Footnotes

1.

Though this statement is broadly true, it requires some modification. I should be sorry to be thought insensible to the beauties, not only of Ravenna, with its mosaics and its pines, but of Ancona, of the splendid Monte Gargano, of Trani and Bari, and of the rich gardens and vineyards of Apulia.

2.

Cf. Strabo, viii. c. 2, ἐστι τοίνυν ἡ Πελοπόννησος ἐοικυῖα φύλλῳ πλατάνου τὸ σχῆμα.

3.

These words were written in 1873. On a later occasion, our ship was obliged to run into this bay for shelter from a storm, when we found some cultivation along the coasts, and a village (Koron), with extensive fortifications above it, said to be Venetian. The aspect was by no means so desolate as appeared from a passing view outside the headlands. Coasting steamers now call here (at Kalamata) every second day.

4.

Which the reader will find best portrayed in Prosper Mérimée’s Colomba.

5.

See the remarks of Polybius, who was himself witness of this great change, quoted in the last chapter of my Greek Life and Thought, from Alexander to the Roman Conquest.

6.

We hailed him with a steam whistle in 1886, in vain; so it may be that he has passed to some newer and more social kind of life.

7.

A closer view of Crete disclosed to me the interesting fact that the island is turned to the north, as regards its history. It is barred on the south by great walls of rock, with hardly any landing-places, so that all traffic and culture must have started from the slopes and bays on the north side, where the Cyclades are its neighbors.

8.

I should except the splendid Venus victrix, as she is called, found at Capua, and now in the Museum of Naples.

9.

In my Social Life in Greece, from Homer to Menander.

10.

The words are M. About’s.

11.

I beg to point out to a learned and kindly critic in the Athenæum, who corrected several faults of spelling in the first edition, that this is the form of the name warranted by inscriptions, and now to be received by scholars: cf. Wachsmuth’s Stadt Athen, i. p. 49.

12.

This beautiful monument has been so defaced and mutilated that the photographs of to-day give no idea of its decoration. The careful drawings and restorations of Stuart and Revett were made in the last century, when it was still comparatively intact, and it is through their book alone that we can now estimate the merits of many of the ancient buildings of Athens. It should be added that there was a solitary Corinthian capital found in the temple of Bassæ, which I will describe in another chapter. But this still affords an unsolved problem. The Philippeion at Olympia (built by the famous Philip of Macedon) also contained an inner circle of Corinthian pillars, while the outer circle was Ionic.

13.

The following remarks on the polychromy of Greek art are not intended for Professors of Fine Art, to whom, indeed, few things in this book, if true, can be new, but for the ordinary reader, who may not have seen it discussed elsewhere.

14.

By the way, the appellation “Temple of Theseus” is more than doubtful. The building fronts towards the east. This is proved by the greater size and more elaborate decoration of the eastern portal. It is almost certain, according to an old scholion on Pindar, that the temples of heroes like Theseus faced west, while those only of the Olympian gods faced the rising sun. The temple, therefore, was the temple, not of a hero, but of a god. Probably the Temple of Heracles, worshipped as a god at Athens, which is mentioned in the scholia of Aristophanes as situated in this part of Athens, is to be identified with the building in question. But I suppose for years to come we must be content to abide by the old name of Theseon, which is now too long in general use to be easily disturbed.

15.

I was since informed at Athens that this complaint had not been without results, and that steps are being taken to prevent quarrying at random on classical sites.

16.

Even the marble statue set up to the patriot Botzari over the grave of the heroes of Missolonghi was so mutilated by the inhabitants that the authorities have removed it from mere shame.

17.

It is fair to add that an exception has been made for the discoveries at Mycenæ, which have been almost all brought to Athens; and that a handsome museum has now been built at Olympia, and a good road from Pyrgos, which has a railway to the sea.

18.

Since this was written there have been published (in German) two careful catalogues of the sculptures of Athens by V. Sybel and by Milchhöfer (1881), and there is besides the excellent Handbook for Greece by Dr. Lolling (Bædeker). The new edition of Murray’s Handbook is very dear and not very satisfactory. There is a small Greek Catalogue published by Stanford, translated by Miss Agnes Smith. The Mycenæan antiquities are described in a separate book by Schliemann, and by Schuchhardt.

19.

There is no more pathetic instance than that described by Mr. Squier (in his admirable work on Peru) of the tomb of a young girl which he himself discovered, and where he comments on the various objects laid to rest with the dead: cf. Squier’s Peru, p. 80. There has since been found at Myrina, on the Asiatic coast, a great store of these clay figures, also in tombs. Some sets of them were made to represent the sculptures of a pediment, such as that of the Parthenon, or rather of the east front of the temple of Olympia.

20.

If I mistake not, Mr. A. S. Murray seems disposed to date them about the first century either B. C. or A. D., thus bringing them down to about the time of Strabo.

21.

There is already quite a large collection of them in the British Museum, e. g. Vase Room I., case 35, where there are many of these figures from Tanagra. In Room II. there is a whole case of them, chiefly from Cyrene, and from Cnidus.

22.

No. 53, Mus. Pio Clem., in a small room beside the Apollo Belvedere and Laocoon.

23.

There is now an excellent publication of the archaic statues found in the Acropolis, by Cavvadias (Wilberg, Athens).

24.

I endeavored to examine these drums by looking down through a hole in the wall over them. They seemed to me not fluted, and rather of the shape of barrels, very thick in the middle, than of the drums of pillars in temples.

25.

It is asserted somewhere by a Greek author that the temples burned by the Persians were left in ruins to remind the people of the wrongs of the hated barbarians. But we have distinct evidence, in some cases, that this assertion is not true, and besides, using the materials for other purposes is not the same thing. We now know that a quantity of mutilated statues were shot as rubbish into the space between the old Parthenon and the wall, to make a terrace for the newer and greater building. Here they were found in the recent excavations.

26.

Aristion is also mentioned among the artists of the period.

27.

“Vultum ab antiquo rigore variare.”—Plin. xxxv. 35.

28.

They have been published in the first part of an excellent work on the treasures of Athens, reproduced in phototype by Rhomaïdès Brothers, with an explanatory text by various Athenian scholars.

29.

