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

§ 4.463 The citadel of Pharsalus is seen from a part of the ruins of Scotussa over the neck of the rocky height which I have before described as lying on the north-eastern side of Fersala. To the westward the eye enfilades and looks down upon the

§ 4.464 ridge which connects Mount Karadagh with the remarkable height near Orfana, before noticed as known by the synonymous Greek appellation of Mavrovuni. On a conspicuous point of the connecting ridge are seen the tekieh and cypresses above Tatari, on the road from Larissa to Fersala. Thereabouts the crest of the ridge may have formed the boundary between the Crannonia and Pharsalia, and a little nearer to Scotussa it may have separated the Scotusaea from the Pharsalia. The rocky crest of Mount Karadagh on either side of Gheremi, and as far as the.summits above Supli, seems to have been the scene of the battle, for here alone are any of those rocky eminences to be found which, according to Polybius, prevented the formation of the phalanx, all the ridge which separates the Pharsalian valley from the Crannonian and Scotussaean plains being a gradual, smooth, and even slope. That the battle was fought very near to Scotussa may be inferred from the words of Plutarch, though it would be difficult to discover the resemblance to the heads of dogs, which, according to the biographer, was the origin of the name Cynoscephalae. It is observable, however, that Polybius, who was probably much better acquainted with the ground than Plutarch, merely describes the ridge as “rugged, broken, and of a considerable height,” and that no very clear idea

§ 4.465 can be attached to the description of the place which Plutarch has given, either on this occasion or in his relation of the death of Pelopidas, which had conferred celebrity upon Cynoscephalae long before the Roman wars. Pelopidas had marched from Pharsalus to take possession of Cynoscephalae, when he found the position already occupied by Alexander of Pherae, who had moved thither from the nearer position of Thetidium. The Thessalians of the party of Pelopidas succeeded in dislodging the enemy, but Pelopidas was slain in the pursuit, by incautiously advancing too far in front of his army in order to engage in personal combat with the tyrant. About two miles from the ruins of Scotussa, towards Fersala, is the tjiftlik of Arnautli, which we leave on the right, and then crossing uncultivated downs covered for the most part with dwarf prinaria, arrive, at the end of one hour from the ruins, at Duvlatan, a small village of Greeks. The Turkish makhala of Duvlatan is half a mile farther to the left. From hence we cross the plain of the Enipeus in the direction of Tjangli, which lies in the road from Supli to Armyro, not much more than one hour distant

§ 4.466 from Duvlatan; but we lose our way, and wander for two hours in the dark. At length, attracted by a fire, we find some shepherds sitting round it, and desire one of them to conduct us into the road towards Tjangli, or the khan of Ineli. While he hesitates, a boy happens to speak at a little distance: “Ah!” says the shepherd, “there is the Khanji’s boy,” and makes his escape under the cover of this ready lie, leaving us to find our way as we best can. Such are the tricks which the Greeks are forced to by the Turks, who take them from their labour and often carry them and their cattle several miles without rewarding them with any thing but blows or abusive words. January 1, 1810.—Tjangli contains thirty families, and stands in the entrance of a narrow valley which leads from the plain we have just crossed into that anciently called Crocium, and to Armyro. In the walls of the church are two inscribed stones, one of which is a fragment of verses, the other a sepulchral memorial. The village stands on the eastern side of the pass, and opposite to it rises a steep rocky height around the summit, the sides and the northern slope of which are the ruined walls of an ancient city, probably Eretria Phthiotis, the place where Quinctius halted at the end of the first day's march from Pherae towards Scotussa. The hill resembles that of Pharsalus on a smaller scale, and was fortified in the same manner.

§ 4.467 A long and narrow table-summit formed the citadel, of which the lower courses of the walls still exist in their whole circuit. The town walls are still better preserved, and are extant in some parts on the eastern side to the height of 18 or 20 feet. Here also are two door-ways still perfect. On the western side are the openings of a door and gate, the former about half as large as the latter, which is 11 feet wide. There is another gateway in the lower or northern front, close to the north-western angle: on this side, where the walls were built along the foot of the slope, they are less preserved than on the others. The masonry is of the same kind as that of Pharsalus, Pheres, Scotussa, and Thebae; the courses being generally equal, and one foot and a half or two feet in height, but formed of stones ending obliquely, thus: [sketch] In some places the courses are not quite equal. The walls are in general eight feet thick; the two facings are formed of large uncemented blocks, and the middle of the wall of rough materials mixed with mortar. On the slopes the flank defence is obtained, not by a line broken into oblique angles, as in the ruins of Asterium at Vlokho, and in many other examples of the highest antiquity, but by short perpendicular flanks: on the eastern side two of these flanks are unequal, and opposed to each other, Interior. thus:

§ 4.468 In the western front the gate is placed in this manner: At the foot of the hill, to the west, stands Ineli, a hamlet of six or eight houses now deserted. Both on this side of the hill and towards Tjangli, but particularly in the latter direction, ancient foundations are apparent on the outside of the walls, whence it would seem that there were suburbs; which is the more probable, as the fortifications do not inclose a circumference of more than a mile. On the western slope of the hill, a little below the walls, are the lower courses of an oblong building, perhaps a temple. Opposite to Tjangli, on Mount Karadagh, is the village Karabairam. The road from Fersala, to Velestino continues beyond Tjangli to follow the valley between the two ridges, and at the end of half an hour passes between Irini on the foot of the Tziraghiotiko, and Aivali on the Karadagh. An hour farther it enters the pass between the two mountains in which Ondoklari is situated. From thence the distance is reckoned two hours to Velestino, descending by Kranovo, once the largest village in the district, but now ruined. From Ineli we follow the lower road from Armyro to Fersala, one hour to Ghenitzarokhori, situated opposite to Duvlatan on the

§ 4.469 heights of Karadagh. To the left of the road rises near us the mountain, which forms the northern side of the pass of Ghidek on the upper road from Fersala to Armyro: on the right is the plain which I crossed yesterday evening between Duvlatan and Tjangli. Ghenitzarokhori contains twelve or fifteen Greek families, and stands on the side of a lofty hill which rises gradually behind it, and on the other or western side falls precipitously to the Enipeus, which issues into the Pharsalian plain between this hill and another on the opposite or left bank, equally steep. The round rocky summit of the hill of Ghenitzarokhori is inclosed by the remains of walls of a remote antiquity. They are most apparent on the eastern side, and were built, like those of Tiryns, of large irregular masses, having the intervals filled with uncemented smaller stones, most of which have fallen out. The whole seems to have been nothing more than a fortress at the debouche of the river into the plains. On the summit stood a square castle of uncertain date, and indicated only by lines of small stones. From the ravine of Ghenitzarokhori the course of the Enipeus may be traced upward by the eye as far as the mountain of Gura, where are the sources of this famous river. From its left bank rises the lofty hill crowned with the ruins of an ancient fortress, which was seen from our road on the 10th December between lower Tjaterli and Ghidek, and which is conspicuous from Armyro and its vicinity. The small village of Keuzlar, as I before stated, stands at the foot of the hill.

§ 4.470 The remains are perhaps those of Melitaea, for this city stood nearly in the route from Heracleia Trachinia to Pharsalus, near the Enipeus, and at a day’s march from the Apidanus, where that river was nearest to Pharsalus. The proximity of Melitaea to the Enipeus may be inferred from Strabo, who states that the Melitaeenses pointed out the ruins of the city Hellas, on the opposite side of the Enipeus, 10 stades from their own city, which was named Pyrrha. From Thucydides the distance of Melitaea from the Apidanus may be collected. He relates, that when Brasidas marched through Thessaly, from Heracleia Trachinia to Dium in Macedonia, in the eighth year of the Peloponnesian war, his Thessalian friends from Pharsalus met him at Melitaea, and that from thence on the following day he moved to Pharsalus and encamped on the Apidanus, near that city. The hill of Ghenitzarokhori commands a view also of the elevated valley which I traversed between Pharsalus and the Enipeus going to Armyro. The branch of that river which we crossed a little to the west of Kato Tjaterli flows from an opening between the high round mountain behind Fersala and the range of hills at the foot of which stands upper Tjaterli; from lower Tjaterli it flows by Derengli to the Enipeus. One of the roads from Fersala to Zituni follows the ravine of this tributary of the Enipeus, and in an hour and a half from upper Tjaterli reaches Tjeutma, a Turkish

§ 4.471 town with three makhalas, where on the root of the mountain are the walls of an ancient city, of the same dimensions as that at Tjangli. From Tjeutma a plain extends to the lake of Taukli, the ancient Xynias, and to the derveni leading to Zituni. The ruins at Tjeutma may have been Erineium, or Coroneia, I am more inclined to think the latter city, as it would seem to have been the more important of the two, being noticed by Ptolemy and Stephanus as well as by Strabo, whereas Erineium does not occur in any author but the last. Possibly the remains on the left bank of the Enipeus near Koklobashi, may be those of Erineium. It was probably by the pass of Tjaterli that Agesilaus, proceeding from Asia into Greece a little before the battle of Coroneia in Boeotia, in the year B.C. 394, crossed the mountains of Achaia Phthiotis, after having made his way through the Thessalian plains, in defiance of the Larissaei, Crannonii, Scotussaei, and Pharsalii, through whose districts he passed, and who with the Thessalians in general were allied with the Boeotians against him. He not only conducted his infantry safely through the plains in a square body, but at length defeated the renowned Thessalian cavalry, and slew the leader of the Pharsalii. This action occurred probably in the valley of the Enipeus, not far from the mountains, as the defeated Thessalians

§ 4.472 fled into Mount Narthacium, in some part of which Agesilaus, halting after the action, set op a trophy between the town Narthacium and another place named Pras. The next day he crossed the mountains of Achaia Phthiotis, and from thence had none but friendly territories to traverse in his progress into Boeotia. It seems from this transaction, that Narthadum was the mountain which rises immediately to the southward of Fersala. Pras would seem to have been near lower Tjaterli, and Narthadum on the mountain not far from upper Tjaterli. Leaving Ghenitzarokhori at 8 Turkish, we descend the hill, and in ten minutes cross the Enipeus, which is here a wide torrent, often very formidable in winter, and sometimes quite dry in summer. The road then follows the foot of the hills for 35 minutes to Derengli, the Enipeus flowing along the middle of the valley a mile on our right. Derengli is on a root of the heights which we have coasted, a mile short of it we crossed the neck of a low tabular projection advancing to the river side; it is now cultivated, but among the arable some indications of an ancient site are visible, such as large blocks, and smaller stones scattered about the ground.

§ 4.473 It may be the site perhaps of a frontier fortress of the Pharsalii. As to Thetidium, where the proconsul Quinctius encamped at the end of the second march from Pherae toward Scotussa, it was probably at or near Magula, on the opposite side of the Enipeus, that situation being in the plain, and not far from the frontiers of the Pharsalia and Scotussata, as the Roman camp appears from the historian to have been. The march of Philip from his camp, near the site of Rizomylo, seems to have led on the first day by the position of Ghereli to the river beyond that place, which is thus identified with the Onchestus. Dederiani at the sources of the same river was perhaps the site of Melambium, for it seems evident from Polybius, and particularly from the word περιηιι, to have been Philip's intention to make a circuit round the northern summits of the mountain to Scotussa, when the fog having obliged him to halt, he sent an advanced body to secure the heights between his camp and Scotussa, not doubting that the enemy was in that direction, and was at length obliged to follow the same route with his whole phalanx;

§ 4.474 Beyond Derengli we follow the foot of the mountain for three miles, when the atmosphere, which had been nearly in the same state as on the morning of the battle of Cynoscephale, suddenly clearing, shows the magnificent rocks of the Meteora or Aeginium very distinctly in front of us, though distant not less than fifty miles. The fair weather, after having lasted three or four days, had ended yesterday evening in clouds, and this morning a little snow fell with a light northerly wind. Such a change in winter generally produces the clearest atmosphere. A line of N. 44 W. S. 44 E. will cut the rocks of Aeginium, the hill of Asterium or Vlokho, the western end of Mavrovfini near Orfana, the road from Fersala to Velestino, one hour east of Fersala, where the observation was made, and the pass of Tjangli or Eretria, leading out of the valley of the Enipeus into the Crocian plain, or that of Armyro. Having crossed the root of the rocky height, which borders the site of Pharsalus on the east, we enter the town of Fersala at 10.35, having halted ten minutes on the road from Derengli.

§ 4.475 CHAPTER 43 THESSALIA. To the traveller who takes an interest in the illustration of history, (and to all others Greece will afford but a barren field,) there are few points in the whole country more worthy of a visit than the acropolis of Pharsalus. From hence may be traced a great part of the marches through Thessaly, of Xerxes, of Brasidas, and of Agesilaus, as well as many of the movements of the armies of Rome and her opponents in the Macedonian wars. At a short distance are the scenes of two of the greatest events in ancient history; by the former of which a Roman army more than half achieved the conquest of Greece, and by the latter extinguished the [476 republic of Rome. Of this great event the field lies immediately below the spectator.

§ 4.476 Caesar relates, that after his failure against Pompey at Dyrrhachium, both parties came to the resolution of marching into Macedonia, where divisions of their respective armies under Calvinus and Scipio had been opposed to each other on the Haliacmon, their purpose being exactly, the same, namely, that of giving succour to their friends or of cutting off the hostile forces as circumstances might determine. But Caesar being at Apollonia was farther removed than his adversary from the direct route by Candavia, for which and other reasons he resolved to march through Epirus into Thessaly. The exaggerated accounts spread through the country of Pompey’s victory had created a feeling which prevented any communication between Caesar and Calvinus by messengers, so that when Caesar was marching through Epirus and Athamania to ASginium, Calvinus, who had quitted his position on the Haliacmon for the sake of obtaining provisions, and had arrived at Heracleia of Pelagonia (or Lyncestis ), there fell exactly into the track which Pompey was pursuing, after having crossed the Candavia. By great good fortune, however, Calvinus received advice of the occurrences in Illyria, and of the route taken by Caesar, just in time to avoid the danger, when marching without delay to the southward he met Caesar at Aeginium. The situations of Apollonia, Aeginium, and Heracleia of Lyncestis, being certain,

§ 4.477 the march of Caesar was evidently through the valleys of the Dryno and Ioannina, and by the Metzovo pass to Stagus; Calvinus, who was near Filurina, may be supposed to have directed his movement upon the same point, through Anaselitza and Grevena. After this fortunate reunion of his forces, Caesar took Gomphi by assault, and gave it up to plunder; then marched to Metropolis which capitulated on hearing of the fate of Gomphi, and from thence proceeded into the Pharsalia, where he encamped in a place abounding in corn which was then nearly ripe. A few days afterwards, Pompey and Scipio, who had effected their junction at Larissa, arrived at Pharsalus, and established theiyr camp on some neighbouring heights. After having gathered in the corn and allowed sufficient time for repose, Caesar endeavoured to make up for his great inferiority in cavalry by constantly exercising it, and often skirmishing with the enemy, and at length, as well with the view of obtaining new supplies as with the hope of drawing Pompey from the foot of the hills where his army was posted, he determined frequently to change the position of his whole army, in order to fatigue his adversary, and trusting that he should at last be able to seize some favourable opportunity for attacking the enemy.

