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
achieve the inner peace he thought he sought. He wondered what answers were to be found beneath the layers of earth and sand that blanketed ancient Delos. For one brief moment he entertained the idea of restoring the island to its original glory by digging below the surface, putting into the project his full power of wealth, imagination, and physical effort. That notion was short-lived because he knew that he could never be false to his early dream of excavating for Priam’s Troy.
Leaving Delos, Schliemann’s little boat set out for Paros, where he once again was impressed by the reliability of Pausanias. Thrilled by the discovery of inscriptions not mentioned by that observant traveler, Schliemann decided that the stones had been uncovered in later centuries, by man or the forces of nature. Schliemann proceeded to Naxos, Nio and Santorini, then doubled back to Paros and Syra, the starting point of his expedition. Each island had its special attraction for him, every object its unique value. The joy of the solitary journey into the past and the opportunity offered for time to think were tempered for Schliemann by his inability to communicate with others. He missed his “adored Sophithion with out whom my days are but nothing,” and was eager to report on the trip “to you, my beloved wife, who has come to know and understand me, who gives me strength and will.”
He joined her in Athens on March 20 and wrote in his diary “. . . together we shall wait most patiently until the firman is granted, and only then shall we leave this glorious city.” Undoubtedly, when he wrote those words he did mean them. But four days after his return to Athens, an entry in his diary stated : “My wife and I made today an excursion to Phyle.”
Schliemann was warned that on rural jaunts he was exposed to risk of attack from brigands who terrorized the countryside up to the very outskirts of Athens. Some of the outlaw bands were in league with government officials whose constituents were kept in line by threat of outlaw reprisal for” disloyalty. The collaboration of brigandage with officialdom was at its height in 1863 when the teen-age Prince William of Denmark was proclaimed King George I of Greece. He, blinking at the liaison, which was a political scandal, made little attempt either to curb official participation in banditry or to control the maurauders. In 1876 outlaws continued to swoop down on settlements of peasants and estates of land-
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owners, demanding money, livestock, foodstuffs and household effects in return for the promise of protection from other brigands. The bands attacked defenseless travelers on the highways, taking jewelry, money, and even clothes off the backs of unfortunate victims, ruthlessly killing those who resisted.
A government official friendly to Schliemann, after unsuccess fully trying to dissuade him from setting out for Phyle, offered him two horsemen as bodyguards. Under most circumstances two men
were not sufficient for protection, but those recommended to Schliemann were described as being well known in the region to be traveled. It was implicit that they, being either related to or associated with brigands of the area, would not be molested, nor would any group with which they rode.
In an open carriage flanked by the outriders, Sophia and Heinrich left for Phyle at 6:45 A.M. on a day sunny and warm in Athens. But as they progressed along the ancient road into the snow-covered hills Sophia became chilled, and Heinrich, taking off his greatcoat, “. . . used it to cover and warm this beautiful creature to whom I am so fortunately married.” Marveling at the superb scenery, they crossed the Kephisos River, continued through the villages of Kamatero, Ano Liosia and Menidi. A primitive trail, rutted by cartwheels, that led down into the Potami Gorge disappeared, and the carriage rolled on across untracked ground. Outcrops of rock separated stands of pine trees with bark slashed at intervals along their trunks ; from the slashes, in warm weather, sap ran down into crude earthenware or natural stone bowls, to be collected for making retsina, the resinated wine of Greece. Heinrich described the trees as “shining magnificently as they casttheir shadows on the virginal snow lying on the ground.”
He and Sophia had to climb a distance from their carriage to the summit of Phyle, in the heart of the mountains. From its 2,255-foot height, “the view was so spectacular that we near lost our appetite for food.” But they did eat their picnic lunch, and Sophia was warmed by the soup heated over an open fire by the carriage driver. She and Heinrich spent two afternoon hours examining the famous fortress of Phyle, headquarters of the gallant Thrasyboulos after the Thirty Tyrants expelled him from Athens in 404 B.C. Construction of the massive fort was a feat accomplished by his devoted followers. “The castle sits like a nest of birds on a high rock. Big stones are joined together without cement,” Hein
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rich observed. With tactile appreciation he ran his hand over the barely visible joints as he and Sophia walked around the walls surrounding the stronghold. The outer wall was 8 feet thick and 12 feet high, with a door only 4 feet high. An inner wall, also 8 feet thick, had an even smaller opening, easier to defend from within.
Heinrich and Sophia, fired by his enthusiasm, imagined what life must have been like for the daring men who made sorties from this aerie against the Thirty Tyrants of Athens. “My Sophithion applauded with pleasure my explanation of how Thrasyboulos’ band captured the Piraeus and delivered Athens from the hated yoke of the tyrannical oligarchy in 403 B.C.” Hand in hand Sophia and Heinrich stood beside the outer wall and looked at nature’s vue sauvage of harsh land, deep gorges, small valleys, and peaks jutting upward as if tossed by the gods. “One can see the plain of Athens and the tip of the Acropolis, and because the weather is so sparkling one can see clear out to sea. Visible too is the Saronic Gulf with Aegina and the coast of the Peloponnesus. All opens as through a window/’
For Sophia there was a figurative opening of a window through which she had an expanded view of her native land and its history. Sensing Heinrich’s deep attachment for and appreciation of the past that was her heritage, she understood his dream as never before. He wrote that from Phyle they “returned to Athens after this most stimulating day.” She returned with an understanding of her husband that deepened with subsequent excursions.
The next was to Marathon, the seaside battlefield where a small force of Athenians beat off a massive invasion of Persians in 490 B.C. The Schliemanns, again protected by bodyguards on horseback, were accompanied by a professor from the University of Zurich and by Mrs. George Markly, an American from Philadelphia. Their carriage, as it proceeded toward Kaphissia, passed Mt. Lycabettus etched against the Greek-blue sky, as were the honeyed hills of Hymettus and, ahead, Penteli. Much farther along the dirt road, the villages of Chalandri and Maroussi nestled amid vine yards and olive groves; and here and there, according to Schliemann, early-growing beans turned colorless rocks green. After the carriage and the outriders swung north from the summit of the castle-shaped Ettos, the party overlooked a magnificent view of pine-clad hills close by, a tip of the Plain of Marathon below, the azure Aegean beyond, and the island of Euboea in the distance.
The carriage stopped at the base of Soros, the isolated knoll that supposedly marked the mound grave of the 192 Athenians who fell at the Battle of Marathon on September 10, 490 B.C. The Schliemanns and their friends, pushing through brush and weeds, climbed the 40 feet to the top of the knoll, which at its base was 200 yards in circumference. They viewed the Plain of Marathon from Soros, and then descended to the battlefield stretched out along the sea. While they picnicked, Heinrich talked knowledgeably of the battle that raged around the very spot where they were, and discussed the historical account of the conflict in Herodotus 7 work on the Persian wars.
On the way back to Athens, the carriage stopped on the banks of the River Valanaris, where Heinrich was told by an old man that skeletal bones of Athenians who died at Marathon were to be found in the vicinity. At the spot indicated by the peasant, the coachman and Heinrich picked up bones that he carried back to Athens “. . . to have them examined on the implausible chance that the old man was correct” As it developed, he was not. Professors at the University of Athens informed Schliemann that the bones were fossilized specimens from the last Tertiary period.
