Vacation days in Greece

by Rufus B. Richardson

No object is more frequently mentioned in connection with Syracuse than Arethusa, the nymph changed into a fountain when pursued across the sea by the river Alpheius. The water of this fountain, much praised in antiquity, has in recent times become brackish by the letting in of salt water through earthquakes. But what it has lost in real excellence it has gained in stylish appearance. For the sake of its ancient renown, washerwomen have recently been excluded from it, a fine wall put about it, and papyrus plants added to make it look picturesque. Enveloped in a more natural beauty lies the rival fountain, Kyane, the source of the southern branch of the Anapos some distance south of the Olympieum. The nymph Kyane was turned into a fountain by Pluto because she told Demeter of the rape of Persephone. We gave half a day to Kyane, and had ourselves pushed up a stream lined with reeds and papyrus, the latter a reminder of Saracen occupation, to this spring, from which the stream comes forth with a rush. It is difficult to decide which is more beautiful, the clear, deep, broad spring or the stream through which one approaches it. The whole journey is like an excursion into fairy-land, the outside world being shut out by the reeds and papyrus.

But if the monuments of Syracuse are on the whole comparatively unimpressive, what a history is crowded into the less than three centuries between Gelon, the second founder of the city, in that he made it great, and Marcellus. This history is far from being a mere record of slaughter, and sieges, and sack of cities. The time of Hiero I. is memorable for the appearance at Syracuse, in familiar if not always friendly converse, of Pindar, Simonides, Bacchylides, Æschylus, Epicharmos and Xenophanes. One must not think of the poetry of this Hieronian circle as exotic because most of the poets were transplanted: to the Greek poets any place in the Greek world where they were appreciated and cared for was home. Anacreon sang as well and as naturally at Samos and Athens as at his native Teos; Simonides’s muse was apparently equally happy in Athens, Thessaly, and Sicily; and even the Theban eagle suffered no relaxation of his wings at the Syracusan court; nay, he appears to have made his loftiest flights there. Over one-third of his epinicion odes are for Sicilian victors. Of the Titan Æschylus alone of that company one may suspect that, although he did not always get on well at home, yet the sojourn so far from Eleusis and Marathon found him homesick and heartsick. It is only rarely in the world’s history that such a lot of stars gather around a court. It is a good deal that Syracuse was again visited by the muses in the time of Hiero II., when Theocritus took up his abode there.

The afternoon before we left Syracuse we got a reminder that its greatness did not all pass away with the Roman occupation. The enormous catacombs from Christian times speak of new and better days. But what stirs one more is one particular spot in the crypt of St. Marcian, a church partly made out of a temple of Bacchus. Here, in front of an old altar, a block of stone is pointed out as the stone on which St. Paul stood when he preached at Syracuse. One gets impatiently sceptical about traces of the saints in Italy; but why not accept the report that in his three days’ stay at Syracuse, recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, St. Paul preached here? What is more fitting than that, by the very altar of the god of revelry, the great apostle should speak as he spoke at Athens? At any rate, I add this spot to Appii Forum and Tres Tabernæ as a place where I trod in the footsteps of a man beside whom Gelon, Pyrrhus, and Hannibal were pygmies.

II

On the journey from Syracuse to Girgenti by rail through the heart of Sicily the most interesting point is Castrogiovanni, the ancient Enna, called the navel of Sicily, a height from which one sees mountains diverging in every direction, a real Knotenpunkt. The railroad affords a view of Enna only from some distance as it plunges into a long tunnel under the ridge joining this height to another almost as high, on which stands Calascibetta. The surroundings of the old Sikel town, Enna, which, being early colonized by Syracuse, became a lasting monument of Greek domination over the Sikel, were probably much more beautiful in ancient times. On these rather bare heights there was once such luxuriant growth of woods and flowers that hunting-dogs lost the scent of the game. In this flower-garden the Sicilian legend placed the rape of Persephone.

As the train approached Girgenti it passed through the great sulphur region of the world. Here thousands of boys, many of them under ten years of age, carry the sulphur up to the surface. These boys are bound over by their parents to the overseers of the mines for the sum of two hundred francs, more or less, which they are expected to work off. But it takes years to do it, and many die before they succeed. The parents spend the purchase money and the children live on in despair. Our informant, a German-American, who had come over to study the sulphur industry, and who was not a sentimentalist, said that the sight of these boys going up and down the ladders with tears rolling down their cheeks had made him join in their sighs and carry a heavy heart all the way to Palermo.

The case of Girgenti is that of Syracuse reversed. Its history is not so very important, but its ruins are impressive. Even at Himera, where Theron and Akragas stood by Gelon and Syracuse, it was in a second rôle. On that occasion, when the larger part of the Carthaginian prisoners fell to Akragas, apparently because they strayed into Akragantine territory after the battle, some of the citizens are said to have got five hundred slaves apiece. From this time Akragas gave itself up to the amassing of wealth. As a consequence it became the least martial and most luxurious of Greek cities, showing, like Corinth, that a Dorian city, when once given over to pleasure, could outdo the Ionians in that direction. While Syracuse battled with Athens, Akragas remained neutral. About the only form of strenuous activity to which it arose was athletics; and even then a victory was made an occasion for a display of wealth. When Exænetos won in the stadion at Olympia, three hundred span of milk-white horses accompanied him into the city.

The luxury of Akragas took on a peculiarly showy and almost gross type. The men loaded themselves with gold ornaments. They erected tombs to horses which had won Olympic victories and to other favorite animals. A typical Akragantine was Gellias, who used to have slaves stand at his door and invite every passing stranger to come in; and once, when five hundred knights from Gela made a visit to Akragas in the winter, he took them all in, entertained them, and gave each of them a new chiton and himation. That the means of entertainment did not fail him is shown by the statement that he had three hundred rock-hewn wine-barrels, holding each a hundred amphoræ, and a big vat holding a thousand amphoræ, out of which these were filled; and this was private hospitality.

One could hardly expect moderation when such bountiful provision for carousal was at hand. Athenæus tells a story showing how well the young men lived up to their privileges. Some of these, drinking themselves dizzy at a banquet, declared that the house rocked like a ship, and, as if to avert impending shipwreck, began to lighten ship by pitching the furniture out of the windows, to the danger, and then to the hilarious delight, of the passers-by. But as a crowd and some disorder resulted, the generals went to the house to investigate the matter. The young bloods were equal to the emergency. They accosted the graybeards as Tritons, thanked them for deliverance from the storm, and vowed to sacrifice to them so soon as they had got over their sea-sickness and fright. The old men, being carried away with the humor of the thing, entered into the spirit of the joke, and that house was ever after known as “the ship.”

Such a joke might have been played in a good many other towns, but the following bit of gossip, if not true, is ben trovato, and has a peculiarly Akragantine flavor. It is related that at the fatal siege of the city by the Carthaginians, when all was at stake, a law was passed restricting the guards when at their posts to one under-mattress and one over-mattress, one blanket, and two pillows. If these things were done in a green tree, what was done in a dry? Empedocles, the most eminent citizen of Akragas, said of his fellow-citizens that they indulged in high living as if they were going to die to-morrow, but built as if they were going to live forever. The first half of this statement we have to judge by gossip, which, as it is very bulky and all to the same point, may well make us believe that when there is so much smoke there must be some fire. For the corroboration of the latter half, go to Girgenti and circumspice.