ry thrust upon her. She aspired only to be a great trading seaport.
She was content to be the place where the caravans from the Balkans met
the ships from the shores of the Mediterranean, Egypt, and Asia Minor.
Her wharfs were counters across which they could swap merchandise. All
she asked was to be allowed to change their money. Instead of which,
when any two nations of the Near East went to the mat to settle their
troubles, Salonika was the mat. If any country within a thousand-mile
radius declared war on any other country in any direction whatsoever,
the armies of both belligerents clashed at Salonika. They not only used
her as a door-mat, but they used her hills to the north of the city for
their battle-field. In the fighting, Salonika took no part. She merely
loaned the hills. But she knew, whichever side won, two things would
happen to her: She would pay a forced loan and subscribe to an entirely
new religion. Three hundred years before Christ, the people of Salonika
worshipped the mysterious gods who had their earthly habitation on the
island of Thasos. The Greeks ejected them, and erected altars to Apollo
and Aphrodite, the Egyptians followed and taught Salonika to fear
Serapis; then came Roman gods and Roman generals; and then St. Paul. The
Jews set up synagogues, the Mohammedans reared minarets, the Crusaders
restored the cross, the Tripolitans restored the crescent, the Venetians
re-restored Christianity. Romans, Greeks, Byzantines, Persians, Franks,
Egyptians, and Barbary pirates, all, at one time or another, invaded
Salonika. She was the butcher's block upon which they carved history.
Some ruled her only for months, others for years. Of the monuments
to the religions forced upon her, the most numerous to-day are the
synagogues of the Jews and the mosques of the Mohammedans. It was not
only fighting men who invaded Salonika. Italy can count her great
earthquakes on one hand; the United States on one finger. But a resident
of Salonika does not speak of the "year of the earthquake." For him, it
saves time to name the years when there was no earthquake. Each of those
years was generally "the year of the great fire." If it wasn't one
thing, it was another. If it was not a tidal wave, it was an epidemic;
if it was not a war, it was a blizzard. The trade of Asia Minor flows
into Salonika and with it carries all the plagues of Egypt. Epidemics of
cholera in Salonika used to be as common as yellow fever in Guayaquil.