The man who was talking with Pontius Pilate in the French story, says to him after awhile, this man had known him, been a companion, when the older was Prefect of Judea. They are talking together of old days of youth in Asia. The younger confesses: ... It was harder for me to do without a beautiful woman whom I knew there, than even the wines of Greece. A long time later I learned that this mistress of mine had joined a little band of men and women who followed a Galilean Prophet. They called him Jesus the Nazarene, and for some deed he was put to the cross. Do you happen to remember this man, my friend Pontius?
Pontius Pilate drew his brows together. He frowned. He thought and thought. His reply was simple and sincere. Jesus, you say his name was? Jesus, the Nazarene? No, I can’t seem to recall any such name.
After a time, above the satin-yellow of the grain fields, towered Ætna, white with ice, with snow. I recalled the songs of Greek poets written on this very plain. I recalled the pride and joy in the lines of Theocritus who dwelled just where we were spinning along:—These lines have always thrilled me.
I, Thêtis of Ætna, have come! I, Thêtis of Ætna, will sing! It was in Siracusa that Theocritus was born. Ah! how long ago, and his lines so fresh today. Three hundred B. C.
South of Siracusa, upon this radiantly blue sea, Greece fought some of her greatest battles, and it was here, and on these waters to the south, that the twilight first began to fall upon perhaps the most perfect civilization the world has seen.
The Greek Theatre, in the hillside, where the plays of Æschylus and Aristophanes were produced, is still in good condition. They had just given a play. It seats twenty thousand. The old Roman Theatre is close beside it. It is not so lovely.
Just a step from the theatres, in another of these unforgettable gardens of long ago, the Villa Landolina, the German poet, Count Von Platen, is buried. And in the Museum of Siracusa there is a lovely object, likewise from this same garden, the Landolina Venus. Headless, without arms, she stands upon a pedestal in a dim, pink room in which there is no other object. After you look at it in the twilight, they open a window and fling the day upon it, and the marble is of a texture so unusual it seems upon the moment to palpitate, to breathe, to live again, because beauty never dies. It is form divine. It was made in an age when there were still many people who could appreciate form. It is said to have been one of the treasures of Heliogabulus who gave it to Siracusa, a city he loved. What heart-fire in the antique world! And in how many ancient tongues we have heard men say they loved cities.
The next morning early I went back again to the Museum. I offered my entrance fee, five lire. The keeper shook his head. Are you not going to let me see it? I gasped. Yes Madame. But you who know beauty may go in always free.
Over Siracusa, in summer, bends a sky of blue enamel as unbroken and changeless in hue as the sky of Africa. And along the streets and country ways are flowering trees, wisteria-blue, gold and white, and hibiscus-pink, which add to the enchantment.
It was to a friend in Sicily, I think his name was Lucillus, that Seneca wrote letters of wisdom. And once in a while he used to mention what he termed the world renowned mountain, Ætna.