The Old World and Its Ways

In the time of Christ the sea of Galilee was the scene of busy life. The population of the country described as Galilee has been estimated to have been at that time about two and a half millions. The sea was covered with boats, built for fishing, for traffic, for war or for pleasure. Josephus collected two hundred and thirty ships for one of his expeditions upon the sea, and in a sea fight that took place there the number killed on one side alone was given at from four to six thousand.

The sea was full of fish, and the Gospels furnish abundant proof of the importance of fishing as an industry, a fact also established by outside evidence. Dr. Merrill, in the book above referred to, says that fish taken were not only sufficient to satisfy the local demands but were packed and shipped to Jerusalem and even to cities along the Mediterranean. The supply of fish has not yet been exhausted. Salim Moussa, of Jaffa, the very efficient Arab dragoman furnished us by Cook, supplied us with a net when we visited the sites of Capernaum and Bethsaida and our son caught enough fish for our lunch. It was a delightful outing that we had that day, gathering water-worn pebbles from the beach, picking up shells, of which there are many varieties, and feasting on fish fresh from the sea and on a lamb bought from a Bedouin who was tending his flock near by.

The visit to the Horns of Hattin was reserved for the return trip, the road from Nazareth to Tiberias passing near the hill which bears this name. It was in 1157 the scene of a celebrated battle in which Saladin won a victory over the Crusaders. This hill, by a tradition which has come down from the time of the Crusaders, is styled the Mount of Beatitudes. There is nothing to determine just where the Sermon on the Mount was delivered, but because the Horns of Hattin have been associated with that wonderful discourse, I was anxious to visit the place. There is no road leading to this eminence and the bridle paths can scarcely be followed. The ground is covered by boulders and broken stones, half concealed by grass and thistles and flowers. The guide stepped over a large snake before we had gone far, and as it was of a very poisonous variety, he felt that he had had a narrow escape. From a distance the top of the hill is saddle-shaped, and the two horns have given it its name, but on the top there is a large circular basin, probably two hundred yards in diameter, and the rim of this basin was once walled and a citadel built there.

The view from this mount is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen. To the north, Hermon rises in grandeur, his summit covered with snow; the intervening space is filled with hills except in the immediate foreground where the sea of Galilee sparkles in the sun. At the foot of the mount stretches a verdant valley, and from the valley a defile runs down to the sea. This opening gives a view of the shore where Capernaum and Bethsaida are supposed to have stood, and one of the roads from the sea to Nazareth follows the stream which flows through this defile. On the opposite side of the Mount, Tabor can be seen, and beyond, the hills of Samaria. There is inspiration in this commingling of hill and vale and sea and sky.6

Whether, as a matter of fact, Christ, "seeing the multitude," ascended to this place I know not, but it furnishes an environment fit for the sublime code of morality presented in the Sermon on the Mount. No other philosophy has ever touched so high a point or presented so noble a conception of human life. In it purity of heart is made the test, mercy is enjoined, humility emphasized, forgiveness commanded and love made the law of action. In that Sermon He pointed out the beginnings of evil, rebuked those who allow themselves to be engrossed by the care of the body and gave to the world a brief, simple and incomparable prayer which the Christian world repeats in unison.

If in other places He relieved those whose sufferings came through the infirmities of the flesh, He here offered a balm for the healing of the nations.

CHAPTER XXXII.

GREECE – THE WORLD'S TEACHER

Nothing so impresses the visitor to Greece – not the waters of the Ægean sea, with their myriad hues; not the Acropolis, eloquent with ruins; not even the lovely site of Athens itself – as the part which little Greece has played in the instruction of the world. With an area of less than twenty-five thousand square miles, not half of which is productive, and with a population of less than two and a half millions, this diminutive nation has a history without a parallel.

There is scarcely a department of thought in which Greece has not been the pioneer, and in many things she has set an example which subsequent generations have but imperfectly followed. If in Egypt one is awed by the evidences of antiquity; if in Palestine he is made reverent by the spiritual association connected with Judea, Galilee and Samaria; in Greece he bows with profound respect to the mighty influence exerted by this single people upon civilization.