§ 4.478 Scarcely had he struck his tents for this purpose, when finding that the Pompeians had advanced farther than usual into the plain, he instantly perceived that the moment for engaging had arrived. Pompey also, as Caesar afterwards learnt, had come to the same resolution. The former had 45,000 men, besides 3000 left in charge of the camp and fortresses: Caesar had only 22,000 men in position. The right of Pompey being well protected by a river which had precipitous banks, he placed his cavalry, which amounted to 7000, as well as all his archers and slingers, on the left. Caesar headed the tenth legion on the right, opposite to Pompey, and in order to prevent his right from being turned by the adverse cavalry, he selected from the third line six cohorts, and placed them in the rear of his right wing, with the admonition that upon them would depend the fortune of the day. He gave at the same time strict injunctions to the third line not to move without especial orders. Pompey resolved to await the attack. The Caesareans made a short halt midway between the two lines, again advanced, discharged their javelins, received those of the enemy, and then came to a close engagement with swords. While the two lines were thus occupied, the cavalry and

§ 4.479 light troops of Pompey attempted a manoeuvre which he had ordered when he placed them on his left; having forced the Caesarean horse to retreat, they were extending themselves in the rear of Caesar’s line, when they were unexpectedly attacked by the six cohorts and completely routed, flying to the mountains, and leaving the archers and slingers to be cut in pieces. The six cohorts following up their advantage now moved into the rear of the enemy’s left and attacked it, at the moment when the third line of Caesar was ordered to advance; the Pompeians thus at once assailed in the rear, and exposed to fresh troops in front, gave way, and fled to their camp, to which Pompey also retired, giving orders for its defence. Caesar determined immediately to attack the camp, and notwithstanding the fatigue of his men and the meridian heat, was readily followed by them, prepared as they were by discipline for any degree or kind of labour. The cohorts of Pompey which had been left in charge of the camp, aided by some Thracian auxiliaries, made a good defence, but at length fled to the mountains at the back of the campwhile Pompey had only time to change his dress and mount his horse for Larissa, from whence he continued his route by night to the coast, and embarked in a corn ship.

§ 4.480 The mountain into which the Pompeians had retired being without water, and Caesar having begun a circumvallation around it, they lost no time in quitting it, and in taking the road to Larissa. Caesar followed with four legions, leaving the rest of his army in the two camps, and by taking a shorter way than the Pompeians, overtook them at the end of six miles. They now retired into another mountain, at the foot of which there was a river, but Caesar having before night erected a work which cut them off from the water, they made offers of surrender, and in the morning descended from the mountain and laid down their arms. Caesar then sent to the camp for the legions which had been all night in repose, and proceeded the same day to Larissa. Fifteen thousand Pompeians were slain in the action, and more than 24,000 taken, a part of whom were the cohorts which guarded the forts, and who surrendered to L. Sylla. The remainder of the army took refuge in the neighbouring cities. Caesar lost 30 centurions and 200 legionary soldiers. It is curious that Caesar has not named the place in which he gained the most important of all his victories, so that had there been no other relation of it or allusion to it in history, we should only have known that it occurred in some part of the country between Metropolis and Larissa, two places which are forty miles distant from one another. But there is no want of evidence that it occurred in the territory of Pharsalus, although Appian alone has indicated the exact position both of the adverse camps and of the battle, by having remarked, that the camps were 30 stades apart, and by showing that the river which covered the right of Pompey’s line, and the left of Caesar's,

§ 4.481 was the Enipeus, and that the action took place between that river and the city of Pharsalus. There can scarcely remain a doubt, therefore, that the camp of Pompey was on the heights to the eastward of Fersala, and that of Caesar at or near Hadjeverli, at the foot of the rocky height which advances into the plain three miles westward of Fersala. Here a fertile plain surrounding copious sources furnished exactly the conveniences which Caesar had sought for. The two armies when drawn up for battle stretched from the Enipeus towards Pharsalus, and occupied a line of near three miles, beyond which there was a space near the foot of the hills, sufficient for the operations which occurred between the light troops of Pompey and the six cohorts of Caesar, with their respective cavalry. Strabo distinguishes Palaepharsalus from new Pharsalus, and Livy, who also mentions both, applies the former name to the situation where the Romans under Hostilius were long encamped, in the third year of the Persic war, B.C. 169; it would seem, therefore, either that the fortress, of which remains still exist half a mile to the eastward of the acropolis of Pharsalus,

§ 4.482 was known at that time by the name of Palae-pharsalus, or that the acropolis itself was intended by it, possibly because the town then existing occupied, like the modern Fersala, only the vicinity of the sources of water at the foot of the height, or the north-western part of the ancient inclosure, of which the upper part, including the acropolis, may have been uninhabited, and the walls perhaps in a state of dilapidation. After the disasters to which Greece had then been long exposed, such may very probably have been the state of Pharsalus, though it would seem to have recovered afterwards by favour of the conqueror and his successors, as it was the only city in Thessaly noticed by Pliny as a libera civitas. Whichever of these conjectures as to Palae-pharsalus may be correct, there will be little difference in the situation of the camp of Pompey, so inconsiderable is the interval between the two points in question. The camp occupied the heights to the eastward of Fersala, which, secured by Mount Narthacium on one side, and defended by rocky declivities towards the plain, afforded such a position as the Romans seem to have considered eligible for an encampment. The mountain towards Larissa into which the Pompeians retired when Caesar encamped opposite to the foot of it, was probably near Scotussa; for

§ 4.483 there alone is any mountain to be found with a river at the foot of it. This river I take to have been the same which Herodotus has named Onochonus. If we suppose Caesar to have computed his distance of six miles from the banks of the Enipeus northeastward of Fersala, and to have encamped at some little distance short of the Onochonus, the march would not have been much greater than six miles, though it seems rather underrated at this number. Appian sufficiently accounts for the defeat of so superior a force, by showing that a large proportion of the army of Pompey was formed of Greeks or Asiatics, who fought very ill or not at all; but who, nevertheless, were slaughtered without mercy —whereas, as soon as the victory was complete, Caesar gave an order to spare the Italians, which being speedily known to both armies, the words “stare securos” became a parole used by one party and respected by the other. According to Asinius Pollio, one of the generals of Caesar, 6000 Pompeians were found dead on the field of battle; but these were probably the Italians only, as other authors reported a much greater number to have fallen on that side. Plutarch appears to have composed his narrative of the battle as well in his life of Caesar as in that of Pompey, entirely, from Caesar and Appian; and except that he names Scotussa as the place towards which Caesar designed to march on the morning of the battle, Tempe as the route through

§ 4.484 which Pompey proceeded from Larissa, and the mouth of the Peneius as the place where he embarked, there is scarcely a circumstance which is not noticed in the Commentaries or the Greek history. Nothing is more probable, considering the position of the two camps, and the design of Caesar in moving as stated by himself, than that he intended to march in the direction of the site, which I have supposed to be that of Scotussa. The mention, therefore, of that place by Plutarch on this occasion, may be considered in some degree as confirming the identity of the ruins. It is generally believed among the Greeks of Thessaly having any pretensions to erudition, that Fersala is the site of an ancient city Phthia, capital of the homonymous district, Pharsalus not being acknowledged among them as an ancient name. That the city as well as district was named Phthia at a remote period is not an absurd supposition, as Pharsalus is not mentioned by Homer though it was probably the capital of Phthiotis, according to its largest boundaries, which comprehended all the country surrounded by the plains of the Apidanus and Spercheius, by the Euboic frith, the Gulf of Pagasae, and a line drawn from thence to the Enipeus at its exit from the mountains, thus including the districts of Pharsalus, Proerna, Thaumaci, and Lamia, as well as the country around Othrys, which in later ages seems more specifically to have constituted Phthiotis.

§ 4.485 In all this region there was no spot to be compared to Pharsalus for a combination of strength, resources, and convenience. Euripides represents Andromache to have been a captive at Pharsalus of Phthia; this place, therefore, seems to have been the capital and residence of Eurytion and Peleus, whose territory included apparently not only Hellas, of which the chief town was Trachis, since Achilles led the ships of Hellas to Troy as well as those of Phthia, but Dolopia also, which is described by Homer as a portion of Phthia, and which, as well as the eastern part of the kingdom, was under a subordinate chieftain. If Andromache was a captive at Pharsalus, it becomes the more probable that the fountain Hypereia of Homer was not the source at Velestino, but some other in or near the kingdom of Achilles; and such, in the time of Strabo, was the opinion of the Pharsalii, who pointed out the fountains Messeis and Hypereia at a distance of sixty stades from their city, where existed some remains of an ancient town which they supposed to have been named Hellas. The distance sufficiently corresponds to Vrysia. As to Messeis, the Spartans maintained that fountain to have been

§ 4.486 near their city; and with some probability, as the poet when he represented Hector as predicting to Andromache that she should be a slave at Argos, or draw water at Messeis or Hypereia, seems to have had in view the three chief cities of the enemies of Troy, in one of which Hector thought it too probable that his wife should thereafter be a captive. Coins, vases, figures of clay and brass, are often found in the fields near Fersala, and in general are destroyed as soon as found. Two brothers working in a field not long since struck upon the arm of a bronze statue of the size of life, and broke it in two by way of sharing the metal equally. All I can recover of it is a joint of one of the fingers, which bears the marks of fire. Fersala is an archbishopric, depending immediately on the patriarch of Constantinople. The present prelate had previously been a kalogheros in the patriarchate; and after having been employed as exarch upon several ecclesiastical missions, has been unable to obtain any better preferment than a see, of which the annual revenue is about 2000 piastres, or 130L sterling. He has lately been sent by the patriarch to Ioannina upon the subject of the union of the metropolitan bishoprics

§ 4.487 of Arta and Ioannina, which the Vezir has now effected by his influence at Constantinople, and probably with advantage to both sees. The bishop confirms the favourable opinion of the Greek hierarchy as to the general conduct of Aly towards the Church, and states that on his late mission the Pasha said to him, “I never injured your Church and never will.” He complains more of his holy brother of Larissa, who, he says, in spite of the patriarch, has torn from him four of the best villages of the plain, leaving only twenty in the archbishopric. Having found ninety piastres a year a rent too burdensome for his slender income, he has lately endeavoured to repair the palace, but has been obliged to confine himself to the expence of a few boards to save himself from falling into the stable through the floor of the only apartment which he inhabits, and in which some sheets of paper now supply the place of glass in the window-frames, while a few rugs on the divan and floor are the only furniture. The Greek church is severely burthened at present by an imdat seferi, or extraordinary war-tax, which the Porte has lately imposed upon the clergy, leaving them to repay themselves from their flocks as they can. The bishop, though conversant upon general subjects in consequence of his long residence at Constantinople, is totally deficient in ancient literature and history, and was even unconscious that the modern name, from which he takes his title, is but slightly corrupted from that which the city

§ 4.488 bore anciently during a long succession of ages. He supposes inscribed marbles to indicate hidden treasures; and of all the ancient names in this country Thessaly and Phthia alone seem to be known to him. He might easily obtain a little more information by means of the work of Bishop Meletius. The ignorance of the history of their country, which the Greeks so generally betray, arises from the total neglect of Hellenic literature among them after they have acquired what is taught at school, or what is sufficient to qualify those young men for the church who are intended for that profession. But in this respect they might perhaps retort upon more civilized nations, and ask: “How many of you, after having spent several years of your youth in decyphering a small portion of the poets, orators, and historians of Greece, have ever bestowed a thought upon them; or how many of that superior class among ye, who have so many advantages over us, have any knowledge of the history or geography of Greece?” Such knowledge ought undoubtedly to interest those most nearly who are born and live in the country, and speak the ancient language little changed. Nor will these motives fail to produce corresponding effects when education has made greater progress. The Greeks will then easily take the lead of all the nations of Europe in a familiar knowledge of their ancient literature. Fersala and Dhomoko form one Turkish kaza, containing about sixty villages, all belonging to Turks but inhabited by Greeks, who have no

§ 4.489 agricultural property in the district except sheep, which belong chiefly to Greeks of Fersala or its plain, and which thrive exceedingly, as they find excellent pasture in the plain or hills, according to the season of the year. The Greek families in the town are chiefly shopkeepers of the bazar, who in their houses spin cotton and weave it into coarse kerchiefs for the head and waist, which are consumed in the town or immediate neighbourhood. There is a school for teaching boys to read and write, held, as usual in the poorer villages of Greece, in the church porch; the schoolmaster, who is likewise papas, receives from each scholar twenty or thirty paras a month. The retail price of wheat is forty piastres the kilo of 150 okes. Wood is plentiful, and costs only thirty paras the ass-load, or one-fourth of the price which it bears at this season in Ioannina: but Ioannina is an expensive place; and my tatar Mustafa, who has a large family in that city, says that he cannot make both ends meet, unless he gains five purses a year by his profession, now equivalent to 160L. The Turkish population of this town and district has diminished considerably during the last four years. Their own imprudence and indolence, the diminished produce of the land, arising chiefly from a scarcity of labourers, added to the vexations of the Porte and of Aly Pasha, have induced many of them to sell their tjiftliks.to Aly or his sons, and to retire to Larissa or other great towns beyond the reach of the Epirote tyrant. A few beys at Larissa, Egripo, and Thebes, are now the

§ 4.490 only Turkish proprietors in Eastern Greece, whose incomes from their lands are sufficient to support them. The heat at Fersala is said to be sometimes excessive, in great measure caused by reflection from the rocky heights which rise above the town on two sides, but particularly from those to the eastward. The prevailing winds in the summer months, when rain very seldom falls, are called Voreas, liva, and Trikkalinos. The first, instead of being from the north, as the name imports, is nearer north-east, and the Liva, instead of being the same as the Libs, or south-west, is nearly west. The former is the Etesian wind so violent and constant in the middle of summer. It is cool until towards August, when all the Thracian plains over which it blows become a parched desert, and the mountains themselves reflect heat. For the same reason the Liva, which in every part of Greece is warm, even when it blows from the sea, becomes intolerably oppressive at Fersala in the summer, and if it occurs in harvest-time, which not unfrequently happens, is sometimes fatal to the labourers. The Trikkalinos, or wind of Trikkala, though having only a few degrees of northing in it, is refreshing compared to the Liva, notwithstanding that it blows equally over the plain. It is in fact the regular maestrale of the western coast, cooled again in passing over the Pindus.

