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CHAPTER XII
ATHENS--ITS DECAY AND ITS
REVIVAL
Within a few years after the death of Demosthenes a striking
evidence
was afforded of the sad change which had come over the city of
Athens.
The restoration of its political freedom for a brief period by
Demetrius
Poliorcetes (307 B.C.) in the name of his father Antigonus, one of
the
successors (_diadochoi_) of Alexander the Great, was the occasion for
an
exhibition of servility and impiety which showed that the manly
spirit
of those who fought at Marathon and Salamis had utterly forsaken
their
descendants. Not only were Demetrius and his father acknowledged
as
kings, but they were also exalted to the rank of divinities,
orders
being given by the authorities that their pictures and
achievements
should be wrought into the sacred robe which figured so
prominently at
the Pan-Athenaic festival, along with those of Zeus and
Athena. A few
years afterwards the shameful profanation was carried still
further by
the admission of Demetrius to the Parthenon as the guest of the
goddess,
and by the issue of a licentious decree that whatever he commanded
was
to be regarded as holy and just. How
[Illustration: ATHENS. THE
MONUMENT OF AGRIPPA AND THE PINACOTHECA
Behind the lofty pedestal of the
monument of Agrippa is the temple of
Theseus; to the right the sub-structures
and part of the north wing of
the Propylæa (the Pinacotheca). To the left we
have the wall of the
terrace or bastion of the Temple of Wingless Victory.
The distant view
gives the plain of the Kephissus and the mountains of
Daphni.]
little sincerity there was in all this obsequious homage became
evident
the following year, when fortune turned against Demetrius at the
battle
of Ipsus. He set sail from Ephesus for Athens, but was
refused
admission.
Various causes may be assigned for the decline and
fall of the Athenian
state. From a political point of view the more immediate
cause was its
overweening pride and unbridled ambition--typified by the
character of
Alcibiades, who has been well described as the evil genius of
his
country at a most critical period of its history. Hence arose
the
terrible disasters which befell it in Sicily, and the
subsequent
dissolution of its naval empire. If the imperial capital had paid
more
respect to the claims of other Greek states associated with it in
the
Delian confederacy, its fate might have been very different. But
while
incurring the jealousy of Sparta and other rival powers it failed
to
gain the confidence of the minor states allied to it. Its
imperial
policy when at the height of its power may be contrasted with that
of
Great Britain, regarding which it has been recently said by Sir
Wilfred
Laurier, the Prime Minister of Canada: “The British Empire
means
freedom, decentralisation, and autonomy. It will live and live
for
ever.”
But Athens suffered from other causes besides its own
imperial pride and
the enmity of other Greek states. As Æschylus is said to
have foreseen,
the virtual abolition in a political sense of the court of
Areopagus,
the great representative of traditional authority, and the failure
to
provide any other adequate safeguards against democratic
excesses,
could not fail sooner or later to be attended with evil
consequences.
That the appointment to public offices should have been made by
lot, as
a general rule, and that no one, however eminent for ability
and
experience, should have been eligible as a member of the Council
more
than twice, shows how the public interests of the state were
sacrificed
to the theory of personal equality among the citizens. Even the
high
level of culture at Athens could not justify such a disregard for
the
inevitable diversity of natural gifts and acquired habits in
every
community. Moreover, the love of wealth and the taste for luxury,
which
resulted from the increasing prosperity of the city, tended to
the
deterioration of character both among the leading men, who were too
open
to bribes from foreign powers, even those at war with their country,
and
among the citizens at large, who were apt to become demoralised by
their
wholesale payment as dicasts, and were not content with largess at
the
Dionysiac festivals only. The self-denial which led the citizens in
the
time of Themistocles to forgo their claim on the proceeds of the
silver
mines of Laurium, amounting to ten drachms per head, in order that
an
addition might be made to their naval armament, would not have been
so
readily found at the close of the fourth century, when the
“Theoric
Fund” had come to be spoken of as “the cement of the
democracy.”
While there are scarcely any monuments of the Macedonian
period now to
be seen in Athens, it is different as regards the age of
Roman
supremacy.
[Illustration: THE TOWER OF THE WINDS
To the
left, part of the aqueduct which supplied the water-clock; in the
background,
the north side of the Acropolis, surmounted by the wall
of
Themistocles.]
