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

§ 3.334 Amarbes is the great link which connects the Olympene chain behind Servia and Velvendo with the hills of Khassia. A small river flows through the middle of the plain on our right, and passes through a glen at its south-western end, near which it receives another stream from some copious sources issuing from the southern foot of Mount Amarbes, where the Livadhiotes have some fulling mills; then, after making a large angle to the eastward of its former course, enters another plain in which it is joined by the Elasonitiko, or River of Elasona, at Amuri, a small village not far from Dheminiko. The united stream is the Titaresms of Homer, which joins the Peneius in the plain of Larissa. The branch from the mountain of Livadhi is now called Vurgari or Sarandaforo. At a small distance from its right bank, near the Boghaz, where it quits the plain, is a village named Vuvala, and a metokhi of the monastery of Elassona, standing on a height at the foot of Mount Amarbes. The summit is encircled with the ruined walls of an ancient city of some magnitude. This place, which is near the road from Servia to Tiikkala, is reckoned three hours from Livadhi, and is less than one to the right of the road from Servia to Elassona, which, after its exit from the pass of Vigla, leaves the Tiikkala road on the right, and crosses the plain diagonally, in a direct line towards Elassona. At the end of five hours from the castle of Servia we arrive at Livadhi: a name which seems to have been given to the place by antithesis, the situation being one of the most rugged that can well be imagined, with hardly a foot of

§ 3.335 plain within some miles of it. The town contains 800 houses, situated in a rocky hollow below a peak in the range of mountains which extend from hence as far as the maritime plain of Katerina, and the right bank of the Vistritza, near Verria. The highest summit of these mountains is a conspicuous object from Saloniki, and has already been mentioned as one of the chief points of the Olympene chain. Livadhi is a Wallachian colony of ancient date, and is hence often called Vlakho-Livadho. The other Vlakhiote villages in this vicinity are Kokkinoplo, on the side of Elymbo, three hours’ distant from hence towards Tzaritzena, Ftera at the same distance towards Katerina, and Neokhori situated between Servia and Livadhi, in a lofty situation on the mountain, an hour to the left of the road by which we came. Kokkinoplo has about 200 houses, Ftera 100, and Neo-khorio 20 or 30. Near Ftera there is said to be an ancient quarry. These villages live chiefly by the manufacture of the coarse woollen cloth called skuti, of which are made the cloaks named κάπταις, in Italian cappe, extensively used in Greece and the Adriatic. The cloth is of two kinds, white and black, and is made shaggy in the inside: it is sent to Venice and Trieste in pieces called xyla, which are two peeks long and four or four and a half hands broad. The Kalarytidtes, who manufacture the same kind of cloth in their own mountains, and whose merchants reside in the Adriatic,

§ 3.336 are in the habit of buying up that which is made by the Livadhiotes, and of sending it to some merchant, generally a Venetian, at Saloniki, who ships it to the Kalarytiote merchant in the Adriatic, charging two piastres and a half per fortoma of 140 xyla as spedizionario. The Livadhiotes make annually from 150 to 200 fortomata. They grow very little corn, but possess an abundance of sheep, goats, horses, and mules. Like the Kalarytiotes, they are proud of the excellent air and water of their town, but are so nice on the subject of the latter as sometimes to send three hours, in order to procure the choicest. The lake of Kastoria supplies them with fish at twenty-five or thirty paras the oke, better than the sea-fish which is sold at Saloniki for forty-five. On the other hand, the climate is so severe in winter, that the inhabitants are sometimes snowed up in their houses for several days, and are forced to drink melted snow, not being able to get at their wells and springs. It is now a hard frost, and we found it very difficult on arriving to drag our loaded horses up the steep and slippery streets. The view of Olympus from hence is magnificent; but the highest summit, the direct distance of which is ten or twelve miles, is not seen, and the same number of hours would be required even in summer to reach it: the route passes by Kokkinoplo, which stands on the great steep, a little above the plain. The town pays 200 purses in contributions. My host, one of the primates, has already disbursed 800 piastres this year for his share, and expects to have some farther demands.

§ 3.337 On the outside of the town stands a monument of an Albanian chieftain, who was killed in lighting against the robbers of Olympus about thirty years ago. It is now twenty-two years since Aly Pasha by his Dervent-Agalik obtained the command at Livadhi, since which time he has always been the farmer of its revenues. Its importance to him is chiefly derived from its proximity to the pass leading from Elasona or Servia into the maritime plains of Macedonia, and which is at once the most direct and least difficult of the routes across the Olympene barrier. In this pass one hour and a half from Livadhi stands the village of Aio Dhimitri, and one hour and a half farther, exactly on the Zygos, are the ruins of the village of Petra, which being a name recorded in ancient history is very useful in elucidating the geography of this frontier of Macedonia and Thessaly. Petra is described to me as situated on a great insulated rock which is naturally σχισμίνη, or separated from the adjoining mountain: the road passes through the opening and then descends into the plain of Katerina, which, being undoubtedly a part of the ancient Pieria of Macedonia, the situation of Petra thus illustrates Livy, who shows that Petra was a town of Pieria on the frontier of that province, in the pass which led into the maritime plain from Perrhaebia. The distance from Livadhi to Katerina by St. Demetrius is reckoned ten hours. There is another road which leads over the same ridge from Servia, by.Velvendos, to Katerina; but it is

§ 3.338 not so easy as the pass of Petra: and it was a communication, if it existed anciently, not from Thessaly into Macedonia, but from Elimeia of Upper into Pieria of Lower Macedonia. I have already observed, that the mountains which rise from the right bank of the Vistritza, and extend from the plain of Grevena to that of Verria, were the ancient Cambunii, mentioned by Livy, from whom it is further manifest, that the pass of Servia is the defile in the same mountains, named Voluatana, the security of which appeared so important to Perseus on the approach of the consul Q. Marcius Philippus, in the third year of the last Macedonic war, that he occupied it with 10,000 men. It was probably the same pass through which Perseus had entered Thessaly in the first year of the war, the same by which the consul Hostilius invaded Macedonia in the following year, and one of the roads into

§ 3.339 Macedonia contemplated by Marcius when he was encamped between Azorus and Doliche, and before he had determined upon forcing his way across Mount Olympus by Lapathus. Upon comparing the descriptions which the historian has left us of these transactions, there cannot remain a donbt that the valleys lying between the Cambunian mountains and Olympus, bordering to the northward on Elymeia and Pieria, and which extend from Portes and the mountain of Livadhi southward to within a few miles of Elasona, constituted the division of Perrhaebia named Tripolitis; and it seems equally evident from two other occur-rences, one of which happened in the first Macedonic war, the other in the campaign of Antiochus 9 years afterwards, that Perrhaebia proper,

§ 3.340 which contained the city of the Perrhaebi, Cyretium, and other towns, lay to the southward of the Tripolitis, confining on Pelasgiotis and the Larissaea, and that it comprehended the valleys of Elassona and Dheminiko. It is by means of these several passages of Livy, following Polybius, that we are enabled to clear up the obscurity which Strabo, or his defective text, have thrown on the geography of this quarter of Greece, by naming towns in conjunction which were very wide of each other, and by confounding Perrhaebia Tripolitis, with Pelagonia Tripolitis, which was near eighty miles distant.

§ 3.341 Perrheebia Tripolitis was so named as containing the three cities of Pythium, Azorus, and Doliche. Of these, Pythium appears to have stood exactly at the foot of Olympus, as well from its having been the point from which Xenagoras, a geometrician and poet, measured the perpendicular height of Olympus, as from its having been in the road across the mountain by Petra, since both Livy and Plutarch couple Pythium with Petra in describing the route by which Scipio Nasica crossed Mount Olympus into the rear of the position of Perseus on the Enipeus. There seems no question, therefore, that Pythium stood on the angle of the plain between Kokkinoplo and Livadhi, though Ι have not been able to ascertain the existence of any remains in that situation.

§ 3.342 We learn from the epigram just referred to, that the name of Pythium was derived from a temple of Apollo Pythius, in whose honour it appears from another author that periodical games were there celebrated. The ten stades of perpendicular altitude which Xenagoras assigned to the summit of Olympus above Pythium seem to be not for from the truth, and what is uncommon in ancient computations of this kind, the error is more probably in defect than in excess. It may here be observed, that the name Elymbo,. e.’Έλυμτος, which is now applied to the mountain, not only by its inhabitants, but throughout the adjacent parts of Macedonia and Thessaly, is probably not a modern corruption, but the ancient dialectic form, for the Aeolic tribes of Greece often substituted the epsilon for the omicron, as in the instance of Όρχομινος, which the Boeotians called’Ερχομινός. If Pythium was in the situation which I have indicated, we may with some probability place Azorus at Vuvala; for, as Strabo remarks that Azorus was 120 stades distant from Oxyneia on the Ion, which was a branch of the Peneius, it may be inferred, whether the distance be correct or not, that Azorus was the most south-westerly of the towns of Tripolitis which agrees with the position of Vuvala. Nothing can more strongly show the importance of the pass of Pythium and Petra, than the many occasions on which it is noticed in connection with

§ 3.343 the military operations of the ancients. Xerxes sent his host this way into Perrhaebia, after having employed a third of his army then encamped in Pieria, in preparing the road. Brasidas, after his rapid march across Thessaly and Perrhaebia, in the eighth year of the Peloponnesian war, crossed by the same pass to Dium. Agesilaus, returning into Greece from Asia Minor, in the year B.C. 394, entered Thessaly from Macedonia by the same route. Cassander, in the year B.C. 316 traversed the same defile, in proceeding from the Peloponnesus against Olympias at Pydna. And lastly, it furnished to L. Aemilius Paullus, in the year B.C. 168, the means of forcing Perseus to retreat from his strong position on the Enipeus, as soon as he learnt that Scipio Nasica had overthrown the Macedonian garrison at Petra, and was descend-ing into the plains in the rear of the king’s position on the Enipeus. Dec. 8.—From Livadhi to Elassona 5 hours. At 4.50, Turkish time, we descend the mountain, and having reached its foot at the end of an hour and a half, soon leave to the right the plain of the Sarandaforo and enter a valley separated from it by a small ridge of hills which branches northward from the heights of Elassona. At the northern extremity of this ridge are some remains of a fortress on the summit of a peaked hill, which we

§ 3.344 leave a little on our right, and a few minutes afterwards arrive at the small village of Duklista, situated at the foot of the same heights, where in a ruined church are two fragments of Doric columns 2 feet 8 inches in diameter, and in the burying ground a sepulchral stone, together with some squared blocks. These remains, combined with the name Duklista, seem to indicate the site of Doliche, the third city of the Tripolitis. Here Kokkinoplo is two or three miles on the left, on the edge of the snow on the ascent of the steepest part of Elymbo; below it to the southward, at the foot of the mountain, is Selos, another large village. We now cross the plain towards the mountain, and at 6.50 fall into the road from Katerina to Elassona. On the right, at a distance of about eight miles, on the summit of a ridge which is the continuation of the southern end of Amarbes, appears the village of Besharitza, and the large monastery of Ghianota. Four hours beyond them in the same direction is Dhissikata, vulgarly Dhishkata, a large village in the district of Khassii, the mountains of which are seen extending to the southward and westward behind the hills of Bessaritza. At 7.30, continuing along the same valley, we leave Bazarli a quarter of an hour on the left of the road, and at 8.10 Ormanli, both large villages, and both Turkish as their, names indicate. A mile farther some heights terminate the valley and separate it from that of Elassona; having crossed these, we arrive at 9.50

§ 3.345 at the Panaghia of Elassona, a large ancient monastery said to have been built by the emperor Andronicus. The town of Elassona lies below the monastery on the edge of the plain, and is divided into two parts by a rapid stream proceeding from an immense chasm which separates the great summit of Olympus from an inferior range which stretches from near Elassona to Tempe, and borders the northern side of the Larissaean plain. This latter mountain I take to be the ancient Titarus, as the river now called the Elassonitiko is certainly the Titaresius, or Eurotas. The height on which the monastery stands is defended on either side by a deep ravine, in the eastern flows the Elassonitiko, in the western a branch of it proceeding from the hills to the northward. Both these ravines, as well as those of some smaller torrents which open into them, consist of a white argillaceous soil worn into furrows by the waters, like that of Zakytho and many parts of Achaia, from which peculiarity, as Strabo remarks, Homer derived the epithet which he has applied to Oloosson. Of this the Greeks of Elassona are not ignorant; they add, that at Selos are some remains of the Homeric Elone, which, according to Strabo, was afterwards called Leimone.

§ 3.346 The modern name Elassona can hardly be called a corruption, being in the usual Romaic form of the third case of’Ελασσών, as Meletius writes the name. The initial E is only a dialectic variation, like’Έλυμιτος for Όλυμπος, and Ερχομενος for Opχομενος, all which were probably the ordinary local forms, although Homer and subsequent writers may have preferred the O to the E, as being general in other parts of Greece. The third o in the Oloosson of Homer seems to have been inserted or omitted by the ancient poets as the verse happened to require it; so that the corruption of the modern name is confined to the first a. The hill of the monastery, defended by the two ravines, and in front falling abruptly to the plain, afforded a strong situation for the ancient city of Oloosson, or at least for its citadel. The only remains are a few fragments of walls, and some foundations behind and around the monastery, consisting of large masses of rough stones and mortar, without any accurately hewn blocks in the ancient style. These have probably been removed for modern use, particularly for that of building and repairing the monastery itself, in the walls of which some stones of this kind may be seen.

