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

ToposText · Col. William Leake · 1,407 sections

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§ 1.422 is of very doubtful authenticity. It occurs again in the Hymn to Apollo, together with some other lines, in all which the topography is confused and unintelligible upon any hypothesis. The verse was not admitted by Didymus, and was first added by Barnes upon the authority alone of Strabo. In support of the claim of the Messeniac Pylus it may be said, that the epithet sandy is peculiarly well suited to Coryphasium, which is a peninsula surrounded by an extensive plain of sand, now in great part occupied by a lagoon, but anciently, as it would appear from Pausanias and other authors, not so submerged. Strabo, it may be remarked on this head, conscious apparently that the epithet sandy would not apply to the Triphyliae Pylus, where there is no sand except on the sea-shore near Samicum and towards the Neda, is under the necessity of supposing that Πυλος ημαθοείς meant Pylus on the Amathus, a river not mentioned by any other author, but which he supposes to have been the same called in his time Mamaus, or Pamisus, or Arcadicus. In reference to the argument which Strabo derives from the too-great proximity of Coryphasium to the sea, because it would have been unnecessary for Telemachus
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§ 1.423 to have proceeded to the city in a chariot, or to have sent it afterwards to the sea-side for his companions, the objection would be valid enough, if the landing had taken place in the port of Voidhokilia, but if it was effected in the harbour of Navarin, where it is more probable that the temple of Neptune stood, the use of the chariot of Pisistratus would have been very convenient to Telemachus and his companions. But the strongest arguments in favour of Coρyphasium seem to be the two following, first, the much greater probability that Neleus should have chosen for his settlement a strong site and a fine harbour, than a place which afforded neither the one nor the other, and where Telemachus, having come from Ithaca with a brisk maestrale, such as Minerva gave him, could not have landed at all: — and, secondly, the situation of Coryphasium, or the Messenian Pylus, relatively to Pherae and Sparta. In fact, these three places lie exactly in a direct line; from Pylus to Pherae there is a distance of about thirty-five miles by the road, chiefly of level ground from Pherae to Sparta there are about twenty-eight miles, chiefly of mountain. Telemachus, going from Pylus to Sparta, drove his horses thither, without changing them, in two
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§ 1.424 days, lodging the first night at Pherae, and he returned to Pylus in the same manner. The position of Coryphasium, therefore, is perfectly conformable to this incident in the story, whereas, if the Triphyliac Pylus had been the residence of Nestor, Telemachus would have had a journey of sixty miles the first and the last days of his journey, and Pherae would not have been on his nearest road. The chief objection to Paleo Avarino as the site of a capital city, is the scarcity of water, an inconvenience which the Athenians experienced when they defended Coryphasium. It may, perhaps, have been one reason why Pylus never flourished as a city, except during the Neleian dynasty. After the return of the Heracleidae it seems to have gradually declined, until, at the end of the second Messenian war, the inhabitants migrated into Sicily, in preference to remaining under the Lacedaemonian yoke, and its name never occurs again in history until the Peloponnesian war, when we find it a “desert promontory.” Though Strabo and Pausanias shew that Pylus had so far revived in the time of the Roman empire as to possess some inhabitants, it was probably quite deserted before the middle ages, when we may suppose the
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§ 1.425 castle now existing with the name Avarino to have arisen. This name, I believe, is not found in history before the middle of the fifteenth century, when it occurs in the narrative of Phranza, and in a marginal note of Gemistus Pletho, as the situation of the Messenian Pylus. Chalcocondylaσ, relating the same transaction as Phranza, does not mention the name Avarino, though he speaks repeatedly of Pylus, prefering, undoubtedly, as in other instances, the classical to the real appellation. It is probable that the modern name is of the same date as the ruined castle to which it now belongs, and that it came into use together with the names Morea, Myzithra, Maini, Ieraki, Monemvasia, which, though we do not meet with them in the Byzantine history before the year 1300, are probably as early in their origin, or nearly so, as those of Ioannina and some others in northern Greece, which are found to have existed in the eleventh century. There is no portion of the Peloponnesus less noticed by ancient authors, than the part of Messenia lying between Coryphasium and Cyparissia, though its length is not less than twenty miles. It consists of a long and lofty ridge lying in a direction parallel to the shore, and
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§ 1.426 connected, eastward, with Mount Kondovuni and the mountain of Arkadhia. The ancient name of this ridge, at least in its southern part, appears from Strabo to have been Aegaleos, for under Aegaleos, according to the geographer, stood the Messenian Pylus, from whence, he says, when that city was ruined, some of the remaining inhabitants went to settle at the promontory Coryphasium, giving to it the name of Pylus. That he conceived the original Messenian Pylus and Coryphasium to have been separate places, though near to one another, is apparent, from his describing them as “maritime castles, situated at a distance of 400 stades from Pylus of Triphylia.” Pausanias has not noticed a single place between Pylus and Cyparissia, but Strabo twice mentions a town of Erana as so situated; he names another place Platamodes, distant 120 stades from Coryphasium and if his text be correct, a third called Cenerium. “Beyond Cyparissae is,” he says, “in sailing along the coast to the Messeniac Pylus and Coryphasium, there occurs Erana, which some improperly suppose to have been called Arene, being the same
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§ 1.427 name as that of the town near Pylus (of Triphylia ). There is likewise a certain Platamodes, from whence to Coryphasium, and the place which is now named Pylus, the distance is 120 stades. There is also a κενήριον (cenotaph) and a small town of that name.” It seems not improbable that Cenerium was the same old site of Pylus, which the geographer describes as lying under Mount Aegaleos, and that the name Cenerium was derived from a cenotaph of Neleus, or Nestor, which may have existed there. As Platamodes was 120 stades distant from Coryphasium, its situation appears to have been not far from that of Aia Kyriaki; Erana, therefore, according to Strabo, must have been between that position and Arkadhia. Pliny places a promontory, Platanodes, between the Alpheius and the Gulf of Cyparissia; in which, as we have just seen, be is at variance with the better authority of Strabo. But it is not improbable that he confounded Platanodes with Platanistus, and that Khaiaffa was the place intended by him, that being the only projection of the coast between the Alpheius and Cyparissia;
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§ 1.428 for that Platanistus was near Khaiaffa may be inferred from the circumstance of the temple of Neptune Samius, near Samicum, having been in the custody of the Macistii, or inhabitants of Macistus, which town in the time of Strabo was called Platanistus. The island opposite to Gargaliano still preserves its ancient name, Proti, though some of the Greek seamen, following the Italian corruption, call it Prodano. Ptolemy thus enumerates the places on the western coast of Messenia, in a direction from north to south. Cyparissiae, the promontory Cyparissium, the mouth of the river Sela, Pylus, the promontory Coryphasium, Methone. Hence it would seem that the promontory on the southern side of Arkadhia had no other distinction than the name of the neighbouring city. In like manner it is now known by that of the Cape of Arkadhia. Sela was probably the river Longovardho.
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§ 1.429 April 28. — This afternoon, at 3.10, in company with Kyr Ikonomopulo, I quit Navarin for Mothoni. The road leads between a desert hill at the back of Neokastro, and a high peaked mountain sloping on the north and west directly into the sea, and called Mount St. Nicholas, from a church of that saint near the summit, which is much frequented by the women of the neighbourhood on the saint's feast day, and some other occasions. The ruins of an old Venetian aqueduct are seen in the hollow near the road side: at 3.43 we are directly under the summit of St. Nicholas. At 4.10 enter the cornfields and olive plantations belonging to the Modon-Kazasi, or district of Mothoni, with a small village, called Opsimo, on the left. The soil is of a deep red colour, and not reckoned very good: it is prepared for kalambokki. From hence to Mothoni the road lies through plantations of olives. The Menzil distance from Neokastro is exactly two hours. At one mile and a half short of the town, I leave the road and turn to the hill on the right to see an excavation in the rock, which, since it ceased to be a Hellenic sepulchre, has been a chapel or hermitage, as appears by the remains of some Greek paintings; it now serves for a sheepfold, though still known by the name of the saint to whom it was dedicated, Aio Onofrio, or St. Humphrey. Mothoni is situated on the extreme point of a rocky ridge, which stretches southward along the coast from the foot of Mount St. Nicholas. Off the outer end of the town is the little insulated rock, which Pausanias calls Mothon, and which he describes as forming at once a narrow entrance and a shelter to the harbour of his time: it is now occupied by a tower and lantern, which is connected by a bridge with the fortification of Mothoni. A mole branches from it, which runs parallel to the eastern wall of the town, and forms a harbour for small vessels. It seems to be exactly in the position of the ancient port, the entrance into which was probably where the bridge now stands. My lodging is in a kiosque, or Turkish casino, in the garden of the commandant, Mehmet Aga. This garden and several others mixed with corn-fields and olive plantations, embellish a small plain on the eastern side of the town, in the midst of which there is a fine well, constructed by the Venetians, and a bridge over a torrent now dry. The place is suffering much from the want of rain.
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§ 1.430 April 29. — Visit Mehmet Aga and the town. Just within the land gate is the old Venetian piazza; in the midst of it stands the shaft of an ancient granite column about three feet in diameter and twelve feet high, with a barbarous base and capital, which appear to have been added by the Venetians when they fixed upon the top of it a figure of the Lion of St. Mark, the usual symbol of the Venetian Republic, and which the Turks of the Morea call “to aio skyli” “the sacred dog.” On one side of it I distinguish the following characters: COLL CCCCLXXXXIII HLICER HIC LGO SUPER on the opposite side these — R ORI FRANCISCI BR IIOSPICIT ALTA MARIS. The date appears to have been 1493, and the last words of the inscription “prospicit alta maris.” The lion, however, did not keep a good look-out, for Mothoni was taken from the Venetians by Sultan Bayazid the Second, only six years afterwards. There are steps leading up to the pedestal of the column. The town of Mothoni contains 400 Turkish families, living in poverty and idleness. Their chief traffic is in black slaves, whom they embark on the coast of Africa, and sell to the Musulmans of Greece. The fortifications are in a wretched state of repair, though in construction they are
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§ 1.432 far more respectable than those of Neokastro; the land-front has a much higher profile, and there is a ditch intended to be wet and to communicate from sea to sea, but now dry and full of rubbish. Towards the sea both towers and walls are falling to ruin. Mothoni is one of those convenient and important situations which have always been occupied: and hence it is that we find no remains of Hellenic antiquity, the materials having been long since converted to the repair of modern dwellings and fortifications. Strabo and other authors write the name M.euoivby Pausanias it is written, as at present, Μοΰωνη. The difference is merely dialectic, and the present form was perhaps always in use in Messenia. Pausanias remarked here a temple and statue of Minerva Anemotis, founded, it was said, by Diomedes, because, upon his prayers, the goddess mitigated the violence of the winds which injured the district, and thenceforth, adds Pausanias, the winds have continued to be moderate. Standing upon a promontory open to a great expanse of sea in the direction of the prevailing breezes, Mothoni enjoys a temperate and salubrious climate, though I doubt not, that in spite of Minerva it is often
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§ 1.433 exposed to furious gales in winter, and even in summer may have sometimes too much of the Etesian breezes. There was a temple of Diana at Methone, and a well of bituminous water, which Pausanias describes as similar to ointment of Cyzicus, both in smell and colour. I cannot learn any tidings of it. The Greeks of Mothoni live in a suburb [βαρούσι: This word, of Sclavonic derivation, is applied in every part of European Turkey, to the Christian quarter of a Turkish town.] on the height to the northward of the fortress, where are about forty houses. The villages of the Kaza, in number forty-five, are entirely inhabited by Greeks. The oil of the Vilayeti amounts in good years to 4000 barrels for exportation, besides what is consumed in the district. A small quantity of silk is usually put on board a ship from Tunis, which takes annually about 2500 okes of the same commodity from Koroni, and 3000 from Nisi: there is generally also some exportation of wine and cotton, in the vessels of the place. The islands of Sapienza and Skhiza, anciently called Oenussae, are considered, like those of Prote and Sphacteria, valuable for the pasture which they afford to cattle and horses in the spring. Between Sapienza and Skhiza there is another smaller island, a fourth much smaller in the channel between Sapienza and the bay of Mothoni, and two or three others near the coast to the northward of the town. I find here a person who calls himself Prince Joseph, but without adding to what family or nation he belongs. He has been several months in Jerusalem and other parts of Syria, and has now remained near a year at Mothoni, living in the house of Signor Rafaelli, the Consul of Ragusa; — without having visited any other part of the Morea. He attempts to speak Italian, but his language more resembles Latin, from which it seems probable that he is a Pole or Hungarian. He has spent a good deal of money, the greater part received for bills from poor Rafaelli, who will find, I suspect, that he has had the honour of entertaining an impostor.