§ 4.491 In winter there is a greater variety of winds, and all of them bring rain occasionally; with the north-east the fine weather is most permanent. Snow comes chiefly with the Voreas, which is then a true north, or between Ν. N. W. and Ν. Ν. E. On the western side of Mount Pindus the rains constantly come from the points between the south-east and west. During the present winter southerly winds have been more than usually prevalent in Thessaly, notwithstanding which I have scarcely ever been prevented from travelling by the rain, which at this season seldom falls in torrents, as occurs in the spring and early summer, but generally in a mist. Jan. 4.—Quitting the north-western extremity of Fersala at 4.20 Turkish, I follow the direct road to Trikkala for an hour, when at the farther of two makhalas named Kutjuk Ahmet we diverge to the left towards the mountains of Agrafa, leaving at a distance of two miles on the left Hadjeverli, situated not far from the foot of the projecting point of the insulated height at the northwestern extremity of the Pharsalian ridge, around which I suppose the camp of Caesar to have been placed. The land around these villages is chiefly in tillage, but as we advance the cultivation diminishes, and the villages become less numerous; the plough is drawn by a pair of oxen, and sometimes by a pair of buffalos. At 6.12 we pass along the skirts of Demirli, two miles beyond which to the right, in the direction of Hadjobashi, is seen Simikli, in the direct road from Fersala to Trikkala. These are both considerable places. To the left are seen Gynekokastro, Dhomoko, and a few villages in

§ 4.492 the plain towards the mountain of Agrafa, upon the foot of which stand some small tjiftliks. At 6.40, Yusufli being four miles on the right in the Trikkala road, we cross a considerable stream by a bridge of four arches built upon ancient piers. The chief sources of this river are at Vrysia, but it receives other waters from the heights around Dhomoko, as well as from the foot of the rocky point above Hadjiverli. At the bridge a small height rises from the right bank of the stream, on which, as well as in the surrounding fields, are some vestiges of an ancient town. There are two other similar heights in the direction of Mataranga forming a right line with the preceding. One of them situated to the north of Pazaraki is very stony. Some others are seen towards Orfana, which I had observed on the road from Vlokho to Fersala. Several of these hills have been found convenient sites for modern villages, for the same reason which made them eligible to the ancients in the midst of these alternately hot and marshy plains. The greater part of those which retain remains of antiquity were probably the sites of comae only, but among them may have been some of the seventy-five cities which Pliny states to have been included within the magnificent amphitheatre formed by Circetium, Pierus, Olympus, Ossa, Pindus, Othrys, Pelion, and seventeen other mountains of minor note.

§ 4.493 Among the insulated heights to the northward of our route, that on the left bank of the Enipeus, which I passed on the road from Petrino to Fersala, is particularly conspicuous. It is the site perhaps of Euhydrium, mentioned by Livy in his narrative of the transactions which followed the defeat of the Macedonians at the Fauces Antigonenses, when Philip, followed at no great distance by the victorious consul, retired rapidly through Thessaly, and desolated the cities which had been in alliance with him, that the enemy might be deprived of their resources. According to the historian, Philip inflicted these marks of his friendship upon four cities between Phacium and Pherae, namely, Iresiae, Euhydrium, Eretria, and Palaepharus. Supposing Phacium to have stood at Alifaka, and correcting Iresiae to Piresiae, which I have already shown to have been the ancient city at Vlokho, we have a very natural route for Philip: first, along the Peneius and Apidanus to Vlokho, and from thence along the Fersaliti, or Enipeus, to. Eretria at Ineli, leaving Pharsalus a little on the right, probably because that city was too powerful to submit quietly to spoliation like the smaller towns, and gave Philip the same reception which he met at Pherae, from whence, when he found the gates shut against him, and that a siege would consume more time than he could afford, he retired into Macedonia. The site near Hadjobashi is exactly in the road from Piresiae to Eretria, and about midway between them. Paliepharus would seem to have been near Ondoklari, or Kranovo, for these places lie in the line just mentioned, and the ancient name, implying old Pherae or Pharae, suggests a situation not far from Pherae.

§ 4.494 We cross by a bridge of a single arch a brook which, originating near Dhomoko, joins the river of Vrysia, not far from Mataranga. The plain for a great distance around us is now quite uncultivated, but affords pasture to a great number of cattle and sheep which are brought hither in winter from the neighbouring mountains. At 7.45 we arrive at Pazaraki, a large village chiefly Turkish, situated five or six miles from the foot of the mountains, and nearly opposite to the stenura, or strait where the river of Sofadhes issues into the plain between Dhranista and Smokovo; it rises in the mountain near Rendhina called Zygiasta Nera. I find in Pazaraki a cubical block of stone which has been hollowed at one end to serve as a mortar: it was covered on two sides with letters, but as they are reversed by the position of the stone, and almost defaced, I can only decypher in two places the names of some Ταγοί, but of what city there is no intimation. The characters seem earlier than the Roman empire. Another fragment of a later period recorded the manumission of slaves, and their payment to the city of 22 denaria; the same sum which is found in similar documents at Cyretiae and Oloosson. In 40 minutes from Pazaraki we arrive at Sofadhes, having crossed the river just before entering the village. Sofadhes, which lies in a right line from Pazaraki to the hill of Mataranga, the most central and conspicuous of the landmarks afforded by the insulated heights of this great plain, is a kefalokhori of 150 houses in the district of Larissa.

§ 4.495 The mukata is in the hands of Abdim Bey, but a yearly avayeti is paid to Αly Pasha. In one of the houses I find a marble inscribed with characters which are exactly of the same kind as those on the more ancient of the two monuments noticed at Pazaraki. The inscription was in thirty-six lines, but I can only decypher a portion of it in two places, from which it appears to have recorded some honours conferred upon a native or foreigner. The letters ΠΟΛΕΩΣΘΑ in the twenty-third line seem to shew that the name of Thaumaci was mentioned, this city having concurred perhaps with that in which the monument was erected in some choragic exhibition, as indicated by the words εχωρήγησεν and τίς των νέων συναγωγής. The tagi, or local magistrates of the city, appear to have been five. The act took place in the second assembly of the month Itonius, in the strategia of Agasimachus of Larissa. The characters are hardly later than the time of Alexander.

§ 4.496 The plain around Pazaraki and Sofadhes bears corn and sesami, the oil of which is in common use by the people of Thessaly, who live too far from the land of olives to afford that kind of oil. The plough does not differ from that of Prevyza, or of most of the other parts of Greece, except in the form of the ύννι or share, which in the Thessalian plains is like the head of a spear, as I before stated. Travelling with menzil geldings over the plain, our pace to-day is about six miles an hour. These horses have the shuffling pace called Shapkeun by the Turks, which is taught them by a particular process when young, and is esteemed also in America and the West Indies as easy to the rider. Jan. 5.—Sending my baggage direct to Kardhitza I follow the left bank of the river to Maskoluri and Mataranga. The banks are high, the stream not rapid, the depth at present about two feet, the bed in general sandy. Maskoluri is one third of the distance to Mataranga, which is about four miles by the road from Sofadhes. At Maskoluri the river is crossed by a bridge of two arches, built of stone, and constructed like that of Larissa. The village contains between forty and fifty houses, and is noted for a great fair which takes place in May, and lasts several days. A little beyond it are some artificial elevations upon which are erected the tents of those who frequent the fair. Proceeding from thence we pass a barrow on the bank of the river, not far from Mataranga, which village is divided into

§ 4.497 four or five makhaladhes, now chiefly inhabited by Greeks, and showing by numerous Turkish sepulchres near all the hamlets how much the Turkish population has diminished here as well as in other parts of the Thessalian plains. During a halt of two or three hours at the southernmost hamlet, upwards of 100 ancient coins are brought to me for purchase, together with a few other relics of antiquity, which have been found in the corn or cotton fields adjacent to the height which I have before mentioned as so conspicuous an object throughout the surrounding plains. This hill, though rocky, rises very gradually on all sides, and throws out to the west and south some lower eminences extending to no great distance into the plain. On the round summit of the hill are the foundations of a circular Hellenic fortification, 100 yards in diameter, with vestiges of a few of the towers which flanked the walls. In some parts the masonry is formed of large irregular masses as in the earliest times; in others the stones have been prepared and fitted with ‘greater care. On a small peak rising from the centre are some ruins of a keep or tower. This point commands a beautiful view of the extensive plains surrounded by Pindus and its branches of Agrafa, and Khassia, with Olympus, Ossa, Pelium, and Othrys, along the eastern horizon. The mountains of Agrafa in particular, and beyond them to the eastward those of the district of Fersala, are displayed in their full extent from the rocks of the Meteora to the pass of Ondoklari, near Velestino.

§ 4.498 A small stream which rises at Magula, a tjiftlik on the edge of the plain at the foot of an Agrafiote mountain called Katakhloro, joins the Sofadhitiko a little below the heights of Mataranga. Although little exists above ground of the ancient city which occupied this site, the centrality of its position in the great plains of Upper Thessaly, the remains of antiquity found in its fields, and the fertility of the surrounding country, are sufficient to lead to the persuasion that it was not an obscure place. An incomplete inscription in the wall of a church in the southern makhala of Mataranga gives me reason to believe that it was the city either of the Κιεριιις or Μητροπολϊται, these two names occurring, and the inscription relating to that very common subject of discussion between two neighbouring people, the adjustment of their boundaries. That Metropolis was in this part of Thessaly is evident from Livy, who mentions it on several occasions, but still more from Caesar, who occupied it on his way from Gomphi to Pharsalus. On the other hand, though the name of the Cierienses does not occur in history, I have already had occasion to form a presumption as to the importance of this people, from having met with some varied specimens of their coinage in Thessaly or Epirus, bearing the legend Κιεριεόςν.

§ 4.499 Of these coins I find no less than four among those brought to me for sale by the peasants of Mataranga, a fact which, coupled with the evidence of the inscription relative to the boundaries between the Cierienses and the Metropolitae, seems to leave no doubt as to their origin. We may conclude therefore that the hill of Mataranga is the site of a city called Cieria, or Cierium. In the wall of the same church containing the inscription just referred to, is a second which, though complete, contains only four words:— Ποσειδωνι Κουερίω Κεφάλων Βυκίνου, Cephalo, son of Bycinus, to Neptune Cuerius. The worship of Neptune at Cierium is recorded on three of its coins by the head of that deity, which on one of them is indicated by the trident. The epithet Cuerius is not so obvious; but as the dominion of Neptune extended over rivers as well as seas, Cuerius was very possibly the name of the river which flowed by the city, being the same called by Strabo Curalius, a name which existed also in Phthiotis and Boeotia, and which seems to have been indifferently Curalius (in Aeolic Coralius ) or Cuarius, of which latter form Cuerius may have been a local variation. It is true, that in the text of Strabo, the Curalius of Histiaeotis seems to be described as flowing to the Peneius through the territory of Pharcadon, which would make it a tributary of that river on the left side; but this

§ 4.500 passage of the geographer is obviously corrupt or defective, and Stephanus furnishes us with a strong argument for believing that the Curalius was the Sofadhitiko, or river which flows along the eastern side of Mataranga into the Apidanus. From the ethnographer we learn the important fact, that Cierium was the same place as Arne, the capital of the Boeoti, who were expelled from hence sixty years after the Trojan war by the

§ 4.501 Thessali of Epirus, who then attached their name to the country, before called Aeolis. The Boeoti retreated into Boeotia, from whence originally their ancestors, when expelled by the Epigoni, seem to have carried the name Arne into ASolis. On their return into Boeotia they occupied the districts of Orchomenus and Coroneia, in the latter of which they gave the name Curalius or Cuarius to a river, and founded a temple of Minerva Itonia in memory of their former abode in Thessaly. It is natural to believe that the name Arne may have been disused by the Thessalian conquerors because it was of Boeotian origin, and that the new appellation may have been taken, with a slight change to satisfy the ear, from the neighbouring river, for it was not an uncommon custom among the Greeks to derive the name of a town from a river or fountain on the site: of which an example very much resembling that of Cierium occurred at Thurium, where the renewed Sybaris was so named from its fountain.

§ 4.502 The position of Arne thus determined, confirms the opinion already given as to that of Peiresiae, or Asterium, at Vlokho, for Strabo observes, that Asterium was near Arne, which is true of Vlokho with regard to Mataranga, both these places being situated on the bank of the same river with an interval of five or six miles between them. Hence also it is evident, that in the time of Strabo the ancient and more celebrated appellation Arne was still often preferred to that of Cierium. Still it seems unaccountable, that neither Arne nor Cierium should be named in authentic history, considering the important situation of this city, and its actual remains giving proof of its existence at the time of the events which have been described by the Greek historians, or by Livy, following Polybius, who in particular mentions occasionally almost every Thessalian town of note, and of many of which the names occur in no other extant authority. But the omission is perhaps more apparent than real. Livy relates, that when the consul Quinctius, after his victory over Philip on the Aous, entered Thessaly through Mount Cercetium, he first took Phaloria, and then received the submission of Metropolis and Piera. Again, seven years afterwards, when the Romans and Philip were in alliance against Antiochus and the Aetolians, the consul Acilius in marching from Pelinnaion to Larissa was met by deputies from Metropolis and Piera

§ 4.503 with offers of submission. As in both instances Piera occurs in conjunction with Metropolis, which the inscription of Mataranga shows to have been conterminous with Cierium, the latter was probably the place intended by the historian, from hom Livy derived his information.

§ 4.504 Having quitted the height of Mataranga at 10 Turkish, we pass two more barrows near the base of it, and two or three miles farther four more standing near to each other. At 10.55 we pass through Kaputji, a small village where in the wall of the church-yard is a stone with three figures in mezzo-relievo wanting the heads. The middle figure is a woman covered with long drapery, the other two are men clothed in a loose chlamys above a shirt reaching to the knees.

