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

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§ 2.260 About 140 years afterwards, in the campaign of the Romans against Antiochus in the year B.C. 192, the bridge seems no longer to have existed, for Livy speaks of the Hermaion before Salganeus as the ordinary place of passage into Boeotia, and in describing the entrance of a body of Achaeans into Chalcis, he employs the words, “tuto transgressi Euripum Chalcidem pervenerunt.” Such an expression is hardly suited to the passage of a bridge to which there was no impediment. It is probable, therefore, that the bridge had been removed between the reign of Alexander and the Antiochian war. A fortified dependence of Chalcis on the Boeotian shore may have been offensive to the Boeotians, or to the Athenians, and sometimes to both: and if the people of Chalcis were not permitted to keep possession of that post, it may not have suited their interests to maintain the bridge. Twenty-five years afterwards, however, if we may trust to Livy, a bridge had been thrown over the Euripus; for he states that P. Aemilius Paullus, in his journey through Greece after the conquest of Macedonia, found the Euripus in that state. But there may be some doubt whether the historian’s words in this place have been borrowed from the same accurate contemporary of the events described by him, whom he usually followed, or whether they do not rather describe the state of the Euripus in the time of the historian
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§ 2.261 himself; when, as we learn from Strabo, there was a bridge two plethra, or 200 Greek feet in length, with a tower at each end, and a constructed canal through the Euripus, whence it would seem also, not only that no castle existed in the strait at that time, but that the strait was broader than it is at present. The σύριγζ, or canal, may perhaps have been confined to the passage between the intermediate rock, which must always have existed, though Strabo has not noticed it, and the entrance of Chalcis, and was probably nothing more than a construction of masonry on either side of that channel. In the reign of Justinian the bridge had been so much neglected, that there was only an occasional communication by wooden planks. In the plain adjacent to the town of Egripo are three ancient excavated cisterns of the usual spheroidal shape, lined with a coat of cement, and having circular openings at the top. Each of these has (what I have not seen elsewhere) an entrance on one side. In one of them which is clear of rubbish, a descent of steps appears, with an arched passage cut through the rock leading into the body of the cistern, which is small and not deep.
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§ 2.262 It is now converted into a church of St. John Prodromus, and has a skreen and altar of rough stones. The two other cisterns, though now choked with rubbish, seem also to have been churches, as they bear the names of two saints. Farther south, at the distance of a mile from the town, are the ruins of an aqueduct upon arches, which supplied Chalcis in Roman times. Northward of the city the plain, and then a cultivated slope, extend along the foot of the mountains as far as Politika, a village near the sea, distant four hours; a little beyond which begin those great cliffs which are so conspicuous from many parts of Boeotia, and which border the sea for several miles, admitting of no road along the shore. To the southward of Egripo, midway between it and the tower, which I have described as defending the entrance of the narrow winding strait leading from the southward to the bay of Vurko, a round hill named Kalogheritza rises from the shore, and commands a good view of the Euripus and of the Euboic frith, as far as Lipso northward, and to a cape beyond Kalamo in Attica southward. Mount Messapium, and the adjacent heights, exclude the view of all the interior of Boeotia except the summit of Cithron, but to the northward Cnemis is seen, and to the southward Parnes, with Pentelicum appearing over the eastern part of its ridge, and to the left of it Mount Oche in Euboea. Opposite to Kalogheritza, on the Boeotian coast, are two bays, separated from each other by a rocky peninsula; the northern is small and winding, the southern spreads at the end of a channel, into a large circular basin. The latter harbour, as well
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§ 2.263 as a village situated a mile to the southward of it, is called Vathy, a name evidently derived from the βαθύς λιμην, or larger port of Aulis, in which Strabo supposes the fleet of Agamemnon to have been anchored, because the small port of Aulis was inadequate to receive more than fifty sail: the rocky peninsula which separates the two harbours corresponds equally well with the Αυλίς πετρύεσσα of Homer, and its distance from the Euripus agrees with the testimony of Livy as to that of Aulis from thence. Nor, indeed, are there any other harbours on the Boeotian coast to the southward, which can raise a question on the subject. Dicaearchus, who like Strabo proceeds along the coast from south to north, names the places in the following order: Oropus, the temple of Amphiaraus, Aulis, the promontory Emperesium and Euripus; which not only confirms the other authorities as to Aulis, but suggests also the probability that
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§ 2.264 Emperesium was the peninsula which separates port Vurko from the southern part of the Straits. The space between the northern extremity of port Vathy and the bay of Vurko is occupied by the hill of Mycalessus. On the summit are the remains of an acropolis flanked with towers, and constructed of masonry of the third species—to which is attached, on the south-eastern side, the inclosure of the town, built of a very rude kind of Hellenic masonry, similar to that of the wall, which extends from the acropolis to the pass of Harma. [map]
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§ 2.265 On the top of the hill of Kalogheritza are two ruined round towers, formerly, perhaps, windmills, and near them the foundations of a Hellenic wall, with an ancient column lying on the ground. Inland the height falls to a plain, forming a junction between that which incircles the town of Egripo and the larger plain of Vasiliko, which extends southward along the coast, almost to the ruins of Eretria. Towards the sea the hill of Kalogheritza is very rugged, and consists entirely of rock, in which many sepulchral crypts have been excavated, some of them having circular roofs: here also are stairs and niches cut out of the rock. A copious stream issues from the foot of the rocks, and flows immediately into the sea: and a paved road here leads along the shore to the village of'Aio Nikola in the plain of Vasiliko. Possibly this hill may be the site of a place named Lelantum, for the plain behind it being exactly interposed between those of Chalcis and Eretria, could hardly have been any other than that plain of Lelantum which was an object of such deadly contention between the two rival states that a pillar still existed in the time of Strabo in the temple of Diana Amarysia, distant seven stades from Eretria, on which there was an inscription declaring that no missiles should be used in the war. The plain of Lelantum is mentioned in the Hymn to Apollo, and was famed for its vineyards, and vines are so extensively
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§ 2.266 produced in the plain behind Kalogheritza, that a village in the midst of them is named Ambelia. It was only in the most populous and opulent times that Eretria could maintain a rivalship with Chalcis, which by its numerous colonies sent to Italy, Sicily, and Thrace, and by its historical importance in every age, from the war of Troy to the Roman conquest, is shown to have been one of the most flourishing cities in Greece. Its silver coins are still found in surprising numbers. Under the successors of Alexander, when Greece became impoverished, and its resources and population inadequate to the maintenance of two large cities at so short a distance from each other, the peculiar advantages of the position of Chalcis gave it that superiority over Eretria which Strabo remarked, and an increase of the same causes has ended in making Chalcis the only town of any magnitude in Euboea. But the consequence of the opposite fate of Chalcis and Eretria has been, that at Chalcis scarcely any vestiges of antiquity are found, while Eretria, by means of its desolation, has preserved remains affording an interesting confirmation of the former importance of the city.
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§ 2.267 Dec. 24.—Having recrossed the Euripus this morning at 9, we follow the same road by which we came, along the shore of the bay of Vurko, with the height of Karababa on the right, for fifteen minutes; then leaving the road to Thebes on the left, cross the plain in a direction parallel to the foot of the mountains with the sea on the right. At 9.30, in a ruined church, is a fragment of a large column, which may formerly have belonged to the Hermaion, or to the temple of Ceres Mycalessia. Here are a series of wells, the direction of which is towards the middle of the bay of Vurko. They are very narrow, lined with stone and well constructed, but do not appear to be of any great antiquity. At 9.35 Akhalia is half a mile on the right, not far from the sea; the foot of the lower heights of Mount Khtypa, the ancient Messapium, are at the same distance on the left. The intermediate level is well cultivated with corn, which is just springing up. The plain narrows in approaching Khtypa, and at 10 we reach the foot of the mountain just where it descends in a rapid slope from the summit quite to the shore. Just in the angle where the plain terminates are the remains of a Hellenic town, on the side of a small port, directly under the highest summit of the mountain. The citadel occupied a height rising from the shore, ninety yards in length and about fifty broad, and having a flat summit sloping from the south-east towards the sea. The sides of the hill, which are about fifty yards on the slope, have been partly shaped by art, and then faced with stone in the manner of some ancient places in Syria, of which the castles of Hama and Aleppo are the most remarkable examples. The facing of stone is visible on every side except the north, where probably it still exists, though now covered by an alluvion of earth.
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§ 2.268 Some remains of walls are visible on the crest of the summit, and a part of the town walls on the south-eastern side of the height. There can be little doubt that these are remains of Salganeus, which, although unnoticed by Pausanias, appears clearly from Dicaearchus and Strabo to have been a Boeotian fortress, situated between the Euripus and Anthedon, at the northern entrance of the narrow part of the Euboic frith. According to Strabo, the name was derived from the Boeotian pilot of Megabazus, who was put to death by the Persian commander, on suspicion that he was purposely leading the fleet of Xerxes to destruction, because no outlet appeared to the channel. Megabazus, afterwards regretting his error, erected a monument to the pilot in the place where his death occurred, and where the town afterwards stood. I have already alluded to the mention of Salganeus by Livy in his narrative of the military transactions in this quarter, between Antiochus and the Romans. The first measure of Antiochus, on his arrival from Asia at Demetrias, was an attempt to obtain possession of Chalcis in concert with his allies the Aetolians. Having passed from Lamia through Phocis, he met the Aetolians at Chaeroneia, and then marched to Salganeus, from whence he crossed by water to the harbour of Chalcis, accompanied by the Aetolian chiefs. Having failed in his endeavour to convince the magistrates of Chalcis that it was for their interest to take part with him against the Romans, he returned to
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§ 2.269 Demetrias, and in order to prevent succours from arriving at Chalcis, sent thither his fleet, commanded by Polyxenidas, and 3000 land forces under Menippus, who encamped before Salganeus at the Hermaion, which was the ordinary place of transit, into Euboea They were too late to prevent a small reinforcement of Achaeans and of troops sent by Eumenes from entering Chalcis, but in time to oblige Mictio of Chalcis, and 500 Romans who were approaching with the same design from the southward, to retire to Delium, from whence it was their intention to cross the Euboic frith into the island; but Menippus, having surprized them at Delium, and captured or slain a considerable number, Antiochus, who had followed Menippus into Boeotia, thereupon marched to Aulis, and was admitted into Chalcis. The remaining Romans then took possession of the castle of the Euripus, while Salganeus was occupied by the Achaeans and troops of Eumenes, who had retired from Chalcis; but Menippus, proceeding to besiege the latter place, and the king the castle of the Euripus, their opponents gave up the defence, and left Antiochus in possession of all Euboea. From these circumstances, compared with the distance of sixteen stades, which Thucydides has assigned as that between the Hermaion and Mycalessus, it may be inferred that the Hermaion, so called we may suppose from a temple of Mercury, stood on the shore between Salganeus and the modern bridge, and that it was probably the
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§ 2.270 ordinary place of passage because it was nearly opposite to the northern or principal harbour of Chalcis. The fortress which Livy describes by the words Euripi castellum, or in Euripo castellum, or simply Euripus, would seem from this designation to have occupied the site of the small castle on the rock in the strait, but as many obvious difficulties would arise from such a supposition, I am inclined to think it was the same place as Canethus, or the hill of Karababa. Having quitted the ruins of Salganeus at 10.30, I begin, in eight minutes, to ascend the cliffs which now border the shore, and soon observe the traces of chariot-wheels in the rock. At 10.42, the road continuing to follow the summit of the cliffs, we arrive opposite to the southern extremity of an island named Gaidharo-nisi, distant half a mile from the coast, and which is a mile in length from north to south. Upon it stands a square tower, visible from Karababa, but not from the town of Egripo; ten minutes farther the road descends upon the sea-beach. At 11.4 are the foundations of a thick wall near the beach, parallel to the water's edge. Here is a source of saltish water. At 11.8 is another and more considerable saline source, where are the ruins of some mills. The wall, and the traces of wheels in the rock, are vestiges of that road from Chalcis to Anthedon which Dicaearchus has noticed, though his description is not exactly in accordance with modern appearances, for he represents the road as very smooth; instead of which it is like the shore, extremely rugged where it passes over the rocks,
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§ 2.271 and where it follows the beach is liable to interruption from the overhanging cliffs, fragments of which often break off in such quantity as to render the road impassable. Though Dicaearchus mentions the sources of water, he does not remark that they are chiefly saline; and his description of the mountain can only be made to answer to Mount Khtypa by the omission of the word ούχ, for this mountain is lofty as well as steep. At 11.12 the pass terminates, and we enter on a slope covered with lentisk and holly-oak, which is continued quite to the summit of the mountain. At the head of the slope, and just under the steep side of the summit, stands the small village of Lukisi, towards which I proceed after leaving at 11.15 the road to Larmes branching to the right, and passing along the foot of the slope near the sea. At 11.25 an ancient foundation cut out of the rock is seen crossing the road; to the left of which, three hundred yards from the road, is a church surrounded with purnaria, in which are several ancient squared stones, and an aghia trapeza formed of an ancient sepulchral stone supported by part of a column. On the stone, which has a simple decoration of sculpture, is the name Καφισόδωρα, in letters of the best times. Leaving this place at 11.40, we continue to ascend, when the remains of another ancient wall occur at 11.48, and at 11.53 we
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§ 2.272 arrive at Lukisi. Here the women, (the men being all at work in the fields); having brought me several ancient coins which have been found in ploughing the corn-fields at the παλαιά χώρα, or old town; which is distant a mile and a half at the foot of the slope on the sea side, I proceed thither, after dining, and find considerable remains of an ancient city. [map] 1,1. Are traces of the town wall, built with well squared stones, of the most regular kind of masonry. Its termination to the south-east I could not exactly trace: the entire circuit of the city seems not to have been more than 2000 yards. 2. An acropolis situated on a small height terminating towards the sea in cliffs; on the brow of which are found large pieces of the ancient wall; other remains of the wall are seen also on the land side of the acropolis.