The signs along the streets recall the alphabet with which the student of the classics struggles when he takes up the dead languages – and yet, the Greek language can hardly be called dead, for while it is the spoken tongue of but a comparatively small number, it has found a glorious resurrection in nearly all the languages of Europe. In fact, it has so many merits that we are constantly complimenting it by returning to it for the nomenclature of philosophy, science and art.

Of those who still speak the language of Herodotus, Homer, Socrates and Demosthenes, a majority live outside of Greece, for the Greek colonies planted around the eastern end of the Mediterranean form a considerable, as well as an influential, portion of the population. Greek colonization, by the way, was of an enduring kind. Those who went out into distant fields did not go as individual bees (official or commercial) to gather honey and return with it to the parent hive; they went out rather in swarms to found cities, develop countries and establish new centers for the spread of Greek influence. They identified themselves with the land to which they went; they became an integral part of the population, and, by virtue of their inherent superiority, they gradually substituted the language, the ideas, and the customs of their native land for those which they found. So securely did they build that neither the Roman nor the Turk was able to obliterate their work. The people bowed before the storm, but continued Greek, and to-day in Alexandria, Asia Minor and Constantinople, Hellenic influence is still felt.

The ancient Greeks sought to perfect the human form, and it is not to be wondered at that the marble models of strength, grace and beauty have been unearthed where the Olympian games inspired a rivalry in physical development. The games were established nearly eight hundred years before the beginning of the Christian era, and during the nation's independent existence they were held in such high esteem that the laurel wreath of victory was the greatest reward within the reach of the youth of the country. Each city had its stadium, some of them of immense size. The one at Athens seated fifty thousand spectators, and the enthusiasm aroused by the contests was scarcely less than that which at Rome greeted the gladiators. By the generosity of a rich Greek the stadium at Athens has recently been restored at a cost of more than a million dollars. The race course is six hundred and seventy feet long and a little more than a hundred feet in width, and the seats are of Pentelic marble. Notwithstanding its great capacity it can not contain the crowds that assemble to witness the athletic games, renewed there in 1896 by the International Athletic Association. Our country has the distinction of having led in the contest of 1896 and again in the contest held at Athens last April. Our representatives won eleven prizes each time, and I found that these victories had very favorably impressed the people of Athens.

The stadium is not the only splendid monument to the public spirit of the modern Greeks. The academy of science and the library are magnificent buildings, each costing more than the restoration of the stadium. They illustrate the best in Grecian architecture, reproducing the Corinthian, the Doric, and the Ionic. They are of Pentelic marble and would be worthy of a place in any city of the world. The library contains several hundred thousand volumes and has all the modern equipment. Athens has a population of but little more than a hundred thousand, and it is doubtful whether there is another city of its size that can boast of as large an expenditure of private capital in public buildings. The mountain which has supplied Athens with marble for twenty-five hundred years is only a few miles from the city and its quarries are still unexhausted.

Modern Athens is very attractive; its streets are paved and clean; its business houses are large and well built; its government buildings are substantial, and its private residences give evidence of taste. We were there in the season of flowers and we saw them blooming in profusion everywhere. Numerous statues adorn the streets and parks, the most noted being the statue of Byron, erected in memory of his unselfish devotion to Greek independence.

The soldiers and policemen have adopted the costume of the ancient Greeks, but otherwise the people dress like the people of northern Europe.

As one approaches Athens for the first time, his eye is sure to search for the "temple-crowned" Acropolis – the hill which art and religion combined to make immortal. It rises from the plain much as Chapultepec rises from the plain of Mexico. It is about five hundred feet high and, at the top, two hundred yards in length. It must have been surpassingly beautiful when the Parthenon was completed – that great treasury which has not only supplied the art galleries of the world with marvels of beauty in stone, but has given law to the architects from that day to this. Pericles, who deserves the credit for the construction of the Parthenon, can be pardoned for exulting in his work.

