Sicilian Expedition

“ The evening was sunny and still, the air serene, and the sea calm, except around the rock of Scylla. The green Sicilian shore rose up, clearly and distinctly, from the azure ocean; and the sails of the Amphion, the Electra, the Glatton, the Pompey, and all our numerous war-ships which studded the Straits, shone white as snow in the sunbeams; while Sicilian gun-boats, slave-galleys, and xebecques dotted the sea between: the cloudless sky and the range of hills which terminates at the Faro, formed the background. ”

“ It is an important matter. Do you wish the Sicilians, both in their public and private capacity, to be considered friends to you, or enemies? If enemies, what is to become of you? Whither will you free for refuge? On what will you depend? Just now you repudiated the greater part of the agriculturists, most honourable and wealthy men, both Sicilians and Roman citizens. Now, what will you do about the Sicilian cities? Will you say that the Sicilians are friendly to you? ”

“ Last of all the great molders of Sicily came the Normans, knights who with their keen blades carved a slice out of the Byzantine Empire on the Italian mainland and, conquering the Sicilian Muslims, built up a kingdom for themselves. Sicily’s period of greatest glory dawned with their conquest. They developed a splendid fabric of feudalism; and all the arts as well as the more usual graces of civilization stamped the new kingdom for their own. The very Italian language, as Dante himself acknowledges, had its feeble beginnings in the court of the Emperor Frederick II at Palermo. ”

“ Sixteen years later, in 1282, the French paid dearly for their oppression in the terrible massacre of the Sicilian Vespers, when they were exterminated throughout the island.
Then the Sicilians invited Don Pedro de Aragón, the son-in-law of Manfred, their last Norman king, to rule them; and the Aragonese dynasty, with varying fortunes, lasted until 1409, when it became extinct, and Sicily was attached to Spain and governed by Spanish viceroys. Never did a government care less for its subjects ”

“ Carven slabs from the temple friezes—what a story they tell of the primitive and ardent culture of the early Greeks perched upon their twin hills at Selinus, beside the sounding deep! One whole hall is lined with them, arranged symmetrically in series, speaking even to-day with the voice of that mystic lore which, to understand, reveals ancient Sicily. And though individual carvings excel them in precision and beauty, as a series denoting the exact progress of Greek Sicilian art from its crudest to its most perfected form, the metopes are unsurpassed. ”

“ The Sicilians are not courageous, but they are desperate. The regiment of Highlanders which carried the day on the Heights of Abraham, and so won Quebec and won Canada, could defeat the whole population of Sicily on a level plain. But the knowledge that they have this power, and that their vengeance would come like an act of God on the following day, would not deter a Sicilian from slaughtering stragglers. [Pg 323] An army of Sicilians would not stand for a moment against the vehement bayonets and claymores; but the Sicilian will always strike when he has the power, undeterred by consequences. ”

“ Sicilians vie with Cantonese as the most migrating people in the world. Sicily, like Canton, is overpopulated and poverty-ridden. Another, more important factor, appears to be that at every change of government, Mafistas were forced into flight and exile in droves. They settled and colonized all over the earth. There are huge Sicilian colonies spread around Europe, in England, South America, North Africa, the Orient and the United States. ”

“ The natural resources of Sicily and its fortunate position, as the entrepôt of the Eastern and Western Mediterranean, were the means of enriching its people beyond that of any territory of equal area known in any age. The harbors of Palermo and Syracuse were constantly crowded with shipping. Sicilian merchantmen were to be encountered in every European port ”

“ And the influence of Greece on Sicily has been repaid in more than one shape by Sicilian rulers who have at various times held influence and dominion in Greece and elsewhere beyond the Adriatic. The connexion between Sicily and Italy begins with the primitive kindred between some of the oldest elements in each. Then came the contemporary Greek colonization in both lands. Then came the tendency in the dominant powers in southern Italy to make their way into Sicily also. Thus the Roman occupation of Sicily ended the struggle between Greek and Phoenician. ”

