Half-way on the road, the olive grove also seems covered with light ashes. Above everything is a cloudless, azure sky, not so deep a blue as in Italy, but, as I have stated, more radiant a hundred times. The earth is as if rent. The rocks crumble, turn to dust, and are scattered. This gives the whole region an aspect of ruin and desertion. But this aspect becomes it. Silence, decrepitude, sleepy olive-trees, and barren cliffs befit its complexion.
The main road passes the railway station which stands at the end of Hermes Street; but near the city our carriage turns to the right, and we enter the boulevard, which is lined on both sides with pepper-trees. Then on a steep cliff we see a row of columns of pale-gold color joined by battered architraves. All this is ruddy from the morning light, and is outlined against the sky with indescribable sweetness and purity, not too large in its proportions, great beyond every estimate in its repose, in its harmony, simply godlike.
The dragoman, sitting with the driver, turns and says, —
“The Acropolis.”
Nearer the cliff, on the Ceramicus, is the temple of Theseus, relatively the best preserved monument of antiquity. Afterward, at every step, there are fragments: Pelasgic walls, the rock of the Pnyx, the prison of Socrates, and other grottos, looking out from amid their rocks through dark openings into daylight. At the foot of the cliff itself, the edge of the precipice hides the lines of the Parthenon; but one sees the whole disorder of the ruins of the Odeon of Herod, and the theatre of Bacchus. The eye runs from one fragment to another; the imagination labors, striving to reconstruct vanished life; the mind cannot embrace everything, and a man limits himself involuntarily to the simple acceptance of impressions. But you feel that it was worth while to come here, that this is not a hurried look at ruins, “Baedecker” in hand, and the desire in your soul of getting back to the hotel at the earliest. But the carriage passes those half divine rocks too quickly, and soon we are in the new city, modern Athens.
Let us speak of it before we go back to the Acropolis.
I had come prepared for Eastern filth, — the filth of Stambul, which conquers the nerves of an average person. I was most agreeably disappointed. First, it is not true that in Athens one sees only as much green as there is salad served at dinner. It may be that just because there is little of it in the country, the city has made an effort to shade streets and squares with trees. I entered the city near the Acropolis and the temple of Olympian Zeus, by the Panhellenic Boulevard, which is one strip of verdure. The pepper-trees, with bright-green, delicate leaves, call to mind weeping willows, and give this street the look of spring-time, of May. Everywhere one sees pleasure-grounds, in them palm-trees, black oaks, cactuses, and aloes. It is true that all these are covered with a gray dust coming from rocks and ruins, as if those dead remnants wished to say to every living being: “Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return but, at present, shade and coolness may be found everywhere in Athens. The chief streets of the city are broad; the houses are large, of dazzling whiteness, the richer ones faced with marble obtained from the naked flanks of Pentelicus. Those buildings are not devoid of charm and elegance. The king’s palace forms the exception. Its walls are of Pentelicus marble also, but the style heavy, like that of barracks, renders this residence not only no ornament to the grand square of the Constitution, but a deformity. As a recompense, behind the palace, and at one side of it, are the really splendid gardens of the king; but in front of the palace lies a genuine, gray, burning desert which extends to the chief public gardens of the city. So that nothing might spoil the impression of a desert, there are a few large palms in it, lofty, and delineated firmly in the middle of the barrenness. Add an Arab with a camel, and you might think yourself in Egypt. For the rest, the city is bright, clean, out and out European, but built (this we can understand easily) under the influence and on the model of the ancient architecture of Greece, which gives it a splendid aspect. Everywhere one sees Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian columns, friezes which man began to carve and which the sun has finished. The University, and especially the Academy of Fine Arts, has the splendid and harmonious forms of a Greek temple.
At the side of the portico stand two mighty columns of the marble of Pentelicus with gilded abaci. On one of them stands the gigantic Pallas Athene, with a helmet on her head and a spear in her hand; on the other, an immense Apollo with a phorminx. In the night, by moonlight, these marbles seem bright green, and so charmingly light that they appear not to weigh on the earth. Perhaps a specialist in architecture might object this and that to those buildings; but in every case, they are a decoration to the city, and one of the most beautiful which it has happened me to see.
The richest part of Athens is nearest the square of the Constitution and the palace of the king, then the Panhellenic Boulevard, the University Boulevard, Stadin Street, and many others adjoining, up to the Square of Concord. These streets were laid out by rich Greeks, living some in the Phanar of Stambul, some in Odessa, Marseilles, and other seaport cities.
These people, with the inborn Greek genius for traffic, accumulated millions; but, we should do them justice in this, they have not bartered away the Greek spirit. A money-changer of Marseilles or Odessa who might claim descent from Miltiades, appeal to Marathon, Leonidas, Thermopylae, Themistocles, Salamis, Phidias, or Apelles, and turn to the ruins of the Acropolis, had that which no money in the world could purchase. And because of that claim, because of the glorious past, millions from all lands flowed into Attica; amid its wild defiles appeared macadamized roads and railways; in cities inhabited by half-savage palicars, schools were founded; and on the ruins of ancient Athens rose the Athens of our day.
