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

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§ 2.360 Plataea. These best times of Plataea, ended with the alliance of Thebes and Sparta against Athens. The first act of hostility of the Thebans against Plataea, in the Peloponnesian war, was an attempt to obtain possession of the place by stratagem. Three hundred men were admitted within the walls by some Plataeenses of the Theban faction, and the design only failed by the occurrence of a dark and rainy night, which being accompanied by a sudden increase of the Asopus, prevented the Thebans from supporting their comrades in the town, 180 of whom were, in consequence, taken and put to death. In the beginning of the third summer of the same war, B.C. 429, the Lacedaemonians and Boeotians commenced a siege of Plataea, which lasted three years, and which has given occasion to Thucydides to furnish us with some curious particulars of the military customs of the Greeks, and of the state of the art of the attack and defence of fortified places at that remote period. In the first year, the besiegers, after various devices which were frustrated by the garrison, were equally unsuccessful in an attempt to bum the city by throwing sulphur and pitch into it, with faggots of wood, which the adjacent Cithaeron supplied in abundance. Thucydides observes, that they were prompted to this mode of offence, by the smallness of the city: a remark by no means in agreement with the existing ruins, which are not less than two miles and a half in circumference, but favourable
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§ 2.361 to the conjecture already offered, that Plataea was confined at that time to the southern extremity of the existing remains. In almost every other part, the masonry is of a less ancient kind, and the ruins of former buildings may be detected among the materials, which is no more than consistent with the troubled history of the later Plataea, and the many repairs and renewals which it underwent. All the efforts of the allies during the first summer of the siege having failed, they converted it into a blockade, and raised a circumvallation round the city, consisting of two parallel walls, sixteen feet asunder, with a ditch on either side. Square towers, of the same breadth as the double wall, and covered with roofs, were raised at intervals of about seventy feet along the wall, and afforded a passage through them round the whole circumvallation. Huts were built for the blockading force between the walls, which thus served as an entrenched camp to the investing force, as well against the Plataeenses from within, as against the Athenians in the opposite direction.
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§ 2.362 A detachment of Lacedaemonians was left to garrison one half of the work, and the Boeotians had the charge of the other, while the main body of the respective armies retired to winter quarters. The Plataeenses had sent all their women, children, and aged, to Athens, before the siege, and there remained in the city only 400 Plataeenses and 80 Athenians, with 110 women to prepare their food. A year afterwards, or in the course of the fourth winter of the war, the besieged being in great distress for provision, formed the design of forcing the enemy's line of blockade, and succeeded in effecting it: a portion of them escaladed the wall in the middle of a tempestuous night, and seized two adjacent towers, from whence, by the assistance of a false attack of the remaining garrison of the town, on an opposite part of the circumvallation, they effected their passage over the wall with the loss of only one man, though not without meeting with a vigorous opposition at the outer ditch. Foreseeing that the Peloponnesians would proceed to search for them on the road to the Dryoscephalae, they took the road to Thebes, along which they had marched seven or eight stades, when perceiving the torches of the enemy searching for them on the road to Dryoscephalae, they turned to the right, and made the best of their way to the mountains near Erythrae and Hysiae. Two hundred and twelve thus escaped in safety to Athens. In the course of the ensuing summer, the remainder of the garrison of Plataea surrendered to the Lacedaemonians, and after pleading their cause against the Thebans before five judges sent for this
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§ 2.363 purpose from Sparta, were all put to death, being in number 200 Plataeenses and 25 Athenians; the women who had remained in the city were sold for slaves, and the city having been given up to the Thebans, was razed to the ground in the ensuing year. The lands of the Plataeis were let for ten years to Thebans; a building of two stories, containing numerous chambers for the reception of travellers, was built out of the ruins of the city near the temple of Juno, and a new temple was constructed in honour of the Goddess. The Plataeenses had remained for forty years in servitude or exile, when they were restored to their country by the effect of the peace of Antalcidas, B.C. 387, but they were only thirteen years in possession of it when the city was again razed to the ground by the Thebans, and the inhabitants once more obliged to take shelter in Attica On this occasion, as in the first year of the Peloponnesian war, the Thebans resorted to stratagem. At an hour when the people of Plataea were employed in the fields, and supposed the Thebans to be engaged in the public assembly, the latter marched round by Hysiae, and finding the city undefended, obliged those remaining within it to evacuate it by capitulation. After the battle of Chaeroneia, Philip, among other modes of humiliating the Thebans, restored the Plataeenses to their city. And to this date all the existing walls, except those at the southern extremity, may with great probability be attributed.
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§ 2.364 If the Plataea of the time of the Peloponnesian war, was confined to the southern part of the ancient site, and the city was not then of large dimensions, it will follow that the table height, immediately overlooking the Island, was then excluded from the city, and this supposition seems necessary, to reconcile the words of Herodotus with present appearances. On that table height probably stood the Heraion, or temple of Juno before the city, which, in the time of the Antonines, was within the walls. Thus conspicuously situated without the walls, and just in the rear of the position of Argiopius, it was natural for the Greek commander to turn his eyes towards it, and implore the assistance of the Goddess when he was suffering under the attacks of the Persians, without being able to repel them, because the appearance of the victims was pronounced unfavourable. After the erection of the new temple of Juno by the Thebans, it is probable that the old Heraion was no longer repaired, for Pausanias mentions only one temple of Juno, and by remarking that it was of great magnitude, seems to identify it with that built by the Thebans, and described by Thucydides as a νεώς εκατόμπεδος λίθινος, which if we are to take the second word literally, would imply a building about the same size as the Parthenon. It contained a colossal upright Juno, surnamed Teleia, and at the entrance a Rhea presenting a stone to Cronus, both of Pentelic marble, and made by Praxiteles: there was also a Juno Nympheuomene by Callimachus. The temple of Minerva, surnamed Areia, was built from a share
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§ 2.365 of the spoils of Marathon, and contained a statue of the Goddess by Phidias, nearly as large as that which he made from the same spoils for the Athenians; but the latter was of brass, whereas that of Plataea was acrolithic, the face, hands and feet being of Pentelic marble, and the rest of gilded wood. At the feet of the Goddess was the image of Arimnestus who commanded the Plataeenses both at Marathon and Plataea. There were two pictures on the walls of the Pronaus, one by Polygnotus, of which the subject was Ulysses slaying the suitors; the other by Onatas, represented the first expedition of the Argives against Thebes. The city contained also a temple of Ceres Eleusinia, and a tomb of Leitus, the only one of the Boeotian chiefs who returned from Troy. Within the gate which led to Eleutherae was the heroum of Plataea, daughter of Asopus, and on the outside of the same
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§ 2.366 gate the temple of Jupiter Eleutherius, which in the time of Pausanias seems to have been reduced to an altar and statue: it was established after the victory by command of the Oracle of Delphi, and by a decree proposed by Aristides it was the scene of a quinquennial festival called the Eleutheria. Here stood also a brazen trophy for the victory over the Persians, tombs of the Lacedaemonians and Athenians who fell on that occasion, inscribed with elegies by Simonides, and a polyandrium of the other Greeks. The position of these monuments is marked, perhaps, by a ruined church
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§ 2.367 near the right bank of the torrent, on the left bank of which, nearly opposite to the chapel, are the foundations of a gate, already alluded to, in the eastern walls of Plataea, not far from the northeastern angle. This gate is placed within a quadrangular court or retirement of the walls, and appears to have been the principal gate of the city, as we may easily conceive it to have been, since it was conveniently situated for leading not only to Eleutherae and Athens, to Megara and the Isthmus, but also to Thebes, Chalcis and Tanagra.
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§ 2.368 CHAPTER 17 BOEOTIA, ATTICA, MEGARIS Jan. 1, 1806.—From Thebes to St. Meletius on the way to Athens.—Leaving the town by the southern gate, which may stand nearly on the site of that which led from the Cadmeia into Lower Thebes, the aqueduct is on the right. Like the town walls, it exhibits many remains of antiquity, and stands perhaps on Roman foundations. In one place a sepulchral monument is inserted in the masonry, bearing the common device of a horseman, with one of his horse’s feet raised, and resting upon an altar. At 9.56 pass the fountain of the Ismenus on the left side of the road. At 10, leave on the right the road to Kriakuki and the pass of Mount Cithaeron, leading to Corinth, called by the Turks the Kasa derveni, and at 10.8 to the left, that which leads to Athens by Sialissi and Phyle.
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§ 2.369 Having descended the long slope of the Psilirakhi, or low central Theban ridge to the Asopus, we cross that river at 11.1, at the point where if is joined by the Rema, which separates Katzula from Bubuka. A small tjiftlik belonging to Rashid Bey, called Samoili, stands on the bank to our left. The river flows with a brisk but slender stream. Therapnae seems to have stood in this route between Thebes and the Asopus; for Euripides, in describing the death of Pentheus, says that he went from Therapnae across the Asopus to the place in Cithaeron, where he met his fate; and which, as we learn from Strabo, was near Scolus. Ascending the cultivable slope of Cithaeron, but which like all this part of the Parasopia is little cultivated, we arrive, at 11.33, at the Metokhi, described on the 30th of December as standing below the projecting point of the Cithaeronian range. The brow of the summit on which the Metokhi stands is surrounded by the foundation of a Hellenic wall, and has evidently been a fortress or citadel; as I before remarked, it was probably Scolus. The walls were of a very antique kind of masonry. A little beyond the Metokhi is a copious source of water, which no doubt determined the site of the ancient town as well as of the modern farm. About a mile farther, in ascending the steep side of Cithaeron, we leave Tarimari [μ. Δαφνή], a village of thirty houses, below us, close on the left, and soon afterwards enter a ravine between two ridges of the mountain, answering exactly to
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§ 2.370 the description given by Euripides of the place where Pentheus was destroyed by the Maenades, except that the pine-forests do not now extend below the higher parts of the mountain. The ravine continues, including a halt of ten minutes, until 12.25, when we ascend the steep side of the ridge on the left, and at 12.28, having arrived upon the crest, look down upon a small stony plain extending towards the summit of Parnes. The direct road from Thebes to Athens by Phyle crosses this elevated plain, and then enters another in which are the villages of Sialissi, vulgarly Shalish, and Skurta. We proceed at 12.42, and continuing along the same kind of rugged steep road, have, at 1.35, the plain of Sialissi on our left a mile distant; and the village of that name surrounded by vineyards, in the nearest corner of it: two miles farther, is Skurta, on the foot of the great heights of Parnes. The Phyle road leaves these places to the left. There are three other villages in the valley named Kako Niskivi, Kadhasula, and Kurora. This plain, which separates the great height of Cithaeron from those of Parnes, is probably that neutral territory of Panactum, of which Thucydides speaks. It yields corn and vines, but the soil seems meagre and stony, and better adapted to the latter production.
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§ 2.371 The neighbouring heights of Parnes are well clothed with trees of various kinds, and the summit consists entirely of a forest of pines. We continue to mount, and at 1.42 arrive at the summit of the ridge of Cithaeron, from whence there is a fine view of the country on either side. The northern part of the Megaric peninsula lying between the western extremity of the Corinthian Gulf and the bay of Eleusis, and bounded by the plain of Megara to the south, consists chiefly of mountains, of which the two principal summits are Karydhi to the west, and Kandili, overhanging the bay of Eleusis. The latter, as well from the ancient authorities as from its form, is evidently the summit called τα Κέρατα, or the horns. The range of Karydhi has a direction parallel to that of Cithaeron, and is separated from it by the valleys of Ghermano, Vilia, and Myupoli, which latter is the largest of the three. Karydhi and Kandili have a similar separation by means of the hollows about Kundura. We look directly down the Saronic Gulf, upon the island of St. George, anciently Belbina; to the right of which are Salamis, and the mountains of Argolis and Aegina, and to the left the plain of Thria, and the mountains Hymettus and Parnes. A descent of thirty-five minutes by a winding road, through a forest of pines, brings us to the monastery of St. Meletius, situated on the southern face of the mountain, which falls into the plain of Myupoli by a succession of cultivated terraces. Assisted with a few of the conveniences and embellishments of art, St.
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§ 2.372 Meletius would be a delightful retreat. The buildings are mantled with ivy, and around them issue plentiful sources of water, which descend, shaded by large bay-trees, to the gardens, and the hanging woods of olives and beeches on the side of the mountain, preserving them in a state of perpetual verdure, which is finely contrasted on every side with the wild rocks and the dark pine-forests of Cithaeron. The weather is now perfectly clear and serene, and the season more deserves the name of καλοκαιρών than the greater part of that to which the word is usually applied, when the air is inflamed, the ground parched, every stream dried up, and not a green herb to be seen. The monastery is well endowed, and besides corn land possesses 3000 head of sheep and goats on the mountains. The church of St. Meletius, which is of the time of the Byzantine empire, is supported within by two octagonal columns of a veined marble of the colour of porphyry, which, according to the monks, was extracted from the side of the hill, not far above the monastery. As the Greek advent is not yet over, the house contains but scanty fare; but the Igumeno, immediately on my arrival, sends one of his monks to the rocks in front of the convent, who, with a voice that would have done honour to Menelaus, calls out to the shepherds in a distant part of the plain below to send up one of their fattest sheep. According to the abbot, the summits of Cithaeron have several modern appellations.
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§ 2.373 Elatia is the name of the two great peaks above Plataea, so called from the fir-trees which cover all but the highest points. A summit between them and the Kaza derveni, or road across the mountain from Ghyftokastro to Kriakuki, is named Osna: Kurteza is that between the latter and the convent, and another towards Tarimari is called Pastra. The plain below the monastery is the eastern extremity of a valley extending four or five miles westward towards Vilia, which village is situated in another valley separated by rugged heights from Ghermano, a small port on the Corinthiac Gulf, and distant two hours from Vilia. At about two miles to the south of the monastery, in the valley, are the ruins named Myupoli, which I formerly visited. The remains are those of a very small town, which had a citadel or interior inclosure at one angle. The masonry is for the most part regular, and is extant in many places two or three courses above the ground. The ruins at Ghyftokastro, which I also visited at that time, are about an hour to the westward of Myupoli, at the entrance of the pass leading to Kriakuki and Thebes, on the summit of a steep and lofty rock between two torrents, one of which has a distant origin in Mount Cithaeron, the other rises at the foot of the hill on the road side, in a copious fountain called Petrogheraki. The entire circuit of the fortress still exists, flanked by square or oblong towers of masonry, and is preserved in some places as high as the battlements.
