The Ship-Dwellers: A Story of a Happy Cruise
Aristophanes wrote a play that acted like a mustard-plaster on Cleon. It made him howl and caper and sweat and bring libel suits. Whereupon Aristophanes wrote another, and when he could get no actor to take the leading part – that of Cleon – he took it himself, and Cleon went to see it and wore out his teeth on tenpenny nails during the performance. Yes, I should have had a weakness for Aristophanes in those days, though I wish he might have omitted that tragic satire which twenty years later was to send Socrates the hemlock cup.
We climbed the hill a little way to a grotto and drank of the spring of Æsculapius and all our diseases passed away. It only cost a penny or two, and was the cheapest doctor bill I ever paid. I never saw a healthier lot than our party when they came out of the grotto and started for the Odeon – the little theatre which Herodes Atticus built in memory of his wife.
Two thousand years ago Cicero wrote home from Athens: "Wherever we walk is history." We realize that here at the base of the Acropolis. From the Theatre of Dionysus to the Spring of Æsculapius is only a step. From the Spring to the Sanctuary of Isis is another step; from the Sanctuary to the Odeon of Herodes is a moment's walk; the Pnyx – the people's forum – is a stone's-throw away, and the Hill of Mars. All about, and everywhere, great events have trod one upon the other; mighty mobs have been aroused by oratory; mighty armies have rallied to the assault; a hundred battles have drenched the place with blood. And above all this rises the Acropolis, the crowning glory.
We postponed the Acropolis until after luncheon. There would have been further riot and bloodshed on this consecrated ground had our conductor proposed to attempt it then. Our Argonauts are a fairly well-behaved lot and fond of antiquities, even though they giggle at the guide now and then, but they are human, too, and have the best appetites I ever saw. They would leave the Acropolis for luncheon, even though they knew an earthquake would destroy it before they could get back.
We did stop briefly at the Pnyx hill – the gathering-place of the Athenians – and stood on the rostrum cut from the living rock – the "Bema" from which Demosthenes harangued the populace.
As usual Laura, age fourteen, and I got behind the party. We stood on the Bema and took turns addressing the multitude, until we came near being left altogether by the Diplomat and the Blue Elephant, who finally whirled us away in a wild gallop to the hotel, which, thanks to Jupiter and all the Olympian synod, we reached in time.
We made a new guide arrangement in the afternoon. It was discovered that the guide for the German party could handle English, too, so we doubled up and he talked to us first in one language, then in the other, and those of us who knew a little of both caught it going and coming. Perhaps his English was not the best, but I confess I adored it. He lisped a little, and his voice – droning, plaintive, and pathetic – was full of the sorrow that goes with a waning glory and a vanished day. We named him Lykabettos because somehow he looked like that, and then, too, he towered above us as he talked.
So long as I draw breath that afternoon on the Acropolis will live before me as a sunlit dream. I shall see it always in the tranquil light of an afternoon in spring when the distant hills are turning green and forming pictures everywhere between mellowed columns and down ruined aisles. Always I shall wander there with Laura, and resting on the steps of the Parthenon I shall hear the sad and gentle voice of Lykabettos recounting the tale of its glory and decline. I shall hear him say:
"Zen Pericles he gazzer all ze moany zat was collect for ze army and he bring it here. But Pericles he use it to make all zese beautiful temple, and by and by when ze war come zere was no moany for ze army, so zay could not win."
Lykabettos' eyes wander mournfully in the direction of Sparta, whence the desolation had come. Then a little later, pointing up to a rare section of frieze – the rest missing – !
"Zat did not fall down, but stay zere, always ze same – ze honly piece zat Lord Elgin could not take away," and so on and on, through that long sweet afternoon.
I shall not attempt the story of the Acropolis here. The tale of that old citadel which later became literally the pinnacle of Greek architecture already fills volumes. I do not think Lykabettos was altogether just to Pericles, however, or to Lord Elgin, for that matter. True, Pericles did complete the Parthenon and otherwise beautify the Acropolis, and in a general way he was for architecture rather than war.
