LITURGICAL EMBROIDERY WITH THE COMMUNIONOFTHE APOSTLES

50. LITURGICAL EMBROIDERY WITH THE COMMUNIONOFTHE APOSTLES

15th – 16th century

Red purple silk, blue linen lining, bullion 56 x 42 cm

Liturgical text in Greek: HIETAI EE AYTOY nANTEE TOYTO EETIN TO A1MA MOY TO THE KAINHE AIAOIKHE TO YT1EP HMQN KAI nOAAON EIE A0EEIN AMAPTrON AMHN

Drink all of you from this [chalice]. This is my blood that from the New Testament [that was shed] for us and for all to be absolved of sins. Amen

In the early 20th century it was among the sacred attributes of the Church of St. Clement (older St. Theotokos Peribleptos) in Ohrid, Macedonia

51. LITURGICAL EMBROIDERY WITH ST. VIRGIN ORANS

Constantinople

1216 Red silk, linen lining, bullion 75 x 55 cm

Inscriptions in Greek: on either sides of the nimbus: MH[TH]P 0[E0]Y (Mother of God); on the frame: + O CAPKA AABON EE AnEIPANAPOY KOPHC / + TPOnOIC AOPACTOIC O 0[E0] Y n[A]TP[0]C AOTE, / + HN NYN OPOME[N ANOPQnOIC] [WPOKEIMENHN / + EIC ECTIACIN KAN nACI nAPAEIAN. / + AEEAI TO AOPON EK OEOAOPOY TOAE / + KOMNHNOAOYKA KAI AOYKAINHC M[APIAC] / + KOMNHNO0YOYC THC KAAHC CYZYHAC / + ANTIAIAOY AE WYXIKHN [COTHJPIAN +

Thou, Word of God, Father who was born in an inexpressible way from the unmarried Virgin, Thou belongest to people in order to feed them though none is worthy of that, accept this gift from Theodore Ducas and from his good wife Maria Ducaena Comnenogeneta and give them in return the salvation of the soul

Coming from the Curch of St. Sophia in Ohrid tour bulgaria, Macedonia

52. PROCESSIONAL CROSS

Constantinople 11th century Bronze

45 x 27 x 0,3 cm

Inscriptions in Greek: I(HCOT)C X(PHCTO) C NH – KA at the terminations of the arms, and MHXAHA next to Archangel Michael

Provenance unknown

53. THE PRESLAV TREASURE

The treasure was discovered in Kastana, a few kilometers northeast of Preslav. It is associated with the efflorescence of the Capital city of Tsar Symeon, between the late 9tk and early l(Tk cen-tury, Most probably it belonged to an aristocratic family and was buried in the fourth quarter of the 10th century when Knyaz Svetoslav of Kiev invaded Preslav twice before the town surrendered to Constantinople in 971.

The treasure had been accumulated in the course of years and consists mainly of jewelry as well as of some fragments of plates (of a rhyton), spoons and coins.

The objects are made of gold, silver and bronze, combined with colour enamel, precious stones, pearls and rock crystal. The decoration employs floral and geometrical patterns, images of mythological creatures from the Eastern tra-dition, and also images of birds peculiar of the Christian symbolism.

Before Vama

Some 18 km before Vama, is the Stone Forest — a semidesert area covered with yellow sand and groups of stone columns up to 6-7 m high. They are supposed to have been formed as a result of the action of the wind, water and sand, which eroded the softer rocks, leaving the hardei ones. Recently another group of stone trees was found near the village of Beloslav.

SOFIA – KARLOVO – KAZANLUK – MOUNT SHIPKA – SLIVEN – ROURGAS – SLUNCHEV BRYAG (440 km)

This route runs along one of Bulgaria’s most modem mo-torways, E-772, between the Balkan Range and Sredna Gora mountain towards the sea, crossing the famous Valley of Roses. The road climbs the Sarantsi saddle and Gulubets hill and then descends into Zlatitsa-Pirdop valley to the town of Srednogo- rie (pop. 15,800) which was founded in 1978 by merging the towns of Zlatitsa and Pirdop and has refineries for copper, blue vitriol, rare and white metals. 20 km south is the Pana- gyurski kolonii resort.