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§ 2.374 The walls consist for the most part of polygonal masonry, though some parts, particularly the towers, appear to be more modern. The torrent of Ghyftokastro, increased by the fountain of Petrogheraki, and united to the waters which rise near St. Meletius and Myupoli, form a branch of the stream now called Saranda-potamo, and anciently Cephissus, which joins the sea near Eleusis, Another branch flows from Vilia, and a third from Kundura. The road from St. Meletius to Megara, as well as that from Thebes, by Ghyftokastro to the same place, passes a little to the right of Myupoli, then crosses a steep root of Mount Karydhi, and enters the valley of Kundura, a town of four hundred families, chiefly Albanian, distant four or five miles from St. Meletius, and the same from Eleusis, The vale of Kundura is separated from the plain of Eleusis by the root of Mount Cithaeron, on which St. Meletius stands, and which follows the western side of the plain and bay of Eleusis until it unites with Mount Kandili. The Cephissus passes through this ridge by narrow ravines into the plain. The communication from Kundura into the plain of Megara is by a remarkable chasm midway between the two towns, and separating the western termination of Mount Kandili from the adjacent heights of Karydhi. This and all the other important defiles of the Megaris are under the guardianship of six towns or villages of this district, hence called the Derveno-khoria, and which, in consideration of the expences of their charge, are exempted from lodging strangers as well as from all other impositions, except 110 paras a head for kharatj.
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§ 2.375 These places are Vilia, Kundura, Megara, Mazi, Bissia, and Perakhora. They maintain thirty or forty soldiers at their own expence; but, being all armed, can turn out, to the number of three or four hundred, which they often do when a Turk of high rank passes through the derveni. The Dervent Aga is a Turk, residing at Corinth, but having a deputy in constant attendance at the derveni house, near the monastery of Kyparissi, on the northern side of Mount Makryplai, or Geraneia: it is necessary that he should read Turkish, as he has to inspect the Buyurdi of the Pasha without which no person is allowed to pass out of the Morea to the northward. On referring to a verse of Sophocles, cited by Strabo; and to Pausanias, who describes the Eleutheris as situated between Eleusis and Mount Cithaeron there can scarcely be any doubt that Myupoli and Ghyftokastro are the ancient Eleutherae and Oinoe, for the plain which reaches from Ghyfto-kastro to Myupoli is the only considerable valley between Plataea and Megara, and the two ruins on its borders exactly illustrate the word σύγχορτα of the poet. There may be some question, however, which of these ruins was Eleutherae, and which Oinoe. In behalf of the opinion that Ghyftokastro was Eleutherae, it may be said that this city was formerly
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§ 2.376 an independent member of the Boeotian community, which voluntarily joined the Athenians, but never became an Attic demus, consequently that there is little probability that Oinoe, which was always an Attic demus, should have been situated between Eleutherae and the Plataeis, which would be the case if Myupoli were Eleutherae. On examining, however, the ruins called Ghyfto-kastro, its position and dimensions evidently show that it was a fortress, not a town, being only seven or eight hundred yards in circumference, and standing upon a strong height at the entrance of the principal pass of Mount Cithaeron, whereas Myupoli has every appearance of having been a town with an acropolis placed as usual on the edge of a valley, and commanding only the pass which led from the Eleutheri into the plain of Thria, or Eleusis. The town appears, indeed, to have been of small dimensions, but its state of ruin will hardly admit of our forming a decisive opinion on this subject, while Ghyftokastro is so well preserved as to leave no doubt concerning the object for which it was intended. The importance of Oinoe as a military post, as well as its vicinity to Hysiae, is shown by Herodotus in describing the unsuccessful invasion of Attica by Cleomenes, in the year B.C. 507, when he marched from the Isthmus to Eleusis, while the Boeotians, in concert with him, took Oinoe and Hysiae, the frontier demi of Attica, towards Boeotia And Thucydides twice mentions Oinoe in a manner to support the opinion that it was Ghyftokastro; at the commencement of the
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§ 2.377 Peloponnesian war, when its siege delayed the first invasion of Attica by Archidamus; and again, in the twenty-first year of the war, when it was besieged by the Corinthians and Boeotians, and betrayed to them by a stratagem of Aristarchus, one of the oligarchical party at Athens. On both occasions the historian describes Oinoe as a fortress of the Athenians on the confines of Boeotia. It is sufficient to observe the situation of Ghyfto-kastro, to be assured that no other position in this vicinity could be equally important to the Athenians. It secured the dependence or alliance of Eleutherae and Plataea, formed an outer gate of defence to this entrance into Attica, and if an enemy penetrated into the plain of Eleutherae from the Parasopia by St. Meletius, it placed him between two fortresses; in short, it was the necessary completion of the system of defence of the Attic frontier towards Boeotia, of which Eleusis, Harma, Phyle, Panactum, and Decelia, were the other fortified points. Pausanias, therefore, in describing the Plataeis as bordering on the district of Eleutherae, without noticing Oinoe, though it lay between them, seems, as usual with him, to have had the ancient history and condition of Eleutherae chiefly in view, and to have neglected the mention of Oinoe, as being merely a fortress, perhaps already in ruins, or as being one of the demi of Attica, of all which he has treated very briefly.
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§ 2.378 When the ridge of Cithaeron became the boundary between Attica and Boeotia, Hysiae, being on the northern side of the mountain, was ascribed to Boeotia, while Oinoe continued to be an Attic demus. Placed in the line of communication between Northern Greece and the Peloponnesus, so small a state as Eleutherae was peculiarly exposed to the ruinous effects of such a position, as well in the greater contests in which Greece was engaged, as in every quarrel in which either Attica or the Peloponnesus was opposed to any part of Northern Greece. The Roman wars having left Eleutherae in a state of desolation, it became the resort of robbers, who have often in later times also found this thoroughfare an excellent place for the exercise of their profession. Pausanias, soon after the time of the author who represents Eleutherae in that condition, could ascertain only the position of the city by the ruins of the fortifications and houses, which he describes as being situated “a little above the plain towards Cithaeron.” In the plain there still remained a temple of Bacchus, containing a copy of the original statue of the god which had been transferred to Athens. Near it was a cavern, in which Antiope exposed her twin sons, and a fountain of water, in which the infants were washed by a shepherd who found them.
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§ 2.379 Jan. 2.—At 8.5, descending from the monastery by a winding road to the right of the gardens, we leave the Paleo-kastro of Myupoli a quarter of a mile on the left at 8.40, and follow the main route from Thebes to Megara by Kundura for some distance, before we arrive at the turning to Lepsina, or Eleusis, which at 8.52 again brings Myupoli at a quarter of a mile to our left. We now quit the cultivated land and enter upon a rocky level covered with small bushes, where the road is both muddy and rough. At 9.22 enter a forest of pines. The whole of the branch of Cithaeron, which extends from near St. Meletius to Mount Kandili, and to the plain of Megara, and which separates the vales of Myupoli and Kundura from the plain of Lepsina, is covered with these trees. After a halt of five minutes, we descend at 9.40 into the bed of a torrent, which has its origin in the mountains around Vilia, and which at 9.50 joins the Sarandaporo, otherwise called Sarandaforo, or Saranda-potami. The latter, which is the main branch of the Eleusinian Cephissus, originates
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§ 2.380 in Mount Karydhi, and flowing by Kundura, from thence enters a ravine between two high summits on our right. At the junction of the two rivers we fall into the road from Kundura to Athens. On the summit of the mountain on the left, one mile distant, may be perceived the lower part of a Hellenic round tower. The road now leads along the side of the Sarandaporo, through a forest which seems as if it would not long exist, as the greater part of the trees are in a process of destruction for the purpose of collecting their resin to make pitch. All the bark having been stripped off towards the foot of the tree, and a part of the wood cut away, a hollow is made in the ground into which the turpentine flows: the trees which lean a little are preferred, the reservoir and incision being made on the upper side. The process may be repeated for several years before it kills the trees. At 10.42 a chapel and well are on the right-hand side of the road: at 10.51 are marks of chariot wheels in the rocks. At 11 we arrive at the junction of the Sarandaporo with the branch of the Cephissus from Ghyftokastro, which receives the collected waters of the valley of Myupoli a little to the east of the latter ruin. The bank of this stream above its junction with the Sarandaporo is steep and high, and upon it there are some remains of ancient walls and towers, and on the right side of the road the foundations of another tower. We halt here till 11.30. The wood continues until the ravine gradually opens into the Thriasian or Eleusinian plain, where
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§ 2.381 at 11.42 the road to Lepsina branches off to the right, and on each of the summits, bordering the opening of the valley, the ruins of a Hellenic tower may be seen. These numerous remains of ancient works show how anxiously the Athenians fortified this important entrance into their plains, which may be considered as the division between the north-eastern extremity of the Oneia and the range of Cithaeron and Parnes. This perhaps was the particular pass of Mount Cithaeron, in which, in the year B.C. 200, Philocles, an officer of Philip son of Demetrius, stationed himself on arriving from Euboea, while his troops plundered the Eleusinian plain, and where he was joined by the king himself, coming from Achaia. They then proceeded to attack Eleusis, the Peiraeus, and Athens, but having been unsuccessful in every attempt, Philip then destroyed every thing in the unprotected demi which had escaped his former invasion, leaving not a temple or building uninjured, and ceasing only from the work of destruction when there remained no longer any materials to gratify his vengeance The road now enters the northern angle of the plain of Thria, and at 11.48 crosses the dry bed of the Sarandaporo, or Cephissus, which joins the sea a little on the eastern side of Eleusis: all the northern and western part of the plain is stony, barren, and higher than the maritime and cultivated level, which does not extend very far to the northward of Lepsina. As we descend into
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§ 2.382 the lower plain, this village remains a mile and a half on the right at 12.28. Here we cross the foundations of what I take to have been one of the reservoirs of the ancient aqueduct of Eleusis, some ruined arches of which are seen to the right, near the entrance of Lepsina from Athens. Our road crosses the plain of Thria diagonally in the direction of the mills at Rheiti, leaving Lepsina about 3 miles on the right: at 12.40 we halt at a well near the foundations of a small temple, or other public building. The kalyvia of Khassia is half a mile on the left, 2 miles beyond which a road begins to mount the lowest steep of Parnes, towards Khassia. The greatest length of the Thriasian plain, about nine miles, is from the angle of the Eleusinian gulf, westward of Lepsina, to a bay in the plain to the left of our road, where are the lowest hills which unite the range of Aegaleos with that of Parnes, and where the Athenians had fortified that pass into the plain of Acharnae with a rampart or breastwork, which still remains. The sepulchre of Strato, son of Isidotus, on the northern side of the Sacred Way, is 150 yards on the right of our road, at 13 minutes beyond the well above-mentioned; 5 minutes farther our road unites with that from Eleusis to Athens. The monument of Strato seems not to have been a pyramid, but a cubical mass of earth cased with marble, on some of the blocks of which mouldings of architecture are still to be seen. It was probably surmounted by a stele. From hence to Eleusis the Sacred Way was a causeway raised above the plain, which is low and marshy in this part.
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§ 2.383 Its utility on the great road from Athens to the Morea has caused it to receive frequent repairs, but these, since the decline of Greece, having been of the rudest kind, the causeway now preserves little resemblance to the massy and finished works of the ancients. Many vestiges, however, of the original ιερα οδός may still be distinguished. In the bay of Eleusis, and the marshy part of the plain, immense numbers of wild ducks are now congregated. Quitting the junction of the road at 1.43, I pass at 1.57 the first mill of the Rheiti, and at 2.2 the second. The water which turns these mills is produced from very copious saline springs at the foot of the mountain, which are not suffered to take their natural course into the sea as they did anciently, but are formed into a large pond or mill-head by means of a stone dam which extends from one mill to the other. At this pass the Sacred Way was cut in the rock; it is first visible between the two mills,, and is then traced along the foot of the rocks above the salt ponds, whereas the modern road follows the sea shore. Having passed the salt ponds, the Sacred Way descends upon a modern paved road, which it follows along the sea-side, as far as the opening of the valley of Dhafni, where that valley ends in the shore of the Eleusinian bay, and where both the modern causeway and the traces of the ancient road terminate. We arrive at the beginning of the paved road at 2.8, and at the end at 2.12. Here on the edge of the beach lies part of the body of a seal, thrown up by the sea.
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§ 2.384 The cultivable ground at this extremity of the valley of Dhafni is prolonged in a narrow stripe along the shore of the bay, at the foot of Mount Corydallus, as far as the Metokhi of Skarmanga. We now ascend the valley of Dhafni, the pass narrowing gradually until it arrives, at 2.27, at some niches in the rocks on the left of the road, below which are the foundations of the peribolus of a temple, which it is evident from ancient testimony was that of Venus on the Sacred Way. Just opposite to the niches are some traces of the road, and the ruins of stone walls which supported both sides of it for a considerable distance. The remains of the peribolus, which are between the road and the niches, are 24 yards long and 12 wide; the foundations of the walls are 5 feet thick, and constructed of great rude masses of stone, exactly answering to the αργοί λιθοι which Pausanias here describes. To the westward of this spot are the foundations of a square tower of similar construction. Under two of the niches I distinguish the words Φίλη Άφροδιτη, which not only prove this to be the site of the temple of Venus, but also that it was the Philaion mentioned by Plutarch, and by a writer cited by Athenaeus, though the latter authority has not correctly described it as being at Thria.
