Col. William Leake, Travels in Northern Greece (v. 1-4)

§ 3.134 The monks are of three degrees of rank, δόκιμοι, in a state of probation, σταυροφόροι, bearing the sign of the cross, and το μέγα σχήμα, or the highest rank. When the κελλεία, or detached houses, are in small clusters, the monks and laics who inhabit them are under an elder of the parent monastery, but many of these cells are solitary cottages occupied by hermits. There are more than 300 scattered kellia on the mountain. The κελλειώται are either cultivators of vineyards, gardens, or corn-fields, of which latter however there are very few, or they tend the bees and cattle of the peninsula. Some of the inmates of all the monasteries are employed in spinning wool and making articles of clothing, generally those confined to the house by incapacity for out door employment, but the manufactures are chiefly carried on in the retreats called ασκητήρια, more vulgarly ασκήταις, or or σκήτια, from whence the bazar at Karyes is supplied with articles of monastic dress, caps and bonnets of almost every kind used in Greece, beads, crosses, wooden spoons, and other ordinary implements used in the monasteries. Some of the ασκηταϊ, or ascetics, particularly at St. Anna, are book-bindere, painters, and framers of church pictures, and there are some calligraphers, the last remains of a profession which was very extensive before the invention of printing, and was probably a great resource to the monks of Athos. The askiti is under the direction of a monk of the monastery on which it depends, and who is entitled Sucawc.

§ 3.135 The principal askites besides those dependent on Lavra, are the new skiti of St. Paul, that of Xenofu, St. Elias of Pandokratora, St. Demetrius of Vatopedhi, Prddhromo, or the skiti of Kutlumusi, the skiti of A.Triadha near Simopetra, and a monidhi of St. Basil on the shore not far from Karyes. The Oros supplies its inhabitants with timber, firewood, oil, olives, figs, walnuts, potherbs, grapes, and wine, but for bread corn they are entirely dependent upon their metokhia beyond the isthmus: of which the Oros possesses no less than fifty-five in the adjacent parts of Macedonia, or in the island of Thaso. Fish is the only animal food permitted on the peninsula, excepi to strangers of distinction, who are always expected to contribute something to the treasury. The ordinary food therefore of the Aghiorites, even when there is no fast, is vegetables, salt-fish, olives, and cheese. Fresh fish they make little use of: their timid and indolent habits, the deep and tempestuous sea that surrounds them, and the want of boats, combining to deprive them of the best nourishment their rales allow. The mountain is forbidden ground to all animals of the female sex. Neither cow, nor ewe, nor sow, nor hen, nor she-cat, is to be seen; but of course the wild animals and birds defy them; rats and mice multiply and devour them, and they are obliged to confess their obligations to the queen bee, without whose

§ 3.136 assistance they would be deprived of one of their staple productions. All the buildings swarm with wild pigeons in search of food, fortunately for the carnivorous traveller, who without this resource, and that afforded by a few cocks which are kept either for his sake or for a retired prelate in case of illness, would find it difficult to make a dinner. The vulgar believe, or affect to believe, contrary to the evidence of their senses, that nothing feminine can live upon the peninsula; and Ι have heard the sailors of the Aegaean relate stories of women who have been punished with immediate death for having had the audacity to land upon it. The pastures of the mountains are chiefly peopled with mules and young bulls, which, as well as some oxen, rams, and goats, are bred at the metokhia beyond the isthmus, and brought here to grow and fatten. A sheep or goat is killed occasionally at Karyes for the use of the Aga and his household, but even he cannot have any female in his house. The amount of the contributions to the Porte and to the Pasha of Saloniki is about 150 purses, of which the fixed sums are 7500 piastres for miri, 9000 for takhri, 22000 for kharatj. Last year 7000 were paid for a khatsherif of the Sultfin to the Pasha of Saloniki restraining him from any further exactions. Most of the monasteries, if not all, have a debt, for which they pay a high interest, and like some larger communities find this part of their yearly obligations more burthensome than their direct taxes and current expences.

§ 3.137 The inhabitants of Mount Athos are assembled of course from all parts of Turkey, and consist chiefly of men in the decline of life, who retire hither from motives of piety, or more commonly for the sake of securing the remainder of their days from the dangers of Turkish despotism. Any man who brings money with him is welcome; if old, he is not received without it, but the young and laborious are admitted free of expense, and after serving for some years as cosmics they become caloyers. As these persons merely seek their living, they are generally of the lowest classes. Not a few of every period of life are fugitives from the effects of their own crimes, or from Turkish vengeance, whether just or unjust. Hence it seldom happens at present, though it was probably otherwise during the Byzantine empire, that more than a few of the monks in each monastery know any thing beyond the liturgy, the remainder being at the utmost just able to read the church service. Several were pointed out to me, who having formerly become Musulmans and then repented, have fled to this place as the only one where they can return to the church and save themselves from the punishment which awaits the Turkish apostate. Not long since a young Jew of Saloniki came to the Oros to embrace Christianity and the monastic life; but as soon as he had been well-clothed, returned to Saloniki, and there received new favours from the Jews for renouncing Christianity.

§ 3.138 One of the monks of Vatopedhi, who had been instrumental to his first conversion, informs me that he found this Jew soon after at Adrianople practising as a physician. A young Turk of Constantinople, who, being the son of a Janissary of the Patriarch, had been brought up in the constant view of the ceremonies of the church, and had thus become thoroughly acquainted with them, finding himself totally destitute on his father’s death, came to Vatopedhi and served for three years as an ίψημιρος, or one of the priests who take their turns to say the daily mass, and who have frequent opportunities of sharing in the gifts of pilgrims or others. After having conformed himself during that period to all the forms of confession as well as to the usual mortifications, such as an occasional retirement to a hermitage to live on bread and water, he became tired at length of such a life, and desirous of spending some of the piastres which he had collected. Presenting himself therefore one day to the Igumenos, he asked his commands for Constantinople, stating that he had now finished his affairs at the Oros, and that his name was once more Ismail. These tricks are the more ridiculous at Vatopedhi, as this monastery is noted for the strictness of its discipline. It is probably a consequence of their diet that cutaneous disorders and ruptures are very common among the monks in general. The ordinary punishment for breaking the rules of fasting, or other venial offences, is that of μετανοίαις, or repentances, which are generally reckoned by the hundred.

§ 3.139 The μεγάλη μετάνοια, or great repentance, is to make the sign of the cross followed by a prostration of the body to the ground. The μικρή, or little metania, is a cross and bend without prostration. The price of an αγρύπνια, or vigil and mass for the benefit of the purchaser’s soul, is 25 piastres, of the παρρησία, 50 piastres: by means of the latter sum the donor is mentioned in a particular prayer on certain feast days as long as the monastery endures. Among the present inmates of Vatopedhi is an old Chiote, who has been long in the Russian service in various parts of Europe, and now enjoys a pension as a retired captain: he had intended to pass the remainder of his days on the Oros, but disgusted with the companions whom he finds here, is about to return to Teresopol, where he has a daughter married to a Russian colonel. He was at Kherson when Catherine, anxious for the prosperity of her newly-founded city of Khereon, sent thither the Corfiotes Eugenius Bulgari, and Theotoki, with the princess Gkika, all persons well qualified to improve their countrymen, many of whom had been induced to setde there by the advantages which the empress held out. The governor, however, was a Russian, and as such, hated the Greeks. To a new colony, at such a distance from the capital, this was fatal. The poorer settlers perished in great numbers in the winter of 1780; and in 1784 the plague was introduced into Kherson, by which the Chiote captain loet five grown children in four days. Vatopedhi having greater natural advantages than any other situation on the northern coast of the peninsula, may be presumed to occupy the site

§ 3.140 of one of the towns of Acte, but the only antiquities I can find are two sepulchral inscriptions in the church. One of these is in memory of one Hero, daughter of Pancratides, and wife of Astycreon, son of Philip, to whose name that of Astycreon himself was afterwards added. The other inscription is in the magazine of the convent, on a large sorus, now full of oil. Germanus, son of Heracles, being still alive, constructed the tomb for his wife Dionysia, daughter of Dionysius, and for himself, and declared that if any other person should dare to open it, or to place in it another body, he should pay a fine to the public chest of 2000 denaria, and the same sum to the city: dated in the year 351, the second of the month Panemus.

§ 3.141 Nov. 2.—From Vatopedhi to Khilandari in two hours and three quarters: the road very stony and winding, and traversing a succession of heights not far from the sea. Half an hour short of Khilandari stands Simenu, properly Έσφιγμένου, situated close to the sea, at the mouth of a torrent in a little narrow valley, from which compressed position the name is taken. The monastery was founded by Theodosius the younger and his sister Pulcheria. About a mile to the eastward is a secure little creek; and on the hill which separates the vale of Simenu from that of Khilandari is a tower standing on the edge of the clifif above the sea: some part of its wall is said to be of Hellenic masonry, though I saw no appearance of this in riding along the beach below it. It is also reported that there were formerly many Hellenic foundations at the Arsana of Khilandari, which is a mile below that monastery, and in particular the remains of a mole, part of which is now left. So many of the elder monks agree in this, that there seems little doubt that here stood one of the ancient cities of Acte, the situation being moreover one of the most likely from its natural conveniences. A rock at a little distance from the coast affords some shelter, but the anchorage is safe only in fine weather. Khilandari is delightfully situated in a vale watered by a torrent, and surrounded with pine-clad hills. There is a good garden below the monastery, and beyond, as far as the sea, the torrent is shaded with trees. The monks are almost all from Servia and Bulgaria, and the Illyric only is spoken in the convent or read in the church, though many of them can speak and read Greek. The library consists entirely of Illyric books. The monastery was founded by two ascetics, Symeon of Servia and his son Sabbas, but the present church was built by Stephen, king of Servia, son-in-law of the emperor Romanus. Khilandari is the tenth and last monastery of the northern shore of the peninsula. Three hours walk from it, towards the opposite shore, is Zografu another Servo-Bulgarian monastery, and the tenth and last of the southern side of the peninsula. These two houses, but particularly Khilandari, possess larger territories than any of the others, but the land is barren or uncultivated, and does not even produce the useful trees which clothe the eastern parts of the ridge. The pastures alone are of any value.

§ 3.142 Nov. 3.—At an early hour this morning I proceed from Khilandari to the Isthmus of Acte, over hills intersected by narrow valleys; the latter -are watered by torrents flowing from the heights on our left, which are covered with pines unmixed with any other trees, or with any intervals of cultivation. The route follows the direction of the shore, at no great distance from it, for 2h.45m., when at the summit of the ridge which terminates in the cape forming the northern extremity of the peninsula, and the eastern side of the entrance into the Gulf of Erisso, we leave the highest point of this ridge on the left, and descend to a sandy beach which borders the Gulf of Erisso and extends northward as far as the foot of the mountain of Nizvoro. Three miles to the right, at the descent and just within the Cape, is the port of Frango Limiona, and a little nearer that of Platy, where many boats are now at anchor. We first cross the termination of a fertile and well cultivated valley, which extends two or three miles to the left among the hills; and in the middle of which stands a metokhi

§ 3.143 of Bulgarians belonging to the monastery of Khilandari: then, after passing over a rocky point clothed with wood, enter the low undulated ground forming the Isthmus which connects the Peninsula of Acte with the great peninsula of Chalcidice. The first metokhi on the isthmus is that of Iviron; a quarter of an hour beyond which is the Vatopedhino. These farms and monidhia stand on the shore of the bay of Erisso, the former to the eastward of the narrowest part of the isthmus, the latter a few hundred yards of it to the westward. The modern name of this neck of land is Provlaka, evidently the Romaic form of the word προαΰλαξ, having reference to the canal in front of the Peninsula of Athos, which crossed the isthmus and was excavated by Xerxes. The breadth of the isthmus, or length of the canal, appears to me not quite so much as the Roman mile and a half which Pliny assigns to it. It is a hollow between natural banks, which are well described by Herodotus as κολωνοί ου μεγάλοι, the highest points of them being scarcely 100 feet above the sea. The lowest part of the hollow is only a few feet higher than that level. About the middle of the isthmus, where the bottom is highest,

§ 3.144 are some traces of the ancient canal; where the ground is lower, it is indicated only by hollows, now filled with water in consequence of the late rains. At the northern end in particular, there is a large pond, divided only from the sea by a narrow ridge of sand. On either side of this pond, are seen foundations of Hellenic walls. Those to the eastward are at some little distance from the pond, but on the opposite side they are close to the edge of it, and of the sea beach, and are traceable for some distance parallel to the beach towards the Vatopedhino metokhi. At the opposite end of the isthmus, or that which borders the Singitic Gulf, the canal passed for the last 200 yards along the bed of a rivulet, which originates above Erisso, and discharges itself into the sea between two small heights, which embrace this end of the canal, and behind the eastern of which, above that bank of the canal, are two other similar eminences. The middle of the three has a flat summit, apparently artificial, on the slope of which, towards the canal, are foundations containing several large squared masses of stone, and a block of white marble. On this height stands a small metokhi of Khilandari; the third height is formed entirely of a mass of stones and mortar, the remains of some ancient building. All the fields around are covered with stones, among which is here and there a large squared block. These are all that remains above ground of the ancient Sane, for that Sane occupied exactly this situation is shown by Herodotus and Thucydides, both of whom place it on the isthmus, but within Acte, of which the canal of Xerxes was the limit,

§ 3.145 while Thucydides adds, that it was towards the sea of Euboea. The canal seems to have been not more than 60 feet wide. As history does not mention that it was ever kept in repair after the time of Xerxes, the waters from the heights around have naturally filled it in part with soil in the course of ages. It might, however, without much labour, he renewed: and there can be no doubt that it would be useful to the navigation of the Aegaean, for such is the fear entertained by the Greek boatmen of the strength and uncertain direction of the currents around Mount Athos, and of the gales and high seas to which the vicinity of the mountain is subject during half the year, and which are rendered more formidable by the deficiency of harbours in the Gulf of Orfana, that I could not, as long as I was on the peninsula, and though offering a high price, prevail upon any boat to carry me from the eastern side of the peninsula to the western, or even from Xiropotami to Vatopedhi. Xerxes, therefore, was perfectly justified in cutting this canal, as well from the security which it afforded to his fleet, as from the facility of the work, and the advantages of the ground, which seems made expressly to tempt such an undertaking.

