Greece and the Ægean Islands

by Philip Sanford Marden

We were in the saddle promptly at nine, and in Indian file we set out through the village street, filled with the tremors natural to those who find themselves for the first time in their lives seated on horseback. But these tremors were as nothing to what beset us almost immediately on leaving the town and striking into the narrow ravine that led up into the hills behind it. It developed that while the prevailing tendency of the road was upward, this did not by any means preclude several incidental dips, remarkable alike for their appalling steepness and terrifying rockiness, for which their comparative brevity only partially atoned. The sensation of looking down from the back of even a small horse into a gully as steep as a sharp pitch roof, down which the trail is nothing but the path of a dried-up torrent filled with boulders, loose stones, smooth ledges, sand, and gravel, is anything but reassuring. It was with silent misgivings and occasional squeals of alarm that our party encountered the first of these descents. We had not yet learned to trust our mounts, and we did not know that the well-trained mountain horse is a good deal more likely to stumble on a level road than on one of those perilous downward pitches. From the lofty perches on top of the clumsy Greek saddles piled high with rugs, it seemed a terrifying distance to the ground; and the thought of a header into the rocky depth along the side of which the path skirted or down into which it plunged was not lightly to be shaken off. It was much better going up grade, although even here we found ourselves smitten with pity for the little beasts that scrambled with so much agility up cruel steeps of rock, bearing such appreciable burdens of well-nourished Americans on their backs. Spyros did his best to reassure us. He was riding ahead and throwing what were intended as comforting remarks over his shoulder to Mrs. Professor, who rode next in line. And as he was not aware of the exact make-up of the party’s mounts, he finally volunteered the opinion that horses were a good deal safer than mules for such a trip, because mules stumbled so. Whereupon Mrs. Professor, who was riding on a particularly wayward and mountainous mule, emitted a shriek of alarm and descended with amazing alacrity to the ground, vowing that walking to Bassæ was amply good enough for her. Nevertheless the mule, although he did stumble a little now and then, managed to stay with us all the way to Olympia, and no mishap occurred.

The saddles lend themselves to riding either astride or sidesaddle, and the ordinary man we met seemed to prefer the latter mode. The saddle frame is something the shape of a sawhorse, and after it is set on the back of the beast it is piled high with blankets, rugs, and the like, making a lofty but fairly comfortable seat. For the ladies the guides had devised little wooden swings suspended by rope to serve as stirrups for the repose of their soles. The arrangement was announced to be comfortable enough, although it was necessary for the riders to hold on fore and aft to the saddle with both hands, while a muleteer went ahead and led the beasts. In some of the steeper places the maintenance of a seat under these conditions required no little skill. As for the men, there were no special muleteers. We were supposed to know how to ride, and in a short time we had discovered how to guide the horses with the single rein provided, either by pulling it, or by pressing it across the horse’s neck. To stop the modern Greek horse you whistle. That is to say, you whistle if you can muster a whistle at all, which is sometimes difficult when a panic seizes you and your mouth becomes dry and intractable. In the main our progress was so moderate that no more skill was needed to ride or guide the steeds than would be required on a handcar. Only on rare occasions, when some of the beasts got off the track or fell behind, was any real acquaintance with Greek horsemanship required. This happened to all of us in turn before we got home again, and in each case the muleteers came to our aid in due season after we had completely lost all recollection of the proper procedure for stopping and were seeking to accomplish it by loud “whoas” instead of the soothing sibilant which is the modern Greek equivalent for that useful, and indeed necessary, word.

We found it highly desirable now and then to alight and walk, for to the unaccustomed rider the strain of sitting in a cramped position on a horse for hours at a time is wearying and benumbing to the lower limbs. On the ride up to Bassæ, those who did no walking at all found it decidedly difficult to walk when they arrived. The one deterrent was the labor involved in dismounting and the prospective difficulty of getting aboard again. In this operation the muleteers assisted our clumsiness not a little, and we discovered that the way to attract their attention to a desire to alight was to say “ka-tò,” in a commanding tone—the same being equivalent to “down.”

So much for our experiences as we wound along the sides of rocky ravines and gorges in the heart of the hills behind Andhritsæna. When we had grown accustomed to the manipulation of the horses and had learned that the beasts really would not fall down and dash us into the depths below, we began to enjoy the scenery. It was rugged, for the most part, although at the bottoms of the valleys there was frequently meadow land spangled with innumerable wildflowers and shrubbery, watered by an occasional brook. It was a lovely morning, still cool and yet cloudless. The birds twittered among the stunted trees. We passed from narrow vale to narrow vale, and at last, when no outlet was to be seen, we ceased to descend and began a steady climb out of the shady undergrowth along the side of a rocky mountain, where there was no wood at all save for scattered groves of pollard oaks—curious old trees, low and gnarled, covered with odd bunches, and bearing an occasional wreath of mistletoe. At the ends of their branches the trees put forth handfuls of small twigs, which we were told the inhabitants are accustomed to lop off for fagots. It is evident that the trees do not get half a chance to live and thrive. But they manage in some way to prolong their existence, and they give to the region at Bassæ and to the temple there a certain weird charm.

