Samos

“ Perhaps the centre of Ionic art and culture was, however, the island of Samos, but I doubt not the fame of its Samian wine has carried its name further than the exploits of its warriors, the works of its artists, or the thoughts of its philosophers. It was the birthplace of Pythagoras; it was once governed by Polycrates; there for a time Antony and Cleopatra established their court of love and luxury. ”

“ Two years before the founding of Amphipolis, Samos revolted from Athens. ... In this revolt of Samos the overt action comes from the oligarchs who had seized upon the Ionian town of Priene, and defeated the Milesians who opposed them. The latter appealed to the Athenians, and received not only their aid but that of the Samian demos. The latter now became the ruling body in the island, fifty men and fifty boys being taken from the oligarchic families and placed as hostages in Lemnos, which, as we have seen, was now wholly occupied by Athenian Klerouchoi. ”

“ The people of Samos were at first governed by kings, and afterwards the form of their government became democratical and oligarchical. Samos was in its most flourishing situation under Polycrates, who had made himself absolute there. The Samians assisted the Greeks against the Persians, when Xerxes invaded Europe, and were reduced under the power of Athens, after a revolt, by Pericles, B.C. 441. They were afterwards subdued by Eumenes king of Pergamus, and were restored to their ancient liberty by Augustus. Under Vespasian, Samos became a Roman province. ”

“ Timon of Athens. In the pleasant isle of Samos there were many and great misgivings amongst the Athenian generals and the high-born, delicately nurtured, intellectual Greeks who at this crisis were serving under them. Sailors are generally conservative; they were often known to be oligarchic, sometimes even monarchic. The officers and many of the men in the fleet at Samos were no exception to this rule. ”

“ Its farmers are entirely taken up with hoeing the ground and the cultivation of trees, for it is from these rather than from cereals that Samos derives its wealth. The native population is numerous, and the island is visited by many strangers. ”

“ Ionian Samos was not yet colonized (by Ionians) , which is evident from its having the same name from one of the islands earlier (called Samos) , that had it before; whence this also is clear, that those persons contradict ancient history, who assert, that colonists came from Samos after the Ionian migration, and the arrival of Tembrion, and gave the name of Samos to Samothracé. The Samians invented this story out of vanity. Those are more entitled to credit, who say, that heights are [Pg 169] called Sami,666 and that the island obtained its name from this circumstance, for from thence ”

“ Meanwhile the good fortune of Polycrates continued, and Samos flourished under his rule. In addition to his great buildings and works of engineering he became interested in stock-raising, and introduced into the island the finest breeds of sheep, goats, and pigs. By high wages he attracted the ablest artisans of Greece to the city, and added to his popularity by lending his rich hangings and costly plate to those who wanted them for a wedding feast or a sumptuous banquet. ”

“ Through the traders, who followed the fortunate Kolxus to the far west, and these pirate ships, Samos will become the richest of islands and Polykrates the most powerful of men, unless, as your father says, the gods become envious of such unchanging good fortune and prepare him a sudden and speedy downfall. ”

“ This revolution secured—and probably nothing less than a democratical revolution could have secured, under the existing [p. 378] state of Hellenic affairs—the adherence of Samos to the Athenians; who immediately recognized the new democracy, and granted to it the privilege of an equal and autonomous ally. The Samian people confiscated and divided among themselves the property of such of the geômori as were slain or banished: [572] the remainder were deprived of all political privileges, and were even forbidden to intermarry with any of the families of the remaining citizens. ”

“ The next important event is the revolt of Samos, which had quarrelled with Miletus over the city of Priene. The Samians refused the arbitration of Athens. The island was conquered with great difficulty by the whole force of the league, and from the fact that the tribute of the Thracian cities and those in Hellespontine district was increased between 439 and 436 we must probably infer that Athens had to deal with a widespread feeling of discontent about this period. ”