One of the oldest of the tributes of respect then
paid by foreigners to
the famous but decaying city, is the _stoa_ of Attalus,
erected by the
second king of Pergamus of that name (159-138 B.C.). The Stoa,
which
formed part of the eastern boundary of the Market-place (by that
time
commonly called the Cerameicus), consisted of two stories, the
lower
facade having a row of forty-five Doric columns in front, with an
inner
row of twenty-two Ionic columns. The latter divided the enclosed
space
into two aisles, where buying and selling went on, while farther
in,
behind the inner aisle, there were rooms for storing goods. The
upper
story did not extend so far back, and had only one row of Doric
columns,
connected by a lattice balustrade of Pentelic marble--the material
of
which the columns were also made.
In the same neighbourhood may be
seen one of the best preserved
monuments in Athens. It is an octagonal marble
building, called the
Tower of the Winds, standing fully 40 feet high, with a
diameter of 26
feet. On each of its eight sides there is an emblematic
figure,
representing the wind which blows in that direction. On the top of
the
tower there was once a bronze Triton, which pointed to the picture
of
the wind that was blowing at the time. Under each figure is a
sun-dial,
and there was also an ingenious system of waterworks within the
tower,
to show the time in any weather, by night or by day. The tower
was
erected in the first century B.C. by a Syrian named Andronicus.
A
little farther east stands a great gate or portico, consisting of four
Doric
columns, 26 feet high, with a massive architrave and pediment. An
inscription
on the architrave tells that it was erected in honour of
Athena _Archegetis_
(“Foundress Athena”) by the people of Athens, from
funds bestowed on them by
Julius Cæsar and the Emperor Augustus. It was
once supposed to be part of a
temple, but excavations have proved that
it led into a great market-place,
which was surrounded by an Ionic
colonnade, and was chiefly used (judging
from an inscription found in
the neighbourhood) for the sale of olive-oil,
the great gift of Athena.
In the pediment of the gate there was originally a
statue of Lucius, the
adopted son of Augustus. His son-in-law Agrippa was
also held in honour
in Athens; and on the Acropolis a pedestal can still be
seen, close to
the Propylæa, on which his statue rested, with an inscription
in which
he is styled a benefactor of the city.
On the Museum or
Observatory Hill there is a marble structure called the
Monument of
Philopappus, erected in the beginning of the second century
A.D., in honour
of a generous Athenian citizen of that name, who was the
last hereditary king
of Commagene, in Asia Minor. Above the frieze are
three niches, two of which
contain statues of Philopappus and his
grandfather Antiochus Epiphanes, while
in the third, on the right, there
once stood the figure of Seleucus Nicator,
the founder of the dynasty.
On the north-east side of the hill there are
three rock-hewn chambers,
no doubt originally tombs, though they are now
called (apparently
without any justification) the Prison of
Socrates.
Among all the Roman emperors Hadrian was
the
[Illustration: THE PORTICO OF ATHENA ARCHEGETIS AT ATHENS
The
entrance to the market-place, built in the time of Augustus. On the
side of
the cliff of the Acropolis we see the caves of Pan and Apollo
beneath the
north wing of the Propylæa.]
greatest admirer of Athens, and conferred
most benefits on the city,
both in the way of architectural adornment and
otherwise. He erected a
number of magnificent buildings in the heart of the
city, one of which
(as Pausanias tells us) had a hundred columns of Phrygian
marble,
another a hundred columns of Libyan marble, while a third, which
was
used as a library, was adorned with a gilded roof and alabaster. Part
of
a rich colonnade has been preserved, and is known as the Stoa
of
Hadrian. But the emperor’s greatest monument was the Olympieum,
or
temple of Olympian Zeus, situated to the south-east of the Acropolis,
on
the right bank of the Ilissus. The foundation of the temple had
been
laid by Peisistratus nearly 700 years before, and the work had
been
considerably advanced by Antiochus Epiphanes nearly 400 years later;
but
it was reserved to Hadrian to complete the great undertaking, which
he
did in a munificent style. Unfortunately only fifteen of the hundred
or
more Corinthian columns of Pentelic marble are now standing,
occupying
but a small part of the vast platform (about 2200 feet in
circumference)
on which the temple stood. But such is the grandeur of the
columns,
rising to a height of nearly 57 feet and fully 5½ feet in diameter,
that
they form one of the most imposing ruins in the world. Even before
the
commencement of the temple of Peisistratus, the place was regarded
with
peculiar veneration as the traditional site of a temple erected
by
Deucalion, the survivor of the Flood; and in the days of Pausanias
a
cleft was to be seen in the ground, into which the subsiding waters
were
said to have sunk, and where, every year, the people cast in
wheaten meal
kneaded with honey, probably in memory of those who
perished in the
Deluge.
