3Snaks bj> ;Pt. ^opptn. OLD ENGLAND; ITS SCENERY, ART, AND PEOPLE. With map. Crown 8vo, $1.75. THE EARLY RENAISSANCE, AND OTHER ESSAYS ON ART SUBJECTS. Crown 8vo, gilt top, $2.00. GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL. Illustrated. Crown 8vo, gilt top, $ 2 . 00 . HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY, Boston and New York. GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL BY JAMES M. HOPPIN PROFESSOR OF THE HISTORY OF ART IN YALE UNIVERSITY “ ben T) tester bu nerStel^en 2Ku33t in ©icfyter Sanbe geben ” Goethe BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY (@bt Gibctsibe Drcgg, Cambribgc 1897 Copyright, 1897, By JAMES M. HOPPIN. All rights reserved. The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass . , U. S. A . Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. THE HON. E. ALEXANDER UNITED STATES MINISTER TO GREECE IN REMEMBRANCE OF HIS MANY ACTS OF KINDNESS AND COURTESY THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED PREFACE. This volume is the outcome of two visits to Greece, one in the spring of 1895 and the other as far back as the time of the Bavarian king Otho, affording an oppor- tunity for comparing impressions of quite wide-apart ex- periences, and noting the changes that have taken place. While treating of a country that never loses its charm, and having something to say of this Greek land and its people, the aim of the book is to give a fresh picture of Greek art, though the theme be as familiar as the song of Homer ; yet it is worthy of endless study as the source of organized art drawn from the principles of nature. These notes are, indeed, but scanty gleanings of an in- exhaustibly rich field, and they embody only the author’s own personal observations. They may contain errors, but they are true to actual impressions. If art is the expression, the flowering of a people’s genius and real spirit, this is true, in especial, of Greek art, which lay at the centre of all the manifestations of the life of the Greek people, and still remains the best record of that life. The author would acknowledge aid derived from works like Furtwaengler’s Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture , Col- lignon’s Histoire de la Sculpture Grecque, Schuchhardt’s Schliemann 9 s Excavations , Mrs. Jane E. Harrison’s My- thology and Monuments of Ancient Athens , Percy Gardner’s New Chapters on Greek History , and Dahl’s Excursions in Greece ; also from books of travel such as Col. Leake’s Morea and Snider’s Walks in Hellas , as well as guide- books, English and German. New Haven, January 1, 1897. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. PAGE The Land of Greece r CHAPTER II. The Land of Greece . 16 CHAPTER III. Delphi 37 CHAPTER IV. Delphi and Mt. Parnassos 48 CHAPTER V. Marathon CHAPTER VI. Temples and Explorations in Attica 67 CHAPTER VII. Athens, Modern and Ancient 79 CHAPTER VIII. The Acropolis CHAPTER IX. The Acropolis Museum II2 CHAPTER X. The National Museum at Athens . 123 CONTENTS. viii CHAPTER XI. Mycenae and Mycenaean Art 145 CHAPTER XII. Mycenae and Mycenaean Art 157 CHAPTER XIII. The Argolic Heraeon and Epidauros 169 CHAPTER XIV. Olympia 185 CHAPTER XV. The Greek Games 206 APPENDIX. Origin and Idea of Art 225 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGB Amazon from Epidauros ( frontispiece ) Dionysiac Theatre Frieze ( facing ) io National Museum, Athens 30 Bas-Relief of Mantinea 70 Themis found at Rhamnus .86 Head of Bearded Young Man 100 Funerary Relief of Athenian Mother 132 Eleusis 146 Head of Hera 172 Theatre of Epidauros 182 Olympia and the Alpheios 190 The Hermes of Praxiteles 200 CHAPTER I. THE LAND OF GREECE. John Winckelmann, who stood in a rank with Eessing and Goethe, and who still remains the sub- tlest critic of art, in his ‘ ‘ History of Ancient Art ’ ’ that was written a hundred and thirty years ago, made some capital errors in his estimate of Greek sculpture, setting up statues which belonged to Greek art in its decline, as if they were perfedt works. In this he was excusable, and excusable also for not recognizing the supreme merit of Pheidias, because Greece in his time was comparatively un- visited by scholars and artists ; though, by a fortu- nate chance, a French artist, Jean Jacques Carrey, had been in Athens previous to the destruction of the Parthenon in 1687. He made sketches in red chalk of the sculptures on the pediments of the Parthenon, that are now invaluable as enabling us to define and posit these groups, and especially those that were afterwards destroyed. But Winckelmann drew his knowledge of Greek art from Rome, from art-collec- tions in Italy and Germany, and he made a skillful use of the materials that these afforded him ; yet he would have infinitely enlarged his aesthetic and criti- cal vision, had he seen the Acropolis. Other German writers since Winckelmann have taken advantage of a better acquaintance with Greece itself, and do not greatly err in this matter ; and it is one of the excel- lencies of the most recent of them and, perhaps, of the highest living authority in this department of knowl- 2 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL edge, Furtwaengler, that he made a careful study of Greek sculpture on Greek soil, in the environment of place and scene in which this art was created. In the field of painting, who, we would ask, could sympathetically know Giotto’s frescoes in the upper church of Assissi, or the religious pictures of the Umbrian school, who had not first made a pilgrimage to that Umbrian land, which was the home of early Italian painting, and where the hills over which St. Francis walked still glow and palpitate with the life of religious poetry and the spirit of monkish medita- tive art ? In this, then, and the succeeding chapter, I would say in a plain, straightforward way, something of the land of Greece and of the people who live there ; for the people who live on the soil, and the very earth, the sun and atmosphere, the geography, the language, the racial derivations and peculiarities, the political events which have occurred, tell us of those influences, subtle though they be, which origi- nate and color a nation’s art, while, of course, there ever remains the unknown fadtor of genius. The best-hated man in Greece since he published his book in 1847, has been the German author, Dr. Philip Fallmerayer, who, in his “ History of the Morea during the Middle Ages,” declared and proved to his own satisfaction that modern Greeks, estab- lished in their national existence in 1832, are not Greeks, are not lineal descendants of the old Hellenic race, but Slavs. This has awaked a tempest of criti- cism and aroused the wrath of the modern Greeks against the writer. His undeniably learned reason- ings have been met and mostly done away by the labors of more accurate investigators, who have shown THE LAND OF GREECE 3 that modern Greeks, with a confessedly large admix- ture of alien blood, may claim the name of Greeks. These scholars maintain that the Greek germ not only exists undestroyed and indestru&ible, but that the Greek element has absorbed other races, and that Greeks of the present day may be held to be ‘ ‘ a modification of the ancient Achaian, Dorian, Ionic and Etolian, in a word Hellenic populations, though greatly affedted by the changes wrought through war and conquest.” I speak now of the Hellenes, not of the prehistoric people who inhabited Greece, and no Greek scholar would or could affirm who these were, be they called Aryans, Pelasgians, or Hittites ; and speculation seems now to run to the theory that they sprang from European centers and themselves emigrated into Asia, and made and mixed with the Aryan stock. Who, truly, were “ the brass-greaved Achaians ” whom Homer calls Greeks, and makes splendid as the rulers of Mycenae, Argos and Sparta ? Agamemnon and Menelaos arose from Greek soil and represented a veritable Greek civilization, or one on Greek earth, existing before Homer and from which he drew ; and the Achaians, who were pre-Dorians, are held to be one of the four original Greek races— but these are vexed questions about which scholars are disputing. The two racial factors in Greek art, were, originally, the Dorians and Ionians, the one bringing strength and the other beauty into Greek art ; but since those vastly early days, Macedonians, Gauls, Romans, Goths, Normans, Venetians, Slavs and Turks have swept over Greece and left their stamp on the people, but none of them have utterly stamped out and de- stroyed the primitive race. It is true that in the bloody wars of the Diadochoi, successors of Alexander, 4 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL Greece was fearfully depopulated, and down to this day it has not recovered its former population, but the Greek is a tenacious race like the Hebrew and other strong races that have influenced the world, and the survival of race is one of the best established laws of ethnic science ; and so true is this in relation to Greece, that Professor Jebb says: ‘ ‘ The central fadt of Greek history, from the earliest age down to the present day, is the unbroken life of the Greek nation- ality.” There are said to be at present chiefly three races, or classes, of people, who inhabit Greece, clearly distinguishable from one another, the Wallachians, Albanians and Greeks, the last being the germinal or unifying one, which is especially the case in the central regions of Phocis and Boeotia about Mt. Parnassos, where ten old Hellenic names of towns and villages are found for one that is Slavic, or foreign. The first of these, the Wallachians, who are affiliated in their Thracian ancestry to the Greeks, came into Greece from the southern slopes of the Carpathian mountains, in several streams of invasion in the Middle Ages, sometimes securing permanent foothold and be- ing sometimes driven out by succeeding invaders ; and they are now represented by the nomad population df the regions about the foot of Mt. Olympos in northern Greece, largely shepherds with no very settled place of abode ; and the traveler meets them on the sterile hills and in the narrow valleys, clad in sheepskins, stalwart but savage-looking men, driving their flocks to pick up the scanty pasturage. The second class, the Albanians, form a more marked and diffused element, comprising as they do the land-possessors, agriculturists and soldiers, the bone and muscle of the state, who came also from the THE LAND OF GREECE 5 north, descendants of the ancient Illyrians, mountain- eers of those rugged countries of Albania and Epirus who, in unsettled times, swarmed into Greece, mean- ing to stay there, and who, though not exactly Greeks, are more closely allied to them than the Wallachians in speech, blood and traditions, and have become Greeks and formed the most vigorous fighting element in the war of Independence, and would do so in any other war that should arise. They brought new blood into the degenerate Greek race. You see these strid- ing with haughty carriage about the streets of Athens, dressed in their jaunty red caps with long tassels, snowy fustanellas, embroidered jackets, close-fitting white leggings splaying over the foot, and large shoes upturned at the toes, with a tuft of wool at the ex- tremity, an armory of silver-mounted pistols and dag- gers in their belts, and swinging big rosaries, which, like their petticoats, are not quite in keeping with their martial character. They are handsome fellows. “ The mountains are his palaces,” the Palikari says, and when he comes straight down from them he is as ragged, lean and wolfish as we imagine Walter Scott’s highlanders to have been when they strolled into the streets of Perth ; but the Albanian grows into an orderly soldier, farmer and citizen. He is a stay-at- home man, who gets all he can and keeps all he gets. The third class are, in some of their traits, more properly, Greeks, who, in Athens especially, and some- times with good cause, boast of their pure blood ; for Athens and Attica were more exempt from the Slavic invasions that occurred between the 6th and 14th cen- turies, than other provinces. They are, morally and intellectually, children of Odysseus, man of many de- vices and who saw many cities ; they are the traders, merchants, sailors, commercial travelers, shop-keepers, 6 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL stock-brokers, money-changers, dragomen, rich men (if there be such), as well as intermeddlers in all arts, students, artists, professional men, and, above all, politicians. They have the versatility of the Greek character, and I shall have occasion to speak of yet another simpler type who possess still stronger claims to pure Greek blood. It is a weighty argument in favor of the theory of Hellenistic survival, or the continuous nationality of the Greeks, that they speak Greek, as they have always done. Ratin continued to be spoken in Italy till the middle of the 13th century A. D., and this was in a few exceptional Italian provinces ; and yet Greek has been the language of Greece from the earliest days until now, and even Romaic, the ver- nacular language, comes, in some respedts, nearer to classic Greek than Italian does to Ratin, although greatly barbarized. In construction, and very widely in pronunciation, modern Greek departs from classic Greek, the moods, case-endings and inflections being swept away, so that the resemblance between the two is, in many instances, wholly artificial, but it is never- theless, at base, Greek, with the same alphabet and forms. It is a debased idiom from a similar root, so that it may be built up again into the same lan- guage. It is, in fadt, as it has been called, Neo- Hellenic. It grew out of loose conversational usages of the earlier language, but not until the fifteenth or sixteenth century did the popular spoken tongue be- come fully developed, while the literary language remained unchanged to the time of the taking of Constantinople ; and even the Phanariot and literary language continued the same. In Greek schools now the grammar of classic Greek is used, and children are taught to read Xenophon and other classic authors. THE LAND OF GREECE 7 The better the people the better the Greek they speak ; while the written tongue, the language of books and periodicals, even of newspapers is, approximately, the same with that of Homer. Corruptions, of course, have come in, but even as far back as Alexander’s day, the Attic dialed! had undergone great changes. With the unification and improvement of the lan- guage thus constantly going on, a Greek scholar would have no difficulty in learning to read modern Greek books and newspapers. Two or three months’ study at Athens with this objedfc in view, would make him master of the written tongue. Foreign phrases have been introduced to describe foreign and new things, and many dialedts have poured in, as in the Greek-speaking population of Constantinople the Turkish, and in the Ionian isles the Cypriote and Italian, and in Athens the Albanian, French, German, Italian, English and a medley of other dialedts, but the living language which you hear in street, market- place, shop, house and senate-chamber, on the dock and road, is sonorous Greek. You may, indeed, hear “ mitera ” for “ fArj-repa,” and “ yinaeka ” for “ywcuKa,” but this is not such a very wide difference. The streets of Athens have the names of Hermes, dEolus Athene, Eysocrates, Piraeus. The land is classified in nomarchies bearing the old familiar titles of Attica, Boeotia, Phthiotis, Phocis, Akarnania, and so on. It is Greece. You are at home with its spirit, and are not shocked in your classic associations, as you would be, probably, in Syria, in your religious feelings. You take your Tlato and walk in the locality of the Aka- deme, meeting, it may be, some Greek acquaintance with a name quite familiar in the “Dialogues,” and with a salutation of the still beautiful x^p*- You ride or drive a few miles to the north, over the plain of 8 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL Attica, until you come to the deme of Poeania (still so called), under the shadow of Mt. Pentelikon, and there you are at the birthplace of Demosthenes, where his paternal acres lay, for which, when a young man, he contested in the courts, and brought himself before the public eye. In half an hour’s stroll outside of Athens, you seat yourself to take breakfast on the stoop of a little vine-trellised coffee-house (Ka^eviov) in a grove of olive trees, where Sophocles’ villa, in its olive grove, stood. You say to your guide 80s, <£epe, 8ei£e — give, bring, show. The railway, indeed, that you get aboard, is the mBrjpoSofjio s, the steel-way, and, if an American, you may hear America called Bao-iy/a-w r] yrj — the land of Washington. Greek was never a dead, but has been a debased, language, a prince in beggar’s clothes. A century, or nearly a century ago, since the Greeks have waked up to something like new intellectual life, the question of a common language began to be mooted, and this served to bring the scat- tered elements of the Greek race together ; and I draw from a little book by a native Greek Professor, the fadt, that three views are held on this question. Opinions, in a word, have formed themselves into three parties : 1 . those who contend that the common language of modern Greeks has been settled by the Greek people as they commonly employ it, the popular tongue spoken by Greek-speaking people, not only in Greece but in Constantinople and the Turkish empire, and all over the Devant. 2. They who think that the vulgar tongue is too poor (it certainly did have a marked decline in the Byzantine and Middle Age periods, and through the period of Turkish domination) and that classic Greek should be restored as the common lan- guage. 3. They who also think the vulgar tongue to be inadequate for the scientific development of the THE LAND OF GREECE 9 nation, on account of its want of regularity in gram- matic properties ; but as the complete restoration of classic Greek is impracticable in all relations and wants of modern life, a middle theory should be adopted, viz : that a common language be formed which does not depart substantially from the vernac- ular, or so far as to be unintelligible to the people, but that it shonld be corrected on the model of ancient Greek, and enriched by its wealth and power as a lan- guage. This is the opinion of the most thoughtful, and is the prevalent one at Athens, tending to banish vulgarisms, barbarisms and local dialedts, such as the Wallachian, Roumanian, Cypriote and Constantino- politan, to give a philosophic base to grammar and style, and to strengthen and elevate the language ; and, as has been said, the best people now speak the best Greek, above all write it, so that the written lan- guage more and more approaches the ancient ; and there is a strong tendency, partly pedantic and partly genuine, to restore classic Greek in all its purity. But everything one wants to say on everyday matters of business, travel, literature, politics, art, poetry, from Homer to telegraphs and telephones, can be said in modern Greek ; and, at all events, it is Greek that is spoken in Greece, however diversely it sounds from the classic tongue. While Ratin has ceased to be a spoken language, Greek is a living one, and it is an almost miraculous fadt that this should be so, con- sidering the great changes and upheavals that have occurred. Professor J ebb, from whom I before quoted, says : “It has been the unique destiny of the Greek language to have had from prehistoric times down to our own, an unbroken life. Not one link is wanting in this chain which binds the new Greece to the old.” In addition to language, the Greek people are inspired IO GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL by the old names, traditions and monuments. They live among them. They are proud of them. If they do not know as well as a learned archaeologist does, what a classic ruin is, they are to a degree reverent of it. They point it out and talk about it as something that belongs to their land, even the most ignorant among them. A Greek workman, when I happened to remark of a rich altar of Pan standing near the theatre of Dionysos, that it should be protected, said, “Yes, sir, that is true ; Mr. Pan was a much respedted gentleman, and ought to be better treated.” He was right, for the ground in front of the theatre was in a neglected state, and I have been pleased since to see that it has been decided to fence it in and further pro- tect this Dionysiac precindt. The Greek, peasant and learned, is aware of the importance of such monu- ments, and is in dead earnest when he execrates the Turk for maltreating and destroying ancient works of art. He knows his unique heritage, and the fadt of the genuine interest taken by the Greek government in archaeologic research for the last forty years (the National Archaeologic Society was founded in 1858), and the brilliant results of this society’ s labors, prove it. The modern Greek has his eyes open, and, like the Japanese, is keenly sympathetic to old traditions and new ideas. He is sensitive and acute, and if he would discuss politics less at the cafe, and work more on the field, he would be a worthy sort of man as he is a shrewd one. I am but one witness, and inclined, like other wit' nesses, to build large theories from a small number of observations, but I confess to a prejudice in favor of Greeks, and of a nation bearing their name and speak- ing their tongue. I desire (letting their boastfulness, dirt, fleas, sour wine and such small things go) to be DIONYSIAC THEATRE FRIEZE THE LAND OF GREECE ii a little blind to their faults, and to see their good qualities, or those traits which belong to a higher humanity, rather than those which lower and separate it. The Greeks have ardent aspirations that no dis- appointments have been able to quench, and “their very vanity is towards intellectual progress.” The spark of Greek intelligence yet glows. They expedt to be a nation, and are preparing for it. Education has had a development that could not be the case in a dull people. Knowledge is the Greek’s passion. Educa- tion was broached, among others, by the patriot Admantius Korais, who, at the beginning of the cen- tury, as did also the poet Rangabe, began to write and teach of the need of education to prepare the people, sunk as they were in semi -barbarism under four hundred years of Turkish misrule, for liberty. He thought that the remodeling of the nation was no hasty work but required the thoroughly invigorating power of education, and that national enlightenment must precede national regeneration.* He was a re- former of the Greek language, and was born of Greek parents in Smyrna 1748, dying in 1833. He insisted on the union of literature with science in education, and especially the study of Homer, as an influence to raise the popular mind, and from him and those like him came that extraordinary impulse from which sprang the Hetairas (Eiterary Societies) and the great multitude of schools all over Greece. In addition to the University and Polytechnic School at Athens, there is, throughout all the prov- inces, what may be called a graded system, consisting of the elementary or demotic schools, the Hellenic or grammar schools, and the gymnasia, which resem- ble the French lycees. The instruction in the higher * M. Constantinides. 12 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL schools and the University, is, to be sure, predomi- nantly technical, but every child in Greece can have the benefit of free public instruction. They aim to be an educated people, to acquire that knowledge which gives leadership in affairs, and they have already reaped the advantages of this, and won through the Bast and in the Turkish empire the place of instructors, officials and agents in every business and profession that demands intelligence. Where knowledge is needed the Greek is found. The idea of a universal education has been overdone, but it is sinning in the right direction. The old Athenian Prytanseum would have sanctioned it, if the Dorian Ephorate would not. In so small a land the professions are naturally overstocked, and there are more candidates than work to supply them with. This creates a class of small savans and literary men, but the students are trained to be doctors, lawyers, civil engineers, classical scholars and archaeologists, the last having their material at hand ; and, as I shall have occasion to remark, the Greek museums of antique art are the best arranged in the world, appealing to eye and mind without need of commen- tator. The modern Greeks can appreciate art if they do not produce artists, though this remains to be seen when they are freed from the anxieties of national embarrassment. The Greek is keen in apprehension but lacks steadiness of application. He has, as is well known, marvelous talent for trade, which makes him the Yankee of the Mediterranean. He is sharper at a bargain than the most crafty Oriental, and, for this reason, the modern Greek has been accredited, as was of old the countryman of him who was ‘ ‘ subtle of wit and of guile insatiate,” with a streak of dishonesty, and this may have some foun- THE LAND OF GREECE 13 dation in fadt ; but as far as my limited experience goes I have bad no reason to doubt the integrity of the Greek, although he is, like Demetrius the silver- smith, not apt to yield up his own interests in a given casfe. I once sent a message from the island of Syros when in quarantine there for fourteen days, to Athens, for a mosquito-net, by a Greek dragoman, who, see- ing the note was addressed to a hotel that was rival of the one to which he was attached, slipped round the corner and tore it up. Of course the message was not delivered. But the Greek is not everlastingly on the lookout for his own advantage ; he is, on the contrary, and as a general rule, brusquely outspoken, and is, also, like Odysseus, a natural story-teller and bard. He is never at a loss for words and eloquent words. On the deck of a small felucca running before a gale in the Gulf of Corinth, I heard a young Greek sailor (my guide acting interpreter) sing with kindling eye his legends of war and love, accompanied by short in- terludes on a kind of guitar, his voice now harsh and loud, then soft and low as a woman’s ; and an under- current of pathos, of pathetic cadence, ran through his lyrics, coming down as they do from the sombre days of the Turk, who, when driven out of Greece, left desolation and despair behind him ; and this vein of melancholy runs through the character as well as songs of the modern Greek, so that he is more ambi- tious than hopeful. Some of these songs have a ring of honest feeling, as in this prose translation of a rude little lyric composed by the soldier-poet, Armatole Sterghio ; ‘ ‘ Though the Dervens’ strongholds have fallen, and the Moslem has seized upon them, Sterghio lives and cares for no pashas. 14 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL “ While it snows on the hills, and the plains bloom with flowers, and the heights have ice-cool streams, we will not bend the knee to the Turk. ‘ ‘ L,et us go and camp where the wolves have their abode, in the caves of the mountains, on the heights and rugged cliffs. Slaves live in the towns and crouch to the Turks, while we have for our dwellings soli- tudes and desert ravines. “ Better live with the wolves than with the Turks.” This spirit of melancholy does not, however, spoil the deeper joyousness of the Greek’s temper, for he is gay on occasions, and in merry-making on festival days that occur so often, be they religious or secular, and of which, like the old Hellene, he is extravagantly fond ; then he is free as a bird, and, like the ancient Greek, is child of the sunshine and air, changing as suddenly as the moods of the Greek sky, from clear to storm, from a hospitable friend to a suspicious foe, and his knife is prompt to his hand. It is stated that crimes in Greece spring from quick temper aggra- vated by the fierce heat of the climate, far more than from any deliberate cause.* The shining rocks and hills of Greece, now as formerly, do not breed a bad and vicious race. When I was at Olympia, I found the solitary inn there in a state of disorder, arising from the circumstance that two or three days before, the inn-keeper, in a sudden fit of passion, had mortally stabbed a guide and fled to the mountains, and his family were in constant apprehension of his capture and their own imprisonment. But the Greek in a good cause as well as bad is no coward, and a fiery courage seems to run in his veins. The achievements of the Greeks in their modern wars equal anything in their ancient story ; since, whatever other Euro- * Greece under King George, p. 167. THE LAND OF GREECE i5 pean nations did in aid of the Greeks, they wrought out their own independence, and showed themselves worthy to be free. The Greek is a good seaman, having special apti- tude for all kinds of marine service, and his proper place would seem to be on the deck of his antique- shaped bark, such as you see scudding before the wind off every headland of the coast, and he meets the sea in his ocean-bound land everywhere, no part of it being more than forty miles from the sea ; and it is estimated that Greece “ has a sea-line in propor- tion to its area seven times as great as that of France, and twelve times as great as that of England. ’ ’ * The sea has been the main resource of Greece, especially when we reckon in the Ionian and Aegean islands and Crete as belonging to Greece. The ancient Ionians if not the Lacedaemonians, were lovers of the sea. Tri- tons, amphitritons and dolphins gambol gracefully through. Greek sculpture, even as they do on the lovely friezes of the choragic monument of Eysikrates at Athens, and the temple of Poseidon in Bithynia carved by Skopas. The sound of the sea reverberates through all ages of Greek literature, and its voice, like tha t of the mountains, is the voice of freedom. * Sergeant’s New Greece. CHAPTER II. THE LAND OF GREECE. The Greek is a man admirably fitted to be a sailor, and he lives in sight of the sea that runs around and into all his land. The sea is his pathway to freedom, power, and enlarged thought and life. The intrepid deeds of Kanares, with his terrible fireships, will not soon be forgotten. They struck dismay into the heart of the foe. The Greek, at present, is building up again a respectable commerce, and doing the carry- ing-trade of the Eastern Mediterranean. The Greek marine consists of some one hundred and twenty steamships, and seven hundred and fifty sailing ves- sels, and yet Greece should be, on her own account, a far more important commercial nation than she is, when we consider how Athens, at the height of her power, was the center of the marine activity of the Mediterranean, and how splendid was the commerce of Rhodes immediately after the period of Alexander ; but now the entire wealth of the country in cereals, currants, olives, fruits, wines, marbles, minerals, pot- tery and many other products agricultural and indus- trial, is most inadequately maintained, and but twenty per cent, of its good though light soil is brought under cultivation, the husbandry itself being of an obsolete kind, with the wooden ploughshare shaped like that of Triptolemos. The government is a poor nurse of commerce and industries, seeming to have but feeble power to foster national activities and internal improvements, and THE LAND OF GREECE i7 has been called “a system of bureaucracy and nar- row centralization.” It may be honestly inclined, as it has been under the leadership of Tricoupis, who was a life-long student of English administrative methods, to do better things, and has not been with- out its efforts in this direction. Dyannis, the succes- sor of Tricoupis, has much of his administrative abil- ity and more popularity, but not the moral power, the firm will, that steered the Greek ship of state through so many dangers and difficulties. The country is bankrupt, with a forced depreciated cur- rency, and unpaid loans saddled on it by foreign governments from the beginning of its new existence. The public debt (the interest of which is paid by a process of legerdemain) now amounts, it is said, to 820,000,000 francs. There is six times the amount of silver in circulation to that of gold. The paper money looks like rags, if it be not so in fadt, and you tear a bill in two in order to halve it. In spite of this financial lowness, the state maintains a standing army of more than 20,000 men. Yet it were well for us to recognize the fadt, that notwithstanding the pressure on his government by monarchical powers, the Greek is, at core, a genuine republican. His political creed is an antique inheritance, which his land, name, and the air he breathes, nourish. The democratic principle, native to the Greek, is another argument for his persistent nationality. He is an enthusiastic lover of popular government, and he has abolished all orders of nobility. The voting in Greece is by eptarchies, and every voter may give as many votes as there are candidates, exercising his independent choice, of which he is extremely jealous, cherishing the right of ballot, and, it is said, “ more Greeks to the thousand have votes than is the case of i8 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL the citizens of any other country.” The Athenian is as disputatious, restless, liberty-loving and genuine a democrat, as he was in the days of Kimon and Kleon, though there is no consistency or cohesion in his political system, that has been characterized as “ a monarchical democracy.” There is a royal court at Athens, and there has to be one, for any government to exist at all. There is, therefore, an aristocratic circle as well as a monied circle, and a literary or edu- cational circle, though these are well-mixed, for a stiff spirit of personal independence exists among the people. Your donkey-driver feels himself as good as his employer; and yet, it is remarkable with how little bluster the popular principle asserts itself in everyday life. The Greek, while he idolizes rich travelers, as he supposes all to be who visit Greece, especially Americans, is not toadyish, but preserves an ereCt and almost fierce bearing. He is polite when treated politely, and more naturally so, I think, than the Italian peasant. He has his virtues as well as faults, and the pity of it is (not an original remark) that the modern Greek has been over-blamed and over-praised. This is a misfortune. He has suffered both from his friends and his enemies, not being strong enough to stand alone. But the Greek is not an intractable radical or a reasonless anarchist, and he has few popular vices. Inclined though he be to demagogy, he is not factious, nor is he intemper- ate, being a water-lover and coffee- drinker, nor profli- gate, nor irreverent, and he is even religious, up to a certain point. The Greek respeCts his church, as