I cannot do better than quote the admirable description of M. Ch. Diehl: “C’étaient surtout de nouvelles statues de jeunes femmes, au mystérieux sourire, à la parure étincelante, de ces idoles fardées et peintes, bien faites, par leur saveur étrange, pour tenter le pinceau d’un Gustave Moreau ou la plume d’un Pierre Loti. Comme leurs sœurs, ces nouvelles venues ont la même attitude et le même costume, les mêmes coquetteries de parure, le même soin de leur chevelure, la même expression aussi; pourtant à la série déjà connue elles out ajouté quelques œuvres exquises, et trois d’entre elles en particulier méritent d’être signalées. L’une est une merveille de coloris; sa tunique à large bande rouge, sa chemisette d’un vert foncé, bordée de pourpre, son manteau orné de méandres du dessin le plus fin, ses vêtements parsemés de croix rouges ou vertes, qui se retrouvent sur le diadème de ses cheveux, sont d’un incomparable éclat. Sous les tons chauds de ces riches couleurs disposées avec un goût exquis, il semble que le marbre s’anime et fasse la chair vivante; et un charme étrange émane de cette figure. Celle-ci (cf. Plate) d’une date plus récente, probablement l’une des plus jeunes de la série, montre l’effort d’un artiste habile pour créer une œuvre originale. Dans ces formes élancées, dans cette tête petite et fine, dans ces bras jetés en avant du corps, on sent la volonté du maître qui cherche à faire autrement que ses devanciers; le sourire traditionnel est devenu presque imperceptible, les yeux, qui souriaient jadis à l’unison des levres, out cessé de se relever vers les tempes; les joues creuses se remplissent et s’arrondissent; avec des œuvres de cette sorte, l’archaisme est prêt à finir.... La troisième enfin est une des œuvres les plus remarquables de l’art attique. Plus ancienne que la précédente, elle est d’une valeur artistique bien supérieure. Le modelé en est exquis, et son irréprochable finesse fait un contraste singulier avec les procédés qui sentent encore les conventions de l’école. Suivant les traditions de l’art antique, les yeux sont obliques et bridés, le sourire fait toujours grimacer les levres; mais dans les yeux le regard n’est plus indifférent et fixe; il brille d’une lueur de vie et de pensée; le sourire de ces levres n’est plus sec et dur, il semble avoir une douceur attendrie. Certes il n’y a dans cette sculpture nul effort pour chercher des chemins nouveaux; mais parmi les œuvres de l’art archaïque, parmi celles où le maître a docilement suivi la route frayée et battue, cette sculpture à l’expression candide et presque attristée est l’une des plus admirables.”—Excursions archéologiques en Grèce, p. 104.

30.

When I revisited Athens in the spring of 1889, the National Museum, which is a fine and spacious building, was quite an orderly museum, and it was easy to see and enjoy the works of art preserved in it. The archaic things were, moreover (as in the Acropolis), placed by themselves; so were the tombs, and so were most of the portrait busts. All that was still wanting was a good and complete catalogue.

31.

These panegyrics—λόγοι ἐπιτάφιοι they were called—were a favorite exercise of Greek literary men. There are five classical ones still extant—that mentioned, that in the Menexenus of Plato, that of Hypereides, and those ascribed (justly) to Lysias and (falsely) to Demosthenes. That of Hypereides, very mutilated as it is, seems to me the finest next to that of Thucydides. But they are all built upon the same lines, showing even here that strict conservatism in every branch of Greek art which never varied, for variety’s sake, from a type once recognized as really good.

32.

Roubillac’s monuments in Westminster Abbey, which excited the admiration of his contemporaries, are the best example I know of degradation in public taste on this question.

33.

I did, indeed, see one relief at Athens, in which the relatives are represented as rushing forward in agony, as it were to delay the departure of the fainting figure. It is right that this exception should be noted, as it shows that they understood what violent grief was, and yet avoided representing it as a rule.

34.

I fancy, from the unity of type shown in many of them, that they may even have been designed by the artist without regard to the special case, and purchased by the family of the deceased ready made. The figures upon them do not seem to me personal likenesses.

35.

In the Adonais, Shelley affords a curious contrast to the somewhat morbid prominence of the poet in the case before us. The self-effacement of Shelley has centred all our interest on his lost friend.

36.

He also supposed that the tower was Frankish, and built long before the Venetian conquest. But here he was wrong. The stones inside the tower, when taken down, showed clear traces of gun-powder, as was clearly shown in a learned refutation of his views, printed at Athens.

37.

Other specimens are preserved in the little Turkish house on the Acropolis, and should be noted by the visitor, who may easily pass them by.

38.

I speak, of course, of the copies of these famous statues which are to be seen in the Vatican Museum.

39.

The illustrated work of Michaelis is probably the most complete and critical account both of the plan and the details, which have often been discussed, and especially with great accuracy by Mr. Penrose, whose monumental work, the Principles of Athenian Architecture, has recently been republished. Among the many newer works, I would call special attention to the first volume of Viollet-le-duc’s Entretiens sur l’Architecture, already translated into English, which is full of most instructing and suggestive observations on Greek architecture; also to M. E. Bournouf’s Acropole d’Athènes.

40.

They will be most readily consulted in the plates of Michaelis’s Parthenon.

41.

The discovery of the figures from the western pediment of the temple at Olympia, carved by Alcamenes, a contemporary of Phidias, will hardly lead us to modify this judgment. For though they show a great talent in the composition, the defects in execution are so grave as to lead many critics to suspect that we have in them the work of mere local artists, certainly not the masterful hands that adorned the Parthenon.

42.

It is very uncertain, perhaps unlikely, that any of the architectural sculpture we possess was actually finished by Phidias’s own hand. But there can be no doubt that he directed it, and must have designed much of it in detail, since the general composition was certainly his creation.

43.

This very pattern, in mahogany, with cane seats, and adapted, like all Greek chairs, for loose cushions, was often used in eighteenth century work, and may still be found in old Irish mansions furnished at that epoch.

44.

I state this because many critics have drawn an opposite inference from a mistranslation of a passage in Plato (Apol. 26, E).

45.

The exact number, according to Papadakis (cf. A. Müller, Bühnenalt., p. 47), is stated at 27,500. But I am convinced this is a great exaggeration. I should rather give 15,000 as a liberal estimate; and this agrees with the measurements made for me by Dr. Dörpfeld in 1889. This mistake is also due to misunderstanding a passage in Plato’s Symposium, which says that “Agathon, whom 30,000 citizens hear——”. It is not said that they heard him at the same time.

46.

Cf. on this point my History of Greek Literature, i. p. 345.

47.

Cf. on the details of Greek painting the last chapter of my Social Life in Greece.

48.

