DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4593#0186
164 THE ISLES AND SHRINES OF GREECE
ing is more curious at first than to find modern
thought and events expressed in such archaic forms.
These are not make-believe newspapers. The people
are reading them. You step into the Boule and hear
legislative debates in the same tongue. You have
been used, however, to studying Greek with the eye,
not with the ear, and at first the modern pronun-
ciation is so strange that the language seems more
barbarian than Greek. When accent and emphasis
have become as familiar to the ear as the characters
are to the eye, then the old Greek seems to be
exuberantly alive, and after you have heard a finished
oration by Trikoupes, a sermon by the Archbishop,
a harangue by a carnival comedian in the Agora, a
recitation in the school, you become so thoroughly
Hellenized, and so saturated with antiquity, that you
would not be surprised to meet Socrates in the
Agora, Paul upon the Areopagus, Pericles coming
down from the Acropolis, or to happen on Diogenes
packed in his tub.
In a corner of the Odeion of Herodes Atticus is
an enormous earthenware wine jar, a vessel which still
goes by its ancient name of pithos. One day, as Pro-
fessor Dorpfeld was concluding his lecture to a group
of archaeologists in the ruins of the old theatre, they
were suddenly startled by seeing a head thrust out of
the jar which lay on its'side. Then shoulders, body
and legs slowly emerged. Inquiry showed that a
half-witted man, driven about by the persecutions of
a rabble of boys, had taken refuge in the old wine jar
and had lived there most of the time for two weeks.
A kind woman had brought him food and covered
the mouth of the jar with a curtain. The poor
ing is more curious at first than to find modern
thought and events expressed in such archaic forms.
These are not make-believe newspapers. The people
are reading them. You step into the Boule and hear
legislative debates in the same tongue. You have
been used, however, to studying Greek with the eye,
not with the ear, and at first the modern pronun-
ciation is so strange that the language seems more
barbarian than Greek. When accent and emphasis
have become as familiar to the ear as the characters
are to the eye, then the old Greek seems to be
exuberantly alive, and after you have heard a finished
oration by Trikoupes, a sermon by the Archbishop,
a harangue by a carnival comedian in the Agora, a
recitation in the school, you become so thoroughly
Hellenized, and so saturated with antiquity, that you
would not be surprised to meet Socrates in the
Agora, Paul upon the Areopagus, Pericles coming
down from the Acropolis, or to happen on Diogenes
packed in his tub.
In a corner of the Odeion of Herodes Atticus is
an enormous earthenware wine jar, a vessel which still
goes by its ancient name of pithos. One day, as Pro-
fessor Dorpfeld was concluding his lecture to a group
of archaeologists in the ruins of the old theatre, they
were suddenly startled by seeing a head thrust out of
the jar which lay on its'side. Then shoulders, body
and legs slowly emerged. Inquiry showed that a
half-witted man, driven about by the persecutions of
a rabble of boys, had taken refuge in the old wine jar
and had lived there most of the time for two weeks.
A kind woman had brought him food and covered
the mouth of the jar with a curtain. The poor