To-day, the Acropolis is a picture of desolation, but the few columns that remain bear witness to its departed glory. Lord Elgin carried away at one time two hundred and fifty feet of the sculptured frieze, and scarcely any of its columns, capitals, cornice and pediment would have remained but for the size and weight of the masses of marble. The pillage that for nearly twenty centuries has been robbing Greece of her priceless works of art can be understood when it is stated that one Roman conqueror celebrated his victory by exhibiting in his triumphant procession two hundred and fifty wagon loads of Greek pictures and statues, and that these wagons were followed by three thousand men each bearing some trophy taken from the cities of Greece.

And yet in spite of the grand larceny which has been perpetrated against this unfortunate land the museum at Athens contains enough of the beautiful in marble and bronze to make any nation conspicuous in the realm of art. Within two years some notable additions have been made to the collection; a life-sized bronze statue has been unearthed and a marble figure, half buried in the sands of the sea, has been rescued. The latter is perfect in the portions protected by the sand but was disintegrating where it came into contact with the waves.

The readers of these articles are too well informed in regard to the discoveries of Dr. Schliemann to make it necessary to refer to his work in detail. One room of the museum contains the gold ornaments which he gathered from five tombs, and they are sufficient to show the extended use made of this metal in the arts. They consist of ear rings, finger rings, bracelets, necklaces, head ornaments, vases, cups, coins, etc. A pair of cups which attract special attention bear in relief the figures of bulls – the animals being equal in form to the best breeds of to-day. On one cup they are being led to the sacrifice and on the other they are bound at the altar.

Besides these statues of renown and the casts of those which have been removed, there are many specimens of ancient pottery by which one can trace the rise in artistic taste and skill. Some of the earliest statues in stone and clay bear a striking resemblance to those of Egypt.

Second only in interest to the Acropolis is Mars Hill, a rocky summit two-thirds of the height of the Acropolis. Here the ancient court of the Areopagus, composed of the most eminent of the Athenians, held its sessions. Here under the dome of the sky the most important cases were tried and life and death hung upon the decree of the court. Here, also, Paul's great speech to the "men of Athens" was delivered, his text being found in the altar erected to "the unknown god."

Only a little distance from Mars Hill is the stone platform from which the orators of Greece addressed the people. A level, shelf-like space was formed near the top of the hill where a few thousand could congregate, and here the citizens listened while the greatest of all public speakers poured forth his eloquence. It was worth a trip to Athens to view the spot where Demosthenes delivered the oration on the Crown and the Philippics, which have been the pattern set before the student for twenty-two hundred years. In the marshalling of facts, in the grouping of arguments, in the use of invective and in the arranging of climaxes he is still the teacher. Someone has drawn a distinction between Cicero and Demosthenes, saying that when the former spoke the people said: "How well Cicero speaks," while, when Demosthenes spoke, they said: "Let us go against Phillip!" Demosthenes' style was more convincing than ornate; his purpose was to arouse, not merely to please, and from the accounts that have come down to us his delivery was suited to his language. He, in fact, gave to action the highest place among the requisites of effective speech. We recalled the saying of Demosthenes when we listened to the excited tones and watched the gesticulations of the boatmen who thronged about our ship in the harbor of Piræus. The physician who came aboard to examine the passengers gave us even a better illustration of "action," although his gestures were more forcible than graceful, possibly because he addressed himself to the captain of the ship instead of to the multitude.

On the shore of the Ægean sea, between Athens and the harbor, at a place where Demosthenes may have tested his voice against the tumult of the waves, I gathered some pebbles. I can not prove that they are the identical ones used by him to overcome the impediment in his speech, but they are at least a reminder of the toilsome struggle through which he passed before his name was known to fame.

