Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  The Greeks

  IT IS NO wonder that the Greeks were seamen and wanderers on the sea. With little more than twice as much land as Sicily, Greece has a coast line equal to that of all Spain and Portugal together. Moreover, every strong race that has reached the sea in the migration of peoples has sooner or later attempted to sail westward, like Ulysses in his last voyage, beyond the baths of all the western stars, and the Greeks were almost driven from their own shore by the press of those behind them, when their little country was filled to overflowing. So they began to spread and multiply in the islands of the Mediterranean, and certain of the bolder among them reached Italy and passed the straits, whence, sailing up the dangerous western coast, they came to the safe waters of Cumae, protected from storms by the island of Ischia; and there they founded a colony which was the beginning of Naples. Some of them, it is said, turned pirates and found their way back to Sicily.

  They were very perfect men, and could do all and bear all that could be done and borne by human flesh and blood. Taking them altogether they were the most faultlessly constructed human beings that ever lived, and they knew it, for they worshipped bodily beauty and strength, and they spent the lives of generations in the cultivation of both. They were fighting men, trained to use every weapon they knew, they were boxers and wrestlers, athletes, runners and jumpers, and drivers of chariots; but above all, they were seamen, skilled at the helm, quick at handling sails masters of the oar, and fearless navigators when half of all navigation led sooner or later to certain death. For though they loved life, as only the strong and the beautiful can love it, and though they looked forward to no condition of perpetual bliss beyond, but only to the shadowy place where regretful phantoms flitted in the gloom as in the twilight of the Hebrew Sheol, yet they faced dying as fighters always have and always will, with desperate hands and a quiet heart.

  Their ships were small craft, much more like the little vessels in which the Greeks and Sicilians sail to‑day, than those are like the vessels of the ocean. The first condition for safety was that their ships might be easily hauled up high and dry on any sandy beach, by means of such gear as they could carry with them; the second, that they should be very swift under the oar. The Norsemen who reached the Western Ocean needed the same qualities in their vessels; hence the resemblance between the old viking’s ship and the southern felucca of our own time. Both are long, narrow, and of small draught, flat-bottomed amidships, yet sharp as a knife both fore and aft. The Greek ship, like the Norseman’s, carried but one mast and one great sail that was furled whenever the wind was not free, so that the only means of motion lay in the sweeps, steadily swung and pulled by free men or slaves, as the case might be, sometimes from dawn to sunset.

  Men rarely put to sea in one ship alone for any distant voyage. They sailed out in little fleets of ten, or even twenty sail, well knowing that some should not come home, and trusting in the number of their vessels to save some of their companions from death by drowning. As Holm quietly observes, when speaking of Ulysses, men did not travel for pleasure in those days.

  When the Greek sailors were not pirates who got a living by robbing the Phoenician traders, they traded themselves, from Greece to Asia Minor and among all the rich Greek islands. They loaded their little ships on shore, covered the cargo with ox-hides battened down in the narrow water-ways to keep the stuff dry, they launched their vessels with the cargo in them, and they lived on deck, sleeping as they could in the open air, or making awnings of skins when they could anchor for the night in some natural harbour, or when with infinite labour they were obliged to beach their vessels on lonely shores before a coming storm. It was a rough life, and often they had to fight in self-defence, when weather-bound in barbarous places; but most men carried their lives in their hands in those times, and few looked forward to dying of old age.

  A certain Theocles, whom some call Thucles, an Athenian, traded with Italy in the eighth century before Christ, and no doubt had been as far as Cumae, where the Greeks had settled. But neither he nor any other Greeks had landed in Sicily, for the Sicelians had a bad name in the south, and it was said that they devoured human flesh and destroyed every one who tried to land upon their shores, so that other men left them in peace for a long time; and it is most likely that the Phoenicians, who traded with them, and even had settlements in Malta, and perhaps in Western Sicily, and who themselves offered up human sacrifices, spread this tale through the East to frighten off other trading folk.

