"My intellectual desire is to escape life as I know it and dream myself into that old world..."
George Gissing, successful 19th Century British novelist (23 books in 23 years), had reasons for finding comfort in nostalgia for the ancient world. Two miserable marriages and expulsion from the college he had worked so hard to attend, as well as ill health, made a trip to the lands of Magna Grecia in far southern Italy a tempting diversion.
His final goal was to visit the sole remaining fragment of the largest temple built in the old Greek colonies, that of Hera Lacinia, at Capo Colonna, the easternmost point of the Calabrian peninsula. The temple had endured from the 5th Century B.C. until the 17th Century, before it was ignominiously dismantled for use in building projects in nearby Cortone. But disappointment dogged Gissing, who had become too ill with malarial fever to go beyond a sight of the lone Doric column in the distance. He did, however, leave a fine account of his travels, By The Ionian Sea, published just two years before his death in 1903. It is still currently available, fortunately, in several reprints.
An excavation in 1910 revealed a good many objects from the vanished temple of surprising artistic quality; above is a gold diadem that crowned the statue of Hera. While it seems impossible that it was not looted long ago, ancient coins showing it in place on the statue seem to prove its authenticity. Votive offerings also found, now in the local archaeological museum, were far above the level of the usual terracotta or minor jewelry items:
A 1095 review in The Nation stated "The book is worth reading from beginning to end." Rather faint praise. But like the stalwart temple column, Gissing's work will stand the test of time.
