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

§ 4.263 To increase the misery of Kalabaka, the crop of silk has been bad this year, and the spinners have been obliged to purchase it at 30 piastres the oke, instead of 20, the usual price. The bishop των Σταγων, who being an Ioannite is more polished than the generality of caloyers, confirms the information which I received on my former visit as to the existence of some vestiges of a Hellenic city at the distance of two or three miles from Kalabaka, on the opposite side of the river, in the direction of the Portes. A detached conical height at the foot of the mountain, sends forth a low ridge reaching to the river. Here some ancient sepulchres have been observed, and there are some remains of Hellenic walls on the height itself. The village Niklitzi stands on the slope, but the ancient site is known by the name of Skumbos, which might be supposed a corruption of στους Γόμψύυς, and a proof of its being the position of Gomphi; but I cannot obtain any confirmation of this conjecture, as the Greeks follow Meletius in believing that Gomphi occupied the site of Stagus —an erroneous opinion, the inscription which exists here in honour of Severus and Caracalla leaving no reasonable doubt of Stagus being the position of Aeginium. It is scarcely possible that Gomphi, which stood near the entrance of the passes leading by the shortest and easiest route through Athamania to Ambracia, could have been so far to the northward as the hill of Niklitzi, which, like Aeginium, is at the entrance of the

§ 4.264 pass leading into the Dodonaea; the main communication between Upper Thessaly and the inland parts of Epirus and the most important of all the defiles of Northern Greece. From Stagus or Kalabaka to Trikkala is a ride of three hours and twenty minutes. At 1.30 from Stagus Voivoda is on the left, and an hour farther Mertzi: the brook Kumerki flows through the former, and another which rises at Aghia Moni through the latter. Towards Stagus the soil is sandy, near Trikkala it is a soft rich mould, now in a state of mud. Nov. 25.—The Liva of Trikkala, in Turkish Tirhala, one of the divisions of the Eyalet or province of Rumili, comprehends all ancient Thessaly, together with the surrounding mountains; it is bounded northward by the Livas of Selanik and Okhri, and southward by those of Enebekht [ Naupaktos ] and Egribos. For the last 22 years it has been governed by Aly, who very soon added to it the pashalik of Ioannina, and notwithstanding the great increase of his power since that time, is still officially no more than governor-general of Ioannina and Trikkala, as he lately signed himself in a letter addressed to the King of England. The kaza or jurisdiction of Trikkala is divided in Aly’s system of government into eight kolis, containing altogether 180 villages, the police of each koli being under the direction of a captain of armatoli. The kolis are,—1.

§ 4.265 Poliana, or the plain around Trikkala, where among many others is a village of that name; 2. Zarko, in which are Zarko of 400 families, Tzighioti of 150, Grisano of 60; 3. Ardhami, or Ardham, containing Stagus, Turcice Kalabak, which name is very commonly used also by the Greeks, though as in many others adopted from Turks and Albanians, they add a vowel at the end. Ardhami is a village standing in the midst of the heights to the north of Trikkala. Voivoda, and Sklatina, a few miles to the northward of Voivoda, in a valley branching from thence, are the two other principal villages in Ardham. 4. Klinovo extends to the sources of the Achelous at Krania and Khaliki, and contains Klinovo, Kastania, and Vendista in the situations before described on the tributaries of the Peneus. These five villages have between two and three hundred houses each. This koli borders westward on the Nakhe of Malakassi, in the kaza of Ioannina. 5. In the koli of Porta are Kardhiki on the river Aspro, on the confines of Tzumerka, in the kaza of Arta; Dhesi, eastward of Kardhiki; Pira, still farther eastward, in the midst of the fir forests of Mount Aspropotamitiko; Tirna, between Pira and Kato-Porta. These are villages of from 80 to 150 families. Klinovo and Porta form the district called Aspropotamo. 6. Rizo, so called as being situated at the foot of the mountain of Kotziaka, contains Lepenitza and Megarkhi. 7.

§ 4.266 Kratzova, or Krntziova; in this koli are Miritza, the position of which has already been mentioned, and higher up the river, Bozovo, near which there are ancient ruins. Velimisti is two hours eastward of Miritza, and midway between Kalabaka and Grevena, five hours from each. At Velimisti the road from Trikkala to Grevena, which ascends the vale of Voivoda, falls in with that from Kalabaka to Grevena. 8. Khassia, as a koli, now contains only six small villages: Dhissikata, which has 300 houses, on the borders of the Macedonian plains, five hours from Grevena, as many from Servia, and ten from Trikkala, once belonged to Khassia, but now pays its contributions at Zituni. Zimiatza in like manner, which is situated also on the northern side of the mountain of Khassia, on this side of Dhissikata, now belongs to Larissa. Khassia, which, as well as Aspropotamo, is an old Greek chorographical division, formerly comprised, and is still in common parlance applied to, all the mountainous region which extends from the Trikkaline plains to the confines of Larissa, Dheminiko, Servia, and Grevena. Agrafa (τα Αγραφα) is another division of the country which existed under the Greek empire. It contains the mountains to the southward of Trikkala, and though considered as a part of the liva of Tirhala, has enjoyed particular privileges dating perhaps from a remote period in the Byzantine empire, when the villages were “not written down” in the publicans' books, and the inhabitants of the district accounted in a body for their taxes. To judge from the names of places, and from the absence of every language but the Greek, Agrafa had preserved itself before the Turkish

§ 4.267 conquest from admixture with Bulgarians and Wallachians in a greater degree than most other parts of Greece. Fifteen years ago it still enjoyed the self-government which it obtained by capitulation with Mahomet II. when he had conquered Albania; the imperial χρυσοβουλον which he granted to the Agrafiotes on that occasion they assert to be still in existence in the Fanari at Constantinople. Every year there were chosen by ballot an archon and five or six assessors, forming a council, which had the power of inflicting capital punishment. A Christian captain with 200 men and a Mahometan Albanian with 300, kept the police of the district, and ensured the safety of the roads, under the direction of the archons. Of late years various circumstances have injured the republic, and have had the effect of diminishing in some degree its population. Internal dissensions, both in individual and between neighbouring villages, have been a leading cause, to which may be added the natural advantages of the northern or Thessalian side of Agrafa over the southern or Aetolian, giving rise to an assumption of superiority by the former portion of the people, and sometimes to positive ill-usage on their part towards the latter. Meantime the pursuit of Greek and Albanian robbers has given Aly as Derventli a pretext for entering the country with his troops; while steadily pursuing his object of permanently establishing his own Albanians as guardians of the police of the district, in the room of the armatoli employed by the Agrafiotes, he has encroached on their privileges, fomented their jealousies,

§ 4.268 and raised contributions upon them. One of his first acts was to obtain possession of the person of Tjolak Oglu of Rendhina, whom he kept in prison until he had extorted 80 purses from him. He then gave him permission to return home; but as many of the dismissed armatoli had become robbers themselves, and thrown the country around Rendhina into a state of insecurity, the proestos declined the favour, and intreated permission to reside at Ioannina, preferring, as he told His Highness, to be cut off by the sword of a Vezir, to being shot by a κλεφτικόν παλαιοτουφέκι (the rusty musket of a robber). In general it may be remarked that compliments and asseverations to His Highness, turn chiefly upon hanging, drowning in the lake, shooting, or beheading. Agrafa may be described as comprehending the mountains bordering on Thessaly which connect Pindus with Othrys as well as with Oeta; for the two latter ranges, though separated from one another towards the sea by the vale of the Spercheius, are united inland, Mount Velukhi or Tymphrestus forming the common link of connexion. In the direction of west and south, Agrafa extends to the Achelous, and comprehends the valleys and inclosing ridges of the tributaries of that river. To the northward it is separated from Aspropotamo by the river of Portes, and touches on the Upper Thessalian plain from the Portes or Gates of Trikkala, where that river issues into the plain as far as the borders of

§ 4.269 Dhomoko; to the southwest of which, Iannitza, the easternmost village in Agrafa, borders upon the Turkish kaza of Badradjik, from whence the boundary of Agrafa following a westerly direction touches the kazas of Karpenisi and Vrakhori, terminating to the S.W. at the junction of the Aspro with its great eastern branch; from thence the boundary follows the Achelous upwards, confining upon the Arta Kazasi until it arrives in the latitude of Portes at about twelve miles above the bridge of St. Bessarion, commonly called that of Korako or Koraki. This bridge, which is in the route from Trikkala to Arta, forms the only communication between the two banks of the Aspro in that part of the country when the river is swollen. It was built at the expense of the monastery of Dusikon in Kotziaka. The length of Agrafa from S.E. to N.W. is about fifty English miles direct, the breadth about thirty-five. Agrafa contains 85 villages and 7685 houses, in which, fifteen years ago, there were more than 50,000 inhabitants, but their number is now supposed to be somewhat reduced. There are fifteen large and many smaller monasteries, and the remains of about eighteen Hellenic towns or fortresses. The chief town, formerly the residence of the archon and council is Rendhina, which contains 450 houses: it is situated three or four hours to the westward of Iannitzu, and consequently,

§ 4.270 like many other capitals, is very far from being in a central situation. Next in importance to it are Petrilu, and Megali Kastania. The former stands near the sources of a branch of the Aspro, which joins that river above the bridge of Koraki, being collected from the valleys on the southern and western sides of Mount Karava, which is the highest point of the range, bordering on Thessaly, and bears S.S.W. from Trikkala. Kastania is on the opposite side of the same ridge, in a lofty situation commanding a view of the Thessalian plains, at the foot of a peak called Itamo, probably an ancient name. The other principal towns of Agrafa are Furna, situated westward of Rendhina on a tributary of the MOgdhova or eastern branch of the Aspro; Blazdhu and Fanari on the edge of the plain of Trikkala; the latter about ten miles south of that town. On the Aetolian side of Agrafa, where the villages are generally smaller and poorer than on the Thessalian, Franghista and the neighbouring Kerassovo are the largest. The chief monasteries are: 1. Tetarna, four hours to the W. of Franghista, at the south western extremity of Agrafa. Near it the river Aspro is joined by a great subterraneous stream called Mardhaka. 2.

§ 4.271 Stavropighi, commonly called the monastery of Rendhina, between Rendhina and Iannitza. 3. Mukha, above Kastania. 4. Koroni, above Blazdhu, noted for its antiquity and for some paintings with which this monastery was decorated by an imperial interpreter named Kuskola. 5. Petra, near Katafyghi, a large village in the way from Fanari to Kastania. Ecclesiastically Agrafa is divided among several bishoprics. That of Thaumacus comprehends Rendhina and all the eastern extremity of Agrafa, with the exception of Iannitzu, which is under the metropolitan of Neopatra. Farther to the N.W. on the northern side of Mount Vurgara are several villages, among which are Thrapsimi, Lakrosi, and Apidhia, which are peculiars of the metropolitan of Larissa. All the remainder of the northern side of Agrafa is in the archbishopric of Fanari. A portion of the western frontier confining on Radhovizdhi of Arta forms a part of the bishopric of Radhovizdhi; all the remainder of Agrafa, as well as Karpenisi, is under the bishop of Litza and Agrafa, who, as well as the bishops of Thaumacus and of Radhovizdhi, is a suffragan of the

§ 4.272 metropolitan of Larissa. Agrafa is the name of a small village in a very rugged and secluded position to the south of Petrilu. Of the Palea kastra the greatest is said to be that already mentioned at Syvisti. Higher up the river, on the same side, are other Hellenic remains at Little Vraniana, and at Liaskovo, which is not far southward of the bridge Koraku. One of the most remarkable ruins is said to be at Knisovo, a small village in the country northward of the same bridge, and not far from Bokovitza. These I suspect to be the ruins of Argithea, the capital of Athamania. In the eastern part of Agrafa, the chief remains of antiquity are reported to be at Rendhina and Kaitza: and those on the northern side, at or near Smokovo, Katafyghi and St. George; of these, the Paleokastro at Smokovo is said to be the largest. No very confident opinion, however, as to the relative importance of the ancient places can be formed from this information, as the walls of a small fortress in good preservation, sometimes attract more notice than mere vestiges of an extensive city.

§ 4.273 Although Agrafa consists of mountains and narrow rocky valleys, the chief exceptions being the plain called Nevropoli, near the sources of the eastern branch of the Aspro, and the eastern declivities of the mountains to the southward of Megali Kastania, industry, security, and in some parts a fertile soil, had enabled the Agrafiotes to export several kinds of agricultural produce to the rich but desolate districts around them. The following are stated to have been the exports:—15,000 fortomata of wine, of 100 okes the fortoma; 100,000 okes of butter, 200,000 of cheese, 200,000 of wool, 4000 of silk, 2000 of honey, 40,000 γηδοπτρόβατα, or head of sheep and goats; 2000 of oxen and cows. The prices at present are, butter one γρόσι or piastre the oke; cheese 15 paras; honey 20 paras; wax 5 piastres; wine 8 piastres the fortoma, a sheep 8 piastres; a goat 5 piastres; a cow 30 piastres; an ox for labour 30 piastres; wheat six paras the oke; a hen 15 paras; a chicken 10 paras. The corn produced in Agrafa is seldom sufficient for its consumption, but requires the addition of about a sixth. The villages which are least favoured in respect of soil have resources in the manufacture of various articles of cotton and wool, such as coarse cloths, shawls for the head and girdle, and towels. It is reckoned that one-third of the inhabitants of Agrafa gain a livelihood by weaving. There are also many workers in gold and silver; and at Sklatina is a fabric of sword-blades, gun-barrels, and locks of pistols, which last are sold at 15 piastres each. A large proportion of the Agrafiotes, like the other mountaineers of Greece, gain a livelihood abroad as shopkeepers or artisans, or as carriers in the neighbouring districts.