Merchants and traders at present are established mainly on Hermes Street. Hermes, as we know, was the patron of merchants when Zeus was in power. In general, the whole lower part of the city, toward Gara and the Ceramicus, was under his patronage. Here is situated the bazaar, which calls to mind other Eastern bazaars; here a vivacious population swarm in great numbers, gesticulating and talking as loudly as if they intended to stun passers-by. Life and trade are on the street here, as everywhere in Southern cities; in the evening, when the heat of the day has passed, movement is greatest. The shops are open till late. Flaming jets of gas illuminate exhibitions of goods, splendid fruits, and flowers.
From four in the afternoon, not only Hermes Street and the business part of the city is swarming with people, but they fill also the wealthy divisions. Stadin Street, on which I lodged, is a fashionable promenade, in the forenoon it was difficult to pass on the sidewalks, and in the middle of the street carriages followed each other closely. There were fewer women present than men, especially among pedestrians. Perhaps this is a remnant of Oriental influence, or perhaps the custom of hiding women at home began and was fixed during Turkish rule, since it was not over safe for young women to show themselves before beys and bimbashis. There are few beautiful faces among the women. The type is less Greek than Armenian. The days of Phryne and Lais are far distant, and no Areopagus now would declare a Greek woman innocent because of her beauty. I have read that the inhabitants of Megara and ancient Laconia, as well as some of the islands, have preserved the ancient type still; but in Megara I have not found it, and I have not been on the banks of the Eurotas, or on the islands.
Among men there are many at once beautiful and wild looking. It is certain that the bright-haired Achilles must have looked otherwise; but Canaris might have resembled these. Many, too, wear yet the Albanian costume, composed of pustanelli, that is, a white skirt reaching almost to the knees, a fez, and a jacket embroidered with silk or gold. The loins are encircled by a belt, behind which was thrust formerly a whole arsenal of pistols and daggers, where to-day they carry handkerchiefs. In spite of the handkerchief, which, in comparison with past times, is undeniably a progress, they are inveterate conservatives and hostile to Western influence.
But one meets men in ancient costume, mainly among the aged. Still, whole divisions of the army are uniformed after the fash
ion of the palicars, and this gives Athens an appearance different from other cities.
Rural Greeks, despite robber instincts, which, as it seems, have not died out yet in all places, are perhaps honest, industrious, and faithful to their duties; yet city dwellers have the world over a fixed reputation which is far from favorable. As I passed not quite a month in the midst of them, I cannot judge from my own observation. But even in that brief stay one might observe that in no other city do merchants, hotel-keepers, guides, liverymen, and money-changers speak so much of their own honesty as in Athens. This seems a trifle suspicious.
More recent travellers, who have either spent a longer time in Greece, or who after a short stay have had the boldness to give a decisive opinion, make unfavorable mention of Greeks in general.
Edmond About, who died recently, wrote a book which is shallow, but curious, and full of witty remarks touching Greece. But the malicious “grandson of Voltaire,” as he has been nicknamed, despite this, that he strives to be impartial, judges the descendants of the ancient Demos of Athens too sneeringly. According to him, the Greeks of to-day, in capacity for lying, might put their ancestor Ulysses to shame, as well as Pallas Athene, his patroness, and also the ancient Cretans, who, according to Epimenides, surpassed all men in this art. Besides, they are greedy beyond every expression; people of other nationalities they endure in so far as they can plunder them. As to bravery, Canaris, according to About, was exceptional, hence they made such an outcry concerning him; but the Greeks if considered in general are cowardly. About goes so far even as to state that they have been so at all times, even during the siege of Troy; that they lack knightly feeling, the appreciation of a good cause, and of justice; that they show a blind respect for power of all kinds, and a corresponding contempt for weakness, misfortune, and poverty.
Among thousands of anecdotes About cites one which I may be permitted to repeat, as it concerns us Poles more nearly.
After the storms in 1848, which shook the dynasty of the Hapsburgs, a handful of Poles settled in Athens. Some died of hunger and fever, for the climate of Athens, if they stay in it long, is injurious to foreigners. But even the slight means afforded the Poles was as salt in the eyes of the Greeks. At every step they insulted those refugees. They challenged them to duels; but the Poles acted prudently, and did not accept. Once a fire broke out in Athens, and threatened the whole city. The Greeks hurried together from all sides to look at the burning, gesticulate, and shout. The Tôles (I beg to remember that I am quoting About) rushed into the flames and extinguished them with great peril to themselves. And now let any one guess what reward they received.
Well, command was given them to leave Greece!
The Greeks acted thus because after this deed the Poles were celebrated at the expense of the Greeks, and because news of their exploit, hence of their presence in Athens, passed around Europe, and might attract later attention, and perhaps, too, a diplomatic note from the government of Austria, at that time exceedingly unfavorable to the refugees.
And that reason sufficed.
If About’s account be a true one, and he was not our friend to such a degree as to invent tales to glorify us, it must be confessed that the descendants of the father of logic have not ceased, it is true, to be as logical as the Stagirite himself; but the traditions of Aristides have perished forever among them.
