At the other end of the plain we came to the foot of Mount Geranion, stretching out boldly to the edge of the gulf, and followed the road along its southern side close to and sometimes overhanging the sea. From time immemorial this has been called the Kaka Scala, or bad way. It is narrow, steep, and rugged, and wild to sublimity. Sometimes we were completely hemmed in by impending mountains, and then rose upon a lofty eminence commanding an almost boundless view. On the summit of the range the road runs directly along the mountain"s brink, overhanging the sea, and so narrow that two hors.e.m.e.n can scarcely pa.s.s abreast; where a stumble would plunge the traveller several hundred yards into the waters beneath. Indeed, the horse of one of my companions stumbled and fell, and put him in such peril that both dismounted and accompanied me on foot. In the olden time this wild and rugged road was famous as the haunt of the robber Sciron, who plundered the luckless travellers, and then threw them from this precipice. The fabulous account is, that Theseus, three thousand years before, on his first visit to Athens, encountered the famous robber, and tossed him from the same precipice whence he had thrown so many better men. According to Ovid, the earth and the sea refused to receive the bones of Sciron, which continued for some time suspended in the open air, until they were changed into large rocks, whose points still appear at the foot of the precipice; and to this day, say the sailors, knock the bottoms out of the Greek vessels.
In later days this road was so infested by corsairs and pirates, that even the Turks feared to travel on it; at one place, that looks as though it might be intended as a jumping-off point into another world, Ino, with her son Melicertes in her arms (so say the Greek poets), threw herself into the sea to escape the fury of her husband; and we know that in later days St. Paul travelled on this road to preach the gospel to the Corinthians.
But, independently of all a.s.sociations, and in spite of its difficulties and dangers, if a man were by accident placed on the lofty height without knowing where he was, he would be struck with the view which it commands, as one of the most beautiful that mortal eyes ever beheld. It was my fortune to pa.s.s over it a second time on foot, and I often seated myself on some wild point, and waited the coming up of my muleteers, looking out upon the sea, calm and glistening as if plated with silver, and studded with islands in continuous cl.u.s.ters stretching away into the aegean.
During the greater part of the pa.s.sage of the Kaka Scala my companions walked with me; and, as we always kept in advance, when we seated ourselves on some rude rock overhanging the sea to wait for our beasts and attendants, few things could be more picturesque than their approach.
On the summit of the pa.s.s we fell into the ancient paved way that leads from Attica into the Peloponnesus, and walked over the same pavement which the Greeks travelled, perhaps, three thousand years ago. A ruined wall and gate mark the ancient boundary; and near this an early traveller observed a large block of white marble projecting over the precipice, and almost ready to fall into the sea, which bore an inscription, now illegible. Here it is supposed stood the Stele erected by Theseus, bearing on one side the inscription, "Here is Peloponnesus, not Ionia;" and on the other the equally pithy notification, "Here is not Peloponnesus, but Ionia." It would be a pretty place of residence for a man in misfortune; for, besides the extraordinary beauty of the scenery, by a single step he might avoid the service of civil process, and set the sheriff of Attica or the Peloponnesus at defiance.
Descending, we saw before us a beautiful plain, extending from the foot of the mountain to the sea, and afar off, on an eminence commanding the plain, was the little town of Megara.
It is unfortunate for the reader that every ruined village on the road stands on the site of an ancient city. The ruined town before us was the birthplace of Euclid, and the representative of that Megara which is distinguished in history more than two thousand years ago; which sent forth its armies in the Persian and Peloponnesian wars; alternately the ally and enemy of Corinth and Athens; containing numerous temples, and the largest public houses in Greece; and though exposed, with her other cities, to the violence of a fierce democracy, as is recorded by the historian, "the Megareans retained their independence and lived in peace." As a high compliment, the people offered to Alexander the Great the freedom of their city. When we approached it its appearance was a speaking comment upon human pride.
It had been demolished and burned by Greeks and Turks, and now presented little more than a ma.s.s of blackened ruins. A few apartments had been cleared out and patched up, and occasionally I saw a solitary figure stalking amid the desolation.
I had not mounted my horse all day; had kicked out a pair of Greek shoes on my walk, and was almost barefoot when I entered the city. A little below the town was a large building enclosed by a high wall, with a Bavarian soldier lounging at the gate. We entered, and found a good coffee-room below, and a comfortable bed chamber above, where we found good quilts and mattresses, and slept like princes.
