menu_book Chapter 9

eighteen ninety one collection by various section nine from athens to thebes the passes of parnas and of kithron eleuther by j p mahaffey from rambles and studies in greece no ordinary student looking at the map of attica and boeotia can realize the profound and complete separation between these two countries except at the very northern extremity where the fortified town of aropis guarded an easy boundary all the frontier consists not merely of steep mountains but of parallel and intersecting ridges and gorges which contain indeed a few alpine valleys such as that of eno but which are as a rule wild and barren easily defensible by a few against many and totally unfit for the site of any considerable town or any advanced culture as i before stated the traveller can pass through by decaleia or he can pass most directly by philae the fort which thrasypolis seized when he desired to reconquer athens with his democratic exiles

the historians usually tell us that he seized and fortified philae a statement which the present aspect of it seems to render very doubtful indeed it is quite impossible that the great hill port of the very finest attic building which is still remaining and admired by all could have been knocked up by thrasybulus and his exiles the careful construction and the enormous extent of the building compel us to suppose it the work of a rich state and of a deliberate plan of fortification it seems very unlikely for these reasons that it was built after the days of thrasybulus or that so important a point of attack should have been left unguarded in the greater days of athens i am therefore convinced that the fort being built long before and being in fact one of the well-known fortified deans through attica had been to some extent dismantled or allowed to fall into decay at the end of the peloponnesian war

this is one of the numerous instances in which a single glance at the locality sets right an historical statement that has eluded suspicion for ages the fort of philae like that of alutherae of which i shall speak and like those of messinaig and of orchalminus is built of square blocks of stone carefully cut and laid together without a particle of rubble or cement but so well fitted as to be able to resist the wear of ages better than almost any other building i was informed by m emile bernoff that in the case of a fort at megara which i did not see there are even polygonal blocks of which the irregular and varying angles are fitted with such precision that it is difficult as in the case of the parthenon to detect the joinings of the stones the blocks are by no means so colossal in these buildings as in the great ruins about mycenae but the fitting is closer and the sides on which we found them very lofty and with precipitous ascents this style of building is specially mentioned by the cittides as being employed in the building of the walls of the piraeus in the days of themistocles

apparently in contrast to the rude and hurried construction of the city walls but he speaks of the great stones being not only cut square but fastened with clamps of iron soldered with lead i am not aware that any traces of this are found in the remaining hill forts the walls of piraeus have unfortunately long since almost totally disappeared the way from athens to phila leads northwest through the rich fields of the old dame of acarne and we wonder at first why they should be so noted as charcoal burners but as we approach mount parnath we find that the valley is bounded by tracks of hillside fit for nothing but pine forest a vast deal of wooding still remains it is clear that these forests were the largest and most convenient to supply athens with firewood or charcoal as usual there are many glens and river courses through the rugged country through which we ascend here and there a village in one secluded nook a little monastery hidden from the world if not from its cares there is the usual greek vegetation beside the path not perhaps luxuriant to our northern eyes but full of colors of its own

the glowing anemone the blood-red poppy the delicate cistus on a rocky surface with foliage rather gray and silvery than green the pine trees sound as the breeze sweeps up the valleys and lavish their vigorous fragrance through the air there is something inexpressibly bracing in this solitude if solitude it can be called where the forest speaks to the eye and ear and fills the imagination with the mystery of its myriad forms now and then too the peculiar cadence of those bells which hardly varies throughout all the lands of the south tells you that a flock of goats or goat-like sheep is near attended by solemn silent children whose eyes seem to have no expression beyond that of vague wonder in their gaze these are the flocks of some village below not those of the nomad

