THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF ILLNIOIS ' 
 
1/ 
 
JOURNAL 
 
 OF A 
 
 TOUR IN GREECE. 
 
LIBRARY 
 OF THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
JOUHNAL 
 
 OF A 
 
 TOUE IN GEEECE 
 
 AND THE 
 
 IONIAN ISLANDS, 
 
 WITH KEMARKS ON THE RECENT HISTORY— PRESENT STATE— AND 
 CLASSICAL ANTIQUITIES OF THOSE COUNTRIES. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM MURE, OF CALDWELL. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. L 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, 
 EDI^^BURGH AND LONDON. 
 M.DCCC.XLIL 
 
JOUHNAL 
 
 OF A 
 
 TOUE IN GREECE 
 
 AND THE 
 
 IONIAN ISLANDS, 
 
 WITH REMARKS ON THE RECENT HISTORY— PRESENT STATE— AND 
 CLASSICAL ANTIQUITIES OF THOSE COUNTRIES. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM MURE, OF CALDWELL. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. L 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND 
 EDII^BURGH AND LONDON. 
 M.DCCC.XLIL 
 
 SONS, 
 
EDINBURGH ; PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND HUGHES, 
 PAUL'S WOEK, CANONGATE. 
 
55 \ A . '"k,^ 
 
 CONTENT S 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 T Tage 
 Introductory Notice, 
 
 CHAPTER 1. Voyage from Ancona— Coast of Epirus— First 
 
 impressions of Corfu, 1 
 
 n. Corfu— its intercourse with the opposite coast, 7 
 III. Albanian Travellhag Servant, and Greek Tra- 
 
 veUing, 20 
 
 5 Ionian Sea— Eirst impressions of Ithaca, . 36 
 
 ^ Y. Crime, and Criminal justice in Ithaca, . . 46 
 
 ^ VI. Topography of Ithaca, 60 
 
 c VII. Voyage to Petala— Eirst impressions of Conti- 
 
 nental Greece— Mouth of Acheloiis, . . 82 
 VIIL Pastoral habits of Greece, ancient and modern, 9 1 
 IX. River Acheloiis—Echinades— Ruins of GEni- 
 
 ad£e, 102 
 
 ^ X. Katochi — Acarnanian Peasantry — Village 
 
 a6 Demarchus, X16 
 
 •551 XL ^toha—Anatoliko—Mesolonghi-— Ruins of 
 
 j Pleuron 127 
 
 XII. Mesolonghi— its defence against the Turks— 
 ^ Character of modern Greek nation, . . 143 
 g XIIL Voyage up the Corinthian Gulf— Crissa— Sa- 
 I cred Plain pf Apollo, 169 
 
iv 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 CHAP. XIY. Delphi, 185 
 
 XY. Aracova — the Cleft Way — Death of Laius — 
 
 Daulis, 199 
 
 XYI. Yiew of Parnassus — Panopea — Chaeronea, . 207 
 XYII. Field of Chseronea — Monument of Boeotian 4 
 slain — Orchomenus — Lake Copa'is, . . 218 
 XYIII. Livadia — Khan of, and its inmates, . . 229 
 XIX. Lake Copais — Haliartus — Thebes. . . 248 
 XX. Cithseron — Bacchse of Euripides — Plataea — 
 
 Battle of, 262 
 
 XXL Plataea — Character of its Citizens — its destruc- 
 tion by Sparta — Kemarks on Spartan cha- 
 racter, 273 
 
 Additional Notes, . . 285 
 
INTRODUCTOEY NOTICE. 
 
 Greece is a country which can never cease to assert 
 a powerful hold on the sympathies of enlightened Europe, 
 whether from the charm of her historical recollections, 
 the beauty of her scenery, or the grandeur and elegance 
 of her ancient monuments. It is, however, very doubtful 
 how far her own claims on public attention may be fa- 
 vourable to the interest of a work, the scope of which is 
 to extend or enforce them. Her objects of attraction, 
 as being superior in character to those of which most 
 other countries can boast, have been very frequently and 
 ably described ; but as, on the other hand, they are not 
 perhaps equally remarkable for number or variety, there 
 is here the less room for exercise of ingenuity, in impart- 
 ing popularity to an old subject by a new method of 
 treatment. As regards her social condition, during the 
 last two centuries that Greece has been habitually fre~ 
 
vi 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTICE, 
 
 quented by Frank travellers, she has remained — up to a 
 very recent period — altogether stationary ; so that no- 
 velty was perhaps still less to be expected in the portion 
 of any such work devoted to what is called, in the tech- 
 nical language of the present day, the personal narrative, 
 than in its literary or scientific department. Although, 
 therefore, the description of any newly-discovered monu- 
 ment, or hitherto little explored region of the classic 
 land, might hope for some share of attention from the 
 practical scholar or antiquary, the announcement of a 
 volume of Greek travels seemed to promise little more 
 to the general reader, than an addition to an already 
 superabundant stock of treatises on a somewhat thread- 
 bare subject. 
 
 Of late yeats, however, new and interesting matter of 
 observation has been opened up to the curious traveller 
 in this apparently exhausted region, by the political 
 changes it has undergone — by the overthrow of the 
 Turkish dynasty within its bounds, its establishment as 
 an independent state, and the eight years of extermin- 
 ating war of which these events were the consequence. 
 Formerly a tour in Greece was, in fact, and frequently 
 was entitled, a tour in Turkey. The mountains, rivers, 
 seas, and ancient monuments, were those of Hellas ; but 
 all the more prominent features of human life and action 
 were foreign to her soil. Such a work, therefore, partook 
 perhaps more of an oriental, than of either an European 
 or a classical character. The author transplanted us 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. yii 
 
 into a world of mosques and harems — of pashas and 
 agas— of firmans, Tatars, and Janissaries. The actual 
 Greek population, the real children of the soil, had but 
 little part in the matter; unless through the medium of 
 an incidental malediction against their sordid servile 
 character, or a lamentation over their fallen state, and 
 the cruel tyranny to which they were subjected by their 
 Turkish masters, according as the traveller might happen 
 to be influenced by the humour of the moment, or the 
 bias of his political predilections. 
 
 This long famihar picture of oriental life is now 
 effaced. The Turk, with all the appendages of Mos- 
 lemism, has been swept off the land, and the Greek re- 
 instated in its exclusive possession. The titles above 
 cited from the court calendar of Constantinople, have 
 been supplanted by the more classic sounding appella- 
 tives of Nomarches and Demarchus— Strategos and 
 Chiliarchos.* The whole appearance of the country, 
 and of its towns and villages, has been changed— unfor- 
 tunately not for the better. The old Greek population, 
 on entering on their new career of independence, have 
 assumed, in many respects, a new and improved charac- 
 ter. Many favourable traits, which had lain smothered 
 under the Turkish oppression, have been brought to 
 light; and the natural talent of the race, universally 
 acknowledged to be great, although for the present per- 
 
 * Governor—- mayor, or justice of peace— general— colonel. 
 
viii INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 
 
 haps little favoured by circumstances, will, it is to be 
 hoped, daily obtain a wider and more beneficial field for 
 its display; while the anomalous features which the 
 sudden transition from bondage to independence could 
 not fail to stamp on the character and habits of a lively 
 people, render the study of both replete with amusement, 
 as well as instruction. 
 
 To place this altered state of society in as distinct a 
 light as the author's opportunities would permit, has 
 been the scope of a considerable portion of the following 
 journal. His passage through the country was indeed 
 rapid — far too much so for the execution of any finished 
 picture. Possibly, however, any Uttle value to which his 
 sketches can lay claim, may not be diminished by the 
 circumstance that they embody the lively impression of 
 the moment, rather than the results of elaborate study 
 and analysis.* 
 
 But although it is to the personal narrative that the 
 author has chiefly to look for any small share of general 
 popularity his pages may be destined to obtain, so little 
 has it been his object to exclude the classical or antiqua- 
 rian element, which indeed can hardly fail to enter into 
 a work of this nature, that he has rather perhaps reason 
 to fear, lest it should have been placed more in the as- 
 
 * It may be proper to remark, in illustration of certain parts of his 
 journal, that the author travelled under the military title of Colonel, 
 which appertains to him as Commandant of a Scottish regiment of 
 militia. 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTICE, ix 
 
 Cendant than may be agreeable to many. It has, how- 
 ever, been his wish to confine it to matters not altogether 
 devoid of interest, even to those who may not have made 
 classic lore an especial object of study ; together with 
 such notices of existing monuments — some of them not 
 previously explored or described— as the future traveller 
 in the same route, who might consider his journal worth 
 consulting, would be entitled to expect. Whatever ap- 
 peared to exceed these limits has been embodied in the 
 notes. 
 
 The portion of the text devoted to the Ionian islands 
 has been bestowed chiefly on Ithaca, an island possessing, 
 both in its classical recollections and in its present social 
 condition, strong claims on the attention of the intelli- 
 gent traveller. 
 
 For the better understanding of the historical allusions 
 interspersed throughout these pages, a brief summary is 
 here subjoined of the events which led to the late change 
 in the political state of Greece. The revolt from the 
 Sultan was originally planned and matured by a Secret 
 Society, called the Hetceria^ which had for its object to 
 re-awaken and keep alive the dormant national spirit, 
 until a favourable opportunity should occur for calling it 
 into activity. The remote origin of this association has 
 been traced as far back as the close of the last century ; 
 but it was first fully organized, at Athens, in 1814. From 
 thence it soon spread over the whole of European 
 Turkey ; and the perfect secrecy maintained, consider- 
 
X INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 
 
 ing the number and miscellaneous character of its mem- 
 bers, is certainly very creditable to the Greek character. 
 The first outbreak took place early in 1821, in the pro- 
 vinces of the Danube, but was speedily suppressed. The 
 rising of the Morea, in April of the same year, was more 
 successful. The Turks were defeated in several pitched 
 battles; — Navarin,* Tripolizza, the metropolis of the 
 Peninsula,! and other towns, were taken ; and before the 
 conclusion of the year the whole of the Morea, with the 
 exception of one or two fortresses, was in the possession 
 of the Greeks. The insurrection spread north of the 
 Isthmus, and to the islands. In the course of the year 
 1822, Corinthjf Athens5§ and Nauplia,]] fell into the 
 hands of the patriots, who soon obtained, together with 
 the superiority at sea, virtual mastery of the whole 
 country they now possess ; and successfully resisted or 
 destroyed all the powerful armaments fitted out by the 
 Sultan for the re-establishment of his authority. These 
 fair prospects were damped by the appearance of Ibra- 
 him Pasha in the port of Navarin, on the 24th of Feb- 
 ruary 1825, with the fleets and armies of Egypt. The 
 Morea was speedily overrun by his troops. Tripolizza,^ 
 Mesolonghi,*^ and Athens, tt were successively retaken, 
 and the cause of the insurgents seemed desperate, when 
 the triple alliance interfered. The battle of Navarin was 
 
 * August. t October 5. J January 26. § May 13. 
 
 II December. f June 20, 1825. ** April 22, 1826. 
 
 tt June 5, 1827. 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. xi 
 
 fought on the 20th of October 1827 ; and the subsequent 
 diplomatic arrangements established Greece as an inde- 
 pendent state,* the boundaries of which were fixed by a 
 Une drawn from the gulf of Arta to the pass of Ther- 
 mopylse. 
 
 The form of government first attempted was repub- 
 lican ; but was productive of little else than dissension 
 and anarchy. Count Capo d'Istria, who enjoyed the 
 • title of President, was assassinated, from motives of pri- 
 vate malice, on the 9th of October 1831. The supreme 
 authority was then conferred, with the title of King, on 
 prince Otho, second son of the King of Bavaria, who 
 landed at Nauplia in January 1833, and fixed his seat 
 of government at Athens. A representative constitu- 
 tion was promised to the nation on the final establish- 
 ment of order and regular police; but the power of the 
 king in council still remains uncontrolled by any species 
 of popular check. 
 
 The whole population of continental Greece, accord- 
 ing to its present limits, prior to the revolution, has been 
 rated, apparently on trustworthy data, at about 560,000 
 souls.t It were to be supposed that, owing to the ex- 
 pulsion of the Turks and the disasters of the war, this 
 estimate ought now rather to be diminished. The go- 
 vernment returns, however, inserted in the Hellenic 
 
 * February 3, 1830. 
 
 t Gordon, History of Greek Revolution, vol. i. Introduction. 
 
Xii INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 
 
 Epheteris, or Almanack, for 1837, (the year preceding 
 the author's visit,) give 926,000 as the gross amount, for 
 both continent and islands. No returns are given of the 
 population of the towns. Athens, in 1838, was com- 
 monly held to contain 20,000 souls. 
 
 According to the same official document above quoted, 
 the standing army on the peace estabhshment numbers 
 13,326. The navy consists of thirty-two vessels, large 
 and small; the largest, a twenty-gun corvette. 
 
 The gross ordinary revenue for 1836 exceeded 
 £500,000,* and has since been on the increase. The 
 national debt, in the same year, amounted to about 
 £1,700,000 ; the civil list to £37,000. 
 
 The kingdom is divided into thirty governments or 
 prefectures, (dioeceses;) with eighteen subprefectures, 
 (hypodioeceses.) Each of these districts is subdistributed 
 into demi or mayoralties, chiefly presided over by re- 
 spectable peasants, to the number of about four hundred 
 and fifty. 
 
 Besides schools of theology, medicine, and jurispru- 
 dence, modern Hellas boasts of five gymnasia or univer- 
 sities, at Athens, Nauplia, Mesolonghi, Hydra, and Syra; 
 twenty-five academies, called Hellenic ; and upwards of 
 a hundred schools of a more elementary character, called 
 
 * 13,623,817 drachms. There are about twenty-seven drachms in a 
 pound sterling. A Spanish or Roman dollar passes current for six. 
 The drachm is subdivided into 100 lepta. 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 
 
 xiii 
 
 Demotic ; supported in whole or in greater part by the 
 government,*' 
 
 On the settlement of the new dynasty, the Hellenic 
 church threw off its allegiance to the patriarch of Con- 
 stantinople, and is governed by a synod of five prelates 
 selected by the king from the thirty bishops who form 
 the hierarchy of the establishment. 
 
 The monastic institutions are in course of being abo- 
 Hshed, with a few special exceptions; and their lands 
 appropriated by the State. 
 
 * Something is also contributed towards the maintenance of several 
 excellent schools, established in different parts of the kingdom bj 
 foreign, chiefly American, missionaries. 
 
 Caldwell, 1841 
 
TOUR IN GREECE. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 VOYAaE FROM ANCONA-COAST OF EPIRUS-FIRST IMPRESSIONS 
 OF CORFU. 
 
 Find. Nem. iv. 52. 
 
 " There, stretching from Dodona's sacred steep, 
 Huge cliffs extend along the Ionian deep." 
 
 On the afternoon of Saturday the 17th of February 
 1838, I embarked at Ancona in the Austrian steam- 
 packet for Corfu, which port we reached, after a fair 
 average passage, about the same hour on the second day. 
 The weather on the 18th was dull and dark. The 
 only visible objects, besides water and clouds, were the 
 numerous islands to the eastward, extending from the 
 coast of Dalmatia far into the centre of the gulf. They 
 are not remarkable for beauty, either of outline or 
 grouping; and although on a bright day, reheved by an 
 azure sea and sky, they may have a cheerful and pic- 
 turesque effect, their broken masses now tended but 
 little to enliven the general gloom of the prospect. But 
 on the following morning the view from the deck was 
 one of unusual splendour. The weather was clear, and 
 
 A 
 
2 
 
 CORFU. 
 
 the sun of Greece shone bright. We were now coasting 
 along the mainland of Epirus, which here consists of 
 one uninterrupted line of lofty mountains, extending 
 down to the water's edge in precipitous chffs or rugged 
 declivities, and terminating, often at no great distance 
 from the shore, in snowy peaks of dazzhng whiteness. 
 The prospect, in addition to its grandeur, had for me 
 all the charms of novelty; for, although famiUar, both in 
 Italy and in my own native country, with many a lofty 
 iron-bound coast, I do not remember having elsewhere 
 seen a continuous ridge of snow-capped mountains, rising 
 thus abruptly from the very brink of the sea. This 
 whole range bore among the ancients the very appro- 
 priate name of Acroceraunian, or Thunder-cliffs. The 
 general aspect, even of their less precipitous flanks, 
 was that of a barren rocky wilderness, relieved here 
 and there by a coating of heath or brushwood, or by 
 patches of stunted oak forest. Occasionally, in some 
 more sheltered recess, au Albanian village could be 
 recognised, more by the dark shade of a few stragghng 
 cypresses, than by its own cottages, rudely constructed 
 of broken fragments of the rock on which they are 
 founded, and from which they are not easily distinguished 
 either by their colour or form. In the midst of these 
 groups of hovels a better-looking structure might some- 
 times be observed, with an upper floor and a white- 
 washed exterior — the dwelling, perhaps, of a patriarchal 
 robber-chief,* or possibly, of some petty agent of Turkish 
 rapacity on the occupants of the humbler mansions by 
 which his seat of authority was surrounded. Over the 
 remoter summits rolled heavy masses of silver-white 
 
 ^ Among the Albanians, it may scarcely be necessary to remark, 
 robbery is one of the most honourable professions— as it was with the 
 population of the same country in the days of Thucydides, {Hist. 
 lib. i. c. 5.) 
 
CORFU. 
 
 3 
 
 cloud. But as the momentary clearing of the horizon 
 discovered from time to time, at the extremity of the 
 wider glens that opened up from the maritime ridge, 
 some distant peak of the interior, one delighted to figure 
 to one's-self the region of the " wintry Dodona," the 
 primeval seat of the Hellenic race— shorn, indeed, of its 
 ancient sanctity and honour, but still inhabited, as in 
 Homer's time, by a race "with unwashed feet, and sleep- 
 ing on the ground."* 
 
 There is something in this mode of forming a first 
 acquaintance with any country, especially one so rich in 
 associations, and so novel and romantic in appearance, 
 far more interesting than merely crossing a frontier or 
 disembarking on a coast. During six or seven hours, 
 the whole face of the land, or at least those features of 
 its surface that offered most to gratify and least to offfend 
 the imagination, lay spread out, as it were, on a map for 
 our inspection. If, on the one hand, it was tantahzing 
 to be unable to follow up this more general acquaintance 
 by a closer familiarity with the interior, the fancy had 
 at least free scope for filling up the deficiency from its 
 own resources, or from those which the poetical geo- 
 graphy of the district so richly supphed, without the 
 risk of its illusions being marred by the uncongenial 
 realities, which a day's march up the country could 
 hardly have failed to force on the attention. 
 
 As we advance, the coast of Corfu rises to the south, 
 presenting one long swelling mountain ridge. 
 
 Spread like a shield upon the dark blue sea."f 
 
 Towards the entrance of the channel, between the island 
 and the continent, the scene is enlivened. Numerous 
 
 ^ avi^roitohg^ yafijaizZvai, — II, xvi. 235. 
 
 f ors '^tvh h rjs^oeids/ ^ovtuj Od^ss. v. 281. 
 
4 corf6. 
 
 vessels are seen shaping their course in different direc- 
 tions ; the natural features of the Turkish coast become 
 less rugged, while its custom-houses and castles, of bright 
 exterior, and the improved appearance of its domestic 
 edifices, give it a more civilized aspect. The first view 
 of Corfu, however, so celebrated in all ages for beauty 
 and amenity, was rather a disappointment, though one 
 for which ample amends were made on further acquaint- 
 ance. Mount Pantokratora, or San Salvatore, as it is 
 called in the Greek and Itahan dialects respectively, 
 here forms the whole visible landscape of the island. 
 Its outline is graceful— its surface one dark mass of 
 luxuriant groves, of olive, cypress, and ilex. But I 
 miss here, as along the whole shore both of these islands 
 and of continental Greece, the gay white lines of build- 
 ing with which my eye had long been familiar on every 
 populous district of the Italian coast; and in the interior, 
 those elegant clusters of towers, parapets, open galleries, 
 and balconies, which form the characteristic features of 
 even the meanest groups of rural architecture in that 
 fair country, and impart to each hamlet, or larger assem- 
 blage of farm buildings, the air of a castle or palace. 
 In this extensive forest of gardens not a single village 
 was to be seen, while the few white cottages that could 
 be detected were so small and low, as scarcely to be 
 visible amid the thickets in which they are imbedded. 
 The dark woods of Corfu were as celebrated formerly as 
 now, and from them it is said to have received among 
 the ancient mariners the famihar title of « the black 
 Corcyra." * 
 
 The eastern extremity of this long mountain ridge, 
 which forms the greatest breadth as well as height of the 
 island, projects to within a mile and a half of the mam- 
 
 * Apoll. Rhod. Argon, iv. 569. 
 
CORFU. 
 
 5 
 
 land. On clearing the strait, the sea again expands into 
 an open gulf between the two coasts, and the citadel, 
 town, and port of Corfu appear in sight, forming the 
 centre of an amphitheatre of rich and varied scenery. 
 To the right, the interior of the island offers a wide 
 stretch of hill and dale, finely planted and cultivated, and 
 backed by the woody summits of San Salvatore. In front, 
 the city itself is as yet half concealed by the green slopes 
 of the islet of Vido, spread over a basement of yellow 
 rocks, and crowned with extensive hues of fortification. 
 The promontory on which the town is situated termi- 
 nates to the eastward in the citadel, a nearly insulated 
 rock, with its summit split into two lofty peaks, from 
 whence its own name and that of the island is derived.^ 
 Where not occupied by buildings, its sides are mantled 
 by a profusion of evergreens and wild-flowers. To the 
 left the coast of Albania has now a more open and genial 
 character. The ridges of snowy mountain retire into the 
 distance, while the land in the immediate vicinity of the 
 sea offers, by its comparatively bleak but varied land- 
 scape, a fine contrast to the richly clothed and cultivated 
 shores of the island. 
 
 The feature of the town which first strikes the eye 
 accustomed to the architecture of the opposite side of the 
 Adriatic, is the diminutive size of the buildings, both 
 public and private. The comparison suggests itself the 
 more readily, owing to the correspondence in other 
 respects between the habits of the two countries. Every 
 thing appeared a miniature of what I had left behind at 
 Ancona, Civita Vecchia, and other Itahan ports of the 
 same rank. This remark, however, applies merely to 
 general form and structure; for the Italo- Greek archi- 
 tecture has little or no pretension to the ornamental 
 
g CORFti. 
 
 elegance of the native Italian. The most remarkable 
 edifices are the barracks, built by the protectmg govern- 
 ment on the north side of the citadel, and the palace of 
 the Lord High Commissioner. The latter, a work of Sir 
 Thomas Maitland, now asserts the same high superiority 
 over the other dwellings of the city, as did that of the 
 hero who swayed the destinies of the island at the period 
 of the visit of Ulysses :— 
 
 " The stately palace overlooks the town, 
 From every dome by pomp superior known,— 
 A child may point the way." * 
 
 On approaching the quay, we are surrounded by boats 
 full of mariners and porters, clamorously sohcitmg the 
 privilege of taking us on shore, in a Babel of tongues. 
 Although a few strange and highly picturesque costumes 
 are visible, the general appearance of this population, 
 to one arriving from Italy, presents few features of 
 novelty. 
 
 * Pope's Odyss. vi. 300. 
 
CORFU. 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 CORFU— ITS INTERCOURSE WITH THE OPPOSITE COAST. 
 
 The family of the Lord High Commissioner, Sir How- 
 ard Douglas, comprised several old and valued friends of 
 my own, whom I had requested by letter to provide the 
 best accommodation the place supplied, against the day of 
 my arrival. Their answer, however, had not reached me 
 before my departure from Ancona. I therefore, on dis- 
 embarking, proceeded with an English fellow-passenger 
 to secure quarters for myself, in a lodging-house which 
 had been recommended to us as affording the best in the 
 town. This establishment, dignified by the title of Tay- 
 lor's Hotel, or, in more homely phraseology, Sergeant 
 Taylor's lodgings, (being kept by the wife or widow of a 
 retired officer of the name and rank above mentioned,) 
 was one of the most diminutive of the small mansions of 
 the city. It contained several spare rooms, dark, close, 
 and dismal, but not uncleanly, with an aspect into an 
 equally dismal-looking street, at prices equal to what 
 would be asked for the best apartment in a good Italian 
 hotel. It seems a strange thing that the capital of an 
 important British dependency, containing a population of 
 20,000 souls, with a large garrison, and numerous civil 
 and military functionaries of our own nation, besides the 
 native nobility and gentry, and forming the leading point 
 of inter-communication between Eastern and Western 
 Europe, should not contain so much as a tolerable inn. 
 An attempt was made some years ago to establish one, 
 the failure of which was ascribed chiefly to the circum- 
 
8 
 
 CORFtJ. 
 
 Stance, that visitors are in the habit of depending more 
 for their entertainment on the hospitahty of their own 
 acquaintance, or of persons to whom they may be recom- 
 mended, than on any species of pubUc accommodation. 
 But, although the Enghsh tourist may in most instances 
 reckon upon a bed in the quarters of a countryman, this 
 can hardly be the case as regards the numerous travellers 
 from other parts of Europe, who annually visit the island. 
 The reason therefore, although perhaps the best that can 
 be assigned, seems hardly sufficient. My own experience, 
 it is true, went far to justify it ; for while we were mak- 
 ing arrangements with the landlady, a yoimg officer of 
 the garrison, who, on return from leave of absence, had 
 been our fellow navigator, came to announce that there 
 was a vacant bed at the Enghsh Club House, which he 
 politely placed at our disposal. The offer was eagerly 
 accepted by my companion, who was more offended with 
 the homeliness of the sergeant's apartments than myself, 
 and to whom I ceded my claims. A few minutes after- 
 wards I heard my name called by famihar voices at the 
 door, and in less than a quarter of an hour was estabhshed 
 in most luxurious quarters at the palace, leaving the poor 
 landlady not a little disconcerted at being thus suddenly 
 robbed of two promising guests. 
 
 The carnival was now approaching its conclusion, and 
 the evening of my arrival was that appointed for a grand 
 ball at the palace, as a winding up of its festivities. The 
 chief topic of interest at this moment with all classes, 
 was an adventure on the Turkish coast, of which a 
 member of the Buonaparte family had been the hero. 
 The individual in question was a son of the Prince of 
 Canino, (better known in England as Lucien Buona- 
 parte,) who, about two years before, had been tried and 
 found guilty by the Roman tribunals of the crime of 
 murder, in deliberately shooting, while following his 
 
CORFU. 
 
 9 
 
 game on his father's estates in the Campagna, a country 
 fellow whom he suspected of poaching, or who had given 
 him some other real or imaginary cause of provocation. 
 During my residence at Rome in the winter of 1836, 
 1837, he was lying in the castle of St Angelo under 
 sentence of death, or of the galleys for life ; and it was 
 then understood that his holiness, as a practical evidence 
 of the blind impartiality with which justice is adminis- 
 tered in his dominions, was determined, waiving all claims 
 to pardon or mitigation of sentence which the offender 
 might derive from his rank and connexions, to allow the 
 law to take its course. The result, however, was dif- 
 ferent ; for owing chiefly, as was said at the time, with 
 what truth I know not, to the exertions of a distinguish- 
 ed British ex-diplomatist who happened to spend that 
 season at Rome, and whose family is connected by mar- 
 riage with the criminal, he was set at liberty, with the 
 simple award of banishment from the papal states. 
 
 In the course of his travels he visited Corfu, and hired 
 a small house in the country, with the object of pursu- 
 ing his favourite occupation of the chase. The oppo- 
 site coast offers more particularly a fine field for this 
 diversion, and is accordingly much frequented by the 
 sportsmen of the garrison. Turkey, however, it must 
 be observed, is always, in regard to our islands, in that 
 state which the Adriatic navigators call Contumacy; that 
 is to say, all intercourse with its coast is subject to a qua- 
 rantine of greater or less duration, according to its reputed 
 sanitary condition for the time being. This restriction 
 never ceases entirely, as might otherwise be the case, 
 owing to the neglect of all quarantine police by the Turk- 
 ish government — a consequence of their predestinarian 
 prejudices; hence there can be no security against the sud- 
 den spread of contagion, or the existence of lurking disease 
 in the interior, even at periods when the immediate shore 
 
10 
 
 CORFU. 
 
 is apparently in the healthiest state. The rigour of the 
 strict regulation is, however, in ordinary times so far 
 modified, that persons obtaining permission of the autho- 
 rities may, with the escort of a guardiano, or constable of 
 the health ofiice, disembark and range at liberty in the 
 open country, their attendant being answerable for their 
 neither entering a house nor coming into contact with the 
 natives. In this way the British officers are in the daily 
 practice of crossing and recrossing the channel. Although 
 the inhabitants of the continent are proverbial as a fero- 
 cious and barbarous race, among whom robbery, if ably 
 and boldly exercised, is looked upon as an honourable 
 profession, it does not appear that these excursions are 
 attended with much danger. As they are undertaken 
 with the sanction, and in so far under the protection of 
 the Turkish authorities, with whom our o^n are gener- 
 ally on the best of terms, any serious outrage could 
 hardly fail of being attended with consequences to the 
 offender so serious as to counterbalance any advantage 
 he was likely to derive from it ; while against petty ag- 
 gressions the arms of the sportsmen are a sufficient pro- 
 tection. It is also their policy to conciliate the good- 
 will of the natives by small presents of gunpowder, 
 tobacco, and other articles of, to their habits, primary 
 necessity ; and those whom they happen to encounter on 
 their rambles, are in the habit of depositing their caps on 
 the ground as receptacles for such offerings. Cases in- 
 deed are said to have occurred, where petitions for such 
 favours have been presented to weaker parties somewhat 
 after the fashion of the beggar in Gil Bias, with the hat 
 in one hand and the trigger in the other ; and one or two 
 instances are on record where the strangers had been 
 insulted or even fired at. Considering, however, the 
 character of the district and its inhabitants — how little 
 our countrymen are distinguished for the art of conciU- 
 
CORFU. 
 
 11 
 
 ating foreigners — and how natural it was that they should 
 be viewed by the native peasantry rather in the hght of 
 poachers or marauders than of friendly visitors, it is less 
 matter of wonder that, in the course of years, one or two 
 outrages of this kind should have occurred, than that 
 they should not have become so frequent and unavoid- 
 able as to put an end to the practice altogether. 
 
 The spirit of a Buonaparte, however, was not to be 
 restrained within the same bounds as that of an English 
 soldier or an Albanian mountaineer ; and the prince, on 
 one of his first expeditions across the channel, about 
 a week before my arrival, had not only succeeded in 
 picking a quarrel, but in shooting a pair of Turks, one 
 on each side of him, by a right and left discharge of his 
 double-barrelled gun, and escaping without damage to 
 his boat. On the real merits of the case it was not easy 
 to form an opinion, as they had not been, nor under the 
 circumstances was it likely that they ever could be, very 
 nicely sifted ; while the reports of the prince himself, and 
 the representations transmitted by the aggrieved parties, 
 were, as may be supposed, widely at variance with each 
 other. It appears, however, that the catastrophe was 
 the result of a dispute with the officer stationed at the 
 landing-place, relative to the payment of harbour dues ; 
 and that the prince, ignorant of the customs or language 
 of the country, and suspecting an attempt at imposition, 
 had resisted the demand. According to his own account 
 he only fired in self-defence, and not until he saw a 
 musket levelled at his breast. The statement of the 
 Turkish authorities, on the other hand, distinctly made 
 him out to be the aggressor. Among the officers of the 
 garrison, there was some feeling in his favour. It was 
 natural that young military men, apart from all refer- 
 ence to the merits of the affair, should sympathize with 
 a hero who, in fair combat with a party of Turks on 
 
12 
 
 corf6. 
 
 their own ground, had killed two of the enemy, and 
 effected his retreat without loss or damage to himself or 
 his attendants. Sir Howard, however, who viewed the 
 ease with the eye of a magistrate, seemed to take it up 
 in a different hght, and the previous adventures of the 
 dehnquent were certainly strong presumptive evidence 
 against him. For the present, all that could be done 
 was to write to the Pasha of Joannina, exculpating his 
 own people from any share in the transaction, and offer- 
 ing to co-operate with him in any reasonable measures 
 for bringing about an equitable adjustment. The Turk 
 who then occupied the throne of All, his excellency 
 described as a discreet concihatory person, and of friend- 
 ly dispositions both towards our government and himself 
 individually ; which led him to hope that the affair would 
 be settled without either proceeding to extremities against 
 the culprit, or involving any permanent interruption of 
 the amicable relations between the two coasts. The most 
 judicious conduct on the part of the prince would ob- 
 viously have been to withdraw from the island, which 
 was accordingly suggested to him by the authorities. But 
 here his pride interfered, and he expressed his determina- 
 tion, unless forcibly expelled, to remain and abide by the 
 consequences. The matter ended as Sir Howard had anti- 
 cipated. It turned out that the two wounded Turks, one 
 of whom had been reported dead, the other in a danger- 
 ous state, both recovered ; and the only satisfaction de- 
 manded by the Pasha was, that the prince should be dis- 
 missed from the Ionian territory. Before the final order to 
 this effect was issued, his high spirit had given way, and 
 he intimated his intention of acquiescing without further 
 difficulty. On my second visit to the island I found him 
 still there; but his departure was said to be delayed merely 
 by pecuniary difficulties of a temporary nature. 
 
 In the mean time, the result of the affair was a sus- 
 
CORFtj. 
 
 13 
 
 pension, not only of the shooting excursions of the 
 officers, but of every species of intercourse between the 
 two shores, which might for the present be considered 
 as in a state of war with each other ; and had a party 
 of Franks shown themselves on the opposite side during 
 the existing excitement among the natives, they would 
 in all probability have been massacred. Reports were 
 current that some Albanians, resident in the island, had 
 entered into a conspiracy to murder the prince, who, in 
 consequence, m^ade a formal application to the governor 
 for the special protection of the police. But as he 
 brought forward no real evidence of his danger, the 
 request was disregarded. Elsewhere, however, the enemy 
 were not slow in making reprisals; and a few days before 
 my arrival, a midnight assault had been committed on a 
 country house in the neighbouring small island of Paxo, 
 by a party who were ascertained to have landed from the 
 opposite shore. The proprietor with his family made a 
 valiant defence. Although one of his servants was killed, 
 and his wife wounded, they succeeded in beating off the 
 robbers, who effected their retreat, bearing off their killed 
 or wounded, as was proved by tracks of fresh blood on 
 their path, into the forests of the interior, where they 
 were supposed to be still concealed. Great was the 
 sensation created in this little community by the adven- 
 ture. The Resident, an old ofScer of the medical staff, 
 immediately sent off to Corfu for a reinforcement of 
 troops, which could ill enough be spared, as the strength 
 of the septinsular army had been seriously reduced by 
 several regiments drawn off to the Canadian war, while 
 in Corfu itself some apprehensions existed of similar at- 
 tacks on the more exposed parts of its coast. 
 
 Such little adventures possess a peculiar interest to 
 the traveller just arrived in this classic region, as real- 
 izing, even through the medium of an altered state of 
 
14 
 
 CORFU. 
 
 society, the associations connected with the ancient habits 
 of predatory warfare on its coasts and islands, of which 
 so frequent notice occurs in the page of Homer. An- 
 other adventure of a less chivalrous character, but which 
 brings home the descriptions of the Odyssey with per- 
 haps still greater liveliness to the imagination, occurred 
 during the few days I spent in the island of Ithaca. The 
 numerous rugged islets with which the channel between 
 the Acarnanian coast and the Cefalonian group is 
 studded, are now in whole or in greater part depen- 
 dencies of the Ionian republic, chiefly of Ithaca itself. 
 Many of them are uninhabited, with the exception of 
 occasional visits on the part of persons privileged by the 
 government, or the proprietors, whoever they may be, for 
 the purpose of pasturing their cattle on what small 
 gleanings of herbage their arid surface at certain favour- 
 able seasons may supply. On the occasion in question, 
 a complaint was lodged with the Resident of Ithaca, 
 whose hospitality I was then enjoying, of the robbery, by 
 certain citizens of that state, of several hundred head of 
 swine belonging to a continental proprietor. On enquiry, 
 the following turned out to be the facts of the case: — 
 The Ithacans, who possessed the right of pasture on one 
 of these small provinces of their island, landing one day 
 on their domain, found it occupied by a strange herd en- 
 joying the first-fruits of the spring vegetation. They 
 immediately placed the cloven-footed marauders under 
 arrest, put them on board their boats, and carried them 
 off to Ithaca. The bereaved herdsmen complained to the 
 Resident, urging, in extenuation of their original tres- 
 pass, the deserted state of the islet, and their consequent 
 ignorance that they were interfering with any other man's 
 rights. The other party ridiculed this apology, which 
 was certainly but lame, declaring, however, their willing- 
 ness to give up the cattle, but only on condition of a 
 
coRr6, 
 
 15 
 
 high ransom per head. The case was doubtless one of 
 some nicety, and remained still pending at the period of 
 my departure. 
 
 The hero of the late combat on the Turkish coast, 
 who had been hitherto but little seen in society, but had 
 not been excluded in consequence of that affair from the 
 public hospitality of the palace, was, as might be ex- 
 pected, the lion of the day at Corfu, and by consequence, 
 of the Lord High Commissioner's party on the afternoon 
 of my arrival. I was therefore the more flattered, on being 
 told by one of the ladies of the family, that during the 
 early part of the evening I had been very generally taken 
 for the chivalrous stranger ; for no other reason that I 
 could conjecture, beyond the fact of my being a stranger, 
 than that I happened to have a pale face, rather marked 
 features, and a black beard, attributes usually connected 
 with ferocity and blood-guiltiness in the minds of ladies 
 and readers of romance. The actual resemblance was 
 about as strong as can well be imagined, between a lean 
 man of six feet three, with a sallow complexion, and 
 one something below the middle size, with a florid coun- 
 tenance, and rather a tendency to corpulence. 
 
 The steam-packet of the Ionian government makes 
 the tour of the islands once a fortnight. My own chief 
 object of interest in the septinsular state was Ithaca ; 
 but I should have been well pleased, had the interval 
 between the sailing of this vessel, and the arrival of that 
 which brought me, admitted of my spending a few days 
 at Corfu. This inclination was no way diminished by 
 the viceregal luxuries and agreeable society of the palace, 
 attractions the more powerful after a week of nearly un- 
 interrupted travelling by land or by sea. I found, how- 
 ever, that the arrangements of the two packets allowed 
 me but six-and-thirty hours' stay in the metropolis, un- 
 less with the alternative of remaining a fortnight, which 
 
16 
 
 CORFU. 
 
 was out of the question. I had, therefore, but to make 
 the best use of the single day at my disposal, which for- 
 tunately was one of surpassing briUiancy. : 
 
 The chief beauty of the town is concentrated around 
 the esplanade, and a more lovely spot can hardly be con- 
 ceived. It is a small park or meadow of fresh green 
 sward, occupying the flat summit of the promontory 
 between the town and the citadel, and laid out with 
 walks and avenues of trees. The side towards the town 
 is bounded by the newest and most ornamental row of 
 buildings it contains. Opposite them rises the rock of 
 the citadel, embosomed in cypresses. At one extremity 
 is the front of the viceregal palace — a large and elegant 
 structure, with a fine range of porticos; and towards the 
 other is a circular temple, surrounded by a colonnade, 
 erected in honour of Sir Thomas Maitland. Behind, a 
 wooded bank slopes to the beach. Here, as on every 
 side but that towards the town, the ground falls preci- 
 pitously in rocky declivities, planted with evergreens ; 
 and, unless where the view is impeded by the citadel or 
 palace, opening out a variety of beautiful prospects 
 across the gulf and the surrounding coasts. The 
 town itself is confined, towards the interior of the island, 
 by a circle of gloomy fortifications, erected by the Vene- 
 tians, with the Lion of St Mark still visible on the front 
 of some of the gates, and other decorative portions of the 
 work. These are now in progress of demolition, it 
 having been determined to restrict the defences of the 
 place to the citadel and island of Vido, the works of 
 which latter fortress are now being remodelled on a much 
 more extensive scale. The levelling of the old walls 
 will be a great addition to the amenity and salubrity of 
 the city ; as their site was to be converted into public 
 gardens and pleasure grounds. 
 
 In the afternoon, I was indebted to my friends, Colo- 
 
CORFU. 
 
 17 
 
 nel and Mrs D , for a drive in their pony phseton about 
 
 ten miles along the coast to the southward, in which 
 direction hes some of the finest mountain scenery of the 
 island, visiting by the way the scanty remains of the old 
 Greek city, and supposed localities of the Odyssey. 
 
 The ancient Corcyra stood a little to the south of the 
 modern town. The most prominent part of its site is 
 the peninsula still bearing the name of Palaeopoli, or the 
 Old City. It is formed on one side by the bay inter- 
 posed between itself and the promontory occupied by 
 the modern citadel; on the other by a small gulf, or 
 lagoon, called the Peschiera, or Lake of CaHchiopulo. * 
 The spot is now chiefly remarkable for its gardens, or 
 rather forests of magnificent olives. The northern shore, 
 facing the town of Corfu, is occupied by a villa of the 
 L. H. C. The only remaining vestiges of antiquity 
 are the ruins of a small Doric temple, on the verge 
 of a precipitous bank at the eastern point of the penin- 
 sula, facing the coast of Epirus. The extent and plan 
 of this building are sufiiciently apparent from the founda- 
 tions which have been excavated. One column is now 
 standing, although not apparently transmitted from an- 
 tiquity in that position, but replaced by the excavators ; 
 and the remains of several others, with portions of the 
 frontispiece and entablature, are scattered in the neigh- 
 bourhood. There is a tradition that a much larger 
 
 From the description of Thucydides, it would appear that the 
 peninsula was the Acropolis ; the Peschiera, the Portus Hyllaicus ; 
 that the other port, called by him *Hhat towards Epirus/' was 
 the bay between the ancient Acropolis and the present citadel; and 
 that the Agora was on the flat ground contiguous to this port, now 
 without the town, but occupied by a row of houses — (Histor. III. 
 c. 72.) Scylax mentions three ports of Corcyra.— (Pm>?. 29.) 
 Hence it may be presumed that the present harbour, although at 
 some distance from the ancient city, was also used as a station for 
 vessels. 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 CORFU. 
 
 number of columns were originally in their place, but 
 that a party of midshipmen, from an EngUsh man-of- 
 war lying to under the cliffs, amused themselves in up- 
 setting them. If they were the original destroyers, they 
 must have been midshipmen of very ancient date, as the 
 ruins, previous to the year 1823, when they were first dis- 
 covered and excavated by Sir Frederick Adam, were com- 
 pletely embedded in the soil, with every appearance of 
 having been so for centuries; and this opinion is confirmed 
 by the circumstance, that they are unnoticed by any of 
 the old travellers who visited the island. Assuming, 
 indeed, the prostrate columns to have been replaced in 
 their original position by the excavators, as seems par- 
 tially to have been the case, the midshipmen might still 
 be entitled to the credit of having once more subverted 
 them. But the whole story is probably a fable, like so 
 many others of the same kind. A popular French 
 writer* attributes to the English the destruction of the 
 massive Doric columns, still standing in all their previ- 
 ous integrity, at Corinth. Not happening to light upon 
 them in the course of his own superficial researches, he 
 adopts the excuse for his oversight, which a very natural 
 jealousy of the superiority of the British travellers to 
 those of his own nation would most readily suggest to 
 a lively French imagination. I have also heard the 
 English accused of the decapitation of the lions over the 
 gate of Mycenae, whose heads, there can be little doubt, 
 were knocked off upwards of two thousand years ago, by 
 the stones falling from the wall above, when the city was 
 destroyed by the Argives. The iconoclastic propensities 
 of our nation are unfortunately too well established by 
 facts to require the evidence of fiction ; nor is it neces- 
 sary — in terms of the old adage, non cuivis contingit adire 
 
 ^ Chateaubriand, Itiner. Paris 1812. 8vo. Tom. I. 169. 
 
CORFU. 
 
 19 
 
 Corinthum — to travel either to Corinth or Corfu in 
 search of examples, which our own national monuments, 
 from the milestones by the wayside to the sepulchres of 
 Westminster Abbey, so plentifully supply. 
 
 The scenery of the island increases in splendour to- 
 wards the south. The view from the summit of a chff 
 on that side of the peninsula, presents a succession of 
 bold promontories or rich and fertile declivities, rising 
 towards the interior into rocky mountains, of the most 
 picturesque variety of form, covered with evergreen 
 forests, and their boldest peaks crowned here and there 
 with chapels or towers embedded in groves of cypress. 
 Immediately below the cliff, at the mouth of the Pes- 
 chiera, is a small rocky islet, with two or three craggy 
 tops, one of which is surmounted by a single house 
 shaded by a few cypress trees. This rock is vulgarly, 
 though somewhat improperly, called the island of Ulysses, 
 as being supposed, plausibly enough, to represent that 
 into which Homer fables the vessel that bore the hero 
 to his native land, to have been metamorphosed by Nep- 
 tune, in approaching the port of Scheria on its return. 
 The river where Ulysses met Nausicaa is identified by 
 some with a small stream that flows into the Peschiera 
 — very inappropriately, as it is evident that the washing- 
 ground of that heroine in the poet's description was at a 
 much greater distance from the city. Others, perhaps 
 more plausibly, discover it in another stream called 
 Potamo, at some distance to the north of the modern 
 town. The gardens of Alcinous were placed by my 
 authorities on the low rich land on the shore of the Pes- 
 chiera — also very improperly; for Homer describes them 
 as situated within the city, and consequently on the 
 peninsula itself. But the identity so generally recognised, 
 both in ancient and modern times, between Corcyra and 
 the land of Alcinous, is in itself very problematical. 
 
20 
 
 CORFU. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ALBANIAN TRAVELLING SERVANT, AND GREEK TRAVELLING. 
 
 A PORTION of the morning was occupied in making 
 such arrangements for my land journey, as were neces- 
 sary to insure the small degree of comfort that could 
 reasonably be hoped for at the halting-places in the 
 inhospitable regions through which it lay. The first 
 and most important business was to hire one of that 
 pecuhar description of travelhng servants who devote 
 themselves to the attendance on tourists in the Levant, 
 and who combine, or profess to combine, the offices of 
 guide, cicerone, purveyor, cook, interpreter, and valet. 
 Corfu is the chief rendezvous for this class of persons, 
 some of whom are usually to be found on the quay, hke 
 lacquais de place in the seaports of western Europe, 
 ready to prefer their claims to the traveller as he steps 
 out of the packet. They are, as may be supposed, for 
 the most part Greeks or Albanians, and attired in the 
 national costume. Some, however, presented themselves 
 equipped in the first style of European fashion, obviously 
 for the purpose of creating a favourable impression by 
 their smartness and civiUzation; although, in my own 
 case, the effect was quite the reverse of what they in- 
 tended. I had with me the address of one who had been 
 highly recommended by a friend, and whom I was for- 
 tunate enough to find disengaged. He was, upon the 
 whole, one of the most original characters I have hap- 
 
CORFU. 
 