the orthodox church, the official church, the Greek church, with- out having very much to do with it in a higher and more spiritual sense. He is baptized, confirmed, THE LAND OF GREECE 19 married, and buried, by it. It is a church strong tra- ditionally as conserving the orthodox faith, though its priests are, in a great measure, ignorant and poorly paid, but, as a general rule, they are moral in life, and the bishops are sometimes passably learned, while there are no Chrysostoms. Its six hundred mon- asteries are picturesquely perched on almost inaccessi- ble cliffs, to which one has to be drawn up by a bucket, as the apostle, reversing the process, was let down by a basket, from the wall of Damascus. But these establishments have been reduced in number to about one hundred and fifty ; and the austere but indolent life led within their walls has been charmingly por- trayed in paintings of the Hungarian artist Bida. I passed a night in a Greek monastery where, though in such ascetic surroundings, I was treated in quite a princely fashion. I greatly enjoyed the worship of the Greek church, that is, its music and ritual, which retain the fresh devotional flavor of centuries, and, in fadt, the Greek ritual is older than the Roman Cath- olic. In the new gorgeous Russian church at Athens, to whose service you are summoned by the sound of a deep-toned bell, the voices of the priests, who are picked men for their musical gifts, are of great depth and richness of tone, and these are mingled with more youthful voices clear and soaring, the chorals being especially beautiful. The Greek church, in point of efficiency and intelli- gence, is more sleepy than, and not equal to, the Roman Catholic, but in some respedts, having had more to do with Nicaea than Trent, is purer, discarding purga- tory, not claiming infallibility, allowing marriage of the lower priestly orders (a Greek unmarried monk was the most influential person in carrying this point at the Council of Nice), not deifying the Virgin, 20 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL worshiping only poor paintings. It does not admit good painting or sculpture into the churches, though this may be a doubtful claim to merit, and recalling Goethe’s remark, that miraculous pictures are always poor ones. There are some things in belief and practice which are common to Greek and Protestant churches, so that here is a possible ground of union, as, indeed, the Anglican church claims. On the other hand there is a hostile feeling towards the Roman Catholic church, and the Pope’s inclination to tolerate or recognize the Greek church, is not reciprocated by the Greeks themselves, any more than it was at the time of the Council of Florence in the middle of the 15th century, when a serious attempt at union between the Eastern and Western churches was made. But the Greek church is a venerable church, coming down as it does from the Apostle of the Gentiles, and though mingled with gross superstitions and puerile forms, remains pure in some of its dodtrines ; and from its not being a rich and powerful church, or from its being rather homely in its circumstances and priest- hood, its spirit is humble, and for this reason it lives in the life and affedtions of the people. One fre- quently sees the grave village “ Papa ” leading about his rustic flock in the museums at Athens, carefully explaining to them, as they seem to listen with rever- ence to his words, the various objects. The worship within the churches, to the stranger who cannot fol- low it, is exclusively addressed to the ikons of saints, and to the Virgin, and seems to have no sort of refer- ence to God or the people ; yet this is not true, for the chants are exceedingly spiritual and uplifting, and the words of the Greek gospels have new beauty and power when thus repeated in the land where their noble language was born. THE LAND OF GREECE 21 Greece is a rich field for the study of old Byzantine, as well as older classic, art; and the most ancient Byzantine church in Athens, the ‘ ‘ small Metropolis,” is a jewel of a Lilliputian cathedral, with narthex or vestibule, conche or apse separated from the body by the templon with its three doors, the holy table, the queer little silver-gilt pidtures of the Virgin and Saints, rich colors and mosaics, begemmed screens and golden hanging lamps, just as in the biggest church in the land. Many Byzantine churches in Greece occupy the sites of the old classic temples, so that these have been sacred places from time immemorial. The priests, with black robes and tall felt hats, whose tops spread out like inverted flower-pots, and their flowing beards, are a marked feature in town and country, often acting as pedagogues leading about small boys, and though not so conspicuous as the priests of Italy, yet more reverend and picturesque ; and in the grim funeral processions at Athens, where the dead body is borne uncovered in the coffin through the streets, just as in the days of Perikles, the priests going before and after chanting in deep voices the solemn service of the dead, breaking into the circle of busy life as with the voice of the tomb, these make an impressive though ghastly spectacle. Much has been said of the physique of modem Greeks, and it has been asked if they compare with their ancestors in beauty? This was, undoubtedly, the realistic source of Greek art, for there can be no question that the ancient Greeks were a beautiful race, and one classic writer says that he saw forms in the palaestra, equal to any statue, in symmetry. It is not to be thought that the ancient Greeks, though a superior race, as if lighted down from some fairer planet, were all as beautiful as Greek statues. They 22 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL showed every type of face and form, from Achilles to Thersites ; they had stout bodies and lean bodies ; they were tall and short ; they had round faces and oval faces ; and in Greek sculpture, you see these differences, as in nature ; nor were they all fair, but commonly of a brownish white, the women having lighter complexions, as may be seen in the paintings qji (Preek vases. One also recalls the pidture of Pene- lope in the Odyssey : ‘ ‘ Her fair face first she, Athene, steeped with beauty imperishable, such as that where- with the crowned Cytherea is anointed, when she goes to the lovely dances, and she made her taller and greater to behold, and made her whiter than new- sawn ivory.”* The present race may have greatly degenerated, but modern Greeks are a good-looking people, dark and adtive, with well-made forms, though they are much smaller than we imagine the old Greeks to have been, developed as they were by athletic exer- cises and war; and yet there are exceptions here. My guide was a Herakles in stature and strength, and with a cuff of his open hand, like the buffet the black knight bestowed on the Clerk of Copmanhurst, he sent a Corinthian horse-dealer reeling across the room; and the peasants and country people of the Peloponnesos are robust, striding on like giants over the hills, fierce-looking, neither greeting nor expedt- ing greeting. But the Greek, if not large-sized, is wiry, with straight regular features, black hair and flashing black eyes ; he seems made for adtivity more than strength — a Teucer rather than an Ajax , but in temperance, chastity, and homely refinement, he is superior to the Italian or the Prench. Among the women, you would not see a Helen 4 * having eyelids where the graces sat, and for whose * Butcher and Lang’s translation. THE LAND OF GREECE 23 transcendent beauty, the sober burghers of Troy thought it worth the while to fight a woful decade. You would not be apt to see a beautiful woman, in the ordinary phrase, nor, indeed, would you see many women at all, except on festas, as the spirit of Ori- ental seclusion still obtains in Greece ; but there are handsome women among the peasants. In the moun- tains their dress is a long white woolen gown with red and bright trimmings, being worn easily and freely like the Greek himation, so that you can imag- ine you behold the Homeric woman sitting at the well, or walking across the market-place. Blondes with golden hair and blue eyes (an ancient Aryan type) are often seen, and vigorous forms that are models of physical health. But the faces of Greek women, though regular in features, are not notably intellectual ; and yet there are exceptions, as was the daughter of Botsares, whom I met in Greece, who was noted for her great charm of manner and fine dark eyes, that looked as if they could kindle with indigna- tion at meanness or injustice. But a Greek woman rarely possesses, like the sister of Tricoupis, a talent for affairs, or cherishes aspirations to be a power in the State ; nor is she apt, like Madame Schliemann, who is wealthy and manages her property with shrewdness, to be a leader in society, or at the head of philanthropic and patriotic movements. Madame Schliemann was an Athenian girl, whose name was Kastromenos, and was chosen to be helpmate of the great Dr. Schliemann, because she believed in his theory of the realness of Homer’s poems, and could repeat for his amusement long portions of the Iliad. She would, indeed, represent a woman of the best class, in looks, dignity and intelligence. Her young daughter is named Andromache, and her son Aga- 24 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL memnon ; and her white marble house on University Avenue, studded with statues of gods and goddesses, and named, with pardonable vanity, “The Palace of Ilion,” is, perhaps, the finest in the city. Doubt- less in case of another war with Turkey, we would see the Spartan spirit in the women, as was shown in the war of Independence, though the weight of ages of suppression is not easily thrown off ; but it is not probable that there ever will be an eleventh muse, to follow Sappho, termed the tenth muse. Dove of country inspires Greeks high and low, and, I believe, it is a genuine feeling, though it shows itself in sentiment more than in addon ; but the great names of Botsares, Kanares, Miaoulis, Kol- katrous, Ipsilantes and others, live and burn in the people’s hearts, more passionately than the names of Washington and our revolutionary heroes, live in American hearts. The modern Greek, as was said, has been over- praised and over-blamed, and this has worked to pro- duce in him the opposite sentiments of vanity and despair, so that, at this time, under the pressure of national disgrace arising from enormous unpaid loans and a depreciated currency, he has lost a tithe of his natural vivaciousness and audaciousness ; and what, indeed, has modern Greece realized from promises and pledges such as those of the Treaty of Berlin, and earlier treaties, that gave to her territory and power, and then dashed her down to poverty ? Eng- land has been Greece’s best friend, and is so still, but she has been a selfish, calculating, ungenerous and disappointing friend, failing signally in great crises. Yet we may hope that Greece, from native impulse, will, in spite of these heart-breaking disappointments, show herself self-reliant and energetic (she was THE LAND OF GREECE 25 ready enough to fight in the Crimean war though it would have been in a false position) and that she will eventually wrest from her old foe the Doric isle of Crete, Macedonia, Albania, Thrace, and all her an- cient territory, which was larger than her present one, and may become a state and a civilization worthy of her name. Greece is the pivot of European politics. Her art, or what she owns within her borders and which points to perfection, is a power ; her land, still there in mid-Mediterranean with its mountains and valleys almost the loveliest land under heaven, is a power ; and although our classical enthusiasm is put to a strain by modern Greeks, I, for one, am Philhellenist enough to believe that Greece has a bright future, that her light cannot be put out in the midst of the nations. This little book is a humble envoi of such a hope. In the vast changes which must soon occur in the East, her opportunity (the old Greeks had a divinity named ‘ ‘ Opportunity 5 ’ to which they sacrificed) may come. ; If the Ottoman Empire in Europe, sustained alone by outside pressure, were hard beset by one or all of the great Christian powers, and if the Turk were hurled out of Europe back to his native Tartar deserts, the Greeks, who are a nation in European Turkey outnumbering the Turks three to one (1,996,000 to 700,000), as the natural inheritors of the Turks who robbed them, may gain possession of Constantinople, which be- longs to Greece as a Hellenic foundation. Greek chants may then once more rise under the dome of the Hagia Sophia that was built by a Greek Emperor, out of materials plundered from temples of Athene at Athens, and Artemis at Ephesus ; though this is a vis- ionary picture, when, in reality, a colossal power like Russia, coldly antagonistic to Greece at heart, though 26 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL of the same Orthodox Church, lies like a giant ogre in wait to seize upon Constantinople. As northern races inevitably gravitate south, a little country like Greece could not interpose to prevent it. If Greece had the spirit and hope of ancient Greece, she might raise a barrier against Russia, but for how long ? Yet Greece, Greece in idea, must prevail. The world now, as in St. Paul’s time, is “ Greek and barbarian,” and Greece has her last word in the contest of light and darkness, barbarism and culture, ever going on. There is a well-known prophecy that when a Con- stantine shall wed a Sophia, the Greeks shall possess Constantinople ; and this concurrence of names has already occurred in the case of the present crown - prince and his wife. However that may be, and this mere conjunction of names is of no consequence, yet when ‘Constantine,’ or the embodiment of Christian power, shall be united to ‘ Sophia, ’ or wisdom, en- lightenment, freedom of thought and reason, Greece shall have her day of triumph. The moral of Greece does not die, and from its spirit rises a new world. The new art, the new thought, the new life, the new love, are Greek ideas, paganized and sensualized though they may be. They always have been Greek ideas. In the breaking-up of the Eastern world by Alexander and the carrying of Hellenic culture into the Orient even to furthest India, and the spread of the Greek language through that half of the world (St. Jerome said in his day, with the exception of the prov- ince of Galatia, settled by Gauls, Greek was the speech of all Asia Minor) aided by the learning of Alexandria, Pergamon and other centers of Greek culture, it was in this way that Greek became the language of the civilized world both east and west, and the world was thus prepared to receive the Greek gospels and made THE LAND OF GREECE 27 ready for the planting of Christianity. The Greek woman and the Greek language were the first mis- sionaries of the faith. Greek continued to be the cultivated and sacred language of Christianity, and ‘ ‘ for many ages Christianity itself was propagated under Hellenic forms.” In the first trip to Greece which I made when a young man, not long after leaving college, everything in the way of travel had to be done on foot or on horseback. It might literally be said that outside of Athens, there were only bridle-paths and not a road to speak of. Some one has said that ‘ ‘ the son of Nestor drove his two-horse chariot from sandy Pylos to Sparta, but that there was no carriage-road in modern Greece till the time of Otho and that was the time when I first visited Greece. Since that time there have been made some 2,500 miles of good roads, and no less than seven railway lines, and more are projected, among the principal of which are the railway from Athens to the Piraeus ; the Piraeus and Peloponnesian railway embracing Nauplia, Argos, Patras, Pyrgon and Olympia ; the Piraeus and Tarissa road ; the Athens and Taurion ; the Messolonghi and Agrinion ; the Athens and Thebes railway ; and it should be considered that Greece is a hard country to make roads and railroads over, so that this is the more creditable. This rugged and ragged little peninsula, like a half-decayed oak-leaf showing its ribs, and pushing down towards Africa with the great stepping- stone of Crete, Zeus-cradling Crete, that belongs to Greece geographically and racially, consists of three natural divisions, the mainland, the Peloponnesos and the islands, and in all scarcely larger than West Virginia, though by sea there is open to it a free road 28 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL to the fairest regions of three continents, as it lies in the bosom of them, and of modern as well as ancient civilizations, drawing its life from all. It has a pop- ulation of but two and a half millions, and, owing to its desolations, it is, in a great measure, a wild uncultivated land, only recently opened to improve- ments. These improvements have begun, and some of them are on a considerable scale of magnitude. The most noteworthy, is the canal cut boldly through the isthmus of Corinth, making a watercourse one hundred feet in width and twenty-six in depth, fitted for ocean steamers — a thin line of blue water straight as a ruler across the neck of the isthmus, uniting two seas. What Julius Caesar and Nero thought to do and did not do, an enterprising Greek company has done. For another branch of public improvements, there are the native Greek steamboat lines plying between the Piraeus and the Argolic Gulf, Syros, the Ionian Isles, the Corinthian Gulf, Akamania, Ambrakia and Euboea. There are tram- ways and electric cars in Athens. Some of the antique stone bridges are still in use in the land, as the one over the Eurotas ; but at most seasons you cross dry beds of rivers which in the winter are torrents. I crossed the dry bed of the Inachos in the Peloponnesos, in which, the same year, an English traveler was drowned. Greece is a well- watered country, inter- mittently so, requiring the most constant and sys- tematic care in the way of irrigation, which care it returns in smiling plantations and orchards. Greece may be made a very garden of the Hesperides, but the nymphs of industry and skill must nurture the golden harvests. On both visits I came into Greece by the way of THE LAND OF GREECE 2 9 Corinth, landing at Patras ; the first time starting from Trieste, and the second time from Brindisi. I crossed the Adriatic from the Italian shore in a stout but dirty Austrian steamer named ‘ The Helios.’ A notice which was posted on the cabin-door ran thus : It is prohibited to middle {sic) with the captain’s command. Passengers having a right to be treated like persons of education will no doubt conform them- selves to the rules of good society in respect of their fellow-travelers, and paying a due regard to the fair sex.” The mountains of upper Albania, some of them snow-capped in the month of May, and forming the mst point of the Turkish dominion in Europe, came in sight, which were the home of the unconquered Albanians, or Arnauts, mixed Mohammedans and Christians, whose language bears traces both of the Creek and Eatin, and who in their war-like lyrics s.ing, We know how to live with honor, and to die without fear. Coasting along the base of these snowy mountains, about opposite Cape Kepholi, one enters a channel between small islands, and coming out of the turmoil cf the restless “Adria,” the same as in St. Paul’s time, passes into a quiet harbor with hills around it, and a citadel on a steep rock overhanging it, back of which an old town of irregular white stone houses clusters. You here touch the shore of Hellas. The sky and the sapphire water reveal it. A change has taken place from the familar Europe of the west, and you are among the lovely islands of the bright Ionian sea. The atmosphere has a peculiar clear- ness, and the waves are as blue as in a land made by the poets. There is no delusion in this. The earth is genuinely Hellenic earth as it once was. 3 ° GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL After many changes of modern masters, Corfu, in 1864, became again apart of the Greek kingdom. This is Scheria, the blest island of the Phseacians, that was ruled by the wise Alkinoos, and to this strand Odysseus was borne by the waves, and had his -meeting with the maid Nausicaa, “high of heart.” A short distance south of Corfu, at a point reached by a road skirting the lake of Kallio- poulo, is the ancient Hillian harbor, into which runs the brook Kressida, the spot where the hero, helped by white-armed Leukothea, was cast ashore. One sees also the small triangular isle, or rock, named Pontikonisi, on which is a bit of a chapel, which is the Phseacian galley that bore Odysseus, and turned to stone. Of course it is. A Mormon once said to me, pointing to a mountain at Salt Lake city, “that is the mountain on which the angel Gabriel stood when he directed the prophet Brigham — do you doubt it, there is the mountain ?’ ’ The people who came off from the city in swarms of boats, still, as in Homer’s phrase, “ excel at toss- ing the salt-water with the oar-blade.” They came to trade as the people once did with the Phoenicians who scoured these seas in their biremes, and brought the arts of the Bast to Greece, as well as tin and metals from Britain. This harbor with the boats and small craft darting about in the glassy sapphire water, is a vivid picture, and you pardon the Corfiote sharks who are after the steamer and its passengers with the hunger of greed. The mountains rise behind the city to a considerable height. The old town of 25,000 inhabitants has marks of Venetian, French, and above all, English rule. There is nothing classic of importance left in it, but nature. A drive in the interior reveals the superb richness of vegetation, NATIONAL MUSEUM, ATHENS THE LAND OF GREECE 3i not indeed tropical, but, better still, Mediterranean, charmingly green valleys with venerable olive- groves, orange, lemon, fig and cherry trees, magnolias and aloes, in an ever-abounding luxuriance. Superb roses and other brilliant flowers adorned the suburban house-fronts here and there. Homer must have visited this richly-dowered spot when he sings : ‘ ‘And there grow tall blossoming trees, pear trees and pome- granates, apple trees with bright fruit, sweet figs, and olives in their bloom. The fruit of these never perish, neither fail winter or summer, continuing the year round. Evermore the west wind blowing brings some fruits to birth and ripens others. Pear upon pear waxes and drops, apple on apple, fig on fig. Here is a vineyard whereof one part is withered by the scorch- ing heat, a sun-dried level spot, while on another part grapes are gathered in, and still another where men are treading the wine-press. In the foremost row are unripe grapes, and elsewhere are grapes growing black to the vintage.” Ancient Kerkyra sided with Athens in the Pelopon- nesian war fatal to that city, and this reacted on its own decline of power and influence. The picturesque double-peaked rock of the fortress, is seen for some distance on the way south to the larger island of Kephallenia ; and as you sail on you pass the white Eeucadian rock, and also Actium (Aktion) on the main shore. We are in Homer’s own land, who drew from its realness and whose art was nature, so that it is not to be wondered at that Homer was the book of religion, wisdom, law and life, to the Greek, and that there is no better book now to travel with in Greece, than the Odyssey, a golden key to interpret its nature, poetry, art and life. I reckoned that, owing to the delay caused by a 32 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL disturbance of the Adriatic from an earthquake higher up near the Austrian shore, we should pass Ithaca in the very early morning, so I hurried on deck before any of the other passengers ; but just as “ clear-seen Ithaca” came in sight over the billowy sea, there stumbled up also on deck an old German professor of metaphysics, a tall, lean, hard-favored man, but smit- ten with the same desire to see Ithaca, the furthest Greek land of all from the leaguer of Troy. The rocky isle and the wind-tossed sea formed a Homeric pidture. The water, at the cold dawn of a rather stormy day, was “the gray sea.” In order to be a trifle friendly so early on a windy morning, I said to the professor, ‘ ‘ Doubtless the earth-shaker is angry at the approach of us strangers to his sacred land. “ Ac/i, mein theurer Herr , ’ ’ he answered, ‘ ‘ P oseidon is not angry at all, but he is agitated with joy at our coming, Hellenes as we are, and Amphitrite is weav- ing wreaths of sea- anemones with which to crown our heads ;” and his “ inextinguishable laughter ” rever- berated like the splitting of an oak-tree by a thunder- bolt. We exchanged sentiments and had a good time as the vessel plunged and rose. ‘ ‘ Sehen sie, ’ ’ said he, * ‘ young men nowadays have no poetry. They do not love Homer. They do not revel in his joyful world of poetry and light, as we did, gnadiger Herr , and do now, mein Gott ! There is my son,” pointing to a tall youth who had at that moment emerged from below, “he is a student of physics at my own university, but he cares only for things as they are, not for things that are past or to come, he is all fadt, puff, he is a good fellow, but he has no poetry. He thinks but of science, not art.” I agreed with him that education was often one- sided, not all-around and comprehending the moral THE LAND OF GREECE 33 and aesthetic as well as analytic powers, was lacking in the elements of a broad culture, in fine not Greek, not aiming at the development of the whole being, the koXov, the perfect, the prize so difficult to obtain that the Greeks said x a ^ €7T ° v T ° Ka ^° v — the beautiful is hard to win and hard to keep, and calls for the union of art with philosophy, in education. There was one small red sail off the northernmost point of Ithaca battling with the wind, which might readily be taken for the sail of the carved-prowed and home-coming bark of Odysseus, and complete was the illusion, as one gave himself up to the power of the muse, who, Plato says, accompanies every poet and every poetic mood. The rugged island itself has two main parts about equal in size, joined by a low narrow strip of land, on the further side of which, to the east, lies the Gulf of Molo, like a Norwegian fjord, and at the end of this is the small town of Vathy (Ba0vs, deep), called in official language “Ithaca,” the principal place on the island. Near this along the narrow bay of Dexia, is laid by some, the old harbor of Phorkys, where the Phaeacians landed sleeping Odysseus. listen to Homer : * ‘ There is in the land of Ithaca a port called Phorkys, the old one of the sea, and thereby are two headlands of sheer cliff, which slope to the sea on the haven’s side, and break the mighty wave that ill winds roll without, but within the decked ships ride unmoved when once they have come to the landing.” Oddly enough near the Gulf of Molo there is a stalactite cavern, which corresponds with the cave of nymphs near which Odysseus was landed ; and at the back of this cave is an old altar-stone, showing that it was once used as a place of worship. On the southern end of the island is the high 3 34 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL plateau of Marathea, in Homer’s phrase “with wide prospect, ’ ’ where were the pastures of the swine-herd Bumseos, and from which the loftier mountains of the mainland and the Peloponnesos may be seen — enchanted ground which soon melted away from our view in the foaming sea like other golden fables ! Ithaca, small as it is, now supports 12,000 inhab- itants, and its wine which Homer praises, is still its chief product. Dr. Doerpfeld says that “The singer of the Odyssey had no mere general acquaintance with the island, but was absolutely familiar with its local features. He makes Athene to say ‘Verily it it is rough and not fit for the driving of horses, yet it is not a very sorry isle, though narrow withal. For herein is corn past telling, and herein too, wine is found and the rain is on it evermore and the fresh dew, and it is good for feeding goats and feeding kine ; all manner of wood is here and watering places unfailing are herein.’ ’’ As Homer says, it is a land of vines and goats. Its sailors are the boldest in Greece. The sea is their outlook, reminding us of the frequent question in the Odyssey : ‘ ‘ Whence came ye, for ye did not come here by land ?’’ and the other saying too is true, “ there is no place for chariots.’’ It seemed a small area for what was done upon it, the tall men it sent to Troy, the high-roofed palace, and the wide wastings of ‘ ‘ the lordly wooers. ’ ’ But the kingdom of Odysseus extended also over the larger island of Kephallenia, called by Homer, Samos, and between the two islands lies the islet Daskalion, evidently the place where the suitors lay in wait to slay Telemachos on his return from Pylos and Sparta ; and it follows that as Telemachos had to sail in the strait between Kephallenia and Ithaca in order to reach his own city, this city must have been some- THE LAND OF GREECE 35 where on the west coast of Ithaca ; and Schliemann, who visited Ithaca in 1868, fixed its site and that of the palace of Odysseus at Mt. Aetos, a conical hill on the neck of land connecting the two portions of the island. Here he found a small plateau sur- rounded by a Cyclopean wall and a lower terrace, and also the remains, as he thought, of some 190 Cyclo- pean houses. To this theory Dr. Reisch objects, and thinks that though there was a Pelasgic citadel here, the city itself was at Polis, somewhat further to the north, where massive archaic remains are said to be, and which is a more favorable and open site for a city. Still there is, as yet, no determinate name or date to be assigned to these ruins. The real gateway of Greece is the Gulf of Corinth. This forms a majestic portal to the whole land. After leaving Ithaca and sailing south you turn almost at right angles from the Ionian Sea, entering the mouth of the Corinthian Gulf, and soon coming into the bay of Patras, spread out like a magnificent vestibule between the frowning headlands of Akar- nania on the north and Mt. Erymanthos on the south. Two mountains of pyramidal shape, Vavas- sova and Taphiassos, rise directly from the sea and stand like vast sentinels on the ^Etolian coast, giving a sombre impression, and shadowing the sea as if Greece were not to be approached trivially and was “no land of lightsome mirth;” and, indeed, if a storm spring up, as it is likely to do at any moment in all seasons, it is a formidable though most noble entrance to the beauties and glories of the land. When, however, the sun shines brightly, the scene of the sparkling expanse of the broad bay of Patras is a splendid one, with its dark-blue water foaming 3 6 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL with whitecaps, and the purple mountains on the opposite shore growing rose-tinted in the sunset light, as the great wind-clouds pile up at the west from the direction of the open sea. CHAPTER III. DELPHI. When I went the first time to Greece, Patras, where you land from the outlying steamer in a boat rowed by swarthy Greek sailors, was an insignificant place (though anciently one of the most important towns of the Achaian Teague) and had only a dozen or so slight wooden houses, but not without the invariable Ka(f>€vciov, in front of which a few baggy-trousered Hellenes squatted, sipping coffee. That night I slept on the floor of a bare unfur- nished room, and at midnight the house was shaken by the violent knocks of a company of dragoons, who had brought in three ironed brigands captured on the mountains. In the early morning these poor fellows were taken away, and all that gloomy day raged a fearful storm with such thunder and lightning as one experiences in Greece, and which plays its part in Greek poetry, for the land is one great eledtric bat- tery of mountain and sea to breed tempests. Having taken at Patras a guide named Andreas (after the patron saint of the place), a huge fellow, who had travelled with Sir Stratford Canning, and claimed, when a boy, to have been pipe-bearer to Eord Byron, I went on to Vostizza, and from Vostizza crossed the Gulf of Corinth in a small sailing craft, and, in the evening, we anchored off the opposite coast of iEtolia. A crimson light shone on the stern rocks of the coast, while the rest of the scene lay in the gloom of 38 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL a gathering tempest. The deck, the sails and the sailors were tinged with this lurid light, which, how- ever, died out, and thick clouds and darkness came over the sky. Big plashes of rain began to fall, and the little craft careened at the irregular blasts which swept by ; and we supposed that there would be a repetition of the wild storm of the previous day, although not being pagans we did not sacrifice a black lamb ; but my guide, I thought, lost something of the manly depth of his voice. While waiting in some suspense, suddenly one star shone out after another, until the sky was full of them ; and as I lay on deck that night, the stars seemed to be supernatu- rally large and bright, and around the top of Parnas- sos, “Mount of Song,” they crowded and clustered like a diadem. The next morning we sailed up the Bay of Salona. The mountains on either side of the bay, this being the month of September, were covered with a short brownish red heather, which contrasted finely with the deep blue of the sea. On landing, I saw several camels, odd animals to find in Greece, and that were survivors or descend- ants of those brought into the country by the Egyp- tian army of Ibrahim Pasha. Here were horses to take myself and guide to Delphi. We rode on through the village of Crissa, now Chryso, one of the most ancient places in Greece, and stopped to drink at the old fountain. Then we passed through a suc- cession of orange groves and vineyards, and com- menced climbing the path that leads to Delphi, com- ing upon traces of the ancient road called ‘ ‘ Schiste ’ ’ where two ways met, on which CEdipus encountered his father’s chariot; and here one gets a view over the whole fertile Crisssean plain that sweeps down- DELPHI 39 ward toward the sea. Going on we soon reached a point where the site of Delphi appeared, which, at that time, was covered by the village of Kastri that the French have lately removed for purposes of explo- ration. Delphi lies 2130 feet above the sea in a hol- low of the mountain running up to the base of Par- nassos and presents a scene that from its romantic character might be called sublime, impressing one with a feeling of awe as something of extraordinary nature where you might expedt extraordinary phe- nomena. Here issued a mephitic vapor that hypno- tized the pythoness, though her mutterings, as in dreams, were sent forth to the world in polished apo- thegms, like arrows of destiny. Delphi forms an amphitheatre opening between Mt. Parnassos and Mt. Kirphis. The twin rocks of the ‘ ‘ Phcedriadae ’ ’ (shining ones) separated by a narrow rift through which a strip of blue sky is seen, rise diredtly above ; and while looking at these tremendous rocks, two Eagles, like those which Zeus caused to fly to oppo- site ends of the earth, were sailing slowly around the summits, the light glancing on their bronzed wings. Between the two cliffs of the ‘ ‘ Phcedriadae, ’ ’ from a fissure in the rocks runs the Castalian spring, whose water, if no longer inspiring, is pure and cool. A bare-footed nymph came down from Kastri to draw water. A rock-hewn cistern in which the priestess may have once bathed exists, but time and earth- quake have greatly changed the spot. I climbed into this cleft, its sides being worn as smooth as polished marble, to examine some niches made for statues or votive-offerings, and being alone at the time, it was troublesome business getting down again, and out of this gloomy earth-throat. In fadt I had to take a flying ‘ shoot ’ over the rocks, which landed me in a rather confused state at the foot. 40 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL To the right of the spring are remains of the ancient “Helleniko,” and there is a solid retaining- wall of polygonal work, and about eighty feet of the stylobate of the Stoa of the Athenians, built B. C. 460. The French Archaeological Society at Athens have re- erected two columns of Pentelic marble be- longing to this structure. An archaic relief of a four- horse chariot lies undisturbed. Delphi, we cannot doubt, has many such ruins yet uncovered. In walk- ing about within a radius of a quarter of a mile, I saw half-buried fragments of sculpture, and one sar- cophagus, especially, representing a reclining female figure of the best Greek sculpture. A number of inscriptions have been recently found on the east por- tion of this stoa wall, for the French have great aptitude for finding inscriptions, although some unim- portant statues, dug up at Delphi, may be now seen at the rooms of the French School at Athens. It must be said that the French have settled the question that the carved metopes of the Treasury of the Sikyonians were formerly painted, proving the use of color on Greek carvings of the best period ; and a colossal statue also of Athens in poroslithos has just been found with traces of polychrome color. In regard to the date of the old Doric temple of Apollo, at Delphi, which stood above the polygonal wall or terrace that I mentioned, M. Homolle of the French School, recently said in a paper on the rebuild- ing the temple, that ‘ ‘ the foundations of the western face and the southwestern corner, show traces of an earthquake subsequent to the building of the Alc- maeonidae, in the sixth century. Many of the courses are constructed of pieces of moulding and fragments of a triglyph from the eastern front, which (as is known) was of marble. That side of the temple, DELPHI 4i therefore, must have been overthrown, and the debris utilized for the new building. None of the portions of architecture that have been discovered can be assigned to a date earlier than the fourth century. Consequently the temple must have been destroyed and rebuilt toward the end of the fifth, or the begin- ning of the fourth, century. ’ ’ * This temple was once full of statues, and here stood the gold statue of Apollo, that may, possibly, have been the original of the Apollo Belvedere, since this is undoubtedly a copy in marble of a gold, silver or bronze statue, which fa<5t is seen from the metallic folds of the cloak, and it might have held a bow as slayer of the Python ; but the original Delphic statue may have held an aegis, as defender of the shrine against the Gauls, such as is represented in the Stro- ganoff Apollo, which is of simple character, like a shrine-statue. There was also a statue of Artemis, which divinity, with Apollo, defended the temple against the Gauls; and this was probably of an archaic type, like that found at Torre del Greco, on which are traces of color and gilding. The Nine Muses, constant companions of Apollo, god of Art, were carved on one of the pediments of the temple ; and there is known to have been a statue of Leto, and, without doubt, there was one of Dionysos, whose cult was intimately associated at Delphi with that of Apollo. There was likewise a statue of Poseidon, who had an altar here, and there were bronze and marble effigies of other gods associated with Apollo, for Delphi was a centre of Greek religious art, to which the Greek world was accustomed to send its most sacred works. Am. Journal of Archaeology. 