The actual passage is well worth quoting—“Au reste, je n’ose encore ajouter que cette pièce soit en effet la meilleure de mes tragédies. Je laisse et aux lecteurs et au temps à décider de son véritable prix. Ce que je puis assurer, c’est que je n’en ai point fait où la vertu soit plus mise en jour que dans celle-ci; les moindres fautes y sont sévèrement punies; la seule pensée du crime y est regardée avec autant d’horreur que le crime même; les faiblesses de l’amour y passent pour des vraies faiblesses; les passions n’y sont présentées aux yeux que pour montrer tous les désordres dont elles sont causes, et le vice y est peint partout avec des couleurs qui en out fait connaître et haïr la difformité. C’est là proprement le but que tout homme qui travaille pour le public se doit proposer; et c’est que les premiers poètes tragiques avaient en vue sur toute chose. Leur théâtre était une école où la vertu n’était pas moins bien enseignée que dans les écoles des philosophes.... Il serait à souhaiter que nos ouvrages fussent aussi solides et aussi pleins d’utiles instructions que ceux de ces poètes. Ce serait peut-être un moyen de réconcilier la tragédie avec quantité de personnes célèbres par leur piété et par leur doctrine, qui l’ont condamnée dans ces derniers temps, et qui en jugeraient sans doute plus favorablement, si les auteurs songeaient autant à instruire les spectateurs qu’à les divertir, et s’ils suivaient en cela la véritable intention de la tragédie.”

49.

Racine is here the exception.

50.

Alfieri, though starting with a violent feeling of reaction against some of the faults of the French drama, was wholly trained upon it, and only knew the Greek plays through French versions until very late in life, when most of his works were already published. I therefore class him unhesitatingly as an offshoot of that school.

51.

There is now (1891) a controversy raging concerning the height of the Greek stage and its arrangements, owing to the researches of Dr. Dörpfeld. I cannot enter upon it here.

52.

This was written before the very interesting revivals of Greek plays which do such honor to Cambridge. Those who had the privilege of seeing them can judge not only how far a reproduction was possible, but how far it can succeed, for never will it be more ably undertaken and carried out.

53.

The reader who cares to consult the various prices cited in my Old Greek Life will see the grounds for assuming some such change in the value of money between the fourth century B. C. in Greece and the nineteenth A. D. in England.

54.

I perceive that M. Renan, who alone of skeptical critics is persuaded, possibly by the striking picturesqueness of the scene, to accept it as historical, considers it not impossible that S. Paul may have been actually brought before the court. He notices that in later days it assumed a general direction not only of literature, but of morals, and that any new teacher might fairly have been summoned before it to expound his views. This does not seem to me to agree with the ironical and trivial character of the whole audience, as intimated by the historian. The author of the work called Supernatural Religion, when analyzing, in his third volume, the Acts of the Apostles, is actually silent on this speech, though he discusses at great length the speeches of S. Paul which he thinks composed as parallels to those of S. Peter. Most German critics look on the passage as introduced by the author, like the speeches in Thucydides or Tacitus, as a literary ornament, as well as an exposition of the Apostolic preaching of the early Church. They also note its many contrasts to the teaching of such documents as the Epistle to the Romans. I have assumed, as even M. Renan seems to do, that the Apostle told Timothy, or Luke, or some other follower, the main purport of this memorable visit, and also the headings of the speech, which is too unlike his received writings to be a probable forgery.

55.

The fact that the title of Menander’s famous play was Δεισιδαίμων has escaped the commentators. S. Paul must have meant “rather superstitious,” as the A. V. has it.

56.

Though ἄγνωστος may surely have this meaning, I do not find it suggested in any of the commentaries on the passage. They all suppose some superstitious precaution, or else some case of the real inscription being effaced by time, and supplied in this way. The expression in Pausanias—the gods called unknown, τοῖς ὀνομαζομένοις ἀγνώστοις—seems to suggest it as a regular title, and we know that there were deities whose name was secret, and might not be pronounced. But in the face of so many better critics I will not insist upon this interpretation.

57.

This depends on no mere accident, but on the essential features of the spiritual side of Greek character, on which I will quote an admirable passage from Renan’s S. Paul:

“Ce qui caractérisait la religion du Grec autrefois, ce qui la caractérise encore de nos jours, c’est le manque d’infini, de vague, d’attendrissement, de mollesse féminine; la profondeur du sentiment religieux allemand et celtique manque à la race des vrais Hellènes. La piété du Grec orthodoxe consiste en pratiques et en signes extérieurs. Les églises orthodoxes, parfois très-élégantes, n’ont rien des terreurs qu’on ressent dans une église gothique. En ce christianisme oriental, point de larmes, de prières, de componction intérieure. Les enterrements y sont presque gais; ils ont lieu le soir, au soleil couchant, quand les ombres sont déjà longues, avec des chants à mi-voix et un déploiement de couleurs voyantes. La gravité fanatique des Latins déplaît à ces races vives, sereines, légères. L’infirme n’y est pas abattu: il voit doucement venir la mort; tout sourit autour de lui. Là est le secret de cette gaieté divine des poëmes homériques et de Platon: le récit de la mort de Socrate dans le Phédon montre à peine une teinte de tristesse. La vie, c’est donner sa fleur, puis son fruit; quoi de plus? Si, comme on peut le soutenir, la préoccupation de la mort est le trait le plus important du christianisme et du sentiment religieux moderne, la race grecque est la moins religieuse des races. C’est une race superficielle, prenant la vie comme une chose sans surnaturel ni arrière-plan. Une telle simplicité de conception tient en grande partie au climat, à la pureté de l’air, à l’étonnante joie qu’on respire, mais bien plus encore aux instincts de la race hellénique, adorablement idéaliste. Un rien, un arbre, une fleur, un lézard, une tortue, provoquant le souvenir de mille métamorphoses chantées par les poëtes; un filet d’eau, un petit creux dans le rocher, qu’on qualifie d’antre des nymphes; un puits avec une tasse sur la margelle, un pertuis de mer si étroit que les papillons le traversent et pourtant navigable aux plus grands vaisseaux, comme à Poros; des orangers, des cyprès dont l’ombre s’étend sur la mer, un petit bois de pins au milieu des rochers, suffisent en Grèce pour produire le contentement qu’éveille la beauté. Se promener dans les jardins pendant la nuit, écouter les cigales, s’asseoir au clair de lune en jouant de la flûte; aller boire de l’eau dans la montagne, apporter avec soi un petit pain, un poisson et un lécythe de vin qu’on boit en chantant; aux fêtes de famille, suspendre une couronne de feuillage au-dessus de sa porte, aller avec des chapeaux de fleurs; les jours de fêtes publiques, porter des thyrses garnis de feuillages; passer des journées à danser, à jouer avec des chèvres apprivoisées—voilà les plaisirs grecs, plaisirs d’une race pauvre, économe, éternellement jeune, habitant un pays charmant, trouvant son bien en elle-même et dans les dons que les dieux lui ont faits. La pastorale à la façon de Théocrite fut dans les pays helléniques une vérité; la Grèce se plut toujours à ce petit genre de poésie fin et aimable, l’un des plus caractéristiques de sa littérature, miroir de sa propre vie, presque partout ailleurs niais et factice. La belle humeur, la joie de vivre sont les choses grecques par excellence. Cette race a toujours vingt ans: pour elle, indulgere genio n’est pas la pesante ivresse de l’Anglais, le grossier ébattement du Français; c’est tout simplement penser que la nature est bonne, qu’on peut et qu’on doit y céder. Pour le Grec, en effet, la nature est une conseillère d’élégance, une maîtresse de droiture et de vertu; la ‘concupiscence,’ cette idée que la nature nous induit à mal faire, est un non-sens pour lui. Le goût de la parure qui distingue le palicare, et qui se montre avec tant d’innocence dans la jeune Grecque, n’est pas la pompeuse vanité du barbare, la sotte prétention de la bourgeoise, bouffie de son ridicule orgueil de parvenue; c’est le sentiment pur et fin de naïfs jouvenceaux, se sentant fils légitimes des vrais inventeurs de la beauté.

