Chapter VI: Part 6

Clouds on Hymettus were believed to prognosticate rain; if during a storm a long bank of clouds was seen lowering on the mountain, it meant that the storm would increase in fury. Hymettus is still as of old remarkable for the wonderful purple glow which comes over it as seen from Athens by evening light. When the sun is setting, a rosy flush spreads over the whole mountain, which, as the daylight fades and the shadows creep up the slope, passes by insensible transitions through all intermediate shades of colour into the deepest violet. This purple tinge is peculiar to Hymettus; none of the other mountains which encircle the plain of Athens assumes it at any hour of the day. It was when the sunset glow was on Hymettus that Socrates drained the poisoned cup.

VII. MOUNT PENTELICUS.—Pentelicus is the pyramid-like mountain, between three and four thousand feet high, which closes the Athenian plain on the north-east, at a distance of about ten miles from Athens. Its upper slopes, as seen from the Acropolis at Athens, have been aptly compared to the pediment or gable of a Greek temple. Through the clear air of Attica the unaided eye, looking from the Acropolis, can distinguish the white line of the ancient quarries descending, somewhat to the right of the highest peak, straight down into the valley where the monastery of Mendeli lies hidden by the intervening heights; to the left of the summit, half-way up the slope, may be discerned the large white patches which mark the site of the modern quarries.

But though the view of the pyramidal or gable-like summit is the one which chiefly strikes the observer at Athens, Pentelicus is really a range of mountains with a number of lesser summits, extending from north-west to south-east for a distance of about four and a half miles. The ancient quarries lie on the south-western side of the highest peak. Five-and-twenty of them may be counted, one above the other; the highest is situated not far beneath the highest ridge, at a height of over three thousand three hundred feet above the sea. They are reached from the monastery of Mendeli, the wealthiest monastic establishment in Attica, which nestles in a well-watered and wooded glade at the southern foot of the mountain, about twelve hundred feet above sea level. The ground in front of the monastery is shaded by gigantic white poplars, under which flows a spring of excellent water. The name Mendeli is the modern equivalent of Pentele, the name of the ancient township, the site of which is perhaps marked by some ancient blocks and traces of walls and terraces at the chapel of the Trinity, a little to the north-east of the monastery.

The quarries are situated in the gullies above the monastery. An ancient road, very steep and rugged, leads to them up the eastern side of the principal gully. The road is roughly paved; the blocks of marble were probably brought down it on wooden slides. Square holes may be seen at intervals cut in the rock at the side of the road; the beams which supported the wooden slides may have been fastened in these holes. The road appears to end at the principal quarry, a spot now called Spilia, two thousand three hundred feet above the sea. Here the rock has been quarried away so as to leave a smooth perpendicular wall of marble, the top of which is fringed with firs. The marks, delicate and regular, of the ancient chisels may be seen in horizontal rows on the face of the rock. At the foot of this wall of marble, overgrown with shrubs and mantled with creepers, is the low entrance to a stalactite grotto, well known to visitors, as the names cut and painted on the walls suffice to prove. The entrance is partly built up with walls of the Byzantine age; to the right, roofed by the rock, is a chapel of St. Nicholas. The grotto is spacious, cool, and dark; its floor descends somewhat from the mouth inwards. About sixty paces from the entrance there is a small side-grotto with a rocky basin full of cold spring-water.

An examination of the marks on the rock shows that the ancients regularly quarried the marble in rectangular blocks, first running a groove round each block with the chisel and then forcing it out with wedges. The effect of this has been to leave the quarries in the shape of huge rectangular cuttings in the side of the mountain.

The stone extracted from these quarries is a white marble of a close fine grain. It is readily distinguished from Parian marble—the other white marble commonly used by Greek sculptors and architects—by its finer grain and opaque milky whiteness; whereas the Parian marble is composed of large transparent crystals, and is of a glistering snowy whiteness. Parian marble resembles crystallised sugar; Pentelic marble resembles solidified milk, though its surface is of course more granular. Pentelic marble, alone among all Greek marbles, contains a slight tincture of iron; hence its surface, when long exposed to the weather, acquires that rich golden-brown patina which is so much admired on the columns of the Parthenon and other buildings constructed of Pentelic marble. The Parian marble, on the other hand, though it weathers more easily than the Pentelic on account of its coarser grain, always remains dazzlingly white. Pentelic marble is always clearly stratified, and in places it is streaked with veins of silvery white, green, and reddish-violet mica. Blocks so streaked were either thrown aside by the ancients or used by them for buildings, not sculpture. But even in architecture these veins of mica entailed this disadvantage that the surfaces containing them, when long exposed to the weather, split and pealed off in flakes, as we may see on the drums of the columns of the Olympieum or Parthenon.

Besides the fine white marble already described, which is commonly known simply as Pentelic marble, there occurs on Mount Pentelicus a grey, bluish-grey, and grey-streaked marble identical in kind with the marble known as Hymettian, because the ancients quarried it on Mount Hymettus. This grey or bluish-grey marble is of more recent geological formation than the white. It does not appear to have been quarried by the ancients on Pentelicus; at least no ancient quarries of it have been discovered on the mountain. But it is now obtained in great masses in the large modern quarries to the east of Kephisia, and furnishes Athens with building material for the better class of houses and public edifices; even paving-stones are made of it.

