USS Olympia

“ Nevertheless it is strange, that many of us think much the same about Olympia. To us—pray do not take it ill, brother,—she appears singularly stiff and soulless. Her shape is symmetrical so is her face that is true! She might pass for beautiful, if her glance were not so utterly without a ray of life—without the power of seeing. Her pace is strangely measured, every movement seems to depend on some wound-up clockwork. ”

“ Nature has taken Olympia into her loving arms. She has shed her pine-needles and her leaves of the golden autumn upon the seats where the wrestlers reposed. She has set her grasses and flowers among the stones of the Temple of Zeus. Her vines creep down to the edge of that cup of her earth which holds gently, as a nurse holds a sleeping child, palaces, temples, altars, shrines of the gods and ways for the chariots. All the glory of men has departed, but something remains which is better than glory—peace, loveliness, a pervading promise of lasting things beyond. ”

“ The coastline has advanced considerably since those days, and the small boats of these ancient mariners could advance up the river with perfect safety through the flat open plain as far as Olympia. This accessibility of Olympia by sea had yet more important consequences at a later age when the festival attracted men from the great colonies of Italy and Sicily. Olympia may even have been associated with the founding of these colonies; for the coast road round Elis and the shores of the gulf of Corinth connected it with Sicyon, Corinth, and Megara. ”

“ The narrowest part of the inlet had been passed, and still no sign that the entering fleet had been discovered. Impressive, indeed, was that long line of gloomy hulls, steering for battle, and courting destruction. The Olympia, the Baltimore, the Raleigh, the Petrel, the Concord, and the Boston, with the two transports the Nanshan and the Zapiro, convoyed by the McCulloch, on the flag-ship’s port quarter—all kept on in the same straight course, while the men on board were partaking of light refreshment. For all felt that a great day’s work was before them. ”

“ No such perfect piece of marble had ever been found before. There was not a scratch. The skin still glowed with the polishing that Praxiteles' own hands had given it. There was even a hint of color on the lips. The soft clay bed had saved the falling statue. Here was a statue that the whole world would love. It would make the name of Olympia famous again. The excavators were proud and happy. That old ruined temple seemed indeed a sacred place to them as they gazed upon perhaps the most beautiful statue in the world.
"Surely we shall find nothing else so perfect," they said. ”

“ With a yacht at one’s disposal, there is no great difficulty, and indeed the actual journey by sea from Athens to the anchorage in Katakolo Bay is a very pleasant one, and wonderfully lovely as to scenery. Athens itself is more beautiful when seen from the sea than from any other aspect, and, after going through the Corinth Canal, the Gulf of Corinth, which is never more than about thirty miles across at its broadest portion, provides a succession of views whose [323] beauty, both as to colour and to outline, are difficult to over-estimate. Olympia itself is wonderfully interesting. ”

“ Olympia sat lonely and deserted by her river banks. Summer winds whirled dust under her porches. Rabbits made burrows in Zeus' altar. Doors rusted off their hinges. Foxes made their dens in Hera's temple. Men came now and then to melt up a bronze statue for swords or to haul away the stones of her temples for building. The Alpheios kept eating away its banks and cutting under statues and monuments. Many a beautiful thing crumbled and fell into the river and was rolled on down to the sea. Men sometimes found a bronze helmet or a marble head in the bed of the stream. ”

“ Every man aboard the Olympia must feel that on him rests a double duty, to see to it that the ship’s name shall be for evermore a symbol of victory and of glory to all the people of our country. Nothing pleases me more than to see to-day for myself how high is the standard of the enlisted men of the United States Navy. I do not believe that our navy has ever been at a higher point of efficiency. Month by month the already high standard is being raised even higher. All alike share in the duty, and share in the honor which comes if the duty is well done. ”

“ In doing your work here it should all be done with an eye toward the day when upon every man, from the admiral to the lowest in rank, may rest the responsibility as to whether or not a new page of honor in American history shall be turned. As I passed the Olympia I remembered her victory of May 1, 1898, which made her name forever one of renown in our history. But all aboard her had been equipped for the work by days and months, usually by years, of what must have often been irksome duty. In speaking to all of you I want a chance to say a word of special recognition to the gun pointers. ”