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§ 2.385 The temple was probably of ancient date, and was repaired perhaps by Demetrius Poliorcetes, when he here instituted divine honours to his wife Phile, with the surname of Venus. At 2.3, leaving the temple of Venus, I proceed along the left bank of a torrent flowing to the Bay of Eleusis, and observe the traces of the Sacred Way on the opposite bank, in some places cut in the rocks, but, for the most part, a causeway supported on the side of the rema by a wall of rough stones. At 3.49 arrive at the Monastery of Dhafni: there can be little doubt that this building occupies the site, and consists in great part of the remains of the temple of Apollo on Mount Pοecilum, which was probably converted into a church on the establishment of Christianity at Athens. The modern name Δαφνη seems connected with the worship of Apollo, and may have been derived from a grove of sacred bay, which had survived that worship. But at present no bay trees remain here. Although Dhafni is despoiled of the finest of those remains which formerly made it interesting, the outer inclosure of the monastery, and the church itself, are still made up almost entirely of Hellenic materials; and there are several sarcophagi remaining, the most remarkable of which stands with the bottom upwards in the portico before the cells of the monks: it is of white marble, large and massy. These sepulchral monuments were probably collected from the Sacred Way, the sides of which were a continued cemetery from Athens to Eleusis. The dome of the church at Dhafni is now supported by
:2.386
§ 2.386 two cross beams of wood, and shows several large cracks caused by the operation of taking away three Ionic columns, which, on my first visit to Attica, were in their original places, enveloped in the wall of the monastery. A high square tower with a little dome at the top, like those in Syria, appears to have been erected in the time of the Franks. One of the greatest objections to the removal of ancient remains from Greece to England, or other countries, is, that in consequence of the negligence of those who remove or collect them, it is not always known from whence they came, so that monuments serving to illustrate ancient history on the spot, often become useless for that purpose. Nor is this remark confined to inscriptions, although it is undoubtedly most applicable to them, since, in a great majority of instances, Grecian works of art, of every kind, had some peculiar reference to local history and mythology. It has often happened moreover, that while by the separation of the monument from the place, both have lost a portion of their interest, the former, either from its want of merit or its state of preservation, has been of little utility to modern art in the place where it has been deposited. The evil is by no means of recent occurrence, for every collection in Europe contains remains of antiquity, which have become inexplicable by our ignorance of their origin. The monastery stands at the highest and narrowest part of the Pass: beyond it the road is level for a short distance, and then gradually widens until, at the end of 12 minutes from the monastery in passing
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§ 2.387 between a conical hill on the left, and the slope of Mount Corydallus on the right, Athens and its plain opens to view. The prospect from this point, although not so extensive as that from the fortress of Phyle on the road from Thebes, is more interesting from the greater proximity of the city, and of all the more remarkable objects. On former occasions I have seen it only in the midst of summer, but it is more beautiful in the present season, the larger proportion of the trees of Attica being evergreens, such as the pine, the prinus, and the olive, together with a variety of shrubs, and the fields and pastures, which have recovered a portion of their verdure, affording a peculiarly agreeable contrast to the rocky mountains. In summer the scene displays an arid monotony, relieved only by the pale green of the olive; and a vapour rises so rapidly from the earth, that there is a constant haze over the distant objects, which are always more distinctly seen in a fine winter’s day. In entering Attica, after a journey in Boeotia, the causes are forcibly apparent of that atmospheric difference between the two provinces, which gave rise to the Athenian sarcasm adopted by the Latins, on the density of Boeotian air and intellect. Three-fourths of the valleys of Boeotia are so entirely encased by mountains, that even the running waters are discharged into the sea by subterraneous channels, whence lakes and marshes abound, and the vapours arising from them, detained by the surrounding mountains, are slowly dissipated; while the Attic peninsula, labouring under a deficiency of water, and ventilated, often to excess, from the
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§ 2.388 Corinthian, Saronic and Aegaean seas, enjoys with these inconveniences, and in consequence of them, a purer air and serener sky than Boeotia. This physical difference may possibly have had some influence on the moral cause to which the low station of Thebes among the states of Greece was justly attributed by Ephorus, and which ought to be a lesson to all governments on the importance of encouraging arts and literature. But the proverbial contempt of Boeotian intellect was carried far beyond the bounds of truth and justice, as a long catalogue of heroes, statesmen, poets, sculptors, philosophers and engineers might be adduced to demonstrate. Having descended into the plain, we pass at the end of thirty-eight minutes from Dhafni, by the chapel of St. George at the entrance of the olive wood, the road through which is now muddy and cut up by the torrents. At 4.30 pass by the pyrgos and tjiftlik of Hadji Aly, and enter Athens at the Mora Kapesi, or Πορτα της Μορίας, at 4.15. In order to complete that comparative view of the ancient and modern geography of Greece which has been the principal object of the present work, as well as of two others, I shall here subjoin some remarks on the topography of the Megaris, which district I visited in a former journey.
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§ 2.389 Of the great isthmus which extends from the foot of Mount Cithaeron to the Acro- Corinth, and which connects Northern Greece with the Peloponnesus, about one fourth, including the narrowest part or Isthmus properly so called, belonged to the Corinthia, the remainder, which was included within a sea coast of about thirty miles on either gulf, with a breadth varying from twenty miles to thirty, formed the Megaris. Like the Corinthia, it was too small to have had much influence on the general politics of Greece, or even to preserve its own independence; and by its position it was not less exposed than that territory to the effects of the frequent contests between the states of Greece. Being very mountainous, barren, and incapable of supporting a large population, it sent forth in the times of its prosperity colonies to the Euxine, Propontis and Sicily, and from the same cause, under different circumstances, experienced the greatest distress, when the Athenians, justly incensed against the Megarenses for having joined the Corinthians, and massacred the Athenian garrison at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, excluded them from the use of the Attic ports and markets. The redeeming attribute of the Megaric territory was its excellent position for the pursuit of commerce both by land and sea; and it was undoubtedly to this advantage that Megara owed an opulence and splendour, which were quite disproportioned to its natural resources.
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§ 2.390 Like Aegina, and many other once-flourishing republics, its decline is to be dated from that increase of power in the leading states, which destroyed the independence of those of second rank. Its commercial advantages, however, still maintained it in a respectable condition, as long as Greece was wealthy, and densely inhabited, but when it became poor and depopulated, and still more when the Roman government was no longer able to protect its distant subjects, insecurity was the only effect of the peculiarities of the situation of Megara, and has continued to be its ordinary condition during the long ages of the debasement of Greece. An inscription copied by Chandler at Megara, shows that its towers were repaired in the end of the fifth century, by one Count Diogenes, an officer of the emperor Anastasius. But in later ages, the Byzantine government was incapable of affording any protection to these coasts from the pirates or cruisers of Europe, and the Turkish navy has been so unequal to the task, that the inhabitants of Megara have more than once been obliged to abandon the town, and retire to the villages of the Oneia. In proceeding to trace the ancient geography of the Megaris I shall, as usual, chiefly follow Pausanias.
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§ 2.391 The places mentioned by him between Eleusis and Megara are, 1. The well called ανθιον or ανθινον, the flowery this answers to a spring on the road side, in a branch of the Eleusinian plain near the head of a small curve of the coast, which forms the north-western angle of the bay of Eleusis. 2. A little beyond the well, stood the Temple of Meganeira, and the monuments of the Argives who were slain at Thebes in the war between Creon and Adrastus, and whose bodies were said to have been rescued by Theseus, and here interred by him. 3. The sepulchre of Alope, and not far from it, 4. The palaestra of her father Cercyon, by whom she was killed. No remains of these monuments have yet been discovered. Pausanias has not exactly stated the boundary between the Eleusinia and Megaris; but we can hardly doubt that it was Mount Cerata, now Kandili, which interrupts the
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§ 2.392 level coast for a considerable distance, and the projection of which occurs at about a third of the distance from Eleusis to Megara. It would seem from Philochorus, cited by Strabo, that there was a temple of Apollo Pythius on this part of the coast, which Philochorus considered the boundary of the Megaris; it is not noticed by Pausanias. Megara retains little of antiquity but the name, which is still τα Μέγαρα, and seems originally to have been derived from certain μέγαρα, or sanctuaries of Ceres, though the later Megarenses preferred, as usual, a heroic origin, and derived their name from Megareus, son of Neptune, a native of Onchestus. Pausanias remarks, that the vengeance of the Gods for the murder of the Athenian herald Anthemocritus, had never been thoroughly appeased, and that Megara had been an exception to the cities of Greece which had profited by the munificence of Hadrian.
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§ 2.393 Nevertheless, there still existed public edifices, and monuments of art sufficient to prove the former existence of that opulence, which has been variously attested in ancient history. The town stood on a low hill with a double summit, situated a mile and a half from the shore of the Saronic gulf, near the southern extremity of a plain six or seven miles in length as well as breadth, of no great fertility, and which is bounded on every side, except towards the sea, by the mountains Oneia. The following is a brief abstract of the description of the city by Pausanias, in which I shall exactly follow the order of his narrative, as it is among the clearest and most methodical which he has given of the more celebrated cities of Greece, and may lead to some interesting discoveries, when circumstances shall allow the site to be properly explored. The fountain, which took its name from the Nymphs Sithnides, was adorned by Theagenes, tyrant of Megara, with a building remarkable for its magnitude and numerous columns. Near it stood an ancient temple, containing a brazen statue of Diana Soteira by Strongylion, statues of the twelve gods, the reputed works of Praxiteles, and images’ of the Roman emperors. In the adjoining Olympieium, or inclosure of Jupiter Olympius, stood a magnificent temple, containing a statue of the God, the finishing of which was interrupted by the enmity of the Athenians in the Peloponnesian war: hence the face of the God was of ivory and gold, and the remaining parts of clay
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§ 2.394 and plaster. It was the joint work of Phidias and of Theocosmus of Megara. On the head of Jupiter were represented the Hours and Fates. In the back part of the temple were some half-wrought pieces of wood, prepared by Theocosmus for the reception of the ivory and gold with which the remaining parts of the statue were to have been adorned. The temple contained also the brazen beak of a galley taken, as the Megarenses asserted, from the Athenians in the contest for the possession of Salamis. Anciently, each summit of the hill of Megara was occupied by a citadel; one was named Caria, from Car, son of Phoroneus son of Inachus, the other Alcathoe, from Alcathous son of Pelops. Having ascended from the Olympium into Caria, there occurred a temple of Bacchus Nyctelius; this citadel contained also a sanctuary of Venus Apostrophia, an oracle of Night, a roofless temple of Jupiter Conius, statues of Aesculapius and Hygieia by Bryaxis, and the Μέγαρον, or temple of Ceres, said to have been founded by Car during his reign. Below the citadel Caria to the northward, near the Olympium, was the tomb of Alcmene, from whence Pausanias was conducted by his Megarean guide to Rhus, a place so called because the waters
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§ 2.395 from the neighbouring mountain were collected in this place, until Theagenes having turned off the water, erected an altar here to Achelous. Not far from thence was the monument of Hyllus, son of Hercules, and near the latter a temple of Isis, with another of Apollo Agraeus and Diana Agrotera, which is said to have been dedicated by Alcathous when he had slain the Cithaeronian lion. On descending from this temple occurred the heroum of Pandion, and near it the tomb of Hippolyte, fashioned like an Amazonian shield, then that of Tereus, who married Procne, daughter of Pandion, and who is asserted by the Megarenses to have ruled over the country about Pagae. On the right hand of the ascent to Alcathoe was the sepulchre of Megareus, near which was the hearth of the Prodomeis, or place where Alcathous sacrificed to the deities who assisted him in raising the walls of Megara; here was the stone on which Apollo laid his lyre on that occasion, and which thenceforth uttered when struck
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§ 2.396 a musical sound, similar to that which Pausanias heard at Thebes in Egypt from a half statue generally called the statue of Memnon, but which was said by the natives to be that of Phamenoph, though some ascribed it to Sesostris. In Alcathoe was a council-house, formerly the sepulchre of Timalcus, and on the summit of the same citadel stood a temple of Minerva,
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§ 2.397 containing a statue of the goddess, entirely gilded except the face, hands, and feet, which were of ivory. Here likewise were sanctuaries of Minerva Nικη and Minerva Αίαντις, the latter so called, in the opinion of Pausanias, because the statue was dedicated by Ajax, son of Telamon. The temple of Apollo was anciently of brick, but had been rebuilt of white marble by Hadrian. It contained three statues of Apollo made of ebony; those surnamed Pythius and Decatephorus were in the Egyptian style: the Archagetes was in the Aeginetan manner. There was also a sanctuary of Ceres Thesmophorus, in descending from which occurred the sepulchre of Callipolis, son of Alcathous. On the way to the Prytaneium were the following monuments: the heroum of Ino surrounded with a stone fence, within which was a plantation of olives,—the heroa of Iphigeneia and of Adrastus, both of whom, according to the Megarenses, died at Megara, and a temple of Diana, said to have been founded by Agamemnon. In the Prytaneium were the sepulchres of Menippus, son of Megareus, and of Echepolis, son of Alcathous, and near the same building a stone named Anaclethra, because here Ceres, when searching for her daughter, sat down and called her. The Aesymnium was a council-house, so named from its founder; it contained a monument of the heroes of Megara. There were also sepulchral monuments of the Megarenses who had fallen in fighting against the Medes, and the tombs of Pyrgo, wife of Alcathous, and of his
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§ 2.398 daughter Iphinoe, which were in the way from the Aesymnium to the heroum of Alcathous: the latter structure served in the time of Pausanias for depositing writings. In the entrance to the Dionysium, or sanctuary of Bacchus, was a tomb of Astycrateia and Manto, daughters of Polyeidus, son of Coeranus, who founded the sanctuary, and placed in it a wooden statue of the god surnamed Patrous, of which the face only was visible. Near it was a Satyr of Parian marble, by Praxiteles, and a Bacchus, surnamed Dasyllius. Near the Dionysium was the temple of Venus. It contained a very ancient statue in ivory of the goddess, surnamed Praxis, and images of Persuasion, and of Consolation, made by Praxiteles, and of Love, of Allurement, and of Desire, the works of Scopas. Near the temple of Venus was that of Fortune, containing a statue by Praxiteles, and another temple in which were the Muses, and a brazen Jupiter by Lysippus. In the Agora stood the tomb of Coroebus, which was inscribed with verses relating to the story of Coroebus and Psamathe, and supported statues representing Coroebus killing the monster Poena: Pausanias thought they were the most ancient specimens of sculpture in stone which he had seen in Greece. Near this sepulchre was that of Orsippus, who gained a victory in running at Olympia, and who, when military commander of the Megarenses, enlarged the boundaries of the Megaris.