Bulgaria’s largest Coppermine (Medet) is nearby.

16 km from Srednogorie a detour leads to Koprivshtitsa (pop. 3,600) situated on both sides of the Topolnitsa River at an altitude of 1,060 m. Every street and every house here is a monument to the heroic past of this region. It was here that the first shot was fired on 20 April 1876 to mark the outbreak of the April Uprising against the Turks. Many historical and architectural monuments from the National Revival period have been preserved. The houses of Koprivshtitsa. are particularly interesting — higti spacious buildings with carved wooden decorations, solid stone walls and heavy wooden gates. The oldest architectural monument is the Pavlikenska House, early 18th century. Other buildings include craftsmen’s writers’and revolutionaries’houses. Koprivshtitsa was the first town liberated by the partisans on 24 March 1944.

Hotels: Koprivshtitsa, one star, tel. 21-18; Barikadite — (18 km southwest, 3 storeys, 30 beds, restaurant, night club and national taverna. Tel. 20-91).

The next stop along the E-772 isKlissoura (pop. 2,000) — a small mountainous town burnt down during the April 1876 Uprising. The village of Rozino follows, famous for its rose gardens and rose-distilleries. Next is Sopot (11,000), buried in greenery and steeped in the romanticism of the National Revival period. The patriarch of Bulgarian literature — Ivan Va- zov (1850-1921) was bom here and his birth place is now a museum of the National Revival Period, The Museum of Ivan Zagoubanski, courier for the underground Iskra newspaper published in Munich. Balkantourist hotel — Stara Planina — 2 stars, accommodating 84, restaurant. Tel.: 21-23 and 21-25.

Karlovo (pop. 26,000) is situated in the centre of the Valley of Roses and is an important transport junction. The town was well-known in Vienna and Egypt during the National Revival period, thanks to its trade with attar of roses and craftsmen’s goods. The revolutionary during liberation from Ottoman domination — Vassil Levski (1837-1873) was bom here and his birth place is now a museum sofia guided tours.

Koprivshtitsa. The monument to GeorgiBenkovski

Balkantourist hotel — Rozova Dolina, accommodating 105; a restaurant. Sofia hotel, a tourist hostel. The next town in the Valley of Roses is Kalofer (pop. 6,000), situated on both banks of the Toundja river, 17 km from Karlovo. It was founded in the 16th century, by refugees after the Ottoman invasion. It developed rapidly probably as a crafts centre. It is the birth place of the poet-revolutionary Hristo Botev (1848 -1876). Roza hotel 2 stars, 2 floors, 50 beds, a tourist hostel.

Further east 39 km from Kalofer is Kazanluk (pop. 58,0) , founded in the 15th century. It was known in the past only as a producer of attar of roses, but today it is an important industrial centre as well.

Temperate continental climate

Sofia has a temperate continental climate. Because of its comparatively high altitude, summer is moderately warm and autumn dry, warm and very pleasant. The mean temperature in Januaiy is —2.3° C and in June 20° C. Sofia lies on the same latitude as Dalmatia in Yugoslavia and Nice and Marseilles in France. As it is almost mid distance between the Black Sea and the Adriatic, between Belgrade and Tirana, between Athens and Istanbul, it is easy to see why the Slavs called it Sredets (centre). The central position has made Sofia an important junction, connecting for centuries East with West and the Adriatic and Central Europe with the Black Sea and the Aegean.

In ancient times Sofia was the centre of many thermal and mineral springs. In the town centre there are thermal mineral springs which probably played an important role in the settlement of ancient Thracian tribes in these parts. There are mineral springs with curative properties in the Ovcha Koupel, Gor- na Banya and Knyazhevo city districts daily tours istanbul, as well as in Pancharevo near Sofia.

Ancient settlements in Europe

Sofia is one of the most ancient settlements in Europe. Its history dates back 5,000 years, while the most recent archaeological excavations have yielded traces going back 7,000 years.

