Schliemann 1- 30   Schliemann 30-60   Schliemann 60-90   Schliemann 90-120   Schliemann 120-150  Schliemann 150-180   Schliemann 180 – 210   Schliemann 210 – 240   Schliemann 240 – 270  Schliemann 270 – End

two in Munich. At Florence, after again insisting on a day to herself, Sophia so pleased Heinrich with her intelligent questions about architecture that he described her as “remarkably quick to learn.” She liked Venice in spite of its waterways and wrote, more in astonishment than aversion, that travel was in small boats through canals and “there are no carriages at all.” In Munich the Schliemanns did a whirlwind tour of museums, and Heinrich bought for Sophia a collection of luxurious lingerie that she felt was too beautiful and expensive for underwear.

Boarding a train for France, they were both in high spirits at the prospect of being settled in their home. Heinrich looked forward to the resumption of his archaeological planning, and Sophia yearned for rest and the comforts of a normal routine in Paris. The name Paris conjured up an enchanted city, but it did not materialize as magic for the child bride.

Now in ruins, Engastromenos’ country home at Colonos stands in Mektios Square surrounded by bus stand and kiosk, vegetable carts, stores, and cafes. Large trees were planted by Sophia’s father a few years before her marriage.

(LYNN POOLE) (PHOTOCOPY BY LYNN POOLE) (LYNN POOLE)

Two icons of Saint Meletios a life-size painting and a small portrait of hammered silver decorated the old church during the Schliemann wedding and are now in the new church.

St. M’eletios Church as it was on September 23, 1869, the day Sophia and Heinrich were married. The church, which adjoined the Engastromenos’ country home, has since been demolished and a new one erected in its place.

General Melas photographed in the excavated Agora in Athens, with the site of Ms grandmother’s ancestral home in immediate background. The Temple of Theseus on the hill could be seen from the garden of the family’s town house.

(LYNN POOLE) (COURTESY: ALEX L. MELAS)

Immediately after the ceremony the Schliemanns posed for a typical wedding picture, then joined guests for reception. Sophia’s large family accompanied bride and groom to the Piraeus, where they
boarded S.S. Aphrodite for Sicily, first stop of a three-week honey moon trip.

After an exhausting honeymoon of sightseeing, Heinrich installed his bride at 6, Place St. Michel, his elaborate Paris home. Here young Sophia, as hostess, charmed both her husband’s scholar friends and the city’s haut monde with her wit and beauty.

(LYNN POOLE) (COURTESY : ALEX L. MELAS)

FOUR

Home was hours away for Sophia when she reached Paris because Heinrich, not content to permit her a fleeting first impression of the city, guided her on an immediate tour of instruction. At his order, two carriages filled with their luggage were dispatched from the station to the Schliemann house. A third
carriage in which Heinrich and Sophia rode followed a circuitous route, leading from one historic site to another. Heinrich was determined to provide Sophia “with learning and required graces” as quickly as possible.

The carriage clattered along the Rue de la Paix and stopped in the Place Vendome, where Heinrich stepped down and restrained Sophia from jumping out. Speaking softly, he told her how a Parisian lady should descend from that type of carriage, with the left foot placed on the first metal step, then the right foot on the second. Demonstrating, Heinrich explained how her hand should be extended to the person assisting her, and in what position she should gather up her cloak and skirt. When Sophia performed the maneuver with elegance, he nodded in approval. Side by side they promenaded in the imposing octagonal area named for the palace of the Due de Vendome, son of Henri IV of France. Heinrich, rapidly recounting the history of the column at the center of the Place Vendome, left out no detail from its erection in 1708 on plans of the architect Mansart, through alterations made by Louis
XIV, Napoleon I, and later by rabid Royalists Louis Philippe and Napoleon III, who even then was considering the replacement of the column with another.

Returning to the carriage, the Schliemanns rode down the Rue de Castiglione, turning left onto the Rue de Rivoli ; and Heinrich, after outlining changes made through the years in the Tuileries Garden to their right, had the driver halt at the mediocre bronze statue of Joan of Arc in the tiny Place de Rivoli. Without leaving the carriage, Heinrich jabbed his cane toward the equestrian Joan,

[36]

reciting passages from Homer that seemed to link the girl saint with Helen of Troy, a tenuous association that defied elaboration. The carriage moved on toward the River Seine and stopped, the
front of the Louvre to its left and the Carrousel Arch to its right. The Schliemanns descended from the carriage, and Heinrich expounded on the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel.

The arch, erected by Napoleon I, was modeled on the Roman Arch of Severus “which you now remember well, my beloved Sophithion.” The structure of Corinthian columns had three arches topped by bronze capitals supporting marble statues of Napoleon’s soldiers, and Heinrich pointed out which achievements of the Little Emperor and his armies were commemorated in the marble reliefs. Repeatedly stressing the small size of Napoleon I, Heinrich noted how much a little man could accomplish through intelligence and a driving passion.

Walking backward as he talked, he gestured up at a bronze quadriga and reminded the dazed Sophia of the four-horse chariot they had seen atop St. Mark’s in Venice. That one had once crowned the Carrousel, but was returned to Venice in 1814 by Emperor Francis. By order of Louis XVIII, the quadriga they were looking at had been designed by Bosio.

Reeling from the spate of dates and data, Sophia nonetheless retained what she heard, because every detail was included in a letter to her family. The nightmare of her first tour of Paris was unforgettable since she “wanted merely to reach my unknown future home and rest.”

That rest was to be further delayed by Heinrich’s discourse on the Louvre, its name originating from the Louverie, an ancient hunting chateau situated in a forest filled with wolves. Heinrich gave the Louvre’s history, decade by decade, commenting on additions made by successive rulers until the single museum, a composite of many, had become the most famous edifice in all Paris.

They continued their slow-paced ride, and Heinrich, with the unceasing volubility of a tour guide, pointed out even the minor sights along the right bank of the Seine. Then apparently eager to reach home, he merely touched on the history of the Place du Chatelet and instructed the driver to turn right across the lie dela Cite.

