RAMBLES IN 
 
 GREECE
 
 RAMBLES IN GREECE
 
 . The Acropolis, Athens
 
 RAMBLES AND STUDIES 
 
 GREECE 
 
 BY 
 
 J. P. MAHAFFY 
 
 KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OP THB SAVIOUR; 
 
 AUTHOR OF "SOCIAL LIFE IN GREECE ;" "A HISTORY OF GREEK LITERATURE; 
 
 "GREEK LIFE AND THOUGHT FROM THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER;" 
 
 "THE GREEK WORLD UNDER ROMAN SWAY," ETC. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 HENRY T. COATES & CO. 
 
 1900
 
 HUNG LIBRUM 
 
 E&mun&o msatt 
 
 OB INSIGNEM 
 
 INTER CASTRA ITINERA OTIA NEGOTIA LITIERARUM AMOREM 
 OUM DEDICATUM 
 
 NUNC CARISSIMI AMICI MEMORIAE 
 CONSECRAT AUCTOR
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 FEW men there are who having once visited Greece 
 do not contrive to visit it again. And yet when the 
 returned traveller meets the ordinary friend who asks 
 him where he has been, the next remark is generally, 
 " Dear me ! have you not been there before ? How is 
 it you are so fond of going to Greece ?" There are 
 even people who imagine a trip to America far more 
 interesting, and who at all events look upon a trip 
 to Spain as the same kind of thing southern climate, 
 bad food, dirty inns, and general discomfort, odious 
 to bear, though pleasant to describe afterward in a 
 comfortable English home. 
 
 This is a very ignoi'ant way of looking at the 
 matter, for excepting Southern Italy, there is no 
 country which can compare with Greece in beauty 
 and interest to the intelligent traveller. It is not 
 a land for creature comforts, though the climate is 
 splendid, and though the hotels in Athens are as 
 good as those in most European towns. It is not a 
 land for society, though the society at Athens is 
 excellent, and far easier of access than that of most 
 European capitals. But if a man is fond of the large
 
 via PREFACE. 
 
 effects of natural scenery, he will find in the South- 
 ern Alps and fiords of Greece a variety and a rich- 
 ness of color which no other part of Europe affords. 
 If he is fond of the details of natural scenery, flowers, 
 shrubs, and trees, he will find the wild-flowers and 
 flowering-trees of Greece more varied than anything 
 he has yet seen. If he desires to study national 
 character, and peculiar manners and customs, he 
 will find in the hardy mountaineers of Greece one of 
 the most unreformed societies, hardly yet affected by 
 the great tide of sameness which is invading all 
 Europe in dress, fabrics, and usages. And yet, in 
 spite of the folly still talked in England about brig- 
 ands, he will find that without troops, or police, or 
 patrols, or any of those melancholy safeguards which 
 are now so obtrusive in England and Ireland, life 
 and property are as secure as they ever were in our 
 most civilized homes. Let him not know a word of 
 history, or of art, and he will yet be rewarded by all 
 this natural enjoyment ; perhaps also, if he be a 
 politician, he may study the unsatisfactory results of 
 a constitution made to order, and of a system of free 
 education planted in a nation of no political train- 
 ing, but of high intelligence. 
 
 Need I add that as to Cicero the whole land was 
 one vast shrine of hallowed memories quocmifjur 
 inccdis, Jiistoria est so to the man of culture this 
 splendor of associations has only increased with the 
 lapse of time and the greater appreciation of human
 
 PREFACE. ix 
 
 perfection. Even were such a land dead to all 
 further change, and a mere record in its ruins of the 
 past, I know not that any man of reflection could 
 satisfy himself with contemplating it. Were he to 
 revisit the Parthenon, as it stands, every year of his 
 life, it would always be fresh, it would always be 
 astonishing. But Greece is a growing country, both 
 in its youth and in its age. The rapid development 
 of the nation is altering the face of the country, 
 establishing new roads and better communications, 
 improving knowledge among the people, and mak- 
 ing many places accessible which were before beyond 
 the reach of brief holiday visits. The insecurity 
 which haunted the Turkish frontier has been pushed 
 back to the north ; new Alps and new monasteries 
 are brought within the range of Greece. And this 
 is nothing to what has been done in recovering the 
 past. Every year there are new excavations made, 
 new treasures found, new problems in archaeology 
 raised, old ones solved ; and so at every visit there 
 is a whole mass of new matter for the student who 
 feels he had not yet grasped what was already there. 
 The traveller who revisits the country now after 
 a lapse of four or five years will find at Athens the 
 Schliemann museum set up and in order, where the 
 unmatched treasures of Mycenae are now displayed 
 before his astonished eyes. He will find an Egyp- 
 tian museum of extraordinary merit the gift of a 
 patriotic merchant of Alexandria in which there
 
 x PREPACK 
 
 are two figures that of a queen, in bronze and 
 silver, and that of a slave kneading bread, in wood 
 which alone would make the reputation of any 
 collection throughout Europe. In the Parthenon 
 museum he will find the famous statuette, copied 
 from Phidias's Athene, and the recent wonder, 
 archaic statues on which the brightness of the colors 
 is not more astonishing than the moulding of the 
 figures. 
 
 And these are onlv the most salient novelties. It 
 
 / 
 
 is indeed plain that were not the new city covering 
 the site of the old, discoveries at Athens might be 
 made perhaps every year, which would reform and 
 enlarge our knowledge of Greek life and history. 
 But Athens is rapidly becoming a great and rich 
 city. It already numbers 110,000, without counting 
 the Peirseus ; accordingly, except in digging founda- 
 tions for new houses, it is not possible to find room 
 for any serious excavations. House rent is enor- 
 mously high, and building is so urgent that the ordi- 
 nary mason receives eight to ten francs per day. 
 This rapid increase ought to be followed by an equal 
 increase in the wealth of the surrounding country. 
 where all the little proprietors ought to turn their 
 land into market-gardens. I found that either they 
 could not, or (as I was told) they' would not, keep 
 pace with the increased wants of the city. They 
 are content with a little, and allow the city to be 
 supplied badly and at great cost from Salonica,
 
 PREFACE. Xl 
 
 Syra, Constantinople, and the islands, while meat 
 comes in tons from America. How different is the 
 country round Paris and London ! 
 
 But this is a digression into vulgar matters, when 
 I had merely intended to inform the reader what 
 intellectual novelties he would find in revisiting 
 Athens. For nothing is more slavish in modern 
 travel than the inability the student feels, for want 
 of time in long journeys, or want of control over his 
 conveyance, to stop and examine something which 
 strikes him beside his path. And that is the main 
 reason why Oriental and as yet Greek travelling 
 is the best and most instructive of all. 
 
 You can stop your pony or mule, you can turn 
 aside from the track which is called your road, you 
 are not compelled to catch a train or a steamer at a 
 fixed moment. When roads and rails have been 
 brought into Greece, hundreds of people will go to 
 see its beauty and its monuments, and will congratu- 
 late themselves that the country is at last accessible. 
 But the real charm will be gone. There will be no 
 more riding at dawn through orchards of oranges 
 and lemons, with the rich fruit lying on the ground, 
 and the nightingales, that will not end their exuber- 
 ant melody, still outsinging from the deep-green 
 gloom the sounds of opening day. There will be no 
 more watching the glowing east cross the silver-gray 
 glitter of dewy meadows ; no more wandering along 
 grassy slopes, where the scarlet anemones, all
 
 xii PREFACE. 
 
 drenched with the dews of night, are striving to 
 raise their drooping heads and open their splendid 
 eyes to meet the rising sun. There will be no more 
 watching the serpent and the tortoise, the eagle and 
 the vulture, and all the living things whose ways and 
 habits animate the sunny solitudes of the south. 
 The Greek people now talk of going to Europe, and 
 coining from Europe, justly too, for Greece is still, 
 as it always was, part of the East. But the day is 
 coming when enlightened politicians, like Mr. Tri- 
 coupi, will insist on introducing through all the re- 
 motest glens the civilization of Europe, with all its 
 benefits forsooth, but with all its shocking ugliness, 
 its stupid hurry, and its slavish uniformity. 
 
 I will conclude with a warning to the archaeologist, 
 and one which applies to all amateurs who go to visit 
 excavations, and cannot see what has been reported 
 by the actual excavators. As no one is able to see 
 what the evidences of digging are, except the trained 
 man, who knows not only archaeology, but architect- 
 ure, and who has studied the accumulation of soil 
 in various places and forms, so the observer who 
 comes to the spot after some years, and expects to 
 find all the evidences unchanged, commits a blunder 
 of the gravest kind. As Dr. Dorpfeld, now one of 
 the highest living authorities on such matters, ob- 
 served to me, if you went to Hissarlik expecting to 
 find there clearly marked the various strata of suc- 
 cessive occupations, you would show that you were
 
 PREFACE. xiii 
 
 ignorant of the first elements of practical knowledge. 
 For in any climate, but especially in these southern 
 lands, Nature covers up promptly what has been 
 exposed by man ; all sorts of plants spring up along 
 and across the lines which in the cutting when 
 freshly made were clear and precise. In a few 
 years the whole place turns back again into a brake, 
 or a grassy slope, and the report of the actual dig- 
 gers remains the only evidence till the soil is cut 
 open again in the same way. I saw myself, at 
 Olympia, important lines disappearing in this way. 
 Dr. Purgold showed me where the line marking the 
 embankment of the stadium it was never sur- 
 rounded with any stone seats was rapidly becom- 
 ing effaced, and where the plan of the foundations 
 was being covered with shrubs and grass. The 
 day for visiting and verifying the Trojan excava- 
 tions is almost gone by. That of all the excavations 
 will pass away, if they are not carefully kept clear 
 by some permanent superintendence ; and to expect 
 this of the Greek nation, who know they have end- 
 less more treasures to find in new places, is more 
 than could reasonably be expected. The proper 
 safeguard is to do what Dr. Schliemann does, to 
 have with him not only the Greek ephoros or super- 
 intendent generally a very competent scholar, and 
 sometimes not a very friendly witness of foreign 
 triumphs but also a first-rate architect, whose joint 
 observation will correct any hastiness or misprision,
 
 xiv PKEFACE. 
 
 and so in the mouth of two or more witnesses every 
 word will be confirmed. 
 
 In passing on I cannot but remark how strange 
 it is that among the many rich men in the world 
 who profess an interest in archaeology, not one can 
 be found to take up the work as Dr. Schliemann did, 
 to enrich science with splendid fields of new evidence, 
 and illustrate art, not only with the naive efforts of 
 its infancy, but with forgotten models of perfect and 
 peerless form. 
 
 This New Edition is framed with a view of still 
 satisfying the demand for the book as a traveller's 
 handbook, somewhat less didactic than the official 
 guide-books, somewhat also, I hope, more pictu- 
 resque. For that purpose I have added a new chap- 
 ter on mediaeval Greece, as well as many paragraphs 
 with new information, especially the ride over 
 Mount Erymanthus, pp. 343, sqq. I have corrected 
 many statements which are now antiquated by re- 
 cent discoveries, and I have obliterated the traces of 
 controversy borne by the Second Edition. For the 
 criticisms on the book are dead, while the book sur- 
 vives. To me it is very pleasant to know that 
 many visitors to Greece have found it an agreeable 
 companion. 
 
 TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN, 
 Febi-uai-y, 1892.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. INTRODUCTION FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE COAST 1 
 
 II. GENERAL, IMPRESSIONS OF ATHENS AND ATTICA . 30 
 
 III. ATHENS THE MUSEUMS THE TOMBS 55 
 
 IV. THE ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS 89 
 
 V. ATHENS THE THEATRE OF DIONYSUS THE ARE- 
 OPAGUS ... 122 
 
 VI. EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA COLONUS THE HARBORS 
 
 LAUIUUM SUNIUM 152 
 
 VII. EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA PENTELICUS MARATHON 
 
 DAPHNE ELEUSIS 184 
 
 VIII. FROM ATHENS TO THEBES THE PASSES OF PARNES 
 
 AND OF ClTHuERON, ELEUTHER.E, PLATJ3A . . 215 
 
 IX. THE PLAIN OF ORCHOMENUS, LIVADIA, CH^RONEA 248 
 X. ARACHOVA DELPHI THE BAY OF KIRRHA . . 274 
 
 XL ELIS OLYMPIA AND ITS GAMES THE VALLEY 
 OF THE* ALPHEUS MOUNT ERYMANTHUS 
 PATRAS 299 
 
 XII. A RCADI A ANDRITZEN A BASS.E: MEGALOPOLIS 
 
 TRIPOLITZA 351
 
 xv j CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 CHAP. 
 
 X 1 1 L CORINTH TIRYNS ARGOS NAUPLI A 
 
 ^EGINA EPIDAURUS 388 
 
 XIV. KYNURIA SPARTA MESSEUE 435 
 
 XV. MYCEN.E AND TIRYXS 4o6 
 
 XVL MEDIEVAL, GREECE 492 
 
 INDEX 531
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Photogravures by A. W. ELSON & Co. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE ACROPOLIS, ATHENS Frontispiece 
 
 ALONG THE COAST FROM THE THRONE OF XERXES ... 30 
 
 THE ERECHTHEUM FROM THE WEST, ATHENS 36 
 
 A TOMB FROM THE VIA SACRA, ATHENS 78 
 
 PART OF THE WEST FRIEZE OF THE PARTHENON, 
 
 ATHENS 110 
 
 THEATRE OF DIONYSUS, ATHENS 122 
 
 MARS' HILL, ATHENS 140 
 
 THE PEIR^US 160 
 
 LAURIUM 168 
 
 MOUNT LYCABETTCS, ATHENS 188 
 
 LOOKING TOWARD THE SEA FROM THE SOROS, MARATHON 198 
 
 SALAMIS, FROM ACROSS THE BAY 206 
 
 TEMPLE OF MYSTERIES, ELEITSIS 212 
 
 A GREEK SHEPHERD, OLYMPIA 274
 
 xviii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE TEMPLE OF APOLLO, DELPHI 284 
 
 THE BANKS OF THE KLADEUS 302 
 
 STATUE OF NIKE, BY P^xxsius 306 
 
 KRONION HILL, OLYMPIA 318 
 
 ENTRANCE TO THE STADIUM, OLYMPIA 330 
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE ALPHEUS 342 
 
 A GREEK PEASANT IN NATIONAL COSTUME 380 
 
 TEMPLE OF CORINTH 392 
 
 SCENE NEAR CORINTH, THE ACRO-CORINTHUS IN THE DIS- 
 TANCE 395 
 
 GALLERY AT TIRYNS 406 
 
 THE PALAMEDI, NATJPLIA 424 
 
 SCULPTURED LION, NAUPLIA 428 
 
 LANGADA PASS 446 
 
 ARCADIAN GATEWAY, MESSENE . . . T 452 
 
 THE ARGIVE PLAIN 458 
 
 LION GATE, MYCENJE 472
 
 Gr Jrt E E O E. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 * 
 
 INTRODUCTION FIRST IMPRESSIONS OP THE COAST. 
 
 A VOYAGE to Greece does not at first sight seem 
 a great undertaking. We all go to and fro to Italy 
 as we used to go to France. A trip to Rome, or 
 even to Naples, is now an Easter holiday affair. 
 And is not Greece very close to Italy on the map ? 
 What signifies the narrow sea that divides them? 
 This is what a man might say who only considered 
 geography, and did not regard the teaching of 
 history. For the student of history cannot look 
 upon these two peninsulas without being struck 
 with the fact that they are, historically speaking, 
 turned back to back ; that while the face of Italy 
 is turned westward, and looks towards France and 
 Spain, and across to us, the face of Greece looks 
 eastward, towards Asia Minor and towards Egypt. 
 Every great city in Italy, except Venice, approaches 
 or borders the Western Sea Genoa, Pisa, Florence, 
 Rome, Naples. All the older history of Rome, its 
 i i
 
 2 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 development, its glories, lie on the west of the 
 Apennines. When you cross them you come to 
 what is called the back of Italy ; and you feel that 
 in that flat country, and that straight coast-line, you 
 are separated from its true beauty and charm. 1 
 Contrariwise, in Greece, the whole weight and dig- 
 nity of its history gravitate towards the eastern 
 coast. All its great cities Athens, Thebes, Corinth, 
 Argos, Sparta are on that side. Their nearest 
 neighbors were the coast cities of Asia Minor and 
 of the Cyclades, but the western coasts were to 
 them harborless and strange. If you pass Cape 
 Malea, they said, then forget your home. 
 
 So it happens that the coasts of Italy and Greece, 
 which look so near, are outlying and out-of-the way 
 parts of the countries to which they belong ; and if 
 you want to go straight from real Italy to real 
 Greece, the longest way is that from Brindisi to 
 Corfu, for you must still journey across Italy to 
 Brindisi, and from Corfu to Athens. The shortest 
 way is to take ship at Naples, and to be carried 
 round Italy and round Greece, from the centres of 
 culture on the west of Italy to the centres of culture 
 (such as they are) on the east of Greece. But this 
 
 1 Though this statement is broadly true, it requires some modi- 
 fication. I should be sorry to be thought insensible to the beauties, 
 not only of Ravenna, with its mosaics and its pines, but of An- 
 cona, of the splendid Monte (Jargano, of Trani and Lari, and of 
 the rich gardens and vineyards of Apulia.
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 3 
 
 is no trifling passage. When the ship has left the 
 coasts of Calabria, and steers into the open sea, you 
 feel that you have at last left the west of Europe, 
 and are setting sail for the Eastern Seas. You are, 
 moreover, in an open sea the furious Adriatic in 
 which I have seen storms which would be creditable 
 to the Atlantic Ocean, and which at times forbid 
 even steam navigation. 
 
 I may anticipate for a moment here, and say that 
 even now the face of Athens is turned, as of old, 
 to the East. Her trade and her communications 
 are through the Levant. Her chief intercourse is 
 with Constantinople, and Smyrna, and Syra, and 
 Alexandria. 
 
 This curious parallel between ancient and modern 
 geographical attitudes in Greece is, no doubt, greatly 
 due to the now bygone Turkish rule. In addition 
 to other contrasts, Mohammedan rule and Eastern 
 jealousy long unknown in Western Europe first 
 jarred upon the traveller when he touched the coasts 
 of Greece ; and this dependency was once really 
 part of a great Asiatic Empire, where all the inter- 
 ests and communications gravitated eastward, and 
 away from the Christian and better civilized West. 
 The revolution which expelled the Turks was 
 unable to root out the ideas which their subjects 
 had learned ; and so, in spite of Greek hatred of the 
 Turk, his influence still lives through Greece in a 
 thousand ways.
 
 4 RAMBLES IX GREECE. 
 
 For many hours after the coasts of Calabria had 
 faded into the night, and even after the snowy dome 
 of Etna was lost to view, our ship steamed through 
 the open sea, with no land in sight ; but we were 
 told that early in the morning, at the very break of 
 dawn, the coasts of Greece would be visible. So, 
 while others slept, I started up at half-past three, 
 eager to get the earliest possible sight of the land 
 which still occupies so large a place in our thoughts. 
 It was a soft gray morning ; the sky was covered 
 with light, broken clouds ; the deck was wet with a 
 passing shower, of which the last drops were still 
 flying in the air; and before us, some ten miles 
 away, the coasts and promontories of the Pelopon- 
 nesus were reaching southward into the quiet sea. 
 These long serrated ridges did not look lofty, in 
 spite of their snow-clad peaks, nor did they look 
 inhospitable, in spite of their rough outline, but 
 were all toned in harmonious color a deep purple 
 blue, with here and there, on the far Arcadian peaks, 
 and on the ridge of Mount Taygetus, patches of 
 pure snow. In contrast to the large sweeps of the 
 Italian coast, its open seas, its long waves of moun- 
 tain, all was here broken, and rugged, and varied. 
 The sea was studded with rocky islands, and the land 
 indented with deep, narrow bays. I can never for- 
 get the strong and peculiar impression of that first 
 sight of Greece ; nor can I cease to wonder at the 
 strange likeness which rose in my mind, and which
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 5 
 
 made me think of the bays and rocky coasts of 
 the west and south-west of Ireland. There was 
 the same cloudy, showery sky, which is so com- 
 mon there ; there was the same serrated outline 
 of hills, the same richness in promontories, and 
 rocky islands, and land-locked bays. Nowhere 
 have I seen a light purple color, except in the wilds 
 of Kerry and Connemara ; and though the general 
 height of the Greek mountains, as the snow in May 
 testified, was far greater than that of the Irish 
 hills, yet on that morning, and in that light, they 
 looked low and homely, not displaying their gran- 
 deur, or commanding awe and wonder, but rather 
 attracting the sight by their wonderful grace, 
 and by their variety and richness of outline and 
 color. 
 
 I stood there, I know not how long without 
 guide or map telling myself the name of each 
 mountain and promontory, and so filling out the idle 
 names and outlines of many books with the fresh 
 reality itself. There was the west coast of Elis, as 
 far north as the eye could reach the least interest- 
 ing part of the view, as it was of the history, of 
 Greece; then the richer and more varied outline of 
 Messene, with its bay, thrice famous at great inter- 
 vals, and yet for long ages feeding idly on that 
 fame ; Pylos, Sphacteria, Navarino each a foremost 
 name in Hellenic history. Above the bay could be 
 seen those rich slopes which the Spartans coveted of
 
 6 RAMBLES IX GREECE. 
 
 old, and which, as I saw them, were covered with 
 golden corn. The three headlands which give to 
 the Peloponnesus "its plane-leaf form," 1 were as 
 yet lying parallel before us, and their outline con- 
 fused ; but the great crowd of heights and intersect- 
 ing chains, which told at once the Alpine character 
 of the peninsula, called to mind the other remark of 
 the geographer, in which he calls it the Acropolis 
 of Greece. The words of old Herodotus, too, rise 
 in the mind with new reality, when he talks of the 
 poor and stony soil of the country as a "rugged 
 nurse of liberty." 
 
 For the nearer the ship approaches, the more this 
 feature comes out ; increased, no doubt, greatly in 
 later days by depopulation and general decay, when 
 many arable tracts have lain desolate, but still at all 
 times necessary, when a large proportion of the 
 country consists of rocky peaks and precipices, 
 where a goat may graze, but where the eagle builds 
 secure from the hand of man. The coast, once 
 teeming with traffic, is now lonely and deserted. A 
 single sail in the large gulf of Koron, and a few 
 miserable huts, discernible with a telescope, only 
 added to the feeling of solitude. It was, indeed, 
 " Greece, but living Greece no more." Even the 
 pirates, who sheltered in these creeks and moun- 
 
 1 Cf. Strabo, viii. c. 2, fan rolvw y T\.e?Mx6vvi]aoq koinvia qi'/.l.u 
 7r?.ardvou TO
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 7 
 
 tains, liave abandoned this region, in which there is 
 nothing now to plunder. 1 
 
 But as we crossed the mouth of the gulf, the eye 
 fastened with delight on distant white houses along 
 the high ground of the eastern side in other words, 
 along the mountain slopes which run out into the 
 promontory of Tainaron ; and a telescope soon 
 brought them into distinctness, and gave us the 
 first opportunity of discussing modern Greek life. 
 We stood off the coast of Maina the home of those 
 Mainotes whom Byron has made so famous as pi- 
 rates, as heroes, as lovers, as murderers ; and even 
 now, when the stirring days of war and of piracy have 
 passed away, the whole district retains the aspect of 
 a country in a state of siege or of perpetual danger. 
 Instead of villages surrounded by peaceful home- 
 steads, each Mainote house, though standing alone, 
 was walled in, and in the centre was a high square 
 tower, in which, according to trustworthy travellers, 
 the Mainote men used to spend their day watching 
 their enemies, while only the women and children 
 ventured out to till the fields. For these fierce 
 mountaineers were not only perpetually defying the 
 
 1 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 pass- 
 ing view outside the headlands. Coasting steamers now call here 
 (at Kalamata) every second day.
 
 8 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 Turkish power, which was never able to subdue them 
 thoroughly, but they were all engaged at home with 
 internecine feuds, of which the origin was often for- 
 gotten, but of which the consequences remained in 
 the form of vengeance due for the life of a kinsman. 
 When this was exacted on one side, the obligation 
 changed to the other ; and so for generation after gen- 
 eration they spent their lives in either seeking or 
 avoiding vengeance. This more than Corsican rcii- 
 clctta 1 was, by a sort of mediaeval chivalry, pro- 
 hibited to the women and children, who were thus 
 in perfect safety, while their husbands and fathers 
 were in daily and deadly danger. 
 
 They are considered the purest in blood of all 
 the Greeks, though it does not appear that their 
 dialect approaches old Greek nearer than those of 
 their neighbors ; but for beauty of person, and inde- 
 pendence of spirit, they rank first among the inhab- 
 itants of the Peloponnesus, and most certainly they 
 must have among them a good deal of the old Mes- 
 senian blood. Most of the country is barren, but 
 there are orange woods, which yield the most deli- 
 cious fruit a fruit so large and rich that it makes 
 all other oranges appear small and tasteless. The 
 country is now perfectly safe for visitors, and the 
 people extremely hospitable, though the diet is not 
 very palatable to the northern traveller. 
 
 1 Which the reader will find best portrayed in Prosper Mt'ri- 
 meVs Colombo..
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 9 
 
 So with talk and anecdote about the Mainotes 
 for every one was now upon deck and sight-seeing 
 we neared the classic headland of Tainaron, almost 
 the southern point of Europe, once the site of a 
 great temple of Poseidon not preserved to us, like 
 its sister monument on Suniurn and once, too, the 
 entry to the regions of the dead. And, as if to re- 
 mind us of its most beautiful legend, the dolphins, 
 which had befriended Arion of old, and carried him 
 here to land, rose in the calm summer sea, and came 
 playing round the ship, showing their quaint forms 
 above the water, and keeping with our course, as it 
 were an escort into the homely seas and islands of 
 truer Greece. Strangely enough, in many other 
 journeys through Greek waters, once again only did 
 we see these dolphins ; and here as elsewhere, the 
 old legend, I suppose, based itself upon the fact that 
 this, of all their wide domain, was the favorite re- 
 sort of these creatures, with which the poets of old 
 felt so strong a sympathy. 
 
 But, while the dolphins have been occupying our 
 attention, we have cleared Cape Matapan, and the 
 deep Gulf of Asine and Gythium in fact, the Gulf 
 of Sparta is open to our vicAv. We strained our 
 eyes to discover the features of u hollow Lacedae- 
 mon," and to take in all the outline of this famous 
 bay, through which so many Spartans had held their 
 course in the days of their greatness. The site of 
 Sparta is far from the sea, probably twelve or fifteen
 
 10 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 miles ; but the place is marked for every spectator, 
 throughout all the Peloponnesus and its coasts, by 
 the jagged top of Mount Taygetus, even in June 
 covered with snow. Through the forests upon its 
 slopes the young Spartans would hunt all day with 
 their famous Laconian hounds, and after a rude 
 supper beguile the evening with stories of their 
 dangers and their success. But, as might be ex- 
 pected, of the five villages which made up the 
 famous city, few vestiges remain. The old port 
 of Gythium is still a port ; but here, too, the 
 
 11 wet ways," and that sea once covered with boats, 
 which a Greek comic poet has called the " ants of 
 the sea," have been deserted. 
 
 We were a motley company on board Russians, 
 Greeks, Turks, French, English ; and it was not 
 hard to find pleasant companions and diverting con- 
 versation among them all. I turned to a Turkish 
 gentleman, who spoke French indifferently. "Is it 
 not," said I, " a great pity to see this fair coast so 
 desolate ?" '' A great pity, indeed," said he ; " but 
 what can you expect from these Greeks ? They are 
 all pirates and robbers ; they are all liars and 
 knaves. Had the Turks been allowed to hold pos- 
 session of the country they would have improved it 
 and developed its resources ; but since the Greeks 
 became independent everything has gone to ruin. 
 Roads are broken up, communications abandoned ;
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 11 
 
 the people emigrate and disappear in fact, nothing 
 prospers." 
 
 Presently, I got beside a Greek gentleman, from 
 whom I was anxiously picking up the first necessary 
 phrases and politenesses of modem Greek, and, by 
 way of amusement, put to him the same question. 
 I got the answer I expected. " Ah !" said he, " the 
 Turks, the Turks ! When I think how these mis- 
 creants have ruined our beautiful country ! How 
 could a land thrive or prosper under such odious 
 tyranny ?" I ventured to suggest that the Turks 
 were now gone five and forty years, and that it was 
 high time to see the fruits of recovered liberty in 
 the Greeks. No, it was still too soon. The Turks 
 had cut down all the woods, and so ruined the 
 climate ; they had destroyed the cities, broken up 
 the roads, encouraged the bandits in fact, they had 
 left the country in such a state that centuries would 
 not cure it. 
 
 The verdict of Europe is in favor of the Greek 
 gentleman ; but it might have been suggested, had 
 we been so disposed, that the greatest and the most 
 hopeless of all these sorrows the utter depopulation 
 of the country is not due to either modern Greeks 
 or Turks, nor even to the Slav hordes of the Middle 
 Ages. It was a calamity which came upon Greece 
 almost suddenly, immediately after the loss of her 
 independence, and which historians and phys-
 
 12 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 iologists have as yet been only partially able to 
 explain. 1 
 
 Of this very coast upon which we were then gaz- 
 ing, the geographer Strabo, about the time of Christ, 
 says, " that of old, Lacedsemon had numbered one 
 hundred cities ; in his day there were but ten re- 
 maining." So, then, the sum of the crimes of both 
 Greeks and Turks may be diminished by one. But 
 I, perceiving that each of them would have been 
 extremely indignant at this historical palliation of 
 the other's guilt, " kept silence, even from good 
 words." 
 
 These dialogues beguiled us till we found ourselves, 
 almost suddenly, facing the promontory of Malea, 
 with the island of Cythera (Cerigo) on our right. 
 The island is little celebrated in history. The 
 Phrenicians seem, in very old times, to have had a 
 settlement there for the working of their purple 
 shell-fishery, for which the coasts of Laconia were 
 celebrated; and they doubtless founded there the 
 worship of the Sidonian goddess, who was trans- 
 formed by the Greeks into Aphrodite (Venus). 
 During the Peloponnesian War we hear of the 
 Athenians using it as a station for their fleet, when 
 they were ravaging the adjacent coasts. It was, in 
 fact, used by their naval power as the same sort of 
 
 1 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.
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 13 
 
 blister (lxtTi%MTtr) on Sparta that Dekelca was when 
 occupied by the Spartans in Attica. 
 
 Cape Malea is more famous. It was in olden 
 days the limit of the homely Greek waters, the bar 
 to all fair weather and regular winds a place of 
 storms and wrecks, and the portal to an inhospitable 
 open sea ; and we can well imagine the delight of 
 the adventurous trader who had dared to cross the 
 Western Seas, to gather silver and lead in the mines 
 of Spain, when he rounded the dreaded Cape, home- 
 ward bound in his heavy-laden ship, and looked 
 back from the quiet ^gean. The barren and rocky 
 Cape has its new feature now. On the very ex- 
 tremity there is a little platform, at some elevation 
 over the water, and only accessible with great diffi- 
 culty from the land by a steep goat-path. Here a 
 hermit built himself a tiny hut, cultivated his little 
 plot of corn, and lived out in the lone seas, with no 
 society but stray passing ships. 1 When Greece was 
 thickly peopled he might well have been compelled 
 to seek loneliness here ; but now, when in almost any 
 mountain chain he could find solitude and desolation 
 enough, it seems as if that poetic instinct which so 
 often guides the ignorant and unconscious anchorite 
 had sent him to this spot, which combines, in a 
 strange way, solitude and publicity, and which ex- 
 
 1 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.
 
 14 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 cites the curiosity, but forbids the intrusion, of every 
 careless passenger to the East. 
 
 So we passed into the ^gean, the real thorough- 
 fare of the Greeks, the mainstay of their communi- 
 cation a sea, and yet not a sea, but the frame of 
 countless headlands and islands, which are ever in 
 view to give confidence to the sailor in the smallest 
 boat. The most striking feature in our view was the 
 serrated outline of the mountains of Crete, far away 
 to the S.E. Though the day was gray and cloudy, 
 the atmosphere was perfectly clear, and allowed us to 
 see these very distant Alps, on which the snow still 
 lay in great fields. The chain of Ida brought back 
 to us the old legends of Minos and his island king- 
 dom, nor could any safer seat of empire be im- 
 agined for a power coming from the south than this 
 great long bar of mountains, to which half the 
 islands of the yEgean could pass a fire signal in times 
 of war or piracy. 1 The legends preserved to us of 
 Minos the human sacrifices to the Minotaur the 
 hostility to Theseus the identification of Ariadne 
 with the legends of Bacchus, so eastern and orgi- 
 astic in character make us feel, with a sort of in- 
 stinctive certainty, that the power of Minos was 
 
 1 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 land- 
 ing-places, so that all traffic and culture must have started from 
 the slopes and bays on the north side, where the Cyclades are ita 
 neighbors.
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 15 
 
 no Hellenic empire, but one of Phoenicians, from 
 which, as afterwards from Carthage, they com- 
 manded distant coasts and islands, for the purposes 
 of trade. They settled, as we know, at Corinth, at 
 Thebes, and probably at Athens, in the days of their 
 greatness, but they seem always to have been 
 strangers and sojourners there, while in Crete they 
 kept the stronghold of their power. Thucydides 
 thinks that Minos's main object was to put down 
 piracy, and protect commerce ; and this is probably 
 the case, though we are without evidence on the point. 
 The historian evidently regards this old Cretan 
 empire as the older model of the Athenian, but 
 settled in a far more advantageous place, and 
 not liable to the dangers which proved the ruin 
 of Athens. 
 
 The nearer islands were small, and of no reputa- 
 tion, but each like a mountain top reaching out of 
 a submerged valley, stony and bare. Melos was 
 farther off, but quite distinct the old scene of 
 Athenian violence and cruelty, to Thucydides so 
 impressive, that he dramatizes the incidents, and 
 passes from cold narrative and set oration to a 
 dialogue between the oppressors and the oppressed. 
 Melian starvation was long proverbial among the 
 Greeks, and there the .fashionable and aristocratic 
 Alcibiades applied the arguments and carried out 
 the very policy which the tanner Clcon could not 
 propose without being pilloried by the great histo-
 
 16 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 rian whom he made his foe. This and other islands, 
 which were always looked upon by the mainland 
 Greeks with some contempt, have of late days re- 
 ceived special attention from archaeologists. It is 
 said that the present remains of the old Greek typo 
 are now to be found among the islanders an obser- 
 vation which I found fully justified by a short sojourn 
 at ^gina, where the very types of the Parthenon 
 frieze can be found among the inhabitants, if the 
 traveller will look for them diligently. The noblest 
 and most perfect type of Greek beauty has, indeed, 
 come to us from Melos, but not in real life. It is 
 the celebrated Venus of Melos the most pure and 
 perfect image we know of that goddess, and one 
 which puts to shame the lower ideals so much 
 admired in the museums of Italy. 1 
 
 Another remark should be made in justice to the 
 islands, that the groups of Therasia and Santorin, 
 which lie round the crater of a great active volcano, 
 have supplied us not only with the oldest forms of 
 the Greek alphabet in their inscriptions, but with 
 far the oldest vestiges of inhabitants in any part of 
 Greece. In these, beneath the lava slopes formed 
 by a great eruption an eruption earlier than any 
 history, except, perhaps, Egyptian have been found 
 the dwellings, the implements, and the bones of IIH-M 
 who cannot have lived there much later than 2000 
 
 1 I should except (he splendid Venn* cic/ris, as she is culled, 
 found at Capua, and now in the Museum of Naples.
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 17 
 
 B. c. The arts, as well as the implements, of these 
 old dwellers in their Stone Age, have shown us how 
 very ancient Greek forms, and even Greek decora- 
 tions, are in the world's history : and we may yet 
 from them and from further researches, such as 
 Schliemann's, be able to reconstruct the state of 
 things in Greece before the Greeks came from their 
 Eastern homes. The special reason why these 
 inquiries seem to me likely to lead to good result 
 is this, that what is called neo-barbarism is less likely 
 to mislead us here than elsewhere. Neo-barbarism 
 means the occurrence in later times of the manners 
 and customs which generally mark very old and 
 primitive times. Some few things of this kind 
 survive everywhere ; thus, in the Irish Island of 
 Arran, a group of famous savants mistook a stone 
 donkey-shed of two years' standing for the build- 
 ing of an extinct race in gray antiquity : as a 
 matter of fact, the construction had not changed 
 from the oldest type. But the spread of culture, 
 and the fulness of population in the good days of 
 (! recce, make it certain that every spot about the 
 thoroughfares was improved and civilized ; and so, 
 as I have said, there is less chance here than any- 
 where of our being deceived into mistaking rudeness 
 for oldness, and raising a modern savage to the dig- 
 nity of a primaeval man. 
 
 I5ut we must not allow speculations to spoil our 
 observations, nor waste the precious moments given
 
 18 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 us to take in once for all the general outline of the 
 Greek coasts. While the long string of islands, 
 from Melos up to the point of Attica, framed in 
 our view to the right, to the left the great bay of 
 Argolis opened far into the land, making a sort of 
 vista into the Peloponnesus, so that the mountains 
 of Arcadia could be seen far to the west standing 
 out against the setting sun ; for the day was now 
 clearer the clouds began to break, and let us feel 
 touches of the sun's heat towards evening. As we 
 passed Hydra, the night began to close about us, 
 and we were obliged to make out the rest of our 
 geography with the aid of a rich full moon. 
 
 But these Attic waters, if I may so call them, will 
 be mentioned again and again in the course of our 
 voyage, and need not now be described in detail. 
 The reader will, I think, get the clearest notion of 
 the size of Greece by reflecting upon the time 
 required to sail round the Peloponnesus in a good 
 steamer. The ship in which we made the journey 
 the Donnai, of the French Mcssagcrie Company, 
 made about eight miles an hour. Coming within 
 close range of the coast of Messene, about live 
 o'clock in the morning, we rounded all the head- 
 lands, and arrived at the Peirseus about eleven 
 o'clock the same night. So, then, the Peloponnesus 
 is a small peninsula, but even to an outside view 
 " very large for its size ;" for the actual climbing 
 up and down of constant mountains, in any land
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 19 
 
 journey from place to place, makes the distance in 
 miles very much greater than the line as the crow 
 flies. If I said that every ordinary distance, as 
 measured on the map, is doubled in the journey, 
 I believe I should be under the mark. 
 
 It may be well to add a word here upon the other 
 route into Greece, that by Brindisi and the Ionian 
 Islands. It is fully as picturesque, in some respects 
 more so, for there is no more beautiful bay than the 
 long fiord leading up to Corinth, which passes Patras, 
 Vostitza, and Itea, the port of Delphi. The Akro- 
 keraunian mountains, which are the first point of 
 the Albanian coast seen by the traveller, are also 
 very striking, and no one can forget the charms and 
 beauties of Corfu. I think a market-day in Corfu, 
 with those royal-looking peasant lads, who come 
 clothed in sheepskins from the coast, and spend their 
 day handling knives and revolvers with peculiar 
 interest at the stalls, is among the most picturesque 
 sights to be seen in Europe. The lofty mountains 
 of Ithaca and its greater sister, and then the rich 
 belt of verdure along the east side of Zante all 
 these features make this journey one of surpassing 
 beauty and interest. Yet notwithstanding all these 
 advantages, there is not the same excitement in first 
 approaching semi-Greek or outlying Greek settle- 
 ments, and only gradually arriving at the real centres 
 of historic interest. Such at least was the feeling 
 (shared by other observers) which I had in approach-
 
 20 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 ing Greece by this more varied route. No traveller, 
 however, is likely to miss either, as it is obviously 
 best to enter by one route and depart by the other, 
 in a voyage not intended to reach beyond Greece. 
 But from what I have said, it may be seen that I 
 prefer to enter by the direct route from Naples, and 
 to leave by the Gulf of Corinth and the Ionian 
 Islands. I trust that ere long arrangements may 
 be made for permitting travellers who cross the 
 isthmus to make an excursion to the Akrokorinthus 
 the great citadel of Corinth which they are now 
 compelled to hurry past, in order to catch the boat 
 for Athens. 
 
 The modern Patras, still a thriving port, is now 
 the main point of contact between Greece and the 
 rest of Europe. For, as a railway has now been 
 opened from Patras to Athens, all the steamers from 
 Brindisi, Venice, and Trieste put in there, and from 
 thence the stream of travellers proceeds by the new 
 line to the capital. The old plan of steaming up the 
 long fiord to Corinth is abandoned ; still more the once 
 popular route round the Morea, which, if somewhat 
 slower, at least saved the unshipping at Lecha-um, 
 the drive in omnibuses across the isthmus, and reship- 
 ment at Cenehrese all done with much confusion, 
 and with loss and damage to luggage and temper. 
 Not that there is no longer confusion. The railway 
 station at Patras, and that at Athens, are the most 
 curious bear-gardens in which business ever was
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 21 
 
 done. The traveller (I speak of the year of our 
 Lord 1889) is informed that unless he is there an 
 hour before the time he will not get his luggage 
 weighed and despatched. And when he comes down 
 from his comfortable hotel to find out what it all 
 means, he meets the whole population of the town 
 in possession of the station. Everybody who has 
 nothing to do gets in the way of those who have ; 
 everything is full of noise and confusion. 
 
 At last the train steams out of the station, and 
 takes its deliberate way along the coast, through 
 woods of fir trees, bushes of arbutus and mastic, 
 and the many flowers which stud the earth. And 
 here already the traveller, looking out of the 
 window, can form an idea of the delights of real 
 Greek travel, by which he must understand mount- 
 ing a mule or pony, and making his way along 
 woody paths, or beside the quiet sea, or up the steep 
 side of a rocky defile. Every half-hour the train 
 crosses torrents coming from the mountains, which 
 in flood times color the sea for some distance with 
 the brilliant brick-red of the clay they carry with 
 them from their banks. The peacock blue of the 
 open sea bounds this red water with a definite line, 
 and the contrast in the bright sun is something very 
 startling. Shallow banks of sand also reflect their 
 pale yellow in many places, so that the brilliancy of 
 this gulf exceeds anything I had ever seen in sea or 
 lake. We pass the sites of ^Egion, now Vostitza,
 
 22 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 once famous as the capital or centre (politically) of 
 the Achaean League. We pass Sicyon, the home 
 of Arattis, the great regenerator, the mean destroyer 
 of that League, as you can still read in Plutarch's fas- 
 cinating life of the man. But these places, like so 
 many others in Greece, once famous, have now no 
 trace of their greatness left above ground. The day 
 may, however, still come when another Schliemann 
 Avill unearth the records and fragments of a civil- 
 ization distinguished even in Greece for refinement. 
 Sicyon was a famous school of art. Painting and 
 sculpture flourished there, and there was a special 
 school of Sicyon, whose features we can still recognize 
 in extant copies of the famous statues they produced. 
 There is a statue known as the Canon Statue, a 
 model of human proportions, which was the work of 
 the famous Polycleitus of Sicyon, and which we 
 know from various imitations preserved at Rome 
 and elsewhere. But we shall return in due time to 
 Greek sculpture as a whole, and shall not interrupt 
 our journey at this moment. 
 
 All that we have passed through hitherto may be 
 classed under the title of " first impressions." The 
 wild northern coast shows us but one inlet, of the 
 Gulf of Salona, with a little port of Itea at its 
 mouth. This was the old highway to ascend to the 
 oracle of Delphi on the snowy Parnassus, which we 
 shall approach better from the Boeotian side. But 
 now we strain our eyes to behold the great rock of
 
 NATIONAL CHARACTER. 23 
 
 Corinth, and to invade this, the first great centre of 
 Greek life, which closes the long bay at its western- 
 most end. 
 
 I will add a word upon the form and scope of the 
 following work. My aim is to bring the living 
 features of Greece home to the student, by connect- 
 ing them, as far as possible, with the facts of older his- 
 tory, which are so familiar to most of us. I shqll also 
 have a good deal to say about the modern politics of 
 Greece, and the character of the modern population. 
 A long and careful survey of the extant literature 
 of ancient Greece has convinced me that the pictures 
 usually drawn of the old Greeks are idealized, and 
 that the real people were of a very different if you 
 please, of a much lower type. I may mention, as 
 a very remarkable confirmation of my judgment, 
 that intelligent people at Athens, who had read my 
 opinions elsewhere set forth upon the subject, 1 were 
 so much struck with the close resemblance of my 
 pictures of the old Greeks to the present inhabitants, 
 that they concluded that I must have visited the 
 country before writing these opinions, and that I 
 was, in fact, drawing my classical people from the 
 life of the moderns. If this is not a proof of the 
 justice of these views, it at least strongly suggests 
 that they may be true, and is a powerful support in 
 arguing the matter on the perfectly independent 
 ground of the inferences from old literature. After 
 1 In my Social Life in Greece, from Homer to Mcnander.
 
 24 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 all, national characteristics are very permanent, and 
 very hard to shake off, and it would seem strange, 
 indeed, if both these and the Greek language should 
 have remained almost intact, and yet the race have 
 either changed, or been saturated with foreign blood. 
 Foreign invasions and foreign conquests of Greece 
 were common enough ; but here, as elsewhere, the 
 climate and circumstances which have formed a race 
 seem to conspire to preserve it, and to absorb foreign 
 types and features, rather than to permit the extinc- 
 tion or total change of the older race. 
 
 I feel much fortified in my judgment of Greek 
 character by finding that a very smart, though too 
 sarcastic, observer, M. E. About, in his well-known 
 Grece contcwporaine, estimates the people very 
 nearly as I am disposed to estimate the common 
 people of ancient Greece. He notices, in the 
 second and succeeding chapters of his book, a 
 series of features which make this nationality a very 
 distinct one in Europe. Starting from the question 
 of national beauty, and holding rightly that the 
 beauty of the men is greater than that of the women, 
 he touches on a point which told very deeply upon 
 all the history of Greek art. At the present day, 
 the Greek men are much more particular about their 
 appearance, and more vain of it, than the women. 
 The most striking beauty among them is that of 
 young men ; and as to the care of figure, as About 
 well observes, in Greece it is the men who pinch
 
 NATIONAL CHARACTER. 25 
 
 their waists a fashion unknown among Greek 
 women. Along with this handsome appearance, the 
 people are, without doubt, a very temperate people ; 
 although they make a great deal of strong wine, 
 they seldom drink much, and are far more critical 
 about good water than wine. Indeed, in so warm a 
 climate, wine is disagreeable even to the northern 
 traveller ; and, as Herodotus remarked long ago, 
 very likely to produce insanity, the rarest form of 
 disease among the Greeks. In fact, they are not 
 a passionate race having at all ages been gifted 
 with a very bright intellect, and a great reason- 
 ableness ; they have an intellectual insight into 
 things, which is inconsistent with the storms of 
 wilder passion. 
 
 They are, probably, as clever a people as can be 
 found in the world, and fit for any mental work 
 whatever. This they have proved, not only by get- 
 ting into their hands all the trade of the Eastern 
 Mediterranean, but by holding their own perfectly 
 among English merchants in England. As yet they 
 have not found any encouragement in other direc- 
 tions ; but there can be no doubt that, if settled 
 among a great people, and weaned from the follies 
 and jealousies of Greek politics, they would (like 
 the Jews) outrun many of us, both in politics and in 
 science. However that may be and perhaps such 
 a development requires moral qualities in which 
 they seem deficient it is certain that their work-
 
 26 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 men learn trades with extraordinary quickness ; 
 while their young commercial or professional men 
 acquire languages, and the amount of knowledge 
 necessary for making money, with the most singular 
 aptness. But as yet they are stimulated chiefly by 
 the love of gain. 
 
 Besides this, they have great national pride, and, 
 as M. About remarks, we need never despair of a 
 people who are at the same time intelligent and 
 proud. They are very fond of displaying their 
 knowledge on all points I noted especially their 
 pride in exhibiting their acquaintance with old Greek 
 history and legend. When I asked them whether 
 they believed the old mythical stories which they 
 repeated, they seemed afraid of being thought simple 
 if they confessed that they did, and of injuring the 
 reputation of their ancestors if they declared they 
 did not. So they used to preserve a discreet neu- 
 trality. 
 
 The instinct of liberty appears to me as strong in 
 the nation now as it ever was. In fact, the people 
 have never been really enslaved. The eternal ref- 
 uge for liberty afforded by the sea and the moun- 
 tains has saved them from this fate ; and, even 
 beneath the heavy yoke of the Turks, a large part 
 of the nation was not subdued, but, in the guise of 
 bandits and pirates, enjoyed the great privilege for 
 which their ancestors had contended so earnestly. 
 The Mainotes, for example, of whom 1 have just
 
 NATIONAL CHARACTER. 27 
 
 spoken as occupying the coast of Messene, never 
 tolerated any resident Turkish magistrate among 
 them, but u handed to a trembling tax-collector a 
 little purse of gold pieces, hung on the end of a 
 naked sword." l Now, the whole nation is more in- 
 tensely and thoroughly democratic than any other in 
 Europe. They acknowledge no nobility save that 
 of descent from the chiefs who fought in the war of 
 liberation ; they will allow no distinction of classes ; 
 every common mule-boy is a gentleman (x'jpto;), and 
 fully your equal. He sits in the room at meals, and 
 joins in the conversation at dinner. They only 
 tolerate a king because they cannot endure one of 
 themselves as their superior. This jealousy is, un- 
 fortunately, a mainspring of Greek politics, and 
 when combined with a dislike of agriculture, as a 
 stupid and unintcllectual occupation, fills all the 
 country with politicians, merchants, and journalists. 
 Moreover, they want the spirit of subordination of 
 their great ancestors, and are often accused of lack 
 of honesty a very grave feature, and the greatest 
 obstacle to progress in all ages. It is better, how- 
 ever, to let points of character come out gradually 
 in the course of our studies than to bring them to- 
 gether into an official portrait. It is impossible to 
 wander through the country without seeing and 
 understanding the inhabitants ; for the traveller is 
 1 The words are M. About's.
 
 28 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 in constant contact with them, and they have no 
 scruple in displaying all their character. 
 
 M. About has earned the profound hatred and 
 contempt of the nation by his picture, and I do not 
 wonder at it, seeing that the tone in which he writes 
 is flippant and ill-natured, and seems to betoken 
 certain private animosities, of which the Greeks tell 
 numerous anecdotes. 
 
 I have no such excuse for being severe or ill- 
 natured, as I found nothing but kindness and hospi- 
 tality everywhere, and sincerely hope that my free 
 judgments may not hurt any sensitive Greek who 
 may chance to see them. Even the great Finlay 
 one of their best friends is constantly censured by 
 them for his writings about Modern Greece. 
 
 But, surely, any real lover of Greece must feel 
 that plain speaking about the faults of the nation is 
 much wanted. The worship lavished upon them by 
 Byron and his school has done its good, and can now 
 only do harm. On the other hand, I must confess 
 that a longer and more intimate intercourse with the 
 Greeks of the interior and of the mountains leads a 
 fair observer to change his earlier estimate, and 
 think more highly of the nation than at first ac- 
 quaintance. Unfortunately, the Greeks known to 
 most of us are sailors mongrel villains from the ports 
 of the Levant, having very little in common with the 
 bold, honest, independent peasant who lives under 
 his vine and his fig-tree in the valleys of Arcadia
 
 NATIONAL CHARACTER. 29 
 
 or of Phocis. It was, no doubt, an intimate knowl- 
 edge of the sound core of the nation which inspired 
 Byron with that enthusiasm which many now think 
 extravagant and misplaced. But here, as else- 
 where, the folly of a great genius has more truth in 
 it than the wisdom of his feebler critics.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 GENERAL IMPRESSIONS OF ATHENS AND ATTICA. 
 
 THERE, is probably no more exciting voyage, to 
 any educated man, than the approach to Athens 
 from the sea. Every promontory, every island, 
 every bay, has its history. If he knows the map of 
 Greece, he needs no guide-book or guide to distract 
 him ; if he does not, he needs little Greek to ask of 
 any one near him the name of this or that object ; 
 and the mere names are sufficient to stir up all his 
 classical recollections. But he must make up his 
 mind not to be shocked at JEgina or Phalcrum, and 
 even to be told that he is utterly wrong in his way 
 of pronouncing them. 
 
 It was our fortune to come into Greece by night, 
 with a splendid moon shining upon the summer sea. 
 The varied outlines of Sunium on the one side, and 
 jEgina on the other, were very clear, but in the deep 
 shadows there was mystery enough to feed the burn- 
 ing impatience to see it all in the light of common 
 day ; and though we had passed /Egina, and had 
 come over against the rocky Salamis, as yet there 
 was no sign of Peiraeus. Then came the light on 
 Psyttalea, and they told us that the harbor was right 
 
 30
 
 Along the Coast from the Throne of Xerxes
 
 ATHENS AND ATTICA. 31 
 
 opposite. Yet we came nearer and nearer, and no 
 harbor could be seen. The barren rocks of the 
 coast seemed to form one unbroken line, and nowhere 
 was there a sign of indentation or of break in the 
 land. But, suddenly, as we turned from gazing on 
 Psyttalea, where the flower of the Persian nobles 
 had once stood in despair, looking upon their fate 
 gathering about them, the vessel had turned east- 
 ward, and discovered to us the crowded lights and 
 thronging ships of the famous harbor. Small it 
 looked, very small, but evidently deep to the water's 
 edge, for great ships seemed touching the shore ; 
 and so narrow is the mouth that we almost won- 
 dered how they had made their entrance in safety. 
 But we saw it some weeks later, with nine men- 
 of-war towering above all its merchant shipping 
 arid its steamers, and among them crowds of 
 ferry-boats skimming about in the breeze with their 
 wing-like sails. Then we found out that, like the 
 rest of Greece, the Peirseus was far larger than it 
 looked. 
 
 It differed little, alas ! from more vulgar harbors 
 in the noise and confusion of disembarking ; in the 
 delays of its custom house ; in the extortion and 
 insolence of its boatmen. It is still, as in Plato's 
 day, " the haunt of sailors, where good manners are 
 unknown." But when we had escaped the turmoil, 
 and were seated silently on the way to Athens, 
 almost along the very road of classical days, all our
 
 32 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 classical notions, which had been scared away by 
 vulgar bargaining and protesting, regained their 
 sway. We had sailed in through the narrow pas- 
 sage where almost every great Greek that ever 
 lived had sometime passed ; now we went along the 
 line, hardly less certain, which had seen all these 
 great ones going to and fro between the city and the 
 port. The present road is shaded with great silver 
 poplars and plane trees, and the moon had set, so that 
 our approach to Athens was even more mysterious 
 than our approach to the Peirseus. We were, more- 
 over, perplexed at our carriage stopping under some 
 large plane trees, though we had driven but t\vo 
 miles, and the night was far spent. Our coachman 
 would listen to no advice or persuasion. We learned 
 afterwards that every carriage going to and from the 
 Peirasus stops at this half-way house, that the horses 
 may drink, and the coachman take " Turkish de- 
 light " and water. There is no exception made to 
 this custom, and the traveller is bound to submit. 
 At last we entered the unpretending ill-built streets 
 at the west of Athens. 
 
 The stillness of the night is a phenomenon hardly 
 known in that city. No sooner have men and 
 horses gone to rest than all the dogs and cats of the 
 town come out to bark and yell about the thorough- 
 fares. Athens, like all parts of modern Greece, 
 abounds in dogs. You cannot pass a sailing boat 
 in the Levant without seeing a dog looking angrily
 
 ATHENS AND ATTICA. 33 
 
 over the taffrail, and barking at you as you pass. 
 Every ship in the Peiraeus has at least one, often a 
 great many, on board. I suppose every house in 
 Athens is provided with one. These creatures 
 seem to make it their business to prevent silence 
 and rest all the night long. They were ably 
 seconded by cats and crowing cocks, as well as by 
 an occasional wakeful donkey ; and both cats and 
 donkeys seemed to have voices of almost tropical 
 violence. 
 
 So the night wore away under rapidly growing 
 adverse impressions. How is a man to admire art 
 and revere antiquity if he is robbed of his repose ? 
 The Greeks sleep so much in the day that they 
 seem indifferent about nightly disturbances ; and, 
 perhaps, after many years' habit, even Athenian 
 caterwauling may fail to rouse the sleeper. But 
 what chance has the passing traveller ? Even the 
 strongest ejaculations are but a narrow outlet for his 
 feelings. 
 
 In this state of mind, then, I rose at the break of 
 dawn to see whether the window would afford any 
 prospect to serve as a requital for angry sleeplessness. 
 And there, right opposite, stood the rock which of 
 all rocks in the world's history has done most 
 for literature and art the rock which poets, and 
 orators, and architects, and historians have ever 
 glorified, and cannot stay their praise which is 
 ever new and ever old, ever fresh in its decay, ever 
 3
 
 34 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 perfect in its ruin, ever living in its death the 
 Acropolis of Athens. 
 
 When I saw my dream and longing of many years 
 fulfilled, the first rays of the rising sun had just 
 touched the heights, while the town below was still 
 hid in gloom. Rock, and rampart, and ruined fanes 
 all were colored in uniform tints ; the lights were 
 of a deep rich orange, and the shadows of dark 
 crimson, with the deeper lines of purple. There 
 was no variety in color between what nature and 
 what man had set there. No whiteness shone from 
 the marble, no smoothness showed upon the hewn 
 and polished blocks ; but the whole mass of orange 
 and crimson stood out together into the pale, pure 
 Attic air. There it stood, surrounded by lanes and 
 hovels, still perpetuating the great old contrast in 
 Greek history, of magnificence and meanness of 
 loftiness and lowness as well in outer life as in in- 
 ward motive. And, as it were in illustration of that 
 art of which it was the most perfect bloom, and 
 which lasted in perfection but a day of history, I saw 
 it again and again, in sunlight and in shade, in day- 
 light and at night, but never again in this perfect 
 and singular beauty. 
 
 If we except the Acropolis, there are only two 
 striking buildings of classical antiquity within the 
 modern town of Athens the Temple of Theseus and 
 the few standing columns of Hadrian's great temple 
 to Zeus. The latter is, indeed, very remarkable.
 
 ATHENS AND ATTICA. 35 
 
 The pillars stand on a vacant platform, once the site 
 of the gigantic temple ; the Acropolis forms a noble 
 background ; away towards Phalerum stretch undu- 
 lating hills which hide the sea ; to the left (if we 
 look from the town), Mount Hymettus raises its 
 barren slopes ; and in the valley, immediately below 
 the pillars, flows the famous little Ilisus, 1 glorified 
 for ever by the poetry of Plato, and in its summer- 
 dry bed the fountain Callirrhoe, from which the 
 Athenian maidens still draw water as of old water 
 the purest and best in the city. It wells out from 
 under a great limestone rock, all plumed with the 
 rich Capillus Vcneris, which seems to find out and 
 frame with its delicate green every natural spring 
 in Greece. 
 
 But the pillars of the Temple of Zeus, though 
 very stately and massive, and with their summits 
 bridged together by huge blocks of architrave, are 
 still not Athenian, not Attic, not (if I may say so) 
 genuine Greek work ; for the Corinthian capitals, 
 which are here seen perhaps in their greatest per- 
 fection, cannot be called pure Greek taste. As is 
 well known, they were hardly ever used, and never 
 used prominently, till the Grseco-Roman stage of 
 
 1 I beg to point out to a learned and kindly critic in the 
 Athenaeum, who corrected several faults of spelling in the first 
 edition, that this is the form of the name warranted by inscrip- 
 tions, and now to be received by scholars : cf. Wachsmuth's Stadt 
 A then, i. p. 49.
 
 36 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 art. The older Greeks seem to have had a fixed 
 objection to intricate ornamentation in their larger 
 temples. All the greater temples of Greece arid 
 Greek Italy are of the Doric Order, with its per- 
 fectly plain capital. Groups of figures were ad- 
 mitted upon the pediments and metopes, because 
 these groups formed clear and massive designs 
 visible from a distance. But such intricacies as 
 those of the Corinthian capital were not approved, 
 except in small monuments, which were merely 
 intended for close inspection, and where delicate 
 ornament gave grace to a building which could not 
 lay claim to grandeur. Such is clearly the case with 
 the only purely Greek (as opposed to Graico-Roman) 
 monument of the Corinthian Order, which is still 
 standing the Choragic monument of Lysicrates at 
 Athens. 1 It Avas also the case with that beautiful 
 little temple, or group of temples, known as the 
 Erechtheum, which, standing beside the great mas- 
 sive Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens, presents 
 
 1 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 Bassae, which I will describe in another chapter. But 
 this still affords an unsolved problem. The Philippeion at Olyrnpia 
 (built by the famous Philip of Macedon) also contained an inner 
 circle of Corinthian pillars, while the outer circle was Ionic.
 
 The Erechtheum from the West, Athens
 
 ATHENS AND ATTICA. 37 
 
 the very contrasts upon which I am insisting. It is 
 small and essentially graceful, being built in the 
 Ionic style, with rich ornamentation ; while the 
 Parthenon is massive, and, in spite of much orna- 
 mentation, very severe in its plainer Doric style. 
 
 But to return to the pillars of Hadrian's Temple. 
 They are about fifty-five feet high, by six and a 
 half feet in diameter, and no Corinthian pillar of 
 this colossal size would ever have been set up by 
 the Greeks in their better days. So, then, in spite 
 of the grandeur of these isolated remains a grandeur 
 not destroyed, perhaps even not diminished, by coffee 
 tables, and inquiring waiters, and military bands, 
 and a vulgar crowd about their base to the student 
 of really Greek art they are not of the highest 
 interest ; nay, they even suggest to him what the 
 Periclean Greeks would have done had they, with 
 such resources, completed the great temple due to 
 the munificence of the Roman Emperor. 
 
 Let us turn, in preference, to the Temple of 
 Theseus, at the opposite extremity of the town, it 
 too standing upon a clear platform, and striking the 
 traveller with its symmetry and its completeness, as 
 he approaches from the Peirseus. It is in every 
 way a contrast to the temple of which we have just 
 spoken. It is very small in fact so small in com- 
 parison with the Parthenon, or the great temple at 
 Psestum, that we are disappointed with it ; and yet 
 it is built, not in the richly-decorated Ionic style of
 
 38 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 the Erechtheum, but in severe Doric ; and though 
 small and plain, it is very perfect as perfect as any 
 such relic that we have. It is many centuries older 
 than Hadrian's great temple. It could have been 
 destroyed with one-tenth of the trouble, and yet it 
 still stands almost in its perfection. The reason is 
 simply this. Few of the great classical temples 
 suffered much from wanton destruction till the 
 Middle Ages. Now, in the Middle Ages this 
 temple, as well as the Parthenon, was usurped by 
 the Greek Church, and turned into a place of 
 Christian worship. So, then, the little Temple of 
 Theseus has escaped the ravages which the last few 
 centuries worse than all that went before have 
 made in the remains of a noble antiquity. To 
 those who desire to study the effect of the Doric 
 Order this temple appears to me an admirable speci- 
 men. From its small size and clear position, all its 
 points are very easily taken in. u Such," says Bishop 
 Wordsworth, "is the integrity of its structure, and 
 the distinctness of its details, that it requires no 
 description beyond that which a few glances might 
 supply. Its beauty defies all : its solid yet grace- 
 ful form is, indeed, admirable ; and the loveliness of 
 its coloring is such that, from the rich mellow hue 
 which the marble has now assumed, it looks as if it 
 had been quarried, not from the bed of a rocky moun- 
 tain, but from the golden light of an Athenian sunset." 
 And in like terms many others have spoken.
 
 ATHENS AND ATTICA. 39 
 
 I have only one reservation to make. The Doric 
 Order being essentially massive, it seems to me that 
 this beautiful temple lacks one essential feature of 
 that order, and therefore, after the first survey, after 
 a single walk about it, it loses to the traveller who 
 has seen Psestum, and who presently cannot fail to 
 see the Parthenon, that peculiar effect of massive- 
 ness of almost Egyptian solidity which is ever 
 present, and ever imposing, in these huger Doric 
 temples. It seems as if the Athenians themselves 
 felt this that the plain simplicity of its style was 
 not effective without size and accordingly decorated 
 this structure with colors more richly than their 
 other temples. All the reliefs and raised ornaments 
 seem to have been painted ; other decorations were 
 added in color on the flat surfaces, so that the whole 
 temple must have been a mass of rich variegated 
 hues, of which blue, green, and red are still dis- 
 tinguishable or were in Stuart's time and in 
 which bronze and gilding certainly played an im- 
 portant part. 
 
 We are thus brought naturally face to face with 
 one of the peculiarities of old Greek art most dif- 
 ficult to realize, and still more to appreciate. 1 We 
 can recognize in Egyptian and in Assyrian art the 
 
 1 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.
 
 40 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 richness and appropriateness of much coloring. 
 Modern painters are becoming so alive to this, that 
 among the most striking pictures in our Royal 
 Academy in London have been seen, for some years 
 back, scenes from old Egyptian and Assyrian life, in 
 which the rich coloring of the architecture has been 
 quite a prominent feature. 
 
 But in Greek art in the perfect symmetry of the 
 Greek temple, in the perfect grace of the Greek 
 statue we come to think form of such paramount 
 importance, that we look on the beautiful Parian and 
 Pentelic marbles as specially suited for the expres- 
 sion of form apart from color. There is even some- 
 thing in unity of tone that delights the modern eye. 
 Thus, though we feel that the old Greek temples 
 have lost all their original brightness, yet, as I have 
 myself said, and as I have quoted from Bishop 
 Wordsworth, the rich mellow hue which tones all 
 these ruins has to us its peculiar charm. The same 
 rich yellow brown, almost the color of the Roman 
 travertine, is one of the most striking features in the 
 splendid remains which have made Paestum unique 
 in all Italy. This color contrasts beautifully with 
 the blue sky of southern Europe ; it lights up with 
 extraordinary richness in the rising or setting sun. 
 We can easily conceive that were it proposed to 
 restore the Attic temples to their pristine whiteness, 
 we should feel a severe shock, and beg to have these 
 venerable buildings left in the soberness of their
 
 ATHENS AND ATTICA. 41 
 
 acquired color. Still more does it shock us to be 
 told that great sculptors, with Parian marble at 
 hand, preferred to set up images of the gods in gold 
 and ivory, or, still worse, with parts of gold and 
 ivory ; and that they thought it right to fill out the 
 eyes with precious stones, and set gilded wreaths 
 upon colored hair. 
 
 \\ hen we first come to realize these things, we 
 are likely to exclaim against such a jumble, as we 
 should call it, of painting and architecture still 
 worse, of painting and sculpture. Nor is it possible 
 or reasonable that we should at once submit to such 
 a revolution in our artistic ideas, and bow without 
 criticism to these shocking features in Greek art. 
 But if blind obedience to these our great masters in 
 the laws of beauty is not to be commended, neither 
 is an absolute resistance to all argument on the 
 question to be respected ; nor do I acknowledge the 
 good sense or the good taste of that critic who insists 
 that nothing can possibly equal the color and texture 
 of white marble, and that all coloring of such a sub- 
 stance is the mere remains of barbarism. For, say 
 Avhat we will, the Greeks were certainly, as a nation, 
 the best judges of beauty the world has yet seen. 
 And this is not all. The beauty of which they were 
 evidently the most fond was beauty of form har- 
 mony of proportions, symmetry of design. They 
 always hated the tawdry and the extravagant. As 
 to their literature, there is no poetry, no oratory, no
 
 42 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 history, which is less decorated with the flowers of 
 rhetoric : it is all pure in design, chaste in detail. 
 So with their dress ; so with their dwellings. Wo 
 cannot but feel that, had the effect of painted temples 
 and statues been tawdry, there is no people on earth 
 who would have felt it so keenly, and disliked it so 
 much. There must, then, have been strong reasons 
 why this bright coloring did not strike their eye as 
 it would the eye of sober moderns. 
 
 To any one who has seen the country, and thought 
 about the question there, many such reasons present 
 themselves. In the first place, all through southern 
 Europe, and more especially in Greece, there is an 
 amount of bright color in nature, which prevents 
 almost any artificial coloring from producing a start- 
 ling effect. Where all the landscape, the sea, and 
 the air are exceedingly bright, we find the inhab- 
 itants increasing the brightness of their dress and 
 houses, as it were to correspond with nature. Thus; 
 in Italy, they paint their houses green, and pink, 
 and yellow, and so give to their towns and villas 
 that rich and warm effect which we miss so keenly 
 among the gray and sooty streets of northern 
 Europe. So also in their dress, these people wear 
 scarlet, and white, and rich blue, not so much in 
 patterns as in large patches, and a festival in Sicily 
 or Greece fills the streets with intense color. Wo 
 know that the coloring of the old Greek dress was 
 quite of the same character as that of the modern,
 
 ATHENS AND ATTICA. 43 
 
 though in design it has completely changed. Wo 
 must, therefore, imagine the old Greek crowd before 
 their temples, or in their market-places, a very white 
 crowd, with patches of scarlet and various blue ; 
 perhaps altogether white in processions, if we except 
 scarlet shoe-straps and other such slight relief. One 
 cannot but feel that a richly colored temple that 
 pillars of blue and red that friezes of gilding, and 
 other ornament, upon a white marble ground, and in 
 white marble framing, must have been a splendid 
 and appropriate background, a genial feature, in 
 such a sky and with such costume. We must get 
 accustomed to such combinations we must dwell 
 upon them in imagination, or ask our good painters 
 to restore them for us, and let us look upon them 
 constantly and calmly. 
 
 But I will not seek to persuade ; let us merely 
 state the case fairly, and put the reader in a position 
 to judge for himself. So much for the painted 
 architecture. I will but add, the most remarkable 
 specimen of a richly painted front to which we can 
 now appeal is also really one of the most beautiful 
 in Europe the front of S. Mark's at Venice. The 
 rich frescoes and profuse gilding on this splendid 
 front, of which photographs give a very false idea, 
 should be studied by all who desire to judge fairly 
 of this side of Greek taste. 
 
 But I must say a word, before passing on, con- 
 cerning the statues. No doubt, the painting of
 
 44 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 statues, and the use of gold and ivory upon them, 
 were derived from a rude age, when no images 
 existed but rude wooden work at first a mere 
 block, then roughly altered and reduced to shape, 
 probably requiring some coloring to produce any 
 effect whatever. To a public accustomed from 
 childhood to such painted, and often richly dressed 
 images, a pure white marble statue must appear 
 utterly cold and lifeless. So it does to us, when we 
 have become accustomed to the mellow tints of old 
 and even weather-stained Greek statues ; and it 
 should be here noticed that this mellow skin-surface 
 on antique statues is not the mere result of age, but 
 of an artificial process, whereby they burnt into the 
 surface a composition of wax and oil, which gave a 
 yellowish tone to the marble, as well as also that 
 peculiar surface which so accurately represents the 
 texture of the human skin. But if we imagine all 
 the marble surfaces and reliefs in the temple colored 
 for architectural richness' sake, we can feel even 
 more strongly how cold and out-of-place would be 
 a perfectly colorless statue in the centre of all this 
 pattern. 
 
 I will go further, and say we can point out cases 
 where coloring greatly heightens the effect and 
 beauty of sculpture. The first is from the bronzes 
 found at Herculaneum, now in the museum at 
 Naples. Though they are not marble, they are 
 suitable for our purpose, being naturally of a single
 
 ATHENS AND ATTICA. 45 
 
 dark brown hue, which is indeed even more un- 
 favorable (we should think) for such treatment. In 
 some of the finest of these bronzes especially in 
 the two young men starting for a race the eyeballs 
 are inserted in white, with iris and pupil colored. 
 Nothing can be conceived more striking and lifelike 
 than the effect produced. There is in the Varvakion 
 at Athens a marble mask, found in the Temple of 
 -ZEsculapius under the south side of the Acropolis, 
 probably an ex voto offered for a recovery from some 
 disease of the eyes. This marble face also has its 
 eyes colored in the most striking and lifelike way, 
 and is one of the most curious objects found in the 
 late excavations. 
 
 I will add one remarkable modern example the 
 monument at Florence to a young Indian prince, 
 who visited England and this country some years 
 ago, and died of fever during his homeward voyage. 
 They have set up to him a richly colored and gilded 
 baldachin, in the open air, and in a quiet, wooded 
 park. Under this covering is a life-sized bust of 
 the prince, in his richest state dress. The whole 
 bust the turban, the face, the drapery all is col- 
 ored to the life, and the dress, of course, of the most 
 gorgeous variety. The turban is chiefly white, 
 striped with gold, in strong contrast to the mahog- 
 any complexion and raven hair of the actual head ; 
 the robe is gold and green, and covered with orna- 
 ment. The general effect is, from the very first
 
 46 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 moment, striking and beautiful. The longer it is 
 studied, the better it appears ; and there is hardly a 
 reasonable spectator who will not confess that, were 
 we to replace the present bust with a copy of it in 
 white marble, the beauty and harmony of the monu- 
 ment would be utterly marred. To those who have 
 the opportunity of visiting Greece or Italy, I 
 strongly commend these specimens of colored build- 
 ings and sculpture. When they have seen them, 
 they will hesitate to condemn what we still hear 
 called the curiously bad taste of the old Greeks in 
 their use of color in the plastic arts. 
 
 But these archaeological discussions are truly 
 IxfioAai ^oyoy, digressions in themselves necessary, 
 yet only tolerable if they are not too long. I revert 
 to the general state of the antiquities at Athens, 
 always reserving the Acropolis for a special chapter. 
 As I said, the isolated pillars of Hadrian's Temple 
 of Zeus, and the so-called Temple of Theseus, are 
 the only very striking objects. 1 There are, of 
 
 1 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 ques- 
 tion. But I suppose for years to come we must be content to abide
 
 ATHENS AND ATTICA. 47 
 
 course, many other buildings, or remains of build- 
 ings. There is the monument of Lysicrates a 
 small and very graceful round chamber, adorned 
 with Corinthian engaged pillars, and with friezes 
 of the school of Scopas, and intended to carry on its 
 summit the tripod Lysicrates had gained in a musical 
 and dramatic contest (334 B. c.) at Athens. There 
 is the later Temple of the Winds, as it is called a 
 sort of public clock, with sundials and fine reliefs 
 of the Wind- gods on its outward surfaces, and ar- 
 rangements for a water-clock within. There are 
 two portals, or gateways one leading into the old 
 agora, or market-place, the other leading from old 
 Athens into the Athens of Hadrian. 
 
 But all these buildings are either miserably de- 
 faced, or of such late date and decayed taste as to 
 make them unworthy specimens of pure Greek art. 
 A single century ago there was much to be seen and 
 admired which has since disappeared ; and even 
 to-day the majority of the population are careless 
 as to the treatment of ancient monuments, and some- 
 times even mischievous in wantonly defacing them. 
 Thus, I saw the marble tombs of Ottfried Miiller 
 and Charles Lenormant tombs which, though mod- 
 ern, were yet erected at the cost of the nation to 
 men who were eminent lovers and students of Greek 
 art I saw these tombs used as common targets by 
 
 by the old name of Theseon, which is now too long in general use 
 to be easily disturbed.
 
 48 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 the neighborhood, and all peppered with marks of 
 shot and of bullets. I saw them, too, all but blown 
 up by workmen blasting for building-stones close 
 beside them. 1 I saw, also, from the Acropolis, a 
 young gentleman practising with a pistol at a piece 
 of old carved marble work in the Theatre of Dion- 
 ysus. His object seemed to be to chip off a piece 
 from the edge at every shot. Happily, on this occa- 
 sion, our vantage ground enabled us to take the law 
 into our own hands ; and after in vain appealing to 
 a custodian to interfere, we adopted the tactics of 
 Apollo at Delphi, and by detaching stones from the 
 top of our precipice, we put to flight the wretched 
 barbarian who had come to ravage the treasures of 
 that most sacred place. 
 
 These unhappy examples of the defacing of archi- 
 tectural monuments, 2 which can hardly be removed, 
 naturally suggest to the traveller in Greece the 
 kindred question how all the smaller and movable 
 antiquities that are found should be distributed 
 so as best to promote the love and knowledge of 
 art. 
 
 On this point it seems to me that we have gone 
 to one extreme, and the Greeks to the other, and 
 
 1 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. 
 
 * Even the marble statue set up to the patriot Botzari over the 
 grave of the heroes of Missolonghi was so mutilated by the inhab- 
 itants that the authorities have removed it from mere shame.
 
 ATHENS AND ATTICA. 49 
 
 that neither of us have done our best to make known 
 what we acknowledge ought to be known as widely 
 as possible. The tendency in England, at least of 
 later years, lias been to swallow up all lesser and all 
 private collections in the great national Museum in 
 London, which has accordingly become so enormous 
 and so bewildering that no one can profit by it ex- 
 cept the trained specialist, who goes in with his eyes 
 shut, and will not open them till he has arrived at 
 the special class of objects he intends to examine. 
 But to the ordinary public, and even the generally 
 enlightened public (if such an expression be not a 
 contradiction in terms), there is nothing so utterly 
 bewildering, and therefore so unprofitable, as a visit 
 to the myriad treasures of that great world of curi- 
 osities. 
 
 In the last century many private persons many 
 noblemen of wealth and culture possessed re- 
 markable collections of antiquities. These have 
 mostly been swallowed up by what is called "the 
 nation," and new private collections are very rare 
 indeed. 
 
 In Greece the very opposite course is being now 
 pursued. By a special law it is forbidden to sell out 
 of the country, or even to remove from a district, 
 any antiquities whatever ; and in consequence little 
 museums have been established in every village in 
 Greece nay, sometimes even in places where there 
 is no village, in order that every district may pos- 
 4
 
 50 KAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 sess its own riches, and become worth a visit from 
 the traveller and the antiquary. I have seen such 
 museums at Eleusis, some fifteen miles from Athens, 
 at Thebes, now an unimportant town, at Livadia, at 
 Chaeronea, at Argos, at Olympia, and even in the 
 wild plains of Orchomenus, in a little chapel, with 
 no town within miles. 1 If I add to this that most of 
 these museums were mere dark outhouses, only 
 lighted through the door, the reader will have some 
 notion what a task it would be to visit and criticise, 
 with any attempt at completeness, the ever-increas- 
 ing remnants of classical Greece. 
 
 The traveller is at first disposed to complain that 
 even the portable antiquities found in various parts 
 of Greece are not brought to Athens, and gathered 
 into one vast national museum. Further reflection 
 shows such a proceeding to be not only impossible, 
 but highly inexpedient. I will not speak of the 
 great waste of objects of interest when they are 
 brought together in such vast masses that the visitor 
 is rather oppressed than enlightened. Any one who 
 has gone to the British Museum will know what I 
 mean. Nor will I give the smallest weight to the 
 selfish local argument, that compelling visitors to 
 
 1 It is fair to add that an exception has been made for the dis- 
 coveries at Mycenae, 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.
 
 ATHENS AND ATTICA. 51 
 
 wander from place to place brings traffic and money 
 into the country. Until proper roads and clean inns 
 are established, such an argument is both unfair and 
 unlikely to produce results worth considering. But 
 fortunately most of the famous things in Greece are 
 sites, ruined buildings, forts which cannot be re- 
 moved from their place, if at all, without destruc- 
 tion, and of which the very details cannot be under- 
 stood without seeing the place for which they were 
 intended. Even the Parthenon sculptures in Lon- 
 don would have lost most of their interest, if the 
 building itself at Athens did not show us their appli- 
 cation, and glorify them with its splendor. He 
 who sees the gold of Mycenae at Athens, knows little 
 of its meaning, if he has not visited the giant forts 
 where its owners once dwelt and exercised their 
 sway ; and if, as has been done at Olympia, some 
 patriotic Greek had built a safe museum at Mycenae 
 to contain them, they would be more deeply inter- 
 esting and instructive than they now are. 
 
 In such a town as Athens, on the contrary, it 
 seems to me that the true solution of the problem 
 has been attained, though it will probably be shortly 
 abandoned for a central museum. There are (or 
 were) at Athens at least six separate museums of 
 antiquities one at the University, one called the 
 Varvakion, one in the Theseum, one, or rather two, 
 on the Acropolis, one in the Ministry of Public In- 
 struction, and lastly, the new National Museum,
 
 52 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 as it is called, in Patissia Street devoted to its 
 special treasures. If these several storehouses were 
 thoroughly kept, if the objects were carefully num- 
 bered and catalogued, I can conceive no better 
 arrangement for studying separately and in detail 
 the various monuments, which must always bewilder 
 and fatigue when crowded together in one vast ex- 
 hibition. If the British Museum were in this way 
 severed into many branches, and the different classes 
 of objects it contains were placed in separate build- 
 ings, and in different parts of London, I believe 
 most of us would acquire a far greater knowledge 
 of what it contains, and hence it would attain a 
 greater usefulness in educating the nation. To visit 
 any one of the Athenian museums is a compara- 
 tively short and easy task, where a man can sec the 
 end of his labor before him, and hence will not hesi- 
 tate to delay long over such things as are worth a 
 careful study. 
 
 It may be said that all this digression about the 
 mere placing of monuments is delaying the reader 
 too long from what he desires to know something 
 about the monuments themselves. But this little 
 book, to copy an expression of Herodotus, particu- 
 larly affects digressions. I desire to wander through 
 the subject exactly in the way which naturally sug- 
 gests itself to me. After all, the reflections on a 
 journey ought to be more valuable than its mere 
 description.
 
 ATHENS AND ATTICA. 53 
 
 Before passing into Attica and leaving Athens, 
 something more must, of course, be said of the mu- 
 seums, then of the newer diggings, and especially 
 of the splendid tombs found in the Kerameikus. 
 We will then mount the Acropolis, and wander leis- 
 urely about its marvellous ruins. From it we can 
 look out upon the general shape and disposition of 
 Attica, and plan our shorter excursions. 
 
 As some of the suggestions in my first edition 
 have found favor at Athens, I venture to point out 
 here the great benefit which the Greek archaeologists 
 would confer on all Europe if they would publish an 
 official guide to Athens, with some moderately com- 
 plete account of the immense riches of its museums. 
 Such a book, which might appear under the sanc- 
 tion of M. Rousopoulos, or Professor Koumanoudis, 
 might be promoted either by the Greek Parliament 
 or the University of Athens. Were it even pub- 
 lished in modern Greek, its sale must be large and 
 certain ; and, by appendices, or new editions, it 
 could be kept up to the level of the new discoveries. 
 The catalogues of Kekule and of Hcydemann arc 
 already wholly inadequate, and unless one has the 
 privilege of knowing personally one of the gentle- 
 men above named, it is very difficult indeed to 
 obtain any proper notion of the history, or of the 
 original sites, of the various objects which excite 
 curiosity or admiration at every step. Such a book 
 as I suggest would be hailed by every Hellenist in
 
 54 KAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 Europe as an inestimable boon. But in a land 
 where the able men are perpetually engaged in mak- 
 ing or observing new discoveries, they will naturally 
 despise the task of cataloguing what they know. 
 Hence, I suggest that some promising young scholar 
 might undertake the book, and have his work re- 
 vised by his masters in the sober and practical 
 school of Athens. 1 
 
 1 Since this was written there have been published (in German) 
 two careful catalogues of the sculptures of Athens by V. Sybel and 
 by Milchhofer (1881), and there is besides the excellent Hand- 
 book for Greece by Dr. Lolling (Baedeker). 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 Mycenaean antiquities are described in a 
 separate book by Schliemann, and by Schuchhardt.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ATHENS THE MUSEUMS THE TOMBS. 
 
 NOTHING is more melancholy and more disappoint- 
 ing than the first view of the Athenian museums. 
 Almost every traveller sees them after passing 
 through Italy, where everything indeed far too 
 much has been done to make the relics of antiquity 
 perfect and complete. Missing noses, and arms, and 
 feet have been restored ; probable or possible names 
 have been assigned to every statue 5 they are set up, 
 generally, in handsome galleries, with suitable deco- 
 ration ; the visitor is provided with full descriptive 
 catalogues. Nothing of all this is found in Greece. 
 The fragments are merely sorted : many of the 
 mutilated statues are lying prostrate, and, of course, 
 in no way restored. Everything is, however, in proc- 
 ess of being arranged. But there is room to appre- 
 hend that in fifty years things will still be found 
 changing their places, and still in process of being 
 arranged. It is not fair to complain of these things 
 in a nation which is fully occupied with its political 
 and commercial development, and where new class- 
 ical remains are constantly added to the museums. 
 Every nerve is being strained by the Greeks to obtain 
 
 55
 
 56 EAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 their proper rights in the possible break-up of the 
 Ottoman Empire. Great efforts are, besides, being 
 made to develop not only the ports, but the manu- 
 factures of the country. The building of new roads 
 is more vital to the nation than the saving and order- 
 ing of artistic remains. Thus we must trust to 
 private enterprise and generosity to settle these 
 things 5 and these have hitherto not been wanting 
 among the Greeks. But their resources are small, 
 and they require help both in money and in sym- 
 pathy. So, then, unless foreign influences be con- 
 tinuously brought to bear, all the foreign schools 
 act unselfishly at their own expense, I fear that 
 all of us who visit Athens will be doomed to that 
 first feeling of disappointment. 
 
 But I am bound to add that every patient observer 
 who sets to work in spite of his disappointment, and 
 examines with honest care these " disjecta membra " 
 of Attic art any one who will replace in imagin- 
 ation the tips of noses any one who will stoop over 
 lying statues, and guess at the context of broken 
 limbs such an observer will find his vexation grad- 
 ually changing into wonder, and will at last come to 
 see that all the smoothly-restored Greek work in 
 Italian museums is not worth a tithe of the shattered 
 fragments in the real home and citadel of pure art. 
 This is especially true of the museum on the Acrop- 
 olis. It is, however, also true of the other 
 museums, and more obviously true of the reliefs
 
 ATHENS THE MUSEUMS. 57 
 
 upon the tombs. The assistance of an experienced 
 Athenian antiquary is also required, who knows his 
 way among the fragments, and who can tell the 
 history of the discovery, and the theories of the 
 purport of each. There are a good many men of 
 ability and learning connected with the University 
 of Athens, who describe each object in the anti- 
 quarian papers as it is discovered. But when I 
 asked whether I could buy or subscribe to any 
 recognized organ for such information, I was told 
 (as I might have expected) that no single paper or 
 periodical was so recognized. Clashing interests and 
 personal friendships determine ivlicre each discovery 
 is to be announced ; so that often the professedly 
 archaeological journals contain no mention of such 
 things, while the common daily papers secure the 
 information. 
 
 Here, Again, we feel the want of some stronger 
 government some despotic assertion of a law of 
 gravitation to a common centre to counteract the 
 strong centrifugal forces acting all through Greek 
 society. The old autonomy of the Greeks that old 
 assertion of local independence which was at once 
 their greatness and their ruin this strong instinct 
 has lasted undiminished to the present day. They 
 seem even now to hate pulling together, as we say. 
 They seem always ready to assert their individual 
 rights and claims against those of the community 
 or the public. The old Greeks had as a safeguard
 
 58 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 their divisions into little cities and territories ; so 
 that their passion for autonomy was expended on. 
 their city interests, in which the individual could 
 forget himself. But as the old Greeks were often 
 too selfish for this, and asserted their personal 
 autonomy against their own city, so the modern 
 Greek, who has not this safety-valve, finds it difficult 
 to rise to the height of acting in the interests of the 
 nation at large ; and though he converses much and 
 brilliantly about Hellenic unity, he generally allows 
 smaller interests to outweigh this splendid general 
 conception. I will here add a most annoying ex- 
 ample of this particularist feeling, which obtrudes 
 itself upon every visitor to Athens. The most trying 
 thing in the streets is the want of shade, and the 
 consequent glare of the houses and roadway. Yet 
 along every street there are planted pepper-trees of 
 graceful growth and of delicious scent. But why 
 are they all so wretchedly small and bare ? Because 
 each inhabitant chooses to hack away the growing 
 branches in front of his own door. The Prime 
 Minister, who deplored this curious Vandalism, said 
 he was powerless to check it. Until, however, the 
 Athenians learn to control themselves, and let their 
 trees grow, Athens will be an ugly and disagreeable 
 city. 
 
 So, then, the Greeks will not even agree to tell 
 us where we may find a complete list of newly-dis- 
 covered antiquities. Nor, indeed, does the Athenian
 
 ATHENS THE MUSEUMS. 59 
 
 public care very much, beyond a certain vague 
 pride, for such things, if we except one peculiar 
 kind, which has taken among them somewhat the 
 place of old china among us. There have been 
 found in many Greek cemeteries in Megara, in Gy- 
 rene, and of late in great abundance and excellence 
 at Tanagra, in Boeotia little figures of terra cotta, 
 often delicately modelled and richly colored both in 
 dress and limbs. These figures are ordinarily from 
 eight to twelve inches high, and represent ladies 
 both sitting and standing in graceful attitudes, young 
 men in pastoral life, and other such subjects. I was 
 informed that some had been found in various places 
 through Greece, but the main source of them and 
 a very rich source is the Necropolis at Tanagra. 
 There are several collections of these figures on cup- 
 boards and in cabinets in private houses at Athens, 
 all remarkable for the marvellous modernness of 
 their appearance. The graceful drapery of the 
 ladies especially is very like modern dress, and 
 many have on their heads flat round hats, quite 
 similar in design to the gipsy hats much worn among 
 ladies of late years. But above all, the hair was 
 drawn back from the forehead, not at all in what is 
 considered Greek style, but rather a I Ettgenie, as 
 we used to say when we were young. Many hold 
 in their hands large fans, like those which we make 
 of peacocks' feathers. No conclusive theory has 
 yet been started, so far as I know, concerning the
 
 60 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 object or intention of these figures. So many of 
 them are female figures, that it seems unlikely they 
 were portraits of the deceased ; and the frequent 
 occurrence of two figures together, especially one 
 woman being carried by another, seems almost to 
 dissuade us from such a theory. They seem to be 
 the figures called Kopat by many old Greeks, which 
 were used as toys by children, and, perhaps, as 
 ornaments. The large class of tradesmen who made 
 them were called KopoitAaQot, and were held in con- 
 tempt by real sculptors. Most of them are, indeed, 
 badly modelled, and evidently the work of ignorant 
 tradesmen. If it could be shown that they were 
 only found in the graves of children, it would be a 
 touching sign of that world-wide feeling among the 
 human race, to bury with the dead friend whatever 
 he loved and enjoyed in his life on earth, that he 
 might not feel lonely in his cold and gloomy grave. 1 
 But it seems unlikely that this limitation can ever 
 be proved. 
 
 There is an equal difficulty as to their age. The 
 
 1 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 7Vn/, 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.
 
 ATHENS THE MUSEUMS. 61 
 
 Greeks say that the tombs in which they are found 
 are not later than the second century B. C., and it is, 
 indeed, hard to conceive at what later period there 
 was enough wealth and art to produce such often 
 elegant, and often costly, results. Tanagra and 
 Thespise were, indeed, in Strabo's day (lib. ix. 2) the 
 only remaining cities of Boeotia ; the rest, he says, 
 were but ruins and names. But we may be certain 
 that in that time of universal decay the remaining 
 towns must have been as poor and insignificant as 
 they now are. Thus, we seem thrown back into 
 classical or Alexandrian days for the origin of these 
 figures, Avhich in their bright coloring pink and 
 blue dresses, often gilded fringes, the hair always 
 fair, so far as I could find are, indeed, like what 
 we know of old Greek statuary, but in other respects 
 surprisingly modern. 1 If their antiquity can be 
 strictly demonstrated, it will but show another case 
 of the versatility of the Greeks in all things relating 
 to art : how, with the simplest material, and at a 
 long distance from the great art centres, they pro- 
 duced a type of exceeding grace and refinement 
 totally foreign to their great old models, varying in 
 dress, attitude in every point of style from ordi- 
 nary Greek sculpture, and anticipating much of the 
 modern ideals of beauty and elegance. 
 
 1 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.
 
