller than either of these immense temples is the third remaining
Greek building of Paestum, which lies a good quarter of a mile to the
north, not far from the Golden Gate, the Porta Aurea, that leads northward
in the direction of Salerno. Like that of Neptune, this temple is
hexastyle, with six columns on each of its façades and twelve on either
flank, but as it is little more than half the size of its grander and
older brethren, it is now frequently known as “Il Piccolo Tempio,”
although its former incorrect ascription to Ceres still clings to it in
popular parlance. It is from this building, which stands on slightly
rising ground, that the best impression of the whole city and of its
wondrous setting between the savage Lucanian hills and the blue
Mediterranean can be obtained.
“Between the mountains and the tideless sea
Stretches a plain where silence reigns supreme;
A land of asphodel and weeds that teem
Where once a city’s life ran joyfully.
‘Vanity! Vanity! All Vanity!’
Whisper the winds to Sele’s murmuring stream;
Whilst the vast temples preach th’ eternal theme,
How pass the glories and their memory.
Think what these ruins saw! what songs and cries
Once through these roofless colonnades did ring!
What crowds here gathered, where the all-seeing skies
For centuries have watched the daisies spring!
Dead all within this crumbling circle lies:
Dead as the roses Roman bards did sing.”
Beautiful as Paestum presents itself in the bright noontide of a Spring
day, beneath a cloudless sky and with the blue waters of the Mediterranean
lapping the distant yellow sands, there appears something incongruous in
the sharp contrast between this joyfulness of vigorous life and the solemn
atmosphere of the deserted city. The noisy twittering of multitudes of
ubiquitous sparrows, equally at home in Doric temples as amongst the sooty
chimney stacks of London; the twinklings and rustlings of the lizards in
the young leaves and grass; the polyglot babble of excursionists from
Naples or La Cava that a warm day in Spring invariably attracts to
Paestum:—these are not sounds that blend well with the solemn spirit of
the place. We long to cross the intervening ages so as to throw ourselves,
if only for one short hour, outside the cares and interests of to-day into
the heart of that refined civilisation which is gone for ever;—with the
cheerful sunlight around us, and with our fellow-mortals on pleasure bent
close at hand, we find it difficult to forget the present. Would it be
possible, we ask ourselves, to spend a nocturnal vigil within the hall of
the great temple of the Sea God, so as to behold, like that undaunted
traveller, Crawford Ramage, the shafts of crystalline moonlight shed
through the aperture of the roof leap from pillar to pillar, making bars
of brilliant light amidst the surrounding blackness! O to sit and meditate
thus engrossed with the memory of the past, and with no other sounds
around us than the sad cry of the _aziola_, the little downy owl that
Shelley so loved! But the gaunt spectre of Fever ever haunts this spot,
and after sunset his power is supreme; so that he would be a bold man
indeed who in an age of luxury and selfish comfort would carry out an idea
at once so romantic and so perilous.
We ourselves were especially fortunate on the occasion of our last visit
to Poseidonia on a mild day in December, a month which on the Lucanian
shore somewhat resembles a northern October. A soft luminous haze hung
over the landscape and over the Bay of Salerno itself, rendering the
classic mountains at once indistinct in outline and unnaturally lofty to
the eye. More grandiose and mysterious than under the fierce light of a
sunny noontide appeared that day the three giant pillared forms, as we
entered the precincts of the ruined city by the Siren’s Gate, and made our
way through the thick herbage still pearled with dew, since there was
neither sunshine nor sirocco to dry “the tears of mournful Eve” off the
clumps of silver-glinted acanthus, or the tall grasses bending with the
moisture. In the warm humid air we seated ourselves on the plinth of a
column, and gazing around allowed the influence of this marvellous spot to
sink deep into the soul. No tourists with unseemly or unnecessary chatter
arrived that day to share our selfish delight or to break the
all-pervading spell of solitude; all lay peaceful and deserted. All was
silent too save for the low monotonous sobbing of the sea on the unseen
beach near at hand, the historic beach on which at various times
throughout the roll of past ages Doric colonists, Epirot warriors, Roman
legionaries and fierce Mohammedan pirates had disembarked, all with the
same object:—to seize the proud city that had now for the last thousand
years lain uninhabited, save for the owls and the bats. It was too cloudy
a day for sun-loving creatures such as lizards or serpents to emerge and
rustle amongst the broken stones and leaves, over all of which during the
silent hours of the past night Arachne had been employed in weaving her
softest and whitest textures, that the windless morning had allowed to
remain intact. The only sign of animate life was visible in a pair of
lively gold-finches, which with merry notes were fluttering from thistle
to thistle, picking the down from each ripened flower-head and prodigally
scattering the seeds upon the weed-grown soil where once had bloomed the
odorous Roses of Paestum that the poets loved.