Somewhere in this neighbourhood--though the exact locality has
not been
determined--was the Lyceum, a gymnasium named after an old temple
of
Lycean Apollo, in the midst of spacious grounds, where military
reviews
were sometimes held, but chiefly famous as the place where Aristotle
and
his followers had their daily walk and conversation, on account of
which
they received the name of _Peripatetics_.
Between the Acropolis
and the Olympieum, probably in the line of the old
city wall, stands the Arch
of Hadrian, a handsome structure of Pentelic
marble, almost 60 feet high,
with an archway 20 feet wide. On one side
of the entablature, facing the
city, are inscribed the words, “This is
Theseus’ Athens, the old city,” and
on the other side, “This is the city
of Hadrian and not of Theseus.” The
emperor’s hope of a new city of
Athens has been fulfilled in modern times,
but the extension has not
taken place in the direction of Hadrianopolis, but
rather to the north.
Few cities in the Old World have made such rapid
progress as Athens has
done since the liberation of Greece three-quarters of
a century ago. In
1834, when it became the capital of the new kingdom, it had
only a
population of a few hundreds, while Piræus was scarcely inhabited
at
all. The population of Athens is now approaching 150,000, and that
of
Piræus is about 50,000. The wealth of both has kept pace with
the
population.
[Illustration: THE STOA OF HADRIAN AT
ATHENS
The remains visible are part of the western side of the Stoa
(exterior),
including the one remaining pillar of the entrance porch. Above
we have
part of the north side of the Acropolis.]
Piræus is a
prosperous and well-built town, whose trade has outstripped
that of every
other port in Greece, while Athens is incomparably the
finest city in the
kingdom, containing many beautiful modern buildings,
both public and private,
and some handsome streets, with shops that
would do credit to London or
Paris.
The growth of Athens is chiefly due to its political importance as
the
capital of the country and the residence of the king. Politics is
the
chief occupation of its educated citizens--dust and politics,
indeed,
are said to be its two plagues. The whole of Greece is remarkable
for
its consuming interest in politics; and, next to the daily
newspapers,
of which some thirteen are published in Athens, history is the
favourite
reading of the people. Unfortunately for the welfare of the
country, the
interest in politics does not arise so much from zeal for
rival
principles as from party struggles for place and power. In
these
struggles it is not merely the professional politicians whose
personal
interests are affected, but also the public officials of the
country,
most of whom are liable to dismissal or translation every time there
is
a change of Government--an event of much more frequent occurrence
in
Greece than in Great Britain. There is only one legislative chamber,
the
_Boule_ or Council, the number of whose members varies, but can never
be
less than 150. They are elected on a basis of manhood suffrage,
and
receive a salary of from ￡50 to ￡100 a year, according to the length
of
the session. The Government consists of seven members, who receive
each
￡300 a year, with an additional ￡150 for the Prime
Minister.[8]
Closely associated with the politicians are the barristers,
of whom
there are about 800 in Athens, besides a great many others
scattered
through the country. The highest court of appeal, both for civil
and
criminal cases, bears the time-honoured name of _Areopagus_,
and
consists of eighteen judges. Of inferior judges there are nearly 600
in
the whole country, most of whom are removable on a change
of
Government--an evil in some degree mitigated by the fact that
all
candidates for judicial posts must have passed a series of
examinations
in law. The medical profession is said to be also overstocked,
though
the legal fees chargeable for medical attendance would not be
thought
tempting in this country. With regard to the clergy, comparatively
few
of them receive their education in Athens or pass through
the
University. Their average culture is very low--but not lower than
their
remuneration--and the consequence is that any influence the
Church
exerts on the life of the nation is of a superficial kind, and finds
its
chief support in the festive celebration of the numerous Saints’
Days.