 62 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 But it is necessary to suspend our judgment, and 
 wait for further and closer investigation. The 
 workmen at Tanagra are now forbidden to sell these 
 objects to private fanciers ; and in consequence, 
 their price has risen so enormously, that those in the 
 market, if of real elegance and artistic merit, can- 
 not be obtained for less than from 40 to 60. As 
 much as 2000 francs has been paid for one, when 
 they were less common. From this price downward 
 they can still be bought in Athens, the rude and 
 badly finished specimens being cheap enough. The 
 only other method of procuring them, or of procur- 
 ing them more cheaply, is to make diligent inquiries 
 when travelling in the interior, where they may 
 often be bought from poor people, either at Megara, 
 Tanagra, or elsewhere, who have chanced to find 
 them, and are willing enough to part with them after 
 a certain amount of bargaining. 
 
 It is convenient to dispose of this peculiar and 
 distinct kind of Greek antiquities, because they 
 seem foreign to the rest, and cannot be brought 
 under any other head. These figurines have now 
 found their way into most European museums. 1 
 
 I pass to the public collections at Athens, in 
 which we find few of these figures, and which 
 
 1 There is already quite a large collection of them in the Brit- 
 ish 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.
 
 ATHENS-THE MUSEUMS. 63 
 
 rather contain the usual products of Greek plastic 
 art statues, reliefs, as well as pottery, and inscrip- 
 tions. As I have said, the statues are in the most 
 lamentable condition, shattered into fragments, with- 
 out any attempt at restoring even such losses as can 
 be supplied with certainty. What mischief might 
 be done by such wholesale restoration as was prac- 
 tised in Italy some fifty years ago, it is hard to say. 
 But perhaps the reaction against that error has 
 driven us to an opposite extreme. 
 
 There is, indeed, one a naked athlete, with his 
 cloak hanging over the left shoulder, and coiled 
 round the left forearm which seems almost as good 
 as any strong male figure which we now possess. 
 While it has almost exactly the same treatment of 
 the cloak on the left arm which we see in the cele- 
 brated Hermes of the Vatican, 1 the proportions of 
 the figure are nearer the celebrated Discobolus (num- 
 bered 126, Braccio Nuovo). There are two other 
 copies at Florence, and one at Naples. These repe- 
 titions point to some very celebrated original, which 
 the critics consider to be of the older school of Poly-' 
 cletus, and even imagine may possibly be a copy of 
 his DoryphontSj which was called the Canon statue, 
 or model of the perfect manly form. The Hermes 
 has too strong a likeness to Lysippus's Apoxyomcnos 
 not to be recognized as of the newer school. What 
 
 1 No. 53, Mus. Pio Clem., in a small room beside the Apollo Bel- 
 vedere and Laocoon.
 
 64 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 we have, then, in this Attic statue seems an inter- 
 mediate type between the earlier and stronger school 
 of Polycletus and the more elegant and newer school 
 of Lysippus in Alexander's day. 
 
 There can, however, be no doubt that it does not 
 date from the older and severer age of sculpture, of 
 which Phidias and Polycletus were the highest rep- 
 resentatives. Any one who studies Greek art per- 
 ceives how remarkably not only the style of dress 
 and ornament, but even the proportions of the figure 
 change, as we come down from generation to genera- 
 tion in the long line of Greek sculptors. The 
 friezes of Selinus (now at Palermo), and those of 
 -^Egina (now in Munich), which are among our ear- 
 liest classical specimens, are remarkable for short, 
 thick-set forms. The men are men five feet seven, 
 or, at most, eight inches high, and their figures are 
 squat even for that height. In the specimens we 
 have of the days of Phidias and Polycletus these 
 proportions are altered. The head of the Doryplto- 
 rus, if we can depend upon our supposed copies, 
 is still heavy, and the figure bulky, though taller 
 in proportion. He looks a man of five feet ten 
 inches at least. The statue we are just considering 
 is even taller, and is like the copies we have of 
 Lysippus's work, the figure apparently of a man 
 of six feet high ; but his head is not so small, nor 
 is he so slender and light as this type is usually 
 found.
 
 ATHENS THE MUSEUMS. 65 
 
 It is not very easy to give a full account of this 
 change. There is, of course, one general reason 
 well known the art of the Greeks, like almost all 
 such developments, went through stiffness and clum- 
 siness into dignity and strength, to which it pres- 
 ently added that grace which raises strength into 
 majesty. But in time the seeking after grace be- 
 comes too prominent, and so strength, and with it, 
 of course, the majesty which requires strength as 
 well as grace, is gradually lost. Thus we arrive 
 at a period when the forms are merely elegant or 
 voluptuous, without any assertion of power. I will 
 speak of a similar development among female fig- 
 ures in connection with another subject which will 
 naturally suggest it. 
 
 This can only be made plain by a series of illus- 
 trations. Of course, the difficulty of obtaining 
 really archaic statues was very great. 1 They were 
 mostly sacred images of the gods, esteemed vener- 
 able and interesting by the Greeks, but seldom 
 copied. Happily, the Romans, when they set 
 themselves to admire and procure Greek statues, 
 had fits of what we now call pre-Raphaelitism fits 
 of admiration for the archaic and devout, even if 
 ungraceful, in preference to the more perfect forms 
 of later art. Hence, we find in Italy a number of 
 
 1 There is now an excellent publication of the archaic statues 
 found in the Acropolis, by Cavvadias (Wilberg, Athens).
 
 66 RAMBLES IN GEEECE. 
 
 statues which, if not really archaic, are at least 
 arclmistic, as the critics call it imitations or copies 
 of archaic statues. With these we need now no 
 longer be content. And we may pause a moment 
 on the question of archaic Greek art, because, apart 
 from the imitations of the time of Augustus and 
 Hadrian, we had already some really genuine frag- 
 ments in the little museum in the Acropolis frag- 
 ments saved, not from the present Parthenon, but 
 rather from about the ruins of the older Parthenon. 
 This temple was destroyed by the Persians, and the 
 materials were built into the surrounding wall of 
 the Acropolis by the Athenians, when they began to 
 strengthen and beautify it at the opening of their 
 career of dominion and wealth. The stains of fire 
 are said to be still visible on these drums of pillars 
 now built into the fortification, and there can be no 
 doubt of their belonging to the old temple, as it is 
 well attested. 1 But I do not agree with the state- 
 ment that these older materials were so used in order 
 to nurse a perpetual hatred against the Persians in 
 the minds of the people, who saw daily before them 
 the evidence of the ancient wrong done to their 
 temples. 2 I believe this sentimental twaddle to be 
 
 1 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. 
 
 a It is asserted somewhere by a Greek author that the temples
 
 ATHENS THE MUSEUMS. 67 
 
 quite foreign to all Greek feeling. The materials 
 were used in the wall because they were unsuitable 
 for the newer temples, and because they must other- 
 wise be greatly in the way on the limited surface of 
 the Acropolis. 
 
 A fair specimen of the old sculptures first found 
 is a very stiff, and, to us, comical figure, which 
 has lost its legs, but is otherwise fairly preserved, 
 and which depicts a male figure with curious con- 
 ventional hair, and still more conventional beard, 
 holding by its four legs a bull or calf, which he is 
 carrying on his shoulders. The eyes are now hollow, 
 and were evidently once filled with something differ- 
 ent from the marble of which the statue is made. 
 The whole pose and style of the work is stiff and 
 expressionless, and it is one of the most character- 
 istic remains of the older Attic art still in exist- 
 ence. 
 
 Happily there is little doubt what the statue means. 
 It is the votive offering of the Marathonians, which 
 Pausanias saw in the Acropolis, and which commem- 
 orated the legend of Theseus having driven the wild 
 
 burned by the Persians were left in ruins to remind the people of 
 the wrongs of the hated barbarians. But we have distinct evi- 
 dence, 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.
 
 68 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 bull, sent against them by Minos, from Marathon to 
 the Acropolis, where he sacrificed it. Pausanias 
 does not say how Theseus was represented with the 
 bull; but it certainly was not a group such a thing 
 is clearly beyond the narrow and timid conceptions 
 of the artists ' of that day. It being difficult to rep- 
 resent this hero and bull together except by repre- 
 senting the man carrying the bull, the artist has 
 made the animal full grown in type, but as small as 
 a calf, and has, of course, not attempted any expres- 
 sion of hostility between the two. The peaceful 
 look, which merely arises from the inability of the 
 artist to render expression, has led many good art 
 critics to call it not a Theseus but a Hermes. Such 
 being the obscure history of the statue, it is not 
 difficult to note its characteristics. We see the con- 
 ventional treatment of the hair, the curious trans- 
 parent garments lying close to the skin, and the very 
 heavy muscular forms of the arms and body. The 
 Avhole figure is stiff and expressionless, and strictly 
 in what is called the hieratic or old religious style, 
 as opposed to an ideal or artistic conception. 
 
 There are two full-length reliefs one which I 
 first saw in a little church near Orchomenus, and a 
 couple more at Athens in the Theseon which are 
 plainly of the same epoch and style of art. The 
 most complete Athenian one is ascribed as the 
 stele of Aristion, and as the work of Aristocles, 1 
 
 l Aristion is also mentioned among the artists of the period.
 
 ATHENS THE MUSEUMS. 69 
 
 doubtless an artist known as contemporary with those 
 who fought at the battle of Marathon. Thus we 
 obtain a very good clue to the date at which this 
 art flourished. There is also the head of a similar 
 figure, with the hair long and fastened in a knot 
 behind, and with a discus raised above the shoulder, 
 so as to look like a nimbus round the head, which is 
 one of the most interesting objects in the Varvakion. 
 But of the rest the pedestal only is preserved. Any 
 impartial observer will see in these figures strong 
 traces of the influence of Asiatic style. This influ- 
 ence seems about as certain, and almost as much 
 disputed, as the Egyptian influences on the Doric 
 style of architecture. To an unbiassed observer 
 these influences speak so plainly, that, in the absence 
 of strict demonstration to the contrary, one feels 
 bound to admit them the more so, as we know that 
 the Greeks, like all other people of genius, were 
 ever ready and anxious to borrow from others. It 
 should be often repeated, because it is usually ignored, 
 that it is a most original gift to know how to borrow ; 
 and that those only who feel wanting in originality 
 are anxious to assert it. Thus the Romans, who 
 borrowed without assimilating, are always asserting 
 their originality ; the Greeks, who borrowed more 
 and better, because they made what they borrowed 
 their own, never care to do so. The hackneyed 
 parallel of Shakespeare will occur to all. 
 
 Unfortunately, the museums of Athens show us
 
 70 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 but few examples of the transition state of art 
 between this and the perfect work of Phidias's 
 school. The ^Eginetan marbles are less developed 
 than Phidias's work ; but from the relief of Aristion, 
 and the Theseus of the Acropolis, to these, is a wide 
 gulf in artistic feeling. The former is the work of 
 children shackled by their material, still more by 
 conventional rules ; the latter the work of men. 
 There is also the well-known Apollo of Thera; 
 a similar Apollo found at Athens, with very conven- 
 tional curls, and now in the National Museum ; and 
 two or three small sitting statues of Athene which, 
 though very archaic, begin to approach the grace of 
 artistic sculpture. But Italy is sufficiently rich in 
 imitations of this very period. There are four very 
 remarkable statues in a small room of the Villa 
 Albani, near Rome, which are not photographed, 
 because the public would, doubtless, think them 
 bad art, but which, could I procure copies and 
 reproduce them, would illustrate clearly what I 
 desire. We have also among the bronzes found 
 at Pompeii statues precisely of this style, evidently 
 copies from old Greek originals, and made to satisfy 
 the pre-Raphaelitism (as I have already called it) 
 of Italian amateurs. I select a bronze Artemis as 
 an interesting example of this antiquarian taste in 
 a later age. The statuette maintains in the face 
 the very features which we think so comical when 
 looking at the relief of Aristion, or the women
 
 ATHENS THE MUSEUMS. 71 
 
 of the Acropolis. They are, no doubt, softened and 
 less exaggerated, but still they are there. The so- 
 called Greek profile is not yet attained. The gen- 
 eral features of the old Greek face in monuments 
 were a retreating forehead, a peaked nose, slightly 
 turned up at the end, the mouth drawn in, and the 
 corners turned up, flat elongated eyes (especially 
 full in the profiles of reliefs), a prominent angular 
 chin, lank cheeks, and high ears. These lovely 
 features can be found on hundreds of vases, because, 
 vase-making being rather a trade than an art, men 
 kept close to the old models long after great sculp- 
 tors and painters had, like Polygnotus, begun to 
 depart from the antique stiffness of the countenance. 1 
 The Artemis in question has, however, these very 
 features, which are very clear when we can see her 
 in profile. But the head-dress and draping are 
 elaborate, and though formal and somewhat rigid, 
 not wanting in grace. The pose of the arms is 
 stiff, and the attitude that of a woman stepping 
 forward, which is very usual in archaic figures 
 I suppose because it enlarged the base of the statue, 
 and made it stand more firmly in its place. The 
 absence of any girdle or delaying fold in the 
 garments is one of the most marked contrasts with 
 the later draping of such figures. 
 
 But now at last we can show the reader how far 
 the antiquarians of later days were able to imitate 
 1 " Vultum ab antiqno rigore variare." Plin. xxxv. 35.
 
 72 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 archaic sculpture. Another characteristic archaic 
 statue was one of the seventeen found in 1885-86 on 
 the Acropolis, 1 where they had been piled together 
 with portions of pillars and other stones to extend the 
 platform for new buildings. The style and the mutil- 
 ation of all these statues, which, from their uniform 
 type, are more probably votive offerings than sacred 
 images, point to their being the actual statues which 
 the Persians overthrew when ravaging the Acropolis 
 (480 B. c.). They were so broken and spoiled that 
 the Athenians, when restoring and rebuilding their 
 temples, determined to use them for rubbish. Thus 
 we have now a perfectly authentic group of works 
 showing us the art of the older Athens before the Per- 
 sian Wars. They are each made of several pieces 
 of marble, apparently Parian, dowelled together like 
 wooden work, and the figure here reproduced has a 
 bronze pin protruding from the head, apparently to 
 hold a nimbus or covering of metal. They were all 
 richly colored, as many traces upon them still show. 2 
 
 1 They have been published in the first part of an excellent work 
 on the treasures of Athens, reproduced in phototype by Rhomaidcs 
 Brothers, with an explanatory text by various Athenian scholars. 
 
 * I cannot do better than quote the admirable description of M. 
 Ch. Diehl : "CTetaient surtout de nouvelles statues dejeunes fcmmes, 
 au mysterienx sourire, a la parure etincelante, de ces idoles fardi'es 
 et peintes, bien faites, par lenr savenr etrange, ponr tenter le pinceau 
 d'un Gustave Morean on la plume d'un Pierre Loti. Comme leurs 
 8o?urs, ces nouvelles venues ont la meme attitude et le meme 
 costume, les inemes eoquetteries de parure, le meme soin de leur 
 chevelure, la meme expression aussi ; pourtant a la serie deji
 
 ATHENS THE MUSEUMS. 73 
 
 Let us now leave this archaic art and go to the 
 street of tombs, where we can find such specimens 
 as the world can hardly equal, and in such condition 
 
 connue elles ont ajoute quelqucs ceuvres exquises, et trois d'entre 
 elles en particulier meritent d'etre signalers. L'une est une 
 merveille de coloris ; sa tunique a large bande rouge, sa chemisette 
 d' un vert fonce, bordee de pourpre, son manteau orne de meandres 
 du dessin le plus fin, ses vetements parsemes de croix rouges ou 
 vertes, qui se retrouvent sur le diadt-me de ses cheveux, sont d'un 
 incomparable e"clat. Sous les tons chauds de ces riches couleurs 
 disposees avec un gout exquis, il semble que le marbre s' anime et 
 fasse la chair vivante ; et un charme etrange emane de cette figure. 
 Celle-ci (cf. Plate) d'une date plus recente, probablement 1'une des 
 plus jcunes de la serie, montre 1' effort d'un artiste habile pour creer 
 une oeuvre originale. Dans ces formes elancees, dans cette tete 
 petite et fine, dans ces bras jetes en avant du corps, on sent la 
 volonte du maitre qui cherche a faire autrement que ses devanciers ; 
 le sourire traditionnel cst devenu presque imperceptible, les yeux, 
 qui souriaient jadis a 1' unison des levres, ont cesse de se relever 
 vers les tempes ; les joues creuses se remplissent et s'arrondissent ; 
 avcc des o?uvres de cette sorte, 1'archaisme est prt a finir. . . . La 
 troisieme enfin est une des .ceuvres les plus remarquables de 1'art 
 attique. Plus ancienne que la precedente, elle est d'une valeur 
 artist ique bien superieure. Le modele en est exquis, et son irre- 
 prochable finesse fait un contraste singulier avec les precedes qui 
 sontont encore les conventions de l'e"cole. Suivant les traditions de 
 1' art antique, les yeux sont obliques et brides, le sourire fait toujours 
 grimacer les levres ; mais dans les yeux le regard n'est plus indiffe- 
 rent et fixe ; il brille d'une lueur de vie et de pcnsee ; 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 parrni les ccuvres de 1'art 
 arrhaYque, parmi celles ou le maitre a docilement suivi la route 
 frayee et battue, cette sculpture a 1' expression cnndide et i)resque 
 attristi'<! cst 1'unc des plus admirables." Excursions archcoloyirjues 
 en Griice, p. 104.
 
 74 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 as to be easily intelligible. A good many of these 
 tombs, and some of them very fine, have lately been 
 removed to the National Museum, where they are no 
 doubt safer, and more easily studied and compared, 
 though there is something lost in not having them 
 upon their original site, with some at least of their 
 original surroundings. What I have said of the 
 museums is, even so, disappointing, as indeed it 
 should be, if the feelings of the visitor are to be 
 faithfully reproduced. But I must not fail to add, 
 before turning to other places, that in inscriptions 
 these museums are very rich, as well as also in Attic 
 vases, and lamps, and other articles of great im- 
 portance in our estimate of old Greek life. The 
 professors of the University have been particularly 
 diligent in deciphering and explaining the inscrip- 
 tions, and with the aid of the Germans, who have 
 collected, and are still collecting, these scattered 
 documents in a complete publication, we are daily 
 having new light thrown upon Greek history. Thus 
 Kohler has been able from the recovered Attic 
 tribute-lists to construct a map of the Athenian 
 maritime empire with its dependencies, which tells 
 the student more in five minutes than hours of la- 
 borious reading. The study of vases and lamps is 
 beyond my present scope ; and the former so wide 
 and complicated a subject, that it cannot be mastered 
 without long study and trouble. 1 
 
 1 When I revisited Athens in the spring of 1889, the National
 
 ATHENS THE MUSEUMS. 75 
 
 I pass, therefore, from the museums to the street 
 of tombs, which Thucydides tells us to find in the 
 fairest suburb of the city, as we go out westward 
 towards the groves of Academe, and before we 
 turn slightly to the south on our way to the Pei- 
 rseus. Thucydides has described with some care 
 the funeral ceremonies held in this famous place, 
 and has composed for us a very noble funeral ora- 
 tion, which he has put in the mouth of Pericles. 1 
 It is with this oration, probably the finest passage 
 in Thucydides's great history, in our minds, that 
 we approach the avenue where the Athenians laid 
 their dead. We have to pass through the poor- 
 est portion of modern Athens, through wretched 
 bazaars and dirty markets, which abut upon the 
 main street. Amid all this squalor and poverty, all 
 this' complete denial of art and leisure, there are 
 
 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. 
 
 1 These panegyrics %.6ym iirtrutyio'. they were called were a 
 favorite exercise of Greek literary men. There are five classical 
 ones still extant that mentioned, that in the Mencxenus 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.
 
 76 KAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 still features which faintly echo old Greek life. 
 There is the bright color of the dresses the pre- 
 dominance of white, and red, and blue, of which 
 the old Athenians were so fond ; and there is among 
 the lowest classes a great deal of that striking beauty 
 which recalls to us the old statues. More especially 
 in the form of the head, and in the expression, of 
 the children, we see types not to be found elsewhere 
 in Europe, and which, if not derived from classical 
 Greece, are at all events very beautiful. 
 
 We then come on to the railway station, which is, 
 indeed, in this place, as elsewhere, very offensive. 
 With its grimy smoke, its shrill sounds, and all its 
 other hard unloveliness, it is not a meet neighbor 
 for the tombs of the old Greeks, which are close to 
 it on all sides. 
 
 They lie as almost all old ruins do far b'elow 
 the present level of the ground, and have, therefore, 
 to be exhumed by careful digging. When this has 
 been done they are covered with a rude door, to 
 protect their sculptured face ; and when I first saw 
 them were standing about, without any order or regu- 
 larity, close to the spots where they had been found. 
 
 A proper estimate of these tombs cannot be at- 
 tained without appreciating the feelings with which 
 the survivors set them up. And we must consider 
 not only the general attitude of Greek literature on 
 the all-important question of the state of man after 
 death, but also the thousands of inscriptions upon
 
 ATHENS THE TOMBS. 77 
 
 tombs, both with and without sculptured reliefs, if 
 we will form a sure opinion about the feelings of 
 the bereaved in these bygone days. 
 
 We know from Homer and from Mimnermus that 
 in the earlier periods, though the Greeks were unable 
 to shake off a belief in life after death, they could not 
 conceive that state as anything but a shadowy and 
 wretched echo of the real life upon earth. It was 
 a gloomy existence, burdened with the memory of 
 lost happiness and the longing for lost enjoyment. 
 To the Homeric Greeks death was a dark unavoid- 
 able fate, without hope and without reward. It is, 
 indeed, true that we find in Pindar thoughts and as- 
 pirations of a very different kind. We have in the 
 fragments of his poetry more than one passage as- 
 serting the rewards of the just, and the splendors of 
 a future life far happier than that which we now 
 enjoy. But, notwithstanding these noble visions, 
 such high expectation laid no hold upon the im- 
 agination of the Greek world. The poems of 
 Pindar, we are told, soon ceased to be popular, and 
 his visions are but a streak of light amid general 
 gloom. The kingdom of the dead in ^schylus is 
 evidently, as in Homer, but a weary echo of this 
 life, where honor can only be attained by the pious 
 service of loving kinsfolk, whose duty paid to the 
 dead affects him in his gloomier state, and raises 
 him in the esteem of his less-remembered fellows. 
 Sophocles says nothing to clear away the night ; nay
 
 78 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 rather his deepest and maturest contemplation re- 
 gards death as the worst of ills to the happy man 
 a sorry refuge to the miserable. Euripides longs 
 that there may be no future state ; and Plato only 
 secures the immortality of the soul by severing it 
 from the person the man, and all his interests. 
 
 It is plain, from this evidence, that the Greeks 
 mus.t have looked upon the death of those they 
 loved with unmixed sorrow. It was the final part- 
 ing, when all the good and pleasant things are re- 
 membered ; when men seek, as it were, to increase 
 the pang, by clothing the dead in all his sweetest 
 and dearest presence. But this was not done by 
 pompous inscriptions, or by a vain enumeration of 
 all the deceased had performed inscriptions which, 
 among us, tell more of the vanity than of the grief 
 of the survivors. The commonest epitaph was a 
 simple /</>, or farewell ; and it is this single word, 
 so full and deep in its meaning to those who love, 
 which is pictured in the tomb reliefs. They are 
 simple parting scenes, expressing the grief of the 
 survivors, and the great sadness of the sufferer, who 
 is going to his long home. 
 
 Nevertheless, what strikes us forcibly in these re- 
 markable monuments is the chastened modest ex- 
 pression of sorrow which they display. There is no 
 violence, no despair, no extravagance all is simple 
 and noble ; thus combining purity of art with a far 
 deeper pathos a far nobler grief than that of the
 
 A Tomb from the Via Sacra, Athens
 
 ATHENS THE TOMBS. 79 
 
 exaggerated paintings and sculptures which seek to 
 express mourning in later and less cultivated ages. 1 
 We may defy any art to produce truer or more 
 poignant pictures of real sorrow a sorrow, as I 
 have explained, far deeper and more hopeless than 
 any Christian sorrow ; and yet there is no wringing 
 of hands, no swooning, no defacing Avith sackcloth 
 and ashes. 2 Sometimes, indeed, as in the celebrated 
 tomb of Dexileos, a mere portrait of the dead in 
 active life was put upon his tomb, and private grief 
 would not assert itself in presence of the record of 
 his public services. 
 
 I know not that any other remnants of Greek art 
 bring home to us more plainly one of its eternal and di- 
 vine features ror shall I rather say, one of its eternal 
 and human features ? the greatest, if not the main 
 feature, which has made it the ever new and ever 
 lasting lawgiver to men in their efforts to represent 
 the ideal. 
 
 If I am to permit myself any digression whatever, 
 we cannot do better than conclude this chapter with 
 some reflections on this subject, and we may thcre- 
 
 1 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. 
 
 2 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 excep- 
 tion should be noted, as it shows that they understood what 
 violent grief was, and yet avoided representing it as a rule.
 
 80 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 fore turn, by suggestion of the Athenian tombs, to a 
 few general remarks on the reserve of Greek art 
 I mean the reserve in the displaying emotion, in the 
 portraying of the fierce outbursts of joy or grief; 
 and again, more generally, the reserve in the ex- 
 hibiting of peculiar or personal features, passing in- 
 terests, or momentary emotions. 
 
 In a philosophy now rather forgotten than extinct, 
 and which once commanded no small attention, 
 Adam Smith was led to analyze the indirect effects 
 of aympaihy t from which, as a single principle, he 
 desired to deduce all the rules of ethics. While 
 straining many points unduly, he must be con- 
 fessed to have explained with great justice the 
 origin of good taste or tact in ordinary life, which 
 he saw to be the careful watching of the interest of 
 others in our own affairs, and the feeling that we 
 must not force upon them what concerns ourselves, 
 except we are sure to carry with us their active 
 sympathy. Good breeding, he says, consists in a 
 delicate perception how far this will go, and in sup- 
 pressing those of our feelings which, though they 
 affect us strongly, cannot be expected to affect in 
 like manner our neighbor, whose sympathy should be 
 the measure and limit of our outspokenness. There 
 can be no doubt that whatever other elements come 
 in, this analysis is true, so far as it goes, and recom- 
 mends itself at once to the convictions of any edu- 
 cated man. The very same principle applies still more
 
 ATHENS THE TOMBS. 81 
 
 strongly and universally in art. As tragedy is bound 
 to treat ideal griefs and joys of so large and broad a 
 kind that every spectator may merge in them his 
 petty troubles, so ideal sculpture and painting are 
 only ideal so far as they represent those large and 
 eternal features in human nature which must always 
 command the sympathy of every pure human heart. 
 Let us dispose at once of an apparent exception 
 the mediaeval pictures of the Passion of Christ, 
 and the sorrows of the Virgin Mary. Here the 
 artist allowed himself the most extreme treatment, 
 because the objects were necessarily the centre of 
 the very highest sympathy. No expression of the 
 grief of Christ could be thought exaggerated in the 
 Middle Ages, because in this very exaggeration lay 
 the centre point of men's religion. But when no 
 such object of universal and all-absorbing sympathy 
 can be found (and there was none such in pagan 
 life), then the Greek artist must attain by his treat- 
 ment of the object what the Christian artist obtained 
 by the object itself. Assuming, then, a mastery 
 over his material, and sufficient power of execution, 
 the next feature to be looked for in Greek art, and 
 especially in Greek sculpture, is a certain modesty 
 and reserve in expression, which will not portray 
 slight defects in picturing a man, but represent that 
 eternal or ideal character in him which remains in 
 our memory when he is gone. Such, for example, 
 is the famous portrait-statue of Sophocles.
 
 82 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 Such are also all that great series of ideal figures 
 which meet us in the galleries of ancient art. They 
 seldom show us any violent emotion; they are sel- 
 dom even in so special an attitude that critics cannot 
 interpret it in several different ways, or as suitable 
 to several myths. It is not passing states of feeling, 
 but the eternal and ideal beauty of human nature, 
 which Greek sculpture seeks to represent ; and for 
 this reason it has held its sway through all the cen- 
 turies which have since gone by. This was the 
 calm art of Phidias, and Polycletus, and Polygnotus, 
 in sentiment not differing from the rigid awkward- 
 ness of their predecessors, but in mastery of propor- 
 tions and of difficulties attaining the grace in which 
 the others had failed. To this general law there 
 are, no doubt, exceptions, and perhaps very brilliant 
 ones ; yet they are exceptions, and even in them, 
 if we consider them attentively, we can see the uni- 
 versal features and the points of sympathy for all 
 mankind. But if the appeal for sympathy is indeed 
 overstrained, then, however successful in its own 
 society and its own social atmosphere, the work of 
 art loses power when offered to another generation. 
 Thus Euripides, though justly considered in his own 
 society the most tragic of poets, has for this very 
 reason ceased to appeal to us as ^schylus still ap- 
 peals. For ^Escjiylus kept within the proper bounds 
 dictated by the reserve of art ; Euripides often did
 
 ATHENS THE TOMBS. 83 
 
 not, and his work, though great and full of genius, 
 suffered accordingly. 
 
 It seems to me that the tombs before us are re- 
 markable as exemplifying, with the tact of genius, 
 this true and perfect reserve. They are simple pict- 
 ures of the grief of parting of the recollection of 
 pleasant days of love and friendship of the gloom of 
 the unknown future. But there is no exaggeration, 
 nor speciality no individuality, I had almost said 
 in the picture. I feel no curiosity to inquire who 
 these people are what were their names even 
 what was the relationship of the deceased. 1 For I 
 am perfectly satisfied with an ideal portrait of the 
 grief of parting a grief that comes to us all, and 
 lays bitter hold of us at some season of life ; and it 
 is this universal sorrow this great common flaw in 
 our lives which the Greek artist has brought before 
 us, and which calls forth our deepest sympathy. 
 There will be future occasion to come back upon 
 this all-important feature in connection with the 
 action in Greek sculpture, and even with the draping 
 of their statues in all of which the calm and 
 chaste reserve of the better Greek art contrasts 
 strangely with the Michael Angelos, and Berninis, 
 
 1 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.
 
 84 KAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 and Canovas, of other days ; nay, even with the 
 Greek sculpture of a no less brilliant but less refined 
 age. 
 
 But, in concluding this digression, I will call at- 
 tention to a modern parallel in the portraiture of 
 grief, and of grief at final parting. This parallel is 
 not a piece of sculpture, but a poem, perhaps the 
 most remarkable poem of our generation the In 
 Mcmoriam of Lord Tennyson. Though written 
 from personal feeling, and to commemorate a special 
 person Arthur Hallam whom some of us even 
 knew, has this poem laid hold of the imagination of 
 men strongly and lastingly owing to the poet's 
 special loss ? Certainly not. I do not even think 
 that this great dirge this magnificent funeral poem 
 has excited in most of us any strong interest in 
 Arthur Hallam. In fact, any other friend of the 
 poet's would have suited the general reader equally 
 well as the exciting cause of a poem, which we de- 
 light in because it puts into great words the ever- 
 recurring and permanent features in such grief 
 those dark longings about the future ; those sugges- 
 tions of despair, of discontent with the providence 
 of the world, of wild speculation about its laws ; 
 those struggles to reconcile our own loss, and that of 
 the human race, with some larger law of wisdom 
 and of benevolence. To the poet, of course, his 
 own particular friend was the great centre point of 
 the whole. But to us, in reading it, there is a wide
 
 ATHENS THE TOMBS. 85 
 
 distinction between the personal passages I mean 
 those which give family details, and special circum- 
 stances in Hallam's life, or his intimacy with the 
 poet and the purely poetical or artistic passages, 
 which soar away into a region far above all special 
 detail, and sing of the great gloom which hangs 
 over the future, and of the vehement beating of the 
 human soul against the bars of its prison house, 
 when one is taken, and another left, not merely at 
 apparent random, but with apparent injustice and 
 damage to mankind. Hence, every man in grief 
 for a lost friend will read the poem to his great com- 
 fort, and will then only see clearly what it means ; 
 and he will find it speak to him specially and par- 
 ticularly, not in its personal passages, but in its gen- 
 eral features ; in its hard metaphysics ; in its mys- 
 tical theology j in its angry and uncertain ethics. 
 For even the commonest mind is forced by grief out 
 of its commonness, and attacks the world-problems, 
 which at other times it has no power or taste to ap- 
 proach. 
 
 By this illustration, then, the distinction between 
 the universal and the personal features of grief can 
 be clearly seen ; and the reader will admit that, 
 though it would be most unreasonable to dictate to 
 the poet, or to imagine that he should have omitted 
 the stanzas which refer specially to his friend, and 
 which were to him of vital importance, yet to us it 
 is no loss to forget that name and those circum-
 
 86 KAMBLES IN GREECR 
 
 stances, and hold fast to the really eternal (and be- 
 cause eternal, really artistic) features, in that very 
 noble symphony shall I say of half-resolved dis- 
 cords, or of suspended harmonies, which faith may 
 reconcile, but which reason can hardly analyze or 
 understand ? l 
 
 Within a few minutes' walk of these splendid 
 records of the dead, the traveller who returns to the 
 town across the Observatory Hill will find a very 
 different cemetery. For here he suddenly conies up 
 to a long cleft in the rock, running parallel with the 
 road below, and therefore quite invisible from it. 
 The rising ground towards the city hides it equally 
 from the Acropolis, and accordingly from all Athens. 
 This gorge, some two hundred yards long, sixty 
 wide, and over thirty feet deep, is the notorious 
 Barathrum, the place of execution in old days ; the 
 place where criminals were cast out, and where the 
 public executioner resided. It has been falsely in- 
 ferred by the old scholiasts that the Athenians cast 
 men alive into the pit. It is not nearly deep 
 enough now to cause death in this way, and there 
 seems no reason why its original depth should have 
 been diminished by any accumulation of rubbish, 
 such as is common on inhabited sites. " Casting 
 
 1 In the Adonais, Shelley affords a curious contrast to the some- 
 what morbid prominence of the poet in the case before us. The 
 self-effacement of Shelley has centred all our interest on his lost 
 friend.
 
 ATHENS THE TOMBS. 87 
 
 into the Barathrum " referred rather to the refusing 
 the rights of burial to executed criminals an ad- 
 ditional disgrace, and to the Greeks a grave addi- 
 tional penalty. Honor among the dead was held to 
 follow in exact proportion to the continued honors 
 paid by surviving friends. 
 
 Here, then, out of view of all the temples and 
 hallowed sites of the city, dwelt the public slave, 
 with his instruments of death, perhaps in a cave or 
 grotto, still to be seen in the higher wall of the 
 gorge, and situated close to the point where an old 
 path leads over the hill towards the city. Plato 
 speaks of young men turning aside, as they came 
 from Peirseus, to see the dead lying in charge of 
 this official ; and there must have been times in the 
 older history of Athens when this cleft in the rock 
 was a place of carnage and of horror. The gentler 
 law of later days seems to have felt this outrage on 
 human feeling, and instead of casting the dead into 
 the Barathrum, it was merely added to the sentence 
 that the body should not be buried within the 
 boundaries of Attica. Yet, though the Barathrum 
 may have been no longer used, the accursed gate 
 (;/> TPJ/^) still led to it from the city, and the old 
 associations clung about its gloomy seclusion. Even 
 in the last century, the Turks, whether acting from 
 instinct, or led by old tradition, still used it as a 
 place of execution. 
 
 In the present day, all traces of this hideous his-
 
 88 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 tory have long passed away, and I found a little field 
 of corn waving upon the level ground beneath, 
 which had once been the Acdilama of Athens. 
 But even now there seemed a certain loneliness and 
 weirdness about the place silent and deserted in 
 the midst of thoroughfares, hidden from the haunts 
 of men, and hiding them from view by its massive 
 walls. Nay, as if to bring back the dark memories 
 of the past, great scarlet poppies stained the ground 
 in patches as it were with slaughter, and hawks and 
 ravens were still circling about overhead, as their 
 ancestors did in the days of blood ; attached, I sup- 
 pose, by hereditary instinct to this fatal place, " for 
 where the carcase is ; there shall the eagles be 
 gathered together."
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS. 
 
 I SUPPOSE there can be no doubt whatever that 
 the ruins on the Acropolis of Athens are the most 
 remarkable in the world. There are ruins far 
 larger, such as the pyramids, and the remains of 
 Karnak. There are ruins far more perfectly pre- 
 served, such as the great Temple at Paestum. 
 There are ruins more picturesque, such as the ivy- 
 clad walls of mediaeval abbeys beside the rivers in 
 the rich valleys of England. But there is no ruin, 
 all the world over, which combines so much striking 
 beauty, so distinct a type, so vast a volume of his- 
 tory, so great a pageant of immortal memories. 
 There is, in fact, no building on earth which can 
 sustain the burden of such greatness, and so the first 
 visit to the Acropolis is and must be disappointing. 
 When the traveller reflects how all the Old World's 
 culture culminated in Greece all Greece in Athens 
 all Athens in its Acropolis all the Acropolis in 
 the Parthenon so much crowds upon the mind con- 
 fusedly that we look for some enduring monument 
 whereupon we can fasten our thoughts, and from 
 which we can pass as from a visible starting-point 
 
 89
 
 90 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 into all this history and all this greatness. And at 
 first we look in vain. The shattered pillars and the 
 torn pediments will not bear so great a strain : and 
 the traveller feels forced to admit a sense of disap- 
 pointment, sore against his will. He has come a 
 long journey into the remoter parts of Europe ; he 
 has reached at last what his soul had longed for 
 many years in vain : and as is wont to be the case 
 with all great human longings, the truth does not 
 fulfil his desire. The pang of disappointment is 
 all the greater when he sees that the tooth of time 
 and the shock of earthquake have done but little 
 harm. It is the hand of man of reckless foe and 
 ruthless lover which has robbed him of his hope. 
 This is the feeling, I am sure, of more than have 
 confessed it, when they first wound their way 
 through the fields of great blue aloes, and passed up 
 through the Propylsea into the presence of the Par- 
 thenon. But to those who have not given way to 
 these feelings who have gone again and again and 
 sat upon the rock, and watched the ruins at every 
 hour of the day, and in the brightness of a moon- 
 light night to those who have dwelt among them, 
 arid meditated upon them with love and awe there 
 first come back the remembered glories of Athens's 
 greatness, when Olympian Pericles stood upon this 
 rock with careworn Phidias, and reckless Alcibiades 
 with Pious Nicias and fervent Demosthenes with 
 caustic Phocion when such men peopled the temples
 
 ATHENS THE ACROPOLIS. 91 
 
 in their worship, and all the fluted pillars and sculpt- 
 ured friezes were bright with scarlet, and blue, and 
 gold. And then the glory of remembered history 
 casts its hue over the war-stained remnants. Every 
 touch of human hand, every fluting, and drop, and 
 triglyph, and cornice recalls the master minds which 
 produced this splendor 5 and so at last we tear our- 
 selves from it as from a thing of beauty, which even 
 now we can never know, and love, and meditate 
 upon to our hearts' content. 
 
 Nothing is more vexatious than the reflection, 
 how lately these splendid remains have been re- 
 duced to their present state. The Parthenon, being 
 used as a Greek church, remained untouched and 
 perfect all through the Middle Ages. Then it be- 
 came a mosque, and the Erechtheum a seraglio, and 
 in this way survived with little damage till 1687, 
 when, in the bombardment by the Venetians under 
 Morosini, a shell dropped into the Parthenon, where 
 the Turks had their powder stored, and blew out the 
 whole centre of the building. Eight or nine pillars 
 at each side have been thrown down, and have left a 
 large gap, which so severs the front and rear of the 
 temple, that from the city below they look like the 
 remains of two different buildings. The great drums 
 of these pillars are yet lying there, in their order, 
 just as they fell, and some money and care might 
 set them all up again in their places ; yet there is 
 not in Greece the patriotism or even the common
 
 92 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 sense to enrich the country by this restoration, 
 matchless in its certainty as well as in its splendor. 
 
 But the Venetians were not content with their ex- 
 ploit. They were, about this time, when they held 
 possession of most of Greece, emulating the Pisan 
 taste for Greek sculptures ; and the four fine lions 
 standing at the gate of the arsenal at Venice still 
 testify to their zeal in carrying home Greek trophies 
 to adorn their capital. Morosini wished to take 
 down the sculptures of Phidias from the eastern 
 pediment, but his workmen attempted it so clumsily 
 that the figures fell from their place, and were dashed 
 to pieces on the ground. The Italians also left their 
 lasting mark on the place by building a high square 
 tower of wretched patched masonry at the right 
 side of the entrance gate, which had of late years 
 become such an eyesore to the better educated pub- 
 lic, that when I was first at Athens there was a sub- 
 scription oh foot to have it taken down not only in 
 order to remove an obtrusive reminiscence of the 
 invaders, but in the hope of bringing to light some 
 pillars of the Propylsea built into it, as well as 
 many inscribed stones, broken off and carried away 
 from their places as building material. This expec- 
 tation has not been verified by the results. The 
 tower was taken down by the liberality of M. 
 Schliemann, and there were hardly any inscriptions 
 or sculptures discovered. 
 
 A writer in the {Saturday lievkio (No. 1134)
 
 ATHENS-THE ACROPOLIS. 93 
 
 .attacks this removal of the Venetian tower, and 
 n iv approval of it, as a piece of ignorant and bar- 
 barous pedantry, which from love of the old Greek 
 work, and its sanctity, desires to destroy the later 
 history of the place, and efface the monuments of 
 its fortunes in after ages. 1 This writer, whose per- 
 sonality is unmistakable, thinks that even the Turk- 
 ish additions to the Parthenon should have been left 
 untouched, so that the student of to-day could 
 meditate upon all these incongruities, and draw 
 from them historical lessons. And, assuredly, of all 
 lessons conveyed, that of a victory over the Turks 
 would be to this writer the most important and the 
 most delightful. 
 
 If this great man will not silence us with his 
 authority, but let us argue with him, we might sug- 
 gest that there are, no doubt, cases where the inter- 
 ests of art and of history are conflicting, and where 
 a restoration of pristine beauty must take away 
 from the evidences of later history. The real ques- 
 tion is then, whether the gain in art is greater than 
 the loss in history. In the case of the Parthenon 
 I think it is, now especially, when records and 
 drawings of the inferior additions can be secured. 
 
 1 He also supposed that the tower was Prankish, 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.
 
 94 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 It may be historically important to note the special 
 work and character of every generation of men ; 
 but surely for the education of the human race in 
 the laws of beauty, and in general culture, some 
 ages are worth nothing, and others worth every- 
 thing ; and I will not admit that this sort of educa- 
 tion is one whit less important than education in the 
 facts of history. 
 
 Of course, artistic restorations are often carried 
 too far ; a certain age may be arbitrarily assumed 
 as the canon of perfection, and everything else de- 
 stroyed to make way for it. There are few ages 
 which can lay claim to such pre-eminence as the 
 age of Pericles ; yet even in this case, were the 
 mediaeval additions really beautiful, we should, of 
 course, hesitate to disturb them. But the Venetian 
 tower, though a picturesque addition to the rock 
 when seen from a distance, so much so, that I felt 
 its loss when I saw the Acropolis again, had no 
 claim to architectural beauty ; it was set up in a 
 place sacred to greater associations, and besides 
 there was every reasonable prospect that its removal 
 would subserve historical ends of far more impor- 
 tance than the Venetian occupation of the Acropolis. 
 A few inscriptions of the date of Pericles, contain- 
 ing treaties or other such public matter, would, in 
 my opinion, have perfectly justified its removal, 
 even though it did signify a victory of Christians 
 over Turks.
 
 ATHENS THE ACROPOLIS. 95 
 
 In any case, it seems to me unfair that if every 
 generation is to express its knowledge by material 
 results, we should not be permitted to record our con- 
 viction that old Greek art or old Greek history is far 
 greater and nobler than either Turkish or Venetian 
 history, and to testify this opinion by making their 
 monuments give way to it. This is the mark of our 
 generation on the earth. Thus the eighteenth cen- 
 tury was, no doubt, a most important time in the 
 history even of art, but where noble thirteenth cen- 
 tury churches have been dressed up and loaded with 
 eighteenth century additions, I cannot think the 
 historical value of these additions, as evidence of 
 the taste or the history of their age, counterbalances 
 their artistic mischievousness, and I sympathize with 
 the nations who take them away. Of course, this 
 principle may be overdriven, and has been often 
 abused. Against such abuses the remarks of the 
 great critic to whom I refer are a very salutary 
 protest. But that any barbarous or unsightly de- 
 forming of great artistic monuments is to be pro- 
 tected on historical grounds this is a principle of 
 which neither his genius nor his sneers will convince 
 me. As for the charge of pedantry, no charge is 
 more easily made, but no charge is more easily 
 retorted. 
 
 Strangely enough, his theory of the absolute 
 sanctity of old brick and mortar nearly agrees in 
 results with the absolute carelessness about such
 
 96 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 things, which is the peculiarity of his special ene- 
 mies, the Turks. The Turks, according to Dochvell, 
 who is a most trustworthy witness, never destroyed 
 the old buildings unless they wanted them for ma- 
 sonry. He tells us not to believe that the figures 
 of the remaining pediment were used as targets by 
 the Turkish soldiers a statement often made in his 
 day. However that may be, I have little doubt, 
 from what I saw myself, that Greek soldiers in the 
 present day might so use them. But the Turks did 
 take down some pillars of the Propylaea while Dod- 
 well was there, for building purposes, an occur- 
 rence which gave that excellent observer the oppor- 
 tunity of noting the old Greek way of fitting the 
 drums of the pillars together. He even got into his 
 possession one of the pieces of cypress wood used 
 as plugs between the stone masses, and has given a 
 drawing of it, and explained the method of its use, 
 in his admirable book. 1 
 
 But the same traveller was also present when a 
 far more determined and systematic attack was made 
 upon the remaining ruins of the Parthenon. While 
 he was travelling in the interior, Lord Elgin had 
 obtained his famous firman from the Sultan to take 
 down and remove any antiquities or sculptured 
 stones he might require, and the infuriated Dodwcll 
 
 1 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.
 
 ATHENS THE ACROPOLIS. 97 
 
 saw a set of ignorant workmen, under equally igno- 
 rant overseers, let loose upon the splendid ruins of 
 the age of Pericles. He speaks with much good 
 sense and feeling of this proceeding. He is fully- 
 aware that the world would derive inestimable bene- 
 fit from the transplanting of these splendid frag- 
 ments to a more accessible place, but he cannot find 
 language strong enough to express his disgust at the 
 way in which the thing was done. Incredible as 
 it may appear, Lord Elgin himself seems not to 
 have superintended the work, but to have left it to 
 paid contractors, who undertook the job for a fixed 
 sum. Little as either Turks or Greeks cared for 
 the ruins, Dodwell says that a pang of grief was 
 felt through all Athens at the desecration, and that 
 the contractors were obliged to bribe workmen with 
 additional wages to undertake the ungrateful task. 
 He will not even mention Lord Elgin by name, but 
 speaks of him Avith disgust as " the person " who 
 defaced the Parthenon. He believes that had this 
 person been at Athens himself, his underlings could 
 hardly have behaved in the reckless way they did, 
 pulling down more than they wanted, and taking no 
 care to prop up and save the work from which they 
 had taken the supports. 
 
 He especially notices their scandalous proceeding 
 
 upon taking up one of the great white marble blocks 
 
 which form the floor or stylobate of the temple. 
 
 They wanted to see what was underneath, and Dod- 
 
 7
 
 98 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 well, who was there, saw the foundation a sub- 
 structure of Peirseic sandstone. But when they had 
 finished their inspection they actually left the block 
 they had removed, without putting it back into its 
 place. So this beautiful pavement, made merely of 
 closely-fitting blocks, without any artificial or foreign 
 joinings, was ripped up, and the work of its de- 
 struction begun. I am happy to add that, though a 
 considerable rent was then made, most of it is still 
 intact, and the traveller of to-day may still walk on 
 the very stones which bore the tread of every great 
 Athenian. 
 
 The question has often been discussed, whether 
 Lord Elgin was justified in carrying off this pedi- 
 ment, the metopes, and the friezes, from their place ; 
 and the Greeks of to-day hope confidently that the 
 day will come when England will restore these treas- 
 ures to their place. This is, of course, absurd, and 
 it may fairly be argued that people who would bom- 
 bard their antiquities in a revolution are not fit 
 custodians of them in the intervals of domestic- 
 quiet. This was my reply to an old Greek gentle- 
 man who assailed the memory of Lord Elgin with 
 reproaches. I told him that I was credibly in- 
 formed the Greeks had themselves bombarded the 
 Turks in the Acropolis during the war of liberation, 
 as several great pieces knocked out and starred on 
 the western front testify. He confessed, to my 
 amusement, that he had himself been one of the
 
 ATHENS -THE ACROPOLIS. 99 
 
 assailants, and excused the act by the necessities of 
 war. I replied that, as the country seemed then 
 (1875) on the verge of a revolution, the sculptures 
 might at least remain in the British Museum until a 
 secure government was established. And this is the 
 general verdict of learned men on the matter. 
 They are agreed that it was on the whole a gain to 
 science to remove the figures, but all stigmatize as 
 barbarous and shameful the reckless way in which 
 the work was carried out. 
 
 I confess I approved of this removal until I came 
 home from Greece, and went again to see the spoil 
 in its place in our great Museum. Though there 
 treated with every care though shown to the best 
 advantage, and explained by excellent models of the 
 whole building, and clear descriptions of their place 
 on it notwithstanding all this, the loss that these 
 wonderful fragments had sustained by being sep- 
 arated from their place was so terribly manifest 
 they looked so unmeaning in an English room, away 
 from their temple, their country, and their lovely 
 atmosphere, that one earnestly wished they had 
 never been taken from their place, even at the risk 
 of being made a target by the Greeks or the Turks. 
 I am convinced, too, that the few who would have 
 seen them, as intelligent travellers, on their famous 
 rock, would have gained in quality the advantage 
 now diffused among many, but weakened and almost 
 destroyed by the wrench in associations, when the
 
 100 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 ornament is severed from its surface, and the deco- 
 ration of a temple exhibited apart from the temple 
 itself. We may admit, then, that it had been better 
 if Lord Elgin had never taken away these marbles. 
 Nevertheless, it would be absurd to send them back, 
 as has recently been advocated (in 1890) by some 
 ignorant English sentimentalists. But I do think 
 that the museum on the Acropolis should be pro- 
 vided with a better set of casts of the figures than 
 those which are now to be seen there. They look 
 very wretched, and carelessly prepared. 
 
 There are, indeed, preserved in the little museum 
 on the Acropolis the broken remains of the figures 
 of the eastern pediment, which Morosini and his 
 Venetians endeavored to take down, as I have 
 already told. They are little more than pieces of 
 drapery, of some use in reconstructing the composi- 
 tion, but of none in judging the effect of that famous 
 group. 
 
 But we must not yet enter into this little museum, 
 which is most properly put out of sight, at the low- 
 est or east corner of the rock, and which we do not 
 reach till we have passed through all the ruins. As 
 the traveller stands at the inner gate of the Pro- 
 pylaea, he notices at once all the perfect features of 
 the buildings. Over his head are the enormous 
 architrave-stones of the Propylsea blocks of white 
 marble over twenty-two feet long, which span the 
 gateway from pillar to pillar. Opposite, above him
 
 ATHENS THE ACROPOLIS. 101 
 
 and a little to the right, is the mighty Parthenon, 
 not identical in orientation, as the architects have 
 observed, with the gateway, but varying from it 
 slightly, so that sun and shade would play upon it at 
 moments differing from the rest, and thus produce a 
 perpetual variety of lights. This principle is ob- 
 served in the setting of the Erectheum also. To 
 the left, and directly over the town, stands that 
 beautifully decorated little Ionic temple, or combina- 
 tion of temples, with the stately Caryatids looking 
 inwards and towards the Parthenon. These two 
 buildings are the most perfect examples we have of 
 their respective styles. We see at first sight the 
 object of the artists who built them. The one is 
 the embodiment of majesty, the other of grace. 
 The very ornaments of the Parthenon are large and 
 massive ; those of the Erechtheum for the most 
 part intricate and delicate. Accordingly, the Par- 
 thenon is in the Doric style, or rather in the Doric 
 style so refined and adorned as to be properly called 
 the Attic style. 
 
 For the more we study old Athenian art nay, 
 even old Athenian character generally the more 
 arc we convinced that its greatness consists in the 
 combination of Doric sternness and Ionic grace. 
 It is hardly a mediation between them ; it is the 
 adoption of the finer elements of both, and the 
 union of them into a higher harmony. The most 
 obvious illustration of this is the drama, where the
 
 102 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 Ionic element of recitation and the Doric choral 
 hymn were combined and let me observe that the 
 Ionic element was more modified than the Doric. 
 In the same way Attic architecture used the strength 
 and majesty of the older style which we see at Cor- 
 inth and Passtum ; but relieved it, partly by lighter 
 proportions, partly by rich decorations, which gave 
 the nearer observer an additional and different de- 
 light, while from afar the large features were of the 
 old Doric majesty. Even in the separate decora- 
 tions, such as the metopes and friezes, the graceful 
 women and the long-flowing draperies of the Ionic 
 school were combined with the muscular nakedness 
 of the Doric athlete, as represented by Doric 
 masters. Individual Attic masters worked out 
 these contrasted types completely, as we may see 
 by the Discobolus of Myron, a contemporary of 
 Phidias, and the Apollo Musagetcs of Scopas, who 
 lived somewhat later. 1 
 
 In fact, all Athenian character, in its best days, 
 combined the versatility, and luxury, and fondness 
 of pleasure, which marked the Ionian, with the 
 energy, the public spirit, and the simplicity which 
 was said to mark the better Doric states. The Par- 
 thenon and Erechtheum express all this in visible 
 clearness. The Athenians felt that the Ionic ele- 
 gance and luxury of style was best suited to a small 
 
 1 1 speak, of course, of the copies of these famous statues which 
 are to be seen in the Vatican Museum.
 
 ATHENS THE ACROPOLIS. 103 
 
 building ; and so they lavished ornament and color 
 upon this beautiful little house, but made the Doric 
 temple the main object of all the sacred height. 
 
 It is worth while to consult the professional archi- 
 tects, like Revett, 1 who have examined these build- 
 ings with a critical eye. Not only were the old 
 Athenian architects perfect masters of their mate- 
 rials, of accurate measurement, of precise cor- 
 respondence, of all calculations as to strain and 
 pressure they even for artistic, as well as for prac- 
 tical purposes, deviated systematically from accuracy, 
 in order that the harmony of the building might 
 profit by this imperceptible discord. They gave 
 and took, like a tuner tempering the chords of a 
 musical instrument. The stylobate is not exactly 
 level, but curved so as to rise four inches in the 
 centre ; the piHars, which themselves swell slightly 
 in the middle, are not set perpendicularly, but with 
 a slight incline inwards : and this effect is given in 
 the Caryatids by making them rest their weight on 
 
 1 The illustrated work of Michaelis is probably the most com- 
 plete and critical account both of the plan and the details, which 
 have often been discussed, and especially with great accuracy by 
 Mr. Penrosc, 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 I' Architecture, already translated into 
 English, which is full of most instructing and suggestive observa- 
 tions on Greek architecture; also to M. E. Bournouf's Acropole 
 d'Athcnes.
 
 104 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 the outer foot at each corner, as Viollet-le-duc has 
 admirably explained. Again, the separation of the 
 pillars is less at the corners, and gradually increases 
 as you approach the centre of the building. The 
 base of the pediment is not a right line, but is 
 curved downward. It is not my province to go into 
 minute details on such points, which can only be 
 adequately discussed by architects. What I have 
 here to note is, that the old Greek builders had gone 
 beyond mere mathematical accuracy and regularity. 
 They knew a higher law than the slavish repetition 
 of accurate distances or intervals ; they had learned 
 to calculate effects, to allow for optical illusions ; 
 they knew how to sacrifice real for ideal sym- 
 metry. 
 
 The sculptures of the Parthenon have given rise 
 to a very considerable literature so considerable 
 that the books and treatises upon them now amount 
 to a respectable library. The example was set by 
 the architect of the building itself, Ictinus, who wrote 
 a special treatise on his masterpiece. As is well 
 known, it was sketched in chalk by the French 
 painter, Jacques Carrey, a few years before the ex- 
 plosion of 1687; and though he had but very im- 
 perfect notions of Greek art, and introduced a good 
 deal of seventeenth century style into the chaste 
 designs of Phidias, still these drawings, of which 
 there are copies in the British Museum, are of great
 
 ATHENS THE ACROPOLIS. 105 
 
 value in helping us to put together the broken and 
 imperfect fragments which remain. 1 
 
 The sculptured decorations of the building are of 
 three kinds, or applied in three distinct places. In 
 the first place, the two triangular pediments over the 
 east and west front were each filled with a group of 
 statues more than life-size the one representing 
 the birth of Athene, and the other her contest with 
 Poseidon for the patronage of Athens. Some of the 
 figures from one of these are the great draped head- 
 less women in the centre of the Parthenon room of 
 the British Museum : other fragments of those 
 broken by the Venetians are preserved at Athens. 
 There are, secondly, the metopes, or plaques of stone 
 inserted into the frieze between the triglyphs, and 
 carved in relief with a single small group on each. 
 The height of these surfaces does not exceed four 
 feet. There was, thirdly, a band of reliefs running 
 all around the external wall at the top of the cella, 
 inside the surrounding pillars, and opposite to them, 
 and this is known as the frieze, of the cella. It con- 
 sists of a great Panathenaic procession, starting from 
 the western front, and proceeding in two divisions 
 along the parallel north and south walls, till they 
 meet on the eastern front, which was the proper 
 front of the temple. Among the Elgin marbles 
 there are a good many of the metopes, and also of 
 
 1 They will be most readily consulted in the plates of Michaelis's 
 Parthenon.
 
 106 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 the pieces of the cella frieze preserved. Several 
 other pieces of the frieze are preserved at Athens, 
 and altogether we can reconstruct fully three-fourths 
 of this magnificent composition. 
 
 There seems to me the greatest possible difference 
 in merit between the metopes and the other two 
 parts of the ornament. The majority of the metopes 
 which I have seen represent either a Greek and an 
 Amazon or a Centaur and Lapith, in violent conflict. 
 It appeared plainly to me that the main object of 
 these contorted groups was to break in upon the 
 squareness and straightness of all the other members 
 of the Doric frieze and architrave. This is admir- 
 ably done, as there is no conceivable design which 
 more completely breaks the stiff rectangles of the 
 entablature than the various and violent curves of 
 wrestling figures. But, otherwise, these groups do 
 not appear to me very interesting, except so far as 
 everything in such a place, and the work of such 
 hands, must be interesting. 
 
 It is very different with the others. Of these the 
 pediment sculptures which were, of course, the 
 most important, and which were probably the finest 
 groups ever designed are so much destroyed or 
 mutilated that the effect of the composition is en- 
 tirely lost, and we can only admire the matchless 
 power and grace of the torsos which remain. The 
 grouping of the figures was limited, and indicated 
 by the triangular shape of the surface to be deco-
 
 ATHENS-THE ACROPOLIS. 107 
 
 rated standing figures occupying the centre, while 
 recumbent or stooping figures occupied the ends. 
 But, as in poetry, where the shackles of rhyme and 
 metre, which encumber the thoughts of ordinary 
 writers, are the very source which produces in the 
 true poet the highest and most precious beauties of 
 expression; so in sculpture and painting, fixed con- 
 ditions seem not to injure, but to enhance and per- 
 fect, the beauty and symmetry attainable in the 
 highest art. We have apparently in the famous 
 Niobe group, preserved in Florence, the elements 
 of a similar composition, perhaps intended to fill 
 the triangular tympanum of a temple ; and even in 
 these weak Roman copies of a Greek masterpiece 
 we can see how beautifully the limited space given 
 to the sculpture determined the beauty and variety 
 of the figures, and their attitudes. It was in this 
 genius of grouping that I fancy Phidias chiefly 
 excelled all his contemporaries : single statues of 
 Polycletus are said to have been preferred in com- 
 petitions. To us the art of the Discobokts of Myron 
 seems fully as great as that of any of the figures of 
 the Parthenon ; but no other artist seems to have 
 possessed the same architectonic power of adapting 
 large subjects and processions of figures to their 
 places as Phidias. 1 How far he was helped or 
 
 1 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
 
 108 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 advised by Ictinus, or even by Pericles, it is not 
 easy to say. But I do not fancy that Greek states- 
 men in those days studied everything else in the 
 world besides statecraft, and were known as anti- 
 quaries, and linguists, and connoisseurs of china and 
 paintings, and theologians, and novelists in fact, 
 everything under the sun. This many-sidedness, 
 as they now call it, which the Greeks called ~oXu- 
 xpay/ioawy, and thought to be meddlesomeness, was 
 not likely to infect Pericles. He was very intimate 
 with Phidias, and is said to have constantly watched 
 his work hardly, I fancy, as an adviser, but rather 
 as an humble and enthusiastic admirer of an art which 
 did realize its ideal, while he himself was striving in 
 vain with rebel forces to attain his object in politics. 
 The extraordinary power of grouping in the 
 designs of Phidias is, however, very completely 
 shown us in the better preserved band of the cella 
 frieze, along which the splendid Panathenaic pro- 
 cession winds its triumphal way. Over the eastern 
 doorway were twelve noble sitting figures on either 
 side of the officiating priest, presenting the state 
 robe, or peplos, for the vestment of Athene. These 
 figures are explained as gods by the critics ; but 
 they do not in either beauty or dignity, excel those 
 
 they show a great talent in the composition, the defects in exe- 
 cution 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.
 
 ATHENS THE ACROPOLIS. 109 
 
 of many of the Athenians forming the procession. 
 A very tine slab, containing three of these figures, 
 is now to be seen in the little museum in the Acropo- 
 lis. This group over the main entrance is the end 
 and summary of all the procession, and corresponds 
 with the yearly ceremony in this way, that, as the 
 state entrance, or Propylsea, led into the Acropolis 
 at the west end, or rear of the Parthenon, the pro- 
 cession in all probability separated into two, which 
 went along both sides of the colonnade, and met 
 again at the eastern door. Accordingly, over the 
 western end, or rear, the first preparations of the 
 procession are being made, which then starts along 
 the north and south walls ; the southern being chiefly 
 occupied with the cavalcade of the Athenian knights, 
 the northern with the carrying of sacred vessels 
 and leading of victims for the sacrifice. The frieze 
 over the western door is still in its place ; but, hav- 
 ing lost its bright coloring, and being in any case 
 at a great height, and only visible from close under- 
 neath, on account of the pillars and architrave in 
 front, it produces no effect, and is hardly discernible. 
 Indeed it evidently was never more than an archi- 
 tectural ornament, in spite of all its artistic beauty. 
 The greater number of the pieces carried away by 
 Lord Elgin seem taken from the equestrian portion, 
 in which groups of cantering and curveting horses, 
 and men in the act of mounting, and striving to 
 curb restive steeds, are brought together with extra-
 
 110 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 ordinary effect. We can see plainly how important 
 a part of Athenian splendor depended upon their 
 knights, and how true are the hints of Aristo- 
 phanes about their social standing and aristocratic 
 tone. The reins and armor, or at least portions of 
 it, were laid on in metal, and have accordingly been 
 long since plundered ; nor has any obvious trace 
 remained of the rich colors with which the whole 
 was painted. There appears no systematic uniform, 
 some of the riders being dressed in helmets and 
 cuirasses, some in felt wide-awakes, and short flying 
 cloaks. It must remain uncertain whether the 
 artist did not seek to obtain variety by this devia- 
 tion from a fixed dress. There can be no doubt that 
 Greek art was very bold and free in such matters. 
 On the other hand, the type of the faces does not 
 exhibit much variety. At the elevation above the 
 spectator which this frieze occupied, individual ex- 
 pression would have been thrown away on figures of 
 three feet in height : the general dress, and the atti- 
 tudes, may have been, when colored, easily discernible. 
 But I confess that this equestrian procession does 
 not appear to me so beautiful as the rows of figures on 
 foot (carrying pitchers and other implements, leading 
 victims, and playing pipes), which seem to come 
 from the north Avail, and of which the most beautiful 
 slabs are preserved at Athens. Here we can see 
 best of all that peculiar stamp which shows the age 
 of Phidias to have been the most perfect in the whole
 
 Part of the West Frieze of the Parthenon, Athens
 
 ATHENS THE ACROPOLIS. Ill 
 
 of Greek sculpture. This statement will not be 
 accepted readily by the general public. The Apollo 
 Belvedere, the Capitoline Venus, the Dying Gladia- 
 tor these are what we have been usually taught to 
 regard as the greatest wonders of Greek plastic art ; 
 and those who have accustomed themselves to this 
 realistic and sensuous beauty will not easily see the 
 greatness and the perfection of the solemn and chaste 
 art of Phidias. 
 
 Nevertheless, it will always be held by men who 
 have thought long enough on the subject, that the 
 epoch when Myron and Phidias, Polycletus and 
 Polygnotus, broke loose from archaic stiffness into 
 flowing grace was, indeed, the climax of the arts. 
 There seems a sort of natural law of slow and 
 painful origin of growing development of sudden 
 bloom into perfection of luxury and effeminacy 
 of gradual debasement and decay which affects 
 almost all the arts as well as most of the growths 
 of nature. In Greek art particularly this phenom- 
 enon perpetually reappears. There can be little 
 doubt that the Iliad of Homer was the first and 
 earliest long creation in poetry, the first attempt, 
 possibly Avith the aid of writing, to rise from short 
 disconnected lays to the greatness of a formal epic. 
 And despite all its defects of plan, its want of firm 
 consistency, and its obvious incongruities, this great- 
 est of all poems has held its place against the more 
 finished and interesting Odyssey, the more elaborated
 
 112 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 Cyclic poems, the more learned Alexandrian epics 
 in fact, the first full bloom of the art was by far the 
 most perfect. It is the same thing with Greek 
 tragedy. No sooner had the art escaped from the 
 rude wagon, or stage, or whatever it was, of Thespis, 
 than we find ^-Esehylus, with imperfect appliances, 
 with want of experience, Avith many crudenesses and 
 defects, a tragic poet never equalled again in Greek 
 history. Of course the modern critics of his own 
 country preferred, first Sophocles, and then Euripides 
 great poets, as Praxiteles and Lysippus were great 
 sculptors, and like them, perhaps, greater masters of 
 human passion and of soul-stirring pathos. But for 
 all that, ^Eschylus is the tragic poet of the Greeks 
 the poet who has reached beyond his age and 
 nation, and fascinated the greatest men even of our 
 century, who seek not to turn back upon his great 
 but not equal rivals. Shelley and Mr. Swinburne 
 have both made ^Eschylus their master, and to his 
 inspiration owe the most splendid of their works. 
 
 I will not prosecute these considerations further, 
 though there may be other examples in the history 
 of art. But I will say this much concerning the 
 psychological reasons of so strange a phenomenon. 
 It may, of course, be assumed that the man who 
 breaks through the old, stiff conventional style 
 which has bound his predecessors with its shackles 
 is necessarily a man of strong and original genius. 
 Thus, when we are distinctly told of Polygnotus that
 
 ATHENS THE ACROPOLIS. 113 
 
 he first began to vary the features of the human 
 face from their archaic stiffness, we have before us 
 a man of bold originality, who quarrelled with the 
 tradition of centuries, and probably set against him 
 all the prejudices and the consciences of the graver 
 public. But to us, far different features seem promi- 
 nent. For in spite of all his boldness, when we 
 compare him with his forerunners, we are struck 
 with his modesty and devoutness, as compared with 
 his successors. There is in him, first, a devoutness 
 toward his work, an old-fashioned piety, which they 
 had not ; and as art in this shape is almost always 
 a handmaid of religion, this devoutness is a prom- 
 inent feature. Next, there is a certain reticence and 
 modesty in such a man, which arises partly from the 
 former feeling, but still more from a conservative 
 fear of violent change, and a healthy desire to make 
 his work not merely a contrast to, but a develop- 
 ment of, the older traditions. Then the old draped 
 goddess of religious days, such as the Venus Genitrix 
 in Florence, made way for the splendid but yet more 
 human handling which we may see in the Venus of 
 Melos, noAv in the Louvre. This half-draped but 
 yet thoroughly new and chaste conception leads 
 naturally to the type said to have been first dared 
 by Praxiteles, who did not disguise the use of very 
 unworthy human models to produce his famous, or 
 perhaps infamous ideal, which is best known in the 
 Venus tie Medici, but perhaps more perfectly repre- 
 
 8
 
 ]14 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 sented in the Venus of the Capitol. There is, too, in 
 the earlier artist that limited mastery over materials, 
 which, like the laws of the poet's language, only 
 condenses and intensifies the beauty of his work. 
 
 Such reserve, as compared with the later phases 
 of the art, is nowhere so strongly shown as in the 
 matter of expression. This is, indeed, the rock on 
 which most arts have ultimately made shipwreck. 
 When the power over materials and effects becomes 
 complete, so that the artist can as it were perform 
 feats of conquest ; when at the same time the feeling 
 has died out that he is treading upon holy ground, 
 we have splendid achievements in the way of intense 
 expression, whether physical or mental, of force, of 
 momentary action, of grief or joy, which are good 
 and great, but which lead imitators into a false 
 track, and so ruin the art which they were thought 
 to perfect. Thus over-reaching itself, art becomes 
 an anxious striving after display, and, like an 
 affected and meretricious woman, repels the sounder 
 natures which had else been attracted by her beauty. 
 In Greek art especially, as I have already noticed 
 in discussing the Attic tomb reliefs, this excess of 
 expression was long and well avoided, and there is 
 no stronger and more marked feature in its good 
 epochs than the reserve of which I have spoken. 
 It is the chief quality which makes the school of 
 Phidias matchless. There is in it beauty of form, 
 there is a good deal of action, there is in the frieze
 
 ATHENS THE ACROPOLIS. 115 
 
 an almost endless variety ; but withal there is the 
 strictest symmetry, the closest adherence to fixed 
 types, the absence of all attempt at expressing pass- 
 ing emotion. There is still the flavor of the old 
 stiff simplicity about the faces, about the folds of 
 the robes, about the type of the horses; but the 
 feeling of the artist shines through the archaic 
 simplicity with much clearer light than it does in 
 the more ambitious attempts of the later school. 
 The greatest works of Phidias his statue of Zeus 
 at Elis, and his Athene in the Parthenon are lost 
 to us ; but the ancients are unanimous that for 
 simple and sustained majesty no succeeding sculptor, 
 however brilliant, had approached his ideal. 1 
 
 We may say almost the same of the great temple 
 which he adorned with his genius. It is just that 
 perfection of the Doric temple which has escaped 
 from the somewhat ponderous masaiveness and sim- 
 plicity of the older architecture, while it sacrificed 
 no element of majesty to that grace and delicacy 
 which marks later and more developed Greek archi- 
 tecture. On this Acropolis the Athenians deter- 
 mined to show what architecture could reach in 
 majesty and what in delicacy. So they set up the 
 
 1 It is very uncertain, perhaps unlikely, that any of the archi- 
 tectural 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.
 
 116 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 Parthenon in that absolute perfection where strength 
 and solidity come out enhanced, but in no way over- 
 laid, with ornament. They also built the Erech- 
 theum, where they adopted the Ionic Order, and 
 covered their entablature with bands of small and 
 delicate tracing, which, with its gilding and coloring, 
 was a thing to be studied minutely and from the 
 nearest distance. Though the inner columns of the 
 Propylsea were Ionic (and they were very large), it 
 appears that large temples in that Order were not 
 known in Attica. But for small and graceful build- 
 ings it was commonly used, and of these the Erech- 
 theum was the most perfect. 
 
 In its great days, and even as Pausanias saw it, 
 the Acropolis was covered with statues, as well as 
 with shrines. It was not merely an Holy of Holies 
 in religion ; it was also a palace and museum of art. 
 At every step and turn the traveller met new objects 
 of interest. There were archaic specimens, chiefly 
 interesting to the antiquarian and the devotee ; there 
 were the great masterpieces which were the joint 
 admiration of the artist and the vulgar. Even all 
 the sides and slopes of the great rock were honey- 
 combed into sacred grottos, with their altars and 
 their gods, or studded with votive monuments. All 
 these lesser things are fallen away and gone ; the 
 sacred caves are filled with rubbish and desecrated 
 with worse than neglect. The grotto of Pnn and 
 Apollo is difficult of access, and was, when I first
 
 ATHENS THE ACROPOLIS. 117 
 
 saw it, an object of disgust rather than of interest. 
 There are left but the remnants of the surrounding 
 wall, and the ruins of the three principal buildings, 
 which were the envy and wonder of all the civilized 
 world. 
 
 The walls are particularly well worth studying, 
 as there are to be found in them specimens of all 
 kinds of building, beginning from prehistoric times. 
 There is even plain evidence that the builders of the 
 age of Pericles were not by any means the best wall 
 builders ; for the masonry of the wall called the 
 Wall of Themistocles, which is well preserved in 
 the lowest part of the course along the north slope, 
 is by far the most beautifully finished work of the 
 kind which can anywhere be seen : and it seems to 
 correspond accurately to the lower strata of the 
 foundations on which the Parthenon was built. The 
 builders of Periclcs's time added a couple of layers 
 of stone to raise the site of the temple, and their 
 Avork contrasts curiously in its roughness with the 
 older platform. Any one who will note the evident 
 admiration of Thucydides for the walls built round 
 the Peirseus by the men of an earlier generation will 
 see good reason for this feeling when they examine 
 these details. 
 
 The beautiful little temple of Athena Nike, though 
 outside the Propylsea thrust out as it were on a 
 sort of great bastion high on the right as you enter 
 must still be called a part, and a very striking
 
 118 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 part, of the Acropolis. It is only of late years that 
 the site has been cleared of rubbish and modern 
 stonework, and the temple rebuilt from the original 
 materials, thus destroying, no doubt, some precious 
 traces of Turkish occupation which the fastidious 
 historian may regret, but realizing to us a beautiful 
 Greek temple of the Ionic Order in some complete- 
 ness. The peculiarity of this building, which is 
 perched upon a platform of stone and commands a 
 splendid prospect, is, that its tiny peribolus, or 
 sacred enclosure, was surrounded by a parapet of 
 stone slabs covered with exquisite reliefs of winged 
 Victories, in various attitudes. Some of these slabs 
 are now in the Museum of the Acropolis, and are of 
 great interest apparently less severe than the 
 school of Phidias, and therefore later in date, but 
 still of the best epoch and of marvellous grace. 
 The position of this temple also is not parallel with 
 the Propylsea, but turned slightly outward, so that 
 the light strikes it at moments when the other build- 
 ing is not illuminated. At the opposite side is a 
 very well preserved chamber, and a fine colonnade 
 at right angles with the gate, which looks like a 
 guard-room. This is the chamber commonly called 
 the Pinacotheca, where Pausanias saw pictures of 
 frescoes by Polygnotus. 
 
 Of the two museums on the Acropolis, the princi- 
 pal one requires little comment and is very easily 
 seen and appreciated. In an ante-room are the
 
 ATHENS THE ACROPOLIS. 119 
 
 archaic figures of which I have already spoken, 
 with the remains taken from about the Parthenon, 
 together with casts of the Elgin marbles, and many 
 small and beautiful reliefs, apparently belonging to 
 votive monuments. There are also two figures of 
 young men, with the heads and feet lost, which are 
 of peculiarly beautiful Parian marble, and of very 
 fine workmanship. But the visitor is very likely 
 to pass by the little Turkish house, which is well 
 worth a visit, for here are the cypress plugs from 
 the pillars of the Parthenon or Propylsea j here are 
 also splendid specimens of archaic vases, such as are 
 very hard indeed to find in any other collection. 
 The large jars from Mclos which are here to be 
 seen have the most striking resemblance in their 
 decoration to the fragment of a similar vessel, with 
 a row of armed figures round it, which was found 
 at Mycense, and is now in the Ministry of Public 
 Instruction. Lastly, there stands in the window a 
 very delicately worked little Satyr, as the pointed 
 ears and tail show, but of voluptuous form rather 
 of the hermaphrodite type : there is hardly a better 
 preserved statuette than this anywhere at Athens. 
 It seemed a pity that such a gem should be hidden 
 away in so obscure a place ; and I hope that by this 
 time it has been brought into the larger and official 
 museum. 
 
 I will venture to conclude this chapter with a curi- 
 ous comparison. It was my good fortune, a few
 
 120 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 months after I had seen the Acropolis, to visit a 
 rock in Ireland, which, to my great surprise, bore 
 many curious analogies to it I mean the rock of 
 Cashel. Both were strongholds of religion hon- 
 ored and hallowed above all other places in their 
 respective countries both were covered with build- 
 ings of various dates, each representing peculiar 
 ages and styles in art. And as the Greeks, I sup- 
 pose for effect's sake, have varied the posture of 
 their temples, so that the sun illumines them at dif- 
 ferent moments, the old Irish have varied the orien- 
 tation of their churches that the sun might rise 
 directly over against the east window on the anni- 
 versary of the patron saint. There is at Cashel the 
 great Cathedral in loftiness and grandeur the Par- 
 thenon of the place ; there is the smaller and more 
 beautiful Cormac's Chapel, the holiest of all, like 
 the Erechtheum at Athens. Again, the great sanc- 
 tuary upon the Rock of Cashel was surrounded by 
 a cluster of abbeys about its base, which were 
 founded there by pious men on account of the great- 
 ness and holiness of the archiepiscopal seat. Of 
 these, one remains, like the Theseum at Athens, 
 eclipsed by the splendor of the Acropolis. 
 
 The prospect from the Irish sanctuary has, indeed, 
 endless contrasts to that from the pagan stronghold, 
 but they are suggestive contrasts, and such as arc 
 not without a certain harmony. The plains around 
 both are framed by mountains, of which the Irish
 
 ATHENS THE ACROPOLIS. 121 
 
 are probably the more picturesque ; and if the light 
 upon the Greek hills is the fairest, the native color 
 of the Irish is infinitely more rich. So, again, the 
 soil of Attica is light and dusty, whereas the Golden 
 Vale of Tippcrary is among the richest and greenest 
 in the world. Still, both places were the noblest 
 homes, each in their own country, of religions which 
 civilized, humanized, and exalted the human race ; 
 and if the Irish Acropolis is left in dim obscurity 
 by the historical splendor of the Parthenon, on the 
 other hand, the gods of the Athenian stronghold 
 have faded out before the moral greatness of the 
 faith preached from the Rock of Cashel.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ATHENS THE THEATRE OF DIONYSUS THE ARE- 
 OPAGUS. 
 
 THERE are few recent excavations about Athens 
 which have been so productive as those along the 
 south slope of the Acropolis. In the conflicts and 
 the wear of ages a vast quantity of earth, and walls, 
 and fragments of buildings has either been cast, or 
 has rolled, down this steep descent, so that it was 
 with a certainty of good results that the Archaeo- 
 logical Society of Athens undertook to clear this side 
 of the rock of all the accumulated rubbish. Sev- 
 eral precious inscriptions were found, which had 
 been thrown down from the rock ; and in April, 
 1884, the whole plan of the temple of ^sculapius 
 had been uncovered, and another step attained in 
 fixing the much disputed topography of this part of 
 Athens. 
 
 And yet we can hardly call this a beginning. 
 Some twenty-five years ago, a very extensive and 
 splendidly successful excavation was made on an ad- 
 joining site, when a party of German archaeologists 
 laid bare the Theatre of Dionysus the great theatre 
 in which yEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides brought 
 
 122
 

 
 Theatre of Dionysus, Athens
 
 THEATRE OF DIONYSUS. 123 
 
 out their immortal plays before an immortal audi- 
 ence. There is nothing more delightful than to de- 
 scend from the Acropolis, and rest awhile in the 
 comfortable marble arm-chairs with which the front 
 row of the circuit is occupied. They are of the 
 pattern usual with the sitting portrait statues of 
 the Greeks very deep, and with a curved back, 
 which exceeds both in comfort and in grace any 
 chairs designed by modern workmen. 1 Each chair 
 has the name of a priest inscribed on it, showing 
 how the theatre among the Greeks corresponded to 
 our cathedral, and this front row to the stalls of 
 canons and prebendaries. 
 
 But unfortunately all this sacerdotal prominence 
 is probably the work of the later restorers of the 
 theatre. For after having been first beautified and 
 adorned with statues by Lycurgus (in Demosthcnes's 
 time), it was again restored and embellished by 
 Herodes Atticus, or about his time, so that the the- 
 atre, as we now have it, can only be called the 
 building of the second or third century after Christ. 
 The front wall of the stage, which is raised some 
 feet above the level of the empty pit, is adorned 
 with a row of very elegant sculptures, amongst 
 which one a shaggy old man, in a stooping posture, 
 
 1 This very pattern, in mahogany, with cane seats, and adapted, 
 like all Greek chairs, for loose cushions, was often used in eigh- 
 teenth century work, and may still be found in old Irish mansions 
 furnished at that epoch.
 
 124 RAMBLES IN GKEECE. 
 
 represented as coming out from within, and holding 
 up the stone above him is particularly striking. 
 Some Greek is said to have knocked off, by way of 
 amusement, the heads of most of these figures since 
 they were discovered, but this I do not know upon 
 any better authority than ordinary report. The pit 
 or centre of the theatre is empty, and was never in 
 Greek days occupied by seats, but a wooden struct- 
 ure was set up in advance of the stage, and on this 
 the chorus performed their dances and sang their 
 odes. But now there is a circuit of upright slabs 
 of stone close to the front seats, which can hardly 
 have been an arrangement of the old Greek theatre. 
 They are generally supposed to have been added 
 when the building came to be used for contests of 
 gladiators, which Dion Chrysostom tells us were im- 
 ported from Corinth in his day. 
 
 All these later additions and details are, I fear, 
 calculated to detract from the reader's interest in 
 this theatre, which I should indeed regret for 
 nothing can be more certain than that this is the 
 veritable stone theatre which was built when the 
 wooden one broke down, at the great competition of 
 ^Esehylus and Pratinas ; and though front seats may 
 have been added, and slight modifications introduced, 
 the general structure can never have required alter- 
 ation. The main body of the curved rows of seats 
 have no backs, but are so deep as to leave plenty of 
 room for the feet of the people next above ; and I
 
 THEATRE OF DIONYSUS. 125 
 
 fancy that in the old times the xposopla or right of 
 sitting in the front rows was not given to priests, 
 but to foreign embassies, along with the chief magis- 
 trates of Athens. The cost of admission was two 
 obols to all the scats of the house not specially re- 
 served, and such reservation was only for persons 
 of official rank, and by no means for richer people, 
 or for a higher entrance money a thing which 
 would not have been tolerated, I believe, for an 
 instant by the Athenian democracy. 1 When the 
 state treasury grew full with the tribute of the sub- 
 ject cities, the citizens had this sum, and at times 
 even more, distributed to them in order that no one 
 might be excluded from the annual feast, and so the 
 whole free population of Athens came together with- 
 out expense to worship the gods by enjoying them- 
 selves in this great theatre. 
 
 It is indeed very large, though exaggerated state- 
 ments have been made about its size. It is gener- 
 ally stated that the enormous number of thirty 
 thousand people could fit into it a statement I think 
 incredible ; 2 and it is not nearly as large as other 
 
 1 I state this because many critics have drawn an opposite infer- 
 ence from a mistranslation of a passage in Plato (Apol. 26, E). 
 
 " The exact number, according to Papadakis (cf. A. Miiller, 
 Biihnenalt, 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. Dorpfeld ,m 1889. This mistake is also due to mis- 
 understanding a passage in Plato's Symposium, which says that
 
 126 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 theatres I have seen, at Syracuse, at Megalopolis, or 
 even at Argos. This also is certain, that any one 
 speaking on the stage, as it now is, can be easily 
 and distinctly heard by people sitting on the highest 
 row of seats now visible, which cannot, I fancy, 
 have been far from the original top of the house. 
 Such a thing were impossible where thirty thousand 
 people, or a crowd approaching that number, were 
 seated. We hear, however, that the old actors had 
 recourse to various artificial means of increasing the 
 range of their voices, which shows that in some 
 theatres the difficulty was felt ; and in the extant 
 plays, asides are so rare ' that it must have been dif- 
 ficult to give them with effect. 
 
 In one respect, however, the voice must have been 
 more easily heard through the old house than it now 
 is through the ruins. The back of the stage was 
 built up with a high wooden structure to represent 
 fixed scenes, and even a sort of upper story on which 
 gods and flying figures sometimes appeared an 
 arrangement which of course threw the voice for- 
 ward into the theatre. There used to be an old 
 idea, not perhaps yet extinct, that the Greek audi- 
 ences had the lovely natural scenery of their country 
 for their stage decoration, and that they embraced in 
 one view the characters on the stage, and the coasts 
 
 " Agathon, whom 30,000 citizens hear ". It is not said that 
 
 they heard him at the same time. 
 
 1 Cf. on this point my History of Greek Literature, i. p. 345.
 
 THEATRE OF DIONYSUS. 127 
 
 and islands for miles behind them. Nothing can be 
 more absurd, or more opposed to Greek feeling on 
 such matters. In the first place, as is well known, 
 a feeling for the beauty of landscape as such was 
 almost foreign to the Greeks, who never speak of 
 the picturesque in their literature without special 
 relation to the sounds of natui'e, or to the intelli- 
 gences which were believed to pervade and animate 
 it : a fine view as such had little attraction for them. 
 In the second place, they came to the theatre to 
 enjoy poetry, and the poetry of character, of pas- 
 sion, of the relation of man and his destiny to the 
 course of Divine Providence and Divine justice in 
 short, to assume a frame of mind perfectly incon- 
 sistent with the distractions of landscape. For that 
 purpose they had their stage, as we now know, filled 
 in at the back with high painted scenes, which 
 in earlier days were made of light woodwork and 
 canvas, to bear easy removal, or change, but which 
 in most Grajco-Roman theatres, like the very per- 
 fect one at Aspendus, or indeed that of Herodes 
 Atticus close by at Athens, were a solid structure 
 of at least two stories high, which absolutely ex- 
 cluded all prospect. 
 
 But even had the Athenians not been protected 
 by this arrangement from outer disturbance, I found 
 by personal investigation that there was no view for 
 them to enjoy ! Except from the highest tiers, and 
 therefore from the worst places, the sea and islands
 
 128 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 are not visible, and the only view to be obtained, 
 supposing that houses did not obstruct it, would 
 have been the dull, somewhat bleak, undulating 
 hills which stretch between the theatre and Pha- 
 lerum. 
 
 The back scenes of the Greek theatres were 
 painted as ours are, and at first, I suppose, very 
 rudely indeed, for we hear particularly of a certain 
 Agatharchus, who developed the art of scene-paint- 
 ing by adopting perspective. 1 The other appurte- 
 nances of the Greek theatre were equally rude, or 
 perhaps I should say equally stiff and conventional, 
 and removed from any attempt to reproduce ordinary 
 life at least this was the case with their tragedy, 
 their satyric dramas, and their older comedy, which 
 dealt in masks, in fixed stage dresses, in tragic pad- 
 ding, and stuffing-out to an unnatural size, in comic 
 distortions and indecent emblems in all manner of 
 conventional ugliness, we should say, handed down 
 from the first religious origin of these performances, 
 and maintained with that strict conservatism which 
 marks the course of all great Greek art. The stage 
 was long and narrow, the means of changing scenes 
 cumbrous and not frequently employed ; the number 
 of the actors in tragedy strictly limited four is 
 an unusual number, exceptionally employed in the 
 second (Edipus of Sophocles. In fact, we cannot 
 
 1 Cf. on the details of Greek painting the last chapter of my 
 Soeicd Life in (jreece.
 
 THEATRE OF DIONYSUS. 129 
 
 say that the Greek drama ever became externally 
 like ours till the comedies of Menander and his 
 school. These poets, living in an age when serious 
 interests had decayed, when tragedy had ceased to 
 be religious, and comedy political, when neither was 
 looked upon any longer as a great public engine of 
 instruction or of censure, turned to pictures of social 
 life, not unlike our genteel comedy ; and in this 
 species of drama we may assert that the Greeks, 
 except perhaps for masks, imitated the course of 
 ordinary life. 
 
 It is indeed said of Euripides, the real father of 
 this new comedy, that he brought down the tragic 
 stage from ideal heroism to the passions and mean- 
 nesses of ordinary men j and Sophocles, his rival, 
 the supposed perfection of an Attic tragedian, is 
 reputed to have observed that he himself had repre- 
 sented men as they ought to be, Euripides as they 
 were. But any honest reader of Euripides will see 
 at once how far he too is removed from the ordinary 
 realisms of life. Pie saw, indeed, that human passion 
 is the subject, of all others, which will permanently 
 interest human thought ; he felt that the insoluble 
 problems of Free Will and Fate, of the mercy and 
 the cruelty of Providence, were too abstract on the 
 one hand, and too specially Greek on the other ; 
 that, after all, human nature as such is the great 
 universal Held on which any age can reach the 
 sympathy and the interest of its remotest successors. 
 
 9
 
 130 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 But the passions painted by Euripides were no 
 ordinary passions they were great and unnatural 
 crimes, forced upon suffering mortals by the action 
 of hostile deities ; the virtues of Euripides were no 
 ordinary virtues they were great heroic self-sacri- 
 fices, and showed the Divine element in our nature, 
 which no tyranny of circumstances can efface. His 
 Phaedra and Medea on the one hand, his Alcestis 
 and Iphigenia on the other, were strictly characters 
 as they ought to be in tragedy, and not as they 
 commonly are in life ; and in outward performance 
 Euripides did not depart from the conventional stiff- 
 ness, from the regular development, from the some- 
 what pompous and artificial dress in which tragedy 
 had been handed down to him by his masters. 
 
 They, too, had not despised human nature how 
 could they ? Both .^Eschylus and Sophocles were great 
 painters of human character, as well in its passions as in 
 its reasonings. But the former had made it accessory, 
 so to speak, to the great religious lessons which he 
 taught ; the latter had at least affected to do so, or 
 imagined that he did, while really the labyrinths of 
 human character had enticed and held him in their 
 endless maze. Thus, all through Greek tragedy 
 there was on the one hand a strong element of con- 
 ventional stiffness, of adherence to fixed subjects, 
 and scenes, and masks, and dresses of adherence 
 to fixed metres, and regular dialogues, where ques- 
 tion and answer were balanced line for line, and the
 
 THEATRE OF DIONYSUS. 131 
 
 cast of characters was as uniform as it is in the 
 ordinary Italian operas of our own day. But on the 
 other hand, these tragic poets were great masters of 
 expression, profound students not only of the great 
 world problems, but of the problems of human nature, 
 exquisite masters too of their language, not only in 
 its dramatic force, but in its lyric sweetness ; they 
 summed up in their day all that was great and 
 beautiful in Greek poetry, and became the fullest 
 and ripest fruit of that wonderful tree of the knowl- 
 edge of good and evil, which even now makes those 
 that taste it to be as gods. 
 
 Such, then, were the general features of the 
 tragedy which the Athenian public, and the married 
 women, including many strangers, assembled to wit- 
 ness in broad daylight under the Attic sky. They 
 were not sparing of their time. They ate a good 
 breakfast before they came. They ate sweetmeats 
 in the theatre when the acting was bad. Each play 
 was short, and there was doubtless an interval of 
 rest. But it is certain that each poet contended 
 as a rule with four plays against his competitors ; 
 and as there were certainly three of them, there 
 must have been twelve plays acted ; this seems to 
 exceed the endurance of any public, even allowing 
 two days for the performance. We are not fully 
 informed on these points. We do not even know 
 how Sophocles, who contended with single plays, 
 managed to compete against Euripides, who con-
 
 132 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 tended with sets of four. But we know that the 
 judges were chosen by lot, and we strongly suspect, 
 from the records of their decisions, that they often 
 decided wrongly. We also know that the poets 
 sought to please the audience by political and 
 patriotic allusions, and to convey their dislike of 
 opposed cities or parties by drawing their repre- 
 sentatives in odious colors on the stage. Thus 
 Euripides is never tired of traducing the Spartans 
 in the character of Menelaus. ^schylus fights the 
 battle of the Areopagus in his Eumenidcs. 
 
