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

ToposText · Col. William Leake · 2,204 sections

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§ 2.060 Brennus, upon learning that Thermopylae was evacuated by the enemy, without waiting for Acichorius marched forward to Delphi, where he suffered a variety of disasters which the Greeks believed to have been caused by an immediate interposition of Apollo in defence of his sanctuary. If Pausanias was truly informed, the Greeks were assisted on this occasion both by an earthquake which detached some of the rocks of Parnassus and rolled them upon the enemy, and by a thunder-storm which was succeeded by snow and a supernatural degree of cold. The next day they were attacked in the rear by the Phocians, when Brennus with difficulty escaped, and effected a junction with Acichorius. A panic terror caused the Gauls to kill one another; and the Greeks, assembling from all sides, harassed them to such a degree that with difficulty they regained the Spercheius, when they were again so vigorously assailed by the Thessalians, that, if Pausanias is to be believed, not one returned from Greece. Although there may be some superstitious exaggeration in the accounts which obtained credit in Greece of this defeat of the Gauls, none of the circumstances are incredible in a country so subject to earthquakes, and thunder-storms, and to sudden changes of temperature in the mountains. No place in Greece is more likely than Delphi to be the scene of such a conflict of the elements, or is better suited, by its local peculiarities to produce the effect upon ignorant strangers which Pausanias has described. When terror had once overpowered the minds of the invaders their destruction easily followed, exposed as they were to
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§ 2.061 an enemy well acquainted with all the natural resources of the country, and ready to harass them in their retreat through some of the most difficult passes in Greece. In the year 207 B.C., when Eastern Greece was the seat of war between Philip, king of Macedonia, son of Demetrius, and the Aetolians, who were then in alliance with the Romans, and with Attalus, king of Pergamus, the pass of Thermopylae was fortified by the Aetolians with a foss and dyke, which was soon afterwards taken by Philip. Sixteen years afterwards, Thermopylae was occupied by Antiochus, king of Syria, when at war with the Romans, who were then in alliance with Philip. Antiochus brought with him 10,000 infantry, 500 horse, and six elephants. The Aetolians were also opposed to the Romans, but afforded little assistance to Antiochus. The consul Acilius, commander of the Roman army, after laying waste the districts of Hypata and Heracleia, both which cities were then in the hands of the Aetolians, encamped in the pass near the fountains of hot water, over against the king, who had fortified his position with a wall, and a double ditch and rampart, and who, mindful of what had happened to the Lacedaemonians in former time as well as recently to Philip, had prevailed upon the
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§ 2.062 Aetolians to occupy with 2000 men three castles upon the mountain named Tichius, Rhoduntia, and Callidromum; upon learning which the consul detached Flaccus his legate against Tichius and Rhoduntia, and Cato against Callidromum. On the morning after the arrival of the Romans at Thermopylae, both parties drew out their forces. Those of Antiochus were in two lines in front of the rampart, a part of his light-armed occupying the heights above the hot sources. The Macedonian Sarissophori was in the centre: on the right, as far as the marshes, were the elephants with their guards, and behind them the cavalry. The remainder of the army formed a second line. The position, though we may suppose it to have been somewhat increased in breadth since the time of the Persian, and even of the Gallic invasion, by the gradual effect of the same causes which have at length left a considerable plain between the pass and the Spercheius, was too narrow for such an order of battle as that of Antiochus, against infantry which had now established its superiority over the phalanx. His line, therefore, was obliged to retreat behind the first rampart, and was defending the second with some advantage, when the troops of Cato, who had surprised the Aetolians in Callidromum, appeared on the summit of the heights above the pass, threatening the rear of the king’s position,
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§ 2.063 and the destruction of his whole army. A precipitate retreat was the immediate consequence, which would have been still more disastrous to the Greeks than it proved, had not the narrowness of the pass rendered the advance of the Roman infantry difficult, and that of the cavalry impossible, in face of the elephants, which the Romans at length found it more easy to kill than to capture. The pursuit, however, was continued as far as Scarpheia; scarcely any more than 500, who formed the bodyguard of Antiochus, escaped to Chalcis, and the loss of the battle obliged Antiochus to retire into Asia. There are still the remains of three Hellenic fortresses on the side of Mount Callidromus above Thermopylae: one of these is on the westernmost of the two rocky heights which include the ravine of the torrent of Anthele; the second is above it, near Dhamasta; the third occupies the summit described by me at 1.50, as lying on the right of the road, about half way from Thermopylae to Pundonitza. As the consul sent a single body of troops against Tichius and Rhoduntia, and another against Callidromum, it is natural to suppose that the two former were those not far distant from one another on the western side of the mountain, and I am disposed to believe that Tichius was the higher, as Appian gives the names of Tichius and Callidromum to two summits of the mountain. It will follow that Callidromum was the third fortress, the position of which accords with the circumstance of Cato, soon after he had taken Callidromum, having made his appearance on the hills
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§ 2.064 threatening the rear of the king’s position, and consequently towards the eastern end of the pass. Had these fortresses existed at the time of the Persian or Gallic invasions, or even when Philip occupied Thermopylae against the Romans and Aetolians, they would probably have been brought into notice on those occasions. They would seem, therefore, to have been constructed during the sixteen years which elapsed between the last-mentioned period and the Antiochian campaign; probably by the Aetolians, who had then extended their dominion from the borders of Aetolia proper, to those of Locris. The want of such an addition to the natural defences of this entrance into the southern provinces of Greece, had then been repeatedly proved, and the road over the mountain had thrice frustrated the hopes of the defenders of Thermopylae, founded on the strength of the pass itself. The three fortresses were well placed for the object in view. Tichius defended the ascent of the mountain on the road by which Hydarnes crossed it. Rhoduntia protected the route by which the pass of the Phoenix may be turned through the ravine of Anthele, and Callidromum was equally well placed as a defence of the upper pass on the eastern side. We are told by Procopius, that among other works which Justinian constructed for the defence of the empire, he restored the fortifications of Thermopylae, and of some neighbouring towns. Scarcely any illustration of topography, however, is to be
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§ 2.065 obtained from the Byzantine historian, who had evidently no personal knowledge of the place, and whose inflated account exaggerates the power and performances of Justinian in the same degree as in his Secret History he studies to vilify his imperial master. The buildings of Justinian were probably of a very different composition from the solid constructions of the ancient Greeks, for while remains still exist, more or less considerable, of all the principal Hellenic cities round the Maliac Gulf, not a trace is to be found, as far as I can learn, either of the works which Justinian is said to have constructed at Thermopylae, Heracleia, and Hypata, or of the towns of Saccus, Unnus, Coracion, Baleae, or Leontarium, all which Procopius states to have been situated near Thermopylae.
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§ 2.066 CHAPTER 11: LOCRIS, PHOCIS, DORIS. Pundonitza, or Bundonitza, according to the vulgar enunciation of the initial P, is a bishopric of the province of Athens, under the name of Medhinitza, and the chief place of a Turkish district comprehending 30 villages. The town, which contains 115 Greek families and 50 Turkish, stands at the foot of a steep rock, occupied by a castle of the middle ages, in the walls of which are some portions of Hellenic masonry, showing that it was the acropolis of one of the towns of the Epicnemidii. The hill rises from an elevated plain, stretching along the foot of a ridge which connects the summits anciently named Callidromus and Cnemis.
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§ 2.067 The latter mountain, which commences at the end of this plain and extends to that of Talanda, is woody and uncultivated, and is here generally known by the name of Karya, from the nearest village. Half-way towards it from Pundonitza the pass of Fondana leads over the ridge to Turkokhorio, or Essed, in the plain of the Cephissus, By this road I came to Pundonitza on my former visit. The castle commands a fine view of the Maliac Golf, and of the Straits on either side of Euboea, together with a large portion of the northern part of that great island, particularly the peninsula Centeum, now called Lithadha. Beyond the straits, the gulf, and the plain of Zituni, is seen the whole range of Mount Othrys. A little to the right of the southern mouth of the Spercheius, that of a large torrent is a conspicuous object. It is formed from the ravines mentioned at 1.50 and 2.30, added to the water-courses round Pundonitza. Its ancient name is not, I believe, to be found in history. The Boagrius, which is a similar but much larger torrent, enters the sea two or three miles farther to the east. It collects all the waters from the elevated plain and adjacent mountains to the eastward of Pundonitza. If the relative situations of the two divisions of Eastern Locris were not perfectly clear, the modern name Pundonitza might mislead the geographer, and induce him to suppose that Opus was here situated, Pundonitza being formed apparently from one of the oblique cases of'Οπους, by the omission of the
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§ 2.068 initial o, which is a common Romaic corruption, and by the addition of the Greco-Illyric diminutive ιτζα. But the Epicnemidii were certainly interposed between Thermopylae and the Opontii; Pundonitza, therefore, can only be regarded as an instance among many in Greece of the preservation of an ancient name in a different site, arising probably from one of those colonizations or movements of the inhabitants, which appear in all ages to have been common in this country. Neopatra, or New Patra, is a neighbouring example, greatly resembling that of Little Opus, at Pundonitza. The upper Epicnemedian plain, as that of Pundonitza may be called, in contradistinction to the maritime level which contained some other towns of the Epicnemidii, may be considered as a continuation of the upper region of Mount Callidromus, already so often mentioned, in which Dhamasta and Dhrakospilia are situated. All this elevated country, although unproductive compared with the rich Spercheian plain, is a most useful neighbour to it, by supplying the timber and fuel, in which the plains are deficient, and by affording a salubrious retreat from their pernicious exhalations in the summer. Callidromus in particular, which is well described by its name, consists entirely in its middle region, of a most agreeably diversified scene of pasture and corn land, intermixed with forests, rocks, and streams; and commanding by its elevation a variety of prospects of the most sublime and interesting character. The whole district of Melis, in short, is a complete example of the great variety and resources of the climate and soil of Greece.
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§ 2.069 Nov. 29.—At a mile to the south of Pundonitza, we leave to the right a road to Dhrakospilia, which follows the foot of the steep ridge, connecting Callidromus with Cnemis, and enter a narrow rocky opening in it, between two summits, of which that on the left is very lofty, and clothed with large fir-trees. The pass is a mile in length. In eight minutes beyond its extremity, mounting a rising ground, we suddenly open a magnificent view of the great mountains of Phocis, Boeotia, and Attica, from the western end of Parnassus as far as Mount Parnes, together with a great part of the lower country within these barriers. Below us extends the great valley of Doris and Phocis, contained between the Oetaean and the Parnassian ranges; and immediately opposite is the town of Dhadhi, or Dhadhia, on the side of Parnassus, considerably increased since I was there between three and four years ago. I recognize also the other places on the opposite side of the valley, which I then visited, namely, the villages of Velitza and Suvala, on the side of Mount Parnassus,—higher in that mountain Aguriani, in the road which leads across it to Delphi,— at its foot the sources of the Cephissus, called Kefalovryses,—the ruins at Paleokastro, and the pass and khan of Gravia, by which we proceeded to Salona. The plain to the westward surrounded by Callidromus, Oeta, and Parnassus, and watered by several streams, which unite and fall into the Cephissus, is well seen also from these hills.
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§ 2.070 The position of the several objects, particularly that of the mountains, perfectly illustrates Strabo, and proves that the farther part of this great valley towards the west is a part of the ancient Doris; the ruins, therefore, which we then saw near Mandates and at Gravia, are those of two of the Dorian towns named by the geographer. It may be remarked also from hence, that the territory of Dhadhi forms a natural separation between the Dorian and the Phocian valley of the Cephissus; for here the hills on either side approaching, leave only a narrow passage for the river. The root of Parnassus, which forms the north-western point of the strait, meets the Cephissus about two miles to the north-west of Dhadhi, where the road from Zituni passes the river by a bridge near some mills. To the westward of this point are some copious springs at the foot of the hills, which form a marshy space for a quarter of a mile, and then join the river. These springs are usually called the μεγάλαις βρύσεις, or great sources; but though they bear this name from their forming a large marsh or inundation around them in winter, they are not so permanent or so considerable in summer as the other great sources three miles farther to the south-west at the foot of Parnassus, and which show by their name, κιφαλοβρύσίις, that they are now considered the fountain-head of the Cephissus. Near the Megales Vryses, to the south-west, begins a long slope, similar to that of Dhadhi, at the head of which is Suvala, where in my former tour I remarked ancient foundations, which probably mark the site of Charadra.
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§ 2.071 The foot of the mountain afterwards takes a turn, for a short distance, to the northward to the Kefalo-vryses, which issue from under a platform supported by the remains of an ancient wall near a large ruined church. The course of the Cephisus is north-easterly from the sources to the extremity of the slope of Dhadhi, which it surrounds; it then gradually assumes the south-easterly course, which it follows to the Stena, leading into the plain of Chaeroneia. A little to the right of the Kefalo-vryses is seen the ravine of a torrent generally dry, which descends from Aguriani. On its left bank, on the edge of the plain, are the ruins called Paleokastro, one of the best preserved of Hellenic fortresses, and which a variety of authorities from Homer to Pausanias show to have been Lilaea, by their testimony that the sources of the Cephissus were at that town; the nearest point of these remains is in fact less than half a mile from the Kefalovryses.
