Rambles and Studies in Greece

by J. P. Mahaffy

If we look at Dorian art, as contrasted with Ionian, there can be no doubt that the earliest centre was Corinth in the Peloponnesus, to which various discoveries in art are specially ascribed. In architecture, there were many leading ideas, such as the setting up of clay figures in the tympanum of their temples, and the use of panels or soffits, as they were called, in ceilings, which came first from Corinth. But when we descend to better-known times, there are three other Dorian states which quite eclipse Corinth, I suppose because the trading instinct, as is sometimes the case, crushed out or weakened her enthusiasm for art. These states are Ægina, Sikyon, and Argos. Sikyon rose to greatness under the gentle and enlightened despotism of Orthagoras and his family, of whom it was noticed that they retained their sovereignty longer than any other dynasty of despots in Greece. Ægina seems to have disputed the lead with Corinth as a commercial mart, from the days of Pheidon, whose coinage of money was always said to have been first practised at Ægina.[170] The prominence of Ægina in [pg 421]Pindar’s Epinikian Odes shows not only how eagerly men practised athletics, and loved renown there, but how well able they were to pay for expensive monuments of their fame. Their position in the Persian war, among the bravest of the Greeks, corroborates the former part of my statement; the request of an Ionian Greek lady, captured in the train of Mardonius, to be transported to Ægina, adds evidence for the second, as it shows that, to a person of this description, Ægina was the field for a rich harvest, and we wonder how its reputation can have been greater in this respect than that of Corinth.[171] But, a short time after, the rise of the Athenian naval power crushed the greatness of Ægina, and it sank into insignificance, and was absorbed into the Attic power.

Thus Sikyon and Argos remained, and it was precisely these two towns which produced a special school of art, of which Polycletus was the most distinguished representative. Dorian sculpture had originally started with figures of athletes, which were dedicated at the temples, and were a sort of collateral monument to the odes of poets—more durable, no doubt, in the minds of the offerers, but, as time has shown, perishable and gone, while the winged words of the poet have not lost even the first bloom of their freshness. However, in contrast to the flowing robes and delicately-chiselled features of [pg 422]the Ionic school, the Dorians reproduced the naked human figure with great accuracy; while in the face they adhered to a stiff simplicity, regardless of individual features, and still more regardless of any expression save that of a vacant smile. This type, found in its most perfect development in the Æginetan marbles, was what lay before Polycletus, when he rose to greatness. He was the contemporary and rival of Phidias, and is said to have defeated him in a competition for the temple of Hera at Samos, where two or three of the greatest sculptors modelled a wounded Amazon, and Polycletus was adjudged the first place. There is some probability that one of the Amazons now in the Vatican is a copy of this famous work; and, in spite of a clumsily-restored head and arms, we can see in this figure the great simplicity and truth of the artist in treating a rather ungrateful subject—that of a very powerful and muscular woman.

The Argive school, owing to its traditions, affected single figures much more than groups; and this, no doubt, was the main contrast between Polycletus and Phidias—that, however superior the Argive might be in a single figure, the genius of the Athenian was beyond all comparison in using sculpture for groups and processions as an adjunct to architecture. But there was also in the sitting statue of Zeus, at Olympia, a certain majesty which seems not to have been equalled by any other known sculp[pg 423]tor. The Attic artist who appears, however, to have been much nearer to Polycletus in style was Myron, whose Discobolus has reached us in some splendid copies, and who seems to have had all the Dorian taste for representing single athletic figures with more life and more daring action about them than was attempted by Polycletus.[172]

Herodotus notices somewhere that, at a certain period, the Argives were the most renowned in Greece for music. It is most unfortunate that our knowledge of this branch of Greek art is so fragmentary that we are wholly unable to tell in what the Argive proficiency consisted. We are never told that the Doric scale was there invented; but, very possibly, they may have taken the lead among their brethren in this direction also, for it is well known that the Spartans, though excellent judges, depended altogether upon foreigners to make music for them, and thought it not gentlemanly to do more than criticise.

The drive from Argos to Nauplia leads by Tiryns, then by a great marsh, which is most luxuriously covered with green and with various flowers, and then along a good road all the way into the important and stirring town of Nauplia. This place, which was one of the oldest settlements, as is proved [pg 424]by Pelasgic walls and tombs high up on the overhanging cliffs, was always through history known as the port of Argos, and is so still, though it rose under the Turks to the dignity of capital of the whole province of Greece. The citadel has at all times been considered almost impregnable. The situation of the town is exceptionally beautiful, even for a Greek town; and the sunset behind the Arcadian mountains, seen from Nauplia, with the gulf in the foreground, is a view which no man can ever forget.

A coasting steamer, which goes right round all the Peloponnesus, took us up with a great company, which was hurrying to Athens for the elections, and carried us round the coast of Argolis, stopping at the several ports on the way. This method of seeing either Greece or Italy is highly to be commended, and it is a great pity that so many people adhere strictly to the quickest and most obvious route, so missing many of the really characteristic features in the country which they desire to study. Thus the Italian coasting steamers, which go up from Messina by Naples to Genoa, touch at many not insignificant places (such as Gaeta), which no ordinary tourist ever sees, and which are nevertheless among the most beautiful in all the country. The same may be said of the sail from Nauplia to Athens, which leads you to Spezza, Hydra, or Idra, as they now [pg 425]call it, to Poros and to Ægina, all very curious and interesting places to visit.

The Palamedi, Nauplia

The island of Hydra was, in old days, a mere barren rock, scarcely inhabited, and would probably never have changed its reputation but for a pirate settlement in a very curious little harbor, with a very narrow entrance, which faces the main shore of Argolis. As you sail along the straight coast line, there seems no break or indentation, when suddenly, as if by magic, the rocky shore opens for about twenty yards, at a spot marked by several caves in the face of the cliff, and lets you see into a circular harbor of very small dimensions, with an amphitheatre of rich and well-built houses rising up all round the bay. Though the water is very deep, there is actually no room for a large fleet, and there seems not a yard of level ground, except where terraces have been artificially made. High rocks on both sides of the narrow entrance hide all prospect of the town, except from the point directly opposite the entrance.

The Hydriotes, who were rich merchants, and, I suppose, successful pirates in the Turkish days, were never enslaved, but kept their liberty and their wealth by paying a tribute to the Porte. They developed a trading power which reminds one strongly of the old Greek cities; and so faithful were they to one another that it was an ordinary habit for citizens to entrust all their savings to a [pg 426]captain starting for a distant port, to be laid out by him to the best advantage. It is said that they were never defrauded of their profits. The Turks may, perhaps, have thought that by gentle treatment they would secure the fidelity of the Hydriotes, whose wealth and power depended much on Turkish protection; but they were greatly mistaken. There was, indeed, some hesitation among the islanders, when the War of Liberation broke out, what part they should take; for during the great Napoleonic wars the Hydriotes, sailing under the neutral flag of Turkey, had made enormous profits by carrying trade among the belligerents. They lived in great luxury. With the peace of 1815, and the reopening of the French and other ports to English ships, these profits disappeared, and the extravagant hopes of the Hydriotes ended in bankruptcy. This was probably a main cause of their patriotism. However, by far the most brilliant feats in the war were those performed by the Hydriote sailors, who remind one very much of the Zealanders in the wars of Holland against the Spanish power. Whether their bravery has been exaggerated is hard to say: this, at all events, is clear, that they earned the respect and admiration of the whole nation, nor is there any nobility so recognized in Greek society as descent from the Hydriote chiefs who fought for the Liberation.