On 11th Augut 1716 a Turkish fleet was besieging the city and fortress of Corfu. The population - despite its impressive zigzag fortifications - was hopelessly outnumbered and could expect only death or slavery. But a huge storm swept the invaders away and saved the city. The residents ascribed this miraculous salvation to their patron saint Spyridon, and have thanked him on that date ever since with a litany or procession through the town. It is not all that different from saint-parades found in other Mediterranean and ancient towns and villages - such as that of San Felice de Circeo on the island of Ponza - said to be where Circe enticed Odysseus, and where the tiny streets are filled with joyous families and an effigy of their saint is shouldered through the crowds. However, Spyridon's joyful and respectful annual parade is marked by a splendid and frightfully British accompaniment of dozens of marching bands. This relic of British rule is both bonkers and marvellous. 'We' gave up our ownership of the island way back in the mid-nineteenth century and thus our military bands were withdrawn. But they had rooted themselves in the hearts and minds of the locals who promptly decided to create a local substitute. But one band was not enough. Nor was two or three sufficient. They ended up with nineteen, twenty, more... Each was equipped with startlingly splendid arrays of instruments - the bigger the better. Each had its own uniform with splendiferous hats and helmets, so that each band is arrayed in scarlet, or white and blue, or black, or green. Children were set to learn instruments. Retired bandsmen from the Yorkshire pits came to settle here to keep standards up. And on St Spyridon's day, these bands all gather and march, interspersed with police, Boy Scouts, various public functionaries, and watched by large and happy crowds along the way. The crickets in the trees on either side are - as ever - fantastically noisy, but they cannot drown out the sound of several bands all playing their own tunes at the same time. There is a kind of order, and a lot of stopping and waiting, and impatient drummers practice their bashing and rolling noises to keep their fellows on their toes. The march lasts for about two hours and is one of the finest and funniest things you can see.
Now that we live in the space age, possession of such minor fortresses and islands is of no real consequence. Wars and strategies are conducted by satellite, drone, stealth bombers and computers at vast distances. Places like Corfu don't really matter any more except to refugees and tourists, and their old status has shrunk to a kind of 2-D account.
This can be readily understood if you go - as we did - into the the Museum of Ionian Bank Notes, a free and fascinating series of rooms owned by Alpha Bank. Mr Constantine showed us round - a charming and academic historian who loved his subject and was prepared to explain everything in detail. The museum is the history of money, empire, war, pride, inflation, technology, art, Greece, peace and futility.... It starts at the time of Croesus, the first tiny blobs of silver stamped with some sort of mark, moves on through flimsy but gold coins, imprints of heads and horses, and then the great leap of faith into paper money. Design, ownership and instruction are spelled out ('it is forbidden to cut this note in half'). Kings come and go. Printing plates are laid out - sometimes with as many as forty engraved duplicates on a sheet, all done individually and identically by eye. They moved from copper to steel. The printing was done by Americans, Brits, French. In times of crisis when there was not enough metal for coins, tiny teeny notes were printed instead of cash. Patriotic designs invoking Alexander the Great, Socrates, Sophocles and the rest sprang to the fore, and architecture of course. While the Germans ran Greece during the last world war, hyperinflation ransacked the value of any kind of money - within weeks or days, prices leapt from a few hundred drachma to three trillion. When the Germans slunk away, a British Military currency came into use - locals would then gladly accept a low value note rather than a high one, because they believed it would stay true to its worth.
The Greeks have always been traders. They invented money and always needed it. A fascinating theme was the recurrent dream of nations - for one universal currency, held together by agreements which crossed boundaries and languages. So, long before the EU and the Common Market, there was in the 19th century a Latin Monetary Union based on silver - the French, Belgians, Swiss and Italians ran it. But it didn't last long because the Germans and the British were using the gold standard, and so it all fell to bits.
The past is the future. Storms and wars bash through and grand ambitions are swept aside. The Bank Note Museum tells the whole story.
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