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§ 2.072 To the right of Paleokastro occur the lower heights of Parnassus, much intersected with torrents running into the branch of the Cephissus, called the Kaienitza, or river of Gravia. In a recess at the foot of Parnassus, from which one of these tributaries of the Kaenitza proceeds, and about midway between Paleokastro and Gravia are the ruins of an ancient town at the village of Mariolates. The Kaienitza, which had no water in it when I passed along its bank in the month of July, but is now a stream of some magnitude, flows parallel to and at a small distance from the foot of Parnassus, until near the Megales Vryses it unites with another and larger stream called Apostolia, and then joins the Cephissus. The Apostolia rises in Mount Oeta, enters the plain towards its north-western corner, and crosses it obliquely. On, or not far from its left bank, is Kardhiki, situated on the right of the road from Zituni to Salona, in a forest of oaks, which not only covers that side of Mount Callidromus, but extends over all the neighbouring part of the plain. Below the forest the plain is well cultivated. On the Apostolia, above Kardhiki, is Pavliani, and on this side of the road from Zituni to Salona, on the slope of the mountain, are Bralos, Paleo-khori,
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§ 2.073 Kamares, Glunista, and then Ternitza, to which latter village I descend in forty minutes, and then proceed to the ruins of a Hellenic fortress, situated about midway between Kamares and Glunista, which I observed from Dhadhi on my former visit. It is distant forty minutes from Ternitza, and occupied a rocky point of the mountain on the edge of the plain. Some of the towers remain nearly entire. The masonry is generally of the third order, but contains some pieces of the polygonal kind; the space enclosed is a triangle, of which none of the sides is more than 250 yards. At the summit is a circular acropolis of about two acres, preserving the remains of an opening into the town. These are probably the ruins of Drymus or Drymaea, where Pausanias noticed an ancient temple of Ceres, containing an upright statue of the goddess in stone, and in whose honour a festival was celebrated named the Thesmophoria. From the Paleokastro, I proceed, in thirty-five minutes, directly across the plain to the bridge near the mills already mentioned. This space is one continued corn-field, with an excellent soil. It is not yet ploughed for sowing. From the bridge we ascend, in forty minutes, to Dhadhi. At a third of the distance is the Kalyvia of Dhadhi, consisting of upwards of one hundred huts for the use of the labourers and cattle of the Dhadhiotes. The space between Dhadhi and the river is a triangular slope, of which the village forms the vertex: at the river side or base the triangle is about three miles long; to the eastward it is bounded by a ridge which descends from Parnassus and forms a projection at the river;
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§ 2.074 and on the third side the triangle terminates in the point near the mills. Dhadhi, which is in the district of Livadhia, now contains five hundred families, having been much increased by emigrants flying from Turkish extortions in districts less protected at Constantinople than Livadhia has the good fortune to be, from its being a Vakuf of Mecca. It will probably not be long, however, before Dhadhi and Livadhia itself will suffer from the encroachment of Aly Pasha. Two handsome churches and a school have lately been built, and there is a large monastery of the Panaghia on the side of the mountain above the town. The houses are generally upon the same plan, consisting of two small rooms and a gallery in front of them. The galleries, for the most part, face the south-east, so that the gable ends of the houses, in which there is generally one small window, look down the elope. The people appear industrious and civil. The lands on the declivity below the village, although stony, yield a tolerable return in wheat and barley. In the valley below, where the soil is excellent, the return is eight to one, and would undoubtedly be much greater with a better mode of agriculture. The cotton-grounds which are below the narrow part of the valley, consume all the water of the Cephissus in summer, and leave it dry as far as the junction of the Mavronero in the plain below Daulis.
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§ 2.075 A height which rises from the western side of the village of Dhadhi and is named the Paleokastro, from some remains of Hellenic walls encircling the summit, was evidently the acropolis of a town which occupied the side of the same rocky height, as far as the edge of the cultivated slope of Dhadhi. An inscription in a church on the summit of the hill shows this city to have been Amphicleia: a fact very useful in arranging the τοποθεσία of the Phocian towns Amphicleia, indeed, is not named in the inscription; but as the monument was erected in the sacred inclosure of Bacchus, in honour of one of his high-priests, and as Amphicleia was noted for the worship and orgies of that deity, there can be little doubt of the identity; especially as Pausanias has not described any other town of this valley as having contained a temple of Bacchus. The orgies were celebrated in a secret cell, into which Pausanias was not permitted to enter. The inscription appears to be nearly of his time, for the titles of the priest are exactly referrible to the political state in which he found Greece. Marcus Ulpius Damasippus, therefore, in whose honour the monument was raised, was one of those priests who enounced the oracles of Bacchus when under the influence of the Great God, as he is termed in the inscription, and who interpreted the dreams of suppliants for the cure of their diseases. The monument was erected by Quintilia Plutarcha, the wife of Damasippus, by authority of the council and people.
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§ 2.076 A papas of Dhadhi, who has succeeded to the influence of the high-priest of Bacchus in this place, and who has lately purchased a part of the fertile valley on the banks of the Cephissus, near the bridge, points out to me from the church in the Paleokastro the remains of another Hellenic ruin on the left bank of a deeply incased rema, at a tjiftlik called Mulki, immediately below the ruined mosque and village of Verzana, which is said to have been formerly the chief town of this district.
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§ 2.077 Nov. 30.—Quitting Dhadhi at 9.30 for Velitza, we continue to follow the foot of the great summits of Parnassus nearly on the same level with Dhadhi; the Cephissus remaining at a distance of two or three miles to the left. Having arrived at 9.52 at an opening between the acclivities of Parnassus, where the ridge of Dhadhi terminates to the eastward, we begin to descend, though still having the steep sides of the upper heights of Parnassus close on the right. At 10.15 a road to the left conducts to Turkokhorio and Talanda, and on the opposite side of the Cephissus is seen the village of Modhi, on the side of Mount Fondana, which, except around that village, is uncultivated and covered with shrubs. Towards Velitza, where we arrive at 11.15, the Parnassian slope also becomes very stony and uncultivated: this village, which contains sixty or seventy families, is situated exactly at the foot of the great heights of the mountain, where a torrent, issuing from them, flows in a broad gravelly bed at the foot of precipices which defend the eastern side of Velitza. A gentle slope about four miles in length falls from the village to the Cephissus. The higher lands produce wheat and barley, the lower cotton and maize, which are watered by derivations from the torrent. Velitza occupies the exact site of an ancient polis, the ruined walls of which inclose the modern houses to the west and south, and are continued on the former side so as to include also a triangular space of nearly the same superficial extent as the village, on the face of a rocky peak which overhangs it, and immediately above which rises one of the highest of the snowy summits of Parnassus. On some parts of the height the walls occupy situations to which it would be difficult to climb. Along the edge of the cliffs on the eastern side of the acropolis and modern village no walls are traceable.
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§ 2.078 Some of the towers are extant to more than half their original height, with masonry in regular courses about eighteen inches high. The material is the same as that of the rocky peak behind the village, giving, together with that peak, a white appearance to the place at a distance, which probably suggested the modern name. The church of Velitza is large and ancient, in the form of a Greek cross, with a dome in the middle; among many spoils of Hellenic buildings in the walls and pavement, is an inscribed stone of a concave form, inserted in the usual semi-circular recess behind the altar, from which we learn that the ruins are those of Tithorea. The torrent was named Cachales, according to Pausanias, whose remark, that the inhabitants descended to it for the purpose of obtaining water, accords with the height of the village above the torrent. The town had declined for a generation before the time of the Greek traveller, who noticed, however, a theatre, the inclosure of an ancient agora, an alsos and temple of Minerva containing a statue of the goddess, and a monument in memory of Phocus and his wife Antiope.
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§ 2.079 In the time of Herodotus, Tithorea was known by the name of Neon; it was one of the towns occupied by the Persians in their progress through Phocis, after they had forced the defile of Thermopylae, when many of the Phocians took refuge in Amphissa, and others in the highest parts of Parnassus, particularly on Mount Tithorea, near Neon, because it was spacious, and capable of containing great numbers of them. As this description is scarcely applicable to the peak immediately above Velitza, which is not very spacious, was included within the walls of Tithorea, and could hardly have been excluded from those of Neon, unless that city occupied a much lower site, it might be supposed that the Mount Tithorea of Herodotus was the great summit of Parnassus above the peak of Velitza, which seems the more likely, as Pausanias affirms that Tithorea was the name anciently applied to the district, and that it was not until the population of the neighbouring villages was collected within the city which subsisted until his time that the name of Tithorea was given to it. Plutarch, however, in the life of Sylla, favours the opposite opinion. He relates, that when Hortensius marched from Thessaly to effect a junction with Sylla on the frontiers of Phocis and Boeotia, Caphis a Phocian led him round through
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§ 2.080 Parnassus for the purpose of avoiding Thermopylae, which was in the hands of the army of Mithradates, and that on this occasion the circuitous route issued below Tithorea:—“a place,” adds Plutarch, “not such as the present city, but only a fortress upon a precipitous rock, where the Phocians of old took refuge from Xerxes.” Whence it is evident that he supposed the peak of Velitza to have been the Mount Tithorea of Herodotus. However this may have been, we learn at least from the same passage of the biographer, that the city destroyed by the Persians was not yet revived in the Mithradatic war, and as Greece was in the lowest state of misery between that time and the beginning of the Roman Empire, it was not probably until the latter period that the Tithorea was built, which Plutarch, Pausanias, and the inscription of Velitza, demonstrate to have existed in the time of Nerva and the Antonines. The extant walls, by the regularity of their masonry, exactly accord with that degree of antiquity. If the numbers of Pausanias are correct, the district of Tithore was extensive, for he describes a sacred adytum of Isis belonging to it distant forty stades, and a temple of Aesculapius Archagetes at a distance of seventy stades. At the former there was a festival twice a year, and a fair for the sale of slaves and cattle. Some of the sacred rites were borrowed from the Egyptians. At the Asclepieium there were habitations for the servants and suppliants of Aesculapius, and a temple which contained a bearded statue of the god in stone. Pausanias has not left us any means of judging of the direction of either of these places from the city of Tithorea.
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§ 2.081 The district in his time was celebrated for the excellence of its olive oil. Tithorea is one of those situations abounding in Greece, which were so well adapted to influence the manners and character of the people, and to produce the picturesque and poetical in every thing relating to them. The distant prospect in the northern and eastern quarters of the horizon is no less beautiful than the nearer view of the great summits of Parnassus appearing through the rocky ravine of the Cachales, and which being now covered with snow, add a brilliant contrast to the woody precipices of the mountain. The modern houses interspersed with gardens, and the ruined walls of the ancient city, complete the embellishments of this interesting scene. There is no road in common use from Velitza across the mountain, either to Arakhova or Kastri, and the inhabitants penetrate no farther than a woody slope at a small distance, where they cut fire wood. In the time of Pausanias there were two roads from Tithorea across the mountain to Delphi, one direct, the other longer, but practicable to wheel carriages. The two routes probably coincided as far as the extremity of the ravine of the Cachales, after which the carriage road may have crossed the plain anciently belonging to Lycoreia, and now to Arakhova, and below the latter may have joined the road to Delphi from the Schiste, thus diverging to the left of the direct
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§ 2.082 route from Tithorea, which probably joined that from Lilaea, just above the Delphic cliffs, where remains of the ancient way still exist. It is not impossible that the carriage road might still be traced by the marks of the wheels in the rocks. The Proestos of Velitza, an old man whom I find winding cotton in his gallery, shows me, on the opposite side of the Cephissian valley, the small village of Lefta, which he has often visited, and out of respect to its Hellenic remains calls Leftopoli. It lies a little to the right of the pass of Fondana, on the modern route from Pundonitza to Turkokhorio, the position of which may be recognized at a great distance by a remarkable rocky peak, near one of the highest summits of the ridges of Cnemis. Meletius reports the following inscription as existing at Lefta in his time: Αυτοκράτορα Καισαρα Μάρκον Αυρήλιον Ευσεβή Σεβαστόν Mεyιστόν, η Βουλή και ο Δήμος Έλατέων. This inscription, therefore, as well as the modern name, leave not a doubt of Lefta having been the site of Elateia, and the fact is confirmed by every mention of it in ancient history. Lefta, like Velitza, stands at the head of a long slope reaching to the river, from which it is a mile more distant than Velitza. Placed about the middle of the great fertile basin which extends near twenty miles from the narrows of the Cephissus below Amphicleia, to those which are at the entrance into Boeotia, it was admirably situated for commanding the passes leading into Southern Greece from the Transoetaean provinces.
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§ 2.083 Hence it may have been, that Elateia, which was unknown to Homer, became, under a different state of society and general politics, the greatest city in Phocis, and about the time when Greece was threatened with subjection to Macedonia, was more important than Delphi itself. Elateia was then the key of Southern Greece, as Demosthenes and Machines show, as well as the consternation of the Athenians, when Philip seized the place, not long before the battle of Chaeroneia. A little below Lefta stands the large village of Dhragomano, or Tragomano, to the left of which is seen Essed, or Turkokhorio, not far from the river side. Near the road from Velitza to Turkokhorio, on the right bank of the Cephissus, are the vestiges of a Hellenic town.