But I do not find that he ever exhausted the public treasury on those temples, and I do find where his war policy was disregarded when disregard meant defeat. Still, if there had been more money and fewer temples on the Acropolis, the result of any policy might have been different, and there is something pathetically gratifying in the thought that in the end Athens laid down military supremacy as the price of her marble crown.
As for Lord Elgin, it may be, as is said, that he did carry off a carload or so of the beautiful things when he had obtained from the Government (it was Turkish then) permission to remove a few pieces. But it may be added that the things he removed were wholly uncared for at that time and were being mutilated and appropriated by vandals who, but for Elgin, might have robbed the world of them altogether. As it is, they are safe in the British Museum, though I think they should be restored to Greece in this her day of reincarnation.
We stood before the Temple of Victory and gazed out on the Bay of Salamis, where victory was won. We entered the Erechtheum, built on the sacred spot where Athena victoriously battled with Poseidon for the possession of Athens, and we stood in reverential awe before the marble women that have upheld her portico so long. We crossed the relic-strewn space and visited the Acropolis museum, but it was chilly and lifeless, and I did not care for the classified, fragmentary things. Then we entered the little enclosure known as Belvedere and gazed down on the Athens of to-day.
If anybody doubts that modern Athens is beautiful, let him go to that spot and look down through the evening light and behold a marble vision such as the world nowhere else presents. Whatever ancient Athens may have been, it would hardly surpass this in beauty, and if Pericles could stand here to-day and gaze down upon the new city which has arisen to preserve his treasures, I think he would be satisfied.
When the others had gone to visit the Hill of Mars, Laura and I wandered back to the Parthenon, followed its silent corridors, and saw it all again to our hearts' content. And when our eyes were tired, we rested them by looking out between the columns to the hills, Hymettus and Pentelicus, glorified in the evening light, wearing always their "violet crown."
They are unchanged. Races may come and go, temples may rise and totter and crumble into dust. The old, old days that we so prize and honor – they are only yesterdays to the hills. The last fragment of these temples will be gone by and by – the last memory of their glory – but the hills will be still young and wearing their violet crown, still turning green in the breath of a Grecian spring.
Down through that splendid entrance, the Propylæa, at last, for it was growing late. We had intended climbing the Hill of Mars, where St. Paul preached, but we could see it plainly in the sunset light and there was no need to labor up the stairs. I think it was about this time of the day when St. Paul preached there. He had been wandering about Athens, among the temples, on a sort of tour of observation, making a remark occasionally – of criticism, perhaps – disputing with the Jews in the synagogue, and now and again in the market-place. The story, told in the seventeenth chapter of Acts, begins:
"Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoicks encountered him. And some said, 'What will this babbler say?' Other some, 'He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods,' because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection."
They brought St. Paul here to the Areopagus, that is, to Mars Hill, where in ancient days an open-air court was held, a court of supreme jurisdiction in cases of life and death. But it would seem that the court had degenerated in St. Paul's time to a place of gossip and wrangle. "For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or hear some new thing."
Paul rose up before the assembly and made his famous utterance beginning, "Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious." It was a fearless, wonderful sermon he delivered, and I like to think that it was just at the hour when we saw the hill; just at the evening-time, with the sunset glory on his face. Paul closed his remarks with a reference to the resurrection, a doctrine new to them:
"And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, 'We will hear thee again of the matter.'"
Which they did, for that was nineteen hundred years ago, and the churches of Greece to-day still ring with St. Paul's doctrine. We climbed into our waiting carriages, and turning saw the Acropolis in the sunset, as we had seen it in the sunrise that now seemed ages ago – which indeed it was, for we had been travelling backward and forward since then through the long millennial years.
I wanted to see Athens by night, and after dinner I slipped away and bribed a couple of boatmen who were hovering about the ship to take me ashore. It was not so far, but the wind and tide had kicked up a heavy sea and I confess I was sorry I started. Every time we slid down one wave I was certain we were going straight through the next, and I think the boatmen had some such idea, for they prayed steadily and crossed themselves whenever safety permitted.
