In The Levant
TextXXIX.—ELEUSIS, PLATO’S ACADEME, ETC
THERE was a nightingale who sang and sobbed all night in the garden before the hotel, and only ceased her plaintive reminiscence of Athenian song and sorrow with the red dawn. But this is a sad world of contrasts. Called upon the balcony at midnight by her wild notes, I saw,—how can I ever say it?—upon the balcony below, a white figure advance, and with a tragic movement of haste, if not of rage, draw his garment of the night over his head and shake it out over the public square; and I knew—for the kingdom of knowledge comes by experience as well as by observation—that the lively flea was as wakeful in Greece as the nightingale.
In the morning the north-wind arose,—it seems to blow constantly from Boeotia at this time of the year,—but the day was bright and sparkling, and we took carriage for Eleusis. It might have been such a morning—for the ancient Athenians always anticipated the dawn in their festivals—that the Panathenaic processions moved along this very Via Sacra to celebrate the Mysteries of Ceres at Eleusis. All the hills stood in clear outline,—long Pentelicus and the wavy lines of Parnes and Corydallus; we drove over the lovely and fertile plain, amid the olive-orchards of the Kephissus, and up the stony slope to the narrowing Pass of Daphne, a defile in Mt. Ægaleos; but we sought in vain the laurel grove, or a single specimen of that tree whose twisted trunk and outstretched arms express the struggle of vanishing humanity. Passing on our right the Chapel of St. Elias, on a commanding eminence, and traversing the level plateau of the rocky gorge, we alighted at the Monastery of Daphne, whose half-ruined cloister and chapel occupy the site of a temple of Apollo. We sat for half an hour in its quiet, walled churchyard, carpeted with poppies and tender flowers of spring, amid the remains of old columns and fragments of white marble, sparkling amid the green grass and blue violets, and looked upon the blue bay of Eleusis and Salamis, and the heights of Megara beyond. Surely nature has a tenderness for such a spot; and I fancied that even the old dame who unlocked for us the chapel and its cheap treasures showed us with some interest, in a carving here and a capital there, the relics of a former religion, and perhaps mingled with her adoration of the Virgin and the bambino a lurking regard for Venus and Apollo. A mile beyond, at the foot of a rocky precipice, are pointed out the foundations of a temple of Venus, where the handbook assured us doves had been found carved in white marble; none were left, however, for us, and we contented ourselves with reading on the rock Phile Aphrodite, and making a vain effort to recall life to this sterile region.
Enchanting was the view as we drove down the opening pass to the bay, which spreads out a broad sheet, completely landlocked by the irregular bulk of Salamis Island. When we emerged through the defile we turned away from the narrow strait where the battle was fought, and from the “rocky brow” on which Xerxes sat, a crowned spectator of his ruin, and swept around the circular shore, past the Rheiti, or salt-springs,—clear, greenish pools,—and over the level Thriasian Plain. The bay of Eleusis, guarded by the lofty amphitheatre of mountains, the curving sweep of Ægaleos and Kithæron, and by Salamis, is like a lovely lake, and if anywhere on earth there could be peace, you would say it would be on its sunny and secluded shores. Salamis appears only a bare and rocky island, but the vine still flourishes in the scant soil, and from its wild-flowers the descendants of the Attic bees make honey as famous as that of two thousand years ago.
Across the bay, upon a jutting rocky point, above which rises the crown of its Acropolis, lies the straggling, miserable village of Eleusis. Our first note of approach to it was an ancient pavement, and a few indistinguishable fragments of walls and columns. In a shallow stream which ran over the stones the women of the town were washing clothes; and throngs of girls were filling their pails of brass at an old well, as of old at the same place did the daughters of Keleos. Shriller tones and laughter mingled with their incessant chatter as we approached, and we thought,—perhaps it was imagination,—a little wild defiance and dislike. I had noticed already in Athens, and again here, the extraordinary rapidity with which the Greeks in conversation exchange words; I think they are the fastest talkers in the world. And the Greek has a hard, sharp, ringing, metallic sound; it is staccato. You can see how easily Aristophanes imitated the brittle-brattle of frogs. I have heard two women whose rapid, incessant cackle sounded exactly like the conversation of hens. The sculptor need not go further than these nut-brown maids for classic forms; the rounded limbs, the generous bust, the symmetrical waist, which fashion has not made an hour-glass to mark the flight of time and health. The mothers of heroes were of this mould; although I will not say that some of them were not a trifle stout for grace, and that their well-formed faces would not have been improved by the interior light of a little culture. Their simple dress was a white, short chemise, that left the legs bare, a heavy and worked tunic, like that worn by men, and a colored kerchief tied about the head. Many of the men of the village wore the fustanella and the full Albanian costume.
