“An unhoped-for peace had now shone on Cephalonia when one state, the Saméans, suddenly revolted, from some motive not yet ascertained. They said that as their city was commodiously situated they were afraid the Romans would compel them to remove from it. But whether they conceived this in their own minds and under the impulse of a groundless fear disturbed the general quiet, or whether such a project had been mentioned in conversation among the Romans and reported to them, nothing is ascertained except that, having given hostages, they suddenly shut their gates, and would not relinquish their design even for the prayers of their friends whom the consul sent to the walls to try how far they might be influenced by compassion for their parents and countrymen. When no pacific answer was given, the city began to be besieged.
“The consul had all the apparatus, engines, and machines which had been brought from Ambracia, and the soldiers executed with great diligence the works necessary to be made. The rams were therefore brought forward in two places, and began to batter the walls.
“The townsmen omitted nothing by which the works or the motions of the besiegers could be obstructed. But they resisted in two ways in particular, one of which was to raise constantly opposite the part of the wall attacked a new wall of equal strength on the inside; and the other was to make sudden sallies at one time against the enemy’s works, at another against his advanced guard, and in those attacks they generally got the better. The only plan that was invented to confine them within the walls, though ineffectual, deserves to be recorded. One hundred slingers were brought from Ægium, Patræ, and Dymæ [Peloponnesus]. These men, according to the customary practice of that nation, were exercised from their childhood in throwing with a sling, into the open sea, the round pebbles with which, mixed with sand, theshores were generally strewn; therefore they cast weapons of that sort to a greater distance, with surer aim and more powerful effect, than even the Balearian slingers. Besides, their sling does not consist merely of a single strap like the Balearic and that of other nations, but the thong of the sling is threefold and made firm by several seams, that the missile may not, by the yielding of the strap in the act of throwing, be let fly at random; but, after sticking fast while whirled about, it may be discharged as if sent from the string of a bow. Being accustomed to drive their missiles through circular marks of small circumference placed at a great distance, they not only hit the enemy’s heads, but any part of their faces that they aimed at. These slings checked the Saméans from sallying either so frequently or so boldly; insomuch that they would sometimes from the walls beseech the Achæans to retire for a while and be quiet spectators of their fight with the Roman guards. Samé supported a siege of four months. When some of their small number were daily killed or wounded, and the survivors were, through continual fatigues, greatly reduced both in strength and spirits, the Romans, one night, scaling the wall of the citadel which they call Cyatides (for the city, sloping toward the sea, verges toward the west), made their way into the forum. The Saméans, on discovering that a part of the city was taken, fled with their wives and children into the greater citadel; but, submitting next day, they were all sold as slaves, their city being plundered.” (Bohn’s translation.)
It is only by conjecture we can distinguish between the two hills, both being covered with ruins; and the walls are so broken in their circuit, and so complex as well as various in their epoch of construction, that no plan of the siege could be made, but the above indicates the westernmost as first captured.
The city must have been very wealthy, if we may judgefrom that generally excellent indication, the tombs, which line the roads and the sea-shore beyond the city (looking from the point where the general view is taken), and by the enumeration of the booty taken by the Romans, which is given as follows: Two hundred golden crowns of ten Roman pounds each, eighty-three thousand pounds of silver, two hundred and forty-three pounds of gold, one hundred and eighteen pieces of Athenian money, two thousand four hundred and twenty-two of Macedonian, two hundred and eighty-three statues of bronze, two hundred and thirty of marble, besides the money distributed to the army.
I know of no place where the ruins of all epochs are so well indicated as at Samé. The large fragment of wall of the best Hellenic time which runs down the slope of the eastern hill is one of the finest, if notthefinest, I have ever seen. Its stones are perfectly hewn, and some of them are twelve to fourteen feet long, and the highest portion still standing is not less than twenty feet high. At other points are various examples of the Pelasgic, similar to that of “Ulysses’ Castle,” but of better work. There are magnificent subterranean passages, one of which leads to the citadel on the easternmost hill, the more remote in the distant view, but the higher and probably the site of the greater citadel, being marked by the most imposing ruins and remains of works, and without doubt the locality of the original settlement. On the lower hill stand some interesting remains—a tower and remains of city wall of mixed Hellenic and Pelasgic, the tower being of the very latest Hellenic, showing the beginning of “rustication.” It was built upon in the middle ages, and the whole mass of buildings transformed into a fortress and afterward into a convent. Samé must very early have been a large and important city, as the whole of the space, including the two hills and the land between them, shows traces of Pelasgic construction, and one fragment on the brow of the hill near thetower is one of the most perfect examples of the best Pelasgic work one can find away from Mykenæ and Argos. The stones in the illustration range about five feet in length, and are faced with exquisite exactness. A wild fig-tree has taken root in the interstices of the stones, and the roots have pushed the masses of rock apart, but in several places it is difficult to see the junction when the light is flat against them. Of Roman work there is little; but some thermæ walls on the plains by the sea and some tombs show a considerable Roman occupation. Livy says that Marcus Tullius, the conqueror of Samé, went over to the Peloponnesus “after having placed a garrison in Samé.” This negatives the notion that the walls were razed to the foundations, as is asserted by La Croix; and it is also rendered improbable by the existing ruins, though it is not impossible that so much of the wall was destroyed as made the defense of it temporarily impracticable. There are, however, some slight traces of rubble-wall on the old ruins, which show a Roman (or possibly middle-age, though I incline to the former) construction, which negative any supposition that theenceintewas rendered useless for defense; for no one would repair a wall which was not tolerably complete in its circuit. The remains of the Roman time, however, are insignificant compared with those of the Pelasgic, either as to preservation or quality.