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§ 2.084 The ruins are now called Palea Fiva. Meletius writes the name Παλαιαι θηβαι, but Φήβα is the vulgar pronunciation in this part of the country. Having now visited either in this or my former journey, the principal ancient positions in the valleys of the Upper Cephissus and its branches, and having ascertained the situation of some which I have not visited, I shall endeavour to apply the ancient names to the several sites which still bear evidences of antiquity, taking for granted from what has already been stated, that those of Amphicleia, Tithorea, and Elateia, are indisputably determined. It seems almost equally certain, that the Paleokastro or Hellenic ruins, half a mile westward of the Kefalovrises, or sources of the Cephissus, which I visited on my former journey, having crossed thither from Delphi by Aguriani, are the remains of Lilaea; that route being the most direct and easy passage across the mountain, could not have been any other than the road alluded to by Pausanias, when he says that the distance from Delphi to Lilaea was 180 stades, with which our time distance of six hours and a half sufficiently accorded. As to the remark of Pausanias, that the source of the Cephissus very often issues from the earth, especially towards noon, with a noise resembling the roaring of a bull, I was not surprised to find that the present natives had never made any such observation at Kefalovrises, though they admit that the water
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§ 2.085 often rises suddenly from the ground in larger quantities than usual, which cannot but be accompanied with some noise. The Megales Vrises, on the other hand, do not intermit, and are surrounded with marshy ground. I am thus particular in showing that the ruins at Paleokastro are those of Lilaea, because the description which Pausanias has given of Charadra, as situated on a lofty rock, agrees in this particular with the ruins. But there are some insurmountable objections to the site being that of Charadra. Upon an examination of them, it is found that all the principal part of the city stood in the plain at the foot of the rocks, that the precipitous part was the citadel only, that the whole was a much larger place than one can imagine Charadra to have been; and that exactly at the Kefalovrises, where we should in that case be inclined to look for Lilaea, there are no remains except those of a single building, probably a temple, which may have been sacred to the river-god himself, as Pausanias states, that sacred rites in honour of Cephissus were celebrated at the sources of the river. When to these considerations is
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§ 2.086 added the testimony of the same ancient traveller that the Charadraei suffered from a want of water, whereas there are some abundant springs close to the ancient walls at Paleokastro, with the Kefalovrises at a very short distance; and when it is further remarked that Pausanias describes the torrent of Charadra as being three stades distant from the town, whereas that of Paleokastro is close to the ruined walls, we can have no hesitation in rejecting the opinion that Paleokastro was Charadra, and cannot but conclude that it was Lilaea. It then becomes a question whether Charadra, which Pausanias places at twenty stades beyond Lilaea, coming from Delphi, stood at Suvala to the eastward, or at Mariolates to the westward of Paleokastro, at both which places there are remains of a small fortified town. Two reasons support the former opinion: 1. The distance of twenty stades is nearly that of Suvala from Paleokastro, whereas Mariolates is more distant; and 2. The torrent at the latter does not join the Cephissus, but is a branch of the river of Gravia, which itself joins the Apostolia before the latter is united with the Cephissus. Placing Amphicleia at Dhadhi, there can hardly remain a doubt that the ruins opposite to it at Mulki, below Verzana, where a torrent unites with
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§ 2.087 the Cephissus, are those of Tithronium; for Pausanias describes that place as being in the plain, (meaning the valley,) fifteen stades beyond Amphicleia —that is to say beyond Amphicleia, according to the direction which he had been pursuing from Delphi by Lilaea; and the distance of those ruins from Dhadhi, although I think underrated at fifteen stades, is not far from the truth. The ruins near Klunista, which I visited from Ternitza, accord equally with those of Drymaea, those ruins being about twenty stades from the former, which is the distance stated by the ancient traveller between Tithronium and Drymaea, though in this instance also the interval assigned by Pausanias appears to me to be below the reality. The three places were so situated that we may easily
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§ 2.088 imagine Pausanias to have been correct in his subsequent remark, that the road from Amphicleia to Drymaea joined that from Tithronium to Drymaea near the Cephissus; since it might be more convenient to follow the river from Tithronium to Drymaea, than to make a more direct course over the heights. As Pausanias adds that, at the junction of the roads, there was a grove containing altars and a temple of Apollo without a statue, within the limits of the Tithronenses; and that the turning to the left led to Drymaea, it seems evident that the grove of Apollo stood on the left bank of the Cephissus, and that the direct road from Amphicleia crossed the Cephissus near the temple, where a turning to the right led to Tithronium and on the left to Drymaea. The words of Pausanias, therefore, so perfectly accord, in their general purport, with the three positions of Dhadhi, and the two ancient sites below Verzana and Ternitza, that we may be assured of the identity of the two latter with Tithronium and Drymaea respectively, although the number of stades stated in the text of the ancient traveller may not be correct. The error, indeed, in the word eighty, which he assigns as the number of stades between Amphicleia and Drymaea, is self-evident, if the two other distances, which amount only to thirty-five stades, are correct. As Pausanias has not noticed any of the places, of which remains are still found in or around the valley lying westward of the sites of Drymaea and Lilaea, it may be inferred that no part of that valley
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§ 2.089 belonged, at least in his time, to the Phocic community, but was all included in Doris, the position of which district on this frontier of Phocis is clearly shown by Lilaea, Drymaea and Tithronium having been sometimes attributed to Doris. Herodotus describes Doris as lying between Trachinia and Phocis, and as occupying a breadth of only thirty stades. The Persians marched through it from Trachinia, but spared it because the Dorians had joined them, after which “following the Cephissus, they destroyed everything; and burnt the cities Drymus, Charadra, Erochus, Tethronium, Amphicaea, Neon, the cities of the Pedieis, and Tritaeeis, Elateia, Hyampolis, Parapotamii, and Abae.” Erochus and Tritaea not being even named by Pausanias, their site was perhaps unknown in his time, and it is a mere conjecture, deduced from the order of the enumeration of Herodotus, and the general distribution of the other ancient sites, that I have placed those names on the map. The city of the Pedienses we might presume, from the same indication added to that of the name, to have stood near the Cephissus, in some part of the plain between Tithorea and Elateia. It is precisely in this situation, that the ruins at Palea Fiva are found. As Herodotus has not named Ledon, it is not improbable that the city of the Pedienses may be the same place as Ledon, which, in the time of Pausanias
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§ 2.090 had been abandoned, and the name transferred to a few habitations on the river’s bank, forty stades below the former position. Lilaea not being comprehended by Herodotus among the towns which were destroyed by the Persians, would seem at that time to have belonged to the Dorienses, who, having medized, were spared by the invaders. Whence, probably, some later authors have ascribed it to Doris, though in general it was considered a Phocic city. But it was evidently, therefore, on the frontier, and the ruins, consequently, at Mariolates and Gravia are certainly those of two of the Dorian towns. The breadth of thirty stades, which Herodotus assigns to Doris, agrees nearly with the extent of the valley of the Apostolia from the foot of Mount Parnassus, where Mariolates and Gravia are situated, to that of Mount Oeta, where the road from Zituni to Salona, after crossing that mountain by the pass of Nevropoli, enters the valley of the Apostolia. It cannot be doubted, therefore, that all this valley was a part of Doris. From Strabo, likewise, notwithstanding the imperfection of his text, the extent and position of Doris may be understood, and even some details of its topography. He observes that the Western Locris was separated from the Eastern by Mount Parnassus, which extended northward from the neighbourhood of Delphi to the junction of the Oetaean with the Aetolian mountains, and to the Dorians which lay between them;—that Phocis was
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§ 2.091 thus conterminous with both divisions of Locris,— that on the western side of Parnassus dwelt the Locri Ozolae, some of the Dorians and the Aetolians of Mount Corax, and on the eastern side of the same mountain the Phocians and the Dorians of Tetrapolis, who formed the larger portion of that nation, and who extended from Parnassus towards the east. The latter passage of the Geographer explains those authorities which ascribe to Doris a greater number of towns than four, and shows exactly the position both of the Tetrapolis and of the remaining portion of Doris. The latter, which lay between the Locri Ozolae and Mount Corax, comprehended the mountains on the right, or western side, of the pass leading from Gravia to Salona. The towns of this portion of Doris would seem to have been Amphanae and Metropolis, for Stephanus describes these as places in Doris. According to Strabo, the four towns of the Tetrapolis, were Erineus, Boeum, Pindus and Cytinium, some of which names are confirmed by several other authors.
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§ 2.092 He adds, that Pindus stood above Erineus, that it was sometimes called Acyphas, and that a river of the same name as the town, flowed by the walls, and joined the Cephissus near Lilaea. It is evident, upon comparing this passage with my former remark, as to the junction of the river now called Apostolia with the Cephissus, not far below the sources of the latter, that the Apostolia was the ancient Acyphas or Pindus, and consequently, that upon its banks we should search for Erineus and Pindus. Of these the latter, as well from its name, which is a word belonging to a lofty situation, as from a remark of Strabo, that the town of Acyphas was considered to belong to the Oetaean cantons, was probably towards the sources of the river in the mountain, which is connected northward with the Patriotiko or Oeta proper; and which to the south gives rise to the river Mornos, which joins the sea near'Epakto. The other two towns of the Tetrapolis were in the situations already noticed, at Mariolates and at Gravia. Of these, there can be little doubt that Gravia was the ancient Cytinium, Thucydides having described the position of Cytinium in a manner not to be mistaken, in his account of the expedition of Demosthenes from Naupactus, in the sixth year of the Peloponnesian war; when Demosthenes intended, if he had been successful over the Aetolians, to have then passed through the Locri Ozolae, leaving Parnassus on his right, to Cytinium of Doris, and from thence to descend into Phocis,
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§ 2.093 the people of which were to have assisted him against Boeotia. Gravia stands exactly at the northern entrance of the pass leading from the valley of Doris to the plain of Amphissa, in the middle of the isthmus included between the Maliac and Crissaean gulfs. The defile is formed by the ravines of two torrents flowing in opposite directions; namely, that of Gravia, which, as I have already remarked, joins the Apostolia near the union of the latter with the Cephissus, and that of another stream which crosses the plain of Amphissa into the Crissaean Bay: the two ravines form a complete separation of the highlands of this part of Greece, dividing Parnassus from the mountains which are connected with the Aetolian and Oetaean summits, and which thus exactly correspond to the country of the άνα μέσον Δωραίς, or intermediate Dorians of Strabo. It is obvious that a fortified town at the entrance of such a defile, was of great military importance, and of this we find two examples in history, besides that which has already been alluded to. Soon after that unsuccessful expedition of Demosthenes against Aetolia, Eurylochus, at the head of 2500 Spartans and 500 Heracliotae, prepared to march from Delphi through the western Locris to assist the Aetolians against Naupactus, and made choice on this occasion of Cytinium, as the place in which he secured the hostages whom he had received from the Locrians. But the most remarkable instance is, the occupation of Cytinium by Philip of Macedonia, when he took possession also of Elateia, not long before the battle of Chaeroneia.
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§ 2.094 It was on hearing that the Athenians had decreed to support the resistance of the Amphissienses to the Amphictyonic council, that Philip took this step, of which the object and consequence were, the capture of Amphissa, the approach to that place from the northward having been completely commanded by Cytinium. If Cytinium was at Gravia, it will follow that the ruins near Mariolates are those of Boeum. Herodotus relates that Doris was anciently named Dryopis, but in later times they were distinguished, and Dryopis like Doris was a tetrapolis. In the time of Strabo it was comprehended as well as the Parasopias, and a town named Oiniadae, in the Oetaea, which even included Acyphas of Doris to the S.W., and Anticyra of Melis to the N.E. It is evident, from these testimonies regarding Dryopis, together with another fact stated by Strabo, namely, that Tymphrestus, at the sources of the Spercheius, now Velukhi, was a Dryopic mountain, that Dryopis occupied the mountainous country extending from the head of the valley of the Apostolia towards Mount Velukhi and Karpenisi. At 12.55 we quit Velitza, and continue to follow the foot of the great steeps of Parnassus at the head of a long slope, stony and quite uncultivated, which descends from our road to the river,
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§ 2.095 until at 1.32, having a monastery of the Panaghia half an hour on the right, on the side of the mountain, we turn to the left of the upper road leading to the Zimeno pass, and descend towards the Stena (τα Στενα), as the narrow valley is now called, through which the Cephissus enters the Boeotian plains. Having passed the Dhrakoplymata, as two large natural basins in the ground are called, one of which is 150 yards in diameter, forming a perfect circle with a very regular hollow within, we leave, a quarter of an hour farther, the village of Aghia Marina a little on the right, and descend exactly in the direction of the peaked summit of Mount Khlomo, seen between the lower heights of Parnassus, and an insulated rocky hill which here terminates the upper or Phocian valley of the Cephissus. This hill, which stands exactly on the foot of the great slope of Parnassus, is very steep on every side except the south-east, where it throws out a low termination, between which and another low height quite insulated, there is a narrow plain. At the foot of the latter height, to the south, stands a village called Krevasara, and along its eastern side flows the Cephissus, beyond which is another small insulated height near the foot of a rocky mountain, which rises from thence and takes a north-eastern direction towards Talanda. The approaches, therefore, to the straits leading into Boeotia from the plain of Elateia, are on either side of the hill of Krevasara.
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§ 2.096 To the left of the Cephissus are the small villages of Sfaka, Merali, Khubavo, and Belissi vulgarly called Belish. Sfaka and Khubavo are on opposite sides of the extremity of the mountain just mentioned; Merali stands on a small insulated height between them, and Belissi is opposite to Khubavo, at the foot of a mountain similar and parallel to the former, and separated from it by a valley a mile in width. Between Merali and Khubavo, the river Kineta issues from a small lake which extends northward round the extreme point of the mountain as far as Sfaka, and having received a torrent which rises in Mount Khlomo, joins the Cephissus, near the khan of the Kady which I visited in my former journey, and which stands on the right bank of the latter river, two miles below Krevasara, where is a bridge over the river in the narrowest part of the Stena or Straits. Though the lake which feeds the Kineta is supplied from subterraneous springs, these are not always sufficient to afford a running stream in summer. At 2.23 we arrive at Bissikeni, vulgarly Bishken, which stands in a narrow plain between the heights of Parnassus and the larger and more western of the two insulated rocky heights before mentioned. The proestos and inhabitants know of no ancient remains in this vicinity, except at a height on the left bank of the Kineta, and a tower at the southeastern extremity of the heights in proceeding from Bissikeni to the bridge near the Kadi’s Khan.
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§ 2.097 The latter is described by the proestos as a μαστορικόν πραγμα, meaning such as modern masons construct, but the remains near Belissi, he states to be of large wrought masses of stone. Their position in the Stena seems to correspond exactly with that of Parapotamii as indicated by Theopompus, who, in a passage preserved by Strabo, states that Parapotamii stood at a distance of forty stades from Chaeroneia in the entrance from Boeotia into Phocis on a height of moderate elevation, situated between Parnassus and Mount Edylium,—that these two mountains were separated from each other by an interval of five stades, through which the Cephissus flowed; and that Mount Edylium extended from thence sixty stades as far as Hyphanteium, on which Orchomenus was built.
