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diff --git a/old/61025-0.txt b/old/61025-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 566bd61..0000000 --- a/old/61025-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3489 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's On the track of Ulysses, by William James Stillman - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: On the track of Ulysses - Together with an excursion in quest of the so-called Venus - of Melos: two studies in archaeology, made during a cruise - among the Greek islands - -Author: William James Stillman - -Release Date: December 26, 2019 [EBook #61025] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE TRACK OF ULYSSES *** - - - - -Produced by Turgut Dincer, Stephen Hutcheson, and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net -(This file was produced from images generously made -available by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - [Illustration: (uncaptioned)] - - - - - ON THE TRACK OF - ULYSSES - - - TOGETHER WITH - - AN EXCURSION IN QUEST OF THE SO-CALLED VENUS OF MELOS - - -_TWO STUDIES IN ARCHÆOLOGY, MADE DURING A CRUISE AMONG THE GREEK ISLANDS_ - - BY - W. J. STILLMAN - - [Illustration: (uncaptioned)] - - BOSTON AND NEW YORK - HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY - _The Riverside Press, Cambridge_ - 1888 - - - Copyright, 1887, - By W. J. STILLMAN. - - _All rights reserved._ - - - _The Riverside Press, Cambridge_: - Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. - - - To - WENDELL PHILLIPS GARRISON. - -_In times when the feverish ambition of our people so generally climbs -to distinction by ways offensive to the true intellectual and moral -life, and when we find the old standards of human dignity so often -forgotten; it renews one’s faith in the future of humanity to meet a man -whom neither the “Olympian dust” nor that of California has been able to -deflect from that line of perfect rectitude of life which, if existence -is to be anything but an indecent scramble, we must recognize as -entitling the man who holds it, to the highest respect of his -fellow-men. When besides this claim to our respect he has been able to -maintain undimmed the lustre of a name such as you bear, the distinction -is still brighter. If therefore my insignificant tribute were only as -the dust which, catching the sunshine, males it visible, let me offer -this dedication in recognition of the true standard of nobility as I -know it in your father’s son._ - - W. J. STILLMAN. - - - - - PREFACE. - - -The series of papers herewith committed to the more or less permanent -condition of book form were originally (less some development of their -arguments) printed in the _Century_ magazine, being the results of an -exploring visit to Greek lands taken as a commission for that -periodical. I have sought in them to solve, in a popular form, certain -problems in archæology which seemed to me to have that romantic interest -which is necessary to general human interest; and while necessarily, in -such a study, dealing much with conjecture, I have not ventured to -assume anything which I am not satisfied is true. The problem of the -so-called Venus of Melos is one of those which archæology has fretted -over for two generations, and I cannot pretend to have offered a -solution which will command assent from the severely scientific -archæologist; but I have an interior conviction, stronger than any -authority of ancient tradition to my own mind, that that solution is the -true one. I do not wish it to be judged as a demonstration, but as an -induction in which a kind of artistic instinct, not communicable or -equally valuable to all people, has had the greatest part; and, for the -rest, I am satisfied to let it be taken by the rule of “highest -probability,” by which we solve to our satisfaction, more or less -complete, problems of the gravest importance—a rule, indeed, which is -for many such the only standard of truth. In archæology, as in some -other inexact sciences, opinion has with most people greater weight than -it always merits, but it should have weight in proportion to the -knowledge its originator may have of his subject. As to this I have done -all that any man can to penetrate to the material which exists for -forming an opinion, and I rest in the sincere conviction, sustained -through a study of many years, that the so-called Venus of Melos is -really the Niké Apteros of the restored temple dedicated to that -goddess. - -I must acknowledge the courtesy of the proprietors of the _Century_ -magazine in according me the use of the admirable illustrations -accompanying my text, which were put on the blocks by Harry Fenn from my -own sketches or photographs. - - W. J. STILLMAN. - -New York, _September, 1887_. - - - - - CONTENTS. - - - PAGE - -ON THE TRACK OF ULYSSES 1 - -THE ODYSSEY, ITS EPOCH AND GEOGRAPHY 50 - -THE SO-CALLED VENUS OF MELOS 75 - - - - - LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. - - - PAGE - The Route of Ulysses 1 - Ithaca and adjoining Islands 3 - West Coast of Scheria 8 - Greek Boats and Rostrum of Roman Galley 13 - Corfu, from the King’s Garden 14 - Port of Phorcys and Neriton, from the Mouth of Ulysses’ Cave 28 - Raven’s Cliff and the Fountain of Arethusa 34 - The Site of Ithaca—Port Polis 36 - Inscription found at Polis 39 - The School of Homer 43 - View of Samé from the West,—with parts of Pelasgic and Hellenic Walls - 58 - Crané from the Sea Shore 60 - Distant View of Palé from the Citadel of Crané 63 - Zante 64 - Citadel of Cerigo 67 - Landing-Place of the Cyprian Aphrodite or Astarte 73 - The so-called Venus of Melos 82 - Street in Castro 84 - The Site of Old Melos, from the Port 85 - Medicean Venus 88 - Venus Urania 88 - Capitoline Venus 88 - Venus of the Vatican 89 - Venus Anadyomene 89 - Venus Victrix of the Louvre 89 - Venus of Capua 90 - Restoration of the Statue as proposed by Mr. Tarral 90 - Fragments found at Melos attributed to the Statue 91 - Victory of Brescia (Front) 92 - Victory of Brescia (Side) 92 - Victory raising an Offering (Temple of Niké Apteros, the Acropolis, - Athens) 93 - Victory untying her Sandal (Temple of Niké Apteros, the Acropolis, - Athens) 96 - Victories leading a Bull to Sacrifice (Temple of Niké Apteros, the - Acropolis, Athens) 97 - The so-called Venus of Melos (Front) 99 - The “Venus” Restored (Front. Traced from a Photograph of a living - Model) 99 - The “Venus” Restored (Side. Traced from a Photograph of a living - Model) 100 - The so-called Venus of Melos (Side) 100 - Victory of Consani 104 - Temple of Niké Apteros 105 - Greek Coin 106 - - - - - ON THE TRACK OF ULYSSES. - - - CHAPTER I. - - [Illustration: THE ROUTE OF ULYSSES.] - -What remains for exploration to find on the surface of our little earth? -The north and south poles, some outlying bits of Central Africa, some -still smaller remnants of Central Asia,—all defended so completely by -the elements, barbarism, disease, starvation, by nature and inhumanity, -that the traveler of modest means and moderate constitution is as -effectually debarred from their discovery as if they were the moon. - -What then? I said to myself, searching for adventure. Let us begin the -tread-mill round again and rediscover. I took up the earliest book of -travel which remains to us, and set to burnish up again the golden -thread of the journey of the most illustrious of travelers, as told in -the Odyssey, the book of the wanderings of Odysseus, whom we -unaccountably call Ulysses, which we may consider not only the first -history of travel, but the first geography, as it is doubtless a -compendium of the knowledge of the earth’s surface at the day when it -was composed, as the Iliad was the census of the known mankind of that -epoch. Spread on this small loom, the fabric of the story, of the most -subtle design,—art of the oldest and noblest,—is made up with warp of -the will of the great gods, crossed by the woof of the futile struggles -of the lesser, the demi-gods, the heroes, and tells the miserable labors -of the most illustrious of wanderers, the type for all time of craft, -duplicity, and daring, as well as of faith and patient endurance. - - [Illustration: ITHACA AND ADJOINING ISLANDS.] - -But as Homer’s humanity mixes by fine degrees with his divinity, so his -_terra cognita_ melts away into fairy-land, and we must look for a trace -written on water before landing on identifiable shores. The story opens -finding Ulysses the prisoner of Love and Calypso, in Ogygia, a fairy -island of which the Greek of Homeric days had heard, perhaps, from some -storm-driven mariner, or which may be a bit of brain-land. The details -of the story make it very difficult even to conjecture where Ogygia was, -if it was.[1] How Ulysses leaves the island alone on a raft is told by -the poet in the fifth canto; how he got there the hero recounts in the -narration to Alcinoüs in Phæacia. Leaving Troy, he stops at Ismarus, a -town on the coast of Thrace, which he surprises and sacks; but, repulsed -by the inhabitants of the lands near by, rallying to the defense, and -visited by the wrath of the gods for his impiety, he is punished by a -three days’ gale, and reaches Cape Malea, where, unable to stem the -north wind which still persecutes him, he runs past Cerigo down to the -African coast, which he reaches in nine days. Here we enter into -semi-fable.[2] The Lotophagi seduce his men with their magic fruit which -brings oblivion, and he is obliged to fly again. This time he goes -north, and comes to an island which lies before the port of the Cyclops, -a terrible race: giants with one eye, and cannibals, over whose land the -smoke hangs like whirlwinds—evidently Sicily. This little island, where -the Greeks debark, is not to be identified, but is probably one of those -to the west of Sicily, called later the Ægades. Thence, after the famous -adventure of the Cyclops’ cave, one of the poet’s most marvelous -inventions (since every detail shows that there was no positive -knowledge of the land or its people—only a fantastic tradition), they -fly and arrive at the floating island of Æolus, still a creation of -mythology, and thence to the shores of the Læstrygonians, another -fabulous, man-eating race, in whose land the days are separated only by -a brief pretense of night; escaping thence with his single ship and -crew, Ulysses arrives at Æa, the island of Circe, from earliest -classical times identified with Cape Circeo, between Naples and Cività -Vecchia. Circe sends the hero to the land of the Cimmerians,[3] where -time touches eternity, and the shades of the dead come to visit the -unterrified living; and here Tiresias, the dead soothsayer, tells the -future wanderings of the Ithacan chief. Again, returning to Æa, he is -redirected toward home through the strait where Scylla and Charybdis -menace his existence. This we recognize by later tradition as the -Straits of Messina, but the fabulous so dominates the slight element of -geography in it, that it is clear that Homer never passed that way, and -gained his knowledge only from far remote report; while his second -passage—after the sacrilege committed in the Island of the Sun—through -the straits, is puzzling, and the recital makes it clear that till -Phæacia was reached the poet was not in _terra cognita_. - -The indications are hardly reconcilable with the map. Leaving Circe to -go home, he passes the straits, and stopping at the Island of the Sun, -his comrades commit a sacrilege which leads to their destruction and his -being driven back to Ogygia through the straits, a solitary survivor. -But on his departure for Phæacia direct, he does not pass again through -the straits, evidently returning to the south of Sicily. - -Released by Calypso, he goes on a raft with the sailing direction to -keep the Great Bear, “which is also called the Wain,” on his left,—that -is, he sails eastward, and for seventeen days splits the waves, and sees -on the eighteenth the wooded mountain of the island of the Phæacians, -the Scheria of the ancients. The continuity of tradition and the -consistency of the narrative leave me no doubt that this was our Corfu, -the uttermost of the lands positively known to the geography of that -day. The actuality of Scheria has been disputed by certain German -critics, who will have it that all the local allusions of the Odyssey -are imaginary. But in the Æneid, when Æneas is going to Butrintum, which -is now Butrinto, opposite Corfu on the Albanian coast, he says that no -land was in sight except Scheria. This makes it certain that in Virgil’s -time there was no question on the point. - -Already in sight of Scheria, Ulysses is overtaken again by the wrath of -Poseidon, who unchains on him all his tempests; and, his raft wrecked in -open sea, himself swept away from it into the mountainous waves, he -regrets not having found a glorious death before Troy, seeing an -inevitable and unhonored end before him, with no funeral rites to give -his soul peace. Leucothea, the white goddess, throws into the black warp -a silver thread, and brings the story into new light and color. She -gives him an amulet which, by its magic, carries him through the last of -his grave perils, and preserves him when, with a great and wrathful -burst of wind, Poseidon disperses the timbers of his raft and leaves him -floating in the yeasty sea. He seizes on one of the timbers and -hopefully strikes out for the land. Athene comes once more to his aid. -She chains all the winds except Boreas, which, wafting him for two days -and nights to the southeast, gives place to a perfect calm. Ulysses, -raised on the summit of a huge wave, looks out and sees the land. But it -is a terrible, rock-bound coast. “He hears the roar of the waves that -break on the rocks, because the shock of the great waves against the -bare cliffs sounds fearfully, and the sea, far and wide, is covered with -foam. But there is no peaceable roadstead, no port, safe refuge of -ships; everywhere high, mountainous rocks and cliffs.” He appeals to the -gods for pity, and just then, “while he turns these thoughts in his -spirit and heart, an immense wave throws him on the bare shore. Then his -flesh would have been torn and his bones broken if Athene had not -inspired him. With both hands he clutches the rock and embraces it with -groans until the wave had withdrawn. He in this way escapes death, but -the return of the wave falls on him, strikes him, and withdraws him into -the open sea. He, emerging from the depths, more prudently coasts along, -swimming until he can find an opening in the rocks where he may enter, -and finally perceives the mouth of a river. He offers a prayer to the -river god, and is heard and peacefully received by the peaceable wave, -which lands him on the sandy shore.” The whole of the finale of the -fifth book is grand and imaginative, especially in the description of -the stormy sea and the condition of Ulysses as he sinks on the -hospitable sands exhausted, half dead from his long struggle and his two -days’ and nights’ swim, sustained only by one of the logs of his -raft;[4] but what to my present purpose is of most significance is the -striking description of the west coast of Corfu and the unmistakable -evidence of the mythologist giving way to the traveler. Here we strike -the veritable track of Ulysses, and here begin our researches. To reach -this point all the commerce of the Levant aids us—steamers from Trieste, -Brindisi, Naples, Patras, Malta, etc. - -Here I found fit to my purpose a little yacht of twelve tons, -cutter-rigged and Malta-built, the _Kestrel_, with whose master and -owner I made my bargain, namely: he was to obey all my reasonable orders -for any voyage within the two archipelagos, find his ship and crew of -two sailors in all they needed for service and safety, do my cooking, -and insure himself, for the sum of fifteen pounds sterling a month for -three months; and while he was putting in stores, fitting new cables to -his anchors, and burnishing up a bit, we began to inspect Scheria. - - [Illustration: WEST COAST OF SCHERIA.] - -The popular tradition of to-day fixes the landing of Ulysses near the -actual city of Corfu, and an island is pointed out as the ship turned to -a rock; while the spot where he landed, and the scene of that most -charming of all the episodes of his wanderings, the meeting with -Nausicáa, is put at the “one-gun battery,” just south of the harbor of -Corfu. Nothing could comport less with the description of the Odyssey. -The Channel of Corfu, dividing the island from Epirus, is a land-locked -basin in which no such storm could arise as Ulysses encountered, and -along which no such rocks exist as are described in the poem. The -seventeen days’ drift from the westward before the tempest, and the next -two days after it, wafted by Boreas, show that he was in the open -Adriatic, and coasting along the rock-bound western coast of Scheria to -find an inlet where he might enter. The illustration shows the character -of this coast in entire concordance with the Odyssey; and there is near -the spot from which my view of the west coast of Scheria is taken, a -convent (which is visited by all the tourists who, having some days in -Corfu, care for the most picturesque part of the island), and which by -its name, Palæcastrizza, shows that it stands near the site of some -ancient city or fortress, as the term “Palæcastron” is never applied by -local tradition to any construction not belonging to the classical or -archaic epochs. Even Byzantine ruins never receive the epithet “palæos.” -No trace is now to be found of any prior structure near the convent, -which, while it probably has some relation to an antique site, certainly -is not on that of the city of Alcinoüs, which must have been farther -south where the shore breaks down to a plain. There used to be in the -island an old antiquity-hunter who brought from time to time to sell -clandestinely in the city, objects of gold and terra-cotta, vases, etc., -dug up at a site which only he seems to have known, and of which he -would never disclose the location. On inquiring for him on this my last -visit to Corfu for these researches, he was not to be heard of. All that -we had learned from him was that the ruins of which he knew and where he -excavated in secret were somewhere on the western coast, which -corresponds to my hypothesis that the capital of Alcinoüs was there. - -There is something so unpractical in the Greek laws on the subject of -excavation and exportation of antique objects, that it is to be hoped -that the shrewd common sense of the people will ere long see their -impolicy. Excavation without permission from the Government, even on -one’s own land, is forbidden, which is not unreasonable considering all -things; but even when permission is accorded or when objects are found -by chance, the Government practically confiscates the find when the -finders are feeble, and levies a tax of half the value when they are -not. Everything, therefore, is done in secret, and exportation by -contraband is the only possible manner of profiting by one’s good -fortune. The peasant who finds an antique site carefully conceals it; -and the objects he finds, instead of enabling the archæologist to -classify the antiquities by reference to their provenance, are sold to -some one who removes them from the country, and so all clue is lost to -their true archæological position. As I shall have to show in the course -of these articles, grave loss to the science of archæology sometimes -occurs in this way. In this particular instance the loss to me is the -being unable to identify, with any probability, the place where or near -to which Ulysses landed, and where the classic meeting with Nausicáa -took place. When we get to Ithaca we shall find that the author of the -Odyssey knew well every foot of land he describes; and the scene of -Ulysses’ disaster, already translated, accords so well with the actual -topography that it is difficult to suppose that a mere inspiration -dictated it, and that the author was not well acquainted with the island -of Scheria, whose capital was Phæacia. - -The claim of the city of Corfu to be the site of the ancient Phæacia -rests on nothing but the fact that it is the only city in the island; -but the ever-tranquil bay on which it lies, and the fact that Ulysses, -instead of searching for a place where he could land, would rather have -had to search for a place where he could not, shows conclusively that no -part of the eastern coast is entitled to the honor. The “one-gun -battery,” where local tradition places his landing, is perhaps the least -likely point, as no running stream is to be found near there. The lake, -which is now suggested as the tranquil water in which Ulysses came to -land, must then have been much larger than at present, and now in nowise -resembles a river: it is the half-filled arm of the sea into which a -wide basin of marshy land has been for centuries draining, but into -which no watercourse leads, and the view seen from above the “one-gun” -needs scarcely a commentary to show its entire incompatibility with the -Odyssey. - -The capital of Alcinoüs was, we are told by Homer, founded by his father -Nausithoüs. His people were formerly inhabitants of Hyperia, “near the -Cyclops,” and were by these latter so ravaged and overborne that they -emigrated to Phæacia. The generally accepted location of the Cyclops in -Sicily suggests that Hyperia was probably there or in Italy; and that -the Phæacians may have been related to the Siculi; since the Pelasgi, -who invaded Italy from the north, and, uniting with the Umbri, spread -over the whole of southern Italy, expelling the aborigines, are -continually confounded by the earliest traditions with the Cyclops. As, -from all we know, the Tyrrhene Pelasgi were the earliest metal-workers -in that part of Europe,[5] and as the Cyclops, the children of -Hephaistos, the great metal-worker, are a mythological idealization of a -race of smiths who had a habit of covering the eyes, for protection from -sparks, with a screen in which a single hole was cut to see through, -which was transmogrified into a single eye in the middle of the -forehead, there is nothing unlikely in the inference that the Pelasgi -and Cyclops were identical, and that the Phæacians were refugees from -the conquest of southern Italy by that formidable people. That they were -not Greeks we know by their absence from the catalogue of the “Iliad,” -where all the Hellenic tribes were recorded in their places in the -league. - -The Corfiotes of to-day boast of descent from the Phœnicians, and -certainly they are not to be measured by the same standard as the Greek -race in general. Their reputation for dishonesty has given rise to a -Greek proverb, which relegates a person of more than usual craftiness -and bad faith to the “Corfiotes.” “He behaves like a Corfiote” is the -greatest reproach the continental Greek can bring against a man who is -too clever in business matters. In character as well as history the -Corfiote has little in common with Greece. As he had no place inside the -line drawn around the Hellenic world at the great critical, even if -mythical, epoch assigned to the siege of Troy, so in his latest history -he has always maintained a position more or less apart. Diodorus Siculus -makes the Homeric name of the city, Phæacia, to have been derived from -Phæacus, son of Poseidon, and places his reign contemporary with the -Argonauts, as