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§ 2.399 In descending from the agora by the street called Eutheia, the temple of Apollo Prostaterius stood a little on the right; it contained, an Apollo of great merit, a Diana, and a Latona, besides which were Latona and her children, by Praxiteles. In the ancient Gymnasium, near the gates called Nymphades, was a small pyramidal stone, named Apollo Carinus, and a temple of Lucina. On the descent to the port of Megara, which in the time of Pausanias still bore the appellation of Nisaea, there was a temple of Diana Malophorus, the roof of which had fallen in. The citadel of Nisaea still remained; on the sea side was the tomb of Lelex, who is said to have been an Egyptian, the son of Neptune and Libya, and to have reigned at Nisaea. Near Nisaea, adds Pausanias, there was a small island, where Minos of Crete was said to have sheltered his fleet in his war with Nisus. There remains nothing of ancient Megara aboveground, save some fragments of the walls of the three citadels, Caria, Alcathoe, and Nisaea, together with some vestiges of the Long Walls, and some fragments of the buildings of the city, but the place has been fertile in inscriptions; and if the situations in which they were found had been exactly noted they might have contributed not a
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§ 2.400 little to a knowledge of the ancient topography. From one which is now at Oxford we learn that it was deposited in the Olympium. Another in honour of some gymnasiarche was probably in the Gymnasium. The modern town occupies only the hill of the two ancient citadels, and extends not much beyond the western summit: unlike the other towns of the continent of Greece, the houses are built with flat roofs like those of the Grecian islands. Alcathoe having been the more important of the two citadels, was probably the western, or that upon which the modern village is chiefly situated; and in that case, the tower which crowns it occupies the site of the temple of Minerva. The Olympium was on the northern side of Caria: and the Agora seems to have been towards the southern end of the ancient site, as the street Eutheia led from thence through the gate Nymphades into the Longomural street, and to Nisaea. As nature has probably resumed her sway in regard to the course of the waters from the neighbouring mountains, their natural receptacle, called Rhus, from which Theagenes turned away the water in order to form a fountain in a more convenient situation, might be thus identified, and it would serve as an important guide to the ancient topography. The Long Walls which connected Megara with its maritime fortress Nisaea, in the same manner that the Piraeus was connected with Athens, were constructed by the Athenians in the year B.C. 455, when in consequence of the naval power which the victory of Salamis had given them, and the
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§ 2.401 disgust conceived by the Megarenses against the Corinthians, the Athenians obtained a paramount influence at Megara, and placed garrisons in Nisaea and Pagae. These, together with Naupactus, which city at the opening of the Peloponnesian war they occupied with the refugees from Messenia, gave them stations at both the extremities of the Corinthian Sea, and consequently the naval command of it. The Megaric Long Walls are noticed at this time by Aristophanes; they were destroyed by the Megarenses themselves upon recovering them out of the hands of the Athenians, in the eighth year of the Peloponnesian war. Seventy-four years afterwards they were restored by Phocion. Strabo alludes to them as if they still existed, but the silence of Pausanias seems to show that they had fallen to ruin before his time. The harbour of Nisaea was formed by the island Minoa, which, from the description given by Thucydides of the operations of the Athenians against Megara, in the fifth and eighth years of the Peloponnesian war, seems not to have been the nearest island opposite to Megara, which is too small, and too distant from the shore, but the peninsula, a mile farther to the east, at the entrance of the strait of Salamis.
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§ 2.402 Pausanias, in describing Minoa as an island, adverted perhaps to its earlier condition rather than to that which existed in his time; for Strabo, near two centuries before had applied to it the word ακρα, or promontory. The examples of the conversion of islands into peninsulae are so numerous on the coasts of Greece, that the present instance has nothing surprising in it, especially as the strait which separated Minoa from the main appears from Thucydides to have been narrow at the entrance from the sea, and to have terminated in a marsh, over which there was a bridge or causeway. In the fifth year of the war, the Athenians perceiving that Minoa, in which the Megarenses had only a tower, would be a much better station than Budorus and Salamis for observing the Peloponnesian fleet, and for blockading Megara, Nicias seized two of the towers of the walls of Nisaea, which had prevented his ships from passing between them and the island of Minoa, and then built a wall in the island, by which he cut off “the communication between Megara and Minoa by means of the bridge which led into the island across the marsh.” He then formed a fortress in the island and left a garrison in it. If such was the situation of Minoa, it will follow that the length of the Long Walls was not 8 stades, as the text of Thucydides gives it, but
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§ 2.403 18, as we find it in that of Strabo; the peninsula being not less than three miles from Megara. In the eighth year of the war, the Athenians still holding Minoa, but the Peloponnesians having a garrison in Nisaea, the former in conjunction with a body of troops from Plataea, and by the assistance of a party in Megara, obtained possession of the Long Walls, and built a cross wall within them for protection against Megara. They then prolonged the circumvallation of Nisaea to the sea on either side, obtaining plentiful materials from the suburb, and making its houses serve, with the addition of battlements, for a part of the fortification. The Peloponnesians in Nisaea being thus deprived of their daily supplies, were obliged to surrender, when the Athenians took possession of Nisaea, and entirely separated it from Megara, by breaking down a part of the Long Walls. Brasidas, the Lacedaemonian, who was then at the Isthmus preparing to march into Thrace, on hearing of the first success of the Athenians at the Long Walls, summoned the Boeotians, who were already collected at Plataea for the relief of Megara, to meet him at Tripodiscus, a Megaric town at the foot of Mount Geraneia. The united forces amounted to 6000; and the Athenians, who had received a large reinforcement from Athens, were not much inferior in number.
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§ 2.404 Each party being more anxious to support its adherents in Megara than to come to action, nothing took place but a combat of cavalry in the plain, in which the Athenians had some advantage. At length Brasidas, having succeeded in obtaining admission into Megara, the oligarchy was reestablished in the city, the Athenians still retaining possession of Nisaea and Minoa. It was in the ensuing winter that the Megarenses, having been sufficiently strong to recover possession of their Long Walls, entirely destroyed them. From a part of the narrative of Thucydides, it appears that there was a sanctuary of Mars, called the Enyalium, not far from the gate by which the Athenians first made their irruption into the Long Walls, and which seems to have been a gate opening from the northern Long Wall into the suburb on that side. We find by the terms of the truce agreed upon between the Athenians and Lacedaemonians in the spring of the ninth year, that towards the sea on the north-eastern side of Nisaea, there was a monument of Nisus, at a gate of Nisaea, and a Posidonium, or sanctuary of Neptune, between it and the bridge leading into Minoa. By the conditions of the treaty, the line of demarcation between the Athenians in Minoa and Nisaea, on one side, and the Megarenses and their allies, on the other, was the road which led from that gate of Nisaea to the Posidonium, and from thence a direct line to the causeway. Having finished the description of the city, Pausanias proceeds to notice the places situated in the ορεινή, or mountainous part of the Megaris to the northward of the plain, after which he describes
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§ 2.405 the road from Megara into the Corinthia. The only places named by him in the Oreine are Pagae, Aegosthena, and Erineia. Although the historians and geographers have left little doubt that Aegosthena was at Ghermano, it is satisfactory to be able to confirm this fact by means of an inscription found on the spot; from a copy of which, although very imperfect, I have been able to decipher enough to show that it was a decree of the people of Aegosthena in favour of Apollodorus, son of Alcimachus of Megara, granting him the ordinary rights of proxenia, with the use of the pastures of the district for his cattle, and the privilege of a front seat at the public ceremonies.
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§ 2.406 The decree is to be recorded in the temple of Melampus, and mention is made of the Melampodeia, which we learn from Pausanias to have been a festival celebrated every year at Aegosthena. The position of Aegosthena thus ascertained, illustrates two interesting passages in the Hellenics of Xenophon. Between Ghermano and the vale of Livadhostra, which stands on or near the site of the ancient Creusis, a projection of the highest part of Cithaeron terminates abruptly in the Corinthiae or Alcyonic Gulf, and forms a natural separation between the Megaris and the Boeotian district of Thespia, of which city Creusis was the port, leaving no passage along the shore except a path on the mountain’s side, which now serves for a road from Livadhostra and Ai Vasili to Ghermano and Vilia. Like the Scironian rocks, along which there is a similar road from Megara to Crommyon, this termination of Mount Cithoeron, as well as all the adjoining part of the Alcyonic sea, is subject to sudden gusts of wind, by which the passage of such a cornice is sometimes rendered dangerous. The Lacedaemonians under Cleombrotus were here overtaken, on their march from Creusis to Aegosthena, when retreating from Boeotia in the winter of B.C. 379-378, by one of these tempests.
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§ 2.407 Such was the force of the wind, that the shields of the soldiers were wrested from their hands, and many of the asses that carried the burthens were blown over the precipices into the sea. Seven years afterwards the Lacedaemonians again retreated by the same road after their memorable defeat at Leuctra. Little trusting to the peace which the Thebans had granted them, they avoided crossing Mount Cithaeron by the ordinary route in the face of their conquerors, and preferred the risk of marching in the night by the narrow and dangerous path at the back of the mountain. The historian states that the Spartan commanders concealed their intention by moving from the field of battle near Leuctra in the evening, with the avowed purpose of being ready to cross the Cithaeron by the usual route in the morning at daybreak; but that, instead of pursuing it, they turned off to Creusis, and proceeded from thence to Aegosthena of the Megarice, where they met the army of Archidamus coming to their support. Not less certain than the position of Aegosthena is that of Pegae or Pagae, as it was called in the Megaric dialect. From Thucydides and Plutarch we learn that it was the principal harbour on the western coast of the Megaris; and from Strabo that it formed with Nisaea the narrowest part of the Megaric Isthmus, the breadth of which was 120 stades. These data correspond exactly with the port of Psatho, not far from the shore of which are found the remains of an ancient fortress. Near the road from Megara to Pagae there was a rock (according to Pausanias) covered with marks
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§ 2.408 which were supposed to have been made by the arrows of an advanced body of Median cavalry, when Mardonius, hearing of the arrival of the Peloponnesians at the Isthmus on their way to Plataea, made a movement from Attica to intercept them’. Pausanias relates that they wandered to the rock on the road to Pagae in the night; that under the impulse of a madness inspired by Diana, they consumed their arrows by discharging them at the rock, mistaking it for the enemy, and that thus disarmed they were attacked in the morning and put to death by the Megarenses. At Pagae there was a brazen statue of Diana Soteira, erected in memory of this event, and exactly resembling another dedicated to the same deity at Megara. Pagae contained also the heroic monument of Aegialeus, who fell at Glisas in the second expedition of the Argives against Thebes. The third town of the Oreine, mentioned by Pausanias, was Erineia, in which was a monument of Autonoe, daughter of Cadmus. As Vilia and Kundura are the only inland positions in the northern part of the Megaric isthmus having any natural advantages, we may presume Erineia to have occupied the one or other of those sites; and as Strabo notices Isus, formerly a town of the Megaris, as having been situated near Cithaeron, I am disposed to place Isus at Vilia, and Erineia at Kundura. There can be no doubt, as before
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§ 2.409 remarked, that Kandili is the mountain which the ancients named Κέρατα, from the sharp rocks which rise from its summit; the ancient name of Karydhi I am unable to discover, except that it was the highest summit of the Oneia, as Strabo defines those mountains, that is to say, as extending from the rocks Scironides to Cithaeron and the confines of Boeotia. Other authors, however, appear to have comprehended in the Oneia, not only all the mountains as far as the Isthmus, but even the ridge to the southward of it, which stretches from Cenchreice to Corinth, having apparently considered Geraneia only as the highest summit of the Oneia. In a verse preserved by Strabo, which the Athenians were suspected by some of the ancient critics of having ejected from the Iliad, for the sake of interpolating another, which proved that Salamis in the time of the Trojan war was a dependency
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§ 2.410 of Athens, mention is made of Aegeirusa, Nisaea, and Tripodi, in the Megaris, as part of the dominions of Ajax of Salamis. Whether the latter was the genuine version or not, it is at least evident from Strabo, that Aegeirusa and Tripodi, like Nisaea, still existed in his time. Of Polichne, the fourth Megaric town named in the verses, we have no other notice in ancient history. Tripodiscus is shown by Thucydides, on the occasion already mentioned, to have been at the foot of Mount Geraneia, in a situation convenient for forming a junction of troops who were assembling from Plataea in one direction, and the Isthmus in the other, for the purpose of acting at Megara. And accordingly, at the foot of Mount Geraneia, in the road from Plataea to the Isthmus, four or five miles to the north-west of Megara, I remarked in my former journey, when passing by that route
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§ 2.411 from Megara to Corinth, the evident vestiges of an ancient town. The position is perfectly in agreement with the fable of the foundation of Tripodiscus, related by Pausanias. According to that author, Coroebus the Argive, after having slain the monster Poena, which had been sent by Apollo to punish the Argives for the death of the child of Apollo by Psamathe, daughter of their king Crotopus, went to Delphi to give himself up to punishment. He was ordered by the oracle to take a tripod out of the temple, to return towards Argos, and wherever the tripod fell to the ground to reside there, and to build a temple to Apollo. The remains are exactly on the shortest route from Delphi to the Isthmus, over Mount Geraneia, leaving Megara a few miles on the left. It is probable that Aegeirusa, like Nisaea and Tripodiscus, was in the western part of the Megaris, for none of the places mentioned in the Megaric reading of the verses in the Iliad are among those which, according to Pausanias,
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§ 2.412 occupied the Oreine, or mountain district to the northward and eastward, whence it would seem also that the western part only was claimed by the Salaminii and Megarenses as the ancient dominion of Ajax. Aegeirusa, according to Theopompus, was also called Aegeirus. In Scylax, we find Aris noticed as the last place on the Alcyonic or northern coast of the Megaris. It is not improbable that among the numerous corrections required in the names of Scylax, should be that of Αιγυρος in place of Αρις. In this case it becomes likely that Aegeirus occupied the slope of Mount Geraneia towards the Corinthian Sea, and that its district bordered upon that of Oinoe of the Corinthia, which appears from Strabo to have been situated not far to the eastward of Cape Olmiae. On some part of Geraneia there was a town or fortress, homonymous with the mountain. This appears as well from Scylax as from Thucydides, who states the Athenians to have maintained a garrison there before the Peloponnesian war, and that by the possession of Geraneia, Pagae, and Megara, they commanded the communication
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§ 2.413 between Northern Greece and the Peloponnesus. When Cassander, after having reduced a great part of the Peloponnesus in the year B.C. 316, retired into Macedonia, he left a garrison in Geraneia. The fortress probably stood at the summit of the ridge where the road must in all ages have Cimolia is known only as having been the scene of action of a victory, obtained by the Megarenses and Athenians over the Corinthians in the year B.C. 458. It appears to have been in the plain of Megara: perhaps at the place where Wheler found the remains of several churches built on the ruins of more ancient buildings, and where he copied a Latin and a Greek inscription: this place, called Paleokhori, is three or four miles northward of Megara. In the western angle of the Bay of Megara, at the commencement of the rocks Scironides, Chandler observed many Hellenic foundations and other remains. It is not improbable that they may indicate the site of a come named Scirone, for as well as can be understood from the imperfect passage in Pausanias, which introduces his mention of the rocks Scironides, and the story of Ino and Melicerte, there was a place named after Sciron, who was polemarch of the Megarenses when Nisus was their king, and who was the first to make a footpath
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§ 2.414 along the rocks. This path may easily be made impracticable, as the Greeks rendered it after the loss of Thermopylae, or it may be made passable by two carriages abreast, as Hadrian rendered it. Wheler passed it in 1676 with horses, but at present it is only practicable by foot-passengers. The length of the Scironian rocks was reckoned six Roman miles, and according to Pausanias they were all comprehended within the Megaris. The two most projecting and remarkable rocks were named the Moluris, and the εναγείς, or execrable. From the rock Moluris it was reported that Ino, or Leucothea, pursued by her husband Athamas, threw herself into the sea with her son Melicertes, otherwise called Palaemon, who was carried by a dolphin to the Isthmus, where the Corinthians worshipped him as a divinity and instituted games in hia honour. The “execrable” rock was that from which Sciron the robber threw strangers into the sea, and from which he was himself thrown by Theseus. On the summit of the mountain there was a temple of Jupiter, who received the epithet Aphesius for
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§ 2.415 having removed the drought, which ceased after Abacus had sacrificed to Jupiter Panhellenius in Aegina. The temple of Aphesius contained statues of Venus, Apollo, and Pan. Beyond the “execrable” rock occurred the sepulchre of Eurystheus, who was slain here by Iolaus, after which there was a descent to the temple of Apollo Latous, near which was the boundary of the Megaris and Corinthia, in a spot where Hyllus, son of Hercules, was said to have fought with Echemus the Arcadian.