 21 
 
 pened to meet with in the course of my travels, and a 
 good sample of a class of beings unknown among our- 
 selves, and perhaps little common in any other country. 
 As a further apology for digressing somewhat more 
 widely in my description of him, than the subject may 
 seem to deserve, I may urge the opportunity it will af- 
 ford of adding a few remarks on the general plan and 
 conduct of a tour in Greece, and on the habits of those 
 with whom the traveller is likely to be brought into con- 
 tact, which may perhaps be not altogether unprofitable 
 to my successors in the same route, or unacceptable to 
 the general reader. 
 
 Nicola, for so he was called, was as strange a mixture 
 of the barbarian and the civilized man as can well be 
 imagined. An Albanian of the purest caste, a native of 
 the province of Joannina, he wore the beautiful dress of 
 his country, and his whole appearance was in the highest 
 degree picturesque. A complete Hercules in form, with 
 a somewhat Scythian cast of countenance, and a slight 
 tendency to corpulence, as that hero is not uncommonly 
 represented, he was, like him, active and patient of 
 fatigue. The expression of his coarse weatherbeaten 
 visage, though gloomy and even ferocious, had a certain 
 tinge of sincerity and simplicity which prevented it from 
 being offensive. His manner was gruff and rude, some- 
 times even surly and insolent, yet certainly not inten- 
 tionally so ; and he was obedient to orders, and submis- 
 sive when seriously found fault with. He spoke seven 
 languages; Albanian, Greek, Italian, Spanish, French, 
 Turkish, and I forget what other Oriental dialect. Of 
 the English he was totally ignorant ; and yet for many 
 years he had been chiefly attached to the service of Bri- 
 tish travellers ; but he said he never could master its 
 difficulties. He kept his accounts in Italian, which 
 tongue was also our medium of communication, with the 
 
22 
 
 CORFU. 
 
 greatest order and regularity, in an excellent hand, and 
 with an orthography that might put many a member 
 of the native noblesse to the blush. Although I had no 
 occasion to try him, I have little doubt that his penman- 
 ship might have been found equally available in any 
 other of the written languages of which he was master. 
 But, with these attainments as a linguist and a scribe, 
 his progress in the march of intellect seemed to have 
 been suddenly arrested, as in all further respects he was 
 as deficient in educational knowledge, and displayed as 
 great a contempt for every thing of the sort, as the most 
 unsophisticated shepherd of his native mountains. How 
 or where he acquired so unusual a stock of elementary 
 learning, I never could exactly ascertain. He was not 
 by nature communicative ; and as the few observations he 
 hazarded were laconic and inexplicit, and he did not like 
 to be cross-questioned, it was difficult to get much infor- 
 mation from him on any subject on which he did not 
 volunteer to enlarge ; and even then his accounts were 
 dry and unconnected enough. There may possibly have 
 hung some mystery over the early part of his previous 
 life, as is very frequently the case with men of the world 
 of his nation and rank, more especially with those who, 
 after having taken an active part in the turbulent vicis- 
 situdes of their native land, have adopted at a maturer 
 age comparatively tranquil and domestic habits. 
 
 It may perhaps at first sight appear a startling, or 
 even a calumnious imputation, to say that a large 
 proportion of the adult population of Greece and the 
 neighbouring countries have, during some period of their 
 life, exercised, in one shape or other, the profession of 
 robber ; but a very little reflection on their past history 
 and actual habits, can leave little doubt that it is a correct 
 one. The mountain fastnesses of many of these provin- 
 ces of the Turkish empire, were, even during its more 
 
CORFU. 
 
 23 
 
 flourishing periods, in the half-independent possession of 
 the natives, ranged under patriarchal chiefs, similar in 
 character and habits to the robber knights in the un- 
 settled districts of Europe during the middle ages, and 
 who gloried in the title of kleplit^ or thief. This profes- 
 sion they exercised somewhat in the mode of our Rob 
 Roys, Robin Hoods, or Johnny Armstrongs, exacting 
 black mail from their weaker neighbours as the price of 
 protection from their rivals, or from the common Turk- 
 ish oppressor, against whom their predatory warfare was 
 chiefly directed. From this class of robber chiefs sprung 
 many of the heroes whose names have acquired the 
 greatest celebrity in the war of independence, Koloko- 
 troni, Mauromichali, Androuzzos, Gouras, and others, 
 the survivors among whom have felt some difficulty in 
 conforming to the habits of regular government or civi- 
 lized society. But besides this more organized system of 
 brigandage, a favourite resource of the desperate or the 
 unfortunate of all ranks was a retreat to the mountains, 
 and the life of a freebooter. During the war, the popu- 
 lation of whole villages, towns, or districts, were fre- 
 quently reduced to live in rocks, caves, and forests, 
 where plunder, when opportunity occurred, became a 
 virtue of necessity, as the only means of supporting 
 existence; and in such cases but little distinction would 
 be made between friend and foe. Still more demorali- 
 zing, perhaps, was the effect of the few years of civil 
 dissension that intervened between the emancipation 
 from the Turks and the establishment of the present 
 government, during which these predatory campaigns 
 were carried on between rival factions of the Greek 
 nation itself. The necessary result of such a state of 
 things was a general indifference to the value of human 
 life among all classes, which was not a little fostered 
 during the war by the universal practice of butchering 
 
24 
 
 CORFU. 
 
 the Turks in the mass, or the individual, whenever they 
 fell into their hands ; and I have heard it remarked, in 
 well-informed quarters, that if the European traveller, 
 as he passed along the road or the street, could instinct- 
 ively detect those among the natives whose hands, apart 
 from the adventures of regular warfare, had been delibe- 
 rately stained with human blood, a large proportion of 
 this population, who, with all their faults, appeared to 
 me, from the little experience I had of them, friendly 
 and kind-hearted, would become objects of disgust and 
 abhorrence. That habits thus formed, during a long 
 period of anarchy, should suddenly give way before the 
 outward signs of regular government which are now dis- 
 played in the land, was hardly to be expected; and I had, 
 during my own passage through the country, practical 
 evidence that the mountain and the carbine still remain 
 as formerly, the resource to which, on occasion of any 
 social embarrassment, the lower orders are in the habit 
 of instinctively resorting. The present corps of gens- 
 d'armerie, a well-disciplined and efficient body, is noto- 
 riously composed, in a great measure, of persons who 
 were formerly professional brigands; and their services 
 are considered, according to our own vulgar proverb of 
 " set a thief to catch a thief," the more valuable on that 
 account. Under the present government it has also 
 been the practice, especially in the northern frontiers, 
 the chief seat of systematic outlawry, to detach the 
 bands from their lawless mode of life, by enrolling them 
 as light-armed infantry in the national service, and con- 
 ferring military commissions on their chiefs — a short- 
 sighted policy, which must be the greatest possible en- 
 couragement to the evil it professes to cure. 
 
 To return, however, to my own Albanian. — That his 
 personal experience of human life was not deficient in 
 the foregoing particular, I had, it must be admitted, no 
 
CORFtj. 
 
 25 
 
 other ground of belief than the following heads of cir- 
 cumstantial evidence :— First, the simple fact of his 
 being an Albanian ; secondly, the nature of the service 
 in which he had during the early part of his life been 
 engaged; thirdly, his perfect famiharity, which in the 
 course of our travels I had frequent opportunity of put- 
 ting to the test, with the habits of the freebooter; ami 
 lastly, several incidental circumstances or remarks on 
 his own part, in the course of our acquaintance, which 
 seemed to indicate that his abstract views of the rights 
 of property were not so rigid as those which the courtesy 
 of his present mode of life enjoined. This pecuharity, 
 however, ought by no means to count as an unfavourable 
 item in the estimate of such a character; as being, on 
 the one hand, quite consistent with rigid fidelity to an 
 employer and benefactor, and tending, at the same time, 
 for the reasons above assigned in the case of the Greek 
 pohce, to promote the efficacy of his services. 
 
 His knowledge of the Spanish tongue, on which he 
 especially piqued himself, he described as having been 
 acquired in very early youth, during a sojourn in Spain 
 itself, in the service of a traveller. On his return to his 
 native land, he served in a military capacity under Ali 
 Pasha, of whom he was a great admirer, and whose ener- 
 getic character, strenuous assertion of his authority, and 
 summary administration of justice, were subjects of warm 
 commendation, and unfavourable contrast with what he 
 considered the weak and languid police of his successor, 
 or of the new Hellenic government. His cruelty, ava- 
 rice, and treachery, did not seem to enter at all into the 
 balance on the other side. After the fall of this chief- 
 tain, to whom he adhered to the last, he espoused, with 
 other Albanian adventurers, the Greek patriotic cause, 
 and formed part of the garrison of Mesolonghi during 
 Lord Byron's command of the place. He afterwards 
 
 c 
 
26 
 
 CORFU. 
 
 married and settled at Corfu, and for the last twelve 
 years had followed his present profession, during which 
 time, besides every corner of Greece and its islands, he 
 had travelled through the greater part of the Turkish 
 empire, Asia Minor, Palestine, and Egypt. 
 
 In spite of his peregrinations and extensive knowledge 
 of life and its vicissitudes, he was wofuUy deficient in 
 every kind of general information, and either could not 
 or would not give any connected or intelligible account 
 of a single country he had visited, or scene he had wit- 
 nessed. In fact, one of his most amusing peculiarities 
 was a scornful indifference to things in general, beyond 
 what he considered the immediate sphere of his own 
 duties or avocations, in the prosecution of which he dis- 
 played an equal degree of zeal, activity, and energy. 
 His was in fact the philosophy of the savage, or natural 
 man, shrewd and penetrating as regards the present, 
 around which it is concentrated, but ignorant or careless 
 of both past and future, unless in so far as their concerns 
 appear tangibly connected with the more engrossing, 
 and for the most part sensual, objects of momentary inte- 
 rest. What seemed less easy to explain, was not so much 
 his indifference to the objects which alone or chiefly at- 
 tracted strangers to the places whither he was in the 
 habit of conducting them, but his complete ignorance, 
 in very many cases, of their site or existence — although 
 perfect master of the topography of Greece in other 
 respects. On this score I had frequently occasion to 
 find fault with him, as he had, when hired, boasted of 
 his familiarity with the curiosities we were to explore. 
 His apology was, that he had never been in the habit of 
 accompanying his previous employers in their rambles 
 upon such occasions, but had been left in charge of the 
 horses and baggage, while they found local ciceroni who 
 performed this service. If so, they were more fortunate 
 
CORFtj. 
 
 27 
 
 than myself, as one of the greatest inconveniences of 
 which I had to complain, amid the ignorance of my habi- 
 tual guide, was the difficulty, often the impossibility, of 
 finding any one in the least degree competent to act in 
 this capacity ; and as it usually happened, that the names 
 by which the objects I was in quest of were known among 
 the natives were^ different from their scientific titles, I 
 have frequently been obliged to range for hours the 
 whole surface of an ancient city, or other interesting 
 locality, as a pointer- dog would hunt a field, in order to 
 discover them for myself, to the infinite loss of time and 
 patience, and occasionally without ultimate success. It 
 appeared that the journeys of many of his previous em- 
 ployers had been directed to other than classical objects. 
 He had been at different times in the suite of the com- 
 missioners of boundaries, and other persons travelling in 
 a diplomatic capacity. I advised him, however, to take 
 this, or any other opportunity that might ofifer, of per- 
 fecting himself in what was certainly an important branch 
 of his profession. Although at first he seemed to treat 
 with great contempt the notion of troubling himself about 
 old stones and rubbish, as he called them, yet, appa- 
 rently convinced of the reasonableness of my advice, he 
 gradually began to devote a certain degree of attention 
 to them. He even went the length of taking special 
 notes of several localities, which were either first fully 
 explored by myself, or previously little known or fre- 
 quented ; and would sometimes, in the warmth of his 
 new-born zeal, tease me with accounts of wonders to be^ 
 found here and there, which of course turned out to exist 
 but in the delusions of his own or the popular ignorance. 
 
 Seafiected much contempt for the degraded state and 
 beastly habits of his countrymen, the native Greeco- Alba- 
 nian population, and yet his own were in a great mea- 
 sure similar ; while the easy and natural manner in which 
 
28 
 
 cobf6. 
 
 he conformed to them in all their most offensive particu- 
 lars, while our lot was cast in the region where they 
 exclusively prevailed, showed that they were still in all 
 respects as congenial to his taste as those of the semi- 
 civitized hfe to which, since his marriage and settlement 
 in Corfu, he had been accustomed. Of the habits here 
 alluded to, the fundamental one is the aversion of the 
 Christian population of the whole country formerly 
 called Turkey in Europe, to ablution or change of rai- 
 ment, or even to divesting themselves of the garments 
 they habitually wear, and which are allowed to go to 
 decay on the person of the proprietor, until necessity, or 
 a regard for the decency of the exterior man, induce him 
 to procure a substitute. These customs are not pecu^ 
 liar to the lower class, but extend in a greater or less 
 degree to the nobles and chieftains, who consider filth as 
 one of the characteristics of martial genius or veteran 
 service. On setting out on a campaign they put on a 
 clean smock or fustanella, soaked in grease, which re- 
 mains on their person, as a matter of mihtary etiquette, 
 night and day, until their return home, when their wives 
 have a new suit ready to replace it. The consequence is, 
 that the persons and habitations of all classes swarm with 
 vermin, to an extent unknown probably in any other 
 country. The Albanians are in the habit of wearing 
 belts or bandages smeared with mercurial ointment, said 
 to act as a partial preventive of the too rapid propaga- 
 tion of their personal live stock, or as an antidote to the 
 unwholesome consequences of its superabundance. Not 
 only are undressing on going to bed, and sleeping within 
 sheets and blankets, things unheard of, but so much as 
 bed or bedding of any kind, other than rush mats or 
 their shaggy hair capottes and goatskin mantles, are 
 luxuries to which, together with a table or chair, the 
 Greek population below a certain rank are altogether 
 
CORFU. 
 
 29 
 
 strangers. A German staff-surgeon in a central military- 
 depot of the Morea, employed to inspect the country 
 recruits under the new conscription act, assured me, that 
 the clothes of many of them were found so tightly glued 
 to their bodies by accumulated filth and vermin, that 
 they could not be drawn off without considerable pain to 
 the wearer, and were frequently obliged to be cut up on 
 his person, and detached piecemeal. It is indeed pro- 
 bable that, in proportion to the amount of the popula- 
 tion, that of the filth, personal and domestic, which 
 prevails in these countries, is greater than in any other 
 district of Europe, or perhaps of the globe. Most other 
 semi-barbarous nations, favoured with a fine climate, are 
 but scantily clad ; whereas the Greek dress is remarkable 
 for quantity, and the voluminous flow of its drapery. It 
 must further be remembered, that, by the expulsion of 
 the Turks, almost the whole aristocracy or upper class 
 of the previous nation has been swept off the face of the 
 land, and little more than the lower orders remain. This 
 is a consideration of much importance, as bearing not 
 only on these petty points of domestic manners, but on 
 the whole social and political state of the country,* and 
 which has been far too little taken into account in the 
 ordinary speculations on the present condition or future 
 prospects of the so-called regenerate race. The Turks, 
 though not in our sense of the term a cleanly people, 
 were yet by their law under the obligation to frequent 
 ablution ; and, as being the wealthier and better class, 
 their example may probably have exercised some little 
 influence on their subjects. With them, therefore, a 
 large share of whatever may formerly have existed, either 
 of attention or encouragem^ent to cleanliness, has become 
 extinct; and the native peasant and artisan are now left 
 
 * See Chap. XL. of this Journal, 
 
30 
 
 CORFU. 
 
 to the enjoyment of the same unsophisticated mode of 
 life as the cattle on their mountain sides, or as the dogs 
 that defend the hovels which afford man and beast a 
 common shelter from the sunbeam or the storm. 
 
 Let it not be supposed, however, that the case was 
 quite so bad as regards my own worthy Arnaut ; yet I 
 believe a change of smock at Athens, and perhaps an- 
 other at Patras, were the utmost dereliction of national 
 manners of which he was guilty during the eight weeks 
 he was in my service ; but, as he was a man of a naturally 
 sound and wholesome habit of body, I never found any 
 thing seriously offensive in his personal vicinity. Not 
 so, however, as regards his stewardship of my goods. 
 For the conveyance of refreshments, and other necessary 
 articles of occasional use on the road, we were provided 
 with two or three moderate-sized goats' hair bags, which, 
 with a little attention, might easily have admitted of such 
 a distribution of their destined contents, as would have 
 prevented any unpleasant collision of uncongenial bodies. 
 Our stock of provisions consisted chiefly of salted meats, 
 hard-boiled eggs, cheese, dried figs, &c. In addition to 
 these, there were various other loose articles of a very 
 different description — such as sketch-books, itineraries, 
 and a few pocket volumes of the classics ; besides travel- 
 ling caps, handkerchiefs, and other small pieces of extra 
 clothing, which the hourly variations of temperature in a 
 Greek spring rendered it convenient to have continually 
 at hand, and which consequently could not be per- 
 manently embodied in the luggage, properly so called. 
 These latter items I particularly directed to be lodged 
 in a separate repository. But in spite of all my 
 precautions, amid the frequent extractions and inser- 
 tions which took place in the course of our day's 
 march, often without stopping or dismounting, I 
 almost invariably found, on emptying our treasures at 
 
CORFU. 
 
 31 
 
 the halting-place, that sausages, salt herrings, cheese, 
 figs, sketch-book, journal, woollen comforter. Homer, 
 Pausanias, Gell, had all been thrust into the same 
 receptacle, and came forth presenting, both to the sight 
 and the smell, too palpable tokens of the uncongenial 
 contact into which they had been forced. On the first 
 two or three occasions of the kind, I could not help 
 being diverted by the delinquent's total unconsciousness 
 of having been in the wrong, and the contempt which he 
 plainly exhibited, when taxed with his fault, for my 
 squeamish attention to such trivialities. But this feel- 
 ing soon gave place to unmixed wrath at the inveterate 
 slovenliness of his ways. Finding it, however, impossible 
 entirely to correct them, I was obliged in the end 
 patiently to submit ; and, keeping as good a look-out as 
 I was able on the more precious part of my stock, to 
 leave the rest to its fate. 
 
 Among the few subjects on which he was communi- 
 cative, were the glories of the late revolutionary war, 
 and the praises of the "bravi guerrieri" who had fought 
 out the independence of their country. On these points 
 he was the faithful organ of all the most exaggerated 
 popular traditions relative to combat, siege, or individual 
 act of heroism. Every petty skirmish was magnified 
 into a bloody battle; every successful maraud into a 
 briUiant victory. The portion of the Turkish army 
 destroyed in the defiles between Argos and Corinth, in 
 August 1822, which, according to more credible accounts, 
 may have amounted to between 2000 and 3000 men, con- 
 sisted, according to him, of 30,000. That which Reshid 
 and Ibrahim commanded against Mesolonghi, in 1827, 
 rated in the same more authentic quarters at about 
 25,000, was with him 60,000, which estimates may be 
 taken as a fair sample of his statistics relative to other 
 similar events. This pride of Hellenic patriotism, how- 
 
32 
 
 CORFU. 
 
 ever, did not, as in many other instances even among 
 the lowest class of Greeks, connect itself in the remotest 
 degree with any associations of ancient national renown — 
 matters concerning which he was as profoundly ignorant 
 as he was indifferent ; and the interest I attached to the 
 plains of Platsea or Marathon, was to him as much a 
 mystery as the anxiety I displayed to examine the big 
 stone of Orchomenus, or the arched bridge of Xerokampo. 
 It may indeed appear that, not being himself a native 
 Greek, he had no real cause to participate in this 
 species of classical enthusiasm. The Albanians, how- 
 ever, with the Christian insurgents throughout all parts 
 of the Turkish empire, as Greeks in the mass, in contra- 
 distinction to Turks or Franks, have, it would seem, 
 been very generally in the habit of concentrating their 
 historical recollections, in common with the more imme- 
 diate occupants of the classic land, around the glories of 
 Hellenic antiquity ; and perhaps, in a great measure, with 
 equal right. Even adopting the more moderate view of 
 a lately so much controverted point, there cannot be a 
 doubt that a large proportion of the present population 
 of Peloponnesus, Attica, and Boeotia, are of Sclavonic or 
 Albanian origin ; and, perhaps, an equal or greater 
 share of ancient Greek blood flows in the veins of the 
 Christian subjects of the Sultan, scattered over the 
 northern provinces of his dominions, than of the inhabi- 
 tants of Greece Proper. * It may, indeed, be considered 
 as one of the most capricious turns of the wheel of for- 
 tune, that while the seeds of the revolution were sown 
 and matured in those provinces, and while it is notorious 
 
 * Thepeasantry of Attica — Boeotia — part of Pliocis — and Argolis — > 
 with the islands of Salamis, Hydra, Spezia, and Andros — are chiefly 
 or solely Albanian. In the rest of Peloponnesus, with trifling exception 
 — iEtoHa — Acarnania, and the remaining islands — the population is 
 exclusively Greek.— .Gordon's Hist. Greek Revol. Vol. I, p. 60. 
 
CORFU. 
 
 33 
 
 that its final success was in a great measure due to the 
 zeal, perseverance, and devoted valour of the Albanian 
 warriors, yet has this brave and patriotic though barba- 
 rous race been left to pine in their native seats, under 
 all the rigours of Turkish despotism, while their neigh- 
 bours to the south enjoy the whole fruits of the common 
 exertions. The blow, however, which they have helped 
 to inflict on the Ottoman power, will ultimately, it is to 
 be hoped, have its favourable influence on their own des- 
 tinies, and insure them, at some future period, a better 
 chance of taking their place among the free and civilized 
 nations of Europe. 
 
 For the Bavarians, my attendant participated in the 
 cordial hatred, as well as contempt, which is the feeling 
 of all classes of the Greek population towards them. 
 Among the few anecdotes which he took pleasure in tell- 
 ing, was that of the corps of German regulars, who, 
 when sent up into Mount Taygetus to reduce the refrac- 
 tory Mai'notes, were blockaded and taken by the pea- 
 santry in one of its defiles; and after having been made 
 to dance, sing, and perform mountebank tricks for the 
 amusement of the captors and their wives and children, 
 were ransomed in a lump, officers and all, for a drachm 
 (eightpence) a-head; with the exception of a drummer, 
 who had approved himself skilled in the art of fiddhng, 
 and for whom they demanded a dollar. In regard to 
 religion, although I never heard him formally profess infi- 
 del principles, yet from the habitual tenor of his allusions, 
 Nicola was evidently a decided latitudinarian ; — a rare 
 phenomenon in these countries, where superstition — 
 religion it can hardly be called — exercises unhmited sway 
 over the minds of the people. All Christian persuasions, 
 at least, seemed to him much the same, and all their ob- 
 servances alike matters of empty ceremonial or cunning 
 priestcraft, and in so far objects of ridicule or disgust ; 
 
34 
 
 CORFU. 
 
 and not a few of the shrewd caustic remarks with which 
 he occasionally entertained me, were directed against 
 sectarian zeal or superstition in all its forms, more espe- 
 cially as exemplified in the case of his native Greek 
 church. 
 
 Upon the whole, as regards his quahfications for the 
 essential duties of his office, it would probably be diffi- 
 cult to find a better man. The entire economy of our 
 journey, paying bills, hiring horses, guides, &c., was left 
 to his management ; and I invariably found him perfectly 
 honest, regular in his accounts, and zealous in all ways 
 for the interest of his master. Of his probity and eco- 
 nomy I had good evidence in the comparison of his books 
 with those of other members of his profession, and still 
 better in the surprise expressed by several Philhellene 
 acquaintances, to whom I communicated some of the items, 
 at the strange phenomenon of an " honest Greek tra- 
 veUing servant."^ The only point on which I had 
 occasion to complain of extravagance, was the high fees 
 paid for the venal hospitality of the country khans and 
 cottages where we lodged. This, however, was but in 
 comphance with a mischievous but inveterate custom, 
 and indispensable to secure the tranquil enjoyment of 
 the best of the miserable accommodation they affi)rd, 
 
 * In the item of horse hire, for example :— the price at which he 
 procured our beasts for an ordinary day's journey was 3^ drachms, 
 about half-a-crown per day. This is the sum commonly paid by the 
 natives, and includes every species of entertainment or allowance, 
 either for man or horse, except the customary perquisite of a share in 
 the wine provided for use on the road. Foreign tourists, however, 
 are commonly charged five or six drachms, often with an addition of 
 perhaps half that sum for each day of return ; but no such demand was 
 ever made upon me. 
 
 His own fee was a dollar (4s. 4d.) a-day— outof which he nominally 
 found his board ; but, according to the usual courtesy in such cases, 
 while on the route, he partook with myself in the common stock of 
 provisions. 
 
CORFU. 
 
 35 
 
 His tact and temper in the management of the mule- 
 teers and boatmen, were admirable. The exacting spirit 
 and disposition to cheat and squabble on the part of 
 these people, which are so frequent a source of com- 
 plaint among travellers, and so common a subject of 
 enlargement in the pages of their journals, were incon- 
 veniences to which I was altogether a stranger. In my 
 own experience I never knew a more tractable, good- 
 humoured, or obliging race. For this difference of 
 impression, I can only fairly account by the excellent 
 discipline in which they were kept by Nicola, partly by 
 severity where refractory, partly by a spirit of good fel- 
 lowship, and mutual accommodation, where reasonable. 
 It is true, indeed, that in most parts of the country he 
 was known among the class of persons who profit by the 
 visits of tourists, and whose interest it was to oblige him. 
 He was well skilled in such elementary branches of the 
 art of cookery as were requisite for the preparation of 
 my frugal meals, and upon the whole cleanly in their 
 exercise : and marvellous was the rapidity with which, 
 on arriving at our night's quarters, he procured, killed, 
 plucked, and boiled a fowl into rice pottage for my supper, 
 with the very indifferent apparatus at his disposal. 
 
36 
 
 ITHACA. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 IONIAN SEA— FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ITHACA. 
 
 " 'TToIri vvv V7]t Cs murai 
 
 " <J>a/73%gg />{/' ayayov vavtsIx'kvTOi^ ohs Ttccl aXkovg 
 
 %ai [jJ z\jhovT sv vrjf ^ofj s^i ^ovtov ayovTeg 
 xdrhmv sig 'l^dxYiv" — Odyss. xvi. 222, 227. 
 
 " < Who brought thee, stranger, to the sea-girt land 
 Of Ithaca ?— and from what foreign strand ? ' 
 * At dead of night, while fast asleep I lay, 
 Phseacian seamen bore me on my way. 
 From Scheria's isle, in ship that oft before 
 Hath men transported to this rugged shore.' " 
 
 On the morning of the 21st we sailed for Ithaca, in 
 the Ionian government steamer. This island is not of 
 sufficient importance to make an immediate communica- 
 tion with it, in ordinary cases, an equivalent for the time 
 occupied by so great a deviation from the direct course 
 to Argostoli, the seat of government of Cefalonia. 
 The packet, therefore, does not call at Vathy, the 
 capital and chief port of Ithaca, unless when bearing 
 despatches of more than usual urgency for that place. 
 The present voyage happened to be one of those ex- 
 ceptions, and we had the prospect of reaching our des- 
 tination not long after nightfall; but, owing to the 
 weather and other incidental causes of delay, our arrival 
 did not take place till past midnight. The party on 
 
ITHACA, 
 
 37 
 
 board comprised a small reinforcement of troops for the 
 island of Paxo, under the command of an ensign, and 
 several officers belonging to the 53d regiment, then dis- 
 tributed in detachments among the four islands of Paxo, 
 Sta Maura, Ithaca, and Cefalonia. The day was 
 cloudy, with a gale of wind in our face and a heavy swell, 
 and the distant land was enveloped in mist; so that there 
 was an end, for the present, of all further enjoyment of 
 the beauties of the Ionian sea. On approaching the 
 southern extremity of the channel, we discover Paxo at 
 no great distance to the right. In front, the long massive 
 promontory of Sta Maura or Leucadia was indistinctly 
 visible. To the left, on the shore of Epirus, was pointed 
 out the rugged rock of Parga, whose destinies excited 
 so great an interest some years ago, in the neighbourhood 
 of which a stretch of flat land indicated the marshy vale 
 and mouth of the Acheron. 
 
 After a few hours' sail we put into the httle port of 
 Paxo, to disembark our reinforcement, which was re- 
 ceived with eagerness, mixed with disappointment at its 
 limited number, by the Resident. This dignitary, with 
 his suite, immediately boarded us, and, big with alarm 
 and self-importance, regaled us with fearful tales of the 
 horrors of the Albanian war, of which his government 
 had been the theatre, greatly to the amusement of the. 
 veterans of our company, who, however, were not a httle 
 dismayed at the accounts of the severe double duty to 
 which their own men had been subjected by the energetic 
 zeal of his excellency. Soon after, we came in sight of 
 the lofty round summit of Cefalonia, and the lower 
 heights of Ithaca to its left. As we approached Sta 
 Maura, there opened out, on the coast of the mainland, 
 a long low dismal-looking flat, indicating the entrance 
 to the gulf of Arta. Over its surface were scattered here 
 a;iid there heavy shapeless masses of ruin, of a character 
 
38 
 
 ITHACA. 
 
 closely resembling the brick remains of the Roman Cam- 
 pagna. They are, in fact, of the same age and material, 
 being those of the city of NicopoHs, founded by Augus- 
 tus in commemoration of the naval victory of Actium, 
 achieved on this coast, and which conferred on him the 
 sovereignty of the Roman world. Behind this dreary 
 foreground became visible in the extreme distance, as the 
 horizon cleared up towards evening, a lofty range of 
 snow-capped mountains, the ancient Pindus, presenting 
 - a singular and striking outline of sharp peaks and broken 
 summits. We put to at Sta Maura for three-quarters of 
 an hour, which gave me time to accompany my mihtary 
 acquaintances to the barracks, and partake of the hospi- 
 tality of their mess. It was now dark, so that I could see 
 Httle or nothing of the town or island; and on doubhng 
 the cape, two hours afterwards, could only figure to 
 myself Sappho's Leap, from a faint tinge of white in the 
 line of cliffs that loomed in heavy masses to our left. 
 
 There is, perhaps, no spot where the influence of 
 classical associations is so lively or so pure as in the 
 barren little isle of Ithaca, or which affords a more 
 striking example of the power of human genius, in 
 imparting celebrity and importance to objects in them- 
 selves insignificant. The limited extent of the scene 
 seems here to enhance, by the force of contrast, the mag- 
 nitude of the events enacted, while it adds to the charm 
 of the poet's minute and graphic description of the indi- 
 vidual locahties. Another powerful ingredient of the 
 interest that attaches to this little rock, is the complete 
 obscurity into which it retires, immediately after the 
 genius to which it was indebted for its celebrity becomes 
 extinct, and in which it has remained during the three 
 thousand years that have since elapsed. After the age 
 of its great mythological warrior and of his poet, neither 
 its prosperity nor its misfortunes seem to have attracted 
 
ITHACA. 
 
 39 
 
 the smallest attention beyond its own bounds. We 
 neither know by what race it was inhabited — what was 
 its form of government — or whether it was free or subject 
 to its neighbours. So much as the name of Ithaca 
 scarcely occurs in the page of any writer of historical 
 ages, unless with reference to its mythical celebrity. 
 Here, therefore, all our recollections are concentrated 
 solely around the heroic age. Every hill and rock, 
 every fountain and olive grove, breathes Homer and the 
 Odyssey. We are thus transplanted, by a sudden leap 
 over thirty centuries, to the most brilliant period of 
 Greek chivalry and song, without any intermediate stage, 
 or the interference of any of those rival associations, 
 which in Athens, Thebes, or Rome, while they augment 
 the number, diminish in each case the force of their 
 especial claims on our classical sympathies. 
 
 In the year 1504 Ithaca was uninhabited, and record 
 is extant of privileges offered by the Venetian govern- 
 ment to the settlers by whom it was repeopled.^ This 
 fact may seem in some measure to detract from the 
 interest that attaches to its present condition. It might 
 otherwise have been plausibly enough assumed, that a 
 spot which offered so few temptations to foreign settle- 
 ment or conquest, had preserved its primitive race of 
 inhabitants during its successive changes of destiny, 
 even since the days of Homer. But from whatever 
 cause it may have been deserted at the period above 
 mentioned, it is probable that the former emigrants 
 would be the first to avail themselves of such an invita- 
 tion. That the new settlers were of Hellenic, rather 
 than, as in many other similar cases, of Albanian or 
 Sclavonian race, is evinced by their Greek tongue, 
 which they claim to speak with greater purity than any 
 
 Leake, Northern Greece, vol. iii. p. 25. 
 
40 ITHACA. 
 
 of their neighbours. Their personal appearance also 
 favours this view; the women, more especially, struck me 
 as better-looking than those of any other part of Greece, 
 whether continent or island, with regular features and 
 sparkling black eyes. 
 
 Soon after the commencement of the present century, 
 the zeal of English classical research rescued Ithaca 
 once more from the obscurity in which for ages it had 
 lain, and it has since become a chief object of attention 
 with the numerous travellers who now annually visit this 
 Archipelago; occupying not only a prominent place m 
 their journals, but even furnishing materials for much 
 learned controversy, in many an elaborate work devoted 
 to the illustration of its topography. By a very mterest- 
 ing coincidence, nearly at the same period, and under 
 the same British auspices through which it was first 
 restored to fame, it has now become a populous and 
 flourishing community— perhaps upon the whole, in spite 
 of its diminutive size, the most thriving of the Ionian 
 islands. 
 
 The existing peculiar rites of site and scenery— the 
 snug httle town and port— the hollow bay in which it is 
 embedded— the rugged rocks and lofty mountains that 
 surround it— and the olive and fruit gardens that adorn 
 their lower declivities— all tend, amid every difference of 
 times and circumstances, to realize to the imagination of 
 the traveller, on a first approach to its shore, the descrip- 
 tions to which the island is indebted for its fame. The 
 pecuhar circumstances under which my own arrival took 
 place, were certainly not such as to diminish the effect of 
 a first impression. I could not, indeed, but be amused 
 by the coincidence, that, hke the hero on his return from 
 his wanderings to his native island,* it was my lot to 
 
 * Odyss. xiii. 113, 
 
ITHACA. 
 
 41 
 
 reach its coast from Scheria in a Phseacian vessel, 
 and fast asleep on the deck, between the hours of mid- 
 night and daybreak. We did not in fact enter the har- 
 bour of Vathy till about one o'clock, when I was 
 awakened from a two hours' slumber on a bench by the 
 inteUigence that our vessel was in port. The night was 
 gloomy but perfectly calm, and I could just distinguish 
 that we were within a deep bay, surrounded by hills 
 looming in heavy dark masses on every side. A few 
 faint lights at the extremity of the cove, indicated the 
 situation of the town. As we approached the shore the 
 vessel checked her way, and advancing slowly and steadily, 
 enabled me to contemplate the scene, undisturbed by the 
 noise of paddle or engine, those antidotes to every kind 
 of sentimental enjoyment. The stillness was again inter- 
 rupted by the firing of a signal gun on board the vessel, 
 answered by innumerable echoes from the hills, and by 
 a loud chorus of crowing cocks and barking dogs from 
 the shore. A few minutes afterwards, the splash of 
 oars and the motion of one of the lights towards us, be- 
 tokened the approach of a boat from the quay, into 
 which I was lowered, together with my equipage and the 
 despatches. The vessel then reset her paddles, put 
 about ship, and continued her outward course. 
 
 The captain and others in chief authority were below, 
 and their representatives above board had not favoured 
 the party in the boat with any particulars relative to my 
 person, or the object of my visit to their island ; so that, 
 on rowing towards the shore in the dark, I had to explain 
 for myself to the coxswain, who spoke Italian fluently, 
 who and what I was. On proceeding so to do, I was 
 interrupted by his assurance that he both knew and ex- 
 pected me. Although nothing could be more gratifying 
 to the vanity of a classical tourist, than to find that his 
 fame had preceded his arrival in so illustrious a spot^ 
 
42 
 
 ITHACA. 
 
 yet knowing it to be impossible that any notice of my 
 intended visit could have reached it, I ventured, in as far 
 as the profusion of complimentary interruptions on the 
 other side would admit, to follow out my statement to 
 the effect, that I was an Enghsh gentleman from Corfu, 
 with letters to the Resident, and at the same time men- 
 tioned my name. All this was perfectly satisfactory to 
 my new acquaintance, who assured me that both my 
 name and character were quite familiar to him, and that 
 he had been for some time expecting my arrival. There 
 appeared, therefore, to be no longer any doubt on the 
 subject, and, surrendering the remainder of my modest 
 scepticism, I went on to make some enquiries as to the 
 mode in which the report of my approach had reached 
 the island, when the mystery was cleared up. It turned 
 out that a new superintendent of the department of 
 sanitary pohce, in which this individual was second in 
 authority, had lately been appointed, and for some time 
 past expected from Corfu, in the person of a gentleman 
 of the name of More or Moore. The discovery, how^ 
 ever, that I was not his future commander, caused no 
 change of behaviour towards me on the part of my com- 
 panion — a man of some small importance in his way, and 
 whom I found, throughout my deahngs with him, in 
 various little matters where his good-will was necessary, 
 a most friendly and obliging person. Indeed, I had rea- 
 son to complain of the excess rather than the deficiency 
 of his zeal for my service. Finding that I was addressed 
 to the Resident, with that over officious but sincere bon- 
 hommie common to persons of this class of Hfe, both in 
 Greece and Italy, he assured me on landing, that his 
 excellency would not yet have retired to rest, and would 
 be delighted to see and accommodate me. This I doubt- 
 ed, considering the lateness of the hour, and requested 
 him rather to conduct me to his own office, or to any 
 
ITHACA. 
 
 43 
 
 other place where I could find a floor on which to lay 
 my mattress, being all I required till daybreak. He 
 acquiesced, as I supposed ; but, on arriving at our desti- 
 nation, I found that he had persevered in his original 
 intention. Before I had time to remonstrate, he had 
 roused one of the Resident's servants, a surly John Bull, 
 who soon settled the matter by informing us, that his 
 master had been in bed, and sound asleep for several 
 hours, and could see nobody till the morning. I was 
 then conducted to my guide's own ofiice, where light was 
 still burning. On the floor above was the pubhc read- 
 ing-room, about as primitive a hterary establishment as 
 I have chanced to meet with, containing one or two 
 Corfuote and Athenian newspapers, partly in the Greek, 
 partly in the ItaUan tongue. These I amused myself 
 in perusing for half an hour, and then made my bed on 
 a rush-bottomed sofa, the most elegant piece of furni- 
 ture in the apartment. 
 
 Early the next morning I received an invitation to 
 breakfast from the Resident — Captain W— of the artil- 
 lery. I remained five days under his hospitable roof, 
 and have seldom spent as many with so great pleasure 
 or profit. My reception was of that nature which places 
 a guest at once at his ease, and in my host I found an 
 instructive as well as a most agreeable companion. With 
 no pretensions to deep antiquarian science, he had paid 
 that attention which every well educated man ought to 
 do, to the objects of interest within the district over 
 which he presided— was familiar with its classical topo- 
 graphy, and even with the details of much of the contro- 
 versy on the subject. He was by consequence as com- 
 petent as he was a kind and attentive cicerone ; while 
 his skill and taste as an amateur artist, rendered him as 
 valuable a guide to the picturesque as to the classical 
 scenery of the island. Free from those prejudices which, 
 
44 
 
 ITHACA. 
 
 while they too often unfit the English to judge of the 
 character of the foreign nations among whom their lot 
 may be cast, lead them at the same time to depreciate or 
 despise them, he seemed to enjoy with all classes in the 
 island a well deserved popularity, and was to me a most 
 useful informant in every thing relating to their social 
 condition and habits. His lady was worthy of him, both 
 in respect to person and manners ; and a fine family of 
 children, of dificrent ages, completed the charm of their 
 social circle. 
 
 The town of Vathy extends in one narrow stripe 
 round the extremity of the horseshoe port, or " deep," 
 (/Sa^O) from whence it derives its name. This bay is but 
 a recess in the larger gulf of Molo,^ which, running up 
 into the heart of the island, divides it into two nearly 
 equal parts, connected by a narrow isthmus, on which 
 stands the palaeocastro of Acto, commonly called the 
 Castle of Ulysses. The houses are for the most part 
 whitewashed, and of cleanly exterior, but small : a large 
 proportion of them consist of but a single floor, and the 
 place ofifers no church or other public building making 
 the least external show. About the centre of the range 
 is the Residence, a neat edifice of two stories, the most 
 respectable of the town. Its exterior front is encased 
 in verandas ; the interior fitted up with every Enghsh 
 comfort. The view from the windows was, indeed, very 
 much that with which one is familiar in a snug little 
 Enghsh watering-place ; and but for the bolder character 
 of the surrounding hills, I could have fancied myself in 
 the house of the resident engineer of a small mihtary 
 station on the coast of Devonshire or the Isle of Wight. 
 Between the house and the water is a small esplanade, 
 
 ^ The numerous small harbours or recesses in the great gulf of 
 Molo, may be alluded to by the expression X////2Vgg rs ^ravo^/^o/ — 
 Odyss, xiii. 195. 
 
ITHACA. 
 
 45 
 
 with a flagstaff, and the customary testimonial to " King 
 Tom,"* which in this instance is a column, surmounted 
 by a bronze bust, presenting a tolerably faithful hke- 
 ness of his severe and coarse, but penetrating and com- 
 manding countenance. On the pedestal, some reliefs, 
 from the chisel of a native sculptor, perpetuate by alle- 
 gorical emblems, the glories of his sceptre, and the grati- 
 tude of those who experienced its benign sway. Beyond, 
 is displayed nearly the whole circumference of the amphi- 
 theatre formed by the port of Vathy, flanked on each 
 side of its entrance by projecting headlands, of which 
 that to the left is fortified by a circular tower. Full in 
 front, in the distance, rises the lofty Mount Neriton, now 
 called Anoi, bearing, in form, size, and colour, a consi- 
 derable resemblance to Benlomond, as viewed from the 
 southern extremity of the lake. 
 
 * The familiar sobriquet of Sir Thomas Maitland during the period 
 of his vlceroyalty. 
 
ITHACA. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CRIME, AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN ITHACA. 
 
 Our arrival at Ithaca took place at a moment when the 
 minds of its population were under the influence of an 
 excitement, unequalled perhaps, in the annals of the place, 
 since that consequent on the destruction of the flower 
 of the native nobihty by the arrows of Ulysses, and hke 
 it, produced by the commission, within the bounds of 
 their own Uttle island, of a mysterious deed of blood. 
 The interest excited by this occurrence was not confined 
 to Ithaca itself, but had spread throughout the septin- 
 sular repubhc. The crime, indeed, was one of those to 
 which, in point of comphcation and horror, it would per- 
 haps be difiicult to find a parallel in the Newgate Calendar, 
 or the Causes CeUhres, and, occurring in the bosom of a 
 small and simple community, possessed a special claim 
 on my attention, which induced me to note its details. 
 As they tend also to throw a curious hght on the social 
 condition of the island, a brief statement of them may 
 perhaps not be uninteresting to others. 
 
 Upwards of twenty years ago, a Frank of the name of 
 Soleure had estabhshed his domicile at Vathy, with a 
 wife and only son. He was a person of some education, 
 and of extensive knowledge of the world. Hence, as 
 his character had been irreproachable since his settle- 
 ment in Ithaca, he had been appointed teacher in the 
 pubhc grammar school, and had acquired considerable 
 influence among the more intellectual class of the 
 inhabitants. There was some mystery attached to his 
 
ITHACA. 
 
 47 
 
 early life, which, even according to his own account, had 
 not been of the most creditable description. He gave 
 himself out for a Frenchman, native of Avignon, yet he 
 spoke Italian better and more fluently than French — a 
 circumstance which might, perhaps, be explained by a 
 residence of more than half his life in countries where 
 the former was, the prevaihng dialect. He described 
 himself as having held a captain's commission in the 
 French imperial army in Spain, where he had been 
 taken prisoner during the early part of the war, but 
 had effected his escape in the disguise of a capuchin 
 friar to Malta. To account for his not returning to his 
 own country to resume his military duties, he pleaded a 
 distaste for the service, and a constitutional nervousness 
 and timidity, which disquahfied him for the profession 
 of a soldier. This latter statement, although in itself 
 perfectly true, naturally suggested to those who were 
 disposed to cavil at his story, the further question, how 
 a person of such a temperament should have managed 
 to attain the rank of captain in Napoleon's army. At 
 Malta, and subsequently at Zante, he continued to 
 support his character of capuchin. In the latter island, 
 however, he attached himself to a female, with whom he 
 eloped to Patras, where he threw off his canonicals, 
 abjured the Catholic for the Greek persuasion, and 
 married his mistress. Afterwards he kept a school at 
 Sta Maura, from whence he removed to Ithaca, where he 
 was now settled under the circumstances already stated. 
 
 For some years past, freemasonry had been much in 
 vogue in the Ionian islands, and more especially in 
 Ithaca. As it comprised many British members, the 
 society was viewed without suspicion by the government, 
 and thus afforded opportunity to the more enlightened 
 classes for private convivial meetings to discuss matters 
 of public interest, without the suspicion which would 
 
48 
 
 ITHACA. 
 
 attach to organized political clubs, or other secret asso- 
 ciations. Soleure from the first took a lead in the affairs 
 of the lodge, and for several years past had officiated as its 
 master. During this period the society had fallen under 
 the displeasure of the clergy, who saw in it but a medium 
 for the dissemination of principles calculated to open 
 the minds of the people to the absurdity of their own 
 system of superstition, and, by consequence, a con- 
 spiracy against their authority and influence. They 
 therefore took every means to inflame the minds of the 
 lower orders against it, and their exertions were crowned 
 with complete success. To such an extent was the 
 popular feeling carried, that the council of the lodge, 
 during the early part of the year 1837, fearing distur- 
 bances or acts of violence against their own persons, had 
 deliberated on the propriety of its dissolution. Some 
 of the leading members, however, objected to this plan 
 as a mean subserviency to popular clamour, and an act 
 of injustice to the people themselves, by still further 
 countenancing and confirming their foolish prejudices ; 
 and so it fell to the ground. Soon after, a violent sermon 
 was preached by the bishop against masonry, and the 
 same night the lodge was broken into, and robbed of 
 arms and other articles used in the ceremonial of the 
 society. Soleure, as the head of the establishment and 
 a foreigner, was the chief object of popular odium. He 
 was frequently mobbed in the streets ; and, as he resided 
 at some httle distance from the town, he requested and 
 obtained from the superintendent of pohce, (a retired 
 British officer of great respectabihty,) a constable to 
 guard his house by night until the excitement had sub- 
 sided. A few nights afterwards, several hours before 
 daybreak, the superintendent was roused by the servant 
 maid of the Soleure family, who announced that the 
 work of murder was going on in the house; she could 
 
ITHACA. 
 
