Studies of Travel: GreeceFreeman, Edward A. (Edward Augustus)
History
Studies of Travel: Greece
Freeman, Edward A. (Edward Augustus)
Greece -- Description and travel
to the western shores of Peloponnêsos and to the islands more western
still. He who cannot see the whole of the Attic land, he who must be
satisfied with picturing to himself from the Athenian akropolis how
Agis sent forth his plundering bands from Dekeleia, and how the spirit
of freedom set with Thrasyboulos on the brow of Phylê, must at least
make his way by the Sacred Way to the holy place of Christendom at
Daphnê, and to the holy place of heathendom at Eleusis. He must muse on
the mound of Marathôn, not to dream that Greece may yet be free, but to
wonder and to hope how soon the freedom which stops at Othrys may reach
at the very least to Olympos. He must stand too on the marbled steep
of Sounion, no longer to shrink from the land on which he stands as a
land of slaves. And on two at least of these three journeys he will
still find himself in the company of the same deity who reigned on the
Isthmus and on Kolônos. If Dêmêtêr and her child held the first place
at Eleusis, yet by the bay which is guarded by Salamis, the sea-god
was not forgotten, and on the height of Sounion the two powers who
strove for the rule of Athens divided the sacred spot between them.
The Isthmus with its games, Eleusis on its bay, Sounion on its height,
may all be fittingly taken, as nearly as may be at a glance, as being
all of them spots where the sea-god received at least a partial local
worship.
The traveller who goes from Corinth to Athens by land will take
Eleusis on his way; and those who, like the wearied Ten Thousand at
Kerasos, have had enough of their land passage, and who prefer to pass
toillessly--it may be asleep like Odysseus--over the waves, may well
make Eleusis the object of an early journey after they again find
themselves at Athens. We have come back to civilized life. From Athens
to Eleusis the journey may be made along the Sacred Way by the same
means by which the still abiding wheel-tracks tell us that it was made
of old. The journey is one of the highest interest; it is a journey
of double interest for those at least who count Daphnê and its abiding
church no less worthy of interest than Eleusis and its fallen temple.
The Sacred Way of Athens has its Roman parallel; but it is not to
be found in the Sacred Way of Rome, but in the road which bears the
name of the great Censor. The Sacred Way, like the Appian Way, like
all ways more or less, though these two seem to have been conspicuous
above others, was a street of monuments, a few of which may still be
traced. Parting from the monumental quarter of Athens, from the tombs
lately brought to light in Kerameikos, the Sacred Way started from the
Dipylon--itself brought to light with the tombs--and passed through
the olive groves, leaving Poseidôn’s hill of Kolônos to the right. The
starting-point of the modern road is not exactly the same, but the two
join at no great distance from the ancient walls. The tombs, which are
there no longer, may be studied in the itinerary of Pausanias. But one
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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