In the 8th-7th century B.C. the Thracian tribe Serdi settled here. They were later conquered by the Romans who gave it the name of Serdica (the town of the Serdi). Emperor 1 rayanus (98-117) expanded the settlement and named it Ulpia Serdica, and made it a town with an independent autonomous administration.

At the end of the 2nd century it was strongly fortified. In the fifth century the Balkans were overrun by the ‘ hordes of Attila the Hun who devastated the town. During the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian (527-565) the town was rebuilt and surrounded by strong walls and towers. In 819 it was conquered by troops of the Bulgarian Khan Kroum and was incorporated into the Bulgarian state. It was given the Slav name of Sredets. In the llth-12th century it was conquered by the Byzantines who named it Triaditsa. Late in the 14th century the Bulgarian King, Ivan Shishman issued a deed of conveyance for the property of the Dragalevtsi monastery in which the town is referrecTto as Sofia for the first time.

The Ottoman troops besieged the strongly fortified town for quite some time but did not succeed in capturing it until 1382. They set up an administrative centre here from where they ran the affairs of almost all their European possessions. At the beginning of the 19th century Sofia began to decline. In January 1878, when the Russian General Gurko entered Sofia with his troops, the town numbered only 20,000 people. On 22 March 1879 the Constituent Assembly in Veliko Tumovo declared Sofia the capital of the newly liberated Bulgarian state.

It began to grow and in 1939 had a population of 300,000. Although Sofia was heavily bombarded in 1944, it continued to be an important centre of anti-nazi acitivity. Many anu-fascists killed in street battles with the police. On 26th August 1944 the Bulgarian Communist Party called on the people of Bulgaria to rise and overthrow the rule of the fascist monarch. The first nine days of September 1944 are the iiistoric days for modern Bulgaria.

Day One. The Soviet liberation troops reach the Romanian-Bulgarian frontier. A decree by the Bulgarian Communist Party is broadcast over the clandestine Hristo Botev Radio Station declaring that the eleventh hour for Bulgaria had struck.

Day Two. The country is without a government. Premier Bagryanov resigns and is replaced by Mouraviev who tries to buy time.

Church of St. Sophia

Another building in Sofia, preserved from the end of the antique period, is the Church of St. Sophia of which further mention will be made. The excavations undertaken many years ago around, and pariicularly in the church itself, established that the present building, which is a vaulted basilica with a cupola, was built only in the 6th or 7th century A. D. on the site of two smaller 4th or 5th century churches, which had been consecutively destroyed by the invading Huns and Goths. This was a cemetery church situated outside the city walls. The floors of both the older churches were covered with beautiful mosaics. Numerous graves were found around the churches at the time, as well as masonry tombs, some of which were richly decorated with mural paintings. The necropolis is Early Christian and dates back to the 3th or 6th century. There are also graves of the 10th to 14th century.

Although very rarely, certain ancient buildings were preserved for a long time, and even up to the present day in certain other towns. Thus, for instance, even to this day the ruins of a big building, called the Roman tower, are to be seen in Varna; its walls bear traces of having been built and re-built many times at later dates. Passages of tremendous length now form deep basements beneath this building. It was probably a big public building or fortified palace of the 3rd century A. D. which was later partly destroyed, only parts of it being used in the Middle Ages and preserved to the present day travel bulgaria. In Plovdiv the remains of Trimontium’s (the Town of Three Hills) walls have been preserved on Djambaz Tepe; they show traces of extensive repairs at a later date. However, the walls of the former Roman city of Augustae — today known as Hissarya Spa near Levskigrad, are in the best state of preservation.

The southern city gate, known as the «Camels» impresses the approaching traveller with its colossal body, rising on the road leading to the town, although it has lost the two square towers that formerly flanked it, and its upper part. Its plan, and particularly its superstructure, with a tower in the centre, brings to mind the images of city gates found on the coins that were minted in the cities of Thrace and Moesia in the 2nd and 3rd centuries B. C Far more important ruins of the old Roman fortifications were preserved up to the 19th century at many places in the Bulgarian lands, particularly along the Danube. The ruins of Trajan’s Gate in the Ihtiman Pass were particularly imposing; however, as absolutely nothing was done to preserve these ruins before the Liberation from Ottoman bondage and in the years immediately following it, a large part of them was completely destroyed.

