Col. William Leake, Travels in the Morea (v.1-3)

§ 2.526 Barbosthenes was, probably, the mountain which rises above Potamia. If the temple of Jupiter Scotitas stood at Marmara, on the descending ridge which separates the two branches of the river flowing by the monastery of the Forty Saints, it may be inferred, that the statue of Hercules, having been, like the temple of Jupiter, to the left of the direct road, stood on the same ridge in a lower situation. It is unfortunate that neither Pausanias, nor any other author, has furnished us with the distance of Sellasia from Sparta, of which it was evidently the key towards the Thyreatis and Argeia. The inscriptions, however, which I found at the convent of the Forty Saints, though they contain no topographical evidence, are sufficient, I think, when combined with the description of the pass of Sellasia, by Polybius, to leave little doubt that Sellasia stood at the monastery. It is in relating the celebrated defeat of Cleomenes, by Antigonus, which, in the year BC 222, opened the gates of Sparta for the first time to an invader, that Polybius describes the pass of Sellasia. Cleomenes, judging that Antigonus, who was at Argos, was preparing to advance from thence upon Sparta, occupied Sellasia with

§ 2.527 20,000 men, and stationed the remainder of his forces in the other entrances into the Laconice, which he directed to be fortified with trenches and obstructed with trees. At Sellasia, Cleomenes entrenched himself on the hills Eva and Olympus, which were separated from each other by the river Oenus, and by a narrow marshy level on its banks, along which lay the road to Sparta. Antigonus, on arriving in presence of the enemy, placed his army in a position opposite to that of the Spartans, with the river Gorgylus in his front; his forces amounted to 28,000 men, of whom about 13,000 were Macedonians, the remainder mercenaries and contingents of the Achaean league. After a few days' hesitation, caused by the strength of the enemy's position, Antigonus resolved upon an attack. Cleomenes commanded the Spartans and mercenaries upon Mount Olympus, and his brother, Eucleidas, the auxiliaries upon Mount Eva. The cavalry of both armies were in the valley of the Oenus. In the night previous to the attack, Antigonus placed a part of his army in the river Gorgylus, at the foot of Mount Eva, with orders to ascend the hill upon seeing a signal, which he should give in advancing with the rest of his forces against Cleomenes upon Mount Olympus.

§ 2.528 The movement took place accordingly: the division which ascended Mount Eva was at first placed in a hazardous situation by some light infantry stationed with the Lacedaemonian cavalry, who assailed their rear, but they were soon relieved from danger by the gallantry and conduct of Philopoemen, then a young officer in command of the Megalopolitan horse, who, diverted the attack of the light infantry by charging without orders the Lacedaemonian cavalry, to which they were attached. The action now became general, both between the main bodies on the heights, and the cavalry in the valley. Eucleidas, having allowed the enemy to ascend Mount Eva too far before he met them, lost the advantage of his position, and was routed; when Cleomenes, perceiving his brother's distress, and convinced that it could only be relieved by the defeat of the enemy on his side, drew the Spartan phalanx out of its entrenchments, and came to close engagement with the allies. The Lacedaemonians fought with their accustomed valour, and the battle was for some time favourable to them, but they were unable to resist the weight of the Macedonian phalanx in a last desperate charge, and at length were entirely defeated. Cleomenes fled to Sparta and to Gythium, from whence he sailed to Egypt, and

§ 2.529 Antigonus entered Sparta without further resistance. The description given by the historian, of two hills separated by a river, flowing in a narrow valley, along which led the road to Sparta, sufficiently identifies the pass with that to the eastward of the Forty Saints; it is highly probable also that the river of Tzitzina, being the principal branch, and that which now gives name to the united stream, was the Oenus: consequently that the river of Vrestena, which joins it just above the pass, was the Gorgylus. Unfortunately we obtain no certainty on this question from Polybius, who, instead of alluding to the right and left of either force, as might have been expected from a military writer, has fallen into a common defect of the ancient authors, that of presupposing the reader's knowledge of the scene of action. It is probable that Antigonus, having marched from Argos by Cynuria, descended the ridge of Marmara, or Scotita, until he arrived at the fork of the two streams above the pass of Sellasia, and that, in the position which he then assumed, with the Gorgylus and Mount Eva in his front, the Oenus protected one of his flanks, towards the position of Cleomenes on Mount Olympus.

§ 2.530 There is nothing, however, in the narrative of Polybius to shew on which flank the Oenus flowed. We have only, therefore, the probability, derived from the magnitude of the two rivers, to which I have already alluded; and which leads to the consequence, that Mount Olympus was to the left of the united stream in the pass, and Mount Eva on its right bank, and that the position of the two armies previously to the battle was that which is described in the annexed sketch. [sketch]

§ 2.531 The omission by Pausanias of the distance of Caryae from the turning which led thither out of the road to Sellasia, leaves us in doubt as to its exact site, though Polybius and Livy both agree with Pausanias, regarding its position between Sellasia and the Tegeatic frontier. When Titus Quinctius, in the third year of his command of the Roman army in Greece (BC 195), marched against Nabis, he crossed Mount Parthenium from Argos, and passing Tegea, encamped on the third day at Caryae, within the enemy's territory. On the next day he moved to Sellasia, on the river Oenus, and thence, by a circuitous route, to the banks of the Eurotas, under the walls of Sparta. When Philopoemen, about three years afterwards, marched against Nabis, he also moved to Caryae, and thence to Mount Barbosthenes, ten miles from Sparta, as I have already had occasion to notice. These authorities have a tendency to place Caryae not so near the road leading to Sellasia from the Laco-Thyreatic Hermaeum of Mount Parnon, as the words of Pausanias would seem to indicate, but nearer to the Tegeatic frontier, perhaps not far from the khan of Krevata. It would appear from Athenaeus and Stephanus, that the river Oenus derived its name

§ 2.532 from a town on its banks, so called, because it was noted for its wine. Denthiades, another place in Laconia, celebrated for its wine, was perhaps in the same part of the country, for the rugged slopes of this range of mountains are well suited to the vine, which is successfully cultivated as high up as Tzitzina. Indeed, it is not improbable, that Tzitzina itself, being in one of the best situations of the upper Oenus, near the sources of that river, and giving the modern name to it, may stand exactly upon the site of the town of Oenus. We have seen that wine is still produced there, though, in common with all the wines of Greece, it has degenerated from its ancient quality, in consequence of a want of care in the manufacture. Vrestena, which is a bishopric under the metropolitan of Lacedaemonia, written Ευριστένη in the ecclesiastical books, has so great a resemblance to the Spartan name Eurysthenes, that one cannot but suspect that it stands on the site of an ancient place, called Eurystheneia, which has not been mentioned by any ancient author. It occupies an elevated situation on the south-western face of Mount Parnon, from whence descend the tributaries which form the northern branch of the Kelefina or Oenus. The only remains of antiquity which I did not observe on my former visit to Sparta, is a small

§ 2.533 piece of Hellenic wall on the brow of the principal height on the north-eastern side at the contrary extremity of the theatre. It may have been a part of the ancient walls, which were first built in the time of the Roman wars in Greece. Having seen several theatres since my first journey, I am struck with the comparative smallness of the stones which formed the supporting wall of the cavea of the theatre of Sparta, though they are finely wrought, accurately squared, and are united without any external cement. They favour the supposition, that the part of the theatre now extant is a work of Roman times. In describing Sparta on the former occasion, I applied the word circus to the circular building which stands near the road in entering the site of Sparta from the ford of the Eurotas, without adverting to the impropriety of the word circus, as belonging to another kind of Roman construction of a very different description. In feet, it is difficult to know what to call this circular building. It seems to resemble a roofed theatre or odeium, in which case it is probably more ancient than the walls surrounding the principal height, for these, as I have before remarked, appear to be the walls of Sparta in its last stage, when an odeium would hardly have been required or suited to the spectacles then in fashion, which were rather those of the amphitheatre.

§ 2.534 Although placed relatively to the existing walls in the position in which Roman amphitheatres are usually found, it was not an amphitheatre, these buildings having always been oblong, as we see instanced on every scale, — on some of the smallest at Corinth, and at Silchester and Caerleon, in England. On the left bank of the Eurotas, near the position which I conceive to have been occupied by Therapne, stands a ruined church of St. John. I am informed that there are some ancient columns in this spot, and a stone figure of a man and woman in relief, with an inscription under the figures. It seems to be a common sepulchral design, and is not sufficiently interesting to induce me to recross the river to examine it. Thornax, a suburban village, like Therapne, was probably situated on the edge of the narrow plain on the left side of the Eurotas. After having passed all the morning at Sparta, I proceed to Mistra, to the house of our agent, V.D.

§ 3.001 VOLUME III, TRAVELS IN THE MOREA. SECOND JOURNEY. #CHAPTER XXIII. LACONIA. ARCADIA. March 25. — I visit again the castle of Mistra, ride up by the direct road, and in descending pass round the hill, which is quite insulated, and then through the great precipitous opening of the Pandeleimona into the southern part of the town, from which this is the shortest and easiest approach to the castle.

§ 3.002 Nothing can be finer than the scenery of this descent; the steep rocks of the castle hill, the cultivated terraces of Vlakhokhori and Barseniko, and the rocky torrent rushing between the two precipices, present a variety of beautiful contrasts with the rich and extensive view of the plain of Sparta which is seen through the opening. The elevated district lying in the hollow contained between the highest summits of Taygetum and the cliffs bordering the plain of Sparta, is noticed by Pausanias in the following passage which previously describes the road across the plain from Sparta to the place where the road entered the mountain. “In proceeding from the temple of Neptune Gaeouchus toward Taygetum, there is a heroum of Lacedaemon, son of Taygete, at a place called Alesiae; beyond which, after having crossed the river Phellia near [or beyond] Amyclae, and proceeded in the direction of the sea, occurs Pharis, formerly a Laconic city. But the road to the mountain Taygetum turns from the Phellia to the right, In the plain there is a sacred portion of Jupiter Messapeus; beyond which is situated Bryseae, near the place where the road issues out of Taygetum into the plain.

§ 3.003 Bryseae was formerly a city; a temple of Bacchus still remains there, with a statue in the open air, and another statue in the temple, which the women only who perform the secret rites are permitted to see. The summit of Taygetum, called Taletum, rises above Bryseae; it is said to be sacred to the sun, to which, among other things, horses are here sacrificed: the same religious custom prevails among the Persians. Not far from Taletum is Evoras, which produces wild goats and other wild animals; indeed, every part of Taygetum affords a chase of goats and hogs, and, in still greater plenty, of stags and bears. The interval between Taletum and Evoras is called Therae. Not far from the summits of Taygetum there is a temple of Ceres Eleusinia. Lapithaeum is situated fifteen stades from thence. Derrhium is not far from the latter. Here is a statue of Diana Derrhiatis in the open air, and by it a fountain called Anonus. About twenty stades beyond Derrhium is Harpleia, which borders on the plain.” Pharis was one of the Homeric cities of Laconia, and Strabo agrees with Pausanias in placing it in the plain of Sparta.

§ 3.004 It appears from the preceding extract to have been to the southward of Amyclae and near the Eurotas, data which fix it with great appearance of probability at Vafio, where a remarkable height, similar to that of Aia Kyriaki rises from the right bank of the river. I have been informed, since I passed near the site, that some remains are to be seen there of a subterraneous building, similar to those at Mycenae; a circumstance which is in accordance with that of Pharis having chiefly flourished before the Trojan war. The river now called Takhurti, which joins the Eurotas a little above Vafio, being the most considerable stream in the plain, next to the Tiasa, is probably the Phellia; in this case, the words παρα Άμύκλας, in Pausanias, must have been intended to signify “beyond Amyclae.” Leaving this river on the left, and proceeding in the direction of the highest summit of Taygetum, we arrive at the position under the cliffs near Sinan Bey and not far from Sklavokhori; where I found a fountain and a sculptured marble, and which thus corresponds exactly with Bryseae, if we suppose the peak of St. Elias to be the ancient Taletum. Of this, I think, there can be little doubt, as it cannot be supposed that any but the highest and most conspicuous of the

§ 3.005 summits would have been in preference held sacred to the sun, or Apollo, who, we know, delighted in lofty mountains. Evoras, a word synonymous with the modern Greek Kaloskopi or the Italian Belvedere, was probably the broader summit, nearer to Mistra, now called Paximadhi. It confirms all these points of comparative geography, that the opening behind Sklavokhori is the natural entrance into the upper Taygetum from the parts of the plain about Amyclae and Pharis; it seems evidently therefore to be the place near Bryseae, where the road issued from the mountain. As to the situation of the Eleusinium, or as to those of Lapithaeum, Derrhium, and Harpleia, it is impossible to give any opinion without examining that elevated valley in detail, more especially as Pausanias leaves doubtful the direction followed by him from the Eleusinium to Harpleia, whether northward or southward. I am inclined to think it was the former, because the finest part of the Taygetic district lies towards the northern end. In this case, Mistra, which is the natural exit of the mountain at that extremity, may be the site of Harpleia.