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§ 2.416 CHAPTER 18 ATTICA, BOEOTIA. Jan. 10.—A continuation of the serene weather, which I found on entering Attica, tempts me to make an excursion to the summit of Mount Parnes, notwithstanding the time of year. This point, although not so distinct and unambiguous as the summits of Pentelicum and Cithaeron, or that of Khlomo near Talanda, is more comprehensive than any near the south-eastern extremity of Greece in the extent of its view over Attica, Boeotia, Euboea, and the Saronic Gulf. Passing through the Gribos Kapesi, or Πόρτα του Έγρίπου, at 1.41, we very soon afterwards enter the olive woods: at 2 pass many foundations of ancient walls; at 2.27 cross the Ποδονίφτη, or Washfoot, as the Cephissus is now called, and in four minutes more a larger branch
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§ 2.417 of the same river, from which many channels are derived for mills and gardens. At 2.45 Dervish Agu and Turali, two small villages on the river, are at a small distance on the right. At 3.20 we arrive at Menidhi. Here on some rocky heights a little to the left of the town, are foundations and antique fragments, indicative of the site of a demus; at a small chapel there is a sarcophagus in its place, and lying near it an inscribed marble adorned with a vase in relief; both which were excavated on the spot. On the northern side of the village is an abundant source of water, which does not fail in summer. Menidhi is the largest village in Attica next to Khassia; it consists mostly of small houses two stories high, and is surrounded by a plantation of olive trees and some gardens. From hence I proceed to the monastery of Aio Nikola, at the foot of Mount Parnes. A little beyond Menidhi a massy foundation of ancient wall crosses a torrent now dry, which flows from Parnes in a wide gravelly bed, and after passing Menidhi joins the Cephissus. A Menidhiote peasant, of whom I inquire whether he knows of any other walls of the same kind in the neighbourhood, describes to me the situation of Phyle above Khassia, and when I ask him the name of that castle, answers στο Φυλί λεγομεν ημεϊς; thus showing that Phyle still preserves its ancient appellation, though, like many other Greek names, it is neutralized into Φυλί instead of being Φυλή. The λεγομεν ημεις of the Menidhiote was not without its Attic salt. Knowing that the ruins are of Hellenic construction, he
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§ 2.418 thought that the place might have had a different name anciently, which name I might know, though he was ignorant of it. He seems pleased to learn that Φυλί was the Hellenic name of the castle, and this little lesson in archaeology an Attic peasant is not likely to forget. We are just an hour in riding from Menidhi to St. Nicolas. The road passes along the right side of the torrent before mentioned, and then ascends by a gentle slope to the monastery, which stands immediately below woods of pine which cover the steep acclivity of the mountain, and commands a beautiful view of the plain of Athene, including the city, and the Saronic Gulf. St. Nicolas is a small metokhi dependent on the monastery of'Αγία Τριας, vulgarly Aia Triadha, or the Holy Trinity, situated midway between the metokhi and the summit of the mountain, in a valley abounding in sources of water, and shaded with walnut and chestnut trees. The εορτή, or feast of the saint, is in May, and is much resorted to from the city. I am lodged at St. Nicolas in a cell of one of the monks, small, but having a ceiling, floor, and fireplace; luxuries to which I have been little accustomed in Thessaly and Boeotia. Indeed, in every part of Greece it must be the lot of the exploring traveller to partake of those miseries of Greek poverty of which Aristophanes drew a picture in the Plutus so true and lively, that the traveller, who has once read the verses, will not fail to be continually reminded of them.
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§ 2.419 The snug cell at St. Nicolas is peculiarly opportune, as a violent southerly wind, accompanied with rain, detains me all the 11th of January, and an ascent of the mountain in such weather is out of the question. I have not observed in Attica any of the birds called Toia, a species of bustard which I saw in immense numbers in the plains of Boeotia, and which I suppose to be the ωτιδες observed in the same plains by Pausanias. A nobler bird of the same genus, the wild turkey, exactly resembling the domestic, makes its appearance in the spring, and I was informed by Mr. Consul S. at Patra, that they are sometimes sold there in the market. The bird and its name were probably introduced into England from this country. Jan. 12.—The Igumenos of Aia Triadha, who came to St. Nicolas yesterday on hearing of my arrival, accompanies me to the summit of the mountain. The shortness of the days, and the uncertainty of the weather, making the most direct road preferable, we do not pass by Aia Triadha, but ascend the south-eastern slope of the mountain, in face of Kifissia and Mount Mendeli, crossing
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§ 2.420 two or three remata which flow to the Cephissus. The lower part of the mountain is covered with pines; these, as we proceed, are mixed with holly-oaks and firs, and at length, towards the summit, the wood consists entirely of the last. Three years ago an accidental fire caught the firwood, and consumed three quarters of it; such at least is the calculation of my companion the abbot; but one quarter perhaps would be nearer the truth. He says that the fire burnt four days, but that the greater part of the mischief was done in a few hours. Not much of the timber has been destroyed, but the dead and leafless trunks give a desolate appearance to the scenery, which before this accident must have been beautiful even in the present season: frequent rivulets and green ravines occur amidst the firs, and here and there a small space is cultivated with corn. With these exceptions the mountain is entirely covered with forests, and contains an inexhaustible supply of timber for the Athenians. It is to the manufacture of plank that I am indebted for the means of ascending the mountain on horseback by a tolerable road. Parnes still continues to supply Athens with charcoal, but the demand not being such as to cause any great consumption of wood in the manufacture of it, the people of Menidhi and Khassia, who have succeeded the ανθρακεις of Acharnae in its manufacture, have no necessity at present to ascend very high in the mountain for their materials. The wild thyme, lentisk, myrtle, and other shrubs, produced in abundance upon Hymettus and the uncultivated parts of the Πέδιον,
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§ 2.421 supply a sufficiency of wood for heating the ovens of Athens, and the mangol is not much used during the brief Athenian winter, when it is more the custom among the upper classes, all whose apartments have chimneys, to burn on their hearths some old olive or ilex, which has been overthrown by Boreas or Sciron. Both those trees make excellent firewood, but particularly the olive. Mount Parnes still contains wild boars, as in the time of Pausanias, but bears are very rarely if ever seen. It abounds also in wolves, hares and partridges, and is covered with a good soil, better indeed than that of the now totally uncultivated plain which lies between it and Mount Pentelicum. Towards the top of the mountain, the rock makes its appearance on the most exposed ridges, but in general the firs reach to the very summit, and they impede in some directions the view, which is one of the most extensive in Greece. Attica, Boeotia, a part of Phocis, the southern portion of Euboea, the barriers of the Isthmus and the Saronic gulf, with the opposite coast of Argolis are ichnographically displayed. To the right of Mount Parnassus rise the snow-capped range of mountains on the borders of Aetolia and Doris, which extend to Oeta, to the right of which a long snowy ridge makes its appearance above the Boeotian mountains Ptoum and Hypatus, which I recognize for Othrys. In the northern portion of Euboea, the cliffs which border the coast between Politika and Limni are conspicuous, and the highest summit of them, called Kandili,
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§ 2.422 shows itself between Khtypα and Egripo. Still following the horizon to the right, are seen the hill of Kalogheritza, the straits near it, the mouth of the Asopus, Mount Dhelfi, anciently Dirphe or Dirphys, the highest mountain in Euboea next to Oche, and remarkable for its sharp cone, then the mountain immediately above Kumi in Euboea, then Kalamo in Attica. The channel of Euboea changes its direction from north to north-west at the cape of Rhamnus, in Attica, which is the termination of the great Boeoto-Attic chain of Cithaeron and Parnes, and is immediately opposite to the bay of Stura, the ancient Styra, in the midst of which is an island, probably the Aegilia of Herodotus.
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§ 2.423 Here the island of Euboea is narrower than in any part, except at the isthmus of Lithadha at the northern extremity. Both these narrow places seem to be unknown to modern geographers; the isthmus of Stura is noticed by Plutarch in the life of Phocion, who after the battle of Tamynae occupied a fortress on the isthmus, named Zaretra. The peninsula to the southward of Stura terminates in the great round mountain, the highest in Euboea, anciently called Oche, which to the north-east throws out the terrible Caphareus, now Xylofago or Kavo Doro, and to the south-west cape Mandili, the south-eastern extremity of the island, and anciently named Geraestos. It appears from the ancient authors, that there was a town and temple of Neptune on this cape, and a port below it. which seems very small, though Livy describes it as “nobilis Euboeae portus.” It may have derived some shelter from a small island which lies immediately off the cape. Between this promontory and the islands Petalius, the ancient Petaliae, is the great bay of Karysto, and in the middle of it is the town seen a little to the right of Kavo Doro, and situated, as Strabo describes it, at the foot of Mount Oche. In the Gulf of Eghina or the Saronic Gulf, it is observable that the eastern end of Salamis, the western end of Aegina, the eastern end of Pityonesus (now called Anghistri), the western end of the peninsula of Methana, and the summit of mount Ortholithi in the Argolic peninsula, fall in the same line.
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§ 2.424 To the right of these, is the cluster of rocks called the Pendenisia, or five islands; in a line with Mount Arachnaion near Ligurio. A little to the right of the Pendenisia is seen a cape of the Argolic coast, round which the coast retires to the left, and forms the bay of Sofiko. Another small island shows itself a little to the right of Anghistri, lying between it and the Pendenisia, and another of the same size nearer to Salamis, forming nearly an equilateral triangle with the former and Pendenisia. The nearest district on the Boeotian side is the Tanagrice, or Tanagraea, inclosed between the lower heights of Parnes and the low Theban ridge, of which the principal summit is now called Soro. The Asopus is seen forcing its way through a rocky ravine of no great length from the Parasopia into the plain of Tanagra, which is separated only from the maritime plain of Oropus by the last falls of Parnes near Oropo and Sykamino, above which two villages the Asopus again traverses a rocky defile, which probably formed the separation between the Tanagrice and Oropia. At the head of the plain of Tanagra, just under Parnes, stands Mavromati, in a line with the convent of Siamata. In the middle of the plain of Tanagra, Skimatari interlineates with Mount Kandili of Euboea; and near the sea Vathy is seen in a direction a little to the left of the Euripus; close under Parnes, on the right bank of the Asopus, is the tower and village of Staniates. In the direction of Pentelicum we look down on Tatoy, near which village a fountain, some fragments of ancient sculpture, and the foundations of walls, indicate the site of the celebrated Deceleia.
