The Arsakion, a college for young women, was founded and richly endowed by Mr. Arsakis, a Greek merchant in Vienna. The Varvakion, a manual training-school and gymnasium for boys, was founded by Mr. Varvakes, a raisin merchant. The Polytechnic Institute was the gift of Mr. Metzorios, a merchant of Epirus. The Aretesian, a surgical institute, was founded by Dr. Areteas, a poor boy, who became an eminent surgeon and left 1,000,000 francs for the institution. Dr. Anagnostokes, another eminent surgeon, founded a hospital for eye and ear diseases. George and Mathos Rhizares founded a theological seminary. The late Mr. Syngros, a banker, built an opera-house and gave it to the city; he also founded a model prison for first offenders, a house for impoverished women of rank, a home with a factory for light employment for poor working women, and also a home for the aged of both sexes. The Royal Theater was erected by a stock company, organized by King George, who owns three-fourths of the stock, and was intended to encourage native writers and actors.
Queen Olga built a prison for women. The Crown Princess Sophia built a hospital for children and reorganized and reëquipped in German style the military hospital. The ex-Queen Amalia of Bavaria founded a free dispensary, and Haji Costa, a Greek merchant in Russia, founded the orphan asylum.
The ancient Stadium, originally built three hundred and thirty years before Christ by Lycurgus, the famous Athenian statesman, and one of the noblest, ablest and most practical rulers of Greece, is now being restored in pure white marble after the old style, by the generosity of the late George Averof, who founded the National Museum. His motive was the same as that of Lycurgus, to encourage physical culture among the Greeks, who are very deficient in that important particular. This was demonstrated at the Olympian games, which took place here in 1896. Every event with one exception was captured by strangers. The one exception was the long distance race, twenty-five miles, from the mound at Marathon to the Stadium at Athens, which was won by a young Greek shepherd named Spiridon Louis, and as a reward, in addition to the prize, the government gave him a monopoly of the sale of water from the springs of Marousi, the favorite drinking-water of the Greeks. This spring is a popular resort on the side of the Pentelikos Mountain, near Tatoi, the summer residence of the king. There is a large sale of the water in Athens, and it is brought in fresh from the spring every morning in sheepskins and in large earthen jars. Louis, the runner, is doing a good business, and has increased the demand by representing that its use gave him the strength and speed which won the Marathon race.
The representatives of American colleges who appeared in the games of 1896 acquitted themselves with distinguished honor and carried off their share of the prizes. One of the remarkable incidents was the capture by Robert Garrett of Baltimore, then of Princeton University, of the prize for discus-throwing, a classic Greek game. Mr. Garrett had never seen a discus until his arrival in Athens, but outplayed the Greeks in their own game on their own field.
The new Stadium will be a beautiful structure of marble, six hundred and seventy feet long and one hundred and nine feet broad, with sixty rows of seats of pure white marble, rising one upon the other and accommodating thirty thousand spectators. It is an ideal place for football and similar athletics, and when finished will surpass every other field for sports in ancient or modern times. The cost is comparatively small in Greece, because the extensive quarries of Pentelikos yield their marble treasures for only the cost of cutting and transportation, and no doubt Mr. Averof’s munificence will inspire an ambition among his countrymen to develop their physical as well as their intellectual qualities.
A shrine of history in which all lovers of liberty feel an interest is the little town of Mesolongion, in the western part of the kingdom, where, during the revolution against the Turks in 1823, Marco Bozzaris gained immortality. He is buried under an insignificant monument near a military hospital, and near by is a tomb containing the heart of Lord Byron, who died there. His body was conveyed to England. A monument was erected to Byron at Mesolongion in 1881, and a beautiful group in marble, representing him protecting a beautiful female, symbolizing Greece, from a ferocious barbarian, signifying Turkey, has recently been placed in one of the parks of Athens.
