Charles T. Newton published his Travels & discoveries in the Levant in 1865, some ten years after his sojourn in Mytilene in his capacity as vice-consul. Having worked at the British Museum since the 1840s and with the excavation of the serpent column in Constantinople in his recent past, he brought to Lesvos a keen eye for antiquities and local colour. In the paragraph above you find the little that he offers on Molyvos in his much longer account of his stay on the island. His reference to the “Greek schoolmaster” makes us wonder: who is that man?

Do we recognize here the person of Niketas Herakleides, who started his career teaching at the school of Achyronas near Kallone and then taught at Molyvos? Niketas Herakleides is the very same gentleman whose picture was shared with our group by Alexandros Niketas. By the time Newton passed through the island, Niketas was not the schoolmaster anymore, even though there are suggestions that he still taught in the village school. In any case, after Herakleides, Konstantinos Yakinthos assumed the role of schoolmaster. Trained in the noted school of Serouios at Syros, Yakinthos was also interested in the theatre and, already, by the time Newton came through Molyvos, he had translated two tragedies by Racine, Iphigenia (1844) and Andromache (1845). He was succeeded by Konstantinos Michailides (father of Argyris Eftaliotes), who taught in Molyvos for a year or two in the late 40s early 50s, then left for Tenedos, only to come back in 1857. Eftaliotes’ account of his father’s education emphasizes his early exposure to the work of Lucian and his education at Syros, with its great emphasis on rhetoric, at the very same school attended by Yakinthos. All this is somewhat vague, but if anything, it tells us that three men, Niketas Herakleides, Konstantinos Yakinthos, or Konstantinos Michailides remain the most likely individuals to have interacted with Newton. Of the three, only two had a connection to Syros, which is mentioned by the English vice-consul.

Newton’s comments on Greek schoolmasters are intriguing. They paint a world where well educated village teachers operate as gateways to the outside world, translators, and guides for visiting outsiders, purveyors of foreign ideas and customs for the locals. What would this British gentleman have made of his archaeological tour of the village in the company of this educated Romios? What memories of Molyvos did he carry back with him in rainy London, after he returned to the British Museum to assume a role as keeper of Greek and Roman antiquities, a few years after his excavation of the Mausoleum of Halikarnassos?