{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_61025/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_61025","id":"gutenberg_61025","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61025","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Archaeology & Anthropology","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Travel Writing","Homer. Odyssey","Ionian Islands (Greece) -- Description and travel","Melos (Greece : Municipality) -- Antiquities","Odysseus, King of Ithaca (Mythological character)","Venus de Milo"],"text":"[Illustration: (uncaptioned)]\n\n\n\n\n                            ON THE TRACK OF\n                                ULYSSES\n\n\n                             TOGETHER WITH\n\n         AN EXCURSION IN QUEST OF THE SO-CALLED VENUS OF MELOS\n\n\n_TWO STUDIES IN ARCH\u00c6OLOGY, MADE DURING A CRUISE AMONG THE GREEK ISLANDS_\n\n                                   BY\n                             W. J. STILLMAN\n\n                     [Illustration: (uncaptioned)]\n\n                          BOSTON AND NEW YORK\n                     HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY\n                    _The Riverside Press, Cambridge_\n                                  1888\n\n\n                            Copyright, 1887,\n                           By W. J. STILLMAN.\n\n                         _All rights reserved._\n\n\n                   _The Riverside Press, Cambridge_:\n            Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.\n\n\n                                   To\n                       WENDELL PHILLIPS GARRISON.\n\n_In times when the feverish ambition of our people so generally climbs\nto distinction by ways offensive to the true intellectual and moral\nlife, and when we find the old standards of human dignity so often\nforgotten; it renews one\u2019s faith in the future of humanity to meet a man\nwhom neither the \u201cOlympian dust\u201d nor that of California has been able to\ndeflect from that line of perfect rectitude of life which, if existence\nis to be anything but an indecent scramble, we must recognize as\nentitling the man who holds it, to the highest respect of his\nfellow-men. When besides this claim to our respect he has been able to\nmaintain undimmed the lustre of a name such as you bear, the distinction\nis still brighter. If therefore my insignificant tribute were only as\nthe dust which, catching the sunshine, males it visible, let me offer\nthis dedication in recognition of the true standard of nobility as I\nknow it in your father\u2019s son._\n\n                                                         W. J. STILLMAN.\n\n\n\n\n                                PREFACE.\n\n\nThe series of papers herewith committed to the more or less permanent\ncondition of book form were originally (less some development of their\narguments) printed in the _Century_ magazine, being the results of an\nexploring visit to Greek lands taken as a commission for that\nperiodical. I have sought in them to solve, in a popular form, certain\nproblems in arch\u00e6ology which seemed to me to have that romantic interest\nwhich is necessary to general human interest; and while necessarily, in\nsuch a study, dealing much with conjecture, I have not ventured to\nassume anything which I am not satisfied is true. The problem of the\nso-called Venus of Melos is one of those which arch\u00e6ology has fretted\nover for two generations, and I cannot pretend to have offered a\nsolution which will command assent from the severely scientific\narch\u00e6ologist; but I have an interior conviction, stronger than any\nauthority of ancient tradition to my own mind, that that solution is the\ntrue one. I do not wish it to be judged as a demonstration, but as an\ninduction in which a kind of artistic instinct, not communicable or\nequally valuable to all people, has had the greatest part; and, for the\nrest, I am satisfied to let it be taken by the rule of \u201chighest\nprobability,\u201d by which we solve to our satisfaction, more or less\ncomplete, problems of the gravest importance\u2014a rule, indeed, which is\nfor many such the only standard of truth. In arch\u00e6ology, as in some\nother inexact sciences, opinion has with most people greater weight than\nit always merits, but it should have weight in proportion to the\nknowledge its originator may have of his subject. As to this I have done\nall that any man can to penetrate to the material which exists for\nforming an opinion, and I rest in the sincere conviction, sustained\nthrough a study of many years, that the so-called Venus of Melos is\nreally the Nik\u00e9 Apteros of the restored temple dedicated to that\ngoddess.\n\nI must acknowledge the courtesy of the proprietors of the _Century_\nmagazine in according me the use of the admirable illustrations\naccompanying my text, which were put on the blocks by Harry Fenn from my\nown sketches or photographs.\n\n                                                         W. J. STILLMAN.\n\nNew York, _September, 1887_.\n\n\n\n\n                               CONTENTS.\n\n\n                                                                    PAGE\n\nON THE TRACK OF ULYSSES                                                1\n\nTHE ODYSSEY, ITS EPOCH AND GEOGRAPHY                                  50\n\nTHE SO-CALLED VENUS OF MELOS                                          75\n\n\n\n\n                         LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.\n\n\n                                                                    PAGE\n  The Route of Ulysses                                                 1\n  Ithaca and adjoining Islands                                         3\n  West Coast of Scheria                                                8\n  Greek Boats and Rostrum of Roman Galley                             13\n  Corfu, from the King\u2019s Garden                                       14\n  Port of Phorcys and Neriton, from the Mouth of Ulysses\u2019 Cave        28\n  Raven\u2019s Cliff and the Fountain of Arethusa                          34\n  The Site of Ithaca\u2014Port Polis                                       36\n  Inscription found at Polis                                          39\n  The School of Homer                                                 43\n  View of Sam\u00e9 from the West,\u2014with parts of Pelasgic and Hellenic Walls\n                                                                      58\n  Cran\u00e9 from the Sea Shore                                            60\n  Distant View of Pal\u00e9 from the Citadel of Cran\u00e9                      63\n  Zante                                                               64\n  Citadel of Cerigo                                                   67\n  Landing-Place of the Cyprian Aphrodite or Astarte                   73\n  The so-called Venus of Melos                                        82\n  Street in Castro                                                    84\n  The Site of Old Melos, from the Port                                85\n  Medicean Venus                                                      88\n  Venus Urania                                                        88\n  Capitoline Venus                                                    88\n  Venus of the Vatican                                                89\n  Venus Anadyomene                                                    89\n  Venus Victrix of the Louvre                                         89\n  Venus of Capua                                                      90\n  Restoration of the Statue as proposed by Mr. Tarral                 90\n  Fragments found at Melos attributed to the Statue                   91\n  Victory of Brescia (Front)                                          92\n  Victory of Brescia (Side)                                           92\n  Victory raising an Offering (Temple of Nik\u00e9 Apteros, the Acropolis,\n          Athens)                                                     93\n  Victory untying her Sandal (Temple of Nik\u00e9 Apteros, the Acropolis,\n          Athens)                                                     96\n  Victories leading a Bull to Sacrifice (Temple of Nik\u00e9 Apteros, the\n          Acropolis, Athens)                                          97\n  The so-called Venus of Melos (Front)                                99\n  The \u201cVenus\u201d Restored (Front. Traced from a Photograph of a living\n          Model)                                                      99\n  The \u201cVenus\u201d Restored (Side. Traced from a Photograph of a living\n          Model)                                                     100\n  The so-called Venus of Melos (Side)                                100\n  Victory of Consani                                                 104\n  Temple of Nik\u00e9 Apteros                                             105\n  Greek Coin                                                         106\n\n\n\n\n                        ON THE TRACK OF ULYSSES.\n\n\n                               CHAPTER I.\n\n                 [Illustration: THE ROUTE OF ULYSSES.]\n\nWhat remains for exploration to find on the surface of our little earth?\nThe north and south poles, some outlying bits of Central Africa, some\nstill smaller remnants of Central Asia,\u2014all defended so completely by\nthe elements, barbarism, disease, starvation, by nature and inhumanity,\nthat the traveler of modest means and moderate constitution is as\neffectually debarred from their discovery as if they were the moon.\n\nWhat then? I said to myself, searching for adventure. Let us begin the\ntread-mill round again and rediscover. I took up the earliest book of\ntravel which remains to us, and set to burnish up again the golden\nthread of the journey of the most illustrious of travelers, as told in\nthe Odyssey, the book of the wanderings of Odysseus, whom we\nunaccountably call Ulysses, which we may consider not only the first\nhistory of travel, but the first geography, as it is doubtless a\ncompendium of the knowledge of the earth\u2019s surface at the day when it\nwas composed, as the Iliad was the census of the known mankind of that\nepoch. Spread on this small loom, the fabric of the story, of the most\nsubtle design,\u2014art of the oldest and noblest,\u2014is made up with warp of\nthe will of the great gods, crossed by the woof of the futile struggles\nof the lesser, the demi-gods, the heroes, and tells the miserable labors\nof the most illustrious of wanderers, the type for all time of craft,\nduplicity, and daring, as well as of faith and patient endurance.\n\n             [Illustration: ITHACA AND ADJOINING ISLANDS.]\n\nBut as Homer\u2019s humanity mixes by fine degrees with his divinity, so his\n_terra cognita_ melts away into fairy-land, and we must look for a trace\nwritten on water before landing on identifiable shores. The story opens\nfinding Ulysses the prisoner of Love and Calypso, in Ogygia, a fairy\nisland of which the Greek of Homeric days had heard, perhaps, from some\nstorm-driven mariner, or which may be a bit of brain-land. The details\nof the story make it very difficult even to conjecture where Ogygia was,\nif it was.[1] How Ulysses leaves the island alone on a raft is told by\nthe poet in the fifth canto; how he got there the hero recounts in the\nnarration to Alcino\u00fcs in Ph\u00e6acia. Leaving Troy, he stops at Ismarus, a\ntown on the coast of Thrace, which he surprises and sacks; but, repulsed\nby the inhabitants of the lands near by, rallying to the defense, and\nvisited by the wrath of the gods for his impiety, he is punished by a\nthree days\u2019 gale, and reaches Cape Malea, where, unable to stem the\nnorth wind which still persecutes him, he runs past Cerigo down to the\nAfrican coast, which he reaches in nine days. Here we enter into\nsemi-fable.[2] The Lotophagi seduce his men with their magic fruit which\nbrings oblivion, and he is obliged to fly again. This time he goes\nnorth, and comes to an island which lies before the port of the Cyclops,\na terrible race: giants with one eye, and cannibals, over whose land the\nsmoke hangs like whirlwinds\u2014evidently Sicily. This little island, where\nthe Greeks debark, is not to be identified, but is probably one of those\nto the west of Sicily, called later the \u00c6gades. Thence, after the famous\nadventure of the Cyclops\u2019 cave, one of the poet\u2019s most marvelous\ninventions (since every detail shows that there was no positive\nknowledge of the land or its people\u2014only a fantastic tradition), they\nfly and arrive at the floating island of \u00c6olus, still a creation of\nmythology, and thence to the shores of the L\u00e6strygonians, another\nfabulous, man-eating race, in whose land the days are separated only by\na brief pretense of night; escaping thence with his single ship and\ncrew, Ulysses arrives at \u00c6a, the island of Circe, from earliest\nclassical times identified with Cape Circeo, between Naples and Civit\u00e0\nVecchia. Circe sends the hero to the land of the Cimmerians,[3] where\ntime touches eternity, and the shades of the dead come to visit the\nunterrified living; and here Tiresias, the dead soothsayer, tells the\nfuture wanderings of the Ithacan chief. Again, returning to \u00c6a, he is\nredirected toward home through the strait where Scylla and Charybdis\nmenace his existence. This we recognize by later tradition as the\nStraits of Messina, but the fabulous so dominates the slight element of\ngeography in it, that it is clear that Homer never passed that way, and\ngained his knowledge only from far remote report; while his second\npassage\u2014after the sacrilege committed in the Island of the Sun\u2014through\nthe straits, is puzzling, and the recital makes it clear that till\nPh\u00e6acia was reached the poet was not in _terra cognita_.\n\nThe indications are hardly reconcilable with the map. Leaving Circe to\ngo home, he passes the straits, and stopping at the Island of the Sun,\nhis comrades commit a sacrilege which leads to their destruction and his\nbeing driven back to Ogygia through the straits, a solitary survivor.\nBut on his departure for Ph\u00e6acia direct, he does not pass again through\nthe straits, evidently returning to the south of Sicily.\n\nReleased by Calypso, he goes on a raft with the sailing direction to\nkeep the Great Bear, \u201cwhich is also called the Wain,\u201d on his left,\u2014that\nis, he sails eastward, and for seventeen days splits the waves, and sees\non the eighteenth the wooded mountain of the island of the Ph\u00e6acians,\nthe Scheria of the ancients. The continuity of tradition and the\nconsistency of the narrative leave me no doubt that this was our Corfu,\nthe uttermost of the lands positively known to the geography of that\nday. The actuality of Scheria has been disputed by certain German\ncritics, who will have it that all the local allusions of the Odyssey\nare imaginary. But in the \u00c6neid, when \u00c6neas is going to Butrintum, which\nis now Butrinto, opposite Corfu on the Albanian coast, he says that no\nland was in sight except Scheria. This makes it certain that in Virgil\u2019s\ntime there was no question on the point.\n\nAlready in sight of Scheria, Ulysses is overtaken again by the wrath of\nPoseidon, who unchains on him all his tempests; and, his raft wrecked in\nopen sea, himself swept away from it into the mountainous waves, he\nregrets not having found a glorious death before Troy, seeing an\ninevitable and unhonored end before him, with no funeral rites to give\nhis soul peace. Leucothea, the white goddess, throws into the black warp\na silver thread, and brings the story into new light and color. She\ngives him an amulet which, by its magic, carries him through the last of\nhis grave perils, and preserves him when, with a great and wrathful\nburst of wind, Poseidon disperses the timbers of his raft and leaves him\nfloating in the yeasty sea. He seizes on one of the timbers and\nhopefully strikes out for the land. Athene comes once more to his aid.\nShe chains all the winds except Boreas, which, wafting him for two days\nand nights to the southeast, gives place to a perfect calm. Ulysses,\nraised on the summit of a huge wave, looks out and sees the land. But it\nis a terrible, rock-bound coast. \u201cHe hears the roar of the waves that\nbreak on the rocks, because the shock of the great waves against the\nbare cliffs sounds fearfully, and the sea, far and wide, is covered with\nfoam. But there is no peaceable roadstead, no port, safe refuge of\nships; everywhere high, mountainous rocks and cliffs.\u201d He appeals to the\ngods for pity, and just then, \u201cwhile he turns these thoughts in his\nspirit and heart, an immense wave throws him on the bare shore. Then his\nflesh would have been torn and his bones broken if Athene had not\ninspired him. With both hands he clutches the rock and embraces it with\ngroans until the wave had withdrawn. He in this way escapes death, but\nthe return of the wave falls on him, strikes him, and withdraws him into\nthe open sea. He, emerging from the depths, more prudently coasts along,\nswimming until he can find an opening in the rocks where he may enter,\nand finally perceives the mouth of a river. He offers a prayer to the\nriver god, and is heard and peacefully received by the peaceable wave,\nwhich lands him on the sandy shore.\u201d The whole of the finale of the\nfifth book is grand and imaginative, especially in the description of\nthe stormy sea and the condition of Ulysses as he sinks on the\nhospitable sands exhausted, half dead from his long struggle and his two\ndays\u2019 and nights\u2019 swim, sustained only by one of the logs of his\nraft;[4] but what to my present purpose is of most significance is the\nstriking description of the west coast of Corfu and the unmistakable\nevidence of the mythologist giving way to the traveler. Here we strike\nthe veritable track of Ulysses, and here begin our researches. To reach\nthis point all the commerce of the Levant aids us\u2014steamers from Trieste,\nBrindisi, Naples, Patras, Malta, etc.\n\nHere I found fit to my purpose a little yacht of twelve tons,\ncutter-rigged and Malta-built, the _Kestrel_, with whose master and\nowner I made my bargain, namely: he was to obey all my reasonable orders\nfor any voyage within the two archipelagos, find his ship and crew of\ntwo sailors in all they needed for service and safety, do my cooking,\nand insure himself, for the sum of fifteen pounds sterling a month for\nthree months; and while he was putting in stores, fitting new cables to\nhis anchors, and burnishing up a bit, we began to inspect Scheria.\n\n                 [Illustration: WEST COAST OF SCHERIA.]\n\nThe popular tradition of to-day fixes the landing of Ulysses near the\nactual city of Corfu, and an island is pointed out as the ship turned to\na rock; while the spot where he landed, and the scene of that most\ncharming of all the episodes of his wanderings, the meeting with\nNausic\u00e1a, is put at the \u201cone-gun battery,\u201d just south of the harbor of\nCorfu. Nothing could comport less with the description of the Odyssey.\nThe Channel of Corfu, dividing the island from Epirus, is a land-locked\nbasin in which no such storm could arise as Ulysses encountered, and\nalong which no such rocks exist as are described in the poem. The\nseventeen days\u2019 drift from the westward before the tempest, and the next\ntwo days after it, wafted by Boreas, show that he was in the open\nAdriatic, and coasting along the rock-bound western coast of Scheria to\nfind an inlet where he might enter. The illustration shows the character\nof this coast in entire concordance with the Odyssey; and there is near\nthe spot from which my view of the west coast of Scheria is taken, a\nconvent (which is visited by all the tourists who, having some days in\nCorfu, care for the most picturesque part of the island), and which by\nits name, Pal\u00e6castrizza, shows that it stands near the site of some\nancient city or fortress, as the term \u201cPal\u00e6castron\u201d is never applied by\nlocal tradition to any construction not belonging to the classical or\narchaic epochs. Even Byzantine ruins never receive the epithet \u201cpal\u00e6os.\u201d\nNo trace is now to be found of any prior structure near the convent,\nwhich, while it probably has some relation to an antique site, certainly\nis not on that of the city of Alcino\u00fcs, which must have been farther\nsouth where the shore breaks down to a plain. There used to be in the\nisland an old antiquity-hunter who brought from time to time to sell\nclandestinely in the city, objects of gold and terra-cotta, vases, etc.,\ndug up at a site which only he seems to have known, and of which he\nwould never disclose the location. On inquiring for him on this my last\nvisit to Corfu for these researches, he was not to be heard of. All that\nwe had learned from him was that the ruins of which he knew and where he\nexcavated in secret were somewhere on the western coast, which\ncorresponds to my hypothesis that the capital of Alcino\u00fcs was there.\n\nThere is something so unpractical in the Greek laws on the subject of\nexcavation and exportation of antique objects, that it is to be hoped\nthat the shrewd common sense of the people will ere long see their\nimpolicy. Excavation without permission from the Government, even on\none\u2019s own land, is forbidden, which is not unreasonable considering all\nthings; but even when permission is accorded or when objects are found\nby chance, the Government practically confiscates the find when the\nfinders are feeble, and levies a tax of half the value when they are\nnot. Everything, therefore, is done in secret, and exportation by\ncontraband is the only possible manner of profiting by one\u2019s good\nfortune. The peasant who finds an antique site carefully conceals it;\nand the objects he finds, instead of enabling the arch\u00e6ologist to\nclassify the antiquities by reference to their provenance, are sold to\nsome one who removes them from the country, and so all clue is lost to\ntheir true arch\u00e6ological position. As I shall have to show in the course\nof these articles, grave loss to the science of arch\u00e6ology sometimes\noccurs in this way. In this particular instance the loss to me is the\nbeing unable to identify, with any probability, the place where or near\nto which Ulysses landed, and where the classic meeting with Nausic\u00e1a\ntook place. When we get to Ithaca we shall find that the author of the\nOdyssey knew well every foot of land he describes; and the scene of\nUlysses\u2019 disaster, already translated, accords so well with the actual\ntopography that it is difficult to suppose that a mere inspiration\ndictated it, and that the author was not well acquainted with the island\nof Scheria, whose capital was Ph\u00e6acia.\n\nThe claim of the city of Corfu to be the site of the ancient Ph\u00e6acia\nrests on nothing but the fact that it is the only city in the island;\nbut the ever-tranquil bay on which it lies, and the fact that Ulysses,\ninstead of searching for a place where he could land, would rather have\nhad to search for a place where he could not, shows conclusively that no\npart of the eastern coast is entitled to the honor. The \u201cone-gun\nbattery,\u201d where local tradition places his landing, is perhaps the least\nlikely point, as no running stream is to be found near there. The lake,\nwhich is now suggested as the tranquil water in which Ulysses came to\nland, must then have been much larger than at present, and now in nowise\nresembles a river: it is the half-filled arm of the sea into which a\nwide basin of marshy land has been for centuries draining, but into\nwhich no watercourse leads, and the view seen from above the \u201cone-gun\u201d\nneeds scarcely a commentary to show its entire incompatibility with the\nOdyssey.