VIEW OF SAMÉ FROM THE WEST,—WITH PARTS OF PELASGIC AND HELLENIC WALLS.
VIEW OF SAMÉ FROM THE WEST,—WITH PARTS OF PELASGIC AND HELLENIC WALLS.
At present Samé is an insignificant village, consisting of twenty or thirty small houses stretched along the beach, with a tiny port formed by a breakwater constructed from the stones of the city wall, the fairest and best cut that could be found. The people are a thievish clan, who set on any chance comer, like mosquitoes on a solitary and bewildered fisherman in a swampy land. They have coins and antiquities to sell, for which, as everywhere else in Greece, they demand the most absurd prices; and they beset one with offers of service as guides, etc., etc., etc., till they weary all human patience. This may be said of the Ionians in general, but less of the people of Cerigo, perhaps, than the others. We found, however, a grateful exception. We had wandered along the beach to the furthermost houses of the line, and on passing a very respectable-looking house, the owner, sitting in the coolness of the twilight at his gates, seeing two strangers, rose to salute us and invited us to enter; an invitation so amiable and earnest that we accepted, and were ushered into the guest-chamber, clean and furnished with divans in eastern fashion, where we were entertained with the usual sweetmeats and coffee, while the daughter of the house went into the garden and collected for each of us a bouquet of roses, the most fragrant I ever remember to haveseen. Our host narrated many incidents of the English rule in Cephalonia, and when we rose to go urged us to take up our quarters in his house; and finally, as we stood before the gates, as a last favor, offered me two beautiful Greek stelæ, memorials of the ancient dead, possibly of the period of the heroic defense of Samé. He had found them in digging his house cellar, and they were the ornaments of his court-yard; but learning that we were in search of antiquities, he offered them freely as his contribution. I shall not soon forget him or his fragrant roses and the dark-eyed Saméan girl who offered them to us.
Of Crané scarcely a trace remains, even of the Pelasgic walls. It stood originally on the Lake of Argostoli (to which place we drove from Samé across the island), but at a point now far from the water’s edge. The lake is a singular geological phenomenon, formed by a number of springs bursting out from under the hills on which Crané lay, with a force sufficing to drive mills and form a strong current over the whole extent of the lake, which is a mile or more in diameter, though the surface of land to be drained by these subterranean outpours is, one would say, utterly inadequate to the quantity of water delivered.
I took a guide at Argostoli, a man of the usual type of Greek guide, who assured me that he knew the ancient city, and had often guided strangers there. On arriving at the head of the lake I found him taking useless détours to bring me to the mills, which were driven by the springs; and on asking him what he went there for, he replied that he supposed I wanted to see the mills—since that was what other people had come for. I gave him an energetic sample of modern Greek, and ordered him to show me the way to the ancient city—Palaiokastron. “Palaiokastron!” he ejaculated with surprise and bewilderment in his eyes, and turned to ask some shepherd boys or other vagabonds, who were saunteringnear by and watching us, where the Palaiokastron was. They declined to give any information, probably regarding him as a poacher on their preserves. I had, therefore, to depend on my antiquarian instincts, and, taking the lead, climbed over the heights above until, guided by the nature of the ground, I found the traces of the old wall.
CRANÉ FROM THE SEA SHORE.
CRANÉ FROM THE SEA SHORE.
The position of the city was entirely characteristic of the sites of the Pelasgic epoch: a bold, double peak, almost inaccessible on the sea-side, and on the two flanks still very precipitous, but connected with higher land on the side opposite the water. On the side from which the view is taken none of the ancient walls remain. The movement of earthquakes, the gradual fall of the rock at the precipitous edge, or the leveling labor of man has carried away all the blocks that made this side of theenceinte; but many of the stones may be recognized at the foot of the slope, some worked into modern walls, and some in the débris of the hill. On the opposite side the traces are more distinct, and the wall may be traced a long way, and the site of the citadel determined, with a gate and the angles of some of the towers. From near the citadel a view is obtained which shows a long line of the débris with a distant view of the town of Argostoli and the lake, and far beyond the lines that form the western shoreof the superb harbor of Argostoli, almost without a rival in the Adriatic. The mass of wall is hardly to be distinguished from mere decomposed rock; so much have time and frost, the great demolishers, split and crumbled the flinty, massive limestone, the preferred material of the Pelasgi. On the further shore shown in the view may be seen, when the air is clear, the houses which form a modern village on the site of the ancient Palé. Here were Jason and his fellow adventurers entertained on their search after the golden fleece,—an expedition which perhaps we may translate from myth into probability, as an expedition to obtain an improved breed of sheep, a finer-wooled stock, from one of the northern and inland countries.
