In the Levant / Twenty Fifth Impression

by Charles Dudley Warner

As dusk crept on, torches were set along the wall of the terrace, and as we went down the hill they shone on the red and blue flags and the white belfry, and illuminated the black mass of overhanging rock with a red glow. There is time for religion in out-of-the-way places here, and it is rendered picturesque, and even easy and enjoyable, by the aid of coffee and charming scenery. When we reached the level of the town, the lights still glowed high up in the recess of the rocks, girls were laughing and chattering as they stumbled down the steep, and the wild bell still rang. How easy it is to be good in Greece!

One day we stole a march on Marathon, and shared the glory of those who say they have seen it, without incurring the fatigue of a journey there. We ascended Mt. Pentelicus. Hymettus and Pentelicus are about the same height,—thirty-five hundred feet,—but the latter, ten miles to the northeast of Athens, commands every foot of the Attic territory; if one should sit on its summit and read a history of the little state, he would need no map. We were away at half past five in the morning, in order to anticipate if possible the rising of the daily wind. As we ascended, we had on our left, at the foot of the mountain, the village of Kephisia, now, as in the days of Herodes Atticus, the summer resort of wealthy Athenians, who find in its fountains, the sources of the Kephissus, and in its groves relief from the heat and glare of the scorched Athenian plain. Half-way we halted at a monastery, left our carriage, and the ladies mounted horses. There is a handsome church here, and the situation is picturesque and commands a wide view of the plain and the rugged north slope of Hymettus, but I could not learn that the monastery was in an active state; it is only a hive of drones which consumes the honey produced by the working-bees from the wild thyme of the neighboring mountain. The place, however, is a great resort of parties of pleasure, who picnic under the grove of magnificent forest-trees, and once a year the king and queen come hither to see the youths and maidens dance on the greensward.

Up to the highest quarries the road is steep, and strewn with broken marble, and after that there is an hour's scramble through bushes and over a rocky path. We rested in a large grotto near the principal of the ancient quarries; it was the sleeping-place of the workmen, subsequently a Christian church, and then, and not long ago, a haunt and home of brigands. Here we found a party of four fellows, half clad in sheep-skins, playing cards, who seemed to be waiting our arrival; but they were entirely civil, and I presume were only shepherds, whatever they may have been formerly. From these quarries was hewn the marble for the Temple of Theseus, the Parthenon, the Propylæa, the theatres, and other public buildings, to which age has now given a soft and creamy tone; the Pentelic marble must have been too brilliant for the eye, and its dazzling lustre was no doubt softened by the judicious use of color. Fragments which we broke off had the sparkle and crystalline grain of loaf-sugar, and if they were placed upon the table one would unhesitatingly take them to sweeten his tea. The whole mountain-side is overgrown with laurel, and we found wild-flowers all the way to the summit. Amid the rocks of the higher slopes, little shepherd-boys, carrying the traditional crooks, were guarding flocks of black and white goats, and, invariably as we passed, these animals scampered off and perched themselves upon sharp rocks in a photographic pose.

Early as we were, the wind had risen before us, and when we reached the bare back of the summit it blew so strongly that we could with difficulty keep our feet, and gladly took refuge in a sort of stone corral, which had been a camp and lookout of brigands. From this commanding point they spied both their victims and pursuers. Our guide went into the details of the capture of the party of Englishmen who spent a night here, and pointed out to us the several hiding-places in the surrounding country to which they were successively dragged. But my attention was not upon this exploit. We looked almost directly down upon Marathon. There is the bay and the curving sandy shore where the Persian galleys landed; here upon a spur, jutting out from the hill, the Athenians formed before, they encountered the host in the plain, and there—alas! it was hidden by a hill—is the mound where the one hundred and ninety-two Athenian dead are buried. It is only a small field, perhaps six miles along the shore and a mile and a half deep, and there is a considerable marsh on the north and a small one at the south end. The victory at so little cost, of ten thousand over a hundred thousand, is partially explained by the nature of the ground; the Persians had not room enough to manouvre, and must have been thrown into confusion on the skirts of the northern swamp, and if over six thousand of them were slain, they must have been killed on the shore in the panic of their embarkation. But still the shore is broad, level, and firm, and the Greeks must have been convinced that the gods themselves terrified the hearts of the barbarians, and enabled them to discomfit a host which had chosen this plain as the most feasible in all Attica for the action of cavalry.

