CHAPTER II. THE SHORES AND ISLANDS OF THE ÆGEAN SEA. Navarino-Cape Matapan-Gulf of Laconia-Homer-Lycurgus and his laws-Sparta-Cape Malea, or St. Angelo-The eremite-Eastern Church-Beaticus-Cerigo-The Egean Sea-Cliffs-IslandsMilo-Serpho and Siphanto-The Cyclades-Deli-Its origin-Its oracle-Confederacy of Delos-Religious festivities-Palm treeAsylum-Earthquake-Paros-Disgrace of Miltiades-NaxiaMycone-Tenos-Image of the Virgin-Superstition-AndriaGyrae-Audacious impiety-Zea and Thermia-SimonidesByron's Haidee-View from Syra-Marathon-Patmos and St. John-Samos and Polycrates-Pythagoras-Scio-Sharks-Sunset -Lesbos-The Northern Ægean-The plains of Troy-Tenedos -Lemnos-Imbros-Thassos-Samothracia-Its grandeur-Worship of the Cabiri-Deluge-Scenery-Mount Athos and its monasteries. THE mountains of Messenia, directly north of us, as we approached Cape Matapan, brought to mind Navarino, closely associated with Grecian history from the remotest times. There was the sage and aged Nestor's city, ancient Pyle; there the Athenians and Spartans maintained a long and fierce struggle during the Peloponnesian War, resulting in the victory of Athens, and the exaltation of that city to the climax of her power; and there the combined fleets of England, France, and Russia, under Admiral Codrington, completely destroyed the naval forces of Turkey, and secured the national independence of modern Greece. These mountains quickly faded as the high range of Taygetus came rapidly within view, the summits of its barren, pyramidal ridges gathering the tinted clouds about them, and some of them lifting themselves up into the clear azure, and displaying, even in midsummer, broad patches of snow. Taygetus diminishes in boldness and height somewhat rapidly, and its seaward termination, Cape Matapan, the ancient promontory of Taenarium, is a little disappointing. The cliffs are low, rounded, and barren; a much needed lighthouse, only half built when we went by, rises above the point, and will be very serviceable to mariners as soon as it is completed; and there are very few inhabitants where once were thriving Spartan towns. Away from the Cape, on both slopes, and half hidden between the ribbed sides of the mountains, and generally so elevated and distant from the shore as to make them very difficult of access, are scattered villages; below and above them, on the fertile ground, vines are trailing their vivid green leaves, and shooting out their tender, curling stems, and gardens, wildly luxuriant, yield their olives, and pomegranates, and figs, and apricots to the ready hand; while sheep and goats wander over the loftier and rocky ground in search of the sweet herbage, and fatten themselves for the village feast or the distant market. How different all this from the time when Poseidon's grove waved here, in which Pausanius was betrayed by the conversation of his slave, and from which the Helots were dragged to death! A terrible earthquake shook Sparta at that time, overturning her capital and slaying her nobles, and, in their superstition, the Spartans thought that this was a visitation from the earth-shaking deity because his sanctuary at Taenarium had been violated. Now there is no sanctuary to violate. The old heathenism has departed, and her chief glory, Greece, "In all save form alone, how changed!" The view after leaving Cape Matapan is a very noble one. The Gulf of Laconia opens up most beautifully. Its semicircular basin is flanked by high hills, between which the Eurotus flows quietly to the sea. Nothing can be lovelier than this mountain scenery softened by the rays of the departing sun. Sometimes in England, in the late afternoon of a hot summer's day, a bluish haze is discernible about the masses of foliage for which her parks and richest landscapes have become renowned, not a mist, but a soft haze, toning and blending the leafy masses, and spreading itself above them, and giving a distinct charm to the picture; and sometimes, in the Scilly Islands, the same phenomenon is discernible, only the haze is purple and not blue, toning the sharp edges of the rocks, and blending their outlines where they happen to overlap, surrounding and seeming to suffuse their very substance, and adding greatly to the beauty of the scene. In Greece this haze effect may be seen to perfection. It is not only blue and purple, but almost every other colour, and sometimes many colours together shading off into each other, which, with the pellucid atmosphere, and the unflecked azure of the sky, invest the landscape with a splendour unknown in more Western climes. The intensely blue water of the Gulf of Laconia was breaking into the purest white foam as the fresh wind swept over its surface, and the hills