Greek Pictures, drawn with pen and pencil

Preface

This volume has been written at the request of the Committee of the Religious Tract Society, the publishers of the ' Pen and Pencil ' series of illustrated books of travel. It is subject to the conditions applied to all the volumes ; that is, it draws its pictures from all parts of Greece, and seeks to set forth latest and most accurate information in an interesting manner, without going deeply into those matters which can interest only the student and the specialist. It has not been an easy task to secure good engravings for the book. There are a large number of good photographs and sketches in existence of famous temples, works of art, and antiquities ; but the terror of the Greek brigand seems to have hitherto prevented the artist and the professional photographer from travelling far afield in Greece.

Notwithstanding what has been done in recent years by the Hellenic Society, and by such amateurs as the late Mr. Macmillan, the Rev. W. Covington and others, there is much yet to be done in the way of making the fine scenery of

PREFACE.

. Thessaly, Laconia, or Arcadia as familiar by means of sketches and photo graphs as Norway, or Russia, or Spain. Special thanks have to be given to Mr. G. A. Macmillan for permission to use the photographs taken by his brother, the late Mr. Malcolm Macmillan, and Mr. Louis Dyer, from which the engravings are taken on pages 5, 167, 179, and 192; to the Rev. W. Covington for those on pages 7 and 153, and to Messrs. T. Cook and Sons for the use of the engravings on pages 216, 220, and 221. It is to be hoped that the rapidly improving facilities for travel in Greece, and the increased safety for travellers and tranquillity of the country, will induce much larger numbers to go and study the battlefields of Marathon and Mantinea, the sites of Olympia and Sparta, the beauties of the Vale of Tempe and the Gulf of Nauplia, and experience to the full the fascination of looking upon the scenes once familiar to Alcibiades, Socrates, Plato, and Euripides.

Part of the Frieze of the Theatre of Dionysus, Athens. CONTENTS AND LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Greek National Dance .......... Frontispiece The Victor's Crown ........... page 5 Part of the Frieze of the Theatre of Dionysus, Athens ..... 7 Map of Greece ............ 10

Introduction

.

Jannina, capital of Epirus : one of the places ceded Equestrian Figure from the Frieze of the Parto Greece by the Berlin Treaty . . page 12 thenon ....... page 13 Salamis ......... 16

Chapter II. First Impressions

A Greek Harvest Home ..... 18 A Greek Woman of Mantoudi in the National Homer 19 Dress 23 A Modern Greek in National Dress ... 22 A Mountain View on the Gulf of Corinth . . 26 The Castle of Suli, in Epirus ...... 29

Chapter VI. Athens

Stalls in the Theatre at Athens . . . 91 Doric Capital and part of Shaft ... 92 Ionic Capital with Shaft 92 Ruins of the Temple of Jupiter Olympius (looking East) 93 Demosthenes ....... 96 Attic Pottery 9s An Attic Tomb Relief 99 Funeral Tablet from the Cerameicus, Athens . 100 Muffled Figure, Tanagra ..... 101 Ancient Greek Methods of Dressing the Hair. (From the Tanagra Figurines.) . . .102 The Acropolis from the South-west ... 64 Temple of Theseus and Acropolis from the West 65 Pericles ........ 68 Sophocles ....... 69 The Temple of Victory, Acropolis ... 72 The Steps and Propylæa of the Acropolis . 73 Parthenon, Interior, Restored .... 76 A Caryatid from the Erechtheum ... 77 Figures from the Pediment of the Parthenon (British Museum) ...... 7S The Erechtheum ...... 79 The Areopagus. ...... S3 The Theatre of Dionysus at Athens. . . 90

Chapter VII. Christian Athens

Details of Byzantine Church Ornamentation. . 105 The Laurium Silver Mines in Greece . . .103 The Church of St. Theodore at Athens . . 107

Chapter VIII

BŒOTIA. Head-dresses from the Tanagra Figurines . .no Terra-cotta Figurine, Tanagra . . . 112 Specimens of Greek Artistic Dress . . .113 Ordinary Greek Dress . . . . . 114 Aula with Præstas . . . • . 115