§ 3.146 The experience of the losses which the former expedition under Mardonius had suffered suggested the idea. The circumnavigation of the capes Ampelus and Canastraeum was much less dangerous, as the gulfs offer some good harbours, and it was the object of Xerxes to collect forces from the Greek cities in those gulfs as he passed. If there be any difficulty arising from the narrative of Herodotus, it is in comprehending how the operation should have required so long a time as three years, when the king of Persia had such multitudes at his disposal, and among them Egyptians and Babylonians, who were accustomed to the making of canals. The view from the site of Sane comprehends only a small portion of the southern coast of Acte, a cape near Zografu hiding all the more distant part; the island of Muliani, which is only a mile or two distant, impedes also the prospect of all the eastern coast of Sithonia, except that of Port Vurvuri, before which are some islands seen in a line with the northern extremity of Muliani, and to the right of which appears the coast at the head of the Singitic Gulf. At Vurvuri is the isthmus of the Sithonian peninsula, much wider than those of Acte or Pallene, being not less than three miles in a direct line. The road from Sane to Erisso follows up the rivulet from where it joins the canal of Xerxes to an opening in a range of hills which, crossing from the one gulf to the other, thus separates the vale of Provlaka from the plain of Erisso,

§ 3.147 terminating on the northern coast in a cape which lies half way between Erisso and the Vatopedhino metokhi, and shuts out all view of the one valley from the other. At the opening in the ridge, stands another metokhi, belonging to one of the convents of the Holy Mountain, and half a mile beyond it, on a height adjoining the ridge, is Eriseos or Ierissos, consisting of 150 scattered honses, inhabited entirely by Greeks, and of which those nearest to the sea are about a quarter of a mile distant from it, and half an hour from the Vatopedhino metokhi. The height of Erisso is crowned with a ruined castle of the middle ages, and on the shore stands a windmill, the only one I have seen on the continent of Greece, except at Megara: here also is a large ancient mole, advancing in a curve into the sea, and though in ruins still serving to shelter the boats which navigate the Strymonic Gulf. As Herodotus denominates the sea at the northern end of the Canal of Xerxes the Sea of the Acanthii, the mole seems sufficient evidence of the position of the port of Acanthus, and consequently, that Acanthus occupied exactly the situation of the modern Erisso; in confirmation of which I find on the maritime or northern side of the hill upon which the village stands, some remains of a Hellenic wall, constructed of square blocks of grey granite, of which stone there is an ancient quarry near the port of Platy. There are some foundations of similar construction at a greater distance from the sea, particularly near a

§ 3.148 new khan in the lower part of the village; these seem to have belonged to the town walls, the former to the acropolis. It can hardly be doubted, therefore, that Ptolemy and the Epitomizer of Strabo have erroneously placed Acanthus on the Singitic instead of the Strymonic Gulf, in which they are opposed by Herodotus, who is extremely accurate in his topography of the Persian invasion, and with whom Scymnus and Mela are in agreement. The error of Strabo and Ptolemy may perhape have arisen from the territory of Acanthus having stretched for a considerable distance along the shore of the Singitic as well as the Strymonic Gulf, from the former of which Erisso is not two miles distant. It would even seem from Livy that Acanthus had a harbour on that gulf; for in describing the course of the fleet of Attalus and the Romans in the Macedonic war, B.C. 200, when after their failure at Cassandria they sailed to Acanthus, he states only that they sailed round the promontory of Canastraeum and that of Torone, thereby implying that they did not double the cape of Athos. Among many ancient coins which I have purchased of the people of Erisso, and which had all been found on the spot or in the fields cultivated by the villagers, those of Acanthus are much more numerous than any others, and are of very distant times, some in silver being of a remote antiquity, while those of copper are generally of a late date.

§ 3.149 Next in number to the coins of Acanthus are those of Uranopolis, or the city of the Uranidae, Ουρανίδων πόλεως, as the name is inscribed upon them, of which place history has left us no information, except that it was founded by Alexarchus, brother of Cassander, king of Macedonia. Possibly it may have occupied the same site as Sane, as Pliny, the only author besides Athenaeus who names Uranopolis, has not included Sane among the towns of Athos. Herodotus, Thucydides, and Strabo, agree in showing that the peninsula of Acte contained five cities, named Dium, Thyssus, Cleonae, Acroathos, or the city of the Acrothoi, and Holophyxus; to these Scylax adds Charadriae. As all these authorities agree in showing the city of the Acrothoi to have been near the extremity of the peninsula, there seems no situation with which it can be identified but that of Lavra, where alone the site and a small harbour offer some natural conveniences. The proximity of Lavra to the adjacent cape Zmyrna is a further proof, for Acroathos was a cape as well as a town, and it is evident that Zmyrna and St. George are the Acroathos and Nymphaeum described by Strabo as being the former the termination of the Strymonic, the latter that of the Singitic Gulf. Strabo, indeed, or his Epitomizer, as well as Pliny and Mela, seem to have supposed that Acroathos stood on the peak of

§ 3.150 Athos; but to any person who has seen the mountain, that supposition cannot but appear almost as incredible as that the inhabitants should have seen the sun three hours before those who dwelt on the sea-shore. These absurdities are the more glaring in Strabo, as his description of the peak is correct and forcible. A statue of Jupiter Athous, and some altars, were probably all that ever occupied the position of the modern chapel. Of the situation of the other four cities of Acte we have no means of judging, but by the order in which they are named by the four authors just cited. But, unfortunately, they do not all agree in that order, and a comparison of them, as often happens in similar cases, leads to no certain result. Scylax, whose work, being a periplus, ought to be the best authority, arranges them in the following order, coasting from Torone:—Dium, Thyssus, Cleonae, the mountain Athos, Charadriae, Holophyxus, and then Acanthus, whence it would appear that Thyssus and Cleonae were

§ 3.151 on the southern, and Charadriae and Holophyxus on the northern coast. Neither of the two historians mention Sane among the cities of Acte, though it was within the isthmus. Herodotus places next to it, Dium, then Holophyxus, Acrothoum, Thyssus and Cleonae; while Thucydides thus names them, beginning also from Sane: Thyssus, Cleonae, Acrothoi, Holophyxus, Dium. If then we suppose the two historians to have followed opposite directions round the peninsula, they concur both with one another, and with Scylax, in favouring the opinion that Thyssus and Cleonae were on the southern coast, and Holophyxus on the northern, but they differ from him as to Dium, which they tend to place on the northern coast. As they all agree, however, in showing that Dium was the nearest town tb the isthmus, in which Strabo concurs by thus enumerating the towns of Acte—Dium, Cleonae, Thyssus, Holophyxus, Acrothoi, it is very possible that Dium was neither on the northern nor southern shore of the peninsula, but on the western, or in the gulf of Acanthus. In this case, if it be admitted that Vatopedhi and the Arsana of Khilandari were ancient positions, it will follow, if we trust to the order of names in Scylax, which in this instance is not opposed to the testimony of the historians or of Strabo, since they all omit Charadriae, that the latter site was that of Holophyxus, and that

§ 3.152 Vatopedhi is the position of Charadriae. As to Thyssus and Cleonae, one of them appears to have occupied some situation near Zografu, or Dhokhiari, and the other that of Xeropotami; but it is impossible to come to any more precise conclusion, unless we consider the periplus of Scylax as a weightier authority than the others; for Herodotus and Strabo seem to place Cleonae in the more western position, while Thucydides accords with Scylax in giving that situation to Thyssus. In this case Xeropotami occupies the site of Cleonae, and Thyssus stood near Dhokhiari or Zografu. The discovery of an inscription, with the name of any of these towns, would tend greatly to elucidate this question of the ancient sites of Acte. Pliny has so mixed up the names of the cities of this part of Macedonia, that no positive inference can be drawn from him, though it may be worthy of remark, that he, like all the other four authors who enumerate the towns, names Thyssus and Cleonae contiguously. From Erisso a road, which soon joins that from the southern end of the Provlaka, or site of Sane, leads along the extremities of the Singitic and Toronaic Gulfs to Pinaka, the site of Potidaea, which was afterwards named Cassandreia The isthmus on which this city stood is now called the Gate of Kassandhra, as being the entrance into the peninsula of Pallene, the whole of which is known by

§ 3.153 the name of Kassandhra. The road from Erisso to the Porta passes by Aio Nikola, a village not far from the north-western extremity of the Singitic Gulf, thence to Ermylies, or Ormylia, situate a few miles from the north-eastern angle of the Toronaic Gulf, and by Molivo-pyrgo to Aio Mamas, both situated on the same shore, the latter two hours from the Porta. In the Singitic Gulf, according to Herodotus, the maritime towns between Sane and Cape Ampelus were Assa, Pilorus, Singus, and Sarta, and as the historian was describing the progress of the fleet of Xerxes, we can hardly doubt that their situations were in that order. Sykia is probably a corruption of Singus, from which the gulf was named Singitic. Assa perhaps occupied the site of some ruins called Paleokastro, which are at the northern extremity of the Singitic Gulf, about midway by land between Erisso and Vurvuri, and on the road to Porta about midway between Erisso and Ormylia. The position in the centre of a fertile country at the head of the gulf seems to correspond to the apparent importance of Assa, as deducible from Theopompus, Aristotle and Pliny; if we suppose, as can hardly be doubted,

§ 3.154 the Assa of Herodotus is the same place as the Assyra of Aristotle and the Cassera of Pliny; Pilorus, on this supposition, may have occupied Port Vurvuri, or one of the harbours adjacent to it on the north, and Kartali may be a corruption of Sarta, marking the site of that city, which probably, like many others of the Greek cities of Thrace, declined after the Macedonian conquest. In the gulf of Kassandhra, anciently known as the Sermylian, or Mecybernaean, as well as the Toronaic, the towns on the eastern and northern sides were situated in the following order, according to their occurrence in Herodotus: Torone, Galepsus, Sermyle, Mecyberna, Olynthus. Of the situation of Sermyle there can be no doubt, there being no greater difference between Σερμυλη and the modern Όρμύλια, or Έρμυλίες, than might even have existed anciently between the local and the general form of the word. The site of Olynthus at Aio Mamas is known by its distance of 60 stades from Potidaea, or the isthmus of Pallene, as well as by some vestiges of the city still existing, and by its lagoon or marsh, which is mentioned in history as having been the place where the captured defenders of Olynthus were put to death by Artabazus when he wintered in this part

§ 3.155 of Thrace, after having escorted the defeated Xerxes to the Hellespont. From Athenaeus, on the authority of Hegesandrus, we learn that the name of the marsh was Bolyca, and that it received two rivers, named the Ammites and Olynthiacus. The ruins of Torone preserving their ancient name, and the positions of Olynthus and Sermyle being obtained, it follows from the order of names in Herodotus, that Mecybema was at Molivopyrgo where some remains of antiquity are said to be preserved; and the site of Galepsus is to be sought for in some part of the shore about 25 miles in length, which lies between Torone and the port of Sermyle. Galepsus I take to have been the same place afterwards called Physcella, a distinction having probably been required because there was another Galepsus at no great distance, on the sea-coast, eastward of the Strymon. In the peninsula of Pallene there were eight towns in the time of the Persian invasion, and in the following order, coasting from Olynthus to the Thermaic gulf: Potidaea, Aphytis, Neapolis, Aege, Therambo, Scione, Mende, Sane. Of these it appears from other authors, and especially from Strabo, who names no others, that the principal besides Potidaea were Aphytis, Mende, Scione,

§ 3.156 and Sane. All these, except Sane, were sufficiently opulent to coin their own money, of which specimens are still extant. Aphytis is determined by the modern name Athyto, attached to a village on the eastern shore, about one third of the distance between Porta or Cassandria and Cape Paliuri, the ancient Canastraeum. Therambus appears from Stephanus to have been on or very near a promontory, to which circumstance of position Lycophron seems to have alluded in mentioning Therambus in a passage relating to Phlegra, which was the ancient name of Pallene. Therambus therefore occupied a position very near Cape Canastraeum. The south-western cape of Pallene, by Livy called Posidium, and by Thucydides Posidonium, probably from a temple of Neptune which stood upon it, still retains the former appellation, vulgarly pronounced Posidhi. Mende appears, from the following circumstances, to have been situated near this cape on the south-western side. When Attalus and the Romans, in the year B.C. 200, sailed from Sciathus against Cassandria, they first touched at Mende, and then doubled the cape before they arrived at Cassandria. Having failed here, chiefly in consequence of the weather, they returned round the Cape Canastraeum and that of Torone to the port of Acanthus in the Singitic gulf.

§ 3.157 According to these data it seems evident, that some Hellenic remains which have been observed on the shore, near Cape Posidhi, to the eastward, as well as on the heights above it, are those of Mende, such a position of Mende with relation to Posidium according moreover with the transactions of the ninth year of the Peloponnesian war, when the Athenians, proceeding from Potidaea against Mende and Scione, sailed to Posidonium, and after having taken Mende, proceeded against Scione, of which the territory was conterminous with that of Mende. The order of names in Herodotus, therefore, which tends to place Scione between the Capes Paliuri and Posidhi, agrees perfectly with the narrative of Thucydides: and the remains of Sane should, according to Herodotus, be sought for between Cape Posidhi and the western side of the isthmus of Porta. Mela accords with the same conclusion as to Scione, inasmuch as he states it to have occupied together with Mende the broadest part of the peninsula, but he is opposed to it in regard to the position of Sane, which he places near Canastraeum.