Every time Heinrich and Sophia returned safely from a one-day excursion, their friends and her family were relieved, having been tense and worried about bandit attacks. Sophia was no more apprehensive of highway robbers than Heinrich and did not even worry about him when he rode alone each morning for his daily swim at Old Phaleron, a bathing place on the sea between Athens and the Piraeus. He was addicted to sea baths for keeping physically fit. It was not only the exercise of swimming that Schliemann considered to be health-giving, but also the contact with sea water filled with minerals that had healing and invigorating properties.
On March 29 the Schliemanns set out together for New Corinth, refusing to be bothered with safe-conduct guards. At New Corinth they strolled over ground where Heinrich had earlier made a few test excavations. He explained to Sophia why, after unearthing a few funeral vases, he had abandoned hope of finding the tomb of Pericles in the area. He came to the conclusion that “. . . my work at New Corinth was fruitless and I could tell at once that this site would provide no antiquities or historical information of importance, so I ceased work there forever.” Later excavations
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by others proved he was correct. After enjoying a leisurely day of sightseeing, they returned to Athens.
The next morning Heinrich went alone to the Piraeus where he had his sea bath before embarking on the Panallinion bound for the Peloponnesus. He landed and took a cart to Old Corinth, where he inspected a cave, the ancient amphitheater, the Bath of Venus, and the “splendid seven columns of the Temple of Apollo.” The Panallinion crossed the Bay of Corinth to Itea, and from that tiny town Heinrich went by small carriage up the winding mountain road through Skala and Solano to Delphi, site of the shrine of Apollo. He had once thought of excavating at Delphi, but the French school of archaeologists were already negotiating for rights to dig. Schliemann carefully studied the terrain and the remains visible without excavation, “… learning all I could to be useful when I go soon to Troy to begin my work.”
The short expedition to Delphi took Schliemann to the brink of a major decision on which he concentrated during the trip back to Athens. When he joined Sophia there on Monday, April 4, a plan
for immediate action was full blown in his mind.
Late on the afternoon of April 5, Heinrich, without preamble, calmly announced to Sophia that they were leaving for Troy the following day. Momentarily taken aback, she quickly recovered her composure and reminded Heinrich that he had not been notified of the signing of the firman, for which he had said he would wait. Brushing off her remark, he answered that he was willing to wait no longer. She logically pointed out that he had made no preparations for excavation and asked how he expected to dig without equipment or a crew of men. Irritated by her opposition to his headlong decision, he said that they would obtain tools and workmen after reaching Asia Minor. Then he peremptorily ordered Sophia to begin her packing at once. She looked straight at him and refused, saying that she intended to remain in Athens, and if he insisted on carrying out his helter-skelter plan, he should do it alone.
Neither of the strong-minded couple gave in and, still smarting over Sophia’s show of independence, Heinrich sailed for Constantinople on April 6. The first proof that Sophia had been correct about lack of preparations for the trip came when he was forced to accept second-class passage on the S/S Mensaheh on which he traveled uncomfortably to the Dardanelles.
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EIGHT
Upon his arrival at the Dardanelles in early April 1870, Schliemann went by horseback to the village of Renkoi for a talk with Frank Calvert, Heinrich’s intermediary with Turkish officials and part owner of the Hill of Hissarlik. It was the place that Schliemann, without question in his own mind, identified as the site of ancient Troy.
Although Calvert was sick in bed and unable to go to Hissarlik, he arranged for a bodyguard to ride on with Schliemann to Chiplak. At that tiny community not far from the Hill, Schliemann placed his few personal possessions in a dingy room rented from the occupants of a miserable hut. He and two hired workmen from the village started toward Hissarlik on the morning of April 9. They were an incongruous trio on burros. The two men from Chiplak, dressed in rough work clothes, tattered and filthy, rested sturdy shovels on the backs of their animals. Schliemann, wearing a London-tailored suit, a bowler, and fresh, white linens, grasped a pick axe in gloved hands.
At Hissarlik, Schliemann, tense with an excitement that per vaded his whole being, looked out across the Trojan plain. Standing alone on the Hill, he was isolated theoretically as well as physically from most scholars of literature and archaeology. These contended that the Iliad and the Odyssey were collections of songs composed in different ages by various bards, each celebrating the deeds of some mythical hero. It was generally thought that the songs, being inconsistent in their artistry, were not the works of a single poet. Most professors of ancient literature were convinced that the subjects of the collected songs were fictional, not factual. Nevertheless, the so-called collections of songs were the only source of knowledge about prehistoric Greece.
Schliemann, having accepted Troy as a real place in his early childhood, amassed evidence to defend his theory against scholars of opposite view. He was as certain that Troy had existed as he was of its location at Hissarlik, a site controversial even among
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the few who agreed with Schliemann that Homer’s tales were based on real events. Some thought that the ancient site of Troy, called Ilium, would be found at Bunarbashi, a mound several miles south of Hissarlik One of these was General Helmuth Karl Bern-hard von Moltke, hero of the Austro-Prussian War and favorite of Wilhelm I of Germany. General von Moltke, a dilettante in archaeology, based his opinion that Bunarbashi was a likely site for Troy on its military potential, not on classical evidence.
Schliemann’s conviction, in part intuitive, was primarily based on facts as he interpreted them from Homer’s Iliad. Intuition affected all of Schliemann’s archaeological explorations, but he bolstered that innate sense with precise information extracted from Homeric and other ancient writings. On a previous visit to Hissarlik and to Bunarbashi, he had made geographic comparisons of the two locations, dismissing the possibility that the latter could have been the site of Homer’s Troy.
At 162 feet above sea level, Hissarlik was the crown of a continuous ridge, 12 miles long, that angled east from the Plain of Troy. That expanse, about a two-hour ride in breadth, was consistent with Homer’s placement of the battles of the Trojan War. The spectacular panorama encompassed the Hellespont to the north and the Aegean to the west, with high mountains of the island of Samothrace towering over the low-lying Imbros just offshore. Schliemann remembered from his earlier expedition that from Hissarlik, the cone of Mt. Athos, 119 miles away on the mainland’s Chalcidian peninsula, was visible at sunset on clear days. He had clearly seen Asia Minor’s Mt. Ida, the seat of Zeus, from which the god watched the battles of the Trojan War.
The Aegean Sea was three and one-quarter miles west from Hissarlik, and the Hellespont, three and three-quarter miles north, distances compatible with those from ancient Troy, Bunarbashi, an inland mound, was eight miles from the Hellespont. Homer had his heroes going back and forth from the Hellespont to Troy between “awakening light and sunrise,” a passage possible to and from Hissarlik but not from Bunarbashi. Priam left Troy at sun down, according to Homer, spent the night feasting at the Grecian camp at the Hellespont, and was back home before sunrise. That and other Homeric incidents indicated that the distance from Troy to the Hellespont was short.
Homer described the Greek camp and the citadel of Troy as
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The Trojan Area being separated by the chief river of the region, the Scamander, which, rising on Mt. Ida, flowed with such force that it could be forded at only one place. The Scamander of the Iliad marked the boundary of the warring forces who often skirmished along its banks during the ten-year war. A smaller river, the Simoes, Sowed from the northern base of the citadel, and emptied into the Scamander, which ran north to form a delta at the Hellespont. When Schliemann was at Hissarlik, the ancient Scamander had long since changed course, and the Simoes (Dumbrek-su) joined with the new Scamander to form the Kalifatli-Asmak, the river emptying into the modern delta.