Chapter X. The

PELOPONNESUS-ACHÆA. Plan of the Theatre and Stadium at Sikyon . Greek Vases—Early Classical Period . . 129 131 View on the Gulf of Corinth, near Vostitza . CONTENTS. 9

Chapter XI. Elis-olympia

Ruins of a Byzantine Church, near Elis . page 137 Greek Mountaineers . . . . . 138 Greek Hospitality . . . . . 139 Athlete using the Strigil or Flesh Brush (the Apoxyomenos of Lysippus) .... 142 Interior of the Great Temple at Olympia (restored) 147 Head of Zeus (Jupiter), known as the Otricoli Type page 148 The Venus of Melos (now in the Louvre) . . 149 The Nike of Pæonius found at Olympia . . 149 A Warrior of Marathon (about 480 B.C.) . . 150 Æschines the Orator (about 330 B.C.) . . 150

Chapter XII. Argos

MYKENÆ AND TIRYNS. Citadel of Argos ...... 152 Gold Cups found by Dr. Schliemann in Tombs at Mykenæ 159 A Diadem of Gold from Mykenæ . . . 160 Pelasgic Masonry at Tiryns .... 163 164 The Gate of Lions at Mykenæ . . . 153 The Gulf of Nauplia . . . . . 155 Nauplia, seen from Tiryns . . . . 156 Crete

Chapter XIII. Sparta, Messene Maina, And Arcadia

The Plain of Messene 166 The Valley of Sellasia 167 Ancient Sparta (restored) ..... 173 Langgada Pass . . . . • . 179 Cascade of the Styx . A Greek ' Pappas,' or Priest . . . .184 The Battle-field of Tegea .... 192 Temple of Apollo thc Helper at Bassce . . 196 Karytena . . . . . . . 2<>o . 203

Chapter XIV. Northern Greece

-Venetian Tower at Chalcis . . . .20*; Sfc ... 212 Volo 204^ Mount Olympus <"^x CHAPTETf XV. THE GREEK ASPECTS OF MACEDONIA. Mount Athos ....... 220 Monastery of Holy Trinity, Trikkala . . 221 General View of the Principal Monasteries of Meteora Sta /{sorts s Gevjrf Mstabi Landa, Map of Greece. Jannina, Capital of Epirus : one of the Places ceded to Greece by the Berlin Treaty. Equestrian Figure from the Frieze of the Parthenon

Chapter I

Introduction. PERHAPS the first reflection of the ordinary man, who looks at the map of Greece, and sees how tiny a fraction it occupies of the map of Europe, is to wonder how so small a place should have attained such great and lasting importance in the minds of men. How can it compare for one moment with those larger peninsulas which hold many millions more of men — how with those large kingdoms which are now naturally the leading powers of the civilised world ? A little more thought will soon get rid of this difficulty as any peculiar obstacle to the importance of Greece, for all history tells us that real greatness, and real importance (beyond supplying regiments), does not depend on size, but on other qualities. Even in the modern map of Europe, a visitor from another planet would not guess that the small island in the north-west called England was more important and more powerful than any area of the same size in the better climates and more fruitful soil of Southern Europe.

And when we go back into the annals of the past, it seems almost a law that all the greatest interests of human nature are centred in some small spot, some focus of spiritual light, of intellectual energy, from which they radiate into the large tracts which have but small part in human progress. The area of Egypt is not nearly as large as that of Ireland, and yet for many centuries Egypt exceeded in importance all the other nations of the world put together. The plain of Mesopotamia was not larger, and yet from hence too the whole of Hither Asia was ruled and civilised. The Phœnicians swayed all the Mediterranean in their day, and here is the still more astonishing problem, reproduced long after by Venice, of a people who had little more than a town for their country swaying large districts, and ruling over millions of men.

But why delay over lesser instances, when we have in Palestine the greatest and strangest of them all ? When our Lord ' was made flesh and dwelt amongst us,' His wisdom chose, not the greatest country of the world in situation, in size, in circumstances, but a small ancl remote country, inhabited by a people small in numbers, and isolated from other nations. It might have seemed to human wisdom a strange choice for the cradle of a new religion, intended to conquer the world. Even human wisdom can be taught, however, that the Divine selection was according to the analogy of all history. The importance of a country and its people has never depended on quantity, but on quality. The steadfast pertinacity of the Jews, their earnestness in maintaining and spreading their faith, showed clearly that to them in the first instance, and through them to larger nations, might the new faith be most fitly entrusted.