§ 3.158 CHAPTER 25 MACEDONIA Nov. 4.—From Erissó to Nizvoro: distance, three hours and three quartere. A ride of forty minutes brings us to the end of the cultivated landa of Erissó, which bear corn, kalambókki, and vines. The low undulations of ground which border the isthmus become higher as we advance, and at length are blended with a woody ridge which, branching from the mountain of Nizvoro, has a direction parallel to the shore at the head of the Singitic gulf. Having passed some low hills which terminate in a projection in the Bay of Acanthus, we enter a small valley, and from thence cross over some other inconsiderable heights into a plain which produces maize, and is bounded to the south-west by woody hills. Here are many fine plane trees. At the end of this valley, one hour and fifty minutes from Erissó, we cross a rivulet from the hill on our left, near its junction with another from the mountain of Nizvoro,

§ 3.159 follow a wide torrent, a branch of the latter, and ascend some narrow valleys, which conduct at length by a steep path to Nizvoro [Isvoros, now Stratoniki]. This town stands in a lofty situation on the south-western face of a woody mountain, the extremity of a ridge, which stretches westward from thence across the Chalcidic peninsula. In the ascent we passed in several places large heaps of the burnt ore of the silver mines, which have given to the surrounding district the name of Sidhero-kapsa, and we looked down to the right on an inlet which branches from the northern side of the Acanthian bay. At the head of this bay, on a small level, a Hellenic castle is described to me as situated on a height, and as enclosing a space of four stremata; below it, on the sea-side, there are said to be many Hellenic foundations with remains of an ancient port. The place is called Stratoni, and is supposed to be the ancient Stageirus. An agoyates, who accompanied the horses on foot, remarked to me that it was η πατρίδα τον Αριστοτέλους, or the native town of Aristotle. Yesterday, in like manner, a monk of the Vatopedhino metokhi showed some knowledge of the history of the invasion of Xerxes, and that notwithstanding the mass of ignorance collected in the monasteries of the Oros, some recollections of ancient history are still preserved here. This may be attributed in great measure to the Chalcidice and its three smaller peninsulas being inhabited by Greeks unmixed either with the Bulgarian or Albanian race, and having very few Turks among them.

§ 3.160 Nevertheless the tradition as to Stageirus is probably erroneous, for Stageirus was a place of greater importance than the vestiges at Stratoni and its confined valley indicate, and the latter name so nearly resembles Stratoniceia that there is a strong presumption of the identity. It is true that Ptolemy, the only author who mentions Stratoniceia, places it in the Singitic gulf, but this may be a consequence of his having improperly assigned Acanthus to the same gulf.. Nizvoro contains three or four hundred houses, divided into two nearly equal Makhaladhes, situated half a mile apart, the one inhabited by Greeks, at the head of whom is the bishop of Erissos, one of the suffragans of the metropolitan of Thessalonica, and styled also bishop of Aghion Oros; the other by Turks, and the residence of Rustem Aga, who, as Madem Agasi, has the direction of the neighbouring silver mines, together with the government of twelve eleftherokhoria in the Chalcidic peninsula, which from this union of the Mukata are named the Sidherokapsika, or Mademokhoria. Not long since Rustem was nearly expelled from his post by the united complaints of all the villages under his government, hut having, by the powerful support of Ibrahim Bey of Serres, his patron, overcome all difficulties, as well at Saloniki as at Constantinople, he revenged himself upon the Greek Proestos of Nizvoro, who was instigator of the combination against him, by putting him into a well, and keeping him there till he had gradually extorted all his property, when he cut

§ 3.161 off his head. My Janissary, who relates this anecdote, considers it as a proof of Rustem being a doghru adam, or upright man. Rustem pays the Porte 120 purses and 200 okes of silver for the mukata of the villages and mines, but as he never makes more than 100 okes from the mines, he is obliged to supply the difference in money. This he is enabled to do by the Greeks of the Sidherokapsika, who are well content to make good the deficiency for the sake of the advantages they derive from belonging to the government of the mines. The owner of the house in which I lodge pays 300 piastres a year in δοσήματα of all kinds. Belon, who visited the mines of Sidherokapsa in the middle of the sixteenth century, asserts that he found five or six hundred furnaces in different parts of the mountain, that besides silver, gold was extracted here from pyrites, that 6000 workmen were then employed, and that the mines sometimes returned to the Turkish government a monthly profit of 30,000 ducats of gold. The name Sidherokapsa, although implying a smelting of iron, is generally applied to places where any appearances of metallurgy remain; it is not probable that there ever existed any iron works in this place. The villages attached to the government of the Mines are chiefly situated in the highlands of the Chalcidic peninsula on either side of the central ridge, and in a part of the country to the south-west of Nizvoro, towards the isthmus of Sithonia. In this direction, four hours distant, is Reveniko, containing 200 houses. On the direct road to Saloniki, which is eighteen hours distant,

§ 3.162 are Elerigova, four hours from Nizvoro, containing 400 houses, Galatista, or Galatzita, of 500 houses, eight hours farther, and Vasilika of 400, midway from the latter to Saloniki. Galatista is near the origin of a stream which separates the highlands of Chalcidice into two parallel ridges, and joins the sea in the bay of Saloniki. The road from Galatista follows the river nearly to its mouth. Not far short of Vasilika, to the right of the road, is the monastery of St. Anastasia. To the southward of Galatista, towards Polighyro, are Vavdho, of 300 houses, two hours distant, and beyond it, at a like distance, Rizitnikia. To the northward of Galatista, in the mountains towards the valley of Klisali and Besikia, are Adhami, Zakliveri, and Ravana, the last of which is on the road from Saloniki to Pazarudhi. The ridges which extend westward from Nizvoro rise to a central peak called Solomon, or Kholomon, possibly an ancient name, from whence the waters flow southward to the gulfs of Aion Oros and Kassandhra, westward to that of Saloniki, and northward, into the lake of Besikia. There are said to be some remains of an ancient town, at the foot of the peak, not far to the southward of Elerigova, on a stream which flows to the Gulf of Kassandhra. The district of the Mademokhoria borders to the south-west upon that of Khassia, or the Khasika, which are fifteen Eleftherokhoria, forming a confederacy similar to that of the mines, and having an aristocratic administration to each village,

§ 3.163 a council or deputation for the repartition of the taxes, and other general concerns, which assembles at Polighyro, the residence of the Turkish aga, who farms the revenue from the Porte. Polighyro contains 600 families, and stands at a distance of three hours from the shore of the Gulf of Kassandhra, at the foot of the heights of Kholomon. The Khasika comprehend all the ημερα βουνά or cultivable heights and undulated country, which fall southward from those mountains to the Toronaic and Thermaic Gulfs. The northern part of the district bordering on the latter gulf is known by the name of Kalameria, and is one of the most productive districts in Macedonia. With the exception of some Turkish tjiftliks, and some metokhia of Aion Oros, the land of the Khasika is possessed entirely by the villages. Besides affording excellent winter pasture for cattle and sheep, it produces an abundance of grain of superior quality; its wool, honey, and wax, are also considerable, and silk-worms are raised in the villages, particularly in the two principal towns, Polighyro and Ermylies, which alone contain four or five hundred silk-looms. Kassandhra, or the peninsula of Pallene, forms a similar union of villages, under a Turkish Voivoda, who resides at Valta, towards the centre of the peninsula. The villages are twelve in number, of which Athyto, Valta, Furka, Kalendria, and Aghia Paraskevi, are the principal. The produce of the peninsula is similar to that of the Khasika, which adjoins to it, besides which the Pallenaeans have numerous boats and small vessels, and derive great benefit from their maritime traffic.

§ 3.164 Nov. 5.—The mines now wrought are about half an hour from Nizvoro, between two hills, in a deep ravine, where a stream of water serves for the operations of washing, as well as to turn a wheel for working the bellows for the furnace. The whole is conducted in the rudest and most slovenly manner. The richest ore is pounded with stones upon a board by hand, then washed and burnt with charcoal; the inferior ore is broken into larger pieces, and burnt twice without washing. The lead, when extracted from the furnace, is carried to Kastro, where the silver is separated, in the proportion of two or three drams to an oke of 400 drams. When the present shafts are exhausted, the mines will probably be abandoned. From the mines Ι return, by a circuitous path, to a point not far above Nizvoro, and set off from thence on the road to Stavros at 4.30 (Turkish time). The heaps of wrought ore, some of which I passed yesterday, but which are seen in much greater quantity on the side of the mountain below the present works, show how very extensively these mines have once been wrought. The lofty mountains which lie at the back of Nizvoro are covered with forests, consisting on the southern side chiefly of elms, on the summit of chestnuts,

§ 3.165 and to the north of oaks. Some of the elms are very fine trees. All the forenoon we travel amidst the clouds, which, as the wind is to the south-east, hang low upon the hills, and at 6.30 descend upon the southern corner of the plain of Lybjadha, around which all the sides of the hills are covered with great heaps of scoriae, similar to those near the Madem of Nizvoro, but much larger and more numerous. The plain, which is a dead level in the form of an equilateral triangle, surrounded by woody mountains, is covered with fields of kalambokki, and intersected with torrents shaded by large plane trees. The scoriae are seen in the greatest quantities in the bed of one of these torrents, below the corner where we descended; but a peasant who has the care of a magazine for the maize, informs me, that towards the summit of the mountain there are heaps of the same substance larger than any near the valley, and shafts of a much greater depth and size. Some of these may be works, perhaps, of the ancient Macedonians, whence a part of the silver money was derived, the prodigious quantity of which is proved by the proportion of it still existing. Ι am not aware, however, that any ancient author has noticed mines in this part of the country. On inquiring for ancient buildings, the keeper of the magazine conducts me to the southern angle of the bay, where I find the remains of a thin wall constructed of small stones and mortar, built across the neck of a promontory, and a little within the same point towards the plain, many fragments

§ 3.166 of ancient pottery on the side of the hill, with a piece of Hellenic wall crossing a little ravine or water-course. In the adjacent angle of the bay is a place called the Skala, where plank and scantling are now lying ready for embarkation. The bay is sheltered by an island in the middle, distant a mile and a half from the shore, and about as much in circumference. It is called Kafkana, a word derived from καυω, like Kafkhio and Kapsa, names which we generally find attached to places preserving appearances of metallurgic operations. The bay, plain, paleokastro, and skala, are all known by the name of Lybiadha, which the natives derive from that of the mother of Alexander, and not without probability; since the omission of the initial o, the third case, and the conversion of Λυμπιάδα into Λυμπτζιάδα, are all in the ordinary course of Romaic corruption. A situation a little below the serai of the Aga at Kastro, where some fragments of columns are still seen, is said to have been the site of Alexander’s mint. Both Turks and Greeks, and even the poorest peasants, are full of the history of Alexander, though it is sometimes strangely disfigured, and not unfrequently Alexander is confounded with Skanderbeg. The port and island of Lybtzadha are probably those which in the epitome of the seventh book of Strabo are described as being near Stageirus, and named Caprus, for this is the only island in the

§ 3.167 Strymonic Gulf, except Leftheridha, and the latter being close to the cape now called Marmari, which forms the northern side of the entrance into the bay of Acanthus, is too far from Stageirus, if that place, as I suspect from the name, stood at the modern Stavros. Leftheridha, moreover, being nothing more than the Romaic form of Eleutheris, seems to indicate the preservation of an ancient name. Within that cape to the northward there is a small harbour. Leaving the skala at 8.30 Turkish, and following the beach, I arrive at 9 at the point which forms the northern extremity of the bay and plain, and from thence follow the sea shore under the mountains, winding to the left as we enter upon the shore of the bay of Rendina, as this extremity of the Strymonic gulf is called, until we arrive at 10.50 on the beach immediately below the village of Stavros, and about a mile eastward of the western extremity of the gulf, where now lies a ship loading wood. An ascent-of a quarter of an hour brings me to the village of Stavros, which stands on a height at the foot of woody mountains, similar to those enclosing the plain of Lybtzadha. Stavros contains about 50 houses, inhabited by cultivators of kalambokki grounds in the plain at the head of the gulf, or by pastors of the fine cattle, of which there are numerous flocks in every part of the Chalcidic peninsula.

