Türkiye 1

Ephesus, Pergamon, Troy and Gallipoli

Coming in to land at Izmir airport was something of a learning curve.  I had not piloted one of these wide-bodied planes before and, having had a very long day already and with an exceptionally sore throat I really was grateful for the autopilot......  But we made it! 

And then an hour's bus ride (60 miles) to our hotel and a drink (or three) with some of my fellow travellers on the terrace overlooking the inky black (spangled with cruise lights) of the Aegean whilst the raki-inspired Holiday-making Brits in the bar ranted out the choruses to Alice Doesn't Live Here Any More, [Who the fuck is Alice? Ed.].... 

It was time for some somnolence.....

To be honest, I wasn't entirely sure where I was, nor exactly why. We were in a vast hotel by the sea, apparently in Kuşadasi, where, later that day I walked into the town, searching for the PTT, past the Pigeons in Hand statue (the town's name means Bird Island) and had a dip in the beautiful waters:

It's a lively resort, with a harbour for cruise ships which discharge innumerable tourists to marvel at nearby Ephesus [FFS! - you are one too!  Ed.] 

Apparently the registered population (c130,000) can swell to half a million when foreign visitors and all their attendant carers are counted..... But as an introduction to the joys of Türkiye it isn't bad.....  So let's just run through a bit of history, to set the scene:

Keep up, if you can!

Around 3000 BC the Leleges people settled here. In the 11th century BC the Aeolians moved in, followed by the Ionians around 900 BC. From the 7th century BC the Lydians were in charge, then in 546 BC the Persians had a go, until in 334 BC Alexander the Great took over, so it was Hellenistic until the Romans conquered everywhere in the second century BC. Then in the third century AD Constantine created the (Christian) Eastern Roman Empire (later known as the Byzantine Empire) which plodded on until the Ottoman Empire established itself in 1453 (which itself lasted until the First World War, and the Turkish War of Independence in 1922 when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk founded the Republic of Turkey.....)

'Nuff history?

And therefore I have sailed the seas and come

To the holy city of Byzantium.

W B Yeats 

Sailing to Byzantium

So, all in all there have been a few changes.....

Anyway, to Ephesus, an ancient city in Selçuk:

Apparently it was raining here last week, but we are blessed with bright sunlight and blue sky, and we have just about beaten the hordes, though they are in hot pursuit.

In a nut shell, the city was founded in the 10th century BC; it was one of twelve cities in the Greek Ionian League before it came under Roman control in 129 BC; it was written to by St Paul, and St John may have written his gospel here;  it had one of the greatest libraries in the ancient world, had a theatre that could seat 24,000 people, may have had a population at its greatest of 70,000 (there has been much debate about this, but estimates of a quarter of a million are said to be unrealistic) but was certainly one of the largest cities of Roman Asia Minor (Anatolia).....

Various wars, and earthquakes, contributed to the rolling history of Ephesus, but the main reason for its eventual decline and abandonment was the silting up of its harbour and the prevalence of malaria in the marshes around it.  It was completely abandoned in the fifteenth century.

Reconstructed in the 1970s, The Library of Celsus was built in 125 AD, and may have contained as many as 12,000 scrolls.  The last books were taken out in 400 AD [Imagine the fines on them?  Ed.]

From Ephesus we are taken up a winding road into the mountains to where, according to legend, Mary lived out her days after the crucifixion of her son.  The story is that St John found her a nice quiet cottage where she would be free from any persecuting Romans, though he himself seems to have ended his days in comparative luxury in Selçuk.

Having been lost in the forests of time, remains of the house were discovered in the 19th century by following the descriptions in the reported visions of Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774–1824, beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2004).  There is now a shrine on the site, and it is a busy place of pilgrimage, and the faithful leave messages on scraps of paper tied to a wall....

From here it is a short drop to the town of Selçuk where we visit the 6th century basilica of St John the Apostle, where he is supposed to be buried....

From this hill we look down on the remains of the Temple of Artemis (which was one of the seven wonders of the world, though most of it has been recycled into other buildings in the area now) and the Isa Bey Mosque which was built in 1375):

And we look up towards the Byzantine Ayasuluk fortress where once one could visit but which has been appropriated by the military (and looks very like a prison, which may be a sign of the changing times.....)  I would rather admire cactus flowers:

And with this in mind, we roll back to the Korumar Hotel Kuşadasi, where we dine on a variety of delights from the Turkish buffet and explore the joys of Turkish wine as the sun sinks behind the island of Σάμος (Samos).

We have an early start in the morning for a visit to Pergamon and then the long drive to the Dardanelles.  