The Temple of Ceres lies at the foot of the hill; only a little portion of its vast extent has been relieved of the superincumbent, accumulated soil, and in fact its excavation is difficult, because the village is built over the greater part of it. What we saw was only a confused heap of marble, some pieces finely carved, arches, capitals, and shattered columns. The Greek government, which is earnestly caring for the remains of antiquity and diligently collecting everything for the National Museum, down to broken toes and fingers, has stationed a keeper over the ruins; and he showed us, in a wooden shanty, the interesting fragments of statues which had been found in the excavation. I coveted a little hand, plump, with tapering fingers, which the conservator permitted us to hold,—a slight but a most suggestive memento of the breeding and beauty of the lady who was the sculptor’s model; and it did not so much seem a dead hand stretched out to us from the past, as a living thing which returned our furtive pressure.
We climbed up the hill where the fortress of the Acropolis stood, and where there is now a little chapel. Every Grecian city seems to have had its Acropolis, the first nucleus of the rude tribe which it fortified against incursion, and the subsequent site of temples to the gods. The traveller will find these steep hills, rising out of plains, everywhere from Ephesus to Argos, and will almost conclude that Nature had consciously adapted herself to the wants of the aboriginal occupants. It is well worth ascending this summit to get the fine view of plain and bay, of Mt. Kerata and its double peaks, and the road that pierces the pass of Kithæron, and leads to the field of Platæa and the remains of Thebes.
In a little wine-shop, near the ruins, protected from the wind and the importunate swarms of children, we ate our lunch, and tried to impress ourselves with the knowledge that Æschylus was born in Eleusis; and to imagine the nature of the Eleusinian mysteries, the concealed representations by which the ancients attempted to symbolize, in the myths of Ceres and Proserpine, the primal forces of nature, perhaps the dim suggestions of immortality,—a secret not to be shared by the vulgar,—borrowed from the deep wisdom of the Egyptians.
The children of Eleusis deserve more space than I can afford them, since they devoted their entire time to our annoyance. They are handsome rascals, and there were enough of them, if they had been sufficiently clothed, to form a large Sunday school. When we sat down in the ruins and tried to meditate on Ceres, they swarmed about us, capering and yelling incessantly, and when I made a charge upon them they scattered over the rocks and saluted us with stones. But I find that at this distance I have nothing against them; I recall only their beauty and vivacity, and if they were the worst children that ever tormented travellers, I reflect, yes, but they were Greeks, and the gods loved their grandmothers. One slender, liquid-eyed, slim-shanked girl offered me a silver coin. I saw that it was a beautiful Athenian piece of the time of Pericles, and after some bargaining I bought it of her for a reasonable price. But as we moved away to our carriage, I was followed by the men and women of the settlement, who demanded it back. They looked murder and talked Greek. I inquired how much they wanted. Fifty francs! But that is twice as much as it is worth in Athens; and the coin was surrendered. All through the country, the peasants have a most exaggerated notion of the value of anything antique.
We returned through the pass of Daphne and by the site of the academic grove of Plato, though olive-groves and gardens of pomegranates in scarlet bloom, quinces, roses, and jasmines, the air sweet and delightful. Perhaps nowhere else can the traveller so enter into the pure spirit of Attic thought and feeling as among these scattered remains that scholars have agreed to call the ruins of Plato’s Academe. We turned through a lane into the garden of a farm-house, watered by a branch rivulet of the Kephissus. What we saw was not much,—some marble columns under a lovely cypress-grove, some fragments of antique carving built into a wall; but we saw it as it were privately and with a feeling of the presence of the mighty shade. And then, under a row of young plane-trees, by the meagre stream, we reclined on ripe wheat-straw, in full sight of the Acropolis,—perhaps the most poetic view of that magnetic hill. So Plato saw it as he strolled along this bank and listened to the wisdom of his master, Socrates, or, pacing the colonnade of the Academe, meditated the republic. Here indeed Aristotle, who was born the year that Plato died, may have lain and woven that subtle web of metaphysics which no subsequent system of thought or religion has been able to disregard. The centuries-old wind blew strong and fresh through the trees, and the scent of flowers and odorous shrubs, the murmur of the leaves, the unchanged blue vault of heaven, the near hill of the sacred Colonus, celebrated by Sophocles as the scene of the death of Odipus, all conspired to flood us with the poetic past. What intimations of immortality do we need, since the spell of genius is so deathless?