§ 3.168 The position is very much that of a Hellenic town, the height being detached in front of the mountain, flanked on either side by a torrent, and falling to a level which is itself higher than the plain adjacent to the sea-shore. There are even some appearances of ancient walls of a very rough and irregular species on the eastern side above the torrent. These remains, the position, and the name Stavros, which, the accent in Στάγαρος being on the first syllable, is a natural contraction of that name, seem decisive of Stavros being the site of Stageirus. Herodotus in describing the march of the army of Xerxes from the mouth of the Strymon to Acanthus, states, that after passing Argilus and leaving the gulf of Posidium on the left, they traversed the plain called Syleus, and then passing Stageirus arrived at Acanthus, all which accords perfectly with the supposition just stated, the plain which lies between it and the sea being sufficiently wide for the army to have left the city on the right. That Stageirus was not far from Acanthus is rendered probable by their having both been colonies of the Andrii, and because when Acanthus surrendered to Brasidas in the eighth year of the Peloponnesian war,

§ 3.169 Stageirus immediately followed the example. In the fact of the restoration of Stageirus by the influence of Aristotle, we have a proof that it had fallen to decay before the time of Alexander; at the same time that the few vestiges now remaining, and the want of all coins of Stageirus, give reason to believe that the improvement was not permanent. The city therefore was probably in the height of its prosperity about the time of the Persian war, and with the other Greek colonies in this quarter, declined when western Thrace became a part of the kingdom of Macedonia. Nov. 6.—From Stavros to Orfani, distant 5 h. 40 min. without the baggage, which is left to follow as on the three preceding days. Our pace, notwithstanding, is not more than a man’s walk, as the agoyates, from whom I hire the horses, accompany them on foot. The rain begins very soon after we set out, and continues with little intermission all the day; half an hour beyond Stavros, leaving a khan in the plain, a quarter of a mile on the left, we cross a wooden bridge over a small stream which issues from the lake of Besikia, and from thence passing through an

§ 3.170 opening in the mountain, which remains a mile on our left, falls into the sea at the same distance to the right of the bridge. The opening being in the great post road from Saloniki to Constantinople, and in a country which has often been infested by robbers, there is a guard-house in the pass, occupied by a few soldiers, commanded by a bolu-bashi, who examines all passengers, and expects a present of a few paras. Herodotus calls this maritime plain Syleus, and Thucydides has exactly described the places in relating the march of Brasidas from Arnae in the Chalcidice to Amphipolis. Moving from Arnae, he arrived towards the evening at Aulon and Bromiscus, where the lake Bolbe discharged itself into the sea, and after supper marched forward. As the word Aulon sufficiently indicates the pass, Bolbe was evidently the lake of Besikia and Bromiscus, near the mouth of the river. Arnae I suspect to have been the same place called Calarna by Stephanus, the existence of which latter place near this part of the coast is shown by the name Turrie Calarnaea, which Mela mentions as between the Strymon and the harbour Caprus. Arethusa, noted for containing the sepulchre of Euripides, appears to have stood in the pass of Aulon, for Arethusa is described by Ammianus as a

§ 3.171 valley and station very near to Bromiscus. By a station be probably meant such a guard as now occupies the pass. It appears from the Jerusalem Itinerary, that in the time of the Greek Empire there was a mutatio, or place for changing horses, at the tomb of Euripides, which was on the road from Amphipolis to Apollonia, twenty Roman miles distant from the former and eleven from the latter. The plain diminishes as we advance, and at length becomes a narrow level between the foot of woody mountains and the northern shore of the gulf, partly cultivated with maize and corn, and partly covered with groves of large plane-trees. It belongs, as well as the plain nearer to the Avlon of Arethusa, to Vrasta, a large village of a mixed population of Greeks and Turks, which stands on the mountain, not far from the Avlon, but not in sight from our road. This mountain was comprehended in the ancient Bisaltia, which, according to Stephanus, contained a city of the same name. Argilus, another city of the Bisalta, occupied a position not far from the sea, between Bromiscus and the mouth of the Strymon. It seems from Herodotus to have been like Stageirus, a little to the right of the route of the army of Xerxes in marching from the Strymon to Acanthus,

§ 3.172 and may therefore be sought for on the mountain. Its territory extended as far as the right bank of the Strymon; for Cerdylium, the mountain immediately opposite to Amphipolis, was in the territory of Argilus. At the end of two hours and a half from Stavros a violent fall of rain detains us an hour in a hut near the sea, after which we follow the direction of the shore at no great distance from it In approaching the Strymon, the hills are much diminished in height; instead of being covered with wood as before they are partly cultivated, and they terminate in a plain which towards the mouth of the river is sandy, and intersected with marshes. In one hour and forty minutes from the hut, we arrive at the Tjai-agsi, or the river’s mouth, as the Turks call the ferry of the Strymon, though it is situated a quarter of a mile from the sea. The river is about 180 yards in breadth. A store-house for the grain of the Strymonic plains, which is exported from hence in large quantities to Constantinople, stands on the right bank, together with a hut of the Gumrukji, or publican, who farms the toll of the ferry, and receives four paras for every head of cattle which passes. There being several caravans collected, and only one boat, capable of carrying about sixteen men or beasts at a time, we are obliged to wait an hour before we can cross.

§ 3.173 Immediately beyond the ferry are some extensive ruins of thick walls, constructed of small stones and mortar, among which appear many squared blocks in the Hellenic style. Though the walls are little more than heaps of ruins, enough remains to show that there was a large quadrangular inclosure, with other smaller detached buildings. The greater part of what now remains is evidently of the time of the Byzantine Empire. By the native Greeks the ruins are most erroneously supposed to be those of Amphipolis: elsewhere Ι have heard them attributed to a town of the Lower Empire named Contessa; but Κομιτίσση, which the Italians have converted into Contessa, and from which they have named this gulf, was, according to the monks of Aionoros, a town or fortress of the Lower Empire, at the western extremity of that peninsula. Among the Greeks, the gulf, as I before observed, generally bears the name of Rendina, which was an imperial-Greek town and bishop’s see, occupying a position in or near the pass of Arethusa. The gulf is sometimes known also as that of Stavros or of Orfana. The ruins at the ferry of the Strymon, whatever may have been their name under the Greek Empire, stand nearly, if not exactly, on the site of that Eion on the Strymon, from whence Xerxes sailed to Asia after his defeat at Salamis; for it seems evident from some of the circumstances attending the battle of Amphipolis, in the tenth year of the Peloponnesian war, that Eion stood on this bank of the river.

§ 3.174 Three quarters of a mile beyond the ferry, and about the same distance from the sea, the hills which border the plain on the eastern side, terminate in a point higher than the part of the ridge behind it, divided into terraces, and having a flat summit, with some appearances of art, but I search in vain for any unequivocal remains of antiquity on it. Along the side of the mountain, of which this height is the termination, stand several Turkish villages, forming a district called Orfana, belonging to the Serres kazasi. The Turks of Orfana are descendants of those Osmanlis who came into this country with the predecessors of Mahomet II. and who, like those of Thessaly, are called by the Greeks Κονιάριδις, or Iconians, a name which recalls to memory the most ancient capital of the Turkish power in Asia Minor. They occupy a large portion of the cultivated mountains of Mace-donia, and some parts of the plains distant from the large towns. Around the latter the lands are generally tjiftliks belonging to Turkish inhabitants of the towns, which are farmed by Christians. The Konikridhes, on the contrary, cultivate their own lands, and seem to be the only Turks in Europe who do not consider agricultural labour a degradation. As at Orfana, they generally occupy districts of small villages, each of which has its separate appellation besides that of the district. These people, though all armed, are peaceably disposed, attached to their landed property, and seldom seek their fortune at court or obey the summons of the Porte for foreign wars. Hence it is rare to hear of any of them attaining to high station, though Mehmet Ali, the present Pasha of Egypt,

§ 3.175 who belonged to an agricultural family of the neighbourhood of Kavala, is an illustrious exception. His uncle, who was governor of that town, having fallen a victim to the arts of his enemies, Mehmet Ali, deprived of this support, was induced to seek his fortune in Egypt, at the head of a small number of followers. The Yuruks, who in Asia live a wandering life, like the Kurds and Turkomans, as their name implies, have become more sedentary in Macedonia and Thrace, where they have villages, and have become cultivators. Those in the Pashalik of Saloniki have a chief called the Yuruk Bey, who resides in that city. Their principal abodes are in the districts of Gumertzina, Drama, Nevrokopo, Serres, Strumitza, Radhovitzi, Tikfis, Karadagh. From the height above-mentioned, which lies to the left of the direct road, I proceed, over open downs covered with corn-fields, to one of the villages of Orfana, situated at an hour and a half from the ferry, in a hollow between two heights watered by a small stream, which flows directly to the sea. The village contains fifty or sixty houses, all Turkish except those of five or six Greek shopkeepers. Although not the largest of the makhalas of Orfana, it is more especially known by that name as being a post station on the great road from Greece to Constantinople. Above it rises the great mountain, which, stretching eastward from the left bank of the Strymon, at the pass of Amphipolis, bounds all the eastern portion of the great Strymonic basin on the south, and near Pravista meets the ridges which inclose the same basin on the east. The mountain is now known by the name of Pirnari, and is evidently the same which has been celebrated by poets and historians under the name of Pangssum.

§ 3.176 Nov. 7.—Being detained this day by the weather at the menzil hane, or post-house of Orfana, Ι discover in the course of the day that the height which overhangs the village to the eastward was the site of an ancient city. Only a few small pieces of the walls remain in situ, but all the space now ploughed for corn, which they once enclosed, is strewn with fragments of ancient pottery, and the remains of former buildings, among which are a few squared blocks of stone. Greek coins are very often found here, and among other small productions of Hellenic art, oval sling-bullets of lead, generally inscribed with Greek names in characters of the best times, or with some emblem such as a thunderbolt.

§ 3.177 In walking over the ground I found several of these bullets, and purchased others, together with coins from the people of the village. There is reason to believe that the site is that of Phagres, a place of some importance, situated in a district which was named Pieria, because it was inhabited by descendants of emigrants from Pieria near Mount Olympus, who had been driven from thence by the Macedones. Hence the valley included between Mount Pangaeum and the sea, in which Phagres was situated, was still called in the time of Thucydides ό Πιερικός κόλπος, or the Pieric bay; the latter word is explained by the nature of the extensive hollow which reaches from Orfand to Pravista, and is included between Pangaeum and a lower maritime ridge which at Pravista forms a junction with that mountain and there separatee the head of the Pieric valley from the plain of Philippi. The army of Xerxes followed this valley in their march into Greece, leaving, as Herodotus observes, Mount Pangaeum on the right. It is true that the order

§ 3.178 in -which the historian names Phagres and Pergamus, as the two chief places in Pieria, tends to the belief that Orfana occupies the site of Pergamus rather than that of Phagres; his words however do not absolutely require that Xerxes should have passed the two places in the order in which the names occur, and Orient is the only situation in which Phagres can be placed, so as to conciliate the testimony of Herodotus and Thucydides, in attributing it to the Pieric valley, with that of Scylax and Strabo, who show that it was the first town beyond the Strymon. If Phagres stood at Orfana, Pergamas was most probably the modern Pravista. The march of Xerxes serves also to give a negative intimation of the position of Galepsus and Aesyme, colonies of the Thasii, which were taken by Brasidas after the capture of Amphipolis; for as neither of these places is mentioned as having been in the line of march of the Persians, we may infer that they were on that part

§ 3.179 of the coast where the line diverged from the sea and followed the Pieric valley. The point where they quitted the shore must, from the nature of the country, have been at or near Kavala; Galepsus and Aesyme, therefore, were probably on the coast between Kavala and Orfani, and one of them at the harbour of Nefter which is situated 2 hours to the southward of Pravista, just within the cape forming the western entrance of the Gulf of Kavala, where still remain the ruins of a Greek city now known by the name of Paleopoli, or Nefteropoli, or Dhefteropoli; the other in that case was at some point of the coast between Nefter and the mouth of the Strymon. The former would rather seem to have been the site of Galepsus than of Aesyme, because Livy in relating that Perseus, when flying from the Romans after his defeat at Pydna, sailed from the mouth of the Strymon to Galepsus on the first day, and on the second to Samothrace, renders it probable that Galepsus was towards the middle distance between the Strymon and Samothrace, and that it was one of the most remarkable harbours of the intervening coast, which data can only be reconciled at Nefteropoli. Scylax, it must be admitted, gives an opposite testimony as to the relative situation of Aesyme and Galepsus; but when the assertions of the geographers are at variance with the circumstantial evidence of history, the latter is generally to be preferred.

§ 3.180 Although the modern route from Constantinople to Orfana and Saloniki, leading by Pravista through the Pieric valley, along the southern side of Mount Pangaeum, exactly in the line of that of Xerxes, is the most direct, it does not coincide with the Roman road, or Via Egnatia, which passed along the opposite base of that mountain through Philippi and Amphipolis, probably for the sake of comprehending in the line both those important cities, the former of which was a Roman colony. Were it not certain from the Itineraries that such was the direction of the Roman road, there might be some doubt whether Neapolis, which lay on that route about 12 M.P. short of Philippi, were not at Nefteropoli; but as there would have been in that case a needless detour of near 20 miles by an angle to the north-east, such a supposition cannot be entertained. Neapolis, therefore, or Neopolis according to its coins, occupied the site of Kavala; and Acontisma which was 8 or 9 miles eastward of Neapolis, may be placed near the other end of the passes of the Sapaei, which were formed by the mountainous coast stretching eastward from Kavala. There is perhaps another ancient city which some persons may be inclined to place at Orfana in preference to Phagres, namely, Myrcinus of the Edoni. But to this it may be objected that the Edoni, as far back as the Persian war, were not in possession of any of the maritime country, and that if Myrcinus had been near the sea, its name could hardly

§ 3.181 have been omitted by Herodotus in his account of the march of Xerxes, or by Scylax in his Periplus of this coast. Myrcinus therefore was in the interior, to the northward of Mount Pangaeum, where the Edoni then possessed all the country as far as Drabescus included, and probably it was very near the site of Amphipolis, which before the Athenian colonization was only a subordinate place called the Nine Ways in the district of Myrcinus, then the chief Greek city in this part of Thrace. When Amphipolis rose to eminence, Myrcinus naturally declined. Nov. 8.—This morning, at 2.40 Turkish, we return for some distance on the road to Saloniki, then leaving it to the left, arrive at 3.22 at the point mentioned on the 6th, where the surface of the ground has an artificial appearance. The intermediate space between this point and the sea consists chiefly of marshy ground and salt pans, near which latter are some magazines on the sea-beach. Turning again to the right, we follow the direct route to the bridge of the Strymon at Neokhori, proceeding along the foot of the hills. At 3.45 Longuri is a mile and a half on the right: it is the largest of the Koniaro-makhaladhes as the Greeks call the detached quarters of Orfana; though bearing, like Orfana, a Greek name, it is inhabited entirely by Turks, dwelling in pyrghi or towers. From hence we approach the strait where the Strymon issues from between the hills into the