The town of Pomorie

One of the most interesting and massive monuments of funeral architecture in the period of Roman rule has been preserved under a mound near the town of Pomorie (ancient Anchialo). The tomb is distinguished both by its plan and its size, as well as by its construction and the original disposition of its space. It consists of a covered vaulted passage, 22 m., long, flanked on both sides by square chambers; the passage leads to the funeral chamber, which is round and has a diameter of 11.60 m., with a brick column in the centre, 3.5 m. in diameter, hollow on the inside with an opening on the south side opposite the passage, and at its top.

The space between the column and the walls of the tomb forms a ring-shaped corridor, 4.05m. wide, 5.50m. high, and semi-cylindrically vaulted, with the column supporting the inner side of the vault, and thus forming a funnel-shaped extension. The tomb is a real mausoleum. Despite the new manner of construction and the new architectural conception, certain elements of the architecture of the old Thracian cupola tombs have, nevertheless,, been preserved in it. The mausoleum may be dated back to the 4th century A. D.

BABA VIDA FORTRESS

Near the town of Vidin. One of the oldest Bulgarian towns, the successor of the Roman Bononia Vidin is today, as it was in the past, an important commercial centre and port. It is the centre of a rich viticultural region (you might just as well miss the place altogether if you don’t taste the Vidin Gumza wine). There is still another thing without which we can’t visualize Vidin: the mediaeval Baba Vida’s Fortress or Towers private tour guide ephesus. On the occasion of Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary, a ‘Shakespeariade’ was held in this mediaeval setting in which several Bulgarian theatre companies staged Shakespearean plays,using the walls and towers of the old fortress as a fitting decor.

Historically Baba Vida is associated with Pazvantoglou, a despot of the late 18th century and yet a man who had the good idea of replacing the crescent on his mosque with a … heart! Built in the 10th century by the Bulgarians over the remains of the north-eastern part of the Roman wall, the fortress took on its final appearance in the 12th-14th centuries. For the last time it was reconstructed in the 17th and 18th centuries. With its impressive towers and embrasures and with its museum of mediaeval weapons, the fortress represents an interesting tourist sight which attracts visitors from many countries.

What else can you see in Vidin: a park of rare beauty, a museum, and the murals of the St. Panteleimon and St. Petka Churches. The town has its own theatre, amateur opera and orchestra.-Vidin is connected by ferryboat with the Romanian town of Kalafat, and there are five roads and highways and one railway line leading to Sofia.

SHIPKA PASS AND MOUNT STOLETOV

Twelve kilometres from the town of Kazanluk, at the foot of the Balkan Range, rise the gilt domes of a splendid memorial church built to the memory of the soldiers who gave their life in the Russo-Turkish War of Liberation of 1877-1878. From here a good road leads to Mount Stoletov and to the granite monument which recalls to the coming generations the heroic deeds of the handful of Russian and Bulgarian defenders of the Shipka Pass against the army of Syuleiman’ Pasha, which numbered 35,OOO.The monument is 51 m tall and on its front side stands the sculpted figure of a lion, representing the Bulgarian people.

BELOGRADCHIK ROCKS

A unique freak of nature, this labyrinth of quaint rock for-mations is situated near the town of Belogradchik. For millions of years nature has worked to sculpt in the red limestone a wonderful world of figures, such as ‘Adam and Eve’, ‘The Schoolgirl’, ‘The Madonna’, ‘The Monks’…. At their foot lie the stone walls of the Belogradchik Fortress, which in its present form was completed in the 19th century on the foundations of a very old fortress (4th-6th and 13th-14th centuries).

In Belogradchik there is a Balkantourist hotel with restaurant, and nearby is the Madonna Camp Site. The town lies at the 162nd km of the road Sofia-Vidin, 52 km from Vidin, and 67 km from Mihailovgrad. 28 km from the town is the well- known Rabisha Cave.