“ In 1802 he returned to Samos, and having become suspected by the Turkish government was imprisoned. He fled to Smyrna, when he was pardoned and released by the Turks. When the War of Independence began he induced his countrymen to declare Samos independent, and was chosen ruler. His share in the War of Independence is chiefly memorable because he provoked the massacre of Chios in 1822. ”

“ An epic poet of Samos, who flourished at the end of the 5th century B.C. After the fall of Athens he settled at the court of Archelaus, king of Macedonia, where he was the associate of Agathon, Melanippides, and Plato the comic poet. ”

“ This I saw myself, and I found it greater than words can say. For if one should put together and reckon up all the buildings and all the great works produced by Hellenes, they would prove to be inferior in labour and expense to this labyrinth, though it is true that both the temple at Ephesos and that at Samos are works worthy of note. The pyramids also were greater than words can say, and each one of them is equal to many works of the Hellenes, great as they may be; but the labyrinth surpasses even the pyramids. ”

“ An island on the west coast of Asia Minor, which was colonized by Ionians about 1043 B.C. Samos was taken by the Athenians, 440; and, with Greece, became subject to Rome, 146. It was taken by the Venetians, 1125; taken by the emperor Leo in the 13th century, and then successively fell into the hands of the Venetians, Genoese, and Turks. At the time of the Greek insurrection the Samians zealously embraced the side of liberty. They expelled the Turks from the island, which they put into a state of defense, establishing an independent government. ”

“ The Samians were commanded to desist from hostilities, and submit their dispute to the decision of an Athenian tribunal. This they showed themselves slow to do, and Pericles was sent with a fleet of 40 galleys to enforce the com- mands of the Athenians. He established a demo- cratical constitution in Samos, and took 100 hos- tages from the oligarchical party, which he lodged in Lemnos. ”

“ The conflict was between two intestine parties, “the higher people and the lower people.” The only Athenians who took part in it were the crews of three triremes, and even they were there by accident (οἳ ἔτυχον παρόντες) , not as a regular garrison. Samos was under an indigenous government; but it was a subject and tributary ally of Athens, like all the other allies, with the exception of Chios and Methymna (Thucyd. vi, 85) . After this resolution, the Athenians raised it to the rank of an autonomous ally, which Mr. ”

“ The chief Isles of Samoa are Upolu, Savaii, Tutuela and Manua. They are all of volcanic origin, are surrounded by coral reefs and palm-shaded lagoons; from the shore side to the mountain slopes inland grow the dark coco-palms, the beautiful bread-fruit trees, mangroves, plantains and other wild tropical bush and fern-trees, wherein sparkle and flit gorgeous-coloured butterflies, green parrots and cooing droves of Samoan doves. ”

“ Samoa still rises silently in moonlight out of the sea of my dreams. I can hear the barbarian orchestra clanging away down in the native village, as Samoan girls and youths, and two or three white men, waltz under the palms just below the plateau, where groves of orange-trees hang their golden fruit amongst dark leaves. As I play the violin the semi-savage people whirl to the wild rhythm of the forest ballroom music of a tribal waltz. ”

“ The centre-piece of all is the high chief himself, Malietoa-Tuiatua-Tuiaana Mataafa, king—or not king—or king-claimant—of Samoa. All goes to him, all comes from him. Native deputations bring him gifts and are feasted in return. White travellers, to their indescribable irritation, are (on his approach) waved from his path by his armed guards. He summons his dancers by the note of a bugle. He sits nightly at home before a semicircle of talking-men from many quarters of the islands, delivering and hearing those ornate and elegant orations in which the Samoan heart delights. ”

“ For the Samoans I have always had a great admiration and affection. Practically I began my island career in Samoa. More than a score of years before Robert Louis Stevenson went to die on the verdured slopes of Vailima Mountain, where he now rests, I was gaining my living by running a small trading cutter between the beautiful islands of Upolu, Savai'i, and Tutuila, and the people ever had my strong sympathies in their struggle against Germany for independence. ”

