They set forth on waves of horsehead spume, sails snapping on a wind that blew from Asia Minor and beyond: lands yet scarce known to Christendom save in legend. Fair-skinned Englishmen, their backs red and peeled from the Aegean sun, bent to haul sheets beside olive Greeks, like figures from the Parthenon frieze -- soiled with travel but marmoreal white withal-- set alongside wooden statues of Byzantine chapels. The Piraeus receded only slowly as the laden brig pulled at last -- at last! thought Hamilton in jubilation -- from the crowded quay, where crates too large for the hold still awaited loading. Like Anchises from burning Troy, the cargo was being borne by its true sons to safety. The Mentor moved slowly, riding low in the water that seemed to rise, foaming, to see what treasures it contained.
"Look," said Leake beside him. "Dolphins." Hamilton followed the extended finger but saw only the curlicued waves, frothing where the wind tore at them. Then two gray shapes leaped, and another directly behind, aligned like glistening commas above the spray. They plunged in formation, and a second later leaped again, stitching the rugged sea to keep pace with the ship. "Any of these among your carvings below?"
"No. But they figured prominently in Greek mythology; Nereus and his daughters are often depicted with them."
The topographer smiled. "They follow their marble brethren as they are carried into exile."
Hamilton stiffened slightly. "Indeed, sir, it is his Lordship's opinion that the spirit of the ancient Greeks survives today in the British peoples, and that to remove these sculptures thence is simply to convey them to their rightful heirs."
Leake, whose military and diplomatic service over the past three years should have quickened his sympathies to Hamilton's point, merely grunted. "The nymphs and centaurs you have prised from the Acropolis might feel differently."
The dolphins were pacing the ship without difficulty, for the Mentor was not yet rigged for sea. With the last crates stowed not an hour ago, the ship was moving under sails still half-furled, which must carry them out of harbor before the tide changed. The east wind blew smartly, but the brig moved with dreamlike slowness through bobbing trash and gulls -- which could not, however, diminish the relief Hamilton felt in watching wretched Athens contract from noisome immediacy to the dimensions of a shoreline watercolor. Until they reached Malta, the responsibilities of Lord Elgin's secretary were suspended: he had been released from cares and schedules into another kind of time.
The last dolphin flipped its tail as it dived, and Hamilton guessed they would not surface again. What did the hull look like from beneath? Probably no different from the hulls of Agamemnon's fleet: smooth inverted islands. The triremes and other oared vessels would be edged with churning chaos like rocks in the surf, but the sailing ships would glide as smoothly as fish. Hamilton had spent most of a week worrying about the hull of the Mentor, and was rewarded now with the mental image of its clean lines, as classical (he fancied) in their curves as the proportions of the Parthenon.
"Twilight soon," said Leake. Hamilton looked up and saw it was true: although the sky was still the glazed Aegean blue of early afternoon, the Sun was dropping like a burning stone, and would touch the sea within the half hour. More Greek directness: the Sun climbs straight up the sky, then continues across the azimuth and down the far side like a surveyor's plumb.
"How can a nation hope to build an empire when no day in the year gives more than fifteen hours of sunlight?" he asked.
"The Romans managed it," Leake observed.
It was an answer, although Hamilton was tempted to reply, And look at them now. In the manner of his Lordship's famous countryman, Athens failed to become an empire, yet begot them. Her tragedies and odes had been preserved by Christian monasteries, just as her priceless statuary was being rescued at last from indifference and malice. Not so happy as his Lordship, and happier? Hamilton set the thought aside.
A shout from above, and the two young Englishmen looked up to see a sailor standing on the top yard, gesturing energetically with his free hand.
"Will the sculptures be presented to the Crown, or perhaps the British Museum?" Leake inquired.
"I believe that his Lordship intends the marbles to decorate his estate in Scotland," Hamilton replied shortly. He did not feel obliged to point out that Lord Elgin had borne personally the expenses of the excavations, as well as much of those concerned with running the embassy.
Another shout, and a second later the wind changed abruptly, provoking curses from the men on deck. Hamilton realized that the sailor above must have seen it approaching, a change on the surface of the water. He raised his face and felt the wind. It was coming from the south, the worst direction for getting them out of harbor, but at least did not smell of Athens. Salt, seaweed, and a hint of odd flesh. What did the sea smell of, to smell like this?
"The captain walks," Leake observed. Hamilton turned to see Eglen, hitherto out of sight behind the binnacle, now coming forward to get a better view of the crew's exertions. Hamilton inclined his head politely, but the captain, though scarce six paces away, did not meet his eye.
"I trust there exists no coolness between the captain and yourself," Leake murmured.
"Not at all," Hamilton replied. "His Lordship was anxious that the larger pieces be brought on board, but Captain Eglen had worries for the safety of his ship." Hamilton guessed that Elgin would be displeased that the captain had refused to enlarge the hatches in order to admit the seven largest cases, but he respected the judgment of the ship's master, who had seen the Mentor through that spring's perils in Syria. He could also appreciate how the captain, after overseeing repairs to the hull, should have been reluctant to approve the carpenters cutting into his deck.
Eglen did seem to be glowering, but his attention was fixed upon his crew. The able seamen were in the rigging, leaving the deck occupied by the boys, who were mostly Greeks and new to the sea. The imprecations raining down upon them suggested that they were slower in learning their new trade than Englishmen liked.
"It is too small a ship to share with enemies," Hamilton continued. "I will be friendly to all, however firm my intention to pursue a regimen of reading." With a pang he abruptly remembered that he had seen his trunk lowered into the hold rather than taken properly to his cabin.
The south wind was shifting back to the east: still not the most propitious direction, but the sails were set to derive some benefit from it. It was enough that the Hellespontian did not interfere with the tide's steady work, which was drawing the ship slowly from harbor. What puffs and gusts may snap the sails, thought Hamilton in sudden inspiration; but it is that which pulls below that truly moves.
And with this thought he took himself down: from the realms of air and water, into that of wood.
Copyright © 2001 by Gregory Feeley
)
On September 15, 1802, the English brig Mentor sailed from Piraeus, its hold filled with the "Elgin Marbles"--the Classical Greek sculptures that Lord Elgin, British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, had prised from the Parthenon in Athens. The ship was bound for Great Britain, where Elgin intended the sculptures to adorn his family estate. This much is history. William Hamilton, Lord Elgin's personal secretary and a witness to the stripping of the Parthenon sculptures, looks to what should be a triumphant voyage home, but finds himself beset with strange voices. Whispers heard deep in the hold lead to an uncanny encounter with a most unusual stowaway ... one destined to bring the Mentor--and Hamilton--to the verge of disaster. With the treasures of Classical Athens--a seeming realm of clarity, harmony, and order--lying in fragments around him, Hamilton begins to realize that the Greek ideals his nation has embraced arose from darker origins, and that a genius loci, the "spirit of the place" thought to abide in sacred sites, can be disturbed only at one's peril.