Sitting thus amid the silence and solitude of a city half as old as Time
itself, we were unexpectedly aroused by a gruff salutation proceeding from
a little distance behind the temple. Turning quickly in the direction of
the sound, we perceived the figure of a tall bearded man dressed in
conical hat, with goat-skin trousers and cross-gartered legs, who but for
the gun slung across his shoulders by a stout leathern strap might well
have been mistaken for an apparition of the god Pan himself returned to
earth. Vague recollections of the brigand Manzoni, the scourge of the
neighbourhood and the murderer of more than one unhappy visitor to the
ruins of Paestum in the good old _vetturino_ days, flashed through our
mind, as we surveyed the muscular frame and the fowling-piece of the
strange being before us. It was with a sigh of relief that we noted upon
the straight stretch of white road leading to the Little Temple in the
distance the presence of two royal _carabinieri_ majestically riding at a
foot’s pace, their tall forms enveloped in long black cloaks whose folds
swept over their horses’ tails. We felt reassured, and when for a second
time the guttural voice addressed us in unintelligible _patois_, we
perceived the innocent object of this mysterious visit. Searching in a
capacious goat-skin bag, a species of Neapolitan sporran, this descendant
of the Poseidonian Greeks produced and held up to our gaze three birds
that he had shot in his morning’s hunting. For the modest sum of three
lire the game exchanged hands, and the sportsman departed, well satisfied
with his luck. Next evening we feasted royally in our inn at Salerno upon
a succulent woodcock fattened upon the berries of the wood of Persano, and
upon a couple of snipe that had grown plump amongst the Neptunian marshes.
Nor was this dainty addition to our supper that night altogether
undeserved; for having decided in a momentary fit of enthusiasm to forego
the usual basket of hotel food at the time of starting from Salerno, in
order to follow the advice of old Evelyn “to diet with the natives,” we
had preferred to take our chance of midday refreshment at the solitary
_osteria_ within the ruined city wall. The good people of the inn did what
they could to regale the two _gran’ signori Inglesi_, whose unexpected
presence had the effect of creating some stir within their humble walls.
No little time was expended in bustling preparations, before a flask of
red wine, some coarse bread, a dish of fried eggs and a plateful of cold
sausage were placed before us upon the rough oak table, well scored with
knife-cuts. Eggs, wine and bread are usually tolerable everywhere
throughout Italy, no matter how mean the inn that provides them; but the
Lucanian sausage, though interesting as a relic of classical times, is
positive poison to the Anglo-Saxon digestion. For the Lucanian sausage of
to-day is the _Lucanica_ unchanged; the same tough, greasy, odoriferous
compound, in fact, that Cicero describes as “an intestine, stuffed with
minced pork, mixed with ground pepper, cummin, savory, rue, rock-parsley,
berries of laurel, and suet.” And we have only to add that mingling with
the above-mentioned condiments there was an all-pervading flavour of
wood-smoke, due to the sausage’s place of storage, a hook within the
kitchen chimney. But if the fare was rough, it was cheap and smacked of
classical times, and our reception by the Paestani of to-day was most
cordial.
We left Poseidonia late in the afternoon, casting back many regretful
glances at the three giant sentinels of the plain, looming preternaturally
large in the rapidly fading light of a starless evening. At that hour we
felt we could understand and sympathise with the poor untutored peasant’s
fear and avoidance of these lonely ruins, for superstition is often as
much the result of chance environment as of crass ignorance.