§ 3.347 In the church is an inscribed column, but the letters are so much defaced that I do not attempt to copy them. The library is well provided with good editions of the classics, brought from Germany by an Igumenos, who had resided there 17 years, and who died here not long ago; ranee which there has been nobody capable of reading these books, the present monks being as ignorant and clownish as those of Mount Athos. I purchase from them a colossal votive hand of bronze, which was found in one of the ravines. The town of Elassona, containing about 400 families is the capital of a district of 30 villages, many of which are large. The Voivoda who farms the revenues is an Albanian, and has a large house in the town in the Turkish style. Three mosques and many houses in ruins on the left side of the Elassonitiko show that the Mussulman population was formerly more numerous. The Greeks, who now form three fourths of the inhabitants, were then confined to the right bank. Their church in that quarter contains an inscribed marble, much defaced, but evidently a record of the manumission of slaves, and of the sum which they paid on the occasion.

§ 3.348 Dec. 9. — From Elassona in 35 minutes to Τζαριτζενα, in vulgar pronunciation Tjaritjena, a Greek town of 7 or 800 houses, standing at the foot of the range of hills which border the eastern side of the plain of Elassona, to which kaza it belongs. The name is Sclavonic, and not uncommon in Russia, and other countries of Europe where dialects of the Illyric are spoken. The place is noted for the manufacture of the stuffs of cotton, or of a mixture of silk and cotton, of which there is a great consumption among both Turks and Greeks for men’s vests and women's gowns: cotton thread is also dyed here of several colours and sent to Germany. Immediately behind the middle of the town a rocky aperture in the hills gives passage to a small torrent called Xeria, which rushes through the town into the plain. The rocks are a very white limestone. There are many good houses in the town, but it is not without some marks of decline, which are attributed as usual to the effects of Aly Pasha’s government. The gorges of the Elassonitiko and Xeria are the natural ascents into the upper regions of Olympus, where are several large villages and some cultivated plains situated between the great southern face of that mountain and the summits overhanging Tempe and the Pelasgic plain. It was through this elevated country that the consul Quintus Marcius Philippus turned the pass of Tempe and penetrated from Perrhaebia to the Macedonian coast in the third year of the last Macedonic war.

§ 3.349 The pass over this part of the Olympene range is formed like almost all natural routes over high mountains, by two rivers flowing from the same col, or ridge, in opposite directions. One of these is the Elassonitiko, or Titaresius, the other the river of Plataraona; the heads of the respective ravines through which they flow, are separated only by a plain, at the southern foot of the upper heights of Olympus, which contains the village of Karya, one of the largest on the mountain. This plain is about five miles long, in an E. and W. direction, and is the greatest level space upon Olympus. Like other similar plains on the mountains of Greece, it supplies only rye and pasture for flocks. On the fir-clad heights above it, to the north, stands the monastery of the Holy Trinity, situated near a torrent which flows from thence through a part of the plain of Karya and then to Platamona. St. Triadha was for many years a favourite haunt of the robbers of Elymbo, until by the magic touch of Aly’s sword the villages of the mountain were converted into tjiftliks of his own, and the robbers into armatoli for their protection. Southward of the plain of Karya, and divided from it only by a ridge, is the parallel valley of Ezero, about half as large as that of Karya, and so called from a lake which occupies the greater part of it, and which the inhabitants of the village of Ezero endeavoured to draw off into a neighbouring ravine, but were obliged to desist after having wrought several years at it. The lake of Ezero is evidently the ancient Ascuris. Eastward of this plain is another, not far distant from the summits

§ 3.350 which inclose the pass of Tempe to the northward; it is separated only by a ridge from a cultivated region around the town of Rapsani, or Rapsiani which looks down upon the maritime level at the mouth of the Peneius, and southward is opposed to the face of Mount Ossa and Ambelakia. On the ridge to the westward of Rapsani are the remains of an ancient fortress, probably Lapathus, of which name Rapsani may perhaps be a corruption. In like manner as the plain of Karya and the gorges of the rivers Elassonitiko and Platamona form a separation, between the great Olympus and its subordinate summits, which extend to the plains of Elassona and Larissa, and to Tempe, so these latter mountains are subdivided by the plain of Ezero and that near it to the eastward. The western portion of them was evidently the Mount Titarus adjacent to Olympus noticed by Strabo; the eastern probably bore the same name as the fortress Lapathus which stood upon one of its summits. The distance from Karyk to Ezero is reckoned two hours, and from the latter to Rapsani three hours. Between Karya and Elassona there are two other villages on the mountain, namely, Skamnia, which is not far from the northern side of the plain of Karya, distant one hour and a half from that town, and Boliana one hour distant from Skamnia, near the western extremity of the plain of Karya, where are some remains of antiquity called Konispoli, situated at the division of the waters which flow in one direction along the

§ 3.351 plain to Karya, and in the other form the sources of the Xeria, or river of Tzaritzena. Konispoli appears to correspond to the Eudierum of Livy, which was fifteen miles from the Roman camp, between Azorus and Doliche, in the direction of Ascuris and Lapathus. The sources of the principal branch of the Titaresius are in the great flank of Olympus, between Skamnii and Selos, and particularly at a great perennial spring situated two or three hours to the north-east of Elas-sona: after quitting the gorges of Olympus it approaches Elassona from the north-eastward, turns southward through the town, thence flows westward near the foot of the hills on the northern side of the plain, and quitting it at the western extremity passes between hills into the valley of Dheminiko, where it joins the Sarandaforo, or branch from the mountains of Livadhi, near Amuri. Dec. 10.—At 3.40, Turkish time, leaving Tzaritzena, we continue to cross the plain of Oloosson, not far from the foot of Mount Titarus, and at the south-eastern corner nscend a pass called the derveni of Melflna, where the road traverses a low rocky ridge which connects Titarus with the mountain of Tfimavo, and on the descent commands a prospect over the superb plain of Pelasgiotis as far as the entrance of Temps and Mount Ossa. Beyond the Peneius, to the right of Ossa, is seen the lake of Karatjair, the ancient Nessonis.

§ 3.352 At 5.10 we arrive at the foot of the heights of Meluna, and enter the plain at the small Turkish village of Karadere (black valley) called by the Greeks Ligara, then turning to the right and following the foot of the mountain of Turnavo, cross at 5.35 a small stream just below the mati, or source where it issues from the foot of the mountain, and forms a small lake and marsh in the plain to our left. Here a large Turkish village, named Karadjoli, appears across the plain on the side of Mount Titartu, two or three miles on our left. Some conspicuous remains of the Hellenic walls, inclosing the face of the hill, show it to be the position of a city of some importance. Continuing to wind to the right along the foot of the mountain of Turnavo, we cross at 6.33 another rivulet flowing from a source on our right, called Krya-vrysi, pass a large tumulus to the left, and at 6.48 arrive in the town of Turnavo, or Tyrnavo which stands in the plain, but not far from the mountain.

§ 3.353 CHAPTER 29 THESSALIA TURNAVO contains 1500 families; of these only 70 are Mahometan, a number which compared with the six mosques still existing, shows how much the Turkish population has diminished. It is said that there were once 4000 houses, which the great number of those in ruins, or uninhabited, renders credible. The causes to which the depopulation is ascribed, are several successive years of plague, the first Russian war which brought the Albanians into Thessaly in great numbers, and lastly, the acquisition of the place by Aly Pasha, which has driven away the Turks. Turnavo, like Tzaritzena, is a name of Sclavonic origin, and shows that a colony of that race, perhaps from Turnavo in Bulgaria, was once settled here, of which no other trace than the name now remains. Another Illyric name is found at the lake and village Ezero, in VOL. III. a a

§ 3.354 Mount Titarus, between Tzaritzena and Rapsani. These are the more remarkable, as there are few if any others in the great eastern Thessalo-Macedonian range to the southward of Vodhena. Like Tzaritzena, Turnavo has been and is still indebted for its importance to the weaving and dyeing of the stuffs made of cotton, or of a mixture of silk and cotton called bukhasia and aladja, and to the dyeing of cotton thread, which is chiefly sold to the Ambelakiotes. Long towels in the Turkish and Greek fashion interwoven with gold threads, and shawls for the head and waist, are also made here. There are three dyeing manufactories; but the looms are all in private houses; these are reckoned to produce daily 1200 κομμάτια, or pieces of seven peeks each. There are only 200 working days in the year, so numerous are the Greek holidays. Ninety okes of thread are made every day in the town; the surrounding villages supply one third of that which is used in the looms, and all that which is dyed for exportation. Tzaritzena makes as many stuffs as Turnavo, but does not dye so much thread. As at Tzaritzena, Siatista, Kozani, and Kastoria, there are many persons here who speak German, and they were more numerous formerly; but as in the places just mentioned, those who have realized any property often prefer the secure enjoyment of it in Christendom, to the chance of increasing it here. The metropolitan bishop of Larissa, who is now at Turnavo on a visitation, has been translated to this dignity from the see of Grevena since I met him last year at Ioannina.

§ 3.355 He paid sixty purses to the Porte upon this occasion, and finds the see burthened with a debt of 300 purses, bearing the customary high interest, which he finds the more difficult to pay, as the exportation of grain from Thessaly is forbidden to all but the agents of government, which disables the bishop’s flock from contributing to the payment of his demands upon diem, or at least supplies an excuse for withholding them. Almost all the Greek bishoprics are bnrthened in the same manner with debt; but like the public debts of other countries, they form a bond of union between individuals and the authorities, and in this country have the advantage of saving the former from the dangers of hoarding —the only alternative with those who are fearful of the risks of commerce. The necessity of being prepared to pay the interest gives the bishops also something more than a personal plea for enforcing the collection of their dues from the clergy and laity, in which they often find great difficulty. Aly Pasha’s bishops are generally assisted by His Highness’s buyurti, supported sometimes, especially in the case of the bishop of Ioannina, by a palikari or two, to ensure attention to it. It was by Aly’s influence at Constantinople that the bishop of Larissa obtained his promotion, the Pasha finding it useful to the support of his influence in this part of Thessaly to have the chief Christian authority subservient to him, and in the hands of one who has long resided at his court. The largest house at present in Tfimavo was built by Mukhtar Pasha for a young Antinous of this

§ 3.356 place, whom Aly has lately, upon complaint of his son’s wife, ordered to be put to death, but who has been saved and concealed by Mukhtar. There are many fragments of antiquity in different parts of the town, some of which it is not easy to obtain a sight of, as they are in private houses: they are all said to have been brought from a height half an hour below Turnavo called Kastri. At a well in the town, a large sepulchral stone represents a woman sitting in a chair, with a couch before her on which lies a child stretching out its hands to join those of the mother. The attitudes and drapery indicate a high antiquity. In the churches are a few sepulchral stelae, with the remains of names on them. The most interesting monument is in the court which surrounds the episcopal church and palace, where a plain quadrangular block of white marble is inscribed on one of the narrow sides with four lines in the Aeolic or Thessalian dialect: it is a dedication to Apollo Cerdous by Sosipatrus, son of Polemarchides, who had held the offices of Hieromnemon and Archi-daphnephorus

§ 3.357 The lands of Turnavo produce corn, wine, and cotton, but are not extensive, being bounded at a few miles’ distance by those of Larissa to the south, and to the east and north-east by the Koniaro-khoria, named Kazaklari, Misalari, Karadjoli. All these places, as well as Tatari and Bakrina, are inhabited entirely by Turks, whose appellation of Koniaridhes indicates that they are remains of the original settlers from Konia or Iconium, who came here before the conquest of Constantinople. They are employed entirely in the cultivation of the soil, the surplus produce of which suffices to supply them with their other wants. They are poor and inoffensive, and their name is a bye-word of contempt among the Albanians, who esteem nothing but the power derived from the sword and the tufek. Reapers in the plain of Turnavo receive from 80 to 100 paras a day, but without provision or wine: these high wages are not undeserved, as the heat in harvest is so excessive as often to cause sickness and even death among the labourers. In the vineyards they have generally 50 paras a day, with meat and wine, but no bread.

§ 3.358 The wine made here would be good were it not for the haste with which it is drawn off from the fruit before the fermentation is complete. As usual throughout Greece, water-is added to it before it is sold in the wine-houses; but there is no mixture here of the resin, which in the poorer liquors of Epirus, Attica, and the Morea, serves to check, in some degree, the acetous fermentation. The wine called Πήλινος is flavoured with several herbs, and has a taste by no means agreeable. The cotton, like that of Thessaly in general, is reckoned superior to the Macedonian, and second only to that of Magnesia ad Sipylum, and to some peculiar kinds of the cotton of Smyrna. The mountain above the town is known by the name of Kritiri: its summit lies a little to the westward of a line drawn from Elassona to Turnavo. The ridge has the appearance of extending to the southward as far as the Klisura, or opening noticed on my former journey, through which the Peneius issues into the Larissaean plain, but in fact there is another similar opening but narrower, about an hour to the southward of Turnavo, through which the Titaresius, here commonly called Xeraghi, enters the plain. This stream, after flowing parallel to the foot of the hill, and leaving the town near its left bank, turns eastward, and finally joins the Peneius, at an hour's distance, between Misalari and Kazaklari. The Xeraghi deserves its name, having no water in it, which surprised me, as at Elassona there was a

§ 3.359 considerable stream; but this is sufficiently accounted for by the ποτίσματα, for irrigating gardens and fields of maize, cotton, and tobacco, which intercept its waters in the plain of Dheminiko and valley of Dhamasi, and by a canal which carries water to Larissa. But notwithstanding these diversions, it is sometimes a respectable river at Turnavo, as a bridge of fifteen arches at the entrance of the town testifies. Even now the bed, although apparently dry, is said to abound in dangerous quicksands, concealing a considerable quantity of water. Sometimes the higher classes of Greeks show greater ignorance even than the peasantry. The master of the house in which I lodge, one of the richest men in the place, and who has resided in Germany, asks me for a herb to turn copper into gold, and learns, for the first time in his life, that the stream which flows by Turnavo is the same as that at Elassona, and that it has its origin in Mount Olympia. There are two routes from Turnavo to Tempe; one leading to Dereli, on the northern side of the fauces; the other to Ambelakia, on the southern side. The former of course does not cross the Salamvria, but passes below Karadjdli and along the foot of Mount Titanu into the vale of Dereli, which has a communication by a bridge with Baba, a town situated on the right bank of the river below Ambelakia, at the entrance of the only road through the strait. The other road from Turnavo to Baba crosses the plain to a ferry over the Salamvria, in a district of small Koniaric villages called Bakrina. This ferry is midway to the northern extremity of the lake Karatjair, or Nessonis, where the road joins that from Larissa to Baba, and then ascends an opening in a rocky ridge which here bounds the plain of the Peneius, and separates it from the vale of Kiserli at the foot of Mount Ossa. The road then follows that valley, without any farther interruption of heights, to Baba.

