Days in Attica

Preface

SINCE these chapters were written the Greek nation has entered upon a new phase. The Balkan War is over, and it is still too soon to estimate all the results ; but even the extension of the kingdom is of secondary importance when compared with the new provinces which recent years have added to the national character — reserve, forethought, self-denial. These qualities are not the results of the war. The successes of the Greek nation, when suddenly called upon to take up arms, were the fruit of a preliminary period of self-discipline. It was the new Greek who heralded the new Greece.

Since Mr. Venizelos came into power such important changes have come about that the nation seems transformed. The Constitution has been revised, criminal law amended, the army and navy remodelled, and the police service reformed. Above all, the civil service has been made permanent and independent of party — a change which involved sacrifices on the part of men of all classes. In a country notorious for its frequent changes of ministry Venizelos' Government, after four years of office, is stronger than ever ; in fact, the old party divisions have been broken down by a new national consciousness.

viii DAYS IN ATTICA

Thus before his reign of fifty years was so tragically ended King George had seen some of the reforms of which he had dreamed, and which under former conditions had seemed to be outside the sphere of practical politics, realized without a struggle by the volition of the whole people. Some of the new measures meant personal loss to those who gladly supported them ; and this spirit of abnegation has shone out again and again during the recent campaign.

If I have made little mention of these things and of the vistas now opening before Greater Greece, it is not because the miracle of national regeneration has been overlooked, but because they were outside the scope of this volume, which is a record of Athenian yesterdays. Athens herself is changing and growing. She will never lose her charm, but that which is drawn here as the modern city may soon seem as picturesque and as remote as the Athens of King Otho.

Many books have been written about the Athens of classical days, but there are other aspects of her history and associations to which less justice has been done. Full of romance in themselves, they are essential links in the process by which Ancient Greece has grown into the Greek Kingdom of to-day. These sketches may serve to persuade the leisured traveller that he has not exhausted Athens and Attica when he has seen the Acropolis and the museums. For such a traveller, not for the professed scholar, I have added a list of books, most of them easily accessible. The larger, illustrated works may be found in the library of the Hellenic Society in London, or in those of the British and American Schools at Athens. I have not assumed a knowledge of Greek in my readers.

PREFACE ix

For those who have it, there are important books and papers by native historians, such as Sathas and Spyridon Lambros ; and Kambouroglu's two books on Turkish Athens are full of entertaining matter.

I wish to thank Sir Arthur Evans for kindly permitting me to reproduce the painting of a Bull and Acrobats, found at Knossos ; Dr. Karo, Secretary of the German Archaeological Institute at Athens, for similar permission in regard to the Tiryns Boar-hunt; and the Committee of the British School at Athens for the use of two plans of churches taken from Mr. Schultz and Mr. Barnsley's Monastery of Saint Luke of Stiris. For other help I am especially indebted to Mrs. Steele, L. V. Hodgkin, R. H. Hodgkin, Mr. William Miller, Mr. John Penoyre, and Mr. W. E. Craigie. The fountain-head of my information throughout seems too obvious to mention since the title-page bears his name.

E. S. B.

Contents

PAGE

INTRODUCTORY : TRAVEL IN GREECE . . . .1

CHAPTER

Chapter I Crete The Northern Ports

CRETE in the sunrise ! That is where Greek history begins in the books, where it begins also for the happy traveller who can approach Greece by way of Crete. In travelling it is not always easy to make the most logical approach to your subject. Steamers and railways have a habit of disregarding history and sentiment, and those who care enough about obtaining the right sequence of impressions will find that they must forsake the main routes of travel. At the present time the simplest way of reaching Greece via Crete is to take one of the smaller Messagerie boats that run fortnightly from Marseilles to Canea, the capital of Crete, or an Austrian-Lloyd boat starting from Trieste. The first sight of the island is unforgettable. You step from your dark cabin in the early morning and find yourself in a luminous upper world, threaded with grey lines of zephyrous cloud and distant coastland. The newly-washed deck mirrors the glory, and the ship becomes a golden argosy bearing you into your first ^gean sunrise. Around the horizon, hinted in faint grey, lies the well-known map of the Mediterranean translated into reality. On the left a rocky headland,

