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Mosaics of Grecian History by Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

M >> Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson >> Mosaics of Grecian History




II. Architecture.
Introductory.--THOMSON.
The Adornment of Athens.--BULWER.
I. The Acrop'olis and its Splendors.
The Parthenon.--HEMANS.
II. Other Architectural Monuments of Athens.
The Temple of The'seus.--HAYGARTH.
Athenian Enthusiasm for Art.--BULWER.
The Glory of Athens.--TALFOURD.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE SPARTAN AND THEBAN SUPREMACIES.

I. The Expedition of Cyrus, and the Retreat of the Ten
Thousand.--THOMSON: CURTIUS.

II. The Supremacy of Sparta.

III. The Rise and Fall of Thebes.
Pelop'idas and Epaminon'das.--THOMSON: CURTIUS.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE SICILIAN GREEKS.

The Founding of AEtna.--PINDAR.
Hi'ero's Victory at Cu'mae.--PINDAR.
Admonitions to Hiero.--PINDAR.
Dionysius the Elder.--PLUTARCH.
Damon and Pythias.--The Hostage.--SCHILLER.
Archime'des.--SCHILLER
Visit of Cicero to the Grave of Archimedes.--WINTHROP.

CHAPTER XV.

THE MACEDONIAN SUPREMACY.

I. The Sacred War.--THIRLWALL.

II. Sketch of Macedonia.

III. Interference of Philip of Macedon.
Demosthenes.--"The First Philippic."--GROTE.
Pho'cion.--His Influence at Athens.--GROTE.

IV. War with Macedon.

V. Accession of Alexander the Great.

VI. Alexander Invades Asia.

VII. The Battle of Arbe'la.--Flight and Death of Dari'us.--
GROTE: AES'CHINES.
Alexander's Feast at Persep'olis.--DRYDEN.

VI. The Death of Alexander.
His Career and his Character.--LU'CAN.
Reflections on his Life, etc.--JUVENAL: BYRON.

CHAPTER XVI.

FROM THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER TO THE CONQUEST OF GREECE BY THE ROMANS.

I. A Retrospective Glance at Greece.
Oration of AEschines against Ctes'iphon.
Oration of Demosthenes on the Crown.

II. The Wars that followed Alexander's Death.
Character of Ptolemy Philadelphus--THEOC'RITUS.

III. The Celtic Invasion, and the War with Pyrrhus.
Queen Archidami'a.--ANON.

IV. The Achae'an League.--Philip V. of Macedon.
Epigrams on Philip and the Macedonians.--Alcoe'us.

V. Greece Conquered by Rome.
"The Liberty of Greece."--WORDSWORTH.
Desolation of Corinth.--ANTIPATER.
Last Struggles of Greece.--THIRLWALL: HORACE.

CHAPTER XVII.

LITERATURE AND ART AFTER THE CLOSE OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR.

LITERATURE.

I. The Drama.--MAHAFFY.
Phile'mon.--"Faith in God."
Menander.--"Human Existence."--SYMONDS: LAWRENCE.

II. Oratory.--MILTON: CICERO.
AEs'chines and Demosthenes.--LEGARE: BROUGHAM: HUME.

III. Philosophy.
Plato.--HAYGARTH: BROUGHAM: KENDRICK: MITCHELL.
Aristotle.--POPE: BROWNE: LAWRENCE: SMITH: MAHAFFY.
Academe.--ARNOLD.
Epicu'rus and Ze'no.--LUCRETIUS.

IV. History.
Xen'ophon.--MITCHELL.
Polyb'ius.

ART.

I. Architecture and Sculpture.
Changes in Statuary.--WEYMAN.
The Dying Gladiator.--LUeBKE: THOMSON.
The La-oc'o-on.--THOMSON: HOLLAND.

II. Painting.
Venus Rising from the Sea.--ANTIPATER.
Apel'les and Protog'enes.--ANTHON.
Protogenes' Picture at Rhodes.--THOMSON.

Concluding Reflections.
The Image of Athens.--SHELLEY.
Immortal Influence of Athens.--MACAULAY: HAYGARTH.

CHAPTER XVIII.

GREECE SUBSEQUENT TO THE ROMAN CONQUEST.