 But besides all this, it seems that tragic poets were 
 regarded as the proper teachers of morality, and that 
 the stage among the Greeks occupied somewhat the 
 place of the modern pulpit. This is the very attitude 
 which Racine assumes in the Preface to his PJtcdrc. 
 He suggests that it ought to be considered the best 
 of his plays, because there is none in which he has 
 so strictly rewarded virtue and punished vice. 1 He 
 
 1 The actual passage is well worth quoting "Au reste, je n'ose 
 encore ajouter que cette piece soil en efi'et la meilleure de mes 
 tragedies. Je laisse et aux lecteurs et au temps & decider de son 
 veritable prix. Cequeje puis assurer, c'est queje n'en ai point 
 fait ou la vertu soil plus mise en jour que dans celle-ci ; les 
 moindres fautes y sont severement punies ; la seule pensee dti 
 crime y est regardee avec autant d'horreur que le crime nieme ; 
 les faiblesses de 1'amour y passent pour des vraies faiblesses ; les 
 passions n'y sont presentees aux yeux que pour montrer tous les 
 de"sordres dont elles sont causes, et le vice y est peint partout avec 
 des couleurs qui en ont fait connaitre et hair la difformite". C'est 
 la proprement le but que tout homme qui travaille pour le public
 
 THEATRE OF DIONYSUS. 133 
 
 alters, in his Iphiffenie t the Greek argument from 
 which he copied, because as he tells us (again in the 
 Preface) it would never do to have so virtuous a 
 person as Iphigenia sacrificed. This, however, 
 would not have been a stumbling-block to the 
 Greek poet, whose capricious and spiteful gods, or 
 whose deep conviction of the stain of an ancestral 
 curse, would justify catastrophies which the Chris- 
 tian poet, with his trust in a benevolent Providence, 
 could not admit. But, indeed, in most other points 
 the so-called imitations of the Greek drama by 
 Racine and his school are anything but imitations. 
 The main characters and the general outline of the 
 plot are no doubt borrowed. The elegance and 
 power of the dialogue are more or less successfully 
 copied. But the natural and familiar scenes, -which 
 would have been shocking to the court of Louis 
 XIV. " ces scenes entremeMes do bas comique, et 
 ces frequents exemples de mauvais ton et d'une 
 
 se doit proposer; et c'est que les premiers poetes tragiques ayaient 
 en vue sur toute chose. Leur theatre etait une dcole ou la vertu 
 n'etait pas moins bien enseigne"e que dans les ecoles des philos- 
 ophes. ... II serait a souhaiter que nos ouvrages fussent aussi 
 solides et aussi pleins d'utiles instructions que ceux de ces poetes. 
 Ce serait peut-otre un moyen de reconcilier la trage"die avecquantite 
 de personnes celebres par leur piete et par leur doctrine, qui 1'ont 
 condamnee dans ces derniers temps, et qui en jugeraient sans doute 
 plus favorablement, si les auteurs songeaient autant a instruire les 
 spectateurs qu'a les divertir, et s'ils suivaient en cela la veritable 
 intention de la tragedie."
 
 134 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 familiarite choquante," as Barthelemy says such 
 characters as the guard in the Antigone, the nurse 
 in the Chocpliorce, the Phrygian in the Orestes, were 
 carefully expunged. Moreover, love affairs and 
 court intrigues were everywhere introduced, and 
 the language was never allowed to descend from its 
 pomp and grandeur. Most of the French dramatists 
 were indeed bad Greek scholars, 1 and knew the plays 
 from which they copied either through very poor 
 translations, or through the rhetorical travesties sur- 
 viving under the name of Seneca, which were long 
 thought fully equal to the great and simple originals. 
 So the French of the seventeenth century, start- 
 ing from these half-understood models, and applying 
 rigidly the laws of tragedy which they had deduced, 
 with questionable logic, from that very untrustworthy 
 guide, our text of the Poetics of Aristotle, created 
 a drama which became so unlike what it professed 
 to imitate, that most good modern French critics 
 have occupied themselves with showing the contrasts 
 of old Greek tragedy to that of the modern stage. 
 They are always praising the naivete, the familiarity, 
 the irregularity of the old dramatists ; they are 
 always noting touches of common life and of ordi- 
 nary motive quite foreign to the dignity of Racine, 
 and Voltaire, and Alfieri. 2 They think that the real 
 
 1 Racine is here the exception. 
 
 1 Alfieri, though starting with a violent feeling of reaction 
 against some of the faults of the French drama, was wholly
 
 THEATRE OF DIONYSUS. 135 
 
 parallel is to be found not among them, but in 
 Shakespeare. Thus their education makes them 
 emphasize the very qualities which we admit, but 
 should not cite, as the peculiarities of Greek 
 tragedy. We are rather struck with its conven- 
 tionalities, with its strict adherence to fixed form, 
 with its somewhat stilted diction, and we wonder 
 how it came to be so great and natural within these 
 trammels. 
 
 Happily the tendency in our own day to reproduce 
 antiquity faithfully, and not in modern recasting, has 
 led to the translating, and even to the representing, 
 of Greek tragedies in their purity, and it does not 
 require a knowledge of Greek to obtain some real 
 acquaintance with these great masterpieces. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Browning, Dean Milman, Mr. Fitzgerald, 
 Mr. Whitelaw, and many others, have placed faith- 
 ful and elegant versions within our reach. But since 
 I have cautioned the reader not versed in Greek 
 against adopting Racine's or Alfieri's plays as ade- 
 quate substitutes, I venture to give the same advice 
 concerning the more Greek and antique plays of Mr. 
 Swinburne, which, in spite of their splendor, are 
 still not really Greek plays, but modern plays based 
 on Greek models. The relief produced by ordinary 
 
 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.
 
 136 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 talk from ordinary characters, which has been al- 
 ready noticed, is greatly wanting in his very lofty, 
 and perhaps even strained, dialogue. Nor are his 
 choruses the voice of the vulgar public, combining 
 high sentiments with practical meanness, but elab- 
 orate and very difficult speculations, which comment 
 metaphysically on the general problems of the play. 
 There is nothing better worth reading than the 
 Atalanta in Calydon. The Greek scholar sees 
 everywhere how thoroughly imbued the author is 
 with Greek models. But it will not give to the 
 mere English reader any accurate idea of a real 
 Greek tragedy. He must go to Bafausfam's Adven- 
 ture, or Aristophanes' 's Apology, or some other pro- 
 fessed translation, and follow it line for line, adding 
 some such general reviews as the Etudes of M. Putin. 
 As for revivals of Greek plays, it seems to me 
 not likely that they will ever succeed. The French 
 imitations of Racine laid hold of the public because 
 they were not imitations. And as for us nowadays, 
 who are more familiar with the originals, a faithless 
 reproduction would shock us, while a literal one 
 would weary us. This at least is the effect which 
 the Antigone produces, even with the modern chor- 
 uses of Mendelssohn to relieve the slowness of the 
 action. But, of course, a reproduction of the old 
 chorus would be simply impossible. The whole pit 
 in the theatre of Dionysus seems to have been left 
 empty. A part somewhat larger than our orchestra
 
 THEATRE OF DIONYSUS. 137 
 
 was covered with a raised platform, though still 
 lower than the stage. 1 Upon this the chorus danced 
 and sang and looked on at the actors, as in the play 
 within the play in Hamlet. Above all, they con- 
 stantly prayed to their gods, and this religious side 
 of the performance has of course no effect upon us. 2 
 
 As to old Attic comedy, it would be even more 
 impossible to recover it for a modern public. Its 
 local and political allusions, its broad and coarse 
 humor, its fantastic dresses, were features which 
 made it not merely ancient and Greek, but Athenian, 
 and Athenian of a certain epoch. Without the 
 Alexandrian scholiasts, who came in time to recover 
 and note down most of the allusions, these comedies 
 would be to the Greek scholar of to-day hardly 
 intelligible. The new Attic comedy, of which Ter- 
 ence is a copy, is indeed on a modern basis, and may 
 be faithfully reproduced, if not admired, in our day. 
 But here, alas ! the great originals of Menander, 
 Philemon, and Diphilus are lost to us, and we must 
 be content with the Latin accommodations. 
 
 But I have delayed too long over these Greek 
 
 1 There is now (1891) a controversy raging concerningthe height 
 of the Greek stage and its arrangements, owing to the researches 
 of Dr. Dorpfeld. I cannot enter upon it here. 
 
 2 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 reproduc- 
 tion was possible, but how far it can succeed, for never will it be 
 more ably undertaken and carried out.
 
 138 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 plays, and must apologize for leading away the 
 reader from the actual theatre in which he is sitting. 
 Yet there is hardly a place in Athens which calls 
 back the mind so strongly to the old days, when all 
 the crowd came jostling in, and settled down in their 
 seats, to hear the great novelties of the year from 
 Sophocles or Euripides. No doubt there were 
 cliques and cabals and claqueurs, noisy admirers 
 and cold critics, the supporters of the old, and the 
 lovers of the new, devotees and skeptics, wondering 
 foreigners and self-complacent citizens. They little 
 thought how we should come, not only to sit in the 
 seats they occupied, but to reverse the judgments 
 which they pronounced, and correct with sober 
 temper the errors of prejudice, of passion, and of 
 pride. 
 
 Plato makes Socrates say, in his Apologia (pro 
 vita sua), that a copy of Anaxagoras could be 
 bought on the orchestra, when very dear, for a 
 drachme, that is to say for about 9d. of our money, 
 which may then have represented our half-crown or 
 three shillings in value. 1 The commentators have 
 made desperate attempts to explain this. Some say 
 the orchestra was used as a book-stall when plays 
 were not going on an assumption justified by no 
 
 1 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.
 
 THEATRE OF DIONYSUS. 139 
 
 other hint in Greek literature. Others have far 
 more absurdly imagined that Plato really meant you 
 could pay a drachme for the best seat in the theatre, 
 and read the writings of Anaxagoras in a fashion- 
 able play of Euripides, who was his friend and fol- 
 lower. Verily a wonderful interpretation ! 
 
 If the reader will walk with me from the theatre 
 of Dionysus past the newly excavated site of the 
 temple of ^Esculapius, and past the Roman-Greek 
 theatre which was erected by Hadrian or Herodes 
 Atticus, I will show him what Plato meant. Of 
 course, this later theatre, with its solid Roman back 
 scenes of masonry, is equally interesting with the 
 Theatre of Dionysus to the advocates of the unity 
 of history ! But to us who are content to study 
 Greek Athens, it need not afford any irrelevant de- 
 lays. Passing round the approach to the Acropolis, 
 we come on to a lesser hill, separated from it by a 
 very short saddle, so that it looks like a sort of out- 
 post or spur sent out from the rock of the Acropolis. 
 This is the Areopagus Mars' Hill which we can 
 ascend in a few minutes. There are marks of old 
 staircases cut in the rock. There are underneath, 
 on our left and right, as we go up, deep black cav- 
 erns, once the home of the Eumenides. On the flat 
 top there are still some signs of a rude smoothing 
 of the stone for seats. Under us, to the north-west, 
 is the site of the old agora, once surrounded with 
 colonnades, the crowded market-place of all those
 
 140 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 who bought and sold and talked. But on the de- 
 scent from the Areopagus, and, now at least, not 
 much higher than the level of the market-place be- 
 neath, there is a small semicircular platform, backed 
 by the rising rock. This, or some platform close to 
 it, which may now be hidden by accumulated soil, 
 was the old orchestra, possibly the site of the oldest 
 theatre, but in historical times a sort of reserved 
 platform, where the Athenians, who had their town 
 bristling with statues, allowed no monument to be 
 erected save the figures of Harmodius and Aristo- 
 giton, which were carried into Persia, replaced by 
 others, afterwards recovered, and of which we may 
 have a copy in the two fighting figures, of archaic 
 character, now in the Museum of Naples. It was 
 doubtless on this orchestra, just above the bustle and 
 thoroughfare of the agora, that booksellers kept their 
 stalls, and here it was that the book of Anaxgoras 
 could be bought for a drachme. 
 
 Here then was the place where that physical phi- 
 losophy was disseminated which first gained a few 
 advanced thinkers ; then, through Euripides, leav- 
 ened the drama, once the exponent of ancient piety ; 
 then, through the stage, the Athenian public, till we 
 arrive at those Stoics and Epicureans who came to 
 teach philosophy and religion not as a faith, but as a 
 system, and to spend their time with the rest of the 
 public in seeking out novelties of creed and of 
 opinion as mere fashions with which people choose
 
 Mars' Hill, Athens
 
 ATHENS THE AREOPAGUS. 141 
 
 to dress their minds. And it was on this very Are- 
 opagus, where we arc now standing, that these phi- 
 losophers of fashion came into contact with the thor- 
 ough earnestness, the profound convictions, the red- 
 hot zeal of the Apostle Paul. The memory of that 
 great scene still lingers about the place, and every 
 guide will show you the exact place where the 
 Apostle stood, and in what direction he addressed his 
 audience. There are, I believe, even some respect- 
 able commentators, who transfer their own estimate 
 of S. Paul's importance to the Athenian public, and 
 hold that it was before the court of the Areopagus 
 that he was asked to expound his views. 1 This is 
 
 1 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
 
 142 E AMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 more than doubtful. The liases philosophers, who 
 probably yawned over their own lectures, hearing of 
 a new lay preacher, eager to teach and apparently 
 convinced of the truth of what he said, thought the 
 novelty too delicious to be neglected, and brought 
 him forthwith out of the chatter and bustle of the 
 crowd, probably past the very orchestra where 
 Anaxagoras's books had been proselytizing before 
 him, and where the stiff old heroes of Athenian his- 
 tory stood, a monument of the escape from political 
 slavery. It is even possible that the curious knot 
 of idlers did not bring him higher than this platform, 
 which might well be called part of Mars' Hill. But 
 if they choose to bring him to the top, there was no 
 hindrance, for the venerable court held its sittings 
 in the open air, on stone seats ; and when not thus 
 occupied the top of the rock may well have been a 
 convenient place of retirement for people who did 
 not want to be disturbed by new acquaintances and 
 the constant eddies of new gossip in the market- 
 place. 
 
 It is, however, of far less import to know on what 
 spot of the Areopagus Paul stood, than to under- 
 stand clearly what he said, and how he sought to 
 conciliate as well as to refute the philosophers who, 
 no doubt, looked down upon him as an intellectual 
 
 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.
 
 ATHENS THE AREOPAGUS. 143 
 
 inferior. He starts naturally enough from the extra- 
 ordinary crowd of votive statues and offerings, for 
 which Athens was remarkable above all other cities 
 of Greece. He says, with a touch of irony, that 
 he finds them very religious indeed, 1 so religious that 
 he even found an altar to a God professedly unknown, 
 or perhaps unknowable. 2 Probably S. Paul meant to 
 pass from the latter sense of the word afvioaToz, 
 which was, I fancy, what the inscription meant, to 
 the former, which gave him an excellent introduc- 
 tion to his argument. Even the use of the singular 
 may have been an intentional variation from the 
 strict text, for Pausanias twice over speaks of altars 
 to the gods who are called the ayvioarot (or mysteri- 
 ous), but I cannot find any citation of the inscrip- 
 tion in the singular form. However that may be, 
 our version does not preserve the neatness of S. 
 Paul's point : " I find an altar," he says, " to an un- 
 known God. Whom then ye unknowingly worship, 
 
 1 The fact that the title of Menander*8 famous play was 
 Aeimtiaifiuv has escaped the commentators. S. Paul must have 
 meant " rather superstitious," as the A. V. has it. 
 
 2 Though &yvuoTOf 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, rolf 
 bvofia^ofiivoi^ ayvuarotf 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.
 
 144 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 Him I announce to you." But then he develops a 
 conception of the great One God, not at all from 
 the special Jewish, but from the Stoic point of view. 
 He was preaching to Epicureans and to Stoics to 
 the advocates of prudence as the means, and pleas- 
 ure as the end, of a happy life, on the one hand ; 
 on the other, to the advocates of duty, and of life in 
 harmony with the Providence which governs the 
 world for good. There could be no doubt to which 
 side the man of Tarsus must incline. Though the 
 Stoics of the market-place of Athens might be mere 
 dilettanti, mere talkers about the ayaObv, and the great 
 soul of the world, we know that this system of phi- 
 losophy produced at Tarsus as well as at Rome the 
 most splendid constancy, the most heroic endurance 
 I had almost said the most Christian benevolence. 
 It was this stern and earnest theory which attracted 
 all serious minds in the decay of heathenism. 
 
 Accordingly, S. Paul makes no secret of his 
 sympathy with its nobler features. He describes 
 the God whom he preaches as the benevolent Author 
 of the beauty and fruitfulness of Nature, the great 
 Benefactor of mankind by His providence, and not 
 without constant and obtrusive witnesses of His 
 greatness and His goodness. But he goes much 
 further, and treads close upon the Stoic pantheism 
 when he not only asserts, in the words of Aratus, 
 than we are His offspring, but that " in Him we live, 
 and move, and have our being."
 
 ATHENS THE AREOPAGUS. 145 
 
 His first conclusion, that the Godhead should not 
 be worshipped or even imaged in stone or in bronze, 
 was no doubt quite in accordance with more enlight- 
 ened Athenian philosophy. But it was when he 
 proceeded to preach the Resurrection of the Dead, 
 that even those who were attracted by him, and 
 sympathized with him, turned away in contempt. 
 The Epicureans thought death the end of all things. 
 The Stoics thought that the human soul, the off- 
 spring nay, rather an offshoot of the Divine 
 world-soul, would be absorbed into its parent 
 essence. Neither could believe the assertion of 
 S. Paul. When they first heard him talk of Jesus 
 and Anastasis they thought them some new pair of 
 Oriental deities. But when they learned that Jesus 
 was a man ordained by God to judge the world, and 
 that Anastasis was merely the Anastasis of the dead, 
 they were greatly disappointed ; so some mocked, 
 and some excused themselves from further listening. 
 
 Thus ended, to all appearance ignominiously, the 
 first heralding of the faith which was to supplant all 
 the temples and altars and statues with which Athens 
 had earned its renown as a beautiful city, which was 
 to overthrow the schools of the sneering philosophers, 
 and even to remodel all the society and the policy 
 of the world. And yet, in spite of this great and 
 decisive triumph of Christianity there was some- 
 thing curiously prophetic in the contemptuous re- 
 jection of its apostle at Athens. Was it not the 
 10
 
 146 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 first expression of the feeling which still possesses 
 the visitor who wanders through its ruins, and which 
 still dominates the educated world ? the feeling that 
 while other cities owe to the triumph of Christianity 
 all their beauty and their interest, Athens has to this 
 day resisted this influence ; and that while the 
 Christian monuments of Athens would elsewhere 
 excite no small attention, here they are passed by 
 as of no import compared with its heathen splendor. 1 
 
 1 This depends on no mere accident, but on the essential feat- 
 ures of the spiritual side of Greek character, on which I will quote 
 an admirable passage from Renan's S. Paul: 
 
 "Ce qui caracteri.sait la religion du Grec autrefois, ce qui la 
 caracte"rise encore de nos jours, c'est le manque d'infini, de vague, 
 d'attendrissement, de mollesse feminine; la profondeur du senti- 
 ment religieux allemand et celtique manque a la race des vrais 
 Hellenes. La piete du Grec orthodoxe consiste en pratiques et en 
 signes exte"rieurs. Les eglises orthodoxes, parfois tres-elegantes, 
 n'ont rien des terreurs qu'on ressent dans une e"glise gothique. 
 En ce christianisme oriental, point de larmes, de prieres, de com- 
 ponction interieure. Les enterrements y sont presque gais; ils ont 
 lien le soir, an soleil couchant, quand les ombres sont deja longues, 
 avec des chants a mi-voix et un deploiement de couleurs voyantes. 
 La gravite fanatique des Latins deplait a ces races vives, sereincs, 
 legeres. L'infirme n'y est pas abattu : il voit doucement venir la 
 mort ; tout sourit autour de lui. La est le secret de cette gaiete" 
 divine des poemes home'riques et de Platon : le recit de la mort de 
 tSoerate dans le Phedon montre a peine une teinte de tristesse. La 
 vie, c'est donner sa fleur, puis son fruit ; quoi do [>lus? Si, comme 
 on pent le soutenir. la preoccupation 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. CTest une race 
 superticielk', prenant la vie comme une cho^e sans surnaturel ni
 
 ATHENS THE AREOPAGUS. 147 
 
 There are very old and very beautiful little churches 
 in Athens, "ces delicieuses petites cglises byzantines," 
 
 arriere-plan. Une telle simplicity de conception tient en grande 
 partie an cliinat, a, la purete de 1'air, a 1'^tonnante joie qu'on 
 respire, mais bien plus encore aux instincts de la race hellenique, 
 adorablement idealiste. Un rien. un arbre, line fleur, un lezard, 
 une tortue, provoquant le souvenir de mille metamorphoses chantees 
 par les poe'tes ; un filet d'eau, un petit creux dans le rocher, qu'on 
 qualifie d'antre des nymphes ; un puits avec une tasse sur la mar- 
 gelle, un pertuis de mer si e"troit que les papillons le traversent et 
 pourtant navigable aux plus grands vaisseaux, coname a Poros ; 
 des Grangers, des cypres dont 1' ombre s'etend sur la mer, un petit 
 bois de pins au milieu des rochers, suffisent en Grece pour produire 
 le contentement qu'eveille la beaute. Se promener dans les jardins 
 pendant la mat, ecouter les cigales, s'asseoir au clair de lune en 
 jouant de la flute ; aller boire de 1'eau dans la montagne, apporter 
 avec soi un petit pain, un poisson et un lecythe de vin qu'on boit 
 en chantant; aux fetes de famille, suspendre une couronne de 
 feuillage au-dessus de sa porte, aller avec des chapeaux de fleurs ; 
 les jours de fetes publiqucs, porter des thyrses garnis de fueillages ; 
 passer des journees a danser, a jouer avec des chevres apprivoise'es 
 voila les plaisirs grecs, plaisirs d'une race pauvre, econome, 
 e"ternellemeut jeune, habitant un pays charmant, trouvant son bien 
 en elle-meme et dans les dons que les dieux lui ont faits. La 
 j)Mstorale a la fayon de Theocrite fut dans les pays helleniques une 
 verite ; la Grece se ])lut ton jours a ce petit genre de poesie fin et 
 aimable, 1'un des plus caracteristiques de sa litterature, 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 gcnio n'est pas 
 la pesante ivresse de I' Anglais, le grossier ebattement du Franpais ; 
 c'est tout simplement penser que la nature est bonne, qu'on peut 
 et qu'on doit y ceder. I'our le Grec, en effet, la nature est une 
 conseillere d' elegance, une maitresse de droiture et de vertu ; la 
 ' concupiscence,' cette idee que la nature nous induit a. nial faire,
 
 148 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 as M. Renan calls them. They are very peculiar, 
 and unlike what one generally sees in Europe. 
 
 est un non-sens pour lui. Le gout de la parure qui distingue le 
 palicare, et qui se montre avec tant d' innocence dans la jenne 
 Grecque, n'est pas la pompeuse vanite du barbare, la sotte pre- 
 tention de la bourgeoise, bouffie de son ridicule orgueil de parvenue ; 
 c'est le sentiment pur et fin de nai'fs jouvenceaux, se sentant fils 
 legitimes des vrais inventeurs de la beaute". 
 
 " Une telle race, on le cornprend, eut accueilli Jesus par un 
 sourire. 11 e"tait une chose que ces enfants exquis ne pouvaient 
 nous apprendre : le seYieux profond, 1'honnetete simple, le devoue- 
 ment sans gloire, la bonte sans emphase. Socrate est un moraliste 
 de premier ordre : mais il n'a rien a faire dans 1'histoire religiense- 
 Le Grec nous parait toujours un peu sec et sans coeur : il a de 
 1'esprit, du mouvement, de la subtilite ; il n'a rien de rSveur, de 
 melancolique. Nous autres, Celtes et Germains, la source de notre 
 ge"nie, c'est notre coeur. Au fond de nous est comme une fontaine de 
 fees, une fontaine claire, verte et profonde, ou se reflete 1'infini. 
 Chez le Grec, 1' amour propre, la vanite se melent a tout ; le sentiment 
 vague lui est inconnu ; la reflexion sursa propre destinee lui paratt 
 fade. Poussee a la caricature, une facon si incomplete d' entendre 
 la vie donne a l'e*poque romaine le graeculus esuriens, grammairien, 
 artiste, charlatan, acrobate, medecin, amuseur du monde entier, fort 
 analogue i 1'Italien des xvi" et xvn" sicles: & 1'epoque by/antine, 
 le the'ologien sophiste faisant dege"nerer la religion en subtiles dis- 
 putes ; de nos jours, le Grec moderne, quelquefois vaniteux et 
 ingrat, le papas orthodoxe, avec sa religion <?goi'ste et mate>ielle. 
 Malheur a qui s'arrte ;'i cette decadence! Honte & celui qui, 
 devant le Parthenon, songe a remarquer un ridicule ! II faut le 
 reconnaitre ponrtant : la Grece ne ftit jarnais serieuscment chr^- 
 tienne ; elle ne Test pas encore. Aucune race ne fut moins 
 romantique, ]>lus d^nu^e du sentiment chevaleresque de notre 
 moyen age. Platon batit toute sa the'orie de la beaut^ en se passant 
 de la femme. Penser S, une feinrue pour s' exciter il faire de grandes 
 choses ! un Grec eut 6t6 bien surpris d'un pareil langage; il pen-
 
 ATHENS THE AREOPAGUS. 149 
 
 They strike the observer with their quaintness and 
 smallness, and he fancies he here sees the tiny model 
 
 sait, lui, aux homines re"unis sur Y agora, il pensait a la patrie. 
 Sous ce rapport, les Latins etaient plus pres de nous. La poesie 
 grecque, incomparable dans les grands genres tels que 1' epopee, la 
 tragedie, la poesie lyrique desinteressee, n' avait pas, ce semble, la 
 douce note elegiaque de Tibulle, de Virgile, de Lucrece, note si 
 bien en harmonic avec nos sentiments, si voisine de ce que nous 
 aimons. 
 
 "La meme difference se retrouve entre la piete de saint Ber- 
 nard, de saint Francois d'Assise et celle des saints de 1'Eglise 
 grecque. Ces belles ecoles de Cappadoce, de Syrie, d' Egypte, des 
 Peres du desert, sont presque des ecoles philosophiques. L'hagio- 
 graphie populaire des Grecs est plus mythologique que celle des 
 Latins. La plupart des saints qui figurent dans 1'iconostase d'une 
 maison grecque et devant lesquels brule une lampe ne sont pas 
 de grands fondateurs, de grands hommes, comme les saints de 
 1' Occident; ce sont sou vent des etres fantastiques, d'anciens 
 dieux transfigures, ou du moins des combinaisons de personnages 
 historiques et de mythologie, comme saint Georges. Et cette 
 admirable eglise de Sainte-Sophie ! c'est un temple arien ; le genre 
 humain tout entier pourrait y faire sa priere. N'ayant pas eu de 
 pape, d' inquisition, de scolastique, de moyen age barbare, ayant 
 toujours garde un levain d'arianisme, la Grece lachera plus facile- 
 mentqu'aucun autre pays le christianisme surnaturel, si peu pres 
 comme ces Atheniens d'autrefois e"taient en m^me temps, grace a 
 une sorte de legerete", mille fois plus profonde que le serieux 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'idees paiennes. A la grande difference de 
 1' Occident, 1'Orient garda durant tout le moyen age et jusqu'aux 
 temps modernes de vrais ' hellenistes,' au fond plus paiens que 
 chre'tiens, vivants du culte de la vieille patrie grecque et des vieux 
 auteurs. Ces hellenistes sont, an xv e siecle, les agents de la renais- 
 sance de 1' Occident, auqucl ils apportent les textes grecs, base de
 
 150 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 of that unique and splendid building, the cathedral 
 of S. Mark at Venice. But yet it is surprising how 
 little we notice them at Athens. I was even told 
 I sincerely hope it was false that public opinion at 
 Athens was gravitating toward the total removal of 
 one, and that the most perfect, of these churches, 
 Avhich stands in the middle of a main street, and so 
 breaks the regularity of the modern boulevard ! Let 
 us hope that the man who lashes himself into rage at 
 the destruction of the Venetian tower may set his 
 face in time against this real piece of barbarism, if 
 indeed it ever ventures to assert itself in act. 1 
 
 I have now concluded a review of the most 
 important old Greek buildings to be seen about 
 Athens. To treat them exhaustively would require 
 a far longer discussion, or special knowledge which 
 I do not possess ; and there are, moreover, smaller 
 buildings, like the so-called Lantern of Demosthenes, 
 which is really the Choragic monument of Lysicrates, 
 and the Temple of the Winds, which are well worth 
 
 toute civilization. Le meme esprit a preside et pr&idera aux des- 
 tinies de la Grece nouvelle. Quand on a bien etudie ce qui fait de 
 nos jours le fond d' un Hellene cultive 1 , on voit qu'il y a chez lui 
 tres-peu de christianisme : il est chre'tien de forme, comme un 
 Persan est musulman ; mais au fond il est ' helldniste.' Sa religion, 
 c'est 1' adoration de I'ancien genie grec. II pardonne toute luTo-ie 
 an philhellene, i celui qui admire son passe; il est bien moins 
 disciple de Je"sus et de saint Paul que de Plutarque et de Julien." 
 1 The reader will find in my last chapter some further informa- 
 tion concerning the remains of mediaeval Greece.
 
 ATHENS CONCLUSION. 151 
 
 a visit, but which the traveller can find without a 
 guide, and study without difficulty. But incom- 
 pleteness must be an unavoidable defect in describ- 
 ing any city in which new discoveries are being 
 made, I may say, monthly, and when the museums 
 and excavations of to-day may be any day com- 
 pletely eclipsed by materials now unknown, or 
 scattered through the country. Thus, on my second 
 visit to Athens, I found in the National Bank the 
 Avonderful treasures exhumed by Dr. Schliemann at 
 Mycense, which are in themselves enough to induce 
 any student of Greek antiquity to revisit the town, 
 however well he may have examined it in former 
 years. On my third visit, they were arranged and 
 catalogued, but we have not yet attained to any cer- 
 tainty about the race that left them there, and how 
 remote the antiquity of the tombs. These considera- 
 tions tend not only to vindicate the inadequateness 
 of this review, but perhaps even to justify it in the 
 eyes of the exacting reader, who may have expected 
 a more thorough survey.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA COLONUS THE HARBORS 
 
 LAURIUM SUNIUM. 
 
 THERE are two modern towns which, in natural 
 features, resemble Athens. The irregular ridge of 
 greater Acropolis and lesser Areopagus remind one 
 of the castle and the Monchsberg of Salzburg, one 
 of the few towns in Europe more beautifully situated 
 than Athens. The relation of the Acropolis to the 
 more lofty Lycabettus suggests the castle of Edin- 
 burgh and Arthur's Seat. But here the advantage 
 is gi-eatly on the side of Athens. 
 
 When you stand on the Acropolis and look round 
 upon Attica, a great part of its history becomes im- 
 mediately unravelled and clear. You see at once 
 that you are placed in the principal plain of the 
 country, surrounded with chains of mountains in 
 such a way that it is easy to understand the old 
 stories of wars with Eleusis, or with Marathon, or 
 with any of the outlying valleys. Looking inland 
 on the north side, as you stand beside the Erech- 
 theum, you see straight before you, at a distance of 
 some ten miles, Mount Pentelicus, from which all 
 the splendid marble was once carried to the rock 
 
 152
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA. 153 
 
 around you. This Pentelicus is a sort of intermedi- 
 ate cross-chain between two main lines which di- 
 verge from either side of it, and gradually widen so 
 as to form the plain of Athens. The left or north- 
 western chain is Mount Parnes ; the right or eastern 
 is Mount Hymettus. This latter, however, is only 
 the inner margin of a large mountainous tract which 
 spreads all over the rest of South Attica down to 
 the Cape of Sunium. There are, of course, little 
 valleys, and two or three villages, one of them the 
 old dome Brauron, which they now pronounce Vra- 
 vron. There is the town of Thorikos, near the 
 mines of Laurium ; there are two modern villages 
 called Marcopoulos ; but on the whole, both in an- 
 cient and modern times, this south-eastern part of 
 Attica, south of Hymettus, was, with the exception 
 of Laurium, of little moment. There is a gap 
 between Pentelicus and Hymettus, nearly due north, 
 through which the way leads out to Marathon ; and 
 you can see the spot where the bandits surprised 
 in 1870 the unfortunate gentlemen who fell victims 
 to the vacillation and incompetence of people in 
 power at that time. 
 
 On the left side of Pentelicus you see the chain 
 of Parnes, which almost closes with it at a far dis- 
 tance, and which stretches down all the north-west 
 side of Attica till it runs into the sea as Mount 
 Corydallus, opposite to the island of Salamis. In 
 this long chain of Parnes (which can only be
 
 154 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 avoided by going up to the northern coast at Oropus, 
 and passing into Boeotia close by the sea) there are 
 three passes or lower points, one far to the north 
 that by Dekelea, where the present king has his 
 country palace, but where of old Alcibiades planted 
 the Spartan garrison which tormented and ruined 
 the farmers of Attica. This pass leads you out 
 to Tanagra in Bo3otia. Next to the south, some 
 miles nearer, is the even more famous pass of Phyle, 
 from which Thrasybulus and his brave fellows re- 
 covered Athens and its liberty. This pass, when 
 you reach its summit, looks into the northern point 
 of the Thriasian plain, and also into the wilder 
 regions of Cithseron, which border Boeotia. The 
 third pass, and the lowest but a few miles beyond 
 the groves of Academe is the pass of Daphne, 
 which was the high road to Eleusis, along which the 
 sacred processions passed in the times of the Mys- 
 teries ; and in this pass you still see the numerous 
 niches in which native tablets had been set by the 
 worshippers at a famous temple of Aphrodite. 
 
 On this side of Attica also, with the exception of 
 the Thriasian plain and of Eleusis, there extends 
 outside Mount Parnes a wild mountainous district, 
 quite alpine in character, which severs Attica from 
 Boeotia, not by a single row of mountains, or by a 
 single pass, but by a succession of glens and defiles 
 which at once explain to the classical student, when 
 he sees them, how necessary and fundamental were
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA. 155 
 
 the divisions of Greece into its separate districts, 
 and how completely different in character the inhab- 
 itants of each were sure to be. The way from 
 Attica into Boeotia was no ordinary high road, nor 
 even a pass over one mountain, but through a series 
 of glens and valleys and defiles, at any of which a 
 hostile army could be stopped, and each of which 
 severed the country on either side by a difficult ob- 
 stacle. This truly alpine nature of Greece is only 
 felt when we see it, and yet must ever be kept before 
 the mind in estimating the character and energy of 
 the race. But let us return to our view from the 
 Acropolis. 
 
 If we turn and look southward, we see a broken 
 country, with several low hills between us and the 
 sea hills tolerably well cultivated, and when I saw 
 them in May all colored with golden stubbles, for 
 the corn had just been reaped. But all the plain in 
 every direction seems dry and dusty ; arid, too, and 
 not rich alluvial soil, like the plains of Boeotia. Then 
 Thucydides's words come back to us, when he says 
 Attica was " undisturbed on account of the lightness 
 of its soil " (dffTaaiaaroz ootja did. TO ^s/Troyswv), as 
 early invaders rather looked out for richer pastures. 
 This reflection, too, of Thucydidcs applies equally 
 to the mountains of Attica round Atliens, which are 
 not covered with rich grass and dense shrubs, like 
 Helicon, like Parnassus, like the glades of Arcadia, 
 but seem so bare that we wonder where the bees of
 
 156 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 Hymettus can find food for their famous honey. It 
 is only when the traveller ascends the rocky slopes 
 of the mountain that he finds its rugged surface 
 carpeted with quantities of little wild flowers, too 
 insignificant to give the slightest color to the moun- 
 tain, but sufficient for the bees, which are still mak- 
 ing their honey as of old. This honey of Hymettus, 
 which was our daily food at Athens, is now not very 
 remarkable either for color or flavor. It is very 
 dark, and not by any means so good as the honey 
 produced in other parts of Greece not to say 
 on the heather hills of Scotland and Ireland. I 
 tasted honey at Thebes and at Corinth which was 
 much better, especially that of Corinth made in the 
 hills toward Cleonse, where the whole country is 
 scented with thyme, and where thousands of bees 
 are buzzing eagerly through the summer air. But 
 when the old Athenians are found talking so much 
 about honey, we must not forget that sugar was 
 unknown to them, and that all their sweetmeats 
 depended upon honey exclusively. Hence the 
 culture and use of it assumed an importance not 
 easily understood among moderns, who are in pos- 
 session of the sugar-cane. 
 
 But amid all the dusty and bare features of the 
 view, the eye fastens with delight on one great broad 
 band of dark green, which, starting from the west 
 side of Pentelicus, close to Mount Parncs in the 
 north, sweeps straight down the valley, passing about
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA. 157 
 
 two miles to the west of Athens, and reaching to the 
 Peirseus. This is the plain of the Kephissus, and 
 these are the famous olive woods which contain with 
 them the deme Colonus, so celebrated by Sophocles, 
 and the groves of Academe, at their nearest point to 
 the city. The dust of Athens, and the bareness of 
 the plain, make all walks about the town disagree- 
 able, save either the ascent of Lycabettus, or a 
 ramble into these olive woods. The River Kephis- 
 sus, which waters them, is a respectable, though 
 narrow river, even in summer often discharging a 
 good deal of water, but much divided into trenches 
 and arms, which are very convenient for irrigation. 1 
 So there is a strip of country, fully ten miles long, 
 and perhaps two wide on the average, which affords 
 delicious shade and greenness and the song of birds, 
 instead of hot sunlight and dust and the shrill clamor 
 of the tettix without. 
 
 I have wandered many hours in these delightful 
 woods listening to the nightingales, which sing all 
 day in the deep shade and solitude, as it were in a 
 prolonged twilight, and hearing the plane-tree 
 whispering to the elm, 2 as Aristophanes has it, and 
 
 1 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 disap- 
 pointment from its stony bed. 
 
 2 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 iu silence.
 
 158 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 seeing the white poplar show its silvery leaves in the 
 breeze, and wondering whether the huge old olive 
 steins, so like the old pollarded stumps in Windsor 
 Forest, could be the actual sacred trees, the ftopcae, 
 under which the youth of Athens ran their races. 
 The banks of the Kephissus, too, are lined with 
 great reeds, and sedgy marsh plants, which stoop 
 over into its sandy shallows and wave idly in the 
 current of its stream. The ouzel and the kingfisher 
 start from under one's feet, and bright fish move out 
 lazily from their sunny bay into the deeper pool. 
 Now and then through a vista the Acropolis shows 
 itself in a framework of green foliage, nor do I know 
 any more enchanting view of that great ruin. 
 
 All the ground under the dense olive-trees was 
 covered with standing corn, for here, as in Southern 
 Italy, the shade of trees seems no hindrance to the 
 ripening of the ear. But there \vas here thicker 
 wood than in Italian corn-fields ; on the other hand, 
 there was not that rich festooning of vines Avhich 
 spread from tree to tree, and which give a Neapol- 
 itan summer landscape so peculiar a charm. A few 
 homesteads there were along the roads, and even at 
 one of the bridges a children's school, full of those 
 beautiful fair children whose heads remind one so 
 strongly of the old Greek statues. But all the 
 houses were walled in, and many of them seemed 
 solitary and deserted. The memories of rapine and 
 violence were still there. I was told, indeed, that
 
 EXCUKSIONS IN ATTICA. 159 
 
 no country in Europe was so secure, and I confess 
 I found it so myself in my wanderings ; but when 
 we see how every disturbance or war on the fron- 
 tier revives again the rumor of brigandage, I 
 could not help feeling that the desert state of the 
 land, and the general sense of insecurity, however 
 irrational in the intervals of peace, was not sur- 
 prising. 
 
 There is no other excursion in the immediate 
 vicinity of Athens of any like beauty or interest. 
 The older buildings in the Peirseus are completely 
 gone. No trace of the docks or the deigma remains; 
 and the splendid walls, built as Thucydides tells us 
 with cut stone, without mortar or mud, and fastened 
 with clamps of iron fixed with lead this splendid 
 structure has been almost completely destroyed. 
 We can find, indeed, elsewhere. in Attica at Phyle 
 still better at Eleutherse specimens of this sort of 
 building, but at the Peirseus there are only founda- 
 tions remaining. Yet it is not really true that the 
 great wall surrounding the Peirseus has totally dis- 
 appeared. Even at the mouth of the harbor single 
 stones may be seen lying along the rocky edge of 
 the water, of which the size and the square cutting 
 prove the use for which they were originally in- 
 tended. But if the visitor to the Peineus will take 
 the trouble to cross the hill, and walk round the 
 harbor of Munychia, he will find on the eastern 
 point of the headland a neat little cafe, with com-
 
 160 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 fortable seats, and with a beautiful view. The sea 
 coast all round this headland shows the bed of the 
 surrounding sea wall, hewn in the live rock. The 
 actual structure is preserved in patches on the west- 
 ern point of this harbor, where the coast is very 
 steep ; but in the place to which I refer, we can 
 trace the whole course of the wall a few feet above 
 the water, cut out in the solid rock. I know no 
 scanty specimen of Athenian work which gives a 
 greater idea of the enormous wealth and energy of 
 the city. The port of Munychia had its own theatre 
 and temples, and it was here that Pausanias saw the 
 altar to the gods called the unknoivn. The traces of 
 the sea wall cease as soon as it reaches the actual 
 narrow mouth of the little harbor. I do not know 
 how far toward Phalerum it can be traced, but 
 when visiting the harbor called Zea l on another 
 occasion, I did not observe it. The reader will find 
 in any ancient atlas, or in any history of Greece, a 
 map of the harbors of Athens, so that I think it 
 unnecessary to append one here. 
 
 The striking feature in the present Peirseus, which 
 from the entrance of the harbor is very picturesque, 
 is undoubtedly the rapid growth and extension of 
 
 1 This was the military harbor, at least in the fourth century, 
 B. c., when the architect Philo built a famous arsenal (aKevodrjKr/) 
 at its north-east corner, of which the plan and even details have 
 been reconstructed by Dr. Dorpfeld from an important inscription 
 recovered in 1881.

 
 The Peiraeus
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA. 161 
 
 factories, with English machinery and overseers. 
 When last there I found fourteen of these establish- 
 ments, and their chimneys were becoming quite a 
 normal feature in Greek landscape. Those which I 
 visited were working up the cotton and the wool of 
 the country into calico and other stuffs, which are 
 unfortunately coming into fashion among the lower 
 classes, and ousting the old costume. I was in- 
 formed that boys were actually forbidden to attend 
 school in Greek dress, a regulation which astonishes 
 any one who knows the beauty and dignity of the 
 national costume. 
 
 A drive to the open roadstead of Phalerum is more 
 repaying. Here it is interesting to observe how the 
 Athenians passed by the nearest sea, and even an 
 open and clear roadstead, in order to join their city 
 to the better harbor and more defensible headland of 
 Peinuus. Phalerum, as they now call it, though 
 they spell it with an r f , is the favorite bathing-place 
 of modern Athens, with an open-air theatre, and is 
 about a mile and a half nearer the city than Peirseus. 
 The water is shallow, and the beach is of fine sand, 
 so that for ancient ships, which I suppose drew little 
 water, it was a convenient landing-place, especially 
 for the disembarking of troops, who could choose 
 their place anywhere around a large crescent, and 
 actually land fighting, if necessary. But the walls 
 of Athens, the long walls to Peirietis, and its lofty 
 fortifications, made this roadstead of no use to the 
 11
 
 162 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 enemy so long as Athens held the command of 
 the sea, and could send out ships from the secure 
 little harbors of Zea and Munychia, which are on 
 the east side and in the centre of the headland of 
 Peirseus. There was originally a third Avail, too, 
 to the east side of the Phaleric bay, but this seems 
 to have been early abandoned when the second long 
 wall, or middle wall, as it was originally called, was 
 completed. 
 
 At the opening of the Peloponnesian war it 
 appears that the Athenians defended against the 
 Lacedaemonians, not the two long walls which ran 
 close together and parallel to Peirseus, but the north- 
 ern of these, and the far distant Phaleric wall. It 
 cannot but strike any observer as extraordinary how 
 the Athenians should undertake such an enormous 
 task. Had the enemy attacked anywhere suddenly 
 and with vigor, it seems hard to understand how 
 they could have kept him out. According to 
 Thucydides's accurate detail, 1 the Avail to Phalerum 
 Avas nearly four miles, that to Peirseus four and a 
 half. There were in addition five miles of city AA r all, 
 and nearly three of Peirseus wall. That is to say, 
 there were about seventeen miles of Avail to be pro- 
 
 1 Thucydides, followed by modern historians, has nevertheless 
 been inaccurate in his use of the expression Long Walls, lie 
 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 Ion" walls as were finished in 456 B. c.
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA. 163 
 
 tected. This is not all. The circuit was not closed, 
 but separated by about a mile of beach between 
 Peirseus and Phalerum, so that the defenders of the 
 two extremities could in no way promptly assist 
 each other. Thucydides tells us that a garrison of 
 16,000 inferior soldiers, old men, boys, and metics, 
 sufficed to do this work. We are forced to conclude 
 that not only were the means of attacking walls 
 curiously incomplete, but even the dash and enter- 
 prise of modern Avarfare cannot have been under- 
 stood by the Greeks. For we never hear of even a 
 bold attempt on this absurdly straggling fortification, 
 far less of any successful attempt to force it. 
 
 But it is time that we should leave the environs 
 of Athens, 1 and wander out beyond the borders of 
 the Athenian plain into the wilder outlying parts 
 of the land. Attica is, after all, a large country, 
 if one does not apply railway measures to it. We 
 think thirty miles by rail very little, but thirty 
 miles by road is a long distance, and implies 
 land enough to support a large population and to 
 maintain many flourishing towns. We can wander 
 thirty miles from Athens through Attica in several 
 directions to Eleuthene, on the western Boeotian 
 frontier ; to Oropus, on the north ; and Suniuin, on 
 
 1 The reader who desires to see the best poetical picture of 
 modern Athens should consult the tenth chapter in Mr. Syrnonds's 
 Sketches in Italy and Greece one of the most beautiful productions 
 of that charming poet in prose.
 
 164 KAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 the south. Thus it is only when one endeavors to 
 know Attica minutely that one finds how much there 
 is to be seen, and how long a time is required to see 
 it. And fortunately enough there is an expedition, 
 and that not the least important, where we can avoid 
 the rough paths and rougher saddles of the country, 
 and coast in a steamer along a district at all times 
 obscure in history, and seldom known for anything 
 except for being the road to Sunium. Strabo gives 
 a list of the denies along this seaboard, 1 and seems 
 only able to write one fact about them a line from 
 an old oracle in the days of the Persian war, which 
 prophesied that " the women of Colias will roast 
 their corn with oars," 2 alluding to the wrecks driven 
 on shore here by the northwest wind from Salamis. 
 Even the numerous little islands along this coast 
 were in his day, as they now are, perfectly barren. 
 Yet with all its desolation it is exceedingly pictu- 
 resque and varied in outline. 
 
 We took ship in the little steamer 3 belonging to 
 the Sunium Mining Company, who have built a 
 village called Ergasteria, between Thorikos and the 
 promontory, and who were obliging enough to allow 
 us to sail in the boat intended for their private 
 traffic. We left the Peirseus on one of those pecu- 
 liarly Greek mornings, with a blue sky and very 
 
 1 ix. \ I. p. 244 (Tauchn.). 
 
 2 He reads, however, tfipl^ovai, instead of Herodotus' s ( 
 
 8 There is now a railway from Athens to the mines (1887).
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA. 165 
 
 bright sun, but with an east wind so strong and 
 clear, so Xa/^ooc, as the old Greeks would say, that 
 the sea was driven into long white crests, and the 
 fishing-boats were lying over under their sails. 
 These fresh and strong winds, which are constantly 
 blowing in Greece, save the people very much from 
 the bad effects of a very hot southern climate. 
 Even when the temperature is high the weather is 
 seldom sultry ; and upon the sea, which intrudes 
 everywhere, one can always find a cool and refresh- 
 ing atmosphere. The Greeks seem not the least to 
 fear these high winds, which are generally steady 
 and seldom turn to squalls. The smallest boats are 
 to be seen scudding along on great journeys from 
 one island to another often with a single occupant, 
 who sits holding the helm with one hand, and the 
 stern sheet with the other. All the ferry-boats in 
 the Peirajus are managed in this way, and you 
 may see their great sails, like sea-gulls' wings, lean- 
 ing over in the gale, and the spray dashing from the 
 vessel's prow. We met a few larger vessels coming 
 up from Syra, but on the whole the sea was well- 
 nigh as desert as the coast ; so much so, that the 
 faithful dog, which was on board each of those boats, 
 thought it his serious duty to stand up on the taffrail 
 and bark at us as a strange and doubtful company. 
 
 So, after passing many natural harbors and spa- 
 cious bays, many rocky headlands and bluff islands 
 but all desert and abandoned by track of man, we
 
 166 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 approached the famous cape, from which the white 
 pillars of the lofty old temple gleamed brilliantly 
 in the sun. They were the first and only white 
 marble pillars which I saw in Greece. Elsewhere, 
 dust and age, if not the hand of man, have colored 
 that splendid material with a dull golden hue ; but 
 here the sea breeze, while eating away much of the 
 surface, has not soiled them with its fresh brine, and 
 so they still remain of the color which they had 
 when they were set up. We should fain conjecture 
 that here, at all events, the Greeks had not applied 
 the usual blue and red to decorate this marvellous 
 temple ; that for the delight and benefit of the 
 sailors, who hailed it from afar, as the first sign of 
 Attica its brilliant white color was left to it, to 
 render it a brighter beacon and a clearer object in 
 twilight and in mist. I will not yet describe it, for 
 we paid it a special visit, and must speak of it in 
 greater detail ; but even now, when we coasted 
 round the headland, and looked up to its shining 
 pillars standing far aloft into the sky, it struck us 
 with the most intense interest. It was easy, indeed, 
 to see how Byron's poetic mind was here inspired 
 with some of his noblest lines. 
 
 When we turned from it seaward, we saw 
 stretched out in echelon that chain of Cyclades, which 
 are but a prolongation of the headland Keos, 
 Kyphnos, Seriphos, Siphnos, and in the far distance, 
 Melos Melos, the scene of Athens's violence and
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA. 167 
 
 cruelty, when she filled up, in the mind of the old 
 historian, the full measure of her iniquity. And as 
 we turned northward, the long island, or islet, of 
 Helena, which stretches along the point, like Hydra 
 off that of Argolis, could not hide from us the 
 mountain ranges of Eubcea, still touched here and 
 there with snow. A short run against the wind 
 brought us to the port of Ergasteria, marked very 
 strangely in the landscape by the smoke of its 
 chimneys the port where the present produce of 
 the mines of Laurium is prepared and shipped for 
 Scotland. 
 
 Here, at last, we found ourselves again Among 
 men ; three thousand operatives, many of them with 
 families, make quite a busy town of Ergasteria. 
 And I could not but contrast their bold and inde- 
 pendent looks, rough and savage as they seemed, 
 with what must have been the appearance of the 
 droves of slaves wha worked the mines in old days. 
 We were rowed ashore from our steamer by two men 
 called Aristides and Epaminondas, but I cannot say 
 that their looks betokened either the justice of the 
 one or the culture of the other. 
 
 We found ourselves when we landed in an awk- 
 ward predicament. The last English engineer re- 
 maining in the Mining Company, at whose invitation 
 we had ventured into this \vild district, had suddenly 
 left, that morning, for Athens. His house was shut 
 up, and we were left friendless and alone, among
 
 168 EAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 three thousand of these Aristideses and Epaminon- 
 dases, whose appearance was, as I have said, anything 
 but reassuring. We did what was best to meet the 
 difficulty, and what was not only the best thing to 
 do, but the only thing, and it turned out very well 
 indeed. We went to the temporary director of the 
 mines, a very polished gentleman, with a charming 
 wife, both of whom spoke French excellently. We 
 stated our case, and requested hospitality for the 
 night. Nothing could be more friendly than our 
 reception. This benevolent man and his wife took 
 us into their own house, prepared rooms for us, and 
 promised to let us see all the curiosities of the 
 country. Thus our misfortune became, in fact, a 
 very good fortune. The night, however, it must be 
 confessed, was spent in a very unequal conflict with 
 mosquitoes an inconvenience which our good host- 
 ess in vain endeavored to obviate by giving us a 
 strong-smelling powder to burn in our room, and 
 shutting all the windows. But had the remedy been 
 even successful, it is very doubtful whether it was 
 not worse than the disease. 
 
 We started in the morning by a special train for 
 the company have a private line from the coast up 
 to the mines to ascend the wooded and hilly 
 country into the region so celebrated of old as one 
 of the main sources of Athenian wealth. As the 
 train wound its way round the somewhat steep 
 ascent, our prospect over the sea and its islands
 
 Lauriom
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA. 169 
 
 became larger and more varied. The wild rocks and 
 forests of southern Euboea one of the few districts 
 in Greece which seem to have been as savage and 
 deserted in old days as they are now detached 
 themselves from the intervening island of Helena. 
 We were told that wild boars were still to be found 
 in Euboea. In the hills about Laurium, hares, which 
 Xenophon so loved to hunt in his Elean retreat, and 
 turtle doves, seemed the only game attainable. All 
 the hills were covered with stunted underwood. 
 
 The mines of Laurium appear very suddenly in 
 Attic history, but from that time onward are a 
 prominent part of the wealth of the Athenians. 
 We know that in Solon's day there was great 
 scarcity of money, and that he was obliged to de- 
 preciate the value of the coinage a very violent 
 and unprecedented measure, never repeated ; for, all 
 through later history, Attic silver was so good that 
 it circulated at a premium in foreign parts just as 
 English money does now. Accordingly, in Solon's 
 time we hear no mention of this great and almost 
 inexhaustible source of national wealth. All through 
 the reign of the Peisistratids there is a like silence. 
 Suddenly, after the liberation of Athens, we hear of 
 Themistocles persuading the people to apply the 
 very large revenue from these mines to the building 
 of a fleet for the purpose of the war with 
 
 1 The earliest allusion to them is a line in JEschylus's Persce, 
 where they come in so peculiarly, and without any natural sugges-
 
 170 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 The so-called Xenophon On the Attic Revenues a 
 tract which is almost altogether about these mines 
 asserts indeed that they had been worked from 
 remote antiquity ; and there can be little doubt that 
 here, as elsewhere in Greece, the Phoenicians had 
 been the forerunners of the natives in the art of 
 mining. Here, as in Thasos, I believe the Phoeni- 
 cians had their settlements ; and possibly a closer 
 survey of the great underground passages, which 
 are still there, may give us some proof by inscrip- 
 tions or otherwise. 
 
 But what happened after the Semitic traders had 
 been expelled from Greek waters? for expelled 
 they were, though, perhaps, far later from some 
 remote and unexplored points than we usually 
 imagine. I suppose that when this took place 
 Athens was by no means in a condition to think 
 about prosecuting trade at Sunium. Salamis, which 
 was far closer and a more obvious possession, was 
 only conquered in Solon's day, after a long and 
 
 tion, 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) : 
 
 apyi'pov TTTjytj TH; avroif tan, 6tjaavpbf xftovof. 
 
 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 (tyavrj), and there 
 was a profit of 100 talents from the work, Themistocles," etc.
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA. 171 
 
 tedious struggle ; and I am perfectly certain that 
 the Athenians could have had no power to hold an 
 outlying dependency, separated by thirty miles of 
 the roughest mountain country, when they had not 
 subdued an island scarcely a mile from the Thriasian 
 plain and not ten miles from Athens. I take it, 
 then, that the so-called ffwocxcff/wz, or unifying of 
 Athens, in prehistoric times, by Theseus, or who- 
 ever did it, was not a cementing of all Attica, in- 
 cluding these remote corners, but only of the settle- 
 ments about the plains of Attica, Marathon, and 
 Eleusis ; and that the southern end of the peninsula 
 was not included in the Athens of early days. It was, 
 in fact, only accessible by a carefully constructed 
 artificial road, such as we hear of afterward, or by 
 sea. The Athenians had not either of these means 
 of access at so early a period. And it is not a little 
 remarkable that the first mention of their ownership 
 of the silver mines is associated with the building of 
 a fleet to contend with JEgina. I have no doubt 
 that Themistocles's advice has been preserved with- 
 out his reasons for it. He persuaded the Athenians 
 to surrender their surplus revenue from Laurium, to 
 build ships against the ^Eginetans, simply because 
 they found that without ships the JJEginetana would 
 be practically sole possessors of the mines. They 
 were far closer to Laurium by sea than Athens was 
 by land closer, indeed, in every way and I am 
 led to suspect that, in the days before Solon, the
 
 172 KAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 mines may have been secretly worked by .^Egina, 
 and not by Athens. I cannot here enter into my 
 full reasons, but I fancy that Peisistratus and his 
 sons not by conquest, but by some agreement got 
 practical possession of the mines, and were, perhaps, 
 the first to make all Attica really subject to the 
 power of Athens. 1 But no sooner are they expelled 
 than the .ZEginetans renew their attacks or claims on 
 Laurium ; and it is only the Athenian fleet which 
 secures to Athens its possession. We hear of pro- 
 ceedings of Hippias about coinage, 2 which are 
 adduced by Aristotle as specimens of injustice, or 
 sharp practice, and which may have something to 
 do with the acquisition of the silver mines by his 
 dynasty. But I must cut short this serious disser- 
 tation. 
 
 Our special train brought us up slowly round 
 wooded heights, and through rich green brakes, into 
 a lonely country, from which glimpses of the sea 
 could, however, still be seen, and glimpses of blue 
 islands, between the hills. And so we came to the 
 settlements of the modern miners. The great Com- 
 pany, whose guests we were, had been started some 
 
 1 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 ^Eginetans. 
 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. 
 
 * Arist. CEcon., n. 4.
 
 EXCUKSIONS IN ATTICA. 173 
 
 years ago, by French and Italian speculators, and 
 Professor Anstead had been there as geologist for 
 some years. But the jealousy of the Greeks, when 
 they found out that profit was rewarding foreign 
 enterprise, caused legislation against the Company ; 
 various complications followed, so that at last they 
 gladly sold their interest to a native Company. In 
 1887 this Company was still thriving ; and I saw in 
 the harbor a large vessel from Glasgow, which had 
 come to carry the lead to Scotland, when prepared 
 in blocks all the produce being still bought by a 
 single English firm. 
 
 When the Greeks discuss these negotiations about 
 the mines they put quite a different color on the 
 affair. They say that the French and Italians de- 
 sired to evade fair payment for the ground-rent of 
 the mines, trusting to the strength of their respective 
 governments, and the weakness of Greece. The 
 Company's policy is described in Greece as an over- 
 reaching, unscrupulous attempt to make great profits 
 by sharp bargains with the natives, who did not know 
 the value of their property. A great number of 
 obscure details are adduced in favor of their argu- 
 ments, and it seemed to me that the Greeks were 
 really convinced of their truth. In such a matter 
 it would be unfair to decide without stating both 
 sides; and I am quite prepared -to change my pres- 
 ent conviction that the Greeks were most to blame, 
 if proper reasons can be assigned. But the legis-
 
 174 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 lative Acts passed in their Parliament look very 
 ugly indeed at first sight. 
 
 The principal Lauriuin Company l never enter the 
 mines at all, but gather the great mass of scoriae, 
 which the old Athenians threw out after smelting 
 with more imperfect furnaces and less heat than ours. 
 These scoriae, which look like stone cinders, have 
 been so long there that some vegetation has at last 
 grown over them, and the traveller does not sus- 
 pect that all the soil around was raised and altered 
 by the hand of man. Owing to the power of steam, 
 and their railway, the present miners carry down 
 the scoriae on trucks to the sea-coast, to Ergasteria, 
 and there smelt them. The old Athenians had their 
 furnaces in the middle of the mountains, where 
 many of them are still to be seen. They sought 
 chiefly for silver, whereas the modern Company 
 are chiefly in pursuit of lead, and obtain but little 
 silver from the scoriae. 
 
 In many places you come upon the openings of the 
 old pits, which went far into the bowels of the moun- 
 tains, through miles of underground galleries and 
 passages. Our engine-driver an intelligent French- 
 man stopped the train to show us one of these 
 entrances, which went, down almost straight, with 
 good steps still remaining, into the earth. He as- 
 sured us that the other extremity which was known, 
 
 1 Since I visited the place there are actually five companies 
 two Greek and three French established to work the district
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA. 175 
 
 all the passage being open, was some two or three 
 miles distant, at a spot which he showed us from a 
 hill. Hearing that inscriptions were found in these 
 pits, and especially that the name of Nicias had been 
 discovered there, we were very anxious to descend 
 and inspect them. This was promised to us, for the 
 actual pits were in the hands of another Greek 
 Company, who were searching for new veins of 
 silver. But when we arrived at the spot the officers 
 of the Company were unwilling to let us into the 
 pits. The proper overseer was away intentionally, 
 of course. There were no proper candles ; there 
 were no means of obtaining admission : so we were 
 balked in our inquiry. But we went far enough into 
 the mouth of one of them to see that these pits were 
 on a colossal scale, well arched up ; and, I suppose, 
 had we gone far enough, we should have found 
 the old supports, of which the Athenian law was so 
 careful. 
 
 The quantity of scoriae thrown out, which seems 
 now perfectly inexhaustible, is in itself sufficient 
 evidence of the enormous scale on which the old 
 mining was carried on. Thus, we do not in the 
 least wonder at hearing that Nicias had one thousand 
 slaves working in the mines, and that the profits ac- 
 cruing to the State from the fines and head-rents of 
 the mines were very large on a moderate estimate, 
 8000 a year of our money, which meant in those 
 days a great deal more.
 
 176 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 The author of the tract on " Athenian Revenue " 
 says that the riches of the mines were absolutely 
 unbounded ; that only a small part of the silver dis- 
 trict had been worked out, though the digging had 
 gone on from time immemorial ; and that after in- 
 numerable laborers had been employed the mines 
 always appeared equally rich, so that no limit need 
 be put on the employment of capital. Still he speaks 
 of opening a new shaft as a most risky speculation. 
 His general estimate appears, however, somewhat 
 exaggerated. The writer confesses that the number 
 of laborers was in his day diminishing, and the 
 majority of the proprietors were then beginners ; so 
 that there must have been great interruption of work 
 during the Peloponnesian War. In the age of Philip 
 there were loud complaints that the speculations in 
 mining were unsuccessful ; and for obtaining silver, 
 at all events, no reasonable prospect seems to have 
 been left. In the first century of our era, Strabo 
 (ix. i. 23) says that these once celebrated mines were 
 exhausted, 1 that new mining did not pay, and thus 
 people were smelting the poorer ore, and the scoriae 
 from which the ancients had imperfectly separated 
 the metal. He adds that the main product of the 
 mining district was in his day honey, which was es- 
 pecially known as smokeless (axa-w<rrov), on ac- 
 
 1 There is also a quotation in Strabo (iii. 3, \ 9), from Deme- 
 trius Phal., implying their activity in the third century B. c. Plu- 
 tarch (de defectu or. 43) speaks of them as having lately failed.
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA. 177 
 
 count of its good preparation. This in itself shows 
 that the mining had decayed, for now all the flowers 
 in the neighborhood of the smelting are killed by 
 the black fumes. 
 
 Our last mention of the place in olden times is 
 that of Pausanias (at the end of the second century 
 A. D.), who speaks of Laurium, with the addition 
 that it had once been the seat of the Athenian silver 
 mines ! 
 
 There is but one more point suggested by these 
 mines, which it is not well to pass over when we are 
 considering the working of them in ancient times. 
 Nothing is more poisonous than the smoke from lead- 
 mines ; and for this reason the people at Ergasteria 
 have built a chimney more than a mile long to the 
 top of a neighboring hill, where the smoke escapes. 
 Even so, when the wind blows back the smoke, all 
 the vegetation about the village is at once blighted, 
 and there is no greater difficulty than to keep a 
 garden within two or three miles of this chimney. 
 As the Athenians did not take such precautions, we 
 are not surprised to hear from them frequent notices of 
 the unhealthiness of the district, for when there were 
 many furnaces, and the smoke was not drawn away 
 by high chimneys, we can hardly conceive life to 
 have been tolerable. What then must have been the 
 condition of the gangs of slaves which Nicias and 
 other respectable and pious Athenians kept in these 
 mines? Two or three allusions give us a hideous 
 12
 
 178 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 insight into this great social sore, which has not been 
 laid bare, because the wild district of Laurium, and 
 the deep mines under its surface, have concealed the 
 facts from the ordinary observer. Nicias, we are 
 told, let out one thousand slaves to Sosias the 
 Thracian, at an obolus a day each the lessee 
 being bound to restore them to him the same in 
 number. 
 
 The meaning of this frightful contract is only too 
 plain. The yearly rent paid for each slave was 
 about half the full price paid for him in the market. 
 It follows that, if the slave lived for three years, 
 Nicias made a profit of 50 per cent, on his outlay. 
 No doubt, some part of this extraordinary bargain 
 must be explained by the great profits which an 
 experienced miner could make a fact supported 
 by the tract on the Revenues, which cannot date 
 more than a generation later than the bargain of 
 Nicias. The lessee, too, was under the additional 
 risk of the slaves escaping in time of war, when 
 a hostile army might make a special invasion into 
 the mountain district for the purpose of inflicting 
 a blow on this important part of Athenian revenue. 
 In such cases, it may be presumed that desperate 
 attempts were made by the slaves to escape, for 
 although the Athenian slaves generally were the 
 best treated in Greece, and had many holidays, it 
 was very different with the gangs employed by the 
 Thracian taskmaster. We are told that they had
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA. 179 
 
 three hundred and sixty working days in the year. 
 This, together with the poison of the atmosphere, 
 tells its tale plainly enough. 
 
 And yet Nicias, the capitalist who worked this 
 hideous trade, was the most pious and God-fearing 
 man at Athens. So high was his reputation for 
 integrity and religion, that the people insisted on 
 appointing him again and again to commands for 
 which he was wholly unfit ; and when at last he 
 ruined the great Athenian army before Syracuse, 
 and lost his own life, by his extreme devoutness 
 and his faith in the threats and warnings of the 
 gods even then the great sceptical historian, who 
 cared for none of these things, condones all his 
 blunders for the sake of his piety and his respect- 
 ability. 
 
 Of course, however, an excursion to Laurium, 
 interesting as it might be, were absurd without 
 visiting the far more famous Sunium, the promon- 
 tory which had already struck us so much on our 
 sea voyage round the point, the temple which 
 Byron has again hallowed with his immortal verse, 
 and Turner with his hardly less immortal pencil. 
 So we hired horses on our return from the mines, 
 and set out on a very fine afternoon to ride down 
 some seven or eight miles from Ergasteria to the 
 famous promontory. Our route led over rolling 
 hills, covered with arbutus and stunted firs ; along 
 valleys choked with deep, matted grass ; by the
 
 180 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 side of the sea, upon the narrow ledge of broken 
 rocks. Nowhere was there a road, or a vestige of 
 human habitation, save where the telegraph wire 
 dipped into the sea, pointing the way to the distant 
 Syra. It was late in the day, and the sun was 
 getting low, so we urged our horses to a canter 
 wherever the ground would permit it. But neither 
 the heat nor the pace could conquer the indefatigable 
 esquire who attended us on foot to show us the way, 
 and hold the horses when we stopped. His speed 
 and endurance made me think of Phidippides and 
 his run to Sparta ; nor, indeed, do any of the feats 
 recorded of the old Greeks, either in swimming 
 or running, appear incredible when we witness the 
 feats that ai'e being performed almost every day 
 by modern muscle and endurance. At last, after 
 a delightful two hours' roaming through the homely 
 solitude, we found ourselves at the foot of the last 
 hill, and over us the shining pillars of the ruined 
 temple stood out against the sky. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the temple of Neptune 
 on Mount Tsenarum must have been quite as fine as 
 to position, but the earthquakes of Laconia have 
 made havoc of its treasures, while at Sunium, 
 though some of the drums in the shafts of the 
 pillars have been actually displaced several inches 
 from their fellows above and below, so that the per- 
 fect fitting of the old Athenians has come to look 
 like the tottering work of a giant child with marble
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA. 181 
 
 bricks, in spite of this, thirteen pillars remain, 1 
 a piece of architrave, and a huge platform of solid 
 blocks ; above all, a site not desecrated by modern 
 habitations, where we can sit and think of the great 
 old days, and of the men who set up this noble 
 monument at the remotest corner of their land. 
 The Greeks told us that this temple, that at ^Egina, 
 and the Parthenon, are placed exactly at the angles 
 of a great equilateral triangle, with each side about 
 twenty- five or thirty miles long. Our maps do not 
 verify this belief. The distance from Athens to 
 Sunium appears much longer than either of the 
 other lines, nor do we find in antiquity any hint 
 that such a principle was attended to, or that any 
 peculiar virtue was attached to it. 
 
 We found the platform nearly complete, built with 
 great square blocks of poros-stone, and in some 
 places very high, though in others scarcely raised 
 at all, according to the requirements of the ground. 
 Over it the temple was built, not with the huge 
 blocks which we see at Corinth and in the Parthenon, 
 but still of perfectly white marble, and with that beau- 
 tifully close fitting, without mortar, rubble, or cement, 
 which characterizes the best and most perfect epoch 
 of Greek architecture. 2 The stone, too, is the finest 
 
 1 Byron, who loved this spot above all others, I think, in 
 Greece, speaks of sixteen as still standing in his day. 
 
 2 Dr. Dorpfeld has since sliown that the marble temple at 
 Sunium was built on the site of an older temple, with a very
 
 182 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 white marble, and, being exposed to no dust on its 
 lofty site, has alone of all temples kept its original 
 color if, indeed, it was originally white, and not 
 enriched with divers colors. The earthquake, which 
 has displaced the stones in the middle of the pillars, 
 has tumbled over many large pieces, which can be 
 seen from above scattered all down the slope where 
 they have rolled. But enough still remains for us 
 to see the plan, and imagine the effect of the whole 
 structure. It is in the usual simple, grand, Doric 
 style, but lighter in proportions than the older Attic 
 temples ; and, being meant for distant effect, was 
 probably not much decorated. Its very site gives 
 it all the ornament any building could possibly 
 require. 
 
 It was our good fortune to see it in a splendid sun- 
 set, with the sea a sheet of molten gold, and all the 
 headlands and islands colored with hazy purple. 
 The mountains of Eubrea, with their promontory of 
 Gersestus, closed the view upon the north-east ; but 
 far down into the ^Egean reached island after island, 
 as it were striving to prolong a highway to the holy 
 Delos. The ancient Andros, Tenos, Myconos were 
 there, but the eye sought in vain for the home of 
 Apollo's shrine the smallest and yet the greatest of 
 the group. The parallel chain, reaching down from 
 Suniuin itself, was confused into one mass, but ex- 
 slight but distinct enlargement of the plan. The older temple 
 was of the ordinary poros-stone found on the site.
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA. 183 
 
 posed to view the distant Melos. Then came a short 
 space of open sea, due south, which alone prevented 
 us from imagining ourselves on some fair and quiet 
 inland lake ; and beyond to the south-west we saw 
 the point of Hydra, the only spot in all Hellas whose 
 recent fame exceeds the report of ancient days. 
 The mountains of Argolis lay behind ^Egina, and 
 formed with their Arcadian neighbors a solid back- 
 ground, till the eye wandered round to the Acropolis 
 of Corinth, hardly visible in the burning brightness 
 of the sun's decline. And all this splendid expanse 
 of sea and mountain, and bay and cliff, seemed as 
 utterly deserted as the wildest western coast of Scot- 
 land or Ireland. One or two little white sails, speed- 
 ing in his boat some lonely fisherman, made the 
 solitude, if possible, more speaking and more in- 
 tense. There are finer views, more extensive, and 
 perhaps even more varied, but none more exquisitely 
 interesting and more melancholy to the student of 
 Ancient Greece.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA PENTELICUS MARATHON 
 
 DAPHNE ELEUSIS. 
 
 THIS great loneliness is a feature that strikes the 
 traveller almost everywhere through the country. 
 Many centuries of insecurity, and indeed of violence, 
 have made country life almost impossible ; and now 
 that better times have come, the love and knowledge 
 of it are gone. The city Athenian no longer 
 grumbles, as he did in Aristophanes's day, that an 
 invasion has driven him in from the rude plenty and 
 simple luxuries of his farming life, where with his 
 figs and his olives, his raisins and his heady wine, he 
 made holiday before his gods, and roasted his thrush 
 and his chestnuts with his neighbor over the fire. 
 All this is gone. There remains, indeed, the old 
 political lounger, the loafer of the market-place, 
 ever seeking to obtain some shabby maintenance by 
 sycophancy or by bullying. This type is not hard 
 to find in modern Athens, but the old sturdy Aclinr- 
 nian, as well as the rich horse-breeding Alcmaeonid, 
 are things of the past. Even the large profits to be 
 made by market-gardening will not tempt them to 
 adopt this industry, and the great city of Athens is 
 
 184
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA. 185 
 
 one of the worst supplied and dearest of capitals, 
 most of its daily requirements in vegetables, fowls, 
 eggs, etc., coming in by steamers from islands on 
 the coast of Thessaly. No part of the country of 
 Attica can be considered even moderately cultivated, 
 except the Thriasian plain, and the valley of Kephis- 
 sus, reaching from near Dekelea to the sea. This 
 latter plain, with its fine olive-woods reaching down 
 across Academus to the region of the old long 
 walls, is fairly covered with corn and grazing cattle, 
 with plane trees and poplars. But even here many 
 of the homesteads are deserted ; and the country 
 seats of the Athenians were often left empty for 
 years, whenever a band of brigands appeared in the 
 neighboring mountains, and threatened the outlying 
 houses with blackmail, if not with bloodier violence. 
 Of late there is a steady improvement. 
 
 Nothing can be truer than the admirable descrip- 
 tion of Northern Attica given in M. Perrot's book on 
 the Attic orators. He is describing Rhamnus, the 
 home of Antiphon, but his picture is of broader 
 application. 1 
 
 1 "Aujourd'hni tout ce district est presque desert; seuls, quel- 
 ques archdologues et quclques artistes afl'rontent ces gorges pier- 
 rc uses et ces scabreux senders ; on prend alors ce chemin pour 
 aller de Marathon a Chalcis et revenir a Athene? par Dece'lie, entre 
 If Pentelique et Parnes. Ces monuments de Rhamminte offrent 
 des traits curieux qui les rendent iuteressants pour le voyageur 
 rrudit ; niais de plus les mines monies et le site out assez de beaute" 
 pour dedommager de leur peine ceux qui recherclient surtout Je
 
 186 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 All these remarks are even more strongly exem- 
 plified by the beautiful country which lies between 
 
 pittoresque. Je n'oublierai jamais les quelques heures que j'ai 
 passees la, il y a deja longtemps, par une radieuse matinee d'avril. 
 Pendant que nous examinions ce qui restait des anciens sanctuaires 
 et de leurs defenses, notre guide songeait au dejeuner ; il avail 
 acliete un agneau a 1'un de ces patres appeles Vlaques qui, avec leurs 
 brebis et leurs chevres eparses dans les buissons de myrtes et de 
 lentisques, sont peu pres les seuls habitants de ce canton. Quand 
 nous revinmes, F agneau, soutenu sur deux fourches fichees en terre 
 par un jeune pin sylvestre qui servait de broche, cuisait tout entier 
 devant un feu clair, et la graisse coulait a grosses gouttes sur les 
 charbons ardents. Devant notre tapis etendu a 1' ombre avait ete 
 prepared une jonchee de verts branchages sur lesquels le succulent 
 roti, rapidement decoupe par le coutelas d'un berger, laissa bientot 
 tomber cotelettes et gigots. 
 
 "Ce qui nous fit prolonger la notre halte apres que notre appe- 
 tit fut satisfait, ce fut la vue magnifique dont on jouissait de la 
 plate-forme ou nous e"tions e"tablis, dans un coin de 1'acropole. A 
 nos pieds, c'e"tait la mer, veloutee 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 sevres cotes de 1'Eubee, domines par la 
 pyramide du Dirphys. Ce fier sommet etait encore tout blanc des 
 neiges de 1'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 halees par le soleil, c'e*tait 
 le printemps de la Grece dans tout son e*panouissement et son eclat. 
 Dans le fond des ravins, la ou un pen d'eau filtrait sous les cail- 
 loux. arbres de Judee et cytises mfilaient leurs brillantes couleurs 
 au tendre feuillage des platanes, et sur les pentes les plus apres des 
 milliers de genfets en fleur etincelaient panui la verdure des gen- 
 evriers, des chenes et des oliviers francs. 
 
 "Dans 1'antiquite, toute cette portion du territoire athcnifii, 
 qui faisait partie de ce que 1'on appelait la Diatria ou le 'liaut 
 pays,' sans avoir de gros villages ni une population aussi dense
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA. 187 
 
 Pentelicus and Hymettus, and which is now covered 
 with forest and brushwood. We passed through this 
 
 qne celle des plaines d'Athenes ou d'Eleusis, devait pourtant pre*s- 
 enter un aspect assez different de celui qu'elle offre aujourd'hui; 
 je me la repre*sente assez semblable a ce que sont maintenant cer- 
 tains districts montueux de la Grece moderne ou le desir d'e'viter 
 le contact des Turcs arait rejete et cantonne les Hellenes : il en 
 e"tait ainsi du Magne, de la Tzaconie, des environs de Karytena en 
 Arcadie. Partout la, une industrieuse perseverance a mis a 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 
 seches s'effbrcent de retenir une mince couche de terre ve'ge'tale ; 
 malgre ces precautions, les grandes pluies de Fhiver et les vents de 
 1'ete en em portent une partie jusqu'au fond de la valle*e, sans 
 jamais se lasser, hommes, femmes, enfants, travaillent sans relache 
 a re*parer ces dcgats. 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 courbe* sous leurs hottes 
 pleines, gravissant des sentiers sablonneux ou d'etroits escaliers 
 tailles a meme la roche qui leur renvoyait touts les ardeurs du 
 soleil ! Au bout de quelques annees, il n'est pas peut-etre une 
 parcelle du terrain dans chacun de ces petits champs qui n'ait fait 
 jilusieurs fois le voyage, qui n'ait glisse" jusqu'au bord du torrent 
 pour etre ensuite ramenee pelletee par pellete"e, sur une des ter- 
 rasses supe'rieures. Ces sacrifices sont recompense's. Le long du 
 ruisseau, la oft les cotes s'e"cartent et laissent entre elles un peu 
 d'espace, 1'eau, soigneusement m4nage, mesur^e par heures et 
 par minutes a chaque proprietaire, court bruyante et claire dans 
 les rigoles ; elle arrose des vergers ou croissent, suivant les lieux, 
 soit 1' Granger, le citronnier et le grenadier, soit les arbres de nos 
 climats temj)eres, le pecher, le pommier et le poirier ; a leur ombre 
 grossissent la feve et 1'enorme courge. Plus haut, sur les versants 
 les moins roides et les moins pierreux, la ou la legere charrue in- 
 vent^e par Triptolerne a trouve assez de place pour tracer le sillon, 
 1'orge et le seigle verdissent au printemps, et, dans les bonnes
 
 188 RAMBLES IN GliEECE. 
 
 vale one sunny morning on our way to visit Mara- 
 thon. There is, indeed, a road for some miles the 
 road to the quarries of Pentelicus but a very dif- 
 ferent one from what the Athenians must have had. 
 It is now a mere broad track, cut by wheels and 
 
 annees, profitent pour murir des tardifs soleils d'automne. Ce qui 
 d'ailleurs reussit le mieux dans ces montagnes, ce qui paye 
 vraiment les habitants de leurs peines, c'est 1'olivier, dont les puis- 
 santes racines e"treignent le roc et semblent faire corps avec lui ; 
 c'est la vigne, qui, d'etage en e"tage, grimpe presque jusqu'aux sorn- 
 mets. A 1'un et a 1'autre, pour dormer une huile et un vin qui 
 seraient les plus savoureux du monde, s'ils e"taient mieux prepares, 
 il suffit de beaucoup de soleil, d' un peu de terre et de quelques 
 coups de hoyau qui viennent a propos ameublir le sol et le degager 
 des plantes parasites. 
 
 "C'est ainsi que dans 1'Attique, an temps de sa prosperite, 
 m6me les cantons aujonrd' hui les plus deserts et les plus steYiles 
 devaient etre babites et cultive's. Sur beaucoup de ces croupes ou 
 le roc ameure presque partout, ou verdit a peine, aux premiers 
 jours du printemps, une herbe courte, diapree d'anemones et de 
 cistes, qui jaunira des le mois de mai, il y avait jadis une couche 
 plus epaisse de terre vegetale. Dans les ravins, la ou j' ai perdu 
 plus d' une fois mon chemin en poursuivant la perdrix rouge ou la 
 beeasse a travers des maquis toufTus, on a, pendant bien des siecles, 
 fait lavendangeet lacueillette des olives; c'est ce dont te"moignent, 
 sur les pentes les mieux exposees aux rayons du midi ou du 
 couchant. des restes de murs et de terrassements que Ton distingue 
 encore dans 1'epaisseur du fourre. Dans les endroits ou la culture 
 etait a peu pres impossible, des bois de pins, aujhourd'hui presque 
 entitlement detruits, empechaient la montagne de se denuder ; 
 dans les clairieres et entre les rocs memes poussaient la sauge, l<t 
 campanule et le thym, toutes ces plantes aromatiques, tous ces 
 vigoureux arbustes que se plait a tondre la dent des moutons et des 
 chevres."
 
 Mount Lycabettus, Athens
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA. 189 
 
 hoofs in the sward ; and wherever the ruts become 
 too deep the driver turns aside, and makes a 
 parallel track for his own convenience. In summer 
 days, the dust produced by this sort of road is some- 
 thing beyond description ; and the soil being very 
 red earth, we have an atmosphere which accounts 
 to some extent for the remarkable color of the old 
 buildings of Athens. The way, after turning round 
 the steep Lycabcttus, which, like Arthur's Seat at 
 Edinburgh, commands the town close by, passes up 
 the right side of the undulating plain of Attica, with 
 the stony but variegated slopes of Hymettus upon 
 the right, and Pentelicus almost straight ahead. As 
 soon as the suburbs are passed we meet but one or 
 two country seats, surrounded with dark cypress 
 and pepper trees ; but outside the sombre green is 
 a tall, dazzling, white wall, which gives a peculiarly 
 Oriental character to the landscape. There is culti- 
 vation visible when you look to the westward, where 
 the village of Kephissia lies, among the groves which 
 accompany the Kephissus on its course ; but up 
 toward Pentelicus, along the track which must once 
 have been crowded with carts, and heavy teams, and 
 shouting drivers, when all the blocks of the Par- 
 thenon were being hurried from their quarry to 
 adorn the Acropolis along this famous track there 
 is hardly a sign of culture. Occasionally, a rough 
 stubble field showed that a little corn had been cut 
 an occasional station, with a couple .of soldiers,
 
 190 KAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 shows why more had not been sown. The fear of 
 brigands had paralyzed industry, and even driven 
 out the scanty rural population. 
 
 It strikes me, when speaking of this road, that the 
 Greek roads cannot have been at all so well con- 
 structed as the Roman, many of which are still to 
 be seen in England. Though I went upon the track 
 of many of them, I but once noticed the vestige of 
 an old Greek road. There are here and there 
 wretched remains of Turkish roads rough angular 
 stones laid down across the hills, in a close irregular 
 pavement ; but of the great builders of the Parthe- 
 non and of Phyle, of Eleutherse and of Eleusis, 
 hardly a patch of road-work has, so far as I know, 
 remained. 
 
 There is, indeed, one exception in this very neigh- 
 borhood, to which we may now naturally turn. The 
 traveller who has wondered at the huge blocks of 
 the Propylaea and the Parthenon, and who has 
 noticed the exquisite quality of the stone, and the 
 perfect smoothness which it has preserved to the 
 present day, will naturally desire to visit the quarry 
 on Pentelicus from which it was brought. The 
 marble of Paros is probably the only stone found 
 superior to it for the purposes of sculpture. It is, 
 however, harder and of larger grain, so that it must 
 have been more difficult to work. Experts can tell 
 the difference between the two marbles, but I con- 
 fess that, though M. Rousopoulos endeavored to teach
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA. 191 
 
 it to me from specimens in the Acropolis Museum, I 
 was unable to attain a clear knowledge of the dis- 
 tinction. The large blocks of Pentelican marble, 
 however beautiful and fine in grain, seem not unfre- 
 quently to have contained flaws, and possibly the 
 ascertaining of this defect may of old have been one 
 of the most difficult duties of the architect. It is 
 supposed to have been done by sounding the block 
 with a hammer, a process which the Greeks would 
 call XMowvl^iy. There are at present, close to the 
 east front of the Parthenon, several of these rejected 
 blocks, and the lapse of ages has brought out the 
 flaw visibly, because damp has had time to penetrate 
 the stone, and stain its pure whiteness Avith a dark 
 scam. But when it came fresh from its native bed, 
 and was all pure white, I presume the difficulty must 
 have been considerable. Possibly these blocks on 
 the Parthenon were injured in their transit, and left 
 the quarries in sound condition. For in going up 
 the steep road to these quarries, in more than one 
 place a similar great block will be found tumbled 
 aside, and left lying at the very spot where we may 
 suppose some accident to have happened to crack it. 
 This road, which in its highest parts has never been 
 altered, is a steep descent, rudely paved with trans- 
 verse courses of stone, like steps in pattern, and may 
 have had wooden slides laid over it, to bring down 
 the pi'oduct of the quarries to the valley. It is well 
 worth while going up for a night to the fine monas-
 
 192 .RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 tery not far off, where there is ample shade of wav- 
 ing trees and plenty of falling water, in the midst of 
 steep slopes wooded with the fir a cool and quiet 
 retreat in the fierce heat of summer. 1 From this 
 place to the quarries is less than an hour's walk. 
 The moderns still draw stone from them, but far 
 below the spots chosen by the ancients ; and, of 
 course, the remains of the old industry are on an 
 infinitely grander scale. 
 
 It is a laborious climb, up a road covered with 
 small fragments of stone. But at last, beneath a 
 great face of marble all chipped with the work of 
 ancient hands, there is a large cool cavern, with 
 Avater dripping from the roof into ice-cold pools 
 below, and besides it a quaint grotto chapel, with 
 its light still burning, and stone seats around, where 
 the traveller may rest. This place seems to have 
 been the main source of the old Athenian buildings. 
 The high face of the rock above it is chipped, as I 
 have said, with small and delicate cutting, and hangs 
 over, as if they had removed it beneath, in order 
 to bring down the higher pieces more easily. Of 
 course, they could not, and probably if they could, 
 would not, have blasted the stone ; and, so for as I 
 know, we are not informed by what process they 
 
 dfilv v-epQe Kara Kpnroq doveovro 
 aiycipot TrrfAeeM re TO S 1 eyyvdev iepbv Mup 
 ~Svfj.<j>av kt- avrpoio na-eipopevov K?.dpv& 
 
 THEOCK. vn. 135.
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA. 193 
 
 managed to loosen and bring down the great blocks 
 from their sites. The surface of the rock testifies 
 to the use of some small and delicate chisel. But 
 whatever the process, they must have had machinery 
 of which we have lost all record, for no amount of 
 manual work could possibly have accomplished what 
 they did in a few years, and accomplished it with 
 a delicacy which shows complete control of their 
 materials. The beautifully fitted walls of the 
 chamber inside the left wing of the Propylsea pre- 
 serve an interesting piece of detail on the face of 
 each square block, which is perfectly fitted to its 
 fellows ; there still remains a rough knob jutting 
 out from the centre, evidently the handle used for 
 lifting the stone, and usually removed when all the 
 building was completely finished. The expenses 
 of war and the dolors of a long siege caused the 
 Propylsea to remain unfinished, and so this piece of 
 construction has survived. 
 
 The view from the top of Pentelicus is, of course, 
 very striking, and those who have no time or inclina- 
 tion to spend a day at Marathon itself are usually 
 content with a very fine view of the bay and the 
 opposite mountains of Euboea, which can thence be 
 had. But it is indeed a pity, now that the country 
 is generally quite safe, that after so long a journey 
 as that from England to Athens, people should turn 
 back without completing the additional fifteen miles 
 
 J3
 
 194 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 which brings them to the site of the great battle 
 itself. 
 
 As we leave the track which leads up to the 
 monastery above mentioned, the country becomes 
 gradually covered with shrubs, and then with 
 stunted trees generally old fir-trees, all hacked 
 and carved and wounded for the sake of their resin, 
 which is so painfully obtrusive in Greek wine. But 
 in one place there is, by way of change, a picturesque 
 bridge over a rapid rocky-bedded river, which is 
 completely hidden with rich flowering oleanders, and 
 in which we found sundry Attic women, of the 
 poorer class, washing their clothes. The woods in 
 this place were wonderfully rich and scented, and 
 the sound of the turtle doves was heard in the land. 
 Presently we came upon the thickly wooded corner, 
 which was pointed out to us as the spot where our 
 unfortunate countrymen were captured in 1870, and 
 carried up the slopes of Pentelicus, to be sacrificed 
 to the blundering of the English Minister or the 
 Greek Ministry, I could not decide which, and 
 more certainly to their own chivalry ; for while all 
 the captured Greeks escaped during the pursuit, our 
 English gentlemen would not break their parole. 
 These men are now held by the better Greeks to 
 be martyrs for the good of Greece ; for this outrage 
 first forced the Government to take really vigorous 
 measures for the safety of the country. The whole 
 band were gradually captured and executed, till at
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA. 195 
 
 last Takos, their chief, was caught in Peloponnesus, 
 three or four years ago, and hanged at Athens. So 
 it came that I found the country (on all my visits, 
 '75, '77, '84, '89) apparently as safe as Ireland is 
 to a traveller, and we required neither escort, nor 
 arms, nor any precautions whatever. 
 
 We had, indeed, a missive from the Greek Prime 
 Minister, which we presented to the Chief Police 
 Officer of each town a gentleman in the usual 
 scarlet cap and white petticoats, but carrying a great 
 dog-Avhip as the sign of his office. This custom, 
 strange to say, dates from the days of Aristophanes. 
 But the Prime Minister warned us that, though things 
 were now safe, there was no permanent security. 
 Any revolution in the neighborhood (such, for exam- 
 ple, as that in Herzegovina, which at that time had 
 not yet broken out) might, he said, send over the Turk- 
 ish frontier a number of outlaws or other fugitives, 
 who would support themselves by levying blackmail 
 on the peasantry, and then on travellers. We were 
 assured that the Morea, which does not afford an 
 easy escape into Turkey, has been for years per- 
 fectly secure, and I found it so in several subsequent 
 journeys. So, then, any traveller desirous of see- 
 ing the Peloponnesus Sparta, Olympia, Mantinea, 
 Argos, or even Central Greece may count on doing 
 so with safety. Not so the visitor to Tempe and 
 Mount Pindus. 1 The Professors of the University 
 
 1 Since M. Trikoupi's long and effective administration, brig-
 
 196 KAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 with whom I talked were, indeed, of a more sanguine 
 opinion. They did not anticipate any recurrence 
 of the danger : they considered Greece one of the 
 safest and quietest of countries. Moreover, in one 
 point they all seemed agreed. It was perfectly cer- 
 tain that the presence of bandits would be at once 
 known at Athens. Why this was so, I was not 
 informed, nor whether travellers would be at once 
 informed also. In any case, either M. Trikoupi or 
 the British Minister can be perfectly relied upon for 
 advice in this matter. 
 
 So much for the safety of travelling in Greece, 
 which is suggested by the melancholy fate of Mr. 
 Vyner and his friends, though that event is now so 
 long past. But one point more. It is both idle and 
 foolish to imagine that revolvers and daggers are the 
 best protection against Greek bandits, should they 
 reappear. They never attack where they are visible. 
 The first notice given to the traveller is the sight of 
 twenty or thirty muzzles pointed at him from the 
 covert, with a summons to surrender. Except, there- 
 fore, the party be too numerous to be so surrounded 
 and vise, so that some could fight, even were others 
 shot except in such a case, arms are only an addi- 
 
 andage 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 Terape. Such was the state of things in 1889. Whether 
 his recent successor will keep as good order remains to be seen.
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA. 197 
 
 tional prize, and a tempting one, for the cleplits. It 
 is, indeed, very seldom that the carrying of arms is 
 to be recommended to any traveller in any land. 
 