After dinner we laboriously, by a zigzag path, climbed the sharp cone of Lycabettus, whose six hundred and fifty feet of height commands the whole region. The rock summit has just room enough for a tiny chapel, called of St. George, and a narrow platform in front, where we sat in the shelter of the building and feasted upon the prospect. At sunset it is a marvellous view,—all Athens and its plain, the bays, Salamis and the strait of the battle, Acro-Corinth; Megara, Hymettus, Pentelicus, Kithæron.
When, in descending, we had nearly reached the foot on the west side, we heard the violent ringing of a bell high above us, and, turning about, saw what seemed to be a chapel under the northwest edge of the rock upon which we had lately stood. Bandits in laced leggings and embroidered jackets, chattering girls in short skirts and gay kerchiefs, were descending the wandering path, and the clamor of the bell piqued our curiosity to turn and ascend. When we reached our goal, the affair seemed to be pretty much all bell, and nobody but a boy in the lusty exuberance of youth could have made so much noise by the swinging of a single clapper. In a niche or rather cleft in the rock was a pent-roofed bell-tower, and a boy, whose piety seemed inspired by the Devil, was hauling the rope and sending the sonorous metal over and over on its axis. In front of the bell is a narrow terrace, sufficient, however, to support three fig-trees, under which were tables and benches, and upon the low terrace-wall were planted half a dozen large and differently colored national banners. A hole in the rock was utilized as a fireplace, and from a pot over the coals came the fumes of coffee. Upon this perch of a terrace people sat sipping coffee and looking down upon the city, whose evening lights were just beginning to twinkle here and there. Behind the belfry is a chapel, perhaps ten feet by twelve, partly a natural grotto and partly built of rough stones; it was brilliantly lighted with tapers, and hung with quaint pictures. At the entrance, which is a door cut in the rock, stood a Greek priest and an official in uniform selling wax-tapers, and raking in the leptas of the devout. We threw down some coppers, declined the tapers, and walked in. The adytum of the priest was wholly in the solid rock. There seemed to be no service; but the women and children stood and crossed themselves, and passionately kissed the poor pictures on the walls. Yet there was nothing exclusive or pharisaic in the worshippers, for priest and people showed us friendly faces, and cordially returned our greetings. The whole rock quivered with the clang of the bell, for the boy at the rope leaped at his task, and with ever-increasing fury summoned the sinful world below to prayer. Young ladies with their gallants came and went; and whenever there was any slacking of stragglers up the hillside the bell clamored more importunately.
As dusk crept on, torches were set along the wall of the terrace, and as we went down the hill they shone on the red and blue flags and the white belfry, and illuminated the black mass of overhanging rock with a red glow. There is time for religion in out-of-the-way places here, and it is rendered picturesque, and even easy and enjoyable, by the aid of coffee and charming scenery. When we reached the level of the town, the lights still glowed high up in the recess of the rocks, girls were laughing and chattering as they stumbled down the steep, and the wild bell still rang. How easy it is to be good in Greece!