I. Greece under the Romans.
The Revolt.--FINLAY.
Christianity in Greece.--FELTON.

II. Changes down to the Fourteenth Century.
Courts of the Crusading Chieftains.--EDINBURGH REVIEW.
The Duchy of Athens.--FELTON.
The Turkish Invasion.--HEMANS.

III. Contests between the Turks and Venetians.
Past and Present of the Acropolis of Athens.
The Siege and Fall of Corinth.--BYRON.

IV. Final Conquest of Greece by Turkey.
Turkish Oppressions.--TENNENT.
The Slavery of Greece.--CANNING: BYRON.
First Steps to Secure Liberty.--The Klephts.--FELTON.
Greek War-Songs.--RHIGAS: POLYZOIS.

V. The Greek Revolution.
A Prophetic Vision of the Struggle.--SHELLEY'S "Hellas".
Song of the Greeks.--CAMPBELL.
American Sympathy with Greece.--TUCKERMAN: WEBSTER.
The Sortie at Missolon'ghi.--WARBURTON.
A Visit to Missolonghi.--STEPHENS.
Marco Bozzar'is.--HALLECK.
Battle of Navari'no.--CAMPBELL.

VI. Greece under a Constitutional Monarchy.
Revolution against King Otho.--BENJAMIN.
The Deposition of King Otho: Greece under his Rule.
--TUCKERMAN: BRITISH QUARTERLY.
Accession of King George.--His Government.--TUCKERMAN.
Progress in Modern Greece.--COOK.

INDEX




CHAPTER I.

GENERAL VIEW OF THE GRECIAN STATES AND ISLANDS.

The country called HELLAS by the Helle'nes, its native inhabitants,
and known to us by the name of Greece, forms the southern part
of the most easterly of the three great peninsulas of Southern
Europe, extending into the Mediterranean between the AEge'an Sea,
or Grecian Archipelago, on the east, and the Ionian Sea on the
west. The whole area of this country, so renowned in history, is
only about twenty thousand square miles; which is considerably
less than that of Portugal, and less than half that of the State
of Pennsylvania.

The mainland of ancient Greece was naturally divided into Northern
Greece, which embraced Thessaly and Epi'rus; Central Greece,
comprising the divisions of Acarna'nia, AEto'lia, Lo'cris, Do'ris,
Pho'cis, Breo'tia, and At'tica (the latter forming the eastern
extremity of the whole peninsula); and Southern Greece, which the
ancients called Pel-o-pon-ne'sus, or the Island of Pe'lops, which
would be an island were it not for the narrow Isthmus of Corinth,
which connects it on the north with Central Greece. Its modern
name, the Mo-re'a, was bestowed upon it from its resemblance to
the leaf of the mulberry. The chief political divisions of
Peloponnesus were Corinth and Acha'ia on the north, Ar'golis on
the east, Laco'nia and Messe'nia at the southern extremity of
the peninsula, E'lis on the west, and the central region of Arca'dia.

Greece proper is separated from Macedonia on the north by the
Ceraunian and Cambunian chain of mountains, extending in irregular
outline from the Ionian Sea on the west to the Therma'ic Gulf on
the east, terminating, on the eastern coast, in the lofty summit
of Mount Olympus, the fabled residence of the gods, where, in
the early dawn of history, Jupiter (called "the father of gods
and men") was said to hold his court, and where he reigned supreme
over heaven and earth. Olympus rises abruptly, in colossal
magnificence, to a height of more than six thousand feet, lifting
its snowy head far above the belt of clouds that nearly always
hangs upon the sides of the mountain.

Wild and august in consecrated pride,
There through the deep-blue heaven Olympus towers,
Girdled with mists, light-floating as to hide
The rock-built palace of immortal powers.
--HEMANS.

In the Olympian range, also, was Mount Pie'rus, where was the
Pierian fountain, one of the sacred resorts of the Muses, so
often mentioned by the poets, and to which POPE, with gentle
sarcasm, refers when he says,

A little learning is a dangerous thing:
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.

1. Thessaly.--From the northern chain of mountains, the central
Pindus range, running south, separates Thessaly on the east from
Epi'rus on the west. The former region, enclosed by mountain
ranges broken only on the east, and watered by the Pene'us and
its numerous tributaries, embraced the largest and most fertile
plain in all Greece. On the Thessalian coast, south of Olympus,
were the celebrated mounts Ossa and Pe'lion, which the giants,
in their wars against the gods, as the poets fable, piled upon
Olympus in their daring attempt to scale the heavens and dethrone
the gods. Between those mounts lay the celebrated vale of Tem'pe,
through which the Pene'us flowed to the sea.