 As we ascended the long saddle of country which 
 lies between Pentelicus and Hymettus, we came 
 upon a fine olive-Avood, with the same enormous 
 stems which had already excited our wonder in the 
 groves of Academe. Indeed, some of the stems in 
 this wood were the largest we had seen, and made 
 us think that they may have been there since the 
 days when the olive oil of Attica was one of its most 
 famous products, and its export was even forbidden. 
 Even then there were ancient stumps fMpuu t as 
 they were called which were sacred, and which no 
 man who rented or bought the land might remove j 
 a restriction which seems hard to us, but was not so 
 in Greece, where corn grows freely in the shade of 
 trees, and is even habitually planted in orchards. 
 But at all events, these old, gnarled, hollowed 
 stumps, with their tufts of branches starting from 
 the pollared trunk, are a really classical feature in 
 the country, and deserve, therefore, a passing notice. 
 
 When we had got well between the mountains a 
 new scene unfolded itself. We began to see the 
 famous old Euripus, with the mountains of Euboea 
 over against us ; and down to the south, behind 
 Hymettus, till we reach the extremity of Sunium, 
 stretched a long tract of mountainous arid barren 
 country which never played a prominent part in
 
 198 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 history, but where a conical hill was pointed out to 
 us as the site of the old deme Brauron. It is, 
 indeed, surprising how little of Attica was ever 
 celebrated. Close by the most famous city of the 
 world are reaches of country which are as obscure 
 to us as the wilds of Arcadia ; and we may suspect 
 that the shepherds who inhabited the ^e//ea, or 
 rocky pastures in the Attic hills, w r ere not much 
 superior to those whom we now meet herding their 
 goats in the same region. 
 
 The plain of Marathon, as everybody knows, is a 
 long crescent-shaped strip of land by the shore, sur- 
 rounded by an amphitheatre of hills, which may be 
 crossed conveniently in three places, but most easily 
 toward the south-west, along the road which we 
 travelled, and which leads directly to Athens. 
 When the Athenians marched through this broad 
 and easy passage they found that the Persians had 
 landed at the northern extremity of the plain I sup- 
 pose, because the water was there sufficiently deep 
 to let them land conveniently. Most of the shore, 
 as you proceed southward, is lined on the seaboard 
 by swamps. The Greek army must have marched 
 northward along the spurs of Pentelicus, and taken 
 up their position near the north of the plain. There 
 was evidently much danger that the Persians would 
 force a passage through the village of Marathon, 
 farther toward the north-west. Had they done this, 
 they might have rounded Pentelicus, and descended
 
 Looking Toward the Sea from the Soros, Marathon
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA. 199 
 
 the main plain of Attica, from the valley below 
 Dekelea. Perhaps, however, this pass was then 
 guarded by an outlying fort, or by some defences 
 at Marathon itself. The site of the battle is abso- 
 lutely fixed by the great mound, upon which was 
 placed a lion, which has been carried off, no one 
 knows when or whither. The mound is exactly an 
 English mile from the steep slope of one of the hills, 
 and about half a mile from the sea at present j nor 
 was there, when I saw it, any difficulty in walking 
 right to the shore, though a river flows out there, 
 which shows, by its sedgy banks and lofty reeds, a 
 tendency to create a marshy tract in rainy weather. 
 But the mound is so placed that, if it marks the 
 centre of the battle, the Athenians must have faced 
 nearly north ; and if they faced the sea eastward, 
 as is commonly stated, this mound must mark the 
 scene of the conflict on their left wing. The mound 
 is very large I suppose thirty feet high altogether 
 of earth, so far as we could see, and bears traces of 
 having been frequently ransacked in search of 
 antiquities. Dr. Schliemann, its latest investigator, 
 could find nothing there but prehistoric flint weapons. 
 Like almost every view in Greece, the prospect 
 from this mound is full of beauty and variety 
 everywhere broken outlines, everywhere patches of 
 blue sea, everywhere silence and solitude. Byron 
 is so much out of fashion now, and so much more 
 talked about than read though even that notice of
 
 200 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 him is fast disappearing that I will venture to 
 remind the reader of the splendid things he has said 
 of Greece, and especially of this very plain of 
 Marathon. He was carried away by his enthusiasm 
 to fancy a great future possible for the country, and 
 to believe that its desolation and the low condition 
 of the inhabitants were simply the result of Turkish 
 tyranny, and not of many natural causes conspiring 
 for twenty centuries. He paints the Greek brigand 
 or pirate as many others have painted the "noble 
 savage," with the omission of all his meaner vices. 
 But in spite of all these faults, who is there who 
 has felt as he the affecting aspects of this beautiful 
 land the tomb of ancient glory the home of an- 
 cient wisdom the mother of science, of art, of 
 philosophy, of politics the champion of liberty 
 the envy of the Persian and the Roman the 
 teacher, even still, of modern Europe f It is surely 
 a great loss to our generation, and a bad sign of its 
 culture, that the love of more modern poets has 
 weaned them from the study of one not less great in 
 most respects, but far greater in one at least in that 
 burning enthusiasm for a national cause, in that red- 
 hot passion for liberty which, even when misapplied, 
 or wasted upon unworthy objects, is ever one of the 
 noblest and most stirring instincts of higher man. 
 
 But Byron may well be excused his raving about 
 the liberty of the Greeks, for truly their old conflict 
 at Marathon, where a few thousand ill-disciplined men
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA. 201 
 
 repulsed a larger number of still worse disciplined 
 Orientals, without any recondite tactics perhaps 
 even without any very extraordinary heroism how 
 is it that this conflict has maintained a celebrity 
 which has not been equalled by any of the great 
 battles of the world from that day down to our own I 
 The courage of the Greeks, as I have elsewhere 
 shown, 1 was not of the first order. Herodotus 
 praises the Athenians in this very battle for being 
 the first Greeks that dared to look the Persians in 
 the face. Their generals all through history seem 
 never to feel sure of victory, and always endeavor to 
 harangue their soldiers into a fury. Instead of ad- 
 vising coolness, they especially incite to rage &PYIi 
 Ttpoatuztotiev, says one of them in Thucydides as 
 if any man not in this state would be sure to estimate 
 the danger fully, and run away. It is, indeed, true 
 that the ancient battles were hand to hand, and 
 therefore parallel to our charges of bayonets, which 
 are said to be very seldom carried out by two oppos- 
 ing lines, as one of them almost always gives way 
 before the actual collision takes place. This must 
 often have occurred in Greek battles, for in one 
 fought at Amphipolis Brasidas lost seven men ; at a 
 battle at Corinth, mentioned by Xenophen an im- 
 portant battle, too the slain amounted to eight ; 2 
 
 1 Social Life in Greece, p. 23 
 
 2 Xen. //<//., iv., 3, \ 1. To cite a parallel in modern history: 
 a writer in the Pall Mall Gazette (July 12, 1876) says : ' I witnessed
 
 202 EAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 and these battles were fought before the days when 
 whole armies were composed of mercenaries, who 
 spared one another, as Ordericus Vitalis says, " for 
 the love of God, and out of good feeling for the 
 fraternity of arras." So, then, the loss of 192 
 Athenians, including some distinguished men, was 
 rather a severe one. As to the loss of the Persians, 
 I so totally disbelieve the Greek accounts of such 
 things that it is better to pass it by in silence. 
 
 Perhaps most readers will be astonished to hear 
 of the Athenian army as undisciplined, and of the 
 science of war as undeveloped, in those times. Yet 
 I firmly believe this was so. The accounts of battles 
 by almost all the historians are so utterly vague, and 
 so childishly conventional, that it is evident that 
 these gentlemen were not only quite ignorant of the 
 science of war, but could not easily find any one to 
 explain it to them. We know that the Spartans 
 the most admired of all Greek warriors were chiefly 
 so admired because they devised the system of sub- 
 ordinating officers to one another within the same 
 detachment, like our gradation from colonel to cor- 
 poral. Orders were passed down from officer to 
 officer, instead of being bawled out by a herald to a 
 whole army. But this superiority of the Spartans, 
 who Avere really disciplined, and went into battle 
 
 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!"
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA. 203 
 
 coolly, like brave men, certainly did not extend to 
 strategy, but was merely a question of better drill. 
 As soon as any real strategist met them they were 
 helpless. Thus Iphicrates, when he devised Well- 
 ington's plan of meeting their attacking column in 
 line, and using missiles, succeeded against them, 
 even without firearms : thus Epaminondas, when he 
 devised Napoleon's plan of massing troops on a single 
 point, while keeping his enemy's line occupied, de- 
 feated them without any considerable struggle. As 
 for that general's great battle of Mantinea, the an- 
 cient Rossbach, which seems really to have been 
 introduced by some complicated strategical move- 
 ments, we owe our partial knowledge to the grudging 
 aid of the soldier Xenophon. But both generals 
 were in the distant future when the battle of Mara- 
 thon was being fought. 
 
 Yet what signifies all this criticism ? In spite of 
 all skepticism, in spite of all contempt, the battle of 
 Marathon, whether badly or well fought, and the 
 troops at Marathon, whether well or ill trained, will 
 ever be more famous than any other battle or army, 
 however important or gigantic its dimensions. Even 
 in this very war, the battles of Salamis and Platsea 
 were vastly more important and more hotly con- 
 tested. The losses were greater, the results were 
 more enduring, yet thousands have heard of Marathon 
 to whom the other names are unknown. So much 
 for literary ability so much for the power of talk-
 
 204 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 ing well about one's deeds. Marathon was fought by 
 Athenians ; the Athenians eclipsed the other Greeks 
 as far as the other Greeks eclipsed the rest of the 
 world, in literary power. This battle became the 
 literary property of the city, hymned by poet, cited 
 by orator, told by aged nurse, lisped by stammering 
 infant ; and so it has taken its position, above all 
 criticism, as one of the great decisive battles which 
 assured the liberty of the West against Oriental des- 
 potism. 
 
 The plain in the present day is quite bare of trees, 
 and, as Colonel Leake observed, appears to have 
 been so at the time of the battle, from the vague 
 account of its evolutions. There was a little corn 
 and a few other crops about the great tumulus ; and 
 along the seashore, whither we went to bathe, there 
 was a large herd of cows and oxen a sight not 
 very usual in Greece. When we rushed into the 
 shallow blue water, striving to reach swimming 
 depth, we could not but think of the scene when 
 Kynsegirus and his companions rushed in armed to 
 stop the embarkation of the Persians. On the 
 shore, then teeming with ships of war, with trans- 
 ports, with fighting and flying men, there was now 
 no sign of life, but ourselves in the water, and the 
 lazy cattle and their silent herdsmen looking upon 
 us in wonder ; for, though very hot, it was only May, 
 and the modern Greek never thinks it safe to bathe 
 till at least the end of June in this like his Italian
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA. 205 
 
 neighbor. There was not a single ship or boat in 
 the straits ; there was no sign of life or of popula- 
 tion on the coast of Euboea. There was everywhere 
 that solitude which so much struck Byron, as it 
 strikes every traveller in Modern Greece. There 
 was not even the child or beggar, with coins and 
 pieces of pottery, who is so troublesome about Italian 
 ruins, and who has even lately appeared at the Par- 
 thenon, the theatre at Argos, and a few other places 
 in Greece. We asked the herdsman for remnants 
 of arms or pieces of money : he had seen such 
 things picked up, but knew nothing of their value. 
 Lord Byron tells us he was offered the purchase 
 of the whole plain (six miles by two) for about 
 900. It would have been a fine speculation for 
 an antiquarian : but I am surprised, as he was, 
 rather at the greatness than at the smallness of 
 the price. The Greek Government might very 
 well, even now, grant the fee-simple to any one 
 who Avould pay the ordinary taxes on property, 
 which are not, I was told, very heavy. But still the 
 jealousy of the nation would not tolerate a foreign 
 speculator. 
 
 I have already spoken (p. 154) of the position of 
 the pass of Daphne, and how it leads the traveller 
 over the ridge which separates the plain of the 
 Kephissus from the Thriasian plain. I have also 
 spoken at length of the country about the Kephissus, 
 with its olive woods and its nightingales. When we
 
 206 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 go through the pass of Daphne of its monastery I 
 shall speak in another chapter a perfectly new 
 view opens before us. We see under us the Thri- 
 asian plain, well covered with ripening corn and other 
 crops ; we see at the far side of the crescent-shaped 
 bay the remains of Eleusis. Behind it, and all 
 round to the right up to where we stand, is an am- 
 phitheatre of hills the spurs of Mount Parnes, 
 which from Phyle reach due south down to where 
 we stand, and due west to the inland of the Thri- 
 asian plain, till they meet and are confounded with 
 the slopes of Cithseron, which extend for miles away 
 behind Eleusis. On the sea-side, to our left, lies the 
 island of Salamis, so near the coast that the sea 
 seems a calm inland lake, lying tortuously between 
 the hills. 
 
 Many points of Greek history become plain to us 
 by this view. We see how true was the epithet 
 " rocky Salamis," for the island, though it looks very 
 insignificant on our maps, contains lofty mountains, 
 with very bare and rocky sides. The student of 
 Greek geography in maps should note this feature. 
 Thus, Ithaca on the map does not suggest the real 
 Ithaca, which from most points looks like a high 
 and steep mountain standing out of the sea. We 
 begin also to see how Salamis was equally convenient 
 (as the Irish say) to both Megara and Attica, if we 
 consider that Eleusis was strictly a part of Attica. 
 The harbor of the Peirseus, for example, would be
 
 Salamis from Across the Bay
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA. 207 
 
 quite useless if an enemy were watching it from 
 Salamis. But we also come to see the sense of the 
 old legend, that Eleusis had originally a separate 
 king or government from that of Athens, and that 
 the two cities once carried on war against each other. 
 The towns are but a few miles apart ; but their re- 
 spective plains are so distinctly and completely sepa- 
 rated by the pass of Daphne, that not one acre of 
 the territory of Eleusis can be seen from Athens, 
 nor of Athens from Eleusis. So also, lastly, we 
 come to feel how natural is the remark of Thucy- 
 dides, that the population of Athens, when the Lace- 
 daemonians invaded Attica, and came no farther than 
 the Thriasian plain, did not feel the terrors of a hos- 
 tile invasion, as the enemy was not in sight ; but 
 when he crossed the pass, and began to ravage 
 Acharnee and the vale of Kephissus, then indeed, 
 though Eleusis was just as near, and just as much 
 their own, they felt the reality of the invasion, and 
 were for the first time deeply dejected. This is a 
 good example of that combined farness and nearness 
 which is so characteristic about most neighboring 
 cities in Greece. 
 
 The wretched modern village of Eleusis is pic- 
 turesquely situated near the sea, on the old site, and 
 there are still to be seen the ruins, not only of the 
 famous temple of Demeter, but also of the Propylsea, 
 built apparently in imitation of that of Mncsicles on 
 the Acropolis at Athens, though the site of both
 
 208 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 temple and Propylaea are at Eleusis low, and in no 
 way striking. 
 
 These celebrated ruins are wretchedly defaced. 
 Not a column or a wall is now standing, and we can 
 see nothing but vast fragments of pillars and capi- 
 tals, and a great pavement, all of white marble, 
 along which the ancient wheel-tracks are distinctly 
 visible. There are also underground vaults of small 
 dimensions, which, the people tell you, were intended 
 for the Mysteries. We that knew what vast crowds 
 attended there would not give credence to this igno- 
 rant guess | and indeed we knew from distinct evi- 
 dence that the great ceremony took place in a large 
 building specially constructed for the purpose. The 
 necessary darkness was obtained by performing the 
 more solemn rites at night ; not by going down be- 
 neath the surface of the earth. 
 
 The Greek savants have at last laid open, and 
 explained, the whole plan of the temple, which was 
 built by Ictinus, in Pericles's time, but apparently 
 restored after a destructive fire by Roman architects 
 copying faithfully the ancient style. The excava- 
 tors have shown that the shrine had strange pecu- 
 liarities. And this is exactly what we should 
 expect. For although no people adhered more 
 closely to traditional forms in their architecture, no 
 people were more ready to modify these forms with 
 a view to practical requirements. Thus, as a rule, 
 the cella, or inner chamber of the temple, only con-
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA. 209 
 
 taincd the statue of the god, and was consequently 
 small and narrow. In the temple at Eleusis has 
 been found a great inner chamber about 59 yards 
 by 54, hewn out of the rock in the rear of the edi- 
 fice, and capable of accommodating a large assem- 
 bly. 1 Here then it seems the initiated probably 
 those of the higher degree, cpoptce as they were 
 called witnessed those services "which brought 
 them peace in this world, and a blessed hope for 
 the world to come." 
 
 The way into the temple was adorned with two 
 Propyljea one of the classical period, and by Philo 
 (311 B. c.), another set up by a Roman, App. Clau- 
 dius Pulcher, in 48 B. c., after you had passed 
 through the former. The great temple, raised upon 
 a natural platform, looks out toward Salamis, and 
 the narrow line of azure which separates it from the 
 land. Turning to the left as you stand at the tem- 
 ple front, the eye wanders over the rich plain of 
 Eleusis, now dotted over with villages, and colored 
 (in April) with the rich brown of ploughing and the 
 splendid green of sprouting wheat. This plain had 
 multiplied its wealth manifold since I first saw it, 
 and led us to hope that the peasants were waking 
 up to the great market which is near them at Athens. 
 The track of the old sacred way along the Thriasian 
 plain is often visible, for much of the sea-coast is 
 
 1 So Strabo describes it, ix. 1, \ 12. For further details consult 
 the Guide Joanne for Athens (18S8), p. 201. 
 14
 
 210 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 marshy, so the road was cut out in many places 
 along the spurs of the rocky hill of Daphne. The 
 present road goes between the curious salt-lakes 
 (Rheitoi) and the shore salt-lakes full of sea-fish, 
 and evidently fed by great natural springs, for there 
 is a perpetual strong outflow to the tideless sea. I 
 know not whether this natural curiosity has been 
 explained by the learned. 
 
 It is, of course, the celebrated Mysteries the 
 Greater Eleusinia, as they were called which give 
 to the now wretched village of Eleusis, with its 
 hopeless ruins, so deep an interest. This wonder- 
 ful feast, handed down from the remotest antiquity, 
 maintained its august splendor all through the 
 greater ages of Greek history, down to the times 
 of decay and trifling when everything else in the 
 country had become mean and contemptible. Even 
 Cicero, who was of the initiated himself, a man of 
 wide culture and of a skeptical turn of mind even 
 Cicero speaks of it as the great product of the cult- 
 ure of Athens. " Much that is excellent and di- 
 vine," says he, 1 " does Athens seem to me to have 
 produced and added to our life, but nothing better 
 than those Mysteries, by which we are formed and 
 moulded from a rude and savage life to humanity ; 
 and indeed in the Mysteries we perceive the real 
 principles of life, and learn not only to live happily, 
 but to die with a fairer hope." These are the words 
 1 De Legg., II. 14, \ 36.
 
 EXCURSIONS IX ATTICA. 211 
 
 of a man writing, as I have said, in the days of the 
 ruin and prostration of Greece. Can we then won- 
 der at the enthusiastic language of the Homeric 
 Hymn, 1 of Pindar, 2 of Sophocles, 3 of Aristophanes, 4 
 of Plato, 5 of Isocrates, 6 of Chrysippus 7 ? Every 
 manner of writer religious poet, worldly poet, skep- 
 tical philosopher, orator all are of one mind about 
 this, far the greatest of all the religious festivals of 
 Greece. 
 
 To what did it owe this transcendent character ? 
 It was not because men here worshipped exceptional 
 gods, for the worship of Demeter and Cora was an 
 old and widely diffused cult all over Greece : and 
 there were other Eleusinia in various places. It was 
 not because the ceremony consisted of mysteries, of 
 hidden acts and words, which it was impious to 
 reveal, and which the initiated alone might know. 
 For the habit of secret worship was practised in 
 every state, where special clans were charged with 
 the care of special secret services, which no man 
 else might know. Nay, even within the ordinary 
 homes of the Greeks there were these Mysteries. 
 Neither was it because of the splendor of the temple 
 and its appointments, which never equalled the 
 Panathenaea at the Parthenon, or the riches of 
 Delphi, or Olympia. There is only one reasonable 
 
 1 in Cer. v. 480. 2 Thren. (frag.) * Oed. Col. 1042. 
 
 * Ran. 455. 5 Pheed. cc. 29, 30. * Paneg. \ 6. 
 
 T Etym. Mng. t s. v. Tt/.err/.
 
 212 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 cause, and it is that upon which all our serious 
 authorities agree. The doctrine taught in the Mys- 
 teries was a faith which revealed hopeful things 
 about the world to come ; and which not so much 
 as a condition, but as a consequence, of this clearer 
 light, this higher faith made them better citizens 
 and better men. This faith was taught them in the 
 Mysteries through symbols," 1 through prayer and 
 fasting, through wild rejoicings ; but, as Aristotle 
 expressly tells us, it was reached not by intellectual 
 persuasion, but by a change into a new moral state 
 in fact, by being spiritually revived. 
 
 Here, then, we have the strangest and most strik- 
 ing analogy to our religion in the Greek mythology ; 
 for here we have a higher faith publicly taught, 
 any man might present himself to be initiated, and 
 taught, not in opposition to the popular creed, but 
 merely by deepening it, and showing to the ordinary 
 worldling its spiritual power. The belief in the 
 Goddess Demeter and her daughter, the queen of 
 the nether world, was, as I have said, common all 
 over Greece ; but even as nowadays we are told that 
 there may be two kinds of belief of the same truths 
 one of the head and another of the heart just 
 
 1 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.
 

 
 Temple of Mysteries, Elcwsis
 
 EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA. 213 
 
 as the most excellent man of the world, who believes 
 all the creeds of the Church, is called an unbeliever, 
 in the higher sense, by our Evangelical Christians ; 
 so the ordinary Greek, though he prayed and offered 
 at the Temple of Demeter, was held by the initiated 
 at the Mysteries to be wallowing in the mire of 
 ignorance, and stumbling in the night of gloom he 
 was held to live without real light, and to die with- 
 out hope, in wretched despair. 1 
 
 The very fact that it was not lawful to divulge the 
 Mystery has prevented the many writers who knew 
 it from giving us any description by which we might 
 gain a clear idea of this wonderful rite. We have 
 hints of various sacred vessels, of various priests 
 known by special technical names 5 of dramatic 
 representations of the rape of Cora, and of the 
 grief of her mother ; of her complaints before Zeus, 
 and the final reconciliation. We hear of scenes of 
 
 1 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 initation, and has obtained freedom and remis- 
 sion, joins in the devotions, with his head crowned, in the company 
 of pure and holy men, and beholds from thence the unclean un- 
 initiated 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 faitli 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."
 
 214 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 darkness and fear, in which the hopeless state of 
 the unbelievers was portrayed ; of light and glory, 
 to which the convert attained, when at last his eyes 
 were opened to the knowledge of good and evil. 
 
 But all these things are fragmentary glimpses, as 
 are also the doctrines hinted of the Unity of God, 
 and of atonement by sacrifice. There remains 
 nothing clear and certain, but the unanimous verdict 
 as to the greatness, the majesty, and the awe of the 
 services, and as to the great spiritual knowledge and 
 comfort which they conveyed. The consciousness 
 of guilt was not, indeed, first taught by them, but 
 was felt generally, and felt very keenly by the 
 Greek mind. These Mysteries were its Gospel of 
 reconciliation with the offended gods.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 FROM ATHENS TO THEBES THE PASSES OF PARNES 
 
 AND OF CITH^RON, ELEUTHER^E, PLAT^EA. 
 
 No ordinary student, looking at the map of Attica 
 and Boeotia, can realize the profound and complete 
 separation between these two countries. Except at 
 the very northern extremity, where the fortified 
 town of Oropus guarded an easy boundary, all the 
 frontier consists not merely of steep mountains, but 
 of parallel and intersecting ridges and gorges, which 
 contain indeed a few alpine valleys, such as that of 
 (Enoe, but which are, as a rule, wild and barren, 
 easily defensible by a few against many, and totally 
 unfit for the site of any considerable town, or any 
 advanced culture. As I before stated, the traveller 
 can pass through by Dekelea, or he can pass most 
 directly by Phyle, the fort which Thrasybulus seized 
 when he desired to reconquer Athens with his demo- 
 cratic exiles. The historians usually tell us " that 
 he seized and fortified Phyle "; a statement which 
 the present aspect of it seems to render very doubt- 
 ful indeed. It is quite impossible that the great hill- 
 fort of the very finest Attic building, which is still 
 remaining and admired by all, could have been 
 
 215
 
 216 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 " knocked up " by Thrasybulus and his exiles. 
 The careful construction and the enormous extent 
 of the building compel us to suppose it the work of 
 a rich state, and of a deliberate plan of fortification. 
 It seems very unlikely, for these reasons, that it was 
 built after the days of Thrasybulus, or that so im- 
 portant a point of attack should have been left un- 
 guarded in the greater days of Athens. I am there- 
 fore convinced that the fort, being built long before, 
 and being, in fact, one of the well-known fortified 
 denies through Attica, had been to some extent dis- 
 mantled, or allowed to fall into decay, at the end of 
 the Peloponnesian War, but that its solid structure 
 made it a matter of very little labor for the exiles 
 to render it strong and easily defensible. 
 
 This is one of the numerous instances in which a 
 single glance at the locality sets right an historical 
 statement that has eluded suspicion for ages. The 
 fort of Phyle, like that of Eleutherse, of which I 
 shall speak, and like those of Messene and of Orcho- 
 inenus, is built of square blocks of stone, carefully 
 cut, and laid together without a particle of rubble or 
 cement, but so well fitted as to be able to resist the 
 wear of ages better than almost any other building. 
 I was informed by M. Einile Burmmf, that in the 
 case of a fort at Megara, which I did not see, there 
 are even polygonal blocks, of which the irregular and 
 varying angles are fitted with such precision that it 
 is difficult, as in the case of the Parthenon, to detect
 
 FROM ATHENS TO THEBES. 217 
 
 the joinings of the stones. The blocks are by no 
 means so colossal in these buildings as in the great 
 ruins about Mycenae ; but the fitting is closer, and 
 the sites on which we find them very lofty, and with 
 precipitous ascents. This style of building is spe- 
 cially mentioned by Thucydides (i. 93) as being em- 
 ployed in the building of the walls of the Peiraeus 
 in the days of Themistocles, apparently in contrast to 
 the rude and hurried construction of the city walls. 
 But he speaks of the great stones being not only cut 
 square, but fastened with clamps of iron soldered 
 witli lead. I am not aware that any traces of this 
 are found in the remaining hill-forts. The Avails of 
 the Peirseus have, unfortunately, long since almost 
 totally disappeared. 
 
 The way from Athens to Phyle leads north-west 
 through the rich fields of the old deme of Acharnse ; 
 and we wonder at first why they should be so noted 
 as charcoal-burners. But as we approach Mount 
 Parnes, we find that the valley is bounded by 
 tracts of hillside fit for nothing but pine forest. A 
 vast deal of wooding still remains ; it is clear that 
 these forests were the largest and most convenient 
 to supply Athens with firewood or charcoal. As 
 usual, there are many glens and river-courses 
 through the rugged country through which we 
 ascend here and there a village, in one secluded 
 nook a little monastery, hidden from the world, if 
 not from its cares. There is the usual Greek vege-
 
 218 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 tation beside the path ; not perhaps luxuriant to our 
 Northern eyes, but full of colors of its own the 
 glowing anemone, the blood-red poppy, the delicate 
 cistus on a rocky surface, with foliage rather gray 
 and silvery than green. The pine-trees sound, as 
 the breeze sweeps up the valleys, and lavish their 
 vigorous fragrance through the air. 
 
 There is something inexpressibly bracing in this 
 solitude, if solitude it can be called, where the forest 
 speaks to the eye and ear, and fills the imagination 
 with the mystery of its myriad forms. Now and then 
 too the peculiar cadence of those bells which hardly 
 varies throughout all the lands of the south, tells 
 you that a flock of goats, or goat-like sheep, is near, 
 attended by solemn, silent children, whose eyes seem 
 to have no expression beyond that of vague wonder 
 in their gaze. These are the flocks of some village 
 below, not those of the nomad Vlachs, who bring 
 with them their tents and dogs, and make gipsy 
 encampments in the unoccupied country. 
 
 At last we see high over us the giant fort of Phyle 
 set upon a natural precipice, which defends it 
 amply for half its circuit. The point of occupation 
 was well chosen, for while within sight of Athens, 
 and near enough to afford a sure refuge to those who 
 could escape by night and fly to the mountain, its 
 distance (some 15 miles) and the steep and rugged 
 ascent, made it impossible for weak and aged people 
 to crowd into it and mar the efficiency of its garrison.
 
 FROM ATHENS TO THEBES. 219 
 
 With the increase of his force Thrasybulus began 
 successful raids into the plain, then a rapid move- 
 ment to Peirseus ; ultimately, as may be read in all 
 histories, he accomplished the liberation of his native 
 city. 
 
 We did not pass into Boeotia by the Avay of Phyle, 
 preferring to take the longer route through Eleusis. 
 But no sooner had we left Eleusis than we began to 
 ascend into the rough country, which is the preface 
 to the wild mountain passes of Cithseron. It is, 
 indeed, very difficult to find where one range of 
 mountains begins and another ends, anywhere 
 throughout Greece. There is generally one high 
 peak, which marks a whole chain or system of 
 mountains, and after which the system is called ; 
 but all closer specification seems lost, on account of 
 the immense number of ridges and points which 
 crowd upon the view in all directions. Thus the 
 chain of Fames, after throwing out a spur toward 
 the south, which divides the Athenian and the 
 Thriasian plains, sweeps round the latter in a sort 
 of amphitheatre, and joins the system of Cithaeron 
 (Kitheron), which extends almost parallel with 
 Parnes. A simple look at a good map explains 
 these things by supplementing mere description. 
 The only thing which must be specially enforced 
 is, that all the region where a plain is not expressly 
 named is made up of broken mountain ridges and 
 rocky defiles, so that it may fairly be called an
 
 220 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 alpine country. A fellow-traveller, who had just 
 been in Norway, was perpetually struck with its 
 resemblance to the Norwegian highlands. 
 
 I will only mention one other fact which illustrates 
 the consequent isolation. We have a river Kephis- 
 sus in the plain of Athens. As soon as we cross the 
 pass of Daphne we have another Kephissus in the 
 Thriasian plain. Within a day's journey, or nearly 
 so, we have another Kephissus, losing itself in the 
 lake Copais, not far from Orchomenus. This repe- 
 tition of the same name shows how little intercourse 
 people have in the country, how little they travel, 
 and how there is no danger of confusing these iden- 
 tical names. Such a fact, trifling as it is, illustrates 
 very powerfully the isolation which the Greek moun- 
 tains produce. 
 
 There is a good road from Athens to Thebes, a 
 very unusual thing in Greece, and we were able 
 to drive with four horses, after a fashion which 
 would have seemed very splendid in old days. But, 
 strange to say, the old Greek fashion of driving four 
 horses abreast, two being yoked to the pole, and two 
 outriggers, or itapdffstpot t as they were called, has 
 disappeared from Greece, whereas it still survives in 
 Southern Italy. On the other hand the Greeks are 
 more daring drivers than the Italians, being indeed 
 braver in all respects, and, when a road is to be had, 
 a very fast pace is generally kept up. 
 
 As usual, the country was covered with brush-
 
 FROM ATHENS TO THEBES. 221 
 
 wood, and with numbers of old gnarled fir-trees, 
 which bore everywhere upon their stems the great 
 wounds of the hatchet, made to extract the resin for 
 the flavoring of wine. Rare flocks of goats, with 
 their peculiar, dull, tinkling bells bells which have 
 the same make and tone all through Calabria, through 
 Sicily, and through Greece were the only sign of 
 human occupation or of population. But when you 
 look for houses, there is nothing in the shape of wall 
 or roof, save an occasional station, where, but a few 
 years since, soldiers were living, to keep the road 
 safe from bandits. At last we came upon the camp 
 of some Vlach shepherds a thing reminding one 
 far more of a gipsy camp than anything else a few 
 dark -brown skins falling over two upright poles, so 
 as to form a roof-shaped tent, of which the entrance 
 looked so absolutely black as to form quite a patch 
 in the landscape. There is mere room for lying in 
 these tents by night ; and, I suppose, in the summer 
 weather most of these wild shepherds will not con- 
 descend even to this shelter. 1 
 
 After some hours' drive we reached a grassy dell, 
 shaded by large plane-trees, where a lonely little 
 public-house if I may so call it of this construc- 
 
 1 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 sym- 
 pathies of the Greeks, who hate all coercion, however reasonable.
 
 222 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 tion invited us to stop for watering the horses, and 
 inspecting more closely the owner. There was the 
 usual supply of such places red and white wine in 
 small casks, excellent fresh water, and luciauia, or 
 Turkish delight. Not only had the owner his belt 
 full of knives and pistols, but there was hanging up 
 in a sort of rack a most picturesque collection of 
 swords and guns all made in Turkish fashion, with 
 ornamented handles and stocks, and looking as 
 if they might be more dangerous to the sportsman 
 than to his game. While we were being served by 
 this wild-looking man, in this suspicious place in 
 fact, it looked like the daily resort of bandits his 
 wife, a comely young woman, dressed in the usual 
 dull blue, red, and white, disappeared through the 
 back way, and hid herself among the trees. This 
 fear of being seen by strangers no doubt caused by 
 jealousy among men, and, possibly, by an Oriental 
 tone in the country is a striking feature through 
 most parts of Greece. It is said to be a remnant of 
 the Turkish influence, but seems to me to lie deeper, 
 and to be even an echo of the old Greek days. The 
 same feeling is prevalent in most parts of Sicily. In 
 the towns there you seldom see ladies in the streets ; 
 and in the evenings, except when the play-going 
 public is returning from the theatre, there are only 
 men visible. 
 
 After leaving this resting-place, about eleven in 
 the morning, we did not meet a village, or even a
 
 FROM ATHENS TO THEBES. 223 
 
 single house till we had crossed Cithseron, after six 
 in the evening, and descried the modern hamlet of 
 Platsea on the slopes to our left. But once or twice 
 through the day a string of four or five mules, with 
 bright, richly striped rugs over their wooden saddles, 
 and men dressed still more brightly sitting lady- 
 fashion on them, were threading their way along the 
 winding road. The tinkling of the mules' bells and 
 the wild Turkish chants of the men were a welcome 
 break in the uniform stillness of the journey. The 
 way becomes gradually wilder and steeper, though 
 often descending to cross a shady valley, which opens 
 to the right and left, in a long, narrow vista, and 
 shows blue far-off hills of other mountain chains. 
 One of these valleys was pointed out to us as (Enoe, 
 an outlying deme of Attica, fortified in Periclean 
 days, and which the Peloponnesian army attacked, 
 as Thucydides tells us, and failed to take, on their 
 invasion of Attica at the opening of the war. There 
 are two or three strong square towers in this valley, 
 close to the road, but not the least like any old 
 Greek fort, and quite incapable of holding any gar- 
 rison. The site is utterly unsuitable, and there 
 seemed no remains of any walled town. 
 
 These facts led me to reflect upon the narrative 
 of Thucydides, who evidently speaks of (Enoe as 
 the border fort of Attica, and yet says not a word 
 about Eleuthera', which is really the border, the 
 great fort, and the key to the passes of Citha-nm.
 
 224 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 The first solution which suggests itself is, that the 
 modern Greeks have given the wrong names to these 
 places, and that by (Enoe Thucydides really means 
 the place now known as Eleutherse. 1 Most decidedly, 
 if the fort which is now there existed at the opening 
 of the Peloponnesian War, he cannot possibly have 
 overlooked it in his military history of the campaign. 
 And yet it seems certain that we must place the 
 building of this fort at the epoch of Athens's great- 
 ness, when Attic influence was paramount in Bosotia, 
 and when the Athenians could, at their leisure, and 
 without hindrance, construct this fort, which com- 
 mands the passes into Attica, before they diverge 
 into various valleys, about the region of the so-called 
 (Enoe. 
 
 For, starting from Thebes, the slope of Cithseron 
 is a single unbroken ascent up to the ridge, through 
 which, nearly over the village of Platsea, there is a 
 cut that naturally indicates the pass. But when the 
 traveller has ascended from Thebes to this point he 
 finds a steep descent into a mountainous and broken 
 region, where he must presently choose between a 
 gorge to the right or to the left, and must wander 
 about zigzag among mountains, so as to find his way 
 
 1 Colonel Leake already felt these difficulties, and moves 
 Eleuthene a few miles to the south-west. But CEnoe and Eleu- 
 therse must have been close together, from the allusion in the Anti- 
 ope of Euripides. Of. Eurip., frag. 179 (ed. Nauck), and the 
 passages quoted there.
 
 FKOM ATHENS TO THEBES. 225 
 
 toward Athens. And although I did not examine 
 all the passes accurately, it was perfectly obvious 
 that, as soon as the first defile was left behind, an 
 invader could find various ways of eluding the de- 
 fenders of Attica, and penetrating into the Thriasian 
 plain, or, by Phyle, into that of Athens. Accord- 
 ingly, the Athenians choose a position of remarkable 
 strength, just inside the last crowning ascent, where 
 all the ways converge to pass the crest of the moun- 
 tain into Platsea. Here a huge rock, interposing 
 betAvecn the mountains on each side, strives, as it 
 were, to bar the path, which accordingly divides 
 like a torrent bed, and passes on either side, close 
 under the walls of the fort Avhich occupies the top 
 of the rock. From this point the summit of the 
 pass is about two or three miles distant, and easily 
 visible, so that an outpost there, commanding a view 
 of the whole Theban plain, could signal any approach 
 to the fort with ample notice. 
 
 The position of the fort at Phyle, above described, 
 is very similar. It lies within a mile of the top of 
 the pass, on the Attic side, within sight of Athens, 
 and yet near enough to receive the scouts from the 
 top, and resist all sudden attack. No force could 
 invade Attica without leaving a large force to be- 
 siege it. 
 
 Looking backward into Attica, the whole moun- 
 tainous tract of (Enoe is visible ; and, though we 
 cannot now tell the points actually selected, there 
 
 15
 
 226 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 is no difficulty in finding several which could easily 
 pass the signal from Eleutherac to Daphne, and 
 thence to Athens. We know that fire signals were 
 commonly used among the Greeks, and we can here 
 see an instance where news could be telegraphed 
 some thirty miles over a very difficult country in a 
 few moments. Meanwhile, as succors might be 
 some time in arriving, the fort was of such size and 
 strength as to hold a large garrison, and stop any 
 army which could not afford to mask it, by leaving 
 there a considerable force. 1 
 
 The site was, of course, an old one, and the name 
 Eleutherse, if correctly applied to this fort, points 
 to a time when some mountain tribe maintained its 
 independence here against the governments on either 
 side in the plain, whence the place was called the 
 " Free " place, or Liberties (as we have the term in 
 Dublin). There is further evidence of this in a 
 small irregular fort which was erected almost in the 
 centre of the larger and later enclosure. This older 
 fort is of polygonal masonry, very inferior to the 
 other, and has fallen into ruins, while the later walls 
 and towers are in many places perfect. The outer 
 wall follows the nature of the position, the principle 
 being to find everywhere an abrupt descent from 
 the fortification, so that an assault must be very 
 difficult. On the north side, where the rock is pre- 
 
 1 This the Peloponnesinns did at (Enoe, according to Thucy- 
 dides ; perhaps therefore at this very place.
 
 FROM ATHENS TO THEBES. 227 
 
 cipitous, the wall runs along in a right line ; whereas 
 on the south side, over the modern road, it dips 
 down the hill, and makes a semicircular sweep, so 
 as to crown the steepest part of a gentler ascent. 
 Thus the whole enclosure is of a half-moon shape. 
 But while the straight wall is almost intact, the 
 curved side has in many places fallen to pieces. 
 The building is the most perfect I have ever seen 
 of the kind, made of square hewn stones, evidently 
 quarried on the rock itself. The preserved wall is 
 about 200 yards long, six and a half feet wide, and 
 apparently not more than ten or twelve feet high ; 
 but, at intervals of twenty-five or thirty yards, there 
 are seven towers twice as deep as the wall, while 
 the path along the battlement goes right through 
 them. Each tower has a doorway on the outside 
 of it, and close beside this there is also a doorway 
 in the wall, somewhat larger. These doorways, 
 made by a huge lintel, about seven and a half feet 
 long, laid over an aperture in the building, with its 
 edges very smoothly and carefully cut, are for the 
 most part absolutely perfect. As I could see no 
 sign of doorposts or bolts a feature still noticeable 
 in all temple gates it is evident that wooden doors 
 and door-posts were fitted into these doorways a 
 dangerous form of defence, were not the entrances 
 strongly protected by the towers close beside them 
 and over them. There were staircases, leading from 
 the top of the wall outward, beside some of the
 
 228 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 towers. The whole fort is of such a size as to hold 
 not merely a garrison, but also the flocks and herds 
 of the neighboring shepherds, in case of a sudden 
 and dangerous invasion ; and this, no doubt, was 
 the primary intention of all the older forts in Greece 
 and elsewhere. 1 
 
 The day was, as usual, very hot and fine, and the 
 hills were of that beautiful purple blue which Sir F. 
 Leighton so well reproduces in the backgrounds of 
 his Greek pictures ; but a soft breeze brought occa- 
 sional clouds across the sun, and varied the land- 
 scape with deeper hues. Above us on each side 
 were the noble crags of Cithseron, with their gray 
 rocks and their gnarled fir-trees. Far below, a 
 bright mountain stream was rushing beside the pass 
 into Attica ; around us were the great walls of the 
 old Greeks, laid together with that symmetry, that 
 beauty, and that strength which marks all their 
 work. The massive towers are now defending a 
 barren rock ; the enclosure which had seen so many 
 days of war and rapine was lying open and deserted ; 
 the whole population was gone long centuries ago. 
 There is still liberty there, and there is peace but 
 the liberty and the peace of solitude. 
 
 1 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 Archaeological Tour in Greece a splendid 
 book. The fort of Phyle, though smaller, possesses all the feat- 
 ures described in this fort, and shows that they represent a gen- 
 eral type.
 
 FROM ATHENS TO THEBES. 229 
 
 A short drive from Eleutherse brought us to the 
 top of the pass, 1 and we suddenly came upon one of 
 those views in Greece which, when we think of 
 them, leave us in doubt whether the instruction they 
 give us, or the delight, is the greater. The whole 
 plain of Thebes, and, beyond the intervening ridge, 
 the plain of Orchomenus, with its shining lake, were 
 spread out before us. The sites of all the famous 
 towns were easily recognizable. Platsea only was 
 straight beneath us, on the slopes of the mountain, 
 and as yet hidden by them. The plan of all Boeotia 
 unfolded itself with great distinctness two consider- 
 able plains, separated by a low ridge, and surrounded 
 on all sides by chains of mountains. On the north 
 there are the rocky hills which hem in Lake Copais 
 from the Eubrean strait, and which nature had 
 pierced before the days of history, aided by Minyan 
 engineers, whose xarafiodpa, as they were called, 
 were tunnelled drains, which drew water from thous- 
 ands of acres of the richest land. On the east, 
 where we stood, was the gloomy Cithseron the 
 home of awful mythical crimes, and of wild Bac- 
 
 1 This pass (seized by the Persian cavalry before the battle of 
 Plata?a, in order to stop the Greek provision trains) was called rpeig 
 
 i by the Thebans, but (Jpvof /ce0. by the Athenians (Herod. 
 IX. 39) evidently the same old name diversely interpreted by 
 diverse Volks-etymologien. rptlq and 6pv6$ are pronounced almost 
 alike in modern Greek, probably therefore in old Greek likewise. 
 But I will not touch the thorny question of old Greek pronuncia- 
 tion.
 
 230 RAMBLES IN GKEECE. 
 
 clianalian orgies, the theme of many a splendid 
 poem and many a striking tragedy. To the south 
 lay the pointed peaks of Helicon a mountain (or 
 mountain chain) full of sweetness and light, with 
 many silver streams coursing down its sides to water 
 the Bosotian plains, and with its dells, the home of 
 the Muses ever since they inspired the bard of Ascra 
 the home, too, of Eros, who long after the reality 
 of the faith had decayed, was honored in Thespise 
 by the crowds of visitors who went up to see the 
 famous statue of the god by Praxiteles. This 
 Helicon separates Bceotia from the southern sea, 
 but does not close up completely with Cithseron, 
 leaving way for an army coming from the isthmus, 
 where Leuctra stood to guard the entrance. Over 
 against us, on the west, lay, piled against one 
 another, the dark wild mountains of Phocis, with 
 the giant Parnassus raising its snow-clad shoulders 
 above the rest. But, in the far distance, the snowy 
 Corax of ./Etolia stood out in rivalry, and showed 
 us that Parnassus is but the advanced guard of the 
 wild alpine country, which even in Greece proved 
 too rugged a nurse for culture. 
 
 We made our descent at full gallop down the 
 windings of the road a most risky drive ; but the 
 coachman was daring and impatient, and we felt, in 
 spite of the danger, that peculiar delight which 
 accompanies the excitement of going at headlong 
 pace. We had previously an even more perilous
 
 FROM ATHENS TO THEBES. 231 
 
 experience in coming down the steep and tortuous 
 descent from the Laurium mines to Ergasteria in 
 the train, where the sharp turns were apparently 
 full of serious risk. Above our heads were wheel- 
 ing great vultures huge birds, almost black, with 
 lean, featherless heads which added to the wildness 
 of the scene. After this rapid journey we came 
 upon the site of Platsea, marked by a modern village 
 of the name, on our left, and below us we saw the 
 winding Asopus, and the great scene of one of the 
 most famous of all Greek battles the battle of 
 Platsea. This little town is situated much higher 
 up the mountain than I had thought, and a glance 
 showed us its invaluable position as an outpost of 
 Athenian power toward Bceotia. With the top of 
 the pass within an hour's walk, the Platseans could, 
 from their streets, see every movement over the 
 Theban plain : they could see an invasion from the 
 south coming up by Leuctra ; they could see troops 
 marching northward toward Tanagra and (Enophyta. 
 They could even see into the Theban Cadmea, which 
 lay far below them, and then telegraph from the top 
 of the pass to Eleutherse, and from thence to Athens. 
 We can, therefore, understand at once Platsea's 
 importance to Athens, and why the Athenians built 
 a strong fortified post on their very frontier, within 
 easy reach of it. 
 
 All the site of the great battle is well marked and 
 well known the fountain Gargaphia, the so-called
 
 232 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 island, and the Asopus, flowing lazily in a deep-cut 
 sedgy channel, in most places far too deep to ford. 
 Over our heads were still circling the great black 
 vultures ; but, as we neared the plain, we flashed 
 a large black-and-white eagle, which we had not 
 seen in Attica. There is some cultivation between 
 Platsea and Thebes, but strangely alternating with 
 wilderness. We were told that the people have 
 plenty of spare land, and, not caring to labor for 
 its artificial improvement, till a piece of ground 
 once, and then let it lie fallow for a season or two. 
 The natural richness of the Boeotian soil thus sup- 
 plies them with ample crops. But we wondered to 
 think how impossible it seems even in these rich and 
 favored plains to induce a fuller population. 
 
 The question of the depopulation of Greece is 
 no new one it is not due to the Slav inroads it is 
 not due to Turkish misrule. As soon as the political 
 liberties of Greece vanished, so that the national 
 talent found no scope in local government as soon 
 as the riches of Asia were opened to Greek enter- 
 prise the population diminished with wonderful 
 rapidity. All the later Greek historians and travel- 
 lers are agreed about the fact. 1 " The whole of 
 Greece could not put in the field," says one, "as 
 many soldiers as came of old from a single city." 
 " Of all the famous cities of Boeotia," says another, 
 
 1 Cf. what I have said in relation to Polybius's account of it in 
 my Greek Life and Thought, pp. 534 sq.
 
 FROM ATHENS TO THEBES. 233 
 
 "but two Thespise and Tanagra now remain." 
 The rest are mostly described as ruins (jjpe/ffta). 
 No doubt, every young enterprising fellow went off 
 to Asia as a soldier or a merchant ; and this taste for 
 emigrating has remained strong in the race till the 
 present day, when most of the business of Constanti- 
 nople, of Smyrna, and of Alexandria is in the hands 
 of Greeks. But, in addition to this, the race itself 
 seems at a certain period to have become less pro- 
 lific ; and this, too, is a remarkable feature lasting to 
 our own time. In the several hospitable houses in 
 which I was entertained through the country I 
 sought in vain for children. The young married 
 ladies had their mothers to keep them company, and 
 this was a common habit ; the daughter does not 
 willingly separate from her mother. But, whether 
 by curious coincidence or not, the absence of chil- 
 dren in these seven or eight houses was very remark- 
 able. I have been since assured that this was an 
 accident, and that large families are very common in 
 Greece. The statistics show a considerable increase 
 of population of late years. 1 
 
 The evening saw us entering into Thebes the 
 town which, beyond all others, retains the smallest 
 vestiges of antiquity. Even the site of the Cadmea 
 is not easily distinguishable. Two or three hillocks 
 in and about the town are all equally insignificant, 
 
 1 Cf., for example, the figures in the recent (1891) Guide 
 Joanne, ii. xxxvi.
 
 234 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 and all equally suitable, one should think, for a fort- 
 ress. The discovery of the old foundations of the 
 walls has, however, determined the matter, and 
 settled the site to be that of the highest part of the 
 present town. Its strength, which was celebrated, 
 must have been due nearly altogether to artificial 
 fortification, for though the old city was in a deeper 
 valley to the north-west, yet from the other side 
 there can never have been any ascent steep enough 
 to be a natural rampart. The old city was, no 
 doubt, always more renowned for eating and drink- 
 ing than for art or architecture, 1 and its momentary 
 supremacy under Epaminondas was too busy and too 
 short a season to be employed in such pursuits. But, 
 besides all this, and besides all the ruin of Alex- 
 ander's fury, the place has been visited several times 
 with the most destructive earthquakes, from the last 
 of which (in 1852) it had not recovered when I first 
 saw it. There were still through the streets houses 
 torn open, and walls shaken down ; there were gaps 
 made by ruins, and half-restored shops. 
 
 The antiquities of Thebes consist of a few in- 
 scribed slabs and fragments which are (as usual) col- 
 lected in a dark outhouse, where it is not easy to 
 make them out. I was not at the trouble of reading 
 
 1 There was, indeed, a splendid pleasaunce built at Thebes by 
 the Prankish knights, which was completely destroyed by the 
 grand Catalan company. It is described by their annalist Ramon 
 Muntaner. The remains of one Franki.sh tower mark the place.
 
 FROM ATHENS TO THEBES. 235 
 
 these inscriptions, for in this department the anti- 
 quarians of the University of Athens are really very 
 zealous and competent, and I doubt whether any in- 
 scription now discovered fails to come into the Greek 
 papers within a few months. From these they of 
 course pass into the Corpus Inscriptionum Gracarum, 
 a collection daily increasing, and periodically re- 
 edited. I may observe that, not only for manners 
 and customs, but even for history, these undeniable 
 and seldom suspicious sources are rapidly becoming 
 our surest and even fullest authority. 
 
 In the opinion of the inhabitants, by far the most 
 important thing about the town is the tomb of their 
 Evangelist S. Luke, which is situated in a chapel 
 close by. The stone is polished and worn with the 
 feet and lips of pilgrims, and all such homes of long 
 devotion are in themselves interesting ; but the vis- 
 itor may well wonder that the Evangelist should 
 have his tomb established in a place so absolutely 
 decayed and depopulated as was the region of Thebes, 
 even in his day. The tombs of the early preachers 
 and missionaries are more likely to be in the thick- 
 est of thoroughfares, amid the noise and strife of 
 men. The Evangelist was confused with a later 
 local saint of the same name. 1 
 
 Thebes is remarkable for its excellent supply of 
 water. Apart from the fountain Dirke, 2 several 
 
 1 See his life in Gregorovius's Athen, vol. i. pp. 144 sq. 
 
 2 The legend of the name is now fully explained in the frag-
 
 236 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 other great springs rise in the higher ground close to 
 it, and are led by old Greek conduits of marble to 
 the town. One of these springs was large enough 
 to allow us to bathe a most refreshing change after 
 the long and hot carriage drive, especially in the ice- 
 cold water, as it came from its deep hiding-place. 
 We returned at eight in the evening to dine with our 
 excellent host a host provided for us by telegraph 
 from Athens where we had ample opportunity 
 of noticing some of the peculiarities of modern 
 Greek life. 
 
 The general elections were at the moment pend- 
 ing. M. Boulgaris had just echoue, as the French 
 say ; and the King, after a crisis in which a rupture 
 of the Constitution had been expected, decided to 
 try a constitutional experiment, and called to office 
 M. Trikoupi, an advanced Radical in those days, 
 and strongly opposed to the Government. But M. 
 Trikoupi was a highly educated and reasonable man, 
 well acquainted with England and English politics, 
 and apparently anxious to govern by strictly consti- 
 tutional means. He has since proved himself, by his 
 able and vigorous administration, one of the most 
 remarkable statesmen in Europe, and the main cause 
 of the progress of his country. His recent defeat 
 (1890) is therefore to be regarded as a national mis- 
 fortune. Our new friend at Thebes was then the 
 
 ments of the Antiope published by me in the Petrie papyri (Wil- 
 liams & Norgate, 1891).
 
 FROM ATHENS TO THEBES. 237 
 
 Radical candidate, and was at the very time of our 
 arrival canvassing his constituency. Every idle fel- 
 low in the town seemed to think it his duty to come 
 up into his drawing-room, in which we were resting, 
 and sit down to encourage him and advise him. No 
 hint that he was engaged in entertaining strangers 
 had the smallest effect : noisy politics was inflicted 
 upon us till the welcome announcement of dinner, to 
 which, for a wonder, his constituents did not follow him. 
 He told me that though all the country was strongly 
 in favor of M. Trikoupi, yet he could hardly count 
 upon a majority with certainty, for he had deter- 
 mined to let the elections follow their own course, 
 and not control them with soldiers. In this most 
 constitutional country, with its freedom, as usual, 
 closely imitated from England, soldiers stood, at 
 least up to the summer of 1875, round the booths, 
 and hustled out any one who did not come to vote 
 for the Ministerial candidate. M. Trikoupi refused 
 to take this traditional precaution, and, as the result 
 showed, lost his sure majority. 
 
 But when I was there, and before the actual elec- 
 tions had taken place, the Radical party were very 
 confident. They were not only to come in triumph- 
 ant, but their first act was to be the prosecution of 
 the late Prime Minister, M. Boulgaris, for violating 
 the Constitution, and his condemnation to hard labor, 
 with confiscation of his property. I used to plead 
 the poor man's case earnestly with these hot-headed
 
 238 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 politicians, by way of amusement, and was highly 
 edified by their arguments. The ladies, as usual, 
 were by far the fiercest, and were ready, like their 
 goddess of old, to eat the raw flesh of their enemies. 
 I used to ask them whether it would not be quite 
 out of taste if Mr. Disraeli, then in power, were to 
 prosecute Mr. Gladstone for violating the Constitu- 
 tion in his Irish Church Act, and have him con- 
 demned to hard labor. The cases, they replied, 
 were quite different. No Englishman could ever 
 attain, or even understand, the rascality of the late 
 Greek Minister. Feeling that there might be some 
 force in this argument, I changed ground, and asked 
 them were they not afraid that if he were persecuted 
 in so violent a way he might, instead of occupying 
 the Opposition benches, betake himself to occupy 
 the mountain passes, and, by robbing a few English 
 travellers, so discredit the new Government as to be 
 worse and more dangerous in opposition than in 
 power. No, they said, he will not do that ; he is 
 too rich. But, said I, if you confiscate his property, 
 he will be poor. True, they replied ; but still he 
 will not be able to do it : he is too old. It seemed 
 as if the idea that he might be too respectable never 
 crossed their minds. 1 What was my surprise to 
 
 1 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
 
 FROM ATHENS TO THEBES. 239 
 
 hear within six months that this dreadful culprit had 
 come into power again at the head of a considerable 
 majority ! 
 
 We were afterward informed by a sarcastic ob- 
 server that many of the Greek politicians are 
 paupers, " who will not dig, and to beg they are 
 ashamed ;" and so they sit about the cafes of Athens 
 on the look-out for one of the 10,000 places which 
 have been devised for the patronage of the Ministry. 
 But, as there are some 30,000 expectants, it follows 
 that the 20,000 disappointed are always at work seek- 
 ing to turn out the 10,000. Hence a crisis every 
 three months ; hence a Greek ambassador could 
 hardly reach his destination before he was recalled ; 
 hence, too, the exodus of all thrifty and hard-work- 
 ing men to Smyrna, to Alexandria, or to Manchester, 
 where their energies were not wasted in perpetual 
 political squabbling. The greatest misconduct with 
 which a man in office could be charged was the hold- 
 ing of it for any length of time ; the whole public then 
 join against him, and cry out that it is high time for 
 him, after so long an innings, to make way for some 
 one else. It was not till M. Trikoupi established his 
 ascendency that this ridiculous condition of things 
 ceased. Whether in office or in opposition, he has a 
 policy, and retains the confidence of foreign powers. 
 I had added, in the first edition of this book, some 
 
 certain archbishoprics, which were bought for money. The trial is 
 now a matter of history, to which an allusion is sufficient.
 
 240 KAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 further observations on the apparent absurdity of 
 introducing the British Constitution, or some parody 
 of it, into every new state which is rescued from 
 barbarism or from despotism. I am not the least dis- 
 posed to retract what I then said generally, but it is 
 common justice to the Greeks to say that later events 
 are showing them to be among the few nations 
 where such an experiment may succeed. When the 
 dangerous crisis of the Turco-Russian war super- 
 vened, instead of rushing to arms, as they were 
 advised by some fanatical English politicians, they 
 set about to reform their Ministry ; and, feeling the 
 danger of perpetually changing the men at the helm, 
 they insisted on the heads of the four principal 
 parties forming a coalition, under the nominal leader- 
 ship of M. Canaris. 1 This great political move, one 
 of the most remarkable of our day, was attempted, 
 as far as I can make out, owing to the deliberate 
 pressure of the country, and from a solid interest in 
 its welfare. Even though temporary in the present 
 case, it was an earnest that the Greeks are learning 
 national politics, and that a liberal constitution is not 
 wasted upon them. There are many far more de- 
 veloped and important nations in Europe which 
 
 1 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 mis- 
 fortune 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.
 
 FROM ATHENS TO THEBES. 241 
 
 would not be capable of such a sacrifice of party 
 interests and party ambition. 
 
 We left Thebes, very glad that we had seen it, 
 but not very curious to see it again. Its site makes 
 it obviously the natural capital of the rich plain 
 around it ; and we can also see at once how the 
 larger and richer plain of Orchomenus is separated 
 from it by a distinct saddle of rising ground, and 
 was naturally, in old times, the seat of a separate 
 power. But the separation between the two dis- 
 tricts, which is not even so steep or well marked as 
 the easy pass of Daphne between Athens and Eleu- 
 sis, makes it also clear that the owners of either 
 plain would certainly cast the eye of desire upon the 
 possessions of their neighbors, and so at an early 
 epoch Orchomenus was subdued. For many reasons 
 this may have been a disaster to Greece. The 
 Minyae of Orchomenus, as people called the old 
 nobles who settled there in prehistoric days, were 
 a great and rich society, building forts and treasure- 
 houses, and celebrated, even in Homer's day, for 
 wealth and splendor. 
 
 But, perhaps owing to this very luxury, they were 
 subdued by the inartistic, vulgar Thebans, who, dur- 
 ing centuries of power and importance, never rose to 
 greatness save through the transcendent genius of 
 Pindar and of Epaminondas. No real greatness 
 ever attached to their town. When people came 
 from a distance to see art in BcEotia, they came to 
 16
 
 242 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 little Thespise, in the southern hills, where the Eros 
 of Praxiteles was the pride of the citizens. Tanagra, 
 too, in the terra cottas of which I have spoken (above, 
 p. 59), shows taste and refinement ; and we still look 
 with sympathy upon the strangely modern fashions 
 of these graceful and elegant figures. At Thebes, 
 so far as I know, no trace of fine arts has yet been 
 discovered. The great substructure of the Cadmea, 
 the solid marble water-pipes of their conduits, a few 
 inscriptions that is all. It corroborates what we 
 find in the middle and new comedy of the Greeks, 
 that Thebes was a place for eating and drinking, a 
 place for other coarse material comforts but no 
 place for real culture or for art. Even their great 
 poet, Pindar, a poet in whom most critics find all 
 the highest qualities of genius loftiness, daring, 
 originality even this great man no doubt from 
 the accidents of his age worked by the job, and 
 bargained for the payment of his noblest odes. 
 
 Thus, even in Pindar, there is something to re- 
 mind us of his Theban vulgarity ; and it is, there- 
 fore, all the more wonderful, and all the more freely 
 to be confessed, that in Epaminondas we find not a 
 single flaw or failing, and that he stands out as far 
 the noblest of all the great men whom Greece ever 
 produced. It were possible to maintain that he was 
 also the greatest, but this is a matter of opinion and 
 of argument. Certain it is that his influence made 
 Thebes, for the moment, not only the leader in Greek
 
 FROM ATHENS TO THEBES. 243 
 
 politics, but the leader in Greek society. Those of 
 his friends whom we know seem not only patriots, 
 but gentlemen they cultivated with him music and 
 eloquence, nor did they despise philosophy. So 
 true is it, that in this wonderful peninsula genius 
 seemed possible everywhere, and that from the 
 least cultivated and most vulgar town might arise 
 a man to make all the world about him admire and 
 tremble. 
 
 I will make but one more remark about this plain 
 of Boeotia. There is no part of Greece so sadly 
 famed for all the battles with which its soil was 
 stained. The ancients called it Mars's Orchestra, or 
 exercising ground ; and even now, when all the old 
 life is gone, and when not a hovel remains to mark 
 the site of once well-built towns, we may indeed ask, 
 why were these towns celebrated ? Simply because 
 in old Greek history their names served to specify 
 a scene of slaughter, where a campaign, or it may 
 be an empire, was lost or won. Plataea, Leuctra, 
 Ilaliartus, Coronea, Chseronea, Delium, CEnophyta, 
 Tanagra these are in history the landmarks of bat- 
 tles, and, with one exception, landmarks of nothing 
 more. Thebes is mainly the nurse of the warriors 
 who fought in these battles, and but little else. So, 
 then, we cannot compare Boeotia to the rich plains 
 of Lombardy they, too, in their day, ay, and in 
 our own day, Mars's Orchestra for here literature 
 and art have given fame to cities, while the battles
 
 244 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 fought around their walls have been forgotten by the 
 world. 
 
 I confess we saw nothing of the foggy atmosphere 
 so often brought up against the climate of Boeotia. 
 And yet it was then, of course, more foggy than it 
 had been of old, for then the lake Copais was 
 drained, whereas in 1875 the old tunnels, cut, or 
 rather enlarged, by the Minyse, were choked, and 
 thousands of acres of the richest land covered with 
 marsh and lake. It was M. Trikoupi who pro- 
 moted the plan of a French Company to drain the 
 lake more completely than even the old Catabothra 
 had done, and, at the cost of less than one million 
 sterling, to bring into permanent cultivation some 
 thousands of acres in fact, the largest and richest 
 plain in all Greece. I asked him where he meant 
 to find a population to till it, seeing that the present 
 land was about ten times more than sufficient for the 
 inhabitants. He told me that some Greek colonists, 
 who had settled in the north, under the Turks or 
 Servians (I forget which), were desirous of returning 
 to enjoy the sweets of Hellenic liberty. It was pro- 
 posed to give them the reclaimed tract. If these 
 good people will reason from analogy, they will be 
 slow to trust their fortunes to their old fellow-coun- 
 trymen. So long as they are indigent they will be 
 unmolested cantdbit vacuus coram latronc, viator 
 but as soon as they prosper, or are supposed to pros- 
 per, we might have the affair of Laurium repeated.
 
 FROM ATHENS TO THEBES. 245 
 
 The natives might be up in arms against the stran- 
 gers who had come to plunder the land of the wealth 
 intended by nature for others. The Greek Parlia- 
 ment might be persuaded to make retrospective laws 
 and restrictions, and probably all the more active 
 and impatient spirits would leave a country where 
 prosperity implied persecution, and where people 
 only awake to the value of their possessions after 
 they have sold them to others. 
 
 What is now happening illustrates the views which 
 I long since proposed. When the drainage works, 
 completed in 1887, had uncovered rich tracts, the 
 Government laid claim to every acre of it, and en- 
 deavored to fence off the old riparian proprietors. 
 They on their side disputed the new boundaries, 
 and claimed what the Government professed to 
 have uncovered. Hence no sale to new owners 
 is as yet possible. The dispute is still (1891) un- 
 settled. 
 
 I think jealousy no accidental feature, but one 
 specially engrained in the texture of Greek nature 
 from the earliest times. Nothing can be a more 
 striking or cogent proof of this than the way in 
 which Herodotus sets down jealousy as one of the 
 attributes of the Deity. For the Deities of all 
 nations being conceptions formed after the analogy 
 of human nature around them, there can be no 
 doubt that the honest historian put it down as a 
 necessary factor in the course and constitution of
 
 246 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 nature. We can only understand Greek history 
 by keeping these things perpetually in mind, and 
 even now it explains the apparent anomaly, how a 
 nation so essent'ally democratic who recognize no 
 nobility and no distinctions of rank can be satisfied 
 with a king of foreign race. They told me them- 
 selves, over and over again, that the simple reason 
 was this : no Greek could tolerate another set over 
 him, so that even such an office as President of a 
 Greek Republic would be intolerable, if held by one 
 of themselves. And this same feeling in old times 
 is the real reason of the deadly hate manifested 
 against the most moderate and humane despots. 
 However able, however kindly, however great such 
 a despot might be ; however the state might prosper 
 under him, one thing in him was intolerable he had 
 no natural right to be superior to his felloAvs, and 
 yet he was superior. I will not deny the existence 
 of political enthusiasm, and of real patriotism among 
 Greek tyrannicides, but I am quite sure that the 
 universal sympathy of the nation with them was 
 partly based upon this deep-seated feeling. 
 
 It is said that, in another curious respect, the old 
 and modern Greeks are very similar I mean the 
 for,m which bribery takes in their political struggles. 
 It has been already observed and discussed by Mr. 
 Freeman, how, among the old Greeks, it was the 
 politician who was bribed, and not the constituents ; 
 whereas among us in England the leading politicians
 
 FROM ATHENS TO THEBES. 247 
 
 are above suspicion, while the constituents are often 
 corruptible enough. Our Theban friend told me 
 that in modern Greece the ancient form of bribery 
 was still in fashion ; and that, except in Hydra and 
 one other place probably, if I remember rightly, 
 Athens the bribing of constituents was unknown ; 
 while the taking of bribes by Ministers was alleged 
 not to be very uncommon. A few years ago, men 
 of sufficient importance to be Cabinet Ministers 
 were openly brought into court, and indicted for the 
 sale of three archbishoprics, those of Patras and 
 Corinth among the number. There is no doubt that 
 this public charge points to a sort of bribery likely 
 to take place in any real democracy, when the 
 men at the head of affairs are not men of great 
 wealth and noble birth, but often ordinary, or even 
 needy persons, selected by ballot, or popular vote, 
 to fill for a very short time a very influential office.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE PLAIN OF ORCHOMENUS, LIVADIA, CH^RONEA. 
 
 THE road from Thebes to Lebadea (Livadia) leads 
 along the foot of Helicon all the way Helicon, 
 which, like all celebrated Greek mountains, is not a 
 summit, but a system of summits, or even a chain. 
 Looking in the morning from the plain, the contrast 
 of the dark Cithseron and the gentle sunny Helicon 
 strikes the traveller again and again. After the 
 ridge, or saddle, is passed which separates the plain 
 of Thebes from that of Orchomenus, the richness of 
 the soil increases, but the land becomes very swampy 
 and low, for at every half-mile comes a clear silver 
 river, tumbling from the slopes of Helicon on our 
 left, crossing the road, and flowing to swell the 
 waters of Lake Copais a vast sheet with undefined 
 edges, half-marsh, half-lake which for centuries 
 had no outlet to the sea, and which was only kept 
 from covering all the plain by evaporation in the 
 heats of summer. Great fields of sedge and rushes, 
 giant reeds, and marsh plants unknown in colder 
 countries, mark each river course as it nears the 
 lake ; and, as might be expected in this lonely fen 
 country, all manner of insect life and all manner of 
 
 248
 
 PLAIN OF ORCHOMENUS. 249 
 
 amphibia haunt the sites of ancient culture. In- 
 numerable dragon-flies, of the most brilliant colors, 
 were flitting about the reeds, and lighting on the 
 rich blades of grass which lay on the water's sur- 
 face ; and now and then a daring frog would charge 
 boldly at so great a prize, but retire again in fear 
 when the fierce insect dashed against him in its im- 
 petuous start. Large land tortoises, with their 
 high-arched shells, yellow and brown, and patterned 
 like the section of a great honeycomb, went lazily 
 along the moist banks, and close by the water, which 
 they could not bear to touch. Their aquatic 
 cousins, on the other hand, were not solitary in 
 habit, but lay in lines along the sun-baked mud, and 
 at the first approach of danger dropped into the 
 water one after the other with successive flops, look- 
 ing for all the world a long row of smooth black 
 pebbles which had suddenly come to life, like old 
 Deucalion's clods, that they might people this soli- 
 tude. The sleepy and unmeaning faces of these 
 tortoises were a great contrast to those of the water- 
 snakes, which were very like them in form, but 
 wonderfully keen and lively in expression. They, 
 too, would glide into the water when so strange a 
 thing as man came near, but would presently raise 
 their heads above the surface, and eye with wonder 
 and suspicion, and in perfect stillness, the approach 
 of their natural enemy. The Copaic eels, so cele- 
 brated in the Attic comedy as the greatest of all
 
 250 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 dainties, are also still to be caught ; but tlie bright 
 sun and cloudless sky made vain all my attempts to 
 lure this famous darling of Greek epicures. We 
 noticed that while the shrill cicada, which frequents 
 dry places, was not common here, great emerald- 
 green grasshoppers were flying about spasmodically, 
 with a sound and weight like that of a small bird. 
 
 As we passed along, we were shown the sites of 
 Haliartus and Coronea Haliartus, where the cruel 
 Lysander met his death in a skirmish, and so gave a 
 place in history to an obscure village Coronea, 
 where the Spartans first learned to taste the temper 
 of the Theban infantry, and where King Agesilaus 
 well-nigh preceded his great rival to the funeral 
 pyre. As I said before, all these towns are only 
 known by battles. Thespiae has an independent in- 
 terest, and so has Ascra. The latter was the resi- 
 dence of the earliest known Greek poet of whose 
 personality we can be sure ; Thespise, with its 
 highly aristocratic society, which would not let a 
 shopkeeper walk their place of assembly for ten 
 years after he had retired from business, was the site 
 of fair temples and statues, and held its place and 
 fame long after all the rest of the surrounding cities 
 had sunk into decay. There are indistinct remains 
 of surrounding walls about both Haliartus and Cor- 
 onea, but surely nothing that would repay the labor 
 of excavations. All these Boeotian towns were, of 
 course, fortified, and all of them lay close to the
 
 LIVADIA. 251 
 
 hills ; for the swampy plain was unhealthy, and in 
 older days the rising lake was said to have swal- 
 lowed up towns which had been built close upon its 
 margin. But the supremacy of Orchomenus in 
 older, and Thebes in later days, never allowed these 
 subject towns to attain any importance or any politi- 
 cal significance. 
 
 After some hours' riding, we suddenly came upon 
 a deep vista in the mountains on our left such 
 another vista as there is behind Coronea, but nar- 
 rower, and inclosed on both sides with great and 
 steep mountains. And here we found the cause of 
 the cultivation of the upper plain here was the 
 town of Lebadea (Liva'dia), famed of old for the 
 august oracle of Trophonius in later days the 
 Turkish capital of the province surrounding. To 
 this the roads of all the neighborhood converge, 
 and from this a small force can easily command the 
 deep gorges and high mountain passes which lead 
 through Delphi to the port of Kirrha. Even now 
 there is more life in Liva'dia than in most Greek 
 towns. All the wool of the country is brought in 
 and sold there, and, with the aid of their great 
 water power, they have a considerable factory, 
 where the wool is spun and woven into stuff. A 
 large and beautifully clear river comes down the 
 gorge above the town or rather the gorge in which 
 the town lies and tumbles in great falls between the 
 streets and under the houses, which have woode'n
 
 252 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 balconies, like Swiss chalets, built over the stream. 
 The whole aspect of the town was not unlike a Swiss 
 town 5 indeed, all the features of the upland country 
 are ever reminding the traveller of his Swiss ex- 
 perience. 
 
 But the people are widely different. It was a 
 great saint's day, and all the streets were crowded 
 with people from many miles round. As we noted in 
 all Greek towns, except Arachova, the women were 
 not to be seen in any numbers. They do not walk 
 about the streets except for some special ceremony 
 or amusement. But no women's costume is required 
 to lend brightness to the coloring of the scene ; for 
 here every man had his fustanella or kilt of dazzling 
 white, his gray or puce embroidered waistcoat, his 
 great white sleeves, and his scarlet skull-cap, with 
 its blue tassel. Nothing can be imagined brighter 
 than a dense crowd in this dress. They were all 
 much excited at the arrival of strangers, and 
 crowded around us without the least idea or care 
 about being thought obtrusive. The simple Greek 
 peasant thinks it his right to make aloud what ob- 
 servations he chooses upon any stranger, and has 
 not the smallest idea of the politeness of reticence 
 on such occasions. 
 
 We were received most hospitably by the medical 
 officer of the district, who had an amiable young 
 wife, speaking Greek only, and a lively old mother- 
 in-law, living, as usual, permanently in the house,
 
 LIVADIA. 253 
 
 to prevent the young lady from being lonely. Like 
 all the richer Greeks in country parts, they ate 
 nothing till twelve, when they had a sort of early 
 dinner called breakfast, and then dined again at 
 half-past eight in the evening. This arrangement 
 gave us more than enough time to look about the 
 town when our day's ride was over; so we went, 
 first of all, to see the site of Trophonius's oracle. 
 
 As the gorge becomes narrower, there is, on the 
 right side, a small cave, from which a sacred stream 
 flows to join the larger river. Here numerous square 
 panels cut into the rock to hold votive tablets, now 
 gone, indicate a sacred place, to which pilgrims came 
 to offer prayers for aid, and thanksgiving for success. 
 The actual seat of the oracle is not certain, and is 
 supposed to be some cave or aperture now covered 
 by the Turkish fort on the rock immediately above ; 
 but the whole glen, with its beetling sides, its rush- 
 ing river, and its cavernous vaulting, seems the very 
 home and preserve of superstition. We followed 
 the windings of the defile, jumping from rock to 
 rock up the river bed, and were soon able to bathe 
 beyond the observation of all the crowding boys, 
 who, like the boys of any other town, could not 
 satisfy their curiosity at strangeness of face and 
 costume. As we went on for some miles, the 
 country began to open, and to show us a bleak and 
 solitary mountain region, where the chains of Heli- 
 con and Parnassus join, and shut out the sea of
 
 254 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 Corinth from Boeotia by a great bar some thirty 
 miles wide. Not a sound could be heard in this 
 wild loneliness, save the metallic pipe of a water 
 ouzel by the river, and the scream of hawks about 
 their nests, far up on the face of the cliffs. 
 
 As the evening was closing in we began to retrace 
 our steps, when we saw in two or three places scarlet 
 caps over the rocks, and swarthy faces peering down 
 upon us with signs and shouts. Though nothing 
 could have been more suspicious in such a country, 
 I cannot say that we felt the least uneasiness, and 
 we continued our way without regarding them. 
 They kept watching us from the heights, and when 
 at last we descended nearer to the town, they came 
 and made signs, and spoke very new Greek, to the 
 effect that they had been out scouring the country 
 for us, and that they had been very uneasy about 
 our safety. This was indeed the case ; our excellent 
 Greek companion, who felt responsible to the Greek 
 Government for our safety, and who had stayed be- 
 hind in Livadia to make arrangements, had become 
 so uneasy that he had sent out the police to scour 
 the country. So we were brought in with triumph 
 by a large escort of idlers and officials, and presently 
 sat down to dinner at the fashionable hour, though in 
 anything but fashionable dress. The entertainment 
 would have been as excellent as even the intentions 
 of our host, had not our attention been foolishly dis- 
 tracted by bugs walking up the table-cloth. It is,
 
 LIVADIA. 255 
 
 indeed, but a small and ignoble insect, yet it pro- 
 duces a wonderful effect upon the mind ; for it 
 inspires the most ordinary man with the gift of 
 prophecy : it carries him away even from the 
 pleasures of a fair repast into the hours of night 
 and mystery, when all his wisdom and all his might 
 will not save him from the persistent skirmishing 
 of his irreconcilable foe. 
 
 It may be here worth giving a word of encourage- 
 ment to the sensitive student whom these hints are 
 apt to deter from venturing into the wilds of Greece. 
 In spite of frequent starvation, both for want of food 
 and for want of eatable food ; in spite of frequent 
 sleeplessness and even severe exercise at night, owing 
 to the excess of insect population ; ' such is the light- 
 ness and clearness of the air, such the exhilarating 
 effect of great natural beauty, and of solitary wander- 
 ing, free and unshackled, across the wild tracts of 
 valley, wood, and mountain, that fatigue is an almost 
 impossible feeling. Eight or ten hours' riding every 
 day, which in other country and other air would 
 have been almost unendurable, was here but the 
 natural exercise which any ordinary man may con- 
 veniently take. It cannot be denied that the dis- 
 
 1 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.
 
 256 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 comforts of Greek travelling are very great, but 
 with good temper and patience they can all be 
 borne ; and when they are over they form a pleasant 
 feature in the recollections of a glorious time. Be- 
 sides, these discomforts are only the really classical 
 mode of travelling. Dionysus, in Aristophancs's 
 Frogs, asks, especially about the inns, the very 
 questions which we often put to our guide ; and if 
 his slave carried for him not only ordinary baggage, 
 but also his bed and bedding, so nowadays there 
 are many khans (inns) where the traveller cannot lie 
 down I was going to say to rest except on his 
 own rugs. 
 
 The next day was occupied in a tour across the 
 plain to Orchomenus, then to Chseronea, and back 
 to Livadia in the evening, so as to start from thence 
 for the passes to Delphi. Our ride was, as it were, 
 round an isosceles triangle, beginning with the right 
 base angle, going to Orchomenus north-east as the 
 vertex, then to Chseronea at the left base angle, and 
 home again over the high spurs of mountain which 
 protrude into the plain between the two base angles 
 of our triangle. For about a mile, as we rode out 
 of Livadia, a wretched road of little rough paving- 
 stones tormented us the remains of Turkish engi- 
 neering, when Livadia was their capital. Patches 
 of this work are still to be found in curious isolation 
 over the mountains, to the great distress of both 
 mules and riders ; for the stones are very small and
 
 ORCHOMENUS. 257 
 
 pointed, or, where they have been worn smooth, 
 exceedingly slippery. But we soon got away into 
 deep rich meadows upon the low level of the country 
 adjoining the lake, where we found again the same 
 infinitely various insect life which I have already 
 described. A bright merry Greek boy, in full dress 
 (for it was again a holiday), followed in attendance 
 on each mule or pony, and nothing could be more 
 picturesque than the cavalcade, going in Indian file 
 through the long grass, among the gay wild flowers, 
 especially when some creek or rivulet made our 
 course to wind about, and so brought the long line 
 of figures into more varied grouping. As for the 
 weather, it was so uniformly splendid that we almost 
 forgot to notice it. Indeed, strangers justly remark 
 what large conversation it affords us in Ireland, for 
 there it is a matter of constant uncertainty, and re- 
 quires forethought and conjecture. During my first 
 journey in Greece, in the months of April, May, and 
 June, there was nothing to be said, except that we 
 saw one heavy shower at Athens, and two hours' 
 rain in Arcadia, and that the temperature was not 
 excessively hot. I have had similar experiences in 
 ]\Iarch and Api'il during three other sojourns in the 
 country. 
 
 In two or three hours we arrived at the site of 
 
 old Orchomenus, of late called Scripou, but now 
 
 reverting, like all Greek towns, to its original name. 
 
 There is a mere hamlet, some dozen houses, at the 
 
 17
 
 258 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 place, which is close to the stone bridge built over 
 the Kephissus the Boeotian Kephissus at this 
 place. This river appears to be the main feeder 
 of the Copaic lake, coming down, as we saw it, 
 muddy and cold with snow-water from the heights 
 of Parnassus. It runs very rapidly, like the Iser at 
 Munich, and is at Orchomenus about double the size 
 of that river. Of the so-called treasure-house of 
 the Minyse, nothing remains but the stone doorposts 
 and the huge block lying across them ; and even 
 these are almost imbedded in earth. It was the 
 most disappointing ruin I had seen in Greece, for it 
 is always quoted with the treasure-house of Atreus 
 at Mycenae as one of the great specimens of pre- 
 historic building. It is not so interesting in any 
 sense as the corresponding raths in Ireland. Indeed, 
 but for Pausanias's description, it would, I think, 
 have excited but little attention. 
 
 The subsequent excavation of it by Dr. Schlie- 
 mann yielded but poor results. The building had 
 fallen in but a few years ago. A handsome ceil- 
 ing pattern, to which a curious parallel was after- 
 ward found at Tiryns, and some pottery, was all that 
 rewarded the explorer. 
 
 On the hill above are the well-preserved remains 
 of the small Acropolis, of which the stones are so 
 carefully cut that it looks at first sight modern, then 
 too good for modern work, but in no case polygonal, 
 as are the walls of the hill city which it protected.
 
 ORCHOMENUS. 259 
 
 There is a remarkable tower built on the highest 
 point of the hill, with a very perfect staircase up to 
 it. The whole of the work is very like the work 
 of Eleutherse, and seems to be of the best period of 
 Greek wall-building. Nothing surprises the traveller 
 in Greece more than the number of these splendid 
 hill-forts, or town-fortresses, which are never noticed 
 by the historians as anything remarkable in fact, 
 the art and the habit of fortifying must have been 
 so universal that it excited no comment. This 
 strikes us all the more when so reticent a writer 
 as Thucydides, who seldom gives us anything but 
 war or politics, goes out of his way to describe the 
 wall- building of the Peiraeus. He evidently con- 
 trasts it with the hurried and irregular construction 
 of the city walls, into which even tombstones were 
 built ; but if we did not study the remains still com- 
 mon in Greece, we might imagine that the use of 
 square hewn stones, the absence of mortar and rub- 
 ble, and the clamping with lead and iron were ex- 
 ceptional, whereas that sort of building is the most 
 usual sort in Greece. The walls of the Peirseus 
 cannot even have been the earliest specimen, for 
 the great portal at Mycenae, though somewhat 
 rougher and more huge in execution, is on the 
 same principle. The only peculiarity of these walls 
 may have been their height and width, and upon 
 that point it is not easy to get any monumental evi- 
 dence now. The walls of the Peireeus have disap-
 
 260 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 peared completely, though the foundations are still 
 traceable ; others have stood, but perhaps on account 
 of their lesser height. 
 
 In a large and hospitable monastery we found the 
 well which Pausanias describes as close beside the 
 shrine of the Graces, and here we partook of break- 
 fast, attended by our muleteers, who always accom- 
 pany their employer into the reception-room of his 
 host, and look on at meat, ready to attend, and 
 always joining if possible in the conversation at 
 table. Some excellent specimens of old Greek pot- 
 tery were shown us in the monastery, apparently, 
 though not ostensibly, for sale, there being a law 
 prohibiting the sale of antiquities to foreigners, or 
 for exportation. In their chapel the monks pointed 
 out to us some fragments of marble pillars, and one 
 or two inscriptions in which I was since informed 
 that I might have found a real live digamma, if I 
 had carefully examined them. The digamma is 
 now common enough at Olympia and elsewhere. I 
 saw it best, along with the Jcoph, which is, I suppose, 
 much rarer, in the splendid bronze plates containing 
 Locrian inscriptions, which are in the possession of 
 Mr. Taylor's heirs at Corfu. These plates have 
 been ably commented on, with facsimile drawings 
 of the inscriptions, by a Greek writer, G. N. Ecno- 
 mides (Corfu, 1850, and Athens, 1869). 
 
 It was on our way up the valley to Chseronea, 
 along the rapid stream of the Kephissus, that we
 
 PLAIN OF ORCHOMENUS. 261 
 
 came, in a little deserted church, upon one of the 
 most remarkable extant specimens of a peculiar 
 epoch in Greek art. As usual, it was set up in the 
 dark, and we were repeatedly obliged to entreat the 
 natives to clear the door, through which alone we 
 could obtain any light to see the work. It is a fun- 
 eral stele, not unlike the celebrated stele and its re- 
 lief at Athens, which is inscribed as the stele of 
 Aristion, and dates from the time of the Persian 
 wars. The work before us was inscribed as the 
 work of Anxenor the Naxian an artist otherwise 
 unknown to us ; but the style and finish are very 
 remarkable, and more perfect than the stele of Aris- 
 tion. It is a relief carved on an upright slab of gray 
 Boeotian marble I should say about four feet in 
 height and representing a bearded man wrapped in 
 a cloak, resting on a long stick propped under his 
 arm, 1 with his legs awkwardly crossed, and offering 
 a large grasshopper to a dog sitting before him. The 
 hair and beard are conventionally curled, the whole 
 effect being very like an Assyrian relief; but this is 
 the case with all the older Greek sculpture, which 
 may have started in Ionia by an impulse from the far 
 east. The occurrence of the dog, a feature which 
 strikes us frequently in the later Attic tombs, sup- 
 ports what I had long since inferred from stray hints 
 in Greek literature, that dogs among the old Greeks, 
 
 1 Cf. Polygnotus's picture of Agamemnon (Paus. x. 30, 3), 
 anij-rpu re vnb TIJV aptarf/tav fiaaxa^rfv fpei66[ievo.
 
 262 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 as well as the modern, were held in the highest es- 
 teem as the friends and companions of man. This 
 curious monument of early Greek art was lying hidden 
 in an obscure and out-of-the-way corner of Greece ; 
 isolated, too, and with little of antiquarian interest in 
 its immediate neighborhood. 1 On my second visit 
 (1884), I found a cast of it in the Ministry of Public 
 Instruction at Athens. On my third I found the 
 original removed to a prominent place in the Na- 
 tional Museum at Athens, where the traveller may 
 now study it at his ease. 
 
 The great value of these reliefs consists (apart 
 from their artistic value) in their undoubted genuine- 
 ness. For we know that in later days, both in 
 Greece and Italy, a sort of pre-Raphaelite taste 
 sprang up among amateurs, who admired and pre- 
 ferred the stiff awkward groping after nature to the 
 symmetry and grace of perfect art. Pausanias, for 
 example, speaks with enthusiasm of these antique 
 statues and carvings, and generally mentions them 
 first, as of most importance. Thus, after describing 
 various archaic works on the Acropolis of Athens, 
 he adds, " But whoever places works made with 
 artistic skill before those which come under the des- 
 ignation of archaic, may, if he likes, admire the 
 
 1 Since these words were written, M. Holleaux's researches at 
 Akraephise have not only discovered the inscription containing the 
 Emperor Nero's speech to the Greeks, but also many curious re- 
 mains from the temple of Apollo Ptoos.
 
 PLAIN OF ORCHOMENUS. 263 
 
 following." 1 As a natural result, a fashion came in 
 of imitating them, and we have, especially in Italy, 
 many statues in this style which seem certainly to 
 be modern imitations, and not even Greek copies of 
 old Greek originals But these imitations are so 
 well done, and so equalized by lapse of centuries 
 with the real antiques, that though there are scholars 
 who profess to distinguish infallibly the archaistic, as 
 they call it, from the archaic, it is sometimes a very 
 difficult task, and about many of them there is doubt 
 and debate. 
 
 But here at Orchomenus a country which was so 
 decayed as to lose almost all its population two cen- 
 turies before Christ, where no amateurs of art would 
 stay, and where Plutarch was, as it were, the last 
 remains in his town of literature and respectability 
 here there is no danger whatever of finding this 
 spurious work ; and thus here, as indeed all through 
 Greece, archaic work is thoroughly trustworthy. 
 But the unfortunate law of the land not often vio- 
 lated, as in this case which insists upon all these 
 relics, however isolated, being kept in their place of 
 finding is the mightiest obstacle to the study of 
 this interesting phase of culture, and we must await 
 the completion of the Hellenic Society's gallery of 
 photographs, from which we can make reliable ob- 
 servations. The Greeks will tell you that the pres- 
 
 6e TO. (nv ~X V1 ) neirotijfti'va exiTrpoade Tiderai rH>v ff apxai6- 
 J/KOVTUV, nal -O.SE ianv oi Oedaaadat. I. 24. 3.
 
 264 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 ervation of antiquities in their original place, first of 
 all, gives the inhabitants an interest in them, which 
 might be true but that there are very often no in- 
 habitants : and next, that it encourages travelling in 
 the country. This also is true ; but surely the mak- 
 ing of decent roads, and the establishing of decent 
 inns, and easy communications, would do infinitely 
 more, and are indeed necessary, before the second 
 stimulus can have its effect. 
 
 Not far from this little church and its famous re- 
 lief, we came in sight of the Acropolis (called Pet- 
 rachus) of Chseronea, and soon arrived at the town, 
 so celebrated through all antiquity, in spite of its 
 moderate size. The fort on the rock is, indeed, 
 very large perhaps the largest we saw in Greece, 
 with the exception of that at Corinth ; and, as usual 
 in these buildings, follows the steepest escarpments, 
 raising the natural precipice by a coping of beauti- 
 fully hewn and fitted square stones. The artificial 
 wall is now not more than four or five feet high ; but 
 even so, there are only two or three places where it 
 is at all easy to enter the inclosure, which is fully a 
 mile of straggling outline on the rock. The view 
 from this fort is very interesting. Commanding all 
 the plain of the lake Copais, it also gives a view of 
 the sides of Parnassus, and of the passes into Phocis, 
 which cannot be seen till the traveller reaches this 
 point. Above all, it looks out upon the gap of 
 Elatea, about ten miles north-west, through which
 
 CH^RONEA. 265 
 
 the eye catches glimpses of secluded valleys in 
 northern Phocis. 
 
 This gap is, indeed, the true key of this side of 
 Bffiotia, and is no mere mountain pass, but a narrow 
 plain, perhaps a mile wide, which must have afforded 
 an easy transit for an army. But the mountains on 
 both sides are tolerably steep, and so it was necessary 
 to have a fortified town, as Elatea was, to keep the 
 command of the place. As we gazed through the 
 narrow plain, the famous passage of Demosthenes 
 came home to us, which begins : " It was evening, 
 and the news came in that Philip had seized, and 
 was fortifying Elatea." The nearest point of ob- 
 servation or of control was the rock of Chseronea, 
 and we may say with certainty that it was from here 
 the first breathless messenger set out with the terrible 
 news for Thebes and Athens. This, too, was evi- 
 dently the pass through which Agesilaus came on 
 his return from Asia, and on his way to Coronca, 
 where his great battle was fought, close by the older 
 trophy of the Theban victory over Tolmides. 1 
 
 Having surveyed the view, and fatigued ourselves 
 greatly by our climb in the summer heat, we de- 
 scended to the old theatre, cut into the rock where 
 it ascends from the village the smallest and steep- 
 est Greek theatre I had ever seen. Open-air build- 
 ings always look small for their size, but most of 
 those erected by the Greeks and Romans were so 
 1 Cf. Pint. A<jc..->il<iit!<, chap. xvii.
 
 266 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 large that nothing could dwarf them. Even the 
 theatre of such a town as Taormina in Sicily 
 which can never have been populous is, in addi- 
 tion to its enchanting site, a very majestic structure ; 
 I will not speak of the immense theatres of Mega- 
 lopolis and of Syracuse. But this little place at 
 Chaeronea, so steep that the spectators sat immedi- 
 ately over one another, looked almost amusing Avhen 
 cut in the solid rock, after the manner of its enor- 
 mous brethren. The guide-book says it is one of 
 the most ancient theatres in Greece why, I know 
 not. It seems to me rather to have been made when 
 the population was diminishing ; and any rudeness 
 which it shows arises more from economy, than want 
 of experience. 
 