 49 
 
 give no further particulars, as, on hearing a tumult and 
 screams in the family apartment from another part of 
 the dwelling where she slept, she had fled for assistance. 
 He immediately proceeded to the spot, where the unfor- 
 tunate woman and her son were found lying quite dead 
 and fearfully mutilated on the floor. Soleure himself 
 was stretched on the bed in a corner of the room, also 
 apparently lifeless from terror, but with no other bodily 
 injury than a slight wound in the flesh of the arm. His 
 account was, that when the assassins broke in, the family 
 were preparing to retire to rest ; that, becoming aware 
 of their purpose, he instinctively took refuge in the bed, 
 where he had swooned from terror; and that the wound 
 in his arm had been inflicted by a random thrust, aimed 
 at him as he lay enveloped in the clothes. Nothing 
 tending to aflbrd any trace of the murderers was found, 
 but the scabbard of a sword lying on the bed by his 
 side. 
 
 By a coincidence which appeared almost too singular 
 to be the effect of accident, the constable appointed to 
 guard the house, was, upon some pretext, absent from 
 his post that night. Soleure, although he did not pre- 
 tend to recognise his person, which was disguised, 
 denounced as the murderer a man formerly a freemason, 
 but who had been expelled the lodge, by his sanction 
 and authority, for disreputable hfe. This individual 
 had since become a sworn foe of his former brethren, 
 and of Soleure in particular, identifying his cause with 
 that of the priests, by whom he had been absolved from 
 his previous crime of participation in the profane mys- 
 teries, and received into special favour and confidence. 
 The superintendent proceeded, therefore, at once to the 
 house of this man, who was not found within ; and it was 
 afterwards proved that he had been seen that morning 
 at three o'clock, in company with the son of a priest 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 ITHACA. 
 
 distinguished for the violent part he had taken against 
 the freemasons. The only reason he could assign for 
 this circumstance was, that he was an early riser, and fond 
 of exercise in the morning; and he was accordingly 
 placed under arrest. Suspicion, however, at the sanae 
 time, fell upon Soleure himself, and, as will appear in 
 the sequel, not altogether without reason. Pubhc feeling 
 ran, as might be expected, strongly against him— partly 
 from his previous unpopularity, partly from a patriotic 
 anxiety on the part of the Ithacans to shift the odium 
 of so horrible a crime from their own shoulders upon 
 those of a foreigner— and he was also taken into custody. 
 
 The office of crown prosecutor for the island about 
 this time became vacant, and, owing to the importance 
 and mystery of the case, a lawyer of distinguished ability 
 was sent from Corfu to follow out the investigation. 
 During several weeks, nothing more was elicited tending 
 to throw light on the affair; and, according to the usual 
 custom on such occasions, a solemn procession, partly of 
 a judicial, partly of a religious nature, was held, in which 
 the authorities, civil and ecclesiastic, paraded the streets 
 of the town, headed by the bishop, summoning all those 
 who had any information to give, to come forward, and 
 pronouncing unqualified excommunication on all who, 
 after this invitation, should hold back. Upon this an 
 individual appeared, and deposed—" That on the night 
 of the murder, while pas&ing along the quay near the 
 shipping, he saw a man come down as if from the direction 
 of Soleure's house, and throw something into the water, 
 and that he resembled Soleure in stature and general 
 appearance." A search was immediately instituted at 
 the place pointed out, and a sword found smeared with 
 blood, which on trial exactly fitted the scabbard dis- 
 covered in the apartment where the murder was com- 
 mitted. The appearance of the weapon, however, was 
 
ITHACA. 
 
 51 
 
 such as to render this evidence very suspicious; for, 
 although it must have been already seventeen days under 
 water, its general surface was comparatively bright and 
 free from rust or corrosion, while the traces of blood 
 exhibited a freshness which it was scarcely possible they 
 could have preserved during so long a period of immer- 
 sion. On the witness being questioned as to what he 
 himself was doing in the streets at that late hour, he 
 answered, that he was on his return from a visit to a sick 
 friend. ^ An epidemic fever, it is true, was prevalent at 
 the period, and the friend in question was then afflicted 
 by it. On enquiry, however, it turned out that no such 
 visitor had been admitted that night. The explanation 
 given was, that on arriving at the door of the house, and 
 finding it closed and the family retired to rest, he had 
 not cared to disturb them. Another suspicious circum- 
 stance was, that the spot from whence he stated the 
 sword to have been thrown, was not in the direct road 
 from, his own house to that of his friend. Soon after, a 
 person who kept a small shop in the town came forward 
 and stated, that, some time before the murder, Soleure 
 had come to his house, and showing him a sword he held 
 in his hand, had asked him its value, adding, " that it 
 was a good weapon, and before this time had killed both 
 a mother and son that he weighed the sword and 
 entered the weight in his books, and that the weight of 
 the one found in the water corresponded with his entry. 
 On inspecting the books, however, the style of the entry 
 showed it to have been made subsequent to the date 
 under which it was inserted. His explanation was, that 
 he had neglected to make it at the time, and that, when 
 it afterwards occurred to him to do so, he had, for the 
 sake of regularity, assigned it a place under the proper 
 date. Why he should have thought it necessary to 
 record the weight at all, did not appear, as he had not 
 
62 
 
 ITHACA. 
 
 purchased the sword. The servant girl was next brought 
 forward with a statement tending to imphcate Soleure ; 
 namely, that during the tumult in the room, while the 
 crime was committing, she heard the young man call out 
 
 "What! wilt thou murder me?" The distinction 
 
 between thou and you, which with us is but one of 
 usage, is, it need hardly be observed, of considerable 
 importance in most other European tongues, in regard 
 to the sense of the expression ; the former mode of 
 address being customary only between relations or very 
 attached friends, while the latter is that of ordinary social 
 intercourse. This statement, however, was found to be 
 broadly at variance with her deposition as formerly made 
 before the superintendent of pohce, where she had no 
 less distinctly and emphatically ascribed to the young 
 man expressions of a very different nature. This was, 
 in fact, so clear a case of perjury, that the witness was 
 sentenced to three years' imprisonment, which she was 
 undergoing at the period of my visit to the island. 
 
 Such was the cream of the direct testimony against 
 Soleure — lame enough, no doubt, and bearing much in 
 its own face tending to show the existence of a conspi- 
 racy against the unfortunate old man. On the other 
 hand, there were certainly some strong points of circum- 
 stantial evidence of an unfavourable nature. In the first 
 place, it seemed strange that a plot on the part of his 
 own enemies, and of those of freemasonry, should have 
 been so managed as to wreak its mahce on the wife and 
 son, while he himself escaped comparatively uninjured. 
 Hence it was assumed by the party unfavourable to him, 
 that the flight to the bed, the terror, and the swoon, were 
 mere pretexts, and that the wound in the arm was inflict- 
 ed with his own hand, the better to avert all suspicion 
 from himself And yet no reasonable motive was ever 
 suggested that could have instigated him to so monstrous 
 
ITHACA. 
 
 53 
 
 an act. Something, indeed, was said of a feeling of jea- 
 lousy having been occasionally expressed by him towards 
 his wife ; but no weight was attached by impartial persons 
 to this circumstance. The parties were both well past 
 the period of life when conjugal harmony is exposed to 
 much risk of interruption from any such cailse, and there 
 was every reason to beheve that whatever had passed 
 between them on the subject was but in jest. Nor would 
 this have accounted for the destruction of his only son, 
 whom there was abundant proof he tenderly loved, and 
 with whom there was no evidence of his ever having had 
 a quarrel. Many, too, of those who knew him best, ridi- 
 culed the notion that so weak, nervous, and timid an old 
 man, even had he been ferocious enough to form the 
 design, should have been able to muster sufficient energy, 
 either of mind or body, successfully to carry into effect 
 an assault of this kind against two persons much more 
 active and able-bodied than himself. It was moreover 
 proved, that his right arm, from the effects of an old hurt, 
 added to constitutional debility, had for many years been 
 incapable of any great exertion; and it was hence argued 
 by his counsel, that it would have been impossible for 
 him to have thrown the sword to the distance at which 
 it was found from the shore. 
 
 The newly appointed advocate, considered a man 
 of great talent, but apparently altogether devoid of 
 principle, on observing how strong the tide of popular 
 feeling set against the prisoner, had, shortly after his 
 arrival, thrown aside even a semblance of impartiaUty, and 
 completely identified himself with his enemies ; exerting 
 himself, with a zeal almost amounting to enthusiasm, to 
 fix the stain of guilt upon him, and remove it from 
 others on whom suspicion might have fallen. The ex- 
 freemason who had been arrested at the commencement, 
 and against whom so much circumstantial evidence 
 
54 
 
 ITHACA. 
 
 existed, was released by him shortly after his arrival. 
 Immediately on being set at large the man started for 
 Constantinople, but returned two or three months after- 
 wards ; when, hearing that the servant-maid had been 
 imprisoned for perjury, he again decamped after a two 
 days' stay in the island, and had not since been heard 
 of. 
 
 For a long time the feeling, not only of the populace, 
 but of all classes, even of the Enghsh residents, was 
 unfavourable to Soleure, owing to the apparent plausi- 
 bility, at first sight, both of the testimony and of the 
 circumstantial evidence against him. But upon more 
 full investigation, a change took place; and, although 
 opinions were still divided, the conviction of the majority 
 of impartial persons of the upper class, including most 
 of the English, seemed now to be, that a foul conspiracy 
 existed to involve the unfortunate man and his family in 
 the cruellest species of destruction. It was conjectured, 
 to explain the apparent singularity in the selection of the 
 two principal victims, that the plot had been to kill the 
 wife and child before the father's eyes, and then to fasten 
 the guilt of the action upon himself, and bring him to 
 the scaffold. This, however, seemed a refinement of ini- 
 quity scarcely conceivable, and hence others preferred 
 the supposition, that the plan had been to murder the 
 whole family, but that its authors had been prevented, 
 by some sudden alarm, from the complete execution of 
 their purpose. The perjury of the servant girl, of the 
 tradesman, or of other witnesses for the prosecution, did 
 not in itself seem to be considered as necessarily imply- 
 ing the existence of a conspiracy; it being, as I was 
 informed, not altogether inconsistent with the principles 
 of modern Greek morality, where a firm conviction pre- 
 vailed of the guilt of an individual, and an excessive 
 anxiety for his conviction, to promote the desired object 
 
ITHACA. 
 
 55 
 
 even by false testimony ! This, at least, was the mode 
 in which the more inteUigent believers in the guilt of 
 Soleure proposed to set aside the argument which the 
 palpable falsehood of a great part of the evidence sup- 
 plied of his innocence. 
 
 The crown advocate's own fate furnished a striking 
 episode in this tragical history. In the full ardour of 
 his zeal against the prisoner, and while basking in the 
 sunshine of popular favour, he suddenly became deran- 
 ged, and was sent off and placed in confinement at Corfu. 
 The circumstance was naturally turned to account by 
 the friends of Soleure, as a Divine judgment against 
 his persecutor; and there was reason to believe it 
 had not been without its effect on the minds of the 
 superstitious populace. Owing to this and other inci- 
 dental causes of delay, upwards of a year had elapsed 
 before the opening of the trial, and the process was now 
 at one of its most interesting stages. The prisoner, if 
 deficient in physical courage, displayed no small degree 
 of that mental firmness which might be the result either 
 of philosophy or of despair. He was entitled by law to 
 claim his release, if not brought to the bar within the 
 year. But he disdained to avail himself of this privilege, 
 asserting that, if he were to live, he would not live under 
 the odium of so horrible a crime ; and if he were to die, 
 it mattered but little, as he had lost all that niade life 
 dear to him. The newly appointed advocate— himself a 
 native of the place, a personal friend of Soleure, a 
 mason, and engaged as a witness for the defence — was 
 incapacitated by these causes from performing his func- 
 tions, which were transferred to the individual holding 
 the same ofiice in the neighbouring island of Cefalonia. 
 This person, a man of honour as well as of ability, made 
 no secret of his conviction of the innocence of the ac- 
 cused; and it was even said, that so strong was his sense 
 
66 
 
 ITHACA, 
 
 of the futility of the charges against him, that it was not 
 his intention to reply to the speech of the counsel for the 
 defence. 
 
 It rained hard the whole morning — I therefore the more 
 readily acquiesced in Captain W 's proposal to accom- 
 pany him to the court, where the proceedings promised 
 to be interesting. In approaching the Ithacan agora, the 
 mind instinctively reverted to the description of the 
 second book of the Odyssey ; and the contrast between 
 the scene which now presented itself, and the image long 
 familiar to my fancy of that where Telemachus, like 
 this poor schoolmaster, the victim — with his family — of a 
 cruel conspiracy of his fellow-citizens, expostulates with 
 his oppressors, added much to the interest of a first view 
 of the humble council-hall, and the assembly that filled 
 it. It was a small two-storied edifice of the most hom.ely 
 architecture, with a wooden staircase outside, according 
 to the prevailing fashion of the islands, and of the whole 
 of continental Greece, in the few cases where access to 
 an upper floor is required. The tribunal oflfered much 
 the appearance of the room set apart for the meetings of 
 justice courts in a second-rate English market town. 
 The judges, three in number, sat at one extremity, on a 
 platform considerably raised above the level of the floor; 
 the crown advocate in the corner below, to their right, near 
 
 whom Captain W and myself were accommodated 
 
 with chairs ; on the other side, the clerk of the court. 
 The prisoner, who was also allowed a seat at the bar, 
 was a thin infirm-looking old man, with a haggard, care- 
 worn countenance, in which a naturally mild and placid 
 expression was nearly effaced by one of deep and poig- 
 nant grief. Behind him, the remainder of the floor was 
 filled with spectators, who, though very attentive, dis- 
 played little of that intense interest in the proceedings 
 which their rancorous prejudice against him might have 
 
ITHACA. 
 
 5T 
 
 led one to expect. The pleadings were in Italian, in 
 which language the whole business of the court was con- 
 ducted, unless in the case of witnesses of the lower and 
 less educated class, who were examined in their native 
 Greek. The form of process differed in no great degree 
 from that of our own tribunals. When we entered, the 
 counsel for the defence, a young Cefalonian lawyer, was 
 speaking to the evidence of the discovery of the sword, 
 which he impugned with some ability. The sword itself 
 was produced, and handed round the court for inspection. 
 After he had concluded, testimony was brought forward 
 to the character of the prisoner. The most important 
 and interesting was that of the crown advocate of the 
 island, a remarkably pleasing, good-looking young man, 
 an intimate friend of my host, and who dined that after- 
 noon at his table. He recapitulated with much eloquence 
 and feeling a number of proofs, which he himself had wit- 
 nessed, of the fond affection borne by the unfortunate old 
 father to his murdered son, who it seems had been a 
 youth of remarkable promise ; of the pride he had taken 
 in him ; how often he had boasted of the excellent edu- 
 cation he had given him ; and with what dehght he 
 looked forward to the honour that would crown his owi; 
 gray hairs, from the distinction he was destined to attain 
 in whatever civil or Hterary career it might be his lot to 
 pursue. The countenance of the old man, who had 
 hitherto listened in mute apathy to what was going on, 
 here became sliglitly convulsed, and torrents of tears 
 rolled down his cheeks ; but he remained silent, and in 
 other respects motionless. It certainly was a most affect- 
 ing scene, and ought to have gone far to convince of his 
 innocence even those among his bitterest enemies whose 
 hearts were not as hard as the rocks of their native island. 
 It would, indeed, be difficult to conceive a more horrid 
 destiny than that of the poor sufferer, assuming him to 
 
58 
 
 ITHACA. 
 
 be guiltless : after having witnessed the murder of a wife 
 and only son, the joy and hope of an otherwise forlorji 
 and comfortless old age, to be impeached and exhibited 
 in public as their assassin; to lie in prison in a foreign 
 land during a year, under so odious an imputation ; and 
 to have, from day to day, all the revolting details of their 
 massacre forced upon his recollection, by enemies unre- 
 mitting in the exercise of every art of ingenuity or 
 treachery to fasten the stigma of it on himself 
 
 During a pause in the proceedings, the judges retired 
 to a small side apartment, where coffee was handed round, 
 of which we also partook. Their appearance and conver- 
 sation gave a favourable impression of their character; and 
 as there was no real ground to suspect their impartiality, 
 it was the more amusing to observe how necessarily 
 it seemed to be assumed, even by the more intelligent 
 of the prisoner's friends, that their decision might be 
 influenced by motives such as with us no one would 
 ever imagine could interfere with the rectitude of a ver- 
 dict. One, it was said, was a Catholic, and would bear 
 ill-will to Soleure because he was a renegado from that 
 persuasion; another was a native of Ithaca, and con- 
 nected by blood with some of the parties most hostile to 
 him ; a third had a great dislike to freemasonry, and so 
 forth. Groundless as these assumptions might be in the 
 present case, they did not speak much in favour of the 
 general character of the Ionian tribunals, or at least of 
 the esteem in which they were held among the Ueges. 
 The only species of external influence which there 
 seemed to be any plausible ground for apprehending, was 
 the fear of popular outrage in case of acquittal ; and the 
 general behef was, that the verdict would be of that 
 ambiguous and unfair description, which in England is 
 unknown, but in Scotland is admitted under the name 
 of "not proven;" and which, without too rudely clash- 
 
ITHACA. 
 
 59 
 
 ing with the prejudices of the community, would at the 
 same time evade the sin of punishing an innocent man. 
 Soleure, however, had declared he would be satisfied with 
 nothing less than a full acquittal, and in the case of any 
 decision of the nature above mentioned, would appeal to 
 the Supreme Court of Corfu for a new trial. On my 
 return, I heard that the verdict had been in his favour, 
 but whether by the full or half species of acquittal, I 
 could not ascertain. The real perpetrators of the myste- 
 rious crime remained still undiscovered. 
 
 The weather improved towards the afternoon, and I 
 had time for a walk in the town and its environs. I was 
 struck with the apparent commercial activity of the port, 
 where I counted lying about a dozen of ships or two- 
 masted vessels of considerable burthen, besides number- 
 less others of inferior size and denomination; yet the 
 harbour was said at this moment to be comparatively 
 empty. If we remember that Ulysses, with the whole 
 force of the Cefalonian group of islands, could only 
 muster twelve vessels as his contingent to the force 
 before Troy, it must be admitted that Ithaca has no 
 reason to complain of any falling off in her naval estab- 
 lishment since the heroic age. 
 
60 
 
 ITHACA. 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 TOPOGRAPHY OF ITHACA 
 
 aXX' ayi^ roi ds/^M 'l&dxYig sdog, o(p^a 'TrsTToldrig. — Odyss. xiii. 344. 
 
 " Come, view the land of Ithaca with me, 
 If thou thy breast from sceptic doubt would'st free." 
 
 The impressions which a personal visit to this island 
 can hardly fail to leave on the mind of the impartial 
 student of Homer is, that, so great is the general resem- 
 blance between its natural features and those of the 
 one described in the Odyssey, the difficulty is, not so 
 much to discover in each case a bay, rock, cavern, or 
 mountain answering to his description, as to decide? 
 among the many that present themselves, on the precise 
 one which he may happen to have had in view. In 
 estimating the amount or value of this correspondence, 
 he will also bear in mind how unreasonable it were to 
 exact from the poet of any age, although possessed of 
 the closest personal familiarity with the district selected 
 for his scene of action, the rigid accuracy of the land- 
 surveyor, or to deny him the privilege of his profession, 
 even in his description of real objects, to depart a little 
 from the truth, where a slight variation of site or 
 appearance was necessary to their full effect. To pro- 
 nounce, therefore, as some have done, in the face of so 
 great a mass of general evidence to the contrary, that 
 Homer had no personal knowledge of Ithaca, because 
 
ITHACA. 
 
 61 
 
 the more fastidious commentator may find difficulty in 
 arranging on his classical atlas, consistently with exist- 
 ing appearances, the hut of Eumseus, the fountain of 
 Arethusa, or the port of Phorcys, were almost as unrea- 
 sonable as to deny the " Author of Waverley " any 
 personal knowledge of Scotland, because of an equal 
 difficulty of identifying the bay of EUangowan or the 
 castle of TiUietudlem.^ 
 
 Equally unwarrantable, on the other side, are the 
 attempts of the more orthodox school of Homeric 
 interpreters, to force on existing objects or locahties a 
 closeness of harmony with his descriptions, such as was, 
 doubtless, as little congenial to his own taste as condu- 
 cive to the interest of his poem ; and this over subtilty, 
 as displayed in the elegant but not very critical work 
 of Gell, the patriarch of modern Ithacan topographers, 
 is among the chief causes that have led some of his 
 successors into the opposite extreme. For my own part, 
 I confess that, while nothing can be more dehghtful than 
 to recognise a strong general resemblance between the 
 descriptions of scenery contained in any poetical work of 
 deep interest, and the real locahties to which they refer, 
 it would tend but little to enhance this pleasure could I 
 be convinced of the accuracy of all their minutest 
 details, even to the back-door, kitchen-offices, and draw- 
 well of the hero's dweUing. To take a less extreme 
 case of illustration— the poet describes the suitors with 
 their galley as laying their ambush for Telemachus, when 
 on his return from Peloponnesus, behind an island called 
 
 * The arguments on the sceptical side have been collected and 
 arranged in a very subtle and elaborate manner, by Professor Voelcker 
 of Giessen, in his GeograpUa Homerica ; (Hannov. 8vo. 1830;) but 
 have been met and successfully confuted in a pamphlet by the Prussian 
 general Riihle von Lilienstern. — Ueher das Homerische Ithaka ; Ber- 
 lin, 1832. 
 
62 
 
 ITHACA.. 
 
 Asterisj in the strait between Cefalonia and Ithaca, 
 provided with a good port on each side, and in every 
 respect favourable to their design. There is still visible 
 in this channel a rocky islet, now called Dyscalho — a 
 correspondence which is in so far satisfactory. Accord- 
 ing, however, to the prevailing system of topography, 
 where the palseocastro, or "ancient fortress" of Aeto, is 
 laid down as the citadel and palace of Ulysses, Dyscalho, 
 owing to its situation towards the northern extremity of 
 the strait, would but ill have served the suitors' purpose 
 as a place of ambush for a vessel coming from the south. 
 
 Hence the supporters of this system have been at their 
 wits' end to discover how the blank was to be filled up 
 in their chart of the channel, and all the shifts common 
 in such cases have been resorted to.^ The difiiculty has, 
 on the other hand, been well turned to account by 
 another party, who place the city of Ulysses, not at 
 Aeto, but in a small bay to the north, nearly opposite 
 the existing islet. Dyscallio, however, it must be 
 admitted, in no respect corresponds with the Asteris of 
 the poet. Instead of having two ports, as in his descrip- 
 tion, it has no harbour whatever, and is in fact but an 
 insignificant rock, too small and low to have afforded 
 
 * It seems not altogether improbable that the island may have been 
 called into existence by the poet, merely for the sake of his narrative, 
 and that ' A(STi^ig may be a fictitious term, like KaXtcvj^w and others 
 similar, compounded of the root 2TEP with A privative, and denoting 
 
 unsteady " or " inconstant." This conjecture may receive support 
 from the circumstance that Delos, the most celebrated of all floating 
 islands in the Greek mythology, is said anciently to have borne the 
 title of Asteria. — Apollod. Rhod. i., 4, 1. Plin. Hist. Nat. iv. 12. 
 Strabo, who, after ApoUodorus, speaks of Homer's Asteris as still ex- 
 isting, says it was also called by the variety Asteria. Asterion was 
 the name of a river of ArgoHs, sacred to Juno, equally remark- 
 able for " inconstancy," being engulfed or absorbed in the soil below 
 the temple of the goddess. — Pausan. Cor* c. xvii. 
 
ITHACA. 63 
 
 either the necessary concealment or shelter to the galley 
 of the suitors. The want of a real Asteris, therefore, 
 certainly supplies a good argument, on the sceptical side, 
 of a general failure of correspondence between the 
 present Ithaca and the Ithaca of the Odyssey. So lax 
 are my own principles as regards poetical topography, 
 that I am disposed to feel grateful to Homer for the 
 pittance of matter-of-fact which he has allowed us, in the 
 existence of a small island between the two larger ones; 
 and would readily allow him in return the full exercise 
 of the license claimed by his profession, to convert it 
 into a Plota or a Planota, and thus to shift it to any 
 part of the strait, and swell its harbours to such a capa^ 
 city as may best suit his convenience. Apart from the 
 controversies relative to the general correspondence 
 between the Ithaca of Homer and that of the septinsular 
 repubUc, the adherents of more orthodox principles are 
 far from being at one as to the claims of the individual 
 localities of the latter island to an identity with those 
 described by the poet. Consistently with the views 
 expressed at the commencement of this chapter, I shall 
 not range myself as a partizan on any side, but shall be 
 content with a simple statement of my own observations, 
 for the benefit of those who may be disposed to follow 
 my example of examining the ground and judging for 
 themselves. 
 
 The first part of the island which I visited in com- 
 mencing my own survey of its interior, was the district 
 of Amarathia, assigned by Gell as the site of the swine- 
 herd's establishment. Amarathia is a small hamlet of 
 straggling cottages, spread over a piece of table-land on 
 the summit of a cHff, laid down by the same traveller as 
 the rock of Korax, at the foot of which springs the foun- 
 tam bearing the classic name of Arethusa. This group 
 of objects lies towards the southern extremity of the 
 
e4 
 
 ITHACA. 
 
 island, about five miles distant from Vath;^. A good 
 road, the work of the British government, leads up the 
 valley extending behind the town and port nearly to the 
 hamlet. The valley is bounded on the right by Mount 
 Stefano, or Meravugli— the Neius of Homer according 
 to Gell— and the loftiest summit in the island, with the 
 exception of Anoi, the Neriton of the poet. The open 
 arable land, of which there is, for Ithaca, a considerable 
 extent just behind the town, gradually contracts as we 
 ascend, until lost in the rocky declivities that close in 
 upon both sides. Just where the blending of the fertile 
 and barren soil takes place, the industrious peasantry 
 were busy in extending the frontiers of the cultivated 
 region, by extirpating rocks, gathering loose stones, and 
 building up terraces, on which the good soil is accumu- 
 lated, and planted with vines and oUves. This is an opera- 
 tion common throughout Greece and Italy, and indeed in 
 all other rugged districts where a fine climate and a favour- 
 able exposure render the value of the land obtained more 
 than an equivalent for the price of its redemption. It 
 assumed, however, a more especial interest iii the present 
 case, from having been so pointedly noticed by the 
 suitor Eurymachus, in one of the insolent harangues 
 addressed by him to Ulysses in his disguise of mendi- 
 cant, where, bantering the hero as a sturdy beggar.and 
 lazy vagabond, he tells him, that were he willing to 
 work he would provide him plenty of profitable em- 
 ployment : — 
 
 " Friend, if to labour thou would'st turn thy hand, 
 Upon the outskirts* of my own best land, 
 A fair day's wages thou might'st earn with ease. 
 In gathering stones and planting goodly trees." 
 
 Ocb/ss. xviii. 357. 
 
 * As evidence how little the most esteemed translations are often 
 to be depended upon, as representing the spirit of the original, it may 
 be observed that the phrase of v, 358, a/goS i-^r' sff%«r/^s, which here 
 
ITHACA. 
 
 65 
 
 At a distance of about four miles from the port we 
 struck off to the left, towards the fountain, along rocky- 
 steeps overhanging the sea. Some of our party carried 
 guns, and found in the brushwood several coveys of the 
 red-legged partridge, a bird which abounds in the island. 
 
 Hares are-also plentiful, and Captain W informed me 
 
 that during the winter his larder was well stocked with 
 presents of this animal from his insular acquaintance. 
 Hence Pliny has been taken to task by Gell for saying 
 that hares imported into Ithaca die, {lepores illati mori- 
 unturf) as if that author had meant to assert that the 
 animal could not live in the island. Little weight can 
 in many instances be attached to these laconic notices of 
 the Roman natural historian, especially when referring 
 to the unusual or marvellous properties of the objects he 
 describes. The terms of his text, however, in the pre- 
 sent instance, if taken by the letter, do not imply that 
 there were no native hares in Ithaca, but merely that 
 such as were imported from abroad would not thrive 
 there. The truth of the fact would not be very easy to 
 put to a fair test. 
 
 Correspondence of names is certainly a good prima 
 facie argument of the identity of any existing object with 
 one described by the ancients as similar in character or 
 situation. This argument, however, the cautious enquirer 
 will only admit in cases where he can be satisfied that 
 the name in question was found prevalent in the popular 
 usage of the district, by the traveller who first explored 
 it. Whenever any country presenting a fertile field for 
 historical or antiquarian research has become the habi- 
 tual resort of tourists, the popular appellatives ar6 liable 
 to be gradually supplanted, even in the native vocabu- 
 
 forms the whole pith of the allusion, has been entirely overlooked by 
 both Pope and Cowper in their version of the passage. 
 * H. N. viii. e. 58. 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 ITHACA. 
 
 lary, by those with which they have been baptized by 
 the classical topographer, in deference to some text of 
 Strabo or Pausanias. In Greece— especially since its 
 exterior has been more completely opened up to the 
 European pubhc, owing to a variety of causes — the desert 
 condition of most of the ancient sites, and consequent 
 uncertainty of the titles they bore among the natives ; 
 the comparative scantiness of the population, and the 
 far greater curiosity excited by the visits of strangers ; 
 the revolution which, in compliment to them, has lately 
 been taking place in the names of such objects, is more 
 rapid and more observable than in Italy, or other coun- 
 tries possessing similar sources of attraction. For example, 
 the only term by which, in most cases, the ruins of a 
 Hellenic city used formerly to be known among the 
 country people, was that of the palseocastro, or " old 
 castle," of the village or district in which it was situated. 
 Now, many of them are familiar, even to the peasantry, 
 under their classical titles. Mycenae was formerly but 
 the palseocastro of Karvata; but there are probably few 
 inteUigent natives of that village, who, if asked the name 
 of the ruins to which the gate of hons belongs, would 
 now be at a loss for the answer most congenial to the 
 ears of the learned enquirer. The great subterranean 
 vault which forms a chief object of attraction to that 
 celebrated site, was known in primitive local usage by 
 the very homely but expressive name of the " Oven." 
 It now bears, even among the mountain herdsmen, (on 
 the authority perhaps of Dr E. D. Clarke,) the some- 
 what indefinite, but certainly very classical title of " the 
 Agamemnon." On some occasions I observed this revo- 
 lution in progress. The fine ruins on the banks of the 
 Achelolis, to be described in the sequel, still among the 
 least known and visited in Greece, when first explored 
 by Leake, and identified by him as those of OEniadse, bore 
 
ITHACA. 
 
 67 
 
 no other appellation than that of Trikardo, which has 
 attached to them since the beginning of the 15th cen- 
 tury. By this term they are still exclusively designated 
 by the lower class of peasantry. But the more intelligent 
 inhabitants of the neighbouring village now call them 
 Trikardo OEniadse, or simply QEniadae. Something may 
 here have been done towards the restoration of the 
 ancient name by Leake himself; more probably by 
 General Church and his staff, who were for some time 
 quartered in the village. The demarchus, or chief magis- 
 trate, in whose house Church lodged, told me that he 
 had first received it from him ; and, under these joint 
 military and magisterial auspices, we may presume it 
 will soon become firmly established in the improved 
 vocabulary of the place. 
 
 Although Ithaca, when first visited by Gell, might be 
 considered a virgin soil for the exercise of antiquarian 
 speculation, I had yet happened to hear of an instance, 
 to be mentioned in the sequel, where he had been him- 
 self imposed upon in a case of this kind, and had thus 
 become the innocent means of duping others. I was 
 therefore doubtful what degree of deference might be 
 due to his statement, that he found the name of Koraka- 
 petra, or " Raven-rock," inveterate in popular usage as 
 that of the clifi* which he identifies as the rock Korax of 
 the Odyssey. As we approached, however, evidence of 
 a very simple but forcible nature was supplied of the 
 value of his testimony, by several ravens soaring and 
 croaking over the summit of the cliff, in a manner which 
 seemed plainly to indicate that they had their nest 
 or favourite haunt in its recesses. Such coincidences 
 speak home to the conviction with greater force than 
 many pages of learned quotation or argument. 
 
 The cliff itself, of which Gell's drawing is, it must be 
 
68 
 
 ITHACA. 
 
 allowed, a very sorry representation, forms the extremity 
 of a precipitous glen, the sides of which are beautifully 
 clothed with evergreen timber and aromatic shrubs. 
 This ravine gives issue to the waters collected on the 
 summit and base of the rock, which, with those of the 
 fountain below, form a small stream, discharging itself 
 into the sea, after a course of less than a mile. Halfway 
 down, on the left bank of the streamlet, is the spring now 
 baptized as the " fountain of Arethusa," but which Gell 
 himself describes as simply bearing the name of Pegada, 
 or the Well, when first explored by him. It has a basin, 
 surmounted by an arched recess excavated in the solid 
 rock, witl^ some remains of masonry, apparently of no 
 very ancient date. The little bay called Port Lia or 
 Parapegada, at the extremity of the glen, was the scene 
 of an adventure of some notoriety during the Greek war 
 of independence. A Turkish frigate, hard pressed by 
 some small vessels of the insurgents, was run aground 
 on its shore by the crew, who fled into the interior of 
 the island, pursued by the Greeks. The alarm spread 
 to the presidency, and a detachment of British troops 
 was sent up, on seeing whom the insurgents made off 
 and set sail, after destroying the frigate. For this 
 violation of the Ionian territory, the then lord high com- 
 missioner. Sir T. Maitland, exacted a heavy penalty in 
 money from the patriot government ; and as it tended, at 
 the same time, to increase the unfriendly feeling which 
 he all along showed towards the cause of the insurgents, 
 the destruction of the frigate was but a poor equivalent 
 for the damage that accrued to themselves from their 
 gallant exploit. 
 
 On the summit of the cliff is a small rocky plain, inter- 
 spersed with olive groves and straggling " kalyvia," or 
 farm cottages. As a site for the dwelling of Eumaeus, 
 
ITHACA. 
 
 69 
 
 the spot corresponds well with the Belvedere, or " place 
 of open prospect," * which Homer assigns to that esta- 
 blishment. The face of the cliff is also hollowed out at 
 its summit in various places, partly by nature, partly 
 perhaps by art, into open cavities or sheltered terraces, 
 where we might figure the swineherd reposing as the 
 poet describes him : — 
 
 " Encircled by his cloven-footed flock, 
 Prom Boreas safe beneath the hollow rock." f 
 
 The proposal to place the residence of Eumseus on the 
 little plain above the precipice, also realizes in a very 
 lively manner to the apprehension the spirit of Ulysses' 
 protestation J to the old man, that if his tale turned out 
 to be false, he might punish him by throwing' him from 
 the top of the neighbouring cliff. Gell's account of the 
 exact correspondence of the present generation of rustic 
 dwellings to the poet's description of that of the swine- 
 herd, is probably itself a little poetical. Yet even those 
 I saw presented, it must be allowed, some curious points 
 of resemblance. They consist of one, or at the most two 
 oblong cottages, sometimes with a " circular court" § con- 
 tiguous, surrounded by a fence, which, although neither 
 " lofty," " large," nor " beautiful," |1 corresponds closely 
 in other respects to that described by Homer ; being a 
 rude wall, « built with loose stones," and " crowned" 
 with a chevaux de frise of " dead thorns," or other prickly 
 plants.^ The same style of fence is still very generally 
 used both in Greece and Italy ; in the latter country, for 
 
 t Odi/ss, xiv. 533. 
 J Odyss. xiv. 396. 
 
 § abXri 'TTSPid^ofjuog — Odi/ss. xiv. init. 
 
 II b-^riXri^ KaXyjrs^ fJbsydXriTS, — Odyss. xiv. init, 
 
 if 6\j^'JjTYig . . . avTog huy^a^* mm .... 
 
TO 
 
 ITHACA. 
 
 example, it is common round the vineyards in the retired 
 parts of the interior of Rome. 
 
 Admitting the Palaeocastro of Aeto, as is generally 
 assumed, to have been the city which Homer had in 
 view as the residence of Ulysses, its site, as compared 
 with that of Amarathia for the farm of Eumseus, would 
 harmonize well with the poet's allusions to the relative 
 position of the two places. Telemachus had been 
 ordered by Minerva, * on his return from Pylos, to avoid 
 the channel between the two islands, where the suitors 
 lay in wait for him, and after making a circuit at a dis- 
 tance from both, to disembark on the nearest point of 
 Ithaca, and proceed direct to the dwelling of the swine- 
 herd, which must consequently have been situated on 
 the opposite or east coast of the island. Accordingly, 
 the young hero,f after making a sweep to the north, 
 past the group of Echinades, disembarks (it may be pre- 
 sumed) in the httle bay of Parapegada, and walks up to 
 the estabUshment of Eumseus, after directing his vessel 
 to proceed to port. On his arrival, after some conver- 
 sation with his host, he sends him to the town to inform 
 Penelope of his safe return. Eumseus sets out, and 
 reaches his destination before the vessel had entered the 
 harbour. All this is in close unity with the relative site 
 of the existing localities. The walk to Aeto, by the 
 shortest road, over Mount Stefano or Nei'us, is from four to 
 five miles, which distance a Greek mountaineer would 
 perform in about an hour — a much shorter period than 
 would have been required for the vessel to reach the 
 nearest point of the shore below Aeto. 
 
 The landing-place of Ulysses was identified by Gell, ij: 
 with equal plausibility, in the little horseshoe-formed 
 
 * Odyss. XV. 27, seq. 
 
 t Odyss. XV. 296, seq, 495, seq. — xvi. 154, 321, seq, 
 \ Topogr, of Ithaca^ ch. 5. 
 
ITHACA. 
 
 71 
 
 bay of Dexia, on the coast between Vathy and the inner 
 extremity of the great gulf of Molo. At the period of 
 his visit, there still existed on the rocky shore the remains 
 of a cavern, presenting a close correspondence with that 
 of the Nymphs, as described by Homer. It had then been 
 already mutilated by persons quarrying stones; and, 
 although its site is still pointed out, all vestiges of it have 
 since been effaced by the new line of road carried round 
 the cliffs, close to the water edge. Exactly opposite the 
 entrance of this little bay, on the other side of the gulf, 
 rises abruptly from the sea the loftiest mountain of the 
 island, now called Anoi* — the Neriton of the poet there 
 can be little doubt ; so that a person standing on the 
 declivities, in the neighbourhood of the cave, would have 
 had it full in front of him. Hence the emphatic terms 
 in which Pallas mentions * that mountain among the 
 visible objects pointed out to the hero in her dialogue 
 with him on this spot, as evidences of the reality of his 
 restoration to his native land.f 
 
 The ruins of the city of Ulysses are spread over the 
 face of a precipitous conical hill, called Aeto, or the 
 " eagle's cliff," occupying the whole breadth of the 
 
 * rouro ds roi d^iog sv^v >iari^^s<psg .... 
 
 rouTO ds N^^/rov hriv o^og Ttarasi/ut^sm vXyj.^Od. xiii. 349, seq, 
 
 t At some distance from this bay, in the interior of the island, I 
 was informed there still existed a cave, which, from its resemblance in 
 form to that mentioned in the Oc?y55ey, was considered by the native 
 antiquaries as the Cave of the Nymphs. As, however, it was obvious 
 that the site in no way corresponded, I did not consider it worth a 
 visit. This I afterwards had occasion to regret, as Professor Thiersch 
 of Munich, a most competent authority, has since described it to me 
 as one of the most interesting objects he saw in Ithaca, from its exact 
 similarity, in every respect except its inland position, to the original of 
 the poet. The fact is at least interesting, as proving, in addition to 
 other evidence, the existence of caves of this peculiar form in the 
 island. 
 
72 
 
 ITHACA. 
 
 narrow isthmus which connects the two main subdivisions 
 of the island, and which is here not more than half a mile 
 across.* The walls stretch from N.W, to S.E.; their 
 form is that of an irregular triangle, the apex of which 
 is the acropoHs, or castle of Ulysses by pre-eminence, 
 crowning the extreme summit or peak of the mountain, 
 and about as bleak and dreary a spot as can well be 
 imagined for a princely residence. There can, there- 
 fore, be httle doubt that this is the place to which 
 Cicero f so emphatically alludes as the city of Ithaca, in 
 eulogizing the patriotism of the hero : " ut Ithacam 
 illam, in asperrimis saxis tanquam nidulum affixam, 
 sapientissimus vir immortahtati anteponeret," — " that 
 wisest of men, who preferred his own Ithaca, perched 
 like a bird's-nest among the most rugged of precipices, 
 even to immortality." 
 
 On each side of the isthmus is a portj That of Opiso 
 Aetp, towards Cefalonia, is the best which the channel 
 shore of the island supphes. The hill of Aeto is sepa- 
 rated by two small valleys, connected by a narrow neck 
 at their upper extremities, from the ridge of Stefano, 
 already noticed as the highest of the southern division of 
 the island, and identified by Gell with the ancient Nei'us. 
 
 * This simple fact is sufficient to vitiate a long train of sceptical 
 argument, in Voelcker's Geographia Homerica, as resting on his subtle 
 analysis of the question — whether the town of Ithaca was on the east 
 or the west side of the island ? It was, in fact, on both. 
 
 t De Orat. i. 44. 
 
 X Here we have another incidental evidence of identity between 
 Aeto and Homer's city of Ithaca. Telemachus, as we have seen, on 
 quitting his vessel, orders the crew to proceed direct to the city. This 
 they do, unperceived by the suitors, stationed in ambush within the 
 channel to intercept his passage. It is obvious, therefore, that they 
 could not have returned to the same port from whence Telemachus 
 started. They would naturally, in obedience to his orders, make for 
 the nearest, that, namely, on the east side of the isthmus. 
 
ITHACA. 
 
 73 
 
 Admitting the accuracy of this view, nothing can be 
 more appropriate than the epithet " Under-Neius," 
 {b'Trovrj'iov^) apphed by Telemachus to his residence; for 
 the mountain, in fact, covers Aeto to the south and east, 
 which consequently may be said to " he under it," both 
 ^s regards shade and shelter. 
 
 In this way, too, a singular degree of reality attaches 
 to a fine scene of the Odyssey,* where, during the debate 
 in the agora, a pair of eagles suddenly descend from the 
 mountain, and, after hovering with ominous cries and 
 gestures above the assembly, rush screaming through 
 the air, over the habitations of the city to the right. 
 The right hand, in the primitive language of Hellenic 
 divination, is synonymous with the east or south-east. 
 Supposing, therefore, the agora to have been situated in 
 the centre of the city, the course of the eagles over the 
 houses to the right would have lain directly towards 
 their native mountain, whither, after executing their 
 divine commission, they might naturally be expected to 
 return. 
 
 The walls are in many places well preserved, especially 
 those of the citadel, which remain to a considerable 
 height in almost their whole circumference. They are 
 chiefly of polygonal masonry, with a tendency here and 
 there to the ruder Tirynthian or Cyclopian style.f In 
 several portions of the area both of the city and acro- 
 polis,:}: the line of the streets, and the form of the build- 
 
 ^ ii. 146, seq. 
 
 f For the explanation of these terms, see additional note at end of 
 volume. 
 
 1 1 had both heard it said, and seen it written, in the journals of sub- 
 sequent travellers, that the foundations laid down by Gell, as still visible 
 in the interior of the acropolis, and on which he endeavours ( Topogr, 
 of Ithaca, chap, vi.) to engraft a plan of the palace of Ulysses, were 
 altogether the creation of his own fancy. Having been from the first 
 somewhat prepossessed against his subtle attempts to overstrain iden- 
 
 G 
 
T4 
 
 ITHACA. 
 
 ings, are also distinctly traceable, in rows of contiguous 
 square compartments, chiefly of the last-mentioned ruder 
 style of structure. 
 
 The peculiarities of this situation seem to mark it out 
 by nature as the spot which the lord of the Cefalonian 
 isles, if he preferred Ithaca as his place of residence, 
 would have selected as, in a mihtary point of view at 
 least, the most appropriate for his seat of government. 
 On a narrow isthmus, connecting, or rather separating, 
 the two subdivisions of the island, it commands the channel, 
 together with a prospect of the whole east coast of 
 Cefaloma, and possesses a tolerable port on each side, 
 giving ready and speedy communication with both the 
 eastern and western portions of his little empire. 
 
 To the modern traveller, however, there may seem 
 something passing strange in the notion of a distinguished 
 monarch, of a comparatively civilized and luxurious age, 
 having been, under any circumstances, contented to fix 
 the seat of his domestic comfort on the bare bleak sum- 
 mit of an almost perpendicular mountain, where so much 
 as a square yard of level ground could only be won from 
 the surrounding precipices at the expense of substructions 
 
 titles, I was the less disposed in the present case to see any thing more 
 than really existed. I must admit, however, in justice to him, that 
 the whole, or the greater part of the foundations, marked on his plan 
 as actually preserved, are still to be seen. There is also the smaller 
 excavation or cistern at the upper extremity of the platform, and the 
 arger one, supposed by him the Tholus, at the lower end. That the 
 latter really ^^as a structure of the kind which in later times bore that 
 name, seems to be confirmed by the remains of massive blocks of 
 stone on its margin, indicating its having been formerly covered in 
 with a vaulted roof. As for the ingenious topographer's own supple- 
 mentary architecture, his colonnades, halls, armouries, and dormi- 
 tories, they are no doubt — but then they profess to be — nothing more 
 than a conjectural attempt to reduce the space comprized within the 
 existing hmits of the citadel, into the form and arrangement described 
 by Homer. 
 
ITHACA. 
 
 75 
 
 and embankments. The present name of Aeto, or 
 " Eagles' cliff/' harmonizing so curiously with Cicero's 
 description above quoted, is indeed most appropriate. 
 After spending a full hour in clambering up its rugged 
 sides on a windy day, and being obliged, on arriving at 
 the top, by the fierceness of the blast, while inspecting 
 the remains of the castle, to holdfast by the stones of its 
 broken walls, or the stunted shrubs that with difficulty 
 vegetate in its desert courts, lest I should be precipitated 
 over the rampart into the sea, I could not but be sen- 
 sible that the existing features of the place correspond 
 far better with those of the Nephelococcygia, or City of 
 Birds, in Aristophanes, than with the picture I had 
 formed to myself, from the descriptions of the Odyssey, 
 of the favourite residence of the Laertian royal family. 
 One figures, indeed, the palace of Ulysses, a strong 
 and commanding, but at the same time a commodious 
 residence ; nor is it easy to realize among these ruins 
 the poet's descriptions of the easy and hourly passage 
 and repassage of the inmates of the estabhshment from 
 palace to port, and from port to palace, or of the suitors 
 amusing themselves with quoits or javelins on its 
 terraces and esplanades. 
 