“ Real civilization in Sicily dates from neither of those races, but from Dorian and Ionic Greeks, who came perhaps as early as the founding of Rome—that is, in the seventh or eighth century B.C. The great cities of the Sicilian Greeks were Syracuse, Segesta and Girgenti, where still survive colossal remains of their genius. In military and political senses, the island for 3,000 [Pg ix] years has been overrun, plundered and torn asunder by every race known to Mediterranean waters. ”

“ There is always the vendetta in Sicily. If you had been a Sicilian, and treated me as you did, even my brother would have sent a man to kill you. He would not have fought you: a Sicilian when he is injured does not wish to risk himself or give his enemy a chance—he wishes to be revenged. ”

“ Thus at last a single man put the period to the island’s troubled history, ended definitely her ambitions for individual greatness and made her an important part of a greater and more powerful whole.
So it is clear that there has never been a Sicilian nation, nor has there ever been even a Sicilian language; but every great race that dwells about the Mediterranean at some time has had a part in Sicily’s story, and each race in its turn has left an indelible imprint upon language and customs, upon architecture and people. Here one sees a pure Greek face of classic beauty ”

“ Thou wilt sail hence in two days’ time, and as the war between Carthage and Rome hath now broken out with great and renewed fury in Sicily, thou wilt first of all, taking all due precaution, visit the Sicilian ports of Panormus, Lilybæum, Agrigentum, and Syracuse, and acquaint the Roman consuls, or the commanders now in possession of or besieging those places of our great success here. ”

“ The conduct I have pursued towards these ships, circumstanced as they are, has been moderate, and truly considerate towards his Sicilian Majesty.
The time is now come—that, profiting of my forbearance, the Spanish ships are fitting for sea. It is not possible, if they persist in their preparations, that I can avoid attacking them, even in the port of Palermo; for they never can, or shall, be suffered to go to sea, and placed in a situation of assisting the French, against not only Great Britain, but also the Two Sicilies. ”

“ It was said that one reason which influenced his mind very strongly in making this decision was the fact that Sicily was so near the coast of Africa; and the Sicilians being involved in wars with the Carthaginians, he thought that, if successful in his operations in Sicily, the way would be open for him to make an expedition into Africa, in which case he did not doubt but that he should be able soon to overturn the Carthaginian power, and add all the northern coasts of Africa to his dominions. ”

“ There has never been a Sicilian nation. Perhaps that is the reason the story of the island is so hard to follow, it’s all snarled up with the history of first one, then another nation. The most obvious way of learning something about Sicily is to read what historians have to say about it; a pleasanter way is to listen to what the poets from Homer to Goethe have sung of it, paying special heed to Theocritus—he knew Sicily better than anybody else before his time or since! ”

“ Beaten, not rung, they clamor with the maddening insistence of fiends until the ear rebels and no longer notices their angry tumult. One tradition has it that there is not a bell-clapper in the island, for the returning French took the iron tongues away after the Massacre of the Vespers, to keep the people from ringing alarms. But the ingenious Sicilian found that he could make much more noise with a hammer, and though six hundred years and more have rolled by, he is still so tickled with the racket that he seems each time to be trying to break all previous records. ”

“ At the beginning of the eleventh century, the island had been wholly lost, while the dominion on the mainland had been greatly enlarged. ♦The Normans in Italy and Sicily.♦ In the course of the eleventh century a new power, the Normans of Apulia, conquered the Italian possessions of the Empire, won Sicily from the Mussulman, and even made conquests from the Empire east of the Hadriatic. Thus arose the Sicilian kingdom, the growth of which will best be traced when we come to the powers which arose out of the breaking-up of the Empire. ”