who bring with them their tents and dogs and make gipsy encampments in the unoccupied country at last we see high over us the giant fort of philae set upon a natural precipice which defends it amply for half its circuit the point of occupation was well chosen for while within sight of athens and near enough to afford a sure refuge to those who could escape by night and fly to the mountain its distance some fifteen miles and the steep and rugged ascent made it impossible for weak and aged people to crowd into it and mar the efficiency of its garrison with the increase of his force thrasybulus began successful raids into the plain then a rapid movement to piraeus ultimately as may be read in all histories he accomplished the liberation of his native city we did not pass into boetia by the way of philae preferring to take the longer route through eleusis but no sooner had we left eleusis than we began to ascend into the rough country which is the preface to the wild mountain passes of

it is indeed very difficult to find where one range of mountains begins and another ends anywhere throughout greece there is generally one high peak which marks a whole chain or system of mountains and after which the system is called but all closer to specification seems lost on account of the immense number of ridges and points which crowd upon the view in all directions thus the chain of parnes after throwing out a spur toward the south which divides the athenian and the grecian the plains sweeps round the ladder in a sort of amphitheatre and joins the system of citharone which extends almost parallel with parnes a simple look at a good map explains these things by supplementing mere description the only thing which must be specially enforced is that all the region where a plain is not expressly named is made up of broken mountain ridges and rocky defiles so that it may fairly be called an alpine country

a fellow traveller who had just been in norway was perpetually struck with its resemblance to the norwegian highlands i will only mention one other fact which illustrates the consequent isolation we have a river caphisus in the plain of athens as soon as we cross the path of daphne we have another caphisus in the threacian plank within a day's journey or nearly so we have another caphisus losing itself in the lake not far from orcomunus this repetition of the same name shows how little intercourse people have in the country how little they travel and how there is no danger of confusing these identical names such a fact trifling as it is illustrates very powerfully the isolation which the greek mountains produce there is a good road from athens to thebes a very unusual thing in greece

and we were able to drive with four horses after a fashion which would have seemed very splendid in old days but strange to say the old greek fashion of driving four horses abreast two being yoked two the pole and two outriggers or unintelligible greek as they were called has disappeared from greece whereas it still survives in southern italy on the other hand the greeks are more daring drivers than the italians being indeed braver in all respects and when a road is to be had a very fast pace is generally kept up as usual the country was covered with brushwood and with numbers of old gnarled fir trees which bore everywhere upon their stems the great wounds of the hatchet made to extract the resin for the flavouring of wine rare flocks of goats with their peculiar dull tinkling bells bells bells which have the same make and tone all through calabria through sicily and through greece were the only sign of human occupation or of population

but when you look for houses there is nothing in the shape of wall or roof save an occasional station where but a few years since soldiers were living to keep the road safe from bandits at last we came upon the camp of some flock's shepherds a thing reminding one far more of a gipsy camp than anything else a few dark brown skins falling over two upright poles so as to form a roof-shaped tent of which the entrance looked so absolutely black as to form quite a patch in the landscape there is mere room for lying in these tents by night and i suppose in the summer weather most of these wild shepherds will not condescend even to this shelter after some hours drive we reached a grassy dell shaded by large plain trees where a lonely little public house if i may so call it of this construction invited us to stop for watering the horses and inspecting more closely the owner

there was the usual supply of such places red and white wine in small casks excellent fresh water and lecumia or turkish delight not only had the owner his belt full of knives and pistols but there was hanging up in a sort of rack a most picturesque collection of swords and guns all made in turkish fashion with ornamented handles and stocks and looking as if they might be more dangerous to the sportsman than to his game while we were being served by this wild-looking man in this suspicious place in fact it looked like the daily resort of bandits his wife a comely young woman dressed in the usual dull blue red and white disappeared through the back way and hid herself among the trees this fear of being seen by strangers no doubt caused by jealousy among men and possibly by an oriental tone in the country is a striking feature through most parts of greece

