[16] Baron Otto Magnus von Stackelberg (1760-1836), antiquarian; author of Der Apollotempel zu Bassae and other works.
[17] Peter Oluf Bronstedt (1781-1842), Danish archæologist. Was made Chevalier Bronstedt and sent by his Government as minister to Rome.
[18] Lusieri, a Neapolitan, painter to the King of Naples; engaged as draughtsman by Lord Elgin. He was still in Athens in 1816.
CHAPTER V
TRIP TO ÆGINA—DISCOVERY AND TRANSPORTATION OF THE MARBLES TO ATHENS—EFFORTS TO SELL THEM.
"I told you we were going to make a tour in the Morea, but before doing so we determined to see the remains of the temple at Ægina, opposite Athens, a three hours' sail. Our party was to be Haller, Linckh, Foster, and myself. At the moment of our starting an absurd incident occurred. There had been for some time a smouldering war between our servants and our janissary. When the latter heard that he was not to go with us, it broke out into a blaze. He said it was because the servants had been undermining his character, which they equally angrily denied. But he was in a fury, went home, got drunk, and then came out into the street and fired off his pistols, bawling out that no one but he was the legitimate protector of the English. For fear he should hurt some one with his shooting, I went out to him and expostulated. He was very drunk, and professed to love us greatly and that he would defend us against six or seven or even eight Turks; but as for the servants, 'Why, my soul,' he said, 'have they thus treated me?' I contrived, however, to prevent his loading his pistols again, and as he worked the wine off, calm was at length restored; but the whole affair delayed us so long that we did not walk down to the Piræus till night. As we were sailing out of the port in our open boat we overtook the ship with Lord Byron on board. Passing under her stern we sang a favourite song of his, on which he looked out of the windows and invited us in. There we drank a glass of port with him, Colonel Travers, and two of the English officers, and talked of the three English frigates that had attacked five Turkish ones and a sloop of war off Corfu, and had taken and burnt three of them. We did not stay long, but bade them 'bon voyage' and slipped over the side. We slept very well in the boat, and next morning reached Ægina. The port is very picturesque. We went on at once from the town to the Temple of Jupiter, which stands at some distance above it; and having got together workmen to help us in turning stones, &c., we pitched our tents for ourselves, and took possession of a cave at the north-east angle of the platform on which the temple stands—which had once been, perhaps, the cave of a sacred oracle—as a lodging for the servants and the janissary. The seas hereabouts are still infested with pirates, as they always have been. One of the workmen pointed me out the pirate boats off Sunium, which is one of their favourite haunts, and which one can see from the temple platform. But they never molested us during the twenty days and nights we camped out there, for our party, with servants and janissary, was too strong to be meddled with. We got our provisions and labourers from the town, our fuel was the wild thyme, there were abundance of partridges to eat, and we bought kids of the shepherds; and when work was over for the day, there was a grand roasting of them over a blazing fire with an accompaniment of native music, singing and dancing. On the platform was growing a crop of barley, but on the actual ruins and fallen fragments of the temple itself no great amount of vegetable earth had collected, so that without very much labour we were able to find and examine all the stones necessary for a complete architectural analysis and restoration. At the end of a few days we had learnt all we could wish to know of the construction, from the stylobate to the tiles, and had done all we came to do.
But meanwhile a startling incident had occurred which wrought us all to the highest pitch of excitement. On the second day one of the excavators, working in the interior portico, struck on a piece of Parian marble which, as the building itself is of stone, arrested his attention. It turned out to be the head of a helmeted warrior, perfect in every feature. It lay with the face turned upwards, and as the features came out by degrees you can imagine nothing like the state of rapture and excitement to which we were wrought. Here was an altogether new interest, which set us to work with a will. Soon another head was turned up, then a leg and a foot, and finally, to make a long story short, we found under the fallen portions of the tympanum and the cornice of the eastern and western pediments no less than sixteen statues and thirteen heads, legs, arms, &c. (another account says seventeen and fragments of at least ten more), all in the highest preservation, not 3 feet below the surface of the ground.[19] It seems incredible, considering the number of travellers who have visited the temple, that they should have remained so long undisturbed.
It is evident that they were brought down with the pediment on the top of them by an earthquake, and all got broken in the fall; but we have found all the pieces and have now put together, as I say, sixteen entire figures.