Thus a small nation may have and perform a great mission, and so a small country may represent interests far vaster than were ever entrusted to the steppes of Asia or the prairies of j^merica. I suppose that, next to Palestine, no more signal example of the law I have been explaining can be found than in the case of Greece. Unable to cope in population or in resources with the great kingdoms of the world, often held in subjection or in partial dependence by stronger neighbours, passing at last from master to master into downright slavery beneath the Turks, this wonderful peninsula has asserted and reasserted itself time after time with indestructible energy. It has absorbed its invaders, leavened its conquerors, dominated its masters. And so there is no spot of the same area in all the world, about which so much has been thought, and written, and said.

And yet when we call Greece very small, it is by no means so small as might be inferred from a hasty look at the map. In the first place, its limits are not easily defined. Not only does it include the islands of the Levant, but, in its greater days, the coasts of Asia Minor and the ' Two Sicilies ' were counted, fairly enough, as parts of Greece. For they were inhabited by the Greek people, and belonged to the same great unit known as Hellenic country. But even laying aside this once lawful extension, as taking us far beyond the limits of a volume like the present, the actual surface of Greece and its coast lines are quite out of proportion to the indications of ordinary maps. For the country is almost wholly a moun-

INTRODUCTION.

. 15 tainous country ; the islands are mountains, or chains of mountains, standing out of the sea, so that to cross any of these narrow shreds of land, as they appear on the map, is far longer, even in miles, than to sail round it. The coast line is so broken and indented, that it exceeds by hundreds of miles the bounding line of any European kingdom. If the mountains run into the sea, the sea also runs into the mountains, so that from a yacht the traveller may visit almost any spot in Greece without spending more than one night on shore. There is, therefore, more to see, more to be done, more variety of scene, more separation of landscape, than is at first conceivable. Each plain, the seat of old cities with their surrounding homesteads, is separated from the next, either by the sea or by chains of mountains, forming a real and lasting barrier.

Bœotia is quite a new country, which you reach from Attica only by climbing mountains and crossing passes. Laconia is separated from Arcadia, Argos, Messene, by even greater obstacles. Even Corinth is severed from Megara, Megara from Eleusis, Eleusis from Athens, by barren and rugged hills, so that the traveller who passes from one to the other feels how natural it was to have in each of them a separate society and a distinct history. In Attica itself, as I have just said, Eleusis is separated by hills, and invisible from Athens, so much so that the historian tells us the people of Attica did not feel invaded so long as the Spartans ravaged that district. It was not till they crossed the Pass of Daphne and occupied Acharnæ, that the disaster came home to the Athenians. And so also old legends speak of a time when not only Eleusis, but Marathon, equally out of sight of the ultimate capital, were independent, and obeyed rulers of their own.

This it was which not only made the physical, but the political surface of Greece so various and interesting. The only modern parallel I can quote to the reader, is the occurrence of many independent cantons in Switzerland, where the several valleys are parted, as in Greece, either by sheets of water or great mountains. But whether it be severity of climate, or want of commercial outlets, or deficiency in that national genius which we are all trying to explain by natural causes, and without success, the Swiss are only like the Greeks in isolation, love of liberty, and love of mercenary service ; in historic greatness, in literary fame — despite Miirten and Morgarten, despite Geneva and the Calvinists — Greece stands unchallenged and alone. It is all the more necessary to insist upon the beauty of Greek landscape, because as yet there are very imperfect means of reproducing it to the general reader.

No great painter has made that fairyland his special object ; even the photographer has only penetrated its wilder parts to reproduce artistic remains, old temples, tomb reliefs ; he has not turned aside — how could he ? — to give even his cold travesties of the light and colour of the hills and dales, its isles and woods. While, therefore, our pictures can give a very fair idea of the antiquities and the art treasures of the country, we are in landscape very helpless, till modern painters extend their view, and embrace upon their canvas this southern Norway, this marine Switzerland, this fairest and most fascinating of all the countries in Europe. Salamis. c A Greek Harvest Home. Homer.

