CHAPTER IX.

SWIMMING.

Swimming in Ancient Times - Hero and Leander - Crossing the Hellespont-Lord Byron achieves the Feat-His Powers as a Swimmer His Great Feat at Venice Importance of the Art among the Ancients-Roman Women-Aquatic Pantomimes— Flavius Josephus.

A SWIMMER is simply a runner who, so to speak, has changed his ground, and between the two exercises there is only a difference of the elements. Aristotle considers them as two members of a family, or rather as one and the same exercise, demanding great nervous and muscular power and flexibility.

Formerly, as indeed at all times, the best swimmers were the inhabitants of sea-coasts and islands, or peoples accustomed to traverse the ocean for the purposes of commerce. The Phoenicians and the Carthaginians were very expert in the art, which was held in high esteem by all ancient nations. The Persians were the only exceptions to the general rule, for, as they rendered an idolatrous worship to their rivers, they did not dare to plunge their hands, much less their whole bodies, into them. Among the Greeks, the Athenians, and especially the inhabitants of the isle of Delos, were considered the best swimmers. The skill of the latter has passed into a proverb. Socrates, not being able to explain certain passages in Heraclitus the philosopher which seemed to be obscure and conflicting,

exclaims, "To find one's way amid so many reefs would puzzle even a swimmer of the Isle of Delos."

Leander could not boast of the famous island as the place of his birth, but he was none the less a great swimmer. He was smitten, as every one knows, by the charms of a young and beautiful priestess named Hero, who lived at Sestos, upon the Hellespont, on the European shore, while he himself dwelt at Abydos, on the opposite or Asiatic coast. Guided by a beacon-light which the young priestess was careful to kindle on the summit of her tower, Leander swam the Hellespont every even

Hero and Leander.
(From a medal.)

ing, spent some time with his beloved, and returned again in the same manner. When the wind blew with too much violence, Hero sheltered the flickering light with her robe, for she knew Leander felt no fear so long as that flame invited him onwards. But on one fatal night she had forgotten this precaution, and perhaps had altogether neglected to kindle her fire. She was cruelly punished, for on the following morning, at day-break, she saw gleaming upon the shore the white limbs of Leander, whose dead body had been cast up by the waves upon the beach. The ill-fated youth, losing sight of the beacon on the tower, and unable to contend against the darkness and the currents, had yielded up his latest breath to the waves. In her horror and despair, Hero threw herself into the sea, inviting the fate to which her lover had succumbed.

It is somewhat curious to speculate why Leander, instead of swimming the Hellespont, did not simply paddle across

in a boat. This mode of transit would certainly not have been so cheap, but it would have been much less dangerous and fatiguing. It may be said in answer that perhaps the youth was anxious not to attract attention to his nightly passage, and thereby publish his amour with the fair lady to the world. But however this may be, it is sufficient, upon the authority of Ovid and Musæus, to state that it was Leander's practice to swim to and from the opposite bank where Hero lived, and as the narratives of poets and romancers need not of necessity be received as articles of faith, each may decide as he pleases upon the details of the fine old story.

The important point is not to know whether Leander really crossed the Hellespont by swimming, but whether others have been able to do so-whether, in fact, the feat is practicable. The distance from Abydos to Sestos was thirty stades, or three miles six furlongs. That Leander swam so far twice a night it is difficult to believe, and in view of these figures, many have at once relegated the touching tale to the domain of fable. Others, however, attempt to prove that it is not a fiction, and, according to them, as it was only natural that Leander should seek to shorten his journey as much as possible, he walked along the sea-shore till he came straight opposite the tower in which Hero lived. By good luck the width of the Hellespont is much diminished at this point, being only seven stades, or about 1,300 yards. But none of the critics who calmly discussed by their firesides the probable authenticity of this adventure showed an inclination to find out whether it was possible to swim the Hellespont by attempting to repeat the feat of Leander. This was, however, the best means of removing all doubt as to the story, and setting to

rest another difficulty upon which there had been much discussion, namely, in what sense the epithet by which Homer characterises the Hellespont (apeiros, infinite, without limit) is to be understood. Among the heroes of antiquity we find only one Curtius leaping into the chasm, and the one man who was ready to risk his life in attempting Leander's feat was Lord Byron. The circumstances, however, were different, for while as a reward of his adventure Leander won Hero's love, the English poet only caught a fever, which confined him several days to his bed.

""Twere hard to say who fared the best,

Sad mortals, thus the gods still plague you!
He lost his labour, I my jest,

For he was drowned, and I've the ague."

With respect to the second matter, the use of the word apeiros in reference to the Hellespont, Byron says, in a note to his "Bride of Abydos," that "The wrangling about the epithet 'the broad Hellespont,' or 'the boundless Hellespont,' whether it means one or the other, or what it means at all, has fallen beyond the possibility of detail. I have even heard it disputed on the spot, and not foreseeing a speedy conclusion to the controversy, amused myself with swimming across it in the meantime, and probably may again before the point is settled. Indeed, the question as to the truth of the tale of Troy divine,' still continues, much of it resting upon the talismanic word apeiros: probably Homer had the same notion of distance that a coquette has to time; and when he talks of boundless means half a mile; as the coquette, by a figure, when she says eternal attachment simply specifies three weeks." That is how the sceptical Byron speaks of Homer; how the lame poet treats the blind one.

M

It was on the 3rd of May, 1810, that Byron attempted this feat, in concert with a friend, Lieutenant Ekenhead. He crossed the strait in an hour, the direct distance being 2,130 yards, although the force of the currents, which drive the swimmer far to both right and left, makes the achievement equal to a passage of twice or perhaps three times the space. An Englishman named Turner subsequently attempted to cross the Hellespont from Asia to Europe, but after being about twenty-five minutes in the water, found the adventure too much for him, and, turning back, regained the shore, fatigued and breathless. Jealous of the success of Byron, who had crossed the strait in the opposite direction, Turner, on his return to England, pointed out that Byron had performed but the easier part of the task, for he had only gone from Europe to Asia, while Leander made the double passage—the return being much the more difficult of the two, owing to the extreme roughness of the current.

The poet attached far too much importance to such triumphs to be able to keep silent under an attack like this, and, in a powerful reply, dated from Ravenna, 21st February, 1821, the strong swimmer makes great fun of Mr. Turner, who denied the possibility of crossing the Hellespont because he himself had been unable to do so. Mr. Turner's defeat proved only that there was not in him the stuff out of which good swimmers are made. As to the current being stronger or weaker in one direction or the other, Byron knew nothing of the matter, and, indeed, did not trouble himself about it. Again, in 1818, being then at Venice, Mengaldo, an Italian, who was attached, in the position of avocat, to the French consulate there, and was skilled in this exercise, had boasted