§ 4.274 The mountains to the northward and eastward are of dark-coloured rock, and covered with woods of pine and oak: in the opposite direction the rocks are white, bare, and full of caverns, in some of which are monasteries and remains of hermitages, particularly a convent named Stana, and another near Karitza. The southern and western streams produce trout in great number; in those flowing towards Thessaly the most esteemed fish is called briani. There is only one lake, that of Dereli, which abounds in fish of various kinds. The people of Agrafa seem to be no better acquainted with the ancient geography of their country than the learned in other parts of Greece. As far as their belief that the northern side of Agrafa was anciently occupied by Thessalians and Dolopes, one may agree with them; for the cities near the edge of the plain probably formed a part of the κοινον θεσσάλων, or Thessalian community; and as the Dolopes confined upon Phthia, they seem clearly to have been the inhabitants of the mountains adjacent to the southern extremity of the Upper Thessalian plain, which extend as far as the confines of the Aenianes, Dryopes, and Aetolians. But with regard to the ancient geography of the country to the southward of their great ridge, the Agrafiotes seem to be in a deplorable state of darkness. They believe the branch of the Achelous which rises in a mountain called Zyghiasta Nera, near Rendhina, to be the Peneius; that the country which is traversed by this and the other

§ 4.275 eastern branches of the Achelous was inhabited by the Perrhaebi; that the Mardhaka at Tetarna was the Titaresius flowing into the Peneius, as Homer describes; and that this source has its origin in the lake of Ioannina, which they suppose to have been the Styx of Homer. To make the confusion more complete, they acknowledge the Aspro above Tetarna to be the Achelous. In some of these opinions they seem to have been misled by the name Kyfu, which is still attached to a ruined village and paleokastro in or near the plain of Nevropoli, and which by the learned of Agrafa is supposed to indicate the Cyphus of Guneus, leader of the Perrhaebi, who dwelt on the banks of the Titaresius. As the Dolopes were a Thessalian people, and never connected with Aetolia but by occasional alliances, it is highly probable that the crest of the ridge of Agrafa formed the ordinary boundary between atolia and Thessaly. In that case Mount Karava was the extreme northern point of Aetolia: to the westward of a line drawn from thence to Mount KOtziaka, the country, as far as the Tzumerka chain, composed Athamania, corresponding to the modern Aspropotamo, with the exception of its northern extremity, which was occupied by a portion of the Tymphaei, and by a few Perrhaebi about Chalcis and the sources of the Achelous. The extent of Tymphaea may be in ferred from the facts, that the Arachthus had its

§ 4.276 origin in Mount Tymphe, and that Aeginium was a town of the Tymphaei; whence it appears that the Tymphaei possessed the country from Metzovo to Kalabaka, and all the great valley of the Salamvria on the route from the one town to the other: Mount Tymphe would seem also from the same testimony to have comprehended all the ridges which separate the sources of the two rivers, including the Zygos of Metzovo, which I suppose, as before stated, to have borne the specific name of Lacmus. One of the towns of the Tymphaei was named Trampya, and it was probably their capital, as Diodorus, speaking of the same place, names it Tymphaea. It stood in a lofty position, and was noted for being the place where Hercules son of Alexander the Great, was poisoned at supper by Polysperchon the Tymphaean. As Polysperchon styled himself king of the Aethices, it may be presumed that the Aethices and Tymphaei were conterminous; and the same inference may be drawn from Strabo, from whom it would further appear that Aethicia in general was nearer to the Thessalian plain than Tymphaea, the Aethices, like the Athamanes, having been originally an Epirotic tribe, but afterwards ascribed

§ 4.277 to Thessaly, whereas the Tymphaei always continued to be Epirotic. Stephanus, on the authority of Marsyas, places the Aethices between the Athamanes and Tymphaei, which, taking the Athamanes to have reached to the plain of Trikkala at Portes, and the Tymphaei at Kalabaka, seems to place the Aethices exactly in the district of Kotziaka, including Klinovo, Kastania, and the adjoining ridges, as far as the confines of Athamania. It is not surprising that the inhabitants of such rugged mountains should have had the reputation of being barbarous and addicted to plunder. In fact, though the natives of Klinovo are not to be thus described, there is no country more frequently the resort of robbers than Kotziaka and the adjacent heights. One of the passages of Strabo, from which the position of ASthicia is deducible, supports the belief that there was a town of that name bordering both upon Aeginium and upon Tricca; whence it is probable that the ruins at Niklitzi are those of the city of the Aethices, which may perhaps have borne likewise some other name, like Trampya of the Tymphaei.

§ 4.278 The latter city I am inclined to place in the plain of Politzia, near Metzovo, this being the largest level in the mountainous district, which anciently formed the Tymphaea. The town may have stood at Metzovo, or on the same site as the Roman or Dacian settlement indicated by the modern name Imperatoria. Politzia, the appellation of the plain, may be derived perhaps from η πόλις, as containing the capital and only considerable city of the Tymphaei, except Aeginium. Another tribe, once Epirotic but subsequently Thessalian, was the Talares, whom Strabo describes as an apospasm of the Talares, who dwelt near Mount Tomarus, and as inhabiting the Pindus itself. Hence they seem to have been farther removed from the Trikkaline plain than the Aethkes, having occupied perhaps the ridges on the north-eastern side of the great Tymphaean valley, or those now forming the koli of Kratziova, in which case it is probable that the unnamed tribe on the Thessalian side of Pindus, who disputed with the Tymphaei concerning the sources of the Peneius, were the Talares. Possibly the galactites lithos may have been the fountain which the Talares maintained to have been the real source of the Pendus. The best part of the territory of the Talares (thus placed) was the valley of the river of Miritza, or great branch of the Peneius, which joins it a little above the Meteora. This stream there can be little difficulty in identifying with the Ion, which, according to Strabo, was the chief tributary of the Peneius, and joined it near Aeginium. And hence Oxyneia, a town situated on the Ion, perhaps the capital of the Talares, occupied probably the valley of Miritza.

§ 4.279 Nov. 26.—Many of the Turkish houses in Trikkala are now in ruins, or empty: some are let entirely to Greeks, and of many others the harems only are inhabited by the Turkish masters, the other apartments being let to Christians, who come here in the winter from the mountain villages, some with their flocks, others to avoid the rigour of the winter, and others ra every season to obtain a livelihood as artisans or labourers. Lodgings of this kind are designated at Ioannina by the modest appellation of μάνΰραις or folds; here they are called αύλαις or halls. So numerous are the temporary lodgers in Trikkala, that although the houses originally Greek are not; more than 200, while the Turkish are 1000, the Greek population is greater than the Turkish. There are about 50 families of Jews. In the Trikkaline plain, all the inhabitants are Greeks, with the exception of the Spahis and Subashis; but there has lately been a considerable emigration of Greeks to the better governed districts of Serres, Smyrna, and Pergamus.

§ 4.280 The plain is still, however, in a tolerable state of cultivation, producing wheat, barley, maize, and pulse, of excellent quality. But even the fertile Thessaly is subject to bad harvests, as occurred in the present year, in consequence of a succession of frost and snow too soon after the seed had been committed to the ground in the autumn. Northerly winds bring with them the heaviest rain or snow; with southerly winds, fogs and mists prevail, and these, which continue through a great part of the winter, seem to constitute the weather most adapted to fertilize the light rich mould of the Thessalian plains. Hay is brought into the town for the summer food of cattle. Ten to one is the ordinary produce of wheat, which is a veryhard and durable grain, with a long beard and a strong straw of great length. Spring corn is here called triminio, not dhiminio, as in most other places: it will not bear the heat of the sun in the plains, and grows only in the mountains. The cotton is finer than that of Serres; they spin, dye, and weave it in the town, but the manufacture is chiefly confined to the kind of kerchiefs used for encircling the head and girdle. The water of Tyrnavo is reckoned the best for the dyeing of cottons, that of Trikkala for woollens and silks; but this place is more noted for its red goats’-skin leather, which is in request in all parts of Greece for slippers and boots. The dye is a secret, but two of the ingredients are known to be cochineal and blood from the butcheries. The Hodja-bashi gives me the following rate of the prices of provisions at the present day, and as he remembers them forty years ago:—

§ 4.281 Beef 15 paras the oke:—forty years ago 2 Mutton 20 do. do.... 4 Wheat, weighing 25 okes the tagari, 7 piastres, do.... 20 Rokka or maize 5 do. do...10 and not much in use. Barley 3 1/2 do. 10 Beef is here a common article of provision, even among the Turks, but it is killed only by Greeks or Jews, who generally make use of lean oxen unfit for work. At Ioannina and Saloniki the Greeks have a prejudice against beef, and none but Jews kill the oxen. The largest Greek houses in Trikkala pay 600 piastres a year in ordinary contributions: those of a middling class 200. The master of the house in which I am lodged, who has another at Porta, but is established here as a manufacturer of cotton stuffs, pays 1000 piastres a year in all. The bishop receives a piastre from each house in his diocese; from the richer classes in the town four or five piastres for αγιασμός or benediction, and as much as the family chooses for λειτουργιαις, or domestic masses which are generally called for by the women. The present bishop tried to pursue the same oppressive system as his brother of Ioannina; but the Vezir, upon the complaint of the inhabitants, soon brought him to reason. It is a common sentiment among the laity of Greece, that the bishops have been a great cause of their present degraded state, nor have the Greeks in general any esteem for their higher

§ 4.282 clergy, or for the monastic order from which the prelates are promoted. This, however, is in some degree an injustice; for although the clergy are often an instrument of oppression, and a bishop can hardly avoid acting like a Turk in office, the regular clergy have kept the Greek language alive, and have prevented, perhaps, the dissolution of all national union. The Christian Trikkalini admit that Aly Pasha has relieved them from the insolence and oppression to which they were formerly subject from the Turkish beys. Vely Pasha is following the same plan in the Morea, where the Turks were much in want of this discipline. His Highness and his sons adopt the surest method of effecting it, by obtaining all the landed property of the Turks: Nunc prece, nunc pretio, nunc vi, nunc sorte suprema, by every possible contrivance of fraud, injustice, and oppression. At a small expence they have thus converted the greater part of the plain of Trikkala formerly belonging to the beys of Trikkala, or to the Elefthero-khoria of the Greeks into tjiftliks of their own. Aly and Mukhtar transport their share of the crops to Ioannina to feed their Albanians, and that of Vely is sent to the Morea for the same purpose; while the Porte, according to its usual practice in several of the most fertile districts of the empire, is supplied with a certain quantity of grain from Thessaly at its own price. Thus, in the midst of a most productive country, the inhabitants retain no more than is barely sufficient for existence; and the price, even of the necessaries of life, is

§ 4.283 beyond their means. The wars of the Porte on one side, and those of Aly on the other, are the chief cause of this distressing oppression, which the people of Trikkala never recollect to have been so great as it is at present; and for this reason alone have hopes of seeing diminished: one of their complaints is, that the Vezir’s Subashis, for the purpose of irrigating his lands, draw off the water of the river, upon which the town chiefly depends; so that in summer nothing but a little heated muddy water remains in the bed of the Peneius. Nothing can more strongly show the misery of the place than the want of this commonest of all Turkish conveniences, especially as fountains might easily be supplied by an aqueduct from numerous sources in the hills of Khassia. One of the primates of Trikkala reads to me his account of a tour through Greece, which he made upon coming to his property upon his father’s death. He visited Agrafa, Karpenisi, Apokuro, Vrakhori, Lidhoriki,. Neopatra, as well as some of the Macedonian districts immediately northward of Trikkala. The journal of a modern Greek traveller in his own country is a novelty, and might have been expected to furnish some useful hints for the exploring geographer; but it contains a mere catalogue of places without a single criticism on ancient history, although the author’s Hellenic education had not been neglected. This same gentleman has lately been in prison at Ioannina: his statement is, that he was placed there by Aly Pasha in consequence of the unfounded complaints of an enemy of his, and was released on paying a moderate sum when the Vezir discovered his innocence. In his opinion, half the oppression and cruelty of Aly are owing to the malicious disposition of the Greeks themselves, who envy all above and trample on all below them, while the Pasha takes good care to turn all their quarrels to his own profit.

§ 4.284 Nov. 27.—Trikkala has lately been adorned by the Pasha with a new Tekieh, or college of Bektashli dervises, on the site of a former one. He has not only removed several old buildings to give more space and air to this college, but has endowed it with property in khans, shops, and houses, and has added some fields on the banks of the Lethaus. There are now about fifteen of these Mahometan monks in the house with a Sheikh or Chief, who is married to an Ioannite woman, and as well lodged and dressed as many a Pasha. Besides his own apartments, there are very comfortable lodgings for the dervises, and every convenience for the reception of strangers. The Bektashli are so called from a Cappadocian sheikh who wore a stone upon his navel; in memory of which his followers wear a stone which is green and of this form [drawing] suspended to the neck, and hanging upon the naked breast. The important part which Hadji Bektash played in the establishment of the Janissaries is well known. The Bektashli particularly insist like other Mahometans on the unity of the Deity, but do not exalt Mahomet so high as other Musulman sects, and are free thinkers in the practical part of their religion, considering that every thing is given us for enjoyment, and therefore

§ 4.285 they smoke and drink and live merrily. It is their doctrine to be liberal towards all professions and religions, and to consider all men as equal in the eyes of God. Though the sheikh did not very clearly explain his philosophy to me, he often used the word άνθρωπος, with some accompanying remark or significant gesture conveying a sentiment of the equality of mankind. The Vezir, although no practical encourager of liberty and equality, finds the religious doctrines of the Bektashli exactly suited to him. At the time that Christianity was out of favour in France, he was in the habit of ridiculing religion and the immortality of the soul with his French prisoners; and he lately remarked to me, speaking of Mahomet, και εγώ είμαι προφητης στα Ιωάννινά: and I too am a prophet at Ioannina. It was an observation of the bishop of Trikkala, that Aly takes from every body and gives only to the dervises, whom he undoubtedly finds politically useful. In fact, there is no place in Greece where in consequence of this encouragement these wandering or mendicant Musulman monks are so numerous and insolent as at Ioannina. In a bridge which conducts over the Lethaeus to the Tekieh is a marble inscribed in four elegiac verses, to the memory of a “godlike physician named Cimber, by his wife Andromache.” It

§ 4.286 is curious by its apparent connection with the celebrity of Tricca, as the resort of invalids for the cure of their diseases in the temple of Aesculapius; and probably those attached to the temple were physicians as well as priests and attendants. The medical fame of Tricca, therefore, which was as ancient as the Trojan war, seems still to have continued in the time of the Roman empire, which is the date of the inscription. The name of this town assumed its present form at some period between the sixth and eleventh centuries, Τρικκη being found among the towns of Thessaly after the final division of the empire, and Anna Comnena in the beginning of the twelfth employing the present name. In Procopius indeed we find the word “Τρικάττους,” referring to the people of this place; but this is, perhaps, a textual error for Τρικκαιους. Tzetzes a little later associates Τρίκκαλα with several names, some of which were undoubtedly obsolete at that time, as if he considered Triccala the ancient form. It is remarkable that Trikkala is the appellation of a considerable town in the Morea, standing near an ancient site, which, like Tricca in Thessaly, was celebrated for the worship of Aesculapius, and the cure of his diseased suppliants. It is possible that some connection may have existed between the medical colleges at the two places, and that when the Thessalian Tricca became exposed to the barbarians, a migration may have taken place to the securer position of Mount Cyllene.