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§ 2.273 3. Midway between the wall of the town and the crest of the height of the acropolis are some cisterns of the usual form. 4. Part of the platform of a public building, thirty-four yards in length, founded in the sea; and supported on that side by quadrangular projecting buttresses, of which four remain; there was an ascent of a few steps from the sea to the platform. The port, in the midst of which this building stood, was defended from the open sea on the north by 5, a mole, connected with the northern wall of the town, and built upon a projecting ledge of rocks. All the foundations of the mole still remain, and it was probably surmounted with a wall, forming a continuation of the town wall. At 6, are the foundations of a similar work of smaller dimensions, the extremity of which approaches so near to a small sandy island near the extremity of the greater mole, as to suggest the probability that the opening was occasionally closed by a chain, by which the north-eastern part of the bay became a κλειστος λιμην, or closed port; it appears to have been excluded from the city by a wall branching from the western extremity of the northern mole, passing behind the building No. 4, and terminating, perhaps, at the nearest part of the acropolis. Strangers arriving by sea might thus have access to the building, which was probably a temple, without being admitted into the town, and the town might resist after the port had been occupied by an enemy.
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§ 2.274 The town walls were defended to the west by the ravine of a torrent flowing from Mount Messapium. There can be no question that these are ruins of Anthedon, of the situation of which we have several descriptions in ancient history. According to a poet quoted by Athenaeus, Anthedon stood on the sea coast, opposite to Euboea, not far from the Euripus. Strabo places it on the shore between Salganeus and Larymna near Mount Messapium, Pausanias describes it as a maritime city at the foot of Mount Messapium to the left of the Euripus, and Dicaearchus as a small town on the Euboic sea, distant seventy stades from Chalcis and one hundred and sixty from Thebes. The soil on the slope of Mount Khtypa, around Lukisi, and that which surrounds the Palea-khora, is, as Dicaearchus remarks of the Anthedonia, much better adapted to vines than to corn, though there is very little of either at present. He adds, that the inhabitants were chiefly mariners, shipwrights, and fishermen, that they traded in fish, purple, and sponges, and that they had an agora surrounded with a double stoa, and planted with trees. In the middle of the town, according to Pausanias, was a Sacred Grove of the Cabeiri, surrounding a temple of those deities, near which was another dedicated to Ceres and Proserpine, and containing their statues in white marble. On the outside of the walls, on the land side, was a
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§ 2.275 temple of Bacchus, containing his statue; and near it tombs of the sons of Aloeus and Iphimedeia, who were slain by Apollo. On the sea side there was a place called “the leap of Glaucus.” “It was from the Anthedonii,” adds the Greek traveller, “that Pindar and Aeschylus derived their fables of Glaucus, who was a fisherman of Anthedon, converted by the Anthedonii into a marine deity, predicting futurity and delivering oracular responses, which seafaring men still believe.” It seems not unlikely that the building on the shore of the harbour was a temple of Glaucus. As to the vestiges of antiquity near Lukisi, it is not impossible that the Nisa, or Isus, of Homer, which latter name was still preserved near Anthedon in the time of Strabo, may have stood at Lukisi, and that the modern name may preserve remains of the ancient in its two last syllables. Opposite to Anthedon on the coast of Euboea is Politika, from whence the coast to the northward consists for seven miles of lofty cliffs, terminating to the north in the remarkable peak called Kandili. The distance of this mountain from the site of Anthedon corresponds to the 120 stades which Strabo assigns as the interval between Anthedon and a lofty mountain on which there was a temple of Neptune Aegaeus. The city Aegae no longer existed in his time, but it stood probably towards Limni, as he states it to have been not far from Orobiae, now Rovies.
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§ 2.276 CHAPTER 15 BOEOTIA I had intended to have taken the road along the sea-side to Larmes, and thence to Martino, but the women at Lukisi having reported it impracticable, I proceed by the Lake Paralimni to Kokkino. At 1.32 cross the foundations of the town walls of Anthedon, and immediately afterwards the deep dry ravine of a torrent which descends from the part of Mount Khtypa, above Lukisi; on its left bank are some foundations of an ancient wall, the remains perhaps of a bridge. At 1.38, on a height on the side of the same torrent are two ruined churches, and the remains of two sepulchral receptacles cut in the rock. From thence, after a delay of 4 minutes, we continue to mount the slope, and at 1.50 arrive at the summit of a ridge which connects Mount Ptoum with the lower heights of Messapium about Lukisi.
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§ 2.277 Here are several Hellenic foundations, belonging probably to works for the defence of this pass, which was on the road from Anthedon to Thebes. The ascent on either side is easy, and the ridge is not high, but it opens an extensive view between the mountains Ptoum and Hypatus, and looks down immediately upon the lake Paralimni, otherwise called the lake of Moritzi. It is observable from hence, that the length of this lake is in the direction of a peaked hill, over which our road afterwards passes towards Kokkino, that the summit of the mountain of Zagara is in the same line, and that a little to the left of the latter appears that of Faga. After a loss of 5 minutes in the descent, we arrive, at 2.35, opposite to the northeastern end of the lake, and then leaving it on the right, follow a rugged path along the last falls of the Messapian ridges. From the opposite shore rises the steep naked ridge of Mount Ptoum, of which the modern name in this part is Strutzina. To the northward of it is another summit of the same range, called Skroponeri, and to the southward of it that named Palea; the former terminates in a peaked cape two or three miles beyond Anthedon. Continuing our route along the rocky foot of the hills, we arrive at 2.48 at a part of the ancient road, 200 feet long, excavated in the rock in the form of a shallow trench, 5 feet 9 inches in breadth. It winds in descending like a similar road between Sparta and Helos; and though it retains scarcely any of those marks of wheels which are generally seen on the remains of ancient roads in
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§ 2.278 Greece, there can be no doubt that it is a part of that route for carriages described by Dicaearchus, which led from Anthedon to Thebes, and which was 160 stades in length. Having remained here 5 minutes, we emerge at 3.7 from between the Messapian hills and the lake, into a plain separated only by a small rise from the plain of Thebes. Moritzi is here half an hour on our left, hid by the rising ground. At 3.30 other small hills border the lake: at 3.35 there are traces of ancient walls near the road, and at 3.45 we arrive at the end of the lake, where on a low rocky height close on the left of the road, are foundations of buildings formed of very large stones, and having an appearance of remote antiquity. There are traces also of an ancient wall following the foot of the hill towards the lake. It is evidently the site of a Hellenic town. From the head of the lake a plain begins, which, widening to the westward, is bounded by a mountain branching southward from Mount Palea, and terminating in the plain of Thebes, at the eastern extremity of the Livadhi, or lake of Senzina, and thus separating from each other the basins which contain the two lakes with their adjacent plains. Having left the ancient site by the lake Paralimni at 3.56, we fall into the road from Thebes to Talanda by Martino, and at 4.15 begin to ascend the separating ridge above-mentioned, which is very rugged: at 4.40 arrive at the summit, where the steep rocks of Mount Palea are not far to the right, while on the left we look down on the plain and lake of Senzina.
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§ 2.279 Before us are the hills above Kardhitza together with a part of the lake Cephissis, and the marshes bordering on it: beyond these appear Helicon and Parnassus. We quit this spot at 5, and keeping close under the precipices of Mount Palea, wind round them to the right, until at 530 the road passes a modern fountain, constructed chiefly of ancient squared stones, mixed with stelae and pedestals. Here stood formerly the monastery of Palea, by which the adjacent summit of Mount Ptoum is still known. The name seems to have been derived from some Hellenic ruins once existing here in greater quantity than at present, and which may have given to the monastery the appellation of ή Παναγία στα Παλαια, or “Our Lady at the Antiquities.” The ruins were probably those of the temple of Apollo Ptous, or Ptoius, famous for an oracle delivered by a priestess, who when consulted by Mardonius, replied to his messenger, who was a Carian, in his own language. The oracle belonged to the Thebans, and ceased when Thebes was destroyed by Alexander the Great.
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§ 2.280 Kardhitza is now about half an hour below us on the left, but having determined before proceeding thither to visit the subterraneous discharge of the Cephissus, and to search for Larymna, I turn from it to the right, descend by a winding course, in order to avoid the rocky summits overhanging Kokkino, and then leaving to the left the road to Martino, turn under the northern side of the abovementioned cliffs, and arrive at Kokkino at 6.8. This is a village of thirty houses, which as usual, in this part of Greece, consist only of one apartment, serving both for a stable and a lodging for the whole family. The people are of Albanian origin, and use that language among themselves, so that many of the women are ignorant of the Greek: at Mazi and Lukisi it was the same. The owner of the cottage in which I lodge is said to possess several thousand goats on Mount Ptoum, but dares not live better than the other people of the village. Dec. 25.—After having visited, this morning, three small churches, a quarter of a mile to the N.E. of Kokkino, where the village formerly stood, and where I find only an altar with an ill-executed ornament of metopes connected by festoons, and a few other trifling remains of Hellenic times, I proceed at 8.45 to the Katavothra of the Cephissus, descending the rugged hill till 9, when in a ravine we rejoin the road from Thebes to Martino, which we quitted yesterday evening. Continue descending, and pass over a small plain at the head of a bay of the lake Copais, which is cultivated by the people of Kokkino, but in the upper portion only, on account of the inundations to which the lower part is subject. The lake abounds
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§ 2.281 in fish, and its surface is now covered with wild fowl, but the peasants reap no advantage either from the one or the other, for want of the means of catching or killing them; the people of Topolia, however, enjoy a profitable fishery in the lake, and sometimes take, especially at the katavothra, great quantities of those Copaic or Cephissic eels renowned among the ancients for their bulk and fatness, and which Pausanias commends from his own experience. At 9.18 we arrive on the water’s edge, and then ascending the rocky foot of Mount Skroponeri arrive in three minutes more at a great cavern, at the foot of a perpendicular rock eighty feet high. It is the entrance of a low, dark, subterraneous passage, one hundred and twelve yards long, through which a part of the river or current of the lake slowly flows, and rejoins the rest of the river very near the entrance of the south-easternmost of the katavothra. In summer this cavern, or false katavothra, as it may be called, is dry, and there is a passage through it on foot; but at present it is the resort of a multitude of fishes. The south-eastern katavothra resembles the cavern in outward appearance, being an aperture at the foot of a perpendicular rock of equal altitude. But there is much more water here: the stream which enters is about thirty feet broad, and four
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§ 2.282 or five feet deep, and now entirely fills and conceals the opening, which in summer is exposed. Now that the lake extends as far as Topolia and fills all this part of the basin, it is not easy to distinguish the river from the inundation, unless from some favourable position on the surrounding heights, especially as the current flows not more rapidly than a yard in a minute, and there is little difference in the depth or colour of the water in any part of this inner bay, which is divided from the main body of the lake of Copae by a projecting point under Kokkino, concealing Topolia from the katavothra. I now ride over the rocky foot of the mountain near the lake, and in twelve minutes arrive at a second katavothra, situated like the first at the end of an inlet of the lake terminating in a perpendicular cliff, but much smaller both in the size of the stream and in the height of the cliff, which is not more than twenty feet. The stream flows rapidly into the cavern, and there is a bank of loose stones across it, intended for catching fish when the water is low. In summer the inlet is quite dry, and often the river itself: all the adjoining part of the lake is then converted into a pasture, with cattle grazing on it. Two minutes beyond the second katavothra is a third, at the foot of a perpendicular rock of fifty feet; here the course of the river is well marked, having sandbanks on either side, and a broad stream running into the cavern. From hence, after riding for a quarter of an hour along the lake northward, in search of other subterraneous entrances, without finding any, I return to the third katavothra and proceed from thence to the emissory of the river in the valley of
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§ 2.283 Larmes. For ten minutes the road mounts a stony hollow between low hills of the same description, after which the same vale is continued with a descending surface. The Cephissus pursues its subterraneous course in the same direction, as appears by a line of quadrangular shafts or perpendicular excavations in the rock, evidently made for the purpose of clearing the subterraneous channel when by some accident it had been obstructed, and had thereby submerged, or endangered, a great part of the fertile plain which extends to the sites of Acraephium, Haliartus, Tilphossium and Orchomenus. The first shaft is at two minutes’ distance from the third katavothra. It is five feet eight inches square, entirely excavated out of the rock, and is filled with stones and earth to within a few feet of the top. The second shaft, which is three minutes farther, is clear to the depth of forty-five feet. The third shaft is at three minutes’ distance from the last, and is filled at the depth of twenty feet. The mouths of many of these shafts are concealed by the bushes of lentisk and purnari which cover the valley, but they are easily traced by means of the mounds of earth and broken stones around them, which were formed probably when the wells were excavated. Their obstruction has obviously been caused by their all lying, more or less, in the course of the waters down the valley. The fourth shaft is one minute beyond the third, and not less than ninety feet in depth, with stones and earth at the bottom, like the others. It diminishes gradually downwards, not in a straight line, but by a succession of ledges.