\n\nThe capital of Alcino\u00fcs was, we are told by Homer, founded by his father\nNausitho\u00fcs. His people were formerly inhabitants of Hyperia, \u201cnear the\nCyclops,\u201d and were by these latter so ravaged and overborne that they\nemigrated to Ph\u00e6acia. The generally accepted location of the Cyclops in\nSicily suggests that Hyperia was probably there or in Italy; and that\nthe Ph\u00e6acians may have been related to the Siculi; since the Pelasgi,\nwho invaded Italy from the north, and, uniting with the Umbri, spread\nover the whole of southern Italy, expelling the aborigines, are\ncontinually confounded by the earliest traditions with the Cyclops. As,\nfrom all we know, the Tyrrhene Pelasgi were the earliest metal-workers\nin that part of Europe,[5] and as the Cyclops, the children of\nHephaistos, the great metal-worker, are a mythological idealization of a\nrace of smiths who had a habit of covering the eyes, for protection from\nsparks, with a screen in which a single hole was cut to see through,\nwhich was transmogrified into a single eye in the middle of the\nforehead, there is nothing unlikely in the inference that the Pelasgi\nand Cyclops were identical, and that the Ph\u00e6acians were refugees from\nthe conquest of southern Italy by that formidable people. That they were\nnot Greeks we know by their absence from the catalogue of the \u201cIliad,\u201d\nwhere all the Hellenic tribes were recorded in their places in the\nleague.\n\nThe Corfiotes of to-day boast of descent from the Ph\u0153nicians, and\ncertainly they are not to be measured by the same standard as the Greek\nrace in general. Their reputation for dishonesty has given rise to a\nGreek proverb, which relegates a person of more than usual craftiness\nand bad faith to the \u201cCorfiotes.\u201d \u201cHe behaves like a Corfiote\u201d is the\ngreatest reproach the continental Greek can bring against a man who is\ntoo clever in business matters. In character as well as history the\nCorfiote has little in common with Greece. As he had no place inside the\nline drawn around the Hellenic world at the great critical, even if\nmythical, epoch assigned to the siege of Troy, so in his latest history\nhe has always maintained a position more or less apart. Diodorus Siculus\nmakes the Homeric name of the city, Ph\u00e6acia, to have been derived from\nPh\u00e6acus, son of Poseidon, and places his reign contemporary with the\nArgonauts, as Ph\u00e6acus protected Jason against the king of Iolcus when,\nreturning from Colchis with Medea, he took refuge at Scheria. Mythology\nbegins with it in the combat of Zeus and Poseidon in their struggle for\nsupremacy in the government of the universe, and finishes with Ulysses\u2019\nvisit. History commences with the arrival of a colony of Corinthians\nunder Chersicrates, who built a city which he called Chrysopolis. This\nwas probably Corfu, for, as the immigration of Nausitho\u00fcs, coming from\nItalian shores, first established itself on the coast looking toward\ntheir old home, so the Corinthians, coming by the islands and the\nEpirote shores, would find their first landing in the spacious and\ntranquil bay formed by the crescent-shaped island, which, at its\nextremes, approaches the mainland. The Hellene of Corinth brought all\nthe seeds of the virtues and vices of his national temperament to the\nfertile soil of Corcyra, as it is henceforward called by the Hellenic\nchronicles, colonization and war with their neighbors filling all their\nearly history. They founded, according to their tradition, Apollonia and\nother cities on the mainland; but, as among the ruins of those cities\nthere are Pelasgic remains, it is not to be supposed that they were the\nfirst colonists, but that they merely colonized, as the Romans did in\nthe later times, with a dominant population, cities in decline or too\nweak to maintain their independence. This is, in ancient Greek history,\noftener the meaning of the word _colonize_ than the founding of a new\ncity. To get a clear idea of the condition of this part of the world at\nthe beginning of historical, or even heroic record, we must take into\nconsideration that an epoch of civilization, perhaps of empire, had long\npreceded the awakening of the Hellenic national life; an epoch which\nought, perhaps, to be measured by centuries, if we could measure it at\nall, and whose record is preserved in the stupendous ruins we call\nPelasgic, a name applied by the Greeks to a people who preceded them,\nderived possibly from the Greek name of the stork, indicating a\nmigrating or wandering people,\u2014wandering, probably, because their empire\nhad been broken up by some newer and stronger race, but which the\nvarious remaining traditions accord in asserting to have once held great\nrule in Italy, where they were known also as Tyrrhenians, in the\nPeloponnesus, and in Crete. We shall see presently some indications of\nthe correctness of the assumption that they preceded by an infinite\nperiod the great assemblage of Greeks, which the expedition to Troy\nperhaps marks, perhaps symbolizes; but at present I have only to do with\nthe history and mythology of Corfu, which is in no way that we can\ndiscover connected with the Pelasgi.\n\n        [Illustration: GREEK BOATS AND ROSTRUM OF ROMAN GALLEY.]\n\nThe first wars of Corcyra were, as was to be expected of an enterprising\npeople, with the mother country; but as in those days piracy was the\nchief business of every maritime people, _war_ was perhaps only a normal\ncondition. The Persian invasion brought Corcyra into the Hellenic\nleague, but, with the duplicity of which the race furnished so many\ninstances in ancient times, the Corcyriote fleet only sailed, and took\ngood care not to be in time for the battle, fearing the vengeance of the\nPersians. Their prudence brought on them, after the defeat of Xerxes at\nSalamis, a combined attack of the Peloponnesian States. As the union of\nthese was always a challenge to Athens, she sided with the Corcyriotes,\nand the resulting war plunged Corcyra into intestine and social strife,\nin which the most horrible cruelties were perpetrated by the islanders;\nand the animosities and renewals of revolt and war, which the divisions\nof the classes of the population gave opportunity for, reduced the\nisland to anarchy and helplessness. Their subsequent history is one of\nrepeated subjugation and revolt. After losing even the relative\nindependence of alliance with Athens, they were conquered by Agathocles\nof Syracuse, Pyrrhus, and finally by Rome.\n\n             [Illustration: CORFU, FROM THE KING\u2019S GARDEN.]\n\nFrom this time Corcyra was the base of the Roman military movements\nagainst the Levantine enemies of the republic. The commanding position\nof the island has, from that day to this, made it an object of the\ncovetousness of all the maritime powers of the Mediterranean by turns.\nIn the civil wars of Rome, the island espoused the part of Pompey, later\nof Brutus and Cassius, and then, always unfortunate, of Antony. After\nthe battle of Actium, fought almost within sight of its shores, Corcyra\nwas besieged, taken, and rigorously punished by Augustus, and then\nrelegated to an obscurity out of which only the great Ottoman invasion\nof Europe brought it. It was involved more or less in the Saracenic,\nBulgarian, Norman, and Neapolitan wars and invasions, and finally threw\nitself into the arms of Venice to save itself from conquest by Genoa.\nFrom this time (1386) the history of Corcyra, become Corfu, until the\noverthrow of the republic by Napoleon, is identified with that of\nVenice, and all the remains or structures in the island date from the\nVenetian occupation.\n\nIn 1537 the troops of the Sultan, under the orders of the renegade\nBarbarossa, made a descent on the island and laid siege to the city,\nwhich, taken by surprise, was ill-provisioned and with a small garrison.\nThe Turkish fleet blockaded the port, and the troops beleaguered the\ncity by land. The garrison was under the terrible alternative of being\nstarved into surrender speedily or dismissing all the useless mouths.\nThe latter was, on the whole, safer, for the surrender would have been\ndisastrous even to the non-combatants, who were to Turkish barbarity no\nless obnoxious than the soldiers. The old men, women, and children were\nsent out of the city, perhaps the most horrible necessity which ever\nbefell brave men. A successful defense of the city justified, in a\nmilitary point of view, the terrible sacrifice; and, after a long and\nobstinate siege, Barbarossa, his army nearly destroyed by battle and\npestilence, withdrew, defeated. The island was almost depopulated,\nravaged, and so utterly impoverished that Venice was obliged to send the\npeople seed-corn and beasts to till their fields. Nearly the whole of\nthe nobility of the island had been killed in the defense.\n\nTo be in readiness for a similar emergency, the Senate augmented the\nalready strong fortifications. The New Fort, as it is still called, was\nconstructed, and, with a paternal regard for the well-being of the\nislanders, which Venice did not always show for her Greek insular\npossessions, institutions were founded and regulations made which\ncontributed greatly to the prosperity of the island.\n\nIn 1716 a new and determined attack was made by the Turks, under the\nleadership of Achmet III. Their fleet drove off that of Venice, and an\narmy of thirty thousand men was debarked and laid siege to the city,\nwhose defense was directed by Count Schulembourg. The outlying heights\nwere taken quickly, and the garrison, shut in the inner line of\nfortifications, received the desperate assault of the Turks on the main\nworks with more desperate resistance. After twenty days of incessant\nattack, the Turks carried the outworks, penetrated to the Place d\u2019Armes,\nwhich is under the walls of the New Fort, and attempted to scale the\nwalls themselves.\n\n\u201cThe assault lasted more than six hours with an incredible fury. The\nwomen brought assistance to the defenders, and the priests, crucifix in\nhand, ran along the ramparts or threw themselves into the fight. Finally\na vigorous sortie terminated this bloody day. Attacked on every side,\nthe assaulting force beat a retreat and lost all the outposts it had\ntaken. A tempest, which had burst on them in the night, completed the\nwork of defeat, and, seized by panic, they embarked precipitately,\nleaving baggage and artillery behind them. In forty-two days they had\nlost fifteen thousand men.\u201d (_Isles de la Gr\u00e8ce._)\n\nThe victory was commemorated by a statue to Schulembourg, which no\nsubsequent conquest has disturbed, and which stands on the parade-ground\namong monuments of greater or less good taste (generally the latter), to\nmark the history of the island in modern days.\n\nFrom that day to this, with the exception of an occasional _\u00e9meute_,\nnothing has come to disturb the peace of Corfu, and the once so splendid\ncourage of the inhabitants has gone out like a fire without a draught.\nThere is probably no province of the Hellenic kingdom so devoid of\nmartial spirit or the virtues that grow out of it. It is now a most\ndelightful winter resort, a Fortunate Isle left out of the current of\npolitical events and given over to invalids and sportsmen, who find on\nthe opposite Albanian coast the best shooting on the Mediterranean. The\nold citadel, with its double peak, serves as a light-house to the lines\nof steamers which furrow the Adriatic, cross, and make Corfu their\n_entrep\u00f4t_ between Trieste, Venice, Brindisi, Alexandria,\nConstantinople, and Smyrna.\n\nThe English occupation endowed the island with good roads, most of which\nare maintained in fair condition still; and a winter\u2019s sojourn here\nlacks nothing which could be expected in the compass of ten by thirty\nmiles, with two posts per week from Europe. The fruits are those of the\nnorthern Mediterranean in great perfection, the oranges being only\nsecond to those of Crete; the waters are still well supplied with fish,\nthough the people do all they can to exterminate them by the use of\ndynamite in fishing; and the Bella Venezia is a hotel which, though\nstill strange to the resources of our American caravansaries, is more\nappropriate to the ways of the East and of idle people than are ours.\nThe kindly, honest old host, appropriately known as Dionysos, lacks but\nlittle of giving to the stranger the hospitality of Alcino\u00fcs. And life\nis so cheap that one who has worn out the world and realized an income\nof a thousand dollars a year may find a Macarian peace in an upper room\nof the Bella Venezia, with windows looking out on the beautiful\nmountains of Epirus, snow-clad all winter, and the bright blue of the\nintervening sea, with the coming, going, and merely passing ships of all\nnations; and, when the sun is low, have a comfortable carriage to thread\nthe labyrinths of the immense olive groves which form almost the only\nshade in the island. Here one meets men of all races\u2014Turkish reliefs on\ntheir way from Stamboul to Durazzo, or Scutari of Albania; white-skirted\npalikars from Epirus; Eastern Jews, with their characteristic long\nrobes; Persians, Montenegrins, Peloponnesians, etc., who, changing\nsteamers here, or glad to breathe a land air during the stay in port of\ntheir steamers, stroll up and down the parade, with the easy-going\ntownsmen and tourists of all nations, seeing the island in comfort or\nrushing over it in the custody of Cook or Gaze, to carry away a confused\nremembrance of Corfu and Syra, hardly recalling which was which.\n\nUlysses was dismissed from Scheria loaded with presents. The modern\nvoyager is not so fortunate. The souvenirs of Corfu which he will carry\nwith him, whether antique or modern, will rarely recompense him for the\noutlay. The bric-\u00e0-brac shops abound in false antiques, arms from\nEpirus, Greek laces, and Eastern embroideries, which no wise buyer\nmeddles with, dear beyond measure as they are. Be content with the\nmoderate _pension_ of the Bella Venezia, and tempt not Mercury in his\nfavored island; he was the god of thieves as well as merchants, and was\nnever better worshiped in his capacity of joint protector than in the\nbric-\u00e0-brac shops of Corfu.\n\nUlysses went to Ithaca in one night, in what must have been, for the\ntime, the quickest passage on record, and a great credit to the rowers\nof King Alcino\u00fcs. Nothing like it is to be expected to-day, though it is\nnot impossible still, and the steamer which does the service makes a\nlong, roundabout voyage. Our yacht, though small, was too big for\nrowing, and we had no special motive, as Ulysses had, to get quickly to\nIthaca. As our route lay by Santa Maura, which has to do with the story\nof the Odyssey, if not with the wanderings from Troy, we turned aside\nfrom his course to visit it. Nericus, as it was called in Homeric\nnomenclature, probably formed part of the realm of the Ithacan kings,\nLaertes mentioning his conquest of it; but it is not mentioned in the\ncatalogue, and we may conclude was not Greek. It is barely separated\nfrom the mainland by a narrow channel, cut by the Corinthians through a\nflat, which more anciently, however, must have been a shallow arm of the\nsea. The action of the elements is filling it up again, so that time may\nunite it to the Acarnanian shore, as in the Homeric days; for Laertes,\nin recalling to Ulysses some of his old exploits (Odyssey, book 24),\nsays: \u201cAh, that it had pleased Zeus, Apollo, Athene, to have borne me to\nyour palace, such as I was when, at the head of the Cephalonians, I\ntook, _on the continent_, the proud city of Nericus!\u201d In the catalogue\nof the Iliad we find that \u201cUlysses commands the magnanimous\nCephalonians; the warriors of Ithaca; those of shady Neriton, of\nCrocyles, of the barren \u00c6gilipos; those of Samos [Sam\u00e9 of Cephalonia,\nnot the island Samos], of Zacynthus [Zante], and of the adjoining\ncontinent. Twelve ships whose sides were painted red followed him.\u201d But\nNericus occurs nowhere.\n\nNothing illustrates so strikingly the change in the condition of\ncivilization as the relations between the ancient and modern chief\ncities of the Greek islands. The substitute for the stately Nericus is a\nlow, flat, uninteresting town, built on the plain which lies north of\nNericus, and next the roadstead. To the east lie the rugged mountains of\nAcarnania and the Gulf of Arta; north, in full view, is the modern\nfortress of Prevesa; further, and to the east, Arta, the ancient\nAmbracia; and the long strip of low coast which stretches away from\nPrevesa northward is dotted with masses of ruin\u2014those of the imperial\nNicopolis, monument of the victory of Actium, won in those blue waters.\nThe idle shepherds of those days, watching their sheep on these hills,\nsaw the crash of prows, the flight of Egypt, and the shame of Antony.\nPerhaps, through this very channel, where the light-draft ca\u00efque now\nglides, to gain the shelter of the islands going southward, ran the\nfugitive ships of Cleopatra; for this was evidently the channel by which\nthe craft of those days avoided the stormy capes of Cephalonia and the\nsouthern point of Nericus. Standing on the eastern brow of the hill on\nwhich the old city stood, and on which its ruins still mark a noble\npast, is the citadel. Along the plain, among the olives, the fragments\nof tombs lie spread like flocks of sleeping sheep. The port was on the\nbay now connected with the northern roadstead by the Corinthian Channel;\nand two or three underground passages, in part cut in solid rock, one\nbeing high enough for a man to walk in upright, and cut as cleanly and\nevenly as the walls of a chamber, connect it with the citadel which\ndominates the northern part of the island, where the fertile plains lie.\nThe ruins are of various ages, embracing Pelasgic, but mainly later, and\ncoming down to Roman times; and the great extent of the Pelasgic\n_enceinte_, which almost everywhere underlies the Hellenic and Roman\nwork, shows the great early importance of the city. The citadel is bold\nand commanding, and looks out on the northern and western seas on one\nside, and the Corinthian Channel and the inland sea on the other, and\ndown to Ithaca, which, indeed, is visible from some points.\n\nThe post-Homeric name of Nericus was Leucadia. \u00c6neas is represented as\nhaving debarked there, and Apollo had a temple on the heights which\nterminate the island to the south. From the cliffs which overlook the\nAdriatic on that side, Sappho is said to have leaped into the sea,\novercome by the sorrows of her unhappy love. \u201cSappho\u2019s Leap\u201d is the name\nof the cliff to this day, and my Corfiote captain, as we glided by, told\nme how the place was celebrated because the Duchess of the island had\njumped off into the sea from it, and that the people had put up a great\ninscription in memory of it. He had never seen it, and didn\u2019t know\nexactly where the leap was made; but I think he was very excusable for\nhis ignorance, as the action of the sea, driven as it is sometimes by\nthe furious southwest wind into a very \u201chell of waters,\u201d which consume\nthe rock in their fury, must long ago have brought down all that\nclassical times had seen of the rock, and changed the face of the cliff\nentirely. As it now is, I could find hardly a point where a new Sappho\nwould have found a welcome so gentle as the embrace of the Adriatic;\nmasses of fallen rock and stony beach would have given a harsher but\nmore speedy end.\n\nMythology says that when Adonis was killed, Aphrodite, seeking him\nthrough all the earth, finally found him lying dead in the temple of the\nErythr\u00e6an Apollo. The Sun-god, to cure her grief, counseled her to throw\nherself from the cliffs of Leucadia into the sea, where she would find\noblivion. Here Zeus, who seems to have found obstacles in the way of his\nlegitimate marriage, and to have wooed Hera at first with less success\nthan attended his mortal loves, found by the same process a salutary\nindifference to the charms of his divine sister and afterwards spouse,\nto which temporary coolness on his part might, perhaps, be ascribed his\nultimate success with the fickle fair.\n\nAnd here, in practical historical times, criminals condemned to death\nwere thrown into the sea. The people (who even now preserve a certain\nsympathy with the criminal class) used to tie numbers of birds to the\nlimbs of the condemned and cover them with feathers to break the force\nof their fall, and then send boats to pick them up. If they survived,\nthey were pardoned.\n\nIn modern times nothing has occurred to signalize Santa Maura, or\n\u201cLevkadi,\u201d as it is indifferently called. It was taken and retaken by\nTurks and Venetians, and finally passed with the rest of the Ionian\nIslands to the heirs of Venice. Its people are a mild, hospitable race,\nto whom the stranger is a guest almost in the antique sense.\n\nWe loitered along with a feeble west wind, under the western shore, bold\nand desolate, of Levkadi, its high peaks above us breaking into ravines,\nand the ravines ending in cliffs, doubled \u201cSappho\u2019s Leap,\u201d and before us\nlay Ithaca, the ten-years-sought-for island. To the north was still\nvisible a dim film which we knew to be Corfu; nearer, one less dim,\nwhich we recognized by its outline to be Paxos, an island without\nhistory and without interest, but which tradition asserts to have been\nonce united to Corfu and separated by an earthquake. The breeze\nquickened at night-fall as we went round the point of the Leukadian\ncliffs, and before us lay the inland sea, which, separating Santa Maura,\nIthaca, Cephalonia, and Zante from the mainland, is a sort of\nsmooth-water channel for ships coming out of the Gulf of Patras, or of\nCorinth, as it is indifferently called, or running in there from Corfu\nand the upper Adriatic. The bolder portions of Ithaca are almost utterly\ndenuded rock. One hollow, like a great theatre, opens northward between\ntwo bold rocky peninsulas, and this is the vale from which the Odyssean\ncity drew its prosperity. Olive-trees and vineyards still cover its\nslopes, and suggestions of white villages flashed out from the silvery\ngreen sea of olive orchards as we flitted by, running under the eastern\nshore to catch the breeze that blew down from the mountain as the sun\nsank. We had all the wind our cutter could carry, and bowled along\nthrough the smooth water in the lee of the island like a steamer. Far\nahead we saw, in the gathering night, a faint glimmer of light, which\nseemed too faint for a light-house, and too steady for a house-light,\nand which perplexed us exceedingly, as no light was indicated on the\nchart; but, creeping along shore, we found that it was a tiny chapel\nstanding on a long and menacing peninsula of bare rock, in the window of\nwhich burned a lamp,\u2014in all probability the fulfillment of a vow made by\nsome devout Greek sailor who had escaped the teeth of this Scylla; or\nthe perpetuation of an antique custom, when the little chapel of St.\nNicholas, protector of sailors, was a temple of Neptune, whom the saint\nreplaces in function and respect of the seafarer. Nothing is more\ninteresting in this part of the world than the evidences of the unbroken\ncontinuity of religious tradition, and the gradual change of paganism\ninto Christianity,\u2014if, indeed, the change has taken place, which in\ncertain districts I am scarcely disposed to admit. The little chapels\nwhich one finds planted by the seaside or solitary roadside in all the\nGreek islands, and even on the mainland, will generally be found to have\nsome antique material in them, some evidence of the earlier shrine which\nhonored one of the Greek gods. The Olympians have their homologues if\nnot their homonyms. Zeus goes back to his awful antique dignity of the\nAll-father, the original sole deity of the Pelasgian, worshiped in a\ntemple not made by hands, under the speaking oak of Dodona, the one God,\nmaker of heaven and earth, the Dyaus or Sky-father of our Aryan\nancestors, and Zeus (Deus, Divus) of the western branch of the family;\nbut his creatures and children fall into the lower rank of saints:\nApollo becomes St. Elias (Helios); Athena, the Virgin Mary; Ares, St.\nGeorge; Poseidon, St. Nicholas, etc., etc.\n\nWe left St. Nicholas and his night-light behind us, and, rounding a cape\ninto the Bay of Vathy, saw in the dim distance the light of the outer\nlight-house, and met the wind coming out of the bay. It was late, and\nbeating up the bay would be a long job; so we turned in and left the\nnavigation to the sailors. The next morning we woke, as Ulysses did,\nunder the shadow of Neriton, where the Ph\u00e6acians had left him sleeping.