Early in the morning we set out for Athens, our road for some time lying along the sea. About half way to the Piraeus, a ruined village, with a starving population, stands on the site of the ancient Eleusis, famed throughout all Greece for the celebration of the mysterious rites of Ceres. The magnificent temple of the G.o.ddess has disappeared, and the colossal statue made by the immortal Phidias now adorns the vestibule of the University at Cambridge. We lingered a little while in the village, and soon after entered the Via Sacra, by which, centuries ago, the priests and people moved in solemn religious processions from Athens to the great temple of Ceres. At first we pa.s.sed underneath the cliff along the sh.o.r.e, then rose by a steep ascent among the mountains, barren and stony, and wearing an aspect of desolation equal to that of the Roman Campagna; then we pa.s.sed through a long defile, upon the side of which, deeply cut in the rock, are seen the marks of chariot-wheels; perhaps of those used in the sacred processions. We pa.s.sed the ruined monastery of Daphne, in a beautifully picturesque situation, and in a few minutes saw the rich plain of Attica; and our muleteers and Demetrius, with a burst of enthusiasm, perhaps because the journey was ended, clapped their hands and cried out, "Atinae! Atinae!"
The reader, perhaps, trembles at the name of Athens, but let him take courage. I promise to let him off easily. A single remark, however, before reaching it. The plain of Attica lies between two parallel ranges of mountains, and extends from the sea many miles back into the interior. On the border of the sea stands the Piraeus, now, as in former times, the harbour of the city, and toward the east, on a little eminence, Athens itself, like the other cities in Greece, presenting a miserable appearance, the effects of protracted and relentless wars. But high above the ruins of the modern city towers the Acropolis, holding up to the skies the ruined temples of other days, and proclaiming what Athens was. We wound around the temple of Theseus, the most beautiful and perfect specimen of architecture that time has spared; and in striking contrast with this monument of the magnificence of past days, here, in the entrance to the city, our horses were struggling and sinking up to their saddle-girths in the mud.
We did in Athens what we should have done in Boston or Philadelphia; rode up to the best hotel, and, not being able to obtain accommodations there, rode to another; where, being again refused admittance, we were obliged to distribute ourselves into three parcels. Dr. Willet went to Mr. Hill"s (of whom more anon). M. found entrance at a new hotel in the suburbs, and I betook myself to the Hotel de France. The garcon was rather bothered when I threw him a pair of old boots which I had hanging at my saddle-bow, and told him to take care of my baggage; he asked me when the rest would come up; and hardly knew what to make of me when I told him that was all I travelled with.
I was still standing in the court of the hotel, almost barefoot, and thinking of the prosperous condition of the owner of a dozen shirts, and other things conforming, when Mr. Hill came over and introduced himself; and telling me that his house was the house of every American, asked me to waive ceremony and bring my luggage over at once. This was again hitting my sore point; everybody seemed to take a special interest in my luggage, and I was obliged to tell my story more than once. I declined Mr. Hill"s kind invitation, but called upon him early the next day, dined with him, and, during the whole of my stay in Athens, was in the habit, to a great extent, of making his house my home; and this, I believe, is the case with all the Americans who go there; besides which, some borrow his money, and others his clothes.
CHAPTER IV.
American Missionary School.--Visit to the School.--Mr. Hill and the Male Department.--Mrs. Hill and the Female Department.--Maid of Athens.--Letter from Mr. Hill.--Revival of Athens.--Citizens of the World.
THE first thing we did in Athens was to visit the American missionary school. Among the extraordinary changes of an ever-changing world, it is not the least that the young America is at this moment paying back the debt which the world owes to the mother of science, and the citizen of a country which the wisest of the Greeks never dreamed of, is teaching the descendants of Plato and Aristotle the elements of their own tongue. I did not expect among the ruins of Athens to find anything that would particularly touch my national feelings, but it was a subject of deep and interesting reflection that, in the city which surpa.s.sed all the world in learning, where Socrates, and Plato, and Aristotle taught, and Cicero went to study, the only door of instruction was that opened by the hands of American citizens, and an American missionary was the only schoolmaster; and I am ashamed to say that I was not aware of the existence of such an inst.i.tution until advised of it by my friend Dr. W.
