Part 3

The more marked features on the surface of the land have from early times awakened the curiosity and stimulated the imagination of men. Mountainous regions with their peaks and crests, where cloud and tempest find a home, their rugged scarps of cliff and crag, whence landslips sweep down into the valleys, their snows and frosts, their floods and avalanches, their oft-repeated and too frequently disastrous shocks of earthquake, supply the most striking illustrations of this relation of the external world. Yet while it is from these elevated parts of the earth's surface, where the activities of nature seem to beat with a more rapid pulse, that the human imagination has been more especially stimulated, even among the comparatively featureless lowlands the influence of outer things, though less potent, may be distinctly traced. Wherever, for instance, the monotony of a lowland landscape is broken by an occasional oddly-shaped hill, by a conspicuous grassy mound, by a group of prominent boulders, by a cauldron-shaped hollow, or by a river chasm, we may expect to find that these diversities of scenery have from time immemorial arrested attention.

Whatever departs from ordinary usage and experience prompts, even among the rudest people, a desire for explanation. The more striking elements of topography accordingly aroused the curiosity of the earliest races who came to dwell among them, and to whom, in the infancy of the world, the forces of nature were more or less mysterious. These forces were then looked upon as visible manifestations of the agency of superior beings, whose conflicts or co-operation were held to account for the changes of external nature. Thus, by a system of personification that varied from clime to clime, primeval mankind surrounded itself with invisible deities, to each of whom some special function in the general government and progress of the world was assigned.

Hence the problems presented by the more impressive details of the scenery of the earth's surface were in truth among the earliest with which the human race began to deal. If we try to discover how they were first approached, and how their treatment varied, not only with peculiarities of race and national temperament, but with conditions of climate and variations of topography, we are led backward into the study of some of the most venerable efforts of the human imagination, which, though now in large measure faded or vanished, may yet be in some slight degree recovered from the oldest mythologies and superstitions. In many of the earlier myths we may recognise primitive attempts to account for some of the more prominent features of landscape or of climate. And as we trace the variations of these legends from country to country, we learn how much their changes of dress have arisen from local peculiarities of environment.

Of the earlier interpretations of nature, some may be partially restored from a comparison of ancient myth and superstition with the physical characters of the regions wherein these legends took their rise, or where, at least, they assumed the forms in which they have been transmitted to later ages. Others have survived in place-names which, still in common use, connect our own generation with the days of our ancestors.

In pursuing the investigation of this subject we soon perceive that the supernatural interpretations, and the tendency to personification which led to them, began eventually to be supplanted by natural explanations founded on actual observation of the outer world, and that this change of view, commencing first with the few observant men or philosophers, made considerable way among even the ordinary populace, long before the decay of the mythological systems or superstitions of which these primeval supernatural interpretations formed a characteristic part. The growth of the naturalistic spirit was exceedingly slow, and for many centuries was coeval with the continued vigorous life of religious beliefs which accounted for many natural events as evidence of the operations of supernatural beings.

Those features of the outer world which most attract attention were the first that appealed to the observing faculty of mankind. Among them the elements of topography obviously hold a foremost place, including, as they do, the most frequent and impressive manifestations of those natural agencies whereby the surface of the land is constantly modified. It was impossible that after men had begun to observe, and to connect effects with causes, they should refrain from referring the resultant changes of landscape to the working of the natural processes that were seen or inferred to produce them. They were led to trace this connection even while their religious belief or superstition remained hardly impaired. The conclusions thus popularly reached were sometimes far from correct, but inasmuch as they substituted natural for supernatural causes, they undoubtedly marked a distinct forward step in the intellectual development of man.

From that time onward the influence of scenery on the human imagination took a different course. The gods were dethroned, and the invisible spirits of nature no longer found worshippers; but it was impossible that the natural features which had prompted the primeval beliefs should cease to exercise a potent influence on the minds of men. This influence has varied in degree and in character from generation to generation, as we may see by comparing its place in the literature of successive periods. Probably at no time has it been more potent than it is at the present day.

To discuss fully this wide subject would demand far more space than can be given to it here. I propose, therefore, to select two portions of it only; one from the beginning and the other from the end of its historical development. I shall try to show first, by reference to primitive myth and legend what were the earliest and most obvious effects of prominent elements of topography on the imagination, and secondly, what these effects are or should be now in the midst of modern science and universal education.