Phæacus protected Jason against the king of Iolcus when, -returning from Colchis with Medea, he took refuge at Scheria. Mythology -begins with it in the combat of Zeus and Poseidon in their struggle for -supremacy in the government of the universe, and finishes with Ulysses’ -visit. History commences with the arrival of a colony of Corinthians -under Chersicrates, who built a city which he called Chrysopolis. This -was probably Corfu, for, as the immigration of Nausithoüs, coming from -Italian shores, first established itself on the coast looking toward -their old home, so the Corinthians, coming by the islands and the -Epirote shores, would find their first landing in the spacious and -tranquil bay formed by the crescent-shaped island, which, at its -extremes, approaches the mainland. The Hellene of Corinth brought all -the seeds of the virtues and vices of his national temperament to the -fertile soil of Corcyra, as it is henceforward called by the Hellenic -chronicles, colonization and war with their neighbors filling all their -early history. They founded, according to their tradition, Apollonia and -other cities on the mainland; but, as among the ruins of those cities -there are Pelasgic remains, it is not to be supposed that they were the -first colonists, but that they merely colonized, as the Romans did in -the later times, with a dominant population, cities in decline or too -weak to maintain their independence. This is, in ancient Greek history, -oftener the meaning of the word _colonize_ than the founding of a new -city. To get a clear idea of the condition of this part of the world at -the beginning of historical, or even heroic record, we must take into -consideration that an epoch of civilization, perhaps of empire, had long -preceded the awakening of the Hellenic national life; an epoch which -ought, perhaps, to be measured by centuries, if we could measure it at -all, and whose record is preserved in the stupendous ruins we call -Pelasgic, a name applied by the Greeks to a people who preceded them, -derived possibly from the Greek name of the stork, indicating a -migrating or wandering people,—wandering, probably, because their empire -had been broken up by some newer and stronger race, but which the -various remaining traditions accord in asserting to have once held great -rule in Italy, where they were known also as Tyrrhenians, in the -Peloponnesus, and in Crete. We shall see presently some indications of -the correctness of the assumption that they preceded by an infinite -period the great assemblage of Greeks, which the expedition to Troy -perhaps marks, perhaps symbolizes; but at present I have only to do with -the history and mythology of Corfu, which is in no way that we can -discover connected with the Pelasgi. - - [Illustration: GREEK BOATS AND ROSTRUM OF ROMAN GALLEY.] - -The first wars of Corcyra were, as was to be expected of an enterprising -people, with the mother country; but as in those days piracy was the -chief business of every maritime people, _war_ was perhaps only a normal -condition. The Persian invasion brought Corcyra into the Hellenic -league, but, with the duplicity of which the race furnished so many -instances in ancient times, the Corcyriote fleet only sailed, and took -good care not to be in time for the battle, fearing the vengeance of the -Persians. Their prudence brought on them, after the defeat of Xerxes at -Salamis, a combined attack of the Peloponnesian States. As the union of -these was always a challenge to Athens, she sided with the Corcyriotes, -and the resulting war plunged Corcyra into intestine and social strife, -in which the most horrible cruelties were perpetrated by the islanders; -and the animosities and renewals of revolt and war, which the divisions -of the classes of the population gave opportunity for, reduced the -island to anarchy and helplessness. Their subsequent history is one of -repeated subjugation and revolt. After losing even the relative -independence of alliance with Athens, they were conquered by Agathocles -of Syracuse, Pyrrhus, and finally by Rome. - - [Illustration: CORFU, FROM THE KING’S GARDEN.] - -From this time Corcyra was the base of the Roman military movements -against the Levantine enemies of the republic. The commanding position -of the island has, from that day to this, made it an object of the -covetousness of all the maritime powers of the Mediterranean by turns. -In the civil wars of Rome, the island espoused the part of Pompey, later -of Brutus and Cassius, and then, always unfortunate, of Antony. After -the battle of Actium, fought almost within sight of its shores, Corcyra -was besieged, taken, and rigorously punished by Augustus, and then -relegated to an obscurity out of which only the great Ottoman invasion -of Europe brought it. It was involved more or less in the Saracenic, -Bulgarian, Norman, and Neapolitan wars and invasions, and finally threw -itself into the arms of Venice to save itself from conquest by Genoa. -From this time (1386) the history of Corcyra, become Corfu, until the -overthrow of the republic by Napoleon, is identified with that of -Venice, and all the remains or structures in the island date from the -Venetian occupation. - -In 1537 the troops of the Sultan, under the orders of the renegade -Barbarossa, made a descent on the island and laid siege to the city, -which, taken by surprise, was ill-provisioned and with a small garrison. -The Turkish fleet blockaded the port, and the troops beleaguered the -city by land. The garrison was under the terrible alternative of being -starved into surrender speedily or dismissing all the useless mouths. -The latter was, on the whole, safer, for the surrender would have been -disastrous even to the non-combatants, who were to Turkish barbarity no -less obnoxious than the soldiers. The old men, women, and children were -sent out of the city, perhaps the most horrible necessity which ever -befell brave men. A successful defense of the city justified, in a -military point of view, the terrible sacrifice; and, after a long and -obstinate siege, Barbarossa, his army nearly destroyed by battle and -pestilence, withdrew, defeated. The island was almost depopulated, -ravaged, and so utterly impoverished that Venice was obliged to send the -people seed-corn and beasts to till their fields. Nearly the whole of -the nobility of the island had been killed in the defense. - -To be in readiness for a similar emergency, the Senate augmented the -already strong fortifications. The New Fort, as it is still called, was -constructed, and, with a paternal regard for the well-being of the -islanders, which Venice did not always show for her Greek insular -possessions, institutions were founded and regulations made which -contributed greatly to the prosperity of the island. - -In 1716 a new and determined attack was made by the Turks, under the -leadership of Achmet III. Their fleet drove off that of Venice, and an -army of thirty thousand men was debarked and laid siege to the city, -whose defense was directed by Count Schulembourg. The outlying heights -were taken quickly, and the garrison, shut in the inner line of -fortifications, received the desperate assault of the Turks on the main -works with more desperate resistance. After twenty days of incessant -attack, the Turks carried the outworks, penetrated to the Place d’Armes, -which is under the walls of the New Fort, and attempted to scale the -walls themselves. - -“The assault lasted more than six hours with an incredible fury. The -women brought assistance to the defenders, and the priests, crucifix in -hand, ran along the ramparts or threw themselves into the fight. Finally -a vigorous sortie terminated this bloody day. Attacked on every side, -the assaulting force beat a retreat and lost all the outposts it had -taken. A tempest, which had burst on them in the night, completed the -work of defeat, and, seized by panic, they embarked precipitately, -leaving baggage and artillery behind them. In forty-two days they had -lost fifteen thousand men.” (_Isles de la Grèce._) - -The victory was commemorated by a statue to Schulembourg, which no -subsequent conquest has disturbed, and which stands on the parade-ground -among monuments of greater or less good taste (generally the latter), to -mark the history of the island in modern days. - -From that day to this, with the exception of an occasional _émeute_, -nothing has come to disturb the peace of Corfu, and the once so splendid -courage of the inhabitants has gone out like a fire without a draught. -There is probably no province of the Hellenic kingdom so devoid of -martial spirit or the virtues that grow out of it. It is now a most -delightful winter resort, a Fortunate Isle left out of the current of -political events and given over to invalids and sportsmen, who find on -the opposite Albanian coast the best shooting on the Mediterranean. The -old citadel, with its double peak, serves as a light-house to the lines -of steamers which furrow the Adriatic, cross, and make Corfu their -_entrepôt_ between Trieste, Venice, Brindisi, Alexandria, -Constantinople, and Smyrna. - -The English occupation endowed the island with good roads, most of which -are maintained in fair condition still; and a winter’s sojourn here -lacks nothing which could be expected in the compass of ten by thirty -miles, with two posts per week from Europe. The fruits are those of the -northern Mediterranean in great perfection, the oranges being only -second to those of Crete; the waters are still well supplied with fish, -though the people do all they can to exterminate them by the use of -dynamite in fishing; and the Bella Venezia is a hotel which, though -still strange to the resources of our American caravansaries, is more -appropriate to the ways of the East and of idle people than are ours. -The kindly, honest old host, appropriately known as Dionysos, lacks but -little of giving to the stranger the hospitality of Alcinoüs. And life -is so cheap that one who has worn out the world and realized an income -of a thousand dollars a year may find a Macarian peace in an upper room -of the Bella Venezia, with windows looking out on the beautiful -mountains of Epirus, snow-clad all winter, and the bright blue of the -intervening sea, with the coming, going, and merely passing ships of all -nations; and, when the sun is low, have a comfortable carriage to thread -the labyrinths of the immense olive groves which form almost the only -shade in the island. Here one meets men of all races—Turkish reliefs on -their way from Stamboul to Durazzo, or Scutari of Albania; white-skirted -palikars from Epirus; Eastern Jews, with their characteristic long -robes; Persians, Montenegrins, Peloponnesians, etc., who, changing -steamers here, or glad to breathe a land air during the stay in port of -their steamers, stroll up and down the parade, with the easy-going -townsmen and tourists of all nations, seeing the island in comfort or -rushing over it in the custody of Cook or Gaze, to carry away a confused -remembrance of Corfu and Syra, hardly recalling which was which. - -Ulysses was dismissed from Scheria loaded with presents. The modern -voyager is not so fortunate. The souvenirs of Corfu which he will carry -with him, whether antique or modern, will rarely recompense him for the -outlay. The bric-à-brac shops abound in false antiques, arms from -Epirus, Greek laces, and Eastern embroideries, which no wise buyer -meddles with, dear beyond measure as they are. Be content with the -moderate _pension_ of the Bella Venezia, and tempt not Mercury in his -favored island; he was the god of thieves as well as merchants, and was -never better worshiped in his capacity of joint protector than in the -bric-à-brac shops of Corfu. - -Ulysses went to Ithaca in one night, in what must have been, for the -time, the quickest passage on record, and a great credit to the rowers -of King Alcinoüs. Nothing like it is to be expected to-day, though it is -not impossible still, and the steamer which does the service makes a -long, roundabout voyage. Our yacht, though small, was too big for -rowing, and we had no special motive, as Ulysses had, to get quickly to -Ithaca. As our route lay by Santa Maura, which has to do with the story -of the Odyssey, if not with the wanderings from Troy, we turned aside -from his course to visit it. Nericus, as it was called in Homeric -nomenclature, probably formed part of the realm of the Ithacan kings, -Laertes mentioning his conquest of it; but it is not mentioned in the -catalogue, and we may conclude was not Greek. It is barely separated -from the mainland by a narrow channel, cut by the Corinthians through a -flat, which more anciently, however, must have been a shallow arm of the -sea. The action of the elements is filling it up again, so that time may -unite it to the Acarnanian shore, as in the Homeric days; for Laertes, -in recalling to Ulysses some of his old exploits (Odyssey, book 24), -says: “Ah, that it had pleased Zeus, Apollo, Athene, to have borne me to -your palace, such as I was when, at the head of the Cephalonians, I -took, _on the continent_, the proud city of Nericus!” In the catalogue -of the Iliad we find that “Ulysses commands the magnanimous -Cephalonians; the warriors of Ithaca; those of shady Neriton, of -Crocyles, of the barren Ægilipos; those of Samos [Samé of Cephalonia, -not the island Samos], of Zacynthus [Zante], and of the adjoining -continent. Twelve ships whose sides were painted red followed him.” But -Nericus occurs nowhere. - -Nothing illustrates so strikingly the change in the condition of -civilization as the relations between the ancient and modern chief -cities of the Greek islands. The substitute for the stately Nericus is a -low, flat, uninteresting town, built on the plain which lies north of -Nericus, and next the roadstead. To the east lie the rugged mountains of -Acarnania and the Gulf of Arta; north, in full view, is the modern -fortress of Prevesa; further, and to the east, Arta, the ancient -Ambracia; and the long strip of low coast which stretches away from -Prevesa northward is dotted with masses of ruin—those of the imperial -Nicopolis, monument of the victory of Actium, won in those blue waters. -The idle shepherds of those days, watching their sheep on these hills, -saw the crash of prows, the flight of Egypt, and the shame of Antony. -Perhaps, through this very channel, where the light-draft caïque now -glides, to gain the shelter of the islands going southward, ran the -fugitive ships of Cleopatra; for this was evidently the channel by which -the craft of those days avoided the stormy capes of Cephalonia and the -southern point of Nericus. Standing on the eastern brow of the hill on -which the old city stood, and on which its ruins still mark a noble -past, is the citadel. Along the plain, among the olives, the fragments -of tombs lie spread like flocks of sleeping sheep. The port was on the -bay now connected with the northern roadstead by the Corinthian Channel; -and two or three underground passages, in part cut in solid rock, one -being high enough for a man to walk in upright, and cut as cleanly and -evenly as the walls of a chamber, connect it with the citadel which -dominates the northern part of the island, where the fertile plains lie. -The ruins are of various ages, embracing Pelasgic, but mainly later, and -coming down to Roman times; and the great extent of the Pelasgic -_enceinte_, which almost everywhere underlies the Hellenic and Roman -work, shows the great early importance of the city. The citadel is bold -and commanding, and looks out on the northern and western seas on one -side, and the Corinthian Channel and the inland sea on the other, and -down to Ithaca, which, indeed, is visible from some points. - -The post-Homeric name of Nericus was Leucadia. Æneas is represented as -having debarked there, and Apollo had a temple on the heights which -terminate the island to the south. From the cliffs which overlook the -Adriatic on that side, Sappho is said to have leaped into the sea, -overcome by the sorrows of her unhappy love. “Sappho’s Leap” is the name -of the cliff to this day, and my Corfiote captain, as we glided by, told -me how the place was celebrated because the Duchess of the island had -jumped off into the sea from it, and that the people had put up a great -inscription in memory of it. He had never seen it, and didn’t know -exactly where the leap was made; but I think he was very excusable for -his ignorance, as the action of the sea, driven as it is sometimes by -the furious southwest wind into a very “hell of waters,” which consume -the rock in their fury, must long ago have brought down all that -classical times had seen of the rock, and changed the face of the cliff -entirely. As it now is, I could find hardly a point where a new Sappho -would have found a welcome so gentle as the embrace of the Adriatic; -masses of fallen rock and stony beach would have given a harsher but -more speedy end. - -Mythology says that when Adonis was killed, Aphrodite, seeking him -through all the earth, finally found him lying dead in the temple of the -Erythræan Apollo. The Sun-god, to cure her grief, counseled her to throw -herself from the cliffs of Leucadia into the sea, where she would find -oblivion. Here Zeus, who seems to have found obstacles in the way of his -legitimate marriage, and to have wooed Hera at first with less success -than attended his mortal loves, found by the same process a salutary -indifference to the charms of his divine sister and afterwards spouse, -to which temporary coolness on his part might, perhaps, be ascribed his -ultimate success with the fickle fair. - -And here, in practical historical times, criminals condemned to death -were thrown into the sea. The people (who even now preserve a certain -sympathy with the criminal class) used to tie numbers of birds to the -limbs of the condemned and cover them with feathers to break the force -of their fall, and then send boats to pick them up. If they survived, -they were pardoned. - -In modern times nothing has occurred to signalize Santa Maura, or -“Levkadi,” as it is indifferently called. It was taken and retaken by -Turks and Venetians, and finally passed with the rest of the Ionian -Islands to the heirs of Venice. Its people are a mild, hospitable race, -to whom the stranger is a guest almost in the antique sense. - -We loitered along with a feeble west wind, under the western shore, bold -and desolate, of Levkadi, its high peaks above us breaking into ravines, -and the ravines ending in cliffs, doubled “Sappho’s Leap,” and before us -lay Ithaca, the ten-years-sought-for island. To the north was still -visible a dim film which we knew to be Corfu; nearer, one less dim, -which we recognized by its outline to be Paxos, an island without -history and without interest, but which tradition asserts to have been -once united to Corfu and separated by an earthquake. The breeze -quickened at night-fall as we went round the point of the Leukadian -cliffs, and before us lay the inland sea, which, separating Santa Maura, -Ithaca, Cephalonia, and Zante from the mainland, is a sort of -smooth-water channel for ships coming out of the Gulf of Patras, or of -Corinth, as it is indifferently called, or running in there from Corfu -and the upper Adriatic. The bolder portions of Ithaca are almost utterly -denuded rock. One hollow, like a great theatre, opens northward between -two bold rocky peninsulas, and this is the vale from which the Odyssean -city drew its prosperity. Olive-trees and vineyards still cover its -slopes, and suggestions of white villages flashed out from the silvery -green sea of olive orchards as we flitted by, running under the eastern -shore to catch the breeze that blew down from the mountain as the sun -sank. We had all the wind our cutter could carry, and bowled along -through the smooth water in the lee of the island like a steamer. Far -ahead we saw, in the gathering night, a faint glimmer of light, which -seemed too faint for a light-house, and too steady for a house-light, -and which perplexed us exceedingly, as no light was indicated on the -chart; but, creeping along shore, we found that it was a tiny chapel -standing on a long and menacing peninsula of bare rock, in the window of -which burned a lamp,—in all probability the fulfillment of a vow made by -some devout Greek sailor who had escaped the teeth of this Scylla; or -the perpetuation of an antique custom, when the little chapel of St. -Nicholas, protector of sailors, was a temple of Neptune, whom the saint -replaces in function and respect of the seafarer. Nothing is more -interesting in this part of the world than the evidences of the unbroken -continuity of religious tradition, and the gradual change of paganism -into Christianity,—if, indeed, the change has taken place, which in -certain districts I am scarcely disposed to admit. The little chapels -which one finds planted by the seaside or solitary roadside in all the -Greek islands, and even on the mainland, will generally be found to have -some antique material in them, some evidence of the earlier shrine which -honored one of the Greek gods. The Olympians have their homologues if -not their homonyms. Zeus goes back to his awful antique dignity of the -All-father, the original sole deity of the Pelasgian, worshiped in a -temple not made by hands, under the speaking oak of Dodona, the one God, -maker of heaven and earth, the Dyaus or Sky-father of our Aryan -ancestors, and Zeus (Deus, Divus) of the western branch of the family; -but his creatures and children fall into the lower rank of saints: -Apollo becomes St. Elias (Helios); Athena, the Virgin Mary; Ares, St. -George; Poseidon, St. Nicholas, etc., etc. - -We left St. Nicholas and his night-light behind us, and, rounding a cape -into the Bay of Vathy, saw in the dim distance the light of the outer -light-house, and met the wind coming out of the bay. It was late, and -beating up the bay would be a long job; so we turned in and left the -navigation to the sailors. The next morning we woke, as Ulysses did, -under the shadow of Neriton, where the Phæacians had left him sleeping. - -“In one part of Ithaca is the port of Phorcys, the old man of the sea; -the bold promontories forming the circuit protect it from the great -waves and the sounding winds. The ships which have once entered it may -lie without cables. At its extremity is a bushy olive-tree whose shadow -hides a delicious grotto and shady retreat, sacred to the Nereids. In -this asylum, refreshed by an inexhaustible fountain, are placed the -vases and the jars of stone.... It has two entrances: one, looking -toward the north, is for the use of men; the other, to the east, is more -divine. Never man enters there: it is the path of the immortals. - -“The olive-tree and the grotto are known to the Phæacians. There they -go. The ship runs half-way up the beach, so strong is the stroke of the -rowers. Then these land, carrying Ulysses, still plunged in profound -sleep, and lay him on the sand, wrapped in brilliant blankets and woven -linen.” - -Waking, he is bewildered by the artifice of Athena, and does not -recognize his native island; but finally, when he appeals to the Goddess -to tell him the truth, if he be in Ithaca, she replies to him:— - -“Now I will show you the localities of Ithaca, that you may doubt no -more. There is the port of Phorcys, old man of the sea; there, at the -extremity of the port, the bushy olive-tree, and under its shade a -delicious grotto, dark resting-place, and sacred to the nymphs. This is -the vaulted grotto where often you sacrificed entire hecatombs to the -nymphs. There is Mount Neriton, shadowed by forests.” - -The identification of this little bay or “port” is the one contested -point of the topography, and, on account of its greater commodiousness, -Port Vathy (at the left as we enter the roadstead) is maintained by some -authorities to be the “port of Phorcys.” The geology of the two bays is -conclusive evidence in favor of that which the Greeks now call Port -Dexia (the right-hand port), as Port Vathy has not, and by its -geological formation never could have had, a beach such as Homer -describes, and which was indispensable to the ancient sailor, while that -of Dexia is superb—a soft, unbroken stretch of sand. Other objections we -shall meet further on. - - [Note.