Homer placed the Greek flotilla at the point where the Scamander emptied into the Hellespont from which a river road led by the most direct route to Troy. Greek ships sailed right up to the gates of Troy, as Homer told it, and in spring that would have been possible when melting snows on Mt. Ida produced flash floods that widened and deepened the ancient Scamander at Troy or Hissarlik, not at Bunarbashi.
An episode from the Iliad that seemed to prove beyond all doubt that Bunarbashi could not have been Troy was the one in which Achilles pursued Hector three times around the wall of the city. The position of Bunarbashi on a steep and rugged height precluded any such feat, even by supermen; at Hissarlik the chase by foot would have been within the bounds of reasonable accomplishment.
issuing from the mound at the place the Turks called Kirk-gios, meaning forty eyes. Schliemann asserted that there were actually forty springs, not just two, and he “found in all the springs a uniform temperature of 17 Centigrade equal to 62 Fahrenheit.” He could not prove that two springs of different temperatures existed at Hissarlik, but wrote that “one day while digging I know I shall find the two springs.”
Schliemann staked everything on his judgment that the Hill of Hissarlik was that described by Homer, that Bunarbashi could not possibly fit Homer’s epic. There was much changing of sides in the debate. Some who decided Hissarlik was the site of ancient Ilium had originally favored Bunarbashi; others had held with Hissarlik from the beginning. Among those who agreed with Schliemann about Troy’s location were an Austrian consul at the Dardanelles, G. von Hahn; the astronomer A. Schmidt of Athens; M. fimile Bournouf, honorary director of the French School of Archaeology at Athens; F. A. Wolf, E. D. Clarke, and P. Barker Webb of England ; the Germans George Grote, Julius Braun, and Gustav von Eckenbrecher ; Ireland’s classical scholar Professor J. P. Mahaffy; Charles MacLaren of Edinburgh, who announced for Hissarlik as early as 1822; and, of course, Frank Calvert.
Only Schliemann, firm in his conviction, was willing to put the theory to test by hiring diggers to start excavation.
On April 9, 1870, Schliemann, alone with two workmen from Chiplak, showed them where to dig, by sinking the first pickaxe into the ground. He then climbed to the top of the Hill of Hissarlik and gave himself up to a play of imagination that brought to life scenes from the Iliad, which he knew by heart. He wrote in his diary that he “could fair see the handsome Paris and fair Helen, landing at this spot in their flight from Sparta.” Lines of the epic poured forth as he recited highlights of its story : Paris, debonair son of Priam, king of Troy, hospitably received by Menelaus, king of Sparta, was irresistibly attracted to the beautiful queen, Helen. Having seduced her, Paris abducted Helen, returning with her to his father’s realm where they lived luxuriously within the citadel at Troy. Heinrich, certain that Troy’s remains existed below the ground on which he stood, transported himself back through the centuries to the departure of Menelaus for Mycenae, ruled by his brother King Agamemnon. Together the brothers planned a flotilla that would sail to avenge the honor of Menelaus and to rescue the fair Helen. The sibling kings were joined by Achilles and his blood-brother Patroclus ; by Odysseus, ruler of the island of Ithaca ; and by the man Homer called “the Telamonian Ajax,” who was Ajax, son of Telamon, chief of the island of Salamis.
Two years were spent in gathering the forces of army and navy before the ships sailed across the Aegean, into the Hellespont, and reached at last the broad delta where the fresh-water river Scamander emptied into the salt-water strait. The Greeks landed on the shore of Asia Minor, and for ten years their war with the subjects of Priam raged across the Trojan plain. Battles were won and lost ; heroes of both sides were wounded and many were killed.
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The Olympian gods, some favoring the defenders and some the aggressors, aided and abetted their respective favorites in the decade-long war.
Schliemann, standing on the overlook of that ancient battle, was entranced by his own recitation and, “with my flesh creeping with bit-bumps covering my skin,” could see a massive wooden horse pulled to the great Scaean Gate of Troy. He felt the dust close in around the scene, the gates swinging wide as the horse, gift of the Greeks to the Trojans, was drawn into the citadel. He imagined the Greek soldiers, concealed within the horse, leaping out when the full dark of night had fallen, and setting fire to the city before opening the gate to their cohorts, who entered and sacked the city of Priam. “Although it was morning, with the sun rising high, to me it was night and I saw flames leap into the sky, as they did in Jerrer’s book read at age seven. I was filled with in tense desire to begin my digging and lay bare, for the world to see, the city of Priam and the war recorded by Homer.”
Unable to break the spell in which he was held by Homer’s lines, Schliemann recited part of the poet’s second epic, the Odyssey, story of the adventures of Odysseus, who spent the ten years following the Trojan War searching for his home island, Ithaca.
More than ever convinced that he was at Troy, Schliemann walked down from the top of the Hill to where his workmen were cutting a trench from north to south. Rolling up his sleeves, he helped the two men to make “… a preliminary excavation in order to test the depth to which the artificial soil extended. I made it at the northwestern corner, in a place where the hill had in creased considerably in size, and where, consequently, the accumulation of debris of the Hellenic period was very great.” In three days they had sunk a shaft to a depth of 16 feet below the surface and kid bare a wall of huge stones, 6j4 feet thick, which, “as my later excavations have shown, belonged to a tower of the Macedonian epoch.”
Schliemann, no longer able to restrain his urge to dig, was excavating at Hissarlik without a Turkish permit. From experience he knew that every application for permit had to pass through a maze of political intrigue, not only in Turkey but also in Greece. Such machinations beset him throughout his archaeological work. Representatives of both countries suspected that all foreigners requesting rights to digs had ulterior motives. Some officials simply
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put off the consideration of matters unimportant to them, and others expected bribes for their cooperation. Schliemann from the first was unwilling to conduct archaeological research under threat of bribery, because he felt that his scientific exploration would benefit the country where it was conducted. In 1870, he boldly bypassed officials in Constantinople.
By April 12 Schliemann had managed to obtain four workmen, who rode with him from Chiplak and began their day by starting a trench running from east to west across Hissarlik. Midmorning he was repulsed by a snake that slithered in front of him “but with instinct I swung my shovel .and cut the serpent in half.” Later that day he had an encounter with another unpleasant intruder, a Turk who demanded 300 gold francs in return for permission to dig on his land. Schliemann explained dramatically that he was digging to find the famous city of the Turk’s ancestors, but the man, unimpressed, insisted on payment. Schliemann turned out his pockets to prove that he had but 40 francs. The suspicious Turk took the money but refused to leave until he had searched through Schliemann’s greatcoat and hat, thrown to one side of the trench. While the Turk pawed through the clothing, Schliemann returned to his digging.
Word of his firm handling of the irate landowner spread over night, and in homage to the intrepid foreigner who was digging, nineteen men signed up for work at the excavation. That day the diggers removed from the east-west trench two coins, two clay pots, a funeral urn containing the ashes of a human body, a silver cup, a leather ring, three terra-cotta statuettes, and fragments of a broken cup “. . . which I have put together in full except for one piece that is missing.”
Standing in the deepening trench, Schliemann dug down into the soil “. . . which lay on top of Priam’s palace in the area where I shall uncover the Ilium of Homer. My only regret and sadness as repeatedly I sink my spade is that my cherished wife is not beside me at the moment.” He stopped often to examine some object uncovered by a workman, putting it with the pile of other artifacts to be examined on his return to Chiplak that evening.Although small in stature, Schliemann had great strength and agility and seemed to be everywhere at once in the digs, directing, cajoling, examining, digging. “. . . my muscles as they respond to the efforts so physical are able to function because I have kept
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my body strong with swimming. Muscles are matched with the channels of my mind and rivers of my soul. I am at work at last !”