Shaksperes

The way in which it all works into ordinary books is this. The compilers of dictionaries, catalogues, compendiums, vade-mecums, and the like, the writers of newspaper paragraphs and literary announcements, are not only a most industrious, but a most accurate and most alert, race of men. They are ever on the watch for the latest discovery, and the last special work on every conceivable topic.

It is not to be expected that they can go very deeply into each matter themselves; but the latest spelling, the last new commentary, or the newest literary ‘ find,’ is eminently the field of their peculiar work. To them, the man who has abolished the ‘ Battle of Hastings ’ as a popular error must know more about history than any man living; and so, the man who writes Shakspere has apparently the latest lights on the Elizabethan drama. Thus it comes that our ordinary style is rapidly infiltrated with Karls and JE If reds, and Senlacs, Qurans, and Shaksperes; till it becomes at last almost a kind of pedantry to object.

How foolish is the attempt to re-name Shakespeare him-self by the aid of manuscripts ! As every one knows, the name of Shakespeare may be found in contemporary documents in almost every possible form of the letters. Some of these are — Shakespeare, Schakespere, Schakespeire, Shakespeyre, Chacsper, Shakspere, Shakespere, Shakespeere, Shackspear, Shakeseper, Shackespeare, Saxspere, Shack- speere, Shaxeper, Shaxpere, Shaxper, Shaxpeer, Shaxspere, Shakspeare, Shakuspeare, Shakesper, Shaksper, Skackspere, Shakspyr, Shakspear, Shakspeyr, Shackspeare, Shaxkspere, Shackspeyr, Shaxpeare, Shakesphere, Sackesper, Shackspare turkey sightseeing, Shakspeere, Shaxpeare, Shakxsper; Shaxpere, Shakspeyr, Shagspur, and Shaxberd. Here are forty of the contemporary modes of spelling his name. Now are the facsimi- lists prepared to call the great poet of the world by whichever of these, as in a parish election, commands the majority of the written documents? So that, if we have at last to call our immortal bard, Chacsper, or Shaxper, or Shagspur, we must accept it; and in the mean time leave his name as variable as ever his contemporaries did?

Various ways

Shakespeare no doubt, like most persons in that age, wrote his name in various ways. The extant autographs differ; and the signature which is thought to be Shakspere, has been simply misread, and plainly shows another letter. The vast preponderance of evidence establishes that in the printed literature of his time his name was written — Shakespeare. In his first poems, Lucrece and Venus and Adonis, he placed Shakespeare on the title-page So it stands on the folios of 1623 and 1632.

So also it was spelled by his friends in their published works; Ben Jonson, by Bancroft, Bamefield, Willobie, Freeman, Davies, Meres, and Weever. It is certain that his name was pronounced Shake-spear (i.e., as *Shake ‘ and Spear’ were then pronounced) by his literary friends in London. This is shown by the punning lines of Ben Jonson, by those of Bancroft and others; by Greene’s allusion to him as the only Shake-scene; and, lastly, by the canting heraldry of the arms granted to his father in 1599: — ‘In a field of gould upon a bend sables a speare of the first: with crest a ffalcon supporting a speare.’

It is very probable that this grant of arms, about which Dethick, the Garter-King, was blamed and had to defend himself, practically settled the pronunciation as well as the spelling. It is probable that hitherto the family name had not been so spelt or so pronounced in Warwickshire. It is possible that Shake-speare was almost a nick-name, or a familiar stage-name; but, like Erasmus, Melancthon, or Voltaire, he who bore it carried it so into literature. For some centuries downwards, the immense concurrence of writers, English and foreign, has so accepted the name. A great majority of the commentators have adopted the same form: Dyce, Collier, Halliwell-Phillipps, Staunton, W. G. Clark. No one of the principal editors of the poet writes his name ‘Shakspere But so Mr. Furnivall decrees it shall be.

One would have thought so great a preponderance of literary practice need not be disturbed by one or two signatures in manuscript, even if they were perfectly distinct and quite uniform. Yet, such is the march of palaeographic purism, that our great poet is in imminent danger of being translated into Shakspere, and ultimately Shaxper.

