To the left, a bit of the east front of the Parthenon; to the right, the precipitous north side of the Acropolis; in the middle distance the Erechtheum, showing all three of its porticoes; in shadow, between the Parthenon and the Erechtheum, the upper part of the Propylæa.
No criticism, however, can alter the fact that we have in the Odyssey some of the most charming pictures of social and domestic life that are to be found in any literature, touched up with a colouring of the strangest old-world romance, and deriving lustre from a religion which, however defective from an ethical point of view, was wedded to an imagination so rich and powerful as almost to efface in the mind of the reader the distinction between the natural and the supernatural.
CHAPTER II
DELPHI AND ITS ORACLE
AFTER entering the Gulf of Corinth the first port at which the steamers touch is Patras, the largest city in the Peloponnesus, with about 40,000 inhabitants,—looking across to Missolonghi on the northern shore, where Byron died and where his heart is buried. The only notable thing about Patras in pre-Christian times was its inclusion in the Achæan League, that last outburst of the Hellenic love of independence. In modern times it has had the distinction to be the first city to raise the national flag in the War of Liberation (1821). Its patron saint is St. Andrew, who has a cathedral dedicated to him, with a crypt in which his bones are said to have their resting-place. It is a prosperous and well-built city, with a picturesque country behind it, rich in vines and olives, and in front of it the inland sea which is the great highway of Greek commerce. But its chief interest for the traveller is the fact that it is the place at which arrangements can best be made for visiting Delphi and Olympia, two of the most attractive spots in Greece.
Delphi is situated on the mainland. To reach it the traveller has to sail across from Patras to Itea, a small port at the head of the famous Crisæan Gulf. The drive from Itea to Delphi on a fine April day is one of the finest in the world. For a few miles you hold northward along the plain, passing through a long forest of olive trees, with gnarled and twisted trunks, the fresh leaves glistening in the sun and changing colour in the breeze, shafts of glowing light shooting through the branches. In the distance rise hills on hills, crowned by the snowy summit of Parnassus. But it is not till you leave the plain and turn to the right, slowly ascending by a zigzag route to the village of Chryso, the ancient Crisa, that you begin to realise the sublimity of the surroundings. The solemn grandeur of the mountains is above you. Below lies the fertile plain, which was dedicated to Apollo and became the scene of the Pythian Games when they reached their full development. As you look down, the olive wood presents a new appearance and seems to wind, like a great river of oil, towards the sea, whose rock-bound coast, in the opening made by the bay at which you landed, shows the pink, white, and blue houses of Itea sparkling in the sun. The Gulf of Corinth, of which you can only catch glimpses now and then, might pass for a great lake, bordered by the hills of Achaia in the south, and surmounted in the far distance by the glittering summits of Erymanthus and Cyllene, which rise to a height of 7000 or 8000 feet. In the course of the journey you may often come upon a mass of flowers, sometimes covering the slope on the roadside, sometimes running into the field and mingling with the ripe corn, which the rustics are reaping with the old-fashioned hook. The most conspicuous and abundant of all the flowers is the large scarlet poppy, which might be counted by the thousand, and often spreads over a great extent of ground. After passing Crisa, almost the only signs of life we saw on the way were flocks of black goats with their tinkling bells, and a long string of heavy-laden camels, with their young ones running by their side, moving along in solemn procession from the east.
As we approached Delphi, the view presented sterner outlines and a wider range, embracing the dales and gorges of the Pleistus valley, and the rugged hills of Cirphis on the south, as well as the mighty range of Parnassus, with its outlying spurs and precipices. Of these the most remarkable and the most celebrated are the Phædriadæ or shining peaks, overshadowing the ancient sanctuary of Apollo, which was for centuries the religious centre of the Greek world, as the Vatican was to mediæval Christendom. The world-wide influence exerted by the Delphian oracle is one of the most interesting facts in all history. It was characteristic of the Hellenic as compared with the Hebrew mind that the oracle should hold such a prominent place in the national religion: for it was a religion dominated by the imagination rather than the conscience. At the same time it should not be forgotten that, until its decadence, the oracle was more frequently consulted