A sea-haze lay upon the strait of Euripus and upon Euboea, and nearly hid from our sight the forms of the Cyclades; but away in the northwest were snow peaks, which the guide said were the heights of Parnassus above Delphi. In the world there can be few prospects so magnificent as this, and none more inspiring to the imagination. No one can properly appreciate the Greek literature or art who has not looked upon the Greek nature which seems to have inspired both.

Nothing now remains of the monuments and temples which the pride and piety of the Athenians erected upon the field of Marathon. The visitor at the Arsenal of Venice remembers the clumsy lion which is said to have stood on this plain, and in the Temple of Theseus, at Athens, he may see a slab which was found in this meadow; on it is cut in very low relief the figure of a soldier, but if the work is Greek the style of treatment is Assyrian.

The Temple of Theseus, which occupies an elevation above the city and west of the Areopagus, is the best-preserved monument of Grecian antiquity, and if it were the only one, Athens would still be worthy of a pilgrimage from the ends of the earth. Behind it is a level esplanade, used as a drill-ground, upon one side of which have been gathered some relics of ancient buildings and sculptures; seated there in an ancient marble chair, we never wearied of studying the beautiful proportions of this temple, which scarcely suffers by comparison with the Parthenon or that at Pæstum. In its construction the same subtle secret of curved lines and inclined verticals was known, a secret which increases its apparent size and satisfies the eye with harmony.

While we were in Athens the antiquarians were excited by the daily discoveries in the excavations at the Keramicus (the field where the Athenian potters worked). Through the portion of this district outside the gate Dipylum ran two streets, which were lined with tombs; one ran to the Academe, the other was the sacred way to Eleusis. The excavations have disclosed many tombs and lovely groups of funereal sculpture, some of which are in situ, but many have been removed to the new Museum. The favorite device is the seated figure of the one about to die, who in this position of dignity takes leave of those most loved; perhaps it is a wife, a husband, a lovely daughter, a handsome boy, who calmly awaits the inevitable moment, while the relatives fondly look or half avert their sorrowful faces. In all sculpture I know nothing so touching as these family farewells. I obtained from them a new impression of the Greek dignity and tenderness, of the simplicity and nobility of their domestic life.

The Museum, which was unarranged, is chiefly one of fragments, but what I saw there and elsewhere scattered about the town gave me a finer conception of the spirit of the ancient art than all the more perfect remains in Europe put together; and it seems to me that nowhere except in Athens is it possible to attain a comprehension of its depth and loveliness. Something, I know, is due to the genius loci, but you come to the knowledge that the entire life, even the commonest, was pervaded by something that has gone from modern art. In the Museum we saw a lovely statue of Isis, a noble one of Patroclus, fine ones of athletes, and also, showing the intercourse with Egypt, several figures holding the sacred sistrum, and one of Rameses II. But it is the humbler and funereal art that gives one a new conception of the Greek grace, tenderness, and sensibility. I have spoken of the sweet dignity, the high-born grace, that accepted death with lofty resignation, and yet not with stoical indifference, of some of the sepulchral groups. There was even more poetry in some that are simpler. Upon one slab was carved a figure, pensive, alone, wrapping his drapery about him and stepping into the silent land, on that awful journey that admits of no companion. On another, which was also without inscription, a solitary figure sat in one corner; he had removed helmet and shield, and placed them on the ground behind him; a line upon the stone indicated the boundary of the invisible world, and, with a sad contemplation, the eyes of the soldier were fixed upon that unknown region into which he was about to descend.

Scarcely a day passed that we did not ascend the Acropolis; and again and again we traversed the Areopagus, the Pnyx, the Museum hills. From the valley of the Agora stone steps lead up the Areopagus to a bench cut in the rock. Upon this open summit the Areopagite Council held, in the open air, its solemn sessions; here it sat, it is said, at night and in the dark, that no face of witness or criminal, or gesture of advocate, should influence the justice of its decisions. Dedicated to divine justice, it was the most sacred and awful place in Athens; in a cavern underneath it was the sanctuary of the dread Erinnyes, the avenging Euries, whom a later superstition represented with snakes twisted in their hair; whatever the gay frivolity of the city, this spot was silent, and respected as the dread seat of judicature of the highest causes of religion or of politics. To us Mars Hill is chiefly associated with the name of St. Paul; and I do not suppose it matters much whether he spoke to the men of Athens in this sacred place or, as is more probable, from a point farther down the hill, now occupied by a little chapel, where he would be nearer to the multitude of the market-place. It does not matter; it was on the Areopagus, and in the centre of temples and a thousand statues that bespoke the highest civilization of the pagan world, that Paul proclaimed the truth, which man's egotism continually forgets, that in temples made with hands the Deity does not dwell.