Sophia brightened when she recognized the Cathedral of Notre

[37]

Dame, which she knew about from pictures and textbooks. Softly she asked Heinrich if they might go into the holy place but he, intent on reaching their destination, apparently did not hear her. The carriage, moving faster, shortly swept into Place St. Michel, opening in curving splendor from the left bank of the Seine.

The carriage slowed and stopped. Heinrich, with agility, jumped out ; but Sophia sat staring with wonderment at the great houses, their walls touching, standing side by side. She scanned the house numbered “6” with its massive double doors of fine-grained oak heavily carved, a large bronze knocker centered on the right panel. Above the fanlight there was a cameo face that might be Zeus or Dionysos. The facade was hung with elaborate marble balconies, the kind seen in Athens only on the homes of royalty and the very rich.

Gently nudged by Heinrich, Sophia slowly rose and stepped from the carriage in the manner she had just been taught was proper in Paris. The giant doors of 6, Place St. Michel opened wide, and Dr. and Mrs. Heinrich Schliemann were welcomed home by smiling servants. Crossing the threshold, Sophia entered a new world for which she was ill prepared.

She, who had been impressed by the handsome exterior of the house, was overwhelmed by the elegance of its interior. The entrance-hall floor, a stark pattern of black and white marble, shone from recent polishing. White walls were shadowed by carved pilasters, and the ceiling beams and cornices were decorated with pseudo-Hellenic designs. Heinrich and Sophia mounted a curving staircase leading to the upper stories. On the third level they reached their own spacious suite of sleeping quarters, dressing rooms, and Heinrich’s study.

He led Sophia through her bedroom and flung open French doors onto a balcony. Carriages rattled below and wagons rumbled. Sunset was reflecting on buildings across Place St. Michel. With sensitivity Heinrich, the man of dichotomous nature, held Sophia tight and, voice emotional, told her of the glories they would share, of the dream that together they would make come true. Briefly she clung to him and then, pulling back, looked deep into his eyes, as if to penetrate his very soul. She wrote to her family that at that moment she realized for the first time the strength, the power and the inherent tenderness of the man who was her husband.

[38]

Stepping back into the room, Heinrich closed the glass doors against the chill of evening and said, “My beloved, you must dress. Renan will be here soon, and you shall meet one of the greatest philosophers and authors of our age.” H2 looked at Sophia and, slowly rising on the balls of his feet, kissed her on the forehead. Fervently he whispered, “My own Sophithion. Gnothi sauton!” And turning abruptly, he left the room.

Gnothi sauton, the inscription on Apollo’s Temple in Delphi in faraway Hellas Know Thyself. How could she? Would she . . . ever? Sophia undressed and, exhausted, stretched out on the huge bed, sinking into the sleep of Endymion that mercifully offered release from reality.

Ernst Renan, the man Sophia was to meet, was as much a maverick as Heinrich. Renan, disinherited by devout parents when he decided against being a priest, turned to letters as a career. He and Schliemann became epistolary friends in 1852 after Schliemann had read Renan’s illuminating treatise on Averroes, the renowned Spanish-Arabian philosopher of the 12th century. On a business trip to Paris, Schliemann called on Renan, who was then being supported by his wise and worldly sister the subject of one her brother’s most famous literary works, My Sister Henriette. Renan, historian and critic, and Schliemann, financier and scholar, were mutually attracted and their friendship flourished.

Both men were individualists and intellectuals, original thinkers attacked by critics among their contemporaries. Schliemann defied established scholars by contending that Homer wrote history, that Troy was a real place and the Trojan War an actual conflict, with heroes who were human, not mythical beings. Renan outraged religious autocrats by .questioning the Christian Trinity and suggesting in The Life of Christ (published in 1863) that Christ was merely one inspired leader among many in numerous religions. For that audacity Renan was dismissed from his professorship at the University of Paris. Schliemann insisted that “we gave no thought to those we aroused, nor for their ill regard of us,” and Renan concurred. Actually, being human, they unwittingly revealed from time to
time how much they were affected by vituperation, frequently speaking of each other as being disturbed, upset and unhappy.

[39]

In a letter to a close mutual friend, fimile Egger, professor of classics and philology at the University of Paris, Schliemann wrote: “Renan says little but I know he is deeply hurt by the calumny aimed at him, a reaction with which I sympathize and understand.” Neither Renan nor Schliemann ever revealed his innermost feelings to the world, although both sometimes erupted so volcanically against detractors that the latter regretted their criticism.

In the drawing room at 6, Place St. Michel, Heinrich warmly welcomed the elegantly tailored Renan. The two old friends, sipping sherry, were oblivious to their surroundings as they discussed Renan’s latest work on the history and philosophy of religion.

Sophia approached the open door and stood watching the two men, her eyes half closed. With perception she recognized the quality of their relationship. “I stood alone, neither part of the room, the two men, nor their bond. Will I break through the barrier and one day become part of it? I wonder.” Then she entered and the drawing room soon was enlivened by the conversation of an animated threesome. With Greek as their common language, they talked of Paris, Italy, and Greece, a country much admired by Renan. Sophia, dark eyes flashing and smile sparkling, told Renan about being a mail-order bride after a courtship bizarre even in those days.

Renan chuckled at her wit with anecdotes and roared with laughter about a prank of Heinrich’s in Venice. Fully clothed, he had intentionally slipped over the side of the gondola in which they were passengers, swimming under it and coming up on the other side. Sophia, “always having the fear of water,” was no less stunned than the speechless gondolier. The staff and guests of the hotel were astounded when the eminent Dr. Schliemann, soaked to the skin, entered the lobby. To Renan the tale revealed a Schliemann he had never known, a carefree and lighthearted man. Heinrich really was different after his marriage to Sophia, often indulging in tricks and jokes as he never had in his earlier years.

To Schliemann and Sophia the story about his Venice escapade recalled an ecstatic experience. In their hotel room they had laughed like children while Heinrich peeled off his sopping suit, stripping to dry off his body. Their mood had swiftly changed to

[40]

one of passion, and for the first time they had experienced together a physical union that was amatory, not perfunctory. The memory was fresh as they looked at each other in their Paris drawing
room.