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§ 2.098 Having remained half an hour at Bissikeni, we proceed, in one hour precisely, to Dhavlia. The road follows an opening which separates the higher Parnassian ridges from the advanced mountain which forms the western side of the Stena of the Cephissus. The pass is a narrow valley, cultivated only in the parts towards Dhavlia. The road is much shorter than by the Stena, and in winter has the further advantage of avoiding the marshy or muddy valley near that river. It is probably the route by which Hortensius eluded the enemy in the Elatic Plain, and effected a junction with Sylla at Patronis. The issue of the pass is at the upper extremity of a vale branching from the plain of Chaeroneia, and terminating at the foot of the great summits of Parnassus. Many streams water this valley, turn several mills, and then uniting take a northerly course, close to the foot of the heights by the village Khasnesi, below which the stream enters the plain and joins the Mavronero or Mavroneri, a copious perennial stream, which issues from the foot of the same mountain a mile beyond Khasnesi. On the southern face of the height which bounds the vale to the south, stands the village of Dhavlia, separated by a hollow from another height, on which are some remains of the acropolis of the ancient Daulis. The name had assumed the form Δαυλεία as early as the time of Strabo, but is now by the vulgar more commonly accented on the last syllable, Dhavlia. The modern village belongs to Hassan Bey of Livadhia, now residing in Egripo, and whose father was pasha of the latter place. It contains forty houses. The inhabitants cultivate vineyards in the upper valleys and on the sides of the hills, and corn in the plain below, and exercise the trade of agoyates with their mules.
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§ 2.099 Dec. 1.—The vale between Dhavlia and the site of the ancient Daulis is covered with vineyards, and refreshed by many springs and rivulets, which, in the plain below, join a branch of the Cephissus called Platania, which receives all the torrents from the adjacent slopes of Parnassus, Cirphis and Helicon, and has its extreme sources at Dhistomo, but is nevertheless dry in summer. The Platania unites with the Mavroneri very near the junction of the latter with the Cephissus. It is to the Mavroneri that the Cephissus owes its water in summer, for I found it dry in July above the junction of the Mavroneri, even as high up as a little below Dhadhi, where its waters were consumed by the plantations of cotton and kalambokki, whereas it contained water below the junction of the Mavroneri, and even as far as Skripu. Hence, below the junction, the Cephissus is now called Mavroneri or Mavronero, and above it the river of Dhadhi, or simply το ποτάμι. Below the Kineta, which it receives in the narrowest part of the Stena, it turns to the eastward, and continues, all the way to Orchomenus, to flow at a small distance from the foot of the mountain which extends from the Stena to Skripu in a high stony ridge, subdivided into two nearly equal parts by a small branch of the river. This mountain, the same which I before described as parallel to that of Khubavo, and which Theopompus so clearly indicates under the name of Edylium, was sometimes called Acontium in its whole extent, for Strabo remarks that Mount Acontium extended from Orchomenus to Parapotamii, and attributes to it the same length as Theopompus. Properly, however, it would seem that Hyphanteium was the eastern extremity of the ridge, Acontium its highest point, and Edylium the division of it westward of the small branch of the Cephissus above mentioned; for Plutarch mentions a place called Assia as situated between Edylium and Acontium.
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§ 2.100 The entire circuit of the walls of the acropolis of Daulis, which seems to have been nearly circular, and formed of masonry almost regular, may be traced on the summit of the height which rises opposite to the modern village to the south. Within the inclosure, is an old church of St. Theodore, containing a marble inscribed with small and very ancient characters, so nearly obliterated that I have not attempted to copy them; there is also an inscription of names on a block of variegated marble. Three or four years ago, in the vineyards at the foot of the height on the north, a more interesting monument was found, which having been conveyed to Dhavlia, now stands before the door of the church. It is a quadrangular stele, four feet six inches long, one foot three inches broad, and ten inches thick, adorned only with a simple moulding at the top.
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§ 2.101 One of the broad sides is inscribed with forty-seven lines, and one of the narrow sides with forty-nine lines. The monument records an arbitration concerning the property and boundaries of certain lands in the district of Daulis, made at Chaeroneia on the 24th of October, in the year of our era 118. The following is a translation of the inscription on the broad dimension of the stone. “With good fortune to the consuls, the emperor Trajan Adrian Caesar Augustus, the second time, and Cneius Pedanius Fuscus Salinator, on the 9th of the Calends of November, in Chaeroneia. Zopyrus, son of Aristion, and Parmenon, son of Zopyrus, acting on behalf of the city of Daulis, have witnessed the following as a faithful copy of the underwritten decision of Titus Flavius Eubulus: I, T. F. Eubulus, having been appointed judge and arbiter by the proconsul Caesius Maximus, and having acted under the inspection of the proconsul Valerius Severus, between Zopyrus son of Aristion and Parmenon son of Zopyrus and Memmius Antiochus, concerning the land in dispute, have, after hearing each side as long as they wished, and after an actual inspection of the place, and upon receiving an order from the excellent proconsul Clodius Granianus to declare my decision, adjudge as is underwritten.
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§ 2.102 Four hundred and thirty-five Phocic plethra of the land called Dryppius, which appear from the writings exhibited to me to have been purchased by Memmius Antiochus from the heirs of Cleon, belong to Antiochus; whatever exceeds this quantity (in Dryppius) is the property of the city of the Daulienses. In like manner, in the land Euxyleia four hundred and thirty plethra I judge to belong to Antiochus, and the remainder to the city. The beginning of the measurements in the lands Dryppius and Euxyleia shall be commenced wherever Antiochus may think proper; but in Platanus and Moschotomeae the measure for both parties shall begin in the same place, and from thence the remainder of the measurement shall proceed; and in all these measurements no account shall be taken of torrents or rugged places, or such as cannot be cultivated if they exceed the dimensions of ten sphyrae. The following persons were present: I, Titus Flavius Eubulus, have declared my determination and affixed my seal. Lucius Mestrius Soclarus; Cleomenes, son of Cleomenes; Neicon, son of Symphorus; Lamprias, son of Neicon; Zopyrus, son of Antipatrus; Sosibius, son of Dracon; Neicon, son of Alexandras; Leon, son of Theodotus; Callon, son of Phylax; Cassius, son of Martianus. By a decree of the city.”
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§ 2.103 On the narrow side of the stele is the following: “The road to the Archagetes shall be two calami in breadth. They shall jointly engrave the landmarks and boundaries of the measurements within the twentieth day of the twelfth month, we examining them when they shall be engraved. Concerning the land Dryppius, we adjudge, from a view of the writing exhibited by Serapias, son of Zopyrus the agent, and by the Archons Philon, son of Sosicrates, and Damon, son of Zopyrus, that if any thing should be wanting to the four hundred and thirty-five plethra assigned by the decision of Eubulus, Serapias shall have a right to demand it from the city of the Daulienses. These were present: I, Curius Autobulus, adjudged, and sealed the first seal. I, Nicephorus, son of Lycomedes, adjudged; 1, Agasias, son of Timon, adjudged; 1, Publius Aelius Damoxenus, sealed the fourth seal; Eisid(otus) the fifth; Metrodorus, son of Apollodotus of Anticyra; Neicaretus, son of Pistus of Tithorea; I, Tyrannus, son of Tyrannus, sealed; Acindynus, son of Callicrates of Tithorea; Sextus Cornelius Axiochus; Eunus, son of Epaphras; 1, Callinicus, son of Cleonicus of Tithorea, sealed.” [The κάλαμος was a linear measure; if it was nearly equal to the modern Italian canna, the road was about fifteen feet in breadth.
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§ 2.104 Pausanias, who visited Daulis about fifty years after the date of this inscription, remarks, that there was a place in the Daulia named Tronis, where stood the heroic monument of a hero called the Archagetes, whom some supposed to be Xanthippus, a warrior; others Phocus, son of Omytion. It is evidently to this place that the beginning of the second inscription refers, where it is said that “the road to the Archagetes shall have a breadth of two calami.” It is not impossible that Tronis is an erroneous reading for Patronis, the name, according to Plutarch, of the place where Sylla was encamped before he was joined by Hortensius, who, as I have already remarked, probably arrived through the same pass which I traversed from Bissikeni into the valley northward of Dhavlia. The biographer, indeed, describes Patronis as being in the plain of Chaeroneia, but the whole plain, as far as the pass of the Cephissus, was undoubtedly often designated as the plain of Chaeroneia. In Platanus, the name of one of the portions of land mentioned in the award of Eubulus, we have the origin apparently of the modern appellation of the river Platania.
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§ 2.105 While I was copying the inscription, which was my first employment this morning, a funeral took place. The corpse was carried into the church, the service read over with wonderful haste, and at a certain point a howling was set up by three women, relations of the deceased, after which the corpse was put into the ground, and small loaves of wheaten bread, boiled maize, and wine, were distributed to the company, who assembled after the service in great numbers, and seated themselves round the wall of the church-yard. Pausanias remarks of Daulis, that the inhabitants were few in number, but the tallest and stoutest of all the Phocians. The name of the place he supposed to be derived from δαυλος, because the position had formerly been a forest. The only building described by him is a temple of Minerva, containing an ancient statue, and another still more ancient made of wood, said to have been dedicated by Procne, for Daulis was supposed to have been the scene of the well-known story of Tereus, Procne, and Philomele. Immediately above Dhavlia, on the site of Mount Liakura, stands the monastery of Aghia Arsali, and below it a metokhi, where the monks retire when the snow covers their upper habitation. About five miles to the south-west of Dhavlia is the entrance of the Zimeno Derveni, or opening between the mountains Cirphis and Parnassus, which leads to Delphi. It is the σχίστη οδός, or τριπλή κελευθος, the cleft or triple way celebrated among the ancients for being the place where Laius fell by the hands of his son Oidipus. I searched in vain there, in my former journey, for any traces of the tomb of Laius and his servant, which Pausanias describes as covered with a heap of stones.
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§ 2.106 The road, as he justly observes, becomes more steep and rugged, from that point towards Delphi, and difficult even to a man on foot. Between Daulis and the Schiste, but at what distance from either Pausanias does not specify, stood the Phocicum, or place of meeting of the deputies of the cities of Phocis; it was a large building divided within lengthwise by columns, between which and the wall there were seats for the deputies. At one end, in an open space, was a Jupiter seated on his throne, Minerva and Juno standing on either side of him. The ascent from Daulis to the summit of Parnassus was less rugged than that from Delphi, but longer. This route probably led by the modern convent of Aghia Arsali. The road from Daulis to Ambryssus, now Dhistomo, follows up the vale of the Platania in nearly a straight course, having Mount Cirphis on the right hand, and on the other a part of the Helicon, which is so distinct from Paleovuni, or the proper Helicon, that it had undoubtedly some specific name among the ancients, though it has not been preserved by history. It is itself subdivided into two summits, that to the east called the mountain of Surbi, that to the west the mountain of Zara, or Tzara, from villages of those names. Having crossed the Platania in twenty-five minutes from the foot of the hill of Daulis, we leave, in fifteen minutes more, the village of Malta on the right side of the road, and then in eight minutes arrive at'Aio Vlasi.
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§ 2.107 In the course of this route the Stena of the Cephissus, or Boeoto-Phocic Strait, opens from the foot of the hills of Khasnesi, and'Aio Vlasi admits a view through the Stena: the hill of Krevasara being then nearly hid by the heights of Khasnesi, and that of the Paleokastro, near Belissi, appearing to advance half across the pass. In the course of our morning’s ride many όρνια, (vultures,) were in sight, and a great number of lapwings, which the Greeks call καλημανη. At'Aio Vlasi the woman of the cottage where I dine wears a low bonnet or hat, made at Dhadhi, which is completely covered on the outside with a coat of mail made of paras. Just over the ears, instead of paras, the covering is made of Spanish or Austrian dollars and Turkish pieces of 100 paras. The owner is of Dhadhi, and in reply to my inquiries says, “this is the fashion of our town; here they have other fashions.” On this side of Mount Oeta, it may be remarked, that itinerant salesmen, and even saleswomen are to be met travelling singly, which is hardly ever to be seen beyond Thermopylae. During the last two days we have met several persons from Aspraspitia selling fresh sea-fish; and at'Aio Vlasi have found a caravan of asses laden with corn and kalambokki, and conducted by an Agrafiote woman. To be able to do this, or to wear such caps as that just mentioned, without risk, implies a greater degree of security than the Christians enjoy to the northward of Mount Oeta, where the resistance of the mountaineers to Aly Pasha, his continual attempts to reduce them, the march of his Albanians through the country,
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§ 2.108 the incursions of the kleftes, and the poverty, idleness, and rapacity of the Turks, particularly those of Larissa, lead to the unceasing oppression of the Christians, and have made their condition more miserable than in this part of Greece, where the protection enjoyed by the districts of Livadhia and Athens, the one as a vakuf, the other as a royal appanage, is not without some beneficial effects upon the Christians; the administrators taking care to send proper persons to reside as Voivodas, and readily attending to the complaints of the Greeks, so that the Turkish governor finds it difficult to enrich himself by oppression. Another cause is the smaller proportion of Turks, the effect of whose bigotry, insolence, idleness, profligacy, and greediness of gain, has every where a tendency in proportion to their numbers, to degrade the condition and character of the rayah, and at length to drive him into the districts where the Turks are not so numerous, and which are better protected by the Porte. As to the circumstance of a large proportion of the lands to the southward of Oeta being held by Greeks, I fear it makes very little difference to the working farmer, in his profits or his enjoyment of the fruits of the earth; his terms of cultivation are the same, whether with the agas of Egripo and Thebes, or with the archons of Livadhia and Athens, all of whom take care that he shall never be out of their debt, nor enabled to obtain from the soil more than a subsistence of the scantiest kind.
