Greek Lands and Letters

by Francis Greenleaf Allinson; Anne C. E. Allinson

Of all the possible approaches none can be happier than a drive on a moonlight night up from the little port of Itea, the inglorious terminus of the eight hours’ sail from Piræus through the canal and along the Gulf of Corinth. The comfortable carriage road winds through the “moon-blanched” olive orchards and vineyards of the ancient Crisæan plain, mounting gradually toward the steep slopes of Parnassus and its attendant mountains, and twisting in long courses among shadowy hillsides which only hint at rude crags and deep ravines. Perhaps it was some such night as this that led the writer of the Homeric Hymn to Artemis to see the sister of Apollo, “slackening her fair-curved bow and going to the mighty hall of Phœbus in the Delphians’ rich deme and arraying there the Muses’ and the Graces’ lovely dance.” The exquisite grace of the landscape, half hidden, half revealed through the fragile veil of silver light, seems like a gentle preparation for the epiphany, expected on the morrow, of the god of the golden blade.

The carriage passes very early by Amphissa, the capital of modern Phocis as it was of ancient Locris, and an hour later halts, to rest the horses, at a dim corner of the village of Chryso, a name which preserves that of the Crisa of antiquity. All this drowsy territory has been the stage of one of the significant dramas of history. The modern demarch hospitably presses water from the village fountain upon modern wayfarers, but the Crisæans once used their strategic position as owners of the whole wide plain to plunder pilgrims on their way to the shrine. This evil monopoly gave way, early in the sixth century, to the powerful confederation of twelve Greek states, known as the Delphic Amphictyony, whose representatives met at Delphi twice a year and ruled the affairs of the sacred domain. During almost one hundred and fifty years, with unquestioned right, whatever internecine wars were in progress, delegates from Thessaly and Bœotia, from Athens and Sparta, from Phocis itself and from other lesser states could pass and repass through Crisa, while the fertile plain went untilled. Even after war invaded the protected territory the existence of the Council was not endangered. But the constitution of the delegates changed with the fortunes of battles. By the middle of the fourth century the Phocians were struck from the list and the Macedonians added. Philip had become the chief actor, seizing his opportunity when the men of Delphi, at the instigation of the Athenian delegate, Æschines, attacked the men of Amphissa because they were turning the consecrated wilderness of the plain into corn-fields and olive groves and filling up the empty places with prosperous houses and busy little potteries. A series of easy steps led to the overthrow of Greek freedom.

But under the compassionate moon the sentimentalist continues his way, in wilful oblivion of the catastrophe of the drama, to the point nearest ancient Delphi. This is the tiny village of Kastri, which less than twenty years ago was plying its life on the unconscious surface of earth spread over the ruins of the sacred site. At great expense of money and trouble it was picked up by the French excavators and deposited, safe and whole, a little farther to the west around the sharp corner of the mountain, where, in fear of slipping into the deep valley below, it curls close to Parnassus’s side. Here lodgings may be obtained either in a conventional hostelry or, preferably, in a low-eaved peasant house, where on cool nights a wood fire glows in a big stone fireplace and the light of candles is eked out by diminutive copper lamps which would have seemed primitive to Agamemnon.

The popular time for ancient pleasure-seekers to visit Delphi was in the middle of August, when games were held in honour of Apollo. At that season, if ever, the slopes and peaks of Parnassus were accessible, but the burning heat as the rocks reflected the sun’s rays, alternating with heavy thunderstorms as the wind rushed up from the valley, must have modified the comfort of visitors. In the spring the modern traveller will find an equable and pleasant climate. And also, prepared as he may be for the solemnity and the lonely grandeur of the scenery about Delphi, he will discover unanticipated qualities in the landscape which are illuminative of certain elements in the significance of the place. A walk along the highway that leads from Kastri to and through the ruined precinct reveals both the expected and the new. Toward the southwest lies the Crisæan plain filled with olive groves. Beyond its gray-green breadth gleams the Corinthian Gulf with the far-off mountains of Arcadia girding the horizon. Directly in the west the snow-capped mountains of Locris, the highest in Central Greece, fret the sky. Southeastward plunges the valley of Delphi, formed by Mount Parnassus on the north and by Mount Cirphis on the south, and watered by the river Plistus which in a long line of gleaming argent seeks its westerly home in the bay of Itea.