\n\n\u201cIn one part of Ithaca is the port of Phorcys, the old man of the sea;\nthe bold promontories forming the circuit protect it from the great\nwaves and the sounding winds. The ships which have once entered it may\nlie without cables. At its extremity is a bushy olive-tree whose shadow\nhides a delicious grotto and shady retreat, sacred to the Nereids. In\nthis asylum, refreshed by an inexhaustible fountain, are placed the\nvases and the jars of stone.... It has two entrances: one, looking\ntoward the north, is for the use of men; the other, to the east, is more\ndivine. Never man enters there: it is the path of the immortals.\n\n\u201cThe olive-tree and the grotto are known to the Ph\u00e6acians. There they\ngo. The ship runs half-way up the beach, so strong is the stroke of the\nrowers. Then these land, carrying Ulysses, still plunged in profound\nsleep, and lay him on the sand, wrapped in brilliant blankets and woven\nlinen.\u201d\n\nWaking, he is bewildered by the artifice of Athena, and does not\nrecognize his native island; but finally, when he appeals to the Goddess\nto tell him the truth, if he be in Ithaca, she replies to him:\u2014\n\n\u201cNow I will show you the localities of Ithaca, that you may doubt no\nmore. There is the port of Phorcys, old man of the sea; there, at the\nextremity of the port, the bushy olive-tree, and under its shade a\ndelicious grotto, dark resting-place, and sacred to the nymphs. This is\nthe vaulted grotto where often you sacrificed entire hecatombs to the\nnymphs. There is Mount Neriton, shadowed by forests.\u201d\n\nThe identification of this little bay or \u201cport\u201d is the one contested\npoint of the topography, and, on account of its greater commodiousness,\nPort Vathy (at the left as we enter the roadstead) is maintained by some\nauthorities to be the \u201cport of Phorcys.\u201d The geology of the two bays is\nconclusive evidence in favor of that which the Greeks now call Port\nDexia (the right-hand port), as Port Vathy has not, and by its\ngeological formation never could have had, a beach such as Homer\ndescribes, and which was indispensable to the ancient sailor, while that\nof Dexia is superb\u2014a soft, unbroken stretch of sand. Other objections we\nshall meet further on.\n\n  [Note.\u2014The puzzling question of the forms of classical names in these\n  articles has been carefully considered, and the difficulty of adapting\n  consistent classical orthography to popular arch\u00e6ology seems too great\n  to be overcome in this place.]\n\n\n                              CHAPTER II.\n\nThe changes of the conditions of existence in what we call civilization\nresemble, a good deal more than we generally imagine, the progress of a\nhorse in a tread-mill. Comparing the evidences of a higher prosperity\nwhich history affords with what we now find in Ithaca, we have ample\nground to suppose that, while our part of the world has made certain\nadvances, this has rather retrograded. A scanty population, the greater\npart of the island indeed uninhabited; ruins of great cities where now\nthere is not a shepherd\u2019s hut; a wretched, sordid life in which not even\npoetry, the offspring of sorrow, can find a foothold; utter\ninsignificance in the world of men,\u2014this is what the island of Ulysses,\nwhich fills so large a part of the Old World\u2019s poetry, shows us to-day.\n\nWe woke like Ulysses under the shadow of Neriton, but not like him under\nthe olive\u2019s shade. Our yacht was anchored in a tranquil and land-locked\nbay, Port Vathy (the deep), round the shores of which stretch and gleam,\nwhite in the sun, the houses of the modern capital of Ithaca, a dull,\nutterly uninteresting town, neither whose past nor present is worth a\nnote.\n\nDevastated by Turks and corsairs by turns, conquered by Christian and\nInfidel, the tribute of death and pillage had at one time nearly left\nthe island a desert, and Venetian chronicles report the repeopling of it\nby a Slavonic colony; but there is good evidence, as we shall see\npresently, that there was never quite an end of the original stock.\nThough one does see occasionally strongly Slavonic faces, the population\nis now in language and manners purely Greek, with some of the worst\ntraits of the race strongly developed. By good chance I found an old\nacquaintance in Mr. Caravia, a deputy for Ithaca to the Greek Assembly,\nthen in vacation, and I had a letter to Aristides Dendrinos, the\nprincipal personage of the island; and through their united attentions\nwe were made as much at home in Ithaca as possible. But the Ithacans are\nshrewd folk, sharp dealers who look at foreigners as the Hebrews did on\nthe Egyptians, as made to be spoiled; and we were unlucky enough to have\narrived in the Greek Lent, which, as they observe it, is equal to\nstarvation to outsiders. The excellent wine of Ithaca, one of the best\nof Greek wines, is quite worthy its ancient reputation; but flesh was\nunattainable, and fish so rare, owing to the people\u2019s habit of killing\nthem with dynamite, that we could not get enough for a breakfast. The\nfowls in Greek lands, living an outcast life, never fed, but expected to\ngrow, as the partridges do, on the bounties of nature, hardly offer a\ncompensation for the trouble of picking their bones. They combine all\nthe misfortunes of the wild and domesticated conditions, with none of\nthe advantages of either, and offer a scant resource to the caterer. We\nmade haste to see what was to be seen in Ithaca, and study our great\npredecessor\u2019s footprints, but we found the learning harder than the\nliving. The island Greek is quick-witted, and, like the Irishman, never\nconfesses himself at fault in anything you want to know, especially in\nthings connected with ancient history or arch\u00e6ology. He solves the\nhardest and most obscure problem by a bold dash, and is even surer than\nSchliemann in his breezy inductions. It is amusing and cheering to see a\nman so cock-sure of what arch\u00e6ology has puzzled over so many years. On\ninquiring for a guide to shorten my researches (for, though Homer is\nguide-book enough for Ithaca, one may be a long time in tracing out the\nOdyssean movements by the poem), every one was ready to show me\neverything. Before leaving I found an intelligent guide, as such go, in\none Angelo Persego, whose name I record for the benefit of such of my\nreaders as may be tempted (out of the Greek Lent) to visit Ithaca. But\nhere let me drop a word of advice for all voyagers in Greek lands. Take\na guide for lodgings and living, but never place any confidence in his\nidentifications or local traditions. He may be right, but the chances\nare nine to one he is not. He may even have been over the ground before,\nbut his assurance to that effect is no evidence. I found the men I\nselected utterly ignorant, as usual, of almost all I wanted to learn;\nbut I found a little book by G. F. Bowen, one time Fellow of Brasenose\nand President of the Ionian University, which, though dated in 1850,\ngives a sufficient clue to the topography to enable one to dispense with\na guide, except to find the best roads.\n\nVathy does not occur in the Odyssey under any name, nor is there any\ntrace of antique structures about it. In the illustration the narrow\nentrance at the right is Vathy; the cove in the centre, with the island\noff it, is the port of Phorcys, where Ulysses was landed, and which, for\nthe uses of ancient mariners, who beached their ships instead of\nanchoring them, was a better port than Vathy. It corresponds in the\nminutest detail to Homer\u2019s account of it,\u2014a smooth, sandy beach,\ncomplete shelter from all winds, and only varying in any particulars in\nits surroundings by a greater distance from the grotto where the\nPh\u00e6acians hide the presents Ulysses brings with him; but of this more is\nto be said.\n\nThe Odyssey gives no intimation of any city near the landing-place. The\nport of Ulysses\u2019 own capital was much nearer Ph\u00e6acia, and the ship might\nhave landed him at his own door. The reason of this excessive caution\nwas that during so long a time he had had no news from home, and his\nPh\u00e6acian friends knew that he might find his city in the hands of an\nenemy.\n\n [Illustration: PORT OF PHORCYS AND NERITON, FROM THE MOUTH OF ULYSSES\u2019\n                                 CAVE.]\n\nAwaking, then, from the sleep in which he had been so gently landed by\nthe crew of the Ph\u00e6acian ship, he finds himself in a strange land, as he\nsupposed, and in complete solitude, and arms himself with his habitual\ncunning, distrusting everything. When Athena comes to him in the form of\na shepherd, he asks where he is; and being told that he is at last in\nthe long-sought Ithaca, he is transported with joy, but conceals his\nemotion and addresses the goddess with these hasty words, disguising the\ntruth and telling his story falsely, always turning in his mind many\nartifices: \u201cI, too, have heard, in the far-off, immense island of Crete,\nof the island of Ithaca. It is, then, in that country that I have\narrived with my treasures. I have left an equal part to my children\nbecause I fly from my native land, where I killed the dear son of\nIdomeneus,\u201d etc., etc., going on with a long history to account for his\npresence in Ithaca, a place unknown to him, which fable he only drops\nwhen Athena throws off her disguise; but he still is unconvinced that he\nis in Ithaca. She calls his attention to Neriton in front of him, and\nhaving convinced him, helps him hide his treasures in the grotto, when\nthey sit down under the olive-tree over its entrance, and she tells him\nhow matters stand at home, and contrives plans for getting rid of the\npretendants, who would, no doubt, put an end to him if he fell into\ntheir hands. This seems to be his conviction, for he exclaims: \u201cGreat\ngods! if you had not enlightened me I should have perished in my palace,\nlike Agamemnon. Come, let us plan a means by which I may revenge myself\non them all.\u201d This hint of the fate of Agamemnon, whose end he had\nlearned, is the clue to his cautious deportment. They plan as follows:\nHe will be disguised by Athena, so that not even his wife shall know\nhim, and will then go to Eun\u00e6us, who keeps his swine by the Raven\u2019s\nCliff, near Arethusa\u2019s fountain, and wait with him studying up the\nposition, while she goes off to Laced\u00e6mon to bring back Telemachus, whom\nshe had sent there nominally to get news of his father, but really, as\nshe informs Ulysses, to give him an opportunity, hitherto wanting, to\nsee the world and acquire renown. Here they separate, and Ulysses takes\nthe secret path.\n\nThe position of the grotto makes the only difficulty in tracing all his\nmovements; for it is not, as one would expect from the text, at the head\nof the port, strictly speaking, but at the head of the little ravine\nwhich ends in the port, a good quarter of an hour\u2019s walk from the shore,\neven making allowance for all the recession of the water-line, which has\nevidently been considerable. The grotto itself corresponds exactly with\nthe description, and can be entered by mortals only in the usual way, by\nthe small opening which looks toward the port. \u201cIt has two entrances:\none, turned toward the breath of Boreas, is for human use; the other,\ntoward that of Notos, is more divine. Never man enters by that; it is\nthe way of the immortals.\u201d The human entrance is a low, almost invisible\nopening, or at least, easily passed without notice, at a short distance.\nEven now, when all vegetation has disappeared from around it, and the\nolive-trees come only half-way up the hill, it would easily be hidden by\na large stone, as Minerva hides it. The entrance, low and precipitous,\nwidens rapidly within, and we descend by what might once have been\nartificially prepared steps to a vault-like cave, sixteen to twenty feet\nin diameter, with a curious recess at the farther end, and at the top of\nthe vault another opening, like the top window of the Pantheon of Rome,\nor any of the circular temples whose form was derived from the vaulted\ntomb or treasury of Pelasgic architecture. At first sight I thought this\nopening might have been artificial, but on close examination I saw that\nthe formation of the rock led to it naturally, and that, hardly large\nenough to admit a human body readily, it could only, if enlarged, be\nentered by a person\u2019s being let down with a cord. This is the\n\u201cimmortals\u2019 entrance.\u201d Under this opening lies a huge heap of stones,\nthe accumulation of centuries, for the lower portions are cemented\ntogether by the stalagmitic deposit from the rock above; and the walls\nof the grotto, despite the breaking off of every attackable stalactite,\nare also formed of carbonate of lime so deposited. The difference\nbetween the actual distance from the water\u2019s edge to the grotto and that\nwhich is indicated by the narrative of the Odyssey is not more than a\nfair poetic license would permit; or the memory of the narrator, having\nknown the localities, might well in a few years of absence leave out\nthis short distance.\n\nThe Odyssean topography is greatly confused to the modern traveler by\nthe fact that the Homeric city undoubtedly stood at the northern end of\nthe island, and far remote from the modern city as well as from the\nlanding-place of Ulysses and the pig-pens of Eum\u00e6us. The view from the\ngrotto gives us, at the left, a bay of which Vathy and Phorcys are\ntributaries. This cuts the island nearly in two, a narrow ridge of rock\nonly connecting its two great masses. On the north is the site of the\nHomeric city, as I shall presently show; but on the south are the\nRaven\u2019s Cliff and the fountain of Arethusa, together with an ancient\nruin known by the people as the \u201cCastle of Ulysses.\u201d These ruins are of\nthe earliest form of Pelasgic, commonly named Cyclopean, though there is\nno justification for any distinction between the \u201cPelasgic\u201d and the\n\u201cCyclopean,\u201d or any proper distinction of styles, as they run into each\nother, from the form shown at \u201cUlysses\u2019 Castle\u201d to the most elaborate\nand carefully fitted polygonal which we shall find at Sam\u00e9 on the\nopposite shore of Cephalonia. The walls of Ulysses\u2019 Castle are of great\nextent, and portions still remaining near the summit are well preserved,\nsome fragments being nearly twenty feet high. It must have been the work\nof a powerful tribe and a great stronghold. Seen from the sea, it shows\non a sharp conical rock precipitously trending down to the shore. The\nOdyssey in no manner makes allusion to this, either as city or as ruin.\nUlysses passes very near it going south, leaving it on the right,\napparently ignoring its existence. This makes it tolerably clear that it\nhad been so long in ruin that it was in no way to be connected with the\nOdyssean dynasty or colonization even, or that it was constructed after\nthe Homeric epoch. The latter hypothesis is untenable, because we find\nin many parts, especially in the Argolid, ruins clearly contemporary\nwith this, which are in the Hellenic traditions regarded as the work of\na vanished and semi-divine race of giants, the Cyclopes or the \u201cdivine\nPelasgi;\u201d while, of the Homeric epoch, as distinguished from the\nPelasgic, which preceded it, and the Hellenic, which followed it, we\nhave no recognizable remains, and the cities known to have existed, such\nas the Ithaca of Ulysses, have left no ruin durable enough to show in\nour time. This indicates a state of civilization in which the great\nnecessity of strong walls as a defense had passed, or that, by the use\nof cement, walls were made so light in structure that they were\nefficient for the day, but perished utterly in the intervening time,\nwhich again is an untenable hypothesis, because we find cement used\nnowhere in Greece in work known to be earlier than the third century B.\nC. I leave the question of the identity of the Odyssean epoch with that\nof the composition of the poem at present untouched. I am dealing only\nwith the poem which philologists suppose to have been composed about 850\nB. C. That the author knew Ithaca perfectly, I think we shall see, and\nthat consequently the ruins of the Pelasgic epoch, when not continuously\ninhabited (as were Nericus and Sam\u00e9, the former of which Laertes\nconquered, and the latter of which sent the largest deputation of\n\u201ckings\u201d as suitors for Penelope, the foundations of both being\nPelasgic), were already so lost in the twilight of prehistory as to be\nwithout any meaning to the author of the Odyssey. The city whose ruins\nare now called the Castle of Ulysses was as unknown to the epoch of\nHomer as to ours. No one in the whole action of the Odyssey goes in or\nout of its gates, or turns aside from his path to speak of or visit it.\n\u201cKings\u201d were as common as rascals in those days, but that two important\ncities should exist contemporaneously in the small island of Ithaca, and\nthat the people of Ulysses should live in one, pasture their hogs on the\nterritory of the other, and ignore its existence, is impossible. This\ndoes not prevent Schliemann from identifying the house walls, which\nremain to a small height, with the pig-pens of Eum\u00e6us, or a huge stump\nnear the citadel, with the tree from which Ulysses had made his bed\n(_Ithaca, Peloponnesus and Troy_).\n\nThat this part of the island was nearly or quite unpopulated is made\nmore than probable by the facts that no mention is made of any city or\npeople here; that the only features mentioned are the wildness, and\nforests abandoned to feeding of pigs; and that Ulysses selects this part\nfor his concealment. The path Ulysses probably followed from the port of\nPhorcys to the Raven\u2019s Cliff is by far too hard for dilettante\nfollowing; it is not only impassable to beasts of burden, but, I should\nsay, difficult for a pedestrian. There is a road carriageable for a few\nmiles from Vathy along the ridge southward, and then a fair bridle-path\nto the cliff, which, had we known it, would have led us somewhere near\nthe location of Eum\u00e6us\u2019s sties; but the guide my friends had recommended\nme, on his personal assurance, did not know the road, and we went\nwandering across fields and over hills, abandoning our quadrupeds at the\nmoment when they would have been our best guides; and, finally, the\nfellow had to go to a ploughman scratching the earth with a crooked\nstick behind a yoke of year-old heifers, and inquire his way. I\nexhausted my modern Greek in exasperated vituperation of his pretentious\nignorance, and took the lead, as I generally have had to do on similar\noccasions.\n\nThere was a pretty little valley on our way, the only arable or fruitful\nland in this part of the island; all else was bare and bleak. A few\ntough-lived shrubs, broom and gorse, arbutus, and some others I did not\nknow, wring a scanty subsistence from the clefts between the rocks, and\nin a mass of almost unmitigated limestone was cloven a ravine. The\nroughness of Ithaca was proverbial even in Homeric days, since Athena,\nwhile disguised as a shepherd, replies to Ulysses, \u201cIf it [Ithaca] is\nrocky, if it breeds not horses in its moderate space, it is not quite\nbarren,\u201d etc. One might well select this scene as one of tranquil\nbeauty, with the faint glimpses of the dreamy inner sea above its valley\ndistance, and the golden grain-fields as I saw them, interspersed with\nvineyards and olive-orchards.\n\n      [Illustration: RAVEN\u2019S CLIFF AND THE FOUNTAIN OF ARETHUSA.]\n\nThe glen of the Raven\u2019s Cliff becomes a wild gorge below the fountain of\nArethusa, and descends abruptly to the sea. Above, a stripe of bare,\npale-gray rock down the cliff shows that in winter it is the location of\na cataract, though, when I visited the locality, dry as summer dust. The\nfountain of Arethusa is situated about half-way from the cliff to the\nsea, and bears the evidences of an immense antiquity. Remains of an\narchitectural surrounding are still to be seen, which, with some\nfoundations of walls of the Roman period, evidently of a temple to the\nnymph or local goddess, and \u201cUlysses\u2019 Castle,\u201d are the only traces of\nruin discoverable in this lobe of the island. The recess of the fountain\nhas once been much larger, but the slow process of depositing the\ncalcareous incrustation which forms its walls has gone on so long that\nonly a small deep basin remains, from which the people draw the water\nwith a cord and bucket. Its niche is cushioned with moss and maidenhair\nferns, and the soft porous rock is always moist with the filtering\nthrough of the water. A wooden trough is placed for the watering of the\nsheep and goats which take the place of the hogs of Eum\u00e6us, for this is\nthe only perennial source of water in the region.\n\nAn old woman, wrinkled and bowed, looking like one of the Fates, sat\nnear the fountain, combing the wool she had washed at it; and on the\nopposite side the nymph of the fountain, in the shape of a young matron\nof some neighboring hamlet, was washing her clothes. The wash was\nboiling when we came up, over a fire of brambles and weeds; but the\nutensil which took the place of the bronze caldron of the antique\nhouse-mother was an American petroleum-can, with a wire bale fitted in\nrudely, and the stamp of the New York Refining Company was still visible\non the tin. We talk of the omnipresence of gold, of the omnipotence of\ncotton; but in my wanderings on the earth I have found places where the\npeople did not know the value of a piece of gold, and wore nothing but\nthe homespun and woven wool of their flocks and flax of their fields,\nwhile I have never found one that did not know petroleum; and I have\nlearned that the petroleum-can is a more universal concomitant of\ncivilization than English cutlery or American drillings.\n\nThe pens of Ulysses\u2019 pig-herd were at the top of the cliff, where a\nplain of small extent and soil of scanty depth still maintains an\nolive-grove, sole representative of the forest of oaks whose acorns\nfattened the swine for the revels of the suitors of Penelope.\n\nHere Ulysses finds Eum\u00e6us, and here, in his anxiety to convince him of\nthe truth of his prediction of the return of the wanderer, he says: \u201cIf\nhe return not as I declare, let your servants seize me and throw me over\nthe high rock, that vagabonds may learn in future to abstain from\nuseless falsehoods.\u201d\n\n                 [Illustration: FROM AN OLD GREEK VASE.\n                    THE SITE OF ITHACA\u2014PORT POLIS.]\n\nTo return to the city of Ithaca, Ulysses must retrace his steps past the\nport of Phorcys, and follow the ridge of rock which connects the\ndivisions of the island past the mass of Neriton. His landing-place was\non the east side of the island, the port of the ancient city Ithaca on\nthe west; and there are now on the road between, several villages, the\nrepresentatives, perhaps, of the ancient towns from which Ulysses drew\nhis quota of men for the Trojan campaign, \u201cCrocyles and the rocky\n\u00c6gilipos.\u201d It was in one of these villages that Schliemann, visiting the\nisland for the first time, in his Homeric enthusiasm, as the villagers,\nin their habitual curiosity to see the stranger, came out to gaze and\nquestion, taking the assemblage as a demonstration in his honor, and\ndetermined to show them how well he estimated the dignity of an heir of\nthe Odyssean glory, mounted on a table and translated from Homer the\npassages which record Laertes\u2019 emotions on the return of his long-lost\nson. \u201cThey wept with emotion,\u201d says the na\u00eff Doctor; and he rewarded\nthem by some hundred lines more. Remembering this incident, I inquired\nabout the matter, and found that it had excited much merriment in the\ncultivated circles of Vathy, and, as I expected, the other side in the\nrencontre preserved a very different recollection of the Doctor\u2019s\nachievement, and that the tears were of merriment rather than of pathos.