By the Ionian Sea: Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy

was a fit sight at Metapontum, famous of old for the richness of its

soil; in token whereof the city dedicated at Delphi its famous Golden

Sheaf. It is all that remains of life on this part of the coast; the

city had sunk into ruin before the Christian era, and was never

rebuilt. Later, the shore was too dangerous for habitation. Of all the

cities upon the Ionian Sea, only Tarentum and Croton continued to exist

through the Middle Ages, for they alone occupied a position strong for

defence against pirates and invaders. A memory of the Saracen wars

lingers in the name borne by the one important relic of Metapontum, the

Tavola de’ Paladini; to this my guide was conducting me.

It is the ruin of a temple to an unknown god, which stood at some

distance north of the ancient city; two parallel rows of columns, ten

on one side, five on the other, with architrave all but entire, and a

basement shattered. The fine Doric capitals are well preserved; the

pillars themselves, crumbling under the tooth of time, seem to support

with difficulty their noble heads. This monument must formerly have

been very impressive amid the wide landscape; but, a few years ago, for

protection against peasant depredators, a wall ten feet high was built

close around the columns, so that no good view of them is any longer

obtainable. To the enclosure admission is obtained through an iron

gateway with a lock. I may add, as a picturesque detail, that the lock

has long been useless; my guide simply pushed the gate open. Thus, the

ugly wall serves no purpose whatever save to detract from the beauty of

the scene.

Vegetation is thick within the temple precincts; a flowering rose bush

made contrast of its fresh and graceful loveliness with the age-worn

strength of these great carved stones. About their base grew

luxuriantly a plant which turned my thoughts for a moment to rural

England, the round-leaved pennywort. As I lingered here, there stirred

in me something of that deep emotion which I felt years ago amid the

temples of Paestum. Of course, this obstructed fragment holds no claim

to comparison with Paestum’s unique glory, but here, as there, one is

possessed by the pathos of immemorial desolation; amid a silence which

the voice has no power to break, nature’s eternal vitality triumphs

over the greatness of forgotten men.

At a distance of some three miles from this temple there lies a little

lake, or a large pond, which would empty itself into the sea but for a

piled barrier of sand and shingle. This was the harbour of Metapontum.

I passed the day in rambling and idling, and returned for a meal at the

station just before train-time. The weather could not have been more

enjoyable; a soft breeze and cloudless blue. For the last half-hour I

lay in a hidden corner of the eucalyptus grove—trying to shape in

fancy some figure of old Pythagoras. He died here (says story) in 497

B.C.—broken-hearted at the failure of his efforts to make mankind

gentle and reasonable. In 1897 A.D. that hope had not come much nearer

to its realization. Italians are yet familiar with the name of the

philosopher, for it is attached to the multiplication table, which they

call tavola pitagorica. What, in truth, do we know of him? He is a

type of aspiring humanity; a sweet and noble figure, moving as a dim