 But, small as it is, there are few more interesting 
 places than the only spot in Chseronea where w r e can 
 say with certainty that here Plutarch sat a man 
 who, living in an age of decadence, and in a country 
 village of no importance, has, nevertheless, as much 
 as any of his countrymen, made his genius felt over 
 all the world. Apart from the great stores of his- 
 tory brought together in his Lives, which, indeed, 
 are frequently our only source for the inner life and 
 spirit of the greatest Greeks of the greatest epochs 
 the moral effect of these splendid biographies, 
 both on poets and politicians through Europe, can 
 hardly be overrated. From Shakespeare and Al- 
 fieri to the wild savages of the French Revolution,
 
 CH^ERONEA. 267 
 
 all kinds of patriots and eager spirits have been 
 fascinated and excited by these wonderful portraits. 
 Alfieri even speaks of them as the great discovery 
 of his life, which he read with tears and with rage. 
 There is no writer of the Silver Age who gives us 
 anything like so much valuable information about 
 early authors, and their general character. More 
 especially the inner history of Athens in her best 
 days, the personal features of Pericles, Cimon, 
 Alcibiades, Nicias, as well as of Themistocles and 
 of Aristides, would be completely, or almost com- 
 pletely, lost, if this often despised but invaluable 
 man had not written for our learning. And he is 
 still more essentially a good man a man better and 
 purer than most Greeks another Herodotus in fair- 
 ness and in honesty. A poor man reputed by his 
 neighbors " a terrible historian," remarked to a 
 friend of mine, who used to lend him Scott's novels, 
 u that Scott was a great historian," and being asked 
 his reason, replied, " He makes you to love your 
 kind." There is a deep significance in this vague 
 utterance, in which it may be eminently applied to 
 Plutarch. lt Here in Chseronea," says Pausanias, 
 "they prepare unguents from the flowers of the 
 lily and the rose, the narcissus and the iris. These 
 are balm for the pains of men. Nay, that which is 
 made of roses, if old wooden images are anointed 
 with it, saves them, too, from decay." He little 
 knew how eternally true his words would be, for
 
 268 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 though the rose and the iris grow wild and neglected 
 and yield not now their perfume to soothe the ills of 
 men, yet from Chseronea comes the eternal balm 
 of Plutarch's wisdom, to sustain the oppressed, to 
 strengthen the patriot, to purify with nobler pity 
 and terror the dross of human meanness. Nay, 
 even the crumbling images of his gods arrest their 
 decay by the spirit of his morals, and revive their 
 beauty in the sweetness of his simple faith. 
 
 There is a rich supply of water, bursting from a 
 beautiful old Greek fountain, near the theatre 
 indeed, the water supply all over this country is 
 excellent. There is also an old marble throne in 
 the church, about which they have many legends, 
 but no history. The costume of the girls, whom we 
 saw working in small irrigated plots near the houses, 
 was beautiful beyond that in other Greek towns. 
 They wore splendid necklaces of gold and silver 
 coins, which lay like corselets of chain mail on the 
 neck and breast ; and the dull but rich embroidery 
 of wool on their aprons and bodices was quite be- 
 yond what we could describe, but not beyond our 
 highest appreciation. 
 
 As the day was waning, we were obliged to leave 
 this most interesting place, and set off again on our 
 ride home to Lebadea. We had not gone a mile 
 from the town when we came upon the most pathetic 
 and striking of all the remains in that country the 
 famous lion of Chaeronea, which the Thcbans set up
 
 CHJSRONEA. 269 
 
 to their countrymen who had fallen in the great 
 battle against Philip of Macedon, in the year 338 
 15. C. We had been looking out for this monument, 
 and on our way to Chseronea, seeing a lofty mound 
 in the plain, rode up to it eagerly, hoping to find the 
 lion. But we were disappointed, and were told that 
 the history of this larger mound was completely un- 
 known. It evidently commemorates some battle, 
 and is a mound over the dead, but whether those 
 slain by Sylla, or those with Tolmides, or those of 
 some far older conflict, no man can say. It seems, 
 however, perfectly undisturbed, and grown about 
 with deep weeds and brushwood, so that a hardy 
 excavator might find it worth opening, and, perhaps, 
 coins might tell us of its age. 
 
 The mound where we found the lion was much 
 humbler and smaller ; in fact, hardly a mound at all, 
 but a rising knoll, with its centre hollowed out, and 
 in the hollow the broken pieces of the famous lion. 
 It had sunk, we are told, into its mound of earth, 
 originally intended to raise it above the road beside, 
 and lay there in perfect safety till the present cen- 
 tury, when four English travellers claim to have 
 discovered it (June 3, 1818). They tried to get it 
 removed, and, failing in their efforts, covered up the 
 pieces carefully. 1 Since that time they seem to have 
 
 1 An account of the discovery, by the only surviving member 
 of the party, Mr. G. L. Taylor, has been published by Mr. W. S. 
 Yaux in the Trans, of the Roy. Soc. of Lit., 2nd series, vol. viii. pp.
 
 270 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 lain undisturbed, and are still in such a state that a 
 few days' labor, and a few pounds of expense, would 
 restore the work. It is of bluish-gray stone they 
 call it Boeotian marble or limestone and is a work 
 of the highest and purest merit. The lion is of that 
 Asiatic type which has little or no mane, and seemed 
 to us couchant or sitting in attitude, with the head 
 not lowered to the forepaws, but thrown up. 1 The 
 expression of the face is ideally perfect rage, grief, 
 and shame are expressed in it, together with that 
 
 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, imagin- 
 ing 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. 
 
 1 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 
 Calymnse, 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 restora- 
 tion. 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.
 
 CH^ERONEA. 271 
 
 noble calmness and moderation which characterize 
 all good Greek art. The object of the monument is 
 quite plain, without reading the affecting, though 
 simple, notice of Pausanias : " On the approach to 
 the city," says he, " is the tomb of the Boeotians 
 who fell in the battle with Philip. It has no in- 
 scription ; but the image of a lion is placed upon 
 it as an emblem of the spirit of these men. The 
 inscription has been omitted I suppose, because 
 the gods had willed that their fortune should not be 
 equal to their valor." So, then, we have here, in 
 what may fairly be called a dated record, one of the 
 finest specimens of the sepulchral monuments of the 
 best age of Greece. It is very much to be regretted 
 that this splendid figure is not put together and 
 photographed. Nothing would be more instructive 
 than a comparison with the finest of modern monu- 
 ments Thorwaldsen's Lion at Lucerne the work, 
 too, of the only modern sculptor who can for one 
 moment be ranked beside the ancient Greeks. But 
 the lion of Chaeronea now owes its existence to the 
 accident that no neighboring peasant has in old times 
 lacked stones for a wall, or for a ditch ; and when 
 Greece awoke to a sense of the preciousness of these 
 things, it might have been gone, or dashed into use- 
 less fragments. 
 
 As we saw it, on a splendid afternoon in June, it 
 lay in perfect repose and oblivion, the fragments 
 large enough to tell the contour and the style : in
 
 272 KAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 the mouth of the upturned head wild bees were 
 busy at their work, and the honeycomb was there 
 between its teeth. The Hebrew story came fresh 
 upon us, and we longed for the strength which tore 
 the lion of old, to gather the limbs and heal the rents 
 of his marble fellow. The lion of Samson was a 
 riddle to the Philistines which they could not solve ; 
 and so I suppose this lion of Chseronea was a riddle, 
 too a deeper riddle to better men why the patriot 
 should fall before the despot, and the culture of 
 Greece before the Csesarism of Macedonia. Even 
 within Greece there is no want of remarkable paral- 
 lels. This, the last effulgence of the setting sun of 
 Greek liberty, was commemorated by a lion and a 
 mound, as the opening struggle at Marathon was 
 also marked by a lion and a mound. At Marathon 
 the mound is there and the lion gone at Chseronca, 
 the lion is there and the mound gone. 1 But doubt- 
 less the earlier lion was far inferior in expression 
 and in beauty, and was a small object on so large a 
 tomb. Later men made the sepulchre itself of less 
 importance, and the poetic element more prominent j 
 and perhaps this very fact tells the secret of their 
 
 1 Since these words were written, the labors of the Greek 
 archaeologists 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.
 
 CH.ERONEA. 273 
 
 
 
 failure, and why the refined sculptor of the lion was 
 no equal in politics and war to the rude carver of 
 the relief of the Marathonian warrior. 
 
 These and such like thoughts throng the mind of 
 him who sits beside the solitary tomb ; and it may 
 be said in favor of its remoteness and difficulty of 
 access, that in solitude there is at least peace and 
 leisure, and the scattered objects of interest arc 
 scanned with affection and with care, 
 is
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ARACHOVA DELPHI THE BAY OP KIRRHA. 
 
 THE pilgrim who went of old from Athens to the 
 shrine of Delphi, to consult the august oracle on 
 some great difficulty in his own life, or some 
 great danger to his country, saw before him the 
 giant Parnassus as his goal, as soon as he reached 
 the passes of Cithseron. For two or three days he 
 went across Bo30tia with this great landmark before 
 him, but it was not till he reached Lebadea that he 
 found himself leaving level roads, and entering 
 defiles, where great cliffs and narrow glens gave to 
 his mind a tone of superstition and of awe which 
 ever dwelt around that wild and dangerous country. 
 Starting from Lebadea, or, by another road, from 
 Chseronea, he must go about half-way round Par- 
 nassus, from its east to its south-west aspect ; and 
 this can only be done by threading his way along 
 torrents and precipices, mounting steep ascents, and 
 descending into wild glens. This journey among 
 the Alps of Phocis is perhaps the most beautiful in 
 all Greece certainly, Avith the exception of the 
 journey from Olympia over Mount Erymanthus, 
 
 274
 
 A Greek Shepherd, Olympia
 
 THE ROAD TO DELPHI. 275 
 
 the most beautiful of all the routes known to me 
 through the highlands. 
 
 The old priests of Delphi, who were the first 
 systematic road-builders among the Greeks, had 
 made a careful way from Thebes into Phocis, for 
 the use of the pilgrims thronging to their shrine. 
 It appears that, by way of saving the expense of 
 paving it all, they laid down or macadamized in 
 some way a double wheel-track or fixed track, upon 
 which chariots could run with safety ; but we hear 
 from the oldest times of the unpleasantness of two 
 vehicles meeting on this road, and of the disputes 
 that took place as to which of them should turn 
 aside into the deep mud. 1 We may infer from this 
 that the lot of pedestrians cannot have been very 
 pleasant. Now, all these difficulties have vanished 
 with the road itself. There are nothing but faintly- 
 marked bridle-paths, often indicated only by the 
 solitary telegraph wires, which reach over the moun- 
 tains, apparently for no purpose whatever; and all 
 travellers must ride or walk in single file, if they 
 will not force their way through covert and forest. 
 
 These wild mountains do not strike the mind with 
 the painful feeling of desolation which is produced 
 by the abandoned plains. At no time can they have 
 supported a large population, and we may suppose 
 
 1 This seems to be implied in the account of the murder of 
 La'ius by CEdipus, on this very road, as it is described in 
 
 Sophocles's CEflipus Tymnnun.
 
 276 BAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 that they never contained more than scattered 
 hamlets of shepherds, living, as they now do, in 
 deep brown hairy tents of hides at night, and 
 wandering along the glens by day, in charge of 
 great herds of quaint-looking goats with long beards 
 and spiral horns. The dull tinkling of their bells, 
 and the eagle's yelp, are the only sounds which give 
 variety to the rushing of the wind through the dark 
 pines, and the falling of the torrent from the rocks. 
 It is a country in which the consciousness grows not 
 of solitude, but of smallness a land of huge form 
 and feature, meet dwelling for mysterious god and 
 gloomy giant, but far too huge for mortal man. 
 
 Our way lay, not directly for Delphi, but for the 
 curious town of Arachova, which is perched on the 
 summit of precipices some 4000 feet or more above 
 the level of the sea. We rode from eight in the 
 morning till the evening twilight to reach this place, 
 and all the day through scenes which gave us each 
 moment some new delight and some new astonish- 
 ment, but which could only be described by a painter, 
 not by any pages of writing, however poetical or 
 picturesque. It is the misfortune of such descrip- 
 tions on paper, that the writer alone has the remem- 
 bered image clear before him ; no reader can grasp 
 the detail and frame for himself a faithful picture. 
 
 We felt that we were approaching Arachova 
 when we saw the steep slopes above and below our 
 path planted with vineyards, and here and there
 
 THE ROAD TO DELPHI. 277 
 
 a woman in her gay dress working on the steep 
 incline, where a stumble would have sent her rolling 
 many hundreds of feet into some torrent bed. At 
 one particular spot, where the way turned round a 
 projecting shoulder, we were struck by seeing at 
 the same time, to the north, the blue sea under 
 Euboea, and, at the south, the Gulf of Corinth 
 where it nears Delphi both mere patches among 
 the mountains, like the little tarns among the Irish 
 moors, but both great historic waters old high 
 roads of commerce and of culture. From any of 
 the summits such a view from sea to sea would not 
 be the least remarkable ; but it was interesting and 
 unusual to see it from a mule's back on one of the 
 high roads of the country. A moment later, the 
 houses of Arachova itself attracted all our attention, 
 lying as they did over against us, and quite near, but 
 with a great gulf between us and them, which we 
 were fortunately able to ride round. The town has 
 a curious, scattered appearance, with interrupted 
 streets and uncertain plan, owing not only to the 
 extraordinary nature of the site, but to the fact that 
 huge boulders, I might say rocks, have been shaken 
 loose by earthquakes from above, and have come 
 tumbling into the middle of the town. They crush 
 a house or two, and stand there in the street. Pres- 
 ently some one comes and builds a house up against 
 the side of this rock , others venture in their turn, 
 and so the town recovers itself, till another earth-
 
 278 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 quake makes another rent. Since 1870 these earth- 
 quakes have been very frequent. At first they were 
 very severe, and ruined almost all the town ; but 
 now they are very slight, and so frequent that we 
 were assured that they happened at some hour every 
 day. I believe this is practically true, though we, 
 who arrived in the evening and left early next day, 
 were not so fortunate as to feel the shock ourselves. 
 But the whole region of Parnassus shows great scars 
 and wounds from this awful natural scourge. 
 
 Arachova is remarkable as being one of the very 
 few towns of Greece of any note which is not built 
 upon a celebrated site. Everywhere the modern 
 Greek town is a mere survival of the old. I remem- 
 ber but three exceptions Arachova, Hydra, and 
 Tripolitza, 1 and of these the latter two arose from 
 special and known circumstances. The prosperity 
 of Arachova is not so easily explicable. In spite of 
 its wonderful and curious site, the trade of the place 
 is, for a Greek town, very considerable. The wines 
 which they make are of the highest repute, though 
 to us the free use of resin makes them all equally 
 worthless. Besides, they work beautifully patterned 
 rugs of divers-colored wool rugs which are sold at 
 high prices all over the Greek waters. They are 
 used in boats, on saddles, on beds in fact for every 
 possible rough use. The patterns are stitched on 
 
 1 Indeed Tripolitza lies between the ancient sites of Mantinea 
 and Tegea, and quite close to the latter.
 
 ARACHOVA. 279 
 
 with wool, and the widths sewn together in the same 
 way, with effective rudeness. 
 
 We had an excellent opportunity of seeing all this 
 sort of work, as we found the town in some excite- 
 ment at an approaching marriage j and we went to 
 see the bride, whom we found in a spacious room, 
 with low wooden rafters, in the company of a large 
 party of her companions, and surrounded on all sides 
 by her dowry, which consisted, in eastern fashion, 
 almost altogether of " changes of raiment." All 
 round the room these rich woollen rugs lay in per- 
 fect piles, and from the low ceiling hung in great 
 numbers her future husband's white petticoats ; for 
 in that country, as everywhere in Greece, the men 
 wear the petticoats. The company were all dressed 
 in full costume white sleeves, embroidered woollen 
 aprons, gold and silver coins about the neck, and a 
 bright red loose belt worn low round the figure. To 
 complete the picture, each girl had in her left hand 
 a distaff, swathed about with rich, soft, white wool, 
 from which her right hand and spindle were deftly 
 spinning thread, as she walked about the room 
 admiring the trousseau, and joking with us and with 
 her companions. The beauty of the Arachovite 
 women is as remarkable as the strength and lon- 
 gevity of the men, nor do I know any mountaineers 
 equal to them, except those of some of the valleys 
 in the Tyrol. But there, as is well known, beauty 
 is chiefly confined to the men ; at Arachova it seemed
 
 280 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 fairly distributed. We did not see any one girl of 
 singular beauty. The average was remarkably high ; 
 and, as might be expected, they were not only very 
 fair, but of that peculiarly clear complexion, and 
 vigorous frame, which seem almost always to be 
 found when a good climate and clear air are com- 
 bined with a very high level above the sea. 
 
 We saw, moreover, what they called a Pyrrhic 
 dance, which consisted of a string of people, hand- 
 in-hand, standing in the form of a spiral, and moving 
 rhythmically, while the outside member of the train 
 performed curious and violent gymnastics. The 
 music consisted in the squealing of a horrible clani- 
 onette, accompanied by the beating of a large drum. 
 The clarionette-player had a leathern bandage about 
 his mouth, like that which we see in the ancient 
 reliefs and pictures of double-flute-players. Ac- 
 cording as each principal dancer was fatigued, he 
 passed off from the end of the spiral line, and stuck 
 a silver coin between the cap and forehead of the 
 player. The whole motion was extremely slow 
 throughout the party the centre of the coil, which 
 is often occupied by little children, hardly moving 
 at all, and paying little attention to the dance. 
 
 In general, the Greek music which I heard dance 
 music, and occasional shepherds' songs was nothing 
 but a wild and monotonous chant, with two or three 
 shakes and ornaments on a high note, running down 
 to a long drone note at the end. They repeat these
 
 ARACHOVA. 281 
 
 phrases, wliicli are not more than three bars long, 
 over and over again, with some slight variations of 
 appoggiatura. I was told by competent people at 
 Athens, that all this was not properly Greek, but 
 Turkish, and that the long slavery of the Greeks 
 had completely destroyed the traditions of their 
 ancient music. Though this seemed certainly true 
 of the music which I heard, I very much doubt that 
 any ancient feature so general can have completely 
 disappeared. When there are national songs of a dis- 
 tinctly Greek character transmitted all through the 
 Slavish and Turkish periods, it seems odd that they 
 should be sung altogether to foreign music. With- 
 out more careful investigation I should be slow to 
 decide upon such a question. Unfortunately, our 
 specimens of old Greek music are very few, and 
 probably very insignificant, all the extant works on 
 music by the ancients being devoted to theoretical 
 questions, which are very difficult and not very 
 profitable. To this subject I have devoted a special 
 discussion in my Social Life in Greece, Avith what 
 illustration it is now possible to obtain. 
 
 The inhabitants wished us to stay with them some 
 days, which would have given us an opportunity of 
 witnessing the wedding ceremony, and also of mak- 
 ing excursions to the snowy tops of Mount Parnassus. 
 But we had had enough of that sort of amusement 
 in a climb up Mount vEtna, a short time before, and 
 the five hours' toiling on the snow in a thick fog was
 
 282 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 too fresh in our memory, Beside, we were bound 
 to catch the weekly steamer at Itea, as the port of 
 Delphi is now called ; and eight additional days, or 
 rather nights, in this country might have been too 
 much for the wildest enthusiast. For the wooden 
 houses of Arachova are beyond all other structures 
 infested with life, and not even the balconies in the 
 frosty night air were safe from insect invasions. 
 
 We therefore started early in the morning, and 
 kept along the sides of precipices on our way to 
 the oracle of Delphi. It is not wonderful that the 
 Arachovites should be famous for superstitions and 
 legends, and that the inquirers into the remnants of 
 old Greek beliefs in the present day have found their 
 richest harvest in this mountain fastness, where there 
 seems no reason why any belief should ever die out. 
 More especially the faith in the terrible god of the 
 dead, Charos, who represents not only the old Charon, 
 but Pluto also, is here very deep-seated, and many 
 Arachovite songs and ballads speak of his awful and 
 relentless visits. Longevity is so usual, and old age 
 is so hale and green in these Alps, that the death of 
 the young comes home with far greater force and 
 pathos here than in unhealthy or immoral societies, 
 and thus the inroads of Charos are not borne in 
 sullen silence, but lamented with impatient com- 
 plaints. 
 
 At eleven o'clock we came, in the fierce summer 
 sun, to the ascent into the " rocky Pytho," where
 
 DELPHI. 283 
 
 the terraced city of old had once harbored pilgrims 
 from every corner of the civilized world. The ordi- 
 nary histories which we read give us but little idea 
 of the mighty influence of this place in the age of 
 its faith. We hear of its being consulted by Croe- 
 sus, or by the Romans, and we appreciate its renown 
 for sanctity 5 but until of very late years there was 
 small account taken of its political and commercial 
 importance. The date of its first rise is hidden in 
 remote antiquity. As the story goes, a shepherd, 
 who fed his flocks here, observed the goats, when 
 they approached the vaporous cavern, springing 
 about madly, as if under some strange influence. 
 He came up to see the place himself, and was imme- 
 diately seized with the prophetic frenzy. So the 
 reputation of the place spread, first around the 
 neighboring pastoral tribes, and then to a wider 
 sphere. 
 
 This very possible origin, however, does not dis- 
 tinctly assert what may certainly be inferred I 
 mean the existence of some older and ruder wor- 
 ship, before the worship of Apollo was here estab- 
 lished. Two arguments make this clear. In the 
 first place, old legends consistently speak of the 
 arrival of Apollo here ; of his conflict with the 
 powers of earth, under the form of the dragon 
 Python ; of his having undergone purification for 
 its murder, and having been formally ceded pos- 
 session by its older owners. This distinct allusion
 
 284 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 to a previous cult, and one even hostile to Apollo, 
 but ultimately reconciled with him, is sustained by 
 the fact that Pausanias describes in the Temple of 
 Apollo itself two old stones one apparently an 
 aerolith which were treated with great respect, 
 anointed daily with oil, and adorned with garlands 
 of flowers. One of these was to the Greeks the 
 centre of the earth (6/^a/oc), and beside it were 
 two eagles in gold, to remind one of the legend that 
 Zeus had started two eagles from the ends of the 
 earth, and that they met at this exact spot midway. 
 These old and shapeless stones, which occur else- 
 where in Greek temples, point to the older stage 
 of fetish worship, before the Greeks had risen to 
 the art of carving a statue, or of worshipping the 
 unseen deity without a gross material symbol. 
 
 The researches of M. A. Lebegue, at Delos, have 
 given us another instance. He found that the old 
 shrine of Apollo has been made in imitation of a 
 cave, and that in the recess of the shrine, made 
 with large slabs of stone forming a gable over a 
 natural fissure in the rock, there was an ancient, 
 rude, sacred stone, on which were remaining the 
 feet of the statue, which had afterward been added 
 to give dignity to the improved worship. M. Lebe- 
 gue's work at Delos has been completed and super- 
 seded by M. Homolle. 
 
 Homer speaks in the Iliad of the great wealth of 
 the Pythian shrine ; and the Hymn to the Pythian

 
 The Temple of Apollo, Delphi
 
 DELPHI. 285 
 
 Apollo implies that its early transformations were 
 completed. But seeing that the god Apollo, though 
 originally an Ionian god, as at Delos, was here wor- 
 shipped distinctively by the Dorians, we shall not 
 err if we consider the rise of the oracle to greatness 
 coincident with the rise and spreading of the Dorians 
 over Greece an event to which we can assign no 
 date, but which, in legend, comes next after the 
 Trojan War, and seems near the threshold of real 
 history. The absolute submission of the Spartans, 
 when they rose to power, confirmed the authority 
 of the shrine, and so it gradually came to be the 
 Metropolitan See, so to speak, in the Greek relig- 
 ious world. It seems that the influence of this 
 oracle was, in old days, always used in the direc- 
 tion of good morals arid of enlightenment. When 
 neighboring states were likely to quarrel, the oracle 
 was often a peacemaker, and even acted as arbitra- 
 tor a course usual in earlier Greek history, and in 
 which they anticipated the best results of our nine- 
 teenth-century culture. So again, when excessive 
 population demanded an outlet, the oracle was con- 
 sulted as to the proper place, and the proper leader 
 to be selected ; and all the splendid commercial de- 
 velopment of the sixth century B. C., though not 
 produced, was at least sanctioned and promoted, by 
 the Delphic Oracle. Again, in determining the 
 worship of other gods and the founding of new 
 services to great public benefactors, the oracle
 
 286 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 
 
 seems to have been the acknowledged authority 
 thus taking the place of the Vatican in Catholic 
 Europe, as the source and origin of new dogmas, 
 and of new worships and formularies. 
 
 At the same time the treasure-house of the shrine 
 was the largest and safest of banks, where both in- 
 dividuals and states might deposit treasure nay, 
 even the states seem to have had separate chambers 
 and from which they could also borrow money, at 
 fair interest, in times of war and public distress. 
 The rock of Delphi was held to be the navel or cen- 
 tre of the earth's surface, and certainly in a social 
 and religious sense this was the case for all the 
 Greek world. Thus the priests were informed, by 
 perpetual visitors from all sides, of all the last news 
 of the general aspect of politics of the new de- 
 velopments of trade of the latest discoveries in 
 outlying and barbarous lands and were accord- 
 ingly able, without any genius or supernatural in- 
 spiration, to form their judgments upon wider expe- 
 rience and better knowledge than anybody else 
 could command. This advice, which was really 
 sound and well-considered, was given to people who 
 took it to be divine, and acted upon it with implicit 
 faith and zeal. Of course, the result was in general 
 satisfactory ; and so even individuals made use of it 
 as a sort of high confessional, to which they came 
 as pilgrims at some important crisis of their life ; 
 and finding by the response that the god seemed to
 
 DELPHI. 287 
 
 know all about the affairs of every city, went away 
 fully satisfied with the divine authority of the oracle. 
 
 This great and deserved general reputation was 
 not affected by occasional rumors of bribed responses 
 or of dishonest priestesses. Such things must hap- 
 pen everywhere ; but, as Lord Bacon long ago ob- 
 served, human nature is more affected by affirmatives 
 than negatives that is to say, a few cases of bril- 
 liantly accurate prophecy will outweigh a great 
 nuitfber of cases of doubtful advices or even of 
 acknowledged corruption. So the power of the 
 Popes has lasted in some respects undiminished 
 to the present day, and they are still regarded by 
 many as infallible, even though historians have pub- 
 lished many dreadful lives of some of them, and 
 branded them as men of worse than average 
 morals. 
 
 The greatness and the national importance of the 
 Delphic Oracle lasted from the invasion of the 
 Dorians down to the Persian War, certainly more 
 than three centuries ; when the part which it took in 
 the latter struggle gave it a blow from which it 
 seems never to have recovered. When the invasion 
 of Xerxes was approaching, the Delphic priests in- 
 formed accurately of the immense power of the Per- 
 sians, made up their minds that all resistance was 
 useless, and counselled absolute submission or flight. 
 According to all human probabilities they were 
 right, for nothing but a series of blunders could pos-
 
 288 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 sibly have checked the Persians. But surely the 
 god ought to have inspired them to utter patriotic 
 responses, and thus to save themselves in case of 
 such a miracle as actually happened. I cannot but 
 suspect that they hoped to gain the favor of Xerxes, 
 and remain under him what they had hitherto been, 
 a wealthy and protected corporation. 1 Perhaps they 
 even saw too far, and perceived that the success of 
 the Greeks would bring the Ionic states into promi- 
 nence ; but we must not credit them with too much. 
 The result, however, told greatly against them. The 
 Greeks won, and the Athenians got the lead, the 
 Athenians, who very soon developed a secular and 
 worldly spirit, and who were by no means awed by 
 responses which had threatened them and weakened 
 their hands, when their own courage and skill had 
 brought them deliverance. And we can imagine 
 even Themistocles, not to speak of Pericles and 
 Antiphon, looking upon the oracles as little more 
 than a convenient way of persuading the mob to fol- 
 low a policy which it was not able to understand. 
 The miraculous defeat of the Persians by the god, 
 who repeated his wonders when the Gauls attacked 
 his shrine, should be read in Herodotus and in Pau- 
 sanias. 
 
 1 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 lib- 
 erties and their property.
 
 DELPHI. 289 
 
 It is with some sadness that we turn from the 
 splendid past of Delphi to its miserable present. 
 The sacred cleft in the earth, from which rose the 
 cold vapor that intoxicated the priestess, is blocked 
 up and lost. As it lay within the shrine of the 
 temple, it may have been filled by the falling ruins, 
 or still more completely destroyed by an earthquake. 
 But, apart from these natural possibilities, we are 
 told that the Christians, after the oracle was closed 
 by Theodosius, filled up arid effaced the traces 
 of what they thought a special entrance to hell, 
 where communications had been held with the Evil 
 One. 
 
 The three great fountains or springs of the town 
 are still in existence. The first and most striking 
 of these bursts out from between the Phsedriades 
 two shining peaks, which stand up one thousand 
 feet over Delphi, and so close together as to leave 
 only a dark and mysterious gorge or fissure, not 
 twenty feet wide, intervening. The aspect of these 
 twin peaks, so celebrated by the Greek poets, with 
 their splendid stream, the Castalian fount, bursting 
 from between them, is indeed grand and startling. 
 A great square bath is cut in the rock, just at the 
 mouth of the gorge ; but the earthquake of 1870, 
 which made such havoc of Arachova, has been busy 
 here also, and has tumbled a huge block into this 
 bath, thus covering the old work, as well as several 
 votive niches cut into the rocky wall. This was the 
 19
 
 290 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 place where arriving pilgrims purified themselves 
 with hallowed water. 
 
 In the great old days the oracle gave responses 
 on the seventh of each month, and even then only 
 when the sacrifices were favorable. If the victims 
 were not perfectly without blemish, they could not 
 be offered ; if they did not tremble all over when 
 brought to the altar, the day was thought unpropi- 
 tious. The inquirers entered the great temple in festal 
 dress, with olive garlands and stemmata, or fillets of 
 wool, led by the oacot, or sacred guardians of the 
 temple, who were five of the noblest citizens of 
 Delphi. The priestesses^ on the contrary there 
 were three at the same time, who officiated in turn 
 though Delphians also, were not frequently of 
 noble family. When the priestess was placed on the 
 sacred tripod by the chief interpreter, or 7rr>0^r^7, 
 over the exhalations, she was seized with frenzy 
 often so violent that the oacoi were known to have 
 fled in terror, and she herself to have become insen- 
 sible, and to have died. Her ravings in this state 
 were carefully noted down, and then reduced to 
 sense, and of old always to verses, by the attendant 
 priests, who of course interpreted disconnected words 
 with a special reference to the politics or other cir- 
 cumstances of the inquirers. 
 
 This was done in early days with perfect good 
 faith. During the decline of religion there were of 
 course many cases of corruption and of partiality,
 
 DELPHI THE ORACLE. 291 
 
 and, indeed, the whole style and dignity of the oracle 
 gradually decayed with the decay of Greece itself. 
 Presently, when crowds came, and states were ex- 
 tremely jealous of the right of precedence in inquir- 
 ing of the god, it was found expedient to give re- 
 sponses every day, and this was done to private 
 individuals, and even for trivial reasons. So also 
 the priests no longer took the trouble to shape the 
 responses into verse ; and when the Phocians in 
 the sacred war (355-46 B. c.) seized the treasures, 
 and applied to military purposes some ten thousand 
 talents, the shrine suffered a blow from which it 
 never recovered. Still, the quantity of splendid 
 votive offerings which were not convertible into 
 ready money made it the most interesting place in 
 Greece, next to Athens and Olympia, for lovers of 
 the arts : and the statues, tripods, and other curi- 
 osities described there by Pausanias, give a wonder- 
 ful picture of the mighty oracle even in its decay. 1 
 The greatest sculptors, painters, and architects had 
 lavished their labor upon the buildings. Though 
 Nero had carried off five hundred bronze statues, 
 the traveller estimated the remaining works of art at 
 three thousand, and yet these seem to have been 
 almost all statues, and not to have included tripods, 
 pictures, and other gifts. The Emperor Constantino 
 brought away (330 A. D.) a great number to adorn 
 
 1 Cf. also Plutarch's tract de Pyth. orae. for details of ciceroni 
 and visitors in his day.
 
 292 EAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 his capital more especially the bronze tripod, 
 formed of three intertwined serpents, with their 
 heads supporting a golden vessel, which Pausanias, 
 the Spartan King, had dedicated as the leader of 
 Greece to commemorate the great victory over Xer- 
 xes. This tripod (which was found standing in its 
 place at Constantinople by our soldiers in 1852) 
 contains the list of states according to the account 
 of Herodotus, who describes its dedication, and who 
 saw it at Delphi. 
 
 When the Emperor Julian, the last great champion 
 of paganism, desired to consult the oracle on his 
 way to Persia, in 362 A. D., it replied: "Tell the 
 king the fair-wrought dwelling has sunk into the 
 dust : Phoebus has no longer a shelter or a prophetic 
 laurel, neither has he a speaking fountain ; the fair 
 water is dried up." Thus did the shrine confess, 
 even to the ardent and hopeful Julian, that its power 
 had passed away, and, as it were by a supreme 
 effort, declared to him the great truth which he re- 
 fused to see that paganism was gone for ever, and 
 a new faith had arisen for the nations of the Roman 
 Empire. 
 
 About the year 390, Theodosius took the god at 
 his word, and closed the oracle finally. The temple 
 with its cella of 100 feet with its Doric and Ionic 
 pillars with its splendid sculptures upon the pedi- 
 ments sank into decay and ruin. The walls and 
 porticos tumbled down the precipitous cliffs; the
 
 DELPHI THE ORACLE. 293 
 
 prophetic chasm was filled up by the Christians with 
 fear and horror ; and, as if to foil any attempt to 
 recover from ruins the site and plan, the modern 
 Greeks built their miserable hamlet of Castri upon 
 the spot ; so that it is only among the walls and 
 foundations laid bare by earthquakes that we can 
 now seek for marble capitals and votive inscriptions. 
 One or two features are still unchanged. The 
 three fine springs, to which Delphi doubtless owed 
 its first selection for human habitation, are still there 
 Castalia, of which we have spoken ; Cassotis, 
 which was led artificially into the very shrine of the 
 god 5 and Delphussa, which was, I suppose, the 
 water used for secular purposes by the inhabitants. 
 The stadium, too, a tiny racecourse high above the 
 town, in the only place where they could find a 
 level 150 yards, is still visible ; and we see at once 
 what the importance of games must have been at a 
 sacred Greek town, when such a thing as a stadium 
 should be attempted here. 1 The earliest competitions 
 had been in music that is, in playing the lyre, in 
 recitation, and probably in the composition of orig- 
 inal poems ; but presently the physical contests of 
 Olympia began to outdo the splendor of Delphi. 
 Moreover, the Spartans would not compete in min- 
 strelsy, which they liked and criticised, but left to 
 professional artists. Accordingly, the priests of 
 
 1 The hippodrome for the chariot races was, however, in the 
 plain beneath, as Pausanias tells us (x. 37, 4).
 
 294 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 Delphi were too practical a corporation not to widen 
 the programme of their games, and Pindar has cele- 
 brated the Pythian victors as hardly second to those 
 at the grand festival of Elis. 
 
 There is yet one more element in the varied great- 
 ness of Delphi. It was here that the religious 
 federation of Greece the Amphictyony of which we 
 hear so often held its meetings alternately with the 
 meetings at the springs of Thermopylae. When I 
 stood high up on the stadium at Delphi, the great 
 scene described by the orator ^Eschines came fresh 
 upon me, when he looked upon the sacred plain of 
 Krissa, and called all the worshippers of the god to 
 clear it of the sacrilegious Amphissians, who had 
 covered it with cattle and growing crops. The 
 plain, he says, is easily surveyed from the place of 
 meeting a statement which shows that the latter 
 cannot have been in the town of Delphi : for a 
 great shoulder of the mountain effectually hides the 
 whole plain from every part of the town. 
 
 The Pylsea, or place of assembly, was, however, 
 outside, and precisely at the other side of this huge 
 shoulder, so that what ^Eschines says is true ; but it 
 is not true, as any ordinary student imagines, that 
 he was standing in Delphi itself. He was, in fact, 
 completely out of sight of the town, though not a 
 mile from it. There is no more common error than 
 this among our mere book scholars and I daresay 
 there are not many who realize the existence of this
 
 KIRRHA. 295 
 
 suburban Pylaa, and its situation close to, but in- 
 visible from, Delphi. It certainly never came home 
 to me till I began to look for the spot from which 
 ^Eschines might have delivered his famous extem- 
 pore address. 
 
 When we rode round to the real place we found 
 his words amply verified. Far below us stretched 
 the plain from Amphissa to Kirrha, at right angles 
 with the gorge above which Delphi is situated. 
 The river-courses of the Delphic springs form, in 
 fact, a regular zigzag. When they tumble from 
 their great elevation on the rocks into the valley, 
 they join the Pleistus, running at right angles toward 
 the west ; when this torrent has reached the plain, 
 it turns again due south, and flows into the sea at 
 the Gulf of Kirrha. Thus, looking from Pylsea, 
 you see the upper part of the plain, and the gorge 
 to the north-west of it, where Amphissa occupies its 
 place in a position similar to the mouth of the gorge 
 of Delphi. The southern rocks of the gorge over 
 against Delphi shut out the sea and the actual bay ; 
 but a large rich tract, covered with olive-woods, and 
 medlars, and oleanders, stretches out beneath the 
 eye verily a plain worth fighting for, and a pos- 
 session still more precious, when it commanded the 
 approach of pilgrims from the sea ; for the harbor 
 duties and tolls of Kirrha were once a large revenue, 
 and their loss threatened the oracle with poverty. 
 This levying of tolls on the pilgrims to Delphi be-
 
 296 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 came quite a national question in the days of Solon ; 
 it resulted in a great war, led by the Amphictyonic 
 Council. Kirrha was ruined, and its land dedicated 
 to the god, in order to protect the approach from 
 future difficulties. So this great tract was, I sup- 
 pose, devoted to pasture, and the priests probably 
 levied a rent from the people who choose to graze 
 their cattle on the sacred plain. The Amphissians, 
 who lived, not at the seaside, but at the mountain 
 side of the plain, were never accused of robbing or 
 taxing the pilgrims ; but having acquired for many 
 generations the right of pasture, they advanced to 
 the idea of tilling their pastures, and were undis- 
 turbed in this privilege till the mischievous orator, 
 jEschines, for his own purposes, fired the Delphians 
 with rage, kindled a war, and so brought Philip into 
 Greece. These are the historical circumstances 
 which should be called to mind by the traveller, who 
 rides down the steep descent from Delphi to the 
 plain, and then turns through the olive-woods to the 
 high road to Itea, as the port of Delphi is now called. 
 A few hours brought us to the neighborhood of 
 the sea. The most curious feature of this valley, as 
 we saw it, was a long string of camels tied together, 
 and led by a small and shabby donkey. Our mules 
 and horses turned with astonishment to examine 
 these animals, which have survived here only, 
 though introduced by the Turks into many parts 
 of Greece.
 
 ITEA. 297 
 
 The port of Itea is one of the stations at which 
 the Greek coasting steamers now call, and, accord- 
 ingly, the place is growing in importance. If a 
 day's delay were allowed, to let tourists ride up to 
 the old seat of the oracle, and if the service were 
 better regulated so as to compete in convenience 
 with the train journey from Patras to Athens, I 
 suppose no traveller going to Greece would choose 
 any other route. For he would see all the beautiful 
 coasts of Acarnania and jEtolia on the one side, and 
 of Achaia on the other ; he could then take Delphi 
 on his way, and would land again at Corinth. Here 
 again, a day, or part of a day, should be allowed to 
 see the splendid Acro-Corinthus, of which more in 
 another chapter. The traveller might thus reach 
 Athens with an important part of Greece already 
 visited, and have more leisure to turn his attention 
 to the monuments and curiosities of that city and 
 of Attica. It is worth while to suggest these things, 
 because most men who go to Greece find, as I did, 
 that, with some better previous information, they 
 could have economized both time and money. I 
 can also advise that the coasting steamer should be 
 abandoned at Itea, from which the traveller can 
 easily get horses to Delphi and Arachova, and from 
 thence to Chaeronea, Lebadea, and through Thebes 
 to Athens. So he would arrive there by a land tour, 
 which would make him acquainted with all Bceotia. 
 He might next go by train from Athens to Corinth
 
 298 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 (stopping on the way at Megara), and then into the 
 Peloponnese ; going first to Mycenae and Argos, and 
 then taking another steamer round to Sparta, and 
 riding up through Laconia, Arcadia, and Elis, so 
 as to come out at Patras, or by boat to Zante, where 
 the steamer homeward would pick him up. Of 
 course, special excursions through Attica, and to 
 the islands, are not included in this sketch, as they 
 can easily be made from Athens. 
 
 But surely, no voyage in Greece can be called 
 complete which does not include a visit to the 
 famous shrine of Delphi, where the wildness and 
 ruggedness of nature naturally suggest the powers 
 of earth and air, that sway our lives unseen where 
 the quaking soil and the rent rocks speak a strength 
 above the strength of mortal man and where a 
 great faith, based upon his deepest hopes and fears, 
 gained a moral empire over all the nation, and exer- 
 cised it for centuries, to the purifying and the en- 
 nobling of the Hellenic race. The oracle is long 
 silent, the priestess forgotten, the temple not only 
 ruined, but destroyed ; and yet the grand responses 
 of that noble shrine are not forgotten, nor are they 
 dead. For they have contributed their part and 
 added their element to the general advancement of 
 the world, and to the emancipation of man from im- 
 morality and superstition into the true liberty of a 
 good and enlightened conscience.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 ELIS OLYMPIA AND ITS GAMES THE VALLEY OP 
 
 THE ALPHEUS MOUNT ERYMANTHUS PATRAS. 
 
 THE thousands of visitors, whose ships thronged 
 the bay of Katakolo every four years in the great 
 old times, cannot have been fairly impressed with 
 the beauty of the country at first sight. Most other 
 approaches to the coast of Greece are far more 
 striking. For although, on a clear day, the moun- 
 tains of Arcadia are plainly visible, and form a fine 
 background to the view, from the great bar of Ery- 
 manthus on the north, round to the top of LyksBon 
 far south-west, the foreground has not, and never 
 had, either the historic interest or the beauty of the 
 many bays and harbors in other parts of Greece. 
 Yet I am far from asserting that it is actually want- 
 ing even in this respect. As we saw the bay in a 
 quiet summer sunset, with placid water reflecting a 
 sleeping cloud and a few idle sails in its amber glow, 
 with a wide circle of low hills and tufted shore 
 bathed in a golden haze, which spread its curtain 
 of light athwart all the distance, so that the great 
 snowy comb of Erymanthus alone seemed suspended 
 by some mystery in the higher blue the view was 
 
 299
 
 300 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 not indeed very Greek, but still it was beautiful, and 
 no unsuitable dress wherein the land might clothe 
 itself to welcome the traveller, and foretell him its 
 sunny silence and its golden mystery. 
 
 The carriage-way along the coast passes by sand- 
 hills, and sandy fields of vines, which were being 
 tilled when we saw them by kindly but squalid 
 peasants, some of whom lived in wretched huts of 
 skins, enclosed with a rough fence. But these were 
 probably only temporary dwellings, for the thrift and 
 diligence of the southern Greek seems hardly com- 
 patible with real penury. Mendicancy, except in 
 the case of little children who do it for the nonce, 
 seems unknown in the Morea. 
 
 A dusty ride of two hours, relieved now and then 
 for a moment by the intense perfume from the 
 orange blossoms of gardens fenced with mighty 
 aloes, brought us to the noisy and stirring town of 
 Pyrgos. 1 We found this town, one of the most 
 thriving in Greece, quite as noisy as Naples in pro- 
 portion to its size, full of dogs barking, donkeys 
 braying, and various shopkeepers screaming out their 
 wares especially frequent where young shrill-voiced 
 boys were so employed. Nowhere does the ultra- 
 democratic temper of new Greek social life show 
 itself more manifestly than in these disturbed streets. 
 Not only does every member of human society, how- 
 
 1 This journey I since made by rail, in this place a harmless 
 innovation.
 
 PYRGOS. 301 
 
 ever young or ill-disposed, let his voice be heard 
 without reserve, but it seems to be considered an in- 
 fraction upon liberty to silence yelping dogs, braying 
 donkeys, or any other animal which chooses to dis- 
 turb its neighbors. 
 
 The whole town, like most others in Greece, even 
 in the Arcadian highlands, is full of half-built and 
 just finished houses, showing a rapid increase of 
 prosperity, or perhaps a return of the population 
 from country life into the towns which have always 
 been so congenial to the race. But if the latter be 
 the fact, there yet seems no slackening in the agri- 
 culture of the country, which in the Morea is strik- 
 ingly diligent and laborious, reaching up steep hill- 
 sides, and creeping along precipices, winning from 
 ungrateful nature eveiy inch of niggard soil. 1 This 
 is indeed the contrast of northern and southern 
 Greece. In Boeotia the rich plains of Thebes and 
 Orchoinenos are lying fallow, while all the rugged 
 mountains of Arcadia are yielding wine and oil. 
 The Greeks will tell you that it is the result of the 
 security established by their Government in those 
 parts of Greece which are not accessible from the 
 Turkish frontier. They assert that if their present 
 frontier were not at Thermopylae but at Tempe, or 
 even farther north, the rich plains of northern Greece 
 would not lie idle through fear of the bandits, which 
 
 1 Cf. the passage quoted from M. Georges Perrot above, p. 185.
 
 302 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 every disturbance excites about the boundaries of 
 ill-guarded kingdoms. 
 
 The carriage road from Pyrgos up to Olympia was 
 just finished, and it is now possible to drive all the 
 way from the sea, but we preferred the old method 
 of travelling on horseback to the terrors of a newly- 
 constructed Greek thoroughfare. There is, more- 
 over, in wandering on unpaved thoroughfares, along 
 meadows, through groves and thickets, and across 
 mountains, a charm which no dusty carriage road 
 can ever afford. We soon came upon the banks of 
 the Alpheus, which we followed as our main index, 
 though at times we were high above it, and at times 
 in the meadows at the water-side ; at times again- 
 mounting some wooded ridge which had barred the 
 way of the stream, and forced it to take a wide 
 circuit from our course, or again crossing the deep 
 cuttings made by rivulets which come down from 
 northern Elis to swell the river from mile to mile. 
 
 Our path must have been almost the same as was 
 followed by the crowds which came from the west to 
 visit the Olympic games in classical days : they 
 must have ascended along the windings of the river, 
 and as they came upon each new amphitheatre of 
 hills, and each new tributary stream, they may have 
 felt the impatience which we felt that this was not 
 the sacred Altis, and that this was not the famous 
 confluence of the Kladeus. But the season in which 
 they travelled the beginning of July can never
 
 The Banks of the Kladeus
 
 THE ALPHEUS. 303 
 
 have shown them the valley in its true beauty. In- 
 stead of a glaring dry bed of gravel, and meadows 
 parched with heat, we found the Alpheus a broad 
 and rapid river, which we crossed on horseback with 
 difficulty ; we found the meadows green with sprout- 
 ing corn and bright with flowers, and all along the 
 slopes the trees were bursting into bud and blos- 
 som, and filling the air with the rich scent of spring. 
 Huge shrubs of arbutus and of mastich closed 
 around the paths, while over them the Judas tree 
 and the wild pear covered themselves with purple 
 and with white, and on every bank great scarlet 
 anemones opened their wistful eyes in the morning 
 sun. 
 
 When we came to the real Olympia the prospect 
 was truly disenchanting. However interesting ex- 
 cavations may be, they are always exceedingly ugly. 
 Instead of grass and flowers, and pure water, we 
 found the classic spot defaced with great mounds of 
 earth, and trodden bare of grass. We found the 
 Kladeus flowing a turbid drain into the larger river. 
 We found hundreds of workmen, and wheel-barrows, 
 and planks, and trenches, instead of solitude and the 
 song of birds. Thus it was that we found the fa- 
 mous temple of Zeus. 
 
 This temple was in many respects one of the most 
 celebrated in Greece, especially on account of the 
 great image of Zeus, which Phidias himself wrought 
 for it in gold and ivory, and of which Pausanias has
 
 304 KAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 left us a very wonderful description (v. II, sqq.). It 
 was carried away to Constantinople, and of course 
 its precious material precluded all chance of its sur- 
 viving through centuries of ignorance and bigotry. 
 The temple itself, to judge from its appearance, was 
 somewhat older than the days of Phidias, for it is of 
 that thickset and massive type which we only find 
 in the earlier Doric temples, and which rather re- 
 minds us of Psestum than of Athenian remains. It 
 was built by a local architect, Libon, and of a very 
 coarse limestone from the neighborhood, which was 
 covered with stucco, and painted chiefly white, to 
 judge from the fragments which remain. But it 
 seems as if the Eleans had done all they could to 
 add splendor to the building, whenever their funds 
 permitted. The tiles of the roof were not of burnt 
 clay, but of Pentelican marble, the well-known and 
 beautiful invention of the Naxian Byzes. Moreover, 
 Phidias and a number of his fellow-workers or sub- 
 ordinates at Athens, as well as other artists, had , 
 been invited to Olympia, to adorn the temple, and to 
 them we owe the pediments, probably also the 
 metopes, and many of the statues, with which all 
 the sacred enclosure around the edifice was literally 
 thronged. Subsequent generations added to this 
 splendor : a gilded figure of Victory, with a gold 
 shield, was set upon the apex of the gable ; gilded 
 pitchers at the extremities ; gilded shields were 
 fastened all along the architraves by Mummius,
 
 HISTORY OF OLYMPIA. 305 
 
 from the spoils of Corinth, and the great statue of 
 Zeus within still remained, the wonder and the awe 
 of the ancient world. 
 
 But with the fall of paganism and the formal 
 extinction of the Olympic games (394 A. D.) the 
 glories of the temple fell into decay. The great 
 statue in the shrine was carried away to Byzantium ; 
 many of the votive bronzes and marbles which stood 
 about the sacred grove were transported to Italy ; 
 and at last a terrible earthquake, apparently in the 
 fifth century, levelled the whole temple almost with 
 the ground. The action of this extraordinary earth- 
 quake is still plainly to be traced in the now uncov- 
 ered ruins. It upheaved the temple from the centre, 
 throwing the pillars of all the four sides outward, 
 where most of them lie with their drums separated, 
 but still complete in all parts, and only requiring 
 mechanical power to set them up again. Some pre- 
 liminary shakes had caused pieces of the pediment 
 sculptures to fall out of their place, for they were 
 found at the foot of the temple steps ; but the main 
 shock threw the remainder to a great distance, and 
 I saw the work of Alkamenes being unearthed more 
 than twenty-five yards from its proper site. 
 
 In spite of this convulsion, the floor of the temple, 
 with its marble work, and its still more beautiful 
 mosaic, is still there, and it seemed doubtful to the 
 Germans whether there is even a crack now to be 
 found in it. About the ruins there gathered some 
 20
 
 306 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 little population, for many fragments were found 
 built into walls of poor and late construction ; but 
 this work of destruction was fortunately arrested by 
 a sudden overflow of the Alpheus, caused by the 
 bursting of one of the mountain lakes about Pheneus. 
 The river then covered all the little plain of Olympia 
 with a deep layer of fine sand and of mud. A 
 thicket of arbutus and mastich sprang from this 
 fertile soil, and so covered all traces of antiquity, 
 that when Chandler visited the place 100 years ago, 
 nothing but a part of the cella wall Avas over ground, 
 and this was since removed by neighboring builders. 
 But the site being certain, it only required the enter- 
 prise of modern research to lay bare the old level so 
 fortunately hidden by the interposition of nature. 
 The traveller who now visits Olympia can see the 
 whole plan and contour of the great temple, with 
 all its prostrate pillars lying around it. He can 
 stand on the very spot where once was placed the 
 unrivalled image the masterpiece of Phidias's art. 
 He can see the old mosaic in colored pebbles, with 
 its exquisite design, which later taste probably 
 Roman thought well to cover with a marble pave- 
 ment. But far above all, he can find in adjoining 
 sheds l not only the remains of the famous Nike of 
 
 1 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!
 
 Statue of Nike', by Paeonhts
 
 THE PEDIMENT SCULPTURES. 307 
 
 Paeonius, which stood on a pedestal close to the 
 east front, but the greater part of the splendid 
 pediment sculptures, which will henceforth rank 
 among the most important relics of Greek art. 
 These noble compositions have been restored with 
 tolerable completeness, and now stand next to the 
 pediments of the Parthenon in conception and in 
 general design. 
 
 For even if the restoration were never accom- 
 plished, there is enough in the fragments of the 
 figures already recovered to show the genius of 
 both sculptors, but particularly of Alkamenes, the 
 author of the western pediment. This perfectly 
 agrees with the note of Pausanias, who adds, in 
 mentioning this very work, that Alkamenes was 
 considered in his day an artist second only to 
 Phidias. 
 
 It was objected to me by learned men on the spot, 
 that the eastern pediment, being the proper front. of 
 the temple, must have been the more important, and 
 that Pseonius, as we know from an inscription, boasts 
 that he obtained the executing of it by competition, 
 thus proving that he was, at least in this case, pre- 
 ferred to his rivals. But the decided superiority of 
 Alkamenes's design leads me to suppose that the 
 boast of Pseonius only applies to the eastern pedi- 
 ment, and that probably the western had been already 
 assigned to Alkamenes. Nor do I agree with the 
 view that the eastern pediment must have been
 
 308 KAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 artistically the most important. In several Greek 
 temples c. g., the Parthenon, the temple at Bassae, 
 and in this the great majority of visitors must 
 have approached it from the rear, which should 
 accordingly have been quite the prominent side for 
 artistic decoration. Let me add that far more action 
 was permitted in the groups on this side, while over 
 the entrance the figures were staid and in repose, as 
 if to harmonize with the awe and silence of the 
 entering worshippers. Be these things as they may, 
 the work of Alkamenes is certainly superior to that 
 which remains to us of Pseonius in the eastern pedi- 
 ment, and in his figure of winged Victory, which 
 was, I think, greatly overpraised by the critics who 
 saw it soon after its discovery. 1 
 
 The composition of the groups in the pediments 
 and friezes has been described by Pausanias (v. 10, 
 <> 610) in a passage of great interest, which has 
 given rise to much controversy. The general 
 impression of Drs. Hirschfeld and Weil, when I 
 was at Olympia, was against the accuracy of 
 Pausanias, whom they considered to have blindly 
 set down whatever the local cicerones told him. 
 That of Dr. Purgold was in his favor. The traveller 
 says, however, that the eastern pediment, in which, 
 
 1 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.
 
 PLAN OF THE PEDIMENTS. 309 
 
 as already remarked, it was not usual to represent 
 violent action, depicted the preparation of the chariot 
 race between Pelops and (Enomaus. In the centre 
 was Zeus, whose torso has been recovered, and at the 
 narrow ends of the field were figures of the Alpheus 
 and Kladeus, to the right and left of the spectator 
 respectively. These figures are partly recovered 
 graceful young men lying forward on the ground, 
 and raising their heads to witness the contest. 
 
 It is worth pausing for a moment upon this dis- 
 position, which was so usual as to be almost conven- 
 tional in the pediments sculptured during the best 
 epochs of Greek art. In the centre, where the field 
 was very high, and admitted a colossal figure, it was 
 usual to place the god whose providence guided the 
 events around him, and this god was represented 
 calm and without excitement. Then came the 
 mythical event grouped on both sides ; but at the 
 ends, where the field narrowed to an angle, it was 
 usual to represent the calmness or impassiveness of 
 external nature. This was done in Greek sculpture 
 not by trees and hills, but by the gods who symbol- 
 ized them. So thoroughly was nature personified in 
 Greek art, that its picturesqueness was altogether 
 postponed to its living conscious sympathy with 
 man, and thus to a Greek the proper representation 
 of the rivers of Olympia was no landscape, but the 
 graceful forms of the river gods intelligent and 
 human, yet calm spectators, as nature is wont to be.
 
 310 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 The very same idea is carried out more character- 
 istically in the pediment of Alkamenes, where, in 
 spite of the violent conflict of Centaurs and Lapithae, 
 the central and extreme figures, as I shall presently 
 notice, are perfectly unmoved witnesses of lawless 
 violence. 
 
 The arrangement of the rest of the eastern pedi- 
 ment was evidently quite symmetrical. On Zeus's 
 right hand was CEnomaus, his wife Sterope, his 
 charioteer Myrtilus sitting before the four horses, 
 and two grooms ; on his left, Pelops, Hippodamia, 
 and a like number of horses and attendants. A 
 good many pieces of these figures have been found, 
 sufficient to tempt several art-critics to make con- 
 jectural restorations of the pediment, one of which 
 is now set up, I believe, in the museum at Berlin. 
 
 The western pediment, of which more, and more 
 striking, fragments are recovered, is more difficult 
 to restore, because Pausanias is unfortunately not 
 nearly so .precise in describing it, and because, 
 moreover, he is suspected of a serious blunder about 
 the central figure. Contrary to the precedent just 
 mentioned, he says that this central figure is Pirith- 
 ous, whose wife is just being carried off by the 
 Centaurs, and ought therefore to be in violent ex- 
 citement. But there had been found, just before we 
 arrived at Olympia, a colossal head, of the noblest 
 conception, which seems certainly to belong to the 
 pediment sculptures, and which must be the head of
 
 PAUSANIAS'S ACCOUNT. 311 
 
 this central figure. It is perfectly calm and divine 
 in expression, and almost forces upon the spectator 
 the conclusion to which all the best judges lean, that 
 it must be an Apollo, and that this was the central 
 figure, while Pirithous was more actively engaged. 
 There was on each side of this figure a Centaur 
 carrying off, the one a maiden (I suppose the bride) 
 and the other a boy, and Kseneus and Theseus at 
 each side, coming to the rescue. 
 
 But on the other figures Pausanias is silent ; and 
 there were certainly two beautiful mountain or river 
 nymphs at the extremities lying figures, with a 
 peculiar head-dress of a thick bandage wrapped all 
 round the hair which are among the most perfect 
 of the figures recovered. It seems also certain that 
 Pirithous must have been somewhere on the pedi- 
 ment ; and this would suggest another figure to 
 correspond to him at the other side, for these groups 
 were always symmetrical. In this case Pausanias 
 has omitted four figures at least in his description, 
 and seems to have besides mistaken the largest and 
 most important of all. The Germans cite in proof 
 of these strictures his passing remark on the Metopes, 
 representing the labors of Herakles, on one of which 
 was (he says) Herakles about to relieve Atlas, 
 whereas this slab, which has been found, really 
 represents Herakles carrying the globe, and one of 
 the HesperidjE assisting him, while Atlas is bringing 
 to him the apple.
 
 312 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 This criticism will seem to most ordinary people 
 too minute, and I am rather disposed to think well 
 of Pausanias as an intelligent traveller, though he, 
 of course, made some mistakes. 
 
 But since the above words were written sufficient 
 time has elapsed not only to bring the excavations to 
 an end, but to study more carefully the recovered 
 fragments, and offer a calmer judgment as to their 
 merits. On the whole, the strong feeling of the best 
 critics has been one of disappointment. The design 
 of both pediments still seems to me masterly, espe- 
 cially that of Alkamenes, but there can be no doubt 
 that the execution is far below that of the Parthenon 
 marbles. There are some positive faults inability 
 to reproduce drapery (while the nude parts are very 
 true to nature), and great want of care in other 
 details. It must be urged in answer that the pedi- 
 ments were meant to be seen about forty feet from 
 the ground, and that the painting of the figures 
 must have brought out the features of the drapery 
 neglected in the carving. However true this may 
 be, we can answer at once that the workmen of 
 Phidias did not produce this kind of work. The 
 first quality of the Attic school was that conscien- 
 tiousness in detail which meets us in every great age 
 of art. 
 
 So serious have these difficulties appeared to some, 
 that they have actually suspected Pausanias of being 
 misled, and having falsely attributed the work of
 
 THE HERMES. 313 
 
 obscure local artists to Alkamenes, and perhaps also 
 falsely to Paeonius. They say that nothing is more 
 common with vulgar cicerones than to attribute to 
 a great master any old work of uncertain origin. 
 Others, who will not proceed to such extremes, hold 
 that only the general design was made by the two 
 sculptors, and its execution handed over to local 
 artists. This may probably have been the case. 
 But I am disposed to infer from the overpraised 
 Nike, which certainly is the work of Pasonius, that 
 he was not an artist of the quality of the great Attic 
 school. 1 The whole external work of the temple 
 seems to represent a stage of art rather earlier and 
 ruder than the school of Phidias. This is eminently 
 the case with the Metopes, which can hardly be later 
 in date than 460 B. C., or pre-Phidian in time. 
 
 Very different is the impression produced by the 
 greatest and most priceless gem of all the treasures 
 at Olympia the Hermes of Praxiteles, which was 
 actually found on the very spot where it was seen 
 and described by Pausanias, fallen among the ruins 
 of the temple which originally protected it. This 
 exquisite figure, much smaller than life-size, repre- 
 sents the god Hermes holding the infant Dionysus 
 on one arm, and showing the child some object now 
 lost. The right arm and the legs from below the 
 
 1 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.
 
 314 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 knees are gone ; the right foot with its sandal, an 
 exquisite piece of work with traces of gold and red, 
 has been recovered. It is remarkable that the back 
 of the statue is unfinished, and the child treated 
 rather as a doll than a human infant ; the main 
 figure, however, now widely known through copies, 
 is the most perfect remnant of Greek art. The 
 temple in which the statue was found, the vener- 
 able Herseon, is the most interesting of all the Olym- 
 pian buildings in its plan, and has solved for us 
 many problems in Greek architecture. The acute 
 researches of Dr. Dbrpfeld have shown that the 
 walls were not of stone, but of sun-dried bricks, 
 and that the surrounding pillars had gradually re- 
 placed older wooden pillars, one of which was still 
 there when Pausanias saw the building. The suc- 
 cessive stone pillars and their capitals were of the 
 same order, Doric, but varied in measurements and 
 profile according to the taste of the day. So then 
 this ancient building showed, like our English cathe- 
 drals, the work of successive centuries in its resto- 
 ration. The roof and architrave were evidently of 
 wood, for all trace of these members has vanished ; 
 but we learn from remains of the old " treasuries " 
 described by Pausanias that in very old times wood 
 and mud bricks were faced with colored terra cotta, 
 moulded to the required form, and that this orna- 
 ment was still used after stone had replaced bricks 
 and mud as the material of the walls and architrave.
 
 SCULPTURE AT OLYMPIA. 315 
 
 These curious details, and many others, have been 
 the main result of the architectural inquiries made 
 by the Germans into the archaic buildings at Olym- 
 pia ; but it would be tedious to the reader of this 
 book were I to turn aside to discuss technical details. 
 He will find them all put with great clearness, and 
 indeed with elegance, in Bbtticher's Olympia. The 
 complete results of the excavations are now to be 
 found in the official work issued by the German 
 Government on the explorations. 
 
 Unfortunately, there only remains one very real- 
 istic head of a boxer from a large class of monu- 
 ments at Olympia, that of the portrait statues of 
 victors at the games, of which one was even attrib- 
 uted to Phidias, and several to Alkamenes, in Pau- 
 sanias's time. All these were votive statues, set up 
 by victors at the games, or victors in war, and in 
 the early times were not portraits strictly speaking, 
 but ideal figures. Later on they became more real- 
 istic, and were made in the likeness of the offerer, a 
 privilege said at one time only to have been accorded 
 to those who had won thrice at Olympia. 
 
 The commemoration of gymnastic victories by 
 these statues seems to have completely supplanted 
 the older fashion of triumphal odes, which in Pin- 
 dar's day were so prized, and so dearly bought from 
 lyric poets. When these odes first came to be com- 
 posed, sculpture was still struggling with the dif- 
 ficulties of human expression, and there was no one
 
 316 KAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 who would not feel the great artistic superiority of 
 Pindar's verse to the cold stiffness of the archaic 
 reliefs of the same epoch, which attempt portraiture. 
 The portrait of Aristion by Aristokles, the' similar 
 relief by Anxenor the Naxian, and the relief of the 
 discus thrower, are sufficient examples of what sculp- 
 tured portraits were in comparison with the rich 
 music of Simonides and Pindar. But while lyric 
 poetry passed into the higher service of tragedy, or 
 degenerated into the extravagance of the later 
 dithyramb, sculpture grew into such exquisite per- 
 fection, and was of its very nature so enduring and 
 manifest, that the Olympic victor choose it as the 
 surest avenue to immortal fame. And so it was up 
 to Pausanias's day, when every traveller could study 
 the records of the games at Olympia, or even admire 
 the most perfect of the statues in the palaces of 
 Roman Emperors, whither they were transferred. 
 
 But the day came when the poets were avenged 
 upon the sculptors. Olympia sank under general 
 decay and sudden catastrophe. Earthquakes and 
 barbarians ravaged its treasury, and while Pindar 
 was being preserved in manuscript, until his resur- 
 rection in the days of printing, the invasion of the 
 Kladeus saved the scanty remains in the Altis from 
 destruction only by covering them with oblivion. 
 Now, in the day of its resurrection, pedestal after 
 pedestal with its votive inscription has been un- 
 earthed, but, except the Nike of Pseonius, no actual
 
 SCULPTURE AT OLYMPIA. 317 
 
 votive statue had been recovered when I saw the 
 excavations, after two years of labor. 
 
 The river Alpheus, which has done such excel- 
 lent work in its inundations, does not confine itself 
 to concealing antiquities, but sometimes discovers 
 them. Its rapid course eats away the alluvial bank 
 which the waters have deposited ages ago, and thus 
 encroaches upon old tombs, from which various relics 
 are washed down in its turbid stream. The famous 
 helmet dedicated by Iliero, son of Deinomenes, was 
 discovered in the river in this way ; and there is 
 also in the Ministry of Public Instruction a large 
 circular band of bronze, riveted together where the 
 ends meet, with very archaic zigzag and linear pat- 
 terns, which was found in the same way some twenty 
 years ago, and which seems to me of great interest, 
 as exhibiting a kind of workmanship akin to the 
 decorations in the Schliemann treasure of Mycenae. 
 There is also a rude red earthen pot in the Turkish 
 house on the Acropolis at Athens, which is deco- 
 rated with the same kind of lines. It is very im- 
 portant to point out these resemblances to travellers, 
 for there is such endless detail in Greek antiquities, 
 and so little has yet been classified, that every ob- 
 servation may be of use to future students, even 
 though it may merely serve as a hint for closer 
 research. 
 
 The Stadium and Hippodrome, which lie farther 
 away from the river, and right under the conical
 
 318 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 hill called Kronion, have not yet, I believe, been 
 completely investigated ; but they may no doubt 
 offer us some new and interesting evidences on the 
 management of the famous Olympian games. 
 
 These games were not at all what most people 
 imagine them to be. I will, therefore, delay the 
 reader with some details concerning this most inter- 
 esting side of old Greek life. 
 
 The establishment of games at Olympia was 
 assigned by the poets to mythical ages, and not 
 only is there a book of the Iliad devoted to funeral 
 games, but in Pindar's eleventh Olympic Ode this 
 particular establishment is made coeval with the 
 labors of Herakles. Whether such evidence is 
 indeed conclusive may fairly be doubted. The 
 twenty-third book of the Iliad, which shows traces 
 of being a later portion of the poem, describes con- 
 tests widely differing from those at Olympia, and 
 the mythical founders enumerated by Pausanias 
 (v. 7) are so various and inconsistent that we can 
 see how obscure the question appeared to Greek 
 archaeologists, even did we not find at the end of 
 the enumeration the following significant hint : 
 "But after Oxylus for Oxylus, too, established 
 the contest after his reign it fell out of use till 
 the Olympiad of Iphitus," that is to say, till the 
 first OL, which is dated 776 B. C., Oxylus being 
 the companion of the Herakleidse, who obtained 
 Elis for his portion. Pausanias adds that when
 
 Kronion Hill, Olympia

 
 THE OLYMPIC GAMES. 319 
 
 Iplutus renewed the contest, men had forgotten the 
 old arrangements, and only gradually came to remem- 
 ber them, and whenever they recollected any special 
 competition they added it to the games. This is 
 the excellent man's theory to account for the grad- 
 ual addition of long races, of wrestling, discus 
 throwing, boxing, and chariot racing, to the orig- 
 inal sprint race of about 200 yards, which was at 
 first the only known competition. 
 
 The facts seem to me rather to point to the late 
 growth of games in Greece, which may possibly 
 have begun as a local feast at Olympia in the eighth 
 century, but which only rose to importance during 
 the reign of the despots throughout Greece, when 
 the aristocrats were prevented from murdering one 
 another, and compelled to adopt more peaceful pur- 
 suits. 1 It was in the end of the seventh and opening 
 of the sixth centuries that the Pythian, Nemean, 
 and Isthmian games show by their successive estab- 
 lishments the rapid spread of the fashion, and a vast 
 number of local contests diffused through every dis- 
 trict in Greece the taste and the training for such 
 competitions. 2 These games lasted all through clas- 
 
 1 The fact that some of these public meetings are associated 
 with the fall of tyrants does not, I think, disprove what is here 
 advanced. 
 
 2 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
 
 320 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 sical Greek history the Olympian even down to 
 later times, for they were not abolished till nearly 
 1200 years (Ol. 294) had elapsed since their alleged 
 foundation. But the day of their real greatness was 
 gone long before. Cicero indignantly repudiates 
 the report that he had gone to see such games, just 
 as a pious earl, within our memory, repudiated the 
 report that he had attended the prize-fight between 
 Sayers arid Heenan. The good generals of earlier 
 centuries, such as Alexander the Great and Philo- 
 poemen, set their faces against athletics as bad train- 
 ing for soldiers. Nay, even earlier, the Spartans, 
 though they could contend with success in the pen- 
 tathlon, when they choose, did not countenance the 
 fiercer competitions, as engendering bad feeling be- 
 tween rivals, and, what was worse, compelling a 
 man to declare himself vanquished, and feel dis- 
 graced. The Athenians also, as soon as the sophists 
 reformed education, began to rate intellectual wrest- 
 ling as far superior to any bodily exercise. Thus 
 the supremacy of Athens and Sparta over the other 
 
 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. Plu- 
 tarch, 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.
 
 THE OLYMPIC GAMES 321 
 
 Greek cities in. the fifth century marked, in my 
 opinion, the real turning-point in the Greek esti- 
 mate of athletics, and the fact that the great odes 
 of Pindar sing the glories of no Spartan, and only 
 twice, very briefly, those of Athenians, seems to 
 indicate that even then men began to think of more 
 serious rivalries and more exciting spectacles than 
 the festive meetings at Olympia. In the very next 
 generation the poets had drifted away from them, 
 and Euripides despises rather than admires them. 
 The historians take little notice of them. 
 
 Two circumstances only tended strongly to keep 
 them up. In the first place, musical competitions 
 (which had always been a part of the Pythian) and 
 poetical rivalries were added to the sports, which 
 were also made the occasion of mercantile business, 
 of social meetings, and not seldom of political agita- 
 tion. The wise responses of the Delphic oracle 
 were not a little indebted to the information gath- 
 ered from all parts of the Hellenic world at the 
 games, some important celebration of which, whether 
 at Nemea, the Isthmus, or the greater meetings, 
 occurred every year. 
 
 Secondly, if the art of poetry soon devoted itself 
 to the higher objects of tragedy, and created for 
 itself the conflict which it celebrated, the art of 
 sculpture became so closely connected with athletics 
 as to give thorn an aesthetic importance of the high- 
 est kind all through Greek history. The ancient 
 
 21
 
 322 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 habit of setting up ideal statues of victors, which 
 were made special likenesses if the subject was spe- 
 cially distinguished, supplied the Greeks with a 
 series of historical monuments and a series of phys- 
 ical types not elsewhere to be matched, and thus 
 perhaps the most interesting part of Pausanias's 
 invaluable guide-book to Greece is his collection of 
 notes (lib. vi., 120) on various statues set up in 
 this way at Olympia, of which he mentions about 
 two hundred, though he only professes to make a 
 selection, and though several of the finest had already 
 been carried off by Roman emperors. 
 
 These things kept alive the athletic meetings in 
 Greece, and even preserved for them some celebrity. 
 The sacred truce proclaimed during the national 
 games was of inestimable convenience in times of 
 long and bitter hostilities, and doubtless enabled 
 friends to meet who had else been separated for 
 life. 1 But the Panathenaic festivals were better 
 exponents of fourth century taste in Greece. There 
 music and the drama predominated. Professional 
 displays became equally admired as a pastime and 
 despised as a profession ; and I have no doubt that 
 the athlete who spent his life going about from one 
 contest to another in search of gymnastic triumphs 
 
 1 So also under the early Roman Empire the exiles on the 
 barren islands of the JEgenn seem to have been allowed this indul- 
 gence. Cf. the curious passage from Plutarch I have quoted and 
 explained in my Greek World under Roman Suxiy, p. 261.
 
 THE OLYMPIC GAMES. 323 
 
 was held in like contempt by Brasidas and by Cleon, 
 by Xenophon and by Agesilaus. 
 
 In the days of Solon things had been very dif- 
 ferent. He appointed a reward of 500 drachmas, 
 then a very large sum, for victors at Olympia, 100 
 for those at the Isthmus, and for the others in propor- 
 tion. Pindar sings as if, to the aristocrats of ^Egina, 
 or the tyrants of Sicily, no higher earthly prizes were 
 attainable. But we must not transfer these evidences 
 the habit or the echo of the sixth century B. C. 
 to the days of political and educated Greece, when 
 public opinion altered very considerably on the ad- 
 vantage and value of physical competition. This 
 being once understood, I will proceed to a short 
 analysis of the sports, and will attempt to criticise 
 the methods adopted by the old Greeks to obtain the 
 highest physical condition, the nature of the com- 
 petitions they established, and the results which they 
 appear to have attained. 
 
 The Greeks of Europe seem always to have been 
 aware that physical exercise was of the greatest im- 
 portance for health, and consequently for mental 
 vigor, and the earliest notices we have of education 
 include careful bodily training. Apart from the 
 games of children, which were much the same as 
 ours, there was not only orchestic or rhythmical danc- 
 ing in graceful figures, in which girls took part, and 
 which corresponded to what are now vulgarly called 
 j but also gymnastics, in which boys were
 
 324 RAMBLES IN GKEECE. 
 
 trained to those exercises which they afterward 
 practised as men. In addition to the palcestras, 
 which were kept for the benefit of boys as a matter 
 of private speculation in Athens, and probably in 
 other towns, regular gymnasia were established by 
 the civic authorities, and put under strict supervision 
 as state institutions to prevent either idleness or im- 
 morality. 1 In these gymnasia, where young men 
 came in the afternoon, stripped, oiled themselves, 
 and then got a coat of dust or fine sand over the 
 skin, running, wrestling, boxing, jumping, and 
 throwing with the dart were commonly practised. 
 This sort of physical training I conceive to have 
 grown up with the growth of towns, and with the 
 abandonment of hunting and marauding, owing to 
 the increase of culture. Among the aristocrats of 
 epical days, as well as among the Spartans, who 
 lived a village life, surrounded by forest and moun- 
 tain, I presume field sports must have been quite the 
 leading amusement ; nor ought competitions in a 
 gymnasium to be compared for one moment to this 
 far higher and more varied recreation. The con- 
 trast still subsists among us, and our fox-hunting, 
 salmon-fishing, grouse-shooting country gentleman 
 has the same inestimable advantage over the city 
 
 1 The very stringent laws quoted by ^Eschines in Timnrchum 
 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.
 
 OLYMPIA THE GAMES. 325 
 
 athlete, whose special training for a particular event 
 has a necessary tendency to lower him into a pro- 
 fessional. There is even a danger of some fine 
 exercises, which seemed common ground for both, 
 such as boating and cricket, being vulgarized by 
 the invasion of this professional spirit, which implies 
 such attention to the body as to exclude higher pur- 
 suits, and which rewards by special victories, and by 
 public applause rather than by the intrinsic pleasure 
 of sport for its own sake. Thus the Spartans not 
 only objected to boxing and the pankration, in which 
 the defeated competitor might have to ask for mercy ; 
 they even for general purposes preferred field-sports, 
 for which they had ample opportunities, to any 
 special competitions in the strength of particular 
 muscles. But in such places as Athens and its 
 neighborhood, where close cultivation had caused all 
 wild country and all game to disappear, it was neces- 
 sary to supply the place of country sport by the 
 training of the gymnasium. This sort of exercise 
 naturally led to contests, so that for our purpose we 
 need not separate gymnastic and agonistic, but may 
 use the details preserved about the latter to tell us 
 how the Greeks practised the former. 
 
 There is no doubt that the pursuit of high mus- 
 cular condition was early associated with that of 
 health, and that hygiene and physical training were 
 soon discovered to be closely allied. Thus Hcrodi- 
 cus, a trainer, who was also an invalid, was said to
 
 326 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 have discovered from his own case the method of 
 treating disease by careful diet and regimen, and to 
 have thus contributed to the advancement of Greek 
 medicine. Pausanias also mentions (vi. 3, 9) the 
 case of a certain Hysmon, an Elean, who, when a 
 boy, had rheumatism in his limbs, and on this 
 account practised for the pentathlon, that he might 
 become a healthy and sound man. His training 
 made him not only sound, but a celebrated victor. 
 It would be very interesting to know in detail 
 what rules the Greeks prescribed for this purpose. 
 Pausanias tells us (vi. 7, 9) that a certain Dromeus, 
 who won ten victories in long races at various 
 games (about 01. 74, 485 B. c.), was the first who 
 thought of eating meat in his training, for that up 
 to that time the diet of athletes had been cheese 
 from wicker baskets (Ix rcov rcddpanr). 1 It must be 
 remembered that meat diet was not common among 
 the Greeks, who, like most southern people, lived 
 rather upon fish, fruit, and vegetables, so that the 
 meat dinners of Bo30tia were censured as heavy and 
 rather disgusting. However, the discovery of 
 
 1 The modern Greeks make their cheese for keeping, even now, 
 in wicker baskets, and distinguish it from %kupbs rrpof, which now 
 means cream cheese, and which they carry to market in woollen 
 bags. There was a special market for it in Athens in Aristo- 
 phanes' s day, but not in woollen bags ; for, as Mr. Pickering (of 
 Shrewsbury School) pointed out to me, the cream cheese of Aristo- 
 phanes' s day was kept in wicker work. I gladly here acknowl- 
 edge this correction of the note in my former edition.
 
 OLYMPIA THE GAMES. 327 
 
 Dromons was adopted by Greek athletes ever after, 
 and wo. hear of their compulsory meals of large 
 qmmtities of meat, and their consequent sleepiness 
 and sluggishness in ordinary life, in such a way as 
 to make us believe that the Greeks had missed the 
 real secret of training, and actually thought that the 
 more strong nutriment a man could take, the stronger 
 he would become. The quantity eaten by athletes 
 is universally spoken of as far exceeding the quantity 
 eaten by ordinary men, not to speak of its heavier 
 quality. 
 
 The suspicion that, in consequence, Greek athletic 
 performances were not in speed greater than, if even 
 equal to, our own, is however hard to verify, as we 
 are without any information as to the time in which 
 their running feats were performed. They had no 
 watches, or nice measures of short moments of time, 
 and always ran races merely to see who would win, 
 not to see in how short a time a given distance 
 could be done. Nevertheless, as the course was 
 over soft sand, and as the vases picture them rush- 
 ing along in spread-eagle fashion, with their arms 
 like the sails of a windmill in order to aid the 
 motion of their bodies, as the Germans explain (after 
 Philostratoa) nay, as we even hear of their having 
 started shouting, if we can believe such a thing, 
 their time performances in running must have been 
 decidedly poor. 1 
 
 1 1 should, however, call attention to an exceptional vase in the
 
 328 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 In the Olympic games the running, which had 
 originally been the only competition, always came 
 first. The distance was once up the course, and 
 seems to have been about 200 yards. After the 
 year 720 B. c. (?) races of double the course, and 
 long races of about 3000 yards were added ; l races 
 in armor were a later addition, and came at the end 
 of the sports. It is remarkable that among all these 
 varieties hurdle races were unknown, though the 
 long jump was assigned a special place, and thought 
 very important. We have several extraordinary 
 anecdotes of endurance in running long journeys 
 cited throughout Greek history, and even now the 
 modern inhabitants are remarkable for this quality. 
 I have seen a young man keep up with a horse 
 ridden at a good pace across rough country for many 
 miles, and have been told that the Greek postmen 
 are quite wonderful for their speed and lasting. But 
 this is compatible with very poor performances at 
 prize meetings. 
 
 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. 
 
 1 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.
 
 OLYMPIA THE GAMES. 329 
 
 There were short races for boys at Olympia of 
 half the course. Eighteen years Avas beyond the 
 limit of age for competing, as a story in Pausanias 
 implies, and a boy who won at the age of twelve 
 was thought wonderfully young. The same author- 
 ity tells us of a man who won the sprint race at four 
 successive meetings, thus keeping up his pace for 
 sixteen years a remarkable case. There seems to 
 have been no second prize in any of the historical 
 games, a natural consequence of the abolition of 
 material rewards. 1 There was, naturally, a good 
 deal of chance in the course of the contest, and 
 Pausanias evidently knew cases where the winner 
 was not the best man. For example, the races were 
 run in heats of four, and if there was an odd man 
 over, the owner of the last lot drawn could sit down 
 till the winners of the heats were declared, and then 
 run against them without any previous fatigue. The 
 limitation of each heat to four competitors arose, I 
 fancy, from their not wearing colors (or even clothes), 
 and so not being easily distinguishable. They were 
 accordingly walked into the arena through an under- 
 ground passage in the raised side of the stadium, 
 and the name and country of each proclaimed in 
 order by a herald. This practice is accurately 
 
 1 ''Know ye not," says St. Paul, "that all run, and one re- 
 ceivoth 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.
 
 330 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 copied in the present Olympic games held at Athens 
 every four years. 
 
 The next event was the wrestling match, which is 
 out of fashion at our prize meetings, though still a 
 favorite sport in many country districts. There is a 
 very ample terminology for the various tricks and 
 devices in this contest, and they have been explained 
 with much absurdity by scholiasts, both ancient and 
 modern. It seems that it was not always enough to 
 throw your adversary, 1 but that an important part 
 of the sport was the getting uppermost on the 
 ground ; and in no case was a man declared beaten 
 till he was thrown three times, and was actually laid 
 on his back. It is not worth while enumerating the 
 various technical terms, but it may be observed that 
 a good deal of what we should call foul play was 
 tolerated. There was no kicking, such as there 
 used to be in wrestling matches in Ireland, because 
 there were no boots, but Pausanias mentions (vi. 4, 
 3) a man who did not know how to wrestle, but de- 
 feated his opponents by breaking their fingers. We 
 shall return to this point when speaking of the pinik- 
 ration. 
 
 When the wrestling was over there followed the 
 throwing of the discus and the dart, and the long 
 leap, but in what order is uncertain ; for I cannot 
 
 1 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.
 

 
 Entrance to the Stadium, Olympia
 
 OLYMPIA THE GAMES. 331 
 
 accept as evidence the pentameter line of Simonides, 
 which enumerates the games of the pentathlon, see- 
 ing that it Avould be impossible to vary them from the 
 order he gives without great metrical difficulties. 
 Our only safe guide is, I think, the date of the 
 origin of each kind of competition, as it was plainly 
 the habit of the Greeks to place the new event next 
 after those already established. The sole exception 
 to this is in the establishing of contests for boys, 
 which seem always to have come immediately be- 
 fore the corresponding competition for men. But 
 we are only told that both wrestling and the contest 
 of five events (pentathlon) dated from the 18th Ol. 
 (710 B. c.), and are not informed in what order each 
 was appointed. 1 
 
 The discus-throwing was mainly to test distance, 
 but the dart-throwing to strike a mark. The discus 
 was either of stone or of metal, and was very heavy. 
 I infer from the attitude of Myron's discobolus, as 
 seen in our copies, that it was thrown without a pre- 
 liminary run, and rather hurled standing. This con- 
 test is to be compared with our hammer-throwing, 
 or putting of weights. We are, however, without 
 any accurate information either as to the average 
 weight of the discus, or the average distance which 
 a good man could throw it. There is, indeed, one 
 ancient specimen extant, which was found at 
 
 1 The single competitions in running and wrestling were distinct 
 from those in the pentathlon, and rewarded by separate crowns.
 
 332 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 and is now preserved among the bronze antiquities 
 at Munich. It is about eight inches in diameter, 
 and something under four pounds in weight. But 
 there seem to have been three sizes of discus, ac- 
 cording as they were intended for boys, for grown 
 youths (dyi>fOf), or for men, and it is not certain to 
 which class this discus belongs. Philostratos men- 
 tions one hundred cubits as a fine throw, but in such 
 a way as to make it doubtful whether he is not talk- 
 ing at random and in round numbers. Similarly, 
 we have no details concerning the javelin contest. 
 But I suspect that here, if anywhere, the Greeks 
 could do what we cannot ; for the savages of to-day, 
 who use spears, can throw them with a force and 
 accuracy which is to us quite surprising. It is re- 
 ported by trustworthy travellers that a Kaffir who 
 comes suddenly on game will put a spear right into 
 an antelope at ten or twelve yards' distance by an 
 underhand chuck, without taking time to raise his 
 arm. This is beyond the ability of any English 
 athlete, however trained. 
 
 The question of the long jump is more interesting, 
 as it still forms a part of our contests. It is not certain 
 whether the old Greeks practised the running jump, 
 or the high jump, for we never hear of a preliminary 
 start, or of any difficulty about " breaking trig," as 
 people now call it. Furthermore, an extant epigram 
 on a celebrated athlete, Phayllus of Kroton, asserts 
 that he jumped clean over the prepared ground (which
 
 OLYMPIA THE GAMES. 333 
 
 was broken with a spade) on to the hard ground 
 beyond a distance of forty-nine feet. We cannot, 
 of course, though some German professors believe 
 it, credit this feat, if it were a single long jump, yet 
 we can find no trace of anything like a hop, step, and 
 jump, so that it seems wonderful how such an ab- 
 surdity should be gravely repeated in an epigram. 
 But the exploit became proverbial, and to leap imkp 
 TV. (jxannara (beyond the digging) was a constantly 
 repeated phrase. 
 
 The length of Phayllus's leap would be even more 
 incredible if the competition was in a standing jump, 
 and yet the figures of athletes on vases which I have 
 seen strongly favor this supposition. They are rep- 
 resented not as running, but as standing and swing- 
 ing the dumb-bells or ^Ar^oec (jumpers), which were 
 always used by the older Greeks, as assisting them 
 materially in increasing their distance. I can imag- 
 ine this being the case in a standing jump where a 
 man rose with the forward swing of the weights, but 
 in a running jump the carrying of the weights must 
 surely impede rather than assist him. I know that 
 Irish peasants, who take off very heavy boots to 
 jump, often carry one in each hand, and throw them 
 backward violently as they rise from the ground ; 
 but this principle is not admitted so far as I know, 
 by any scientific authority, as of the slightest assist- 
 ance. 
 
 We hear of no vaulting or jumping with a pole,
 
 334 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 so that in fact the leap seems an isolated contest, and 
 of little interest except as determining one of the 
 events of the pentathlon, in which a man must win 
 three in order to be declared victor. This pentath- 
 lon, as comprising gentlemanly exercise without 
 much brutality, was especially patronized by the 
 Spartans. It was attempted for boys, but immediately 
 abandoned, the strain being thought excessive for 
 growing constitutions. 
 
 There remain the two severest and most objec- 
 tionable sports boxing and the pankration. The 
 former came first (01. 23), the other test of strength 
 not being admitted till Ol. 33 (650 B. c.). But one 
 special occasion is mentioned when a champion, who 
 was competing in both, persuaded the judges to 
 change the order, that he might not have to contend 
 against a specially famous antagonist when already 
 wounded and bruised. For boxing was, even from 
 Homeric times, a very dangerous and bloody amuse- 
 ment, in which the vanquished were always severely 
 punished. The Greeks were not content with naked 
 fists, but always used a special apparatus, called 
 fytfurec, which consisted at first of a weight carried 
 in the hand, and fastened by thongs of hide round 
 the hand and wrist. But this ancient cestus came 
 to be called the gentle kind (fitti%at) when a later 
 and more brutal invention introduced " sharp thongs 
 on the wrist," and probably increased the weight of 
 the instrument. The successful boxer in the Iliad
 
 OLYMPIA THE GAMES. 335 
 
 (Epeius) confesses that he is a bad warrior, though 
 he is the acknowledged champion in his own line | 
 but evidently this sport was not highly esteemed in 
 epic days. In historical times it seems to have been 
 more favored. There was no doubt a great deal of 
 skill required for it, but I think the body of the evi- 
 dence goes to prove that the Greeks did not box on 
 sound principles, and that any prominent member 
 of the P. R. with his naked fists would have easily 
 settled any armed champion of Olympian fame. 
 Here are my reasons : 
 
 The principle of increasing the weight of the fist 
 as much as possible is only to be explained by the 
 habit of dealing swinging or downward strokes, and 
 is incompatible with the true method of striking 
 straight home quickly, and giving weight to the 
 stroke by sending the whole body with it. In Vergil's 
 description a boxer is even described getting up on 
 tip-toe to strike his adversary on the top of the head 
 a ridiculous manoouvre, which must make his in- 
 stant ruin certain, if his opponent knew the first 
 elements of the art. That this downward stroke 
 was used appears also from the anecdote in Pau- 
 sanias, where a father seeing his son, who was 
 ploughing, drive in the share which had fallen out 
 with strokes of his fist, without a hammer, immedi- 
 ately entered him for the boys' boxing match at 
 Olympia. The lad got roughly handled from want 
 of skill, and seemed likely to lose, when the father
 
 336 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 called out : " Boy, give him the plough stroke !" and 
 so encouraged him that he forthwith knocked his 
 adversary out of time. 
 
 It is almost conclusive as to the swinging stroke 
 that throughout antiquity a boxer was not known as 
 a man with his nose broken, but as a man with A/.v 
 ears crushed. Vergil even speaks of their receiving 
 blows on the back. Against all this there are only 
 two pieces of evidence one of them incredible in 
 favor of the straight home stroke. In the fight 
 between Pollux and Amykos, described by Theo- 
 critus (Idyll 22), Pollux strikes his man on the left 
 temple, xal iitifjattff&f &itw, which may mean, " and 
 follows up the stroke from the shoulder." But this 
 is doubtful. The other is the story of Pausanias 
 (viii. 40, 3), that when Kreugas and Darnoxenos 
 boxed till evening, and neither could hit the other, 
 they at last agreed to receive stroke about, and after 
 Kreugas had dealt Damoxenos one on the head, the 
 latter told him to hold up his hand, 1 and then drove 
 his fingers right into Kreugas, beneath the ribs, and 
 pulled out his entrails. Kreugas of course died on 
 the spot, but was crowned as victor, on the ground 
 that Damoxenos had broken his agreement of strik- 
 ing one blow in turn, by striking him with five sep- 
 
 1 This is the moment chosen by Canova in his celebrated rep- 
 resentation 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.
 
 OLYMPIA THE GAMES. 337 
 
 arate fingers ! But this curious decision was only 
 one of many in which a boxing competitor was dis- 
 qualified for having fought with the intention of 
 maiming his antagonist. 
 
 Little need be added about the pankration, which 
 combined boxing and wrestling, and permitted every 
 sort of physical violence except biting. In this con- 
 test a mere fall did not end the affair, as might hap- 
 pen in wrestling, but the conflict was always con- 
 tinued on the ground, and often ended in one of the 
 combatants being actually choked, or having his 
 fingers and toes broken. One man, Arrachion, at 
 the last gasp, broke his adversary's toe, and made 
 him give in, at the moment he was himself dying 
 of strangulation. Such contests were not to the 
 credit either of the humanity or of the good taste 
 of the Greeks, and would not be tolerated even in 
 the lowest of our prize rings. 
 
