Greece and the Ægean Islands

by Philip Sanford Marden

It was, then, inside this mole, two stadia in length, that we were anchored. Doubtless the modern mole is still standing on the ancient foundation, but it would not be considered anything remarkable in the way of engineering to-day, whatever it may have been deemed in the childhood of the race. Something in the air of Samos must have bred a race of natural engineers, no doubt, for not only were these artificial wonders constructed there, but Pythagoras, the mathematical philosopher, was born in the island.

From the city up to the remnants of the ancient aqueduct in the mountain is not a difficult climb, and the tunnel itself affords a great many points of interest. In an age when tunneling was not a common or well-understood art, it must indeed have seemed a great wonder that the Samians were able to pierce the bowels of this considerable rocky height to get a water supply that could not be cut off. The source of the flowage was a spring located in the valley on the side of the mountain away from the town, and it would have been perfectly possible to convey the water to the city without any tunnel at all, merely by following the valley around. For some reason this was deemed inexpedient—doubtless because of the evident chance an enemy would have for cutting off the supply. The obvious question is, what was gained by making the tunnel, since the spring itself was in the open and could have been stopped as readily as an open aqueduct? And the only answer that has been suggested is that the spring alone is so concealed and so difficult to find that, even with the clue given by Herodotus, it was next to impossible to locate it. And in order to conceal the source still further, the burial of the conduit in the heart of the mountain certainly contributed not a little. Nevertheless it is a fact that the farther end of the tunnel was discovered some years ago by tracing a line from the site of this spring, so that now the aqueduct has been relocated and is found to be substantially as described by Herodotus in the passage quoted.

Most visitors, possessed of comparatively limited time like ourselves, are content with inspecting only the town end of the tunnel, which lies up in the side of the mountain. It is amply large enough to enter, but tapers are needed to give light to the feet as one walks carefully, and often sidewise, along the ledge that borders the deeper cutting below, in which once ran the actual water pipes. The depth of the latter, which Herodotus calls “twenty cubits,” is considerably greater at this end of the tunnel than at the other,—a fact which is apparently accounted for by the necessity of correcting errors of level, after the tunnel was finished, to give sufficient pitch to carry the water down. In those primitive days it is not surprising that such an error was made. There is evidence that the tunnel was dug by two parties working from opposite ends, as is the custom to-day. That they met in the centre of the mountain with such general accuracy speaks well for the engineering skill of the time, and that they allowed too little for the drop of the stream is not at all strange. The result of this is that, in the end commonly visited by travelers, there is need of caution lest the unwary slip from the narrow ledge at the side into the supplementary cut thirty feet below—a fall not to be despised, either because of its chance of injury or because of the difficulty of getting the victim out again. So much, as Herodotus would say, for the water-conduit of the Samians.

From the tunnel down to the ancient Heræum, whither our ship had sailed to await us, proved to be a walk of something over two miles along a curving beach, across which occasional streams made their shallow way from inland to the sea. It was a pleasant walk, despite occasional stony stretches; for the rugged mountain chain inland presented constantly changing views on the one hand, while on the other, across the deep blue of the Ægean, rose the commanding heights of Asia Minor, stretching away from the neighboring Mykale to the distant, and still snow-crowned, peaks of the Latmian range. Under the morning sun the prospect was indescribably lovely, particularly across the sea to the bold coasts of Asia, the remote mountains being revealed in that delicate chiaroscuro which so often attends white peaks against the blue. Ahead was always the solitary column which is all that remains standing of the once vast temple of Hera, “the largest we ever have seen,” according to the ingenuous and truthful Herodotus.

There is a reason for holding the spot in an especial manner sacred to Hera, for it is said by legend that she was born on the banks of one of the little streams whose waters we splashed through in crossing the beach to her shrine. The temple itself we found to lie far back from the water’s edge, its foundations so buried in the deposited earth that considerable excavation has been necessary to reveal them. The one remaining column is not complete, but is still fairly lofty. It bears no capital, and its drums are slightly jostled out of place, so that it has a rather unfinished look, to which its lack of fluting contributes; for, as even the amateur knows, the fluting of Greek columns was never put on until the whole pillar was set up, and every joint of it ground so fine as to be invisible. We walked up to the ruin through the inevitable cutting, in which lay the inevitable narrow-gauge track for the excavator’s cars, but there was no activity to be seen. The excavation had progressed so far as to leave little more to be done, or there was no more money, or something had intervened to put an end to the operations for the time. Not far away, however, along the beach, lay a few houses, which constituted the habitation of the diggers and of a few fishermen, whose seine boats were being warped up as we passed.

The exploration of the great temple of Hera has revealed the not unusual fact that there had been two temples on the same spot at successive periods. They were not identical in location, but the later overlapped the earlier, traces of the latter being confined to its lowest foundation stones. Of the ruins of the later temple there was but slightly more visible, save for the one standing column and a multitude of drums, capitals, and bases lying about. The latter were of a type we had not previously seen. They were huge lozenges of marble ornamented with horizontal grooves and resembling nothing so much as great cable drums partially wound—the effect of a multitude of narrow grooves in a slightly concave trough around the column. They were of a noticeable whiteness, for the marble of which this temple was composed was not so rich in mineral substances as the Pentelic, and gave none of that golden brown effect so familiar in the Athenian temples.

COLUMN BASES. SAMOS

CARVED COLUMN-BASE. BRANCHIDÆ