 Here, however, we must free our minds for a moment 
 from the prejudices of modern civilization. We must 
 remember that few of the patriarchal chiefs of the heroic 
 age, assuming them, as there can be little doubt was the 
 case, to have occupied the acropohs of their respective 
 cities, could have been much more conveniently lodged ; 
 and the same was the case, to a great extent, in our own 
 middle ages. The avenues to the dwellings of the lords 
 of Argos or Corinth, as to many a princely castle of 
 Western Europe, were little, if at all, more commodious 
 than that to the Eagle towers of Ulysses; and if the 
 poet had been obliged, from any such consideration, to 
 
i^g ITHACA. 
 
 modify his description of the luxury of his hero's domes- 
 tic habits, many an agreeable passage of his works, as of 
 our own popular romances, must have been suppressed. 
 It would have been most unfair of Homer to have de- 
 prived Penelope of her proper number of suitors, or the 
 108 which he allows her of their dinner, and of their 
 favourite sports of archery or quoits, because, in pomt 
 of fact, the premises of the Ithacan royal palace were 
 not conveniently situated or constructed for such amuse- 
 ments, or its hall roomy enough to accommodate so 
 large a party. As regards the approach to its gate, we 
 must also bear in mind the athletic powers of the race 
 of Greek mountaineers, of which we have little or no 
 conception, and which were as great, no doubt, in those 
 days, among all ranks, as they now are among the 
 peasantry and shepherds of these rugged steeps, who will 
 run up and down, with all the nimbleness of their own 
 goats, precipices which even a well-trained Enghsh 
 tourist finds some difficulty in mounting upon all fours. 
 
 One of the days I spent in the island was employed 
 in visiting the ruin near its northern extremity, baptized 
 by Gell* as the " School of Homer," together with a 
 rival tract of localities, which here advance the same 
 pretensions to identity with the scenery of the Odyssey, 
 as those which we have already examined on the other 
 side of the isthmus of Aeto. We sailed from Vathy 
 round the point of S. Elias, and passing the pretty bay 
 and village of Kioni, arrive at the port of Phrikes, where 
 we disembark. After a walk of a mile and a half through 
 the most open district I had yet seen in the island, we 
 discover the ruin which bears this illustrious name. 
 It is situated at the lower extremity of the village of 
 Oxoae, the chief part of which stands on a commanding 
 
 • Ch. ix. 
 
ITHACA. 
 
 77 
 
 situation above. The existing remains appear to be 
 a portion of the cell of a small temple, converted into 
 a Christian church. The site is very picturesque, on 
 the summit of a cHff embosomed in olives and evergreen 
 shrubs. At one side are steps leading down to a little 
 platform, cut, like the steps themselves, in the solid rock, 
 with a few niches hollowed out in the back wall of the 
 excavation. I was assured at Vathy, that the title of 
 School of Homer was invented by the Papa, whose hos- 
 pitality Gell enjoyed on occasion of his visit, for the 
 purpose of amusing his guest. The old gentleman, I 
 understood, was still alive, and often chuckled with de- 
 light over his ingenuity in outwitting the celebrated 
 English antiquary at his own art ; and still more at this 
 creation of his fancy having been immortalized with so 
 much pomp and circumstance in the standard work on 
 Ithacan topography. This story seems to be confirmed 
 by the circumstance, that Leake,* who visited the place 
 in the same year as Gell, says nothing of any such name. 
 Be this as it may, the title is now become inveterate in 
 " popular " tradition ; and the villagers point out with 
 patriotic pride the platform below as the place of instruc- 
 tion, and the niches in the wall as the book-shelves, 
 asserting that there had once been the remains of tables 
 and benches. The ruined building above, they describe 
 as the " Schoolmaster's house." 
 
 Immediately below the " School," in the fertile land 
 among the olive-trees, are traces of tombs discovered by 
 the peasantry in the course of their labours. From 
 thence we proceeded upwards of a mile northward to 
 another rock, also known at the present day by the name 
 of Koiax, to which it may possibly have as good a claim 
 as the rival precipice to the south ; since, in the year 
 
 * Northern Greece, vol. iii. c. 22. 
 
78 
 
 ITHACA. 
 
 1806, Leake already found the title in familiar use, 
 although that cautious topographer, upon reasonable 
 grounds, suspects its genuine antiquity. Beneath the 
 rock springs a fountain, possessing, of course, its pre- 
 tensions to be that of Arethusa. This whole group of 
 objects offers, in fact, a counterpart in miniature of their 
 name-fellows at Amarathia — a bluff chff with a flat sum- 
 niit — below, a spring, from whence a rivulet flows through 
 a little valley into the sea. There is this difference, 
 however, that the sides of the valley, instead of forming 
 a precipitous glen, are here a gentle slope, and the ground 
 towards the sea, in place of a rugged bushy heath, is 
 fertile and well planted. The fountain is also far more 
 copious, and has lately been adorned with a showy 
 architectural front, in a very barbarous style of art, with 
 copious troughs for washing clothes and watering cattle. 
 
 Leake, in his work on Northern Greece,* gives several 
 other details relative to the classical pretensions of this 
 district. In confirmation of the genuine antiquity of the 
 name Korax attached to the cliff, he was further in- 
 formed that, on the flat land on its summit, there for- 
 merly stood a hamlet called Korakini, the inhabitants of 
 which had removed to the more secure position of Oxose 
 for fear of pirates.f Besides their rock Korax and. 
 fountain of Arethusa, the Oxoites have also their pre- 
 tensions to a port of Phorcys and cave of the Nymphs. 
 Leake was informed that the proprietor of a little bend 
 in the coast, called Perivolia, immediately below the 
 fountain, in attempting to establish a more convenient 
 
 * Loc. cit. I was not fortunate enough to obtain a sight of this 
 valuable publication before setting out on my tour ; a want which I 
 had frequent reason to lament. 
 
 f Stephanus de Urb., v. Ko^a/og ^irsr^a, impUes that there was in 
 ancient times such a village in Ithaca, by his mention of Ko^aKO 
 'TTsr^ajog as a Gentilic epithet. 
 
ITHACA. 
 
 T9 
 
 harbour for the benefit of his estate, had broken down 
 a fine cave, which an old man present at the work 
 assured him had two openings, Uke that described in the 
 Odyssey. 
 
 From Oxoae we crossed over a ridge, separating the 
 hill on which that village is situated from the lower 
 declivities of Neriton, to the bay of Polis, on the west 
 coast of the island. On the rocky slope above this bay 
 are vestiges of a small fortress, of the same primitive 
 masonry as that of Aeto. This is the place selected by 
 what may be called the northern faction of Ithacan 
 topographers, as the site of their city of Ulysses. The 
 arguments they urge are plausible. The name Ithaca 
 was evidently common, both with Homer and with the 
 later Greek geographers, to the island, and to the actual 
 residence of the hero — the Polis or City of Ithaca; 
 in familiar usage, simply — Polis, the city. The fact, 
 therefore, that this place has preserved the title, as a 
 proper name inveterate in popular usage, is certainly a 
 good argument that it was formerly the metropolis of the 
 island. In this way the northern faction, besides their 
 city — their rock Korax — fountain of Arethusa — and cave 
 of the Nymphs, would also have their island — such as it 
 is —of Asteris, the want of which is the great flaw in the 
 system of their opponents ; and if, in pushing identities 
 still further, we conjecture, with Leake, that the rocky 
 range of heights beneath which Pohs is situated may 
 have been mount Neius, we should have another very 
 complete system of Odyssean topography. All this 
 tends to confirm the remark formerly made, that the 
 difficulty is not so much to discover in Ithaca the ori- 
 ginals of Homer's descriptions, as to fix, amid the various 
 objects to which they will apply, upon those which he is 
 most likely to have had in view. Gell, though he visited 
 this extremity of the island, does not seem to have been 
 
80 
 
 ITHACA. 
 
 aware of its claims to the possession of any Homeric 
 localities besides the " School." Perhaps he may have 
 suppressed any further gossip of the Oxoite Papa on the 
 subject, in order to ensure more unity and solidity to his 
 own system, which, upon the whole, I consider much the 
 more plausible of the two. 
 
 On our return we had a beautiful walk along the 
 western coast, through the rich and fertile community of 
 Leuka, where Gell places the farm of Laertes. A good 
 carriage road — the work of the British government, like 
 that towards Amarathia on the other side — extends from ' 
 Vathy along the gulf of Molo, and across the isthmus 
 as far as this village. As there is not, I believe, a single 
 wheel-carriage in the island, the improvement is — for the 
 present, at least — somewhat superfluous. 
 
 There is one respect in which modern Ithaca may be 
 said to differ essentially from the island described by 
 Homer: its almost total want of forest timber. The 
 poet describes the flocks of Eumseus as fattened with 
 acorns; he applies to Mount Neriton the epithet "clothed 
 with wood," and styles it the mountain " of the rustling 
 leaf." It is now altogether bare of timber trees. How 
 far some of the above expressions are to be taken by the 
 letter, may perhaps be questioned. The Greek term 
 here usually rendered wood, might denote equally the 
 low brushwood that still covers the mountain slopes in 
 most parts of the island, rising in many places to a con- 
 siderable height from the ground. But, even assuming 
 Ithaca to have been formerly a woody country in the 
 strict sense of the term, the change would not warrant 
 any reasonable scepticism as to the poet's personal fami- 
 liarity with its scenery in his own time. The nakedness, 
 at the present day, of many mountain districts, which are 
 described by the ancients as once covered with forests, is 
 a phenomenon of familiar occurrence both in Greece and 
 
ITHACA. 
 
 81 
 
 Italy, and indeed throughout Europe at large ; and may 
 be accounted for by causes connected with the vicissi- 
 tudes, both of civilization and barbarism, too numerous 
 and varied to require to be here recapitulated. 
 
 On the morning of each of the last two of the five 
 days I spent in Ithaca, I made, accompanied by Captain 
 
 W , an attempt to cross over to Cefalonia. Our chief 
 
 object was to undertake an excavation on the site of the 
 ancient city of Same, on the immediately opposite coast, 
 the cemeteries of which are well ascertained, and rich in 
 archaeological treasures. On both occasions our wishes 
 were frustrated by the violence of the wind. The Resi- 
 dent had nothing at his disposal but a light six-oared 
 cutter, httle adapted to bear the brunt of the fierce 
 squalls by which we were assailed, and which on our 
 second attempt, when we thought fit to persevere beyond 
 the bounds of prudence, forced us back into port with no 
 Httle risk of an upset. All that I could glean of Samian 
 antiquity was a copy of a very curious inscription,* on a 
 
 sepulchral stela, found by Captain W in an excavation 
 
 lately undertaken by himself, together with a strigiUs of 
 gilt bronze, stamped with the name of the maker Pisis- 
 tratus, in letters of the best period, and in rather unusual 
 style.f This rehc was brought to hght on the same 
 occasion, and was presented to me by a gentleman of 
 the Residency. 
 
 * See additional note at end of volume. No. 1. 
 t Ibid. No, 2. 
 
82 
 
 ACARNANIA. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 TOYAGE TO PETALA-riRST IMPRESSIONS OF CONTINENTAL GREECE- 
 MOUTH OF ACHELOiiS. 
 
 w iJjOt lych^ rsMV avrs (S^orcov sg yaTav /Tcdm I 
 
 7\z (pCko^smi^ %ai (Sfiv voog s6ri hovdr}g;—Odyss. vi. 119. 
 
 " Ah me ! what men are they whose land is near ? 
 Relentless savages, without the fear 
 Of God, or human law, before their eyes — 
 Or pious souls the stranger's rights who prize ? " 
 
 Disconcerted by our late failure, and the loss of time 
 it had involved, I determined, in the prosecution of our 
 course towards continental Greece, to leave as little as 
 possible to the caprice of winds or waves. I therefore 
 bargained with a shipmaster, whom the Resident recom- 
 mended as an inteUigent and trustworthy person, to the 
 following effect: that he should take us, if the wind set 
 fair, to the port of Mesolonghi ; that if not, he should 
 endeavour to make the nearest point of the opposite 
 coast, where he assured us there would be no difficulty 
 in finding a safe landing-place, and where Nicola engaged 
 to procure horses among the shepherds, to enable us to 
 pursue our journey into the interior. 
 
 We sailed about eight on the morning of the 27 th, 
 and for the first few hours were becalmed, being indebted 
 for what little progress was made to the oars of three 
 men and a boy, who composed the crew of the caique. 
 The water at first was level and smooth as glass; but on 
 
ACAIINANIA. 
 
 83 
 
 advancing a mile or two into the open sea, although 
 there was still not a breath of wind, the tranquillity gave 
 place to a heavy-rolUng swell. While considering what 
 could be the cause of this sudden agitation of the water 
 amid the perfect stillness of the atmosphere, I observed 
 towards the south, at some miles' distance, a dark line on 
 the surface of the sea, gradually spreading in the direc- 
 tion of our vessel, and in a quarter of an hour a fresh 
 breeze filled the sails. This phenomenon was new to 
 me, and I was the more struck with it, from its bringing 
 home to my mind at once the full power of a fine simile 
 of Homer, which hitherto I had never properly under- 
 stood or appreciated. The veteran hero Nestor, while 
 engaged with a wounded comrade in his tent, hearing 
 the tumult of battle thickening around the Greek in- 
 trenchment, goes forth to reconnoitre ; and the effect 
 produced on his mind by the dismal spectacle of national 
 discomfiture that presents itself, is thus figuratively 
 illustrated: — 
 
 avrojg^ ovd' a^a tb ^^oxvXhdsrai ovd' srs^wCs, 
 
 -r^/v riva %s?i^if/jsm zaraQTjf/jSvai 'sk Aiog ov^ov — IL xiv. 16. 
 
 " So doth the darkly-rolling sea presage, 
 
 With hollow swell, the coming tempest's rage ; 
 While yet nor here nor there its waves are driven, 
 Till Jove send down the threaten'd gale from heaven." 
 
 The eflect here described is precisely what I now 
 witnessed. It is one of familiar occurrence in narrow 
 seas and archipelagos. The wind which freshens in one 
 portion of a maritime region of this nature — often, per- 
 haps, behind a cape or island, and at such a distance as 
 to be unobserved by the navigator in another — sends 
 across the otherwise smooth surface of the water, the 
 sort of undulation so aptly described by the phrase 
 rendered holloio swells literally mute wave^ in the above 
 
84 
 
 ACARNANIA. 
 
 passage. The whole phenomenon has been dramatized, 
 as it were, by Homer, under the admirable figure of the 
 sea itself darkly foreboding, by the heaving of its bosom, 
 the coming disturbance of its waters, while yet uncertain 
 as to the direction in which they are to be impelled; as 
 the old hero gloomily presages the approach of the 
 adverse tide of war, though as yet doubtful as to the 
 mode in which he may be affected by it, or the measures 
 to be adopted for stemming its course. It was the more 
 gratifying to have the full value of this fine image real- 
 ized to the senses on the very spot, perhaps, where it 
 may have been first presented to the poet. The same 
 phenomenon is observable in mountain lakes, and aflbrds 
 the explanation of one of the wonders for which the 
 Scottish Loch Lomond is celebrated— waves without 
 wind. The sudden squalls which come down the glens 
 from the surrounding hills, produce a partial agitation 
 of the waters, which is communicated in the shape of a 
 swell to those portions of the lake where no wind is felt 
 at the time. The omen, however, in the present case, 
 was but delusive for good as for evil; and in half an hour 
 we were again completely becalmed. The voyage to the 
 opposite coast, a distance of about fifteen miles, lasted 
 nearly four-and-twenty hours. The day, however, was 
 fine, and I amused myself with drawing panoramic 
 sketches of the beautiful and varied outlines of land, 
 which on every side bounded the horizon ; Ithaca — Cefa- 
 lonia — Leucadia — the whole range of the Taphian and 
 Eehinean islands, backed by the snowy mountains of 
 Acarnania and ^tolia, with the still loftier summits of 
 Peloponnesus in the extreme distance to the south. 
 There was something in the calm placidity of the bright 
 but hazy atmosphere, which added much to the interest 
 of the scene ; and, as darkness set in, I was lulled to sleep 
 by the wild and plaintive song of our Ithacan mariners. 
 
ACARNANIA. 
 
 85 
 
 At daybreak the next morning, (February 28th5) on 
 issuing from the hold, in which I had passed the night, I 
 found we were lying at anchor, apparently about a mile 
 distant from the nearest point of the mainland, under 
 one of the numerous small desert isles that here line the 
 coast of Acarnania, a portion of the group of Echinades. 
 The mariners were preparing a little nutshell of a flat- 
 bottomed boat for taking us on shore, into which we 
 descended with the luggage, accompanied by the master 
 and one of the men, while the two others were left in 
 charge of the caique. On enquiring why it was neces- 
 sary to quit our vessel at so great a distance from port, I 
 was told that she could neither float over the mud banks, 
 nor make head against the current, which set strong from 
 the land side between them. Both these obstacles, as 
 they further informed me, proceeded from the mouth of 
 the great river Aspropotamo, the ancient AcheloUs, 
 which, although distant several miles to the south, extends 
 its current far along the coast in this direction ; and, in 
 fact, the water was much discoloured by the admixture 
 of a yellowish mud. All this was interesting as bearing 
 on the very ancient and much agitated question relative 
 to the influence of this river in the formation of new 
 land at its mouth.*' As we advanced, I observed the 
 sea to consist of an extensive range of shoals or lagoonsj 
 with narrow channels here and there, affording often 
 scarcely sufficient depth of water to float our little vessel, 
 while the intermediate mud banks were in many places 
 overgrown with reeds, sometimes in so dense a mass, and 
 to so great a height above the surface, as to present the 
 appearance of low marshy islands. The shore itself 
 consisted partly of extensive flats, very similar in aspect 
 to the reedy banks among which we rowed, partly of 
 
 * ScYLAx, Peripl, c. 34. Herodot, ii. 10. Thucyd. ii. 146, seq, 
 Stkab. X. 2. Plin. //. iV. iv, 2. Pausan. Arcad. 24. 
 
86 
 
 ACARNANIA. 
 
 rugged promontories extending from the mountains of 
 the interior, and covered with forests of oak. I asked 
 our boatmen whether these mud banks ever increased to 
 such an extent, or assumed so sohd and permanent a 
 consistency, as to form new land ; and more particularly, 
 whether, in their own experience, the accumulation had 
 ever had the effect of joining any of the other islands of 
 primitive formation to the continent. They rephed in 
 the negative, that they had no recollection of any island 
 having ever been joined to the terra firma, or of ever 
 having heard of such a thing ; and that the force of the 
 current, during the rainy season, or when the river was 
 swollen by the melted snows or occasional storms, carry- 
 ing off in its turn each successive deposit, kept the 
 channels open, and prevented any permanent accumula- 
 tion of the mud. As I saw no spot of land, at least on 
 this part of the continent, the natural features of which 
 could justify the hypothesis of its ever having belonged 
 to the group of islands that extend along its shore, exist- 
 ing appearances would seem to corroborate the testimony 
 of our mariners, in spite of the strong argument which 
 the general conviction of the ancients, and the amount 
 and nature of the alluvial deposit, afford to the contrary. 
 
 We continued to wind our course, with some difficulty, 
 for a mile or two through these channels, frequently 
 running aground on the banks ; and after passing some 
 lesser islands, and the larger one of Petala, entered a 
 small hollow bay or cove of deep water, formed on each 
 side by projecting headlands, or rather rocky mountains, 
 covered with straggling masses of old oak forest. This 
 was our landing-place, situated on one of the most bar- 
 barous and inhospitable shores of Greece or of Europe ; 
 and a wilder or more picturesque scene can hardly be 
 imagined. The atmosphere was perfectly calm and clear, 
 with the exception here and there of the morning mists 
 
ACARNANIA* 
 
 87 
 
 floating on the sides of the mountains. Nothing was to 
 be heard but the occasional bleat of a goat, or the wild 
 cry of the herdsmen calling to their flocks, or to each 
 other, upon the neighbouring heights. The only 
 visible sign of human life was a small column of smoke 
 rising from among the woods of the interior, indicating, 
 perhaps, the site of one of their folds. On disembarking 
 at the extremity of the cove, I dispatched Nicola, with 
 the master of the caique, up the country to look for 
 horses. The other sailor also disappeared with the boat, 
 and occupied himself in fishing or mending his tackle in 
 a distant part of the bay, leaving me sitting alone, eating 
 my breakfast on the shore. Here I remained for nearly 
 three hours, without seeing or hearing any thing more 
 of the rest of the party ; and, I must admit, I began to feel 
 a little anxiety as to what was become of them. Nor 
 were the surmises that naturally arose, of their having 
 met with some unexpected disaster among the natives, 
 rendered the more agreeable by one or two specimens 
 exhibited on the surrounding rocks of their personal 
 appearance. They, in their turn, seemed to eye me with 
 some attention ; and no doubt a Frank, sitting all alone 
 on their coast at that hour, must have been to them an 
 object of quite as much interest and curiosity as they 
 were to him. The whole scene brought home in a lively 
 manner to my recollection Homer's description of the 
 arrival of Ulysses in the port of the Laestrygonians ; and 
 the coincidence between the two cases thus far was cer- 
 tainly curious enough, as will appear from the following 
 free translation of the passage : — 
 
 " The port of Lgestrygon we now descried, 
 Where lofty capes, projecting on each side, 
 With narrow space between, a basin form. 
 For ships to ride secure from every storm ; 
 No breeze disturbs its glassy face serene. 
 No sound is heard nor human work is seen, 
 
88 
 
 ACARNANIA. 
 
 Save where tlie herdsmen, driving forth their flocks, 
 
 Salute each other on the woody rocks ; 
 
 Or smoke, slow curling o'er the forest glade, 
 
 Of man's abode a doubtful sign display'd. 
 
 Our bark safe anchor'd off the rugged shore, 
 
 I send two trusty comrades to explore 
 
 "What race of men these barren heights command, 
 
 Or eat the scanty produce of the land." 
 
 Odyss. X. 81. seq., 87. seq,^ 93. seq. 
 
 The sequel of the adventure, also, in so far tallied, that 
 my two messengers reappeared at length, followed by a 
 barbarian " of mountain stature and horrible aspect," — 
 (ocov r o^sog xo^vfriv ^otra 'krvyov aurov,*) master of three rag- 
 ged steeds, upon which we forthwith disposed our persons 
 and goods. I appropriated the most active-looking beast ; 
 the strongest was saddled with the luggage. The third 
 was Nicola's right; but he shared it from time to time 
 with our Ithacan shipman, who accompanied us into the 
 interior, for the purpose of visiting a cousin settled as 
 an agricultural colonist at the village of Katochi, on the 
 Achelolis, half-way between our landing-place and Meso- 
 longhi. The agogliiates^\ being themselves excellent 
 pedestrians, seldom care to bestride their beasts; and, 
 when so inclined, make no ceremony of adding their 
 persons to the load, however great, with which they may 
 be previously burdened. These animals, although little 
 famihar with any pace but a walk, which rarely and with 
 much difficulty can be accelerated into a limping jog- 
 trot, are for the most part as indefatigable as their 
 masters. 
 
 My baggage I had endeavoured to restrict within the 
 
 * Odyss. X. 113. 
 
 f The word muleteer, usually applied in English to persons of this 
 class, would here be inaccurate, the Greek travelling hackneys being 
 exclusively horses. As our own language offers no appropriate equi- 
 valent, I shall be content to use the Greek phrase. The term ayoiykv 
 signifies the same thing as the ItaUan vettura^ its derivative ayuiyiarrig^ 
 a vetturino. 
 
ACARNANIA. 
 
 89 
 
 narrowest limits prescribed by the actual necessities of 
 the road, and the small degree of smartness it might be 
 necessary to put forth at Athens, or other places where 
 a sprinkling of European civilization had been imported- 
 The only bulky piece of furniture it comprehended was 
 a mattress. In place of sheets, for the few occasions 
 where it would have been possible to use them, I was 
 provided with a large linen dressing-gown which was set 
 apart for this purpose. The remainder of the luggage, 
 properly so called, consisted of two carpet-bags, strapped 
 across the back of the pack-horse in the style of saddle- 
 bags, and of a writing-desk, which was deposited, rolled 
 up in the bed, between them. Among the commodities 
 with which I had been recommended by friends experi- 
 enced in Greek travelling to provide myself at Corfu, was 
 a saddle, owing to the excessive inconvenience of the 
 equipage which the country itself supplied. This precau- 
 tion, however, Nicola had pronounced to be superfluous — 
 advising me not to burden myself with so cumbersome 
 an article, and assuring me that I should find the country 
 packs every where tolerable, and that for a considerable 
 part of the route he had little doubt of procuring a real 
 saddle. As it turned out, I had no great reason to regret 
 having followed his advice, although scarcely justified by 
 the facts on which it was grounded. I had, however, 
 fortunately brought with me a good supply of cloaks — 
 M'Intoshes — dreadnoughts, &C.5 a species of travelling 
 stock which combines great and varied usefulness with 
 equal facility of transport, and here supplied the only 
 means that could have rendered a seat on a Greek pack- 
 saddle tolerable. This piece of furniture, which admits 
 of no variety of form in its adaptation to the use of either 
 man or baggage, consists, besides the small quantity of 
 stuffing necessary to protect the spine of its bearer, of a 
 few pieces of wood, forming what with us would be con- 
 
 H 
 
90 
 
 ACARNANIA. 
 
 sidered but the first skeleton or framework of the rudest 
 article of its class. Two of these, running lengthwise 
 at about six inches apart, and connecting the others 
 which form the pummel and bow, are destined as the 
 seat of the rider, who, in order to use it in its natural 
 state, would require to have his hinder parts composed of 
 the same material as those of the young King of the 
 Black Isles, in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. 
 Upon this substruction therefore, itself elevated consi- 
 derably above the back of the animal, it was necessary, 
 in order to provide against excoriation, to raise a pile of 
 the loose drapery above mentioned to so great an addi- 
 tional height, that when fairly packed and mounted, my 
 charger and self presented somewhat the appearance of a 
 very gigantic man upon the hump of a very dwarfish 
 camel. For supporting the legs, I used a portion of a 
 long rope, serving both for halter and rein, and which, 
 when twisted round the two projecting sticks of the 
 pummel into a loop on each side, offered as good a sub- 
 stitute for stirrups as the rest of the apparatus for saddle 
 and bridle. 
 
ACARNANIA, 
 
 91 
 
 CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 PASTORAL HABITS OF GREECE, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 
 
 oJfLov s^TTi (f/tvXaTCOijv. — Oppian, Cyneg. i. v. 368. 
 
 " So much for horses ; let us now, O muse ! 
 Of dogs the praises tell." 
 
 Thus equipped, we made the best of our way over 
 the decHvities of a rugged barren heath into the interior, 
 hoping to reach Mesolonghi, called seven or eight hours' 
 march, before nightfall. In about a quarter of an hour, 
 we arrived at the community to which our cavalcade 
 belonged — an encampment of small low reed wigwams, 
 of nearly the same form as the pastoral capanne of the 
 Roman plain, but vastly inferior in size and structure. 
 The best of them seemed barely sufficient to supply the 
 shelter absolutely necessary for the proprietor or his 
 family, by night or during inclement weather. The 
 household apparatus was arranged in front of the entry, 
 where sat also the women and children in the open air, 
 or under mats supported on sticks, engaged in their 
 domestic avocations. As we approached, however, roused 
 by the noise of the dogs and of our voices, there crawled 
 forth, out of some of the nearest huts, two or three male 
 figures of such gigantic dimensions, as I had hardly suppo- 
 sed possible the den from whence they issued could have 
 accommodated. They were joined by several others, as 
 we rode past, from the extremity of the encampment, all 
 
92 
 
 ACARNANIA. 
 
 nearly of the same stature ; none of them appeared to 
 me less than six feet high, and several were equally 
 remarkable for manly dignity and beauty, both of person 
 and feature. One more especially, a man past the 
 prime of hfe— whom, from his stopping our caravan with 
 an air of authority, to give some instructions to the 
 agoghiate, I discovered to be one of the chiefs of the 
 community — was a most magnificent-looking barbarian. 
 
 This colony, together with some others spread along 
 the coast, are neither natives of the district they occupy — 
 which indeed seemed totally devoid of indigenous inha- 
 bitants — nor of genuine Hellenic blood ; but are nomad 
 shepherds of Wallachian race, who come down annually 
 with their flocks, when the herbage fails in their native 
 mount Pindus on the Thessahan frontier, to the warmer 
 region and extensive grassy plains on the sea-shore. For 
 the use of these they pay a tax to the proprietor or the 
 Greek government. In spite of the squahd misery of 
 their habits, they possess considerable wealth in live stock 
 of all kinds. This encampment, consisting of sixteen 
 famiUes, occupied with its herds not only the hilly region 
 in its own immediate vicinity, but the rich though swampy 
 and uncultivated plains on the banks of the neighbour- 
 ing Achelous, which were covered with oxen, sheep, 
 and horses. Their wanderings, however, are not confined 
 to this part of Greece, or to the north side of the Isth- 
 mus. We fell in with troops of them even in Pelopon- 
 nesus, invariably characterized by the same athletic 
 powers of body and rude simpUcity of manners, which, 
 together with their Wallachian tongue, and some pecu- 
 Uarities of dress, distinguish them from the lively race 
 among whom they sojourn. I might have been inclined 
 to distrust the impression produced by the first view of 
 a novel and picturesque costume, worn by a people of 
 strange and ferocious appearance, had I not afterwards 
 
ACARNANIA. 
 
 93 
 
 found them, both from my own further observation and 
 on the authority of others, to be generally distinguished 
 by the same Patagonian peculiarities that fixed my atten- 
 tion on first acquaintance. Their appearance, however, 
 is no true index of their character ; for they are said to 
 possess as little of the martial spirit of the Greek moun- 
 taineers as of their lawless disposition ; but are a quiet 
 inofiensive race, whose chief or only care is to husband 
 their store, and live in charity with the population of the 
 countries they frequent. Struck by the classic beauty 
 of their persons, I would fain have supposed them to be 
 descendents of the old Pelasgic aborigines of their native 
 mountains ; but this is behed by their Wallachian tongue. 
 They are said, however, to possess another claim to our 
 classical sympathies, as representing the Roman colonies 
 settled by the later emperors in Dacia, and afterwards 
 blended into one people with the natives of the districts 
 they occupied. The features of those with whom I 
 made acquaintance, certainly partook more of the Italian 
 than the Grecian character. The strong Latin element 
 in the Wallachian tongue seems also to support this 
 view;^ and their dress, consisting of a tunic and loose 
 pantaloons, instead of the Albanian jacket and fusta- 
 nella, has been not inaptly compared to that of the 
 Dacian captives in the triumphal monuments of Rome. 
 
 On approaching the encampment, being the best 
 mounted, and eager to prosecute my acquaintance with 
 the interior of the country, I was considerably in advance 
 of the rest of the party, when I found myself on a sudden 
 surrounded by a fierce pack of dogs, of size and appear- 
 ance proportioned to those of their masters, and which 
 
 * Vlak- Wallachian, in the Sclavonic tongue, of which this language 
 is a dialect, signifies a Roman or Italian, and corresponds to the epithet 
 Welsch, used by the Germans in a similar sense, as also to that of 
 Welch, applied by the Anglo-Saxons to the provincials of Britain. 
 
94 
 
 ACARNANIA. 
 
 rushed forth on every side, as if bent on devouring both 
 myself and beast, proceeding to every extremity except 
 the last, springing up into the air and snarling in my 
 face, preparatory, as I supposed, to a gripe of my person. 
 Being altogether unprovided with any means of defence 
 but the rope-end of the same halter that supphed my 
 stirrups, I was, I confess, not a little disconcerted by the 
 assault of so unexpected an enemy, when one or two of 
 the inmates of the estabhshment came to my succour, 
 and pelted off the animals with the large loose stones that 
 lay scattered over the rocky surface of the heath. 
 
 The number and ferocity of the dogs that guard 
 the Greek hamlets and sheepfolds, as compared with 
 those kept for similar purposes in other parts of the 
 world, is one of the pecuharities of this country which 
 not only first attracts the attention of the tourist, but is 
 chiefly calculated to excite his alarm, and call into exer- 
 cise his prowess or presence of mind. It is also among 
 the features of modern Greek hfe, that supply the most 
 curious illustrations of classical antiquity. Their attacks 
 are not confined to those who approach the premises of 
 which they are the appointed guardians, but in many 
 districts they are in the habit of rushing from a consi- 
 derable distance to torment the traveller passing along 
 the pubhc track ; and when the pastoral colonies, as is 
 often the case, occur at frequent intervals, the nuisance 
 becomes quite intolerable. Their assaults, however, 
 when thus unprovoked, rarely proceed to extremities, sel- 
 dom beyond biting the heels or tail of the horse ; but a 
 single stranger, off his guard, and happening to penetrate 
 unexpectedly into the interior of one of these estabUsh- 
 ments, might be exposed to greater risk. 
 
 The usual weapons of defence employed in such cases 
 by the natives, are the large loose stones with which the 
 soil is every where strewed ; a natural feature of this 
 
ACARNANIA. 
 
 95 
 
 region, to which, as will appear in the sequel, also belongs 
 its own proper share of classic interest. Greece is a 
 country intersected in every direction by mountain ridges 
 of a peculiarly rugged character, consisting chiefly of a 
 class of rocks, which, though of iron-hard consistency of 
 texture, are found at the surface broken, whether in their 
 primitive formation or by the effects of natural convul- 
 sions, into detached fragments of infinitely varied dimen- 
 sions. The plains or open districts, on the other hand, 
 are for the most part narrow, and, besides being them- 
 selves occasionally of a somewhat rugged character, are 
 exposed to the perpetual inroads of these enemies to their 
 fertility from the surrounding heights. Hence an impor- 
 tant element of agricultural industry in most parts of the 
 country, is the collection and accumulation of these 
 loose fragments from the arable land ; and it is certain 
 that many of the circular mounds which are noted in the 
 popular itineraries under the rubric of " ancient tumulus," 
 have been heaped up in this manner. This operation, 
 together with that still common of rooting out the em- 
 bedded rocks, has been in this country, as we have 
 already seen, an important office of good husbandry ever 
 since the days of Homer. It is to these stones that 
 travellers, and the population at large, instinctively have 
 recourse, as the most effectual weapon of defence against 
 the assaults of the dogs. Those selected are seldom 
 smaller than a man exerting his full force can conveni- 
 ently lift and throw with one hand — a class of weapon by 
 consequence most aptly and concisely designated with 
 Homer by the term Chermadion,* or Handful, and 
 which the agoghiates and peasantry, like the heroes of 
 
 * yz^l^dhiov^ .... Interpreted by Lucian {De Gymnas, 32.) Xikg 
 '')(^si^07rX7}&y}g. Hence the same author calls dumb-bells, fj^oXvQdcyJmg 
 X^^f^adiovg — Lexiphan.b, 
 
96 
 
 ACARNANIA. 
 
 old, are in the habit of hurhng with great force and- 
 dexterity. The weapon is the more effectual, owing to 
 the nature of the rock itself, broken as it is in its whole 
 surface into angular and sharp-pointed inequahties, which 
 add greatly to the severity of the wound inflicted. Hence, 
 as most travellers will have experienced, a fall among 
 the Greek rocks is unusually painful. This property is 
 also very aptly described by the epithet " rugged" or 
 « jagged,"* which Homer famiharly applies to the Cherma- 
 dia of his heroes. The assailants, however, in ordinary 
 cases, with the exception of some districts, Laconia and 
 Messenia for example, where they are remarkable above 
 others for determination and fierceness, seldom expose 
 themselves to the risk of such a blow ; and the lifting of 
 one of these stones in a threatening manner, f or even 
 the act of stooping for the apparent purpose, is in most 
 cases a signal for retreat. Nor is the use of this primi- 
 tive weapon confined to engagements with the brute 
 species, but also extends to those between man and man, 
 in extreme cases, when none of a more convenient nature 
 is at hand. It was a personal familiarity with this joint 
 feature of Hellenic nature and Hellenic manners, that 
 first conveyed to my mind a clear and vivid impression 
 of that perpetually recurring incident of Homer's battles, 
 where the combatants, when momentarily unprovided 
 with their regular missiles, at once resort to the substi- 
 
 f Hence the humorous allusion of Aristophanes, Eiquit. 1028. 
 
 It has been observed, with perhaps as much of satire as truth, that 
 dogs are never seen within the walls of the Greek churches, owing to 
 the terror inspired by the frequent bowing of the congregation in the 
 course of their devotions, which the animal mistakes for the attitude of 
 lifting a stone to throw at themselves.— A^pon. Voyage, vol. ii. p. 365. 
 
ACARNANIA. 
 
 9T 
 
 tute which their native soil so abundantly supplies.* No 
 poet of our own, or any other country but one whose 
 natural features and social habits were similar, could 
 ever have given the same extent or importance to such 
 incidents, in a narrative either of real or fabulous events ; 
 and no reader can either understand or appreciate the 
 full force of his descriptions, who has not had personal 
 opportunity of bringing them into connexion with the 
 circumstances that immediately suggested them. In my 
 own case, I may say that this was the result, not of 
 observation alone, but in some degree of experience. 
 Not long after the commencement of our land journey, 
 our course happened to lie through a district much in- 
 fested by petty bands of robbers; not brigands on a grand 
 scale, but knots of idle or desperate peasants, who com- 
 bined occasionally for the purpose of waylaying and 
 plundering parties of unarmed and unsuspecting travel- 
 lers. In reflecting on what might be the best mode of 
 defence in such an emergency, it instinctively suggested 
 itself, that the one we had found so efiectual against the 
 dogs, might be turned to equal account against an attack 
 of biped enemies; and I meditated a scheme (which, 
 however, to say the truth, I never thought worth while 
 to carry into effect) for arming each of our party, on 
 arriving at any dangerous pass, with one or two of these 
 formidable chermadia, and on the approach of the foe 
 dashing them at their heads. All this passed through 
 my mind at the moment, without the least reference to 
 Homer ; but afterwards, when the train of ideas extended 
 itself in that direction, it brought home the spirit of this 
 class of adventures to the apprehension in the liveliest 
 manner. 
 
 ^ Even in more civilized ages this weapon does not seem to have 
 fallen altogether into disuse among the Greek military. See Lucian, 
 De Gymnas, 32. 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
98 
 
 ACARNANIA. 
 
 We have here, also, an apt illustration of the other- 
 wise not so obvious point of a simile of the Iliad, where 
 the thick cloud of dust that envelopes the advancing 
 host is likened to the morning mist on the mountain side, 
 through which the shepherd's eye " cannot penetrate fur- 
 ther than he can hurl a stone This image, in the 
 spirit of our own vernacular idiom, has but little point ; 
 for a shot of several hundred yards were no great feat 
 for a country lad, well skilled in the art of stone-throwing 
 in the ordinary sense of the term. But the cloud of 
 dust to which the poet alludes, was certainly of a much 
 denser description than to admit of the view extending 
 to such a distance. In the Homeric, however, or rather 
 the Hellenic sense of the phrase, as allusive to the hurl- 
 ing of the ponderous chermadion, the figure is correct 
 and expressive. 
 
 Among the numerous points of resemblance with 
 which the classical traveller cannot fail to be struck, 
 between the habits of pastoral and agricultural life as 
 still exemplified in Greece, and those which formerly 
 prevailed in the same country, there is none more calcu- 
 lated to arrest his attention than the correspondence of 
 the shepherds' encampments scattered here and there 
 over the face of the less cultivated districts, with the 
 settlements of the same kind whose concerns are so 
 frequently brought forward in the illustrative imagery of 
 the Ihad and Odyssey. Accordingly, the passage of 
 Homer, to which the existing pecuharity above described 
 affords the most appropriate commentary, is the scene of 
 the latter poem, where the hero, disguised as a beggar, 
 in approaching the farm of the Swineherd, is fiercely 
 assaulted by the dogs, but delivered by the master of 
 the establishment, who pelts them off with stones. 
 
ACARNANIA. 
 
 99^ 
 
 Pope's translation, with the exception of one or two 
 expressions,^ here conveys, with tolerable fidelity, the 
 spirit of the original : — 
 
 " Soon as Ulysses near the enclosure drew, 
 W^ith open mouths the furious mastiffs flew ; 
 Down sat the sage, and, cautious to withstand. 
 Let fall the offensive truncheon from his hand ; 
 Sudden the master runs — aloud he calls, 
 And from his hasty hand the leather falls ; 
 With showers of stones he drives them far away. 
 The scatter'd dogs around at distance bay." f — Odyss. xiv. 29, 
 
 This whole scene, together with many others that fol- 
 low, both as regards the character of the establishment, 
 and the habits of its inmates, corresponds very closely to 
 many a one which I myself have witnessed in the course 
 of my journey. But there is one curious point in the 
 description which more especially demands attention; 
 where Ulysses, alarmed at the fury of the assault, is said 
 to have " sat down cunningly, dropping the stick from 
 his hand." I am probably not the only reader of the 
 poem who has been puzzled to understand the object of 
 this manoeuvre on the part of the hero.| I was first led 
 to appreciate its full value in the following manner. 
 At Argos, one evening, at the table of General Gordon, 
 then commanding-in-chief in the Morea, the conversa- 
 tion happened to turn, as it frequently does where tour- 
 ists are in company, on this very subject of the number 
 
 Mastiff is not a good term for a sheep-dog ; nor is the phrase 
 showers" of stones very appropriate. 
 
 f This passage has been closely imitated by Theocritus, in his 
 description of a precisely similar scene. — Idyll, xxiv. v. 68. seq. 
 
 X Pliny, indeed, {H, N. viii. c. 40,) and Plutarch (de Solert, Amm. 
 XV.,) inform us, that " the fury of a dog is mitigated by a man's sitting 
 down and the scholiast appends a similar remark to the passage, but 
 with the usual qualification of (pa(St — " they say ; " so that, apart from 
 any appeal to facts or experience, the commentary in each case seemed 
 to oifer little more than a paraphrase of the text. 
 
100 
 
 ACARNANIA. 
 
 and fierceness of the Greek dogs; when one of the com- 
 pany remarked that he knew of a very simple expedient 
 for appeasing their fury. Happening, on a journey, to 
 miss his road, and being overtaken by darkness, he sought 
 refuge for the night at a pastoral settlement by the way- 
 side. As he approached, the dogs rushed out upon him, 
 i and the consequences might have been serious, had he 
 not been rescued by an old shepherd, (the Eumseus of 
 the fold,) who salUed forth, and finding that the intruder 
 was but a benighted traveller, after pelting ofl* his assail- 
 ants, gave him a hospitable reception in his hut. His 
 guest made some remark on the watchfulness and zeal 
 of his dogs, and on the danger to which he had been 
 exposed from their attack. The old man replied that it 
 was his own fault for not taking the customary precau- 
 tion in such an emergency; that he ought to have stopped 
 and sat down, until some person whom the animals knew 
 came to protect him. As this expedient was new to the 
 traveller, he made some further enquiries, and was 
 assured that, if any person in such a predicament will 
 simply seat himself on the ground, laying^ aside his 
 weapon of defence, the dogs will also squat in a circle 
 round him; that as long as he remains quiet, they will 
 follow his example; but that as soon as he rises and 
 moves forward they will renew their assault. This story, 
 though told without the least reference to the Odyssey, 
 with which it had not connected itself in the mind of the 
 narrator, at once brought home to my own the whole 
 scene at the fold of Eumaeus with the most vivid reahty. 
 The existence of the custom was confirmed by other per- 
 sons present, from their own observation or experience. 
 I never, myself, happened to be under any necessity of 
 putting its efficacy to the test. 
 
 Besides the attacks of these animals, their incessant 
 noise in the towns and villages is itself an intolerable 
 
ACARNANIA, 
 
 101 
 
 nuisance. The whole day long in these otherwise quiet 
 communities, where noise of cart or carriage is never 
 heard, bursts of barking or howling are perpetually suc- 
 ceeding each other in some quarter or another. The 
 appearance of an unknown person, especially of a Frank, 
 beyond the immediate bounds of the bazar or principal 
 thoroughfare, even of a large town, is sufficient to call 
 forth the anger, not only of the special guardians of the 
 profaned district, but of all their neighbours within sight 
 or convenient distance; while even from the remotest 
 points, the remainder of the colony seldom fail to send 
 forth at least a few sympathetic responses to the com- 
 plaints of their fellow-citizens. 
 
102 
 
 ACARNANIA. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 EIVER ACHELOiiS—ECHINADES— RUINS OF (ENIAD^. 
 
 s^yj/jjla fizydXri 'cfriv 7] n>syakri ^roX/^. — Fragm. Comici ap* Strab. 
 " A mighty desert is this mighty town." 
 
 After passing the encampment, we gain the brow of 
 the eminence on which it is situated, from whence a 
 magnificent view opens up of the course of the Acheloiis 
 for about ten miles inland from its mouth.^ It is really 
 a noble river, by far the finest in Greece, and well worthy 
 of the distinction it enjoyed of old, as the patriarch and 
 eponyme hero of the whole fresh-water creation of Hellas. 
 Its waters are of a whitish yellow or cream colour, similar 
 to those of the Tyber, or perhaps somewhat lighter. 
 This colour, although perhaps at the present moment 
 arising in part from the melted snow, would seem to be 
 natural to the stream, from the title it now bears — 
 Aspropotamo or the White river. The ancients charac- 
 terized it by epithets of similar import ; and if we may 
 trust Dodwell, the river god Acheloiis is represented in 
 vases under the figure of a white bull. 
 
 The vast flat plain which it here traverses, called after 
 itself the Paracheloitis, though swampy and uncultivated, 
 is of great natural fertiUty, and richly studded with 
 copsewood and forest-trees, which in many places form 
 a continuous fringe to the banks. As the stream hides 
 
 * See Plate II. 
 
102 
 
 ACAKNANIA, 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 RIVER ACHELOUS—ECHINADES— RUINS OF CENIADyE. 
 
 s^Yl/jjia iisyaXri *(Sriv yj fJbiydXri 'iroXig, — Fragm. Comici ap, Strab. 
 " A mighty desert is this mighty town." 
 
 After passing the encampment, we gain the brow of 
 the eminence on which it is situated, from whence a 
 magnificent view opens up of the course of the Acheloiis 
 for about ten miles inland from its mouth.^ It is really 
 a noble river, by far the finest in Greece, and well worthy 
 of the distinction it enjoyed of old, as the patriarch and 
 eponyme hero of the whole fresh-water creation of Hellas. 
 Its waters are of a whitish yellow or cream colour, similar 
 to those of the Tyber, or perhaps somewhat lighter. 
 This colour, although perhaps at the present moment 
 arising in part from the melted snow, would seem to be 
 natural to the stream, from the title it now bears — 
 Aspropotamo or the White river. The ancients charac- 
 terized it by epithets of similar import ; and if we may 
 trust Dodwell, the river god Acheloiis is represented in 
 vases under the figure of a white bull. 
 