Chapter II

First Impressions THE day is not yet past, though I can see it passing away, when a voyage to Greece is still a serious thing, to be compassed with consideration and with advice, with consultation of guide-books and of friends, with calculations of time and of money. Even still, therefore, most travellers will hardly escape the peculiar excitement which attends a first visit to this famous land, and will count it a great day in their experience. Nearly twenty years ago, I enjoyed this intense delight, and even now the pages in which I sought to record it appear to me hardly antiquated. ' For many hours after the coasts of Calabria had faded into the night, and even after the snowy dome of Etna was lost to view, our ship steamed through the open sea, with no land in sight ; but we were told that early in the morning, at the very break of dawn, the coasts of Greece would be visible.

So, while others slept, I started up at half-past three in the c morning, eager to get the earliest possible sight of the land which still occupies so large a place in our thoughts. It was a soft, grey morning ; the sky was covered with light, broken clouds, the deck was wet with a passing shower, of which the last drips were still flying in the air ; and before us, some ten miles away, the coasts and promontories of the Peloponnesus were reaching southward into the quiet sea. These long serrated ridges did not look lofty, in spite of their snow-clad peaks, nor did they look inhospitable, in spite of their rough outline, but were all toned in harmonious colour — a deep purple blue, with here and there, on the far Arcadian peaks, and on the ridge of Mount Taygetus, patches of pure snow. In contrast to the large sweeps of the Italian coast, its open seas, its long waves of mountain, all was here broken, and rugged, and varied.

The sea was studded with rocky islands, and the land indented with deep, narrow bays. ' I can never forget the strong and peculiar impression of that first sight of Greece ; nor can I cease to wonder at the strange likeness which rose in my mind, and which made me think of the bays and rocky coasts of the west and south-west of Ireland. There was the same cloudy, showery sky, which is so common there ; there was the same serrated outline of hills, the same richness in promontories, and rocky islands and land-locked bays. Nowhere have I seen a like purple colour, except in the wilds of Kerry and Connemara ; and though the general height of the Greek mountains, as the snow in May testified, was far greater than that of the Irish hills, yet on that morning, and in that light, they looked modest and homely, not dis playing their grandeur, or commanding awe and wonder, but rather attracting the sight by their wonderful grace, and by their variety and richness of out line and colour.'1 This is the southern approach by sea — perhaps, after all, the least interesting.

For now most travellers will prefer to go by Corfu and through the Ionian islands to Patras, from whence a train — yes, a puffing engine with square carriages — brings them by Sicyon," Corinth, Megara, Eleusis, to the capital. Most of the essential features of Greek landscape disclose themselves to the wondering eye on this exquisite journey. At dawn of day you come in sight of the Acro-Ceraunian Mountains, and that wild country, now Albania, which of old nursed Pyrrhus, the scourge of Rome ; Olympias, the Titanic mother of Alexander the Great ; and in after days a lesser Alexander, Scanderbeg, who was, neverthless, a great figure in the history of his day ; and as the Dorians of old came down from their mountains, and refreshed Southern Greece with their strong youth and their warlike virtues, so, in the Middle Ages, these Albanian mountaineers have brought both warlike spirit, bright costume, and beauty of person, to refresh the Hellenic race.

There are still, even in Attica, districts where Albanian is the common language ; there are Albanian names famous in Greek annals, Rambles and Studies in Greece^ pp. 3-5. especially in the great War of Independence (182 1-3 1), and even among the sailors of Hydra, so famed for their commercial enterprise and their deeds of war, the chief families were Albanian in origin. The Greeks, who possess with the other Ionian islands, Corfu, since the cession, by Mr. Gladstone's influence, feel very sore that the mainland opposite their principal island, the rugged nurse of the splendid youths one sees buying weapons and ammunition in the market of Corfu, should still belong to the Turks. But every effort to possess themselves of Joannina by diplomacy sailed against the tough resistance of the Porte.