In eighteen hundred and thirty the Rev. Messrs. Hill and Robinson, with their families, sailed from this city (New-York) as the agents of the Episcopal missionary society, to found schools in Greece. They first established themselves in the Island of Tenos; but, finding that it was not the right field for their labours, employed themselves in acquiring a knowledge of the language, and of the character and habits of the modern Greeks. Their attention was directed to Athens, and in the spring of eighteen hundred and thirty-one they made a visit to that city, and were so confirmed in their impressions, that they purchased a lot of ground on which to erect edifices for a permanent establishment, and, in the mean time, rented a house for the immediate commencement of a school. They returned to Tenos for their families and effects, and again arrived at Athens about the end of June following. From the deep interest taken in their struggle for liberty, and the timely help furnished them in their hour of need, the Greeks were warmly prepossessed in favour of our countrymen; and the conduct of the missionaries themselves was so judicious, that they were received with the greatest respect and the warmest welcome by the public authorities and the whole population of Athens. Their furniture, printing-presses, and other effects were admitted free of duties; and it is but justice to them to say that, since that time, they have moved with such discretion among an excitable and suspicious people, that, while they have advanced in the great objects of their mission, they have grown in the esteem and good-will of the best and most influential inhabitants of Greece; and so great was Mr. Hill"s confidence in their affections, that, though there was at that time a great political agitation, and it was apprehended that Athens might again become the scene of violence and bloodshed, he told me he had no fears, and felt perfectly sure that, in any outbreaking of popular fury, himself and family, and the property of the mission, would be respected.[1]
In the middle of the summer of their arrival at Athens, Mrs. Hill opened a school for girls in the magazine or cellar of the house in which they resided; the first day she had twenty pupils, and in two months one hundred and sixty-seven. Of the first ninety-six, not more than six could read at all, and that very imperfectly; and not more than ten or twelve knew a letter. At the time of our visit the school numbered nearly five hundred; and when we entered the large room, and the scholars all rose in a body to greet us as Americans, I felt a deep sense of regret that, personally, I had no hand in such a work, and almost envied the feelings of my companion, one of its patrons and founders. Besides teaching them grat.i.tude to those from whose country they derived the privileges they enjoyed, Mr. Hill had wisely endeavoured to impress upon their minds a respect for the const.i.tuted authorities, particularly important in that agitated and unsettled community; and on one end of the wall, directly fronting the seats of the scholars, was printed, in large Greek characters, the text of Scripture, "Fear G.o.d, honour the king."
It was all important for the missionaries not to offend the strong prejudices of the Greeks by any attempt to withdraw the children from the religion of their fathers; and the school purports to be, and is intended for, the diffusion of elementary education only; but it is opened in the morning with prayer, concluding with the Lord"s Prayer as read in our churches, which is repeated by the whole school aloud; and on Sundays, besides the prayers, the creed, and sometimes the Ten Commandments, are recited, and a chapter from the Gospels is read aloud by one of the scholars, the missionaries deeming this more expedient than to conduct the exercises themselves. The lesson for the day is always the portion appointed for the gospel of the day in their own church; and they close by singing a hymn. The room is thrown open to the public, and is frequently resorted to by the parents of the children and strangers; some coming, perhaps, says Mr. Hill, to "hear what these babblers will say," and "other some" from a suspicion that "we are setters forth of strange G.o.ds."
The boys" school is divided into three departments, the lowest under charge of a Greek qualified on the Lancasterian system. They were of all ages, from three to eighteen; and, as Mr. Hill told me, most of them had been half-clad, dirty, ragged little urchins, who, before they were put to their A, B, C, or, rather, their Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, had to be thoroughly washed, rubbed, scrubbed, doctored, and dressed, and, but for the school, would now, perhaps, be prowling vagabonds in the streets of Athens, or training for robbery in the mountains. They were a body of fine-looking boys, possessing, as Mr. Hill told me, in an extraordinary degree, all that liveliness of imagination, that curiosity and eagerness after knowledge, which distinguished the Greeks of old, retaining, under centuries of dreadful oppression, the recollection of the greatness of their fathers, and, what was particularly interesting, many of them bearing the great names so familiar in Grecian history; I shook hands with a little Miltiades, Leonidas, Aristides, &c., in features and apparent intelligence worthy descendants of the immortal men whose names they bear. And there was one who startled me, he was the son of the Maid of Athens! To me the Maid of Athens was almost an imaginary being, something fanciful, a creation of the brain, and not a corporeal substance, to have a little urchin of a boy. But so it was. The Maid of Athens is married. She had a right to marry, no doubt; and it is said that there is poetry in married life, and, doubtless, she is a much more interesting person now than the Maid of Athens at thirty-six could be; but the Maid of Athens is married to a Scotchman! the Maid of Athens is now Mrs. Black! wife of George Black. Comment is unnecessary.