Cape Matapan, shows the distant mainland of Greece. Nearer, looming grey and large, is Cythera, and on the distant southern horizon the smaller island, Anticythera, that cost the Roman world a shipload of masterpieces and kept them for the delight of our own generation (see p. i88). Behind Cythera the jagged line of Cape Malea, the most eastern promontory of the Peloponnese, can be seen on a clear day. Had our course been set for Athens rather than for Crete we should have headed close under this rock of evil name. Our steamer would have hooted greetings to the tiny hermitage perched where only goats should climb, and the lonely hermit who lives there would have rung his chapel bell in answer.

The boat is heading south-east, and far away on the right — a glow of snowy peaks — the White Mountains stand to receive the first heartleap of recognition. So are the white cliffs of Dover to the Briton, and so was the tip of Athena's brazen spear on the Acropolis to the returning Greek mariner. Beneath the mountains lies Crete, beautiful, enticing, romantic. The island is little more than three successive mountain ranges — the White Mountains, Ida, and Lasithi, with the uplands at their feet rich in corn, wine, and oil. For the greater part of the year these mountains are capped with snow. Their outlines dominate the whole island. The highlands leading up to them are pierced with luxuriant gorges. On the map, Crete seems shaped like a long boat ; its high, sharp prow points to the west, its curving stern to the east ; the straight keel is its inhospitable southern shore. Such harbours as it has are on the north, but, except for the one splendid natural inlet of Suda Bay, these were better for the light craft of antiquity than for our own deep-drawing steamers.

In rough weather anchorage is uncertain in all Cretan harbours except Suda Bay, and few travellers would choose to be put ashore at Suda, where there is no town, no inn, and no regular means of communication with the nearest town (Canea).

Canea, Rettimo, and Candia are the three ports along the northern coast. Canea lies most to the west and has a distinctly African flavour, owing to its intercourse with the Cyrenaica. Its name is a corruption of the classical Cydonia, and this again is embedded in modern Greek as the word for quince. If the Greeks knew quinces in the first instance as ^^ Apples of Cydonia," is it not possible that quinces were cultivated in prehistoric times and carried by the Minoans from Crete to Greece ? The old sea routes are little changed, and still as in Roman days there is a geographical connection between Crete and the province of Cyrenaica. As Sicily is the natural steppingstone between Tunisia and Italy, so Crete is the step between' Greece and the Cyrenaic promontory. There is no direct steamer route along the coast of North Africa. An Arab from Benghazi, in charge perhaps of a consignment of butter for Alexandria, must leave his Italian boat at Canea and wait there for the Pan-Hellene that will carry him to Egypt. Captain Spratt, who made the Admiralty chart for Crete, and wrote two amusing volumes describing his travels on Cretan muletracks, m.entions that in the middle of last century he found a tribe of Benghazi Arabs settled in tents outside the town wall.

To Canea also have drifted the African elements from other parts of Crete. The Egyptian soldiers of Mehemet Ali are said to have settled here at the close of the first Greco-Turkish war, and here are the remains of a black serf population, mentioned in Venetian archives, and connected by tradition with the Saracen invaders of the eighth and ninth centuries. Even from the sea the town has an African look. Six flower-like minarets rise from the undergrowth of domes and flat-roofed white houses.

Two palm-trees on the quay seem set there to say, '' Africa."

But Venice has her mark here too. Around the town runs the encircling Venetian wall, its arms stretching partially across the harbour mouth, and its sloping ramp stamped here and there and here again with the Lion of St. Mark. Unless you are a blase traveller from the East, accustomed to the glow of dark faces and bright colours, I envy you the first morning in Canea. Boatmen in baggy breeches and bare legs ; black-bearded countrymen in high boots carrying themselves magnificently ; dandies with tightly gartered stockings of flamingo or canary colour ; full-blooded Ethiopians in sacks ; Arabs in flowing white from the Cyrenaica ; hundreds of cheerful brown boys with very little in the way of clothes and a great deal in the way of smile, all these you will see ; but the Russian, French, and Italian soldiers who used to mix with them have vanished together with their three flags that floated over the town. The Turkish flag flies no longer on that rock in the harbour of Suda Bay, the last place in Crete where it was shown.

