On December 26, 1890 a stooping old man collapsed in broad daylight on a dirty street in Naples. Misguided by the man’s humble attire, the passers by rushed him to a local hospital for the poor.  Because the man carried no identification papers, the doctor on duty had him placed on a hard wooden bench. Only after the small pouch hanging down the poor man’s neck suddenly burst open and gold coins started flowing out, did the doctors rush in to help. But it was too late now and the man passed away without regaining conscience. Shortly after it transpired that the old sick man was indeed Heinrich Schliemann who had come to Naples to undergo a course of treatment…

The first time Fate put the would be discoverer of the legendary Troy was in 1841 when a 19-year-old Schliemann became a cabin boy on a steamer bound for Venezuela. After 12 days at sea the ship foundered in a gale and the survivors washed up on the shores of Holland. Stepping ashore with only an old blanket and ragged underwear on during a freezing minus 6 Celsius, the young felt pretty uncomfortable... Using money donated him by a foundation that helped shipwreck survivors, he rented a tiny room and spent the long nights reminiscing about his child years. 

A strange, ailing and museful boy, Heinrich Schliemann was born in 1822 into the family of a poor Protestant minister. One day father gave him a lavishly illustrated book in an expensive leather binding. It was Homer’s The Iliad which became the main book of Heinrich’s entire life…

Heinrich’s mother died when he was only 9, father married a young woman and so the boy was sent out to become a grocer’s apprentice in the small town of Furstenberg. Growing up Heinrich started considering himself as Fortune’s favorite his newfound exclusiveness beginning one that shivery evening when his landlady brought him a letter and a postal money order. As it happened, a man who had once, a long time ago, proposed to his mother, had sent him about a hundred guilders and a letter of recommendation to a commodities firm in Amsterdam. Schliemann was admitted and spent all his spare time learning foreign languages. A phenomenally talented linguist, he mastered a whole 16 languages in a very short span of time, including Russian. The dream about finding Troy always on his mind, it now bordered on an obsession… He was reading and rereading Homer’s timeless work and The Iliad’s characters now seemed to him way more real that the company owners, ship brokers and trading agents….

Meanwhile, his position in the company was getting increasingly strong and  he evidenced such judgment and talent for his work that they sent him as a general agent in 1848 to St. Petersburg where his knowledge of Russian came in very handy indeed.  Becoming a millionaire in a matter of just a few short years Schliemann, now 30, married the sister of one of Russia’s wealthiest merchants, the 18-year-old Yekaterina Lyzhina. Yekaterina bore him three children but he was never happy with her, simply because they were so different… Schliemann eventually wrapped up his business in St. Petersburg and left Russia for good to implement the main dream of his life. To make it happen the 46-year-old millionaire enrolled in Sorbonne University as an archeology major. A few years later he married a young Greek woman who loved him and loved Homer. They were now ready to dedicate themselves entirely to the pursuit of Troy which most of the contemporary scholars believed never really existed… 

What made Schliemann the archeologist so special, however, was the complete lack of any doubts, his almost religious conviction and amazing, Barbaric self-assuredness… After three years of excavations that yielded no result Schliemann finally unearthed a cache of gold, which he dubbed “Priam’s Treasure” that made his name forever famous. The precious find consisted of 1.5 kilos of gold necklaces, bracelets, diadems and a wealth of smaller decorations. 

The Schliemanns took the treasure out to Europe. One could hardly produce a better proof that Homer’s Iliad really exited… He was a celebrity now, the living embodiment of the myth about the self-made man, who emerging from humble beginnings work his way up braving all odds with his brains and strong will.  Schliemann’s success was a major archeological celebration…

An totally unknown upstart dismissed by the high-browed pillars of scientific thought, Heinrich Schliemann was now a universally admired figure. His second success made his reputation absolutely unassailable… Schliemann unearthed another cache of gold which he called “Agamemnon’s Treasure” and which became a real boon to the history museum in Athens. The grateful Greeks extolled him as their national hero, he was a living legend in Britain and the German Kaiser offered him an order and the status of a hereditary nobleman.  

However, admired as he was everywhere, Schliemann was now drifting increasingly away from real science. He was feeling lonely; his relations with Sophia had soured... A grown up woman now fully aware of her worth, Sophia would no longer listen to the lectures her husband was delivering for hours on end. Bit by recurrent fits of moodiness, Schliemann started thinking about his life being all but over now. He would often recall the winter when he, hungry and heartbroken, was roaming in the streets of Amsterdam. If it hadn’t been for that stranger, he would have surely died in a hospital for the poor. What he did not know, however, was that it wouldn’t be long before Fate would play out the very same finale it had reserved for him for more than forty years…

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Illustration: G.Stoll, “Schliemann. Dreaming about Troy.” Molodaya Gvardiya, Mosow, 1965
 
 

12/23/2005