The old Greek city of Massilia occupied the promontory which is still old Marseilles, clustered on the Butte St. Laurent and Butte des Moulins, where was the Acropolis, with the temples of Apollo and Diana, and the Butte des Cannes. The harbour was the natural fiord, which is now the Vieux port; and the modern splendid street Canebière runs along the site of the old shipbuilding-docks of the Greeks. Here was found a few years ago an ancient galley with keel and ribs of cedar, and coins in her of the date of Julius Cæsar. She is now in the museum. To the south of the old port was a marsh; the rectangular canal and the Bassin du Carénage mark the position of this marsh, now built over—a marsh that reached to the base of the limestone hills that rise to the peak now occupied by Notre Dame de la Garde.
The old Greek walls of Massilia ran in a sweep along where is now the
Boulevard des Dames, Rue d'Aix, and reached the Vieux port at the Bourse.
Considering the importance of the Greek city, its wealth and splendour, it is surprising to find nowhere in Marseilles any ruins of its ancient founders. But Marseilles has traversed every historic period, in the midst of storm; and after a voyage of three thousand years through history, she has been plundered of every fragment of her ancient treasures. In Rome the Colosseum and the tomb of Augustus were robbed of their materials for the construction of houses; and in Marseilles every stone of her ancient temples and acropolis have been appropriated for baser purposes. She has passed through twenty fires, and as many sieges. Taken, sacked, decimated, she has been rebuilt over and over again, always hurriedly, consequently always with material taken where nearest at hand, without respect for her monuments and historic recollections. The disturbed soil of Marseilles is not even a heap of ruins, for every stone found in the soil has been utilised as material for construction. Nevertheless some traces of the Greek founders remain in the beautiful coins of the colony, and in inscriptions that have been picked out of the walls or foundations of mediæval houses. The coins, stamped with classic beauty, are well-known to numismatists.
We have space to notice only one or two inscriptions. One is the sign of Athenades, son of Dioscorides, professor of Latin grammar, probably set up two thousand years ago over his door; another is a notice of a young lad, Cleudemos, son of Dionysius, having gained a prize. A curious Greek inscription is found at Carpentras, a colony from Marseilles, that illustrates the manner in which foreign religions got mixed up with those that were proper to the Greeks.
"Blessed be Thebe, daughter of Thelhui, laden with oblations for the God
Osiris—she never jawed her husband—she was blameless in the eyes of
Osiris, and receives his benediction."
Truly such a wife deserved that her conduct towards her husband should be commemorated through ages upon ages, and we may thank good fortune that it has preserved to us the name of this incomparable lady.
As I am on the subject of Greek inscriptions, I may quote the following touching one, that has been found built into the wall of a house at Aix.
"On the banks, beaten by the waves, a youth appeals to thee, voyager! I, beloved by God, am no more subject to the domination of Death. I passed my life sailing on the sea, myself a sailor, like to the youthful gods, the Amyclæans, saviours of sailors, free from the yoke of matrimony. Here in my tomb, which I owe to the piety of my masters, I rest sheltered from all maladies, free from toil, from cares, from pains; whereas in life, all these woes fall on our gross envelopes of matter. The dead, on the other hand, are divided into two classes, of which one returns to the earth, whereas the other rises to join the dance with the celestial choirs; and it is to this latter class that I belong, having had the good fortune to range myself under the banners of the Divinity."
Clearly this was the tomb of a young sailor-boy, a native of Aix, who had served in a merchant vessel of Marseilles. There is something graceful and pathetic in the monument.
But enough of the past. Now for the present, and in considering the present let us attend to that which feeds and builds up that gross envelope of matter the young Greek sailor had laid aside.