it is said to be a remnant of the turkish influence but seems to me to lie deeper and to be even an echo of the old greek days the same feeling is prevalent in most parts of sicily in the towns there you seldom see ladies in the streets and in the evenings except when the play-going public is returning from the theatre there are only men visible after leaving this resting place about eleven in the morning we did not meet a village or even a single house till we had crossed cithron after six in the evening and descried the modern hamlet of plattea on the slopes to our left but once or twice through the day a string of four or five mules with bright richly striked rugs over their wooden saddles and men dressed still more brightly sitting lady fashion on them were threading their way along the winding road the tinkling of the mules bells and the wild turkish chants of the men were a welcome break in the uniform stillness of the journey the way becomes gradually wilder and steeper

though often descending to cross a shady valley which opens to the right and left in a long narrow vista and shows blue far-off hills of other mountain chains one of these valleys was pointed out to us as eno an outlying dame of attica fortified in periclean days and which the peloponnesian army attacked as thucydides tells us and failed to take on their invasion of attica at the opening of the war there are two or three strong square towers in this valley close to the road but not the least like any old greek fort and quite incapable of holding any garrison the site is utterly unsuitable and there seemed no remains of any walled town these facts lead me to reflect upon the narrative of thucydides who evidently speaks of eno as the border fort of attica and yet says not a word about eleuther which is really the border the great fort and the key to the passes of kithron

the first solution which suggests itself is that the modern greeks have given the wrong names to these places and that by eno thucydides really means the place now known as most decidedly if the fort which is now there existed at the opening of the peloponnesian war he cannot possibly have overlooked it in his military history of the campaign and yet it seems certain that we must place the building of this fort at the epoch of athens greatness when attic influence was paramount in boeotia and when the athenians could at their leisure and without hindrance construct this fort which commands the passes into attica before they diverge into various valleys about the region of the so-called eno for starting from thebes the slope of kithron is a single and broken ascent up to the ridge through which nearly over the village of plataea there is a cut that naturally indicates the pass but when the traveller has ascended from thebes to this point he finds a steep descent into a mountainous and broken region

where he must presently choose between a gorge to the right or to the left and must wander about zigzag among mountains so as to find his way towards athens and although i did not examine all the passes accurately it was perfectly obvious that as soon as the first defile was left behind an invader could find various ways of eluding the defenders of attica and penetrating into the thryacian plain or by phile into that of athens accordingly the athenians choose a position of remarkable strength just inside the last crowning ascent where all the ways converge to pass the crest of the mountain into plataea here a huge rock interposing between the mountains on each side strives as it were to bar the path which accordingly divides like a torrent bed and passes on either side close under the walls of the fort which occupies the top of the rock from this point the summit of the pass is about two or three miles distant and easily visible so that an outpost there commanding a view of the whole theban plain could signal any approach to the fort with ample notice

the position of the fort of phile above described is very similar it lies within a mile of the top of the pass on the attic side within sight of athens and yet near enough to receive the scouts from the top and resist all sudden attack no force could invade attica without leaving a large force to besiege it looking backward into attica the whole mountainous track of eno is visible and though we cannot now tell the points actually selected there is no difficulty in finding several which could easily pass the signal from eleutherae to daphne and thence to athens we know that fire signals were commonly used among the greeks and we can here see an instance where news could be telegraphed some thirty miles over a very difficult country in a few moments meanwhile as succors might be some time in arriving the fort was of such size and strength as to hold a large garrison and stop any army which could not afford to mask it by leaving there a considerable force

the site was of course an old one and the name eleutherae if correctly applied to this fort points to a time when some mountain tribe maintained its independence here against the governments on either side of the plain whence the place was called the free place or liberties as we have the term in dublin there is further evidence of this in a small irregular fort which was erected almost in the centre of the larger and later enclosure this older fort is of polygonal masonry very inferior to the other and has fallen into ruins while the later walls and towers are in many places perfect the outer wall follows the nature of the position the principal being to find everywhere an abrupt descent from the fortification so that an assault must be very difficult on the north side where the rock is precipitous the wall runs along in a right line whereas on the south side over the modern road it dips down the hill and makes a semicircular sweep so as to crown the steepest part of a gentler ascent

