The sweet cicada chirped laboriously.
Hid in the thick thorn-bushes far away
The treefrog’s note was heard; the crested lark
Sang with the goldfinch; turtles made their moan,
And o’er the fountain hung the gilded bee.”[[3]]
Notwithstanding the variety in landscape and the lack of unified nationality in the long centuries of Greek history, there is a unity in the impression of ancient life left upon the mind by a visit to Greece. This is in part due to the comparative meagreness of remains from periods subsequent to classic times. The long obliteration of mediæval and modern constructive civilization leaves more clear the outlines of antiquity.
This is true even though the sum total of the remains of Byzantine and mediæval life, on islands and on mainland, is large and claims the attention from time to time. In Athens the traveller will come upon the small Metropolis church with its ancient Greek calendar of festivals, let in as a frieze above the entrance and metamorphosed into Byzantine sanctity by the inscribing of Christian crosses. As he journeys to and fro in Greece he may see the venerable “hundred-gated” church on the island of Paros, recalling in certain details the proscenium of an ancient theatre; Monemvasia with its vast ruins, the home of Byzantine ecclesiasticism and a splendour of court life that vied with the pomp and magnificence of western Europe; or the ivy-clad ruins of Mistra, an epitome of Græco-Byzantine art from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century; the frowning hill and castle of Karytæna that guards the approach to the mountain fastnesses of Arcadia; or the ancient acropolis of Lindus on the island of Rhodes with the impregnable fortress of the Knights of St. John.
Nor will the visitor ignore the reminders of the War of Independence and the renascence of life in modern Greece. Mesolonghi, Nauplia, and Arachova have contributed fresh chapters to human history. Aligned with ancient names are those of modern heroes in the nomenclature of the streets and of public squares, like the Karaiskakis Place that welcomes the traveller as he disembarks at Piræus.
But all of these, whether mediæval or modern, fail to blur the understanding of antiquity. They do not obtrude themselves. Often they even illustrate ancient life. The same wisdom that transferred allegiance from the Saturnalia to the Christmas festival has here also been careful to use for Byzantine churches the site of ancient shrines or temples: St. Elias is a familiar name on high mountains where once stood altars of the Olympians; the cult of Dionysus has been skilfully transformed, in vine-rearing Naxos, into that of St. Dionysius; SS. Cosmo and Damiano, patrons of medicine, and known as the “feeless” saints, have established their free dispensary in place of an Asklepieion; the twelve Apostles have replaced the “Twelve Gods”; and churches dedicated to St. Demetrius have been substituted for shrines of Demeter.
The thoughtful student of the literature of the Greeks, no matter how enthusiastic he may be, will not fail to draw warnings as well as inspiration from their history. But no defects of the Greeks nor achievements of posterity can dispossess Hellas of her peculiar lustre.