§ 3.006 The mountainous part of the Laconice, situated eastward of the Eurotas, contained some inland towns, which are thus described by Pausanias. “ Geranthrae is situated inland, from Acriae, at a distance of 120 stades. In the way thither, there is a town called Palaea. Geranthrae was a city before the Heracleidae came into the Peloponnesus; after that event the Dorians of Sparta expelled the ancient inhabitants, and sent to Geranthrae a colony of their own. It is now a portion of the Eleuthero-Lacones. There is a temple and a grove of Mars, in which an annual festival is held, when women are not permitted to enter the grove. The agora contains sources of water good for drinking. In the acropolis there is a temple of Apollo, containing the head of a statue made of ivory, of which the remaining part was destroyed by fire together with the former temple.

§ 3.007 Marius, another city of the Eleuthero-Lacones, is distant from Geranthrae one hundred stades. Here is a temple of All the Gods standing in a grove in which there are springs of water; there are sources also in the sanctuary of Diana: in short, there is no place which more abounds in perennial fountains than Marius. Beyond this city there is another inland town, called Glyppia; to another, named Selinus, there is a road of twenty stades from Geranthrae. Such are the inland places above Acriae.” Immediately after this passage, Pausanias proceeds to describe the towns of the Eleuthero-Lacones on the eastern coast of Laconia, beginning with Asopus, making the circuit of the Boeatic peninsula, and then following the eastern coast northward as far as Prasiae, which was the last of the Eleuthero-Laconic towns in that direction. In the passage just cited, therefore, it is evident, that he intended previously to dispose of all the inland places which he had not already introduced to the reader's notice, and that the towns here enumerated were the only places of note in the mountainous country lying eastward of the Eurotas. That Geranthrae was situated towards the plain of Sparta is rendered probable by its having shared the fate of Amyclae and Pharis,

§ 3.008 when the ancient Achaean inhabitants of these three places were obliged by the Doric possessors of Sparta to retire from Laconia. I have already remarked, that there are said to be some remains of Hellenic antiquity at Ieraki or Gheraki, for both modes of writing the name are used, the sounds in modern Greek being almost the same. Gheraki occupies a commanding position on the south-western face of the mountain, in a place abounding in water, and it adjoins the ruins of a town of the lower empire. Its distance of eleven geographical miles in direct distance from the site of Acriae, corresponds exactly with the 120 stades of road distance which Pausanias indicates between the two places. The route thither must have passed through or near Apidhia, which may, therefore, stand on the site of Palaea. Γεράκιον existed under that name in the fourteenth century, and appears at that time to have been one of the principal places in Laconia. Of the other towns mentioned in the passage of Pausanias under consideration, Glyppia is

§ 3.009 the only one concerning the situation of which we derive assistance from any other author; for I take it for granted that it was the same as the town of the Glympenses, which I have already had occasion to allude to as the place where Lycurgus, in the second year of the Social War, making a forced march from Sparta, defeated the Messenians, who had moved from Tegea through the Argolis, intending to join Philip to the southward of Sparta. Glympia was at that time included in the Argive community, together with Prasiae, Cyphanta, and Zarax, whence it may be presumed that it was on the eastern face of the mountains, not far from the coast, on which those three maritime towns were situated. It seems probable, moreover, from the incidents attending the march and defeat of the Messenians, that Glympia was not far from the Cynurian passes leading to Sparta, though not absolutely in the Cynuria, as Pausanias does not name Glympia, when treating of Thyrea and the neighbouring towns. — To these circumstances, as leading to the position of Glympia, it may be added, that the object of the Messenians having been that of entering the valley of the Eurotas, not at Sparta, but to the southward of that city, it is probable

§ 3.010 that they had attained, previously to crossing the mountain, some place to the southward of the Tanus, or pass of Kastanitza, which was the direct road to Sellasia and Sparta. Glympia therefore seems to have been about Prasto or Lenidhi, more probably at the former, as it is nearer to Sparta; for that the distance of Glympia from that city was not very great, may be inferred from the circumstance of Lycurgus having obtained such speedy information of the arrival of the Messenians at Glympia, and having made that sudden attack upon them which frustrated their expedition. Polichna was another town which appears, from the same historian, to have stood on the maritime side of the eastern ridge of Laconia. About two years before the time of the transaction just alluded to, Lycurgus invaded the Argeia, to which province the eastern coast then belonged, and took Polichna, Prasiae, Leucae, and Cyphanta, in the first attack; but Glympia and Zarax he was unable to make himself master of. Leucae I presume to have been the same as the Leuce mentioned by Strabo, and which I suppose to have stood in the plain of Finiki; the Argives may have been at that time in the temporary possession of it, in consequence of its proximity to Epidaurus Limera, which was then one of their towns.

§ 3.011 Polichna, perhaps, was situated at or near the modern Kunupia. The situation of Marius seems to be indicated by the name of Mari, in the road from Gheraki over the mountain to Kremasti, which last stands in a lofty situation above the port of Kyparissia. Kato Mari, or Lower Mari, so called to distinguish it from an upper village of the same name, is reckoned four hours from Gheraki and three from Kremasti; and four computed hours answer very well to the hundred stades between Geranthrae and Marius. It is evident, from the words of Pausanias cited above, that Selinus and Marius were situated in different directions from Geranthrae; if Marius lay eastward, therefore, Selinus was probably to the northward of Gheraki, on the western face of the mountain. Thus situated, the non-occurrence of its name among the places in the possession of the Argives in the time of the tyrant Lycurgus is perfectly accounted for. In the text of Pausanias the distance of Selinus from Geranthrae is only twenty stades, or about two miles and a half, but as such a proximity is very improbable in a country of no great resources, or where, at least, the towns were widely separated, I am inclined to think there is some mistake in the number of stades, and that the remains of Selinus, if any exist, will be found nearer the middle distance between Gheraki and the position of Sellasia, perhaps about Zarafona.

§ 3.012 March 26 — I leave the southern extremity of Mistra this morning at 9.50, and, descending into the mulberry plantations, ride through them till 10.15, when, crossing the northern branch of the Tiasa, we enter the hills on the other side of it — soon after cross the Cnacion, Trypiotiko — and at 10.45, in an uncultivated valley watered by a little stream, cross the ruins of the aqueduct of Sparta, of which one of the piers is here standing, lofty and well built. From hence we cross the range of hills which, branching from Xerovuni, as the part of the Taygetic range near Longastra is called, slopes gradually till it terminates at the northern extremity of Sparta. At 11 descend into the vale of the Eurotas, about four miles above Sparta. The valley of the Eurotas, which is narrow and appears to be often overflowed, is grown with arabostari. Near the summit of the steep height which rises from the opposite or left bank, stands the village of St. John Theologos, at a distance of three miles on our right. At 11.05, Kladha, a small zevgalati, is below it near the river side. At 11.18 we cross over some low hills, leaving the Eurotas flowing through a gorge on our right; but in ten minutes descend again upon

§ 3.013 its right bank, where, at the foot of some steep heights which leave only a narrow path between them and the bank, I find an inscribed marble lying by the road side. Here also are the foundations of a Hellenic wall on the edge of the river's bank, and a little beyond it some marks of the ancient road in a rock at the foot of the hill. Above this spot I perceive a cavern in the rocks with two openings, one of which appears to have been fashioned by art; a little beyond it there is a semicircular sepulchral niche, like those at Delphi and other places. The peasants call the place στοὺς Φούρνους. Skura, a small zevgalati and tower, stands on the heights on the opposite side of the river. Having halted here ten minutes, we continue to follow the narrow vale of the Eurotas, the road passing upon the foot of the hills which border the western side of the valley, till, at 12.50, we make our meridian halt on the river's bank, at a spot where the ravine opens into an extensive valley. Low rocky eminences here descend to the water; on the opposite side, the foot of a rugged mountain, crowned by two peaked rocks, on each of which stands a chapel, is separated only from the river by a narrow grassy level; where the bank of

§ 3.014 the river for the length of 200 yards is supported by a Hellenic wall: there remain three or four courses of an irregular species of masonry, nearly approaching to the second order. On the farther side of the meadow some very copious sources issue from the foot of the rocks, and form a stream which joins the river at the southern end of the meadow, where the wall ends. The wall seems to intimate the site of the ancient Pellana, where Pausanias notices only a temple of Aesculapius and two fountains, Pellanis and Lanceia. It may be worth while to trace the route of the Greek traveller all the way hither from Sparta. “Near the walls of that city,” he says, “on the road into Arcadia, are a statue of Minerva Pareia, in the open air, and near it a temple of Achilles. Between these and the statue of Aedo, [Modesty] which is thirty stades distant from the city, stands the monument of the Horse, a little beyond which are seven columns, symbolical of the seven planets — then the temenus of Cranius Stemmatias — and the temple of Diana Mysia. The statue of Aedo is said to have been

§ 3.015 dedicated by Icarius, father-in-law of Ulysses. When Ulysses had set out from Sparta with his bride, Icarius followed his car to this place, entreating his daughter to return and live with him. Ulysses stopped and gave his bride her choice: she replied only by throwing her veil over her face, which Icarius taking for a negative returned to Sparta. Twenty stades farther, the tomb of Ladas is above the road, which here passes very near to the river Eurotas. Proceeding towards Pellana occurs the place called Characoma, and then Pellana, formerly a city. One hundred stades beyond the latter is Belemina. There is no place in Laconia more abundantly supplied with water; for besides the Eurotas, which flows near it, Belemina contains perennial fountains.” The tomb of Ladas having been distant fifty stades from Sparta, at a place where the road touched the bank of the Eurotas, corresponds, both in description and in position, to the pass at 11.28, where I observed marks of the ancient road in the rock, and above it a cavern and sepulchral niche. The latter is probably the tomb of Ladas, for Pausanias describes it as being above the road. Unfortunately, he does not inform us at what distance beyond this point Pellana stood,

§ 3.016 nor on which bank of the river. It may be thought, perhaps, that his silence on this head is an argument that it was on the same bank on which he had described the preceding objects, namely, the right; but on the other hand, he does not state on which bank stood Belemina, the next place named by him after Pellana, though it was certainly on the left. In the absence of better authority, I think that the Hellenic wall on the left bank, and the fountains answering to those which he mentions, are strong presumptions that Pellana occupied that position. At 1.37 we move again: — our road now enters an open country, varied with small hills, which are connected with the last slopes of the range of Xerovuni. We leave the river considerably on the right, flowing near the foot of the heights which inclose the valley to the eastward, and on the side of which, at 1.47, Konidhitza is two miles to the right, in direct distance. At 1.55, cross a large stream, flowing to the Eurotas from the mountain on the left. Here Demiro, a small village, is one mile and a half on the left, in the plain, and Kastri three miles distant in the same direction, on the side of the mountain. The tributary of the Eurotas descends from a rocky gorge, half way between

§ 3.017 Kastri and Ghiorghitza, which last is situated on the face of an advanced height of the range of Taygetum, in a very steep and lofty situation. The highest summit of this part of the range is called Korakolithi (Crow-stone), or Malevo, from the Slavonic Male, mountain. Ghiorghitza is a large Greek village, standing among many gardens and cultivated terraces. At the foot of the same height is situated Perivolia, inhabited by Turks, and about six Greek families; there is a mosk, and the houses are prettily dispersed amidst large groves of the mulberry and olive. Here we arrive at 2.15, having travelled half an hour after turning out of the direct road to the left. The passage of Mount Korakolithi is not difficult from the villages along its eastern face to those situated in the upper valleys of the river Nedon, which joins the sea at Kalamata. The best route in this season, and whenever there is snow, is from Kastania to Tzitzova, a distance of three hours: the former is situated behind Kastri, the latter is among olive woods, on the opposite slope of the mountain, three hours distant from Kalamata. Trypi, Bordhonia, and Kastritzi, Kastri, situated on the eastern face of Korakolithi, are all mentioned by Phranza, as having resisted and been taken by Mahomet the Second, in 1460, after he had occupied Mistra. He then proceeded against Londari and Gardhiki.