—The puzzling question of the forms of classical names in these - articles has been carefully considered, and the difficulty of adapting - consistent classical orthography to popular archæology seems too great - to be overcome in this place.] - - - CHAPTER II. - -The changes of the conditions of existence in what we call civilization -resemble, a good deal more than we generally imagine, the progress of a -horse in a tread-mill. Comparing the evidences of a higher prosperity -which history affords with what we now find in Ithaca, we have ample -ground to suppose that, while our part of the world has made certain -advances, this has rather retrograded. A scanty population, the greater -part of the island indeed uninhabited; ruins of great cities where now -there is not a shepherd’s hut; a wretched, sordid life in which not even -poetry, the offspring of sorrow, can find a foothold; utter -insignificance in the world of men,—this is what the island of Ulysses, -which fills so large a part of the Old World’s poetry, shows us to-day. - -We woke like Ulysses under the shadow of Neriton, but not like him under -the olive’s shade. Our yacht was anchored in a tranquil and land-locked -bay, Port Vathy (the deep), round the shores of which stretch and gleam, -white in the sun, the houses of the modern capital of Ithaca, a dull, -utterly uninteresting town, neither whose past nor present is worth a -note. - -Devastated by Turks and corsairs by turns, conquered by Christian and -Infidel, the tribute of death and pillage had at one time nearly left -the island a desert, and Venetian chronicles report the repeopling of it -by a Slavonic colony; but there is good evidence, as we shall see -presently, that there was never quite an end of the original stock. -Though one does see occasionally strongly Slavonic faces, the population -is now in language and manners purely Greek, with some of the worst -traits of the race strongly developed. By good chance I found an old -acquaintance in Mr. Caravia, a deputy for Ithaca to the Greek Assembly, -then in vacation, and I had a letter to Aristides Dendrinos, the -principal personage of the island; and through their united attentions -we were made as much at home in Ithaca as possible. But the Ithacans are -shrewd folk, sharp dealers who look at foreigners as the Hebrews did on -the Egyptians, as made to be spoiled; and we were unlucky enough to have -arrived in the Greek Lent, which, as they observe it, is equal to -starvation to outsiders. The excellent wine of Ithaca, one of the best -of Greek wines, is quite worthy its ancient reputation; but flesh was -unattainable, and fish so rare, owing to the people’s habit of killing -them with dynamite, that we could not get enough for a breakfast. The -fowls in Greek lands, living an outcast life, never fed, but expected to -grow, as the partridges do, on the bounties of nature, hardly offer a -compensation for the trouble of picking their bones. They combine all -the misfortunes of the wild and domesticated conditions, with none of -the advantages of either, and offer a scant resource to the caterer. We -made haste to see what was to be seen in Ithaca, and study our great -predecessor’s footprints, but we found the learning harder than the -living. The island Greek is quick-witted, and, like the Irishman, never -confesses himself at fault in anything you want to know, especially in -things connected with ancient history or archæology. He solves the -hardest and most obscure problem by a bold dash, and is even surer than -Schliemann in his breezy inductions. It is amusing and cheering to see a -man so cock-sure of what archæology has puzzled over so many years. On -inquiring for a guide to shorten my researches (for, though Homer is -guide-book enough for Ithaca, one may be a long time in tracing out the -Odyssean movements by the poem), every one was ready to show me -everything. Before leaving I found an intelligent guide, as such go, in -one Angelo Persego, whose name I record for the benefit of such of my -readers as may be tempted (out of the Greek Lent) to visit Ithaca. But -here let me drop a word of advice for all voyagers in Greek lands. Take -a guide for lodgings and living, but never place any confidence in his -identifications or local traditions. He may be right, but the chances -are nine to one he is not. He may even have been over the ground before, -but his assurance to that effect is no evidence. I found the men I -selected utterly ignorant, as usual, of almost all I wanted to learn; -but I found a little book by G. F. Bowen, one time Fellow of Brasenose -and President of the Ionian University, which, though dated in 1850, -gives a sufficient clue to the topography to enable one to dispense with -a guide, except to find the best roads. - -Vathy does not occur in the Odyssey under any name, nor is there any -trace of antique structures about it. In the illustration the narrow -entrance at the right is Vathy; the cove in the centre, with the island -off it, is the port of Phorcys, where Ulysses was landed, and which, for -the uses of ancient mariners, who beached their ships instead of -anchoring them, was a better port than Vathy. It corresponds in the -minutest detail to Homer’s account of it,—a smooth, sandy beach, -complete shelter from all winds, and only varying in any particulars in -its surroundings by a greater distance from the grotto where the -Phæacians hide the presents Ulysses brings with him; but of this more is -to be said. - -The Odyssey gives no intimation of any city near the landing-place. The -port of Ulysses’ own capital was much nearer Phæacia, and the ship might -have landed him at his own door. The reason of this excessive caution -was that during so long a time he had had no news from home, and his -Phæacian friends knew that he might find his city in the hands of an -enemy. - - [Illustration: PORT OF PHORCYS AND NERITON, FROM THE MOUTH OF ULYSSES’ - CAVE.] - -Awaking, then, from the sleep in which he had been so gently landed by -the crew of the Phæacian ship, he finds himself in a strange land, as he -supposed, and in complete solitude, and arms himself with his habitual -cunning, distrusting everything. When Athena comes to him in the form of -a shepherd, he asks where he is; and being told that he is at last in -the long-sought Ithaca, he is transported with joy, but conceals his -emotion and addresses the goddess with these hasty words, disguising the -truth and telling his story falsely, always turning in his mind many -artifices: “I, too, have heard, in the far-off, immense island of Crete, -of the island of Ithaca. It is, then, in that country that I have -arrived with my treasures. I have left an equal part to my children -because I fly from my native land, where I killed the dear son of -Idomeneus,” etc., etc., going on with a long history to account for his -presence in Ithaca, a place unknown to him, which fable he only drops -when Athena throws off her disguise; but he still is unconvinced that he -is in Ithaca. She calls his attention to Neriton in front of him, and -having convinced him, helps him hide his treasures in the grotto, when -they sit down under the olive-tree over its entrance, and she tells him -how matters stand at home, and contrives plans for getting rid of the -pretendants, who would, no doubt, put an end to him if he fell into -their hands. This seems to be his conviction, for he exclaims: “Great -gods! if you had not enlightened me I should have perished in my palace, -like Agamemnon. Come, let us plan a means by which I may revenge myself -on them all.” This hint of the fate of Agamemnon, whose end he had -learned, is the clue to his cautious deportment. They plan as follows: -He will be disguised by Athena, so that not even his wife shall know -him, and will then go to Eunæus, who keeps his swine by the Raven’s -Cliff, near Arethusa’s fountain, and wait with him studying up the -position, while she goes off to Lacedæmon to bring back Telemachus, whom -she had sent there nominally to get news of his father, but really, as -she informs Ulysses, to give him an opportunity, hitherto wanting, to -see the world and acquire renown. Here they separate, and Ulysses takes -the secret path. - -The position of the grotto makes the only difficulty in tracing all his -movements; for it is not, as one would expect from the text, at the head -of the port, strictly speaking, but at the head of the little ravine -which ends in the port, a good quarter of an hour’s walk from the shore, -even making allowance for all the recession of the water-line, which has -evidently been considerable. The grotto itself corresponds exactly with -the description, and can be entered by mortals only in the usual way, by -the small opening which looks toward the port. “It has two entrances: -one, turned toward the breath of Boreas, is for human use; the other, -toward that of Notos, is more divine. Never man enters by that; it is -the way of the immortals.” The human entrance is a low, almost invisible -opening, or at least, easily passed without notice, at a short distance. -Even now, when all vegetation has disappeared from around it, and the -olive-trees come only half-way up the hill, it would easily be hidden by -a large stone, as Minerva hides it. The entrance, low and precipitous, -widens rapidly within, and we descend by what might once have been -artificially prepared steps to a vault-like cave, sixteen to twenty feet -in diameter, with a curious recess at the farther end, and at the top of -the vault another opening, like the top window of the Pantheon of Rome, -or any of the circular temples whose form was derived from the vaulted -tomb or treasury of Pelasgic architecture. At first sight I thought this -opening might have been artificial, but on close examination I saw that -the formation of the rock led to it naturally, and that, hardly large -enough to admit a human body readily, it could only, if enlarged, be -entered by a person’s being let down with a cord. This is the -“immortals’ entrance.” Under this opening lies a huge heap of stones, -the accumulation of centuries, for the lower portions are cemented -together by the stalagmitic deposit from the rock above; and the walls -of the grotto, despite the breaking off of every attackable stalactite, -are also formed of carbonate of lime so deposited. The difference -between the actual distance from the water’s edge to the grotto and that -which is indicated by the narrative of the Odyssey is not more than a -fair poetic license would permit; or the memory of the narrator, having -known the localities, might well in a few years of absence leave out -this short distance. - -The Odyssean topography is greatly confused to the modern traveler by -the fact that the Homeric city undoubtedly stood at the northern end of -the island, and far remote from the modern city as well as from the -landing-place of Ulysses and the pig-pens of Eumæus. The view from the -grotto gives us, at the left, a bay of which Vathy and Phorcys are -tributaries. This cuts the island nearly in two, a narrow ridge of rock -only connecting its two great masses. On the north is the site of the -Homeric city, as I shall presently show; but on the south are the -Raven’s Cliff and the fountain of Arethusa, together with an ancient -ruin known by the people as the “Castle of Ulysses.” These ruins are of -the earliest form of Pelasgic, commonly named Cyclopean, though there is -no justification for any distinction between the “Pelasgic” and the -“Cyclopean,” or any proper distinction of styles, as they run into each -other, from the form shown at “Ulysses’ Castle” to the most elaborate -and carefully fitted polygonal which we shall find at Samé on the -opposite shore of Cephalonia. The walls of Ulysses’ Castle are of great -extent, and portions still remaining near the summit are well preserved, -some fragments being nearly twenty feet high. It must have been the work -of a powerful tribe and a great stronghold. Seen from the sea, it shows -on a sharp conical rock precipitously trending down to the shore. The -Odyssey in no manner makes allusion to this, either as city or as ruin. -Ulysses passes very near it going south, leaving it on the right, -apparently ignoring its existence. This makes it tolerably clear that it -had been so long in ruin that it was in no way to be connected with the -Odyssean dynasty or colonization even, or that it was constructed after -the Homeric epoch. The latter hypothesis is untenable, because we find -in many parts, especially in the Argolid, ruins clearly contemporary -with this, which are in the Hellenic traditions regarded as the work of -a vanished and semi-divine race of giants, the Cyclopes or the “divine -Pelasgi;” while, of the Homeric epoch, as distinguished from the -Pelasgic, which preceded it, and the Hellenic, which followed it, we -have no recognizable remains, and the cities known to have existed, such -as the Ithaca of Ulysses, have left no ruin durable enough to show in -our time. This indicates a state of civilization in which the great -necessity of strong walls as a defense had passed, or that, by the use -of cement, walls were made so light in structure that they were -efficient for the day, but perished utterly in the intervening time, -which again is an untenable hypothesis, because we find cement used -nowhere in Greece in work known to be earlier than the third century B. -C. I leave the question of the identity of the Odyssean epoch with that -of the composition of the poem at present untouched. I am dealing only -with the poem which philologists suppose to have been composed about 850 -B. C. That the author knew Ithaca perfectly, I think we shall see, and -that consequently the ruins of the Pelasgic epoch, when not continuously -inhabited (as were Nericus and Samé, the former of which Laertes -conquered, and the latter of which sent the largest deputation of -“kings” as suitors for Penelope, the foundations of both being -Pelasgic), were already so lost in the twilight of prehistory as to be -without any meaning to the author of the Odyssey. The city whose ruins -are now called the Castle of Ulysses was as unknown to the epoch of -Homer as to ours. No one in the whole action of the Odyssey goes in or -out of its gates, or turns aside from his path to speak of or visit it. -“Kings” were as common as rascals in those days, but that two important -cities should exist contemporaneously in the small island of Ithaca, and -that the people of Ulysses should live in one, pasture their hogs on the -territory of the other, and ignore its existence, is impossible. This -does not prevent Schliemann from identifying the house walls, which -remain to a small height, with the pig-pens of Eumæus, or a huge stump -near the citadel, with the tree from which Ulysses had made his bed -(_Ithaca, Peloponnesus and Troy_). - -That this part of the island was nearly or quite unpopulated is made -more than probable by the facts that no mention is made of any city or -people here; that the only features mentioned are the wildness, and -forests abandoned to feeding of pigs; and that Ulysses selects this part -for his concealment. The path Ulysses probably followed from the port of -Phorcys to the Raven’s Cliff is by far too hard for dilettante -following; it is not only impassable to beasts of burden, but, I should -say, difficult for a pedestrian. There is a road carriageable for a few -miles from Vathy along the ridge southward, and then a fair bridle-path -to the cliff, which, had we known it, would have led us somewhere near -the location of Eumæus’s sties; but the guide my friends had recommended -me, on his personal assurance, did not know the road, and we went -wandering across fields and over hills, abandoning our quadrupeds at the -moment when they would have been our best guides; and, finally, the -fellow had to go to a ploughman scratching the earth with a crooked -stick behind a yoke of year-old heifers, and inquire his way. I -exhausted my modern Greek in exasperated vituperation of his pretentious -ignorance, and took the lead, as I generally have had to do on similar -occasions. - -There was a pretty little valley on our way, the only arable or fruitful -land in this part of the island; all else was bare and bleak. A few -tough-lived shrubs, broom and gorse, arbutus, and some others I did not -know, wring a scanty subsistence from the clefts between the rocks, and -in a mass of almost unmitigated limestone was cloven a ravine. The -roughness of Ithaca was proverbial even in Homeric days, since Athena, -while disguised as a shepherd, replies to Ulysses, “If it [Ithaca] is -rocky, if it breeds not horses in its moderate space, it is not quite -barren,” etc. One might well select this scene as one of tranquil -beauty, with the faint glimpses of the dreamy inner sea above its valley -distance, and the golden grain-fields as I saw them, interspersed with -vineyards and olive-orchards. - - [Illustration: RAVEN’S CLIFF AND THE FOUNTAIN OF ARETHUSA.] - -The glen of the Raven’s Cliff becomes a wild gorge below the fountain of -Arethusa, and descends abruptly to the sea. Above, a stripe of bare, -pale-gray rock down the cliff shows that in winter it is the location of -a cataract, though, when I visited the locality, dry as summer dust. The -fountain of Arethusa is situated about half-way from the cliff to the -sea, and bears the evidences of an immense antiquity. Remains of an -architectural surrounding are still to be seen, which, with some -foundations of walls of the Roman period, evidently of a temple to the -nymph or local goddess, and “Ulysses’ Castle,” are the only traces of -ruin discoverable in this lobe of the island. The recess of the fountain -has once been much larger, but the slow process of depositing the -calcareous incrustation which forms its walls has gone on so long that -only a small deep basin remains, from which the people draw the water -with a cord and bucket. Its niche is cushioned with moss and maidenhair -ferns, and the soft porous rock is always moist with the filtering -through of the water. A wooden trough is placed for the watering of the -sheep and goats which take the place of the hogs of Eumæus, for this is -the only perennial source of water in the region. - -An old woman, wrinkled and bowed, looking like one of the Fates, sat -near the fountain, combing the wool she had washed at it; and on the -opposite side the nymph of the fountain, in the shape of a young matron -of some neighboring hamlet, was washing her clothes. The wash was -boiling when we came up, over a fire of brambles and weeds; but the -utensil which took the place of the bronze caldron of the antique -house-mother was an American petroleum-can, with a wire bale fitted in -rudely, and the stamp of the New York Refining Company was still visible -on the tin. We talk of the omnipresence of gold, of the omnipotence of -cotton; but in my wanderings on the earth I have found places where the -people did not know the value of a piece of gold, and wore nothing but -the homespun and woven wool of their flocks and flax of their fields, -while I have never found one that did not know petroleum; and I have -learned that the petroleum-can is a more universal concomitant of -civilization than English cutlery or American drillings. - -The pens of Ulysses’ pig-herd were at the top of the cliff, where a -plain of small extent and soil of scanty depth still maintains an -olive-grove, sole representative of the forest of oaks whose acorns -fattened the swine for the revels of the suitors of Penelope. - -Here Ulysses finds Eumæus, and here, in his anxiety to convince him of -the truth of his prediction of the return of the wanderer, he says: “If -he return not as I declare, let your servants seize me and throw me over -the high rock, that vagabonds may learn in future to abstain from -useless falsehoods.” - - [Illustration: FROM AN OLD GREEK VASE. - THE SITE OF ITHACA—PORT POLIS.] - -To return to the city of Ithaca, Ulysses must retrace his steps past the -port of Phorcys, and follow the ridge of rock which connects the -divisions of the island past the mass of Neriton. His landing-place was -on the east side of the island, the port of the ancient city Ithaca on -the west; and there are now on the road between, several villages, the -representatives, perhaps, of the ancient towns from which Ulysses drew -his quota of men for the Trojan campaign, “Crocyles and the rocky -Ægilipos.” It was in one of these villages that Schliemann, visiting the -island for the first time, in his Homeric enthusiasm, as the villagers, -in their habitual curiosity to see the stranger, came out to gaze and -question, taking the assemblage as a demonstration in his honor, and -determined to show them how well he estimated the dignity of an heir of -the Odyssean glory, mounted on a table and translated from Homer the -passages which record Laertes’ emotions on the return of his long-lost -son. “They wept with emotion,” says the naïf Doctor; and he rewarded -them by some hundred lines more. Remembering this incident, I inquired -about the matter, and found that it had excited much merriment in the -cultivated circles of Vathy, and, as I expected, the other side in the -rencontre preserved a very different recollection of the Doctor’s -achievement, and that the tears were of merriment rather than of pathos. -No one in the assemblage could understand a word of the Greek in the -Doctor’s pronunciation of it. - -In the nomenclature of the two principal higher villages of the northern -section, I found a curious survival of archaic language, which, so far -as I could learn, is as incomprehensible as Homer, in the original, to -the inhabitants. The villages are Anoï and Exoï, which are clearly from -the archaic and (except in the Cretan mountains) obsolete words _ano_ -and _exo_, used as _haw_ and _gee_ are by us in driving oxen, and of -course meaning originally right and left, and these indicate site -survivals of early towns or villages. But of Ithaca the _city_, the home -of Ulysses, not a trace remains except the name _Polis_ (city, _the_ -city par excellence), which is applied to a locality where not even an -ancient wall shows a claim to the appellation. The fragments of -substructure shown on the hill above and near the village of Stavros are -undoubtedly mediæval, and belong to the piratical city which was -established here, and which was destroyed in the latter part of the -sixteenth century. I searched in vain for anything to indicate the date -of the ancient city, but here, doubtless, was the home of Ulysses. Its -little port is of the nature demanded by ancient mariners,—a smooth -beach in a cove, with the island of Cephalonia opposite and near enough -to shut off any great violence of sea or wind. Homer relates that the -suitors, when Telemachus had gone to Pylos to get news of his father, -sent out a ship with some of their number to intercept and kill him on -his return, and that this ship lay in watch at an island off the port -where the return of Telemachus’s ship could be seen from afar and -prevented. Opposite Port Polis is a rock, probably the remnant of that -island; for, as the material of it is a conglomerate easily subdued by -the elements and decomposing rapidly, it must have been once a -considerable island, and it is now the only remnant of rock or island -which occupies any such relative position. - -In searching around the neighborhood for traces of antiquity I was -accosted by a peasant, who told me that there had been found a stone -with some letters on it, and I made haste to hunt it out. They (for -there were two fragments) were at the bottom of a heap of stone which -had been exhumed from under a land-fall, and which were evidently part -of a very ancient building. I hired the men who gathered round to remove -the heap, and photographed the stones, which had been originally one. -The inscription is in the early style of Greek epigraphy, boustrophedon, -_i. e._, going alternately from left to right and right to left, as oxen -go when ploughing. It is the oldest known inscription in the Ithacan -alphabet. - -I placed a copy of the photograph in the hands of Professor Comparetti -of Florence, amongst others, and received from him the following, read -at a meeting of the Academy of the Lincei:— - - [Illustration: INSCRIPTION FOUND AT POLIS.] - -“Since I have hitherto spoken of inscriptions very old or archaic, as we -say, it will be permitted me to close this communication by presenting -to the Academy a curious inscription of this kind recently discovered in -Ithaca and communicated to me by a diligent and cultivated visitor to -the Greek lands, the American, Mr. Stillman, who made in Ithaca a -photograph of the inscription, and, having unsuccessfully asked an -interpretation of several scholars, applied to me. He has permitted me -to make communication to this Academy, putting at my disposition also -the negative of his photograph, from which are printed the copies I -present. The inscription is tolerably roughly cut in a friable stone, -broken in two, worn by time and water. The photograph, which is never -the best means of representing monuments of this kind even in -experienced hands, presents some confusion and obscurity in parts; but -this is the only difficulty in the epigraph.... I saw at once that this -was an inscription of which there was already some notice in a book -published by the Phœnix of discoverers of antiquities, Schliemann, in -1868, ‘Ithaca, Peloponnesos, and Troy.’ Rich as he is in fancy, -Schliemann is ready to believe any story, and at once convinced himself -that he had discovered the inscription of a very old sarcophagus, and -found an honest workman who helped him to complete the idea, showing him -the bones found in it by him. And in his book, together with this and -other news, he communicated the inscription such as he read it. Of the -two fragments, however, he only saw that at the right, and this he read -very badly, seeing letters where none are, and imagining incredible -forms of letters. Kirchhoff in his ‘Studien zur Geschichte des -Griechischen Alphabets’ sought to apply this monument to his purposes, -but could make nothing of it, and it would have been impossible to get -anything from it. Now, thanks to the intelligent care of Mr. Stillman, -we have before us the monument as it is; he knew nothing of Schliemann; -when he saw the inscription, he saw that it was incomplete, and seeking -amongst the stones, found the other piece, and, divining justly its -relation, united them and took the photograph which now permits us to -utilize what we may call his discovery. - -“The epigraph is certainly very old, besides being boustrophedon. This -is shown particularly by the forms of the _sigma_ and _iota_. It was cut -roughly and by hands little used to such work, without any care for -symmetry in the disposition of the letters or of the lines, nor for the -uniformity of the letters. Some letters are lost in the fracture, others -by the wearing of the stone, and the entire inscription is mutilated in -the lower part. - -“The reading, with the filling up, is as follows:— - - τᾶς [Ἀ]θάνας - τᾶς (Ρ)[έ](ας) - χα[ὶ τ](ᾶ)ς Ἡρ - ας τα (ἔ) [ν]τεα - τῶ[ἱ]ερῶ οἱ - ἱε[ρ]εε[ς] (Κες- - π - -“Translation: ‘Of Athena—of Rhea—and of Hera—the sacred utensils of the -temple—the priests, Kes—placed.’ - -“Probably the names of the three priests followed, the first commencing -with the letters Kes,—perhaps Kesiphron,—and there ought to follow τάδ’ -ἒνεθεν or τάδε χάτεθεν, or similar expression. The inscription, then, -has nothing to do with a sarcophagus, or with the dead. It treats, on -the contrary, of a hidden treasure, that is to say, of the sacred -utensils of a temple in which were worshiped the three divinities, -Athena, Rhea, and Hera, each one having her peculiar priest. It is well -known that there is nothing new in this case of three divinities -worshiped in the same temple. We know that Athena was especially -reverenced in Ithaca, and are not surprised to find her first in the -list. Then to explain this inscription, it may be supposed that in some -perilous time of war, revolution, or other danger, these priests decided -to put in security the treasures of the temple and hid them in a safe -and secret place, leaving there this inscription, so that in any case -the nature and origin of the objects might be known. Probably they cut -the inscription themselves that no one else might be in the secret, and -this would explain the signs of haste and inexperience in the cutting, -while on the other hand the language, like the orthography, is correct.” - -The attribution to a sarcophagus by Schliemann is difficult to explain -as a mistake. If it had been, as he says, on a sarcophagus that he found -the right half of the inscription, he must have found the whole; but the -fact is that there was in the whole pile of stones no fragment of -anything like a sarcophagus, an object unknown in Greece till centuries -later. The inscription had evidently been a mural tablet and was about -eighteen inches deep and of a shape and size which made it impossible to -take it for a fragment of a sarcophagus; and underneath the mass of -debris from which it was extracted the workmen found a pit, which was -excavated, they told me, without finding anything; nor, they said, was -any object of antiquity found with the stones, while Schliemann engraves -a lance head and a coin of about 300 B. C. which he says were found in -the sarcophagus. This proves nothing, for when anything is found the -absurd rigor of the Greek laws makes the concealment of it the first -object of the finder. If this pit, when discovered, had still contained -the sacred objects, what a find if archæology could have profited by it! -But as the Greek law in case of concealment would have punished the -excavator by confiscation, or in the best case by taking the half of the -objects found, the first precaution taken by the finder would have been -to remove, if possible, to a foreign shore, and if not, to melt down, if -of precious metal, the objects found. Until Greek legislation on -archæological research is more intelligent, it will be gravely -handicapped. The greater part of the value of an object is often to know -where it came from, and this we never know of objects found in Greece by -chance or private excavation. There was some years ago a report, which -had certainly considerable confirmation, of the discovery of a great -treasure in this very part of Ithaca; possibly it may have been this. If -we could have found the vessels of the temple, they would have given us -the art of the descendants of the Dorians in Ithaca at least six hundred -years B. C.; for this inscription is Doric, and dates from about that -time. - -In any case, we may be confident that our inscription marks the site as -having been in the vicinity of a city of, or little later than, the -Homeric epoch, as, supposing the Odyssey to have been composed in 850 B. -C., only about two hundred and fifty years could have intervened between -its composition and the placing of this inscription; and we know of no -ethnic revolution which would have destroyed the Homeric city between -the Dorian invasion and the wars of Corinth. - - [Illustration: THE SCHOOL OF HOMER.] - -But if there are no traces of the Homeric city, and none of earlier -construction in the immediate neighborhood of the site, there is in the -interior of the island, and in the northern lobe, which we see was -probably the special domain of the Ithaca of Ulysses, a most interesting -antiquity which is now known as the “school of Homer.” It is in all -probability a sacred place of the Pelasgic epoch, as on the rock above -it is a chapel whose substructions are clearly Pelasgic and most -probably the remains of a Pelasgic temple, which alone would account for -its preservation, and is probably also the reason of its conversion into -a Christian church. It is on a scale in keeping with all the remains we -have of the heroic epoch, about twelve by twenty feet, and though much -repaired in the modern adaptation, still shows its ancient dimensions -and style of building in the lower courses, too solid to have been -rearranged, though some of the upper stones have evidently been replaced -in later times. It stands on the brow of a low bluff, below the village -of Exoï and not far from the “field of Laertes,” which tradition points -out at a little hamlet below. Traces of other walls extend to the brink -of the precipice that overhangs the “school,” and round by the side is -an antique flight of steps, mostly preserved and cut in the solid rock, -that served as passage between the temple and the “school,” which may -have been the place of sacrifice or possibly an area for the holding of -the council. It is mainly cut in the rock at the foot of the precipice -on which the temple was built, with a double flight of steps, also cut -in the rock, descending to the ground below. It is not above fifteen -feet across at its widest, and the decomposition of the solid rock by -time and weather leaves only the general shape and character, with some -of the steps above and below it, still tolerably perfect. It was a -lovely place, and if the shade now thrown by the olive-trees which -surround it was anciently given by plane-trees, it would have been still -more striking. You look off on the sea and the distant island of Levkadi -with the mountains of Acarnania, and through the interstices of the -olive-trees you catch glimpses of the cultivated valley beneath, where, -if anywhere in this end of the island, old Laertes must have had his -field, as here only is tillage possible. North is the sea, south the -huge wall of Neriton, east the rugged mountain that looks out on the -inner sea, and west that on which Exoï is raised to the clouds and from -which one looks down on the Cephalonian channel at its foot. Like the -plain or valley between the Raven’s Cliff and Vathy for the southern -lobe, this is the only valley for the northern. The “school” is poised -thus midway between the valley and the mountain peak; and whether, as -the islanders pretend, it was the place where Homer read his poems, the -council place of the ancient heroes and kings, or the hieron of Pelasgic -priests whence the smoke of sacrifice went up to the great Zeus, the -choice of locality was one which suited alike its uses. The young wheat -was springing into head in all the interspaces of the close-standing -olive-trees, and the rocks above were overhung and draped with wild sage -and gemmed with wild flowers. The boy who guided us assured us that -there was a secret passage to the top of the rock, filled up now; and a -peasant passing by stopped to see what we might be saying or doing, and -finding that our interest was fixed on _palaia pragmata_, offered to -guide us to an ancient rock-cut well in the valley below. We found the -door which opens to the passage, which led down a stone-cut staircase to -the well, far in the ground; but as the well belonged to the priest, who -had the key in his pocket, and was, no one knew where, we had to be -content with the door, which was modern enough, though fitting an -opening cut in the rock very evidently ancient. - -In this vicinity must, by the force of nature, have been the residence -of all the agricultural part of the population of the ancient Ithaca. -Says the poem:— - -“Ulysses and his companions withdrew from the city and soon arrived at -the magnificent garden of Laertes, which the hero had formerly purchased -with his wealth after the many ills he had suffered. There stands his -dwelling, surrounded on all sides by a portico where the slaves who -cultivate his estate sleep and eat. In the porter’s lodge is an old -Sicilian,[6] who in this solitary place, far from the city, takes care -of the noble old man.... At these words he gives his arms to the -herdsmen who enter into the house of their master, while Ulysses, to -find Laertes, enters into the garden. The hero goes down into the great -vineyard and finds neither Dolias nor his sons, nor the other slaves. -Dolias has led them far away to gather thorns to make hedges round the -inclosure. Ulysses finds his father digging round the root of a tree in -the garden. Laertes is dressed in a dirty patched tunic; around his legs -he has bound, to preserve them, greaves of sewn leather; gloves protect -his hands, and his head is covered by a cap of goat-skin, which -completes his mournful appearance.... - -“‘Ah,’ replied Laertes, ‘if you are Ulysses, if you are my son returned -to this island, describe to me a sure sign that I cannot mistake.’ - -“‘See first,’ replies Ulysses, ‘this wound, which long ago on Parnassus -a wild boar gave me with his tusk, when I went to Autolycus to bring the -presents which he here had promised me. Then listen, I will describe to -you the trees of your beautiful garden which you gave me, and I asked of -you in my childhood as I ran behind you. We passed through your -inclosure; you told me the name of every tree, and you gave me thirteen -pear-trees, ten apple-trees, forty fig-trees, and then you promised to -give me fifty rows of vines in full bearing.’” - -The legends of the modern population of Ithaca must not be confounded -with real local tradition, transmitted from ancient times. They are -unquestionably the reflection of literary statement, the reiterated -conclusions of students more or less well informed as to the true -archæological bases of opinion. The attribution of the particular spot -we visited as the garden of Laertes is doubtless due to reading of the -Odyssey, and, like the location of the “Castle of Ulysses” on Aëtos, -arose from a popular rendering of the story as handed down by literature -and converted into legend, which is located wherever the crude -antiquarianism of the people judges best. An instance of the real -tradition which has a distinct value in archæological research is that -of the preservation of the name Polis for the abandoned site where -unquestionably the Homeric city stood; and this simple indication is -sufficient to prove that Ithaca was never entirely depopulated and -repeopled by Slavs, because in this case the continuity of tradition -would have been lost, and there is no ruin to restore it in modern -times, even if it were capable of surviving the interruption. If it had -simply been handed down by a Slavonic colony, it would have been “Arad” -instead of “Polis,” while, if the depopulation had once been complete, -names which are not now understood by the present inhabitants could not -have originated with them. If the name had sprung from the presence of -ruins, the site on Aëtos would have received it instead of its present -legendary appellation, so that in no way can we explain the survival of -the name Polis for the site, or the names Anoï and Exoï, except by -supposing them to have clung to the places from Homeric times through a -continuous population of Hellenic stock, however thinned. Another -curious incident illustrates the tenacity of this kind of survival. As -we were passing through one of the villages, I heard one child calling -to others to run to see the barbarians, οἱ βάρβαροι (_várvari_), just as -the Greek children of ancient times would have called us,—_i. e._, -foreigners, people who spoke a strange language, a babble, -unintelligible sounds like those of children. I heard it twice and could -not be mistaken, though a Greek friend to whom I related it would have -it that they said βαυάροι (Bavarians), since in continental Greece, -Bavarian (German) has been a term of contempt from the days of King -Otho. But I am certain of the word; and besides, the children of Ithaca -never had anything to do with the Bavarians, as they were under the -Ionian Government till after the fall of Otho and the departure of the -Bavarians. - -On the whole, I think that there is the strongest ground of probability -for these conclusions: that, whatever may be the relation of the real -Ulysses to Ithaca, the hero as conceived and represented in the Odyssey, -the Ulysses of the Homeric poems, _if he was an actuality_, lived at the -site known as Polis; and that this site, and all the others mentioned in -the poem, were known by the author of it from personal inspection. The -inscription found at Polis is in Doric Greek, which gives us a right to -conclude that the city continued to be inhabited by the mixed -population, result of the Dorian immigration; while the entire oversight -of the Pelasgic site on Aëtos indicates the total interruption of race -connection and the immense interval which must have come between its -construction and the transfer of the seat of power to Polis, as, if -still habitable when the new race took possession, it would, like -Nericus, Samé, and Crané, which we shall examine in Cephalonia, have -been made the basis of the newer city. That it was then utterly -abandoned, we conclude, not only from the neglect of it by Ulysses in -the passages we have noticed, but from the fact that while Samé, on the -other island, sends suitors, and Ithaca itself (the city) adds its -quota, no allusion is made to any from any other place in the island. In -short, the total silence through the whole poem in regard to any place -which can be by possibility connected with Aëtos, justifies my -concluding that it was as much an abandoned ruin in the time of Homer as -now. - -The episode of the voyage of Telemachus to Pylos and Sparta, which -brings into the Odyssey the western shore of the Peloponnesus, is, with -the exception of some unimportant allusions, the only interjection of -continental Greece into the poem. - -We went over to look for some trace of the sage Nestor, but as usual -found that while the people had enough of the after-growth of legend out -of the Odyssey, they knew absolutely nothing of the antique site. I had -no guide then to lead me to the Pylos where the ship of Telemachus found -“the Pyleans scattered along the shore offering a sacrifice to Neptune, -black bulls without a spot.” - -The bay of Navarino is a vast marine lake, known to us mainly by its -being the locality of the decisive combat between the fleets of the -great European powers and the Turkish and Egyptian, which decided the -destiny of modern Greece. We ran in from the open Adriatic, whose waters -were uncomfortably agitated by the south-west wind, glad of the safe and -convenient anchorage. But a sleepier place than the modern substitute -for the “sandy Pylos” I have never found in Greece. Nobody could give me -a word of direction, and all our searching round the extended sheet of -water for the antique site, only perhaps to be recognized by some -half-hidden remnant of Pelasgian walls, was fruitless; we neither saw -nor heard of any ruin. We paid a visit to the splendidly picturesque old -Venetian fortress commanding the entrance of the bay, which perhaps has -used up the stones of Nestor’s Pylos, and which has looked down on one -of the most murderous combats of modern naval history. It is garrisoned -by a little guard of Greek soldiers, and its keep is the prison of the -district. The gate is a good sample of the fortifications by which the -Venetian Republic held her Eastern possessions. - - - - - THE ODYSSEY, ITS EPOCH AND GEOGRAPHY. - - -The mythical world which had for its centre Ithaca, and for its chief -people Penelope and Ulysses, was out of all proportion larger than the -Europe of to-day; for it comprised the whole known world, from the -shadows of Cimmeria to the clouds that gave birth to the Nile. Its -geography, however, has a value to archæology and prehistory which has -not been fully recognized. The date and place of origin of the Odyssey -will never be determined with any high degree of certainty, but in -dealing with epochs that comprise unmeasured centuries we need not fear -a variation of two or three. And the collation of traditions from the -same mythical world will help us to this approximation to the probable -date of Homer’s life, if not that of Ulysses. - -Gladstone, in the “Juventus Mundi,” has made use of an argument which, -even if not sound as to the Trojan war, I believe to be good for the -Odyssey. The earliest authentic records in Greek history reveal Greece -as under the control of two races, the Ionians and the Dorians, elements -whose antagonisms have been the chief cause of the disasters and ruin of -Greece. - -But neither Dorians nor Ionians were the dominant race when the Odyssey -was written, as neither Ionians nor Dorians appear in the record. The -Greeks of the Trojan war are always called Achaioi, and the Dorians were -evidently, as a dominant race, unknown to the author of the Homeric -poems. Now, as they came into Greece about 1000 B. C., and as our -researches show the island of Ithaca, with which Homer was well -acquainted, to have become Dorian with the rest of Greece, the substance -of the Odyssey must have been earlier than we have supposed, and could -hardly have been as late as 850 B. C., unless the Dorian so-called -invasion was an immigration spreading very slowly from the main line of -its movement, and its stock still a recognizably new people. Nor does -any possible modification of the Homeric poems in the recitals, -continued over centuries, affect this argument in the least, as, being -common property of all the bards and all the tribes, they were liable to -be modified in the various versions according to the localities and -local knowledge of the singers; and, one “rhapsody” being preserved by -one tribe and another by another, of this hardly homogeneous people, the -traces of the modifications received in their migrations could not be by -the philology of the date of their collation so effaced as to leave no -marks of their incomplete restoration. - -It is impossible that any idea of archæological consistency had led to -the exclusion of the Dorians from the Odyssey. If the Dorians had been -ruling in Greece when it was composed, it seems to the last degree -improbable that they could have been so completely ignored, if it were -but for the deference to be paid the rulers of half the Greek world; and -whether we look at the invariable practice of all early poets to adapt -their work to their own times and surroundings, or to the entire -consistency of the work in this respect,—too complete to be due to the -study of utterly unscientific or illiterate later times,—I think it is -to be admitted as probable that the Odyssey was composed before the -great ethnical revolution in Greece was complete. - -The purely local evidence supports this hypothesis to a certain extent, -and in this topography and geography I propose to wander as far as it is -possible to do so with advantage to our knowledge of the Odyssean world. -Corfu was inhabited by a race alien to the Greek, and which recognized -its descent from the Siculi displaced by the Pelasgi from Sicily. -Opposite Ithaca lies the more important island of Cephalonia, to which -Ithaca is now completely subordinate, but which then was less important -apparently than Ithaca, in all probability only because it was only -partly Hellenic. Now, the earliest classical name of this Island, -_Kephallenia_, was derived from Cephalus, a mythical hero who appears to -have been contemporary with Minos. But this name is never applied to it -in the Odyssey. Of the island nothing is said, but of the chief city, -Samos (a colony from which gave its name to the Asiatic island now known -under that appellation), Homer has much to say. It lies clearly in sight -from Ithaca, from which it is separated only by a narrow strait, and is -one of the prominent objects in the view from Ithaca. It was originally -one of that line of prehistoric cities whose only record is in the -stones of their walls, and from these we learn that it was a very -ancient coast settlement, which, unlike the city on Aëtos, survived -through successive civilizations until history got hold of it. In -Ulysses’ day it must have been a rich place, for it furnished -twenty-four pretendants to the hand of Penelope. “There are first -fifty-two young men, the chosen of Dulichios—six servants accompany -them; twenty-four have come from Samos; twenty from Zakynthos [Zante]; -and from Ithaca were twelve, the bravest.” But the author of the Odyssey -seems to have had no personal knowledge of the topography of Cephalonia, -and mentions no other locality in the island. Tradition tells us that -the island was peopled by Telebœans, a people driven from the continent -by Achilles,—before the siege of Troy, therefore, but subsequent to -Cephalus; but this is one of the confusions of mythology, as Cephalus -found the Telebœans in the island. The usual condensation of history -into myth leaves very little clear in these early traditions. Races -become personified in individuals, and the work of centuries is -attributed to a life-time and an individual. Whether Cephalus was in -reality a race or a man it is impossible to do more than conjecture, but -though the poems mention the _Kephallenes_, the entire ignoring of its -topography and traditions, even of the visit of the Argonauts to it, -makes it difficult to believe that it was chiefly inhabited by a race -kindred to that of Ithaca when Homer knew it, because Homer was too much -disposed to make use of the antique traditions when apposite, to have -left unnoticed that of Jason at Palé. - -Cephalus having, according to the legend, killed his wife Procris, -mistaking her for a wild animal as she, excited to jealousy by his -devotion to the chase, which she attributed to another love, hid herself -in the thickets to watch him, was banished from Athens, and, wandering -in exile, came to Thebes, just then under excitement owing to the -Telebœans of Cephalonia having killed the brothers of Alcmena, wife of -the Theban Amphytrion, and he was requested to take charge of the -expedition to avenge the murder. He succeeded in conquering the island -and gave it his name. His descendants reigned there two generations, -after which, the latest rulers of his blood being recalled to Attica by -the oracle, a federative republic succeeded, formed by the four -principal cities, or perhaps by the four which had survived the changes -of race, for there are more than four antique sites. Those which history -has preserved as having submitted to the Romans in the year of Rome 563 -were Samé, Nesia, Crané, and Palé. - -The city of Samé alone presents, in the annals of historical times, any -interest, and this is sad and glorious. Livy says that at the end of the -Ætolian war the Romans sent to Cephalonia to know whether they would -submit or try the fortune of war, as they seem to have joined in the war -with the Ætolians, though he gives no record of the part they took. He -gives the account, brief and tragic, of the fate of the city, which I -will neither dilute nor abbreviate:— - -“An unhoped-for peace had now shone on Cephalonia when one state, the -Saméans, suddenly revolted, from some motive not yet ascertained. They -said that as their city was commodiously situated they were afraid the -Romans would compel them to remove from it. But whether they conceived -this in their own minds and under the impulse of a groundless fear -disturbed the general quiet, or whether such a project had been -mentioned in conversation among the Romans and reported to them, nothing -is ascertained except that, having given hostages, they suddenly shut -their gates, and would not relinquish their design even for the prayers -of their friends whom the consul sent to the walls to try how far they -might be influenced by compassion for their parents and countrymen. When -no pacific answer was given, the city began to be besieged. - -“The consul had all the apparatus, engines, and machines which had been -brought from Ambracia, and the soldiers executed with great diligence -the works necessary to be made. The rams were therefore brought forward -in two places, and began to batter the walls. - -“The townsmen omitted nothing by which the works or the motions of the -besiegers could be obstructed. But they resisted in two ways in -particular, one of which was to raise constantly opposite the part of -the wall attacked a new wall of equal strength on the inside; and the -other was to make sudden sallies at one time against the enemy’s works, -at another against his advanced guard, and in those attacks they -generally got the better. The only plan that was invented to confine -them within the walls, though ineffectual, deserves to be recorded. One -hundred slingers were brought from Ægium, Patræ, and Dymæ -[Peloponnesus]. These men, according to the customary practice of that -nation, were exercised from their childhood in throwing with a sling, -into the open sea, the round pebbles with which, mixed with sand, the -shores were generally strewn; therefore they cast weapons of that sort -to a greater distance, with surer aim and more powerful effect, than -even the Balearian slingers. Besides, their sling does not consist -merely of a single strap like the Balearic and that of other nations, -but the thong of the sling is threefold and made firm by several seams, -that the missile may not, by the yielding of the strap in the act of -throwing, be let fly at random; but, after sticking fast while whirled -about, it may be discharged as if sent from the string of a bow. Being -accustomed to drive their missiles through circular marks of small -circumference placed at a great distance, they not only hit the enemy’s -heads, but any part of their faces that they aimed at. These slings -checked the Saméans from sallying either so frequently or so boldly; -insomuch that they would sometimes from the walls beseech the Achæans to -retire for a while and be quiet spectators of their fight with the Roman -guards. Samé supported a siege of four months. When some of their small -number were daily killed or wounded, and the survivors were, through -continual fatigues, greatly reduced both in strength and spirits, the -Romans, one night, scaling the wall of the citadel which they call -Cyatides (for the city, sloping toward the sea, verges toward the west), -made their way into the forum. The Saméans, on discovering that a part -of the city was taken, fled with their wives and children into the -greater citadel; but, submitting next day, they were all sold as slaves, -their city being plundered.” (Bohn’s translation.) - -It is only by conjecture we can distinguish between the two hills, both -being covered with ruins; and the walls are so broken in their circuit, -and so complex as well as various in their epoch of construction, that -no plan of the siege could be made, but the above indicates the -westernmost as first captured. - -The city must have been very wealthy, if we may judge from that -generally excellent indication, the tombs, which line the roads and the -sea-shore beyond the city (looking from the point where the general view -is taken), and by the enumeration of the booty taken by the Romans, -which is given as follows: Two hundred golden crowns of ten Roman pounds -each, eighty-three thousand pounds of silver, two hundred and -forty-three pounds of gold, one hundred and eighteen pieces of Athenian -money, two thousand four hundred and twenty-two of Macedonian, two -hundred and eighty-three statues of bronze, two hundred and thirty of -marble, besides the money distributed to the army. - -I know of no place where the ruins of all epochs are so well indicated -as at Samé. The large fragment of wall of the best Hellenic time which -runs down the slope of the eastern hill is one of the finest, if not -_the_ finest, I have ever seen. Its stones are perfectly hewn, and some -of them are twelve to fourteen feet long, and the highest portion still -standing is not less than twenty feet high. At other points are various -examples of the Pelasgic, similar to that of “Ulysses’ Castle,” but of -better work. There are magnificent subterranean passages, one of which -leads to the citadel on the easternmost hill, the more remote in the -distant view, but the higher and probably the site of the greater -citadel, being marked by the most imposing ruins and remains of works, -and without doubt the locality of the original settlement. On the lower -hill stand some interesting remains—a tower and remains of city wall of -mixed Hellenic and Pelasgic, the tower being of the very latest -Hellenic, showing the beginning of “rustication.” It was built upon in -the middle ages, and the whole mass of buildings transformed into a -fortress and afterward into a convent. Samé must very early have been a -large and important city, as the whole of the space, including the two -hills and the land between them, shows traces of Pelasgic construction, -and one fragment on the brow of the hill near the tower is one of the -most perfect examples of the best Pelasgic work one can find away from -Mykenæ and Argos. The stones in the illustration range about five feet -in length, and are faced with exquisite exactness. A wild fig-tree has -taken root in the interstices of the stones, and the roots have pushed -the masses of rock apart, but in several places it is difficult to see -the junction when the light is flat against them. Of Roman work there is -little; but some thermæ walls on the plains by the sea and some tombs -show a considerable Roman occupation. Livy says that Marcus Tullius, the -conqueror of Samé, went over to the Peloponnesus “after having placed a -garrison in Samé.” This negatives the notion that the walls were razed -to the foundations, as is asserted by La Croix; and it is also rendered -improbable by the existing ruins, though it is not impossible that so -much of the wall was destroyed as made the defense of it temporarily -impracticable. There are, however, some slight traces of rubble-wall on -the old ruins, which show a Roman (or possibly middle-age, though I -incline to the former) construction, which negative any supposition that -the _enceinte_ was rendered useless for defense; for no one would repair -a wall which was not tolerably complete in its circuit. The remains of -the Roman time, however, are insignificant compared with those of the -Pelasgic, either as to preservation or quality. - - [Illustration: VIEW OF SAMÉ FROM THE WEST,—WITH PARTS OF PELASGIC AND - HELLENIC WALLS.] - -At present Samé is an insignificant village, consisting of twenty or -thirty small houses stretched along the beach, with a tiny port formed -by a breakwater constructed from the stones of the city wall, the -fairest and best cut that could be found. The people are a thievish -clan, who set on any chance comer, like mosquitoes on a solitary and -bewildered fisherman in a swampy land. They have coins and antiquities -to sell, for which, as everywhere else in Greece, they demand the most -absurd prices; and they beset one with offers of service as guides, -etc., etc., etc., till they weary all human patience. This may be said -of the Ionians in general, but less of the people of Cerigo, perhaps, -than the others. We found, however, a grateful exception. We had -wandered along the beach to the furthermost houses of the line, and on -passing a very respectable-looking house, the owner, sitting in the -coolness of the twilight at his gates, seeing two strangers, rose to -salute us and invited us to enter; an invitation so amiable and earnest -that we accepted, and were ushered into the guest-chamber, clean and -furnished with divans in eastern fashion, where we were entertained with -the usual sweetmeats and coffee, while the daughter of the house went -into the garden and collected for each of us a bouquet of roses, the -most fragrant I ever remember to have seen. Our host narrated many -incidents of the English rule in Cephalonia, and when we rose to go -urged us to take up our quarters in his house; and finally, as we stood -before the gates, as a last favor, offered me two beautiful Greek stelæ, -memorials of the ancient dead, possibly of the period of the heroic -defense of Samé. He had found them in digging his house cellar, and they -were the ornaments of his court-yard; but learning that we were in -search of antiquities, he offered them freely as his contribution. I -shall not soon forget him or his fragrant roses and the dark-eyed Saméan -girl who offered them to us. - -Of Crané scarcely a trace remains, even of the Pelasgic walls. It stood -originally on the Lake of Argostoli (to which place we drove from Samé -across the island), but at a point now far from the water’s edge. The -lake is a singular geological phenomenon, formed by a number of springs -bursting out from under the hills on which Crané lay, with a force -sufficing to drive mills and form a strong current over the whole extent -of the lake, which is a mile or more in diameter, though the surface of -land to be drained by these subterranean outpours is, one would say, -utterly inadequate to the quantity of water delivered. - -I took a guide at Argostoli, a man of the usual type of Greek guide, who -assured me that he knew the ancient city, and had often guided strangers -there. On arriving at the head of the lake I found him taking useless -détours to bring me to the mills, which were driven by the springs; and -on asking him what he went there for, he replied that he supposed I -wanted to see the mills—since that was what other people had come for. I -gave him an energetic sample of modern Greek, and ordered him to show me -the way to the ancient city—Palaiokastron. “Palaiokastron!” he -ejaculated with surprise and bewilderment in his eyes, and turned to ask -some shepherd boys or other vagabonds, who were sauntering near by and -watching us, where the Palaiokastron was. They declined to give any -information, probably regarding him as a poacher on their preserves. I -had, therefore, to depend on my antiquarian instincts, and, taking the -lead, climbed over the heights above until, guided by the nature of the -ground, I found the traces of the old wall. - - [Illustration: CRANÉ FROM THE SEA SHORE.] - -The position of the city was entirely characteristic of the sites of the -Pelasgic epoch: a bold, double peak, almost inaccessible on the -sea-side, and on the two flanks still very precipitous, but connected -with higher land on the side opposite the water. On the side from which -the view is taken none of the ancient walls remain. The movement of -earthquakes, the gradual fall of the rock at the precipitous edge, or -the leveling labor of man has carried away all the blocks that made this -side of the _enceinte_; but many of the stones may be recognized at the -foot of the slope, some worked into modern walls, and some in the débris -of the hill. On the opposite side the traces are more distinct, and the -wall may be traced a long way, and the site of the citadel determined, -with a gate and the angles of some of the towers. From near the citadel -a view is obtained which shows a long line of the débris with a distant -view of the town of Argostoli and the lake, and far beyond the lines -that form the western shore of the superb harbor of Argostoli, almost -without a rival in the Adriatic. The mass of wall is hardly to be -distinguished from mere decomposed rock; so much have time and frost, -the great demolishers, split and crumbled the flinty, massive limestone, -the preferred material of the Pelasgi. On the further shore shown in the -view may be seen, when the air is clear, the houses which form a modern -village on the site of the ancient Palé. Here were Jason and his fellow -adventurers entertained on their search after the golden fleece,—an -expedition which perhaps we may translate from myth into probability, as -an expedition to obtain an improved breed of sheep, a finer-wooled -stock, from one of the northern and inland countries. - -At Argostoli I inquired about the ruins of Palé, but was told that they -are mainly built over, and what is visible is only of the Roman period. -I attempted, however, on our return to Samé, to run around in the -_Kestrel_, as the voyage across the bay from Argostoli is neither -pleasant nor sure in the small boats that make the service. We got up -anchor as the land breeze began to blow at midnight, and I went to bed, -having given orders to anchor in a little bay about half-way to the -southern extremity of the island near which some ruins are indicated on -the map. Awaking in the morning and finding a most suspicious -tranquillity prevailing, I took a look at the outside surroundings, and -found the yacht quietly moored on the same spot she had occupied the day -before. A furious sirocco had sprung up and met us half-way to our -destined anchorage, and after beating for an hour in vain, our little -boat nearly buried in the seas, we were compelled to retreat and run -back to our former place of refuge. There is no getting ahead in such -small craft against the sharp, violent seas of the Mediterranean. - -Three days the sirocco blew, and we tried in vain to pass the time -fishing. The Ionians have adopted dynamite so universally to catch their -fish that they are as scarce as honest people on shore. One does find -them sometimes, and we caught a shark about four feet long and a half -dozen red mullet where, before dynamite was discovered, we could have -caught in the same time a hundred-weight. - -The third night we got under way again, and, with a heavy swell still -on, ran down to our harbor, reaching it as a flaming, splendid -thunder-storm was coming up, the finale of our southern blow. We moored -with cables out in three directions, and when the storm had all gone by -I went ashore to hunt my ruins. A vagabond Cephalonian offered his -services to carry my camera and guide me; but his crafty and evasive -face, coupled with the assurance with which he clung to me, so irritated -me that to rid myself of him I plunged into the pathless thicket. -Traveling by compass, and searching long and closely, I found at last -the remains of an early Pelasgic wall on a magnificent site, with a -breezy outlook to sea north and west and overlooking a fertile valley -inland, not especially pictorial, for it was too regular and too -thoroughly cultivated, but through it ran a bright crystal brook -overhung by huge pollard sycamores and fringed with oleanders just -bursting into blossom and making the valley look like a rose-garden. -Beyond the hill on which the city stood is a wild ravine through which -runs the brook, which in Greek would naturally be dignified by the name -of a river. Only a narrow neck, as usual, gave access to the site. It is -impossible to ascertain with any kind of assurance what the name of the -city was. It could not have been Nesia, the only one of the four -principal ones we have not visited, for no ruins are visible approaching -so late an epoch as the Roman, and it was probably Heraclea. Its -position was magnificent for defense and on account of the fertility of -the country behind it, but the site was probably abandoned very early -for one further inland, where I was assured there were ruins of an -ancient city. But my time had been so invaded by the loss of three days -through the storm, and I was already so behind my programme, that I was -not able to give the time necessary to the search and examination, or, -indeed, to follow my plan of visiting Palé. - - [Illustration: DISTANT VIEW OF PALÉ FROM THE CITADEL OF CRANÉ.] - -We climbed down to the brook, and I enjoyed the pastime of wading in the -gurgling water as if I were a boy—it was so long since I had had that -pleasure! We followed it into a close and gloomy gorge, where the crag -of the ancient site overhung us like a huge, rough wall, almost a sheer -precipice, and down at the foot ran the brook, which we followed to the -sea. The sun was setting as we reached the yacht, and before we waked -from sleep next morning we were bounding toward Zante. - -In Zante (Zakynthos) there is, so far as I could find, no ancient ruin -whatever. The character of the rock explains this; for, except at the -extreme southern end of the island, there is no stone which would resist -even the weather-wear since the Roman epoch. The island seems to be a -bed of sand raised from the sea and slightly hardened, so that, though -the citadel hill is imposing enough as a mass, the material of it is -being continually dissolved, and looks at a distance more like a bank of -clay than like rock. - - [Illustration: ZANTE.] - -Zante is rhymingly called the “fior di Levante” (flower of the Levant), -but it is difficult to see wherein it surpasses Corfu in any flowery -attribute. I guess that, as in many other cases, the rhyme went for more -than the fact, poetical or otherwise. It is fertile, and the land -extends in an immense unpicturesque plain covered with olive-orchards -and vineyards for miles from the port. Its history is unimportant and -its mythology not interesting. It was said to have been colonized by -Zakynthos, son of Dardanus of Troy, about 1500 years before Christ; but, -as I have before said, all Greek dates and traditions of migration -earlier than 1000 B. C. are purely conjectural. Zante suffered with the -other islands from the endless and furious feuds of the Greek states; -ravaged by turns by Athenian and Lacedæmonian, it came down to the -Romans an unruly subject province, conquered and reconquered, and -finally lay still in the tranquillity of slavery until Geneseric, king -of the Vandals, began an epoch of devastation, which only concluded with -the purchase, by the Venetians from the Sultan, of its soil depopulated -by the