Steamers generally wait a day in Canea to take on a cargo of oil or wine, or to unload hardware, petroleum, and other luxuries of civilization. I once remember seeing several hundred tons of gunpowder put ashore from our steamer. There is not much sight-seeing to be done, but one can be very happy sitting in the public gardens, exploring the immense dark vaults of the old Venetian galley-houses, visiting the Turkish Cemetery, the local schools of weaving and embroidery, or driving out to the Governor's residence, a pleasant white villa, fronted with an avenue of giant marguerites and a meditative sentinel. Then when evening comes, if you are wise, you will not return to your boat for dinner. You will go to the little inn on the edge of the quay and

CEETB 17

order your meal on the unstable wooden balcony that juts over the water. As dusk falls, the lights from the black hull of your steamer throw spirals of gold into the smooth harbour ; each fishing boat shines like a glowworm with its single light ; strange great moths of mauve and white and brown come round your little lamp. You lean your arms on the balcony and hear the waves against the wall. ^^ It's as good as Venice/' you say to yourself, " only — so much better."

There are plenty of boats, Austrian, Italian, or coasting Greek steamers, to carry you on from Canea to Candia. A short intermediate stop will be made at Retimo, a town of local importance only. It lies higher than Canea and Candia, and looks more of a fortress as it rises from the sea — steep rocks crowned with the sloping Venetian ramp. It is the port of a large agricultural district, the capital of one of the four nomarchies of Crete.

Cretan geography is delightfully simple. The island is so narrow that it is divided into four quarters, the divisions running north and south from sea to sea, each comprising a block of mountain and a northern port. First comes Canea and the White Mountains. Next Retimo with Mount Ida. Third Candia and Lasithi (but Mount Ida cannot help overlooking the Candia district as well as her own territory), and fourthly Hagios Nikolaos with the Sitia mountains and the port of Sitia (both mountains and port of less importance than those in the first three nomarchies). These divisions go back certainly to Venetian times, and probably eadier. Each capital is near a Roman site. Canea as we saw, answered to Cydonia ; Retimo is the classical Rethymnos ; Candia was the port for Knossos, and Hagios Nikolaos is on the site of Lato, one of the many small states of Eastern Crete.

Candia approached from the sea seems a more compact edition of Canea, without its African element. Here the

Venetian walls hug the town more closely and enclose a smaller pool or harbour. It used to be the capital of the island, but since Canea was chosen as the seat of Government, Candia has a certain lofty provincialism that does not make it less attractive. There are fewer minarets against the sky-line ; there is less bustle on the quay than at Canea, yet on the whole its situation is more impressive. The Venetian fortification goes sheer down into the water — a magnificent front for the breakers. The town lies tilted with a slope towards the sea, that goes far to justify the perspective of those mediaeval artists whose pictures show every building in the town. Indeed, this sloping view of the city with the wall enclosing it, and the sea washing its rampart, always makes the approach to Candia seem like stepping into the inset of a sixteenthcentury map.

II IN THE CANDIA MUSEUM

But mediaeval Candia must wait until the prehistoric treasures have been seen — treasures that have made the island famous, revealing it as the threshold of Greek history, nay more, as a complete cycle of history in itself. The collection is housed in a great white building standing to the east of the town, a conspicuous landmark as one approaches from the sea.

Here is shown practically everything of interest that has been found in the island, making a series so complete that no other European museum (except perhaps Copenhagen) can rival it as a collection of national antiquities. It is true that Admiral Spratt collected a good many marbles of the classical period which are now in the British Museum or at Cambridge, but the vein of prehistoric antiquities had not been struck in his day, and it is the series of Bronze Age finds that is the glory of this treasure-house.

