And yet, as we sat upon the western steps of the temple dedicated to Pallas Athene, I could imagine what this area was, say in the August days of the great Panathenaic festival, when the gorgeous procession, which I saw filing along the Via Sacra, returning from Eleusis, swept up these broad steps, garlanded with flowers and singing the hymn to the protecting goddess. This platform was not then a desolate stone heap, but peopled with almost living statues in bronze and marble, the creations of the genius of Phidias, of Praxiteles, of Lycius, of Clecetas, of Myron; there, between the two great temples, but overtopping them both, stood the bronze figure of Minerva Promachus, cast by Phidias out of the spoils of Marathon, whose glittering helmet and spear-point gladdened the returning mariner when far at sea, and defied the distant watcher on the Acropolis of Corinth. First in the procession come the sacrificial oxen, and then follow in order a band of virgins, the quadriga, each drawn by four noble steeds, the élite of the Athenian youth on horseback, magistrates, daughters of noble citizens bearing vases and pateræ, men carrying trays of offerings, flute-players and the chorus, singers. They pass around to the entrance of the Parthenon, which is toward the east, and those who are permitted enter the naos and come into the presence of the gold-ivory statue of Minerva. The undraped portions of this statue show the ivory; the drapery was of solid gold, made so that it could be removed in time of danger from a public enemy. The golden plates weighed ten thousand pounds. This work of Phidias, since it was celebrated as the perfection of art by the best judges of art, must have been as exquisite in its details as it was harmonious in its proportions; but no artist of our day would dare to attempt to construct a statue in that manner. In its right, outstretched hand it held a statue of Victory, four cubits high; and although it was erected nearly five hundred years before the Christian era, we are curious to notice the already decided influence of Egyptian ideas in the figure of the sphinx surmounting the helmet of the goddess.
The sun was setting behind the island of Salamis. There was a rosy glow on the bay of Phalerum, on the sea to the south, on the side of Hymettus, on the yellow columns of the Parthenon, on the Temple of the Wingless Victory, and on the faces of the ever-youthful Caryatides in the portico of the Erechtheum, who stand reverently facing the Parthenon, worshipping now only the vacant pedestal of Athene the Protector. What overpowering associations throng the mind as one looks off upon the crooked strait of Salamis, down upon the bare rock of the Areopagus; upon the Pnyx and the bema, where we know Demosthenes, Solon, Themistocles, Pericles, Aristides, were wont to address the populace who crowded up from this valley, the Agora, the tumultuous market-place, to listen; upon the Museum Hill, crowned by the monument of Philopappus, pierced by grottos, one of which tradition calls the prison of Socrates,—the whole history of Athens is in a nutshell! Yet if one were predetermined to despise this mite of a republic in the compass of a quart measure, he could not do it here. A little of Cæsar's dust outweighs the world. We are not imposed upon by names. It was, it could only have been, in comparison with modern naval engagements, a petty fight in the narrow limits of that strait, and yet neither the Persian soldiers who watched it from the Acropolis and in terror saw the ships of Xerxes flying down the bay, nor the Athenians, who had abandoned their citadel and trusted their all to the “wooden walls” of their ships, could have imagined that the result was laden with such consequences. It gives us pause to think what course all subsequent history would have taken, what would be the present complexion of the Christian system itself, if on that day Asiatic barbarism had rendered impossible the subsequent development of Grecian art and philosophy.
We waited on the Acropolis for the night and the starlight and the thousand lights in the city spread below, but we did not stay for the slow coming of the midnight moon over Hymettus.
On Sunday morning we worshipped with the Greeks in the beautiful Russian church; the interior is small but rich, and is like a private parlor; there are no seats, and the worshippers stand or kneel, while gilded and painted figures of saints and angels encompass them. The ceremony is simple, but impressive. The priests are in gorgeous robes of blue and silver; choir-boys sing soprano, and the bass, as it always is in Russian churches, is magnificent. A lady, tall, elegant, superb, in black faced and trimmed with a stuff of gold, sweeps up to the desks, kisses the books and the crucifix, and then stands one side crossing herself. We are most of us mortal, and all, however rich in apparel, poor sinners one day in the week. No one of the worshippers carries a prayer-book. There is reading behind the screen, and presently the priests bring out the elements of communion and exhibit them, the one carrying the bread in a silver vessel on his head, and the other the wine. The central doors are then closed on the mysterious consecration. At the end of the service the holy elements are brought out, the communicants press up, kiss the cross, take a piece of bread, and then turn and salute their friends, and break up in a cheerful clatter of talk. In contrast to this, we attended afterwards the little meeting, in an upper chamber, of the Greek converts of the American Mission, and listened to a sermon in Greek which inculcated the religion of New England,—a gospel which, with the aid of schools, makes slow but hopeful progress in the city of the unknown God.