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§ 1.434 April 30. — At 6.15 I quit the Aga's kiosk, and passing through the gardens and corn-fields in the valley of Mothoni, ascend the hill on the eastern side of the valley: at 6.55 the little village of Deliklitzi is on the left. For some distance the olive plantations continue, but afterwards the road leads over barren hills, till at 7.47 we halt for two or three minutes in a cultivated valley, at the head of an inlet of the sea opposite the east end of Skhiza, which island is by the Italians called Capri, or Cabrera. The inlet seems to be the port Phoenicus of Pausanias. At 8 we cross a river flowing into it from the village of Lakanadha, or rather of the Lakanadhes, for there are two of the name. At 8.35, on the right, not far from the innermost part of the inlet above mentioned, are ruins of a small village, apparently of the date of the lower empire. On the sea-side there is a guard tower on a hill: from hence we ascend the barren mountain, which, northward, is connected with Temathia, now Lykodhemo, and in the other direction ends in Cape Acritas, now called Kavo Gallo. At 9.11 arrive at the little village of Grivi on the top of the mountain, where we halt ten minutes. It would seem from Thucydides, that all this mountain was anciently covered with wood, for it was to Asine, the first town in the Messeniac gulf after doubling Cape Acritas, that the Lacedaemonians sent for timber for their works at Pylus. We soon begin to descend the mountain by a rocky road, and look down upon the forest of olives which surrounds Koroni to the distance of three miles. At 10.40 enter the cultivated country on the eastern side of the mountain at the village of Kadir-oglu which is surrounded with some fine cypress groves. Pass through olive grounds and corn fields, among which are
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§ 1.436 two or three small villages built of sun-baked bricks, and at 11.35, after traversing the Varusi, or Greek suburb of Koroni, arrive at the house of Mustafa Bey on the sea-side; his harem is in the castle, where, likewise, his four nephews have a serai. Another large house near the sea is occupied by Isa Bassa, a rich Turk, who has also a house in the castle: besides these chiefs there are about 200 Turkish families in the fortress, and 130 Greek in the suburb. The French Consul-General Vial resides in the Varusi, and a French merchant of the name of Sauveur, who has been established here for forty years. There is besides an Imperial Vice-Consul, who acts also for Russia, and an agent for the Seven Islands; both natives of those islands. The Greek Varusi as well as the Turkish town in the castle is built of sun-baked bricks; the Turkish houses are in a state of ruin and desolation, but the fortress itself is in better repair and of a better construction than those of Neokastro and Mothoni. To the west, indeed, there is a hill called Purgo, which is only 200 yards distant from, and nearly on a level with, the ramparts: but it is well seen by a flanking gun on the south, which side of the castle slopes considerably to the south-east There is a dry ditch, but the only outwork is a wall on the crest of the counterscarp. A plan
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§ 1.437 of the fortress is given by Coronelli, since whose time little alteration has been made. The castle-hill is very steep on all sides, and seems to have been the acropolis of the ancient city, which occupied this site, and of which nothing is now left but some cisterns and remains of walls on the hill of Purgo, and on a low point called Livadhia, which projects from the eastern side of the castle 400 yards into the sea. It is rocky and impracticable to a landing, except in the finest weather; but there is a little space of sandy beach under the Varusi, on the north-west side of the castle, which often admits of an easy debarkation. There is another sandy beach, which extends for two miles along the shore on the south-west, but it is much exposed to a surf from the southward. The anchorage of Koroni is so very subject to this inconvenience, that vessels are frequently driven ashore; but as the bottom is in most parts a soft sand, they often escape without much damage. In good years the export of oil from Koroni amounts to 15,000 barrels; but here, as elsewhere, the alternate crops of oil are generally deficient. There is little doubt that the failure is in great measure to be ascribed to the practice of beating down the fruit with long sticks, which strews the ground with almost as many
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§ 1.438 fragments of young branches as fruit. Both the practice and its effects were well known to the ancients. The only other commodity exported from Koroni is the silk already mentioned. The grain grown in the district is barely sufficient for its consumption. The kaza contains seventy-five villages, the greater part of which are small, and dispersed among the olive plantations round the town. There is also a fertile valley between this place and Petalidhi, in which there are eight or ten villages, and a river called Kakorema. On the side of Mount Temathia stands Longa, one of the largest villages in the district of Koroni, and below it, near the sea on the southern side of the valley, Kastelia, a name which indicates an ancient site, and where, as I am informed, there are still some remains of antiquity, but of what age I cannot learn. At Petalidhi several persons have described to me remains which seem clearly to be those of a Hellenic town, situated at a small distance from the shore of the harbour. Among them are said to be some fragments of columns; but the anchorage being considered the best on this side of the gulf, the ancient remains are much
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§ 1.439 exposed to depredation, and the site is now said to consist of little more than ploughed fields. A third position in which there are said to be remains of antiquity is Saratjaa village of the district of Koroni, situated on, or near, the coast about midway between Koroni and Cape Gallo. In comparing the ancient and modern geography of Greece, it is seldom we can venture to reject the testimony of an identity of name, when there is neither proof nor probability of the place having ever been uninhabited. In the instance of Corone, however, it is impossible to refuse conviction to the concurrent testimony of Strabo and Pausanias, or to avoid the conclusion that Petalidhi, and not the modern Koroni, is the site of the ancient city of this name. The remarks of Strabo which bear upon the question are few and incidental; the description of the country by Pausanias is, as usual, much more detailed and methodical. The following extract contains every part of it that in any way relates to topography. “From Messene to the mouth of the Pamisus there is a road of eighty stades in length. The Pamisus runs through the cultivated land with a clear stream, and is navigable to ships as far as ten stades from the sea: sea-fish ascend
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§ 1.440 into it, chiefly in the spring. This occurs also in the Rhone and Maeander, and particularly in the Achelous, where this river enters the sea near the islands Echinades. But the fish which enter the Pamisus are such as are bred in pure water, and not those which delight iu muddy water, like that of the aforesaid rivers; the grey mullet for example, which is one of the muddy fishes and delights in turbid rivers. To the right of the Pamisus is the city Corone, situated near the sea, under the mountain Temathia: on the road thither, there is a place on the sea sided which is considered sacred to Ino, for they say she landed there from the sea, being already considered a goddess, and called Leucothea, instead of Ino. A little farther forward, the river Bias falls into the sea, so named, it is said, from the son of Amythaon. Twenty stades distant from the road is the fountain Plataniston, which flows from a large hollow
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§ 1.441 plane tree, resembling a small cavern within, and supplies Corone with water for drinking. The ancient name of this city was Epeia; but when, by means of the Thebans, the Messenians were restored to Peloponnesus, it is said that Epimelides, who was sent to be the founder, called it Coroneia, because he was from Coroneia in Boeotia; that the Messenians were not in the beginning correct in the name, (calling it Corone instead of Coroneia ) and that their error has been confirmed by time. But there is another story, concerning the nomination of the city, namely that those who were digging the foundations of the wall found a brazen crow. There is a temple in Corone of Diana Paedotrophus, and temples of Bacchus and of Aesculapius, which contain statues of the gods in stone. In the agora there is a brazen statue of Jupiter Soter, and in the acropolis, in the open air, a brazen statue of Minerva holding a crow in her hand. I saw also a monument of Epimelides. Why they call the harbour the port of the Achaeans I do not know. Eighty stades beyond Corone stands a temple of Apollo near the sea, much honoured by the Messenians, who assert that it is extremely ancient, and that the god,
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§ 1.442 who is surnamed Corynthus, cures diseases. There is a wooden statue of Apollo Corynthus, and another in brass of Apollo Argeus, said to have been dedicated by those who sailed in the ship Argo. Colonides borders on Corone. The town stands upon a height at a short distance from the sea.” The natives affirm that they are not Messenians, but a colony brought from Attica by Colaenus, who, by command of the oracle, followed hither a lark, and that in process of time they adopted the Doric dialect and manners. “The Asinaei in the beginning inhabited on the borders of the Lycoritae of Mount Parnassus, and were called from their founder Dryopes, which name they brought with them to the Peloponnesus. At first they inhabited Asine near Hermione; being ejected from thence by the Argives, they received a portion of Messenia from the Lacedaemonians. The Asinaei are the only people of the race of the Dryopes who take a pride in the name, and they have evidently made the most venerated of their sanctuaries in memory of those formerly established in Parnassus. Such are the temple of Apollo, and the sanctuary and ancient statue of Dryops, in whose honour they have a yearly ceremony,
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§ 1.443 saying that he was the son of Apollo. The city, like the former Asine in Argolis, is situated upon the sea-side; there is a road of forty stades to it from Colonides, and another of the same distance from Asine to the place called Acritas, which projects into the sea, and has before it a desert island called Theganusa. Beyond Acritas is the port Phoenicus, and before it the islands Oenussae.” In this passage all that relates to the Pamisus, the Bias, Cape Acritas, the islands Theganusa and Oenussae, seem to require no other comment than the map and the itinerary. The positions of Corone, Colonides, and Asine, are the only difficulty. As to the last, indeed, there wants only a confirmation of the existence of Hellenic remains at Saratza, to prove that place to be the site of Asine, since both Strabo and Pausanias represent Asine to have been the nearest town to Cape Acritas, now called Gallo, and the position of Saratza, at three geographical miles and a half in direct distance from that promontory, agrees perfectly with the forty stades of road distance which Pausanias indicates between Asine and Acritas. There would then remain only to be assigned the positions of Corone, the Coryntheium, and Colonides. The
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§ 1.444 first, as I have already observed, notwithstanding the strong evidence of the name Koroni in a different position, appears to have been at Petalidhi; for Strabo and Pausanias concur in placing Corone towards the head of the Messeniae gulf and the mouth of the Pamisus; Strabo, by expressly asserting that the Pamisus joined the sea near Corone, in the middle of the gulf, Pausanias, by observing that Corone was situated to the right of the Pamisus. No person would think of giving such descriptions of the modern Koroni. Again, Pausanias describes Corone as situated under Mount Temathia. There is no other mountain that will answer to Temathia, than that which is now called Lykodhemo, and the highest summit of which rises from the coast a little to the southward of Petalidhi. It is prolonged southward in a gradually falling ridge till it terminates in Cape Acritas. The town of Koroni is not situated under any mountain, but stands on a promontory surrounded by a fertile plain, which is bounded on every side by the lower branches of the ridge already mentioned. The designation of “under Temathia” applies much better, therefore, to Petalidhi than to Koroni. If Corone was at Petalidhi, the modern
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§ 1.445 Koroni probably occupies the site of Colonides, its distance from Cape Gallo according with the eighty stades of road distance, which Pausanias has given between Colonides and Cape Acritas. The resemblance of the names, Colonides and Corone, may easily account for the substitution of the one for the other in the barbarous ages, which gave rise to the new nomenclature of Greece. Or it is not impossible that when the fertility of the surrounding plain, or the maritime commerce, or the security, or whatever else may have been the attractions of the modern Koroni, caused the greater part of the population of the western side of the Messeniae gulf to be there collected; either an attach ment to the name, which had formerly been that of the principal town, or a large proportion of emigrants from the ancient Corone may have induced the community to substitute the name of Corone for that of Colonides. We have other examples to shew that the modern Greeks have sometimes made a new and different local application of the ancient names of places. In the Morea, those of Arcadia of Achaea may be cited, and that of Mantineia at the head of the Thuriate gulf. In northern Greece, the name of Ambracia, which has been transferred from its former site to a place on the opposite side of the Gulf of Arta, is an example still more exactly in coincidence with what I suppose to have occurred in the case of Corone; in all these instances the names have probably been applied to new positions, by colonists from the old sites. It will be a further consequence of placing Corone at Petalidhi, that the temple of Apollo Corynthus stood near Kastelia, the distance of this place from Petalidhi answering sufficiently to the eighty stades of Pausanias. His words, προς θαλάσση, would seem to place the Coryntheium nearer to the shore than Kastelia; the remains of antiquity therefore, which seem to have given rise to the latter name, may possibly be of Christian times. Pausanias has not indicated the distance between the Coryntheium and Colonides, but he appears to assign the Coryntheium to the Coronaea, and to place to the southward of that temple the boundary line between the districts of Corone and Colonides; and this accords exactly with the natural formation of the country, if the shore below Kastelia be assumed for the situation of the Coryntheium, for not far to the southward of this position a branch of Mount Temathia, advancing to the sea, separates the valleys of Kastelia and Koroni, and forms a very natural frontier to two adjacent districts.