42 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL In the city of Delphi stood a gymnasium, also a stadion for the Delphic games, and there was a theatre, at the east wall of which was the Reschi of the Knidians, where were the famous pictures of Polyg- notos, of the ‘ ‘ Sacking of Troy ’ ’ and the ‘ ‘ Descent of Odysseus into Hades.” The sites of these buildings constitute the present field of exploration ; and it may be said that as yet the results do not answer to the effort and cost of the undertaking, in which 70,000 cubic metres of earth have been removed and 100,000 dollars expended ; but it should be remembered that Delphi was ransacked by the ancients themselves ; the Phocidians plundered the sacred treasures ; the Ro- mans, especially the emperors Nero and Constantine, and after them the Byzantine emperors, carried off statues by hundreds to adorn their palaces and cities ; and now but little more than the foundations and some of the solider parts of the temple, that have resisted time, have been brought to light. It is hard digging here, but highly stimulating, from the expec- tation of rich discoveries. The temple is found to have measured sixty by twenty -five metres, and was erected on an immense base approached by marble steps. A statue of Apollo older than the time of Pheidias, and sculptures of six warriors at the base of a monument erected by Gelon in memory of the victory of Himera, have been discovered, and this is about all, though the dimensions of the temple and of the city have been ascertained, with the exact positions and relations of several of the larger build- ings ; but I am convinced that much more of exceed- ing interest will be brought to light, for here was the religious heart of the Greek world. Here was the abode of the divine wisdom, of the word of prophecy issuing from nature. DELPHI 43 Delphi was the centre of the Parnassian system of Hellenic nature-cult. Greek mythology was a form of the religion of nature that differed from other forms, inasmuch as it was modified by the beautiful Greek spirit. A writer on the religions of India notes the difference in the aesthetic aspect of nature-worship in India from that of Greece, and says that the first took on the form of mere decoration, but the last of true art ; and this is just. The Greek spirit moulded the Greek religion, which has been explained ration- alistically, whereas it was neither a product of reason- ing or of unreasoning, not a scientific fact or an astronomic symbol, neither was it a philosophy, nor, above all, a philology run mad, as Max Muller would have it, but simply poetry. It was the out- come of the genius of a healthy-minded people in their spring-time of bright fancies, as their interpreta- tion of natural phenomena, accentuated as these are mountainous regions, and which correspond sympa- thetically to mental moods. It was the story of nature transmitted through the mythopoeic faculty of an imaginative people. This imaginative interpreta- tion of nature preceded Hellenic poetry and art, but • it formed the material out of which Hellenic poetry and art sprang. It existed before Hesiod and Homer, and ages before the artistic period of Polygnotos, Pheidias and Praxiteles. Herodotus said “Homer and Hesiod named the gods and settled their genealo- gies for the Hellenes;” but the gods, though more clearly delineated by poetic genius, lived in the apprehension of the people, as dim personalities corre- sponding to their own visions, thoughts, passions, fears, hopes and joys, before they moved and burned in the Iliad and Odyssey. They lived already when the people saw them in objects of nature, in cloud, 44 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL mountain and sea, and in corresponding heights and depths of the soul. The sky, or cope of heaven, sur- rounding all, with its clouds, rain and lightnings, full of powerful influences for good and evil on the life of man, was, to the Greek, divine — cu&pos ex 8^ — Dispi- ter — Dyaus — Deus — Zeus — all-encompassing Father. Zeus, whose flowing hair is like the rain, was a thoroughly Greek personification, though prefigur- ings of Zeus (Dyaus) are seen in Indian poetry, as in a Vedic hymn to Farth, which has been thus trans- lated : “ In truth, oh broad extended Barth, Thou bear’st the render of the hills, (lightning) Thou who, O mighty mountainous one, Questionest created things with power, Thee praise, oh thou that wanderest far, (the sun) The hymns which light accompany. Thou too, O glorious one, dost send Bike eager steeds the gushing rain. Thou mighty art who boldest up With strength on earth the forest trees When rain the rains that from thy clouds And Dyaus’ far-gleaming lightning come.” Mt. Olympos, a higher mountain than Parnassos, and a great weather-breeder, was the place, indeed, where Zeus lived, but if Olympos was the home of the gods, Parnassos, a lower mountain (just as if these skyey influences had flowed down into human touch and expression), was the “ Mount of Song.” The sky was a god — Zeus ; the sun too, or atmosphere golden with the sun’s beams, was a god — Apollo — who came to Delphi from Delos and shot golden arrows of life and death. Apollo was, above all, the divinity of Greece. He was the embodiment not only of the outward brightness of the Greek atmos- phere, but of the Greek mind, brilliant, joyous, terri- DELPHI 45 ble in its brightness. When the poets came, having the power of “ the conscious adaptations of thought,” Apollo — the sun — through the interpretation of these fine spirits, was the prophetic power of nature, the god of poetry, music and art. In the same way the earth (Gaia), the vine (Diony- sos), the maternal principle of nature (Demeter), took their forms. The inborn sensitiveness of the Greek mind to beauty, the beauty of nature, made Greek art altogether to differ from Egyptian art which was symbolic, from Oriental and Indian art which was decorative, from Roman art which was monumental, and from every other artistic form ancient and modern. It was essential beauty. It was an accord with the inward and outward world. In his thought the Greek came into harmony with nature, and interpreted the elements as an order of divinities, each reigning over his own sphere, call it Zeus, Hermes, Aphrodite, Dionysos, Apollo. Apollo, as the god of harmony, of music and art, is represented more formally in Greek art in the statue of Apollo Musagetes, who, in long robe and with laurel crown, advances with measured steps, as in a solemn dance, leading the chorus ; and it is inter- esting in this connection, while speaking of the Delphic Apollo and the poetic gods of Greek art, to note the discovery by the French exploring expedi- tion at Delphi, of the second Hymn to Apollo. This occurs in an inscription which was discovered on the Treasury of the Athenians. It is accompanied with the ancient musical notation and forms a fragment of forty-two lines. It was a thanksgiving hymn to Apollo to be performed by a chorus of Dionysos, musicians sent from Athens and called hyperchermes, since they chanted the words to the accompaniment of 46 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL the lyre. Tike the more ancient Homeric Hymn to Apollo, it closes with an invocation for the people of Delphi and Athens, showing the intimate relation of Delphi and Athens, which Hymn I give in another’s translation : “ Come to the twin heights of beetling Parnassos that looks afar, and inspire my songs, Ye Muses who dwell in the snow-beaten crags of Helicon. Sing of the Python, God of golden hair, Phoebus with tuneful lyre, whom blessed Leto bore beside the famous water, grasping with her hands in labor-pangs the shoot of the gray-green olive tree. And the vault of heaven was glad and radiant with unclouded light ; the cether stilled the swift course of the wind to calm, while the deep sound of the furious billows sank to rest, and mighty Oceanus, who with his moist arms clasps the earth around. “ Then leaving the Cynthian island the god set foot on the glorious land of Attica, first dowered with Demeter’s gift hard by the hill of Pallas ; and he was sped by melodies of the Tybian lotus, mingling its honey-sweet breath with varied notes of the lyre. Twice did the voice that dwells in the rock hail him with the cry of “Poean,” and he rejoiced because he laid up in his heart and understood the will of Zeus. Wherefore, from that time forth, our Attic folk, sons of the soil, call him “ Psean and by that name he is invoked by the great sacred band of the servants of Dionysos, smit by the thyrsos, who dwell in the city of Cecrops. “Advance, then, warder of the oracular tripod, to the summit of Parnassos, trod by the gods, dear to the Mcenads in their ecstacies. There once, garland- ing thy golden locks with laurel boughs, thou wert dragging with thy sacred hand enormous blocks, the DELPHI 47 foundations of thy temple, when thou did’st encounter the monstrous daughter of Earth (the dragon Python) abiding her onset, O deity of the gracious eyes, thou did’st slay with thy arrows this child of Earth, when the barbarian horde of Gauls, bent on profaning thy rich shrine with plunder, perished in the whirlwind of snow. Now O Phoebus, save and guard the city founded by Pallas, and her famous people, and thou, too, goddess of the bow, and mis- tress of the Cretan hounds, and thou Eeto, most revered ! guard ye the dwellers of Delphi, their children, their wives, and their homes free from woe. Be favorable to the servants of Dionysos crowned with the honors of the games !” CHAPTER IV. DELPHI AND MT. PARNASSOS. Nature is full of a prophetic sense. We gain from nature a new uplifting life, an inspiration, rather than definite thoughts or formulated ideas. Nature is a revelation to the soul, a voice of the divine, and, with the Greeks, Apollo was the voice of nature, the word. In the Greek idea (to say this without profanation) Apollo was the word of God. He uttered the pro- phetic voice. His personation sprang from the highest region of the Greek mind, the ideal, the spiritual, the religious, and especially so as the god of art. Some have thought that our admiration for Greek forms in sculpture, is solely the effedl of our classical education, now that Greek religion has given place to a true religion. But the English scholar, John Ster- ling, maintained that ‘ ‘ Greek sculpture was the ex- pression of all that was worshipful or religious in the Greek mind as partaking of one universal humanity, and which, in so far as it was true, makes it venerable to all time and to all men, and since the highest achievement of art is to combine purest feelings with purest forms, and if this be done, we need not be fastidious about the medium, or deemed profane for honoring a head of Zeus.” Sterling’s thought is generous toward Greek art ; and we may believe that Pheidias’ religious soul speaks to us in his works, and leads through them into a pure region of thought. Greek sculpture sought truth, and what is the true but the divine ? It DELPHI AND MT. PARNASSOS 49 sought beauty, as does genuine art even the most realistic, that to be art can never lose out of it the ideal, the artist’s thought, his conception of what is true, in order to be art at all. Art strives to free us from all imperfection and deformity, material and moral. This search of art for beauty, has been condemned as unworthy, and even immoral ; and so erroneous a conception as this is not confined to the ignorant and illiterate. In a sermon I lately heard from a college professor, through the whole discourse was drawn a contrast between Duty and Beauty, as if one were good and the other evil. But what is more beautiful than duty ? Kvery quality that enters into and makes beauty — truth, reason, order, right, perfection — enters into and makes duty. Duty and Beauty are one, not variant, and a broader generaliza- tion comprehends them both. Beauty, in Greek thought, was another word for perfection, material and mental. The Greek idea of beauty was pre- dominantly intellectual. The line of beauty was a line of strength. The Greeks felt that the beautiful and the true were one ; and this lies at the base of the best Greek philosophy. Socrates said that ‘ ‘ Whatever is beautiful is for the same reason good, when suited to the purpose for which it was intended and Plato goes deeper and seeks the beautiful beyond visible objeCts, finding it in the soul. He said, “He who would proceed aright in this matter should begin with beautiful forms ; soon he will perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the beauty of another ; and then, if beauty of form in general is his pursuit, how foolish would it be not to recognize that the beauty in every form is one and the same. And, when he perceives this, he will become a lover of all 4 50 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL beautiful forms ; and next be will consider that the beauty of the mind is more honorable than the beauty of all things outward. At length the vision will be revealed to him of wondrous beauty which is everlast- ing, not growing and decaying or waxing and waning . . . . but beauty absolute, simple, everlasting, without diminution and without increase. Thus one learns to use the beauties of earth as steps along which he mounts upwards, going from fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of true beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is — so that if a man have eyes to see true beauty, he becomes the friend of God, and immortal. ’ ’ Beauty, as Plato saw it, was divine, and it was this divine beauty that his soul thirsted for. Paul came to Athens four centuries too late for Plato. And is not this a broader theory of beauty than the one commented upon ? Does it not come nearer the con- ception of the beauty of goodness, of holiness, as it shines in the gracious face of Christ? It is not a question of art without religion, but a question of religion without art, or religion opposed to art. Art has its place and rights. Art claims nothing more than what fairly belongs to it. Art, in itself, is no more moral than literature, or science. There is false art, and there is false literature, and there is false science, and there is false religion. I would go further and say that art, or the science of the beautiful, repre- sents a function of mind. It represents, more especi- ally, the function of the imagination, the play and adtion of the aesthetic faculty, which has the power of reproducing in visible forms the images and forms implanted in the mind. It is the “form-sense.” Carlyle perceived this when he wrote: “Not our DELPHI AND MT. PARNASSOS 5i Logical Mensurative Faculty but our Imagination is king over us. I might say Priest and Prophet to lead us heavenward, or Magician and Wizard to lead us hellward.” Why ignore art’s heavenward pro- phetic office and drive it to be a minister of evil, when it was meant to be a minister of good ? Our duty is to keep our ideals of art high and pure. In the melodies of Haydn’s “ Creation ” springing from nature, the soul is borne upward on wings of pure emotion ; but music of another sort breathes strains appealing wholly to the senses, and to the lowest sense, and it may do this simply in sounds not words ; and much of modern music is of this sensuous character, as well, indeed, as modern art. Art is good or bad according to its spirit. Art is moral or immoral, not in itself, but in the disposition of the artist and his audience. Yet art is not true art, let it be music, pidture, sculpture, speech, poetry, book, that is intrinsically immoral ; which truth might be demonstrated if it were necessary. Duty is an adt of the will, but sensibility lies at the bottom of the will, and gives it its impulse. Love is the spring of duty. Duty is heroic, and the heroic both in morality and art, is beautiful. It is a question of perspective. A true analysis seeks not the contrast, but the identity, of Duty and Beauty ; so that a deep-thinking Greek could say “ Beauty is the splendor of truth.” I, for my part, hold that Duty comes first, first always ; and that Duty is a higher thing, or quality, than Beauty. To rescue a child from evil surroundings and train it up for the good of humanity and God’s pure service, were infinitely more beautiful, than the loveliest statue Greek artist ever made or dreamed of. In this acknowledgment of the eternal superiority of duty, it is still a Greek poet who said : “ No painter, no, by 52 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL the gods, nor sculptor, can place in form, such beauty as has truth.” As a practical lesson, he who desires to obtain true culture must work on Greek lines ; and if we catch the spirit in which the best Greek worked, we catch the spirit of true culture. The Greek sought symme- try of body and mind, real harmony of the nature, a result that was beautiful as a work of art, and not knowledge merely, which may only cover the un- wrought lump, but culture which penetrates all, mellows and refines through and through, reaching the soul and building it up in manliness (avBpem). The old Greek had enormous faults, and this was owing to his lack of Christian truth, but his system of education, of culture, was thoroughly philosophic. It was not only broad but it went deep. The perfec- tion he sought entered into everything he was and did, into the spirit of everything, so that all he touched was ennobled, from a coin or a bit of pottery to a statue or heroic act ; and this, indeed, is seen in Greek literature as well, but, above all, in Greek art, in which the Hellenic genius fully expressed itself, expressed itself in the exercise of a joyous freedom, since art springs from the emotions, from love, which is the real j oy and freedom of the mind ; and the best way, therefore, to study Greek literature is to be per- meated by the spirit there is in it, to study it in con- nection with Greek art, to study it as Greek art, not as separated from that aesthetic culture which consti- tutes and embodies its very life. Art, in the lowest sense of it, as a mere matter of taste, is not unimportant to the man of education ; for if bad taste be not a mortal sin, it nevertheless implies a moral quality that as yet remains barbarized, unannealed, unrefined, and untouched by the hand of thorough culture. DELPHI AND MT. PARNASSOS 53 At the house, or cabin, where I lodged at Delphi (the village of Kastri as it then was), on the edge of evening, an old militazre , an Epirote government- soldier, came to call on me, or presented himself in abrupt military fashion. He was a picturesque per- son with bronzed face, glowing eyes, enormous gray moustache, a quantity of pistols and daggers in his girdle, blue leggings fitting close and spreading over the feet, and leathern-laced sandals. He opened fire at once, and tried to dissuade me from going up Par- nassos, because a band of brigands but a day or two before had been defeated by government troops, and were scattered over the mountains on their way to the Turkish frontier. Concluding to go, four men were detailed as an escort, the old officer to act as their chief. At 4 o’clock the next morning, we started on horseback up the craggy path from Delphi, accom- panied by the soldiers clad in sheepskin coats with the wool outside, and carrying long old-fashioned carbines, looking like brigands, as perhaps they were on occasion. The path from Delphi that the ancient Greeks used to go to the Parnassian highlands, or the first great terrace of the mountain, was an almost sheer precipice of a thousand feet, and was conducted by zigzag steps cut in the rock ; but the path we went, though steep, was more circuitous. It was dark to begin with, and as we proceeded we met a furious tempest, a circumstance frequent among the hills, and the way was black as night illuminated only by flashes of lightning, but at length we reached some stone hovels called ‘ ‘ The Huts, ’ ’ where we dried our clothes and took breakfast, and as the storm passed away, there was one of the most magnificent day's I remember, a Greek day, when the air is so pure and clear that the most distant objects seem close at hand. 54 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL We had. come up to the higher land above Delphi almost in darkness, and now, resuming the journey from ‘ ‘ The Huts,” we set forth on the morning of this fine day to cross the plateau towards the summits of Parnassos. This is an irregular and broken region of hill and plain of considerable extent, and one might call it, in truth, the highlands of Greece, though it has some cultivation but is principally pasture-land, with here and there a village, such as the little town of Arakhova, which lay to the east of our path; Arakhova is a very old place, hanging like a bird’s nest over the gorge of the Pleistus, and which was once celebrated for the beauty of its women, whence called KaXyvvouKa, and this reputation it retains. We met some of these Arakhova people, men and women, and on this table land, this mountain territory, or circle of Delphi, constituting the rocky center and citadel of Greece, there is now to be found, if anywhere, a remnant of the old Hellenic stock. Races hold together in the mountains better than in the plains. They seem to be as hard to disintegrate as the moun- tains. The people themselves believe this, and boast of their pure blood. In the fine forms and graceful carriage of these Parnassian mountaineers, a handsome race, differing from the people of the towns, you can easily believe that you see the descendants of the ancient Greeks. Not so very far away, indeed, to the east of these mountains of Phocis, are those of Bceotia, and near the base of Mt. Kithoeron lie Leuktra and Platcea, and it was from Platcea that the band of a thousand hardy men rushed down to help the Athe- nians at Marathon. The very names of places in this Parnassian region, as I have remarked, are ten Hellenic to one Slavonic or foreign. The women of the villages, it is said, are DELPHI AND MT. PARNASSOS 55 seen to special advantage on festas, in their dances and processions, still half pagan in character, when they wear white garments ornamented with red and blue trimmings, their heads garlanded with flowers. They are great lovers of flowers, and exhibit much taste in costume and embroidery. These women may be the sisters and wives of patriots or of brigands ; for the men have traits of a free, bold race, good and bad, hospitable but fiery in temper, courteous and kind but capable of violent, even treacherous acts, in fadt with a substratum of strong manhood. They are not merchants and traders as in the towns, but soldiers, turning their hands to horse-pasturing, vine-dressing, shepherding and foraying. Continuing the journey more diredtly now to the westward, we came opposite the cave of Korykium, for a long time lost sight of and was a haunt of robbers, but was discovered comparatively recently ; and which was the old grot of Pan, spoken of by Pausanias. The militaire and myse'lf, by a little climbing, came to its mouth, with an entrance like a black-browed arch. Within as it were its vestibule, hang large white stalactites relieved against the dark interior. The walls are encrusted with shining stones, and the ceiling spangled with these, though now blackened by torches. There are altar-heaps of stones, and curious chambers whose entrances are nearly stopped up, but into which one can manage to crawl. Going further into the cave the old chief fired his carbine, whose report echoed through the distant reaches of the cavern, as if it were of considerable extent. This was formerly the scene of those Dionysiac rites, in which the frenzied revels of bacchantes and mcenads (whose clothed forms do not lose dignity in 56 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL Greek sculpture) took place, with the shrill cry of “ Io ! Io ! Dionysos !” — another phase of the Delphic worship of nature, when, as if the new wine of spring-time had overflowed the bounds of reason, its votaries, delirious with the joy of life, tore in pieces the best-loved objedt, animal or human — even the gentle Orpheus. The only evidence that now remains of these mad classic days is a half illegible inscription, on the rock at the right of the entrance, to the god Pan and the nymphs. From this cave, almost in the words of the Odyssey, ‘ ‘ so soon as early dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered * * * we fared up the steep hill of wood-clad Par- nassos, and quickly came to the windy hollows,” or to the higher valley of Levadi, the four soldiers run- ning alongside, with heads eredt and streaming black hair, in their shaggy capotes under the hot sun, as fast as the horses could go, for there seemed to be no tiring out of these men, superb specimens physically. Passing swiftly over a sparsely cultivated stretch of plain, the still distant top of Parnassos came in view, a long straight-ridged mountain with a hollow like a Turkish saddle, and then a slightly higher peak like the horn of the saddle, giving the bi-formed or twin-peaked aspedt ascribed to it by the poets. It is a mountain 8068 feet high, and snow lay on the highest point, Mt. Lyakoura, as it is now called. After some hours more of riding we dismounted near the base of the summit, for a little halt before going higher. I could not persuade or bribe Andreas and the soldiers to go with me any further ; so the chief and myself set out and accomplished the climb in about two hours from the halting-place. It was tough work; the small sharp limestone rocks cutting the feet and affording only a loose footing. DELPHI AND MT. PARNASSOS 57 To go back a step, at first we walked through some sylvan scenery with large pine trees, which trees were anciently consecrated to Pan ; and with green turf and running brooks and mossy rocks, a region for sheep and goats, and where at any turn in the fitful shadows goat-footed Pan, or a pointed-eared faun, might be seen playing on his pipe in the light and shade, a piece of rough Arcadia, which, however, soon changed its aspedt, growing savage with dead trees, broken in two and ghostly white as if cropped by an avalanche, until all vegetation ceased, and we came out on the bare, white, sweltering peak of the mountain, which was so hot that my companion’s red face grew to be the color of mahogany. He was constantly peering around the rocks to discover brigands, and this was a time when there were brigands in Greece, but there were none to trouble us, and all was as still as the blue sky into which we climbed higher and higher, until, at length, we stood on the top, and looked off suddenly the other side toward the north, in one tremendous precipice, sweeping down as by a single bound thousands of feet into the Eokrian valley. I never saw a much grander sight, though there are profounder precipices in Switzerland. The wide horizon under a cloudless sky showed mountain and valley sleeping in the clear sunshine. To the north lay the plains of Thessaly, and the summits of Olym- pos, Pindus and Pelion, with Thermopylae, or rather the interval in the mountains where it was ; and, somewhere over these heights, the Spartans had to march to go to Thermopylae. To the northeast was the island of Euboea, with the glittering line of the separating strait ; to the southeast were the plain and peninsula of Attica, and the Aegean sea beyond ; to the south rolled out the billowy mountains of the 58 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL Peloponnesos, even to Mt. Taygetos, and the Gulf of Corinth, a strip of deepest blue between ; to the south- west the Ionian sea, with some of the larger islands, Kephallenia and Ithaca, dimly seen ; diredtly below were the dark-wooded ridges of Helicon and Kithseron, and the mountains of Phocis and Bceotia. Greece, in fa6t, was stretched out at our feet, mountain, island and sea ; and it was marvelous to see how rough and wrinkled a land it was, a compadt Switzerland with few open plains, and with deep valleys separated from each other by their rocky walls and sea bays, a land of sharp separations and divis- ions, a land of small states but of individual develop- ment, progress and freedom. There stood once, ages before, on the summit here, an altar or shrine dedicated to Zeus ; but we could not linger long, as a hard journey back to Delphi lay before us. On our descent we found the rest of the party encamped in a pine grove, engaged in roasting a sheep whole, spitting it on a pole like a western barbacue. On a bed of branches at the foot of a pine tree, I closed my eyes on Parnassos and slept the sleep of the weary, until a cry was made that dinner was ready. With daggers used as knives my companions carved up the meat, and the best cut was presented to me on a plate of green boughs, and was washed down with an unpalatable draught of resinato. This Homeric feast was in sight of the white mountain seen through the trees, and soaring into the blue of the unclouded heavens. Walking away a little distance from the encamp- ment, I was suddenly attacked by two large wolf- dogs, and being unprepared for such an onslaught, did, as was done in a similar scene in the Odyssey, DELPHI AND MT. PAPNASSOS 59 plied the dogs with stones, until the shepherds, roused by the barking, rushed in and beat off the beasts with their long staves. The passage in the Odyssey is this : ‘ ‘And of a sudden the baying dogs saw Odysseus and they ran at him barking, but Odysseus in his wariness sat him down, and let the staff fall from his hand. There by his own homestead would he have suffered foul hurt, but the swineherd with quick feet hasted after them, and sped through the outer door and let the skin fall from his hand. And the hounds he chid and drave them this way and that, with a shower of stones.” This is the best way to meet these fierce shepherd dogs — with a shower of stones if they happen to be handy. The road was so steep in places on our return to Delphi, that in the growing darkness we had to dismount and pick our way down. CHAPTER V. MARATHON. The next day after climbing Parnassos, I re-em- barked on the little Greek vessel, and sailed up the Gulf of Corinth before a brisk westerly gale, and this was the time when the young Greek sailor sang his Klephtic songs. I will speak of