An hour’s climb from the great quarry at Spilia takes us to the summit of Pentelicus. The path ascends slopes which not many years ago were thickly wooded, but are now bare and stony. The view from the top is the clearest and most comprehensive that can be obtained of the Attic peninsula. Conspicuous below us on the north is the sickle-shaped bay of Marathon. The snowy peak of Parnassus closes the prospect on the west; the mountains of Euboea bound it on the north; and to the south, in clear weather, the island of Melos is faintly visible at a distance of ninety to a hundred miles. On the ridge, a little below and to the south-east of the summit of Pentelicus, there is a small platform, which on three sides shows traces of having been hewn out of the rock. It is exactly in the line of the ancient paved road, which, however, comes to an end considerably lower down, at the great quarry. On this platform probably stood the image of Athena mentioned by Pausanias.

VIII. PHYLE.—An expedition to the ruins of Phyle is a favourite excursion of visitors to Athens. The distance by road is about fourteen miles. Diodorus indeed estimates the distance at a hundred Greek furlongs or eleven miles. But he is wrong. Demosthenes, more correctly, says that it was over a hundred and twenty Greek furlongs. A carriage road runs as far as Chasia, a large village on the southern slopes of Mount Parnes, about ten miles from Athens. Beyond this point the way is nothing but a steep and stony bridle-path. After ascending it for half an hour we come to the meeting of two deep and savage glens. In the glen to the right or east the little monastery of Our Lady of the Defile stands romantically at the foot of sheer precipices. The path to Phyle (which is at the same time the direct road to Thebes) winds rapidly up the narrow western glen through a thin forest of firs. In places the path is hewn in the rock, and the defile is so narrow that a handful of men might make it good against an army. Phyle is reached in about an hour and three-quarters from Chasia. The fortress with its massive walls and towers crowns a high precipitous crag on the southern side of the pass, which it completely dominates. A ridge connects the crag with the higher mountains on the east; and along this ridge is the only approach to the fortress. On the west and south the sides of the crag fall away abruptly into a deep ravine, which is broken by tremendous precipices, crested with firs and tufted with shrubs and underwood. The ruins of the fortress encircle a little plateau, scarcely three hundred feet long from east to west, on the summit of the crag. The walls and towers, built of fine quadrangular blocks without mortar, are best preserved on the north-east side, where they are still standing to a height of seventeen courses. The tower at the north-east angle is round; the other two remaining towers are square. The principal gate was on the east side, approached from the ridge. There was further a postern, also approached from the ridge, near the south-east corner. From the fortress, which stands more than two thousand feet above the sea, the view is magnificent, taking in the whole of the Athenian plain with Athens itself and Hymettus, and the sea with Salamis, Aegina, and the coast of Peloponnese.

The high peak, now named Mount Pagania, which towers immediately to the north-east of Phyle in the form of a crescent-shaped wall of naked rock is probably the ancient Harma, which the augurs at Athens watched till they saw lightning flash about its summit, whereupon they sent the sacrifice to Delphi. Strabo expressly says that Harma was near Phyle. On its eastern side the peak descends in precipices into the deep glen, already mentioned, at the entrance of which is the monastery of Our Lady of the Defile.

Farther up this glen than the monastery, at a height of some hundreds of feet above the torrent (the Potami) which traverses it, there is a cavern which is sometimes visited. The direct distance of this cavern from the monastery is only about a mile and a half. But in the glen the stream, hemmed in by precipices advancing from the mountains on both sides, has scooped out for itself between them a bed so profound and rugged that to scramble along it is impossible, even when the water is at its lowest. Hence in order to reach the cavern it is needful to make a long detour round the western flanks of Mount Pagania and to come down into the glen at a point a good deal higher up. Having done so we follow the glen downward past the place where another glen opens into it, bringing its tributary stream to swell the Potami. The cave is situated high up on the eastern side of the main glen, a little below the meeting of the waters. To clamber up the steep slope to it is far from easy. The mouth of the cave is so narrow that only one person can enter it at a time; it opens at the foot of a precipice darkened by overhanging trees and flanked by two crags which project like wings on either side. In the face of the rock to the right of the entrance into the cavern are some votive niches with worn inscriptions under them. Within the cave, which may be about a hundred paces deep, water dripping from the roof has formed large stalactites and has hollowed out basins in the floor. Broken lamps and potsherds have been found in it in considerable quantities, which, with the votive niches outside, prove that this secluded spot was an ancient sanctuary. It was most probably the Nymphaeum or sanctuary of the Nymphs, which Menander mentioned as being near Phyle. Here, too, the people of Phyle probably offered the sacrifices to Pan to which Aelian refers. For one of the inscriptions on the rock outside the cave sets forth that a certain Tychander caused workmen to put up the image of Pan beside the Celadon, and that sacrifices were offered by one Trophimianus. From this inscription we learn that the Potami, which flows in the depth of the glen below the cave, went in antiquity by the name of the Celadon or ‘Roaring Stream.’

