Tros of Samothrace

“ The beach looks like a mule fair of mutes, for it is very silent. We are to attack to-night at seven. We have now been here a week, and advanced a hundred yards farther than the first rush carried us. There is a great bombardment going on, a roaring ring of fire, and the Turks are being shelled and shelled.
At night the battleships throw out two lines of searchlights, and behind them there gleam the fires of Samothrace and Imbros. Up and down the cliffs here, outside the dugouts, small fires burn. The rifle fire comes over the hill, echoing in the valleys and back from the ships. ”

“ Fortunate during life, he could, by virtue and the favor of Heaven, promise himself after death an eternal felicity.
The Priests of the Island of Samothrace promised favorable winds and prosperous voyages to those who were initiated. It was promised them that the CABIRI, and Castor and Pollux, the DIOSCURI, should appear to them when the storm raged, and give them calms and smooth seas: and the Scholiast of Aristophanes says that those initiated in the Mysteries there were just men, who were privileged to escape from great evils and tempests. ”

“ We have been expecting howitzers all the time, and speculating as to whether there would be any panic if they really get on to us. The Turks have got their indirect, or rather enfilading, fire on us, and hit our mules. One just hit a few yards away.... Imbros and Samothrace are clear and delicate between the blue sea and the hot sky. The riband of beach is crowded with transport, and Jews, Greeks, Armenians, New Zealanders, Australians, scallywag officers, and officers that still manage to keep a shadow of dandyism between their disreputable selves and immaculate past. ”

“ The Turks are now expected to attack us. We suppose people realize what is happening here in London, though it isn’t easy to see how troops and reinforcements can be sent us in time—that is, before the Turks have turned all this into a fortification. A good many men hit on the beach to-day. The mules cry like lost souls.
Tuesday, May 4th. The sea like a looking-glass, not a cloud in the sky, and Samothrace looking very clear and close. The moon is like a faint shadow of light in the clear sky over the smoke of the guns. Heavy fighting between us and Helles. A landing is being attempted. ”

“ Besides, nobody records their flimflams and false prognostics, forasmuch as they are infinite and common; but if they chop upon one truth, that carries a mighty report, as being rare, incredible, and prodigious. So Diogenes, surnamed the Atheist, answered him in Samothrace, who, showing him in the temple the several offerings and stories in painting of those who had escaped shipwreck, said to him, "Look, you who think the gods have no care of human things, what do you say to so many persons preserved from death by their especial favour?" ”

“ In Lemnos they fostered the vine and fruits of the field, and from their connexion with Hermes in Samothrace it would also seem that they promoted the fruitfulness of cattle.
By far the most important seat of their worship was Samothrace. Here, as early as the 5th century B.C., their mysteries, possibly under Athenian influence, attracted great attention, and initiation was looked upon as a general safeguard against all misfortune. But it was in the period after the death of Alexander the Great that their cult reached its height. ”

“ He should have to be careful because the Greek sentries would be men from his own regiment and his presence so far down the line might arouse suspicion.
"But if you find a caique, how are we going to get across the river to join you?" Michael asked.
"Say, give me twenty dollars," Yanni answered, after a minute's thought. "The fish-mens won't do nothing for me unless I show them the money first. I'll say two British peoples want to go Thaso. We can give them more when we're on the sea to go Samothraki. They'd be afraid to go Samothraki at first. ”

“ According to the last writer, similar eruptions of water must have originated in the lake Copais in Bœotia [406] , in the lakes Bistonis and Aphnetis, in Thrace, and have been accompanied with huge devastation [407] . Diodorus Siculus [408] remembered a Samothracian tradition, according to which the Euxine [435] Sea was once shut up on all sides. It afterwards burst through its mighty mound of kyanischen rocks to the Hellespont, and inundated a great part of the coast of Asia, as well as Samothracia itself. ”

“ Rich in all wealth, all means of rule,
And hardened in wars sternest school.
Men say the place was Juno's pride
More than all lands on earth beside;
E'en Samos' self not half so dear:
Here were her arms, her chariot here:
Here, goddess-like, to fix one day
The seat of universal sway,
Might Fate be wrung to yield assent,
E'en then her schemes, her cares were bent.
Yet had she heard that sons of Troy
Were born her Carthage to destroy;
From those majestic loins should spring
A nation like a warrior king,
Ordained for Libya's overthrow:
The web of Fate was woven so. ”