Romantic Tempe! thou art yet the same--
Wild as when sung by bards of elder time:
Years, that have changed thy river's classic name,
[Footnote: The modern name of the Pene'us is Selembria
or Salamvria.]
Have left thee still in savage pomp sublime.
--HEMANS.

Farther south, having the sea on one side and the lofty cliffs
of Mount OE'ta on the other, was the celebrated narrow pass of
Thermop'ylae, leading from Thessaly into Central Greece.

2. Epi'rus.--The country of Epirus, on the west of Thessaly, was
mostly a wild and mountainous region, but with fertile intervening
valleys. Among the localities of Epirus celebrated in fable and
in song was the river Cocy'tus, which the poets, on account of
its nauseous waters, described as one of the rivers of the lower
world--

Cocytus, named of lamentation loud
Heard on the rueful stream.

The Ach'eron was another of the rivers--

Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep--
--MILTON.

which was assigned by the poets to the lower world, and over
which the souls of the dead were said to be first conveyed, before
they were borne the Le'the, or "stream of oblivion," beyond. The
true Acheron of Epirus has been thus described:

Yonder rolls Acheron his dismal stream,
Sunk in a narrow bed: cypress and fir
Wave their dim foliage on his rugged banks;
And underneath their boughs the parched ground,
Strewed o'er with juniper and withered leaves,
Seems blasted by no mortal tread.

As the Acheron falls into the lake Acheru'sia, and after rising
from it flows underground for some distance, this lake also has
been connected by the poets with the gloomy legend of its fountain
stream.

This is the place
Sung by the ancient masters of the lyre,
Where disembodied spirits, ere they left
Their earthly mansions, lingered for a time
Upon the confines of eternal night,
Mourning their doom; and oft the astonished hind,
As home he journeyed at the fall of eve,
Viewed unknown forms flitting across his path,
And in the breeze that waved the sighing boughs
Heard shrieks of woe.
--HAYGARTH.

In Epirus was also situated the celebrated city of Dodo'na, with
the temple of that name, where was the most ancient oracle in
Greece, whose fame extended even to Asia. But in the wide waste
of centuries even the site of this once famous oracle is forgotten.

Where, now, Dodona! is thine aged grove,
Prophetic fount, and oracle divine?
What valley echoes the response of Jove?
What trace remaineth of the Thunderer's shrine?
All, all forgotten!
--BYRON.

3. Acarna'nia.--Coming now to Central Greece, lying northward
of the Corinthian Gulf, we find Acarnania on the far west, for
the most part a productive country with good harbors: but the
Acarnanians, a rude and warlike people, were little inclined to
Commercial pursuits; they remained far behind the rest of the
Greeks in culture, and scarcely one city of importance was embraced
within their territory.

4. AEto'lia, generally a rough and mountainous country, separated,
on the west, from Acarnania by the river Ach-e-lo'us, the largest
of the rivers of Greece, was inhabited, like Acarnania, by a hardy
and warlike race, who long preserved the wild and uncivilized
habits of a barbarous age. The river Achelous was intimately
connected with the religion and mythology of the Greeks. The hero
Hercules contended with the river-god for the hand of De-i-a-ni'ra,
the most beautiful woman of his time; and so famous was the stream
itself that the Oracle of Dodona gave frequent directions "to
sacrifice to the Achelous," whose very name was used, in the
language of poetry, as an appellation for the element of water
and for rivers.

5. Lo'cris, lying along the Corinthian Gulf east of AEtolia, was
inhabited by a wild, uncivilized race, scarcely Hellen'ic in
character, and said to have been addicted, from the earliest
period, to theft and rapine. Their two principal towns were
Amphis'sa and Naupac'tus, the latter now called Lepanto. There
was another settlement of the Locri north of Pho'cis and Boeo'tia.

6. Do'ris, a small territory in the north-eastern angle of AEtolia
proper--a rough but fertile country--was the early seat of the
Dorians, the most enterprising and the most powerful of the Hellenic
tribes, if we take into account their numerous migrations, colonies
and conquests. Their colonies in Asia Minor founded six independent
republics, which were confined within the bounds of as many cities.
From this people the Doric order of architecture--a style typical
of majesty and imposing grandeur, and the one the most employed
by the Greeks in the construction of their temples--derived its
origin.