 I will conclude this sketch by giving some account 
 of the general management of the prize meetings. 
 
 There was no want of excitement and of circum- 
 stance about them. In the case of the four great 
 meetings there was even a public truce proclaimed, 
 and the competitors and visitors were guaranteed 
 a safe journey to visit them and to return to their 
 homes. The umpires at the Olympic games were 
 chosen ten months before at Elis, and seem to have 
 numbered one for each clan, varying through Greek 
 
 history from two to twelve, but finally fixed at ten. 
 22
 
 338 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 They were called both here and at the other great 
 games c JUavo$jrar, judges of the Hellenes, in 
 recognition of their national character. Three 
 superintended the pentathlon, three the horse races, 
 and the rest the other games. They had to reside 
 together in a public building, and undergo strict 
 training in all the details of their business, in 
 which they were assisted by heralds, trumpeters, 
 stewards, etc. Their office was looked upon as of 
 much dignity and importance. 
 
 When the great day came, they sat in purple 
 robes in the semicircular end of the racecourse 
 a piece of splendor which the modern Greeks imitcate 
 by dressing the judges of the new Olympic games 
 in full evening dress and white kid gloves. The 
 effect even now with neatly-clothed candidates is 
 striking enough ; what must it have been when 
 a row of judges in purple looked on solemnly at 
 a pair of men dressed in oil and dust i. e., in mud 
 wrestling or rolling upon the ground ! The crowd 
 cheered and shouted as it now does. Pausanias 
 mentions a number of cases where competitors were 
 disqualified for unfairness, and in most of them the 
 man's city took up the quarrel, which became quite 
 a public matter ; but at the games the decision was 
 final, nor do we hear of a case where it was after- 
 ward reversed. 1 They were also obliged to exact 
 
 1 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
 
 OLYMPIA-THE GAMES. 339 
 
 beforehand from each candidate an oath that he was 
 of pure Hellenic parentage, that he had not taken, 
 or would not take, any unfair advantage, and that 
 he had spent ten months in strict training. This 
 last rule I do not believe. It is absurd in itself, and 
 is contradicted by such anecdotes as that of the 
 sturdy plough-boy quoted above, and still more 
 directly by the remark of Philostratos (/l//v. 38), 
 who ridicules any inquiry into the morals or training 
 of an athlete by the judges. Its only meaning could 
 have been to exclude random candidates, if the 
 number was excessive, and in later times some such 
 regulation may have subsisted, but I do not accept 
 it for the good classical days. There is the case of 
 a boy being rejected for looking too young and 
 weak, and winning in the next Olympiad among 
 the men. But in another instance the competitor 
 disqualified (for unfairness) went mad with disap- 
 pointment. Aristotle notes that it was the rarest 
 possible occurrence for a boy champion to turn out 
 successful among the full-grown athletes, but Pau- 
 sanias seems to contradict him, a fair number of cases 
 being cited among the selection which he makes. 
 There is yet one unpleasant feature to be noted, 
 
 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 Zdvef 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.
 
 340 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 which has disappeared from our sports. Several 
 allusions make it plain that the vanquished, even 
 vanquished boys, were regarded as fit subjects for 
 jibe and ridicule, and that they sneaked home by 
 lanes and backways. When the most ideal account 
 which we have of the games gives us this informa- 
 tion, we cannot hesitate to accept it as probably 
 a prominent feature, which is, moreover, thoroughly 
 consistent with the character of the old Greeks as 
 I conceive it. 1 
 
 The general conclusion to which all these details 
 lead us is this, that with all the care and with all the 
 pomp expended on Greek athletic meetings, despite 
 the exaggerated fame attained by victors, and the 
 solid rewards both of money and of privileges accorded 
 them by their grateful country, the results attained 
 physically seem to have been inferior to those of 
 English athletes. There was, moreover, an element 
 of brutality in them, which is very shocking to modern 
 notions : and not all the ideal splendor of Pindar's 
 praises, or of Pythagoras's art, can raise the Greek 
 pankratiast as an athlete much above the level of 
 a modern prize-fighter. But, nevertheless, by the 
 aid of their monumental statues, their splendid lyric 
 poetry, and the many literary and musical contests 
 which were combined with the gymnastic, the Greeks 
 contrived, as usual, to raise very common tilings to 
 
 1 The reader will find some illustrations of it in my Social 
 Greece, 6th edition, p. 96.
 
 OLYMPIA THE GAMES. 341 
 
 a great national manifestation of culture which we 
 cannot hope to equal. 
 
 For common they were, and very human, in the 
 strictest sense. Dry-as-dust scholars would have 
 us believe that the odes of Pindar give a complete 
 picture of these games ; as if all the booths about 
 the course had not been filled with idlers, pleasure- 
 mongers, and the scum of Greek society ! Tumb- 
 ling, thimble-rigging, and fortune-telling, along with 
 love-making and trading, made Olympia a scene 
 not unlike the Derby. When the drinking parties 
 of young men began in the evening, there may even 
 have been a soupgon of Donnybrook Fair about it, 
 but that the committee of management were prob- 
 ably strict in their discipline. From the Isthmian 
 games the successful athletes, with their training 
 over, retired, as most athletes do, to the relaxation 
 afforded by city amusements. One can imagine 
 how amply Corinth provided for the outburst of 
 liberty after the long and arduous subjection of 
 physical training. 
 
 But all these things are perhaps justly forgotten, 
 and it is ungrateful to revive them from oblivion. 
 The dust and dross of human conflict, the blood and 
 the gall, the pain and the revenge all this was laid 
 aside like the athlete's dress, and could not hide the 
 glory of his naked strength and his iron endurance. 
 The idleness and vanity of human admiration have 
 vanished with the motley crowd, and have left us
 
 342 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 free to study the deeper beauty of human vigor 
 with the sculptor, and the spiritual secrets of its 
 hereditary origin with the poet. Thus Greek gym- 
 nastic, with all its defects perhaps even with its 
 absurdities has done what has never been even 
 the dream of its modern sister; it stimulated the 
 greatest artists and the highest intellects in society, 
 and through them ennobled and purified public taste 
 and public morals. 
 
 When we left Olympia, and began to ascend the 
 course of the Alpheus, the valley narrowed to the 
 broad bed of the stream. The way leads now along 
 the shady slopes high over the river, now down in 
 the sandy flats left bare in the summer season. 
 There are curious zones of vegetation distinctly 
 marked along the course of the valley. On the 
 river bank, and in the little islands formed by the 
 stream, are laurels, myrtles, and great plane-trees. 
 On the steep and rocky slopes are thick coverts of 
 mastich, arbutus, dwarf-holly, and other evergreens 
 which love to clasp the rocks with their roots ; and 
 they are all knit together by great creeping plants, 
 the wild vine, the convolvulus, and many that are 
 new and nameless to the northern stranger. On 
 the heights, rearing their great tops against the 
 sky, are huge pine-trees, isolated and still tattered 
 with the winter storms. 
 
 " Ces adieux a 1'Elide," adds M. Beule, " laissent
 

 
 The Valley of the Alpheus
 
 LALA. 343 
 
 une pure et vive impression. Rarement la nature 
 se trouve en si parfaite harmonic avec les souvenirs. 
 On clirait un theatre eternel, toujours pret pour les 
 joies pacifiques, toujours pare pour les fetes, et qui, 
 depuis dix-huit siecles, attend ses acteurs qui ont 
 disparu." 
 
 Travellers going from Olympia northward either 
 go round by carriage through Elis to Patras a drive 
 of two days or by Kalavryta to Megaspilion, and 
 thence to Vostitza, thus avoiding the great Alps of 
 Olonos (as Erymanthus is now called) and Chelmos, 
 which are among the highest and most picturesque 
 in Greece. After my last visit to Olympia (1884) 
 I was so tantalized by the perpetual view of the 
 snowy crest of Olonos, that I determined to attempt 
 a new route, not known to any of the guide-books, 1 
 and cross over the mountain, as directly as I could, 
 from Olympia to Patras. It was easy for me to 
 carry out this plan, being accompanied by a young 
 Greek antiquarian, M. Castromenos, and by Dr. 
 Purgold from Olympia, who had travelled through 
 most of Greece, but was as anxious as I was to try 
 this new route. 
 
 So we started on a beautiful spring morning, up 
 the valley of the Kladeos, with all the trees bursting 
 into leaf and blossom, and the birds singing their 
 hymns of delight. The way was wooded, and led 
 
 1 It has been since inserted from my notes in the English trans- 
 lation of Biedeker's Greece.
 
 344 KAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 up through narrow and steep, but not difficult glens, 
 until, on a far higher level, we came in three or 
 four hours to the village of Lala, once an important 
 Turkish fort. Here was a higher plain, from which 
 we began to see the plan of that vast complex of 
 mountains which form the boundaries of the Old 
 Elis, Achaia, and Arcadia, and which have so often 
 been the scenes of difficult campaigns. From Lala, 
 where we breakfasted, we crossed a sudden deep 
 valley, and found ourselves, on regaining the higher 
 level, in a vast oak forest, unlike anything I had yet 
 seen in Greece. The trees had been undisturbed 
 for centuries, and the forest was even avoided in 
 summer by the natives, on account of the many poi- 
 sonous snakes which hid in the deep layers of dead 
 leaves. In that high country the oaks were just 
 turning pink with their new buds, and not a green 
 leaf was to be seen, so we could trust to the Avinter 
 sleep of the snakes, while we turned aside again and 
 again from our path, to the great perplexity of the 
 muleteers, to dig up wood anemones of all colors, 
 pale blue, pink, deep crimson, scarlet, snowy-white, 
 which showed brilliantly on the brown oak-leaf 
 carpet. 
 
 We spent at least two hours in riding through this 
 forest, and then we rose higher and higher, passing 
 along the upper edge of deep glens, with rushing 
 streams far beneath us. The most beautiful point 
 was one from which we looked down a vast straight
 
 TRIPOTAMO. 345 
 
 glen of some fifteen miles, almost as deep as a canon, 
 with the silvery Erymanthus river pursuing its 
 furious course so directly as to be clearly visible 
 all the way. But though ascending the river from 
 this point, where its course comes suddenly round a 
 corner, the upper country was no longer wooded, 
 but bleak, like most of the Alpine Arcadia, a country 
 of dire winters and great hardship to the population, 
 who till an unwilling soil on the steep slopes of giant 
 precipices. 
 
 We were much tempted to turn up another tortu- 
 ous glen to the hidden nest of Divri, where the 
 Greeks found refuge from Turkish prosecution in 
 the great war a place so concealed, and so difficult 
 of access, that an armed force has never penetrated 
 there. But the uncertainties of our route were too 
 many to admit of these episodes, so we hurried on 
 to reach the Kahn of Tripotamo in the evening a 
 resting-place which suggested to us strongly the inn 
 where St. John is reported to have slept in the 
 apocryphal Acts of his life. Being very tired with 
 preaching and travelling, he found it so impossible 
 to share the room with the bugs, that he besought 
 them in touching language to allow him to sleep ; 
 practically in virtue of his apostolic authority, he 
 ordered them out of the house. They all obeyed, 
 but when in the morning the apostle and his com- 
 panions found them waiting patiently outside the 
 door, he was so moved by their consideration for
 
 346 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 him, that he permitted them to return and infest the 
 house. 
 
 Nor were the bugs perhaps the worst. Being 
 awakened by a crunching noise in the night, I per- 
 ceived that a party of cats had come in to finish our 
 supper for us, and when startled by a flying boot, 
 they made our beds and bodies the stepping stones 
 for a leap to the rafters, and out through a large 
 hole in the roof. By and by I was aroused by the 
 splashing of cold water in my face, and found that a 
 heavy shower had come on, and was pouring through 
 the cats' passage. So I put up my umbrella in bed 
 till the shower was over the only time I felt rain 
 during the whole of that voyage. I notice that Miss 
 Agnes Smith, who travelled through these parts in 
 May, 1883, and had very similar experiences at Tri- 
 potamo, was wet through almost every day. We 
 did not see more than two showers, and were more- 
 over so fortunate as to have perfectly calm days 
 whenever we were crossing high passes, though in 
 general the breeze was so. strong as to be almost 
 stormy in the valleys. 
 
 Next morning we followed the river up to the 
 neighboring site of Psophis, so picturesquely de- 
 scribed by Polybius in his account of Philip V., and 
 his campaigns in Elis and Triphylia. 1 This town, 
 regarded as the frontier-town of Elis, Arcadia, and 
 Achaia, would well repay an enterprising excavator. 
 1 Polybius, iv. 70.
 
 OLONOS. 347 
 
 The description of Polybius can be verified without 
 difficulty, and ruins are still visible. We found out 
 from a solitary traveller that our way turned to the 
 north, up one of the affluents of the Erymanthus, 
 and so we ascended in company with this worthy 
 man to a village (Lechouri) under the highest preci- 
 pices of Olonos. He was full of the curiosity of a 
 Greek peasant Who were we, where did we come 
 from, were we married, had we children, how many, 
 what was our income, was it from land, was it paid 
 by the State, could we be dismissed by the Govern- 
 ment, were we going to write about Greece, what 
 would we say, etc., etc. ? Such was the conversa- 
 tion to which we submitted for the sake of his 
 guidance. But at last it seemed as if our way was 
 actually at an end, and we had come into an im- 
 passable cul-de-sac. Perpendicular walls of rock 
 surrounded us on all sides except where we had 
 entered by constantly fording the stream, or skirting 
 along its edge. Was it possible that the curiosity of 
 our fellow-traveller had betrayed him into leading us 
 up this valley to the village whither he himself was 
 bound I We sought anxiously for the answer, when 
 he showed us a narrow strip of dark pine-trees coming 
 down from above, in form like a little torrent, and 
 so reaching with a narrow thread of green to the 
 head of the valley. This was our pass, the pine- 
 trees with their roots and stems made a zigzag path 
 up the almost perpendicular wall possible, and so we
 
 348 KAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 wended our way up with infinite turnings, walking 
 or rather climbing for safety's sake, and to rest the 
 laboring mules. Often as I had before attempted 
 steep ascents with horses in Greece, I never saw 
 anything so astonishing as this. 
 
 When we had reached the top we found ourselves 
 on a narrow saddle, with snowy heights close to us 
 on both sides, the highest ridge of Olonos facing us 
 a few miles away, and a great pine forest reaching 
 down on the northern side, whither our descent was 
 to lead us. About us were still great patches of 
 snow, and in them were blowing the crocus and the 
 cyclamen, with deep blue scilla. Far away to the 
 south reached, in a great panorama, the mountains 
 of Arcadia, and even beyond them the highest 
 tops of Messene and Laconia were plainly visible. 
 The air was clear, the day was perfectly fine and 
 calm. To the north the chain of Erymanthus still 
 hid from us the far distance. For a long time, while 
 our muleteers slept and the mules and ponies rested, 
 we sat wondering at the great view. The barometer 
 indicated that we Avere at a height of about 5500 
 feet. The freshness and purity of the atmosphere 
 was such that no thought of hunger and fatigue 
 could mar our perfect enjoyment. In the evening, 
 descending through gloomy pines and dazzling snow, 
 we reached the village of Hagios Vlasos, where the 
 song of countless nightingales beguiled the hours of 
 the night, for here too sleep was not easily obtained.
 
 OLONOS. 349 
 
 The journey from this point to Patras, which we 
 accomplished in twelve hours, is not so interesting, 
 and the traveller who tries it now had better tele- 
 graph for a carriage to meet him as far as possible 
 on the way. By this time a good road is finished 
 for many miles, and the tedium and heat of the 
 plain, as you approach Patras, are very trying. 
 But with this help, I think no journey in all Greece 
 so well worth attempting, and of course it can be 
 accomplished in either direction. 
 
 Patras is indeed an excellent place for a starting- 
 point. Apart from the route just described, you can 
 go by boat to Vostitza, and thence to Megaspilion. 
 There are, moreover, splendid alpine ascents to be 
 made for those who like such work, to the summits 
 of Chelmos and Olonos (Erymanthus), and this is 
 best done from Patras. Moreover, Patras is itself a 
 most lovely place, commanding a noble view of the 
 coast and mountains of -ZEtolia across the narrow 
 fiord, as well as of the Ionian islands to the N. W. 
 Eight opposite is the ever-interesting site of Mis- 
 solonghi. Last, and perhaps not least, there is at 
 Patras a most respectable inn, indeed I should call 
 it a hotel, 1 where the traveller who has spent ten 
 
 1 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 8. George.
 
 350 KAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 days of rough outing in Peloponnesus will find a 
 haven of rest and comfort. From here steamers 
 will carry him to Athens round the coast, or home 
 to Italy.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ARCADIA ANDRITZENA BASS^E MEGALOPOLIS 
 
 TRIPOLITZA. 
 
 THERE is no name in Greece which raises in the 
 mind of the ordinary reader more pleasing and more 
 definite ideas than the name Arcadia. It has be- 
 come indissolubly connected with the charms of pas- 
 toral ease and rural simplicity. The sound of the 
 shepherd's pipe and the maiden's laughter, the rust- 
 ling of shady trees, the murmuring of gentle foun- 
 tains, the bleating of lambs and the lowing of oxen 
 these are the images of peace and plenty which 
 the poets have gathered about that ideal retreat. 
 There are none more historically false, more un- 
 founded in the real nature and aspect of the coun- 
 try, and more opposed to the sentiment of the an- 
 cients. Rugged mountains and gloomy defiles, a 
 harsh and wintry climate, a poor and barren soil, 
 tilled with infinite patience ; a home that exiled its 
 children to seek bread at the risk of their blood, a 
 climate more opposed to intelligence and to culture 
 than even Boeotian fogs, a safe retreat of bears and 
 wolves this is the Arcadia of old Greek history. 
 Politically it has no weight whatever till the days 
 
 351
 
 352 KAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 of Epaminondas, and the foundation of Megalopolis. 
 Intellectually, its rise is even later, and it takes no 
 national part in the great march of literature from 
 Homer to Menander. 1 It was only famed for the 
 marketable valor of its hardy mountaineers, of whom 
 the Tegeans had held their own even against the 
 power of Sparta, and obtained an honorable place in 
 her army. It was also noted for rude and primitive 
 cults, of which later men praised the simplicity and 
 homely piety at times also, the stern gloominess, 
 which did not turn from the offering of human 
 blood. 
 
 I must remind the reader that rural beauty among 
 the ancients, as well as among the Renaissance vis- 
 ions of an imaginary Arcadia as a rustic paradise, 
 by no means included the wild picturesqueness 
 which we admire in beetling cliffs and raging tor- 
 rents. These were inhospitable and savage to the 
 Greeks. It was the gentle slope, the rich pasture, 
 the placid river framed in deep foliage it was, 
 in fact, landscape-scenery like the valleys of the 
 Thames, or about the gray abbeys of Yorkshire, 
 which satisfied their notion of perfect landscape ; 
 and in this the men of the Renaissance were per- 
 fectly agreed with them. 
 
 How, then, did the false notion of our Arcadia 
 
 1 This is not contradicted by the fact of there being isolated 
 Arcadian poets, such as Echembrotus and Aristarchus, distin- 
 guished in foreign schools of art.
 
 ARCADIA. 353 
 
 spring up in modern Europe ? How is it that even 
 our daily papers assume this sense, and know it to 
 be intelligible to the most vulgar public ? The his- 
 tory of the change from the historical to the poetical 
 conception is very curious, and worth the trouble of 
 explaining, especially as we find it assumed in many 
 books, but accounted for in none. 
 
 It appears that from the oldest days the worship 
 of Pan had its home in Arcadia, particularly about 
 Mount Msenalus, and that it was already ancient 
 when it was brought to Athens at the time of the 
 Persian Wars. The extant Hymn to Pan, among 
 the Homeric Hymns, which may have been com- 
 posed shortly after that date, is very remarkable 
 for its idyllic and picturesque tone, and shows that 
 with this worship of Pan were early associated those 
 trains of nymphs and rustic gods, with their piping 
 and dance, which inspired Praxiteles's inimitable 
 Faun. These images are even transferred by Eu- 
 ripides to the Acropolis, where he describes the 
 daughters of Aglauros dancing on the sward, while 
 Pan is playing his pipe in the grotto underneath 
 (Ion, vv. 492, sqq.). Such facts seem to show a 
 gentle and poetical element in the stern and gloomy 
 mountaineers, who lived, like the Swiss of our day, 
 in a perpetual struggle with nature, and were all 
 their lives harassed with toil and saddened with 
 thankless fatigue. This conclusion is sustained by 
 the evidence of a far later witness, Polybius, who 
 
 23
 
 354 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 in his fourth book mentions the strictness with which 
 the Arcadians insisted upon an education in music, 
 as necessary to soften the harshness and wildness of 
 their life. He even maintains that the savagery of 
 one town (Kynajtha) was caused by a neglect of this 
 salutary precaution. So it happens that, although 
 Theocritus lays his pastoral scenes in the uplands 
 of Sicily, and the later pastoral romances, such as 
 the exquisite Daplinis and CI/loc, are particularly 
 associated with the voluptuous Lesbos, Vergil, in 
 several of his Eclogues, makes allusion to the musi- 
 cal talent of Arcadian shepherds, and in his tenth 
 brings the unhappy Gallus into direct relation to 
 Arcadia in connection with the worship of Pan on 
 Maenalus. But this prominent feature in Vergil 
 borrowed, I suppose, from some Greek poet, though 
 I know not from whom bore no immediate fruit. 
 His Roman imitators, Calpurnius and Nemesianus, 
 make no mention of Arcadia, and if they had, their 
 Avorks were not unearthed till the year 1534, wln-n 
 the poetical Arcadia had been already, as I shall 
 show, created. There seems no hint of the idea in 
 early Italian poetry ; l for according to the histories 
 of mediaeval literature, the pastoral romance did not 
 originate until the very end of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury, with the Portuguese Ribeyro, and he lays all 
 
 1 The Eclogues of Petrarch are modelled upon those of Vergil 
 to the exclusion of the most characteristic features borrowed by 
 the latter from Theocritus.
 
 ARCADIA. 355 
 
 the scenes of his idylls not in a foreign country, but 
 in Portugal, his own home. Thus we reach the year 
 1500 without any trace of a poetical Arcadia. But 
 at that very time it was being created by the single 
 work of a single man. The celebrated Jacopo San- 
 nazaro, known by the title of Actius Sincerus in the 
 affected society of literary Naples, exiled himself 
 from that city in consequence of a deep and unre- 
 quited passion. He lay concealed for a long time, 
 it is said, in the wilds of France, possibly in Egypt, 
 but certainly not in Greece, and immortalized his 
 grief in a pastoral medley of prose description and 
 idyllic complaint called Arcadia, 1 and suggested, I 
 
 1 The following extract from the first prose piece of the book 
 will show how absolutely imaginary is his Arcadia, with its impos- 
 sible combination of trees, and its absence of winter : 
 
 " Giace nella sommita di Partenio, non umile monte della pas- 
 torale Arcadia, un dilettevole piano, di ampiezza non molto spa- 
 zioso, peroche il sito del luogo non consente, ma di minuta e 
 vc-rdissima erbetta si ripieno, che, se le lascive pecorelle con gli 
 avidi morsi non vi pasceresso, vi si potrebbed'ogni tempo ritrovare 
 verdnitk Ove, se io non m'inganno, son forse dodici o quindici 
 alberi di tanto strana ed eccessiva bellezza, che chiunque le ve- 
 desse, giudieherebbe 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 rarita. la naturale bel- 
 lezza del luogo oltra misura annobiliscono. Quivi senza nodo 
 veruno si vede il dritissimo abete, nato a sostenere i pericoli del 
 mare; e con piu aperti rami la robusta quercia, e 1'alto frassino, 
 e lo amenissimo platano vi si distendano, con le loro ombre non 
 picciola parte del bello e copioso prato occupundo ; ed evvi con 
 piu breve fronda 1'albero, di che Ercole coronare si solea, nel cui
 
 356 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 believe, by the Gallus of Vergil. Though the 
 learned and classical author despised this work in 
 comparison with his heroic poem on the Conception 
 of the Virgin Mary, the public of the day thought 
 differently. Appearing in 1502, the Arcadia of 
 Sanuazaro went through sixty editions during the 
 century, and so this single book created that imagi- 
 nary home of innocence and grace which has ever 
 since been attached to the name. Its occurrence 
 henceforward is so frequent as to require no further 
 illustration in this place. 
 
 But let us turn from this poetical and imaginary 
 country to the real land from Arcadia to Arcadia, 
 as it is called by the real inhabitants. As everybody 
 knows, this Arcadia is the alpine centre of the 
 Morea, bristling with mountain chains, which reach 
 their highest points in the great bar of Erymanthus, 
 to the N. W., in the lonely peak of " Cyllene hoar," 
 to the N. E., in the less conspicuous, but far more 
 sacred Lykseon, to the S. W., and finally, in the ser- 
 
 pedale le misere figlinole di Climene furono trasformate : ed in un 
 de' lati si scerne il noderoso castagno, il fronzuto bosco, e con pun- 
 tate foglie lo eccelso pino carico di durissimi frutti ; nell' altro 
 1'ombroso faggio, la incorruttibile tiglia, il fragile tamarisco, in- 
 sieme con la orientale palma, dolci ed onorato premio dei vinci- 
 tori. 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.
 
 THE ALPHEUS. 357 
 
 rated Taygetus to the S. E. These four are the angles, 
 as it were, of a quadrilateral enclosing Arcadia. Yet 
 these are but the greatest among chains of great 
 mountains, which seem to traverse the country in 
 all directions, and are not easily distinguished, or 
 separated into any connected system. 1 They are 
 nevertheless interrupted, as we found, by two fine 
 oval plains both stretching north and south, both 
 surrounded with a beautiful panorama of mountains, 
 and both, of course, the seats of the old culture, such 
 as it was in Arcadia. That which is southerly and 
 westerly, and from which the rivers still flow into the 
 Alpheus and the western sea, 2 is guarded at its south 
 end by Megalopolis. That which is more east, which 
 is higher in level, and separated from the former by 
 the bleak bar of Msenalus, is the plain of Mantinea 
 and Tegea, now represented by the- important town 
 of Tripolitza. These two parallel plains give some 
 plan and system to the confusion of mountains which 
 cover the ordinary maps of Arcadia. 
 
 The passage from Elis into Arcadia is nowhere 
 marked by any natural boundary. You ride up the 
 valley of the Alpheus, crossing constantly the 
 
 1 It is worth noting tfiat the Arcadian vision in the Shepherd of 
 Ilei-max, describing a scene of twelve mountains of varied and con- 
 trasted aspect, though intended for an allegorical purpose, is really 
 faithful to nature, and suggests that the author knew something of 
 the country he describes. 
 
 2 Pausanias places the source of the Alpheus higher up, and 
 close to Tege'a in the eastern plain.
 
 358 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 streams, great and small, which come flowing into 
 it from the spurs of Erymanthus, from northern 
 Arcadia, and the adjoining highlands of Elis. The 
 stream called Erymanthus, which is the old boun- 
 dary, though called a Idftpoz /rora,6c by Polybius, 
 does not strike the traveller here as it does higher 
 up in its course, and the only other confluent water 
 worth mentioning is the Ladon, which meets the 
 Alpheus at some hours' ride above Olympia, but 
 which counted of old as a river of Arcadia. This 
 Ladon seems to have specially struck Pausanias with 
 its beauty, as he returns to it several times ; and 
 later observers, such as M. Beule", have corroborated 
 him, saying that on the banks of this river you may 
 indeed find the features of the poetical Arcadia 
 grassy slopes and great shady trees, without the de- 
 files and precipices so common in the inner country. 
 The Ladon and its valley in fact, though in Arcadia, 
 partake of the character of the neighboring Elis : it 
 is the outer boundary of the real Alps. The Al- 
 pheus, on the contrary, which is a broad, peaceful 
 stream when it passes into tamer country, comes 
 through the wildest part of central Arcadia ; and if 
 you follow its course upward, will lead you first past 
 the ancient site of Hersea, a few miles above the 
 Ladon, and then through rugged and savage moun- 
 tains, till you at last ascend to the valley of Mega- 
 lopolis, round which it winds in a great curve. AVe 
 did not follow this route, nor did we ascend the
 
 HIDE TO ANDRITZENA. 359 
 
 valley of the Ladon, in spite of its reputed beauties. 
 For we were bound for Andritzena, a ride of eleven 
 hours from Olympia, which lay to the S. E., and 
 within easy distance of the temple of Basssc. We 
 therefore forded the Alpheus, just above the conflu- 
 ence of the Ladon. where the two rivers form a 
 great delta of sand, and the stream is broad and 
 comparatively shallow. The banks were clothed 
 with brushwood, and above it with a green forest, 
 along the grassy margin of which scarlet anemones 
 were scattered like our primroses among the stems 
 of the trees, and varied with their brightness the 
 mosses and hoary lichen. From this point onward 
 we began to cross narrow defiles, and climb up steeps 
 which seemed impossible to any horse or mule. We 
 entered secluded mountain valleys, where the inhabi- 
 tants appeared to live apart from all the world, and 
 looked with wonder upon the sudden stranger. We 
 rested beside tumbling rivers, rushing from great 
 wooded mountain sides, which stood up beside us 
 like walls of waving green. The snow had dis- 
 appeared from these wild valleys but a few weeks, 
 and yet even the later trees were already clothed 
 with that yellow and russet brown which is not only 
 the faded remnant, but also the forerunner, of the 
 summer green. And down by the river's side the 
 gray fig trees were putting forth great tufts at the 
 end of every branch, while the pear trees were 
 showering their snowy blossoms upon the stream.
 
 360 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 But in one respect, all this lonely solitude showed a 
 marked contrast to the wilds of northern Greece. 
 Every inch of available ground was cultivated ; all 
 the steep hill sides were terraced in ridges with in- 
 finite labor ; the ravages of the winter's torrent were 
 being actively repaired. There was indeed in some 
 sense a solitude. No idlers or wanderers were to be 
 seen on the way. But the careful cultivation of all 
 the country showed that there was not only popula- 
 tion, but a thrifty and careful population. All the 
 villages seemed encumbered with the remains of re- 
 cent building ; for almost all the houses were new, 
 or erected within very few years. The whole of 
 this alpine district seemed happy and prosperous. 
 This, say the Greeks, is the result of its remoteness 
 from the Turkish frontier, its almost insular position 
 in fact, of its being under undisturbed Hellenic 
 rule. No bandit has been heard of in Arcadia since 
 the year 1847. Life and property are, I should 
 think, more secure than in any part of England. 
 Morals are remarkably pure. If all Greece were 
 occupied in this way by a contented and industrious 
 peasantry, undisturbed by ambition from within or 
 violence from without, the kingdom must soon be- 
 come rich and prosperous. It was not uncommon to 
 find in these valleys two or three secluded home- 
 steads, miles from any village. This is the surest 
 sign both of outward security and of inward thrift, 
 when people cut themselves off from society for the
 
 ANDRITZENA. 361 
 
 sake of ample room and good return for their in- 
 dustry. Late in the evening we entered the steep 
 streets of the irregular but considerable town of 
 Andritzena. 
 
 We experienced in this place some of the rude- 
 ness of Greek travel. As the party was too large 
 to be accommodated in a private house, we sought 
 the shelter of a ^ouo%ziov, as it is still called an 
 inn with no chairs, no beds, one tiny table, and 
 about two spoons and forks. We were in fact 
 lodged within four bare walls, with a balcony out- 
 side the room, and slept upon rugs laid on the floor. 
 The people were very civil and honest in this 
 a great contrast to the inn at Tripolitza, of which 
 I shall speak in due time and were, moreover, con- 
 siderably inconvenienced by our arrival during the 
 Passion Week of the Greek Church, when there is 
 hardly anything eaten. There was no meat, of 
 course, in the town. But this was not all. No 
 form of milk, cheese, or curds, is allowed during 
 this fast. The people live on black bread, olives, 
 and hard-boiled eggs. They are wholly given up 
 to their processions and services ; they are ready 
 to think of nothing else. Thus we came not only 
 to a place scantily supplied, but at the scantiest 
 moment of the year. This is a fact of great impor- 
 tance to travellers in Greece, and one not mentioned, 
 I think, in the guide-books. Without making care- 
 ful provision beforehand by telegraph, no one should
 
 362 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 venture into the highlands of Greece during this very 
 Holy Week, and it should be remembered that it 
 does not coincide with the Passion or Holy Week of 
 the Latin Church. It was just ten days later on 
 this occasion ; so that, after having suffered some 
 hardships from this unforeseen cause in remote parts 
 of Italy, we travelled into the same difficulty in 
 Greece. But I must say that a Greek fast is a 
 very different thing from the mild and human fasting 
 of the Roman Catholic Church. We should have 
 been well-nigh starved had I not appealed, as was 
 my wont, to the physician, o x'J t oio~ tarpoz, of the 
 town, a very amiable and cultivated man, and really 
 educated in the most philosophical views of modern 
 medicine. He was well acquainted, for example, 
 with the clinical practice of the Dublin- school, as 
 exemplified in the works of Graves and Stokes. It 
 seems to me, from a comparison of many instances, 
 that in this matter of medicine, as indeed generally, 
 the Greeks show remarkable intelligence and enter- 
 prise as compared with the nations around them. 
 They study in the great centres of European thought. 
 They know the more important languages in which 
 this science can be pursued. A traveller taken ill 
 in the remote valleys of Arcadia would receive far 
 safer and better treatment than would be his lot in 
 most parts of Italy. 
 
 The gentleman to whom I appealed in this case 
 did all he could to save us from starvation. He
 
 ANDRITZENA. 363 
 
 procured for vis excellent fresh curds. He obtained 
 us the promise of meat from the mountains. He 
 came to visit us, and tell us what we required to know 
 of the neighborhood. Thus we were able to spend 
 the earlier portion of the night in comparative com- 
 fort. But, as might have been expected, when the 
 hour for sleep had arrived our real difficulties began. 
 I was protected by a bottle of spirits of camphor, 
 Avith which my rugs and person were sufficiently 
 scented to make me an object of aversion to my 
 assailants. But the rest of the party were not so 
 fortunate. It was, in fact, rather an agreeable 
 diversion, when we were roused, or rather, perhaps, 
 distracted, shortly after midnight, by piercing yells 
 from a number of children, who seemed to be slowly 
 approaching our street. 
 
 On looking out a very curious scene presented 
 itself. All the little children were coming in slow 
 procession, each with a candle in its hand, and shout- 
 ing Kyrie Eleison at the top of its voice. After the 
 children came the women and the older men (I fancy 
 many of the younger men were absent), also with 
 candles, and in the midst a sort of small bier, with 
 an image of the dead Christ laid out upon it, decked 
 with tinsel and flowers, and surrounded with lights. 
 Along with it came priests in their robes, singing in 
 gruff bass some sort of Litany. The whole proces- 
 sion adjourned to the church of the town, where the 
 women went to a separate gallery, the men gathered
 
 364 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 in the body of the building, and a guard of soldiers 
 with fixed bayonets stood around the bier of their 
 Christ. Though the congregation seemed very- 
 devout, and many of them in tears at the sufferings 
 of their Saviour, they nevertheless all turned round 
 to look at the strangers who chanced to witness their 
 devotions. To those who come from without, and 
 from a different cult, and see the service of a strange 
 nation in a strange tongue, the mesquin externals 
 are the first striking point, and we wonder how deep 
 devotion and true piety can exist along with what 
 is apparently mean and even grotesque. And yet 
 it is in these poor and shabby services, it is with 
 this neglect or insouciance of detail, that purer 
 faith and better morals are found than in the gor- 
 geous pageants and stately ceremonies of metropol- 
 itan cathedrals. 
 
 We rose in the morning eager to start on our 
 three hours' ride to Bassae, where Ictinus had built 
 his famous but inaccessible temple to Apollo the 
 Helper. The temple is very usually called the 
 temple of Phigalia, and its friezes are called Phiga- 
 lian, I think, in the British Museum. This is so 
 far true that it was built for and managed by the 
 people of Phigalia. But the town Avas a consider- 
 able distance off, according to Pausanias forty 
 stadia, or about five miles, and he tells us they 
 built the temple at a place called Bassse (the glades), 
 near the summit of Mount Kotilion. Accordingly,
 
 THE RIDE TO BASS^E. 365 
 
 it ought to be consistently called the temple at or 
 of Bassse. 
 
 The morning, as is not unusual in these Alps, was 
 lowering arid gloomy, and as we and our patient 
 mules climbed up a steep ascent out of the town, 
 the rain began to fall in great threatening drops. 
 But we Avoulcl not be daunted. The way led among 
 gaunt and naked mountain sides, and often up the 
 bed of winter torrents. The lateness of the spring, 
 for the snow was now hardly gone, added to the 
 gloom ; the summer shrubs and the summer grass 
 were not yet green, and the country retained most 
 of its wintry bleakness. Now and their there met 
 us in the solitude a shepherd coming from the moun- 
 tains, covered in his white woollen cowl, and with 
 a lamb of the same soft dull color upon his shoulders. 
 It was the day of preparation for the Easter feast, 
 and the lamb was being brought by this picturesque 
 shepherd, not to the fold, but to the slaughter. Yet 
 there was a strange and fascinating suggestion in the 
 serious face surrounded by its symphony of white, 
 in the wilderness around, in the helpless patience of 
 the animal, all framed in a background of gray mist, 
 and dripping with abundant rain. As we wound our 
 way through the mountains we came to glens of 
 richer color and friendlier aspect. The sound of 
 merry boys and baying dogs reached up to us from 
 below as we skirted far up along the steep sides, 
 still seeking a higher and higher level. Here the
 
 366 KAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 primrose and violet took the place of the scarlet and 
 the purple anemone, and cheered us with the sight 
 of northern flowers, and with the fairest produce of 
 a northern spring. 
 
 At last we attained a weird country, in which the 
 ground was bare, save where some sheltered and 
 sunny spot showed bunches of very tall violets, 
 hanging over in tufts, rare purple anemones, and 
 here and there a great full iris ; yet these patches 
 were so exceptional as to make a strong contrast 
 with the brown soil. But the main features were 
 single oak-trees Avith pollarded tops and gnarled 
 branches, AYhich stood about all over these lofty 
 slopes, and gave them a melancholy and dilapidated 
 aspect. They showed no mark of spring, no shoot 
 or budding leaf, but the russet brown rags of last 
 year's clothing hung here and there upon the 
 branches. These wintry signs, the gloomy mist, 
 and the insisting rain gave us the feeling of chill 
 October. And yet the weird oaks, with their 
 branches tortured as it were by storm and frost 
 these crippled limbs, which looked as if the pains of 
 age and disease had laid hold of the sad tenants of 
 this alpine desert were colored with their own 
 peculiar loveliness. All the stems were clothed 
 Avith delicate silver-gray lichen, save where great 
 patches of velvety, pale green moss spread a Avarm 
 mantle about them. This beautiful contrast of gray 
 and yellow-green may be seen upon many of our
 
 BASSJE.. 367 
 
 own oak-trees in the winter, and makes these the 
 most richly colored of all the leafless stems in our 
 frosty landscape. But here there were added among 
 the branches huge tufts of mistletoe, brighter and 
 yellower than the moss, yet of the same grassy hue, 
 though of different texture. And there were trees so 
 clothed with this foreign splendor that they looked like 
 some quaint species of great evergreen. It seemed 
 a.s if the summer's foliage must have really impaired 
 the character and the beauty of this curious" forest. 
 
 At last we crossed a long flat summit, and began 
 to descend, when we presently came upon the temple 
 from the north, facing us on a lower part of the lofty 
 ridge. As we approached, the mist began to clear 
 away, and the sun shone out upon the scene, while 
 the clouds rolled back toward the east, and gradually 
 disclosed to us the splendid prospect which the sanc- 
 tuary commands. All the southern Peloponnesus 
 lay before us. We could see the western sea, and 
 the gulf of Koron to the south ; but the long ridge 
 of Taygctus and the mountains of Malea hid from 
 us the eastern seas. The rich slopes of Messene, 
 and the rugged highlands of northern Laconia and 
 of Arcadia, filled up the nearer view. There still 
 remained here and there a cloud which made a blot 
 in the picture, and marred the completeness of the 
 landscape. 
 
 Nothing can be stranger than the remains of a 
 beautiful temple in this alpine solitude. Greek life
 
 368 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 is a sort of protest for cities and plains and human 
 culture, against picturesque Alps and romantic 
 scenery. Yet here we have a building of the 
 purest age and type set up far from the cities and 
 haunts of men, and in the midst of such a scene as 
 might be chosen by the most romantic and senti- 
 mental modern. It was dedicated to Apollo the 
 Helper, for his deliverance of the country from the 
 same plague which devastated Athens at the open- 
 ing of the Peloponnesian War, 1 and was built by the 
 greatest architect of the day, Ictinus, the builder of 
 the Parthenon. 
 
 It was reputed in Pausanias's day the most beauti- 
 ful temple in Peloponnesus, next to that of Athene 
 Alea at Tegea. Even its roof was of marble tiles, 
 and the cutting of the limestone soffits of the ceiling 
 is still so sharp and clear, that specimens have been 
 brought to Athens, as the most perfect of the kind. 
 The friezes, discovered years ago (1812), and quite 
 close to the surface, by Mr. Cockerell and his friends, 
 were carried away, and are now one of the greatest 
 ornaments of the British Museum. Any one who 
 desires to know every detail of the building, and see 
 its general effect when restored, must consult Cock- 
 erell's elaborate work on this and the temple of 
 yEgina. It affords many problems to the architect. 
 Each of the pillars within the cella was engaged or 
 
 1 This is what Pausanias says, though modern scholars seem 
 very doubtful about it.
 
 BASS.E. 369 
 
 attached to the wall, by joinings at right angles with 
 it, the first pair only reaching forward toward the 
 spectator as he entered. The temple faces north, 
 contrary to the usual habit of the Greeks. In the 
 very centre was found a Corinthian capital another 
 anomaly in a Doric temple, and at the epoch of 
 Periclean art. In Mr. Cockerell's restoration of the 
 interior, this capital is fitted to a solitary pillar in 
 the centre of the cella, and close to the statue of the 
 god, which apparently faced sideways, and looked 
 toward the rising sun. It is a more popular theory 
 that it was set up much later, with some votive 
 tripod upon it, and that it does not belong to the 
 original structure. The frieze in this temple was 
 not along the outside wall of the cella, but inside, 
 and over the pillars, as the narrow side aisle (if 
 I may so call it) between the pillars and cella 
 wall was broken by the joining of the former, 
 five at each side, with the latter. I cannot but 
 fancy that this transference of the friezes to the 
 inner side of the wall was caused by the feeling 
 that the Parthenon friezes, upon which such great 
 labor and such exquisite taste had been lavished, 
 were after all very badly seen, being " skied " into 
 a place not worthy of them. Any one who will look 
 up at the remaining band on the west front of the 
 Parthenon from the foot of the pillars beneath will, 
 I think, agree with me. At Basse there are many 
 peculiarities in the Ionic capitals, and in the orna- 
 
 24
 
 370 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 mentation of this second monument of Ictinus's 
 genius, which have occupied the architects, but on 
 which I will not here insist. 1 The general effect is 
 one of smallness, as compared with the Parthenon ; 
 of lightness and grace, as compared with the temple 
 at Olympia, the Doric pillars being here somewhat 
 more slender than those of the Parthenon, though 
 the other proportions are not unlike. The style of 
 the frieze has been commented upon in all our his- 
 tories of Greek art. The effect produced is, more- 
 over, that of lateness, as compared with the Athen- 
 ian sculptures ; there is more exaggerated action, 
 flying drapery and contorted limbs, and altogether a 
 conscious striving to give a strong effect. But the exe- 
 cution, which was probably entrusted to native artists 
 under Attic direction, is inferior to good Attic work, 
 and in some cases positively faulty. Unfortunately, 
 this part of the temple is in London, not at Bassse. 
 
 1 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 Herceon (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.
 
 BASS.E. 371 
 
 The ruin, as we saw it, was very striking and un- 
 like any other we had visited in Greece. It is built 
 of the limestone which crops up all over the moun- 
 tain plateau on which it stands j and, as the sun 
 shone upon it after recent rain, was of a delicate 
 bluish-gray color, so like the surface of the ground 
 in tone that it almost seemed to have grown out of 
 the rock, as its natural product. The pillars are 
 indeed by no means monoliths, but set together of 
 short drums, of which the inner row are but the 
 rounded ends of long blocks which reach back to 
 the cella wall. But as the grain of the stone runs 
 across the pillars they have become curiously 
 wrinkled with age, so that the artificial joinings are 
 lost among the wavy transverse lines, which make 
 us imagine the pillars sunk with years and fatigue, 
 and weary of standing in this wild and gloomy 
 solitude. There is a great oak-tree, such as I have 
 already described, close beside the temple, and the 
 coloring of its stem forms a curious contrast to the 
 no less beautiful shading of the time-worn pillars. 
 Their ground being a pale bluish-gray, the lichens 
 which invade the stone have varied the fluted sur- 
 face with silver, with bright orange, and still more 
 with a delicate rose madder. Even under a mid-day 
 sun these rich colors were very wonderful, but what 
 must they be at sunset ? 
 
 There is something touching in the unconscious 
 efforts of Nature to h'll up the breaks and heal the
 
 372 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 rents which time and desolation have made in human 
 work. If a gap occurs in the serried ranks of city 
 buildings by sudden accident or natural decay, the 
 site is forthwith concealed with hideous boarding ; 
 upon which, presently, staring portraits of latest 
 clown or merriest mountebank mock as it were the 
 ruin within, and advertise their idle mirth an uglier 
 fringe around the ugly stains of fire or the heaps 
 of formless masonry. How different is the hand of 
 Nature ! Whether in the northern abbey or in the 
 southern fane, no sooner are the monuments of 
 human patience and human pride abandoned and 
 forgotten, than Nature takes them into her gentle 
 care, covers them with ivy, with lichen, and with 
 moss, plants her shrubs about them, and sows them 
 with countless flowers. And thus, when a later age 
 repents the ingratitude of its forerunners, and turns 
 with new piety to atone for generations of forgetful- 
 ness, Nature's mantle has concealed from harm much 
 that had else been destroyed, and covered the re- 
 mainder with such beauty that we can hardly con- 
 ceive these triumphs of human art more lovely in 
 their old perfection than in their modern solitude 
 and decay. 
 
 The way from Andritzena to Megalopolis leads 
 down from the rugged frontiers of Arcadia and 
 Messene, till we reach the fine rolling plain which 
 has Karytena at its northern, and Megalopolis near
 
 MEGALOPOLIS. 373 
 
 its southern, extremity. Our guides were in liigh 
 spirits, and kept singing in turn a quaint love song, 
 which, after the usual timeless flourishes and shakes 
 at the opening, ended in the following phrase, 
 which their constant repetition stamped upon my 
 memory : 
 
 The way was at first steep and difficult we were 
 still in the land of the violet and primrose. But after 
 an hour's ride we came into a forest which already 
 showed summer signs ; and here we found again the 
 anemone, the purple and white cistus, among shrubs 
 of mastich and arbutus. Here, too, we found the 
 cyclamen, which is such a favorite in the green- 
 houses and gardens of England. We passed a few 
 miles to the south of Karytena, with its wonderful, 
 and apparently impregnable Frankish fortress perched 
 like an eagle's nest on the top of a huge cliff, from 
 which there must be a splendid outlook not only down 
 the valley of Megalopolis, but into the northern 
 passes from Achaia, and the mountains of Elis. I 
 can conceive no military post more important to the 
 Arcadian plain, and yet it seems to have attained 
 no celebrity in ancient history. From this fortress 
 to the southern end of the plain, where the passes 
 lead to Sparta and to northern Messene, there lies 
 extended a very rich vein of country about twenty-
 
 374 RAMBLES IX GREECE. 
 
 five miles long, and ten or twelve broad, with some 
 undulation, but practically a plain, well irrigated 
 with rapid rivers, and waving with deep grass and 
 green wheat. There are flourishing villages scat- 
 tered along the slopes of the mountains, and all the 
 district seems thoroughly tilled, except the region 
 south of the town, where forests of olives give a 
 wilder tone to the landscape. 
 
 I confess I had not understood the history of the 
 celebrated foundation of Megalopolis, until I came 
 to study the features of this plain. Here, as else- 
 where, personal acquaintance with the geography 
 of the country is the necessary condition of a living 
 knowledge of its history. As is well known, imme- 
 diately after the battle of Leuctra the Arcadians 
 proceeded to build this metropolis, as a safeguard 
 or makeweight against the neighboring power of 
 Sparta. Pausanias, who is very full and instructive 
 on the founding of the city, tells us that the foun- 
 ders came from the chief towns of Arcadia Tegea, 
 Mantinea, Kleitor, and Ma3nalus. But these cities 
 had no intention of merging themselves in the new 
 capital. In fact, Mantinea and Tegea were in them- 
 selves fully as important a check on Sparta in their 
 own valley, and were absolutely necessary to hold 
 the passes northward to Argos, which lay in that 
 direction. But the nation insisted upon all the 
 village populations in and around the western plain 
 (which hitherto had possessed no leading city) amal-
 
 MEGALOPOLIS. 375 
 
 gamating into Megalopolis, and deserting their an- 
 .eient homes. Many obeyed ; Pausanias enumerates 
 about forty of them. Those who refused were ex- 
 iled, or even massacred by the enraged majority. 
 Thus there arose suddenly the great city, the latest 
 foundation of a city in Classical Greece. But in 
 his account it seems to me that Pausanias has omit- 
 ted to take sufficient note of the leading spirit of 
 all the movement the Theban Epaminondas. No 
 doubt, the traveller's Arcadian informants were too 
 thoroughly blinded by national vanity to give him 
 the real account, if indeed, they knew it themselves. 
 They represented it as the spontaneous movement 
 of the nation, and even stated it to have been done 
 in imitation of Argos, which in older times, when in 
 almost daily danger of Spartan war, had abolished 
 all the townships through Argolis, and thus increased 
 its power and consolidated its population. 
 
 But the advice and support of Epaminondas, 
 which made him the real founder, point to another 
 model. The traveller who comes, after he has seen 
 northern Greece, into the plain of Megalopolis, is at 
 once struck with its extraordinary likeness to that 
 of Thebes. There is the same circuit of mountains, 
 the same undulation in the plain, the same abun- 
 dance of water, the same attractive sites on the slopes 
 for the settlements of men. It was not then Argos, 
 with its far remote and not very successful central- 
 ization, but Thebes, which was the real model ; and
 
 376 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 the idea was brought out into actuality not by Arca- 
 dian but by Theban statesmanship. Any Theban 
 who had visited the plain could not but have this 
 policy suggested to him by the memory of his own 
 home. But here Epaminondas seems to have con- 
 cealed his influence, and carried out his policy 
 through Arcadian agents, merely sending 1000 
 Thebans, under Pammencs, to secure his allies 
 against hostile disturbances, whereas he proceeded 
 to the foundation of Messene in person, and with 
 great circumstance, as the dreams and oracles, the 
 discussions about the site, and the pomp at the cere- 
 mony amply show, even in the cold narrative of 
 Pausanias. But Megalopolis, though a great and 
 brilliant experiment, was not a lasting success. It 
 was laid out on too large a scale, and in after years 
 became rather a great wilderness ,than a great city. 1 
 It was full of splendid buildings the theatre, even 
 now, is one of the most gigantic in Greece. But 
 the violences of its foundation, which tore from 
 their homes and household gods many citizens of 
 ancient and hallowed sites, were never forgotten. 
 It was long a leading city in politics, but never 
 became a favorite residence, and fell early into 
 
 1 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.
 
 MEGALOPOLIS. 377 
 
 decay. "Although," says Pausanias (8. 33), "the 
 great city was founded with all zeal by the Arca- 
 dians, and with the brightest expectations on the 
 part of the Greeks, I am not astonished that it has 
 lost all its elegance and ancient splendor, and most 
 of it is now ruined, for I know that Providence is 
 pleased to work perpetual change, and that all 
 things alike, both strong and weak, whether com- 
 ing into life or passing into nothingness, are changed 
 by a Fortune which controls them with an iron ne- 
 cessity. Thus Mycenae, Nineveh, and the Boeotian 
 Thebes are for the most part completely deserted and 
 destroyed, but the name of Thebes has descended to 
 the mere acropolis and very few inhabitants. Others, 
 formerly of extraordinary wealth, the Egyptian 
 Thebes and the Minyan Orchomenus and Delos, 
 the common mart of the Greeks, are some of them 
 inferior in wealth to that of a private man of not 
 the richest class ; while Delos, being deprived of the 
 charge of the Oracle by the Athenians who settled 
 there, is, as regards Delians, depopulated. At Baby- 
 lon the temple of Belus remains, but of this Baby- 
 lon, once the greatest city under the sun, there is 
 nothing left but the wall, as there is of Tiryns in 
 Argolis. These the Deity has reduced to naught. 
 But the city of Alexander in Egypt, and of Seleu- 
 cus on the Orontes, built the other day, have risen 
 to such greatness and prosperity, because Fortune 
 favors them. . Thus the affairs of men have
 
 378 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 their seasons, and are by no means permanent." 
 These words of Pausanias have but increased in 
 force with the lapse of centuries. The whole an- 
 cient capital of the Arcadians has well-nigh disap- 
 peared. The theatre, cut out from the deep earthen 
 river bank, and faced along the wings with massive 
 masonry, is still visible, though overgrown with 
 shrubs ; and the English school of Athens is now 
 prosecuting its exploration (1892). 
 
 The ancient town lay on both sides of the river 
 Helisson, which is a broad and silvery stream, but 
 not difficult to ford, as we saw it in spring, and Pau- 
 sanias mentions important public buildings on both 
 banks. Now there seems nothing but a mound, 
 called the tomb of Philopcemen, on the north side, 
 with a few scanty foundations. On the south side 
 the stylobate of at least one temple is still almost on 
 the level of the soil, and myriads of fragments of 
 baked clay tell us that this material was largely 
 used in the walls of a city where a rich alluvial 
 soil afforded a very scant}' supply of stone a dif- 
 ficulty rare in Greece. The modem town lies a 
 mile to the south of the river, and quite clear of the 
 old site, so that excavations can be made without 
 considerable cost, and with good hope of results. 
 But the absence of any really archaic monument has, 
 till recently, damped the ardor of the archaeologists. 
 
 The aspect of the present Megalopolis is very 
 pleasing. Its streets are wide and clean, though
 
 MEGALOPOLIS. 379 
 
 for the most part grown over with grass, and a 
 single dark green cypress takes, as it were, the 
 place of a spire among the flat roofs. We found 
 the town in holiday, and the inhabitants at least 
 the men in splendid attire. For the women of the 
 Morea have, alas ! abandoned their national costume, 
 and appear in tawdry and ill-made dresses. Even 
 the men who have travelled adopt the style of third- 
 rate Frenchmen or Germans, and go about in tall 
 hats, with a dirty gray plaid wrapped about their 
 shoulders. To see these shoddy-looking persons 
 among a crowd of splendid young men in Palikar 
 dress, with the erect carriage and kingly mien 
 which that very tight costume produces, is like 
 seeing a miserable street cur among a pack of fox- 
 hounds. And yet we were informed that, for polit- 
 ical reasons, and in order to draw the Greeks from 
 their isolation into European habits, the national 
 dress is now forbidden in the schools ! 
 
 We were welcomed with excellent hospitality in 
 the town, and received by a fine old gentleman, 
 whose sons, two splendid youths in full costume, at- 
 tended us in person. Being people of moderate 
 means, they allowed us, with a truer friendliness than 
 that of more ostentatious hosts, to pay for the most 
 of the materials we required, which they got for us 
 of the best quality, at the lowest price, and cooked 
 and prepared them for us in the house. We inquired 
 of the father what prospects were open to his hand-
 
 380 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 some sons, who seemed born to be soldiers the 
 ornaments of a royal pageant in peace, the stay of 
 panic in battle. He complained that there was no 
 scope for their energies. Of course, tilling of the 
 soil could never satisfy them. One of them was sec- 
 retary to the Demarchus, on some miserable salary. 
 He had gone as far as Alexandria to seek his for- 
 tune, but had come home again, with the tastes and 
 without the wealth of a rich townsman. So they 
 are fretting away their life in idleness. I fear that 
 such cases are but too common in the country towns 
 of Greece. 
 
 The people brought us to see many pieces of 
 funeral slabs, of marble pillars, and of short and late 
 inscriptions built into house walls. They also sold 
 us good coins of Philip of Macedon at a moderate 
 price. The systematic digging about the old site 
 undertaken by the English school will probably bring 
 to light many important remains. 1 There is a car- 
 riage road from Megalopolis to Argos, but the portion 
 inside the town was then only just finished, so we 
 preferred riding as far as Tripoli. Travellers now 
 landing at Argos will find it quite practicable to 
 drive from the coast to this central plain of Arcadia, 
 and then begin their riding. There is now, alas ! a 
 
 1 The results hitherto attained are still uncertain, owing to an 
 active controversy between Dr. Diirpfeld and the English ex- 
 plorers, wluch has not yet (1892) been settled. I forbear entering 
 upon it here.
 
 A Greek Peasant in National Costume
 
 TRIPOLITZA. 381 
 
 railway from Argos to Tripoli in progress. By this 
 means even ladies can easily cross the Morea. Two 
 days' driving to Megalopolis, two days' riding to Olym- 
 pia, and an easy day's drive and train to Katakalo, 
 would be the absolute time required for the transit. 
 But the difficulty is still to find a comfortable night's 
 lodging between the first and second day's ride, both 
 of them long and fatiguing journeys. Andritzena is 
 too near Megalopolis, and not to be recommended 
 without introductions. But there is probably some 
 village on another route which would afford a half- 
 way house. From Tripoli and from Megalopolis, 
 which command their respective plains, excursions 
 could be made to Mantinea, to Sparta, and best of 
 all to Kalamata, where a coasting steamer calls fre- 
 quently. 
 
 As we rode up the slopes of Mount Msenalus, 
 which separates the plain of Tegea from that of 
 Megalopolis, we often turned to admire the splendid 
 view beneath, and count the numerous villages now 
 as of old under the headship of the great town. The 
 most striking feature was doubtless the snowy ridge 
 of Taygetus, which reaches southward, and showed 
 us the course of the Eurotas on its eastern side, 
 along which a twelve hours' ride brings the traveller 
 to Sparta. The country into which we passed was 
 wild arid barren in the extreme, and, like most so- 
 i-nllrd mountains in Greece, consisted of a series of 
 parallel and of intersecting ridges, with short valleys
 
 382 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 or high plateaus between them. This journey, per- 
 haps the bleakest in all Peloponnesus, until it ap- 
 proaches the plain of Tegea, is through Mount 
 Msenalus, the ancestral seat of the worship of Pan, 
 and therefore more than any other tract of Arcadia 
 endowed with pastoral richness and beauty by the 
 poets. There may be more fertile tracts farther 
 north in these mountains. There may in ancient 
 times have been forest or verdure where all is now 
 bare. But in the present day there is no bleaker 
 and more barren tract than these slopes and summits 
 of Msenalus, which are wholly different from the 
 richly wooded and well carpeted mountains through 
 which we had passed on the way from Elis. Even 
 the asphodel, which covers all the barer and stonier 
 tracts with its fields of bloom, was here scarce and 
 poor. Dull tortoises, and quick-glancing hoopoes, 
 with their beautiful head-dresses, were the only ten- 
 ants of this solitude. There was here and there a 
 spring of delicious water where we stopped. At one 
 of them the best of our ponies, an unusually spirited 
 animal, escaped up the mountain, with one of our 
 royal-looking young friends, who had accompanied 
 us in full costume, for want of other amusement, in 
 hot pursuit of him. We thought the chase utterly 
 hopeless, as the pony knew his way perfectly, and 
 would not let any one approach him on the bare hill- 
 sides ; so we consolidated our baggage, and left them 
 to their fate. But about two hours afterward the
 
 TRIPOLITZA. 383 
 
 young Greek came galloping after us on the pony, 
 which he had caught he had accomplished the 
 apparently impossible feat. 
 
 At last, after a very hot and stony ride, with less 
 color and less beauty than we had ever yet found in 
 Greece, we descended into the great valley of Trip- 
 oli, formerly held by Tegea at the south, and Man- 
 tinea at the north. The modern town lies between 
 the ancient sites, but nearer to Tegea, which is not 
 an hour's ride distant. The old Tripolis, of which 
 the villages were absorbed by Megalopolis, is placed 
 by the geographers in quite another part of Arcadia, 
 near Gortyn, and due north of the western plain. 
 The vicissitudes of the modern town are well known ; 
 its importance under the Turks, its terrible destruc- 
 tion by the Egyptians in the War of Liberation ; l 
 even now, though not a house is more than fifty 
 years old, it is one of the largest and most impor- 
 tant towns in the Morca. 
 
 The whole place was in holiday, it being the 
 Greek Easter Day, and hundreds of men in full 
 costume crowded the large square in the middle of 
 the town. There is a considerable manufacture of 
 what are commonly called Turkey carpets, and of 
 
 1 It is usually forgotten in recent accounts tliat 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.
 
 384 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 silk ; but the carpets have of late years lost all the 
 beauty and harmony of color for which they were 
 so justly admired, and are now copied from the 
 worst Bavarian work tawdry and vulgar in the ex- 
 treme. They are sold by weight, and are not dear, 
 but they were so exceedingly ugly that we could not 
 buy them. This decadence of taste is strange when 
 compared with the woollen work of Arachova. If 
 the colors of the Arachovite rugs were transferred 
 to the carpets of Tripoli, nothing could be more 
 effective, or more likely to attract English buyers. 
 I could not learn that any passing travellers save 
 some Germans, are now ever tempted to carry them 
 home. 
 
 It is my disagreeable duty to state that while the 
 inn at Tripoli was no better than other country inns 
 in Arcadia, and full of noise and disturbance, the 
 innkeeper, a gentleman in magnificent costume, with 
 a crimson vest and gaiters, covered with rich em- 
 broidery, also turned out a disgraceful villain, in fact 
 quite up to the mark of the innkeepers of whom 
 Plato in his day complained. We had no comforts, 
 we had bad food, we had the locks of our baggage 
 strained, not indeed by thieves, but by curious 
 neighbors, who wished to see the contents; we had 
 dinner, a night's lodging, and breakfast, for which 
 the host charged us, a party of four and a servant, 
 118 francs. And be it remembered that the wine of 
 the country, which we drank, is cheaper than ale in
 
 TEGEA. 385 
 
 England. We appealed at once to the magistrate, a 
 very polite and reasonable man, who cut it down to 
 84 francs, still an exorbitant sum, and one which our 
 friend quietly pocketed without further remonstrance. 
 It is therefore advisable either to go with introduc- 
 tions, which we had (but our party was too large for 
 private hospitality), or to stipulate beforehand con- 
 cerning prices. I mention such conduct as excep- 
 tional we met it only here, at Sparta, and at 
 Nauplia ; but I fear Tripoli is not an honest district. 
 A coat and rug which were dropped accidentally 
 from a mule were picked up by the next wayfarer, 
 who carried them off, though we had passed him but 
 a few hundred yards, and there could be no doubt 
 as to the owners. Our guides knew his village, 
 and our property was telegraphed for, but never 
 reappeared. 
 
 The site of Tegea, where there is now a con- 
 siderable village, is more interesting, being quite 
 close to the passes which lead to Sparta, and sur- 
 rounded by a panorama of rocky mountains. The 
 morning was cloudy, and lights and shades were 
 coursing alternately over the view. There were no 
 trees, but the surface of the rocks took splendid 
 changing hues gray, pink, and deep purple while 
 the rich soil beneath alternated between brilliant 
 green and ruddy brown. As the plain of Mega- 
 lopolis reminded me of that of Thebes, so this plain 
 of Tegea, though infinitely richer in soil, yet had
 
 386 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 many features singularly like that of Attica, especi- 
 ally its bareness, and the splendid colors of its bar- 
 ren mountains. But the climate is very different at 
 this great height above the sea ; the nights, and even 
 the mornings and evenings, were still chilly, and the 
 crops are still green when the harvest has begun in 
 Attica. There are a good many remains, especially 
 of the necropolis of Tegea, to be found scattered 
 through the modern village, chiefly in the Avails of 
 new houses. One of these reliefs contained a very 
 good representation of a feast two men and two 
 women, the latter sitting, and alternately with the 
 men ; the whole work seemed delicate, and of a good 
 epoch. These and other remains, especially an ex- 
 cellent relief of a lion, are now gathered into the 
 little museum of the village of Piali, which occupies 
 part of the ancient site. The circuit of the ancient 
 Avails and the site and plan of the great temple of 
 Athena Alca have also recently been determined. 
 The temple, rebuilt by Scopas about 395 B. c., had 
 Corinthian as well as Ionic capitals, though exter- 
 nally Doric in character. Some remarkable remains 
 of the pediment, especially a boar's head, are now in 
 the Museum at Athens. 
 
 The way to Argos is a good carriage road through 
 the passes of Mount Parthenion, and is not unlike 
 the bleak ride through Maenalus, though there is a 
 great deal more tillage, and in some places the hill- 
 sides are terraced with cultivation. It was in this
 
 ARGOS. 387 
 
 mountain that the god Pan met the celebrated runner 
 Phidippides, who was carrying his despatch about 
 the Persian invasion from Athens to Sparta, and told 
 him he would come and help the Athenians at Mara- 
 thon. This Mount Parthenion, bleak and bare like 
 Mount Maenalus, and yet like it peculiarly sacred to 
 Pan, "affords tortoises most suitable for the making 
 of lyres, which the men who inhabit the mountains 
 are afraid to catch, nor do they allow strangers to 
 catch them, for they think them sacred to Pan." 
 We saw these tortoises, both in Msenalus and Par- 
 thenion, yet to us suggestive not of harmony but of 
 discord. Two of them were engaged in mortal com- 
 bat by the road side. They were rushing at each 
 other, and battering the edges of their shells together, 
 apparently in the attempt to overturn each other. 
 After a long and even conflict, one of them fled, 
 pursued by the other at full speed, indeed far 
 quicker than could be imagined. We watched the 
 battle till we were tired, and left the pursuer and 
 the pursued in the excitement of their deadly strug- 
 gle. The traveller who goes by the new railroad 
 over this ground will never see sights like this. 
 
 These were the principal adventures of our tour 
 across Arcadia. The following night we rested in 
 real luxury at the house of our old guest-friend, 
 Dr. Papalexopoulos, whose open mansion had re- 
 ceived us two years before, on our first visit to 
 Argos.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 CORINTH TIRYNS ARGOS NAUPLIA HYDRA 
 2EGINA EPIDAURl'S. 
 
 THE Gulf of Corinth is a very beautiful and narrow 
 fiord, with chains of mountains on either side, through 
 the gaps of which you can see far into the Morea 
 on one side, and into northern Greece on the other. 
 But the bays or harbors on either coast are few, and 
 so there was no city able to wrest the commerce of 
 these waters from old Corinth, which held the keys 
 by land of the whole Peloponnesus, and commanded 
 the passage from sea to sea. It is, indeed, wonder- 
 ful how Corinth did not acquire and maintain the 
 first position in Greece. It may, perhaps, have 
 done so in the days of Periander, and we hear at 
 various times of inventions and discoveries in 
 Corinth, which show that, commercially and artistic- 
 ally, it was among the leading cities of Greece. 
 But, whenever the relations of the various powers 
 become clear, as in the Persian or Peloponnesian 
 Wars, we find Corinth always at the head of the 
 second-rate states, and never among the first. This 
 is possibly to be accounted for by the predominance 
 
 388
 
 CORINTH. 389 
 
 of trade interests, which are the source of such ma- 
 terial prosperity that men are completely engrossed 
 with it, and will not devote time and labor to politics, 
 or stake their fortunes for the defence of principle. 
 Thus it seems as if the Corinthians had been the 
 shopkeepers of Greece. 
 
 But as soon as the greater powers of Greece de- 
 cayed and fell away, we find Corinth immediately 
 taking the highest position in wealth, and even in 
 importance. The capture of Corinth, in 146 B. C., 
 marks the Roman conquest of all Greece, and the 
 art-treasures carried to Rome seem to have been as 
 great and various as those which even Athens could 
 have produced. Its commercial position was at once 
 assumed by Delos. No sooner had Julius Csesar 
 restored and rebuilt the ruined city than it sprang 
 at once again into importance, 1 while Delos decayed ; 
 and among the societies addressed in the Epistles of 
 St. Paul, none seems to have lived in greater wealth 
 or luxury. It was, in fact, well-nigh impossible that 
 Corinth should die. Nature had marked out her site 
 as one of the great thoroughfares of the old world ; 
 and it was not till after centuries of blighting mis- 
 rule by the wretched Turks that she sank into the 
 
 1 Strabo mentions Unit the new settlers, coming upon old tombs 
 in the digging for new foundations, found there quantities of grace- 
 ful pottery, which was sold to Romans, and became the fashion 
 there. Hence it was diligently sought and sold under the title 
 vEKpoKopivfiia. We may be sure that every ancient tomb was rifled 
 in this way.
 
 390 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 hopeless decay from which not even another Julius 
 Caesar could rescue her. 1 
 
 These were our reflections as we passed up the 
 gulf on a splendid summer evening, the mountains 
 of Arcadia showing on their snowy tops a deep rose 
 color in the setting sun. And passing by ^Egion 
 and Sikyon, we came to anchor at the harbor of 
 Lechseum. There was a public conveyance which 
 took the traveller across the isthmus to Kenchrese, 
 where a steamboat was in readiness to bring him 
 to Athens. But with the usual absurdity of such 
 services, no time was allowed for visiting Corinth 
 and its Acropolis. 2 We, however, stayed for the 
 night in the boat, and started in the morning for our 
 ride into the Peloponnesus. This arrangement was 
 then necessary, as the port of Lechseum did not 
 afford the traveller even the luxury of a decent 
 meal. The Greek steamers are, besides, of con- 
 siderable interest to any observant person. They 
 seem always full of passengers with their dogs, and 
 as the various classes mix indiscriminately on deck, 
 all sorts of manners, costume, and culture can be 
 easily compared. 
 
 1 On the foundation of the new Greek kingdom, it was seriously 
 debated whether Corinth should not be the capital ; but the con- 
 stant prevalence of fever in the district, together with sentimental 
 reasons, determined the selection of Athens in preference. 
 
 : Even the new railway lias tint altered this. The journey up 
 and down the bay in a coasting steamer is still well worth under- 
 taking.
 
 LECH.EUM. 391 
 
 The fondness of the Greeks for driving a bargain 
 is often to be noticed. Thus, a Greek gentleman on 
 tliis boat, perceiving that we were strangers in pursuit 
 of art and antiquities, produced two very fine gold 
 coins of Philip and Alexander, which he offered for 
 5. That of Philip was particularly beautiful a 
 very perfect Greek head in profile, crowned with 
 laurel, and on the reverse a chariot and four, with 
 the legend, (Pr/r-T/Tor. Not being a very expert judge 
 of coins, and supposing that he had asked more than 
 the value, I offered him 2 : 10s. for this one, which 
 was considerably the larger ; but he would not take 
 any abatement. He evidently was not anxious to 
 sell them, but merely took his chance of getting a 
 good price, and investing it again at better interest. 
 Seeing that the coin seemed but little heavier than 
 our sovereign, and is not uncommon in collections, 
 I fancy the price he asked was excessive. The 
 Athenian shops, which are notorious for their prices 
 to strangers, had similar coins, for which about 4 
 was asked. On this, and a thousand other points, 
 the traveller should be instructed by some competent 
 person before he sets out. Genuine antiquities seem 
 to me so common in Greece, that imitations are 
 hardly worth manufacturing. Even with a much 
 greater market, the country can supply for genera- 
 tions an endless store of real remains of ancient 
 Greece. But, nevertheless, the prices of these 
 things are already very high. The ordinary tourist
 
 392 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 does not infest these shores, so that the only seekers 
 after them are enthusiasts, who will not hesitate to 
 give even fancy prices for what they like. 
 
 The form of the country, as you ascend from 
 Lechaeum to Corinth, is very marked and peculiar. 
 At some distance from the flat shore the road leads 
 up through a steep pass of little height, which is 
 cut through a long ridge of rock, almost like a wall, 
 and over which lies a higher plateau of land. The 
 same feature is again repeated a mile inland, as the 
 traveller approaches the site of ancient Corinth. 
 These plateaus, though not lofty, are well marked, 
 and perfectly distinct, the passes from one up to the 
 next being quite sufficient to form a strong place of 
 defence against an attacking force. How far these 
 rocky parapets reach I did not examine. Behind the 
 highest plateau rises the great cliff on which the 
 citadel was built. But even from the site of the 
 old city it is easy to obtain a commanding view of 
 the isthmus, of the two seas, and of the Achaean 
 coast up to Sikyon. 
 
 The traveller who expects to find any sufficient 
 traces of the city of Periander and of Timoleon, 
 and, I may say, of St. Paul, will be grievously dis- 
 appointed. In the middle of the wretched strag- 
 gling modern village there stand up seven enor- 
 mous rough stone pillars of the Doric Order, evi- 
 dently of the oldest and heaviest type ; and these 
 are the only visible relic of the ancient city, looking
 
 X 
 
 Temple of Corinth
 
 CORINTH. 393 
 
 altogether out of place, and almost as if they had 
 come there by mistake. These pillars, though in- 
 sufficient to admit of our reconstructing the temple, 
 are in themselves profoundly interesting. Their 
 shaft up to the capital is of one block, about twenty- 
 one feet high and six feet in diameter. It is to be 
 observed that over these gigantic monoliths the 
 architrave, in which other Greek temples show the 
 largest blocks, is not in one piece, but two, and 
 made of beams laid together longitudinally. 1 The 
 length of the shafts (up to the neck of the capital) 
 measures about four times their diameter, on the 
 photograph which I possess ; I do not suppose that 
 any other Doric pillar known to us is so stout and 
 short. The material is said almost universally to be 
 limestone, but if my eyes served me aright, it was 
 a very porous and now rough sandstone, not the 
 least like the bluish limestone in which the lions of 
 the gate of Mycenae are carved. The pillars are 
 said to have been covered with stucco, and were 
 of course painted. Perhaps even the figures of the 
 pediment were modelled in clay, as we are told was 
 the case in the oldest Corinthian temples, when first 
 
 1 M. Yiollet-le-duc, in liis Eittretiens sur C 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 sus- 
 tain, at least temporarily, the building, in case the other should 
 crack.
 
 394 KAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 the fashion came in of thus ornamenting an otherwise 
 flat and unsightly surface. The great temple of 
 Psestum which is, probably, the next oldest, and 
 certainly the finest extant specimen of the early 
 Doric style has no figures in the pediment, and 
 seems never to have had them, unless, indeed, they 
 were painted in fresco on the stucco, with which it 
 was probably covered. Those who have seen the 
 temple at Paestum are, perhaps, the only visitors 
 who will be able to frame to themselves an image 
 of the very similar structure at Corinth, which 
 Turks and earthquakes have reduced to seven col- 
 umns. There must have been in it the same sim- 
 plicity, the same almost Egyptian massiveness, and 
 yet the same unity of plan and purpose which ex- 
 cludes all idea of clumsiness or disproportion. 
 
 The longer one studies the Greek orders of archi- 
 tecture, the more the conviction grows that the 
 Doric is of all the noblest and the most natural. 
 When lightened and perfected by the Athenians of 
 Pericles's time, it becomes simply unapproachable ; 
 but even in older and ruder forms it seems to me 
 vastly superior to either of the more florid orders. 
 All the massive temples of Roman times were built 
 in the very ornate Corinthian, which may almost be 
 called the Grseco-Roman, style; but, notwithstand- 
 ing their majesty and beauty, they are riot to be 
 compared with the severer and more religious tone 
 of the Doric remains. I may add that the titles by
 
 Scene near Corinth, the Acro-Corinthus in the Distance
 
 COKINTH. 395 
 
 which the orders are distinguished seem ill-chosen 
 and without meaning, except, perhaps, that the Ionic 
 was most commonly used, and probably invented, in 
 Asia Minor. The earliest specimens of the Corin- 
 thian Order are at Epidaurus, Olympia, and Phiga- 
 lia ; ! the most perfect of the Doric is at Athens, 
 while Ionic temples are found everywhere. But it 
 is idle now to attempt to change such definite and 
 well-sanctioned names. 
 
 Straight over the site of the town is the great 
 rock known as the Acro-Corinthus. A winding 
 path leads up on the south-west side to the Turkish 
 drawbridge and gate, which are now deserted and 
 open ; nor is there a single guard or soldier to watch 
 a spot once the coveted prize of contending empires. 
 In the days of the Achaean League it was called one 
 of the fetters of Greece, and indeed it requires no 
 military experience to see the extraordinary impor- 
 tance of the place. Strabo speaks of the Pelopon- 
 nesus as the Acropolis of Greece Corinth may 
 fairly be called the Acropolis of the Peloponnesus. 
 It runs out boldly from the surging mountain-chains 
 of the peninsula, like an outpost or sentry, guarding 
 all approach from the north. In days when news 
 was transmitted by fire signals, we can imagine how 
 all the southern country must have depended on the 
 watch upon the rock of Corinth. It is separated by 
 a wide plain of land, ending in the isthmus, from 
 1 Cf. pp. 370 and 433.
 
 396 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 the Geranean Mountains, which come from the north 
 and belong to a different system. 
 
 Next to the view from the heights of Parnassus, 
 I suppose the view from this citadel is held the 
 finest in Greece.' I speak here of the large and 
 diverse views to be obtained from mountain heights. 
 To me, personally, such a view as that from the 
 promontory of Sunium, or, above all, from the har- 
 bor of Nauplia, exceeds in beauty and interest any 
 bird's-eye prospect. Any one who looks at the map 
 of Greece will see how the Acro-Corinthus com- 
 mands coasts, islands, and bays. The day was too 
 hazy when we stood there to let us measure the real 
 limits of the view, and I cannot say how far the eye 
 may reach in a suitable atmosphere. But a host of 
 islands, the southern coasts of Attica and Boeotia, 
 the Acropolis of Athens, Salamis and jEgina, Heli- 
 con and Parnassus, and endless zEtolian peaks were 
 visible in one direction ; while, as we turned round, 
 all the waving reaches of Arcadia and Argolis, down 
 to the approaches toward Mantinea and Karytena, 
 lay stretched out before us. The plain of Argos, 
 and the sea at that side, are hidden by the moun- 
 
 1 Strabo, who had apparently travelled but little through 
 Greece, speaks with admiration of this view, which he had evi- 
 dently 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.
 
 CORINTH. 397 
 
 tains. 1 But without going into detail, this much 
 may be said, that if a man wants to realize the feat- 
 ures of these coasts, which he has long studied on 
 maps, half an hour's walk about the top of this rock 
 will give him a geographical insight which months 
 of reading could not attain. 
 
 The surface is very large, at least half a mile each 
 way, and is covered inside the bounding wall with 
 the remains of a considerable Turkish town, now in 
 ruins and totally deserted, but evidently of no small 
 importance in the days of the War of Liberation. 
 The building of this town was a great misfortune to 
 antiquarians, for every available remnant of old 
 Greek work was used as material for the modern 
 houses. At all parts of the walls may be seen white 
 marble fragments of pillars and architraves, and I 
 have no doubt that a careful dilapidation of the mod- 
 ern abandoned houses would amply repay the outlay. 
 There are several pits for saving rain-water, and 
 some shallow underground passages of which we 
 could not make out the purpose. The pits or tanks 
 must have been merely intended to save trouble, for 
 about the middle of the plateau, which sinks con- 
 siderably toward the south, we were brought to a 
 passage into the ground, which led by a rapid de- 
 scent to the famous well of Pirene, the water of 
 which was so perfectly clear that we walked into it 
 on going down the steps, as there was actually no 
 1 See also Guide Joanne, ii. p. 197-.
 
 398 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 water-line visible. It was twelve or fourteen feet 
 deep, and perhaps twenty-five feet long, so far as we 
 could make it out in the twilight underground. The 
 structure of marble over the fountain is the only 
 piece of old Greek work we could find on the rock. 
 It consists of three supports, like pillars, made of 
 several blocks, and over them a sort of architrave. 
 Then there is a gap in the building, and from the 
 large number of fragments of marble lying at the 
 bottom of the well we concluded that the frieze and 
 cornice had fallen out. The pediment, or rather its 
 upper outline, is still in its place, clear of the archi- 
 trave, and built into the rock so as to remain with- 
 out its supporting cornice. 
 
 There are numerous inscriptions as you descend, 
 which I did not copy, because I Avas informed they 
 had already been published, though I have not since 
 been able to find them ; but they are, of course, to 
 be found in some of the Greek archaeological news- 
 papers. They appeared to me at the time to be 
 either hopelessly illegible, or suspiciously clear. 
 This great well, springing up near the top of a 
 barren rock, is very curious, especially as we could 
 see no outlet. 1 The water was deep under the sur- 
 face, and there was no sign of welling up or of out- 
 flow anywhere ; but to make sure of this would have 
 
 1 This is just what Strabo says (viii. 6, \ 21) : enavatv /nen owe 
 }\ovcav fjLear^v & ael tiiavyovQ KOI rorifinv vdaroq, and Corinth was 
 one of the few Greek places he visited.
 
 THE ISTHMUS. 399 
 
 required a long and careful ride round the whole 
 ridge. Our guide-book spoke of rushing streams 
 and waterfalls tumbling down the rock, which we 
 searched for in vain, and which may have been 
 caused by a winter rainfall without any connection 
 with the fountain. 1 
 
 The Isthmus, which is really some three or four 
 miles north of Corinth, was of old famous for the Isth- 
 mian games, as well as for the noted diolkos, or road 
 for dragging ships across. The games were founded 
 about 586 B. C., when a strong suspicion had arisen 
 throughout Greece concerning the fairness of the 
 Elean awards at Olympia, and for a long time Eleans 
 were excluded. In later days the games became 
 very famous, the Argives or Cleonseans laying claim 
 to celebrate them. It was at these games that Philip 
 V. heard of the great defeat 'of the Romans by Han- 
 nibal, and resolved to enter into that colossal quarrel 
 which brought the Romans into Macedonia. The 
 site of the stadium, and of the temple of Isthmian 
 Poseidon, and of the fortified sanctuary, w r ere exca- 
 vated and mapped out by M. Monceaux in 1883. A 
 plan and details are to be found in the French Guide 
 Joanne. 2 Close by I saw in 1889 the interrupted 
 work of the canal which was at last to connect the 
 
 1 So also learned men speak about the amphitheatre. Herzberg 
 (ii. 253) says: "Seine Ruine steht noch hcute." Cf. also Fried- 
 liinder, ii. 383, but I could not find it. 
 
 2 Part ii. p. 198, sq. (1891).
 
 400 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 eastern and western gulfs, and which when well-nigh 
 completed found its funds dissipated by the terrible 
 crash of the Credit Mobilier in Paris, and now awaits 
 another enterprise. The idea is old and often dis- 
 cussed, like that of the Isthmus of Suez. The 
 Emperor Nero actually began the work, and the 
 engineers of to-day resumed the cutting at the very 
 spot where his workmen left off. 
 
 But if this very expensive work might have been 
 of great service when sailing-ships feared to round 
 the notorious Cape of Malea, and when there was 
 great trade from the Adriatic to the ports of Thes- 
 saly and Macedonia, surely all these advantages are 
 now superseded. Steamers coming from the Straits 
 of Messina would pay nothing to take the route of the 
 Isthmus in preference to rounding the Morea, and 
 the main line of traffic is no longer to the Northern 
 Levant, but to Alexandria. Even goods despatched 
 from Trieste or Venice may now be landed at Patras, 
 and sent on by rail to Athens ; so that the canal will 
 now only serve the smallest fraction of the Levantine 
 trade ; and even then, if the charges be at all ade- 
 quate to the labor, will be avoided by circumnaviga- 
 tion. Amid the promotion of many useful schemes 
 of traffic, this undertaking seems to me to stand out 
 by its want of common sense. Indeed, had it been 
 really important at any date, we may be sure 
 that the "Hellenistic Sovrans or Roman capitalists 
 would have carried it out. But in classical days
 
 THE RIDE TO ARGOS. 401 
 
 their smaller ships seem to have been dragged 
 across upon movable rollers by slaves without much 
 difficulty. 
 
 But we had already delayed too long upon this 
 citadel, where we would have willingly spent a day 
 or two at greater leisure. Our guide urged us to 
 start on our long ride, which was not to terminate 
 till we reached the town of Argos, some thirty miles 
 over the mountains. 1 
 
 The country into which we passed was very dif- 
 ferent from any we had yet seen, and still it was 
 intensely Greek. All the hills and valleys showed 
 a very white, chalky soil, which actually glittered 
 like snow where it was not covered with verdure or 
 trees. Road, as usual, there was none ; but all these 
 hills and ravines, chequered with snowy white, were 
 clothed with shining arbutus trees, and shrubs re- 
 sembling dwarf holly. The purple and the white 
 cistus, which is so readily mistaken for a wild rose, 2 
 were already out of blow, and showed but a rare 
 blossom. Here and there was a plain or valley with 
 great fields of thyme about the arbutus, and there 
 were herds of goats wandering through the shrubs, 
 and innumerable bees gathering honey from the 
 thyme. The scene was precisely such as Theoc- 
 ritus describes in the uplands of Sicily ; but in all 
 
 1 The reader who performs this journey by train may consider 
 whether what here follows is not an older and better way. 
 
 2 TO/./^C 6i- Kal wf p66a nicOoQ ktravOti. TnEOCR. v. 131. 
 
 26
 
 402 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 our rides through that delightful island l we had 
 never found the thyme and arbutus, the goats and 
 bees, in such truly Theocritean perfection. A\ e 
 listened in vain for the shepherd's pipe, and sought 
 in vain for some Thyrsis beguiling his time with the 
 oaten reed. It was almost noontide noon, the hour 
 of awe and mystery to the olden shepherd, when 
 Pan slept his mid-day sleep, 2 and the wanton satyr 
 was abroad, prowling for adventure through the 
 silent woods ; so that, in pagan days, we might have 
 been afraid of the companionship of melody. But 
 now the silence was not from dread of Pan's dis- 
 pleasure, but that the sun's fiercer heat had warned 
 the shepherds to depart to the snowy heights of 
 Cyllene, where they dwell all the summer in alpine 
 huts, and feed their flocks on the upland pastures, 
 which are covered with snow till late in the spring. 
 They had left behind them a single comrade, with 
 his wife and little children, to protect the weak and 
 the lame till their return. We found this family 
 settled in their winter quarters, which consisted of a 
 
 1 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. 
 2 ov Oe/itf, u TTorpfjv, TO neormfipivdv, ov 6e/2tf aufiiv 
 cvpicdev. ~6v Tlava icdoinafief f/ yap air' ay pas 
 raviiM KEKfiTjtM; a/j.TravcTa.1, Ian yap TrtK.p6c ) 
 nai ol O.EI dpiuEia ^OAO irorl pivl udOrfraL. TntOCR. i. 15.
 
 THE RIDE TO ARGOS. 403 
 
 square enclosure of thorns (tfpfyxoc dyipdou), built 
 up with stones, round a very old spreading olive- 
 tree. At the foot of the tree were pots and pans, 
 and other household goods, with some skins and 
 rude rugs lying on the ground. There was no 
 attempt at a roof or hut of any kind, though, of 
 course, it might be set up in a moment, as we had 
 seen in the defiles of Parnassus, with skins hung 
 over three sticks two uprights, and the third join- 
 ing their tops, so as to form a ridge. 
 
 To make the scene Homeric, 1 as well as Theoc- 
 ritean, two large and very savage dogs rushed out 
 upon us at our approach, but the shepherd hurried 
 out after them, and drove them off by pelting them 
 vigorously with stones. " Surely," he said, turning 
 to us breathlessly from his exertions, "you had met, 
 O strangers ! with some mischief, if I had not been 
 here." The dogs disappeared, in deep anger, into 
 the thicket, and, though we stayed at the place for 
 some time, never reappeared to threaten or to pursue 
 us on our departure. We talked as best we could 
 to the gentle shepherdess, one of whose children had 
 a fearfully scalded hand, for which we suggested 
 remedies to her occult and wonderful, though at 
 
 1 Toiif [lev bye haeaciv OTTO xflovbf baaov aelpuv 
 <t>evye[j.ev aty brriau SeiftiacETo^ Tpr/^v 6e (jtuvr/ 
 
 ha rraaiVj kpT/rvcacKt 6' fAayuoi, 
 kv <f>peolv qOiv, tfloi'VEKev avAiv Ipvvro. 
 
 THEOCR. xxv. 73, and cf. Odyss. xiv. 29 sq.
 
 404 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 home so trite as to be despised by the wise. She 
 gave us in return great bowls of heated milk, which 
 was being made into cheese, and into various kinds 
 of curds, which are the very best produce of the 
 country. They would take no money for their 
 hospitality, but did not object to our giving the 
 children coins to play with to them, I am sure, a 
 great curiosity. 
 
 Most of our journey was not, however, through 
 pastures and plains, but up and down steep ravines, 
 where riding was so difficult and dangerous that we 
 were often content to dismount and lead our horses. 
 Every hour or two brought us to a fountain spring- 
 ing from a rock, and over it generally a great 
 spreading fig-tree, while the water was framed in 
 on both sides with a perfect turf of maiden-hair 
 fern. The only considerable valley which we saw 
 was that of Cleonse, which we passed some miles on 
 our left, and about which there was a great deal of 
 golden corn, and many shady plane-trees. Indeed, 
 the corn was so plentiful that we saw asses grazing 
 in it quite contentedly, without any interference from 
 thrifty farmers. We had seen a very similar sight 
 in Sicily, where the enormous deep-brown Sicilian 
 oxen, with their forward-pointing horns, were 
 stretching their huge forms in fields of half-ripe 
 wheat, which covered all the plain without fence 
 or division. There, too, it seemed as if this was 
 the cheapest grazing, and as if it were unprofitable
 
 TIRYNS. 405 
 
 labor to drive the Ccittle to some untilled pasture. 
 As for the treading-out of corn, I saw it done at 
 Argos by a string of seven horses abreast, with two 
 young foals at the outside, galloping round a small 
 circular threshing-floor in the open field, upon which 
 the ripe sheaves had been laid in radiating order. I 
 have no doubt that a special observer of farming 
 operations would find many interesting survivals 
 both in Greece and the Two Sicilies. 
 
 Toward evening, after many hours of travel, we 
 turned aside on our way down the plain of Argos, 
 to see the famous ruins of Mycenae. But we will 
 now pass them by, as the discoveries of Dr. Schlie- 
 mann, and a second visit to the ruins after his ex- 
 cavations, have opened up so many questions, that 
 a separate chapter must be devoted to them. 
 
 The fortress of Tiryns, Avhich I have already 
 mentioned, and which we visited next day, may 
 fitly be commented on before approaching the 
 younger, or at least more artistically finished, 
 Mycenae. It stands several miles nearer to the 
 sea, in the centre of the great plain of Argos, and 
 upon the only hillock which there affords any natural 
 scope for fortification. Instead of the square, or at 
 least hewn, well-fitted blocks of Mycenae, we have 
 here the older style of rude masses piled together as 
 best they would fit, the interstices being filled up 
 with smaller fragments, and, as we now know, faced 
 with mortar. This is essentially Cyclopean build-
 
 406 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 ing. 1 There is a smaller castle of rectangular shape, 
 on the southern and highest part of the oblong hil- 
 lock, the whole of which is surrounded by a lower 
 wall, which takes in both this and the northern 
 longer part of the ridge. It looked, in fact, like a 
 hill-fort, with a large enclosure for cattle around it. 
 