§ 3.018 The annexed is a sketch of the position of the villages on the Messenian side, which I made last year, from the description of my janissary Amus. [sketch plan]. March 27. At 8.30 we move from Perivolia through the mulberry grounds, with which the village is surrounded for a great distance, and proceed obliquely, to regain the main route. At 9.04, a little beyond a small katyvia of Ghiorghitza, pass a fine Kefalo-vrysi, or source of water, issuing from the foot of the rocks, and running rapidly down towards the Eurotas, which is here called Iri. Behind this katyvia there are some remains of the walls of a Hellenic city,

§ 3.019 probably those of Aegys. The entire valley I conceive to have formed, the Laconic Tripolis, which bordered on the. Megalopolitis and of which one of the cities was Pellana. The other two were probably Aegys and Belemina. We enter some low hills, among which are plantations of mulberry trees, belonging to Ghiorghitza. At 9.30 cross another tributary of the Eurotas. At 9.42 pass another copious Kefalo-vrysi, where are some ancient squared blocks, and a small piece of foundation in its place, on the edge of the spring; here are the ruins of a khan. We now begin to ascend some rocky heights, and, having attained the summit, cross a stony plain, and then pass over steep hills of no great height, covered with shrubs. The Eurotas is concealed at some distance to the right in a deep glen, between the two ranges of hills which before inclosed a broad valley, but are now separated only by the river. Those on the eastern side form, as I conceive, the district anciently called Sciritis. Kolina, which is situated among them, may be the site of Ium, or the town of the Iatae, mentioned by Xenophon. At 10.35, on a summit which rises from the right bank of the river, we arrive at a Derveni-house in ruins, and descend into a narrow

§ 3.020 valley, watered by a stream from the mountains on our left, where, on the slope, in a situation similar to that of Ghiorghitza and Kastri, is Longaniko, another large Greek village. The part of the Taygetic range above it is well wooded with oak on the middle slopes, and with dr towards the summit. The lower parts are covered with plantations of the vine and mulberry, belonging to Longaniko and Petrina. We descend along the right bank of the aforesaid stream, and at 10.50 cross it a little above its junction with the Eurotas, which now flows along the western side of Mount Khelmos, in a small valley grown with mulberries, belonging to Longaniko. Below its junction with the Longaniko stream, the Eurotas turns to the southeast. In the gorge on the left bank of the river, on the foot of Khelmos, I see Ai Irini a metokhi of the monastery of Saint Nicholas, behind which, as I was informed at Tripolitza by Kyr Ianataki, who is a native of Ghiorghitza, there are some Hellenic ruins; it is said also, that there are vestiges of a Hellenic fortress on the summit of Khelmos, probably part of the same ancient city. Though I cannot perceive any of these remains of antiquity, I have no doubt of the correctness of the information, or that the ruins are those of Belemina; the

§ 3.021 distance we have travelled from the remains of Pellana agreeing very well with the 100 stades which Pausanias places between the two towns. Khelmos is a beautiful round hill, covered above with groves of oak, prinari, wild olive, and a variety of shrubs, and adorned below with some open lawns of pasture, mixed with cultivated ground. It is said that Captain Nicetas and the only remaining body of the Kleftes, amounting to forty, (a favourite number, and meaning little more than the English word “several”) came the other day to the village of Petrina, and received bread from one of the inhabitants, who, in course, was obliged to join them, or at least to fly, as his head, by the Pasha's order, was by this action forfeited. The thieves went afterwards into the mountain on the west of Londari, where they were attacked by their pursuers, and two or three persons were killed in the action. They have since retired to Mani, and are followed by a body of the Pasha's men, and about 400 armed Greeks from the vilayeti of Londari. After losing eight minutes, we pass up the valley of the Eurotas, and cross that river at 11.18, a little below a spot where it receives two other streams, one flowing from the part of the mountain between Longaniko and Petrina, another from the northward, from the hills

§ 3.022 which connect the mountains Khelmos and Tzimbaru. The junction of these three streams I conceive to have been the position of the Hermaeum, near Belemina, which marked the boundary of Laconia towards the Megalopolitis, as the Hermae on Mount Parnon marked its limits on the side of the Tegeatis and Argeia; for Pausanias describes the former Hermaeum as being “near Belemina ”, and adds that the Arcadians pretended that Belemina had once belonged to them, a circumstance which, no less than the former expression, tends to shew that the Hermaeum was not far from that city. The principal branch of the Eurotas, or that which we crossed, comes from the eastward, down a valley on the northern side of Mount Khelmos. We enter this valley, and soon after, re-crossing the river, halt at 11.38 at a mill, five minutes above which, a stream of water issues from the foot of the rocky mountain on the northern side of the valley. This is the main source of the Iri, or Eurotas. It is immediately joined by a rivulet, from the head of the valley to the eastward, which in summer is very scanty, if not entirely dry. Two miles on this side of Londari is the source of the Kutufarina stream, the most distant south-eastern tributary of the Alpheius; in summer it is dry, and even at the source water can only be had by sinking jars in

§ 3.023 the ground, which, after some time, become filled. The most distant south-western tributary of the Alpheius, as I have before stated, rises at the village of Ghianeus, or Ianeus, two hours above Londari, in the mountain which lies between the summits Makryplai and Korakolithi. The river of Ghianeus, joined by some smaller streams, flows through a valley, included between Makryplai and the mountain above Londari, leaves Londari on the right, and joins the other branches of the Alpheius in the plain before that town. I found a man of Ghianeus at the mill near the sources of the Eurotas, who told me that the springs of Ghianeus are very copious, and that they do not fail in summer. This man had fled from his village on account of the excesses committed by the Turks who are in pursuit of the thieves. I have already had occasion to remark, that the river of Ghianeus is probably the Gatheates, and the Kutufarina the Theius. Quitting the mill at 12.28, we once more cross the Eurotas, and, leaving the great sources at the foot of the northern mountain, follow the left bank of the torrent or smaller stream from the eastward, until, having again crossed it, we leave it issuing from a narrow vale on the right, and ascend the hills which connect Kbelmos with Tzimbaru. At the village of Kutzinu,

§ 3.024 where, among many ruins, are a few inhabited huts, we leave the road to Gardhiki on the left, and follow the summits of the heights until we pass over a part of the rocky ridge of Mount Tzimbaru, and see, two miles on the right, the large monastery of Ai Nikola not far from the village'of Kaltezia. After winding among the rocky heights, and passing over a small elevated plain, we begin to descend towards the plain which extends to Frango-vrysi. — Αt 2.48 enter the plain near the small hamlet of Kotrohutzia; this remains a quarter of a mile on the right, and the village of Papari, at the foot of Mount Tzimbaru, a mile on the left — then crossing the plain so as to leave the marsh which is at the foot of Mount Tzimbaru a mile on the left, we enter some low hills on the opposite side of the plain towards the mountains of the Tegeatis and in a hollow among steeper heights arrive, at 3.30, at the tjiftlik of Barbitza, composed of a few miserable huts with two Turkish pyrghi. In one of these I procure a very tolerable lodging, and not an unwelcome one, as the rain has fallen at intervals all day, with fog and cold, a common condition of the Arcadian climate at this season. The pace of our agoyatic horses yesterday and today has been much less than the ordinary pace of my horse. On quitting Laconia, and especially on

§ 3.025 quitting it by one of its northern passes, one cannot help reflecting how much the former destiny of this province of Greece, like that of most other countries, depended upon its geographical structure and position. Those natural barriers which marked the limits of the several states of ancient Greece, and which were the real origin of the division of that country into many, small independent states, from whence arose all the good and bad effects resulting from the consequent spirit of jealousy and rivalship, are no where more remarkable than in the Laconice, The rugged sea-coast, which forms three-fourths of its outline, combined with the steepness, height, and continuity of the mountains on the land side, gave it that security from hostile invasion which Euripides characterized by the words δυσείσβολος πολεμίοις, and which made even Epaminondas, after the battle of Leuctra, hesitate to invade it, although urged by the Arcadians, the men best able to shew how the difficulties were to be surmounted. It is to the strength of the frontiers and the comparatively large extent of country inclosed within them, that we must trace the primary cause of the Lacedaemonian power.

§ 3.026 These enabled the people, when strengthened by a rigid military discipline, and put in motion by an ambitious and exclusive spirit, first to triumph over their weaker neighbours of Messenia, by this additional strength to overawe the disunited republics of Arcadia, and at length for centuries to hold an acknowledged military superiority over every other state in Greece. It is remarkable, that all the principal passes into Laconia lead to one point. This point is Sparta, a fact which shews at once how well the position of that city was chosen for the defence of the province, and how well it was adapted, especially as long as it continued to be unwalled, to maintain a perpetual vigilance and readiness for defence, which are the surest means of offensive success. The natural openings into the plain of Sparta are only two: one by the upper Eurotas, as the course of that river above Sparta may be termed, the other by its only large branch the Oenus, now the Kelefina, which, as I have already stated, joins the Eurotas opposite to the north-eastern extremity of Sparta. All the natural approaches to Sparta from the northward lead to the one or the other of these two valleys. On the side of Messenia the northerly prolongation of Mount Taygetum, which joins Mount Lycaeum at the

§ 3.027 pass of Andania, now the pass of Makryplai, furnishes a continued barrier of the loftiest kind, admitting only of routes easily defensible, and which, whether from the Cromitis of Arcadia to the south-westward of the modern Londari, from the Stenycleric plain, from the plain of the Pamisus, or from Pharae, now Kalamata, all descend into the valley of the upper Eurotas, and conduct to Sparta by Pellana. There was indeed a branch of the last-mentioned route which descended into the Spartan plain at the modern Mistra; and which must have been a very frequented communication between Sparta and the lower part of Messenia; but, like the other direct passes over Taygetum, it was much more difficult and defensible than those which I have called the natural entrances of the province. The castle of Mistra is an admirable post for the protection of this entrance into the Lacedaemonian valley, though we hear nothing of it in history, probably because the military ascendancy of the Spartans seldom left them any thing to fear on the side of Messenia. From the south-eastern branch of the plain of Megalopolis, which is watered by the Theius, as well as from the vale of Asea, the routes passed by the foot of Mount Belemina, which thus became an important frontier fortress in that quarter; after having passed Belemina,

§ 3.028 the road led, like those from the Cromitis and from Messenia, to the pass of Pellana. Towards the Tegeatice and Thyreatis, the routes after crossing, in the former direction the rugged and barren country which unites Mount Parnon with the hills bordering the left bank of the upper Eurotas, and in the latter the steep and lofty recesses of Parnon, united on the Oenus near Sellasia. Thus Sellasia was an outwork of Sparta towards the Tegeatis and Argolis, Pellana towards the Megalopolitis and Messenia. There was an important district in the northern part of Laconia which Pausanias has not noticed, although it gave name to one of the most distinguished bodies of the Lacedaemonian army, and was an important part of the Laconic frontier on the side of Arcadia; its name was Sciritis It consisted of the rugged and barren hills rising in one point to a considerable height, which occupy the triangular space contained between the upper Eurotas westward and the passes eastward, through which leads the direct road from Tegea to Sparta by the modern Krya Vrysi, Stenuri, and Krevata Khan, the apex of the triangle being near Sparta and the base towards the valleys of Asea and Tegea.