“ It was not long before the great engines of the Olympia came to a stop, the flagship slowed up, and from the starboard side a small boat was lowered, manned by a petty officer and a dozen bronzed jackies, as man-o'-war men are familiarly termed. ”

“ Thirty or more there were—Apollo, Zeus, heroes, women, centaurs, horses. Arms were gone, heads were broken, legs were lost. The excavators fitted together all the pieces and set the mended statues up side by side as they had been in the gable. They found, too, the carved marble slabs that showed the labors of Herakles. But even these were not the lovely things that people had hoped to see from Olympia. They were rather stiff and ungraceful. They had not been made by the greatest artists. In the temple of Hera one day men were digging in clay. Over all the rest of Olympia was only sand. ”

“ The ships were coming down on their fighting course when a shell from one of the shore-batteries burst over the Olympia; the guns from the fort and from the water-batteries vomited jets of flame and screaming missiles with thunderous reports; every man on the American fleet save one believed the moment had come when they should act their part in the battle which had been begun by the enemy ”

“ Olympia thus became the centre of an amphictyony (q.v.) , or federal league under religious sanction, for the west coast of the Peloponnesus, as Delphi was for its neighbours in northern Greece. It suited the interests of Sparta to join this amphictyony; and, before the regular catalogue of Olympic victors begins in 776 B.C., Sparta had formed an alliance with Elis. Aristotle saw in the temple of Hera at Olympia a bronze disk, recording the traditional laws of the festival, on which the name of Lycurgus stood next to that of Iphitus, king of Elis. ”

“ The traditional connection of Olympia with Asia Minor is borne out by the resemblance of the bronzes above mentioned to early Phrygian art, as well as by other circumstances; and there is no reason to doubt that Olympia was at one time in the hands of the Achæans.
The Dorian invasion of the Peloponnesus about 1100 B.C., eighty years after the fall of Troy, marked a new era in the history of Olympia. ”

“ By the time the Olympia was coming along on her third course before the line of the enemy, it was found that the new flagship, the Reina Cristina, was again in flames, while the other ships were suffering more or less in the same way. The new flagship fought desperately, and two shots whizzed through the Olympia's upper rigging again, while a third fairly clipped the American flagship's stern. But the Reina Cristina could not hold out, and retired in a thick cloud of smoke, burning fiercely. ”

“ Creon was led home wearing Zeus' wreath upon his head, and Charmides with Apollo's crown in his heart. [Illustration: A Coin of Alexander the Great. It shows Zeus sitting on his throne.]
HOW A CITY WAS LOST
Such was Olympia long ago. Every four years such games took place. Then the plain was crowded and busy and gay. Year after year new statues were set up, new gifts were brought, new buildings were made. Olympia was one of the richest places in the world. Its fame flew to every land. At every festival new people came to see its beauties. It was the meeting place of the world. ”

“ The Monadnock, a double-turreted vessel, is close to the Oregon; in her turrets she carries two 12-inch and two 10-inch rifles, and inside of her dark hull are brave men who will show the enemy that the American monitor is as deadly a foe as of old. The Olympia, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, Bennington, and Yorktown, all protected cruisers, are equally ready to do battle with any of the enemy that it is their duty to encounter. ”

“ Inside it shone a few buildings and a thousand statues. Along one side stretched a row of little marble treasure houses. At the far corner lay the stadion with its rows of stone seats. Nearer and outside the wall was the gymnasium. Even from a distance Charmides could see men running about in the court.
"There are the athletes!" he thought. "Creon is with them."
Behind all these buildings rose a great hill, dark green with trees. Down from the hill poured a little stream. It met a wide river that wound far through the valley. In the angle of these rivers lay Olympia. ”