His spade was midair in a wide swing when he saw the Turk from Koum-Kale who, only the day before, had been paid off with 40 francs. Malevolent and greedy, the Turk leaned over the side of the trench and, spewing forth a barrage of Arabic, demanded more money. As the volley of words continued, Schliemann laid down his spade, slowly climbed out of the trench, stared the Turk in the eye, and “then spat a splash of spittle” at his feet. Jumping down into the pit, Schliemann calmly continued his digging, and in final insult turned his back on the hulking Turk. Although Schliemann appeared unafraid of his well-armed adversary, several workmen protectively closed in around their employer. Enraged, the Turk screamed obscenities describing Schliemann’s ancestors and actions, and, shouting that he would return the following day, stormed away.
The next day passed and then a second without a sign of the man from Koum-Kale. But on the third day he returned with his brother and a dragoman, all three creeping up on Schliemann before workmen were alerted. Towering above him, the first Turk said that he and his brother must be paid 3,000 for their section of the Hill of Hissarlik. It was true that part of the Hill belonged to them Frank Calvert owned the other part but Schliemann had no idea of submitting to extortion. Asking for the return of his 40 francs, he went through the digs telling his workmen to fill in the exposed trenches. As they began to shovel back the earth Schliemann returned to where the brothers were standing and firmly repeated that he wanted his money back.
When the landowners saw what was being done they became agitated and begged Schliemann to please stop his men. He shrugged, and the devious brothers, explaining that they were really after the great, newly exposed stones for use in the construction of houses and bridges, implored Schliemann to go on with the digging. Satisfied that he had brought off a coup for the small price of 40 francs, Schliemann gave orders for continued excavation. That night when he wrote in his diary, “my audacity was too much for the Turk,” he was unaware that the purchase of the land was far from settled.
Every evening when Schliemann returned to Chiplak he carried with him the day’s finds and, in his squalid room, spent as many
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hours as required for his paper work. That April he established the pattern that continued throughout his years as excavator and archaeologist. He wrote voluminous notes about each object collected, giving its position and depth in the digs and a comparison with other objects found at the same spot, often adding a detailed drawing. In his eagerness to share the news of his finds with the outside world, he expressed his ideas about them in hasty letters to friends and scholars and in articles for publication in journals. He frankly admitted that he often jumped to conclusions, allowing his imagination to override his sounder judgment. By his rashness Schliemann exposed himself to criticism while, as egotist, he hoped to be praised for his daring work. If his interpretations of his finds were sometimes faulty, his records of them were not. He returned to the digs each new day secure in the knowledge that the previous day’s work was meticulously recorded.
His work crew varied from the minimum of two to the maximum of nineteen, and he had obtained the services of an outstanding overseer, Nicholas Saphiros Yannakis, a Greek living in Asia Minor. The tall and powerfully muscled Yannakis was a wanderer “… who the gods of Olympus and the Fates of time have caused to cross my path.” At a chance meeting the two men one elegantly dressed if looking somewhat like a scarecrow ; the other, regal of bearing, although shabbily clothed were immediately attracted to each other. It is not clear from Schliemann’s diaries and letters whether he actually hired Yannakis or Yannakis simply attached himself to the archaeologist. It is unlikely that there was ever a formal agreement or contract between them, but through the years their personal bond strengthened and the responsibilities of Yannakis increased. Until his untimely death in the summer of 1883, Yannakis was Schliemann’s factotum, bodyguard, foreman, and blood brother in the best Greek tradition.
After the middle of April, 1870, it became clear to Schliemann that the success of the excavation for Troy would depend on official sanction and on more thorough preparation as Sophia had told him. On romantic impulse he had rushed to Asia Minor to dig and to explore without plan. Faced with his first trench, 16 feet deep, he shrewdly evaluated the situation, concluding that more men and materiel were needed for the formidable job ahead. Leaving Yannakis., his friend and skopos sentinel, not servant to guard the excavation, Schliemann packed up and prepared to leave Hissarlik.
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NINE
Schliemann’s resolve to concentrate his efforts on a straightforward and steadfast pattern for achieving success at the excavation in Asia Minor was dissipated during the ensuing months. The tribulations ahead were only in part due to his own vacillations and precipitate actions. Even before he reached Greece, he was shaken by the death of three people in a collision at sea of his ship, the Menzaheh, with two others. Landing on April 22, he was horrified to learn that only the day before, brigands had murdered four men whose ransom Schliemann had offered to pay.
Ten days earlier a gay party in two carriages had left the Hotel d’Angleterre for Marathon. On the return trip brigands had at tacked the sightseers half a mile from the village of Pikermi. Four of the captives, three Englishmen and an Italian nobleman, were hustled to the mountain hideout of the marauders ; three were re turned to Athens with messengers carrying demands for ransom. Because of the prominence of the men captured, the kidnapping had made news that reached even remote Hissarlik. Schliemann, a realist who knew when payoff was necessary, sent word to Athens that he would give whatever amount was required to free the four prisoners, whose lives he knew to be in danger. Both his warning and his offer had been ignored by Greek authorities and the British minister in Athens. The latter, less alarmed, had engaged in delaying tactics that were inexcusable. While the authorities resorted to subterfuge in the hope of outwitting the brigands and paying no ransom, the men were removed from the first hideout. But when rescue forces from Athens closed in, the bandits killed the four captives in the countryside near DilessL
The bungling that led to the Dilessi murders had violent repercussions in England where an aroused public pressed for punitive action against Greece and her people. The British government nearly toppled when Prime Minister Gladstone, by his refusal to sanction reprisal, displeased Her Majesty Queen Victoria, defied the members of Parliament, and dismissed popular opinion. Wil-
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Ham Gladstone statesman, classics scholar and philhellene was powerful enough to survive the British crisis over the Dilessi murders which could have been prevented had not Schliemann, as private citizen, been powerless to influence Greek and British officials in Athens.
This experience confirmed his convictions about the short sightedness, incompetence, and chicanery of bureaucrats. Even while he brooded over the kidnapping’s tragic climax, Schliemann was in daily communication with Turkish officials to whom he cabled requests for permission to dig in their country. Their answers, though prompt, were evasive and noncommittal, further examples of devious scheming. In addition to his efforts to obtain the Turkish firman, Schliemann attempted to obtain permits for digging in Greece from Mr. F. Eustratiades, Minister of Public Education, who, as in previous encounters, was curt and uncooperative. Irked by the stumbling blocks set up in Greece and
Turkey, Schliemann vowed that thereafter he intended to lead a life of contemplation, never again “offering my services to countries controlled by stupid and grasping officials.”
In peevish mood, he booked passage for himself and Sophia aboard the Nile, which sailed on April 27 for Constantinople. Throughout the trip Schliemann was difficult about petty matters. It pleased him to have dickered successfully for a 10 percent discount on their steamship fare, and annoyed him that the bill for a five-day stay in Constantinople’s Hotel d’Angleterre was 176 francs. “This, in spite of the fact that my darling Sophithion has eaten practically nothing during the past few days. Again her illness of the stomach is upon her and we shall leave, never to stay here again.” It was no wonder that her nervous tension increased during the round of sightseeing for her continued education and of parties for influential Englishmen and Americans.