At table that evening, Schliemann and Renan delved into the subject of comparative religion. They traced the Hellenic godhead Zeus back to Dan, an even earlier all-embracing divinity, relating both to deities of the religions of Indo-China, and sketching how all were synthesized and unified in the Christian faith. Each man tried to cap the other with passages from Hellenic literature found verbatim in the Bible. Schliemann completed the exchange with references to Acts xvn.28 : In Him we live and move and have our being and For we also are Thine offspring. In Hellenic hymns the deity referred to by those lines was Zeus ; in the Bible, Christ.

Sophia, excluded from the discussion felt herself to be an out sider at her own dinner table. As course followed course with the serving of proper wines, she consciously concentrated on what was being said. Listening intently, she learned more about the two men than their subject.

Besides Renan, who was Heinrich’s most intimate friend in Paris, other scholars dined with the Schliemanns and spent long evenings discussing subjects about which Sophia knew nothing, and often in French, which she did not yet understand. She was forlorn “when Henry is surrounded by his learned friends and I sit endlessly by like an untutored child.” Daytime hours, which she spent alone when Henry was taking care of his many business affairs, were lonely.

There were many servants in the huge mansion, but Sophia did not speak their language, nor they hers. She and her personal maid, a pleasant girl about her own age, communicated by sign language until Sophia tried her first faltering words of French. The housekeeper, a tall unsmiling woman who received her orders directly from Schliemann, “efficiently managed the rest of the staff, moving about with a great ring of jangling keys suspended from the belt of her stiff uniform. Little bright-eyed girls, carrying dusters, skittered through the house and twittered to one another when the housekeeper was not near. The cook stayed within the kitchen area, which Sophia never entered, and the 

[41]

solemn butler seemed to appear out of nowhere only when he was needed. The whole atmosphere was repugnant to Sophia, accustomed to the warmth and liveliness of a home occupied by her large and endearing family.

She was in every sense a full-time student. When she and Heinrich were at home without guests, they read aloud poetry and from philosophical and scientific literature. They quoted from Homer, each picking up exactly where the other stopped, an exercise that was wearing to a mind already overburdened. Sophia was being tutored in French and English and, after her lessons with the two teachers, spent hours studying grammar and vocabulary “until I trip over words, speaking three languages at once, using whatever familiar word first comes to my mind.” On shopping expeditions she was instructed by Heinrich, who, being intrigued by the world of fashion, did not doubt his own judgment of the accessories and costumes suitable for a young matron.

Sophia complained, justifiably, that “Henry’s insistent demands on me to learn more leaves me with headaches and illness in my stomach.” He took her to museums where he methodically passed from painting to painting, from sculpture to sculpture, explaining the meaning and aesthetic importance of each. They went from the Jardin des Plantes to the Louvre, from the Archaeological Institute to meetings of the Society of Architects. Sophia was forced to study the architecture of Notre Dame and Sacre Coeur, of St. Sulpice and St. Germain des Pres, of the Madeleine and Sainte-Chapelle. She had to learn how each architectural style, born of its own specific time, owed its origin to classical Greece.
Heinrich, pondering over the ecclesiastical significance of the many styles of architecture, expounded on their relationship to temples that he might find “when I complete my excavations at Troy.”

Wherever Sophia and Heinrich went, he was personally recognized by some people and unfailingly attracted the attention of others because of his commanding manner. He invaded rather than entered a room ; asked no favors but demanded concessions. Never one to amble, Heinrich charged through shops and muse ums, streets and passageways. His energy was immeasurable; his mind, brilliant. Sophia often was more than a pace behind him, physically and mentally.

In Schliemann’s sincere desire to spread all knowledge before his bride, offering her only things of lasting quality, he failed to

[42]

sense her increasing exhaustion. The gloom and dampness of one of the coldest autumns in Paris depressed and chilled Sophia, who was used to the bright sun and sky of Greece with its crystal-clear air. Tours of museums sometimes delighted Sophia, whose youthful emotions responded to beauty. On other days she moved like an automaton through dark galleries, apathetic to exhibits. Small wonder that she often despaired of becoming the true partner of her scholarly husband.

Constant turmoil induced a physical condition that persisted for Sophia throughout her life. Nervous tension with complications of gastro-intestinal upsets resulted from the actions of the capricious Heinrich, who was alternately tender and tyrannical, calm and excitable.

Within a month Heinrich finally accepted the evident fact that Sophia was not well and showered her with attention, devoting his complete energy to her care. When the best doctors in Paris agreed that her condition was due to homesickness, exhaustion, and rich food, Heinrich himself set up the regimen for her recovery. He retained yet another teacher, a gymnastics instructor who put Sophia through a course of regular exercises. The number and length of her daily rest periods were prescribed by Heinrich, who also supervised her diet, hiring a special cook skilled in the preparation of Greek dishes. Even familiar food did not tempt Sophia during listless spells when she ate little or nothing. Her slow progress was marked by setbacks.

One of these occurred on an evening when the Schliemanns were going to the opera. As they were about to leave the house Sophia suddenly became ill and retired to her room, faint and pale. Heinrich, all sympathy, soothed and comforted her, saying that he would remain at home to read to her. Relaxed in his arms, Sophia began to revive and the color returned to her face. Heinrich, pleased by the sign of improvement, suggested that they could proceed to the opera together as planned. Sophia leaped to her feet and, with rage, ordered him to leave her where she was and to go alone to the opera. Astounded by her outburst, Heinrich was for once not in command, and Sophia literally pushed him out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Lingering outside, he tentatively turned the knob only to find that the door was locked against him.