“Une telle race, on le comprend, eût accueilli Jésus par un sourire. Il était une chose que ces enfants exquis ne pouvaient nous apprendre: le sérieux profond, l’honnêteté simple, le dévouement sans gloire, la bonté sans emphase. Socrate est un moraliste de premier ordre: mais il n’a rien à faire dans l’histoire religieuse. Le Grec nous paraît toujours un peu sec et sans cœur: il a de l’esprit, du mouvement, de la subtilité; il n’a rien de rêveur, de mélancolique. Nous autres, Celtes et Germains, la source de notre génie, c’est notre cœur. Au fond de nous est comme une fontaine de fées, une fontaine claire, verte et profonde, où se reflète l’infini. Chez le Grec, l’amour propre, la vanité se mêlent à tout; le sentiment vague lui est inconnu; la réflexion sur sa propre destinée lui paraît fade. Poussée à la caricature, une façon si incomplète d’entendre la vie donne a l’époque romaine le græculus esuriens, grammairien, artiste, charlatan, acrobate, médecin, amuseur du monde entier, fort analogue à l’Italien des XVIe et XVIIe siècles: à l’époque byzantine, le théologien sophiste faisant dégénérer la religion en subtiles disputes; de nos jours, le Grec moderne, quelquefois vaniteux et ingrat, le papas orthodoxe, avec sa religion égoïste et matérielle. Malheur à qui s’arrête à cette décadence! Honte à celui qui, devant le Parthénon, songe à remarquer un ridicule! Il faut le reconnaître pourtant: la Grèce ne fut jamais sérieusement chrétienne; elle ne l’est pas encore. Aucune race ne fut moins romantique, plus dénuée du sentiment chevaleresque de notre moyen âge. Platon bâtit toute sa théorie de la beauté en se passant de la femme. Penser à une femme pour s’exciter à faire de grandes choses! un Grec eût été bien surpris d’un pareil langage; il pensait, lui, aux hommes réunis sur l’agora, il pensait à la patrie. Sous ce rapport, les Latins étaient plus près de nous. La poésie grecque, incomparable dans les grands genres tels que l’épopée, la tragédie, la poésie lyrique désintéressée, n’avait pas, ce semble, la douce note élégiaque de Tibulle, de Virgile, de Lucrèce, note si bien en harmonie avec nos sentiments, si voisine de ce que nous aimons.

“La même différence se retrouve entre la piété de saint Bernard, de saint François d’Assise et celle des saints de l’Église grecque. Ces belles écoles de Cappadoce, de Syrie, d’Égypte, des Pères du désert, sont presque des écoles philosophiques. L’hagiographie populaire des Grecs est plus mythologique que celle des Latins. La plupart des saints qui figurent dans l’iconostase d’une maison grecque et devant lesquels brûle une lampe ne sont pas de grands fondateurs, de grands hommes, comme les saints de l’Occident; ce sont souvent des êtres fantastiques, d’anciens dieux transfigurés, ou du moins des combinaisons de personnages historiques et de mythologie, comme saint Georges. Et cette admirable église de Sainte-Sophie! c’est un temple arien; le genre humain tout entier pourrait y faire sa prière. N’ayant pas eu de pape, d’inquisition, de scolastique, de moyen age barbare, ayant toujours gardé un levain d’arianisme, la Grèce lâchera plus facilement qu’aucun autre pays le christianisme surnaturel, à peu près comme ces Athéniens d’autrefois étaient en même temps, grâce à une sorte de légèreté, mille fois plus profonde que le sérieux de nos lourdes races, le plus superstitieux des peuples et le plus voisin du rationalisme. Les chants populaires grecs sont encore aujourd’hui pleins d’images et d’idées païennes. À la grande différence de l’Occident, l’Orient garda durant tout le moyen âge et jusqu’aux temps modernes de vrais ‘hellénistes,’ au fond plus païens que chrétiens, vivants du culte de la vieille patrie grecque et des vieux auteurs. Ces hellénistes sont, au XVe siècle, les agents de la renaissance de l’Occident, auquel ils apportent les textes grecs, base de toute civilization. Le même esprit a présidé et présidera aux destinées de la Grèce nouvelle. Quand on a bien étudié ce qui fait de nos jours le fond d’un Hellène cultivé, on voit qu’il y a chez lui très-peu de christianisme: il est chrétien de forme, comme un Persan est musulman; mais au fond il est ‘helléniste.’ Sa religion, c’est l’adoration de l’ancien génie grec. Il pardonne toute hérésie au philhellène, a celui qui admire son passé; il est bien moins disciple de Jésus et de saint Paul que de Plutarque et de Julien.”

58.

The reader will find in my last chapter some further information concerning the remains of mediæval Greece.

59.

I have seen it very full in June; I have also seen it almost dry in April, so that it depends upon the season whether the traveller will enjoy the coolness of the river, or turn with disappointment from its stony bed.

60.

On a fine summer’s day, in the meadows about Eton, I was struck with the truth of this phrase. A light breeze was making all the poplars shiver beside the great elms, which stood in silence.

61.

This was the military harbor, at least in the fourth century, B. C., when the architect Philo built a famous arsenal (σκευοθήκη) at its north-east corner, of which the plan and even details have been reconstructed by Dr. Dörpfeld from an important inscription recovered in 1881.

62.

Thucydides, followed by modern historians, has nevertheless been inaccurate in his use of the expression Long Walls. He sometimes means the north and Phaleric wall, sometimes the north and south parallel walls, to the exclusion of the Phaleric wall. The long walls rebuilt by Conon were the latter pair, and thus not the same long walls as were finished in 456 B. C.

63.