But the princ.i.p.al and most interesting part of this missionary school was the female department, under the direction of Mrs. Hill, the first, and, except at Syra, the only school for females in all Greece, and particularly interesting to me from the fact that it owed its existence to the active benevolence of my own country-women. At the close of the Greek revolution, female education was a thing entirely unknown in Greece, and the women of all cla.s.ses were in a most deplorable state of ignorance. When the strong feeling that ran through our country in favour of this struggling people had subsided, and Greece was freed from the yoke of the Mussulman, an a.s.sociation of ladies in the little town of Troy, perhaps instigated somewhat by an inherent love of power and extended rule, and knowing the influence of their s.e.x in a cultivated state of society, formed the project of establishing at Athens a school exclusively for the education of females; and, humble and unpretending as was its commencement, it is becoming a more powerful instrument in the civilization and moral and religious improvement of Greece, than all that European diplomacy has ever done for her. The girls were distributed in different cla.s.ses, according to their age and advancement; they had clean faces and hands, a rare thing with Greek children, and were neatly dressed, many of them wearing frocks made by ladies at home (probably at some of our sewing societies); and some of them had attained such an age, and had such fine, dark, rolling eyes as to make even a northern temperament feel the powerful influence they would soon exercise over the rising, excitable generation of Greeks and almost make him bless the hands that were directing that influence aright.
Mr. and Mrs. Hill accompanied us through the whole establishment, and, being Americans, we were everywhere looked upon and received by the girls as patrons and fathers of the school, both which characters I waived in favour of my friend; the one because he was really ent.i.tled to it, and the other because some of the girls were so well grown that I did not care to be regarded as standing in that venerable relationship.
The didaskalissas, or teachers, were of this description, and they spoke English. Occasionally Mr. Hill called a little girl up to us, and told us her history, generally a melancholy one, as, being reduced to the extremity of want by the revolution; or an orphan, whose parents had been murdered by the Turks; and I had a conversation with a little Penelope, who, however, did not look as if she would play the faithful wife of Ulysses, and, if I am a judge of physiognomy, would never endure widowhood twenty years for any man.
Before we went away the whole school rose at once, and gave us a glorious finale with a Greek hymn. In a short time these girls will grow up into women and return to their several families; others will succeed them, and again go out, and every year hundreds will distribute themselves in the cities and among the fastnesses of the mountains, to exercise over their fathers, and brothers, and lovers, the influence of the education acquired here; instructed in all the arts of woman in civilized domestic life, firmly grounded in the principles of morality, and of religion purified from the follies, absurdities, and abominations of the Greek faith. I have seen much of the missionary labours in the East, but I do not know an inst.i.tution which promises so surely the happiest results. If the women are educated, the men cannot remain ignorant; if the women are enlightened in religion, the men cannot remain debased and degraded Christians.
The ex-secretary Rigos was greatly affected at the appearance of this female school; and, after surveying it attentively for some moments, pointed to the Parthenon on the summit of the Acropolis, and said to Mrs. Hill, with deep emotion, "Lady, you are erecting in Athens a monument more enduring and more n.o.ble than yonder temple;" and the king was so deeply impressed with its value, that, a short time before my arrival, he proposed to Mr. Hill to take into his house girls from different districts and educate them as teachers, with the view of sending them back to their districts, there to organize new schools, and carry out the great work of female education. Mr. Hill acceded to the proposal, and the American missionary school now stands as the nucleus of a large and growing system of education in Greece; and, very opportunely for my purpose, within a few days I have received a letter from Mr. Hill, in which, in relation to the school, he says, "Our missionary establishment is much increased since you saw it; our labours are greatly increased, and I think I may say we have now reached the summit of what we had proposed to ourselves. We do not think it possible that it can be extended farther without much larger means and more personal aid. We do not wish or intend to ask for either. We have now nearly forty persons residing with us, of whom thirty-five are Greeks, all of whom are brought within the influence of the gospel; the greater part of them are young girls from different parts of Greece, and even from Egypt and Turkey (Greeks, however), whom we are preparing to become instructresses of youth hereafter in their various districts. We have five hundred, besides, under daily instruction in the different schools under our care, and we employ under us in the schools twelve native teachers, who have themselves been instructed by us. We have provided for three of our dear pupils (all of whom were living with us when you were here), who are honourably and usefully settled in life. One is married to a person every way suited to her, and both husband and wife are in our missionary service. One has charge of the government female school at the Piraeus, and supports her father and mother and a large family by her salary; and the third has gone with our missionaries to Crete, to take charge of the female schools there. We have removed into our new house" (of which the foundation was just laid at the time of my visit), "and, large as it is, it is not half large enough. We are trying to raise ways and means to enlarge it considerably, that we may take more boarders under our own roof, which we look up to as the most important means of making sure of our labour; for every one who comes to reside with us is taken away from the corrupt example exhibited at home, and brought within a wholesome influence. Lady Byron has just sent us one hundred pounds toward enlarging our house with this view, and we have commenced the erection of three additional dormitories with the money."