thus the whole enclosure is of a half moon shape but while the straight wall is almost intact the curved side has in many places fallen to pieces the building is the most perfect i have ever seen of the kind made of square hewn stones evidently quarried on the rock itself the preserved wall is about two hundred yards long six and a half feet wide and apparently not more than ten or twelve feet high but at intervals of twenty-five or thirty yards there are seven towers twice as deep as the wall while the path along the battlement goes right through them each tower has a doorway on the outside of it and close beside this there is also a doorway in the wall somewhat larger these doorways made by a huge lintel about seven and a half feet long laid over an aperture in the building with its edges very smoothly and carefully cut are for the most part absolutely perfect

as i could see no sign of doorposts or bolts a feature still noticeable in all temple gates it is evident that wooden doors and doorposts were fitted into these doorways a dangerous form of defence were not the entrances strongly protected by the towers close beside them and over them there were staircases leading from the top of the wall outward beside some of the towers the whole fort is of such a size as to hold not merely a garrison but also the flocks and herds of the neighboring shepherds in case of a sudden and dangerous invasion and this no doubt was the primary intention of all the older forts in greece and elsewhere the day was as usual very hot and fine and the hills were of that beautiful purple blue which sir f layton so well reproduces in the backgrounds of his greek pictures but a soft breeze brought occasional clouds across the sun and varied the landscape with deeper hues

above us on each side were the noble crags of kitharon with their gray rocks and their gnarled fir trees far below a bright mountain stream was rushing beside the pass into attica around us were the great walls of the old greeks laid together with that symmetry that beauty and that strength which marks all their work the massive towers are now defending a barren rock the enclosure which had seen so many days of war and rapine was lying open and deserted the whole population was gone long centuries ago there is still liberty there and there is peace but the liberty and the peace of solitude a short drive from eleuthera brought us to the top of the pass and we suddenly came upon one of those views in greece which when we think of them leave us in doubt whether the instruction they give us or the delight is the greater

the whole plain of thebes and beyond the intervening ridge the plain of archimuneus with its shining lake were spread out before us the sights of all the famous towns were easily recognizable plataea only was straight beneath us on the slopes of the mountain and as yet hidden by them the plan of all boeotia unfolded itself with great distinctness two considerable plains separated by a low ridge and surrounded on all sides by chains of mountains on the north there are the rocky hills which hem in lake copes from the euboean strait and which nature had pierced before the days of history aided by many young engineers whose unintelligible greek as they were called were tunnelled grains which drew water from thousands of acres of the richest land on the east where we stood was the gloomy citharon the home of awful mythical crimes and of wild bacchanalian orgies the theme of many a splendid poem and many a striking tragedy

to the south lay the pointed peaks of helicon a mountain or mountain chain full of sweetness and light with many silver streams coursing down its sides to water the boeotian plains and with its dells the home of the muses ever since they inspired the bard of the home too of eros who long after the reality of the faith had decayed was honored in thespia by the crowds of visitors who went up to see the famous statue of the god by praxiteles this helicon separates boeotia from the southern sea but does not close up completely with citharon leaving way for an army coming from the isthmus where leuctra stood to guard the entrance over against us on the west lay piled against one another the dark wild mountains of phocis with the giant parnassus raising its snowy clad shoulders above the rest but in the far distance the snowy courrochs of etolia stood out in rivalry and showed us that parnassus is but the advanced guard of the wild alpine country which even in greece proved too rugged a nurse for culture

we made our descent at full gallop down the windings of the road a most risky drive but the coachman was daring and impatient and we felt in spite of the danger that peculiar delight which accompanies the excitement of going at headlong pace we had previously an even more perilous experience in coming down the steep and tortuous descent from the lorium mines to ergasteria in the train where the sharp turns were apparently full of serious risk above our heads were wheeling great vultures huge birds almost black with lean featherless heads which added to the wildness of the scene after this rapid journey we came upon the site of plataire marked by a modern village of the name on our left and below us we saw the winding asapus and the great scene of one of the most famous of all greek battles the battle of plataire this little town is situated much higher up the mountain than i had thought and a glance showed up its invaluable position as an outpost of athenian power toward boetia