\nNo one in the assemblage could understand a word of the Greek in the\nDoctor\u2019s pronunciation of it.\n\nIn the nomenclature of the two principal higher villages of the northern\nsection, I found a curious survival of archaic language, which, so far\nas I could learn, is as incomprehensible as Homer, in the original, to\nthe inhabitants. The villages are Ano\u00ef and Exo\u00ef, which are clearly from\nthe archaic and (except in the Cretan mountains) obsolete words _ano_\nand _exo_, used as _haw_ and _gee_ are by us in driving oxen, and of\ncourse meaning originally right and left, and these indicate site\nsurvivals of early towns or villages. But of Ithaca the _city_, the home\nof Ulysses, not a trace remains except the name _Polis_ (city, _the_\ncity par excellence), which is applied to a locality where not even an\nancient wall shows a claim to the appellation. The fragments of\nsubstructure shown on the hill above and near the village of Stavros are\nundoubtedly medi\u00e6val, and belong to the piratical city which was\nestablished here, and which was destroyed in the latter part of the\nsixteenth century. I searched in vain for anything to indicate the date\nof the ancient city, but here, doubtless, was the home of Ulysses. Its\nlittle port is of the nature demanded by ancient mariners,\u2014a smooth\nbeach in a cove, with the island of Cephalonia opposite and near enough\nto shut off any great violence of sea or wind. Homer relates that the\nsuitors, when Telemachus had gone to Pylos to get news of his father,\nsent out a ship with some of their number to intercept and kill him on\nhis return, and that this ship lay in watch at an island off the port\nwhere the return of Telemachus\u2019s ship could be seen from afar and\nprevented. Opposite Port Polis is a rock, probably the remnant of that\nisland; for, as the material of it is a conglomerate easily subdued by\nthe elements and decomposing rapidly, it must have been once a\nconsiderable island, and it is now the only remnant of rock or island\nwhich occupies any such relative position.\n\nIn searching around the neighborhood for traces of antiquity I was\naccosted by a peasant, who told me that there had been found a stone\nwith some letters on it, and I made haste to hunt it out. They (for\nthere were two fragments) were at the bottom of a heap of stone which\nhad been exhumed from under a land-fall, and which were evidently part\nof a very ancient building. I hired the men who gathered round to remove\nthe heap, and photographed the stones, which had been originally one.\nThe inscription is in the early style of Greek epigraphy, boustrophedon,\n_i. e._, going alternately from left to right and right to left, as oxen\ngo when ploughing. It is the oldest known inscription in the Ithacan\nalphabet.\n\nI placed a copy of the photograph in the hands of Professor Comparetti\nof Florence, amongst others, and received from him the following, read\nat a meeting of the Academy of the Lincei:\u2014\n\n              [Illustration: INSCRIPTION FOUND AT POLIS.]\n\n\u201cSince I have hitherto spoken of inscriptions very old or archaic, as we\nsay, it will be permitted me to close this communication by presenting\nto the Academy a curious inscription of this kind recently discovered in\nIthaca and communicated to me by a diligent and cultivated visitor to\nthe Greek lands, the American, Mr. Stillman, who made in Ithaca a\nphotograph of the inscription, and, having unsuccessfully asked an\ninterpretation of several scholars, applied to me. He has permitted me\nto make communication to this Academy, putting at my disposition also\nthe negative of his photograph, from which are printed the copies I\npresent. The inscription is tolerably roughly cut in a friable stone,\nbroken in two, worn by time and water. The photograph, which is never\nthe best means of representing monuments of this kind even in\nexperienced hands, presents some confusion and obscurity in parts; but\nthis is the only difficulty in the epigraph.... I saw at once that this\nwas an inscription of which there was already some notice in a book\npublished by the Ph\u0153nix of discoverers of antiquities, Schliemann, in\n1868, \u2018Ithaca, Peloponnesos, and Troy.\u2019 Rich as he is in fancy,\nSchliemann is ready to believe any story, and at once convinced himself\nthat he had discovered the inscription of a very old sarcophagus, and\nfound an honest workman who helped him to complete the idea, showing him\nthe bones found in it by him. And in his book, together with this and\nother news, he communicated the inscription such as he read it. Of the\ntwo fragments, however, he only saw that at the right, and this he read\nvery badly, seeing letters where none are, and imagining incredible\nforms of letters. Kirchhoff in his \u2018Studien zur Geschichte des\nGriechischen Alphabets\u2019 sought to apply this monument to his purposes,\nbut could make nothing of it, and it would have been impossible to get\nanything from it. Now, thanks to the intelligent care of Mr. Stillman,\nwe have before us the monument as it is; he knew nothing of Schliemann;\nwhen he saw the inscription, he saw that it was incomplete, and seeking\namongst the stones, found the other piece, and, divining justly its\nrelation, united them and took the photograph which now permits us to\nutilize what we may call his discovery.\n\n\u201cThe epigraph is certainly very old, besides being boustrophedon. This\nis shown particularly by the forms of the _sigma_ and _iota_. It was cut\nroughly and by hands little used to such work, without any care for\nsymmetry in the disposition of the letters or of the lines, nor for the\nuniformity of the letters. Some letters are lost in the fracture, others\nby the wearing of the stone, and the entire inscription is mutilated in\nthe lower part.\n\n\u201cThe reading, with the filling up, is as follows:\u2014\n\n                              \u03c4\u1fb6\u03c2 [\u1f08]\u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03c2\n                             \u03c4\u1fb6\u03c2 (\u03a1)[\u03ad](\u03b1\u03c2)\n                             \u03c7\u03b1[\u1f76 \u03c4](\u1fb6)\u03c2 \u1f29\u03c1\n                            \u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1 (\u1f14) [\u03bd]\u03c4\u03b5\u03b1\n                              \u03c4\u1ff6[\u1f31]\u03b5\u03c1\u1ff6 \u03bf\u1f31\n                            \u1f31\u03b5[\u03c1]\u03b5\u03b5[\u03c2] (\u039a\u03b5\u03c2-\n                                   \u03c0\n\n\u201cTranslation: \u2018Of Athena\u2014of Rhea\u2014and of Hera\u2014the sacred utensils of the\ntemple\u2014the priests, Kes\u2014placed.\u2019\n\n\u201cProbably the names of the three priests followed, the first commencing\nwith the letters Kes,\u2014perhaps Kesiphron,\u2014and there ought to follow \u03c4\u03ac\u03b4\u2019\n\u1f12\u03bd\u03b5\u03b8\u03b5\u03bd or \u03c4\u03ac\u03b4\u03b5 \u03c7\u03ac\u03c4\u03b5\u03b8\u03b5\u03bd, or similar expression. The inscription, then,\nhas nothing to do with a sarcophagus, or with the dead. It treats, on\nthe contrary, of a hidden treasure, that is to say, of the sacred\nutensils of a temple in which were worshiped the three divinities,\nAthena, Rhea, and Hera, each one having her peculiar priest. It is well\nknown that there is nothing new in this case of three divinities\nworshiped in the same temple. We know that Athena was especially\nreverenced in Ithaca, and are not surprised to find her first in the\nlist. Then to explain this inscription, it may be supposed that in some\nperilous time of war, revolution, or other danger, these priests decided\nto put in security the treasures of the temple and hid them in a safe\nand secret place, leaving there this inscription, so that in any case\nthe nature and origin of the objects might be known. Probably they cut\nthe inscription themselves that no one else might be in the secret, and\nthis would explain the signs of haste and inexperience in the cutting,\nwhile on the other hand the language, like the orthography, is correct.\u201d\n\nThe attribution to a sarcophagus by Schliemann is difficult to explain\nas a mistake. If it had been, as he says, on a sarcophagus that he found\nthe right half of the inscription, he must have found the whole; but the\nfact is that there was in the whole pile of stones no fragment of\nanything like a sarcophagus, an object unknown in Greece till centuries\nlater. The inscription had evidently been a mural tablet and was about\neighteen inches deep and of a shape and size which made it impossible to\ntake it for a fragment of a sarcophagus; and underneath the mass of\ndebris from which it was extracted the workmen found a pit, which was\nexcavated, they told me, without finding anything; nor, they said, was\nany object of antiquity found with the stones, while Schliemann engraves\na lance head and a coin of about 300 B. C. which he says were found in\nthe sarcophagus. This proves nothing, for when anything is found the\nabsurd rigor of the Greek laws makes the concealment of it the first\nobject of the finder. If this pit, when discovered, had still contained\nthe sacred objects, what a find if arch\u00e6ology could have profited by it!\nBut as the Greek law in case of concealment would have punished the\nexcavator by confiscation, or in the best case by taking the half of the\nobjects found, the first precaution taken by the finder would have been\nto remove, if possible, to a foreign shore, and if not, to melt down, if\nof precious metal, the objects found. Until Greek legislation on\narch\u00e6ological research is more intelligent, it will be gravely\nhandicapped. The greater part of the value of an object is often to know\nwhere it came from, and this we never know of objects found in Greece by\nchance or private excavation. There was some years ago a report, which\nhad certainly considerable confirmation, of the discovery of a great\ntreasure in this very part of Ithaca; possibly it may have been this. If\nwe could have found the vessels of the temple, they would have given us\nthe art of the descendants of the Dorians in Ithaca at least six hundred\nyears B. C.; for this inscription is Doric, and dates from about that\ntime.\n\nIn any case, we may be confident that our inscription marks the site as\nhaving been in the vicinity of a city of, or little later than, the\nHomeric epoch, as, supposing the Odyssey to have been composed in 850 B.\nC., only about two hundred and fifty years could have intervened between\nits composition and the placing of this inscription; and we know of no\nethnic revolution which would have destroyed the Homeric city between\nthe Dorian invasion and the wars of Corinth.\n\n                  [Illustration: THE SCHOOL OF HOMER.]\n\nBut if there are no traces of the Homeric city, and none of earlier\nconstruction in the immediate neighborhood of the site, there is in the\ninterior of the island, and in the northern lobe, which we see was\nprobably the special domain of the Ithaca of Ulysses, a most interesting\nantiquity which is now known as the \u201cschool of Homer.\u201d It is in all\nprobability a sacred place of the Pelasgic epoch, as on the rock above\nit is a chapel whose substructions are clearly Pelasgic and most\nprobably the remains of a Pelasgic temple, which alone would account for\nits preservation, and is probably also the reason of its conversion into\na Christian church. It is on a scale in keeping with all the remains we\nhave of the heroic epoch, about twelve by twenty feet, and though much\nrepaired in the modern adaptation, still shows its ancient dimensions\nand style of building in the lower courses, too solid to have been\nrearranged, though some of the upper stones have evidently been replaced\nin later times. It stands on the brow of a low bluff, below the village\nof Exo\u00ef and not far from the \u201cfield of Laertes,\u201d which tradition points\nout at a little hamlet below. Traces of other walls extend to the brink\nof the precipice that overhangs the \u201cschool,\u201d and round by the side is\nan antique flight of steps, mostly preserved and cut in the solid rock,\nthat served as passage between the temple and the \u201cschool,\u201d which may\nhave been the place of sacrifice or possibly an area for the holding of\nthe council. It is mainly cut in the rock at the foot of the precipice\non which the temple was built, with a double flight of steps, also cut\nin the rock, descending to the ground below. It is not above fifteen\nfeet across at its widest, and the decomposition of the solid rock by\ntime and weather leaves only the general shape and character, with some\nof the steps above and below it, still tolerably perfect. It was a\nlovely place, and if the shade now thrown by the olive-trees which\nsurround it was anciently given by plane-trees, it would have been still\nmore striking. You look off on the sea and the distant island of Levkadi\nwith the mountains of Acarnania, and through the interstices of the\nolive-trees you catch glimpses of the cultivated valley beneath, where,\nif anywhere in this end of the island, old Laertes must have had his\nfield, as here only is tillage possible. North is the sea, south the\nhuge wall of Neriton, east the rugged mountain that looks out on the\ninner sea, and west that on which Exo\u00ef is raised to the clouds and from\nwhich one looks down on the Cephalonian channel at its foot. Like the\nplain or valley between the Raven\u2019s Cliff and Vathy for the southern\nlobe, this is the only valley for the northern. The \u201cschool\u201d is poised\nthus midway between the valley and the mountain peak; and whether, as\nthe islanders pretend, it was the place where Homer read his poems, the\ncouncil place of the ancient heroes and kings, or the hieron of Pelasgic\npriests whence the smoke of sacrifice went up to the great Zeus, the\nchoice of locality was one which suited alike its uses. The young wheat\nwas springing into head in all the interspaces of the close-standing\nolive-trees, and the rocks above were overhung and draped with wild sage\nand gemmed with wild flowers. The boy who guided us assured us that\nthere was a secret passage to the top of the rock, filled up now; and a\npeasant passing by stopped to see what we might be saying or doing, and\nfinding that our interest was fixed on _palaia pragmata_, offered to\nguide us to an ancient rock-cut well in the valley below. We found the\ndoor which opens to the passage, which led down a stone-cut staircase to\nthe well, far in the ground; but as the well belonged to the priest, who\nhad the key in his pocket, and was, no one knew where, we had to be\ncontent with the door, which was modern enough, though fitting an\nopening cut in the rock very evidently ancient.\n\nIn this vicinity must, by the force of nature, have been the residence\nof all the agricultural part of the population of the ancient Ithaca.\nSays the poem:\u2014\n\n\u201cUlysses and his companions withdrew from the city and soon arrived at\nthe magnificent garden of Laertes, which the hero had formerly purchased\nwith his wealth after the many ills he had suffered. There stands his\ndwelling, surrounded on all sides by a portico where the slaves who\ncultivate his estate sleep and eat. In the porter\u2019s lodge is an old\nSicilian,[6] who in this solitary place, far from the city, takes care\nof the noble old man.... At these words he gives his arms to the\nherdsmen who enter into the house of their master, while Ulysses, to\nfind Laertes, enters into the garden. The hero goes down into the great\nvineyard and finds neither Dolias nor his sons, nor the other slaves.\nDolias has led them far away to gather thorns to make hedges round the\ninclosure. Ulysses finds his father digging round the root of a tree in\nthe garden. Laertes is dressed in a dirty patched tunic; around his legs\nhe has bound, to preserve them, greaves of sewn leather; gloves protect\nhis hands, and his head is covered by a cap of goat-skin, which\ncompletes his mournful appearance....\n\n\u201c\u2018Ah,\u2019 replied Laertes, \u2018if you are Ulysses, if you are my son returned\nto this island, describe to me a sure sign that I cannot mistake.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018See first,\u2019 replies Ulysses, \u2018this wound, which long ago on Parnassus\na wild boar gave me with his tusk, when I went to Autolycus to bring the\npresents which he here had promised me. Then listen, I will describe to\nyou the trees of your beautiful garden which you gave me, and I asked of\nyou in my childhood as I ran behind you. We passed through your\ninclosure; you told me the name of every tree, and you gave me thirteen\npear-trees, ten apple-trees, forty fig-trees, and then you promised to\ngive me fifty rows of vines in full bearing.\u2019\u201d\n\nThe legends of the modern population of Ithaca must not be confounded\nwith real local tradition, transmitted from ancient times. They are\nunquestionably the reflection of literary statement, the reiterated\nconclusions of students more or less well informed as to the true\narch\u00e6ological bases of opinion. The attribution of the particular spot\nwe visited as the garden of Laertes is doubtless due to reading of the\nOdyssey, and, like the location of the \u201cCastle of Ulysses\u201d on A\u00ebtos,\narose from a popular rendering of the story as handed down by literature\nand converted into legend, which is located wherever the crude\nantiquarianism of the people judges best. An instance of the real\ntradition which has a distinct value in arch\u00e6ological research is that\nof the preservation of the name Polis for the abandoned site where\nunquestionably the Homeric city stood; and this simple indication is\nsufficient to prove that Ithaca was never entirely depopulated and\nrepeopled by Slavs, because in this case the continuity of tradition\nwould have been lost, and there is no ruin to restore it in modern\ntimes, even if it were capable of surviving the interruption. If it had\nsimply been handed down by a Slavonic colony, it would have been \u201cArad\u201d\ninstead of \u201cPolis,\u201d while, if the depopulation had once been complete,\nnames which are not now understood by the present inhabitants could not\nhave originated with them. If the name had sprung from the presence of\nruins, the site on A\u00ebtos would have received it instead of its present\nlegendary appellation, so that in no way can we explain the survival of\nthe name Polis for the site, or the names Ano\u00ef and Exo\u00ef, except by\nsupposing them to have clung to the places from Homeric times through a\ncontinuous population of Hellenic stock, however thinned. Another\ncurious incident illustrates the tenacity of this kind of survival. As\nwe were passing through one of the villages, I heard one child calling\nto others to run to see the barbarians, \u03bf\u1f31 \u03b2\u03ac\u03c1\u03b2\u03b1\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9 (_v\u00e1rvari_), just as\nthe Greek children of ancient times would have called us,\u2014_i. e._,\nforeigners, people who spoke a strange language, a babble,\nunintelligible sounds like those of children. I heard it twice and could\nnot be mistaken, though a Greek friend to whom I related it would have\nit that they said \u03b2\u03b1\u03c5\u03ac\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9 (Bavarians), since in continental Greece,\nBavarian (German) has been a term of contempt from the days of King\nOtho. But I am certain of the word; and besides, the children of Ithaca\nnever had anything to do with the Bavarians, as they were under the\nIonian Government till after the fall of Otho and the departure of the\nBavarians.\n\nOn the whole, I think that there is the strongest ground of probability\nfor these conclusions: that, whatever may be the relation of the real\nUlysses to Ithaca, the hero as conceived and represented in the Odyssey,\nthe Ulysses of the Homeric poems, _if he was an actuality_, lived at the\nsite known as Polis; and that this site, and all the others mentioned in\nthe poem, were known by the author of it from personal inspection. The\ninscription found at Polis is in Doric Greek, which gives us a right to\nconclude that the city continued to be inhabited by the mixed\npopulation, result of the Dorian immigration; while the entire oversight\nof the Pelasgic site on A\u00ebtos indicates the total interruption of race\nconnection and the immense interval which must have come between its\nconstruction and the transfer of the seat of power to Polis, as, if\nstill habitable when the new race took possession, it would, like\nNericus, Sam\u00e9, and Cran\u00e9, which we shall examine in Cephalonia, have\nbeen made the basis of the newer city. That it was then utterly\nabandoned, we conclude, not only from the neglect of it by Ulysses in\nthe passages we have noticed, but from the fact that while Sam\u00e9, on the\nother island, sends suitors, and Ithaca itself (the city) adds its\nquota, no allusion is made to any from any other place in the island. In\nshort, the total silence through the whole poem in regard to any place\nwhich can be by possibility connected with A\u00ebtos, justifies my\nconcluding that it was as much an abandoned ruin in the time of Homer as\nnow.\n\nThe episode of the voyage of Telemachus to Pylos and Sparta, which\nbrings into the Odyssey the western shore of the Peloponnesus, is, with\nthe exception of some unimportant allusions, the only interjection of\ncontinental Greece into the poem.\n\nWe went over to look for some trace of the sage Nestor, but as usual\nfound that while the people had enough of the after-growth of legend out\nof the Odyssey, they knew absolutely nothing of the antique site. I had\nno guide then to lead me to the Pylos where the ship of Telemachus found\n\u201cthe Pyleans scattered along the shore offering a sacrifice to Neptune,\nblack bulls without a spot.\u201d\n\nThe bay of Navarino is a vast marine lake, known to us mainly by its\nbeing the locality of the decisive combat between the fleets of the\ngreat European powers and the Turkish and Egyptian, which decided the\ndestiny of modern Greece. We ran in from the open Adriatic, whose waters\nwere uncomfortably agitated by the south-west wind, glad of the safe and\nconvenient anchorage. But a sleepier place than the modern substitute\nfor the \u201csandy Pylos\u201d I have never found in Greece. Nobody could give me\na word of direction, and all our searching round the extended sheet of\nwater for the antique site, only perhaps to be recognized by some\nhalf-hidden remnant of Pelasgian walls, was fruitless; we neither saw\nnor heard of any ruin. We paid a visit to the splendidly picturesque old\nVenetian fortress commanding the entrance of the bay, which perhaps has\nused up the stones of Nestor\u2019s Pylos, and which has looked down on one\nof the most murderous combats of modern naval history. It is garrisoned\nby a little guard of Greek soldiers, and its keep is the prison of the\ndistrict. The gate is a good sample of the fortifications by which the\nVenetian Republic held her Eastern possessions.\n\n\n\n\n                 THE ODYSSEY, ITS EPOCH AND GEOGRAPHY.\n\n\nThe mythical world which had for its centre Ithaca, and for its chief\npeople Penelope and Ulysses, was out of all proportion larger than the\nEurope of to-day; for it comprised the whole known world, from the\nshadows of Cimmeria to the clouds that gave birth to the Nile. Its\ngeography, however, has a value to arch\u00e6ology and prehistory which has\nnot been fully recognized. The date and place of origin of the Odyssey\nwill never be determined with any high degree of certainty, but in\ndealing with epochs that comprise unmeasured centuries we need not fear\na variation of two or three. And the collation of traditions from the\nsame mythical world will help us to this approximation to the probable\ndate of Homer\u2019s life, if not that of Ulysses.\n\nGladstone, in the \u201cJuventus Mundi,\u201d has made use of an argument which,\neven if not sound as to the Trojan war, I believe to be good for the\nOdyssey. The earliest authentic records in Greek history reveal Greece\nas under the control of two races, the Ionians and the Dorians, elements\nwhose antagonisms have been the chief cause of the disasters and ruin of\nGreece.