Apart from knowing vaguely about the Pergamon Press (Robert Maxwell) I know nothing about this place, and it is a surprise that this is the site of a therapeutic hospital, known then as an Asclepion Sanctuary, where in the late first century AD the physician, surgeon and philosopher Galen of Pergamon (a serious name in the history of medicine) is said to have practised.  

Our excellent local guide, Mecit Bogday, also tells us that it was here, on the Via Tecta (the approach to the sanctuary) a seriously ill man collapsed, but saw two snakes drinking milk from a plate.  Seeking to end his life he drank the milk, believing it to be poisoned, but then remarkably recovered, supposedly having discovered antidotes......  From this story we get the common European symbol for pharmacies of a snake entwined around a chalice (the Bowl of Hygeia, Greek goddess of hygiene, and daughter of Asclepius).....

The ruins are extensive, and include a 3,500 seat theatre, a seventy metre long cryptoporticus, a radioactive spring, and numerous archways and colonnades, (not to mention a little bar serving delicious fresh pomegranate juice!):

From the Asclepion, you can see the acropolis and the steep theatre, but it isn't until you have ascended in the cable car that you realise quite how vertiginous that is....  Almost like being in the gods at the Royal Opera House in London!

Though the resident Wheatears don't seem to mind.....

The most famous sight on the acropolis (335 metres high) would be the Temple of Zeus, but, if you wish to see it, you need to go to Berlin as the entire construction was taken away in the late 19th century and has now been reconstructed in the Pergamon Museum.....

However, you can see the amazing theatre, and the Temple of Trajan:

And you can learn about the library, which was the second largest (after Alexandria) in the ancient Greek world, with over 200,000 scrolls.

Robert Maxwell's Pergamon Press (sold to Elsevier in 1991 for £440 million) used a coin from Pergamon as its logo.

Such a learning curve.....

It's a three hour drive from Pergamon to Çanakkale (formerly known as the Dardanelles), where we stay for the night at another huge hotel, though we arrive late and leave early so it is sadly impossible to appreciate the location, which has a certain fame in that it was near here that, aged 22, in 1810, Byron swam the Hellespont, a roughly four mile stretch of water, with notoriously difficult currents, which separates Asia from Europe. 

For me, degenerate modern wretch, 

Though in the genial month of May, 

My dripping limbs I faintly stretch, 

And think I’ve done a feat today.

Byron, whose feet had been bound and damaged as a child (it is not now thought that he had a 'club foot,') was a fine swimmer (he also swam the Tagus at Lisbon and from the Lido to the Grand Canal in Venice).  It was the story of Hero and Leander that inspired this reckless feat, as Byron's swim was to prove that Leander might have crossed the straits to visit his lover every night....

But since he cross’d the rapid tide, 

According to the doubtful story, 

To woo, and Lord knows what beside, 

And swam for Love, as I for Glory; 

‘Twere hard to say who fared the best: 

Sad mortals! thus the gods still plague you! 

He lost his labour, I my jest; 

For he was drown’d, and I’ve the ague.

George Gordon, Lord Byron

Written After Swimming from Sestos to Abydos

Sadly we don't have time for me to have a go.....

So, next stop, Troy:

Everyone must have heard of the Wooden Horse of Troy, and something of the beauty of Helen, and the heel of Achilles, but unfortunately when we arrive the Horse is itself closed for safety reasons..... (and Helen wasn't looking too good either....)

I had heard that there wasn't much to see at Troy, and certainly, given that there were nine successive cities here, covering four thousand years, and that it was the scene of one of the most famous wars ever, it doesn't take long to get the drift.  But there is more to it than I thought, and I come away with the knowledge that this was much more than a one-horse town..... [Boom, Boom!  Ed.]

Back to Çanakkale, and we ferry across the Dardanelles from Asia into Europe, to find out about Gallipoli.....

As we approach we can just make out an inscription that, though my Turkish is rudimentary, says something like, Stop, traveller, this land you came to without knowing is the land which saw the end of an era.....

And you can see from this inscription where the ship docks that even the Turks need their language to be translated......

So much so that the principal notice board here doesn't even bother with the Turkish:

By chance we are privileged here to meet Mecit's friend and mentor, Dr Kenan Çelik, the foremost authority on Gallipoli (who also has an Master's degree for his study of the poetry of Rupert Brooke), who is wheeled out for every visiting dignitary as his knowledge is peerless:

Kenan gives us an impromptu lecture on the Gallipoli Campaign, which was waged between the Allies (British, ANZAC, Russian and French troops) and the Turks between February 19th 1915 and January 9th 1916.  In this brief but bitter period, some 250,000 young men lost their lives and a similar number were seriously wounded, and at the end the Entente powers withdrew, Churchill was in the doghouse, and the Ottomans declared victory....  though this led to the Turkish War of Independence and, in 1923, the Republic of Turkey.

