The Turk and his lost provinces

by William Eleroy Curtis

The fellows are required to pursue original investigations and twice a year to report the results.

Everyone can appreciate the advantages offered by the American school to those who are seeking a career as scholars or instructors. It gives a vitality to their learning which they cannot get in books, and the same books read in Greece are much more luminous than in the class-rooms at home. The original work done by the students is also of great importance to them, and it is gratifying to know that this institution has taken the lead and is recognized as the most important among the several national colleges at Athens. The Greek government is liberal in its encouragement and the king feels a deep interest in all its concerns.

Original work has been going on since 1886, and the results of the excavations may be seen in the National Museum, at the Argive Heraeum, at Athens, and in a volume recently published by Professor Waldstein, now lecturer at King’s College, Cambridge, who was the director for some years. Some of the most interesting of the explorations have been at Icaria, the first seat of the worship of Bacchus, and the home of Thespis, the inventor of the theater. He was the first man to present a play to the public. There had been recitations and declamations upon the platform before his time, but he introduced dialogues and plots, and invented the mask so that one man-actor could take two parts. Women never appeared on the stage in those days. The feminine parts were always taken by men. The director of the American school discovered the original home of Thespis and it was excavated under his direction. The Americans were not allowed, however, to take anything away. Under the laws of Greece the finder is protected in publishing reports of his discoveries, and may receive the honor and the credit, but the tangible results are the property of the government or of the owner of the land, who, however, to retain them, must erect a museum upon the ground for their public exhibition.

The American School has done a good deal of work at Plataea, the scene of a great battle between the Greeks and the Persians in 479 B.C., but found little of value. The excavations were more successful at Eretria, at one time an important city, which was destroyed by the Persians before the battle of Marathon. Here they uncovered a theater, a temple to Bacchus, a fine lot of baths, and the most perfect gymnasium that has ever been found.

Near Argos the American School, under Dr. Waldstein, discovered and excavated the ruins of a magnificent temple of Hera, which was destroyed in the year 423 B.C., when one of the priestesses went to sleep without blowing out her candle; the decorations caught fire and the temple was burned. This was a rich find, for, in addition to the temple, they uncovered several other buildings of interest, and brought to the National Museum at Athens a number of valuable statues and a large quantity of bronze and terra-cotta work.

The excavations of the American students at Corinth I have referred to in a previous chapter. They began work there in 1896, and will continue in a systematic manner until the old city is entirely uncovered and opened to the public, as Pompeii is to-day. Old Corinth was a very populous city, larger than Athens, and, at the height of its glory in 325 B.C., had a population of nearly 200,000, with many magnificent structures, which suffered from earthquakes, and were plundered and destroyed by the Romans and other invaders. Julius Caesar rebuilt a portion of the old city, but it was again destroyed by his successors, and finally disappeared and was covered from the sight of men by the drifting sands. The American School has purchased part of the site, and, with the encouragement of the Greek government, is working as rapidly as its funds will permit; but is entirely dependent, as I have said, upon the generosity of private supporters. The German Institute receives $5,000 a year from its government for excavations; the French have an even larger allowance, and the English are spending large sums. The American explorers alone lack funds, yet from them the most important results are expected.

Mars Hill, from which Paul delivered the eloquent address of which we have an account in Chapter xvii of the Acts of the Apostles, beginning, “Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are very religious”—not “too superstitious,” as the old version has it—stands across a little gully from the Acropolis at Athens. It was then occupied by the Athenian courts, called the Areopagus, and the learned men, lawyers, philosophers, teachers and orators of the city met there every day to exchange ideas and talk politics. The ancient court of the Areopagus, composed of the most venerable and eminent Athenians, and exercising supreme jurisdiction in certain cases involving life, sat there regularly to hear arguments and announce their decisions. The hill is said to have derived its name from the fact that Ares, or Mars, was the first person tried there for murder. It was there also that Orestes was arraigned and acquitted of criminal responsibility for the murder of his mother, Clytemnestra. Many other famous trials took place upon the hill. Lawyers were never allowed to appear before an Athenian court, still less the Areopagus. Every man had to plead his own case.

MARS HILL, ATHENS

St. Paul appeared upon the Areopagus five hundred and twenty years after the birth of Socrates and three hundred and seventy years after the death of Demosthenes, but Greece was still filled with learned men. Upon its stage the masterpieces of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes were first presented to the public.