§ 3.182 maritime plain, and at 4 mount the heights which advance from Mount Pangaeum to form the strait. At 4.15, below the little Turkish village of Alybassa, or, as the Greeks call it, Alibassiates, the ground is covered with broken pottery and fragments of buildings, which mark the beginning of the site of Amphipolis. On the road side, as well as in an adjacent field, are several sori of stone, but without any inscriptions now visible on them, at least on any of those which Ι examined. The ground appears to be full of sepulchres. Here some remains of the walls of Amphipolis are visible on the crest of the hill to the left. Before us, at the same time, opens a fine view of the Strymonic lake mentioned by Thucydides, and by Arrian named Cercinitis, together with the extensive plains of Serres and Zikhna extending thirty miles from west to east, along the foot of a range of lofty mountains. To the southward this great valley is inclosed by the parallel ridge of Pirnari, or Pangaeum, and by the mountain of Orsova and Vrasta, which is separated only from Pirnari by the pass of Amphipolis, and of which we followed the southern foot from the site of Bromiscus, along the shore of the Strymonic gulf. To the westward this great ridge is prolonged nearly to Saloniki, but at one third of the distance thither sends forth a branch of equal height to the northwest, which incloses the western side of the Strymonic valley,—so that these extensive plains are entirely surrounded by mountains, with the exception

§ 3.183 of three openings, one for the entrance of the Strymon near Demirissar, another for its exit at Amphipolis, and a third for the entrance of a large branch anciently called Angitas, and now Anghista, which, after crossing the plain of Dhrama, the ancient Drabescus, and receiving contributions from around that town and Philippi, joins the Strymonic lake six or eight miles to the north of Amphipolis. The plain of Drabescus is concealed from Amphipolis by the meeting of the lower heights of Pangaeum with those which inclose the plain to the north-east. Through this strait the Anghista makes its way to the lake, and thus there is a marked separation between the Strymonic plain and that which contains Drabescus and Philippi. The river Anghista has its origin in some high mountains around Nevrokοpo, and after watering the valley containing that town, is said to have a subterraneous course for some distance before it enters the plain of Dhrama. From the sepulchres on the ridge which connects the hill of Amphipolis with Mount Pangaeum there is a descent of eight minutes to Neokhorio, in Turkish Yenikiuy, a small village situated on the side of the hill of Amphipolis above the left bank of the river, not far from where it issues from the lake, and is crossed a little below that point by a wooden bridge. Above the bridge, where the lake narrows before it becomes a river, stand two towers of the middle ages, on the opposite sides of the water. A little below the bridge, a stream of some magnitude joins the Strymon from the westward.

§ 3.184 The site of Amphipolis is now called Marmara, and there was formerly a village of that name. Neokhori, as the word implies, is of recent construction. It is inhabited by forty Greek families, and is included in the district of Zikhna, a town situated between Dhrama and Serres, at the foot of the great mountain which borders the Strymonic plains to the northward. Neokhori seems chiefly to owe its existence to the profitable fishery of those Strymonian eels which were celebrated among the ancients for their size and fatness, and were considered not inferior to the eels of the lake Copais. They are caught at a dam which crosses the stream half a mile below the bridge of Neokhori, and which serves as well for this purpose as for a mill-head. Were it not for this artificial impediment, the river, although rapid, would be navigable to Neokhori and into the lake. The mill belongs to the convent of Pandokratora on Mount Athos, but the fishery, since it has become valuable, has been claimed by the Sultan, and is now farmed by Feta Bey of Zikhna, whose deputy I find at the mill, counting the fish as they are caught.

§ 3.185 Some thousands of eels had just been taken, many of which are of enormous size. Grey mullet and other migratory sea-fish are sometimes intercepted here in the same manner, but always in a small proportion to the eels. Possibly the Strymonic lake is too distant from the sea for the mullet. The freshness of the water can hardly be an objection, as many of the lagoons of Greece and Asia Minor most productive of mullet are of mixed water; and some, as that of Buthrotum, are quite fresh. The Bey as Mukatesi levies on the spot 20 paras for each zevgari, or pair, of large eels; and the people of Neokhori sell them either fresh or salted at 30, 40, or 50 paras a pair, according to the distance to which they are sent. The fishery is said to produce annually about 40,000 brace of large eels, besides the smaller and other fish. The late rains have rendered the moment favourable for fishing, which is an unfortunate accident for me, having brought hither Feta Bey’s agent to superintend the fishing, from his usual residence at a village an hour distant, of which he is voivoda. He refuses a present of a pair of pistole, gives orders to prevent my visiting the summit of the hill, and issues a proclamation forbidding the people to sell me any antiquities, but is afterwards so far pacified, though still refusing any present, as to retract the latter part of the order, and to send a messenger to the Bey, who is now at Ziliakhova, a village to the eastward of Zikhna, for permission that I may view the place. My firmahn he cannot read.

§ 3.186 Nov. 9.—The answer of the Bey of Zikhna is unfavourable: the only reason of which appears to be the persuasion among these barbarians that the site of Amphipolis contains hidden treasures. Ι am obliged, therefore, to leave this interesting site with a transient view of it, and it is not without difficulty that Ι succeed in copying an inscription in the wall of a fountain in the village; for inscriptions are supposed by Turks to inform us where to dig for treasures: Ι fortunately observed it yesterday evening, and had transcribed it as soon as there was light enough, this morning, just when some of the Myrmidons of the Aga, who had probably formed some suspicion of my intention, arrived with the design of preventing me. It is a document of great interest, as being written in the Ionic dialect, and as containing the exact words of some of the laws of Athens as cited by the Athenian orators, both which peculiarities are referrible to the fact of Amphipolis having been an Attic colony. The letters are small, but beautifully engraved, and have the form which is supposed to indicate a date earlier than that of Alexander.

§ 3.187 The record is that of a decree of perpetual banishment from Amphipolis and its territory, enacted by the people against two of their citizens, Philo and Stratocles, and their children. If they were ever taken they were to suffer death as enemies. Their property was confiscated, and a tenth of it was to be applied to the sacred service of Apollo and of Strymon. Their names were to be inscribed by the Prostate upon a pillar of stone; and if any person should revoke the decree, or by any art or contrivance give countenance to the banished men, that man’s property also was to be forfeited to the people, and he was to be banished from Amphipolis for ever. The following is the Greek text in ordinary Hellenic: Έδοζεν τω δημω Φίλωνα καί Στρατοκλέα φεύγων Αμφιπολιν και την γην την Αμφιπολιτών...

§ 3.188 In the first Olynthiac oration of Demosthenes, the name of Stratocles occurs as one of two deputies who were sent to Athens from Amphipolis to request the assistance of an armament to save the city from Philip, who took it in the same year, after having beaten down the walls with engines and entered the place through the breach, but who treated the captured city with mildness, and was satisfied with banishing those who had been opposed to him.

§ 3.189 It is probable that the inscription refers to the latter action of the conqueror, and that the Stratocles named in it is the same who harangued the Athenian people from the bema of the Pnyx, and was evidently one of the leaders of the party opposed to Philip. It is no objection to this supposition that the name of Philip does not appear in the edict, since, according to the usual practice of Greek diplomacy, it was the act of the people, though in truth they had lost their liberty, and were never afterwards free from a garrison of Macedonians until they received one of Romans. If this conjecture be well founded, we have the exact date of this inscription, namely, 358 B.C. The acquisition of Amphipolis by Philip was one of the most important steps in the advancement of Macedonian power, as it opened to him the entrance into Western Thrace, and when added to Datus, which commanded the pass next in importance to that of Amphipolis, caused the whole of that country, as far as the Nestus, to be ever afterwards annexed to the crown of Macedo-nia. Not the least important consequence of these acquisitions was that of the mines of Mount Pangaeum and of Crenides, which was an ancient settlement of the Thasii, in the district of Datus, between Neapolis and Drabescus.

§ 3.190 Here the ambitious monarch founded a new city, which he called Philippi, and soon extracted from the adjacent mountains five times as much gold and silver as the mines had ever yielded to the Thasii or any other people who had preceded him in working them. Pangaeum produced gold as well as silver; but the principal mines of gold were near Crenides, in a hill called, according to Appian, λόφος Διονύσου, or the hill of Bacchus, being probably no other than the mountain where Herodotus informs us that the Satrae possessed an oracle of Bacchus interpreted by the Bessi, and enounced by a priestess, who uttered responses not less ambiguous than those of Delphi. These Satrae seem to have been the original of the Satyrae, as attendants of Bacchus. Amphipolis, as Thucydides remarks, occupied a situation conspicuous both from the sea and the interior country. Being situated at the only convenient passage across the maritime ridge of mountains occurring between the passes of Aulon and Neapolis, and being at a point which leads immediately into the middle of one of the richest and most extensive plains in Greece, it was naturally the centre of many roads, whence originated the name of Nine Ways, which the place bore when possessed by the Edoni before the Athenian colonization. The site is not less strong in itself than important with regard to the surrounding country. Above the bridge the lake forms a bay at the northern foot of the hill of Amphipolis, and below the bridge the river makes a half circle round the hill, which, being very precipitous on that side, is easily accessible only on the side of the connecting ridge by which I approached from Orfanο.

§ 3.191 The annexed sketch will give some idea of the position. It appears from Thucydides that originally a wall across the ridge, resting at either extremity on the river, was the only fortification of the town, and that on the summit of the hill stood a temple of Minerva. This was the state of Amphipolis when in the tenth year of the Peloponnesian war, it was the scene of that celebrated battle which was fatal to the commanders on both sides.

§ 3.192 Cleon was waiting at Eion for some expected reinforcements of Macedonians and Odomanti, when Brasidas posted himself with a part of his forces on Cerdylium, a mountain in the territory of Argilus, opposite to Amphipolis, from whence all the motions of Cleon could be seen. The remainder of the army of Brasidas was in Amphipolis. His whole Greek force consisted of 2000 hoplitae and 300 cavalry, but with these were joined about 4000 Thracian infantry and some cavalry. Cleon was about equal in numbers, but he had greatly the advantage in choice troops, having 3000 hoplitae, with 500 cavalry. As soon as Brasidas perceived that Cleon was advancing towards Amphipolis, he descended from Cerdylium and entered the city in the hope of seizing some advantageous moment of attack before his adversary should be reinforced. Cleon occupied the heights in front of the walls of Amphipolis, across which led the high road: his position commanded a view of the Strymonic lake, and in one part was so high that Brasidas was visible to the Athenians as he sacrificed at the temple of Minerva. The return of Brasidas into the city, together with the sacrifice, had already persuaded Cleon that his adversary was preparing for battle, when he received a report that the feet of men and horses were visible in great numbers under the Thracian gate. As soon as he had convinced himself of this fact with his own eyes, he resolved oipon an immediate retreat, for he had moved from Eion without any intention of engaging, and only because

§ 3.193 his men murmured at his inaction, there being moreover at that time no appearance of a large force in the city. Having ordered his troops to move off by the left towards Eion, and soon becoming impatient at their tardiness in executing the movement, he faced also the right of the army in the same direction, hy which he exposed their right or uncovered side to the enemy. This was the favourable moment for Brasidas, who had already made his preparations. Leaving instructions, therefore, with Clearidas, the second in command, to advance from the Thracian gate against the nearest part of the enemy’s line, or that which had been their right, as soon as his own intended movement should throw the centre into confusion, he instantly issued at the first gate of the Long Wall at the head of 150 chosen men, ran with them across the space lying between the wall and the high road, and thus fell upon the Athenians as they were marching along the road. The effect of this bold and judicious plan was the flight of the enemy’s left, which had become the front in column, towards Eion, as well as the separation of his forces, and finally the defeat of his right, after some resistance on the highest part of the ridge. Cleon, flying at the first attack of Clearidas, was overtaken and slain by a targeteer of Myrcinus, about the same time that Brasidas, successful in the centre, received a mortal wound, unobserved by the enemy, just as he turned from the defeated centre of the Athenians towards their right wing.

§ 3.194 He was carried into Amphipolis, and survived only long enough to hear of the completion of his victory. Six hundred men fell on the side of the Athenians, the remainder effected their retreat over the mountain to Eion. No more than seven were slain on the side of Brasidas. I have already remarked that Cerdylium was evidently the mountain which rises from the right bank of the Strymon, immediately opposite to the hill of Amphipolis; it is equally evident that the position of Cleon was on the opposite side of the city, on the height which connects the hill of Amphipolis with Mount Pangaeum, exactly on the pass of the Nine Ways. The Thracian gate probably opened in the direction of the modern route to Dhrama, and to the places in the plain eastward of the Strymonic lake, and it stood consequently on the north-eastern side of the ancient site, just at the beginning of the descent towards the lake; in fact, this point is exactly opposite to a rising ground on the ridge of the Nine Ways which commands a comprehensive view both of the lake and of the mouth of the Strymon, and forms part of an inferior summit in advance of Mount Pangaeum. Here it is probable that the Athenians made their stand after the flight of Cleon. The gate at which Brasidas issued having been opposite to the centre of the retreating Athenians, and the Thracian gate to their right, which had become their rear, the former was evidently situated to the southward of the latter, and led probably to Phagres and the Pierian valley.