§ 4.287 Nov. 29.—Proceeding on the route to Larissa, ςe arrive in one hour at Bokunista, one of the Vezir's tjiftliks containing 50 houses; a little beyond which we leave the direct road on the right, and arrive in 45 minutes at Kirtzini. A thick fog which still continues has covered all the plain for the last three or four days, and with the late rains has rendered the roads very heavy. Kirtzini is a small village at the foot of the hills of Khassia. At the church-door is a monumental stone sculptured in low relief, in two compartments, of which the upper represents a figure seated in a chair, the lower a Hermes. One of the stones in the wall of the church is an ancient architrave, having two triglyphs with a rose in the intervening metope.

§ 4.288 These relics of civilized Greece were brought from the ruins called Old Kardhiki or Gardhiki distant from Kirtzini half an hour, the road leading along the rocky extremity of the heights. At Gardhiki are the remains of a large Hellenic city, which there can be little doubt was Pelinnaeum. The entire circuit of the walls still remains, together with traces of suburbs on either side. On the west particularly, in approaching from Kirtzini, the main street of the suburb is still distinguishable, leading to the middle of the western wall, where one of the gates probably stood. The city occupied the face of a rocky height, together with a large quadrangular space at the foot of it on the south. The southern wall is more than half a mile in length, and the whole circumference near 3 miles. Kardhiki, a town of the Greek empire, from which the bishop residing at Zarko takes his title, occupied the height only, and no part of the plain below. Its remains are two ruined churches, one at the summit, the other at the foot of the hill; the walls, which were built upon the ruins of the Hellenic acropolis, have almost entirely disappeared, while the ancient inclosure both of the citadel and town is traceable in every part, and at the summit of the hill subsists to the height of twelve or fifteen feet. The masonry is of the third species, or that which seems to have been in use about the age of Alexander; and accordingly we find mention made of Pelinna at that time in the history of Arrian, shewing that it was a

§ 4.289 Thessalian town of considerable note. In the lower church are a fragment of a fluted Doric column 2ft. 5in. in diameter, and the record of a dedication by one Petraeonica, daughter of Derdas. The characters of this inscription are of the best times, and it is curious as expressing the name of the lady’s father by the patronymic adjective Δρδαια. Derdas was probably a name not uncommon in this part of Greece, as we find a Derdas prince of the neighbouring district of Elimeia in the year 382 B.C., a date probably not very distant from that of the inscription. The summit of the hill of Kardhiki commands a noble view of the widest part of the plain of Upper Thessaly, with the opposite mountains of Dolopia. At the back of the height there is a deep cavity, surrounded on all sides by rocky precipices, and now full of water, concerning which the local fable is, that a town was here swallowed up by an earthquake. A tumulus rises opposite the ruins in the plain, at a distance of a mile and a half from them. From Paleo-Gardhiki to Kolokoto is a ride of I hour 20 minutes, the latter half of the way along the rocky foot of the mountain, where on the right are many sources, and a marsh named Vula, from which a rivulet issues and joins the Lethaeus, now called Deresi or Trikkalino, which nearly opposite to the Vula unites with the Peneius. At the end

§ 4.290 of this pass we cross a plain surrounded by branches of the Khassia mountains, leaving the villages of Neokhorio and Baia a mile or two on the left; on a height.above the latter, are remains of ancient walls. The road to Elasona separates from that to Larissa at the end of the pass of VUla, passes a little to the right of Neokhorio, and then directly across the plain to Gritziano. This plain is watered by a small stream from the hills of Khassia, which after a half-circle round the foot of the height of Kolokoto joins the Trikkalino, nearly opposite to it. Kolokoto contains 30 or 40 houses, and has become a tjiftlik of the Vezir since my last visit. The Hellenic ruins on the conspicuous height above the village seem to be those of a fortress on the frontier of the territories of Pelinnaeum and Pharcadon, for to the latter city I take the valley of Tzighioti and Zarko to have belonged. Tzighioti, which we reach in an hour and a quarter from Kolokoto, is situated, like Zarko, near a branch of the Khassia mountain, which here approaches the Salamvria. At an hour's distance to the north-west is Gritziano, or Grisano, and between them Mikro Tzighioti. The plain produces excellent grain, but cotton is the peculiar produce both of this place and of Zarko. They are both now the personal property of the Vezir, and commute with him for their rent and tithe, the two Tzighiotis by 35 purses, and Zarko by 70.

§ 4.291 Nov. 30.—From Great Tzighioti we turn a point of the mountain and enter the portion of the plain occupied by Zarko, cross it diagonally towards the Salamvria, leaving Zarko on the left, and arrive in half an hour at the ferry which was formerly two or three miles further down, but is now immediately opposite to Zarko. The river is here six feet deep, and from 250 to 300 wide. Not being joined below the confluence of the river of Fersala by any great tributary except the Elassonitiko or Titaresius, and its superfluous waters being discharged between Larissa and that river into the lakes Nessonis and Boebeis, the Salamvria preserves even in the winter an uniformity of breadth and depth in this part of its course, and seldom overflows its banks. The stream now flows with rapidity, and is full of small vortices, which may have suggested to the poet the epithet of αργυροδείνης, though it must be confessed that he carries his poetical flattery to an extreme in comparing to silver the white hue of its turbid waters, derived entirely from the earth suspended in them. In fact the Peneius is never bright. The Thames above the tide is far more deserving of the Homeric epithet, but it may be doubted whether Homer ever saw so beautiful a river as the Thames: Though deep, yet clear, though tranquil, yet not dull, Strong without rage, without overflowing full. It takes us half an hour to cross the river in three trips by a wretched ferryboat, not much worse however than that of the river of Catania in the Christian kingdom of Sicily; then proceeding along a narrow level between the left bank of the river and the hills which extend to the plains of

§ 4.292 Crannon and Pharsalus, we arrive in 50 minutes at a point where these heights advance nearly to the bank of the river. Here are the remains of a Hellenic town, which I noticed in my preceding journey, but without then riding over the ground. The whole circuit of the walls is traceable, and encloses the face of the hill towards the river, together with a level space nearly a mile in circumference at the foot of it. The ruins are called Tjingane-kalesi by the Turks, and Ghyfto-kastro by the Greeks, both meaning Gypsey-castle, a common name in Greece for a ruined fortress. I found some peasants of Alifaka, a village situated in the plain to the eastward of the hill, ploughing within the ancient city, and purchased from them several copper coins, some of which they had just turned up. One is of Pelinnaeum, another of Phalanna. Following the testimony of Strabo, who states that the Peneius in its course through the Thessalian plains, passed by the cities of Tricca, Pelinnaeum, and Pharcadon, to its left, and then flowed by Atrax to Larissa', it might be supposed that these are the ruins of Atrax, neither the geographer nor any other author having stated on which side of the river Atrax stood. But Atrax was only ten Roman miles from Larissa, whereas these ruins are thirteen or fourteen; and it was on the borders of Perrhaebia, which could scarcely have extended

§ 4.293 so far to the south; the situation of Gunitza, indeed, as I have before stated, seems to combine all the requisites of Atrax. These are the ruins, therefore, of some other Thessalian town of secondary rank, perhaps Phacium; for the situation exactly agrees with that of Phacium as occurring in the relation which Thucydides has left us of the march of Brasidas through Thessaly and Perrhaebia to Dium in Macedonia, in the eighth year of the Peloponnesian war: from the Apidanus on this side of Pharsalus but not far from it, he marched to Phacium, in one day apparently, and from thence entered Perrhaebia. Ghyftokastro is about thirty miles from Pharsalus, and exactly in the direction of Perrhaebia from thence. In proceeding from the ruins to Alifaka, distant half an hour, we pass a tumulus situated in the plain, at one-third of the distance from the ruins. Alifaka is now a tjiftlik of Vely Pasha, and with the exception of one house now occupied by an Albanian Subashi, who superintends the Pasha's concerns, all the habitations are low huts of a single apartment, serving both for men and cattle. The Subashi, who is a native of Dragoti near Tepeleni, is suffering from an intermittent fever; a disorder to which the Albanians are very subject when they pass the summer or autumn in these plains. “This air,” he observes, “devours the man.” But loss of health is the common penalty paid by

§ 4.294 mountaineers and natives of northern countries, when the hardy and warlike habits natural to their position, have enabled them to reduce to subjection the more luxurious inhabitants of plains or of a more southern climate. The Albanians are fond of hunting the hare; and few of those who are rich enough to possess a horse have not likewise a greyhound. Almost all those whom I have encountered in Thessaly have been accompanied by their dogs. Finery is another favourite taste; a coarse kind of lace made at Naples finds an excellent market in Albania, and velvet is much esteemed by them; but they like it still better when it is so covered over with lace and embroidery that only just enough of the velvet appears to give evidence of the rich material. Beyond Alifaka the plain expands on all sides to Larissa, which is about twelve miles distant. Dec. 1.—Abdim Bey, whom I now visit for the third time in the course of the last four years, is still, in his capacity of chief Ayan, the civil governor of Larissa. By means of a Turkish work printed at Constantinople, he has made himself acquainted with many leading facts of history and geography, and he has a retentive memory. This little tincture of civilization, and the pleasure he takes in showing his learning, prompts him to be more civil to Franks than Turks usually are. In general the higher class of them at Larissa are fanatical, ignorant, and slothful; and the janissaries insolent and disorderly, though trembling at the sight

§ 4.295 of an Albanian. As in other Turkish cities, they think only of following civil occupations, and of those few who went this summer to the war the greater part is already returning. Nor do the Greeks of Larissa bear a good character among their neighbours. It is customary for each family to purchase the protection of some powerful Turk; a practice which has become common likewise at Saloniki since Frank protections have been partly withdrawn. Indeed it is now general in the great towns of European Turkey. At Larissa Turkish protection is said to be most frequently and effectually obtained by the influence of some handsome youth of the protected Greek family. Greeks, Jews, and Armenians, are all more degraded here in respect of civil privileges than in the towns which are in the hands of Aly Pasha, but have not so much to complain of on the score of forced contributions and the quartering of soldiers. This is the only place in Greece where I have seen camels: they are bred in the surrounding plains, and are sometimes used here for carrying burthens; but they are chiefly employed for the caravans which communicate with Saloniki, Serres, Adrianople, and Constantinople. Dec. 2.—The road from Larissa to Turnavo might now be travelled in a wheeled carriage; and it is one of very few distances of ten miles in Greece in that condition. The Titaresius, which at the time of my former visit about the same season was quite dry, is now only a shallow stream, though there has been no want of rain lately.

§ 4.296 It seems justly, therefore, to have acquired the name of Xeraghi, by which it is known around Turnavo. Sometimes, however, after heavy rains, or a sudden dissolution of the snow on Olympus, it becomes wide and impetuous; and hence the long bridge at the entrance of the town is essential to a facility of communication with Larissa, which might sometimes require a circuit by the bridge of Vernesi, and round the lake Karatjair, or nearly triple the direct distance. I have already remarked, that the ordinary deficiency of water in the river is caused by irrigation, and by a small canal which waters the plantations and gardens of Larissa on the northern side of the Salamvria. In Homer’s time, when tobacco was not known, and maize and cotton were less cultivated in Greece, the Titaresius probably carried its waters more constantly to the Peneius. At present it is not easy to find an opportunity of witnessing that common phenomenon which Homer poetically likens to oil floating on the surface of water, and which is nothing more than the pellucid Titaresius slowly uniting with the turbid Peneius. Dec. 3.—Turnavo has continued to decline, war having narrowed the market of its manufactures in the fairs of Rumili, while the same cause has raised both the price of provisions and the amount of taxes. The people complain that their Proesti have for the last two years laid arbitrary assessments upon the families without giving any account to the public; and these complaints seem to have reached the ears of the Vezir, for a buyurti has

§ 4.297 just arrived, requiring some of the magistrates to carry the contributions of the present year in person to Tepeleni; which makes them fear that their next quarters may be the prison at Ioannina. The wages of a weaver are now ten piastres a week: the finest servietta, without gold thread, sells at prime cost for about forty piastres, of which the δουλευτικόν, or workmanship, costs seven piastres. Turnavo is said to enjoy one of the best climates in Thessaly. The midsummer heats are less oppressive than at Larissa and Trikkala: foul weather is seldom experienced for many days together: and the month of January is the extent of the winter. The sandy soil around the town is practicable to horses and carts in the wettest weather; and the acclivity from the bank of the river, small as it is, prevents any unwholesome stagnation of water in summer. Every house has its well of the purest water, and is cool in the midst of summer. At Trikkala and Larissa the water of the Peneius is used for drinking, and is reckoned wholesome and light; but it is hot and turbid, and requires filtration. At these two towns autumnal fevers are much more prevalent than at Turnavo; at Tzaritzena the overhanging rocks are supposed to injure the air, and must undoubtedly concentrate the heat, as they are exposed to the south-west. Nevertheless Tzaritzena (Tsaritsani) is the most flourishing town in Thessaly next to Ambelakia. By the sacrifice of a sum of money to the Vezir, the Archons have procured an order forbidding the dancing boys from exercising their profession in that town; this has annoyed the people of Turnavo,

§ 4.298 by causing the boys to resort more frequently to that town, which attracts thither many Turks and Musulman Albanians of the worst class, whom the Greeks are moreover often obliged to entertain. The Ayans of Larissa will not often permit the dancers to appear in that city; as it is generally attended with disturbances and drunken quarrels among the Janissaries, in which the boys themselves stand a chance of being murdered. The weather being fair to-day, the little height of Kastri commands a noble view of the rich Pelasgic plain and of the renowned mountains which surround it. The Magoula of Tatari, which I suppose to be the site of Gyrton, is nearly in a line with the peak of Kissavo or Ossa, which bears east by the compass: a few degrees to the left of the magoula some remains of the walls of Mopsium are clearly distinguishable on a height somewhat detached from the end of the ridge of Makrikhori, on its extremity towards Larissa. In the opposite direction this ridge extends thirty degrees to the Klisura, or rugged gorge through which the Peneius makes its way from the plain into the valley of Dereli or Gonnus, and thence to Tempe. In the middle of the Klisura, on the right bank of the river, are seen the walls of Elateia, but more conspicuous than any of these ancient sites, are the remains of Phalanna, situated a little to the westward of north, on a steep bicipital height above the village of Karadjoli, at the foot of Mount Titarus. The hill is not only surrounded with the ruins of walls, but there also appear two or more cross walls forming terraces on the slope. A torrent descends along one side of the height into the small stream flowing from the lake or marsh of Mati, which I passed Dec. 10, 1806, between Ligara and Turnavo. If to these be added the positions of Larissa, of Atrax at Sidheropeliko, and of Argissa, at the tumuli between the two latter, the ruins or sites of no less than seven ancient cities may be distinguished from Kastri, itself being the situation of an eighth, or that of Metropolis.