§ 3.360 Dec. 11.—A heavy fall of rain yesterday evening, and a thunder-storm at night, are succeeded by fair weather. In the afternoon I proceed to Larissa, crossing the bridge, and arriving in twenty-seven minutes at Kastri. At a small village named Amari, two miles to the right, is a large artificial tumulus, similar to that already remarked in the opposite direction. Kastri is undoubtedly the site of a Hellenic town, though there now remains nothing but the foundations of a square tower of those times on the summit of the hill, near which are many excavations which have been made for extracting wrought masses of stone, which have been transported to Turnavo. The hill and surrounding fields are strewed with fragments of ancient pottery. Proceeding from hence at 6.30, Turkish time, we cross the plain to Tatari, leaving Kazaklari on the left, composed, like the other Koniaric villages, in this plain, of several makhalas, situated among vineyards, cotton plantations, and corn-fields. Large intervals, however, of this fertile plain remain uncultivated. At 7.30 we arrive at a rising ground, resembling that of Kastri, and similarly covered with pottery and the remains of ancient buildings. Several squared blocks of stone are dispersed around the height,

§ 3.361 and at its foot a Turkish burying-ground contains among the tomb-stones the fragment of a Doric fluted shaft, fire feet three inches in circumference. The height is called Magula, a common name for an insulated hill in a plain, especially when preserving the vestiges of former buildings; it stands in the midst of a district of small Turkish villages named Tatari. Leaving the Magula, which is about half an hour from the left bank of the Peneius, at 7.27, we halt at 7.45 at a khan at one of the makhalas of Tatari, near a very extensive Turkish burying-ground, in which, among many ancient sepulchral monuments and fragments of antiquity, Ι find another dedication to Apollo, under his Thessalian name Aplus, with the addition of the epithet Tempites. Aelian alludes to the worship of Apollo at Tempe in his description of that celebrated valley; and it is easy to conceive that the deity may have been worshipped in some of the neighbouring cities under the same appellation. From the khan the bridge of Larissa is just one hour distant. Dec. 13.—The road from Larissa to the ruins which the Greeks call Palea Larissa, and absurdly suppose to be the site of the ancient city, diverges a few degrees to the right of the direct road to Fersala, and at the distance of five or six miles enters upon a low undulated tract which separates the lowest level, or that reaching to the banks of

§ 3.362 the river, from another rather higher. The latter though now little cultivated, is fertile, and was obviously the territory of one of the chief cities of Thessaly. It extends nine or ten miles southeastward from the foot of the hill of Alifaka, as far as the ridge which separates this plain from the Pharsalian valley. At the beginning of the undulated ground, one hour and five minutes from Larissa, several squared stones, and a piece of a fluted Doric column, occur in a spot where no Turkish burying-ground or remains of habitations appear. It is perhaps the site of a solitary temple. Ten minutes farther is Hassan Tatari, a small village, below which are two or three sori at a fountain, some ancient wells, and several wrought stones. At the end of two hours and twenty-seven minutes from Larissa we arrive at Hadjilar, a tjiftlik belonging to Hadji Halil Aga of Larissa, but inhabited only by the Greeks who cultivate his lands. My lodging here is a cottage of the better sort, but of a construction common throughout the plains of Greece. It consists of one long apartment in two portions, which have a difference of about two feet in the level. In the higher a hearth without a chimney, two or three shelves, with a few plates and earthen vessels on them, a pan, boiler, and sieve, hung upon the walls, announce the habitation of the human portion of the family, which is separated from that of the cattle only by a barrier of tall baskets, some full of corn and others of dried peas. Two opposite doors form a passage through the building just below the partition

§ 3.363 of baskets, between two of which there is an opening serving for the communication between the upper and lower compartments of the cottage. Half an hour from Hadjilar, in the direction of Fersala, is the place called Palea Larissa, a name which was undoubtedly attached to it when the remains of antiquity were much more considerable than they are at present. It supplies an example of the manner in which the anqient cities of the more fertile parts of Greece have gradually been obliterated, although built by a people with whom durability was the principal object. Besides applying the ordinary materials to reconstruction, the Turks are in the habit of searching for wrought stones of white marble, for the purpose of converting them into tombstones, by which means ancient sculptures and inscriptions are often defaced to make way for the rude representation of a Turkish turban, or for some words in Arabic. Even when the ancient letters have escaped erasure, the monument having been removed to a distance from its original position may only mislead the geographical enquirer. In rocky situations, and the poorer parts of the country, the remains have a better chance of preservation than in such fertile plains as these, where large modern towns have succeeded the ancient cities, and where stone being scarce, every village finds it convenient to resort to the ancient sites for materials. At Paleo Larissa, the sort, or stone coffins of the ancient cemetery, have been particularly in demand, as well in Larissa as in all the villages around Hadjilar, where they are used as water

§ 3.364 troughs. They were in such request, that the people of this village finding that they were sometimes sunk three or four feet deep in the ground, were in the habit of sounding for them with iron rods. But Abdim Bey, chief Ayan of Larissa, informed me yesterday that he had forbidden the further search, lest the Porte, hearing false accounts of the proceeding, should suppose that treasure had been discovered. Notwithstanding the spoliations to which the ancient remains have been so long exposed, some foundations of the walls of the town, or more probably of the citadel, may be traced along the edge of a quadrangular height called Paleokastro, which is nearly a mile in circumference, and towards the upper part of which are some vestiges of a transverse wall forming a double inclosure. This height, and all the fields around, are covered with pottery, and on the side of the height, or on the rise of the hills behind it, are eight or nine small tumuli. Here the sori were found, and some of them are still left aboveground, not having been carried away after they had been dug out. They are plain coffins, roughly shaped, and with marks of the tool still remaining upon the stone. Nearly half a mile to the southward of the Paleokastro are two other artificial heights on the slope of the hills, at the foot of one of which a semicircular cavity in the ground looks like the vestige of a theatre; but as its aspect is towards the hills, and not towards the plain, and as it is beyond the ancient cemetery, I am inclined to think it only a natural accident of the ground. A little beyond this spot, to the southward, the road from Larissa to Maskoluri crosses the heights into the plain of the Enipeus.

§ 3.365 Dec. 14.—The most interesting of the monuments found at Palea Larissa have been removed from thence and deposited by the Greeks, who generally show this respect for the works of their ancestors, at the little village church of Hadjilar. The first to be mentioned is an inscription of forty lines, in small characters of the best times, wanting four or five lines at the commencement, as well as a few letters at the beginning and end of every line, but still preserving enough to prove Palea Larissa to be the site of Crannon, or as the name is written on the marble Cranon. This inscription is in the Thessalic dialect, among the peculiarities of which is the conversion of the Hellenic Ω into OY, so that TOYN ΤΑΓΟΥΝ ΓΝΟΥΜΑΣ occurs for ΤΩΝ ΤΑΓΩΝ ΓΝΩΜΑΣ. The name of the people is written KPANOYNNIOI; ΟΝΑΛΟΥΜΑ represents ANAΑΩΜΑ, and resembles the ΟΝΕΘΕΙΚΕ of the inscription of Turnavo; of this form another instance is found in the words ΨΑΦΙΣΜΑ ΟΝΓΡΑΦΕΙ ΕΝ ΚΙΟΝΑ ΛΙΘΙΝΟΝ, which are repeated.

§ 3.366 The object of this record is the very common one of a vote of citizenship to certain foreign benefactors of the city. A stone in the wall of the church, upon which a Hermes on a pedestal is represented in relief, is inscribed with the words EPMAO ΧΘΟΝΙΟΥ, in very neat characters well preserved. On a handsome pedestal in the churchyard are the words ΝΙΚΑΣΙΠΠΟΣ ΝΙΚΟΥΝΕΙΟΣ, where the last word, which in Attica and most other parts of Greece would have been ΝΙΚΩΝΟΣ, exemplifies both the provincial custom of converting Ω into OY, and that of employing the patronymic adjective instead of the father’s name in the second case. On turning up a marble lying in the church, I find that it is sculptured in low relief, without any inscription, and represents a female placing a chaplet on the head of a horse, a large dog standing by. The priest allows me to carry it away on condition of leaving a present for the church. In one of the cottages is a sepulchral stone representing a man with a small dog leaping up to caress him,—the drapery heavy and figure unfinished. While Ι was copying the inscription in the chnrch, a wedding took place, this being Kvpuucq, or Sunday, which after mass is the usual time for that ceremony among the Greeks. All the village was assembled. Boiled corn, bread, and raki were handed about, and the bride kissed the hand of all present. It is reckoned an hour and a half from Hadjilar to the Paleo-kastro above the village of Alifaka, near the right bank of the Peneius. The road passes by Taushan, a small village lying at the foot of the hill, and then over the ridge, leaving the summit to the left. We return to Larissa in the afternoon by the same route by which we came.

§ 3.367 Dec. 15.—At 4.24, Turkish, having crossed the bridge of Larissa, I pursue westward for about a quarter of an hour a kalderim, or causeway along the side of an inundation which is formed by the river in winter, and then crossing the plain with the river at a short distance on the left, arrive, at 5.7, at a spot where some ancient foundations, two or three covers of sori, and several squared blocks are scattered on the ground. In a neighbouring field lies a fragment of a Doric column, of which the chord of the fluting is six inches. An inundation extends from hence to the river, which is half a mile distant. A third of a mile to the right are six tumuli standing nearly in a line, and stretching three quarters of a mile from east to west; the two in the middle are large, particularly one of them, the others are small and low. Behind one of those in the middle there is a seventh. Tumuli being generally indications of sites of high antiquity, these probably mark the position of the Homeric Argissa; the remains in the road may be those of its successor Argura, which Strabo places exacdy in this situation.

§ 3.368 Proceeding from hence at 5.17, we soon arrive on the bank of the river, and following it, pass at 5.47 for 7 minutes over fields covered with stones and pottery, on low eminences which terminate in an earthy cliff overhanging the river’s bank. Five minutes beyond the end of this stony ground is another tumbe or tumulus on the right of the road, and as much farther one more. At 6.45 we arrive at the ferry of Glinitza, which is a small Greek village on the opposite or right bank of the Salamvria, just where it emerges into the plain from the opening more than once mentioned, which is a rocky gorge about half a mile long. A road ascends the left bank of the river along the pass to Zarko, and another branches from it to Dhamasi 1-1/2 hour distant. The fields on the left bank of the river just opposite to Gunitza, both on the slope of the hill and in the plain, are covered with stones and fragments of ancient pottery, and in one place there are foundations of a Hellenic wall. On the summit also are considerable remains of a wall of loose stones extending from thence to a lower precipice of the hill. The latter is very rocky, and so abrupt, particularly towards the river, as hardly to have required any artificial fortification in that part. Just within the pass a copious source of water issues from the foot of the height. This place, now called Sidhiro-peliko, agrees so entirely

§ 3.369 with that of Atrax, which stood on the Peneius, ten miles from Larissa, that I have no doubt of the identity, though little of Hellenic antiquity remains here. The strength of the height is in perfect conformity with the successful resistance of Atrax against the consul Quinctius, in the year B.C. 198. Neither Livy nor Strabo, indeed, state on which bank of the Peneius Atrax stood, but as the former remarks that the inhabitants were Perrhsebi, and in another place shows its vicinity to other Perrhsebian townss, the left bank is the more probable. Having crossed the ferry to Gunitza, Ι there find in a church a sepulchral marble erected in memory of one Coricus, by his wife Melete, daughter of Sosias. On the outside of the village, a great number of millstones are collected, which are made in a neighbouring quarry, and are here in preparation to be embarked on the river. Just below the village the river is partly diverted as a canal for mills and irrigation. The ferry is the ordinary communication from Tfirnavo, the Larissaean plain, and Elassona, towards Hadjilar and Fersala. After having recrossed the river, and dined at the fountain on the bank, the weather clear and warm as in an English May, we proceed to Turnavo, setting out at 8.30, and riding along the foot of the rocky heights with the plain on the

§ 3.370 right, until at 9.12 we cross a small canal derived from the Elaseonitiko, or litaresius, and which is carried from hence directly across the plain to Lirissa. I have before observed, that this canal and the irrigations at Dhamasi, and in the plain of Amuri, deprive the river of so much water, that at Turnavo the sandy bed absorbs all the rest. The opening in the ridge of Kritiri, through which the river issues, is similar to that of Gunitza,—steep rocky heights on either side leaving space only for the river. The pass is about 2 miles in length, and begins to widen a little below Dhamasi; beyond which village it forms an extensive plain. At 9.22 the large tumulus near A man is upon a rising ground near the right of the road; and at 9.46, after having crossed the bed of the Elassonitiko, I again enter Turnavo. The Larissaan plain to the north of the Peneius is reckoned not so fertile as that to the south, although this year it produced 20 to 1, and from 16 to 18 is not an uncommon return. The corn of Dhamasi is not so productive, but is reckoned better than that of the Larisstean plain. After a further inquiry for inscriptions, I discover another, scarcely less interesting than the Aeolic dedication to Aplus. It is on the edge or narrow dimension of a square plain marble, upon the top of which are some holes, apparently for the reception of a statue, whieh the inscription shows to have been that of Petraeus, son of Philoxenides of Metropolis, erected by the young men who had been under his direction as gymnasiarch.