§ 3.195 It was in the middle of the winter following the eighth year of the war, that Brasidas had made himself master of Amphipolis. After having persuaded the people of Acanthus and Stageirus to desert the Athenian alliance, he marched with all the force he could collect from his allies, on a snowy night, from Bromiscus to Argilus, from whence, under the guidance of the Argilii, he proceeded before the morning to the bridge of the Strymon, which he found slightly guarded, and by taking possession of it obtained the disposal of all the property of the Amphipolitane which was not within the city. This circumstance, together with the divided sentiments of the people of various origin who inhabited the city, and particularly of some Argilii who were much disinclined to the Athenians, made the influential persons willing to capitulate; to which Brasidas himself was sufficiently disposed, as he was aware that Thucydides, who commanded an Athenian squadron at Thasus, possessed property in the gold mines of Pangaeum, which might give him considerable influence over the neighbouring people, and, if time were allowed, might enable him to excite a formidable opposition. The capitulation took place accordingly; and it was not until the evening of the same day on which it occurred that Thucydides arrived with his squadron at Eion. Though he thus saved that place from being taken, and deserved no reasonable blame for the loss of Amphipolis, he

§ 3.196 incurred the displeasure of the Athenian people to such a degree that he was banished from Athens for twenty years: a fortunate event for literature, as by forcing him to exchange the public service for a residence on his estate at Scaptesyle, in Mount Pangaeum, it afforded him ample leisure for composing that κτήμα ες αεί, or everlasting legacy, which, as long as the Greek language exists, will be the delight of all readers, and a model of genuine history. In the time of Brasidas the bridge of the Strymon was probably in the same situation as at present, the same causes tending in all ages to render that position the most convenient, with regard to the external communications of those dwelling on the hill of Amphipolis; besides which, it was exactly opposite to the center of the ancient city. Thucydides remarks that in the time of the expedition of Brasidas, the bridge was at a small distance from the city, and that there were not then, as when he wrote his history, walls extending from the city to the river. By this and two other references which he makes to the fortifications of Amphipolis, he indicates very intelligibly the changes which were made in the defences of the place, and the manner in which at

§ 3.197 length it was fortified. Agnon, the founder of the Athenian colony, seems to have been satisfied with building a wall across the isthmus of the peninsula terminating at either end in the river and to have left the western half-circuit of the hill to the natural protection of its precipices. The only addition that appears to have been made to this fortification during the fifteen years which elapsed between the foundation and the battle was a σταυρωμα, or pallisading with gates behind the Long Wall, on the most accessible parts of the hill, for Thucydides relates that Brasidas issued through a gate in a pallisading, and then through the first gate in the Long Wall. When the Athenians recovered Amphipolis, they very naturally set about fortifying it more technically. The Long W all seems, from the words rort ovroc, employed by Thucydides, to have been neglected or destroyed; the summit of the height was entirely enclosed with walls, of which remains still exist; and all the northern face of the hill, where stands the modern village, was probably included within a wall which terminated at the lake, and comprehended within it the bridge of the Strymon. The road leading from the sea coast into the plains lying eastward of the lake would thus pass under the eastern walls of the city, and that into the western plains through the fortifications and across the bridge.

§ 3.198 Amphipolis was probably in this state when Philip besieged and took it. The only remains of antiquity in Neokhori besides the inscription at the fountain, are many scattered blocks of ancient workmanship, and some mnemata, of which one is adorned with figures in low relief, and two others have names only upon them: there is also a plain Doric triglyph between metopes, which is said to have been brought from the Bezestein, a place so called on the summit of the hill, and where are some fragments similar to those in the village. If the triglyph belonged to the temple of Minerva, it was probably of small dimensions. In the afternoon of November 9, I proceed in 3 hours and 20 minutes to Takhynos, the rain falling continually. At 6.10, Turkish time, we cross the bridge of the Strymon, which is 300 yards long; then leaving the lake at some distance on the right, pass over downs which are connected with the mountains on the left, pass at 7.20 through a large Greek village called Kutzos; at 8.25 leave Palutro a quarter of a mile on the right, and half an hour before arriving at Takhyno turn out of the direct road to the right. Takhynο, which is in the district of Serres, stands on the edge of the lake, opposite to the last falls of the northern range of mountains, upon the lower declivity of which is situated the town of Zikhna: there are several boats upon the lake engaged in fishing for carp, tench, and eels. A mile or two

§ 3.199 higher up it terminates in marshy ground, through which the river flows to join it; Thucydides has accurately described this lake by the words το λιμνῶδες του Στρυμόνος as being in fact nothing more than an enlargement of the river, varying in size according to the season of the year, but never reduced to that of the river only, according to its dimensions above and below the lake. Besides the Strymon, the Angitas contributes to the inundation as well as some other smaller streams from the mountains on either side. Ι find a civil old Aga at Takhyno, the reverse of him of Neokhori, though both are Albanians, but they take their tone from their chiefs; so much do the traveller’s, success and comforts in every part of Turkey depend upon the individual character of the chieftains whom he encounters, and upon accidental circumstances. I should have found no difficulty at Amphipolis, if I had proceeded thither from Serres with a letter from Ibrahim Bey, whose authority is not disputed either in Zikhna or Dhrama, and serves to keep in some order the savage chieftains around him, who lose no opportunity of exercising the cruelest oppression on their Christian fellow subjects. The kaza of Zikhna, which is here separated by the lake from that of Serres, contains 70 or 80 villages; the largest are Ziliakhova, already mentioned, and Lukovikia on the side of Mount Pirnari, above Alibassates.

§ 3.200 Nov. 10.—From Takhyno to Serres. Setting out at 2.40 Turkish, we coast the marshy ground at the head of the lake, then follow the right bank of the Strymon along the center of the plain, for 2 1/2 hours, until having arrived nearly abreast of Serres we turn eastward towards the town, cross the river at 5.55, over a new wooden bridge a mile below a large tjiftlik of Ismail Bey, called the Adda tjiftlik, where he has lately built a Serai, and at 7 enter the gate of Serres. Our pace, though with Menzil horses, has been slow, on account of the muddy state of the roads after the late rains. The Ramazan begins this evening, and is introduced, as usual, with firing of musquets at sunset, followed by an illumination of all the minarets. Nov. 11.—Serres stands in the widest part of the great Strymonic plain, on the last slope of the range of mountains which bounds it to the northeast. At a distance the town has a very imposing appearance; its whitened walls, flanked by towers at distant intervale, being not less than three miles in circumference; but they enclose, besides the town, a large space occupied by gardens, and even by meadows, in which cattle are now grazing; and the walls themselves are nothing better than a thin fabric of unburnt bricks. The houses are of the ordinary Turkish construction, that is to say, the lower part of the walls is of masonry, and the upper of wood: the streets, as usual, are crooked and ill-paved, but they have the advantage of being watered by streams originating in the adjacent mountain, and serving to maintain in constant verdure the gardens which are attached to almost every house.

§ 3.201 The population is estimated at 15,000 Turks, 5000 Greeks and Bulgarians, and a few families of Jews. The surrounding plain is very fertile, and besides yielding abundant harvests of cotton, wheat, barley and maize, contains extensive pastures now peopled with oxen, horses and sheep. No part of the land is neglected, and the district, in its general appearance, is not inferior to any part of Europe; though probably neither the agricultural economy nor the condition of the people, would bear a close inspection. To the north-westward, the plain extends about 4 hours to Demirissar (iron castle), which occupies a position similar to that of Series, but nearer to the left bank of the Strymon, just where it issues from the mountains. A little above the ravines of Demirissar the Strymon receives its principal tributary, from Strumitza to the right, and a smaller contribution on the opposite bank from Meleniko, a large Greek town, 6 hours from Demirissar to the north. The sources of the river are in the highest ridges of Rhodope around Dupnitza and Ghiustendil. To the Greeks and Bulgarians the river is known by the name of Struma, to the Turks by the very common appellation of Karitsu, or Black River. The lower Strymonic valley, which extends from Demirissar to Anghista and the site of Amphipolis, is the greatest of the Macedonian plains, next to that which borders the head of the Thermaic Gulf, and if we add to it the levels watered by the tributaries of the Strymon, anciently constituting the Angitas, the entire extent is not inferior in magnitude and fertility to those plains of Lower Macedonia.

§ 3.202 A large portion of that part which is in the district of Serres, is the private property of Ismail Bey and his family, one of the richest and most powerful subjects of the Sultan, if he can be called a subject who is absolute here, and obeys only such of the orders of the Porte as he thinks fit, always, however, with a great show of submission. Besides his landed property he is engaged in commerce, and derives great profits from his farm of the imperial revenues. He has been rapidly increasing in power during the last ten years, and his authority now extends northward to the borders of Sofia and Felibeto the westward to Istib inclusive, and to the eastward as far as Gumurdjlna inclusive. His troops are now fighting with Emin Aga of Haskiuy beyond Gumurdjina, whom be will probably soon reduce. To the southward and westward the summits of the mountains which border the plain, separate his dominions from the district of Saloniki. His forces do not amount to more than 2000 in constant pay, who are chiefly Albanians, but upon occasion he might easily raise 10,000. When he builds a new palace, or repairs a road, or builds a bridge, the villages furnish the materials and labour, so that his household and troops are his principal expences. Deficient in the extraordinary talents of Aly Pasha, he is said to be free from his cruelty, perfidy, and insatiable rapacity. Though he never conceals his contempt of Christians, and treats them with the usual harshness of the most haughty Mussulman, he is spoken of by the

§ 3.203 Christians themselves as a just, attentive governor, and whose extortions are comparatively moderate. Hence his territory presents a more prosperous appearance than any part of Aly Pasha’s. The culture of cotton being very advantageous to him, he is anxious to encourage its exportation, in which he is himself engaged, and hence the Greek merchants of Serres, who carry on an extensive trade with Vienna, enjoy sufficient protection, though personally they are often ignominiously treated by him. As to the rayahs in general, it is sufficient to mention one of the labours and exactions imposed upon them, to show their condition even under a governor who has the reputation of being indulgent. Every village is bound to deliver the Bey’s tithe of the cotton in a state fit for immediate exportation, that is to say, cleared of the seeds and husks, instead of supplying it as it comes from the field; and even to make good the loss of weight caused by the abstraction of the seeds, by the addition of an equal weight of cleared cotton. The Turks justify this oppression, by alleging that it is customary in all cotton districts; the only kind of answer they ever deign to give, when they are the strongest. The Bey has four sons, of whom the eldest, Yussuf, carries on all the active business of the government, while his father enjoys a rather indolent retirement at the Adda tjiftlik.

§ 3.204 The Greek community is governed with very little interference from the Bey, by the Greek metropolitan bishop, and the archons, of whom the chief is a Greek merchant, Matako Dhimitriu, whose brother is established at Saloniki. Another merchant, named Sponty, who acts as consul for several nations, is of a French family long settled in Candia, and here I again meet a Dr. P. of Ioannina, who after having served for some time as surgeon in the French army of Italy under Bonaparte, narrowly escaped being put to death by Aly at Prevyza on his return: he attended Vely Pasha in the siege of Suli, and was eye-witness to the heroism of the woman Khaidho, and eight Suliotes, who came disguised into the middle of the Albanian camp in the night, and when discovered the next morning, retreated with such bravery and conduct as to kill or wound 20 Albanians in the retreat, without receiving a hurt. The bishop is denominated ὁ Σερρών, and the modern name Serres is the Romaic third case of the same word; but though Serrae was already the form about the fifth century, as appears from Hierocles, Sirrha or Sirrhae was the more ancient orthography, and that which obtained at least until the division of the empire, as we learn from an inscription now placed at the door of the metropolitan church, where it is said to have been found. It is a memorial in honour of one Tiberius Claudius Diogenes, of the Roman tribe Quirina. The forms of some of the letters, and the siglse by

§ 3.205 which they are combined, are not unfrequent in Macedonian inscriptions of the Roman empire. The only other vestige I can find of the ancient Sirrhae is on the highest ground within the modern walls, where is a piece of Hellenic wall faced with large quadrangular blocks, but composed within of small stones and mortar, forming a mass of extreme solidity. It now serves for the substruction of the Bash Kule, or principal tower of the modern inclosure, half the height of which is of an intermediate date, between the Hellenic and the recent Turkish. Similar ruined walls of that middle period are to be seen in many parts of the north-eastern quarter of the city. They resemble in construction, and are supposed to be of the same origin, as two ruined fortresses which defended the two passes leading to the valley of Nevrokopo from Serres and from Drama, and which are attributed to the Servian kings, whose

§ 3.206 dominions comprehended Serres. Two hours to the north eastward of the city, on the mountain behind it, stands the large monastery of St. Prodromus, which is known to have been founded by Stephen king of Servia, and his brother-in-law John Palseologus, in the middle of the fourteenth century. The hill of the Bash-kule is protected, towards the mountains, by a torrent flowing in a broad bed, and winding so as to encircle one-third of the town. The elevated situation of this quarter, the Hellenic and Servian remains, and the position of the metropolitan church in the midst of it, show that it was the site of Sirrhae both in ancient and middle ages. It is now the Varusi, or part inhabited by the Christians and Jews, the Turks dwelling in the lower or exterior part; towards the western extremity of the latter quarter stands the palace of Ismail Bey, which, though extensive and splendid, is not above one-third of the size of Aly Pasha’s. From the remains of the Servian walls, it seems evident that the city never covered so much ground as it does at present, and seldom or ever perhaps was so populous, having for many years been the centre of a considerable overland commerce, which, though it has been subject to some interruptions from the wars of the Porte with Pasvant Oglu and with the Servians, has been benefited by the great European contest, in consequence of the injury which the commerce of Saloniki and of many other maritime emporia has suffered from that cause. Serras is not only the market at which the people of the surrounding country

§ 3.207 exchange their agricultural produce for manufactures both foreign and domestic, but that to which the natives of a great part of European Turkey resort to obtain raw cotton, for internal consumption, as well as for the manufacture of yarn, which they sell in Hungary and Poland, in favourable years, the Frank and Greek merchants settled here send not less than 30 or 40,000 bales of cotton to Germany by the caravans, and in return supply the Turks with cloths, stuffs, and other European manufactures, but cloth and raw cotton are the basis of the trade. The principal roads leading from Serres, besides that of Orfana, by which I came, are, 1. To Kavala, by Zikhna and Dhrama. 2. To Nevrokopo, directly across the great range of the mountains, which extend northward from Serres to Meleniko and Nevrokopo, and eastward towards Dhrama; the circuitous route to Nevrokopo, however, is often preferred, especially in the winter, passing through Zikhna, and falling into the route from Dhrama to Nevrokopo. 3. The northern road. This leads to Demirissar along tiie foot of the mountain of Serres, and near Demirissar enters the derveni, through which that river issues from the mountains. Beyond the pass, the road branches to Meleniko to the right, and to Strumitza to the left. 4. To Doghiran; this road crosses the mountain which rises from the western side of the plain of Serres, by a pass which is seen from the city, bearing by compass N. 63 W. 5, 6. There are two routes to Saloniki, the more direct crossing the range of mountains

§ 3.208 on the south-western side of the plain, by a village called Lakhana, and from thence descending into the vale of Langaza. The other, more easterly, traverses a continuation of the same range of mountains, and joins the great route from Con-stantinople at Klisali, to the eastward of Lan-

§ 3.209 CHAPTER 26 MACEDONIA ALTHOUGH Stephanus distinguishes the Siris which gave name to the Siro-paeones, from Sirrha, they were assuredly one and the same place, for that the Siro-paeones inhabited the banks of the Strymon is clear from Herodotus, and that they did not dwell above the derveni of Demirissar may also be inferred from the historian, when he states, that Xerxes left a part of his sick at Siris in his retreat to the Hellespont; for it is not conceivable that a place could have been chosen for that purpose, so far and inconveniently removed from the direct route of the army, as any position above the Straits of Demirissar would have been. The same inference may be drawn from Livy, who relates that P. Aemilius Paullus, after his victory at Pydna, received at Sirae a deputation from Perseus who had retired to Samothrace.