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§ 2.425 On the slope of a round mountain behind Rhamnus, and in a line with its summit, are seen Kapandriti, and a little beyond it Khalkuki. From thence a cultivated slope descends to the valley of Marathon. From the north-western side of the same height, and from the adjacent parts of Parnes, the waters meet, and form a torrent, which passes a little to the right of Markopulo, and falls into the sea between the mouth of the Asopus and Kalamo. The direction of the streams in Attica shows the different slopes of the land. All the waters from the south and south-east of Parnes flow to the Cephissus, the most distant origin of which is in some heights attached to the north-western side of Pentelicum, about four miles to the south-east of Tatoy. The river receives contributions from Pentelicum as it proceeds through the plain, particularly that rising at Kifisia, which in fact is the principal source of the river. The waters from the northern side of Pentelicum and from the southern side of the range which stretches from Parnes to Rhamnus, meet and form the Charadra of Marathon; the low ridge of Tatoy which connects the slopes of Pentelicum and Parnes, separates the waters contributing to the Cephissus and flowing to the Saronic Gulf, from those which flow to the Charadra and the Euboic frith. The mountains of the Mesoghia are well distinguished, but the greater part of its plain is hidden by Hymettus, which is now called Telovuni. The first mountain of the Paralia, seen to the left of Hymettus, is Elymo, a round hill of no great height and not far from the sea, and which has a village of the same name at its foot. To the left of it appears Mount Pani, which beginning eastward of Vari, runs inland to the plain of the Mesoghia and to Keratia. Beyond Pani rises the ancient Laurium, for which I cannot learn any modern name, then a hill the highest of all the minor ones, and similar in form to Hymettus, near the village Markopulo (of Mesoghia); beyond which are two pointed heights, one on the southern, the other on the northern side of Porto Rafti.
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§ 2.426 Jan. 13.—Return to Athens, leaving St. Nicolas at 8.21, and passing through Menidhi at 9.3. At 9.20 halt by the side of a cultivated rising ground, on the summit of which are modern walls. Soon afterwards reach the side of a torrent called Ianula, now running rapidly in consequence of the late rains. It rises in a gorge of Parnes eastward of Phyle, passes by Khassia, receives the great torrent from Parnes which passes by Menidhi, and thus forms a principal branch of the Cephissus, which it joins at some mills a little below Turali. We pass the junction of the two streams at 9.57, and a few minutes after cross the Cephissus. At 10.50 enter the Egripo gate: the Menidhi road branches from that of Egripo at the passage of the Cephissus.
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§ 2.427 Jan. 28.—From Athens to Kifisia and Vrana. —At 9.55 pass through the Egripo gate: at 10.20 arrive at Ambelokipo, where are gardens and olive-grounds with small casini, situated along the Ilissus, for a considerable distance above the monastery of Petraki: from thence proceed along the south-eastern side of a ridge called Lule-vuno, the Ilissus remaining at a short distance on the right. By the road side are several round holes of great depth cut through the rock, belonging to a conduit apparently of ancient workmanship which still supplies the town, entering it at the north-eastern gate, which is vulgarly called Bubunistra, from the noise of the water in the conduit. At 11 on our left are the ruins of a Roman aqueduct on arches, crossing a valley, and which appears by its direction to have brought water from Mount Parnes. It was probably the same which was constructed for the Athenians by Trajan, and terminated by Antoninus Pius, as we learn from an inscription over the gate at Bubunistra. It is very possible that here, as at Eleusis, there was more than one source to the aqueduct; and that all the three mountains, Parnes, Pentelicum, and Hymettus, may have contributed water to the supply of Roman Athens. The work of Trajan was perhaps an addition from Mount Parnes to the original conduit which was excavated in the rock, according to the mode customary in Greece before the time of the Romans. We now enter the olive plantations which surround Kifisia and the adjacent villages. At 11.22 pass Kato Marusi, often called Logotheti, as belonging to the English vice-consul of that name.
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§ 2.428 It contains only a pyrgo, a garden, and two or three cottages. At 11.25 cross a stream called Pispir, which originates near the monastery of Mendeli; it forms a considerable branch of the Cephissus. Haying crossed several other smaller remata, and at 11.35 passed through Upper Marusi, we arrive at 11.56 at Kifisia, vulgarly pronounced Kifisha or Tjifisha. Here are several large pyrghi with good gardens, and a mosque, before which are a fountain and a beautiful plane-tree. The rare advantage in Attica of an abundance of running water in the middle of summer has rendered this place a favourite abode of the Turks of Athens; but the generality of the houses are in a ruinous condition, and all in the present season are empty. The Greeks are at work in the olive-grounds, corn-fields, and vineyards; and the women, alarmed at the sight of an armed Albanian servant of mine, lock up their houses and hide themselves. Having proceeded from Kifisia at 12.38, the olive-woods soon cease, and we enter upon the uncultivated root of Mount Pentelicum, which unites that mountain with Parnes. All the upper part of the plain of Athens adjacent to this ridge is covered with arbutus and stunted pines. At 1.25, having turned the end of the mountain, we are in a line between its summit and the pass of Deceleia, where the modern road to Egripo passes between two heights which are separated by a deep rema originating at a Kefalovrysi under Tatoy, a village, the territory of which is a narrow strip of cultivated land among the pine-woods.
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§ 2.429 The torrent of Tatoy is a tributary of the Cephissus, but the fountains of Kifisia are the principal feeder of that river, though not the most distant, which is at Fasidhero, on the heights between Kifisia and Tatoy: this branch flows through the plain at no great distance to the west of Kifisia. At 1.50 we pass the small village of Stamata in an elevated situation, surrounded by a few barren fields, among woods of pine. It was probably the site of a demus; but no fortifications or other remains are to be seen, although the position is important as being in the middle of the communication between the plain of Marathon and that of Athens. Several torrents flow through ravines on our right from Mount Pentelicum, and after uniting, enter the plain of Marathon at Vrana. We ascend through a barren mountainous tract studded with pines, until at 2.36, being at no great distance to the northward of the peaked summit of Mount Aforismos, an opening in the ridge commands a view of the plain of Marathon, the marsh, and salt lake, together with the channel and island of Euboea, Mount Oche, the islands Petalice, and the bays of Marmari and Stura. Aforismos, though steep, has a very regular slope, and is beautifully clothed with pine-woods. It is probably the ancient Icarius. The descent from hence to Vrana is long, and we do not arrive there till 3.10. This village stands immediately at the foot of the mountain, on a low rocky height surrounded on three sides by the deep stony bed
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§ 2.430 of the torrent before mentioned, which spreads and is lost in the plain of Marathon. The peaked summit of Mendeli, or Pentelicum, appears through the opening of the torrent at the back of the village. A third peak, in the same cluster of mountains, called Argaliki, lying eastward of Aforismos, rises immediately from the plain, and sends forth a deep charadra which extends from the summit quite into the plain. On its bank, just at the foot of the mountain, are some remains of Hellenic walls among other ruins of a more modern date; this I take to be the site of the Heracleium, or temple of Hercules, near Marathon; for this demus I believe to have been situated not at the modern Marathona, but at Vrana. Each of the three summits called Mendeli, Aforismos, and Argaliki, had probably its ancient name; but the whole mountain I conceive to have been that called Brilessus, which may also have been the specific name of Mendeli, as being the highest and most conspicuous of the three. The identity of Pentelicum and Brilessus can hardly be doubtful on comparing Thucydides, Theophrastus, Strabo, and Pausanias. There is no other summit in this part of Attica of sufficient importance to answer to Brilessus; nor any author but Pausanias, who employs the word Pentelicum as the name of the modern Mendeli; about his time, therefore, this appellation probably became common in consequence of the celebrity of the marble of the
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§ 2.431 demus Pentele, and thus expelled the old word Brilessus or Brilettus, which, like Hymettus, and several others having a similar termination, belongs to the earliest language of Attica. The season has been so dry, that at present there is not a drop of water in the Charadrus, or torrent of Marathon, with the exception of a few stagnant pools towards the mouth. The wheat is just above the ground, the barley some inches high: large tracts in various parts of the plain are covered with hyacinths in bloom, and the uncultivated parts are clothed with a fine grass, affording pasture to large flocks of sheep and goats, which have been brought hither for the most part from Mount Helicon, and are now followed by a great number of lambs and kids. Jan. 29.—Having on a former occasion passed four days at Marathon, I have little to detain me here. While I was employed on the summit of the Soros, as the tumulus of the Athenians is called, my servant amused himself in gathering, at the foot of the barrow, a great number of small pieces of black flint which happened to strike his observation. These flints are so numerous, and have been so evidently chipped by art into their present form, like gun-flints, that there is good reason for believing them to have been the heads of arrows discharged by the Persians who fought at
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§ 2.432 Marathon, and to have been interred with the Athenians, after having been gathered from every part of the plain, after the battle: Herodotus shows, that some of the Barbarians were armed in this manner, though his remark is applied not to the army of Darius, but to that of Xerxes. Flint of this kind, if produced in any of the adjacent parts of Greece, is at least very rare. I have heard that arrow heads of bronze have also been found here, but we searched for them without success. The earth of the tumulus is mixed with a fine sand, and resembles that of the soil of Egypt. Marmari, on the opposite coast of Euboea, is an ancient name mentioned by Strabo, from whom we learn that it was so called from the quarries of marble commonly called Carystian, which were there situated. With rather more accuracy than usual, Strabo describes it as over against Halae Araphenides in Attica. Opposite to the middle of the Bay of Marathon is an island named Platia, situated two or three miles from the Euboean coast. At Cape Cynosura, of the Marathonia, the channel narrows to five miles, and the Bay of Stura extends from thence to Porto Bufalo. Stura, the ancient Styra, is near the shore in the inner part of the bay, in the middle of which is the Stura-nisi, or Aegilia. From Soros I proceed to the chapel of St. George, under Mount Stavrokoraki; and from thence ride round the foot of that mountain to the
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§ 2.433 corner of the great marsh, which stretches from thence to the salt lake of Dhrakoneria. Towards Kato-Suli the road passes over rocks, from under which issue some copious springs of water; a little below them is the deepest part of the lake of Marathon. In summer, when the water is confined to a small space, eels are caught here. This, and the Dhrakoneria at the foot of the ridge of Cynosura, or cape at the northern extremity of the Bay of Marathon, are then the only parts of the marsh which preserve any water. The springs at the foot of Stavrokoraki are probably the fountain Macaria. Having sent my baggage by the ordinary route to Grammatiko and Kalamo by Upper Suli, I proceed with a single attendant to visit the sites of Tricorythus and Rhamnus. That of the former demus is at thirteen minutes from Kato-Suli, on the right of the road to Rhamnus, where a rising ground is covered with fragments of Pentelic marble, many wrought blocks, and in one place some remains of columns without, flutings. The plain of Tricorythus is of a semicircular form, and terminates in a pass, from which a torrent issues, and, after crossing the plain, joins the marsh. At 1.4, ten minutes beyond the ruins of Tricorythus, we enter the pass, which at 1.10 opens into a plain, about three miles in length, and one in breadth, separated from the shore only by a rocky ridge, and inclosed on the opposite side by the mountain of Dhimiko.
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§ 2.434 This valley formed the best part of the ancient Rhamnusia. Like the plain of Suli, it contains many velanidhi trees, has a tolerable soil, but is ploughed only in a few places. At the northern extremity are the ruins of the temple of the Rhamnusian Nemesis, lying in a confused heap on the peribolus, the wall of which is still a conspicuous object. In the plain, at a small distance from the wall, is the foundation of a square and another of a round monument, of small dimensions, probably sepulchral. The peribolus included two temples, and stood at the head of a gorge leading by a regular slope to Ovrio-kastro, which is eleven minutes distant from the temples on the sea shore; the remains of a wall are observable on the left of the road all the way down. Ovrio-kastro, a common Romaic form of Έβραιό-καστρον, or Jewish Castle, is situated on a small height overhanging the sea, and is closely surrounded on every other side by higher hills, which are barren and covered with shrubs. To the north the height is strengthened by a deep torrent, now dry: on the opposite side there is a hollow and a small level by the sea, so that the fortress itself was only connected with the hills at the back by a little ridge, on which stand the remains of a gateway, with the adjacent walls still extant to half their height. They are of the third order of masonry, built of Attic marble, and being mixed with shrubs and bushes form a very picturesque ruin. On the highest part of the hill, a small quadrangular keep occupied
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§ 2.435 an angle of the inclosure: the walls are traceable in most parts, but are not of any considerable height except near the gate. The whole circumference of the inclosure was little more than half a mile, but the ground about the temples seems also to have been inhabited. In the middle of the inclosure of the fortress lies a monument of white marble, concave on one of the sides, and broken into two pieces, on one of which, in the middle of the concave side, are the words, ΡΑΜΝΟΥΣΙΟΣ ΚΩΜΟΙΔΟΙΣ in very neat characters. The name of the man of Rhamnus, who dedicated the monument, was probably on another stone. Immediately opposite to Rhamnus, in the narrowest part of the Euboic frith, where the breadth is only two miles, is the entrance of Porto Bufalo, which I take to have been anciently the harbour of Porthmus. The occupation and destruction of the fortress of Porthmus by Philip, after expelling the Eretrians, to whom it belonged, was one of the accusations repeatedly urged against him by Demosthenes: the orator particularly alludes to its position, απαντικρύ της Αττικής, or opposite to Attica, and his commentator Ulpian observes, that Porthmus was a harbour dependent on Eretria. The advantages of this harbour seem to have given importance to Porthmus during a long succession of ages.