§ 4.505 Each of the men has an arm over the woman’s shoulder. [Hereabouts may have stood Pheiae, or Onthyrium, which were towns of Thessaly, near Arne.] The sculpture is excellent, and the preservation not bad. From hence we cross a small stream by a bridge, and then ford two more considerable rivers, the first at 11.30, the second ten minutes farther. The eastern enters the plain from the Agrafa mountain at Kalifoni, passes by Velesi, which stands on its right bank in the road from Fanari to Dhomoko, and not far below Kardhitza joins the western stream. The latter issues from the mountains at Shekliza, a village on its right bank a little to the right of the road from Fanari to Dhomoko, where are vestiges of Hellenic fortifications, and a church containing ancient marbles and other fragments. Both these rivers retain water all the summer: the united stream is that which I crossed proceeding on the 6th December from Tzighioti to Vlokho, between the Salamvria and the river of Vlokho. At 12 Turkish I arrive at Kardhitza, and lodge in the house of the son of Suleyman Bey, lately dead, and who as principal ayan was for many years governor of the town, which contains between five and six hundred houses, dispersed over a large space of ground; of these a very small proportion are Greek. Though the situation is low, as appears by the muddy roads and marshy state of the country around, the air is reputed not to be unhealthy, which is ascribed to the prevalence in summer of the westerly breezes blowing over the Pindus, and to the coolness emanating from the neighbouring mountains of Agrafa. The town is even said to be tolerably free from gnats, a great inconvenience of the Thessalian plains in that season. Kardhitza is dependent upon Trikkala, and consequently pays all its contributions to Aly Pasha. These do not fall very heavy upon the Turks, who in such a fertile territory, if they had the smallest industry, might live in comfort, instead of which their houses exhibit rain and misery.

§ 4.506 Jan. 6.—About five miles from Kardhitza to the south-west, very near an advanced root of the mountain, upon which stands the Agrafiote town of Blazdhu, is the small village of Paleokastro. A rivulet, which is dry in summer, issues from the mountains between the slopes of Blazdhu and the advanced height just mentioned, and flows through Paleokastro into the plain, where it enters the marshy and now inundated track between Kardhitza and Paraprastin, called Kolokythia. Paleokastro derives its name from standing on the site of a Hellenic city which resembled Mantineia, as having been of a circular form, and situated entirely on a level not far from a commanding height. In the centre of the circle are the vestiges of a circular citadel, part of the wall of which still exists in the yard of the village church of Paleokastro, where has been collected every thing sculptured or inscribed which has been found of late years upon the ancient site. Among squared blocks, slabs of white marble, and fragments of columns, I observe some fluted Doric shafts, 1 foot 9 in. in diameter, with some

§ 4.507 others much smaller; and two inscriptions, one on a large cubical block, the other on a headless Hermes, both so much obliterated that I did not attempt to copy them. On another marble is a female figure, wanting the head, in high relief but very much worn; and on a fourth, in low relief, a sculpture representing a sitting figure seated on a rock in long drapery, and leaning on a sceptre in the posture in which Jupiter is frequently represented on coins and gems. In face of this figure rises a rugged mountain, at the foot of which appears a man in a posture of adoration; on the top of the mountain are other men, one of whom holds a hog in his hands. This part is more defaced than the rest. The design is beautiful, and the execution where it is preserved equally so. I have little doubt that the seated figure represents the Venus of Metropolis, to whom Strabo has told us that hogs were offered in sacrifice; for the situation of Paleokastro accords

§ 4.508 perfectly with that of Metropolis, whether with reference to the march of Caesar from Gomphi to Pharsalus, which was exactly in the direction of this site, or to the inscription of Mataranga, which shows that the districts of Cierium and Metropolis were conterminous, and probably divided all this part of the Thessalian plain between them. There are many remains of Hellenic foundations in the village, but the squared blocks of the town wall have probably been all removed for the use of modern buildings at Kardhitza, or the neighbouring villages, for little now remains to mark

§ 4.509 the circuit, except the trench from which the stones were taken, and heaps of earth and broken stones on either side of it. In the wall of a private house in the village, a long plain stele of marble has its narrow dimension covered with a list of names of men with those of their fathers, the latter expressed in the Thessalian fashion by the patronymic adjective; the letters are of the best times, but small and much defaced. Towards Kardhitza, beyond the line of the walls, are three or four barrows. The westernmost, now called Magulitza, is planted with Turkish tombstones, which have all been formed from the spoils of the ancient city. From Paleokastro to Fanari is a walk of two hours; the road leads along the plain parallel to the foot of the mountain. We pass a circular flat topped height, partly artificial, upon which are many Turkish tombstones, and at the foot of the hill of Fanari pass through a large village named Loxadha, from whence we reach the summit of the hill of Fanari by a steep ascent. Fanari contains 100 Turkish houses, and as many Greek, but many of the former are empty. It stands on anabrupt height, very remarkable from every part of the surrounding country, as forming the extreme point of a ridge of hills which here advance from the line of the mountains of Agrafa northward into the plain. The part of the hill upon which the village stands is composed for the most part of a cemented aggregate of pebbles: the soil is gravelly, the face of the hill rugged and torn into gullies by torrents, and several small streams of water issue from its foot.

§ 4.510 Jan. 7.—On the summit above the village stands a small square castle containing a mosque, and two or three houses. Around it the ground is covered with relics of other fortresses of various ages, for which this commanding position was an eligible site. Among them, near the northwestern face of the modern castle, are remains of a wall of a very early period of ancient Greece; a few large masses roughly hewn on the outside, but accurately joined to one another without cement, still remain in their places; others are seen dispersed on the ground near them. These are the only vestiges I can find of the Ίθωμη κλωμακώσσα, if this be its situation, as there is the strongest reason to believe from Strabo, who describes it as steep and rugged, and as situated within a quadrangle formed by the four cities, Tricca, Metropolis, Pelinnaion, and Gomphi. Of these sites the three first have been described, and the fourth was probably at Episkopi, a remarkable insulated height near Rapsista, about four miles to the westward of Fanari, not far from the passes leading to Ambracia, as we know Gomphi to have been, and where some remains of

§ 4.511 antiquity sufficient to prove it a Hellenic site are reported to exist. Episkopi is nearly opposite to Trikkala, as the site of Metropolis at Paleokastro is to that of Pelinnaeum at Paleo-Gardhiki, thus completing the quadrilateral figure which Strabo has described. Three sides of the quadrangle are nearly equal, but the fourth is longer than the others; nor is Fanari in the centre of the quadrangle, being much nearer to the southern side, though nearly equidistant from the two ends of that side Gomphi and Metropolis. Such accuracy however is not required by the words of Strabo, who only says that the four towns formed a quadrangle. Ithome having been in his time in the Metropolitis, it is natural to presume that it was nearer to the site of Metropolis than to that of any of the other towns; and this also we find to be true. In this instance, therefore, Strabo has been a correct observer, or at least has been fortunate in the choice of the authority which he followed, having in a few words given us the means of confirming the position of four Hellenic sites (excluding Tricca ), more than one of which might otherwise have been doubtful, and of thus placing the ancient geography of Upper Thessaly on the surest basis: O si sic omnia! The castle of Fanari by means of its advanced position commands a most comprehensive view of the extensive plains of Thessaliotis and Histaeotis, from Fersala and Dhomoko to Stagus and Portes. Besides the four ancient sites just alluded to, and the still more remarkable one of Aeginium at Stagus, the heights of Vlokho, Kolokoto, and Kortikhi, arrest the spectator's attention as having evidently

§ 4.512 been the positions also of ancient fortresses or towns. Enough has already been stated as to the two first; Kortikhi I believe to have been a town named Limnaea, for Livy shows Limnaea to have been in this part of Thessaly, and the ancient name accords with the situation of Kortikhi in the lowest part of the plain amidst streams and marshes, not far from the confluence of all the principal branches of the Peneius. In the year B.C. 191 Limnaea was besieged by Philip, son of Demetrius, when in alliance with the Romans against Antiochus; the Roman commander Baebius was occupied at the same time in besieging Pelinnaion. While they were thus employed, Acilius the consul arrived with a large reinforcement from Italy, and sending his infantry to Larissa, marched with his cavalry to Limnaea, which immediately surrendered. The consul then proceeded to Pelinnaion, and received the capitulation of the garrison of that place, which consisted as at Limnaea of a joint force of Antiochians and Athamanes. Of the rivers which water the plains of Thessaly, some of the ancient names cannot but remain unknown or uncertain, so imperfect is our information on the geography of this country. Reasons have already been given for identifying the Fersaliti, Vrysia, and Sofadhitiko, with the Enipeus, Apidanus, and Cuarius. The other names, occurring in ancient authors, besides Peneius and Titaresius, are Onochonus, Pamisus, Asopus, Melas, and Phoenix.

§ 4.513 The Onochonus and Pamisus are noticed by Herodotus. “Thessaly” he remarks, “is surrounded on every side by very high mountains; to the east by Pelium and Ossa, the extremities of which are united together, to the north by Olympus, to the west by Pindus, to the south by Othrys. In the midst is the hollow Thessaly watered by many rivers, of which the five principal are the Peneius, Apidanus, Onochonus, Enipeus, and Pamisus; these after having joined their waters into one channel are discharged into the sea through a narrow strait. Below their union the name Peneius alone remains, the other names being lost. It is reported, that anciently the valley which gives passage to the river did not exist; that neither the rivers nor the lake Boebeis had names, though the waters flowed as at present,

§ 4.514 and that they thus made Thessaly a sea. The Thessalians say that Neptune opened the passage at Tempe, through which the Peneius flows, and this will appear probable to those who believe that Neptune shakes the earth, for the separation of the mountains Olympus and Ossa seems to me to have been caused by an earthquake.” The words of Herodotus, descriptive of the junction of all the rivers, as well as his distinct mention of the lake Boebeis, seem to indicate that he had a better knowledge of the geography of Thessaly than any other author whose works have reached us. The historian remarks, that the Onochonus was the only Thessalian river exhausted by the host of Xerxes, and that in Achaia Phthiotis the Apidanus, which was the largest river of that country, scarcely sufficed. The Onochonus therefore was in the line of march of the Persians in proceeding from Gonnus, and the Pelasgic plain through Phthiotis to the plain of the Spercheius, near Thermopylae. The only intermediate streams between the Peneios and the Enipeus or Apidanus being those which flow from the Scotussaean hills, the largest of these, which descends from the heights of Supli by Kusbasan to the Asmaki, was probably the Onochonus, though Herodotus in that case has not been perfectly accurate in including it among the rivers flowing into the Peneius, its discharge being into the lake Boebeis. There remains for the Pamisus that considerable tributary of the Peneius, now called the Bliuri or Piliuri, which issuing from

§ 4.515 the mountains of Agrafa at Musaki, flows in front of Fanari, and through the Kolokythia to the Salamvria, which it joins not far from the bridge of Keramidhi, and nearly opposite to Kolokoto. As to the Asopus, Phoenix, and Melas, as all these were rivers of the Maliac plain, it might have been suspected that they had been improperly attributed to Thessaly, had the question depended only upon a poet, who has enumerated also the Achelous and Aeas among the Thessalian streams, who has confounded Thessaly with Thrace, and Pharsalus with Philippi; but Pliny also mentions the Phoenix of Thessaly, and Vibius Sequester describes the Asopus, Phoenix, and Melas, as all affluents of the Apidanus. The Phoenix being the only one of the three mentioned by Pliny, would seem to have been the largest of these tributaries, and may therefore be that

§ 4.516 which I crossed between the Peneius and Apidanus, a little above its junction with the latter, on the way from the bridge of Tzighioti to Vlokho. Its origin in the middle of Dolopia suggests the idea, that its name may have been cognate with that of the leader of the Dolopes at Troy. The Asopus and Melos were perhaps two of the rivers which rise at the foot of the hills of Phthia between Fersala and Velissiotes. Deficiency of evidence renders it impossible to determine the ancient positions at the foot of the mountains of Agrafa, or in the plain adjacent to those mountains, between the sites of Metropolis and Thaumaci. The largest, or at least the most preserved ruin in this direction is near Smokovo, where according to several concurrent testimonies, there are Hellenic walls and an entire gate. I have already observed, that Siekliza on the foot of the mountain between Smokovo and Metropolis was also an ancient site, and the inscriptions which I found at Pazaraki and Sofadhes lead to the belief, that there was another city at or near one of those villages. Some of these were among the places taken by the Aetolians when they broke into Thessaly, upon hearing of the defeat of Philip at the Fauces Antigonenses, about the same time that the Athamanes occupied Gomphi and several small places in that neighbourhood. After taking Spercheiae and Macra Come, which were probably in the valley of the Spercheius, the Aetolians passed into Thessaly, possessed themselves of

§ 4.517 Cymine and Augeae, were repulsed at Metropolis and Callithera, took and plundered the villages Theuma and Calathana, entered Acharrae by capitulation, occupied Xyniae, which had been deserted by its inhabitants, and captured Cyphara, a castle in a position which commanded the Dolopia. Of these places Xyniae alone is determined, by its lake, now called that of Taukli, which I have before described. As this lake was nearly in the route of the Aetolians from the valley of the Spercheius into the plains around Metropolis, and as Ctemene was a town on the borders of Dolopia and Phthia, not far from the lake, it seems very probable that Cymine is an error of the text for Ctemene. The exact site of Ctemene however is still to be ascertained.