“ One rough day on the bay I took passage in a small steam-launch to visit the Olympia, where the Admiral's flag floated, to call on him. There was plenty of steam, and it was pleasant to get out a good way behind the breakwater, for the waves beyond were white with anger, and the boat, when departing from partial shelter, had proceeded but two or three hundred yards when it made a supreme effort in two motions—the first, to roll over; the second, to stand on its head. I was glad both struggles were unsuccessful, and pleased with the order: "Slow her up." ”

“ Their competition gave a fresh impulse to that wave of athleticism which reached its height in the sixth century. To Olympia they gave a Panhellenic character as a meeting-place for all the scattered members of the Greek race, and thereby tended to preserve and strengthen that feeling of unity which contact with other nations had already quickened into life. No foreigner could enter as a competitor at Olympia, no barbarous potentates sent offerings to its shrines or consulted its oracle. ”

“ The three cruisers, Olympia, Baltimore, and Boston, were the first to steam away, and they were shortly followed by the gunboats Concord, Petrel, and McCulloch, and two colliers, the latter loaded to the rail with coal for the six warships.
"What a splendid sight!" I said to Dan, as we stood on deck watching the column of vessels sweeping out swiftly to sea. "If we meet those Dons there will be fun."
"Pretty serious fun, Oliver, to my way of thinking. Killing fellow-beings isn't much play."
"That's right, Dan; but if we have got to have war I hope we come out on top." ”

“ Of all the many little collections in Greece, that in Olympia is doubtless the best, and it is fittingly housed in a building in the classic style, given by a patriotic Greek, M. Syngros. Aside from the artistic remnants, there are a number of relics bearing on the athletic aspect of Olympia—its chief side, of course. And among these are some ancient discs of metal and stone, and a huge rock which bears an inscription relating that a certain strong man of ancient times was able to lift it over his head and to toss it a stated distance. ”

“ Velasco, cruiser; Elcano, gunboat; General Lezo, gunboat; Marquis del Duero, gunboat; Quiros, gunboat; Villalobos, torpedo gunboat; General Alava, transport; Cebu, transport; Manila, transport; Isla de Mindanao, converted cruiser.
The United States fleet was composed of the Olympia, (flagship) , first-class cruiser, Captain C. N. Gridley; Baltimore, protected cruiser, Captain N. M. Dyer; Boston, protected cruiser, Captain Frank Wildes; Raleigh, protected cruiser, Captain J. B. Coghlan; Concord, gunboat, Commander Asa Walker ”

“ This phase may be considered as beginning after the establishment of Elean supremacy in 572 B.C. And so to the last Olympia always remained a central expression of the Greek ideas that the body of man has a glory as well as his intellect and spirit, that body and mind should alike be disciplined, and that it is by the harmonious discipline of both that men best honour Zeus. The significance of Olympia was larger and higher than the political fortunes of the Greeks who met there, and it survived the overthrow of Greek independence. ”

“ The opportunity came, and the right man was in the right place.
Commodore Dewey's squadron was composed of four protected cruisers, two gunboats, and a despatch-boat, as follows: The Olympia (flag-ship) , a protected cruiser of 5,870 tons, mounting fourteen guns, Captain Gridley and flag-officer, Captain Benjamin P. Lamberton; the Baltimore, a protected cruiser of 4,413 tons and ten guns, Captain Nehemiah M. Dyer; the Raleigh, a protected cruiser of 3,213 tons and eleven guns, Captain Joseph B. Coghlan; the Boston, a protected cruiser of 3,000 tons and eight guns, Captain Frank Wildes ”

“ Okinawa would therefore present the U.S. Navy with its greatest operational challenge: protecting an enormous and vulnerable amphibious task force tethered to the beachhead against the ungodliest of furies, the Japanese kamikazes. Equally, Okinawa would test whether U.S. amphibious power projection had truly come of age—whether Americans in the Pacific Theater could plan and execute a massive assault against a large, heavily defended land-mass, integrate the tactical capabilities of all services, fend off every imaginable form of counterattack, and maintain operational momentum ashore. ”