Elective representation of the citizens

There was no real municipality, no true elective representation of the citizens. Certain officials, named by the Crown, professed to speak and to act in the name of the city. Civil and criminal justice was shared by various bodies under quite indefinite authority. The Chtelet absorbed in the seventeenth century no less than nineteen, baronial jurisdictions; but the Archbishopric and several abbeys retained their own distinct courts.

The Chatelet, the Hotel de Ville, the church, each divided Paris into distinct sets of local subdivisions. Taxation, public works, justice, police, markets, public health, even hospitals and charities, were under the control of different authorities, with no defined limits. Interminable disputes between the different authorities ensued. Of the streets, one in ten was a cul-de-sac. Although the area of Paris is now six or seven times greater than it was before the Revolution, and though the population is nearly four times as great, there are little more than twice as many houses. There were 30,000 beggars in Paris. Down to 1779 the ancient foundation of St. Louis, the Quinze-Vingts, held an immense area between the Louvre and the Palais Royal, blocking up both, as well as the Rue St.

Honoriand the Rue Richelieu. This enclosure, which was a privileged asylum, contained a population of from five to six thousand, not only licensed to beg, but bound to live by begging. It was not until 1786 that the cemetery and charnel-house of the Saints Innocents was suppressed. It is hardly credible that little more than a hundred years have passed since, in the densest quarter of Paris sightseeing turkey, long colonnades of grinning skulls and festering burying-grounds were standing where now we have the lovely fountain of Lescot and Goujon, transformed indeed, and almost more lovely in its transformation, in the centre of the bright and glowing square that recalls Verona or Genoa.

The Catholic faith

The censorship of all writings ‘contrary to law, to the Catholic faith, to public morals, or judicial prerogative/ opened a wide door for arbitrary power. In the years .immediately preceding the Revolution, the Parlement of Paris suppressed sixty-five works. One of these is condemned as tending ‘ d soulever les espritsl Another is condemned as a libel on Cagliostro! Sunday labour, eating meat in Lent, neglecting to dress the house-front on a religious procession, playing hazard, ‘speaking so as to alarm the public,’ are some of the grounds of a criminal sentence. The most revolting public executions were common in all parts of the city.

As if to accustom all to the sight of cruel punishments, some fifty places are recorded as the scenes of these horrible public exposures. The sentence sets out the details of these executions in all their hideous particulars. Ledit so-and-so shall be taken to Notre Dame, where his hand shall be chopped off, then taken on a cart to another place, where he shall be broken alive on a wheel, and so left ‘as long as it shall please God to prolong his life ’; then his body shall be burned and the ashes scattered to the winds. A workingman, for stealing some linen, is condemned to be hung on a gibbet and strangled by the public executioner. It was not till 1780 that preliminary torture of an accused person was abolished: torture as part of the sentence was retained till the Revolution. The personal punishments included the pillory, branding, flogging, maiming, strangling, breaking alive, and burning. This is how the ancient Monarchy prepared the people for the guillotine.

From Justinian to Isaac Comnenus

The fact is that, for the five centuries from Justinian to Isaac Comnenus, the attacks on the empire, from the European side, at any rate, were the attacks of nomad, unorganised, and uncivilised races on a civilised and highly- organised empire. And in spite of anarchy, corruption, and effeminacy at the Byzantine court, civilisation and wealth told in every contest. Greek fire, military science, enormous resources, and the prestige of empire always bore down wild valour and predatory enthusiasm. Just as Russia dominates the Turkoman tribes of Central Asia, as Turkey holds back the valiant Arabs of her eastern frontier, as Egyptian natives with British officers easily master the heroic Ghazis of the Soudan — so the Roman Empire on the Bosphorus beat back Huns, Avars, Persians, Slaves, Bulgarians, Patzinaks, and Russians. We need only to study the history of Russia and of Turkey to learn how the organising ability, the resources, and material arts of great empires outweigh folly, vice, and corruption in the palace.