  But Theocles, the merchant, with his little fleet of vessels, was sailing near the straits one summer day, hugging the Italian shore, when the northeast wind came upon him, suddenly and violently, as it does in those waters, and he could not beat up against it to an anchorage under the land, but was obliged to run before it, towards Sicily; for it was wiser to take the risk of being eaten by the Sicelians than to face certain drowning in vessels that would not lie to in a gale. So he wore his ships to the wind under such sail as he dared carry and ran for the opposite land with a heavy sea following. It is very likely that two or three of his fleet were swamped and sank with all on board, though a felucca will run safely before weather that would be dangerous to many larger craft. Theocles offered prayers to Apollo, and kept the helm up.

  Seeing that the wind was northeast, and that Sicily was a lee shore, he knew that his chance of safety and life lay in running under the only little headland that juts out from that part of the coast, and he succeeded in making the shelter in time, before the wind shifted to the eastward. The sea broke over him just as he rounded the point, but its force drove him on and into smooth water, where he came to and let go both anchors. One by one his companions followed him and anchored alongside, and the first Greeks proceeded to land, where they afterwards built Naxos and Tauromenium, on the soft beach of yellow sand below the little town now called Taormina, which many say is the most beautiful spot in the whole world.

  It is not possible, as some traditions say, that Theocles should have landed in the sandy cove under Cape Schisò, and should have built his altar to Apollo on the spot where Saint Pancras’s statue now stands; for the only storm which could have driven him across from Italy to the Sicilian shore was a northeaster; an easterly or southeasterly gale would have either swamped him or sent him up the straits, and when the wind is in the northeast, Cape Schisò affords no shelter, though there is smooth water •a mile to the northward under Cape Sant’ Andrea, and a little islet there protects the beach. So Theocles must have landed there, and there he doubtless proceeded to beach his vessels, heavy laden as they were, well knowing that the wind would shift to the dangerous southeast before the bad weather was over. It is most likely that he built his altar on the island, since he feared the Sicelians, and would feel safer if protected from them even by a narrow bit of shallow water; and on it he and his companions sacrificed with a little meal and wine, which was all they had, and they prayed that their lives might be spared, not dreaming that they should reach Greece again in safety, and return a second time, and build a city which should endure for ages, and be the near forerunner of a vast Greek colonization.

  Instead of a race of cannibals, rushing down from the hills to kill them for food, the Greeks found a peaceable farmer folk, well satisfied with themselves and others, who sauntered down to the shore and eyed the weather-bound strangers with benevolent curiosity. From a distance they must have seen their ships, and understood at once that these were not of Phoenician build; and they could see too, before they descended to the shore, that the newcomers were neither pirates nor soldiers, but peaceable merchants driven in from the sea for shelter. It is easy to fancy the distrust of Theocles and his companions, and the simple plan they had followed; how they allured the Sicelians by holding up specimens of their merchandise, coloured stuffs, glass beads, and bits of tinsel-ware that caught the eye, just as English sailors made friends of South Sea islanders two thousand years later. The Greeks could not speak the Sicelian tongue, but they conversed in the universal d
ialect of all commercial enterprise, the language of exchange, and for their wares they obtained fresh supplies, and by and by the natives sat down by the Greek camp fires while the great storm lasted, and they ate and drank together and talked by signs.