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§ 1.446 May 3. — A fatal dispute has just occurred between two Turks; one a janissary of the Septinsular Consul, the other a distributor of corn from the Bey's magazine. The Consul wished to transport some corn privately to Mani, where the distress has become still greater than when I was there, but where, according to the Messenians, money can generally be found when the occasion requires it. The janissary applied to the distributor, as if for himself: the distributor would not give the proportion he desired, on which the janissary abused the keeper of the magazine and beat his Greek servant. The affair was made up for the moment, but the relatives on both sides having interfered, a challenge ensued, and the two parties met yesterday evening at the castle-gate, when they came to blows with yataghans. The guardian of the Bey's corn, finding the adverse knives likely to prevail, drew a pistol from his girdle and shot the janissary, and before the affray ceased, the janissary's father also was mentally wounded, as well as one of the opposite party. The brother of the janissary immediately mounted his horse and rode to Petalidhi, with the intention of murdering the distributor's brother, but one of Mustafa Bey's nephews anticipated him by sending advice to the man at Petalidhi, who by that means escaped. On the return of
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§ 1.448 the slain janissary's brother from Petalidhi this morning, he was forbidden to land, and sent by the Bey to conceal himself in Mani. The Greeks give melancholy accounts of the atrocities of these janissaries of Koroni, who are gradually reducing to desolation the beautiful region of olives, vineyards, and gardens, which surround the town. Before the year 1770, there were four French mercantile houses here, who exported grain, oil, and silk, from this and the surrounding districts. I sail over to Kalamata this afternoon in four hours: — a brisk imbat with intervals of calm. The classical traveller cannot be many days in Greece, without remarking numerous instances in which the present people retain both the customs of the earliest ages, and the modes of expressing them in language. But although every part of the history of Greece may occasionally be illustrated by existing customs [The Greek insurrection has furnished the most remarkable proofs of the identity of this people: scarcely a transaction has occurred, to which one does not find some parallel in Grecian history, and generally in that of the ruder districts or remoter ages of Greece.], it is observable that they more frequently coincide with the simplicity of archaic manners, than with those of the more civilized ages of
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§ 1.449 Greece — a very natural effect of the recurrence of the nation to a sort of semi-barbarism, in which, though they cannot attain to the virtues nourished by liberty and independence, they have at least acquired some of those derived from adversity and the absence of luxury, and these have naturally been accompanied by the ruder and simpler manners of their distant ancestors. The wars of the Suliotes and other mountaineers, furnish many points of resemblance with those of the Messenians in the seventh and eighth centuries before the Christian aera. The navigation of a people so essentially maritime as the Greeks, naturally offers frequent instances of the preservation of ancient customs, but though a large proportion, both of words and things used in the res nautica, has always been the same, we do not derive much assistance in understanding the naval affairs of the meridian times of the history of Greece from its modern navigation, which, with the exception of the European improvements recently introduced in some of the islands, more closely resembles that of the most distant ages. The ευρεια σχεδιη or broad ship, built by Ulysses in the island of Calypso, seems to have been just such a boat as that in which I am now embarked, except that his had only one mast, and the latter has two. The fascines which
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§ 1.450 envelop its gunwale, and so well protect it from the waves or from the danger of a sudden heel, are exactly described by Homer. But they have lost their ancient name ριπες, at least in this part of Greece, and are called καλαμωτάρια. They are now generally made of vine branches. [Thus translated by Pope: — “With yielding osiers fenced, to break the force Of surging waves.” Where the English poet, not having any word for ρίπες, the thing itself being unknown among us, changed it for an unmeaning epithet.] I find a great difference between the temperature of Koroni and that of Kalamata, which is one of the hottest situations in the Morea, and I observe that when the imbat is fresh at Koroni, and towards the mouth of the gulf, it often does not reach the inner part: — in the middle of summer, the maestrale blows with great force in the afternoon, but coming across the heated mountains and plains, lying between the coast of Navarino and Kalamata, it is far less refreshing than the maestrale of Mothoni and the western coast. My host, Kyr Elias, tells me, that one of the family of the Medici of Florence was formerly wrecked at Vitylo, and lived there for many years: that the descendants of this person assumed the name of Ιατριάνοι, by a translation
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§ 1.451 of the word Medici, and that the family is still one of the principal in Vitylo, and commands 250 muskets. My informant is related to the family, though he does not bear the name. This is the reverse of the story of the Bonapartes of Corsica from the Καλομέροι of Vitylo, and perhaps has no better foundation.
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§ 1.452 CHAPTER XI: MESSENIA. ARCADIA. As Messenia, during three centuries, was erased from the map of Greece, if I may be allowed to use a modern phrase, which would be more appropriate if we could be assured that there ever existed a map of Greece until the present time, it is necessary, in endeavouring to trace the ancient geography of this province, to advert to the particular period of Messenian history to which it is to be applied, and to distinguish between the times before the Laconian conquest and those which followed the restoration of Messenian independence. This consideration may justify me in entering more historically into the subject of the topography of this, than of any other province of the Peloponnesus. Of the seven cities which Agamemnon in the Iliad offers to Achilles, to induce him to return
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§ 1.453 into the field, Pherae and Cardamyle alone preserved their Homeric names in the time of the Roman empire. Of the others the situation was open to dispute. Strabo says, that Ire was supposed by some persons to have stood between Andania and Megalopolis, by others to have been at Messola, in the gulf between Taygetum and Messenia. The latter description of the position of Ire applies exactly to the bay of Kitries, in the middle of which stood Abia, and it is in harmony therefore with the local tradition reported by Pausanias, namely, that Abia Stood on the site of Ire, and received its new name from the nurse of Hercules c. Enope, according to some opinions, was the same place as the Pelana of the time of Strabo, concerning the position of which there is nothing to guide us. Other persons placed Enope near Cardamyle, while others again, with whom Pausanias agreed, supposed it to have been the same place as Gerenia. Thuria will answer either to Aepeia or to Antheia; to the former, by its lofty situation,
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§ 1.454 to the latter, by the conformity of its meadows on the banks of the Aris with the epithet βαθυλείμων, which Homer applies to Antheia. The Thuriatae were attached to the latter hypothesis, the chief objection to which seems to to be, that there was no other lofty situation corresponding to the name Aepeia. Pausanias, however, does not hesitate in placing this Homeric site at Corone. Others, according to Strabo, considered Corone to have been the Homeric Pedasus, and Asine to have been Antheia. Strabo remarks that these cities must have been under the domination of Menelaus before the Trojan war; otherwise, he asks, how could Agamemnon have offered to give away places which neither belonged to himself nor his brother. It may be observed, however, that as these towns did not contribute to the Trojan armament, the Atreidae could hardly have had much influence over them. Nor were they under the authority of Nestor; for the Catalogue shews that when the Trojan expedition was assembled, his dominions were confined to the northern and western parts of Messenia, neither including Methone to the south, nor Oichalia to the eastward΄although there seems no doubt, from the words νεαται Πύλου ημαθεντος,
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§ 1.455 applied by the poet to the seven cities, that they had all once formed a part of the kingdom of the Neleidae, and probably for a long space of time. The fact therefore seems to have been, that as these cities, at the time of the Trojan expedition, neither obeyed Nestor nor Menelaus, nor had thought proper to follow the fortunes of the Atridae, by contributing to the Trojan armament, Agamemnon had the less scruple in offering them to Achilles, whose power, added to that of Menelaus, they could not have any hopes of resisting, should they be so disposed. Strabo and Pausanias differ with regard to the Homeric Oichalia; the former considered it to have been the same place as Andania; the latter to have occupied the site of the Carnasium of his time. The opinion of Pausanias having been founded upon an actual inspection of the places, added to a diligent study of all the monuments and ancient poetical documents which threw light on the early history of Messenia, is much more worthy of attention than that of Strabo, who, not having had an accurate knowledge of the county, may easily have confounded two places which were only a mile asunder. Andania, according to Pausanias, was
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§ 1.456 the first Messenian capital: it was founded by Polycaon, the son of Lelex, and husband of Messene, and it continued to be the residence of five generations of his successors, as well as that of Perieres, son of Aeolus, the founder of a new dynasty. This sovereign having rewarded the services of Melaneus, a man renowned for his skill in archery, and hence called the son of Apollo, with a grant of land near Andania, Melaneus there founded a town to which he gave the name of his wife, Oichalia. Eurytus, whose memory was long venerated by the Messenians, succeeded his father, Melaneus, in the possession of this part of Messenia; he seems to be the same person mentioned by Homer, in alluding to the death of Thamyris at Dorium though the poet designates that person as the son of Oichaleus. Meantime, Aphareus, son of Perieres, who had bestowed Pylus upon Neleus, a fugitive to Messenia from Iolcus, founded, for his own family, Arene, which, as we have already seen, was probably the Samicum of the time of the Roman empire, or the modern Khaiaffa. On the death of the two sons of Aphareus, Nestor became the sovereign of Messenia, and Pylus
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§ 1.457 consequently succeeded to Arene, as the royal residence. We are told by Strabo, upon the authority of Ephorus that one of the first acts of the Heracleidae, upon entering into possession of the conquered provinces of the Peloponnesus, was to form a new subdivision of each of them; and that while Eurysthenes and Procles divided Laconia into six parts, Cresphontes partitioned Messenia into five, the chief places of which appear from Strabo and from Stephanus, who probably followed Strabo, to have been named Stenyclerus, Pylus, Rhium, Messola, and Hyameia. Cresphontes made Stenyclerus the royal residence, and built a palace there for the use of himself and his successors. The establishment of the other four cities was connected with a benevolent design entertained by Cresphontes, of amalgamating his Doric colonists with the Messenians, and of granting to the conquered people the same privileges enjoyed by his own followers; having probably been induced to this policy, which differed from that of the Heracleidae occupants Laconia, by the circumstance that none of the Messenians had migrated from their country on this occasion, as the Achaeans had done from Laconia. Finding,
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§ 1.458 however, that his Dorians were adverse to the project, he collected them all in Stenyclerus, and declared it the only city in Messenia. But these concessions appear to have been insufficient, for we are told by Pausanias that Cresphontes and all his sons, except Aepytus, lost their lives by a conspiracy of the great proprietors, who were offended at his shewing too much favour to the people. Aepytus was then very young, and was living with his father-in-law Cypselus, king of Arcadia. He was afterwards restored to his kingdom by the aid of the Arcadians and some chiefs of Doric race, after which the Aepytidae continued to reign in Stenyclerus to the sixth generation from Aepytus, when the first Messenian war with Sparta began. Each of the Aepytidae is noticed by Pausanias for the introduction of some new religious worship into Messenia, with the exception of Dotadas, son of Isthmius, who, more intent, apparently, upon political than religious affairs, added Mothone to the other naval arsenals or harbours of Messenia. Of the five divisions of Messenia just enumerated, Stenyclerus probably contained all the upper Messenian plain above the ridge of Skala, together with the surrounding hills. The city
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§ 1.459 itself we may suppose to have occupied some position in the plain, between the site of Oichalia and Skala. Messola still preserved its name in the time of Strabo and was situated, as I have already remarked, near the coast lying between Cape Kurtissa and Kalamata. Rhium also was near the interior part of the Messeniac gulf, for thus undoubtedly we must interpret the Θουριατης κόλπος, or Thuriate gulf, in which Strabo says that Rhium was situated; the outer part of the same great gulf having, according to the geographer, been called Messeniac, or Asinaean b. He adds, that Rhium was απεναντιον Ταιναρου, other MSS. have Τενεδου and Ταινεδου — perhaps Tαϋγετου is the right word; for as to Taenarum, no place on the western coast, except the vicinity of Cape Acritas, not even the modern Koroni, is in sight from Taenarum. Upon the whole, therefore, it seems probable that Messola and Rhium shared between them all the Messenian plain below the ridge of Skala, from the borders of Laconia to Mount Temathia, the Pamisus perhaps forming the boundary between them. Pylus, it may be supposed, occupied all the south-western extremity of Messenia, and Hyameia all the
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§ 1.460 northwestern part, as far north along the western coast as Messenia then extended. Its limits, undoubtedly, were not then by any means so extensive in that direction, as the Pylian kingdom under the Neleidae had been, when the Alpheius washed their territory on either bank, for the Eleians were now in possession of Olympia, and a Doric dynasty reigned over the Eleia and Pisatis. After the first Messenian war, at the same time that the Lacedaemonians gave Asine to the Asinaei of Argolis, Hyameia was bestowed upon the posterity of Androcles, one of the Aepytidae who had been slain in a contest with his brother Antiochus, and whose family had fled to Sparta. The Androclidae, notwithstanding, joined the Messenians in the second war, and two of them were slain in the principal action of that war, called the Battle at the Great Dike. For the history of the Messenian wars with Sparta, which form one of the most interesting chapters in Grecian history, we are indebted almost exclusively to Pausanias. Although compiled by an author who lived eight centuries after the events, from the materials of other writers who lived four centuries after them, the narrative has a greater semblance of
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§ 1.461 authenticity than many parts of the history of Greece much more recent. From the prose composition of Myron of Priene, Pausanias derived the history of the first war; from the poem of Rhianus; all the remaining transactions, and the better taste of the time of his authorities seems to have diffused itself over his text. The only coetaneous author whose works he could have consulted, but from which he could have derived only a few leading facts, was Tyrtaeus, an Athenian poet and schoolmaster, who resided at Sparta during the second war, and who was said to have been present at the battle of the Great Dike. The Lacedaemonians had felt the full effects of the institutions of Lycurgus, in forming a military people formidable to all their neighbours, when the affray at Limnae, differently related by the two parties, but certainly involving the death of Teleclus, king of Sparta, furnished a pretext, although not until after the interval of another generation, for the first Messenian war, which began in the second year of the 9th Olympiad, B.C. 743. An expedition was prepared at Sparta with the greatest secrecy; Ampheia was taken by surprise, and the people massacred in their beds, or at the altars of the gods.