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§ 2.284 The second is constructed in the same manner, and so are probably several of those which are filled. All are cut entirely through the rock: some have small steps on either side of one of the angles. The fifth shaft is one minute beyond the fourth, and is entirely filled with the earth and stones washed into it from the hills on either side. Its situation, however, is ascertained by the mounds around the hollow, and we may infer, from the height and extent of the mounds, that this shaft must have been the deepest of all. Here in fact the valley is highest, and from hence the ground descends all the way to the vale of the lower Cephissus. The elevation I should conceive to be at the utmost one hundred and eighty feet above the level of the lake. The sixth shaft is at the same distance of about one hundred yards from the fifth, that the fifth is from the fourth: and, like the fifth, it is quite filled. The seventh is in an exact line with those preceding, but as the valley here takes a turn to the left, this shaft is on the rocky foot of the mountain, instead of being in the lowest part of the vale. The engineers who undertook, by means of these shafts, to clear the subterraneous channel of the river, naturally proceeded upon the supposition that the stream would run direct or nearly so, from the entrance towards the issue, and hence without regarding the nature of the ground above, they proceeded to excavate the seventh shaft in the same line with those preceding it. In forming it they probably discovered that the subterraneous channel does not follow the straight line, but conforms to the structure of the ground on the surface, turning in the direction of a ravine to the left; they continued, therefore, their work in that direction to the eighth shaft, which is found in a point
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§ 2.285 forming an angle to the left of the former line, at the usual distance from the seventh, but just at the entrance of the ravine, which is here closely confined by the adjoining rocky hills, and descends rapidly. The seventh shaft is twenty feet deep, the eighth, much ruined, about forty-five; between them to the right, in a little level which occupies the corner at the turn of the valley, are foundations of an oblong building, of large rough stones. The ninth shaft, which is seventy or eighty feet deep, occurs at the usual distance; the tenth at the same distance, has a depth of twenty feet. The eleventh at a like distance, is something less deep than the ninth. The twelfth at a like distance, is about as deep as the ninth. The thirteenth at an equal distance, has the same depth as the last. Here ends the ravine, which now opens upon a rugged slope, descending into the valley of the lower Cephissus, which lies to the right, and is hid from view by a rugged point projecting from the ridge of Skroponeri. The line of the shafts here changes its direction towards the right, and three more are found on the slope above mentioned, in a direction bending towards the rocky point. The distances between the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth, are about double the former intervals. Their depth is about ten feet. At the fifteenth the valley widens, and the road to Larmes continues to follow the slope leaving the rocky point to the left, and entering the lower valley just at the place where the river issues.
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§ 2.286 Its position relatively to the sixteenth shaft, indicates the direction of the subterraneous current under the rocky hill. The river emerges at the foot of a precipice about thirty feet high, in many small streams, which immediately unite and form a river forty or fifty feet wide, and three or four deep, flowing with great rapidity down the vale. The road follows its right bank for sixteen minutes, then crosses, on the same side, a rocky projection of Mount Skroponeri, which is divided only by the river from an equally abrupt termination of the mountain on the western side of the vale, and in ten minutes descends to a large old church, and the mills of Larmes, which are turned by a canal derived from the river. Where we crossed the height, the river is precipitated over the rocks for a short distance with great rapidity. In very dry summers it entirely fails, when the mills are scantily supplied by a fountain, which issues from a rock on the right side of the rapid. From the mills to the head of the bay, where the river joins the sea, the distance is thirteen minutes, the stream winding with rapidity through a small plain cultivated with cotton. The fall of the river through the subterraneous channel over the cataract, and along the two valleys, can hardly amount to more than a perpendicular of fifty feet. In the valley above the cataract the river flows through a thick copse of agnus-castus, and produces a great quantity of water-cresses. In the lower valley it is bordered with reeds and myrtles. A steep peaked mountain rises on the left of the river’s mouth, behind which are the villages of Martino and Malesina: the latter towards the sea, Martino more inland.
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§ 2.287 At about an hour and a quarter beyond Martino is Proskyna, upon the small stream which flows into the south-eastern angle of the bay of Opus, and which I suppose to be the Platanus, or Platanius, of Pausanias. Between Martino and Proskyna, not far from the latter, are the remains of an ancient city: probably Corseia. The ruins of Larymna are situated on a level covered with bushes, on the shore of the Bay of Larmes, ten minutes to the left of the mouth of the Cephissus. The circuit of the walls is less than a mile. The annexed sketch will give an idea of the remains still existing. [map] LARYMNA. 1. Is a small port, anciently closed in the manner here described. 2. The town wall, traceable all around. 3. Another wall along the sea, likewise traceable. 4. A mole, in the sea. 5. Various ancient foundations in the town and acropolis. 6. A Sorus. 7. Glyfonero, or Salt Source. 8. An oblong foundation of an ancient building.
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§ 2.288 The walls, which in one place are extant to near half their height, are of a red soft stone, very much corroded by the sea air, and in some places are constructed of rough masses. The sorus is high, with comparison to its length and breadth, and stands in its original place upon the rocks: there was an inscription upon it, and some ornaments of sculpture, which are now quite defaced. The Glyfonero is a small deep pool of water, impregnated with salt, and is considered by the peasants an άγιονέρι, or sacred water, because it is cathartic. Meletius, who supposed it to be the lake Anchoe mentioned by Strabo, states, that in his time persons resorted to the place in spring and autumn to drink of the water, and to some of those, he adds, who drank too much, it proved fatal. This coast, as well as Euboea, abounds in salt springs, and Halae perhaps derived its name from similar sources near it. Some ruins like those of Larymna are said to exist at a church of St. John Theologus, near the cape which projects to the northward, beyond Malesina and Proskyna. They are probably remains of Halae. Upon the projection of Skroponeri, which separates the upper from the lower valley of Larmes, I observed some foundations of Hellenic walls surrounding a height on the right hand side of the road. These seem to have been merely the remains of a small dependent fortress, commanding the pass which led to the town. On the rocks above the issue of the Cephissus, the road from Kokkino to Larmes is crossed by that from Lukisi to Martino.
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§ 2.289 The latter, as I am now informed, is by no means so bad as the women of Lukisi, for some reasons of their own, thought proper to represent it. From Lukisi it crosses the mountain which borders the valley of Anthedon to the west, and descends upon a vale at the head of the bay of Skroponeri, where are some copious sources issuing not far from the shore of the bay, and flowing into it. From thence the road crosses Mount Skroponeri to the vale of Larmes. The distance from Lukisi to Larmes is reckoned two hours and a half. Although the name Larmes, or Larnes, which is applied as well to the ruins just described as to the adjacent bay and valley, leaves little doubt that the ruins are those of Larymna, yet, as Strabo mentions two towns of that name, there may be some doubt to which of them these remains are to be attributed. He observes, that the Cephissus broke forth from its subterraneous channel at the Upper Larymna, and joined the sea at the Lower Larymna; that Upper Larymna had belonged to Locris until it was annexed to the Lower or Boeotian Larymna by the Romans; that the place where the river issued at Upper Larymna was called Anchoe, and that there was a lake of the same name which, it is fair to presume from the etymology of the word, was the same as that lake at
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§ 2.290 Larymna, which Pausanias describes as a λιμνη αγχιβαθης, or a lake profound at the very margin. At Larmes, however, there is nothing resembling a lake, except the small pool or source of salt water near the ancient walls, which leads one to suspect that Pausanias could not have alluded to Larmes in describing Larymna, the more so as the words ύπερβαλόντων το ορος τό Πτώον, which he employs in alluding to the road from Acraephium to Larymna, would lead us to suppose that he crossed not merely the low ridge between the Katavothra and the emissory, but a part of Mount Skroponeri itself, and that he really did so is the more probable from his having made no mention of the lake Copais on this occasion, or of the subterraneous channel of the Cephissus, although the road from Acraephium to Larymna, supposing his Larymna to have been at Larmes, could not but have followed the shore of the lake, and have passed both by the entrance and exit of the subterraneous stream. There is reason to suspect, therefore, that the Larymna of Pausanias was not the town which stood at Larmes, but another in the valley at the head of the bay of Skroponeri; that the Boeotian, or Lower Larymna, was there situated, and that Larmes was the site of the Upper, or Locrian Larymna. I cannot affirm, indeed, that there is a lake corresponding to the Anchoe in the vale of Skroponeri; nor if
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§ 2.291 that were the site of the Lower Larymna, is it easy to explain how either of them could have belonged to Locris, all the surrounding districts being Boeotian; although it cannot be denied, that the Larymna at Larmes was the nearer of the two to the Locrian frontier. It seems unaccountable also, that Pausanias should have omitted to notice so curious an object, both natural and artificial, as the Chasms of the Cephissus and its shafts; but it is consistent with the supposition of his not having visited the Larymna at Larmes, which may have happened because it had been abandoned, soon after it had been annexed by the Romans to the Lower Larymna. As to Strabo, who seems to have been correct only in saying, that the Cephissus emerged near the Upper Larymna, there is great reason for believing that on this, as on many other occasions, he described places confusedly, which he had never seen, and his text, perhaps, may be partly in fault. To the one or the other of these causes may also be attributed his assertion, that the subterraneous passage of the Cephissus was thirty stades in length; for, with all its windings, it is not half so much. At the issue of the Cephissus, in the upper vale of Larmes, I was struck with the smallness of the quantity of water when compared with the aggregate of that which enters at the three katavothra,
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§ 2.292 and could not but infer that one of the streams, at least, has a different issue. The two northern katavothra seem too near to each other, as well as to the commencement of the line of shafts on the surface, not to have both conducted to the subterraneous channel below those shafts. It will probably be found, therefore, that the river which issues in the vale of Larmes, and which is about equal in volume to those two streams, is derived solely from them, and that the southern katavothra, which is nearly half a mile distant from the nearest of the two northern, has a different discharge, perhaps, at the sources in the bay of Skroponeri. This would partly justify Strabo in saying, that the Cephissus flowed into the sea near the Lower or Boeotian Larymna. Having taken my Christmas dinner at the Mills of Larmes, I return to Kokkino, following the same road by which I came, with the exception of crossing the rocky height from near the issue of the river directly to the sixteenth shaft, and without finding any other shaft, though the subterraneous stream flows probably in that direction. It takes three quarters of an hour to mount from the nearest katavothra to Kokkino, where we arrive at sunset. The only passage in ancient history illustrative of the shafts and subterraneous course of the Cephissus, occurs in the pages of Strabo to which a reference has just been made. After describing the river as entering a chasm near Copae, the geographer subjoins that one Crates of Chalcis
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§ 2.293 had been employed by Alexander the Great to remedy the effects of an obstruction of the subterraneous channels which had caused the submersion of several places situated on the margin of the lake: and that he, Strabo, had seen the report made by Crates to Alexander, wherein that engineer stated that he had been successful in drawing off the water from some districts, especially those of Eleusis and Athenae, Boeotian towns on the river Triton, when dissensions among the Boeotians put a stop to the work. Although one of the operations of Crates was to make an embankment near Athenae, it is evident that his principal means of desiccation were derived from the clearing of the subterraneous channels of the river, and hence we might be justified in the inference that the existing wells were the work of Crates; there are strong reasons, however, for believing that they are more ancient, and that Crates only repaired or cleared them. It is obvious that all valleys so inclosed as to admit of a passage to the running waters only through the surrounding mountains cannot but be liable to occasional inundations from the obstruction of the subterraneous
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§ 2.294 channels. Ancient history records the occurrence of inundations, thus caused, in the valleys of Stymphalus and Pheneus, where such is the height of the mountains that the inconvenience can only be remedied by nature herself. But the chasmata of the Cephissus are more accessible, and allowed of the excavation of a line of shafts, by means of which the channel of the river might not only be kept clear but even enlarged, with a view to a more extensive drainage of the plain. Strabo remarks, with reference to the ancient riches of the Orchomenii attested by Homer, that, according to a Boeotian tradition, they had been caused by the draining and subsequent cultivation of a large portion of the plain, which in the time of the geographer had again become a part of the lake, and is still an impracticable swamp. Now there is certainly no period, in history, to which that great and useful undertaking can be attributed with so much probability as to that, when all Western Boeotia was united under the Minyae of Orchomenus. To that age, therefore, rather than any other, the original excavations are to be attributed, when they were formed perhaps under the direction of the Orchomenian princes Trophonius and Agamedes, who, by their mechanical skill in an age when it was extremely rare in Greece, attained the honours of divinity.
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§ 2.295 Dec. 26.—This morning a strong north-wester sets in with rain. A ride of three quarters of an hour carries me to Kardhitza, the road passing along the rugged flanks of Mount Ptoum. Midway a small plain lies below us to the right, at the foot of the mountain on the border of the lake, and opposite to the plain, not far from the right bank of the Cephissus, an island surrounded by cliffs, the summit of which is incircled by the remains of a Hellenic wall. In the inclosed space, as I am told by some peasants who have been there, are some foundations of buildings, but no columns. It seems to have been some small town to which the little plain just mentioned may have appertained, together with that which is now an inundation surrounding the island, but which in summer may be valuable land either for grain or pasture. At Kardhitza I find ample employment for the rest of the day in examining the adjacent ruins, which are undoubtedly those of Acraephium, and in copying inscriptions, of which there is a large collection in an old church of St. George, standing within the walls of the ancient city. Dec. 27.—The longest of the inscriptions has required a continued labour of six hours, the letters being small, and in some places much defaced; and the stone which is in the wall of the church on the outside, on a level with the earth, being so placed that the lines are perpendicular to the horizon, whence it is impossible to obtain a distinct view of them without lying on the ground.