§ 3.371 The inference to be drawn from this inscription is that Kastri is the position of Metropolis, since it is not very likely that the gymnasiarch should have been an alien. That there was a city named Metropolis in this part of the country different from that of Upper Thessaly which was near Ithorae and Tricca, there are proofs in Livy and Stephanus. From the historian we learn that Antiochus, in the year 1Θ1 B.C. having sailed from Chalcis, and landed at Demetrias, first took Phene, then Crannon, then Cypaera, Metropolis, and all the neighbouring fortresses, except Atrax and Gyrton, after which he encamped before Larissa, with the intention of besieging that place. But a portion of the Roman army under Appius Claudius, who had been detached by Baebius from Dassaretia, having arrived at Gonnus, and Antiochus, who saw their fires, having mistaken them for an indication of the arrival of the whole allied force of Philip and the Romans, he was so much alarmed that, taking into consideration also the advanced season, he returned to Demetrias, after having remained before Larissa only one day, during which he was rejoined by his allies of Athamania and Aetolia, who. had previously quitted his army on hostile expeditions, of which the Tripolitis of Perrhaebia and Pelinnaeum were the most distant points. It is evident that these operations were,

§ 3.372 except in the single instance of the excursion to Pelinnaeum, confined to the Pelasgiotis and Perrhaebia; consequently, that the Metropolis there mentioned was in the same part of Thessaly, and distinct from that of Upper Thessaly, which was not far from Gomphi and Aeginium, and was taken by Flamininus on his descent into that part of Thessaly after the battle of the Aous. And thus we have an explanation of the distinction which Stephanus has made between the Metropolis of Thessaly and that of Upper Thessaly. Dec. 16.—The plain having been dried, and the paths improved by the late fine weather, I return to Lirissa this afternoon by the circuitous route of Amiri, and from thence directly to the city, for the most part along the canal derived from the Titaresius. The circuit is not so great as by Tatari, but one sixth longer than by the direct paved road, which is about ten miles. Dec. 17.—At 8.30, Turkish time, leaving Larissa with horses of the post, and taking the road to Aghia, Ι observe, as we clear the town, at least sixteen tumuli in the adjacent part of the plain. After a halt of 10 minutes at a tjiftlik belonging to Vely Pasha, we continue our direction towards a rocky point conspicuous from Larissa. This point is the southern extremity of the rocky ridge extending from thence 10 or 12 miles in a northerly direction to the Salamvria, which separates that end of it from Kondo-vuni, as the eastern part of the range of Titarus is called.

§ 3.373 Approaching the rocky point, we cross the Asmak, or profundity, a deep watercourse which carries the superfluous waters of the lake Karatjair, or Nessonis, to the lake of Karla. In seasons of rain the Asmak is impassable, but now it has only water standing in pools, in which small fish are caught. Soon after having passed it, we are abreast of the rocky point, and at 11.15 arrive at a tjiftlik of Abdim Bey, called Karalar, having left the Turkish village of Marmariani on the slope of the range of Ossa, 2 miles on our left. Not having provided myself with a letter from Abdim, Ι find some difficulty in obtaining a lodging here, but at length find refuge in a small cottage, sending our horses to the khan. Two miles and a half beyond Karalfir is Gkiuksan, another tjiftlik on the foot of some low ridges which branch from Ossa towards Pelium. About an hour to the south of Gkiuksan is the village of Kastri, at the foot of a hill which stands advanced in front of the heights of Pelium, and is inclosed by the walls of a fortress, which has an appearance of Roman or lower Greek times, but may possibly be Hellenic; for it is evident that the people of Thessaly were not always in the habit of employing the massive masonry of the southern parts of Greece, notwithstanding that they occupied the original seats of the Pelasgi, who seem to have taught the Greeks that mode of building. But in many parts of the extensive plains of Thessaly, quarries from which large homogeneous masses might be extracted, such as are found in the walls of the cities of southern Greece and the Peloponnesus, were so

§ 3.374 distant, that the labour and expence of fortifying in that manner would have been enormous. An hour and a half beyond Gkiuksan is Aia, properly Aghia called Ghiaur Yenidje by the Turks, standing on some heights near the foot of the steepest part of Mount Ossa, exactly in the opening between Ossa and Pelium, and not more than 2 hours from the sea. From Aia to Volo the distance is 10 hours, leaving the lake of Karla on the left, about half way; in the opposite direction the road from Aia to Ambelakia crosses the maritime face of Mount Ossa, where are several small villages among the woods, and a path practicable only by mules. Dec. 18.—We leave Karalar at 3.40, Turkish, but lose twenty minutes by taking the wrong road and wandering in a wood which stretches from Marmariani into the plain. A little below that village are some fragments of white marble, and many stones in the fields. A stream of water which flows through the wood originates in a source in the mountain above Marmariani called Yedi Kapelar, (the seven gates,) where a tank has been formed by means of an embankment. This plentiful supply of water, the marbles, and the name of Marmariani, which seems to have been derived from larger remains of the same kind once existing here, are strong indications of an ancient site, which, from Livy’s narrative of the military operations at the beginning of the last Macedonic war, in the year 171 B.C., I infer to be that of Sycurium. We learn from the historian that

§ 3.375 Sycurium was situated at a distance of about ten miles from Larissa, at the foot of Mount Ossa, on the southern side, looking upon the Thessalian plains in that direction, and backed by Macedonia and Magnesia, abounding in fountains of perennial water, and commodiously placed for collecting corn from the neighbouring territories of Crannon and Phene. The consul, P. Licinius Crassus, commander of the Roman army opposed to Perseus, who had marched through Epirus and Athamania to Gomphi in Upper Thessaly, considered himself fortunate in finding that part of the country free from the enemy, as his army had suffered severely in crossing the mountains. After a few days’ repose, he continued his route towards Larissa, which was in possession of the Romans, and pitched his camp at Tripolis Scea, a village on the right bank of the Peneius, three miles above that city. Here he was joined by the brothers, Eumenes and Attalus, of Pergamus, with a considerable reinforcement of infantry and a small body of Greek cavalry, chiefly Thessalian. Perseus, being superior in cavalry, endeavoured to draw the consul out of hie position by laying waste the Pheraea; but not succeeding in this design, he marched from Sycurinm to the

§ 3.376 distance of a mile from the Roman camp, where he arrived at the fourth hour of the day. A partial combat ensued midway between the two camps, chiefly of cavalry and light infantry, in which Cassignatus, chief of the Gauls, was slain. Perseus then returned to Sycnrium. On the following day he made a similar attempt, and as the troops had before suffered from a want of water in a march of twelve miles over a plain where little water was to be found, they now carried a supply with them in waggons. But the Romans still remained within their camp, and were equally cautious during several successive days on which Perseus repeated the experiment. The king then moved his army to a distance of five miles from the enemy, entrenched his position, and on the following day, drawing out his infantry at the same place as before, advanced at sunrise with all his lightarmed and cavalry to the Roman camp. As he made his appearance at a much earlier hour than on the former occasions, the Romans were taken by surprise; the consul, however, having drawn up his infantry behind the rampart of his camp, advanced with his light troops and cavalry against those of Perseus, who had formed around a height called Callicinus, when an engagement ensued in which the Romans were defeated and lost 2000 infantry and 400 cavalry. As soon as the Macedonian commanders, who had remained in camp, heard of the king’s success, they led out the phalanx; but Perseus, being advised not to risk a decisive action, gave orders for its return, of which he had quickly reason to repent, for the enemy,

§ 3.377 having crossed the river in the night, thus gave a proof of conscious weakness, such as was likely to have led to a complete overthrow. The king now removed to Mopsium, and the Romans, without quitting the bank of the river, retired to a safer situation, where they received a reinforcement of 2000 Numidian cavalry, with infantry in equal numbers, and twenty-two elephants. This position was probably not far from Atrax. Mopsium, although described only by the historian as a hill midway between Larissa and Tempe, was a Thessalian city of some importance, as we learn from other authorities, and from its coins, and it was of high antiquity, as the name was said to have been derived from Mopsus, a Lapitha, who accompanied the Argonauts. Its ruined walls are still conspicuous, exactly in the situation mentioned by Livy; that is to say, midway between Larissa and Tempe, near the northern end of the lake Karatjair or Nessonis, just where the road from the one to the other crosses the ridge which I have already described as extending from a rocky point near Karalar to the Salamvria, not far from the western extremity of Tempe. Mount Mopsium separates the great Larissaean plain from the vale of Kiserli at the foot of Mount Ossa.

§ 3.378 From Mopsium, after making proposals of peace, which had no effect in consequence of the unreasonable demands of the consul, Perseus returned to Sycurium, and while in that position made an unsuccessful attempt to set fire to the corn which the Romans had been reaping, and had collected in heaps before their tents; soon after which, the consul, who had exhausted the country around him, removed into the Crannonia for the sake of further supplies. The two camps were now separated by a plain not less deficient in water, and much wider than when the contending forces were respectively at Sycurium and Scea. The king, therefore, in advancing against the enemy, began his march from Sycurium at noon, halted in the evening at some distance short of the Romans, and the next morning surprised them by occupying all the hills around their camp with the Macedonian cavalry. As they still declined an engagement, Perseus sent orders for his infantry to return to Sycurium, and soon afterwards retired with his horse, followed for a short distance by the Roman cavalry, but who did not venture upon an attack. From Sycurium he once more proceeded to Mopsium, and the Romans, having reaped the corn of the Crannonia, proceeded into the Phalannaea. Here, while their dispersed foragers were engaged in the same operation, the king suddenly appearing in person with his light-armed and cavalry, captured 600 men and 1000 waggons, and sent them to his camp under an escort of 300 Cretans: he then attacked a body of 800 Romans under L.

§ 3.379 Pompeius, who retired to a height, and though surrounded by the Macedonians, resisted until the consul arrived to their relief. Upon hearing of his approach, Perseus sent to the camp at Mopsium for the phalanx, but in the meantime, having engaged with the Romans and sustained considerable loss, he was obliged to retreat before the succour could arrive. The advancing phalanx met the prisoners and waggons taken from the Romans in a narrow pass, which so impeded their progress that they killed the prisoners, and threw the waggons over a precipice; soon after which they met Perseus and his forces retiring in confusion. Fortunately for him, the consul was as negligent in following up his advantage as the king himself had been at the battle of Scea. Λ few days afterwards, Perseus, leaving a strong garrison in Gonnus, and a smaller body at Phila, for the purpose of gaining over the Magnetes and other neighbouring people, retired into Mace-donia. Licinius then moved to Gonnus, but finding it impregnable, turned towards Mallaea, which he took and destroyed; then, reducing the Tripolitis and other parts of Perrheebia, he went into winter-quarters at Larissa, distributing his army among the cities of Thessaly. If we admit Crannon to have been at Palea Larissa, Sycurium at Marmariani, and Mopsium at the ancient remains midway between Larissa and Tempe, nothing can be clearer, on an inspection of the real scene of action, than the preceding narrative of the first campaign of the Perm war. We may farther infer from it, that the remains at Karadjoli are those of Phalanna; for it is evident that when Perseus placed himself the second time

§ 3.380 at Mopsium, the position of the Romans was on the opposite side of the great Larissaean plain, and consequently that Phalanna was either the ancient city which stood at Kastri, or that at Karadjoli; Tatari, the third ancient site in this plain, being too near to Mopsium, and having only a plain traversed by a river between it and the site of Mopsium, whereas the narrative requires hills and a pass. If Kastri be taken for the site of Metropolis, it will follow that Phalanna was at Karadjoli; a position according much better than that of Kastri with the Homeric name Orthe, which, in the opinion of some critics, reported by Strabo, was the same as the citadel of Phalanna; for Orthe is exactly descriptive of such a steep rocky hill as that of Karadjoli, and was a name scarcely applicable to situations in the plain such as those of Kastri and Tatari. This position of Phalanna accords moreover with its having been considered a Perrhaebian town, as well as Gonnus, which was similarly situated as to the Pelasgic plain. From Marmariani we cross a small rocky ridge into the plain of Kiserli, which lies between Mount Ossa and the parallel lower range of Mopsium. Kiserli, which supplies the market of Larissa with grapes, is a large Turkish village, beautifully situated at the foot of Ossa, just below the peak. At 5.20 it is one mile on our right, while Toivasi, another Turkish village, is at the same distance on the left, the latter being just opposite the opening in Mount Mopsium through which leads the road from Larissa to Baba. At 6.30, when passing close to

§ 3.381 Little Kiserli, Utmanda, a large Turkish village, called by the Greeks Makrikhori, is two miles on our left, on the side of the ridge of Mopsium. At 6.48 we halt at a fountain, where the road begins to ascend Mount Ossa towards Ambelakia. On the opposite side of the river a beautiful semicircular plain presents itself, extending to the foot of Mount Olympus, and containing the Turkish town of Dereli, situated a mile and a half from the river, and occupying a large space of ground among vineyards and gardens, which are separated from the river by a wood of pimaria. The river enters this valley from the great Larissaean plain through a pass formed by the northern end of the height of Makrikhori, or northern extremity of Mount Mopsium, opposed to Kondovuni, or the extremity of Mount Titarus. In the Klisura, or pass, the river is crossed by a bridge named that of Vernesi, above which, on the height of Makrikhori, are some remains of the walls of an ancient city. In a few words, Livy shows this to have been the site of Elateia, and Gonnus to have occupied the vale of Dereli. It was between Kondovuni and Karadjoli, at the foot of Mount Titarus, that I conceive the last action of the first campaign of the Persic war to have occurred, when Perseus, after having captured a large body of the enemy who were engaged in collecting the corn of the Phalannaean plain,

§ 3.382 surrounded L. Pompeius and 800 Romans, upon a height which seems to have been one of the last falls of Mount Titarus. The pass in which Perseus in his retreat was met by his advancing phalanx, was probably near the bridge of Vernesi; for although Livy has not mentioned the river in his description of this affair, the previous positions and movements of the two contending armies show that it must have flowed between the two camps, and must therefore have been crossed and recrossed by Perseus in the operations of that day. The pass of Vernesi, or of Elateia, is precisely suited to the circumstances related by the historian, especially if we suppose a bridge to have existed in the same situation as at present, which would in some measure account also for Livy's silence as to the crossing of the river. If the edges of the great plain to the northward of Larissa were occupied, as I have supposed, by Atrax, Metropolis, Phalanna, Elateia, and Mopsium,— Gyrton is the only place to which the remains at Tatari can be attributed, supposing Gyrton to have stood in this plain, on which point it must be confessed there is conflicting testimony. Strabo, by twice connecting Gyrton with the mouth of the Peneius, seems to show that it was below the pass of Tempe; and on that supposition, the epitomizer of his seventh book, by adding that it was near the Peneius and the foot of Mount Olympus, will require it to be placed on the left bank of the river.