At Argostoli I inquired about the ruins of Palé, but was told that they are mainly built over, and what is visible is only of the Roman period. I attempted, however, on our return to Samé, to run around in theKestrel, as the voyage across the bay from Argostoli is neither pleasant nor sure in the small boats that make the service. We got up anchor as the land breeze began to blow at midnight, and I went to bed, having given orders to anchor in a little bay about half-way to the southern extremity of the island near which some ruins are indicated on the map. Awaking in the morning and finding a most suspicious tranquillity prevailing, I took a look at the outside surroundings, and found the yacht quietly moored on the same spot she had occupied the day before. A furious sirocco had sprung up and met us half-way to our destined anchorage, and after beating for an hour in vain, our little boat nearly buried in the seas, we were compelled to retreat and run back to our former place of refuge. There is no getting ahead in such small craft against the sharp, violent seas of the Mediterranean.
Three days the sirocco blew, and we tried in vain to pass the time fishing. The Ionians have adopted dynamite so universallyto catch their fish that they are as scarce as honest people on shore. One does find them sometimes, and we caught a shark about four feet long and a half dozen red mullet where, before dynamite was discovered, we could have caught in the same time a hundred-weight.
The third night we got under way again, and, with a heavy swell still on, ran down to our harbor, reaching it as a flaming, splendid thunder-storm was coming up, the finale of our southern blow. We moored with cables out in three directions, and when the storm had all gone by I went ashore to hunt my ruins. A vagabond Cephalonian offered his services to carry my camera and guide me; but his crafty and evasive face, coupled with the assurance with which he clung to me, so irritated me that to rid myself of him I plunged into the pathless thicket. Traveling by compass, and searching long and closely, I found at last the remains of an early Pelasgic wall on a magnificent site, with a breezy outlook to sea north and west and overlooking a fertile valley inland, not especially pictorial, for it was too regular and too thoroughly cultivated, but through it ran a bright crystal brook overhung by huge pollard sycamores and fringed with oleanders just bursting into blossom and making the valley look like a rose-garden. Beyond the hill on which the city stood is a wild ravine through which runs the brook, which in Greek would naturally be dignified by the name of a river. Only a narrow neck, as usual, gave access to the site. It is impossible to ascertain with any kind of assurance what the name of the city was. It could not have been Nesia, the only one of the four principal ones we have not visited, for no ruins are visible approaching so late an epoch as the Roman, and it was probably Heraclea. Its position was magnificent for defense and on account of the fertility of the country behind it, but the site was probably abandoned very early for one further inland, where I was assured there were ruins of an ancientcity. But my time had been so invaded by the loss of three days through the storm, and I was already so behind my programme, that I was not able to give the time necessary to the search and examination, or, indeed, to follow my plan of visiting Palé.
DISTANT VIEW OF PALÉ FROM THE CITADEL OF CRANÉ.
DISTANT VIEW OF PALÉ FROM THE CITADEL OF CRANÉ.
We climbed down to the brook, and I enjoyed the pastime of wading in the gurgling water as if I were a boy—it was so long since I had had that pleasure! We followed it into a close and gloomy gorge, where the crag of the ancient site overhung us like a huge, rough wall, almost a sheer precipice, and down at the foot ran the brook, which we followed to the sea. The sun was setting as we reached the yacht, and before we waked from sleep next morning we were bounding toward Zante.
In Zante (Zakynthos) there is, so far as I could find, no ancient ruin whatever. The character of the rock explains this; for, except at the extreme southern end of the island,there is no stone which would resist even the weather-wear since the Roman epoch. The island seems to be a bed of sand raised from the sea and slightly hardened, so that, though the citadel hill is imposing enough as a mass, the material of it is being continually dissolved, and looks at a distance more like a bank of clay than like rock.
ZANTE.
ZANTE.