§ 4.299 Dec. 4.—This forenoon, proceeding south-westward from Turnavo along the foot of the heights, we enter, at the end of a mile and a half, the narrow vale from whence the Xeraghi or Titaresius issues into the plain. Here the river leaves on either bank a narrow level between it and rocky heights just sufficient for a road. That on the left bank, which we follow, is hard, and smooth enough for any carriage. The bed of the river is formed entirely of sand, in the midst of which there are deep pools of water, making the fords sometimes dangerous. At the end of an hour and five minutes from Turnavo, walls constructed of small stones and mortar are traceable on both sides of the river, the remains apparently of a work for the defence of the pass. Having crossed the river at 6.5, we follow the right bank to Dhamasi, leaving on the opposite side a small ploughed valley having a reddish soil. Dhamasi is one of the tjiftliks of Vely Pasha, whose agent resides here as Subashi.

§ 4.300 It contains about twenty houses, having a few gardens watered by a canal from the Xeraghi, and is situated at the foot of a steep rocky hill which falls on the other side to the river. This height is crowned with a ruined castle, of which the walls are built with great solidity of small stones and mortar, and are flanked with square and round towers. A transverse wall divided the castle in two. In the house of the Subashi is a quadrangular stone, similar to those which are inscribed at Turnavo, but adorned with a moulding below instead of above. An inscription on one of the narrow sides shows that it supported the statue of a priestess of Julia Juno Augusta, erected by the demus of the Lareisaei. In the same house, on the edge of a well, is another marble without any inscription, but representing in low relief a man with a circular shield in his left hand; the shield and the nails of the Angers, which are the only parts well preserved, show that the sculpture was good. It seems evident from these remains that Dhamasi is the position of one of the Perrhaebic towns; and I am inclined to think that the castle is in great part of Hellenic construction, although the masonry is not such as the ancients generally employed. From Dhamasi I proceed to Dheminiko, a journey

§ 4.301 of two hours and a half. Just without the village of Dhamasi, at the foot of the castle hill, we recross the river, and again proceed along the left bank. The valley is animated by flocks of sheep and goats, which are conducted in this season from the mountains near Grevena to feed on the banks of the “pleasant Titaresius.” The shepherds of Mount Pindus have all their particular haunts in winter. Those of the more distant villages of the district of Grevena migrate to the plain of Trikkala or to the northern valleys of Perrhaebia. The flocks of Gramista are driven to Armyro and the valleys of Phthia; the pastures of Dheminiko and the southern part of Perrhaebia are particularly resorted to by the Samariniotes, who find ample accommodation in the winter in the empty houses of those who formerly cultivated these fertile valleys, but who have migrated from hence since Aly and his sons have converted the lands into tjiftliks of their own. At an hour’s ride from Dhamasi, we leave, on the summit of a peaked height on the opposite side of the river, the vestiges of a small ancient fort, and soon afterwards enter the valley of Dheminiko, having Vlakho-Ianni on the left on the opposite side of the river. Our route then turns northward in the direction of the valley, passes through Mologhusta, a tjiftlik of the Vezir, of twenty houses, standing on the left bank of the

§ 4.302 river, and then ascends the heights to Dheminiko or Dhomeniko, which, though consisting of near 200 houses, contains not more than 80 families. About fifteen years ago it lost half its inhabitants by the plague, since which time the robbers and their opponents the Dervenli troops, with the extortions of their chief have proved so destructive to the place that nothing at length remained for the unfortunate people but to become the metayers of Aly; since which he has built a mosque, and an adjoining house now occupied by an Albanian bolu-bashi. The Dhomenikiotes cultivate corn on the heights, and maize, cotton, and tobacco in the plain, where irrigation from the river ensures plentiful crops. They spin and weave their cotton into a coarse kind of bukasia sold to the people of Tzaritzena, who dye them. The plain below Dheminiko contains, besides the villages Mologhusta and Vlakho-Ianni, those of Konitzi, Paleokastro, Sykia, Magoula, Pertori, and AmUri. This fertile valley is ten or twelve miles in length from north to south, and half as much in breadth. To the northward it is separated by woody hills from the northern Perrhabian plain, or Tnpolitis, which lies between the mountains'Elymbo and Amarbes, and by other hills eastward from the plain which contains Elasona and Tzaritzena. Westward rises a continuation of Amarbes, which stretches southward towards Trikkala: this mountain is covered with beeches, and with oaks here called δριρνιαις, —a corruption apparently of δρυιναι.

§ 4.303 Besides the agricultural productions of the plain, there are a few gardens and vineyards around the villages, particularly at that of Amuri. At Magoula, on the right bank of the river near Sykia, an earth producing nitre in great plenty has lately been discovered: the earth is carried to Ioannina, where the nitre is extracted, and used in the manufacture of gunpowder. Dheminiko, which was a bishopric of the province of Larissa or Thessaly as early as the ninth century, has long been joined with Elasona, as an archbishopric dependent on the patriarch of Constantinople. It appears to have been a place of considerable importance under the Byzantine Empire; as besides the cathedral there are three churches in the village, and four more on the outskirts. Anna Comnena describes a κλπσούρα, or pass, near Larissa which she terms the palace of Domenicus, where a marshy ravine between two hills terminated a woody plain. Here the Franks under Boemond, in the year 1083, were attacked in their camp and defeated by Michael Ducas, upon which they retired to Trikkala and to Kastoria. Probably the camp of Boemond was about Amuri, and the pass was one of those leading into the plain from Servia, Elasona, or Larissa. The cathedral and some others of the churches seem to be not less ancient than the eleventh century. I failed in obtaining an entrance into the episcopal palace, the stairs, or to speak more correctly, the ladder leading up to the door, being so decayed as to be impassable. The bishop now resides at Tzaritzena.

§ 4.304 Dec. 5.—The church of St. George, the most distant and largest of those without the town, contains in its walls and pavements several inscribed marbles, two of which show that it stands on the site of Cyretiae, one of the cities of Perrhaebia mentioned by Livy. The church stands upon a height, encircled by some inconsiderable remains of ancient walls constructed of small stones and mortar, but among which several large quadrangular masses are seen. Others of the same kind are lying on the slope of the hill; and the walls of the church are in part formed of similar blocks of stone, evidently taken from Hellenic constructions. The hill of St. George appears to have been the acropolis, and the city to have occupied the slope below it, towards a valley watered by a slender branch of the Titaresius. In the opposite direction a hollow intervenes between the height and a steep rocky mountain composed of granite, the most elevated of the ridges which branching from Mount Kritiri separate this valley from that of Elasona. The road from Dheminiko to Elasona passes along the hollow. Not far from the acropolis, towards the village of Dheminiko, is the feature which probably influenced in great measure the founders of Cyretiae in the choice of this situation—namely, a copious stream of water now rushing from the side of the mountain by

§ 4.305 four spouts. The church of St. George contains in its walls, steps, and pavements, or on detached blocks, many inscribed marbles. One in particular is a document of some historical interest; being a public epistle addressed to the Cyretienses by Titus Quinctius Flamininus, when commander of the Roman army in Greece. It is inscribed on a thick block of white marble, which now forms a part of the wall of separation between the vestibule and the body of the church. The situation of the stone is by no means favourable to the copyer as to light, and the letters are a good deal worn; but with the exception of only five or six, they may all be decyphered. They are small and of the usual beautiful formation of those times. The gentile adjective, which is Κυρετιευς in this inscription, is Χυρετιαιος in another belonging to a monument which was erected by the city in honour of Septimius Severus. This variation of the ethnic agrees exactly with the ancient authors; for Ptolemy, who lived in the latter age, writes the name Χυρετίαι, of which the gentile would be Χυρεταίος; while Livy, following Polybius, a cotemporary of the inscription, employs Cyretiensis, of which the analogous Greek form was Κυρετιεύς. The following is a translation of the epistle of Quinctius:—

§ 4.306 “Titus Quinctius supreme commander of the Romans to the tagi and city of the Cyretienses, health. Having on all other occasions manifested my own favourable intentions, as well as those of the Roman people towards you, we have been sincerely desirous of continuing to show, that in every instance we prefer that which tends to oar honour, to the end that in the present affair also such persons as are not guided by good counsels may not have the power of calumniating us. All the remaining possessions, therefore, in land or houses, which had devolved to the Roman treasury, we give to your city, that you may thus be convinced of our benevolence, and that we have not in the smallest degree been desirous of amassing treasure, but have greatly preferred charity and honourable fame. I judge it right therefore that those persons who have not yet received that which appertains to them, be reinstated in the possession of it, when they shall have given you the requisite proofs, and their demands shall appear to you conformable to my former adjudications.”

§ 4.307 As to the exact date of this epistle, or to which of the four years of the command of Quinctius in Greece it is to be ascribed, we may observe that it could not have been that of his consulship, B.C. 198, because after having defeated Philip on the Aous, and marched through Epirus and Thessaly, he was arrested in his farther progress in this quarter by the resistance of Atrax, and instead of entering Perrhaebia, turned southward into Phocis. In the year of his consulship, moreover, he would undoubtedly have assumed that title, which in Greek was simply υπατος, whereas στρατηγος ύπατος has no reference to civil authority, but represented in Greek the Latin word Imperator, as appears by a comparison of the Greek version of the celebrated edict for the liberation of the Greeks, promulgated by Quinctius at the Isthmic games, in the spring of the year 196, with a copy of the same proclamation, given in Latin by Livy, who constantly styles Quinctius Imperator during his command in Greece after the expiration of his consulship. The general tenor of the epistle accords with the conduct of Quinctius, when in his winter quarters at Athens, after the battle of Cynoscephalae in the year 197, he showed clemency to those who had taken part with Philip against him,

§ 4.308 because the apprehensions which were already entertained of Antiochus rendered it expedient to conciliate the favour of the cities of Greece,—a motive in fact which had its share in producing the edict of Corinth very soon afterwards. The reference in the beginning of the epistle to the favours conferred upon the Cyretienses by Quinctius and the Roman people, alludes probably to the self-government and liberation from tribute to Philip, which the Perrhaebi among other people obtained by that edict. The epistle therefore was probably written either in 196 or 195 B.C. It appears that Cyretiae, like the generality of Greek cities, had been divided into two parties, one opposed and the other favourable to Rome, that the lands and houses of the opponents had been confiscated by Quinctius to the Republic of Rome, that some claims had been made on this confiscated property, by individuals who had been either favourable to the Romans, or at least had taken no part against them: that Quinctius had already adjusted some of those claims, and that he now directed the settlement of the remainder upon the principle of his former adjudications; after which the residue of the confiscated lands and houses was to become the property of the city.

§ 4.309 The Thessalian custom of entitling the chief magistrates of their cities Ταγοί, which is known from Xenophon and other authors, is exemplified by several inscriptions still existing in Thessaly, and among others by two beginning with the word ταγευοντος, in the church of St. George at Dheminiko, one in the pavement, the other in the wall of the church. From one of these it appears that the tagus was the first, and the hipparchus, or commander of the cavalry, the second person in rank in the city; so that the tagus probably was commander of the infantry as well as civil governor. A third officer was the tamias, or treasurer. It would seem that they were all, in common parlance, called tagi, in the same manner as the word archon was employed at Athens, and in other parts of Greece, not only to signify a single magistrate, but all those who composed the executive power, in which manner the word is still used in Greece. We may thus reconcile the plural form of the word in the letter of Quinctius with the single tagus indicated by the ταγεύοντος of the two other inscriptions. The two latter documents, as well as two other fragments in the same church, were records of the manumission of slaves, who seem to have paid on this occasion 22 denaria to the city, being exactly the sum which two similar inscriptions at Elasona

§ 4.310 show to have been paid by the freedmen of Oloosson. Among the inscribed stones at St. George is a simple and affecting form of epitaph, more commonly found on Roman than on Greek monuments, and in the wall behind the altar of the church, I find a fragment which appears to have recorded the dedication to Aesculapius and Hygieia of the statue of a son of one Apollodorus, by the son of an Asclepiodorus, in token of his gratitude to the former. The artist was an Athenian. The native town of the son of Apollodorus, indicated by the word beginning ΕPH, may perhaps have been the same place named Eritium by Livy, from whom it appears to have been near Cyretiae. The repeated occurrence of the name of Cyretiae in the history of the Roman wars in Greece, shows its importance in those times. In the year B.C. 200 it was plundered by the Aetolians, who were then allies of Rome against Philip. In the first campaign of the Persic war, in the year 171, Cyretiae was occupied by the king in his way from Macedonia into Thessaly, after which he besieged and took Mylae, and marched to Phalanna and Gyrton.