At the present moment (1889), the Greeks have a very strong argument to urge in favour of their claims. While every spot in the kingdom of Greece is perfectly safe for strangers, and can be visited without escort or alarm, this very province of Joannina — the ancient Epirus — is so insecure that neither the Turkish nor the English Government will sanction any attempt to travel through it. There could be no fairer and more characteristic way of entering Greece, now that railways are threatening to carry people there by sleeping-cars and night mails, than to land from Corfu, and ride through Joannina over the passes of Mount Pindus to Meteora in Thessaly, and so to Volo. This excursion of four days from the Adriatic to the Levant would carry the traveller through splendid mountain passes, clothed with forest or with rich ever green vegetation.

He would see true and undebauched mountaineers in their homes, and would enjoy that peculiar pleasure, becoming rarer every day, of travelling in Europe his own master, unvexed by posts and their punctuali ties, officials and their irksome patronage. Before I return from this Albanian digression, I will say a word about the costume which has become the national dress of the Greeks. The most characteristic feature is the fnstanella, a white petticoat, which, like the Scottish kilt, gives its name to the whole attire. Wearing the fustanella in Greece is like ' wearing the kilt ' in Scotland. This petticoat is, however, far more troublesome and exacting than its Highland brother. In the first place, it must be as tight as possible round the waist ; and this is the reason that the king's guards at /\thens, who wear it as their uniform, look so straight and well drilled.

If you want a man to stand thoroughly upright, squeeze in his waist. The amount of white linen or calico is also enormous — perhaps twenty or thirty yards, plaited so densely that the whole thing stands out from the wearer after the manner of a ballet-dancer's attire. At first sight this strikes the stranger as ungraceful, especially as it is coupled with a tight leg-dress, and shoes turned up at the toes, with large woollen rosettes upon them. But the gaiters or greaves are richly embroidered, and of dark rich colours ; the open jacket or vest, with its hanging sleeves, is covered with rich ornament, and the broad leather belt is a study in itself, holding knives, pistols, tobacco — what not? It is in fact the only pocket, and a very capacious one, in the whole costume. The head-dress is not a fez, but a red cap with a long blue tassel, fitted tight to the head, and generally worn rakishly on one side.

The general effect of a crowd dressed in this way is very brilliant — a great deal of white, both the clean white of linen ancl the duller cream-white of wool. This I take to have been the general tone of an old Greek crowd as well. Then there are the brilliant patches of scarlet in the head-dresses, and many jackets of dark blue, maroon, rich brown, as well as the beautiful embroideries upon white woollen coats, which are the most attractive of all. In wet weather, or in the winter, they carry besides a huge capote of very rough frieze, of home manufacture, which serves them as a saddle-cloth or a blanket as well as an overcoat. The dress of the women, when they still wear a national dress, is not so striking, nor do I feel very compe tent to describe it. The obvious features are the display of coins — gold and silver — in the form of a broad necklace covering the throat, and so an Albanian or Phocian girl shows her fortune, and the large, loose great-coat or dressing-gown of wool, with red embroidery round the skirt, which is a shapeless garment, though of course far better than the modern horrors they adopt from the wandering traders, or the distorted echoes of European fashion.

One of the curious features in this century is the admiration for national costume among all the people who have lost it, and the low esteem for it among all those who still pos sess it. We, who have sunk all colour and design in grey tweeds and A Modern Greek in National Dress. pot-hats, take artificial opportunities of decking ourselves out in these foreign and barbarous dresses, which the natural wearers lay aside, if possible, to adopt our uniform hideousness of attire. Even the beautiful tones of Eastern carpets, which we justly prize, and for which we pay large money, are now disappearing in the East before imitations of the staring discords of modern German manufacturers. To purchase a good Greek rug at Athens twenty years ago was easy enough. Now you will not see one in a thousand at the bazaars — you must go to some left-behind place, like Salonica or Monastir, to find these relics of unconscious good taste.

But I feel I am spending too many pages on these external features, and delaying the reader unduly on this entrance into Greece. Though Corfu (the old Corcyra) is now an essential part of the Hellenic kingdom, and a frequent summer residence of the king, there are many things in it peculiar to the history of the island, and not elsewhere to be found in these waters. It shares, of course, with Zante and the other Ionian islands, including even Cerigo (the old Cythera), the benefits derived from the English occupation — good roads, proper light houses, and the notions of clean hotels and civilised appointments. These advantages make Corfu even now a pleasant and com fortable place for residence. In antiquities, Corfu is curiously poor, seeing that it was a well-known Hellenic centre of wealth from old times, notorious indeed in Thucydides for its atrocities, as that great artist selected it for the gloomiest picture on his historical canvas, but of course also abounding in those treasures which, if now unearthed, would make the for tune of any Greek town.

