The old world and its ways

by William Jennings Bryan

DEMOSTHENES' PLATFORM.

On the shore of the Ægean sea, between Athens and the harbor, at a place where Demosthenes may have tested his voice against the tumult of the waves, I gathered some pebbles. I can not prove that they are the identical ones used by him to overcome the impediment in his speech, but they are at least a reminder of the toilsome struggle through which he passed before his name was known to fame.

It was a disappointment to find so little to mark the site of the academy where Socrates and Plato met their disciples. These philosophers have made such an impression upon the thought of the world that I had hoped to find some spot clearly identified as the place where they taught. An old house now stands on a treeless tract over which they are said to have walked in their daily discussions, but it is a modern one. A gate admits to the grounds, although no wall incloses them. It is much easier to picture Demosthenes speaking from the rostrum which still remains, than to imagine Socrates propounding here his questions and elaborating the method of reasoning to which his name has been given.

There is an old cemetery within the limits of the present city where recent excavation has brought to light numerous tombs ornamented with sculpture. Some of the groups of statuary and urns have been left where they were found, while others have been given a place in the museum. These are additional proof of the number of those who handled the chisel in the days of Phidias.

No spot is identified with Herodotus, the Father of History, or with Thucydides who, with Herodotus, has been the instructor of later chroniclers. Except the remains of the theatres, there is nothing to recall the tragedies of Euripides, Æschylus and Sophocles or the comedies of the Aristophanes; and no place is pointed out as the site of the studio of Parrhasius or Zeuxis, though the lessons which they taught the world have not been forgotten. While the guide does not pretend to know the house in which Homer lived or where he wrote his deathless songs, the traveler who passes through the Hellespont can see the plains of ill-fated Troy, and during his stay in Greece his memory runs over the heroes of the Iliad and the Odyssey.

There are no physical evidences of the life work of Lycurgus and Solon, yet the laws which they promulgated are the heritage of mankind. Salamis remains, and if the naval battle which Themistocles won had had no other effect than to furnish Pericles with a theme for his great funeral orations, it would still have been worthy of remembrance. The battlefield of Marathon which gave Miltiades a place among the world's generals is also unchanged. It is about twenty-five miles from Athens, and the story, told in marble, of the Greek who carried the news of the victory to Athens and died from exhaustion amid the shouts of his countrymen, has led to the incorporation of a twenty-five mile race in the athletic games when they are held at Athens. In 1896 the race was won by a Greek (much to the satisfaction of the audience), who made the run from Marathon to the city in two hours and forty-five minutes.

The pass at Thermopylæ is also to be seen, and the heroism of the three hundred Spartans who, under the leadership of Leonidas, offered up their lives there for their country, continues to be an inspiration. They failed to stay the onward march of Xerxes, but who can measure the value of their example?

Corinth, as of old, still guards the entrance to the Peloponnesus; but notwithstanding the canal, which, at this point, connects the Ægean Sea with the Gulf of Corinth, the city has only a small population.

Corinth brings to memory the part Greece played in the spread of Christianity. It was not enough that this country led the world in statecraft and oratory, in poetry and history, in philosophy and literature, in art and in athletics, she was also one of the first mission fields of the apostles. It was to the Corinthians that Paul wrote the Epistles in which love is given the first place among the virtues, and it was Greece that gave her name to one of the great branches of the Christian Church.

A democrat may be pardoned for cherishing a high regard for the land that coined the word, democracy. The derivation of the word—from demos, the people, and kratein, to rule—makes it an appropriate one to describe a government based upon popular will. And as governments more and more recognize the citizen as the sovereign, and the people as the source of all political power, the world's debt to Greece will be more and more fully appreciated. She not only gave to language a word accurately expressing the idea of self-government, but she proved by experience the wisdom of trusting the people with the management of all public affairs.