NOTES FOR “ALEXANDER THE SON OF PHILIP”
No. 1, Baklava. A kind of sweet made with pounded almonds between very thin layers of paste soaked in honey.
No. 2, The Twenty-fifth of March. The Anniversary of Greek Independence.
No. 3, Boya. A Turkish word meaning “executioner”; generally applied in Athens to the man who seizes stray dogs in hot weather and takes them away in his cart to the pound.
No. 4, Loustro. Literally “a shiner”; applied to shoeblacks originally and now used for all newspaper sellers, errand boys, etc.
No. 5, Alexander the Great. Born 356 B. C., died in Babylon, 323 B. C. The most famous warrior and captain of antiquity. His father, Philip II of Macedonia, confided his education to Aristotle, the greatest philosopher of that age. Alexander, after his father’s death, succeeded in making himself general-in-chief of the Hellenes at Corinth, in 335 B. C., where he was surrounded by the most illustrious men of the nation. He crossed the Hellespont to penetrate into Asia with an army of 30,000 foot and 5,000 horse soldiers. He crossed the Taurus, penetrated into Syria, crushed the innumerable army of Darius, treating the vanquished king and his family with noble clemency. His many conquests would take far too long to enumerate. He always endeavoured to consolidate his conquests by good and wise treatment of the conquered provinces. At Babylon he received ambassadors from all points of the then known world. He was in the midst of new projects of conquest and exploration when he died in a few days of a fever (June, 323 B. C).
No. 6, Kanaris (Constantine). Hero of the War of Independence; born in 1790, died in 1877. He was captain of a merchant ship when Greece rose against the Turks. In the night of the 18th to to the 19th of June, 1822, helped by a companion, he burned two Turkish vessels. In the following November he burned the admiral’s ship of the Turkish fleet in the port of Tenedos. He continued his work of destruction, always at the extreme peril of his life and the lives of his brave companions, at Samos and Mytilene, and during all the duration of the war fought valiantly at the side of Miaoulis. He is the hero of one of Victor Hugo’s celebrated “Orientales.”
No. 7, Souli or Suli. Site in the province of Jannina in Epirus; celebrated in the War of Independence for the heroism of its inhabitants and for the death-dance of its women who, on the approach of the Turks, danced for the last time their national dance on the plateau of the mountain of Zalongos, and then, one by one, flung themselves and their children over the precipice. Rennell Rodd in The Violet Crown has a beautiful poem about this episode called “Zalongos. The last fight of Suli.” The last words, as far as I remember, are:—
“… thus beneath Zalongos side
The mothers and the children died
That Suli ne’er might breed again
A race of less heroic men.”
The word “Suliote” is almost synonymous in Greece with hero or heroine. If anyone is asked to undertake any very daring or desperate deed, the answer often is, “Do you think I am a Suliote?”
No. 8, Diakos (Athanasius). A Greek hero before the War of Independence. Born 1788, died 1820. He led several successful attacks against the Turks but was at last taken prisoner by them and put to death by impalement.
No. 9, Oristé. Literally “Command me,” used in the sense of, “Yes, at once. At your service!”
No. 10, Tsourekia. Cakes, made principally for Easter, of flour, eggs, butter and sugar.
No. 11, Ephialtes. The traitor who guided the Persians to the Pass of Thermopylæ.
No. 12, Antipater. The betrayer of Demosthenes.
No. 13, Paul Melas. A young officer in the Greek army, of one of the best families in Athens, who left wife and children and career, a few years ago, to go to Macedonia and with a handful of brave men protect the helpless villages against Turkish tyranny and cruelty. He was killed at Siatista in Macedonia in the month of October, 1904, and his name has remained as that of one of the pioneers of Macedonian liberty.
No. 14, Mount Lycabettus. A rock rising in the middle of the plain of Athens, from which there is a beautiful view of all the town below. On the summit is a small chapel of St. George.
No. 15, Homonoia. “Concord,” in Greek. It is the name of one of the principal squares near the Piræus Road.