 The vast flat plain which it here traverses, called after 
 itself the Paracheloitis, though swampy and uncultivated, 
 is of great natural fertility, and richly studded with 
 copsewood and forest-trees, which in many places form 
 a continuous fringe to the banks. As the stream hides 
 
 * See Plate II. 
 
LIBRARY 
 Of THE 
 NIVERSITYOFILUNOIS 
 
ACARNANIA. 
 
 103 
 
 itself here and there in the course of its windings, and 
 again presents itself to view, the plain assumes very 
 much the appearance of an extensive wooded park, 
 relieved here and there by ornamental pieces of water. 
 The foreground of the prospect is an open forest of 
 knotty old oaks, scattered over the face of the rocky 
 banks down which lay our course to the vale below. To 
 the right the view is bounded by the sea^ into which the 
 river is seen to empty itself, and by the loftiest and most 
 prominent of the group of Echinades ; to the left or east, 
 by the mountains of JEtoiia. In the centre is the 
 plain. From its outskirts rise here and there detached 
 rocky heights, which tradition assumes to have been 
 formerly islands. In the distance opens out another 
 distinct view of the sea towards the Corinthian gulf ; 
 behind which the mountains of Peloponnesus form the 
 extreme background. 
 
 The course of the river here presents the most extra- 
 ordinary series of windings that I ever recollect having 
 seen in any stream of equal size; offering in every 
 direction — to use the classic phraseology of Dante — the 
 figures of S, C, and occasionally, to the eye at least, 
 very nearly of a complete O. These deflexions are not 
 only so sudden, but so extensive, as to render it difficult 
 to trace the exact line of its bed — and sometimes, for 
 several miles, leaving its direct course towards the sea, 
 it appears to flow back into the mountains in which ii 
 rises. The signification of the mythical combat between 
 Hercules and Achelous, here forced itself at once upon 
 the attention.* According to the fable, the river god 
 first assaults the hero in the form of a serpent, and on 
 being worsted assumes that of a bull. His adversary, 
 seizing him by the horns, wrenches one of them from his 
 
 ^ SoPHOC. Trachin. v. 9. Ovid. Metam. ix. Apollod. Bihl. ii. 
 7,5. 
 
104 
 
 ACARNANIA. 
 
 forehead, which forthwith becomes a Cornucopia. The 
 whole adventure alludes obviously to the efforts of some 
 primitive improver of the district, by alterations on the 
 course of the river, to check the ravages which in those 
 days, as in the present, its inundations committed on the 
 otherwise fertile region watered by its stream. The 
 figure of the serpent assumed by the serpentine river 
 speaks for itself. The bull, in Greek mythology, is the 
 familiar type of a river god — emblematic of the impetuo- 
 sity of his flood; while the horn is an equally apt symbol 
 of any such sinuosity as that which here forms the pro- 
 minent feature of the landscape. Deianeira, the name 
 of the heroine for whom the contest takes place, signifies 
 literally " Ravager of men," and is probably but a symbol 
 of the power of destruction asserted by the river, in 
 opposition to the hero, over the works of human industry 
 on its banks. A cut across the isthmus, with an embank- 
 ment to restrain the outbreakings of the stream, while it 
 would sever this horn from the body of the river, would 
 at once convert it, together with the land it encloses, 
 into a horn of plenty. * 
 
 Next to the river itself, the most striking feature of 
 this noble prospect are the two lofty mountains, broken 
 each into a number of sharp peaks, which rise immedi- 
 ately on the sea-shore beyond its mouth. One of them 
 
 * Hercules is, throughout the Greek mythology, the prominent actor 
 in adventures of this kind. His combat with the Lernsean Hydra is 
 a no less palpable image of the works undertaken to bring into tillage 
 the marshes at the southern extremity of the Argohc plain, inter- 
 sected by streams, and studded with deep pools and copious springs, 
 figured by the heads of the monster. To the same hero is usually 
 ascribed the piercing of the Katabothra, or subterranean emissaries, 
 common in every part of Greece, by which the superabundant waters 
 of her land-locked marshes and lakes find vent through the mountain 
 sides to the sea, or which in some cases preserve her most fertile 
 plains from being similarly swamped or inundated. 
 
ACARNANIA. 
 
 105 
 
 is completely an island, being separated from the terra 
 firma by a channel of deep water. The other, though 
 not altogether insulated, has much the same appearance, 
 being surrounded on the land side by a stretch of low 
 marshy ground. Hence in the later Greek geography 
 they bore in common the name of Oxiae,* or the " Sharp 
 islands," which they retain to this day, under the slight 
 variety of Oxies. The one still possessing an insular 
 character has the proper name of Oxia. Their joint 
 appellation, together with the feature from whence it is 
 derived, affords the interpretation of that which they 
 bore in the primitive geography, in common with the 
 others extending along shore to the north : Echinades — • 
 or, as Homer has it, Echinae. Echinus is the Greek 
 proper name, both of the common hedge-hog, and of the 
 curious shell-fish which we familiarly call sea hedge-hog 
 or prickleback. As transferred to these islands, it most 
 aptly denotes their pointed or prickly outline. 
 
 On descending into the vale, we continued our course 
 up the right bank of the river. Wild and uncultivated 
 as it now lies,- there is no want of animal life on the sur- 
 face of the plain. Besides the herds of the Wallachian 
 pastors, we saw numerous flocks of ducks and other wild- 
 fowl, together with some white herons — a bird of great 
 beauty, and a novelty to me. After a ride of about an 
 hour and a half, I observed to the left, along the summit 
 of one of the broadest of the insulated eminences that 
 rise out of the plain, within a mile of our route, exten- 
 sive vestiges of walls, indicating the site of an ancient 
 city. No satisfactory account of the nature of these 
 ruins could be obtained from any of my attendants. 
 Nicola knew nothing of them; and the Wallachian 
 
 * Strab. X. c. 2. Stephan. pe. Urb. in v. A^rs/^C/zra. The 
 epithet kcct given by Homer to these islands, is also interpreted as a 
 sjnonyme of o^sTai. 
 
106 
 
 ACARNANIA. 
 
 agoghiate, who was a good-humoured but very unintel- 
 - lectual sort of a barbarian, although he had often been 
 on the spot, had not even one of the vulgar titles to 
 apply to them— such asPalseokastro— TaHellenika,&c., 
 by which the Greek peasantry are in the habit of desig- 
 nating all buildings, the epoch of whose destruction goes 
 much beyond their own memory. Nicola asked him if 
 they were built without mortar, a favourite criterion 
 among his own class of archaeologers (and no bad one, 
 it must be admitted) for distinguishing Hellenic from 
 modern structures ; but neither to this query could any 
 satisfactory answer be ehcited. Convinced however, as 
 we advanced, of the truth of my first conjecture, I deter- 
 mined, if practicable, to explore them. Finding that the 
 village of Katochi, for which our boatman was bound, 
 was not far distant, and would afford lodging for the 
 night, I sent on Nicola with the rest of the equipage to 
 prepare our quarters, and proceeded with my Wallachian 
 attendant to the ruins. 
 
 I was well rewarded for my trouble, as I found the 
 remains of an ancient city, offering, upon the whole, both 
 in point of extent, preservation, and architectural pecuh- 
 arities, the most interesting specimen of the kind I have 
 seen, either in Greece or Italy. Not having made any 
 special preparation for this portion of my journey, which 
 I had not previously contemplated, I had no very distinct 
 notion, while on the ground, either of the name or history 
 of the place. But on referring afterwards to the chapter 
 of Thucydides descriptive of the mouth of the Acheloiis, 
 I saw at once that it could be no other than OEniadse,* 
 
 * These ruins have been visited and described, with his nsual accu- 
 racy, by Colonel Leoke.— Northern Greece, vol iii. p. 556, seq. But 
 his description is unaccompanied by plans or drawings of their architec- 
 tural peculiarities— without which, they can scarcely be understood or 
 appreciated. This want I have endeavoured to supply in Plate III. 
 
LIBRARY 
 OF THE 
 NlYERSmrOFILUNOIS 
 
106 
 
 ACARNANIA. 
 
 agoghiate, who was a good-humoured but very unintel- 
 " lectual sort of a barbarian, although he had often been 
 on the spot, had not even one of the vulgar titles to 
 apply to them— such asPateokastro— TaHellenika,&c., 
 by which the Greek peasantry are in the habit of desig- 
 nating all buildings, the epoch of whose destruction goes 
 much beyond their own memory. Nicola asked him if 
 they were built without mortar, a favourite criterion 
 among his own class of archseologers (and no bad one, 
 it must be admitted) for distinguishing Hellenic from 
 modern structures ; but neither to this query could any 
 satisfactory answer be elicited. Convinced however, as 
 we advanced, of the truth of my first conjecture, I deter- 
 mined, if practicable, to explore them. Finding that the 
 village of Katochi, for which our boatman was bound, 
 was not far distant, and would afford lodging for the 
 night, I sent on Nicola with the rest of the equipage to 
 prepare our quarters, and proceeded with my Wallachian 
 attendant to the ruins. 
 
 I was well rewarded for my trouble, as I found the 
 remains of an ancient city, offering, upon the whole, both 
 in point of extent, preservation, and architectural pecuh- 
 arities, the most interesting specimen of the kind I have 
 seen, either in Greece or Italy. Not having made any 
 special preparation for this portion of my journey, which 
 I had not previously contemplated, I had no very distinct 
 notion, while on the ground, either of the name or history 
 of the place. But on referring afterwards to the chapter 
 of Thucydides descriptive of the mouth of the Acheloiis, 
 I saw at once that it could be no other than CEniadae,* 
 
 ^ These ruins have been visited and described, with his usual accu- 
 racy, by Colonel Leake. — Northern Greece, vol iii. p. 556, seq. But 
 his description is unaccompanied by plans or drawings of their architec- 
 tural peculiarities— without which, they can scarcely be understood or 
 appreciated. This want I have endeavoured to supply in Plate 111. 
 
ACARNANIA. 
 
 107 
 
 a chief city of Acarnania, and considered one of the 
 strongest fortresses in Greece, partly from its situation, 
 partly from its artificial defences. The modern name of 
 the site is Trikardo. 
 
 The hill over which the walls extend, with the excep- 
 tion of its southern extremity, where a long slope (no 
 part of which is comprehended within the city) stretching 
 out in the direction of the Acheloiis, connects it with the 
 terra firma of the plain, is surrounded by morass on every 
 side.* To the north, these swamps deepen into a reedy 
 lake or marsh, now called Lesini, by the ancients Melite. 
 The upper surface of the hill presents three distinct 
 rocky eminences, stretching in a line from S. W. to N. E. 
 The ground within the enclosure is for the most part an 
 open forest of oaks. The circumference of the walls, 
 which are of polygonal masonry, is of irregular form, 
 both as regards ground line and elevation, but cannot be 
 much less than three miles. With the exception of one 
 or two places where they descend into marshy ground, 
 they are in a fine state of preservation, often to a height 
 of from ten to fifteen feet. The town was further 
 strengthened by two citadels : one occupied the height 
 at its southern extremity ; the other, on a lower level to 
 the N. E., comprehended also the port, t communicating 
 with the sea by a deep river or creek running up through 
 the contiguous marsh. Some of the massive square 
 towers of these forts are nearly entire. They are of 
 irregular Hellenic masonry, connected by curtain walls 
 of polygons. Several of the gates, sallyports, and sali- 
 ent angles, also present beautiful specimens of Greek 
 military architecture. $ On parts of the interior area of 
 
 * See Plan, in Plate II. fig. 4. 
 
 f The best preserved part of the interior front of this fortification 
 is given in Plate III. fig. 6. 
 
 I The projecting angle which the wall forms immediately to the 
 
108 
 
 ACARNANIA. 
 
 the town, are extensive traces of domestic buildings. In 
 some places the lines of street, and the subdivisions of 
 the houses, may be distinctly recognised. Although 
 the masonry of the walls is every where compact and 
 solid, none of the blocks are of very extraordinary size; 
 not equal to those I had lately seen in the fortifica- 
 tions of Cossa, Norba, and other Pelasgic cities of central 
 Italy. 
 
 The earhest notice we have of (Eniadse is preserved 
 by Pausanias,* who describes it as having been besieged, 
 taken, and for a considerable time possessed by the 
 Messenians, when driven out of Peloponnesus by the 
 Spartans in the year 670 B.C.; and from his account, it 
 would seem to have been already at that period remark- 
 able for the strength of its fortifications. It was after- 
 wards retaken by the Acarnanians, and attached itself 
 firmly to the interests of Sparta, during the subsequent 
 contests among the Greek states. Twenty-three years 
 prior to the Peloponnesian war, it successfully resisted 
 an attack by Pericles.f During the whole of that event- 
 ful struggle, it was the scene of much hard fighting, and 
 was for long the inexpugnable, as it was the only bul- 
 wark of the Spartan cause in this district.^: It continued 
 to be a place of great importance during the Macedonian 
 and Roman wars. In the year 219 B.C., it was taken 
 by Phihp, king of Macedon,§ who extended and repaired 
 the works, and from this epoch may probably date some 
 of the more elegant specimens of masonry which they 
 still exhibit. The building of the port, more especially, 
 
 east of the great gate, situated between the port and the citadel, 
 (Plate III. fig. 5.) is especially worthy of remark. It is in nearly 
 perfect preservation. In form, it closely resembles the salient angle 
 of a modern bastion. 
 
 ^ Messen. c. xxv. f Thucyd. I., iii. 
 
 X TiiucYD. ii. 68, 1023 iii. 7; iv. 77. § Polyb. iv. c. 63, seqq. 
 
ACAKNANIA. 
 
 109 
 
 is attributed by Polybius to Philip.^ In 211 B.C., 
 (Eniadse fell into the hands of the Romans.f The 
 name Trikardo or Trlgardo, which it now bears, is at least 
 as old as the fifteenth century, derived probably from 
 the three summits of the hill on which it stands. Cyria- 
 cus of Ancona4 who travelled in Greece in 1436, 
 describes it under that name very correctly, as having 
 polygonal walls, two citadels, § and a theatre. The 
 remains of the theatre are mentioned by Leake, but I 
 did not observe them. 
 
 The most interesting features of this fortification are 
 its arched posterns or sallyports, |1 which, together with 
 a larger gateway in the same style, described by Leake 
 as connecting the port with the town, but which escaped 
 my notice, prove, as he remarks, the use of the regular 
 arch of concentric layers to have been combined with 
 polygonal masonry in Greece, and to have been known, 
 as he further infers, in that country at a much earlier 
 period than is usually supposed. Although this argument 
 were not, perhaps, in itself conclusive in regard to 
 (Eniadse, considering the late epoch at which some of 
 its principal works were constructed, my own further 
 researches have convinced me, on evidence to be more 
 fully adduced in the sequel, that the Greek masons were 
 acquainted with the art of throwing an arch from the 
 remotest period. There can, indeed, be little doubt 
 that the peribolus, or outer wall of this fortress, is the 
 work of a primitive age, whatever may be the case with 
 some of its more complicated defences: and it can hardly 
 be questioned that postern No. 3 in the annexed plate is 
 
 ^ PoLTB. V. 65. t Liv. xxvi. c. 24. Polyb. ix. 39. 
 
 I Apud DopwELL, vol. i. p. 101. 
 
 § There are less distinct traces of a third citadel or castle on the 
 northern crest of the hill. 
 
 II Plate III. figs. 1, 2; 3. 
 
110 
 
 ACARNANIA. 
 
 an original element of the masonry with which it is con- 
 nected. The larger gateway of the port, as forming 
 part of the works repaired by Philip, is of more doubtful 
 antiquity. It will also be observed that these four 
 posterns offer a distinct gradation of expedients for 
 covering in such structures, from the simple flat archi- 
 trave of No. 1 «5 to the regularly vaulted arch ; No. 1 
 and No. 2 are the developement of the principle; No. 3 
 its perfection.^ 
 
 I regret much, that amid the necessity under which I 
 was of exploring the ground for myself, I should have 
 failed to observe the arched gateway of the port. The 
 marshy nature of the soil, with the thickness of the 
 brushwood, prevented any closer inspection of this part 
 of the work. Neither my Wallachian guide, nor any of 
 the members of another colony of shepherds encamped 
 among the ruins, were competent to afford the smallest 
 assistance in my researches, not to mention the absence 
 of all medium of communication between us; their lan- 
 guage being, with the exception of a chance word or two, 
 as unintelligible to me as mine was to them. The sudden 
 appearance of a solitary Frank in the heart of their settle- 
 ment, caused, as may be supposed, some little sensation 
 among these sons of the wilderness ; and they contem- 
 plated my operations, especially when handling either 
 sketch or journal-book, with wonder and astonishment. 
 But for the exciting interest of the occasion, one might 
 have felt a little uneasy at finding one's-self thus alone 
 in the midst of so strange and uncouth a race. The 
 only precaution I took, on discovering the city to be 
 not altogether uninhabited, was carefully to conceal 
 every article about my person bearing any resemblance 
 to the precious metals — having been warned that the 
 temptation which such objects hold out to the cupidity 
 
 ^ See Plate III. 
 
ACARNANIA. 
 
 Ill 
 
 of the rustic population in remote districts, is almost 
 irresistible. Nicola, indeed, as interpreter to the agog- 
 hiate, had just before been regaling me with accounts of 
 the recent murder of a Bavarian officer, near Vonitza, 
 on the Turkish frontier; who, venturing alone and in 
 uniform too far from his own quarters, was attacked and 
 killed by some country people, who mistook his brass 
 accoutrements for gold. Nicola, however, expressed a 
 more favourable opinion of the moral character of the 
 Wallachians, and assured me that I might perfectly rely 
 on the fidelity of my own attendant in particular, with 
 whom he had already managed deeply to ingratiate 
 himself, by showing a familiarity with his native moun- 
 tains, and an acquaintance with several members of his 
 family; good evidence of the extent of my valet's per- 
 sonal relations throughout the Turco- Greek continent, 
 and of his tact in turning his advantage to account. 
 The Trigardine pastors, however, were of Hellenic race; 
 but I met with nothing but respect and good-will among 
 them, as displayed more especially in their zealous efforts 
 to allay the fury of their dogs at my trespass on their 
 territory, which, but for their interference, would have 
 put an immediate and effectual stop to all antiquarian 
 research. 
 
 Throughout these remains, among the copious frag- 
 ments of masonry scattered over the surface of the ground, 
 not a single piece of sculptured marble or stone is to be 
 seen — not even a scrap of painted pottery, a species of relic 
 so thickly strewed over the site of many other Grecian 
 cities as to form a large ingredient of the soil. If this 
 apparent barrenness of elegant art convey but a poor 
 idea of the politeness of the ancient population of the 
 town, it invests its ruins with that other species of inter- 
 est which belongs to primitive simplicity and grandeur. 
 Every thing is rude and massive; rubbish there is little 
 
112 
 
 ACARNANIA. 
 
 or none ; nothing but solid stone. Even the remains of what 
 must have been common dweUing-houses, are composed 
 of unwieldy blocks. These features may also be consi- 
 dered a reflection of the corresponding genius of the old 
 Pelasgic race, as displayed on both sides of the Adriatic, 
 wherever the later refinements of Hellenic civilization 
 had failed to assert their full influence. The close 
 resemblance in this and other respects between these 
 ruins and those of the Pelasgic cities of Latium, which I 
 had visited a few weeks before, struck me very forcibly, 
 and affords living evidence of the handywork of a 
 kindred race. 
 
 The site of ' OEniadse is most picturesque, and the 
 surrounding scenery as grand in all its natural features 
 as in its classical associations. My wanderings were 
 rendered the more interesting, if not the more commo- 
 dious, by a tremendous storm, which raged at intervals 
 during the greater part of the time I spent on the 
 ground; the lightning flashing and the thunder bursting 
 most terrifically over our heads, or growling among the 
 dark-blue Acarnanian mountains, and across the wide 
 expanse of reedy marshes, which, like green or yellow 
 seas, extend close up to their base. While taking mo- 
 mentary shelter behind the wall from the torrents of 
 rain that accompanied the storm, I observed on the top 
 of a noble group of oaks that crown the rocky height of 
 the citadel, six objects, apparently too large for birds, 
 and which I at first took for clothes hung up by the 
 shepherds to dry. On closer inspection, however, they 
 proved to be eagles,* or perhaps rather vultures, a race 
 of birds which I had never yet seen in a wild state ; nor 
 certainly could my first introduction to it have taken 
 place under more auspicious circumstances. They 
 
 (pyi'/(jj i<p' v-^riXfi 'Trccr^hg Aiog aiyioyoia* — /?. -vii. 60. 
 
ACARNANIA, 
 
 113 
 
 seemed no way shy, and sat meditating, in all probability, 
 a future meal on the progeny of the flocks, their fellow 
 tenants of this desolate region. To my fancy, however, 
 it appeared as if they were musing in melancholy sadness 
 on the change of times, since the ruins they contemplated 
 were the habitation of a race of heroes, who assigned 
 their own so distinguished a part in the war of elements 
 that was raging over their heads. It were not easy to 
 imagine a combination of circumstances calculated more 
 powerfully to act on the imagination of an enthusiastic 
 Hellenist, during the first few hours after stepping on 
 shore on the classic land. 
 
 Wild and desert as this enclosure now is in all that 
 relates to industry or culture, it is no way deficient in 
 animated nature ; for besides the six eagles— the shep- 
 herds — their dogs — and their flocks, I saw two wood- 
 cocks, a fox, and a hare, within the circuit of the walls. 
 Game of all kinds, indeed, seems to abound in the district; 
 the marshes swarm with every variety of water-fowl; nor 
 could there be a more agreeable mode of passing a few 
 months, for a, party combining, as our young gentry fre- 
 quently do, a love of field sports with a zeal for classical, 
 pursuit, and an admiration of picturesque scenery, than 
 to pitch their tents during the healthy season in this 
 most interesting and httle explored region. 
 
 The number of birds of prey, of all classes, sizes, and 
 colours, that swarm throughout Greece, is one of the 
 features of its natural history which most readily attracts 
 the attention of the traveller arrived from more civihzed 
 regions. I have often, in riding over the beautiful but 
 desert Campagna of Rome, reflected on the fable of 
 Romulus and Remus, where the two brothers mount on 
 the summit of opposite heights to gather omens relative 
 to the future empire of their infant community ; when a 
 flight of six eagles presents itself to the one, and imme- 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
114 
 
 ACARNANIA. 
 
 diately afterwards one of twelve appears to his rival. 
 The Roman plain, as well as the mountains that bound 
 it, are probably far less populous or cultivated at the 
 present day, than they were at the period when this 
 mythical story had its origin. Yet its glorious race of 
 winged inhabitants has disappeared ; and were the future 
 destinies of the eternal city to depend upon some new 
 Romulus or Rienzi beholding a flight of eagles hover- 
 ing over its ruins, vain indeed, to all appearance, were 
 its hopes of resuscitation from its present state of pohtical 
 debasement. One might now stand for many a day or 
 month on the summit of the Monte Sacro, before a single 
 messenger of Jove would offer itself to the view. The 
 godlike bird would appear to have become extinct, with 
 the godlike race of men over whose destinies it presided. 
 In Greece the case seems to be reversed, and in the ratio 
 of the decline of the human species in number and excel- 
 lence, has been the increase in the remainder of the more 
 bulky portion of the biped creation. In this country I 
 have often seen several dozen of eagles, or vultures, (for 
 at a distance it is not easy to distinguish one from the 
 other,) soaring in company, sociably crossing each other's 
 course in majestic circles, far above some lofty mountain, 
 or extensive range of wild sheep pasture. No less 
 remarkable than their number is their tameness and 
 famiharity with man. The human species seems to be 
 with them, not as in other countries an object of fear or 
 respect, but of indifference or contempt ; and they will 
 remain unmoved by the road-side, perched on the sum- 
 mit of a rock, on the look-out for their prey, or engaged 
 on the level plain tearing in pieces a choice piece of 
 
 * The larger class of falcon and buzzard, it is true, abound in the 
 Campagna; and are often to be seen collected in large flights. 
 Possibly eagU may here in the tradition be but a poetical exaggeration 
 of the inferior order of the same species. 
 
ACARNANIA. 
 
 115 
 
 carrion, while the traveller passes within pistol-shot. 
 Perhaps the deHcate meals, with which during the recent 
 eight years' war they were constantly supphed from the 
 flesh of both Musulman and Christian, may have tended 
 to encourage the easy footing on which they now stand 
 with the lords of the creation; and to have refreshed 
 their recollection of the former empire which their ances- 
 tors of the heroic age are made to claim over our own 
 species, by so many ingenious arguments, in the humor- 
 ous play of Aristophanes, dedicated to the honour of 
 their race. * But the meek spirit of submission in which 
 their insults or injuries are endured, is a circumstance 
 not so easily accounted for. Both vultures and foxes 
 seemed to be objects of as great indiflerence to the 
 shepherds of Trikardo, as they were to the foxes and 
 vultures ; — although it is certain that the lambs of their 
 flocks must have been a chief article of subsistence with 
 both animals. Perhaps the benefit to be derived from 
 their destruction would scarcely be an equivalent to these 
 poor people for the expense of powder and shot, or other 
 apparatus necessary for the purpose. 
 
 AveSf V. 481. seqq. 
 
116 
 
 ACARNANIA. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 KATOCHI— ACARNANIAN PEASANTRY— VILLAGE DEMARCHUS. 
 
 o^w iroXXriv^ nai XifMVTiv riva yAjaXriv^ xai o^y)^ xai 'jtoraijjovg^ 
 %ai av^^oJTTovg ^dvv /ut^ax^ovg^ %at rivug (p^Xsovg avrcuv." 
 " 'TToXiig Iniivai g/V/v, oxtg (pooXsovg ihai vo////^s/g." — Lucian. Dial, 
 
 " I see much land, and a great marsh, and mountains, and rivers, and 
 very tall men, and certain burrows which they inhabit." 
 " These are cities which you call burrows." 
 
 We reached Katochi before dark. This village, the 
 first I had seen on the soil of Greece, described by the 
 last generation of travellers as a respectable small town, 
 appeared to me about the poorest collection of human 
 habitations I had ever seen, bearing pretensions to the 
 name of houses. Perhaps the impression would have 
 been less unfavourable, had our visit taken place after 
 my eye had been already familiarized to one of the most 
 melancholy features in the face of this unhappy land. 
 The site, with rare exception, of every Greek city, town, 
 or village, from Athens down to the poorest mountain 
 hamlet, presents in fact one confused mass of rubbish — 
 ruins they can hardly be called — among which the new 
 dwellings are interspersed, often at wide intervals, and 
 little distinguishable from the remains of their prede- 
 cessors but by the bright glare of their red tile roofs. 
 During the exterminating war of which this country was 
 lately the theatre, a war as much (or more) of fierce 
 
ACARNANIA. 
 
 117 
 
 devastation as of martial exploit, every group of houses 
 within the sphere of military operations was reduced to 
 ashes or to rubbish, often several times in rapid suc- 
 cession. The Greeks destroyed their towns when 
 forced to abandon them, in order to deprive their Turk- 
 ish occupants of shelter ; the Turks, from rage against 
 their revolted vassals ; frequently, in the vicissitudes of 
 the contest, from the same cause as the Greeks. Even 
 before the war, the houses of a Greek town or village 
 would seem, as well from the accounts of travellers, as 
 from the few extant examples, which, in retired nooks 
 beyond the immediate range of hostihties, have escaped 
 the general havoc, to have been objects of no great 
 value to their proprietors. A small oblong area, between 
 two gable ends connecting side walls of mud, or the 
 poorest kind of masonry, with a roof of thatch or tile, 
 through the crevices of which the smoke escaped, and 
 a portion of daylight was admitted, without window, 
 chimney, flooring, or pavement of any kind, seems then 
 as now to have been the common habitation of the lower 
 class. Even those of a better description, and boasting 
 of more than one story, were then, as they are still, 
 with some exceptions at Athens and other chief towns, 
 Hght flimsy structures of rubble, stucco, or mud, encased 
 in wooden frameworks, and as rapidly and cheaply 
 rebuilt as they were easily burned or destroyed. Hence 
 one is able to understand what at first sight appears a 
 sort of contradiction in the narratives of the war, how, 
 after being told in one chapter that a certain town had 
 been taken and demolished, we find it not many pages 
 below again alluded to as in existence ; and, perhaps after 
 an equally brief interval, as once more sacked and destroy- 
 ed. At present, some of the larger towns contain afew toler- 
 able houses, and Athens has many both elegant and sub- 
 stantial edifices ; but nothing certainly can be more dismal 
 
118 
 
 ACARNANIA. 
 
 than the aspect of those masses of hovels or rubbish, 
 which, under the barbarous appellations of Skripu, Kokla, 
 Karvata, Sec, have succeeded to the classic sites of Orcho- 
 menus, Platsea, or Mycene. In few cases are they reheved 
 by any structure presenting, even as compared with its 
 neighbours, the appearance of a pubhc edifice. The 
 church itself is often one of the most miserable sheds of 
 the place, and frequently without roof. The best look- 
 ing villages are those situated like Kastri, (Delphi,) or 
 Katochi itself, on the face of steep acclivities, where a 
 lo;sver floor, usually a stable, is in some measure rendered 
 necessary for one-half the length of the building; so that 
 where the roofs have but little slope, the gables project 
 at right angles to the vertical section of the hill, and 
 the approach to the entry, as frequently happens, is 
 from a sort of terrace, supported by a retaining wall, the 
 efffect is not inelegant. Upon the whole, however, the 
 wretchedness of these clusters of red-tiled hovels, scat- 
 tered here and there over the surface of the land, detracts 
 sadly from the picturesque beauty of Greek scenery; 
 more especially in the eyes of one accustomed to the 
 broad masses of building, and the varied outline of tower, 
 terrace, and pavihon, which, in almost every village, 
 harmonize so finely with the graceful undulations of the 
 Itahan landscape. There attaches, however, a sort of 
 melancholy interest to the very contrast between the 
 abject misery of the haunts of the present population, 
 and the gigantic remains of the dwellings of their ances- 
 tors, or the never-faihng splendour of nature, by which 
 they are surrounded. The same remark may apply to 
 the general desolation of the face of the country, as 
 regards husbandry and every other feature of civilized 
 life, which, in proportion as it mars the amenity of the 
 prospect, enhances the power of the classical associations 
 it inspires. A redeeming point, however, is the really 
 
ACARNANIA. 
 
 119 
 
 classical costume, and in many places manly beauty of 
 the race by which it is worn, — the only features, per- 
 haps, of modern Greece, which, apart from its moun- 
 tains, seas, and ruins, recall to the mind, through the 
 medium of the external senses, the glories of its former 
 state. 
 
 The greater part of the village of Katochi is situated 
 on a sloping bank overhanging the river, across which it 
 suppUes a ferry-boat. * I found my quarters prepared 
 in one of the best houses it contained, occupied, whether 
 as lodger or proprietor I did not ascertain, by the young 
 Ithacan, our boatman's cousin, settled here as an agri- 
 cultural colonist, and who was exceedingly anxious to 
 obtain from me some instruction as to the culture of 
 the potatoe, a vegetable not yet familiar in this region. 
 Partly, however, from the defect of our means of com- 
 munication — neither his stock of Itahan, nor mine of 
 Eomaic, being sufficient for the discussion of so knotty 
 a subject — ^partly from my own limited knowledge of the 
 science of green-cropping, I much fear that my lectures 
 will not have tended greatly to spread the growth of this 
 valuable plant on the banks of the Achelolis. My host's 
 dweUing, being situated on the declivity of the hill, com- 
 prised two stories in the style above mentioned. The 
 upper floor was approached by a wooden staircase, giving 
 
 ^ Colonel Leake {Northern Greece, vol. iii. p. 556) describes the 
 Acheloiis as hevefour hundred yards in breadth. With the sincerest 
 respect for the general caution and accuracy of this valuable geo* 
 grapher, as well as for the fine river itself, I cannot but think that, if 
 there is no error in the text, either his notes or his memory must have 
 betrayed him. I am confident it is not half that breadth. As the 
 stream is here confined in a deep bed between banks of considerable 
 height, the difference of our impression cannot be owing to any inci- 
 dental extension of its waters,, from inundation or otherwise, at the 
 period of his visit. 
 
120 
 
 ACARNANIA. 
 
 access to a balcony of the same material, upon which 
 opened the doors of the two rooms his lodging comprised. 
 One of them was filled with dirty women and children, 
 in the midst of whom Nicola was busily engaged by the 
 fireside preparing my supper. The other was the apart- 
 ment of the master. Here another feature of oriental 
 manners, which forcibly strikes the attention of a Frank 
 on first arrival in this country, presented itself, in the 
 total absence of chair, table, bedstead, or any other 
 article of furniture, with the exception of a wooden chest 
 or two. This trait of Turco- Greek barbarism, though 
 common to almost every house whose proprietor ranks 
 below the first aristocracy of the land, among whom 
 European politeness has gradually begun to spread, was, 
 however, the less to be expected in the case of my Italo- 
 Greek host, as a native of a region where such luxuries 
 are famihar even to the middle and lower class. It may 
 be presumed that, like a prudent man, he had thought 
 it best to conform to the customs of his place of settle- 
 ment. Among the discomforts of Greek travelhng, one 
 of the most grievous is this want of table and chair. 
 Nothing could be more irksome or disappointing, than 
 on arriving at the halting-place after a long and fatiguing 
 day's march, to find one's-self altogether precluded from 
 indulging the instinctive impulse to sit down and take a 
 rest. The difficulty of eating a meal is another serious 
 inconvenience. I was too old to adopt on so short a 
 notice the native fashion of squatting on the hams, and 
 liad as little turn for the classical refinement of reclining 
 with the body supported on the elbow. This, indeed, is 
 a luxury which I could never figure to myself as other 
 than exceedingly irksome ; for, apart from the compa- 
 rative difficulty of helping one's-self, the danger is great 
 of an attack of the disagreeable complaint called pins 
 
ACARNANIA. 
 
 121 
 
 and needles.^ My host's apartment was, however, com- 
 paratively cleanly, with a fireplace in the Turkish fashion^ 
 — a rare luxury in a Greek cottage — the hearth slightly 
 raised above the level of the floor, projecting far into the 
 room, and covered with an alcove for concentrating the 
 current of air into the chimney. It seemed, however, 
 more for ornament than use, as there was little trace of 
 fire having burned in it during the winter, and my 
 attempt to light one was abandoned on account of the 
 smoke. 
 
 While supper was preparing, I availed myself of the 
 few remaining minutes of twilight to walk out with my 
 host, and take a survey of the place. Scrambling up the 
 bank behind his house among the ruins, we reached an 
 open terrace of green turf, commanding a fine view of 
 the sea and the surrounding country. Here we found 
 two elders of the village enjoying their evening walk, one 
 of whom was presented to me by my companion as the 
 Demarchus or chief magistrate, the other as his friend, 
 also a leading personage of the community. Both were 
 evidently on the look-out for the Frank stranger, a rare 
 phenomenon in these parts. The Demarchus was a fierce 
 warlike figure, of great breadth and robustness of person, 
 with a neck like a bull, and a coarse, but intelligent and 
 penetrating countenance ; the other, a tall, lathy, active- 
 looking veteran, of somewhat graver appearance, was 
 introduced to me as one of the heroic band that cut their 
 way through the Turkish lines on the last fatal day of 
 Mesolonghi. This qualification was sufiicient at once 
 to render its possessor the object of my profoundest 
 respect. These Katochian primates, in common with 
 
 This inconvenience seems not to have been felt by the initiated. 
 Hence : rov dyxojva s^eidziv^ to fix the elbow/' came to be a sort 
 of proverb for sitting down to supper. Athenjeus, Lib. iv. p. 142. 
 A. — LuciAN. LexipU. 6: Ttairabri Kaifog r)vj stt' dyxoovog sdsiTTvovf/jSv. 
 VOL. I. L 
 
J 22 ACARNANIA. 
 
 the inhabitants of this region in general, struck me by 
 their fine athletic persons and martial bearing, which 
 gives to the commonest villager the air of a chief of 
 banditti rather than a peasant. First impressions of a 
 strange people, in a picturesque dress, are, as already 
 observed, always to be mistrusted. But I was convmced 
 of their correctness in this instance, by the contrast 
 offered in the appearance of the peasantry of the vale of 
 Delphi, to which district I was transported after a ten 
 hours' sail two days afterwards. I also found it generally 
 admitted, on the part of those who possess the most 
 extensive knowledge of the present Greek nation, that 
 the Roumeliotes— that is, the population of Southern 
 Acarnania and ^tolia-were not only the finest race of 
 men in continental Hellas, but the one which, m point of 
 lang«age, character, and the small traditional evidence 
 of purity of descent that can in any such case be obtamed, 
 had the best claims to be considered as the genume repre- 
 sentatives of the ancient stock.* Although the Greeks 
 in general are fine athletic men, yet there can be little 
 doubt that they are indebted to their dress for a large 
 share of the admiration bestowed on them by Frank tra- 
 vellers; and that a body of Palikars,t culled from the 
 flower of the Roumehote chivalry, if stripped of their 
 classic accoutrements, and measured by the side of an 
 equal number of picked yeomen from Northumberland 
 or the Upper Ward of Lanarkshire, would be found 
 
 wanting. . , • .1 r n 
 
 My new acquaintances were both equipped m the tull 
 Albanian costume-even to the huge shaggy goatskm 
 pehsse slung over their back and shoulders-although 
 
 * See additional note at end of valume. 
 
 t Palikar is a word of uncertain origin, common, I believe, to tne 
 Indian and several other Oriental languages, and denoting among the 
 Greeks — hero or warrior. 
 
ACARNANIA, 
 
 123 
 
 the weather was scarcely such as to require so formidable 
 a protection. There is nothing, indeed, which tends more 
 effectually to evince the muscular strength and activity 
 of these mountaineers, than their power of taking exer- 
 cise, or even performing long journeys, with this enormous 
 mass of leather and hair dangling over their backs. This 
 is the same article of attire known among the ancients 
 by the name of Sisyra, or Diphthera, and used by them 
 as now both for cloak and blanket.* 
 
 Both these personages treated me with great courtesy, 
 and invited me to visit them in their houses. In this 
 proposal I the more readily acquiesced, when I found 
 that a building, which from the first distant view of the 
 village had attracted my attention, was the residence of 
 the hero of Mesolonghi. It was, in fact, the only rem- 
 nant of the ancient Turkish splendour of the place, and, 
 situated on the crown of the eminence, with the remains 
 of an exterior coat of whitewash, had a striking effect in 
 the general landscape. It had formerly been the pyrgo, 
 or castle, of some Turkish governor or great man, a 
 class of edifice between a tower and a cottage, with a 
 square substruction of stone, beyond which projected 
 two upper stories, composed chiefly of wood and plaster, 
 so as to have something the appearance, at a distance, of 
 the body of a large windmill without sails. The upper 
 portion of its exterior was also relieved by wooden bal- 
 conies or parapets. It had probably owed its preservation, 
 amid the general ruin of every other object in its neigh- 
 bourhood, to its convenience as a military post for the 
 victorious party. Each floor contained one or two small 
 rooms, for the most part unoccupied, or filled with lum- 
 ber. After having sufiiciently administered to the vanity 
 of the proprietor, by expressions of admiration for the 
 architecture and fitting up of his dweUing, I next 
 ^ Abistoph. Av, 122. Nub. 72. conf. Schol. 
 
124 
 
 ACARNANIA. 
 
 accompanied the Demarchus to his seat of government, 
 and a very miserable dirty hovel it was. It consisted of 
 but one room, divided by a black curtain into two com- 
 partments — one of which was devoted to domestic pur- 
 poses, and to the accommodation of a family consisting 
 of a wife and six children; the other was the reception 
 chamber of the proprietor, narrow, dark, and empty, with 
 nothing to reheve the bare walls but the projecting 
 Turkish fireplace. Coffee and pipes were produced, 
 and my host seating himself in the usual squatting posi- 
 tion on a mat, in front of the hearth, on which some 
 embers were placed, invited me to do the same on 
 another similar rug appointed for my use, and on which 
 I reclined with the best grace I was master of. No Lord 
 Mayor of London could be more perfectly satisfied with 
 the state of his domestic accommodation in all respects 
 than was this worthy magistrate ; and I readily sympa- 
 thized in the honest pride with which he announced, that 
 the seat assigned me had formerly been habitually occu- 
 pied by my old friend Sir Richard Church, who, during 
 his campaign in that district, had done him the honour to 
 accept of quarters in his house. He had visited CEniadse 
 in the general's company, and knew it, consequently, 
 by its classical name. He also seemed to have some 
 knowledge of the remaining antiquities of the district, 
 and counted over to me on his fingers the names of a 
 number of other ruins of similar character in the neigh- 
 bourhood, which I would fain have visited had my 
 arrangements permitted. Our interview was brought to 
 a somewhat more hasty conclusion than I could have 
 wished, by a general assault on my person from the live 
 stock in the mat, which rendered my seat, irksome as it 
 was from the first, altogether intolerable ; and I rose and 
 took my leave accordingly. 
 
 The vermin that swarms in the modern Greek dwell- 
 
ACARNANIA. 
 
 125 
 
 ing 'houses, would appear to be no new evil in this 
 country. If we may trust Aristophanes, the mats with 
 which the pupils of Socrates were accommodated were 
 httle preferable, in this respect, to those that adorned the 
 hearth of the Demarchus of Katochi. The following 
 pathetic, but only half translatable complaint, put into 
 the mouth of Strepsiades, in " The Clouds,'' when seated 
 on one of those pieces of furniture, bears a ludicrously 
 close application to my own case : — • 
 
 a'icok'kvf/ji ds/Xaiog' sk tou cfyJ/jj^odog, 
 ddxvov(rl (j! s^s^-irovrsg 0/ Ko^Ivd/oi' 
 %ai rag 'TrXsv^ag da^dd'TrrovtriVj 
 
 Ttai Tovg o^x^ig l^sXxouc^iv^ 
 %ai Tov 'TT^oox^rov dio^'urrovffiVy 
 %ai iL d'KoKoxxSiv. 
 
 " Alas, I'm done for ! from this rug 
 W^hat fierce assault of flea and bug ! 
 My sides they lash, my blood they suck, 
 My very vitals out they pluck ; 
 My body full of holes they bore, 
 My life runs out at every pore . . ." &;c.* 
 
 Another verse of the same comedy (37) would imply, 
 that the connexion between these creepers and Demarchi 
 is also of no modern date : 
 
 " Some Demarchus doth bite me from this mat." f 
 
 On my return to our lodging, my frugal meal was served 
 up on a large round tin tray, of two or three inches in 
 height, placed on the floor. This piece of furniture is 
 adapted by its form to occupy the centre of the company 
 at meals, who squat around it. After supper, I arranged 
 
 * Nubes, 709— conf. Itan. 439. Nub. 634, et alibi, 
 
 f hdxvii [JjS ^YiiLOL^Yog rig 1% tSjv (fr^co/Mdrojv, 
 The pun is here upon the word Demus, (AH MO 2,) which in Greek 
 signifies either people, or rich fat meat. 
 
126 
 
 ACARNANIA. 
 
 my mattress in a comer of the room, and lay down for 
 the night. My host, who during my repast had respect- 
 fully left me to myself, then came in and settled himself 
 in another corner, and soon after, his other guest entered 
 and followed his example ; while Nicola, wrapping him- 
 self in his capotte, lay down like a large watch-dog on 
 the open balcony in front of the door. 
 
 The next morning (March 1st) the Demarchus waited 
 on me by appointment, for the purpose of acting as my 
 cicerone to the remaining curiosities of his seat of 
 government. This office he performed with much cere- 
 m.ony, strutting before me, as on the previous evening, 
 with a military air from place to place, through mud 
 and rubbish, stopping and turning round for a moment 
 when I addressed him, to give his answer, and then 
 resuming his line of march with the previous order and 
 formality. The only object worth a visit is a church of 
 considerable size, apparently of some antiquity, and in a 
 good style of Byzantine architecture, but ruined and 
 roofless. He then attended me to the ferry, where our 
 equipage was in waiting, surrounded by a crowd of less 
 distinguished members of the community, and bade me 
 farewell with a hearty shake of the hand, and expres- 
 sions of regret that my stay had been so short among 
 them. All these compliments I most cordially returned. 
 Apart from the man's friendly disposition towards my- 
 self, and the mere novelty and curiosity of his person 
 and manners, there was something very engaging in. the 
 combination they exhibited, of martial pride, rustic sim- 
 plicity, and natural good breeding. 
 
^TOLIA. 
 
 127 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 ^ETOLIA—ANATOLIKO—MESOLONGHI— RUINS OF PLEURON. 
 
 iv yj fJtoKic, UXsv^CfJV, — Dic^arch. de St. Gr. 
 
 " Into ^tolia now we cross, where lies 
 A city, Pleuron call'd." 
 
 Our course on the JEtolian side of the river lay for 
 some distance across the flat land on its banks, which, 
 though still for the most part swampy, here showed 
 greater signs of cultivation. On quitting the plain, and 
 traversing some higher tracts of irregular forest ground, 
 we came in sight of the town of Anatoliko. This place 
 is situated on a low island, in the middle of a long oval 
 gulf or salt-water lake, a branch of the same line of 
 lagoons which extend along the coast to some distance 
 beyond Mesolonghi. It is a point of great natural 
 strength, was the scene of much hard fighting during 
 the war, and repeatedly taken and retaken by the belli- 
 gerent parties. The water is so shallow on the western 
 side, that a mole of stones, projecting from the shore, 
 brings the traveller half across the intermediate space 
 towards the island ; the remainder is crossed by a ferry- 
 boat. Anatoliko is, like other Greek towns, a mixture 
 of ruins and straggling new houses; but showed some 
 appearance of population and commercial activity. A 
 Turkish minaret of considerable height still remains 
 entire, and has an imposing eflfect, rising in solitary dig- 
 
128 
 
 iETOLIA. 
 
 nity from the surrounding rubbish. The mean aspect of 
 the Greek towns is much increased by the style of the 
 shops or warehouses which hne the bazar and principal 
 thoroughfares— low wooden sheds, not unlike the move- 
 able booths set up at fairs or markets in the towns of 
 western Europe. In fact, the main street of a populous 
 Greek city very much resembles the double line of these 
 temporary edifices, which, during the few weeks of their 
 annual fair, cumber the streets of Frankfort or Leipzig. 
 