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§ 2.296 The monument is in honour of one of the citizens of this place named Epaminondas, son of Epaminondas. After recording some of his former services to his native city, one of which was the reparation, at an expence of 6000 denaria, of a mound twelve stades in length, probably for the purpose of protecting the plain of Acraephium from the inundations to which it is subject from the lake, the inscription proceeds as follows: “A legation having been required to the Young Augustus, in the general assembly of the Achaeans and Panhellenes at Argos, and many illustrious and leading men in the Boeotian cities having met together and refused and appealed to him, he extending his magnanimity to the whole nation of Boeotians, and setting aside all consideration of his private interests, most readily accepted the charge from the nation of Boeotians, applying the strength of his mind to this important and unpaid legation. Whence, having become admired and thought worthy of approbation, he was honoured by the Panhellenes, as they testified in the letter sent by them to our city. Having concluded the legation together with the other nations, and brought back the answer from..., he was honoured, together with his co-legates; and the general assembly of the Pamboeoti, mindful of his spontaneous
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§ 2.297 liberality and benevolence, decreed to him the honours due, and made a communication of the act to our city He excelled in greatness of mind and virtue all his love of glory and goodness by successive entertainments, being thus held to be the greatest of patriots and benefactors. And when the games called the Ptoia had been omitted for thirty years, having been named to preside over them, he most readily accepted the office, thinking it an honour to renew those ancient games, the great Ptoia and Caesareia, and became a second founder of them. Having taken the direction of them, he forthwith performed the sacrifices and prophetic offices of the god, entertaining the archons and assessors five times every year with magnificent suppers, and giving a dinner to the city in the fifth year, without a single omission in the other years either of sacrifice or of expence. And when the games occurred in the sixth year, he made a distribution for the approaching feast to all the citizens as well as to the inhabitants and alien proprietors, giving to each man a Cophinus of wheat and a Hemina of wine, and religiously executed the ceremonies derived from our ancestors, the great processions, and the dance of the Syrta. And sacrificing a bull to the gods and the Augusti, he omitted neither the distribution of meat, nor dinners, nor desserts, nor suppers, entertaining at every dinner the children and young slaves of the cities according to their classes, from the tenth to the thirtieth, while his wife Noticha gave a dinner to the wives of the citizens, their
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§ 2.298 unmarried daughters, and female slaves. Nor did he neglect those who had charge of the tents or of the decoration of the festival, but he gave them a dinner apart by proclamation, which none of his predecessors had done, being desirous that every one should be a partaker of his generosity. In the scenic spectacles he treated all the spectators and persons assembled from the cities with sweetmeats, and made large and exquisite cakes, so that his munificence became celebrated in all the surrounding cities. At the end of the games, after a supper given to the whole people, recommencing his expences, he made a distribution of eleven denaria to each couch of three persons, and a Ceramaion of old wine and six denaria to defray the remaining expences for meat. After the performance of all these things, as he descended from the temple to the city, all the citizens met him in a body, in order to show him every kind of honour and thankfulness; and he, not unmindful of his magnanimity, sacrificing in the city a bull to Jupiter the Greatest, moved the congregation to gratitude. Since then it is proper to exhibit good and magnanimous and patriotic men adorned with becoming honours and rewards; it has seemed good to the archons, the assessors, and the people, to bestow praises upon the aforesaid Epaminondas, for that he has conducted himself towards his native city with assiduous benevolence, and towards the nation of Boeotians with magnanimity, and has conferred honour upon his native city by his embassy... And to honour him with a golden crown, and a good full-length painted portrait-statue.
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§ 2.299 and that all succeeding Agonothetae shall in the games to be directed by them invite him with other benefactors to the first seat, in order that, from these results, our city may appear grateful to its benefactors, and that many others may become emulous of good actions thus attested. Also to erect images or statues of him, one in the temple of Apollo Ptoius, the other in the agora of the city, together with gilded portrait-statues of him, bearing the following inscription: The people and the council (have honoured) Epaminondas, son of Epaminondas, as an excellent citizen: and to place a copy of the decree in the temple of Apollo Ptoius, and another in the agora of the city.” The mention made of the Caesarean games, and of their renewal, implying their cessation for a considerable time, shows that the monument was not of an early period of the Roman empire; which is confirmed by the worship of the Augusti in the plural. The earliest emperors who held that rank simultaneously were Marcus Aurelius and L. Verus; but the words Νέος Σεβαστός designating the Young Augustus, who presided in the council of the Achaeans and Panhellenes in Argos, to which the embassy of the Boeotians and others was sent, seems not to apply so well to Verus as to Commodus, who was in Greece with his father on their return from the East, when Aurelius visited Athens, in the year 176, and was initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries.
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§ 2.300 It is true that Commodus was not honoured with the title of Augustus until the following year. But as, according to the tenor of the inscription, the embassy occurred before the Ptoia, and consequently some years prior to the date of the monument, we may easily conceive that after such an interval the people of Acraephium would not studiously refuse to apply the title of Augustus to Commodus, because he had not yet received it at the period referred to, especially as the honour became the greater to Epaminondas, and as Commodus at the time of the inscription was probably sole emperor. The next Young Augustus, to whom the words Νεος Σεβαστός may be applied, was Caracalla, who with his father Severus, passed through Moesia and Pannonia in returning from the East in the year 203: but there is no evidence of either of them having been in Greece, and the form of the letters in the inscription is more conformable to those in use in the time of the Antonines than to any subsequent period. The Σ and E are still angular. The final iota of the dative cases is constantly omitted, but this omission was already common in the reign of Hadrian. The confusion which occurs in the use of ι and ει is hardly consistent with the form of the letters, and may perhaps be partly an effect of the Boeotic dialect. Thus τιμη, γινωνται are written τειμη, γεινωνται, while εις, πρεσβείαν, αξιωθείς, τάξεις, δείπνον, μαρτυρεισθαι, are written ις, πρεσβιαν, αξιωθις, ταξις, διπνον, μαρτυρισθαι.
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§ 2.301 This monument is a good example of the vanity of a rich Boeotian Archon in those times, or rather of the mean flattery of his fellow-citizens paying homage to his wealth. It is a complete specimen also, of the pompous inanity and wordy feebleness of the language, which it is curious to compare with some Attic inscriptions of about the same period, when Atticus Herodes was the arbiter of taste at Athens, and when amidst an abundance of affectation, there still remained some wit, learning and elegance of composition. There are two other marbles in the walls of the church, bearing inscriptions not much shorter than the preceding; one of these is in the northern wall, where the effect of its exposure to this aspect has been to cover it with moss. As very little of it could possibly be deciphered, I have not attempted to copy it. The other forms one of the jambs of a side door, and has in one part been worn smooth; in another place the letters have been destroyed by the stone having been cut away to make room for a latch. The parts which have been exposed to the air are much defaced, and the stone is so placed that the letters are reversed, but I can perceive that mention is again made of the embassy of Epaminondas, son of Epaminondas, and that the names of the Boeotians, Locrians and Euboeans occur, being probably the nations whose ambassadors, according to the former inscription, accompanied Epaminondas to Argos. The words ανδριαντες, μεγαλοψυχία, and ταυροθυτύσας also occur as in the former, but the most important are Άκραιφιέων αρχουσι, which taken together with the mention of the temple of Apollo Ptoius
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§ 2.302 in the other inscription, and compared with the situation of the town and temple, as described by Herodotus, Strabo and Pausanias, can leave no question that the ruins are those of Acraephium. Of the other inscriptions in the church of St. George, the most curious are three fragments of catalogues of agonistic victors, all which probably belonged to one and the same record of certain triennial games called Soteria, when Theomnestus, son of Paramonus, was priest of Jupiter Soter, and when the Soteria were celebrated for the first time “after the war,” by which, as the characters are of considerable antiquity, the Mithradatic war is probably meant, when Boeotia suffered severely. Pausanias makes no mention of the Soteria, or of Jupiter Soter, or of any temple at Acraephium, except that of Bacchus, which contained a statue of the god. Among other fragments of antiquity in the church of St. George, are a very small fluted Doric column with sixteen flutings, and two of those circular
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§ 2.303 pedestals smaller above than below, which are often found in Greek churches, sometimes with Ionic, but more commonly with Doric capitals, mouldings and flutings. They were probably, as I have before suggested, the hypostates of the κρητηρες, or large basins which were used in the temples to contain lustral water, and which having been generally made of metal have disappeared, while their hypostates of stone have remained. Altars formed in the shape of a column surmounted with a square plinth, are not uncommonly found also in the modern churches, where they sometimes serve for the holy table. As the temples were generally converted into churches, on the establishment of Christianity, the hypostates and altars have often remained in their original places, while the temples themselves may have totally altered their appearance, in consequence of successive repairs and the change in their destination.
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§ 2.304 There is no church in Greece more likely to have been a heathen temple than this of Kardhitza, standing as it does in the middle of the ancient site. It is supported within by columns formed of pieces of ancient shafts, put together without much harmony, but crowned with handsome Ionic capitals, which as well as the portions of shafts, belonged probably to the temple of Jupiter or Bacchus. The church has a dome, and the most modern part of the patchwork does not seem to be later than the twelfth century. There are several similar churches in Boeotia, which have outlasted many of later date: particularly those more recent than the Turkish conquest, scarcely any of which are more than half a century old, being like the modern houses, built so as not to be capable of enduring longer. The name of Acraephium is obviously derived from the conspicuous insulated ακρα or summit on which the town was built, and which is noticed by Strabo. This height is steep and rocky, but much less so on the northern side towards Kardhitza, than in the opposite direction, where it falls to a plain which
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§ 2.305 borders a bay of the Lake Copais, and separates the lower heights of Ptoum from those of Phicium, Between it and an extremity of Mount Ptoum to the northward, which terminates in bare and rugged rocks washed by the lake, is the opening which I have before noticed as conspicuous from many parts of the surrounding country. The ancient walls are partly of the polygonal, and partly of the third kind of Hellenic masonry. They are best preserved at the summit of the hill, where are some niches in the inside of the wall, six or eight feet asunder, and just wide enough for a man to stand within them. Their purpose was probably the same as that of the niches in the secret gallery of Tiryns, namely to oppose the advance of an adversary who had entered the passage. There are many Hellenic foundations on the slope of the hill towards Kardhitza down to the very bottom of it, but nothing sculptured except at the church. Such an advantageous position as that of Acraephium could scarcely have been unoccupied in early ages; and we cannot doubt, therefore, that it is the site of one of the Homeric towns of Boeotia. Some critics in the time of Strabo supposed it to have been the Arne of the poet; but Arne, there is every reason to believe, was the same place as Chaeroneia. Peteon, from the association of names in the catalogue, is that which may be attributed to it, with the greatest probability.
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§ 2.306 Four roads lead from Kardhitza through openings in the surrounding mountains: 1, to Topolia [Kastro]; 2, its continuation to Thebes; 3, to Kokkino; and 4, through the chasm already mentioned, into the plain on the southern side of the hill of Acraephium. The road to Topolia, now inundated, crosses the river by a bridge, leaving the fortified: island a little on the right. The indications of Strabo, and the more particular description of Pausanias, leave little doubt that Topolia, where some remains of walls and some inscribed marbles have been found, was the site of Copae; for Copae, like Topolia, was on the margin of the lake, and its direction from Acraephium is shown by the narrative of Pausanias beyond Copae, to have been, towards Cyrtones, Corseia, and the river Platanius, which is exactly that of Topolia. He remarks, that between Acraephium and the lake Cephissis, otherwise called Copais, there was a plain named Athamantium, from its having been anciently inhabited by Athamas, and that not far from thence, the river Cephissus
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§ 2.307 entered the lake, across which there was a navigation to Copae, a small town Containing temples of Ceres, Bacchus and Sarapis. Hence it is evident, that the plain Athamantium was not that to the southward of the height of Kardhitza, but that in the opposite direction', near the fortified island, which latter may have been a town or fortress named Athamantium, though Pausanias, perhaps from its having been a ruin in his time, has alluded to it only as the former residence of Athamas, and has described the plain only. The hill of Topolia resembles this island, as well in its degree of elevation as in its rocky margin, and is itself an island during a great part of the year, but being situated very near the neighbouring heights, it is sometimes a promontory, and generally presents that appearance. The distance of Palea from Kardhitza agrees exactly with that which Pausanias states to have been the interval between Acraephium and the temple of Apollo Ptoius, namely, fifteen stades; and its position to the right of the road leading from Acraephium to Larymna seems equally to accord with his words, for the road to both the Larymnae could not but have followed the modern route as far as Kokkino.
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§ 2.308 The three summits Palea, Strutzina and Skroponeri, each well defined, and yet forming one range of nearly equal altitude, perfectly illustrate the epithet τρικάρανον, which Alcaeus applied to Ptoum. Taking the fourth of the above-mentioned roads, I pass in 13 minutes from the church of St. George through the chasm into the plain on the southern side of the hill of Acraephium; in 10 more arrive at the mountains on the southern side of the plain, and then follow the margin of the lake, along the foot of the mountain which overhangs it, and where scarcely any path is traceable, sometimes passing through the water, sometimes over little green levels under the rocks. At the end of 27 minutes from the foot of the chasm of Kardhltza, a projecting point of the mountain affords from its summit a good view of the adjacent part of the lake where I had already noticed a causeway of stone, crossing the mouth of that bay of the Cephissis, which is bordered by the valley of Acraephium, and seems to have been sometimes known to the ancients by the name of the lake Acraephis. The causeway connected the foot of Mount Phidum to that of Mount Ptoum, and although defective in many places, would still with a little repair be carriageable all the way: its length was about two miles. A similar paved road may be traced near the island of Athamas, leading from the bridge of the Cephissus, towards Topolia, but it is not in such good preservation as the former. The solid construction of these causeways leaves little doubt that they are works of the ancients, and which seem to
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§ 2.309 have been kept in repair, even during the Byzantine empire: the first is exactly in the direction of Acraephium, from Haliartus, not far from the former of which it joined the other causeway, which was in the direct road from Thebes to Copae. It is not impossible that these were the works upon'which Epaminondas of Acraephium is recorded in the inscription of Kardhitza to have expended 6000 denaria, in which case it would seem that Pausanias visited Acraephium before the repair, since he speaks only of a navigation from the plain of Athamantium to Copae. In fact, this will agree perfectly with the date of the travels of Pausanias in Greece, which did not extend in time beyond the earliest years of the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Continuing to coast the lake for eight minutes, and having passed in one place through deep water at the foot of the rocks, I arrive at a katavothra, or small cavern, which is lower than the present level of the adjacent waters, and into which a slender stream now flows. A mile farther towards Haliartus is the Cape of Mount Phicium, at which the causeway leading to the foot of Mount Ptoum begins. All this part of the lake produces abundantly a rush, of which mats are made at Kardhitza and other villages near the lake. It has a soft round stem, and is called Papyri, the name by which the same plant is known at Ioannina, where it is equally used for making mats. Many other kinds of reeds and rushes are observable in the lake, but; their tops only are now visible above the water.
