LETTER XXIII.
Athens—Ruins of the Parthenon—The Acropolis—Temple of Theseus—The Oldest of Athenian Antiquities—Burial-Place of the Son of Miaulis—Reflections on Standing where Plato taught, and Demosthenes harangued—Bavarian Sentinel—Turkish Mosque, erected within the Sanctuary of the Parthenon—Wretched Habitations of the Modern Athenians.
Ægæan Sea.—We got under way this morning, and stood towards Athens, followed by the sloop-of-war, “John Adams,” which had come to anchor under our stern the evening of our arrival at Ægina. The day is like every day of the Grecian summer, heavenly. The stillness and beauty of a new world lie about us. The ships steal on with their clouds of canvass just filling in the light breeze of the Ægæan, and withdrawing the eye from the lofty temple crowning the mountain on our lee, whose shining columns shift slowly as we pass; we could believe ourselves asleep on the sea. I have been repeating to myself the beautiful reflection of Servius Sulpitius, which occurs in his letter of condolence to Cicero, on the death of his daughter, written on this very spot, [[8]]“On my return from Asia,” he says, “as I was sailing from Ægina toward Megara, I began to contemplate the prospect of the countries around me. Ægina was behind, Megara before me; Piræus on the right, Corinth on the left; all which towns, once famous and flourishing, now lie overturned and buried in their ruins; upon this sight, I could not but presently think within myself, ‘Alas! how do we poor mortals fret and vex ourselves if any of our friends happen to die or be killed, whose life is yet so short, when the carcases of so many cities lie here exposed before me in one view.’”
The columns of the Parthenon are easily distinguishable with the glass, and to the right of the Acropolis, in the plain, I see a group of tall ruins, which by the position must be near the banks of the Ilissus. I turn the glass upon the sides of the mount Hymettus, whose beds of thyme, “the long, long summer gilds,” and I can scarce believe that the murmur of the bees is not stealing over the water to my ear. Can this be Athens? Are these the same isles and mountains Alcibiades saw, returning with his victorious galleys from the Hellespont; the same that faded on the long gaze of the conqueror of Salamis, leaving his ungrateful country for exile; the same that to have seen, for a Roman, was to be complete as a man; the same whose proud dames wore the golden grasshopper in their hair, as a boasting token that they had sprung from the soil; the same where Pericles nursed the arts, and Socrates and Plato taught “humanity,” and Epicurus walked with his disciples, looking for truth? What an offset are these thrilling thoughts, with the nearing view in my sight, to a whole calendar of common misfortune!
Dropped anchor in the Piræus, the port of Athens. The city is five miles in the interior, and the “arms of Athens,” as the extending walls were called, stretched in the times of the republic from the Acropolis to the sea. The Piræus, now nearly a deserted port, with a few wretched houses, was then a large city. It wants an hour to sunset, and I am about starting with one of the officers to walk to Athens.
Five miles more sacred in history than those between the Piræus and the Acropolis do not exist in the world. We walked them in about two hours, with a golden sunset at our backs, and the excitement inseparable from an approach to “the eye of Greece,” giving elasticity to our steps. Near the Parthenon, which had been glowing in a flood of saffron light before us, the road separated, and taking the right, we entered the city by its southern gate. A tall Greek, who was returning from the plains with a gun on his shoulder, led us through the narrow streets of the modern town to an hotel, where a comfortable supper, of which the most attractive circumstance to me was some honey from Hymettus, brought us to bed-time.