Greece and the Ægean Islands

by Philip Sanford Marden

Owing to the exhaustion due to the festivities of the night before, we found Easter Sunday at Paros a quiet day indeed. The streets of the little town proved to be practically deserted, for it was a day of homekeeping, and no doubt one of feasting. The occasional vicious snap of a firecracker was to be heard as we landed on the mole that serves the chief town of Paros for a wharf and started for a short Sunday morning ramble through the streets. From the landing stage the most conspicuous object in Paros was a large white church not far from the water, rejoicing in the name of the “Virgin of a Hundred Gates,” as we were told we should interpret the epithet “hekatonpyliani.” It proved to be a sort of triple church, possessing side chapels on the right and left of the main auditorium, and almost as large. In that at the right was to be seen a cruciform baptismal font, very venerable and only a little raised from the level of the floor, indicating the uses to which this apartment of the church was put. The presence of ancient marble columns incorporated into this early Christian edifice was likewise striking. In the main church the most noticeable thing was the employment of a stone altar-screen, or iconostasis, with three doors leading into the apse behind instead of the customary single one, an arrangement which has often been commented upon as resembling the proskenion of the ancient theatre. It was all deserted, and the air was heavy with old incense and with the balsamic perfume of the leaves and branches that had fallen to the floor and been trampled upon during the mass of the previous night. It was all very still, very damp and cool, and evidently very old, doubtless supplanting some previous pagan shrine.

In the court before the church stood a sort of abandoned monastery, as at the pass of Daphne, only this one was spotless white, and with its walls served to shut in completely the area in front of the church itself. In a portion of the buildings of this inclosure is a small museum, chiefly notable for inscriptions, one of which refers to Archilochus, the writer of Iambic verse, who lived in Paros in the seventh century before the birth of Christ.

OLD COLUMNS IN CHURCH. PAROS

The chief fame of Paros was, of course, for its marbles. The quarries whence these superb blocks came lay off to the northeast, we were aware; and had time only allowed, they might have been explored with profit. The Parian marble was the favorite one for statues, owing to its incomparable purity and translucence, and the facility with which it could be worked up to a high finish. It was quarried under ground, and thus derived its designation, “lychnites,” or “quarried-by-candlelight.” Those who have visited the subterranean chambers formed by the men who anciently took marble from the spot relate that the exploration of the quarries is fraught with considerable interest and with not a little danger, owing to the complex nature of the galleries and the varying levels.

In wandering around the little modern town which occupies the site of the ancient city of Paros, and bears the name of Paroikia, we found not a little color to delight the eye, although the streets were generally rather muddy and squalid. On the southerly side of the harbor, where the basic rock of the island rises to a considerable height, there was anciently a small acropolis, which is still crowned with a rather massive tower built by the Franks out of bits of ancient marble structures. From the outside, the curious log-cabin effect caused by using marble columns for the walls, each drum laid with ends outward, was most apparent and striking. Within we found a tiny shrine, deserted as the great church had been, but still giving evidence of recent religious activity. Aside from the remnants of old temples, serving as the marble logs of this Frankish stronghold, there seemed to be little in Paros to recall the days when she was one of the richest of all the Athenian tributaries. A few prehistoric houses have been uncovered and several ancient tombs. But the most lasting of all the classic monuments are the quarries, now deserted, but still revealing the marks of the ancient chisels, whence came the raw material for most of the famous Greek sculptures preserved to us.

To us, seated on the pebbly beach and idly listening to the lapping of the Ægean waves, as we sunned ourselves and awaited the time for embarking, there appeared a native, gorgeous in clothes of a suspiciously American cut. He drew near, smiling frankly, and with a comprehensive gesture which explicitly included the ladies in his query, said: “Where do you fellers come from?” He had served in the American navy, it appeared, and had voyaged as far as the Philippines. Other Parians ranged themselves at a respectful distance and gazed in open-mouthed admiration at their fellow townsman who understood how to talk with the foreigners, and who walked along with a lady on either side, whom he constantly addressed as “you fellers” to their unbounded amusement and delight. We convoyed him to a wayside inn near the quay, under two spindling plane trees, and plied him with coffee as a reward for his courtesy and interest; and later we left him standing with bared head watching our little ship steam away westward, toward the setting sun and that land to which he hoped one day to follow us once more.

Our return to Athens from our island cruise was by way of the southeastern shore of the Peloponnesus, touching at Monemvasía, a rocky promontory near the most southern cape, and connected with the mainland by a very narrow isthmus, which it has even been necessary to bridge at one point; so that, strictly speaking, Monemvasía is an island, rather than a promontory or peninsula. It is a most striking rock, resembling Gibraltar in shape, though vastly smaller. In fact, like Gibraltar, it has the history of an important strategic point, though it is such no longer. Its summit is still crowned by a system of defenses built by the Franks, and the inclosure, which includes the entire top of the rock, also contains a ruined church. A narrow and not unpicturesque town straggles along the shore directly beneath the towering rock itself, much as the town of Gibraltar does, and in it may be seen other ruined churches, belonging to the Frankish period largely, and unused now. The entrance to this village is through a formidable stone gateway in the wall, which descends from the sheer side of the cliff above. A steep zig-zag path leads up from the town to the fort, which although deserted is kept locked, so that a key must be procured before ascending.

Those who have seen the Norman defenses at the promontory of Cefalù, on the northern coast of Sicily, will recognize at once a striking similarity between that place and this Grecian one, not only from a topographical standpoint, but from the arrangement of the walls at the top and lower down at the gateway that bars the upward path. Cefalù, however, is in a more ruinous condition than this Frankish fortress to-day. In point of general situation and view from the summit the two are certainly very similar, with their broad outlook over sea and mainland. The sheer sides of the promontory made it a practically inaccessible citadel from nearly every direction, save that restricted portion up which the path ascends, and the defense of it against every foe but starvation was an easy matter. Even besiegers found it no easy thing to starve out the garrison, for it is on record that the stout old Crusader Villehardouin sat down before the gates of Monemvasía for three years before the inhabitants were forced to capitulate.

The name of Monemvasía is derived from the fact that the isolated rock crowned with the fortress is connected with the mainland by a single narrow neck affording the only entrance. Hence the Greek μόνη ἔμβασις (moné emvasis) was combined in the modern pronunciation to form the not unmusical name of the place and has a perfectly natural explanation. Moreover the same name, further shortened, lives again in the name of “Malmsey” wine, which is made from grapes grown on rocky vineyards and allowed to wither before gathering, as was the custom in the old Monemvasía wine industry.