“ Samoa has been well governed. The people have been forbidden a few perils of civilisation, and for the rest are left pretty well to themselves. Go up from Apia across the mountains, or round the coast, or take a boat over to the other big island, Savaii, and you find them living their old life, fishing and bathing and singing, and never a sign of a white man. They are guaranteed possession of their land. ”

“ Samoan girls with wild, bright eyes, round, plump, brown faces, and curved figures as perfect as sculptural art, pass and repass up the forest tracks. They are singing Samoan songs that intensify the romantic, dream-like atmosphere of the tropical night—an atmosphere not even to be dispelled by the wailing cry of the native babies, who give short, wild, smothered screams as they lose and then suddenly recover the breasts of sleeping mothers in those thatched homes by the palms and banana groves. The vast night sky, agleam with stars, shines like a mighty mirror. ”

“ The future of Samoa should lie thus in the hands of a single man, on whom the eyes of Europe are already fixed. Great concerns press on his attention; the Samoan group, in his view, is but as a grain of dust; and the country where he reigns has bled on too many august scenes of victory to remember for ever a blundering skirmish in the plantation of Vailele. It is to him—to the sovereign of the wise Stuebel and the loyal Brandeis,—that I make my appeal. ”

“ Each primitive people has selected one set of human gifts, one set of human values, and fashioned for themselves an art, a social organisation, a religion, which is their unique contribution to the history of the human spirit.
Samoa is only one of these diverse and gracious patterns, but as the traveller who has been once from home is wiser than he who has never left his own door step, so a knowledge of one other culture should sharpen our ability to scrutinise more steadily, to appreciate more lovingly, our own. ”

“ But the reader must not imagine that the Samoan Group is the only one in the South Pacific where an enjoyable holiday may be spent. The French possession of the Society Islands, of which the pretty town Papeite, in the noble island of Tahiti, is the capital, rivals, if not exceeds, Samoa in the magnificence of its scenery, and the natives are a highly intelligent race of Malayo-Polynesians who, despite their being citizens of the French Republic, never forget that they were redeemed from savagery by Englishmen, and a taata Peretane (Englishman) is an ever-welcome guest to them. ”

“ It is likely, however, by my judgment, that this epoch of gaiety in Samoa will soon cease; and the fierce white light of history will beat no longer on Yours Sincerely and his fellows here on the beach. We ask ourselves whether the reason will more rejoice over the end of a disgraceful business, or the unregenerate man more sorrow over the stoppage of the fun. For, say what you please, it has been a deeply interesting time. You don't know what news is, nor what politics, nor what the life of man, till you see it on so small a scale and with your own liberty on the board for stake. ”

“ The Samoan is a fatalist. If the idea comes into his head that he is going to die no power on earth will keep him alive. He gives right up, lies down on the ground, in a boat, or wherever he may be—just makes up his mind that his time has come.
A Samoan chief dressed in war regalia is an object of interest. His well shaped head, covered with a heavy growth of black hair brushed back and glossy from applications of cocoanut oil, rests on a stocky neck. ”

“ Here, in Samoa, there were very few idols, and no blood-stained maraes, altars, or temples; human sacrifice, or indeed any sort of sacrifice, was not required; hence the expression, "Godless as a Samoan," by which the men of other groups described any one who neglected the service of the temples. The Samoans, however, were diligent in the worship of their own ancestors, and, moreover, supposed that the spirit of their gods animated divers birds, fishes, or reptiles. ”

“ The Samoan Islands are perfect in their beauty, and all the conditions, including the ease with which the bare necessaries of life were produced from natural resources, conduced to a dolce far niente sort of existence amongst the natives, by which the whites also became infected.
The Samoan group, which forms the entrepôt of all the islands round where trade is carried on, consists of fourteen islands, of which eight, Savaii, Manono, Apolima, Upolu, Fanuatapu, Manua, Nu'utele, and Nu'ulua, were German—the remainder being British and American. ”