The reader who desires to see the best poetical picture of modern Athens should consult the tenth chapter in Mr. Symonds’s Sketches in Italy and Greece—one of the most beautiful productions of that charming poet in prose.

64.

IX. § I. p. 244 (Tauchn.).

65.

He reads, however, φρίξουσι, instead of Herodotus’s φρύξουσι.

66.

There is now a railway from Athens to the mines (1887).

67.

The earliest allusion to them is a line in Æschylus’s Persæ, where they come in so peculiarly, and without any natural suggestion, that they must have been in his day a new and surprising source of wealth. Atossa is inquiring of the chorus about Athens, and whether it possesses any considerable wealth. The chorus replies (v. 238):

ἀργύρου πηγή τις αὐτοῖς ἐστι, θησαυρὸς χθονός.

This inference of mine, made years ago, is now strongly confirmed by the recovered Polity of the Athenians, which says (chap. xxii.): “In the archonship of Nicodemus [484–3 B. C.], when the mines at Maroneia [as he calls them] were discovered (ἐφάνη), and there was a profit of 100 talents from the work, Themistocles,” etc.

68.

It is possible that in the days of Eretria’s greatness, when she ruled over a number of the Cyclades, Eretrians may have worked the mines. These occupants probably preceded the Æginetans. But the strange thing is, that the mines and their large profits appear suddenly, and as a novelty, at a particular point of Greek history.

69.

Arist. Œcon., II. 4.

70.

Since I visited the place there are actually five companies—two Greek and three French—established to work the district.

71.

There is also a quotation in Strabo (iii. 3, § 9), from Demetrius Phal., implying their activity in the third century B. C. Plutarch (de defectu or. 43) speaks of them as having lately failed.

72.

Byron, who loved this spot above all others, I think, in Greece, speaks of sixteen as still standing in his day.

73.

Dr. Dörpfeld has since shown that the marble temple at Sunium was built on the site of an older temple, with a very slight but distinct enlargement of the plan. The older temple was of the ordinary poros-stone found on the site.

74.

“Aujourd’hui tout ce district est presque désert; seuls, quelques archéologues et quelques artistes affrontent ces gorges pierreuses et ces scabreux sentiers; on prend alors ce chemin pour aller de Marathon à Chalcis et revenir à Athènes par Décélie, entre le Pentélique et Parnès. Ces monuments de Rhamnunte offrent des traits curieux qui les rendent intéressants pour le voyageur érudit; mais de plus les ruines mêmes et le site ont assez de beauté pour dédommager de leur peine ceux qui recherchent surtout le pittoresque. Je n’oublierai jamais les quelques heures que j’ai passées là, il y a déjà longtemps, par une radieuse matinée d’avril. Pendant que nous examinions ce qui restait des anciens sanctuaires et de leurs défenses, notre guide songeait au déjeuner; il avait acheté un agneau à l’un de ces pâtres appelés Vlaques qui, avec leurs brebis et leurs chèvres éparses dans les buissons de myrtes et de lentisques, sont à peu près les seuls habitants de ce canton. Quand nous revînmes, l’agneau, soutenu sur deux fourches fichées en terre par un jeune pin sylvestre qui servait de broche, cuisait tout entier devant un feu clair, et la graisse coulait à grosses gouttes sur les charbons ardents. Devant notre tapis étendu à l’ombre avait été préparée une jonchée de verts branchages sur lesquels le succulent rôti, rapidement découpé par le coutelas d’un berger, laissa bientôt tomber côtelettes et gigots.

“Ce qui nous fit prolonger là notre halte après que notre appetit fut satisfait, ce fut la vue magnifique dont on jouissait de la plate-forme où nous étions établis, dans un coin de l’acropole. A nos pieds, c’était la mer, veloutée de chatoyante reflets par le soleil, par la brise, par les nuages qui passaient au ciel. En face de nous se dressaient les hautes et sévères côtes de l’Eubée, dominés par la pyramide du Dirphys. Ce fier sommet était encore tout blanc des neiges de l’hiver; au contraire, si nous nous retournons vers les gorges qui se creusaient autour de nous dans la montagne, entre des parois de marbre rougies et comme hâlées par le soleil, c’était le printemps de la Grèce dans tout son épanouissement et son éclat. Dans le fond des ravins, là où un peu d’eau filtrait sous les cailloux, arbres de Judée et cytises mêlaient leurs brillantes couleurs au tendre feuillage des platanes, et sur les pentes les plus âpres des milliers de genêts en fleur étincelaient parmi la verdure des genévriers, des chênes et des oliviers francs.

“Dans l’antiquité, toute cette portion du territoire athénien, qui faisait partie de ce que l’on appelait la Diakria ou le ‘haut pays,’ sans avoir de gros villages ni une population aussi dense que celle des plaines d’Athènes ou d’Eleusis, devait pourtant présenter un aspect assez diffèrent de celui qu’elle offre aujourd’hui; je me la représente assez semblable à ce que sont maintenant certains districts montueux de la Grèce moderne où le désir d’éviter le contact des Turcs avait rejeté et cantonné les Hellènes: il en était ainsi du Magne, de la Tzaconie, des environs de Karytena en Arcadie. Partout là, une industrieuse persévérance a mis à profit tout ce que pouvaient offrir de ressources le sol et le climat. Sur des pentes abruptes et presque verticales, de petits murs en pierres sèches s’efforcent de retenir une mince couche de terre végétale; malgré ces précautions, les grandes pluies de l’hiver et les vents de l’été en emportent une partie jusqu’au fond de la vallée, sans jamais se lasser, hommes, femmes, enfants, travaillent sans relâche à réparer ces dégâts. Que de fois, admirant la patience de ces sobres et tenaces montagnards, je les ai suivis des yeux pendant qu’ils allaient ainsi lentement, le dos courbé sous leurs hottes pleines, gravissant des sentiers sablonneux ou d’étroits escaliers taillés à même la roche qui leur renvoyait touts les ardeurs du soleil! Au bout de quelques années, il n’est pas peut-être une parcelle du terrain dans chacun de ces petits champs qui n’ait fait plusieurs fois le voyage, qui n’ait glissé jusqu’au bord du torrent pour être ensuite ramenée pelletée par pelletée, sur une des terrasses supérieures. Ces sacrifices sont récompensés. Le long du ruisseau, là où les côtes s’écartent et laissent entre elles un peu d’espace, l’eau, soigneusement ménagée, mesurée par heures et par minutes à chaque propriétaire, court bruyante et claire dans les rigoles; elle arrose des vergers où croissent, suivant les lieux, soit l’oranger, le citronnier et le grenadier, soit les arbres de nos climats tempérés, le pêcher, le pommier et le poirier; à leur ombre grossissent la fève et l’enorme courge. Plus haut, sur les versants les moins roides et les moins pierreux, là où la légère charrue inventée par Triptolème a trouvé assez de place pour tracer le sillon, l’orge et le seigle verdissent au printemps, et, dans les bonnes années, profitent pour mûrir des tardifs soleils d’automne. Ce qui d’ailleurs réussit le mieux dans ces montagnes, ce qui paye vraiment les habitants de leurs peines, c’est l’olivier, dont les puissantes racines étreignent le roc et semblent faire corps avec lui; c’est la vigne, qui, d’étage en étage, grimpe presque jusqu’aux sommets. A l’un et à l’autre, pour donner une huile et un vin qui seraient les plus savoureux du monde, s’ils étaient mieux préparés, il suffit de beaucoup de soleil, d’un peu de terre et de quelques coups de hoyau qui viennent à propos ameublir le sol et le dégager des plantes parasites.