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§ 2.310 Neither here nor in any other part of Greece have I seen the triangular Cyperus Papyrus, of which the paper used by the Egyptians and Greeks was made. Strabo remarks that the whole lake, called in his time Copais, but which Pindar named Cephissis, had anciently separate denominations, derived from the adjacent cities. The Haliartian marsh is the more distinguishable from those of Orchomenus, Acraephium, and Copae, because the latter are -formed from the superfluous waters of the Melas, Cephissus, Probatia, Phalarus, and Curalius, whereas the marsh of Haliartus is caused by the rivers which descend into the basin near that, site, and which appear never to unite with the Cephissus, but to have an exit through Mount Phidum by katavothra; possibly that which I visited is not the only one. In summer the course of the streams may be more apparent in every part of the Cephissic basin, so that in the space which is now a continued inundation, distinguishable only by a greater depth of water in some places, there may be several separate portions of water divided from each other by firm land, explaining the several denominations of Acraephis, Copais, Haliartia. At present it is not even possible to say decidedly where the stream which flows into the katavothra of Mount Ptoum originates, but most probably it is formed from the junction of some, if not all, the rivulets anciently called Permessus, Lophis, Oplites, Ocalea, and perhaps also Tilphossa.
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§ 2.311 Having returned along the margin of the lake to the plain of Acraephium, I follow the southern side of that plain, not far from the foot of the mountain, where some foundations of masonry are observable lying in the direction of the route, as well as some others at right angles to the former, at a point which is half way between the lake and a small ridge which separates this plain from that which borders the lake of Senzina. They appear to be the remains of some works intended to defend the upper part of the plain from those encroachments of the lake of Acraephium which now prevent all the lower part of it from being cultivated. The foundations have not much appearance of Hellenic work, but there are traces of a canal to the northward of them which seem to be of those times: here also is a line of wells, or shafts, some in the bed, and some in the direction of the canal, similar to those which are above the subterraneous channel of the Cephissus. I say the direction, because the hollow and mounds of excavated earth on either side, by which the former existence of a canal may be presumed, have been in some places obliterated by the plough, or have disappeared by the effects of alluvion in the parts where the ground is most marshy. The canal however is easily traced to the ridge at the end of the plain, which it seems to have entered between two ranges of rock, which my guide of Kardhitza calls the Vrakho. The position of some of the shafts is recognised only by small hollows and surrounding mounds, at equal distances; but two or three of them are still open, and, like those of the subterraneous channel of
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§ 2.312 the Cephissus, are rectangular excavations in the rock,—not square, however, like them, but oblong, and having their long sides half as long again as those of the Cephissian wells. I observe that one of them widens below like an ancient cistern. The opening at the Vrakho makes a turn to the left, almost at right angles to the direction of the canal, and then again gradually to the right until it enters the plain of Senzina, at about a mile from that village. My guide supposed the opening at the Vrakho to be artificial, but though the sides are uniform, and the breadth nearly the same as that of the canal, or 50 feet, there are no marks of art on the rocks, and the great length, as well as the general appearance of it, make me believe it to be natural; though certainly very conveniently contrived by nature to facilitate the formation of a canal. The bed or bottom of the Vrakho is below the present level of the lake Copais, and a line of hollows is traceable along it, forming an evident continuation of those in the plain; but the hollows only are apparent, the shafts, if they exist being entirely buried. I was 18 minutes riding, preceded by a man on foot, from the south-western corner of the plain where I entered it from the katavothra, to the opening of the Vrakho near the centre of the head of the plain. Here leaving the road to Senzina to the right, I continue to follow the hollow between the rocks for 12 minutes before I enter the plain of Senzina. Although the hollow is in one place crossed by a ridge, vestiges of the canal are still visible as far as the plain, where it is again
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§ 2.313 crossed by a ridge, and then ceases to be traceable, the Vrakho at the same place falling off to the right, and subsiding into the plain. To the left of the apparent extremity of the canal are the foundations of a long quadrangular building of large squared stones, and beyond it, on the opposite side of a small torrent, a height only three minutes distant from the entrance into the plain, and occupying a large space in it. This height is situated midway between the lake and the foot of Mount Palea, from which it is separated by another torrent. On its summit are the remains of a quadrangular inclosure, consisting of walls flanked by towers and constructed of rough masonry and small stones; but among the foundations of which are some large hewn masses in the Hellenic style, showing that the ruins which are now called the Paleokastro occupy a Hellenic site. It was probably Hyle, for Homer places Hyle near the lake Cephissis, and Strabo describes the Hylice as a lake in the Thebaea, which was small compared with the Cephissis, and which was supplied from the latter by a subterraneous communication.
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§ 2.314 In adding that it was situated between Thebes and Anthedon, he was not so correct, and seems to have confounded this lake with the Paralimni. Hyle appears from Homer to have been renowned for its manufacture of those Boeotian shields, which became the commonest type of the coins of this province, for the celebrated sevenfold shield of Ajax was made by Tichius of Hyle. Below the hill of Hyle the plain suddenly changes its level, all to the northward bordering that side of the lake, being very little above the water, while that at the western end towards Senzina is much higher. Hyle stands in a line between the eastern extremity of Mount Faga and the pass of Palea leading to Kokkino, in a line between Kardhitza and Thebes, and in a line also drawn from Haliartus through the long diameter of the Paralimni, or lake of Moritzi, and the pass leading to Anthedon. I mention these interlineations, because there is no kind of geographical observation so convenient or infallible. It takes fourteen minutes to ride from the Paleokastro to Senzina, which is a small village on a rocky hill connected with Mount Phicium: some higher ridges of the same mountain overhang the western extremity of the lake, where at less than a mile to the southward of Senzina is the emissory of the subterraneous stream from the lake Cephissis. The
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§ 2.315 direct distance from the katavothra is about two miles, occupied entirely by a rocky ridge, advancing northward from the summit of Mount Phicium, and throwing out a branch to the south-east, which for some distance beyond the emissory continues to border the lake and then becomes a low ridge, separating it from the inundation of Purnari, in the Teneric plain. Further on, towards Thebes, the shore again becomes steep and rocky. The lake is named Livadhi, or lake of Senzina. It abounds with fish, is now covered with wild ducks, and appears to be deep, as might be presumed from the boldness of the greater part of its shores. Its depth, abruptness of margin, and inferiority to the Cephisos basin, indicated by the subterraneous river flowing into it from the Haliartian marsh, may serve to explain the intention of the ancient canal in the plain of Acraephium. Such a canal might obviously have been useful in draining the marshes near Acraephium and Haliartus, with very little risk of injury to the lands bordering on the Hylice, the shore of this lake being exposed to inundation only in the lower part of the plain to the eastward of Senzina, where it might be protected by means of an embankment of no great extent. Nature, indeed, seems to have shown the expediency of making this deep and rocky basin a recipient of superfluous waters, by directing into it a stream through Mount Phicium, and the construction of the ground between the lake Hylice and the shore of the Cephissis near Acraephium, gives great facility to the undertaking.
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§ 2.316 It is to such peculiarities in the geological construction of this country, that the creation and development of Greek ingenuity may, in great measure, be attributed. As there are few more powerful stimulants to national industry, and to the exertion which leads to wealth and power, than lands subject to inundation, such lands in general being, when relieved from that inconvenience, the most fertile and productive of any, so there is no country more abounding in these motives to diligence and invention than Greece. From its intersecting mountains, incased valleys, and marshy levels, from the peculiarities of its maritime formation, and the wonderful extent of its sea-coast, ultimately proceeded all the features of the national character, and the effect of which has been to render the study of their history, arts, and literature, curious and instructive beyond that of all other nations. Even now the same causes seem to operate in rendering the Greeks, degraded as they are, industrious beyond any other people living in the same southern latitude. If the canal of Acraephium was intended for the purpose of draining the Cephissis into the Hylice, it may have formed a part of the works of Crates, undertaken by order of Alexander the Great; and as there is reason to doubt whether it was ever finished, this would agree with the fact, that Crates was obliged to desist from his operations in consequence of the intestine quarrels of the Boeotians. When the Thebans were restored to their city and recovered their authority, they might not be very willing to promote a work which would benefit the people of Acraephium at the expense of their own
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§ 2.317 dependent district of Hyle, however slightly it might injure the latter, and notwithstanding that many of the Thebans had been indebted to the hospitality of Acraephium, after the destruction of Thebes by Alexander. Soon afterwards the wars, of which Greece became the field and victim, with the generally increasing poverty of the country, were causes sufficient to prevent the undertaking from ever being renewed. At 3 p.m. quitting Senzina for Thebes, we descend into the lower plain on the northern side of the lake, and at 3.11, leaving a tower standing on a rocky promontory in the lake, half a mile on the right, cross the lowest part of the plain, where a winter rema from Mount Palea inundates all the level ground as it meets the water of the lake, which is now gradually rising: at 3.25, at the end of the plain, we mount a rocky height, and at 3.40 descend into a little hollow on the side of a small bay, where on the opposite shore there is an opening in the rocky encasement of the lake, exactly in a line with Thebes. This opening is called the rema of the Kanavri, because through it the small river called Kanavri, or Kanavari, which rises near Erimokastro, and which I crossed in approaching Thebes from Livadhia, here enters the lake. We now pass over another rocky height, the continuation of that which we passed on the road to Kokkino, on the evening of the 24th, and descend upon another bay of the lake, from whence there is a passage of only a quarter of an hour over a ridge on the left,
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§ 2.318 into the plain at the head of the lake Paralimni. At 3.57, having arrived at the end Of the second bay, we find the water at the foot of the rocks so deep, that we are obliged to return: from the head of this bay the ground rises gradually, and I observe ancient walls stretching across the valley, and along the slope of the hill to the right; At 4.4 we ascend from the head of the bay, and at 4.13 descend a little, with the village of Moritzi directly before us. The superiority of the level of the plain of Moritzi above the lake Livadhi, is here very apparent. We now turn to the right, and at 4.22 arrive upon the extreme bay of the Livadhi, where a small rema, comin'g from the direction of Moritzi, flows into it. We then ascend ten minutes, and arrive in the plain of Moritzi, which, although it is not separated from that of Thebes by any marked ridge, is distinguishable from it by its superior level, and is intersected with low rocky heights or cultivated inequalities of ground, whereas the plain of Thebes is a dead flat. The soil of both seems equally good. Our road continues along the foot of the stony heights which border the lake Livadhi, passes some Hellenic foundations at 4.48, and at 4.50 enters the plain of Thebes, after a descent of several minutes. The road from Moritzi to Thebes, which we here join, enters the plain by an opening in the same bank, which we descended.
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§ 2.319 This opening has an artificial appearance, and as the superfluous waters of the plain of Thebes flow through it occasionally after heavy rains, it would seem to have been a work of the ancient Thebans, to drain their plain into the Livadhi, probably by means of the torrent of Moritzi. At 5 we arrive in a line with the south-eastern extremity of the hills which border that lake, where they approach nearest to Thebes, and having crossed the plain, pass a little below the town through a few ruinous plantations of mulberries and figs, which are irrigated in summer, as well as some cotton grounds near them, by the superfluous waters of the Theban sources, and at 5.46 we arrive at the eastern tower of the castle. Though there has been no great quantity of rain, the plain of Thebes is already well moistened. The soil is a light rich mould, like that of the Thessalian plains, and it often happens here, as in Thessaly, that the harvest is abundant when there is a dearth from the want of rain in other parts of Greece. The angle of the plain at the foot of Mount Phicium, which is separated only by a low rocky ridge from the lake Hylice, is now inundated to a great extent, as it usually is in the winter. In summer it produces good crops of kalambokki. Pausanias leaves no doubt of its being the extremity of the Teneric plain, having clearly described that plain as situated near the mountain of the Sphinx, and to the right of the temple of the Cabeiri, which stood at a distance of fifty stades from Thespiae, and about forty from Thebes.
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§ 2.320 Strabo adds, that the Teneric plain was not far from Onchestus; whence he seems to have included under the denomination of Teneric, the plain at the foot of Mount Faga, on the south, where there is now an inundation as well as on the eastern side of that mountain. But his words are not to be taken rigorously, for his observation that Mount Ptoum rose above the Teneric plain, is obviously that of a person not well acquainted with the places: Phicium, or the mountain of the Sphinx, being totally separated from Mount Ptoum by the plains of Hyle and Acraephium. In the Teneric plain stood a large temple of Hercules, surnamed Hippodetus, because he bound the chariot-horses of the Orchomenii, when they had advanced into this plain in their war with the Thebans. I am not aware that there is any allusion to the lake Paralimni in history. Possibly the name is ancient. It is a shallow stagnum, more resembling the inundations of the Teneric plain than the deep encased basin of the Livadhi, and in summer it is sometimes reduced to small dimensions. The ancient city, of which there are vestiges at its southern extremity, would seem from Strabo to have been either Schoenus, or Peteon, for he places both these towns near the road from Thebes to Anthedon, which is exactly the situation of those ruins. In regard to Peteon, however, he contradicts himself, by attributing it at the same time to the Haliartia;
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§ 2.321 and it may be observed, in favour of Schoenus, that the ruins in question are very nearly at the distance of fifty stades from Thebes, stated by the geographer. On the other hand, he gives us to understand that there was a river flowing through the district of Schoenus, and that both the river and the district still preserved that name. Nicander also attests the existence of a river Schoenus, whereas there is no river near the Paralimni. One cannot but suspect, therefore, that the Kanavari, which is in fact the only running stream in this part of Boeotia, except the two rivulets of Thebes, was the ancient Schoenus, and that the town of that name stood on its bank,—notwithstanding the objections that no part of this river is so far as fifty stades from Thebes, or in the route from Thebes to Anthedon, and that Nicander makes his river Schoenus flow to the lake Copais. The last objection, however, is the less important, as the same poet assigns a similar termination to the Cnopus, which, according to his scholiast, was the same as the Ismenus; so that it is very possible that in both instances he confounded the Copais with one of the other lakes. As to the ruins on the shore of the Paralimni, they are
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§ 2.322 perhaps those of Eleon, the name being well suited to a position on the borders of such a lake, and the arrangement of the towns in the Catalogue giving some reason for presuming that Eleon was not far from Hyle.