the scenery of the Gulf of Corinth at another time, but I believe that the old Greeks loved nature rather as pure nature, than as what we call scenery, or landscape, and they more truly recognized and entered into the universal spirit of nature, esteeming it as a divine and life-originating power, which they felt, rather than a nature to be Studied in its detail with critical eye like a pidture ; and yet the scenery of Greece must have sensibly affedted the Greek aesthetic sense and given it delight, for it is truly a noble scenery, and this is the right word to use. Greece is not a lovely land like Italy, but a noble land. The mountains, though not of Alpine height, have a certain sculpturesque beauty of outline, and while often entirely stony and bare of verdure, take exquisite colors of pink, saffron and pur- ple, as the day with its changing lights goes on. The atmosphere is of such crystalline purity that it has the efifedt, as has been said, of bringing distant objedts near. This clearness of the Greek atmosphere has ever been noticed, so that “ the amethystine hills ” of Greece is no mere poetic phrase ; but I may be allowed to slide into a poetic vein as I recall one particular sun- set, seen when approaching Athens somewhere in the MARATHON 61 neighborhood of Eleusis, though I cannot hope at all to describe its colors, which were of the richest and rarest kinds. Deep purple, yellow or saffron, sea- green or beryl, were blended together, with great crimson bars streaming upwards in broad rays, as if Apollo’s chariot had descended flashing from the sky, and leaving its brilliant track behind the black hills of sacred Eleusis. These broad streams of red light were curiously distindt from one another, and yet they were not dazzlingly gorgeous colors as in our Ameri- can sunsets, but were mistily and softly shaded with deeper tints of the same ; and after the richer colors had died out, the outlines of the hills were luminously rimmed as by a halo of chromatic light that lingered long over them. Sometimes the photographs of Greek scenery show this distinctness in the outline of the hills, proving the marvelous clearness of the air. Emanuel Deutsch, the scholarly Jew, who died too young for the sake of literature and art, and whose mind was imbued with the atmosphere of the Orient, when speaking of some Arabian poetry, says : ‘ ‘ There arises out of this region of the Hamasa a freshness, glory, and bloom of desert song, such as out of Homer’s epics rise the glowing spring-time of human- ity, and the deep blue heavens of Hellas.” — this phrase, “ the deep blue heavens of Hellas ” describes the sky and transparent atmosphere of Greece as well as words can do this. Marathon is a place and thought, which, if not diredtly the source, became one of the chief springs, of Greek heroic art ; and the special divinity that was invoked by the Athenians when they started for the field of Marathon, was Athene Promachos (Van of Battle), shield and protedtor of the Athenian state. At the period of the Persian wars, Attic art was highly 62 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL archaic in form, and the bronze statuette of Athene Promachos, in full armor, with aegis, spear and helm, that stands in the national museum at Athens, is an illustration of the fighting divinity to whom the Athenians looked for help on that morning of the battle, strong, yet without beauty. Pheidias, more than half a century later, transformed this rude con- ception of the war-goddess, into the majestic form which stood on the Acropolis, the glitter of whose golden spear-head could be seen by the Greek mariner coming in from the Aegean ; and this might stand as a kind of symbol, or heroic type, in art, of Marathon itself. I have been twice to the field of Marathon, the first time before there was a road to it, only a bridle-path, and the second time by a good carriage-road, such as there now is. On the first visit I met none but shepherds and their big dogs, in a ride to and fro, with halts, of some twelve hours. At the present time, one leaves Athens in a car- riage with four horses (if he choose to do it rapidly) by the Kephissia road, keeping Mt. Hymettos to the right, and then passing over the spur of Mt. Pentelikon, covered with pine trees and olive groves, and delight- fully green with vineyards and cornfields. The pine trees were pitifully ‘ ‘blazed ’ ’ in order to procure resin for the Greek wine. The road grows soon somewhat wilder and lonelier, and at a place called Pikermi, where the way crosses a torrent-bed, is the scene of the capture by brigands in 1870, of the four luckless Europeans, Herbert, Viner, Iyloyd, and Count de Boyle ; and a rare place it is, you would say, for an ambush. It was a fearful tragedy, but one cannot help thinking that if better tactics had been employed by the military, at the time of the seizure of the MARA THON 63 brigands, the lives of those unfortunate people might have been saved. Brigandage in Greece, as in Spain, Italy and other countries, comes from the weakness' of the government, which is unable to give proper pro- tection to all in its borders, and this, combined with the sparseness of population in certain regions, makes it easy for banditti to escape. As the proverb is, “wild lands make wild men.” War too, in such countries takes on the form of brigandage, and can hardly be distinguished from it, lawless adts and lawless men having in some sort the sympathy of the people themselves, and are sometimes aided and shielded by them. The descent into the plain of Marathon from the village of Vrana, follows very much the course that the Athenians took on their way to the battle-field. It opens a superb view of the sea beyond, the opposite shores of Kubcea and the lonely plain itself — a ‘ ‘ fan- ' shaped ’ ’ amphitheatre six miles in length and three in breadth, encircled on three sides by gray mountains that run out into the sea at their northern extremity, making a curved arm that forms the bay of Marathon. At present the plain, though treeless, has a more cultivated aspedt than when I first saw it, with its wheat fields and vineyards, and here and there a farm-house. On the earlier visit there was no objedt on the plain but the little tumulus in the middle of it, near the sea, which was raised over the graves of the one hundred and ninety-two Athenians slain on the 12th of August 490 B. C. Dr. Schliemann dug into this mound, making an ugly gash which rain has made worse, endangering the hill itself, and he discovered nothing important ; and in the earlier diggings only a few bones and some arrows and lance heads and broken pottery had been found. These are 6 4 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL now in the National Museum. From tire top of the tumulus, overgrown with weeds and shrubs, one can get a good idea of the lay of the land, the encircling line of mountains, the pass of Rhamnus through which the Athenians rushed down, and the morasses that stretched between the sea and plain, leaving a small strip of dry land, the larger morass being to the north and the smaller to the south, which swamps, in fadt, were the decisive factors of the battle. The Persian galleys sailing into the bay of Mara- thon were drawn up to the western beach, and the men were disembarked and encamped on this narrow strip of shore lying between the sea and the morass, but on which there was not room enough for the deploying of cavalry, the chief arm of the Persians. Then came the marsh and beyond this the plain. The small Athenian force descended from the moun- tain and across the plain at the moment the enemy were employed in the process of disembarking and forming, and in order to meet the assault of the Athenians, the Persians were forced to cross the inter- vening marsh leaving it in their rear, so that when they were hastily rearranging themselves and being drawn up on the plain, the Athenians were upon them, and they were borne back by the resistless attack of the Greek hoplites, until they became hopelessly entangled in the swampy ground at the edge of which the Greeks fought at an advantage, and pushed their enemy on deeper to defeat and ruin. It was the battle of the marshes. The strategy of the Greeks took prompt advantage of the moment when the enemy was em- barrassed by their treacherous footing, and before they could form their cavalry on firm ground. The picture of the battle of Marathon by Polygnotus, in the Pcekile of the Acropolis, described by Pausa- MARATHON 65 nias, supplements the brief account that Herodotus wrote of the battle, and explains the important part which the marshes played in the whole affair. Pausa- nias, centuries afterwards, in describing this picture, says, “Here is seen how the barbarians pushed one another into the swamp, and here the greatest slaughter took place.” Art, in the picture of Polyg- notos, became the oldest historic record of the battle of Marathon. In fadt there were two battles, the decisive one at the swamp, and the other later on at the ships, on the embarkation of the Persians, in which the Greeks were repulsed, though they managed to cap- ture seven out of the six hundred vessels ; and thus by superior skill and bravery, ten thousand defeated ten times their number, and gained the day over what was then held to be the strongest fighting power in the world. looking from the summit of the mound towards the west, over the whole plain, one can easily conceive how, towards evening, when vic- tory began to declare for the Greeks, the fierce rays of the setting sun on that August day, dazzled the eyes of the Persians. In the conformation of the plain, it seems physically and poetically adapted to the event. Nothing could be more so. Nothing could be more striking. Nothing could add to its natural beauty and solemnity. It was an amphitheatre formed by nature where civilization encountered barbarism, or a lower order of Oriental civilization. It was intelli- gent force and heroic bravery, quality not quantity, the inspiration of freedom, that won ; and to prove how small was the land which was rescued, and where these heroic scenes occurred, I heard at Mara- thon the sound of cannon fired at the Piraeus, the port of Athens. In the month of May when I was there, fields of 5 66 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL golden wheat seamed with red anemones and tall blue flowers, such as grow in our New England wheat- fields, closed up all around the soros, presenting a peaceful agricultural scene where such stern conflict had raged. To show how the heroic and the common some- times come together., there was a party of tourists who had driven to the field in a four-horse chariot ; and their very important little courier bustled about to spread the feast with bottles and dishes in royal picnic fashion. There was absolutely no manifesta- tion of the artistic, the contemplative, or even the curious, in this company, but only of the gustatory. Refreshed at length, they started off with much crack- ing of whip, and doubtless made better time back to Athens, than did the soldiers of Miltiades, when they rushed home after the fight to save the city from the revengeful swoop of the Persians. CHAPTER VI. TEMPLES AND EXPLORATIONS IN ATTICA. Another excursion outside of Athens in Attica, was to Sunion, to see the temple that lingers there with some semblance still of perfect form. In going by- rail to Sunion (Cape Colonna — Kolonnais) the road to Marathon as far as Chalandri, is run over. At Peipsi, the site of the ancient deme of Pceania, the train passes through the birthplace of Demosthenes, and one sees where were those paternal acres about whose possession in the courts, he brought himself, when a young man, into notice, and to which allusion has been made. At Daurion are the antique silver-mines, in which may still be found some 2,000 ancient shafts, and these mines are to-day worked, or worked over, with considerable profit. At Raurion one takes carriage for a three hours drive or less to Sunion. The wind blew, as it can in Greece, lashing the waves which ran up in three or four lines of breakers on the coast, like wild horses with white manes, but as I walked up the little hill of two hundred feet on which the temple stands, the wind went down, although the sea still tossed and raged, making a grand sight of the iEgean and its islands fringed with foam. Sunion is a very lonesome spot, entirely uninhabited with the exception of one small house where the temple-keeper lives, and is at the extreme point of the peninsula of Attica, and the temple stands like a 68 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL solitary watch-tower looking out on the broad sea. You associate it entirely with the Hellenic past. The edifice was dedicated to Poseidon and Athene, and an ancient fortified wall once rimmed the edge of the hill that forms the platform on which it stands, a Doric peripteral hexastyle reared on a stereobate of three steps. Eleven columns, sixteen-fluted, carved of gray-whitish marble, are standing, or tottering, the drums of most of them being started out of place, which gives them a frail look, and the edges of the flutings are much worn, but in spite of wind and weather, these thin shafts have stood more than twenty-three centuries, a beacon to the home-coming Greek, golden in the sunshine and white in the moon- light, and sung by poets who loved Greece, in the ancient and modern days. They have suffered greatly from earthquakes, with which Greece is almost annu- ally visited, and which, as scientists say, run sympa- thetically out from centers of seismic disturbance in Crete, Cyprus and Asia Minor. Another excursion from Athens, nearer the city, was to the bustling port of the Piraeus. The carriage road to the Piraeus is more satisfying for its views, and makes a pleasant drive, but the short railway, opened in 1869, is the oldest, I believe, in Greece. It goes around the base of the low mountain, or hill, of iEga- leos, where a portion of the Eong Walls once joined the walls extending inward from the port. A station on this road is Phaleron, summer resort of modem Athenians, and where one has in full view the islands of iEgina and Salamis. Even down to the close of the War of Independence, the name of Piraeus had been lost ; but now a city of upwards of 30,000 inhab- itants, the largest in Greece next to Athens, with extensive docks and regular streets and squares, has TEMPLES AND EXPLORATIONS IN ATTICA 69 sprung up, a center of commercial activity that would have delighted the eyes of the practical Themistokles. But the Piraeus was a well-built, fortified city in the time of Perikles, and this brought down upon it the destructive hostility of Sparta. Kantharos, the naval harbor, snug and safe, where the war-ships of Greece and other nations lie, is the same as that in which the great Athenian triremes which sailed to Samos and Syracuse, some to vidtory and some to defeat, were moored. Here, now, come in the bigger ocean steam- ers from the Adriatic and the Mediterranean. The smaller harbors of Zea and Munychia near by, show tokens of antique sea-walls and fortifications. Mod- ern villas scattered along the shore towards Phaleron, front the sea, where the sunsets are splendid among such waters and islands, though a trifle melancholy. I saw here a tall old. Mohammedan saying his prayers, at the back of his domed pavilion, or kiosk, by the sea-shore, turning himself as he bowed rever- ently toward Mecca, doubtless a religious man in his way, who had chosen to remain behind in the land his fathers once ground under heel, and reminding one of Greece’s recent struggles. The Turk, let me say, has his good qualities, and before he becomes an official, or has power entrusted to him, is commonly an honest and respectable man, but he is not fit to govern others, above all, Christians, as the history of modern Greece has lamentably shown. The Ottoman government is the blind instrument of Islamism, the everlasting foe of Christianity, while the Moslem High Priest, with his junta of priests, at Constantinople, rules all — Sultan, state and army — decreeing the massacre of the Armenian nation, plotting the reconquest of Europe and Asia, and thoroughly believing, as in the days of Omar, in the inherent force of the Koran to GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL 70 subdue the world. England and America, where are ye, in your dream of material wealth and power ? Better little Greece that was ready to perish rather than to yield its free intelligence and civilization to the tide of Oriental barbarism ! From the Piraeus one may go readily to the island of Angina, which forms a dark hilly mass, stretching south into the Saronic Gulf towards the Aegean, and lying, as it does, almost opposite the extreme point of Attica. Angina, home of the AE^acides, and rival of Athens for centuries in maritime enterprise and the bravery of its people, played a considerable part in Greek history, and at the battle of Salamis, one of her thirty war-ships took the first prize for valor ; until Athens, jealous of her commercial and naval fame, razed her chief city and expelled her inhabitants from the island, which then became united to Athens. But it was a land of heroes, above all, of athletes, whose victories exceeded in number those of any other province, and some of them sung by Pindar. On the entablature of the temple, now known to be a temple of Athene (a Doric peripteral hexastyle), were carved the figures which, perhaps, best exemplify Homer. It takes a day and half from Athens to see Aigina satisfactorily. There is almost daily a steamer from the Piraeus to the island, and from the landing-place on the island, in about two hours and a half, one can go on horseback by a rough road to the ruins of the temple, which stands on an isolated hill overlooking the sea. Not much of art now remains on this Greek soil ex- cepting the temple itself, of which twenty columns are standing. The sculptures that adorned the pedi- ments (now in Munich) are of Parian marble, most won- derful in a technical point of view, and once colored, BAS-RELIEF OF MANTINEA TEMPLES AND EXPLORATIONS IN ATTICA 71 representing contests of the Eginetans and Trojans. It is the Iliad in a nutshell. The figures are not quite life-size, and were carved shortly before the bat- tle of Marathon, so that they give us the conception of the hero in Greek art ; and, as having been naturally taken from life, they doubtless caught in- spiration from the period of those who fought at Marathon. They are, as well-known, slightly archaic, preceding as they do the Pheidian sculptures of the Parthenon, and also those of the Theseion. In the faces the nose is sharp-pointed, and there is the inane smile, the masque of life, which, however, was a first effort to represent feeling in marble ; but the forms are symmetric, and though of light poise they have an expression of force — terrible fighters are they of the athletic type ! It is power without beauty, yet with a beautiful moderation, and with a freshness of motive, so that, in spite of their monotony they form lively and vigorous groups ; and with such begin- nings as these, there is no knowing to what excellence iEginetan art might have reached, had it not been crushed at the outset by the envious hand of Athens. In these figures is seen the somewhat rigid bronze type of sculpture, in which Angina excelled. One might combine an excursion to the smaller island of Salamis, with that to iEgina, and this would bring us nearer to Eleusis. The road diredtly to Eleusis is almost identical with the ancient “Sacred Way,” and is a little more than twelve miles long. It begins at the ‘ ‘ Street of Tombs,” which was continued with its lines of fune- real steles and monuments, nearly all the way to Eleusis ; and at this spot was the commencement of the way on which went the procession of ‘ ‘ mystae ’ ’ (candidates for initiation) to the temple, where were set forth the mysteries. 72 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL A little further on from the Dipylon Gate, one passes over the Cephissus (when I saw it a ditch of a few yards wide), and at the bridge was the first halting place of the procession. At this place a singular phase of the ceremonial, and of Greek religion, was exhibited. The god Dionysos, who had a shrine at Athens, had been adopted into the circle of the Eleu- sinian Under-World gods, as god of the vine, and in the spring-time, the time of the new wine, Dionysos was thought to have journeyed from his Athenian home to visit his fellow divinities at Eleusis ; and here at this little bridge of Cephissus, the last link, as it were, to Athens and life, came the first halt of the Eleusinian procession ; and at this spot the Dionysiac spirit of wild license was let loose, aggravated by keen Athenian wit, so that the sober procession was turned into a dancing, shouting, thyrsos-swinging, ribald mob, but this delirium lasted only a short time, sym- bolizing mad life, the tumultuous freedom of earthly life before entering on the silent and solemn mysteries of the future. We do not know exadtly what it did mean, but in its wildest license it had a symbolic sig- nificance. Following the “Sacred Way” beyond the hill of St. Elias, at the left of the road, stands the old con- vent of Daphni, belonging to the 13th century, A. D., and now much fallen into decay ; and here originally stood a temple of Apollo. This Byzantine convent, built on the ruins of the classic temple, is worth a visit to see the mosaics, especially those of 1 ‘ Christus Pantokrator ’ ’ in the dome, and of the ‘ ‘ Anastasis, ’ ’ which last has been skillfully taken down and restored under the direction of the Archaeological Society of Athens. The curious and skillful work of mosaic renewal, and of other architedlural renovation, was TEMPLES AND EXPLOP A TIONS IN ATTICA 73 going on when I was there ; and he who omits Greece in his study of Byzantine and Oriental art, that was the outgrowth of the Byzantine period, makes a mis- take, for Greece is full of these ecclesiastical buildings, betokening the spread of that great Greek empire which once ruled over the eastern world. Passing Daphni, we go on to what was the site of a temple of Aphrodite, on the right, which was another halting place of the procession ; and here you catch the first glimpse of the beautiful curve of the bay of Eleusis, shut in like a still lake by low hills, and at this spot there are some remains of the ancient “Sacred Way” ; and here, too, Eleusis, on the side of a narrow ridge, comes in sight, with the square Frankish tower, and the small stone museum, above on the hill ; and you reach Eleusis by skirting around the bay. Eleusis, when I saw it the first time, consisted of scattered ruins that had been only partially excavated, and that seemed to occupy the yards of some miserable hovels, and consisted of fragments of pillars, large redtangular marble blocks half covered with dirt and rubbish, and two or three colossal broken statues. This was all that told of the spot whose mysteries, as Plutarch said, “had in them something of a soul divine.” But this has been changed. The first to do anything in the way of excavations at Eleusis, was the ‘ ‘ Eondon Dilettante Society, ’ ’ early in the cen- tury, and its discoveries, not extensive, are set forth in Eenormant’s work “ Grande GreceP Then came the more effective work of the Archaeological Society of Greece, that cleared up the site of the temple, and is still digging there. The discoveries do not quite come up to expectation, but are important. While I was there in 1895, the workmen were making a deep 74 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL cut excavation, and were finding every day and liour something valuable, carrying up from the pits basket loads of dirt and debris. It was a busy scene, this laying bare of the face of antiquity as if opening a tomb. The remains of the Propylsea built by Hadrian, or a small temple in antis , are preceded by marble steps now exposed, and then come two parallel walls about thirty feet apart, with a transverse entrance-way, and bits of ornamental architrave belonging to this strew the ground ; for though much has been cleaned up, there are but a few ruins standing above ground. By another low flight of marble steps one reaches the broad platform laid bare with its broken bases of columns, where was once the Hall of Initiation. To speak a little in detail of what stood here, and of what now remains of this shrine, kept sacred by the Greeks for eight hundred years, and whose secrets were not revealed by any of the myriads who took share in them, Eleusis is situated on a rocky promon- tory dividing the Thriasian from the Karian meadows, and at the south and east of it stretches the bay of Eleusis, with the island of Salamis and the low mount Acamas. In or on the face of this hill, that was the Acropolis of old Eleusis, are evidences of the buildings of many ages and periods. There are Cyclo- pean walls which show that this was a sacred spot in prehistoric time, perhaps a cavern opening, as was thought, into the under-world, in front of which Demeter sat weeping by the spring, after the long search for her daughter ; as in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter : “A terrible grief took possession of Demeter, and she forsook the assembly of the gods and abode among men for a long time veiling her beauty under a worn TEMPLES AND EXPLORATIONS IN ATTICA 75 countenance, so that none who looked upon her knew her, until she came to the house of Celeus, who was then King of Eleusis ; and in her sorrow she sat down at the wayside by the virgin’s well, where the people of Eleusis come to draw water, under the shadow of an olive-tree ; but the gods are hard for men to recognize.” A shrine was afterwards built by Peisistratos, an edifice whose foundations and fifty-six square bases of columns have been uncovered, which shrine, or temple, was destroyed by the Persians. Then suc- ceeded the Hall of Kimon, of the same frontage but twice as deep as the Hall of Peisistratos, and lastly, was reared the enlarged and more stately Doric structure made by Perikles, or by the architect Iktinos who built the Parthenon. Iktinos constructed this edifice by cutting further into the rock, so that he could get a portico to the north corresponding to the southern portico of the temple, which, when completed, must have resembled the Parthenon, and yet differed from it, for the Greek artist worked by instinCt, and adapted his building to its site, his statue to its place, and this gave the aesthetic character to the Greek temple which was in entire harmony with its purpose and scenery, so different from modern buildings in or out of cities. The hall built by Iktinos had two entrances in front, and twenty-five columns supporting the roof, and it is thought that though divided below into two parts, it had an undivided upper chamber, which was the Great Hall of Initiation (Teleterion), where the mysteries were celebrated. Heaps of broken pillar- bases are found on the platform, and confused remains of many periods of architecture, and finally of the Roman epoch ; for the emperor Hadrian, reviver of 76 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL classicism, eredted here a Doric entrance- way called the Greater Propylaea, and there was also an inner smaller Propylaea. Roman remains and sculptures, highly carved, but not of the best Style, are those chiefly now seen ; and around this precindt ran a wall. There are also remains of smaller buildings, such as the house of the Ephoros and Panagia chapel, where was the Virgin’s well. There was also a sanctuary of Pluto, and a small temple or cella of Plutus, fitly god of the under-world, in which gold is found ; and there was, originally, somewhere, a temple of Demeter, which is now difficult or impossi- ble to locate ; and ruins of a temple of Artemis lie beyond the Greater Propylaea. The mystic temple or Hall of Initiation (o Mwtokos Se/cos), stood upon the terrace that was smoothed or cut partially from the living rock, where you now see the hollow into which the temple was partially set, and at the back of which, stone steps went down as into Hades. The sites of Greek temples are chosen with exquisite taste, and one is impressed with the view from the cleared plat- form that overlooks the slope to the seashore and the blue waters of the bay of Eleusis, the bare mountain- ous isle of Salamis in front, the opposite rock-prom- ontory of Keratopyrgos on the mainland, which, tra- dition says, is the place where Xerxes sat on his golden throne, the glorious straits themselves to the left, the passage of which seems closed to the eye and where the battle of Salamis was fought, in which three hundred Greek contended against a thousand Persian war- galleys, as described by Escliylos who was there, and whose birthplace was at Eleusis. One sees also the curve of the coast-line trending towards Megara “ And the noise was heard that day From Salamis to Megara ’ ’ TEMPLES AND EXPLORATIONS IN ATTICA 77 a scene now silent, and. painted, as it were, on the airy page of the mind, so that the very nature seems to belong to the heroic past, for Salamis was the counterpart on the sea, of Marathon on the land. Demeter, the goddess ‘ ‘ with yellow hair like the ripe corn, ’ ’ has been called the Madonna of Greek art, the lady of sorrows. There is a statue of Demeter in the British museum of very strong character, with “worn face” as in the Hymn. Demeter, great di- vinity of Eleusis, was the mother-principle of nature, of the revival or continuity of life, extending to the realm of the spiritual and symbolizing the resurrec- tion — assuredly the most interesting of Greek myths, playing a powerful part in art, and showing that Greek art was not altogether taken up with Aphro- dites and Eroses, but had a profoundly religious element. What were the Eleusinian mysteries ? We do not know, but we know they were of deep import to the Greek mind. The five Eleusinian, or under-world divinities, Demeter and her lost and found daugh- ter Persephone (raw 9eaZv), Aidoneus-Pluto, Iacchos, Dionysus and Rhea-Kybele, were added to by the semi-mortal Triptolemos. Demeter and Persephone, mother and daughter, says a writer to whom I owe suggestions here, were “regarded as one,” and both together represented this life of sorrow but peace, of love with sadness, of death with life, since the Eleu- sinian mysteries entered into human life and its sub- lime problems. Classic authors, among them Cicero, concur in declaring that the unrevealed mysteries of Eleusis pointed to a higher truth, and taught a lesson of vir- tue as well as of nature and of the changing seasons, leaving a mystic but sweet hope in regard to the soul, 7 § GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL announcing that life and death were essentially the same, and that death was but the entrance to life. They probably perpetuated, refined and enlarged the Egyptian mysteries as set forth in the ‘ ‘ Book of the Dead, ’ ’ and looked to the truth of monotheism ; for after that the ‘ ‘ mystae, ’ ’ or candidates for initiation, had been purified by ablutions, fastings and sacrifices, and had come to the ‘ ‘ Home that welcomed the mystae, ’ ’ and there had gone through the solemn cere- monies of initiation, they were ever after, Cicero says, more virtuous and happy men, and had a moral change wrought in them. There is a small stone museum containing sculptures, some of good art and some crude, but mostly illustra- tions of Eleusinian rites and of the forms of Demeter, Triptolemos and other divinities of the lower world. The large relief sculpture of the three divinities found in the temple of Triptolemos near by, is now one of the treasures of the National Museum at Athens. CHAPTER VII. ATHENS MODERN AND ANCIENT. The Odyssey remains still our guide to Athens, for it is Athene that leaves the distant shore to fly, swift as light, to the dear home and city of Pallas- Athene, ‘ ‘ wide-streeted Athens. ’ ’ Athens is so brilliant a spot on the world’s map, and the map of mind, that one may hesitate to speak of it ; and can anything new be said of ‘ ‘ the violet- crowned ” city, whose history is the history, in some sort, of all modern art, learning and civilization ? I can talk of it only from a limited personal point of view, as a basis for discussing briefly some features of Greek art. At my first going there, barring antiquities, Athens was a mediocre and half-oriental town, of some 25,000 inhabitants, and (contrary to Homer) with dirty and narrow streets, a few open places, the great white cube of a palace, then new, and a few other public buildings ; but at the last visit, Athens had grown into a brilliant city, of considerably more than 100,000 inhabitants, containing fine squares, broad well-paved streets, handsome hotels and private houses built of a light colored stone in the German style, like Munich, with electric lights and tram-ways, and having the glitter and show of a court-life, with military officers well-mounted and in natty uniforms, military music, new highly decorated Byzantine churches, solidly built museums and scientific insti- tutions, and carrying the air of a gay modern capital 8o GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL When the sun shines at midday your eyes are blinded by the reflection from the white pavements and houses, and filled with an impalpable dust, though none excepting American and English people go about at that hour; but towards evening, when the light is less dazzling, as one drives through the long business street of Hermes, and the still longer one of ^olus, cutting it at right angles, and crosses the wide squares of the “Place de la Constitution” and the new “Place de la Concorde,” and traverses the fashionable Stadion and University Avenues, lined with the residences of Government officials, foreign ambassadors and wealthy Greeks — the finest being the white marble palace of Madame Schliemann — you are struck with the order and handsomeness of the city, although the Ilissus and Cephissus are ditches, and “gray-eyed Athene” has withdrawn her segis and her mighty form has faded into air. Modern Athens has mostly left the site of the old city, that ran up on the west and south to the foot of the Acropolis, and has extended itself on the plain towards the east and north, street beyond street, sec- tion beyond section, the whole rimmed in by the mountains of Parnes and Pentelikon in the further distance. Hymettos is nearer at hand to the south- east, while the curious horn of Eykabettos, on which no classic association seems to rest, and the crag of the Acropolis, from which the city has nearly with- drawn itself, and left it isolated, now, as in ancient times, form the salient features of the scene. One of the streets near the Acropolis has the name of Byron (oSos fiopwvos) ; and there are also other memo- ries of the poet in and about the city, such as the monument of Eysikrates, which (a tradition only) he is said to have occupied for a short time as a studio, ATHENS MODERN AND ANCIENT 81 and his portrait hangs in one of the rooms of the palace. Byron, great poet as he was, most eccentric of his eccentric countrymen, brought but the dregs of a life to Greece, in which he was not permitted even to find “a soldier’s grave”; yet the motive that brought him should not be lightly spoken of as a stage act, for it was the purpose of a high manhood. He freely sacrificed his property and life for Greece. From the time he landed on her shores, he worked hard to bring about union among the factions in the Greek army, and he was but thirty-six when he died, his end hastened by ignorant medical treatment ; and there was time enough left for him to have risen from the slough of earthly living to show the features of his muse, like a winged Greek Victory, recording heroic deeds on a shield. A faint heroic light only from Hellas is shed around his name, or reflected from this last noble flare-up of the lamp of his genius, soon to go out in darkness. While not har- monious or strongly original, and essentially unclassic, his Greek poetry has a fire and soul in it, and will live with that of Sophocles and Alcaeus, in Greece itself. One very interesting place in Athens, recalling the heroic past, and brought into notice by active work going on there in connection with the recent Olympic games, is the Stadion, the scene of the ancient Panathe- naic games. Following the main street leading to the east, to the outskirts of the city, past the Zap- peion and the public garden (TrapaSeuros) and crossing the Stadion Bridge with a feeble stream of water under it, one comes to a natural hollow, or bay, in the hill side, where was the Stadion, that was orig- inally surrounded by a wall, fragments of which remain, and its sloping sides were filled in with 6 82 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL marble seats accommodating fifty thousand spectators. The length of the running course was six hundred and seventy feet and its breadth one hundred. This, when the restoration is complete, will be rebuilt at an expenditure of a million drachmas, and it will accommodate one hundred thousand spectators. “The remodeling of the Stadion is done by the architect Krnst Tsiller, on the basis of the excavations made in 1873. At the point where are preserved traces of the ancient wall will be erected a w T all made in the Pelasgic manner. At the two highest points of this wall are to be built two four-columned stoas of belve- dere form, surrounded by figures of wrestlers. The arena will be divided for the race- course by a long lattice of marble. Here will come a broad passage- way and then the benches. At their highest point, as in ancient times, will be a passage-way, and stair- ways will run across throughout the whole length. The square in front of the Stadion (a modern feature) is intended to include the leveling of the ground and abolishment of existing houses, a long stoa with double Ionic prostyle, two fountains with reservoirs, statues and a prostyle for carrying standards and trophies.”