  Sitting there on the beach below Taormina, and wandering along to the southward, the strangers saw the rich foreshore full of trees and running springs of good water; their eyes followed the stubble fields up the rising ground, where the plentiful cornº had last been harvested, to the vinelands beyond, where the scarlet leaves still clung to the gnarled vine-stocks after the vintage; further up there were silver-green olives, and higher still the rich, dark foliage of carob trees, and all was very fertile and good. They bought wine also of the Sicelians, which was strong and almost black, and had a flavour of its own, unlike all other wines. They sacrificed at sunrise and at evening, but not every day; and the Sicelians stood apart at a little distance and watched how the strangers dealt with their strange gods, and listened to the musical Greek voices when they sang a hymn to Phoebus Apollo. But the Greeks looked over at the vast smoking mountain to the southward and dared not wander far in that direction, lest the fire god should be angry with them, though the Sicelians smiled and tried to make them understand that there was no danger; for Ulysses seemed as real and well remembered to Theocles as Columbus seems to us; and the Athenians believed that blind Polyphemus still wandered, bellowing for light, about the foot of Etna, and that the smoke they saw still came from Vulcan’s smithy, and that all manner of monstrous and half godlike beings dwelt in the little valleys round about. So Theocles would not let his companions wander far away. But in the evening, when the Sicelian farmers had gone to their dark huts, and the Greeks lay on skins around the blazing camp fire on the beach, while the southerly storm howled far overhead from over the mountains, they told each other that the land was good and the people mild, and that a few hundred Greeks could easily hold their own there, if only they could get possession of the first hill above the shore, and a little to the northward, on which Taormina now stands. There would be little difficulty about that, since the Sicelians dwelt mostly in the valleys. Their real danger was from Polyphemus and the Laestrygones, and Hephaestos, and they therefore sacrificed continually to Apollo, the protector of colonists and the giver of victory.

  The storm may have lasted a week, and when it was over, and the sea rippled gently to the breeze under the quiet sunlight, Theocles launched his ships and sailed away, not without leaving gifts to the hospitable Sicelians. As soon as he reached Athens, he began to speak of the rich country he had seen, telling that the people were well disposed, and that it would be easy to get a broad strip of land, and hold it against all comers; but no one would listen to him, or if any noticed what he said, they answered that it would be unwise to disturb Polyphemus, or to run the risk of angering Hephaestos, and that moreover they did not believe anything that he said; which was a favourite refutation of argument among the Athenians. Then Theocles went over to Chalcis in Euboea, and told his story; and there he found hearers and men very restless with the spirit of the sea, who had sailed far, and wished to sail farther, and who preferred trading and wandering to staying at home, and liked fighting better than either. But they were not godless men, and before going upon the expedition they consulted the oracle of Apollo, and the god promised them his protection and a prosperous voyage and all good fortune. Then some other Ionians and certain Dorians joined themselves to the Chalcidians with more ships, and in the spring a whole fleet of vessels sailed westward, laden with all sorts of necessary things, and Theocles piloted them safely to the very point where he had found shelter the first time; but instead of waiting by the shore, he led his people up the hill by the easy declivities that are almost like artificial terraces, one above another, and took possession of the strong crest on which the theatre now stands. No doubt Theocles dealt in a friendly way with the Sicelians, especially at first; but they were a humble and peaceable folk who looked with admiration upon the Greeks and with mild covetousness on their possessions, and were quite willing to part with a little land in exchange for a few shining toys of glass and tinsel. Besides, it does not appear that the Greeks, who were after all but a few, had come with any idea of seizing a wide territory and enslaving the inhabitants to work for them. They had come, rather, to establish an outpost trading station whence they could export the produce of the rich island in the way of regular commerce, and the Sicelians soon found that instead of being a thorn in their side, the young city of Naxos, which Theocles founded to the southward of the hill, was a profitable market for their corn and wine and oil.

  Seeing how easy it was to settle and take possession of a site for a city, some of the Dorians who were with Theocles took courage to face the dangers of the fire mountain and the anger of Polyphemus, and they sailed farther southward, along the coast, til they came to the beautiful natural harbour which is now Augusta, but which they called Taurus, at the foot of the Hyblaean hills, and there they founded Megara Hyblaea, in remembrance of Megara in the Dorian country, between Attica and the isthmus of Corinth. There, from the end of a low promontory, a tongue of land runs due south and almost encloses a sheet of still water, where ships may lie in all weathers; and there the foreshore is deep and fertile, being that lower extremity of the great plain of Catania which sweeps round the base of Mount Thymbris and terminates in the jutting land at Trogilos, just north of Syracuse.