It was a disappointment to find so little to mark the site of the academy where Socrates and Plato met their disciples. These philosophers have made such an impression upon the thought of the world that I had hoped to find some spot clearly identified as the place where they taught. An old house now stands on a treeless tract over which they are said to have walked in their daily discussions, but it is a modern one. A gate admits to the grounds, although no wall incloses them. It is much easier to picture Demosthenes speaking from the rostrum which still remains, than to imagine Socrates propounding here his questions and elaborating the method of reasoning to which his name has been given.

There is an old cemetery within the limits of the present city where recent excavation has brought to light numerous tombs ornamented with sculpture. Some of the groups of statuary and urns have been left where they were found, while others have been given a place in the museum. These are additional proof of the number of those who handled the chisel in the days of Phidias.

No spot is identified with Herodotus, the Father of History, or with Thucydides who, with Herodotus, has been the instructor of later chroniclers. Except the remains of the theatres, there is nothing to recall the tragedies of Euripides, Æschylus and Sophocles or the comedies of the Aristophanes; and no place is pointed out as the site of the studio of Parrhasius or Zeuxis, though the lessons which they taught the world have not been forgotten. While the guide does not pretend to know the house in which Homer lived or where he wrote his deathless songs, the traveler who passes through the Hellespont can see the plains of ill-fated Troy, and during his stay in Greece his memory runs over the heroes of the Iliad and the Odyssey.

There are no physical evidences of the life work of Lycurgus and Solon, yet the laws which they promulgated are the heritage of mankind. Salamis remains, and if the naval battle which Themistocles won had had no other effect than to furnish Pericles with a theme for his great funeral orations, it would still have been worthy of remembrance. The battlefield of Marathon which gave Miltiades a place among the world's generals is also unchanged. It is about twenty-five miles from Athens, and the story, told in marble, of the Greek who carried the news of the victory to Athens and died from exhaustion amid the shouts of his countrymen, has led to the incorporation of a twenty-five mile race in the athletic games when they are held at Athens. In 1896 the race was won by a Greek (much to the satisfaction of the audience), who made the run from Marathon to the city in two hours and forty-five minutes.

The pass at Thermopylæ is also to be seen, and the heroism of the three hundred Spartans who, under the leadership of Leonidas, offered up their lives there for their country, continues to be an inspiration. They failed to stay the onward march of Xerxes, but who can measure the value of their example?

Corinth, as of old, still guards the entrance to the Peloponnesus; but notwithstanding the canal, which, at this point, connects the Ægean Sea with the Gulf of Corinth, the city has only a small population.

Corinth brings to memory the part Greece played in the spread of Christianity. It was not enough that this country led the world in statecraft and oratory, in poetry and history, in philosophy and literature, in art and in athletics, she was also one of the first mission fields of the apostles. It was to the Corinthians that Paul wrote the Epistles in which love is given the first place among the virtues, and it was Greece that gave her name to one of the great branches of the Christian Church.

A democrat may be pardoned for cherishing a high regard for the land that coined the word, democracy. The derivation of the word – from demos, the people, and kratein, to rule – makes it an appropriate one to describe a government based upon popular will. And as governments more and more recognize the citizen as the sovereign, and the people as the source of all political power, the world's debt to Greece will be more and more fully appreciated. She not only gave to language a word accurately expressing the idea of self-government, but she proved by experience the wisdom of trusting the people with the management of all public affairs.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE BYZANTINE CAPITAL

It is impossible to convey to the reader any adequate idea of the beauties of the Bosphorus at the point where Constantine located the capital of the Byzantine empire. The best way to approach it is by the sea, and as the traveler usually enters from the west, he sails through the Dardanelles, known in ancient times as the Hellespont, passes through the sea of Marmora and enters the Bosphorus between Constantinople, on the one side, and Skutari on the other. The Bosphorus itself is between fifteen and twenty miles long and very deep. It is the connecting link between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmora and the hills that jut into it on either side are nearly all covered with towns and villas. The water is as clear as the water of a lake, and fish may be seen at a great distance below the surface. A ride through the Bosphorus reminds one of a trip up the Hudson, although the former has the advantage in the depth of the stream, in the transparency of the water, in the height of the banks and in the irregularity of the course. In fact, the channel contains so many curves that one seems to be passing through a succession of lakes.7