* To see and talk with, as I did, a tall young Eng- lishman, a student of the English school, who was vigorously training to take part in the contention, would have awakened any one’s classic enthusiasm, although you might be disposed to ask if training under the fierce sun of Greece, would be as success- ful for an Anglo-Saxon born in foggy Britain, or in our own changeable climate, as it would be for that child of the sun, the Greek ephebos. The result of this contest was highly honorable to * American Journal of Archaeology. ATHENS MODERN AND ANCIENT 83 American athletes, who, I believe, beat the record of ancient diskoboloi ; but I rejoiced that the race to and from Marathon was won by a Greek. Perhaps an inspiration from the messenger of Marathon, winged his feet. I would say that April, when these sports were held, is the month of all others in which it is most agreeable to visit Greece.* Of the four hills in the city, viz : the Acropolis, the Areopagos, the Pnyx and the Museion, the Are- opagos is the only one on which the light of Chris- tian tradition fell, and even this is uncertain ; for it is held by some scholars that the hill of the Agora, occupying the space between the Theseion and the market-gate, which was the heart of Athenian popu- lar life, was the place where the apostle made his speech recorded in the 17th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. The “market-place” has been laid bare by the Greek Archaeological Society. It lies immedi- ately at the side of the “Tower of the Winds;” and this whole precindt was originally consecrated to Ares— a “ Mars’ Hill.” I ought to add that there is a difference of opinion in regard to the “Theseion ;” the latest view being, in connection with researches as to the situation of the Stoa Basileios, that it is identical with the temple of Hephaistos. * In more extended travel for archeeologic research, Col. Leake says : “If the traveler were to confine himself to the season which is both safe and agreeable, his objects would never be attained ; there is no alternative therefore but to travel during a part of the winter, which can hardly be said to conclude, even in the plains of Greece, before the vernal equinox. The portion of the year which I have found, after some experience, to be the best, is from the middle of Febru- ary to the middle of June, and from the middle of October to December.” 8 4 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL The hill of the Areopagos is a rugged natural rock with sloping sides, flat on top, and only precipitous to the northeast, with fifteen steps cut in the rock, and probably in ancient times faced with marble. This rock, as is well known, was a spot of awful sandtity ; but it has also long been associated, rightly or wrongly, with the name of the apostle whose heart touched all humanity, Athenian humanity as well ; else why did he come to Athens? Why did he live and speak here ? He was no bigot or iconoclast. He knew the power of Athens. He recognized it as a world-centre of intellectual influence. He felt the genius of the place and of its works of art. He mildly rebuked the abuse of Hellenic religious sentiment, but magnani- mously and gladly recognized its reality. He pro- claimed to Athenians the unknown God, to whom they had already erected an altar. He acknowledged the light of culture which the Greek mind had shed, and quoted its literature with approval. His metaphor of the eternal temple not made with hands, shows us that the shadow of the Parthenon had fallen on his imagination, and his strenuous illustration of the foot-race, indicates that he might himself have gone along with the crowd out of the city to the stadion, to witness the athletic games ; and, indeed, the relations of art to early Christianity, and to all Christianity, is a great subjedt by itself. The holy martyrs died for the faith. The first believers de- nied and scorned the idolatry seen in the statues. They are to be forever honored and praised by us, who feel ourselves unworthy of this high consecra- tion. But art, as well as literature, is to be purged and reformed by a purer spirit. The forms which spring from nature, and which have their birth in the mind that contains the ideas in their conceptual A THE NS MODERN AND ANCIENT 85 mould, are intended to ennoble us. The colors painted everywhere by the delicate brush of nature, are meant to warm us to purer passions, and to be used for simple and sacred purposes ; meanwhile a change is rapidly going on in the modern world, by which Art is coming to take its right place in human life, and the long unnatural divorce between religion and art, is beginning to be viewed in its true light. The ‘ Theseion ’ is the one completely preserved Greek temple. It stands in its almost perfect integrity for the admiration or criticism of modem eyes. Tech- nically, it is a Doric peripteral hexastyle, faultlessly proportioned, the columns having a less entasis than those of the Parthenon, and leaning slightly inward ; and though of noble form, balanced and sturdy, it has less grace than the Parthenon, and appeals less power- fully to the sense of beauty, the better preserved though it be. The relief-sculptures on the east front represent the labors of Herakles, and are thought by critics to have antedated those of Pheidias, and are in lower relief. The only new truth about this edifice is, as I have said, that it is held by some to have been originally not a temple of Theseus, but of Ares, and that this ground was the precindt of Ares, in which the market-place stood. When I first went to Athens this temple was a museum of antiquities, and the only museum in the city, and in fadt in Greece. The ‘ ‘ Market-place ’ ’ lying between the Market-Gate of Hadrian and the “Tower of the Winds,” is now recognized as the Roman market-place, in contra- distinction to the older Greek Agora, to the east of the Theseion. It was excavated by the Archaeologi- cal Society in 1891, and is a paved area somewhat sunk by time and its accumulations, surrounded by colon- nades, and with four Doric columns supporting an 86 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL architrave still standing, and bearing an inscription that Julius and Augustus Caesar contributed to its eredtion ; and this may have been the once busy scene in which the apostle, in Roman time, borne there by an excited crowd, stood and spoke to the Athenian people. Why should we consider his coming there to proclaim the true God, moved, as he was, by love, to have been an adt of hostility to the Greek, or contempt of Greek thought and works ? The “Tower of the Winds,” or, more corredtly, Horologion of Andronikos Khyrrestes, an odtagonal structure and a quaint one even for Athens, was built as late as the last century before the Christian era, and is in a good state of preservation ; but the relief- sculptures on the frieze, facing different points of the compass, and representing the winds, are not of much artistic merit. The north-east wind, a disagreeable one in Athens, as well as Boston and New Haven, is portrayed by an old man named Kaekias, who shakes hail-stones out of a shield. The tower gives the name of iEolus to the longest street in the city, which com- mences at this Tower of ^olus, and is one of the most characteristic thoroughfares of the modern city, always filled with a crowd of motley-clad people from town and country, buying and selling, gesticulating and screaming, in the little shops and booths ; it is the Athens of to-day, and of the everyday homely life of the people. On the side of the hill of Philoppapos, are three holes or small chambers cut in the side of a rock, popularly believed to be the prison where Socrates was confined previous to his death, and this is not impossible, for there may have been once a structure built in front of these rock chambers ; and if this were the place where the conversation recorded in the THEMIS FOUND AT RHAMNUS A THENS MODERN AND ANCIENT 87 “ Phsedo ” occurred, it is almost a sacred place, even if we do not join in Frasmus’s petition, “Holy Soc- rates, pray for us V’ The hill of the Pnyx, at present left stranded by the city, as this district is, is of a more undoubted authen- ticity, a flat, low, gray hill, or rock, lying in the very eye of the Acropolis ; and on its platform, four hun- dred feet long and two hundred and twelve wide, sup- ported by a Pelasgic wall, was the ancient bema, and on this spot the “fierce democracie” held its noisy political assemblies, for freedom is noisy not silent. A higher bema facing towards the sea was j ust above it, and what a view of land and water was spread out before the speaker ! He could address under the open sky the whole voting Athenian republic. Nothing very marked, a lot of gray old rocks these, you say, but whence comes the light that springs from and surrounds them, the more you look at them ? A small Greek structure, well-known but charm- ing, might be noticed before we come to the theatre of Dionysos, and on the way to it, upon the street leading to the west from the arch of Hadrian — the monument of Bysikrates. Similar monuments were dedicated to victors in the contests of the Dionysiac games, but this is the oldest structure of the Corinth- ian order, known as now standing, and is of the elegant style of that ornamental order, the roof bud- ding into a flower consisting of a single block of marble. The monument has been carefully protected by an iron fence put up by the French. The dainty frieze represents the grotesque punishment of the Tyrrhenian pirates by Dionysos, turning them into dolphins, the subject of a Homeric hymn ; and the inscription records that “ Dysikrates was choragos when the choir of the phyle Akamantis won the 88 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL prize.” If this little monument shows the Greek beginning, the magnificent Olympieion, or temple of Olympian Zeus, shows the Roman flowering, of the Corinthian order, which might be called a Roman order, suiting the luxurious tastes of Rome, though she almost spoiled it by combining it with the Ionic. Rome, by the use of the Corinthian order and the development of the arch, succeeded in evolving an imposing architecture, of which St. Peter’s is the culmination ; but the root of Roman architecture was Greek, as it was also Greek in this temple founded by Peisistratus B.C. 530, and completed by Hadrian 130 A.D. Whenever the two styles come together, as they do in Athens, we get a better con- ception of the ideas to which they gave form, the Roman a grandiose, and sometimes grand, expression of power, the Greek a harmonious expression of reason. The one is vast, the other moderate. The one is matter, the other mind. And I say this with due respect to Roman art which is noteworthy, as it is seen especially in the Pantheon, and Hadrian’s mausoleum, and which is the art of imperial law, and in this it was original, but as art pure and simple, it was secondary not original. The Christian basilica, after all, was the finest outcome of Roman art, after it met and assimilated into itself a Christian element, which gave it productive originality and whose influ- ence is felt in mediaeval art. There is absolutely nothing new in modern architecture, not even a new capital, like the Rombard or Gothic, which does not draw its form from a thought that is developed from Greek original sources. The Olympieion was a large temple to stand on Greek soil, a superb anachronism on the banks of the little Ilissus. One fallen gigantic column stretches ATHENS MODERN AND ANCIENT 89 along the ground broken in regular pieces, as if it were laid down with the greatest care by a storm in 1852. The bed of the Ilissus lies just below, and near by is the head-source of the ancient Athenian water- supply, the spring of Kallirohe, retaining the old name, past which runs the road to the cemetery, where, under a costly monument, Heinrich Schlie- mann is buried. Excavations- in this quarter were begun by Schlie- mann, and are carried on by Dr. Doerpfeld, exposing the ruins, or foundations, of a number of houses Greek and Roman, as of a thickly settled quarter of the city. Hereabouts was the Enneakrounos, the ancient building with nine water-openings, connected with the system of aqueduct supply, and some leaden pipes belonging to this have been found. The Greeks in their time were scientists as well as artists, as the engineering works to drain the Copaic lake, the mili- tary fortifications of strongholds, and the mechanical construction of temples and other buildings, testify. At these diggings one sees the mosaic pavement of a house which has been exposed, but nothing rich ; in fact, domestic Greek architecture was not remarkable. The houses were small with unwindowed walls to the street, and the interiors, we may surmise, were not as they were in Pompeii, highly ornamented, for the Greek, as Burke says, was “a public creature” who seemed to exist for the sake of the state, and he needed no costly house for himself, when he had the best the city could give as his own. For the first time I saw the exposed remains of the Theatre of Dionysos, which, on a previous visit, were not uncovered, although the site of the theatre was then known. The Greek Archaeological Society, 90 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL succeeding to the work of Ludwig Ross, Beule and Curtius, has done great things in Athens, and in Greece, as from year to year reported in its quarterly publication (E/x[xepLs apxaiaXoyLKrj), a mine of informa- tion, but its soul and hand is M. Kabbadias, ephor of the antiquities, a plain, modest little man, who has not only the brains but the working capacity which his countrymen seem to lack. The still later explor- ations of Dr. Doerpfeld have brought to light the most ancient portion of the structure under the Roman foundations. The theatre of Dionysos has an elevated site at the foot of the Acropolis, commanding a view of the city of Athens, the harbor, the sea, the plain of Attica, the seat of the court that tried Orestes, and the hill of Kolonos. The present ruins mingle Roman relics of the time of Hadrian, and later, with those of two older Greek sanctuaries of Dionysos, the earlier dating back to the time of the Persian wars. The cliff be- low the Kimonian walls was hewed perpendicularly smooth and then faced with masonry ; and the theatre was partially cut out of the rock in two terraces, the upper terrace having a long wall with arches, still there, and the lower made into an amphitheatre (caved) comprising a radius of one hundred and fifty feet, the seats accommodating thirty thousand specta- tors, arranged in concentric tiers and divided into thirteen wedges, or corridors. The lower rows of seats remain, the foremost of them being of Pentelic marble, as well as the chair of the chief priest of Dionysos, that has an inscription, and is ornamented with a relief of satyrs carrying bunches of grapes. The priests, and sometimes the priestesses, occupied the front rows. The marble seats are rectangular and handsome in form, doubtless cushioned when occu- A THENS MODERN AND ANCIENT 9i pied by the more luxurious. The Dionysiac altar constituted the central point. That part of the orchestra which was situated outside of the cavity of seats, and which stretched on each side of the bound- ary wall, was the Spop.o s, four hundred feet long, and at the two ends of it were the side-entrances. The freize, or decorated supporting-wall of the proscen- ium, with its sculptured figures and large central kneeling satyr belonging to the cult of Dionj^sos, still presents a highly ornamental feature ; but while so many fine statues of divinities and of poets that adorn this place are gone, these ruder carvings are all that remain of a splendid theatre which, if not the birth- place, was the home, of Greek dramatic art. One can even now make out the three divisions of the stage, orchestra and auditorium, the parti-colored pavement, the spot where stood the altar to Dionysos, and the Dionysiac wall of the proscenium. Origin- ally the stage was situated in that portion of the orchestra which was opposite the amphitheatre and on a level with the seats, and was divided into two parts, the first of them, or the front (Aoydov) from which the actors spoke, being a narrow parallelogram projecting into the orchestra; and all this could be distinctly read when the theatre was first partially uncovered in 1862 by the architect Strack, with the help of an ancient bronze coin on which a design of the building was stamped, and which is now in the British Museum.* You wonder at the simplicity of plan so well fitted to its uses for seating, seeing and hearing, so open, light and beautiful, and so strikingly contrasted, in these respects, with the closed-in, heavy style of the theatre of Herodes Atti- cus, the wealthy patron of Athens in Roman days, * Monuments of Athens. 92 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL which edifice from the outside is conspicuous with its heavy arched terraces, at the base of the Acropolis. It was originally surrounded by walls and arches, and lies at the other extremity of the same face of the Acropolis as the theatre of Dionysos, and its interior resembles, in a general way, that of the Dionysiac theatre, only it had a roof of cedar wood. Its seats were hewn out of the rock and covered with Pentelic marble ; and one can climb from within at the back of the theatre, by steep steps, to the top of the Acropolis. This Herodean amphitheatre, comparatively recent- ly excavated, has the heavy and gloomy look, like a cavern, characteristic of Roman architecture, whereas, on the contrary, the Dionysiac theatre was exposed to the air and sky, and the clouds that sailed over it, as if it were free to the immortal gods, with whom the Greek tragedies had so much to do. These dramas that treated of life, fate, and the spiritual conflict of good and evil, expansive in theme, were performed to much better advantage under the cope of the sky, than in closed walls ; to better advantage, one might *say, than Shakspeare’s dramas, treating also of character and destiny, were enadted on the pent-house stage of the Globe Theatre in Eondon. Neither in England nor in this country, could the open-air Greek theatre be used, but for safety, com- fort and the influences of nature, in such a climate as Greece, how superior these edifices to modem theatres ! It was nature, not gilding, nor upholstery, nor artificial stage-scenery, that gave them their charm, and their healthy inspiration ; and something was left to the imagination, both of the poet and his audience. CHAPTER VIII. THE ACROPOLIS. The Acropolis is the central point of Athens and Greece. Early made the foundation for works of art, it is wonderfully fitted by nature for the part it has played, and even with its crowning works fallen into decay it is an impressive object seen from all direc- tions. When one comes in from the Piraeus and the sea, or when he goes out into the plain of Attica, and the country, this is the grand feature of the scene, at morning, noon and night, in the sunshine and under the moonlight — the white crag-base of the whiter Parthenon, as if it had been carved into a vast architectural pedestal, or an altar of the old gods. From the east when below on the plain, one may get a good idea of the shape of the rock, forming a compact eminence of crystalline limestone, with rugged chasms and seams, a spur of the hills running south from Mt. Pentelikon, about two hundred feet high and a natural citadel from most ancient days, as is found in the remains of old walls and fortifications. In prehistoric times its uneven top was leveled off, and the natural steepness of the sides was made more steep.* In the remotest antiquity a Pelasgic town was built on this commanding hill. On the north side near the Erectheion, the heavy foundation-walls of a palace have been discovered, corresponding to similar palatial edifices at Mycenae, Tiryns and Troy. Archaeology has brought to light, all over Greece, a * American Journal of Archaeology. 94 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL prehistoric strong people, who, warlike and dominant, were builders of great walls, and possessed a rude artistic genius. To this period belongs the narrow staircase cut in the living rock, such as one finds at Tiryns, that leads to the plain below. Here was the tomb of Kekrops, the earth-born father of Athens (Kekropia), and here was the Kekropion, at the southwest corner of the Erechtheion. On this eagle’s nest was the egg of the city. The wall of polygonal stones is chiefly found on the east and south sides, coeval with Cyclopean wall-remains in the Pelopon- nesos, and which follows the natural line and curve of the rock, with a heavy outwork on the west, for the nine gates anciently forming the entrance to the citadel. The steep walls that the Persians scaled were the walls of the Pisistratidae, who made their royal Stronghold here, the Persians directing their attack from the northern and more undefended side. They burned the temples that stood on the rock, the old temple of Athene, the Herakleion and the Hekatom- pedon. Themistokles rebuilt the defensive wall and planned the reconstruction of the chief sanctuary, and Kimon and Perikles carried out the plan of recon- struction with still greater magnificence. Kimon filled in and extended the dimensions of the Acrop- olis, hiding the Pelasgic wall and going outside of it, increasing the area one-fifth, and making a broad platform for the temple superstructures. From the hill of the museum, you see the west front and southern line of the Parthenon, and have a side-view of the Propylaea. The row of heavy arches to be here observed are remains of the Theatre of Herodes Atticus and the Portico or Stoa of Eumenes ; and the modern carriage-road runs by these, turning THE ACROPOLIS 95 sharply to the left and ascending the hill to the Beul6 gate, which is the present entrance to the Acropolis. The Beule Gate, named from the French architect who discovered or uncovered it, in 1862, was not laid open when I first saw Athens, and I went up the Acropolis by a rougher pathway near by. The Beule Gate is but five and a half feet wide, and is said to be exactly in the axis of the Propylasa, but there is reason to think (contrary to Beule’ s own opinion) that it is not the original entrance to the Acropolis, and only dates back to the time of Nikias, while the marble staircase above it, built irregularly of ancient fragments, belongs to a period as late as the first half of the first century A.D. Yet it cannot but be said, that as the rock is precipitous, there must have been originally a steep flight of steps to the summit, so steep that chariots could not have gone up by it, even those of the Panathenaic proces- sion. There might have been, indeed, what now appears to be a narrow road-track between the two flights of steps, but this could have accommodated only mules and cattle for sacrifice ; and all was taken into the walls of the fortifications, in later Roman or mediaeval times. The tower-like inharmonious pedestal in front to the left, is the pedestal of Agrippa, so-called, on which stood a statue of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. To the right, standing high, is the lovely little square Ionic temple of Nike Athene, Nike Apteros ; and at the turn of the hill, to the left, you see the beginnings of the long northern wall of the Acropolis, and the place where are the ancient caverns of Pan and Aglauros, that may be reached from the outside. The walls on the north were once called ‘ ‘ The Tong Rocks, ’ ’ as here the length of the rock is greatest, and can be seen in its whole length from the plain. 9 6 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL There is a rude picture of the Acropolis stamped on an ancient coin, showing the Propylsea, the Par- thenon and the colossal statue of Athene Promachos ; and the antique gateway and stairs represented on the coin, are apparently on a much larger scale than the Beule Gate. The projecting wing above the staircase on the left, is the Pinakotheka, or Pcekile, where were those votive pictures by Polygnotos, painted on marble panels, one of them representing the battle of Mara- thon, and whose description by Pausanias centuries after, adds so much to our knowledge of that event. The western or outer front of the Portico of the Propylaea, is composed of the row of Doric columns whose flutings are almost as sharp-edged as when they were cut, though most of the capitals are gone. The Propylaea is certainly next to the Parthenon in noble simplicity and grandeur, so that its ruins lure you from the larger structure to linger under its shadows ; and since it stands at an angle to the Par- thenon, it is a monument by itself, like an overture to some great work of harmony. The eastern or inner front of the Propylaea, look- ing across the plateau of the Acropolis, is a favorite place to sketch the Parthenon ; taking in the most of it, from under these white columns, through which a glimpse of the sky and the distant plain and moun- tains of Attica are seen, a fairy picture from this height. Within are the rows of discrowned Ionic columns (the Doric and Ionic commingling) frag- ments of whose capitals lie tumbled about ; the up- per ceiling was in square coffers which have fallen ; and both the western and eastern fronts of the gate- way were probably closed at times by massive bronze doors, the whole making a noble approach to the greater glories of the Acropolis. THE ACROPOLIS 97 The form of the adtual summit of the Acropolis is lanceolate, or better, leaf-shaped ; and passing through the Propylaea, one is brought into immediate sight of the majestic, scarred, west front of the Parthenon, standing a little distance to the right. When I saw it the first time, before and around it, covering the whole top of the rock, were scattered a thousand fragments of white Pentelican marble, sparkling as sugar. On the building, one has his attention drawn to two battered marble figures of the pediment, the only ones that remain, and for that reason they have a pathetic look. They lean against each other, and are supposed to represent Asklepios and Hygeia, the male figure partially reclining, while the other, be- side him, has her arm about his neck. They cling faithfully to the building and to each other. The west front, seen from the Propylaea, gives you the long northern side of the Parthenon, and perhaps this is the most satisfactory view, taking in a great part of the edifice at a glance. The archaeologist has been busy, and while his is a careful hand to which we owe a great deal, caring tenderly for every frag- ment and orienting every stone, the old-time pidtur- esqueness has been somewhat marred, and the im- pression of endless riches of marble fragments, carved capitals, broken pillars and sculptured pieces of marble, glistening in the suft, is diminished, and there is a spick-and-span appearance, as if the house- keeper’s broom had set^all to rights and left it in pimlico order. This besom has swept away the ugly mediaeval tower that once disfigured the Acrop- olis. Near the Parthenon itself, some places which have been dug out are left open and are neatly stoned around, where the excavators went down to the rock, so that you can see the original surface beneath. 7 g8 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL The old stairway by the Erectheion which led down and out at the foot of the Acropolis, is also left open, making a large cavity or well, but the way has been barred further down for fear of accident. It is now much nicer and easier getting about on the cleared, natural rock-face, and you can study the whole less confusedly, and a great deal of accurate work, helpful to the comprehension of Greek art, has been done, but the pristine charm is lost forever, and this seems to be hardly made up by the excellent arrangement of things ; and neither does one feel that he can, himself, find anything new, or make a dis- covery of his own. The field has been too thoroughly cleaned.