 Just below the north-east angle of the inner fort, 
 and where the lower circuit is about to leave it, 
 there is an entrance, with a massive projection of 
 huge stones, looking like a square tower, on its 
 right side, so as to defend it from attack. The 
 most remarkable feature in the walls are the covered 
 galleries, constructed Avithin them at the south-east 
 angle. The whole thickness of the wall is often 
 over twenty feet, and in the centre a rude arched 
 way is made or rather, I believe, two parallel 
 ways ; but the inner gallery has fallen in, and is 
 almost untraceable and this merely by piling 
 together the great stones so as to leave an open- 
 ing, which narrows at the top in the form of a 
 Gothic arch. Within the passage there are five 
 niches in the outer side, made of rude arches, in 
 the same Avay as the main passage. The length of 
 
 1 Pausanias speaks of Mycenae 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 rnules could stir from its place the smallest of the blocks in the 
 walls of Tiryns. Cf. ii. 25, 8 ; and ix. 36, 5.
 
 .
 
 Gallery at Tiryns
 
 TIRYNS. 407 
 
 the gallery I measured, and found it twenty-five 
 yards, at the end of which it is regularly walled up, 
 so that it evidently did not run all the way round. 
 The niches are now no longer open, but seem to 
 have been once windows, or at least to have had 
 some look-out points into the hill country. 
 
 It is remarkable that, although the walls are made 
 of perfectly rude stones, the builders have managed 
 to use so many smooth surfaces looking outward, 
 that the face of the wall seems quite clean and well- 
 built. 1 At the south-east corner of the higher and 
 inner level we found a large block of red granite, 
 quite different from the rough gray stone of the 
 building, with its surface square and smooth, and 
 all the four sides neatly bevelled, like the portal 
 stones at the treasury of Atreus. I found two other 
 similar blocks close by, which were likewise cut 
 smooth on the surface, and afterward, in company 
 with Dr. Schliemann, a large Doric capital. The 
 intention of these stones we could not guess, but 
 they show that some ornament, and some more fin- 
 ished work, must have once existed in or near the 
 inner building. Though both the main entrances 
 have massive towers of stone raised on their right, 
 there is a small postern at the opposite or west side, 
 
 1 The same effect is observable in Staigue Fort, in the county 
 of Kerry, and lias 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.
 
 408 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 not more than four feet wide, which has no defences 
 whatever, and is a mere hole in the wall. 
 
 The whole ruin was covered in summer with this- 
 tles, such as English people can hardly imagine. 
 The needles at the points of the leaves are fully an 
 inch long, extremely fine and strong, and sharper 
 than any two-edged sword. No clothes except a 
 leather dress can resist them. They pierce evcrv- 
 where with the most stinging pain, and make anti- 
 quarian research in this famous spot a veritable 
 martyrdom, which can only be supported by a very 
 burning love for knowledge, or the sure hope of 
 future fame. The rough masses of stone are so 
 loose that one's footing is insecure, and when the 
 traveller loses his balance, and falls among the this- 
 tles, he will wish that he had gone to Jericho in- 
 stead, or even fallen among thieves on the way. 
 
 Such was the aspect of Tiryns when I visited it 
 in the years 1875 and in 1877. In 1884 I went 
 there again with Dr. Schliemann. who was uncov- 
 ering the palace on the height. The results of his 
 discoveries are so important that I shall review 
 them in another chapter. 
 
 We rode down from Mycenae to Argos late in the 
 evening, along the broad and limpid stream of the 
 river Inachus, which made us wonder at the old epic 
 epithet, very thirsty, given to this celebrated plain. 1 
 
 1 irnhv&tyiov, A fragment of Hesiod (quoted by Eustathius in 
 //., p. 350) notes this epithet, in order to account for its being no
 
 ARGOS. 409 
 
 Though the night was getting dark, we could see 
 and smell great fields of wild rose-red oleander, 
 blooming along the river banks, very like the rho- 
 dodendrons of our demesnes. And, though not a 
 bird was to be heard, the tettix, so dear to the old 
 Greeks, and so often the theme of their poets, was 
 making the land echo with its myriad chirping. 
 Aristophanes speaks of it as crying out with mad 
 love of the noonday sun. 1 We found it no less eager 
 and busy in late twilight, and far into the night. 
 I can quite understand how the old Greek, who 
 hated silence, and hated solitude still more, loved 
 this little creature, which kept him company even 
 in the time of sleep, and gave him all the feelings 
 of cheerfulness and homeliness which we northerns, 
 
 longer true, 'Apyoc avvSpov lov Aaradf iroirjaev evvdpov. Strabo 
 (viii. p. 25G) 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. 
 
 T/VIK.' av 6 0GTreaiO(; bi-v [te/.of a 
 
 6d?.7rffi pear/ft private fpaofrnvf/f (iog. (Aves, 1092-8.) 
 
 The little-known lines in the Shield of Hercules are also worth 
 quoting (393, sqq.) : 
 
 ry/wf fie x^oepu Kvavdnrepof, ij^era TETTI^ 
 
 f, OtpoQ arftpuTToio/v dddetv 
 TE n6atf /cat flpuaii; QTJ'AVS kipar) t 
 Kai TE iravt/fitpdf re /cat taJof ^cei avdr/v 
 Idei i'v alvoTUTGt, u-6r %p6a 'Lfiptof aet.
 
 410 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 in our wretched climate, must seek from the cricket 
 at the fireside. 
 
 At ten o'clock we rode into the curious dark 
 streets of Argos, and, after some difficulty, were 
 shown to the residence of M. Papalexopoulos, who 
 volunteered to be our host a medical man of edu- 
 cation and ability, who, in spite of a very recent 
 family bereavement, opened his house to the stranger, 
 and entertained us with what may well be called in 
 that country real splendor. I may notice that he 
 alone, of all the country residents whom we met, 
 gave us wine not drenched with, resin a very 
 choice and remarkable red wine, for which the plain 
 of Argos is justly celebrated. In this comfortable 
 house we slept, I may say, in solitary grandeur, and 
 awoke in high spirits, without loss or damage, to 
 visit the wonders of this old centre of legend and 
 of history. 
 
 It is very easy to see why all the Greek myths 
 have placed the earliest empires, the earliest arts, 
 and the earliest conquests, in the plains of Argolis. 
 They speak, too, of this particular plain having the 
 benefit of foreign settlers and of foreign skill. If 
 we imagine, as we must do, the older knowledge of 
 the East coming up by way of Cyprus and Crete 
 into Greek waters, there can be no doubt that the 
 first exploring mariners, reaching the barren island 
 of Cerigo, and the rocky shore of Laconia, would 
 feel their way up this rugged and inhospitable coast,
 
 PLAIN OF ARGOS. 411 
 
 till they suddenly came in sight of the deep bay of 
 Argolis, stretching far into the land, with a broad 
 plain and alluvial soil beyond its deepest recess. 
 Here, first, they would find a suitable landing-place, 
 and a country fit for tillage ; and here, accordingly, 
 we should expect to find, as we actually do, the 
 oldest relics of habitation, beyond the huts of 
 wandering shepherds or of savages. So the legend 
 tells us that Cyclopes came from Lycia to King 
 Proetus of Argos, or rather of the Argive plain, and 
 built him the giant fort of Tiryns. 1 
 
 This was evidently the oldest great settlement. 
 Then, by some change of fortune, it seems that 
 Mycenae grew in importance, not impossibly because 
 of the unhealthy site of Tiryns, where the surround- 
 ings are now low and marshy, and were, probably, 
 even more so in those days. But the epoch of 
 Mycenae's greatness also passed away in historical 
 times ; and the third city in this plain came forward 
 as its ruler Argos, built under the huge Larissa, or 
 hill-fort, which springs out from the surrounding 
 mountains, and stands like an outpost over the city. 2 
 
 1 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. 
 
 2 In the days of the composition of the Iliad we see the power 
 and greatness of Mycenae distinctly expressed by the power of 
 Agamemnon, who appears to rule over all the district and many 
 islands. Yet the great hero, Diomedea, is made the sovereign of
 
 412 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 Even now it is still an important town, and main- 
 tains, in the midst of its smiling and well-cultivated 
 plain, a certain air of brightness and prosperity 
 which is seldom to be seen elsewhere through the 
 country. 
 
 We went first to visit the old theatre, certainly 
 the most beautifully situated, 1 and one of the largest 
 I had ever seen. It is far finer than even that of 
 Syracuse, and whoever has seen this latter will know 
 what such a statement implies. If the Greek theatre 
 at Syracuse has a view of the great harbor and the 
 coast around, this view can only have been made 
 interesting by crowded shipping and flitting sails, for 
 the whole incline of the country is very gradual, 
 and not even the fort of Ortygia presents any bold 
 or striking outline. 
 
 The Argive theatre was built to hold an enormous 
 audience. We counted sixty-six tiers of seats, in 
 
 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 sug- 
 gest that, in the poet's day, Argos was rapidly growing into first- 
 rate importance, while all the older legends attested the greatness 
 of Mycenae. 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 Mycenae. 
 
 1 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.
 
 ARGOS THE THEATRE. 413 
 
 four divisions thus differing from the description 
 of Colonel Leake, which we had before us at the 
 time. As he observes, there may be more seats 
 still covered with rubbish at the bottom indeed 
 this, like all the rest of Argos, ought to yield a rich 
 harvest to the antiquarian, being still almost virgin 
 soil, and never yet ransacked with any care. From 
 the higher seats of the theatre of Argos, which rise 
 much steeper than those of Syracuse, there is a most 
 enchanting prospect to the right, over a splendid rich 
 plain, covered, when we first saw it, with the brilliant 
 emerald-green of young vines and tobacco plants, 
 varied with the darker hue of plane-trees and 
 cypresses. After the wilderness through which we 
 had passed this prospect was intensely delightful. 
 Straight before us, and to the left, was the deep blue 
 bay of Argolis, with the white fortifications of Nauplia 
 crowning its picturesque Acropolis. All around us, 
 in every other direction, was a perfect amphitheatre 
 of lofty mountains. This bay is, for its size, the 
 most beautiful I ever saw, and the opinion which we 
 then formed was strengthened by a sunset view of it 
 from the other side from Nauplia which was, if 
 possible, even finer, and combined all the elements 
 which are conceivable in a perfect landscape. Near 
 the theatre there is a remnant of Cyclopean building, 
 apparently the angle of a wall, made of huge uncut 
 blocks, like those at Tiryns. There are said to be 
 some similar substructures on the Larissa, which is,
 
 414 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 however, itself a mediaeval ruin, and therefore, to 
 us, of slight interest. 
 
 All the children about brought us coins, of every 
 possible date and description, but were themselves 
 more interesting than their coins. For here, in 
 southern Greece, in a very hot climate, in a level 
 plain, every second child is fair, with blue eyes, and 
 looks like a transplanted northern, and not like the 
 offspring of a southern race. After the deep brown 
 Italian children, which strike the traveller by their 
 southernness all the way from Venice to Reggio, 
 nothing is more curious than these fairer children, 
 under a sunnier and hotter sky ; and it reminds the 
 student at once how, even in Homer, yellow hair 
 and a fair complexion is noted as belonging to the 
 King of Sparta. This type seems to me common 
 wherever there has not arisen a mixed population, 
 such as that of Athens or Syra, and where the 
 inhabitants appear to live as they have done for 
 centuries. Fallmerayer's cleverness and undoubted 
 learning persuaded many people, and led many more 
 to suspect, that the old Greek race was completely 
 gone, and that the present people were a mixture of 
 Turks, Albanians, and Slavs. To this many answers 
 suggest themselves, to me, above all things, the 
 strange and accurate resemblances in character be- 
 tween ancient and modern Greeks, resemblances 
 which permeate all their life and habits. 
 
 But this is a kind of evidence not easily stated in
 
 THE GREEK TYPE AT ARGOS. 415 
 
 a brief form, and consists after all of a large number 
 of minute details. The real refutation of Fallmer- 
 ayer's theory consists in exposing the alleged evi- 
 dence upon which it rests. He puts forth with great 
 confidence citations from MS. authorities at Athens, 
 which have not been verified ; nay, he is even proved 
 to have been the dupe of some clever forgeries. A 
 careful examination of the scanty allusions to the 
 state of Greece during the time of its supposed 
 NV i fixation, and the evidences obtained from the 
 lives of the Greek saints who belong to this epoch, 
 have proved to demonstration that the country was 
 never wholly occupied by foreigners, or deserted by 
 its old population. The researches of Ross, Ellis- 
 sen, and lastly of Hopf, 1 have really set the matter 
 at rest ; but, unfortunately, English students will for 
 some time to come be misled by the evident leaning 
 of Finlay toward the Slav hypothesis. As has been 
 fairly remarked by later critics, Finlay did not test 
 the documents cited by Fallmerayer ; and until this 
 was done, the case seemed conclusive enough for 
 the total devastation of Greece during four hundred 
 years, and its occupation by a new population. But 
 all this is now relegated to the sphere of fable. 
 There is, of course, a large admixture of Slavs 
 and Albanians in the country ; the constant inva- 
 
 1 Of. his exhaustive article on the Mediaeval History of Greece, 
 in Krsch and Gruber's Encyclopaedia, vol. Ixxxv., and more espe- 
 cially his refutation of Fallmerayer's theory, pp. 100-19.
 
 416 E AMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 sions and partial conquests for several centuries 
 could not but introduce it. Still, Greece has re- 
 mained Greek in the main, and the foreigners have 
 not been able to hold their own against the stronger 
 nationality of the true Hellenes. ' 
 
 Another weighty argument seems to me to be 
 from language. 1 There is really very little differ- 
 ence between the language of Plato and that of the 
 present Greeks. There is, of course, development 
 and decay, there are changes of idiom and corrup- 
 tions of form, there are a good many Slav names, 
 but the language is essentially the same. The 
 present Greek will read the old classics with the 
 same trouble Avith which our peasants could read 
 Chaucer. It is, in fact, most remarkable, assum- 
 ing that they are the same people, how their lan- 
 guage has not changed more. Had the invaders 
 during the Middle Ages really become the main 
 body of the population, how is it that they aban- 
 doned their own tongue, and adopted that of the 
 Greeks? Surely there must be at least a fusion of 
 different tongues, if the population were consider- 
 
 1 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 primd facie probability in favor of a well-preserved lan- 
 guage indicating a well-preserved race.
 
 THE MODERN HELLENES. 417 
 
 ably leavened. There are still Albanian districts 
 in Greece. They are to be found even in Attica, 
 and close to Athens. But these populations are 
 still tolerably distinct from the Greeks ; their lan- 
 guage is quite different, and unintelligible to Greeks 
 who have not learned it. 
 
 Again, the Greek language is not one which 
 spread itself easily among foreigners, nor did it 
 give rise to a number of daughter languages, like 
 the Latin. In many Hellenic colonies, barbarians 
 learned to speak Greek with the Greeks, and to 
 adopt their language at the time ; but in all these 
 cases, when the Greek influence vanished the 
 Greek language decayed, and finally made way for 
 the old tongue which it had temporarily displaced. 
 Thus the evidence of history seems to suggest that 
 no foreigners were ever really able to make that 
 subtle tongue their own ; and even now we can feel 
 the force of what Aristotle says that however well 
 a stranger might speak, you could recognize him at 
 once by his use of the particles. 
 
 These considerations seem to me conclusive that, 
 whatever admixtures may have taken place, the 
 main body of the people are what their language 
 declares them to be, essentially Greeks. Any care- 
 ful observer will not fail to see through the wilder 
 parts of the Morea types and forms equal to those 
 which inspired the old artists. There arc still among 
 the shepherd boys splendid lads who would adorn a 
 
 27
 
 418 RAMBLES IX GREECE. 
 
 Greek gymnasium, or excite the praise of all Greece 
 at the Olympian games. There are still maidens 
 fit to carry the sacred basket of Athene. Above 
 all, there are still many old men fit to be chosen for 
 their stalwart beauty to act as thallophori in the 
 Panathenaic procession. 
 
 These thoughts often struck us as we went through 
 the narrow and crowded streets of Argos, in search 
 of the peculiar produce of the place raw silks, rich- 
 colored carpets and rugs, and ornamental shoes in 
 dull red " morocco " leather. 
 
 We were taken to see the little museum of the 
 town then a very small one, with a single inscrip- 
 tion, and eight or ten pieces of sculpture. But the 
 inscription, which is published, is exceedingly clear 
 and legible, and the fragments of sculpture are all 
 both peculiar and excellent. There is a female head 
 of great beauty, about half life-size, and from the 
 best, or certainly a very good, period of Greek art, 
 which has the curious peculiarity of one eye being 
 larger than the other. It is not merely the eyeball, 
 but the whole setting of the eye, which is slightly 
 enlarged, nor does it injure the general effect. The 
 gentlemen who showed this head to me, and who 
 were all very enthusiastic about it, had indeed not 
 noticed this feature, but recognized it at once when 
 pointed out to them. Beside this trunkless head is 
 a headless trunk of equal beauty a female figure 
 wiiheut arms, and draped with exquisite grace, in a
 
 THE MODERN HELLENES. 419 
 
 manner closely resembling the famous Venus of 
 Melos. The h'gure has one foot slightly raised, and 
 set upon a duck, as is quite plain from the general 
 form of the bird, though the webbed feet are much 
 worn away, and the head gone. M. Emile Burnouf 
 told me that this attribute of a duck would deter- 
 mine it to be either Athene or Artemis. If so, 
 the general style of the figure, which is very young 
 and slight, speaks in favor of its being an Artemis. 
 I trust photographs of this excellent statue may soon 
 be made, and that it may become known to art stu- 
 dents in Europe. 
 
 We also noticed a relief larger than life, on a 
 square block of white marble, of the head of Medusa. 
 The face is calm and expressionless, exactly the re- 
 verse of Lionardo da Vinci's matchless painting, but 
 archaic in character, and of good and clear work- 
 manship. The head-dress, which has been finished 
 only on the right side, is very peculiar, and consists 
 of large scales starting from the forehead, and sep- 
 arating into two plaits, which become serpents' 
 bodies, and descend in curves as low as the chin, 
 then turning upward and outward again, till they 
 end in well-formed serpents' heads. The left ser- 
 pent is carved out perfectly in relief, but not cov- 
 ered with scales. 
 
 I was unable to obtain any trustworthy account 
 of the finding of these marbles, but they were all 
 fresh discoveries, especially the Medusa head, which
 
 420 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 had been only lately brought to the museum, when 
 we were first at Argos. Future visitors will find this 
 valuable collection much increased ; and here in this 
 important town it is advisable that there should be a 
 local museum. 
 
 If we look at Dorian art, as contrasted with 
 Ionian, there can be no doubt that the earliest centre 
 was Corinth in the Peloponnesus, to which various 
 discoveries in art are specially ascribed. In archi- 
 tecture, there were many leading ideas, such as the 
 setting up of clay figures in the tympanum of their 
 temples, and the use of panels or soffits, as they 
 were called, in ceilings, which came first from Cor- 
 inth. But when we descend to better-known times, 
 there are three other Dorian states which quite 
 eclipse Corinth, I suppose because the trading in- 
 stinct, as is sometimes the case, crushed out or 
 weakened her enthusiasm for art. These states are 
 -<Egina, Sikyon, and Argos. Sikyon rose to great- 
 ness under the gentle and enlightened despotism of 
 Orthagoras and his family, of whom it was noticed 
 that they retained their sovereignty longer than any 
 other dynasty of despots in Greece, ^gina seems 
 to have disputed the lead with Corinth as a commer- 
 cial mart, from the days of Pheidon, whose coinage 
 of money was always said to have been first prac- 
 tised at ^gina. 1 The prominence of ^Egina in 
 
 1 This fact strengthens my conviction that at an early period 
 ina worked the silver-mines of Laurium.
 
 ARGIVE SCULPTURE. 421 
 
 Pindar's Epinikian Odes shows not only how eagerly 
 men practised athletics, and loved renown there, but 
 how well able they were to pay for expensive monu- 
 ments of their fame. Their position in the Persian 
 Avar, among the bravest of the Greeks, corroborates 
 the former part of my statement ; the request of an 
 Ionian Greek lady, captured in the train of Mar- 
 donius, to be transported to ^gina, adds evidence 
 for the second, as it shows that, to a person of this 
 description, yEgina was the field for a rich har- 
 vest, and we wonder how its reputation can have 
 been greater in this respect than that of Corinth. 1 
 But, a short time after, the rise of the Athenian 
 naval power crushed the greatness of .ZEgina, and it 
 sank into insignificance, and was absorbed into the 
 Attic power. 
 
 Thus Sikyon and Argos remained, and it was pre- 
 cisely these two towns which produced a special 
 school of art, of which Polycletus was the most dis- 
 tinguished representative. Dorian sculpture had 
 originally started with figures of athletes, which 
 were dedicated at the temples, and were a sort of 
 collateral monument to the odes of poets more 
 durable, no doubt, in the minds of the offerers, but, 
 as time has shown, perishable and gone, while the 
 winged words of the poet have not lost even the first 
 bloom of their freshness. However, in contrast to 
 the flowing robes arid delicately-chiselled features of 
 1 Cf. Pindar's frag, for the Corinthian
 
 422 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 the Ionic school, the Dorians reproduced the naked 
 human figure with great accuracy ; while in the face 
 they adhered to a stiff simplicity, regardless of indi- 
 vidual features, and still more regardless of any ex- 
 pression save that of a vacant smile. This type, 
 found in its most perfect development in the zEgine- 
 tan marbles, was what lay before Polycletus, when 
 he rose to greatness. He was the contemporary and 
 rival of Phidias, and is said to have defeated him in 
 a competition for the temple of Hera at Samos, 
 where two or three of the greatest sculptors modelled 
 a wounded Amazon, and Polycletus was adjudged 
 the first place. There is some probability that one 
 of the Amazons now in the Vatican is a copy of this 
 famous work ; and, in spite of a clumsily-restored 
 head and arms, we can see in this figure the great 
 simplicity and truth of the artist in treating a rather 
 ungrateful subject that of a very powerful and 
 muscular woman. 
 
 The Argive school, owing to its traditions, affected 
 single figures much more than groups ; and this, no 
 doubt, was the main contrast between Polycletus 
 and Phidias that, however superior the Argive 
 might be in a single figure, the genius of the Athe- 
 nian was beyond all comparison in using sculpture 
 for groups and processions as an adjunct to architect- 
 ure. But there was also in the sitting statue of 
 Zeus, at Olympia, a certain majesty which seems 
 not to have been equalled by any other known sculp-
 
 NAUPLIA. 423 
 
 tor. The Attic artist who appears, however, to have 
 been much nearer to Polycletus in style was Myron, 
 whose Discobolus has reached us in some splendid 
 copies, and who seems to have had all the Dorian 
 taste for representing single athletic figures with 
 more life and more daring action about them than 
 was attempted by Polycletus. 1 
 
 Herodotus notices somewhere that, at a certain 
 period, the Argives were the most renowned in 
 Greece for music. It is most unfortunate that our 
 knowledge of this branch of Greek art is so frag- 
 mentary that we are wholly unable to tell in what 
 the Argive proficiency consisted. We are never 
 told that the Doric scale was there invented ; but, 
 very possibly, they may have taken the lead among 
 their brethren in this direction also, for it is well 
 known that the Spartans, though excellent judges, 
 depended altogether upon foreigners to make music 
 for them, and thought it not gentlemanly to do more 
 than criticise. 
 
 The drive from Argos to Nauplia leads by Tiryns, 
 then by a great marsh, which is most luxuriously 
 covered with green and with various flowers, and 
 then along a good road all the way into the im- 
 portant and stirring town of Nauplia. This place, 
 which was one of the oldest settlements, as is proved 
 
 1 The bronze cow of Myron seems also to have been a wonder- 
 fully admired work, to judge from the crowd of epigrams written 
 upon it, which still survive.
 
 424 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 by Pelasgic walls and tombs high up on the over- 
 hanging cliffs, was always through history known as 
 the port of Argos, and is so still, though it rose 
 under the Turks to the dignity of capital of the 
 whole province of Greece. The citadel has at all 
 times been considered almost impregnable. The 
 situation of the town is exceptionally beautiful, even 
 for a Greek town ; and the sunset behind the 
 Arcadian mountains, seen from Nauplia, with the 
 gulf in the foreground, is a view which no man can 
 ever forget. 
 
 A coasting steamer, which goes right round all the 
 Peloponnesus, took us up with a great company, 
 which was hurrying to Athens for the elections, and 
 carried us round the coast of Argolis, stopping at the 
 several ports on the way. This method of seeing 
 either Greece or Italy is highly to be commended, 
 and it is a great pity that so many people adhere 
 strictly to the quickest and most obvious route, so 
 missing many of the really characteristic features in 
 the country which they desire to study. Thus the 
 Italian coasting steamers, which go up from Messina 
 by Naples to Genoa, touch at many not insignificant 
 places (such as Gaeta), which no ordinary tourist 
 ever sees, and which are nevertheless among the 
 most beautiful in all the country. The same may 
 be said of the sail from Nauplia to Athens, which 
 leads you to Spezza, Hydra, or Idra, as they now
 
 The Palamedi, Nauplia
 
 HYDRA. 425 
 
 call it, to Poros and to yEgina, all very curious and 
 interesting places to visit. 
 
 The island of Hydra was, in old days, a mere 
 barren rock, scarcely inhabited, and would probably 
 never have changed its reputation but for a pirate 
 settlement in a very curious little harbor, with 
 a very narrow entrance, which faces the main 
 shore of Argolis. As you sail along the straight 
 coast line, there seems no break or indentation, 
 when suddenly, as if by magic, the rocky shore 
 opens for about twenty yards, at a spot marked by 
 several caves in the face of the cliff, and lets you 
 see into a circular harbor of very small dimensions, 
 with an amphitheatre of rich and well-built houses 
 rising up all round the bay. Though the water is 
 very deep, there is actually no room for a large fleet, 
 and there seems not a yard of level ground, except 
 where terraces have been artificially made. High 
 rocks on both sides of the narrow entrance hide all 
 prospect of the town, except from the point directly 
 opposite the entrance. 
 
 The Hydriotes, who were rich merchants, and, I 
 suppose, successful pirates in the Turkish days, were 
 never enslaved, but kept their liberty and their 
 wealth by paying a tribute to the Porte. They 
 developed a trading power which reminds one 
 strongly of the old Greek cities; and so faithful 
 were they to one another that it was an ordinary 
 habit for citizens to entrust all their savings to a
 
 426 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 captain starting for a distant port, to be laid out by 
 him to the best advantage. It is said that they were 
 never defrauded of their profits. The Turks may, 
 perhaps, have thought that by gentle treatment they 
 would secure the fidelity of the Hydriotes, whose 
 wealth and power depended much on Turkish pro- 
 tection ; but they were greatly mistaken. There 
 was, indeed, some hesitation among the islanders, 
 when the War of Liberation broke out, what part 
 they should take ; for during the great Napoleonic 
 wars the Hydriotes, sailing under the neutral flag of 
 Turkey, had made enormous profits by carrying trade 
 among the belligerents. They lived in great luxury. 
 With the peace of 1815, and the reopening of the 
 French and other ports to English ships, these 
 profits disappeared, and the extravagant hopes of 
 the Hydriotes ended in bankruptcy. This was 
 probably a main cause of their patriotism. How- 
 ever, by far the most brilliant feats in the war were 
 those performed by the Hydriote sailors, Avho remind 
 one very much of the Zealanders in the wars of 
 Holland against the Spanish power. Whether their 
 bravery has been exaggerated is hard to say : this, 
 at all events, is clear, that they earned the respect and 
 admiration of the whole nation, nor is there any nobil- 
 ity so recognized in Greek society as descent from 
 the Hydriote chiefs who fought for the Liberation. 
 
 With the rise of the nation the wealth and im- 
 portance of Hydra has strangely decayed. Prob-
 
 ^EGINA. 427 
 
 ably the Peirseus, with its vast advantages, has 
 naturally regained its former predominance, now 
 that every part of the coast and every port are 
 equally free. Still, the general style and way of 
 living at Hydra reminds one of old times ; and if 
 the island itself be sterile, the rich slopes of the 
 opposite coast, covered with great groves of lemon- 
 trees, are owned by the wealthy descendants of the 
 old merchants. 
 
 The neighboring island of Spezza, where the 
 steamer waits, and a crowd of picturesque people 
 come out in quaint boats to give and take cargo, 
 has a history very parallel to that of Hydra. It is 
 to be noted that the population of both islands is 
 rather Albanian than Greek. A few hours brings 
 the steamer past Poros and through narrow passages 
 among islands to ^Egina, as they now call it. We 
 have here an island whose history is precisely the 
 reverse of that of Hydra. The great days of 
 ^Egina (as I mentioned above) were in very old 
 times, from the age of Pheidon of Argos, in the 
 seventh century B. c., up to the rise of Athens's 
 democracy and navy, when this splendid centre of 
 literature, art, and commerce was absorbed in the 
 greater Athenian empire. 
 
 There is at present a considerable town on the 
 coast, and some cultivation on the hills ; but the 
 whole aspect of the island is very rocky and barren, 
 and as it can hardly ever have been otherwise, we
 
 428 RAMBLES IN GKEECE. 
 
 feel at once that the eai'ly greatness of ^gina was, 
 like that of Hydra in the last century, a purely 
 commercial greatness. The people are very hos- 
 pitable and interesting. Nowhere in Greece did I 
 see more apparent remains of the purest Greek 
 type. Our hostess, in particular, was worthy to 
 take her place in the Parthenon frieze, and among 
 the children playing on the quay there were faces 
 of marvellous beauty. 
 
 With enterprise and diligence, a trading nation or 
 city may readily become great in a small island or 
 barren coast, and no phenomenon in history proves 
 this more strongly than the vast empire of the 
 Phoenicians, who seem never to have owned more 
 than a bare tract of a few miles about Tyre and 
 Sidon. They were, in fact, a great people without 
 a country. The Venetians similarly raised an 
 empire on a salt marsh, and at one time owned 
 many important possessions on Greek coasts and 
 islands, without " any visible means of subsistence," 
 as they say in the police courts. In the same way, 
 Pericles thought nothing of the possession of Attica, 
 provided the Athenians could hold their city Avails 
 and their harbors. He knew that with a maritime 
 supremacy they must necessarily be lords of so vast 
 a stretch of coasts and islands that the barren hills 
 of Attica might be completely left out of account. 
 
 There is yet another and a very interesting way 
 from Nauplia to .ZEgina, which may be strongly
 
 Sculptured Lion, Nauplia
 
 NAUPLIA. 429 
 
 recommended to the traveller who does not arrive 
 in due time to catch the weekly steamer. Horses 
 can be hired at Nauplia, which can perform, in about 
 seven hours, the journey to the little village of Epi- 
 dauros (now pronounced Epidavros). Here a boat 
 can be obtained, which, with a fair wind, can reach 
 jEgina in three, and the Peirseus in about six hours. 
 But, like all boating expeditions, this trip is uncer- 
 tain, and may be thwarted by either calm or storm. 
 
 We left Nauplia on a very fine morning, while the 
 shepherds from the country were going through the 
 streets, shouting ya7, and serving out their milk 
 from skins, of which they held the neck in one hand, 
 and loosened their hold slightly to pour it into the 
 vessel brought to them by the customer. These 
 picturesque people men, women, and children 
 seem to drive an active trade, and yet are not, I 
 believe, to be found in the streets of any other 
 Greek town. 
 
 The way through the Argolic country is rough 
 and stony, not unlike in character to the ride from 
 Corinth to Mycenae, but more barren, and for the 
 most part less picturesque. On some of the hilltops 
 are old ruins, with fine remains of masonry, appar- 
 ently old Greek work. The last two or three hours 
 of the journey are, however, particularly beautiful, 
 as the path goes along the course of a rich glen, in 
 which a tumbling river hurries toward the sea. 
 This glen is full of verdure and of trees. We saw
 
 430 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 it in the richest moment of a southern spring, when 
 all the trees were bursting into leaf, or decked with 
 varied bloom. It was the home, too, of thrushes, 
 and many other singing birds, which filled the air 
 with music as it were a rich variation upon the 
 monotonous sound of the murmuring river. There 
 is no sweeter concert than this in nature, no union 
 of sight and sound which fills the heart of the 
 stranger in such a solitude with deeper gladness. 
 I know no fitter exodus from the beautiful Morea 
 a farewell journey which will dwell upon the 
 memory, and banish from the mind all thoughts of 
 discomfort and fatigue. 
 
 In the picturesque little land-locked bay of Epi- 
 davros there was a good-sized fishing-boat riding at 
 anchor, which we immediately chartered to convey 
 us to Athens. The skipper took some time to 
 gather a crew, and to obtain the necessary papers 
 from the local authorities, but after some pressure 
 on our part we got under weigh with a fair wind, 
 and ran out of the harbor into the broad rock- 
 studded sheet of water which separates Argolis 
 from jEgina, and from the more distant coast of 
 Attica. There is no more delightful or truly Greek 
 mode of travelling than to run through islands and 
 under rocky coasts in these boats, which are roomy 
 and comfortable, and, being decked, afford fair shel- 
 ter from shower or spray. But presently the wind 
 began to increase from the north-west, and our
 
 SHIPWRECKED. 431 
 
 skipper to hesitate whether it were safe to con- 
 tinue the journey. He proposed to run into the 
 harbor of ./"Egina for the night. We acquiesced 
 without demur, and went at a great pace to our 
 new destination. But no sooner had we come into 
 the harbor, and cast anchor, so that the boat lay 
 steady with her head to the wind, than another 
 somewhat larger boat which came sailing in after 
 us ran right into her amidships. The shock started 
 up all my companions, who were lying asleep in the 
 bottom of the boat, and the situation looked rather 
 desperate, for we were in the middle of a large 
 harbor, a long way from land. It was night, and 
 blowing hard, and all our crew betook themselves 
 to weeping and praying, while the other boat did 
 her best to sheer off and leave us to our fate. 
 However, some of us climbed into her bv the bow- 
 
 / 
 
 sprit, which lay across our deck, while others got 
 up the baggage, and proceeded to examine at w r hat 
 pace the water was coming in. A boat from the 
 shore came out in time to take us off safely, but 
 when we had landed our skipper gravely proposed 
 that we shduld pay for the boat, as she was injured 
 in our service ! Of course, we laughed him to scorn, 
 and having found at J&ginfi a steam-launch belong- 
 ing to Captain Miaoulis, then Minister of Marine, 
 we went in search of him, and besought him to take 
 us next day to the Pcira3us. The excellent man 
 not only granted our request., but entertained us on
 
 432 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 the way with the most interesting anecdotes of his 
 stay in England as a boy, when he came with his 
 father to seek assistance from our country during 
 the War of Liberation. Thus we came into the 
 Peirseus, not as shipwrecked outcasts, but under the 
 protection of one of the most gallant and distin- 
 guished officers of the Greek navy. 
 
 A great point of interest among newly-discovered 
 sites is the great temple and theatre of Epidaurus, 
 which I did not visit, on account of an epidemic of 
 small-pox cbfloyta they call it, euphemistically. 
 The very journey to this place is worth making, 
 on account of its intensely characteristic features. 
 You start from Athens in a coasting steamer full 
 of natives, who carry with them their food and beds, 
 and camp on deck where it pleases them, regardless 
 of class. You see all the homeliness of ordinary 
 life obtruded upon you without seeking it, instead 
 of intruding upon others to find it ; and you can 
 study not only the country, but the people, at great 
 leisure. But the ever-varying beauty of the scene 
 leaves little time for other studies. The boat passes 
 along ^Egina, and rounds the promontory of Kalau- 
 ria the death-scene of Demosthenes into the land- 
 locked bay of Poros, where lay the old Trcezen and 
 Hermione along the fruitful shore, surrounded by an 
 amphitheatre of lofty mountains. The sea is like a 
 fair inland lake, studded with white sails, and framed 
 with the rich green of vines and figs and growing
 
 EPIDAVROS. 433 
 
 corn. Even the rows of tall solemn cypresses can 
 suggest no gloom in such a landscape. From here 
 it is but a short ride to the famous temple of ^scu- 
 lapius, though most people go from Nauplia, as I 
 once did in former years, before the discoveries were 
 made which now attract the student. 
 
 The excavations of the Greek archaeological 
 society have laid bare at least three principal build- 
 ings in connection with the famous spot 5 the old 
 temple of the god, the theatre, and the famous tholos, 
 a circular building, in which those who had been 
 healed of diseases set up votive tablets. The extra- 
 ordinary size and splendor of the theatre Pausanias 
 says it was far the finest in Greece rather con- 
 trasts with the dimensions of the temple, and sug- 
 gests that most of the patients who came were able 
 to enjoy themselves, or else that many people came 
 for pleasure, and not on serious business. The re- 
 mains discovered are particularly valuable for the 
 good preservation of the stage, but of this I can 
 only speak at second hand. So also the circular 
 building, which was erected under the supervision 
 of the famous Polycletus, the great Argive sculptor, 
 a rival of Phidias, has many peculiar features, and 
 shows in one more instance that what earlier art 
 critics assumed as modern was based on older classi- 
 cal models. Circular buildings supported on pillars 
 were thought rather Grasco-Roman than Greek, but 
 here we see that, like the builders of the Odeon of 
 
 2S
 
 434 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 Pericles, of the later Philippeion at Olympia, so the 
 Epidaurians had this form before them from early 
 days. Inside the outer row of Doric pillars was a 
 second circle of pillars, apparently Ionic as to pro- 
 portions and fluting, but the capitals were Corinthian, 
 so that this feature also in architecture has a vener- 
 able antiquity, and was not Grseco-Roman, as was 
 once supposed. For a long time the so-called 
 Lantern of Demosthenes, built for Lysicrates at 
 Athens in 335 B. C., when Alexander was leading his 
 army into Asia, was considered the oldest, and per- 
 haps the only pure Greek example of the Corinthian 
 capital. People began to hesitate when a solitary 
 specimen was found in the famous temple of Bassse, 
 where it could hardly have been imported in later 
 days. Now the evidence is completed, and in this 
 respect the historians of art are correcting the rash 
 generalization of their predecessors.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 KYNURIA SPARTA MESSENE. 
 
 WHATEVER other excursions a traveller may make 
 in the Morea, he ought not to omit a trip to Sparta, 
 which has so often been the centre of power, and is 
 still one of the chief centres of attraction in Greece. 
 And yet many reasons conspire to make this famous 
 place less visited than the rest of the country. It is 
 distinctly out of the way from the present starting- 
 points of travel. To reach it from Athens, or even 
 from Patras or Corinth, requires several days, and it 
 is not remarkable for any of those architectural re- 
 mains which are more attractive to the modern 
 inquirer than anything else in a historic country. 
 
 Of the various routes we choose (in 1884) that 
 from Nauplia by Astros, as we had been the guests 
 for some days of the hospitable Dr. Schliemann, who 
 was prosecuting his now famous researches at Tiryns. 
 So we rose one morning with the indefatigable doc- 
 tor before dawn, 1 and took a boat to bring us down 
 the coast to Astros. The morning was perfectly fair 
 and calm, and the great mountain chains of the coast 
 were mirrored in the opal sea, as we passed the pic- 
 
 1 Cf. the account of his habits in his work, Tiryns, cap. I. 
 
 435
 
 436 RAMBLES IX GREECE. 
 
 turesque rocky fort which stands close to Nauplia 
 in the bay, the residence of the public executioner. 
 The beauty of the Gulf of Argos never seemed 
 more perfect than in the freshness of the morning, 
 with the rising sun illuminating the lofty coasts. 
 Our progress was at first by the slow labor of the oar, 
 but as the morning advanced there came down a 
 fresh west wind from the mountains, which at inter- 
 vals filled our lateen sail almost too well, and sent 
 us flying along upon our way. In three hours we 
 rounded a headland, and found ourselves in the pretty 
 little bay of Astros. 
 
 Of course, the whole population came down to see 
 us. They were apparently as idle, and as ready to 
 be amused, as the inhabitants of an Irish village. 
 But they are sadly wanting in fun. You seldom 
 hear them make a joke or laugh, and their curiosity 
 is itself curious from this aspect. After a good deal 
 of bargaining we agreed for a set of mules and 
 ponies to bring us all the way round the Morea, to 
 Corinth if necessary, though ultimately we were glad 
 to leave them at Kyparissia, at the opposite side of 
 Peloponnesus, and pursue our way by sea. The 
 bargain was eight drachmas per day for each ani- 
 mal ; a native, or very experienced traveller, could 
 have got them for five to six drachmas. 
 
 Our way led us up a river course, as usual 
 through fine olive-trees and fields of corn, studded 
 with scarlet anemones, till after a mile or two we
 
 HAGIOS PETROS. 437 
 
 began to ascend from the level of the coast to the 
 altitudes of the central plateau, or rather mountain 
 system, of the Morea. Here the flora of the coast 
 gave way to fields of sperge, hyacinths, irises, and 
 star of Bethlehem. Every inch of ascent gave us 
 a more splendid and extended view back over coasts 
 and islands. The giant tops of the inner country 
 showed themselves still covered with snow. We 
 were in that district so little known in ancient his- 
 tory, which was so long a bone of contention between 
 Argos and Sparta, whose boundaries seem never to 
 have been fixed by any national landmark. When 
 we had reached the top of the rim of inland Alps, 
 we ascended and descended various steeps, and 
 rounded many glens, reaching in the end the vil- 
 lage of Hagios Petros, which we had seen before us 
 for a long time, while we descended one precipice 
 and mounted another to attain our goal. It was 
 amusing to see our agoglatcB or muleteers pulling out 
 fragments of mirror, and arranging their toilette, 
 such as it was, before encountering the criticism of 
 the Hagiopetrans. One of these men was indeed a 
 handsome soldierly youth, who walked all day with 
 us for a week over the roughest country, in miserable 
 shoes, and yet without apparent fatigue. 
 
 Another, a great stout man with a beard, excused 
 himself for not being married by saying he was too 
 little (e-evac fiixpoz), and so we learned that as they 
 are all expected to marry, and do marry, twenty-five
 
 438 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 is considered the earliest proper age. One would 
 almost think they had preserved some echo of Aris- 
 totle's views, which make thirty years the best age 
 for marriage thirty years ! when most of us are 
 already so old as to have lost interest in these great 
 pleasures. 
 
 At Hagios Petros we were hospitably received by 
 the demarch, a venerable old man with a white 
 beard, who was a physician, unfortunately also a 
 politician, and who insisted on making a thousand 
 inquiries about Mr. Gladstone and Prince Bismarck, 
 while we were starving and longing for dinner. 
 Some fish, which the muleteers had providently 
 bought at Astros and brought with them, formed the 
 best part of the entertainment, if we except the 
 magnificent creature, adorned in all his petticoats 
 and colors and knives, who came in to see us before 
 dinner, and kissed our hands with wonderful dig- 
 nity, but who turned out to be the waiter at the 
 table. We asked the demarch how he had procured 
 himself so stately a servant, and he said he was the 
 clerk in his office. It occurred to us, when we 
 watched the grace and dignity of every movement 
 in this royal-looking person, how great an effect 
 splendid costume seems to have on manners. It 
 was but a few days since that I had gone to a very 
 fashionable evening party at a handsome palace in 
 Athens, and had been amused at the extraordinary 
 awkwardness with which various very learned men
 
 HAGIOS PETROS. 439 
 
 professors, archaeologists, men of independent 
 means had entered the room. The circle was, 
 I may add, chiefly German. Here was a man, 
 ignorant, acting as a servant and yet a king in 
 demeanor. But how could you expect a German 
 professor in his miserable Frankish dress to assume 
 the dignity of a Greek in palicar costume, in forty 
 yards of petticoat, his waist squeezed with female 
 relentlessness, with his ruby jacket and gaiters, his 
 daggers and pistols at his belt. After all, manners 
 are hardly attainable, as a rule, without costume. 
 
 We were accommodated as well as the worthy 
 demarch could manage for the night. As a special 
 favor I was put to sleep into his dispensary, a little 
 chamber full of galley-pots, pestles, and labelled 
 bottles of antiquated appearance, and dreamt in 
 turns of the study of Faust and of the apothecary's 
 shop in Mantua, which we see upon the stage. 
 
 Early in the morning we climbed up a steep 
 ascent to attain the high plateau, very bleak and 
 bare, which is believed by the people to have been 
 the scene of the conflict of Othryades and his men 
 with the Argive 300. A particular spot is still 
 called <rroyc fovc^us^oyr, the place of the slain. 
 The high plain, about 3500 feet above the sea, 
 was all peopled with country-folk coming to a 
 market at Hagios Petros, and we had ample oppor- 
 tunity of admiring both the fine manly appearance 
 and the excellent manners of this hardy and free
 
 440 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 peasantry. The complex of mountains in which 
 they live is the chain of Parnon, which ultimately 
 extends from Thyreatis through Kynuria down to 
 Cape Maiea, but not without many breaks and 
 crossings. The heights of Parnon (now called 
 Malevo) still hid from us the farther Alps of the 
 inner country. 
 
 After a ride of an hour or two we descended to 
 the village of Arachova, much smaller and poorer 
 than its namesake in Phocis (above, p. 274), and 
 thence to the valley of a stream called Phonissa, 
 the murderess, from its dangerous floods, but at the 
 moment a pleasant and shallow brook. Down its 
 narrow bed we went for hours, crossing and recross- 
 ing it, or riding along its banks, with all the verdure 
 gradually increasing with the change of climate and 
 of shelter, till at last a turn in the river brought us 
 suddenlv in sight of the brilliant serrated crest of 
 
 J 
 
 Taygetus, glittering with its snow in the sunshine. 
 Then we knew our proper landmark, and felt that 
 we were indeed approaching Sparta. 
 
 But we still had a long way to ride down our 
 river till we reached its confluence with the Eurotas, 
 near to which we stopped at a solitary khan, from 
 which it is an easy ride to visit the remains of Sel- 
 lasia. During the remaining three hours we de- 
 scended the banks of the Eurotas, with the country 
 gradually growing richer, and the stream so deep 
 that it could no longer be forded. There is a quaint
 
 SPARTA. 441 
 
 high mediaeval bridge at the head of the vale of 
 Sparta. On a hot summer's afternoon, about five 
 o'clock, we rode, dusty and tired, into Sparta. 
 
 The town was in holiday, and athletic sports were 
 going on in commemoration of the establishment of 
 Greek liberty. Crowds of fine tall men were in the 
 very wide regular streets, and in the evening this 
 new town vindicated its ancient title of supvyopoz. 
 But the very first glance at the surroundings of the 
 place was sufficient to correct in my mind a very 
 widespread error, which we all obtain from reading 
 the books of people who have never studied history 
 on the spot. We imagine to ourselves the Spartans 
 as hardy mountaineers, living in a rude alpine coun- 
 try, with sterile soil, the rude nurse of liberty. 
 They may have been such when they arrived in 
 prehistoric times from the mountains of Phocis, 
 but a veiy short residence in Laconia must have 
 changed them very much. The vale of Sparta is 
 the richest and most fertile in Peloponnesus. The 
 bounding chains of mountains are separated by a 
 stretch, some twenty miles wide, of undulating hills 
 and slopes, all now covered with vineyards, orange 
 and lemon orchards, and comfortable homesteads or 
 villages. The great chain on the west limits the 
 vale by a definite line, but toward the east the hills 
 that run toward Malea rise very gradually and with 
 many delays beyond the arable ground. The old 
 Spartans therefore settled in the richest and best
 
 442 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 country available, and must from the very outset of 
 their career have had better food, better climate, and 
 hence much more luxury than their neighbors. 
 
 We are led to the same conclusion by the art- 
 remains which are now coming to light, and which 
 are being collected in the well-built local museum of 
 the town. They show us that there was an archaic 
 school of sculpture, which produced votive and 
 funeral reliefs, and therefore that the old Spartans 
 were by no means so opposed to art as they have 
 been represented in the histories. The poetry of 
 Alkman, with its social and moral freedom, its 
 suggestions of luxury and good living, shows what 
 kind of literature the Spartan rulers thought tit to 
 import and encourage in the city of Lycurgus. The 
 whole sketch of Spartan society which we read in 
 Plutarch's Life and other late authorities seems 
 rather to smack of imaginary reconstruction on 
 Doric principles than of historical reality. Contrasts 
 there were, no doubt, between Dorians and lonians, 
 nay, even between Sparta and Tarentine or Argive 
 Dorians ; but still Sparta was a rich and luxurious 
 society, as is confessed on all hands where there is 
 any mention of the ladies and their homes. We 
 might as well infer from the rudeness of the dor- 
 mitories in the College at Winchester, or from the 
 simplicity of an English man-of-war's mess, that our 
 nation consisted of rude mountaineers living in the 
 sternest simplicity.
 
 TAYGETUS. 443 
 
 But if I continue to write in this way I shall have 
 all the pedants down upon me. Let us return to the 
 Sparta of to-day. We lodged at a very bad and dear 
 inn, and our host's candid excuse for his exorbitant 
 prices was the fact that he very seldom had strangers 
 to rob, and so must plunder those that came without 
 stint. His formula was perhaps a little more decent, 
 but he hardly sought to disguise the plain truth. 
 When we sought our beds, we found that a very 
 noisy party had established themselves below to 
 celebrate the Feast of the Liberation, with supper, 
 speeches, and midnight revelry. 
 
 So, as usual, there was little possibility of sleep. 
 Moreover, I knew that we had a very long day's 
 journey before us to Kalamata, so I rose before the 
 sun and before my companions, to make preparations 
 and to rouse the muleteers. 
 
 On opening my window, I felt that I had attained 
 one of the strange moments of life which can never 
 be forgotten. The air was preternaturally clear and 
 cold, and the sky beginning to glow faintly with the 
 coming day. Straight before me, so close that it 
 almost seemed within reach of voice, the giant 
 Taygetus, which rises straight from the plain, stood 
 up into the sky, its black and purple gradually 
 brightening into crimson, and the cold blue-white 
 of its snow warming into rose. There was a great 
 feeling of peace and silence, arid yet a vast diffusion 
 of sound. From the whole plain, with all its home-
 
 444 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 steads and villages, myriads of cocks were proclaim- 
 ing the advent of the dawn. I had never thought 
 there were so many cocks in all the world. The 
 ever-succeeding voices of these countless thousands 
 kept up one continual wave of sound, such as I sup- 
 pose could not be equalled anywhere else ; and yet 
 for all that, as I have said, there was a feeling of 
 silence, a sense that no other living thing was 
 abroad, an absolute stillness in the air, a deep sleep 
 over the rest of nature. 
 
 How long I stood there, and forgot my hurry, I 
 know not, but starting up at last as the sun struck 
 the mountain, I went down, and found below stairs 
 another curious contrast. All over the coffee-room 
 (if I may so dignify it) were the disordered remains 
 of a disorderly revel, ashes and stains and fragments 
 in disgusting confusion ; and among them a solitary 
 figure was mumbling prayers in the gloom to the 
 image of a saint with a faint lamp burning before it. 
 In the midst of the wrecks of dissipation was the 
 earnestness of devotion, prayer in the place of 
 ribaldry ; perhaps, too, dead formalism in the place 
 of coarse but real enjoyment. 
 
 We left for Mistra before six in the morning, so 
 escaping some of the parting inspection which the 
 whole town was ready to bestow upon us. The way 
 led us past many orchards, where oranges and lemons 
 were growing in the richest profusion on great trees, 
 as large as the cherry-trees in the Alps. The
 
 MISTRA. 445 
 
 branches were bending with their load, and there 
 was fruit tumbled into the grass, and studding the 
 ground in careless plenty with its ruddy and pale 
 gold. In these orchards, with their deep green 
 masses of foliage, the nightingales sing all day, and 
 we heard them out-carolling the homelier sounds of 
 awakening husbandry. During all the many rides I 
 have taken through Greece, no valley ever struck 
 me with the sense of peace and wealth so much as 
 that of Sparta. 
 
 After an hour or so we reached the picturesque 
 town of Mistra, now nearly deserted, but all through 
 the Middle Ages the capital of the district, nestled 
 under the shelter of the great fortress of the Ville- 
 hardouins, the family of the famous chronicler. Sepa- 
 rated by a deep gorge (or langada) with its torrent 
 from the loftier mountain, this picturesque rock with 
 its fortress contains the most remarkable mediaeval 
 remains, Latin, Greek, Venetian, Turkish, in all the 
 Morea. Villehardouins and Paleologi made it their 
 seat of power, and filled it with churches and palaces, 
 to which I shall return when we speak of mediaeval 
 Greece. An earthquake about fifty years ago de- 
 stroyed many of the houses, and the population 
 then founded the new Sparta, with its wide, regular 
 streets, on the site of the old classical city. This 
 resettlement is not so serious a hindrance to archae- 
 ology as the rebuilding of Athens, for we know that 
 in the days of its real greatness Sparta was a mere
 
 446 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 aggregate of villages, and the walls and theatre 
 which are still visible must have been built in late 
 Greek or Roman times. The so-called tomb of 
 Leonidas, a square chamber built with huge blocks 
 of ashlar masonry, of which three courses remain, 
 appears like building of the best period, but its his- 
 tory is wholly unknown. 
 
 We reached in another hour the steep village of 
 Trypi, at the very mouth of the great pass through 
 Taygetus a beautiful site, with houses and forest 
 trees standing one above the other on the precipi- 
 tous steep ; and below, the torrent rushing into the 
 plain to join the Eurotas. It is from this village 
 that we ought to have started at dawn, and where 
 we should have spent the previous night, for even 
 from here it takes eleven full hours to reach Kala- 
 mata on the Gulf of Messene. The traveller should 
 send on his ponies, or take them to Mistra and 
 thence to Trypi on the previous afternoon. The 
 lodging there is probably not much worse than at 
 Sparta. 
 
 From this point we entered at once into the great 
 Langada pass, the most splendid defile in Greece 
 the only way from Sparta into Messene for a distance 
 of thirty miles north and south. It is indeed pos- 
 sible to scale the mountain at a few other points, but 
 only by regular alpine climbing, whereas this is a 
 regular highway ; and along it strings of mules, 
 not without trouble, make their passage daily, when
 
 Langada Pass
 
 THE LANGADA PASS. 447 
 
 the snow does not lie, from Sparta and from Kala- 
 mata. 
 
 Nothing can exceed the picturesqueness and 
 beauty of this pass, and nothing was stranger 
 than the contrast between its two steeps. That 
 which faced south was covered with green and with 
 spring flowers pale anemones, irises, orchids, vio- 
 lets, and, where a stream trickled down, with prim- 
 roses a marsh plant in this country. All these 
 were growing among great boulders and cliffs, 
 whereas on the opposite side the whole face was 
 bleak and barren, the rocks being striated with rich 
 yellow and red veins. I suppose in hot summer 
 these aspects are reversed. High above us, as it 
 were, looking down from the summits, were great 
 forests of fir-trees a gloomy setting to a grandiose 
 and savage landscape. The day was, as usual, calm 
 and perfectly fine, with a few white clouds relieving 
 the deep blue of the sky. As we were threading 
 our way among the rocks of the river-course we 
 were alarmed by large stones tumbling from above, 
 and threatening to crush us. Our guides raised all 
 the echoes with their shouts, to warn any uncon- 
 scious disturber of this solitude that there were 
 human beings beneath, but on closer survey we 
 found that our possible assassins were only goats 
 clambering along the precipice in search of food, 
 and disturbing loose boulders as they went. 
 
 Farther on we met other herds of these quaint
 
 448 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 creatures generally tended by a pair of solitary chil- 
 dren, who seemed to belong to no human kin, but, 
 like birds or flowers, to be the natural denizens of 
 these wilds. They seemed not to talk or play ; we 
 never heard them sing, but passed them sitting in 
 curious vague listlessness, with no wonder, no curi- 
 osity, in their deep solemn eyes. There, all the day 
 long, they heard no sound but the falling water, the 
 tinkling of their flocks, and the great whisper of the 
 forest pines when the breeze touched them on its 
 way down the pass. They took little heed of us as 
 we passed, and seemed to have sunk from active 
 beings into mere passive mirrors of the external 
 nature around them. The men with us, on the other 
 hand, were constantly singing and talking. They 
 were all in a strange country which they had never 
 seen ; a serious man with a gun slung around his 
 shoulder was our guide from Trypi, and so at last we, 
 reached the top of the pass, about four thousand feet 
 high, marked by a little chapel to St. Elias, and once 
 by a stone pillar stating the boundary between Sparta 
 and Messene. It was then up this pass, and among 
 these forests, that the young Spartans had steeled 
 themselves by hunting the wolf and the bear in 
 peace, and by raids and surprises in days of war. 
 The descent was longer and more varied ; some- 
 times through well cultivated olive yards, mulberries, 
 and thriving villages, sometimes along giant slopes, 
 where a high wind would have made our progress
 
 KALAMATA. 449 
 
 very difficult. Gradually the views opened and ex- 
 tended, and in the evening we could see down to the 
 coast of Messene, and the sea far away. But we 
 did not reach Kalamata till long after nightfall, and 
 rested gladly in a less uncomfortable inn than we had 
 yet found in the journey. 
 
 The town is a cheery and pleasant little place, 
 with remains of a large mediaeval castle occupied by 
 Franks, Venetians, Turks, which was the first seat 
 of the Villehardouins, and from which they founded 
 their second fort at Mistra. The river Nedon here 
 runs into the sea, and there is a sort of open road- 
 stead for ships, where steamers call almost daily, and 
 a good deal of coasting trade (silk, currants, etc.) 
 goes on. The only notable feature in the architect- 
 ure is the pretty bell tower of the church, of a type 
 which I afterward saw in other parts of Messenia, 
 but which is not usual in these late Byzantine 
 buildings. 
 
 As there was nothing to delay us here, we left 
 next morning for the convent of Vourkano, from 
 which we were to visit Mount Ithome, and the fa- 
 mous ruins of Epaminondas's second great founda- 
 tion in Peloponnesus the revived Messene. The 
 plain (called Macaria or Felix from its fertility) 
 through which we rode was indeed both rich and 
 prosperous, but swampy in some places and very 
 dusty in others. There seemed to be active cultiva- 
 tion of mulberries, figs, olives, lemons, almonds, 
 
 29
 
 450 KAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 currant-grapes, with cactus hedges and plenty of 
 cattle. There were numerous little pot-houses along 
 the road, where mastich and lucumia were sold, as 
 well as dried fruit and oranges. If the Nedon was 
 broad and shallow, we found the Pamisos narrow and 
 deep, so that it could only be crossed by a bridge. 
 A few hours brought us to the ascent of Mount 
 Ithome, on a high shoulder of which is situated the 
 famous and hospitable convent of Vourkano (or 
 Voulkano). 
 
 The building, very picturesquely situated high on 
 the side of Mount Ithome, commands a long slope 
 covered with brushwood and wild-flowers, the ideal 
 spot for a botanist, as many rills of water run down 
 the descent and produce an abundant and various 
 vegetation. There is not a sod of soil which does 
 not contain bulbs and roots of flowers. Below 
 stretches the valley of Stenyclarus, so famous in the 
 old annals of Messene. It was studded with groves 
 of orange and lemon, olive and date, mulberry and 
 fig. The whole of this country has an aspect far 
 more southern and subtropical than any part of 
 Laconia. 
 
 The monks treated us with great kindness, even 
 pressing us to sit down to dinner before any ablu- 
 tions had been thought of, and while we were still 
 covered with the dust of a very hot and stormy 
 journey along high roads. The plan of the build- 
 ing, which is not old, having been moved down from
 
 VOURKANO. 451 
 
 the summit in the last century, is that of a court 
 closed with a gateway, with covered corridors 
 above looking into the court, and a very tawdry 
 chapel occupying its centre. It seemed a large and 
 well-to-do establishment, a sort of Greek Monte 
 Cassino in appearance ; and with the same stir of 
 country people and' passing visitors about it. Far 
 above us, on the summit of Mount Ithome the site 
 of human sacrifices to Zeus Ithomates in days of 
 trouble we saw a chapel on the highest top, 2500 
 feet over the sea. Here they told us that a solitary 
 anchorite spent his life, praying and doing service 
 at his altar, far above the sounds of human life. 
 We made inquiry concerning the history of this 
 saint, who was once a wealthy Athenian citizen, 
 with a wife and family. His wife was dead, and 
 his sons settled in the world, so he resolved to 
 devote the rest of his years to the service of God 
 apart from the ways of men. Once a fortnight only 
 he descended to the convent, and brought up the 
 necessary food. On his lonely watch he had no 
 company but timid hares, travelling quail, and an 
 occasional eagle, that came and sat by him without 
 fear, perhaps in wonder at this curious and silent 
 friend. The monks below had often urged him to 
 catch these creatures for their benefit, but he refused 
 to profane their lofty asylum. So he sits, looking out 
 from his watch upon sunshine and rain, upon hot calm 
 and wild storm, with the whole Peloponnesus extended
 
 452 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 beneath his eyes. He sees from afar the works and 
 ways of men, and the world that he has left for ever. 
 Is it not strange that still upon the same height men 
 offer to their God these human sacrifices, changed 
 indeed in appearance, but in real substance the 
 same ? 
 
 The main excursion from the monastery is over 
 the saddle of the mountain westward, and through 
 the lt Laconian gate " down into the valley beneath, 
 to see the remains of Epaminondas's great founda- 
 tion, the new Messene. There are still faint traces 
 of a small theatre and some other buildings, but of 
 the walls and gates enough to tell us pretty clearly 
 how men built fortifications in those days. The 
 circuit of the walls included the fort on the summit, 
 and enclosed a large tract of country, so much that 
 it would be impossible for any garrison to defend it, 
 and accordingly we hear of the city being taken by 
 sudden assault more than once. The plan is very 
 splendid, but seems to us rather ostentatious than 
 serious for a new foundation liable to attacks from 
 Sparta. The walls were, however, beautifully built, 
 with towers at intervals, and gates for sallies. The 
 best extant gate is called the Arcadian, and con- 
 sisted of an outer and inner pair of folding-doors, 
 enclosing a large round chamber for the watch. 
 The size of the doorposts and lintels is gigantic, and 
 shows that there was neither time nor labor spared 
 to make Messene a stately settlement. There was
 
 Arcadian Gateway, Messene
 
 MESSENE. 453 
 
 almost enough land enclosed within the walls to feed 
 the inhabitants of the houses, for their number never 
 became very great. If Megalopolis, a far more suc- 
 cessful foundation, was far too large for its popula- 
 tion, how much more must this have been the case 
 with Messene ? In military architecture, however, 
 we have no other specimen of old Hellenic work 
 equal to it, except perhaps Eleutherse, which re- 
 sembles it in style strongly, though the enclosure 
 is quite small in comparison. 
 
 We could have gone up from Messene by a very 
 long day's ride to Bassse, and so to Olympia, but we 
 had had enough of riding and preferred to make a 
 short day to the sea at Kyparissia, and thence by 
 steamer to Katakolo, from which rail and road to 
 Olympia are quite easy. So we left the convent in 
 the morning and descended into the valley, to turn 
 north and then north-east, along the river courses 
 which mark the mule-tracks through the wild 
 country. We crossed a strange bridge over the 
 junction of two rivers made of three arches meeting 
 in the centre, and of which the substructure were 
 certainly old Greek building. We then passed 
 through bleak tracts of uncultivated land, perhaps 
 the most signal case of insufficient population we 
 had seen in Greece. All these waste fields were 
 covered with great masses of asphodel, through 
 which rare herds of swine were feeding, and the 
 sight of these fields suggested to me that by the
 
 454 RAMBLES IN GREECR 
 
 "meadow of asphodel" in Homer is not meant a 
 pleasant garden, or desirable country, but merely a 
 dull waste in which there is nothing done, and no 
 sign of human labor or human happiness. Had 
 there been night or gloom over this stony tract, with 
 its tall straggling plants and pale flowers, one could 
 easily imagine it the place which the dead hero in- 
 habited when he told his friend that the vilest menial 
 on earth was happier than he. 
 
 After some hours the mountains began to approach 
 on either side, and we reached a country wonderful 
 in its contrast. Great green slopes reached up from 
 us far away into the hills, studded with great single 
 forest trees, and among them huge shrubs of arbutus 
 and mastich, trimmed and rounded as if for orna- 
 ment. It was like a splendid park, kept by an Eng- 
 lish magnate. The regularity of shape in the shrubs 
 arises, no doubt, from the constant cropping of the 
 young shoots all round by herds of goats, which we 
 met here and there in this beautiful solitude. The 
 river bank where we rode was clothed with oleander, 
 prickly pear, and other flowering shrubs which I 
 could not name. 
 
 At last woods of ancient olives, with great gnarled 
 stems, told us that we were nearing some important 
 settlement, and the pleasant town of Kyparissia 
 came in view now, alas ! a heap of ruins since the 
 recent earthquake. Here we took leave of our 
 ponies, mules, and human followers ; but the pathos
 
 KYPARISSIA. 455 
 
 of parting with these intimate companions of many 
 days was somewhat marred by the divergence of 
 their notions and ours as to their pay. Yet these 
 differences, when settled, did not prevent them from 
 giving us an affectionate farewell.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 MYCENAE AND TIRYNS. 
 
 I HAVE set apart a chapter for Mycenae and 
 Tiryns, because the discoveries of Dr. Schliemann 
 there have raised so many new pi'oblems, and have 
 so largely increased public curiosity about them, 
 that a book of travels in Greece cannot venture to 
 avoid the subject; even long before Dr. Schlie- 
 mann's day, the learned and deliberate travellers 
 who visited the Morea, and wrote their great books, 
 found ample scope for description, and large room 
 for erudite discussion. It is a curious thing to add, 
 but strictly true, that all the new facts brought out 
 by the late excavations have, as yet, contributed but 
 little to our knowledge about the actual history of 
 the country, and that almost every word of what was 
 summed up from all existing sources twenty years 
 ago, by Ernst Curtius, can still be read with far 
 more profit than the rash speculations which appear 
 almost weekly in the periodical press. 
 
 It is impossible to approach Mycense from any 
 side without being struck with the picturesqueness 
 of the site. If you come down over the mountains 
 from Corinth, as soon as you reach the head of the 
 
 456
 
 MYCENAE. 457 
 
 valley of the Inaclms, which is the plain of Argos, 
 you turn aside to the left, or east, into a secluded 
 corner " a recess of the horse-feeding Argos," as 
 Homer calls it, and then you find on the edge of 
 the valley, and where the hills begin to rise one 
 behind the other, the village of Charvati. When 
 you ascend from this place, you find that the lofty 
 Mount Elias is separated from the plain by tAvo 
 nearly parallel waves of land, which are indeed 
 joined at the northern end by a curving saddle, 
 but elsewhere are divided by deep gorges. The 
 loftier and shorter wave forms the rocky citadel of 
 Mycenae the Argion, as it was once called. The 
 lower and longer was part of the outer city, which 
 occupied both this hill and the gorge under the 
 Argion. As you walk along the lower hill, you find 
 the Treasure-house of Atreus, as it is called, built 
 into the side which faces the Acropolis. But there 
 are other ruined treasuries on the outer slope, and 
 the newly-opened one is just at the joining saddle, 
 where the way winds round to lead you up the 
 greater hill to the giant gate with the Lion portal. 
 If we represent the high levels under the image of 
 a fishing-hook, with the shank placed downward 
 (south), and the point lying to the right (east), then 
 the Great Treasury is at that spot in the shank 
 which is exactly opposite the point, and faces it. 
 The point and barb are the Acropolis. The New 
 Treasury is just at the turn of the hook, facing in-
 
 458 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 ward (to the south). This will give a rough idea 
 of the site. It is not necessary to enter into details, 
 when so many maps and plans are now in circula- 
 tion. But I would especially refer to the admirable 
 illustrations in Schliemann's Myccn<e, where all these 
 matters are made perfectly plain and easy. 
 
 When we first visited the place it was in the 
 afternoon of a splendid summer's day ; the fields 
 were yellow and white with stubbles or with dust, 
 and the deep gray shadow of a passing cloud was 
 the only variety in the color of the upper plain. 
 For here there are now no trees, the corn had been 
 reaped, and the land asserted its character as rcri/ 
 thirsty Argos. But as we ascended to higher 
 ground, the groves and plantations of the lower 
 plain came in sight, the splendid blue of the bay 
 began to frame the picture, and the setting sun cast 
 deeper shadow and richer color over all the view. 
 Down at the river-bed great oleanders were spi-ead- 
 ing their sheets of bloom, like the rhododendrons in 
 our climate, but they were too distant to form a 
 feature in the prospect. 
 
 I saw the valley of Argos again in spring, in our 
 " roaring moon of daffodil and crocus ;" it was the 
 time of growing corn, of scarlet anemone and purple 
 cistus, but there too of high winds and glancing 
 shadows. Then all the plain was either brilliant 
 green with growing wheat, or ruddy brown with 
 recent tillage ; there were clouds about the nioun-
 
 The Argive Plain
 
 MYCEN.E. 459 
 
 tains, and changing colors in the sky, and a feeling 
 of freshness and life very different from the golden 
 haze and dreamy calmness of a southern June. 
 
 I can hardly say which of these seasons was the 
 more beautiful, but I shall always associate the sum- 
 mer scene with the charm of a first visit to this 
 famous spot, and still more with the venerable and 
 undisturbed aspect of the ruins before they had been 
 profaned by modern research. It is, I suppose, 
 ungrateful to complain of theee things, and we must 
 admit that great discoveries outbalance the aesthetic 
 damage done to an ancient ruin by digging unsightly 
 holes and piling mounds of earth about it ; but who 
 can contemplate without sorrow the covering of the 
 finest piece of the Cyclopean wall at Mycenae with 
 the rubbish taken away from over the tombs ! Who 
 will not regret the fig-tree which spread its shade 
 over the portal of the House of Atreus ? This fig- 
 tree is still to be seen in the older photographs, and 
 is in the woodcut of the entrance given in Dr. Schlie- 
 mann's book, but the visitor of to-day will look for 
 it in vain. On the other hand, the opening at the 
 top, which had been there since the beginning of 
 this century, but which was closed when I first 
 visited the chamber, had been again uncovered, and 
 so it was much easier to examine the inner arrange- 
 ment of the building. 
 
 I am not sure that this wonderful structure was 
 visited or described by any traveller from the days
 
 460 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 of Pausanias till after the year 1800. At least I 
 can find no description from any former traveller 
 quoted in the many accurate accounts which the 
 present century has produced. Chandler, in 1776, 
 intended to visit Mycense, but accidentally missed 
 the spot on his way from Argos to Corinth a thing 
 more likely to happen then, when there was a good 
 deal of wooding in the upper part of the plain. But 
 Clarke, Dodwell, and Gell all visited and described 
 the place between 1800 and 1806, and the latter 
 two published accurate drawings of both the portal 
 and the inner view, which was possible owing to 
 the aperture made at the summit. 
 
 About the same time Lord Elgin had turned his 
 attention to the Treasury, and had made excavations 
 about the place, finding several fragments of very 
 old engraved basalt and limestone, which had been 
 employed to ornament the entrance. Some of these 
 fragments are now in the British Museum. But, 
 though both Clarke and Leake allude to " Lord 
 Elgin's excavators," they do not specify what was 
 performed, or in what condition the place had been 
 before their researches. There is no published ac- 
 count of this interesting point, which is probably to 
 be solved by the still unpublished journals said to be 
 in the possession of the present Earl. 1 This much 
 is, however, certain, that the chamber was not first 
 
 1 I have made special inquiries for these, but without any result. 
 They seem to be lost.
 
 THE TREASURY OF ATREUS. 461 
 
 entered at this time ; for Dr. Clarke speaks of its 
 appearance as that of a place open for centuries. 
 AVc know that systematic rifling of ancient tombs 
 took place at the close of the classical epoch j 1 we 
 can imagine it repeated in every age of disorder or 
 barbarism ; and the accounts we hear of the Genoese 
 plundering the great mounds of the Crimea show 
 that even these civilized and artistic Italians thought 
 it no desecration to obtain gold and jewels from un- 
 named, long-forgotten sepulchres. It seems, there- 
 fore, impossible to say at what epoch probably even 
 before Pausanias this chamber was opened. The 
 story in Dr. Schliemann's book, 2 which he quotes 
 from a Greek newspaper, and which attributes the 
 plundering of it to Veli Pasha, in 1810, is positively 
 groundless, and in direct contradiction to the irre- 
 fragable evidence I have above adduced. The Pasha 
 may have probed the now ruined chambers on the 
 outer side of the hill ; but the account of what he 
 found is so mythical that the whole story may be 
 rejected as undeserving of credit. 
 
 I need not attempt a fresh description of the 
 Great Treasury, in the face of such ample and 
 accurate reports as those I have indicated. It is in 
 no sense a rude building, or one of a helpless and bar- 
 barous age, but, on the contrary, the product of 
 
 1 Cf. p. 389, and the outrages of the Galatian mercenaries under 
 Philip V. of Macedon. 
 
 2 Mi/cents, p. 49.
 
 462 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 enormous appliances, and of a perfect knowledge 
 of all the mechanical requirements for any building, 
 if we except the application of the arch. The 
 stones are hewn square, or curved to form the circu- 
 lar dome within with admirable exactness. Above 
 the enormous lintel-stone, nearly twenty-seven feet 
 long, and which is doubly grooved, by way of orna- 
 ment, all along its edge over the doorway, there is 
 now a triangular window or aperture, which was cer- 
 tainly filled with some artistic carving like the 
 analogous space over the lintel in the gate of the 
 Acropolis. Shortly after Lord Elgin had cleared 
 the entrance, Gell and Dodwell found various pieces 
 of green and red marble carved with geometrical 
 patterns, some of which are reproduced in Dodwell's 
 book. Gell also found some fragments in a neigh- 
 boring chapel, and others are said to be built into a 
 wall at Nauplia. There are supposed to have been 
 short columns standing on each side in front of the 
 gate, with some ornament surmounting them ; but 
 this seems to me to rest on doubtful evidence, and 
 on theoretical reconstruction. Dr. Schliemann, how- 
 ever, asserts them to have been found at the entrance 
 of the second treasury which Mrs. Schliemann ex- 
 cavated, though his account is somewhat vague 
 (.Ift/rentc, p. 140). There is the strongest archi- 
 tectural reason for the triangular aperture over the 
 door, as it diminishes the enormous weight to be 
 borne by the lintel ; and here, no doubt, some orna-
 
 THE TREASURY OF ATREUS. - 463 
 
 raent very like the lions on the citadel gate may 
 have been applied. 
 
 The extreme darkness of the chamber during our 
 first visit prevented me from discovering, even with 
 the aid of torches, the nail-marks which all the 
 earlier travellers found there, and which are now 
 again easily to be seen. So also the outer lintel- 
 stone is not by any means the largest, but is far 
 exceeded by the inner, which lies next to it, and 
 which reaches on each side of the entrance a long 
 way round the chamber, its inner surface being 
 curved to suit the form of the wall. Along this 
 curve it is twenty-nine feet long ; it is, moreover, 
 seventeen feet broad, and nearly four feet thick, 
 weighing about one hundred and twenty-four 
 tons ! 
 
 When we first entered by the light of torches, we 
 found ourselves in the great cone-shaped chamber, 
 which, strange to say, reminded me of the Pantheon 
 at Rome more than any other building I know, and 
 is, nevertheless, built on a very different principle. 
 The stones are not, indeed, pushed forward one 
 above the other, as in ruder stone roofs through 
 Ireland ; but each of them, which is on the other 
 surfaces cut perfectly square, has its inner face 
 curved so that the upper end comes out several 
 inches above the lower. So each stone carries on 
 the conical plan, having its lower line fitting closely 
 to the upper line of the one beneath, and the
 
 4(34 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 whole dome ends with a great flat stone laid on the 
 top. 1 
 
 Dodwell still found copper nails of some inches in 
 length, which he supposed to have been used to 
 fasten on thin plates of shining metal ; but I was 
 at first unable to see even the holes in the roof, 
 which other travellers had believed to be the places 
 where the nails were inserted. However, without 
 being provided with magnesium wire, it was then 
 impossible to light the chamber sufficiently for a 
 positive decision on this point. A comparatively 
 small side chamber is hollowed out in the rock and 
 earth, without any stone casing or ornament what- 
 ever, but with a similar triangular aperture over its 
 doorway. Schliemann tells us he dug two trenches 
 in this chamber, and that, besides finding some 
 hewn pieces of limestone, he found in the middle a 
 circular depression (apparently of stone), twenty- 
 one inches deep, and about one yard in diameter, 
 which he compares to a large wash-bowl. Any one 
 who has visited New Grange will be struck with the 
 likeness of this description to the large stone saucers 
 
 1 According to Pausanias, the treasury of Minyas was differ- 
 ently liuilt ; for the top stone of its flat dome was the keystone 
 (apfiovla) 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 cli amber from 
 above.
 
 THE TREASURY OF ATREUS. 465 
 
 which arc still to be seen there, and of which I shall 
 speak presently. 
 
 There has been much controversy about the use to 
 which this building was applied, and we cannot now 
 attempt to change the name, even if we could prove 
 its absurdity. Pausanias, who saw Mycense in the 
 second century A. D., found it in much the same state 
 as we do, and was no better informed than we, 
 though he tells us the popular belief that this and 
 its fellows were treasure-houses like that of the 
 Minyse at Orchomenus, which was very much 
 greater, and was, in his opinion, one of the most 
 wonderful things in all Greece. But it does not 
 seem to me that his opinion, which, indeed, is 
 not very clear, need in the least shackle our judg- 
 ments. 
 
 The majority of scholars incline to the theory that 
 it is a tomb. In the first place, there are three other 
 similar buildings quite close to it, which Pausanias 
 mentions as the treasure-houses of the sons of 
 Atreus, but their number makes it most unlikely 
 that any of them could be for treasure. Surely 
 such a house could only be owned by the reigning 
 king, and there is no reason why his successor 
 should make himself a new vault for this purpose. 
 In the next place, these buildings were all under- 
 ground and dark, and exactly such as would be 
 selected for tombs. Thirdly, they are not situated 
 wifliin the enclosure of the citadel of Mycense, but 
 
 30
 
 466 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 are outside it, and probably outside the original town 
 altogether a thing quite inconceivable if they were 
 meant for treasure, but most reasonable, and accord- 
 ing to analogy, if they were used as tombs. This, 
 too, would of course explain the plurality of them 
 different kings having built them, just like the 
 pyramids of Chufu, Safra, and Menkerah, and many 
 others, along the plain of Memphis in Egypt. It is 
 even quite easy and natural to explain on this 
 hypothesis how they came to be thought treasure- 
 houses. It is known that the sepulchral tumuli of 
 similar construction in other places, and possibly 
 built by kindred people, contained much treasure, 
 left there by way of honor to the deceased. 
 Herodotus describes this in Scythian tombs, some 
 of which have been opened of late, and have 
 verified his assertions. 1 The lavish expense at 
 Patroclus's funeral, in the Iliad, shows the preva- 
 lence of similar notions among early Greeks, who 
 held, down to ^Eschylus's day, that the importance 
 of a man among the dead was in proportion to the 
 circumstance with which his tomb was treated by 
 the living. It may, therefore, be assumed as certain 
 that these strongholds of the dead, if they were 
 such, were filled with many precious things in gold 
 and other metals, intended as parting gifts in honor 
 of the king who was laid to rest. Long after the 
 devastation of Mycenae, I suppose that these tombs 
 
 1 Cf. Macpherson's Antiquities of Katch.
 
 THE TREASURY OF ATREUS. 467 
 
 were opened in search of treasure, and not in vain ; 
 and so nothing was said about the skeleton tenant, 
 while rumors went abroad of the rich treasure-trove 
 within the giant portal. Thus, then, the tradition 
 would spring up and grow, that the building was the 
 treasure-house of some old legendary king. 
 
 These antiquarian considerations have led us away 
 from the actual survey of the old vault, for ruin it 
 cannot be called. The simplicity and massiveness 
 of its structure have defied age and violence, and, 
 except for the shattered ornaments and a few pieces 
 over the inner side of the Avindow, not a stone 
 appears ever to have been moved from its place. 
 Standing at the entrance, you look out upon the 
 scattered masonry of the walls of Mycense, on the 
 hillock over against you. Close beyond this is a 
 dark and solemn chain of mountains. The view is 
 narrow and confined, and faces the north, so that, 
 for most of the day, the gate is dark and in shadow. 
 We can conceive no fitter place for the burial of a 
 king, within sight of his citadel, in the heart of a 
 deep natural hillock, with a great solemn portal 
 symbolizing the resistless strength of the barrier 
 which he had passed into an unknown land. But 
 one more remark seems necessary. This treasure- 
 house is by no means a Hellenic building in its 
 features. It has the same perfection of construction 
 which can be seen at Eleutherae, or any other Greek 
 fort, but still the really analogous buildings are to be
 
 468 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 found in far distant lands in the raths of Ireland 
 and the barrows of the Crimea. 
 
 I have had the opportunity of comparing the 
 sti-ucture and effect of the great sepulchral monu- 
 ments in the county of Meath, in Ireland. Two of 
 these, Dowth and New Grange, are opened, and can 
 be entered almost as easily as the treasury of 
 Atreus. They lie close to the rich valley of the 
 Boyne, in that part of the country which was 
 pointed out by nature as the earliest seat of wealth 
 and culture. Dowth is the ruder and less orna- 
 mented, and therefore not improbably the older, but 
 is less suited for the present comparison than the 
 greater and more ornate New Grange. 
 
 This splendid tomb is not a whit less remarkable, 
 or less colossal in its construction, than those at 
 Mycenae, but differs in many details. It was not 
 hollowed out in a hillside, but was built of great 
 upright stones, with flat slabs laid over them, and 
 then covered with a mound of earth. An enormous 
 circle of giant boulders stands round the foot of the 
 mound. Instead of passing through a short entrance 
 into a great vaulted chamber, there is a long narrow 
 corridor, which leads to a much smaller, but still 
 very lofty room, nearly twenty feet high. Three 
 recesses in the walls of this latter each contain a 
 large round saucer, so to speak, made of single 
 stone, in which the remains of the dead seem to 
 have been laid. This saucer is very shallow, and
 
 GREEK AND IRISH TOMBS. 469 
 
 not more than four feet in diameter. The great 
 stones with which the chamber and passage are con- 
 structed are not hewn or shaped, and so far the 
 building is rather comparable with that of Tiryns 
 than that of Mycenae. But all over the faces of the 
 stones are endless spiral and zigzag ornaments, even 
 covering built-in surfaces, and thus invisible, so that 
 this decoration must have been applied to the slabs 
 prior to the building. On the outside stones, both 
 under and above the entry, there is a well-executed 
 carving of more finished geometrical designs. 
 
 Putting aside minor details, it may be said that 
 while both monuments show an equal display of 
 human strength, and an equal contempt for human 
 toil, which were lavished upon them without stint, 
 the Greek building shows far greater finish of 
 design arid neatness of execution, together with 
 greater simplicity. The stones are all carefully hewn 
 and fitted, but not carved or decorated. The tri- 
 angular carved block over the lintel, and the sup- 
 posed metal plates on the interior, were both foreign 
 to the original structure. On the contrary, while 
 the Irish tomb is a far greater feature in the land- 
 scape a landmark in the district the great stones 
 within are not fitted together, or hewn into shape, 
 and yet they are covered with patterns and designs 
 strangely similar to the carvings found by Dodwell 
 and Dr. Schliemann at the Argivc tombs. Thus the 
 Irish builders, with far greater rudeness, show a
 
 470 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 greater taste for ornament. They care less for 
 design and symmetry more for beauty of detail. 
 The Greek essay naturally culminates in the severe 
 symmetry of the Doric Temple the Irish in the 
 glorious intricacy of the illuminations of the Book of 
 Kells. 
 
 The second treasury lately excavated by Mrs. 
 Schliemann has been disappointing in its results. 
 Though it seems not to have been disturbed for 
 ages, it had evidently been once rifled, for nothing 
 save a few fragments of pottery were found within. 
 Its entrance is much loftier than that of the house 
 of Atreus, but the general building is inferior, the 
 stones are far smaller and by no means so well 
 fitted, and it produces altogether the impression of 
 being either a much earlier and ruder attempt, or a 
 poor and feeble imitation. Though Dr. Schliemann 
 asserts the former, I am disposed to suspect the 
 latter to be the case. 
 
 A great deal of what was said about the tomb of 
 Agamemnon, as the common people, with truer in- 
 stinct, call the supposed treasure-house, may be re- 
 peated about the fortifications of Mycenae. It is the 
 work of builders who know perfectly how to deal 
 with their materials who can hew and fit great 
 blocks of stone with perfect ease ; nay, who prefer, 
 for the sake of massive effect, to make their door- 
 way with such enormous blocks as even modern 
 science would find it difficult to handle. The sculpt-
 
 THE LION GATE. 471 
 
 ure over the gate fortunately remains almost entire. 
 The two lions, standing up at a small pillar, were 
 looking out fiercely at the stranger. The heads are 
 gone, having probably, as Dr. Schliemann first ob- 
 served, been made of bronze, and riveted to the 
 stone. The rest of the sculpture is intact, and is 
 of a strangely haraldic character. It is a piece of 
 bluish limestone, 1 which must have been brought 
 from a long distance, quite different from the rough 
 breccia of the rest of the gate. The lintel-stone is 
 not nearly so vast as that of the treasure-house : it 
 is only fifteen feet long, but is somewhat thicker, 
 and also much deeper, going back the full depth of 
 the gateway. Still it must weigh a good many tons ; 
 and it puzzles us to think how it can have been put 
 into its place with the appliances then in vogue. 
 The joint use of square and polygonal masonry is 
 very curious. Standing within the gate, one side is 
 
 1 There has been strange diversity of opinion about the nature 
 of this stone. Dodwell and Leake call it basalt. Moreover, Dod- 
 well 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 ob- 
 servers erred as to the shape of the central pillar, which does not 
 diminish in bulk downward.
 
 472 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 of square-hewn stones, the other of irregular, though 
 well-fitted, blocks. On the left side, looking into the 
 gate, there is a gap of one block in the wall, which 
 looks very like a window, 1 as it is not probable that 
 a single stone was taken, or fell out of its place after- 
 ward, without disturbing the rest. What makes it, 
 perhaps, more possible that this window is inten- 
 tional, is the position of the gate, which is not in 
 the middle of the walled causeway, as you enter, 
 but to the right side. 
 
 When you go in, and climb up the hill of the 
 Acropolis, you find various other portions of Cyclo- 
 pean walls which belonged to the old palace, in plan 
 very similar to that of Tiryns. But the outer wall 
 goes all round the hill where it is steepest, sometimes 
 right along a precipice, and everywhere offering an 
 almost insurmountable obstacle to an ancient assail- 
 ant. On the east side, facing the steep mountain, 
 which is separated from it by a deep gorge, is a 
 postern gate, consisting merely of three stones, but 
 these so massive, and so beautifully hewn and fitted, 
 as to be a structure hardly less striking than the 
 lion gate. At about half the depth of these huge 
 blocks there is a regular groove cut down both sides 
 and along the. top, in order to hold the door. 
 
 1 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.
 
 Lion Gate, Mycenae
 
 SCHLTEMANN'S EXCAVATIONS. 473 
 
 The whole summit of the great rock is now stony 
 and bare, but not so bare that I could not gather 
 scarlet anemones, which found scanty sustenance 
 here and there in tiny patches of grass, and glad- 
 dened the gray color of the native rock and the 
 primeval walls. The view from the summit, when 
 first I saw it, was one of singular solitude and peace ; 
 not a stone seemed to have been disturbed for ages ; 
 not a human creature, or even a browsing goat, was 
 visible, and the traveller might sketch or scrutinize 
 any part of the fortress without fear of intrusion, far 
 less of molestation. When I again reached the site, 
 in the spring of 1877, a great change had taken 
 place. Dr. Schliemann had attacked the ruins, and 
 had made his world-renowned excavations inside 
 and about the lion gate. To the gate itself this 
 was a very great gain. All the encumbering earth 
 and stones have been removed, so that we can now 
 admire the full proportions of the mighty portal, 
 lie discovered a tiny porter's lodge inside it. He 
 denied the existence of the wheel-tracks which we 
 and others fancied we had seen there on our former 
 visit. 
 
 But proceeding from the gate to the lower side, 
 where the hill slopes down rapidly, and where the 
 great irregular Cyclopean wall trends away to the 
 right, Dr. Schliemann found a deep accumulation 
 of soil. This was, of course, the chief place on an 
 otherwise bare rock where excavations promised
 
 474 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 large results. And the result was beyond the wild- 
 est anticipations. The whole account of what he 
 has done is long before the public in his very splen- 
 did book, of which the illustrations are quite an 
 epoch in the history of ornament, and in spite of 
 their great antiquity will suggest to our modern 
 jewellers many an exquisite pattern. The sum of 
 what he found is this : 
 
 He first found in this area a double circuit of thin 
 upright slabs, ' joined together closely, and joined 
 across the top with flat slabs mortised into them, the 
 whole circuit being like a covered way, about three 
 feet high. Into the enclosed circle a way leads 
 from the lion gate ; and what I noted particularly 
 was this, that the whole circle, which was over 
 thirty yards in diameter, was separated from the 
 higher ground by a very miserable bounding wall, 
 which, though quite concealed before the excava- 
 tions, and therefore certainly very old, looked for 
 all the world like some Turkish piece of masonry. 
 
 As soon as this stone circle was discovered, it was 
 suggested that old Greek agoras were round, that 
 they were often in the citadel at the king's gate, and 
 that people were sometimes buried in them. Dr. 
 Schliemann at once baptized the place as the agora 
 of Mycense. It was a circle with only one free 
 access, and that from the gate ; it had tombstones 
 standing in the midst of it, and there were the 
 charred remains of sacrifices about them. The
 
 SCHLIEMANN'S EXCAVATIONS. 475 
 
 number of bodies already exhumed beneatli pre- 
 clude their being all founders or heroes of the city. 
 These and other indications were enough to disprove 
 clearly that the circle was an agora, but that it was 
 rather a place of sepulture, enclosed, as such places 
 always were, with a fence, which seems made in 
 imitation of a palisade of wood. 
 
 Inside this circuit of stone slabs were found 
 apparently at the same depth, but on this Dr. 
 Schliemann is not explicit very curious and very 
 archaic carved slabs, with rude hunting scenes of 
 warriors in very uncomfortable chariots, and varied 
 spiral ornaments filling up the vacant spaces. These 
 sculptures are unlike any Hellenic work, properly 
 so called, and point back to a very remote period, 
 and probably to the introduction of a foreign art 
 among the rude inhabitants of early Greece. 
 Deeper down were found more tombstones, all 
 manner of archaic pottery, arrow-heads, and but- 
 tons of bone ; there was also found some rude con- 
 struction of hewn stones, which may have served as 
 an attar or a tomb. 
 
 Yet further down, twenty-one feet deep, and close 
 to the rock, were lying together a number of skel- 
 etons, which seemed to have been hastily or care- 
 lessly buried ; but in the rock itself, in rudely hewn 
 chambers, were found fifteen bodies buried with a 
 splendor seldom equalled in the history of the world. 
 These people were not buried like Greeks. They
 
 476 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 were not laid in rock chambers, like the Scythian 
 kings. They were sunk in graves under the earth, 
 which were large enough to receive them, had they 
 not been filled up round the bottom with rudely -built 
 walls, or pieces of stone, so as to reduce the area, 
 but to create perhaps some ventilation for the tire 
 which had partly burnt the bodies where they were 
 found. Thus the splendidly-attired and jewelled 
 corpses, some of them with masks and breastplates 
 of gold, were, so to speak, jammed down by the 
 earth and stones above them into a very narrow 
 space ; but there appears to have been some arrange- 
 ment for protecting them and their treasure from 
 complete confusion with the soil which settled down 
 over them. This, if the account of the excavation 
 be accurate, seems the most peculiar feature in the 
 burial of these great personages, but finds a parallel 
 in the curious tombs of Hallstadt, which afford many 
 analogies to Mycense. 1 
 
 Dr. Schliemann boldly announced in the Times, 
 and the public believed him, that he had found Aga- 
 memnon, and his companions, who were murdered 
 when they returned from the siege of Troy. The 
 burial is indeed quite different from any such cere- 
 mony described in the Homeric poems. The num- 
 ber of fifteen is not to be accounted for by any of 
 the legends. There is no reason to think all the 
 
 1 These analogies are brought out by Mr. A. S. Murray, in the 
 Academy, Xo. 29. Cf. also Dorpfeld in Schuchhardl, p. 161.
 