It is all very fascinating, but I cannot help but notice a Hummingbird hawk-moth flying past, its curled proboscis above the rosemary a reminder that life, in all its many forms, goes on.....

Despite the acres and acres of death on both sides.....

And the irony that the massive statue of a Turkish soldier is carrying a British Short, Magazine, Lee Enfield MkIII (Short Lee Enfield) - known as the Smelly - supplied to the Turks before the war [Come, you Masters of War.....Ed.]

It's been beautiful weather - not fly-blown and steamily hot as it was in the summer of 1915, nor knee-deep in frozen mud as in that winter - and we are fortunate:  we are taken to an excellent fish restaurant looking out to the Sea of Marmara, where fresh sea bass, sea bream and cuttlefish (and Efes lager) abound..... 

And then we settle down for four hours or more on the coach to Istanbul, from where I shall join you again soon.....

With very many thanks to all my fellow travellers, especially our friend and guide:

Some passing waves

Byron in Italy

 

I wrote this article in 1983, and it was published (in English and Italian) in the second number of the first volume of the Sheraton Italia Magazine, with the following (slightly fanciful) by-line:

English-born Richard Gibbs has been living and working for the past seven years in Rome. He is a professor of English Literature, a free-lance journalist and one of the owners of a new English pub, located on Via della Madonna dei Monti (near Via Cavour) in the historical centre of Rome.

 

I had a particular interest in Noel, George Gordon, 6^th Baron Byron of Rochdale, as in 1980 I had named one of four new Houses at St George’s English School (where I taught) after him.  The then Headmaster, Hendrik Deelman, decreed that, among other criteria, the names (of the houses) should preferably be of people, probably historical figures, with whom pupils will be proud to be associated and about whom much of interest can be said......

 

When I proposed Byron for mine (the others were Drake, Livingstone and Newton) the Headmaster objected and attempted to block my choice.  I insisted, however, on the grounds that despite a physical handicap (he was born with a short Achilles’ tendon which made running difficult) Byron achieved great physical feats in swimming and riding in particular, and not only supported Italian liberty but died assisting the Greeks in their struggle for freedom.  You want a hero?  Find me a better example.....  Hendrik, to his grumpy credit, acquiesced.

 

Here is the article:

Byron in Italy

Portrait of Lord Byron by G Sanders (1807)
Courtesy of Sir Joseph Cheyne
The Keats-Shelley Memorial House, Rome

The literary links between Britain and Italy are many and various and deep-rooted.  Perhaps the earliest connection was Julius Caesar’s account of his invasion, which depicted the Britons in their true-blue glory.  However, it was not until the Middle Ages that the traffic of impressions and influence really began. Whether or not Chaucer met Boccaccio in Florence will never be known.  But the Italian influence on Chaucer was marked.  As ‘Pilgrimage’ became more popular – and safer – and as printing made literature more exchangeable the dissemination of ideas grew.

 

Italy has always been an attractive place of northerners.  The stabilisation of Europe under the Caesars and the popularisation of Greek drama in Latin form must have played many a part as did the immensely important role of Rome in the Christian Church, but not all pilgrims are saints, and many with pious hopes also had pedestrian appetites, and so the dissolution of cultures continued.

 

Civilisation, climate, Christianity and curiosity all played major parts in bringing artists and writers, ladies and gentlemen, to Italy.  From the seventeenth century on, with a snowballing increase in more recent years, the tourist trade has developed, and everyone with his sketch-pad or her note-book, or nowadays with the video-camera [smart-phone? Ed] tries to capture a little of the country for the folks back home.

 

Among the millions of visitors Italy has had have been some of the greatest figures of literature, as well as myriads of their acolytes. Certain of their books are still well-known and a few are still quite readable.  Dickens’ Pictures from Italy ranks high as a subjective piece of journalism, determinedly anti-Catholic and yet refreshingly enthusiastic (his appreciation of the effect of the Trevi Fountain contrasts markedly with his denigration of St Peter’s), while Henry James’ Italian Hours is pompously unapproachable, a weak moment in self-appreciation.

 

Direct responses to the country are less available than the influences to be found in novels and poetry, and drama, however.  Many of Shakespeare’s plays are set in  Italy for example, and the Petrarchan sonnet is a major form in English verse.  The Duchess of Malfi, Keats’s Isabella, Forster’s A Room with a View are three examples of works with obvious connections with Italy, but there are many more.

 

One of the most striking relationships between a British literary figure and the people and literature of Italy is that of Lord Byron.  It is now [November 1983, Ed]. Nearly two hundred years since his birth and short, stormy life, and countless books have been written about him, but there is still a great deal of prejudice in circulation against him and at least as much myth.