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§ 2.323 CHAPTER 16 BOEOTIA. Dec. 29.—From Thebes to Plataea.—Kokhla, a small village, situated near the ruins of Plataea, to the south-west, is about eight miles from Thiva, by the road, but the nearest walls of the two ancient cities were not more than six miles and a half apart, and the direct distance was little more than five geographical miles. At half an hour from Thiva the road to Livadhostra branches off to the right; a little beyond this place stood Potniae, if we may rely upon the imperfect text of Pausanias, from which it appears that Potniae occurred on the road from Thebes to Plataea, at a distance of ten stades from the gate Electrae in proceeding towards the
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§ 2.324 Asopus. He seems to add that it stood upon a river, which there is some difficulty in understanding, as the Asopus is the only brook between Plataea and Thebes, and could not have been the river intended, as its distance was more than twice ten stades from Thebes. The descent from the Theban ridge to the Asopus is almost imperceptible, as far as a small branch of that river which flows from the Thespias along a valley between the heights of Parapunghi to the southward, and those of Khalki and Balitza, which last village we leave a mile on the right. The valley below it, which in summer when I last saw it was a dry and cultivated plain, without even a brook in it, is now an extensive inundation. Having passed between Platani and Pyrgo, each situated on a height at half a mile from the road, we cross, in twenty-seven minutes from the Thespian branch of the Asopus, the eastern branch of the Oiroe; in three minutes more a smaller branch of the same river, which, like the former, is dry, and in another minute the third or principal branch of the Oiroe, which originates in the fountain called Vergutiani, and now contains water, but without any current: six minutes beyond it, occurs a fourth branch, small and without water, and which, rising between the Vergutiani and Kokhla, follows a hollow just below the eastern walls of Plataea.
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§ 2.325 The part of the plain intersected by these water-courses is a fertile level, now for the most part covered with corn just above ground. It is not so marshy as the plain of Thebes. Six minutes beyond the brook last mentioned, are the north-western walls of Plataea. The masonry in general, both of the acropolis and of the town, has the appearance of not being so old as the time of the battle. The greater part is of the fourth order, but mixed with portions of a less regular kind, and with some pieces of polygonal masonry. The acropolis, if an interior inclosure can be so called, which is not on the highest part of the site, is constructed in part of stones which have evidently been taken from earlier buildings. The towers of this citadel are so formed as to present flanks to the inner as well as to the outer face of the intermediate walls, whereas the town walls have towers like those of the Turks, open to the interior. Above the southern wall of the city are foundations of a third inclosure, which is evidently more ancient than the rest, and is probably the only part as old as the Persian war, when it may have been the acropolis of the Plataea of that age. It surrounds a rocky height, and terminates to the south in an acute angle, which is only separated by a level of a few yards from the foot of the great rocky slope of Cithaeron. This inclosure is in a situation higher than any other part of the ancient site, and higher than the village of Kokhla, from which it is five hundred yards distant to the east.
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§ 2.326 Its walls are traceable on the eastern side along the torrent which I before called the fourth branch of the Oiroe, nearly as far as the south-eastern angle of the main inclosure of the city. In a church within this upper inclosure are some fragments of an inscribed marble. From the upper angle of the ruins I ride in twenty-three minutes, preceded by a man on foot, over the rocky slope of Cithaeron to the fountain Vergutiani, and from thence ascend in five minutes to a projecting rock now serving as a shelter for cattle, in the middle of a natural theatre of rocks at the head of a verdant slope above the fountain. Beyond it the mountain rises steep and rugged to one of the summits. Having descended from the fountain into the road which leads from Kokhla eastward to the villages along the mountain side, I cross the branch of the Oiroe, which, coming from Thebes, I called the first, and eight minutes farther a hollow, the waters of which form a branch of the Asopus; its upper extremity is very near the sources of the easternmost branch of the Oiroe. Here, therefore, is exactly the partition of the waters flowing on one side to the sea of Euboea, on the other to the Corinthiac Gulf. The principal sources of the Asopus are at a spot just under the village of Kriakuki, where are two trees, a well, and several springs. Though these sources are plentiful and permanent, there is no water now flowing in the bed of the river below them. Having proceeded from hence eastward, and passed several small torrents flowing to the same branch of the Asopus, which may be called
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§ 2.327 the main stream, I cross, at 4.48, the road from Thebes to Megara by Petrogheraki. The Asopus, which from Kriakuki to this place had a course nearly parallel to my route, now turns towards the plain, still continuing to receive some torrents from the mountain. A little beyond the great road I observe, on the foot of the mountain, a great quantity of loose stones in the fields, together with some traces of ancient walls, and the mouth of a well or cistern, of Hellenic construction, now filled up. The situation agrees exactly with that of Hysiae, where, in the time of Pausanias, there remained an unfinished temple of Apollo and a sacred well. At 5 we pass a fountain at the foot of Cithaeron, surrounded with large blocks like that of Vergutiani. At 5.3 cross a hollow descending to the Asopus, and at 5.11 arrive at Bubuka, situated under the steep slope of the mountain, on the western side of a ravine in which another torrent descends to unite its waters with the rivulet of Kriakuki, just above the union of the latter with the Asopus.
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§ 2.328 Dec. 30.—On the summit above Bubuka are the ruins of a village named Alexopulo, where a small church still remains; after visiting this place I cross the ravine to Katzula, which, like Bubuka and many other small villages in the Parasopia, are Ziamets or Timars, more commonly in Greece called Spahiliks, belonging to Turks of Egripo, and consist, in general, of a few huts forming a quadrangle. They are usually estimated by the number of zevgaria of oxen which they employ; four oxen being reckoned to a zevgari. Bubuka and Katzula have each ten houses, with a pyrgo for the Spahi; few of them are so large, and some of them have only three or four houses. At Katzula observing a circular inclosure of loose stones, having two nicely squared ancient blocks within it, one in the centre of the circle, the other near the circumference, and inquiring the use of this structure, I find that it is called a church, and that the stone near the circumference is the altar. It is common among the Greeks when they are unable to rebuild or repair their ruined churches, to preserve the vestiges of them as sacred relics, and occasionally to perform mass in them, or at least to repeat a prayer and to burn incense on the altar, which is often nothing more than a wrought block of stone from some ancient ruin: but I have never before seen such a mere symbol of a church as this, the diameter of the circle being only eight feet. The part of Cithaeron above Katzula on the right is not very high, and there is verdure among the rocks, where goats and sheep are fed. The situation is called Gavnitza, and upon it are the remains of a ruined village named Paleo Ghelissi.
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§ 2.329 To the eastward of Katzula on the foot of the rocks, are some foundations of Hellenic walls, together with a church containing a Doric column and its capital. These remains are sufficient to mark the site of Erythrae, its position as well as that of Hysiae, having been exactly described by Herodotus, Thucydides, Euripides, Strabo, and Pausanias. That the eastern of the two positions was Erythrae and the western Hysiae, might be presumed from Pausanias, who, entering Boeotia from Attica, remarks that the ruins of Hysiae and Erythrae were a little on the right of the road, naming Hysiae first, and who adds that they were both in the Plataeis, and on Mount Cithaeron. But Herodotus leaves no doubt on this question, by informing us that the camp of Mardonius extended along the Asopus from the Erythraea beyond Hysiae as far as the land of Plataea, and that the Greeks who had been encamped at Erythrae opposite to Mardonius, moved by Hysiae into the Plataeis. Erythrae appears to have attained to great population in very early times, for Erythrae in Ionia was said to have been its colony. With the increase of Athens and Thebes it was probably reduced, like all the surrounding places, to comparative insignificance. From Erythrae the road continues eastward along the foot of the rocks, at the head of a long slope which
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§ 2.330 falls to the Asopus, crossing some tributary torrents, until at the end of two miles from Bubuka it arrives at a projecting point of Mount Cithaeron, which, though it does not advance much beyond the general line, is very conspicuous from almost every part of the Plataeis and adjacent country, because the entrance of the Pass of Cithaeron above Kriakuki, retires considerably within that line. A mile beyond the projection is Tarimari, a Turkish farm resembling the others; a little beyond it the road from Thebes to Athens by Phyle begins to ascend the Cithaeronian heights. This part of the range is nearly parallel to the low central Boeotian ridge of Thespiae, Thebes and Tanagra, of which the three principal summits, all lying south-eastward of Thebes, are now named Psilirakhi, Sulla and Soro. Just below the projection of Cithaeron, on a little rocky table-height overlooking the river, stands a metokhi dependent on a convent in the Eleutheris, called St. Meletius. Its position seems to answer exactly to that of Scolus, for Strabo describes Scolus as a village of the Parasopia below Cithaeron, and Pausanias in his description of the route from Plataea to Thebes, after observing that the river Oiroe first occurred, and then the Asopus, proceeds to remark, that if the traveller, instead of crossing the Asopus, were to follow that river for about forty stades, he would arrive at the ruins of Scolus, in which there was an unfinished temple of Ceres and Proserpine, with their statues half executed.
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§ 2.331 Scolus having stood in a narrow part of the valley, between Cithaeron and the Asopus, was a position well adapted to one of those intrenchments which the Thebans erected in several parts of the Thebaea for its defence against the Lacedaemonians. The works at Scolus, however, were ineffectual against Agesilaus, who in his second invasion in the year B.C. 377, marched suddenly upon Scolus by the way of Erythrae, as soon as he had crossed the Cithaeron, while the Thebans were looking for him towards Thespiae; from Scolus he entered the country eastward of Thebes, and thus advanced to the walls of the city without opposition. The intrenchment of Scolus probably extended from the mountain to the Asopus. It is difficult to understand what there was in this situation which made it proverbially disagreeable; Strabo describes it as τραχύς, but this word seems applicable only to the rock on which it stood, the surrounding territory being the best part of the Asopian valley between the districts of Plataea and Tanagra. Eteonus, afterwards called Scarphe, was another Homeric town of the Parasopii, whose villages in the time, of Strabo were all included in the government of Thebes.
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§ 2.332 Some geographers, Strabo adds, attributed Eteonus, together with Scolus and Erythrae, to the Plataeis, which, as we have seen, is confirmed by Pausanias, at least with reference to Erythrae. And hence we may infer, the Asopus in the time of the latter author having been the boundary between the Plataeis and Thebaea, that Eteonus was to the right of that river. As Erythrae and Hysiae occupied the Parasopia westward of Scolus, Eteonus probably stood between Scolus and the frontier of the Tanagrice, which latter district is naturally separated from the Parasopia by the approach of the Cithaeronian range to that of Soro, forming a rocky gorge which begins about two miles beyond Tarimari, and through which the Asopus finds its way into the plain of Tanagra. The epithet νολύκνημος applied to Eteonus by Homer, would be well adapted to a place situated near such a defile. The Asopus in the ravine of Eteonus winds to the left, and then to the right, and at the end of two miles emerges in the plain of Tanagra, after crossing which it traverses another rocky strait in the branches of Mount Parnes, and enters the maritime plain of Oropus, Having returned to Bubuka I proceed to Platani, passing over ploughed heights intersected by three branches of the Asopus, all which are nearly equal in size. The last has its origin in a fountain which I examined on my former visit, and found even in that dry season as well supplied with water as the Vergutiani.