The services in the churches are of a ritualistic order, and sermons
are
seldom heard except in Lent. The kissing of an _eikon_ or the
lighting
of a taper appears to be with many worshippers a mere formality,
while,
at the same time, there is a large amount of ignorance and
superstition
in the country districts.
Of late there has been a
considerable diminution in the number of
students at the University,
notwithstanding the liberal subsidies which
have been granted to it by
Government; and pursuits of an industrial
nature are attracting more
attention. The opinion is gaining ground that
education of a literary
character has been overdone, with the result
that a large proportion of those
who have received an academic training
fail to find suitable employment and
become idlers and hangers-on,
spending their time largely in talking politics
in the neighbourhood of
the _Boule_ or the cafes of Constitution Square. In a
political sense
great importance is attached by many to the fact that about a
third of
the students at the University (say 200 freshmen every year) come
from
“Outer Greece,” and are expected on their return home to do much in
the
way of fostering enthusiasm for the great hope of a reunited Greece,
to
embrace Macedonia, Epirus, Crete, and the Levant. This hope has
been
somewhat damped by the favour recently shown by Russia to Bulgaria,
the
other likely claimant to Macedonia when the Turkish Empire is
dissolved;
and it is to Great Britain and France that the Greeks now chiefly
look
for countenance and support in their national aspirations. Their debt
of
gratitude to this country finds visible acknowledgment in the
fine
monument to Byron near the Arch of Hadrian, and in the statue
of
Gladstone in front of the University.
There is abundance of
patriotic sentiment in Greece, which shows itself
not only in eloquent speech
but in voluntary contributions made in
school and through national lotteries
for the purpose of providing a
more adequate navy. But what is most needed
for the wellbeing of the
country is a more steady and efficient
administration of its own
affairs, and greater energy and perseverance in
developing its
commercial and agricultural resources. For many years
emigration to the
United States of America has been going on at an alarming
rate,
especially from the Peloponnesus, including some of its most
fertile
provinces. The home-affection of the emigrants is shown by
their
generous remittances to their friends in the old country; and one of
the
most hopeful features in the life of modern Greece is to be found in
the
frequency with which her sons who have succeeded abroad devote
their
wealth to the founding of educational and philanthropic institutions
at
Athens or elsewhere. They are rewarded with the proud name of
“national
benefactors,” which is as much prized in democratic Greece as
titles of
nobility in Great Britain. One of the most recent of such
benefactions
is that of M. Averof (of Alexandria), who has restored the
Stadium at a
cost of a million and a half of francs, fitting it up with seats
of
marble from the quarries of Pentelicus (as Herodes Atticus did in
the
second century A.D.), to accommodate upwards of 50,000 people.
In
the Archæological Congress held at Athens in 1905, which was attended
by
visitors and delegates from all parts of Europe, one of the
most
interesting
[Illustration: THE ARCH OF HADRIAN
The side
towards the town (north-western aspect). This arch divided the
ancient “City
of Theseus” from the new quarter founded by Hadrian.]
events was a public
representation of Sophocles’ _Antigone_ in the
Stadium. It may be questioned
how far its language would be understood
even in Athens by the less educated
classes. Probably the proportion of
citizens who understood it thoroughly was
not much greater than in
Oxford when similar plays were put on the stage in
that city some years
ago. In the days of Sophocles the whole community
virtually spoke the
same language, so that his plays would be understood by
the masses as
well as the classes. It would seem that even the peculiarities
of his
Ionic dialect did not prevent Herodotus from being understood by
the
Greeks assembled at Olympia when he recited his History to them
before
it was published as a book. Nowadays the style and vocabulary of
the
ancient classical authors are foreign to a large section of the
Greek
nation. Hence it has been found that when the plays of Aristophanes
are
turned into the colloquial speech and so presented on the stage
at
Athens, they are attended with far greater success than in
their
original form.
In closing, a few words may be said on what may
be described as one of
the burning questions of the day. For more than a
century there has been
a tendency in high quarters to approximate as much as
possible to
classical Greek. Especially during the last quarter of the
nineteenth
century, there has been a strenuous attempt on the part of the
educated
classes, backed by the authorities in Church and State, to mould
the
written language according to classical forms, by restoring the
old
orthography and grammatical inflexions and by expressing new ideas
and
inventions in ancient terms, frequently compounded in a curious
fashion.