 THE TOMBS. 477 
 
 tombs have been discovered ; one, or at least part 
 of the treasure belonging to it, was since found out- 
 side the circle. Another was afterward found by 
 M. Stamatakes. ./Eschylus, our oldest and best 
 authority, places the tomb of Agamemnon, not at 
 Mycenae, but at Argos. They all agree that he was 
 buried with contempt and dishonor. The result was, 
 that when the public came to hear the Agamemnon 
 theory disproved, it was disposed to take another 
 leap in the dark, and to look upon the whole dis- 
 covery as suspicious, and as possibly something 
 mediaeval. 
 
 Such an inference would be as absurd as to accept 
 the hypothesis of Dr. Schliemann. The tombs are 
 undoubtedly very ancient, certainly far more ancient 
 than the supposed date of Homer, or even of Aga- 
 memnon. The treasures which have been carried 
 to Athens, and which I saw and handled at 
 the National Bank, are not only really valuable 
 masses of gold, but have a good deal of beauty 
 of workmanship, both in design and decoration. 
 Though the masks are very ugly and barbarous, 
 and though there is in general no power shown of 
 moulding any animal figure, there are very beautiful 
 cups and jugs, there are most elegant geometrical 
 ornaments zigzags, spirals, and the like and there 
 are even imitations of animals of much artistic 
 merit. The celebrated silver bull's head, with golden 
 horns, is a piece of work which would not disgrace
 
 478 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 a goldsmith of our day ; and this may be said of 
 many of the ornaments. Any one who knows the 
 Irish gold ornaments in the Academy Museum in 
 Dublin perceives a wonderful family likeness in the 
 old Irish spirals and decorations, yet not more than 
 might occur among two separate nations working 
 with the same materials under similar conditions. 
 But I feel convinced that the best things in the tombs 
 at Mycenae were not made by native artists, but im- 
 ported, probably from Syria and Egypt. This seems 
 proved even by the various materials which have 
 been employed ivory, alabaster, amber ; in one 
 case even an ostrich egg. So we shall, perhaps, in 
 the end come back upon the despised legends of 
 Cadmus and Danaus, and find that they told us truly 
 of an old cultured race coming from the South and 
 the East to humanize the barbarous progenitors of 
 the Greeks. 
 
 I can now add important corroborations of these 
 general conclusions from the researches made since 
 the appearance of my earlier editions. I then said 
 that the discoveries were too fresh and dazzling to 
 admit of safe theories concerning their origin. By 
 way of illustration I need only allude to those sa- 
 vants (they will hereafter be obliged to me for omit- 
 ting their names) who imagined that all the Myce- 
 naean tombs were not archaic at all, but the work of 
 northern barbarians who occupied Greece during the 
 disasters of the later Roman Empire ! Serious re-
 
 ART IN THE TOMBS. 479 
 
 searches, however, have at last brought us consider- 
 able light. In the first place Helbig, in an important 
 work comparing the treasures of Mycenae with the 
 allusions to art, arms, and manufactures in the Ho- 
 meric poems, came to the negative conclusion that 
 these two civilizations were distinct that the Ho- 
 meric poets cannot have had before them the palace 
 of Mycenae which owned the Schliemann treasures. 
 As there is no room in Greek history for such a 
 civilization posterior to the Homeric poems, it fol- 
 lows that the latter must describe a civilization con- 
 siderably later than that we have found at Mycenae. 
 Placing the Homeric poems in the eighth century 
 B. c. we shall be led to about 1000 B. c. as the latest 
 possible date for the splendors of Mycense. But 
 this negative conclusion has been well-nigh demon- 
 strated by the positive results of the various recent 
 researches in Egypt. Not only has the Egypt Ex- 
 ploration Society examined carefully the sites of 
 Naucratis and Daphne, thus disclosing to us what 
 Greek art and manufacture could produce in the 
 sixth and seventh centuries B. c. (665565 B. c.), 
 but Mr. Flinders Petrie has enriched our knowledge 
 by his wonderful discoveries of Egyptian art on 
 several sites, and of many epochs, fairly determin- 
 able by the reigning dynasties. He has recently 
 (1890) examined the Mycenaean and other pre-his- 
 toric treasures collected at Athens, by the light of 
 his rich Egyptian experience, and has given a sura-
 
 480 RAMBLES IX GREECE. 
 
 mary of the results in two short articles in the 
 Journal of Hellenic Studies. 
 
 He finds that the materials and their treatment, 
 such as blue glass, even in its decomposition, ala- 
 baster, rock-crystal, hollowed and painted within, 
 dome-head rivets attaching handles of gold cups, 
 ostrich eggs with handles attached, ties made for 
 ornament in porcelain, are all to be found in Egyp- 
 tian tombs varying from 1400 to 1100 in date. His 
 analysis leads him to give the dates for the tombs 
 I.-IV. at Mycenae as 1200-1100 B.C. That an 
 earlier date is improbable is shown by the negative 
 evidence that none of the purely geometrical false- 
 necked vases occur, such as are the general product 
 of 1400-1200 in Egyptian deposits. But as several 
 isolated articles are of older types, as in particular 
 the lions over the gate are quite similar to a gilt 
 wooden lion he found of about 1450 B. c. in date, 
 the Mycenaean civilization probably extended over a 
 considerable period. He even finds proof of de- 
 cadence in grave IV. as compared with the rest, and 
 so comes to the conclusion, which I am disposed to 
 question, that the tombs within the circle at Mycenae 
 (shaft-tombs) are later and worse interments made 
 by the same people who had already built the more 
 majestic and costly bee-hive tombs. Instead there- 
 fore of upholding a Phrygian origin, Mr. Petrie 
 asserts an Egyptian origin for both Mycenaean and 
 parallel Phrygian designs. The spiral pattern in its
 
 ART IN THE TOMBS. 481 
 
 various forms, the rosettes, the keyfret, the palmetto, 
 are all used in very early Egyptian decoration. 
 The inlaid daggers of Mycenae have long been rec- 
 ognized as inspired by Egypt ; " but we must note 
 that it is native work and not merely an imported 
 article. The attitude of the figures and of the lions, 
 and the form of the cat, are such as no Egyptian 
 would have executed. To make such things in 
 Greece implies a far higher culture than merely to 
 import them. The same remark applies to the 
 glazed pottery ; the style of some is not Egyptian, 
 so that here the Mycenseans were capable of elab- 
 orate technical work, and imitated, rather than 
 imported from Egypt. . . . The familiarity with 
 Egypt is further proved by the lotus pattern on the 
 dagger-blade, by the cat on the dagger, and the cats 
 on the gold foil ornaments, since the cat was then 
 unknown in Greece. That the general range of the 
 civilization was that of Africa, is indicated by the 
 frequent use of the palm (not then known in Greece) 
 as a decoration, and by the very scanty clothing of 
 the male figures, indicating that dress was not a 
 necessity of climate. On the other hand this cult- 
 ure reached out to the north of Europe. The silver- 
 headed reindeer or elk, found in grave IV., can only 
 be the result of northern intercourse. The amber 
 so commonly used comes from the Baltic. And we 
 sec in Celtic ornament the obvious reproduction of 
 the decorations of Mycenae, as Mr. Arthur Evans 
 
 31
 
 482 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 has shown. Not only is the spiral decoration indis- 
 tinguishable/ but also the taste for elaborately em- 
 bossed diadems and breastplates of gold is peculiar 
 to the Mycenaaii and Celtic cultures. The great 
 period of Mycenae seems therefore to date 1300 
 1100 B. o., with occasional traditional links with 
 Egypt as far back as 1500 or 1600 B. c. 
 Such is an abstract of Mr. Petrie's estimate. 2 
 I will only here point out, in addition, the re- 
 markable unity of style between the ornaments 
 found at a depth of twenty-five feet in the tombs, 
 the sculptured tombstones twelve or fourteen feet 
 over them, and the lions on the gate of the citadel. 
 It is, indeed, only a general uniformity, but it cor- 
 roborates Mr. Petrie's inference that there was more 
 than mere importing ; there was home manufacture. 
 But still among the small gold ornaments in the 
 tombs were found several pairs of animals placed 
 opposite each other in this strictly heraldic fashion, 
 and even on the engraved gems this symmetry is 
 curiously frequent. It seems, then, that the art of 
 Mycenae had not changed when its early history 
 came to a close, and its inhabitants were forced to 
 
 1 This is not true of Irish designs, which I compared carefully 
 with the Mycenaean, and failed to find any identity, though many 
 close resemblances. 
 
 2 It agrees with that of Schuchhardt (in Schliemann's Excava- 
 tions, 1891), and of Busolt in the new edition of his Greek history, 
 1892.
 
 EARLY RUIN OF MYCENAE. 483 
 
 abandon the fortress and submit to the now Doric 
 Argoo. 
 
 We are, indeed, told expressly by Pausanias and 
 Diodorus that this event did not take place till after 
 the Persian wars, when old Hellenic art was already 
 well defined, and was beginning to make rapid prog- 
 ress. But this express statement, which I saw 
 reason to question since my former remarks on the 
 subject in this book, I am now determined to reject, 
 in the face of the inconsistencies of these historians, 
 the silence of all the contemporaries of the alleged 
 conquest, and the exclusively archaic remains which 
 Dr. Schliemann has unearthed. Mycenae, along 
 with Tiryns, Midea, and the other towns of the 
 plain, was incorporated into Argos at a far earlier 
 date, and not posterior to the brilliant rule of Phei- 
 don. So it comes that historical Greece is silent 
 about the ancient capital of the Pelopids, and the 
 poets transfer all its glories to Argos. Once, indeed, 
 the name did appear on the national records. The 
 offerings to the gods at Olympia, and at Delphi, 
 after the victory over the Persians, recorded that a 
 few patriots 460 in all from Mycense and from 
 Tiryns had joined the Greeks at Plataea, while the 
 remainder of the Argives preserved a base and cow- 
 ardly neutrality. The Mycenaeans were very few in 
 number ; sixty are mentioned in connection with 
 Thermopylae by Herodotus. They were probably 
 exiles through Greece, who had preserved their
 
 484 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 traditions and their descent, and gloried in exposing 
 and insulting Argive Medism. The Tirynthian 400 
 may even have been the remnant of the slave popu- 
 lation, Avhich Herodotus tells us seized the citadel 
 of Tiryns, when driven out from Argos twenty 
 years before, and who lived there for some years. 
 In the crisis of Plataea the Greeks were not dainty 
 or critical, and they may have readily conceded the 
 title of Tirynthian to these doubtful citizens, out of 
 hatred and disgust at the neutrality of Argos. How- 
 ever these things may be, the mention of Myce- 
 nseans and Tirynthians on this solitary occasion 
 afforded an obvious warrant to Diodorus for his 
 date of the destruction of Mycenae. But I am 
 convinced that his authority, and that of Pausan- 
 ias, who follows him, must be deliberately rejected. 
 On the other hand, the origin of Mycence, and its 
 greatness as a royal residence, must be thrown back 
 into a far deeper antiquity than any one had yet 
 imagined. If Agamemnon and his house represent 
 Hellenic princes, of the type of Homer's knowledge 
 and acquaintance, they must have arisen after some 
 older, and apparently different dynasties had ruled 
 and had buried their dead at Mycenae. 1 But it is 
 also possible that the Homeric bards, describing 
 professedly the acts of a past age, imposed their 
 
 1 This theory of mine, stated in my first edition, is strongly 
 supported by Dr. Adler in his preface to Schliemann's Tiryns 
 (1885).
 
 EARLY RUIN OF MYCENAE. 485 
 
 new manners, and their own culture, upon the 
 Pelopids, whom they only knew by vague tradi- 
 tion, and that thus their drawing is false ; while the 
 chiefs they glorify were the ancient pre-Hellenic 
 rulers of the country. This latter supposition is so 
 shocking a heresy against " Homer " that I will not 
 venture to expand it, and will leave the reader to 
 add any conjectures he chooses to those which I have 
 already hazarded in too great number. 
 
 When the splendid findings of Dr. Schliernann 
 are taken out of their bandboxes in the Bank of 
 Athens, and arranged in the National Museum ; l 
 when the diligence of Greek archaeologists investi- 
 gates thoroughly the remainder of the site at My- 
 cena3, which is not nearly exhausted ; when new 
 accidents (such as the discoveries at Sparta and 
 Vaphio) and new researches enlarge these treasures 
 perhaps a thousand-fold, there will be formed at 
 Athens a museum of pro-historic art which will not 
 have its equal in the world (except at Cairo), and 
 which will introduce us to an epoch of culture which 
 we hardly yet suspected, when writing and coinage 
 were unknown, when the Greeks had not reached 
 unto their name, or possibly their language, but 
 when, nevertheless, considerable commerce existed, 
 when wonderful skill had already been attained in 
 
 1 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 rod bloom which made them so remarkable.
 
 486 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 arts and manufactures, and when men had even 
 accumulated considerable wealth and splendor in 
 well-established centres of power. 
 
 The further investigation of the remains of My- 
 cenae, with the additional evidence derived from the 
 ruins of Tiryns, presently to be described, have led 
 Dr. Adler to explain Mycenae as the record of a 
 double foundation, first by a race who built rubble 
 masonry, and buried their dead in narrow rock- 
 tombs or graves, piling on the bodies their arms and 
 ornaments ; secondly, after some considerable inter- 
 val, by a race who built splendid ashlar masonry, 
 with well-cut blocks, and who constructed great 
 beehive tombs, where the dead could lie with ample 
 room in royal state. The second race enlarged, 
 rebuilt, and refaced the old fortifications, added the 
 present lion gate, and built the so-called treasure- 
 houses. For convenience' sake he calls them, ac- 
 cording to the old legends, Perseids and Pelopids 
 respectively. Hence the tombs which Dr. Schlie- 
 mann found were really far older than any one had 
 at first supposed, and if the record of Homer points 
 distinctly to the Pelopids, then the gold and jewels 
 of a far earlier people were hidden deep under- 
 ground in the foundation of Agamemnon's fortress, 
 merely marked by a sacred circle of stones and some, 
 archaic gravestones. 
 
 To which of these stages of building do the ruins 
 of Tiryns belong ? Apparently to the earlier, though
 
 THE PALACE OF TIRYNS. 487 
 
 here, again, the size of the stones used is far greater 
 than those in the first Mycenae, and it is now certain 
 that the beginnings of artificial shaping are discern- 
 ible in them. Since the second edition of this book 
 the Avails have been uncovered and examined by 
 Dr. Schliemann, with the valuable advice and assist- 
 ance of Dr. Dorpfeld, so that I may conclude this 
 chapter with a brief summary of the results they 
 have attained. 
 
 The upper part of the rock of Tiryns, which con- 
 sisted of two plateaus or levels, was known to con- 
 tain remains of building by the shafts which Dr. 
 Schliemann had already sunk there in former years. 
 But now a very different method of excavating was 
 adopted that of uncovering the surface in layers, 
 so that successive strata of debris might be clearly 
 distinguished. This exceedingly slow and laborious 
 process, which I saw going on for days at Tiryns 
 with very little result, brought out in the end the 
 whole plan of a palace, with its gates, floors, parting 
 walls, and pillar bases, so that in the admirable 
 drawing to be seen in the book called Tiryns, Dr. 
 Dorpfeld has given us the first clear view of an old 
 Greek, or perhaps even pre-Hellenic, palace. The 
 partial agreement with the plan of the palaces of 
 Troy, and of Mycenae, since discovered, and the 
 adoption in Hellenic temples of the plan of entrance, 
 here several times repeated two pillars between
 
 488 KAMBLES IN GEEECE. 
 
 antsz show that the palace at Tiryns was not ex- 
 ceptional, but typical. 
 
 All the gates leading up into this palace are still 
 distinctly marked by the threshold or door-sill, a 
 great stone, lying in its place, with grooves inserted 
 for the pivots of the doors, which were of wood, but 
 had their pivots shod with bronze, as was proved by 
 the actual remains. These doors divided a double 
 porch, entered either way between two pillars of 
 wood, standing upon stone bases still in their place, 
 and flanked by antae, which were below of stone 
 and above of wood dowelled into the stone piers. 
 All the upper structure of the gates, and, indeed, of 
 all the palace, seems to have been of wood. There 
 are clear signs of a great conflagration, in which 
 the palace perished. This implies the existence 
 of ample fuel, and while the ashes, mud-bricks, etc., 
 remain, no trace of architrave, or pillar, or roof has 
 been found. There are gates of similar design lead- 
 ing into the courts and principal chamber of the 
 palace, the floors of which are covered with a care- 
 ful lime concrete marked with line patterns, and so 
 sloped as to afford easy drainage into a vent leading 
 to pipes of terra cotta, which carried off water. The 
 same careful arrangements are observed in the bath- 
 room, Avith a floor of one great stone, twelve feet by 
 nine, which is likewise pierced to carry off water. 
 The remains of a terra cotta tub were found there, 
 and the walls of the room were panelled with wood,
 
 THE PALACE OF TIRYNS. 489 
 
 set into the raised edge of the floor-stone by dowels 
 sunk in the stone. No recent discovery is more 
 interesting than this. 
 
 Of the walls little remains but the foundations, 
 and here and there a couple of feet of mud-bricks, 
 with signs of beams let into them, which added to 
 the conflagration. But enough remains to show 
 that the walls of the better rooms were richly cov- 
 ered with ornament. There is a fresco of a bull 
 still preserved, and reproduced in Dr. Schliemann's 
 book ; and there was also found a very remarkable 
 frieze ornament in rosettes and brooch patterns, 
 made of blue glass paste (supposed to be Homer's 
 xuauoz) and alabaster. This valuable relic shows 
 remarkable analogies in design to other prehistoric 
 ornaments found in Greece. 
 
 The size of the main hall, or men's apartment, is 
 very large, the floor covering about 120 square 
 yards, and the parallel room in the palace at Troy 
 was consequently taken to be the cella of a temple. 
 But there seems no doubt that the great room at 
 Tiryns, with a hearth in the middle and four pillar 
 bases near it, supporting, perhaps, a higher roof, 
 with a clerestory, was the main reception room of 
 the palace ; a smaller room of similar construction, 
 not connected with the former, save by a circuitous 
 route through passages, seems to have been the 
 ladies' drawing-room.
 
 490 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 If I were to attempt any full description of this 
 wonderful plac % e I should be obliged to copy out a 
 great part of the fifth chapter in Dr. Schliemann's 
 book, in which Dr. Dorpfeld has set down very 
 modestly, but very completely, the results of his 
 own acuteness and reseai'ch. Many things which 
 are now plain enough were perfect riddles till he 
 found the true solution, and the acuteness with 
 which he has utilized the smallest hints, as well 
 as the caution of his conclusions, make this work 
 of his a very model of scientific induction. 
 
 He says, rightly enough, that a minute description 
 is necessary, because a very few years will cover up 
 much of the evidence which he had plainly before 
 him. The concrete floors, the remains of mud-brick 
 walls, the plan of the various rooms, will be choked 
 up with grass and weeds, unless they are kept 
 covered and cleared. The rain, which has long 
 since washed all traces of mortar out of the walls, 
 will wash away far more now that the site is opened, 
 and so the future archaeologist will find that the book 
 Tiri/ns will tell him much that the actual Tiryns can- 
 not show him. 
 
 The lower platform on the rock is not yet touched, 
 and here perhaps digging will discover to us the 
 remains of a temple, from which one very archaic 
 Doric capital and an antefix have found their way to 
 the higher rock. There are traces, too, of the great
 
 DR. DORPFELD'S WORK. 491 
 
 fort being the second building on the site, over an 
 older and not yet clearly determined palace. 
 
 Two things are plain from these discoveries, and 
 I dwell on them with satisfaction, because they cor- 
 roborate old opinions of mine, put forth long before 
 the principal evidence was forthcoming. First, the 
 general use of wood for pillars and architraves, so 
 showing how naturally the stone temple imitated the 
 older wooden buildings. Secondly, the archaic or 
 ante-Hellenic character of all that was found at 
 Tiryns, with the solitary exception of the archi- 
 tectural fragments, which certainly have no build- 
 ing to correspond to them where they were found. 
 Thus my hypothesis, which holds that Tiryns, as 
 well as Mycenae, was destroyed at least as early as 
 Pheidorrs time (660 B. C.), and not after the Persian 
 wars, receives corroboration which will amount to 
 positive proof in any mind open to evidence on the 
 point,
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 MEDLEVAL GREECE. 
 
 WHEN I first went to Greece, nearly twenty years 
 ago, the few travellers one met in the country never 
 thought of studying its mediaeval remains. We 
 were in search of classical art, we passed by Byzan- 
 tine churches or Frankish towers with contemptuous 
 ignorance. Mr. Finlay's great book, indeed, was 
 already written ; but those who knew German and 
 were bold enough to attack the eight volumes which 
 Ersch and Gruber's Encyclopedia devote to the 
 article on Greece, had been taught by Hopf's Essay 
 on Mediaeval Greece to fathom what depths dulness 
 could attain. Whether the author, or the odious 
 paper, and type in its double columns, contributed 
 to this result, was of little consequence. The sub- 
 ject itself seemed dreary beyond description. All 
 the various peoples who invaded, swayed, ravaged, 
 colonized the country in the Dark Ages, seemed 
 but undistinguishable hordes of barbarians, of 
 whom we knew nothing, about whom we cared 
 nothing, beyond a general hatred of them, as those 
 who had broken up and destroyed the splendid 
 temples and fair statues that are now the world's 
 desire. Even the very thorough and learned 
 
 492
 
 MEDLEVAL GREECE. 493 
 
 scholars, who produced Bcedcker's Greece, a very 
 few years ago, never thought of putting in any 
 information whatever, beyond their chronological 
 table, upon the many centuries which intervened 
 between the close of paganism and the recent re- 
 generation of the country. The contempt for Byz- 
 antine work in the East was in our early days like 
 the contempt of Renaissance work in the West. 
 We were all Classical or Gothic in taste. 
 
 Now a great reaction is setting in. Instead of the 
 dreadful Hopf, we have the fascinating Gregorovius, 
 whose Mediaeval Athens clothes even dry details with 
 the hue of fancy ; the sober Murray's Guide includes 
 Mt. Athos and its wonders as part of its task. 
 Recent travellers, and the students at the Foreign 
 Schools of Athens, tell us of curious churches and 
 their frescoes, and now Mr. Schultz, of the British 
 school, has undertaken to reproduce them with his 
 pencil. Following the example of Pullen, whose 
 pictures have secured for posterity some record of 
 the churches of Salonica, so often threatened by fire, 
 he will perpetuate the remnants of an architecture 
 and an art which were rapidly perishing from 
 neglect. When I was first at Athens men were 
 seriously discussing the propriety of razing to the 
 ground the most striking of all the Byzantine 
 churches at Athens, because it stood in the thor- 
 oughfare which led from the palace to the railway 
 station ! Historians tell us the dreadful fact ; that
 
 494 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 over seventy of these delicately quaint buildings 
 were destroyed when the new cathedral, a vulgar 
 and senseless compromise in style, was constructed. 
 A few more years of Vandalism in Greece, a few 
 more terrible fires at Salonica and at Athos, and the 
 world had lost its best records of a very curious and 
 distinctive civilization. 
 
 There are indeed no mean traces of this art in 
 Adriatic Italy ; the exarchate at Ravenna, the east- 
 ern traffic of Venice, have shown their influence on 
 Italian art and architecture. The splendid mosaics 
 of Ravenna, nay, even the seven domes of S. 
 Antonio at Verona, the frescoes of the Giotto 
 Chapel at Padua, above all, the great cathedral at 
 Venice, are all strongly colored those of Ravenna 
 even produced by Byzantine art. Yet most travel- 
 lers who visit S. Mark's at Venice have never seen 
 a Byzantine church, and do not feel its Eastern 
 parentage ; still fewer visit the splendid basilica of 
 Parenzo, which is a still more unmistakable exam- 
 ple. But to those who have turned aside from 
 Olympia and Parthenon to study the early Christian 
 remains in Greece, all this art of Eastern Italy will 
 acquire a new interest and a deeper meaning. 
 
 These are the reasons which have tempted me to 
 say a few words on this side of Greek travel. I do 
 not pretend to speak as an authority ; I only desire 
 to stimulate a nascent interest which will presently 
 make what I say seem simple and antiquated. But
 
 MEDIAEVAL GREECE. 495 
 
 as yet even high authorities are very much in the 
 dark about these things. What would a student of 
 Gothic architecture say to a discussion whether an 
 extant building belonged to the fourth century or 
 the eleventh ? and yet such divergent views are still 
 maintained concerning the origin of the Athenian 
 churches. 
 
 Let us begin with the best and quaintest, the so- 
 called Old Cathedral, which was fortunately allowed to 
 stand beside its ugly and pretentious successor. The 
 first thing which strikes us is the exceeding smallness 
 of the dimensions, it is like one of the little chapels 
 you find in Glendalough and elsewhere in Ireland. 
 I do not know whether the Greeks contemplated a 
 congregation kneeling in the open air, as was the 
 case around these chapels in Ireland, but such edi- 
 fices were certainly intended in the first instance as 
 holy places for sacerdotal celebrations, not as houses 
 of prayer for the people. I was told on Mt. Athos 
 that it was not the practice of the Greek church to 
 celebrate more than one service in any one Church" 
 daily. Hence the monks, who are making prayer 
 continually, have twenty or thirty chapels within 
 the precincts of each monastery. Perhaps a similar 
 motive may have led to the construction of a great 
 number of smaller churches at Athens, where 
 seventy have already been destroyed, and at 
 Salonica, where remains of them arc still being 
 frequently discovered. Perhaps, also, that desire
 
 496 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 to consecrate to the religion of Christ the hallowed 
 places of the heathen, which turned the Parthenon 
 and the temple of Theseus into churches, also 
 prompted the Byzantine bishops to set up chapels 
 upon smaller heathen sanctuaries, where no stately 
 temple existed, and mere consecration would have 
 left no patent symbol of Christian occupation. 
 
 But if this Cathedral is small, it has the proper 
 beauty of minute art ; it is covered with rich 
 decoration. All its surfaces show carved fragments 
 not only of classical, but of earlier Byzantine work 
 friezes, reliefs, inscriptions, capitals all so dis- 
 posed Avith a general correspondence or symmetry 
 as to produce the effect of a real design. Moreover, 
 this foreign ornament is set in a building strictly 
 Byzantine in form, with its rich doorway, its tiny 
 windows with their high semicircular arches supported 
 on delicate capitals, and toned by the centuries of 
 Attic dust to that rich gold brown Avhich has turned 
 the Parthenon from marble almost to ruddy gold. 
 
 
 
 Never was there greater harmony and unity attained 
 by the most deliberate patch-Avork. In the earlier 
 works on Byzantine art, this church Avas confidently 
 assigned to the sixth century. Buchon found upon 
 it the arms of La Roche and of Villehardouin, so 
 that he assigned it to the thirteenth. The character 
 of the other buildings of these knights makes me 
 doubt that they and their friends could have con- 
 structed such a church the Western monks then
 
 MEDIAEVAL GREECE. 497 
 
 built Latin churches in Greece and I suppose that 
 the arms, which I could not find, were only carved 
 by the Franks upon the existing building. But I will 
 not therefore subscribe to the sixth-century theory. 
 
 Of the remaining churches three only, the Kapni- 
 karea, the Virgin of the Monastery, and S. Theo- 
 dore, are worth studying, as specimens of the typical 
 form of such buildings. The main plan is a square, 
 surmounted by a cupola supported on four pillars, 
 with a corridor or porch on the West side, and three 
 polygonal apses on the East. Lesser cupolas often 
 surround the central dome. The height and slender- 
 ness of this central dome is probably the clearest 
 sign of comparative lateness in these buildings, 
 Avhich used to be attributed to the fourth and fifth 
 centuries, but are now degraded to the eleventh. 
 The earliest form is no doubt that of the massive 
 S. George's at Salonica a huge Rotunda covered 
 with a flat dome, not unlike the Pantheon at Rome, 
 with nothing but richly ornamented niches, and a 
 splendid mosaic ceiling in the dome, to give relief to 
 a very plain design. The successive complications 
 and refinements added to this simple structure may 
 be studied even in the later churches of Salonica. 
 
 The traveller who has whetted his taste for this 
 peculiar form of mediaeval art, and desires to study 
 it further, will find within reach of Athens two 
 monasteries well worth a visit, that of the Phsene- 
 romcne on Salamis, a very fair specimen of an un- 
 32
 
 498 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 disturbed Greek monastery, and that of Daphne, 
 which may be ranked with the ruins of Mistra as 
 showing clear traces of the conflict of East and 
 West, of Latin with Greek Christianity. This 
 sanctuary, with its now decaying walls, succeeded 
 as usual to a pagan shrine with hardly altered name. 
 The Saints, still pictured in black and gold upon the 
 walls, and worshipped upon their festivals, have 
 become fantastic and unreal beings, well enough 
 adapted to that mixture of superstition and national- 
 ism which is the body of the Greek religion, and, 
 despite a purer creed, not very far removed from the 
 religious instincts of the old Hellenic race. Five 
 or six wretched monks still occupy the dilapidated 
 building, vegetating in sleepy idleness ; they do 
 nothing but repeat daily their accustomed prayers, 
 and receive dues for allowing the people of the 
 neighboring hamlets to kiss, once or twice a year, 
 a dreadful-looking S. Elias, painted olive-brown on a 
 gold background, or to light the nightly lamp at the 
 wayside shrine of a saint black with smoke. 
 
 The structure as we now see it is chiefly the work 
 of the Cistercians who accompanied Otho de la 
 Roche from Champagne to his dukedom of Athens, 
 and was established round a far older Byzantine 
 church and monastery. Like all mediaeval con- 
 vents, it is fortified, and the whole settlement, courts 
 and gardens included, is surrounded by a crenelated 
 wall, originally about thirty feet high.
 
 MEDIAEVAL GREECE. 499 
 
 There are occasional towers in the wall, and 
 remains of arches supporting a passage of ^sufficient 
 altitude for the defenders to look over the battle- 
 ments. The old church in the centre of the court 
 has had a narthcx or nave added in Gothic style by 
 the Benedictines, and here again are battlements, 
 from which the monks could send down stones or 
 boiling liquid upon assailants who penetrated the 
 outer walls. Three sides of the court are surrounded 
 by buildings ; beneath, there are massive arcades of 
 stone for the kitchen, store-rooms, and refectory ; 
 above, wooden galleries which supplied the monks 
 with their cells. Most of this is now in ruins, occu- 
 pied in part by peasants and their sheep. But the 
 church, both in its external simplicity and its inter- 
 nal grandeur, is remarkable for the splendid deco- 
 ration of its walls with mosaics, which, alas ! have 
 been allowed to decay as much from the indolence 
 of the Greeks as the intolerance of the Turks. In 
 fact, while some care and regard for classical re- 
 mains have gradually been instilled into the minds 
 of the inhabitants of course, money value is an 
 easily understood test the respect for their splen- 
 did mediaeval remains has only gained Western 
 intellects within the last two or three years, so that 
 we may expect another generation to elapse before 
 this new kind of interest will be disseminated among 
 the possessors of so great a bequest from the Middle 
 Ages.
 
 500 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 The interior of the church at Daphne is a melan- 
 choly example. From the effects of damp the 
 mortar has loosened, and great patches of the pre- 
 cious mosaic have fallen to the ground. You can 
 pick up handfuls of glazed and gilded fragments, of 
 which the rich surfaces were composed. Here and 
 there a Turkish bullet has defaced a solemn Saint, 
 while the fires lit by soldiers in days of war, and 
 by shepherds in time of peace, have, in many places, 
 blackened the roof beyond recognition. Within the 
 central cupola a gigantic head of Christ on gold 
 ground is still visible, or was so when I saw the 
 place in 1889 ; but the whole roof was in danger 
 of falling, and the Greek Government, at the in- 
 stigation of Dr. Db'rpfeld, had undertaken to stay 
 the progress of decay, and so the building was filled 
 with scaffolding. This, however, enabled us to 
 mount close to the figures, which in the short and 
 high building are seen with difficulty from the 
 ground, and so we distinguished clearly round the 
 base of the cupola the twelve Apostles, in the bay 
 arches the prophets, in the transepts the. Annuncia- 
 tion, the Nativity, the Baptism, and the Transfigura- 
 tion of Christ all according to the strict models 
 laid down for such ornaments by the Greek Church. 
 The drawings are indeed stiff and grotesque, but the 
 gloom and mystery of the building hide all imper- 
 fections, and give to these imposing figures in black 
 and gold a certain majesty, which must have been
 
 MKDLKYAL GREECE. 501 
 
 felt tenfold by simple worshippers not trained in 
 habits of aesthetic criticism. 
 
 We have, unfortunately, no records of the history 
 of these convents, as in the case of many Western 
 abbeys, and the old chronicles of wars and pesti- 
 lences seldom mention this quiet life. We should 
 fain, says M. Henri Belle, have followed the for- 
 tunes of these monks who left some fair abbey in 
 Burgundy to catechise schismatics in this distant 
 land, and bring their preaching to aid the sword of 
 the Crusaders ; but these Crusaders were generally 
 intent on changing their cross for a crown, and were 
 therefore not at all likely to favor the rigid proselyt- 
 ism of the Cistercians. It is very interesting to 
 know that Innocent III., that great pope, who from 
 the outset disapproved of the violent overthrow of 
 the Christian Empire of the East, was the first to 
 recommend, both to the conquerors and their clergy, 
 such moderation as might serve to bring back the 
 schismatic Greeks to the Roman fold. There are 
 still extant several of his letters to the abbeys of 
 the Morea, and to this abbey of the duchy of Athens, 
 showing that even his authority and zeal in this 
 matter were unable to restrain the bigotry of the 
 Latin monks. There were frequent quarrels, too, 
 betAveen these monks of Daphne and their Duke, 
 and frequent appeals to the sovran pontiff to regu- 
 late the relations between the civil authority, which 
 claimed the right of suzerain, and the religious
 
 502 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 orders, which claimed absolute independence and 
 immunity from all feudal obligations. Still, in spite 
 of all disputes, the abbey was the last resting-place 
 of the Frankish Dukes of Athens, and in a vault 
 beneath the narthex were found several of their 
 rude stone coffins, without inscription or ornament. 
 One only has carved upon it the arms of the second 
 Guy de la Roche, third Duke of Athens two en- 
 twined serpents surmounted with two fleurs-de-lis. 
 Guy II., says the chronicle, behaved as a gallant 
 lord, beloved of all, and attained great renown in 
 every kingdom. He sleeps here, not in the dark- 
 ness of oblivion, but obscured by greater monuments 
 of the greater dead. Yet I cannot but dally over 
 this interesting piece of mediaeval history, the more 
 so as it explains the strange title of Theseus, Duke 
 of Athens, in Shakespeare's immortal Midsummer 
 Night's Dream, as well as the curious fact, at least 
 to classical readers, that the poet should have chosen 
 mediaeval Athens as a court of gracious manners, 
 and suitable for the background of his fairy drama. 
 
 Neglecting geography, I shall carry the reader 
 next to the very analogous ruins of Mistra, where, 
 however, it was rather the Greek that supplanted 
 the Latin, than the Latin the Greek ecclesiastic. 
 
 When the Franks invaded Greece a very remark- 
 able family, the Villehardouins, seized a part of the 
 Morea, and presently built Mistra, above Sparta ; it 
 was adorned with fair Gothic churches and palaces,
 
 MEDIAEVAL GREECE. 503 
 
 and surmounted by a fortress. Sixty years after 
 the conquest, William Villehardouin was captured 
 by a new Byzantine emperor Palseologus, who was 
 recovering his dominion. The Frank was obliged 
 to cede for his ransom the forts of Mistra and 
 Monemvasia, which from that time were strongholds 
 of the Byzantine power till the conquest of the 
 Turks. Still the Villehardouins long kept hold of 
 Kalamata and other forts ; and to the pen of one of 
 the family, Geoffrey, we owe the famous old chron- 
 icle La Conquete dc Constantinople, which is unique 
 in its importance both as a specimen of old French 
 and a piece of mediaeval history. 
 
 The architecture of Mistra, begun at a noble epoch 
 by the Latins, was taken up by the Byzantine 
 Greeks, so that we have both styles combined in 
 curious relics of the now deserted stronghold. For, 
 since 1850, when an earthquake shook down many 
 houses, the population wandered to the revived 
 Sparta, which is now a thriving town. But as the 
 old Sparta in its greatest days was only a collection 
 of shabby villages, showing no outward sign of its 
 importance, so the new and vulgar Sparta has no 
 attractions (save the lovely orange and lemon 
 orchards round it) in comparison with the mediaeval 
 Mistra. The houses are piled one above another till 
 you reach the summit crowned by the citadel which, 
 itself a mountain, is severed from the higher moun- 
 tains at its back by a deep gorge with a tumbling
 
 504 RAMBLES IX GREECE. 
 
 river. " The whole town is now nothing but ruined 
 palaces, churches, and houses. You wander up 
 rudely-paved streets rising zigzag, and pass beneath 
 arches on which are carved the escutcheons of 
 French knights. You enter courts overgrown with 
 grass, but full of memories of the Crusaders. It is 
 the very home of the Middle Ages. Passing through 
 these streets, now the resort of lizards and serpents, 
 you come upon Frankish tombs, among others that 
 of Theodora Tocco, wife of the Emperor Constan- 
 tine Palseologus, who died in 1430. The Panagia 
 is the only church well preserved a Latin basilica, 
 with a portico in the form of an Italian loggia, and 
 a Byzantine tower added to it. This building is 
 highly ornamented with delicate carving, and its 
 walls are in alternate courses of brick and stone, 
 while the gates, columns, and floor are of marble. 
 The interior is adorned with Byzantine frescoes of 
 scenes from the Old Testament. Higher up is the 
 metropolitan church, built by the Greeks as soon as 
 William Villehardouin had surrendered the fort in 
 1263. This great church is not so beautiful as that 
 already described, but has many peculiarities of no 
 less interest. The palace of the Frank princes was 
 probably at the wide place on a higher level, where 
 the ruined walls show the remains of many Gothic 
 windows. The citadel was first rehandled by the 
 Greek Palaeologi, then by the Turks, then by the 
 Venetians, who in their turn seized this medieval
 
 MEDIEVAL GREECE. 505 
 
 'Fetter of Greece.' And now all the traces of all 
 these conquerors are lying together confused in 
 silence and decay. The heat of the sun in these 
 narrow and stony streets, with their high walls, is 
 intense. But you cannot but pause when you find 
 in turn old Greek carving, Byzantine dedications, 
 Roman inscriptions, Frankish devices, emblazoned 
 on the walls. The Turkish baths alone are intact, 
 and have resisted both weather and earthquake. But 
 the churches occupy the chief place still, dropping 
 now and then a stone, as it were a monumental tear 
 for their glorious past ; the Greek Cross, the Latin 
 Cross, the Crescent, have all ruled there in their 
 turn. Even a pair of ruined minarets remain to 
 show the traces of that slavery to which the people 
 were subject for four hundred years." 
 
 The occupation of the Frankish knights had not 
 found an adequate historian, since old Villehardouin, 
 till Gregorovius wrote his Mediaeval Athens. The 
 traveller still sees throughout Greece frequent traces 
 of this short domination, but all of one sort the 
 ruins of castles which the knights had built to over- 
 awe their subjects, and of which Mistra was perhaps 
 the most important. The same invaders built the 
 great towers at Kalamata, and most picturesque of 
 all is the keep over the town of Karytena in 
 Arcadia, the stronghold of Hugo de Bruyeres. But 
 the Frankish devices which adorned these castles 
 have been mostly torn down by the Turks, or re-
 
 506 RAMBLES IN GREECR 
 
 placed by the Venetian lion, according as new 
 invaders turned the fortifications of their predeces- 
 sors to their own uses. Nor are any of these castles 
 to be compared in size or splendor with those of 
 northern Europe. The most famous of them, the 
 palace at Thebes, was so completely destroyed by 
 the Catalans, that all vestige of it has disappeared, 
 and we owe bur knowledge of it to the description of 
 the Catalan annalist, Ramon Muntaner, who tells of 
 the ravages of his fellows not without some stings 
 of his aesthetic conscience. 
 
 But let us pass from these complex ruins, which 
 speak the conflict of the East and West, to the 
 peculiar quiet homes of the Greek monk, who 
 spends his time not in works of charity, not in 
 labors of erudition, not in the toil of education, like 
 his western brother, but simply in performing an 
 arduous and exacting ritual, in praying, or rather 
 in repeating prayers, so many hours in the day, in 
 observing fasts and vigils, above all in maintaining 
 the strict creed which has given the title of orthodox 
 to his Church. These resting-places ('ib^y is the 
 suggestive word) are of course settled in quiet 
 regions, in the mountains, upon the islands, so that 
 we cannot expect them near a stirring capital like 
 Athens. Yet in the gorge of the defile which leads 
 up to Phyle there is a little skete (the house of 
 ascetics) lonely and wild in site ; and by the sea on 
 Salamis, nearly over against Megara, the traveller
 
 MEDIAEVAL GREECE. 507 
 
 will find a small but very characteristic specimen of 
 the Greek monastery, the Panagia Phtsneromene. 
 
 There he will see the tiny cells, arid the library, 
 almost as small as any of them, at the top of dark 
 stairs, and containing some twenty volumes ; he will 
 be received by the Hegoumenos with mastic and 
 jam, and then with coffee, and strive to satisfy the 
 simple curiosity of the old men, who seem so 
 anxious to hear about the world, and yet have 
 turned away their eyes from seeing it. Above all, 
 he will find in the midst of the enclosure a little 
 model Byzantine Church, built with the greatest 
 neatness, of narrow bricks, in which string courses 
 and crosses are introduced by an altered setting of 
 the bricks. Here too he will see the curious practice, 
 which led to marble imitations at Venice, of orna- 
 menting the walls by building in green and blue 
 pottery apparently old Jihodian ware, for it is not 
 now to be found in use. It is a simpler form of the 
 decoration already described in the Cathedral of 
 Athens, that of ornamenting a wall with foreign 
 objects symmetrically disposed, and no one who sees 
 it will say that it is inartistic. Within are the usual 
 ornaments of the Byzantine Church, but not in 
 mosaic ; for all the Avails are covered with frescoes 
 by a monk of the early eighteenth century, a genius 
 in his way, though following strictly the traditions 
 of the school of Athos. The traveller who ascends 
 the pulpit will thence see himself surrounded by very
 
 508 EAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 strange pictures over the west door, as is pre- 
 scribed, the Last Judgment, with the sins of men 
 being weighed in a huge balance, and devils under- 
 neath trying to pull down the fatal scale. The con- 
 demned are escorted by demons to an enormous 
 mouth breathing out flames the mouth of hell. 
 Beatitudes and tortures supply the top and bottom 
 of the composition. Even more quaint is the miracle 
 of the swine of the Gadarenes running down a steep 
 place into the sea. They are drowning in the waves, 
 and on the head or back of each is a little black 
 devil trying to save himself from sinking. Similar 
 creatures are escaping from the statues of heathen 
 gods which tumble from the walls as the infant Jesus 
 passes by on his flight to Egypt. This points to the 
 belief that the statues of heathen gods were inhab- 
 ited by an evil spirit, and so far actually bodies with 
 souls within them ! 
 
 These few details are sufficient to tempt the reader 
 to visit this monastery, which is far better worth 
 seeing than the beautifully situated and hospitable 
 Vourkano described elsewhere in this work. I have 
 no space to speak of Megaspilion, for this book must 
 be kept within handy limits, and can never aspire to 
 even approximate completeness. So also will I here 
 pass by with a mere mention the eyries of Meteora 
 in Thessaly, perched upon strange pinnacles of rock, 
 like S. Simeon upon his pillar. The approach to, 
 and descent from, these monasteries in a swinging
 
 MEDIEVAL GREECE. 509 
 
 net is indeed a strange adventure to undergo, and 
 more painfully unpleasant than most such adventures, 
 but at the top there is little of interest. The hoards 
 of precious MSS. which Curzon describes in his de- 
 lightful volume, over which the monks quarrelled 
 when he offered gold, and would not sell them be- 
 cause none would allow his brother to enjoy the 
 money these splendid illuminated books have either 
 been cozened away by antiquarians, or are gathered 
 in the University Library at Athens. They are 
 there in their right place. I understand the peaks 
 of Meteora, when the present occupants die out, are 
 to receive not holy men, but criminals, who are to 
 suffer their solitary confinement not in dungeons be- 
 neath the earth, but far above the haunts of men. 
 
 But all these monastic settlements pale into insig- 
 nificance when we turn to Mount Athos, the real 
 Holy of Holies of the Greek Church, which is in- 
 deed far from the kingdom of Greece, and therefore 
 beyond the scope of this work, and yet a chapter on 
 the medievalism of Eastern Europe can hardly be 
 written without some consideration of this strange 
 promontory, in its beauty surpassing all description, 
 in its history unique both for early progress and for 
 subsequent unchangeableness, in its daily life a faith- 
 ful mirror of long past centuries, even as its build- 
 ings are now mediaeval castles inhabited by mediaeval 
 men. I will here set down the impressions, from a 
 visit made in 1889, not merely of the art, but of the
 
 510 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 life of this, the most distinctive as well as the largest 
 example of Greek monasticism. 
 
 Velificatus Atlios is an expression which has a 
 meaning even now, though a very different one 
 from that implied by Juvenal. The satirist would 
 not believe that Xerxes turned it into an island, 
 though the remains of the canal are plainly visible 
 to the present day. But now the incompetence of 
 the Turkish Government has turned Athos, for Eng- 
 lish travellers, into an island, for it may only be ap- 
 proached by sea. If you attempt to ride there from 
 Salonica or Ca valla, you are at once warned that you 
 do so at your own risk ; that the tariff now fixed by 
 a joint commission of Turks, dragomans, and ban- 
 dits for the release of an English captive is 15,000 ; 
 that you will have to pay that sum yourself, etc. etc. 
 This is enough to drive any respectable and respon- 
 sible person from the enterprise of the land journey, 
 and so he must wait for the rare and irregular 
 chances of boat or steamer traffic. It was my good 
 fortune to find one of H. M.'s ships going that way 
 from Salonica, and with a captain gracious enough 
 to drop me on the headland, or rather to throw me 
 up on it, for we landed in a heavy sea, with con- 
 siderable risk and danger, and the rpatUftfO) as they 
 classically call it, lasted all day, and raged around 
 the Holy Mountain. Yet this adventurous way of 
 landing under the great western cliffs of the prom- 
 ontory, with the monasteries of S. Paul, Gregory,
 
 MEDIEVAL GREECE. 511 
 
 and Dionysius, each on their several peaks, looking 
 down upon us from a dizzy height through the 
 stormy mists, was doubtless far the most picturesque 
 introduction we could have had to the long-promised 
 land. 
 
 For this had been many years my desire, not only 
 to see the strangest and most perfect relic now ex- 
 tant of mediaeval superstition, but to find, if possible, 
 in the early MSS. which throng the libraries of that 
 famous retreat some cousin, if not some uncle or 
 aunt of the great illuminated MSS. which are the 
 glory of the early Irish Church. The other trav- 
 ellers who have reached this place have done so by 
 arriving at some legitimate port on the tamer eastern 
 side ; the latest, Mr. Riley, 1 by landing at the 
 gentlest and most humane spot of all, the bay of 
 Vatoprdi. We, on the contrary, crept into a little 
 boat-harbor under the strictest, the most primitive, 
 and far the most beautiful of the western eagles' 
 nests, whither English pickles, tinned lobster, and 
 caviare have not yet penetrated. We were doing a 
 very informal and unceremonious thing, for we were 
 invading the outlying settlements, to demand shelter 
 and hospitality, whereas we should have first of all 
 proceeded to the capital, Karyes, to present pom- 
 pous letters of introduction from Papas, Prime Min- 
 isters, Patriarchs, and to receive equally elaborate 
 
 1 Athos, or the Mountain of the Monks. By Athelstan Riley. 
 Longmans, 1S87. This is the newest and best book on the subject.
 
 512 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 missives from the central committee, asking the 
 several monasteries to entertain us. 
 
 But we took the place by storm, not by regular 
 siege. We showed our letters, when we climbed up 
 to Dionysiu, as they call it, and prayed them to 
 forestall the hospitality which they would doubtless 
 show us, if we returned with official sanction. The 
 good monks were equal to the occasion ; they waived 
 ceremony, though ceremony lords it in these con- 
 servative establishments, and every violation of it 
 is called a rcpooftoh/j) probably the greatest sin that a 
 monk can commit. At every step of our route this 
 obstacle stood before us, and had we attempted to 
 force our way past it, no doubt our dumb mules 
 would have spoken, and reproved our madness. 
 Yet when they had before them all the missives 
 which were to be read at Karyes next day, to be fol- 
 lowed up by a letter addressed to themselves, they 
 actually antedated their hospitality and made us feel 
 at home and happy. 
 
 Nowhere have I seen more perfect and graceful 
 hospitality in spirit, nowhere a more genuine attempt 
 to feed the hungry and shelter the outcast, even 
 though the means and materials of doing so were 
 often very inadequate to Western notions. But let 
 me first notice the extant comforts. We always had 
 ample room in special strangers' apartments, which 
 occupy the highest and most picturesque place in 
 every monastery. We always had clean beds to
 
 MEDLEVAL GREECE. 513 
 
 sleep in, nor were we disturbed by any unbidden 
 bedfellows, these creatures having (as we were told) 
 made it a rule of etiquette never to appear or molest 
 any one till after Pascha, the Feast of the Resurrec- 
 tion. The feast was peculiarly late this year, and 
 the w r eather perfect summer ; still the insects care- 
 fully avoided any such xpoaftoty toward us as to 
 violate their Lenten fast. In addition to undis- 
 turbed nights a great boon to weary travellers 
 we had always good black bread, and fresh every 
 day ; we had also excellent Turkish coffee, and 
 fortunately most wholesome, for the ceremony of the 
 place requires you to drink it whenever you enter, 
 and whenever you leave, any domicile whatever. 
 Seven or eight times a day did we partake of this 
 luxury and without damage to digestion or nerves. 
 There was also sound red wine, and plenty of it, 
 varying according to the makers, but mostly good, 
 and only in one case slightly resinated. There were 
 also excellent hazel-nuts, often served hot, roast in a 
 pan, and very palatable. 
 
 What else was there good ? There was jam of 
 many kinds, all good, though unfortunately served 
 neat, and to be eaten in spoonfuls, without any 
 bread, till at last we committed the prosvole of ask- 
 ing to have it brought back when there was bread 
 on the table. There were also eggs in abundance, 
 just imported to be ready for Easter, and therefore 
 fresh, and served au plat. Nor had we anywhere 
 
 33
 
 514 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 to make the complaint so pathetic in Mr. Riley's 
 book, that the oil or butter used in cooking was 
 rancid. This is the advantage of going in spring, 
 or rather one of the many advantages, that both oil 
 and butter (the latter is of course rare) were quite 
 unobjectionable. 
 
 When I say that butter was rare and eggs im- 
 ported, I asaume that the reader knows of the 
 singularity of Athos, which consists in the absence 
 of the greatest feature of human life woman, and 
 all inferior imitations of her in the animal world. 
 Not a cow, not a goat, not a hen, not a cat, of that 
 sex ! And this for centuries ! Three thousand 
 monks, kept up by importation, three thousand 
 laborers or servants, imported likewise, but no home 
 production of animals that is considered odious and 
 impious. And when, in this remote nook of extreme 
 conservatism, this one refuge from the snares and 
 wiles of Eve, a Russian monk seriously proposed to 
 us the propriety of admitting the other sex, we felt 
 a shock as of an earthquake, and began to under- 
 stand the current feeling that the Russians were 
 pushing their influence at Athos, in order to trans- 
 form the Holy Mountain into a den of political 
 thieves. 
 
 Nothing is more curious than to study the effects, 
 upon a large society, of the total exclusion of the 
 female sex. It is commonly thought that men by 
 themselves must grow rude and savage ; that it is
 
 MEDIAEVAL GREECE. 515 
 
 to women we owe all the graces and refinements of 
 social intercourse. Nothing can be further from the 
 truth. I venture to say that in all the world there is 
 not so perfectly polite and orderly a society as that 
 of Athos. As regards hospitality and gracious man- 
 ners, the monks and their servants put to shame the 
 most polished Western people. Disorder, tumult, 
 confusion, seem impossible in this land of peace. 
 If they have differences, and squabble about rights 
 of property, these things are referred to law courts, 
 and determined by argument of advocates, not by 
 disputing and high words among the claimants. 
 While life and property is still unsafe on the main- 
 land, and on the sister peninsulas of Cassandra and 
 Longos, Athos has been for centuries as secure as 
 any county in England. So far, then, all the evi- 
 dence is in favor of the restriction. Many of the 
 monks, being carried to the peninsula in early youth, 
 have completely forgotten what a woman is like, 
 except for the brown smoky pictures of the Panagia 
 with her infant in all the churches, which the strict 
 iconography of the orthodox Church has made as 
 unlovely and non-human as it is possible for a picture 
 to be. So far, so well. 
 
 But if the monks imagined they could simply ex- 
 punge the other sex from their life without any but 
 the obvious consequences, they were mistaken. 
 What strikes the traveller is not the rudeness, the 
 untidyness, the discomfort of a purely male society,
 
 516 E AMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 it is rather its dulness and depression. Some of the 
 older monks were indeed jolly enough ; they drank 
 their wine, and cracked their jokes freely. But the 
 novices who attended at table, the men and boys 
 who had come from the mainland to work as ser- 
 vants, muleteers, laborers, seemed all suffering under 
 a permanent silence and sadness. The town of 
 Karyes is the most sombre and gloomy place I ever 
 saw. There are no laughing groups, no singing, no 
 games among the boys. Every one looked serious, 
 solemn, listless, vacant, as the case might be, but 
 devoid of keenness and interest in life. At first one 
 might suspect that the monks were hard taskmasters, 
 ruling their servants as slaves ; but this is not the 
 real solution. It is that the main source of interest 
 and cause of quarrel in all these animals, human and 
 other, does not exist. For the dulness was not con- 
 fined to the young monks or the laity ; it had in- 
 vaded even the lower animals. The tom-cats, which 
 were there in crowds, passed one another in moody 
 silence along the roofs. They seemed permanently 
 dumb. And if the cocks had not lost their voice, 
 and crowed frequently in the small hours of the 
 morning, their note seemed to me a wail, not a 
 challenge the clear though unconscious expression 
 of a great want in their lives. 
 
 How different were the notes of the nightingales, 
 the pigeons, the jays, whose wings emancipate them 
 from monkish restrictions, and whose music fills Avith
 
 MEDLEVAL GREECE. 517 
 
 life all the enchanting glens, brakes, and forests in 
 this earthly Paradise ! 
 
 For if an exquisite situation in the midst of his- 
 toric splendor, a marvellous variety of outline and 
 climate, and a vegetation rich and undisturbed be- 
 yond comparison, can make a modern Eden possible, 
 it is here. Nature might be imagined gradually im- 
 proving in her work when she framed the three 
 peninsulas of the Chalcidice. The westernmost, 
 the old Pallene, once the site of the historic Olyn- 
 thus. is broad and flat, with no recommendation 
 but its fertility ; the second, Sithonia, makes some 
 attempt at being picturesque, having an outline of 
 gently serrated hills, which rise, perhaps, to one 
 thousand feet, and . are dotted with woods. Any- 
 where else, Sithonia may take some rank, but within 
 sight of the mighty Olympus, and beside the giant 
 Athos, it remains obscure and without a history. 
 Athos runs out into the ^Egean, with its outermost 
 cone standing six thousand five hundred feet out of 
 the sea, and as such is (I believe) far the most strik- 
 ing headland in Europe. You may see higher Alps, 
 but from a height, and with intervening heights to 
 lessen the effect ; you may see higher Carpathians, 
 but from the dull plain of land in Hungary. Here 
 you can enjoy the full splendor of the peak from the 
 sea, from the fringe of white breakers round the 
 base up to the pale-gray, snow-streaked dome, which 
 reaches beyond torrent and forest into heaven.
 
 518 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 Within two or three hours you can ascend from 
 gardens of oranges and lemons, figs and olives, 
 through woods of arbutus, myrtle, cytisus, heath, 
 and carpets of forget-me-not, anemone, iris, orchid, 
 to the climate of primroses and violets, and to the 
 stunted birch and gnarled fir which skirt the regions 
 of perpetual snow. Moreover, the gradually-in- 
 creasing ridge which forms the backbone of the 
 peninsula is seamed on both sides with constant 
 glens and ravines, in each of which tumbling water 
 gives movement to the view, and life to the vegeta- 
 tion which, even where it hides in its rich luxuriance 
 the course of the stream, cannot hush the sounding 
 voice. Here the nightingale sings all the day long, 
 and the fair shrubs grow, unmolested by those herds 
 of wandering goats, which are the real locusts of the 
 wild lands of southern Europe. 
 
 Each side of the main ridge has its peculiarities 
 of vegetation, that facing north-east being gentler in 
 aspect, and showing brakes of Mediterranean heath 
 ten or fifteen feet high, through which mule paths 
 are cut as through a forest. The coast facing south- 
 west is far sterner, wilder, and more precipitous, 
 but enjoys a temperature almost tropical ; for there 
 the plants and fruits of southern Greece flourish 
 without stint. 
 
 The site of the western monasteries is generally 
 on a precipitous rock at the mouth of one of the 
 ravines, and commands a view up the glen to the
 
 MEDIAEVAL GREECE. 519 
 
 great summit of the mountain. To pass from any 
 one of these monasteries to the next, you must either 
 clamber down a precipice to the sea, and pass round 
 in a boat commanded by a skipper-monk, or you 
 must mount the mules provided, and ride round the 
 folds and seams of the precipices, on paths incred- 
 ibly dangerous of aspect, and yet incredibly free 
 from any real disasters. When you come to a tor- 
 rent you must descend by zigzag winding still you 
 reach a practicable ford near the sea-level, and cross 
 it at the foot of some sounding fall. But the next 
 projecting shoulder stands straight out of the sea, 
 and you must climb again a similar break -neck as- 
 cent, till you reach a path along the edge of the 
 dizzy cliff, where you pass with one foot in the air, 
 over the sea one thousand feet beneath, while the 
 other is nudged now and then by the wall of the 
 rock within, so that the cautious mule chooses the 
 outer ledge of the road, since a loss of balance means 
 strictly a loss of life. It was a constant regret to us 
 that none of the party could sketch the beautiful 
 scenes which were perpetually before us, or even 
 photograph them. But the efforts of photographers 
 hitherto have been very disappointing. There are 
 indeed pictures of most of the monasteries, taken at 
 the instigation of the Russians, but all so wretchedly 
 inadequate, so carefully taken from the wrong point, 
 that we deliberately avoided accepting them, or 
 carrying them home. Mr. Riley too, a man of taste
 
 520 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 and feeling, had essayed the thing with leisure and 
 experience in his art, and yet the cuts taken from 
 the photographs, which are published in his book, 
 are also hopelessly inadequate. When, for example, 
 approaching from the north, we suddenly came in 
 view of Simopetra standing close to us, across a 
 yawning chasm, with the sea roaring one thousand 
 feet beneath, high in the air on its huge, lonely crag, 
 holding on to the land by a mere viaduct, and be- 
 hind it the great rocks and gorges and forests framed 
 by the snowy dome of Athos in the far background 
 we felt that the world can produce no finer scene, 
 and that the most riotous artistic imagination, such 
 as Gustave Dore's, would be tamed in its presence 
 by the inability of human pencil to exceed it. 1 The 
 plan of this monastery and its smaller brothers (I 
 was going to call them sisters !) is that of a strong, 
 square keep, rising straight from the sheer cliffs, 
 with but a single bridge of rock leading landward, 
 and when the wall has been carried to a height far 
 more than sufficient against any attack save modern 
 artillery, they begin to throw round it stories of bal- 
 conies, stayed out from the wall by very light wooden 
 beams, each balcony sheltered by that above, till a 
 deep-pitched roof overhangs the whole. The top- 
 most and outermost corner of these balconies is 
 
 1 The very few travellers who have seen this, the most pictu- 
 resque of all European buildings, must have heard with a painful 
 shock that it was burned down in the spring of 1891.
 
 MEDIAEVAL GREECE. 521 
 
 always the guest-chamber or chambers, and from 
 this lofty nook you not only look out upon the sea 
 and land, but between the chinks of the floor of 
 boards you see into air under your feet, and reflect 
 that if a storm swept round the cliff your frail tene- 
 ment might be crushed like a house of cards, and 
 wander into the sea far beneath. To me, at least, 
 it was impossible to walk round these balconies 
 without an occasional shudder, and yet we could not 
 hear that the slender supports had ever given way, 
 or that any of the monks had ever been launched 
 into the air. On the divans running round these 
 aerial guest-chambers are beautiful rugs from 
 Smyrna and Bulgaria, the ancient gifts of pilgrims 
 and of peasants, which were thrust aside in the rich 
 and vulgar Russian establishments for the gaudy 
 products of modern Constantinople and Athens, 
 while the older and simpler monasteries were content 
 with their soft and mellow colors. The wealth of 
 Atlios in these rugs is very great. There were con- 
 stantly on the mules under us saddle-cloths which 
 would be the glory of an aesthetic drawing-room. 
 
 But it is high time for us to take a closer view of 
 the inside of these curious castles, some of which, 
 Vatopedi, Iviron, Lavra, are almost towns sur- 
 rounded by great fortifications, and which possess 
 not only large properties, outlying farms, depen- 
 dencies, but within them a whole population of 
 monks and their retainers. Let us first speak of
 
 522 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 the treasures accumulated within them, relics of 
 ancient art and industry in the way of books, pict- 
 ures, and work in precious metals. The reader will 
 doubtless appreciate that the estimate of some of 
 these things depends largely on the taste and educa- 
 tion of the visitor. Mr. Riley thinks it of impor- 
 tance, in his excellent work, to enumerate the exact 
 number of chapels contained in, or attached to, each 
 monastery, whereas to me the exact number, and the 
 name of the patron saint, seems about the last detail 
 with which I should trouble my readers. So also 
 some sentimental travellers enumerate with care the 
 alleged relics, and Mr. Riley lets it be seen plainly 
 not only that he is disposed to believe in their 
 genuineness, but that, if proven, it is of the highest 
 religious importance. Seeing the gross ignorance 
 of the monks on all really important matters of his- 
 tory on the real date and foundation of their several 
 monasteries, the ascription of a relic to some com- 
 panion of our Lord, or some worthy of the first four 
 centuries, seems to me ridiculous. 
 
 With this preamble I turn first to the books. 
 Every convent we visited had a library containing 
 MSS. The larger had in addition many printed 
 books ; in one, for example, which was not rich 
 (Esphigmenu), we found a fine bound set of Migne's 
 " Fathers." The library room was generally a 
 mere closet with very little light, and there was no 
 sign that anybody ever read there. The contents
 
 MEDIEVAL GREECE. 523 
 
 indeed consisted of ecclesiastical books, prayer- 
 books, lesson-books, rituals noted for chanting, of 
 which they had working copies in their churches. 
 Still they are so careless concerning the teachings 
 of their old service books that they have completely 
 lost the meaning of the old musical notation, which 
 appears in dots and commas (generally red) over 
 their older texts, and they now follow a new tradi- 
 tion with a new notation. When one has seen some 
 hundreds of these Gospels, and extracts from the 
 Gospels, ranging over several centuries, some 
 written in gold characters on the title-page, with 
 conventional pictures of the Evangelists on gold 
 ground, one begins to wonder what could have pos- 
 sessed the good monks to occupy themselves with 
 doing over and over again what had been done hun- 
 dreds of times, and lay before them in multitudes of 
 adequate copies. I suppose the nature of their 
 religious worship suggests the true answer. As 
 they count it religion to repeat over and over again 
 prayers and lessons all through their nights of vigil 
 and their days of somnolence, so they must have 
 thought it acceptable to God, and a meritorious 
 work, to keep copying out, in a fair hand, Gospels 
 that nobody would read and that nobody would dis- 
 turb for centuries on dusty shelves. 
 
 In the twelve libraries I examined I did not find 
 more than half a dozen secular books, and these of 
 late date, and copies of well-known texts. There
 
 524 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 may of course be some stray treasures still con- 
 cealed in nooks and corners, though a good scholar, 
 Mr. Lambros of Athens, has spent much labor in 
 classifying and cataloguing these MSS. But I saw 
 chests here and there in out-of-the-way lumber rooms, 
 with a few books lying in them, and believe that in 
 this way something valuable may still be concealed. 
 In general the monks were friendly and ready to 
 show their books, or at least their perfect manners 
 made them appear so ; but in one monastery (Stav- 
 ronikita) they were clearly anxious that none of 
 these treasures should be studied. They had not 
 only tossed together all their MSS. which had been 
 recently set in order by Mr. Lambros, but had torn 
 off the labels with which he had numbered them, 
 without any attempt, or I believe intention, of re- 
 placing them with new ones. 
 
 As I am not now addressing learned readers, I need 
 not go into details about the particular books which 
 interested me. My main object had been to find, if 
 possible, at Mount Athos some analogy, some parallel, 
 to the splendid school of ornamentation which has 
 left us the Book of Kells, the Lindisfarne Gospels, 
 St. Chad's Gospel at Lichfield, and other such 
 masterpieces of Irish illumination. I have always 
 thought it likely that some early Byzantine mission- 
 ary found his way to Ireland, and gave the first 
 impulse to a local school of art. That there is a 
 family likeness between early Irish and Byzantine
 
 MEDLEVAL GREECE. 525 
 
 work seems to me undeniable. I can hardly say 
 whether I was disappointed or not to find that, as far 
 as Athos went, the Irish school was perfectly inde- 
 pendent, and there was no early book which even 
 remotely suggested the marvellous designs of the 
 Book of Kells. The emblems of the Evangelists 
 seemed unknown there before the eleventh century. 
 There was ample use of gilding, and a good knowl- 
 edge of colors. In one or two we found a dozen 
 kinds of birds adequately portrayed in colors the 
 peacock, pheasant, red-legged partridge, stork, etc., 
 being at once recognizable. But all the capitals 
 were upon the same design, all the bands of orna- 
 ment were little more than blue diaper on gold 
 ground. There were a good many books in slant- 
 ing uncials, probably seventh to ninth century ; an 
 occasional page or fragment of earlier date, but 
 nothing that we could see of value for solving the 
 difficulties of a Scripture text. Careful and beauti- 
 ful handwritings on splendid vellum of the succeed- 
 ing centuries were there in countless abundance. 
 They are valuable as specimens of handwriting and 
 as nothing else. In many of the libraries the monk 
 in charge was quite intelligent about the dates of the 
 MSS., and was able to read the often perplexing 
 colophon in Avhich the century and indiction were 
 recorded. But the number of dated MSS. was, 
 alas ! very small. 
 
 I now turn to the xseurjtia or treasures in precious
 
 526 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 metals and gems, which have often been described 
 and belauded by travellers. Each visitor sees some- 
 thing to admire which the rest pass over in silence, 
 or else he is shown something not noticed by the 
 rest. So the reader must consult first, Curzon, then 
 Mr. Tozer, then Didron, then Mr. Riley, and even 
 after that there remain many things to be noted by 
 fresh observers. The fact is that the majority of 
 these reliquaries, pictures, and ornaments of the 
 screen are tawdry and vulgar, either made or re- 
 newed lately, and in bad taste. It is only here and 
 there that a splendid old piece of work strikes one 
 with its strange contrast. Far the most interesting 
 of all the illustrations given by Mr. Riley is that of 
 the nave of one of the Churches, which are all 
 (except the old Church of Karyes) built on exactly 
 the same plan, with small variations as to the light- 
 ing, or the outer narthex, or the dimensions. An 
 architect would find these variations highly interest- 
 ing; to the amateur there seems in them a great 
 sameness. But among the uniform, or nearly uni- 
 form, features is a huge candelabrum, not the cen- 
 tral one hung from the middle of the dome, but 
 one which encircles it, hung by brass chains from 
 the inner edges of the dome, consisting of twelve 
 (sometimes only ten) straight bands of open-worked 
 brass, of excellent design, joined with hinges, which 
 are set in double eagles (the Byzantine emblem), 
 so that they form large decagons or duodecagons,
 
 MEDIAEVAL GEEECE. 527 
 
 in tlic upper edge of which candles arc set all 
 round. The design and work of these candelabra 
 appeared to me old. But the monks affirmed that 
 they were now made in Karyes. This I did not 
 believe, and in any case ray suspicions as to the 
 antiquity of the design were confirmed by one I 
 found in St. Paul's (Agio Pavlo), which bears on one 
 of the double eagles an inscription that the Hegou- 
 menos had restored and beautified the church in 
 1850. But this eagle joined brass bands on which 
 was a clear German inscription stating that they 
 were made in Dresden in the year 1660. 
 
 By far the finest embroideries in silk were at the 
 rich convent of Iviron, and indeed the main church 
 there has many features worthy of note. The floor 
 is of elaborate old mosaic, with an inscription of 
 George the Founder, which the monks refer to the 
 tenth century. There are quaint Rhodian plaques, 
 both set in the outer wall, and also laid like carpets, 
 with a border of fine design on the walls of the tran- 
 sept domes. Beside them are remarkable old Byz- 
 antine capitals designed of rams' heads. But the 
 great piece of embroidery is a xodia (or apron of the 
 Panagia). The ground is gold and green silk, on 
 which portraits of the three imperial founders are 
 worked, their crowns of pearls, their dresses of 
 white silk, their beards of brown silk, and their faces 
 painted most delicately in colors upon silk. Never 
 in my life have I seen any embroidery so perfect and
 
 528 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 so precious. There were also occasional old crosses 
 of great excellence, but to describe them here would 
 be tedious and useless, unless it be to stimulate the 
 reader to go out and see them for himself; nor can I 
 recommend this, if he be not a well-introduced 
 traveller, ready to rough it and to meet with good 
 temper many obstacles. Travelling in Turkey, 
 where time has no value, and where restrictions 
 upon liberty are both arbitrary and unjustly applied, 
 is a matter of great patience. 
 
 What shall we say of the services which go on 
 most of the day and night in these monastic churches, 
 and which seemed to Messrs. Riley and Owen so 
 interesting and so in harmony with the Church of 
 England, that they were never tired of regretting 
 the separation of Anglican from Greek Chris- 
 tianity, and hoping for a union or reunion between 
 them f Mr. Owen went so far as to celebrate the 
 Eucharist after the Anglican ritual in one or two 
 of these churches before a crowd of monks, who 
 could not understand his words, far less the spirit 
 with which our Church approaches the Holy 
 Table. 
 
 Yet here are large companies of men, who have 
 given up the world to live on hard fare and strict rule, 
 spending days and nights in the service of God, and 
 resigning the ordinary pleasures and distractions of the 
 world. Surely here there must be some strong impulse, 
 some living faith which sways so many lives. And yet
 
 MEDIAEVAL GREECE. 529 
 
 after long and anxious searching for some spiritual life, 
 after hours spent in watching the prayers and aus- 
 terities of the monks, we could not but come to the 
 conclusion that here was no real religion ; that it was 
 a mountain, if not a valley, " full of dry bones, and, 
 behold, they were very dry." 
 
 It is of course very hazardous for a stranger to 
 assert a negative ; there may be, even in this cold 
 and barren ritual, some real breath of spiritual life, 
 and some examples of men who serve God in spirit 
 and in truth. But the general impression, as com- 
 pared with that of any Western religion Roman 
 Catholic, Protestant, Unitarian is not favorable. 
 Very possibly no Western man will ever be in real 
 sympathy with Orientals in spiritual matters, and 
 Orientals these monks are in the strictest sense. 
 They put a stress upon orthodoxy as such, which to 
 most of us is incomprehensible. They regard idle- 
 ness as not inconsistent with the highest and holiest 
 life. They consider the particular kind of food 
 which they eat of far more religious importance 
 than to avoid excess in eating and drinking. How 
 can we judge such people by our standards ? To 
 them it seems to be religion to sit in a stall all night, 
 perhaps keeping their eyes open, but in a vague 
 trance, thinking of nothing, and not following one 
 word that is said, while they ignore teaching, preach- 
 ing, active charity, education of the young, as not 
 worthy of the anchorite and the recluse. To us the 
 
 34
 
 530 RAMBLES IN GREECE. 
 
 which we attended seemed the most abso- 
 lute misconception of the service of God; to the 
 monks this was the very acme of piety. 
 
 I have spoken unreservedly of these things, as I 
 learned that these gentle and hospitable souls were 
 impossible to please in one respect they think all 
 criticism of their life most rude and unjust. They 
 complained to me bitterly of Mr. Riley's book, which 
 they had learned to know from extracts published in 
 Greek papers, and yet could there be a more gener- 
 ous and sympathetic account than his ? If, then, I 
 must in any case (though I deeply regret it) incur 
 their resentment, it is better to do so for a candid 
 judgment, than to endeavor to escape it by writing 
 a mere panegyric, which would mislead the reader 
 without satisfying the monks. Indeed, in one point 
 I could not even satisfy myself. No panegyric could 
 adequately describe their courteous and unstinted 
 hospitality.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 ABOUT, M. E., 24, 28. 
 
 Acro-Corinthus, 395 sq. 
 
 Acropolis of Athens, first view of, 
 34, 89 sq. ; bombarded by Vene- 
 tians, 91 ; by Turks, 98 ; works 
 on, 103; excavations about, 
 122, 123; the view from, 152 
 sq. 
 
 Adler, Dr., his theory concerning 
 Mycenae, 486. 
 
 JEgina., 171, 428 sq. 
 
 jEschines, 294, 324. 
 
 jEschylus, 82, 112, 130. 
 
 ^Esculapius, temple of, at Athens, 
 139. 
 
 Agatharchus, scene-painter, 128. 
 
 Air, lightness and clearness of, 
 255. 
 
 Alfieri, 134. 
 
 Alkamenes 107, 307, 312. 
 
 Alpheus, the, 302, 317, 342, 357. 
 
 Alpine character of Greece, 154 
 
 Altis, the, at Olympia, 302 sq. 
 
 Anaxagoras, 138. 
 
 Apollo, temple of, at Delphi, 283 
 sq. ; at Bassse, 261 sq. 
 
 Arachova, in Phocis, 276 sq. ; in 
 Kynuria, 440. 
 
 Arcadia, 351 sq. the ideal, 352 sq. ; 
 description of, 358, 332. 
 
 Areopagus, the, 139 sq. 
 
 Argion, 457. 
 
 Argos, 410 sq. 
 
 Aristion, stele of, 68. 
 
 Aristophanes, 408. 
 
 Art, Greek, reserve of, 79, 80 sq. ; 
 113, 114 ; progress of, 110-112. 
 
 Aspendus, theatre of, 127. 
 
 Assyrian features in old Greek 
 art, 261. 
 
 Astros, 436. 
 
 Athena Nike, temple of, 117. 
 
 Athens, faces eastward, 3 ; mu- 
 
 seums of, 51, 55 sq. ; ancient 
 syurekismos of, 171 ; Byzan- 
 tine art in, 496 ; dukes of, 502. 
 
 Athletics, Greek, 321-324; 340- 
 342. 
 
 Attica, 152 sq. 
 
 BARATHRUM, the, 86. 
 
 Bassse, 364 sq. 
 
 Bath-room, archaic, at Tiryns, 
 
 487 sq. 
 
 Beule, M., quoted, 342, 358. 
 Boating, 430. 
 Bceotia, 229 sq. 
 Book of Kells, 470, 524, 525. 
 Bournouf, M. E., 103, 419. 
 Boxing, 334. 
 Brauron, 153, 198. 
 Brigands, 185, 194-197, 200, 360 
 British Museum, 99. 
 Bruyeres, Hugo de, 505. 
 Bugs, 254. 
 Bull, fresco of, 489. 
 Byron, Lord, 29, 200, 205. 
 Byzantine architecture and art in 
 
 Greece, 494 sq., 496, 507. 
 
 CAMELS, 296. 
 
 Canaris, M., 240. 
 
 Canon statue, the, 63. 
 
 Can ova. 336. 
 
 Caryatids on Erechtheum, 101, 
 103. 
 
 Cashel, rock of, 120. 
 
 Castalian fount, 289, 293. 
 
 Castromeiios, M., 343. 
 
 Cella frieze, of Parthenon, 109 *g. 
 
 Cerigo, 12. 
 
 Chaeronea, 264 sq. 
 
 Charos, 282. 
 
 Cheese, used in training, 326. 
 
 Christ, the Passion of, 81 ; in Ar- 
 cadia, 363. 
 
 531
 
 532 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Christian antiquities of Athens, 
 145. 
 
 Cicada (Tettix), 409. 
 
 Cicero, 210, 320. 
 
 Cithaerou, Mount, 219, 223, 229. 
 
 Clarke, Dr., 460. 
 
 Cleonae, 404. 
 
 Cockerell, Mr., 368. 
 
 Cocks at Sparta, 444. 
 
 Coins, 391. 
 
 Comedy, Greek, 137; at Cam- 
 bridge, 137. 
 
 Cor.stantine, the Emperor, 291. 
 
 Convent Libraries, 522; metals 
 and gems, 526; embroideries, 
 527 ; plagues, 527. 
 
 Copias, Lake, 248, 249. 
 
 Corinth, 20, 392 sq. 
 
 Corinthian order, 36, 369, 434. 
 
 Coronea, 250. 
 
 Costume, 268, 279, 379, 437. 
 
 Crete, 14, 15. 
 
 Curzon, M., 509. 
 
 Cyclades, 14, 166, 182. 
 
 Cyclopean walls, 472, 473. 
 
 DAPHNE, pass of, 205 ; church at, 
 
 500. 
 
 Delphi, 282 sq. 
 Dionysus (see Theatre). 
 Divri, 345. 
 
 Dodwell, quoted, 96, 228. 464, 471. 
 Dogs, 32, 301 ; on tombs, 261. 
 Dorians, 442. 
 Dorian states and their art, 420- 
 
 423 
 Doric order, 34, 37, 98, 304, 407, 
 
 474. 
 
 Dorpfeld, Dr., 314, 487, 490. 
 Dramatic competitions, 131 
 
 EAGLES, 232. 
 
 Earthquakes, 277, 289, 305, 454. 
 
 Easter, 361, 383. 
 
 Elatea, 265. 
 
 Eleusinia, the, 210-214. 
 
 Eleusis, 207 sq. 
 
 Eleuthene, 223-229. 
 
 Elgin, Lord, 97, 98, 460. 
 
 Elis, 299 sq. 
 
 Entrances, plan of, in Greek 
 
 palaces, 487-489. 
 Epaininondas, 241, 242. 
 Epicureans, 144, 145. 
 Epidauros, 429, 432 sq. 
 
 Erechtheum, the, 101. 
 Ergasteria, mines of, 167 sq. 
 Erymaiithus, Mount, 343; river, 
 
 345, 347, 358. 
 
 Euripides, his art, 129, 130, 321. 
 Eurotas, the, 440. 
 Events, the, at Olympic games, 
 
 331-333. 
 Expression in art, 114 sq. 
 
 FALLMERAYER, 415. 
 
 Forts at Phyle, 215 ; Eleuthene, 
 
 226; Karytena, 373; Staigue, 
 
 Kerry, a comparison, 407 ; 
 
 Tiryns, 405 ; Mycenae, 457. 
 Freeman, Prof., on restorations, 
 
 93 ; criticised, 93, 246 
 French tragedy, 134. 
 Frieze of Parthenon, 105 ; at 
 
 Tiryns, 489. 
 Funeral orations, 75. 
 
 GAMES, the Olympic, 318 sq. 
 
 Glendalough, chapels in, 495. 
 
 Gods, the unknown, 143. 
 
 Gold cups, polishing of, 485. 
 
 Greece, faces eastward, 2 ; routes 
 to, 2, 18-20 ; first aspect of, 4 ; 
 depopulation of, 11, 232; per- 
 manence of inhabitants, 24, 
 414-419. 
 
 Greek art, polychromatic, 40-46; 
 notions of death, 77-79 (cf. 
 Art) ; travel, 494. 
 
 Greeks, character of, 21, 146 sq. 
 (note.) 360; courage of, 201. 
 
 Guide-books for Greece, 53. 
 
 Gregorovius, Mr., 493. 
 
 HADRIAN'S temple of Zeus at 
 
 Athens, 34-37. 
 Hagios Petros, 438. 
 Handbooks for Greece. 53, 54. 
 Helicon, 248. 
 Helmet of Hiero, 317. 
 Heneon, the, at Olympia, 314, 371. 
 Heraldic ornaments. 482. 
 Hermes of Vatican, 63 ; archaic at 
 
 Athens, 68; of Praxiteles, 313. 
 Herodotus, 423. 
 Hesiod, 408. 
 
 Homer, 77, 284, 403, 409. 
 Honey of Hymettus, 156 ; of 
 
 Lauriuin, 176. 
 Hopf, 415.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 533 
 
 Hydra, the island of, 183, 425 
 427. 
 
 ICTINUS, 364, 370. 
 
 Iliad, the, 284, 318, 334, 411, 466. 
 
 Inns, 361. 
 
 Ionic order, 116. 
 
 Ireland, resembles Greece in va- 
 rious natural features, and in 
 its art, 5, 17, 121, 407, 464, 468- 
 470, 478. 
 
 Italy, faces westward, 1. 
 
 I tea, 297. 
 
 Ithoine, Mount, 449 sq. 
 
 Iviron, Monastery, 527. 
 
 JEALOUSY, Greek, 245. 
 Julian, the Emperor, 292. 
 Julius Caesar, 390. 
 
 KALAMATA, 449, 505 
 Karytena, 372, 505. 
 Katiikolo, 299. 381. 
 Kephissus, the, near Athens, 157 ; 
 
 in Thriasian plain, 219; at 
 
 Orchomenus, 257. 
 Kirrlia, 295. 
 
 Kladeos, the, 302 sq. ; 343. 
 Koron, Gulf of, 6. 
 Krissa, 294. 
 Kymetha, 354. 
 Kynuria, 435. 
 
 LADON, the, 358, 359. 
 
 Lala, 344. 
 
 Lambros, Mr., 524. 
 
 Langada Pass, 446. 
 
 Lauriuni, 169-172; its mining 
 
 companies, 173-179. 
 Lechaeum, 390-392. 
 Lechouri, village of, 347. 
 Legends, 282, 411, 478. 
 Lion of Marathon, 199 ; of Chae- 
 
 ronea, 268 sq. ; of the Arsenal, 
 
 Venice, 270 ; of Lucerne, 271. 
 Lionardo da Vinci, 419. 
 Lion-gate at Mycenae, 471. 
 Livadia, 251 sq. 
 Locrian inscriptions, 260. 
 Lycabettus, 189. 
 Lvsicrates, monument of, 36, 47, 
 
 *150. 
 
 MJCNALUS, Mount, 381, 387. 
 
 Maina, 7. 
 
 Males promontory, 13; hermit of, 
 13. 
 
 Marathon, 153, 198, 199, 203, 204. 
 
 Marble, Greek, 40 ; Peutelican, 
 190, 304. 
 
 Mare' Orchestra, 243. 
 
 Mediaeval Greece, 492 sq. 
 
 Medicine in Greece, 362. 
 
 Medusa, 419. 
 
 Megalopolis, 374. 
 
 Melos, 15 ; Venus of, 16. 
 
 Messene, walls and gates of, 452. 
 
 Messenia, 449 sq. 
 
 Meteora Monastery, 528. 
 
 Michaelis, 103 sq. 
 
 Mistra, 445, 503. 
 
 Monasteries, Scripou (Orchome- 
 nus), 260 ; Vourkano, 450. 
 
 Morea (see Peloponnesus). 
 
 Mount Athos, 509 sq. 
 
 Munychia, 160. 
 
 Murray, Mr. A. S., 61, 270, 313, 
 476. 
 
 Museums, subdivision of, 50-54, 
 151 ; of Athens, 55 sq., 74 ; of 
 Acropolis, 118 ; of Olympia, 
 306 
 
 Music, 280-282; in Arcadia, 353, 
 372. 
 
 Mycenae, 456 sq. 
 
 Myron, 423. 
 
 Mysteries, the Eleusinian, 210 sq. 
 
 NAPLKS, museum of, 44. 
 Natural beauty, exhilarating ef- 
 fect of, 255. 
 Nauplia, 423, 429. 
 New Grange, 464, 468. 
 Nicias, a slave-owner, 177, 178. 
 Nike of Paeonius. 306, 316. 
 
 OAKS, 344, 366. 
 (Enoe, 224. 
 
 Old Cathedral, Athens, 495. 
 Olive-trees, in Attica, 158, 197. 
 Olonos, Mount, 343, 347, 348. 
 Olympia, 303 sq. 
 Olympiads, the, 318 sq. 
 Oracle, Delphic, 285 sq. 
 Orchestra, the, 140. 
 Orchomenus, 257 sq. 
 Ornamentation of temples, 105, 
 
 106. 
 
 Ostrich egg, at Mycenae, 478. 
 Owen, Mr., 528.
 
 534 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 P^ONIUS, 307, 316. 
 Psestum, temple of, 394. 
 Pan, 353, 387. 
 
 Pauagia Phaeneromene, Monas- 
 tery of, 497, 507. 
 Panathenaic procession, 109. 
 Pankration, the, 329, 337. 
 Papalexopoulos, Dr., 387, 410. 
 Parnassus, Mount, 274, 281. 
 Parnes, Mount, 154. 
 Parthenon, the older burnt, 66; 
 
 account of, 90 sq. ; sketched by 
 
 Carrey, 104 ; decorations of, 
 
 105, 369. 
 
 Paul, S., at Athens, 141 sq., 389. 
 Pausanius, King, 292. 
 Pausanias quoted, 263, 284, 291, 
 
 307. 308, 311, 312, 328, 329, 368. 
 
 377, 408, 464. 465. 
 Pediments, of Parthenon, 105 
 
 q. ; of temple at Olympia, 308 
 
 sq. 
 Peiraeus (Piraeus), 31, 32, 159-161, 
 
 206. 
 
 Peloponnesus, the, 6. 
 Penrose, Mr., 102. 
 Pentathlon, 320, 331. 
 Pentelicus, Mount, quarries of, 
 
 190-193. 
 
 Perrot, M. G., quoted, 185-189. 
 Perseids and Pelopids, 486. 
 Petrachus, the fort of Chaeronea, 
 
 264. 
 
 Phaedriades, the, 289. 
 Phalerum, 161. 
 Phayllus, 333. 
 Phidias, 107, 115, 303. 
 Phigalia, 364. 
 Phocians, the, 291. 
 Phocis, 274 sq. 
 
 Phoenicians, in Greece, 12, 170. 
 Phyle, pass of, 215. 
 Pickering, Mr., 326. 
 Pindar, 242, 294, 316, 
 Pirene, fountain of, 397. 
 Plataea, 223, 231. 
 Plato, 138. 
 
 Plutarch, quoted, 213. 265. 
 Politics, modern Greek, 236-240. 
 Polyandrion, at Chaeronea. 272. 
 Polybius, 346, 353. 
 Polychromy, Greek, 39 sq. 
 Pompeii, statues from, 70. 
 Praxiteles, 112; his Hermes, 313; 
 
 his Faun, 353. 
 
 Propylaea at Athens, 100; at 
 
 Eleusis, 208, 209. 
 Psophis, 346. 
 Psyttalea, 31. 
 Pullen, Mr., 493. 
 Pylaea, the, 294, 295. 
 Pyramids, 465. 
 Pyrgos, 300. 
 Pyrrhic dance, 280. 
 Pythian games, 285, 310, 311. 
 
 RACINE, his estimate of tragedy, 
 
 132-134. 
 Rain, 346. 
 
 Rcnan, quoted, 141, 246 sq. 
 Rhamnus, 185. 
 Riley, Mr., 519, 522, 526, 528. 
 Roads, Greek, 190, 220, 256. 
 Routes, through Greece, 296, 343, 
 
 349, 380, 396, 424. 
 
 SALAMIS, 207, 209. 
 
 Salonica churches, 497. 
 
 Salzburg, compared to Athens, 
 152. 
 
 Sannazaro, Jacopo, 355. 
 
 Sayce, Prof., 416. 
 
 Sciiliemann, Dr. H., his Mycen- 
 sen treasure, 151, ; at Nauplia, 
 435 ; excavations at Orchome- 
 nus, 258; Mycenae, 458 sq., 464, 
 473 sq. 
 
 Schultz, Mr., 493. 
 
 Sepulchral monuments, county 
 Meath, compared, 468. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter. 267. 
 
 Sculpture, in relation to other 
 arts, 316, 321. 
 
 Shelley, 86. 
 
 Shepherd children, 448. 
 
 Sicily, 63, 404. 
 
 Smith, Adam, his theory of sym- 
 pathy, 80. 
 
 Socrates, 138. 
 
 Sophocles, 130. 
 
 Sorrow, its expression in art, 
 83. 
 
 Sparta, 9, 10 sq. 
 
 Spartans. 320, 325, 441. 
 
 Squier. Mr., 60. 
 
 Stadium, at Delphi, 293. 
 
 Stage, the Greek, 128. 
 
 Statues, various types of. 65 ; 
 votive, 315; archaic. 65-70, 71, 
 72 ; at Argos, 418 ; archaistic, 70.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 535 
 
 Stele, of Aristion, 68; ofAlxenor, 
 
 261. 
 
 Stoics, at Athens, 144. 
 Strabo, 389, 396, 408. 
 Sunium, temple of, 166, 179-181. 
 Swinburne, Mr., his Greek plays, 
 
 135. 
 
 TACTICS, old Greek, 203. 
 
 Tainaron, promontory of, 9. 
 
 Tanagra, figurines of, 59-62. 
 
 Taygetus, 443. 
 
 Tegea, 385. 
 
 Temple of the Winds (Athens), 
 47, 150. 
 
 Tennyson, his InMemoriam criti- 
 cised, 84. 
 
 Tettix, the (see Cicada). 
 
 Theatre of Dionysus at Athens, 
 122 sq. ; size of, 125 ; at Argos, 
 413. 
 
 Thebans, character of, 241-243. 
 
 Thebes, 233-237, 241. 
 
 Theocritus, quoted, 192, 336, 353, 
 402. 
 
 Theodosius, 292. 
 
 Tlierasia (Thera), prehistoric dis- 
 coveries at, 16. 
 
 Theseus, temple of, 37, 38, 46, 
 47. 
 
 Thespiae, 242. 
 
 Thucydides, quoted, 207, 259. 
 
 Thyreatis, 440. 
 
 Tiryns, 405 sq. ; 487 sq. ; destruc- 
 tion of, 484, 490, 491. 
 
 Tomb of S. Luke, 235. 
 
 Tombs, defaced, 47, 48; the At- 
 tic, 74 sq. ; at Mycense, 474 sq. 
 
 Treasury of Minyse, 258, 464 ; of 
 
 Atreus, 457 sq. 
 Trikoupi, M., 237, 240, 244. 
 Tripod of Delphi, 292. 
 Tripolitza, 278, 381, 384. 
 Tripotamo, 345, 346. 
 Trophonius, oracle of, 251. 
 Try pi, 446. 
 Turks, in Greece, 3, 10, 26, 55, 281 
 
 sq. 
 
 UMPIRES, at Olympia, 337, 338. 
 
 VESETATION, in Arcadia, 366, 
 367; Argolis, 401, 429, 458; 
 Kynuria, 436; Laconia, 444, 
 447 ; Messenia, 453, 454. 
 
 Venetian tower at Athens, 93. 
 
 Venetians, bombard the Acropo- 
 lis, 91 ; destroy sculptures, 100. 
 
 Venus, various types of, 113, 114. 
 
 Vergil, quoted, 335, 354. 
 
 Villehardouins, the, 445, 503. 
 
 Viollet-le-duc, M., 393. 
 
 Vourkano, monastery of, 449, 508. 
 
 WALLS, 159, 162 ; Peirseic, 259. 
 Wedding scene, 279. 
 Wood, use of, in archaic build- 
 ings, 491. 
 
 XENOPHON, cited, 201. 
 
 ZEA, harbor, 160, 161. 
 
 Zeus, temple of, at Athens, 46; 
 temple and statue of, at Olym- 
 pia, 303 sq. ; bronze figures of 
 
 (Za*), 338.
 
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