§ 3.029 Diodorus in describing the celebrated invasion of Laconia by Epaminondas, when Sparta was insulted for the first time by the presence of a foreign enemy, says, that the invaders divided their army into four bodies, which were ordered to march by four different routes and to meet at Sellasia; the Argives by the direct road from Argos to that place, that is to say, through the Thyreatis; the second by the passes leading from Tegea to Sparta, or the modern road by the Krya Vrysi and Stenuii of Arakhova; the third by Sciritis; and the fourth, consisting of the Eleians, by valleys of easy access which had been left without defence. The historian omits to specify more particularly the route of the Eleians; but as the direct road from Elis to Sparta ascended the valley of the Alpheius near Olympia to the sources of its branch the Theius, and from thence descended the Eurotas; as this was the only principal entrance into the Laconice remaining to be named by the historian; and as it is naturally the easiest, and would present little difficulty when not defended at Belemina and Pellana, it seems evidently to have been the route of the Eleians. The Sciritis, we may safely conclude therefore; was the rugged district which I have

§ 3.030 mentioned; a conspicuous hill, its highest point, which I have before had occasion to remark as being near the modern village of Kolina, seems the most probable site of the fortress Ium, which Xenophon, in relating the same events, shews to have been the most important place in Sciritis. The latter historian is less particular than Diodorus in the details of this famous invasion, though the same inference in regard to Sciritis may be deduced from the one as from the other. Xenophon speaks only of one body, separate from the army of the Thebans and their allies, namely, that of the Arcadians, who, he tells us, marched into Laconia by the Sciritis: he makes no mention of the two routes by which the Argives and the Eleians are said, by Diodorus, to have invaded the country; but, having stated that the Thebans had arrived at Mantineia previously to their movement towards Sparta, adds that they entered Laconice by the way of Caryae; that the Lacedaemonians in Sciritis would have opposed the invaders more effectually by occupying the passes leading to Caryae than by defending the Sciritis; and that the two divisions of the invading army, having met at Caryae, proceeded from thence to take and destroy Sellasia. In saying that the Arcadians who marched through the Sciritis joined the Boeotians from the Tegeatice at Caryae, he

§ 3.031 seems to me not only to concur with the other authorities as to the situation of the Sciritis, but to confirm also what has already been stated as to the relative positions of Caryae and Sellasia. March 28. The waters in the valley of Barbitza make a circuit of the heights, and flow into the valto or marsh which occupies the middle of the plain, and extends to the foot of Mount Tzimbaru. I ride this morning, in a quarter of an hour, from Barbitza to Paputzi, another tjiftlik with a pyrgo, belonging to an aga of Tripolitza, but smaller than Barbitza. In both places I purchase several good coins from the peasants. I was told at Paputzi that Barbitza was the site of a large Paleo-khora, or ancient town, and the form of the hills above it, with flat rocky summits, countenances the supposition, though I could not perceive any remains of buildings. As to the coins, it was stated that the greater part had been found not at Barbitza, but in the fields near Frango-vrysi. The tradition as to Barbitza however, is not to be overlooked, when coupled with the strong probability of this having been the position of the town, which possessed the south-eastern side of the basin, of which the northern part belonged to Asea. I am inclined to place the ancient Eutaea at Barbitza. That

§ 3.032 Eutaea could not have been at any great distance from this situation, seems evident from Xenophon. When the Mantinenses, taking advantage of the effects of the defeat of the Lacedaemonians at Leuctra, were rebuilding their walls, Agesilaus, king of Sparta, having in vain endeavoured to persuade them to desist, and irritated moreover at the assistance which they were giving at the same moment to the party opposed to the interests of Sparta at Tegea, marched into the Mantinice, at the head of his Lacedaemonians, in conjunction with some Arcadians who had not joined the Arcadic league, formed after the battle of Leuctra. Agesilaus, marching from Sparta, first took possession of Eutaea, a town on the frontier; here he learnt that all the combatants of the place had gone to Asea, to join the other Arcadians, who were there assembling, for the purpose of assisting the Mantinenses. The next day he marched to Tegea, and on the following, entering the Mantinice, assumed a position under the mountains, to the westward of Mantineia. The Arcadians from Asea followed the same route, and joined the Mantinenses, Agesilaus not having thought it prudent to interrupt them. After remaining five days in the Mantinice, Agesilaus, finding that the enemy were determined not to

§ 3.033 engage, began early on the morning of the sixth, after breakfast, to draw off his army from his position in the plain before the city, to that which he had assumed on his first arrival; when, none of the Arcadians appearing, he proceeded with all speed to Eutaea, where he arrived late at night. It is clear that Agesilaus, in advancing from Sparta, on this occasion, did not follow the direct road to Tegea, by Phylace, none of the known places on that road being mentioned by the historian; he must therefore have passed the Laconic frontier, either in the Beleminatis or Sciritis, in either case entering the basin which lies to the northward and eastward of Mount Tzimbaru. Eutaea consequently stood in this valley, not far from the Laconic frontier, and not far also from Asea, as appears both from the circumstance concerning its combatants mentioned by the historian, and from Eutaea having been included with Asea in the division of Arcadia called Maenalia. The position of Barbitza is exactly conformable to these premises; and its distance from Mantineia, which is about twenty-two English miles by the road, corresponds perfectly with the circumstances of the retreat of Agesilaus.

§ 3.034 I leave Paputzi at 8, and proceeding among the low heights which are the termination of the mountains on the east, soon perceive the Paleo-kastro of Frangovrysi through an opening in these hills. Leaving the fountain and khan of Frangovrysi about a mile on the left, and taking a road to the right of that by which I approached Tripolitza last year, we continue to skirt the hills on the eastern side of the valley, until we ascend them, after having halted five minutes in the plain. At 9.07 arrive at the summit of the pass of Mount Kravari, from whence the road begins to descend towards the plains of Pallantium and Tegea. The pass is a natural opening in the rocky heights of the mountain. Just in this spot, by the road side, I find the ruins of a temple, of which the foundations still remain, together with several fragments of Doric columns, formed of the same rock as the mountain itself. Some of the flutings measure three inches and two-thirds, some four inches. Of the diameter of the column I could not obtain a good measurement. There cannot, I think, be any doubt that these are remains of the temple said to have been dedicated by Ulysses to Minerva Soteira and Neptune, after his return home from Troy; for Pausanias describes it as situated on the summit of Mount Boreium, in the road from Asea

§ 3.035 to the Choma, or Dyke, where the road to Pallantium diverged from that of Tegea. Even without the existence of the temple, the natural pass would be sufficient to assure us that the ancient road crossed the mountain exactly in this spot. The description of Pausanias seems to shew, that the temple was nearly in the same condition in his time as it is now: the secluded situation, which has been little frequented as a road since Tripolitza became the chief town in this part of the Morea, has probably tended to preserve the remains. At 9.18 descend from the temple of Soteira, through a ravine of Mount Boreium, into a part of the plain of Pallantium, about a mile to the left of the Katavothra of the Taki, and over against the village of Birbati, which stands on the side of the rocky ridge of Thana. In the descent I left another ravine on the right at 9.30, along which ascends the road to Manari, a small village, not far distant. On the opposite side of the Taki, on the face of the mountain, appears the large village of Kerasia. After crossing the plain of Pallantium we mount the heights of Thana, and at 10.25, leaving that village half a mile on the right, on the summit of the ridge, descend into the great plain, and enter Tripolitza by the Mistra Gate. The plain was very muddy and rugged, and the paved road over it execrable.

§ 3.036 It is said that many ancient coins are found at Thana; if this be correct, it seems to indicate that it was the site of Pallantium. The head of Nicetas is brought in today, and exhibited at the tree at the Serai, with another head, and an arm. They belonged to some robbers who were lately killed at the mills behind Kalamata, when others, to the number of twenty, escaped to Mani; a servant of Nicetas was brought in alive. It would require a minute examination of the locality in different seasons of the year, either to verify or to contradict, with certainty, the description which Strabo and Pausanias have given of the singularities attending the origin and incipient course of the rivers Alpheius and Eurotas; I regret extremely, therefore, that I have had no opportunity of examining the plains of Asea and Tegea in the middle of summer, when the direction of the waters through the marshes, and the structure of the katavothra might have been apparent; I have little doubt, however, that a part of the ancient belief respecting these rivers was erroneous. Strabo says, “The Alpheius and Eurotas flow from the same place; it is a town of the Megalopolitis, called Asea, where are two fountains near each other: from these

§ 3.037 issue the two rivers, which, passing under ground for a distance of several stades, re-appear again, and flow, the one to the Laconice, the other to the Pisatis. The Eurotas renews its stream at the beginning of the Bleminatis, passes by Sparta, and then through a long narrow valley, towards that Helos of which the poet speaks; it there falls into the sea, between Gythium, which is the port of Sparta, and Acriae. The Alpheius, after receiving the Ladon and Erymanthus, and others of smaller note, passes by Phrixa, and through the Pisatis and Triphylia, and by Olympia, and falls into the Sicilian sea, between Pheia and Pitane.” The words of Pausanias are these, “The Alpheius is of a very different nature from other rivers, for it often conceals itself in the earth, and rises again. First of all, flowing from Phylace and the Symbola, it descends under ground to the Tegeatic plain; then, breaking forth again in the Asaea, it mixes its waters with those of the Eurotas. After having been again concealed by a subterraneous channel, it once more emerges in the place which the

§ 3.038 Arcadians call Pegae, [the Fountains]: from thence, passing through the Pisaean land, and by Olympia, it joins the sea towards Cyllene, the port of the Eleii. Nor does the agitation of the Adriatic impede its course, but flowing through this great and tempestuous sea, it reaches the island Ortygia, and preserving its name Alpheius, is there mixed with the fountain Arethusa.” In describing the road from Megalopolis to Tegea the same traveller thus again speaks of the head of this river: “The source of the Alpheius is not more than five stades distant from Asea, and is not far from the road: that of the Eurotas is by the road-side. The water of the Eurotas mixes with that of the Alpheius, and they flow together in a common channel for nearly twenty stades, after which they pass through a subterraneous chasm, and emerge again, the Eurotas in the Laconice, the Alpheius at the fountains in the Megalopolitis.” It is singular that Pausanias, who delighted so much in Greek superstition, has not taken any notice of a fable, relating to the common origin of the two rivers, which is reported by Strabo; namely, that if two chaplets, dedicated

§ 3.039 to the Alpheius and Eurotas, were thrown into the stream near Asea, each would reappear at the sources of the river to which it was destined. Though Strabo evidently disbelieved this story, it accords exactly with the assertion of Pausanias, as to the union of the waters from the two fountains, and their course in a common channel. It accords also with the actual state of the two sources at Frangovrysi, (in truth there are three) which form a single stream below the ruins of Asea, crossing a plain of two miles in breadth, and turning some mills, before the river joins the marsh. To call one of the branches of the united stream the Eurotas, and the other the Alpheius, was a mere effect of the Grecian love of fiction; but the assertion contained in the latter of the two passages of Pausanias may be more worthy of examination, namely, that, after entering a chasm, the two streams separated in the body of the mountain, one making its appearance in the Laconice, (near Belemina, according to Strabo) the other at the Pegae of the Megalopolitis. To me it appeared that there is (as Pausanias indicates) only one chasm or katavothra at the eastern foot of

§ 3.040 Mount Tzimbaru, although on the opposite side of the mountain there are two copious sources, which have the appearance of emissories, one contributing largely to the Alpheius, the other still more so to the Eurotas — the former, which is at Marmara, near Rhapsomati, is evidently the ancient Pegae, the latter, which is at the mill to the northward of Mount Khelmos, may be not improperly called the source of the Eurotas. It certainly is possible that the united waters from the valleys which contain Papari, Barbitza, and Frangovrysi, although they enter the katavothra of Tzimbaru in one stream, may separate into two in the body of the mountain; but before credence can be given to such a singularity in the origin of two large rivers, flowing afterwards in opposite directions, it would be desirable to examine the foot of the mountain near the katavothra, in the middle of summer, when the lake is very low, in order to be satisfied that there are not two chasms, one absorbing the streams from the hills around Barbitza, the other those from Frangovrysi. Such an examination cannot be, and never could have been, a very easy task, nor, if two zerethra exist, could the fact have been very generally known to the ancient Greeks, so that a fable, as in so many other similar instances, might have been easily propagated upon the subject by the hierarchy.