§ 3.383 But the Peneius below Tempe having been the boundary of Magnesia and Macedonia, such a situation is very improbable, as Gyrton was a Thessalian town. Nor could it be reconciled with Livy, whose circumstantial testimony, derived from Polybius, is far preferable to the vague indications of the geographer, and who seeme evidently to require Gyrton to have been in the vicinity of Phalanna, Atrax, and Larissa, or in some part of the same plains in which those cities stood. When Perseus descended into them from Tripolitis, or the northern division of Perrhaebia, before his first occupation of the position of Sycurium, he encamped, after having taken Cyretiae and Mylae, in the southern part of Perrhaebia, at Phalanna, and the next day moved to Gyrton, from whence, on finding the place defended by a strong garrison of Romans and Thessalians, he turned away to Elateia and Gonnus. Such a march is quite incomprehensible, on the supposition that Gyrton was below Tempe. Tatari, therefore, I take to have been the site of Gyrton. Its distance from Larissa seems to accord with the proximity of Gyrton to that city, as deducible from a fact mentioned by Soranus, the biographer of Hippocrates of Cos; namely, that the sepulchre of that celebrated physician stood on the road which leads from Gyrton to Larissa: such a central situation in this fertile plain was well adapted to the importance and opulence which the tenor of history and other evidence attaches to Gyrton

§ 3.384 From the pass of Vernesi, or Elateia, the Peneius winds majestically along the vale of Dereli to Baba, where begin the straits of Tempe, or Baba Boghazi, as the defile is called by the Turks. On the foot of Kondovuni, half way between the bridge of Vernesi and Dereli, stands the small Turkish village of Rughin; and two miles from Dereli, in the opposite direction towards Tempe, another larger named Balamut; the latter is a little removed from the river, and nearly opposite to Baba. Half way between Dereli and Balamut, on some rocky heights at the foot of a point of Mount Olympus, about a mile from the river, are some remains of a Hellenic city, mixed with other ruins of a later date. The place is called Lykostomo, or the Wolf's Mouth, a name still applied by the Greeks to the pass of Tempe, but which occurs as that of a town in the Byzantine history as early as the eleventh century, together with several other names still existing in Macedonia and Thessaly, as Salambrias, Domenicus, Triccala, Serbia, Ostrobus, Achris. Lykostomo, or Lykostomio, has continued from those ages to the present to give title to a bishop of the ecclesiastical province of Thessalonica, whose ordinary residence is Ambelakia. From our meridian halt at the fountain we ascend to Ambelakia in one hour and eighteen minutes, by a winding path, along the woody flanks of Mount Kissavo, looking down to the left on the village and bridge of Baba.

§ 3.385 Ambelakia, a Greek town of about six hundred families, is situated in a hollow included between two counterforts of the mountain, which, descending steeply to the river, form together with the. still more abrupt sides of Olympus, the southern or western entrance of the pass of Lykostomo, or Tempe. The entire hollow around Ambelakia is covered with vineyards (whence the name), intermixed with the oak, olive, fig, and cypress. The overhanging mountain is covered with oaks, and completes the beauty of one of the most delightful summer retreats in Greece. To the westward is seen the Peneius, winding through the valleys of Utmanda and Dereli, until a little beyond Baba, and immediately below Ambelakia, it enters the precipitous straits. To the northward the snowy summits of Olympus present themselves, towering above the woody slopes and rocks which surround the vale of Dereli or overhang the strait of Tempe; and though not less than twenty miles distant, appear by the effects of their magnitude, of the clearness of the atmosphere, and of the small difference of the angle under which all the summits are seen, to be very little farther from Ambelakia than the rocks on the opposite side of the river. No view can present a closer and more complete contrast of the sublime and terrific with the tranquil and beautiful; the former represented by the preci-pices of Ossa and Olympus, the latter by the winding river and the villages of the valley reposing amidst gardens, meadows, corn-fields, scattered trees, and detached groves of oak and ilex.

§ 3.386 Among the nearer heights of Olympus, which rise above the eastern extremity of Tempe, is seen Rapsani, or Rapsiani, a town containing a greater number of houses than Ambelakia, but by no means so opulent. The inhabitants of Rapsani are chiefly employed in the manufacture of aladjas, or mixed stuffs of silk and cotton; those of Ambelakia in dyeing red cotton thread, which is sent overland to Germany and Hungary. The principal Ambelakiotes have resided many years in Christendom, speak German, and though rather too mercantile in their ideas, are agreeable in manners and comparatively enlightened. They maintain a Hellenic school, which seems to make good progress, under the superintendence and encouragement of the resident bishop. But notwithstanding these marks of superior civilization, there is no place where the Greek διχόνοια is more prevalent than at Ambelakia. Party spirit, or envy and jealousy, have divided individuals, families, and relationships; and although small disputes are generally terminated by the archons, the Ambelakiotes have often the folly to carry their complaints to Aly Pasha, who duly profits by it. It is now many years since Aly, by means of his Dervent-agalik, first set his foot, to use the Greek expression, in Ambelakia. At this moment he has one of the chief archons in prison at Ioannina, for the purpose of extorting money from him.

§ 3.387 The thread which is dyed here is procured from all the neighbouring parts of Thessaly, and is partly spun by the women and children of the place itself. It is all formed by the spindle. The rizari or madder, more vulgarly αλιζάρι, which forms the chief ingredient of the dye, is imported from Smyrna, and crashed here in mills turned by horses. The process, as well as I can comprehend, or the Ambelakiotes are willing to explain it, consists of three parts; first the washing, in which oil is used; secondly, the impregnation with animal matter, in which the blood of oxen seems to be the chief ingredient; and thirdly, the application of the dye. The value of the thread, which costs three or four piastres an oke, is more than doubled by the process. Nevertheless, the ultimate gain is by no means excessive, the freight to Belgrade being not less than 60 piastres the horse load, and two years being often required to give a profitable return on the first outlay. Another inconvenience is the increasing expence of the manufacture in consequence of the scarcity of madder, which grows wild on the mountains of Asia Minor, and for which the cultivated root cannot be substituted without injury to the dye. From 150 to 200 thousand okes of thread are sent to Germany every year, where it is chiefly employed in stuffs, of which a large portion is sent to Spain for its American colonies. Some thread is dyed blue at Ambelakia for the use of the Thessalian looms. Not many years ago, the manufacturers of Ambelakia, or in other words the whole town, formed a single company, in which,

§ 3.388 as in the ships of the Aegaean, and many Greek commercial enterprizes, every labourer had a share. The members residing abroad secured to the company all the profits of brokerage and agency. Nothing could be more economical and profitable than such a management. They are now divided into five or six companies, conducted upon the same principles, but by no means with an equal degree of advantage. They were all in great danger last year in consequence of the numerous failures at Vienna; they now cannot receive their remittances here on account of the low value of the florin, and they apprehend ruin if the paper of Vienna should be discredited. Ivo, the chief merchant, has the reputation of being worth a million piastres, which, though not more than 60,000L sterling, is a large sum in this impoverished empire. One of the ancient cities of Ossa was celebrated, as Ambelakia is in the present day, for its red dye, but according to Lucretius it was procured from a shell-fish. At Lykostomo fragments of sculpture, broken vases, coins, and other similar remains of Hellenic antiquity are often found.

§ 3.389 A stone inscribed with the name Hippocrates was not long since brought to light there, and a small Hercules in bronze, which I have purchased from the Ambelakiote into whose hands it had fallen. These remains seem to leave no doubt that the Byzantine Lycostomium was built on the site of the Hellenic Gonnus; for as this city appears from the testimony of Herodotus to have been on the northern side of the Peneius, there cannot remain a doubt, on considering the several passages of Livy in which its mention occurs, that it was situated in the valley of Dereli. Eight or nine years ago the Turkish villages of the valley of Dereli joined some other allies in a predatory expedition against Ambelakia, and attacked the place with 3,000 men. The Greeks advanced to the height westward of the town, where now stands a ruined windmill, but were obliged to retreat before superior numbers. The aseailants burnt some of the outer houses of the town, but could not penetrate into it. The war continued for some days, when the Beys of Larissa interfered and put an end to it.

§ 3.390 Dec. 19.—This morning the atmosphere is so diaphanous that I am able to distinguish the castle of Saloniki, and to connect it by the sextant with several important points; though its direct distance is not much less than 60 geographical miles. But while distant objects are so clear, the whole of Tempe is covered with mist. A messenger from Vienna brings the news of the battle of Jena, intelligence which seems not more agreeable to the Ambelakiotes than it is to myself. They have for many years been in the habit of maintaining a regular post, which was due every 15 days, but the messenger being a footman as far as Semlin, and the war and troubles in Servia having thrown many impediments in the way, he now arrives very irregularly. Dec. 20.—From Ambelakia to Litokhoro. The snows of Olympus had just received a golden tinge from the rays of the rising sun, when we began our descent into the strait, or narrowest part of the vale of Tempe. The direct distance is not more than half a mile, but the steepness of the hill and the bad condition of the winding kalderim, cause the descent to occupy half an hour. At 3.30, Turkish time, we arrive on the river’s bank, and soon afterwards pass the extremity of the root of Ossa, on the eastern side of the theatre-shaped site of Ambelakia, which, separated only by the river from a similar projection of Olympus, forms the commencement of the strait. After traversing a beautiful grove of planes, we arrive

§ 3.391 upon the rocks, where the space between the foot of the precipices of Ossa and the river is sufficient only for the road, which is about 20 feet above, the water. Here a current of cold air issuing from a small cavern, gives to the place the name of ανιμότητρα. The wind proceeds, probably, from the channel of one of the subterraneous streams of water, of which there are many in the pass, rushing from the rocks into the Salamviia. The river flows with a steady and tranquil current, except where its course is interrupted by islands, or where dams have been constructed for intercepting fish. After having passed some marks of chariot-wheels in the rock, we arrive at 3.55 at a spot where the bank is supported by the remains of a Hellenic wall, and at 4.8 at the ruins of a castle built of small stones and mortar, standing on one eide of an immense fissure in the precipices of Ossa, which afford an extremely rocky, though not impracticable descent from the heights into the vale. Between the castle and the river there was space only for the road, nor is the level any wider between the opposite bank and the precipices of Olympus, where several caverns are seen, some of which retain traces of painting. They were once probably ascetic retreats; for one of them near the river side is still a church, dedicated to the Holy Trinity. It may formerly, perhaps, have been sacred to Pan and the Nymphs. As to the altar, or temple of Apollo Tempites, which once existed in Tempe, some of the circum-stances attending his worship seem to require a more open situation than these narrowest parts of the strait, and Baba appears the most probable

§ 3.392 situation for it. The ceremonies performed there were commemorative of the purification of Apollo by order of Jupiter, after which he was said to have proceeded to Delphi, bearing in his hand a branch of bay gathered in the valley. Hence the victors in the Pythia were crowned with bay from Tempe, and the Delphi every nine years sent hither a Theoria, which, having approached the altar of Apollo in procession, sacrificed to the deity, sang hymns, and cut branches of bay. On other occasions, the inhabitants of the surrounding parts of Thessaly were in the habit of assembling in Tempe for sacrifices, symposia, and parties of pleasure, and sometimes, according to Aelian, so numerous were the offerings, that the whole air was perfumed with the incensel. At 4.18 we leave the castle, and at 4.30 begin to ascend a root of Ossa, of which the slope is more gradual than before, but which terminating at the river’s bank in a precipice, made it necessary that the road should pass over the hill. The traces of the ancient road, cut in the rock, and wide enough for carriages, still remain. In the beginning of the ascent, the rock on the right hand side of the road is excavated perpendicularly, and upon the face of it are engraved, in large letters much worn by time, and surrounded by a moulding of a common form, the words—L. Cassius Longinus Pro Cos. Tempe munivit. Here, again, on the opposite side of the river, the rocks meet the bank. After a halt of 5 minutes at the inscribed rock, we descend again on the other side of the

§ 3.393 ridge to the river side, and at 4.53 arrive at the end of the wolf's mouth, where a fine source of water, larger than any in the pass, rushes from the foot of the rocks into the river. The walk of one hour and eight minutes from the foot of the mountain of Ambelakia to the eastern extremity of the pass, with a horse whose pace I have measured, will give a distance of about four miles and a half for the length of the road through Tempe. In this space the opening between Ossa and Olympus is in some points less than 100 yards, comprehending in fact no more than the breadth of a road, in addition to that of the river, which is here much compressed within its ordinary breadth in the plains, and not more than 50 yards across. On the northern bank there are places where it seems impossible that a road could ever have existed, so that the communication was probably maintained anciently as it is now, by means of two bridges, or by ferries. It is evident, at least, from the marks of wheels, and the Latin inscription, that the via militaris, or main route, was in the present track. In some parts of the pass there is sufficient space for little grassy levels, and even in the narrowest places the river’s bank is overshaded by. large plane trees throwing out their roots into the stream. In the meadows where the ground admits it, are copses of evergreens, in which Apollo’s own Daphne is mixed with the wild olive, the

§ 3.394 arbutus, the agnus castus, the paliurus, and the lentisk, festooned in many places with wild grapes and other climbers. The limestone clifis rise with equal abruptness on either side, but their white and bare sides are beautifully relieved by patches of dwarf oaks, velanidhies, and a variety of the common shrubs of Greece, while occasional openings afford a glimpse of some of the nearer heights of the two mountains, clothed with large oaks and firs; in other places, where both sides of the ravine are equally precipitous, a small portion of the zenith only is visible.