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§ 2.436 A little to the northward of Porto Bufalo is Dhysta, the ancient Dystus, against which, according to Theopompus, Philip proceeded from the vicinity of Eretria, in the course of the same transactions referred to by Demosthenes. Styra, now Stura, is seen to the southward, and Mount Dirphe bearing 6° to the north of west. From the temple of Nemesis, a line drawn through the pass leading into the plain of Tricorythus will cut a cape near Porto Rafti, which I observed from the foot of Mount Stavrokoraki; Ovrio-kastro is in the same line produced northward. At 3.22, quitting the temple and crossing a part of the plain, we ascend the mountains to the north-westward, which are a continuation of Mount Dhimiko, and follow the torrent of Ovriokastro to its source, where we arrive at that of another rema, flowing to the plain of Suli, and from thence, after having crossed some cultivated heights which extend in the direction of Kalamo, arrive at 4.35 at Grammatiko, a village of 30 or 40 houses, prettily situated in a sequestered hollow among orchards and corn-fields. In one of these orchards the rain has lately brought to light a sepulchral stone, adorned in the usual manner with a pediment, below which are three figures about one quarter of the human size, in high relief. A woman seated has her right hand joined to that of another woman standing: between them is a man with a front face in lower relief. The women are clothed in long drapery, covered with a loose upper robe thrown over the shoulders; above the three figures are the names ΘΕΟΓΈΝΙΣ ΝΙΚΟΔΗΜΟΣ ΠΟΛΥΛΛΟ almost obliterated: the form of the characters is of a good time, as well as the style of the sculpture. The monument, as well as the situation of the place, leave little doubt that Grammatiko was the site of a demus; but there is no clue to guide us to the name.
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§ 2.437 Jan. 30.—At 8.24, leaving Grammatiko, we ascend a high round ridge north-westward of it, which I observed from the summit of Parries. It is usually called the mountain of Varnava (Barnabas), from a small village below it on the side towards Tatoy. It is higher than either Dhimiko, or the hill of St. Demetrius, which is another similar summit between Grammatiko and Marathona. The mountain of Varnava terminates abruptly at the sea in a rocky peak to the south-east of Kalamo, which I have remarked from several points, among others from Psilirakhi. Inland this mountain takes a sweep at the back of Kalamo, where one of its highest tops is called Mavronoro, and despite its name, is, like the greater part of the ridge, a round bare white rock. From thence there is a branch of rugged pine-clad hills as far as Oropo, which place is situated at the foot of the extremity of this ridge. Though much broken, it is in all parts a cultivable mountain with an easy slope. It comprises all the territory of Markopulo and Kalamo, except a small plain on the sea-side northward of Kalamo, and another smaller to the southward;
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§ 2.438 Kalamo itself standing on an extremity of the hills between them. I take these mountains to be the ancient Phelleus. Having crossed the ridge of Varnava, we begin to descend at 9.15, and at 9.30 having the highest summit on the right, arrive at a Hellenic tower, half ruined, and prettily covered with ivy. Just below it is a fine source of water and a ruined church, in which are some pieces of small columns, with a fragment, preserving part of a figure in low relief. Both the tower and the sculpture are like almost every thing ancient in Attica, of white marble. They indicate the site of another of the demi of Mount Phelleus, of which we shall never know the names, unless some inscriptions should hereafter reveal them. Near the ancient tower stands another of modern date. The village of Varnava is not far below us on the left. After a loss of ten minutes we continue our progress over a mountainous road, through a country in which there is some cultivated land amidst oaks, pirnaria, and the common shrubs. At 10.10 we are opposite the opening of Tatoy, in the ridge which joins Parnes to Pentelicum: the summit of Hymettus is seen over the opening. Many torrents as we proceed flow to the right in deep ravines towards the sea, particularly one which we cross a quarter of an hour short of Kalamo, and which terminates in the small maritime plain already mentioned. Others on the left of the road contribute to the river of Marathon. Kalamo, where we arrive at 11.23, is situated on the heights above the sea, in face of the deep gulf of Aliveri, in Euboea.
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§ 2.439 It belongs to the district of Livadhia, contains about 200 houses, and has an air of improvement and comparative opulence: there are several new houses of two stories, smartly white-washed, and having outhouses and inclosed yards. The Proestos has even glass to his windows. The hill above Kalamo commands a good view of all the surrounding parts of Attica and Boeotia, and of the opposite coast of Euboea. On that shore, a little to the northward of Porto Bufalo is seen Dhysta, a village with a pyrgo and lake, then the southern cape of the Bay of Aliveri, and Aliveri village, at the bottom of the bay, about two miles from the shore. The coast has a westerly direction from thence as far as Eretria. To the southward of Aliveri, the position of a Hellenic ruin near Kalentzi is pointed out to me, bearing N. 73 E. On the northern side of the plain, snowy cliffs which I observed from Psilirakhi reach from N. 35 E. to N. 18 K, to the westward of which latter direction is seen the village of Ghymno, situated in a plain, at the foot of a high mountain which extends to Eretria. Ghymno is perhaps the site of Tamynae, and the mountain the ancient Cotylaion. The acropolis of Eretria is visible, and on the adjacent coast four small rocky islands. The topography of the Euripus is well seen. Fyla, which bears N. 28 1/2W., seems to have derived its name from its position exactly on the communication between the plains of Egripo and Vasiliko,
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§ 2.440 and occupies perhaps the site of an ancient fortress named Φυλή. Beyond the town of Egripo, the cliffs which stretch along the coast from Politika northward are again conspicuous, and their highest point, Kandili, bearing N. 24 W. The principal summits near Chalcis and Thebes are easily recognized. The easternmost point of the Boeotian shore is in a line with the summit of Othrys. Kumi, the ancient Cume, from which the towns of the same name in Ionia and Campania were named, lies on the eastern end of the cliffs, which are to the north of Aliveri. An inscription at Kalamo contains a grant of proxenia by the Oropii to one Oinophilus of Crete, and directs a copy of the decree to be placed on a pillar in the temple of Amphiaraus. Quitting Kalamo at 1.40, and descending over the hills by a bad road, we arrive, at 2, at the great Charadra, or torrent, which I observed from the summit of Mount Parnes, and which is said to contain water all the year. The place is called Mavro-dhilissi, to distinguish it from another Dhilissi beyond Oropo; and there was probably once a village of that name, but no habitations now exist, though the sides of the hills are well cultivated; a mile below, the torrent taking a great turn to the
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§ 2.441 right, enters the northern plain of Kalamo, and there joins the sea. There are many ancient remains at Mavro-dhilissi, particularly the foundations of walls on the steep slope of the hills on either side of the ravine, which seem to have been intended only for supporting terraces, some of those on the slope of the northern hill being traceable parallel to each other at small distances. A more explanatory relic of antiquity, however, has been lately brought to light by the rains, and is now lying near some ancient foundations. It is part of a cornice of some great building, formed of white marble, and inscribed with the letters AEI in large characters of the best times, deeply engraved, and at a great distance asunder. Another and larger portion of the same cornice was not long since carried to Kalamo, to be used in the new buildings where I saw it. The latter is inscribed with the letters ΤΟΣΑΜΦΙ. From this evidence of the practice of resorting to Mavrodhilissi for the materials of the buildings which have lately been erected at Kalamo, there can be little doubt that the inscribed marble, now at Kalamo, which records the favours granted to Oinophilus, was brought from Mavro-dhilissi, as well as another which has been carried from Kalamo to Athens, and which, like the former, appears to have been anciently deposited in the temple of Amphiaraus. The ΑΜΦΙ on the cornice at Kalamo, may be a part of the name Amphiaraus, and all the three monuments, therefore, concur in proving this place to be the site of the Amphiaraeium, which having stood near Psaphis, between Rhamnus and Oropus
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§ 2.442 on the road from Athene to the latter place, and not far from the sea, agrees in position with Mavro-dhilissi. As the words of Strabo imply only that the temple was near, and not at Psaphis, and as Kalamo stands in a situation which the ancients are likely to have occupied, it is very probably the site of that Attic demus, for such Psaphis became, although originally, as it would seem from Strabo, it was a dependency of Oropus, and consequently a part of the Boeotian community. At 2.30, I begin to descend from Mavro-dhilissi through a gorge in the hills by a gradual slope, and in a few minutes perceive the village of Markopulo on the left, in a lofty situation, and distant about as far from the left bank of the torrent of Mavro-dhilissi, as Kalamo is from the right. At 2.53 enter a plain which extends along the shore as far as the mouth of the Asopus, and immediately afterwards cross another, great rema, now dry. At 3.3 pass a third torrent of the same kind, not far to the right of a range of cultivated hills, which are a continuation of Mavronoro. At 3.21 arrive at “the Holy Apostles,” so called from a ruined church,
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§ 2.443 near which is a hut with some gardens and wells, situated on the sea side, in the centre of a bay included between two low projecting points about two miles asunder. Here are some remains of a Hellenic wall just within the sea, apparently an ancient jetty, and in the church a fragment of a small Doric column. Opposite to Apostolus, on the shore of Euboea, is Kastri, the site of Eretria, which celebrated city stood on a projection of the coast, at the southwestern extremity of a great plain extending inland between two high mountains, and containing the village of Ghymno. At the opposite comer of the plain is Vathy, a small village near the shore. The entire circuit of the ruined walls and towers of the acropolis of Eretria, still subsist on a rocky height, which is separated from the shore by a marshy plain. At the foot of the hill are remains of the theatre, and in the plain a large portion of the town walls, with many foundations of buildings in the inclosed space. The situation was defended to the west by a river, and on the opposite side by a marsh. Above Apostolus rises an insulated hill, having a small conical termination on the further part of the summit, where I find some foundations of ancient walls, amidst a heap of rough stones. They seem to be the remains of a small fortress or watch-tower. The monastery of Ambighi is seen from hence, pleasantly situated in a wood on the mountain side, at about one third of the distance from Markopulo to Oropo. Markopulo, as well as Apostolus, belongs to Rashid Bey of Egripo.
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§ 2.444 At the foot of the same height on the western side, and not far from Apostolus, a ruined chapel contains a sepulchral stone inscribed with the name Τιμανδριδης, in neat and antique characters. In a little rema at the foot of the height, nearer the sea, are some ancient squared blocks of stone. Leaving the foot of this hill at 4.5, and crossing the plain at no great distance from the right bank of the Asopus, we arrive at 4.37 at Oropo This village, which contains about thirty houses, with a pyrgo and kiosk of the Turkish Spahi, stands on the lower heights of the ridge of Markopulo, above some gardens containing a few olive and fig-trees, which extend to the Asopus. The hills above the village are partly clothed with pines: their highest summit, which is at no great distance to the southward, is called Karakaxa. The plain of Oropo extends along the sea shore from Apostolus to the village of Alikuki, a distance of about three miles, and narrows from its maritime base, until it ends in the angle, not quite so distant from the sea, where Oropo and Sykamino are separated from each other only by the Asopus. A summit on the south-eastern side of Oropo has the appearance of an acropolis; no remains of walls are to be seen, but at the foot of the hill several ancient sepulchres were uncovered by the floods of last October, when among other usual contents of Greek tombs, were found many heads of spears and lances made of brass, some of which I purchase from the people of the village.
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§ 2.445 These remains of antiquity, added to the preservation of the ancient name without any corruption, cannot leave much doubt as to the position of the city, notwithstanding that they are in contradiction to some authorities, from which Oropus would seem to have stood on the sea coast. Strabo, continuing his route along the coast from south to north, notices next to the Amphiaraeium the sacred port of Delphinium, and twenty stades beyond it Oropus, then Delium. Opposite to Delphinium was Old Eretria in Euboea, and, opposite to Oropus, New Eretria: the passage across the strait in the former situation was sixty stades, in the latter forty. As the mouth of the Asopus makes a projection in the coast, and narrows the strait between it and Kastri, from whence the shore of Euboea retires in an easterly direction to Vathy, leaving the respective breadths of the channel from the mouth of the Asopus to those two places, nearly as Strabo has indicated, his description leads directly to the conclusion that Oropus was at or near the mouth of the Asopus, New Eretria at Kastri, Delphinium at Apostolus, and Old Eretria at Vathy or thereabouts; and this maritime position of Oropus is
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§ 2.446 confirmed by other authorities. Pausanias describes it as being επι θαλάσσης. and we learn from Diodorus that in the year B.C. 402, the Thebans, who had taken it from the Athenians in the twentieth winter of the Peloponnesian war, removed the inhabitants, in consequence of a sedition, to a distance of seven stades from the sea Perhaps this latter fact may lead to an explanation of the difficulty. As the removal was evidently made for the purpose of placing the town out of the reach of the Athenian ships, an opposite motive may have induced the Athenians to make it a maritime town when it was in their possession. Oropo, therefore, I conceive to have been the site of the original Boeotian city, as well as that to which the Thebans removed the Oropii, though it must be admitted that the distance is greater than the seven stades of Diodorus; and here they probably remained for a long time, even after the cession of Oropus to the Athenians by Philip, and the destruction of Thebes by Alexander, for Dicaearchus, after the restoration of that city by Cassander, still describes Oropus as belonging to, or as being a colony of Thebes, although he describes the Oropii as Athenian Boeotians, an expression which he applies also to the Plataeenses. As to the επί θαλάσσης of Pausanias, there seems no mode of accounting for it, but by the supposition that the Oropii had, in his time, again removed to the sea.