IX. THE PORT OF ATHENS.—Piraeus, the port of Athens, is a rocky peninsula which runs out into the sea in a south-westerly direction for a distance of more than two miles. It is composed of two masses, each over a mile wide, which are united to each other by a somewhat low and narrow ridge or isthmus. The south-western mass, anciently known as the Acte, rises gradually on all sides to a height of nearly two hundred feet. The north-eastern mass attains a height of nearly three hundred feet in the steep rocky hill of Munychia. The ancients believed that the peninsula of Piraeus had formerly been an island, and that it had received its name because it was the land across (_peran_) the water. Modern observation confirms the belief that Piraeus was once an island. The peninsula is joined to the mainland by a stretch of low swampy ground, nowhere more than eight feet above the level of the sea. This stretch of low land, which the ancients called Halipedon, appears to be formed of alluvial soil brought down in the course of ages by the Cephisus, which falls into the sea a little to the east, and which has by its deposits gradually converted the rocky island into a peninsula.

Piraeus includes three distinct harbours, each opening to the sea by a separate mouth. These are the great harbour, technically known as Cantharus, on the north-west side of the peninsula, and the two smaller and nearly circular harbours of Zea and Munychia on the south-eastern side. The whole of the peninsula, with its three harbours, was strongly fortified in antiquity. The line of the fortification wall may still be traced almost all round it, and in most places the foundations are so well preserved that it is possible to reconstruct the plan of the fortress as a whole. The wall runs along the shore at such a distance as to be out of reach of the waves, and yet near enough the sea to prevent an enemy from bringing siege engines into play on the beach. It is from ten to twelve feet thick, and is very carefully built of squared blocks of the native limestone without mortar. The quarries in which the stones were hewn may be observed at many points both behind and in front of the wall. In places where the stones have been taken away from the wall to furnish building material for the modern town, we can see the grooves or channels cut in the rock in which the stones were originally bedded. These grooves are each about two and a half feet wide and run parallel to each other, showing that only the outer and inner faces of the wall were of solid masonry, and that the core must have been, as in many ancient Greek walls, filled up with rubble and earth. In the best preserved portions the wall is still standing to a height of five courses or more. It is flanked by towers which project from the curtain at intervals of sixty or seventy yards.

In addition to this sea-wall which skirted the coast, the mouths of the three harbours were contracted by moles of solid masonry that ran out to meet each other on either side, leaving only a narrow entrance between their extremities. The long moles which thus barred the mouth of the great harbour still exist, though the southern of the two has been washed away by the waves to a depth of some thirteen feet under the surface of the water. They now support the red and green lights which at night mark the entrance to the harbour. The haven of Zea is naturally stronger than the great harbour, and therefore needed less elaborate fortifications. It consists of a circular basin lying about two hundred yards inland from the sea, and is approached by a channel a hundred yards wide. Walls ran along this channel on either side, so that an enemy’s ships endeavouring to enter the harbour would have had to run the gauntlet of a cross fire. At its inner end the channel was flanked on either side by a tower of solid masonry built out into the water, but connected with the fortification walls. The third harbour, Munychia, the smallest of the three, is farthest removed from the business and bustle of the modern port town, and hence has, in some respects, best preserved the relics of antiquity. Originally it was a mere open bay, and therefore needed vast constructions of masonry to convert it into a war harbour. The moles built for this purpose are described by Lieutenant von Alten, who examined them with attention, as the most magnificent specimens of ancient Greek fortification which have survived. In some places on the outer edges of the moles the colossal blocks of which they are composed have been piled up in wild confusion by the heavy surf, and project like islets above the surface of the water. Each mole ended in a tower; and the narrow entrance to the harbour was between the towers. The tiny basin is commanded by the hill of Munychia which rises steeply from the shore. In time of danger each of the harbour mouths could be closed with a chain stretched between the two towers that flanked the entrance. The chain seems to have been coated with tar to prevent it from rusting in the water.

On the landward side the peninsula was defended by a wall, which started from the harbour of Munychia, ascended the hill, and after following the edge of the plateau for some distance gradually descended westward to the shallow northern bight of the great harbour, across which it appears to have been carried on a mole or dam. This landward wall, to judge from its existing remains, seems to have been a masterpiece of military engineering, every opportunity offered by the nature of the ground for strengthening the fortifications having been unerringly seized upon and turned to account. The naturally weakest spot in the whole circuit was where the wall crossed the flat between the hill of Munychia and the great harbour. Here accordingly we find the wall especially strong; it is twenty-six feet thick, and is constructed of solid masonry in large squared blocks without any core of rubble. Naturally the gates were placed in this landward wall and opened northward. Remains of four of them can be distinguished. The principal gate, flanked by two square towers on oval bases, stood in the flat ground between the north-east end of the great harbour and the heights of Munychia. Through it doubtless ran the highway to Athens; and here at a little side portal for foot-passengers probably stood the image of Hermes, which the nine archons dedicated when they set about fortifying Piraeus. A little to the east of this principal gate and on slightly higher ground is another gate, through which the road to Athens went between the two Long Walls. The gate is double, that is, it is composed of a court nearly square with a gate at each end. The reason of this construction, which is common in Greek fortifications, was that, if an enemy should force the outer gate, he would still have a second gate in front of him, and would in the meantime find himself pent in a narrow court, as in a trap, from the walls of which he would be assailed on all sides by the missiles of the defenders.