§ 3.395 Of the ancient descriptions of Tempe by Livy, Pliny, and Aelian, that of Livy alone seems to have been written by an eye witness, who was not Livy himself, but Polybius. It is remarkable that Strabo reverses the true interpretation of Homer’s comparison of the Peneius and Titaresius; and

§ 3.396 the same may be suspected of Pliny and Aelian, especially from the words ελαίου δίκην of the latter. They were misled, probably, by the epithet αργυροδεινης, applied by Homer to the Peneius, inferring from it that the water of that river was translucent, whereas the apparent reluctance of the water of the Titaresius to join with that of the Peneius arises from the former being clear and the latter muddy. Even in the description of Tempe by Livy, some reason may be found for suspecting that he has added embellishments foreign to the authority from which he borrowed; for in describing the terrible sound of the Peneius, he approaches more nearly to the poetical exaggeration of Ovid than to the truth.

§ 3.397 Although the river is now full, it is not remarkable for its rapidity, and nothing can be more tranquil and steady than its ordinary course. On rare occasions only, after heavy falls of rain, it rushes with impetuosity through the pass, and then sometimes effects considerable damage in the maritime plain. Although there may never have been any road through Tempe along the left bank of the river, there were routes from Gonnus to several places on the heights on that side, and from thence into the maritime plains. One of these probably followed the same track as the modern path from Dereli to Ezero and Rapsani, by the lake Ascuris and Lapathus, from which fortress there seems to have been a descent to the river in the Pass of Tempe, since Livy in naming Gonnus, Condylon, Charax, and “the castle which stood in the road,” as the four fortresses which defended Tempe, adds that Charax was near Lapathus.

§ 3.398 Charax therefore was on the left bank of the river, probably at an opening which ascends from that bank nearly opposite to the inscribed rock, and which leads to Rapsani. As to Condylon, the second castle mentioned by the historian, it seems also to have been on the left bank of the river, for it was sometimes called Gonno-Condylon, which explains likewise why the Perrhaebi ( Gonnus itself having been a Perrhaebic town) claimed Condylon from Philip when their claims were submitted to a Roman commission at Tempe in the year B.C. 185. Condylon therefore probably stood on the left bank of the river between Balamut and the ascent to Rapsani. The fourth castle which Livy mentions without naming, could hardly have been any other than that of which the ruins still exist, half a mile to the westward of the inscribed rock, and which defended the only weak point on the right bank; for the historian has exactly described it as overhanging the road itself, in one of the narrowest parts of the Pass: it would be hypercritical to object that the position does not in strictness agree with the historian’s word media, being nearer to the eastern than to the western end of the pass. This fortress was known probably by no other name than that of the Castle of Tempe. It may be owing to a succession of repairs very likely to have been made to a fortress in so important a situation, that no remains, decidedly Hellenic, are now to be observed in it.

§ 3.399 As to the inscription on the rock, there may be some doubt whether it relates to defensive works erected by Longinus in Tempe, or merely to the repairing of the road. Munire viam was a common expression, to signify the making of a road; and, combined with the excavated rock upon which the words are engraved, leave little doubt that the cutting of the rock was a part at least of the labour commemorated by the inscription. Lucius Cassius Longinus was sent by Caesar from Illyria into Thessaly with a legion of new levies, and 200 horse, at the same time that C. Calvisius Sabinus proceeded into Aetolia with a smaller force, and Cneius Domitius Calvinus into Macedonia with two legions and 500 cavalry. Calvisius was well received in Aetolia; but Thessaly was divided into two parries, one of which was strongly opposed to Caesar. Besides these, Longinus had to contend with the cavalry of Cotys, king of Thrace, an ally of Pompey, which were hovering about Thessaly. When Scipio, therefore, made an attempt from his camp on the Haliacmon to surprise Longinus, the latter, although Scipio was speedily recalled in order to save Favonius from the superior forces of Domitius, was so terrified on receiving intelligence of the approach of Scipio, and on seeing some of the cavalry of Cotys, which he mistook for that of Scipio, that he retreated towards the mountains which separated Thessaly from Ambracia, and

§ 3.400 even began to traverse them. Caesar makes no farther mention of Longinus, who probably, like Domitius, joined Caesar at Aeginium on his arrival in Thessaly, after the battle of Dyrrhachium. It seems -very improbable from these circumstances that Longinus could have had time to effect any great works in Tempe. Were it not that the first letter of the inscription is certainly not C, I should be more disposed to attribute the work to Cains Cassius Longinus, who, after having been consul in the year 171 B.C., served in Thessaly under the consul Hostilius, in the following year, and who, if he had not quitted the army when in the subsequent year it was under the command of the consul, Q. Marcius Philippus, would have had an undoubted right to style himself Pro. Cos. in an inscription—a right which is not so evident in the case of Lucius, the officer of Caesar. When Marcius was preparing his winter quarters at Heracleia, on the coast of Macedonia, to the northward of Tempe, the historian expressly states, that for the sake of securing his supplies from Thessaly, he gave orders for repairing the roads, of which the most important was the road through Tempe.

§ 3.401 CHAPTER 30 MACEDONIA AFTER emerging from the pass we traverse the plain, which extends from the exit of Tempe to the sea, and cross the Salamvria at 5.15 by a bridge, at which on the right bank is a toll-house and at the opposite end a khan. The course of the river from this point is at first northerly, after which it turns to the S.E. and in that direction crosses a maritime plain of four or five miles in breadth. At its mouth it is separated only from the foot of Mount Kissavo, or Ossa, by a lagoon communicating with the sea, in which there is a fishery. On the adjacent part of Ossa is a large monastery of St. Demetrius, and about two miles

§ 3.402 beyond it Karitza, a large village situated just below the peak of Ossa, to the N.E. The part of the mountain which lies between Tempe and Karitza is the ancient Homole, a name which appears sometimes to have been employed merely as a synonym of Ossa. A town of the same name, otherwise Homolium, or the city of the Homolienses, stood at the foot of the mountain, but the ancient authorities differ as to its exact position: Scylax and Strabo seem to concur in placing it on the right bank of the Peneius, near the exit of Tempe 3; that is to say, at a distance of several miles from the sea; whereas the two poets of the Argonautics represent Homole as situated on the sea shore, and the order of names in Apollonius even interposes another town, Eurymenae, between it and Tempe. To discover some

§ 3.403 remains of the city itself is the only mode of clearing up this difficulty; for it cannot be explained by the changes effected by the Peneius, which, like the other great rivers of Greece, has, by the formation of new land at its mouth, increased the breadth of the plain below Tempe; and appears to have taken, in consequence of the accumulation, a new direction towards the sea. The ancient mouth of the river seems indicated by a low point which is exactly opposite to the chasm of Tempe, and in a line with the general course of the river through the pass. The Salamvria now divides the districts of Larissa and Katerina, as it formerly separated Thessaly from Macedonia or Magnesia from Pieria. Having crossed the bridge usually called that of Laspokhori from a neighbouring village we follow

§ 3.404 the river for near half an hour, and then traverse a muddy part of the plain, gradually approaching the sea. The soil of this maritime level is fertile, but little cultivated; and a great part of it is covered with shrubs which shelter a great quantity of game. Maize is grown on the slopes of the mountains by the Greek inhabitants of some villages, of which the principal, besides Rapsani, are Krania, in a lofty situation to the north of Rapsani, containing about 150 families, and Pyrgotos, immediately below Krania. Farther to the north are several smaller villages. At 6.25 we pass round the extremity of a root of the mountain, and at 7.20, after having followed the sea shore for a short time, halt at a pleasant kiosk, shaded by large plane trees, and standing near the beach, just below the hill of Platamona on the south, where a rivulet flows through the building into the sea. Platamona, the derivation of which, according to Meletius, is πλατεια μονη, or the level monastery, in allusion to its situation in the plain, appears rather from the mention made of it in the Byzantine history, to have been in the time of the Greek Empire, what we now find it, a fortress. It contains a few Turkish houses, and on the outside there is a ruined khan by the road side. Though standing at the bottom of a bend of the coast, it is a conspicuous object, from being the only elevation on a low shore of great extent. As the place has the advantage also of a perennial supply of good water, there can scarcely be a doubt that it was the site

§ 3.405 of one of the two ancient towns which history places on this coast between Dium and the frontier of Magnesia, namely, Heracleia and Phila: for reasons which will be stated hereafter, I am disposed to believe that it was the former. After having dined at the kiosk, we proceed at 8.5 to cross the neck of the hill of Platamona, descend again into the plain, which is uncultivated as far as the neighbourhood of Katerina, and at 8.50 cross the river of Platamona just above its junction with the sea: this is a wide torrent descending from an immense chasm which separates the highest part of Olympus from the inferior summits terminating in the cliffs of Tempe. If Platamona was the site of Heracleia, the lower part of this ravine will correspond to that defile or forest of Callipeuce, through which the Romans entered the maritime plain to the northward of Heracleia, after their perilous descent from near Lapathus, under the conduct of the consul Marcius, who among the other difficulties of the undertaking, had to contend with his own age and corpulence. The appearance of the mountain from our road is sufficient to show how arduous must have been the task of conveying elephants by such a precipitous route. The historian relates that in the steepest places a succession of bridges or platforms were constructed; and that as soon as an elephant had obtained a footing on one of them, the supports

§ 3.406 being cut away, he was forced to slide down on his feet or rump to the next bridge. The river of Platamona is not noticed by any ancient author, except Pliny, who places an Apilas near Heracleia. The river is sometimes dangerous, but is now dry; for the weather ever since we left Saloniki, with the exception of one day at Verria and another at Turnavo, has been quite free from rain; the last ten days have been even warm in the afternoon, and the sky without a cloud. A gentle north-eastern breeze has generally risen in the latter part of the day bringing with it a frost at night, which lasts all the ensuing day where the ground is shaded by high mountains or woods, but in other places yields to the power of the sun at an early hour. At 9.12, Leftokarya, a Greek village, is three miles on our left, on the lowest falls of Olympus. At 9.45 we quit the direct road, which follows a line parallel to the shore, and mount a long, barren slope, to Litokhoro, where we arrive at 10.45 the ascent having been very slow in consequence of our tired horses and the badness of the road. Litokhoro is situated at the head of the slope, immediately at the foot of the great woody steeps of Olympus, on the right bank of a torrent which has its origin in the highest part of the mountain, and here issues between perpendicular rocks five or six hundred feet in height. The opening presents a magnificent view of the summit of Elymbo, the snowy tops and bare

§ 3.407 precipices of which form a beautiful contrast with the rich woody heights on either side of the great chasm above Litokhoro. From the village and opening, the ground falls on both sides of the river in a longeven slope to the sea side, terminating to the south at the river of Platamona, and to the north extending to the plain of Katerina. The torrent flows from Litokhoro in a wide bed between precipitous banks, which gradually diminish in height to the sea. On the opposite side of the gnlf are aen Saloniki, Cape Karaburnu, Mount Khortiatzi, and a range of mountains which appear to form a continued range from the latter summit as far as the extreme Cape of Pallene. It is reckoned four hours from hence to the monastery of St. Dionysius, which is situated just below the summit of Olympus, not far from the head of the great ravine of Litokhoro. The Litokhorites fabricate skutia, or cloth for making capots, and have several fulling mills in the ravine above the village. Dec. 21.—This morning, the sky still continuing cloudless, and the atmosphere of that extreme clearness which is its characteristic in Greece in the fine days of winter, the summit of the broad Olympus, as Homer so justly describes itpresents itself between the precipitous sides of the ravine of Litokhoro, with a still more admirable and imposing grandeur than yesterday evening,

§ 3.408 when the sun, being behind the mountain, left its eastern side comparatively dark, but afforded a clear view of the Chalcidic coast and hills; the rising sun now lights up the snowy summit of Olympus, as well as all the rocks, woods, torrents, and precipices below it; distinguishes them from one another by the strongest shading, and seems to bring them all within half their real distance. At 3.10, Turkish time, we begin to descend the slope obliquely into the plain of Katerina. The ground is stony, barren, and quite uncultivated. Near the bottom an old church, situated in a little grove of trees at a small distance from the left of the road, contains some ancient squared blocks of stone and some capitals of columns. Arrived in the plain, we traverse, by a winding path, a wood where shrubs, particularly the paliuri or Jerusalem thorn, fill up the intervals between groves of handsome planes and oaks, and at 4.35 arrive at Malathria, a tjiftlik lately established by Vely Pasha, occupied by Greek labourers, whom he has sent here, and managed by one of his Albanians. A small tract of arable has been cleared by burning the palidria. The other parts of the forest furnish pasture to large flocks of the Pasha's sheep, which are now assembled here from the mountains. The village consists of three rows of houses, forming three sides of a quadrangle, with a fountain in the centre.