Zante is rhymingly called the “fior di Levante” (flower of the Levant), but it is difficult to see wherein it surpasses Corfu in any flowery attribute. I guess that, as in many other cases, the rhyme went for more than the fact, poetical or otherwise. It is fertile, and the land extends in an immense unpicturesque plain covered with olive-orchards and vineyards for miles from the port. Its history is unimportant and its mythology not interesting. It was said to have been colonized by Zakynthos, son of Dardanus of Troy, about 1500 years before Christ; but, as I have before said, all Greek dates and traditions of migration earlier than 1000B. C.are purely conjectural. Zante suffered with the other islands from the endless and furious feuds of the Greek states; ravaged by turns by Athenian and Lacedæmonian, it came down to the Romans an unruly subject province, conquered and reconquered, and finally lay still in the tranquillity of slavery until Geneseric, king of the Vandals, began an epoch of devastation, which only concluded with the purchase, by the Venetiansfrom the Sultan, of its soil depopulated by the sword and slavery.
He who goes about in the Mediterranean has great chance of seeing bad weather, for it is the reverse of a pacific sea, and in a scrap of a boat like theKestrelthe phenomena are sometimes interesting. Our course from Zante to Cerigo (ancient Cythera) leads by Cape Mátapan, opposite Cape Maleá, the two southern points of Greece, which enjoy a reputation of the kind that the American proverb gives to Hatteras and Lookout. TheKestrelwas again baffled, and, after beating for hours to get past the point, we had to put up the helm and run back to Navarino, the nearest shelter, before a gathering southerly blow. We lay in our old anchorage another day, and as the wind fell at night we beat out again and ran through the little archipelago of barren and desolate islands which lie off this part of the Morea. The weather still looked ugly, and thunder-clouds were gathering on the hills of Lacedæmon, and we could see the storm creeping down toward the sea, but the wind was fair, and we hoped to make Kapsali, in Cerigo, before the squall came down. Already the heights of Cerigo loomed before us, and we had begun to look for the landmarks, when the wind struck us. All hands made what haste was possible to get in sail and get up a small storm jib to lie to under, and not too quickly, for no common canvas would have stood that blast when it struck us. The sun was setting, and soon we were out of sight of all land in the driving spray and rain. The lightning was such as only they who sail in semi-tropical seas can have known, blinding and incessant; it seemed to have gathered around the mountains of Cerigo as a centre, for it went and came and still hung there as the rain swept down the coast and up again. As the wind fell off with the down-pouring of the torrents we got off again and pointed our bowsprit for Kapsali; and as the waters above and those below seemed to have formed an alliance againstus, we went below and shut the hatch. Fortunately the wind was off shore and we had little sea, and managed to creep along nearly as much as we had drifted to the leeward; so that when the storm broke and the rain held up we were able to see the rocks off the coast, and finally to grope our way into the little port of Kapsali, which is secure against everything but a southerly blow. The wind, always contrary, fell off as we drew near the light-house, and we had to get in with our sweeps in the small hours of the morning, wet, cold, hungry, and jaded from the excitement of the night; for, though it is simple and safe in the telling, a large Greek brig foundered only two miles from us in the squall, and we had experienced the worst weather we had yet felt, and since the storm began no one had been able to eat or even get a cup of coffee.
At Kapsali one begins to see the antique sailor ways and the evidence of the intense conservatism of the eastern world. The ships are drawn up on the beach at night as of old, and this necessitates a construction of the hull which cannot be far removed from that of the antique. Indeed, I have seen fishing-boats which might have served for the models of the galley on the Roman coins. The rigging, again, is of the simplest, and fitted for these seas, where the sudden squalls and the “meltem,” or gusts which come down from the mountains with no warning but a little cloud appearing on the summit, sometimes leave brief space for the taking in of sail. On the whole, wherever we look we see ample evidence that in the whole Levant, where the original population exists in a considerable proportion, the ways of life and thought are the same as those of Homer’s day. Nature has changed more than man. Where the Venetians came they brought new habits of military life and construction, and demolished all the old ruins to make fortresses; but on the domestic life and on the character of the Greek they had little or no influence.
Whether Kapsali, a mere village, the port of Cerigo, had any ancient existence, we do not know. Cerigo lies on the high rock above it, and is a Venetian fortress; and, as is generally the case with Venetian fortresses, has used up all ancient masonry, if any existed, in its construction.
CITADEL OF CERIGO.
CITADEL OF CERIGO.
The road from Kapsali to the town of Cerigo is of Venetian construction, kept in repair by those fitting successors of Venice, the English, who certainly left the Ionian Islands in a state of prosperity higher than that of to-day. Good roads were almost everywhere provided, and good ways of other kinds, now lost entirely, if I might believe the complaints of the people. Theposition of Cerigo is very strong for the days of Venetian rule, and it overhangs the port and country round on every side, except one, like a Pelasgic site, but I could find no stone of that date. It is not likely that there was any very ancient city there, as no tombs or evidences of a necropolis have been found. The formidable character of the position in the times of the Venetians is shown by the view from the road above the ravine which severs the mountain from the lesser hill over the port—a ravine whose existence is quite unsuspected from the port.