The time that Heinrich spent exploring the city with Sophia might better have been spent in personal application for the permit he was so eager to obtain. But he wrote that he would “not talk with any officials because I refuse to be used as an object of scheming and grasping politicians.” Although he should have realized from past experience that no Turk would initiate talks about rights to dig at Hissarlik, Schliemann apparently hoped to be approached with a proposition for settling the “thorn of the matter
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of my rightful finnan.” When the Turks continued to ignore him, and British and American representatives at Constantinople expressed discouragement about the granting of the permit, he huffily sailed away on a ship called the Sophie.
Sophia and Heinrich spent the month of May on a bootless peregrination spurred by his restlessness. Mind inactive and imagination dormant, he lapsed into a dull period almost unique in his life. No drama enlivened his written account of the journey that from start to finish was commonplace. His report of a few days spent on the Danube was dreary. The river boat had clean baths, wide deck promenades and a magnificent dining room; but he wrote that the vessel was without staterooms, the beds being separated only by curtains. For diversion he and Sophia, taking advantage of the frequent stops of the slow boat, examined the shrubbery, trees, and flowers growing along the banks. On board they spent many hours in the company of a Madame de Belgarrie, who was very deaf and “talked altogether too much” in a high voice. Although Madame’s voice worked “like a windmill,” Heinrich listened as the chatterbox spun historical tales of the region and described the customs of the people living on the land through which they passed “at the pace of a sluggish water animal.”
At Vienna, Schliemann was annoyed at himself for having for gotten to make hotel reservations at the height of the spring season in Austria. He was forced to take inferior accommodations at a rooming house. Sophia was soon exhausted from tours of museums and bored with night life, enjoying of all the things she saw only a performance of the opera LAjricaine. From Vienna the Schliemanns went to Dresden, Stuttgart, Lake Constance, Zurich, Lake Lucerne, Geneva, and Lyons, arriving at Marseille on May 27.
There Heinrich “bought many new clothes for the wardrobe of my beautiful and darling wife” during the sort of shopping spree that he always enjoyed, spending money with abandon and expending time with patience. But once the purchases were complete he was eager to get away, and bullied a clerk at the hotel into getting the best accommodations on the Nile sailing for the Piraeus.
Sophia, relieved to be back in Athens, was looking forward to the enjoyment of a long period of relaxation that was not to be realized. She mistakenly thought that Heinrich would be involved for weeks in negotiations for permits to dig in both Greece and
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Turkey. Instead he was informed immediately by spokesmen for both countries that he must agree to hand over to the respective governments all objects excavated on their land. That he refused to do. Forced into a quick stalemate and furious at his failure to get his own way, the impatient Schliemann decided to leave Athens only five days after their return.
Still weary from the tour through Europe, Sophia reluctantly repacked her luggage and set out with Heinrich for Paris. Settling there for an indefinite stay, she visited back and forth with her young friends, shopped, stood for fittings of more new clothes and, assuming increased responsibility for the management of the large menage at their home, planned parties with the housekeeper. By day, Heinrich attended to his financial affairs and inspected his real estate with his French agent. Convinced that by perseverance permission to excavate at Hissarlik would soon be obtained, Heinrich optimistically inspected equipment of the types needed at the digs, placed his orders, and arranged for shipments to Yannakis. Sophia and Heinrich were guests at balls and banquets, went to the theater and the opera, but gaiety everywhere was restrained because of the insistent rumors of war between France and Prussia.
After only two weeks in Paris, Heinrich, disturbed by the acute political situation, overnight decided to leave. In one chaotic day Sophia canceled engagements, recalled invitations, and packed in great haste for the return to Greece. Again as passengers on the Niewen, she and Heinrich sailed for the Piraeus just five days before the start of the Franco-Prussian War.
Summer had settled a pall over Greece. Its people were in a state of torpor, and its land was parched. The tempo of life, slowed almost to a standstill, bothered Schliemann no more than the monotony of the climate that surrounded him “like a blanket of dead boughs covering the casket in which a living person lay drugged/’ He had ample opportunity to observe the desolate landscape and to suffer from the heat, because he took Sophia on numerous excursions into the country, driving in a carriage always protected by guards.
While others sought protection from the hot weather in the shelter of their homes, Heinrich tried to escape the oppressive present by journeying into the past. He and Sophia spent one Sunday exploring and picnicking at Eleusis, site of the ancient Eleusinian Mysteries. There King Celeos sheltered the goddess Demeter while she was seeking her daughter Persephone, who had been abducted by Pluto, ruler of the Underworld. Demeter, Mother Earth, in gratitude for the hospitality of Celeos, gave to Triptolemos, his son, a kernel of grain and instructions for tilling the soil. The King-Priest Eumolpos was ordered by Demeter to hold fall ceremonies commemorating her gifts. According to historians, the main ceremony was held from September 12 to September 23, when the harvest had been gathered and after Demeter’s earth was at rest, gathering strength for another year.
With passing time a cult centered about the ceremonies, which came to be known as the Mysteries of Eleusis. All who participated in the secret rites were reborn each year, like the land, and were assured of a better life after death. Initiation into the Mysteries was available to every Greek. When eventually the god of revelry, Dionysos, became associated with the rites, an orgiastic element was added to them. Initiates swore never to reveal what happened during the ceremonies, and their secrets were so well kept that no hint of them survived in legend, nor did the revelations experienced or the prophecies foretold. u He who says he knows what happened here is a liar, or an outcast who reports what never occurred,” Schliemann wrote with conviction. “Fiction forms stories of any who says he knows the rites. No man would dare, in fear of immediate death or living hell, repeat that experienced during the Mysteries.”
Drenched by midday sun, Heinrich and Sophia wandered among the ruins which were mere outlines in stone of ancient buildings. Lizards darted across the dry, pebbled ground as he described the great Temple of Demeter, the even greater Propylaea, the Sanctuary of Pluto, and the most sacred edifice of all, the Telesterion, where the devout were intiated into the Mysteries. Heinrich did acknowledge that “. . . although bound to secrecy, writers gave hints and it is well known that the vortex of the culture was fertility, rebirth. We know also that the performance of the Mysteries was accompanied by orgiastic dances, by what to us today would be obscene hymns, and a spectacular torchlight procession to the temple of Demeter and her sad-eyed daughter, Persephone. This can be deduced.”
Heinrich asked Sophia if she recalled his discussions about
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Eleusis with Renan, who had written in his treatise on the Mysteries, “The revelations of the Mysteries seem to have been the truly serious part of the ancient religion.” Renan had studied the religions of the many lands where he had traveled, and none held more fascination for him than the central core centered in Eleusis“. . . where the life-giving hope found in fertility is the central theme. Would that we knew more about the Mysteries so we could understand more about ourselves.”
Sophia not only remembered the talks with Renan, who had become her devoted friend, but she wrote him a letter saying that while Heinrich was at Eleusis he seemed to become an initiate, and the “beyond look in his eye told that he was for the moment living then, not now.” Heinrich afterward referred repeatedly to that day at Eleusis, and when seasons had changed and months passed, he went back there alone. He returned from his solitary pilgrimage in changed mood. His pace quickened. His mind charged. His emotions soared. “I myself have been initiated, purified and given
strength to wend my way toward a newer and fuller life.” He was circuitously headed for that life when shortly he set out for Troy, again alone but not forlorn. Sophia was pregnant. He rejoiced when her condition was confirmed by a doctor, and shared the glad news with everyone. Heinrich publicly announced that sometime in May was “when my son who shall be called Odysseus will be born !” It was as much Heinrich’s decision as Sophia’s that she should not accompany him to Hissarlik where the rigorous weather of winter would not be good for her. A tender father-to-be, Heinrich gently advised Sophia about prenatal care, and bade her an affectionate farewell.