One day we stole a march on Marathon, and shared the glory of those who say they have seen it, without incurring the fatigue of a journey there. We ascended Mt. Pentelicus. Hymettus and Pentelicus are about the same height,—thirty-five hundred feet,—but the latter, ten miles to the northeast of Athens, commands every foot of the Attic territory; if one should sit on its summit and read a history of the little state, he would need no map. We were away at half past five in the morning, in order to anticipate if possible the rising of the daily wind. As we ascended, we had on our left, at the foot of the mountain, the village of Kephisia, now, as in the days of Herodes Atticus, the summer resort of wealthy Athenians, who find in its fountains, the sources of the Kephissus, and in its groves relief from the heat and glare of the scorched Athenian plain. Half-way we halted at a monastery, left our carriage, and the ladies mounted horses. There is a handsome church here, and the situation is picturesque and commands a wide view of the plain and the rugged north slope of Hymettus, but I could not learn that the monastery was in an active state; it is only a hive of drones which consumes the honey produced by the working-bees from the wild thyme of the neighboring mountain. The place, however, is a great resort of parties of pleasure, who picnic under the grove of magnificent forest-trees, and once a year the king and queen come hither to see the youths and maidens dance on the greensward.
Up to the highest quarries the road is steep, and strewn with broken marble, and after that there is an hour’s scramble through bushes and over a rocky path. We rested in a large grotto near the principal of the ancient quarries; it was the sleeping-place of the workmen, subsequently a Christian church, and then, and not long ago, a haunt and home of brigands. Here we found a party of four fellows, half clad in sheep-skins, playing cards, who seemed to be waiting our arrival; but they were entirely civil, and I presume were only shepherds, whatever they may have been formerly. From these quarries was hewn the marble for the Temple of Theseus, the Parthenon, the Propylæa, the theatres, and other public buildings, to which age has now given a soft and creamy tone; the Pentelic marble must have been too brilliant for the eye, and its dazzling lustre was no doubt softened by the judicious use of color. Fragments which we broke off had the sparkle and crystalline grain of loaf-sugar, and if they were placed upon the table one would unhesitatingly take them to sweeten his tea. The whole mountain-side is overgrown with laurel, and we found wild-flowers all the way to the summit. Amid the rocks of the higher slopes, little shepherd-boys, carrying the traditional crooks, were guarding flocks of black and white goats, and, invariably as we passed, these animals scampered off and perched themselves upon sharp rocks in a photographic pose.
Early as we were, the wind had risen before us, and when we reached the bare back of the summit it blew so strongly that we could with difficulty keep our feet, and gladly took refuge in a sort of stone corral, which had been a camp and lookout of brigands. From this commanding point they spied both their victims and pursuers. Our guide went into the details of the capture of the party of Englishmen who spent a night here, and pointed out to us the several hiding-places in the surrounding country to which they were successively dragged. But my attention was not upon this exploit. We looked almost directly down upon Marathon. There is the bay and the curving sandy shore where the Persian galleys landed; here upon a spur, jutting out from the hill, the Athenians formed before, they encountered the host in the plain, and there—alas! it was hidden by a hill—is the mound where the one hundred and ninety-two Athenian dead are buried. It is only a small field, perhaps six miles along the shore and a mile and a half deep, and there is a considerable marsh on the north and a small one at the south end. The victory at so little cost, of ten thousand over a hundred thousand, is partially explained by the nature of the ground; the Persians had not room enough to manouvre, and must have been thrown into confusion on the skirts of the northern swamp, and if over six thousand of them were slain, they must have been killed on the shore in the panic of their embarkation. But still the shore is broad, level, and firm, and the Greeks must have been convinced that the gods themselves terrified the hearts of the barbarians, and enabled them to discomfit a host which had chosen this plain as the most feasible in all Attica for the action of cavalry.
A sea-haze lay upon the strait of Euripus and upon Euboea, and nearly hid from our sight the forms of the Cyclades; but away in the northwest were snow peaks, which the guide said were the heights of Parnassus above Delphi. In the world there can be few prospects so magnificent as this, and none more inspiring to the imagination. No one can properly appreciate the Greek literature or art who has not looked upon the Greek nature which seems to have inspired both.
Nothing now remains of the monuments and temples which the pride and piety of the Athenians erected upon the field of Marathon. The visitor at the Arsenal of Venice remembers the clumsy lion which is said to have stood on this plain, and in the Temple of Theseus, at Athens, he may see a slab which was found in this meadow; on it is cut in very low relief the figure of a soldier, but if the work is Greek the style of treatment is Assyrian.