\n\nBut neither Dorians nor Ionians were the dominant race when the Odyssey\nwas written, as neither Ionians nor Dorians appear in the record. The\nGreeks of the Trojan war are always called Achaioi, and the Dorians were\nevidently, as a dominant race, unknown to the author of the Homeric\npoems. Now, as they came into Greece about 1000 B. C., and as our\nresearches show the island of Ithaca, with which Homer was well\nacquainted, to have become Dorian with the rest of Greece, the substance\nof the Odyssey must have been earlier than we have supposed, and could\nhardly have been as late as 850 B. C., unless the Dorian so-called\ninvasion was an immigration spreading very slowly from the main line of\nits movement, and its stock still a recognizably new people. Nor does\nany possible modification of the Homeric poems in the recitals,\ncontinued over centuries, affect this argument in the least, as, being\ncommon property of all the bards and all the tribes, they were liable to\nbe modified in the various versions according to the localities and\nlocal knowledge of the singers; and, one \u201crhapsody\u201d being preserved by\none tribe and another by another, of this hardly homogeneous people, the\ntraces of the modifications received in their migrations could not be by\nthe philology of the date of their collation so effaced as to leave no\nmarks of their incomplete restoration.\n\nIt is impossible that any idea of arch\u00e6ological consistency had led to\nthe exclusion of the Dorians from the Odyssey. If the Dorians had been\nruling in Greece when it was composed, it seems to the last degree\nimprobable that they could have been so completely ignored, if it were\nbut for the deference to be paid the rulers of half the Greek world; and\nwhether we look at the invariable practice of all early poets to adapt\ntheir work to their own times and surroundings, or to the entire\nconsistency of the work in this respect,\u2014too complete to be due to the\nstudy of utterly unscientific or illiterate later times,\u2014I think it is\nto be admitted as probable that the Odyssey was composed before the\ngreat ethnical revolution in Greece was complete.\n\nThe purely local evidence supports this hypothesis to a certain extent,\nand in this topography and geography I propose to wander as far as it is\npossible to do so with advantage to our knowledge of the Odyssean world.\nCorfu was inhabited by a race alien to the Greek, and which recognized\nits descent from the Siculi displaced by the Pelasgi from Sicily.\nOpposite Ithaca lies the more important island of Cephalonia, to which\nIthaca is now completely subordinate, but which then was less important\napparently than Ithaca, in all probability only because it was only\npartly Hellenic. Now, the earliest classical name of this Island,\n_Kephallenia_, was derived from Cephalus, a mythical hero who appears to\nhave been contemporary with Minos. But this name is never applied to it\nin the Odyssey. Of the island nothing is said, but of the chief city,\nSamos (a colony from which gave its name to the Asiatic island now known\nunder that appellation), Homer has much to say. It lies clearly in sight\nfrom Ithaca, from which it is separated only by a narrow strait, and is\none of the prominent objects in the view from Ithaca. It was originally\none of that line of prehistoric cities whose only record is in the\nstones of their walls, and from these we learn that it was a very\nancient coast settlement, which, unlike the city on A\u00ebtos, survived\nthrough successive civilizations until history got hold of it. In\nUlysses\u2019 day it must have been a rich place, for it furnished\ntwenty-four pretendants to the hand of Penelope. \u201cThere are first\nfifty-two young men, the chosen of Dulichios\u2014six servants accompany\nthem; twenty-four have come from Samos; twenty from Zakynthos [Zante];\nand from Ithaca were twelve, the bravest.\u201d But the author of the Odyssey\nseems to have had no personal knowledge of the topography of Cephalonia,\nand mentions no other locality in the island. Tradition tells us that\nthe island was peopled by Teleb\u0153ans, a people driven from the continent\nby Achilles,\u2014before the siege of Troy, therefore, but subsequent to\nCephalus; but this is one of the confusions of mythology, as Cephalus\nfound the Teleb\u0153ans in the island. The usual condensation of history\ninto myth leaves very little clear in these early traditions. Races\nbecome personified in individuals, and the work of centuries is\nattributed to a life-time and an individual. Whether Cephalus was in\nreality a race or a man it is impossible to do more than conjecture, but\nthough the poems mention the _Kephallenes_, the entire ignoring of its\ntopography and traditions, even of the visit of the Argonauts to it,\nmakes it difficult to believe that it was chiefly inhabited by a race\nkindred to that of Ithaca when Homer knew it, because Homer was too much\ndisposed to make use of the antique traditions when apposite, to have\nleft unnoticed that of Jason at Pal\u00e9.\n\nCephalus having, according to the legend, killed his wife Procris,\nmistaking her for a wild animal as she, excited to jealousy by his\ndevotion to the chase, which she attributed to another love, hid herself\nin the thickets to watch him, was banished from Athens, and, wandering\nin exile, came to Thebes, just then under excitement owing to the\nTeleb\u0153ans of Cephalonia having killed the brothers of Alcmena, wife of\nthe Theban Amphytrion, and he was requested to take charge of the\nexpedition to avenge the murder. He succeeded in conquering the island\nand gave it his name. His descendants reigned there two generations,\nafter which, the latest rulers of his blood being recalled to Attica by\nthe oracle, a federative republic succeeded, formed by the four\nprincipal cities, or perhaps by the four which had survived the changes\nof race, for there are more than four antique sites. Those which history\nhas preserved as having submitted to the Romans in the year of Rome 563\nwere Sam\u00e9, Nesia, Cran\u00e9, and Pal\u00e9.\n\nThe city of Sam\u00e9 alone presents, in the annals of historical times, any\ninterest, and this is sad and glorious. Livy says that at the end of the\n\u00c6tolian war the Romans sent to Cephalonia to know whether they would\nsubmit or try the fortune of war, as they seem to have joined in the war\nwith the \u00c6tolians, though he gives no record of the part they took. He\ngives the account, brief and tragic, of the fate of the city, which I\nwill neither dilute nor abbreviate:\u2014\n\n\u201cAn unhoped-for peace had now shone on Cephalonia when one state, the\nSam\u00e9ans, suddenly revolted, from some motive not yet ascertained. They\nsaid that as their city was commodiously situated they were afraid the\nRomans would compel them to remove from it. But whether they conceived\nthis in their own minds and under the impulse of a groundless fear\ndisturbed the general quiet, or whether such a project had been\nmentioned in conversation among the Romans and reported to them, nothing\nis ascertained except that, having given hostages, they suddenly shut\ntheir gates, and would not relinquish their design even for the prayers\nof their friends whom the consul sent to the walls to try how far they\nmight be influenced by compassion for their parents and countrymen. When\nno pacific answer was given, the city began to be besieged.\n\n\u201cThe consul had all the apparatus, engines, and machines which had been\nbrought from Ambracia, and the soldiers executed with great diligence\nthe works necessary to be made. The rams were therefore brought forward\nin two places, and began to batter the walls.\n\n\u201cThe townsmen omitted nothing by which the works or the motions of the\nbesiegers could be obstructed. But they resisted in two ways in\nparticular, one of which was to raise constantly opposite the part of\nthe wall attacked a new wall of equal strength on the inside; and the\nother was to make sudden sallies at one time against the enemy\u2019s works,\nat another against his advanced guard, and in those attacks they\ngenerally got the better. The only plan that was invented to confine\nthem within the walls, though ineffectual, deserves to be recorded. One\nhundred slingers were brought from \u00c6gium, Patr\u00e6, and Dym\u00e6\n[Peloponnesus]. These men, according to the customary practice of that\nnation, were exercised from their childhood in throwing with a sling,\ninto the open sea, the round pebbles with which, mixed with sand, the\nshores were generally strewn; therefore they cast weapons of that sort\nto a greater distance, with surer aim and more powerful effect, than\neven the Balearian slingers. Besides, their sling does not consist\nmerely of a single strap like the Balearic and that of other nations,\nbut the thong of the sling is threefold and made firm by several seams,\nthat the missile may not, by the yielding of the strap in the act of\nthrowing, be let fly at random; but, after sticking fast while whirled\nabout, it may be discharged as if sent from the string of a bow. Being\naccustomed to drive their missiles through circular marks of small\ncircumference placed at a great distance, they not only hit the enemy\u2019s\nheads, but any part of their faces that they aimed at. These slings\nchecked the Sam\u00e9ans from sallying either so frequently or so boldly;\ninsomuch that they would sometimes from the walls beseech the Ach\u00e6ans to\nretire for a while and be quiet spectators of their fight with the Roman\nguards. Sam\u00e9 supported a siege of four months. When some of their small\nnumber were daily killed or wounded, and the survivors were, through\ncontinual fatigues, greatly reduced both in strength and spirits, the\nRomans, one night, scaling the wall of the citadel which they call\nCyatides (for the city, sloping toward the sea, verges toward the west),\nmade their way into the forum. The Sam\u00e9ans, on discovering that a part\nof the city was taken, fled with their wives and children into the\ngreater citadel; but, submitting next day, they were all sold as slaves,\ntheir city being plundered.\u201d (Bohn\u2019s translation.)\n\nIt is only by conjecture we can distinguish between the two hills, both\nbeing covered with ruins; and the walls are so broken in their circuit,\nand so complex as well as various in their epoch of construction, that\nno plan of the siege could be made, but the above indicates the\nwesternmost as first captured.\n\nThe city must have been very wealthy, if we may judge from that\ngenerally excellent indication, the tombs, which line the roads and the\nsea-shore beyond the city (looking from the point where the general view\nis taken), and by the enumeration of the booty taken by the Romans,\nwhich is given as follows: Two hundred golden crowns of ten Roman pounds\neach, eighty-three thousand pounds of silver, two hundred and\nforty-three pounds of gold, one hundred and eighteen pieces of Athenian\nmoney, two thousand four hundred and twenty-two of Macedonian, two\nhundred and eighty-three statues of bronze, two hundred and thirty of\nmarble, besides the money distributed to the army.\n\nI know of no place where the ruins of all epochs are so well indicated\nas at Sam\u00e9. The large fragment of wall of the best Hellenic time which\nruns down the slope of the eastern hill is one of the finest, if not\n_the_ finest, I have ever seen. Its stones are perfectly hewn, and some\nof them are twelve to fourteen feet long, and the highest portion still\nstanding is not less than twenty feet high. At other points are various\nexamples of the Pelasgic, similar to that of \u201cUlysses\u2019 Castle,\u201d but of\nbetter work. There are magnificent subterranean passages, one of which\nleads to the citadel on the easternmost hill, the more remote in the\ndistant view, but the higher and probably the site of the greater\ncitadel, being marked by the most imposing ruins and remains of works,\nand without doubt the locality of the original settlement. On the lower\nhill stand some interesting remains\u2014a tower and remains of city wall of\nmixed Hellenic and Pelasgic, the tower being of the very latest\nHellenic, showing the beginning of \u201crustication.\u201d It was built upon in\nthe middle ages, and the whole mass of buildings transformed into a\nfortress and afterward into a convent. Sam\u00e9 must very early have been a\nlarge and important city, as the whole of the space, including the two\nhills and the land between them, shows traces of Pelasgic construction,\nand one fragment on the brow of the hill near the tower is one of the\nmost perfect examples of the best Pelasgic work one can find away from\nMyken\u00e6 and Argos. The stones in the illustration range about five feet\nin length, and are faced with exquisite exactness. A wild fig-tree has\ntaken root in the interstices of the stones, and the roots have pushed\nthe masses of rock apart, but in several places it is difficult to see\nthe junction when the light is flat against them. Of Roman work there is\nlittle; but some therm\u00e6 walls on the plains by the sea and some tombs\nshow a considerable Roman occupation. Livy says that Marcus Tullius, the\nconqueror of Sam\u00e9, went over to the Peloponnesus \u201cafter having placed a\ngarrison in Sam\u00e9.\u201d This negatives the notion that the walls were razed\nto the foundations, as is asserted by La Croix; and it is also rendered\nimprobable by the existing ruins, though it is not impossible that so\nmuch of the wall was destroyed as made the defense of it temporarily\nimpracticable. There are, however, some slight traces of rubble-wall on\nthe old ruins, which show a Roman (or possibly middle-age, though I\nincline to the former) construction, which negative any supposition that\nthe _enceinte_ was rendered useless for defense; for no one would repair\na wall which was not tolerably complete in its circuit. The remains of\nthe Roman time, however, are insignificant compared with those of the\nPelasgic, either as to preservation or quality.\n\n [Illustration: VIEW OF SAM\u00c9 FROM THE WEST,\u2014WITH PARTS OF PELASGIC AND\n                            HELLENIC WALLS.]\n\nAt present Sam\u00e9 is an insignificant village, consisting of twenty or\nthirty small houses stretched along the beach, with a tiny port formed\nby a breakwater constructed from the stones of the city wall, the\nfairest and best cut that could be found. The people are a thievish\nclan, who set on any chance comer, like mosquitoes on a solitary and\nbewildered fisherman in a swampy land. They have coins and antiquities\nto sell, for which, as everywhere else in Greece, they demand the most\nabsurd prices; and they beset one with offers of service as guides,\netc., etc., etc., till they weary all human patience. This may be said\nof the Ionians in general, but less of the people of Cerigo, perhaps,\nthan the others. We found, however, a grateful exception. We had\nwandered along the beach to the furthermost houses of the line, and on\npassing a very respectable-looking house, the owner, sitting in the\ncoolness of the twilight at his gates, seeing two strangers, rose to\nsalute us and invited us to enter; an invitation so amiable and earnest\nthat we accepted, and were ushered into the guest-chamber, clean and\nfurnished with divans in eastern fashion, where we were entertained with\nthe usual sweetmeats and coffee, while the daughter of the house went\ninto the garden and collected for each of us a bouquet of roses, the\nmost fragrant I ever remember to have seen. Our host narrated many\nincidents of the English rule in Cephalonia, and when we rose to go\nurged us to take up our quarters in his house; and finally, as we stood\nbefore the gates, as a last favor, offered me two beautiful Greek stel\u00e6,\nmemorials of the ancient dead, possibly of the period of the heroic\ndefense of Sam\u00e9. He had found them in digging his house cellar, and they\nwere the ornaments of his court-yard; but learning that we were in\nsearch of antiquities, he offered them freely as his contribution. I\nshall not soon forget him or his fragrant roses and the dark-eyed Sam\u00e9an\ngirl who offered them to us.\n\nOf Cran\u00e9 scarcely a trace remains, even of the Pelasgic walls. It stood\noriginally on the Lake of Argostoli (to which place we drove from Sam\u00e9\nacross the island), but at a point now far from the water\u2019s edge. The\nlake is a singular geological phenomenon, formed by a number of springs\nbursting out from under the hills on which Cran\u00e9 lay, with a force\nsufficing to drive mills and form a strong current over the whole extent\nof the lake, which is a mile or more in diameter, though the surface of\nland to be drained by these subterranean outpours is, one would say,\nutterly inadequate to the quantity of water delivered.\n\nI took a guide at Argostoli, a man of the usual type of Greek guide, who\nassured me that he knew the ancient city, and had often guided strangers\nthere. On arriving at the head of the lake I found him taking useless\nd\u00e9tours to bring me to the mills, which were driven by the springs; and\non asking him what he went there for, he replied that he supposed I\nwanted to see the mills\u2014since that was what other people had come for. I\ngave him an energetic sample of modern Greek, and ordered him to show me\nthe way to the ancient city\u2014Palaiokastron. \u201cPalaiokastron!\u201d he\nejaculated with surprise and bewilderment in his eyes, and turned to ask\nsome shepherd boys or other vagabonds, who were sauntering near by and\nwatching us, where the Palaiokastron was. They declined to give any\ninformation, probably regarding him as a poacher on their preserves. I\nhad, therefore, to depend on my antiquarian instincts, and, taking the\nlead, climbed over the heights above until, guided by the nature of the\nground, I found the traces of the old wall.\n\n               [Illustration: CRAN\u00c9 FROM THE SEA SHORE.]\n\nThe position of the city was entirely characteristic of the sites of the\nPelasgic epoch: a bold, double peak, almost inaccessible on the\nsea-side, and on the two flanks still very precipitous, but connected\nwith higher land on the side opposite the water. On the side from which\nthe view is taken none of the ancient walls remain. The movement of\nearthquakes, the gradual fall of the rock at the precipitous edge, or\nthe leveling labor of man has carried away all the blocks that made this\nside of the _enceinte_; but many of the stones may be recognized at the\nfoot of the slope, some worked into modern walls, and some in the d\u00e9bris\nof the hill. On the opposite side the traces are more distinct, and the\nwall may be traced a long way, and the site of the citadel determined,\nwith a gate and the angles of some of the towers. From near the citadel\na view is obtained which shows a long line of the d\u00e9bris with a distant\nview of the town of Argostoli and the lake, and far beyond the lines\nthat form the western shore of the superb harbor of Argostoli, almost\nwithout a rival in the Adriatic. The mass of wall is hardly to be\ndistinguished from mere decomposed rock; so much have time and frost,\nthe great demolishers, split and crumbled the flinty, massive limestone,\nthe preferred material of the Pelasgi. On the further shore shown in the\nview may be seen, when the air is clear, the houses which form a modern\nvillage on the site of the ancient Pal\u00e9. Here were Jason and his fellow\nadventurers entertained on their search after the golden fleece,\u2014an\nexpedition which perhaps we may translate from myth into probability, as\nan expedition to obtain an improved breed of sheep, a finer-wooled\nstock, from one of the northern and inland countries.\n\nAt Argostoli I inquired about the ruins of Pal\u00e9, but was told that they\nare mainly built over, and what is visible is only of the Roman period.\nI attempted, however, on our return to Sam\u00e9, to run around in the\n_Kestrel_, as the voyage across the bay from Argostoli is neither\npleasant nor sure in the small boats that make the service. We got up\nanchor as the land breeze began to blow at midnight, and I went to bed,\nhaving given orders to anchor in a little bay about half-way to the\nsouthern extremity of the island near which some ruins are indicated on\nthe map. Awaking in the morning and finding a most suspicious\ntranquillity prevailing, I took a look at the outside surroundings, and\nfound the yacht quietly moored on the same spot she had occupied the day\nbefore. A furious sirocco had sprung up and met us half-way to our\ndestined anchorage, and after beating for an hour in vain, our little\nboat nearly buried in the seas, we were compelled to retreat and run\nback to our former place of refuge. There is no getting ahead in such\nsmall craft against the sharp, violent seas of the Mediterranean.\n\nThree days the sirocco blew, and we tried in vain to pass the time\nfishing. The Ionians have adopted dynamite so universally to catch their\nfish that they are as scarce as honest people on shore. One does find\nthem sometimes, and we caught a shark about four feet long and a half\ndozen red mullet where, before dynamite was discovered, we could have\ncaught in the same time a hundred-weight.\n\nThe third night we got under way again, and, with a heavy swell still\non, ran down to our harbor, reaching it as a flaming, splendid\nthunder-storm was coming up, the finale of our southern blow. We moored\nwith cables out in three directions, and when the storm had all gone by\nI went ashore to hunt my ruins. A vagabond Cephalonian offered his\nservices to carry my camera and guide me; but his crafty and evasive\nface, coupled with the assurance with which he clung to me, so irritated\nme that to rid myself of him I plunged into the pathless thicket.\nTraveling by compass, and searching long and closely, I found at last\nthe remains of an early Pelasgic wall on a magnificent site, with a\nbreezy outlook to sea north and west and overlooking a fertile valley\ninland, not especially pictorial, for it was too regular and too\nthoroughly cultivated, but through it ran a bright crystal brook\noverhung by huge pollard sycamores and fringed with oleanders just\nbursting into blossom and making the valley look like a rose-garden.\nBeyond the hill on which the city stood is a wild ravine through which\nruns the brook, which in Greek would naturally be dignified by the name\nof a river. Only a narrow neck, as usual, gave access to the site. It is\nimpossible to ascertain with any kind of assurance what the name of the\ncity was. It could not have been Nesia, the only one of the four\nprincipal ones we have not visited, for no ruins are visible approaching\nso late an epoch as the Roman, and it was probably Heraclea. Its\nposition was magnificent for defense and on account of the fertility of\nthe country behind it, but the site was probably abandoned very early\nfor one further inland, where I was assured there were ruins of an\nancient city. But my time had been so invaded by the loss of three days\nthrough the storm, and I was already so behind my programme, that I was\nnot able to give the time necessary to the search and examination, or,\nindeed, to follow my plan of visiting Pal\u00e9.\n\n    [Illustration: DISTANT VIEW OF PAL\u00c9 FROM THE CITADEL OF CRAN\u00c9.]\n\nWe climbed down to the brook, and I enjoyed the pastime of wading in the\ngurgling water as if I were a boy\u2014it was so long since I had had that\npleasure! We followed it into a close and gloomy gorge, where the crag\nof the ancient site overhung us like a huge, rough wall, almost a sheer\nprecipice, and down at the foot ran the brook, which we followed to the\nsea. The sun was setting as we reached the yacht, and before we waked\nfrom sleep next morning we were bounding toward Zante.\n\nIn Zante (Zakynthos) there is, so far as I could find, no ancient ruin\nwhatever. The character of the rock explains this; for, except at the\nextreme southern end of the island, there is no stone which would resist\neven the weather-wear since the Roman epoch. The island seems to be a\nbed of sand raised from the sea and slightly hardened, so that, though\nthe citadel hill is imposing enough as a mass, the material of it is\nbeing continually dissolved, and looks at a distance more like a bank of\nclay than like rock.