The ideal cherished by many educated Greeks was expressed by
the
Metropolitan Archbishop of Athens when he said that he hoped the
time
was not far distant when they would be using the language of
Xenophon,
and that if the newspapers would introduce but one new classical
word a
day, they would add 70,000 words to the language in the course of
twenty
years. The archaic style has been adopted by the Government in
all
public documents and in the system of education; it dominates
the
speeches delivered in Parliament, except when passion gets the better
of
the speakers; it is approved by the Church, and is cultivated by
the
newspapers and journals, and the vast majority of authors. Hence
the
most of the Greek which one reads in current literature bears a
strong
resemblance to that of the classical authors studied at school
and
college, and a good Greek scholar has no great difficulty in reading
an
Athenian newspaper, if he make himself acquainted with a few
modern
particles of frequent occurrence, and have patience to make out
the
meaning of the new combinations that have been devised to meet
the
requirements of modern civilisation.
But side by side with this
artificial language, which, though classical
upon the surface, is generally
modern in style and construction, bearing
the stamp, especially, of French
and English idioms--there is what may
be called the vernacular Greek, spoken
more or less by all classes when
they are not on ceremony, and understood in
all parts of Greece, and in
the Levant. The difference between the two does
not lie merely in
pronunciation, or grammatical forms, or the occasional use
of peculiar
words, such as are found in the local dialects of almost all
languages;
it shows itself in the employment of different words to express
the
commonest things in daily life, such as water, bread, wine. You may
see
such things called by their classical names on the merchant’s
signboard,
and yet if you wish to be understood when you go into the shop you
must
use the popular equivalents.
The relation between the spoken and
the written Greek is often compared
to that of Italian and mediæval Latin.
Italian had to struggle for a
literary existence before it gained a secure
position as the national
tongue in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. But
unfortunately for
Greek as a living language, ever since the days of
Dionysius of
Halicarnassus it has had to contend repeatedly against a
persistent
effort to go back, as far as possible, to the golden age of
Athenian
literature in the fifth century B.C. Its capacity for literary
purposes
has never been properly recognised, although it has preserved more
of
the original language than the Italian has of Latin. This fact is
now
forcing itself on the attention of the nation; and just as
the
descendants of the ancient Romans have practically given up the use
of
Latin, so there is an increasing party in Greece, supported
by
distinguished grammarians in other lands, who hold that the
intellectual
and moral life of the nation will never get fair-play and have
full
scope for its energies until the Atticising pedantry which has so
long
been the fashion both in Athens and in Constantinople shall be given
up,
and the popular speech be recognised as a suitable instrument
for
literary purposes as well as for the intercourse of common life.
But
those who are of this opinion will have a great battle to fight
before
they can hope to see their views prevail. A few years ago (in 1901)
the
world was startled by serious disturbances in Athens over a
translation
of the New Testament into the vulgar tongue, which showed what
strong
passions lie at the bottom of this linguistic controversy. A
scholarly
Greek merchant resident in Liverpool (Mr. Alexander Pallis), who
has
brought Homer within the reach of all classes of his countrymen by
a
translation into the language of the common people, set about
rendering
to them a similar service in the case of the New Testament. His
version
of the Gospel according to Matthew appeared in the _Acropolis_, one
of
the Athenian newspapers. It called forth a letter from the Patriarch
of
Constantinople to the Holy Synod of Greece, lamenting the degradation
to
which the sacred book was being subjected. Then followed a
great
outburst of indignation on the part of the educated classes,
especially
the “noble student youth” of the University. A demand was made for
the
excommunication of the translator and the banning of his work. But
the
ecclesiastical authorities were not in a position to proceed to
this
extremity. For the question was complicated by the fact that a
popular
version of
[Illustration: COLUMNS OF THE TEMPLE OF OLYMPIAN
ZEUS FROM THE
NORTH-WEST
The delicate, rosy tint is characteristic of
Hymettos at sunset. The
hill in front of Hymettos is Ardettos, above the
Stadion. The time of
year is late in June.]