§ 4.311 Having passed the forenoon at St. George, I set out at 6, Turkish, and return in one hour to Mologhusta, and there crossing the Titaresius, proceed for a mile through kalambokki fields and gardens to Vlakhoianni. Mologhusta may perhaps be a corruption of Mallaea, with the addition of Augusta, for that Mallaea was a town of southern Perrhaebia, and not far from Cyretiae, seems evident from its being mentioned in conjunction with that town on two of the three occasions on which Livy names the latter city. At the congress of Tempe, in the year 185 B.C., the Perrhaebi claimed Mallaea from Philip, who had retained it after having recovered it from Antiochus in the year 191, and an assent to the demand was implicated in the award of the Roman commissaries, who declared that Macedonia should be confined to its ancient limits. Perrhaebia was again forcibly occupied by the Macedonians under Perseus, not long before the declaration of war against him by the Romans, but it seems not to have been until he marched into Thessaly, at the beginning of the first campaign of that war, that he received the submission of the city of the Perrhaebi, and took the two principal fortresses, Cyretiae and Mylae. The latter being described as a very strong place, not far from Cyretiae, thus corresponds to Dhamasi, which is not only strong in itself, but very important, as commanding the pass of the Titaresius, leading into Perrhaebia from the Pelasgiotis. As to the city of the Perrhaebi, which is mentioned only

§ 4.312 on this occasion, I believe it to have been the same place as Oloosson, which name, although it has been preserved with little change from the time of Homer to the present, is not found in history, probably because its strong and commodious situation near the centre of Perrhaebia had raised it to the dignity of the capital of that country, and it may therefore have been better known in the time of the historians as the chief city of the Perrhaebi. It was here probably that the beautiful coins inscribed with the name of that people were struck. Mallaea is again mentioned by the Latin historian as having been taken by the Romans at the end of the first campaign of the Persic war, when Perseus had retired into Macedonia. The consul Licinius, after having vainly attempted Gonnus, turned into Perrhaebia, took Mallaea at the first assault, and after having received the submission of Perrhaebia, including the Tripolitis, returned to Larissa. Although Mologhusta may be the representative of Mallaa in name, its situation in the plain not being such as the ancients generally chose, nor preserving any remains of antiquity, I conceive Mallxea to have occupied a height on the opposite side of the river and rather nearer to Vlakho-ianni than to Mologhusta. Here some vestiges of ancient walls surround a table summit, which is the εσψατίη, or lowest fall of the western mountain;

§ 4.313 a torrent separates the height from another similar hill on the north, where other walls are traced, all belonging probably to the same city. Paleokastro, a village above Sykia, on the left bank of the Vurgaris, or river of Tripolitis, would seem from the name to be the site of another Perrhaebian town, situated about midway between Cyretiae at Dheminiko and Azorus at Vuvala. Perhaps it was the Eritium already alluded to, which was taken, together with Cyretiae, by Baebius, in the year 191 B.C.; having garrisoned these and some other captured places, Baebius returned to assist Philip in taking Mallaea; after which, the combined forces proceeded against Aeginium, Tricca, and the other neighbouring towns occupied by the Athamanes. Vlakhoianni contains twenty permanent families, and many houses now occupied by Samariniotes. The village paid ten purses a year before it became a tjiftlik of Aly Pasha, who now takes a third of the harvest without supplying any thing to the farmer, and receives from the village a thousand piastres a year for contributions. His share of the corn is collected by his agent at Dheminiko, and sent wherever he happens to want it. Last year it was embarked at Volo for Prevyza: this year it is destined for Korytza. All these villages were formerly Kefalokhoria, and the lands were in possession of the Greek inhabitants, but these having been reduced by their necessities, caused in great measure by the frequent

§ 4.314 demands of Aly and his Albanian soldiers, to contract debts at high interest, have been under the necessity of becoming his cultivators on condition of his acquitting their debts. This part of the bargain he generally discovers some mode of effecting not very burthensome to himself, unless when some creditor intervenes from his own native mountains of Chaonia or Atintania, when he cannot so easily avoid opening his purse. The air of the Perrhaebian valleys is said to be unhealthy in summer, and so excessively hot that none but those bom here can endure it; but the soil is very productive, and in wheat, which is the principal produce, generally gives a retura of eleven or twelve to one. In the ruins near Vlakhoianni, as well as in those at Dheminiko, Dhamasi, Turnovo, Alifaka, and Sidhero-peliko, the masonry, though more massy than the inhabitants of this country have been in the habit of employing since the time of the Roman empire, is principally of rough stones and mortar, and has no large portion of it constructed of those great quadrangular or polygonal masses nicely fitted together without cement, which are characteristic of Greek masonry to the southward of Mount (Eta. It would seem, therefore, that in Perrhaebia and other parts of Thessaly, as well as among the tribes of northern Epirus, that kind of masonry was not always employed, which was almost universal in Southern Greece, and which, notwithstanding the examples to the contrary, may be considered one of the peculiarities of the Hellenic race.

§ 4.315 From Vlakhoianni to Gritziano is a ride of three hours; for the first two miles we traverse rugged heights covered with dwarf holly-oak, and then cross some open downs of a good soil, but quite uncultivated. The village of Lefthero-khori, situated at a little less than half way, though large, contains few inhabitants, and who cultivate only some vineyards and corn-fields near the village; but possess sheep, for which all the surrounding downs are well suited, though none are to be seen at present, as the shepherds prefer lower situations, and particularly the mild climate of the coast, to these heights, which are subject sometimes to severe cold in winter, and a long continuance of snow. Although Lefcherokhori preserves no remains of antiquity, its territory was probably that of another of the Perrhaebian towns, perhaps Ericinium, which appears from Livy to have been reclaimed by the Perrhaebi from Philip at the congress of Tempe, in the year 185 B.C.; the same historian, by naming it together with Aeginium and Tricca among the towns which were taken from the Athamanes by Baebius and Philip, after the surrender of Mallaea, seems to indicate its direction from the latter place, and that it stood on the frontier of Perrhaebia towards Histiaeotis. The last half hour to Gritziano is a descent, from which an extensive view is opened of the plains around Sofadhes, Kardhitza, and Fanari, backed by the mountains of Agrafa.

§ 4.316 Four remarkable insulated heights present themselves in these plains, all probably the positions of Hellenic cities or fortresses: 1. Kolokoto; 2. Kortikhi, which is the most extensive, though not high; it lies at the same distance from the right bank of the Peneius that the hill of Kolokoto does from the left. 3. The rock of Vlokho on the same side of the river, conspicuous by its height and steepness, and by the ruins of Hellenic walls on its side and summit. It rises from the left bank of the river Fersaliti, and is separated only by that river from the ridge of hills which extends from thence along the right side of the Peneius to Alifaka, and in a south-easterly direction to the Crannonian and Pharsalum plains: 4. the fourth insulated hill is a long low eminence near Mataranga in the middle of the plain beyond the hill of Vlokho, and situated about midway between that height and the mountains of Agrafa. Dec. 6.—Two slight earthquakes occur this morning a little before daylight. Aristotle speaks of ορθριοι σεισμοι as if earthquakes often happened at the break of day, and he adds that it is generally a νηνεμία or calm when they take place; this is the third time it has occurred to me to verify the observations of the Greek philosopher. On all these occasions there have been two shocks, with an interval between them of not less than half a minute. The slope of the rocky height above Gritziano is entirely inclosed by the ruined walls of a town about two miles in circumference. At the summit of the hill they still exist to half their original height: towards the bottom, where they are not so well preserved, are the remains of a

§ 4.317 transverse wall, or interior inclosure, and the vestiges of many buildings within it The masonry resembles that of the later Roman or early Byzantine empire, being formed of irregular stones of no great dimensions, and which are united with mortar, mixed with fragments of large tiles. Nevertheless, I believe the whole to be Hellenic with the exception perhaps of a few repairs. The absence of all remains of churches which are invariably found in ruins of the Lower Empire, coincides with the extent of the inclosure, and the manner in which the ground is occupied, to show that it was one of the cities of ancient Thessaly. In confirmation of this opinion, there exist on the spot a few monuments indisputably Hellenic. Of these, the most remarkable is a gigantic sorus of white marble at the principal fountain of the village of Gritziano, measuring on the outside 9 ft. 3 in. in length, 3 ft. 6 in. in breadth, 1 1/2 ft. in height, with sides 3 in. thick. In the wall of the enclosure of a new church a sepulchral stone has been inserted, bearing a relief, below which an inscription signifies that Hippo erected the memorial “to her beloved husband Gleintus, a man who had been a minister of many gods.” Two hideous busts seen in front represent this loving couple; and to the right of the man’s bust there is a three-fourths figure of a boy standing, between whom and Gleintus is seen an ox’s head upon an altar.

§ 4.318 Upon the whole, I entertain no doubt that here stood Pharcadon, that city being placed by Strabo to the left of the Peneius, between Pelinnaion and Atrax, in the division of Thessaly called Histiaeotis. It is not impossible that the name of the neighbouring village Zarko may be a corruption of Pharcadon. In the lower part of the ruins copious sources issue from the mountain, and water some gardens of pomegranates and a few other fruit-trees which surround a small monastery. Gritziano was almost deserted before the Vezir made it a tjiftlik, and sent here some cultivators. It now contains between forty and fifty families. Quitting it at 4.50, Turkish time, we pass through the villages of little and great Tzighioti, the latter at 5.35, traverse the plain from thence towards the Salamvria: at 5.55 cross a bridge over the stream which issues from the sources and marshes at the foot of the height of Kolokoto, and at 6.10 cross the Salamvria by a bridge of three arches, called the bridge of Tzighioti. This is the lowest point in the plains of Upper Thessaly, as appears from the singular fact, that all the waters descending from the mountains of Agrafa, and as far as that of Gura or the ancient Othrys inclusive, here join the Salamvria within a very small space: it is not surprising, therefore, that the surrounding plain should now be in a marshy state. After a halt of ten minutes at the Gumruk, a hut near the bridge where a toll is levied for the benefit of Mukhtar Pasha, who rents it of the Sultan, we cross between the bridge of Tzighioti and Vlokho, two

§ 4.319 rivers running from right to left; one at ten minutes beyond the Salamvria, the other at a quarter of an hour. They unite with one another and then with the Peneius, not far below the place where we crossed them. The second river is the larger, and is about a third of the breadth of the Salamvria. We follow its right bank to Vlokho, where we arrive at 7.15. On the opposite side of the river stands another hamlet of the same name at the foot of the lofty insulated hill already noticed, upon which are the ruined walls of a Hellenic city. A triple inclosure occupies the summit of the height, on the steep rocky descent of which, on the southern and western sides, are remains of the town walls, not so much preserved as those above, but equally conspicuous at a distance. They have no towers, the flank defence being furnished entirely by a broken line. On the southern side of the hill the walls are traceable quite to the plain; so that the city was between two and three miles in circumference, though probably a great part of the rugged space between the walls was not inhabited. The masonry, particularly that of the walls on the summit, is of the earliest kind, consisting of large irregular blocks, but not exactly fitted to one another, as in the second species. This remarkable height is separated only as I before stated by the river from the hills which extend along the right bank of the Peneius to the paleokastro of Alifaka. In every other direction the plains expand from hence to Fersala, Dhomoko, and the mountains of Agrafa.

§ 4.320 The river of Vlokho consists of two branches, which unite not far above the rocky height. They are usually known by the names of Fersaliti and Sofadhitiko, Fersala and Sofadhes being respectively the two principal places on or near them. The Sofadhitiko is sub-divided into two streams, the confluence of which is not more than two or three miles above their junction with the Fersaliti. The eastern branch has its origin in several sources before described, at the foot of the mountains, between Fersala and Dhomoko, the largest of which is at Vrysia. The western branch rises in the mountains of Agrafa above Smokovo, and flows through Sofadhes. As the river Enipeus had its origin in Mount Othrys, and flowed by Pharsalus, we may be assured that it was the Fersaliti, which exactly answers to that description: and as it was joined by the Apidanus before it fell into the Peneius, there is an equal certainty that the Apidanus was either the united stream of Sofadhes and Vrysia, or that which we crossed between the Salamvria and the river of Vlokho. But the latter river originates in the western extremity of Agrafa, or not far from the frontiers of Athamania; whereas the Apidanus, according to undoubted testimony, was a river of Phthiotis, and appears to have had

§ 4.321 its sources in that district near Pharsalus'It seems evident, therefore, not only that the Sofadhitiko below the confluence of the two branches is the Apidanus, but that properly this name belonged not to the branch of Sofadhes, but to that of Vrysia and Dhomoko, all the sources of that stream being at the foot of the mountains of Phthia, and therefore in agreement with the concurrent testimony of Herodotus, Euripides, and Strabo; whereas the Sofadhes branch flows from a part of Dolopia. The latter is moreover a torrent often dry in summer, whereas the sources of the eastern branch being permanent, are alone adapted to the assertion of Herodotus, that the Apidanus was the only river in Achaia Phthiotis, which was not consumed by the host of Xerxes. As the historian informs us also that the army marched in three days through Thessaly into Melis, it is not probable that they deviated so far from the direct route as the river of Sofadhes.

§ 4.322 Such being the situation of the Apidanus and Enipeus, there is every reason to believe that the ruins at Vlokho are those of Peiresia; for this city is described by Apollonius as placed on the banks of the Apidanus, near its junction with the Enipeus, and by the author of the Orphica as near the confluence of the Apidanus and Peneius. Both these descriptions may be applied to the hill of Vlokho, which is situated between the junction of the Apidanus with the Enipeus, and that of the united stream with the Peneius, and at no

§ 4.323 great distance from either confluence. We learn from the same authorities that the stream formed by the union of the Enipeus and Apidanus was known by the latter name, though this river is not larger than the Enipeus, and is much shorter in its course. Peiresiae was believed to be the same place as the Homeric Asterium, and to have received this appellation from its situation on a high hill, as conspicuous as a star. Nothing can be more apposite to this etymology than the mountain of Vlokho, which, by its abruptness, insulated situation, and white rocks, attracts the spectator's notice from every part of the surrounding country. If the more ancient parts of the ruins of Vlokho are those of the Homeric Asterium, the words Τιτάνοιό τε λευκά κάρηνα, which the poet couples with’Αστέριον, were intended doubtless for the conspicuous summit occupied by the acropolis of that city, and the white calcareous rocks of which are well suited to the name Titanus. The heights which are separated by the river from the hill of Vlokho, may perhaps be the Mount Phylleium of Apollonius, near which Strabo states that there was a city Phyllus, noted for a temple of Apollo Phylleius.

§ 4.324 The hill of Kortikhi, which stands about three miles to the westward of that of Vlokho, is the site of another ancient town. On leaving the eastern Vlokho, we cross the heights which we had before skirted, and descend into a valley branching northward from the plain, and surrounded on three sides by the hills which extend to the Peneius and to the Crannonian plain. Having passed at the end of twenty minutes through the small village of Aios Dhimitrios, we again enter the great plain, which contains only a few uninclosed patches of corn now just above ground. Palama remains at a distance of two or three miles on the right, near the Fersaliti, which between Palama and Vlokho is joined by the branch formed by the junction of the Vrysia, or proper Apidanus, with the tributary which issues from the mountains of Agrafa below Smokovo, and flows by Sofadhes. In an hour, menzil pace, from Vlokho we arrive at Petrino, a village belonging to Mehmet Bey of Larissa, who supplies the seed-corn, and takes half the crop after the deduction of the dhekatia. The peasants say here that the labourers on Aly Pasha’s tjiftliks are in better condition than those on the farms of the Beys of Larissa: it is nevertheless observable, that the cottages of the latter have a greater appearance of neatness and comfort. The Vezir may have been obliged to offer some advantages in order to attract cultivators. But Μας έχάλασε η Αλβανητια—“ Albania has ruined us”—is the cry here as in other parts of Thessaly.