Athens is again the capital of a kingdom. Enthusiasts see in her present condition the promise of a restoration to her ancient greatness; but reason and observation a.s.sure us that the world is too much changed for her ever to be what she has been. In one respect, her condition resembles that of her best days; for, as her fame then attracted strangers from every quarter of the world to study in her schools, so now the capital of King Otho has become a great gathering-place of wandering spirits from many near and distant regions. For ages difficult and dangerous of access, the ancient capital of the arts lay shrouded in darkness, and almost cut off from the civilized world. At long intervals, a few solitary travellers only found their way to it; but, since the revolution, it has again become a place of frequent resort and intercourse. It is true that the ancient halls of learning are still solitary and deserted, but strangers from every nation now turn hither; the scholar to roam over her cla.s.sic soil, the artist to study her ancient monuments, and the adventurer to carve his way to fortune.
The first day I dined at the hotel I had an opportunity of seeing the variety of material congregated in the reviving city. We had a long table, capable of accommodating about twenty persons. The manner of living was a la carte, each guest dining when he pleased; but, by tacit consent, at about six o"clock all a.s.sembled at the table. We presented a curious medley. No two were from the same country. Our discourse was in English, French, Italian, German, Greek, Russian, Polish, and I know not what else, as if we were the very people stricken with confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel. Dinner over, all fell into French, and the conversation became general. Every man present was, in the fullest sense of the term, a citizen of the world. It had been the fortune of each, whether good or bad, to break the little circle in which so many are born, revolve, and die; and the habitual mingling with people of various nations had broken down all narrow prejudices, and given to every one freedom of mind and force of character. All had seen much, had much to communicate, and felt that they had much yet to learn. By some accident, moreover, all seemed to have become particularly interested in the East. They travelled over the whole range of Eastern politics, and, to a certain extent, considered themselves identified with Eastern interests. Most of the company were or had been soldiers, and several wore uniforms and stars, or decorations of some description. They spoke of the different campaigns in Greece in which some of them had served; of the science of war; of Marlborough, Eugene, and more modern captains; and I remember that they startled my feelings of cla.s.sical reverence by talking of Leonidas at Thermopylae and Miltiades at Marathon in the same tone as of Napoleon at Leipsic and Wellington at Waterloo. One of them constructed on the table, with the knives and forks and spoons, a map of Marathon, and with a sheathed yataghan pointed out the position of the Greeks and Persians, and showed where Miltiades, as a general, was wrong. They were not blinded by the dust of antiquity. They had been knocked about till all enthusiasm and all reverence for the past were shaken out of them, and they had learned to give things their right names. A French engineer showed us the skeleton of a map of Greece, which was then preparing under the direction of the French Geographical Society, exhibiting an excess of mountains and deficiency of plain which surprised even those who had travelled over every part of the kingdom.
One had just come from Constantinople, where he had seen the sultan going to mosque; another had escaped from an attack of the plague in Egypt; a third gave the dimensions of the Temple of the Sun at Baalbeck; and a fourth had been at Babylon, and seen the ruins of the Tower of Babel. In short, every man had seen something which the others had not seen, and all their knowledge was thrown into a common stock. I found myself at once among a new cla.s.s of men; and I turned from him who sneered at Miltiades to him who had seen the sultan, or to him who had been at Bagdad, and listened with interest, somewhat qualified by consciousness of my own inferiority. I was lying in wait, however, and took advantage of an opportunity to throw in something about America; and, at the sound, all turned to me with an eagerness of curiosity that I had not antic.i.p.ated.