The mythology of Ancient Greece supplies many illustrations of the way in which the physical aspects of the land have impressed their character on the religious beliefs and superstitions of a people. The surface of that country is almost everywhere rugged, rising into groups of bare, rocky hills and into chains of lofty mountains which separate and enclose isolated plains and valleys. The climate embraces all the softness of the Mediterranean shores, together with the year-long snows and frosts of Olympus on the one hand, and the almost sub-tropical heat of the lowlands of Attica on the other. The clouds and rains of the mountains have draped the slopes with umbrageous forests, and have spread over the plains a fertile soil which has been cultivated since before the dawn of history. Thus, while a luxuriant vegetation clothes the lower grounds with beauty, bare crags and crests are never far away. The soft and the harsh of nature, the soothing and the repulsive, are placed side by side. The indolence begotten of a teeming soil and sunny clime is quickened by proximity to the stern mountain-world--the home of thunder-clouds, tempests, and earthquakes. In the childhood of mankind, the physical features of such a country could not fail to react powerfully upon the imagination of those who dwelt among them, calling forth visions of grace and beauty, and at the same time imparting to these visions a variety and vigour which would hardly have been developed among the dwellers on monotonous plains. The natural influence of scenery and climate like those of Greece upon the imagination of a race endowed with a large share of the poetic faculty has never been more forcibly or gracefully expressed than by our own Wordsworth, in a well-known passage in the fourth book of his _Excursion_.

With the source of the early Hellenic myths we are not so much concerned in the present inquiry as with the form in which they have reached us. Whether they arose in Greece, or, having been brought from some other home, received their final shape there, is of less moment than the actual guise in which we find them in the earliest Greek literature. There cannot, I think, be any doubt that to the striking topography of Thessaly they are largely indebted for the dress in which they appear in the poems of Homer and Hesiod. We may recognise among them some of the earliest recorded efforts of the human imagination to interpret the aspects of nature, and these aspects were unmistakably such as presented themselves in that particular portion of the ancient world.

The wide Thessalian plain, the largest area of lowland in Greece, lies upon Cretaceous and Tertiary rocks, which, in the lower parts of the region, are overlain with a level tract of alluvial soil. Round this plain stretches a girdle of lofty and imposing mountains, composed chiefly of hard crystalline schists and limestones. On the north the crags and snowy crests of Olympus rise high and bare above the dense forests that clothe their slopes. To the eastward, above the narrow chasm of Tempe, through which the drainage of the great inland basin escapes to the sea, the grey peak of Ossa forms the northern end of a long chain of heights which, farther south, mount into the ridge of Pelion. Along the southern edge of the plain another vast mountain barrier sweeps eastward from Mount Pindus through the lofty chain of Othrys to the sea.

No other part of Greece presents such diversities of topography and of climate as are to be found within the region thus encircled with mountains. The peaceful beauty and spontaneous fertility of the plain offer an impressive contrast to the barren ruggedness of the surrounding heights. High above the gardens, meadows, and corn-fields, sharply-cut walls and pinnacles of white limestone mount out of the thick woodland into the clear upper air. Nor is evidence wanting of those catastrophes which from time to time convulse a mountain region. At the base of the bare cliffs and down the rocky declivities lie huge blocks of stone that have been detached by the weather from the precipices above. And, doubtless, from time immemorial the dwellers on these slopes have been familiar with the crash and tumult of the landslip, and with the havoc wrought by it on forest and field. Along the mountain-ridges, too, clouds are ever gathering, and thunderstorms are of continual recurrence. The lightnings of Olympus are visible from Othrys, and to the inhabitants of the intervening plain the incessant peals and reverberations from the northern and southern ranges might well sound like shouts of mutual defiance from the two lines of lofty rampart, as where, in a more northern clime

"Jura answers from her misty shroud Back to the joyous Alps that call to her aloud."

If to these daily or frequently returning meteorological phenomena we add the terrors of occasional earthquakes, such as affect most mountainous countries and are known to have convulsed different parts of Greece within historic times, we perceive how favourable the conditions of environment must have been for exciting the imagination of an impressionable people. Whether, therefore, the early Hellenic myths arose in Hellas, or came from elsewhere, they could hardly fail in the end to betray the influence of the surroundings amid which they were handed down from generation to generation. The snowy summits of Olympus, rising serenely above the shifting clouds into the calm, clear, blue heaven, naturally came to be regarded as the fit abode of the gods who ruled the world. The association of that mountain-top with the dwelling-place of the immortals, first suggested to the imagination of the early settlers in Thessaly, passed outwards to the utmost bounds of the Hellenic world. Everywhere the word Olympus came to be synonymous with heaven itself.