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§ 1.462 This fortress stood upon a lofty hill, abounding in springs, near the confines of Laconia. It appears to have been not far from the route leading from the northern part of the Peloponnesus into Messenia; for when the Messenians, at a later period of the war, had retired into Ithome, and, finding themselves much distressed, sent Tisis to consult the oracle at Delphi, he was attacked on his return by a part of the Lacedaemonian garrison of Ampheia, and narrowly escaped being taken or slain. As the great route into Messenia on this side must, from the nature of the country, have always led through the pass now called the Derveni of Mount Makryplai, there is a great probability that Ampheia was the Hellenic ruin, now called the Castle of Xuria, which is situated on that mountain, two or three miles to the southward of the pass. The three years which followed the taking of Ampheia were employed by the king of Messenia, Euphaes, son of Antiochus, in exercising his forces, and in laying waste the parts of Laconia towards Mount Taygetum and the seacoast; while the Lacedaemonians made on their part some fruitless attempts on the Messenian towns. In the fourth year, Euphaes, having drawn out his army on the frontier, was met by
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§ 1.463 the Lacedaemonians, as soon as they had advice of the movement from their garrison at Ampheia. The king of Messenia, however, had no intention to hazard a general action, for he brought with him a great number of servants, with materials for intrenching, and drew up his hoplitae behind a deep ravine, which prevented any conflict between the heavy-armed; and after a day passed in an equal combat between the cavalry and light-armed of either party, he intrenched his position, both in the flanks and rear. The Lacedaemonians, not thinking it prudent to attack under such circumstances, returned home. As the parties on this occasion seem to have advanced respectively from Stenyclerus and Ampheia, it seems evident that the χαραδρα, or torrent, at which they encountered, was the same as the river Charadrus, which flowed by Oichalia, which joins the Balyra or modern Vasiliko, near the bridge of Mavrozumeno, not far from the foot of Mount Ithome, and which lay exactly between the sites of Stenyclerus and Ampheia. In the ensuing year the Lacedaemonians commanded by both their kings, and, assisted by the Asinaei, the Dryopes, and a body of mercenary Cretan archers, entered Messenia, and a battle ensued, which, notwithstanding the
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§ 1.464 superiority of the Lacedaemonians both in the number and quality of their force, ended with such a doubtful result, that neither party erected a trophy. It was almost entirely a combat of hoplitae, and consequently the more destructive. The light-armed were inactive, and of cavalry there were very few engaged either in this or any of the other general actions of the Messenian wars; the Peloponnesians, as Pausanias remarks, having as yet made little progress in the equestrian branch of the art of war. The scene of action appears to have been in the same part of the frontier as on the former occasion Although this event was in the highest degree glorious to the Messenians, it led to nothing but disaster: each year produced a diminution in their warlike resources of every kind, the country from which they drew their subsistence was reduced to a smaller compass, their ranks were thinned, their slaves deserted, and these difficulties having been greatly increased by the effects of the last battle, they found themselves at length under the necessity of abandoning all the inland towns, and of retiring into Ithome. Eight years afterwards, in the thirteenth year of the war, the enemy led an army against Ithome, but they were repulsed in a battle in which Euphaes was mortally wounded. In the eighteenth year another action took place at
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§ 1.465 the foot of Mount Ithome, wherein the allies on both sides were engaged, namely, the Corinthians for the Lacedaemonians, and the Argives, Arcadians, and Sicyonii for the Messenians. The Messenians were completely victorious, but it was a victory which led almost as surely to their ruin, as a defeat could have done. So hopeless did affairs appear to Aristodemus the king, that he soon afterwards slew himself in despair; and at length the Messenian commanders, in the twentieth year of the war, being closely blockaded in Ithome, and almost famished, abandoned the place which was immediately destroyed by the victorious enemy. The people then either dispersed themselves through the territories of their allies, or submitted to the hard condition of carrying half the yearly produce of their soil to Sparta. But this was a burthen too heavy to be long borne. Forty years after the capture and destruction of Ithome, the second Messenian war, or, as Polybius calls it, the Aristomeneian war, began by a revolt chiefly set on foot by the young men of Andania, and headed by Aristomenes, whose wonderful efforts of ingenuity and activity in annoying or eluding his adversaries
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§ 1.466 were the principal theme of the poem of Rhianus, of which he was the hero, like Achilles in the Iliad. One of the first exploits of Aristomenes, and which was intended to impress the Spartans with an early terror of his name, was to penetrate into the temple of Minerva Chalcioecus, in the acropolis of Sparta, and to suspend there a shield, inscribed as a dedication to the goddess from the spoils of the Lacedaemonians. His subsequent expeditions, while the Messenians remained in possession of Stenyclerus and Andania, were to Pharis, in the plain of Sparta, to Caryae, not far from the borders of the Tegeatis, and to Aegila, on the shore of the Laconic Gulf, at all which places suddenly appearing, he collected spoil and made prisoners, whom he afterwards released for a ransom. In his retreat from Pharis he was wounded, at Aegila he was taken, but escaped the same night. At the opening of the Aristomeneian war, the other neighbours of Laconia, alarmed at the growing power of Sparta, came forward to the assistance of Messenia, and formed a powerful alliance against her enemy. In the first action of the war, however, there were no auxiliaries present on either side; it was fought, in the first
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§ 1.467 year after the revolt, at Derae in Messenia, a place of which the situation is quite uncertain. In the following year there was a general action in the plain of Stenyclerus, at a place called Caprusema, or “the monument of the boar.” The Eleians were here united with the Messenians, as well as the Arcadians, Argives, and Sicyonii. The Lacedaemonians and Corinthians were completely defeated. The third and last battle of the second Messenian war occurred in the third year, at a place called the great dike. The only allies of Messenia present were the Arcadians. Andania being at that time the chief town and strong hold of the Messenians, it is probable that the taphros was not far from that place. In consequence of the treachery of Aristocrates, king of Arcadia, who had been bribed by the Lacedaemonians, and who drew off his troops in the middle of the action, the Messenians were entirely defeated, and compelled in consequence to abandon Andania, and to retreat to Mount Eira. Here they were blockaded for eleven years, during which Aristomenes, at the head of a chosen band of 300, frequently repeated his adventurous expeditions into Laconia and Messenia, both which provinces he now considered equally hostile. On one occasion he penetrated to Amyclae, and
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§ 1.468 on another surprised and destroyed a body of Corinthian auxiliaries on their march. Twice he was made prisoner, and escaped; in one instance, from some Cretan archers, who surprised him during a truce, the second time out of the Ceadas, or prison, of Sparta itself. In short, so completely did Aristomenes succeed in appropriating the produce of the enemy's country to the support of Eira, that at length a dearth of corn, and a consequent insurrection took place in Sparta. The treachery of the king of Arcadia, of which Aristomenes was yet ignorant, still continued, however, to counteract his exertions, and at length, at the end of eleven years, Eira was surprised by the enemy while Aristomenes was suffering under the effects of a wound. He nevertheless fought his way through the besiegers, and retired to Mount Lycaeum, where he was met by a body of Arcadians coming to his assistance. As soon as the Arcadians detected the conduct of Aristocrates, they stoned him to death, destroyed all his family, and abolished the regal government. But the mischief which he had caused was irreparable. The data furnished by Pausanias for discovering the position of Eira, are the following. It was on, or below, a mountain of the same name, and so near the Neda, that the women of
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§ 1.469 Eira, who dwelt without the walls, were in the habit of drawing water from the river. After the defeat at the great foss, the Delphic oracle predicted to Aristomenes and his prophet Theoclus, that Messene (i.e. Eira ) would fall when a goat should drink of the Neda. It became an object, therefore, with the Messenians in Eira to prevent their goats from drinking out of the Neda. But τράγος, the word used by the oracle, signified, in the Messenian dialect, a wild fig-tree as well as a goat; and Theoclus having found a wild fig-tree below Eira, with the extremities of its branches in the river, considered the oracle as accomplished. This he communicated to Aristomenes, who soon afterwards fought his way, as just stated, through the besiegers, and retired to Mount Lycaeum. It seems also that Eira was at no great distance from the sea, and consequently from the mouth of the Neda, for the Messenians in Eira were in the habit of receiving supplies from Cephallenian merchants, and they maintained a communication with their friends in Pylus and Methone, two Messenian fortresses which still held out against the enemy. As the Neda, moreover, had its origin in Mount Lycaeum, flowing first, as Pausanias describes it, through Arcadia, and then winding towards Messenia, it could only
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§ 1.470 have been in the lower part of its course that it touched or traversed the Messenian boundary. It would seem, therefore, that Mount Eira was that ridge of hills lying between the Neda and the valley of Arkadhia (Cyparissia), which ends towards the sea in a projecting hill, where the Aulon of Pausanias was situated, not far southward of the mouth of the Neda, and that the fortress of Eira must have been in some defensible point of the mountain adjacent to the left bank of the Neda, in the lower part of its course. Here, driven out of the rest of their country, the Messenians occupied a position distant from the Laconic frontiers, closely bordering upon the friendly provinces of Elis and Arcadia, open to a retreat to Mount Lycaeum, and easily communicating with the sea, and by that means with Pylus and Methone. With the inhabitants of these two places a large proportion of the Messenians united, after the abandonment of Eira, and emigrated to Rhegium. [Pausanias supposed that these Messenians occupied Zancle, and gave it the name of Messana; but Herodotus and Thucydides ascribe the change of name to a period 160 years later, when Zancle was occupied by the Messenians of Rhegium. That the latter is the correct history, has been proved from the coins of Messana, by Mr. Millingen. — Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, Vol I. part 2. p. 93.] Two centuries after the fall of Eira, and thirty-four years
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§ 1.471 before the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, the Helotes, a name then comprising the Messenians, took advantage of the confusion into which Sparta was thrown by an earthquake. Ithome was seized by the revolters, and so unskilled were the Lacedaemonians in sieges, that it was held by the Messenians against every effort of their adversaries for ten years, at the end of which time they were allowed to retire with their families, and were settled by the Athenians in Naupactus. They were very useful auxiliaries to their benefactors during the greater part of the Peloponnesian war, on which account, as well as from ancient hatred, they were expelled from Naupactus when the Lacedaemonians attained the ascendancy in Greece in consequence of the battle of Aegospotami. Some then went to join their brethren in Sicily, others to found a colony in Libya. Thucydidesa, in relating the Helote insurrection, which has sometimes been called the third Messenian war, speaks of the Thuriatae and Aetheenses, as Messenian people in the neighbourhood of Ithome. The latter of these two are not mentioned by any other author. I should conjecture that they occupied the valleys watered by the branches of the Bias to the south-westward of the modern Andrussa, which
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§ 1.472 may possibly stand on the site of Aetheum; this district being at about the same distance from Ithome as Thuria is in the opposite direction, and none of the other places mentioned in history being near this region, of which the natural advantages must have always made it an important member of the Messenian state. It was not until three centuries after the capture of Eira that the independence of Messenia was restored, in consequence of the defeat of the Lacedaemonians by the Boeotians at Leuctra, when the new city of Messene was founded. From this time the Messenians again took their station among the independent states of Greece, until the whole country fell under the power of Rome. The Lacedaemonians, during the long period in which they kept Messenia in a state of vassalage, had, according to a common practice of conquerors, destroyed all the fortresses, except such as were necessary for a few garrisons of their own; and hence it happens that, with the exception of Andania, where are some vestiges rather than ruins of the massive works which once defended that site, there are not to be found, in Messenia, any of those remains of fortresses of a remote age, such as Arcadia, Boeotia, Phocis, and many other parts of Greece still preserve in abundance, nor any Hellenic walls of an earlier date than the foundation of Messene. The same observation will apply to Laconia, the inhabitants of which were, in geeral, kept by the Spartans in nearly the same state of vassalage as the Messenians themselves. We know, moreover, that it was in the spirit of the Spartan system, in its best times, to despise fortresses and to rely entirely for the defence of the country on discipline and valour in the field. Epaminondas wisely perceived that there was no effectual mode of curbing the Spartans, but by giving strength and union to the neighbouring states. He collected together, therefore, the scattered and half decayed communities of Arcadia, as well as the fugitives and oppressed residents of Messenia, and founded for each province a city, the independence of which he endeavoured to secure by the strength of its fortifications; and hence the pains bestowed upon those defences of Messene, which Pausanias compares to the walls of Babylon and Rhodes.
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§ 1.473 May 5. — Desirous of examining the pass of Mount Taygetum, which formed the ordinary communication between Laconia and Messenia I intended to cross from Kalamata to Mistra, by the mountain road through Kutzova. There was some difficulty on account of the robbers who only two months ago descended into the plain of Kalamata and committed some depredations, but Kyr Elias had undertaken to send for mules and an escort from one of the mountain villages, with which the thieves are on friendly terms. It happened unfortunately, however, that only three days ago Captain George Kolokotroni himself, with a large body of his followers, made his appearance in the hollow at the back of the gardens of the Kalyvia of Kalamata, and carried away five or six persons. The Albanians, who have lately been sent here to the number of forty by the Pasha, sallied out and came to action with the thieves near the monastery of St. Elias, and wounded one or two: they made off however with their prizes, and are now at Kutzova. My janissary, Amus, proposes to conduct me over the mountain, by the assistance of his friend Captain Andonaki, of Longastra, who, he thinks, would send one or two of his sons hither as a security; but the primates of Kalamata having lately complained to the Pasha of the insufficiency of the force sent to oppose the robbers, they are afraid, if I should cross in safety the very mountain in which the robbers are said to reside, that the Pasha will look upon their representation as false. There is little doubt that the thieves themselves would undertake to conduct us in safety for a stipulated sum, and
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§ 1.475 might be trusted; but my host, the Hodja-bashi, is terribly alarmed at this proposal, and says he shall certainly lose his head if it succeeds. I am obliged, therefore, to alter the plan of my tour. For some time past, the robbers have occupied the mountains extending from the summits of Taygetum to those of Lycaeum; they were on the Makryplai, as I am informed, on the day I crossed it [March 5th] which certainly agrees with what the Dervendji told me. They afterwards retired to Bardhunia, where they were well received by Amus Aga, and now, it seems, have resumed their former haunts around Ghiorghitza. Amus, since I saw him, has threatened to burn Mistra, unless the inhabitants pay him twenty purses. He came not long ago to Tripolitza, and having propitiated the Pasha by some handsome presents, was well received by him. Hassan, the new Voivoda of Mistra, has written a spirited remonstrance to the Pasha upon the encouragement he gives to the Bardhuniotes. Since I left Mani, Seremet Bey, the Turkish Admiral, has exacted from the Vityliotes five piastres a house, and obliged them to give hostages for their future good behaviour. They had neglected to obey his mandates for their share of the tribute. Similar securities have been received by the Admiral from Tzanet Bey, whose son,
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§ 1.476 George, is now a hostage, together with a grandson of Tzanet, a son of Peter the Bey-Zaade. Captain Khristea has not only been obliged to give up his son, but a famous piece of ordnance with which he used to batter his enemy's towers. Seremet is now repairing, in Port Vitylo, some damage which his corvette suffered in the gale of the 23d; he was obliged to cut away the masts, which did not save her from being driven ashore. The Sunday's fair, this morning, is not so well attended as usual, because, being the feast of St. George, all those who can afford it make a point of killing their best lambs, and passing the day in feasting and idleness. At Constantinople, it is contrary to order to kill lambs before St. George's day, and hence the Moreites boast of keeping Easter in a superior style to the Polites, or Constantinopolitans. I set out from Kalamata at 12.05; at 12.53, arrive at the spot where the road to Kutzukumani and Andrussa turns off to the left: Nisi remains two or three miles on the left of that road, in the lowest and most swampy part of the plain, where the land is intersected with many canals. It is said to be unhealthy in the summer, and there is no good drinking water in that season. At 1.20 we cross the torrent which divides the villages of Kamari and Fritzala.