The longer one remains in Athens the more he will be impressed with two things: the one is the perfection of the old art and civilization, and what must have been the vivacious, joyous life of the ancient Athenians, in a climate so vital, when this plain was a garden, and these beautiful hills were clad with forests, and the whispers of the pine answered the murmurs of the sea; the other is the revival of letters and architecture and culture, visible from day to day, in a progress as astonishing as can be seen in any Occidental city. I cannot undertake to describe, not even to mention, the many noble buildings, either built or in construction, from the quarries of Pentelicus,—the University, the Academy, the new Olympium,—all the voluntary contributions of wealthy Greeks, most of them merchants in foreign cities, whose highest ambition seems to be to restore Athens to something of its former splendor. It is a point of honor with every Greek, in whatever foreign city he may live and die, to leave something in his last will for the adornment or education of the city of his patriotic devotion. In this, if in nothing else, they resemble the ancient patriots who thought no sacrifice too costly for the republic. Among the ruins we find no palaces, no sign that the richest citizen used his wealth in ostentatious private mansions. Although some of the Greek merchants now build for themselves elegant villas, the next generation will see the evidences of their wealth rather in the public buildings they have erected. In this little city the University has eighty professors and over twelve hundred students, gathered from all parts of Greece; there are in the city forty lady teachers with eight hundred female pupils; and besides these there are two gymnasiums and several graded schools. Professors and teachers are well paid, and the schools are free, even to the use of books. The means flow from the same liberality, that of the Greek merchants, who are continually leaving money for new educational foundations. There is but one shadow upon this hopeful picture, and that is the bigotry of the Greek church, to which the government yields. I do not now speak of the former persecutions suffered by the Protestant missionaries, but recently the schools for girls opened by Protestants, and which have been of the highest service in the education of women, have been obliged to close or else “conform” to the Greek religion and admit priestly teachers. At the time of our visit, one of the best of them, that of Miss Kyle of New York, was only tolerated from week to week under perpetual warnings, and liable at any moment to be suppressed by the police. This narrow policy is a disgrace to the government, and if it is continued must incline the world to hope that the Greeks will never displace the Moslems in Constantinople.
In the front of the University stands a very good statue of the scholar-patriot Korais, and in the library we saw the busts of other distinguished natives and foreigners. The library, which is every day enriched by private gifts, boasts already over one hundred and thirty thousand volumes. As we walked through the rooms, the director said that the University had no bust of an American, though it had often been promised one. I suggested one of Lincoln. No, he wanted Washington; he said he cared to have no other. I did not tell him that Washington was one of the heroes of our mythic period, that we had filled up a tolerably large pantheon since then, and that a century in America was as good as a thousand years in Byzantium. But I fell into something of a historic revery over the apparent fact that America is as yet to Greece nothing but the land of Washington, and I rather liked the old-fashioned notion, and felt sure that there must be somewhere in the United States an antiquated and rich patriot who remembered Washington and would like to send a marble portrait of our one great man to the University of Athens.
XXIX.—ELEUSIS, PLATO'S ACADEME, ETC.
THERE was a nightingale who sang and sobbed all night in the garden before the hotel, and only ceased her plaintive reminiscence of Athenian song and sorrow with the red dawn. But this is a sad world of contrasts. Called upon the balcony at midnight by her wild notes, I saw,—how can I ever say it?—upon the balcony below, a white figure advance, and with a tragic movement of haste, if not of rage, draw his garment of the night over his head and shake it out over the public square; and I knew—for the kingdom of knowledge comes by experience as well as by observation—that the lively flea was as wakeful in Greece as the nightingale.