“ Having been disabled by an Æginetan ship, the Samothracian cleared the decks of her assailant with arrows and javelins and took possession. Although the invaders seem to have fought with the greatest courage and determination, the disadvantage of confusion at the outset of the battle, augmented by the head wind, told decisively against them. They were unable to take advantage of their superiority in ships on account of the narrowness of the channel, Page 36 and indeed found that the very multitude of their ships only added to their difficulties. ”

“ But Themistocles pressed close against his side. “Ask for no wings,”—in the admiral’s voice was a tremor not there when he sped confidence through the crew,—“if it be destined we save Hellas, it is destined; if we are to die, we die. ‘No man of woman born, coward or brave, can shun the fate assigned.’ Hector said that to Andromache, and the Trojan was right. But we shall save Hellas. Zeus and Athena are great gods. They did not give us glory at Salamis to make that glory tenfold vain. We shall save Hellas. ”

“ The disarmed Samians, as soon as the fortunes of the battle became apparent, gave all the assistance they could render to the Greeks; the other Ionians seized the same opportunity to revolt and turn their arms against their allies. In the mountain defiles the Milesians intercepted their own fugitive allies, consigning them to the Grecian sword, and active beyond the rest in their slaughter. So relentless and so faithless are men, compelled to servitude, when the occasion summons them to be free. ”

“ But like bleating sheep were the Trojans as they awaited the coming of their foes.
And amongst the men of Troy fought Mars, god of war, and for the Greeks fought Athene, and with her were Terror and Rout, and Strife that never wearies.
So did the armies meet. Like wolves they fought. Man lashed at man; with blood the earth grew red, and the clamour of their fighting was as the noise of the meeting of the mountain streams when they rush in furious spate into the valleys in the winter floods. ”

“ What need to starve in Bactria when plenty lieth along the Tigris and the Euphrates? Why break our teeth against a wall of stone when naught may come of it save a bleeding mouth? We storm a city, fling away a nation's wealth as though its coffers served a catapult! Our soldiers sicken at the lack of food and because of the bitterness of long defeat! If Ninus be in truth a god, then let him give this city into our hands ”

“ The sun was rising from the sea and chasing grey darkness from the fields of Troyland when on the morrow Greeks and Trojans met in peace, and tenderly, and with hot tears falling, carried away the bodies of the fallen and buried them in mighty pyres. ”

“ Several battles were fought by sea, and the Samians were at length driven within the walls of their capital, where they endured a nine months’ siege. When at last they were forced to yield, they were compelled to destroy their fortifications, surrender their fleet, give hostages for their future conduct, and pay the expenses of the war. The Byzantines submitted at the same time. Athens was completely triumphant; but the terror she had inspired was mixed with jealousy. During the revolt, the rival states had seriously discussed the question of aiding the rebels ”

“ And thus, like ever widening circles in a pool, the Assyrian Empire grew apace, until at length its confines stretched away, even to the shores of the Sea of the Setting Sun. Beneath the rule of Ninus bowed Media and Armenia, the roving, battle-loving Khatti, Tyre, Sidon, Edom and Philistia. Proud Babylon was once more wedded to Assyria, albeit she ever scratched and bit in the manner of fractious and unwilling wives. Damascus fell, a feat which even Shalmaneser failed to compass, and the peaceful fields of Syria were overrun, their cattle eaten by the hungry conquerors. ”

“ Justice they asked—no more—and received the lash.
"Stay!" cried Semiramis, seeing that the crowd was pushed by frenzy to the danger line. "If your hearts are hot against the King alone, why then would ye seek to harm my lord who standeth between the wrath of Ninus and your worthless carcasses?"
A reckless speech it was, and well she knew that she laid her finger on an open sore.
"Why?" the leader thundered. "Why? Because we would strike the master through the man! A Governor shall be no more in Syria, save a Governor dead!" ”