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§ 2.109 In proceeding from'Aio Vlasi to Kapurna, we leave, at eight minutes beyond'Aio Vlasi, a village called Mera to the right of the road, in the entrance of a valley leading into that which is watered by the western branch of the river of Livadhia, and along which leads the road from Livadhia to the Zimeno Pass, branching to the left to Dhistomo; these were anciently the routes from Lebadeia to Delphi and Ambryssus. Kapurna stands at the foot of the same ridge as'Aio Vlasi, in a hollow between a steep summit and a long even height, which advances from the ridge into the valley in a north-easterly direction, and hides Kapurna from all the great plain towards the Lake Cephissis. A projection of the heights on the other side towards the vale of Mera conceals it in like manner from the upper part of the plain of Daulis, but the hill of Kervasara is seen from Kapurna, through the Stena of the Cephissus. The rocky heights which overhang the villages of'Aio Vlasi and Kapurna have preserved considerable ruins of Panopeus and Charoneia. Pausanias says, that Panopeus was distant 20 stades from Chaeroneia, and 7 from Daulis: but the latter number is obviously erroneous. I was 48 minutes in walking my horse from the foot of the hill of Daulis to'Aio Vlasi, and 35 from thence to Kapurna. The latter space of time corresponds tolerably well to the 20 stades of Pausanias, according to the average rate of 30 stades to the hour; it
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§ 2.110 is probable, therefore, that the number of stades between Daulis and Panopeus was 27 instead of 7, and that the word είκοσι has been lost by the copiers of Pausanias. The 7 stades which he assigns to the circumference of the walls of Panopeus is exactly confirmed by the present remains. Panopeus partook of the ruin of the other cities of Phocis at the end of the Phocian war, but like them also was re-established by the Athenians and Thebans a little before the battle of Chaeroneia. In the time of Pausanias, although it had neither agora, nor theatre, nor gymnasium, nor fountain, nor public building for the use of the magistrates, and consisted only of huts on the side of a torrent, it was still called a city, and sent deputies to the Phocic council. The only antiquities besides its walls were the tumulus of Tityus on the side of the torrent, and a building of crude bricks, containing a statue of Pentelic marble, but whether intended for Aesculapius or for Prometheus, Pausanias could not ascertain. Panopeus having been placed between two cities, which were themselves not 5 miles asunder, seems to have derived its importance from being the frontier fortress of Phocis, towards Boeotia. We find, accordingly, considerable remains of the ancient walls; their general form is a triangle, of which the southern side follows a course parallel to the torrent of Mera, and the two others inclose the northern face
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§ 2.111 of the hill, forming an angle, somewhat greater than a right angle, at the south-west They included a small portion of the plain at the northwestern end of the site. Here the walls are built in lines nearly straight, and were, flanked with towers at the usual intervals. On the height the sides are broken into re-entering and salient angles, in the manner best suited to defend the ascent of the rocks, with towers at the most prominent angles, projecting 20 feet from the walls, and in some places still 30 feet high. The masonry is of the third or intermediate order, between the polygonal, in which there were no regular courses, and that in which the courses were equal and horizontal. Each of the two summits into which the hill is divided had its interior inclosure. That to the south-west retains three gates: one leading to the lower town, and two opening to the country. In all the three, the entrance is oblique to the wall, as in the annexed plan of one of the latter gates. The torrent of Mera is evidently the χάραδρα which Pausanias mentions, and was probably the Boeoto Phocic boundary. Some large masses of stone on this side, which appear to have fallen from the hill, may answer to those sandy coloured rocks from which Prometheus made the human race, but I can neither perceive the smell of human flesh in them, which Pausanias recognised, nor any remains of the tumulus of Tityus, although, according to the same traveller, it was not less than a stade in circumference.
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§ 2.112 At Kapurna, scarcely any vestiges of the town wall of Chaeroneia are traceable in the plain, but in the acropolis, which incloses an extremely rugged height, there is a large piece of wall, of masonry of the third order, in excellent preservation, and well calculated to give an idea of the beautiful and imposing effect of this fine mode of building when complete. The hill corresponds exactly to the “precipitous height above the city, called Petrachus,” though Pausanias, who thus describes Petrachus, has not mentioned it as the acropolis of Chaeroneia, which the existing fortifications prove the hill in question to have been. The other remains at Kapurna are a theatre, of which all the middle part was excavated in the rock of Mount Petrachus, and the ends consisted of a mass of earth faced with masonry, of which the ruins still remain. Several rows of the lower seats are evidently buried below the earth, accumulated at the foot of the height; but there are two diazomata, or praecinctione, above ground, and consequently three divisions of seats. In the lowest division three or four seats only are now visible above the surface; the middle contains twelve rows, and the upper four, above which there is a high perpendicular excavation in the rock, and the remains of two or three rows of seats above it.
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§ 2.113 On the face of the same rock is inscribed, in letters of the best times, with the omicron smaller than the other letters, the words Απόλλωνος δαφναφορίω, Αρτάμιδος σοωδινας. In some inscriptions reported by Meletius as existing at Chaeroneia in his time, we find the same Boeotic dialect employed, and the same Diana mentioned, but with the more common epithet of Eilethuia, or in the Boeotic dialect, Ειλειθίη. The worship of the same deity, but without the epithet is recorded on another monument, erected in honour of one of her priestesses by the council and people of the Chaeronenses. A stone in the wall of a church near a fountain below the theatre, is inscribed with a dedication to the Emperor Macrinus, by the council and people of the Chaeronenses. It is difficult to decipher the second name of the emperor, but it certainly is not Opilius, as usually written in Latin authors. To me it appears to be 0ΝΦΑΛΙ0Σ, i. e. Omphalius.
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§ 2.114 Another inscription on a stone at the same fountain was engraved in honour of Demetrius Autobulus, a Platonic philosopher, by his maternal grandson Flavius Autobulus. An ancient church of the Panaghia, in the village, preserves many remains of ancient art, particularly an inscribed marble, upon which are several records of the dedication of certain slaves, both male and female, to Sarapis, by which process they obtained their liberty, or at least became ιεροδουλοι, or slaves only to the god. In some instances the manumission was immediate, but more frequently after the life of the owners, and with a reserve of the children born of them in the meantime. The names of the Boeotian months Homolius, Alalcomeneius, Theluthius, Prostaterius, and Bucatius, occur in these documents. It appears from the inscriptions
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§ 2.115 reported by Meletius, that slaves, both male and female, were dedicated in the same manner to Diana, Αρτάμιδι Ειλειθίη.. The other remains of antiquity in the church, of the Panaghia are an antique chair of marble, called by the learned ο φρόνος του Πλουτάρχου (Plutarch’s chair),—-two columns of dark grey granite, two Ionic capitals, and many ancient fragments in the walls. A large pedestal without any inscription forms the altar or holy table. Pausanias has neither noticed the theatre of Chaeroneia, nor the temples of Diana and Sarapis, which the inscriptions prove to have existed here, and which stood, perhaps, upon the very sites of the churches where the inscriptions are found. According to him, the principal object of veneration at that time was the sceptre, or, as they called it, the spear of Jupiter, made by Vulcan, and the only one of the reputed works of Vulcan which Pausanias considered genuine. It was kept in the house of a priest annually appointed, and was said to have been found between Chaeroneia and Panopeus, whither it had been brought by Electra, daughter of Agamemnon, to whom it devolved through Hermes and Pelops. Daily sacrifices were made to the sceptre, and a table stood constantly before it, covered with meat and cakes, which accords so exactly with some of the representations on the temples of Egypt, that one cannot
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§ 2.116 but suspect that the worship was derived from thence, together with that of Sarapis, and that the local mythus was a posterior invention. On the summit of Mount Petrachus stood a small statue of Jupiter, and in some part of the territory were two trophies erected by Sylla and the Romans for their victory over Taxiles. Of the more celebrated victory of Philip, son of Amyntas, on the same scene of action, there was not any such monument, because the erecting of trophies was contrary to the Macedonian custom. But there was a polyandrium of the Thebans who were slain in that battle, surmounted by a lion, not far from Chaeroneia, on the road to Lebadeia, and it would seem from Strabo, that here stood also monuments, erected at the public expense, in honour of all who had fallen on the same occasion. As these memorials were probably on the field of the first battle of Chaeroneia, the situation of which no ancient author has exactly described, we may presume that a large tumulus, which rises conspicuously from the plain near the right bank of the Cephissus, is not a monument of the victory of Philip, but the place of sepulture of those who fell in the contest of the Romans with the Mithradatic army, for that tumulus, instead of being in the road from Chaeroneia to Lebadeia, is about midway to Orchomenus, and it seems evident from Plutarch, that the Roman battle occurred in the middle of the plain.
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§ 2.117 In the time of Pausanias, Chaeroneia was noted for the manufacture of oils extracted from odoriferous flowers. Quitting Kapurna at seven in the evening for Livadhia, we follow the foot of the hills for a quarter of an hour, then ascend them, and at the summit enter upon a plain of a rich soil, now very muddy, which we cross in a quarter of an hour by a paved road, then descend and enter the plain of Livadhia, fifty-five minutes from Kapurna. Ten minutes farther cross a stream flowing to the left, the same already mentioned as the western branch of the river of Livadhia, then passing through fields of rice and kalambokki, by a muddy road and bad pavement, at the end of one hour and twenty minutes from Kapurna, enter Livadhia.
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§ 2.118 CHAPTER 12 BOEOTIA. Dec. 2.—The town of Livadhia has an imposing appearance from the northward, and forms a scene no less singular than beautiful. Its houses are surrounded for the most part with gardens, and thus occupy a large space of ground on some steep acclivities at the foot of a precipitous height which is crowned with a ruined castle, said to have been built by the Catalans. This height is an abrupt northerly termination of Mount Helicon, and is separated eastward from similar hills by a torrent issuing from the mountain between lofty precipices, and falling with great rapidity over a rocky bed as it passes through the middle of the town. It is the ancient Hercyna. Above the Kastro, or castle hill, it is generally dry, the principal contribution of water being from some sources at the southern extremity of the town, under the eastern side of the Kastro.
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§ 2.119 Derivations are made from it to every part of the town, and into the gardens which surround the houses. There are springs also in many parts of the site; so that by the effect of this abundance of water, combined with the shelter of the overhanging mountains, the air in the summer, in the upper part of the town, during an hour or two in the morning and evening, has a most agreeable coolness, as I experienced when I was last at Livadhia: the same mountains, however, by excluding the regular breezes, cause the general temperature to be excessively hot, and in winter create humidity, by depriving the town of the sun's rays, which at present no longer fall even upon the lowest quarter of the town after two o’clock. From these causes the climate is not considered either agreeable or healthy, and it is said that in summer, iu consequence of the want of ventilation, the noxious exhalations of the irrigated fields of cotton and rice, although near two miles distant from the upper quarter of the town, are felt in every part of it. Velitza, having a similar position and aspect, is affected in the same manner by the adjacent mountain; and there the village was in shade even before one o’clock. In fact, all the ancient cities of Doris, Phocis, and Boeotia, which occupied the strong and otherwise advantageous situations under the northern sides of Parnassus and Helicon, experienced more or less the same inconvenience, and had a similar climate in winter, as Pausanias has remarked in particular respecting Lilaea.
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§ 2.120 Livadhia has a greater air of opulence than any place in Northern Greece, not even excepting Ioannina. This is partly real in consequence of the small number of Turks who generally are not only poor themselves but the cause of poverty in others, and is partly the effect of the construction of the larger Greek houses, which having spacious chambers and galleries in the Turkish manner, are shown to advantage on the steep declivity of the hill. It may be observed, however, that this style of building, the effect of Greek vanity always ready to ape Turkish grandeur, although agreeable in summer is in general little suited to a place where the winter is both long and severe. There are about 1500 houses in the town, of which 130 only are Turkish. The most conspicuous object is a tower with a clock in it. The district contains seventy villages, of which the largest are Dhadhi and Arakhova. Xerokhori, Fyla, and several others in Euboea, are inscribed in the vilayeti, as well as Kalamo and some others in Attica. The Homeric Mideia was situated, according to Pausanias, on a height, from whence the inhabitants under the conduct of Lebadus, an Athenian removed to the lower ground, and there built the town to which they gave the name of Lebadeia. It would seem, therefore, that Mideia stood on the site of the Kastro, and of the western division of the modern town, having its eastern side defended by the Hercyna, and that Lebadeia occupied the lowest part of the present town.
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§ 2.121 It is difficult to believe, however, that the Kastro was not at all times a part of the ancient city, being so essential to its safety. The only remains of antiquity are some Hellenic squared stones in the walls of the ruined castle, with a few inscriptions and architectural fragments dispersed in the town. This strong and well-watered position having always been occupied by a considerable population, the ancient materials have so long been applied to repairs that nothing is now left in its original position. Lebadeia was chiefly celebrated for the oracle of Trophonius, son of Erginus, king of Orchomenus, who, at a time when the Greeks were chiefly indebted to Phoenicia for artists, obtained with the aid of his brother Agamedes, such celebrity as a constructor of temples, treasuries, palaces, and other works, that by a consequence natural in a superstitious age of the admiration in which his talents were held, he was believed after his death to predict futurity, and to have been the son not of Erginus but of Apollo.
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§ 2.122 The extensive reputation which his oracle had acquired at a remote period, is proved by its having been consulted by Croesus and Mardonius; and more than six centuries afterwards, its administrators were still successful in maintaining the popular delusion. Pausanias, who himself consulted the oracle, has left us an accurate description of the process, omitting only what he saw or heard in the sacred adytum,.which it was not lawful to reveal. He describes the grove of Trophonius as situated at a small distance from Lebadeia, or as separated from Lebadeia by the river Hercyna, for the defective text leaves his meaning doubtful. The source of the river was in a cavern which contained upright statues holding sceptres with serpents entwined on them. It was uncertain whether these were statues of Aesculapius and Hygieia, or of Trophonius and Hercyna. On the river’s bank there was a temple of Hercyna, containing the statue of a virgin bearing a goose in her hand. It represented the nymph Hercyna, from whom, when playing with Proserpine, a goose escaped, flew into the cavern, and concealed itself under a stone: Proserpine, having drawn forth the goose and removed the stone, water followed, and became the source of the river Hercyna. Upon the bank of the river there was also a monument of Arcesilaus.
