But all of these, whether mediæval or modern, fail to blur the understanding of antiquity. They do not obtrude themselves. Often they even illustrate ancient life. The same wisdom that transferred allegiance from the Saturnalia to the Christmas festival has here also been careful to use for Byzantine churches the site of ancient shrines or temples: St. Elias is a familiar name on high mountains where once stood altars of the Olympians; the cult of Dionysus has been skilfully transformed, in vine-rearing Naxos, into that of St. Dionysius; SS. Cosmo and Damiano, patrons of medicine, and known as the “feeless” saints, have established their free dispensary in place of an Asklepieion; the twelve Apostles have replaced the “Twelve Gods”; and churches dedicated to St. Demetrius have been substituted for shrines of Demeter. The thoughtful student of the literature of the Greeks, no matter how enthusiastic he may be, will not fail to draw warnings as well as inspiration from their history. But no defects of the Greeks nor achievements of posterity can dispossess Hellas of her peculiar lustre. “No other nation,” as Mr. Ernest Myers has said with particular reference to the age of Pindar, “has ever before or since known what it was to stand alone immeasurably advanced at the head of the civilization of the world.” CHAPTER II PIRÆUS, THE HARBOUR TOWN “Returning from Asia Minor and voyaging from Ægina toward Megara I began to look on the places round about me. Behind me was Ægina; before me Megara; on the right Piræus; on the left Corinth—cities once flourishing, now prostrate and in ruins.” SERVIUS SULPICIUS _to_ Cicero. The sail in bright sunshine up the Gulf of Ægina, the ancient Saronic Gulf, will have fulfilled the traveller’s anticipations of the beauty of Greece and will have quickened the historic imagination. History and antiquity, however, will give place to the insistent claims of modern Greek life, as the steamer enters the busy port and passes through the narrow opening between the welcoming arms of the ancient moles which still protect the harbour and serve at night to hold up the green and red signal lights for mariners. [Illustration: PIRÆUS] In this harbour meet the Orient and the Occident. One may see here craft of all kinds from all parts of the Mediterranean and from beyond the Straits; modern steamers, big and little; gunboats, native or foreign; sailing vessels from the Greek islands or Turkish possessions, laden with bright cargoes of yellow lemons and Cretan oranges, great grapes purple and white, or “tunnies steeped in brine”; here a steamer packed with pilgrims for a religious festival on Tenos; here, perhaps, another vessel crowded with American tourists to Jerusalem.