§ 3.210 As Sirae is here described by Livy as a city of the Odomantice, it seems evident that the Odomanti bordered on the Siro-Paeones, and that in the reign of Perseus they were in possession of this city. The Odomanti, therefore, probably occupied the great mountain which extends along the northeastern side of the lower Strymonic plain from about Meleniko and Demirissar nearly to Pangaeum, their vicinity to which latter mountain is rendered probable by their having been one of the three tribes who worked its mines, the two others having been the Pieres and Satree, the former of whom dwelt on the southern side of the mountain, the latter to the eastward of it. It was very natural that Megabyzus should have subdued the Siropseones, who possessed the most fertile and exposed part of the Strymonic plain, while the Odomanti, who were secure in a higher situation, and still more the Agrianes, who dwelt at the sources of the Strymon, were able to avoid or resist him, as well as the Doberes, and the other Paeones of Mount Pangaeum, and the amphibious inhabitants of the lake Prasias. From the same authority we may be justified in concluding, that the lake Prasias was the same afterwards called Circinitis, or the Strymonic lake, though it be contrary to the opinion of D’Anville, who identified the Prasias with the Bolbe, now the

§ 3.211 lake of Besikia, chiefly perhaps because Herodotus describes the lake Prasias as confining on certain mines, which afterwards produced to Alexander I. a talent a day, and which were separated only from Macedonia by Mount Dysorum; whence D’Anville, who must have known from the travels of Belon of the existence of the mines of Sidherokapsa, may have supposed those to have been the mines in question, and consequently that the neighbouring lake was the Bolbe. But on comparing Herodotus with Arrian, it is impossible to accede to this opinion. The former relates that the inhabitants of the lake Prasias procured the piles and planks with which they constructed their dwellings in the lake, from Mount Orbelus, whence it may be presumed that the lake was contiguous to Orbelus, and Arrian clearly shews Orbelus to have been the great mountain which, beginning at the Strymonic plain and lake, extends towards the sources of the Strymon, where it unites with the summit called Scomius, in which the river had its origin, for in describing the expedition of Alexander the Great against the Triballi, Arrian remarks that Alexander in marching from Amphipolis to the Nestus, had Philippi and Mount Orbelus on his left. Indeed, a comparison alone of the passage of Herodotus, in which he mentions the extent of the conquests of Megabyzus with that

§ 3.212 in which he describes the march of Xerxes through Pieria and Paeonia, seems to leave no doubt as to the Prasias; for in the latter he states that the Doberes and Paeoplae inhabited the country northward of Mount Pangaeum, these being precisely the tribes whom he had before associated with the inhabitants of the lake Prasias. In reference to the former passage it may incidentally be remarked, that as the people who were able to resist Megabyzus were the mountaineers and the dwellers on the lake, the Paeoplae like the Siropaeones, probably occupied some portion of the plain which was not exactly on the banks of the lake. The Doberes seem to have shared Mount Pangaeum with the Paeonians and Pieres, and dwelt probably on the northern side of it, where in the time of the Roman Empire there was a mutatio, or place for changing horses, called Domeros, between Amphipolis and Philippi, 13 M.P. from the former, and 19 M.P. from the latter. As to Mount Dysorum, if we suppose Herodotus to have referred not so much to the Macedonia of the reign of Amyntas, when Megabyzus invaded Paeonia, as to the extent of the kingdom in the time of his grandson Perdiccas, which was that of the historian himself, when Mygdonia, Bisaltia, Anthemus and Crestonia had been added to the kingdom: it then becomes credible, that Alexander the First wrought some mines in the Bisaltic mountain which is separated only from Mount Pangaeum by the pass of Amphipolis, and that the further continuation of that

§ 3.213 mountain towards the modern Sokho, may have been the ancient Dysorum. That the Bisaltae, before they were annexed to the kingdom of Macedonia, possessed silver mines, may be strongly presumed from the tetradrachm with the legend ΒΙΣΑΛΤΙΚΟΝ

§ 3.214 Being here so near the interesting scene of one of the most importnt amilitary occurrences in history, where two hundred thousand Roman infantry and thirty-three thousand cavalry were encamped, and twice in the course of a few days engaged in general combat, I cannot avoid making a few remarks on the topography of that event, more with a view to the convenience of future travellers than with the hope of throwing much light upon the historians, as Ι have never visited Philippi myself. But the general features of the country are not unknown to me, and the site of Philippi is perfectly ascertained by considerable remains of antiquity in the situation indicated by the Itineraries, and which are known by the Greeks to be those of Philippi; by the Turks the place is called Felibedjik.

§ 3.215 When the army of Cassius and Brutus was advancing from Asia along maritime Thrace, and their fleet had occupied several positions on that coast, Norbanus, who was in possession of the two principal passes, called the Stena of the Corpili and the Stena of the Sapaei, thought it prudent to abandon the former for the better defence of the latter. The Corpili occupied the country near Aenus, whence it is evident their passes were those of the mountains terminating in the promontory Serrium, and lying between the valley of the Hebrus and the maritime plains, in which the chief city was Abdera. Into the latter plains Cassius and Brutus led their army after having traversed Aenus, Doriscus, and the abandoned Stena of the Corpili; but they found themselves at a loss to proceed farther, because the Sapaean passes which separated the plains of Abdera and of the river Nestus from those of Philippi and the Strymon were still in the hands of the enemy. In this emergency, by the advice of the Thracian prince Rhescuporis, a road was made, not without great labour, through some woody mountains which are interposed between the maritime plains and the valley of the Harpessus, a branch of the Hebrus: a three days’ march then conducted the Cassian army to the Harpessus, from whence there was only a single day’s march to Philippi.

§ 3.216 The Harpessus can be no other than the branch of the Maritza, or Hebrus, which flows through the valley of Arda. If then we suppose the camp of Cassius to have been near the modern Gumerdjina, which is about the centre of the maritime plains lying between the passes of the Corpili and those of the Sapaei, it would seem that the road to the Harpessus followed for a considerable distance the valley of the Kurutjai, which from Herodotus seems to have been anciently called Travus. From the valley of the Harpessus to Philippi, the route of Cassius was nearly in the modern track from Adrianople to Serres, which from the sources of the Arda crosses the valley of the Nestus and enters the plain of Philippi at Dhrama. When Philippi was the chief city in the plain, the road led probably more directly upon that point. Appian thus describes Philippi and the position on which Cassius and Brutus encamped. The city, he says, was called Datus before the time of Philip, and still earlier Crenides, from numerous sources around the site, which formed a river and a marsh. It was situated on a steep hill, bordered to the northward by the forests through which the Cassian army approached,—to the south, by a marsh, beyond which was the sea,—to the east by the passes of the Sapaei and Corpili, and to the west by the great plains of Myrcinus, Drabescus, and the Strymon, which were 350 stades in length. Not far from the hill of Philippi was

§ 3.217 that of Bacchus, which contained the gold mines called Asyla, and eighteen stades from the town were two other heights eight stades asunder, on the northern of which Brutus placed his camp, and on the southern Cassius: that of Brutus was protected on the right by rocky hills, and the left of the camp of Cassius by a marsh. The river Gangas, or Gangites, flowed along the front, and the sea was in the rear. The camps of the two leaders, although separate, were inclosed within a common entrenchment, and midway between them was the pass which led like a gate from Europe into Asia. The triremes were at Neapolis, seventy stades distant, and the magazines of provisions in the island of Thasus distant 100 stades. Dio adds, that Philippi stood near Pangaeum and Symbolum, and that Symbolum, which was between Philippi and Neapolis, was so called because it connected Pangaeum with another mountain which stretched inland, by which description Symbolum is very clearly identified with the ridge which stretches from Pravista to Kavala, separating the bay of Kavala from the plain of Philippi. The Pylae, therefore, could

§ 3.218 have been no other than the pass over that mountain behind Kavala, which being the commencement of the Sapaean straits, extending eastward from thence about twenty miles along the abrupt maritime termination of the mountain as far as the valley of the Nestus, was in this sense a gate in the great route of communication between Europe and Asia. Norbanus, on hearing of the movement of the enemy upon Philippi, first evacuated that post, and soon afterwards Symbolum, from whence he retired to Amphipolis. By the possession of Symbolum the Cassians secured a ready communication with the sea, and at the same time obtained security for their foraging decursions in the plains. Antony, having arrived at Amphipolis, proceeded immediately to encamp in the plain at a distance of only eight stades from the enemy, where he fortified his camp with entrenchments and redoubts, and excavated wells which in that marshy plain produced an abundance of water. His own position was on the right, opposite to that of Cassius. Octavianus Caesar was opposed to Brutus on the left. On each side there were nineteen legions: those of Antony were more complete; but in cavalry he was inferior by 7000. His design was to intercept the enemy's communication with Neapolis and Thasus, by a movement in the rear of Cassius;

§ 3.219 and in order to facilitate this enterprise, he consumed ten days in constructing a causeway across the marsh which separated him from the camp of Cassius. He proceeded with such caution, that the work was considerably advanced towards completion when it was first perceived by Cassius, who could then only erect countervallations to impede the enemy’s progress when he should have crossed the marsh. An attempt upon these works of Cassius by Antony brought on a general action, in which the troops of Brutus defeated those of Caesar opposed to them, and entered his camp, while Antony forced the works of Cassius near the marsh, routed his legions, and took possession of his camp. Cassius retired to the heights of Philippi, to obtain a view of the combat, and there put an end to his life. The loss of the Cassiane was 8000, that of Caesar and Antony twice as many. Antony was now distressed for provisions and apprehensive of being left totally destitute in consequence of the superiority of his adversaries at sea, which had been increased by the loss of a Caesarian convoy in the Ionian sea under Domitius Calvinus. He therefore led forth his army every day, with the hope of bringing on a second and more decisive battle; but Brutus being too cautious to afford him this advantage, he pursued his original object of intercepting his adversary’s supplies, and with this view occupied with four

§ 3.220 legions a height which had been a part of the position of Cassius, but which Brutus had abandoned. From thence he advanced ten more legions five stades towards the sea, and four stades farther two others. Brutus opposed him by similar movements, as well as by constructing redoubts, and it was not until after repeated insults, both by words and by throwing writings into the camp of Brutus, that the legions of the latter losing all patience, obliged their commander, very much against his inclination, to meet the enemy in the plain. It was the ninth hour of the day when the meeting took place; the shock was terrible, and the conflict obstinate; but at length the Caesarians, who were superior in numbers, who knew that they were in imminent danger of starvation, and who were conscious that they had gained an advantage in inducing the enemy to give up his advantage of position, turned him to flight, and seizing the gate of the camp, as they had been directed in the previous harangues of Octavianus and Antony, prevented the enemy from returning to the heights, and thus obliged the fugitives to gain the sea by other routes, or to betake themselves to the mountains by the valley of the river Zygactes. It seldom happens that the detailed narrative of an ancient author is found in every respect to correspond to the actual topography; this may in some cases arise from those physical changes which are in constant operation, but is more generally to be attributed to the author's personal want of knowledge

§ 3.221 of the scene of action, and his misapprehension of the information of others. Future travellers may perhaps be able to explain the causes of the discrepancy which occurs in the present instance, on comparing the history with the scene of action, and to which Ι shall presently advert. If, however, the opinion be admitted, that the pass leading over the mountain from the plain of Philippi to Kavala was the Pyles, which separated the camp of Brutus from that of Cassius, the topography will be found in perfect agreement with the narrative. The camp of Brutus, in that case, extended to the right of the entrance of the pass towards Philippi, that of Cassius to the left of it towards Pravista. The river Gangas, which rises at and around Philippi flows nearly parallel to the position in front; and northward of Pravista there is a lake or inundation corresponding to that which lay between the camps of Cassius and Antony in the first position. Here alone, in the season when the battle was fought, a marsh is likely to have existed, such as Appian describes. The movement of Antony, which had been his design from the beginning, had the advantage of being on that flank of the enemy which was nearest his own post of Amphipolis, and it became more easy of execution when he had obtained possession of the heights near Pravista, after the death of Cassius. As in endeavouring to effect this object, a part of his legions had advanced

§ 3.222 nine stades nearer to the sea, his position seems then to have been about Pravista, from thence extending towards Kavala; a great part if not all the forces of Brutus were at the same time upon the heights, but when he was induced by the importunity of his followers to risk a general action, both parties descended again into the plain. The difficulty is, that Appian in stating that the camps of Brutus and Cassius were distant 18 stades from Philippi, and 70 from Neapolis, shews that the position was much nearer to Philippi than to Kavala, which does not accord with the pass over the mountain of Kavala. It would seem, therefore, either that the numbers expressing the distances have been reversed in the text of Appian, for in that case they would represent the two intervals with sufficient correctness, or that there was a movement, which Appian has omitted to notice, from the first encampment of Brutus and Cassius into the position which they occupied previously to the first battle. The latter supposition is countenanced by Dio, who states that by the acquisition of Symbolum the Cassian army were better enabled to protect its foraging parties in the plain, and that they obtained thereby a safe communication with Neapolis, whence it would seem that they had not possessed those advantages when they were nearer to Philippi. In fact the pass of Kavala could alone have secured to them a passage to the sea free from hostile interruption; and it seems evident, that wherever Brutus and Cassius may have encamped on their first arrival at Philippi, their position immediately before the first

§ 3.223 battle extended from that pass as a centre, and occupied all the heights from near Philippi as far as Pravista. We are the more justified in suspecting some inaccuracy in Appian, as he evidently had not a correct knowledge of the country; he supposed the marshes in the plain of Philippi to have extended, if not to the sea, at least to no great distance from it; and he seems, therefore, not to have been aware that the plain is entirely separated from the sea by a range of hills, and in no part approaches the coast within several miles. In another error his text only may, perhaps, be to blame; he represents the distance between the camp of Antony and Amphipolis to have been 350 stades, whereas that was the entire length of the lower Strymonic plain, as indeed he had before correctly stated. Dio also, although generally well informed, makes on this occasion an observation which is at least inaccurate. He says, that while Norbanus and Saxa were intent on occupying the shortest route over the Sapaean mountains, their opponents took the circuit by Crenides, and so arrived at Philippi, as if Crenides and Philippi were not one and the same place, as we are assured by Appian, and several other authorities. It is not so easy, however, to admit with Appian, that it was the same place also as Datus.