§ 4.325 So many of its hungry plunderers have been introduced into these plains by Aly and his sons, that few places are so sequestered as to be beyond the reach of their visits; and they devour at least the provisions of the poor peasantry, if they carry their extortion no farther. Honey is one of the chief productions of Petrino, as in many of the Thessalian villages; but the seasons of late are said to have been unpropitious to it. The usual crop is three new hives from each old one. The bees are lodged in a square inclosure of the ordinary masonry of the Thessalian plains: that is to say, bricks baked in the sun. Upon the interior walls of this inclosure three stories of square niches are formed, within which the bees form their combs exposed on one side to the air. In the winter the hives from which the honey is not taken are protected from the weather by a small piece of woollen cloth hung before them. The master of the house in which I lodge, who asserts that he is, and is believed by his neighbours to be, 100 years of age, learned from his father that in the younger days of the latter, there was no church in any village for many miles round Petrino; and that on a Sunday the Greek women were in the habit of coming in arabas (waggons) to an ancient church at this place which still exists; there is no appearance of a mosque having ever been built here; whereas in many of the neighbouring villages, some of which have now churches,

§ 4.326 the minarets are still standing, though the mosques are ruined, the only inhabitants of those villages at present being Greek labourers. Petrino was the site of a large ancient town, as appears by the traces of walls which include a space of near two miles in circumference, bounded on three sides by rocky eminences, the lowest of the heights before mentioned, which extend to the Pharsalia;, the Crannonia, and the Peneius. On the fourth side the walls crossed the plain along the edge of some low marshy ground. Here columns have been found and inscribed stones: one of the latter, which is said to have existed a few years ago in the wall of the church, is no longer to be seen there, but some of the columns are still preserved in the portico; they are small, and bear no marks of the more flourishing periods of Greece, nor in the remains of the ancient walls is there any appearance of the beautiful masonry of those ages. Behind the church there is a small ruin with a vault and arched entrance which looks like Roman work. It is not improbable that Petrino is the site of Phyllus, noted for its temple of Apollo Phylleius. Dec. 7.—From Petrino to Fersala, a distance of six hours. We begin by following the foot of the heights of Petrino for an hour to Misalari, leaving Kutzolari in the plain three miles to the right beyond the Fersaliti: from Misalari we cross a part of the plain to the south-western point of the hill called Mavro-vuni, where we arrive at the end of two hours, having left Tekeli at the foot of the eights two miles oil the left. Mavrovuni is the

§ 4.327 highest point of the range of hills which stretch from the Peneius to the Crannonian plain, and terminates those hills to the S.E. It is connected with them only by a low ridge on the northwestern side, and in every other direction rises steep and rocky from the plain. Its broad round summit is surrounded by remains of Hellenic walls of a rough kind. All the most remarkable heights of Thessaly appear to have been similarly occupied at a period when the country was doubtless in the same state of insecurity as when the hills of England were fortified in a manner, differing only from these in the greater barbarism of the plan and construction. Such probably continued to be the state of Thessaly until after the Trojan war; for Homer makes no mention of Pharsalus, Crannon, Arne, Scotussa, Pelinnaion, and many other towns which became afterwards the leading cities of this province, attracted the inhabitants of the comae into their walls, and helped to civilize the country. We halt at noon in the small village of Orfana, situated half an hour beyond the extreme southern foot of Mavrovuni. Orfana, Misalari, Tekeli, Hadjo-bashi, and several other neighbouring villages, were formerly inhabited by Koniaridhes, whose ruined mosques still remain in many of them, though no Turks now remain; the lands have become Turkish tjiftliks, and the villages are inhabited by Greek metayers, or labourers. Many of them belong to the Mollalik, a part of the district of Larissa, so called because the tithe is assigned to the support of the Molla of Larissa.

§ 4.328 Proceeding from Orfana, we leave Laspo-khori (mud village), around which are rice-grounds, a mile on the right, and crossing the Enipeus pass along the foot of a rocky height, rising from the left bank of the river opposite to Hadjo-bashi. A few quadrangular blocks of Hellenic fabric are still preserved amidst the ruins; and these, with the position on the bank of the river, on a height rising like an island out of the plain, are sufficient to mark it for the site of one of the ancient Thessalian towns. Having passed between one extremity of the ruined walls and the bank of the river, we cross the plain to Fersala, passing by Bidjilar and some smaller villages. Except in the vicinity of these the plain is all in pasture, where numerous sheep are now feeding, marked with the initials of the owners’ names in Greek letters.

§ 4.329 CHAPTER 40 PHTHIOTIS, MAGNESIA. DEC. 10.—The road from Fersala to Armyro ascends the Zygos, or neck on the south-eastern side of Fersala, which unites the hill of the citadel with the neighbouring heights, and then enters an elevated valley lying between those heights and the parallel lower ridges bordering the plain, of which the citadel is one, and a remarkable rocky projection to the eastward of the ruins of Pharsalus another. At the end of a quarter of an hour from Fersala vestiges of Hellenic walls occur, surrounding a height which declines towards that rocky mountain. These remains, which are of a more ancient style of masonry than the greater part of those of Pharsalus, belonged evidently to a fortress, placed in advance of the acropolis for its better defence on

§ 4.330 the side of the pass leading to it from the eastward. Fifty minutes farther we pass lower Tjaterli, a small Turkish village in the midst of the elevated valley which we have been following. To the right are the mountains, into which Caesar tells us that the defeated Pompeians fled after the battle of Pharsalus, and which extend from hence to Mount Othrys, Zituni, and Dhomoko. To the left the heights fall rapidly to the vale of the Enipeus, where that river is joined by a small tributary which crosses our road a little westward of lower Tjaterli. On its right bank, where it issues from the mountain, about three miles to the right of our road, stands upper Tjaterli, and two miles beyond it in the same direction, a Turkish tekieh, or college of dervises, adorned with cypresses and gardens. To the left, in the valley of the Enipeus, is seen the village of AzerbU not far to the right of the road from Fersala to Larissa. Proceeding over a fertile level, in some parts uncultivated and in others under the plough, we cross the Enipeus in 55 minutes from lower Tjaterli. On the adjacent height is Koklobashi, above which village the river flows rapidly through narrow ravines from its sources, which are around Gura, a large village in a very lofty situation on the western side of the summit of Othrys.

§ 4.331 On the heights just before we descended to the river, the fields for a considerable space were strewn with the remains of ancient constructions, and other indications of the site of an ancient town. After crossing the Enipeus, our road ascends between two hills, and leaves, at a distance of about five miles to the right, a lofty insulated height rising from the left bank of the river, and commanding to the eastward a prospect of the plain of Armyro and the gulf of Volo. The summit of the hill is surrounded by remains of Hellenic walls, and at the foot of it, is the small village of Keuzlar' on the river's bank. At the end of an hour and a quarter from the crossing of the Enipeus, we arrive at Ghidek, a small Turkish village situated exactly at the summit of the pass, between the two hills abovementioned. At the foot of that to the left, on the edge of the great valley through which the Enipeus flows to the Pharsalian plain, is Ineli, and on the height above it, the remains of an ancient fortress. The rocks hereabout are a soft sandy stone, of the same dark colour as the soil, but veined with white marble. Sunday being marketday at Armyro, the men are almost all absent from Ghidek, and the women therefore shut themselves up as we approach; we are obliged however to halt for the sake of our cattle, and then continue in two hours and a half to Armyro by a brisk walk, our horses being of the menzil and the road good, leading first by a gentle slope from the pass down into the plain, and then across the level by a rotable track. At 40 minutes from Ghidek, on the beginning of the descent from the pass, we traverse the site of an ancient town, marked not

§ 4.332 only by many stones and fragments of pottery scattered among the cornfields, but by the vestiges also of the walls of a citadel surrounding a circular height in the centre of the other remains. The masonry consists of large blocks put together without mortar, but not in regular courses, nor are they exactly joined, as in finished specimens of the second order. The situation near the entrance of a pass is well suited to the name of Phylace, which town having stood between Pharsalus and Phthiotic Thebes seems to have been nearly in the line of our road, and having been one of the places whose people followed Protesilaus to Troy, was probably on the eastern side of the mountains, being that on which the other towns of Protesilaus were situated.. The position commands a fine view of the plain anciently named Crocium, or Crocotum, and which is well described by Strabo as lying at the foot of Mount Othrys. Beyond the plain is seen the Pagasetic gulf, with the snowy summit of Mount Pelium on the left. At the end of two hours from Ghidek we cross a bridge near Karadanli, a village situated on a height above the left bank of a large stream which has its origin near Gura and receives the waters of the northern side of Mount Othrys.

§ 4.333 It is called Kholo, or Kholo-rema. In its course through the plain it is shaded in many places by plane-trees. Our road had touched upon its banks during the last half hour preceding our arrival at the bridge by which we crossed it. Near the town of Armyro the road passes through a wood of hawthorns and oaks, of which latter there are many also beyond the town towards the sea. Almyro, or Armyro, called Ermer by the Turks, is the name of a district which comprehends fifteen or twenty villages, situated in the Crocian plain, or on the adjacent heights to the north and west, as far as Ghidek. Mount Othrys itself is comprehended in another sub-district of Trikkala, named Kokus, which, however, does not include Gura, the largest place on the mountain. The Crocian plain, which consists of a dark red soil, produces corn in the upper parts, and tobacco and cotton in the lower where the necessary irrigation is easily obtained from the rivers. Kirtzini, the chief place of Armyro, more commonly known by the name of the district, contains 300 houses, and is situated in the plain three miles from the sea, near the left bank of a small stream which originates on the northern side of the mountain of Gura. The town is dispersed over a large space, great part of which is occupied by plantations of tobacco. All the houses and adjacent lands are the property of Turks, but fifty of the houses are let to Greek εργάταις, who besides cultivating the lands, breed silk-worms,

§ 4.334 spin cotton, and weave it into coarse bukhasns. Most of these Greeks are strangers, who upon the ruin of their villages have here sought a livelihood, the land being productive, and the contributions not particularly heavy. Some of them hire the tobacco fields and cultivate the plants on their own account, the women being chiefly employed in this labour. Fifty piastres is a common rent for a house, or rather a hut of a single story, floored with earth and open to the tiles. The woman of the house in which I am lodged has this year paid the kharatj of the four male adults of the family, amounting to 40 piastres, from the produce of about an acre of tobacco. In the cultivation of corn the Greeks find every thing but the seed, and take half the crop, after the deduction of a tenth for the miri. The Turks of Armyro depend upon the Trikeriotes for the fish they consume, which costs them from 15 to 30 paras the oke. Mutton is 24 paras; beef is not used, both Turks and Greeks here having a dislike to it. The Turks say the ox ought not to be killed, because he works the ground and furnishes us with bread. Wood costs only 15 paras an assload. Wheat is 45 piastres the kilo of 150 okes, which is the ordinary measure of Thessaly, and is in Turkish called kara kilo. Its subdivisions are as follow:—a vidura, 9 okes; a litjek, 2 vidures; a modi, 4 litjeks; a kara kilo, 2 modis. Dhiminio, or spring corn, is grown in the lands of the mountain villages, Gura, Kufus, and Kokotus; it is sown in March and April. In the plain two sorts of wheat are grown called Devedεsh (camel’s tooth)

§ 4.335 and Arnaut (Albanian), which latter is the same kind of hard corn general in Larissa and Trikkala, and weighs 23 or 24 okes the Stambul kilo, of which 22 okes is considered the average capacity. Cattle are fed in the winter with straw, with the kind of vetch called rovi, and with bambako-sporo, or cotton seed. These grains are supposed to be nourishing because they are sweet and make the cattle drink plentifully. Vely Pasha has bought the mukata of Armyro for five years; the district pays him 150 purses a year, and 50 purses a year to Aly Pasha, besides accounting to Vely for the kharatj, and supporting some local expences. The gumruk, or custom-house of Armyro, and of all the other places on the gulf is dependent on that of Volo. The imports are chiefly iron, copper, cloth, and various articles of furniture, dress, and household utensils, made at Constantinople. The purchase of corn is a monopoly of the Porte and none can, according to its decrees, be embarked from Thessaly without an especial permission: the traffic however has always been carried on clandestinely, and Aly has even made it legitimate, by establishing, of his own authority, collectors at Armyro, Zituni, Salona, Talanda, and other principal places on the coast, who not only give permission to export but levy on his account 30 paras the kilo upon corn, and 2 paras the oke upon other exported produce, such as tobacco, pulse, ac. He has lately attempted by means of an agent at Volo to follow the same practice there, but the Turkish collector, supported from Constantinople, has as yet been able to resist him.

§ 4.336 Dec. 11.—At a distance of 50 minutes to the south of Kirtzini, the north-eastern extremity of Mount Othrys is separated only by a portion of the Crocian plain, about two miles in breadth, from a bay in the middle of the western side of the gulf of Volo, which is sheltered by a promontory on every side but the north. The mountain terminates in a projection of calcareous rock, at the foot of which issues a source of water in such abundance as to turn a mill, and irrigate a large extent of cotton plantations before it arrives at the sea. The place is called Kefalosi. A Hellenic citadel occupied the summit of the projecting height and remains of walls are seen also on the northern slope of the hill, having short flanks at intervals, and formed of masonry which although massive is not so accurately united as we generally find it in the southern provinces of Greece. The walls may be traced also on the descent to the south-east, and seem to have been united at the foot of the hill to a quadrangular inclosure situated entirely in the plain, and of which the northern side followed the course of the stream, and the western the foot of the height. The walls of this lower inclosure are nine feet and a half thick, are flanked with towers, and their masonry, wherever traceable, is of the most accurate and regular kind; two or three courses of it still exist in some places.

§ 4.337 The inclosed space, although thickly strewn with stones, the foundations of buildings and broken pottery, is now sown with corn. The ruins are probably those of Alus, or Halus, for Strabo describes Alus as being near the sea, which is confirmed by other authorities, and as situated at the extremity of Mount Othrys, above the plain Crocium, of which the part around Alus was called Athamantium, from Athamas, the founder of Alus.