* Archaeology is a noble growing science. In Greece it has wrought absolute wonders, and on the coast of Asia Minor it has made the splendid dis- covery of the Alexander-sarcophagus, so-called, at Sidon, richly combining all antique arts. Archae- ology is a helpful and, in some respects, indispensable, handmaid, of the lovely queen, Art ; but archaeology cannot, any more than science, take the queen’s place, or walk in her celestial robes, shedding about her steps that sweetness, light and grace that blesses the earth like the spring-time. Archaeology is learned, but art is inspired. Archaeology treats of the old, but art is ever new and young. Archaeology is con- fined within its own serere limits of scholarly research, but art is free as the infinite imagination. The ex- plorations conducted by the childlike faith of Schlie- mann, and the almost infallible scientific sagacity of * This observation has, perhaps, been disproved by the dis- covery of the inscription on the east pediment of the Parthenon, by a member of the American School of Archteology at Athens, and certainly Mr. Kugene P. Andrews’ brilliant originality in the manner of making it was only equalled by his patient skill. k 99 THE ACROPOLIS Doerpfeld, down among the buried stones and walls of Troy, derive all their interest from Homer’s poetic art. The American school of Archaeology at Athens, nestling under the shadow of Mt. Eykabettos, has done work which the learned world appreciates, and though not so long established as the Trench school, has not been excelled by that, or by the German and English schools, in the value of its researches at Argos, Eretria, Assos, and other points within and outside of Hellas. There should be a more generous support at home, of a school representing so many of our best educational institutions. When one becomes better acquainted with this school, and sees the gen- uine classic enthusiasm among its students, it makes him wish to be young, to take pickaxe and spade, and, with Pausanias in his pocket, to go a-digging. Per- haps he might solve some important historic or archi- tectural problem, or strike upon some sculpture that would hold the world ravished by its beauty. The Parthenon is an example of pure Doric. Its beauty, notwithstanding the variety of the decorative sculpture that once enriched its walls, is mainly in its constructive lines. It is perfeCt in the harmony of its proportions. Its unbased columns rise direCtly from the stylobate, yet with a swell slightly diminish- ing at the top where they meet their capitals, and with sharp flutings producing in the rich sunlight lovely light and shadow, modifying the bold simplicity of the round. The edifice has an air of eternal repose, or duration, that its ruined state does not dis- turb ; for if its lines were extended upward from the four corners of the sides of the parallelogram far enough, they would meet at a point above, the struc- ture, in fad, being a truncated pyramid, the mathe- IOO GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL matical form of greatest strength. This strength is combined with grace. These delicately curved lines of the foundation, aesthetically conceived, and im- perceptible without closest examination, spring from a rhythmical instead of a straight line, which was discovered through incredibly delicate measurements by the English architect Penrose ; and this, together with the slightly increased entasis of the corner pil- lars, to correCt the diminished look from their stand- ing against the sky as background, and subtle touches guided by no rule but by the spiritual eye, gives this building an organic unity, as if it were filled with a glorious harmony, so that even in its broken state the eye reconstructs the perfeCt edifice. It lives in idea more than in reality. It is a form of mind more than of matter. And yet to think that but two centuries ago, this temple was in as perfectly complete a condi- tion as the Theseion, the main columns standing, the sculptures of the pediments in place, the metopes and architecture preserved, and only some little injury done to the pronaos and its pillars from turning it into a Christian church ! In the year 1687 came the bomb from the batteries of Morosini alighting in a gunpowder magazine of the Turks within the temple, and the heart of it was blown out, the eastern end nearly overthrown, the middle of it made a mass of ruins. Of the sculptures that softened its Doric sternness and wrought it into the most elegant as well as majestic of buildings, the central group on the west front was Poseidon with his chariot drawn by hippo- campi, a representation of the salt-spring that rose from the stroke of his trident, the ocean and acces- sory figures, Athene with her olive tree as she con- tested with Poseidon for the soil of Attica ; and these THE ACROPOLIS IOI figures perished and “ went up in dust,” it was said, when they fell from the clumsy hands of Venetian sailors who were lowering them. What sculptures still exist from other parts of the building constitute the Elgin marbles in the British Museum, where they may be studied by scholars though they no longer shine in their proper place, under the clear sky of Greece, and are but white ghosts of the past seen in the fogs of Eondon. The length of this temple (not a large one) is two hundred and thirty-eight feet, the breadth one hun- dred and one, and the height of the top of the pedi- ments sixty-six feet ; and it consists, or rather con- sisted, of a simple cell surrounded by eight columns on either front and seventeen on either side, counting the corner columns twice. It was engirdled by forty- six columns, making the glorious peristyle of the tetragon under whose shadow walked Perikles, Iktinos and the great men of that epoch of the revival of Greek art, which splendid period lasted but a short fifty years ! Perikles, a man of both culture and energy, is a fit example to prove that these qualities are not incom- patible with each other, and that culture enhances power, for if ever there was a man of cultivated taste it was Perikles, and if ever there was a man of affairs, it was Perikles. He was the soul of that magnificent renascence of Hellenic intellect after the upheaval of the Persian wars, in which those perfedt works of art, literature and philosphy were created. It was at the time of the Peace Congress of 447 B. C., convoked by Perikles after the death of Kimon, that the Parthenon was commenced, or rather planned. All the Hellenes everywhere were asked to form a national congress at Athens to deliberate con- 102 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL cerning the shrines cast down by the barbarians, and concerning other matters pertaining to the welfare of Greece. This was a time when by the skillful states- manship of Perikles, there was secured the hegemony of Greece to Athens, and the application of the com- mon treasures of Delos to the building of temples on the Acropolis. “ In 445 B. C.” says Furtwaengler, “ the Parthenon was in full swing.” This statement may be true, but the beginnings of the work met with very serious obstacles, and especially with de- termined opposition from the party of Thucydides, yet in spite of difficulties, this temple and that of Eleusis, Pan-Hellenic works, were pushed forward by Perikles and the Athenians, under the plausible, per- haps real, motive, of common religious zeal. In a wonderfully short time the edifice was reared to the virgin divinity, as by an impulse of Athenian will and genius. If it be an axiom of architecture that a building should express the purpose for which it was designed, no building is truer to this than the Par- thenon. It is not a palace, nor a civic structure, nor a church, like a Christian or Mohammedan church, fitted for holding audiences for worship and instruc- tion, but it is a shrine for the agalma of a Greek god. Athene moved into it, so to speak, from her old tem- ple. This was the new home of the virgin goddess, and when it was new, how resplendent it must have been ! The ivory and gold statue of the “ Parthenos,” the virgin, with a Nike in her hand, was wrought by Pheidias to occupy the front middle space of the cella. The house was hers. She here was enthroned. She was the guardian power of Athens. She compre- hended the spirit of the Athenian state, its wisdom, wit, culture, ruling force. All sculpture on pediment and frieze had relation to the virgin power, as did the THE ACROPOLIS 103 splendid ceremonials connected with her worship. The delivery of the peplos, embroidered by free Athen- ian maidens for her statue, the Panathenaic procession to her shrine, her nativity, her contest with Poseidon, her triumph, were carved on the walls. Her treas- ures and furniture were stored in the opisthodomos. Other gods, such as Zeus, Demeter, Hermes, Apollo, Aphrodite, Ares, grouped in sculptures, were her guests, symbolizing the union of immortals to guard the Athenian state. The temple and its architecture expressed this unity, the perfection of Athenian art, government, intelligence and power. It strikes one as a perfeCt whole, to which nothing could be added. I had carried away with me on my first visit a strong impression of the symmetry and beauty of the Par- thenon, but on the second visit I received an impres- sion of its power. The columns are grand as well as beautiful. It is a massive structure especially as seen from the Propylaea, standing full against the sky. It has the richness of coloring of the old painter, time. Pentelic marble takes on many shades and tints. The building is white at a distance in the morning, whiter by moonlight, but at sunset it is crimson, and near by you see its weather-stains of orange and brownish purple making up for the loss of' original color which it undoubtedly had ; but under a frowning sky it is black and menacing. Athene shakes her mighty war-spear. When you catch sight of the ethereal blue of the sky of Hellas, as seen between the mass of the building and a corner column that juts out boldly, yOU perceive the effeCt the architect wished to produce in perching the temple on this height, and sending its white, pillared wedge into the clear sky up above every other object ; and the hill itself of the Acropolis is full of such rarely colored pictures. 104 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL Seated one evening a little further down on the northwestern edge of the Acropolis wall, I watched the light of sunset passing over Mt. Pentelikon and Mt. Parnes, on whose bare summits lingered a broad yellow tinge, while a warmer rose-red glow spread itself over the sea and the straits of Salamis and Angina ; and on the northwest lay the bay of Eleusis, and the cliffs of Megara even to the rock of Acro- corinth, with the loftier mountains piled up misty in the distance beyond, that belong to the Helicon and Parnassian range, while directly beneath was Athens, the fair city, stretching out into the level plain of Attica. Before speaking of the present state of the Parthe- non, I would say a word of a discovery that exempli- fies Dr. Doerpfeld’s theory in respect to the history of this temple, one of the most interesting discoveries of modern archaeology, viz : the finding of the foun- dations of the ‘ ‘ old temple ’ * of Athene destroyed by the Persians. Doerpfeld maintains that the ‘ ‘ Parthenon ’ ’ is not the only temple, but that there have been four temples of Athene on the Acropolis, viz : the temple of Athene which was the first smaller Erectheion ; the “ old temple ” of Athene which was destroyed by the Persians ; the first Parthenon of Kimon ; and the Parthenon of Perikles that now exists. The Erec- theion is supposed to occupy the site of a more ancient Erectheion. The “ old temple ” of Athene destroyed by the Persians was a Hecatompedon with double “cells” dedicated to Athene and Erectheus, whose foundations overlapped the present Erectheion at one corner ; uncouth archaic capitals of this rugged temple have been dug out of the Acropolis walls, and have still some coloring. This probably was the eKaTo/x7re8os THE ACROPOLIS 105 of the Iliad, a name derived from this building when it was a hundred feet long, but was applied after- wards to the longer Periklean Parthenon in token of its size, proportions and beauty. This ‘ ‘ old temple ” existed until 480, at the end of the Persian war. All these were temples of Athene, or of Athens and Krectheus. The first Parthenon, called by that name, was built in the time of Themistokles and Kimon, on the site of the present Parthenon (Doerpfeld has demonstrated this) after the demolition of the “old temple,” and its foundations lie under the Periklean building, having almost the same dimensions with the present Parthenon. Doerpfeld supposes that it had the same number of columns on the short sides, and two more on the long sides. It was, in fact, a longer building, but its cella was narrower. It was of Poros stone instead of marble, and was never finished in marble, on account of the political downfall of Themistokles. We see thus that the Parthenon, old as it is, was not the first temple of Athene on the Acropolis ; but that it was the consummation, the perfection, of four temples, a flower from an old stem but surpassing all that went before. The east front was the real entrance, facing which sat the goddess in the interior, awaiting the saluta- tion of worshipers, and she was here under the softly shaded light, a snowy-skinned, peaceful and benefi- cent goddess, the mild patroness of the olive-tree, agriculture, government, letters and art. The carvings on the east were symbols of the beginning of Athenian life, and of the birth of Athene, with her image as central figure ; and next to her sat Zeus, from whose head — wisdom from power — at the blow of Hsephaistos, she sprang ; while io6 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL Nike, or Iris, flew to spread the glad news to immor- tals and men. The three “ Fates,” the mighty Sisters, half rising to receive the message, are figures of a large heroic life, and of the gigantic mould of elder time, yet are noble and beautiful figures, headless and armless though now they be. The hundred-pleated raiments covering but not concealing these Titanic forms, are as delicate, as if the linen had been woven on royal looms for some Egyptian queen. Fragments of these Pheidian carvings, with the exception of the head of Iris, are in the British Museum, and the only sculptures clinging to the eastern pediment are the heads of two horses of the chariot of Helios, and a head of the horse of the chariot of Selene, sinking into the sea at the approach of day. The head of the horse of the moon’s chariot, at the northern extremity of the pediment, lingers there like the ghost of a horse struggling for life, but going down in the waves with the heroic past of Hellas. The Panathenaic procession, with the ship bearing the peplos, approached the east front to enter the temple, and the sacrifices must have taken place upon altars on the outside ; probably only priests and mag- istrates entered the temple. To discuss the sculptures that ornamented and vivified the Parthenon, is not my object, since most of these are now on foreign and not on Greek soil ; but these brought Ionic beauty to the Doric temple, and softened its stern character with touches lovely and enchanting. The sculptures may be looked upon as forming a threefold cycle : i. Those of the two ends that illus- trated Olympian scenes and personages, the divine THE ACROPOLIS 107 history, the birth and triumphs of Athene. 2. Those of the metopes that ran around the architrave, the contests of Athenian civilization against barbarism. 3. Those that surrounded the inner frieze of the cella that brought to mind the real cult of the Athenian people. On the east pediment, as example of the first Olympian sculpture, there is the masterpiece of Pheid- ias called by the different names of Theseus, Herakles, Olympos, which is now in the British museum a young immortal reclining on a lion’s skin, character- ized by the large, square, heroic style, the perfection of nature with something beyond nature, or the con- ception of a god resting on the summit of Olympos. There is careless ease in the attitude that is not com- monplace but that of power. There is no show of power as in Michael Angelo’s convulsed giants, but the simple repose of it. The Parthenon is the monu- ment of Pheidias. Pheidias was sculptor of gods, as Praxiteles was sculptor of men beautiful as gods. There is ideal greatness in one, and human loveliness in the other ; but Pheidias stands at the head. The periods of Greek sculpture may be classed into five : the Archaic, the Perfected or Naturalistic and Pheid- iac, the Beautiful or Praxitelian, the Decadent or Alexandrine, and the Graeco-Roman ; but all look on or back to Pheidias. His was the mind that organ- ized a whole system, a cycle of sculpture. There is proof from classic authors, that Pheidias had the entire superintendence of these art-works, and some of the sculptures were, without doubt, by his hand, since there is 9t marked difference in the execution of them. The sculptures of Pheidias were not wholly, but mainly, architectonic, combined with architecture as an organic part of it, and did not stand isolated with- io8 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL out reference to the plan and significance of the whole ; yet in all he did, he was first to draw freely from nature, to grasp the deep principles of beauty in nature, to seek perfection. He took nature first from the Greek forms seen in the palaestra, but combined with these an adt of his own thought, and he thus created the ideal, the more complete conception of beauty, differing from the sensuous and character- ized by an immortal grace ; so that Plutarch said : 1 1 (Perik. , 5 : 13 ) ^op^V S’apip.rjTa epya kcll yapiTL — his works had a form of inimitable grace and seem endowed with perpetual freshness which preserves them un- touched by time.” To illustrate this “inimitable grace,” there was, especially, the Lemnian Athene, famous in antiquity, and which the critical Lucian thought to be the best worth seeing of Pheidias’s works. We are not sure that this now exists in original or copy ; but it once stood on the Acropolis near by the Propylaea. There are two fine statues of Athene at Dresden, a head of Athene at Bologna which is very beautiful, and another which is called the “Hope Athene,” in which critics see the possi- bility of finding the Lemnian type. The “Hope Athene ’ ’ at Deep Dene, Surrey, England, is thought by Furtwaengler to be purely Pheidian, as it is one of peculiar beauty. The forehead slightly raised in the middle is delicately modelled, and the eyebrows are curved as in the Lemnian. The thin eyelids, the narrow finely cut nose forming an angle with the forehead, the beauty of the mouth and the exquisite proportions of the oval face, bear the Pheidian t3 r pe, which is refined, a shade hard and loftily spiritual as in the Amazon, and, above all, in the Aphrodite Urania. But Pheidias’s master-touch is found every- where in the Elgin marbles ; and if an art-student THE ACROPOLIS 109 could have the Elgin marbles before him, and could sit for hours and days, pencil in hand, to copy them faithfully, to come at their spirit and life, to enter into the feeling of the artist, to compare them with the sculpture that was before and after them, to com- pare them with contemporary works of literature, to discover their faults as well as beauties, their failure to reach the perfeCt as well as their success, and to let them speak with full tone to him as expressions of nature and mind, he would come in touch with the creations of that same Greek mind in literature as well as art ; and it would be seen what a deep influence these works would have on his own nature and culture. The second class of Pheidian sculptures, those of the metopes, were next in size and importance to the carvings on the pediments. The metope was origin- ally but a hollow space ; it was then a block of stone to fill the space, and was of no use constructively and might have remained a blank, had not Greek genius made use of it for decoration, for carvings that interrupted at intervals the plainness of horizontal lines and surfaces. The Parthenon metopes con- tained, for the most part, sculptures of contests of Greeks and centaurs, struggles of civilization with brute forces, and this had a ready interpretation to the Greek in his own history. There were contests of Greeks with Amazons. The “Amazon,” mythic fighter of a legendary world, may have had a shrewd onlook to the “ new woman,” who was to give man a hard tussle ; or to the rivalry of the sexes for power in intellectual things resolving itself into the great truth that genius has no sex, or the still pro- founder truth of Christianity, that the soul has no sex. These sculptures were cut in high relief, no GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL catching the light and shade, and producing lovely effects . Then there were the relief-sculptures, smaller than life-size, that ran around the frieze of the inner cella, and, to my mind, they were the noblest of all. They are supposed to be representations of the Panathenaic procession that every four years bore the peplos of Athene to the Parthenon, culminating on the east side, where the gods were gathered, as in the fine relief-group of Zeus, Demeter and Aphrodite. The processions of horsemen are peculiarly life-full and spirited. There is, however, no exaggeration, but the moderation of truth and nature. It is perfedt beauty, and, at the same time, perfedt reality. There is truth which bespeaks highest genius, wondrous fire in the horses and calm grace in the riders, ‘ ‘ witching the world with noble horsemanship.” In the sacri- ficial part of the procession, the form of a young man leading a restive heifer for sacrifice, exhibits a restraint without anger, and a repose in adtion. These figures are taken from nature, and that was the secret of the freshness of Greek sculpture. It glistened -with the morning dew of perpetual youth. “This frieze ex- hibits the festival of Panatheneia ; but not properly the feast and procession, nor as some think the prep- aration for it, but the artist freely chose them with an eye to artistic effedt. They are episodes of the reality ; some pidtures from the procession, others genre-pieces from the preparations ; in part quite com- mon subjedts, men such as he saw and lived with, noble horses with their youthful riders, beasts for the sacrifice, stubborn bulls and patient rams.” In a word, I believe that the sculptures of the frieze manifest to us the form and spirit of the Athenian democracy — old age, young manhood, maidenhood, THE ACROPOLIS hi childhood, the tillers of the soil, artificers, warriors, scholars, magistrates, priests, all ranks and conditions of the people w/ho climbed the hill of the Acropolis, bringing their glad offerings. Greek art struck into Greek humanity. The artist was the interpreter of life, Hellenic li:fe, proud, gay and poetic ; and all true art, from the time of Niccola Pisano to the present, springs from thus Pheidian conception, drawn freshly from nature, thiought and love. CHAPTER IX. THE ACROPOLIS MUSEUM. The Erectheion, if not the greatest work, is a verit- able gem of the Acropolis. It once consisted of three parts separated by cross-walls, viz : a large portico or cel la of Athene-Polias to the east, and to the west two shrines, one of Kekrops and another of Poseidon- Erectheus, Athene thus sharing her sanctuary with the other Chthonian gods, especially the mystic founder-hero Erectheus ; and the building also cov- ered several objects such as the sacred olive-tree and the salt spring, that were connected with the cult of Athene. The Erectheion is a decidedly irregular, and, as it were, not Greek building, differing from other temples, and adapted by Greek genius to its diverse purposes. It was, originally, not a large but an elegant struct- ure, the vestibules on the east, north and south, each beautiful in itself, and the main oblong of sixty-five feet raised on a basement of three steps ten feet high. The east portico is a prostyle with six Ionic columns, one other having been carried off by that raider of temples, Eord Elgin. Athens received a large infusion of Ionic blood, which is shown in the luxurious and feminine grace of this Ionic temple, that stands side by side with the masculine Doric of the other struct- ures. Here is shown the highest richness of the Ionic capital. The Erectheion capital, has a neck of delicately beaded mouldings with a frieze of palmettes, above which the egg-and-tongue moulding supports THE ACROPOLIS MUSEUM 1 13 the cushion, decorated with exquisite flutings and headings, and the spiral of the volutes is a double spiral, ornamented once with enamel and gems, splen- did examples of this ornate style. The perfectly proportioned doorway of the north portico, well pre- served, with its egg and honeysuckle mouldings, has been copied more times, perhaps, than any other doorway. In walking about the enclosure of the Erectheion, one treads on rich fragments of Pentelic marble cut with intricate traceries running into each other in endless convolutions, and on fallen coffers with their corbels touched with gold. Parts of pillars and walls have lately been dug up virgin white as if just quarried. Around the Erectheion is the richest area of the Acropolis in this wealth of fragmentary ruins and ornamental carvings, heaped in careless confusion ; and here and there are the diggings of 1884 and ’90 which revealed foundation- walls of the “old temple,” or Hekatompedon, that I spoke of, which encroached on the stylobate of the Krectheion. The famous portico of Caryatids, on the south side, jutting out from the main edifice, is a unique inspira- tion, where six stone maidens instead of stone piers hold up a roof, and while exhibiting great beauty of artistic skill, was too unnatural, even painful, an idea, to be repeated. The figures are colossal, and it was called anciently simply ‘ ‘ portico of the maidens, ’ ’ and handsome powerful maidens they are, with har- monious costumes and basket-like carvings on their heads. The second figure from the west is of terra- cotta, in imitation of the one carried off by Kord Elgin. There is a rather heavy architrave resting upon them, with a rectangular moulding decorated with dentils. GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL 1 14 There has been controversy among archaeologists in regard to the date of the Brectheion, but the view of Michaelis prevails, that it belongs to the time of Nikias, or the period after the peace of Nikias, since there could not have been the thought of erecting temples during the previous war with Sparta. The ‘ 1 old temple ’ ’ of Athene was demolished to make way for the new Brectheion, probably in the year 409 or 408 B.C. In 413 the porch of the Caryatids was well advanced. Dr. Doerpfeld says that when the new glittering Parthenon arose in all its splendor, the old poros temples looked shabby, so that it was necessary to rear a new Brectheion to Athene-Polias, and call one the Parthenon and the other the Brectheion ; but Mrs. Jane Harrison suggests that the Brectheion was built for a kind of depository, or house, of the statues and symbols of the old cults. This seems to me con- trary to the fashion of the Greeks, who worshiped by and through these statues the powers they repre- sented, and they had not learned the modern custom of making museums of art. But the explanation of the design of this elaborate edifice is obscure though so much has been written about it, yet the lines of the Odyssey would seem to be enough to prove its original complex occupancy : ‘ ‘ Therewith grey-eyed Athene departed over the unharvested seas, and left pleasant Scheria, and came to Marathon, and wide- wayed Athens, and entered the good-house of Brec- theus ’ ’ ( TTVKLVOS Spo/Aos) . Thus Pelasgians, Persians, Romans, Goths, Byzan- tines, Slavs, Venetians, Turks, Franks and moderns swept over this stately rock in successive conquests, and, as one writer says, “not until the year 1833, when the new movement was established, did there THE ACROPOLIS MUSEUM 1 15 come an end to the destruction of antiquities on the Acropolis” ; and this was the time when modern excavations, under the leadership of the architect Klenze, were begun, which were followed up by the French school at Athens, the Greek archaeological Society, and the German, British and American Schools of archaeology. A step down from the east end of the Parthenon and quite near the outer wall of the rock, stands the low, small, inconspicuous stone museum of the Acrop- olis. I do not think it time lost to mention, not too minutely, some of its treasures, as well as those of the National Museum, which are invaluable in the history of art. This museum contains exclusively antiquities discovered on the Acropolis. It has a vestibule and ten rooms, exhibiting carvings, bronzes and statues, arranged chronologically. In the vestibule there is a lovely piece of architrave moulding from the Krec- theion, the egg-and-tongue moulding above and the honeysuckle pattern below, proving that the Greeks drew out from nature these architectural conventions, and were satisfied with a few designs of plants and wild flowers, and having perfected these they did not change them for artificial fashions, nor seek novelties, but were content with the simple beauty of a few of nature’s forms. There is also in this vestibule an antique marble pedestal, sculptured with an exceedingly interesting, and, as far as I know, unique, representation of the virile Pyrrhic dance ; also a relief-sculpture of a woman entering a chariot, showing much spirit of execution for such an antique work. There is, too, a relievo representing the civic relations of Athens and Samos, with two figures, of Athene and Hera, Ii6 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL symbolizing these cities, and a long inscription. This is archaic but of considerable freedom of style. The warlike figure and equipment of Athene bring to mind lines of the Odyssey : ‘ ‘ She bound beneath her feet her lovely golden sandals, that wax not old, and bear her alike over the wet sea and over the limit- less land, swift as the breath of the wind. And she seized her powerful spear, shod with sharp bronze, weighty, huge and strong, wherewith she quells the ranks of heroes with whomsoever she is wroth, the daughter of the mighty sire.” In one corner of the vestibule is a gigantic stone owl, immemorial emblem of Athens, a grey battered bird of wisdom — wisdom and silence. These first rooms of the Museum are filled entirely with archaic art, and in the “ Room of the Bull,” to the left, is a group of two lions seizing a bull, and a group of Herakles fighting with the Rernsean Hydra. This sculpture and the one of Herakles subduing the Triton, show traces of green, yellow, and red color. The scales of the snake are green. These were from pediments of the Herakleion which stood on the Acropolis. The hero, though grotesque, has a good grip and is choking the scaly monster. It was found in 1882 to the southeast of the Parthenon. Then comes the Room of the “ Triple-bodied Monster,” or Typhon, overcome by Zeus, with three human heads and bodies. In the fourth Room of Marbles and Vases is the famous statue of the “calf-bearer” (aiBovaa fxorr^oiffibpov) on a vase of poros stone, rep- resenting a youth carrying a calf to the altar on his shoulders, interesting as primitive Greek type of statues and paintings of Orpheus, in early Christian art, only substituting a sheep, or lamb, for a calf. An antique enthroned Athene with aegis, headless, THE ACROPOLIS MUSEUM 117 and there is no-knowing how old, is in this room, and the sculpture of an archaic priestess. In the next long room comes that remarkable series of statues which were found ten years ago in the diggings of the Kimonian wall, piled in with other fragments of statues, drums of pillars and capi- tals, pedestals, architraves, or whatever came to hand at that time of stress, and these sculptures form the most curious and debatable objects of the museum. These “ Tauten , ” as the Germans call them, are many, in number, and of a certain uniformity. They are thought by some to be pre-Persian statues of Athene, by others to be priestesses of the goddess Athene who was enthroned in the ‘ ‘ old temple ’ ’ ; but the problem is not solved, though terra-cotta statuettes of Athene more recently found and resembling these, would almost seem to decide the question in favor of the latter theory. They are interesting as a study of costume, and, in some respects, for their individual character and expression, for, notwithstanding their archaic inaneness there is variety in them ; and from abundant traces of color, they reveal the fa<5l that the old Greeks colored their statues. They are in a good state of preservation, marking the period of Peisis- tratos as one of some artistic development. While I was looking at these one day, Dr. Paul Wolters, a distinguished professor of the German School of Archaeology at Athens, was giving a peri- patetic lecture to a class of thirty or forty students, composed of many nationalities and of both sexes, showing how these Hellenic works draw students of all nations to them, as to a head-spring of Art. In the Athene statues mentioned, the manner of dressing the hair in tresses falling over the back and breast, and the straight folds of the woolen garment, ii8 CREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL and other peculiarities, are noticeable, as they show the Greek style of costume before the Persian war, and also the multitude and splendor of the sculptures, antique as they were, that adorned the Acropolis at that time. It was even then a centre of art. In speaking more particularly of these sculptures, I take some hints from the official catalogue. These figures are, for the most part, clad each in a chiton, and holding the border of a himation in the left hand. The hair is divided in the middle on the forehead, and, descending in curled locks, is bound in some cases over the head by a ribbon, or ornamental diadem. The right hand is in advance of the body, and the figure holds sometimes an apple or a pome- granate. The head is surmounted by a bronze nail, which perhaps served to support a kind of screen to protect the colors. The physical type is like that of the figures found at Delos, that we shall see in the National Museum, but they are more graceful, and contain germs of a natural style to be developed. The polychromatic colors employed are green (the best preserved), red, blue, yellow and grey; and on the borders of the chitons and himations, bands of meander pattern are painted, green and red, with palmettes and rosettes. The hair has sometimes a red tinge, or yellow, distinctly seen. The eyes were also painted, and, in some instances, are made of a crystalline metal. One observes differences in the disposition of the robes, the forms, the expressions of face, which speak different periods of style, and of various places, such as Athens, Delos, Eleusis, and, also, perhaps, of attempts at actual portraits ; yet only the caprice of the artist may, possibly, be seen in them, and they may refer to but one subject, the goddess Athene- Polias. I THE ACROPOLIS MUSEUM 119 The statues are carved of Parian marble, and com- posed of many pieces for convenience of transporta- tion, and are joined together by a curious method, not of plugs or bolts, but of cement. They were found, as I have said, heaped in pell-mell with broken col- umns, capitals, inscriptions, heads and feet of statues, piled one on another, as used by order of Themisto- kles to make the new wall. They recall that extra- ordinary time, when the Persians, having burned the temple, cast down the statues from their pedestals, broke off their hands and heads, and then retreated, like lions surprised in rending their prey ; and the Athenians returning after the victory of Salamis, hastily put the citadel in a state of defence, with everything they could lay their hands on, with statues that may have been objects of adoration but were rendered valueless from desecration and mutilation. Names of some of the artists of these statues are found in inscriptions on them, but only one of them, Antenor, is a name of after note. These statues fill a void in the history of Greek sculpture, which, before they were discovered, was a blank, viz : the 6th century B. C., and though they are not, all of them, in an artistic point of view, of uniform merit, two or three exhibit progress in the plastic art. They all, however, belong to the same type or family. Statue 671 is a dignified figure, the hair painted yellow, and the costume with woolen garment beneath, is really not ungraceful. The features are refined and piquant, and it is one of the most pleasing of the series. Statue 672 has coarser features, but the head-dress is the same as that of the last named. No. 675 is a profile view, in which the manner of head ornamentation is better seen and with much color. No. 677 is a bust with hand holding an 120 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL apple, the hand well carved. It is probably not a work of Attic art, but came from another region. They are plump, well-appointed dames, accustomed to be idolized themselves, and of not extremely youthful age. No. 679 is quite archaic, in the style of the old Delos statues, but the face is rather good in spite of the idiotic smile. The patterns of the dress are variously colored. No. 680 has a costume with more elaborate tinted patterns, and the hair somewhat different in style from the rest. The character of the face, too, differs essentially from what has gone before. One of these statues (as the inscrip- tion on its base states) was carved by Antenor, which was the name of the artist who was ordered to make the commemorative sculpture-group of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, and this would seem to fix the period. The historic group of the tyrannicide was carried off in 480 B. C. to Persia by Xerxes, and was restored to Athens either by Alexander or Antiochus. A supposed copy belonging to a much later epoch, made by the sculptors Nesiotes and Critios, and without archaisms, is now in Naples. The figure 682, holding an apple or pomegranate, is dwarfed and grotesque ; but No. 684 is a head of fineness and nobility, and one would hope that it was a portrait. It showed considerable development of artistic skill, and the costume resembles a soft colored