It is hard to conceive the rude Aitôlian discharging such a duty. We may be inclined to fall back on the doctrine of oppressed nationalities, to say,
ἦτοι Πίσα μὲν Διός,
but to deny all place as his ministers to strangers from the northern shore of the gulf. What if we make our way to Olympia, under the belief that the Olympiad of B.C. 364, held by genuine Pisatans under the protection of Arkadian spears, was the only lawful celebration of the festival within historic times?
Corinth to Eleusis.
We could never understand why Lord Palmerston called the horse-races at Epsom “our Isthmian Games” rather than Olympic, Pythian, or Nemeian. But, as it was Lord Palmerston who said it, the saying was accepted as having some special point; as doubtless many people believed on the same authority that Gothic architecture was a style specially appropriate to Jesuit colleges. The only point of special connexion between Epsom and the games of the Isthmus would seem to be that these last were dedicated to Poseidôn, Ποσειδὼν ἵππιος, and might therefore perhaps seem to be in some way more specially “horsey” than the others. Anyhow the connexion with Poseidôn was a connexion with Thêseus and with Athens, and Athens always claimed a special right in the Isthmian festival, alongside of Corinth its proper president. It was somewhat strange then that, during the century when Corinth was not, the presidency of the games was bestowed on Sikyôn, rather than on Athens, the cherished ally of Rome. But in any case the games supply a link between Corinth and Athens. It is well then that the road—we were going to say between the two cities, but we must now rather say between the village and the capital—lies by the site of the games. We tread the path across the Isthmus which looks so flat from the mountain top, but which we now find to have its ups and downs. We pass by the traces of the stadium; we pass by the foundations of the great temple of Poseidôn; we see traces of the wall which in so many ages has proved so vain a barrier; we see signs of the canal which has been so often no less vainly tried as a means to make the Isle of Pelops truly an island. Now that Athens and Corinth are no longer enemies, the work is more needful than ever. No small amount of commerce which now goes elsewhere would, we are told, pass at once through an Isthmian canal to the haven of Peiraieus. We leave the site of Kenchreia to the right, and take ship again at the modern Kalamaki; we thus better see that northern part of the Saronic Gulf which we saw only in the distance as we passed from Peiraieus to Nauplia. We skirt the shore of Megaris; we better take in the outline of Salamis and its satellite Psyttaleia, the scene of the bloody exploit of Aristeidês. We land once more; we pass along the now familiar road, this time perhaps less anxious than before to catch the first glimpse of the holy rock of Athênê. We may perhaps rather feel that, as we near the olive groves of Kolônos, we are still within the domain of Poseidôn. We may perhaps rather fix our eyes on the lowlier and more perfect Thêseion than on the mightier and more shattered Parthenôn. Fresh from the site of the Isthmia, we are inclined to dwell on the legend which tells us how near Athens once was to being Poseidônia. The sea-god thus follows us on our way back from Corinth to Athens. He will follow us through some of the journeys which we must make in Attica itself, before we steer our course back again to the western shores of Peloponnêsos and to the islands more western still. He who cannot see the whole of the Attic land, he who must be satisfied with picturing to himself from the Athenian akropolis how Agis sent forth his plundering bands from Dekeleia, and how the spirit of freedom set with Thrasyboulos on the brow of Phylê, must at least make his way by the Sacred Way to the holy place of Christendom at Daphnê, and to the holy place of heathendom at Eleusis. He must muse on the mound of Marathôn, not to dream that Greece may yet be free, but to wonder and to hope how soon the freedom which stops at Othrys may reach at the very least to Olympos. He must stand too on the marbled steep of Sounion, no longer to shrink from the land on which he stands as a land of slaves. And on two at least of these three journeys he will still find himself in the company of the same deity who reigned on the Isthmus and on Kolônos. If Dêmêtêr and her child held the first place at Eleusis, yet by the bay which is guarded by Salamis, the sea-god was not forgotten, and on the height of Sounion the two powers who strove for the rule of Athens divided the sacred spot between them. The Isthmus with its games, Eleusis on its bay, Sounion on its height, may all be fittingly taken, as nearly as may be at a glance, as being all of them spots where the sea-god received at least a partial local worship.
The traveller who goes from Corinth to Athens by land will take Eleusis on his way; and those who, like the wearied Ten Thousand at Kerasos, have had enough of their land passage, and who prefer to pass toillessly—it may be asleep like Odysseus—over the waves, may well make Eleusis the object of an early journey after they again find themselves at Athens. We have come back to civilized life. From Athens to Eleusis the journey may be made along the Sacred Way by the same means by which the still abiding wheel-tracks tell us that it was made of old. The journey is one of the highest interest; it is a journey of double interest for those at least who count Daphnê and its abiding church no less worthy of interest than Eleusis and its fallen temple. The Sacred Way of Athens has its Roman parallel; but it is not to be found in the Sacred Way of Rome, but in the road which bears the name of the great Censor. The Sacred Way, like the Appian Way, like all ways more or less, though these two seem to have been conspicuous above others, was a street of monuments, a few of which may still be traced. Parting from the monumental quarter of Athens, from the tombs lately brought to light in Kerameikos, the Sacred Way started from the Dipylon—itself brought to light with the tombs—and passed through the olive groves, leaving Poseidôn’s hill of Kolônos to the right. The starting-point of the modern road is not exactly the same, but the two join at no great distance from the ancient walls. The tombs, which are there no longer, may be studied in the itinerary of Pausanias. But one connects itself with a monument of which some traces are to be found further on. The most splendid of all the monuments by the Sacred Way is that which commemorated the most worthless ashes in its whole course. We feel that Athens had indeed fallen when the most splendid of all the tombs was raised by the son-in-law of Phôkiôn, at the bidding and the cost of Harpalos, to commemorate Pythionikê. Further on our journey we come to the spot where the ancient temple of Aphroditê was turned to the worship of Philê, Philê-Aphroditê, the wife of Dêmêtrios the Besieger. Philê was indeed one of the noblest of women, as Pythionikê was one of the vilest; but tomb and temple alike mark the spirit of a time when strangers were turning the men, and even the gods, of Hellas out of their native homes and altars. But, before we reach the temple of Philê, we reach one of those sites where long ages of Greek history are gathered together in a single spot. There, in the pass, was the temple of Apollo; there, girded by its peribolos, standing on its site with the foundations built out of its stones, is the monastic church of Daphnê. It is well to gaze and study while we can. Daphnê has once been sacked already; here, as at Athens,
Quod non fecerunt Gothi fecerunt Scoti;