We arrived, however, and I took the little train for the Theseus station. I wanted to get a near view of the temple and I thought night would be a good time. I would have walked there but I did not quite know the way. So I got into a carriage and said "Theseum," and the driver took me to a beer-saloon. It was a cheerful enough temple, but it was not classic. When I had seen it sufficiently, I got into the carriage and said "Theseum" again, and he took me to a theatre. The theatre was not classic, either, being of about the average Bowery type. So I got into the carriage and said "Theseum" again, and he took me to a graveyard. It didn't seem a good time to visit graveyards. I only looked through the gate a little and got back into the carriage and said the magic word once more and was hauled off to a blazing hotel.
That wouldn't do either. These might be, and doubtless were, all Theseums, but they were that in name only. What I wanted was the sure-enough, only original Theseum, set down in the guide-book as the best-preserved temple of the ancient Greek world. I explained this to a man in the hotel who explained it to my driver and we were off, down a beautiful marble business street, all closed and shuttered, for Athens being a capital is a quiet place after nightfall – as quiet as Washington, almost.
We were in front of the old temple soon. It was fairly dark there and nobody about. There was a dog barking somewhere, but I did not mind that. Dogs are not especially modern, and this one might be the three-headed Cerberus for all I knew or cared. What I wanted was to see the old temple when other people had gone to bed and the shadows had shut away the less-fortunate near-by architecture. They had done that now; the old temple might be amidst its earliest surroundings so far as I could see.
I walked up and down among its graceful Doric columns and stepped its measurements, and found it over a hundred feet long and nearly fifty wide; then I sat down on the step and listened to Cerberus bark – he had all three heads going at once now – and tried to imagine the life that had gathered there when this old fane was new. It is one of the temples of that brief golden period when all Athens burst into architectural flower. It was dedicated to Theseus and Hercules, and perhaps to a few other heroes and demi-gods and goddesses that they happened to think of when they laid the corner-stone.
One story has it that it was built on the spot where the Marathon runner fell dead, after telling in a word his news of victory. I like to believe that this is true. I like to reassemble the crowds here – the anxious faces waiting for the earliest returns from that momentous struggle which would decide the fate of Greece. I like to picture that panting, white-faced runner as he dashes in among them and utters his single glad cry as his soul goes out, and I like to believe that this temple, dedicated to other heroes, was established here in his memory.
But for Marathon there would have been no Golden Age – no Pericles, no Parthenon, no splendid constellation of names that need not be repeated here. The victory of Marathon was the first great check to a Persian invasion that would have Orientalized not only Greece, but all Europe. So it is proper that a temple should be built on the spot where that great news was told, and proper, too, that of all the temples of that halcyon time this should remain the most perfect through the years.
XVI
ATHENS THAT IS
On the road that leads from the old market-place, up past the Theseum to the Acropolis, there is a record of a humble but interesting sort. On the lower corner block of an old stone house, facing the highway, are three inscriptions. Two of them have been partly erased, but the third is quite legible, and one who knows Greek can read plainly a description of the property in metes and bounds and the original Greek word for "hypothecated," followed by "1000 drachmas."
It is a "live" mortgage, that is what it is, and it has been clinging to that property and piling up interest for more than two thousand years. The two half-obliterated inscriptions above it were once mortgages, too, but they were paid some time, and cancelled by erasure. The third one has never been satisfied, and would hold, like enough, in a court of law.
The owner of the property wrestled with that mortgage, I suppose, and struggled along, and died at last without paying it. Or perhaps the great war came, with upheaval and dissolution of things in general. Anyway, it was never paid, but has stayed there century after century, compounding interest, until to-day the increment of that original thousand drachmas would redeem Greece.
I was half a mind to look up the heirs of that old money-lender and buy their claim and begin their suit. Think of being involved in a tangle that has been stringing along through twenty-three centuries, and would tie up yesterday, to-day, and forever in a hard knot! I would have done it, I think, only that it might take another twenty-three centuries to settle it, and I was afraid the ship wouldn't wait.