In Europe, and even in England, I had often found extreme ignorance of my own country; but here I was astonished to find, among men so familiar with all parts of the Old World, such total lack of information about the New. A gentleman opposite me, wearing the uniform of the King of Bavaria, asked me if I had ever been in America. I told him that I was born, and, as they say in Kentucky, raised there. He begged my pardon, but doubtfully _suggested_, "You are not black?" and I was obliged to explain to him that in our section of America the Indian had almost entirely disappeared, and that his place was occupied by the descendants of the Gaul and the Briton. I was forthwith received into the fraternity, for my home was farther away than any of them had ever been; my friend opposite considered me a bijou, asked me innumerable questions, and seemed to be constantly watching for the breaking out of the cannibal spirit, as if expecting to see me bite my neighbour. At first I had felt myself rather a small affair but, before separating, _l"Americain_, or _le sauvage_, or finally, _le cannibal_ found himself something of a lion.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Since my return home I have seen in a newspaper an account of a popular commotion at Syra, in which the printing-presses and books at the missionaries were destroyed, and Mr. Robinson was threatened with personal violence.
CHAPTER V.
Ruins of Athens.--Hill of Mars.--Temple of the Winds.--Lantern of Demosthenes.--Arch of Adrian.--Temple of Jupiter Olympus.--Temple of Theseus.--The Acropolis.--The Parthenon.--Pentelican Mountain.--Mount Hymettus.--The Piraeus.--Greek Fleas.--Napoli.
THE next morning I began my survey of the ruins of Athens. It was my intention to avoid any description of these localities and monuments, because so many have preceded me, stored with all necessary knowledge, ripe in taste and sound in judgment, who have devoted to them all the time and research they so richly merit; but as, in our community, through the hurry and multiplicity of business occupations, few are able to bestow upon these things much time or attention, and, farthermore, as the books which treat of them are not accessible to all, I should be doing injustice to my readers if I were to omit them altogether.
Besides, I should be doing violence to my own feelings, and cannot get fairly started in Athens, without recurring to scenes which I regarded at the time with extraordinary interest. I have since visited most of the princ.i.p.al cities in Europe, existing as well as ruined and I hardly know any to which I recur with more satisfaction than Athens. If the reader tire in the brief reference I shall make, he must not impute it to any want of interest in the subject; and as I am not in the habit of going into heroics, he will believe me when I say that, if he have any reverence for the men or things consecrated by the respect and admiration of ages, he will find it called out at Athens. In the hope that I may be the means of inducing some of my countrymen to visit that famous city, I will add another inducement by saying that he may have, as I had, Mr. Hill for a cicerone. This gentleman is familiar with every locality and monument around or in the city, and, which I afterward found to be an unusual thing with those living in places consecrated in the minds of strangers, he retains for them all that freshness of feeling which we possess who only know them from books and pictures.
By an arrangement made the evening before, early in the morning of my second day in Athens Mr. Hill was at the door of my hotel to attend us.
As we descended the steps a Greek stopped him, and, bowing with his hand on his heart, addressed him in a tone of earnestness which we could not understand; but we were struck with the sonorous tones of his voice and the musical cadence of his sentences; and when he had finished, Mr. Hill told us that he had spoken in a strain which, in the original, was poetry itself, beginning, "Americanos, I am a Stagyrite. I come from the land of Aristotle, the disciple of Plato," &c., &c.; telling him the whole story of his journey from the ancient Stagyra and his arrival in Athens; and that, having understood that Mr. Hill was distributing books among his countrymen, he begged for one to take home with him. Mr. Hill said that this was an instance of every-day occurrence, showing the spirit of inquiry and thirst for knowledge among the modern Greeks. This little scene with a countryman of Aristotle was a fit prelude to our morning ramble.
The house occupied by the American missionary as a school stands on the site of the ancient Agora or market-place, where St. Paul "disputed daily with the Athenians." A few columns still remain; and near them is an inscription mentioning the price of oil. The schoolhouse is built partly from the ruins of the Agora; and to us it was an interesting circ.u.mstance, that a missionary from a newly-discovered world was teaching to the modern Greeks the same saving religion which, eighteen hundred years ago, St. Paul, on the same spot, preached to their ancestors.
Winding around the foot of the Acropolis, within the ancient and outside the modern wall, we came to the Areopagus or Hill of Mars, where, in the early days of Athens, her judges sat in the open air; and, for many ages, decided with such wisdom and impartiality, that to this day the decisions of the court of Areopagites are regarded as models of judicial purity. We ascended this celebrated hill, and stood on the precise spot where St. Paul, pointing to the temples which rose from every section of the city and towered proudly on the Acropolis, made his celebrated address: "Ye men of Athens, I see that in all things ye are too superst.i.tious." The ruins of the very temples to which he pointed were before our eyes.
