Travels and Discoveries in the Levant/Volume 1/Letter XXI
XXI.
One of the pleasantest excursions in the neighbourhood of Rhodes is to the pretty village of Trianda, distant about five miles from the city, on the road to Villa Nova. This road, issuing from the Neomaras, passes along the shore, up to the foot of St. Stephen's Hill. Thence, making a bend to the west at the distance of about half an hour from the town, it passes along the side of a marsh, where, according to the local legend which Schiller has immortalized, Dieudonnc de Gozon slew the tei'rible dragon.121 Beyond this marsh the shore bends round to the north, forming the bay of Trianda, a fair anchorage in a south wind. The village is scattered over a plain at a little distance from the shore. Here the Knights passed their villeggiatura during the summer months in pyrgi surrounded by gardens. Many of these houses still remain in fair preservation. They are built of stone, in the same simple style of military Gothic as the houses in the town of Rhodes.
In some of these pyrgi the entrance-door was anciently on the second story, to which there was no access but by a drawbridge communicating with a detached flight of stone steps.
Trianda lies at the foot of a hill called Phileremo, or Rhoda Vecchia, the site of the ancient Acropolis of lalysos. This hill, which is a familiar seamark to mariners approaching Rhodes from the north, rises steeply out of the plain: its top is a platform of which the level has probably been improved by art. Its greatest length is from north-east to south-west. This kind of table-land constantly occurs on the north side of the island.
The hill of Phileremo was occupied by the Knights, and is frequently mentioned in the accounts of the siege.
On the summit is a small crypt with a tunnel vault. The roof and sides are covered with pictures in distemper, much decayed. Some of the figures are in armour, from the style of which, and the form of the escutcheons, I should infer that the date was about 1430. At the east end is represented the Saviour, and below, St. George; on the roof, the Crucifixion.
Bast of this subterraneous vault is a Gothic building with two rooms, side by side, covered with intersecting ribbed vaults. The windows are lancet, in a very pure Gothic, like our early English, but probably as late as 1360 in date. There are several other rooms which still retain their vaulting.122
I noticed here a block of marble on which were sculptured the arms of the Grand Master Fabrizio del Carretto, quarterly with those of the Order.
It was here that, in the time of the Knights, stood the celebrated church Notre Dame de Philerme, so often mentioned in the chronicles of the siege. To the shrine of this Madonna pilgrims resorted, and when- ever Rhodes was threatened by any great peril, her image was carried in solemn procession to the town. On the edge of the table-land may be seen some slight remains of the Hellenic fortification which occupied this site, and which was called Ochyi'oma, or "the strong place," and on the north side, about two-thirds of the way up the lines, terrace walls may be traced, though much concealed by fig-trees. On this side, under a walnut- tree at a fountain, are some fragments of Ionic columns in sandstone, 212 feet in diameter. Here I obtained a marble lion's head from a cornice fairly sculptured.123 Ialysos was one of the three ancient cities of which the pohtical importance was destroyed by the founding of Rhodes B.C. 408. Strabo describes it as a mere κώμη or village in his time; its distance from Rhodes he reckons at 80 stadia, which would be rather more than nine English miles. The distance from Trianda to Neomaras is not more than five. We must look, therefore, for lalysos to the west of Phileremo.
The Chevaher Hedenborg, a Swedish savant resi- dent at Rhodes, possesses a fine amphora, with black figures on a red ground, which, as he informs me, was found in a tomb near Phileremo ; and between that hill and Maritza, at the distance of one hour from the latter place, is a mound called Catzechi, on which was discovered the top of a Greek marlile stelé, sculptured with a rich floral ornament like those found at Athens.124 The mound seems artificial, and the fields round it were strewn with pottery. The stelé was found on its eastern side.
This place lies south of Kremastò, close to which village, according to M. Guérin, architectural marbles, the foundation of a temple, and Hellenic tombs, have from time to time been discovered. It seems probable, therefore, that the town of Iaysos occupied the site marked out for it in the Admiralty Chart.
M. Berg, a German painter sent by the king of Prussia to the Levant, arrived here a few days ago, and is at present my guest. The principal object of his mission is to visit Lycia; but he proposes to remain here till the spring, and is now exploring Rhodes under my auspices. He has made a beautiful panoramic sketch of the town of Rhodes, and many drawings of the architecture of the Knights. I was in hopes that he would be able to make studies of the costume of the peasants, but they have a curious superstition about portraits, which makes them very unwilling to be drawn. In their minds the idea of likeness is connected with that of life, so that the individual who allows his portrait to be taken is believed to be thenceforth in the power of the person who possesses his likeness. The other day, in a remote village, I succeeded with infinite trouble, and through the intervention of Panga, in persuading a young girl to sit to M. Berg. Just as the sketch was completed, the mother arrived, and on learning what had occurred in her absence, reproached her daughter with as much bitterness as if she had committed some heinous crime, and made such an onslaught on the poor painter, that, after vain efforts to appease the clamour, he tore up his drawing.
This curious superstition seems a relic of the old belief that witches had power over persons by making images inscribed with their names, which they then subjected to certain rites.125
[In January, 1854, I transferred the charge of the Consulate at Rhodes to Mr. J. B. Blunt, being obliged to go to England on private business. I returned to Turkey in June of the same year, and a new Consul having been appointed at Rhodes, went back to my old post at Mytilene.]