The Temple of Theseus, which occupies an elevation above the city and west of the Areopagus, is the best-preserved monument of Grecian antiquity, and if it were the only one, Athens would still be worthy of a pilgrimage from the ends of the earth. Behind it is a level esplanade, used as a drill-ground, upon one side of which have been gathered some relics of ancient buildings and sculptures; seated there in an ancient marble chair, we never wearied of studying the beautiful proportions of this temple, which scarcely suffers by comparison with the Parthenon or that at Pæstum. In its construction the same subtle secret of curved lines and inclined verticals was known, a secret which increases its apparent size and satisfies the eye with harmony.
While we were in Athens the antiquarians were excited by the daily discoveries in the excavations at the Keramicus (the field where the Athenian potters worked). Through the portion of this district outside the gate Dipylum ran two streets, which were lined with tombs; one ran to the Academe, the other was the sacred way to Eleusis. The excavations have disclosed many tombs and lovely groups of funereal sculpture, some of which are in situ, but many have been removed to the new Museum. The favorite device is the seated figure of the one about to die, who in this position of dignity takes leave of those most loved; perhaps it is a wife, a husband, a lovely daughter, a handsome boy, who calmly awaits the inevitable moment, while the relatives fondly look or half avert their sorrowful faces. In all sculpture I know nothing so touching as these family farewells. I obtained from them a new impression of the Greek dignity and tenderness, of the simplicity and nobility of their domestic life.
The Museum, which was unarranged, is chiefly one of fragments, but what I saw there and elsewhere scattered about the town gave me a finer conception of the spirit of the ancient art than all the more perfect remains in Europe put together; and it seems to me that nowhere except in Athens is it possible to attain a comprehension of its depth and loveliness. Something, I know, is due to the genius loci, but you come to the knowledge that the entire life, even the commonest, was pervaded by something that has gone from modern art. In the Museum we saw a lovely statue of Isis, a noble one of Patroclus, fine ones of athletes, and also, showing the intercourse with Egypt, several figures holding the sacred sistrum, and one of Rameses II. But it is the humbler and funereal art that gives one a new conception of the Greek grace, tenderness, and sensibility. I have spoken of the sweet dignity, the high-born grace, that accepted death with lofty resignation, and yet not with stoical indifference, of some of the sepulchral groups. There was even more poetry in some that are simpler. Upon one slab was carved a figure, pensive, alone, wrapping his drapery about him and stepping into the silent land, on that awful journey that admits of no companion. On another, which was also without inscription, a solitary figure sat in one corner; he had removed helmet and shield, and placed them on the ground behind him; a line upon the stone indicated the boundary of the invisible world, and, with a sad contemplation, the eyes of the soldier were fixed upon that unknown region into which he was about to descend.
Scarcely a day passed that we did not ascend the Acropolis; and again and again we traversed the Areopagus, the Pnyx, the Museum hills. From the valley of the Agora stone steps lead up the Areopagus to a bench cut in the rock. Upon this open summit the Areopagite Council held, in the open air, its solemn sessions; here it sat, it is said, at night and in the dark, that no face of witness or criminal, or gesture of advocate, should influence the justice of its decisions. Dedicated to divine justice, it was the most sacred and awful place in Athens; in a cavern underneath it was the sanctuary of the dread Erinnyes, the avenging Euries, whom a later superstition represented with snakes twisted in their hair; whatever the gay frivolity of the city, this spot was silent, and respected as the dread seat of judicature of the highest causes of religion or of politics. To us Mars Hill is chiefly associated with the name of St. Paul; and I do not suppose it matters much whether he spoke to the men of Athens in this sacred place or, as is more probable, from a point farther down the hill, now occupied by a little chapel, where he would be nearer to the multitude of the market-place. It does not matter; it was on the Areopagus, and in the centre of temples and a thousand statues that bespoke the highest civilization of the pagan world, that Paul proclaimed the truth, which man’s egotism continually forgets, that in temples made with hands the Deity does not dwell.
From this height, on the side of the Museum Hill, we see the grotto that has been dignified with the title of the “prison of Socrates,” but upon slight grounds. When the philosopher was condemned, the annual sacred ship which was sent with thank-offerings to Delos was still absent, and until its return no execution was permitted in Athens. Every day the soldiers who guarded Socrates ascended this hill, and went round the point to see if the expected vessel was in sight; and it is for their convenience that some antiquarian designated this grotto as the prison. The delay of the ship gave us his last immortal discourse.