The docks at Piraeus were one of the glories of Athens. Demosthenes mentions them along with the Parthenon and the Propylaea. When the Athenian navy numbered about four hundred warships, we learn from inscriptions that the number of docks was three hundred and seventy-two. But this excess of ships over docks could scarcely have caused inconvenience, as some vessels must always have been in commission. Very considerable remains of the ancient docks are still to be seen in the harbours of Zea and Munychia. The flat beach all round the basin of Zea was enclosed by a wall of ashlar masonry, which ran round the harbour at a distance of fifty or sixty feet from the water’s edge. This formed the back wall of all the docks, which extended at right angles to it and parallel to each other down into the water. The average breadth of each dock or berth was about twenty feet. The docks were separated from each other by rows of columns, the foundations of which, bedded on the shelving rocky beach, descend in steps to the water, and are continued under it for some distance. These columns supported the roofs, which were probably wooden, for no remains of a stone roof have been found. Between these partition rows of columns the rock has been hollowed out and smoothed, so that it forms an inclined plane, descending gradually, like the rows of columns, to the sea, and continued under water for some way. Each of these inclined planes formed the floor of a dock. In the middle of each floor is built a stone pier about ten feet wide and a yard high; in some places the native rock, hewn out at the sides, has been left standing in the centre so as to form a pier of similar dimensions. On these piers, whether built or hewn out of the rock, the ancient ships were hauled up and down. Remains of them may still be seen all round the harbour of Zea running out under the clear water.

The only relics of ancient ships which have been found at Zea are some plates of Parian marble representing great eyes. Clearly these were the ship’s eyes which used to be fastened to the bows of ancient Greek vessels. Pollux tells us that the ship’s name was painted beside its eye. Philostratus describes the picture of an Etruscan pirate ship painted blue, with fierce eyes at the prow to frighten the enemy. In a list of missing or unserviceable ships’ furniture, preserved in an inscription, mention is twice made of a broken ship’s eye. Some of the eyes found at Zea show traces of red paint at the back; the paint probably adhered to them from the ships’ sides; for ships’ bows were often painted red. Modern Italian sailors sometimes still paint an eye on the bow of their vessel. In the East, too, every craft owned by a Chinaman, from a sampan up to an English-built screw-steamer, has a pair of eyes painted on the bows, that it may see its way and spy out sunken rocks and other dangers of the deep. Indeed, in all parts of eastern Asia where many Chinese travel, the local steamers, whether owned by Chinese or not, all have eyes; otherwise no Chinaman would travel in them, or send his goods by them.

Another famous structure in Piraeus was the arsenal, which formed a necessary adjunct to the docks of the navy. We know from ancient authors that it was built from designs furnished by the architect Zeno, who explained them to the people in a speech which won him a high reputation for eloquence. The building was admired for its elegance, and the Athenians were proud of it. However, it was finally burnt by the Romans under Sulla, and no certain vestiges of it have been as yet discovered. But by an extraordinary piece of good fortune the directions given to the contractor for its construction have been preserved to us. They were discovered in 1882 engraved on a slab of Hymettian marble at the foot of the hill of Munychia, not far from the harbour of Zea. The directions are so full, clear, and precise that we now know Philo’s arsenal from roof to foundation better than any other building of ancient Greece, though not a stone of it has been found. A brief description of the edifice, derived from the inscription, may not be uninteresting.

The arsenal was to be built at Zea, the principal war-harbour, and was to begin at the gateway which led from the market-place and to extend to the back of the docks. It was to be constructed of the hard reddish-grey Piraeic limestone, an excellent building material often mentioned in inscriptions and still much in use. In shape it was to be a sort of arcade, lit principally by rows of windows in the long sides, and divided into three aisles by two rows of columns running down its whole length. The central aisle, paved with flags, and entered by two bronze-plated doors at each end, was to be kept clear as a passage for the public; while the two side aisles were to serve for storing the ships’ tackle. For this purpose each of the side aisles was divided into two stories by a wooden flooring. On the ground floor the sails and other canvas gear were stowed away in presses; and in the upper galleries the ropes were coiled on open wooden shelves. Between the columns which flanked the central aisle there ran a stone balustrade with latticed gates opening into the side aisles between each pair of columns. The roof of the building was to be constructed of strong wooden rafters overlaid with boards, which were to be fastened on with iron nails; and the whole was to be covered with close-fitting Corinthian tiles. To secure that the building should be well aired, which was especially necessary in a magazine of this sort, lest the tackle should suffer from damp, slit-like openings were to be left in the walls between the joints of the stones, the number and situation of these air-holes being left to the discretion of the architect. Such was, in outline, the great arsenal of the Piraeus. Thither on hot summer days, we may suppose, crowds were glad to escape from the dust and glare of the streets and to promenade in the cool, lofty, and dimly-lighted arcade, often stopping to gaze with idle curiosity or patriotic pride at the long array of well-ordered tackle which spoke of the naval supremacy of Athens.