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§ 2.333 It is incased, like that source, in an artificial basin covered with squared stones of ancient fabric. This I take to be the Gargaphia of Herodotus. In the wall of a ruined tower situated below the supposed site of Hysiae, I remarked several stones which have been employed in ancient buildings, and the fields around are spread with fragments of Hellenic pottery. Just below Platani to the south, are the sources of a water-course, which after making a circuit at the foot of the hill of Platani follows the road from Thebes to Kokhla for some distance, and then joins the Thespian branch of the Asopus, just above a bridge in the road. From thence I cross the branches of the Oiroe to Vergutiani, and return by a lower route than that of yesterday to the same point at the southern angle of Plataea from whence I set out yesterday on this little tour, the object of which has been to visit some parts of the Plataeis, not properly examined on my former journey, to ascertain the sites of Hysiae and Erythrae, to trace the courses of the several branches of the Asopus and Oiroe, and to notice the principal springs of the Plataeis with a view of identifying the Gargaphia. If this be the fountain just indicated about midway between Kriakuki and Platani, it is probable that Vergutiani is the fountain of Diana, where Actaeon was said to have seen the Goddess bathing, and that the rock which I have described above the fountain, was that on which Actaeon was reported to have been in the habit of reposing when fatigued with the chace. Pausanias, after returning from Hysiae into the road leading from Eleutherae to Plataea, describes the monument of Mardonius
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§ 2.334 as being on the right hand side of that road, and immediately afterwards states that there was a road from Megara to Plataea, on the right of which were the fountain of Diana and the rock of Actaeon. Thus it is evident that the road from Plataea to Megara was different from that leading from Plataea to Eleutherae; and we find the same distinction in Xenophon, who states that Cleombrotus, marching from the Peloponnesus into Boeotia, avoided the Pass of Eleutherae, which was in possession of an Athenian force under Chabrias, and mounted by the road which led to Plataea. If then the road from Eleutherae descended by the modern Derveni leading from the Isthmus to Thebes, and about Kriakuki turned towards Plataea, as seems to be its natural course, that from Megara probably descended the face of the mountain obliquely at a considerable elevation, where it would pass very near the fountain Vergutiani. Immediately opposite to the southern angle of the walls of Plataea on the steep rocky rise of the mountain, which is here separated only by a narrow level from the ancient site, is a cavern 30 feet in length, 10 wide, and 4 high. Before it there is a little verdant level, surrounded and overhung by rugged rocks. The beauty of the spot would tempt one to believe it to have been the cavern sacred to the Nymphs of Cithaeron, called the Sphragitides, which once contained an
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§ 2.335 oracle of the Nymphs, and was noted for Nympholepsy. But the testimony of Plutarch and Pausanias is positive in placing that cavern on the north-western side of one of the summits, and at a distance of only 15 stades below it, consequently much higher in the mountain, and having a different aspect. On the same summit there was an altar for the celebration of the lesser Daedala, which was a festival instituted by all the people of Boeotia in commemoration of their reconciliation and alliance with Plataea, after the restoration of Thebes and Plataea, by Cassander. As there are two summits of Cithaeron equally conspicuous, a circumstance explaining the words μία κορυφή, in Plutarch, it is not easy to determine on which we ought to seek for the altar or the cavern, though probability seems to incline towards that which is nearest to Plataea. In order to justify the ancient names in the plan of the Plataeis, which accompanies the present volume, and the positions which are there assigned to the contending forces in the great military operations which terminated the Persian war, little more will be necessary than to describe succinctly the events immediately preceding the
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§ 2.336 battle, and the circumstances of the action itself, both extracted almost entirely from the contemporary historian. Xerxes had not been many days in possession of Athens, the chief object of his armament, when he was an eye-witness of the utter defeat and dispersion of his fleet, and found himself under the necessity of returning immediately to Persia. He was advised at the same time to leave three hundred thousand men in Greece; with these Mardonius undertook to complete the conquest of the country; but as the approaching season was unfavourable to military operations, (the battle of Salamis having been fought in October,) it was resolved that Mardonius should pass the winter in Thessaly and Macedonia, which were much more capable of supplying the wants of an army than the provinces within Mount Oeta. While Xerxes was in Thessaly on his retreat, Mardonius made choice of the troops who were to remain with him. They consisted of all the immortals, except their commander Hydarnes, who refused to be separated from the king, of the Persian thoracepheri, or cuirassiers, and of all the Medes, Sacae, Bactrians, and Indians, both horse and foot, with a selection from the other allies. Sixty thousand of these men, under Artabazus, served as a body guard to Xerxes in his march to the Hellespont, where he arrived with scarcely any other forces, so great had been the numbers left sick in Thessaly, Macedonia, and Paeonia, or who had perished on the way from hunger, plague,
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§ 2.337 and dysentery. Artabazus on his return employed the remainder of the winter in reducing the revolted cities of Pallene, and was detained no less than three months in the siege of Potidaea, where he lost a considerable portion of his troops by the effects of a sudden inundation of the sea. Mardonius did not advance from Thessaly until he had consulted some of the oracles of Greece, and until he had learnt the event of an embassy to Athens, the object of which was to induce the Athenians to make a separate peace. The oracular replies he considered favourable; and those of Thessaly and Boeotia were probably intended to be so by the priests, but Alexander, king of Macedonia, who was charged with his message to the Athenians, could make no impression upon a people whose city and villages were in ruins,—whose families, having taken refuge in the neighbouring Peloponnesian cities, became a surety in their hands for the fidelity of Athens to the general cause, and whose government in Salamis was beyond the reach of the Persians. So powerful were these motives, and so unbroken the public spirit of the Athenians, that when he again took possession of Athens, he found the people as determined as ever to resist his menaces and his offers. Deprived of the Persian fleet, he could not long remain in such an exhausted country; as soon as he was informed therefore by the Argives that the Peloponnesians were moving towards the Isthmus, he completed the destruction of Athens and returned into Boeotia, which afforded greater means of subsistence, a country better suited to the operations of
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§ 2.338 his cavalry, and where he was surrounded by a friendly or submissive people. The Boeotians had endeavoured to dissuade him from marching to Athens and to assure him, that by bribing some of the leading men in the several cities, he might create a division among the Greeks, and at length overcome all those who should resist him. But Mardonius, according to the historian, was determined to gratify his vanity by a second capture of that city, although now empty and in ruins, and to have the pleasure of communicating the event to Xerxes at Sardes by fire-signals at night on the intermediate islands of the Aegaean. If the Persian war produced some of the finest examples of human virtue which history affords, there is no period in which the Greeks have at the same time more strongly exhibited their characteristic selfishness, jealousy, and the want of general patriotism. It was chiefly the fear of an alliance between the Persians and Athenians, and of an attack upon the Laconic shores by their united fleet, that induced the Lacedaemonians to fight in company with the Athenians at Salamis. The same apprehensions made them diligent in endeavouring to counteract the efforts of Alexander, to produce a separate peace between the Persians and Athenians; but no sooner had their anxiety upon this head been relieved, than, regardless of the entreaties of the Athenians, who
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§ 2.339 proposed that the Lacedaemonian army should unite with theirs, and fight the enemy in the Thriasian plain, at their entrance into Attica, they delayed until that province was once more overrun and despoiled, and were not at length prevailed upon to march until after some evasions and delays. Herodotus ascribes this conduct to the completion of the wall across the Isthmus, which was begun a little after the battle of Thermopylae, but was not yet finished when Alexander arrived at Athens on his embassy; nor were the Lacedaemonians, according to the same historian, at last moved to activity, but by the conviction that even the fortified Isthmus would little avail them, if the Athenians should be under the necessity of accepting the Persian proposals. Mardonius, on his march from Athens towards Boeotia, received intelligence that 1000 Lacedaemonians had arrived in the Megaris, upon which he made a retrograde movement to intercept them, and his cavalry overspread the Megaris; but as soon as he heard that the rest of the Peloponnesian army had arrived at the Isthmus, he continued his route into Boeotia by Deceleia and Sphendaleae to Tanagra. Here he passed a night: then took the direction of Scolus, entered the Theban territory,
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§ 2.340 and encamped along the left bank of the Asopus, his line extending from over against Erythrae as far as the Plataeis. In the midst of it he caused to be erected a wooden fortification, flanked with towers, and inclosing a square of eight stades; and in providing this place of refuge in case of disaster, was under the necessity of injuring the lands of the Thebans, although they were his friends. The Grecian allies by whom Mardonius was here joined, are vaguely computed by Herodotus at 50,000. In the motives of the alliance of some of them we have again some curious examples of the power of that neighbourly jealousy and hostility which are a part of the Greek character. Plataea and Thespiae were inimical to Thebes, and therefore allied with Athens; it was chiefly from a hatred to Athens that Thebes became the most zealous supporter of the Persian cause against the common interests of Greece; and the opposition of Sparta to the Persians made Argos favourable to them, though the situation of the latter was such as rendered it incapable of affording the Persians much assistance.
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§ 2.341 Of all the auxiliaries, the Phocians joined Mardonius with the greatest unwillingness; the others had accompanied him to Athens, but it was not until he returned to Thebes that the Phocians joined him. Out of hatred to this people the Thessalians had prevailed upon Xerxes in the preceding year to destroy all the accessible parts of Phocis, and had obliged the Phocians to retire to the heights of Mount Parnassus, from whence they assisted the Greek confederates by excursions against the Persians and their allies; but now their country being at the mercy of the enemy, and surrounded by medizing Greeks, they sent 1000 men to the Persian camp, who, having been accused, as it would appear, by the Thessalians, either of cowardice or treachery, were not received until they had undergone the proof of standing an attack from the Persian cavalry, which seems from Herodotus to have been something more than a mere feint. The Lacedaemonians were joined at the Isthmus by the other Peloponnesians, and the sacrifices having been found auspicious, the army advanced to Eleusis. Here the appearances of the victims having again been favourable, they moved forward together with the Athenians, under the command of Aristides, who had joined them from Salamis, and proceeded to Erythrae, where the position of the combined forces stretched along the roots of Mount Cithaeron, opposite to the camp of the Barbarians, on the Asopus. Mardonius perceiving that the Greeks did not descend into the plain, sent against them all his cavalry under the command of Masistius, who was esteemed the second man in the Persian army.
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§ 2.342 The Megarenses, who were in the most exposed part of the Greek line, finding themselves unequal to withstand the attack, were obliged to call for succour, when the only volunteers to relieve them were a body of 300 select Athenians, under Olympiodorus, accompanied by a body of archers. The latter, by wounding the horse of Masistius, caused the rider to fall, when he was slain by the Athenians. His followers endeavoured to recover the body, but all the Greek infantry moving to the assistance of Olympiodorus, the enemy retreated. The body of Masistius carried through the camp of the Greeks animated them with the best hopes, while all Boeotia re-echoed to the sound of the enemy’s lamentations, who in token of mourning cut off their beards, and the manes of the horses and beasts of burthen. This was the only important occurrence in the first position of the two armies. The Greeks now came to the determination of descending into the territory of Plataea, as being more convenient for encamping than that of Erythrae, because among other reasons it was better supplied with water. In fact, the Plataeis being situated at the foot of a high mountain, and at the sources of many rivulets, can never be totally deficient in water. The Greeks at Erythrae,
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§ 2.343 therefore, taking up their arms, moved along the roots of Mount Cithaeron, and passed by Hysiae into the Plataeis, having entered which they drew up in order according to their respective nations, partly upon hills of no great height, and partly upon a level plain, near the fountain Gargaphia, and the temenus of one of the archagetae, or ancient heroes of Plataea, named Androcrates. As the position of this heroum is shown by Thucydides to have been on the right hand of the road from Plataea to Thebes, about a mile distant from the city, and as a part of the Greek position was in the plain, it is evident that the Gargaphia could not have been either the fountain Vergutiani, or that at Kriakuki. By ancient custom and the consent of ail Greece, the Lacedaemonians had the post of honour on the right, and their king Pausanias the command (though not, as it appears by the sequel, a very absolute command) of the whole army. After a contest between the Athenians and the Tegeatae for the left, the Lacedaemonians awarded to the former that second place of honour; the Tegeatae took post on the left of the Lacedaemonians, and the other nations occupied the centre. The entire force was 110,000, in the proportions and drawn up in the order from right to left stated below.
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§ 2.344 Their position is described by the historian as being επί τω Ασωπώ, (on the Asopus,) and as it appears from the subsequent part of his narrative, that the Persians followed the movement of the Greeks along the river, there could only have been a small space on either bank between the hostile armies. The fountain Gargaphia was in the part of the line occupied by the Lacedaemonians, or towards the right: the other Greeks watered from the Asopus until they were prevented by the Persian cavalry, to whom it appears that the Greeks had no cavalry whatever to oppose, not even an escort for the security of their convoys and reinforcements in crossing Mount Cithaeron. Nevertheless, the Persians derived little benefit from this superiority, but showed a supineness and want of enterprize similar to that exhibited by the army of Datis, when it was opposed for ten days to a handful of Athenians at Marathon.
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§ 2.345 It was not until the end of eight days that Mardonius was persuaded by a Theban to send a body of horse to the pass of Mount Cithaeron, called by the Athenians the Oak-heads and by the Boeotians the Three-heads. Here they intercepted a convoy of 500 beasts of burthen, entering the plains, and killed the greater part of both men and cattle. On the eleventh day, Mardonius, finding that the Greeks were daily increasing in number, resolved upon attacking them on the following day, regardless of the advice of Artabazus, supported by that of the Thebans, who recommended him to retire to Thebes, where his provisions, which began to fail, might be supplied; and from whence, protracting the war, he might, by means of the bullion, coin, and plate, which he possessed in great quantity, endeavour to gain over the leading Greeks to his party. The advice appears to have been good; for on the one hand the cavalry of Mardonius gave him the command of supplies, and the power of intercepting those of the Greeks as well as the means of distressing them by continual attacks, while, on the other hand, he had everything to fear from a close contest with an infantry compared with whom his own were but as lightarmed. It was probably in conformity with these opinions, that the Greek priests on the side of Mardonius had augured success to him, if he remained on the defensive, while Tisamenus, who accompanied the Spartans, probably from a similar view of the interests of his employers, promised
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§ 2.346 victory to the Greeks, provided they abstained from crossing the Asopus, and awaited the attack. Mardonius, however, declared his determination to disregard every thing but the laws of the Persians, which enjoined them to engage the enemy, and thenceforth no one dared give utterance to an opinion contrary to that of the man to whom Xerxes had delegated his absolute power. In the intervening night, Alexander, king of Macedonia, secretly visited the camp of the Athenians, and informed the commanders of the intentions of Mardonius, as well as of the approaching failure of his provisions; upon which Pausanias requested the Athenians to change places with the Lacedaemonians, on the plea that the latter were unacquainted with the Persian mode of fighting, whereas the Athenians had successfully opposed that people at Marathon; for Mardonius had placed the Persae, as being his best troops, opposite to the Lacedaemonians, and had opposed to the Athenians and to the Plataeenses and Megarenses, who were next to the Athenians on the left, the Macedonians, Thessalians, and Boeotians. But the Boeotians, having quickly discovered the change, and reported it to Mardonius, he restored the Persae to their position in the left wing, and sent an insulting message to the Lacedaemonians, who had returned to their original post, with a proposal for a battle between an equal number of Persians and Lacedaemonians. No reply having been given to his challenge, he ordered an attack upon the
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§ 2.347 Grecian line by his cavalry, who not only annoyed extremely the hoplitae by their javelins and arrows, but succeeded at length in obtaining possession of the fountain Gargaphia, and in rendering it useless; and thus the Greeks, having already been driven by the enemy’s cavalry from the Asopus, found themselves distressed for water. They began also to be in want of other provisions, their convoys being blockaded by the enemy in Cithaeron, and unable to cross the mountain. The Greek commanders, having been assembled by Pausanias in the right wing, to consult upon these difficulties, it was resolved, that if the Persians should not come to action with their infantry that day, (for as yet the cavalry only had attacked,) the Greeks about midnight should retreat into a plain in front of the city of Plataea called the Island, where two branches of the river Oiroe, after flowing for some distance, with an interval of three stades between them, united, and formed one stream. This place was ten stades distant from Gargaphia, and from the position of the Greeks on the Asopus. The council also determined that half the army should be detached from the Island during the same night to Mount Cithaeron, to open the passage for the camp followers who had been sent to the Peloponnesus for provisions. During the remainder of the day, however, the Greeks continued to suffer so much from the enemy’s cavalry, that when the movement took place at night, none but the Lacedaemonians and Tegeatae on the right, and the Athenians on the left, continued resolute in the
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§ 2.348 intention of marching into the island; the Greeks of the center, who perhaps with reason suspected that they should not long be secure from the hostile cavalry in the island, retreating as far as a temple of Juno, which was twenty stades distant from Gargaphia, near the city of Plataea. The Athenians, desirous of ascertaining whether the Lacedaemonians had begun to move, sent a messenger to the right of the camp, who found Pausanias detained by an unexpected difficulty. Amompharetus, the lochagus of the Pitanatae, refused to disgrace Sparta, as he termed it, by retreating before the enemy; and he persisted so obstinately in his determination, that daylight found the two wings of the Greek army in the position of the preceding day, but separated from each other by the whole interval left by the other Greeks, who were now at a distance of two or three miles in the rear. Pausanias, convinced that the enemy would soon take advantage of this state of things, and judging that Amompharetus would not long remain after his departure, retired with the main body of the Lacedaemonians and the Tegeatae along the heights and the base of Mount Cithaeron. thereby avoiding the enemy’s cavalry; while the Athenians proceeded through the plain, in the direction of Plataea. At the end of ten stades Pausanias halted on the bank of the Moloeis, at a place called Argiopius, where stood a temple of Ceres Eleusinia, and was joined there by Amompharetus.