THRESHING FLOOR AT BASSÆ

Off to the west as we climbed there appeared a shining streak of silver which the guides saw and pointed to, shouting “Thalassa! Thalassa!” (the sea). And, indeed, it was the first glimpse of the ocean west of Greece. Shortly beyond we attained the summit and began a gentle descent along a sort of tableland through a sparse grove of the stunted oaks, among which here and there appeared round flat floors of stone used for threshing. Many of these could be seen on the adjacent hills and in the valleys, and the number visible at one time proved to be something like a score. All at once, as we wound slowly down through the avenue of oaks, the temple itself burst unexpectedly into view, gray like the surrounding rocks, from which, indeed, it was built. To approach a shrine like this from above is not common in Greece, and this sudden apparition of the temple, which is admirably preserved, seems to have struck every visitor who has described it as exceedingly beautiful, particularly as one sees it framed in a foreground of these odd trees. We were high enough above the structure to look down into it, for it is of course devoid of any roof; and unlike most of the other temples, it was always so, for it was of the “hypæthral” type, and intended to be open to the sky. Nor was this the only unusual feature of the temple at Bassæ. It was peculiar among the older shrines in that it ran north and south instead of east and west, which was the regular custom among the roofed structures of the Greeks. Of course this difference in orientation has given rise to a great deal of discussion and speculation among those whose opinions are of weight in such matters. Probably the casual visitor in Greece is well aware of the custom of so fixing the axes of temples as to bring the eastern door directly in line with the rising sun on certain appropriate days, for the better illumination of the interior on those festivals. Although such expedients as the use of translucent marble roofs were resorted to, the lighting of the interior of roofed temples was always a matter of some little difficulty, and this arrangement of the doorways was necessary to bring out the image of the god in sufficiently strong light. From this system of orientation it has occasionally been possible to identify certain temples as dedicated to particular deities, by noting the days on which the rising sun would have come exactly opposite the axis of the shrine. No such consideration would apply with the same force to a hypæthral temple, whatever else might have figured in the general determination of the orientation. But even at Bassæ, where the length of the temple so obviously runs north and south, it is still true that one opening in it was eastward, and it is supposed that in the end of the temple space was an older shrine to Apollo, which, like other temples, faced the rising sun. This older precinct was not interfered with in erecting the greater building, and it is still plainly to be seen where the original sacred precinct was.

The members of the single encircling row of columns are still intact, although in some cases slightly thrown out of alignment; and they still bear almost the entire entablature. The cella wall within is also practically intact, and inside it are still standing large sections of the unusual engaged half-columns which encircled the cella, standing against its sides. The great frieze in bas-relief, which once ran around the top, facing inward, is now in the British Museum, where it is justly regarded as one of the chief treasures of the Greek collection. It hardly needs the comment that such arrangement of the frieze was highly unusual, inside the building, instead of on the outer side of the cella, as was the case in the Parthenon. Ictinus, the architect of the Parthenon, also built the temple at Bassæ, which was dedicated by the Phigalians to “Apollo the Helper,” in gratification for relief from a plague. That fact has given rise to the conjecture that it was perhaps built at the same time that the plague ravaged Athens, during the early part of the Peloponnesian War. However that may be, it is evidently true that it belongs to the same golden age that gave us the Parthenon and the Propylæa at Athens. Unlike them, it does not glow with the varied hues of the weathered Pentelic marble, but is a soft gray, due to the native stone of which it was constructed. And this gray color, contrasting with the sombreness of the surrounding grove, gives much the same satisfactory effect as is to be seen at Ægina, where the temple is seen, like this, in a framework of trees.

Needless to say, the outlook from this lofty site—something like four thousand feet above the sea—is grand. The ocean is visible to the south as well as to the west. The rolling mountains to the east form an imposing pageant, culminating in the lofty Taÿgetos range. Looming like a black mound in the centre of the middle distance to the southward is the imposing and isolated acropolis of Ithome, the stronghold of the ancient Messenians. As usual, the builders of the temple at Bassæ selected a most advantageous site for their shrine. It was while we were enjoying the view after lunch that a solitary German appeared from the direction of Ithome, having passed through the modern Phigalia. He had a boy for a guide, but aside from that he was roaming through this deserted section of Greece alone. He knew nothing of the language. He had no dragoman to make the rough places smooth. He had spent several sorry nights in peasants’ huts, where vermin most did congregate. But he was enjoying it all with the enthusiasm of the true Philhellene, and on the whole was making his way about surprisingly well. We sat and chatted for a long time in the shade of the temple, comparing it with the lonely grandeur of the temple at Segesta, in Sicily. And as the sun was sinking we took the homeward way again, but content to walk this time rather than harrow our souls by riding down the excessively steep declivity that led from the mountain to the valleys below.