Roumeli (16 page)

The ancients were a theme for pride; they were also a cause for self-reproach. How could the Greeks compete with these antique resurrected wonders? (How can any of us?) Their inadequacy suggested a hopeless falling-off; those stony faces were a standing rebuke. An inspiration to some, to others they were a source of bewilderment, and for a few, a subject for resentment, almost for anger: why not blow up the Parthenon? The new trends seemed to put the whole of
Romiosyne
, all that made life worth living, in the wrong. Anyway, the Romaic Pantheon was full. The spirit of Byzantium was enthroned there, and Constantine and Helen and Basil the Bulgar-Slayer and the last
Palaeologue; a whole phantom parade of emperors whose City was still in bondage. There, too, were the Virgins, the saints and the martyrs of Orthodoxy: their ikon lamps burned in all their houses; their frescoes, dark with incense and blurred by the kisses of a thousand years, covered the walls of their churches. It was not for their mystical significance that this painted army was loved, but for the miracles they wrought, and their ghostly succour in dark days. To these had been added the mountain chiefs and the sea captains of the War of Independence: Kolokotrones, Karaïskakis, Athanasios Diakos, Miaoulis and Kanaris and many others. These whiskered heroes were
Romaíoi
to the backbone. Apotheosis crowned them; theirs were the yataghans, the long guns and the fireships that had delivered Greece from the Turks. Leonidas and Miltiades, meanwhile, could look after themselves. They had performed brave deeds against the Persians, it was said. But it was such a long time ago.
[5]

There is a purpose behind this preamble: to lull the reader into receptivity before launching a private theory of my own which I shall call the Helleno-Romaic Dilemma. The cornerstone of this theory is the supposition that inside every Greek dwell two figures in opposition. Sometimes one is in the ascendant, sometimes the other; occasionally they are in concord. These are, of course, the
Romiòs
and the Hellene; and for the sake of the present theory, the word “Hellene” is distorted to mean only the exact antithesis to “
Romiòs
.” All Greeks, according to my theory, are an amalgam, in varying degrees, of both; they contradict and complete each other. But it is the antagonism of the two which concerns us here, not their possible synthesis.
“Two souls, alas,” my hypothetical Greek might exclaim with Goethe, “live in my breast.” It suggests a lifelong Zoroastrian war in which the Hellene is Ormuzd and the
Romiòs
, Ahriman. I advance all this with diffidence. Greek friends on whom I have tried out the Helleno-Romaic Dilemma were interested and amused by the idea and thought there might even be something in it. The easiest way to present it is by drawing up two parallel lists of characteristics, allegiances and symbols taken at random from a larger catalogue which could cover many pages. Some, for the sake of illustration, are purposely slight and frivolous. Here they are.