On December 3, 1870, Heinrich left for Chiplak, where he was met by Yannakis, who managed to recruit a skeleton crew for digging. The weather was unsuitable for excavation, but Schliemann was determined to work as long as possible. Winds that swept across the Plain of Troy bombarded the Hill of Hissarlik with icy blasts, chilling the workmen and Schliemann, who dug at their side, muscles tired and back aching.
Schliemann, in spite of the low temperatures, rode out early every morning to take a swim in the frigid waters of the Hellespont. At night in his unheated room, he sat at his desk wearing heavy
coats and woolen scarfs that did not properly warm him. He wrote
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daily letters to his “most darling wife who is behind me in Athens/’ admonishing her variously to rest, to control her diet, to walk slowly, to bathe daily in the sea, and never to hit against any object, sharp or blunt, for fear the “precious thing you bear may be troubled or hurt.”
After a fortnight of battling the cold at the digs, Schliemann was forced to concede that the excavation should be closed down for the winter. He proceeded from Chiplak to the Dardanelles, where he had the “pleasure of meeting Frederick Calvert, Counsil(sic) of England, the brother of Frank Calvert.” After a long talk about Troy with the British consul, Schliemann went to Constantinople on the Schibin, enjoying the short run because the captain “stocked a good cabinet and an excellent closet,” and was, in addition, an amusing companion. Schliemann approved the captain’s maxim that “during months which had an R in them, one should not put water in wine ; and during the months without an 7? in them, one should not mix wine with water.”
In Constantinople, presenting himself to Safvet Pasha, Minister of Public Instruction, Schliemann immediately stated the purpose of his visit forthrightly, saying that he was there to obtain the firman. While at Hissarlik he had at last arranged for the purchase of the principal site of Troy for 1,000 francs, Schliemann said, and the deal with the two landowners would be concluded as soon as the Minister granted the permission to excavate. Later Schliemann wrote : “He knew nothing of Troy or Homer, but I explained the matter to him briefly, and said that I hoped to find there antiquities of immense value to science.” The crafty Safvet Pasha, thinking that gold in quantity might be found, asked for more information, and then suggested that Schliemann call again several days later.
The delay meant that Heinrich was not going to be able to reach Athens in time to celebrate Christmas with his wife, but nothing took precedence over obtaining the firman. He remained in Con
stantinople and, with Mr. Wayne McVeagh, United States Minister Resident, returned on the appointed day to the luxurious office of Safvet Pasha. From him Schliemann “heard to my horror that he had already compelled the two proprietors to sell him the field for 600 francs, and I might make my excavations there if I wished but that everything I found must be given to him personally/’
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Schliemann exploded with a rage that seemed certain to lead to physical violence which was prevented only by the prompt intervention of McVeagh. He wedged himself between Safvet Pasha and Schliemann, who shouted obscenities in Turkish interspersed with every vile word he knew in at least a dozen other languages, as he was led protesting from the Minister’s office.
Previously Heinrich had informed Sophia that he had learned “Turkish during my stay here,” which was not quite true because he had begun to work on the language some days before he reached Constantinople. It was correct that in eighteen days he had mastered Turkish and could “. . . assure you, my darling wife, I speak and write it fluently, and already have a vocabulary of six thousand words.” His six thousand words failed to sway the scheming Safvet Pasha. In Athens on New Year’s Eve, Schliemann wrote : “Will my rightful firman be mine? Or, must I succeed without it?”
Six days later he entered his forty-eighth year, and a period of emotional conflict that jeopardized his future.
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TEN
In the early days of January 1871 Schliemann, eager to escape from Athens, rationalized his plans for a return to France by an expressed concern for his friends in that war-torn country. Though he was worried about them and about the condition of his various Paris properties, his prime reasons for wanting to get away were more personal. Some members of the Engastromenos family were being increasingly troublesome, and Sophia was unforgiving about his failure to return home for the celebration of their second Christmas.
He reasoned that his presence at Constantinople had been of prime importance to their future, but she, not yet nineteen, held to the girlish view that her husband should have been with her for the important church and family holiday, especially when she was carrying his child. Sophia was neither swayed by Heinrich’s explanation of his absence nor understanding about his point of view. He was annoyed at her and by the solidarity of the Engastromenos family, which sided with Sophia. Vexed by the discord at home and preoccupied about the effect of the war on his friends and his business, Heinrich, irritable and distracted, decided to go to Europe. With a farewell that was strained and far from loving, he took leave of Sophia, and departed for Munich to obtain a permit for safe conduct into France.
The war that had started six months earlier was well advanced, and Prussian armies, led by Helmuth Karl Bernhard von Moltke, were besieging Paris. Famine threatened the city, and Schliemann’s compassion for those in it was repeatedly stressed in his letters and diaries. As scholar, he wondered what was happening to the members of the great societies devoted to science and to those “. . . teaching the young of the coming generation who will carry on the French tradition of investigation in all realms of knowledge.” As businesman, he was anxious about his Paris real estate which “must continue to be the source of funds to carry on my excavations.” Through the years he had made substantial investments in rental properties : warehouses, factories and residences.
Confident that he would be able to pass through the lines tightly drawn around Paris, Schliemann applied at Munich for the permit. When his request was summarily refused, he moved on to Bismarck’s headquarters at Strasbourg, expecting to be cordially dealt with by Europe’s man of iron, who was a nodding acquaintance. Bismarck not only denied the permit but brusquely dismissed Schliemann by ordering him out of the territory. He persisted, but in a sharp exchange of words was bested by Bismarck.
Thwarted at Strasbourg, the defiant Schliemann forged a safe-conduct permit and set out for Paris, reaching it by way of repeated acts of bribery. Having sneaked through the Prussian lines, he crossed the city on foot, becoming more anguished with each step. The mark of starvation was on every face. Gaunt old men shuffled along sidewalks strewn with litter, and emaciated children listlessly pawed through debris in the gutters. The facades of once-beautiful buildings were mutilated by gaping holes opened by the direct hits of heavy bombardment; walls, cornices and exterior woodwork were chipped, broken and splintered by the spatter of shellfire.
Heartsick for Paris and her people, and weary from trudging miles with his heavy valise, Schliemann turned into Place St. Michel, bracing himself for a shock. The Place had escaped the shelling that had laid waste to streets and avenues close by ; Schliemann’s home was intact, and the house at Number 5, which he also owned, had only a small “scar on its exterior.” A subsequent check of his other properties revealed that, with incredible luck, only one of his buildings had been demolished during the siege.
Schliemann, ever fastidious, was appalled by the destitution of Parisians, living in filth and existing without the common necessities of food and heat. It revolted him that exorbitant prices were paid for dogs, cats, and even for rats by people desperate for meat of any kind. Tenderhearted, he mourned for the children suffering and dying from malnutrition. Appreciative of fortitude, he reported with pride that friends and acquaintances bore their misfortune with gallantry.