sword and slavery. - -He who goes about in the Mediterranean has great chance of seeing bad -weather, for it is the reverse of a pacific sea, and in a scrap of a -boat like the _Kestrel_ the phenomena are sometimes interesting. Our -course from Zante to Cerigo (ancient Cythera) leads by Cape Mátapan, -opposite Cape Maleá, the two southern points of Greece, which enjoy a -reputation of the kind that the American proverb gives to Hatteras and -Lookout. The _Kestrel_ was again baffled, and, after beating for hours -to get past the point, we had to put up the helm and run back to -Navarino, the nearest shelter, before a gathering southerly blow. We lay -in our old anchorage another day, and as the wind fell at night we beat -out again and ran through the little archipelago of barren and desolate -islands which lie off this part of the Morea. The weather still looked -ugly, and thunder-clouds were gathering on the hills of Lacedæmon, and -we could see the storm creeping down toward the sea, but the wind was -fair, and we hoped to make Kapsali, in Cerigo, before the squall came -down. Already the heights of Cerigo loomed before us, and we had begun -to look for the landmarks, when the wind struck us. All hands made what -haste was possible to get in sail and get up a small storm jib to lie to -under, and not too quickly, for no common canvas would have stood that -blast when it struck us. The sun was setting, and soon we were out of -sight of all land in the driving spray and rain. The lightning was such -as only they who sail in semi-tropical seas can have known, blinding and -incessant; it seemed to have gathered around the mountains of Cerigo as -a centre, for it went and came and still hung there as the rain swept -down the coast and up again. As the wind fell off with the down-pouring -of the torrents we got off again and pointed our bowsprit for Kapsali; -and as the waters above and those below seemed to have formed an -alliance against us, we went below and shut the hatch. Fortunately the -wind was off shore and we had little sea, and managed to creep along -nearly as much as we had drifted to the leeward; so that when the storm -broke and the rain held up we were able to see the rocks off the coast, -and finally to grope our way into the little port of Kapsali, which is -secure against everything but a southerly blow. The wind, always -contrary, fell off as we drew near the light-house, and we had to get in -with our sweeps in the small hours of the morning, wet, cold, hungry, -and jaded from the excitement of the night; for, though it is simple and -safe in the telling, a large Greek brig foundered only two miles from us -in the squall, and we had experienced the worst weather we had yet felt, -and since the storm began no one had been able to eat or even get a cup -of coffee. - -At Kapsali one begins to see the antique sailor ways and the evidence of -the intense conservatism of the eastern world. The ships are drawn up on -the beach at night as of old, and this necessitates a construction of -the hull which cannot be far removed from that of the antique. Indeed, I -have seen fishing-boats which might have served for the models of the -galley on the Roman coins. The rigging, again, is of the simplest, and -fitted for these seas, where the sudden squalls and the “meltem,” or -gusts which come down from the mountains with no warning but a little -cloud appearing on the summit, sometimes leave brief space for the -taking in of sail. On the whole, wherever we look we see ample evidence -that in the whole Levant, where the original population exists in a -considerable proportion, the ways of life and thought are the same as -those of Homer’s day. Nature has changed more than man. Where the -Venetians came they brought new habits of military life and -construction, and demolished all the old ruins to make fortresses; but -on the domestic life and on the character of the Greek they had little -or no influence. - -Whether Kapsali, a mere village, the port of Cerigo, had any ancient -existence, we do not know. Cerigo lies on the high rock above it, and is -a Venetian fortress; and, as is generally the case with Venetian -fortresses, has used up all ancient masonry, if any existed, in its -construction. - - [Illustration: CITADEL OF CERIGO.] - -The road from Kapsali to the town of Cerigo is of Venetian construction, -kept in repair by those fitting successors of Venice, the English, who -certainly left the Ionian Islands in a state of prosperity higher than -that of to-day. Good roads were almost everywhere provided, and good -ways of other kinds, now lost entirely, if I might believe the -complaints of the people. The position of Cerigo is very strong for the -days of Venetian rule, and it overhangs the port and country round on -every side, except one, like a Pelasgic site, but I could find no stone -of that date. It is not likely that there was any very ancient city -there, as no tombs or evidences of a necropolis have been found. The -formidable character of the position in the times of the Venetians is -shown by the view from the road above the ravine which severs the -mountain from the lesser hill over the port—a ravine whose existence is -quite unsuspected from the port. - -The city itself is without interest except as the first really Eastern -city one will see coming from the West, and as an example of Venetian -fortress-building. The view from the citadel is fine and breezy, the -islands of Ovo, Cerigotto, and Crete being visible, and a great expanse -of that sea which, on sunny days, is in itself so beautiful from its -color. You look down on the houses, white as continual whitewashing will -make them, whose flat, terraced roofs serve in the hot and rainless -summer as sleeping-places for the whole family. How many nights I have -dragged my mattress from the bedroom out on this delightful substitute -and let the night breeze fan me to sleep! - -Of history the island has next to none. Mythology puts the landing of -Aphrodite here, as she came, foam-born and sea-borne, to found her -religion in the Greek worlds.[7] The first who are traditionally -reported to have colonized the island are the Phœnicians; but it is -impossible to ignore the previous coming of the Pelasgi, who have left a -well-marked ruin of the earliest type. To see the traces of the antique -settlements, one had better go to Port San Nicolo if provided as we -were; but secure an intelligent guide previously from Cerigo, as the -country people, as in other islands, while pretending to know all about -the antiquities, really know absolutely nothing. They know the tombs -because they serve as sheep-folds, and they have sometimes a curious -knowledge of the relative antiquity of the ruins; but they have heard -modern myths, and apply them with the least possible regard to -archæological facts, and invariably assure you that they know -everything. - -So it happened that I was again, for want of choice, out on a search -with an ignorant guide. There had been some excavations commenced on the -site of what is now known as Palaiopolis (the old city), which evidently -was Phœnician, and was occupied down to Roman times. There were some -columns of Roman or Byzantine work unearthed, and from mere curiosity to -know _his_ notions, I asked a shepherd boy watching his sheep near by -what they were. “This,” he said, “was the palace of the king.” “Of what -king?” I asked. “Don’t you know?” he said, opening his eyes at me as if -this were the very _a b c_ of history. “Why, the palace of Menelaus.” -There is an old tradition that it was the place of residence of Menelaus -and Helen, and all the objects to be seen are attributed to them. The -Phœnician city is close to the sea; the Pelasgic site is several miles -back, and looms up on the highest mountains in the vicinity. In a -previous visit I had seen but had not explored it; but now I determined -to see the whole extent of it. My guide, who brought a donkey for my -occasional changes of mode of locomotion, pretended to lead me to the -ancient citadel; but when we reached the hill on which I knew it to be -better than he, he began to inquire about it of the women at work in the -fields; thereupon I, as usual, took the lead. Guided by the nature of -the ground, I found all that remained of the ancient citadel wall—a -fragment kept up by the chance of its being the limit of a field, and so -kept in repair, but in such a state of dilapidation that but for the -evidences of the continuity I would not have been sure that it was a -wall. I followed the main wall a mile or more along the edge of the -precipitous slope, and saw that it bore testimony to the importance of -the ancient city, for it was wide in its compass and massive, with -towers, gates, and flanking towers of the true Pelasgic style, but in -most places only two or three stones high. I got an imposing view of the -hill from below the lowest trace of wall, showing its position with -reference to the valley below, through which ran once a river of some -volume, if we may judge by the alluvial plains at its mouth, but which -at the time of my visit in midsummer, was dry as desert dust. A strip of -white pebbles shows where it still runs in winter-time. On the hills -close to the sea-side, and on both sides of the mouth of this ancient -river, used to lie the old Phœnician, Greek, and Roman city, whatever it -was originally called,—probably Cythera, like the island. As I have -said, it is now called Palaiopolis. The temple of Aphrodite, the people -pretend, was on the hill near the citadel where now is an insignificant -chapel, but with no evidence of antiquity except that there are in the -construction of the chapel some large stones which are evidently of -Hellenic cutting; but as the Greeks had the habit in all ages of keeping -up the temples of their gods, there is nothing to show that it was a -temple of Aphrodite rather than a Pelasgic god, which Aphrodite-Astarte -was not, and her temple must have been near the sea. - -The site of Palaiopolis is marked by a quantity of tombs, most, if not -all, of Hellenic date. There are now no temple remains there; but Spon, -who visited the spot two hundred years ago, says that he saw the statue -of Aphrodite, which was very ugly and of coarse brown stone, which -reminds us of the statues of Cyprus. The rock is a soft conglomerate -which the sea cuts away very rapidly, and apparently there has been a -subsidence of the soil, since they say that when the sea is tranquil -there may be seen beneath the water, some distance out from the actual -shore, the ruins of a city. This may have been the port of -Cythera—scarcely a fortified city, as the site must have been too low. -Right and left of the rivulet which now represents the ancient river are -bluffs of conglomerate, that on the left honeycombed by tombs, some of -which have fallen with the rock, but of which others are still visible, -opened to the elements but showing within the rock-cut graves. Many -valuable articles of gold work have been found in past times, but the -treasure seems to have been exhausted. These two bluffs are the lineal -representatives and successors by right of position of what Aphrodite -must have seen as she came ashore on the foam, otherwise they have no -interest. - -The two low hills which were included in the city of Cythera are covered -with fragments of building and traces of tombs, but, so far as I could -find, no wall. This is all that is left of Aphrodite, Helen, and -Menelaus in their land of fabled existence. The coming ashore of -Aphrodite undoubtedly indicates, like that of Europa at Gortyna in -Crete, the landing of a colony from Phœnicia, bearing the worship of -Astarte, who became later assimilated to Aphrodite. Of the presence here -of Helen and Menelaus there is no evidence in any trustworthy tradition. -The subjection of Cythera to Sparta is of historic date. My conclusion -as to the island is that in Homeric times it was Phœnician in its -relations as Melos was at one time, as well as Santorin and other -eastern islands, and that, like Corfu, it did not come into the Greek -system. - -Opposite Cerigo, and with its snowy peaks glistening under the noonday -sun, lies Crete. The strangest omission of the Odyssey would have been -that of the island of Minos from its reminiscences, if the author had -known of it; but, as we have seen in his interviews with Athene, Ulysses -did not fail to include it in his geography though he had apparently -never visited it, and like Egypt and Lotophagitis it was known by -report. Of Egypt we had heard mention through the visit of Helen and -Menelaus. Of the country where subsequently was established the Great -Greek-African colony, Cyrene, we have no hint, yet the inhabitants of -the Peloponnesus knew of Libya earlier than the Dorian invasion—as -early, in fact, as 1500 B. C., as we know by the Karnac inscriptions. -The story of Eumæus shows knowledge of the ways of that race of -merchants and pirates, the Phœnicians, but nothing of their country. - -The questions of the personality and date of Homer and of the reality of -the Trojan war are utterly diverse, and not, in fact, interdependent. As -to the latter we have thus far no direct evidence whatever, beyond -poetic traditions in which the supernatural is so strongly and -inextricably involved with the pretense or actuality of history that no -inferences can be drawn from any part of the narrative, though from its -_ensemble_ we are assured that in its ancient form it was accepted as -history by the entire Greek world as early as we know anything of that -world with historical certainty. But that is no criterion. Even at this -day myths grow and crystallize in the Oriental mind with a rapidity -which leaves the ancients without any advantage. The universal belief -from the first to the eighth century B. C. that the Iliad was history -need not weigh with us. Scientific investigators differ so widely that -we have no general inference to draw from their arguments. The most -recent excavations leave a grave doubt whether any of the ruins -excavated in the Troad can by any reasoning be admitted to be as old as -the Iliad, and the remains on Hissarlik hill which Schliemann _more suo_ -has identified with Homer’s Troy are clearly the remains of the city of -Crœsus, being of brick, which does not appear in the classic traditions -or structures until his time, and we know by authentic history that he -did build a city on this hill. Professor Jebb, one of the most acute of -the literary investigators of the question, is convinced that the -topography of the Iliad is eclectic, some of its indications suiting -only Hissarlik and others only Bunarbashi; Max Müller maintains that the -whole story is a solar myth; while Nicolaïdes, a patient and thorough -Greek student of the Iliad, believes that he can follow the whole -strategy of the poem on the plain of Troy. But the main questions -involved in the Odyssey are of a different character and determined by -different criteria. I offer my suggestions as to some of them with the -deference due my masters in archæology. - - [Illustration: LANDING-PLACE OF THE CYPRIAN APHRODITE OR ASTARTE.] - -The general knowledge shown in the Odyssey divides itself into kinds: -that which was part of the general geography of the day, and this -included the coasts shown on our route map; and that of which the poet -had personal cognizance, which is limited to Corfu, Ithaca, Nericus, and -possibly Pylos; and this exclusiveness suggests to us that Homer, a -stranger in the West, had come, as I did, simply to follow and study the -traces of Ulysses’ wanderings, and that he did so in obedience to a -clearly preserved tradition as to his great exemplar, which was almost -impossible without the still remembered personal presence. What he -describes is admirably told, even to the “sandy shore” of Pylos, in a -world whose sandy shores are rare; but Homer does not seem to have any -mental vision of the lands and islands of which Ulysses only speaks in -his story—the lands of the Cimmerians, of the Læstrygonians, the -Cyclops, the Lotophagi, the homes of Circe and Calypso, are only heard -of. Cythera, close by, is not named, and Crete and Egypt are only named. -This kind of fulfillment, as well as this kind of omission, gives a tone -of personality to the poem, as the composition of one person, and that -one familiar with the scene of its major events, and it strengthens my -belief in the hypothesis of the presence of Homer in Ithaca, and of the -early date of the Odyssey, and by a certain implication argues for a -logical relation between the hero and the Trojan war, implying the -actuality of both. - - - - - THE SO-CALLED VENUS OF MELOS. - - -In the year 1820, before the struggle between the Hellenic population of -the Turkish empire and the Porte had begun, and when all that attracted -the notice of the civilized world to modern Greece was the little -preserved to us of her art,—occasionally and fragmentarily found in the -ruins of her great communities,—a peasant of Melos whose name was -Theodore Kondros Botoni, working in his field to enlarge it by clearing -away the _débris_ of the walls and structures of ancient Melos (which -had been built on a steep hill-side, on a series of terraces, more or -less natural or artificial, so that the ruins of one terrace fell down -upon and encumbered that below it), saw, to his great bewilderment, the -heap of rubbish which he was digging away at the bottom suddenly crumble -down and display the upper part of an antique statue. The peasant -hastened to the French consul to inform him of the discovery, and the -latter negotiated the purchase of it for five hundred piastres and a -complete dress of the fashion of the country. This was the statue known -as the Venus of Melos. - -So far, there are no variations of the history, but one account says -that the first or upper part was found several days before the lower, -and the other, that they were found together; but the inexactitude of -the documentary contemporary evidence is clear from the examination of -the ground to-day, and from the contradictions contained in it. Dumont -d’Urville, the commander of the _Chevrette_, a French man-of-war which -visited Melos after the statue was found, alluding to the discovery of -the theatre, says: “All the ground is covered with drums of columns and -fragments of statues. One finds here and there great pieces of wall of a -very solid construction, and many important tombs have been opened -through the curiosity of strangers, and the cupidity of the -inhabitants.” But neither the wall nor the tombs, nor any drum of column -or fragment of statue (if any was found), could have had anything to do -with the theatre. The theatre is very late work, and was never nearly -finished, so could have possessed neither columns nor statues. This -shows that the idea the commandant carried away was confused and -untrustworthy as to details. He goes on to say: “Three weeks before our -arrival at Melos, a Greek peasant, digging in his field inclosed in this -circuit, struck some pieces of cut stone. As these stones, employed by -the inhabitants, have a certain value, this induced him to dig farther, -and he thus happened to uncover a species of niche, in which he found a -marble statue, _two Hermes_, and some other marble fragments. The statue -_was in two pieces, joined by two strong iron clamps_. The Greek, -fearing to lose the fruit of his labor, had carried the upper part to a -stable. The other was still in the niche.... It represented a naked -woman, _whose left hand raised an apple and the right held a -drapery_,[8] well composed and falling negligently from the hips to the -feet. For the rest, _they are both mutilated, and actually detached from -the body_.” - -I note by italics the points which are to be contrasted with other -evidence. - -M. Dauriac, captain of the frigate _La Bonté_, writes from Melos, date -11th of April, 1820: “There has been found, three days ago, by a peasant -who was digging in his field, a marble statue of _Venus receiving the -apple from Paris_. It is larger than life; _they have at this moment -only the bust as far as the waist_. _I have been to see it._” Mr. Brest -again writes, 12th of April: “A peasant has found in a field which -belonged to him three marble statues, representing, one Venus holding -the apple of discord in one hand, the other represents _the god Hermes, -and the third a young child_.” The correspondence shows that Mr. Brest -was entirely ignorant of everything connected with archæology or art. He -probably heard one of the officers say that one of the objects was a -Hermes, and he changes it into a statue of the god Hermes, but we see -that there was only one Hermes. November 26th, Brest again writes: “His -Excellency has left me orders to make researches in order to find the -arms and other _débris_ of the statue, but to do that it is necessary to -obtain a _bouyourouldon_ which will permit us to make excavations at our -own expense, _because in the same niche where it was found there is -reason to hope that we might find other objects_.” - -The contradictions are so palpable that it is clear that these documents -are only of value as secondary archæological evidence. No one seems to -have made an observation with exactitude. - -We have the whole statue found, in one, bound together by iron clamps; -in another, only half had yet been found; in one, the statue is found -holding the apple of discord in one hand; in another, receiving it from -Paris; and in another still, we are told that search has been ordered -for the arms, etc. - -In 1865 I visited Melos, and having made the acquaintance of Mr. Brest, -son and successor of the French consul who secured the statue for the -Louvre, he politely offered to guide me through the ruins of the ancient -city. Among other things, we visited the locality where the statue was -found, and he showed me the niche still standing as when the discovery -was made. - -It was a slightly built work, of the height, _as nearly as I can -remember_, of ten or at most twelve feet, and about five wide. It formed -a part of an old boundary-wall of the field on which it opened, and -above it the ground was level with the crown of the arch of the niche. -It had no suite or connection with any other structure, except the -boundary-wall in which it was, and there were no evidences of ruin or of -foundation of antique buildings about it. The opening had been closed -with rubbish, not with masonry, as was evident from the face of the side -walls, which were of smooth, if not carefully laid, masonry. If as I -believe not built for the concealment of the statue, it had been made -for some unimportant purpose; perhaps the protection from the weather of -the poor Hermes which is said to have been found with it. C. Doupault, -architect, has published a _brochure_ with what he supposed important -evidence on the question, in which, from data given him by old Brest -twenty-seven years after the discovery, he reconstructs the apse of a -seventh-century church, in which he places the statue. The whole study -has no value whatever, as the sketch does not correspond with the ruins -which I saw, and looking back to the correspondence quoted, it is clear -that Brest, knowing nothing of archæology or art, caught at certain -suggestions of the officers who saw the statue, and affirmed what they -surmised. As to the fragments found, to which constant reference