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§ 2.123 The grove of Trophonius contained his temple, in which was his statue by Praxiteles, resembling a statue of Aesculapius,—a temple of Ceres, surnamed Europe, who was the nurse of Trophonius, and a statue in the open air of Jupiter Hyetius (Pluvius). Above this place was the oracle, and farther on in the mountain the hunting-place of Proserpine; also a large unfinished temple of Jupiter the King, a temple of Apollo, and another temple containing statues of Cronus, Juno and Jupiter. He who had resolved to consult the Oracle, first passed a certain number of days in a building sacred to the good daemon and to good fortune, where, among other expiations, he was enjoined to abstain from ablution in hot water, and to bathe in the Hercyna; he sacrificed to the deities worshipped in the grove, and a priest declared from the entrails of the victims whether Trophonius was favourable to the sacrificer. On the night of consultation he again sacrificed a ram in the trench of Agamedes, at the pillar of the same person, whom he invoked.
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§ 2.124 At this trench the ground was said to have opened and received Trophonius when he quitted the earth. The appearance of the victim was here considered as of more importance than at the former place. If they were still found to be favourable, the consulter of the Oracle was conducted to the Hercyna, where he was washed and anointed by two young citizens of Lebadeia called the Hermae. He was then led to the two fountains of the Hercyna, which were close to one another, and drank of them; first of the fountain of oblivion, to obtain forgetfulness of preceding events; and then of the fountain of memory, to strengthen his remembrance of what he was about to behold. He next addressed his prayers to a wooden statue of Trophonius, made by Daedalus, which none but those who consulted the Oracle were allowed to see, after which, clothed in a linen garment, girded with sashes, and wearing sandals peculiar to the place, he was conducted to the Oracle. The first object which presented itself was a circular barrier, equal in size to a threshing-floor of very small dimensions, it was formed by a basement of white marble about two and a half feet high, upon which stood spits of brass connected together by bands of the same material. Within the circumference was a hollow, not natural, but constructed artificially in the
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§ 2.125 most finished manner, and in form resembling an oven (or kiln), the diameter was about four peeks (six feet), and the depth not more than eight peeks (twelve feet). There was no constructed descent, but a light narrow ladder was brought for the use of him who descended, and who found at the bottom a small opening between the bottom and the masonry two spans (a foot and a half) wide, and of which the height appeared to be one span (nine inches). Lying on his back, and holding honey-cakes in his hands, he introduced his legs into the hole, and then his knees, when on a sudden the rest of his body was carried forward with rapidity, as if involved in the current of a rapid and mighty river. The future was then revealed to him; not to all persons in the same manner, but to some by the sight, and to others by the hearing. He returned by the same opening by which he entered, and again with the legs foremost. The priests then conducted him to the throne of memory, which was not far from the Adytum, where they questioned him as to what he had seen, and then delivered him to his friends, who led him back to the sanctuary of Agathodaemon. At first he was so terrified, that he appeared to have no recollection either of himself or others, but at length recovered his mind and the power of laughing, and was bound to inscribe on a tablet what he had seen or heard.
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§ 2.126 Such is the account of Pausanias from his own experience. Philostratus, the only other author who has entered into particulars of the same kind, has added little or nothing to Pausanias, and differs from him only in describing as made of iron the railing of the circular barrier which Pausanias states to have been brazen. I have already remarked, that the river which traverses Livadhia is the continuation of an occasional torrent from Mount Helicon, which is joined by some copious sources at the southern extremity of the town, on the eastern side of the Castle hill. It is evident that these were the reputed springs of the river Hercyna, adjoining to which was the Grove of Trophonius. They issue on either side of the torrent, those on the left bank from the rock, through several small spouts, which are sometimes dry in summer, as I witnessed in the month of July. Those on the right bank of the torrent form the main body of the river at all times, and flow perpetually from under the rocks in many large streams, the subterraneous course of which is, apparently, from near a cavern in the rocks on the right side of the ravine, which is now almost choked up by the rubbish of the town, of which that situation happens to be a common place of deposit. The great sources are called τά γλυφά νερά, or the water unfit for drinking, in contradistinction to the other springs, which are named τά κρύα, or the cold waters; in fact, the former are of a higher temperature, and not so agreeable to the taste. Immediately above the Kria on the side of the Castle hill, is the cavern which the learned of Livadhia point out as the Cave of Trophonius.
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§ 2.127 It is not very deep, does not reach down to the soil of the valley, nor has it any appearance of an interior opening, though there are some traces of artificial excavations in it, and of niches and inscriptions near it. Such being the present appearance of the sources of the Hercyna and adjoining places, it becomes impossible to apply the description of Pausanias with any certainty, there being, instead of one source in a cavern, two sources, and a cavern opposite to each, and neither source having its origin in its corresponding cavern. As to the latter discrepancy, nothing is more likely than that during the ages which have elapsed since the sacred grove and its buildings were first ruined, and their site left to the effects of natural causes, the torrent, or even the ordinary rains, should have obstructed the caverns with alluvial soil, and should have caused one or both the springs to emerge on the bank of the torrent below the cavern, instead of issuing in the cave itself. But admitting this supposition, there still remains the question, which of the caverns contained the reputed source of the Hercyna? I think the eastern; first, because the permanent and larger sources of the river are on that side; secondly, because that situation will suit either of the two interpretations given to the words of Pausanias descriptive of the position of the grove relatively to that of the city, while the western cavern is not well adapted to either; thirdly, because the wider and more sloping ground was there better suited to contain the grove and its buildings, which required a considerable space,
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§ 2.128 than that on the western side, where the space between the Kria nera and the perpendicular rocks of the Castle hill is not only narrow, but almost entirely exposed to inundation from the torrent. It seems more probable, therefore, that the sacred inclosure and its various structures occupied the ground around the Glyfa and the cavern on that side. It is clear from the narrative of Pausanias, that the μάντεων, or place where the oracle was enounced, was quite distinct from the cavern of the sources, though it appears to have been situated also at the foot of the hill, since he describes it as επι του ορούς. The description which he has given of the well constructed of masonry, with an elevated border, surmounted by a railing of brass, is perfectly intelligible; but the οπή, or cavity, at the bottom of the wall within, was so small, that unless we suppose all that followed the introduction of the legs of the consulter of the oracle into this aperture, to have been the effect of his own imagination, it is necessary to conclude, that the priests had some concealed mode of enlarging the opening, which is the more probable, as a circumstance mentioned by Pausanias favours the opinion, that there was not only a cavern or subterraneous chamber, but a second opening. He states, that a soldier of Demetrius (Poliorcetes), who had entered the adytum without performing the previous rites, and with the hope of finding something there worth stealing, was deprived of life in consequence of his impiety; and his body was found cast out, not near the sacred entrance, but in another place.
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§ 2.129 However this may be, it is evident that nothing but an extensive excavation can lead to the discovery of the adytum, since the οπή, or aperture, was twelve feet below the circular κρηνις of white marble, and there has probably been a considerable accumulation of soil above that which was the surface in the time of Pausanias. I am informed that the torrent, although now dry, sometimes pours a potent stream into the Hercyna; its origin is in an elevated plain, situated between the summit of Helicon, nearest to Livadhia, and the heights of which the Castle hill and opposite rocks form the termination. This plain is cultivated in some parts by the people of Surbi. The three inscriptions which have been published by Spon and Wheler, are still in existence. That which is in the mosque, formerly a church on the hill near the castle, is in excellent preservation. The stone forms the lintel of the door of the minaret of the mosque. The two other inscriptions are lying in the yard of another mosque, at the Bazar, and seem to have suffered some erasure since the time of the two travellers. A third inscription in the same inclosure, not noticed by them, but published by Pococke, with his usual inaccuracy, still remains, but very much damaged. Of these four ancient documents the first mentioned is a dedication to Juno Basilis by a priest, at the termination of bis quinquennial administration;
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§ 2.130 during which his wife also had been priestess. The epithet Basilis corresponds to that of the Jupiter Basileus, whose large unfinished temple stood in the grove of Trophonius. And the word πενταίτηξης is illustrated by a fifth inscription, which I found in a private house in the town. It is in the Boeotic dialect, in characters beautifully formed, and evidently of a much earlier period than the dedication to Juno Basilis. It testifies that Neon, the son of Ascon, after having held the office of Agonothetes in the Basileia, dedicated a vase, for anointing with oil, to Jupiter the king, and to the city. It can hardly be questioned, therefore, that the quinquennium mentioned in the dedication to Juno Basilis, related to the Basileia, which recurred, like the Olympic festival and many others, at the end of four complete years. The Basileia was probably the same institution named at a later period Trophonia, which we find noticed by two Greek authors, as well as in an inscription of Megara, published by Spon and Wheler; for it appears that the oracular predictions were ascribed to Jupiter, and that the deity worshipped here was often called Jupiter Trophonius.
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§ 2.131 The great unfinished temple of Jupiter mentioned by Pausanias was probably commenced not long after the battle of Leuctra, for we are informed by Diodorus that Epaminondas, with a view to encourage the Boeotians, when preparing for the battle, procured a person to pretend that, having consulted the oracle of Trophonius, he was ordered to communicate to the army, that when they had obtained the victory, they were to institute a periodical festival at Lebadeia in honour of Jupiter the king. The Basileia was established accordingly, and was accompanied by a stephanites agon or contest, in which the victor was rewarded with a crown.
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§ 2.132 The three inscriptions at the mosque in the Bazar are all in the Boeotic dialect. The first is a conscription of the young men of twenty years of age, in the year when Charopinus was archon of the Boeotians, and magistrate of Lebadeia. The names I did not copy, because many of the letters are doubtful, and accuracy is the more necessary in consequence of the singularity of the dialect. The second inscription at the mosque is more complete, and contains a dedication to Trophonius (here written Trephonius), by the horsemen of Lebadeia, for a victory in the Pamboeotian festival. These two inscriptions were published by Spon and Wheler. The third, of which there is a copy in the Inscriptiones Antiquae of Pococke, has the remains of the words εδοξε τη πολι Λίβαδειήων in the first line, and seems to have contained a catalogue of dedications or deposits in the temple of Trophonius.
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§ 2.133 From Dec. 3 to Dec. 8.—In the course of these days I made several excursions from Livadhia, particularly one in search of Coroneia and Alalcomenae, in company with Mr. Gell, whom I found at Livadhia. The former of these ancient places is supposed by the Greeks to have stood at Granitza, on the mountain to the eastward of Livadhia, because the Bishop of Coroneia resides there. But that situation does not agree with the ancient authorities. Following the road from Livadhia to Thebes, along the foot of the Granitza mountain, we arrive in forty-seven minutes at a κalyvia of Granitza, on the foot of the mountain: here stands a single Hellenic tower, about half of which remains. On the opposite side of the plain are seen the walls of Orchomenus, inclosing the extremity of the mountain above Skripu. We then follow the foot of the mountain for seven minutes, pass some large perennial springs, and in forty-seven minutes more, opening upon a valley which extends several miles in a southerly direction towards Helicon, arrive at a fountain where are two or three sepulchral inscriptions, with nothing but the name in the nominative and χαίρε. This was a common kind of epitaph in Boeotia. Another, often employed both here and in Phocis, was the name in the dative preceded by the preposition ΕΠΙ. In neither mode, the father's name occurs. The first is precisely the Sikyonian fashion, as described by Pausanias. The Athenians invariably inscribed the name both of the man's father and of his demus. We have now directly before us a bicipitous height, standing at the entrance of the valley, watered on either side by a rivulet, stretching southward towards Helicon, in a direction parallel to the adjacent mountains, and thus dividing the valley into two branches; this height is undoubtedly the position of Coroneia.
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§ 2.134 Both the streams rise in Helicon; the eastern flows from Mount Zagara; the western, which is considerably the larger, is composed of branches from Steveniko and Mount Paleovuni, and from St. George and the mountain of Granitza. [I learn from Mr. Finlay, who in the spring of 1829 crossed from Khosia by Kukora and Steveniko to St. George, that the chief sources of this river are at a chapel between Steveniko [Agia Triada] and St. George, where are many remains of antiquity, and the following inscriptions...] This river is crossed by a bridge on the direct road from Livadhia to Thebes. In five minutes from the fountain we ford it, and in eighteen more arrive at the summit of the acropolis of Coroneia, which seems to have been of a circular form and large extent. There remain a fine piece of polygonal wall on the eastern, another on the southern side of the acropolis, some large masses of Roman tile-work on the very summit, and a piece of the town wall at the bottom of the hill, on the southeastern side. Fragments of ancient pottery are observable in the fields on every side, but more particularly toward the south-east, where the town seems chiefly to have been situated, and where a great part of it must have been hid from the view of Orchomenus and the plain. There are several sources of water on the same side of the hill, many pieces of ancient squared stones in two ruined churches, and at a third church, just below a ruined tower of lower Greek or Frank construction, two inscriptions, one only of which is in a
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§ 2.135 copy-able state of preservation. It is in honor of one Paramonus, who had held the office of strategus; like many similar inscriptions, it does not contain the name of the city. Here also is a sculpture in low relief, almost buried in the ground, together with some fragments of sepulchral and other wrought stones. At a Turkish fountain close by are two or three other mnemata inscribed only with names. Having crossed the stream on the eastern side of the hill of Coroneia, which, after following the foot of the heights for a short distance, crosses the plain, and joins the marshes below A. Dhimitri, we proceed eastward along the foot of the mountain, which here ends in a little low cliff and projecting point under the village of Koriani, or Goriani. This point,, as well as the slope of the hill has a fertile soil, and is now ploughed. Continuing along the extremity of the heights, we pass under the village of Sulinari, from whence flow two or three rivulets; beyond the last, on a rocky end of the slope, are some polygonal foundations, apparently those of a single building, such as a temple. They are remains perhaps of the peribolus of the temple of Minerva Alalcomeneis, already celebrated in the time of Homer; for the situation corresponds perfectly to that of Alalcomenae, as indicated by Strabo and Pausanias.