 As we halted for a moment at a shop in the centre of 
 the bazar, a violent altercation commenced between two 
 respectable-looking individuals and our Wallachian 
 agoghiate, in which Nicola occasionally took a part. 
 On enquiring the cause of the disturbance, I found that 
 our passports had been demanded by the pohce, and 
 found not to be in order. The only document intelli- 
 gible to them was a small scrap of paper signed by the 
 Demarchus of Katochi, with which he had presented us 
 at parting. It had never occurred to me, nor does it 
 seem to have occurred to the Demarchus, honest man, 
 that we had been guilty of a great irregularity in thus 
 unceremoniously landing in a remote corner of the coun- 
 try, where was neither port, custom-house, nor lazaretto ; 
 a sin against the dignity, as well as the laws of the new 
 kingdom, which, in some of the old ones on the other 
 side of the Ionian gulf, would infallibly have brought us 
 into serious difficulties, or even exposed us, if detected 
 in the act, to the risk of being shot by the coast-guard 
 as smugglers or pirates. The Hellenes, however, although 
 not quite so apathetic as their old masters, the Turks, 
 on the subject of quarantine, are not altogether so fas- 
 tidious as the Italians, either as to passports or bills of 
 health ; and, after a quarter of an hour of to me unintel- 
 ligible vociferation, we were allowed to pass. The chief 
 brunt of the discussion was borne by the Wallachian, as 
 
^TOLIA. 
 
 129 
 
 having supplied the offenders with means of further en- 
 croachment on the interior. He, poor fellow, who knew 
 or cared as little about such nice points of civilized 
 government as the beasts he drove, seemed quite bewil- 
 dered at being called to account for breaking a law, of 
 the existence of which he was altogether unconscious. 
 He defended himself, however, with all the eloquence 
 which a naturally phlegmatic temper, and his barbarous 
 vocabulary, placed at his disposal; while Nicola, evi- 
 dently much more amused with the predicament in which 
 the poor Nomad was placed, and his awkward efforts 
 to extricate himself, than apprehensive of any ulterior 
 obstacles to our progress, did little or nothing at first to 
 help him out of the scrape. At length, on a more dis- 
 tinct representation, on his part, of the peculiarities and 
 necessities of our case, and of my rank and importance, 
 we were permitted to continue our route. 
 
 On disembarking from the ferry-boat that transported 
 us across the eastern arm of the lagoon, our course lay 
 for a few miles through a low swampy jungle of very 
 dismal character, although a considerable portion of the 
 coppice that covered it consisted of wild olive, showing 
 evident symptoms of a former state of high cultivation. 
 On emerging from this wilderness, we ascend a rocky 
 ridge of no great height, extending towards the sea from 
 the lower declivities of Mount Zygos, (the ancient Ara- 
 cynthus,) which here rises immediately to the left. From 
 this point we obtain a view of Mesolonghi, its plain, and 
 lagoons, with the entrance to the gulf of Patras, and 
 the distant mountains of iEtolia and Achsea. Scattered 
 over this height are the remains of a small fortress of 
 regular Hellenic structure. A little further on, looking 
 up to the left, I observed the walls of a city of consider- 
 able size, in the same style of masonry, occupying the 
 summit of one of the most precipitous of the lower ridges 
 
130 
 
 MESOLONGHI. 
 
 of the mountain. Judging it would be more convenient 
 to visit these ruins from Mesolonghi, we continued our 
 route to that place, which we reached soon after mid-day. 
 For about a mile before entering the gate, our track lay 
 across a sandy plain, studded with the black stumps of 
 ohve-trees, once celebrated for their size and luxuriance, 
 but which had been cut down by Reshid Pasha during 
 the siege, and their roots seared with fire— the only mode 
 of paralysing the reproductive powers of this energetic 
 plant, or at least of permanently checking its vegetation. 
 Mesolonghi takes its name from the forests, chiefly of 
 olives, by which it was formerly surrounded on the land 
 side; longlios denoting, in the low Greek dialect, a wood. 
 The title may now be classed under the rubric of lucus a 
 non lucendo, since neither grove nor tree is at present to 
 be seen within a circuit of several miles. 
 
 After crossing the lines of defence— always of the 
 most wretched description — ^now ruined and dismantled, 
 behind which a few thousand barbarous warriors oflered 
 so long and so heroic a resistance to the combined force 
 of the Ottoman empire under its ablest commanders, a 
 wide scene of filth and misery presented itself. The 
 esplanade, of considerable extent, between the walls and 
 the first houses of the town, for the most part a desert 
 of mud and ruins, was studded with low wigwams of 
 the same structure as those which formed the moveable 
 encampment of the Wallachian shepherds, though some- 
 what larger. The only advantage they derived from their 
 superior size was, that while the Wallachian dweUings 
 were adapted for the shelter of men alone, these were 
 evidently the promiscuous habitation of both men and 
 cattle. Towards the extremity of this dreary suburb, 
 we pass on the right a new, large, and substantial stone 
 edifice, several stories in height, which I recognized at 
 once as a barrack. In front were exercising bodies of 
 
MESOLONGHI. 
 
 131 
 
 regular troops in Bavarian uniform, remarkably fine 
 young men, and displaying all the order and neatness of 
 European discipline and equipment. At first I took 
 them for part of the German force in the service of the 
 king, but found, on enquiry, that they belonged to a 
 native regiment, recently formed in terms of the new law 
 of conscription, which ordains a contingent of a certain 
 number of men from each province, in the ratio of its 
 population, to be raised and disciplined in the European 
 manner. 
 
 As Mesolonghi is a leading military depot, its popu- 
 lation was greatly swelled by the influx of these new 
 levies, and the various functionaries, civil and military, 
 engaged in their training and outfit. It seemed also, 
 from the numbers of people in the principal thoroughfares, 
 to be market-day. The places of public accommodation 
 were consequently full ; and we wandered about for some 
 time through crowded streets, mud, and ruins, looking 
 in vain for a lodging of any kind. The only one oflered 
 me was an open wooden loft, constructed under the 
 roof of a long dark shed pierced with numerous holes 
 admitting a view of the heaven, and over the heads of 
 an assemblage of the lower order of natives, drinking, 
 smoking, and gambling in the area below, and had so 
 uninviting an appearance, that although I have since 
 been contented with worse, I declined to take posses- 
 sion. On Nicola's suggestion, we then proceeded to the 
 police-oflice, to show our credentials, and try what the 
 authorities could do for us. The proposal was a for- 
 tunate one. My passport was from the Foreign Office, 
 enjoining, in the French tongue, according to the usual 
 form, " the authorities of all countries in amity with 
 his Britannic Majesty, by all means in their power to 
 provide for the welfare and comfort of the bearer." No 
 sooner had the head of the office read this formidable 
 
132 
 
 MESOLONGHI. 
 
 paragraph, with an uninteUigible pronunciation but a 
 loud voice, in order evidently to show myself and his 
 estabhshment his proficiency in the language, than he 
 began to shower down honours on my head. He forth- 
 with instructed one of the clerks, a remarkably handsome 
 agreeable young Greek of about eighteen, with large 
 sparkling black eyes, to accompany me to a lodging, on 
 which he gave me a billet. He next appointed to attend 
 me, as a sort of orderly or laquais de place, during my 
 residence in the town, another subordinate of the esta- 
 bhshment, (also one of the heroes of the siege,) and who, 
 unless when sent on commissions, stuck to me like a 
 leech during the whole of the afternoon and next morn- 
 ing, strutting before me wherever I went, precisely in 
 the same manner as the Demarchus of Katochi. 
 
 The house on which we were billeted belonged, as it 
 turned out, to the father of the young clerk of pohce, 
 and was comparatively a comfortable dwelling. Our 
 landlord, though a native of the place, had passed the 
 greater part of his hfe at Constantinople, where he exer- 
 cised the profession of schoolmaster, but had re-settled 
 in his own town on the conclusion of the war. Accord- 
 ingly, both his dress and the arrangement of his apart- 
 ment were after the Turkish fashion, with a good 
 fireplace, glazed windows, and a row of divans or sofas 
 along the wall, but without either table or chair. My 
 own lodging, a small square room at the head of the 
 stair, here, as usual, on the outside, showed no symptoms 
 of having been recently occupied otherwise than as a 
 roosting-place for fowls, so that a little sweeping made it 
 tolerably clean. My host was upon the whole the most 
 unfavourable sample of regenerate Hellenism that I have 
 met with in the course of my travels— a poor, cringing, 
 whining, mercenary creature. His abject shrunken 
 form, and servile manner and address, were yet not 
 
MESOLONGHI, 
 
 133 
 
 without their value, as reflecting the contrast between 
 his Constantinopolitan habits, common probably before 
 the war to the mass of his countrymen, at least to the 
 dwellers in towns or civilized districts, and the ordinary 
 deportment of the same race at the present day, who, 
 since the emancipation, afifect to bear their heads high, 
 with the conscious arrogance of tried warriors and free- 
 men. 
 
 Being unprepared for the total deficiency of the ordi- 
 nary conveniences for even the most homely toilette in 
 this country, I had neglected to make sufficient provision 
 against it, and was consequently here, and on some other 
 occasions, under the necessity of placing myself in th^ 
 hands of the native barbers. I found them most skilful 
 operators, although their cutlery seemed but indifferent, 
 and their only strop was a coarse leather thong suspended 
 to their girdle. But my fancy was tickled by observing 
 that each man brought with him, as a part of his ap- 
 paratus, a round portable mirror with a long handle, 
 precisely the same in form as the ancient Katoptron 
 or Speculum. 
 
 It had been hinted at the police-office that I ought to 
 pay my respects to the governor, a person of some im- 
 portance, as Mesolonghi is the metropolis of a large 
 province. I accordingly proceeded to his house, where 
 I found a fine portly-looking man, richly attired in full 
 Greek costume. He received me with much dignified 
 politeness, in a room fitted up in the European manner. 
 He spoke no Italian ; but his secretary, who, though a 
 native Greek, wore the Frank dress, w as fluent in that 
 language. Coffee and pij)es, as usual, were produced. 
 The luxury of smoking in this country is carried to a 
 high degree of perfection. The tobacco is delicious, 
 and every respectable household is provided with a stock 
 of pipes sufficient for the use of the guests, as well as of 
 
134 
 
 MESOLONGHI, 
 
 its own members. These are straight tubes of about five 
 or six feet long, made of a particular kind of nut-wood, 
 with amber mouthpieces of large size, and often richly 
 decorated with gilding and other ornaments. The pipe- 
 head is the same small cup of red clay commonly known 
 in Germany by the name of Turkish. Each guest is 
 presented with a pipe ready lighted by the servant on 
 taking his seat, and, as soon as it is finished, another is 
 handed to him similarly prepared for his use, while the 
 one removed is forthwith put in order for the next relay. 
 Fastidious objections to the use of the same mouth-piece 
 are still less common here than in Germany; and the 
 servant who brings in the fresh pipe generally gives it a 
 puff or two as he approaches, to ensure its being well 
 lighted, wiping the point with his sleeve before present- 
 ing it to the guest. In houses of distinction, where much 
 company is seen, a domestic is kept in constant attend- 
 ance for the performance of this duty. These customs 
 are adopted generally in the houses of the Germans, 
 and other resident Philhellenes, especially those in the 
 military service. The Greek pipes have the inconvenience, 
 to inveterate smokers, of not being serviceable in taking 
 exercise or in any active occupation, like the short 
 German tubes, with heads better secured, and mouth- 
 pieces adapted for being held, when necessary, between 
 the teeth or the lips. A tolerable cigar is not to be 
 found in Greece, but a substitute is provided, by enclo- 
 sing a little loose tobacco4eaf in a roll of paper. This is 
 the customary mode of supplying this primary want of 
 human life among all classes when in motion, either on 
 foot or on horseback; and bunches of white slips of 
 paper, of a size and shape adapted to the purpose, hung 
 upon pegs, are among the articles of commerce that 
 chiefly attract the eye of the traveller in the shops of the 
 towns and villages as he passes along. 
 
MESOLONGHI. 
 
 135 
 
 The conversation turned on the ruined city I had 
 observed in the neighbourhood, which I found the learned 
 of Mesolonghi had, with a proper regard for the credit of 
 their own environs, very naturally, though erroneously, 
 baptized by the name of Calydon, the ancient capital of 
 JEtolia. In the course of the discussion Homer was 
 incidentally quoted,, when the Governor showed his 
 acquaintance with the patriarch of his national literature, 
 by producing a volume of the lUad, with the Greek text 
 on one page and a Romaic version on the other. I 
 requested some information relative to the line of route 
 by land towards Delphi, along the shore of the Corin- 
 thian gulf, but could obtain none of a satisfactory nature. 
 It is one which has been little explored; and for that 
 reason, as well as to avoid a repetition of the delays and 
 disappointments already experienced on our sea voyages, 
 I was inclined to prefer it. The chief difficulties it 
 presents are the passage of the river Fidari, the ancient 
 Evenus, and a pass called the Kake-skala, or " Bad 
 ladder;" both within a day's journey of Mesolonghi. 
 The bed of the river, always difficult to ford, often during 
 the rainy season interrupts for many days the communi- 
 cation between the opposite banks. The road at the 
 Kake-skala runs along the face of a precipitous cliff 
 overhanging the sea, half way up the mountain of the 
 same name, (the ancient Taphiassus;) and if the weather 
 or any other accident should produce a trifling change in 
 the surface of the ground, often becomes impassable. 
 The pass, however, derives its name as much from its 
 bad repute as a haunt of banditti, as from its natural 
 difficulties. The secretary said something of danger on 
 this account, which the Governor did not altogether 
 dispute; but, jealous apparently of the credit of his own 
 province, contented himself with assuring me that he had 
 no recent intelligence of brigandage within its bounds. 
 
136 MESOLONGHI. 
 
 On my return to my lodging, I was visited by a young 
 officer of the garrison, a native of Ithaca, but holdmg a 
 commission in the Greek service, who, having heard of 
 our arrival, had very politely come to offer me a bed m 
 his quarters. This offer I as politely dechned, bemg 
 well satisfied with my present habitation. After the 
 usual questions as to whence I had. come, and whither I 
 was going, he expressed his amazement at my foolhardi- 
 ness in venturing without a strong escort through the 
 region I had traversed, and remonstrated strenuously 
 against my proposal to pursue my journey by land, sup- 
 porting his advice by a fearful picture of the lawless state 
 of the country. He assured me that he himself or his 
 comrades seldom ventured willingly, unless in large 
 parties and well armed, far beyond sight of the walls of 
 the garrison. That the conscription law had much 
 increased the evil, the strong aversion to the service of 
 the regular army having induced many of the recruits to 
 abscond or desert, and, as usual in such cases, to take the 
 hill and lead a predatory life. He dwelt on the lawless 
 habits of the villages along the line of route, which he 
 represented as so many nests of banditti, and assured me 
 that a large proportion of the picturesque figures 1 had 
 seen lounging about the streets of the town, were charac- 
 ters of the most desperate description; that Mesolonghi 
 was a central depot of the veteran palikars of the old 
 irregular army, who, disappointed of place or promotion 
 on the final establishment of the national independence, 
 which they had believed was to shower down gold on the 
 heads of its valiant assertors, were now living from day 
 to day in idleness and profligacy, on the remnants of the 
 plunder amassed and secreted during their former cam- 
 paigns, or on the fruits of occasional acts of outrage. 
 He even went the length of expressing his conviction of 
 the probability, that at that moment some plan of attack 
 
MESOLONGHI. 
 
 137 
 
 on our party was forming among them, to be carried into 
 execution at the first convenient pass on the road, should 
 we continue our journey in the same careless manner. 
 This account was evidently so exaggerated, that it was 
 the less easy to conjecture what might be the real basis of 
 fact on which there could be little doubt it was founded. 
 On his departure I mentioned what had passed to 
 Nicola, who, as was to be expected, turned the whole 
 matter into ridicule, rating me soundly at the same time 
 for hstening at all to such idle gossip. He assured me 
 that he had as good means of information as to the danger 
 or safety of the routes, as any young coxcomb of the new 
 conscript army, and that, if I would only trust to him, he 
 would guarantee me against all risk. Although (as 
 will appear in the sequel, and as he himself afterwards 
 admitted) he somewhat overrated his own penetration, 
 I felt certainly more disposed to confide in his judgment 
 than in that of the Ithacan lieutenant. 
 
 It had been suggested to me that a visit to the town- 
 commandant as well as the governor would be proper. 
 On arriving at his quarters I was agreeably surprised to 
 find, in the fine tall military-looking man to whom I 
 was introduced as the present occupant of this post. 
 
 Colonel F , a distinguished German Philhellene. 
 
 It was my lot to be indebted to the Universities of Ger- 
 many for a considerable share of my education, and I 
 have since been thrown much into the society of natives 
 of that country; so that, in addition to the friendships 
 formed among them at that more youthful period, and 
 maintained, however imperfectly, through the medium of 
 partial correspondence, or meetings at long intervals, I 
 have been enabled to extend my circle of acquaintance 
 in many new and interesting directions. The advantage 
 of an early intimacy with this excellent people I have had 
 numberless opportunities of appreciating in after life; 
 
138 
 
 MESOLONGHI. 
 
 and at no time more than during this journey. There is 
 no nation whose heart warms with such ready sympathy, 
 in a distant region, not only towards a countryman, 
 but also towards a foreigner who shows a knowledge 
 of—or interest in— their native land and language. 
 Upon the whole, the Germans must be admitted to be 
 inferior to both the Enghsh and French in the quahty 
 commonly called national spirit; but in this especial 
 branch of it they certainly surpass both their rivals. 
 Enghshmen, although proverbial, when collected in num- 
 bers at any of the great resorts of continental travellers, 
 for their tendency to herd together, are often, especially 
 those of the upper rank, cold and distant, or even dis- 
 trustful towards each other, when they happen to meet 
 as unknown individuals on a distant shore ; and instead 
 of being gratified when addressed by a foreigner in their 
 own language, are apt perhaps rather to discourage it as 
 a medium of conversation, being often more anxious to 
 display or to improve their knowledge of other tongues, 
 than to enjoy the advantage they derive in their inter- 
 course with strangers from a fluency in their own. A 
 Frenchman, on the other hand, is so perfectly satisfied 
 how indispensable an intimate acquaintance with France 
 —or rather perhaps with Paris— its language and usages, 
 is, to constitute the smallest amount of excellence in 
 human character, that even a large share of such quahfi- 
 cations can hardly be expected to have much eff'ect on 
 his feelings towards their possessor. With the Germans 
 the case is diff'erent. Wherever it has been my lot to 
 be thrown into their society in the course of my travels, 
 I have invariably found a few words addressed to them 
 in their own tongue an immediate passport to favour 
 and cordiality ; and that we soon became, through this 
 medium, on as intimate a footing as one could wish to 
 be with a countryman ; especially if, as rarely failed to 
 
MESOLONGHI. 
 
 139 
 
 happen, the conversation turned on persons or things of 
 common acquaintance or interest to each, in their own 
 romantic land. 
 
 Such was the case at present, and in various other 
 instances in the sequel of my Hellenic tour. I was politely 
 received by the Colonel, who, according to the usual 
 courtesy, addressed me on first entrance in French- 
 but no sooner had I asked him in his own language 
 whether he was not a native of Germany, than his man- 
 ner changed at once from courteous to friendly. He 
 immediately placed such accommodation as his quarters 
 supplied at n;y disposal, an offer which, for the same 
 reason as formerly, I declined: but I readily accepted 
 the invitation to drink tea and spend a portion of the 
 evening with himself and lady, a very pleasing young 
 person of good family in Holstein, several of whose con- 
 nexions had been among my own intimates at Gottingen 
 and Heidelberg. The Colonel did not admit the full extent 
 of the Ithacan lieutenant's report as to the state of the 
 country, although he did not deny it a certain foundation 
 in fact ; while another German officer, chief of the medical 
 staff, who happened to be present, pronounced it to be 
 very little exaggerated. The Commandant, however, 
 upon the whole, strongly dissuaded me from the land 
 journey, especially if my time was limited, urging, apart 
 from the risk of warlike adventures, the difficulties of 
 the country, and the state of the roads and rivers. He 
 assured me that the passage up the Corinthian gulf 
 to Skala di Salona, the port below Delphi — besides its 
 own beauty and interest — could hardly, making every 
 reasonable allowance for contingencies of weather, last 
 half the time that a land journey would necessarily occupy, 
 I therefore decided upon once more trusting the fickle 
 element. 
 
 Before breaking up for the evening, a party was made 
 
140 
 
 PLEURON. 
 
 for a visit to the Hellenic ruins in the neighbourhood on 
 the ensuing forenoon; the colonel, and his friend the 
 staff-surgeon, who were both famihar with the ground, 
 offering to act as my ciceroni, and the former to mount 
 me on one of his horses. I gave orders to Nicola to 
 engage a bark for the voyage, to be in readiness against 
 our return, in order that, going on board in the evening, 
 we might be enabled to start at latest with daybreak on 
 the next morning. 
 
 As the remains of Pleuron, the more recent city, 
 that is, of the name— for so Leake on satisfactory grounds 
 has established them to be— have been very fully described 
 by both that traveller and Dodwell, I shall confine my 
 remarks to such pecuharities as appeared to myself more 
 especially deserving of notice. Our party was joined in 
 riding out of the town by another German officer, chief of 
 the engineer department. We left our horses at the base 
 of the hill, as the site of the city is not accessible other- 
 wise than on foot. The ruins occupy the broad summit 
 of one of the precipitous rocky heights which bound 
 the plain of Mesolonghi to the north. On the sides of 
 another lower eminence on the right hand, nearer Meso- 
 longhi, are some lines of wall in the Cyclopian style, but 
 not of very massive structure. The walls of Pleuron, 
 which are in a tolerable state of preservation in almost 
 their whole circuit, are of Hellenic masonry, with square 
 towers at unequal intervals. The circumference of the 
 peribolus, which is in the form of an irregular oblong 
 quadrangle, may be near two miles. Over nearly the 
 whole extent of the site, traces of buildings are observable. 
 A little to the east of its centre is an esplanade of con- 
 siderable extent, which there can be httle doubt was the 
 agora, offering foundations of edifices of considerable 
 compass and symmetrical arrangement. The theatre has 
 the peculiarity of being excavated in the rock, immedi- 
 
PLEURON. 
 
 141 
 
 ately within the rampart, in the centre of the western side 
 of the peribolus, so that the stage must have been identical 
 with the interior parapet of the wall ; while the battle- 
 ments, and one of the towers comprehended within the 
 space it occupied, may have afforded the groundwork for 
 the decorations of the scene and the working of the stage 
 mechanism. It commands a noble prospect across the 
 plain below, and the sea, bounded by the Echinean 
 mountains. Not far from the theatre, towards the centre 
 of the city, is a deep excavation in the rock, of large 
 size, and somewhat singular form. It was probably a 
 cistern, and presents some close points of analogy to the 
 Sette Sale on the Esquiline hill of Rome. Like them it 
 is divided into partitions, by parallel cross walls perforated 
 with arches, or rather with triangular openings formed 
 by the approximation of horizontal courses, the common 
 Hellenic substitute for the arch. No marble fragments, 
 nor any other remains of ornamental architecture, are 
 visible on any part of the ground, except a few massive 
 blocks of stone pilaster on the site of the agora, the 
 capital of one of which was decorated in low relief with 
 an elegant species of volute. 
 
 Dodwell has endeavoured, in a very diffuse and uncri- 
 tical dissertation, to prove these ruins to be those of 
 (Eniadae, in the face of the positive testimony of various 
 passages of the ancients, which he himself quotes and 
 misinterprets, showing that city to have been situated 
 among the marshes on the other side of the Achelolis. 
 Gell is in the same error. Leake,* with his usual re- 
 
 ^ North. Greece, vol. iii. p. 539. — His conjecture as to the site of the 
 more ancie^^t city, if, as I presume, his remarks apply to the vestiges 
 of Cyclopian wall already mentioned, in the immediate neighbour- 
 hood to the eastward, is less plausible since the text of Strabo, his 
 own principal authority, distinctly implies that the Homeric Pleuron 
 was situated on the plain, near the Eveniis or Fidari, at a much 
 greater distance from the more recent settlement of its population. 
 
142 
 
 PLEURON. 
 
 search and penetration, has estabhshed them, on satis- 
 factory grounds, to be the remains of the later town of 
 Pleuron, built by the refugees from the old Homeric city 
 of the same name, when destroyed by Demetrius ^toli- 
 cus in the year 235 B.C. 
 
 " Pleuron," says Strabo,^ " formerly one of the bul- 
 warks of Hellas, now lies humbled in the dust." If this 
 description be correct, the state of the city in his day 
 must have been very much what it is now. 
 
 Leake says that at the period of his tour he found 
 but one individual in Mesolonghi who had ever visited 
 these ruins. Taste for archaeological pursuits seems to 
 have made progress in the place since that time. Besides 
 my German friends, both the governor and his secre- 
 tary spoke at least as if they were familiar with them ; 
 and my young host, with whom, as being tolerably 
 versed in the classical Greek, I was enabled to carry on 
 a good deal of conversation, assured me he had often 
 been on the ground. One of the evidences of the truth 
 of his statement, if not of his competency to appreciate 
 the object of his curiosity, was his further assurance, in 
 answer to my question on the subject, that I should find 
 a considerable number of inscriptions {^a\aia j^aiiiiara) 
 among the ruins. My anticipations of antiquarian dis- 
 covery, which had been considerably raised by this piece 
 of intelligence, were amusingly disappointed, on finding 
 that these epigraphic monuments consisted of the names 
 of the colonel, the doctor, and various other curious 
 persons, for the most part Philhellenes, scratched in their 
 best orthography, on the smoothest stones in the neigh- 
 bourhood of one of the principal gates, and other more 
 prominent parts of the masonry of the wall. 
 
 ^ X. 2. 
 
MESOLONGHl. 
 
 143 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MESOLONGHl— ITS DEFENCE AGAINST THE TURKS— CHARACTER OF 
 MODERN GREEK NATION. 
 
 £/ TO Tiokajg dr/jt^xnv a^srrig /m^s^og sdTi (jJkyKSrov^ 
 
 ri[jj7v 1% ^dvrcitjv tout dirsvsi/jjs rli^yj' 
 *EXXddi yd^ (f'Trsv dovr sg sXsvh^/riv 'TTs^ikTvafy 
 
 xsif/js9' d'y7j^dvT(jj ^^ojfMsm svXoyr/} Simonid. Epigr. 
 
 " If glorious death be virtue's brightest crown, 
 That boon to us no envious fate denied ; 
 No time can tarnish our dear-bought renown, 
 Who true to Hellas and to freedom died." 
 
 Mesolonghi, in the midst of its ruins, wooden sheds, 
 and straw hovels, contains, scattered here and there, a 
 few of the betteB«class of Greek two-story houses. The 
 shops were well stocked with provisions and merchan- 
 dise ; and what with the garrison, the recruiting estab- 
 lishment, and the crowds of country people in the bazar, 
 the interior of the town presented a lively bustling 
 appearance. In the centre of each of the principal 
 thoroughfares is a piece of coarse stone causeway, a 
 relic of the Turkish period, scarcely broad enough to 
 admit of two horses passing abreast. The interval 
 between it and the houses on each side, was in most 
 places a river of liquid mud. The natural strength of 
 the fortress is great. On the land side it is separated by 
 a flat plain from the lower declivities of Mount Zygos, 
 which are at too great a distance to command any portion 
 of its defences. Towards the sea it is protected by a 
 stretch of shoals and mud-banks, called the Lagoons of 
 
144 
 
 MESOLONGHI. 
 
 Mesolonghi, which, while they prevent the near approach 
 of heavy vessels, afford great faciUties for lighter craft, 
 laden with provisions or reinforcements, to elude the 
 vigilance of a blockading squadron. The key of the 
 place on the maritime side is the small island or mud- 
 bank of Vasiladi, situated in the centre of the lagoons 
 immediately in front of the town, at from two to three 
 miles' distance. These lagoons abound in fish, which 
 supply the principal employment as well as subsistence 
 of the population, and are exported in considerable 
 quantities. 
 
 The resistance which Mesolonghi opposed to the 
 Turkish armaments successively fitted out against it, 
 supplies the most briUiant chapters in the history of the 
 late eventful war. The great catastrophe of the siege 
 of 1825-6, more especially, ought to be sufficient, in the 
 eyes of every impartial admirer of true heroism, to invest 
 its squalid ruins with an interest equal to any that can 
 attach to the most splendid remains of Greek or Roman 
 architecture; and entitles the band ^ of warriors who 
 defended them, to a place in the annals of valorous 
 achievement, second to that occupied by no other body 
 of men in any age or country. The very dilapidation, 
 mud, and misery, in which the place is now sunk, is 
 but an additional claim on our generous sympathies, as 
 affording living evidence of the sufferings, as well as the 
 prowess of the garrison. 
 
 Among the most famihar and oft quoted examples of 
 the inconsistency of human nature, as displayed even in 
 one of its noblest impulses, the pursuit of knowledge, is 
 the zeal which impels travellers to roam into distant 
 countries, in search of objects of wonder or interest, 
 while many, perhaps equally deserving of attention, in 
 their native land, are not deemed worthy of the few 
 days' — or perhaps hours' — journey, which would be 
 
MESOLONGHI. 
 
 145 
 
 required to explore them. This remark applies with little 
 less force to historical than to geographical research. 
 Remoteness of time and of place seems to be equally 
 gifted with the power of magnifying the importance of 
 objects; like the mists that cause mountains, or other 
 prominent features of a landscape, to exhibit a greater 
 bulk to the eye than they in reality possess. The mind 
 of the J'oung student of history is thus habituated to 
 concentrate its enthusiasm for what is great or glorious 
 in human conduct or character, around certain events of 
 standard celebrity, as viewed through the dim obscurity 
 of remote ages ; while others possessing similar claims to 
 his admiration, which are passing immediately around 
 him, are little appreciated or disregarded. 
 
 An intelligent traveller would feel ashamed to return 
 from a tour in Greece without having examined the 
 fields of Marathon or Platsea. It may be questioned 
 whether one in a thousand ever visits Mesolonghi, unless 
 driven by stress of weather into its port, or that it hap- 
 pens to form a convenient stage in the progress of his 
 classical researches. 
 
 I remember at Athens to have heard a veteran Phil- 
 hellene, who had borne his share in the brunt of the 
 war, and of whose name honourable mention occurs in 
 the narrative of its vicissitudes, maintain, that the acts 
 of prowess by which it was distinguished fell no way 
 short of those which shed the greatest lustre on the most 
 brilliant period of old Hellenic history — that of the Per- 
 sian invasion. The remark, though acquiesced in by 
 some of his comrades, struck me at the moment as a 
 paradox or an exaggeration ; but on a fair estimate of all 
 the specialties of the two cases, it was difiicult to see 
 how it could be controverted. Apart from individual 
 displays of valour or patriotism, it is necessary, in order 
 to a just balance of the merits of any such comparison, 
 
 VOL. I. N 
 
J46 
 
 MESOLONGHI. 
 
 that we should consider, in each case, the whole circum- 
 stances under which the struggle commenced and was 
 carried on. In the Greeks of the present age we find a 
 people who, after having, at a remote period of history, 
 passed through the successive stages of decline, decay, 
 and death, to which the body politic, like the human 
 frame, is inevitably destined — who, after having lain for 
 upwards of a thousand years in a state of corruption and 
 torpor, though in the enjoyment, it is true, of a species 
 of mock independence — had been finally reduced to little 
 better than abject slavery, by the most cruel race of 
 foreign tyrants that ever planted its settlements in a 
 conquered country. During more than four successive 
 centuries, they had been habituated to be buffeted and 
 spit upon, to see their laws set aside or violated, their 
 religion trampled under foot, their industry blighted, and 
 their substance absorbed by the most grinding system 
 of taxation; and, under the influence of these accu- 
 mulated causes of debasement, had become, perhaps not 
 undeservedly, a byword among the surrounding nations 
 for all that is contemptible and worthless in our species. 
 That any people under such circumstances should have 
 preserved a national character at all, is perhaps a rare 
 phenomenon ; but that they should at this last hour sud- 
 denly shake off the spirit of tame submission which had 
 become to them a second nature, and rise to a man against 
 the overwhelming power of their oppressors, with all the 
 native energy of a young and vigorous race of fierce barba- 
 rians, is an event unexampled in the history of mankind. 
 
 How stands the case on the other side ? The Greeks, 
 at the period of the Persian war, were a people in the 
 flower of youth and vigour, flushed with recollections of 
 ancient glory, filled with the loftiest spirit of national 
 pride and independence. The whole population was 
 regularly trained to arms, and inured to the dangers and 
 
MESOLONGHL 
 
 147 
 
 duties of military life. Their lower classes were prac- 
 tised warriors, their upper ranks skilful commanders. 
 Their armies and fleets were in a high state of discipline 
 and equipment, and were opposed to comparatively undis- 
 ciplined and unwarlike hordes. They were invaded, it is 
 true, by the whole force of a mighty empire, of which 
 their native country, in point of extent, would scarcely 
 have furnished a petty province; but it was at that time 
 fully peopled, and the single state of Attica probably 
 contained a population httle short of that of the whole 
 of Greece proper at the present day. Their enemies 
 v/ere at a distance, and full time was given to prepare 
 and concentrate their means of defence. In the case of 
 the modern Greeks, all these favourable circumstances 
 were reversed. In addition to the disadvantages already 
 noticed, the wealthier classes were either merchants or 
 servants of the Porte — a timid and time-serving race. 
 Their warriors were brigands and outlaws, or raw un- 
 practised peasantry ; their mariners, fishermen or pirates. 
 Commanders they had none, above the rank of a captain 
 of bucaniers or of mountain banditti. Funds they could 
 scarcely be said to possess at all. Their enemies were 
 not only a race of approved valour and powerful resources, 
 comparatively disciplined, experienced, and well equip- 
 ped, but were cantoned in the heart of their country, 
 and in possession of all its principal fortresses. In respect 
 to numbers, the disproportion between the Christian 
 population of Greece and the Turkish empire, may be 
 considered virtually as great as that between the domin- 
 ions of Xerxes and the states of the Hellenic confede- 
 racy. But besides this, during the two or three first 
 years of the war, they had not only the force of their 
 declared enemy to contend with, but the still more 
 galling hostility of his European allies, many of whom, 
 under the name of neutrality, used every means consist- 
 
148 
 
 MESOLONGHI. 
 
 ent with the shadow of its maintenance, to favour the 
 Turks and browbeat the Greeks. Driven from their 
 fields and homes, to make their abode for months or 
 years " in deserts and in mountains, in dens and caves 
 of the earth;" astonished and appalled to find themselves 
 denounced as the common enemy of civilized Europe, in 
 those very quarters to which they had most confidently 
 looked for sympathy and support — under all these afflict- 
 ing discouragements they never lost heart ; and a few raw 
 levies of squalid mountaineers or unwarlike fishermen, 
 by the unaided resources of their own valour or conduct, 
 successively overpowered the garrisons, dispersed the 
 choicest armies, and baffled or discomfited the ponderous 
 navies, of one of the mightiest empires of modern times. 
 
 While the history of the present race of Greeks sup- 
 plies many strong internal evidences, amid all their dege- 
 neracy, of the justice of the claim they advance to a share, 
 at least, in the blood as well as of the spirit of the ancient 
 Hellenes,* it affords at the same time a striking proof of 
 the tenacity of character which the Creator originally 
 stamped on that favoured people, in appointing it the 
 guide and instructor of the civilized world, in those 
 arts and pursuits which tend chiefly to adorn and 
 
 ^ It is not my intention here or elsewhere to enter into the much- 
 controverted question, as to the exact quantity of ancient Greek blood 
 that may still flow in the veins of the modern Greek population. The 
 strongest argument of their Hellenic descent, by however spurious a 
 line, is the testimony borne by the most competent and impartial 
 judges, whose opinions have been formed on personal experience, to 
 the numerous points of resemblance which their disposition and habits, 
 amid all the changes and corruptions they have undergone, still pre- 
 sent to those portrayed to us in the pages of the popular writers of 
 the best period of antiquity. See Leake, Northern Greece, vol. i, 
 p. l^yseq. 438. Gordon, History of Greek Revolution, vol. i. p. 32, seq» 
 Some of the traits of character or manner described from time to 
 time in the course of this narrative, may perhaps, in however slight a 
 degree, help to confirm this view. 
 
MESOLONGHI. 
 
 149 
 
 ennoble our species. Long after the extinction of 
 their own independence, their political subjection to 
 the neighbouring powers that successively rose in the 
 ascendant, was invariably accompanied by a correspond- 
 ing subjection on the part of their masters to their own 
 moral and intellectual influence. If Greece was obliged 
 to yield to Macedon or Rome the palm of military or 
 political power, both were proud in their turn to ac- 
 knowledge her sway in every branch of art, science, and 
 literature. On the break-up of the Roman empire, 
 Greece was the only one of its constituent elements 
 that continued to preserve a political status. Her talent 
 had, it is true, degenerated into low cunning and in- 
 trigue — her learning into sophistry and pedantry; her 
 art had become barbarous and grotesque. Yet she 
 long continued, amid the still deeper intellectual dark- 
 ness in which the rest of Europe was enveloped, to 
 be acknowledged as the light that guided her states in 
 the path of reviving civilization. It was this native 
 intellectual superiority, such as it now was — this com- 
 bined tenacity and elasticity of spirit, that enabled the 
 Hellenic provinces, alone among the fragments of the 
 Roman empire, to stem by whatever means the tide of 
 encroachment from the new and vigorous barbarians 
 who on every side surrounded and harassed them; to 
 establish themselves as an influential member of the 
 new European system ; and to maintain a political inde- 
 pendence for upwards of a thousand years, and the 
 distinctive character and language which still belong 
 to them for upwards of fifteen hundred, after the Ro- 
 mans themselves had forfeited all claim to a separate 
 existence, either as a state or a nation. Nay, it is 
 notorious, that the military and civil organization even 
 of the Turkish empire, had been, for long previous to the 
 late rupture, vested in a great measure in the hands of 
 
150 
 
 31ES0L0XGHI. 
 
 Greeks : that while the name of some proud visir or 
 pasha figured on the surface, some shrewd Greek secre- 
 tary' was the dhector of the hidden machinery ; and in 
 these latter days she has aiforded an example, perhaps 
 the only one upon record, of a nation politically dead 
 rising phcenix-hke from its ashes, and asserting its 
 ancient independence, on the same ground where it had 
 possessed it from the beginning of time, and forfeited it 
 during two thousand years. ^ 
 
 The verv vices for which the modern Greeks are 
 chiefly notorious, cunning, deceit, and intrigue, are but 
 an mheritance derived fi'om those nobler talents for which 
 they were formerly distinguished. According to one of 
 their own proverbs, that the sweetest wine makes the 
 sourest vinegar," such defects are naturally greater in pro- 
 portion to the original excellence of the genius of vrhich 
 thev are a corruption. Habitually exposed to plunder 
 and oppression fi'om the lords of the soil — precluded from 
 the free enjo^Tiient of the fruits of their honest industry, 
 the vassal was instinctively led, or rather driven, to avail 
 himself, in self-defence, of those resources which his 
 native superiorit}' of intellect placed at his disposal : and 
 all the arts of deceit and chicanery of which they were 
 the hereditary proprietors, were put forth, in order to 
 compensate the cruel disadvantages under which they 
 laboured in their deahngs with their oppressors. 
 
 Among the modes in v>'hich this tenaciti/ of character 
 has been displayed, there is none that ought to speak 
 home more powerfully to the sympathies of Christian 
 Europe, than the constancy of their adherence to 
 their faith, amid the numerous tempting inducements 
 to conform to that of their conquerors. The 31aho- 
 metan religion is essentially one of proselytism, and 
 there is none that holds out, to the Christian portion 
 * See additional note at end of the volume. 
 
MESOLONGHI. 
 
 151 
 
 of the Sultan's own subjects more especially, so many 
 temptations to apostasy. A Greek renegado at once 
 passed from degradation to respectability, from the 
 rank of a slave to that of a master, and, if a man of 
 talent, had a ready path opened up to wealth and 
 power. Yet even individual instances of conversion 
 are comparatively rare among the Greeks, while no 
 example of apostasy in the mass, on the part of any 
 large province or community, is, I believe, on record. 
 That this spirit is not characteristic of the Byzantine 
 church at large, but proper to the essentially Greek 
 portion of its communicants, seems to be evinced by re- 
 ference to the very contrary conduct of their neighbours 
 and cousins the Albanians — a race, generally speaking, 
 of far greater pride and independence of character than 
 the natives of Greece proper. Since their subjection 
 to the Turks, whole tribes of that nation, tempted by 
 the privilege and profit it secured them, have embraced 
 the Ottoman faith ; and what are now called Albanian 
 Turks, forming a large proportion of the population of 
 those provinces, are for the most part the descendants 
 of apostate Christians. That the same pertinacity was 
 inherent in the moral as well as religious element of the 
 Greek character, when once roused to a sense of its 
 dignity, seems also warranted by the fact, which I believe 
 cannot be disputed, that although individual instances of 
 treachery were of frequent occurrence, the whole eight 
 years of the late war furnish not one example of deser- 
 tion in the mass from the national cause, or formal 
 submission to the enemy, on the part of any district or 
 large body of men, amid the abundance of temptation to 
 such conduct to which they were constantly exposed. 
 
 Apart, therefore, from m.ere classical association, the 
 events of this war, from the very nature of the contest, 
 afford matter of rare and deep interest to the contempla- 
 
152 
 
 MESOLONGHI. 
 
 tion of the philosophic mind. Neither the revolutions 
 of our own state of society, nor the page of universal 
 history, offer any other instance of a naturally fine race 
 oppressed with two thousand years of corruption, engaged 
 in a desperate and united effort to shake the burden from 
 their backs, and resume their place in the ranks of free 
 and independent nations. It is in such a case more 
 especially, that the student of human nature may expect 
 to see all those mysteries of the heart, those strange 
 anomalies, which the equal polish and refined mechanism 
 of civilized life have effaced or smoothed down on the 
 surface of our own state of society, displayed in their 
 simple nakedness before his eyes. Hence, accordingly, 
 the strange combinations which the vicissitudes of this 
 struggle exhibit, not merely in the same people, but in 
 the same individual, of the strength and the weakness of 
 human character ; of the meanest vices with the noblest 
 virtues ; of courage and cowardice ; of treachery and 
 devoted fidelity ; of sordid avarice, and generous sacrifice 
 of personal interest to public good. 
 
 But it might perhaps be urged, as indeed I remem- 
 ber myself to have experienced in former attempts to 
 advocate Philhellenic principles, in opposition to the 
 admirers of the Turkish character and government: 
 How can any generous mind be expected to sympathize 
 even with a good cause, the assertion of which is marked 
 by such fearful acts of perfidy and cold-blooded atrocity? 
 In reply to this question, it might again be asked, to 
 return to our previous parallel: What sort of morality 
 is that which can dwell with enthusiasm on the glories 
 of those Spartans who, in defiance of the rights of 
 nations and of the conditions of a treaty, swept off at 
 one blow the place and nation of Platsea from the face 
 of Hellas; who, under the most aggravated circumstances 
 of treachery and contumely, butchered in cold blood a 
 
MESOLONGHI. 
 
 153 
 
 band of the best and bravest of their fellow-countrymen 
 — of a stock to whose valour and patriotism they them- 
 selves, in common with the rest of Greece, had not many 
 years before declared themselves under an everlasting 
 debt of gratitude, for its exertions in the common cause 
 of Hellenic freedom — and all for no other reason than 
 that they had, in the exercise of their just privilege of a 
 free state, been faithful to the interests of old and valued 
 friends, against their bitterest enemies ? * TV^hat shall we 
 say to the morality which can look with admiration or 
 indulgence on the perpetrators of such deeds as these, 
 but turns with sentimental nausea from the fierce out- 
 breakings of long suppressed fury on the part of their 
 unfortunate descendants, against a race of aliens and 
 enemies, who had goaded them to the last extremity 
 by nearly four centuries of grinding oppression ? 
 
 Let us at least be consistent. If the massacre of a con- 
 quered foe, in defiance of the laws of nations or of equity, 
 be a ground for extinguishing the glory that attends 
 heroic exploit, then let the praises of Sparta, or even of 
 Athens, be erased from the page of history. But if, in 
 consideration of the general character of their citizens 
 for valour and patriotism, we palhate such enormities in 
 their case, where the motives were comparatively trivial, 
 often scandalous, it were mere pedantry to refuse a 
 similar indulgence to their unfortunate descendants, 
 where the incitements were so powerful, so far beyond the 
 bounds of ordinary human control — one might almost 
 say, so just and reasonable. It were here almost super- 
 fluous to add, as a further ground of paUiation, that our 
 " ancient allies" showed themselves at least as great 
 adepts in the arts of treachery and massacre as their 
 revolted slaves. It is, however, after all, mere sophistry to 
 attach the same importance to such practices in a contest 
 
 * See chap. xxi. of this Journal. 
 
154 
 
 MESOLONGHI. 
 
 carried on between barbarous nations, (for such, in fact, 
 were both the beUigerents,) in a barbarous manner, as 
 would belong to them in the campaigns of the civilized 
 states of western Europe. 
 
 Among the various illustrations of the foregoing re- 
 marks supplied by the authentic annals of the war, we 
 shall here be contented with a short outline of the fate 
 of Mesolonghi, by which they were first suggested.* 
 
 It was in the month of June 1821, that this fortress, 
 simultaneously with Anatoliko, first hoisted the standard 
 of revolt, and became, during the whole sequel of the 
 contest, the chief rallying point of the patriotic cause in 
 north-western Greece. In the month of October follow- 
 ing commenced the first siege of the place, on the return 
 of the President Maurocordato — one of the staunchest 
 patriots and bravest soldiers, if not one of the best 
 generals, the insurgents possessed — ^from an expedition 
 into Acarnania; the disastrous result of which was attri- 
 buted mainly to the treachery and dissensions of some of 
 the barbarous chiefs of that country. The defence of 
 the town with his present means seemed now almost 
 ' hopeless, and his officers objected to any further sacrifice 
 in favour of a district on whose co-operation they could 
 
 * We shall prefer as our chief authority the work of General 
 Gordon, the only one I have met with which has any real pretensions 
 to be considered as a military history of the revolution. In addition 
 to his own share in the contest, the author was otherwise favoured 
 with sources of information, through his personal familiarity with the 
 leading- characters who figured in its vicissitudes, and his access to 
 original documents, many of which have been cited in his appendices. 
 Another reason for preferring his authority in the present case, is, 
 that with an evident anxiety to exercise the strictest impartiality, he 
 evinces at the same time a desire to counteract the exaggerated state- 
 ments of the Greeks themselves, and their ultra admirers, relative to 
 their military exploits ; so that his narrative may, upon the whole, be 
 considered as tending rather to underrate, than to exalt the deeds of 
 the patriots. 
 
MESOLONGHI. 
 