Descending, and rising toward the summit of another hill, we came to the Pnyx, where Demosthenes, in the most stirring words that ever fell from human lips, roused his countrymen against the Macedonian invader. Above, on the very summit of the hill, is the old Pnyx, commanding a view of the sea of Salamis, and of the hill where Xerxes sat to behold the great naval battle. During the reign of the thirty tyrants the Pnyx was removed beneath the brow of the hill, excluding the view of the sea, that the orator might not inflame the pa.s.sions of the people by directing their eyes to Salamis, the scene of their naval glory. But, without this, the orator had material enough; for, when he stood on the platform facing the audience, he had before him the city which the Athenians loved and the temples in which they worshipped, and I could well imagine the irresistible force of an appeal to these objects of their enthusiastic devotion, their firesides and altars. The place is admirably adapted for public speaking. The side of the hill has been worked into a gently inclined plane, semicircular in form, and supported in some places by a wall of immense stones. This plain is bounded above by the brow of the hill, cut down perpendicularly. In the centre the rock projects into a platform about eight or ten feet square, which forms the Pnyx or pulpit for the orator. The ascent is by three steps cut out of the rock, and in front is a place for the scribe or clerk. We stood on this Pnyx, beyond doubt on the same spot where Demosthenes thundered his philippics in the ears of the Athenians. On the road leading to the Museum hill we entered a chamber excavated in the rock, which tradition hallows as the prison of Socrates; and though the authority for this is doubtful, it is not uninteresting to enter the damp and gloomy cavern wherein, according to the belief of the modern Athenians, the wisest of the Greeks drew his last breath. Farther to the south is the hill of Philopappus, so called after a Roman governor of that name. On the very summit, near the extreme angle of the old wall, and one of the most conspicuous objects around Athens, is a monument erected by the Roman governor in honour of the Emperor Trajan. The marble is covered with the names of travellers, most of whom, like Philopappus himself, would never have been heard of but for that monument.
Descending toward the Acropolis, and entering the city among streets enc.u.mbered with ruined houses, we came to the Temple of the Winds, a marble octagonal tower, built by Andronicus. On each side is a sculptured figure, clothed in drapery adapted to the wind he represents; and on the top was formerly a Triton with a rod in his hand, pointing to the figure marking the wind. The Triton is gone, and great part of the temple buried under ruins. Part of the interior, however, has been excavated, and probably, before long, the whole will be restored.
East of the foot of the Acropolis, and on the way to Adrian"s Gate, we came to the Lantern of Demosthenes (I eschew its new name of the Choragic Monument of Lysichus), where, according to an absurd tradition, the orator shut himself up to study the rhetorical art. It is considered one of the most beautiful monuments of antiquity, and the capitals are most elegant specimens of the Corinthian order refined by Attic taste.
It is now in a mutilated condition, and its many repairs make its dilapidation more perceptible. Whether Demosthenes ever lived here or not, it derives an interest from the fact that Lord Byron made it his residence during his visit to Athens. Farther on, and forming part of the modern wall, is the Arch of Adrian, bearing on one side an inscription in Greek, "This is the city of Theseus;" and on the other, "But this is the city of Adrian." On the arrival of Otho a placard was erected, on which was inscribed, "These were the cities of Theseus and Adrian, but now of Otho." Many of the most ancient buildings in Athens have totally disappeared. The Turks destroyed many of them to construct the wall around the city, and even the modern Greeks have not scrupled to build their miserable houses with the plunder of the temples in which their ancestors worshipped.
Pa.s.sing under the Arch of Adrian, outside the gate, on the plain toward the Ilissus, we came to the ruined Temple of Jupiter Olympus, perhaps once the most magnificent in the world. It was built of the purest white marble, having a front of nearly two hundred feet, and more than three hundred and fifty in length, and contained one hundred and twenty columns, sixteen of which are all that now remain; and these, fluted and having rich Corinthian capitals, tower more than sixty feet above the plain, perfect as when they were reared. I visited these ruins often, particularly in the afternoon; they are at all times mournfully beautiful, but I have seldom known anything more touching than, when the sun was setting, to walk over the marble floor, and look up at the lonely columns of this ruined temple. I cannot imagine anything more imposing than it must have been when, with its lofty roof supported by all its columns, it stood at the gate of the city, its doors wide open, inviting the Greeks to worship. That such an edifice should be erected for the worship of a heathen G.o.d! On the architrave connecting three of the columns a hermit built his lonely cell, and pa.s.sed his life in that elevated solitude, accessible only to the crane and the eagle. The hermit is long since dead, but his little habitation still resists the whistling of the wind, and awakens the curiosity of the wondering traveller.