In the myth of the Gods and the Titans, as handed down in early Greek poetry, the influence of Thessalian topography is abundantly conspicuous. The two opposite mountain ranges of Olympus and Othrys became the respective strongholds of the opposing hosts. The convulsions of that ten years' struggle, whether suggested or not by the broken features of the ground and the conflicts of the elements, assuredly took their poetic colouring from them. The riven crags piled in confusion one above another, the rock-strewn slopes, the trees uprooted by landslips, the thunder-peals that resound from the misty mountain-chains, seem still to tell of that primeval belief, wherein the Titans were pictured as striving with frantic efforts to scale the heights of Olympus by piling Ossa on Pelion, hurling huge rocks and trees through the darkened air, and answering the thunderbolts of Zeus with fierce peals from the clouds of their lofty citadel. In the magnificent description of Hesiod, beneath all the supernatural turmoil we catch, as it were, the tumult of a wild storm among the Thessalian hills, with such added horrors as might be suggested to the imagination of the poet from the recollection or tradition of former earthquake or volcanic eruption.

Long after the time of the primitive mythology, the more striking features of the land continued to appeal to the Hellenic imagination and to perpetuate the prowess of gods and heroes, even down to generations of men among whom belief in these legends was already beginning to grow dim. The narrow gorge of Tempe may be cited in illustration of this influence. Cleft between the precipices of Olympus and Ossa, and serving as the only outlet for the drainage of the wide Thessalian plain, this chasm must have arrested the attention of the earliest settlers, and certainly continued for many centuries to be one of the most noted valleys of the Old World. The contrast between the vast level plain through which the River Peneius and its tributaries wander, and the narrow gorge through which the accumulated waters issue; the apparently insurmountable barrier interposed across the course of the stream; the singular and unexpected ravine by which the drainage is allowed to escape to the sea; the naked, fissured walls of white limestone on either side of the narrow pass, even now powerfully impress the observant traveller of to-day.

These striking features could not fail to appeal to the imagination of the old Greek. From early times it was recognised that the plain of Thessaly had once been covered with a sheet of water, of which the remaining portions formed two considerable lakes. Had no passage been opened for the outflow of the drainage across the barrier of mountains the plain would have remained submerged. The cleaving of a chasm whereby the pent-up waters were allowed to flow down to the sea, and thus to lay bare so wide an area of rich land for human occupation, was looked on as the work of some benevolent power, and naturally came to be associated with the name of Poseidon, the God of the Sea.[8] In later times, when the deeds of gods and heroes began to be confounded with each other, the supernatural character of the Vale of Tempe was still acknowledged; but the opening of the cleft was in course of time transferred to Hercules, who, by cutting a hollow across the ridge, allowed the stagnant waters of the interior to flow off into the sea.[9]

Prominent hills and crags in other parts of Greece gave rise to legends, or became the localised scenes of myths which had floated down from an older time, and sometimes perhaps from another birthplace. Thus the hill Lycabettus, that stands so picturesquely on the north-east of Athens, suggested to the lively fancy of the early Athenians a record of the prowess of their patron-goddess. When Athene, so the legend ran, was founding their state and wished to strengthen the city, she went out to Pallene, a demos lying to the north-eastward, and procured there a great hill which she meant to place as a bulwark in front of the Acropolis, but on her way back, hearing from a crow of the birth of Erichthonius, she dropped the hill, which has remained on the same spot ever since. Legends of this kind, but varying in dress with local topography and national temperament, may be found all over the world.

To the early Greeks the West was a region of marvels. It lay on the outermost bounds of the known world, where the sun descended beneath the earth and where Atlas supported the vault of Heaven. By degrees as the spirit of colonisation drew men in that direction, the occidental marvels of the first voyagers faded away before a more accurate knowledge of the Mediterranean shores. But the legends to which they had given rise remained in the popular mythology, and served as subjects for chroniclers and poets.