4. Of course a succession of victorious campaigns implies a succession of valiant armies; and there is nothing on which we need more light than on the exact organisation and national constituents of those Roman armies which crushed Chosroes, Muaviah, Crumn, Samuel, and Hamdanids. They are called conventionally ‘Greeks’; but during the Heraclian, Isaurian ephesus daily tour, and Basilian dynasties there seem to have been no Greeks at all in the land forces. The armies were always composed of a strange collection of races, with different languages, arms, methods of fighting, and types of civilisation. They were often magnificent and courageous barbarians, conspicuous amongst whom were Scandinavians and English, and with them some of the most warlike braves of Asia and of Europe.

National characteristics

The empire made no attempt to destroy their national characteristics, to discourage their native language, religion, or habits. Each force was told off to the service which suited it best, and was trained in the use of its proper weapons. They remained distinct from each other, and wholly distinct from the civil population. But as they could not unite, they seldom became so great a danger to the empire as the Praetorian guard of the Roman army. The organisation and management of such a heterogeneous body of mercenary braves required extraordinary skill; but it was just this skill which the rulers of Byzantium possessed. The bond of the whole was the tradition of discipline and the consciousness of serving the Roman Emperor.

The modern history of Russia and still more the native armies of the British Empire will enable us to understand how the work ©f consolidation was effected. The Queen’s dominions are at this hour defended by men of almost every race, colour, language, religion, costume, and habits. And we may imagine the composite character of the Byzantine armies, if we reflect how distant wars are carried on in the name of Victoria by Hindoos, Musulmans, Pa- thans, Ghoorkas, Afghans, Egyptians, Soudanese, Zanzibaris, Negroes, Nubians, Zulus, Kaffirs, and West Indians, using their native languages, retaining their national habits, and, to a great extent, their native costume.

The Roman Empire was maintained from its centre on the Bosphorus, somewhat as the British Empire is maintained from its centre on the Thames, by wealth, maritime ascendency, the traditions of empire, and organising capacity — always with the great difference that there was no purely Roman nucleus as there is a purely British nucleus, and also that the soldiery of the Roman Empire had no common armament, and was not officered by men of the dominant race, but by capable leaders indifferently picked from any race, except the Latin or the Greek. Dominant race there was none; nation there was none. Roman meant subject of the Emperor; Emperor meant the chief in the vermilion buskins, installed in the Palace on the Bosphorus, and duly crowned by the Orthodox Patriarch in the Church of the Holy Wisdom.

Mount Pentelicus

Let every traveller hasten to reach the top of Mount Pentelicus. It is loftier than Snowdon; but it is only some twelve miles from Athens, a morning walk for the average hill-climber. In the hollow which seems to lie beneath our feet, as we gaze on the wonderful scene from the summit, the Acropolis, with the Parthenon and Propylaea portico, dominate the basin of Athens. It is easy to mark the Nyx where Themistocles and Pericles, Alcibiades and Demosthenes addressed the people; there is the agora where Socrates stood and questioned all who cared to answer; there is Mars’ Hill where Paul spoke to philosophers and idlers about the Unknown God.

One can almost make out the olive grove which still seems to mark the site of Plato’s Academy, and not far from it the knoll which marks Colon os, the birthplace of Sophocles, the scene of his exquisite drama of the exiled Oedipus. In the two hundred years that sever the age of Pisistratus from that of Demosthenes, what a harvest of genius in all forms of human power—in war, art, poetry, policy, philosophy — has been gathered from that little field, which from our mountain top looks like a few bare, barren, sunbaked acres ! What an outburst of human activity and invention in that dazzling light and purity of atmosphere, where, as their poet says, they passed their days ‘ in dainty delight, in most pellucid air,’ or as our own poet has said —

‘ Where, on the Mgean shore, a city stands Built nobly, pure the air and light the soil — ’

The atmosphere of Athens still seems to be light rather than air: its soil seems to be not earth, but the dust of white marble bulgaria trips.