:1.477
§ 1.477 At 1.53 pass close to the Palea Lutra. At 2.10 arrive at a bridge over the Pidhima, which is in the direct road to Skala, and above the place where I forded it on the 22d April. Here, sending on the baggage to Skala, I turn to the right under the mountain, and arrive at Pidhima at 2.23. This little village is close to the sources of the Aris on the south; it contains about ten houses, just at the foot of the steep rocky mountain, where are some remains of a castle, of the middle ages, on the summit of the cliffs. The sources are very copious, issuing in fifteen or twenty rills from under the mountain; they immediately turn a mill, and a hundred yards below form a large stream; the mill belongs to the Mukata of the Emlatika. There are the ruins of three or four other mills. Leaving these springs at 2.40, I proceed over an uncultivated part of the plain, which is covered with wild lavender, bearing a most luxuriant quantity of blossom; and soon fall into the Londari road. At 3.22 arrive at the Derveni-house, and ruined chapel of Aio Floro. The sources here are as plentiful as those at Pidhima, but not more so; there are some fine plane trees at the very spot where the waters issue from under the mountain. A little beyond the springs there is a small pond; this gives rise to a stream which joins the river collected from the other sources, and not far beyond it there are several other ponds of the same kind, the issue of springs from the mountain. A large marsh is formed by these waters at no great distance in the plain, among which there are probably other subterraneous sources. The river formed from them runs s.s.w., and joins the Mavrozumeno two miles below, in the middle of the plain. All these ponds and springs are undoubtedly the true sources of the Pamisus. We soon begin to ascend the ridge of low hills, which divides the plain of the Pamisus from that of Stenyclerus. This ridge crosses from Mount Makryplai directly towards Ithome, and is separated from the foot of that mountain only by the narrow vale of the Mavrozumeno, which river skirts also the foot of Mount Evan. Skala is situated on the summit of this low transverse ridge on the side towards Makryplai. It contains, about fifty houses, and has a few mulberry grounds about it: I arrive there at 4.05, and proceed to the house of Kyr Pulo, for whom I brought a letter from Kyr Elias, of Kalamata. Pulo has a pyrgo, and another building, with two small rooms near it, which he gives up to me. Skala belongs to the Andrussa Kazasi, but is one of the Emlatika.
:1.478
§ 1.478 May 6. — The ruins called Elliniko-Kastro, which I have already described, are well seen from Skala. The walls are ruined, and there remain only some of the great wrought blocks lying on the ground, and marking the direction of the walls. The site corresponds exactly with that of Andania, as indicated by Pausanias and Livy. Quitting Skala at 5.40, we descend the ridge into the plain of Stenyclerus. As we advance, I observe that the plain retires to the eastward, and forms a considerable bay among the hills. On the southern side of it there is a projection of the mountain, and an insulated height near its extremity, which seems a probable site for Stenyclerus. Our route now crosses the plain in the direction of Mount Ithome: at 6.25 the little village of Ziza is on a height to the left; at 6.43 we arrive at the bridge called Mavrozumeno b. The annexed sketch will shew the plan of this singular work, which was built by the ancients for the purpose of crossing the Balyra and Amphitus just above their junction, and not far below the union of the latter with the Leucasia. The same point forms the meeting of the three roads from Kokhla, Mavromati, and Skala, or, in other words, from Arkadhia, Andrussa, and Kalamata, and anciently from Cyparissiae, Messene, and Thuria.
:1.480
§ 1.480 [sketch of bridge] The dotted line in the plan expresses the modern part of the bridge: the strong lines the ancient work. But of the latter, there are only foundations, with the exception of the spur C, which is entire. The upper parts of the piers and the three paved causeways are modern. The causeway A B is twenty-four paces in length. The ancient masonry is of the same regular kind as that of Messene, and is probably of the same date. The distance of this bridge from the Megalopolitan gate of Messene, agrees very well with the thirty stades, which Pausanias assigns as the interval between that gate and the Balyra;
:1.481
§ 1.481 and this coincidence, added to his remark, which immediately follows, namely, that the Leucasia and Amphitus there fall into the Balyra, leaves no doubt that the bridge is precisely the point to which Pausanias proceeds from the gate, and beyond which he places the Stenycleric plain. Of the two rivers which unite at the bridge, that which is formed by the union of the Leucasia, Amphitus, and Charadrus is the larger; it is very turbid, and is eight or nine feet deep; its principal branch comes from the ruins of Andania, and has its rise near Krano on the Makryplai ridge. I have no better reason for applying to it the name of Amphitus, and that of Leucasia to the branch which is formed from the united torrents of Agrilovuni and Dhiavolitza, than the order of names as they occur in Pausanias. That the Charadrus was to the southward of the river of Andania, I think can hardly be doubted, as well from the nature of the torrent, as because Pausanias, after having proceeded from the Megalopolitan gate of Messene eastward, across the Stenycleric plain, describes Andania as being to the left of Carnasium, which was on the bank of the Charadrus. The Balyra above the junction of the Amphitus, is now called Vasiliko; below the bridge the name of Mavrozumeno prevails.
:1.482
§ 1.482 The Vasiliko is bright and rapid, and more considerable than the other in summer, though now only five or six feet deep. It is composed of several tributaries from the hills in the forest of Kokhla; of these the ancient names of the two principal streams are tolerably well identified by the order of the names in Pausanias, who, going from Andania to Cyparissia, first mentions the Electra, and then the Coeus. After the junction of the Balyra with the Pamisus, the united river is now usually called the Mega, or Great Rivera, or the river of Nisi. While I stop at the bridge, our baggage proceeds, and halts five minutes afterwards at Alituri, on a height not far from the foot of Mount Ithome. This part of the plain consists chiefly of pasture, in which I see some herds of buffaloes. I breakfast on milk and fresh butter at a mandhra, and then proceed to Konstantinus, where we arrive at 8.20, having lost thirty-five minutes in the two halts. This is a village of 100 families, hid among some rocky heights projecting from the falls of Mount Tetrazi. After having crossed these heights, and descended into a small plain, called the Boghaz, which branches from the upper plain of Messene to the north-west, we leave, at 8.48, the village
:1.483
§ 1.483 of Agrilovuni, containing about thirty houses, three quarters of a mile to the right, and that of Dliiavolitza two miles in the same direction, both of them at the foot of Mount Tetrazi. At 9 pass a fine fountain. A little torrent shaded with planes runs along the middle of the Boghaz: it comes from a ravine in the mountain to the left of our route, and after joining another stream from Dhiavolitza, unites with the Djamitiko, or river of Ellinikokastro, near the bridge of Mavrozumeno. The Boghaz narrows as we advance. Towards the end are great numbers of the agnus castus, here called Λιλια. The road now leaves the small village of Gharantza one mile on the right, situated behind a remarkable rock, on the summit of which stands a ruined castle of Byzantine times. At 10 we make our midway halt at a fine source of water on the ascent of the mountain. My saddle-bags furnish nothing but bread, but the spring supplies some good water-cresses. Proceeding at 10.50, we arrive at 11.40 on the summit of this pass of the Lycaean ridge, where stands Dhimandra. This little village has been ruined by the robbers or their opponents, and the inhabitants are now lodged
:1.484
§ 1.484 in wicker huts covered with a black stuff made of goat's hair. On the right there is a high summit, between us and Tetrazi, on the left is seen the valley and forest of Kokhla, the plain of Sulima, and the village of Klisura. The plain of Sulima, I have little doubt, is the district of the Homeric Dorium, as well from Pausanias, in a passage which I have already cited, as from Strabo, who informs us, that, according to some opinions, Dorium stood on the site of a place called in his time Olurus, which was situated in the Aulon of Messenia b; whence it would seem that Strabo understood by Aulon the whole valley of Kokhla, of which indeed the word Aulon, in its ordinary acceptation, was exactly descriptive. Xenophon, also, in describing King Agis as having marched from Sparta through Aulon of Messenia and the Lepreatis, appears to refer to Aulon in the same sense as Strabo. Pausanias, however, as we have already seen, describes Aulon as a particular spot in the Klidhi, or maritime pass between the rivers Buzi and Arkadhia. The difference of time will fully justify the supposition of a change in the acceptation of the word,
:1.485
§ 1.485 especially as both situations were in the natural communication between the Messenia and the Eleia. Homer mentions three other towns in this part of the country, besides Dorium. Of these Elos seems to be the same as the Elaeum of Rhianus; possibly it stood above the site of Dorium, towards the Neda, for exactly in that position we find that Pausanias places a Mount Elaium, thirty stades to the southward of Phigaleia. The two remaining Homeric towns, Amphigeneia and Pteleum, were, according to Strabo, the former at Hypsoeis in the Macistia, where in his time stood a temple of Latona, the other at an uninhabited woody place called Pteleasimum. The rain begins to fall at Dhimandra, and our descent from thence through the forest which covers the northern side of the mountain is very slow; the road being extremely rugged, and our poor horses, which had returned to Kalamata from a journey to Londari only the day before yesterday, almost incapable of proceeding. At 12.25 we pass a little village called Djirdje on the side of the mountain. There are on one side of it a few corn-fields around it, and a small stream running down into the Buzi ( Neda ).
:1.486
§ 1.486 At 2 we arrive at a brow of the mountain overlooking that river. On the right the deep ravine of the river is seen for three miles. Half way up, the stream splits into two branches, the southernmost proceeding exactly from the foot of Mount Tetrazi, the other from a part of the same great ridge between Tetrazi and the Karyatiko, or hill of Karyes: above the fork of the two branches rises a height which has the appearance of an ancient site, and would be well suited to the strong-hold of a people resisting to extremity against superior forces: but there is no indication in history of any ancient place in this position. Eira was in Messenia, whereas this place lying between Mount Lycaeum and Phigaleia, both of which were in Arcadia, must have belonged to that province. It appears, indeed, from Pausanias, that the Phigalenses possessed both banks of the river. Eira, therefore, must have been below the Phigaleian district, under the side of the mountain on which now stands Sidherokastro and Marmaro. One can hardly expect to find any remains of a place which seems to have been only an occasional occupation at a very remote period of history. The mountains bordering on the Neda and its branches are steep and lofty on both sides. To the right of the southern branch of the river, on the mountain side, is Marina, to the
:1.487
§ 1.487 left Kakaletri, with a considerable tract of cultivated land around it, immediately at the foot of Mount Tetrazi. Leaving above us the small village of Mavromati, we descend, at 2.20, to the Neda, which we find difficult to pass on account of the steepness of the banks, the rapidity of the stream, and the great number of large round stones in the bed. On the right bank I take shelter for a quarter of an hour in the tent of a shepherd of Marina, who has brought his flocks here to feed on a little grassy spot on the river side. The town-Greeks of the Morea give the name of Vlakhi to all shepherds who in the winter leave their mountain abodes in search of pasture and of warmer situations; but it is a misnomer, for no real Vlakhi ever bring their flocks into the peninsula, nor is the Wallachian language ever heard here. The word, however, has very naturally been brought into use by the great number of Vlakhiote shepherds in northern Greece. The man with whom we take shelter has his wife and children, and his sons' wives and all their children, to the number of twelve or fifteen, in the tent. Milk and misithra is their only food: ie we have milk in plenty,” they tell me, “but no bread.” Such is the life of a modern Arcadian shepherd, who has almost reverted to the balanephagous state of his primitive ancestors.
:1.488
§ 1.488 The children, however, all look healthy, and are handsome, having large black eyes and regular features, with very dark complexions. On leaving the Mandhra we almost immediately cross a large rapid branch of the Neda, flowing from the northward through a rocky ravine shaded with fine planes; — then ascend obliquely the mountain overhanging the right bank of this stream, and having mounted slowly to the same height as the opposite village of Mavromati, turn to the north along the side of the mountain to the little village Tragoi, or Dhragoi, romantically situated on the side of a mountain, which is separated by a deep glen to the westward from an opposite hill, on the face of which is another hamlet of the same size, called Puikadhes. Between the two villages several plentiful streams issue from the mountain, and rush down its steep sides into the ravine: around the springs the mountain is shaded with planes. On arriving at Tragoi, at 8.50, I find some difficulty in procuring a lodging, the Turk who owns the pyrgo having gone out to visit his flocks in the neighbourhood of the Columns; on his return we obtain admittance, when the reason or pretence given for the delay first experienced is, that the Janissary of an English traveller had recently ill-treated one of the Greek inhabitants, and consumed his provision without paying for it. The villagers of Tragoi and Puikadhes speak Albanian in common with Greek; and I am informed that in several of the neighbouring villages the inhabitants do the same. It appears, therefore, that there has been an Albanian colony in this part of Arcadia, though none of Vlakhiotes. It dates probably from before the Turkish conquest.