“ On the other hand, Sicily has been more than once made the road to African conquest and settlement, bath by Sicilian princes and by the Roman masters of Sicily. The connexion with Greece, the most memorable of all, has consisted in the settlement of many colonies from old Greece, which gave the island the most brilliant part of its history, and which made the greater part practically Greek. This Greek element was strengthened at a later time by the long connexion of Sicily with the Eastern, the Greek-speaking, division of the Roman empire. ”

“ This tale sounds too remarkable to be invented. Yet it is in fact only a variant of a myth localised also in Sicily, and doubtless in many other places. 318 The Palermo version is worth noting. It is a pendant, of course quite unhistorical, to one of the traditions of the Sicilian Vespers. After the massacre, the Pope laid an interdict on Sicily. The churches were closed and the bells silent. The people could not live so; something must be done. So they built a ship, and a group of gentlemen went on board, carrying with them all the silver cups and dishes which they possessed. ”

“ The Neapolitan army numbered from 120,000 to 130,000 men; of these 30,000 were actually in Sicily at the time the Thousand landed at Marsala, 18,000 being in and about Palermo, and the rest distributed over the island. At Salemi, Garibaldi reviewed his united forces: he had been joined by 200 fresh volunteers, and by a fluctuating mass of Sicilian irregulars, which might be estimated to consist of 2,000 men, but it increased or decreased along the road, because it was formed of peasants of the districts traversed, who did not go far from their homes. ”

“ Well, as you don't know Italy south of Naples, perhaps you'd like to hear something of our Sicilian adventures. Of adventures, in the strict sense, we have had less here than in other places. If I hadn't been certain that the country was quite safe as far as brigandage is concerned, I should not have been such a fool as to bring two ladies through it in a motor-car. But we have had, as I said, "six glorious days," and the Goddess and I are agreed that in many ways Sicily is the best thing we have done on our whole long tour. ”

“ It may be false and foolish, it may be noble and chivalrous, whatever it is, they say, it has such a firm growth among them because the history of Sicily is the history of an island which has for centuries been misgoverned by foreigners, and the people have lost any faith they may ever have had in professional justice. ”

“ Sicilian Romanesque.—Although the earliest remains in Sicily date from the Norman occupation of the island, they are so permeated with Saracenic detail as to leave no doubt that the conqueror employed the native workmen, who for two centuries at all events had been building for the Mahommedans, and therefore, whether Arab or Greek, had been reproducing the same style as that found in Egypt or North Africa. ”

“ They got ashore safely, in spite of the Bourbons’ cruisers, and before they left for Calatafimi Garibaldi posted his now famous proclamation claiming Sicily for King Victor Emmanuele.
Of course there are a cathedral, Punic and Christian tombs, the remains of ancient walls and harbor works, latomie and so on, but to-day Marsala really spells only—Wine! The largest and most important establishments are those of the Englishmen Ingham and Woodhouse, and the Sicilian Florio of Palermo. But there are numerous others not so well known nor doing so large a business. ”

“ The subjugation of the Sicilians (in support of whom Lord Minto, much disappointed by a pseudo-constitution granted by the King, in which their rights were simply disregarded, had set out for Palermo) , still remained as difficult of completion as ever. On the 25th of March, the Sicilian Parliament met at the last-named place, and declared the dethronement of Ferdinand II. Thereupon ensued the bombardment of Messina, whence arose the King’s universally-known nickname of King Bomba. The independence of Sicily was now recognised by France and England. In May the cry of “Religion in Danger!” ”

“ Many of the inhabitants fled to Sicily.
Roger king of Sicily sent out a fleet of an hundred and fifty sail, loaded with soldiers and ammunition. Having captured an African ship, with some pigeons on board, Georgi the Christian admiral forced the captain to write a letter, importing that the Sicilian fleet had sailed to Constantinople. The pigeon flew back to Mehedié; and the inhabitants were exulting in the intelligence, when the hostile fleet appeared before the city. On landing, the Sicilians found the place totally abandoned, and the pillage lasted ten hours. ”