7. Pho'cis.--On the east of Locris, AEtolia, and Doris was Phocis,
a mountainous region, bordered on the south by the Corinthian
Gulf. In the northern central part of its territory was the famed
Mount Parnassus, covered the greater part of the year with snow,
with its sacred cave, and its Castalian fount gushing forth between
two of its lofty rocks. The waters were said to inspire those who
drank of them with the gift of poetry. Hence both mountain and
fount were sacred to the Muses, and their names have come down
to our own times as synonymous with poetry and song. BYRON thus
writes of Parnassus, in lines almost of veneration, as he first
viewed it from Delphi, on the southern base of the mountain:

Oh, thou Parnassus! whom I now survey,
Not in the frenzy of a dreamer's eye,
Not in the fabled landscape of a lay,
But soaring snow-clad through thy native sky
In the wild pomp of mountain majesty!

Oft have I dreamed of thee! whose glorious name
Who knows not, knows not man's divinest lore:
And now I view thee, 'tis, alas! with shame
That I in feeblest accents must adore.
When I recount thy worshippers of yore
I tremble, and can only bend the knee;
Nor raise my voice, nor vainly dare to soar,
But gaze beneath thy cloudy canopy
In silent joy to think at last I look on thee!

The city of Delphi was the seat of the celebrated temple and
oracle of that name. Here the Pythia, the priestess of Apollo,
pronounced the prophetic responses, in extempore prose or verse;
and here the Pythian Games were celebrated in honor of Apollo.

Here, thought-entranced, we wander, where of old
From Delphi's chasm the mystic vapor rose,
And trembling nations heard their doom foretold
By the dread spirit throned 'midst rocks and snows.
Though its rich fanes be blended with the dust,
And silence now the hallowed haunt possess,
Still is the scene of ancient rites august,
Magnificent in mountain loneliness;
Still Inspiration hovers o'er the ground,
Where Greece her councils held, her Pythian victors crowned.
--MRS. HEMANS.

8. Boeo'tia.--Boeotia, lying to the east of Phocis, bordering
on the Euri'pus, or "Euboe'an Sea," a narrow strait which separates
it from the Island of Euboe'a, and touching the Corinthian Gulf
on the south-west, is mostly one large basin enclosed by mountain
ranges, and having a soil exceedingly fertile. It was the most
thickly settled part of Greece; it abounded in cities of historic
interest, of which Thebes, the capital, was the chief--whose walls
were built, according to the fable, to the sound of the Muses:

With their ninefold symphonies
There the chiming Muses throng;
Stone on stone the walls arise
To the choral Music-song.
--SCHILLER.

Boeotia was the scene of many of the legends celebrated by the
poets, and especially of those upon which were founded the plays
of the Greek tragedians. Near a fountain on Mount Cithae'ron, on
its southern border, the hunter Actae'on, having been changed into
a stag by the goddess Diana, was hunted down and killed by his
own hounds. Pen'theus, an early king of Thebes, having ascended
Cithaeron to witness the orgies of the Bacchanals, was torn in
pieces by his own mother and aunts, to whom Bacchus made him
appear as a wild beast. On this same mountain range also occurred
the exposure of OEd'ipus, the hero of the most famous tragedy of
Sophocles. Near the Corinthian Gulf was Mount Hel'icon, sacred
to Apollo and the Muses. Its slopes and valleys were renowned
for their fertility; it had its sacred grove, and near it was
the famous fountain of Aganip'pe, which was believed to inspire
with oracular powers those who drank of its waters. Nearer the
summit was the fountain Hippocre'ne, which is said to have burst
forth when the winged horse Peg'asus, the favorite of the Muses,
struck the ground with his hoofs, and which Venus, accompanied
by her constant attendants, the doves, delighted to visit. Here,
we are told,

Her darling doves, light-hovering round their Queen,
Dipped their red beaks in rills from Hippocrene.
[Footnote: Always Hip-po-cre'ne in prose; but it is
allowable to contract it into three syllables in poetry,
as in the example above.]

