Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators — Themes and Context

Schliemann was thirty-eight years old he was worth half a million dollars; and instead of making his big business still bigger, he was studying Greek. It was a woman and Eros taught Schliemann Greek, and this was so letters could be written--dictated by Eros, who they do say is an awful dictator--that would not be easily construed by Hoosier "hoi polloi." Together the woman and Schliemann studied the history of Hellas.

About the year Eighteen Hundred Sixty-eight Schliemann turned all of his Indiana property into cash; and in April, Eighteen Hundred Seventy, he was digging in the hill of Hissarlik, Troad. The same faculty of thoroughness, and the ability to captain a large business--managing men to his own advantage, and theirs--made his work in Greece a success. Schliemann's discoveries at Mount Athos, Mycenae, Ithaca and Tiryns turned a searchlight upon prehistoric Hellas and revolutionized prevailing ideas concerning the rise and the development of Greek Art.

His Trojan treasures were presented to the city of Berlin. Had Schliemann given his priceless findings to Indianapolis, it would have made that city a Sacred Mecca for all the Western World--set it apart, and caused James Whitcomb Riley to be a mere side-show, inept, inconsequent, immaterial and insignificant. But alas! Indianapolis never knew Schliemann when he lived there--they thought he was a Dutch Grocer! And all the honors went to Benjamin Harrison, Governor Morton and Thomas A. Hendricks.

If the Indiana Novelists would cease their dalliance with Dame Fiction and turn to Truth, writing a simple record of the life of Schliemann, it would eclipse in strangeness all the Knighthoods that ever were in Flower, and Ben Hur would get the flag in his Crawfordsville chariot-race for fame.

Berlin gave the freedom of the city to Schliemann; the Emperor of Germany bestowed on him a Knighthood; the University voted him a Ph. D.; Heidelberg made him a D. C. L.; and Saint Petersburg followed with an LL. D.

The value of the treasure, now in the Berlin Museum, found by Schliemann exceeds by far the value of the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum.

We know, and have always known, who built the Parthenon and crowned the Acropolis; but not until Schliemann had by faith and good works removed the mountain of Hissarlik, did we know that the Troy, of which blind Homer sang, was not a figment of the poet's brain.

Schliemann showed us that a thousand years before the age of Pericles there was a civilization almost as great. Aye! more than this--he showed us that the ancient city of Troy was built upon the ruins of a city that throve and pulsed with life and pride, a thousand years or more before Thetis, the mother of Achilles, held her baby by the heel and dipped him in the River Styx.

Schliemann passed to the Realm of Shade in Eighteen Hundred Ninety, and is buried at Athens, in the Ceramicus, in a grave excavated by his own hands in a search for the grave of Pericles.

Pericles lived nearly twenty-five centuries ago. The years of his life were sixty-six--during the last thirty-one of which, by popular acclaim, he was the "First Citizen of Athens." The age in which he lived is called the Age of Pericles.

Shakespeare died less than three hundred years ago, and although he lived in a writing age, and every decade since has seen a plethora of writing men, yet writing men are now bandying words as to whether he lived at all.

Between us and Pericles lie a thousand years of night, when styli were stilled, pens forgotten, chisels thrown aside, brushes were useless, and oratory was silent, dumb. Yet we know the man Pericles quite as well as the popular mind knows George Washington, who lived but yesterday, and with whom myth and fable have already played their part.

Thucydides, a contemporary of Pericles, who outlived him by nearly half a century, wrote his life. Fortunately, Thucydides was big enough himself to take the measure of a great man. At least seven other contemporaries, whose works we have in part, wrote also of the First Citizen.

To Plutarch are we indebted for much of our knowledge of Pericles, and fortunately we are in position to verify most of Plutarch's gossipy chronicles.