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274 Mirage of Greek Continuity
and the remainder of the magnanimous Greeks who prefered
their liberty to their lives’ (pp. 28–9). Side by side we find the
despicable modern Greek and the true heir of the Spartans who
died at the Thermopylae—a tension which often reappears
later. One can also find the corruption theme, a corruption
explained by Greek contact with other peoples :
The Greek that is vulgarly spoken among the Maniots is the most
corrupt of all other; for having a constant trade by reason of the
commodities which they take by piracy and trafficking one day with
one nation and another day with the other, they are much accustomed
to the language which they call the Franck. (p. 32)
He emphasizes the negative continuity: ‘I found by their vanity
in those descriptions [of their piratical activities] that they were
true Greeks and had learned from their ancestors the art of
advertising and embellishing their exploits’ (pp. 32–3).
On the other hand Guillet praises the Athenians who ‘maintain
the hospitality that was so honourable in their ancestors’
(p. 149). Reviving the prejudices of the Atticists under the
Roman Empire, he still finds that ‘the language at Athens is
the most pure and incorrupt of all the cities in Greece. It is
nowhere spoken or understood in its primitive purity but at
Athens’ (p. 149). Perhaps because this is after all an imposture,
he dares to give the floor to an Athenian who questions the usual
commonplaces about degenerate Greece:
Our nation is not degenerate: are they not our soldiers who are
fighting your armies and overrunning your provinces? And you cannot
deny that the Ottoman forces consist principally of persons forced
or stolen from us. (p. 232)
2. spon and wheler and their successors
The narrative of Jacob Spon, who introduces himself first and
foremost as an antiquarian: ‘C’est seulement l’amour de l’antiquité
qui m’a fait entreprendre ce voyage’ (Préface), as well as
the Journal of his companion, George Wheler, offer a more
complex view of the relations between ancient and modern
Greeks.
There are indeed many traces of the traditional—and completely
negative—portrayal of modern Greeks. Their ignorance