We went one evening by the Temple of Jupiter, along the Ilissus, to the old Stadium. This classic stream, the Ilissus, is a gully, with steep banks and a stony bottom, and apparently never wet except immediately after a rain. You would think by the flattery it received from the ancient Athenians that it was larger than the Mississippi. The Panathenaic Stadium, as it is called, because its chief use was in the celebration of the games of the great quadrennial festival, was by nature and art exceedingly well adapted to chariot races and other contests. Open at the end, where a bridge crossed the Ilissus, it extended a hundred feet broad six hundred and fifty feet into the hill, upon the three sloping sides of which, in seats of marble, could be accommodated fifty thousand spectators. Here the Greek youth contended for the prizes in the chariot race, and the more barbarous Roman emperors amused a degenerate people with the sight of a thousand wild beasts hunted and slain in a single celebration.
The Stadium has been lately re-excavated, and at the time of our visit the citizens were erecting some cheap benches at one end, and preparing, in a feeble way, for what it pleases them to call the Olympic Games, which were to be inaugurated the following Sunday. The place must inevitably dwarf the performance, and comparison render it ridiculous. The committee-men may seem to themselves Olympic heroes, and they had the earnest air of trying to make themselves believe that they were really reviving the ancient glory of Greece, or that they could bring it back by calling a horse-race and the wrestling of some awkward peasants an “Olympiad.” The revival could be, as we afterwards learned it was, only a sickly and laughable affair. The life of a nation is only preserved in progress, not in attempts to make dead forms live again. It is difficult to have chariot races or dramatic contests without chariots or poets, and I suppose the modern imitation would scarcely be saved from ludicrousness, even if the herald should proclaim that now a Patroclus and now an Aristophanes was about to enter the arena. The modern occupants of Athens seem to be deceiving themselves a little with names and shadows. In the genuine effort to revive in its purity the Greek language, and to inspire a love of art and literature, the Western traveller will wholly sympathize. In the growth of a liberal commercial spirit he will see still more hope of a new and enduring Greek state. But a puerile imitation of a society and a religion which cannot possibly have a resurrection excites only a sad smile. There is no more pitiful sight than a man who has lost his ideals, unless it be a nation which has lost its ideals. So long as the body of the American people hold fast to the simple and primitive conception of a republican society,—to the ideals of a century ago,—the nation can survive, as England did, a period of political corruption. There never was, not under Themistocles nor under Scanderbeg, a more glorious struggle for independence than that which the battle of Navarino virtually terminated. The world had a right to expect from the victors a new and vigorous national life, not a pale and sentimental copy of a splendid original, which is now as impossible of revival as the Roman Empire. To do the practical and money-getting Greeks justice, I could not learn that they took a deep interest in the “Olympiad”; nor that the inhabitants of ancient Sparta were jealous of the re-institution of the national games in Athens, since, they say, there are no longer any Athenians to be jealous of.
The ancient Athenians were an early people; they liked the dewy freshness of the morning; they gave the first hours of the day to the market and to public affairs, and the rising sun often greeted the orators on the bema, and an audience on the terrace below. We had seen the Acropolis in almost every aspect, but I thought that one might perhaps catch more of its ancient spirit at sunrise than at any other hour.
It is four o’clock when my companion and I descend into the silent street and take our way to the ancient citadel by the shortest and steepest path. Dawn is just breaking in pink, and the half-moon is in the sky. The sleepy guard unbolts the gate and admits us, but does not care to follow; and we pass the Propylæa and have the whole field to ourselves. There is a great hush as we come into the silent presence of the gray Parthenon; the shades of night are still in its columns. We take our station on a broken pillar, so that we can enjoy a three-quarters view of the east front. As the light strengthens we have a pink sky for background to the temple, and the smooth bay of Phalerum is like a piece of the sky dropped down. Very gradually the light breaks on the Parthenon, and in its glowing awakening it is like a sentient thing, throwing shadows from its columns and kindling more and more; the lion gargoyles on the corners of the pediment have a life which we had not noticed before. There is now a pink tint on the fragments of columns lying at the side; there is a reddish hue on the plain about Piræus; the strait of Salamis is green, but growing blue; Phalerum is taking an iridescent sheen; I can see, beyond the Gulf of Ægina, the distant height of Acro-Corinth. .