with the top of the pass within an hour's walk the pleasians could from their streets see every movement over the theban plain they could see an invasion from the south coming up by luttra they could see troops marching northward toward tenagra and enophyta they could even see into the theban cadmea which lay far below them and then telegraph from the top of the pass to eleuthera and from thence to athens we can therefore understand at once boetia's importance to athens and why the athenians built a strong fortified post on their very frontier within easy reach of it all the site of the great battle is well marked and well known the fountain gargafia the so-called island and the asapus flowing lazily in a deep-cutting sedgy channel in most places far too deep to ford over our heads were still circling the great black vultures but as we neared the plain we flashed a large black-and-white eagle which we had not seen in attica

there is some cultivation between plataea and thebes but strangely alternating with wilderness we were told that the people have plenty of spare land and not caring to labor for its artificial improvement till a piece of ground once and then let it lie fallow for a season or two the natural richness of the boetian soil thus supplies them with ample crops but we wonder to think how impossible it seems even in these rich and favored plains to induce a fuller population the question of the depopulation of greece is no new one it is not due to the slav inroads it is not due to turkish misrule as soon as the political liberties of greece vanished so that the national talent found no scope in local government as soon as soon as the riches of greece were opened to greek enterprises the population diminished with wonderful rapidity all the later greek historians and travelers are agreed about the fact

the whole of greece could not put in the field says one as many soldiers as came of old from a single city of all the famous cities in boeotia says another but two thespia and tanagra now remain the rest are mostly described as ruins no doubt every young enterprising fellow went off to asia as a soldier or a merchant and this taste for emigrating has remained strong in the race till the present day when most of the business of constantinople of smyrna of alexandria is in the hands of greeks but in addition to this the race itself seems at a certain period to have become less prolific and this too is a remarkable feature lasting to our own time in the several hospitable houses in which i was entertained through the country i sought in vain for children

the young married ladies had their mothers to keep them company and this was a common habit the daughter does not willingly separate from her mother but whether by curious coincidence or not the absence of children in these seven or eight houses was very remarkable i have been since assured that this was an accident and that large families are very common in greece the statistics show a considerable increase of population of late years the evening saw us entering into thebes the town which beyond all others retains the smallest vestiges of antiquity even the site of the cadmea is not easily distinguishable two or three hillocks in and about the town are all equally insignificant and all equally suitable one should think for a fortress the discovery of the old foundations of the walls has however determined the matter and settled the site to be that of the highest part of the present town its strength which was celebrated must have been due nearly altogether to artificial fortification

for though the old city was in a deeper valley to the northwest yet from the other side there can never have been any ascent steep enough to be a natural rampart the old city was no doubt always more renowned for eating and drinking than for art or architecture and its momentary supremacy under epaminondas was too busy and too short a season to be employed in such pursuits but besides all this and besides all the ruin of alexander's fury the place has been visited several times with the most destructive earthquakes from the last of which in eighteen fifty two it had not recovered when i first saw it there were still through the streets houses torn open and walls shaken down there were gaps made by ruins and half-restored shops the antiquities of thebes consists of a few inscribed slabs and fragments which are as usual collected in a dark outhouse where it is not easy to make them out i was not at the trouble of reading these inscriptions for in this department the antiquarians of the university of athens are really very zealous and competent

and i doubt whether any inscriptions now discovered fails to come into the greek papers within a few months from these they of course pass into the corpus inscriptionum a collection daily increasing and periodically re-edited i may observe that not only for manners and customs but even for history these undeniable and seldom suspicious sources are rapidly becoming our surest and even fullest authority in the opinion of the inhabitants by far the most important thing about the town is the tomb of their evangelist st luke which is situated in a chapel close by the stone is polished and worn with the feet and lips of pilgrims and all such homes of long devotion are in themselves interesting but the visitor may well wonder that the evangelist should have his tomb established in a place so absolutely decayed and depopulated as was the regent of thebes even in his day the tombs of the early preachers and missionaries are more likely to be in the thickest of thoroughfares amid the noise and strife of men