the New Testament, not
quite so familiar perhaps in its style as that of
Mr. Pallis, had been
prepared shortly before by a learned lady at the
instance of the Queen of
Greece, who had found that many of the inmates
of the gaols and hospitals
which she visited were almost destitute of
Christian knowledge, and were
incapable of understanding the Greek of
the New Testament. This translation
had been revised by a learned
Commission, and had been commended by the
Metropolitan, Procopius. The
excitement rose to such a height that nothing
but a general
excommunication of all modern Greek translations of the New
Testament
would satisfy the public. This demand not being granted, an
indignation
meeting, attended by more than 30,000 people, was held around
the
columns of Olympian Jupiter, and the feeling of the crowd was voiced
by
a student, who declared that during the centuries of Turkish
oppression
no such deadly injury had been inflicted on the nation with the
sword as
that which had now been perpetrated with the pen. The meeting
was
followed by riots in the streets, in which a collision took
place
between the crowd and the military, attended with serious and in
some
cases fatal results. Before the night was over, the Chief of the
Police
and the Commander of the Garrison had resigned their posts; a
similar
step had to be taken even by the Archbishop, who was conducted to
the
King’s palace in the middle of the night by the Prime Minister and
the
Minister of Public Instruction; and within a few days the
Ministry
itself had to relinquish office.
The whole occurrence was a
striking proof of the passionate pride that
is latent in the Greek character
in any matter that affects its
reputation and self-esteem. Although the
question came to assume a
semi-religious, semi-political aspect, the real
offence lay in the fact
that the language used in the translation was the
vulgar tongue, which
the University authorities desired to suppress, so far
as its use for
literary purposes was concerned. If the translation had been
allowed to
get a footing at home or in school it would have acquired a place
in the
affections of the people. To avoid this danger the
ecclesiastical
authorities issued an edict forbidding the use of all
translations or
any departure from the original text--and this
notwithstanding the fact
that there were thousands of the members of their
Church who could
derive little or no benefit from the New Testament without
the help of a
translation. It is easy to understand, from the feelings with
which many
devout people in this country received the changes made on the
English
Revised Version about thirty years ago, that the Greeks would be
very
sensitive to any alteration on the New Testament, which had been
the
cherished symbol of their nationality under the dominion of the
Turk.
But in this case there was no alteration of the sense; and no one
was
compelled to use the translation unless he pleased, nor was there
any
attempt to supersede the reading of the original text in church.
No
doubt the language of Mr. Pallis’ translation was sometimes of a
very
homely character. But to talk of its being a “profanation of
the
Gospel”
[Illustration: THE SQUARE IN FRONT OF THE KING’S PALACE AT
ATHENS
Mount Hymettos behind and the dust-laden cypress trees in front of
the
Palace, ruddy in the last rays of a June sunset.]
was quite a
misrepresentation, and seems almost ridiculous in view of
the fact--which the
discovery of Egyptian _papyri_ has been bringing
home to us of late--that the
language of the New Testament was, at the
time it was written, the language
in every-day use among the masses of
the people for whom it was intended,
which the learned men of the day
would have disdained to employ for literary
purposes. No such outcry was
raised in this country when a Scots translation
of the Psalms was issued
by the late Dr. P. H. Waddell, though it might have
been more reasonably
objected to as serving no practical purpose. But there
was no jealousy
of the Scots dialect on the part of the Church or the
educated
classes--hence it was simply regarded as a literary
curiosity.
Equally groundless was the notion that the issue of
translations was
part of a scheme to which the Queen (a Russian princess) was
supposed to
be accessory, for the purpose of playing into the hands of the
Russians
in Macedonia, by leading the Greek population to surrender
their
birthright as the lawful heirs of the New Testament. To understand
this
suspicion we must remember that the Greeks had long prided themselves
on
the fact that they and they alone could read the very words of the
New
Testament in their own tongue, and they were afraid that they
would
forfeit this distinction and be reduced to a level with their
Slavonic
neighbours, if the need for a translation were
admitted.[9]
However inconsistent it may seem, this attachment to the
Greek of the
New Testament is only another phase of the same pride of
ancestry that
is seen in the straining after classical Greek.[10] The desire
to pose
before the world as the descendants of the nation which produced
Homer
and Æschylus and Pericles and Plato and Demosthenes has led them
to
sacrifice in some measure the real interests of the nation to
the
glamour of a remote and glorious past. Just as they have been ashamed
of
some mediæval monuments which reminded them of humiliating epochs
in
their history, so they have tried to get rid of words and forms
which
bore the stamp of foreign ascendency. But such affectation cannot
alter
facts, and is bad for the _morale_ of a nation. The pride of birth,
when
carried to excess, may hurt the character of a people no less than of
an
individual, and foster a theatrical and pretentious spirit. It is
easy
to see that in the education of the young it cannot be favourable
to
vigour or spontaneity of thought if the pupil is denied the use of
the
words to which he has been accustomed from his earliest years. With
such
a discord between experience and expression, it is no wonder that
the
Greek people have produced so little native literature during the
last
two thousand years, and that they are so largely dependent at
the
present time on foreign authorship, especially Russian, English,
and
French. The loss sustained in almost all the practical departments
of
the national life, both sacred and secular, is alleged to be
scarcely
less serious. It can hardly be otherwise, indeed, if the
language
employed in public documents is only partially or with
difficulty
understood by a large proportion of the people for whom it is
intended.