§ 3.224 The “good things” which made Datus the subject of a proverb could not have been complete if it had not been a sea-port, as Strabo intimates Datus to have been; whence I am inclined to believe that Datus was the same place as Neapolis. Scylax indeed distinguishes them, but as he adds that Datus was an Athenian colony, which could not have been true of the original Datus, a place much more ancient than the earliest settlements of the Athenians in Thrace, his text perhaps is corrupt in this place, as in so many others, and his real meaning may have been, that Neapolis was a colony which the Athenians had established at Datus. Zenobius and Eustathius both assert that Datus was a colony of Thasus, which is highly probable, as the Thasii had several colonies on the coast opposite to their island, whereas there is every reason to believe that the Athenians had no footing in Thrace until after the reduction of Thasus, which did not occur till the year B.C. 463, nor any permanent establishment until the foundation of Amphipolis by Agnon, 26 years afterwards, their previous attempts having been unsuccessful. If Neapolis was a colony of Athens as its coins render credible, it was probably of a still later date. It may be thought, perhaps, that Aesyme, having

§ 3.225 been one of the Thasian colonies, and of such antiquity as to be mentioned by Homeris more likely than Datus to have occupied the position in which the colony of Neapolis was afterwards settled, but Aesyme still existed under that name in the eighth year of the Peloponnesian war, when, together with Galepsus, it surrendered to Brasidas. It was afterwards called Emathia, as we learn from Stephanus, and Livy mentions it under that name, as having, with Amphipolis and other towns of the Thracian coast, shut its gates against the Romans under the consul Hostilius in the Persic war, B.C. 170 s. As Gangas, or Gangites, or (according to the text of Herodotus) Angitas, was the name attached to the river which rises at Philippi, it follows that the branch from Nevrokopo was the Zygactes, which agrees perfectly with the circumstance related by Appian, that many of the defeated followers of Brutus retreated to the mountains by the valley of the Zygactes. It was in fact the only route towards the interior open to them. Although this stream is much longer if not larger than the Angitas, Herodotus shows that the united river took its name from the branch of Philippi.

§ 3.236 Nov. 12.—Recrossing in an hour from Series the bridge of the Karasu, we arrive in 2 hours more at Nigrita; the road throughout traverses a rich plain, covered with corn or cotton fields, and enlivened by numerous cattle, farms, and small villages, Tobacco is not grown in this part of the Strymonic plain, but Dhrama produces a considerable quantity of it. Nigrita is a large Greek village, situated immediately opposite to Series to the S.W. on the downs which form the last slope of the parallel range of mountains. It is divided only by a space of a few hundred yards from another village of the same description, named Serpa or Tjerpa. A mile farther westward, is a third collection of houses, inhabited chiefly by Turks, and named Tjapista. An hour and a half to the eastward of Nigrita, and similarly situated at the foot of the mountain, stands Zervokhori, a small village where the peasants find, in ploughing the ground, great numbers of ancient coins. Those found near Nigrita are almost equally numerous, and it seems evident that both these places were ancient sites. Of those which are brought to me by the people of Nigrita for sale, the greater number by far, like those I procured at Serres, are Macedonian, and of all dates, from Philip, father of Alexander, to a late period of the Greek Empire. Those earlier than Philip are extremely rare. It is remarkable, that the termination of the word Tjerpista, like that of Pravista and Anghista, resembles one of those which the ancient Macedonians particularly affected. Zervokhori I take to be the site of Heracleia Sintica, for the following reasons: 1. Heracleia was near the Strymon, having been distinguished from other towns of the same name,

§ 3.227 as Heracleia of the Strymon. 2. The Sintice was to the right of the Strymon, for Livy informs us that when Macedonia was divided into four provinces at the Roman conquest, Sintice was associated with Bisaltia in the first Macedonia, of which the capital was Amphipolis, while all the remaining parts of the country between the Strymon and Axius, were attributed to the second Macedonia, of which the capital was Thessalonica. 3. The position of Zervokhori agrees with that which the Tabular Itinerary ascribes to Heracleia relatively to Philippi, as indicated on two different Roman roads from the one city to the other; one measuring 55 M.P. the other 52 M.P. and both sufficiently corresponding to the 37 G.M. of direct distance between the site of Philippi and Zervokhori. There can be little doubt that one of these roads passed round the northern, the other round the southern side of the lake. On the former, the names and distances are Philippi, 12 M.P. Drabescus, 8 M.P. Strymon, 13 M.P. Sarxa, 18 M.P. Scotussa, 4 M.P. Heracleia,—total, 55 M.P.; where Strymon corresponds exactly to the crossing of the river of Nevrokopo, which D’Anville, influenced perhaps by this authority, although directly opposed to that of Herodotus, supposed to be the real Strymon. Sarxa answers equally well to Zikhna, and Scotussa to the place where the Strymon was crossed just above the lake. The southern road was as

§ 3.228 follows: Philippi, 10 M.P. Triulo, 17 M.P. Graero, 8 M.P. Euporia, 17 M.P. Heracleia,—total, 52 M.P. Here the distance of Euporia from Heracleia combined with the name, seems to indicate that it stood at a ferry across the lake, perhaps at the spot where the lake first begins to narrow, 3 or 4 miles to the north-westward of Amphipolis, but more probably on the western side of the lake, because Euporia is named by Ptolemy among the towns of Bisaltia, together with Ossa and Argilus, whence it may be farther conjectured that the river which I before noticed as joining the Strymon a little below the bridge of Neokhorio or Amphipolis, is the ancient Bisaltes. In reference to the place, which the Itinerary indicates by the evidently corrupted name Triulo, it is a remark of M. Cousinery, who resided many years as French consul at Saloniki, that coins with the inscription ΤΡΑΙΛΙΟΝ are not unfrequently found near Amphipolis, whence the conjecture may be admitted, that Triulo is a corruption of Traelio. The real name, however, I suspect to have been Tragilus, for Stephanus shows that there was a Macedonian town named Τράγιλος, which is doubtless the true reading of the Βράγιλος or Δράγιλος, found in Hierocles among the towns of the first or consular Macedonia, and situated apparently not far from Parthicopolis and Heracleia of the Strymon. In the local form of the name, the Γ may have been omitted, so that the TPAIΛΙΟΝ of the coin may represent the Hellenic Tpαγιλίων.

§ 3.229 The Triulo of the Table would then only require to be corrected into Trailo. Tragilus, in this case, stood on the foot of Mount Pangaeum, opposite to Philippi. The real name of the place 8 M.P. eastward of Euporia, which in the Table is written Graero, Ι take to have been Gazorus, which we learn from Stephanus to have been a Macedonian town, and from Ptolemy that it was in the land of the Edoni. Gazorus, therefore, probably stood between Tragilus and Euporia, towards the north western end of Mount Pangaeum. Berga being placed by Ptolemy on the borders of the Edoni, as well as near the Odomanti, who, in his time, occupied Sirrhae and Scotussa, seems to have been near the shore of the Strymonic lake, perhaps near the modern Takhyno. Scymnus describes it as lying inland from the mouth of the Strymon. If Zervokhori be the site of Heracleia Sintica, it is probable that a considerable district to the northward of that place and to the right of the Strymon was also included in the Sintice, and consequently that Nigrita was either Tristolus or Parthicopolis, for they are the only two towns, besides Heracleia, which Ptolemy ascribes to the Sintice.

§ 3.230 Nov. 13.—At 6.25 Turkish, we begin to ascend the mountain, which rises from Nigrita, through a region of corn land, at the end of an hour enter a forest, here chiefly consisting of small oaks, which covers ail this range of hills,, and at 9.35 reach Sokho, called by the Turks Sukha, a large village inhabited chiefly by Greeks, and standing in an elevated situation on the southern side of the mountain, under one of the summits. It commands an extensive prospect over the valley included between the mountains on which Sokho stands, and the parallel range which stretches from Mount Khortiatzi, above Saloniki to the mountain of Nizvoro. Above the middle of the latter ridge appears the peaked summit named Solomon, which falls to the Singitic and Toronaic gulfs, and by its prolongation forms the peninsula of Sithonia, which separates those two gulfs. Three lakes are seen from Sokho, that of Langaza, towards Mount Khortiatzi, that of Besikia in the same great valley, to the eastward, and nearly at the same distance as the last lake, in a south-easterly direction from Sokho that of Mavrovo: The last, which is situated in a valley surrounded by mountains, is considerably the smallest of the three lakes, and is said to be dry in summer. Some scattered fragments of Hellenic times on the heights around Sokho, mark it for the site of one of the towns of the Bisaltae, possibly Ossa, for the example of the Thessalian Ossa warrants the belief that the word had some reference to loftiness of situation, and the coins of the Macedonian Ossa show that this town was of some importance. There is said, however, to be another ancient site at

§ 3.231 Lakhana, on the northern road from Serres to Saloniki, which being similarly situated on the crest of the same ridge of mountains, may have some claim to be considered the site of Ossa. I lodge at Sokho, in the house of the Greek proestos Khariso, who prefixes to his name the Turkish title Hadji because he has been at Jerusalem. The side of the mountain sloping from the village is covered with vineyards, below which there is a fertile undulated country falling to the plain of Besikia, into which we descend. Nov. 14.—this morning, through a pleasant country composed of corn-fields interspersed among groves, copses, single trees, and numerous hamlets inhabited entirely by Turks, many of whom we meet on their road to the market at Sokho with their wool and corn. Klisali, where we arrive in three hours and a half from Sokho, is a miserable Turkish village on the last slope of the mountain, where it terminates in a plain lying between the lakes of Besikia and of Aio Vasili, or Langaza. The town of Besikia stands on the northern side of the eastern lake, opposite to Pazarudhi. It is perhaps the site of the town Bolbe. The plain, with its two lakes, is included, as I before stated, between the ridge of Sokho and that of Khortiatzi, and is closed at the eastern end by the meeting of the two ranges, which are there separated only by the pass of Aulon, or Arethusa. A stream flows out of the lake of Besikia, through the pass of Arethusa to the Strymonic Gulf.

§ 3.232 As the ancient authors indicate only one lake in this situation named Bolbe, it is likely that they were distinguished as the upper and lower Bolbe. Both now abound in a variety of fish, among which, as in general in the waters of Greece having a current, is the λαβραξ, or perch, now called λαμβράκι; the gastronomic poet often cited by Athenaeus, particularly admired the perch of this lake as well as those of Ambracia and Calydon. Klisali being a post station on the main route to Constantinople, we here change our horses supplied by the menzil of Serres, and at 7.50, Turkish time, pursue the foot of the hills, leaving on the right several small Turkish villages. At 8.30 the eastern extremity of the lake of Aio Vasili is one mile and a half on the left, and near it a Turkish village named Doanji Oglu. The woody sides of the mountain of Khortiatzi rise steeply from the opposite shore of the lake, and beyond the western end of the lake assume a south-westerly direction At 9.10 we are opposite to the summit. Having descended into marshy ground, towards the north-western extremity of the lake, we arrive opposite to the end of it at 10.5, and then enter a vale containing many dispersed hamlets and tjiftliks, known collectively by the name of Langaza. The Turks who inhabit them have the reputation of being savage and inhospitable.

§ 3.233 At 10.30 the hot baths of Langaza are half a mile on the right of the road. Here are two old buildings, in the Turkish style, one of which is in ruins, the other still in use. It consists of two apartments covered with domes, of which the outer is used for dressing, and the inner is the bath, where the hot source is received into a large marble basin surrounded with seats, and overflows into the outer apartment. The water is almost tasteless, and of a very moderate degree of heat: close by, there is another hot source rising amidst a great quantity of black mud, into which patients plunge up to their necks for the cure of rheumatism and other chronic complaints, and afterwards wash in the neighbouring water-bath. Close to the baths there is a fine source of cold water. A mile beyond the baths, and two or three hundred yards on the right of the road, rises an artificial height with a flat top, and covered with fragments of pottery. There is another hill of the same description at the foot of the northern range, opposite to Demiglara, beyond which village the plain of Langaza terminates in a peaked rocky summit called Strezi, on either side of which there is a passage over some lofty downs into the great plain of Thessalonica. Half an hour from the baths we leave on the right Balzina, and then a mile farther from our road Demi-glara, both considerable villages, inhabited by Christians. Around these places the valley widens. We now enter a boghaz, or narrow glen, leading from the valley of Langaza into the plain of Saloniki.