Before we quit the war-harbours we should note the Choma, as it was called, a quay near the mouth of the harbour on which, when an armament was fitting out for sea, the Council of the Five Hundred held their sittings daily till the squadron sailed. When all was ready, every captain was bound by law to lay his vessel alongside the quay to be inspected by the Council. The inspection over, the fleet weighed anchor and proceeded on its voyage. It must have been a heart-stirring sight to witness the departure of a fleet for the seat of war, as gallant ship after ship passed in long procession through the mouth of the harbour and stood out to sea, followed by the gazing eyes and by the hopes and fears and prayers of thousands assembled on the shore. When the last ship had glided from the smooth water of the harbour, and begun to breast the waves and shake out its sails to the freshening breeze, multitudes would rush from the shore to the heights, there to watch the galleys slowly lessening in the distance, till they could discern no longer the flash and sparkle of the oars as they rose and fell at the ships’ sides, and till even the white sails melted away like snow in the blaze of the sun on the far southern horizon.

A long line of colonnades extending along the eastern shore of the great harbour appears to have formed the public mart or emporium. One of the most important buildings in this commercial part of the harbour was a bazaar or exchange, where foreign merchants exhibited samples of their wares, and where bankers sat at the receipt of custom. It must have been close to the quays and the shipping, as we learn from the account of a successful raid which Alexander of Pherae once made on the bankers’ counters. One day a squadron was seen standing into the harbour. The loungers on the quays watched it with indolent curiosity till the ships drew up alongside the wharfs, when a crowd of armed men leaped from the ships’ sides, drew their swords, and with a flourish of trumpets made a rush for the bazaar, where they swept the counters clean and then returned with the booty to their vessels, without stopping to notice the panic-stricken crowds who were fleeing in all directions. In another ‘cutting-out’ expedition which the Lacedaemonians made with twelve ships into the harbour of Piraeus, a handful of daring men jumped ashore, laid hold of some merchants and skippers in the bazaar, and hurried them on board. It was in the bazaar that the Boastful Man in Theophrastus used to stand talking with foreigners about the great sums he had at sea, while he sent his page to the bank where he kept the sum of ten-pence.

Chief among the holy places of Piraeus was a sanctuary of Saviour Zeus. Fine paintings by distinguished artists adorned the cloisters attached to it, and statues stood in the open air. The festival of the god included a regatta and a procession through the streets. The expenses of the sanctuary were partly defrayed by a small tax levied on every vessel which put into the port. Moreover, persons who had escaped from danger—for example, seafaring men who had come safe to land—commonly brought thank-offerings to the shrine. From a fragment of an ancient comedy we learn that, among the long-shore sharks who lay in wait on the quays for sailors fresh from a voyage, there were cooks with an eye to business. For in the passage in question one of the fraternity tells us how, whenever he spied a jolly tar just stepping ashore, ready for a spree, with a bulging purse in his fist and an expansive smile on his sunburnt face, he used to rush up to him, shake him warmly by the hand, drop a delicate allusion to Saviour Zeus, and proffer his services at the sacrifice. The bait took, and soon he was to be seen heading for the sanctuary with the sailor man in tow.

Better known to English readers than the sanctuary of Saviour Zeus was the altar of the Unknown God which St. Paul, and after him Pausanias, saw at Phalerum, the old port of Athens. In a dialogue attributed to Lucian, a certain Critias raps out a number of oaths by the old heathen gods and goddesses, and for each of them he is gravely taken to task by his comrade Triephon, who has just been initiated into the sublime mysteries of the Christian theology by a person of a Hebrew cast of countenance, whom he describes as a bald-pated long-nosed Galilean. At last Critias swears by the Unknown God at Athens, and this oath is allowed to pass unchallenged by Triephon, who winds up the dialogue with this edifying advice: “Let us, having found out and worshipped the Unknown God at Athens, raise our hands to heaven and give him thanks that we have been found worthy to be subject unto so great a power; but let us leave other folk to babble, satisfied ourselves with applying to them the proverb 'Hippoclides doesn’t care.'”

A little way from the shore of the great harbour was the market-place named after the Milesian architect Hippodamus, who laid out Piraeus on a regular plan. It must have been a spacious open square, for we hear of troops mustering in it. The distinguished general Timotheus had a house on the market-place, and it was here that he lodged his two royal visitors, Jason of Pherae and Alcetas king of Epirus, when they came to give evidence at his trial. The general had impaired his private fortune by his exertions in the public service, and when his illustrious visitors arrived late one evening he had to send out his Caleb Balderstone in haste to borrow some bedding and silver plate. From the market-place a street led upwards to the sanctuary of Artemis on the hill of Munychia. It must have been a wide street; for in the street-fighting at the revolution which overturned the tyranny of the Thirty and restored the democracy, the troops of the tyrants formed in order of battle in the market-place and then marched up the street, while the democratic party, led by Thrasybulus, charged down the street in battle array and met them. At one time apparently the market-place fell into disrepair, and enjoyed the dubious privilege of what is popularly known in Scotland as a ‘free coup,’ the inhabitants of the neighbouring streets using it unceremoniously as a convenient dust-hole wherein to throw away their old rags and bones and other domestic refuse. At last the authorities felt constrained to interfere and put a stop to the nuisance. So they ordered that the market-place be levelled and put in good repair, and that for the future nobody should be allowed to shoot rubbish or dump down dung in it.