is -made, there is not the slightest evidence that they were found in any -connection with the statue, as none of the early evidence indicates that -they were known when the statue was first taken under notice—on the -contrary, it is said explicitly by Brest that he had orders to make -researches to find the arms and other portions of the statue; indicating -clearly that the arms alluded to had not been found with the statue, and -that the connection between them and it was an after-thought, either of -the peasant, who wished to increase the value of the statue by -connecting with it fragments which he had found in other parts, or of -the archæologists, who, seeking to restore the statue to what they -judged to be its true action, connected the arm found, no one knows -where, except at Melos, with the statue. It is undeniable that when the -letters before quoted were written, there had been only conjecture as to -the arms. Dauriac, writing on the 11th of April, says that they have -only found the bust. Brest, November 26th, says that there is reason to -hope that they might find other objects _in the same niche_—proof that -it had not even then been cleared out. In fact, all we have of -documentary evidence goes for nothing beyond showing that the statue was -found at a certain place on a certain date; and if the two halves of the -statue did not fit exactly we could not be certain that they were found -at the same time and place. The hypothesis of the apple of discord is -based on a conjecture of some of the officers, and has no further -confirmation than that an arm and hand, with what may be an apple or a -cup, seem to have been found somewhere in the island about the same -time; but they evidently are not of the statue, nor even of the same -epoch. - -Over or somewhere near the niche an inscription was said to have been -found which records the dedication of an exedra by a gymnasiarch to -Hercules and Hermes. The date of this inscription, according to -conjecture based on the inscription itself, is about a century before -Christ, _i. e._, long after any possibility of such a work being -produced had gone by. - -These are all the positive data we have to work on. They suffice, -however, for about twenty monographs in French, German, and English; and -a late German work, by Dr. Goeler von Ravensburg, exhausts all the -possible and impossible conjectures to establish its character in -accordance with the original attribution of a Venus receiving the apple. - -In the year 1880, I made another visit to Melos, on commission from “The -Century” magazine, to photograph whatever might remain which had any -connection with the statue; but found the niche gone, and no trace of -foundations of any kind, or walls, city or other, very near the spot -which was again pointed out to me as that where the Venus was found. - -It would seem that in the energetic excavation that followed the last -great archæological revival, everything that was suspected to conceal -works of art had been dug away. - -I found an old man, a pilot well known in our navy, Kypriotis, who had -seen the statue when it was brought out, being a boy of about fourteen. -At that time Mr. Brest was a child, and retained only slight personal -recollection of the event; but it was evident that he, like his father -in 1847, had mingled in his impressions conjecture of others and his -own, with facts perverted, and details conceived without sufficient -basis. Nothing new was to be got. - -The old Melos is utterly deserted, and the modern town is built on a -pinnacle above it, which does not seem ever to have been included in the -range of the city. The port is changed from the ancient site, where now -a breakwater would be needed, as the land seems to have sunk greatly, -and the old basin of the port is silted up to a point at the bottom of -the bay, where a comparatively modern village has grown up, called -Castro. - -The magnificent harbor used to make of the island an important station -before telegraphs were established, and might again, if the telegraph -were laid to it; but now a man-of-war rarely calls, except to take a -pilot for the Archipelago, and a Greek steamer stops once in a -fortnight. But in heavy weather, any ship caught near runs for Melos. -This keeps the place alive, but it has dwindled to a mere island -village, where the vast labyrinths of tombs which perforate the hills -show more human industry than the dwellings of the living. Earthquakes -and malaria have desolated and almost depopulated it. - -We had left Cerigo for Crete, and intended to take Melos on our return -to Peiræus, but when within an hour of land we were caught by a terrific -south-wester, the most to be dreaded of all the winds of the Ægean, and -in spite of all we could do we were obliged to give up and run before -the gale where it would send us. It was late in the evening when its -fury came down on us, and taking in all sail except a small storm-sail -at the foot of the mast to keep from coming up into the wind, we ran -before it into the black night. I knew that there were no rocks ahead -before Melos, and if we only made the island by daylight, we could -easily fetch the port; but if not, and the yacht ran at night into the -little archipelago of which Melos is part, it would be next to -impossible to choose where our bones should be laid, for there are no -lights, and many islands and rocks. The sea was, for our little -twelve-ton craft, something fearful, and we thumped and hammered till -the little thing quivered, when a wave struck her, almost as if we had -come to the rocks. Sleep was out of the question—to sit or stand, -equally so, and we kept to our berths, as the only way to avoid being -pitched about like blocks. How long that night was! and in the middle of -it I attempted to get up, and when I put my foot on the cabin-floor, -found myself stepping into the water. We had sprung a leak with the -straining. - -But day came and cheerfulness. We ran in between the huge cliffs which -form the portal of Melos harbor, with the wild surges beating against -them till the spray flew high enough to have buried a larger craft than -ours. Tired, aching, and hungry, for nothing could we get to eat till we -arrived in port, we cast anchor in the welcome harbor late in the -afternoon. Even then, the sea ran so high that we could not land until -the next day. - -Castro is a pile of white houses, rising in terraces from the shore; the -streets mostly stairways, and the houses all whitewashed till they blind -one in that rarely broken sunlight. - - [Illustration: THE SO-CALLED VENUS OF MELOS. (DRAWN BY BIRCH FROM A - PHOTOGRAPH.)] - -I landed, and, as usual, went to the little café, where the magnates of -the village were discussing the arrival and the storm—the worst, they -said, for many years. I called, of course, on Brest, who, to my -surprise, remembered me after eighteen years; and we made an appointment -to revisit together the sites I knew, and to see those I had not known -before,—important excavations having been made since my former visit. - -We went first to the new port, where some admirable statues, since taken -to Athens, had been recently found. The owner of the little field by the -water, which occupies the site of the inner port, having occasion to -sink a well, struck the ruins of a temple of Neptune, and three statues -were found, one of Neptune, a female goddess draped, but lacking the -head, and a mounted warrior, apparently Perseus. - -The Greek Government, according to their laws, forbade the exportation -of them by any foreign government, and finally purchased them for thirty -thousand francs—certainly a very small price. I succeeded in seeing them -later, still in their boxes at Athens, and though not equal to the -Venus, or of the same epoch, they are very fine works. - -But there the excavations stop; the owner had no means to pump out the -water that flooded his diggings, the Government had no more, and as no -one is allowed to dig unless for the Greek museum, whatever remains -under ground and water is likely to remain there another generation. - -We then climbed up the zigzag road to the theatre. It is, as I have -said, of late times, probably Roman, and was never complete. Fragments -of unfinished ornament lie still where the stage should have been, but -it had clearly never been carried up above the seven ranges of seats now -existing. It was just outside the wall of the inner city, on the brow of -the hill, and overlooked the spacious harbor and looked out to sea. -There is no record of any sculpture having been found there. It was -purchased and excavated by the King of Bavaria. - -Less than half a mile beyond, going with the sea at our backs, was the -field where the statue was found. The Greeks have entertained a great -deal of indignation at the rape, which they affect to call robbery; but -the civilized world may thank the French captain who, coming to get it, -and finding it already half-embarked on board a Turkish vessel, destined -for Constantinople, made the most legitimate use that was ever made of -_force majeure_, and took it away from the Turk to transfer it to the -hold of his own ship. Otherwise, no one knows what vile uses it might -have gone to, or what oblivion and destruction. All the world knows it -now, but Greek genius would have forever lacked one of its greatest -triumphs in modern times if it had disappeared in the slums of Stamboul. - - [Illustration: STREET IN CASTRO.] - -As I have said, there is now no trace of any construction of any kind to -be seen at the locality. The wall in which was the niche was gone, and -the field of the present owner has encroached considerably on the space -beyond, the _débris_ being piled up in huge masses like walls, and two -or three terraces above runs the citadel wall, a mass of Hellenic -masonry built of blocks of lava. The Pelasgic walls, of which some -authors speak, do not exist anywhere in the island. Brest took up a -stone, and as we stood on the wall of _débris_ above, cast it into the -field, and said, “There stood the Venus!” In the illustration I have put -a white cross on the spot. - -There cannot remain the slightest doubt that the statue had been -concealed, and to my mind, the circumstances indicated for its -concealment are these: The niche, judging from its character, had been -built in Roman times; as the rubbly nature of the masonry indicated, -probably covered with stucco, as it would have been if intended for -ornament, and was designed as a shelter for an altar, or for the statue -of some divinity—Terminus, Hermes, Pan or Faunus, the more Roman -companion of him. Here the inscription and the Hermes found furnish a -plausible clew, and agree with the indication of the masonry in pointing -out the epoch of this conjunction of circumstances as subsequent to the -second century before Christ; how long after we cannot in any wise -indicate. - -[Illustration: THE SITE OF OLD MELOS, FROM THE PORT. (WHITE CROSS SHOWS - WHERE THE “VENUS” WAS FOUND.)] - -Now as to the epoch of the statue there can be no doubt that it was of -the immediately post-Phidian epoch; and all the most authoritative -opinions attribute it to the Attic school, and probably of the time and -school of Scopas—and some of the weightiest authorities have accepted -Scopas himself as the author. - -Anything more definite than this it is impossible to establish by any -now known evidence. The concealment of the statue, then, was several -centuries later than the execution of it. - -The Greeks of the classical epoch, even down to the first century after -Christ, retained, amidst all the degradation of their contemporary art, -a distinct recognition of the excellence of the elder work, as the -enormous artistic as well as pecuniary value of some of the masters’ -_chefs d’œuvre_ prove. That this was one of them, and of one of the -chief masters, all civilization agrees, and, although we have lost the -name of the author, the people who hid it must have known it well. The -availing themselves of the niche, ready-made to their hands, indicates -that the possessors of the statue worked in haste, piling up stones in -front of the niche, instead of walling it up. - -This indicates the haste of impending attack, or work done in secret. In -either case, if the statue had a temple in that locality, it would be -concealed near it, or near the place where it was accustomed to stand; -but no such temple is known. We may remember the contrast with the -colossal and magnificent Hercules found in a drain at Rome, carefully -covered over with good masonry. Concealment was the object in both -cases, and the greater haste and furtiveness with the Melian statue -indicate rather that it was brought from a distance than that it could -be a divinity of the island. - -Conjecture as to the origin of the statue, if my hypothesis is true, -points to Athens, not only because the work is Attic, but because we -know by the coins of Melos, which in all the latest coinages still bear -the owl of Athens, that Melos belonged to that city as late as she had -any Greek allegiance, which must have been some time into the Empire, as -the Romans long made it a policy to preserve a certain kind of autonomy -in the Greek states, even when their subjection was complete. That it is -Attic, no one can doubt in face of the evidence I shall show. That -Athens was the only city likely to send to Melos a treasure of this -kind, concealment of which was impossible in Athens, is almost certain. - -I conclude that it was a highly valued statue of Athens, sent to Melos -in time of great danger, to be concealed and preserved. What period this -might have been is only to be guessed at; it is therefore hardly worth -while to say more about it, except to indicate that four periods in late -Athenian history might furnish the motive requisite: when the army of -Mithridates, under Archelaus, took Athens; the wars between the factions -of Marius and Sylla; the Lacedemonian war, and the invasions of the -Iconoclasts. The Romans do not appear, in spite of all their plundering -and the enormous quantity of statues carried away from Greece, to have -desecrated the temples of the Greek gods, as we see that Pausanias, in -the century after Christ, found the most valuable of them _in situ_, as, -for instance, the Diana Brauronia of Praxiteles, the Perseus of Myron, -with others of great fame. The above conclusion, considering all the -known and reasonably conjecturable details of the discovery and -concealment, seems to me justifiable,—as well as that it was concealed -at some time between the century or two centuries before Christ and the -end of the first century after. - -Now, what was the statue? We have so long been in the habit of accepting -all female statues, not distinguished by well-known symbols of their -divinity, as Venuses, that we make no distinction even in cases where -the type demands it. And yet the dominant characteristic of Greek -sculpture is this close adherence to established types. We are never at -a loss to distinguish Diana, Minerva, Juno, or even Ceres and the lesser -deities. Venus, it is true, came into vogue as subject for the sculptors -of sacred statues later than some of the others; but all that we know of -the Venus of the artists indicates that it was _par excellence_ the -womanly type. The treatment of the head in Greek sculpture was a point -apparently of doctrine, as it was in Byzantine and in the later -ecclesiastical art of Greece. It is always in a conventional type, -utterly separated from the individual. - - [Illustration: MEDICEAN VENUS.] - - [Illustration: VENUS URANIA.] - - [Illustration: CAPITOLINE VENUS.] - - [Illustration: VENUS OF THE VATICAN.] - - [Illustration: VENUS ANADYOMENE.] - - [Illustration: VENUS VICTRIX OF THE LOUVRE.] - -This unquestionable fact should have taught us to reject from the Venus -category many statues which are now included in it, as for instance, the -Callipyge, and all in which a trace of portraiture is to be found, -besides diminishing that category by all the statues of the heroic type, -as in none of the legends of beliefs of the Greek faith was Venus ever -endowed with a heroic quality. The preconceived notion that the Melian -statue was a Venus has been a continual cause of confusion. This was, as -I have shown, the first hypothesis of the French officers, none of whom -appear to have been possessed of any archæological knowledge, and who -had the commonly prevailing notion that any nude statue must be a Venus. -I have taken the pains to collect a number of representations of the -various so-called Venuses, and most of which the type, or symbols, -justify us in so classifying; and a comparison of their character will -show what is the Venus type,—making this proviso, however, that we have -no other than internal evidence for denominating most of them Venuses. -The chief of these, in what we seek for most, _i. e._, the impersonal -type, which was inseparable from the Greek deities down through the -decline of art, which began in the time of Alexander, are: the Medici, a -distinctly marked Attic work, later, however, than the Melian statue; -the Capitoline, apparently a still later reminiscence of the Medici and -one of many similar reminiscences; and the “Venus coming out of the -bath,” at Naples, a better work than the last, but still already widely -separated from the purely conventional type of the Medicean, which we -may authoritatively accept as the Venus type of the best period of the -Venus sculpture. The close comparison of the heads and details of the -flesh will give those who do not know the originals an invaluable lesson -in the treatment of the figure in Greek art. The so-called “Venus -Urania,” at Florence, marks, to my mind, a distinct departure from the -Venus type,—so marked, indeed, as to make me decline to accept it as a -Venus, while the still typical character of the face is one which must -place it in a good period of art, before ideality of treatment had -entirely given way to individuality. The art is of too good an epoch to -have departed so far from the type of Venus, if intended for her, and -indicates rather a nymph, or some inferior deity. The Venus of the -Vatican is too late and too low down in the scale of art to be an -authoritative witness in the matter; while the Venus Anadyomene, while -still reserving the ideal character, resembles the Urania rather, in a -separation of the type from the Venus. Later still, and perhaps at the -end of that period which may be called the ideal period of antique -sculpture, most probably of Græco-Roman art, is the Venus Victrix of the -Louvre; unquestionably a Venus, for she bears in her hand the -apple—symbol of fruitfulness. But how far from the type of our Melian -treasure! In that is the most distinct approach to the Athena type—a -purely heroic ideal. I cannot believe that its sculptor intended it for -a Venus. - - [Illustration: VENUS OF CAPUA.] - - [Illustration: RESTORATION OF THE STATUE AS PROPOSED BY MR. TARRAL.] - -The patient German admirer of our statue, which Von Ravensburg is, has -gone through all the literature and all the conjectures which it has -given rise to, as to the chief problem which gives interest to any -investigation, _i. e._, the restoration of the statue. No attempt will -satisfy all the investigators; but that which Von Ravensburg accepts -with approval—viz., the restoration of Mr. Tarral (an Englishman -residing in Paris for many years, who has given his chief attention to -this problem)—shows so entire a want of appreciation of the character of -antique design, which is, after all, our only clew, that I shall not -hesitate to put aside, not only the solution proposed, but the judgment -that could accept as satisfactory such a solution of one of the most -interesting of artistic problems. I give the figure which Von Ravensburg -publishes as Tarral’s restoration of the statue, that one may see how -absolutely its inanity is at variance with the spirit of Greek design. -The mere completion of the statue, in this sense, destroys the dignity -and unity of the work so completely that to look at it is enough for a -cultivated judgment to decide that, whatever it may have been, this it -was _not_. The author gives, also, photographs of the fragments -found—fragments so imperfect and corroded that we can only say that they -appear to be from a very low period of art, and are utterly worthless as -data for measure or opinion, from their extremely fragmentary state. - - [Illustration: FRAGMENTS FOUND AT MELOS ATTRIBUTED TO THE STATUE.] - -Besides, I have shown, from the records of discovery, that there is no -further reason to connect them with the statue than that they were also -found at Melos. - -In following the whole course of the demonstration which Von Ravensburg -attempts of this solution of the problem, I arrive at the conclusion -that, with all his patience and research, his judgment is utterly -untrustworthy on a problem which requires not only freedom from -preconception, but long cultivation of artistic perception and general -critical ability. Mr. Tarral’s attempt proves, to my mind, only that -this was not the solution. - - [Illustration: VICTORY OF BRESCIA—FRONT.] - - [Illustration: VICTORY OF BRESCIA—SIDE.] - -The various suggestions, more or less authoritative, made as to the -restoration, and thence as to the determination of the attributes of the -statue, are to be summed up briefly. The Count de Clarac, the then -curator of the antiques of the Louvre, adopted the Venus with the apple -hypothesis, but afterward abandoned it in favor of one put forward by -Millingen, that it was a Victory. This is one of the theories of the -restoration which has found the greatest number of adherents. Several -restorations have been proposed, which make the statue part of a group, -all which, though defended or proposed by many _dilettanti_, I reject, -for what to me seem sufficient reasons, viz.: _Firstly_, we have in the -statue no evidence whatever that it formed part of a group, and without -some such the hypothesis is gratuitous; _Secondly_, we have—with one -exception, which I shall presently note, and which gives no countenance -to such a theory—no statue or parts of statues which agree with it in -artistic quality, or even none which lend themselves to a group, if such -were made up by various sculptors; _Thirdly_, that, at the epoch in -which the statue was produced, any group which has been suggested would -have been out of accordance with the aims of art, as practiced by the -Greeks. The only evidence in favor of such a theory is that in some -antique fragments or coins are indications of such a figure as the -Melian in combination. But, as this statue must have been in its own -time nearly as celebrated, relatively, as in ours, it must have given -rise to many imitations and adaptations. It may have given rise to some -which support the group theory, but to more which support an opposing -theory. - -[Illustration: VICTORY RAISING AN OFFERING (TEMPLE OF NIKÉ APTEROS, THE - ACROPOLIS, ATHENS).] - -Von Ravensburg goes over, in detail, all the group theories, and easily -finds fatal objections to all. What most surprises me is that any one -ever tried to put it into a group, so completely by itself does it stand -in every sense of the word. - -Millingen, in 1826, started his theory that it was a Victory holding a -shield in both hands. I am quite convinced that many who have started -other theories