§ 3.409 A church has been already built by the inhabitants, though one only of the rows of houses is yet occupied. Five hundred yards below the tjiftlik, in a thick grove of trees and shrubs, are many copious springs of water, which unite and immediately form a large stream and a marsh, of which the discharge joins the sea at a bridge called Baba Kiupresi, in the direct road from Platamona to Katerina. At the river’s mouth, which is not far from the bridge, there is a skaloma frequented by small boats, which are drawn up on the beach in bad weather. In the space between the village and the sources, where corn is growing among the stumps of the burnt bushes, I find some remains of a stadium and theatre. None of the stone-work which may be supposed to have formed the seats and superstructure of these monuments now exists, with the exception of two or three squared masses on the outside of the theatre; and as the soil is a fine black mould, the effects of the seasons have reduced them both to mere hillocks of earth, but retaining their original form and dimensions sufficiently to show that the stadium was about equal in length to the other stadia of Greece, and that the theatre was about 250 feet in diameter. Below the theatre, on the edge of the water, are the foundations of a large building, and a detached stone which seems to have belonged to a flight of steps. Some foundations of the walls of the city to which these monuments belonged are visible also among the bushes; but it would be in vain to attempt to trace them in such a labyrinth without a guide, an assistance which I cannot succeed in

§ 3.410 obtaining, even to show me some rained churches which are said to exist among the palidria, lest the consequence to the poor Greeks should be an avania. I can only find one sepulchral stele, and that so much buried in the ground that no inscription is visible. There is a tumulus with a flat summit, about 500 yards to the southward of the theatre, and at an equal distance from the sea. There can be no doubt that here stood the famous Dium, which, though not large, was one of the leading cities of Macedoniaand the great bulwark of its maritime frontier to the south. Nevertheless, it was easily occupied, and almost destroyed in the Social War by the Aetolians, whose capital soon paid the debt of cruelty and destruction which they contracted on that occasion. In the Persic war Dium seems to have thoroughly recovered that disaster, and by the importance of its situation it became at length a Roman colonys. The remains near the sources are probably those of the temple of Jupiter Olympius, from which the city received its name; for we are informed that public games called Olympia, instituted by Archelaus, the great improver of Macedonia, were celebrated at the temple of

§ 3.411 Jupiter Olympius at Dium. The theatre and stadium served doubtless for that celebration, and they formed probably part of the Ιερόν, as at Olympia, Nemea, and the Isthmus. It is clear from Livy that the temple was not within the city, in which particular it resembled many other great temples in Greece. The historian, however, is not correct in asserting that the distance between Olympus and the sea was little more than a mile, as indeed his own description of the place might alone give reason to suspect, since he adds, that half the space was occupied by the marsh of. the Baphyrus, thus leaving little more than half a mile for the temple, theatre, stadium, and city, as well as for a level space between the walls and the foot of the mountain. Pausanias seems to have had a more correct idea of the distance; for he states, that on proceeding twenty stades from Dium towards the mountain, there stood a monument, which, according to the Diastae, contained the bones of Orpheus.

§ 3.412 The river Baphyrus or Baphyras, though so short in its course, and enveloped in marshes, was a stream of some celebrity. It is noticed by Lycophron, and by the poet Archestratus, who in the course of his travels, δια γαστριμαργίαν, noticed the excellence of the τευθίδες, or cuttle-fish of the river Baphyrus, at the Pierian Dium, and recorded it in the same verse in which he celebrated those of Ambracia. Pausanias asserts that this was the same river named Helicon, which, after flowing 75 stades above ground, had then a subterraneous course of 22 stades, and on its reappearance became navigable under the name of Baphyras. Dium is one among numerous instances of ancient cities of opulence and celebrity, situated in the most unhealthy spots. In some of those places the cultivation and draining which attend a dense population may have afforded a remedy to the natural inconvenience more or less effectual, but neither the nature of the place nor ancient testimony admit the probability that the marsh of Dium was ever drained.

§ 3.413 Its effects, combined with that of the too great vicinity of the steep sides of Olympus, could hardly have failed in having a pernicious effect upon the salubrity of the place; and in fact, Malathria is now considered a most unwholesome situation in the summer. Were not the evidence conclusive as to the site of Dium, it might be supposed from the resemblance, that the modern Malathria is a corruption of the ancient Libethrium; the similarity is to be attributed perhaps to the two names having a common origin in some word of the ancient language of Macedonia. Leaving the tjiftlik at 6.20, we cross the plain by a winding road, and at 7.13 leave Andreotissa two miles to the left. This village is situated on the side of a long projection, advancing into the Pierian plain from the mountains which reach from Olympus to the ravine of the Haliacmon, where they are separated by that chasm in the great eastern ridge of Northern Greece from the portion of it which was anciently named Bermius. The highest summit of the Pierian part of the range rises about eight miles to the northward of Vlakholivadho, and is a conspicuous object in all the country to the eastward, particularly from Saloniki. Its name seems from Pliny to have been Pierus ‘. Pausanias, in alluding to the mountain Pieria as near Dium, may be supposed to have referred to the mountains of this Macedonian province in a more comprehensive sense, and as including all the heights connected with Olympus which border the Pierian plain.

§ 3.414 A Scholiast of Apollonius, alluding to the same ridges, describes Pieria as a mountain of Thrace, which was a correct definition of it according to the most ancient chorography of this part of Greece. At 7.29 we pass through Spighi, a large village in the plain, near the extremity of the ridge of Andreotissa where it ends in a point, upon high which, in a very conspicuous situation, stands a tumulus overgrown with trees. This monument indicates perhaps the site of the principal town of Pieria, toward the middle of the province, or intermediate between Dium and Pydna. It would seem from Stephanus and Suidas, that there was a city named Pieria, which may have been here situated. At 7.40 we cross a clear and rapid stream, noted for the abundance of its fish, and which, though now small, is said in times of rain to be wide, full of quicksands, and dangerous io pass: this may easily be imagined, as it appears to receive most of the waters from the northern end of Olympus, as well as those which descend from the southern extremity of its continuation, the Pierian ridge. Olympus rises abruptly from the plain on this side, dark with woods, and deriving from its steepness an increase of grandeur and apparent height. At 8.10 we enter Katerina a little beyond a broad charadra or dry river.

§ 3.415 This town, which has eight or nine large villages in its dependency, besides tjiftliks, contains only 100 poor Greek houses, and as many Turkish. The produce of the plain is corn and flax, and the Bey Saly is almost the only proprietor. Vely Pasha is married to his sister, since which alliance the district of Katerina has been free from thieves: on the other hand Saly’s new kinsman, the great Tepeleniote, having heard that the Bey had lately made himself the heir of a deceased aga of Katerina, has just sent to borrow 15 purses of him. I here learn that all the land about Malathria was entirely covered with bushes, until it was lately cleared by Vely Pasha, who was tempted by the richness of the soil to establish a farm there. Before that time the remains of antiquity were probably known only to the shepherds. Indeed I had not heard of their existence when I arrived at Malathria. The ruined churches, however, show that a Christian village of some importance once occupied the site, which had been for many years a desert when Vely took it in hand. The deep mould may conceal, perhaps, and preserve many fine remains of antiquity, for Dium was noted for its splendid buildings and the multitude of its statues. Here were deposited twenty-five of the works of Lysippus, representing the εταίροι, or peers of Alexander, who fell at the battle of the Granicus.

§ 3.416 Having ascertained the site of Dium, it is not difficult, after the tour of mount Olympus which I have just made, to apply the history of the third and fourth years of the Persic war to the real topography, though for the complete elucidation of the former year, it would be desirable at the proper season to cross the mountain from Platamona to Elassona, or the reverse; and this would be the more interesting as Polybius, whose authority the Latin historian followed in his narrative of that campaign, was himself present in the passage across Mount Olympus, having arrived in the Roman camp in Perrhaebia, on a mission from the council of the Achaean league just before the movement began. The consul, Q. Marcius Philippus, having landed at Ambracia in the spring, with 5000 men for the supply of the legions in Thessaly, marched from thence into the Thessalian plains, where he was met by his predecessor, Hostilius, who had moved for that purpose from his position at Pharsalus. Marcius, assuming the command of all the forces, then marched into Perrhaebia, where he encamped in the Tripolitis, between Azorus and Doliche, intending to carry the war immediately into Macedonia. The question as to the route by which he should enter that kingdom had been under consideration during the march, and was still undecided, when Perseus, hearing of the enemy’s approach, occupied all the passes.

§ 3.417 Ten thousand light infantry were stationed on the jugum or pass of the Cambunian mountains, called Volustana (Servia) by which Hostilius had invaded Elimeia in the preceding year; 12,000 under Hippias at Lapathus, above the lake Ascuris', and the remaining forces at Dium, from whence Pereeus himself ranged the coast between Dium, Heracleia, and Phila, like a man in a state of utter indecision. The consnl having resolved to attempt the passage by Octolophus, sent forward his son with 4,000 men, under the command of M. Claudius, and followed immediately with his whole army. So difficult were the roads, that the advanced party only marched 15 miles in two days, at the end of which they arrived at a tower named Eudierum; on the third day, at the end of seven miles, they found themselves in the presence of the Macedonians under Hippias. Marcius, who had reached the lake Ascuris when he received the report of Claudius, continued his route until he arrived at the distance of a mile from the enemy, when he occupied some heights which commanded a view of all the sea coast between Dium and Phila.

§ 3.418 Octolophus was probably near the issue of the Titaresius, or Elassonitiko, from Mount Olympus into the valley of Elassona. Ezero being the only lake in the part of the Olympene ridges traversed by the Romans on this occasion, is evidently the Ascuris, and the ancient remains at Konispoli lying in the direction towards that lake from Octolophus as well as from the Roman camp between Azorus and Doliche, seem to answer perfectly to those of Eudierum: the latter interval moreover corresponding with tolerable correctness to the fifteen miles of the historian. The ruggedness of the mountains sufficiently explains the length of time which it required for the Romans under Claudios to reach Eudierum. Nor is the ancient castle near Rapsani less adapted to Lapathus, not only by its proximity to Tempe, as I before remarked, but by that part of Livy’s narrative also, from which we may infer that Lapathus, although described as having been “super Ascuridem paludem,” was at some distance from that lake, since Claudius, when he found himself in presence of the enemy in the pass of Lapathus, had to send a messenger to Marcius at Ascuris to inform him of the fact, and the consul had a march to make to arrive at the position which he assumed, at the distance of a mile from the enemy. The historian’s remark, moreover, that the consul’s position commanded a view of the sea coast from Heracleia to Phila, exactly accords with the heights of Rapsani.

§ 3.419 After a day’s repose the consul led his forces against Hippias, and both on that day and the following there was a continued combat, but of light troops only, the nature of the ground not admitting of any more serious conflict. The fame and power of Rome were at this moment in the utmost peril; but the consul fully sensible of his hazardous situation, judged that it would be still more dangerous to retreat than to advance, and Perseus fortunately having made no attempt to support or relieve the fatigued troops of Hippias, the consul left Popillius with a sufficient force to observe them, and began a descent to the maritime plain, in which at the end of four days of extreme labour, he pitched his camp between Libethrium and Heracleia. Even here, had he not been opposed to an enemy who was under the influence of that dementation which is the surest prognostic of falling power, his position was still little better than desperate, as he was surrounded on every side by strong passes, in the hands of superior forces, and without means of obtaining sufficient supplies for his army by sea. But his foolish opponent, as soon as he received intelligence of the approach of the consul, quitted his excellent position at Dium, ordered the garrisons to be withdrawn from Phila and the positions above Tempe, and retreated to Pydna. The consul having detached Sp. Lucretius against the enemy’s posts in his rear, and to open a communication with Larissa, advanced cautiously to Dium, which Perseus had unaccountably abandoned, since it would have been

§ 3.420 easy for him, observes Livy, to have fortified the space between the city and the mountain by a rampart and ditch, or even by walls and towers, for which the neighbouring mountain would have supplied ample materials of wood and stone. After having halted one day at Dium, the consul proceeded to the river Mitys. On the next day he received the submission of Agassae, and on the following marched to the river Ascordus, but finding that supplies became scarcer as he advanced, he returned to Dium, where he soon received the grateful intelligence that Lucretius was in possession of Phila and Tempe, and had found an abundance of provisions in these and the neighbouring fortresses. Marcius then retired from Dium to Phila, for the sake of strengthening that place, and of supplying his soldiers with corn,—a movement which having the appearance of avoiding the enemy was not generally approved in the Roman army. Its immediate consequence was, that Perseus returned to Dium, and after having repaired the damage which the walls of the city had received from the Romans, placed his army at a distance of five miles in front of the city, behind the Enipeus. This river is described by the historian as descending from a valley of Olympus, and as enclosed between high and precipitous banks, containing little water in summer, but full of quicksands and whirlpools in the time of wintry rains. It is almost unnecessary to remark bow exactly both the description of the river, and its distance from Dium correspond to the river of Litokhoro.