For some time it had been suspected that Crete had played a great part in the Mycenaean age, but it was not until 1895 that Milchlofer's guess was verified. In this year Sir Arthur Evans explored Cretan villages, collected the " milk-stones " worn as charms by the peasantwomen, and after studying the signs engraved upon them, came to the conclusion that there must have been a system of prehistoric writing in the island. While Crete was under Turkish rule it was hopeless to think of excavating, but he bought the hill of Kephala (Knossos) and staked out a claim against the day when it might be possible to excavate. The emancipation of Crete came earlier even than he had expected. In 1898 the island was occupied by the troops of the Allied Powers, and early in 1900 he and Mr. Hogarth began to dig in and around the Palace of Knossos. Almost at the same time Professor Halbherr lit upon a palace of the same period at Phaistos, less than thirty miles to the south-west. Other workers flocked to Crete, and from each excavation came new treasures for the collection. In ten years the nucleus formed in Turkish days by a patriotic group of local antiquaries had grown to a museum of worldwide fame.

In those early days the moving spirit in that little society was a young doctor, Joseph Hazzidakis. To-day he is Director-General of Antiquities throughout the island and Keeper of the Candia Museum. He sits at the centre of the web, keeping touch with all that goes on in the different fields of excavation, assimilating new knowledge and arranging new material, befriending the European students who come to study in the museum, and directing the excavations that the museum yearly makes on its own account. He has the dignity characteristic of the older generation of Cretans. Like others who have lived through the stormy times vaguely referred to as *' the troubles/' he has gained a quiet and cheerful self-reliance. Before the enrolment of the Cretan militia, the old Turkish barracks were used as the museum. The ancient Greek inscriptions were stored away in the disused rifle racks where somehow they seemed more at home than in the lofty halls which have now been built for them by some Greek architect dreaming of classical temples.

Outside the museum door a row of Greco-Roman statues stand in exile. Once they were the pride of the collection : now they are turned into the cold to make room for the new wonders. Without even pausing to look at these, one mounts the staircase to the main hall where the prehistoric finds are skilfully arranged.

There is something dramatic in the way in which the bronze " double-axe " set on a high pedestal dominates the hall. Ail the most striking objects are thus placed on isolated stands and the eye is helped in every way. Much time and thought have gone to making correct restorations. Instead of broken fragments lying in trays the clay vases have been put together ; the glorious stone basins, jars, and stands are restored to their original splendour. The frescoes are made intelligible by sketchy outlines filling in the missing pieces. Knowledge gained from one painting is used to help out another. A delicate ivory carving of a diving boy is placed in an upright glass case in which he is held poised in just the diver's position. The larger objects, great bronze cauldrons, painted sarcophaghi, and decorated jars are given less conspicuous places. The finer painted ware, the porcelain plaques and figurines, the seals, ornaments, gems, and all small objects needing close scrutiny, are set out in the best light in the central glass cases.

The arrangement is not chronological but topographical. The finds from Knossos are grouped nearest the entrance and continue half-way down the hall. Objects from the neighbourhood of Phaistos are to the right, and so forth. It is useless to describe the position in detail, for the number of new finds each year necessitates constant re-arrangement. For the same reason no satisfactory catalogue can be published, and it is well to take some modern book to read on the spot. For English readers Burrows' " Discoveries in Crete " and Hawes' ^' Crete the Forerunner " are useful. Here I only mention a few of the most conspicuous objects.

From Knossos comes the large gaming-board that catches one's eye on first entering, noticeable for its light blue and crystal inlay, combined with silver and gold and ivory. The design of the board is as elaborate as the ornament, pointing to an age like our own, when the art of amusement had become a complicated study. Yet this table belongs to a day that was old when Homer sang.

Here is a set of small faience plaques showing dwelling houses two and three stories high, some with gable roofs and black timber wall-beams not unlike the ^' black and white " houses of Western Britain. Wood must have been plentiful when these houses were built, for timber is freely used. The round ends of the tree boles make decorative lines in the outer surface of the wall.