The city itself is without interest except as the first really Eastern city one will see coming from the West, and as an example of Venetian fortress-building. The view from the citadel is fine and breezy, the islands of Ovo, Cerigotto, and Crete being visible, and a great expanse of that sea which, on sunny days, is in itself so beautiful from its color. You look down on the houses, white as continual whitewashing will make them, whose flat, terraced roofs serve in the hot and rainless summer as sleeping-places for the whole family. How many nights I have dragged my mattress from the bedroom out on this delightful substitute and let the night breeze fan me to sleep!
Of history the island has next to none. Mythology puts the landing of Aphrodite here, as she came, foam-born and sea-borne, to found her religion in the Greek worlds.[7]The first who are traditionally reported to have colonized the island are the Phœnicians; but it is impossible to ignore the previous coming of the Pelasgi, who have left a well-marked ruin of the earliest type. To see the traces of the antique settlements, one had better go to Port San Nicolo if providedas we were; but secure an intelligent guide previously from Cerigo, as the country people, as in other islands, while pretending to know all about the antiquities, really know absolutely nothing. They know the tombs because they serve as sheep-folds, and they have sometimes a curious knowledge of the relative antiquity of the ruins; but they have heard modern myths, and apply them with the least possible regard to archæological facts, and invariably assure you that they know everything.
So it happened that I was again, for want of choice, out on a search with an ignorant guide. There had been some excavations commenced on the site of what is now known as Palaiopolis (the old city), which evidently was Phœnician, and was occupied down to Roman times. There were some columns of Roman or Byzantine work unearthed, and from mere curiosity to knowhisnotions, I asked a shepherd boy watching his sheep near by what they were. “This,” he said, “was the palace of the king.” “Of what king?” I asked. “Don’t you know?” he said, opening his eyes at me as if this were the verya b cof history. “Why, the palace of Menelaus.” There is an old tradition that it was the place of residence of Menelaus and Helen, and all the objects to be seen are attributed to them. The Phœnician city is close to the sea; the Pelasgic site is several miles back, and looms up on the highest mountains in the vicinity. In a previous visit I had seen but had not explored it; but now I determined to see the whole extent of it. My guide, who brought a donkey for my occasional changes of mode of locomotion, pretended to lead me to the ancient citadel; but when we reached the hill on which I knew it to be better than he, he began to inquire about it of the women at work in the fields; thereupon I, as usual, took the lead. Guided by the nature of the ground, I found all that remained of the ancient citadel wall—a fragment kept up by the chance of its being the limit ofa field, and so kept in repair, but in such a state of dilapidation that but for the evidences of the continuity I would not have been sure that it was a wall. I followed the main wall a mile or more along the edge of the precipitous slope, and saw that it bore testimony to the importance of the ancient city, for it was wide in its compass and massive, with towers, gates, and flanking towers of the true Pelasgic style, but in most places only two or three stones high. I got an imposing view of the hill from below the lowest trace of wall, showing its position with reference to the valley below, through which ran once a river of some volume, if we may judge by the alluvial plains at its mouth, but which at the time of my visit in midsummer, was dry as desert dust. A strip of white pebbles shows where it still runs in winter-time. On the hills close to the sea-side, and on both sides of the mouth of this ancient river, used to lie the old Phœnician, Greek, and Roman city, whatever it was originally called,—probably Cythera, like the island. As I have said, it is now called Palaiopolis. The temple of Aphrodite, the people pretend, was on the hill near the citadel where now is an insignificant chapel, but with no evidence of antiquity except that there are in the construction of the chapel some large stones which are evidently of Hellenic cutting; but as the Greeks had the habit in all ages of keeping up the temples of their gods, there is nothing to show that it was a temple of Aphrodite rather than a Pelasgic god, which Aphrodite-Astarte was not, and her temple must have been near the sea.
The site of Palaiopolis is marked by a quantity of tombs, most, if not all, of Hellenic date. There are now no temple remains there; but Spon, who visited the spot two hundred years ago, says that he saw the statue of Aphrodite, which was very ugly and of coarse brown stone, which reminds us of the statues of Cyprus. The rock is a soft conglomerate which the sea cuts away very rapidly, and apparently therehas been a subsidence of the soil, since they say that when the sea is tranquil there may be seen beneath the water, some distance out from the actual shore, the ruins of a city. This may have been the port of Cythera—scarcely a fortified city, as the site must have been too low. Right and left of the rivulet which now represents the ancient river are bluffs of conglomerate, that on the left honeycombed by tombs, some of which have fallen with the rock, but of which others are still visible, opened to the elements but showing within the rock-cut graves. Many valuable articles of gold work have been found in past times, but the treasure seems to have been exhausted. These two bluffs are the lineal representatives and successors by right of position of what Aphrodite must have seen as she came ashore on the foam, otherwise they have no interest.