Frustrated and annoyed, he went down to the waiting carriage,

[43]

a figure of dejection even in his handsomely tailored full-dress clothes. He entered his first-tier box, but looked neither to right nor to left, nor at the decorations of the opera house that normally amused and delighted him: the ceiling frescoes with allegorized classical scenes and the caryatid figures. Nervous and fidgety, he sat inattentively through the first act, and during intermission remained seated, bowing absent-mindedly to acquaintances and friends. As the house lights were dimming for the second act he hurried from his box and dashed down the staircase, trailing his opera cloak and sliding a white glove along the handrail of Algerian onyx. He ran across the vestibule, went out through the gilded doors, and shouted for his carriage. Reaching his home, he rushed up the staircase, discarding hat, gloves and cloak on the way. At Sophia’s door he stopped, breathless. The door knob responded to the pressure of his hand, and he entered the room where Sophia, in pale blue peignoir, was stretched out on a chaise longue. Heinrich stood, unmoving. Sophia held out a hand to him, and with an anguished cry he knelt, burying his face in her bosom as she gathered him to her.

Following that quarrel, Sophia and Heinrich both recorded some of its details. But its crucial import was not manifest until later years when, in his diary, Heinrich referred to “my fretful first act alone at the opera when Sophia’s docile nature was cast off.” A note of even later date contained the parenthetical passage “and after the opera, so paralyzing and frightening, I knew I loved and needed a woman of her grandeur.”

Sophia’s spontaneous revolt, which had long-range effects, did not immediately establish stability. The relationship of the Schliemanns swung like a pendulum. Her ability to absorb amazing amounts of knowledge delighted the teacher in Heinrich. Her use of the French language increased her ease as hostess. His latent sense of humor burgeoned. Frolicsome, they capped each other’s pranks and jokes. All would be serene for a day or two; then the pleasant tenor of living would be upset by mounting tensions that caused Sophia’s recurrent headaches and abdominal pains.

One night, following a day complicated by several vexing business letters, Heinrich was particularly annoyed when Sophia failed to be prompt for dinner. After a reasonable time had passed, he went to Sophia’s room and found her missing. He searched the 

[44]

house with mounting agitation; then not stopping to put on a greatcoat, he went out into the cold night. Calling his wife’s name, he strode along Place St. Michel where fog rose in eddies around the street lamps. Half sick with fear, he hesitated, wondering which direction to go in search of Sophia. On instinct, he went to the bridge over the Seine where she often lingered to enjoy the view of her favorite building in Paris, the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Heinrich was almost beside her huddled figure be fore he made it out through the fog. He slipped close to her, whispering “Sophithion.” There was no answer, no reaction from the slender form hunched against the clammy buttress. Sophia stared straight ahead, as if trying to penetrate the eerie mist for a sight of the Cathedral.

Gently Heinrich slipped his arm around her body that trembled with cold and was soon wracked by gasping sobs as Sophia was overwhelmed by emotion. Homesick and in deep need of under standing, she clung to Heinrich, who took off his suit coat, put it around her shoulders, and tenderly led her home and to bed, Sophia’s spirits and health fluctuated with her own daily struggle for maturity and with Heinrich’s unpredictable moods that reflected his conflicts with both governments and individuals. He fretted continually over delays in his plans for excavating at Troy and about rebuffs from fashionable Parisians who had once been his friends.

The Turkish government was recalcitrant about granting Schliemann a firman that would allow him to dig at the Hill of Hissarlik, the mound in Asia Minor where he knew he would find the ancient city of Troy. Major efforts in Schliemann’s behalf were being made by Frank Calvert, United States vice-consul at the Dardanelles, who owned one part of the Hill. Calvert had to cope with captious Turkish officials, who would promise to sign Schliemann’s firman one day and refuse the next. Calvert’s letters were alternately disheartening and encouraging, and Heinrich’s moods matched their tone.

Schliemann’s main concern was to be free to dig at Troy, but while in Paris, he wanted to be accepted by the social set in which he had moved before his marriage to Sophia. He was irked that hostesses who had entertained him in the past neither called at once on Sophia nor sent invitations to their dinners and balls.

[45]

Their husbands, members of an influential group, acknowledged only with frigid bows Schliemann’s greetings to them at the opera, the theater, and in other public places. From gossip that reached him in bits and pieces, Heinrich learned within a fort night after his return to Paris with Sophia that many ultracon-servative Parisians of his acquaintance did not consider his American divorce to be legal. Aware at last why he and Sophia were being ostracized, Schliemann consulted with leading attorneys in Paris and wrote posthaste to his lawyers in the United States. He soon possessed papers proving that his divorce decreed in Indian apolis was honorable and binding, and he shrewdly disseminated the information throughout Paris.

Socially prominent Parisians, assured of the sanctity of the Schliemann marriage, promptly accepted Heinrich and Sophia into their circle, overwhelming them with invitations. Sophia’s shy charm and quick wit captivated hostesses and boulevardiers. Heinrich, noted for his business acumen and erudition, was deferred to during after-dinner conversations over brandy and coffee.

[46]

FIVE

Schliemann schemed to have the season’s most brilliant ball mark Sophia’s debut as hostess in Paris and set December 10, 1869, as its date. Renan, Egger, and one or two other close friends, informed early about the event, offered assistance that Heinrich hardly needed. Under his direction the guest list was meticulously compiled in time for the elegant invitations to be issued in late November. In full control he consulted with caterers and florists, engaged musicians, supervised the regular staff, and arranged for the extra waiters, footmen, and maids needed for the ball.

Although Sophia enjoyed the bustle and noise that animated the house, she was only on the periphery of the activities. She was not even permitted to have her own way about her ball gown. Heinrich had decided to have it made by an obscure little dress maker, Madame Claire Monteux, because the couturiers of the famous houses, where Sophia’s other Paris clothes had been ordered, were patronized by the ladies invited to the ball. He wanted Sophia’s gown to be unique, and a secret until the night of the party.

