THE THEATER OF DIONYSUS ON THE SOUTHERN SLOPE OF THE ACROPOLIS
What one does see is marvelously, almost ineffably beautiful. Herodotus called this land, with its stony soil and its multitudes of bare mountains, the "rugged nurse of liberty." Though rugged, and often naked, nevertheless its loveliness—and that soft word must be used—is so great and so pure that, as we give to Greek art the crown of wild olive, so we must give it surely also to the scenery of Greece. It is a loveliness of outline, of color, and above all of light.
Almost everywhere in Greece you see mountains, range upon range, closing about you or, more often, melting away into far distances, into outlines of shadows and dreams. Almost everywhere, or so it seemed to me, you look upon the sea. And as the outlines of the mountains of Greece are nearly always divinely calm, so the colors of the seas of Greece are magically deep and radiant and varied. And over mountains and seas fall changing wonders of light, giving to outline eternal meanings, to color the depth of a soul.
When you stand upon the Acropolis you see not only ruins which, taking everything into consideration, are perhaps the most wonderful in the world, but also one of the most beautiful views of the world. It is asserted as a fact by authorities that the ancient Greeks had little or no feeling for beauty of landscape. One famous writer on things Greek states that "a fine view as such had little attraction for them," that is, the Greeks. It is very difficult for those who are familiar with the sites the Greeks selected for their great temples and theaters, such as the rock of the Acropolis, the heights at Sunium and at Argos, the hill at Taormina in Sicily, etc., to feel assured of this, however lacking in allusion to the beauty of nature, unless in connection with supposed animating intelligences, Greek literature may be. It is almost impossible to believe it as you stand on the Acropolis.
All Athens lies beneath you, pale, almost white, with hints of mauve and yellow, gray and brown, with its dominating palace, its tiny Byzantine churches, its tiled and flat roofs, its solitary cypress-trees and gardens. Lycabettus stands out, small, but bold, almost defiant. Beyond, and on every side, stretches the calm plain of Attica. That winding river of dust marks the Via Sacra, along which the great processions used to pass to Eleusis by the water. There are the dark groves of Academe, a place of rest in a bare land. The marble quarries gleam white on the long flanks of Mount Pentelicus, and the great range of Parnes leads on to Ægaleos. Near you are the Hill of the Nymphs, with its observatory; the rocky plateau from which the apostle Paul spoke of Christ to the doubting Athenians; the new plantation at the foot of Philopappos which surrounds the so-called "Prison of Socrates." Honey-famed Hymettus, gray and patient, stretches toward the sea—toward the shining Saronic Gulf and the bay of Phalerum. And there, beyond Phalerum, are the Piræus and Salamis. Mount Elias rules over the midmost isle of Ægina. Beneath the height of Sunium, where the Temple of Poseidon still lifts blanched columns above the passing mariners who have no care for the sea-god's glory, lies the islet of Gaidaronisi, and the mountains of Megara and of Argolis lie like dreaming shadows in the sunlight. Very pure, very perfect, is this great view. Nature here seems purged of all excesses, and even nature in certain places can look almost theatrical, though never in Greece. The sea shines with gold, is decked with marvelous purple, glimmers afar with silver, fades into the color of shadow. The shapes of the mountains are as serene as the shapes of Greek statues. Though bare, these mountains are not savage, are not desolate or sad. Nor is there here any suggestion of that "oppressive beauty" against which the American painter-poet Frederic Crowninshield cries out in a recent poem—of that beauty which weighs upon, rather than releases, the heart of man.
THE TEMPLE OF THE OLYMPIAN ZEUS AT ATHENS
From this view you turn to behold the Parthenon. A writer who loved Greece more than all other countries, who was steeped in Greek knowledge, and who was deeply learned in archæology, has left it on record that on his first visit to the Acropolis he was aware of a feeling of disappointment. His heart bled over the ravages wrought by man in this sacred place—that Turkish powder-magazine in the Parthenon which a shell from Venetians blew up, the stolen lions which saw Italy, the marbles carried to an English museum, the statues by Phidias which clumsy workmen destroyed.
But so incomparably noble, so majestically grand is this sublime ruin, that the first near view of it must surely fill many hearts with an awe which can leave no room for any other feeling. It is incomplete, but not the impression it creates.