The connection of Lord Byron with the emancipation of Greece was more sentimental than otherwise. It is true that during the war for liberty he offered his services to the Greek patriots and brought them several thousand dollars of his own money, which was sadly needed by the revolutionary leaders. He loaned £4,000 toward the equipment of a Greek fleet, and assisted the patriots to borrow money in London, where he did much to awaken sympathy for the gallant struggle they were making against the Turks. He enlisted a company of adventurers and drilled them at Mesolongion for several months, but they made endless trouble, and he was finally compelled to pay them large sums of money and send them away. It was a motley gang of desperadoes, composed of Englishmen, Scotsmen, Irishmen, Americans, Swedes, Norwegians, Germans, Swiss, Belgians, Russians, Poles, Austrians, Hungarians, Danes, Italians, Frenchmen, Servians, Bulgarians and representatives of every other race and nation who were attracted to him by popular rumors that he had large sums of money to expend in the cause of Grecian liberty. But his plans were impracticable. It was a case of poetic genius and not military skill; but Byron died a hero. It redeemed his reputation, however, and there is no doubt that during the few weeks preceding his death he lived upon a sixpence a day, as his biographers claim, for he had stripped himself of every farthing and had forfeited all claims upon his friends in behalf of the Greek cause. His name will always be cherished by the Greeks.
“The Maid of Athens,” to whom Byron addressed the charming love-song with which we are all familiar, is said to have been Miss Theresa Macri, daughter of the English vice-consul, with whom he fell desperately in love while he was a guest of her father during his first visit to Greece in 1809. He was just twenty-one years old and was still unknown to fame, having published only his first volume of poems. He lived with the family for several months and wanted to marry the daughter, but her father seems to have been a sensible man and refused his consent. Byron returned to England, married Miss Milbanke, separated from her a few months later and left England forever. The next year he met the Countess Guicciolo at Venice and lived with her, without the formality of a marriage for seven years, until he went to Greece, where her father Count Gamba, accompanied him and remained with him until his death.
Some writers have asserted that ancient Greece had a population of at least 10,000,000, and certain antiquarians have estimated that the city of Athens, at the age of Pericles, had a population of 750,000. Now it has 117,000. But the best authorities believe that neither Athens nor Greece ever had a greater population than now. It is certainly true that the number of inhabitants gradually diminished during the Turkish tyranny until, at the outbreak of the revolution in 1821, there were only 766,747 people in Greece. After the revolution the population began to increase gradually until in 1890 it had passed two millions, more than three times the number when the present government was formed, notwithstanding the large emigration. The natural increase is about 2.4 per cent per year, very nearly the same as that of the United States. Seventy-eight per cent of the population live in the country and twenty-two per cent in the towns. A good many of the so-called towns are small villages of farmers. It is the custom in Greece for the people to live in communities and go to their farms every morning. This practice was necessary for mutual protection in the days of the Turks. You see few detached farmhouses, and few country-seats, although the number is rapidly increasing, now that brigandage is extinct. As a rule, however, even now, travelers find the farmhouses in clusters, and the farmers going out to their work every morning with a lunch of bread and olives in their pockets.
Nearly all the land that is capable of raising crops is under cultivation, but the methods are very primitive, and it does not produce anything like the crops that ought to come from such soil. The government has recently instituted a general movement for agricultural education, and has established schools in all the provinces, at which the science of farming is taught—only the rudiments at present, because the Greeks are very conservative, and the wise men who are at the head of this movement know better than to go too rapidly. The farms average about ten acres in extent, the great majority of them being less than two. They are cultivated entirely by hand, and with home-made implements. The soil is plowed with a crooked stick, similar to that used by the Egyptians in the days of Moses, and the grain is thrashed with the hoofs of animals trampling upon it. Near by every community can be seen a circular platform paved with stone, often with a post in the center. When the harvest comes the grain will be spread upon the surface, and three or four animals will be hitched to the post and driven round and round until they have trampled the kernels out of the husks. Greece does not grow enough food for her own consumption. At least sixty per cent of the meat, vegetables and grain consumed annually are imported, which is entirely unnecessary and a direct loss to the people, because the transportation has to be paid for, and so much more comes out of the pockets of the laboring classes.