On the day of the first consultation about the gown, Sophia had to go alone to Madame Monteux. Heinrich was detained by an emergency business meeting, and arrived at the dressmaker’s establishment to find himself faced with another crisis. Strained silence pervaded the room where Schliemann was greeted by Sophia, her expression stern, her jaw firmly set. Madame Monteux, a look of despair in her eyes, bowed to him and shrugged her shoulders, as if in defeat. It took Heinrich only a few seconds to find out that Madame Monteux’s design for a sleek gown displeased Sophia, who wanted a frock trimmed with furbelows. With the skill of a diplomat, Heinrich made Sophia examine her own face, figure and carriage in the full-length mirror of the salon, and stressed how perfect for her the ball gown sketched by Madame Monteux would be. In a matter of minutes Sophia

[47]

was convinced that it was her idea to have the very design she had scorned, accepting it as one that would be totally unlike any other at the ball. When finished, the ball gown was a tribute to Heinrich’s judgment, Madame Monteux’s artistry, and Sophia’s beauty. White satin, skillfully molded for the bodice and luxuriously draped in stiffened skirt folds, highlighted her olive complexion ; and black velvet, entwined in the white lace edging the demure neckline, accented her black hair.

At precisely 8:30 on the night of the ball, Heinrich entered Sophia’s dressing room just as her maid was attaching a ringlet of white flowers to her coiffure. Overcome by his bride’s loveliness, he drew in his breath sharply and gazed at her with adoration. Radiant and seemingly calm, Sophia slowly pivoted, like any child showing off her party dress. She confessed to Heinrich that inside she was shaking, unsure of her ability to carry off her role as hostess; but he allayed her fears, assuring her that their ball was to be an occasion for shared joy, not an ordeal through which to suffer.

Kissing her lightly on the cheek, he led her to the drawing room’s foyer, where they received at the top of the sweeping staircase. Head high, Sophia greeted her guests in French, carefully phrased, while Heinrich, proud at her side, seemed to in crease in stature. For some time couples in steady flow moved up the steps, the ladies, magnificently garbed, attended by distinguished escorts, some titled, many wearing decorations signifying honors bestowed for valor in battle or for achievement in scholar ship. Sophia’s ball gown was appreciatively appraised by the women guests, all much older, who, themselves wearing priceless gems set in necklaces, bracelets and brooches, did not fail to notice that her youthfulness was dramatized by no other ornamentation than tiny earrings of diamonds and pearls. Gallants of Paris showered Sophia with compliments and she, slowly gaining inner security, began to enjoy herself, responding to the stimulus of soft music, discreet laughter, and the lively conversation that filled the house.

When the last arrival had been announced, Heinrich led Sophia into the drawing room where guests sipped champagne of rare vintage that bubbled in priceless crystal. No flute was ever refilled, each empty one being replaced with another freshly filled, a

[48]

refinement which so impressed Sophia she included that minor detail of service in her letter describing the ball to her family. Guests, who as hostesses were knowledgeable about the foods a la mode that season, raised speculative eyebrows when they glanced at the hors d’oeuvres on silver platters passed by liveried servants. The unusual bite-sized delicacies, unrecognized as the mezes of Greece, the little foods traditionally served before dinner, were tentatively tasted and unanimously enjoyed.

Sophia and Heinrich waltzed together for a few minutes, and then he wandered as attentive host among the guests, occasionally stepping to the ballroom door. From there he quickly located Sophia whose white gown stood out in the whirl of richly colored fabrics: satin, velvet, brocade. Sophia swung from partner to partner until supper was served at the stroke of midnight. The opening of the dining-room doors was accomplished by the faint echo of bells pealing outside in the frosty air.

The dining room was aglow with candlelight and the gilt of chairs ringed around small tables covered with heavy damask. Buffet tables, lavishly laden with flowers, held elaborately garnished meats, salads, pates, mousses in various forms, and pastries abloom with candied blossoms, buds and leaves. What was offered appeared to be typical fare, but Heinrich had seen to it that his guests would be surprised by exotic dishes made from food supplies shipped from the Orient, the United States, England, Scandinavia, the Caribbean islands and Hawaii. The taste buds of gourmets were titillated by the flavors of herbs and spices subtly blended in concoctions of varied textures. Palates accustomed to the vintages of France and Germany were pleased by the unfamiliar wines of Greece. The menu, skillfully arranged by Heinrich to be impressive in the city renowned for its cuisine, fittingly climaxed the party. Dawn was not far off when guests took reluctant leave of the Schliemanns. And the host and hostess retired to Sophia’s room, fully confident that Heinrich’s dream of social triumph had been realized.

The excitement of the ball was almost at once eclipsed by Heinrich’s preoccupation with plans for their excavations in Asia Minor and by Sophia’s return to a rigorous and exhausting daily schedule. Heinrich, like many men of consequence, concentrated on one project at a time. Having brought off the ball to his com-

[491

plete satisfaction, he turned his full attention to the major passion ever seething within him. Archaeology and excavations were the subjects of correspondence written in seven languages to friends, acquaintances and colleagues ; of carefully phrased letters to London, Paris and New York newspapers, which published his refutation of scholarly opinion that Homer and Troy, the city he wrote about, were as much fiction as Oedipus and the Sphinx. Voluminous mail, prepared without secretarial assistance, was sent from 6, Place St. Michel, as from every place Heinrich stopped, whether for a brief stay or long.

Sophia resumed her strenuous language lessons, continuing French, starting German, and dropping formal instruction in English, practicing it by herself. The return to an enforced routine of museum-going failed to revive her interest in art, architecture or archaeology. She was wearied by long performances of plays and operas foreign to her, and suffered from the strain of a social life that was formal and demanding. Existing alternately in a whirl of activity and in the tedium of loneliness, Sophia again deteriorated physically.

Doctors called into consultation suggested to Heinrich that Sophia needed to spend more time with friends her own age. One of these, a confidante to whom Sophia was affectionately attached, was Renan’s daughter Naomi, who was also married to a dynamic man. He, known by the single name Psycharis, was a young Greek of Chiote descent, who had been born in Odessa. Already embarked on a literary career, he was the leader of a controversial group involved in a crusade to reform the Greek language, both written and spoken. Psycharis and his friends held that change and growth vitalize language. They campaigned against the current usage and pronunciation of the Greek language, and were opponents of traditionalists, both professors and literary men, whose encyclical pronouncements against the new group were couched in scathing terms.