The two low hills which were included in the city of Cythera are covered with fragments of building and traces of tombs, but, so far as I could find, no wall. This is all that is left of Aphrodite, Helen, and Menelaus in their land of fabled existence. The coming ashore of Aphrodite undoubtedly indicates, like that of Europa at Gortyna in Crete, the landing of a colony from Phœnicia, bearing the worship of Astarte, who became later assimilated to Aphrodite. Of the presence here of Helen and Menelaus there is no evidence in any trustworthy tradition. The subjection of Cythera to Sparta is of historic date. My conclusion as to the island is that in Homeric times it was Phœnician in its relations as Melos was at one time, as well as Santorin and other eastern islands, and that, like Corfu, it did not come into the Greek system.
Opposite Cerigo, and with its snowy peaks glistening under the noonday sun, lies Crete. The strangest omission of the Odyssey would have been that of the island of Minos from its reminiscences, if the author had known of it; but, as wehave seen in his interviews with Athene, Ulysses did not fail to include it in his geography though he had apparently never visited it, and like Egypt and Lotophagitis it was known by report. Of Egypt we had heard mention through the visit of Helen and Menelaus. Of the country where subsequently was established the Great Greek-African colony, Cyrene, we have no hint, yet the inhabitants of the Peloponnesus knew of Libya earlier than the Dorian invasion—as early, in fact, as 1500 B. C., as we know by the Karnac inscriptions. The story of Eumæus shows knowledge of the ways of that race of merchants and pirates, the Phœnicians, but nothing of their country.
The questions of the personality and date of Homer and of the reality of the Trojan war are utterly diverse, and not, in fact, interdependent. As to the latter we have thus far no direct evidence whatever, beyond poetic traditions in which the supernatural is so strongly and inextricably involved with the pretense or actuality of history that no inferences can be drawn from any part of the narrative, though from itsensemblewe are assured that in its ancient form it was accepted as history by the entire Greek world as early as we know anything of that world with historical certainty. But that is no criterion. Even at this day myths grow and crystallize in the Oriental mind with a rapidity which leaves the ancients without any advantage. The universal belief from the first to the eighth centuryB. C.that the Iliad was history need not weigh with us. Scientific investigators differ so widely that we have no general inference to draw from their arguments. The most recent excavations leave a grave doubt whether any of the ruins excavated in the Troad can by any reasoning be admitted to be as old as the Iliad, and the remains on Hissarlik hill which Schliemannmore suohas identified with Homer’s Troy are clearly the remains of the city of Crœsus, being of brick, which does not appear in the classictraditions or structures until his time, and we know by authentic history that he did build a city on this hill. Professor Jebb, one of the most acute of the literary investigators of the question, is convinced that the topography of the Iliad is eclectic, some of its indications suiting only Hissarlik and others only Bunarbashi; Max Müller maintains that the whole story is a solar myth; while Nicolaïdes, a patient and thorough Greek student of the Iliad, believes that he can follow the whole strategy of the poem on the plain of Troy. But the main questions involved in the Odyssey are of a different character and determined by different criteria. I offer my suggestions as to some of them with the deference due my masters in archæology.
LANDING-PLACE OF THE CYPRIAN APHRODITE OR ASTARTE.
LANDING-PLACE OF THE CYPRIAN APHRODITE OR ASTARTE.
The general knowledge shown in the Odyssey divides itself into kinds: that which was part of the general geography of the day, and this included the coasts shown on our route map; and that of which the poet had personal cognizance,which is limited to Corfu, Ithaca, Nericus, and possibly Pylos; and this exclusiveness suggests to us that Homer, a stranger in the West, had come, as I did, simply to follow and study the traces of Ulysses’ wanderings, and that he did so in obedience to a clearly preserved tradition as to his great exemplar, which was almost impossible without the still remembered personal presence. What he describes is admirably told, even to the “sandy shore” of Pylos, in a world whose sandy shores are rare; but Homer does not seem to have any mental vision of the lands and islands of which Ulysses only speaks in his story—the lands of the Cimmerians, of the Læstrygonians, the Cyclops, the Lotophagi, the homes of Circe and Calypso, are only heard of. Cythera, close by, is not named, and Crete and Egypt are only named. This kind of fulfillment, as well as this kind of omission, gives a tone of personality to the poem, as the composition of one person, and that one familiar with the scene of its major events, and it strengthens my belief in the hypothesis of the presence of Homer in Ithaca, and of the early date of the Odyssey, and by a certain implication argues for a logical relation between the hero and the Trojan war, implying the actuality of both.
In the year 1820, before the struggle between the Hellenic population of the Turkish empire and the Porte had begun, and when all that attracted the notice of the civilized world to modern Greece was the little preserved to us of her art,—occasionally and fragmentarily found in the ruins of her great communities,—a peasant of Melos whose name was Theodore Kondros Botoni, working in his field to enlarge it by clearing away thedébrisof the walls and structures of ancient Melos (which had been built on a steep hill-side, on a series of terraces, more or less natural or artificial, so that the ruins of one terrace fell down upon and encumbered that below it), saw, to his great bewilderment, the heap of rubbish which he was digging away at the bottom suddenly crumble down and display the upper part of an antique statue. The peasant hastened to the French consul to inform him of the discovery, and the latter negotiated the purchase of it for five hundred piastres and a complete dress of the fashion of the country. This was the statue known as the Venus of Melos.
