A great point of interest among newly-discovered sites is the great temple and theatre of Epidaurus, which I did not visit, on account of an epidemic of small-pox—εὐφλογία they call it, euphemistically. The very journey to this place is worth making, on account of its intensely characteristic features. You start from Athens in a coasting steamer full of natives, who carry with them their food and beds, and camp on deck where it pleases them, regardless of class. You see all the homeliness of ordinary life obtruded upon you without seeking it, instead of intruding upon others to find it; and you can study not only the country, but the people, at great leisure. But the ever-varying beauty of the scene leaves little time for other studies. The boat passes along Ægina, and rounds the promontory of Kalauria—the death-scene of Demosthenes—into the land-locked bay of Poros, where lay the old Trœzen and Hermione along the fruitful shore, surrounded by an amphitheatre of lofty mountains. The sea is like a fair inland lake, studded with white sails, and framed with the rich green of vines and figs and growing [pg 433]corn. Even the rows of tall solemn cypresses can suggest no gloom in such a landscape. From here it is but a short ride to the famous temple of Æsculapius, though most people go from Nauplia, as I once did in former years, before the discoveries were made which now attract the student.
The excavations of the Greek archæological society have laid bare at least three principal buildings in connection with the famous spot; the old temple of the god, the theatre, and the famous tholos, a circular building, in which those who had been healed of diseases set up votive tablets. The extraordinary size and splendor of the theatre—Pausanias says it was far the finest in Greece—rather contrasts with the dimensions of the temple, and suggests that most of the patients who came were able to enjoy themselves, or else that many people came for pleasure, and not on serious business. The remains discovered are particularly valuable for the good preservation of the stage, but of this I can only speak at second hand. So also the circular building, which was erected under the supervision of the famous Polycletus, the great Argive sculptor, a rival of Phidias, has many peculiar features, and shows in one more instance that what earlier art critics assumed as modern was based on older classical models. Circular buildings supported on pillars were thought rather Græco-Roman than Greek, but here we see that, like the builders of the Odeon of [pg 434]Pericles, of the later Philippeion at Olympia, so the Epidaurians had this form before them from early days. Inside the outer row of Doric pillars was a second circle of pillars, apparently Ionic as to proportions and fluting, but the capitals were Corinthian, so that this feature also in architecture has a venerable antiquity, and was not Græco-Roman, as was once supposed. For a long time the so-called Lantern of Demosthenes, built for Lysicrates at Athens in 335 B. C., when Alexander was leading his army into Asia, was considered the oldest, and perhaps the only pure Greek example of the Corinthian capital. People began to hesitate when a solitary specimen was found in the famous temple of Bassæ, where it could hardly have been imported in later days. Now the evidence is completed, and in this respect the historians of art are correcting the rash generalization of their predecessors.
CHAPTER XIV.
KYNURIA—SPARTA—MESSENE.
Whatever other excursions a traveller may make in the Morea, he ought not to omit a trip to Sparta, which has so often been the centre of power, and is still one of the chief centres of attraction in Greece. And yet many reasons conspire to make this famous place less visited than the rest of the country. It is distinctly out of the way from the present starting-points of travel. To reach it from Athens, or even from Patras or Corinth, requires several days, and it is not remarkable for any of those architectural remains which are more attractive to the modern inquirer than anything else in a historic country.
Of the various routes we choose (in 1884) that from Nauplia by Astros, as we had been the guests for some days of the hospitable Dr. Schliemann, who was prosecuting his now famous researches at Tiryns. So we rose one morning with the indefatigable doctor before dawn,[173] and took a boat to bring us down the coast to Astros. The morning was perfectly fair and calm, and the great mountain chains of the coast were mirrored in the opal sea, as we passed the pic[pg 436]turesque rocky fort which stands close to Nauplia in the bay, the residence of the public executioner. The beauty of the Gulf of Argos never seemed more perfect than in the freshness of the morning, with the rising sun illuminating the lofty coasts. Our progress was at first by the slow labor of the oar, but as the morning advanced there came down a fresh west wind from the mountains, which at intervals filled our lateen sail almost too well, and sent us flying along upon our way. In three hours we rounded a headland, and found ourselves in the pretty little bay of Astros.
Of course, the whole population came down to see us. They were apparently as idle, and as ready to be amused, as the inhabitants of an Irish village. But they are sadly wanting in fun. You seldom hear them make a joke or laugh, and their curiosity is itself curious from this aspect. After a good deal of bargaining we agreed for a set of mules and ponies to bring us all the way round the Morea, to Corinth if necessary, though ultimately we were glad to leave them at Kyparissia, at the opposite side of Peloponnesus, and pursue our way by sea. The bargain was eight drachmas per day for each animal; a native, or very experienced traveller, could have got them for five to six drachmas.
Our way led us up a river course, as usual through fine olive-trees and fields of corn, studded with scarlet anemones, till after a mile or two we [pg 437]began to ascend from the level of the coast to the altitudes of the central plateau, or rather mountain system, of the Morea. Here the flora of the coast gave way to fields of sperge, hyacinths, irises, and star of Bethlehem. Every inch of ascent gave us a more splendid and extended view back over coasts and islands. The giant tops of the inner country showed themselves still covered with snow. We were in that district so little known in ancient history, which was so long a bone of contention between Argos and Sparta, whose boundaries seem never to have been fixed by any national landmark. When we had reached the top of the rim of inland Alps, we ascended and descended various steeps, and rounded many glens, reaching in the end the village of Hagios Petros, which we had seen before us for a long time, while we descended one precipice and mounted another to attain our goal. It was amusing to see our agogiatæ or muleteers pulling out fragments of mirror, and arranging their toilette, such as it was, before encountering the criticism of the Hagiopetrans. One of these men was indeed a handsome soldierly youth, who walked all day with us for a week over the roughest country, in miserable shoes, and yet without apparent fatigue.