the evangelist was confused with a later local saint of the same name thebes is remarkable for its excellent supply of water apart from the fountain dirt several other great springs rise in the higher ground close to it and are led by old greek conduits of marble to the town one of these springs was large enough to allow us to bathe a most refreshing change after the long and hot carriage ride especially in the ice-cold water as it came from its deep hiding place we returned at eight in the evening to dine with our excellent host a host provided for us by telegraph from athens where we had ample opportunity of noticing some of the peculiarities of modern greek life the general elections were at the moment pending m bulgaris had just a show as the french say and the king after a crisis in which a rupture of the constitution had been expected decided to try a constitutional experiment and called to office m tricope an advanced radical in those days and strongly opposed to the government but m tricope was a highly educated and reasonable man

well acquainted with england and english politics and apparently anxious to govern by strictly constitutional means he has since proved himself by his able and vigorous administration one of the most remarkable statesmen in europe and the main cause of the progress of his country his recent defeat eighteen ninety is therefore to be regarded as a national misfortune our new friend at thebes was then the radical candidate and was at the very time of our arrival canvassing his constituency every idle fellow in the town seemed to think it his duty to come up into his drawing-room in which we were resting and sit down to encourage him and advise him no hint that he was engaged in entertaining strangers had the smallest effect noisy politics was inflicted upon us till the welcome announcement of dinner to which for a wonder his constituents did not follow him he told me that though all the country was strongly in favor of m tricope yet he could hardly count upon a majority with certainty for he had determined to let the elections

follow their own course and not control them with soldiers in this most constitutional country with its freedom as usual closely imitated from england soldiers stood at least up to the summer of eighteen seventy five round the booths and hustled out any one who did not come to vote for the ministerial candidate m tricope refused to take this traditional precaution and as the result showed lost his sure majority but when i was there and before the actual elections had taken place the radical party were very confident they were not only to come in triumphant but their first act was to be the prosecution of the late prime minister m bolgares for violating the constitution and his condemnation to hard labor with confiscation of his property i used to plead the poor man's case earnestly with these hot-headed politicians by way of amusement and was highly edified by their arguments the ladies as usual were by far the fiercest and were ready like their goddess of old to eat the raw flesh of their enemies i used to ask them whether it would not be quite out of taste if mr tisraeli then in power

were to prosecute mr gladstone for violating the constitution in his irish church act and have him condemned to hard labor the cases they replied were quite different no englishman could ever attain or even understand the rascality of the late greek minister feeling that there might be some force in this argument i changed ground and asked them were they not afraid that if he were persecuted in so violent a way he might instead of occupying the opposition benches betake himself to occupy the mountain passes and by robbing a few english travelers so discredit the new government as to be worse and more dangerous in opposition than in power no they said he will not do that he is too rich but said i if you confiscate his property he will be poor true they replied but still he will not be able to do it he is too old it seemed as if the idea that he might be too respectable never crossed their minds what was my surprise to hear within six months that this dreadful culprit

had come into power again at the head of a considerable majority we were afterward informed by a sarcastic observer that many of the greek politicians are paupers who will not dig and to beg they are ashamed and so they set about the cafes of athens on the lookout for one of the ten thousand places which have been devised for the patronage of the ministry but as there are some thirty thousand expectants it follows that the twenty thousand disappointed are always at work seeking to turn out the ten thousand hence a crisis every three months hence a greek ambassador could hardly reach his destination before he was recalled hence too the exodus of all thrifty and hard-working men to smyrna to alexandria or to manchester where their energies were not wasted in perpetual political swobbling the greatest misconduct with which a man in office could be charged was the holding of it for any length of time the whole public then join against him and cry out that it is high time for him after so long an innings to make way for some one else