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§ 1.489 May 7 — At 5.50, this morning, I set out for Pavlitza, the weather still showery. Descending into the ravine in the direction of Puikadhes, I arrive in five minutes at a church on the bank of the stream, shaded by fine plane trees; a little on one side of it is a waterfall over a bold perpendicular rock, at the foot of which are some planes just under the height of Tragoi. The air and temperature are delightful, and the scenery as Arcadian as can well be imagined. Having crossed the river by a bridge, we pass, five minutes beyond it, the foot of the mountain which I have mentioned as supplying the torrent of Tragoi with a great part of its water, by many small streams rushing down its face; we then follow the side of the same mountain for some distance, above the right bank of
:1.490
§ 1.490 the stream, and then in a similar position above the right bank of the Neda, until, at 6.50, we arrive at Pavlitza a small village divided into two parts, called the upper and lower street [ανω και κατω ρουγα]. The former of these stands a little within the walls of a large city, which appears clearly from Pausanias to have been Phigaleia, otherwise written Phigalia, or Phialia. The Kato Ruga, or lower division of Pavlitza, is situated in a little valley between the ancient walls and the river. Pausanias thus describes Phigalia and its vicinity: “ Phigalia is situated upon a lofty and precipitous hill, and the greater part of the walls are built upon the rocks, but on the ascent of the hill there is an even and level spaced. Here is a temple of Minerva Soteira, and a statue of stone in an upright posture; from this temple there are sacred processions. In the Gymnasium there is a statue of Hermes covered with a cloak, but terminating below in a square form. Here also is a temple of Bacchus, surnamed by the natives Acratophoruse; the lower parts of the statue are hidden by leaves of bay and ivy, those parts which are seen are resplendent
:1.491
§ 1.491 with cinnabar a substance which the Iberians find together with gold. The agora of Phigalia contains a statue in stone of Arrachion, a native pancratiast, who was twice victorious at Olympia, and having lost his life in a third victory in the 54th Olympiad, was crowned after his death. The figure, which is ancient, represents him in the archaic manner, with the feet near one another and the hands close to the sides. An epigram, which was on the statue, has been obliterated by time. There is a common sepulchre in the agora, of the chosen men of Oresthasium, who recovered Phigalia from the Lacedaemonians.” [It was in the year B.C. 659, that the Lacedaemonians having besieged Phigaleia, the Phigalenses retired from their city by treaty. The exact date of their return I cannot discover.] The fountains of the Neda are in the mountain Cerausium, which is a part of Lycaeum. In the place where it flows very near the city of the Phigalenses, their children offer to it their hair (as a sacrifice). Of all the rivers we know, the Neda, next to the Maeandrus, is the most winding; at the sea it is navigable by small vessels. Twelve stades above Phigalia there are some warm baths, not far from which the Lymax falls into the Neda.
:1.492
§ 1.492 Here is a temple of Eurynome, of ancient sanctity, which is difficult to arrive at on account of its rugged situation. Around it are many cypresses growing close together. The temple is opened only once a year, when there are sacrifices both public and private. It did not happen to me to be at Phigalia at that season, but I was informed by the Phigalenses, that the statue is of wood bound together by golden chains, and that it resembles a woman as far as the hips, and a fish in the lower part. Phigalia is surrounded with mountains; on the left is that called Cotylium, on the right, in front of the city is Mount Elaium. Cotylium is distant about forty stades from the city; it contains the place called Bassae, and the temple of Apollo Epicurius. The roof, as well as the rest of the building, is of stone, and it excels all the temples in the Peloponnesus, except that of Tegea, in the beauty of the stone and the harmony of the construction. The epithet Epicurius was given to Apollo on account of the relief afforded by him in a pestilence, which occurred in the Peloponnesian war, when he received the appellation of Alexicacus from the Athenians on the same occasion.
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§ 1.493 That the two epithets have the same origin is proved by their similar meaning, as well as by the fact, that Ictinus, the architect of this Phigalian temple lived in the time of Pericles, and constructed the Parthenon for the Athenians. I have already observed that the statue of Apollo (formerly belonging to this temple) is (now) in the agora of the Megalopolitae. Pausanias then informs us that Cotylum, the place from which Mount Cotylium took its name, was above the temple of Epicurius, and contained a temple of Venus without a roof, but in which there was a statue of the goddess. In the other mountain, Elaium, at a distance of about thirty stades from Phigalia, there was a source of cold water, and a cavern, sacred to Ceres the Black, situated in a grove of oaks. The cavern of Elaium was said to have once contained a brazen statue of the goddess, by Onatas of Aegina, made in imitation of a more ancient figure in wood, and representing the goddess with the head of a horse. Pausanias adds, that it was chiefly for the sake of this Ceres that he visited Phigalia, [The statue was supposed to have reference to the μυθος of Neptune and Ceres, of which Pausanias has spoken more particularly in the chapter of the Arcadia, relating to the Telphusia (25). The epithet “Black” related to a black garment which Ceres wore after that affair, when she concealed herself in the cavern of Mount Elaium, until, mankind being about to perish by famine, Pan at length discovered her in the form represented in the statue- Jupiter then sent the Fates to her, who appeased her anger. No wonder that such a lover of mythology as Pausanias should have gone out of his way to visit the scene of such a remarkable fable.]
:1.494
§ 1.494 and that he sacrificed to her according to the local rites, by offering on an altar, which was before the cavern, grapes and other cultivated fruits, together with honey-combs and uncleaned wool. The statue was said to have been destroyed three or four generations before the visit of Pausanias, by the fall of a part of the cavern. There were some doubts, however, among the Phigalenses themselves, whether it had ever existed; and it seems more probable that both this and the form of the lower part of the statue of Eurynome, were stories with which the priests amused the credulous traveller, for such monstrous representations were not at all in the taste of Grecian art. The walls of Phigaleia furnish one of the most curious specimens of Greek military architecture in existence, and I believe one of the most ancient; for though the climate of such an elevated situation may account ia great measure for their corroded state, and may
:1.495
§ 1.495 have given them a greater appearance of antiquity than others of the same age, the uncommon plan and construction of the greater part of the fortification, together with the kind of masonry of which it is formed, are certain evidences of a very remote antiquity. In three fourths of the circumference, the walls follow the crest of a lofty rocky height, which rises at the back of Pavlitza on the northern side; the remaining fourth crosses the slope between the two divisions of the modern village, leaving a space of about 500 yards between the town wall and the Nedcu Here the ground is more level and less rocky than the greater part of that within the walls, where the only level space of any magnitude is towards the lower part of the ancient inclosure, where a modern road passes through the Ano Ruga in a direction parallel to the river. The Ano Ruga probably occupies the site of the agora. Above it the hill is very steep and rocky, with the exception of a small level about midway to the summit, where the temple of Minerva Soteira may have stood. On the summit, just within the ancient walls, are the remains of a detached citadel eighty yards in length, and of the annexed singular form. The round tower at the end measures eighteen feet in the interior diameter. There
:1.496
§ 1.496 are the remains of two small churches in this castle; one dedicated to St. Elias, the other to the Panaghia. [sketch plan] The town walls are of the usual thickness, faced with masonry of the second order, and filled in the middle with rubble. On the western and south-western sides, the wall does not exist above the foundations. On the northern and eastern sides, two thirds of the original height, in most parts, remain. In the two former directions I could only discover the ruins of one tower, and do not believe that there were ever many more; this may, perhaps, be accounted for by the greater evenness of the ground on that side, which would not permit of the approach of an enemy without his being seen from the wall. It indicates however a very early state of military architecture, and when compared with the works of the beginning of the fourth century BC at Messene, shews a great difference of date in the two fortifications. On the northern
:1.497
§ 1.497 side the wall is flanked with quadrangular towers, and in the midst of them it forms in one place a salient angle terminating in a round tower. [sketch plan] On the north-east the towers are all round, but I conceive that both these and the square towers were added at a later age to the original inclosure, which probably had few, or perhaps not any, towers; I could not find any traces of the gates. The two principal were probably in the line of the modern road through upper Pavlitza, and it may be supposed there was a third in the middle of the southern side between Ano and Kato Ruga. In the northeastern side there is a postern of this form. [sketch] On either side of it the masonry, instead of being of the regular kind here represented, is a perfect specimen of the second order. The circumference of the city was upwards of two miles. One of the churches at lower Pavlitza appears to have been a small temple, repaired and added to, for within it are several columns one foot
:1.498
§ 1.498 two inches in diameter, apparently in their original places. We can hardly suppose, however, that this was one of the temples mentioned by Pausanias, unless the Gymnasium was without the walls, in which case it may have been the temple of Bacchus Acratophorus. In the same church I found a pedestal of the annexed form with a Doric capital and flutings; the flutings being only in half the circumference, which seems to shew that the pedestal stood in a niche. The church contains another pedestal of the same form, of the Ionic order. Similar monuments, but generally fluted in the whole circumference, are often found in the churches of Greece, where they may have been deposited as in a place of safety, or more frequently perhaps, as in the present instance, because the ancient temples to which they belonged were converted into churches on the establishment of Christianity. The use of these pedestals, I
:1.499
§ 1.499 conceive to have been, that of supporting large basins for holding lustral or sacrificial water, and many of them may have become baptismal fonts after the conversion of Greece. [These pedestals, with their vases, seem to have given the original idea of those elegant tazze which were so common among the Romans, and have become equally so among the moderns] That the ancient basins are never found entire is easily accounted for, their form being so much more liable to fracture than that of the pedestal, which has the solidity of the column increased by its shorter dimensions; it is probable also that the basin was often of metal, and therefore tempting to the plunderer. The pedestals thus deprived of their lustral vases now often serve to support the holy table or altar of the church. The small valley between the lower wall of the city and the river, in which lower Pavlitza stands, is covered with corn-fields, vineyards, and olive trees. From the opposite bank of the river rises a steep mountain, probably a part of the ancient Elaium; its sides are shaded with large evergreen oaks, both the prinus or holley-leaved, and the ilex or olive-leaved, species, the former called πρινάρια or πουρνάρια, the latter αρειαις. The summit of the mountain is
:1.500
§ 1.500 clothed with the deciduous oak; which agrees with its state in the time of Pausanias, who says that the cavern of Ceres was situated in a wood of those trees (δρυών). There is a fine under-wood on the lower part of the hill, consisting of the usual variety of shrubs. The citadel of Phigaleia commands a fine prospect of Arcadian scenery, though not very extensive, as the surrounding hills are much higher. The most interesting points in view are Mount Ithome and the temple at Bassae; the summits of Lycaeum close the view to the eastward; to the westward are seen Mount Vunuka, Strovitzi and its Paleokastro, ( Lepreum ) the mouth of the Neda, and Mount Paraskevi above Arcadhia. At the back the mountain falls into a cultivated valley, in which is a village called Gardhitza less than a mile distant. The road already mentioned as passing through Pavlitza leads from Tragoi and the adjacent villages to Smarlina, Sarina, and other villages along the Neda; from thence to Buzi and the mouth of the river.
:1.501
§ 1.501 Smarlina is distant from Pavlitza three quarters of an hour, and Sarina three hours, at which there is said to be a Paleokastro not Hellenic. Along the side of the steep mountain, on the opposite side of the river, passes the road to Platania, a little below which, at Sostomiu, another ruin is described to me, built with small stones and mortar: hereabouts must have been the famous Eira. On my return to Tragoi, I pass directly over the mountain which separates the vale of Gardhitza from that of Tragoi, and pass through Puikadhes. This place, like the former, has a Turk's pyrgo, and eight or ten Greek families; both the villages are in the vilayeti of Fanari, and indeed are considered as quarters of the same village. We fall into the morning's road a little beyond Puikadhes, and arrive at Tragoi in an hour from Pavlitza.
:1.502
§ 1.502 [maps etc.]
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§ 1.503 ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS Page 187: It is here remarked, that Nicephoras Gregoras, in naming Sparta, means Mistra. Chalcocondylas, nearly two centuries later, uses the word Sparta with the same meaning, as clearly appears from his observation, that “ Sparta was situated under Mount Taygetum, at a distance of eighteen stades from Palaeopolis and the Eurotas.” — So that it seems to have been then customary to call the site of Sparta Palaeopolis, and Mistra, new Sparta. Nevertheless, Myzithra was a name in use as early as the former period, as we perceive from Pachymer. Page 280. The remark, that the Pyrrhicus of Pausanias and the Pyrrhi Charax of Polybius, are the same place which Livy calls Pyrrhi Castra, ought to be erased. The reader will find the correction in Vol. II. p. 525, where it is evident that Pyrrhi Castra was a position about eight miles to the north-eastward of Sparta, probably on the banks of the river of Arakhova, or north-eastern branch of the Oenus. Page 330. In reference to the orthography of the name of Oitylus in the time of the Roman empire, I find that the Βιτυλα of Ptolemy is confirmed by a monument, erected in honour of the Emperor Gordian, by the τΖ, Βειτυλίν. The inscription was copied at Vitylo by Fourmont. — Boeck. Corp. Inscr. Grs. Vol. I. p. 649. There was scarcely any distinction at that time between I and EI.