The broad straight streets of the new town of Piraeus must have formed a striking contrast to the narrow and crooked streets, lined with mean houses, which Athens itself seems always to have retained. Aristotle perhaps had this contrast in his mind when he recommended for his ideal city a mixture of the two modes of building, remarking that the new straight streets in the style of Hippodamus were handsomer and more convenient, but that the old crooked streets could be better defended against an enemy. Another advantage of the older style of architecture, at least in southern cities, is the shade and coolness of narrow lanes from which, as from the bottom of a well, we look up at a narrow strip of blue sky high overhead, instead of being exposed to the pitiless glare of the sun as we pace, with blue spectacles on our eyes and a white umbrella over our head, the broad open streets which, on the model of the Parisian boulevards, are rapidly springing up in the towns of southern Europe. Still, in spite of the ravages of municipal authorities and the jerry-builder, we can even yet remark in modern Europe a contrast between the towns that have grown up irregularly in the course of ages, and those which have been created at once on a regular plan by the will of a despot. The two most regularly built towns in Europe are probably Turin and Mannheim. Turin still stands on the lines laid down by Augustus, when he founded a Roman colony on the site; Mannheim was built by the Elector Palatine, Frederick the Fourth, in 1606. Something of the same difference may also be observed between Madrid, the new capital of Spain, with its thoroughfares radiating like the spokes of a wheel from the Puerta del Sol, and the old Spanish capital Toledo, with its narrow lanes straggling up and down the rocky hill whence the white, silent, seemingly half-deserted city looks down on the gorge of the Tagus. But Madrid, a creation of Philip the Second, does not equal Turin or Mannheim in mathematical regularity of construction.

There can be no doubt that the fortification of Piraeus and the transference to it of the port of Athens from the open roadstead of Phalerum constituted one of the most momentous steps in the history of Athens. Coupled with the construction of a large permanent war-fleet it made Athens the first naval power in Greece, and so determined her subsequent history. All three measures originated in the far-seeing mind of Themistocles, who thus in a sense created Athens, and proved himself thereby one of the greatest of statesmen. He saw that Piraeus was more important to the Athenians than Athens itself, and he often advised them, if ever they were hard put to it by land, to evacuate Athens and settle at Piraeus, where with their fleet they could defy the world. If they had taken his advice, Athens might perhaps have played a still greater part in history.

The man to whom Athens owed so much died an exile in a foreign land; but, if tradition may be trusted, his bones were afterwards brought and laid, with singular felicity, beside the sea at the foot of the frowning walls of that great fortress which formed his noblest monument. The exact spot has been described by an ancient writer. “At the great harbour of Piraeus,” says Plutarch, quoting Diodorus the Periegete, “a sort of elbow juts out from the headland of Alcimus; and when you have rounded this elbow, on the inner side, where the sea is somewhat calm, there is a large basement of masonry, and the altar-like structure on it is the grave of Themistocles. And Diodorus imagines that the comic poet Plato bears him out in the following passage:

'Fair lies thy tomb
For it will speak to merchants everywhere;
It will behold the seamen sailing out and in,
And mark the contests of the ships.'”

Tradition places the site of the tomb on the shore of the Acte peninsula, near the modern lighthouse, some way to the south of the entrance to the great harbour. Here a small square space has been levelled in the rock; and its outer margin has been cut and smoothed as if to form the bed of a wall. Within this area are three graves, and just outside it, on the side away from the sea, is a large sepulchre hewn in the rock. It has been suggested that when the square space was enclosed by its wall, and the interior was filled up with rubble, it may have been the “altar-like structure” described by Diodorus the Periegete, and that the rock-hewn tomb behind it, and sheltered by it from the surf and spray of the neighbouring sea, may have been what antiquity was fain to regard as the grave of Themistocles.

X. THE SACRED WAY.—Having completed his description of the Attic islands, Pausanias returns to Athens and sets out thence for Eleusis along the Sacred Way. This was the road by which the initiated went from Athens to Eleusis: the antiquary Polemo devoted a whole book to a description of the route. The present highroad from Athens to Eleusis follows very closely the line of the Sacred Way. This road, running in a north-westerly direction, soon passes on the left the Botanic Garden, conspicuous by its tall and stately poplars, and enters the broad belt of olive-wood which still extends, as it doubtless extended in antiquity, along both sides of the Cephisus for mile after mile. Through this wood of ancient olives, with their massive gnarled trunks and pale green foliage, the road runs for more than a mile, crossing several arms of the Cephisus, which are generally dry and dusty, the water being diverted in many petty rivulets to feed the olive-yards and gardens. Beyond the olive-wood the road at first gradually ascends through a bare stony tract where nothing grows but thistles; then it climbs more steeply the arid and rocky slopes of Mount Aegaleus, which it crosses by a narrow but easy pass, enclosed on both sides by low and desolate heights. Near the summit of the pass a round isolated hill, crowned by a church of St. Elias, rises conspicuously on the right. From this point of the road there is a famous view backward over the Athenian plain. The scene is especially striking at sunset, when the acropolis, rising high above the olive-woods, with its temples lit up by the dying splendour of the sun, stands out against a background of purple mountains. A little farther on the road turns and begins to descend, and Athens is lost to sight.

About a mile farther on we pass the deserted monastery of Daphni, which probably occupies the site of the sanctuary of Apollo mentioned by Pausanias. It stands on the left of the road enclosed by a high battlemented wall above which rises the dome of its Byzantine church. Beyond the monastery the road descends rapidly towards the shore. Here the ancient road may be traced for a long way on the north side of the pass, running parallel to the modern highway on the left bank of a dry water-course which descends from the monastery. The road was partly cut in the rock, partly supported by a wall of rough stones on the side of the water-course. As the road descends the sea appears at the farther end of it, framed between the stony slopes of the hills which enclose the pass. Farther on, the pass opening out, we see stretched below us, like a lake, the deep blue waters of the landlocked Gulf of Salamis, shut in on the south by the bare but beautifully outlined hills of Salamis, on the north by a graceful sweep of the Attic coast, and backed by the distant heights of Cithaeron and the mountains of Megara on the west. Through a dip between the hills of Salamis and the mainland may be seen in clear weather the far conspicuous peak of Cyllene in Arcadia with its crown of snow.

A mile or so after passing the monastery we see on the right of the road some ancient masonry and large blocks of stone at the foot of a rugged wall of rock, in the face of which many niches are cut. This is the sanctuary of Aphrodite mentioned by Pausanias. Soon after this point the hills retire on both sides and the pass ends in a little plain, barren and waterless but partially planted with olives, beside the shore. Here the road turns sharply to the right and, following the shore, runs northward, hemmed in between the sea on the one side and the grey arid slopes of Mount Aegaleus on the other. Soon, however, the hills trend inland a little, leaving between the foot of their declivities and the road a small lake or large pond of clear salt-water, fed by a number of copious salt-springs, the ancient Rhiti. The pond is formed by damming up the water of these springs by means of a stone dyke or embankment, beside which the modern road runs on a narrow strip of sand between the pond on the right and the sea on the left. Fiedler observed flying-fish of the size of herrings rising from the surface of the pool: he says their flesh is white and succulent, better than that of the sea fish in the neighbouring bay. In antiquity, as Pausanias tells us, the right of fishing here was strictly preserved by the priests of Eleusis. A strong stream, turning a mill, flows out of the pool into the sea. At the farther end of the pond Mount Aegaleus sends down its last spur close to the road; after passing it the road skirts on the right another salt-pool and enters the Thriasian plain. The stream which issues from the second of the two salt-ponds turns, or rather used to turn, another mill. Opinions have differed as to whether the ancient road ran, like the modern highway, between the salt-pools and the sea, or skirted the foot of the hills, making a circuit round the pools. In any case it seems probable that in antiquity the water of the salt-springs was not dammed up as at present so as to form pools, but was allowed to flow directly into the sea in brooks which hence received the name of Rhiti (‘streams’).

After entering the Thriasian plain the road continues to skirt the shore. As the ground is here low and marshy, the road is raised on a causeway, which consists of ancient materials mixed with those of later ages. This causeway therefore marks the line of the Sacred Way. On the right of it, about half a mile beyond the salt-pools, where the road to Kalyvia branches off across the plain to the right, there are remains of an ancient monument, which appears to have consisted originally of a cubical mass of earth, cased with white marble and supporting a tombstone. An inscription proves that the monument marked the tomb of one Strato, his wife Polla (Paula) Munatia, and his son Isidotus. This sepulchre, one of the many sepulchres which lined the Sacred Way in antiquity, is not mentioned by Pausanias.

The Thriasian plain, through which the Sacred Way led to Eleusis, is surrounded by mountains and hills except on the south, where it is bounded by the Gulf of Salamis. It is about nine miles long from east to west, and five miles wide at the broadest part, from north to south. The northern and western parts of the plain are stony and barren. Nearer the sea there is a tract of fertile cornland, but it does not extend much to the north of Eleusis itself. The monotony of the otherwise treeless expanse is broken here and there by some scattered olive-trees and oaks. In spring and early summer the plain is gaily carpeted in places with anemones, red, purple, and blue.

XI. THE HALL OF INITIATION AT ELEUSIS.—The great Hall of Initiation, to which the paved road leads from the smaller portal, is a vast single chamber about a hundred and seventy feet square, the sides of which face north, south, east, and west. The whole of the west side, together with the western parts of the northern and southern sides, are bounded by the rock of the acropolis, which has been cut away perpendicularly to make room for the hall. The roof was supported by six rows of columns, seven columns in each row: the bases of all these columns except one are still to be seen in their places. Eight tiers of steps, partly cut in the rock, partly built, ran all round the chamber except at the entrances, of which there were six, namely, two on the north, two on the east, and two on the south. On these tiers of steps the initiated probably sat watching the performance of the mysteries which took place in the body of the hall. It is calculated that about three thousand people could find room on them. The steps, originally narrow, were widened at a later date by a casing of marble. That this marble casing of the steps is a late work appears from the use of mortar to fasten it on.

There are passages of ancient writers which seem to imply that besides the place to which the initiated had access there was an inner Holy of Holies called the _anaktoron_ or _megaron_, which none but the high-priest of the mysteries might enter, and which, being suddenly thrown open, disclosed to the view of the awestruck beholders the most sacred objects of their religious veneration lit up by a blaze of dazzling light. But no trace of any inner chamber or enclosure has been discovered in the great Hall of Initiation. It may therefore be suggested that the _anaktoron_ or _megaron_ was perhaps nothing but the body of the hall, which may have been screened by curtains from the spectators sitting in darkness on the tiers of seats that ran all round it, till suddenly the curtain rose and revealed the vast hall brilliantly illuminated, with the gorgeously attired actors in the sacred drama moving mazily in solemn procession or giddy dance out and in amongst the forest of columns that rose from the floor of the hall, while the strains of grave or voluptuous music filled the air. Then, when all was over, the curtain would as suddenly descend, leaving the spectators in darkness and silence, with nothing but the memory of the splendid pageant that had burst upon them and vanished like a dream.

XII. ELEUTHERAE.—From Eleusis the road to Eleutherae, which is at the same time the highway from Athens to Thebes, goes north-west across the plain. The olive-trees begin to appear soon after we have left Eleusis, and the road runs for three miles through thick groves of them to the large village of Mandra situated on a small height at the entrance to a valley; for here the mountains which bound the plain of Eleusis begin. The native rock crops up among the houses and streets of the village. The hills that rise on both sides of the valley are wooded with pine. Beyond the village the valley contracts, and the road ascends for a long time through the stillness and solitude of the pine-forest. A little wayside inn (the khan of Palaio-Koundoura) is passed in a lonely dale; and then, after a further ascent, the prospect opens up somewhat, and the tops of Hymettus and Pentelicus are seen away to the east, appearing above a nearer range of hills. Soon afterwards the road descends into a cultivated and fertile little plain or valley watered by the chief arm of the Eleusinian Cephisus, and bounded on the north by the principal range of Cithaeron, on the south by the lower outlying chain which we have just crossed. This no doubt is the plain in which stood the temple of Dionysus mentioned by Pausanias. At the northern end of the valley or plain there is now a police-barrack on the right of the road, and near it a public-house, the khan of Kasa. Here the pass over Cithaeron, in the strict sense, begins. It is a narrow rocky defile, up which the road winds tortuously between high pine-clad slopes on either hand. In the very mouth of the pass, immediately beyond the barrack, a steep, conical, nearly isolated hill rises up as if to bar the road. Its summit is crowned with the grey walls and towers of Eleutherae.

The ruins of Eleutherae, now called Gyphtokastro or ‘Gypsy-castle,’ form one of the finest extant specimens of Greek fortification. The circuit of the walls, which is but small, encloses the summit and part of the southern slope of the hill. The north wall, strengthened with eight square projecting towers, is nearly complete. It is about eight feet thick, and is built of blocks laid in regular courses, with a core of rubble. As the ground falls away to the north, the wall is higher on the outside than on the inside. The towers are about thirty paces apart. Most of them entered from the ramparts by two doors, one on each side of the tower. These doors are still to be seen, though the floors of the upper stories, having been of wood, have of course perished. Each tower has three small windows or loopholes, one in each of the sides which project outward beyond the curtain. Traces of the wall and towers on the other and lower sides of the hill can still be seen, but they are far less perfect than on the north side. The chief gate was on the south. The whole place is now an utter solitude. When I first visited it, on a day in May, the ground was carpeted with yellow flowers; goats were balancing themselves on the grey ruins; and the goatherd was sleeping in the shadow of one of the towers. On either hand the mountains, clothed in their sombre mantle of dark pine-forests, towered into the bright sky.

If from the ruins of Eleutherae we return to the highroad which winds along the western foot of the hill, and follow it for a few miles to the top of the pass, we obtain a commanding view over the wide plain of Boeotia stretching away to the line of far blue mountains which bounds it on all sides. Below us, but a little to the west, at the foot of the long uniform slope of Cithaeron, the red village of Kokla marks the site of Plataea. Thebes is hidden from view behind the dip of a low intervening ridge. The sharp double-peaked mountain on the west, beyond the nearer fir-clad declivities of Cithaeron, is Helicon. The grand mountain mass which, capped with snow, looms on the north-west, is Parnassus. The mountains on the north-east are in Euboea, but the strait which divides them from Boeotia is not visible.