it was not till m jacobbi established his ascendancy that this ridiculous condition of things cease whether in office or in opposition he has a policy and retains the confidence of foreign powers i had added in the first edition of this book some further observations on the apparent absurdity of introducing the british constitution or some parody of it into every new state which is rescued from barbarism or from despotism i am not the least disposed to retract what i then said generally but it is common justice to the greeks to say that later events are showing them to be among the few nations where such an experiment may succeed when the dangerous crisis of the turco-russian war supervened instead of rushing to arms as they were advised by some fanatical english politicians they set about to reform their ministry and feeling the danger of perpetually changing the men at the helm they insisted on the heads of the four principal parties forming a coalition under the nominal leadership of m

this great political move one of the most remarkable of our day was attempted as far as i can make out owing to the deliberate pressure of the country and from a solid interest in its welfare even though temporary in the present case it was in earnest that the greeks are learning national politics and that a liberal constitution is not wasted upon them there are many far more developed and important nations in europe which would not be capable of such a sacrifice of party interests and party ambition we left thebes very glad that we had seen it but not very curious to see it again its sight makes it obviously the natural capital of the rich plain around it and we can also see at once how the larger and richer plain of arkibenus is separated from it by a distinct saddle of rising ground and was naturally in old times the seat of a separate power

but the separation between the two districts which is not even so steep or well marked as the easy pass of daphne between athens and eleusis makes it also clear that the owners of either plain would certainly cast the eye of desire upon the possessions of their neighbours and so at an early epoch archiminus was subdued for many reasons this may have been a disaster to greece the meaning of archiminus as people called the old nobles who settled there in prehistoric days were a great and rich society building forts and treasure-houses and celebrated even in homer's day for wealth and splendour but perhaps owing to this very luxury they were subdued by the inartistic vulgar thebans who during the centuries of power and importance never rose to greatness save through the transcendent genius of pindar and of epaminondas no real greatness ever attached to their town when people came from a distance to see art in boeotia they came to little in the southern hills where the eros of praxiteles was the pride of the citizens to nagrik too in the terra-cottas of which i have spoken shows taste and refinement

and we still look with sympathy upon the strangely modern fashions of these graceful and elegant figures at thebes so far as i know no trace of fine arts has yet been discovered the great substructure of the cadmium the solid marble water pipes of their conduits a few inscriptions that is all it corroborates what we find in the middle and new comedy of the greeks that thebes was a place for eating and drinking a place for other coarse material comforts but no place for real culture or for art even their great poet pindar a poet a poet in whom most critics find all the highest qualities of genius loftiness daring originality even this great man no doubt from the accidents of his age worked by the job and bargained for the payment of his noblest odes thus even in pindar

there is something to remind us of his theban vulgarity and it is therefore all the more wonderful and all the more freely to be confessed that in epiminondus we find not a single flaw or failing and that he stands out as far the noblest of all the great men whom greece ever produced it were possible to maintain that he was also the greatest but this is a matter of opinion and of argument certain it is that his influence made thebes for the moment not only the leader in greek politics but the leader in greek society those of his friends whom we know seem not only patriots but gentlemen they cultivated with him music and eloquence nor did they despise philosophy so true is it that in this wonderful peninsula genius seemed possible everywhere and that from the least cultivated and most vulgar town might arise a man to make all the world about him admire and tremble i will make but one more remark about this plain of blecia there is no part of greece so sadly famed for all the battles with which its soil was stained