“ So it chanced that within the citadel were, in all, three thousand men-at-arms, and these Semiramis attacked as a hound may leap at a lion's throat; yet ill it might have gone with her slender force had Menon not sent another thousand warriors to follow down the hidden river course. They came at the turning point of fate, the mountaineers from the land of Naïri, wild, hairy men who sang as they fought, or died with a broken song upon their lips; thus their strange, barbaric tongues gave heart to Babylon, even as their swords brought woe amongst the enemy. ”

“ Hear the decree of Ninus, king and god,
That Artavan, the brother of the queen,
Shall freely live, and die by no man’s hand!
(Silence. The voice of Khosrove below)
Khos. Assyria, speak!
Nin. I, Ninus, so decree!
(Staggers back toward front as all press to rear to see the troops go out. Semiramis, Artavan and Sola stand together gazing out)
Sem. O, Khosrove! See—he rides—away—away!
(Leans forward waving her scarf. Ninus, alone in front, goes toward his chamber, falls on the steps overpowered with rage and lifts his clenched hands)
Nin. O, vengeance! Vengeance for a king! ”

“ I command thousands of warriors. We are defenceless in your hands, you are in the centre of your power:—you may crush us like ashes; but know, that from the frontier of India, to the frontier of Nedgde, in Persia, in Bussora, in Mesopotamia, Hemad, the two Syrias, Galilee, and Horan, every man who wears the caftan will demand my blood at your hands, and will take vengeance for my death. If you are, as you pretend, the King of the Bedouins, how can you stoop to treachery? that is the vile practice of the Turks. Treachery is not for the strong, but for the weak or the cowardly. ”

“ Heed ye and remember one who hath wrought this evil in my soul! The King! who hath crucified a woman's love! The King! who hath torn a woman's heart from out her breast and set a raging devil as the master of her blood! So harken, ye children of Assyria, and ye who write on tablets and the graven stele! Remember! And now make ready for a war!"
"A war?" cried Nakir-Kish, who knew that the nations rested on their arms and were at peace. "What war?"
Semiramis turned upon him with a cry of consuming rage, and with the scepter of an hundred lands she smote him across his mouth. ”

“ The helm about, and turns aside the ship
Even as he listeth, that a little strength
Averts a great disaster; so did he
Foresee and shun the deadly shaft of doom.
Ever they fought on; walls, towers, battlements
Were blood-besprent, wherever Trojans fell
Slain by the arrows of the stalwart Greeks.
Yet these escaped not scatheless; many of them
Dyed the earth red: aye waxed the havoc of death
As friends and foes were stricken. O'er the strife
Shouted for glee Enyo, sister of War.
Now had the Argives burst the gates, had breached
The walls of Troy, for boundless was their might ”

“ In the ascending spiral is the new revolt, the attempt to assassinate Trajan, the capture of the conspirators, the advance of the legions, the retreat of the Dacians, burning their cities as they go, carrying their wounded and their women with them, and at last pressing about a huge cauldron that is filled with poison, fighting among themselves for a cup of the brew, and rolling on the ground in the convulsions of death. ”

“ Mayhap the captive lied, seeking to draw away another force from the baggage trains, when hidden mountaineers might pour into the valley, wrecking the machines of war and dealing a fatal blow to the plans of siege. On the other hand, should Ninus, in his overconfidence of strength, become entangled in the narrow gorge, then of a certainty Assyria's fate was sealed.
Menon faltered. A haunting whisper worried at his ears:
"Let Ninus die! Wherefore should a mortal shield an enemy who houndeth him in a cause of cruelty? Leave him to his fate! Race back to Nineveh and the goal of a heart's desire!" ”

“ He will die at least as a hero should. He draws his sword, and rushes on Achilles. The wary Greek eyes him carefully as he comes on, and spies the joint in his harness where the breastplate meets the throat. Through that fatal spot he drives his spear, and the Trojan falls to the ground mortally wounded, but yet preserving the power of speech. As his conqueror stands over him cruelly vaunting, and vowing to give his body to the dogs and to the vultures, he makes a last appeal to his mercy. ”