  Swiftly the news went back to Greece that the colony was successful and that its wealth was already increasing, and within two years the great western movement of the Greeks had begun, and the fate of the Sicelians on the coasts of Sicily was decided forever. Archias, the rich Heraclid of Corinth, whose evil passion had brought about the riot in which beautiful Actaeon was killed, was a fugitive and an exile before gods and men, and he collected together his wealth, his people and his servants, and sailed forth to found lordly Syracuse; and within a few years the Chalcidians and Ionians got possession of Catania and Leontini — the broad meadow lands where the Laestrygones had been supposed to dwell; and Achaeans had come to the mainland and had founded Sybaris in the soft Italian gulf, and Crotona, which is now Cotrone, soon taking possession of all that is now Calabria and building Metapontum, Poseidonia, and Terina. The Messenians of the Peloponnesus also built Rhegium on the Italian side of the straits, and somehow their name afterwards crept across the narrow water, and Zancle came to be called Messana and then Messina. The Ionians also got round to the north side of Sicily and founded Himera, and after that came Dorians from the island of Rhodes and built Gela, which is Terranova on the Gela, the ‘gelid’ river of the Sicelians; and nearly a hundred years later the same people got possession of Akragas, which became Agrigentum, and which is Girgenti to‑day. The Megarian Dorians also founded Selinus, near Western Lilybaeum, and there one may yet see the most unimaginable mass of ruins that exists in Europe, for the earthquake that destroyed it left not one stone upon another, and buried none.

  In a hundred and fifty years the Greeks had got possession of the south, including all the mainland from Cumae near Naples, to the straits, and all the coast of Sicily from Himera on the north, not far from Palermo, round by the east and south sides to westward as far as Selinus. In Sicily the Phoenician traders had been gradually pushed to the west till their settlements only extended along about a hundred and fifty miles of the coast, though at that part of the island which was most convenient to them, as being nearest to Carthage. After they had got what they could of the south without very much fighting, the Greeks pushed further to the north and west, attempted to form a colony in Corsica and failed, and finally founded Massilia, now Marseilles.

  Though the extent of territory which they occupied in a short time seems very great, it must be remembered that in reality they at first held only the coasts, and that both on the mainland and in Sicily they pushed the original people into the interior, where the Sicelians and Italians for a long time pursued their original rural o
ccupations in peace and probably with profit, selling their produce to the Greeks, who consumed it in part, and in part exported it. The position of the Greeks in the south at that period was in one respect more like that which was held for a long time by the East India Company in India, than that of England’s trading stations. It differed from it chiefly in that the majority of the Greek colonies were not only independent of each other, but also of the mother country, and had formed themselves into oligarchies, which had succeeded the first small monarchies of the founders, and were followed again by the despotisms of men who rose to the highest places through their own talents and the play of circumstances, like Gelon, Dionysius, and Agathocles. Another great difference lies in the fact that whereas the East India Company was never really a colony, in the ethnological sense, any more than it was politically one, and whereas the Englishmen who founded it, and the thousands who acted as its agents, officers, and fighting men, always looked forward to coming home to England, the Greek colonists settled permanently in new countries, and their cities became active and independent sources of genuine Greek thought, literature, and art.

  Corinth alone seems to have kept some hold and influence upon the new settlements formed by her citizens, but in the end that connexion died away also, and at the time of the Athenian invasion all Sicily was entirely separated from the mother country. With regard to the relations between the Greeks and the natives, events followed their usual historical sequence. At first the newcomers spread round the coast, as they increased, seizing all places most desirable for trade, and driving out other traders as well as the indigenous population. But when the coast was fully occupied, they naturally began to take possession of the interior, enslaving the peaceable country people by degrees, till they were practically the masters through the length and breadth of Sicily and Southern Italy.