Perth Amboy evening news., 1923-01-10
Geographic News
Bulletins by the
National Geographic Society
WHERE GREEKS COLLECT

WHERE GREEKS COLLECT
Saloniki, safely outside both East
ern and Western Thrace, but near
enough to those troubled regions
| of Greek and Turkish rivalry to ne
in easy reach of refugees, has had a
tremendous problem thrust upon her
dispatches state, by the tens of
thousands of Greeks who fiockej
there both by land and sea. 4.
"Saloniki does not stand at a
| great world crossroads, and its
name, therefore, is not so familiar
as that of Constantinople," says a
bulletin in regard to the city, is
sued from the Washington, d. c.,
headquarters of the National Geo.
graphic Society. I'm past and pres
emit importance however, it is Sec
ond only to it's great sister of the
straits.
Named For Alexander's Sister
"Saloniki, too, reaches far back
into the past. Cities ose and fell
on its site more than half a mill
lennium before Christ; and the pref
emit town was founded before 300
B. C. It's rather queer name repre-
sents the last three syllables in the
| name of Thessalonike, half sister
| Of Alexander the Great. 1t became
a Little Rome during the height If
that empires power; a free city,
capital of the surrounding region,
| and the home of many Roman olon-
lists. Cicero lived there for a time
in exile; Nero and Trajan decorated
home of the Emperors Galerius.
Licinius and Theodosius.
Under the B~yZantines, Saloniki
| was the second city of the empire;
and it has remained eve since the
rival of the City of the Straits
| whether the latter has been called
Byzantium, STEAMBOAT. or Constants
nople Saloniki might be called
the extension university of the Near
| East for from there went forth st.
Cyril who carried to the Slavic world
to the north the Cyrilic alphabet in
which its literature has been
wrought.
Xerxes Soldiers Trod Highway
cit is not surprising hat so an
| Client a city should contain interest
ing relics of its past. What Is sur
prising is that these should be so
little known to the world.
1.-THE oldest and most accessible
OF Saloniki's antiquities is the street
of the Vardar which cuts the city n
W Ct lC 4ooL "a ~ ~ - 10 "a
part Of the old Roman highway
from the Adriatic to the Bosporus,
which earlier still was the Royal
Way of the Macedonian kings.
THE street is not particularly i'm
posing. There Is little to remind
the beholder of the Janissaries of
yesterday, the Roman legions, the
phalanxes of Alexander, and the
Immortals of Xerxes. all of whom
trod its surface. And IL you would
dream of those marchers of the past
you must do so to the somewhat in
congruous clang Of an American
electric car, driven by IL modern
Greek or a Spanish Jew, under the
Roman Arch which spans the street
Of the Vardar.
One of Worlds Finest Mosaics
1.-The finest remains of the city
are the twenty-five churches which
somehow survived the turbulent
Middle Ages. There they stand,
turned back into churches after
five hundred years of use as
mosques. They illustrate the story
of Byzantine architecture more
beautiful in certain ways than dc
those of Constantinople. One espe.
cially interesting fact in connection
with these churches is that they
make among them a museum of the
lost Byzantine art of mosaic. No
where else are such beautiful exam
pies OF mosaics of this period seen
save in Constantinople and Ravenna
The finest of mosaics in Saloniki
and one of the finest in the world
is in the dome of the Church of st
George.
"Once ruled and built by Rome
and later Venice and numbering
among it's inhabitants Greeks, Ser
bans, Albanians, Bulgarians ant
Turks. Saloniki's atmosphere may
be said to have been compounded
from that of every adjacent nation
But 1t reaches still farther afelt
and has an important contact will
Spain One of it's largest racial ell
ements consists of Spanish speaking
Jews whose ancestors were driver
from Spain by Columbus royal pat
rons.
"One must not think OF Salonik
al a new Grecian acquisition fdl
from the heart of Greece; for jus
across the bay, ever in sight from
it's hills, towers Mt. Olympus in
spiration of the life and literature
Of old Greece"