 

His great strength was activity: he was not content to stay at home and mop his brow in aesthetic ecstasy.  Byron did things like swim the Hellespont, the Tagus at Lisbon and the Lagoon at Venice.  He travelled extensively in Greece and Albania as a young man, helped the cause of Italian liberation in his maturity, and died at Missolonghi from a fever (doctors reported) contracted during the Greek campaign against the Turks [which he partly financed from his own purse, Ed].

 

A few years ago, in Genova, I was trying to locate the villa in which the Dickens family had lodged for almost a year in the mid-19^th century. I knew roughly where it was and thought I might have found it, though I also knew that it might have disappeared long ago.  Dickens had composed The Chimes, one of his popular Christmas Books, whilst living there, and years later, when he died, the bells of Genova had tolled for him, and the local newspapers had announced that Nostro Caro Carlo Dickens è Morto! I asked in an old, Dickensian haberdasher’s shoop whether the two old ladies (undoubtedly residents of the area since the mid-19^th century!) knew anything about this famous scrittore inglese?  They turned the name over a few times, shaking their wise old heads.  Eventually I got an answer: Charles Dickens – no....  But Byron, yes!  He lived over there.... And indeed, he had lived in that street briefly in 1823, prior to his fatal departure for Greece.

 

Byron holds people’s imaginations because he was generous and vigorous, outspoken and brave.  His life was distressing to himself and to some others but it was presided over by an energetic and essentially truth-loving spirit.  As Peter Quennell (a literary historian famous for his work on Bryon) has said, Three-quarters of Byron’s verse is, at any rate from the modern point of view, quite remarkably bad, yet, as a significant literary figure and as an exceptionally interesting and unusually ill-fated human being, Byron can never cease to command our attention, exhorting our sympathy even at moments when we are inclined to like him least.

 

Although he did not write much about Italy, apart from the famous lines in Childe Harold’s Pilgimage that describe Venice, Florence and:

 

Oh, Rome! My Country!  City of the Soul!

The orphans of the heart must turn to thee,

Lone mother of dead empires! And control

In their shut breasts their petty misery.

 

much of what he wrote was inspired by what he saw or read here.  Don Juan has precious little to do with Italy (and nothing to do with Mozart’s Don Giovanni) but it is written in a romping ottava rima that he had learnt from reading Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, and it was nearly all written while living in Italy.

 

The prejudice that marks Byron as a licentious libertine, and which brands all romantic poetry as unreadable gush, is one of the main objects of Byron’s satire, and it is most often found in the mouths of those who have never read a line of his.  In fact his work is often witty, readable, and (even) moral, and often contains entertaining thoughts as well as amusing stories, though he never tried to overdo it, as he wrote at the end of the first Canto of Don Juan:

 

But for the present, gentle reader! And

Still gentler purchaser!  The Bard – that’s I –

Must, with permission, shake you by the hand,

And so – ‘your humble servant, and Good-bye!

We meet again, if we should understand

Each other; and if not, I shall not try

Your patience further than this short sample –

‘T’were well if others followed my example.’

 

*****

 

In case you are not persuaded, may I call on Kenneth Clark’s support?  On page 307 of Civilisation, he wrote: appearing when he did, the tide of disillusion carried him along, so that he became, after Napoleon, the most famous name in Europe.  From great poets like Goethe and Pushkin, or great men of action like Bismarck, down to the most brainless schoolgirl [careful, Ken!  ED] his works were read with an almost hysterical enthusiasm.....  Byron, who was very much a man of his time, wrote a poem about the opening of a prison – the dungeon of the Castle of Chillon. He begins with a sonnet in the old revolutionary vein – Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind! Brightest in dungeon’s, Liberty!  But when, after many horrors, the prisoner of Chillon is released, a new note is heard:

 

At last men come to set me free;

I ask’d not why, and reck’d not where;

It was at length the same to me,

Fetter’d or fetterless to be,

I learn’d to love despair.

 

Since that line was written how many intellectuals down to Beckett and Sartre have echoed its sentiment.....  [However] this negative conclusion was not the whole of Byron.  The prisoner of Chillon had looked from his castle wall onto the mountains and the lake, and felt himself to be a part of them.  This was the positive side of Byron’s genius, a self-identification with the great forces of nature: not Wordsworth’s daisies and daffodils, but crags, cataracts and colossal storms: in short, with the sublime.....

*****

 

I rest my case.  A final quote from Don Juan, Canto XV, stanza 99 [which, for the record, I read whilst wild camping on Corsica some 45 years ago]:

 

Between two worlds life hovers like a star

‘Twixt night and morn upon the horizon’s verge.

How little do we know that which we are!

How less what we may be! The eternal surge

Of time and tide rolls on and bears afar

Our bubbles. As the old burst, new emerge,

Lashed from the foam of ages; while the graves

Of empires heave but like some passing waves.

 

 

Byron House, 1994