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§ 2.349 The Persian cavalry meantime, on perceiving that the Greeks had abandoned their position, pursued and harassed them on every side, while Mardonius, recollecting the pains which the Lacedaemonians had taken to avoid the troops opposed to them on the preceding day, and supposing that they no longer intended to fight, crossed the Asopus with all his army, who advanced in the most disorderly manner, shouting as if about to gain an easy victory, with which Mardonius himself was the more impressed, as the Tegeatae and Lacedaemonians only were visible, the Athenians in the plain being concealed by some heights, and the other Greeks being still more distant. Pausanias having dispatched a horseman to the Athenians to require their aid, or, if they should be too much pressed by the enemy, at least that of their archers; the Athenians began to move to their right, but were so much exposed to the attacks of the auxiliary Greeks on the Persian right, that they were unable to give the Lacedaemonians any assistance whatever. Pausanias was obliged, therefore, to prepare for resisting all the efforts of Mardonius with the Lacedaemonians and Tegeatae alone, amounting to 53,000, of whom little more than a third were hoplitae. At first, the appearance of the victims was declared unfavourable, and the Greeks consequently remained inactive, suffering severely from the missiles of the Persians, discharged from behind a breastwork of shields; but
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§ 2.350 at length Pausanias, having turned his eyes towards the temple of Juno, and invoked the assistance of the goddess, which was immediately followed by a favourable report of the victims, the Lacedaemonians advanced to the attack, though not until the Tegeatae, who had not waited for similar auspices, had already set the example. The action now became close and general, first at the breastwork of shields, and afterwards at the Eleusinium in Argiopius. The Persians were not inferior to their adversaries in valour, and such was their strength and resolution, that many seized upon the spears of the Greeks with their hands and broke them in pieces; but not being protected by such defensive armour as that of the hoplitae, being unused to the Greek mode of fighting, and being inferior in discipline and formation, their valour was of little avail; and as they rushed forward, either singly or in small bodies, they were slain by the Spartans. Wherever Mardonius appeared, mounted upon a white horse, and surrounded by his select body of cavalry of 1000 Persae, they sustained the attack of the Lacedaemonians and slew many of them; but when he fell by the hand of the Spartan Aeimnestus, and his bodyguard was defeated, the rest gave way before the Spartans and fled, having little chance with their unarmed dresses and
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§ 2.351 irregular order against men covered with armour, and formed into an inseparable phalanx. “And thus,” adds Herodotus, “Pausanias, the son of Cleombrotus, gained the most splendid victory I have ever heard of.” Meantime the Athenians, with their comrades of Plataea and Thespiae, had defeated the Boeotians, had slain 300 Thebans, and had obliged the remainder to retreat to Thebes. When the Greeks at the Heraion heard that the battle was gained, they proceeded in a disorderly manner towards Argiopius. The Corinthians marched by the heights directly to the Eleusinium, and reached it in safety, but the Megarenses and Phliasii having followed the better road through the plain, were attacked by the Theban cavalry, lost 600 men, and were pursued to Cithaeron. Artabazus, who had previously given orders to the 40,000 men whom he commanded, waited only to be assured of the result which he expected from the rashness of Mardonius, when he marched off from the field of battle towards Phocis, and continuing liis route to the northward with all possible celerity, preceded every where the news of the victory, and thus arrived at Byzantium, though not without having sustained considerable loss from famine, fatigue, and hostile Thracians. When the Persae began to retreat, great numbers of the army, who usually looked to them for example, fled without ever having been engaged and were slain by the Greeks, who would have effected a much greater slaughter had not the fugitives been protected by the cavalry.
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§ 2.352 Of the Greek auxiliaries on the side of the Persians, the Boeotians alone fought in earnest, but particularly the Thebans, three hundred of whose best men were slain by the Athenians. The Persians had only entered the wooden fortress, mounted the towers, and made some preparations for defence, when the Lacedaemonians arrived. But these being unskilled in the attack of fortified places, made little progress until they had the assistance of the Athenians. After a long and obstinate contest, a part of the wall was thrown down, and the Tegeatae had the honour of being the first to enter. The barbarians then made no further effort, but allowed themselves to be killed without resistance. Out of the original 300,000 there escaped, besides the 40,000 of Artabazus, not more than 3000, who were said to have been slain in their passage through Macedonia, by order of Perdiccas the son of king Alexander. The spoil which fell to the share of the conquerors was immense. Besides the rich tents and their furniture, the clothing and arms of the slain, there was a profusion of utensils of gold and silver, as well as of the precious metals both in coin and bullion: so numerous in particular were the gold Darics, that they became for a long period afterwards one of the current coins of Greece, and are still often found in this country. From the tenth of the spoil, dedicated to the gods, were formed the golden tripod of Delphi, supported by three
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§ 2.353 twisted serpents of brass, a brazen Jupiter fifteen feet in height at Olympia, and a brazen Neptune ten feet high at the Isthmus. Some presents were made, beyond their share, to those who distinguished themselves. The remainder was divided among the conquerors. To Pausanias was assigned a tenth of every thing: women, horses, camels, gold and silver. The Tegeatae, who were the first to enter the tent of Mardonius, carried off the brazen manger of his horses, and placed it in the temple of Minerva Alea, at Tegea; the Athenians obtained his silver-footed chair, and his scimetar, valued at 300 darics, which they dedicated in the temple of Minerva Polias in the acropolis. On the side of the Greeks there fell only ninety-one Lacedaemonians, sixteen Tegeatae, and fifty-two Athenians. As Herodotus particularly specifies, that these Lacedaemonians were Spartans, it appears that the numbers indicate the loss of the hoplitae only, and that he has omitted to notice, or was not informed, how many of the light-armed fell. It is scarcely worth while to advert to the particulars in which the other ancient authors, who have related this great event, differ from Herodotus: Diodorus and Plutarch lived so long afterwards that they cannot have much weight against
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§ 2.354 the testimony of the contemporary historian; the former, however, does not deviate from it in any important point, and the contradictions of the latter are undeserving of much respect, as being those of a Boeotian angry with Herodotus for having spoken freely of the disgraceful conduct of his countrymen, and thinking no mode of exculpation so effectual as that of throwing general discredit upon the historian’s accuracy. But impartiality and an anxiety for the truth are conspicuous in the narrative of Herodotus. Although he was by no means an admirer of the Lacedaemonians, and accuses them of habitual deceit and perfidy, both his facts and his sentiments give the chief glory of the day to the 10,000 Lacedaemonians and their comrades the Tegeatae, nor could the admirable conduct of Pausanias have received so fine a panegyric from the most laboured oratory, as it has from the simple language of the historian. It has been doubted by some travellers who have visited the Plataeis, whether so great a number of men as Herodotus has mentioned, could have manoeuvred and fought on so small a field, and hence they have suspected some error or exaggeration on the part of the historian. It certainly appears possible, on considering how reluctantly some of the Greeks advanced into Boeotia, how ill others behaved in the field, and that the reinforcements were continuing to arrive at the Greek camp up to the very eve of the battle, that the amount of the several contingents stated by Herodotus, may rather have been that which each city engaged to send, than those actually present, and that in many
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§ 2.355 instances there may have been deficiencies. As to the light troops, more than half of whom were composed of Helotes, attending upon the Spartans in the proportion of seven to one, we are too little acquainted with the details of Spartan discipline to know whether there was any accurate muster of this force, or whether their attendance depended upon the individual Spartans whom they served, for upon this must have greatly depended their complement in the field: whether complete or not, it appears, at least, that they were in little estimation as light troops. the Lacedaemonians having been urgent in requesting the assistance of the Athenian bowmen at Argiopius. Similar suspicions may attach to the numbers of the light-armed of the Greek centre. As to the most efficient part of the army, however, the Lacedaemonian and Athenian hoplitae, and those who fought with them, they fully amounted, as there is every reason to believe, to the numbers stated by Herodotus, so that it cannot be supposed that fewer than 30,000 hoplitae were assembled, nor less than double the number of light troops. For such an army the space was amply sufficient in each of the three positions which they occupied. In the first and second the front was about three miles in length, with an indefinite space in the rear. On the day of battle the hoplitae formed three separate bodies, two of these had each a mile for their front, and there was nearly a square league of ground to contain all the light troops, together
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§ 2.356 with those hoplitae who had formed the centre of the Greek line in their second position, and who in the third were in the rear near the Heraion. The right, consisting of the Lacedaemonians and Tegeatae, amounted to 11,500 hoplitae; such a body drawn up in the space of a mile, which was about the extent of the position, with a breadth of three feet to each man, would have had about seven in file, a depth which, although very small compared with that of the phalanx when military science was at its height among the Greeks, was perhaps as great as was then customary. The left wing, composed of the Athenians and their comrades, amounted to about 16,000, including light armed, but their duty having been chiefly to resist cavalry, they were probably formed into a close phalanx, and occupied very little ground. As to the enemy’s force, the estimate of Herodotus has evidently no pretensions to accuracy, for though he conjectures the Greek auxiliaries to have amounted to 50,000, he admits that their real amount was unknown; and in reckoning the Persians at 300,000, he seems to have merely adopted the maximum of the army of Mardonius, as nominated by Xerxes ten months before, having been unwilling perhaps to question the accuracy of the tradition which had
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§ 2.357 been sanctioned by the lapse of twenty years, and to which the Greeks, for the sake of their own glory, had readily given credit. The historian has not hinted at any recruiting from Asia for the purpose of supplying either the ordinary waste in the army of Mardonius, or that diminution of 20,000, which he shows to have taken place in the division of Artabazus, in the course of its march to the Hellespont, and in the subsequent operations in Thrace. But with every allowance for such deductions, it is difficult to believe that the Persian army on the Asopus was not two or three times as numerous as that of the Greeks, independently of its followers. Even on the supposition however that they were three to one, there was sufficient space for them in the Plataeis, as none but the choicest infantry were immediately opposed to the Greeks, and the cavalry, as well as the light armed, on both sides may have been spread over a space of 12 or 14 square miles. Even in modern warfare, in which the greater range of missiles has created an order of battle much less deep than among the ancients, examples might be found of fields of battle as small, in proportion to the numbers, as that of Plataea. Another point in the narrative of Herodotus which may present at first sight some difficulty to a person who views the scene of action at Plataea, is the word νήσος, there being no island, properly
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§ 2.358 so called, in front of Plataea or in any part of the Plataeis. The place which Herodotus so accurately indicates as being before the city, at a distance of ten stades from the Asopus as well as from Gargaphia, is nothing more than a level meadow intersected by several brooks uniting into one stream. But this is probably all that the historian meant by an island. His description of it as formed by two streams which were separated from one another in Mount Cithaeron, and were afterwards united, is entirely conformable to present appearances. If he had intended a real island, it would not have been necessary for him to make any mention of the two branches in Mount Cithaeron, since the separation of the waters of a single stream, and their reunion, would have been sufficient to form the island. It is easy to imagine that the Plataeenses may have distinguished this part of their plain by the name of Island, although it was in reality no more than a peninsula. The ambiguity of this passage has not been diminished by the translators of Herodotus, who, by referring the word oi to νήσος instead of to
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§ 2.359 ποταμόc, have represented Oiroe as the name of the island, whereas the historian in describing the island as the place which Oiroe the daughter of Asopus surrounds, clearly shows Oiroe to have been the river. Their mistake may have partly arisen from the belief that the river which formed the island was a branch of the Asopus, a very natural supposition for them to have made in ignorance of the real topography, as Herodotus nowhere indicates the contrary, and as it is greatly favoured by the local mythus, according to which Oiroe was the daughter of Asopus. We find, however, as I have before stated, that although the sources of the Asopus and Oiroe are very near to one another, they are not only separate rivers, but flow in opposite directions, the former to the Euboic channel, the latter to the Corinthiac Gulf. Plataea, although enjoying many local advantages, was not happily situated for the repose of its inhabitants, who continually exposed to danger from their more powerful neighbours of Thebes, and obliged to have recourse to the aid of Athens, were thus dependent upon a comparatively distant alliance, while their enemies were only two hours’ march from them. Hence the extensive walls, of which we still see the remains, and which served as an occasional shelter to the whole population of the Plataeis. The first alliance of Plataea with Athens was in the year B.C. 519; it was firmly cemented by the two Persian invasions, and by a community of perils and glory at Marathon and

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