CHAPTER X. Ες δὲ τον Πειραῖα εἰσπλεύσας ἀνῄει ἀπὸ τῆς νεὼς ἐς τὸ ἄστυ· προϊὼν δέ, πολλοῖς των φιλοσοφούντων ἐνετύγχανε τὴν μὲν δὴ πρώτην διάλεξιν, ἐπειδὴ φιλοθύτας τοὺς ̓Αθηναίους εἶδεν, ὑπὲρ ἱερῶν διελέξατο καὶ ταῦτα ̓Αθηνῄσιν, οὗ καὶ ἀγνώστων Saiμóvwv ßwμoì idpvvraι.-Philost. Vit. Ap. Ty. iv. 6. vi. 2. ARRIVAL ON THE COAST OF ATTICA.-SCENERY ROUND ATHENS.-THE PIRÆUS AND THE LONG WALLS.”— RELIGION.- THE UNKNOWN GOD. - GREEK PHILOSOPHY. THE STOICS AND To draw a parallel between a holy Apostle like Paul of Tarsus, and an itinerant magician line Apollonius of Tyana1 would be unmeaning and profane. But the extract from the biography of that singular man which we have prefixed to this chapter is a suitable and comprehensive motto to that passage in the Apostle's biography on which we are now entering. The sailing into the Piræus,—the entrance into the city of Athens,—the interviews with philosophers, the devotion of the Athenians to religious ceremonies, the discourse concerning the worship of the Deity,-the 1 He has been alluded to before, p. 120, n. 2 and p. 146, n. 4. "His life by Philostratus is a mass of incongruities and fables;" but it is an important book, as reflecting the opinions of the age in which it was written. Apollonius himself produced a great excitement in the Apostolic age. See Neander's General Church History (Eng. Trans.), pp. 40-43 and pp. 236-238. It was the fashion among the Antichristian writers of the third century to adduce him as a rival of our Blessed Lord; and the same profane comparison has been renewed by some of our English freethinkers. Without alluding to this any further, we may safely find some interest in putting his life by the side of that of St. Paul. They lived at the same time, and travelled through the same countries; and the life of the magician illustrates that peculiar state of philosophy and superstition which the Gospel preached by St. Paul had to encounter. Apollonius was partly educated at Tarsus; he travelled from city to city in Asia Minor; from Greece he went to Rome, in the reign of Nero, about the time when the magicians had lately been expelled; he visited Athens and Alexandria, where he had a singular meeting with Vespasian: on a second visit to Italy he vanished miraculously from Puteoli: the last scene of his life was Ephesus, or, possibly, Crete or Rhodes. See the Life in Smith's Dictionary of Biography. It is thought by many that St. Paul and Apollonius actually met in Ephesus and Rome. Burton's Lectures on Ecclesiastical History, pp. 157, 240. ARRIVAL ON THE COAST OF ATTICA. 345 ignorance implied by the altars to unknown Gcds,1-these are exactly the subjects which are now before us. If a summary of the contents of the seventeenth chapter of the Acts had been required, it could not have been more conveniently expressed. The city visited by Apollonius was the Athens which was visited by St. Paul: the topics of discussion-the character of the people addressed-the aspect of everything around,were identically the same. The difference was this, that the Apostle could give to his hearers what the philosopher could not give. The God whom Paul "declared," was worshipped by Apollonius himself as "ignorantly" as by the Athenians. 3 We left St. Paul on that voyage which his friends induced him to undertake on the flight from Bercea. The vessel was last seen among the Thessalian islands.2 About that point the highest land in Northern Macedonia began to be lost to view. Gradually the nearer heights of the snowy Olympus itself receded into the distance, as the vessel on her progress approached more and more near to the centre of all the interest of classical Greece. All the land and water in sight becomes more eloquent as we advance; the lights and shadows, both of poetry and history, are on every side; every rock is a monument; every current is animated with some memory of the past. For a distance of ninety miles, from the confines of Thessaly to the middle part of the coast of Attica, the shore is protected, as it were, by the long island of Euboea. Deep in the innermost gulf, where the waters of the Ægean retreat far within the land, over against the northern parts of this island, is the pass of Thermopyla, where a handful of Greek warriors had defied all the hosts of Asia. In the crescent-like bay on the shore of Attica, near the southern extremity of the same island, is the maritime sanctuary of Marathon, where the battle was fought which decided that Greece was never to be a Persian Satrapy. When the island of Eubœa is left behind, we soon reach the southern extremity of Attica-Cape Colonna,-Sunium's high promontory, still crowned with the white columns of that temple of Minerva, which was the landmark to Greek sailors, and which asserted the presence of Athens at the very vestibule of her country.5 4 After passing this headland, our course turns to the westward across the waters of the Saronic Gulf, with the mountains of the Morea on our left, and the islands of Ægina and Salamis in front. To one who travels in classical lands no moment is more full of interest and excitement than This subject is fully entered into below. 