Indian shawl. In the oval face and the quiet dignity of expression, who could not recognize a refined and noble woman? The statue No. 686 is much less interesting than the last, but of a similar type. These figures recall the luxurious Ionian element in Attic art, reminding also of the Neo-Ionian vase-paintings, in which the elaborateness of the Asiatic costume was revived, perhaps in the time of Perikles and Aspasia, THE ACROPOLIS MUSEUM 121 or later ; and we see an example of this in a pidture of Medea, with a most rich robing, on a vase-painting. In the room of the Kphebos is the head of a young man discovered in 1887 on the site of the museum, and which is, as Dr. Wolters said in passing, “ praclitvoll /” In the treatment of the hair it resem- bles the Apollo from the temple of Zeus at Olympia. Another head of a young man, in a more advanced style of sculpture, though injured, shows manly beauty. There is an interesting relief representing Athene leaning on a spear and contemplating with pensive expression a funereal stele, probably that of a hero fallen in battle, and belongs to the middle of the 5th century B. C. It was found to the south of the Parthenon in 1889. Its posture is natural, with right hand resting on the hip. This sculpture is thought to have furnished, in dress at least, a model for the bronze statue of the Lemnian Athene, of which I have spoken. The point of resemblance is in the costume, which is the Doric peplos made of a simple piece of woolen stuff fastened upon the shoulders and falling over the neck, so that the upper portion of the body is covered with a double piece of drapery. On the right side it is open, but it is confined by the girdle which is bound over the whole, so as to com- press the diplois. This Dorian costume was adopted also in Attica and in Attic art, just after the Persian wars, the dress before this, as we have seen in the statues of the priestesses, having been the Ionian chiton and himation. This Peloponnesian type formed a precedent for Plieidias, though in his Dem- nia, and other sculptures, there was, of course, infi- nitely more naturalness and grace. In the two rooms of the ‘ ‘ Sculptures of the Par- thenon,” or those illustrating its history, are sculp- 122 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL tured metopes, mostly plaster copies ; but there are originals, as, for example, the group of a centaur carrying off a woman, and a marvelously interesting fragment of the head of Iris, belonging to the great group of gods that stood on the east front, which is now in the British Museum. This head of the mes- senger who announced the birth of Athene, alone of all the groups, remains on the Greek soil, where, one cannot help but thinking, all these sculptures, illus- trating not only the art, but the religion and thought of Greece, ought now to be. There is also in this room a copy of the red chalk drawings of Carrey made in 1674. In room No. IX, next to the last, are the unsurpassably lovely sculp- ture-reliefs of the temple of Nike Apteros, and some fragments of the frieze of the Eredtheion. The sculp- ture-piece from the balustrade of the Nike Apteros, of Victory fastening her sandal, is justly renowned for the inimitable lightness in the folds of the dra- pery. The cutting is as clear and round as when first made. The grace, nature, exquisite elegance and living bloom of this figure, have hardly a parallel in art. The group of the two Nikes conducting a bull to sacrifice, and of the same perfedt type, is also from the balustrade of the temple. CHAPTER X. THE NATIONAL MUSEUM AT ATHENS. That long one-storied building of the National Museum, where I spent days of study and felt that I never could exhaust its riches, is situated in a modern part of the city, on the street Patissia. This edifice was begun as far back as 1866, though in 1829, before the establishment of the Greek monarchy, and under the government of Capodistria, a museum of antiqui- ties was formed at Angina, and in 1834) under the reign of Otho, the greatest part of the marbles were transported to Athens and placed in the Theseion, others being piled about the Stoa of Hadrian, the Temple of the Winds, and on the Acropolis. In the course of years the National Archaeological Society began to gather together all collections in a building called Bap/ 3 aKetov, and then in the Ecole des jBeuux Arts (7ro\vre^veiov) in the street Patissia, near the present building. The National Museum (Musee Nationale, or Musee Centrale) was inaugurated in 1874, but at that epoch only one wing of the edifice, at the west, was constructed, and it was finished in 1889 at the state’s cost. It was intended to receive all antiquities found in the kingdom outside of the Acropolis ; the antiquities found on the Acropolis being placed in the Acropolis Museum, an annex to the National The National Museum is the glory not only of Athens but of Greece. The sculptures, vases, bronzes and other obje&s have been arranged in historic sequence, under 124 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL the supervision of M. Kabbadias, who, as has been said, is at the head of archaeologic activity in Greece, and of whose official catalogue I have made some use. The plan of the museum is simple and superior to that of any European collection. It is an education to walk through its halls, and the antiquities are unsur- passed in interest and value. There is nothing inferior or commonplace. You enter the vestibule, and to your right are a series of rooms, just opened, forming the antiquarium for the reception of bronzes, terra- cottas and vases. Exactly opposite the entrance is the Hall of the Mycenaean Antiquities, wonderful and unique. To the left of the vestibule are a series of Halls of Greek sculpture: (i.) Room of Archaic sculpture. (2.) Room of the Athene. (3.) Room of Themis. (4.) Room of Poseidon. (5.) Room of the Kosmetae. (6.) Earge Hall of the Sepulchre Reliefs. (7.) Room of the Sepulchre Vases. (8.) Room of the Votive Reliefs. (9.) Room of Miscellaneous objedts. There is also an Egyptian Hall, corresponding to the Mycenaean, and small side-rooms of Byzantine and Eatin Art. This is a general description, and let us look at it more in detail, although I can give but a glance at the endless wealth of this collection of Greek art on Greek soil. The Mycenaean Room I shall leave until I come to speak more particularly of Mycenaean art. Suffice it to say that it is a hall of extraordinary richness, colored dull red and yellow, decorated on wall, ceiling and pavement, with pure Mycenaean patterns ; and its cases and shelves gleam with the golden treasures of prehistoric art dug up by Schliemann at the citadel Oi Mycenae in 1876. There is not another such golden room in the world gold was the standard of those old inhabitants of Hellas. The Sculpture-Rooms run THE NA TIONAL MUSEUM AT A THENS 125 through all periods of Greek sculpture but are pecu- liarly rich in the early periods. Greek art may be roughly divided into 1 : the ante- Hellenic or prehistoric art, 2 : Greek art, properly so called, and 3 : Graeco-Roman art. Of these the museum affords examples, but especially of the pre- historic epoch from the 1st Olympiad to the classic epoch, or from 776 to 175 B. C. In the first archaic room is the rudely carved Artemis, found at Delos by the French school, resembling one of those primi- tive ioava to which the Greeks attributed supernatural origin, and dating probably from the 7th century B. C., or at the beginning of anything like sculpture. It was dedicated to the goddess by Nikandra of Naxos. A Nike also from Delos is important in the history of art, as it seems to have been made by Archermos of Chios, one of the first artists ever known to have wrought in marble ; it had wings originally, and though the wings are gone there is a vigorous upward movement in the legs ; but this gro- tesque figure struggling to mount was the germ of the splendid Victory of Samothrake. The celebrated stele called “Aristion” was made, as the inscription states, by Aristocles, and is a bas- relief portrait of a warrior in hoplites armor, less than life-size and with decided remains of color, some- times called “The Warrior of Marathon,” though probably it antedated the battle of Marathon. It is . skillfully carved for the 6th century B. C. period, and the details of armor are distinctly given. The simper is less pronounced and the character of the face firmer in the original, than in copies. The archaic head of a youthful athlete was found in the ruins of a wall at Athens near the Dipylon. It is the figure of a beardless youth who holds a large 126 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL discus which makes a background for the head, a sign of incipient artistic invention. His head-dress is that of the old elaborate Attic style, but the ex- aggerated features and smirking face show that Hel- lenic sculpture had not dawned ; yet it is wonderful to see these fragments of statues renowned in early art, collected here together where they naturally should be, and leading the army of sculpture like battered warriors. In the Athene room, so called, is the Eenormant statuette of Athene, one and a half feet high, which was discovered at Athens, and which is considered to be in some respedts (base, shield, etc.) a more faithful though ruder copy than the Varva- keion statue, of the chryselephantine Athene of the Parthenon. In the same room is the Varvakeion statue, found in 1879, which exhibits, doubtless, many of the details of the great statue of Pheidias, though it is an execrably rude copy only three and a half feet high. It resembles those plaster casts of statues such as an Italian vender would hawk about the streets. There is also the grand relief found at Eleusis, one of the most classically interesting of all the older sculptures, representing Demeter and Persephone, and standing between them the boy Triptolemos, and it probably belongs to the 5th century B. C. As a specimen of religious art, it is compared to Italian religious works of Duccio and Giotto, before Raphael’s time. In the room of the Hermes, we come to the good period of Greek art, in the 5th and 4th centuries B.C. The Hermes, which gives the name to this hall, is a beautiful work found at Andros. Its manly, earnest expression, may, nay must, have been THE NA TIONAL MUSE UM AT A THE NS 127 that of a portrait. The form and attitude resemble those of the Hermes of Praxiteles, and doubtless it belongs to the same school. It is, perhaps, the finest statue in the National Museum, and reminds one of the Hermes of the Vatican, with a variation in details, and one of these sculptures must have been a replica of the other, though I have not seen this noticed. In the room of the Hermes, is the head of Hera, recently discovered in the Herseum at Argos by the American Archseological School, and there are also sculptures that were found in the sanctuary of Ask- lepios, at Epidauros, but I will defer a mention of these until we come to the description of those places. There are three marble slabs of no great size but of very noble bas-relief sculpture, which were brought to light at Mantinea, in the excavations directed by the French School. These are of marvelous beauty and character. Pausanias recounts that in the temple of Eatona and her children at Mantinea, he saw a group of Eatona, Artemis and Apollo, carved by Praxiteles ; the pedestal, he adds, was adorned with a bas-relief carving representing a muse, and Mar- syas playing the flute. The sculptures are, doubtless, a portion of those referred to by Pausanias, as executed by Praxiteles, or by an artist of his school. This gives them an extraordinary interest. They delineate the musical contest between Apollo and Marsyas. Two of the slabs represent the Muses, who are the companions of Apollo, and who figure as arbiters in the strife. The Muses hold musical instruments, such as the lute and harp. They are majestic figures, grouped harmoniously though apart from each other, of noble bearing, and, to my mind, the finest relief- 128 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL sculptures that exist, as regards free, artistic touch and simplicity of genius. The Muses are gracefully but simply clad with chiton and outer garment, and their faces serious, as if judging in a strife of life and death. The extreme figures are more bent and pliant than the middle one, breaking the monotony of the grouping. Two of the Muses hold harps, the one on the right a harp of antique shape ; and they have a sympathetic relationship to the middle figure, and seem to be turning to her. The lines, or plies, of their garments, mark a difference in the material, and the perfect pose of the forms is indicated by the swaying lines of the costumes. One of the slabs represents the contest itself, Apollo seated, holding a harp, Marsyas playing on the double lute, and between them a Phrygian slave who holds a knife prepared to slay and flay the van- quished. Marsyas, in his agitated and violent atti- tude, contrasts with the calm of Apollo, whose mind seems to be filled with the vibrations of his own harmonies. If such contests artistic, intellectual, or athletic, nowadays, took place under the same condi- tions, they would die out, or their umpires would have to be directed by infallible inspiration ; for we ought not to think that the Muses, though compan- ions of Apollo, were governed by favoritism. I know of no better representation in ancient art of the magnificent Greek harp (phorminx) than that which is held by Apollo. There is also in this Hall of Hermes a lovely frieze, belonging to the 4th century B.C. represent- ing Tritons, Nereids, and Broses moving rhythmi- cally on the waves, a delicate and delicious play of Greek fancy, found near Thermopylae, and, in joy- ous character so different from the stern genius of THE NA TIONAL MUSE UM AT A THE NS 129 the spot. There are other fragments of the best period in this hall, “infinite riches in a narrow room.” We come to the Room of Themis, representing the Alexandrine and Graeco- Roman periods. It is named after the colossal statue of Themis, which stands at the head of the small hall. This was found at Rham- nus in Attica, which brings to mind associations of Marathon, but the statue belongs to the commence- ment of the 3d century B.C. There is no nobler representation of Justice, in art, and though, unfortunately, its hands, and what they contained of symbolic nature, are gone, the wide breast, firm pose of the figure, and strong yet placid expression of the face, are of exceeding power and beauty. Two floating graceful figures of ‘ ‘ dancing girls,” found at Athens, are in this room. The statue of Poseidon, that gives its name to the Poseidon Room, was discovered in the island of Melos, and has a rough energy without much techni- cal finish, the powerful arms and turn of the body being remarkable for a sculpture of the Alexandrine period. In the same room is the torso of a fighting warrior, recently found at Delos, in the diggings of the French School there, and is supposed to be a copy of a work by Tysippos, or it has the style of that artist who had so great a knowledge of anatomy, this frag- ment resembling the Borghese gladiator of the Touvre. There is a fragmentary head of a young man, bearded, and peculiar in racial type, which is not Greek though found in the Dionysiac Theatre at Athens, the form and expression of whose face, the treatment of the hair and beard, and other points, 9 130 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL recalling the features of Christ. In it there is a mingling of strength, sweetness and melancholy, and there is a mystery about it not yet explained. The head of a young man, probably a portrait, of marked individuality, and blunt natural honesty of expression, though not of classic features, is also noticeable ; but there are not, in this collection, such grand portrait sculptures, as are to be seen in the Bouvre, or as the magnificent bust of Julius Caesar, in the Naples Museum. We have now come to the Halls which contain the funerary monuments, or steles, that form one of the most interesting parts of the Museum. But let me speak of the ‘ ‘ Street of Tombs ’ ’ in Athens, outside of the “Dipylon, ” Dipylon meaning the ancient two-fold western gate of Athens, which was excavated, or what remains of it, in 1870. The road separates into two, one of which traversed the outer Ceramicus, and formed the Sacred Way, and the other led to the Academeia, and on either side of this were the graves of celebrated men, such men as Perikles, Chabrias and Phormion, some of them marked by simple pillars, others by large sarcophagi, others by steles with sculptures, as in the streets of tombs at Rome and Pompeii, outside the walls ; and here most of the tombstones in the Museum were found, but some of the monuments remain in statu , and the excavations are still going on to the north- west of the Acropolis on the road to the Piraeus. You see there a conspicuous monument surmounted by a bull, and one by a Molossian hound, such as accompanied the Greeks at Marathon, and there is also a small stele representing a scene of leave-taking. At this locality stands, as found in 1871, the well- known monument of Dexileos in the best style of art. THE NATIONAL MUSEUM A 7 ATHENS 131 It is a soldier’s monument, or one of a youthful warrior who fell in the Peloponnesian War before Corinth. The bas-relief is a group of two persons, one of whom (Dexileos) is on horseback, who forces his antagonist to the ground ; the composition is full of action, and it is remarkable that this delicately carved relief should have been so well preserved. In this Street of Tombs, is the sculptured tombstone of the wealthy dame Hegesa, daughter of Proxenos, representing a lady at her toilet attended by a female slave ; indeed, all this ground in the direction of the railway station, is strewn with sarcophagi, cippi, broken vases and steles, among which is the beautiful monument with a sculpture-relief of a girl with a pitcher, “the pitcher broken at the well,” and of another seated female figure. I will mention some of the monuments, or the best of them, collected in the walls of the Museum itself. First comes the Hall of funerary vases. One of them, of superb size and form, stands in the centre of the room, belonging to the classic epoch of the 4th century B.C.; for whatever the Greeks touched they made elegant, be it a cup, a vase, a human figure, a column, a building, and it becomes pure form, the perfect form that delights, meagre as is the decora- tion, few and simple as the lines may be. In looking at these funerary monuments, we are touched by their gentle religious sentiment, calm in the expression of sadness, and with no violence done to the emotions, following the Greek motto “ nothing overmuch ’ ’ ; for the sorrow is shown in a natural way, as if there had been no sudden wrench, and as if the happy existence of to-day went on, only a thought ennobled by death’s mystery. They are shrines of domestic affection, family groups where 132 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL the ordinary life proceeds, the different members of the family grasping hands to bid adieu, as if they were to meet again happily on the morrow. Members of the same family are represented in their common avocations, the matron with her children and servants, the old man absorbed in thoughts of the past, the child with its bird, the musician playing on his lute, the hunter at his rough sport, the warrior brandish- ing his spear, the maiden looking over her jewel-box, the young man and his dog, the mother bidding fare- well to son and husband, the daughter to mother. These are as pleasant as in life, probably portraits, and it is hard to determine which figure in them rep- resents the departed, there being a controversy among critics on this point, but the weight of proof is in favor of the sitting figure, as that of the deceased person, thus occupying the place of honor and devo- tion. One stele is inscribed with the name of “ Miltiades,” and whether it has a reference to the leader at Marathon I do not know ; but another of these steles contains a portrait of Plato as a young man, taking leave of his father Epicharis, who has died. One stele, from the name inscribed upon it is called Polyxene, and portrays a sitting figure of the mother who has died, embracing her little son who leans on her knees, and holds an apple in his hand, and is full of tender sorrow, not at all artificial, but real. The monument which, in my judgment, is the most beau- tiful in the collection, and was found also at Athens, represents a family group, mother, son, daughter and smaller children. The life expressed in them is won- derful. It is, here, the Athenian mother who has died, the noble seated form apparently swayed by a power- ful emotion of love, that makes her more alive, and FUNERARY RELIEF OF ATHENIAN MOTHER THE NA TIONAL MUSEUM AT A THE NS 133 even more joyful, than her living children, whose faces denote grief. Indeed, a few of the monuments, though these are exceptional in Greek art, express poignant grief ; but art seems to have acted as a viaticum of love and consolation, a mild angel to smooth the roughness of separation, touching the features of death with a rare beauty ; and how strange it is that a faith, with so faint a light shining on the unknown, could have evolved so calm a sentiment regarding the utter extinction of this life, which to the Greek was so joyful; showing that there was depth of sweetness in the Greek nature that death could not touch ! We should remember that a nation which produced a Plato, could not have been a nation of atheists. I might give more examples of this lovely depart- ment of Greek art, which can be seen at its best in the National Museum at Athens, but will speak of only one more composition carved on a sarcophagus found at Patras, representing the hunting of the Calydonian boar, which, though faint in its lines and of low relief, is very vigorous. It belongs to the later Graeco-Roman period, and shows signs of decadence. In the first hall to the right of the vestibule as you enter (the hall of the bronzes and terra-cottas) there are three archaic bronzes that have been brought from another collection ; and the first of these is the Athene Promachos, valuable from the fadt that it is an effigy preceding by centuries the colossal bronze Athene Promachos by Pheidias, and may have entered into his Conception as an archaic type of the divinity of Athens, with shield and spear, and which I have remarked upon. There is another ancient bronze Athene ; and an archaic head of a bearded man of foreign type found at Olympia, probably the bruised head of an athlete. 134 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL In the same room with the bronzes, and the two succeeding rooms, are the delightful collections of terra-cottas, conveyed from the Ecole Poly technique, gathered from all parts of Greece, although Tanagra, in Bceotia, was the chief centre where they were found. The most antique of these little figures are divinities, and, as a general rule, divinities of the Tower World, such as Demeter and Persephone, and were of the nature of ex votos deposited in the tombs with vases and funerary objedts. These statuettes were made either by hand or by mould, but moulded figures were retouched by hand, and then baked in an oven, and painted and gilded. The most beautiful of these were, certainly, those of Tanagra, found in a vast number of graves, dating from the 4th and 3d centuries B. C. They have the freedom and nature of every-day life, as seen in market-place and home, the city and country, citizens, traders, farmers, vine- dressers, singers, fighters, and fine ladies. In later stages, the design of these seems to have changed, and they appear to have been buried for the sole solace of the deceased, to give them glimpses of the life they had lost. The religious idea was merged in the human, and yet these statues were usually broken before they were thrown into the tombs ; but here they are, as moving in life, dancers with a spirit of grace on their flying steps like a zephyr’s breath, the queenly repose of seated forms, and those walking under the queer-pointed hats and parasols with meas- ured steps, the glint of beauty on them still, the coloring enough to lend them brightness, the sweet nobility of some of the faces, evident types of Greeks found in country and hill towns, with now and then a coarse figure and a broad caricature. These tiny figures have also been found in Tegea, THE NA TIONAL MUSEUM AT A THENS 135 Cyprus, and Myrina in Asia Minor, in bocris, Athens, Eleusis, Chalkis, Megara and Crete ; brought to light mostly by peasants who drove a brisk trade with them, so that they were irretrievably scattered, until the government took charge of the excavations ; all showing that the art created by this rapid work, and which gives us true pictures of old Greek life, was by no means confined to one locality, as Tanagra in Boeotia, but was spread wherever the Greek artist was found, and proves that he was capable of pro- ducing realistic as well as idealistic art — in fine, im- pressionism in sculpture. Passing from these rooms of the Terra-Cottas, we come into the Great Halls of the painted Vases, a vast colledtion, and a subject which such writers as Furtwaengler, beschke and Collingnon have spent immense labor in elucidating. There are here gath- ered vases of most primitive styles, from the Troad, the islands o>f the Archipelago and Mycenae, Thera, Amargos, Melos. The bulk of the colledtion found by Dr. Schliemann at the Troad, went to Berlin, but there are still some precious specimens given by Madame Schliemann. The oldest of them were modelled by hand, though the potter’s wheel was early used, but at first they had neither color nor figures, and only lines made by pressure of the fin- gers, or some: pointed tool in the wet clay. The vases of Thera, have color and ornamentation, with a variety of bands, hatchings and checkered lines, and even attempts to imitate flowers. Among this pottery as th e material universe has a physical centre, from which ever-recurring influences and attractions spring, that tend to the recognition of unchangeable and eternal ideas of beauty — a will lying back of the phenomenal world in the spiritual ; and in this Hegel is truer in his aesthetic philosophy, than Schopenhauer. Heaving these speculations of the German idealists, let me offer a few thoughts, imperfeCt though they may be. This is a good theme to theorize a little upon, and such speculations tend to promote the interests of art, that is assuming, together with physical sci- ence and literature, its own place in modern civiliza- tion as well as in modern education ; and I would follow out here for a moment this suggestion in regard to education. It might be taken for granted that the training of the knowing powers makes education mean nothing unless it mean the development of the intellectual faculties ; but this surely is not all in education. There is still left a portion of the being which is more peculiarly the region of aesthetic power, and in which are the sources of the beautiful ; and how broad a region, and how narrow the view which would suffer this part of our nature, the truly human part, to lie barren ! It is the aesthetic power that recon- structs and makes all new ; it is the creative power. It is that which gives one man’s speech a freshness that another’s of equal force of thought does not pos- sess. ^Esthetic culture should be introduced into education also, because art comprises so great a por- tion of the life of mind. It needed mind to build St. Peter’s dome and to compose the music of Sebastian Bach, as truly as to compose the Principia or the Mechanique Celeste ; and we are not confined to archi- ORIGIN AND IDEA OF ART 231 teCts, musicians, painters and sculptors, but may reckon in as artists the poets who body forth ideas of beauty reflecting spiritual types. It is the province, too, of education to bring out the lovely perfection of truth, so that it shall meet the desires of the mind and be followed freely ; yet as a people we have free- dom much on our tongue, but not so much in our spirit. We have brought down everything to the dead level of the aCtual. It is the thing which answers the present use, the present success, and not the thing which should be, or the ideal ; and while we would not weaken this noble, practical, American quality, we would counteract its current towards an utterly earthly conception of life and thought ; and art would help in this struggle to deliver ourselves from the crass bondage of materialism and to give play to spiritual ideas. Art would likewise afford a counterpoise to certain narrowing tendencies in edu- cation by presenting truth in more natural and vital forms. The purely scientific process, it is true, comes first. The mind must learn to investigate and reason. First faCt, then beauty. But the scientific process has its dangers unless guarded against, dealing as it does almost entirely with analysis, and may tend to lose the living synthesis of truth, and not to come, after all, to the unity of knowledge and the perfection of truth. Art through its intuition arrives often at truth’s wholeness when science sees but in part. Art aims at unity, the beautiful whole, the perfeCt form of nature and spirit, and its influence is towards the introduction of a living variety into educational proc- esses, so that young men may come out of the uni- versity not mere scholars, but men of broad, alert and independent minds, with the eye open to see the beauty and glory of the universe. 232 APPENDIX This is exemplified in Goethe, who took art out of the false sphere of dilletantism, and gave it its place among great things. He looked at art as a high study, and one valuable in the development and civili- zation of humanity. As an artist, in the technical sense, he did not do much, or profess to do much, although, for myself, I was surprised to find in his house at Weimar, so large a collection of drawings and paintings by his own hand, done mostly in his Italian tours. They seemed too poetic and lacking in what is the chief charm of his writings — reality. He had a supreme love of and devotion to nature. He sought power in the laws and principles of nature. His works, his dramas and poems, spring from the depths of nature — as do his thoughts of endless variety on art and its philosopy. He loved Greek art, though from his study of nature he avoided the narrowness of theoretic classicism. The principles of his artistic culture were laid broadly in nature. He tells us little or nothing of his feelings, but lets his personalities live out their lives before us naturally, as an artist should do, suffering his own individuality to be lost. Goethe was not a slave of nature though her servant, for he was not wholly a realist in art. ‘ ‘ Two things” he said “ are required of the poet and artist, that he should rise above reality, while he yet remained in the sphere of the sensuous.” From the natural he rose into the poetic, or that beauty which is beyond nature in the mind. Another principle upon which Goethe as artist founded himself was truth. ‘ ‘ He was driven to be original, and thus driven he became the avowed enemy of the conventional in style — ‘ the mortal enemy ’ — as he loved to say, of all artificialness. It is not enough for him that a poem is eloquent, or that it is popular ; for, according to ORIGIN AND IDEA OF ART 233 him, poetry, and every artistic production must be true, or wrought from the original comtemplation of nature, and an earnest work. He is always so near reality, and examines it with such a penetrating eye, that it is a problem how he can remain a poet, and yet he remains a poet to the last.” Faust is all compact with imaginative power, yet it is based on a substratum of facts, hard fact not fancy, and on the realness of human life, as much so as any work of Shakspeare’s, and resembling Shakspeare in this respect. But Goethe comes nearest the Greek artists and dramatists of any modern mind. In regard to poetry he said. ‘ ‘ I have never affected anything. I have never uttered anything which I have not experienced, and which has not urged me to production. I have com- posed love-songs when I have loved — and how could I write songs of hatred when I did not have the feel- ing of hatred.” He soon got past the artificialities of the romantic school of literature in which he started forth, and came to repudiate “The Sorrows of Werther,” and wrought upon simpler principles of truth in art, so that Schiller said of him “lam but a bungler in poetic art compared with Goethe. ’ ’ Schiller may have been the nobler man in his moral perceptions, yet he was not so great a poet as Goethe, who repre- sented a world with its heights and depths, compre- hending life, and striving to express the complete whole. His art, like that of the Greeks, was healthy, springing from truth, full of hope, not abnormal or sickly, and he recognized the law of sympathy which runs through the universe ; and though at times he burst wildly from the bonds of custom which knit society together — and I would not for one moment defend the immoral tendenz of some of his writings, nor the cold selfishness of spirit he seemed to display in 234 APPENDIX times of the throes of agony in which Germany writhed, yet he did not ever forget the principle he laid down in Faust, that it was through law man comes into freedom, and that he himself had a great work to do as a teacher of true culture. But to return from this digression. We sometimes hear it said that man is a religious animal, and yet it might just as well be said that man is an artistic animal — artistic in the constitution of his mind. Metaphysicians commonly divide mental faculties into reason, sensibility and will. This met- aphysics — whose tendency is to view mind by sec- tions, as it were, or as a congeries of faculties, each distinct from each, and which assigns its own value to different powers, giving to some an undue value — is apt to make the so-called intellectual faculty an exclusive object of consideration, losing sight of the truth that the mind is one and indivisible, that it acts as a whole, and that, in every act, all its energies enter, some more and some less ; that there is a vital interplay of functions in mental acts, intellect in feel- ing and feeling in intellect, the rational nature resting on the moral and the moral moved to activity and choice by the sensibilities and imagination, so that, however convenient this metaphysical classification may be for the analysis and study of philosophical concepts, you cannot erect such distinctions in the inner spiritual substance of the mind, and to do this sometimes leads to grave errors ; for you cannot really say that any one part of the mind is of more value than another and that any