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§ 2.136 The neighbouring stream therefore is the Triton, upon the banks of which, near the lake, stood the towns Athenae and Eleusis, which were destroyed by an inundation. About midway between the Triton and the projecting precipitous hill called Petra, are some squared stones and fragments of ancient pottery at a ruined church. The road from Sulinari to Rastamyti crosses a connecting ridge, which unites the Petra with the other mountains. Instead of following this road as far as the latter village, we turn to the left on the crest of the ridge, and proceed to the extreme summit of the Petra, where we find some remains of a small ancient tower, or fortress, having a wall of polygonal masonry, together with the foundations of a triangular castle of later date. This height commands an extensive and interesting view of all the western division of Boeotia, comprehending its vast plain, with the surrounding heights from the neighbourhood of Thebes to Parnassus. Assisted by the recollections of my former journey, I easily recognize all the positions which Strabo and Pausanias have described around the Cephissian lake. The inner, or north-eastern bay of the lake lies before us, as far down as the katavothra, together with Topolia and the adjacent islands, about half-way between which and the mountain of the Sphinx, now called Faga, is a remarkable aperture in the hills on the borders
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§ 2.137 of the lake, near which stands the village of Kardhitza, probably on the site of Acraephium. It is easy to distinguish the several summits in the mountainous region between the Euripus and the lake Copais, to which the ancients gave the names of Ptoum, Messapium, and Hypatus. Paraes rises behind the position of Thebes. The marshy region around the lake leaves a broad plain opposite to Coroneia, but at Petra advances so far as to touch this point of the mountains. Near the position of Haliartus, which stood on a low but conspicuous eminence, close to the foot of the hills below Mazi, the marsh again approaches very near the hills, and beyond it is seen the plain of Haliartus, extending from Mount Faga to the lower acclivities of Helicon, and terminating eastward in the ridge of Onchestus, which connects those two mountains. Petra is very rocky on the northern side, and the descent is only practicable on foot. From the extreme point of the hill issue the copious sources which cause the marshes of the lake Cephissis to encroach so far upon this part of the plain, as to leave only room at the sources for the main route from Livadhia to Thebes, and thus to make the Petra a pass of some strength. The consequence is, that the road from Livadhia to Thebes is not unfrequently interrupted by robbers who establish themselves on the Petra. Some foundations of a Hellenic wall which are observable stretching into the plain, belonged probably to a work for the defence of the pass.
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§ 2.138 Returning to Livadhia, we cross, in 37 minutes from Petra, the bridge over the river which flows on the north-western side of the hill of Coroneia. The rocky extremity under Sulinari, where are the ancient vestiges, is somewhat less than half way between Petra and the bridge. From the bridge there is an interval of 30 minutes to Kalamaki, where are several mills on the last slope of the mountain, turned by the copious springs which I passed in the morning by an upper road. Rakhi, a Kalyvia of Granitza, is half a mile to the right of Kalamaki, and beyond it, Karya, near the borders of the marsh. A short examination of the description which Pausanias has given of the places, comprehended in this day’s excursion, will, I think, suffice to justify the ancient names which I have already assigned, as well as to identify the river Phalarus and the mountains Libethrium, Laphystium, and Tilphusium. He states, that Mount Tilphusium and the fountain Tilphusa were about fifty stades distant from Haliartus. Here it was said, that Teiresias, proceeding towards Delphi from Thebes, died on drinking the water. His tomb was at the fountain. Alalcomenae was a small town, situated on the extreme declivity of a mountain not very high. In the plain below it stood the temple of Minerva Alalcomeneis, which, having been deprived of its ancient statue of ivory by Sylla, was in consequence neglected; its ruin had been accelerated by an ivy tree, which had displaced the
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§ 2.139 stones. A small torrent flowed near, called Triton. Between Alalcomenae and Coroneia, and not far from the latter, stood the temple of Minerva Itonia, where the common council of the Boeotians assembled. The temple contained brazen statues of Minerva Itonia, and of Jupiter, by Agoracritus, the disciple of Phidias, to which those of the Graces had recently been added. In Coroneia, the most remarkable objects were the altars of Hermes, Epimelius, and of the winds, and a little below them a temple of Juno, containing an ancient statue made by Pythodorus of Thebes, in which the goddess was represented, bearing in one hand the Sirenes. Mount Libethrium was about 40 stades from Coroneia; here were statues of the Muses, and of the nymphs Libethrides, and two fountains, named Libethrias and Petra, resembling the breasts of a woman, and producing water like milk. From Coroneia to Mount Laphystium and the sanctuary of Jupiter Laphystius, the distance was about 20 stades: the statue was of stone. Above it there was an image of Hercules Charops. Between Mount Laphystium and the temple of Minerva Itonia, the river Phalarus crossed the road, flowing to the Lake Cephissis. Over against Mount Laphystium was the city Orchomenus.
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§ 2.140 This last remark of Pausanias seems alone sufficient to identify Mount Laphystium with the mountain of Granitza, which is separated from Mount Helicon by a pass leading from St. George to Livadhia, and advances near Kalamaki, north-eastward, into the plain exactly opposite to the hill of Skripu or Orchomenus. The exact situation of the temenus of Jupiter Laphystius cannot easily be ascertained but by the discovery of some remains of the temple, as the distance of twenty stades from Coroneia will correspond with many points on the mountain of Granitza. The temple of Minerva Itonia was at the foot of the mountain in the plain on the eastern side of Coroneia, and as it would appear from Strabo, on the bank of the torrent which flows there, for he observes of this temple, that it was founded after the Trojan war by the Boeoti of the Thessalian Arne, who having been expelled from Thessaly by the Epirotes, occupied Coroneia, and built the temple in the plain before the city’. He adds, that the river which flowed by the temple, received its name Cuarius, written Coralius by Alcaeus in some verses relating to Coroneia, from a Thessalian stream, and that at the temple of Minerva Itonia, the Pamboeotian festival was celebrated. If, as seems evident from the various testimonies just cited, the river on the eastern side of Coroneia was the Cuarius, it follows that the river of St.
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§ 2.141 George, on the western side, is Phalarus. According to Plutarch, a branch of the Phalarus, which joined it near Coroneia, was named Isomantus, and more anciently Oplias. This seems to be the rivulet from Steveniko, which joins that of St. George a little above the ancient site. In like manner as the pass of St. George, separating the mountain of Granitza from the main body of Helicon, renders probable the supposition that the former mountain had a separate name, and was the ancient Laphystium, so a similar reason leads to the opinion, that the mountain of Zagara was the ancient Libethrium; that remarkable summit being completely separated from the great heights of Helicon, by an elevated valley, in which are two villages named Zagara, and above them, on the rugged mountain, a monastery. The distance of forty stades, which Pausanias places between Coroneia and Mount Libethrium, will correspond to some place in the vale or on the mountain of Zagara: and it is not impossible that the monastery may occupy the exact position of the sanctuary of the Muses.
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§ 2.142 If Zagara was Libethrium, Tilphusium, Tilphossium or Tilphossaion was evidently confined to the height now called Petra. It is justly described by Harpocration as a mountain near the lake Copais. The fortress on the summit, probably bore the same name, which was derived from the source Tilphusa or Tilphossa, at the foot of the hill. In the hymn to Apollo, commonly ascribed to Homer, the word is written Delphusa, and seems in that ancient poem, which contains many geographical inconsistencies, to have been confounded with Delphi, a word of the same etymological origin, and derived also from its remarkable fountain. At Tilphusa, besides a tomb of Teiresias there was a sanctuary of Apollo Tilphosius. Dec. 8.—At 10.5, quitting my lodging in the lower part of the town of Livadhia, I descend along the right side of the Hercyna into the valley, through gardens and a rich cultivated tract; and at 10.25, leaving the road to Kapurna to the left cross a little below the junction of its two branches, the river which is formed by the union of the Hercyna with that already mentioned as flowing from a valley to the westward. The Hercyna is the more considerable stream of the two, is permanent in summer, and abounds in trout, which are not produced in the western branch; the course of the united river, nevertheless, is a continuation of that of the western branch, and appears from Theophrastus to have been called, at its junction with
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§ 2.143 the lake, not Hercyna, but Probatia, which was probably the name of the western branch. The valley which it waters, is the territory, perhaps, of a town near Lebadeia, named Trachin. I have already observed, that the road from Livadhia to Kastri and Salona by “the triple way,” as well as that to Dhistomo or Ambryssus, led along this valley. Proceeding, we soon arrive under some rocky hills on the northern side of the vale of Lebadeia,—and having passed, at 10.45, through the little hamlet of Krupi at the foot of these hills, soon begin to open the vale of Chaeroneia. At 11.15, we are at the eastern extremity of the heights which separate the valleys of Chaeroneia and Lebadeia, and which terminate northward in a projection immediately opposite to the high precipitous summit of Mount Acontium; midway in the plain, rises the barrow near the right bank of the Cephissus, which I suppose to be a monument of the battle between Sylla and the forces of Mithradates; near the tumulus, the river turns from its previous course along the foot of the Acontium, towards the middle of the plain, but near Orchomenus again approaches the mountain, and then “winds like a serpent” round Orchomenus into the marshes.
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§ 2.144 The direct road from Livadhia to Talanda now branches to the left, and after crossing the plain of Chaeroneia enters the vale which separates Acontium from Edylium, from whence it proceeds, over the connecting ridge, to Vogdhani. Before we begin to cross the plain in a direct line to the extremity of Mount Acontium, upon which Orchomenus was built, we pass an insulated hill near the extremity of the Chaeronian ridges, on the summit of which stands one of a system of towers, resembling those which are observable in the Morea. They seem to have been intended for communication by signal, and may all be attributed to the Frank princes who possessed Greece in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Some of the most remarkable in Boeotia are— near Bissikeni, at Neokhorio in the district of Thespiae, at Megalomulki on the site of Haliartus, at Xeropyrgo on a point of the hill which projects into the marshes two miles E.N.E. of Orchomenus, and there is another beyond the latter, not far from Topolia. We now cross the opening of the vale of Chaeroneia direct to Skripu, cross the Cephissus by a bridge, and arrive at Skripu exactly at noon. This village consists of about one hundred houses, standing partly on the rocky base of the mountain, and partly on the river side in the plain, just where, after having flowed along the southern side of Acontium, it turns from an eastern to a north-eastern course, and thence north into the marshes. Passing through the village, we proceed to the monastery of the Θεοτόκος, situated a little beyond it to the northward.
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§ 2.145 Orchomenus, like many other Greek cities, occupied the triangular face of a steep mountain, at its rise from the plain; and possessed in perfection those advantages of position, which the Greek engineers generally sought for, being defended on every side by precipices, rivers, and marshes. The summit is naturally separated from the ridge of Acontium, which accounts for the distinctive appellation Hyphanteium mentioned by Theopompus. But the upper part of the hill forming a very acute angle, was fortified differently from the customary modes. [map]
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§ 2.146 Instead of a considerable portion of it having been inclosed to form an acropolis, there is only a small castle on the summit, having a long narrow approach to it from the body of the town, between walls which, for the last two hundred yards, are almost parallel, and not more than twenty or thirty yards asunder. Below this approach to the citadel the breadth of the hill gradually widens, and in the lowest part of the town the inclosed space is nearly square. It is defended on the lowest side by a wall, which crossed the slope of the hill along the crest of a ledge of rock, which there forms a division in the slope. In this wall, which is at three fourths of the distance from the castle to the monastery, there are some foundations of the gate which formed the lower entrance into the city; and on or the outside of it are many large masses of wrought stone, the remains, apparently, of some temple or other public building. The southern wall of the city, which follows a line parallel to the Cephissus, is traceable, with scarcely any intermission, through a distance of three quarters of a mile; and in many places several courses of masonry are still extant. The wall derives its flank defence from square towers, placed for the most part at long intervals, with an intermediate short flank, or break, in the line of wall. In a few places, the masonry is of a very early age, but in general it is of the third kind, or almost regular. The former dates from the earlier and more celebrated Orchomenus, the latter is probably posterior to the battle of Chaeroneia, when the Orchomenii were restored to their possessions by Philip, son of Amyntas, and when their city, which
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§ 2.147 had been destroyed near thirty years before by the Thebans, was re-established. Towards the middle of the northern side the hill of Orchomenus is most precipitous, and here the walls are not traceable. The circumference of the whole was about two miles. The citadel occupies a rock, about forty yards in diameter, and seems to have been an irregular hexagon; but three sides only remain, no foundations being visible on the eastern half of the rock. At the northern angle are the ruins of a tower, and parallel to the north-western side there is a ditch cut in the rock, beyond which are some traces of an outwork. The hill is commanded by the neighbouring part of Mount Acontium, but not at such a distance as to have been of importance in ancient warfare. The access to the castle from the city was first by an oblique flight of forty-four steps, six feet wide, and cut out of the rock; and then by a direct flight of fifty steps of the same kind. The monuments which Pausanias remarked at Orchomenus were temples of Bacchus and of the Graces, the treasury of Minyas, a fountain, to which there was a descent, tombs of Minyas and of Hesiod, and a brazen figure bound by a chain of iron to a rock, supposed to represent a spectre which had haunted this rock, and which the oracle of Delphi, on being consulted, pronounced to be the ghost of Actaeon. The Oracle ordained that the remains of Actaeon should be buried, and the statue erected which Pausanias saw. The temple of the Graces was extremely ancient; they were
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§ 2.148 worshipped under the figure of rude stones, said to have fallen from heaven in the time of Eteocles, the founder of the temple, who lived several generations before the Trojan war. It was not until the time of Pausanias that statues of the goddesses, in stone, were added. The treasury of Minyas was a circular building rising to a summit not very pointed, but terminating in a stone which was said to hold together the entire building. Some remains, which have every appearance of having belonged to the last-mentioned building, are found to the eastward of the lower wall, where the height terminates in a low projection which is separated from the river by a level only a few hundred yards in breadth. The artists employed by Lord Elgin attempted to excavate the ruins of the building, but were deterred from making much progress by the large masses of stone which presented themselves, and which they had not the means of removing. As all the lower parts of the construction are buried in the ruins of the upper, they will probably be found in situ whenever a complete excavation shall be made. Some details may then be obtained of this curious edifice, which was supposed to be a century more ancient than the similar building at Mycenae, and the first of the kind that was ever erected.