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§ 1.504 Page 332, 361. As the question of the site of Pharae is connected with that of Abia, it may be right to confirm the position of the latter at Palea Mandinia, by two inscriptions, which were copied at Megali Mandinia by Fourmont, and which make mention of the Αβειοται and their city. — Boeck. Corp. Inscr. Gr. Vol. I. p. 688. Page 336, Note b. For “godfather” read “godson.” Page 440, Note. For “Italice botargo” read “Italice bottarica, Anglice botargo.” Page 484. For “BC 403” read “BC 400.”
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§ 1.505 ADDITIONAL NOTE TO CHAPTER VI. IN order to complete, as far as possible, the commentary on the ancient geography of the south-eastern branch of Laconia, contained in the Sixth Chapter, I shall here subjoin, as belonging to my travels in the Morea, an extract from my journal of a tour by sea from Corfu through the Ionian and Aegaean islands to Mount Athos, during which I had an opportunity of seeing a portion of the Boeatice. As I shall have occasion to refer frequently to Pausanias, I shall begin by extracting his remarks on this district. “The promontory Onugnathus ” he says, “was 200 stades distant from Asopus. There was a temple of Minerva, without roof or statue, said to have been built by Agamemnon; and in the same place the tomb of Cinadus, pilot of the vessel of Menelaus. Beyond the promontory was the bay called the Boeatic; near the further end of which (προς τω περατι) was the city Boeae, founded by Boeus, one of the Heracleidae, who here assembled the inhabitants of three old towns, called Etias, Aphrodisias, and Side. It was said that the first two were founded by Aeneias, on his way to Italy; that Etias was the name of his daughter: and that Side was so called, from the daughter of Danaus. The Boeatae worshipped a myrtle which they called Diana Soteira, because a hare, which they took for their guide, as to the place where the new city should
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§ 1.506 be built, disappeared under this tree. In the agora, there was a temple of Apollo, and in other parts of the town temples of Aesculapius, of Sarapis, and of Isis. The ruins of were not more than seven stades from Boeae — to the left of the road leading thither, there was a Mercury in marble; and in the ruins of the town a temple of Aesculapius and Hygieia, which enjoyed some celebrity. The island Cythera lay opposite to Boeae. The promontory Platanistus, which was the nearest point of the island, was forty stades distant from the promontory Onugnathus. In sailing from Boeae to Cape Males, there was a lake, named Nymphaeum, an upright statue of Neptune, and a cave very near the sea, in which there was a source of water: here were some inhabitants, but not many. Having doubled Cape Malea, and proceeded 100 stades, there was a sanctuary of Apollo on the sea-side, within the Boeatice, called Epidelium.” Strabo describes Onugnathus as a low chersonese, and Ptolemy in like manner, as a promontory (ακρα). From Thucydides it appears that there was a fortress in this district, called Cotyrta, near Aphrodisia. The Athenians, when ravaging the coasts of Laconia, in the eighth year of the Peloponnesian war, had an action with the Lacedaemonian garrisons of Cotyrta and Aphrodisia; and, having gained such an advantage as justified them in setting up a trophy, they then embarked, and sailed to Cythera, and from thence to Epidaurus Limera and Thyrea.
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§ 1.507 EXTRACT FROM THE DIARY. Oct. 4, 1806. At noon we sail from the harbour of Furnus, near Milopotamo, on the western coast of the island of Tzerigo; beat up the coast, to the northward, with a Greco-Tramontana, which has continued ever since the 27th ultimo. The sailors assert that it is Maestrale on the western coast. In the evening we enter the strait between Elafonisi and Cape Madari, of Tzerigo, and pass the port of Elafonisi, which is an open bay, on the southern side of that island. Advance along the coast of the Morea all night, with a gentle breeze from the north, which, towards morning, comes more easterly, and, as we turn Cape Malea, blows strong in squalls, with a great sea, shewing that the Euroclydon still continues. We bear up, and pass cloee under the shore. Oct. 5. Cape Malea, or Malia, as vulgarly pronounced, rises steep from the sea at the point, and for some distance to the westward; the ridge then retreats to the north, leaving, for a mile and a half, a more gradual ascent from the shore to the summit; another bluff then advances, more rocky than Malia, and having at its foot a low cape, which extends westward two miles and a half, to the entrance of the Bay of Vatika. This low cape is more southerly than Malea, as I had already observed last year, from the monastery of Porto Kaio: a little westward of the eastern extremity of this low land (low only comparatively), there is a little creek under a chapel of St. Elias, where the galeotta of my old acquaintance and host, Hassan Bey, of Monemvasia, is snugly ensconced, in a most admirable situation for catching any thieves that may pass through the strait. He fails not to bring us to. After a recognition, and an exchange of civilities, I proceed: entering the Bay of Vatika, we have the wind so strong against us, that it takes us till 11 A. M. to come to anchor near a tower,
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§ 1.508 under the north-western corner of the bay, near the Strait which separates Elafonisi from the main land. I land, more for the purpose of shooting quails, which are now in great numbers on the coast, than with any hope of finding antiquities in this part of the bay. Towards the western end of the strait of Elafonisi, however, I find, at about 500 yards from the shore, some traces of Hellenic foundations, and several quarries of considerable extent in the rocks, at the foot of some low cliffs, which here terminate the height. In the plain below, half way between the cliffs and the sea shore, there are other excavations of the same kind, some of which form regular quadrangles, with perpendicular sides, very accurately hewn. They resemble some quarries which; remember to have seen in 1802, near a small creek, in the rocks of the coast of Messenia, opposite to the island of Prote. The convenience of situation for the embarkation of the stone, was probably the chief motive for quarrying in these places. On the summit of the cliff, a little beyond the highest of the excavations just mentioned, at a point where the cliff is quite perpendicular, and all around formed into caverns, I find the ruin of an ancient pyramid. It is now only a heap of large rectangular masses, with some few of the interior stones in their places; round it, on three sides, a ditch has been cut in the rock, about twenty feet broad, four feet deep in the deepest parts, and forming a square on the outside, of twenty-four yards. The fourth side of the pyramid, standing on the edge of the cliff, had no ditch. It is very possible that this monument may be the tomb of Cinadus, the pilot of Menelaus, and that the Hellenic vestiges which I first observed, are those of the Athenaeum of Agamemnon, which was already a ruin in the time of Pausanias. If it should be objected that Pausanias describes these monuments as situated at Onugnathus, which not only extends three or four miles beyond the position which I have
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§ 1.509 described, but is divided from it by an arm of the sea, we must recollect, that although now an island, it was a promontory in the time of the Roman Empire, as Strabo, Ptolemy, and Pausanias, all testify; and that a similar change has occurred at no great distance, in the promontory Minoa, which is now the island of Monemvasia: that the word χερσόνησος, applied by Strabo to Onugnathus, clearly shews that it comprehended the whole of what is now the island of Elafonisi, and that these considerations make a great difference in the application of the words of Pausanias, as it then becomes more probable that he should have meant the nearest part or isthmus of the peninsula, than its extremity. The strait between Elafonisi and the main is three or four hundred yards over, and so shallow that none but the smallest boats can pass. The name Elafonisi has been translated into Isola dei Cervi by the Italians. The island is cultivated in some parts, particularly in a plain which crosses the middle of the island, and separates the mountain at the northern end from the two hilly capes to the south, which inclose the bay at that extremity. It is only with reference to the high land of Vatika and Cape Malea, that Strabo's description of a low chersonese can have been properly applied to Onugnathus. There are flocks of sheep and goats on the island, but no habitation; both the fields and the flocks belong to the people of Vatika. The eastern end of the strait or western point of the Bay of Vatika, is a low point of rock covered with sand. Here, near a ruined tower, are several ancient sepulchres hewn in the rock, and nearly filled with sand. A little farther inland there is a salt lake, lying between a range of sand hills bordering the western shore of the Bay of Vatika, and the rocky ground upon which I found the ruins. This lake is about two miles long, it is now in most parts dry, and has left the ground covered with salt. Farther along the shore of the bay towards Vatika, there is a plentiful source of fresh water. In the afternoon we leave our anchorage, and soon reach
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§ 1.510 the bottom of the bay, where several torrents from the moon tains join the sea; in one of the torrent beds there is a large well and a garden called Kyparissia, belonging to a brother of Hassan Bey, who governs Vatika, and owns a great part of the plain, which extends two miles northward from the beach to the foot of the mountain, near the summit of which the village of Vatika is situated. It seems that the inhabitants of Boeae, when they abandoned the maritime situation, did not think themselves safe, in this most piratical corner of Greece, at a small distance from the sea. But although Boeae was then deserted and demolished, the whole of the great promontory or district of Boeae continued probably to be known by the name of Βοιατική, or, in Doric, Βοιατικα, and the bay by that of the Βοιατικος κόλπος, as Strabo calls it; and these names, by a change of which the accent is the most considerable part, became that of the modern village and district Βάτικα. The mountain on which the village stands is a continuation of that which ends so abruptly in Cape Malea, and it is a southern prolongation, without any interruption, of the eastern range of Laconia. On a low rocky height on the eastern side of the garden, I find the foundations of a Hellenic wall built of quadrangular stones, but traceable only for fifty or sixty yards. Just above it are the foundations of a temple, about fifteen yards long, by eight or nine broad, from whence materials have been recently taken away to construct a house for the gardener. Behind the temple there is a rock cut perpendicularly to the height of twelve or fifteen feet, and having an opening in the middle which leads into a small inclosure formed by excavation in the rock: it was apparently a part of the sacred inclosure of the temple. There is also another excavation like those near the andent pyramid at the Strait of Elafonisi. This quarry appears to have been afterwards used for smelting metallic ore, as a great quantity of scoriae is heaped near it; all the neighbouring ground is covered with
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§ 1.511 this substance, as well as with fragments of ancient pottery. In the face of some cliffs on the opposite side of the torrents which encircle this height, there are some small catacombs. Another height bordering the sea a little to the eastward of the former, together with a small valley behind it, is covered with ruins of buildings of the lower ages, and a great deal of pottery. A mile to the eastward of the latter there is a third height, which is the last slope of the mountain, and forms a cape in the bay: it is covered with similar remains, and is called by the natives Paleo-kastro. Although I cannot recognize any thing Hellenic at this place, it must be admitted that it corresponds to the position of Boeae as indicated by Pausanias; whether we take his words επι τω περατι to mean the shore of the bay, or the farther part of the bay, relatively to Onugnathus. The distance also of Paleo-kastro from the Hellenic position near Kyparissia, agrees exactly with the seven stades of Pausanias between Boeae and the place of which the name is wanting. I suspect the blank has been improperly filled up with the name of Side; for although it cannot be doubted that one of the three old towns of the Boeatiae occupied this plain, the testimony of Scylax is clear in shewing that Side had a port on the eastern side of the peninsula between Cape Malea and Epidaurus Limera. Nor could the name have well been Aphrodisia, from the occurrence in the Peloponnesian war, already mentioned, since, had the action taken place in the plain of Boeae, that name would probably have occurred in the narrative of Thucydides; because, whichever of the three ancient places stood in the plain, all its importance must at that time have been absorbed by Boeae. Side, therefore, I conceive, was on the eastern coast of the Boeatice, Aphrodisia and Cotyrta on the western, and Etias consequently was the place which stood at Kyparissia. It may be the opinion, perhaps, of those who are inclined to place the Athenaeum and tomb of Cinadus in the island of Elafonisi, that the ruins on the
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§ 1.512 northern side of the Strait of Elafonisi belonged either to Aphrodisia or Cotyrta, but those places were fortresses, of which kind of construction there is no appearance at the place in question. The Bay of Vatika is about five miles across from the Cape of Elafonisi to a low rocky promontory three miles beyond Paleo-kastro. All the eastern side of the bay has a fine sandy bottom, and is deep to within a small distance of the shore; there is a bold beach of hard sand from the Strait of Elafonisi as far as the garden, and from thence shingle as far as half way between the garden and Paleo-kastro; the rest is rocky. The western side is rather exposed to the south-east, and the eastern to the south-west. The channel between the southern Capes of Elafonisi and Cape Mudari of Tzerigo, is between four and five miles across, answering very well to the forty stades which Pausanias places between Onugnathus and Cape Platanistus of Cythera. A situation a little within Cape Mudari is still called Platania: inland from thence to; wards the south-east is Potamo, the largest village on this side of the island. The village of Vatika possesses vineyards and fields on the slope of the hill, and all the corn and pasture land of the plain. Its figs are dried and exported. Half the inhabitants are Turks and half Greeks. Both complain of the oppressions of the government, though Hassan Bey and his brother are individually well spoken of. The richer Turks generally dwell at Monemvasia in the winter months. Oct. 6- Having pitched my tent, I remain all day at the ruined town, to the eastward of the gardens. A ship in fifteen days from Skodra anchors in the bay; some of the Turkish officers visit me Their pasha they say is near Nissa with a huge army, every family in his territory having contributed one person to it. Oct. 7- — This morning at sun-rise we row out of the bay in a calm. At 9, a gentle breeze from the south-west begins to carry us close along the bold shore to Cape Malea. All the
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§ 1.513 interval is so steep and rocky that I know not where to place Nymphaeum, unless it was in the angle where the second westernmost cape advances, but even here the slope is steep, and nothing but torrent beds are visible. I perceive however, a cave by the sea-side, which seems to identify the spot, but I am unable to ascertain whether it has a source of water in it. Possibly the Lake Nymphaeum was nothing more than a small pool, like that which Pausanias describes also as a λίμνη at Larymna in Boeotia. Having turned Cape Malea, Cape Kamili appears, and Monemvasia. The position of Side seems to be marked by some vineyards immediately to the south of Cape Kamili, but I cannot hear of any remains there. Epidelium itself was probably little more than a temple standing on the cape.