Still in that which is stated by the above-mentioned author, and by others more recent, concerning the Greeks, there must be undoubtedly many exaggerations, and perhaps misunderstandings in still greater number. Above all, such travellers bring with them a ready-made ethical standard which is very broad, being the result of Western civilization and its elaborate moral culture. With this scale, they measure a society which only in recent times freed itself from a bondage which was really debasing and shameful, and with a standard the more absolute because it is applied to foreigners, not to themselves. These men forget also this, that as, for instance, the conception of honor and knightliness was foreign to Antiquity, a whole sphere of moral conceptions may exist which is foreign to Orientals; those people, especially conquered ones, as were the Greeks, had, to speak strictly, no conception for a long time, and had to govern themselves solely by the animal instinct of self-preservation. That instinct was for them tone-giving, and decided equally questions of ethics and logic.
Savage people are the same everywhere. Once when a missionary asked a negro converted by him to give a case of what to his thinking evil was, the savage meditated a while, and answered, —
“Evil is if some one steals my wife.”
“Exactly!” said the delighted missionary. “And now give me a case of good.”
The savage did not hesitate a moment, —
“Good is if I steal somebody else’s wife.”
Here is the logic of people who are savage, who have fallen into savagery, or who are becoming savage. It is also universal enough in the Orient.
But let us give peace to the Greeks. I have quoted Peschl’s old anecdote because there is a logic contained in it, which we hear more and more, both in private and public. It thunders increasingly everywhere; it appears in the columns of daily papers; it swells like a wave; it drowns every day the difference between good and evil, between justice and injustice; it paralyzes the capacity of taking moral bearings in the mazes of public life, it destroys and brings to utter ruin the moral sense of public opinion, which at last knows not, and cares not to know, whom it should favor and whom it should execrate. The present world is not savage, but perhaps in a sense it is growing so.
About wrote his book thirty years ago. Greeks of the present generation would not act as did his contemporaries. They would not, because they are growing civilized in a good sense, for they are regenerated; youthful, enthusiastic, they work, they develop and perfect gradually all their spiritual capacities, hence among others the moral sense. Equilibrium among them is not destroyed yet. To be precise, they are ceasing to be savage, instead of becoming so; hence, they have shame in their eyes.
Besides they have patriotism, one great quality which none will deny them.
This patriotism rests on love for ancient Hellas, as well as for Hellas of our day.
Though the thread of tradition was woven somewhat artificially; though scholars declare that the Greeks of to-day have in their veins hardly a small drop of the blood of the ancient Hellenes, and are pre-eminently a mixture of former slaves of various origins, Albanians and Slavs, — they, as heirs of the land, wish to be, and are, inheritors also of its traditions. For this reason, their patriotism is not like a plant which grasps only the surface, and which the first wind may tear out; but it has grown into the earth, and possesses immovable power. It possesses that power for this special cause, that it is historical, and wishes to go into the future with progress, but it knows that the ever-pulsating source and the reason of its existence is on the Acropolis. So we, too, will go to the Acropolis, for the source there is of this sort, that each of ns can draw artistic impressions at least from it.
The whole plain of Attica is so small, and all things are so near one another, that travellers on steamers which stop at the Piræus only six hours have time to visit Athens, examine the sacred cliff, the Olympian, the temple of Theseus, the ruins surrounded by the new city, the ancient cemetery of the Hagia Trias, the museum, and return in time for sailing. All the more had I time therefore and opportunity not for scientific research, but for a minute examination, since I stayed about three weeks in Athens itself. But certainly it is easier to go from the square of the Constitution to the Acropolis, than to describe the Acropolis. Besides my labor moves by another road; I am not a Hellenist, so I prefer to give merely an account of impressions, and not describe minutely remains concerning which whole volumes have been written, — the fruit of difficult labor continued through long years.
We go up by a serpentine path overgrown by agaves and cactuses. Before and above us, we see merely a gigantic, gray, crumbling wall, which is only in
part an Hellenic inheritance, some of it was reared by the Latins, and some by the Turks even. From behind this wall looks forth the three-cornered summits and the out-jutting architraves of the temples. It is empty when I go in, not a living soul present, for it is an afternoon hour, and the air burning, though in the first days of November. At a side gate an old veteran is slumbering; we pass him, go by a house where piles of marble fragments are heaped up. The road winds once more; we enter by steps ascending the hill, and are in the Propylæa, through which we embrace with the eye all the platform on the summit. The first impression is ruin! ruin! silence, death! Some external Doric and internal Ionic columns of the Propylæa are pushed apart, and are held in place only by the weight of rocks; the walls are split, dented, show the light through them, are broken round about; nowhere behind that glorious gate is there an ell of unoccupied earth. Scattered over the whole space on the flat summit, and piled on it, are the bases of columns, the remnants of architraves and friezes, the fragments of metopes, capitals, and facing stones. All this, except a few temples, thrown one on the other, hanging, bent, falling, piled up, lying in a wild disorder of which even the Roman Forum can give no idea. It occurs to the traveller that here must have happened some terrible battle of giants, or gigantic powers, from which the mountain split, the walls burst, and finally everything fell, and there remained only destruction.
Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz Page 753