A little more than half way between the Sea of Marmora and the Black Sea, on the north bank, is Therapia, the summer capital, to which the officials repair when the warm weather begins, and upon the same bank, about half way between Constantinople and Therapia, is Roberts College, an institution for boys, established and maintained by American philanthropy. It occupies a promontory which overlooks the Bosphorus at its narrowest point, the point at which Mohammed II crossed over from Asia, when in 1453 he succeeded in capturing Constantinople.

The Golden Horn is the name given to an arm of the Bosphorus which, leaving that strait a few miles from the Sea of Marmora, stretches northward five or six miles to receive a stream called the Sweet Waters of Europe. It may have been that the Golden Horn at one time rivaled the Bosphorus in beauty, but it does so no longer. Full of ships and boats of every description, from war vessels to canoes, and polluted by the sewage of two cities, it disappoints as much as the Bosphorus delights.

The city of Constantinople is divided by the Golden Horn, Stamboul, the Turkish city lying on the west, and Galata and Pera, the foreign quarters, lying on the east. Skutari stretches along the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, and the navies and merchant vessels of all the world could ride in safety in the waters adjacent to these three cities.

In the seventh century, B. C., a small colony of Greeks under the lead of Byzas settled at Cape Bosphorus, now the site of Stamboul, and in the rise and fall of the dynasties of the east, it has played an important part. Being on the boundary line between Asia and Europe and guarding the water communication between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, it possesses strategic advantages which statesmen and warriors have been quick to recognize. The Persians always wanted it and several times captured it. The Greeks were continually taking it and losing it; Phillip of Macedon laid siege to it and in so doing furnished Demosthenes with a theme for some of his greatest speeches. There is a tradition that Phillip would have succeeded, in spite of the aid given by the Athenians, but for the barking of dogs, which apprised the inhabitants of a night assault. As the dogs were set to barking, not by the enemy, but by the moon which rose just in time to save the city, the Byzantines adopted the crescent as their emblem and it has continued to be the emblem of Turkey, having been retained by the Turks after their victory.

Alexander the Great became master of the Bosphorus, and later Byzantium fell into the hands of the Romans. After a checkered career of two centuries it was taken by Constantine, who decided to make it the capital of the Roman world, and his own name has been given to it, although he intended to call it New Rome. No one can doubt the political wisdom of the first Christian emperor in putting the seat of government at this place. If Europe, Asia and Africa are ever brought together under one government or under one confederation, Constantinople will be the natural and necessary capital. The shores of Africa, southern Europe and Asia Minor are washed by the Mediterranean and by its gulfs and bays; the Black Sea is the outlet of southern Russia and part of Asia Minor, and the new railroad which is being built to connect Europe with the Euphrates and India, crosses the Bosphorus here. When this road is finished, it will be possible to go from London to India in about six days, and one of the Turkish governors expressed the hope that it would be completed within six or seven years.

Constantine built a magnificent cathedral, one of the greatest ever constructed, it being his purpose to surpass any house of worship that man had reared. It is in the form of a Greek cross and was originally rich in mosaics, some of which still remain. The dome is one of the largest in the world. This cathedral, called St. Sophia, fell into the hands of the Mohammedans when Constantinople was taken and is now used as a mosque. When hope of successful resistance was gone, the Christians of Constantinople crowded into the cathedral – some have estimated the number as high as a hundred thousand, but that seems hardly possible – praying that the church might at least be spared, but the leader of the Turks rode into the building on his charger, and, striking one of the pillars with his sword, exclaimed; "There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet!" Then followed a slaughter so cruel and bloody that the Christians never recall the day without indulging the hope that the building may some day return to the possession of those who cherish the faith of its founder.