\n\n                         [Illustration: ZANTE.]\n\nZante is rhymingly called the \u201cfior di Levante\u201d (flower of the Levant),\nbut it is difficult to see wherein it surpasses Corfu in any flowery\nattribute. I guess that, as in many other cases, the rhyme went for more\nthan the fact, poetical or otherwise. It is fertile, and the land\nextends in an immense unpicturesque plain covered with olive-orchards\nand vineyards for miles from the port. Its history is unimportant and\nits mythology not interesting. It was said to have been colonized by\nZakynthos, son of Dardanus of Troy, about 1500 years before Christ; but,\nas I have before said, all Greek dates and traditions of migration\nearlier than 1000 B. C. are purely conjectural. Zante suffered with the\nother islands from the endless and furious feuds of the Greek states;\nravaged by turns by Athenian and Laced\u00e6monian, it came down to the\nRomans an unruly subject province, conquered and reconquered, and\nfinally lay still in the tranquillity of slavery until Geneseric, king\nof the Vandals, began an epoch of devastation, which only concluded with\nthe purchase, by the Venetians from the Sultan, of its soil depopulated\nby the sword and slavery.\n\nHe who goes about in the Mediterranean has great chance of seeing bad\nweather, for it is the reverse of a pacific sea, and in a scrap of a\nboat like the _Kestrel_ the phenomena are sometimes interesting. Our\ncourse from Zante to Cerigo (ancient Cythera) leads by Cape M\u00e1tapan,\nopposite Cape Male\u00e1, the two southern points of Greece, which enjoy a\nreputation of the kind that the American proverb gives to Hatteras and\nLookout. The _Kestrel_ was again baffled, and, after beating for hours\nto get past the point, we had to put up the helm and run back to\nNavarino, the nearest shelter, before a gathering southerly blow. We lay\nin our old anchorage another day, and as the wind fell at night we beat\nout again and ran through the little archipelago of barren and desolate\nislands which lie off this part of the Morea. The weather still looked\nugly, and thunder-clouds were gathering on the hills of Laced\u00e6mon, and\nwe could see the storm creeping down toward the sea, but the wind was\nfair, and we hoped to make Kapsali, in Cerigo, before the squall came\ndown. Already the heights of Cerigo loomed before us, and we had begun\nto look for the landmarks, when the wind struck us. All hands made what\nhaste was possible to get in sail and get up a small storm jib to lie to\nunder, and not too quickly, for no common canvas would have stood that\nblast when it struck us. The sun was setting, and soon we were out of\nsight of all land in the driving spray and rain. The lightning was such\nas only they who sail in semi-tropical seas can have known, blinding and\nincessant; it seemed to have gathered around the mountains of Cerigo as\na centre, for it went and came and still hung there as the rain swept\ndown the coast and up again. As the wind fell off with the down-pouring\nof the torrents we got off again and pointed our bowsprit for Kapsali;\nand as the waters above and those below seemed to have formed an\nalliance against us, we went below and shut the hatch. Fortunately the\nwind was off shore and we had little sea, and managed to creep along\nnearly as much as we had drifted to the leeward; so that when the storm\nbroke and the rain held up we were able to see the rocks off the coast,\nand finally to grope our way into the little port of Kapsali, which is\nsecure against everything but a southerly blow. The wind, always\ncontrary, fell off as we drew near the light-house, and we had to get in\nwith our sweeps in the small hours of the morning, wet, cold, hungry,\nand jaded from the excitement of the night; for, though it is simple and\nsafe in the telling, a large Greek brig foundered only two miles from us\nin the squall, and we had experienced the worst weather we had yet felt,\nand since the storm began no one had been able to eat or even get a cup\nof coffee.\n\nAt Kapsali one begins to see the antique sailor ways and the evidence of\nthe intense conservatism of the eastern world. The ships are drawn up on\nthe beach at night as of old, and this necessitates a construction of\nthe hull which cannot be far removed from that of the antique. Indeed, I\nhave seen fishing-boats which might have served for the models of the\ngalley on the Roman coins. The rigging, again, is of the simplest, and\nfitted for these seas, where the sudden squalls and the \u201cmeltem,\u201d or\ngusts which come down from the mountains with no warning but a little\ncloud appearing on the summit, sometimes leave brief space for the\ntaking in of sail. On the whole, wherever we look we see ample evidence\nthat in the whole Levant, where the original population exists in a\nconsiderable proportion, the ways of life and thought are the same as\nthose of Homer\u2019s day. Nature has changed more than man. Where the\nVenetians came they brought new habits of military life and\nconstruction, and demolished all the old ruins to make fortresses; but\non the domestic life and on the character of the Greek they had little\nor no influence.\n\nWhether Kapsali, a mere village, the port of Cerigo, had any ancient\nexistence, we do not know. Cerigo lies on the high rock above it, and is\na Venetian fortress; and, as is generally the case with Venetian\nfortresses, has used up all ancient masonry, if any existed, in its\nconstruction.\n\n                   [Illustration: CITADEL OF CERIGO.]\n\nThe road from Kapsali to the town of Cerigo is of Venetian construction,\nkept in repair by those fitting successors of Venice, the English, who\ncertainly left the Ionian Islands in a state of prosperity higher than\nthat of to-day. Good roads were almost everywhere provided, and good\nways of other kinds, now lost entirely, if I might believe the\ncomplaints of the people. The position of Cerigo is very strong for the\ndays of Venetian rule, and it overhangs the port and country round on\nevery side, except one, like a Pelasgic site, but I could find no stone\nof that date. It is not likely that there was any very ancient city\nthere, as no tombs or evidences of a necropolis have been found. The\nformidable character of the position in the times of the Venetians is\nshown by the view from the road above the ravine which severs the\nmountain from the lesser hill over the port\u2014a ravine whose existence is\nquite unsuspected from the port.\n\nThe city itself is without interest except as the first really Eastern\ncity one will see coming from the West, and as an example of Venetian\nfortress-building. The view from the citadel is fine and breezy, the\nislands of Ovo, Cerigotto, and Crete being visible, and a great expanse\nof that sea which, on sunny days, is in itself so beautiful from its\ncolor. You look down on the houses, white as continual whitewashing will\nmake them, whose flat, terraced roofs serve in the hot and rainless\nsummer as sleeping-places for the whole family. How many nights I have\ndragged my mattress from the bedroom out on this delightful substitute\nand let the night breeze fan me to sleep!\n\nOf history the island has next to none. Mythology puts the landing of\nAphrodite here, as she came, foam-born and sea-borne, to found her\nreligion in the Greek worlds.[7] The first who are traditionally\nreported to have colonized the island are the Ph\u0153nicians; but it is\nimpossible to ignore the previous coming of the Pelasgi, who have left a\nwell-marked ruin of the earliest type. To see the traces of the antique\nsettlements, one had better go to Port San Nicolo if provided as we\nwere; but secure an intelligent guide previously from Cerigo, as the\ncountry people, as in other islands, while pretending to know all about\nthe antiquities, really know absolutely nothing. They know the tombs\nbecause they serve as sheep-folds, and they have sometimes a curious\nknowledge of the relative antiquity of the ruins; but they have heard\nmodern myths, and apply them with the least possible regard to\narch\u00e6ological facts, and invariably assure you that they know\neverything.\n\nSo it happened that I was again, for want of choice, out on a search\nwith an ignorant guide. There had been some excavations commenced on the\nsite of what is now known as Palaiopolis (the old city), which evidently\nwas Ph\u0153nician, and was occupied down to Roman times. There were some\ncolumns of Roman or Byzantine work unearthed, and from mere curiosity to\nknow _his_ notions, I asked a shepherd boy watching his sheep near by\nwhat they were. \u201cThis,\u201d he said, \u201cwas the palace of the king.\u201d \u201cOf what\nking?\u201d I asked. \u201cDon\u2019t you know?\u201d he said, opening his eyes at me as if\nthis were the very _a b c_ of history. \u201cWhy, the palace of Menelaus.\u201d\nThere is an old tradition that it was the place of residence of Menelaus\nand Helen, and all the objects to be seen are attributed to them. The\nPh\u0153nician city is close to the sea; the Pelasgic site is several miles\nback, and looms up on the highest mountains in the vicinity. In a\nprevious visit I had seen but had not explored it; but now I determined\nto see the whole extent of it. My guide, who brought a donkey for my\noccasional changes of mode of locomotion, pretended to lead me to the\nancient citadel; but when we reached the hill on which I knew it to be\nbetter than he, he began to inquire about it of the women at work in the\nfields; thereupon I, as usual, took the lead. Guided by the nature of\nthe ground, I found all that remained of the ancient citadel wall\u2014a\nfragment kept up by the chance of its being the limit of a field, and so\nkept in repair, but in such a state of dilapidation that but for the\nevidences of the continuity I would not have been sure that it was a\nwall. I followed the main wall a mile or more along the edge of the\nprecipitous slope, and saw that it bore testimony to the importance of\nthe ancient city, for it was wide in its compass and massive, with\ntowers, gates, and flanking towers of the true Pelasgic style, but in\nmost places only two or three stones high. I got an imposing view of the\nhill from below the lowest trace of wall, showing its position with\nreference to the valley below, through which ran once a river of some\nvolume, if we may judge by the alluvial plains at its mouth, but which\nat the time of my visit in midsummer, was dry as desert dust. A strip of\nwhite pebbles shows where it still runs in winter-time. On the hills\nclose to the sea-side, and on both sides of the mouth of this ancient\nriver, used to lie the old Ph\u0153nician, Greek, and Roman city, whatever it\nwas originally called,\u2014probably Cythera, like the island. As I have\nsaid, it is now called Palaiopolis. The temple of Aphrodite, the people\npretend, was on the hill near the citadel where now is an insignificant\nchapel, but with no evidence of antiquity except that there are in the\nconstruction of the chapel some large stones which are evidently of\nHellenic cutting; but as the Greeks had the habit in all ages of keeping\nup the temples of their gods, there is nothing to show that it was a\ntemple of Aphrodite rather than a Pelasgic god, which Aphrodite-Astarte\nwas not, and her temple must have been near the sea.\n\nThe site of Palaiopolis is marked by a quantity of tombs, most, if not\nall, of Hellenic date. There are now no temple remains there; but Spon,\nwho visited the spot two hundred years ago, says that he saw the statue\nof Aphrodite, which was very ugly and of coarse brown stone, which\nreminds us of the statues of Cyprus. The rock is a soft conglomerate\nwhich the sea cuts away very rapidly, and apparently there has been a\nsubsidence of the soil, since they say that when the sea is tranquil\nthere may be seen beneath the water, some distance out from the actual\nshore, the ruins of a city. This may have been the port of\nCythera\u2014scarcely a fortified city, as the site must have been too low.\nRight and left of the rivulet which now represents the ancient river are\nbluffs of conglomerate, that on the left honeycombed by tombs, some of\nwhich have fallen with the rock, but of which others are still visible,\nopened to the elements but showing within the rock-cut graves. Many\nvaluable articles of gold work have been found in past times, but the\ntreasure seems to have been exhausted. These two bluffs are the lineal\nrepresentatives and successors by right of position of what Aphrodite\nmust have seen as she came ashore on the foam, otherwise they have no\ninterest.\n\nThe two low hills which were included in the city of Cythera are covered\nwith fragments of building and traces of tombs, but, so far as I could\nfind, no wall. This is all that is left of Aphrodite, Helen, and\nMenelaus in their land of fabled existence. The coming ashore of\nAphrodite undoubtedly indicates, like that of Europa at Gortyna in\nCrete, the landing of a colony from Ph\u0153nicia, bearing the worship of\nAstarte, who became later assimilated to Aphrodite. Of the presence here\nof Helen and Menelaus there is no evidence in any trustworthy tradition.\nThe subjection of Cythera to Sparta is of historic date. My conclusion\nas to the island is that in Homeric times it was Ph\u0153nician in its\nrelations as Melos was at one time, as well as Santorin and other\neastern islands, and that, like Corfu, it did not come into the Greek\nsystem.\n\nOpposite Cerigo, and with its snowy peaks glistening under the noonday\nsun, lies Crete. The strangest omission of the Odyssey would have been\nthat of the island of Minos from its reminiscences, if the author had\nknown of it; but, as we have seen in his interviews with Athene, Ulysses\ndid not fail to include it in his geography though he had apparently\nnever visited it, and like Egypt and Lotophagitis it was known by\nreport. Of Egypt we had heard mention through the visit of Helen and\nMenelaus. Of the country where subsequently was established the Great\nGreek-African colony, Cyrene, we have no hint, yet the inhabitants of\nthe Peloponnesus knew of Libya earlier than the Dorian invasion\u2014as\nearly, in fact, as 1500 B. C., as we know by the Karnac inscriptions.\nThe story of Eum\u00e6us shows knowledge of the ways of that race of\nmerchants and pirates, the Ph\u0153nicians, but nothing of their country.\n\nThe questions of the personality and date of Homer and of the reality of\nthe Trojan war are utterly diverse, and not, in fact, interdependent. As\nto the latter we have thus far no direct evidence whatever, beyond\npoetic traditions in which the supernatural is so strongly and\ninextricably involved with the pretense or actuality of history that no\ninferences can be drawn from any part of the narrative, though from its\n_ensemble_ we are assured that in its ancient form it was accepted as\nhistory by the entire Greek world as early as we know anything of that\nworld with historical certainty. But that is no criterion. Even at this\nday myths grow and crystallize in the Oriental mind with a rapidity\nwhich leaves the ancients without any advantage. The universal belief\nfrom the first to the eighth century B. C. that the Iliad was history\nneed not weigh with us. Scientific investigators differ so widely that\nwe have no general inference to draw from their arguments. The most\nrecent excavations leave a grave doubt whether any of the ruins\nexcavated in the Troad can by any reasoning be admitted to be as old as\nthe Iliad, and the remains on Hissarlik hill which Schliemann _more suo_\nhas identified with Homer\u2019s Troy are clearly the remains of the city of\nCr\u0153sus, being of brick, which does not appear in the classic traditions\nor structures until his time, and we know by authentic history that he\ndid build a city on this hill. Professor Jebb, one of the most acute of\nthe literary investigators of the question, is convinced that the\ntopography of the Iliad is eclectic, some of its indications suiting\nonly Hissarlik and others only Bunarbashi; Max M\u00fcller maintains that the\nwhole story is a solar myth; while Nicola\u00efdes, a patient and thorough\nGreek student of the Iliad, believes that he can follow the whole\nstrategy of the poem on the plain of Troy. But the main questions\ninvolved in the Odyssey are of a different character and determined by\ndifferent criteria. I offer my suggestions as to some of them with the\ndeference due my masters in arch\u00e6ology.\n\n   [Illustration: LANDING-PLACE OF THE CYPRIAN APHRODITE OR ASTARTE.]\n\nThe general knowledge shown in the Odyssey divides itself into kinds:\nthat which was part of the general geography of the day, and this\nincluded the coasts shown on our route map; and that of which the poet\nhad personal cognizance, which is limited to Corfu, Ithaca, Nericus, and\npossibly Pylos; and this exclusiveness suggests to us that Homer, a\nstranger in the West, had come, as I did, simply to follow and study the\ntraces of Ulysses\u2019 wanderings, and that he did so in obedience to a\nclearly preserved tradition as to his great exemplar, which was almost\nimpossible without the still remembered personal presence. What he\ndescribes is admirably told, even to the \u201csandy shore\u201d of Pylos, in a\nworld whose sandy shores are rare; but Homer does not seem to have any\nmental vision of the lands and islands of which Ulysses only speaks in\nhis story\u2014the lands of the Cimmerians, of the L\u00e6strygonians, the\nCyclops, the Lotophagi, the homes of Circe and Calypso, are only heard\nof. Cythera, close by, is not named, and Crete and Egypt are only named.\nThis kind of fulfillment, as well as this kind of omission, gives a tone\nof personality to the poem, as the composition of one person, and that\none familiar with the scene of its major events, and it strengthens my\nbelief in the hypothesis of the presence of Homer in Ithaca, and of the\nearly date of the Odyssey, and by a certain implication argues for a\nlogical relation between the hero and the Trojan war, implying the\nactuality of both.\n\n\n\n\n                     THE SO-CALLED VENUS OF MELOS.\n\n\nIn the year 1820, before the struggle between the Hellenic population of\nthe Turkish empire and the Porte had begun, and when all that attracted\nthe notice of the civilized world to modern Greece was the little\npreserved to us of her art,\u2014occasionally and fragmentarily found in the\nruins of her great communities,\u2014a peasant of Melos whose name was\nTheodore Kondros Botoni, working in his field to enlarge it by clearing\naway the _d\u00e9bris_ of the walls and structures of ancient Melos (which\nhad been built on a steep hill-side, on a series of terraces, more or\nless natural or artificial, so that the ruins of one terrace fell down\nupon and encumbered that below it), saw, to his great bewilderment, the\nheap of rubbish which he was digging away at the bottom suddenly crumble\ndown and display the upper part of an antique statue. The peasant\nhastened to the French consul to inform him of the discovery, and the\nlatter negotiated the purchase of it for five hundred piastres and a\ncomplete dress of the fashion of the country. This was the statue known\nas the Venus of Melos.\n\nSo far, there are no variations of the history, but one account says\nthat the first or upper part was found several days before the lower,\nand the other, that they were found together; but the inexactitude of\nthe documentary contemporary evidence is clear from the examination of\nthe ground to-day, and from the contradictions contained in it. Dumont\nd\u2019Urville, the commander of the _Chevrette_, a French man-of-war which\nvisited Melos after the statue was found, alluding to the discovery of\nthe theatre, says: \u201cAll the ground is covered with drums of columns and\nfragments of statues. One finds here and there great pieces of wall of a\nvery solid construction, and many important tombs have been opened\nthrough the curiosity of strangers, and the cupidity of the\ninhabitants.\u201d But neither the wall nor the tombs, nor any drum of column\nor fragment of statue (if any was found), could have had anything to do\nwith the theatre. The theatre is very late work, and was never nearly\nfinished, so could have possessed neither columns nor statues. This\nshows that the idea the commandant carried away was confused and\nuntrustworthy as to details. He goes on to say: \u201cThree weeks before our\narrival at Melos, a Greek peasant, digging in his field inclosed in this\ncircuit, struck some pieces of cut stone. As these stones, employed by\nthe inhabitants, have a certain value, this induced him to dig farther,\nand he thus happened to uncover a species of niche, in which he found a\nmarble statue, _two Hermes_, and some other marble fragments. The statue\n_was in two pieces, joined by two strong iron clamps_. The Greek,\nfearing to lose the fruit of his labor, had carried the upper part to a\nstable. The other was still in the niche.... It represented a naked\nwoman, _whose left hand raised an apple and the right held a\ndrapery_,[8] well composed and falling negligently from the hips to the\nfeet. For the rest, _they are both mutilated, and actually detached from\nthe body_.\u201d\n\nI note by italics the points which are to be contrasted with other\nevidence.\n\nM. Dauriac, captain of the frigate _La Bont\u00e9_, writes from Melos, date\n11th of April, 1820: \u201cThere has been found, three days ago, by a peasant\nwho was digging in his field, a marble statue of _Venus receiving the\napple from Paris_. It is larger than life; _they have at this moment\nonly the bust as far as the waist_. _I have been to see it._\u201d Mr. Brest\nagain writes, 12th of April: \u201cA peasant has found in a field which\nbelonged to him three marble statues, representing, one Venus holding\nthe apple of discord in one hand, the other represents _the god Hermes,\nand the third a young child_.\u201d The correspondence shows that Mr. Brest\nwas entirely ignorant of everything connected with arch\u00e6ology or art. He\nprobably heard one of the officers say that one of the objects was a\nHermes, and he changes it into a statue of the god Hermes, but we see\nthat there was only one Hermes. November 26th, Brest again writes: \u201cHis\nExcellency has left me orders to make researches in order to find the\narms and other _d\u00e9bris_ of the statue, but to do that it is necessary to\nobtain a _bouyourouldon_ which will permit us to make excavations at our\nown expense, _because in the same niche where it was found there is\nreason to hope that we might find other objects_.\u201d\n\nThe contradictions are so palpable that it is clear that these documents\nare only of value as secondary arch\u00e6ological evidence. No one seems to\nhave made an observation with exactitude.\n\nWe have the whole statue found, in one, bound together by iron clamps;\nin another, only half had yet been found; in one, the statue is found\nholding the apple of discord in one hand; in another, receiving it from\nParis; and in another still, we are told that search has been ordered\nfor the arms, etc.\n\nIn 1865 I visited Melos, and having made the acquaintance of Mr. Brest,\nson and successor of the French consul who secured the statue for the\nLouvre, he politely offered to guide me through the ruins of the ancient\ncity. Among other things, we visited the locality where the statue was\nfound, and he showed me the niche still standing as when the discovery\nwas made.\n\nIt was a slightly built work, of the height, _as nearly as I can\nremember_, of ten or at most twelve feet, and about five wide. It formed\na part of an old boundary-wall of the field on which it opened, and\nabove it the ground was level with the crown of the arch of the niche.