the ancients called it mars's orchestra or exercising ground and even now when all the old life is gone and when not a hovel remains to mark the site of once well-built towns we may indeed ask why were these towns celebrated simply because in old greek history their names served to specify a scene of laughter where a campaign or it may be an empire was lost or won potea luctra calliartes cornea caronia delium enophyta tanagra these are in history the landmarks of battles and with one exception landmarks of nothing more thebes is mainly the nurse of the warriors who fought in these battles and but little else so then we cannot compare blecia to the rich plains of lombardy they too in their clay aye and in our own day marzit orchestra for here literature and art have given fame to cities while the battles fought around their walls have been forgotten by the world i confess we saw nothing of the foggy atmosphere so often brought up against the climate of boeotia

and yet it was then of course more foggy than it had been of old for then the lake copse was drained whereas in eighteen seventy five the old tunnels cut or rather enlarged by the were choked and thousands of acres of the richest land covered with marsh and lake it was m jacopi who promoted the plan of a french company to drain the lake more completely than even the old catabothra had done and at the cost of less than one million sterling to bring into permanent cultivation some thousands of acres in fact the largest and richest plain in all greece i asked him where he meant to find a population to till it seeing that the present land was about ten times more than sufficient for the inhabitants he told me that some greek colonists who had settled in the north under the turks or servians i forget which were desirous of hellenic liberty it was proposed to give them the reclaimed tract if these good people will reason from analogy they will be slow to trust their fortunes to their old fellow-countrymen so long as they are indigent they will be unmolested

but as soon as they prosper or are supposed to prosper we might have the affair of lorium repeated the natives might be up in arms against the strangers who had come to plunder the land of the wealth intended by nature for others the greek parliament might be persuaded to make retrospective laws and restrictions and probably all the more active and impatient spirits would leave a country where prosperity implied persecution and where people only awake to the value of their possessions after they have sold them to others what is now happening illustrates the views which i long since proposed when the drainage works completed in eighteen eighty seven had uncovered rich tracts the government laid claim to every acre of it and endeavoured to fence off the old riparian proprietors they on their side disputed the new boundaries and claimed what the government professed to have uncovered hence no sale to new owners is as yet possible

the dispute is still eighteen ninety one unsettled i think jealousy no accidental feature but one specially ingrained in the texture of greek nature from the earliest times nothing can be a more striking or cogent proof of this than the way in which herodotus sets down jealousy as one of the attributes of the deity for the deities of all nations being conceptions formed after the analogy of human nature around them there can be no doubt that the honest historian put it down as a necessary factor in the course and constitution of nature we can only understand greek history by keeping these things perpetually in mind and even now it explains the apparent anomaly how a nation so essentially democratic who recognise no nobility and no distinctions of rank can be satisfied with a king of foreign race they told me themselves over and over again that the simple reason was this no greek could tolerate another set over him so that even such an office as president of a greek republic would be intolerable if held by one of themselves

and this same feeling in old times is the real reason of the deadly hate manifested against the most moderate and humane despots however able however kindly however great such a despot might be however the state might prosper under him one thing in him was intolerable he had no natural right to be superior to his fellows and yet he was superior i will not deny the existence of political enthusiasm and of real patriotism among greek tyrannocytes but i am quite sure that the universal sympathy of the nation with them was partly based upon this deep-seated feeling it is said that in another curious respect the old and modern greeks are very similar i mean the form which bribery takes in their political struggles it has been already observed and discussed by mr freeman how among the old greeks it was the politician who was bribed and not the constituents

whereas among us in england the leading politicians are above suspicion while the constituents are often corruptible enough our theban friend told me that in modern greece the ancient form of bribery was still in fashion and that except in hydra and one other place probably if i remember rightly athens the bribing of constituents was unknown while the taking of bribes by ministers was alleged not to be very uncommon a few years ago men of sufficient importance to be cabinet ministers were openly brought into court and indicted for the sale of three archbishoprics those of patras and corinth among the number there is no doubt that this public charge points to a sort of bribery likely to take place in any real democracy when the men at the head of affairs are not men of great wealth and noble birth but often ordinary or even needy persons selected by ballot or popular vote to fill for a very short time a very influential office

end of section nine athens to thieves by j p mahafi