 155 
 
 place so little dependence. His answer was, that if lie 
 evacuated Mesolonghi, the province it commanded would 
 submit to the enemy, who would thus have a favourable 
 outlet for pouring troops through Patras into the Morea, 
 already hard pressed by the Turks; and that he was 
 resolved to defend its walls to the last extremity. 
 " Nothing," says General Gordon,^ " could at first sight 
 wear a more desperate appearance, than this determina- 
 tion to stand a siege in a little town, built on a mud- 
 l)ank level with the waves, protected merely by an 
 unfinished ditch, seven feet wide and five deep, with a 
 parapet of stones and earth, four feet high and two and 
 a half in thickness; add to this, that the absurd deve-^ 
 lopment of its lines would have required a garrison of 
 4000 soldiers, and he had only 380, while his train of ord- 
 nance consisted of fourteen old iron guns, with but powder 
 enough for one month's consumption." With this stock 
 of troops and ammunition, aided by the counsels and 
 tactics of six distinguished Pliilhellene oflicers, he suc- 
 ceeded in keeping at bay, and ultimately routing, an 
 army of ten thousand men of the Turco- Albanian militia, 
 the flower of the Ottoman troops. By a joint exercise 
 of valour, stratagem, and political intrigue, he managed 
 to amuse and perplex the thick-skulled Turkish com- 
 mander, Omer Uriones, until he had gained tim^e to 
 improve the fortifications, and introduce supplies and 
 reinforcements through the medium of the Hydriote 
 navy; so that before any serious operations had com- 
 menced on the part of the enemy, the garrison had 
 swelled to two thousand men. On the 5th of November, 
 the Turks made their grand assault with great fierce- 
 ness and determination ; but were repulsed at all points, 
 with the loss of five or six hundred of their best men. 
 A few days afterwards the Ottoman general, setting fire 
 * History of Greek Revolution, vol. i. p. 157, seq. 
 
156 
 
 MESOLONGHI. 
 
 to his camp, commenced his retreat. The Greeks 
 sallying forth harassed his rear, and captured part of 
 his baggage and ordnance. His army, in an attempt 
 to cross the Acheloiis, was repulsed with severe loss, 
 by a corps of ^tolians and Mamotes, under a nephew 
 of Maurocordato. After another interval, during which 
 famine was superadded to his other disasters, he with 
 difficulty succeeded in fording the river, with a loss of 
 600 men swept away by the stream. Upon this ensued 
 a mutiny, and complete break-up of the force ; and the 
 pasha himself withdrew, secretly and in disguise, from 
 the scene of his disgrace. 
 
 In October of the following year, another army of 
 15,000 men was fitted out ostensibly against Mesolonghi, 
 under the same commander, while the capitan pasha 
 blockaded the place by sea. Mortified, however, by his 
 late failure, and impressed with an extravagant idea of 
 the strength of the place, Omer never ventured to 
 approach it, but occupied himself with the siege of Ana- 
 toliko. Here, again, a garrison of about 500 men, with 
 a few old guns, in the working of which a British artil- 
 leryman of the name of Martin did good service, baflled 
 all his attempts, and he was again forced to break up, 
 and retreat into Epirus. 
 
 Mesolonghi soon after became the rendezvous of the 
 leading English Philhellenes, who now began to take a 
 prominent part in the cause, but whose co-operation had 
 hitherto been directed to writing and negotiating funds, 
 rather than fighting. Lord Byron arrived there on the 
 5th January 1824. His reputation and money at once 
 obtained him an authority, of which the talent he dis- 
 played in a sphere of action so new to him showed him 
 to be worthy. His unfortunate fate is well known. 
 Mesolonghi was now the head-quarters of the turbulent 
 militia of Northern Greece, as well as of the Httle less 
 
MESOLONGHI. 
 
 157 
 
 wild and unmanageable spirits, who had collected from 
 other parts of Europe, to gather laurels on the classic 
 soil. Harassed by their dissensions and mutinies, and 
 by the intrigues and plots which the jealousy of some of 
 the native chiefs set on foot against his authority, or 
 even his personal safety, his health declined. With 
 characteristic recklessness, he neglected to adopt the 
 ordinary precautions or remedies for its re-establishment, 
 and sank into the grave on the 19 th of April, at the 
 moment of an awful thunder-storm. 
 
 On the capture of Navarino by Ibrahim Pasha, and 
 after several disastrous engagements had shown the 
 inability of the Peloponnesian mountaineers, with their 
 wild and brigand-like mode of fighting, to keep the field 
 against the disciplined Egyptian troops, the previous 
 importance of JMesolonghi was still further enhanced, 
 as the principal bulwark of the patriotic cause. The 
 Turks, therefore, determined to make another grand 
 effort for its reduction, and its lines consequently became 
 the rallying place of the best and bravest combatants, 
 native and foreign, from every portion of the Hellenic 
 territory. The place was invested in the last days of 
 April 1825, by Reshid Mehemet Pasha, considered one 
 of the ablest generals and politicians Turkey has ever 
 produced, and who had been appointed Roumeli-Valesi, 
 or governor of Western Greece and Epirus, with 
 unlimited powers, for the express purpose of carrying 
 this great object into effect. The besieging force was 
 reckoned in round numbers at 20,000, of which, perhaps, 
 not above 15,000 were fighting men. As they had the 
 command of the sea, supplies of provisions and artillery 
 were introduced from Patras and Lepanto. The garrison 
 w^as computed, at the outset, at something more than 
 3000, which number, when, the Greek navy afterwards 
 obtained temporary possession of the sea, was increased 
 
158 
 
 MESOLONGHI. 
 
 to 4000, with about fifty pieces of ordnance, of various 
 calibre. The fortifications were still of a very paltry 
 description, in spite of the pains that had been taken 
 under Byron's auspicies to improve them, and of the 
 imposing terms of modern military science by which they 
 were dignified. 
 
 The operations on each side consisted for a while 
 chiefly of fierce assaults on the respective lines of defence, 
 in which the Greeks, 4:hough obliged to perform the 
 double duty of pioneers and soldiers, were invariably 
 successful. It were inconsistent with the limits of this 
 notice, to detail the numerous bold feats or ingenious 
 stratagems by which these rude warriors frustrated all 
 the elaborate operations of their scientific and persevering 
 adversary. Sometimes, sallying forth with the sword in 
 one hand and the spade in the other, they slaughtered 
 numbers of the enemy, annihilated their newly thrown 
 up works, and carried back arms, standards, and prisoners 
 to 4:he place. On other occasions, trusting to their 
 superiority of physical strength as well as courage, they 
 allowed large bodies of assailants to mount a breach, and 
 then suddenly rushing forth, drove them with terrible 
 carnage back to their lines. The grand attack of the 
 Turks was on the 2d of September, when, springing a 
 mine beneath the principal bulwark of the place, called 
 the Franklin battery, they advanced with their whole dis- 
 posable force, and succeeded in planting twenty standards 
 on the ruins ; but, after several hours of desperate fight- 
 ing, they were repulsed. In this aflkir alone the Turks 
 are computed, according to the lowest estimate, to have 
 lost 500 men. Soon after, the Greek squadron by a 
 series of skilful manoeuvres dispersed the unwieldy fleet 
 of the capitan pasha, and gave freedom to the place on 
 the sea side — most opportunely, as famine was just 
 beginning to prevail in the garrison. 
 
MESOLONGHI. 
 
 159 
 
 The wet season now set in, and hunger, disease, and 
 desertion, so thinned the ranks of the enemy, that their 
 force dwindled down to 3000 fighting men; and even 
 these reduced numbers, harassed in the rear by the 
 guerillas from the mountains, found difficulty in procuring 
 subsistence. The pasha, determined rather to perish 
 than abandon the siege, buried himself for the present 
 in such a line of intrenchments, as he thought would 
 suffice to resist any attack on the part of the besieged, 
 who now naturally entertained thoughts of marching out 
 in their turn, and cutting him off in his position. But 
 the measures which they had already set on foot for this 
 purpose were frustrated by the favourable change that 
 speedily showed itself in the enemy's camp. In as far 
 as his original force was concerned, the siege was now 
 virtually at an end. But the Turkish government had 
 staked its honour and its hopes of subduing Greece on 
 the reduction of Mesolonghi; and after a short interval, 
 the garrison found the whole energies of the Ottoman 
 empire united against them. The capitan pasha put to 
 sea with a fleet of 135 sail, seventy-nine of which were 
 men-of-war. Ibrahim crossed from the Morea with an 
 army of about 15,000 men, for the most part disciphned 
 troops, with a large proportion of practised artillerymen ; 
 while Reshid himself received reinforcements which made 
 up his numbers to 10,000; so that the whole besieging 
 force, in the beginning of 1826, amounted to 25,OOot 
 with a vastly superior train of ordnance, and greater skill 
 in its management. 
 
 So long as the manoeuvres of the Greek squadron 
 sufficed, partially at least, to keep open the communica- 
 tion by sea, and favour the introduction of provisions or 
 of slight reinforcements, to make up, to whatever small 
 amount, the perpetual thinning of their numbers, the 
 besieged continued to look with contempt on the imposing 
 
160 
 
 MESOLONGHI. 
 
 array of the enemy ; but these resources were now about 
 to fail them. The overwhelming force of the Turkish 
 fleet left little hopes of any further interruption of the 
 blockade, and their condition was daily becoming more 
 deplorable. " Invested for ten months," says their his- 
 torian, " frequently on the verge of starvation, thinned 
 by fatigue, watching, and wounds, they had already 
 buried 1500 soldiers. The town was in ruins, and they 
 lived amongst the mud and water of their ditches, exposed 
 to the inclemency of a rigorous season, without shoes, 
 and in tattered clothing. As far as the eye could stretch 
 over the waves, they beheld nothing but Turkish flags ; 
 the plain was studded with Mussulman tents and stan- 
 dards : while the gradual appearance of new batteries 
 more skilfully disposed, the field days of the Arabs, and 
 the noise of saws and hammers, gave fearful warning of 
 what was in preparation. Yet did these gallant Acar- 
 nanians, Epirotes, and ^tolians, never flinch for a 
 moment; no thought of submission ever crossed their 
 mind, and they carried as bold a front as in their hours of 
 festivity." There could, indeed, be Httle chance of their 
 capitulating with Keshid, whose habitual practice it was 
 to put his male prisoners to death; but Ibrahim, who 
 plumed himself — and with justice — on his good faith and 
 humanity, supposed they might treat with him. He 
 accordingly sent a messenger, (Jan. 13,) desiring the 
 garrison to depute to him persons who could speak Alba- 
 nian, Turkish, and French, with an ofler of any hostages 
 they might name. The Greeks replied, that " They did 
 not understand so many languages, being illiterate men 
 who were only used to handle the sword and the gun." 
 
 The works of the besiegers were now complete. 
 Between the 23d and 27th of the month of January, they 
 discharged 8000 shot and shells. The remains of the 
 houses vanished ; but as the garrison, taught by previous 
 
MESOLONGHI. 
 
 161 
 
 experience, crouched in vaults and ditches, the loss of 
 life was but trifling, and the majority of the sufferers 
 were females. One of the noblest features of this struggle 
 is, that the native population of the place, which, with 
 the usual proportion of women, formed the bulk of its 
 whole number, went hand in hand with the soldiers in 
 all their labours, bore their privations with equal patience, 
 and joined in all their desperate resolutions to persevere, 
 and reject every offer of accommodation. Another cir- 
 cumstance, characteristic of this spirit of devotion, is the 
 readiness with which, even at the last fatal extremity, 
 when death stared them in the face, parties from without, 
 whenever an opportunity offered for their introduction, 
 volunteered to reinforce the garrison. A noble example 
 of this species of self-sacrifice is that recorded of the 
 Moreote Papa, Diamando Poulos, who, originally bred to 
 the church, had officiated as municipal prefect of the 
 town during the siege. Having found means in the 
 month of February to effect a passage to Zante, for the 
 purpose of raising supphes, he returned through all the 
 dangers of the blockading force, at the eleventh hour, 
 to die with his countrymen, and was accordingly one of 
 the victims of the great catastrophe of the siege. 
 
 This fierce bombardment was followed by a repetition 
 of the same series of impetuous assaults, saUies, and 
 bloody combats, man to man, on the ramparts or in the 
 trenches, in which the Greeks, as before, were constantly 
 victorious. But the faint hopes which they still ventured 
 to cherish were soon extinguished by the capture of 
 Vasiladi, the key of the fortress towards the sea. The 
 fall of this place now became inevitable, from the over- 
 whelming superiority of the enemy's naval force, and 
 their complete mastery of both sea and lagoons. It was 
 gallantly defended with sixty men by a veteran Itahan 
 artillery officer, Captain Giacomuzzi, who succeeded, 
 
162 
 
 MESOLONGHI. 
 
 with a portion of the survivors, in cutting his way, wad- 
 ing through the boats of the enemy, into the town. 
 Another important outpost towards Anatohko, called 
 Dolma, was next carried by the Egyptian flotilla. It 
 was defended by 120 Palikars under General Liaketas, 
 who, with a loss of 300 men to the Turks, were all cut 
 to pieces at their post. The last fatal loss was Ana- 
 toliko. This place, situated at the western extremity of 
 the same line of lagoons that protect Mesolonghi towards 
 the sea, and commanding one of their principal entrances, 
 was, in fact, a sort of outpost or bulwark to the main 
 fortress in that direction. Its inhabitants, inspired by 
 the example of the Mesolonghiotes, had hitherto opposed 
 an equally determined resistance to the besieging force 
 both by land and sea. But now, discouraged by the fall 
 of Vasiladi and Dolma, they capitulated. 
 
 Sir F. Adam, who had lately succeeded to Sir T. 
 Maitland in the government of our islands, but whose 
 generous mind contemplated with feelings very different 
 from his predecessor the struggle between despotism 
 and liberty that was going on under his eyes, soon after 
 arrived in an Enghsh frigate, and offered his assistance 
 in setting on foot another negotiation to save the gar- 
 rison. But they again rejected all proposals of any kind 
 that imphed submission. The last bright gleam of suc- 
 cess by which their spirits were sustained, perhaps the 
 most brilliant affair of the whole siege, was the defence 
 of the tower of the Holy Trinity, built on a shoal about 
 half a mile to the south-east of the town, and garrisoned 
 by 130 Roumehotes, with four small guns. Following 
 out their plan of reducing the out-posts one by one, the 
 enemy attacked it with his whole disposable force, by sea 
 and land, on the morning of the sixth of April. The 
 combat lasted till late in the evening, when the Turks, 
 after a series of desperate and persevering assaults, were 
 
MESOLONGHI. 
 
 163 
 
 repulsed at all points with immense slaughter. No sooner 
 was the retreat sounded, than the garrison, sallying from 
 the tower, boarded and carried seven of the enemy's 
 launches, and set up a triumphal pile of 1200 muskets 
 and bayonets. The wild warriors of Roumelia delighted 
 in such trophies of their contempt for European tactics. 
 This was the bloodiest day Mesolonghi had yet wit- 
 nessed. Reshid himself was wounded in the thigh. 
 Hussein Bey, Ibrahim's second in command, was slain, 
 with many other persons of distinction ; and upwards of 
 1000 bodies of Turks and Arabs floated on the lagoons, 
 the waters of which were red with blood in every direction. 
 The loss of the Greeks was thirty-five killed, and about as 
 many wounded. In the heat of the action, the Chiharch 
 Drosini, accompanied by his son, a youth of seventeen, and 
 nine other warriors, pushed off" from the town in a canoe, 
 with a supply of water and cartridges for their comrades ; 
 and although four of the party were killed by a cannon 
 ball, and the remainder lost heart, and turned back, the 
 father and son made good their passage to the tower. 
 
 Such was the consternation of the Moslems at this 
 disgraceful check, that had the garrison thought fit to 
 evacuate the place during the night, it is supposed they 
 might have eflected their escape with Httle opposition. 
 But although famine was now sore among them, their 
 hi^h sense of honour, and some faint hopes of relief from 
 their navy, induced them to reject this scheme. And, in 
 fact, although the general decline in the aflairs of the 
 insurgents was fearfully displayed in the reduced num- 
 bers and inferior equipment of their fleet, the gallant 
 Miauhs had already commenced a series of manoeuvres 
 which in all probability would have tended to their rehef ; 
 and could the place have been provisioned for a few 
 months longer, there was reason to hope, that with the 
 assistance of hunger, pestilence, desertion, or some other 
 
164 
 
 MESOLONGHI. 
 
 of those accidents which, perhaps more frequently than 
 gunpowder or steel, tend to the dispersion of Oriental 
 armaments, they might ultimately have triumphed. But 
 the succour came too late. For several weeks past no 
 rations had been distributed ; the firing had driven away 
 every kind of fish ; the people subsisted on cats, rats, 
 raw hides, and sea-weed; and the earth was strewed with 
 the sick, wounded, and famishing. Ibrahim, though 
 aware of their sufferings, alarmed by the re-appearance 
 of the Greek squadron, again came forward with an offer 
 of the same conditions on which Anatoliko had capitu- 
 lated, and which, to his credit be it said, had been 
 honourably observed.^ But they would not hsten to 
 him, resolved at least to die with arms in their hands. 
 
 To protract the defence, however, was impossible, as 
 a few days more of starvation would not have left a 
 living soul within the walls. In this last extremity, the 
 native energy of Greek spirit disdained those suicidal 
 expedients, which, in similar cases of desperation, have" 
 shed such lustre on the names of Saguntum or Numan- 
 tia. On the 22d of April it was decided in the council 
 of chiefs to cut their way through the enemy to the moun- 
 tains, in such a manner as should give a chance of escape 
 to the feebler part of the population. Their disposition 
 was, that the fighting men of every description, who, in- 
 cluding convalescents and the slightly wounded, were 
 still numbered at about 3000, should rush headlong on 
 the besiegers' lines, and open a road for 1000 artisans, 
 and 5000 women and children. They found means to 
 
 ^ It must be admitted, that whatever may be the reputation else- 
 where of this remarkable person, the authentic accounts of his conduct 
 in Greece are much in his favour. Unhke either of the other two 
 belUgerent parties, he faithfully observed his engagements, was 
 generally disposed to treat his prisoners with humanity, and still more 
 to appreciate and to honour valour and patriotism, even in an infidel 
 enemy. 
 
MESOLONGHI. 
 
 165 
 
 communicate this project to Karaiskaki, who commanded 
 a body of guerillas in the interior of Mount Zygos, and 
 on whose co-operation they reckoned, on the rear of the 
 enemy's lines, at the moment of (mset. There is great 
 reason to believe, even judging from the comparatively 
 disastrous issue of this exploit, that had their secret 
 been kept, its success would have answered their most 
 sanguine expectations. But their plans were betrayed 
 by a Bulgarian deserter to the Pashas, who, though 
 half incredulous, yet took every precaution to frustrate 
 them, lining their triple entrenchments with artillery and 
 infantry, drawing up their cavalry on the plain behind, 
 and sending a strong force to occupy the lower declivi- 
 ties of the mountain. 
 
 At sunset, on the 2 2d, the muster commenced ; the 
 women put on male attire, and girt their waists with 
 swords and daggers ; weapons were also given to such of 
 the boys as were of an age to use them ; and the war- 
 riors forming the van of the phalanx, with their wives 
 and children, crossed the ditch and lay quiet upon their 
 faces, awaiting the preconcerted signal from Karaiskaki, 
 In spite of their care to prevent noise or confusion, the 
 enemy, aware of their intentions, poured incessant vol- 
 leys of grape and musketry on the ramparts. During 
 an hour the Greeks lay passive under this galling fire. At 
 length, perceiving no demonstration on the part of their 
 countrymen on the hills, their patience gave way ; and 
 as the moon shone bright, with a simultaneous shout, 
 they sprang up and darted forwards, their muskets in 
 their hands, and their swords slung to their wrists. Nei- 
 ther ditch nor breastwork, neither peals of cannon, vol- 
 leys of small arms, nor the bayonets of the Arabs, could 
 arrest the terrible shock. In a few minutes the trenches 
 were passed— the infantry broken— the batteries silenced, 
 and the artillerymen slaughtered on their guns. The 
 
166 
 
 MESOLONGHI. 
 
 enemy seemed paralysed by the fierceness of the onset, 
 and a wide space was cleared for the column, which 
 pushed across the plain in a solid mass. The Turkish 
 horse, unable to make any impression on its front, hung 
 on the flanks and rear, slaughtering the women, children, 
 and stragglers. As they began to ascend the mountain, 
 and fancied themselves in safety, they had to sustain the 
 assault of a large body of hostile infantry posted in 
 ambuscade; but with the assistance of 300 of Karais- 
 kaki's men who now came to their relief, they got rid of 
 this impediment. On reaching the quarters of that com- 
 mander, they found him sick in his tent, and provisions 
 so scarce that they could hardly obtain a mouthful. They 
 were therefore obliged, in this extenuated state, to con- 
 tinue their course towards Salona, several days' journey 
 through a barren and deserted country, their numbers 
 melting away from exhaustion and starvation by the 
 road. At Salona the survivors at length enjoyed rest 
 and refreshment. 
 
 Unfortunately, the crowd of Mesolonghiote citizens 
 had lingered at the moment of onset, and were the 
 victims of their own hesitation, and of a panic cry that 
 arose of " Back to the ramparts." Supposing a retreat 
 had been ordered, they hurried back into the town. 
 The enemy simultaneously entered, and a promiscuous 
 slaughter ensued. Many of the inhabitants of both sexes 
 had, indeed, from the first refused to leave their native 
 place, and together with those whom age, wounds, or 
 sickness, disabled from taking a part in the sally, had 
 shut themselves up in some ruined buildings, where the 
 residue of their ammunition was deposited. A primate, 
 named Kapsalis, retired with his family into the principal 
 magazine, containing thirty barrels of gunpowder, by 
 the side of which sat a lame veteran with a match in his 
 hand, ready for the explosion, as soon as a sufficient 
 
MESOLONGHI. 
 
 16T 
 
 crowd of assailants should be collected about the build- 
 iug, to ensure them at least, in the moment of destruction, 
 a bloody revenge. Throughout the night, screams of 
 despair or of triumph were mingled with the roll of 
 musketry, and repeated explosions, as the enemy succes- 
 sively forced the magazines, and their devoted inmates 
 set fire to the ammunition. So great, indeed, was the 
 carnage of the infidels in the course of this catastrophe, 
 that the number of their slain is supposed to have 
 been at least equal to that of the Christians. Among 
 the more distinguished suflerers on the part of the latter 
 were, (besides the other gallant churchman already men- 
 tioned,) a Greek bishop, three general ofiicers, the chief 
 engineer, Dr Meyer, editor of the Greek Chronicle, and 
 six other German Philhellenes. The veteran Giacom- 
 uzzi escaped in spite of his infirmities, and was greafty 
 instrum^ental to the success of the sally, by restraining 
 when necessary the rash impetuosity, and directing the 
 fire of these undisciplined warriors, in their successive 
 encounters with the hostile bands. The following afifect- 
 ing letter, which the unfortunate Meyer managed to 
 transmit to a friend not many days before the sortie, 
 affords a lively testimony to the greatness of the suffer- 
 ings, and the heroic spirit of the garrison : — 
 
 " The labours we are undergoing, and a wound in the 
 shoulder, (a prelude to that which will be my passport 
 to eternity,) have hitherto prevented my writing to you. 
 We are reduced to the necessity of feeding on the most 
 unclean animals; we suffer fearfully from hunger and 
 thirst, and disease is added to our calamities; 1740 of 
 our comrades are dead; the shot and shells have over- 
 turned our houses and ramparts; we are in want of 
 firewood, and pinched with cold. It is an exhilarating 
 spectacle to behold the ardour and devotion of the garri- 
 
168 
 
 MESOLONGHI. 
 
 son amid so many privations. In the name of our brave 
 soldiers, of Nothi Bazzaris, Papa Diamondopoulos, and 
 myself, to whom the government have entrusted the 
 command of a corps, I declare to you, that we have 
 sworn to defend Mesolonghi foot by foot, to listen to no 
 capitulation, and to bury ourselves in its ruins. Our last 
 hour approaches. History will do us justice, and pos- 
 terity weep over our misfortunes. May the narrative I 
 have drawn up of the siege survive me ! " 
 
 The writer was sabred at the foot of the hills by the 
 Turkish horse, his wife and child taken, and the wish 
 expressed at the conclusion of his letter was never ful- 
 filled.^ 
 
 See additional note at end of the volume. 
 
PHOCIS. 
 
 169 
 
 CHAPTER XIIL 
 
 VOYAGE UP THE CORINTHIAN GULF— CRISS A— SACRED PLAIN OF 
 APOLLO. 
 
 (p/Xdvo^a d' ovx sXi'inv ^tordv, — Pind. Fragm. 
 
 " Around the sliip the nimble dolphin plays, 
 To man still friendly as in former days." 
 
 On our return from the ruins of Pleuron, bidding 
 farewell to my kind German friends, I rowed out in ^ 
 little flat-bottomed skifi* to our caique, which lay at the 
 extremity of the lagoons, under the shelter of the banks. 
 This class of small boats, used for plying in rivers and 
 smooth water, are called by the generic name oimonoxyla 
 or canoes ; a somewhat unreasonable synecdoche, as very 
 few of them are so in the strict sense of the term. Canoes, 
 however, scooped out of the stems of large plane-trees, 
 are not uncommon in the ports and rivers of Greece. 
 On our way through the town to the shore, I was shown 
 the ruins of the house in which Lord Byron died, and of 
 several of the powder magazines, where the remnants of 
 the garrison, who had been unable or unwiUing to leave 
 their native place with their more energetic comrades, 
 had offered themselves a sacrifice to freedom. I landed, 
 in passing, on the little island of Vasiladi, now dismantled 
 and deserted ; its surface strewed with fragments of 
 artillery, unserviceable guns, rotten gun-carriages, cannon- 
 balls, &c. ; which, with heaps of rubbish, and a pile or 
 
 VOL. 1. p 
 
170 
 
 PHOCIS. 
 
 two of round shot still in their place, bore sad testimony 
 to its late military importance and lamentable fate. 
 Several pelicans, a bird which I here saw for the first 
 and last time in a wild state, were fishing in the lagoons. 
 They seemed to consider themselves at home, showing 
 no symptoms of alarm at the approach of the boat, and 
 enjoy, it appears, the same privilege of asylum as the 
 stork in northern Europe; which is strange in a fishing 
 port, considering the quantity of the staple commodity they 
 must consume. We were unable to make any progress 
 on our voyage that night, as a heavy gale from the south- 
 east forced us to remain at our moorings in smooth water. 
 
 The next morning we were more fortunate, and a stiff* 
 westerly breeze carried us rapidly into the gulf. The 
 day was fine but cloudy; and the sky, though bright and 
 sunny overhead, was obscured towards the horizon by 
 heavy mists, which effectually marred the enjoyment of 
 the scenery of the surrounding coasts, so celebrated for 
 its beauty and grandeur. 
 
 To the left, on quitting Mesolonghi, a long line of 
 dark swampy plain, backed by a deep inlet in the moun- 
 tains, marks the course and issue of the Fidari — the 
 ancient Evenus — one of the fiercest and most treacherous 
 torrents in Greece ; the well-known scene of the fabulous 
 adventure of Hercules with the centaur Nessus. There 
 can be httle doubt that this fable, like that above illus- 
 trated of the hero's combat with Acheloiis, is but a figure 
 of the impetuosity of the river, and of the dangers to 
 which unwary travellers in crossing its channel are 
 exposed, from the rise of the waters when swoln by 
 sudden showers. The Centaur is here out of place as a 
 member of the fabulous community of the same name in 
 Thessaly, and is probably, like the Bull of the Acheloiis, 
 a type of the river itself. The horse, as the symbol of 
 velocity and power, was the sacred animal of river gods, 
 
PHOCIS. 
 
 in 
 
 as well as of Neptune and the marine deities; and 
 hence the combination of the equine with the human 
 form might the more readily suggest itself in the local 
 mythology, as a personification of a stream so remarkable 
 for these properties.* Deianira, the heroine for whom, 
 as in the previous case of Achelous, the contest takes 
 place, is here still more obviously but a type of the right 
 of devastation which the stream endeavours to assert, 
 but which Hercules strove to restrain. 
 
 Immediately to the east of this plain, rises, in one dark 
 gloomy mass, its base nearly perpendicular to the sea, 
 the lofty pyramidal mountain of Chalcis, now called 
 Varassova. The site of the old ^tohan city of the 
 same name, mentioned by Homer, is doubtful; but the 
 mountain, whose base is surrounded in great part by the 
 waves, or by swampy lagoons, well merits the epithet of 
 "sea-encompassed," assigned it by the poet. A little 
 further on appears, on the same Hne of coast, separated 
 by a stretch of lower ground from its neighbour, another 
 huge rock of similar form, and nearly equal height and 
 boldness— the ancient Taphiassus. As seen from the 
 centre of the gulf, or from Patras, this mountain presents 
 all the appearance of an enormous tumulus or barrow; hence 
 possibly its name, and the fable that the centaur Nessus 
 was buried below its base.f Along its precipitous sides, 
 facing the water, is to be distinguished an irregular line 
 of lightish colour, indicating the course of the Kake- 
 skala, or " Bad ladder," already mentioned. This is also 
 the only modern name for the mountain itself that I could 
 
 ^ ^ Nessus is the name of a Thracian river of some distinction. It is 
 singular that, in Hesiod's catalogue of celebrated streams, this name 
 occurs immediately after that of Achelous. Were it not that the 
 Evenus is mentioned by its proper title in the sequel, it might have 
 been inferred that, with Hesiod, Nessus was but another title of that 
 river.— Theogon. v. 340. 
 f Strabo, ix. c. 4. 
 
172 
 
 PHOCIS. 
 
 obtain from any of my companions * It is common to 
 the rugged pass of the Scironian rocks between Megara 
 and Corinth, knd I beheve to others of equally bad repute 
 in different parts of Greece. The combination of this 
 unfavourable epithet with proper names in popular usage, 
 which is as old as the days of Homer^f is still famihar 
 in the Greek dialect. The most prominent feature of 
 the Peloponnesian coast, immediately opposite to the 
 Kakeskala, is the lofty Mount Panachaicus, its summit 
 white with snow. At its base, along the shore, are scat- 
 tered the houses of the new town of Patras, among the 
 ruins of the old Turkish and Roman cities. 
 
 We now enter the narrow strait, separating the gulf of 
 Patras from that of Corinth or Lepanto, famiUarly called 
 by the Turks the little Dardanelles. It is, like that from 
 which this title is borrowed, defended by two forts, one 
 on each side, called respectively the castles of Roumelia 
 and Morea, as the keys of the navigation between the 
 two provinces. These forts, which are among the few 
 modern edifices of any extent or dignity of appearance 
 on the soil of Greece that have survived the ravages of 
 the war, are apparently of Venetian structure, and in an 
 elegant style of castellated architecture. They are situa- 
 ted on projecting extremities of the low land that extends 
 from the base of the mountains on each side, leaving an 
 intermediate channel of little more than a mile in breadth. 
 The headland on the Peloponnesian side was anciently 
 called Rhion, that on the JStohan side Antirrhion, or the 
 Molycrian Rhion, from a small town of Molycria, sacred 
 to Neptune, in its immediate neighbourhood.^ There 
 
 * At Patras it is called Palseovouni. 
 
 f As exemplified in the Kaxofkiov oux ovofJjCC(^rriv of Penelope.— 
 Odyssey, xix. 260, 597; xxiii. 19. Suli in Albania, so celebrated for 
 the ferocity and predatory habits of its population, is now familiarly 
 known by the name of Kakosuli ; besides other examples. 
 
 X TiiucYD. ii. 84, 86; Pausan. Boeot. c. 31. 
 
PHOCIS. 
 
 173 
 
 was also a sanctuary of Neptune on the opposite point* 
 Neither headland seems to have been fortified in ancient 
 times. Such positions are indeed far more important 
 now than before the invention of artillery. 
 
 As we approached the strait, scudding over the waves 
 with a stiff breeze, I observed for the first time the 
 dolphins playing around our vessel. There is something 
 in the appearance and motions of this celebrated animalj 
 as it vaults from wave to wave, often completely out of 
 the water, inexpressibly gay and joyous, and well calcu- 
 lated to procure it the high station it occupies in the 
 poetry and mythology of a people of such lively imagi- 
 nation as the Greeks. My own fancy was the more 
 powerfully affected, from having present in my mind the 
 description of the hymn to Apollo, where the Cretan na- 
 vigators, destined as the future ministers of the Delphic 
 shrine, on their voyage up this very gulf to the sanc- 
 tuary, are escorted by the god himself in the form of a 
 dolphin. "I" I therefore hailed the omen as propitious to 
 my own future progress through his sacred land. 
 
 The dolphin is the hero of numerous other adventures, 
 of which the seas in the neighbourhood of this strait are 
 the scene. The body of Hesiod, murdered and com- 
 mitted to the waves at Naupactus, a port situated just 
 within the Molycrian promontory, was preserved by 
 dolphins, who bore and deposited it safe on the opposite 
 coast of Rhion. Telemachus, swimming when a boy 
 between Zante and Ithaca, and in danger of drowning, 
 was saved by a dolphin ; and in grateful commemoration 
 of the event, this fish is said to have been selected by 
 Ulysses as the device of his seal. J Phalanthus, founder 
 of Tarentum, when shipwrecked before his departure 
 for Italy in the Corinthian gulf, was indebted to the 
 
 ^ Strabo, 1. viii. c. 2. f Hymn, Apoll. v. 399. seq, 
 
 X Plutarch. De Solert. Anim. c. xxxvi. 
 
174 
 
 PHOCIS. 
 
 same animal for his preservation. Hence the figure of 
 that hero bestriding a dolphin on Tarentine coins, and 
 the brazen dolphin dedicated by the Tarentines in the 
 Delphic sanctuary.* On a later occasion, the ambassa- 
 dors of Ptolemy Soter, when overtaken by a storm on the 
 west coast of Peloponnesus, ascribed their deliverance to 
 a dolphin, by whom they were guided into the port of 
 Cirrha.t The services rendered by this animal to Nep- 
 tune in his amours with Amphitrite, obtained him also a 
 place and honours in the temple of the god at Mgse, on 
 the shores of this gulf. J 
 
 There can be no doubt that all these fables derive 
 their origin from the number and liveliness of the 
 dolphins by which these waters are frequented. 
 
 Not far within the strait, on a steep declivity of the 
 northern coast, is the town and port of Epacto, the 
 ancient Naupactus. From the former of these names, 
 by a still further corruption on the part of the early 
 Italian navigators, is derived that of Lepanto, common 
 also to the gulf in the vulgar usage of the Levant. 
 The place was chiefly celebrated as the port from 
 whence the Herachdse crossed into Peloponnesus, and 
 as the scene of the death of Hesiod. Both the walls, a 
 work of the middle ages upon ancient foundations, and 
 the town itself, appeared at the distance from whence 
 we viewed them to be entire, a rare phenomenon in this 
 country ; — to be accounted for, if I am correct, from the 
 circumstance that the place never changed masters 
 during the war, but, together with the neighbouring 
 castles, was strenuously defended by the Turks, from its 
 important situation at the entry of the gulf. The 
 walls of the town form a triangle, the apex of which, at 
 the summit of the hill, is the citadel, the base fronting 
 
 * Pausan. Phoc. c. 13. t Plut. Ioc, sup. ext. 
 
 \ Oppian. Halieut. i. 383. 
 
PHOCIS. 
 
 175 
 
 the sea. This form was frequently adopted by the 
 ancient military architects where the ground was fa- 
 vourable, as at Ithaca — Orchomenus — Cortona, &c. It 
 suggests itself indeed naturally in certain positions, and 
 the plan of many fortified places of our own middle ages, 
 of Edinburgh and Stirling, for example, is very similar. 
 
 As we advanced, the weather unfortunately grew still 
 more hazy, and the fine mountain scenery of the gulf, 
 beyond the declivities on its immediate shore, was al- 
 together obscured. Neither the heights of Parnassus, 
 nor the Acrocorinthus, which, rising out of the isthmus 
 in insulated grandeur, forms in clear weather one of the 
 most striking features of the prospect, were to be dis- 
 tinguished. Towards dusk, on rounding a small pro- 
 montory, we came in sight of the bay of Skala, the 
 ancient Portus Cirrhseus, but had some difiiculty in 
 reaching our moorings, owing to the fierceness of the 
 squalls at its entrance. This bay was the scene of a 
 brilliant exploit of the distinguished Philhellene Hastings, 
 on the 30th September 1827. With his own corvette 
 the Karteria, and five other smaller vessels, he destroyed, 
 after an action of an hour and a half, a Turkish flotilla 
 of greatly superior force, comprising nine armed vessels 
 of various descriptions, and captured three merchant- 
 men laden with provisions, then lying in port under the 
 protection of the Turkish armament. This action, being 
 a virtual breach of the armistice imposed by the allied 
 fleets on the belligerent powers, provoked Ibrahim Pasha 
 to reprisals, and was thus the immediate cause of the 
 battle of Navarino, and indirectly of the complete eman- 
 cipation of Greece from the Turkish dominion. 
 
 We passed the night on board the vessel, as the speci- 
 men offfered of an hotel at Mesolonghi, one of the leading 
 cities of Greece, did not speak much in favour of the 
 accommodation to be met with in the group of hovels 
 
176 
 
 PHOCIS. 
 
 which now represent the sacred port of Cirrha. On 
 landing in the morning, I was well pleased at having 
 done so. The khan of Skala was of the same class as 
 that of Mesolonghi, only a degree darker and filthier. 
 The scaffolding at its extremity had been occupied for the 
 night by a Greek staff-officer, on his way, with wife and 
 family, to occupy a situation to which he had just been 
 appointed at Salona. They had sailed from Mesolonghi 
 the day before ourselves, but, owing to the unfavourable 
 weather during the night, their arrival had anticipated 
 our own but a few hours. My friends at Mesolonghi, 
 anxious to ensure our passage, and at the same time save 
 me expense, had proposed to this gentleman that he 
 should admit me as a companion in the vessel already 
 engaged by him, on my paying a share of the freight. 
 The proposal was dechned, which I thought uncivil at 
 the time, not being aware of the size or accommodation 
 of his packet. But when I saw that it was, like our own, 
 but a small fishing caique, and observed the strength of 
 the party, and the state of cleanliness which distinguished 
 both their persons and baggage, as they came forth one by 
 one in squalid phght from their den, I had as much 
 reason to be grateful to him for having spared me the 
 horrors of the two nights I should thus have been doomed 
 to pass with him on the stormy sea or in the khan. 
 
 This little port hes at the base of a low ridge of hills 
 which bounds the western side of the bay. To the east- 
 ward extends a tract of level plain or downs, presenting 
 at a distance a pretty green appearance, but assuming a 
 marshy character here and there where it touches the 
 sea. Through it the river Pleistus, that waters the vale 
 of Delphi, flows into the gulf. On its mouth was situated 
 the ancient port of Cirrha, probably at a place called 
 Magula, where Dodwell and Leake observed considerable 
 traces of buildings. 
 
PHOCIS. 
 
 177 
 
 We had no difficulty in finding horses for the conti- 
 nuance of our route to Delphi, as relays are usually in 
 attendance at the port, for the convenience of the traffic 
 carried on between it and its metropolis Salona, together 
 with the populous villages of Krisso, Kastri, and Arra- 
 chova, in the Delphic territory. On reaching the summit 
 of the ridge, at the foot of which the port is situated, a noble 
 prospect suddenly opens up of the vale of the Pleistus. 
 Immediately below extends the "sacred plain" of Apollo, 
 called both the Crissaean and the Cirrhsean, from the 
 towns situated at its respective extremities. It is per- 
 fectly flat, and bounded on every side by steep acclivi- 
 ties. The surface is partly cultivated, partly in green 
 pasture, the remainder covered with luxuriant olive 
 groves. Behind, towards Delphi, the valley of the Pleis- 
 tus narrows into a precipitous glen, bounded on one side 
 by lofty rocks, among which the summits of the Phse- 
 driades, or Delphic cliffs, are the most conspicuous ; on 
 the other, by the rugged sides of Mount Cirphis. In 
 the distance, owing to the cloudiness of the horizon, the 
 higher regions of Parnassus were but indistinctly seen. 
 A steep descent brought us at once upon the plain, 
 around which so many interesting recollections of Hel- 
 lenic history are concentrated. 
 
 In the civihzed countries of Christian Europe, the 
 existence of a religious sanctuary is commonly a sort of 
 guarantee of the fertility of the district in which it is 
 situated. The devotion of the powerful and wealthy, 
 and the vast influence of the hierarchy itself, during our 
 own ages of superstition, usually provided ecclesiastical 
 proprietors with their portion in the fat of the land. 
 Where this was not strictly the case, the superior eco- 
 nomy that marked the administration of the estates of 
 this more scientific and peaceful class of landlords, toge- 
 ther with the protection they derived from the respect 
 
178 
 
 PHOCIS. 
 
 of the laity in time of war or turbulence, made up for 
 any defect of natural fertility, and rendered the lands in 
 the neighbourhood of monasteries or abbacies the best 
 improved and most thriving of the community. Among 
 the ancient Greeks the case v^as reversed. Amid all the 
 expense and splendour of their rehgious estabhshments, 
 they had no wealthy hierarchy, and httle or no church 
 property, in the modern sense of the term. Their more 
 ancient sanctuaries seem to have been founded by pre- 
 ference in barren districts, distinguished by the grandeur 
 of their site, the picturesque scenery by which they were 
 surrounded, or even by the species of subhmity that 
 belongs to the wild and dreary features of nature, the 
 lonely desert isle, or rugged sea-beaten promontory. The 
 truth of this remark is borne out by reference to the 
 majority of the earhest and most distinguished seats of 
 Hellenic worship— Dodona— Delphi— Delos, and others. 
 The temples, with their establishments, depended for 
 their maintenance on the voluntary spirit of rehgious 
 patriotism, pubhc or private ; and the chief or only sala- 
 ries of the priests were their share in the hecatombs and 
 other offerings at the shrine of the deity. 
 
 We find this principle as distinctly as elegantly incul- 
 cated, in one of the most ancient standards of the reli- 
 gion of the Greeks, the Homeric hymn to Apollo, in 
 allusion more especially to the shrine of Delos, where it 
 is so strikingly exemplified. Latona, when pregnant 
 with the twin deities, wanders, in her flight from the 
 persecution of Juno, over the face of the Hellenic world, 
 seeking a resting-place, where she might be delivered 
 in peace of the progeny to whom fate had decreed so 
 great a share of power and influence on its future desti- 
 nies. She visits in turn the richest and most celebrated 
 countries on the shores of the JEgewci ; but all refuse 
 to receive her, overwhelmed with awe at the prospect 
 
PHOCIS. 
 
 179 
 
 of a settlement among them of so majestic and terrible a 
 race of colonists. At length she arrives at the barren 
 Delos, and tempts it to comphance, by contrasting its 
 actual poverty and meanness with the glory and wealth 
 that would be concentrated around its rugged cliffs, if 
 they became the birthplace and favourite abode of her 
 son.^ The nymph of the island, however gratified by 
 the prospect of so favourable a change in her destinies, 
 hesitates from fear, lest the god, on his entry into the 
 world, ashamed of the meanness of his birthplace, should 
 indignantly trample her under foot — sink her for ever 
 beneath the waves, and transfer his seat of worship to 
 some more favoured spot. Latona reassures her by an 
 oath on the river Styx, that all the fair prospects held 
 out to her shall be realized, and she joyfully consents. 
 
 In the sequel of the same hymn | we find the Cretan 
 navigators, imported by Apollo to Delphi as his future 
 priesthood, anxiously enquiring of him how they are to 
 find subsistence in so barren a spot. His answer is 
 similar to that of Latona to Delos. 
 
 The case of the Pythian sanctuary is also well stated 
 by Lucian, :|: in the words of its native orator, in the 
 course of his argument in favour of receiving from Pha- 
 laris the offered present of his Bull : — " For the fact that 
 we dwell among rugged precipices, and till barren rocks, 
 we have no need to appeal to Homer's authority ; the 
 evidence of our own eyes is amply sufficient ; and, in so 
 far as our soil is concerned, famine would be our lot. 
 But the sanctuary — and the god — and the oracle — and 
 the pious who worship and sacrifice, these are our reve- 
 nues, from whence we derive our subsistence and our 
 wealth. For, to speak both truly and poetically : ' All 
 fruits to us unploughed unsown are given,' by the agri- 
 
 * V. 51, seq. See additional Note at end of the volume, 
 t V. 526. I Phal. ii. c. 8. 
 
180 
 
 PHOCIS. 
 
 cultural skill of Phoebus. So that not only do we 
 possess all the goods that naturally fall to the lot of the 
 Greeks; but whatever precious object is either produced 
 or acquired, among the Phrygians or Lydians— the Assy- 
 rians or Persians — the Phoenicians— the Itahans — even 
 among the Hyperboreans — fails not to find its way to 
 Delphi; and we enjoy our share in common with the 
 
 god;' 
 
 In regard to Delphi, it would almost appear as if the 
 ancient regulators of Hellenic worship had been deter- 
 mined to enforce this principle in spite of nature herself. 
 Its own soil was, it is true, and with justice, nearly as 
 proverbial for sterihty as that of Delos. The death of 
 ^sop is accordingly said to have been the consequence 
 of some witticisms in which he indulged, when on a visit 
 to the sanctuary, on the poverty of its site.*' The Del- 
 phiotes, enraged at the insult to themselves and their 
 god, insidiously fastened on him the crime of sacrilege, 
 by concealing one of the sacred cups in his wallet ; and 
 then charging him with the robbery, inflicted on him the 
 punishment customary with them in such cases, by preci- 
 pitating him from the summit of one of the rocks above 
 the Castahan spring. But, in addition to its own barren 
 glen, the Pythian sanctuary possessed the lordship of the 
 fair Crisssean plain, perhaps the most fertile tract of land 
 in Phocis. Its cultivation was, however, by a rigid 
 Amphictyonic law, strictly prohibited ; and the violation 
 of this law by the Phocians was the cause — or at least 
 the pretext — of that fatal war, which terminated in the 
 establishment of the Macedonian ascendancy, and the 
 downfall of Hellenic freedom. 
 
 The precise extent to which this edict may have been 
 habitually enforced, is doubtful. That the land was not 
 
 * AiusToni. Vesp. 1446, et Schol. ad I. Plut. de Ser. num, vind. 
 xii. 
 
PHOCIS. 
 
 181 
 
 tilled is certain, nor, consequently, could it have been 
 planted with vines, olives, or other fruit-trees. That it 
 was allowed to lie in an altogether unprofitable state, even 
 as regards the service of the deity, is, however, hardly to 
 be supposed. The spirit of the decree implies merely 
 that the sacred soil of the god should not be profaned 
 to secular objects. Hence it is probable that it was 
 devoted to the pasturage of the oxen, or other cattle, 
 destined for the sacrifices of his altar. Sophocles seems 
 to hint at this, when in the Electra he calls the Crisssean 
 plain " a cattle-fed shore."* 
 
 Pausanias describes the plain in his time as lying alto- 
 gether waste : " whether from some curse on its soil, or 
 from its not being adapted for the growth of fruitful 
 plants, he knew not." This author is certainly more at 
 fault in his notices of the lower valley of the Pleistus, 
 than in any other part of his work. | The soil is gen- 
 erally of the richest quality, and the olive groves by 
 which nearly half its surface is covered, are very luxuri- 
 ant. It is, indeed, difficult to see what evidence he could 
 have had either of its productive or unproductive pro- 
 perties, since it was forbidden either to plant or culti- 
 vate it. At least, we have no reason to believe that 
 the ancient law on the subject had been abrogated be- 
 fore his time. A portion of the plain, there can be no 
 doubt, was occupied by the Pythian hippodrome. Pausa- 
 nias himself J implies this ; and Sophocles § figuratively 
 
 ^ Electr. 181. ^ovvo/JjOV axTTjv, 
 
 f PhoG. xxxvii. — He was also under the erroneous impression, com- 
 mon to some other less accurate Greek geographers^ that Cirrha and 
 Crissa were the same place. Yet the tenor of his text implies that he 
 had travelled the road from Delphi to Cirrha, in which case it is diffi- 
 cult to see how he could have failed to observe the ruins of Crissa, 
 which are still sufficiently marked to attract the attention of the pas- 
 senger. 
 