So far, there are no variations of the history, but one account says that the first or upper part was found several days before the lower, and the other, that they were found together; but the inexactitude of the documentary contemporary evidence is clear from the examination of the ground to-day, and from the contradictions contained in it. Dumont d’Urville, the commander of theChevrette, a French man-of-war which visited Melos after the statue was found, alluding to the discovery of the theatre, says: “All the ground iscovered with drums of columns and fragments of statues. One finds here and there great pieces of wall of a very solid construction, and many important tombs have been opened through the curiosity of strangers, and the cupidity of the inhabitants.” But neither the wall nor the tombs, nor any drum of column or fragment of statue (if any was found), could have had anything to do with the theatre. The theatre is very late work, and was never nearly finished, so could have possessed neither columns nor statues. This shows that the idea the commandant carried away was confused and untrustworthy as to details. He goes on to say: “Three weeks before our arrival at Melos, a Greek peasant, digging in his field inclosed in this circuit, struck some pieces of cut stone. As these stones, employed by the inhabitants, have a certain value, this induced him to dig farther, and he thus happened to uncover a species of niche, in which he found a marble statue,two Hermes, and some other marble fragments. The statuewas in two pieces, joined by two strong iron clamps. The Greek, fearing to lose the fruit of his labor, had carried the upper part to a stable. The other was still in the niche.... It represented a naked woman,whose left hand raised an apple and the right held a drapery,[8]well composed and falling negligently from the hips to the feet. For the rest,they are both mutilated, and actually detached from the body.”
I note by italics the points which are to be contrasted with other evidence.
M. Dauriac, captain of the frigateLa Bonté, writes from Melos, date 11th of April, 1820: “There has been found, three days ago, by a peasant who was digging in his field, a marble statue ofVenus receiving the apple from Paris. It is larger than life;they have at this moment only the bust as far as the waist.I have been to see it.” Mr. Brest again writes, 12th ofApril: “A peasant has found in a field which belonged to him three marble statues, representing, one Venus holding the apple of discord in one hand, the other representsthe god Hermes, and the third a young child.” The correspondence shows that Mr. Brest was entirely ignorant of everything connected with archæology or art. He probably heard one of the officers say that one of the objects was a Hermes, and he changes it into a statue of the god Hermes, but we see that there was only one Hermes. November 26th, Brest again writes: “His Excellency has left me orders to make researches in order to find the arms and otherdébrisof the statue, but to do that it is necessary to obtain abouyourouldonwhich will permit us to make excavations at our own expense,because in the same niche where it was found there is reason to hope that we might find other objects.”
The contradictions are so palpable that it is clear that these documents are only of value as secondary archæological evidence. No one seems to have made an observation with exactitude.
We have the whole statue found, in one, bound together by iron clamps; in another, only half had yet been found; in one, the statue is found holding the apple of discord in one hand; in another, receiving it from Paris; and in another still, we are told that search has been ordered for the arms, etc.
In 1865 I visited Melos, and having made the acquaintance of Mr. Brest, son and successor of the French consul who secured the statue for the Louvre, he politely offered to guide me through the ruins of the ancient city. Among other things, we visited the locality where the statue was found, and he showed me the niche still standing as when the discovery was made.
It was a slightly built work, of the height,as nearly as I can remember, of ten or at most twelve feet, and about fivewide. It formed a part of an old boundary-wall of the field on which it opened, and above it the ground was level with the crown of the arch of the niche. It had no suite or connection with any other structure, except the boundary-wall in which it was, and there were no evidences of ruin or of foundation of antique buildings about it. The opening had been closed with rubbish, not with masonry, as was evident from the face of the side walls, which were of smooth, if not carefully laid, masonry. If as I believe not built for the concealment of the statue, it had been made for some unimportant purpose; perhaps the protection from the weather of the poor Hermes which is said to have been found with it. C. Doupault, architect, has published abrochurewith what he supposed important evidence on the question, in which, from data given him by old Brest twenty-seven years after the discovery, he reconstructs the apse of a seventh-century church, in which he places the statue. The whole study has no value whatever, as the sketch does not correspond with the ruins which I saw, and looking back to the correspondence quoted, it is clear that Brest, knowing nothing of archæology or art, caught at certain suggestions of the officers who saw the statue, and affirmed what they surmised. As to the fragments found, to which constant reference is made, there is not the slightest evidence that they were found in any connection with the statue, as none of the early evidence indicates that they were known when the statue was first taken under notice—on the contrary, it is said explicitly by Brest that he had orders to make researches to find the arms and other portions of the statue; indicating clearly that the arms alluded to had not been found with the statue, and that the connection between them and it was an after-thought, either of the peasant, who wished to increase the value of the statue by connecting with it fragments which he had found in other parts, or of the archæologists, who, seeking to restore the statue to whatthey judged to be its true action, connected the arm found, no one knows where, except at Melos, with the statue. It is undeniable that when the letters before quoted were written, there had been only conjecture as to the arms. Dauriac, writing on the 11th of April, says that they have only found the bust. Brest, November 26th, says that there is reason to hope that they might find other objectsin the same niche—proof that it had not even then been cleared out. In fact, all we have of documentary evidence goes for nothing beyond showing that the statue was found at a certain place on a certain date; and if the two halves of the statue did not fit exactly we could not be certain that they were found at the same time and place. The hypothesis of the apple of discord is based on a conjecture of some of the officers, and has no further confirmation than that an arm and hand, with what may be an apple or a cup, seem to have been found somewhere in the island about the same time; but they evidently are not of the statue, nor even of the same epoch.