\nIt had no suite or connection with any other structure, except the\nboundary-wall in which it was, and there were no evidences of ruin or of\nfoundation of antique buildings about it. The opening had been closed\nwith rubbish, not with masonry, as was evident from the face of the side\nwalls, which were of smooth, if not carefully laid, masonry. If as I\nbelieve not built for the concealment of the statue, it had been made\nfor some unimportant purpose; perhaps the protection from the weather of\nthe poor Hermes which is said to have been found with it. C. Doupault,\narchitect, has published a _brochure_ with what he supposed important\nevidence on the question, in which, from data given him by old Brest\ntwenty-seven years after the discovery, he reconstructs the apse of a\nseventh-century church, in which he places the statue. The whole study\nhas no value whatever, as the sketch does not correspond with the ruins\nwhich I saw, and looking back to the correspondence quoted, it is clear\nthat Brest, knowing nothing of arch\u00e6ology or art, caught at certain\nsuggestions of the officers who saw the statue, and affirmed what they\nsurmised. As to the fragments found, to which constant reference is\nmade, there is not the slightest evidence that they were found in any\nconnection with the statue, as none of the early evidence indicates that\nthey were known when the statue was first taken under notice\u2014on the\ncontrary, it is said explicitly by Brest that he had orders to make\nresearches to find the arms and other portions of the statue; indicating\nclearly that the arms alluded to had not been found with the statue, and\nthat the connection between them and it was an after-thought, either of\nthe peasant, who wished to increase the value of the statue by\nconnecting with it fragments which he had found in other parts, or of\nthe arch\u00e6ologists, who, seeking to restore the statue to what they\njudged to be its true action, connected the arm found, no one knows\nwhere, except at Melos, with the statue. It is undeniable that when the\nletters before quoted were written, there had been only conjecture as to\nthe arms. Dauriac, writing on the 11th of April, says that they have\nonly found the bust. Brest, November 26th, says that there is reason to\nhope that they might find other objects _in the same niche_\u2014proof that\nit had not even then been cleared out. In fact, all we have of\ndocumentary evidence goes for nothing beyond showing that the statue was\nfound at a certain place on a certain date; and if the two halves of the\nstatue did not fit exactly we could not be certain that they were found\nat the same time and place. The hypothesis of the apple of discord is\nbased on a conjecture of some of the officers, and has no further\nconfirmation than that an arm and hand, with what may be an apple or a\ncup, seem to have been found somewhere in the island about the same\ntime; but they evidently are not of the statue, nor even of the same\nepoch.\n\nOver or somewhere near the niche an inscription was said to have been\nfound which records the dedication of an exedra by a gymnasiarch to\nHercules and Hermes. The date of this inscription, according to\nconjecture based on the inscription itself, is about a century before\nChrist, _i. e._, long after any possibility of such a work being\nproduced had gone by.\n\nThese are all the positive data we have to work on. They suffice,\nhowever, for about twenty monographs in French, German, and English; and\na late German work, by Dr. Goeler von Ravensburg, exhausts all the\npossible and impossible conjectures to establish its character in\naccordance with the original attribution of a Venus receiving the apple.\n\nIn the year 1880, I made another visit to Melos, on commission from \u201cThe\nCentury\u201d magazine, to photograph whatever might remain which had any\nconnection with the statue; but found the niche gone, and no trace of\nfoundations of any kind, or walls, city or other, very near the spot\nwhich was again pointed out to me as that where the Venus was found.\n\nIt would seem that in the energetic excavation that followed the last\ngreat arch\u00e6ological revival, everything that was suspected to conceal\nworks of art had been dug away.\n\nI found an old man, a pilot well known in our navy, Kypriotis, who had\nseen the statue when it was brought out, being a boy of about fourteen.\nAt that time Mr. Brest was a child, and retained only slight personal\nrecollection of the event; but it was evident that he, like his father\nin 1847, had mingled in his impressions conjecture of others and his\nown, with facts perverted, and details conceived without sufficient\nbasis. Nothing new was to be got.\n\nThe old Melos is utterly deserted, and the modern town is built on a\npinnacle above it, which does not seem ever to have been included in the\nrange of the city. The port is changed from the ancient site, where now\na breakwater would be needed, as the land seems to have sunk greatly,\nand the old basin of the port is silted up to a point at the bottom of\nthe bay, where a comparatively modern village has grown up, called\nCastro.\n\nThe magnificent harbor used to make of the island an important station\nbefore telegraphs were established, and might again, if the telegraph\nwere laid to it; but now a man-of-war rarely calls, except to take a\npilot for the Archipelago, and a Greek steamer stops once in a\nfortnight. But in heavy weather, any ship caught near runs for Melos.\nThis keeps the place alive, but it has dwindled to a mere island\nvillage, where the vast labyrinths of tombs which perforate the hills\nshow more human industry than the dwellings of the living. Earthquakes\nand malaria have desolated and almost depopulated it.\n\nWe had left Cerigo for Crete, and intended to take Melos on our return\nto Peir\u00e6us, but when within an hour of land we were caught by a terrific\nsouth-wester, the most to be dreaded of all the winds of the \u00c6gean, and\nin spite of all we could do we were obliged to give up and run before\nthe gale where it would send us. It was late in the evening when its\nfury came down on us, and taking in all sail except a small storm-sail\nat the foot of the mast to keep from coming up into the wind, we ran\nbefore it into the black night. I knew that there were no rocks ahead\nbefore Melos, and if we only made the island by daylight, we could\neasily fetch the port; but if not, and the yacht ran at night into the\nlittle archipelago of which Melos is part, it would be next to\nimpossible to choose where our bones should be laid, for there are no\nlights, and many islands and rocks. The sea was, for our little\ntwelve-ton craft, something fearful, and we thumped and hammered till\nthe little thing quivered, when a wave struck her, almost as if we had\ncome to the rocks. Sleep was out of the question\u2014to sit or stand,\nequally so, and we kept to our berths, as the only way to avoid being\npitched about like blocks. How long that night was! and in the middle of\nit I attempted to get up, and when I put my foot on the cabin-floor,\nfound myself stepping into the water. We had sprung a leak with the\nstraining.\n\nBut day came and cheerfulness. We ran in between the huge cliffs which\nform the portal of Melos harbor, with the wild surges beating against\nthem till the spray flew high enough to have buried a larger craft than\nours. Tired, aching, and hungry, for nothing could we get to eat till we\narrived in port, we cast anchor in the welcome harbor late in the\nafternoon. Even then, the sea ran so high that we could not land until\nthe next day.\n\nCastro is a pile of white houses, rising in terraces from the shore; the\nstreets mostly stairways, and the houses all whitewashed till they blind\none in that rarely broken sunlight.\n\n  [Illustration: THE SO-CALLED VENUS OF MELOS. (DRAWN BY BIRCH FROM A\n                             PHOTOGRAPH.)]\n\nI landed, and, as usual, went to the little caf\u00e9, where the magnates of\nthe village were discussing the arrival and the storm\u2014the worst, they\nsaid, for many years. I called, of course, on Brest, who, to my\nsurprise, remembered me after eighteen years; and we made an appointment\nto revisit together the sites I knew, and to see those I had not known\nbefore,\u2014important excavations having been made since my former visit.\n\nWe went first to the new port, where some admirable statues, since taken\nto Athens, had been recently found. The owner of the little field by the\nwater, which occupies the site of the inner port, having occasion to\nsink a well, struck the ruins of a temple of Neptune, and three statues\nwere found, one of Neptune, a female goddess draped, but lacking the\nhead, and a mounted warrior, apparently Perseus.\n\nThe Greek Government, according to their laws, forbade the exportation\nof them by any foreign government, and finally purchased them for thirty\nthousand francs\u2014certainly a very small price. I succeeded in seeing them\nlater, still in their boxes at Athens, and though not equal to the\nVenus, or of the same epoch, they are very fine works.\n\nBut there the excavations stop; the owner had no means to pump out the\nwater that flooded his diggings, the Government had no more, and as no\none is allowed to dig unless for the Greek museum, whatever remains\nunder ground and water is likely to remain there another generation.\n\nWe then climbed up the zigzag road to the theatre. It is, as I have\nsaid, of late times, probably Roman, and was never complete. Fragments\nof unfinished ornament lie still where the stage should have been, but\nit had clearly never been carried up above the seven ranges of seats now\nexisting. It was just outside the wall of the inner city, on the brow of\nthe hill, and overlooked the spacious harbor and looked out to sea.\nThere is no record of any sculpture having been found there. It was\npurchased and excavated by the King of Bavaria.\n\nLess than half a mile beyond, going with the sea at our backs, was the\nfield where the statue was found. The Greeks have entertained a great\ndeal of indignation at the rape, which they affect to call robbery; but\nthe civilized world may thank the French captain who, coming to get it,\nand finding it already half-embarked on board a Turkish vessel, destined\nfor Constantinople, made the most legitimate use that was ever made of\n_force majeure_, and took it away from the Turk to transfer it to the\nhold of his own ship. Otherwise, no one knows what vile uses it might\nhave gone to, or what oblivion and destruction. All the world knows it\nnow, but Greek genius would have forever lacked one of its greatest\ntriumphs in modern times if it had disappeared in the slums of Stamboul.\n\n                   [Illustration: STREET IN CASTRO.]\n\nAs I have said, there is now no trace of any construction of any kind to\nbe seen at the locality. The wall in which was the niche was gone, and\nthe field of the present owner has encroached considerably on the space\nbeyond, the _d\u00e9bris_ being piled up in huge masses like walls, and two\nor three terraces above runs the citadel wall, a mass of Hellenic\nmasonry built of blocks of lava. The Pelasgic walls, of which some\nauthors speak, do not exist anywhere in the island. Brest took up a\nstone, and as we stood on the wall of _d\u00e9bris_ above, cast it into the\nfield, and said, \u201cThere stood the Venus!\u201d In the illustration I have put\na white cross on the spot.\n\nThere cannot remain the slightest doubt that the statue had been\nconcealed, and to my mind, the circumstances indicated for its\nconcealment are these: The niche, judging from its character, had been\nbuilt in Roman times; as the rubbly nature of the masonry indicated,\nprobably covered with stucco, as it would have been if intended for\nornament, and was designed as a shelter for an altar, or for the statue\nof some divinity\u2014Terminus, Hermes, Pan or Faunus, the more Roman\ncompanion of him. Here the inscription and the Hermes found furnish a\nplausible clew, and agree with the indication of the masonry in pointing\nout the epoch of this conjunction of circumstances as subsequent to the\nsecond century before Christ; how long after we cannot in any wise\nindicate.\n\n[Illustration: THE SITE OF OLD MELOS, FROM THE PORT. (WHITE CROSS SHOWS\n                     WHERE THE \u201cVENUS\u201d WAS FOUND.)]\n\nNow as to the epoch of the statue there can be no doubt that it was of\nthe immediately post-Phidian epoch; and all the most authoritative\nopinions attribute it to the Attic school, and probably of the time and\nschool of Scopas\u2014and some of the weightiest authorities have accepted\nScopas himself as the author.\n\nAnything more definite than this it is impossible to establish by any\nnow known evidence. The concealment of the statue, then, was several\ncenturies later than the execution of it.\n\nThe Greeks of the classical epoch, even down to the first century after\nChrist, retained, amidst all the degradation of their contemporary art,\na distinct recognition of the excellence of the elder work, as the\nenormous artistic as well as pecuniary value of some of the masters\u2019\n_chefs d\u2019\u0153uvre_ prove. That this was one of them, and of one of the\nchief masters, all civilization agrees, and, although we have lost the\nname of the author, the people who hid it must have known it well. The\navailing themselves of the niche, ready-made to their hands, indicates\nthat the possessors of the statue worked in haste, piling up stones in\nfront of the niche, instead of walling it up.\n\nThis indicates the haste of impending attack, or work done in secret. In\neither case, if the statue had a temple in that locality, it would be\nconcealed near it, or near the place where it was accustomed to stand;\nbut no such temple is known. We may remember the contrast with the\ncolossal and magnificent Hercules found in a drain at Rome, carefully\ncovered over with good masonry. Concealment was the object in both\ncases, and the greater haste and furtiveness with the Melian statue\nindicate rather that it was brought from a distance than that it could\nbe a divinity of the island.\n\nConjecture as to the origin of the statue, if my hypothesis is true,\npoints to Athens, not only because the work is Attic, but because we\nknow by the coins of Melos, which in all the latest coinages still bear\nthe owl of Athens, that Melos belonged to that city as late as she had\nany Greek allegiance, which must have been some time into the Empire, as\nthe Romans long made it a policy to preserve a certain kind of autonomy\nin the Greek states, even when their subjection was complete. That it is\nAttic, no one can doubt in face of the evidence I shall show. That\nAthens was the only city likely to send to Melos a treasure of this\nkind, concealment of which was impossible in Athens, is almost certain.\n\nI conclude that it was a highly valued statue of Athens, sent to Melos\nin time of great danger, to be concealed and preserved. What period this\nmight have been is only to be guessed at; it is therefore hardly worth\nwhile to say more about it, except to indicate that four periods in late\nAthenian history might furnish the motive requisite: when the army of\nMithridates, under Archelaus, took Athens; the wars between the factions\nof Marius and Sylla; the Lacedemonian war, and the invasions of the\nIconoclasts. The Romans do not appear, in spite of all their plundering\nand the enormous quantity of statues carried away from Greece, to have\ndesecrated the temples of the Greek gods, as we see that Pausanias, in\nthe century after Christ, found the most valuable of them _in situ_, as,\nfor instance, the Diana Brauronia of Praxiteles, the Perseus of Myron,\nwith others of great fame. The above conclusion, considering all the\nknown and reasonably conjecturable details of the discovery and\nconcealment, seems to me justifiable,\u2014as well as that it was concealed\nat some time between the century or two centuries before Christ and the\nend of the first century after.\n\nNow, what was the statue? We have so long been in the habit of accepting\nall female statues, not distinguished by well-known symbols of their\ndivinity, as Venuses, that we make no distinction even in cases where\nthe type demands it. And yet the dominant characteristic of Greek\nsculpture is this close adherence to established types. We are never at\na loss to distinguish Diana, Minerva, Juno, or even Ceres and the lesser\ndeities. Venus, it is true, came into vogue as subject for the sculptors\nof sacred statues later than some of the others; but all that we know of\nthe Venus of the artists indicates that it was _par excellence_ the\nwomanly type. The treatment of the head in Greek sculpture was a point\napparently of doctrine, as it was in Byzantine and in the later\necclesiastical art of Greece. It is always in a conventional type,\nutterly separated from the individual.\n\n                    [Illustration: MEDICEAN VENUS.]\n\n                     [Illustration: VENUS URANIA.]\n\n                   [Illustration: CAPITOLINE VENUS.]\n\n                 [Illustration: VENUS OF THE VATICAN.]\n\n                   [Illustration: VENUS ANADYOMENE.]\n\n              [Illustration: VENUS VICTRIX OF THE LOUVRE.]\n\nThis unquestionable fact should have taught us to reject from the Venus\ncategory many statues which are now included in it, as for instance, the\nCallipyge, and all in which a trace of portraiture is to be found,\nbesides diminishing that category by all the statues of the heroic type,\nas in none of the legends of beliefs of the Greek faith was Venus ever\nendowed with a heroic quality. The preconceived notion that the Melian\nstatue was a Venus has been a continual cause of confusion. This was, as\nI have shown, the first hypothesis of the French officers, none of whom\nappear to have been possessed of any arch\u00e6ological knowledge, and who\nhad the commonly prevailing notion that any nude statue must be a Venus.\nI have taken the pains to collect a number of representations of the\nvarious so-called Venuses, and most of which the type, or symbols,\njustify us in so classifying; and a comparison of their character will\nshow what is the Venus type,\u2014making this proviso, however, that we have\nno other than internal evidence for denominating most of them Venuses.\nThe chief of these, in what we seek for most, _i. e._, the impersonal\ntype, which was inseparable from the Greek deities down through the\ndecline of art, which began in the time of Alexander, are: the Medici, a\ndistinctly marked Attic work, later, however, than the Melian statue;\nthe Capitoline, apparently a still later reminiscence of the Medici and\none of many similar reminiscences; and the \u201cVenus coming out of the\nbath,\u201d at Naples, a better work than the last, but still already widely\nseparated from the purely conventional type of the Medicean, which we\nmay authoritatively accept as the Venus type of the best period of the\nVenus sculpture. The close comparison of the heads and details of the\nflesh will give those who do not know the originals an invaluable lesson\nin the treatment of the figure in Greek art. The so-called \u201cVenus\nUrania,\u201d at Florence, marks, to my mind, a distinct departure from the\nVenus type,\u2014so marked, indeed, as to make me decline to accept it as a\nVenus, while the still typical character of the face is one which must\nplace it in a good period of art, before ideality of treatment had\nentirely given way to individuality. The art is of too good an epoch to\nhave departed so far from the type of Venus, if intended for her, and\nindicates rather a nymph, or some inferior deity. The Venus of the\nVatican is too late and too low down in the scale of art to be an\nauthoritative witness in the matter; while the Venus Anadyomene, while\nstill reserving the ideal character, resembles the Urania rather, in a\nseparation of the type from the Venus. Later still, and perhaps at the\nend of that period which may be called the ideal period of antique\nsculpture, most probably of Gr\u00e6co-Roman art, is the Venus Victrix of the\nLouvre; unquestionably a Venus, for she bears in her hand the\napple\u2014symbol of fruitfulness. But how far from the type of our Melian\ntreasure! In that is the most distinct approach to the Athena type\u2014a\npurely heroic ideal. I cannot believe that its sculptor intended it for\na Venus.\n\n                    [Illustration: VENUS OF CAPUA.]\n\n  [Illustration: RESTORATION OF THE STATUE AS PROPOSED BY MR. TARRAL.]\n\nThe patient German admirer of our statue, which Von Ravensburg is, has\ngone through all the literature and all the conjectures which it has\ngiven rise to, as to the chief problem which gives interest to any\ninvestigation, _i. e._, the restoration of the statue. No attempt will\nsatisfy all the investigators; but that which Von Ravensburg accepts\nwith approval\u2014viz., the restoration of Mr. Tarral (an Englishman\nresiding in Paris for many years, who has given his chief attention to\nthis problem)\u2014shows so entire a want of appreciation of the character of\nantique design, which is, after all, our only clew, that I shall not\nhesitate to put aside, not only the solution proposed, but the judgment\nthat could accept as satisfactory such a solution of one of the most\ninteresting of artistic problems. I give the figure which Von Ravensburg\npublishes as Tarral\u2019s restoration of the statue, that one may see how\nabsolutely its inanity is at variance with the spirit of Greek design.\nThe mere completion of the statue, in this sense, destroys the dignity\nand unity of the work so completely that to look at it is enough for a\ncultivated judgment to decide that, whatever it may have been, this it\nwas _not_. The author gives, also, photographs of the fragments\nfound\u2014fragments so imperfect and corroded that we can only say that they\nappear to be from a very low period of art, and are utterly worthless as\ndata for measure or opinion, from their extremely fragmentary state.\n\n   [Illustration: FRAGMENTS FOUND AT MELOS ATTRIBUTED TO THE STATUE.]\n\nBesides, I have shown, from the records of discovery, that there is no\nfurther reason to connect them with the statue than that they were also\nfound at Melos.\n\nIn following the whole course of the demonstration which Von Ravensburg\nattempts of this solution of the problem, I arrive at the conclusion\nthat, with all his patience and research, his judgment is utterly\nuntrustworthy on a problem which requires not only freedom from\npreconception, but long cultivation of artistic perception and general\ncritical ability. Mr. Tarral\u2019s attempt proves, to my mind, only that\nthis was not the solution.\n\n               [Illustration: VICTORY OF BRESCIA\u2014FRONT.]\n\n                [Illustration: VICTORY OF BRESCIA\u2014SIDE.]\n\nThe various suggestions, more or less authoritative, made as to the\nrestoration, and thence as to the determination of the attributes of the\nstatue, are to be summed up briefly. The Count de Clarac, the then\ncurator of the antiques of the Louvre, adopted the Venus with the apple\nhypothesis, but afterward abandoned it in favor of one put forward by\nMillingen, that it was a Victory. This is one of the theories of the\nrestoration which has found the greatest number of adherents. Several\nrestorations have been proposed, which make the statue part of a group,\nall which, though defended or proposed by many _dilettanti_, I reject,\nfor what to me seem sufficient reasons, viz.: _Firstly_, we have in the\nstatue no evidence whatever that it formed part of a group, and without\nsome such the hypothesis is gratuitous; _Secondly_, we have\u2014with one\nexception, which I shall presently note, and which gives no countenance\nto such a theory\u2014no statue or parts of statues which agree with it in\nartistic quality, or even none which lend themselves to a group, if such\nwere made up by various sculptors; _Thirdly_, that, at the epoch in\nwhich the statue was produced, any group which has been suggested would\nhave been out of accordance with the aims of art, as practiced by the\nGreeks. The only evidence in favor of such a theory is that in some\nantique fragments or coins are indications of such a figure as the\nMelian in combination. But, as this statue must have been in its own\ntime nearly as celebrated, relatively, as in ours, it must have given\nrise to many imitations and adaptations. It may have given rise to some\nwhich support the group theory, but to more which support an opposing\ntheory.