Still standing on Pentelicus

Still standing on Pentelicus, we may see a little further Piraeus and the three ports beside the blue gulf, from whence some thousand fleets of triremes have set sail for all parts of the Mediterranean. And just across the thin streak of blue rises the island of Salamis. The water beneath it is the scene of the most famous sea-fight in history: beyond, the hills look down on the birthplace of Aischylus: in the distance rise up the crag of Acro- Corinth and the mountains of Argolis, Cithaeron, Helicon, Parnes, and Hymettus. To the west and south, half Greece can be outlined, or traced by its topmost peaks and distant islands. If we turn northwards, beneath our feet, an hour or two on foot below us, lies a quiet, drowsy plain along the sea-coast, sheltered by the vast ranges of Euboea.

That quiet, drowsy plain is Marathon, where Greeks first met the Mede in arms in the great day of the Athenian glory. The tumulus still to be seen was always known as the sepulcher of the Athenian warriors. Along the reedy shore Aischylus and his brothers fought in the desperate embarkation of the Persians. And in the northern distance we see the mountains which tower above Thermopylae. This union of magnificent scenery with so large a prospect over historic scenes, this vast panorama over the memorials of events commemorated in the greatest poetry and prose of the world, makes the view from Pentelicus live in the memory with that other prospect from the campanile of the Capitol at Rome.

Cleanliness and sanitary discipline

Health was a matter of religion, and it was vastly promoted by this, that cleanliness and sanitary discipline was a religious duty as well as an affair of personal pride. It remained a religious duty and a poetic sentiment after definite belief in local gods had become a mere convention or a phrase.

To defile the precincts of the city, and almost every open corner of it was consecrated to some deity or hero, was to outrage the powers of heaven or of earth; to cast refuse or sewage into a stream was to incur the wrath of some river-god; to pollute one of the city fountains was to offer sacrilege to some water-nymph. To bring disease into some public gathering was to insult the gods and demi-gods; to place the dead within the precincts of a temple, or to bury the dead within the city, or in contact with human habitations, to leave the dead or any human remains unburied or scattered about in public places and abandoned as carrion, would have seemed to a Greek or a Roman the last enormity of blasphemous horror.

To wash, to shampoo the skin daily, to trim and anoint the hair, to scour the clothes (and the Roman toga was made of white wool which needed endless scouring), to brush, paint, and limewash the walls and floors, to cleanse the public thoroughfares, to get rid of every form of uncleanness and refuse — this was a religious, social, domestic, and personal duty: to effect which were concentrated almost all the impulses that we know as obedience to the Deity, social decency, family pride, and the being a gentleman and a lady city tours istanbul.

A Greek who should have submitted to live in the bestial uncleanness, the fetid atmosphere, and the polluted water supply to which we condemn such masses of the labouring people of our vast cities, would have felt himself a rebel against the gods above, and an outcast from the fellowship of decent citizens. The Greek word for ‘gentleman’ is Kaxotcaaobs, which literally means the ‘beautiful and the good,’ and which, perhaps, came to mean in practice the clean and ‘the nice,’ as we say, gens comme ilfaitt, as the French say, ‘ the well-washed ’ and ‘ the respectable.’ No Greek could think himself ‘respectable’ or ‘nice,’ unless he were constantly scouring, scraping, washing, polishing, and anointing his person, his clothes, his house, and his utensils. And the women were almost as active as the men in the daily use of the bath.

Habit of bathing grew on the Romans

The habit of constant discussion and witnessing shows grew on the Greeks, as the habit of bathing grew on the Romans, until these things became a mania to which their lives were given up. Whole rivers were brought down from the mountains in aqueducts, and ultimately in the Roman empire the city population spent a large part of their day in the public baths — buildings as big as St. Paul’s Cathedral and of magnificent materials and adornment — where 5000 persons could meet and take their air- bath in what was club, play-ground, theatre, lecture-hall, and promenade at once.

Such was the classical religion of cleanliness, of which the Musulman has inherited some traditions, and of which Europe in our own generation is beginning to revive the practice. The excess of this skin deep purification of the body led to a melancholy reaction, when Christianity denounced it as sinful, and reconsecrated Dirt, the natural state of primitive man; until at last in the ages of faith we had uncleanness of the body regarded as the purity of the soul, and a man was exalted to be saint when he was found to have made himself a mass of vermin.