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278 Mirage of Greek Continuity
being duly cultivated . . . has degenerated into cunning’ (1776,
126–7). Before them, Tournefort mourned over a ‘decadence’
(1717, i. 76) which was the consequence of ignorance and slavery.
Another French traveller, J. B. Lechevalier, lays stress on
‘le contraste frappant . . . entre les beaux siècles de ce peuple
immortel et le triste tableau qu’il présente’, a truth illustrated
later by the laziness of the modern Corfiots as opposed to their
industrious ancestors, the mythical Phaeacians (1802, 31).
Usually western travellers explain this degeneration by the
Turkish conquest. For Riedesel the crucial factor is the adulteration
of the ‘pure’ Greek blood: ‘il parait que les Vénitiens et
les Turcs ont dénaturé ce beau sang’ (1771, 250). Others accuse
political institutions and the ‘tyranny’ of the Turks. Charles
Perry denounces ‘the great oppressions they [the Greeks] groan
under from their cruel, inexorable Tyrant, the Turk’ (1743, 23).
Charlemont (1749, 119) makes slavery responsible for the ‘want
of education’ of the Greeks. Drummond also portrays ‘a conquered
people . . . exposed to . . . cruelty and extortion . . . familiarized
to oppression, which hath likewise disposed them for
villainy’ (1754, 121). But there are also some attempts to date
this decadence back to Byzantium. According to James Porter
(1768, ii. 123), ‘whatever arts and sciences, whatever virtues
might have been found in ancient times among the Greek
Republicans seem to have been obscured or totally lost under
their emperors’. Choiseul-Gouffier (1782, p. vii) also believes
that Greek culture collapsed under Byzantine influence:
Plaire à leurs maitres, ce fut le seul but de ces sujets ; ils y employèrent
tous les talents que leur avait prodigués la nature . . . dès lors leur
caractère fut un mélange de ruse, de bassesse, de férocité et de superstition;
leur esprit, dégénérant en subtilité, porta la métaphysique
dans les disputes religieuszes et cet entêtement scholastique mêlé
aux fureurs du fanatisme . . . plongea la Grèce dans le dernier degré
d’avilissement et fit de de son histoire un tissu de crimes et de
perfidies. C’est dans cet excès dedégradation qu’était tombé l’empire
à l’époque de la prise de Constantinople.
This moral degeneration may be paralleled in many other ways.
The famous wine of Chios ‘seems to have degenerated’ (Charlemont
(1749), 43), and Greek women are no longer ‘ces sublimes
beautés qu’on trouve sur les bas reliefs’ (Riedesel (1771),
250). Most of all, travellers note that modern Greek is no longer
‘pure’. This ‘daughter of ancient Greek’ has lost its subtlety,