Scholars, shivering and hungry, carried on with their research in freezing studies; students, their clothes tattered, filled bleak
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classrooms ; and academicians, wits keen and stomachs empty, held meetings on regular schedules. Schliemann reported on a surprisingly spirited and lively session of the Societe Geographique, and told of serving tasteless tea to scholar friends who met informally at his house where “we huddled together in the hope that an exchange of body heat might sustain us and add fuel to our minds.”
Rumors in the city were matched with counter tidings. The war would soon end in victory for France, or the war was all but lost by France. The French were mustering reserves to beat off the Prussians, or the Prussians were mustering reserves to take over Paris. Schliemann changed his mind with the rumors. One day he was going to stay in Paris for the duration; the next, after collecting what rents he could, he would return to Greece.
Living alone in the great house at 6, Place St. Michel, he had time to think seriously about his problems with Sophia’s family and about their marriage. From its start, Sophia’s sister Katingo and Madame Victoria had asked for money, and for more money that Sophia, being young and inexperienced, had given as she could. Loyal to her family, she had unwittingly aided and abetted the greedy ones who thought that money from her exceedingly rich husband was their due. Heinrich ignored the false claim of the redoubtable Madame Victoria that he had promised her a diamond necklace and 150,000 gold francs, and she retaliated by playing on Sophia’s sympathy. In the role of poor dear mother, she made a pathetic case for herself as unrewarded by a daughter on whom she had showered devotion, and as mistreated by a neglectful son-in-law. In the role of loving mother, she repeated in letters to and in talks with Sophia how cruel Heinrich was to his bride, forcing her to study, making her travel endlessly, and leaving her at home when it suited his pleasure.
Heinrich, mentally listing the faults of Madame Victoria, should have realized that the pressures from that indomitable woman were in some measure responsible for Sophia’s nervous tension manifested by abdominal pains, headaches and fainting spells. But he, distant from Sophia, thought only of her limitations as perfect wife. He had hoped she would become linguistically fluent, but her German and English remained faulty. Her enthusiasm for museum tours and scholarly symposiums was sporadic. She said that she loved him for himself and expressed an overwhelming
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interest in his plans for excavation, yet when she might have gone to Troy with him, she had refused.
Physically uncomfortable and mentally perturbed, Schliemann brooded in his loneliness and arrived at an unreasoned conclusion. In depressed mood he decided that, having made a second bad marriage, he would divorce Sophia, giving her a financial settlement large enough to satisfy even her acquisitive mother. On impulse he dismantled his Paris home and put its furniture and other household effects in storage. After settling on a rental fee for the house, he arranged for the collection of rents on his other real estate and prepared to leave Paris. Making do with a single iron
bed, three dishes, one glass, a fork and a knife, Schliemann spent the night of February 22, 1871, at 6, Place St. Michel. The next day, leaving behind bittersweet memories, Schliemann headed for Greece and for what he expected to be the unhappy conclusion of another segment of his life.
Divorce was dismissed as unthinkable by Heinrich when, at home again, he was entranced by the beauty, warmth and loveliness of Sophia, who was “carrying my very own Odysseus.” As if by telepathy, she too had suffered over their marriage while he was in Paris. She was tortured by fear for his safety, and missed as never before his tender solicitude and affectionate embraces. She found
family chatter dull in comparison with Heinrich’s conversation, and was provoked by her mother’s constant complaints, mostly criticism of the absent Heinrich. Facing up to her family, Sophia concluded that “in vows of marriage you give yourself to your husband to stand by his side and follow where he goes.” Her allegiance, given wholeheartedly to Heinrich, was never to waver; and she did stand ever by his side, ready to defend him against detractors and to fight for his rights with womanly wiles.
Their love deep, abiding, and fervent survived occasional personal differences that were inevitable for two such strong-willed people. After Heinrich’s return from Paris in 1871, he renewed plans for the future, with Sophia as his committed partner at last. The Schliemanns, physically, emotionally and intellectually interde pendent ever after, were truly happy only when together. In separation, their relationship was apt to be marred by strain and by misunderstanding that often led to recrimination and dissension. She accused him of neglect if he was too long absent from home,
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and he chided her for petty transgressions ; but together they faced the world, united in their aims and ambitions and in their passionate dedication to Homeric verities. When, in the fateful winter of 1871, Sophia took a stand against her family, Madame Victoria intelligently accepted the inevitable. She saw to it that unreasonable requests of largess from Heinrich ceased, and that Sophia be permitted to live her own life. Madame Victoria’s begging and carping stopped as soon as she recognized that her daughter, finally matured as a woman, had gone over to the side of the enemy Heinrich. To Sophia she became the doting mother, supplanting cajolery with affection, incessant demands with constant attentions. With Heinrich, Madame Victoria remained remote but grudgingly respectful. He, forced to travel on business that spring, left Sophia, without any qualms about being under mined by Madame Victoria.
Early in May Heinrich rushed away from London, reaching Athens just in time for Sophia’s delivery of a healthy, beautiful baby. Heinrich took the child in his arms and smiled down at Sophia, eyes twinkling with amusement. It was no Odysseus that he held but a girl, Andromache, a name on which Heinrich and Sophia had previously agreed in the event that the baby was not a boy. Andromache, wife of Hector, was one of the Trojan women of the Iliad and the titular heroine of plays by Euripides and Racine.
Another hot and dry summer settled a pall on Greece that went unnoticed by Sophia and Heinrich. She cared for the infant, and he gave his unswerving attention to the major assault on Troy that they would make together in early autumn. Every detail of planning made by Heinrich was shared with Sophia that she might be as prepared as he for the operation at the Hill of Hissarlik. In mid-September, leaving Andromache with Madame Victoria, the Schliemanns left for Constantinople.
They called on Achmed Pasha, Governor of the Dardanelles and the Archipelago, who, though gracious, informed them that Safvet pasha’s personal purchase of part of the Hill of Hissarlik having been set aside, the site had been acquired by the Turkish government for 3,000 piastres. Sophia and Heinrich listened in consternation while the Governor explained that his government was in the process of acquiring ancient art objects for the recently established
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museum in Constantinople, and the Sultan was routinely with holding legal rights to excavate from all but Turks.
Schliemann, pertinacious as always, bowed out of the office of Achmed Pasha and marshaled his forces for a double flank move. With Sophia, he planned lunch parties and dinners at which they lavishly entertained Turkish ministers, several of whom were captivated by the conversation and sparkling personality of their hostess. Heinrich enlisted the help of the Americans John P. Brown and Wayne McVeagh, who used their considerable influence with Turkish officials eager to be in the good graces of representatives of the United States. By social and diplomatic courting, the Turks were persuaded to issue a firman with the restraining stipulation that all objects excavated would belong to the Turkish government. Signed firman in hand at last, Schliemann voiced no objection to its restricting conditions, but gave tacit agreement to the terms of the permit.