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§ 2.447 They then occupied, perhaps, the site of Delphinium at Apostοlus, for it is remarkable that Pausanias makes no mention of Delphinium, and his distance of twelve stades from Oropus to the Amphiaraeium, though still much within the real distance from Apostolus to Mavro-dhilissi, will at least be fifteen stades nearer the truth, than if the Oropus of his time had been at Oropo. There are several ruined churches at Oropo which show that it was once a Christian town of some importance. One of them contains a broken marble inscribed with portions of three decrees of Proxenia by the people of Tanagra; one of the foreigners is of Chalcis, the native city of the two others is not preserved. The inscription is valuable from being, like those of Orchomenus, in the Aeolic or Bοeotic dialect; but there is some difficulty in accounting for its being found here, for
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§ 2.448 Tanagra could not have been less than four miles distant from hence, and the Bοeotic dialect was probably not employed at Oropus, unless in the ages prior to its dependence upon Attica. The inscriptions found at Mavro-dhilissi, which was in the Oropia, are in Hellenic, and three tombstones at Oropo bearing names, have the father’s in the possessive case, which was the Attic method, and not the usual Boeotian form. It is observable, however, that they have not the name of the demus, which favours the supposition, that Oropus never was an Attic demus. The probability is, that the Tanagraean decree, which is on a thin slab of white marble, and lies in a ruined church, unattached to the building, was brought to Oropo from the deserted site of Tanagra, for the purpose of preserving it, as the Greeks are often in the habit of doing when they find inscribed marbles. Having crossed the Asopus, we arrive in fifteen minutes at Sykamino, which is now smaller than Oropo, and does not possess so many zevgaria, though three ruined churches, and some modern remains upon the hill above the village, show that it was once a place of greater magnitude than it is at present. It stands exactly at the opening of the ravine through which the Asopus finds its way from the plain of Tanagra. The channel of the river is now quite dry: the modern name, which in the interior is Vuriemi, is here pronounced Vuriendi. In one of the churches is still preserved the sepulchral inscription in memory of Aphrodisius, son of Zoilus, of Oropus, which was published by Spon.
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§ 2.449 Jan. 31.—Having sent my baggage horses to Skimatari by a road which leads by Inia and the left bank of the Asopus, I follow the Egripo road, at 8.23, in search of Delium, and cross the hills extending from Sykamino to the sea. These are partly in cultivation, and partly consist of a forest of pines, among which there is some good pasture; for some time our road lies in a line parallel to the shore at the distance of about a mile, but at length, at 9.15, descends upon the sea-beach. In three minutes more, after passing a ruined church in which are some ancient fragments, we again leave the sea-side and enter a small plain, which is about a mile in width at the water-side, and narrows from thence to Dhilissi, situated at its southern extremity, where I arrive at 9.25. The village consists only of five or six houses and a roofless chapel, where are some Hellenic fragments and squared stones, a large bowl made of stone, 2 feet I inch in diameter, 4 inches thick, 9 inches high, pierced with a hole in the centre, and op the outside cut into furrows. In a field below the chapel there is a large wrought stone of five sides, or rather quadrilateral, with one angle cut off. There is no water here, and the village is supplied from wells near the sea-shore.
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§ 2.450 Delium is described by Strabo as a temple of Apollo, and a small town of the Tanagraei, thirty stades distant from Aulis. It is celebrated for having witnessed the defeat of both the most illustrious people of antiquity. That of the Romans by a part of the army of Antiochus I have already had occasion to refer to. In the eighth year of the Peloponnesian war, the Athenians formed a design against Boeotia, which was to be executed in the beginning of the winter by simultaneous operations at the two extremities of that province. On the Phocic frontier a revolt in the cities of Siphae and Chaeroneia was to be supported by a landing at Siphae of Acarnanian auxiliaries from the Athenian fleet, which was at Naupactus, under the command of Demosthenes, while the Athenians from the Attic frontier were to seize and fortify Delium. The Boeotians, however, obtained notice of the design, Demosthenes failed at Siphae, and the Boeotians had time to place garrisons in the disaffected places on the Phocic frontier, and to return to Tanagra before the Athenians had been more than three days at Delium. During that time Hippocrates, the Athenian commander, had fortified the consecrated ground at Delium, after which his army encamped among the hills between Delium and Oropus, at a distance of ten stades from the former. The Boeotians consisted of 7000 hoplitae, 10,000 light-armed, 600 peltastae, and 1000 cavalry. The Athenians had about the same force of hoplitae, and were well provided with cavalry, but they had no light troops, except some followers of the regulars, indifferently
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§ 2.451 armed, the greater part of whom, as soon as the fortifications were finished and the army in position, returned to Athens. It was towards evening when Pagondas of Thebes, the Boeotian commander, advanced from Tanagra. Hippocrates, who happened to be at Delium, joined his camp as soon as he heard of the enemy’s approach, leaving 300 horsemen to protect the fortress and to act during the battle according to circumstances. The two armies were separated by a hill and unseen to each other, until Pagondas, crossing the ridge, advanced in quick time, and was met in like manner by the Athenians. The extremities of either line were prevented from encountering by certain ravines, but in the centre there was close fighting. The Athenians overthrew the left of their opponents’ centre, where the Thespienses were the chief sufferers, but on their own left were obliged to give way before the Thebans, whose phalanx was twenty-five file in depth, while that of the Athenians had a depth of only eight. Pagondas at this moment sent to the relief of his left a body of cavalry which, appearing suddenly from behind the hill, made the Athenians suppose that the enemy had received a reinforcement, and caused them, though victorious in that part of the line, to retreat just about the time that the Thebans had broken the adverse phalanx; a complete defeat of the Athenians was the consequence, and it would have been still more disastrous had not Pagondas on the approach of night withdrawn his forces to Tanagra. Some of the Athenians reached Delium, others Oropus, and others the
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§ 2.452 heights of Parnes, after having suffered greatly from the Boeotian cavalry, and from some Locri who had just arrived to the assistance of the Boeotians. To the request of the Athenians for permission to inter their dead, Pagondas replied, that if the dead were in Boeotia, the Athenians might carry them away on quitting the Boeotian territory, but that if they were on the Athenian territory, it was for themselves to act as they thought proper; by this answer implying, that the cession of the Oropia was to be the condition of compliance with their request, Oropia being a Boeotian district which had been conquered by the Athenians. It shows that the boundary of the Oropia and Tanagrice was less than ten stades to the eastward of Delium. On the seventeenth day after the battle, Pagondas took the fortress which the Athenians had constructed at Delium. The description of it by Thucydides gives a good idea of a Greek fieldwork, and the mode in which it was destroyed by the enemy is not less curious. In fortifying the place, the Athenians first excavated a trench round the consecrated ground containing together with the temple, the portico of which was in ruins, a well, or source of water. Having thrown the earth of the ditch outwards, they drove a circle of piles along the edge of the ditch, and then filled the interval between the piles and the embankment with mixed materials composed of earth, of vines which grew around the temple, and of some ruined buildings. On the summit of the wall thus constructed they erected wooden towers. It was not until the Boeotians had been reinforced from Corinth and Megara
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§ 2.453 and by the Peloponnesian garrison which the Athenians had recently driven out of Nisaea, as well as by some archers and slingers from the towns of the Maliac Gulf, that they ventured to return from Tanagra to Delium in order to attack the fortress. After several attempts they succeeded in setting fire to the combustible materials of the walls. Their engine for this purpose was nothing more than a hollow mast or trunk of a tree, to one end of which was adjusted a cauldron filled with charcoal, sulphur, and pitch, and to the other a pair of bellows, for the purpose of raising the fire as soon as the cauldron was brought in contact with the rampart. The machine having been conveyed to the fortress upon carts, the conflagration of the wood and vine branches soon obliged the garrison to abandon the walls. Some of them were slain, 200 were made prisoners, the remainder escaped to their ships and to Athens. The facility with which the Athenians retreated to their vessels renders it probable that Delium was situated not at the modern village, but on the sea-shore, where alone wells are now found corresponding to the “water at the temple” mentioned by Thucydides. But Livy is decisive on this point. His words are, Templum est Apollinis Delium imminens mari; quinque millia passuum a Tanagra abest; minus quatuor millium inde in proxima Euboeae est mari trajectus.
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§ 2.454 The ιερον, therefore, with its consecrated ground and surrounding vineyards, was near the shore, and the πολιχνιον, or small town of Delium, at the modern village of Dhilissi. Having ascended a narrow but well cultivated valley from Dhilissi, I arrive in thirty-five minutes at a source of water and a reservoir, from whence the remains of an aqueduct are traceable in the direction of Dhilissi. A road to Dhramisi, Vathy, and Egripo turns off at the reservoir to the right.
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§ 2.455 Soon afterwards we enter an open country well cultivated, and in twenty-seven minutes enter the [plan of Tanagra] village of Skimatari. Three miles to the southward of it is Grimadha or Grimala, once perhaps the name of a modern village, but now attached only to the ruins of a Hellenic city which was certainly Tanagra, and which seems to preserve some traces of its Homeric name Γραία. in the present appellation. Tanagra was advantageously situated in the center of a fertile champaign, consisting of plains and undulated ground included between Mount Parnes and the Euboic frith, and extending in the other direction from the Thebaea to the Oropia. Standing at the eastern extremity of the ridge of Mount Soro, and not far from the root of Mount Parnes, which stretches to Delium and Oropus, it was placed exactly in the point of communication between the plains at the foot of Parnes and those towards Aulis and the sea. The town was near two miles in circumference, of an irregular form, determined by the nature of the ground, which consists of a height commanded by the eastern extremity of the ridge of Soro, at the distance of about a mile above the junction of the Vuriemi or Asopus with a rivulet named Lari, which we crossed midway from Skimatari. The upper angle of the site is rocky and abrupt, and looks down on a natural terrace, below which stood the
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§ 2.456 body of the town on a broad level raised a little above the third or lowest plain which reaches to the two rivers, and has a breadth varying from three to five hundred yards. The town walls followed the crest of the height and the last falls of the ground above the plain. No acropolis is distinguishable, though probably there was some interior inclosure at the upper angle. About one hundred yards below the summit are ruins of a theatre excavated in the bank which separates the highest point from the terrace immediately below it. Its diameter is between three and four hundred feet. A part of the masonry which supported the two ends of the cavea remains, but neither seats nor proscenium are visible, nor any vestiges of the stoa which Pausanias describes as attached to the theatre of Tanagra. On the terrace below the theatre, to the north-east of it, are the well-constructed foundations of a public building, formed of marble of a very dark colour, with a green cast. The city walls, which are of ordinary limestone, are a mere heap of ruins, though they are traceable in the whole periphery, as well as many of the towers. The masonry is almost regular, and as usual is faced only with wrought stones, the center being filled with rubble. On the left bank of the Asopus, a little above its junction with the Lari, stands a mill which is turned by derivations from both the rivers, and opposite to their junction, not far from the right bank of the Asopus, is one of the high towers which I have before alluded to, as not unfrequent in Boeotia, and as having been built probably by the Franks.
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§ 2.457 This tower has since been converted into a Greek church, in which are lying several fluted Doric shafts covered with a coat of stucco, and a large rectangular block of the same kind of black marble as that which was used in the great building in the city. Inscribed on it, in characters of ancient date, is the name ΗΣΧΙΝΑΣ, the Boeotic form of Αισχίνης, In the wall on the outside of the tower is another inscribed marble, but not of the dark kind. The inscription begins with an epigram in two elegiac couplets, showing that the stone supported a statue dedicated by one Phorystas, son of Triax, who had obtained a victory in the games of Jupiter, and who, upon several other occasions, had been the first in the foot race. Below the verses, which are in common Hellenic, is a decree of Proxenia, in Boeotic, by the people of Tanagra, in favour of one Dioscorides of Athens; the form is exactly similar to that of the Tanagraean decrees at
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§ 2.458 Oropo. There is no apparent connection of subject between the epigram and the decree, and it is difficult to understand how they came to be on the same stone. But that the verses should be in Hellenic and the decree in Boeotic is not surprising, even if we suppose them to be contemporary, since Pindar preferred the Doric to his own native dialect, and poets claimed the privilege as early as the time of Homer, of using any dialect or all of them at once. Diplomacy on the other hand, appears to have preserved the local forms in many parts of Greece, even after the period when they ceased to be in common use. We find in the first inscription, that while the poet wrote in Hellenic, the maker of the statue recorded his name in Boeotic by the words Kαφισιας επόεισε. In the Augustan age Tanagra and Thespiae were the principal towns of Boeotia, and were larger, or at least more populous, than Thebes. In the time of the Antonines Thebes seems to have recovered a little, but Tanagra still possessed the lands of Aulis, Harma, and Mycalessus. Pausanias praises the Tanagraei for having placed their sacred buildings in a place entirely separated from, and unmixed with, the houses of the town, whence it would seem that all the temples mentioned by him were on the height near the theatre, where, unincumbered by any ordinary buildings, they were seen undoubtedly to great advantage.
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§ 2.459 The principal temple was that of Bacchus, which contained a statue in Parian marble by Calamis, and the figure of a headless triton. Near it were temples of Themis, of Venus, and of Apollo, in which last Diana and Latona were also honoured. All these buildings may have stood on the platform which still exists. There were two temples of Mercury, in one of which he was surnamed Criophorus, in the other Promachus: in the former he was represented in a statue made by Calamis as bearing a ram on his shoulders. The latter temple was near the theatre, and probably near the gymnasium also, the surname having been derived from a fable of the Tanagraei, according to which Mercury had led them to victory against the Eretrienses, marching at the head of the ephebi, armed only with a strigil. The same gymnasium contained a picture of Corinna with the band of victory on her head, and represented as so beautiful that Pausanias is disposed to attribute her success over Pindar to this cause, not less than to the Aeolic dialect of her verses, which had an advantage over the Doric of her great rival in being more intelligible to her hearers. There was also a monument of Corinna in a conspicuous part of the city. At a place called Poloson was the observatory of Atlas, and on Mount Cerycium, in which mountain the Tanagraei reported that Mercury was born, was the tomb of Orion. If we are to take literally the assertion of Pausanias, that these two places were “in Tanagra,” it would follow that Mount Cerycium was no other than the height above the theatre, and perhaps that Cerycium was the name of the acropolis, and that

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