It was inevitable that Schliemann and Psycharis should be at odds, ranting at each other whenever they met. The two young wives deliberately instigated arguments between Heinrich, the fanatical Homerist who was already evolving his own classic form of Hellenic language, and Psycharis, the avant-garde spokesman who philosophized about a revised language, modern and lucid.

[50]

Even the companionship of young friends did not release Sophia from conflict. Struggling to extricate herself from the cocoon of youth, she was neither totally committed to Heinrich’s serious world of scholarship nor completely reconciled to her life with him. On her own, she asked to be taken to performances offering congenial amusement. Released from the pressure of weighty matters, she was delighted by the magic tricks performed at the theater of Houdin, and Heinrich beamed with pleasure at hers.

Eager to see his Sophithion happy, he enjoyed their first visit to the circus, where she laughed at the clowns and screamed at the feats of the daring aerialists. When she wanted to return to the circus again and again, Heinrich’s own interest in it flagged, and he turned morose. He was jealous of the magician Houdin and of the clowns, freaks, and other circus performers, who could make Sophia react as he, with blandishments, could not.

He was being irritable and increasingly unpredictable in his behavior, when a letter mailed from the Dardanelles by Frank Calvert conveyed the long-awaited information that the firman would soon be granted, signed and officially sealed. That assurance was what Heinrich needed to lift his spirits. The Christmas holidays were brightened for him and for Sophia by plans for a return to Athens, to be followed by a trip to the site of Troy.

[51]

SIX

Paris was bathed in sun on the morning of January 3, 1870, the depressing fog of past weeks gone, overnight. Heinrich and Sophia, in high good humor, sat in his study completing arrangements for their departure to Greece and sorting through the mail. They were chuckling over an amusing letter from his sister in Germany when a servant entered bearing a silver tray, from which Heinrich took a telegram. He put it aside and finished reading aloud his sister’s account of the antics of one of her grandsons. Still laughing, Heinrich picked up the telegram, slit open the envelope, and scanned the short message.

Natalya was dead. His adored Natalya, daughter by his first wife, Ekaterina, had died in St. Petersburg. And “when the horrible telegram arrived, Henry looked himself to be dead,” Sophia wrote to her parents.

Dazed by the blow, Heinrich hunched in his chair, overcome by emotion and bitter memories. Russia, source of the major part of his immense fortune, was fountainhead of the personal misfortune that separated him from his three children, one now forever gone from his life.

Arriving in Russia as a businessman in 1846, Schliemann from the first was sought out as eligible bachelor by wealthy merchants with marriageable daughters and by royalty intent on pleasure. A succession of women of the court willingly accepted him as paramour, and his prowess as lover was common gossip. One young lady to whom he was affianced so displeased him by her frivolous flirtations that he broke their engagement. Again in love, he asked for the hand of Ekaterina Lyschin, but she confounded him by refusing his offer. On his return to Russia from his first trip to the United States, Schliemann, misjudging Ekaterina as a woman with all the virtues he wanted in a wife, repeated his proposal. She accepted him, and they were married at St. Petersburg on October 12, 1852 the year Sophia was born in Athens.

The union with Ekaterina was a mismatch from the first. Shortly 

[52]

after the wedding, Heinrich wanted Ekaterina to accompany him to France. She refused then and ever after to go with him on essential business trips to foreign countries. During the Crimean War he
increased his fortune by traffic in arms, a circumstance that disturbed him, as his friends and family in Germany knew. He wrote his father that he hated being a war profiteer, but that the money gained would serve to finance the search for Troy. Schliemann talked incessantly to Ekaterina about Troy and his passion for excavation there, but she, bored, only half listened. She viewed with cold contempt his obsession with foreign languages and his dedication to scholarship. He, hot-blooded and sexually demanding, found himself rejected by a frigid and resistant wife.

The birth of their son Serge in 1855 overjoyed Heinrich, but the child did not draw the parents closer together, nor did the daughters, Natalya and Nadehsda, born later. Schliemann said that he stole the two youngest children by forcing himself on their mother.

Heinrich came to the realization that Ekaterina had married him’ only for his wealth, but he continued to beg her, for the sake of their children, to make a home with him. Although secure and living extravagantly in St. Petersburg, Ekaterina complained of Heinrich’s miserliness and treated him with disdain. He promised her fine homes in whatever cities she chose, and she reiterated that she would live nowhere but in St. Petersburg.

Retiring from business in 1858, Heinrich traveled restlessly and was in Athens in the summer of 1859, when his plans for excavation at Ithaca were disrupted by a lawsuit in Russia. While awaiting the favorable settlement of the suit, he re-established himself in business and made tremendous sums, dealing in indigo, cotton, olive oil and tea. In possession of a fortune greater than he had ever
“ventured to aspire to,” Schliemann once more liquidated his business and for the last time forsook Russia as homeland.

In 1866 Schliemann settled in Paris, investing in real estate, studying with university scholars, and participating in social activities. Following his first archaeological expedition to Greece in 1868, he decided that he should be free of the woman who refused to share his life. For the purpose of divorce, he sailed for the United States and obtained his final citizenship papers at New York, where he had applied for the first on February 17, 1851.

[53]

In the brief autobiography in his Ilios, City and Country Schliemann stated, with more enthusiasm than accuracy, that “happening, therefore, to be in California when, on the 4th of July, 1850, it was made a State, and all those there resident in the country became by that very fact naturalized Americans, I joyfully embraced the opportunity of becoming a citizen of the United States.” California
became a state on September 9, 1850, two months later than Schliemann said, and he first visited it in the spring of 1851, after his New York application for first papers.

Although he later seemed to be confused about his American citizenship, it was legal and served him in the matter of divorce. He could have obtained a New York divorce by the use of “false certificates and perjury,” but would “have nothing to do with such horrors.” Carrying a letter of introduction to a lawyer in Indianapolis, Schliemann went there to take advantage of Indiana’s flexible divorce law. He established residence and, with a team of attorneys, became involved in political machinations surrounding a proposed revision of the divorce law which threatened to delay his decree.