But except the circular tomb of Menecrates with its old inscrip tion, and the famous archaic lion now preserved in the royal A Greek Woman of Mantoudi in the National Dress. residence, there is hardly anything to be studied. Part of this dearth is no doubt due to the careful collections of precious things made by Lord Ockham (now Lord Lovelace), Mr. Wroodhouse, and others, who lived in Corfu, and bought when buying was possible. Any one who examines the Woodhouse Collection, now incorporated, but specified, in the British Museum, will see the sense of this observation. It is remarkable that Corfu has always held the pre-eminence among the Ionian islands, probably because it was the outpost to and from Italy. Both in climate and in fruitfulness it is not superior to Zante or Cephalonia ; indeed, the former is even fairer, and contains mineral wealth peculiar to itself.

On the southern slopes of Cephalonia, and at Zante, the currant grape will grow, whereas even at Corfu the winters are too cold. The lemons and oranges of Zante are imported to Corfu. Nevertheless, these southern islands have never attained to any fame, if we except the steep rock of Ithaca, which made its reputation ages ago, by the inventions of the great poet who wrote the Odyssey. I dare not call him Homer, lest I should be suspected of old-fashioned views, and of holding that he was also the poet of the Iliad. I am already going very far in the retrograde direction when I speak of him in the singular, and when I say that he wrote his poem. The curious thing about him is this : that though he gives rightly the general character of Ithaca, as a rocky and barren island, he seems to have no real knowledge of the place in detail.

The ingenious attempts made by firm believers like Dr. Schliemann and others, to identify the sites picturesquely described in the Odyssey, have resulted, I think, in total failure. But, nevertheless, Ithaca, as a name, will live in story for ever, and remains a monument of the power of poetry. But with this strange exception, and that of the Corcyrean massacres, to which I have already alluded, the statement with which I opened my Rambles and Studies remains true, that all the importance of Greece looks eastward, and that this Ionian or Adriatic side is the out-of-the-way, the backward, the forgotten part of the country. Let me add another curious negative testimony, which I have not before mentioned. When St. Paul came to preach the Gospel in Europe, he coasted the north and the east of the land ; he preached at Philippi, Thessalonica, Athens, Corinth.

The western country is never mentioned. From Greece his labours extend even to Italy — but he never takes the ordinary route. He never preaches at Patræ, at Zacynthus, at Corcyra. Nor do we hear of any of his fellow workers or followers coming or going to these parts. There were, of course, special causes for the depopulation and decay of Western Greece in the period preceding St. Paul's labours. The country had been laid waste by the Romans, and had become mere pastures or barren lands. Roman lords like Pomponius Atticus owned large tracts in Epirus. A Roman exile like Caius Antonius could lord it as he chose in Cephalonia. There was, therefore, except at Nicopolis and Patræ, no population to be com pared with that of the districts visited by the apostle. But at all times and at all epochs the unimportance of Western Greece is signal and curious.

As the steamer makes her way southward, the great mountains unfold themselves, and disclose the entrance into the famous Gulf of Corinth — that long fiord which has witnessed more history and more politics than any library of books could adequately expound. To the right and to the left, as you enter this gulf, are the Alps, which have again and again been the nurses of liberty. There was a period in Greek history when all the greater states had become effete, had fallen under the power of Macedon, had sullied their great traditions, and were degraded to flattery and mendicancy in their public acts. The great historian of Greece, George Grote, when he comes to this condition of things at Athens, cites with disgust one of their fawning decrees, offering the honours of the state for a mess of pottage from a foreign king, and throws down his pen.1 But in the mountains now before us, and on either side, both north and south, the hardy mountaineers of /Etolia and Achaia, hitherto hidden from history and from fame, formed a new political life, that of Confederations, and renewed in the Greece of Polybius what the Greece of Thucydides and Xenophon had so nobly begun.