Moreover, it cannot be good for the nation to be divided,
intellectually
speaking, into two more or less antagonistic camps,
corresponding
roughly to the educated and the uneducated.
Of recent
years there have been signs of a strong reaction. Largely
owing to the
ability and zeal of Professor Psichari, a son-in-law of the
late M. Renan,
the Atticising tendency is not nearly so prevalent as it
was twenty years
ago, and a considerable native literature is now making
its appearance not
only in poetry (in which it has always been strong)
but also in novels,
dramas, journals, newspapers, and even in the
publication of grammars. This
literature is no longer confined, as it
used to be, with few exceptions, to
the Ionian Islands (where Salomos of
Zante and Valaoritis of Leucas sang) and
Crete (where Cornaro, of
Venetian extraction, produced his great epic
_Erotokritos_, which
procured for him the title of the “Homer of the
People”). Even
Constantinople is beginning to breathe the new spirit; and
there is
reason to hope that a compromise between the two extremes may yet
be
effected, by which the nation may realise its essential unity
amid
diversity, remaining true to its illustrious ancestry, without
ignoring
or suppressing the other elements--Roman, Byzantine, Turkish--which
have
contributed to its development. Its scholars are beginning to see
that
the idea of classical Greek ever becoming a universal language for
men
of culture is a vain dream, and that a nation’s speech, like its
life,
must undergo continual modification. Such modification, though it
may
appear to the pedant to be corruption, is evolution to the
philosopher
and man of sense. The history of the Russian and Czech languages,
which
have adapted themselves to literary purposes with such success
during
the last two hundred years, encourages the hope that the language
now
spoken by the common people of Greece may go through a similar
process
of development, borrowing from the ancient Greek what it requires
in
order to meet the needs of science and philosophy, while holding
its
ground as the essential basis of the national speech.[11]
Akin to
this controversy is the question as to the proper pronunciation
of Greek. So
different is the pronunciation now current among the Greeks
from that which
is in vogue in this country that, even without any
difference in vocabulary
or grammar, a Western scholar trained in the
Erasmian system would find the
greatest difficulty in understanding or
making himself
[Illustration:
THE STADION AT ATHENS
The line of sight is in the direction of the axis
of the Stadion. The
hills sloping right and left show the line of the seats
for spectators.
The stones projecting from the side of the hill to the left
are part of
the masonry which faced the eastern limb of the Stadion on its
southern
side. In the foreground is the modern bridge over the Ilissus
leading to
the Stadion.]
understood by a modern Greek, who allows the
accentuation to supersede
the vowel-quantity and reduces the diphthong to a
simple sound. How
different, for example, Peloponnēsos sounds when it is
pronounced
Peloponnĭssos, or ta-nephē (τἁ νἑφη) when pronounced ta-nephī.
The
difference is still more marked when you hear a modern Greek read
Homer,
for he seems to do away with the metre altogether. Till lately
the
Greeks were inclined to smile at our rendering of the quantities.
But
recently they have been learning from one who is perhaps their
highest
authority on such questions (G. Chatzidakis) that ancient
inscriptions
and transcriptions show that their living language has not stood
still
in the matter of pronunciation any more than in other respects. It
does
not follow from this, however, that the Erasmian pronunciation,
though
older and more correct as to quantity than is now current among the
Greeks, is in all respects the same as would have been heard in the streets of
Athens in the days of Socrates. |
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