It was here, also--

near this fresh fount,
On pleasant Helicon's umbrageous mount--

that occurred the celebrated contest between the nine daughters
of Pie'rus, king of E-ma'thi-a (the ancient name of Macedonia),
and the nine Muses. It is said that "at the song of the daughters
of Pierus the sky became dark, and all nature was put out of
harmony; but at that of the Muses the heavens themselves, the
stars, the sea, and the rivers stood motionless, and Helicon
swelled up with delight, so that its summit reached the sky."
The Muses then, having turned the presumptuous maidens into
chattering magpies, first took the name of Pi-er'i-des, from
Pieria, their natal region.

9. Attica.--Bordering Boeotia on the south-east was the district
of Attica, nearly in the form of a triangle, having two of its
sides washed by the sea, and the other--the northern--shut off
from the east of Central Greece by the mountain range of Cithaeron
on the north-west, and Par'nes on the east. Its other noted
mountains were Pentel'icus (sometimes called Mende'li), so
celebrated for its quarries of beautiful marble, and Hymet'tus,
celebrated for its excellent honey, and the broad belt of flowers
at its base, which scented the air with their delicious perfume.
It could boast of its chief city, the favored seat of the goddess
Minerva--

Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts
And eloquence--

as surpassing all other cities in beauty and magnificence, and
in the great number of its illustrious citizens. Yet the soil
of Attica was, on the whole, exceedingly barren, with the exception
of a few very fertile spots; but olive groves abounded, and the
olive was the most valuable product.

The general sterility of Attica was the great safety of her people
in their early history. "It drove them abroad; it filled them
with a spirit of activity, which loved to grapple with danger
and difficulty; it told them that, if they would maintain themselves
in the dignity which became them, they must regard the resources of
their own land as nothing, and those of other countries as their
own." Added to this, the situation of Attica marked it out in an
eminent manner for a commercial country; and it became distinguished
beyond all the other states of Greece for its extensive commercial
relations, while its climate was deemed the most favorable of
all the regions of the civilized world for the physical and
intellectual development of man. It was called "a sunny land,"
and, notwithstanding the infertility of its soil, it was full
of picturesque beauty. The poet BYRON, in his apostrophe to Greece,
makes many striking and beautiful allusions to the Attica of his
own time:

Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild;
Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields,
Thine olive ripe as when Minerva smiled,
And still its honeyed wealth Hymettus yields.
There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds,
The freeborn wanderer of thy mountain air;
Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds,
Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare;
Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair.

10. Entering now upon the isthmus which leads into Southern Greece,
we find the little state of Corinth, with its famous city of the
same name, keeping guard over the narrow pass, with one foot on
the Corinthian Gulf and the other on the Saron'ic, thereby commanding
both the Ionian and AEge'an seas, controlling the commerce that
passed between them, and holding the keys of Peloponnesus. It
was a mountainous and barren region, with the exception of a small
plain north-west of the city. Thus situated, Corinth early became
the seat of opulence and the arts, which rendered her the ornament
of Greece. On a lofty eminence overhanging the city, forming a
conspicuous object at a great distance, was her famous citadel--so
important as to be styled by Philip of Macedon "the fetters of
Greece." Rising abruptly nearly two thousand feet above the
surrounding plain, the hill itself, in its natural defences, is
the strongest mountain fortress in Europe.

The whirlwind's wrath, the earthquake's shock,
Have left untouched her hoary rock,
The key-stone of a land which still,
Though fallen, looks proudly on that hill,
The landmark to the double tide
That purpling rolls on either side,
As if their waters chafed to meet,
Yet pause and crouch beneath her feet.
--BYRON.

The ascent to the citadel, in the days of Corinthian glory, was
lined on both sides with temples and altars; but temples and
altars are gone, and citadel and city alike are now in ruins.
Antip'ater of Sidon describes the city as a scene of desolation
after it had been conquered, plundered, and its walls thrown down
by the Romans, 146 B.C. Although the city was partially rebuilt,
the description is fully applicable to its present condition. A
modern traveller thus describes the site of the ancient city:

The hoarse wind sighs around the mouldering walls
Of the vast theatre, like the deep roar
Of distant waves, or the tumultuous rush
Of multitudes: the lichen creeps along
Each yawning crevice, and the wild-flower hangs
Its long festoons around each crumbling stone.
The window's arch and massive buttress glow
With time's deep tints, whilst cypress shadows wave
On high, and spread a melancholy gloom.
Silent forever is the voice
Of Tragedy and Eloquence. In climes
Far distant, and beneath a cloudy sky,
The echo of their harps is heard; but all
The soul-subduing energy is fled.
--HAYGARTH.