\n\n[Illustration: VICTORY RAISING AN OFFERING (TEMPLE OF NIK\u00c9 APTEROS, THE\n                          ACROPOLIS, ATHENS).]\n\nVon Ravensburg goes over, in detail, all the group theories, and easily\nfinds fatal objections to all. What most surprises me is that any one\never tried to put it into a group, so completely by itself does it stand\nin every sense of the word.\n\nMillingen, in 1826, started his theory that it was a Victory holding a\nshield in both hands. I am quite convinced that many who have started\nother theories would have adopted this if they had not been anticipated\nin proposing it. The vanity of arch\u00e6ological research, and eagerness to\npropose something new is so dominant in most arch\u00e6ologists that they\nexercise more ingenuity to advance some new theory than would be\nrequisite to show the validity of an old one. And the statue of Melos\nhas been pre\u00ebminent in fruitfulness of theories of all qualities and\ngrades of improbability. Millingen, however, supported his theory by a\nsimilar statue known as the Capuan Venus, a reproduction, I believe, in\nRoman times, of the Melian statue, probably through some other\nintermediate copy or reproduction, as the sculptors of the Capuan statue\ncould not have seen the Melian. The arms are a modern and abominable\nrestoration. Here, again, I must, in passing, protest against the\nattribution to the Venus type of all nude or semi-nude statues. There is\nnothing in the Capuan which indicates that it was intended as a Venus.\nMillingen quotes Apollonius of Rhodes as describing a statue of Venus\nlooking at herself in the shield of Mars, which she herself is holding,\nbut this is no evidence of the type correspondence, and the gravamen of\nthe matter lies precisely in the diversity of the type from the\nrecognizable Venuses. But the Capuan is too far in type and treatment\nfrom the Melian to serve as definite argument. Such as it is, an item in\nthe discussion, I will not exaggerate its importance, though I believe\nit to be a far-away recollection of the Melian statue.\n\n\u201cThe Victory of Brescia\u201d is another of the recollections, rather than\nreproductions, of the type of which I believe the Melian statue to be\nthe original. It is in bronze, is later, and has the wings, but the type\nis unmistakable, and the action of the torso and head is sufficiently\ndifferent from our statue to show that it was only an emulation, and not\na plagiarism, that was intended.\n\nThe drapery differs in the arrangement, being of bronze and agreeing\nwith some undisputed Victories at Athens, but the action of the left leg\nholding the shield is the same, and that of the arms corresponds very\nnearly, as far as the arms remain in the Melian work. As a whole, it\nreminds one more of the latter than does any other of the statues of its\nclass.\n\nThe case is one in which arch\u00e6ological knowledge is of very little\nvalue, unless it be aided by thorough artistic study and a knowledge of\nthe requirements of art proper. The arch\u00e6ologist, like other scientists,\nmust have positive evidence to work on; and the testimony of pure taste,\nthe intuitions of an artistic education, are of no use to him except as\nconfirmatory. The intuition of the artist, whose taste has been educated\nby long study of the works he has to deal with, arrives at opinions by a\nkind of inspiration to which science often lacks all means of access. In\nthe case of this statue, arch\u00e6ology has no evidence to weigh, and the\nponderous erudition which Overbeck, M\u00fcller, Jahn, Welcker, and others\nhave piled on the question has no foundation. We can determine with\ncomparative certainty that the statue belongs to the epoch between\nPhidias and Praxiteles, because we have the work of the school of\nPhidias and sufficient comparative data for that of Praxiteles [and now,\nsince the discovery of the Hermes at Olympia, positive data] to judge\nfrom; and we have a right to say that the Melian statue came between\nthese, but beyond this nothing\u2014no clew except what lies in the design\nand the unities attendant on it, of which _per se_ the professed\narch\u00e6ologist is no judge.\n\nIn working about the Acropolis of Athens some years ago, I photographed,\namongst other sculptures, the mutilated Victories in the Temple of Nik\u00e9\nApteros, the \u201cWingless Victory,\u201d the little Ionic temple in which stood\nthat statue of Victory of which it is said that \u201c_the Athenians made her\nwithout wings that she might never leave Athens_\u201d; and looking at the\nphotographs afterward, when the impression of the comparatively\ndiminutive size had passed, I was struck with the close resemblance of\nthe type to that of the \u201cVenus\u201d of Melos. There are the same large,\nheroic proportions, the same ampleness in the development of the nude\nparts, the same art in the management of the draperies, and Richard\nGreenough, the American sculptor, has called my particular attention to\nthe curious similarity in the treatment of the folds of the drapery, in\nthe introduction of a plane between the folds, a resemblance not found\nin any other similar works as far as I know.\n\n [Illustration: VICTORY UNTYING HER SANDAL (TEMPLE OF NIK\u00c9 APTEROS, THE\n                          ACROPOLIS, ATHENS).]\n\n  [Illustration: VICTORIES LEADING A BULL TO SACRIFICE (TEMPLE OF NIK\u00c9\n                   APTEROS, THE ACROPOLIS, ATHENS).]\n\nThey are little high reliefs, part of a balustrade which surrounded the\ncortile of the Temple of Nik\u00e9 Apteros, hardly three feet high in their\nperfect state, and now without heads or hands or feet. There are four of\nthem: one apparently untying her sandal; another,\u2014that which best shows\nthe type of the figure\u2014raising an offering or crown, and two others\nleading a bull to sacrifice. I give the series. Note the exquisite\ncomposition of the drapery below the knee of the Victory raising the\noffering, and the superb flow of the entire draperies in the\nsandal-tying figure, but, above all, the Victory type in the whole\nassemblage. How absolutely it agrees with that of the Melian statue, and\nhow utterly alone in all antique art that is but for these!\n\nSince I have begun this study, it has twice happened that artist friends\ntrained in the French school (_i. e._, in the only school which\ncultivates the perception of style in design, and the only one that\nemulates the Greek in its characteristics), both trained draughtsmen,\ncame into my room, and without any remark I showed them the photographs\nof the Victories at Athens. They were new to both, but in one case as in\nthe other the first expression was: \u201cHow like the Venus of Melos!\u201d And\nthe similarity runs through the treatment of every part\u2014the management\nof drapery to express the action of the limbs, the firm, heroic mould of\nthe figure, and the modeling of the round contours. Compare (in the\ncasts, if possible, as the small scale of my illustrations will not show\nthe point so clearly) the right shoulder of the Venus with that in the\nstooping Victory. The slight differences which exist are just what might\nbe expected between a figure which stands as principal, isolated, and to\nbe seen from all sides, and one which was secondary, subordinate, of\npartial decorative use, and to be seen only in one view. My\nillustrations will hardly convey the strikingness of the similarity, but\nI defy any one to compare side by side the series of Victories and the\nMelian statue in casts and not admit that the type, the treatment, the\nideal, are the same, as sisters may be the same, or at least as mother\nand daughter.\n\nThe little Temple of Nik\u00e9 Apteros had once, we know, a statue of Victory\nwithout wings, and we know the _bon mot_, which I have given above,\nwhich it suggested. The decorations of the temple are attributed to\nScopas and his school, and this Victory was unique, so far as we know,\nin being wingless. We may well conceive, with the symbolical\nmeaning\u2014talismanic, rather\u2014implied in what we know of it by this\nwitticism, that the Athenians would have a special anxiety to keep it\nfrom becoming a trophy in the hands of an enemy, even one who might not\nbe disposed to desecrate the temples of the greater gods. Nik\u00e9 was\nrather an attribute or variation of Athena than a distinct goddess, and\nwas as such both of great value to the Athenians, being the _alter ego_\nof their patroness; and of less reverence to the enemy, as not Minerva\nherself. At all events, when Pausanias visited Athens the Nik\u00e9 Apteros\nhad gone. Her temple still stood there, and near it on the Acropolis\nhill stood some of the greatest art-treasures of the antique world\nuntouched.\n\n          [Illustration: THE SO-CALLED VENUS OF MELOS\u2014FRONT.]\n\n               [Illustration: THE \u201cVENUS\u201d RESTORED\u2014FRONT.\n             (TRACED FROM A PHOTOGRAPH OF A LIVING MODEL.)]\n\n               [Illustration: THE \u201cVENUS\u201d RESTORED\u2014SIDE.\n             (TRACED FROM A PHOTOGRAPH OF A LIVING MODEL.)]\n\n           [Illustration: THE SO-CALLED VENUS OF MELOS\u2014SIDE.]\n\nMy theory, open to the grave objection that it is one in which\nhypothesis bears an undue proportion to proven fact (yet not so great as\nany of the group theories, and hardly more than any other theory, for\nall are constructed out of the same aerial substance), is that the\nMelian statue is the original Nik\u00e9 Apteros from the little temple on the\nAcropolis of Athens. If so, one can understand the whole of my theory of\nconcealment, attribution, and type, because this statue above all others\nwould come under the rancor of a victor and its flight would become an\nhumiliation to Athens. It was like the standard of a defeated army, to\nbe kept at all hazards from the enemy. Hurried away to Melos, it was\nsafe from the invader, but no nearer point was secure. The restoration\nin my hypothesis becomes that of the Victory in some attitude connected\nwith regarding, or recording, on the shield or a tablet the names of the\nAttic heroes, or battles, and my opinion is that she has just finished\nwriting, but I am disposed to uncertainty on the exact phase of the\naction, only insisting on that of the Recorder. The minuti\u00e6 of\ndescription of many antique works of art which we owe to Pausanias and\nPliny was plainly impossible with this. Neither ever saw it, but its\nmemory existed in artistic tradition and has been repeated in the\nstatues we have seen, probably only a few of those which once existed.\n\nVon Ravensburg sums up the objections to the shield-bearing Victory and\nto the theory of Millingen as follows: The theory would indicate that\nshe leaned back to balance the weight of the shield, but the objections\nurged are that if the shield were larger it would hide too much (yet in\nan earlier part of the book the statement is made that a part of the\nfigure, and just that part covered by the shield, is comparatively\nunfinished, which has given rise to the theory of a group in which one\nside of the statue was hidden); if it were small, the weight would not\nbe enough to account for the attitude. And, in the next breath, he urges\nthat the grand heroic character _is an objection to her struggling with\na burden_. But if a goddess, and of this robust type, the burden ought\nnot to oppress her, however great, humanly speaking. But in point of\nfact there is no noteworthy degree of backward inclination. To test the\nquestion, I photographed a model in the attitude required to hold a\nshield on her left knee and write on it.\n\nThe result was very slightly different from that of the statue. A part\nof the backward action of the model was due to the necessity of a\nsupport to enable her to remain in the pose necessary to be\nphotographed, but the action of writing is better expressed by the\nstatue.\n\nThe action of the statue is that of a figure which stands nearly\nbalanced and in repose, with the first movement in a forward action,\nlike one who reaches out to give, take, or write, or any similar action\nor the moment after the action is complete. The particular moment we\ncannot determine without the possession of the fore-arms. Von Ravensburg\ngoes on to say that he does not mean to affirm that the holding of a\nshield does not suit the action of the upper part of the body, but\nmaintains that it does not explain it _particularly well_. But after the\ninane restoration given forth with his high approval, we may be\npermitted to doubt that his artistic taste has been as carefully\ndeveloped as his arch\u00e6ological acumen. He quotes Overbeck as objecting\nto the shield resting on the left knee, that there are no traces on the\nleft thigh which the shield must have left; but Wittig and Von L\u00fctzow\nhave recognized these very marks, and they are distinctly visible even\nin the east, as far as would be expected if a bronze shield merely\nrested on the drapery, and the shield, if there was one, was in all\nprobability of bronze, held well out from the body, and resting on the\nknee raised for that purpose, the foot being supported by a helmet lying\non the ground. But, further, he says these considerations are quite\nsuperfluous, for the position of the left leg of the Melian statue\ncontradicts the shield-supporting, and he quotes in support Valentin,\nthat the left thigh would incline outward to secure a balance, and that\nthe supporting of a heavy object on the thigh thrown in would violate\nthe laws of equilibrium. That this is not true is shown by the \u201cVictory\nof Brescia,\u201d in which the action is precisely this, and the pose of the\nthigh is the same as that of the Melian statue. Moreover, I tried a\nmodel again in this view, and the result is given in the illustration.\n\nThe knee took quite readily the action indicated, and, indeed, would be\ncompelled to by the pressure of the shield if the weight rested partly\non the left hand, as it must to have left the right free for any action\nwhatever. Both nature and the antique assert precisely the contrary to\nthat which Valentin assumes. The length to which the argument against\nthis restoration is carried by him may be judged from the assertion that\nthe action of the \u201cVictory of Brescia\u201d is that of an outward push of the\nleft thigh, to make it agree with that of the theory Von Ravensburg lays\ndown. But the assertion is purely gratuitous. If the Brescian bronze is\nan argument, as far as it goes it obviates every difficulty in the\ninterpretation of the Melian statue by taking, so far as the action of\nthe limbs is concerned, the very action of the latter.\n\nThere is but one objection to the restoration theory I propose which\ndeserves serious consideration\u2014that of the goddess looking off or above\nthe point at which she would be writing _if she were writing_. Half the\ningenuity displayed in many of the proposed restorations, or half the\nsophistry employed by Von Ravensburg to combat this, would carry us over\nmuch greater difficulties. In later Greek work, when art was sought for\nits own sake, and consistency continually sacrificed to the grace of a\npose and harmony of the lines, we should not be surprised at the goddess\nlooking at one point and writing at another; but at this period the\ndramatic unities were sacred alike in poetry as in art. But I suppose\nthat, unlike the Brescian statue, she is not at the moment engaged in\nwriting, but pausing as having just finished, and, looking out from her\npedestal in the little temple, gazes out toward Marathon, in which\ndirection the temple opens, and this is no difficulty in the\nrestoration. A little of that kind of imagination so much abused in\nmodern art-criticism, which consists in attributing to the artist all\nthe fancies which arise in our minds in the contemplation of his work,\nall the far-fetched and poetic visions our own eyes have conjured up,\nwould supply all deficiencies in our theory.\n\nBut while I maintain that my theory has more accordances with the known\nfacts and actual qualities of the statue than any other, and presents\nfewer gaps in the demonstration, I am unwilling to lay down any theory\nnot sustainable by what we know of Greek art, and I admit the difficulty\nas frankly as I state those of other theories. Doing so, however, I\nstill maintain that not only is there the means of reconciliation of my\nhypothesis of an actual shield-inscribing Victory with the statue as it\nis, but even in case I am compelled to abandon this particular point,\nand advocate the modification of Millingen that she holds the shield\nwith both hands and looks at it, my main hypothesis\u2014that the statue is a\nVictory and no Venus, and the particular wingless Victory of Athens\u2014is\nuntouched. We do not know what the Nik\u00e9 Apteros was doing. What we can\nsee is that this statue was more probably holding a shield, either\ncontemplatively, or pausing, just having written on it, than taking any\nother action.\n\n                  [Illustration: VICTORY OF CONSANI.]\n\nIf we may accept the analogy of the Apollo Belvidere, which also looks\noff in the same inexplicable way, it would illustrate my hypothesis\nstill further, but the Apollo is later and less dramatic. If we hold to\nthe strict dramatic quality of the best Greek art, we must suppose that\nthe goddess has just finished writing, and looks up and out toward the\nfield where her heroes died. Or even if the shield was a high one, such\nas the Spartan wounded used to be brought home on, she might still be\nlooking at the shield, if not at the words she has just written. In\nfact, several suggestions offer themselves, and none open to accusation\nof such flagrant inconsistencies as those involved in Tarral\u2019s\nrestoration, which shocks the dramatic sense beyond endurance.\n\nThe objection that the shield would hide so large a part of the figure\ngoes for absolutely nothing. We continually find Greek work completely,\nor nearly, finished in positions where by necessity much of it must have\nbeen hidden. As the pediments of the Parthenon were originally placed,\nthey would never have been half seen, and how the Panathenaic frieze\ncould have been adequately seen, once the building scaffolds were taken\ndown, we can much less easily conjecture than how the Victory could have\nbeen seen behind her shield. The Brescian, a later and more realistic\nwork, is seen behind hers. Consani has made a very happy emulation of\nthe motive in his Victory. It is amongst the best of the modern Italian\nworks of its class, and illustrates the manner of avoiding the\ndifficulties we have seen adduced. The principal arguments in favor of\nmy theory are these: The statue is not of the Venus type but on the\ncontrary agrees distinctly with known statues of Victory, some of which\nI have indicated, of which another is in the coin of Agathocles, and in\nthe Museum of Naples is a terra cotta Victory in almost the identical\naction and drapery; it is of the epoch of the Victories of the temple of\nNik\u00e9 Apteros, and of the same style of treatment and type of figure; it\nwas found where we might expect the Athenians to hide a treasure; and,\nwhile unquestionably a Victory, it is the only wingless Victory of the\ngreat Attic school we know of. I do not consider this arch\u00e6ological, but\nartistic demonstration.\n\n                [Illustration: TEMPLE OF NIK\u00c9 APTEROS.]\n\nThe little Temple of Nik\u00e9 Apteros has had a destiny unique amongst its\nkind. Like the Parthenon, it was standing little more than two hundred\nyears ago, but during the Turkish occupation it was razed, and its\nstones all built into the great bastion which covered the front of the\nAcropolis and blocked up the staircase to the Propyl\u00e6a. It was dug out\nand restored, nearly every stone in its place, by two German architects\nduring the reign of Otho, and it stands again as Pausanias describes it,\non the spot where old \u00c6geus watched for the return of Theseus from\nCrete, and seeing the black sails of his son\u2019s ship returning, token of\nfailure (for Theseus had forgotten to raise the white sail, the signal\nof success), threw himself from the precipice, and was dashed into black\ndeath on the rocks below. In the distance are Salamis and \u00c6gina, and the\nstraits through which the ships came from Melos and Crete, and to the\nsouth is Hymettus, beyond which are Marathon and the road by which the\nPersians came, and the Turks after them. There certainly was the spot,\nand this the occasion, if ever, that an Attic sculptor should feel that\nspiritual enthusiasm below which Greek art stopped and lost the clew\nwhich, in later centuries, the Florentine found again and followed to\nnew, if not higher, heights.\n\n                       [Illustration: GREEK COIN]\n\n\n\n\n                               FOOTNOTES\n\n\n[1]It has been conjectured that the Ogygia of Calypso was a small barren\n    island just south of Sardinia. There is no evidence in favor of the\n    theory, but it is possible. I adopt it in the route map _faute de\n    mieux_.\n\n[2]The Lotophagitis has been recently plausibly identified with Jerba,\n    on the coast of Tunis, the word _rotos_ being still used there,\n    evidently a survival of some primitive language, for the date; and\n    the transliteration of _rotos_ to _lotos_ being according to Grimm\u2019s\n    law, see Reinach\u2019s letter to the _Nation_ (Mar. 13, 1884) on Jerba.\n    It is easy to understand that the Greek, coming from a country where\n    the conditions of life were hard and the fare of Homeric simplicity,\n    should find the conditions of North African existence tempting\n    beyond resistance, and the delicious date, (constituting the\n    principal and often exclusive food of the people, quite sufficient,\n    in fact, for all needs,) a temptation to abandon the toils and\n    dangers of a return home. The inevitable poetical exaggeration adds\n    the magic power.\n\n[3]Cimmerians have been conjecturally identified with the Cymri, the\n    Cimmerian darkness with the fogs of England and the North Sea\n    countries, and there is nothing but conjecture in the case.\n\n[4]The text leaves a doubt if he even retained his hold on this, as it\n    describes his striking out with the veil of Leucothea under his\n    breast.\n\n[5]I saw, at a recent meeting of the German arch\u00e6ological Institute at\n    Rome, exquisite bronze castings found in a lake city of northern\n    Italy, of which the latest possibly assignable date is 1500 B. C.\n    Various data, which it is not the place here to discuss, have led me\n    to the conclusion that bronze working was independently discovered\n    in Italy at a period long anterior to any intercourse with Greece,\n    and that it probably went from Italy to Corinth, where it is said to\n    have been discovered.\n\n[6]I suspect the word which I have translated Sicilian to be a mistake\n    in transcribing, for Homer evidently knew nothing of Sicily or he\n    would have given it its name when dealing with the hero\u2019s adventures\n    there. It is however possible that he knew the island by name but\n    had not identified it with Ulysses\u2019 Cyclops-land.\n\n[7]The confusion which is so common between Aphrodite, the Greek\n    goddess, and Astarte, the Ph\u0153nician, had its beginning at Cythera.\n    It is only in later Greek mythology that they are confounded. The\n    true Aphrodite was the first-born of Zeus, the creating\n    Intelligence, and Dione the prolific Earth\u2014Spirit and Matter\u2014and\n    Aphrodite was Divine Love;\u2014Astarte, lust.\n\n[8]The worthlessness of the testimony of d\u2019Urville is shown by this\n    statement\u2014no hand has ever held or touched this drapery, as the\n    least examination shows.\n\n\n\n\n                          Transcriber\u2019s Notes\n\n\n--Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook\n  is public-domain in the country of publication.\n\n--Silently corrected a few palpable typos.\n\n--In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by\n  _underscores_.","title":"On the track of Ulysses; Together with an excursion in quest of the so-called Venus of Melos: Two studies in archaeology, made during a cruise among the Greek islands","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":32474}