§ 3.041 I must repeat, however, that I could not discover any external appearance of two openings, although such caverns or chasms are generally very conspicuous, and easily recognized at a distance. Polybius, a native writer, and one who was not so likely to be led astray by fable as Pausanias, seems not to have had any idea of the Eurotas having passed through Mount Tzimbaru, but only the Alpheius. In criticising an historian of Rhodes, who had misrepresented the position of Lycoa, Polybius says that the Alpheius had a subterraneous course of ten stades, that, reappearing, it then crossed the Megalopolitan territory, a distance of 200 stades, and that after having received the Lusius it flowed by Lycoa, where it was deep and impassable. As to the torrent of Gdhani, which, issuing from the north-western extremity of the marsh, passes through a gorge in the ridge of Tzimbaru, and joins the stream of Pegae in the Megalopolitis near Rhapsomati, I was convinced, both by inquiries and actual inspection, that it had very little connection with the discharge of the perennial fountains of Frangovrysi, being nothing more than a torrent which is dry during

§ 3.042 a great part of the year, and carries off only the superficial waters of the lake when they are at the highest, being a bountiful provision of nature to prevent the whole plain from being submerged in the winter. Without denying that there are great singularities in the two rivers, the simple fact seems to be, that the highest and most distant sources, both of the Alpheius and Eurotas, are on the western face of the same great summit, anciently called Parnon, and now Malevo of St. Peter's, not far from the villages of Vervena and Arakhova. The Alpheius rises from several rivulets near the former place, receives at the Symbola the source of Krya Vrysi, (called by Pausanias the source of the Alpheius ) and under the modern name of Sarandapotamo flows to a katavothra on the southern side of Mount Cresium. It is probable that the spring to the eastward of Frangovrysi, which was the reputed source of the Alpheius, is the emissory of the Saranda; that the spring at the khan of Frangovrysi, or reputed source of the Eurotas, is the emissory of the stream of the Taki; and that the united river formed by these, together with a third rivulet from under the walls of Asea, which probably had a more western origin, having passed through Mount Tzimbaru, reappears at Marmara. In the neighbourhood of Arakhova, on the

§ 3.043 face of the same great ridge which gives rise to the most distant south-eastern tributary of the Alpheius, is formed the northern feeder of the Oenus, or principal branch of the Eurotas, while the waters near the Stenuri of Arakhova, on the modern Derveni from Tripolitza to Mistra, taking a western direction, constitute the stream which unites with the great source of the Eurotas at the mill in the valley of Khelmos. As to that source, I am not aware of any stream of which it can be the emissory, unless, as I have already hinted, it should be found to be derived from the waters about Barbitza, entering a separate katavothra in the same plain, or unless the singularity of a separation of the river of Asea in the body of the mountain, as believed by the ancients, should prove to be true. The interesting inquiry therefore for future travellers will be the origin of the sources at the mill near Khelmos, the direction of the waters around Barbitza, and the conformation of the katavothra of Mount Tzimbaru.

§ 3.044 CHAPTER XXIV. ARCADIA. There is no district in Greece which more frequently presents itself to notice in ancient history than the plain of Tripolitza. Placed on the frontier of Arcadia towards the Isthmus of Corinth, defended on that side by strong passes, and occupied by the two leading cities of the province, it was by these circumstances the chief cause and support of the union, independence, and tranquillity which Arcadia continued to enjoy until Athens, Thebes, and Sparta having become so powerful as to involve all Greece in their quarrels, the rivalry of Tegea and Mantineia, which may have been of salutary effect

§ 3.045 in the earlier and better times of the confederacy, tended only to the admission of foreign influence and the ruin of all the smaller towns of Arcadia. The plain of Tripolitza is by far the greatest of that cluster of valleys in the center of the Peloponnesus, each of which is so closely shut in by the intersecting mountains, that no outlet is afforded to the waters but through the mountains themselves. Of these valleys, which comprehended the districts of Stymphalus, Pheneus, Alea, Asea, Eutaea, Pallantium, Tegea, Mantineia, Orchomenus, and Caphyae, those of the five cities last mentioned may be considered in a military sense to have formed one and the same plain, the Orchomenia being separated from the Mantinice only by a low narrow ridge. This great interior valley is about twenty-five English miles in length from Caphyae northward to Mount Cresium of the Tegeatis southward, with a breadth varying from one mile to eight. In the middle of its length, and in one of the narrowest parts as to breadth, stood the city of Mantineia in the lowest part of the plain, a position which shews at once the importance of the Mantinice and why this district was so often the scene of great military operations.

§ 3.046 There are three lines of access from the Argolis into the Mantinico-Tegeatic plain, which, although they all traverse steep and lofty ridges, yet presenting less difficulty than any other paths that can be chosen, have in all ages been the roads into that great interior basin. The only other approaches to Mantineia from the Isthmus were by Orneae and Orchomenus; neither of these was less difficult than the roads from the Argeia, and the latter was very circuitous. The three roads from Argos are thus described by Pausanias. “Besides that entrance into Arcadia from the Argeia, which leads from Hysiae, over the mountain Parthenium, into the Tegeatice, there are two roads which conduct to Mantineia, one by Prinus and the other by Climax. Of these two the latter is the wider, and takes its name from steps which were formerly cut in the descent. After having passed the Climax there is a place called Melangeia, from whence water for drinking descends into the city of the Mantinenses. Beyond Melangeia, seven stades distant from the city, is the fountain of the Meliastae, who perform the orgies of Bacchus; at the fountain there is a temple of Bacchus and

§ 3.047 another of Venus, surnamed Melanis. The road Prinus is narrower than the former, and leads through Artemisium, concerning which mountain I have already remarked that it contains a temple and statue of Diana, and the fountains of the Inachus; the water, as it passes along the road, is the boundary between the Argives and Mantinenses, but after turning away from the road it flows entirely through the Argeia, whence it is called an Argive river by Aeschylus and others. Having crossed the Artemisium, a plain of the Mantinenses will receive you, which is justly called Apyov [the Inert plain], for the rain-water which falls from the mountains causes it to remain uncultivated, and would even make it a lake, did not the water disappear in a chasm of the earth, after passing through which, it comes forth again at Deine, towards the place called Genethlium of Argolis, where fresh water rises in the sea. The Mantinenses have a mountain on the left of the inert plain, where are vestiges of the village of Nestane and of the camp of Philip, (son of Amyntas) for they say that Philip encamped at this Nestane, and from him they name the neighbouring fountain Philippium. Beyond the ruins of Nestane there is a much venerated temple of Ceres, where the

§ 3.048 Mantinenses hold a yearly festival; below Nestane is the field of Maera, which is a part of the inert plain; from thence extends, for a distance of ten stades, the opening which leads out of the inert plain. Proceeding a little farther you will descend into another plain, where, near the road side, is the fountain called Arne. From this place the city of the Mantinenses is about two (or twelve) stades distant.” Besides the two approaches to Mantineia from the Climax and Prinus, Pausanias describes six other roads which led from that city, namely, 1. the direct road to Tegea. 2. A branch to the left of it, quitting the former at the temple of Neptune, distant seven stades from the city. S. The road to Pallantium. 4. The road through the plain of Alcimedon to Methydrium. — And two roads to Orchomenus. Concerning the road to Methydrium I have already had occasion to offer some remarks; those of Orchomenus will be a subject of future examination. As the three others concur with the Prinus and Climax in illustrating the topography of the Mantinic plain, which was so often the scene of military operations, I shall here insert the description of them from Pausanias,

§ 3.049 although the reference will in one or two particulars be a repetition of a part of the third Chapter of this work. “On the left hand of the road to Tegea ”, says the Greek traveller, “there is a place near the walls of Mantineia for the running of horses, and not far from thence a stadium where games in honour of Antinous are celebrated. Above the stadium rises the mountain Alesium, so called, it is said, from the wandering of Rhea: upon the mountain there is a grove of Ceres, and at the extremity of the mountain the temple of Neptune Hippius, not far from the stadium of Mantineia.” This temple of Neptune, as I have already remarked, was, according to Polybius, seyen stades distant from the city. It consisted, in the time of Pausanias, of a modern building, which had been erected by the Emperor Hadrian to inclose and protect the remains of an oaken edifice, said to have been the work of Trophonius and Agamedes, and which was one of the few specimens, if not the only specimen then existing in the Peloponnesus, of a temple built of that material. It was forbidden to all unprivileged persons to enter the Posidium; and Hadrian, when he erected the new building,

§ 3.050 maintained its sanctity with such rigour, that the workmen employed were not allowed to touch any part of the remains of the ancient structure, nor even to see the interior of it; nor was Pausanias himself allowed to enter the temple. “Beyond the temple of Neptune, on the road to Tegea, there was a trophy of stone erected in honour of the victory gained [by the Mantinenses] over Agis and the Lacedaemonians, beyond which the road entered a forest of oaks called Pelagus; the boundary between the Mantinenses and Tegeatae was a round altar in the road. On turning to the left, out of the road to Tegea, at the temple of Neptune, there occurred, at the end of five stades, the tumuli of the daughters of Pelias twenty stades distant from which, was the place called the Phoezi; the monument of the Phoezi was low, and surrounded with a basis. The road then became narrow, and there was a monument

§ 3.051 said to be that of Areithous, who, from his club, was named Coryneta.” “In the way which led from Mantineia to Pallantium, at the distance of thirty stades, the wood Pelagus was near the road. Here stood the tomb of Epaminondas, who was buried on the spot where he fell. The place to which he was carried out of the action, and from whence he witnessed the victory of his army before he died, was thenceforth called Scope.” It may be inferred from the circumstance last mentioned, that Scope was a rising ground, a circumstance which I think identifies it with the point of the Maenalian range three miles south of Mantineia, as I have stated in the former journey. After remarking that the temple of Jupiter Charmon was one stade beyond the tomb of Epaminondas, Pausanias, in allusion to the forest which covered a part of the neighbouring plain, observes, that “the woods of Arcadia contain diverse kinds of oak, namely, the broad leaved oak, the phagus, and that of which the bark, called Phellus by the Ionians, is so light, that it serves for buoys to anchors, and for floats to the nets of fishermen.”

§ 3.052 Hence it appears that the forest Pelagus contained cork trees, which are not now found in a natural state, I believe, in any part of European Greece, nor is the phagus, so called from its edible acorn, by any means so common as the prinus and ilex. I have already remarked, that Pausanias, in the Argolics, speaks of one road only leading from Argos to Mantineia, though he afterwards, in the Arcadics, as we have just seen, describes two roads, called Prinus and Climax. It is observable, however, that he traces these two roads only from the frontier of the Argeia to Mantineia, in like manner as, in the Argolics, he follows the single road from Argos as far as the same boundary only; it seems probable, therefore, that from Argos as far as the boundary, there was but one road to Mantineia, which, leaving Argos at the

§ 3.053 gate of Deiras, crossed the Charadrus to Oenoe, and not far from thence divided into two branches, one leading towards the sources of the Inachus, and passing not far from that summit of the Artemisian ridge upon which stood the temple of Diana which gave name to it; the other leaving the highest summits to the left, and descending upon Melangeia, a place from whence there was an aqueduct to the city of Mantineia. The sources near Pikernes, and the situation of that village relatively to the ancient city, point it out as the site of Melangeia, and it is not impossible that the modern name may have been derived from those sources. The road, therefore, from Argos to Pikernes, which passes by the villages of Kato Belishi, Kapareli, and Sanga, appears to be the ancient Climax. From Pikernes, one may either descend into the plain of Mantineia, or continue along the side of the mountains to Butia and Kalpaki ( Orchomenus ). If the position of Melangeia, and the line of the road Climax, are correctly indicated as above, it will follow, that the road over the Artemisian range by the modern Karya, is the line of the ancient Prinus; we find, in fact, a confirmation of this conclusion, as well as of all the comparative topography of the Mantinice,

§ 3.054 in the circumstance, that the branch of the Mantinic plain, the opening of which is immediately opposite to the Scope, answers exactly to the Argon, or Inert Plain, as well in its position as in its marshy nature after the winter rains, for it is nearly surrounded, as Pausanias hints, by mountains, and is wider within than at the opening which unites it with the great Mantinic plain; the breadth of this opening corresponds likewise exactly with the ten stades of Pausanias. Nestane appears to have stood to the southward of the opening into the Argou, towards the projection of Mount Artemisium, which is opposite to the Scope. As the point of the same mountain, which encloses the Argon on the northern side, is about fifteen stades from Mantineia, it seems more probable, that the fountain Arne should have been twelve, than two, stades distant from the city, and the more so, as the temple of Neptune, which stood on the same side of the city, was seven stades distant from the walls. Moreover there is another κόλπος, or bay, of the Mantinic plain, between Mantineia and the point on the northern side of the entrance of the Argon, corresponding to the other plain noticed by Pausanias, which contained the fountain Arne. This bay terminates towards the mountain, in a narrow ascent