At the Dardanelles the Schliemanns encountered further difficulties, “this time on the part of the before named Achmed Pasha, who imagined that the position of the field which I was to excavate was not accurately enough indicated in the document, and therefore would not give me his permission for the excavations until he should receive a more definite explanation from the Grand Vizier. Owing to the recent change in ministry, a long time no doubt would have elapsed before the matter was settled, had it not occurred to Mr. Brown to apply to His Excellency Kiamil-Pasha, the new
Minister of Public Instruction, who takes a lively interest in science, and at whose intercession the Grand Vizier immediately gave to Achmed Pasha the desired explanation. This, however, again occupied 13 days, and it was only on the evening of the 10th of October that I started with my wife from the Dardanelles for the Plain of Troy, a journey of eight hours. As, according to the firman, I was to be watched by a Turkish official whose salary I have to pay during the time of my excavations, Achmed Pasha assigned to me the second secretary of his chancellery of justice, an Armenian, by name Georgios Sarkis whom I pay 23 piastres daily/’
Heinrich and Sophia occupied a hovel at Chiplak, getting up before dawn each morning, traveling the couple of miles to Hissarlik, and working side by side with the men from sunup to sun-
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down. Sophia had a crew of her own, a group of Greeks from the village of Renkoi, who on the first morning refused to take orders from her. Woman’s place, as they well knew, was at home, cooking, washing, cleaning, bearing and rearing children, or in the open, hoeing the fields for crop planting and gathering firewood that, like a beast of burden, she carried to her house. Men of Renkoi sullenly stared at Sophia when, according to instructions given to her by Heinrich, she told them where to cut into the Hill and how to proceed with their work. Leaning on their shovels, unmoving, they glared at the young woman who wore a fancy hat and a fine dress with a bulging bustle.
Sophia knew that if she were ever to be of assistance to Heinrich she must win over the Renkoits, all afraid of losing face by taking orders from a woman. Tiers of petticoats rustling under the skirt of her dress, she stepped forward and took a shovel from one of the workmen. Digging it into the ground, she demonstrated how the earth should be lifted up and thrown into a basket. As she worked, she talked in glowing words about the purpose of the excavation, emphasizing the vital part that each man would play in the drama of uncovering a world long lost. She recited passages from Homer and, in conclusion, flashed a dazzling smile at her crew, saying, “Without you I am nothing. With your leadership, we shall set an example for other work crews here, outshining them by our success at the day’s end,”
Her appeal to the masculine ego had an immediate result. The man from whom she had borrowed the shovel walked slowly toward her and took it back, nodding to the others, who, calling out “We’ll show them,” began to dig with vigor.
That night in the hut at Chiplak, Sophia told Heinrich about the success of her histrionics with the crew. She acted out the scene, in turn standing stiff and unbending like a grim-faced Ren-koit and simpering like the helpless female she had pretended to be. Heinrich laughed heartily at her antics and affectionately patted her cheeks, praising her for her cleverness.
At the digs Heinrich worked with various crews, checking on each section of the wide trench being cut in the steep northern slope of Hissarlik. The difficulties of excavation in such a wilderness increased daily. The problem of disposal of debris mounted in proportion to the length and depth of the trench. Rubbish thrown
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directly down the outside slope eventually would have to be removed, which would make double work, so Schliemann insisted that earth and rock be disposed of at some distance to the right and
left of the mouth of the trench.
Boulders had to be dragged from the trench to the top of the slope and rolled down the steep hill, a procedure that consumed time and stopped work. “The numbers of immense blocks of stone which we continually come upon cause great trouble and have to be got out and removed . . . when a large block of this kind is rolled to the edge of the slope, all of my workmen leave their own work and hurry off to see the enormous weight roll down its steep path with a thundering noise and settle itself some distance in the Plain.” Schliemann, who personally made every minute at the digs count, would not let the men stop work just to enjoy the rock-rolling. They grumbled about his decision that no man should leave his work to watch a boulder crash down the slope, but he would not rescind the order. And daring them to strike, as they threatened, he went from crew to crew shouting orders like a slave driver.
Heinrich suffered through every delay at the excavation. He fumed to Sophia about the refusal of Renkoits to report to work either on Sunday or on any of the many feast days of the Orthodox Church. They could not be swayed by offers of money or by appeal to their loyalty, so Schliemann told Yannakis to recruit crews of Turks for work on holy days. But Renkoit and Turk alike ran for cover whenever a sudden shower drenched the Hill. Rainy weather caused work loss that Schliemann could not prevent, but he made the most of every series of wet days by drawing skillful sketches of his finds, by writing articles for publication, and by padding the notations in his diary in whatever language appealed to him at the moment. Whim alone seems to have been the basis for the entries, which were variously in Greek, Arabic, Persian, French, Italian, German, and English.
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ELEVEN
Under Schliemann’s direction the crews dug through the top debris of Hissarlik’s soil and, at 13 feet below the surface, came on foundation walls of a building, nearly square. Inscriptions indicated that the structure had been a city hall, built probably in the 4th century B.C. when Lysimachus, King of Thrace and ruler of both sides of the Hellespont, held the region in protectorate for the young Alexander the Great. Schliemann, impatient to get down to the level of Homer’s Troy, tore down the walls that were in his way, an act for which he was later castigated by archaeologists.
Undamaged pottery objects were carefully catalogued each night by Heinrich and Sophia. They also laboriously pieced together such broken segments as could be matched from the hundreds of sherds found, painstaking work rewarded by the excitement of accomplishment. Every new object discovered or produced from fragments thrilled Heinrich, who was prone to interpret the find by romantic deduction, not always a guide to accuracy. He repeatedly expressed his willingness to revise his first thoughts, and later wrote, “If my memoirs now and then contain contradictions, I hope that these may be pardoned when it is considered that I have here [at Hissarlik] revealed a new world of archaeology, that the objects which I have brought to light by the thousands are of a kind hitherto never or but very rarely found, and that consequently everything appeared strange and mysterious to me. Hence I frequently ventured upon conjectures which I was obliged to give up on mature consideration, till I at last acquired a thorough insight, and could draw well-founded conclusions for many actual proofs.”
Unforgiving, many scholars in France and Germany, as well as a few in England, constantly attacked announcements precipitously issued by Schliemann from Hissarlik. They criticized him for not asking for advice from those considered to be more scholarly than the “romantic financier with the destructive manner
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of a grave robber.” Such invective angered Schliemann, who grate fully accepted constructive criticism. In a letter to the Times of London, he was circumstantial about the advice he had sought from scholars whose knowledge he respected, and offered proof that his reading on the subject of archaeology embraced the whole literature of the science, including the latest articles published in obscure journals.
But he continued to make impetuous judgments with resultant errors. Recovering stone objects from the earth, he wrote that he undoubtedly had reached the level of the Stone Age, describing in detail the amazing workmanship and marveling that people “so many centuries past could produce stone objects of such perfection with the primitive tools they had.” He found no implements in the layer with the man-made objects of stone, but within the month discovered in the same strata metals and other evidence that made him recant. “Hence I must not only recall my conjecture that I had reached the stone period, but I cannot even admit that I have reached the bronze period, for the implements and weapons which I find are too well finished.” He concluded that he had reached a level showing a higher degree of civilization than the one under the first soil layer. Objects of copper, bronze, and other substances were fashioned with the same precise skill as those of stone. The Schliemanns were in a constant state of suspense as they wrested from the entombing earth weapons of hard stone, black and green ; hammers and knives of flint ; and needles, bodkins and spoons of bone.
Heinrich’s total experience of living contributed to his thinking about what was excavated. Sociologist, archaeologist, and romantic, he fused the past with the present in his mind, ever attempting to envision the whole civilization of any one period exemplified in his finds. That he was often wrong in his conclusions he did not deny, but he arrived at certain truths by intuition that sometimes seemed just short of clairvoyance, and by dependence on his aesthetic instincts and broad knowledge, gleaned from study and world travel.
Primitive miniature canoes excavated at Hissarlik reminded him of those formed from hollowed tree trunks that he often had seen in Ceylon. “Again to my surprise, I frequently find the Priapus, sometimes represented quite true to nature in stone or terra cotta,
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