around, particularly the range of Taygetus, behind which the sun had disappeared, were bathed in soft light. Spaces of blue and purple were spread between and about the foot of the hills, but nearer their summits the purple gave way to crimson and orange, and above their summits the crimson and orange were melted into the golden sky. There was an inexpressible softness, a subdued splendour, a placid beauty about the whole scene, rendering singularly appropriate Byron's simile of the Grecian shores to death newly come upon a young and lovely face, "The wild angelic air, The rapture of repose that's there- Into the head of the Gulf of Laconia flows the Eurotus, and thirty miles up the Eurotus lies the ancient Lacedæmonian capital, Sparta. Helen, decoyed from the roof of her husband by the arts of Paris, left Sparta for a new home in Troy; and from Sparta went forth the messages to the various Grecian States, calling upon them to arm and avenge this deed of treacherous ingratitude, this base violation of the divine laws of hospitality. And so we have the "Iliad " and the "Odyssey," works of human genius, pictures of human life in those far-away times, which, but for these two books, would be altogether lost in impenetrable shadows. Out from the shadows comes one clear figure, an old, blind, wandering musician, the poet-singer of the royal courts of Greece, and he weaves the heroic struggles of his countrymen with another mighty race into graceful measures, and passes them on to others, and they to others again, until they become finally written and treasured in Greece, and through Greece scattered everywhere for the delight of all civilized nations, winning from all an unstinted 'meed of praise, the immortal wreath only twined about the brows of the noblest of mankind. Homer will live so long as the race lives, and must ever remain associated with Greece as her oldest, and not the least remarkable, among her many remarkable sons. Another remarkable son of Greece, and of Sparta, one who laid the foundation of the Spartan supremacy, and made her for centuries the leading power in Greece, was Lycurgus, exalted by his countrymen into a demi-god, and worshipped as worthy of divine honour. The Delphian oracle proclaimed that if the Spartans would maintain the constitution of Lycurgus they should be everlastingly prosperous. Like a wise man, Lycurgus disappeared from his country, and thereby prevented the overthrow of his constitution by a personal attack upon himself. He left the constitution with them to be observed or not, as they pleased. The absence, the mysterious departure, the unknown where abouts, practically the death of Lycurgus-a death which amounted to a sacrifice for the good of his country-must have impressed his countrymen very deeply, and predisposed them to the acceptance of his laws. They are wonderful laws, only possible, perhaps, in a small State like Sparta, and under conditions similar to those of the Spartan State, where the mass of the people were serfs of the soil, cherishing an inveterate hatred towards those above them, and requiring to be kept down by military force. The nominal government was a hereditary monarchy under two monarchs, who shared the throne together, but a very limited monarchy, the real power being vested in the hands of five men, who, in process of time, and by a necessary development of the system, became absolute. There was also a Senate of thirty members and a larger assembly of the people. But the peculiarity and value of the constitution of Lycurgus was not in its political combination, but in the severe military discipline to which every Spartan was subjected in order to fit himself for victorious warfare. It was an embodiment of the principle, and of the principle carried to its utmost limit, that the people exist for the State, not the State for the people. Everything was made subordinate to State requireBirth, education, marriage, domestic life, social relations-all were made to serve State purposes. Weakly and misshapen children were exposed at birth to perish on Mount Taygetus. The youths were trained to suffer the greatest hardships without a murmur. Marriage under thirty years of age was disallowed, and, practically, there was no domestic life. A public table was provided by the public purse, and men lived together, not in families, but in companies, as members of the State. In many respects it was a very cruel custom, nevertheless the principle of subordination was boldly embodied, and it resulted in the creation of a State unconquerable, irresistible, the most compact and strongest State, considering its size and population, the world has ever known. For all Laconia was less than many ments. |