§ 3.055 leading up to Tzipiana, and agreeing with the narrow road which commenced at the monument of Coryneta. In order to understand thoroughly what Pausanias relates of the course of the waters from the Inert Plain, it is to be observed, that all the great valley of Tripolitza is nearly of an uniform level, and that many parts of it have not a sufficient slope to prevent the land from being often overflowed by the torrents from the surrounding mountains, unless trenches are made to assist the course of the waters towards those chasms in the mountains which nature has provided for their discharge. Of these zerethra, or katavothra, I have already remarked that there are three, namely those of the Taki and of Persova in the Tegeatice, and the smaller one not far from the ruins of Mantineia. By drainage the inundations might be always confined to the immediate vicinity of the katavothra, and they were probably so confined anciently, unless when the course of the waters became a subject of dispute between Tegea and Mantineia, as happened in a remarkable instance, mentioned by Thucydides. In the present state of Greece, when art is seldom applied to remedy natural inconveniences, and when the culture of maize

§ 3.056 operates as an encouragement to keep a part of the land for many months in a state of inundation, there are several parts of the plain of Tripolitza half the year under water. Pausanias asserts that the waters of the Inert Plain were drained towards the chasms, of which the emissory was a source called Deine, rising in the sea near the Argolic shore; a remark which leaves no doubt that he meant the zerethra of the Tegeatice, near the modern Persova. If it should be asked how it happened that, assuming the bay or branch of the Mantinic plain below Tzipiana to have been the Inert Plain, the drainage was not rather carried to the zerethra of Mantineia, they being so much nearer to the Argon; the answer would be, that these were so small as to be hardly sufficient to carry off the river Ophis and the other superfluous waters of the Mantinic plain. The Mantinenses, in consequence, as we find from Thucydides, in the passage already alluded to, were in the habit of turning the inundations of the plain Argon into the Tegeatice, where the fall was greater and the zerethra more capacious. This operation was probably regulated in a friendly manner when the two cities were at peace; but it was a fruitful cause of quarrel; and when the republics were at war, as we

§ 3.057 perceive from Thucydides, it furnished a convenient mode of offence and injury. Having made these preliminary remarks on the topography, I shall now advert to those military transactions which have rendered the Mantinice so conspicuous in ancient history. Three of the actions fought near Mantineia are among the best illustrations of Greek tactics which history has preserved, and they are particularly worthy of consideration from having been related by three historians, each of whom was living at the time of the action described, and if not personally engaged in it, was so situated, at least, as to be able to collect the most authentic information concerning it. The earliest of the three battles is described by Thucydides, the second by Xenophon, the third by Polybius. In the interval between the second and third, there were two other conflicts in the same field, which, had they been related by contemporary authors, might have deserved our attention almost as much as the three others; for the Lacedaemonians, headed by one of their kings, were engaged in them both; but the first is merely noticed by Plutarch: the second is described by Pausanias. The battle of Mantineia, recorded by Thucydides, occurred in the fourteenth year of the Peloponnesian war, BC 418, when the

§ 3.058 Lacedaemonians, under Agis, son of Archidamus, with some Arcadian allies, were opposed to the Argives, and their auxiliaries of Mantineia and Athens. The Argives, at the suggestion of the Mantinenses, who were at that time enemies of the Tegeatae, had moved against Tegea, in which city, as usually happened when two Greek republics were at war, there was a faction in favour of the opponent. The Lacedaemonians, advancing to the support of the Tegeatae, placed themselves at Orestium, in Maenalia, the Maenalii being then in alliance with them, upon which the Argives retired, and took up a strong position on the hills, near Mantineia. “The Lacedaemonians,” says Thucydides, “accompanied by such of their Arcadian confederates as were present, then entered the territory of Mantineia, and, placing themselves near the temple of Hercules, wasted the country around. The Argives and their associates, on perceiving the enemy, seized upon a place fortified by nature, and of difficult access, and formed themselves into an order of battle. The Lacedaemonians, on the other hand, had approached to within the cast of a stone or dart, when an old soldier, seeing that Agis was about to attack a

§ 3.059 very strong position, called out to him that he was going to remedy one evil by another, thus signifying that he was attempting to make amends for his former retreat from Argos, for which he had been blamed, by an imprudent forwardness upon the present occasion. Either in consequence of this declaration, or of some sudden change in his own designs, Agis withdrew his army without engaging, and, marching into the territory of Tegea, turned the course of the water into the Mantinice, concerning which water, because it did much injury in whatever part of the country it flowed, the Mantinenses and Tegeatae were at war. His design was to force the Argives and their confederates to fight in the plain, into which he supposed that they would descend, in order to prevent the turning of the water; and remaining that day about the water he turned it. The Argives and their allies, surprised at the sudden departure of the enemy, were at a loss to account for it; and when they found that their adversaries were no longer in sight, while their own army remained inactive, and did not follow, they began to blame their commanders, and accused them of treachery, as well for having suffered the Lacedaemonians to depart, after having intercepted them at Argos, as for now again allowing them to retire in safety, without pursuing them.

§ 3.060 The commanders were now much troubled. Advancing into the plain, they stationed their forces as if about to advance against the enemy, and next day disposed them so as to be in readiness for battle, if they should fall in with their adversaries. When the Lacedaemonians, returning from the water to their former position at the Heracleium, found the enemy already descended from the mountain, and in order of battle, they were struck with consternation, having so short space of time to prepare themselves for battle. They were soon arranged, however; Agis, the king, commanding all according to law. For when the king leads the army, every thing is regulated by him; he gives the Orders to the polemarchs, the polemarchs to the lochagi, and the lochagi to the pentecontateres, the latter to the enomotarchae, and they to the enomotiae, and thus the requisite mandates are forwarded, and quickly communicated from one to another; the greater part of the Lacedaemonian army being the commanders of commanders, and the care of what is to be done, the business of many.” “On the left were the Sciritae, who, alone of the Lacedaemonians, have the right of occupying this place. Next to them were the Brasidiani, who had served in Thrace, and the

§ 3.061 Neodamodeis, (or those who had recently been made freemen.) Then came the lochi (or divisions) of the Lacedaemonians; next to them the Heraeenses of Arcadia; then the Maenalii; and on the right the Tegeatae, with a few of the Lacedaemonians at the extremity. The cavalry were upon either wing. Such was the order of the Lacedaemonians. Of their adversaries, the right was occupied by the Mantinenses, because the affair took place in their territory; adjacent to them were the other auxiliaries of Arcadia; then the thousand chosen men of Argos, whom the city had long kept in exercise at the public charge; then the other Argives; next to them their allies of Cleonae and Orneae; and last of all, on the left, the Athenians, with their domestic cavalry. Such was the order and preparation on both sides.” “The Lacedaemonian army was the most numerous in appearance, but I am unable to state its total amount, or the number of the several people who composed it, that of the Lacedaemonians being unknown, in consequence of the secrecy of the government, and that of the others unworthy of belief, from the usual ostentation of mankind in the enumeration of their own people. The force of the Lacedaemonians, however, may be computed thus. Seven lochi fought, besides the Sciritae, of whom there were

§ 3.062 600. In each lochus were four pentecostyes, in each pentecostys four enomotiae. Each enomotia consisted of four men in front, with a depth not everywhere equal, but arranged as the lochagus thought fit. In general, however, the army was drawn up eight deep, and it had 448 in front, beside the Sciritae.” From this computation of Thucydides, it would appear, that the total amount of the Lacedaemonian hoplitae was not much above 4000, which, when drawn up in the compact order described by the historian, would not occupy a front of more than three or four hundred yards. The light armed were probably much more numerous. The hills upon which the Argives first placed themselves, seem to have been those immediately above Mantineia to the eastward, the part of which near the southern side of the walls of Mantineia, was, as we learn from Pausanias, called Alesium. From this height nothing could be seen which took place on the eastern side of the plain of Tripolitza, to the southward of the projection of the Artemisian range, upon which Nestane stood, and which bounded the Inert Plain on the south. There it was, therefore, that Agis was engaged in turning the course of the water, when the Argives lost sight of him. His object was to divert the water from the plain, southward of the point of Nestane, into

§ 3.063 the plain Argon, situated northward of the same projection. And thus Thucydides, though he neither mentions the plain Argon by that name, nor describes the ultimate course or natural outlet of the waters, after they had been turned into the Tegeatice, concurs, as far as his testimony extends, with the more particular detail of Pausanias, which, when examined on the spot, shews that the only outlet (though the course of the waters towards it might require to be assisted by art) was through the zerethra t the extremity of the Corythic bay of the Tegeatic plain, or, in modern words, by the katavothra of Persova. The Heracleium I do not find mentioned in any other author; but it is obvious, as well in the previous position on the hills, as after their descent into the plain, that the Argives and their allies were not far from the city of Mantineia. They were probably drawn up across the plain, in front of the city, and the Lacedaemonians in a parallel line to the southward of them, between the city and the opening between Scope and Nestane, which formed the boundary of the Mantinice. “After an exhortation,” continues Thucydides, “the engagement began, the Argives and their confederates advancing with violence and fury, the Lacedaemonians slowly, and with a march regulated, as their military law enacts,

§ 3.064 by the music of many flutes, not as a point of religion, but with the design that, marching forward evenly and by measure, their ranks might not fall into disorder, as often happens to large bodies when moving in presence of an enemy. While yet in motion, a thought occurred to Agis, suggested by the customary practice of armies when advancing to the engagement. It generally happens, that either party strives to extend his right wing, so as to outflank his adversary's left, each soldier endeavouring, in order to protect himself, to cover his body with the shield of the man upon his right, persuaded that in this compact order they are most completely covered from the enemy. The right hand man of the right wing is the first cause of this [tendency of each line to outflank the enemy's left], for while he strives to shift his uncovered side from the enemy, the same fear prompts the rest to follow him. In this manner the Sciritae, on the Lacedaemonian left, were circumvented by the right wing of their opponents, and still more the Athenians by the Lacedaemonians and Tegeatae, the army of the latter being the more numerous of the two. Agis, therefore, perceiving that the Mantinenses had extended themselves very far upon his left, and fearing lest that flank should be surrounded, ordered the Sciritae and

§ 3.065 Brasidiani to move a part of their division in such a manner as to make the left flank coextensive with that of the Mantinenses, and sent directions at the same time to the polemarchs Hipponoidas and Aristocles to fill up the vacancy with two lochi from the right wing, thinking, that while the wing opposed to the Mantinenses would be thus reinforced, the other would still be sufficiently strong. It happened, however, [the order being given in the very concourse, and on a sudden] that Aristocles and Hipponoidas refused to move, for which they were afterwards banished from Sparta, being supposed to have disobeyed through cowardice. The enemy having begun the attack in the mean time, and the lochi not coming to fill up the place of the Sciritae, the consequence was, that the Lacedaemonians were unable to oppose the enemy in that part of the line, or to close the empty space. However, though totally worsted in skill, they shewed themselves by no means inferior to their adversaries in valour. When the engagement became close, the Mantinenses turned the left of the Sciritae and Brasidiani, at the same time that, assisted by their allies of Arcadia, and the thousand select men of Argos, they entered the space left vacant by the disunited Lacedaemonians, slew many of them, and having surrounded and put them

§ 3.066 to flight, chased them to their waggons, where some of the aged men who were in charge of the baggage were killed. Here, therefore, the Lacedaemonians were beaten; but in the other parts of the line, particularly in the centre, where stood King Agis, and about him the horsemen called the Three Hundred, the Lacedaemonians falling upon the Argive veterans, and those called the Five Lochi, and the Cleonaei, and the Orneatae, and the Athenians, who were next to them, put them all to flight, the enemy scarcely waiting to come to blows, but giving way as soon as the Lacedaemonians attacked, and some of them even through fear of not escaping, [allowing themselves to be,] trodden under foot. While the army of the Argives and their allies were giving way in this part, they were worsted also on the left, where the right of the Lacedaemonians and Tegeatae outflanked the Athenians, who were thus on one side surrounded, and on the other beaten; and who would have suffered more than any other part of the army, had not their cavalry been present to assist them. It happened also that Agis, at that time, finding that his left was suffering from the Mantinenses and the thousand Argives, ordered all the army to proceed to the assistance of the defeated wing. So that the