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§ 2.001 VOLUME II CHAPTER XII May 7, 1806 — At 1.05 I set out for the ruins of the temple of Apollo Epicurius, for which the natives have no other name than that of the Columns, στοὺς στύλους, as they are here more Hellenically called: our Greeks from Kalamata used the Italian word κολόνναις. We soon begin to ascend Mount Cotylium, which is therefore correctly placed by Pausanias at a distance of forty stades from Phigaleia; for though the temple is at least a two hours' walk of a man or horse from the ruins of the city, we may be
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§ 2.002 allowed to apply the forty stades to the nearest part of the mountain on which the temple stands. After ascending for half an hour through pasture land, in which there are some sheep-folds belonging to Tragoi, we enter the forest of oaks which covers the summit of all these ridges. The path winds among the trees for half an hour, when I am suddenly startled from the indolent reverie which such a pleasant but unexciting kind of road often produces, by the sight of one of the component cylinders of a Doric shaft of enormous size, lying half buried in earth and decayed leaves, on a level spot, by the road side, just wide enough to hold it. A detached fragment of this kind sometimes gives a greater impression of grandeur than an entire building, or the ruin of a large portion of one, because in these the dimensions of the parts are lost in the harmony of the whole; even the magnitude of a perfect building is not felt unless there is some vulgar object at hand to form a scale of comparison: as a St. Peter's or a St. Paul's would fell of producing their just effect without houses and churches in sight, or as the Pyramids of Memphis seldom impress the traveller with their immensity as long as he has nothing but hills to compare them with, and until he is near enough to judge of the size of
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§ 2.003 the masses of stone of which they are formed, by the scale of his own height I had no conception, until I had measured the fallen piece of column on the ascent to Bassae, that its diameter was scarcely the half of that of the columns of the Parthenon. About 150 yards farther I came in sight of the ruined temple. The cylinder belonged undoubtedly to the column which stood at the south-western angle of the peristyle, one of the pieces of which rolled down the hill when the column fell. The large proportions of these ruins, and the perfection of their workmanship, prove them to be the remains of the temple of Apollo Epicurius, though it is only from the few words which Pausanias bestows upon the temple that we obtain that certainty. Without those few words, the existence of such a magnificent building in suck a wilderness, must ever have remained a subject of wonder, doubt, and discussion. As to a description of this fine ruin, the first in preservation of the temples of Greece, except the Theseium, it must be left to the painter and the architects for the latter in particular (here would be sufficient employment for some weeks. Indeed until some attempt be made to dear away the rains of the cell, which form an immense confused mass within the peristyle, it will hardly be possible even for an
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§ 2.004 architect to understand thoroughly all the particulars of the building. In general terms the temple may be described as a peripteral hypaethral hexastyle, with fifteen columns on the sides, 126 feet in length, 48 broad, and facing nearly north and south. The columns are three feet eight inches in diameter at the base, and twenty feet high, including the capital. As usual in peripteral temples, there were two columns in the pronaos and as many in the posticum, so that the total number in the peristyle was forty-two, of which thirty-six are standing, and, with one exception only, covered with their architraves. There are twenty shallow flutings in the shafts, as usual in the Doric order. As they measure only three feet under the capital, and are five times the lower diameter in height, they are both more tapering and shorter in proportion to their height than the columns of the Parthenon. As a necessary consequence of their being more tapering, the echinus of the capital is longer than in the Athenian temple, and forms a more acute angle with the plinth, the order thus more resembling the examples of the Doric at Corinth, and in the ruins of Sicily and Paestum. There were several projections on either side of the cell, terminating in fluted Ionic semicolumns: one of these is standing, and it is the
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§ 2.005 only part, either of the cell, or pronaos, or posticum, that is in that condition, though all the lower part of the cell is still in situ. Of the outer columns of the peristyle, on the contrary, all are standing, except the two angular columns of the southern front; nor are these wanting, as all the component cylinders are lying on the ground, so that both the peristyle and the cell might be restored to their original state without much deficiency, if wealth and power, taste and science should ever be restored to Greece. [Baron Haller and Mr. Cockerell have since discovered the frize, which is now in the British Museum, representing battles of Centaurs and of Amazons with Greeks. For a delineation of these sculptures, and an able elucidation of them by Mr. Taylor Combe, see the Description of the Marbles of the British Museum, Part 3. By the excavation which followed the discovery of the frize, the complete plan of the temple was ascertained. It was found that the frize, the capitals of the Ionic semicolumns, and that of a single column which occupied a situation at the end of the cell, were of white marble. This last-mentioned column is a very curious specimen of art, being a variety of the Ionic order, with helices and leaves of acanthus, and consequently the earliest specimen of the order, which, having been first executed at Corinth, was called Corinthian. It is remarkable that Vitruvius, 1. 4. c. 1., ascribes the invention of the order to Callimachus, who lived about the same time that the temple at Bassae was built, having made the golden lamp and brazen palm-tree in the temple of Minerva Polias at Athens.] The stone of which the temple is constructed is a hard yellowish-brown lime-stone susceptible of a high polish, which explains the
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§ 2.006 observation of Pausanias, that this temple was superior in harmony to all the temples of the Peloponnesus, except that of Tegea, for it is evident, from other passages, that by he meant the nice adaptation of the stones to each other, or, in other words, the fine execution of the masonry, and not the general harmony of the proportions of the temple. It may easily be conceived that such workmanship would be most finished in a temple of white marble, like that of Minerva Alea at Tegea, and least so in a building of soft conchite lime-stone, like that of the temple of Jupiter at Olympia; and this accords with the order of the three temples as to harmony in the idea of Pausanias, namely, first the Tegeatic, next the Phigaleian, and lastly the Olympian. In the temple of Apollo Epicurius, as in the Parthenon, the stones are wrought and adjusted to one another with such accuracy that the junctures in some places are not visible without the closest inspection; in others the superficial decomposition of the edges has formed a natural cement uniting the stones together.
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§ 2.007 Although the Phigalenses made a present of their colossal statue of Apollo Epicurius to the city of Megalopolis, only seventy years after his temple was built, this removal does not appear to have taken place in consequence of any disaster which had dilapidated the building. The remark of Pausanias on its roof shews that it remained uninjured until his time. The cause of its present state of ruin one cannot well imagine to have been any other than the repetition of those concussions of the earth to which Greece is so subject — which at first sight seem sufficient to have prevented the Greeks from having ever made any great advances in architecture, but which may perhaps in reality, by obliging them to encounter difficulties and to study solidity, have been one of the causes of their excellence in the art: in fact, though earthquakes are very frequent in this country, they seldom occur with such violence that a single shock would cause irreparable damage in buildings so well constructed as those of the Greeks; as far therefore as their destruction has been the effect of these concussions, it has rather been caused by a repetition of shocks upon former injuries left unrepaired in consequence of that neglect of the public monuments, which increased as the power, and wealth, and spirit of the nation declined. At Athens two or three explosions of gunpowder destroyed in an
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§ 2.008 instant what the successive earthquakes of twenty-two centuries had left uninjured. The mode adopted by Ictinus, the architect of the temple at Bassae, to prevent the horizontal motion of the earth from separating the component cylinders of the columns was, to fill up a cavity left in the centre of two adjoining cylinders with a piece of lead. I could not find any of the lead, but the peasants informed me they had often taken pieces away. In the Parthenon the wood of the juniper, which is still called by its ancient name Kedros (cedar), was used for the same purpose, as well as lead, and I believe sometimes iron. The preservation of all the parts of the temple shews that the ruins have never been plundered for the sake of building materials. Indeed there is little temptation to transport these immense masses over such mountains as surround them, nor even to break them into smaller stones, by which barbarous process many other Hellenic remains have been destroyed, for there is no inhabited place nearer than Skliru, a small village, distant about one mile and a half from the temple, on a part of the mountain where the ground is a little more level than in most other parts, and where alone there seems any possibility of cultivating corn. There is certainly nothing in Greece, beyond
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§ 2.009 the bounds of Attica, more worthy of notice than these remains. The temple of Aegina in some of its accidents or accompaniments may be more picturesque, and the surrounding prospect more agreeable; but undoubtedly there are many persons who will prefer the severe grandeur, the wildness, and the variety of this Arcadian scene, in which, amidst a continued contrast of rugged mountain, forest, and cultivated land, there is no want of objects interesting to the spectator by their historical recollection. That which forms, on reflection, the most striking circumstance of all, is the nature of the surrounding country, capable of producing little else than pasture for cattle, and offering no conveniences for the display of commercial industry either by sea or land. If it excites our astonishment that the inhabitants of such a district should have had the refinement to delight in works of this kind, it is still more wonderful that they should have had the means to execute them. This can only be accounted what Horace says of the early Romans: Privatus illis census erat brevis Commune magnum. This is the true secret of national power, which cannot be equally effective in an age of selfish luxury.
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§ 2.010 Mount Cotylium branches from the great Lycaean ridge, between the summits Dhioforti and Fanaritiko, the former of which is in a line with Karitena, the latter more to the northward. The summit of Cotylium looks down to the westward on the hollow watered by the torrent which flows between Tragoi and Puikadhes, and eastward into a more deep and narrow valley, which receives the waters from about Skliru. The stream which is collected from the latter feeders is that which I crossed yesterday, at 8 just above its junction with the branch which flows from Tetrazi and from some fountains between that mountain and Ambeliona Thus we have three streams contributing to form the river which passes near the ruins of Phigaleia. Pausanias in like manner speaks of three tributaries of the Neda, namely, the Lymax, which joined the Neda about twelve stades above Phigaleia, the Plataniston, which the traveller coming from Megalopolis by Despoena crossed at thirty stades short of Phigaleia, and the Neda Proper, which had its origin in Mount Cerausium. The two distances here given by Pausanias shew that the Lymax was the river of Tragoi, and that the Plataniston was that which descends from the hollows about Skliru, into the glen on the eastern side of Mount Cotylium: consequently, that the proper Neda was that which has its origin in Mount Tetrazi.
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§ 2.011 Hence also it appears that this mountain was the ancient Cerausium, of which word the modern name is perhaps a corruption. The observation of Pausanias as to the extremely winding course of the Neda, must be applied to it below Phigaleia, for its course is very direct upwards from thence towards the peak of Tetrazi, as is particularly apparent from the acropolis of Phigaleia. Strabo remarks that the Neda rises at a fountain in Mount Lycaeum, which was fabled to have been caused to flow by Rhea, being in want of water when she brought forth Jupiter; from Pausanias however it is evident that this was not the true Neda, but its branch, the Lymax, so called from the λύματα of Rhea upon that occasion. In the prospect from the temple, the steep mountains on the eastern side of the glen of Bassae are blended with the great summits of Mount Lycaeum, called Karyatiko and Dhioforti. To the right of this range, and in the direction of the course of the Plataniston, the majestic summit of Tetrazi presents itself, with a cultivated space at the foot of it, around the village of Kakaletri. To the right of Tetrazi Mount Ithome appears above the part of the
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§ 2.012 ridge of Tetrazi which I crossed coming from Skala; and to the right of Ithome, the Messenian gulf, Koroni, Mount Lykodhemo, and then the range of Kondovuni. A higher summit of the ridge on which the temple stands intercepts the view for a short distance to the right of Kondovuni: but beyond it, to the right again, is seen the lofty mountain behind Arkadhia, and that town with its castle, from which, consequently, I might have seen the temple, had I been aware of it, and the weather permitted; — then occurs a part of the sea-coast, and the country about Pavlitza. Another summit of Mount Cotylium now intercepts the view, but by mounting a few paces I obtain the bearing of the peaked summit above Fanari, and see the champaign country of the Alpheius between Fanari and Lalla, with the rock of Sandameri rising above the tableheights of Lalla. Mount Malevo, of Tzakonia, is seen a little to the right of the Karyatiko. It may be inferred, I think, from Pausanias, that Bassae and Cotylum were two subordinate villages, or castles, of the Phigalenses, and it appears that they were not far removed from one another, for he describes both Bassae and the temple as being in the mountain which took its name from Cotylum. Bassae therefore, I infer, was at the temple itself, and
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§ 2.013 Cotylum gave name to the mountain which rose above the temple to the westward, and the nearest part of which was forty stades from Phigaleia. Some remains of the temple of Venus may perhaps be concealed in the recesses of the forest, and these would determine the site of Cotylum. I am informed by some of the peasants, that there are vestiges of Hellenic walls at Kakaletri, which prove that place to have been the position of a third dependent fortress, or fortified village of the Phigalenses. Its cultivated slopes, indeed, lead at once to the presumption, that if the Phigaleian district extended to the crest of the Lycaean range, as one can hardly doubt, Kakaletri must have been one of its subordinate places. This name, although of Hellenic origin, has not the semblance of being ancient. It is more likely that the fortress, or fortified κατοικια, which occupied the site of Kakaletri, bore the same appellation as the mountain under which it stood, namely, Cerausium; for we find in every part of Greece, that the most remarkable summits, with the exception perhaps of the highest and most inaccessible of all, have been fortified, or have had fortresses near them, bearing generally the same name as the mountains themselves. The insecurity which caused such situations to be resorted to never ceased, even in the most

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