And Jane, who had been hard at work with her histories, could see it clearly. The little narrow viking-like boats of Theocles, the Greek merchant, driven before the sudden northeast storm they could not beat up against nor lie to, straight upon the coast of this dread land. It had always been a land awesome and mysterious to the Greeks. They had imagined half the dramas of their mythology as happening there. It was sacred ground, too sacred to be explored by profane foot; and was besides the home of fierce cannibals, as they believed the Sikilians to be, and of all manner of monstrous and half divine beings. But, desperately choosing before certain destruction at sea the unknown perils of the shore, Theocles had rounded the point and beached his boats safely on that strip of yellow sand that still fringes the cove below Taormina.
He and his companions, who feared to adventure no perils of the treacherous Mediterranean in their tiny crafts, but feared very much the monsters of their imagination in this haunted country, built to Apollo an altar of the sea-worn rocks, and sacrificed on it their last meal and wine, praying him for protection and help to save them from the Læstrygones, from Polyphemus, and Hephæstos at his nearby smoking forge. And Apollo must have found it good, the savour of that his first sacrifice on Sicilian land, for straightway succour came. The natives, drawn down from the hillsides in curiosity at that strange fire on the shore, were not raging cannibals but peaceful and friendly farmer folk, who looked kindly on the shipwrecked merchants, and gladly bartered food and rich dark wine for Greek goods. And through the days of the storm the Greeks lived unmolested on the shore, impressed by all that met their eyes; the goodness of that “fairest place in the world.” When at last came favourable winds and the Greeks could set sail again, Theocles vowed to return to that fertile shore, and if Apollo, protector of colonists and giver of victory, should favour his enterprise, to build there a shrine in his honour.
But in Athens none would believe his accounts of the rich land and the mild natives. They said that even so it would be unwise to disturb Polyphemus, or to run the risk of angering Hephæstos, and that it was no proper site for a colony any way! Theocles did not falter at discouragement; he took his tale to other cities and over in Eubœa the Chalcydians were won to him. After the oracle of Apollo had promised them his protection and all good fortune, more Ionians and some Dorians joined them; and in the spring they set forth, a great fleet of vessels laden with all necessary things to found a colony. Theocles piloted them to the spot of his first sheltering; and there on the red rock horns of the point above the beach they founded Naxos, and built the great shrine of Apollo Archagates, founder and beginner, with that wonderful statue which is spoken of as still existing in the time of Augustus, 36 B.C.
Naxos itself had no such length of life. It knew prosperous centuries of growth and importance, of busy commerce and smiling wealth. Then came Dionysius, Tyrant of Syracuse, subdued the mother city to his jealous power and absolutely exterminated it, killing or carrying off into slavery all its population. “The buildings were swept away, and the site of Naxos given back to the native Sikilians. They never returned, and for twenty-two centuries no man has dwelt there.” Of all the shrines and palaces of Naxos not one stone remains upon another, not one surviving trace to identify now the exact site even of the Mother of all Greek cities in Sicily. But from her sprang Taormina.
Such of her population as managed to escape from Dionysius, climbed up to those steep rocks above and there, sheltering with the Sikilians, out of tyrants’ reach in that inaccessible mountain nest, Greek and Sikilian mingling produced a breed of eagles that with fierce strugglings has held fast its own on those peaks through all the centuries.
But these shipwrecks and temples and sieges grew dim behind the gritty cloud of railroad cinders. Jane felt the past melt away from her and fade entirely into the cold discomfort of the present. She subsided into limp weariness in a corner of the carriage, incapable of interest in anything, while Peripatetica’s spirits revived, approaching the tracks of her adored Greeks, and her imagination took fire and burst into words.
“Oh those wonderful days!” she cried. “If one could only have seen that civilization, that beauty, with actual eyes. Jane, wouldn’t you give anything to get back into the Past even for a moment?”
“No, I’d rather get somewhere in the now—and to breakfast,” grumbled Jane with hopeless materialism as she vainly tried to stay her hunger on stale chocolate. So Peripatetica saw visions alone, Jane only knowing dimly that miles and miles of orange groves, and of a sea a little paled and faded from its Calabrian blue, were slipping by.
A box of a station announced itself as Giardini-Taormina. A red-cheeked porter bore the legend “Hotel San Domenico” on his cap; and much luggage and two travellers fell upon him. But, ah, that hoodoo!
“Desolated, but the hotel was full. Yes, their letter had been received, but it had been impossible to reserve rooms,” said the cheerful porter heartlessly; “no doubt other hotels could accommodate them.” He didn’t seem to feel his cheerfulness in the least diminished by the dismay pictured in the dusty faces before him.