part of the mind can be ignored, or affirm that it does not belong to mind as mind, and therefore deserves no special attention. Shall we negledt that rich domain where lie the springs of feeling for the beautiful, the productive ORIGIN AND IDEA OF ART 235 powers in the achievements of art? In this realm, called, in metaphysical language, the sensibility, is found mainly the domain of art, though it is by no means confined to this, since all the faculties are involved in art — reason, invention, will, the use of the intellectual and logical faculty that pervades a work of art, the judgment as well as feeling. But there is, nevertheless, a quality of sensibility, of emo- tional susceptivity, which is the mind’s power of receiving impressions from the outward world and its beauty. This feeling is not a mere excitation of the senses, the sensual nature, but it is a mental susceptibility, which not only feels but adts, and, when roused to adt by impressions from objedts, it becomes a power of self-differentiation, or a power of contem- plating itself, a power capable of recognizing its own adts and impressions made on it, and of reproducing these impressions, being the correspondent within to the nature without ; and it is thus a permanent qual- ity, to which we give, with other elements combined, the name of the cesthetic sense , or, from the faculty through which this instindt chiefly operates, the per- ception or sense of the imagination. The imagination is the idealizing, the image-making power — the power that receives and communicates the form of things ( form-sinn , as the Germans name it), even as the intelledtual faculty receives and communicates the truth of things. This aesthetic power of the imagination, when adted upon by correspondent objedts in nature that are sympathetic to man’s spiritual conditions, seeks to reproduce the essential form of these objedts, since they exist in the mind only in their forms — some philosophers deny any other real existence 236 APPENDIX to objective matter — and on seeking thus to repro- duce the forms of things, by a law of the mind it strives to reproduce the perfect form in which the mind delights and was made to delight. The mind’s susceptibility to be impressed by the world of nature through the organ of the imagination, which not only receives but imparts impressions of objedts, since it is full of energy and creative power, is the mind’s func- tion of form, and, necessarily, in a rational nature, of perfect form or beauty, and here dwell the ideas of beauty in the mind, say, above all, the mind of a Pheidias. If the imagination works simply in order to body forth the form of things as an “ idealized imi- tation,” to interpret nature in all its forms, it works artistically and its products are what are termed “art.” The artist, in fadt, is the poet ; he is poet of another sort, who tells in line, form and color, as the poet in words, what nature tells him ; and this is the more important because we ourselves are parts of this nature, inframed in her subtle organism. The artist, by his imaginative or quasi creative power, recon- structs nature, becomes nature’s interpreter, and finds in nature the responsive image of the soul. Art is poetry, mainly poetry— I believe this. We see thus in all mind, though in a less degree in most men, but especially, and sometimes supremely, in the artist, this aesthetic power, this artistic faculty, by which it must and will express itself in the sphere of art as surely as the mind must and will express itself in the sphere of knowledge, and, indeed, so related are the mental powers that, as we cannot keep out any of them from the aesthetic faculty, so we can- not keep out the aesthetic sense from any of these, and we cannot say — in the investigation of truth, the highest truth, which is moral — that the imagination, ORIGIN AND IDEA OF ART 237 which is the organ of the sensibility, can be excluded, for here dwell the forms of truth and beauty. I am a Platonist. I believe art belongs to the spiritual pow- ers, and is, in some sense, spontaneous — a law to itself. Schiller says : ‘ ‘ The artist (meaning the poet or creator) is no doubt the son of his time. But ill is it for him if he be also its pupil or darling. A benefi- cent divinity snatches the suckling in time from his mother’s breast, nourishes him on the milk of a better age and lets him ripen under distant Greek heavens to his maturity. Then, when he has grown into manhood, he returns to his own country in the image of a stranger, not always to please it by his presence, but, terrible as the son of Agamemnon, to purify it. The substance of his work he will take from the pres- ent, but the form of it from a nobler time, yea, from beyond all time, out of the essential, invariable indi- viduality of his own being. ’ ’ * The highest conception of art is that it is the inter- pretation of the spirit in its varied forms, feelings and experiences, and of those eternal ideas of beauty that are in the soul and belong to absolute mind ; but this admits, of course, of modification, when other faculties and qualities of our nature — above all, the sensuous — come into view. The senses play their part in art, and a great deal of art is on this lower and not unnat- ural plane. What a world, that of color ! Color has a strong, sensuous appeal, as in nature, but is some- times too pronounced in art, as in the luxurious warmth of Rubens, the fiery tones of Raphael’s great- est pupil, Giulio Romano, the violent contrasts of the Spanish school of painters. Now, more diredtly, What is art? But we can only approximate to a definition. It is impossible to * AEsthetic Education of Mankind (ninth letter). 238 APPENDIX give a rigid definition of art. It bursts from our formulas like an uncontrolled spring. It is indefin- able because it is a truth rather than a term ; and yet we may do something towards a definition by sepa- rating art from truths closely akin to it. Art, for example, is not nature, while it is nothing without nature. Nature, in a general way, is all that is not art — all that is created, not made. Nature is the sub- stance, physical and spiritual, out of whose depths art arises like an exhalation of beauty. It comprises the forces at work to produce the phenomena of the world and their laws outside of human agency. Those phenomena in ourselves and the world ‘ ‘ which we do not originate but find ’ ’ represent nature ; those ‘ * which we do not find but originate ’ ’ represent art. Thus the human element comes into art to mold nature to its purposes. Art, too, is not science. Science concerns itself with knowledge and the inves- tigation of truth, and it may be said to be the law of knowing, dealing with the fadts of the universe, its chief instrument being the reason whose special func- tion is analysis. Art has also to do with knowledge, and art may aid in the search of truth ; but it does not end in knowing. Art is, in fadt, a science as far as its methods of technique are concerned, and it applies science to its own methods, but its end is farther on in the perfedt and joy-giving work touch- ing profounder emotions, rather than in scientific knowledge of the technical process. Art, in like manner, is not philosophy, nor religion, nor morality ; and it does not pretend to overtop, oppose, usurp or meddle with these while keeping to its own sphere, and much confusion has been caused (and no one has done more of this than Mr. Ruskin) by mixing these ; but the difference in such cases is obvious. Art, ORIGIN AND IDEA OF ART 239 however, is no negative thing, but is a most positive reality, in that it implies the existence of natural material on which to work and out of which to create its results, requiring at the same time a principle of susceptive thought that understands and orders nature for its conscious ends. In every work of art, as, for instance, the Hermes of Praxiteles, its original mate- rial of nature, the subjective idea which calls it forth, and the form which is complete in itself like a divine creation, are comprehended. This applies to all forms of art, even the most mechanical ; and, first, the term doubtless meant the arts of bare existence, first of all, probabfy, the art of agriculture — the ‘ ‘ coarse arts ’ ’ as Emerson called them in contradis- tinction to the “fine arts” — so that the useful was the first idea, and, indeed, what is not intrinsically useful is worthless now in art, in the highest art, which belongs to the highest needs of being, and compared with which its commoner uses are as earth and clay. But as new methods of civilization arose, art came up into its more spiritual spheres. Nature was studied ; her subtle laws of working were lovingly observed ; finer natures were touched to finer issues ; and the arts which have in them a thoughtful ele- ment, which spring from an idea, succeeded the arts of mere existence, until ‘ ‘ art ’ ’ won a peculiar mean- ing, limited to the production which has in it the love of perfeCt creation, of beauty, which Plato says is the most manifest and desirable of things. But while the artist represents the beautiful objeCt that he sees in his mind’s eye, and paints from this mental image, art is never simply a mental adt. Hegel con- tended for this. Art, without the mediation of objective form, he said, was an empty thing. “The art-idea is not a mere conception — ‘ ist niemals ein 240 APPENDIX Begriff ’ — inasmuch as the latter is a frame into which different phenomena may fit, whereas the artistic idea must stand in the most intimate agreement with the particular form of the work.” The subject must be conceived in the obje<5t ; there must be the manifesta- tion of the idea, which is its expression, as in nature, and which expression must accompany the conception. It can hardly be said that the power of vision in the artist is ever unaccompanied by the power of expres- sion, though the two may be unequally distributed. The bas reliefs on the pediment of the temple of Zeus, at Olympia, which Pausanias ascribes to the Attic sculptors, Alkamenes and Paionios, are conceived with the utmost dramatic power, but are stiffly and rudely executed ; probably the conception was that of the great artist, and the work that of the local artist. What wonderful power of expression, for another example, is in Rembrandt’s painting of “Abraham’s Sacrifice,” now in the Hermitage, at St. Petersburg — the obedience of a servant, the heart- rending grief of a father, the mysterious awe which the celestial messenger inspires ! Here the great artist is seen, and great artists exist because they cannot help being so any more than the roots of a willow-tree can help running to the water. Da Vinci and Correggio were predestined artists as truly as Isaiah and Martin Ruther were predestined prophets, and Dante and Tennyson predestined poets ; for the spiritual conceptions and yearnings in them, the strivings for universal beauty, found their only expression in art- forms. Art, therefore, if we should attempt to define the indefinable, might at least be described in its works as the power of representing, like a new creation, in form, line and color, the object presented to the mind, ORIGIN AND IDEA OF ART 241 or, more specifically, to the imagination, which is awakened to adt by a joyful and loving sympathy with nature in all her forms — it may be ugly as well as beautiful — but more especially with what is beau- tiful and perfedt in nature, as that for which the mind was originally made or adapted. 1. Art, though having to do with the perceptive faculties and the senses, is spiritual in its essence, and has its foundation in an inner susceptibility of the soul which corresponds to outward forms. There is a power in the mind of receiving impressions corre- sponding to the power that impresses. There is more than this. The mind contains the very ideas, in their conceptual mold, in which the forms of nat- ural objedts are cast, and is fitted to comprehend them, so that art is the condition under which the sensibility for impression is excited when the objedt and subjedt become identified. The German philos- opher, Totze, indeed says that ‘ ‘ the impression of beauty cannot be referred to a uniform standard in us, to a spiritual organization actually existing in all individuals, but to one that has first to be realized in each person by means of development, and realized in each only in an imperfedt and one-sided way ; ’ ’ but, though this opinion of Totze’s may be true, that the perfedt standard is not realized in every mind, or in the artist himself, yet for it to be realized at all, there must be the organization, the susceptibility in every mind as mind, and the imperfedtion of its develop- ment does not militate against the truth that there is an ideal condition, like the plate delicately prepared to receive impressions of objedts, and without which the actualization of any form of beauty would be lost and objedts would remain without form and void. A mountain is a pile of rocky matter of a certain geol- 16 242 APPENDIX ogic period, as science teaches, until thoughts of majesty, unity, power, are developed in its impinge- ment on the ideal sense. The beauty of nature is only to him who appreciates it ; but we are all of us inframed in this natural kosmos as an organism itself designed to be that through which the soul realizes its ideas, and without which the mind could not formulate them, and this is the most important part nature plays in art. In like manner the ethical sense is a permanent condition of the soul, but the ideas of justice, right, duty, are not developed except in the adtual relations of our natural life. Call the beautiful an intuition or not, man, I con- tend, has an aesthetic sense, the outcome of whose formulated ideas is art, and which is capable of recog- nizing and expressing the objective view and beauty of the universe. We are subjects of impressions which do not always find expression, and only do so when they impress with sufficient power to form distindl conceptions. 3. Art finds its laws and principles primarily in nature. It cannot go a step independently of these and remain art. Michael Angelo seemed to lose his creative power, and virtue went out of him the moment he left nature and began to work from a dry scheme of abstract form. There is, for instance, the fundamental law of truth, which involves the idea upon which the universe was built. There must be a sensitive relation in the artist’s mind to this law, without which art is artifice or sham. But art, as has been said, is not nature, nor does the artist, in Coleridge’s words, ‘ ‘ pick nature’s pockets. ’ ’ Nature is inimitable ; for how can a little square of painted canvas convey the infinitude of mountain scenery whose power is revealed like a divine inspira- ORIGIN AND IDEA OF ART 243 tion? Yet nature in her commoner moods, if still inimitable, is genial and accessible. She is odd and humorous at times, with a fancifulness full of gro- tesque irony. She does not hide her winsome face. She invites us to sit at her feet and learn of her. She will herself teach us. We cannot follow her instruc- tions too closely, nor imitate her too minutely. Not a leaf but is a map of the boldest and most complicated pattern. Nature furnished the originals of Greek forms of every sort. But the artist must go beneath the surface of things to the plastic laws of these forms, else imitation would be untrue. He must discover, as it were, nature’s own law ✓ of creation. A pidlure is an illusion, but it is not a delusion, for its end is not imitation, which would be something unreal and an absurdity, but it is the production of similar effedts of nature’s beauty and power so as to speak to the mind in some sense as nature speaks. While the artist is not to leave nature and lapse into a dream- land of his own, while he is to seek truth, yet by his thought, by separating the natural objedt from its accidental circumstances and conceiving it as a whole, by so painting the tree, the flower, the man, that the true form is seen, that the type is brought out in which the properties of the species are developed and in which it is best fitted to discharge the fundtions for which it was made — this shows the highest skill ; for here is the adtion of the artist’s soul which gives to his works the appearance of fresh creations. This is the ideal in art. This is the law of mental seledtion and probably was coeval with the law of imitation even, and accompanied the earliest art, savage and archaic art, since no art, even the most primitive, could have been entirely imitative. ‘ ‘ In the effort to imitate the human figure the proc- 244 APPENDIX ess of thought and sympathy becomes apparent ; and where this process of controlling power begins there the ideal in art begins. Whenever this isolated posi- tion, or scene, or adtion of nature is taken, it cannot be truly represented unless by an adt of thought it is connedted with the whole. The idea, or the whole, to which it belongs as a part, must enter into it and transfuse it.”* Yet be it noted that the ideal does not exist without the real passing into it like a life, even as mind works on fadts and molds them, and this might be called “the idealized real.” The real is the working basis of the ideal, even as the sculptor puts his thought first into a clay model and works from that. The poetic superstrudture is grounded in the soil of the adtual. “The beautiful is the real,” was the Flor- entine sculptor Dupre’s motto. Imitation is not the objedt of art, or is, at best, a low idea of it ; yet how can a pidture or sculpture be too true to nature ? Were the best Greek sculptures ? You may be sure that it was not the close imitation only in the old familiar story of the grapes that made the birds peck at them, but it was chiefly the truth. It was the real life of natural objedts that the artist of poetic genius had caught. It was a pidture and not a copy. A portrait — what is it worth if it be not real and rugged as life is ; otherwise it would become like the many unauthentic portraits of Columbus — a specimen of what has been called “artistic subjectivity?” This realness is the test of artistic excellence. “ The more nearly and truly a pidture approaches the exadt colors and forms of nature, the greater will be the effedt.” There is no excuse for false drawing. The healthy tendency of art, then, is to become more and more * A. S. Murray, Hist. Gr. Sculpture. ORIGIN AND IDEA OF ART 245 real, which is in the true line of progress. The vig- orous revival of art in the Netherlands in the first half of the seventeenth century, which created the Flemish and Dutch schools, to which the names of Rembrandt, Franz Hals, Terburg, Jan Steen belong, was nothing more than a return to realistic art from the feeble con- ventionalism of decadent Italian classic art. But rash- ness in theory makes a one-sided development, and the attitude of the artistic mind should be ever that of a thoughtful receptivity. All great painters have been realistic painters, but that is not all that they were. They painted from an idea. Velazquez, the greatest of artists both in technique and expression, did not paint the architecture of a face, but its char- acter, its character drawn from his creative conception of a man. So art must continue to have in it these two elements of the real and the ideal, or it will run into something analogous to that coarse realism in literature, whose works, viewed as works of art, are only pieces of loose real life, without unity and plan ; or, on the other hand, that subjective school of poets illustrated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, ravishing as it is, but neither of them complete in itself. Art would die out, since some essential quality of life would be lost. It would either drop the element of truth to nature or the element of thought. The canons of universal art must not be swamped in the turbid deluge of a coarse realism ; though in regard to impressionism , which is the tendency of modern art, when not car- ried to an extreme, I have a good word, as infusing new life into painting, catching the light and atmos- phere of heaven, penetrating into the mystery of color, and promising a true advance in landscape art. But it is well to remember, in this realistic age, that art has a spiritual side allying it with poetry and with the 246 APPENDIX loftiest achievements of the mind, in which the beauty that lives in the idea and in the universal and spiritual is expressed. All true art in every age catches a spark of this unfading glory of the beautiful ; and yet I do not say that there is no true art which does not aim so high as this, as witnessed in the hundred forms of unambitious art, the crude but honest efforts of be- ginners, the drawing which aims only at correct imi- tation, the pictures of many realistic artists painting nature as it is and not so much in minute detail as in whole true impressions, the graphic illustrations of literature carried to such excellence at the present time, the rich field of decorative design which is mainly scientific— all this is pleasing and laudable and having its genuine place in art, but I speak now of art in its enduring forms, which, like the best poetry, is of “imagination all compact,” and must spring from the love and idea of beauty. This innate sensitiveness of the Greek mind to beauty made it to differ from Egyptian, Roman, and almost every other national art, and constituted it the standard of art for all time. But the Greek sense of beauty was a thoughtful quality of a thoughtful people ; since the sensual, strong in the Greek, was subordinated to the intellectual and moral in this finely attempered race. “Beauty with the Greek,” says an English writer, “was neither little nor voluptuous ; the soul’s ener- gies were not relaxed but exalted by its contemplation. The service of beauty was a service comprehending all idealisms in one, demanding the self-effacement of a laborious preparation, the self-restraint of a gradual achievement. They who pitched the goal of their aspiration so high knew that the paths leading up to it were rough, steep and long ; they felt that per- fect workmanship and perfect taste, being supremely ORIGIN AND IDEA OF ART 247 precious, must be supremely difficult as well. ’ ’ * Thus beauty, with the Greeks, was the manifestation of their ideal self-development, the working out of a pro- found principle of culture, and this made their art so noble ; and it is this by which, in presence of their serious sculptures, our spirits grow calm, and we feel the truth and moral power of the Greek conception of beauty, raising us above our littleness into a region of higher thought and feeling. So there are other laws of nature besides truth which enter into art, such, for example, as order, which belongs not only to the structure of the world, but of the mind and its structures ; as unity, or that consistency of parts with the whole which gives de- light in a beautiful objeCt; as proportion, which is the outcome of a symmetric mind ; moderation, which is the continence of conscious spiritual strength ; grace, which flows from inward sympathy and free- dom ; character, or individuality, or expression, so variously named, which, indeed, is much the same as ideality, by which the artist expresses his own thought and personality, and by which also a distinctive spirit of the period and history of the work is stamped on it ; and not to mention more of these laws, above all, the great law of form, to which everything in art comes, which is the highest intellectual expression of art, so that sculp- ture, perhaps, is the purest art manifestation ; and it is by studying these laws that we come at the prin- ciples of art criticism, and through the ignorance of which there is often shown a want of judgment in matters of art, betokening false standards drawn, it may be, from metaphysics or political economy rather than nature, making to be measures of art produc- tions such qualities as logic, difficulty, cost, pretti- * Westminster Review. 248 A PPENDIX ness, melodramatic effedt, bulk, warm coloring, elab- orate though senseless detail — instead of the true and invariable standards of nature, by a return to which through the clear instinCt of aesthetic genius lies the only road to reform and advancement. 4. Art in its source is divine. The divine ideal has not been perfectly attained, but ever beckons on like a star. Nature is a projection of divine ideas of beauty into time and space ; and the human mind, w T hich could know nothing objectively unless the same existed subjectively in itself, can read these types of beauty, or, as Ruskin calls them, “ the eter- nal canons of loveliness,” in its consciousness. Rus- kin classes among spiritual ideas typical of divine attributes such purely aesthetic conceptions as unity, perfection, infinity, order, repose, moderation, pur- ity, truth. These are moral as well as aesthetic qual- ities ; and I was greatly pleased to come across this passage spoken to the students of Johns Hopkins University, from a poetic point of view, by an Ameri- can poet — poet of the salt-sea marshes — Sidney Ran- ier : “ Cannot one say to the young artist, whether working in stone, in color, in tone, or in charadter- forms of the novel : So far from dreading that your moral purpose will interfere with your beautiful crea- tion, go forward in the clear conviction that unless you are suffused — soul and body, one might say — with that moral purpose that finds its largest expres- sion in love ; that is, the love of all things in their proper relation ; unless you are suffused with this love, do not dare to meddle with beauty ; in a word, unless you are suffused with true wisdom, goodness and love, abandon the hope that the ages will accept you as an artist.” We cannot help wishing that Lanier could have lived longer to carry out his own noble theory of art. ADDITIONAL NOTES. P. 20. — Wunderthatige Bilder sind meist nur schlechte Gemalde. P. 25. — The crescent and star adopted by the Turks after the capture of Constantinople, to be their banner-device, was originally upon old coins of Greek Byzantium, commemorating the light of Torch-bearing Hekate, that shone in the heavens on a dark night revealing the Macedonians who were on the point of seizing the town, so that this came also from the Greeks. P. 56. — The Cotylos belonging to the National Museum at Athens (No. 3442) is a vase of very fine clay. The figures stand out in pale red upon a beautiful black varnished surface, their only accessory decoration being a wreath run- ning around the middle of the vase and with palms under the handles. On the first face is the figure of a Bacchante with a tambourine, dancing on the tips of her toes. She is clad in a robe and a short chiton without sleeves, cut close to the shape. In most of the representations of the Dionysiac dances, as that of the Crater of Boulogne and of an Apulian vase of the Jatta collection, there is a violent expression of ecstatic fury. Here, on the contrary, notwithstanding the un- bound hair floating on the shoulders, the dance is placid and graceful, and the physiog- nomy earnest and sweet. On the reverse of GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL P . 56 . — Continued. the vase, a young girl, clothed in the same style of dress, but with her hair tied en corymbe , marches or dances, holding with her two hands, suspended by the feet, a kid, doubtless dead. Skopas has long been supposed to be the inven- tor of the type of the Bacchante in delirium, tearing the kid. In recent years M. Winter has published the account of a bas-relief of the Esquiline, which represents the same subjetff ; the invention of the type is thus carried back to the anonymous author of the bas-relief. However this may be, all representations' of the motive, in sculpture at least, occur after the Vth century, and are therefore derived from the bas-relief or the statue of Skopas. The paintings on vases do not allow us to go back further than the second half of the Vth century ; the most antique of these Bacchantes, repre- sented as swinging the mutilated limbs of a • fawn, is that of a figure on an amphora now in Munich. But the examination of the most ancient vase-paintings leads us to conclude that the classic type comes from the combination of many anterior types. It is evident that differ- ent motives entered into the formation of the classic type, which art has definitely fixed as belonging to the I Vth century. What approached nearest to the style of Skopas is precisely that of the second figure on the Cotylos. The dancer has a quiet and graceful movement which does not recall the furies of Bacchic intoxication, and seems to be swayed by the gentle animation of the dance alone. ADDITIONAL NOTES 251 P. 56. — Continued. She is not excited by swinging the mutilated fragments of the animal that she carries with its head downward, and with both hands, as if it would need a strong effort to rend it asunder. But in the excitation of the dance, that grows more and more violent, she tears the kid in pieces : the classic type is fixed . — Bulletin de Correspondance Hellenique. P. 181. — The design of the Tholos of Epidauros has ever been a difficult problem. M. Defrasse and myself have always believed that the fadt of a well, or spring, the sacred spring of Asklepios, whose source is now dried up, should be taken into account. Pausanias, in the rapid enumeration which he made of the monuments of the Hieron , cites separately the Tholos and a spring, Kp^vrj, “remarkable for the roof which covers it, and above all for its decoration.” But neither the spring, which ought to be, according to the context, in the neighborhood of the stadion, nor the ruins of the structure that covered it, have been found, while the description that Pausanias gives of it applies exadtly to the Tholos. Therefore it seems to me that the Tholos and Kprjvr) are one and the same monuments, even if Pausanias does not give them as identical. But this is only an hypothesis. The testimony of the traveler Desmonceaux is of importance in regard to a subterranean central of the edifice in question. This subterranean central was divided interiorly by concentric walls which served to sustain the dallage , a natural arange- ment. This, indeed, accounts for the employ- 252 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL P. 181. — Continued. ment of concentric walls. But here is the difficulty. The said concentric walls are not continuous ; they are every one pierced with a door, or opening, and these openings make a communication with all the interior circles ; besides that, these circles are barred each with a little transverse wall ; in fine, the respective disposition of the transverse walls and the doors are such, that if one starts from the centre, he must necessarily follow each of the three circles to the end of each, and when he returns on his steps, he must follow the same inverse order, without which there is no possi- bility of shortening the course. This singular arrangement constitutes the originality of the subterranean central which is yet to be ex- plained. The fadt that the upper courses of the walls below the dallage having disappeared, does not militate against their having once existed. — H®nri Dkchat, in the Revue Archio- logique. March, 1896. P. 182. The discovery of the bronze quadriga oc- curred in this way. About May 1, 1896, mem- bers of the French Archaeological Society who were exploring at Delphi, found between two retaining walls, in a kind of pocket, a life- sized bronze statue (whose color is wonderfully kept), in the style of the early part of the Vth century B. C. The statue is that of a youth- ful but bearded victor of the Pythian games. The height is 1.78 metres. From head to foot it is well-preserved, excepting that the left arm is lost and the head is in two pieces. The hair is in long locks daintily arranged. About the ADDITIONAL NOTES 253 P. 182. — Continued. forehead is a fillet or garland. The garment reaches to the feet, with regular folds, and is gathered in at the waist by a girdle. The statue once stood on a chariot, and in the right hand are remains of reins. Only small frag- ments of the chariot and horses are left. The pupil and apple of the eyes and the eyelashes are of some encaustic material. Homolle iden- tified this at once as Onatas’s statue of Hiero of Syracuse, vidtor in the race 472 B. C. (Pin- dar’s first Pythian Ode). Near by was found the base of a monument large enough to hold a chariot, and bearing an almost indecipherable inscription O N A (lepwva) and also Polyzelos brother of Hiero. A polychrome statue of a female figure has lately been found by the French School at Delos. A brief notice of this appears in the Bulletin de Correspondance Hellenique. It is in a perfedt state, a little over life-size, height i m 80. The body rests on the left limb, the right foot thrown back just touching the ground. The left arm hangs down, while the right is placed across the breast and raised to the shoulder. The costume is composed of a tunic and peplos, the tunic falling in large folds to the feet which it covers almost completely. The peplos is thrown about the form nearly concealing the tunic except the lower portion, and one of its ends is wrapped around the left wrist. The sandal of the right foot which is partially seen, has a triple sole and is orna- mented with red and gilded fillets. In the 254 GREEK ART ON GREEK SOIL P. 182. — Continued. decoration of the cloak there is blue color with broidery of rose- violet. The robe is adorned with bands on which are figured scrolls of white and gold upon a ground of clear blue. Though somewhat in the conventional style of such statues, the face is lovely. If a portrait, which it might be, it is idealized in that charm- ing manner of Hellenic art of the third and second centuries B. C., free reproductions of the fourth age of Praxitelean forms. The style of the hair is peculiarly elegant and at the same time simpler than in examples known of the same period, being in undulating bands like that of the Nymphs of the Vienna bas-relief. It is what we find in the little figures of Tana- gra and Myrina ; and the analogy with these is more striking inasmuch as the hair is tinted red. The features are fine and regular, the eyes are cast down, and the oval face is a little elongated, delicately narrowing toward the chin. The neck is straight and long. The expression is sweet, but it would be considered cold, were it not for a smile hardly indicated yet sufficient to animate the countenance. It resembles a Muse, Mnemosyne, perhaps, from its thoughtful character. Such a work, brought to light from the ob- livion of the past, expressive of that Hellenic beauty to which art, even if in modern times it may have added some new elements of nature and realness, must ever return for its renewal, is enough to reward the attention and labor given to exploration in Greece.