§ 4.518 Some inscription at Smokovo, Siekliza, or in the neighbourhood of Sofadhes, may possibly hereafter lead to the determination of some of the other places named in this passage of Livy. The chief produce of the district of Fanari is vines and maize. All the land which does not belong to the few Turks residing here, is the personal property of Αly Pasha, and the Greeks are all labourers. They had quite abandoned the place a few years ago, and have only returned since it became the Vezir’s tjiftlik. His Subashi receives from the farmers a tenth of the crop for dhekatia, and a third of the remainder as proprietor, without contributing any thing for seed or stock. The Subashi is now employed in selling his master’s share of the wine to the vintners of Kardhitza and other neighbouring towns. In the afternoon I descend the rugged face of the hill of Fanari on the western side, and then cross the opening of a small valley which, branching to our left, separates the heights of Fanari from the mountain, on the adjacent slope of which stands the Agrafiote village of Gralista. Immediately below Gralista is a hamlet called in Turkish Gule, in Greek Pyrgo, a little beyond which the valley terminates in a narrow passage between the extremity of the hill of Fanari and the slope below Gralista. This passage has anciently been fortified, or occupied by a small town of the middle ages. A rocky peak just above the Boghaz on the Fanari side, is called το σκαμνί βασιλικό, or the royal chair. Having crossed the entrance of the valley and left the village of Kapa a little on the right, our road leads along the foot of the mountain south-westward;

§ 4.519 a forest of considerable extent called Kiurka occupies the plain on the right. It was not long since burnt by Vely Pasha to prevent its serving as a shelter to the thieves. Many of the trees were destroyed, and all those remaining bear more or less the marks of fire. Mavromati is at the foot of the mountain on our left, beyond which we cross a part of the plain along the edge of the wood to Ghelanthi, a village of thirty houses on the right bank of the Bliuri. Having crossed the river and advanced half a mile, we arrive at Episkopl, in I hour 45 minutes, with the menzil, from Fanari. Episkopi is now only a roiroc, or the name of an uncultivated height, with some ploughed fields at its foot, lying along the left bank of the Bliuri, at a distance of two or three miles from the mountains. But enough exists here to show that it was the site of a large Greek city, though, as we generally find in sites surrounded by plains and not founded upon rocks, the remains of antiquity are few. The hill is the extremity of a range of heights advancing to the eastward from a mountain, the last of the Agrafa range, which extends from the ravine of the Bliuri at Musaki in a northerly direction to the Klisura of Portes or the Gates of Trikkala. In approaching from Fanari the height presents a triangular face, which, on arriving at it assumes the shape of a theatre, rising in the centre to a peak, from whence a ridge slopes regularly on either side into the plain. The walls of the city followed the crests of these lateral ridges, and thus included all the theatre-shaped

§ 4.520 space, together with a narrow level lying between the foot of the hill and the river. On the summit is a level space retaining some vestiges of a small citadel. The circuit was between two and three miles. The plain on the river side is covered with broken pottery and stones, and the Musakiotes who plough it often find coins here, with other remains of antiquity. Some of the ancient materials were not long since carried away from hence to build a serai for Mukhtar Pasha in his tjiftlik of Rapsista; all the adjacent villages contain squared blocks of stone, or columns, plain or fluted, brought from hence, so that the only remarkable remains now existing here are some foundations of the town walls, and some vestiges of a gate at the foot of the hill on the southern side towards Musaki. The modern name Episkopi accords with the fact of Gomphi having been one of the ancient towns of Thessaly, still existing after the time of Arcadius, and when it was a bishopric under the Metropolitan of Larissa. A bishop of Gomphi sat in the council of Pope Boniface the Second, in the year 531. On the other hand, as Gomphi is not found in any catalogue of bishoprics of a later date, it is not surprising that after a lapse of eight or ten centuries the name Episkopi should alone remain to attest the former ecclesiastical dignity of the place, and that not even a solitary chapel should now be found upon the site.

§ 4.521 Through the plain which lies between the hill of Episkopi and the mountain of Kotziaka flows a branch of the Salamvria, which is named Porteiko, as entering the plain through the pass of Portes. It rises in the great mountain of Aspropotamo, and after emerging from the Portes, flows with great rapidity towards the Peneius, the intermediate plain forming a considerable slope. It spreads over a wida gravelly bed and divides itself into many torrents. The Bliuri is clearer, deeper, and flows more quietly, but both of them in rainy seasons are swollen and impetuous. The Porteiko joins the Salamvria opposite to Trikkala; the Bliuri turns to the right after passing Episkopi, and traverses the plain in front of Fanari in an easterly direction. At a distance of three or four miles from Fanari to the north it passes through Magoula, a name which gives reason to surmise that one of the seventy-five cities of Thessaly may once have occupied this position, perhaps Callithera. The situation of Gomphi, in a fertile plain on the bank of a pure perennial stream in the vicinity of the mountains, was one of the most agreeable in Upper Thessaly, and its frontier position rendered it one of the most important members of the Thessalian community. It guarded two of the entrances into the Thessalian plains: that of Musaki, distant two miles, which was the exit from the Dolopia, and the pass of Portes, at a distance of four miles, which led into Athamania, and through that province to Ambracia. The latter pass is described by Livy as the “narrow defile which separates Thessaly from Athamania.”

§ 4.522 Amynander, king of the Athamanes, who descended from it on hearing of the victory of Quinctius over Philip on the Aous, first took Pheca, which stood midway between the pass and Gomphi, and then Gomphi itself, an acquisition important to the Roman consul, as it secured a communication with his ships in the Ambracic gulf, and by enabling him to obtain an opportune supply, gave him the means of carrying on his operations in Thessaly with vigour. The historian (following as usual Polybius) describes the route from Gomphi to Ambracia to have been short but extremely difficult, as Philip found it nine years afterwards, when he attempted to reduce Athamania, and twice was under the necessity of retreating to Gomphi. The consul Q. Marcius Philippus entered Thessaly from Ambracia by the same route in the third year of the Persic war, B.C. 169. A small village called Bletzi belonging to Vely Pasha, midway between the hill of Episkopi and the Portes, at the foot of a projecting point of the heights which end at Episkopi, agrees exactly with the position of Pheca. As to the other places taken by the Athamanes on the same occasion, namely, Argenta, Pherinum, Thimarum, Lisinae, Stimon, and Lampsus, not a single conjecture can

§ 4.523 be offered, as their names occur in no other author. From Episkopi I proceed for the night to Rapsista, containing thirty or forty houses and distant two miles to the northward. At the church, among other ancient fragments, are two inscribed marbles, both of which are testimonies of the liberation of slaves: the former contains the name of a priest of Bacchus Carpius, together with that of the strategus of Thessaly, under whom the record was engraved; in the other, which seems from its siglae or combined letters to be of less ancient date, is the name of the tamias, but in neither of them does that of the city occur. The latter document, in which the fee paid to the city was of the usual amount of 22 denaria, was on a quadrangular stele of unequal dimensions, inscribed on all the four sides, quite illegible on one and much defaced on the others. It now serves, having been turned upside down, for the αγία τράπεζα, or altar of the church, and is supported by a portion of an Ionic shaft 1 1/2 foot in diameter, with twenty-four semicircular flutings. Another piece of the same size and order I find in the middle of the village, and a third at a church near Musaki, to which village I ride this morning (Jan. 8) in one hour, passing through Episkopi. Among several relics of ancient art in this church, is a plain quadrangular altar inscribed to Jupiter, the Avenger of homicide [Παλαμνιω], in large letters deeply

§ 4.524 engraved and perfectly preserved. Jupiter Palamnius and Bacchus Carpius were no doubt deities worshipped by the Gomphenses, and the Ionic columns probably belonged to one of their temples. Musaki, which, like Rapsista, is a tjiftlik of Mukhtar Pasha, contains forty or fifty families, and is situated exactly at the foot of a last steep termination of the range of Agrafa, less than a mile below the opening through which the river Bliuri issues into the plains: it is much exposed to the kleftes, with whom the inhabitants find themselves under the necessity of being on good terms, and have therefore a difficult course to steer between the thieves and their landlord. They have an appearance of health seldom seen among the inhabitants in the middle of the plains. The heights above the village, like most of those between Stagus and Fanari, are clothed with oaks and underwood, and are now covered at the summits with snow. The two villages called αι πόρταις των Τρικκάλων, or the Gates of Trikkala, stand on opposite sides of the river in ipsis faucibus: the one on the right bank named Porta Nikola, or Kato Porta, is in a low situation: Apano Porta, or Porta Panaghia,

§ 4.525 which is now abandoned, is in a lofty position on the opposite bank. The latter name of this village is derived from an ancient church dedicated to the Virgin. On a summit above it is the ruin of a small fortress said to be Hellenic, and which seems to answer exactly to that Athenaeum which was the only position retained by the Macedonians when their garrisons were expelled from Athamania by Amynander, in the year B.C. 189; for Livy, in describing that place as “finibus Macedoniae subjectum,” thereby evidently meant the places in the adjacent part of Thessaly possessed at that time by the Macedonians, particularly Gomphi. Philip, as soon as he heard of the revolt of Athamania, marched with 6000 men to Gomphi; and leaving 4000 there, proceeded with the remainder to Athenaion; but finding all the country beyond it hostile, returned to Gomphi, and then entered Athamania with all his forces. Sending forward Zeno with 1000 men to occupy Ethopia, he followed, as soon as that service had been performed, and took up a position at the temple of Jupiter Acraeus, from whence, after a day’s delay, in consequence of the tempestuous weather, he advanced towards Argithea. But the sight of the Athamanes on the heights overhanging the valley through which the Macedonians were to advance, so terrified them, that the king resolved upon a retreat. He was followed by the Athamanes, but without receiving much annoyance from them, until they had been joined by the Aetolians, when leaving the latter to act against the rear of the

§ 4.526 retreating enemy, they advanced by some short paths known to them, upon his flank, and threw the Macedonians into such confusion, that they sustained a great loss of men and arms, until they had crossed a river not named by the historian, when the pursuit ceased, and Philip effected his retreat to Gomphi. Zeno and his followers, who remained at Ethopia, exposed to the whole force of the enemy, retreated to a precipitous summit, but were soon driven from it by the Athamanes, when a few only had the good fortune with Zeno to rejoin the king; the rest, dispersed among the rocks and mountains in a country unknown to them, were either slain or made prisoners. I have already offered a conjecture, that Argithea was in the Parachelois above the bridge of Koraku, to the left of the main stream of the Achelous. The retreat of Philip seems to have been by the line of the Porteiko, which was probably the river alluded to by Livy. From Portes to the Salamvria, at its exit into the plain near Kalabaka, extends the woody mountain Kotziaka, vulgarly pronounced Kodjaka. It has long been a noted haunt of the kleftes. At its foot are several villages, and on the slope two large monasteries: one above the village of Dusiki, near Porta; the other, called Vitoma, towards the other extremity. Having returned to Rapsista, I quit that place at 9, Turkish, for Trikkala; but instead of taking the direct road across the plain, approach the river of Portes, in order to visit a place which a “patuli

§ 4.527 sulcator Thessalus agri,” whom we meet, calls στον Αλέξανδρον; but where I find only an old Turkish cemetery, in which one of the tombstones contains a fragment of a Hellenic sepulchral inscription, which declared the violator of the tomb liable to pay a fine of 2500 denaria to the fiscus. These solitary burying-grounds, which never fail to strike the traveller in Asiatic as well as in European Turkey, are in some measure an effect of the Mahometan custom of offering prayers for the souls of the deceased in passing their sepulchres; whence the Turks prefer burying their dead near a public road. But in numberless instances both in Greece and Asia, the villages to which the cemeteries belonged have totally disappeared— the latter only remaining to furnish the strongest evidence of the immense diminution of the Ottoman population. Not far from the opposite bank of the Porteiko rises an insulated height, the pointed summit of which is crowned with the vestiges of an ancient Castle. It was probably the site of one of the towns mentioned by Livy as having been taken by the Athamanes in the Antiochian war, and recovered by the joint forces of Philip and Baebius; for Tricca, Gomphi, and Aeginium, are three of the places named on this occasion, and Athamania, from whence the invaders issued, immediately overhung Gomphi, as Livy has described it.

§ 4.528 The following were the places taken by the Athamanes: Aeginium, Ericinium, Gomphi, Silana, Tricca, Meliboea, Phaloria. Of these, Phaloria would seem to have been between Tricca and the Macedonian frontier; for Livy relates, that when Philip, after his defeat at the Aoi Stena, fled into Thessaly by the way of Mount Lingon and Tricca, the consul Quinctius followed him into Epirus, where he showed great clemency towards the people, though the greater number of them had sided against him. Having sent orders from thence for his store-ships at Corcyra to enter the Ambracic gulf, he made four easy marches to Mount Cercetium, and from thence proceeded to attack the Thessalian city Phaloria; where the Macedonian garrison, having made an obstinate resistance, the town when taken was given up to plunder, and burnt. He then received offers of submission from Metropolis and Pieria (Cieria), attempted Aeginium without success, and marching forward to Gomphi, opened a communication from thence with his ships in the Ambracic Gulf. Here it is obvious that the consul did not follow the same route from Epirus into Thessaly as Philip; having no chance of overtaking his enemy, he would naturally prefer a route less exhausted of all supplies than that which the Macedonians had followed. I have before shown that the latter entered Thessaly by the pass of Metzovo and the vale of the Salamvria. The consul, therefore, probably crossed the Pindus through Zagori to the district of Grevena, and from thence across Khassia to Phaloria. As Aeginium was the place which he

§ 4.529 attempted after having taken Phaloria, and received the submission of Cierium and Metropolis, the main ridge of Khassia would seem to have been Cercetium; and Phaloria, therefore, was probably in one of the valleys which intersect the mountains to the northward of Trikkala, either at Sklatina or at Ardham; both of which seem, from the description I have received of them, to be Hellenic sites. The other was probably Pialia, which according to Stephanus was another town on the Thessalian side of Mount Cercetium. Pliny includes Cercetium among the most renowned of the Thessalian mountains; and probably the same mountain was intended by Ptolemy in naming a Βερκετησιος, or Κερκετήσιος, together with Bermium and Olympus, among the Thessalo-Macedonian mountains. The ethnic termination of the name in Ptolemy indicates perhaps that there was a town of Cercetium. At 10.25 we join the direct road from Portes to Trikkala at Poliana, the chief village of the plain, and of one of the subdivisions of the district of Trikkala. On the road not far from the village are several squared blocks of ancient workmanship. These and some sources of water at the village give reason for believing that it was the site of an ancient town, probably one of those taken by the Athamanes in the year 191 B.C., perhaps Silana.

§ 4.530 The soil of this angle of the Upper Thessalian plain is very good; and in consequence of its proximity to the mountains scarcely ever fails to be plentifully watered by rain in the spring and early summer. From Poliana to the Salamvria we follow a kalderim or paved causeway, rendered necessary by the marshy state of the plain in winter. The river often does injury to these lower lands by taking a new course, sometimes in a single body, sometimes by dividing itself into two or three branches. After crossing the main stream at 11 by the bridge of Karavoporo—a name showing the former existence of a ferry-boat in this spot—we arrive, a quarter of an hour farther, at a tributary of the river called Komerki, from a bridge and toll-house established at the passage. Here I find the inhabitants of all the neighbouring country collected to perform an angari, or forced labour, for the purpose of preventing the river from injuring some of the cultivated fields belonging to a Turkish tjiftlik, by a new course which it had begun to take. At 12 I arrive at the house of a Greek priest, at the foot of the castle wall of Trikkala, having crossed two streams besides the Komerki: the first, which we passed at the entrance of the suburbs, rises in the hills of Khassia, and enters the plain near Mertzi; the second we crossed in the middle of the town. Its principal sources are near Sotira, at the foot of the hills of Trikkala, and not more than half an hour distant.