would have adopted this if they had not been anticipated -in proposing it. The vanity of archæological research, and eagerness to -propose something new is so dominant in most archæologists that they -exercise more ingenuity to advance some new theory than would be -requisite to show the validity of an old one. And the statue of Melos -has been preëminent in fruitfulness of theories of all qualities and -grades of improbability. Millingen, however, supported his theory by a -similar statue known as the Capuan Venus, a reproduction, I believe, in -Roman times, of the Melian statue, probably through some other -intermediate copy or reproduction, as the sculptors of the Capuan statue -could not have seen the Melian. The arms are a modern and abominable -restoration. Here, again, I must, in passing, protest against the -attribution to the Venus type of all nude or semi-nude statues. There is -nothing in the Capuan which indicates that it was intended as a Venus. -Millingen quotes Apollonius of Rhodes as describing a statue of Venus -looking at herself in the shield of Mars, which she herself is holding, -but this is no evidence of the type correspondence, and the gravamen of -the matter lies precisely in the diversity of the type from the -recognizable Venuses. But the Capuan is too far in type and treatment -from the Melian to serve as definite argument. Such as it is, an item in -the discussion, I will not exaggerate its importance, though I believe -it to be a far-away recollection of the Melian statue. - -“The Victory of Brescia” is another of the recollections, rather than -reproductions, of the type of which I believe the Melian statue to be -the original. It is in bronze, is later, and has the wings, but the type -is unmistakable, and the action of the torso and head is sufficiently -different from our statue to show that it was only an emulation, and not -a plagiarism, that was intended. - -The drapery differs in the arrangement, being of bronze and agreeing -with some undisputed Victories at Athens, but the action of the left leg -holding the shield is the same, and that of the arms corresponds very -nearly, as far as the arms remain in the Melian work. As a whole, it -reminds one more of the latter than does any other of the statues of its -class. - -The case is one in which archæological knowledge is of very little -value, unless it be aided by thorough artistic study and a knowledge of -the requirements of art proper. The archæologist, like other scientists, -must have positive evidence to work on; and the testimony of pure taste, -the intuitions of an artistic education, are of no use to him except as -confirmatory. The intuition of the artist, whose taste has been educated -by long study of the works he has to deal with, arrives at opinions by a -kind of inspiration to which science often lacks all means of access. In -the case of this statue, archæology has no evidence to weigh, and the -ponderous erudition which Overbeck, Müller, Jahn, Welcker, and others -have piled on the question has no foundation. We can determine with -comparative certainty that the statue belongs to the epoch between -Phidias and Praxiteles, because we have the work of the school of -Phidias and sufficient comparative data for that of Praxiteles [and now, -since the discovery of the Hermes at Olympia, positive data] to judge -from; and we have a right to say that the Melian statue came between -these, but beyond this nothing—no clew except what lies in the design -and the unities attendant on it, of which _per se_ the professed -archæologist is no judge. - -In working about the Acropolis of Athens some years ago, I photographed, -amongst other sculptures, the mutilated Victories in the Temple of Niké -Apteros, the “Wingless Victory,” the little Ionic temple in which stood -that statue of Victory of which it is said that “_the Athenians made her -without wings that she might never leave Athens_”; and looking at the -photographs afterward, when the impression of the comparatively -diminutive size had passed, I was struck with the close resemblance of -the type to that of the “Venus” of Melos. There are the same large, -heroic proportions, the same ampleness in the development of the nude -parts, the same art in the management of the draperies, and Richard -Greenough, the American sculptor, has called my particular attention to -the curious similarity in the treatment of the folds of the drapery, in -the introduction of a plane between the folds, a resemblance not found -in any other similar works as far as I know. - - [Illustration: VICTORY UNTYING HER SANDAL (TEMPLE OF NIKÉ APTEROS, THE - ACROPOLIS, ATHENS).] - - [Illustration: VICTORIES LEADING A BULL TO SACRIFICE (TEMPLE OF NIKÉ - APTEROS, THE ACROPOLIS, ATHENS).] - -They are little high reliefs, part of a balustrade which surrounded the -cortile of the Temple of Niké Apteros, hardly three feet high in their -perfect state, and now without heads or hands or feet. There are four of -them: one apparently untying her sandal; another,—that which best shows -the type of the figure—raising an offering or crown, and two others -leading a bull to sacrifice. I give the series. Note the exquisite -composition of the drapery below the knee of the Victory raising the -offering, and the superb flow of the entire draperies in the -sandal-tying figure, but, above all, the Victory type in the whole -assemblage. How absolutely it agrees with that of the Melian statue, and -how utterly alone in all antique art that is but for these! - -Since I have begun this study, it has twice happened that artist friends -trained in the French school (_i. e._, in the only school which -cultivates the perception of style in design, and the only one that -emulates the Greek in its characteristics), both trained draughtsmen, -came into my room, and without any remark I showed them the photographs -of the Victories at Athens. They were new to both, but in one case as in -the other the first expression was: “How like the Venus of Melos!” And -the similarity runs through the treatment of every part—the management -of drapery to express the action of the limbs, the firm, heroic mould of -the figure, and the modeling of the round contours. Compare (in the -casts, if possible, as the small scale of my illustrations will not show -the point so clearly) the right shoulder of the Venus with that in the -stooping Victory. The slight differences which exist are just what might -be expected between a figure which stands as principal, isolated, and to -be seen from all sides, and one which was secondary, subordinate, of -partial decorative use, and to be seen only in one view. My -illustrations will hardly convey the strikingness of the similarity, but -I defy any one to compare side by side the series of Victories and the -Melian statue in casts and not admit that the type, the treatment, the -ideal, are the same, as sisters may be the same, or at least as mother -and daughter. - -The little Temple of Niké Apteros had once, we know, a statue of Victory -without wings, and we know the _bon mot_, which I have given above, -which it suggested. The decorations of the temple are attributed to -Scopas and his school, and this Victory was unique, so far as we know, -in being wingless. We may well conceive, with the symbolical -meaning—talismanic, rather—implied in what we know of it by this -witticism, that the Athenians would have a special anxiety to keep it -from becoming a trophy in the hands of an enemy, even one who might not -be disposed to desecrate the temples of the greater gods. Niké was -rather an attribute or variation of Athena than a distinct goddess, and -was as such both of great value to the Athenians, being the _alter ego_ -of their patroness; and of less reverence to the enemy, as not Minerva -herself. At all events, when Pausanias visited Athens the Niké Apteros -had gone. Her temple still stood there, and near it on the Acropolis -hill stood some of the greatest art-treasures of the antique world -untouched. - - [Illustration: THE SO-CALLED VENUS OF MELOS—FRONT.] - - [Illustration: THE “VENUS” RESTORED—FRONT. - (TRACED FROM A PHOTOGRAPH OF A LIVING MODEL.)] - - [Illustration: THE “VENUS” RESTORED—SIDE. - (TRACED FROM A PHOTOGRAPH OF A LIVING MODEL.)] - - [Illustration: THE SO-CALLED VENUS OF MELOS—SIDE.] - -My theory, open to the grave objection that it is one in which -hypothesis bears an undue proportion to proven fact (yet not so great as -any of the group theories, and hardly more than any other theory, for -all are constructed out of the same aerial substance), is that the -Melian statue is the original Niké Apteros from the little temple on the -Acropolis of Athens. If so, one can understand the whole of my theory of -concealment, attribution, and type, because this statue above all others -would come under the rancor of a victor and its flight would become an -humiliation to Athens. It was like the standard of a defeated army, to -be kept at all hazards from the enemy. Hurried away to Melos, it was -safe from the invader, but no nearer point was secure. The restoration -in my hypothesis becomes that of the Victory in some attitude connected -with regarding, or recording, on the shield or a tablet the names of the -Attic heroes, or battles, and my opinion is that she has just finished -writing, but I am disposed to uncertainty on the exact phase of the -action, only insisting on that of the Recorder. The minutiæ of -description of many antique works of art which we owe to Pausanias and -Pliny was plainly impossible with this. Neither ever saw it, but its -memory existed in artistic tradition and has been repeated in the -statues we have seen, probably only a few of those which once existed. - -Von Ravensburg sums up the objections to the shield-bearing Victory and -to the theory of Millingen as follows: The theory would indicate that -she leaned back to balance the weight of the shield, but the objections -urged are that if the shield were larger it would hide too much (yet in -an earlier part of the book the statement is made that a part of the -figure, and just that part covered by the shield, is comparatively -unfinished, which has given rise to the theory of a group in which one -side of the statue was hidden); if it were small, the weight would not -be enough to account for the attitude. And, in the next breath, he urges -that the grand heroic character _is an objection to her struggling with -a burden_. But if a goddess, and of this robust type, the burden ought -not to oppress her, however great, humanly speaking. But in point of -fact there is no noteworthy degree of backward inclination. To test the -question, I photographed a model in the attitude required to hold a -shield on her left knee and write on it. - -The result was very slightly different from that of the statue. A part -of the backward action of the model was due to the necessity of a -support to enable her to remain in the pose necessary to be -photographed, but the action of writing is better expressed by the -statue. - -The action of the statue is that of a figure which stands nearly -balanced and in repose, with the first movement in a forward action, -like one who reaches out to give, take, or write, or any similar action -or the moment after the action is complete. The particular moment we -cannot determine without the possession of the fore-arms. Von Ravensburg -goes on to say that he does not mean to affirm that the holding of a -shield does not suit the action of the upper part of the body, but -maintains that it does not explain it _particularly well_. But after the -inane restoration given forth with his high approval, we may be -permitted to doubt that his artistic taste has been as carefully -developed as his archæological acumen. He quotes Overbeck as objecting -to the shield resting on the left knee, that there are no traces on the -left thigh which the shield must have left; but Wittig and Von Lützow -have recognized these very marks, and they are distinctly visible even -in the east, as far as would be expected if a bronze shield merely -rested on the drapery, and the shield, if there was one, was in all -probability of bronze, held well out from the body, and resting on the -knee raised for that purpose, the foot being supported by a helmet lying -on the ground. But, further, he says these considerations are quite -superfluous, for the position of the left leg of the Melian statue -contradicts the shield-supporting, and he quotes in support Valentin, -that the left thigh would incline outward to secure a balance, and that -the supporting of a heavy object on the thigh thrown in would violate -the laws of equilibrium. That this is not true is shown by the “Victory -of Brescia,” in which the action is precisely this, and the pose of the -thigh is the same as that of the Melian statue. Moreover, I tried a -model again in this view, and the result is given in the illustration. - -The knee took quite readily the action indicated, and, indeed, would be -compelled to by the pressure of the shield if the weight rested partly -on the left hand, as it must to have left the right free for any action -whatever. Both nature and the antique assert precisely the contrary to -that which Valentin assumes. The length to which the argument against -this restoration is carried by him may be judged from the assertion that -the action of the “Victory of Brescia” is that of an outward push of the -left thigh, to make it agree with that of the theory Von Ravensburg lays -down. But the assertion is purely gratuitous. If the Brescian bronze is -an argument, as far as it goes it obviates every difficulty in the -interpretation of the Melian statue by taking, so far as the action of -the limbs is concerned, the very action of the latter. - -There is but one objection to the restoration theory I propose which -deserves serious consideration—that of the goddess looking off or above -the point at which she would be writing _if she were writing_. Half the -ingenuity displayed in many of the proposed restorations, or half the -sophistry employed by Von Ravensburg to combat this, would carry us over -much greater difficulties. In later Greek work, when art was sought for -its own sake, and consistency continually sacrificed to the grace of a -pose and harmony of the lines, we should not be surprised at the goddess -looking at one point and writing at another; but at this period the -dramatic unities were sacred alike in poetry as in art. But I suppose -that, unlike the Brescian statue, she is not at the moment engaged in -writing, but pausing as having just finished, and, looking out from her -pedestal in the little temple, gazes out toward Marathon, in which -direction the temple opens, and this is no difficulty in the -restoration. A little of that kind of imagination so much abused in -modern art-criticism, which consists in attributing to the artist all -the fancies which arise in our minds in the contemplation of his work, -all the far-fetched and poetic visions our own eyes have conjured up, -would supply all deficiencies in our theory. - -But while I maintain that my theory has more accordances with the known -facts and actual qualities of the statue than any other, and presents -fewer gaps in the demonstration, I am unwilling to lay down any theory -not sustainable by what we know of Greek art, and I admit the difficulty -as frankly as I state those of other theories. Doing so, however, I -still maintain that not only is there the means of reconciliation of my -hypothesis of an actual shield-inscribing Victory with the statue as it -is, but even in case I am compelled to abandon this particular point, -and advocate the modification of Millingen that she holds the shield -with both hands and looks at it, my main hypothesis—that the statue is a -Victory and no Venus, and the particular wingless Victory of Athens—is -untouched. We do not know what the Niké Apteros was doing. What we can -see is that this statue was more probably holding a shield, either -contemplatively, or pausing, just having written on it, than taking any -other action. - - [Illustration: VICTORY OF CONSANI.] - -If we may accept the analogy of the Apollo Belvidere, which also looks -off in the same inexplicable way, it would illustrate my hypothesis -still further, but the Apollo is later and less dramatic. If we hold to -the strict dramatic quality of the best Greek art, we must suppose that -the goddess has just finished writing, and looks up and out toward the -field where her heroes died. Or even if the shield was a high one, such -as the Spartan wounded used to be brought home on, she might still be -looking at the shield, if not at the words she has just written. In -fact, several suggestions offer themselves, and none open to accusation -of such flagrant inconsistencies as those involved in Tarral’s -restoration, which shocks the dramatic sense beyond endurance. - -The objection that the shield would hide so large a part of the figure -goes for absolutely nothing. We continually find Greek work completely, -or nearly, finished in positions where by necessity much of it must have -been hidden. As the pediments of the Parthenon were originally placed, -they would never have been half seen, and how the Panathenaic frieze -could have been adequately seen, once the building scaffolds were taken -down, we can much less easily conjecture than how the Victory could have -been seen behind her shield. The Brescian, a later and more realistic -work, is seen behind hers. Consani has made a very happy emulation of -the motive in his Victory. It is amongst the best of the modern Italian -works of its class, and illustrates the manner of avoiding the -difficulties we have seen adduced. The principal arguments in favor of -my theory are these: The statue is not of the Venus type but on the -contrary agrees distinctly with known statues of Victory, some of which -I have indicated, of which another is in the coin of Agathocles, and in -the Museum of Naples is a terra cotta Victory in almost the identical -action and drapery; it is of the epoch of the Victories of the temple of -Niké Apteros, and of the same style of treatment and type of figure; it -was found where we might expect the Athenians to hide a treasure; and, -while unquestionably a Victory, it is the only wingless Victory of the -great Attic school we know of. I do not consider this archæological, but -artistic demonstration. - - [Illustration: TEMPLE OF NIKÉ APTEROS.] - -The little Temple of Niké Apteros has had a destiny unique amongst its -kind. Like the Parthenon, it was standing little more than two hundred -years ago, but during the Turkish occupation it was razed, and its -stones all built into the great bastion which covered the front of the -Acropolis and blocked up the staircase to the Propylæa. It was dug out -and restored, nearly every stone in its place, by two German architects -during the reign of Otho, and it stands again as Pausanias describes it, -on the spot where old Ægeus watched for the return of Theseus from -Crete, and seeing the black sails of his son’s ship returning, token of -failure (for Theseus had forgotten to raise the white sail, the signal -of success), threw himself from the precipice, and was dashed into black -death on the rocks below. In the distance are Salamis and Ægina, and the -straits through which the ships came from Melos and Crete, and to the -south is Hymettus, beyond which are Marathon and the road by which the -Persians came, and the Turks after them. There certainly was the spot, -and this the occasion, if ever, that an Attic sculptor should feel that -spiritual enthusiasm below which Greek art stopped and lost the clew -which, in later centuries, the Florentine found again and followed to -new, if not higher, heights. - - [Illustration: GREEK COIN] - - - - - FOOTNOTES - - -[1]It has been conjectured that the Ogygia of Calypso was a small barren - island just south of Sardinia. There is no evidence in favor of the - theory, but it is possible. I adopt it in the route map _faute de - mieux_. - -[2]The Lotophagitis has been recently plausibly identified with Jerba, - on the coast of Tunis, the word _rotos_ being still used there, - evidently a survival of some primitive language, for the date; and - the transliteration of _rotos_ to _lotos_ being according to Grimm’s - law, see Reinach’s letter to the _Nation_ (Mar. 13, 1884) on Jerba. - It is easy to understand that the Greek, coming from a country where - the conditions of life were hard and the fare of Homeric simplicity, - should find the conditions of North African existence tempting - beyond resistance, and the delicious date, (constituting the - principal and often exclusive food of the people, quite sufficient, - in fact, for all needs,) a temptation to abandon the toils and - dangers of a return home. The inevitable poetical exaggeration adds - the magic power. - -[3]Cimmerians have been conjecturally identified with the Cymri, the - Cimmerian darkness with the fogs of England and the North Sea - countries, and there is nothing but conjecture in the case. - -[4]The text leaves a doubt if he even retained his hold on this, as it - describes his striking out with the veil of Leucothea under his - breast. - -[5]I saw, at a recent meeting of the German archæological Institute at - Rome, exquisite bronze castings found in a lake city of northern - Italy, of which the latest possibly assignable date is 1500 B. C. - Various data, which it is not the place here to discuss, have led me - to the conclusion that bronze working was independently discovered - in Italy at a period long anterior to any intercourse with Greece, - and that it probably went from Italy to Corinth, where it is said to - have been discovered. - -[6]I suspect the word which I have translated Sicilian to be a mistake - in transcribing, for Homer evidently knew nothing of Sicily or he - would have given it its name when dealing with the hero’s adventures - there. It is however possible that he knew the island by name but - had not identified it with Ulysses’ Cyclops-land. - -[7]The confusion which is so common between Aphrodite, the Greek - goddess, and Astarte, the Phœnician, had its beginning at Cythera. - It is only in later Greek mythology that they are confounded. The - true Aphrodite was the first-born of Zeus, the creating - Intelligence, and Dione the prolific Earth—Spirit and Matter—and - Aphrodite was Divine Love;—Astarte, lust. - -[8]The worthlessness of the testimony of d’Urville is shown by this - statement—no hand has ever held or touched this drapery, as the - least examination shows. - - - - - Transcriber’s Notes - - ---Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook - is public-domain in the country of publication. - ---Silently corrected a few palpable typos. - ---In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by - _underscores_. - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's On the track of Ulysses, by William James Stillman - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE TRACK OF ULYSSES *** - -***** This file should be named 61025-0.txt or 61025-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/1/0/2/61025/ - -Produced by Turgut Dincer, Stephen Hutcheson, and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net -(This file was produced from images generously made -available by The Internet Archive) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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