“C’est ainsi que dans l’Attique, au temps de sa prospérité, même les cantons aujourd’hui les plus déserts et les plus stériles devaient être habités et cultivés. Sur beaucoup de ces croupes où le roc affleure presque partout, où verdit à peine, aux premiers jours du printemps, une herbe courte, diaprée d’anémones et de cistes, qui jaunira dès le mois de mai, il y avait jadis une couche plus épaisse de terre végétale. Dans les ravins, là où j’ai perdu plus d’une fois mon chemin en poursuivant la perdrix rouge ou la bécasse à travers des maquis touffus, on a, pendant bien des siècles, fait la vendange et la cueillette des olives; c’est ce dont témoignent, sur les pentes les mieux exposées aux rayons du midi ou du couchant, des restes de murs et de terrassements que l’on distingue encore dans l’épaisseur du fourré. Dans les endroits où la culture était à peu près impossible, des bois de pins, aujourd’hui presque entièrement détruits, empêchaient la montagne de se dénuder; dans les clairières et entre les rocs mêmes poussaient la sauge, la campanule et le thym, toutes ces plantes aromatiques, tous ces vigoureux arbustes que se plaît à tondre la dent des moutons et des chèvres.”

75.

πολλαὶ δ’ ἁμὶν ὕπερθε κατὰ κρατὸς δονέοντο

αἴγειροι πτελέαι τε· τὸ δ’ ἐγγύθεν ἱερὸν ὕδωρ

Νυμφᾶν ἐξ ἄντροιο κατειβόμενον κελάρυζε

—Theocr. VII. 135.

76.

Since M. Trikoupi’s long and effective administration, brigandage was so effectually put down that, although there were plenty of brigands in Mount Olympus close to the frontier, it was perfectly safe to wander about in Northern Greece up to the vale of Tempe. Such was the state of things in 1889. Whether his recent successor will keep as good order remains to be seen.

77.

Social Life in Greece, p. 23.

78.

Xen. Hell., iv., 3, § 1. To cite a parallel in modern history: a writer in the Pall Mall Gazette (July 12, 1876) says: “I witnessed a battle during the War of Greek Independence. It lasted three days; the quantity of ammunition expended was enormous, and the result was one man wounded!”

79.

So Strabo describes it, IX. 1, § 12. For further details consult the Guide Joanne for Athens (1888), p. 201.

80.

De Legg., II. 14, § 36.

in Cer. v. 480.

Thren. (frag.)

Ran. 455.

Phæd. cc. 29, 30.

Paneg. § 6.

Etym. Mag., s. v. τελετή.

88.

There seems no doubt that some of these symbols, derived from old nature-worship, were very gross, and quite inconsistent with modern notions of religion. But even these were features hallowed and ennobled by the spirit of the celebrants, whose reverence blinded their eyes, while lifting up their hearts.

89.

In the fragments of Plutarch’s De anima there are some very striking passages on this subject. “After this,” he says, evidently describing some part of the ceremony, “there came a great light, there were shown pure places and meadows, with dances, and all that was splendid and holy to see and hear, in which he who is now perfected by initiation, and has obtained freedom and remission, joins in the devotions, with his head crowned, in the company of pure and holy men, and beholds from thence the unclean uninitiated crowd of mortals in deep mire and mist, trodden down and crowded by each other, but in fear of death, adhering to their ills through want of faith in the goods beyond. Since from these you may clearly see that the connection of the soul with the body is a coercion against nature.”

90.

The Greeks always regard these nomads as foreigners in race, and incapable of any settled or civilized life. They do great mischief to young trees and fences, which they never respect. Yet when arrested for doing mischief they are protected by the sympathies of the Greeks, who hate all coercion, however reasonable.

91.

Colonel Leake already felt these difficulties, and moves Eleutheræ a few miles to the south-west. But Œnoe and Eleutheræ must have been close together, from the allusion in the Antiope of Euripides. Cf. Eurip., frag. 179 (ed. Nauck), and the passages quoted there.

92.

This the Peloponnesians did at Œnoe, according to Thucydides; perhaps therefore at this very place.

93.

There was no photograph of this very fine building existing when I was in Greece. The only drawing of it I have seen is in the plates of Dodwell’s Archæological Tour in Greece—a splendid book. The fort of Phyle, though smaller, possesses all the features described in this fort, and shows that they represent a general type.

94.

This pass (seized by the Persian cavalry before the battle of Platæa, in order to stop the Greek provision trains) was called τρεῖς κεφαλαί by the Thebans, but δρυὸς κεφ. by the Athenians (Herod. IX. 39)—evidently the same old name diversely interpreted by diverse Volks-etymologien. τρεῖς and δρυός are pronounced almost alike in modern Greek, probably therefore in old Greek likewise. But I will not touch the thorny question of old Greek pronunciation.

95.

Cf. what I have said in relation to Polybius’s account of it in my Greek Life and Thought, pp. 534 sq.

96.

Cf., for example, the figures in the recent (1891) Guide Joanne, ii. xxxvi.

97.

There was, indeed, a splendid pleasaunce built at Thebes by the Frankish knights, which was completely destroyed by the grand Catalan company. It is described by their annalist Ramon Muntaner. The remains of one Frankish tower mark the place.

98.

See his life in Gregorovius’s Athen, vol. i. pp. 144 sq.

99.

The legend of the name is now fully explained in the fragments of the Antiope published by me in the Petrie papyri (Williams & Norgate, 1891).

100.

I trust none will imagine that I intend the least disrespect to M. Boulgaris, who was, according to far better authority than that quoted in the text, an honorable and estimable man. But some of his Ministers have been since convicted of malpractices concerning certain archbishoprics, which were bought for money. The trial is now a matter of history, to which an allusion is sufficient.

101.