§ 4.531 Jan. 10. Tricca, Ithome, and Oichalia, having been the three cities which sent ships to Troy under Podaleirius and Machaon, Oichalia was in all probability one of the strong positions on the borders of the Upper Thessalian plain, which were afterwards known by a different name, either Pelinnaion, Gomphi, Aeginium, or perhaps the ancient site at Niklitzi. All that Strabo remarks of Oichalia is, that it was near Tricca, which indeed may be inferred from the poet’s words. In regard to the Homeric geography of Thessaly in general, no great difficulty presents itself, if we admit that the Thaumacia, Ormenium, and fountain Hypereia of the Catalogue were different from the places which bore those names in the time of the Roman Empire. The districts of the several chieftains may then be consistently distributed, and even the positions of their towns nearly conjectured, making allowance for some of them having fallen into obscurity in later times, and for others having undergone a change of name. Some critics have supposed that by Pelasgic Argos, Phthia, and Hellas, Homer alluded to cities; and it is not an uncommon opinion even now among the few Greeks who have read Homer, that the first of these was Larissa, and the second, as I have before observed, Pharsalus.

§ 4.532 There are several passages, however, in the Iliad and Odyssey which concur in showing that by all the three names the poet intended not cities, but large tracts of country, and there can be no doubt that the Greek dramatists and some subsequent writers understood the words in the same sense. It seems equally clear, that the line of the Catalogue in which Pelasgic Argos is named marks a separation of the poet’s topography of Southern Greece and the Islands from that of Northern Greece; and that by Pelasgic Argos he meant Pelasgic Greece, or the country included within the mountains Cnemis, OEta, Pindus, and Olympus, and stretching eastward to the sea; in short, Thessaly in its most extended sense. The kingdom of Achilles, or rather of Peleus, comprehended at its southern extremity not only Trachinia, but also a portion of what was afterwards Locris. To this was added all the fertile valley of the Spercheius, which river still bears the name Elladha, or that applied by Homer to the country itself, together with the hilly country northward of that river, as far as the plains of Thessaliotis. This part of the kingdom of Peleus was called Phthia, Achaia, and the land of the Myrmidones; it bordered westward upon the Dolopes governed by Phoenix, and eastward upon the territory of Protesilaus, which contained the modern districts of Armyro, Ftelio, and Kokus, as far as the Euboic channel.

§ 4.533 At the head of the Pagasetic gulf began the country of Eumelus, bordering eastward upon that of Prothous, who commanded all the Magnetes, except those of Meliboea and the three other maritime towns, which sent seven ships under Philoctetes. Homer has described the Magnetes as dwelling around the Peneius and Pelium, by which he seems to have meant exactly the country which composed Magnesia as late as the Roman Empire, namely, all Pelium and Ossa. On the other sides the district of Eumelus was surrounded by those of Polypoetes, Eurypylus, Peleus and Protesilaus. Polypoetes led the ships furnished by the cities of the Larissaean plain, together with those of a part of Perrhaebia, as far as Oloosson on the farthest verge of Pelasgia. Guneus commanded those of the remainder of Perrhaebia. Beyond the states of Eurypylus were the cities of the Asclepiadae, occupying the western extremity of Pelasgic Argos, and forming a district which, as well as that of Eurypylus, bordered southward on the Dolopes, who seem in all later ages to have continued to occupy the same range of mountains in the northern part of Agrafa. I have before alluded to the remarkable circumstance that none of the cities of Thessaly which afterwards became the leading states are named by Homer, except Pherae and Tricca. Phthia, Hellas, and Magnesia, contained perhaps no large towns, for which reason Homer may have been contented with the chorographical names. I should be disposed

§ 4.534 to infer also that Gyrton, Crannon, Scotussa, Pharcadon, Pelinnaion, and several other Thessalian cities, which were afterwards of importance, either did not yet exist, or were only subordinate places, or were known by other names, as in the instance of the Ephyri and Phlegyae, who were generally supposed to be the people of Crannon and Gyrton. Larissa was probably not then founded, or at least was an inconsiderable place, the principal town on that part of the Peneius having been Argissa, the site of which is well indicated by Strabo, and by the tumuli midway between the modern Larissa and GUnitza; the distance of this place from Larissa is so small that it may serve to explain a remark of the Scholiast of Apollonius, namely, that the Argissa of Homer was the same as Larissa. There was one great city, however, not named by Homer, which then existed and was even in the height of its importance, if Diodorus is correct in saying that Arne was founded by Boeotus three generations before the Trojan war. From the silence of Homer we may imagine either that the Arnaei were unwilling to contribute to the armament, and were

§ 4.535 sufficiently powerful to be able to refuse, or that they joined that part of it which was led by their kinsmen of Boeotia. In historical times Thessaly was divided into four εθνη, a division which is said to have originated under Alenas, son of Neoptolemus; these divisions were Pelasgiotis, Thessaliotis, Phthiotis, and Histiaeotis, or Estiaeotis. Hence Thessaly was sometimes known by the name of the Tetrarchy. Demosthenes accused Philip of having placed an agent to maintain his influence over each of these divisions. It is not very easy to determine their boundaries: that of Phthiotis proper has already been alluded to. As the whole country in a general sense, derived its name from the Thessali of Thesprotia, who established themselves in it by their victory over the Boeoti of Arne, we may presume that Arne was towards the middle of the division named Thessaliotis, which probably contained also the districts of Phacium, Phyllus, Peiresiae, Metropolis, and the plains to the south-eastward of the Arnaea and Metropolitis, as far as the limits of Phthiotis. Consequently Histiaeotis, which where it bordered on Perrhaebia comprehended Pharcadon, contained all that was included between the left bank of the Peneius and Upper Macedonia, together with the plain to the right of the same river around Tricca, Ithome, and Gomphi. All the eastern part of Thessaly within Magnesia, seems to have been divided between Phthiotis and Pelasgiotis.

§ 4.536 Jan. 11.—The weather has been clear and cold, with a northerly wind and a sharp frost at night, which the heat of the sun dissolves in the afternoon. The plain is consequently dry; and in returning this morning to Kalabaka I cross it to Voivoda instead of skirting the heights. We pass through one of the villages named Mertzi, leaving the other half an hour to the right, and not far from it a large barrow, the only one I can perceive near the site of Tricca. Behind the heights of Voivoda and Bala, hid in great measure from the plain of Trikkala, is a large valley, extending for several miles to Sklatina, which is situated at the foot of a rocky brow surrounded by torrents descending from the hills of Khassia. Voivoda, which as well as Sklatina seems to be a Hellenic site, may perhaps be that of Meliboea. We arrive in 3 hours and 20 minutes at Kalabaka, where I dine with the bishop of Stagi, and purchase a small bronze Hercules of him, after which we proceed together to Kastraki and the Meteora. The village of Kastraki is on the north-western or opposite side of the great perpendicular rock at the foot of which Kalabaka is situated, and stands upon ground which is more than 200 feet higher than the level of the town; so that the rocks, although as perpendicular on this side as towards Kalabaka, are not above half the height. There is a footpath from Kalabaka to Kastraki, through a narrow opening in the middle of the great precipice.

§ 4.537 Just where the ascent from Kalabaka terminates are some remains of buildings, and at the foot of the pass in the village of Kastraki, a few stones which formed part of a Hellenic wall of the third order. Both these belonged probably to works for the defence of this remarkable opening, which was the only point in half the circumference of Aeginium requiring any artificial protection. The upper part of Kastraki never sees the sun in winter, being surrounded on three sides by rocks. To the north-west the village commands a prospect of the great valley of the Peneius, with the mountains of Malakassi and Milies rising from its left bank, and those of the koli of Klinovo from the right. In the opposite direction the view is of a singular description, and very beautiful. Trikkala and the whole length of the Thessalian plain as far as the heights of Pharsalus, with Mount Othrys in the horizon, are seen like a picture through the frame formed by the narrow opening of the two towering precipices. The composition of these rocks, and of all the peaks of the Meteora, is very extraordinary, being an aggregate of pebbles and broken stones of all sizes and descriptions, combined by an earthy or gravelly cement. At Kalabaka, however, the town is built of a granitic stone, of which detached masses are observable also in the beds of the torrents. Half an hour distant from Kastraki is the monastery specifically named the Meteora; the road to it passes at the foot of the rock on which stands the monastery of Varlaam, and then

§ 4.538 by a steep zig-zag path through a narrow opening between the rock of Meteora and another to the northward. At the highest point of this pass a ladder, fifty feet in length, fixed to the perpendicular rock, reaches to an opening in the foundations of the lowest buildings of the monastery. By this ladder persons generally pass to and from the monastery with such things as they can easily carry; for larger commodities there is a net hooked to a rope, which is attached to a windlass in a high tower adjoining the church, and standing on the edge of the rock. Another lighter rope in the same place, moving on a pulley and having a hook at the end, serves to raise smaller articles. The perpendicular height by the net is reckoned forty orghies, or 200 Greek feet, but appears to me not so much. On our arrival the net was let down, with a small carpet at the bottom, and we ascended in it separately. The net, when suspended to the hook at the end of the rope, and raised from the ground with a weight in it, forms of course a bag which revolves rapidly on being first raised from the ground; this is the only disagreeable part of the operation; the net becomes more steady as the rope becomes shorter, and the inconvenience might easily be prevented by another rope held by a person below; but this is a luxury which has not yet occurred to the holy fathers. Their only rule is to draw up quick and let down slow. The best advice to those who are subject to giddiness is to shut their eyes.

§ 4.539 The monasteries of Meteora are seven in number. The largest and most ancient is: 1. The Meteora, properly so called. The church, dedicated to the Μεταμόρφωσις or Transfiguration, was built, as an inscribed marble on the outside informs us, by the monk Ioasaf, in the year 1388. The tradition is, that this singular situation was first chosen at a much earlier period by a hermit named Athanasius; and that Ioasaf, who was despot of Trikkala and a member of one of the imperial families of Constantinople, built the present monastery. This is all the information I could obtain from the bishop of Stagi or any of the inmates of the monasteries. Within the church is the following inscription:— “This most sacred temple was built from the foundation by the labour and at the expence of our pious fathers Athanasius and Ioasaf, present holy founders. It was painted with figures by the aid of the most humble fathers, in the year 6990 (A.D. 1482), the second of the month of November.”

§ 4.540 The church is one of the largest and handsomest in Greece; the pronaos or gynecaeum is supported by four large columns, and the interior is entirely covered with paintings, of which, those of the screen are richly adorned with silver. The inscription within the church was intended to commemorate the date and authors of these decorations. The cells of the monks and the apartments destined for strangers are spacious and convenient, but the furniture indicates the decay into which all these establishments are falling. The monastery has been twice deserted; once for sixty years after it had been plundered by a Pasha of Trikkala. It now pays 750 piastres a year to the Vezir, besides contributions of butter, cheese, and other produce of its farms; and nearly an equal amount to Vely Pasha, who has taken upon himself the particular charge and protection of all the Meteora. When Vely resided at Ioannina, this protection, although expensive, was of some benefit to the monasteries, by preventing the Albanian soldiers from quartering upon them—an important exemption so near a road more frequented by Albanian soldiers than any other in Greece. Now that Vely is in the Morea, the Albanians, who are never much disposed to respect such privileges, are quite regardless of them, and seldom pass without visiting the convents, sometimes remaining here several days, eating and drinking at the expence of the caloyers. The Meteora has a debt of fifty purses; some of the other monasteries owe as much as seventy, which bearing the usual interest of one per cent, per month, is severely felt by them.

§ 4.541 But what the monks chiefly complain of is the general want of charity among the Greeks themselves, who no longer contribute to those collections made by their travelling brethren, which in former times constituted the greatest part of their revenue. The house is supplied with water by means of an excellent cistern; and wood is obtained for the trouble of cutting it in the adjacent hills. All the other necessaries of life consumed in this and the other monasteries are the produce of their farms, except a part of their bread, purchased at Trikkala. The rock of Meteora, unlike some of the others, which are mere peaks, has a small level on the summit, not only sufficient to afford ample room for the buildings, but leaving also a field of fine turf, which forms a delightful promenade, but might be much improved if it were planted and laid out as a garden. There are twenty monks in the convent, and as many κοσμικοί, or lay servants. 2. The second monastery in antiquity is St. Nicolas which contains five or six monks. 3. The third in date, and second in magnitude and revenue, is Varlaam, so called from a hermit who is enrolled among the saints of the Greek calendar, and who fixed his abode upon this rock, which has space only for the church and other buildings.

§ 4.542 The ascent by the net is three or four fathoms longer than at Meteora; and there is a ladder, as at the latter, reaching to the lowest part of the buildings. Varlaam contains at present only five or six resident caloyers. 4. Aia Moni is now empty. 5. Orsami, or Russami, stands on the peak of a naked rock, and contains only two or three monks. 6. Saint Trinity is occupied by five or six monks. 7. Saint Stephen stands on the summit of the precipice, which I before described as overhanging the northern end of Kalabaka. All these monasteries pay the kharatj and the tribute for their lands at Kalabaka. Their payments to the Vezir’s private purse depend only upon his will. The Igumenos of Meteora, and two of his caloyers, with one or two from each of the other convents, are now in prison at Ioannina, for having supplied Evtimio, and probably will not be released without a payment from their respective monasteries. Evtimio, commonly called Papa Evtimio, as having, formerly been ordained for the secular priesthood, was a native of Ismolia in Khassia, and the son of a celebrated captain commonly known by the name of Blakhava, who had the command of the armatoli of Khassia and

§ 4.543 the surrounding districts. Upon his death, Aly Pasha continued to protect his family — and Evtimio, with his brothers and followers, to the number of sixty, still continued to be paid by the vilayeti of Trikkala, for the protection of the country against robbers. When the Vezir deposed the captains of armatoli in Agrafa and Karlili, upon the breaking out of the war between Russia and the Porte, Evtimio was still entrusted with his command. The first symptom of his revolt was a journey to some of the islands of the Aegaean in the summer of 1807. On returning from thence to Khassia in the ensuing winter, he became connected with robbers, fugitives, and outlaws, from every part of Greece, who soon afterwards began to plunder and murder Turks in the adjacent parts of Thessaly. Mukhtar Pasha, having been sent by his father against the robbers, found them in possession of all the rocks around Kalabaka. They had obliged the monasteries to supply them with bread, notwithstanding which they fired one day at the bishop of Stagi, who had concurred in furnishing the bread, at a spot which he pointed out to me between Kastraki and Meteora. In April or May last they fought with Mukhtar’s troops in the same place, and were defeated and dispersed. Evtimio then fled to his former haunts in the Islands, where, having been betrayed by means of a pretended pardon from the Kapitan Pasha, he was conveyed from thence to Constantinople.