3 See the preceding Chapter, p. 342, also 314. 2 Above, p. 343. 4 See Quarterly Review, for Sept. 1846, and the first number of the Classical Museum, 5 See Wordsworth's Athens and Attica, ch. xxvii. A description of the promontory and ruins, will be found in Mure's Journal of a Tour in Grecce. See Falconer's Shipwreck, iii. 526. 2 when he has left the Cape of Sunium behind and eagerly looks for the first glimpse of that city "built nobly on the Egean shore," which was "the eye of Greece, mother of arts and eloquence." To the traveller in classical times its position was often revealed by the flashing of the light on the armour of Minerva's colossal statue, which stood with shield and spear on the summit of the citadel. At the very first sight of Athens, and even from the deck of the vessel, we obtain a vivid notion of the characteristics of its position. And the place where it stands is so remarkable—its ancient inhabitants were so proud of its climate and its scenery 3 that we may pause on our approach to say a few words on Attica and Athens, and their relation to the rest of Greece. 3 Attica is a triangular tract of country, the southern and eastern sides of which meet in the point of Sunium; its third side is defined by the high mountain ranges of Citharon and Parnes, which separate it by a strong barrier from Bœotia and Northern Greece. Hills of inferior elevation connect these ranges with the mountainous surface of the southeast,5 5 which begins from Sunium itself, and rises on the south coast to the round summits of Hymettus, and the higher peak of Pentelicus near Marathon on the east. The rest of Attica is a plain, one reach of which comes down to the sea on the south, at the very base of Hymettus. Here, about five miles from the shore, an abrupt rock rises from the level, like the rock of Stirling Castle, bordered on the south by some lower eminences, and commanded by a high craggy peak on the north. This rock is the Acropolis of Athens. These lower eminences are the Areopagus, the Pnyx, and the Museum, which determined the rising and falling of the ground in the ancient city. That craggy peak is the hill of Lycabettus, from the summit of which the spectator sees all Athens at his feet, 6 1 Paradise Regained, iv. 240. 3 The expression of Pausanias is, Ταύτης τῆς ̓Αθηνᾶς ἡ τοῦ δόρατος αἰχμὴ καὶ ὁ λόφος τοῦ κράνους ἀπὸ Σουνίου προσπλέουσιν ἔστιν ἤδη σύνοπτα, xxviii. 2. This does not mean that it can be seen from Sunium itself, as any one must be aware who is acquainted with the position and height of Hymettus. Colonel Leake says that the view of the Acropolis is open to any vessel sailing towards it up the gulf, on a course of N. 20 W. true, and that it is first distinctly visible without a telescope about Cape Zosta. Addenda, p. 631. 3 See, especially, Xenophon de Vectigalibus. 4 The region which connected Parnes and Hymettus, and lay beyond it, was called Diacria. 5 In this region of the Mesogoa there was an inland plain. The sea-coasts on the east and west, coming down to Sunium, were called Paralia. 6 The relation of Lycabettus to the crowded buildings below, and to the surrounding landscape, is so like that of Arthur's Seat to Edinburgh and its neighbourhood, and there is so much resemblance between Edinburgh Castle and the Acropolis, that a comparison between the city of the Saronic gulf and the city of the Forth has become justly proverbial. SCENERY ROUND ATHENS. 347 and looks freely over the intermediate plain to the Piræus and the sea. Athens and the Piræus must never be considered separately. One was the city, the other was its harbour. Once they were connected together by a continuous fortification. Those who looked down from Lycabettus in the time of Pericles, could follow with the eye all the long line of wall from the temples on the 'Acropolis to the shipping in the port. Thus we are brought back to the point from which we digressed. We were approaching the Piræus; and, since we must land in maritime Athens before we can enter Athens itself, let us return once more to the vessel's deck, and look round on the land and the water. The island on our left, with steep cliffs at the water's edge, is Ægina. The distant heights beyond it are the mountains of the Morea. Before us is another island, the illustrious Salamis; though in the view it is hardly disentangled from the coast of Attica, for the strait where the battle was fought is narrow and winding. The high ranges behind stretch beyond Eleusis and Megara, to the left towards Corinth, and to the right along