If there is any one who still does not believe that modern Athens is beautiful and a credit to her ancient name, let him visit as we did her modern temples. We had passed the ancient market entrance, the Tower of the Winds, and other of the old landmarks, when suddenly we turned into a wonderful boulevard, and drove by or visited, one after another, the New Academy, the University, the National Library, the Gallery of Fine Arts, and the National Museum. If Pericles were alive to-day he would approve of those buildings and add them to his collection.
All the old classic grace and beauty have been preserved in the same pure-white pentelican marble, of which it is estimated that there is enough to last any city five thousand years. Corinthian, Ionic, and Doric columns that might have come from the Acropolis itself – and did, in design – adorn and support these new edifices as they did the old, and lend their ineffable glory to the rehabilitation of Greece.
We have learned, by-the-way, to distinguish the kinds of columns. They were all just Greek to us at first, but we know them now. When we see a column with acanthus leaves on the capital we know it is Corinthian, because we remember the story of the girl of Corinth who planted acanthus on her lover's grave and put a hollow tile around it for protection. Some of the leaves came up outside of the tile by and by, and a young architect came along and got his idea for the Corinthian capital.
We know the Ionic, too, because it looks like its initial – a capital "I" with a little curly top – and we say "I" is for Ionic; and we can tell the Doric, because it's the only one that doesn't suggest anything particular to remember it by. It's worth coming to Greece to learn these things. We should never have learned them at home – never in the world. We should not have had any reason for wanting to learn them.
We got tired of the Museum – Laura, age fourteen, and I – we were too young and frivolous for such things, though they are wonderful enough, I am sure. But then museums we have always with us, while a day in Athens is a fleeting thing. We wanted to take one of our private side-excursions, and we tried to communicate this fact to the Blue Elephant, who was our driver to-day, as yesterday.
It was no light matter. He nodded and smiled when we indicated that we wanted to leave the procession and go it on our own hook, but he did not move. We had already made up our minds that he was subject to fits, or was just plain crazy, for more than once he had suddenly broke away from the party and whirled us around side-streets for a dozen blocks or so to something not down on the programme, rejoining the procession in some unexpected place.
But whatever may have induced his impulses then, nothing seemed to stir his ambition for adventure now. I gesticulated and produced money; I summoned the Diplomat to tackle him in his best Xenophan, but it was no use. I got the guide at last, and then there was an exciting harangue that looked as if it might end in blood. I suppose our man thought he wouldn't get his full pay if he deserted the ship crowd. He must have been convinced, finally, for he leaped upon the box, and away we went in a wild race for the shops and by-streets where we had begged the guide to let us go.
We had explained that we wanted some bags – some little embroidered bags, such as we had seen earlier in the day when we could not stop. The Blue Elephant understood now and took us to where there were bags – many bags. The whole street was lined with bags and other embroideries, and the Greeks turned out to give us a welcome.
It is said that one Greek is equal to three Turks, and I believe it. The poorest Greek we saw was too much for two Americans, and we were beset and besieged and literally borne down and swamped by a rising tide of bags. We bought at many prices and in many places; we piled the carriage full and fled away at last when they were going to dump upon us a collection of costumes and firearms and draperies that would have required a flat-car.
We were breathing easier when the Blue Elephant pulled us into another narrow street, and behold! it was another street of bags. Dear me! how could we explain that we had enough bags and wanted to see other things? I would almost have given four hundred dollars to have been able to tell him that I wanted to visit the old Byzantine structure we had passed that morning – the one with all the little shoemakers down-stairs – but the thing was impossible. I must buy some more bags, there was no help for it. So I did buy some more, and I picked out a place where a man spoke enough English to give the Blue Elephant a fresh start, which brought us at last to the old Byzantine building and the little shoemakers.