Since that time, the chief power has for the most part been in the hands of M. Trikoupi, an honest patriot. Yet it was the misfortune of the country to be reduced by M. Delyanni to the verge of bankruptcy through his absurd war policy against Turkey. It is probable enough that he did not lead, but was carried along by this policy, with which all the Athenian “Jingoes” were possessed.

102.

This plague seems unavoidable in a southern climate, wherever the houses, however good, are built of wood, and does not imply any ungrateful reflection upon my refined and generous hosts. In the Morea, where houses are built of masonry, even badly-kept houses are comparatively safe.

103.

Cf. Polygnotus’s picture of Agamemnon (Paus. x. 30, 3), σκήπτρῳ τε ὑπὸ τὴν ἀριστερὰν μασχάλην ἐρειδόμενος.

104.

Since these words were written, M. Holleaux’s researches at Akræphiæ have not only discovered the inscription containing the Emperor Nero’s speech to the Greeks, but also many curious remains from the temple of Apollo Ptoos.

105.

ὅστις δὲ τὰ σὺν τέχνῃ πεποιημένα ἐπίπροσθε τίθεται τῶν ἀρχαιόητα ἡκώτων, καὶ τάδε ἐστιν οἱ θεάσασθαι. I. 24. 3.

106.

Cf. Plut. Agesilaus, chap. xvii.

107.

An account of the discovery, by the only surviving member of the party, Mr. G. L. Taylor, has been published by Mr. W. S. Vaux in the Trans. of the Roy. Soc. of Lit., 2nd series, vol. viii. pp. 1, sqq. The latter gentleman called attention to his paper when the subject was being discussed in the Academy in 1877. A very different story was told to Colonel Mure, and has passed from his Travels into Murray’s Guide. The current belief among the Greeks seems still to be that a Greek patriot called Odysseus, perceiving the stone protruding from the clay, and, on striking it, hearing its hollow ring, dug it out and broke it in pieces, imagining it to be a record of Philip’s victory over Hellenic liberty. Some ill-natured people added that he hoped to find treasure within it.

108.

Mr. Taylor and his friends thought it must have stood in the attitude of the now abolished lion on Northumberland House. This did not appear so to us; but it is difficult to decide. The restoration by Siegel in the Mon. of the Soc. Arch. of Rome, for 1856, of which Mr. A. S. Murray most kindly sent me a drawing, makes the posture a sitting one, like that of the sitting lion in front of the Arsenal at Venice. There is a small sitting lion from Calymnæ, of the same posture, in the Brit. Museum. The Greeks, when my account was first published in their papers, became fully alive to the value of this monument, and anxious for its restoration. There had been a custodian appointed to watch over it, even when I was there, but he chanced to be absent when we paid our visit.

109.

Since these words were written, the labors of the Greek archæologists have discovered the great polyandrion or common tomb of the dead, which the lion commemorated. They lay in rows, many of them with broken bones, showing how they had received their death-wound, and with them were fragments of broken weapons. Never have we come closer to an ancient battle, or discovered more affecting records of a great struggle.

110.

This seems to be implied in the account of the murder of Laïus by Œdipus, on this very road, as it is described in Sophocles’s Œdipus Tyrannus.

111.

Indeed Tripolitza lies between the ancient sites of Mantinea and Tegea, and quite close to the latter.

112.

This was done by the monks at Athos, when Mahomet II. was threatening Constantinople. They foresaw his victory, and by early submission made their own terms, and saved both their liberties and their property.

113.

Cf. also Plutarch’s tract de Pyth. orac. for details of ciceroni and visitors in his day.

114.

The hippodrome for the chariot races was, however, in the plain beneath, as Pausanias tells us (x. 37, 4).

115.

This journey I since made by rail, in this place a harmless innovation.

116.

Cf. the passage quoted from M. Georges Perrot above, p. 185.

117.

A commodious stone museum has since been built, and the treasures are doubtless by this time transferred to it. But the great earthquake of 1885, so near Olympia, makes us tremble for the safety of any sculpture in a stone building under a solid roof. How terrible if the house were to fall on the Hermes!

118.

This judgment of mine has since been confirmed by the authority of Overbeck. It is indeed very hard to estimate rightly a new discovery of this kind. I rated the work of Alkamenes, perhaps, too highly.

119.

The student who desires to prosecute this difficult subject should study Overbeck’s History of Greek Sculpture, or the works of Mr. A. S. Murray, or Mr. Copeland Perry, on the same subject.

120.

The fact that some of these public meetings are associated with the fall of tyrants does not, I think, disprove what is here advanced.

121.

I have not room here to give in full my reasons for rejecting the earlier part of the Olympic register, as being the manufacture of Hippias of Elis, later than 400 B. C. But the reader who is curious on the subject may either consult my article in the Journal of Hellenic Studies for 1881, or the appendix to my Problems in Greek History (1892). He will then see that there is no direct evidence whatever for any early list, and that the antiquarian Pausanias, in his hunt after ancient monuments at Olympia, could find nothing earlier than the so-called 33d Olympiad. Plutarch, moreover, in the opening of his Life of Numa, tells us plainly that the list was the manufacture of Hippias, and based on no trustworthy evidence. To accept the list, therefore, in the face of these objections, is to exhibit culpable credulity.

122.

So also under the early Roman Empire the exiles on the barren islands of the Ægean seem to have been allowed this indulgence. Cf. the curious passage from Plutarch I have quoted and explained in my Greek World under Roman Sway, p. 261.

123.

The very stringent laws quoted by Æschines in Timarchum may possibly be spurious, since we know from other allusions that they were not enforced. But more probably they existed as a dead letter, which could be revived if occasion required.

124.

The modern Greeks make their cheese for keeping, even now, in wicker baskets, and distinguish it from χλωρὸς τύρος, which now means cream cheese, and which they carry to market in woollen bags. There was a special market for it in Athens in Aristophanes’s day, but not in woollen bags; for, as Mr. Pickering (of Shrewsbury School) pointed out to me, the cream cheese of Aristophanes’s day was kept in wicker work. I gladly here acknowledge this correction of the note in my former edition.

125.

I should, however, call attention to an exceptional vase in the little Turkish house on the Acropolis, probably of late date, in which a runner is represented with his elbows back and hands closed, and near his sides, in very good form.

126.

Pausanias is responsible for the date, which he probably copied from Hippias of Elis. It is noted as a special wonder that the same man should win the sprint and long races at Olympia, which shows that the latter must have been mainly a test of staying power. The Spartan Ladas died at the winning-post, and this endurance was thought rather a wonderful feat, but of course his death may have resulted from bad training, or from heart disease.

127.