He offered as grounds for divorce Ekaterina’s refusal to live with him, and for proof submitted to the court a sheaf of letters written by her during the preceding twelve months. In those letters Ekaterina monotonously repeated that she would neither leave Russia nor live with him any place else. He received his final divorce papers in July 1869, several months after he began correspondence with Archbishop Vimbos about a Greek bride. As early as May, Schliemann sent a photograph of Sophia to his aged father in Germany, explaining that happiness was possible only with a Greek wife.

That happiness was not yet assured on the morning when Heinrich received the news of Natalya’s death at 6, Place St. Michel in Paris. Sophia, dismayed by his stricken expression, made no move to detain him when he rose from his chair and tottered toward his bedroom. He locked himself in and refused admittance to Sophia who, shuddering, stood outside, listening to his tortured sobs. He paced the floor, overwhelmed by an unreasoned sense of guilt, blaming himself for the death that might have been prevented had he not divorced the child’s mother. Crying and moaning, he mourned for the daughter lying in a coffin in St. Petersburg, when

[54]

she could well have been alive and happy if he had been a proper father. In desperation Sophia sent for Ernst Renan and fimile Egger, who tried to mollify Heinrich through his locked door. For three days he refused to leave his room, and when he did, Psycharis tried to reason with him practically and philosophically, and Renan attempted to exorcise the sense of guilt. Weeping had not released Heinrich’s pent-up emotions, and he remained unconsoled and morbid. Sophia, in anguish for her husband, broke under the strain and went into uncontrolled hysteria. In Renan’s presence Heinrich vocally castigated himself for reducing Sophia to such a state of misery, and wondered aloud whether he should not release her by divorce and at the same time abandon his own dream of excavation.

Sophia recovered her composure, and taking Heinrich’s head in her hands, held him close and rocked him like a child. Her intuitive action comforted him, and another conflict in his stormy life was resolved. Husband and wife, in need of each other, merged again as two loves.

Uneventful days passed with Heinrich and Sophia reading, visiting museums, and leading a quiet life. Disheartening letters from Frank Calvert reporting that the Turkish officials had not signed the firman were followed by a cheering, short message: “The firman will be signed.”

[55]

SEVEN

Aboard the S/S Niemen, out of Marseille, as it slowly approached the harbor of Piraeus on February 9, 1870, a young girl and a middle-aged man leaned against the rail of an upper deck. Sophia, eager for the ship to anchor, could hardly wait to embrace her family and to place her feet on Greek soil. She peered toward the horizon, trying to make out the outline of the Acropolis rising above her ancestral home. Heinrich was as oblivious to his surroundings as he had been on the day of his arrival on the same ship five months earlier. Again concerned about a matter of future consequence, he was anxious to know whether confirmation of the signing of the firman awaited him in Athens.

In joyous reunion, Sophia was welcomed home by her family waiting on the quay. She was squeezed and hugged by her sisters and brothers, tenderly kissed by her mother, and held at arm’s length in admiration by her father, in whose eyes tears welled. The repetition of the phrase “How you have changed !” was no idle parroting of a cliche, old as time. Their Sophaki, the little sister and youngest child who had left as a bewildered girl bride, was returned to them a composed young matron, dressed in Continental high fashion from the top of her fur hat to the tips of her exquisite leather shoes.

Chatting and laughing, questioning and reminiscing, the group reached the Hotel d’Angleterre, where Heinrich, after registering, hurried them all to the spacious suite reserved for him and Sophia. Without delay he hastily leafed through a great stack of mail, carelessly scattering envelopes as he searched for a letter addressed in the handwriting of Frank Calvert. Finally Schliemann jerked from the pile an envelope that he all but pulled apart in his eager ness to get at its enclosure. He quickly read the brief note and, face ashen, let the letter drop to the floor.

Sophia knew from Heinrich’s expression that the firman was not yet signed, and without hesitation she turned to her family, saying,

[56]

“Heinrich must be alone.” Dazed, they put on wraps removed only minutes before and, subdued, one by one left the suite, Sophia shepherding them toward the public hall Turning back into the sitting room, she motioned to Heinrich that he should sit down and, facing him, dispassionately began to talk about the firman. She urged him not to give up hope of getting a permit to dig from the Turkish government, but to accept the latest disappointment as routine for negotiations with bureaucracy. She reminded him of the challenge to be met when they eventually reached Hissarlik, para phrasing the plans he had so often detailed for her. Assuring Heinrich of ultimate success through his efforts and those of Frank Calvert, Sophia suggested that the inevitable wait should be endured with patience. She asked whether Heinrich’s anxiety throughout the trip to Greece had not indicated that he was uncertain about good news on arrival He admitted that the possibility of another delay had been in his mind, and agreed to relax until he received the message that would signal his departure for Asia Minor.

But relaxation was impossible for Schliemann. For the next few days he kept to a frantic schedule of business meetings, consultations with officials, and participation in archaeological disputes with friends and other scholars. Futilely engaged in unnecessary activities, he took no part in the festivities celebrating Sophia’s homecoming. On the sixth day after their return to Athens, he moved Sophia from the d’Angleterre to her family’s home and, on the seventh, sailed alone on a tour of the Greek islands.

His was no aimless jaunt to fill time. He planned to visit ancient places he had not previously seen, to study archaeological sites and objects of antiquity that he might be better prepared when he began his own excavation. His first destination was the island of Syra, in the Cyclades, to which he traveled on the Austrian ship Schild that anchored at Hermopolis, the city of Hermes. That seaport, its shipping tonnage greater even than that of the Piraeus, mushroomed in population in 1821 through the influx of refugees from the islands of Chios and Psara, both occupied by the Turks. The city’s prosperity was due to its location on the trade route between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.

Schliemann registered at the Hotel d’Amerique, which he described as one of the most miserable and unpleasant hostelries in

[57]

which he had ever stayed. Finding a live object swimming in soup served him at the evening meal, he got up from the table in disgust and, without dining, retired to his room. Its rickety bed was infested with lice that made his night wakeful. Loud in his complaints about conditions at the hotel, he nonetheless decided against changing to another with higher rates.