Then we saw the street of a hundred clanking sounds – anyway we called it that, for they made all kinds of copper vessels in there – and we got out and told the Blue Elephant to wait, for the place was very narrow; but we couldn't lose him, seeing he was always on our heels, ready to whirl us away somewhere, anywhere, in his crazy, fitty fashion. We had to let him do it, now, for we had used up all the interpreters we could find; besides, we didn't care, any more.
Still, when it got to be near luncheon-time we did begin to wonder where the party had gone. It did not matter greatly, we could lunch anywhere, but we were curious to know whether we should ever see them or the ship again, and when we mentioned the matter to the Blue Elephant he merely grinned and whipped up his horses and capered across another square. But presently I realized that some sort of procession was passing and that he had turned into it. Then it was all just like dreams I've had, for it was our own procession, and we were calmly going along in it, and right away were being personally conducted through a remarkable church where the king and queen go, and sit in golden chairs. Alice in Wonderland could hardly have had a more surprising adventure.
Our party being free after luncheon, Laura and I engaged Lykabettos on our own account and drove out to the Bay of Salamis, where Xerxes made his great mistake in the matter of fleets.
Perhaps Lykabettos had taken a fancy to us, for he engaged a carriage that had been awarded a prize last year in the games, he said, and the team with it. We believed Lykabettos – anybody would – and anyway it was a beautiful outfit, and we cantered away over a fine road, past wayside shrines, past little huts and houses, past a little memorial that marks the place on a hill where Xerxes placed his silver-footed throne so that he might sit comfortably and watch the enemy's ships go down. Only, the programme didn't work out that way, Lykabettos said:
"Zen Xerxes he pretty soon see zat it was not ze Greek ship zat sink, and he mus' run pretty quick or he will be capture; and hees ship zay try to escape, and he not take away hees army from zat little island you see over zere; zay stay zere and are all massacre by ze Greek – by ze men and ze women, too, who have watch ze battle from here and go over and kill zem."
The little island Lykabettos pointed out was Psyttalleia, and the flower of Persia perished there. It was a tiny bit of barren land then, and it is to-day. The hills around Salamis are barren, too, covered only with a gray weed like the sage-brush of Nevada, and stunted groves of scrubby pine and ground cedar – referred to by Lykabettos as "ze forest."
We came to the tiny hamlet on the water's side, a collection of two or three huts, and Lykabettos engaged a lateen-sailed lugger (I should call it that, though its name was probably something else), and with a fresh wind half-ahead we billowed over the blue waters of Salamis, where twenty-five hundred years ago the Persian ships went down. It was a cloudy afternoon and there was a stormy feeling in the sky. It seemed just the time to be there, and there was nothing to dispel the illusion of imminent battle that was in the air.
I was perfectly sure, and so was Laura, that the Persian fleet was likely at any moment to round the point and land troops on Pysttalleia; also that the Greek fleet was hiding somewhere in the Bay of Eleusis, and that there were going to be very disagreeable happenings there in a few minutes. There was a hut where we landed on the Island of Salamis and a girl making lace at the front door. She might have been there twenty-five hundred years ago, as well as not – perhaps was – and saw the great victory.
We sailed back then, crossing again the exact spot where the battle raged, and drove home through the gathering evening, while Lykabettos recounted in that sad voice of his the history of ancient days. We are on the ship now, with anchor weighed, looking to the Farther East. Athens with its temples and its traditions drops below the horizon. Darkness and silence once more claim the birthplace of gods and heroes as we slip out of these quiet waters and head for the Ægean Sea.
XVII
INTO THE DARDANELLES
We saw but little of the Isles of Greece. It was night and we were tired after a hard day; most of us, I think, turned in early. Now and then a light – a far tiny speck – appeared in one quarter or another – probably a signal beacon; that was all.
But in the morning – it was soon after breakfast – a gray bank rose up out of the sea, and the word went round that it was Asia. That was a strange thing for a boy who had been brought up on the prairies of the Middle West – to look across the bow and see Asia coming up out of the sea. It brought back a small, one-room, white district schoolhouse, dropped down on the bleak, level prairie, and geography-class of three, standing in a row and singing to the tune of Old Dan Tucker the rhymes of the continents:
