We must go to Greece by sea: and the sea voyage is most instructive. There is a long, lonely, restless stretch of sea, some 400 miles broad between the coast of Sicily and sight of the mountains of Attica. When the vast pinnacle of Aetna, with its trailing pennon of smoke, a pinnacle which hour after hour seems to rise in the sky, at last fades out of sight in the west, a long reach of unbroken sea has to be ploughed. Long before we sight the mountains of Taygetus or the headlands of Taenarum or Malea, between which lies the vale of 'Hollow Lacedæmon,' one has come to realise that we have left Europe far behind and are entering on the land of the rising sun. The old saw ran -- 'When you have passed Cape Malea, make your will and say farewell to your kindred.' That is no longer necessary or even prudent. But by the time that we have rounded Cape Malea and are steering north-east instead of south-east, it breaks upon us that we have left Europe some distance behind us.
Whatever geographers may pretend, there is not any such country as Greece -- and there never was. There is no definitely marked portion of Europe inhabited by a people politically and socially one, with national traditions and habits. There is not now, and there never has been in ancient or in modern times. If we take a list of the illustrious Greeks of antiquity, we shall find that far the larger part of them belonged not to continental Greece proper, but to Greek communities spread out over the world from the coast of Spain to the banks of the Euphrates, from the Euxine to the coast of Africa. There is now a Greek language, a Greek church, a Greek nationality, possibly to some degree, but very doubtfully, a Greek race, spread over many countries, over a thousand islands, mingled with other races, languages, and countries; subdivided, dispersed, and scattered over more than a thousand miles. All good Greeks would be scandalised if Crete was not included in Greece -- Crete where they say true Hellenes survive. And if Crete, why not Rhodes, why not Cyprus, why not Smyrna, Chios, Lesbos, and the other islands of the Archipelago? Till Athens lately became populous, there were more Greeks in Constantinople than in Athens, and it is always said of a purer Hellenic descent. And no other Greek town except Athens and Piraeus contains as many Greeks as there are in Smyrna, or Alexandria, perhaps in Trieste, or London. Where does Greece begin and end? All genuine Greeks deny with indignation that Greece is limited by the present frontiers of the actual kingdom. What are its local limits? Every true Hellene, and every Philhellene states them in a different way. A Greek orator addressing the people of Athens talks not of their country, but of Hellenismus or Panhellenism, that is, the common aspirations of the so-called Greek race. Greece may mean a nation; it cannot mean a country.
Until we see Greece we hardly realise that Greece is practically all mountains, tremendous, bare, precipitous mountains, with hardly any real plains of any size except at extreme points. The islands are so numerous and so close to the mainland that they practically form part of it. They are mere tops of mountains rising out of the sea. And it is much easier to pass from one island to another, than from one point of the mainland to another a few miles off. In sailing across the Aegean Sea, from the time we sight Cape Taenarum (Matapan) until we reach the Bosphorus, some 500 miles, we never lose sight of mountains towering out of the sea. From Taenarum we can see the mountains of Crete 100 miles off; and in passing up the Archipelago, we see on one side the islands and mainland of Asia Minor on the East, and the islands and mainland of European Greece on the West. Hence, the whole of Greece, mainland and islands together, looks not like a definite country such as Italy, Spain, France, or England, but a long chain of Alps or Andes, half submerged in the Eastern Mediterranean, and thrusting a thousand bare and jagged peaks to form islands in the sea.
Showing posts with label Athens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Athens. Show all posts
Paris as an Historic City
Of historic cities in Europe of the first rank we can count but four: Rome, Istanbul, Paris, London. For in the first rank of historic cities we can only place those capitals which have been, continuously and over a long succession of ages, the seats of national movements dominating the history of Europe: cities which have been conspicuous in mass, in central place, and in vast extent of time. Rome first, Constantinople next, stand far before all other European cities in fulfilling these conditions: but after them come Paris and London. Such fascinating cities as Athens, Florence, Venice, Rouen, Cologne, Treves, Prague, or Oxford -- are all either far inferior in size and national importance, or else have known their epochs of glory only to die away for ages into small and local preeminence. Of all great capitals in the world, London has perhaps, during twelve centuries, suffered the least from violent shocks, from war and breaks in its history; and it may be said to retain the most complete and continuous monumental record for that period.
In the modern world, Paris is the only capital which can be placed beside London as an historic city of the first rank. The modern transformation of Paris has been even more destructive of the past than the modern transformation of London, and, at the same time, it is much more brilliant: so that what remains of the historic city is much more completely screened and overpowered in Paris than it is in London. Nor has Paris any ancient monuments which appeal to the popular imagination, with such direct voice as do our Abbey, and our great hall at Westminster, our Tower, our Temple Church, Lambeth Palace, and the Guildhall. Yet withal it may be said that, in a larger sense of the term, Paris is a city of even richer historic memories than London itself: richer, that is, to the thoughtful student of its history, though certainly not to the incurious tourist. If we take into account sites as well as extant monuments, if we call to our aid topography as well as archæology; if we follow up the early history of buildings which have been replaced, or are now transformed or removed; if we study the local biography of Paris from the days of Julius Cæsar to the days of Julius Grévy and Sadi Carnot -- especially, if we include in the history of Paris that of its suburbs -- St. Denis, Vincennes, St. Cloud, St. Germain, Versailles, -- then the history of Paris is even richer, more dramatic, more continuous than that of London itself.
Paris is by at least a century older than London in the historical record; for it now has almost two thousand years of continuous annals. Paris was a more important Roman city than London. It has far more extensive Roman remains. The history of its first thousand years, from the first century to the eleventh, of its early foundations, churches, palaces, and walls, is far more complete and trustworthy than anything we know of London. It did not suffer any such gap or blank in its history, such as that which befell London, from the time of the Romans until the settlement of the Saxons. The fathers of men still living have seen at Paris, in its Bastille, at St. Denis, in Notre Dame, and the other churches, in the Tuileries, in Versailles, and old Hôtel de Ville, relics of the past, records, works of art, tombs, and statues, before which the great record of our Abbey and our Tower can hardly hold their own.
The great era of destruction began little more than a century ago: the great era of restoration little more than half a century ago. Paris, too, has been the scene of events more tremendous and more extraordinary than any other city of the world, if we except Constantinople and Rome. London never endured any very serious or regular siege. Paris has endured a dozen famous sieges, culminating in what is, perhaps, the biggest siege recorded in history. London has never known an autocrat with a passion for building, has had but one great conflagration, and but one serious insurrection. Paris has had in Louis XIV., and the first and second empires of the Napoleons, three of the most ambitious despots ever known; and in a hundred years has had four most sanguinary and destructive revolutions. Battles, sieges, massacres, conflagrations, civil wars, rebellions, revolutions, make up the history of Paris from the days of the Caesars and the Franks to the days of the Terror and the Commune.
In the modern world, Paris is the only capital which can be placed beside London as an historic city of the first rank. The modern transformation of Paris has been even more destructive of the past than the modern transformation of London, and, at the same time, it is much more brilliant: so that what remains of the historic city is much more completely screened and overpowered in Paris than it is in London. Nor has Paris any ancient monuments which appeal to the popular imagination, with such direct voice as do our Abbey, and our great hall at Westminster, our Tower, our Temple Church, Lambeth Palace, and the Guildhall. Yet withal it may be said that, in a larger sense of the term, Paris is a city of even richer historic memories than London itself: richer, that is, to the thoughtful student of its history, though certainly not to the incurious tourist. If we take into account sites as well as extant monuments, if we call to our aid topography as well as archæology; if we follow up the early history of buildings which have been replaced, or are now transformed or removed; if we study the local biography of Paris from the days of Julius Cæsar to the days of Julius Grévy and Sadi Carnot -- especially, if we include in the history of Paris that of its suburbs -- St. Denis, Vincennes, St. Cloud, St. Germain, Versailles, -- then the history of Paris is even richer, more dramatic, more continuous than that of London itself.
Paris is by at least a century older than London in the historical record; for it now has almost two thousand years of continuous annals. Paris was a more important Roman city than London. It has far more extensive Roman remains. The history of its first thousand years, from the first century to the eleventh, of its early foundations, churches, palaces, and walls, is far more complete and trustworthy than anything we know of London. It did not suffer any such gap or blank in its history, such as that which befell London, from the time of the Romans until the settlement of the Saxons. The fathers of men still living have seen at Paris, in its Bastille, at St. Denis, in Notre Dame, and the other churches, in the Tuileries, in Versailles, and old Hôtel de Ville, relics of the past, records, works of art, tombs, and statues, before which the great record of our Abbey and our Tower can hardly hold their own.
The great era of destruction began little more than a century ago: the great era of restoration little more than half a century ago. Paris, too, has been the scene of events more tremendous and more extraordinary than any other city of the world, if we except Constantinople and Rome. London never endured any very serious or regular siege. Paris has endured a dozen famous sieges, culminating in what is, perhaps, the biggest siege recorded in history. London has never known an autocrat with a passion for building, has had but one great conflagration, and but one serious insurrection. Paris has had in Louis XIV., and the first and second empires of the Napoleons, three of the most ambitious despots ever known; and in a hundred years has had four most sanguinary and destructive revolutions. Battles, sieges, massacres, conflagrations, civil wars, rebellions, revolutions, make up the history of Paris from the days of the Caesars and the Franks to the days of the Terror and the Commune.
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