§ 3.067 Athenians,and that part of the Argives which was beaten, as soon as the enemy inclined from them, easily saved themselves. The Mantinenses and their associates, and the select Argives, seeing their army overcome, and the Lacedaemonians turning against them, gave way and betook themselves to flight. Most of the Mantinenses were slain, but the greater part of the chosen Argives were saved, for neither the flight nor the disorder was long continued, it being the custom of the Lacedaemonians to flight with constancy and perseverance until they have turned the enemy, but never to pursue him long after they have forced him to retreat. Thus, or very nearly so, was fought this battle, the greatest which had occurred for a long time between Grecians and Grecians, and wherein the greatest cities were engaged. The Lacedaemonians laying together the arms of the slain enemies, immediately erected a trophy. They stripped the dead bodies of the enemy, and then gave them up under truce; their own slain they carried away and buried at Tegea. Of the Argives, Orneatae, and Cleonaei, 700 were killed, of the Athenians and Aeginetae, 200, with both the commanders. The allies on the side of the Lacedaemonians suffered nothing worthy of mention: of the Lacedaeraonians themselves it is difficult to speak with

§ 3.068 certainty, but it is said they lost 300 men. The other king, Pleistoanax, came with a reinforcement, both of veterans and young soldiers, as far as Tegea; but having heard of the victory he returned [to Sparta ]. The Lacedaemonians sent messengers to the Corinthians and the allies from beyond the isthmus, desiring them to return home; then dismissing those who were with them, they marched to Sparta, and celebrated the festival called Carneia, having by this battle removed the disgrace which they had incurred in the eyes of all Greece, by their defeat at the island [ Sphacteria ]. Their want of counsel and energy on other occasions was counterbalanced by this event, their miscarriage being imputed to fortune, and their minds considered such as they had ever been.” Thirty-three years after this transaction, in the second year after the peace of Antalcidas, when the Lacedaemonians were not less formidable than they had been at the end of the Peloponnesian war, the Spartan government thought the moment favourable for removing that impediment to the extension of its power in Arcadia which Mantineia had ever presented, and easily found a pretext to justify the bold measure which they adopted, of ordering the Mantinenses to destroy the walls of their city.

§ 3.069 Upon their refusal, an army marched against them, commanded by the king, Agesipolis, son of Pausanias. He first formed an intrenchment round the city, employing one half of the army to protect the other half while at work; and then, under the protection of the intrenchment, he built a wall of circumvallation Having afterwards learnt that the blockaded enemy was well supplied with provisions, he resorted to the following expedient: throwing up an embankment across a river which flowed through the city, he caused an inundation round the walls, which at length rose so high as first to cover the foundations, and then to dissolve the lower part of the brickwork, so that the wall began to decline from the perpendicular. The Mantinenses endeavoured by wooden supports to prevent it from falling$ but finding the water too powerful for them, and fearing lest the ruin of their defences on all sides should expose the city to be taken by assault, they submitted to the terms of the Lacedaemonians, which were, that they should evacuate the city, and dwell in four small towns, as in ancient times. Agesipolis, at the entreaty of his father, allowed sixty leading men of Mantineia, who favoured the Argives,

§ 3.070 to retire in safety. These defiled through the armed Lacedaemonians, whose excellent discipline not only made them abstain from insulting the exiles, but was the means of saving them from the vengeance of their own fellow-citizens of the oligarchical faction. There can hardly be a question that the words of Xenophon cited below have the meaning which I have just assigned to them, and, consequently, that the foundations of the walls were made of stone, and the superstructure of unburnt brick. The latter fact is directly stated by Pausanias, and though he does not speak of the foundations of stone, it is evident that such a substruction was indispensably necessary in this marshy level. Xenophon terminates his account of the stratagem of Agesipolis by the reflection, that mankind learnt one lesson of wisdom from it; namely, not to conduct a river through a city. It would seem, therefore, that the stream had been artificially turned into that direction. He remarks

§ 3.071 also, that the river was of considerable size, a description quite unsuited to the brooks which now embrace the circuit of the ancient walls, and leading to the inference that the stream from Tzipiana, which now passes to the south-westward of the ruins, is the river intended by Xenophon, and is consequently the Ophis of Pausanias. If this stream was diverted from its course for the purpose of passing through the city, it will follow almost of necessity that above the city it was then united with the two rivulets which now encircle the walls, flowing in their natural direction. In the time of Agesipolis, therefore, all the running water of the Mantinic plain passed in one body through the walls, which illustrates the observation of Xenophon as to the size of the river, and will assist also in accounting for the successful effect of the operation of Agesipolis. The dispersion of the Mantinenses had lasted more than fourteen years, when their oppressors having been defeated at Leuctra, one of the consequences of it was, the reestablishment of Mantinenses in their city, and the rebuilding of its walls. For carrying on this operation, the Eleians sent assistance in money, and the Arcadians in men. I have already

§ 3.072 remarked that the existing remains are probably for the most part the work of that period. I say for the most part, because there are some places where the polygonal work appears to have been a part of the more ancient substruction, while the remainder, being of that more regular kind which was employed in the fortifications of Messene, has every indication of having been a production of the same period of time. The existing ruins, moreover, are sufficiently preserved to shew that no considerable stream could have passed through their inclosure. The' Mantinenses, therefore, when their walls were rebuilt, seem really to have profited by the severe lesson of Agesipolis, and to have allowed the Ophis to pursue the natural course which it now follows through the plain, while the two other rivulets were made to serve the useful purpose of a wet ditch to the new fortification. The present height of the substruction of stone seems to me to afford a third reason for the same opinion as to its date; for it is hardly possible for such an operation as that of Agesipolis to have been successful with foundations so high as those which are still preserved. We may conclude, therefore, that the Mantinenses

§ 3.073 derived more than one useful lesson from their misfortune: and that they were careful not only to exclude the river from their city, but also to make the substruction of their walls of such a height as could not possibly be submerged by means of such streams as those which water the Mantinice. While the new fortification was in progress, the work was disturbed by the invasion of the Lacedaemonians under Agesilaus, to which I have already adverted in speaking of Eutaea. Agesilaus, on entering the Mantinice, placed his army under the mountains to the westward of Mantineia. On the following day he en camped at a distance of only twenty stades from the city. Meanwhile, the troops of the Arcadic league, which had collected at Asea, moved to Tegea, and thence towards Mantineia. This body Agesilaus was fearful of opposing, lest at the same time the Mantinenses should issue from the town, and attack him in the flank and rear; he allowed them, therefore, to effect a junction. Next morning he was joined by the cavalry of Phlious, by the peltastae of Orchomenus, and by some other Arcadians, who had not joined the Arcadic league; these troops marching in the night from Orchomenus, had passed unperceived under the walls of Mantineia. Agesilaus, thus reinforced, led forward

§ 3.074 his forces, but the evening coming on, he encamped in a valley surrounded by mountains, not far from Mantineia, but quite hidden from it. On the ensuing morning, finding that the Mantinenses were gathering on the hills in his rear, he was obliged to retire in a very compact order until he arrived in the plain, where he drew forth his line with a depth of nine or ten shields. Here, for the honour of Sparta, he thought it necessary to remain three days, although it was in the middle of winter. He then began that rapid retreat to Eutaea which has already been described, being probably aware of the danger to which he would be exposed by remaining in Arcadia; for the Mantinenses had been joined by the Eleians and Argives as well as by the Arcadians, and waited only for the arrival of the Boeotians and their allies, commanded by Epaminondas and Pelopidas, to advance against him. In fact, it was not long before this army arrived at Mantineia, when Epaminondas was persuaded by the Peloponnesians there assembled to make that famous invasion of Laconia which silenced for ever the proud Spartan saying, “that their women had

§ 3.075 never beheld the smoke of an enemy's fire,” and which reduced the Lacedaemonians nearly to a level with the other Greeks. In describing these transactions, Xenophon mentions a place called Elymia, on the confines of the Mantinice and Orchomenia, the name of which occurs in no other author. A few days before Agesilaus entered the territory of the Mantinenses, the latter had failed in an attempt upon Orchomenus. Xenophon adds, that with some difficulty they had made good their retreat to Elymia, where they found themselves so hard pressed as to be obliged to turn and face their pursuers, whose leader, Polytropus, they killed. Elymia, therefore, seems to have been near the frontier of the two districts. As to the “valley surrounded with mountains, near Mantineia, but quite hidden from it,” in which Agesilaus encamped one evening, the description seems to answer better to the smaller and more northern branch of the Mantinic plain between Mantineia and the Argon, than to the latter branch of the same plain. The northern bay corresponds better by its proximity to Mantineia; by Mount Alesium it was equally hidden from the city, while its small dimensions and the nearness of the incumbent mountains rendered it a more hazardous position to an army under the circumstances of that of Agesilaus.

§ 3.076 The new walls of Mantineia could not have been completed more than six years when the celebrated battle was fought, in the summer of the year BC 362, in which Epaminondas closed his career of glory, and of which the contemporary historian has left the clear and interesting description which terminates his Hellenic history. The people of Mantineia, and some other Arcadians, forgetful of the benefits received from Epaminondas, and jealous of his interference in their affairs, had called in the assistance of the Lacedaemonians and Athenians; upon which the Thebans, perceiving that their authority in the Peloponnesus could only be supported by arms, sent Epaminondas into the peninsula at the head of an army of Boeotians, Euboeans, and Thessalians, which, when reinforced by the Tegeatae and some other Peloponnesians, amounted, according to Diodorus, to 30,000 foot and 3,000 horse. While the Mantinenses and their friends of Eleia, Achaea, and Arcadia, were waiting at Mantineia for the promised succours from Athens and Sparta, Epaminondas remained within the walls of Tegea with the hope of being able to intercept the Lacedaemonians in their march towards Mantineia. As soon as he heard that Agesilaus

§ 3.077 had moved out of Sparta, and had advanced as far as Pellana, on the upper Eurotas, he made a sudden march to Sparta, and would have taken the city but for the timely return of Agesilaus and the able conduct of the other king, Archidamus, who, with only one hundred men, crossed the Eurotas, boldly attacked the Thebans on the heights of Menelaium, and, although with severe loss, completely arrested their operations. Failing in this object, Epaminondas returned to Tegea, and tried the success of another surprise in the opposite direction by sending forward his cavalry to Mantineia, where he supposed, (as it was the time of harvest) that all the cattle and men of Mantineia would be found in the fields. Here, however, he was also foiled by a body of Athenian cavalry, who, although just arrived and employed in quartering themselves in the town, immediately marched out to meet the enemy. Thus disappointed in

§ 3.078 both his attempts to prevent the junction of the allies, and finding the time of his command nearly expired, he thought it necessary, for the sake of his reputation, to come to a general action. The enemy's army, according to Diodorus, was still greatly inferior to his own, consisting only of about 23,000 Lacedaemonians, Athenians, Eleians, and others, of whom 2,000 were cavalry. Xenophon then continues his narrative in the following terms: “Epaminondas having formed his army in order of battle, moved forward, not by the shortest route towards the enemy, but towards the western mountains of Tegea, so as to make his opponents suppose, that he had no intention of fighting that day When he arrived at the mountain he drew out his phalanx in order of battle, and made the men lodge their arms under the heights, as if he designed to remain stationary in that position. By these proceedings the minds of his adversaries became relaxed in regard to their readiness for engaging, and even their ranks were disordered; as soon, therefore, as he had brought some lochi from the wings to the front, so as to strengthen the