11. Adjoining the Corinthian territory on the west, and extending
about sixty-five miles along the southern coast of the Corinthian
Gulf, was Acha'ia, mountainous in the interior; but its coast
region for the most part was level, exposed to inundations, and
without a single harbor of any size. Hence the Achae'ans were never
famous for maritime enterprise. Of the eleven Achaean cities that
formed the celebrated Achaean league, Pal'trae (now Patras') alone
survives. Si'cy-on, on the eastern border of Achaia, was at times
an independent state.

12. South of Achaia was the central region of Arcadia, surrounded
by a ring of mountains, and completely encompassed by the other
states of the Peloponnesus. Next to Laconia it was the largest
of the ancient divisions of Greece, and the most picturesque and
beautiful portion (not unlike Switzerland in its mountain
character), and without either seaports or navigable rivers. It
was inhabited by a people simple in their habits and manners,
noted for their fondness for music and dancing, their hospitality,
and pastoral customs. With the poets Arcadia was a land of peace,
of simple pleasures, and untroubled quiet; and it was natural that
the pipe-playing Pan should first appear here, where musical
shepherds led their flocks along the woody vales of impetuous
streams.

13. Ar'golis, east of Arcadia, was mostly a rocky peninsula lying
between the Saron'ic and Argol'ic gulfs. It was in great part a
barren region, with the exception of the plain adjoining its
capital city, Argos, and in early times was divided into a number
of small but independent kingdoms, that afterward became republics.
The whole region is rich in historic associations of the Heroic
Age. Here was Tir'yns, whose massive walls were built by the
one-eyed Cy'clops, and whence Hercules departed at the commencement
of his twelve labors. Here, also, was the Lernae'an Lake, where
the hero slew the many-headed hydra; Ne'mea, the haunt of the
lion slain by Hercules, and the seat of the celebrated Ne'mean
games; and Myce'nae, the royal city of Agamemnon, who commanded
the Greeks in the Trojan War--now known, only by its ruins and
its legends of by-gone ages.

And still have legends marked the lonely spot
Where low the dust of Agamemnon lies;
And shades of kings and leaders unforgot,
Hovering around, to fancy's vision rise.
--HEMANS.

If you think books have dumbed down …
Alison Flood: Today we can take our laptops on the road, but could we use them to produce On The Road?

Kerouac's On the Road manuscript travels to the Midlands

John Crace swallows a very thirsty volume

Documentary to lay bare 'Narnia Code'

He wrote it in just three weeks, furiously and loudly tap-tap-tapping away on his typewriter on 12ft long reels of paper so that he did not have to stop, just writing writing writing fuelled only, he said, by coffee…

It became one of the most important American novels of the last century and yesterday the original manuscript - a scroll taped together with eight reels of paper - of Jack Kerouac's On The Road was unfurled in the UK for the first time.
Fifty years after the novel which more or less defined the Beat generation, was published in Britain, the Barber Institute in Birmingham is showing what is now one of the most valuable literary manuscripts in existence as part of its exhibition Jack Kerouac: Back On the Road.

The exhibition's curator Professor Dick Ellis said there had been a lot of competition to get the scroll which is itself spending a lot of time on the move, having toured a string of US cities and hitting the road to Rome once this show is over. "We're very excited indeed," he said. "This is an iconic manuscript. It is a record of the huge effort Kerouac put into composing it. It was 20 days of typing 6,500 words a day, flat out, in spontaneous composition. He wanted to record things with the most possible accuracy using the spontaneous technique. His typewriter became a compositional instrument.

"Truman Capote once accused Kerouac of typing rather than writing, I would say he was learning the ability of using the typewriter like a jazz instrument, like a saxophone. He also had an incredible memory. And he had great speed at typing, he became a lightning typist. He came to be able to use a typewriter in a way that has not been seen before or since. Kerouac said he wrote fast because the road was fast."

About 22 of the scroll's 120ft will be on display in a specially built cabinet and while visitors will have to slightly tilt their heads, Ellis believes they will get a much deeper knowledge of what Kerouac was all about. It comes to Birmingham courtesy of Jim Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts, who bought it for $2.4m (£1.6m) in 2001 before agreeing to a tour. Of course, in the published novel, there are paragraph breaks but in the scroll, there are none. Kerouac did not have the time. The exhibition runs until January 28.

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