§ 4.544 Considerable interest was made for him; but Aly’s influence having prevailed, Evtimio was sent by the Kapitan Pasha to Ioannina, to be disposed of as the Vezir should think fit. The great crime of the rebel Papas in the eyes of Aly was a correspondence said to have been detected between him and the Russians at Corfu, which might have led to a serious revolt, as many of the Greeks at that period, regardless of past experience, had founded new hopes of deliverance from the Ottoman yoke upon the Russian war, and the presence of the Russians in the Seven Islands. There was no mercy, therefore, for Evtimio. During a three months’ imprisonment he was alternately tortured, and flattered with hopes of pardon, for the purpose of extracting a confession of his instigators and accomplices, but without any result: at length, in October last, on the day after the Vezir’s departure for Tepeleni, he was put to death, and his four quarters hung upon the plane-trees at the entrance of Ioannina. The expected capture of Berat by Aly is viewed with approbation by the Thessalians, who hope that he will henceforth resort to the fertile plains of the Mizakia for a large portion of his supplies; that the extension of his power will render his wars less frequent, and that it will give him better means of curbing the lawless insolence and rapacity of the Albanians. Whether such an increase and concentration of the military power of Albania will ultimately be beneficial to the Greeks, it is impossible to foresee. On the one hand, it promotes Musulman ascendancy in that country, encourages apostasy, causes the emigration of those who remain faithful to the Church, separates the Albanians from the Greeks—their relatives in manners and origin—

§ 4.545 and tends to render Albania a Musulman nation of considerable power at no distant period. To this result the Porte will have largely contributed, by having constantly, since the year 1740, or at least with the exception of one short interval only, appointed Albanians to the government of Ioannina, the effect of which has been to annex all Epirus to Albania, and to give facility to their further conquests. As long as the supreme government can employ a large proportion of the Albanian infantry as mercenaries dispersed in various parts of Turkey, it may not feel any great inconvenience from the effects of its weakness in Western Greece; but in the event of a disastrous war, such is the national discordance between the Turks and Albanians, that the latter will assuredly think more of securing that independence which the geographical situation of their country always favours, than of saving the Ottoman Empire from the dissolution to which it inevitably tends. Should its decline still continue to be gradual, the Greeks, as a third party, may derive some benefit from the unfriendly feeling and balance of strength between the two others, and may obtain in consequence some consideration from them both, having always, moreover, this prospect, that if any unexpected political contingency should render a new change of religion conducive to the worldly interests of the Albanians, they will have no greater difficulty in returning to a profession of Christianity, than they had in converting their churches into mosques.

§ 4.546 Jan. 12.—Having descended this morning in the net, and mounted my horse at the foot of the rock, we proceed through an opening between two of these stupendous natural walls by a steep zigzag, similar to that by which we approached from Kastraki, then traversing the fields by an unfrequented path to the Salamvria, ford that river not far below the junction of the Ion, or river of Kratzova, and at the end of an hour and a half from Meteora, arrive at the khan of Kriavrisi, which stands opposite to the junction of the two rivers: from thence I follow the same route to the khan of Malakassi, by which I entered Thessaly in 1805. At the khan I overtake the metropolitan bishop of Elassona proceeding from Constantinople to Ioannina to offer his proskinesis to the Vezir before he takes possession of his province. The Patriarch had named him for Arta on the flight of Bishop Ignatius, and the nomination had been confirmed by the Porte; but as Aly had not been consulted, and did not like the appointment, he contrived to obtain the union of the two sees of Arta and Ioannina, and sent the bishop back to Constantinople to obtain another see. Jan. 13.—To Metsovo. Jan. 14.—A change of wind to the westward brought on rain, but its effects did not prevent me from following the bed of the Arachthus, which saved an hour in the way to Dhrysko. The descent, though almost imperceptible, may have contributed to the diminution; in like manner as on the 12th, the ascent may have caused an increase of time between the several stations, as I was travelling exactly in the same manner as when I descended the Salamvria in 1805.

§ 4.547 Ioannina, Jan. 16.—It is now eight days since Aly entered the castle of Berat, by which he has acquired the most important position in central Albania; and though it gives him not more than a third of the country, it very much increases his influence over the remainder. He was in great measure indebted for his success to the Gheghe, a considerable body of whom he took into his service on this occasion for the first time, having hitherto been deterred probably by the high pay which they demand, but in return for which they fight rather more seriously than the other Albanians. In reducing Elbasan, which was his first step to Berat, he was assisted by the Bey of Dibra, who has married his niece. As soon as the fall of Berat was known at Ioannina, where Aly then was, the bishop of Larissa went to congratulate His Highness upon his success, carrying with him a present of money. This was the signal for others to do the same, and all the surrounding villages will now be taxed by the Hodja-bashis, to make up a present. Thus it is that some interested person often sets an example of making presents to the Turks, which they never fail to demand from all other persons under the like circumstances, as well as a repetition of them upon all similar occasions. This well-known custom of the Turks is imitated not only by the Albanians, who require no masters in the art of extortion, but also by the Greek armatoli, as I heard illustrated not long since by a Vlakhiote sheep-feeder.

§ 4.548 A Koledji of Arta applied once in the winter to the shepherds of his district for a kapa for his young son, who was perishing of cold for the want of one, humbly representing the utility of his men in protecting the shepherds and their flocks: the kapa was granted at the expence to the shepherds of about 100 paras. When the boy grew up and his cloak was worn out, its place was to be supplied with a new one of larger size. This demand soon grew into that of an annual cloak to the Koledji, and to each of his family; and has increased until what was originally an act of charity, has become an annual payment of cloak-money from the shepherds to the Koledji of the district. On the Vezir’s arrival at Berat, one of the first persons, as in duty bound, to make his proskynesis was the metropolitan bishop of Velegrada, but he was so simple as to lay at the Pasha’s feet a present of coffee and sugar. “Take these things,” said the Vezir to a servant, “to my son Salih a boy of eight or nine years of age:” then turning his head to the window, left the bishop standing, without taking the smallest notice of him, until he retired. The next day the bishop re-appeared, and laid a roll of 200 sequins in the same place upon the divan. A glance of Aly’s eye towards the money, was instantly followed by a smiling countenance, a few encouraging words of the usual kind to the δεσποτης, as he then entitled him, with an inquiry how he liked his mansup, and whether his flock behaved well. The bishop replied, that he had nothing to complain of, except that the Greeks were somewhat irregular in their payments, when the Secretary was immediately directed to supply the bishop with a written order, enjoining all the Christians of his diocese to be punctual in their acquittance of the bishop’s dues.

§ 4.549 Jan. 29.—Mukhtar Pasha enters Ioannina on his return from the Danube at the head of about 1000 men. The remainder of his forces he has left on his route through Albania, at the same places where they joined him in the spring. The inhabitants of Ioannina knowing that he expected to be treated as a Ghazi, or conqueror, advanced to meet him in great numbers on his approach. In fact his Albanians were the most effective corps in the Grand Vezir’s army, and he gained great credit for his personal conduct in the action near Silistria. The old Serdar-Azem Kior Yusuf, who formerly commanded the Turkish army in Egypt, said to him publicly after this affair, “You have brought me to life, my son, you deserve that I should feed you with sugar and your horses with rice.” This was followed by presents of horses, pelisses, swords, and a Tjelenk, with an offer of the post of Rumeli Valesi; Mukhtar, however, who knew his father’s opinions upon that subject, declined it, and asked for the Pashalik of Avlona; but it suited the Porte just as little to bestow another Albanian Pashalik upon the house of Tepeleni.

§ 4.550 Notwithstanding the glory which Mukhtar himself has gained, some of his Albanians are well inclined to treat their exploits with derision. Που cδούλευε το μαύρο το τονφεκι μας; what could our poor musquets do? said one of them to me, alluding to the Russian artillery. Others relate how they took some of the Russian cannon three or four times, which by some untoward accident were always retaken; and how the Russians contrived a moving castle full of artillery (perhaps their horse artillery) which put all the Turkish army to flight. They allow the Cossacks to be a better cavalry than the Turkish. The Grand Vezir has been obliged by the scarcity of provisions and forage, to dismiss all the troops to their respective districts, and to remain at Shumla with a personal guard of three or four thousand men. And such is generally the termination of a Turkish campaign.

§ 4.551 Prevyza, 18th Feb.—About 11 p.m. an earthquake occurred, the smartest I have ever felt in Greece, and which lasted so long, that after being waked by it, I had time partly to dress and make my way out of the house before it had ceased. At Ioannina and Corfu it was not much noticed, but at Cefalonia it was almost as violent as at Prevyza, which agrees with a variety of testimony tending to show that the countries immediately round the entrance of the Corinthiac gulf, insular as well as continental, are the parts of Greece most subject to earthquakes, both as to frequency and intensity. To these Laconia, according to ancient evidence, is to be added; but in general Greece, although frequently troubled by slight shocks, could never have been often visited by very destructive concussions. Had this been the case, its glorious buildings could not have remained so long uninjured, nor perhaps would ever have been raised, as the only safe mode of construction in a country subject to such visitations is a wooden frame-work, strongly combined and firmly fixed in the ground. A liability to slight shocks, on the contrary, might be obviated by strength of materials, first in wood and then in masonry, and may therefore have been one of the causes which led the Greeks to their massy Doric architecture, almost rivalling in solidity that which among the Egyptians had a very different origin, having been an imitation of those excavations in the rock, which were their earliest habitations, sepulchres, and temples.

§ 4.553 ADDITIONAL NOTE TO CHAPTER XXXVII. Ioannina in the Fourteenth Century. THE manuscript alluded to in page 204 having been published in extenso, by M. Pouqueville, (Voyage dans la Grece, tome 5,) I shall subjoin an abstract of it, as it presents a curious picture of the condition of Epirus in the fourteenth century. It is a chronicle from 1350 to 1400, and was evidently written by an ecclesiastic:— Under the Emperor John Palaeologus, when the Turks were in possession of Smyrna, Ephesus, and Prusa, and ravaged the coasts of Thrace, when the Genoese conquered Chios, and the Franks of Navarre all the Peloponnesus except Monembasia and Lacedaemonia, Ioannina was taken A.D. 1850, by Stephen Kral of the Triballi or Servians, who had previously invaded the lands of the Empire and seized upon the Grecian Vlakhia, the government of which he bestowed with the title of Caesar upon one of his officers named Prelubo (Πρέλουμπος). The despotate of Aetolia he gave to his own brother Simeon, who, on arriving at Ioannina, married Thomais, daughter of the last despot John, whose son Nicephorus was then a hostage (ομηρος) at Constantinople, where he espoused a daughter of John Cantacuzenus. Anna, widow of John, and late queen (βασίλις) of the despotate, soon after the union of her daughter with Simeon, was married to a brother of the Kral Stephen, named Comnenus, who assumed the government of Kanina and Beligrad (Berat).

§ 4.554 On the death of the Kral and of the Caesar Prelubo, Nicephorus was sent by the Byzantine government to recover the Despotate; upon which Simeon, with his wife Thomais, retired to Kastoria, where Simeon was proclaimed by his troops king of Servia, although Ureses (Ούρέσης) son of Stephen was already reigning; and the widow of Prelubo, with her son Thomas, fled from Trikkala into Servia, where Ureses caused her to espouse another Servian chieftain named Khlapeno (Χλάτενος), who had made himself master of Berrhaea, and some other places on the Greek frontiers. A year after his marriage, Khlapeno marched into Vlakhia and took Dhamasi, which he gave up to Simeon on condition of receiving Simeon's daughter as a wife for his son-in-law Thomas. The nuptial ceremony was performed at Trikkala by the metropolitan bishop of Larissa, after which Thomas returned with his wife and mother to Khlapeno. Nicephorus found Vlakhia occupied by Servians, and the Despotate ravaged by Albanians, and lost his life in a battle with the latter on the Achelous in the year 1358, having reigned little more than three years. Simeon now re-occupied both Vlakhia and the Despotate, placed Thomais, by whom he had a son and daughter, in Trikkala, as the chief town, went himself to occupy Arta and Ioannina; but was soon recalled from thence by the affairs of Vlakhia, where he was obliged to oppose the designs of Khlapeno, who had established himself at Berrhoea. The southern part of the Despotate now fell into the hands of the Albanians, of whom Ghino Vaia (Τίνος Βαιας) established himself at Anghelo-kastro (in the Aetolian plain) and Petro Leosa (Πέτρος Λεώσας) at Arta and Bogus. Some Greek lords who occupied certain castles in the district of Vagenitia, in conjunction with the Ioannites, sent to Simeon to request his protection against the Albanians, and a governor.

§ 4.555 He recommended Thomas, his son-in-law, who received the Ioannite deputation at his residence at Vodhena (Edessa), accepted the proffered honour, and in the year 1367 made his entrance into Ioannina with his queen Angelica Palaeologina. One of the first acts of Thomas was to banish the bishop Sebastian, to give the villages belonging to the church to his Servians, to turn some of its buildings into magazines of hay and corn, and to rob the church of its plate, ac. (θείων σκευών). Some of the leading men of Ioannina he imprisoned, tortured, and plundered, others he forced to fly. Vardhino, governor of the castle of St. Donatus (Paramythia), and John Kapsokavadhi, who held the tower (πύργος) of Areokhovitza revolted, and many of his own Servians quitted him. He encouraged traitors and informers, and made one of them named Michael Apsaras his chief minister with the title of Protovestiarius. The city having been desolated with a plague in 1368, he obliged the widows of the rich men who had died of it to marry his Servians, and deprived the orphans of their inheritance. He loaded the artisans with forced contributions, extorted money under the bastonnade, exacted gratuitous labour from the citizens, legalized places of public prostitution, and derived a profit from their monopoly, as well as from that of wine, corn, meat, cheese, fish, and fruits. For three years the lands of Thomas were ravaged, and the city blockaded by Leosa and his Albanians, until Thomas gave his daughter Irene in marriage to John the son of Leosa, after which Ioannina was for five years at peace with the Albanians; though Thomas, who had received some children of Albanian chieftains as hostages, threw them into prison. He showed his talent for evil in the invention of dungeons and places of torture. In 1374, a plague breaking out at Arta carried off Peter Leosa, upon which John Spata came from the Achelous and took possession of that city, and then marching against Ioannina, ravaged the lands and forced the despot to shut himself up in the city. Spata is described as active, handsome, accomplished both in word and action, and possessing theory as well as experience— (θεωρία γαρ και πράξις ήν εν αυτω). In 1375 a second plague at Ioannina carried off Irene.