The Temple of Theseus is the last of the princ.i.p.al monuments, but the first which the traveller sees on entering Athens. It was built after the battle of Marathon, and in commemoration of the victory which drove the Persians from the sh.o.r.es of Greece. It is a small but beautiful specimen of the pure Doric, built of Pentelican marble, centuries of exposure to the open air giving it a yellowish tint, which softens the brilliancy of the white. Three Englishmen have been buried within this temple. The first time I visited it a company of Greek recruits, with some negroes among them, was drawn up in front, going through the manual under the direction of a German corporal; and, at the same time, workmen were engaged in fitting it up for the coronation of King Otho!
[Ill.u.s.tration: Temple of Jupiter Olympus and Acropolis at Athena.]
These are the princ.i.p.al monuments around the city, and, except the temples at Paestum, they are more worthy of admiration than all the ruins in Italy; but towering above them in position, and far exceeding them in interest, are the ruins of the Acropolis. I have since wandered among the ruined monuments of Egypt and the desolate city of Petra, but I look back with unabated reverence to the Athenian Acropolis. Every day I had gazed at it from the balcony of my hotel, and from every part of the city and suburbs. Early on my arrival I had obtained the necessary permit, paid a hurried visit, and resolved not to go again until I had examined all the other interesting objects. On the fourth day, with my friend M., I went again. We ascended by a broad road paved with stone.
The summit is enclosed by a wall, of which some of the foundation stones, very large, and bearing an appearance of great antiquity, are pointed out as part of the wall built by Themistocles after the battle of Salamis, four hundred and eighty years before Christ. The rest is Venetian and Turkish, falling to decay, and marring the picturesque effect of the ruins from below. The guard examined our permit, and we pa.s.sed under the gate. A magnificent propylon of the finest white marble, the blocks of the largest size ever laid by human hands, and having a wing of the same material on each side, stands at the entrance.
Though broken and ruined, the world contains nothing like it even now.
If my first impressions do not deceive me, the proudest portals of Egyptian temples suffer in comparison. Pa.s.sing this magnificent propylon, and ascending several steps, we reached the Parthenon or ruined Temple of Minerva; an immense white marble skeleton, the n.o.blest monument of architectural genius which the world ever saw. Standing on the steps of this temple, we had around us all that is interesting in a.s.sociation and all that is beautiful in art. We might well forget the capital of King Otho, and go back in imagination to the golden age of Athens. Pericles, with the ill.u.s.trious throng of Grecian heroes, orators, and sages, had ascended there to worship, and Cicero and the n.o.blest of the Romans had gone there to admire; and probably, if the fashion of modern tourists had existed in their days, we should see their names inscribed with their own hands on its walls. The great temple stands on the very summit of the Acropolis, elevated far above the Propylaea and the surrounding edifices. Its length is two hundred and eight feet, and breadth one hundred and two. At each end were two rows of eight Doric columns, thirty-four feet high and six feet in diameter, and on each side were thirteen more. The whole temple within and without was adorned with the most splendid works of art, by the first sculptors in Greece, and Phidias himself wrought the statue of the G.o.ddess, of ivory and gold, twenty-six cubits high, having on the top of her helmet a sphinx, with griffins on each of the sides; on the breast a head of Medusa wrought in ivory, and a figure of Victory about four cubits high, holding a spear in her hand and a shield lying at her feet. Until the latter part of the seventeenth century, this magnificent temple, with all its ornaments, existed entire. During the siege of Athens by the Venetians, the central part was used by the Turks as a magazine; and a bomb, aimed with fatal precision or by a not less fatal chance, reached the magazine, and, with a tremendous explosion, destroyed a great part of the buildings. Subsequently the Turks used it as a quarry, and antiquaries and travellers, foremost among whom is Lord Elgin, have contributed to destroy "what Goth, and Turk, and Time had spared."
Around the Parthenon, and covering the whole summit of the Acropolis, are strewed columns and blocks of polished white marble, the ruins of ancient temples. The remains of the Temples of Erectheus and Minerva Polias are pre-eminent in beauty; the pillars of the latter are the most perfect specimens of the Ionic in existence, and its light and graceful proportions are in elegant contrast with the severe and simple majesty of the Parthenon. The capitals of the columns are wrought and ornamented with a delicacy surpa.s.sing anything of which I could have believed marble susceptible. Once I was tempted to knock off a corner and bring it home, as a specimen of the exquisite skill of the Grecian artist, which it would have ill.u.s.trated better than a volume of description; but I could not do it; it seemed nothing less than sacrilege.