Case after case is filled with pottery as graceful in outline as the vases of later Greece. Most of them are decorated with rich glaze ornament in red or brown. The designer of to-day is beginning to find here a wealth of new suggestions. There are conventional patterns of scroll and spiral : sketches of growing flowers, a crocus or an iris, indicated by swift strokes of a brush handled with a deftness of touch almost Japanese ; shell and seaweed and the eight-armed polypus show possibilities of twirl and whorl that our own age has passed by. The colouring is for the most part bright and effective. Here and there, time or chance, or some deeper artistic understanding has attained a masterpiece of mellow harmonies. Look, for instance, at some of the Zakro bowls and jugs where the colours blend from orange to rose, or at this frescoed olive in the glass case beside the door. It is only a small fragment with the design of an olive branch on a square foot of plaster. Each leaf is laid on in one light, detached stroke, and the colours are a harmony of cream, pale turquoise, and bronze. If art is "crystallized dehght," here is a real work of art telling of the maker's joy in this sombre spray.

But it is not only their work, it is the people themselves who are here. Draw aside the holland screens that cover the frescoes on the entrance wall, and there are the men and women of three or four thousand years ^go, in colours almost as gay as when they were first painted, and drawn with a surprising swing and sharpness of characterization.

The men are tall, nude, bronzed. They carry themselves like kings. Their long hair curls over bare shoulders and touches a tight metal waist-belt. Their faces are beardless and aglow with vigour. The women (drawn, it must be admitted, by an inferior artist) look petite and effeminate, with large black eyes and mocking red lips. Here, as in all ancient art, the flesh of the men is red, the women white, and the convention corresponds to a difference of life and habit ; these men were hardy, open-air fellows, and the women delicate stay-at-homes. Even the "king " wears nothing in addition to his feather crown but a loin-cloth and belt, whereas all the women are over-dressed, over-decorated, over-curled, and, I am sure, over-scented. The women's quarters in the Palace at Knossos tell the same story. They are carefully planned, beautifully painted, and elaborately secluded. The pleasant eastern terrace, where the queen and her

FLA TE I

FIGURE OF SNAKE-CHARMER FOUND AT KNOSSOS ladies could walk, is screened from observation from the other parts of the palace.

And yet, looking at the sprightly profiles on these frescoes, one realizes that the seclusion was not due to jealous Orientalism, but rather to a form of Minoan chivalry that sheltered a fine bloom of its civilization. These Minoan ladies are well educated. They have heard talk of men and affairs, and their delicate little noses have grown a slight upward tilt to mark their conscious superiority. The fresco with the massed tiers of women's faces shows that they were allowed to visit public amusements — bull-fights perhaps. They often laughed. And they often, Ariadne-like, took the law into their own hands and interfered successfully in affairs of state. There is something awe-inspiring in the wonderful porcelain figures, in big busby hats and furbelow petticoats, who brandish snakes and stare with fierce black eyes. Here is femininism run riot. Are they votaries of some ancient mother-goddess, or of the goddess Fashion only ? (Plate i.)

The frescoes of the lily-white ladies suggest questions of life inside the palace. But what of the larger world outside ? What was the fabric of Empire on which rested all this finished social life ? This ruddy cupbearer, he knows the answer. He stands here alert and smiling, his dark hair curling to his waist, his body slightly thrown back to balance the weight of the large golden cup that he carries : on his wrist the seal worn as a bracelet shows that he is some palace official. He tells the story of some great thalassocracy — a sea-empire. That is why the Minoan settlements lie unfortified : that is why their men are sunburned and virile, their women splendidly dressed, and their homes magnificent luxurious, secure : that is why their decoration loves the sea-creatures — the flying-fish, the octopus, the coral, the trumpet shell.