“Know ye not,” says St. Paul, “that all run, and one receiveth the crown?”—a quite different condition of things from that of the Iliad, where every competitor, like the boys at a private school, comes off with a prize.

128.

Possibly this special sort of wrestling has been confused with the pankration, from which it can have differed but little, if it indeed subsisted permanently as a distinct form of wrestling.

129.

The single competitions in running and wrestling were distinct from those in the pentathlon, and rewarded by separate crowns.

130.

This is the moment chosen by Canova in his celebrated representation of these boxers in the Vatican, a fact of which I was ignorant till it was pointed out to me, in correcting an error I had made about them, by Mr. M’D. Campbell, of Glasgow.

131.

The first case of cheating was said to have taken place in the 98th Ol. (388 B. C.), when the Thessalian Eupolos was convicted of bribing the three boxers opposed to him, one of whom had won at the previous meeting. Such crimes were commemorated by bronze figures of Zeus (called Ζᾶνες at Elis), which were of the value of the fines inflicted, and had inscriptions warning all athletes of the dangers and the disgrace of cheating.

132.

The reader will find some illustrations of it in my Social Greece, 6th edition, p. 96.

133.

It has been since inserted from my notes in the English translation of Bædeker’s Greece.

134.

Polybius, iv. 70.

135.

By this time (1891) there are probably three or four rivals, which the traveller will see noted in his guide-book, provided he does not depend on the Guide Joanne, which neglects to give such information. The house to which I allude in the text is the Hotel S. George.

136.

This is not contradicted by the fact of there being isolated Arcadian poets, such as Echembrotus and Aristarchus, distinguished in foreign schools of art.

137.

The Eclogues of Petrarch are modelled upon those of Vergil to the exclusion of the most characteristic features borrowed by the latter from Theocritus.

138.

The following extract from the first prose piece of the book will show how absolutely imaginary is his Arcadia, with its impossible combination of trees, and its absence of winter:—

“Giace nella sommità di Partenio, non umile monte della pastorale Arcadia, un dilettevole piano, di ampiezza non molto spazioso, peroche il sito del luogo non consente, ma di minuta e verdissima erbetta sì ripieno, che, se le lascive pecorelle con gli avidi morsi non vi pasceresso, vi si potrebbe d’ogni tempo ritrovare verdura. Ove, se io non m’inganno, son forse dodici o quindici alberi di tanto strana ed eccessiva bellezza, che chiunque le vedesse, giudicherebbe che la maestra natura vi si fosse con sommo diletto studiata in formarli. Li quali alquanto distanti, ed in ordine non artificioso disposti, con la loro rarità la naturale bellezza del luogo oltra misura annobiliscono. Quivi senza nodo veruno si vede il dritissimo abete, nato a sostenere i pericoli del mare; e con più aperti rami la robusta quercia, e l’alto frassino, e lo amenissimo platano vi si distendano, con le loro ombre non picciola parte del bello e copioso prato occupando; ed evvi con più breve fronda l’albero, di che Ercole coronare si solea, nel cui pedale le misere figliuole di Climene furono trasformate: ed in un de’ lati si scerne il noderoso castagno, il fronzuto bosco, e con puntate foglie lo eccelso pino carico di durissimi frutti; nell’ altro l’ombroso faggio, la incorruttibile tiglia, il fragile tamarisco, insieme con la orientale palma, dolci ed onorato premio dei vincitori. Ma fra tutti nel mezzo, presso un chiaro fonte, sorge verso il cielo un dritto cipresso,” etc., etc. The work is, moreover, full of direct imitations of Vergil, not, I fancy, of Theocritus also, as the Italian commentators suppose, for that poet was not adequately printed till 1495, which must have been very near the date of the actual composition of the Arcadia.

139.

It is worth noting that the Arcadian vision in the Shepherd of Hermas, describing a scene of twelve mountains of varied and contrasted aspect, though intended for an allegorical purpose, is really faithful to nature, and suggests that the author knew something of the country he describes.

140.

Pausanias places the source of the Alpheus higher up, and close to Tegea in the eastern plain.

141.

This is what Pausanias says, though modern scholars seem very doubtful about it.

142.

Several details, such as the unusual length in proportion to the breadth, the engaged pillars inside the cella, and the forms of the capitals, have now been explained as deliberate archaicisms on the part of Ictinus, who here copied far older forms. The curious Ionic, and even the Corinthian, capitals, may point back to old Asianic, or Assyrian, models, and the proportions of the cella with its engaged pillars have their prototype or parallel in the curious old Heræon (cf. p. 304) found at Olympia. This seems to me a very happy solution of the difficulties, and shows us Ictinus in a new light. Another specimen of his art, with unexpected features, may be the newly unearthed Hall of the Mysteries at Eleusis, already described, if indeed this be his work, and not a late copy of it.

143.

The same must have been the case with Messene, which was laid out likewise by Epaminondas on an absurdly large scale, as the remains of the great walls still show. They seem intended to enclose a whole parish, and not a city. But of these I shall speak again, p. 452.

144.

The results hitherto attained are still uncertain, owing to an active controversy between Dr. Dörpfeld and the English explorers, which has not yet (1892) been settled. I forbear entering upon it here.

145.

It is usually forgotten in recent accounts that this sacking of the town was no more than a retribution for the hideous massacre of the whole Turkish population, including women and children, in cold blood, by the insurgent Greeks. The details may be had in General Gordon’s Memoirs or in Finlay’s History.

146.

Strabo mentions that the new settlers, coming upon old tombs in the digging for new foundations, found there quantities of graceful pottery, which was sold to Romans, and became the fashion there. Hence it was diligently sought and sold under the title νεκροκορίνθια. We may be sure that every ancient tomb was rifled in this way.

147.

On the foundation of the new Greek kingdom, it was seriously debated whether Corinth should not be the capital; but the constant prevalence of fever in the district, together with sentimental reasons, determined the selection of Athens in preference.

148.

Even the new railway has not altered this. The journey up and down the bay in a coasting steamer is still well worth undertaking.

149.

M. Viollet-le-duc, in his Entretiens sur l’Architecture, vol. i. p. 45, explains the reason of this. Apart from the greater facility of raising smaller blocks, most limestones are subject to flaws, which are disclosed only by strain. Hence it was much safer to support the entablature on two separate beams, one of which might sustain, at least temporarily, the building, in case the other should crack.

150.

Cf. pp. 370 and 433.

151.

Strabo, who had apparently travelled but little through Greece, speaks with admiration of this view, which he had evidently seen. The fortress of Karytena is some twenty or thirty feet higher in situation and far more picturesque from below, but is too much surrounded by other high mountains to admit of a prospect like that from the Acro-Corinthus.

152.

Rambles and Studies in Greece

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