Thus the two singular masses of rock in which, at Gibraltar and Ceuta, the European and African continents respectively terminate, and which form, on each side of an intervening strait, only some seventeen miles wide, a kind of gateway for the vast Mediterranean basin, naturally fixed the attention of the early navigators on those distant waters, and filled a prominent place among the travellers' tales from the remote West. They took their part in the myths, becoming the 'pillars of Hercules,' that were erected by this legendary explorer and knight-errant as an eternal record of his labours and of the ultimate limit of his wanderings. The details of the story vary. By some narrators the hero was represented as having narrowed and shallowed the strait, and built his pillars on the two sides to keep the huge monsters of the outer ocean from entering the Mediterranean sea. By others he was believed to have actually excavated the strait itself, and by thus separating Europe and Africa, previously joined together, to have allowed the waters of the ocean and those of the inner sea to mingle.[10]

In a mountainous country, where the streams, swollen by sudden or heavy rains, sweep down much detritus into the valleys and plains, the great changes of topography thereby produced impress the imagination and dwell in the memory of the inhabitants. In Greece, the myths that gathered round the Achelous--the largest and most famous river in the country--probably arose, as Strabo showed, from the varying operations of the stream itself. The stories of the river-god assuming the form of a bull and of a serpent, his contests with Hercules, and the loss of his horn, are obviously only personifications of a rapid stream, rushing impetuously from its mountainous birthplace and winding in twisted curves across the plain; now strewing the meadows with gravel, now curbed by the laborious construction of embankments, and now bursting forth again to resume its old wayward course.[11] The river still retains the character which prompted its ancient legends. It is now called the Aspropotamo or white river, from the abundance of white silt suspended in its water and lying on its bed. While in winter, fed by the rains and melting snows of distant Pindus, it often fills its channel from bank to bank, it shrinks in summer into a number of lesser streams, which wind about in a broad gravelly channel.

In the myths that grew round other rivers of ancient Greece, we may recognise similar early attempts to account for striking features of local typography. When, for instance, Hercules is fabled to have barred back the river Cephissus and to have submerged and destroyed the country about Orchomenos in Bœotia,[12] we may doubtless recognise the traditional record of some prehistoric inundation, perhaps an abnormal rise of the singularly variable Lake Copais, whereby a large tract of land was flooded; possibly even an attempt to account for the lake itself.

But there was one physical feature which, more than any other, must have impressed the imagination of the dwellers by the Mediterranean shores; and that was furnished by the volcanic phenomena so characteristic of the great depression between Europe and Africa. Among the islands of the Ægean sea, some were continually smoking; others retained, in their cindery cones and ashy slopes, the memorials of subterranean fires not long extinguished. From time to time actual eruptions broke forth, with their accompaniments of convulsion and terror. We know from geological evidence that one of the most violent volcanic explosions which have affected the Mediterranean basin took place where now is the island of Santorin, after the original site was inhabited by a civilised people.[13] A conical volcanic mountain--an eastern Vesuvius or Etna--stood on that site, but in some prehistoric age it was blown into the air, as happened at Krakatoa in August, 1883, only portions of the base of the cone being left to form the present semi-circular ring of islands. Whether this stupendous catastrophe occurred after the Hellenic race appeared in the Ægean area has not been determined. But the tradition of it may have lingered in the district, down to the time when, about two hundred years B.C., a new volcano rose from the sea in the centre of this group of islands. Another marked eruption occurred in the year 46 B.C. Even in our own day, this ancient vent has shown renewed activity, fresh eruptions have taken place from the middle of the engulphed crater, and another central volcanic cone is gradually rising there.

The Greeks, thus accustomed to volcanic phenomena among their own islands, were prepared to accept the stories, brought to them from the remote West, of far more colossal volcanoes, and more gigantic and continuous eruptions. Like the accounts of other physical phenomena imported from that distant and half mythical region, the tales of the volcanoes were no doubt at first more or less exaggerated. The adventurous voyagers who, sailing as far as Sicily and the Æolian Islands, saw the noble snow-capped cone of Etna, loftier than the mountains of Hellas, yet emitting smoke by day and a glare of fire by night; who watched Stromboli continually in eruption; who perchance beheld the land convulsed with earthquakes, the air darkened with volcanic dust, the sea covered with floating cinders, and who only with much effort were able to steer their vessels into opener water, would bear eastward with them such tales of horror as would not fail to confirm and increase the popular belief in the national mythology, and might even suggest new myths or new versions of those already current. The greater size and vigour of the volcanoes would tend to create the impression that other characteristics of the region were on a similarly exaggerated scale. Sicily was accordingly believed in Homeric times to be the home of a gigantic race of shepherds--the Cyclops.

It is obvious how the legend arose of the hundred-armed giant Typhœus or Enceladus, who was fabled to lie buried beneath the region between Etna and the Phlegræan Fields. The belching of the volcano suggested to the popular imagination, which so loved to personify the powers of nature, the gasping of an imprisoned monster. The tremors so constantly affecting the islands were his quiverings as he lay on his uneasy, burning bed, and the earthquakes that from time to time shook the region marked how he tried now and again to shift his position there.