§ 4.556 Spata did not discontinue hostilities until Thomas had given him his sister Helene with presents in marriage. The despot next endeavoured to collect a body of troops, consisting of robbers and vagabonds, to oppose the Albanians. Listening to the false accusations of Apsaras, he ill-treated his wife Angelica, and soon afterwards fell into the most shameful debaucheries. In 1378, Ghino Frati, with the Albanians of Malakhssi, marched against Ioannina; but on the 14th of September was defeated, taken, and forced to walk into the city with a drum upon his shoulders: the prisoners were sold. The same year the grand master (ό μέγας Μαίστωρ) blockaded Arta; but the Albanians, collecting their forces, defeated him, made him prisoner, and delivered him to Spata, who sold him a few days afterwards ‘. Thomas soon afterwards marched against the Albanians, and blockaded them in Arta. In 1379, the Malakassei again marched against Ioannina, and in February, by the treachery of a deaf ferryman named Nicephorus, transported a body of more than 200 chosen men into the town, who took the upper fortress (rov ίπάνω γονλάν) while the main body was landed in the island, from whence, having obtained a great number of canoes and boats (μονόξυλα καί βάρκαις),..they advanced towards the city, but were opposed on the lake by the citizens with two boats and a few canoes. In the town the citizens fought for three days, both with those in the upper fortress, and against other Albanians who attacked the city on the land side, until by the assistance of St. Michael, to whom their prayers were addressed, they put the invaders to flight, which induced those in the fortress to surrender at discretion. Thomas then confined the chiefs of the Albanians in the citadel, gave up the soldiers to the people to be sold, cut off the noses of the Bulgarians and Vlakhi, and claimed the surname of AIbanian-killer (Αλβανιτοκτόνος). In the month of May, Spata marched against Ioannina, ruining the villages and vineyards, upon which Thomas hung his Albanian prisoners on the towers, or cut off their limbs and put out their eyes, which he sent to Spata, continuing these cruelties until the latter retired.

§ 4.557 About this time having discovered a conspiracy he put the leaders to a cruel death, together with some who were innocent, and banished others whom he or his minister Apsaras had accused. He increased the imposts, the angaria, and monopolies; and when many of the people betook themselves to flight to avoid his tyranny, he gave their property to strangers. Near upon Christmas of the same year (1879) Theophylakto and Khondezi (Χοντέζης), two archons from near Kastoria, came to request him to take possession of the castle of Servia (ro κάστρον των Σερβίων), hut he put them in prison in order to extort money from them. In the beginning of the year 1380, at the instigation of Khukhulitzas (rov Χουχουλίτζα), he threw many of the magistrates (εγκρίτους) into prison. Manuel Filanthropino, the chief secretary of the town (πρωτασηκρήτην), whom he liberated, and had pretended to restore to favour, he poisoned with a cup of wine; and the president (προκαθήμενον), Constantine, whom he had detained five years in prison, he banished to Vursina, (Βουρσινα), after putting out his eyes. Some others he deprived also of their sight, and many he sold, so that every place was full of the people of Ioannina while the town itself was depopulated. Having invited the Turks to his assistance, one of their chiefs named Isaim, on the 2d June, 1380, took possession of Vela and Opa, and obliged the Mazarakei and Zenovisei to shut themselves up in their towns (εις τας Πολιτζας). Thomas then occupied the castles (καστέλια) of Vursina, Kretzunista, Dhragomi, Areokhovitza, and appointed their archons to be captains (κεφαλάδες) and judges (ζουπαναίοι), but continued to persecute the Albanians and Ioannites. He imprisoned Isaia, prior (καθηγούμενος) of the monastery of the Holy Providence (τής Προνο/ας) at Metzovo, and after receiving 200 aspra from his friends as a redemption of his eyes, put them out, sold the prior, took possession of the monastery, and expelled its inmates and parishioners (παροικούς). About the same time he purchased St. Donatus (Paramythia) from Μυρσιροβερτος. In 1382 he employed Kosti, with a body of Turks, to obtain the country of the Zulanei (Zουλανέοι), and on the 5th May Isaim took Revniko (Pευνήκον).

§ 4.558 Spata marched to Aruli, when his son-in-law, Μυρσιμακαζιανος, having been received in Ioannina with great honour, made peace by which Spata obtained the cession of Vela, Dhrynopoli, Vagenetia, and Malakassi, as far as Katuna, and his son-in-law the country of Zevemvesei (Ζεβεμβεσαιοι). Nevertheless in September, 1383, Spata again came to demand the dowry of Helen, but Thomas induced him by some trifling gifts to return. Thomas sent Gabriel, prior of the Άρχιμάνδριον, and the archon Mangafa to Constantinople, to obtain from Manuel Palaeologus that emperor’s confirmation of him in the government of the Despotate. On their return, Thomas was invested by them with the insignia of the office (τα δεσποτικα άξιώματα). On this occasion divine service was performed by Matthew, who had been recently made metropolitan bishop of Ioannina, to which dignity the metropolitan throne of Naupactus was also attached (εχέχων καί rov Naiwrarrov θρόνον). Thomas not permitting Matthew to remain at Ioannina, he resided at Arta. A.D. 1385, in the time of vintage, a large body of Turks under Demir Tash (Τα/χονρτάσης) made an incursion towards Arta, and carried away many persons into slavery. Spata sent Bishop Matthew and Kalognomo to the Despot to propose a joint expedition against the Turks, but Thomas detained Kalognomo, banished the bishop, and gave his church to the Devil (τω Σενναχερίμ). At length in the same year, on Wednesday the 23d December, in the fifth hour of the night, Thomas was slain by his own body-guards, Nikeforaki, Artavesto, Rainaki, and Antonio the Frank. The Ioannites then assembled in the Metropolitan church (εν τω μητροπολει), demanded their lawful queen Angelica, and performed homage to her (προσκυνούσιν).

§ 4.559 She summoned Meliglavo and Theodore Apsaras, who buried the apostate, and declared Ioasaf, the brother of Angelica, king (βασιλέα εισφέρουσί). The queen (η βασίλισσα) was kind to all, and sent letters to recal those who were in banishment. Spata, as soon as he heard of the death of Thomas, marched to Ioannina, and invested it with his Albanians, upon which Ioasaf, with the advice of his council, offered Angelica in marriage to Izau (Ίζαοΰ), a lord of Cefalonia (εις την Kεφαληνιαν αύθέντην) Michael Apsaras was then tried, deprived of his sight, and banished. On the 30th Jan. 1386, Izau arrived at Ioannina and was declared Despot. The Caesar Stephen, and the Καισάρισσα (mother of Angelica) came to Ioannina, the latter as παράννμφος at the celebration of the marriage. The new despot being a good Christian (φιλόχριστος ών), re-established Matthew on the Metropolitan throne, and restored the church property. In concurrence with queen Angelica and king Ioasaf, he emptied the prisons destroyed the dungeons, closed the places of debauchery, restored houses to their proper heirs, and abolished the forced servitude and the corporal punishments which had been established by Thomas.

§ 4.560 He was then complimented by the Ioannites with the titles of Παννυψηλότατος, and εκλαμπρότατος. Spata having moved against Ioannina, Izau obliged him to retreat, and made peace with the other Albanians. Paleologo Vrioni, brought the insignia of the despotate from Constantinople and crowned Izau (και εστεψε τον Ίζαοΰ), the bishops of Velas and Dryinopolis and the Metropolitan of Ioannina performing the holy offices. In the same year (1386) Bishop Matthew died, when the Servians endeavoured to obtain the property of the church, but Izau prevented it, and appointed provisionally Gabriel prior of the Arkhimandrio who was recommended to Constantinople as a fit successor to Matthew, by the chief persons of the Despotate and of its church. In the year (1387) the Despot visited the Emir (Άμηρά). A thunderbolt fell on the belfry of the monastery and destroyed fourteen persons. In 1388 Gabriel proceeded to Constantinople to ask for the vacant throne of Ioannina, and in March 1389 returned as Metropolitan bishop. In 1389 the Emir Murat (ο Αμηράς Aμουράτ) and Lazarus (king of Servia) were both killed in battle. In July Spata marched from Arta, and pitched his camp before Ioannina, when the Malakassoi revolted and submitted to him (τον προσκυvoυσι). He then ravaged the country, destroyed the vines, and took Veltzista. The bishop of Vela, possessor, by the concession of Izau, of Vrivia (Βριβία), submitted to Spata, and gave up the fortress to him. Izau was not permitted by his friends to go forth to battle, but he sent the Zagorites and his other troops against Spata, who defeated them, and launching two galleys (κάτεργα) on the lake, sunk one which the Despot sent against them. The Caesar (Ioasaf) came to the assistance of Izau from Vlakhia (Thessaly), and Melkusi (Μελκούσης) from the Sultan at Thessalonica, upon which Spata retired. The Despot then proceeded with the Turkish chief and the Caesar to Thessalonica, where he resided fourteen months; then returned by the Achelous to Arta and to Ioannina, which he entered Dec. 1392. Ioannina now enjoyed four years of peace. Izau is praised by the author for frequently consulting the bishop.

§ 4.561 In December, 1395, Queen Angelica Ducaena Palaeologina died. Who can describe (adds the author) the cries of the city, the hymns, the candles, the psalmodies, the condolences, the lamentations (τους κρότους της πόλεως τονς τότε, τους ύμνους, τάς λαμπάδας, τάς -ψαλμωδίας, τάς προς άλλήλους συμπλοκής καϊ θρήνους, ac.) After the proper period of mourning (εντελέσας τάς πένθιμους Ημέρας άξίως) Izau was persuaded by the archons and bishop, for the sake of the public safety, to marry Irene, daughter of Spata. Not long after the marriage, Vranezi, who had returned with Izau from Thessalonica, was routed by Spata at Dhrysko, and driven back as far as Fanaromeni, but while the Albanians were indulging in plunder they were attacked near Paktora (τάς Πάκτορας), and suffered considerable loss. April 5, 1399. Izau marched against Zeuevisi with all his forces, collected from Malakassi, Mazaraki, Papingo, Zagoria, Dhrynopoli, Arghyrokastro and Great Zagori. As he was advancing from Mesopotamo towards Dibra he was attacked in the midst of a fog and tempest by Ghioni, and having been defeated and taken prisoner, was put in chains at Arghyrokastro, together with his archons. But the noble families of Florence to whom he was related, having made interest for him, he was permitted, through the influence of Venice, and the mediation of its bailo at Corfu (τον βάϊλον των Κορυφών), to purchase his liberty for 10,000 sequins (φλωρία). After remaining some days at Corfu he proceeded to Santa Maura, and from thence to Grovalea (Γροβαλαίας εις τα μερη), where he was received by Spata and his brother Sguro. He then proceeded to Arta, and on the 17th July, 1399, re-entered Ioannina. April 28, 1400, Spata died, and was succeeded at Arta by his brother Sguro, a few days after which the Servo-Albano-Bulgaro-Wallachian Vonkoi (Σερβαλβανοβουλγαρόβλαχος Bογκόης) made his appearance, drove out Sguro, and plundered and banished the chief persons. The MS. concludes with the author's lamentations for the fate of Arta, or Acarnania as he calls it, according to a common solecism of the learned of those times.

§ 4.562 Another MS., which like the former has been published by M. Pouqueville, after briefly enumerating the European conquests of the Ottoman Emperors, states that when Sultan Murat II. had regained all those cities and provinces in Europe which had been lost to the Turks, when his grandfather Bayazid was defeated and taken by Timur Khan; the Ioannites perceiving that the Sultan exercised great cruelties over those whom he conquered, collected an army for the defence of Mount Pindus, and the other passes of Epirus. Twice Murat sent his forces against them, and twice was defeated by the gallant conduct of the Greeks, aided by the strength of the places. The Sultan then wrote a letter to the Ioannites, representing that God had set no bounds to his empire, that with the exception of their mountains, all Greece had submitted to him (εξω άπο τά βουνά σας όλοι μ' επροσκύνησαν), and that he recommended them therefore to deliver up their city to him, if they wished to avoid the fate of those who had been cut off by the sword, or sold as captives. He swore not to eject them from their castle (από το Κάστρον σας) if they were faithful to his government. The Ioannites considering that many strong fortresses had submitted to the Ottomans, and that their own was small and feeble, sent the keys to Murat at Thessalonica. The treaty was sworn to on both sides, a khati-sherif was received by the Ioannites, and the keys were delivered to Murat, who sent eighteen Turks to take possession. As soon as these arrived, they required the cannon to be fired as a mark of rejoicing, and the church of St. Michael, situated on the towers of the castle (κειμίνην εϊς τούς πύργους τον Κάστρου), to be destroyed. They then built houses for themselves in the part of the city now called Turkopaluko, and on the refusal of the Greeks to give them wives, complained to Murat, who sent a firmahn (γράμμα βασιλικόν) authorizing the Turks to take such women for their wives as might please them. The envoy of the Sultan, who brought the paper, entered the castle in company with the Turks on a Greek festival, and waited at Pantokrdtora outside the Metropolitan church, until the Greeks with their wives and families came out of the church, when each Turk as he saw a young woman that pleased him,

§ 4.563 took off his outer garment (το φόρεμα), threw it over her, took her by the hand, and led her away as bia wife. Some days afterwards the Christians finding their lamentations useless, ceased to grieve, and some of them began to console themselves by saying, that perhaps (ταχα) those Turks were lords and archons, not inferior in honour to themselves; they sent dowries (προικα) therefore to the houses of their daughters, and to each a female slave and a nurse (μίαν δούλην καί μίαν βυζάστραν), to which were added arable lands, meadows, and other gifts (ζευγαλατεια καϊ λιβάδια και άλλα χαρίσματα), and thus the impious race of Hagar prospered (των'Αγαρηνών γένος εοροχώρει). Next follows an account of an insurrection, called η επανάστασις του Σκυλοσόφου, or the insurrection of the Skylosoph or Dogsophist, which gave the Turks a pretext, founded on the letter of Sultan Murat, for expelling the Greeks from the castle of Ioannina, and depriving them of their lands and timaria. In the year 1611 (says the MS.), Dionysius, bishop of Tricca, who had been deprived of his dignity because he had been guilty of astrology, fortune-telling, and other unworthy acts, and who had fled to Italy, returned from thence and took up his abode at the monastery of St. Demetrius, between Kerasovo and Radhovisti. After some time he came to Ioannina, where, observing that the Turks were not numerous, and that they did not reside in the castle, he informed one Tagas and some other friends that he had ascertained by astrology that he was destined to give liberty to Ioannina and other places, and that eventually the Sultan himself at Constantinople would rise from his seat at his approach. Then quitting the city he marched about the country with a wooden drinking vessel (πλόσκά) at his back, haranguing and giving wine to the peasants and shepherds, a large body of whom, after committing some drunken excesses in various places, at length attacked the Turkish villages of Turkograniza and Zaravfisa, distant two hours from the convent of St. Demetrius, murdered the inhabitants and destroyed the villages. In the night of the tenth of September they entered Ioannina, set fire to the house of Osman Pasha, who