Over or somewhere near the niche an inscription was said to have been found which records the dedication of an exedra by a gymnasiarch to Hercules and Hermes. The date of this inscription, according to conjecture based on the inscription itself, is about a century before Christ,i. e., long after any possibility of such a work being produced had gone by.
These are all the positive data we have to work on. They suffice, however, for about twenty monographs in French, German, and English; and a late German work, by Dr. Goeler von Ravensburg, exhausts all the possible and impossible conjectures to establish its character in accordance with the original attribution of a Venus receiving the apple.
In the year 1880, I made another visit to Melos, on commission from “The Century” magazine, to photograph whatever might remain which had any connection with the statue; but found the niche gone, and no trace of foundations of anykind, or walls, city or other, very near the spot which was again pointed out to me as that where the Venus was found.
It would seem that in the energetic excavation that followed the last great archæological revival, everything that was suspected to conceal works of art had been dug away.
I found an old man, a pilot well known in our navy, Kypriotis, who had seen the statue when it was brought out, being a boy of about fourteen. At that time Mr. Brest was a child, and retained only slight personal recollection of the event; but it was evident that he, like his father in 1847, had mingled in his impressions conjecture of others and his own, with facts perverted, and details conceived without sufficient basis. Nothing new was to be got.
The old Melos is utterly deserted, and the modern town is built on a pinnacle above it, which does not seem ever to have been included in the range of the city. The port is changed from the ancient site, where now a breakwater would be needed, as the land seems to have sunk greatly, and the old basin of the port is silted up to a point at the bottom of the bay, where a comparatively modern village has grown up, called Castro.
The magnificent harbor used to make of the island an important station before telegraphs were established, and might again, if the telegraph were laid to it; but now a man-of-war rarely calls, except to take a pilot for the Archipelago, and a Greek steamer stops once in a fortnight. But in heavy weather, any ship caught near runs for Melos. This keeps the place alive, but it has dwindled to a mere island village, where the vast labyrinths of tombs which perforate the hills show more human industry than the dwellings of the living. Earthquakes and malaria have desolated and almost depopulated it.
We had left Cerigo for Crete, and intended to take Melos on our return to Peiræus, but when within an hour of landwe were caught by a terrific south-wester, the most to be dreaded of all the winds of the Ægean, and in spite of all we could do we were obliged to give up and run before the gale where it would send us. It was late in the evening when its fury came down on us, and taking in all sail except a small storm-sail at the foot of the mast to keep from coming up into the wind, we ran before it into the black night. I knew that there were no rocks ahead before Melos, and if we only made the island by daylight, we could easily fetch the port; but if not, and the yacht ran at night into the little archipelago of which Melos is part, it would be next to impossible to choose where our bones should be laid, for there are no lights, and many islands and rocks. The sea was, for our little twelve-ton craft, something fearful, and we thumped and hammered till the little thing quivered, when a wave struck her, almost as if we had come to the rocks. Sleep was out of the question—to sit or stand, equally so, and we kept to our berths, as the only way to avoid being pitched about like blocks. How long that night was! and in the middle of it I attempted to get up, and when I put my foot on the cabin-floor, found myself stepping into the water. We had sprung a leak with the straining.
But day came and cheerfulness. We ran in between the huge cliffs which form the portal of Melos harbor, with the wild surges beating against them till the spray flew high enough to have buried a larger craft than ours. Tired, aching, and hungry, for nothing could we get to eat till we arrived in port, we cast anchor in the welcome harbor late in the afternoon. Even then, the sea ran so high that we could not land until the next day.
Castro is a pile of white houses, rising in terraces from the shore; the streets mostly stairways, and the houses all whitewashed till they blind one in that rarely broken sunlight.