In spite of the physical discomforts endured, Schliemann thoroughly explored Syra, delving into the archaeology of its ancient sites and, as he did everywhere, taking an interest in contemporary life as well. Syra lent itself to such study because it was the See of a Roman Catholic bishop, whose seat on a high hill picturesquely contrasted with that of a Greek Orthodox Archbishop on an opposite hill. Since the two Sees were separated culturally, as well as geographically, Schliemann lingered in long discussions with people sharply divided by religious conflict. As an outsider he evaluated the situation, drawing conclusions along generally the same lines followed more than half a century later by social psychologists.

At the small museum in New Town, Schliemann scrutinized the exhibit of Hellenistic statuary, pottery and artifacts. In the ruins of the Theater of Apollo, he let his fancy take him back through the centuries to classical times when the latest plays from Athens were performed for an audience made up of islanders. Strolling along the waterfront, Schliemann watched workers in the shipyards and at dye plants. He admired the mosaics and murals of the island’s Byzantine churches. With vigor he walked up 590 feet to the Church of St. George, and climbed to the top of Pyrgos, a hill where marble, mottled with veins of mica, was quarried. At the pinnacle of Pyrgos, 1,360 feet high, Schliemann, enjoying a sweeping view of Syra, the Aegean and surrounding islands, recited aloud from the Fifteenth book of Homer’s Odyssey :

A certain island, Syra by name
you may have heard of it rests off Ortygia
straight west, and gathers the sunsets of the year.
Not overpopulated, but fine for grazing
sheep and cattle; rich also in wine and grain.
No lack is ever known there, no disease,
wars on its people, or ills that plague all men ;
but finally when its people reach old age, Apollo,

[58]

with his silvered great bow arrives, and Artemis,
shooting arrows of kind death.
Two towns divide the lands of that entire domain,
both ruled by Ctesios, my father,
heir of Ormenos, truly a gentle godlike man.

There on the very spot described by Homer, Schliemann characteristically felt himself close to historical roots, his imagination and emotions evoking within him an empathy from which he derived stimulation for the exploration of Troy. As often at such solitary moments, Schliemann’s knowledge and inner sensitivity fused so that he became the hero of an ancient era. It might have been of him that Henry James in the Art of Fiction, 1888, wrote:
“The power to guess the unseen from the seen, to trace the implication of things, to judge the whole piece by the pattern, the condition of feeling life in general so completely that you are weflon your way to know any particular corner of it this cluster of gifts may almost be said to constitute experience. … If experience consists of impressions, it may be said that impressions are experience.”

At interludes Schliemann honed impressions to a sharp edge, experiencing the seen and conjuring the unseen as he prepared for the realization of his life’s ambition. The brief exploration of islands was such an interlude. Having finished at Syra, Schliemann inquired about passage aboard a regular vessel that would visit the islands of the Aegean, and was told that the “only boat available to take me to those islands I wish to explore would cost me ninety-six French francs. Furthermore, the agent said that I would have to follow the schedule of the boat, arriving at each island and leaving that island at the pleasure of the captain. All of these people are robbers, and I shall not allow them to take all my money/*

Schliemann, who turned penurious whenever he thought that he was being exploited, searched until he found better terms for the expedition ahead. Ever one to weigh cost against return, he engaged a boat for only 52 francs, which price included the service of a five-man crew captain and four seamen willing to conform to Schliemann’s individual schedule. He used as guide for the island trip some works of Pausanias, the observant traveler of the second century, to whom not only Schliemann but generations of sight seers and scholars owed a great debt. The small boat put out from

[59]

Hermopolis just after midnight, March 1, and late that same dayreached the island of Delos. In ancient times the Greek world was commercially ruled by Delians. Their island, the mythical birthplace of Apollo and his twin, the goddess Artemis, was also a great religious center. On Delos, Ionian Greeks worshipped their gods at ritual ceremonies and, in honor of the deities, celebrated at opulent festivals and in exciting athletic contests. In the sixth century B.C. the Athenian ruler Peisistratos ordained the purification of Delos by removal of all tombs. Subsequently the purification was extended by a decree against burial on Delos. At a later date, to prevent death from occurring on the island, seriously ill people were removed to nearby Rheneia. With passing centuries the status of Delos as a great Aegean power fluctuated. Devastation by the generals of Mithradates put an end to the island’s prosperity in 88 B.C., and complete destruction was effected by pirates in 69 B.C. Slowly the silted earth of land and sifted sand of sea covered the island. Schliemann traversing Delos saw some landmarks described by Pausanias, but wrote in his diary that “others seen by Pausanias are most certainly covered with the soil of time.” The middle-aged romantic, ignoring the crew of five accompanying him, waxed lyrical about being alone on the totally uninhabited island. In imagination he became a citizen of ancient times, striding from one sacred spot to another “amidst such grandeur and beauty.” He actually saw some unburied evidence of early glories of architecture, but in his mind’s eye he viewed temples, treasures, palaces, stadia, amphitheaters, sculpture of pure Parian marble, columns of bluish marble, and figures carved in porous limestone or Naxian granite.

Sitting alone on Mount Cynthos, he gazed across the dead island and pondered on the fates of civilizations. Why did a civilization rise, fade, and fall into oblivion until man, uncovering its remains, released the essence of its greatness? Schliemann dwelt on the misconception of many people that their civilization will forever survive in spite of historical evidence that every culture eventually fades and is superseded by another. Verities of the past and present in conflict coursed through his mind. Why and how, two questions firmly rooted in the philosophy of ancient Greece, fired in Schliemann the maelstrom that would never let him 

[60]

Schliemann 1- 30   Schliemann 30-60   Schliemann 60-90   Schliemann 90-120   Schliemann 120-150  Schliemann 150-180   Schliemann 180 – 210   Schliemann 210 – 240   Schliemann 240 – 270  Schliemann 270 – End