the frontier of Boeotia. This last ridge is the mountain line of Parnes, of which we have spoken above. Clouds are often seen to rest on it at all seasons of the year, and in winter it is usually white with snow. The dark heavy mountain rising close to us on the right immediately from the sea, is Hymettus. Between Parnes and Hymettus is the plain; and rising from the plain is the Acropolis, distinctly visible, with Lycabettus behind, and seeming in the clear atmosphere to be nearer than it is. 1 2 The outward aspect of this scene is now what it ever was. The lights and shadows on the rocks of Ægina and Salamis, the gleams on the distant mountains, the clouds or the snow on Parnes, the gloom in the deep dells of Hymettus, the temple-crowned rock and the plain beneath it,— are natural features, which only vary with the alternations of morning and evening, and summer and winter. Some changes indeed have taken place but they are connected with the history of man. The vegetation is less abundant,3 the population is more scanty. In Greek and Roman times, bright villages enlivened the promontories of Sunium and Ægina, and all the inner reaches of the bay. Some readers will indeed remember a dreary picture which Sulpicius gave his friend Atticus of the deso : 1 See the passage from the Clouds of Aristophanes quoted by Dr. Wordsworth. Athens and Attica, p. 58. Theophrastus said that the weather would be fine when there was lightning only on Parnes. 2 This is written under the recollection of the aspect of the coast on a cloudy morning in winter. It is perhaps more usually seen under the glare of a hot sky. 3 Athens was not always as bare as it is now. See the line quoted by Dio Chrys.: ἄλλη δὲ τίς πω τοιαδ ̓ ἔσχ ̓ ἄλλη πόλις; Plato, in the Critias, complains that the wood was diminishing. 2 lation of these coasts when Greece had ceased to be free; but we must make some allowances for the exaggerations of a poetical regret, and must recollect that the writer had been accustomed to the gay and busy life of the Campanian shore. After the renovation of Corinth, and in the reign of Claudius, there is no doubt that all the signs of a far more numerous population than at present were evident around the Saronic gulf, and that more white sails were to be seen in fine weather plying across its waters to the harbours of Cenchreæ or Piræus. Now there is indeed a certain desolation over this beautiful bay: Corinth is fallen, and Cenchreæ is an insignificant village. The Piræus is probably more like what it was, than any other spot upon the coast. It remains what by nature it has ever been, a safe basin of deep water, concealed by the surrounding rock; and now, as in St. Paul's time, the proximity of Athens causes it to be the resort of various shipping. We know that we are approaching it at the present day, if we see, rising above the rocks, the tall masts of an English line-of-battle ship, side by side with the light spars of a Russian corvette or the black funnel of a French steamer. The details were different when the Mediterranean was a Roman lake. The heavy top-gear of corn-ships from Alexandria or the Euxine might then be a conspicuous mark among the small coasting vessels and fishing-boats; and one bright spectacle was then pre-eminent, which the lapse of centuries has made cold and dim, the perfect buildings on the summit of the Acropolis, with the shield and spear of Minerva Promachus glittering in the sun. But those who have coasted along beneath Hymettus,—and past the indentations in the shore, which were sufficient harbours for Athens in the days of her early navigation, and round by the ancient tomb, which tradition has assigned to Themistocles,' into the bet ter and safer harbour of the Piræus,-require no great effort of the imagination to picture the Apostle's arrival. For a moment, as we near the entrance, the land rises and conceals all the plain. Idlers come down upon the rocks to watch the coming vessel. The sailors are all on the alert. Suddenly an opening is revealed; and a sharp turn of the helm brings the ship in between two moles, on which towers are erected. We 5 8 6 1"Ex Asia rediens, quum ab Ægina Megaram versus navigarem, cœpi regiones circumcirca prospicere. Post me erat Ægina; ante Megara; dextra Piræus; sinistra Corinthus ; quæ oppida quodam tempore florentissima fuerunt, nunc prostrata et diruta ante oculos jacent." Ep. Fam. iv. 5. 2 Corinth was in ruins in Cicero's time. For the results of its restoration, see the next Chapter. 3 See Acts xviii. 18. Rom. xvi. 1. 4 See Smith's Shipwreck, &c. 6 The harbours of Phalerum and Munychia. 5 See above, p. 346. 7 For the sepulchre by the edge of the water, popularly called the "tomb of Themistocles," see Leake, pp. 379, 380, and the notes. 8 Some parts of the ancient moles are remaining.-Leake, p. 272. See what is said |