Early in Neolithic times, whilst the rest of Europe was still in a state of barbarism, there lived round the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean a race of men — small, swarthy, and long-headed — who already showed themselves artists, traders, and explorers. While Assyria, Babylonia, and Egypt were each in turn rulers of the world, Crete had its empire also, not like these others, an empire of vast land territory, but a thalassocracy ruling the sea and the sea coasts, suppressing piracy and carrying on its trade with places as far apart as Ethiopia and Central Europe, as Assyria and Sicily. An island-empire, dependent solely on its power at sea, drawing its wealth from its native industry as well as from commerce — the historic parallel that at once suggests itself is that of England under Queen Elizabeth. One might fancy that the temper of the people was also somewhat similar — active, breezy, adventurous ; fond of sport, fond of dress, fond of dancing and amusement.

The capital of this Cretan empire lay on the northern coast at Knossos, three miles from Candia. Other towns fringed the shores of the island, and settlements were made on the mainland of Greece and on the islands of the -^gean. The name of Minos is as proverbial in these waters as was afterwards the name of Solomon further east. He seems in the end to become the embodiment of all this far-reaching Cretan civilization ; and it is not unlikely that Minos became a kind of general title such as Pharaoh. An adjective has been coined from it and archaeologists divide the time of Cretan rule into Early, Middle, and Late Minoan periods.

Outside the capital of Knossos the island must have borne a rich population. Fisherfolk fringed the shores ; smaller trading centres grew up in the few sheltered bays ; inland a population of farmers lived in solidlybuilt homesteads cultivating corn and oil. In the later days of the Minoan Empire the wealthy ruling classes

CEETE 25

had homes in the country and lived in beautiful villas such as those unearthed at Hagia Triada, on the south side of the island. Near it another palace has been excavated by the Italians (at Phaistos), which shows that here also was a great Minoan centre. Homer speaks of ** hundred-citied Crete," and the extent of its trade tells the same story. The settlements of this age are unfortified. Those were the old spacious days when expansion of trade did not inevitably imply collision with the interests of other nations.

From fishermen the Cretans became traders and soon monopolized the carrying-trade of the -^gean. By its position their island was well suited for this role. The high civilization of Egypt and Assyria met in Crete the instinctive artistic excellence of the Mediterranean peoples, mingled perhaps with some northern element that gave stability to the race. At all events the result was the production of a new civilization much tinged with Egyptian influence, but showing itself both in religion and in art simpler and more human than anything that came from Egypt. At Knossos one generation of artists succeeded another. Their painted ware and goldsmiths' work were prized throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. Their ships carried objects of art to other countries and brought home metals from the North, ivory and spices from the East. The character of their rule must at one time have been something like that of our East India Company — peaceful on the whole, fighting when necessary, not for territory but for trade. As the carriers of the Mediterranean they seem to have held the same position as that taken by the Phoenicians in later days.

No doubt Crete was to Egypt the land of romance, the Ultima Thiile of their world. It and the other ^gean lands are spoken of on the Egyptian inscriptions by vague suggestives names : " the Ends of the Lands of the

Great Circle," the ^' Isles in the midst of the Very Green Sea." The long-haired, naked Cretans, with their beautiful wares, hailing from this distant land, struck the historian's fancy as something picturesque and unusual in Egypt, the land of flowing robes and stately head-gear. On the tomb of Rek-ma-ra, vizier to a Thothmes of the Eighteenth Dynasty, there is painted a procession of Keftians bringing gifts. They are naked, long-haired, slender ; blood-brothers to the cupbearer from Knossos.

For some 2,500 years Crete was supreme in the ^gean. Naturally in so long a space of time there were interruptions and disastrous incidents. Many of these have left their mark in the blackened walls and charred remains found at different successive levels in the palace of Minos ; on the whole, however, it seems that revolutions from within are more often responsible for these catastrophes than invasion from without. The invasions such as there were left no permanent scar since neither language nor religion were essentially altered. Ultimately a change came over the ^gean world and the centre of gravity passed from Crete to the mainland. About the middle of the fifteenth century B.C. Knossos was destroyed and sacked, and though reinhabited, never regained her former importance. Of the empire's long death struggle we know nothing, and for the catastrophe itself there is only the evidence of the blackened stones, and the sacked palace from which all the precious metals were looted.