Rambles and Studies in Greece

by J. P. Mahaffy

The descent was longer and more varied; sometimes through well cultivated olive yards, mulberries, and thriving villages, sometimes along giant slopes, where a high wind would have made our progress [pg 449]very difficult. Gradually the views opened and extended, and in the evening we could see down to the coast of Messene, and the sea far away. But we did not reach Kalamata till long after nightfall, and rested gladly in a less uncomfortable inn than we had yet found in the journey.

The town is a cheery and pleasant little place, with remains of a large mediæval castle occupied by Franks, Venetians, Turks, which was the first seat of the Villehardouins, and from which they founded their second fort at Mistra. The river Nedon here runs into the sea, and there is a sort of open roadstead for ships, where steamers call almost daily, and a good deal of coasting trade (silk, currants, etc.) goes on. The only notable feature in the architecture is the pretty bell tower of the church, of a type which I afterward saw in other parts of Messenia, but which is not usual in these late Byzantine buildings.

As there was nothing to delay us here, we left next morning for the convent of Vourkano, from which we were to visit Mount Ithome, and the famous ruins of Epaminondas’s second great foundation in Peloponnesus—the revived Messene. The plain (called Macaria or Felix from its fertility) through which we rode was indeed both rich and prosperous, but swampy in some places and very dusty in others. There seemed to be active cultivation of mulberries, figs, olives, lemons, almonds, [pg 450]currant-grapes, with cactus hedges and plenty of cattle. There were numerous little pot-houses along the road, where mastich and lucumia were sold, as well as dried fruit and oranges. If the Nedon was broad and shallow, we found the Pamisos narrow and deep, so that it could only be crossed by a bridge. A few hours brought us to the ascent of Mount Ithome, on a high shoulder of which is situated the famous and hospitable convent of Vourkano (or Voulkano).

The building, very picturesquely situated high on the side of Mount Ithome, commands a long slope covered with brushwood and wild-flowers, the ideal spot for a botanist, as many rills of water run down the descent and produce an abundant and various vegetation. There is not a sod of soil which does not contain bulbs and roots of flowers. Below stretches the valley of Stenyclarus, so famous in the old annals of Messene. It was studded with groves of orange and lemon, olive and date, mulberry and fig. The whole of this country has an aspect far more southern and subtropical than any part of Laconia.

The monks treated us with great kindness, even pressing us to sit down to dinner before any ablutions had been thought of, and while we were still covered with the dust of a very hot and stormy journey along high roads. The plan of the building, which is not old, having been moved down from [pg 451]the summit in the last century, is that of a court closed with a gateway, with covered corridors above looking into the court, and a very tawdry chapel occupying its centre. It seemed a large and well-to-do establishment, a sort of Greek Monte Cassino in appearance; and with the same stir of country people and passing visitors about it. Far above us, on the summit of Mount Ithome—the site of human sacrifices to Zeus Ithomates in days of trouble—we saw a chapel on the highest top, 2500 feet over the sea. Here they told us that a solitary anchorite spent his life, praying and doing service at his altar, far above the sounds of human life. We made inquiry concerning the history of this saint, who was once a wealthy Athenian citizen, with a wife and family. His wife was dead, and his sons settled in the world, so he resolved to devote the rest of his years to the service of God apart from the ways of men. Once a fortnight only he descended to the convent, and brought up the necessary food. On his lonely watch he had no company but timid hares, travelling quail, and an occasional eagle, that came and sat by him without fear, perhaps in wonder at this curious and silent friend. The monks below had often urged him to catch these creatures for their benefit, but he refused to profane their lofty asylum. So he sits, looking out from his watch upon sunshine and rain, upon hot calm and wild storm, with the whole Peloponnesus extended [pg 452]beneath his eyes. He sees from afar the works and ways of men, and the world that he has left for ever. Is it not strange that still upon the same height men offer to their God these human sacrifices, changed indeed in appearance, but in real substance the same?

The main excursion from the monastery is over the saddle of the mountain westward, and through the “Laconian gate” down into the valley beneath, to see the remains of Epaminondas’s great foundation, the new Messene. There are still faint traces of a small theatre and some other buildings, but of the walls and gates enough to tell us pretty clearly how men built fortifications in those days. The circuit of the walls included the fort on the summit, and enclosed a large tract of country, so much that it would be impossible for any garrison to defend it, and accordingly we hear of the city being taken by sudden assault more than once. The plan is very splendid, but seems to us rather ostentatious than serious for a new foundation liable to attacks from Sparta. The walls were, however, beautifully built, with towers at intervals, and gates for sallies. The best extant gate is called the Arcadian, and consisted of an outer and inner pair of folding-doors, enclosing a large round chamber for the watch. The size of the doorposts and lintels is gigantic, and shows that there was neither time nor labor spared to make Messene a stately settlement. There was [pg 453]almost enough land enclosed within the walls to feed the inhabitants of the houses, for their number never became very great. If Megalopolis, a far more successful foundation, was far too large for its population, how much more must this have been the case with Messene? In military architecture, however, we have no other specimen of old Hellenic work equal to it, except perhaps Eleutheræ, which resembles it in style strongly, though the enclosure is quite small in comparison.

Arcadian Gateway, Messene

We could have gone up from Messene by a very long day’s ride to Bassæ, and so to Olympia, but we had had enough of riding and preferred to make a short day to the sea at Kyparissia, and thence by steamer to Katakolo, from which rail and road to Olympia are quite easy. So we left the convent in the morning and descended into the valley, to turn north and then north-east, along the river courses which mark the mule-tracks through the wild country. We crossed a strange bridge over the junction of two rivers made of three arches meeting in the centre, and of which the substructure were certainly old Greek building. We then passed through bleak tracts of uncultivated land, perhaps the most signal case of insufficient population we had seen in Greece. All these waste fields were covered with great masses of asphodel, through which rare herds of swine were feeding, and the sight of these fields suggested to me that by the [pg 454]“meadow of asphodel” in Homer is not meant a pleasant garden, or desirable country, but merely a dull waste in which there is nothing done, and no sign of human labor or human happiness. Had there been night or gloom over this stony tract, with its tall straggling plants and pale flowers, one could easily imagine it the place which the dead hero inhabited when he told his friend that the vilest menial on earth was happier than he.

After some hours the mountains began to approach on either side, and we reached a country wonderful in its contrast. Great green slopes reached up from us far away into the hills, studded with great single forest trees, and among them huge shrubs of arbutus and mastich, trimmed and rounded as if for ornament. It was like a splendid park, kept by an English magnate. The regularity of shape in the shrubs arises, no doubt, from the constant cropping of the young shoots all round by herds of goats, which we met here and there in this beautiful solitude. The river bank where we rode was clothed with oleander, prickly pear, and other flowering shrubs which I could not name.