§ 3.079 wedge-shaped part of the line, where he himself was situated, he ordered the army to resume their arms, and led them forward. The enemy, seeing them thus unexpectedly advance, were thrown into confusion: some ran into their ranks, others put their men into order; some bridled their horses, others put on their breastplates; all had more the appearance of being about to suffer than to act. Epaminondas, meanwhile, led forward his army like a ship of war bearing down to the attack, confident that, if he could penetrate in any one part of the hostile force, he should easily defeat the remainder; for he had so disposed his forces as to make the attack with his best troops, leaving the weakest at a distance, conscious that these, if defeated, would discourage those around him and give strength to the adversaries. The enemy's horse were drawn up like a battalion of hoplitae, and had no infantry to act with them; whereas Epaminondas had formed his cavalry into a strong wedge, and had stationed infantry with them, thinking, that as soon as the horse had forced a way through the enemy, their whole army would be beaten; for it is very rare to find any willing to stand when some of their own body are seen to fly. To prevent the Athenians on

§ 3.080 the left wing from assisting those near them, Epaminondas stationed a body of horse and heavy-armed, upon certain high grounds, who threatened from thence the rear of the Athenians. Thus had he made his dispositions for attack: nor was he deceived in his hopes; for having been successful in the point to which his efforts were directed, he turned the whole army to flight. But when he fell there was none left to make a proper use of the victory; for although the enemy's phalanx was in flight, the Theban hoplitae neither killed any of them nor moved forward from the place where the attack had been made; nor when the enemy's horse was also in flight did the cavalry of Epaminondas pursue or slay any either of the hostile cavalry or of the heavy-armed, but, as if themselves had been beaten, they retired fearfully through the routed enemies. The peltastae and other infantry who had accompanied the cavalry, advanced, in the full confidence of victory, to the left wing of the enemy, where the greater part of them were slain by the Athenians. Thus terminated an action,” adds the historian, “the consequences of which were contrary to the general expectation. For it was thought, that when all Greece was assembled on one side or the other,

§ 3.081 the event of a battle would be decisive, and that the conquered would remain subject to the conquerors; whereas the Deity so ordered it, that both the armies erected a trophy without hindrance from the adversary, each as if it had been victorious, giving up the enemy's dead under truce, while each received its own as if it had been defeated.” The position of Epaminondas after having failed in the first affair with the Athenian cavalry, appears to have been in the plain to the southward of Mantineia, with his right towards Mount Artemisium. His next movement was into the Tegeatis, towards the foot of Mount Maenalus, southward of the Scope, that is to say, towards Tripolitza; from thence he turned along the foot of those mountains northward, until his army was posted along the hills from the Scope to the plain of Alcimedon, which was their position previously to the attack. The hill of Nestane, or advanced root of Mount Artemisium, which bounds the Inert Plain on the south, was, perhaps, the rising ground on which he

§ 3.082 stationed a body of cavalry and hoplitae to keep the Athenians in check. The honour of having killed Epaminondas was given by the Athenians and Thebans to Gryllus, son of Xenophon, but by the Lacedaemonians to Machaerion, concerning whose origin there was a dispute between them and the Mantinenses, each claiming him as a citizen. Pausanias, who mentions these circumstances, relates also, that Epaminondas had been warned by the oracle of Delphi, to avoid the Πελαγος, which he naturally interpreted to mean the sea. He was buried and a monument erected to him in the place where he received his mortal wound, which was a little to the left of the road to Pallantium, at a distance of thirty stades from Mantineia. He was carried out of the battle to the adjacent rising ground, and having there witnessed the victory of his army, he withdrew his hand from the wound and expired. The height was thenceforth called Scope. During the fifty-six years which intervened between the victories of Agis and Epaminondas in the same field, the Greeks seem to have made considerable advances in military discipline and strategy. Both actions were gained by the defeat of a part of the enemy's centre, but Agis

§ 3.083 had almost lost the day by his want of plan, by allowing the enemy to penetrate his line, and defeat one of his wings, and by the want of discipline indicated by the conduct of the two polemarchs, and by the exclamation of the old Spartan soldier. Under Epaminondas, on the contrary, there appears to have been both in the previous movements of the Thebans and in their conduct on the day of battle, that perfect order in the troops without which the wisdom of the commander is useless. Epaminondas left no time for the armies to attempt to outflank each other in the manner described by Thucydides in the first battle of Mantineia; but after having secured every advantage which prudence could suggest, he rendered victory certain by that bold manoeuvre, which has so often been successful both by sea and land, of directing all his efforts upon one point of the enemy's line. He had, indeed, great advantages in the superiority of his numbers and the terror of his name, which carried an authority and created an union in his army very different from the former alliance of the Athenians, Argives, and Mantinenses, as discordant in principle as it was ill-cemented by the regulation, that the leader of the troops in whose territory the action was fought should have the chief command. He must, according to this

§ 3.084 rule, have been a man of Mantineia, but his name is not even recorded in history. Between the death of Epaminondas and the battle of Mantineia, described by Polybius, there was an interval of one hundred and fiftysix years, during which two actions are mentioned as having been fought near the same place. Demetrius Poliorcetes, soon after his conquest of Athens, turned his arms against Sparta, defeated the King Archidamus at Mantineia, and followed him into the Laconice, where, having gained a second victory, he had every prospect of crowning it by the capture of Sparta, when he was called away by sudden intelligence of the losses which his adherents in Cyprus and Asia had sustained from Lysimachus and Ptolemy. This happened in the year BC 296. Another action at Mantineia is described by Pausanias. The contending parties were the Achaean league and the Lacedaemonians. The Mantinenses, according to the Grecian traveller, occupied the right wing of the allies, and were composed of men of every age, under the command of Podares, the great grandson of another Podares who fought against Epaminondas. The left wing of the army was composed of the other Arcadians.

§ 3.085 Each city had its own leader; the Megalopolitae had two, Lydiades and Leocydes. In the centre stood Aratus, who was commander of the Sicyonii and Achaeans. The Lacedaemonians under Agis, who was also in the centre of his line, extended their phalanx, that they might equal the front of the enemy. Aratus, having previously made the Arcadians acquainted with his design, retreated with his forces, as if he could not sustain the attack of the Spartans, but he retreated in such a manner that his army formed itself into the shape of a a half moon. The Lacedaemonians pressed forward on the enemy's centre, until their wings suddenly found themselves attacked in the rear. Thus surrounded on all sides, great numbers of them were slain, and among them (according to Pausanias) their king, Agis, son of Eudamidas. The Mantinenses pointed out to Pausanias, in their plain between the wood Pelagus and the temple of Neptune, a trophy of stone erected by them in memory of this action, the exact scene of which is thus known, the temple of Neptune being ascertained, from Polybius and Pausanias, to have been on the road to Tegea, seven stades from the city. It seems, therefore, that the meeting occurred in the same field as the first battle of Mantineia; that the Mantinenses and their allies were arranged across the

§ 3.086 plain immediately in front of the city; and that their opponents were parallel to them, with the wood Pelagus in their rear. It is remarkable that Plutarch has not spoken of this action in his life of Aratus, and that in his life of Agis he virtually contradicts one of the principal incidents mentioned by Pausanias, by asserting that Agis was killed in a popular commotion at Sparta, which the biographer has particularly described. In fact, although Pausanias twice makes the same assertion as to the death of Agis, there can be little doubt that he was mistaken. More than four centuries had intervened when he visited Mantineia, and it is very possible that the Mantinenses had learnt in that period to deceive both themselves and others, as to a circumstance tending greatly to enhance the glory of which they were partakers on this occasion. That the action, however, really took place, notwithstanding the silence of Plutarch, is strongly confirmed by the trophy which Pausanias saw. The battle was probably fought soon after the liberation of Corinth, by Aratus, in the year BC 243, Agis being then opposed to him; whereas, before his death, which happened about 240 BC, Agis became allied with Aratus against the Aetolians.

§ 3.087 In the celebrated action recorded by Polybius, which was fought in the year BC 206, and which was one of the last examples of the military skill and tactics of Greece, Philopoemen, at the head of the forces of the Achaean league, was opposed to Machanidas and the Lacedaemonians. One of the principal officers under Philopoemen was Polybius, of Megalopolis, who was probably an uncle of the historian. The Achaeans were quartered in the city of Mantineia. “Machanidas was approaching from Tegea with the Spartan phalanx, which was flanked on either side by foreign mercenaries advancing on a parallel line, and was followed by a great store of catapeltic machines in waggons. Philopoemen, upon receiving the intelligence, moved out of Mantineia. The light-armed, the thoracitae, the Illyrians, and the other foreigners, took the road to the temple of Neptune. The phalanx marched out of the next gate to the westward, and the cavalry of Mantineia by the adjoining gate in the same direction. The light-armed took possession of a lofty hill near the city, [the Mount Alesium of Pausanias] which commanded the road called Xenis, and the temple of Neptune. To the south of these were posted the thoracitae, and then, in a line with

§ 3.088 them, the Illyrians and the phalanx, the latter being separated into divisions with spaces between them, and protected in front by a ditch, which crossed the plain from the temple of Neptune, and terminated in the hills which separated the Mantinice from the district of the Elisphasii.” Possibly this word ought to be Helissonii, for the name Elisphasii occurs no where else in ancient history, whereas the district of Helisson was separated only from the Mantinice by the range of Mount Maenalus, the roots of which bounded the Mantinic plain exactly in the position indicated by the historian. The ditch may have been intended to drain the plain around the city, and to draw off the waters towards the katavothra at the foot of those hills. The ditch had one bridge over it, was dry, and neither deep nor strengthened by any fence, yet, being unknown to the Lacedaemonians, it was the ultimate cause of their defeat. The Achaean cavalry was posted on the foot of the hills on the right of the line, which thus occupied the entire breadth of the plain in front of Mantineia Macbanidas advanced with his phalanx in column, as if he intended an attack upon the adversary's right, but when he drew near, he suddenly deployed to the right, and made his front equal to that of the Achaeans.

§ 3.089 He then advanced bis catapeltae in front of his line. Philopoemen, as soon as he perceived that it was the enemy's intention, by throwing projectiles against the ranks of the phalangitae, to wound some of the men and create confusion in the whole body, did not give him time to effect his purpose, but, ordering the Tarentines to advance, began the engagement in the level ground near the temple of Neptune, which was well adapted to the operations of cavalry; Machanidas was in consequence obliged to do the same, and to move forward his Tarentines. The contest was at first well supported by these troops only; but the light-armed soon joining in the action, all the foreigners on both sides soon became engaged. The event was for some time doubtful, but at length the superior numbers and discipline of the mercenaries of Machanidas, a kind of troops, observes Polybius, always better under a tyrant than under a republic, completely prevailed, and not only

§ 3.090 the mercenaries of the Achaeans, but the Illyrians and thoracitae who supported them in the rear, and who were headed by Philopoemen himself, were broken, and pursued quite to the city, which was seven stades distant. Machanidas having imprudently joined his own mercenaries in pursuit of the fugitives, Philopoemen lost not a moment in taking advantage of his error; moving the nearest divisions of the phalangitae, with the utmost expedition, into the space left vacant by the retreating mercenaries, he thus cut off the pursuers from their own army, and outflanked the adversaries wing. At the same time he ordered Polybius to collect as many of the scattered Illyrians, thoracitae, and mercenaries, as he could, and to wait for the return of Machanidas in the rear of the left of the phalangitae. Meanwhile the Lacedaemonians, confident in the success of their light-armed, and without waiting for orders, lowered their sarissae, and rushed forward against their opponents: when they had come to the edge of the ditch, there was no longer any possibility of a retreat, for they were already within arm's length of the enemy; despising, therefore, the ditch, as being neither steep nor having any

§ 3.091 water in it or prickly bushes, they rashly rushed forward to pass it. Philopoemen, seeing that the favourable moment which he had expected had arrived, immediately directed the phalangitae to lower their sarissae and attack in order; which the Achaeans obeyed with so much unanimity, and such a terrible shout, that the Lacedaemonians, whose ranks had been thrown into disorder in descending into the ditch, were so much terrified at the position of the enemy above them, that a part turned their backs and fled: while the greater part were killed in the ditch, some by the Achaeans, and some by their own people. All which happened, continues Polybius, not by accident, but in consequence of the foresight of the commander, who had placed his troops behind the ditch, not with a view to avoid the fight as some supposed, but because, with this ditch in front, Machanidas must either attack him to a disadvantage, or return ingloriously without engaging, either of which, in the actual circumstances, must be greatly advantageous to the Achaeans. The Lacedaemonian phalanx being defeated, Philopoemen next thought of completing the victory by preventing the escape of Machanidas, who, as soon as he discovered that his phalanx was routed, resolved to force his