§ 4.337 It follows that the river on the northern side of the ruins was the celebrated Amphrysus, Strabo having described that river as flowing along the walls of Alus. It does not indeed so well accord with his remark in another place, that the Amphrysus flows through the Crocian plain, the sources of the river being very near the walls, as well as near the extremity of the plain, and the whole course of the river being only two or three miles in length. But these may be no more than the natural inaccuracies of a geographer who writes from the information of others. It may be thought, perhaps, a greater objection to so famous a river, that the sources at Kefalosi are said sometimes to fail entirely in summer. Beyond the ruins the valley of Siurpi branches from the plain of Armyro to the south-east, being included between Mount Othrys and a range of hills which border the western side of the entrance into the gulf of Volo. Siurpi, distant an hour and a quarter from Kefalosi, stands at the foot of these hills, to the northward of the highest summit,, which is of a conical shape, and called Khlimo. A small stream waters the valley, which bears corn, cotton, and mulberry trees, for silk. On the side of Othrys, opposite to Siurpi, stands a monastery of St. Nicolas, beautifully situated amidst trees and running water, and a little higher up is another more ancient, dedicated to the Panaghia, sumamed ξένια (the hospitable) and celebrated for a painting of the Virgin by St. Luke. Siurpi belongs to the voivodalik of Kokus, which comprehends the Christian towns of Platano, containing

§ 4.339 650 families, Kufus 120, Siurpi 120, Kokotus 60, Ftelio 60, and several other smaller villages, all on or near Mount Othrys. Sesklo and Portaria, near Volo, are also comprised in the same Mukata. Platano has lately increased in size, and Portaria, being situated on Mount Pelium, shares the security of that retired position; all the rest have declined rapidly of late years, so as to leave a fourth of the houses empty or ruined. The revenues of the district of Kokus are farmed by Aly Pasha for 120 purses a year. Tahir Bey, son of Khotad Bey of Arghyro-kastro, is his deputy, and resides at Platano, which is situated three miles to the south-west of Kirtzini, on the foot of Mount Othrys. Tahir receives 15 purses a year from that village, which is at a farther expence of about 12 purses a year for the expences of his household. Kufus and Kokotus are on the eastern side of the mountain above the valley of Siurpi, but were not in sight from any part of our road. Siurpi furnishes an example of the ordinary process by which Greek villages are in a few years reduced from a comparatively flourishing state to misery, and often to complete desertion or are converted from Eleftherokhoria into Turkish tjiftliks. Having formerly had the same population as Platano, Siurpi continues to be rated in some articles to the same proportion of the contributions of Kokus as Platano, though the latter now contains five or six times as many families as Siurpi. The Zabit of Siurpi, an Arghyrokastrite, and deputy of Tahir Aga has just received his chief's order, to carry

§ 4.340 this day to Platano 6,000 piastres for the χρεη of the village, but has been unable to collect, with all his diligence, more than 2,000. The kharatj in particular is most onerous to such a diminished population, though upon this sub-district and the kaza of Zituni, it is light compared with that of the districts of Larissa and Trikkala, shewing that the non-Musulman population of the two latter has undergone great diminution since the capitation was established. Siurpi has already contracted a debt of 300 purses, the greater part of it bearing an interest of 12 per cent. In such cases the creditors are usually Albanians, or Turks of Larissa, who when they come to receive their yearly interest, quarter upon the village until the money is forthcoming; and as it seldom is ready, the produce of the people’s labour is thus consumed, and their misery increased without any diminution of the debt. The persons sent to collect the taxes, devour the villages in the same manner. Hence families retire, leaving the remainder in increased difficulty, which at last forces them to commute with their creditors in kind. At Siurpi the next step will probably be, that Αly or one of his sons will take the debt of the village upon himself, on condition of its becoming his tjiftlik, and will then compound with the creditors at an easy rate to himself. Most of the Greeks who retire from this part of the country settle in the districts of Pergamus, Smyrna, or Magnesia, under the mild government of the family of Kara Osman Oglu.

§ 4.341 A church at Siurpi contains a sepulchral stele, representing in a very rudely sculptured relief, a man and woman joining their right hands; over the man’s head is engraved his name Eubiotus, and in a higher compartment of the stone, that of “Aristobule, daughter of Menandrus,” followed by the formula χρηστά χαιρε shewing that to her the monument was constructed, while the figures in relief indicate that she was the wife of Eubiotus. The stele terminates above in the very common form of a pediment, within which is the name of Nicarcha, daughter of Eubiotus, which seems to have been a subsequent addition to the memorial. Dec. 12.—Pteleo, or Ftelio, which is an hour and a half distant from Siurpi, is in a state equally deplorable; the debt of the village amounts to 160 purses, and this year, not having been able to pay the interest at all, the people are become mere labourers for their creditors. In addition to other causes of poverty the season has been unfavourable. The village stands on the southern side of Mount Khlimo, among the rugged but fertile falls of the mountain which terminates below in the bay of Ftelio, a beautiful inlet sheltered from all winds eand having a sandy bottom, shelving sides, and a depth in the middle of thirty orghyes. It was formerly frequented by French ships, and afterwards by the Greek islanders, chiefly for firewood, which was carried from hence to Alexandria, but the adjacent mountains are now almost exhausted. As Pliny notices Pteleum only as a

§ 4.342 forest, the town seems never to have recovered its destruction by the consul Licinius in the year 171 B.C. The lands of Ftelio, on the shore of the bay, and adjacent heights, produce corn, wine, and mulberry trees, with a little cotton. There are also a few tobacco plantations attached to the houses of the village. A brook descends on one side of it from Mount Khlimo, and joins the sea near a large marsh, eastward of which a high peaked hill is crowned by the remains of a town and castle of the middle ages, called Old Ftelio. There can be little doubt that it stands on the site of the ancient Pteleum, though I search in vain among the ruins for any decisive marks of Hellenic antiquity. In the more flourishing ages of Greece, the marsh was probably (at least at certain times of the year) a rich and productive meadow, and hence the epithet which Homer has applied to Pteleus. The summit of the castle commands a view of the entrance into the gulf of Volo. At three-fifths of the distance from Old Ftelio to Khamako, which is a ride of two hours, we arrive at the inner extremity of the Bay of Ftelio, where, among the ruins of a church situated in a little grove of trees, are several fragments of small

§ 4.343 columns and stones of ancient workmanship, some of which are of white marble. An adjacent peninsula formed by the sea on two sides, and a marsh on the third, is covered with ruins of the same kind as those at Paled Ftelio. The peninsula is known by the name of Panaghia, from the ruins of a church in which I find a large sepulchral stone in memory of Phylica, the daughter of Eubiotus the patronymic Εύβιότεια being employed instead of the ordinary form Εύβιότου, or that in which the same name occurs on the monument at Siurpi, which appears by the style of sculpture as well as by the form of the letters to be not earlier than the Antonines. As the use of the patronymic appears from a variety of examples in Thessaly to have accompanied the Aeolic dialect, which ceased probably at the Roman conquest, there is in this case a difference of three or four centuries between the two monuments; and they furnish a curious instance of that locality of names which is observable as well in the ancient authors as in lapidary inscriptions. From the isthmus of Panaghia the road ascends the heights for two or three miles over uncultivated ground covered with mastic, prinokokki, and small olive-leaved ilex, here called thilika (female): exactly at the summit stands Khamako, now containing only thirty or forty families who live in poor cottagee; while the larger houses are empty and falling to ruin. Khamako belongs to the Ermer kazasi, or Turkish district of Armyro.

§ 4.344 Like the villages of Kokus, it is an eleftherokhori, or village inhabited by Greeks who cultivate their own lands; but it has declined of late years more even than the greater part of those villages, having suffered more than any of them from the robbers, who frequent Mount Othrys, or from their opponents. The soil around Khamako consists chiefly of that mould of a deep red colour which both in Greece and Asia Minor is considered poor. The people seem to have given up all hope of an amendment in their situation, and despair of being able to avoid the necessity of abandoning the village. The places which are at present in the best condition in this part of Greece are Gardhiki, the next village to Khamako westward, and Xerokhori in Euboea. The latter produces corn, cotton, and silk, and fabricates shirts and drawers made of a mixture of silk and cotton, which are as fine but not so lasting as those of the Islands. It is an eleftherokhori, and being included in the district of Livadhia, enjoys some protection as being an imperial appanage, though, like Livadhia, it partially acknowledges the authority of Aly Pasha, and makes him an annual present. In general the Christians of Euboea re-echo the exclamation of εχαλασθηκαμεν avo την Αρβανητιαν, though Albanian encroachment has not proceeded exactly in the same manner in that island as in Thessaly. The Albanians of whom they complain, are the Subashis of the villages, who are often from parts of Albania opposed in politics to Aly.

§ 4.345 Having raised a little money in the service of some great Turk in Barbary, Egypt, Syria, or perhaps in the service of the Pasha himself, the Albanian offers to some Turk of Egripo to form the revenue of one or more of his villages,—if a Spahilik, entitling him to the tithe, so much the better. The Shkipetar then resides at the village, lends money at a high rate of interest to the peasants; and if these, as generally happens, are unable to pay it regularly, he takes their share of the produce at a low valuation, and reduces them at length to the condition of mere slaves. Sometimes an Albanian will set out upon this speculation without any capital, by borrowing money from Jew Serrafs of Larissa, Livadhia, or'Egripo; and so well have the Albanians established their character for fidelity to their pecuniary engagements, that they seldom meet with difficulty in raising money in this way at the ordinary interest of one per cent, per mensem. The Greek peasantry are fully sensible how ruinous it is to borrow in this manner; “but what can we do,” they say, “when we are loaded with so many demands.” As a last resource they may retire to some other part of Greece or to Asia Minor, and leave their creditors to obtain what they can out of the remaining inhabitants: in fact, this power of migration operates as some slight check to the cupidity of the Albanian who has embarked his capital in this manner, by leaving him sometimes without cultivators. The Albanians and Turks of Euboea are much complained of by the Greeks for obliging them when they land in the island to take a kharatj certificate at two piastres and a half, whether they have paid the year’s poll-tax elsewhere or not.

§ 4.346 Dec. 13.—The heights behind Khamako, and particularly a point between two or three miles to the westward of this village, command a beautiful view of the fretum Euboicum, and of all the northern side of the island, as well as of the strait of Trikeri and part of the gulf of Volo. The bay of Talanda and Mount Khlomo behind that town are seen over the narrow isthmus which connects the peninsula of Cenaeum, now called Lithadha, with the rest of Euboea. Immediately to the westward of the heights of Khamako are the broad valley and bay of Gardhiki, beyond which appears the point of Akhino, (the ancient Echinus,) and to the left all the southern side of the Maliac Gulf, the mouth of the Spercheius, Thermopylae, Mounts Oeta and Cnemis, and the entire promontory of Cenceum. No prospect in Greece can give a more striking impression of that diversity of varied surface and winding shores which is so marked a characteristic of this country. Between the mountains Callidromus and the proper (Eta the site of the citadel of Heracleia Trachinia is particularly conspicuous, a precipitous rock overhanging the Asopus eastward, and the plain of Trachis northward, and in which are the catacombs noticed on the 28th of November, 1805.

§ 4.347 The adjacent smaller summit also is distinguishable, similar to that on which the citadel stood, and of equal altitude. Here it was that a body of the Romans under the consul Acilius, in the year B.C. 191, having effected an ascent and gained possession of the summit, forced the Aetolians in the citadel to a capitulation. In the valley of Gardhiki, at a direct distance of five or six miles from Khamako, a height which advances in front of Mount Othrys, and overlooks the valley, was the site of Larissa Cremaste, the walls of which are very conspicuous on the western side, where several courses of the masonry remain. The town occupied the slope of the hill facing the sea, whence its epithet Oremaste as hanging on the side of Mount Othrys, and thus well distinguished from the great Larissa, situated in the midst of a plain. A torrent flows on either side of the ancient site; that to the west passes through a hamlet called the Mills, from some mills now abandoned, and then through the village of Gardhiki, where are the mills in present use, and to which the people of Khamako, having no running stream, carry their corn to be ground. In summer the water of the torrent is said to be only just sufficient to turn the mills. But there is no want of fountains in the valley of Gardhiki, which produces corn, cotton, and vines; so that Strabo’s description

§ 4.348 of Larissa Cremaste, as ένυδρος και αμπελοφυτος applies perfectly to that place, nor less so its situation to the eastward (more accurately to the S.E.) of Othrys, and its distance of twenty stades from the sea. Larissa was still a town of importance in the second century B.C. It was occupied, together with Pteleum and Antron, in the year 302 B.C., by Demetrius Poliorcetes, when he was at war with Cassander; it was taken by Apustius in the first war between Philip and the Romans, 200 B.C., and was again besieged by the Romans in the first year of the Persic war, B.C. 171, when the Consul Publius Licinius Crassus occupied it, after it had been abandoned by the inhabitants. In the coast below Khamako are two small bays, off the westernmost of which is the little island named Myonnesus by Strabo, who, by adding that it was situated between Larissa Cremaste and Antron, furnishes us a good guidance to the latter place, which is now called Fano. The road leading thither from Khamako descends a ravine, included between the heights on which Khamako is situated and the southern side of Stravovuni, a high barren mountain which separates the bay of

§ 4.349 Ftelio from the channel of Euboea. The ravine terminates at the sea in a small uninhabited valley, from which rises a quadrangular height half a mile in circumference, bordered on the side adjacent to the sea by cliffs, and surrounded by foundations of Hellenic walls constructed of regular masonry. A small tract of ploughed land around the height, covered with stones and broken pottery, seems to point out the extent of the town, to which the height served as a citadel. On the eastern side is a well of ancient workmanship, which is said never to be deficient in summer. The slopes of the mountain on every side are covered with shrubs, chiefly the wild olive and the myrtle. Antron, though it could scarcely ever have been a place of importance, is not unnoticed in history. Its purchase by Philip son of Amyntas supplied one of the numerous arguments employed by Demosthenes to alarm the Athenians; and it twice shared the fate of the two towns between which it was situated, having been taken together with them by Demetrius Poliorcetas, and again by the Consul Licinius. The hymn to Ceres, attributed to Homer, shows that deity to have been the protectress of Antron, and the epithet πετρύεις, there applied to Antron, is not less appropriate than that of αγχίαλος in the

§ 4.350 Iliad. They were perhaps more so than the poet imagined; for Antron seems to have been indebted for its long existence in so poor a territory to its maritime situation and the composition of its rocks: the latter having been noted for supplying excellent mill-stones, of which the traffic was promoted by the position of the place at the entrance of one of the most commodious points of communication on the Eastern coast of Greece. Fano lies exactly opposite to the cape in Euboea which forms the western side of the bay of Oreos, and is between three and four miles distant from Fano. Off that cape is a small island surmounted by a ruined church of Παναγία νησιωτισσα, between which and Fano, at one-third of the distance from the former, is the ερμα ύφαλον, or sunken rock which was called the Όνος Άντρωνος, in times when these seas were much better known than they are at present. One of the primates of Khamako, who accompanied me to Fano, was upon the Onos this summer in a boat, and describes it as a small rock upon which there were three σπιθαμάδες, or palms of water, below the bottom of the boat. Όνος Avτρώνος is not to be interpreted the ass, but the

§ 4.351 mill-stone of Antron, in allusion to the staple production of that town; and assuredly, if the rock is correctly described by Strabo, and my Khainakiote guide, it is admirably placed for catching an unfortunate ship and grinding it to pieces. The description which Strabo has given of Antron, Myonnesus, and the sunken rock, is a remarkable example of the occasional accuracy of his information on the coasts of Greece; and which is often a contrast to that regarding the interior of the country. The difference is to be attributed undoubtedly to the authorities which he followed; for although he was an extensive traveller, he seems not to have examined any country much in detail, and least of all Greece, where he generally refers to the information of others. There were probably many accurate peripli extant in his time for the use of navigation, but scarcely any perfect descriptions of the interior of this country. The eastern extremity of Mount Stravovuni, which forms one of the promontories at the entrance into the Gulf of Volo, appears to be the Zelasium of Livy, where the ships of Attalus and the Rhodii were stationed to intercept the Macedonian fleet at Demetrias, in the case of its attempting to sail out of the Gulf for the purpose of relieving the garrison of Oreus, which was then besieged by Attalus himself and by the Romans under Apustius.