§ 3.421 The next operation of Marcius was against Heracleia, now the only place on the Pierian coast southward of the Enipeus which was not in his possession. It was situated fire miles from Phila, about midway between Tempe and Dium, on a rock overhanging a river. Being strong and well garrisoned, and within sight of the king’s fires on the Enipeus, Heracleia made an obstinate resistance, but was at length taken by means of the κεραμωτόν, or testudo, by which the assailants advanced to the wall upon the united shields of a dense body of their comrades below them. The Roman commander then removed his camp to Heracleia, ordered roads to be made into Thessaly, magazines to be erected at convenient places, and buts for those who were to convey the supplies. From Livy’s description of Heracleia, some doubt may arise whether it was situated at Platamona itself, or at the mouth of the river of the same name: either place would sufficiently suit the words “media regione inter Dium Tempeque,” but Platamona cannot be said to overhang the river which I suppose to be the Apilas of Pliny, being more than two miles distant from it. On the other hand there is no rocky height at the mouth of the river, and Platamona being the only hill on this coast, and the only post possessing any natural strength, is obviously the position in which the principal fortress is likely to have been situated. It would seem, therefore, that the “amnis at the foot of the rock

§ 3.422 of Heracleia ” was no other than the rivulet which flows through the kiosk at Platamona. Phila having been the frontier fortress of Macedonia towards Magnetis, and distant 5 miles from Heracleia, appears to have stood near the mouth of the Peneius on the left bank. Libethrium was situated, as evidently follows from the transactions related by Livy, between Dium and Heracleia. Pausaniae reports a tradition, that the town was once destroyed, together with all its inhabitants, by the inundation of a torrent called Sue; and that on the preceding day the tomb of Orpheus, which was near Libethrium, had been injured by another accident, which exposed the poet’s bones to the light, and induced the people of Dium to remove them to a spot 20 stades distant from their city towards Olympus, where they erected a monument to him, consisting of an urn of stone upon a column. The only two torrents which could l)ave effected such havoc as Pausanias states, are the rivers of Platamona and of Litokhoro. The former, however, was near Heracleia, and probably in the territory of that city; we can hardly fail to conclude, therefore, that the Sus was the same river as the Enipeus, and that Libethrium, was situated not far from its junction with the sea, as the upper parts of the slope towards Litokhoro are secured from the ravages of the torrent by their elevation above its bank.

§ 3.423 Litokhoro itself I take to be the site of Pimpleia, for this birth-place of Orpheus appears to have been near Libethrium, and the Baphyrus, and the σκότη, or σκοτ/η Πψνληίς of the poets, corresponds remarkably with the elevated situation of Litokhoro and its commanding prospect. It is not easy to afford any illustration of the three marches of the Romans beyond Dium; the first of which terminated at the river Mitys, the second at Agassae, and the third at the Ascordus; for these names are not found in any other ancient authority, unless the last be the same as the Acerdos, which occurs, though not marked as a river, in the Tabular Itinerary, where it is placed at a distance of 12 M.P. short of Beroea, on the road thither from Larissa by Tempe and Dium, which could not have been very different from the route of Marcius. As Pydna is not mentioned in the consul’s march, he followed probably a direction more westerly than that town, which was on the sea coast, and crossing the Pierian ridge descended upon the Haliacmon, not far from where it issues

§ 3.424 from the ravines into the plain of Verria. The distance of this point, indeed, from Dium, being not more than twenty-five miles in a straight line, is little for a three days’ march; but the consul was suspicious of some hidden design in the enemy’s retreat, and was chiefly intent upon collecting supplies, whence he may be supposed to have made small progress in direct distance. The Mitys was perhaps the river of Katerina, and Agassae may have been situated about midway between Katerina and the passage of the Vistritza, in the way to Verria. I should have suspected that Ascordus was an error for Astraeus, and that the river which the Romans reached was the Haliacmon itself, which, as I have before remarked, bore the name of Astraeus in the lower part of its course. The Acerdos of the Itinerary, however, is opposed to this opinion by its resemblance to Ascordus, which may, therefore, have been a tributary of the Haliacmon, joining it from the light and having a town upon it of the same name. Katerina so nearly approaches in sound to the Hatera, which is the first place occurring in the Table on the road from Dium to Berrhoea, that we can hardly doubt of the identity. That Hatera is not mentioned by Livy, although lying on or very near the route of Marcius, may be explained by the great difference of date between the Itinerary and the Persic war, when Hatera may have been a very inconsiderable place, or may not have existed at all. It may certainly be objected that the interval between Ovum and Hatera in the Table is greater than the real distance from Malathria to

§ 3.425 Katerina; but this excess is less than a due proportion of that which occurs on the whole line from Dium to Berrhoea, which is 78 M.P. in the Table, and less about 36 English miles in direct distance. Bada in the same geographical document has some resemblance to Balia, or Valla, which we learn from Ptolemy and Pliny to have been a Pierian town In that case Valla would seem to have been about midway between Dium and Berrhoea; but I am more inclined to place Valla in the mountainous part of Pieria, because we are told by an author cited by Stephanus that the inhabitants of Valla were removed to Pythium, and Pythium was in Perrhaebia, at the south-western foot of the Pierian mountains. Possibly Velvendo may have derived its appellation from a corruption of Valia. Dec. 22.—At 5.7, Turkish time, we proceed from Katerina with the menzil, and follow a good carriage-road across the beautiful Pierian plain, which is here near ten miles in breadth from the sea to the woody falls of the Olympene range, or Mount Pierus. The soil is excellent, but very partially cultivated: large trees occur at intervals, and towards the sea are some extensive woods, which are famed among the sportsmen of Saloniki for their pheasants. A place on the shore where boats anchor in fair weather, or are drawn up in foul, serves for the skaloma of Katerina.

§ 3.426 At 6 the plain terminates, and we begin to cross a range of low hills, which, advancing from the Pierian mountain, meet the shore at the north-western angle of the Thermmc Gulf. At 6.7 we arrive at Kutjuk (or Little) Ayan: Buyuk (or Great) Ayan is one mile on the left. Both these villages are the property of Saty Bey. The labourers who inhabit them furnish all the labour, cattle, and instruments of agriculture, receive seed-corn from the Bey, and share half the crop after the dhekatia has been deducted from it. At Little Ayan, in the wall of a church which is surrounded by some ancient foundations of squared blocks, is a piece of a statue with drapery of fine workmanship, and an inscribed stone, erected by one Ophelion in memory of his father of the same name. Continuing to cross the heights where the varied surface is clothed with a beautiful mixture of rich corn-land and woods, we have half a mile on our right, on the slope towards the sea, two tumuli standing close together, one with a flat top, the other peaked. They indicate the vicinity of the position of Pydna, either as monuments of the battle, or as common accompaniments of a site of high antiquity such as Pydna was. The sea is a mile and a half beyond the tumuli, and a little farther northward begins a lagoon, which covers all the low ground at a projecting point of the coast, and communicates with the sea by a narrow opening.

§ 3.427 Half a mile short of Kitro, a ruined church on the left of the road contains a Corinthian capital and many wrought blocks of stone. Kitro, which is one hour and eight minutes from Ay an, stands at two miles from the sea, on a hill which although of inconsiderable height is one of the highest of these maritime ridges. Though now consisting only of the houses of a few Greek labourers, with that of a Turkish subashi, placed here by the Bey of Katerina, to whom the greater part of the land belongs, Kitro retains proofs of former importance in six churches, three of which are in ruins, and in several Turkish pyrghi in the same state. In all the churches are to be seen squared blocks of Hellenic times, together with some remains of architecture which are chiefly of later date. At one of the churches are three sepulchral stelae bearing inscriptions, only one of which is in a copyable condition. It is a memorial of a common form, followed by two elegiac couplets showing that the monument was erected by Artemidorus to his brothers Eiarinus and Sporus of Heracleia, who were twins. Another church, which is almost new, contains a sepulchral monument, erected by one Ulpia, for herself, in her lifetime. Like the former, it is engraved in characters indicating a late date in the Roman Empire.

§ 3.428 Around the latter church are some ancient foundations, and in another part of the hill of Kitro a sorus, which is now employed for the reservoir of the public fountain, its lid serving for a trough underneath. On leaving Kitro at 1.33, we take the road to its skala, which is merely an open beach near the lagoon before mentioned; but at two-thirds of the distance, we cross the fields to the left and fall into a carriage-road which leads along the coast from Katerina to Elefthero-khori without passing through Kitro. A little further, we arrive at 9.10 at some ruins called Paleokastro, or Paleos Kitros, consisting only of the foundations of a small oblong rectangular castle which occupied the summit of a cliff on the sea side. In one place a piece of wall remains, formed of small stones and mortar intermixed with pieces of Roman tiles. Some square blocks among the foundations are the only appearances of Hellenic antiquity, nor is there any thing in the situation or construction of this castle that tends to refer it to those times. After a halt of ten minutes, we proceed for a short distance near the brow of the cliffs which border the shore, and then cross the heights obliquely to Elefthero-khori, which is two miles from the sea, and where we arrive at 10.15. Oar route was about twenty minutes longer than by the direct road. In the fertile hills which extend from Kitro to Elefthero-khori, not a third part of the land is cultivated; and as the same good soil is seldom grown with corn two successive years, it is extremely productive: every granary and cottage is full of corn,

§ 3.429 for which there is at present no sale. The Turkish granaries in these parts are immense square wooden cases, with a kiosk at the top: they are generally the most conspicuous buildings in the village. The Turkish houses correspond to the natural fertility of the soil, and are spacious and tolerably commodious. Beyond Elefthero-khori, on the slope of the same hills, stands Kulindros, and then Libanova, about seven miles from Elefthero-khori, near the point of the heights where they project farthest into the maritime plain. Kulindros is the largest of the three villages. The Epitomizer of Strabo, and a Scholiast of Demosthenes, assert that the Κίτρος of their time was the same place as the ancient Pydna; but as their authority is of no great weight, not much better indeed than the opinion of a modern Greek would be, and as the facts of history seem to require a more southern position for Pydna, I am inclined to place it at Ayan, Kitro itself having probably risen in the middle ages upon the decay of Pydna and Methone in an intermediate position between those two Hellenic cities. When Perseus heard of the approach of the new consul L. Aemilius Paullus, as successor to Q. Marcius Philippus, in the command of the Roman army in Macedonia, among other preparatory measures by land and sea, he sent 5000 Macedonians to garrison Pythium and Petra, in order that his camp on the Enipeus might not be turned through

§ 3.430 Perrhaebia: he adopted -at the same time various precautions for the defence of the Enipeus, which is naturally a position of singular strength. Notwithstanding these efforts, he was obliged to retreat to Pydna in consequence of his detachment in the pass of Petra having been overthrown by P. Scipio Nasica, who had been sent against it accompanied by the consul’s eldest son, Q. Fabius Maximus. As secrecy was essential to the success of this design, Scipio had been detached with 5000 chosen men from the camp in front of the Enipeus to Heracleia, for the pretended purpose of being there embarked on a maritime expedition against the Macedonian coast; but where, instead of embarking, he placed himself under the guidance of two Perrhsebians, who conducted him by a circuitous march to Pythium on the fourth watch of the third day. Their route was probably through Tempe, and by Phalanna, Oloosson, and Doliche, to Pythium,—a distance of more than sixty miles,—and consequently requiring the time which Livy has stated upon the incontestable authority of Polybius. Plutarch, therefore, seems to have been extremely ignorant of the places and distances in question, or totally regardless of accuracy, in asserting that Scipio reached Pythium on the night of his march from Heracleia. As to the circumstances of the engagement at Petra, there is unfortunately a deficiency in this part of the text of the Latin historian, so that we have only Plu-

§ 3.431 torch to refer to; but as in questioning the accuracy of Polybius upon an important circumstance relating to it, he has given us an intimation of the statement of the Greek historian, we have thus the means of choosing between the two authorities on this point. Polybius, as we have seen from Livy, represented Scipio’s detachment to have been 5000 strong. Plutarch, on the contrary, on the authority of a letter of Scipio to a certain king, asserts that they amounted to more than 8000. Another disagreement is of smaller moment, or rather is no more than natural: Polybius, an old soldier, was satisfied with saying that the enemy were surprised in their sleep, and driven before the Romans; while Scipio, who was in his first campaign, took a pleasure in relating that there was a brisk action on the mountain, that he himself killed a Thracian, and that Milo, the Macedonian commander, fled in his shirt. During the three days in which Scipio was effecting his circuitous route, the consul arrested the attention of Perseus by skirmishes of light infantry, which chiefly took place between the precipitous banks inclosing the bed of the river: on the third day he made a demonstration of crossing the river near the mouth. These operations had the desired effect, for they were suddenly interrupted by the unexpected intelligence which the king received from a Cretan deserter, of the attack and defeat

§ 3.432 of hie forces at Petra. Thus threatened with an assault from the enemy on both sides, he made a rapid retreat to Pydna, while the consul, having effected a junction with Nasica, followed the enemy with all possible expedition, and at mid-day had advanced so near to the king’s position at Pydna that it was a question whether, notwithstanding the heat and the fatigue of the troops, he should not then attack the Macedonians. The distance from the Enipeus to Ayan being not more than a four or five hours’ march, the whole operation might have been effected in the long days near the summer solstice, when the event occurred —but not very easily if Pydna had stood at Kitro.

§ 3.433 The description of the field of battle furnishes another argument in favour of the opinion, that Pydna was at Ayan. Livy, Strabo, and Plutarch, agree in showing that the hostile encounter occurred in the plain before Pydna, which was traversed by a small river, and bordered by heights affording a convenient retreat and shelter to the light infantry, while the plain alone contained the level ground necessary for the phalanx, —circumstances which accord perfectly with the plain extending from Katerina to the heights of Ayan, whereas the entire country from the latter to Elefthero-khori, in the midst of which Kitro is situated, affords no sufficient plain, but consists, with the exception of some small level spaces on the sea shore, entirely of the last falls of a mountain, which Plutarch names Olocrus. The hostile camps were separated during one night by the river. On the following day the action was brought on by an accident, and had not been long engaged on the whole line, when Perseus set an example of flight, which was followed by all his cavalry; the phalanx nevertheless resisted with obstinacy, but when at length the consul had succeeded in penetrating it, the overthrow of the Macedonians was so complete, that 20,000 were slain, and more than 10,000 made prisoners, with a loss of only 100 killed on the side of the Romans. It appears from Diodorus, that Pydna stood originally on the sea side, but that Archelaus, king of Macedonia, having taken it in the year B.C. 411, removed it to a distance of 20 stades