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§ 2.149 The doorway, of which there are considerable remains, closely resembled that of the treasury of Atreus. In both, the sides of the door inclined so as to make it wider below than above; nor are the dimensions of the corresponding parts very different in the two doors. The width is the same within a few inches: here I measured eight feet three inches immediately below the soffit, at Mycenae eight feet six inches. There were probably two great slabs in the architrave, as at Mycenae, thongh one only is now left, which is of white marble, of six unequal sides, sixteen feet in its greatest length, eight in its greatest breadth, and three feet two inches and a half in thickness. It is consequently much smaller than the larger of the two slabs above the door of the treasury of Atreus, which is twenty-eight feet long and nineteen broad on its upper surface, and three feet nine inches in thickness. As at Mycenae, the edge of the stone, which formed a part of the interior surface of the building, was curved both horizontally and vertically. The versed sine of the arch on the upper surface is one foot three inches and seven-eighths, and the chord fourteen feet nine inches, which will give a diameter of about forty-one feet. [sketch] The corresponding dimension of the treasury of Atreus, or its diameter at the top of the door, is about
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§ 2.150 thirty-seven feet. From this comparison, therefore, it would seem that the treasury of Minyas was larger than that of Atreus, though there could hardly have been such a difference between the two monuments as the reader might infer from the admiration of Pausanias in the one instance, and his silence in the other. Of the Orchomenian building he asserts that there was nothing more wonderful either in Greece or in any other country, and he compares it to the walls of Tiryns and the pyramids of Egypt. But the extravagance of the latter comparison is brought down to a reasonable level by the former; and was probably suggested to Pausanias by a peculiarity in the Orchomenian treasury, in which it appears to have differed from that of Mycenae, namely, that the former was not subterraneous like the latter, and consequently that its exterior form resembled, in some measure, that of the Egyptian pyramids. A subterraneous construction of this kind, when formed on the side of a hill as at Mycenae, presented from without little more than an entrance into the hill between walls ending in a doorway; whereas the description of the treasury of Minyas as rising to a summit not very pointed, seems evidently to imply that it was not hidden in the earth. The situation of the ruins of the treasury of Minyas confirms in some measure this supposition, the ground being rocky and almost level, and therefore in neither particular adapted to a building like that of Mycenae, which required a sloping hill of friable materials. Perhaps the assertion of the Orchomenii as to the
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§ 2.151 upper stone of their building, which suggests a difference of construction between their treasury and that of Atreus, may also be explained by the former having been exposed to view, and not subterraneous; since it is probable that in that case the upper stone was not simply super-imposed, as at Mycenae, but was connected with the surrounding masonry. It might even be inferred from the meaning which Pausanias on all other occasions gives to the word αρμονία, that the upper part of the building at Orchomenus was a dome constructed with stones shaped to a center; though it ought also to be remarked that Pausanias, by the addition of the word φασί, seems not to have been himself quite convinced that the assertion of the Orchomenii was correct. Strabo observes, that the Orchomenus of his time was supposed to stand on a different site from the more ancient city, the inundations of the lake having forced the inhabitants to retire from the plain towards Mount Acontium. This seems to accord with the position of the treasury on the outside of the existing walls, since it cannot be conceived that Minyas would have so placed it. It is probable, therefore, that the city, in the height of its power, extended to the extreme point of the hill below the treasury, and perhaps even to the bank of the Cephissus. The monastery of Skripu stands about midway between the treasury and the river, below the lowest slope of the hill, on a level with the river’s
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§ 2.152 bank. It contains a large church, consisting of a dome and three aisles, which was built, as some inscriptions coeval with the walls of the church indicate, at the end of the ninth century, by Leo, who held the dignity of Protospatharius under the emperors Basil, Leo, and Constantine the seventh. The monastery probably occupies the exact site of the temple of the Graces; for it is in the memory of the present occupants that the pedestal of a tripod dedicated to the Graces, which is now in the church, was found in an excavation made on the spot. Of the other inscriptions which the convent contains, two have been removed by the persons employed by the Earl of Elgin since I was last here; [The two removed are now in the British Museum: one of these, which is the longest of all, relates to a loan which had been made by a man of Elateia to Orchomenus, and partly liquidated. As interest for the remainder he was to enjoy a limited right of pasture in the Orchomenian land.] the rest I have transcribed. They are all, except one, in the Boeoto-Aeolic dialect, which employed the digamma, and are consequently very important to philology. Among them are three epitaphs of a very remote antiquity. All the other documents in which the digamma is employed are in characters of a good time of art, and appear to be all nearly of the same date. That one of them, having no appearance of being more recent than the others, is not so old as Alexander, is proved from its being a decree of Proxenia in favour of “an Αεοlian from Alexandreia,” or native of Alexandreia Troas, the name of which city was not changed from Antigoneia to Alexandreia until after the death of
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§ 2.153 Alexander. It is probable, therefore, that they are all of the third or of the latter end of the fourth century B.C., as after that time the cities of Greece were rapidly impoverished, in consequence of the wars between the Romans and their adversaries, of which Greece became the scene. The document in which the digamma and other dialectic forms are not used, we may suppose to have been posterior to the distinction of dialects; but not long afterwards, as it contains, like one of the dialectic inscriptions, a catalogue of victors in the games, with many of the same titles, and is engraved in characters indicative of no great difference of date. In the inscriptions in which the digamma is employed, the people are ψalled’Ερχομινίοι, and the town’Ερχόμενός, an orthography clearly showing that the coins bearing the types of a Boeotian shield, of an ear of wheat, a grain of wheat, and a garland of olive, with the legend EPXO, EPX, EP, or E, were all the money of this celebrated and wealthy republic. One of the inscriptions which is inserted in the exterior wall of the monastery, is a dedication to Bacchus by two victorious choregi; probably the stone supported a tripod, as certainly did another in the church, which records the dedication of a tripod to the Graces by the Boeotians by command of the oracle of Apollo.
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§ 2.154 This oracle was probably that of Tegyra, a place noted for its temple of Apollo and oracular responses, and at that period of time, a dependency of Orchomenus. Of the three sepulchral inscriptions of remote antiquity to which I before alluded, one is that of a woman named Cydille, in the nominative; the two others, which are on one stone, are those of Baceuas and Dexon in the dative, preceded by επι. Κυδίλλη is written Κυδίλλε. Baceuas is Βακευfας with the digamma, as in the more modern Boeotic inscriptions, and Dexon is Δεχσον, when neither Ξ nor Ω were in the alphabet. The A, B, Δ, Λ, N, Σ, Y, X, are all of very antique forms, and most of them resemble the same letters in the Latin alphabet. Exactly at the foot of the precipitous rocks which formed the limit of the northern side of the city, are the sources of the river anciently called Melas, and now Mavropotami, synonyms derived apparently from the dark colour of its deep transparent waters. Among several sources there are two much larger than the others, and both considerable rivers. One flows north-eastward, and at a distance of little more than half a mile meets the Cephissus, which a little beyond the junction becomes so enveloped among the marshes extending from thence to the heights to the north-east, on
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§ 2.155 which stands a tower called Xeropyrgo, as to be scarcely traceable; but it re-appears in a single body about three miles to the eastward of Skripu, and after flowing for some distance in the direction of Kardhitza turns towards Topolia, where it enters the lake, which in the present season Alls the whole of the north-eastern bay of the Cephissian basin. The other large source or branch of the Melas, which is to the westward of the former, follows for a considerable distance the foot of the cliffs of Orchomenus, and is then lost in the marshes. This illustrates Plutarch, who, after having remarked that “the plain of Orchomenus is the largest and finest in Boeotia, but naked of trees and plants, except towards the Melas,” observes, that “this river rises below the city of Orchomenus, and is the only river in Greece which is navigable at its sources, though it has not a long course, the greater part being lost in impervious and muddy marshes, and the remainder uniting with the Cephissus near the place where the lake produces the auletic reed.” According to the same author, the Melas augmented about the summer solstice, like the Nile, and produced plants of the same kind as those of the Nile, but not so large, and bearing no fruit. Although I cannot obtain a confirmation of the periodical swelling of the Melas from the present inhabitants, such a negative testimony will hardly
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§ 2.156 invalidate the observation of the more enlightened native of the neighbouring Chaeroneia, especially as such an increase of waters about midsummer seems no more than natural, the subterraneous river, which here emerges from its limestone cavities, being probably fed by the melting of the snows on Helicon or Parnassus, and its water, therefore, being naturally most abundant in the season when the snows melt with the greatest rapidity. The marshes still produce in abundance the reeds for which Orchomenus was anciently noted. The auletic or flute-reed is described by Pliny as very long, and without knots. Plutarch observes, that the best were produced near the junction of the Cephissus and Melas. But the latter river was not generally favourable to them, according to Theophrastus, who mentions as the best situations some deep pools called the Chytri, in a place named Pelicania, between the Melas and Cephissus; the confluence of the Probatia and that of the Cephissus with the lake, a place to the northward of the latter junction, named Boedrias, and generally wherever the water was deep and the bottom muddy. Hence the growth and quality depended upon the depth of water in the lake, which varied annually, and was said to be greatest every ninth year. Distinct from the auletic reed were the
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§ 2.157 Characeias, or reed serving to make fences and pallisades, which was very thick and strong, and grew on the banks of the lake; and the Plotia, so called as growing on the πλοαaς, or floating islands, which, like those of the Lake of Ioannina, are formed of decayed reeds, rushes, and roots of grass, furnishing a soil for fresh plants, and which, detaching themselves from the edge of large tracts of the same materials, are launched into the lake by the wind. These and other peculiarities of the Cephissis it would be interesting to examine more minutely, but not a single monoxylo is possessed by any of the villages on this side of the plain. Hence the inhabitants derive little or no benefit from either the vegetable or animal productions of the lake and its surrounding marshes, though the monks of Skripu describe all the watery parts as being covered at times with water-fowl, and are fully aware of the excellence of those eels so renowned among the ancient Athenians, and which the monks describe as large, white, of delicate flavour, and light of digestion. They are taken in considerable numbers by the people of Topolia in the permanent part of the lake near that town, from whence, either fresh or salted, they are carried for sale throughout the surrounding country, especially in the time of Lent. When both Attica and Boeotia were rich and populous, the Cephissis and other lakes of Boeotia furnished the people of this province with the means of a constant and advantageous traffic with Attica, which possesses not a single trout stream, nor a lake except that of Marathon, which
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§ 2.158 in the summer is reduced to such small dimensions, that a Boeotian eel could hardly exist in it. Although the ancients employed the words Cephissis and Copais without any clear discrimination, a very convenient distinction may be made between the Copais or lake of Copae, which was the north-eastern extremity of the basin, where even in summer some water always remains, and the Cephissis, which comprehends the whole tract of occasional lakes and marshes, impassably limited by a range of heights on the northern and eastern sides, but blended with the plain in the opposite quarter, and in all directions enlarging or diminishing its boundaries according to the season. At present the plain is dry half way from Skripu to Xeropyrgo, the rest is a marsh; the edge of which follows a line drawn from Xeropyrgo to Petra; but the level of the waters is now much lower than it is expected to be in the spring. Southerly gales, as Pausanias has observed, are apt to inundate the levels near Orchomenus. The fertility of this plain is shown by its maize: I counted 900 grains in one cob; the reed is very strong and large, and, plastered with mud, it forms the most common material of the cottages near the Cephissic marshes. The stem contains a considerable quantity of saccharine matter: I have often seen the Egyptians eat it like a sugar cane, but here it is too valuable to be much used in its immature state. The citadel of Orchomenus, besides the unlimited view which it commands of the great western basin of Boeotia, and its renowned barriers, looks down
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§ 2.159 to the north-east upon a country of considerable extent, lying between the mountains of Talanda and the northern shore of the lake. It is cultivated around a few villages, but in general furnishes pasture only, the soil being, in most parts, of no great fertility. The principal villages are Lutzi, Radhi and Pavlo, lying in that order from hence, and all belonging to the district of Thebes. Beyond them in the mountains towards the Euboic frith, are Proskyna and Malesina in the Vilayeti of Talanda, and Martino in that of Livadhia. Xeropyrgo, situated three miles E.N.E.of Skripu, on the heights which hound the marshes, is probably the site of Tegyra, for Plutarch says that Tegyra stood not far from Orchomenus, above the marshes of the Melas, and that the road from the one to the other led through a pass caused by those marshes. This pass was the scene of an important victory gained by Pelopidas over the Spartans, and which was soon followed by that of Leuctra. Tegyra not being named in the Homeric catalogue of the Boeotian cities, and having been so near to the powerful Orchomenus, was probably never of any great importance, except from its temple of Apollo, and an Oracle which had ceased before the battle of Tegyra. In the time of Plutarch all the part of Boeotia to the northward of the lake Copais, seems to have been no better inhabited than it is at present, for in one of his Dialogues he introduces an assertion, that about Tegyra and Mount Ptoum, two places formerly so much famed for their oracles, hardly a

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