The valley of the Plistus lies in full sight after the Crisæan plain and the gulf beyond it have been blotted out by a turn in the road which leads sharply around a large, rocky ridge, the barrier between the new town and the old. This ridge formed the western wall that isolated Delphi in lonely remoteness between the bare steep rocks of Cirphis and the cliffs of massive Parnassus, which spreads its huge buttresses over the surrounding country. Rising two thousand feet above the level of the sea, these cliffs present a magnificent expanse of gray and red limestone, and still reflect the brilliant morning sun, true to their ancient name of the “Shining Rocks.” Where they bend around, in their long course, a deep gorge is formed from which the storied spring of Castalia still issues. Above the gorge, invisible when one stands under the cliffs but conspicuous from lower levels, rise twin peaks, seeking a proud supremacy.

Superb mountains, precipitous cliffs, deep ravines, lonely valley, all are here. But here too, softening, transfiguring, some unforeseen influence is at work. Over the mountains a friendly, familiar sunshine casts a gentle glamour. Olive trees fearlessly silver the long slopes that stretch from the shining rocks to the glistening river. In jocund profusion, tripping through the valley and climbing up the steep places, pink and white almond trees flower like blushing dryads. The Far-Darter has chosen this hour to lay aside his bow. No longer does he come,—

“angered in heart, with his bow on his shoulders and close-covered quiver, while in his anger the shafts on his shoulders are clanging, and like to the Night is his coming,”—

but he lifts the “golden lyre” that quencheth even the lightning spear, the bolt of Zeus’s immortal fire.

Or perhaps Apollo has abdicated for a time and it is Dionysus who is concealing the terror of the oracle beneath the sparkling audacity of spring. For the worship of this multiform god had a strong hold on Delphi, and the “beat of his unseen feet” as he was wont to lead his Mænads in furious dance among the uplands of Parnassus echoes through Greek poetry. According to one set of legends, Dionysus was the first to hold the oracle. According to another, Apollo regularly departed for three months each year, leaving the more fiery god of inspiration in charge of the sacred tripod. In any case the relation between the divine brothers seems to have been very amicable. An old vase-painting represents them as affectionately shaking hands under a palm tree.

The scene of the Dionysiac revels was the broad table-land which lies, more than three thousand feet above the level of the sea, between the Shining Rocks and the peaks of Parnassus. Here amid the wooded ravines and open meadows the flashing, flowing Dionysus, god of all ardent life, lord of the ichor of spring, held one of his many courts. It is significant of the unparalleled inclusiveness of Greek ideals that not only on “the topmost heights of Caucasus” and in the “vales of Lydia,” but also above Apollo’s temple where were inscribed in letters of gold the maxims of the seven sages, “Know thyself” and “Nothing too much,” the god of mad impulse and unchartered freedom should have been seen to leap and dance, and give “to his female followers the note for the Bacchic tune.” Every two years, “when spring flashed out for the first time” and sorrow might be swallowed up in joy, a torch festival was held in his honour by women of the surrounding country. Even from Attica women made their way to join in the celebration, travelling over the same “Sacred Way” by which the Athenians periodically sent their offerings to Delphi, and which Apollo had taken on his civilizing march through the wild places of men, escorted with great reverence by the road-making people of Athens. The passionate desire for the mad nocturnal revels which awaited the Bacchantes at the end of their long journey was attributed by Euripides, who must often have seen the procession starting out from Athens, to Tyrian women on their way to the service of Phœbus at Delphi. Detained in Thebes by the civil war of Œdipus’s sons, they tease their imaginations with visions of the rock that flasheth a splendour of light and the cloven tongue of the torches’ flame, of the vine that each morning offers up its giant cluster to brim the cup of the mystic ritual, of the snow-smitten, lonely ridges where, with souls unafraid, they might be wreathing the happy dance.[^[26]]