§ 4.352 The district in which Zelasium was situated was called Isthmia—a name well adapted to the peninsula on the southern side of the Gulf of Ftelio, which terminates westward in the peak of Stravovuni. The allied fleet was stationed perhaps behind the island of Arghyronisi, which is near Cape Stavros; and it is not unlikely that there was a town or fortress on that part of the coast called Zelasium, as it seldom happened that a remarkable promontory or harbour had not also a fortress of the same name near it. The plain of Histiaea or Euboea, which adjoins the bay of Oreos, is perfectly seen from Fano, extending several miles inland. Towards the eastern extremity of the plain is the large village of Xerokhori, and nearer the sea, at the western end of the bay, that of Oreos, where a paleokastro surrounding a hill marks the site of the ancient Oreus or Histiaea. We return from Fano to Ftelio, leaving Khamako on the left, and crossing its ploughed lands upon the south-western side of Stravovuni. The wheat and barley are just springing up: the soil is of a deep red colour like that adjacent to the village. The plough is not at all different from that of Acarnania, and the denominations of the several parts of it are the same. After having passed Khamuko we descend directly upon the peninsula of Panaghia, at the head of the bay of Pteleum, and return to Ftelio. The contests between the thieves and the Dervent-Aga have contributed greatly to the ruin of this formerly flourishing angle of Thessaly. Kufus, which occupies a lofty situation in Mount Othrys,

§ 4.353 and subsists only by its vineyards, and the agoghi or employment of its inhabitants and cattle in carrying men and merchandize about the country, is at once the most exposed to the robbers, and the least able by its resources to support the damage. When the thieves intend to attack a village, they usually take up a commanding position near it, from whence they send a letter to the Hodja-bashi, beginning probably with “My dear President,” and inviting him to come and settle accounts with them. His answer most commonly is flight, in which he is followed by the principal inhabitants; when the robbers, no longer fearing any resistance, enter the village, burn a few houses, massacre the cattle, and carry off some of the women and children who have not had time to escape, making choice of those whose release promises the highest ransom. The consequence is, that the villages in the neighbourhood of the haunts of the robbers generally find themselves under the necessity of satisfying their demands, and keeping on good terms with them. This, on the other hand, subjects them to the vengeance of the Dervent-Aga, who imprisons their primates at Ioannina, and sends Albanians to quarter upon them. The greater part of the armatoli employed against the thieves by the districts adjoining Mount Othrys, namely, Zituni, Kokus and Armyro, and the same may be said of every other part of Greece infested by robbers, have themselves followed the same trade.

§ 4.354 If they προσκυνούν, or voluntarily make their submission, they are always favourably received at the time, although perhaps marked out for future destruction; and unless they have given particular reason to the Vezir to suspect them, they are then employed as derventlidhes. As many of them have brothers or cousins among the thieves, there is generally a secret correspondence between the two parties; and the best mode of attacking a village is often pointed out to the robbers by one of their opponents, who, entering a village for the ostensible purpose of watching the motions of the thieves, lodges in a particular house for the sole object of examining his host's property, and of devising the best mode of plundering him. He then informs the robbers when and where to lie in wait for their victim, whose pleas of inability to pay ransom are met by evidences of a perfect knowledge on the part of the robbers of all the particulars of his possessions. These instances of treachery were more common before the extension of Aly’s power, who, by obtaining the government of a large part of Greece, has greatly narrowed the field of Kleftic ingenuity. In such a mountainous country, however, and on the borders of the districts governed by him, it is impossible entirely to suppress the robbers. Nor is he perhaps very desirous of this result. Security and tranquillity might be in excess if the benefit of his own services as guardian of the roads and passes were not sufficiently manifest to the Porte. Whether it be with a secret view of this kind, or as stating a real fact, he admits his inability to reduce the Greek mountains by his own troops alone, or to keep them in a state of tranquillity but with the assistance of the inhabitants themselves.

§ 4.355 Dec. 14.—Having recrossed the ridge from Ftelio, we leave, at the descent into the valley of Siurpi, at a mile on the left, a height surrounded on three sides by a winding brook which descends from Mount Othrys by Siurpi into the Gulf. The situation of this height, and some appearance of art in the form of it, may warrant the belief that it was the station of an ancient town, perhaps Dium or Orchomenus, the inhabitants of which were prevented by Demetrius from retiring into Thebae, as Cassander had ordered, when the former, proceeding from Athens, landed at Larissa and took Antron and Pteleum. Riding through Siurpi we proceed to Kefalosi, and passing along the ancient wall halt to dine at the springs. The distance from Old Ftelio is about fourteen miles, sufficiently answering to the 110 stades placed by Artemidorus between Pteleum and Alus, and confirming, therefore, the position of the latter at Kefalosi. From the springs we continue our route through the vineyards of Kirtzini, leaving the town on the left, and in fifty minutes arrive at Tzingheli, called by the Turks Kedjel or Gkedjel, which is the skaloma or harbour of Armyro, and about three miles distant from Kirtzini. It consists only of a house for the superintendent of the Gumruk and a few cottages; but for a considerable space around, the land is strewn with stones and pottery, among which are

§ 4.356 vestiges of walls built of small rude stones mixed with Roman tiles. Other ruins of the same kind are still standing upon foundations of large quadrangular blocks, the remains apparently of a temple or other building, about thirty feet long by twenty broad. At a Turkish fountain and well a little beyond the custom-house, are some other squared stones. Leaving this place at 9.15 Turkish, we cross the plain of Armyro in a northerly direction, but gradually receding from the coast. The peasants are ploughing for wheat, but a great part of the land is uncultivated, and now serves for pasture to the flocks of some Vlakhiotes from Mount Pindus. At 10.20 we rectoss the Kholo. This river, after descending through the ravines of Othrys, enters the plain in a line with the steep insulated hill of Keuzlar, on the left bank of the Enipeus, mentioned on the 10th of December. Like many of the rivers of Greece, the Kholo has a constant stream only in the upper part of its course. Here it consists only of some stagnant pools of water, though even as low as the bridge of Karadanli, three or four miles higher up, where we crossed it on the 10th, there was still a respectable current, showing that in the interval the principal derivations are made for watering the fields of cotton and tobacco. Assuming the paleokastro at Kefalosi to have been Alus, and the river at that place the Amphrysus, the Kholo was probably the Cuarius; for it would seem from Strabo that Itonus, which was sixty stades distant from Alus, stood upon a river

§ 4.357 named Cuarius; and that interval corresponds to the general distance of the Kholo from the river of Kefalosi. As Itonus, according to the geographer, was situated above the Crocian plain, it stood probably near the spot where the river issues from the mountains. In the enumeration of the towns of Protesilaus, Iton is associated with Phylace and Pyrrhasus, both which were assuredly in the plain of Armyro or on its borders; the situation just assigned to Itonus accords, therefore, with Homer: and as Iton was in that case possessed of a portion of the pastoral highlands of Othrys, the epithet “mother of flocks” appears to have been well adapted to it. From the Kholo-rema we ascend along an almost imperceptible slope towards the hills on the northern side of the plain; and not far from the foot of them, arrive, at 11, at Ak (or white) Ketjel, in Greek KtraX, having ten minutes before left Aidin a quarter of a mile on the left. These two villages were formerly inhabited by Koniaridhes, as the names, and ruined mosques, and kules indicate: the lands and houses now belong to Turks of Armyro, but the villages are inhabited entirely by Greeks who are tenants of the fields and houses, or mere day labourers. Of the two, AkKetjel has the greater appearance of decline: the

§ 4.358 cottages are dispersed at large distances among the ruined towers, and contain only six families of metayers. These are owners of the oxen, ploughs, and other agricultural stock, and in return for the seed supply the Turk proprietor with half the crop the tithe being first deducted. They are already preparing to abandon the place, being too few in number to bear the expences of the frequent konaks to which they are exposed by lying in the road from Velestino to Armyro, which is one of the direct routes from the plains of Thessaly to Zituni and'Egripo. In the midst of the houses Vlakhiote shepherds are building mandhres or folds for their sheep with branches of trees. Such is the miserable representative of a city which, during the most civilized ages of Greece, rivalled the leading members of the Thessalian community. A height half a mile to the north-east of Ak-Ketjel, is surrounded with the ruined walls of Phthiotic Thebes, for of the identity there seems no doubt, on considering the data left to us by Polybius and Strabo. From the former we learn that the district of Thebes confined upon those of Demetrias, Pherae, and Pharsalus, that it was near the sea, and 300 stades from Larissa, and in Strabo, whose periplus of this coast I have before shewn some reason for trusting, we find the maritime places of Phthia mentioned in the following order, beginning from Phalara, near Lamia or Zituni: first Echinus (Akhino), then Larissa Cremaste (Gardhiki),

§ 4.359 the islet Myonnessus, Antron (Fano), Pteleum (Ftelio), Alus (Kefalosi), then a temple of Ceres, which was two stades distant from the ruins of Pyrasus, and 20 stades below Thebae; then the promontory Pyrrha, which was the boundary of Phthiotis, and near which were two islets, called Pyrrha and Deucalion. The same author shows that the Crocian plain lay between Alus and Thebae, whence it seems evident, assuming Kefalosi to have been Alus, that Thebae was towards the northern side of the plain, at a distance of about three miles from the sea, which exactly agrees with the Paleokastro at Akketjel. The direct distance of this point from Larissa being about 26 g. m., accords perfectly with the 300 stades of Polybius. In the burying ground of a ruined mosque at Ak-Ketzel lies an inscribed sorus, entire with its cover, and in the village church are several other inscribed stones. Two of these were dedications to Artemis; another was in memory of one Leon of Eretria, which we know from Strabo to have been a town in Phthiotis. The rest are sepulchral with names only. One of these, which seems to have been originally erected for a man

§ 4.360 named Diomedes and his wife Hellanocrateia, was afterwards reversed and inscribed with two names of men, aliens undoubtedly to the former family, which may perhaps have been extinct. Nothing was more common than such conversions, or violations of tombs or sepulchral monuments, as many epitaphs prove, containing imprecations against the violators, or stating the amount of the fines which the public chest had a right to demand from them. Derivatives of δικη seem to have been common at Phthiotic Thebes among the names of females, three of whom were Δικαιώ, Δικαιρετα, and Δικαιοβούλα. Dec. 15.—The ruins of Thebae occupy the slope of a height crowned by cliffs, which faces the east and looks down upon the northern angle of the bay of Armyro, from whence the coast turns eastward to Cape Angkistri, the ancient Pyrrha, which separates the bay of Armyro from that of Volo. The entire circuit of the walls and towers, both of the town and citadel, still exist, though in some places the foundations only are seen; in others there are a few courses of masonry. The circumference is between two and three miles. On the northern slope, a brow which overlooks a torrent flowing in narrow gorges from the hills towards Velestino, furnished an advantageous line for the walls of that front. On the south the ground was almost equally favourable to the ancient engineers,

§ 4.361 and on the lower or eastern side there is still a steep descent from the walls into the plain. The acropolis occupied a level above the rocky brow. The masonry is of the third kind, and in many parts quite regular; the thickness of the walls, as well as the form and size of the towers, are such as are generally found in that species. A little below the citadel, where the ground is very rocky, some large irregular masses were fitted to the rock as a basis to the superstructure. A few foundations of buildings are seen within the ancient inclosure, and the ground is every where strewn with stones, broken pottery, and fragments of inscribed marbles, in most of which the letters are of the form used under the Roman empire, or not much earlier. Among them was a monument lying on the ground so complete and at the same time so portable, that I was tempted to carry it away with me. It is a representation in relief of two platted locks of long hair, suspended to an entablature which is supported by two pilasters. On the architrave an inscription shows that the monument commemorated the dedication of their hair to Neptune, by Philombrotus and Aphthonetus, sons of Deinomachus, who were probably about to encounter, or had escaped from some peril by sea. The name Aphthonetus occurs again in one of the inscriptions in the church of Ak-Ketjel, and affords another example of the local prevalence of particular names, which is indeed observable in all countries.

§ 4.362 About the centre of the city stood the theatre, looking towards the sea. Its remains consist only of a small part of the exterior circular wall of the cavea. This, however, together with the shape of the ground, are sufficient to give an idea of the dimensions of the entire structure, the diameter of which appears to have been about 180 feet From the citadel I remarked, in a deep gorge of the hills, a mile and a half to the northward, the ruins of an ancient Hellenic wall, probably a defence to that approach towards the city. The existing remains of Thebae are of that degree of apparent antiquity, which accords with the notice of this city occurring in history. Like several of the leading states of Thessaly, it seems not to have existed in the Trojan war; its territory was then occupied by another town named Pyrrhasus, and even at the time of the Persian invasion it was probably an inconsiderable place, if existing at all; for Alus, which contained a celebrated temple of Jupiter Laphystius, and the antiquity of which is shown by its connection with the legend of Athamas, was then the chief town in the vicinity of the bay of Armyro, as we may infer from Herodotus, who describes the Greek army sent to defend Tempe as having landed at Alus, and Xerxes to have marched across Thessaly to the same place, in order to communicate with his fleet, which had arrived at Aphetae. Alus, in fact, possessed in the neighbouring bay the most sheltered anchorage on the western side of the gulf. At a subsequent time when maritime commerce was on a larger and more opulent scale,