 I Pausan. loc. cit. § SoPHOCL* Electr. 730. 
 
182 
 
 PHOCIS. 
 
 describes it as the " field of shipwrecked chariots/' 
 (ya\)aymv K^imTov lir^txMv 'itihov :) no remains of the monu- 
 ment itself are now visible. 
 
 On the descent of the ridge which separates Skala 
 from the plain^ we passed three camels, a beast of burden 
 I had not expected to find in common use in so rugged 
 and mountainous a region as Greece. In the old descrip- 
 tions of the country, previous to the war, no allusion 
 occurs to the existence of this animal within its bounds. 
 The few that are now to be found, originally formed, it 
 is said, part of the baggage train of som.e of the great 
 Turkish armaments, more especially of that fitted out 
 against the Morea in 1822, and destroyed by the Greeks 
 in the defiles between Argos and Corinth, upon which 
 occasion the animals were captured and sold, and have 
 since been employed for commercial purposes. The 
 breed, however, continues to be propagated; as among 
 the dozen or fifteen that we met on different parts of our 
 route, were several colts. They are said to be kept at 
 very little expense ; and as the burden they carry is pro- 
 verbially great, they might be a profitable stock in any 
 part of Europe where they would thrive.* 
 
 After crossing the plain, we ascend the lower declivi- 
 ties of Parnassus to Krisso. The remains of the ancient 
 town of Crissa are immediately to the right, separated 
 
 * It is probably known to most travellers in Italy, that the Grand 
 Duke of Tuscany, on his Pisan domains, has near 200 camels of 
 different sexes and ages. Their introduction dates from the period of 
 the Medici, probably not later than the early part of the seventeenth 
 century, and thoy may now be considered as in some measure indige- 
 nous. They breed in the sandy plains and woodlands on the sea-coast ; 
 and there is generally about one-third of the whole number in use. 
 The overseer assured me that, from the great economy of their keep, 
 as compared with the amount of labour of which they were capable, 
 transport was performed more cheaply on their backs than by horse 
 and cart. 
 
PHOCIS. 
 
 183 
 
 from the village that has inherited its name by a small 
 ravine. They consist but of a portion of the walls, of a 
 structure belonging rather to the Cyclopian than the 
 polygonal style, with some very massive blocks. Little 
 more than two or three courses of stone are any where 
 visible above the foundation.* The south-east extremity 
 of the site of the city is a lofty perpendicular precipice, 
 overhanging the bed of the Pleistus and the upper end 
 of the plain. Nothing can be more graphic or more 
 accurate than the description of Crissa in the Homeric 
 hymn to Apollo, as situated " on a slope facing the 
 west, beneath the ridge of Parnassus, overhung by its 
 lofty cliffs, and bounded beneath by a deep gorge." f 
 Near the brink of the precipice stands a modern Greek 
 sanctuary, called by Dodwell the Church of the Forty 
 Saints, but by my guides that of the Seraphim. Close 
 to it are several small chapels in ruins. Among the 
 stones and rubbish heaped up within one of them, were 
 some fragments of statuary marble, one of which was a 
 large sepulchral stela, sculptured in relief, with a sitting 
 figure of a poet surrounded by emblems of his literary 
 profession. As it appeared both elegant in style and 
 interesting in point of subject, I was at much pains to 
 place it in a position where a good view of it could be 
 obtained, and nearly lost a finger in the attempt. I also 
 occupied myself for some time in taking such a sketch 
 as would at least serve as a memorandum of the general 
 design and subject of the work. I should certainly have 
 
 * I am surprised that the accurate Leake should not have observed 
 these ruins. His chief or only argument for considering Krisso to 
 represent the ancient Crissa, is the identity of the names. — (?/. Greece^ 
 pp. 565-587.) He errs, however, in supposing the site of the city 
 to have been exactly that of the modern village, as the two are quite 
 distinct. 
 
 t V. 282, seq_. 
 
184 
 
 PHOCIS. 
 
 spared myself this trouble, had I known, as I have since 
 discovered, that it has been already published in Stackel- 
 berg's Grecian tombs. The fragment is well worthy 
 of a place in any museum; and its present neglected 
 condition supplies one, among numerous other evidences 
 that offered themselves during my passage through the 
 country, how little attention is paid by the present govern- 
 ment to the preservation of works of antiquity or art 
 beyond the immediate limits of the capital. From Krisso 
 the road up the valley continues to wind over rocky 
 declivities, where here and there I fancied I perceived 
 traces of an ancient paved causeway. 
 
LIBRARY 
 OF THE ^ 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
184 
 
 PHOCIS. 
 
 spared myself this trouble, had I known, as I have since 
 discovered, that it has been already published in Stackel- 
 berg's Grecian tombs. The fragment is well worthy 
 of a place in any museum ; and its present neglected 
 condition supplies one, among numerous other evidences 
 that offered themselves during my passage through the 
 country, how little attention is paid by the present govern- 
 ment to the preservation of works of antiquity or art 
 beyond the immediate limits of the capital. From Krisso 
 the road up the valley continues to wind over rocky 
 declivities, where here and there I fancied I perceived 
 traces of an ancient paved causeway. 
 
DELPHI. 185 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 DELPHI. 
 
 Xiyirai b\ ^oXka (jav %ai didfo^a sg avrovg rovg AsX(povg' irXi/ai 
 di sri sg *A^6XXMVog ro /ulocvtsTov.—Yavs. Phoc. 
 
 *' Many and various are the stories concerning Delphi ; and many more 
 those concerning the oracle of Apollo." 
 
 On passing a lower ridge of rocks, in the face of which 
 are some sepulchral excavations, the far-famed chfFs of 
 Delphi suddenly appear full in view. It were difficult, 
 certainly, to imagine a more dazzling prospect than the 
 site of this sanctuary even in its present degraded state, 
 or a spot better adapted by its own sublimity to the 
 worship of the sublime and mysterious deity to whom it 
 was dedicated. The day was beautifully calm and clear, 
 and the sun, in all its meridian splendour, shone with a 
 brilliancy and power worthy of the fair blue heaven from 
 which it beamed, and of the grand mass of objects illu- 
 minated by its rays. 
 
 The narrow vale of the Pleistus is here bounded to 
 the north by a lofty wall of rocks, or rather rocky moun- 
 tains, from the extremities of which two lower ridges 
 project across the dell towards the bed of the stream. 
 The whole recess may thus be likened to the cavea of a 
 great theatre ; while the lower, but little less rugged pre- 
 cipices of Mount Cirphis, bounding the river nearly in a 
 straight line on the opposite side, may be compared to 
 
 yoL. I, Q 
 
186 
 
 DELPHI. 
 
 the scene.* The great northern barrier of rocks is cleft 
 towards its centre, from top to bottom, into two stu- 
 pendous cliffs with peaked summits, by a narrow gorge 
 running back into the innermost recesses of the moun- 
 tain. These two precipices, towering considerably above 
 the rest of the range, are nearly perpendicular in front, 
 and completely so where their sides face each other 
 across the chasm, which, being not many yards in breadth, 
 presents a dark yawning abyss of the most awful descrip- 
 tion. The bed of this chasm is evidently, in rainy 
 weather, that of a torrent with a fine cascade, but at 
 present it was dry. Perhaps the effect is not diminished 
 by this circumstance, as the traveller is thus enabled to 
 penetrate to a considerable distance into its interior 
 recesses, where the deep gloom of the vast cavity, hghted 
 up here and there by a broken ray of the sun, imparts a 
 sublime and reUgious solemnity to the scene. 
 
 At the lower extremity of the dry torrent bed, just 
 where it emerges from between the cliffs, issue the waters 
 of the Castalian spring, oozing at first in scarce percep- 
 tible streamlets from among the loose stones, but sweUing 
 into a considerable brook within not many yards of their 
 first appearance above ground. I sipped a mouthful of 
 the water at the fountain-head. It is certainly most 
 delicious to the taste ; but I was not more sensible of its 
 beneficial influence on my imaginative faculties than so 
 many other travellers who have complained of its ineffi- 
 cacy. There may, however, be some groundwork of 
 fact for the ancient popular behef on the subject. The 
 surpassing grandeur of the surrounding scenery is cer- 
 tainly well calculated not only to excite the rhyming 
 propensities of the least gifted, but even to develope the 
 
 * This description was dictated merely by the impression conveyed 
 on the spot ; but Delphi is famiHarly characterized by the ancients as 
 in the form of a theatre. — Strabo, ix. Justin, xxiv., &c. 
 
DELPHI. 
 
 187 
 
 inspiration of a real poet, hitherto perhaps unconscious 
 of his powers ; while the honour belonging to the exercise 
 of such influence would naturally be usurped by the 
 fountain, as the more especial Genius of the place. 
 Traces of the conduits and basins that formed the bath 
 of the Pythoness, are still observable above the pool now 
 used as the village watering-place. The building by 
 which it was covered in has given way to a small Greek 
 chapel, built against the face of the rock The name of 
 " Byron" is scratched, among others, on the wall of the 
 interior. The majestic plane-tree described by Dod- 
 well as affording an agreeable shade to the pool, has now 
 disappeared. The course of the Castalian brook towards 
 the Pleistus, is at the eastern extremity of the village. 
 It forms a hollow dell, adorned with some picturesque 
 olive groves, embosomed in which, on the left or east- 
 ern bank, is the monastery of the Panaghia, a small but 
 rather elegant building, one of the few that have sur- 
 vived the ravages of the war. The church, which is its 
 most conspicuous feature, is in the usual form of a 
 Greek cross, with a round cupola in the centre. 
 
 The ancient town occupied the central area of the 
 great natural theatre above described, extending on each 
 side of the Castalian brook, but lying chiefly on its right 
 or western bank. Over this portion of its site are now 
 scattered the houses of the village of Kastri, The sanc- 
 tuary was at the upper or north-western extremity of the 
 ancient town, as of the present village. Not a vestige 
 of it remains ; but the more elevated portion of its site 
 seems to be indicated by a terrace of rocks, projecting at 
 this point over the higher part of the slope from the base 
 of the clifi's. No traces of the sacred cavern, or of the 
 mephitic exhalations which inspired the Pythoness, are 
 any where observable. Immediately below this terrace, 
 to the westward, is the upper end of the stadium, which 
 
]88 
 
 DELPHI. 
 
 may be distinctly recognized in its whole extent, spread- 
 ing along a hollow, partly natural, partly artificial, at the 
 foot of the cliffs, and terminating beneath the lower ridge 
 that here projects towards the river. The breastwork 
 of stone from the native Parnassian rock, with which 
 Pausanias describes it as having been supported, is still 
 partly preserved. Of the marble coating, for which it was 
 indebted to the munificence of Herodes Atticus, there are 
 no remains. The rock on the side of the terrace above 
 described, where it faces the stadium, seems to have been 
 cut artificially into steps, affording a communication with 
 the upper portion of the sanctuary. From the description 
 of Pausanias, it would appear that the summit of this 
 terrace was occupied by the Lesche, or Cassino, adorned 
 with the celebrated paintings of Polygnotus. 
 
 This grand semicircular recess in the mountain faces 
 nearly due south, so as to concentrate the full force of 
 the sun during the most briUiant part of the day. Hence, 
 doubtless, the name of Phsedriades— " Resplendent" — by 
 which the cliffs that gave the whole scene its distinctive 
 character were known among the ancients. As forming 
 the centre, and at the same time the most elevated por- 
 tion of the line of precipice immediately above the 
 sanctuary, they received the rays of the luminary on 
 some portion or other of their surface, and reflected them 
 on the sacred group of objects below, from its first 
 appearance above the eastern horizon, until it sunk 
 beneath the Peleponnesian mountains : — " the livelong 
 day beneath the sun's bright wing," as Euripides 
 expresses it.* Hence the proverb introduced by 
 Demosthenes, concerning empty or frivolous discus- 
 sions : — "to dispute about the shadow in Delphi ;"t that 
 
 ^ 'TtavafjA^iog d[jJ * AX/ov "Trrs^vyi ^oci, — Eurip. /on. 122. Conf. 
 
 Phcenis. 235. ^ 
 
 •f- TTs^i TYig iv AzXfoTg 6%iag ^oKiijJriaai. — De Pace, in fine. 
 
DELPHI. 
 
 189 
 
 is — about nothing. The real force of this adage, if I 
 am not mistaken, has escaped the notice of both ancient 
 and modern commentators. The scholiast of Aris- 
 tophanes brings it into absurd but amusing connexion 
 with another proverb of similar import : — " to fight for 
 the shadow of an ass." * An Athenian, having hired an 
 ass for a journey to Delphi, on arriving in the neigh- 
 bourhood of the sanctuary, fatigued with the road and 
 oppressed by the heat of the day, tethered his beast, and 
 lay down to repose under its shadow. The ass-driver, 
 however, advanced a prior claim to the place, insisting 
 that his employer had only bargained for the use of the 
 ass, not of its shadow. A fierce dispute was the con- 
 sequence, which terminated in a lawsuit between the 
 parties on the point of right. Hence, (according to the 
 commentator,) the proverb :—" to dispute about the 
 shadow of an ass;" and because Delphi was the scene of 
 the quarrel: — " to dispute about a shadow in Delphi." 
 That Demosthenes, however, had no such signification 
 in view, at least for the latter adage, is evident from his 
 having himself^ in his narrative of the same fable, when 
 introduced by him elsewhere to sharpen the point of an 
 argument, assigned Megara, and not Delphi, as the scene 
 of the adventure,! 
 
 A more glorious sight can hardly be conceived, or one 
 better adapted to warm the imagination, and inspire 
 feelings of religious enthusiasm, than the magnificent 
 group of objects which this theatre of rocks formerly 
 enclosed, when lighted up by the beams of the morning 
 sun ; — terraces — porticoes — colonnades — and statues, 
 rising in gorgeous masses one above the other, and backed 
 by a stupendous wall of precipices. The lively manner 
 
 ^ 'TTsp^ ovov (fKiag fLd^s(fda! Ad Vesp, v. 191. 
 
 t Ap, SchoL Aristoph. loc. cit. 
 
190 
 
 DELPHI. 
 
 in which Euripides, in the opening scene of the Ion, 
 through the sohloquy of the young Neocorus expanding 
 the gates and setting in order the courts of the temple, 
 reahzes to the fancy this grand combination of the won- 
 ders of nature and art, is one of the happiest efforts 
 either of his dramatic or descriptive muse. 
 
 The twin chffs, so celebrated among the ancients as the 
 most remarkable feature of the scenery of the Delphic 
 vale, are, amid the confusion of names so common with 
 poets in their descriptions of scenes distinguished for 
 sanctity or celebrity, frequently alluded to as the sum- 
 mits of Parnassus ; although in fact comparatively small 
 peaks at the base of that stupendous mountain.* The 
 proper title of that to the east was Naupha, of the other 
 Hyampha. It is probable that to these two rocks the 
 place is originally indebted for its name, if not for the 
 estabhshment of the sanctuary within its bounds. 
 Delphi is the root of the famihar Greek word adelphos, 
 " brother and hence was a very appropriate title for 
 the twin peaks, consecrated probably in the remote age 
 at which the dedication first took place, conjointly, like 
 the twin islands of the JEgean, Delos and Rhensea, to the 
 twin deities, Apollo and Diana, t The plural formation 
 of the name seems also to favour this view. Similar, 
 probably, is the origin of the name Didymi, hterally 
 " the Twins," which belonged to the most celebrated 
 
 ^ These clitfs were the altars appointed for the performance of 
 human sacrifice to the deity. The victims, in later times at least, 
 were exclusively persons convicted of the crime of sacrilege. The 
 peak of Hyamplia was originally appropriated to this purpose ; but 
 after the murder of iEsop the Delphians transferred it to that of 
 Nauplia. — Plut. de Ser. num. vind. xii. 
 
 f Although we have no very distinct trace in later times of any 
 special worship of Diana at Delphi, yet the close connexion between 
 the two deities in the primitive mythology, may in itself warrant the 
 inference that she had originally some part allotted to her in the 
 
DELPHI. 
 
 191 
 
 oracular shrine of the deity in Asiatic Greece^ and to 
 another in Argolis. * 
 
 My quarters for the night were once more provided in 
 the house of the Demarchus, a simple peasant, of far less 
 dignified or martial appearance than him of Katochi. 
 His dwelling, situated a little on this side of the Castalian 
 spring, was of rather a superior class of cottage. I 
 was allotted for my separate accommodation the vacant 
 space of a small square room, occupied partly as a 
 granary, partly as a depositary for lumber, and swarming 
 with fleas, my direst enemy among the whole race of 
 household vermin, and to whom I owed many a sleepless 
 night besides the present in the course of my journey. 
 The habits of the village are precisely the same as in the 
 following description of Dodwell,! and its houses have 
 been rebuilt from their ruins on the same plan as those 
 which existed in his time : — " The poorer people live 
 in cottages which consist of only one long room; the 
 wealthier have houses with two rooms raised on a second 
 floor, the lower part being divided into a stable, cow- 
 house," &c. The second room, in his day as in mine, 
 was a magazine. The ground floor, or substruction, is a 
 luxury rendered in some degree necessary by the decli- 
 vity of the ground. Although the villagers are a rustic 
 and simple race as compared with the Roumehotes, 
 I cannot give them credit for that extreme purity of 
 
 honours of the sanctuary. She claimed a share with her brother in 
 the victory over the serpent Python, which secured him the posses- 
 sion of the oracular site, (Pausan. Cor. ii. 7 ;) and the Homeric hymn 
 to her honour would even assign her a joint right of domicile in the 
 temple.— .(v. xi. seq.) Her worship might the more readily be ab- 
 sorbed in later ages by that of her brother, in a sanctuary so pecu- 
 liarly connected with his prophetic attributes, in which she had no 
 share. 
 
 * Pausan. Ach. ii. Corinth, xxxvi. 
 t Tour, vol. i. p. 169. 
 
192 
 
 DELPHI. 
 
 primitive manners which so delighted Dodwell. The 
 price they demanded for some defaced copper coins was 
 absurdly extravagant; and an old woman who lived in a 
 cottage behind the ancient wall on which the great 
 inscription is engraved, and who had formed the inter- 
 val between it and her own dwelling into a sort of court, 
 by heaping up rubbish at one end of the narrow entrance, 
 endeavoured, much to my amusement and that of my 
 attendants, to extract several drachms in payment of the 
 privilege of inspection. 
 
 For some days past Nicola had entertained me with 
 wonderful stories of a newly discovered monument of 
 Delphi, called by him the Sepolcro della Pretessa— the 
 " Tomb of the Priestess," and had made it the stronghold 
 within which he entrenched himself, when hard pressed 
 by my reproaches at the failure of his boasted archaeo- 
 logical science. My curiosity was in so far raised, that, 
 finding it lay in the open country, about half a mile to 
 the east of the village, from which point I had determin- 
 ed to commence my tour of the place, in order to orien- 
 tahze myself the more easily by the aid of Pausanias, 
 who enters the town from that side, I took it first m 
 my order of march. The Sepolcro della Pretessa is a 
 large and beautiful sarcophagus of white marble, sculp- 
 tured on every side ; equal probably in size, and superior 
 in execution, to most of the finest monuments of the 
 same class preserved in the rich Itahan collections. It 
 was only discovered a few years ago; yet the name 
 « Tomb of the Priestess," on what authority I did not 
 hear, is already as inveterate in popular use, as if it had 
 been conferred in consequence of an edict of the Python- 
 ess herself. Although much spht and broken in some of 
 its more ornamental parts, it might probably, by a care- 
 ful collection and recomposition of its fragments, be 
 restored nearly in its integrity. The subject of the 
 
DELPHI. 
 
 193 
 
 principal relief, on the side facing the Pleistus, which is 
 much mutilated, has been characterized on high autho- 
 rity as the Hunt of the Calydonian boar; but I found 
 some difficulty in identifying the particulars of that cele- 
 brated adventure. The other front is ornamented with 
 a tripod between two griffins. The whole face of the 
 hill on which this monument has been discovered, extend- 
 ing from the bed of the river to the road which leads 
 beneath the rocks to Aracova and Dauhs, was evidently 
 the cemetery of the town, and a well conducted excava- 
 tion would doubtless lead to valuable discoveries. Vari- 
 ous other monumental remains have already been brought 
 to hght, whether by accident or design I did not l^arn, 
 and are now strewed over the face of the deeli^ity. 
 Among them are several other sarcophagi, but without 
 ornament, and of coarse material ; also some marble slabs 
 or stelae, with mutilated inscriptions of little interest 
 On the lower side of the road are still visible the remains 
 of the rude stone vault of horizontal courses^ described 
 by previous travellers. 
 
 Delphi is the only place in Greece, with the exception 
 of Athens, which at this period boasted, at least in my 
 experience, of a professed cicerone. This may be attri- 
 buted either to the influence of Apollo, the patron of 
 elegant art and literature in the one place, as Minerva 
 was in the other ; or perhaps to a more homely cause — the 
 greater number of foreign travellers who are attracted to 
 these two remarkable spots, than to other ancient sites 
 in Greece. Nicola, being engaged with our domestic 
 affairs, had been obhged to forego the pleasure of accom- 
 panying me to his favourite piece of antiquity, but found 
 a villager to act as his substitute. Just as I was pro- 
 ceeding to examine the monument, I was interrupted by 
 a loud halloo from the high ground towards the village, 
 and on looking back saw an elderly individual running 
 
 VOL. I. R 
 
194 
 
 DELPHI. 
 
 down very quickly towards us, apparently in a state of 
 great excitement. Though tattered and squalid as 
 respects the outer man, he had the air of a person in 
 authority, and I accordingly found him to be the ac- 
 credited Periegetes of Delphi. On approaching us he 
 saluted me very politely, but commenced a violent tirade of 
 abuse against my companion, whom he accused of usurp- 
 ing his office — ^most unjustly, as he himself had been out 
 of the way at the moment of our arrival, and my limited 
 time had not admitted of my conforming to what was 
 perhaps considered the proper etiquette, by suspending 
 my researches until he could be found. Although I had 
 no reason to complain of my former attendant, in order 
 to preserve peace, I was under the necessity of paying 
 him off, and complying with the rules of the place, by 
 resigning myself into the hands of the authorized func- 
 tionary. I must do him the justice to say that I found 
 him very useful ; for although his information relative 
 either to the Tomb of the Priestess, or any other of the 
 curiosities of his native place, added but little to the 
 stock of knowledge previously acquired from Nicola, 
 yet he led me with much punctuality, and in regular 
 order, to all the points of real interest to the curious 
 traveller. 
 
 Returning to the Castalian spring, we follow the road 
 from Daulis, by which Pausanias enters the town. It 
 is strewed on each side with fragments of masonry, many 
 of them of fine statuary marble and elegantly carved— 
 remnants, probably, of the Gymnasium, and of several 
 temples mentioned by that topographer.* 
 
 On the way from the CastaUan spring to the stadium 
 are still standing the pieces of ancient wall covered with 
 the celebrated Delphic inscriptions, which have been 
 repeatedly copied and illustrated from the days of Cyri- 
 * Phoc. viii. 
 
DELPHI. 
 
 195 
 
 acus of Ancona downwards. One of these documents 
 occupies a surface of from eight to ten feet square, except 
 where a piece of stone may here and there have been 
 omitted as too rough for the purpose. None of the 
 blocks are highly polished; nor can any thing show 
 more effectually the extent and inveteracy of the practice 
 of lapidary writing among the Greeks, than the number, 
 and often the importance, of the matters recorded in a 
 manner, to our notions, so rude and imperfect. In spite 
 of the roughness of the stone, the letters, which are in 
 good style, though scarcely half an inch in height, are so 
 carefully and ingeniously imprinted as to be still quite 
 legible. In Dodwell's time this wall was a part of the 
 Turkish Aga's granary. It is now connected with a 
 private dwelling near the church of St Nicholas. Leake 
 supposes, and with apparent reason, that these walls are 
 the remains of those which supported the terraces of the 
 sanctuary. The tenor of some of the inscriptions con- 
 firms this view. 
 
 No traces are now visible of the theatre mentioned by 
 Pausanias as connected with the sacred enclosure. The 
 spring or rivulet, Cassotis, which he describes as passing 
 under the foundations of the temple and re-appearing on 
 a lower level, where it was formed into a fountain sur- 
 rounded or supported by masonry, is still to be recognized 
 in a copious source on which this quarter of the village 
 depends for its supply of water, as its eastern extremity 
 does on that of Castaha ; and on one side are the ruins 
 of a massive retaining wall. Below the fountain was 
 the stone which Rhea gave Saturn to swallow in place 
 of his son, and which the imagination is still at Hberty to 
 identify among the fragments of rock strewed over the 
 face of the slope. 
 
 The only other remnant of ancient architecture now 
 existing at Delphi, is a piece of retaining wall on the 
 
196 
 
 DELPHI. 
 
 right hand of the road from Krisso, a little below the 
 point where the traveller obtains the first view of the 
 place. It now forms the substruction, towards the 
 valley, of the court that surrounds the little church of 
 Saint Ehas ; and originally, no doubt, was destined to 
 afford a similar service to the peribolus of some temple, 
 or other public edifice. 
 
 At Castri, as at other Greek towns founded upon sites 
 of ancient celebrity, the ravages of the late war have 
 been the means of bringing to hght many valuable frag- 
 ments of antiquity. Some of these, previously incased 
 in modern structures, are now, with the inferior class of 
 rubbish of which their masonry was composed, spread 
 over the face of the soil. Others have been excavated 
 in digging foundations for new houses, the sites of which, 
 as might be expected, are chosen by preference on 
 ground previously clear. This was more especially the 
 case in the neighbourhood of the house of the Demarchus, 
 where we lodged. On the slope immediately below, 
 towards the Pleistus, were strewed numerous architec- 
 tural fragments, not a few of which were of statuary 
 marble very elegantly sculptured. There were also seve- 
 ral blocks and slabs of marble covered with inscriptions 
 in tolerable preservation, and which might doubtless be 
 copied in their integrity, with leisure and opportunity for 
 the purpose.* Little or no value seemed to attach to 
 
 * I occupied myself in this way for a while on the morning of the 
 5th, before continuing my journey, but had not time to devote to the 
 proper execution of the task ; and such was the inconvenience arising 
 from the position of the blocks, and the fierce beams of a Delphic sun, 
 that I was obhged to desist. One of them, in characters of a good 
 period, of which I brought away the greater part, is the more interest- 
 ing, from bearing testimony in its concluding clause to the fact, that it 
 originally occupied a post in the most conspicuous part of the sanc- 
 tuary : " "sv TfZ rou ' ATToXXomg, sv ruJ W/pai^sCrarw roTw. It 
 contains the names of Diodorus, Heraclitus, and ApoUonius, to one 
 
DELPHI. 
 
 197 
 
 these relics in the eyes of the natives, unless in so far as 
 they might be made available in the reconstruction of 
 their ruined houses, to which purpose they were from 
 time to time applied. ^ 
 
 On my return in the evening from my rambles, I 
 observed a crowd congregated on a small vacant space 
 among the ruins, in front of the dwelling of our host. 
 On approaching, I found the chief magistrate himself 
 seated on a large stone, with an elderly peasant on each 
 side. In front was a circle of male villagers, posted 
 verv much in the manner of a class of schoolboys re- 
 peating their task before their master. I was informed 
 that a council was holding. The sight was interesting, 
 realizing as it did, in these days of Hellenic palingenesis, 
 the primitive forms of old patriarchal government, as 
 described in Ovid's familiar line : — 
 
 Consedere duces, et vulgi stante corona, &;c. 
 The chieftains sat, the people stood around. 
 
 of whom is granted, for services rendered the city and sanctuary, in the 
 usual form, Proxenia— Promantia— Prodikia— Asylia— Proedria," 
 &c. 
 
 * I afterwards expressed to Sign. Pittakys of Athens, the Conser- 
 vator of antiquities, my surprise that so little attention should be paid 
 to the preservation of the remains that exist, or from time to time are 
 brought to light in the provinces, especially in places so rich in similar 
 treasures as Delphi. He assured me that orders had been given to the 
 magistrates of every commune to collect and preserve all ancient frag- 
 ments. How little benefit had accrued from this order, I had suffi- 
 cient evidence in every part of the country ; nor did the Demarchus 
 of Delphi seem to be aware that his jurisdiction extended to the anti- 
 quarian treasures of his province. 
 
 M de Klenze, the distinguished Bavarian architect, states in his 
 work on Greece, (Aphoristische Bemerkungen. Berlin : 1838. p. 301,) 
 that on his suggestion, it had been determined by the Government of 
 King Otho, on its first establishment, to appoint veterans of the army 
 as special officers, to guard the sites of the more celebrated ancient 
 cities, and protect and preserve their remains. If this project was 
 ever seriously entertained, it has certainly not been carried into 
 effect. 
 
198 
 
 DELPHI. 
 
 The Castriote chiefs sat^ in the European sense of the 
 term, on the present occasion, instead of squatting in 
 the Turkish fashion, as is the practice on every other ; 
 whether from accident, or some instinctive feehng as to 
 a want of classical dignity in the vulgar attitude, may 
 be a question. The discussion, however, was neither so 
 regular in point of form, nor so spirited, as that from the 
 description of which the foregoing quotation is borrowed. 
 It rather resembled a conversation than a debate; and 
 although the matter under review— the new conscription 
 law — was at this time one of all-engrossing interest, but 
 little animation was displayed. The Delphians, indeed, 
 appeared to me rather a phlegmatic race, as compared 
 with the rest of their countrymen. The law in question 
 was here, as elsewhere, extremely unpopular ; less, per- 
 haps, from any backwardness to military service in 
 general, than from a strong repugnance to the Frank 
 dress and discipline to which the new recruits were to be 
 subjected. 
 
PHOCIS. 
 
 199 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 ARACOVA— THE CLEFT WAY— DEATH OF LA'iUS— DAULIS. 
 
 E/g ravTO AsXfQjv Tid^jrh AavXlag ayii. — Soph. (Ed. Tyr, 752. 
 
 " Phocis the land is called, where the cleft way 
 From Delphi leadeth unto Daulia." 
 
 We were favoured with another beautiful day (March 
 5th) for our journey into Boeotia. The highest part of 
 the pass between the Corinthian gulf and the plain of 
 the Cephissus is occupied by the commune of Aracova. 
 This village is situated in a little dell between two 
 eminences. From the summit of that to the west there 
 is a noble prospect of the valley of the Pleistus, with the 
 waters of the gulf backed by a long line of Peloponnesian 
 mountains. From the eastern height the view extends 
 down the vale of the " Cleft Way," so celebrated in 
 Theban fable, into the Boeotian plain, with the lake 
 Copais at its extremity, bounded by the mountain ridges 
 of Ptolis and Phoenicium; while the heights of Euboea, 
 or here and there a narrow stripe of sea, form the 
 extreme horizon. 
 
 Aracova was the scene of a brilliant success of the 
 Greeks under Karaiskaki, against the rearguard of the 
 army of Reshid Pasha in the campaign of 1826, after 
 the fall of Mesolonghi.^ Both commanders had been 
 anxious to obtain possession of the place, an important 
 * Gordon, vol. ii. p. 350, seq. 
 
200 
 
 PHOCIS. 
 
 point in their plan of operations. The Greeks, however, 
 were beforehand. On the 30th of November, Karai's- 
 kaki detached a body of 500 men, who occupied the 
 village unobserved by the Turks. Scarcely had they 
 time to lodge themselves in the houses, when the enemy, 
 to the number of about 1500 Turco-albanians, the best 
 troops in the Ottoman army, advanced — without suspicion 
 that their motions had been anticipated — to take posses- 
 sion of the place. The Greeks made good their post 
 against this superiority of numbers, until Karaiskaki had 
 time with the remainder of his force, amounting to up- 
 wards of 2000 men, to occupy the defiles and cut oflF the 
 retreat of the enemy. The Moslems held out for six 
 days, entrenched on the bare summit of an eminence 
 above the village, hoping for relief from the main body 
 of their army in the interior. After the defeat by Karais- 
 kaki, near Daulia, of a detachment sent to their aid, a 
 capitulation was proposed; but, as the Greeks would 
 listen to no terms of which a surrender of their arms did 
 not form the basis, and, as an Arnaut would rather part 
 with his life than his arms, they preferred the desperate 
 expedient of attempting to cross Parnassus, then covered 
 with deep snow. On the summit of the mountain they 
 were overtaken by a furious storm, and in the end the 
 whole body perished, with the exception of about three 
 hundred, either by the sword of the Greeks or the rigour 
 of the season. 
 
 My attention had been particularly directed, by my 
 German friends at Mesolonghi, to the beauty of the 
 women of Aracova, which indeed I found to be very 
 generally celebrated. I was, partly perhaps on that 
 account, disappointed. I had fair opportunity of form- 
 ing an opinion, as we passed several fountains where 
 numbers of them were congregated, and saw many en- 
 gaged in field labour close by the roadside. The village 
 
PHOCIS. 
 
 201 
 
 indeed seemed to abound in females, and to be both 
 populous and thriving, and its inhabitants, upon the 
 whole, a handsome race. The men, however, appeared 
 to me to have the advantage of the women. Pausanias 
 describes the men of the district of Daulis as remarkable 
 for their stature. If a correspondence in this respect 
 were valid evidence on any such point, the Aracovites 
 might perhaps have good claim to be considered as their 
 descendants. The females are also tall and robust, with 
 chubby faces, fresh complexions, and a strong tendency 
 to embonpoint ; differing very strongly, in all these re- 
 spects, from those of the neighbouring district, and of 
 Greece in general, who are for the most part lean and 
 swarthy. The contrast is indeed so striking, as to impress 
 one with the notion of a foreign colony imported from 
 some northern region. Such qualities have their merit, 
 no doubt, but they are not precisely of that description 
 which constitutes female — and still less Grecian — beauty. 
 These women have, in fact, many of the features of a 
 German peasantry, which may perhaps account for the 
 favour they find in the eyes of Germans ; as it was chiefly 
 among persons of that nation that I heard their praises 
 celebrated. 
 
 My own admiration was attracted, more by the indus- 
 try than the personal charms of the Aracovites. In every 
 direction, the sides of the mountains were covered with 
 groups busily engaged in forcing their arid surface into 
 fertility, by the same operations already noticed in the 
 island of Ithaca. The extent to which this process of 
 bringing rugged land into tillage may be carried, and is 
 now carrying, in many parts of Greece, together with 
 the parallel of other more fortunate regions of Europe, 
 Italy, for example, or the banks of the Rhine, enables us 
 to form some idea of what may have been the appearance, 
 in the flourishing days of antiquity, of some of those 
 
202 
 
 PHOCIS. 
 
 districts which now present the most sterile and dreary 
 aspect. There can be httle doubt that many of these 
 now desert mountain slopes exhibited, in place of a wil- 
 derness of rocks and brushwood, masses of green vineyard 
 and waving ohves ; and, in fact, the great admixture of 
 degenerate ohve shoots, scattered among the less noble 
 produce of the heaths, seems to bear Uving testimony to 
 their ancient fertility. 
 
 At the western base of the hill of Aracova, we pass, 
 on the left side of the road, just before it crosses a small 
 stream, the substructions of a monument, apparently of 
 a sepulchral character, composed of massive Hellenic 
 masonry ; perhaps the interior lining of a tumulus. At 
 some httle distance, in the same direction, upon an 
 inconsiderable eminence, are the ruined walls of a small 
 Hellenic fortress.^ 
 
 The scene of the death of Laius is placed at the point 
 where the road to Distomo, the ancient Ambrysus, and 
 from thence to the gulf of Corinth, turns off to the right 
 from that leading to Dauhs and Thebes. It is now 
 called the Stene or strait of Zemino. This latter name 
 also attaches to a khan a mile or two on the Delphi side 
 of the Stene, where we halted to refresh at mid-day. 
 Hence it would seem to be common to the whole narrow 
 valley below Aracova. The celebrated trivium or cross- 
 road is at the foot of a long straight descent, over which 
 are scattered the ruins of a wall of rude masonry drawn 
 from hill to hill. Behind this rampart the Greeks suc- 
 cessfully resisted an attempt of the Turks to penetrate 
 up the valley, in the course of the late w^ar. I was unable 
 
 * Probably the same noticed by Dodwell on this road. His conjec- 
 ture, that it may be the iEolis or iEolida mentioned by Herodotus, 
 (viii. 35,) and by him alone, as destroyed by the Persians on their 
 march from Daulis to Delphi, is plausible ; although the Hellenic 
 masonry of the existing remains betrays the work of a later period. 
 
PHOCIS. 
 
 203 
 
 to identify, in the open space at the partition of the roads, 
 the tumuh mentioned by Gell. There are indeed a few 
 large heaps of stones, rudely piled up, here and there ; 
 but these, I have no doubt, are, like some others of 
 Gell's tumuli, mere monuments of the efforts of the 
 industrious peasantry to improve the fertility of the 
 neighbouring narrow stripes of cultivable land. 
 
 It may perhaps be open to question, whether, in the 
 genuine spirit of the primitive tradition, the encounter 
 between Lai'us and his son really took place (as described 
 by our poetical authorities) in a trivium or cross-road.* 
 According to the simplest, most consistent, and most 
 accredited version of the story, (Edipus, after consulting 
 the Delphic oracle relative to the mystery of his birth, 
 terrified by its decree, avoids returning to Corinth, the 
 supposed place of his nativity, and proceeds direct into 
 Bceotia. On the way he meets his unknown father Laius, 
 king of that country, travelling by the same road in the 
 direction of the sanctuary. The collision takes place in 
 so narrow a part of the road, as not to admit of the king's 
 chariot passing unless the foot passenger should retreat 
 to a more open space ; and the insolent manner in which 
 the herald of Lai'us attempts to enforce the royal right 
 of causeway was the cause of his own death, and of that 
 of his master. From this it is evident that there was no 
 need of placing the encounter at a cross-road, as both 
 parties were travelling along the same road. A cross- 
 road is in fact the part of a public way where such a 
 collision is least hkely to have happened, as being that 
 which generally offers the greatest quantity of free space; 
 and such is in fact the case at the Stene of Zemino. 
 Hence (Edipus, who is not represented as a wilfully 
 quarrelsome or overbearing person, would easily have 
 found on one side or other as much room as would have 
 ^ SopHOCL. (Edip, Tyr. 790, seqq. 
 
204 
 
 PHOCIS. 
 
 enabled him, without any sacrifice of his dignity as a 
 pedestrian, to step aside and allow the royal chariot to 
 pass. These considerations suggest the enquiry, whether 
 the oldest and most famihar Greek name for the scene 
 of this adventure, Uterally the Spht or Cleft Way,* 
 ought here to be interpreted, according to the sense 
 which it no doubt bears in the vernacular idiom, as sig- 
 nifying a partition of several roads ; or whether it may 
 not rather, in its primitive acceptation, have denoted a 
 cleft road, in the sense of a hollow pass, or gorge cut 
 either by nature or art in a bank or rock, and so narrow, 
 as the fable imphes, that a chariot, and even a single foot 
 passenger, could not conveniently pass abreast. This 
 view, in fact, was first suggested by the observation, as 
 we passed along the line of road between the khan of 
 Zemino and Daulis, of several remarkable cuts of this 
 very description, and offering precisely the species of 
 defile alluded to in the fable.t They are cleft in a tough 
 rocky clay or pudding-stone, and just broad enough to 
 have afforded space for a single carriage, leaving no pas- 
 sage for either man or beast without considerable incon- 
 venience. 
 
 What PausaniasJ says of the tombs of Lai us and his 
 esquire being visible in the open space of the trivium, 
 tends rather to confute than confirm the popular account 
 of the adventure. It is not easy to see how a road so nar- 
 row as not to admit of a man and a carriage conveniently 
 passing abreast could have afforded room for a tumulus, 
 which would assuredly have blocked up the passage 
 
 odhg 6yj(iTri' also called r^tohog—r^i^'Kn %sXi\)kg—r^tir\ar 
 a/xa^/m/, in the text of the tragedians. 
 
 f ApoUodorus (iii. 5, 7) describes the scene of the encounter, without 
 any allusion to the cross-road, simply as Ti\a (STSvriv ohov-J' ^ certain 
 narrow pass." 
 
 } Phoc, V. 2. 
 
PHOCIS. 
 
 205 
 
 altogether. The monument, therefore, of Laius could 
 hardly, even in the spirit of the vulgar tradition, have 
 been erected on the place where he fell. The spot 
 selected for his interment would naturally be some more 
 open space in the neighbourhood, such as would nowhere 
 be more likely to present itself than at the nearest cross- 
 road. The existence of the tumulus, and the greater 
 prevalence in later times of the different signification of 
 the ambiguous term Cleft Way, may have given rise to 
 the popular version of the fable. 
 
 On reaching the summit of another range of heights 
 we obtain a view of the acropolis of ancient Daulis, 
 bounding the vale below to the right. Opposite, to the 
 left, on a lower declivity, is scattered the modern village 
 of Daulia. Beyond, extends the Cephissian plain, in one 
 long level stripe of bright green meadow, bounded on 
 each side by a line of rocky hills rising abruptly from 
 the flat, and in the distance by the lake Copais.* To 
 save time the traveller had better quit his horse at this 
 point, and crossing the valley mount the acropolis on 
 foot, sending on his equipage by the road which passes 
 through the modern village, to meet him at the base of 
 the hill towards the plain. The walls of the city of 
 Tereus encircle the table summit of a round green hill, 
 steep on every side, and here and there precipitous. 
 They are more or less preserved in their whole circuit, con- 
 structed chiefly of Hellenic masonry, but on more ancient 
 foundations, and strengthened at short intervals by slight 
 quadrangular projections from the curtain wall. The 
 place seems at no period to have been of much impor- 
 tance, otherwise than from the strength of its site.f In 
 
 ^ See additional note at the end of the volume, 
 
 •f LivY (xxxii. 18) says, it resisted every attempt of the consul 
 Flaminius to take it by assault. It seems doubtful, from the last 
 clause of the passage, whether it was ultimately taken by stratagem 
 or no. 
 
206 
 
 PHOCIS. 
 
 the heroic age it was probably httle more than the castle 
 of the patriarchal chief, whose crimes have rendered it so 
 famous, and in later times was but a petty town of the 
 Phocian confederacy. There is no appearance of its 
 ever having had an outer town or suburb beyond the 
 circuit of the existing walls. The interior of the fortress 
 offers nothing but heaps of stone and rubbish, with some 
 foundations of ancient buildings, and a few vestiges of 
 structures of the middle ages. 
 
 I was not fortunate enough to observe, on the spot to 
 w^hich Greek fable traces their origin, either the swallow, 
 the nightingale, or the lapwing, into which the three 
 chief actors in the famous Daulian tragedy were respec- 
 tively metamorphosed. Although the Greek spring was 
 well advanced, the harbinger of spring had not yet made 
 its appearance. It was too early for the song of Philo- 
 mela even in this latitude ; nor was a single peewit to be 
 either seen or heard, although travellers describe large 
 flocks of them as frequenting the plain below. 
 
LIBRARY 
 OF THE 
 •DIVERSITY OF lUJNOiS 
 
PARNASSUS. 
 
 207 
 
 CHAPTER XVL 
 
 VIEW OF PARNASSUS— PANOPEA—CHiERONEA. 
 
 From Daulis to Chaeronea is about two and a half 
 hours' ride over the level green plain of the Cephissus. 
 Half-way between the two places vv^e first obtained a full 
 view of the glorious mountain, among whose ridges we 
 had been wandering during the last two days, without 
 ever seeing its summit or higher region; and a very 
 magnificent sight it is. This is probably the point from 
 whence Parnassus is viewed to the best advantage.* 
 There are few finer spectacles than that of a great insu- 
 lated mountain, gradually forming itself, as one recedes 
 from its base, into one solid mass, from the chaos of 
 subordinate ridges which it presents to the eye of the 
 traveller while traversing its interior. The prospect 
 recalled forcibly to my mind the most striking efiect of 
 this kind I had yet happened to witness— that produced 
 by Mount ^tna, as seen from different parts of the 
 Sicihan coast. From Taormina, at the distance of thirty 
 miles to the northward, it presents the appearance of an 
 immense broad pyramid. As the traveller advances, this 
 symmetry of form is disturbed; the top disappears, and 
 he is insensibly lost in a maze of precipices, cones, and 
 craters, producing all the effect of an extensive chain of 
 volcanic mountains. Again, on descending on the other 
 side the summit begins to re-assert its rank among the 
 subordinate masses, which to the eye had usurped its 
 
 * Plate iii. 
 
208 
 
 PARNASSUS. 
 
 place, but now, like the scattered columns of a routed 
 army rallying around the standard of their chief, resume 
 their proper position on the sides and base; and the 
 whole is gradually restored to its previous unity of sur- 
 face and outline ; so that from Syracuse, about the same 
 distance to the south as Taormina to the north, it again 
 presents the appearance of one great pyramid. Par- 
 nassus, although neither so symmetrical in form nor 
 so completely detached from the surrounding heights 
 as ^tna, possesses, partly from its marked outline, 
 partly from its greatly superior loftiness,* when com- 
 pared with its neighbours, more of an insulated charac- 
 ter than any other of the higher mountains of Greece. 
 Here then, as in the case of ^tna, after once disen- 
 gaging himself from its base, of which the Daalian 
 citadel is the extreme point, the traveller, as he looks 
 back from time to time, may see it gradually consolidat- 
 ing its noble outline into one distinct mass, from the 
 broken ridges among which he had lately been roaming ; 
 while the acropolis of Tereus, which had appeared to me, 
 as I toiled up its steep and rugged sides, itself a con- 
 siderable mountain, now presented the aspect of little 
 more than a large sepulchral tumulus at the foot of its 
 gigantic neighbour. About one-third of the whole space 
 from the summit to the foot was covered with snow, the 
 vivid whiteness of which was here and there interrupted 
 by lines of projecting precipice, or dark-green masses of 
 pine forest. 
 
 If required to pronounce which is the finest mountain 
 in Greece, I should have some difficulty in deciding 
 between Parnassus and Taygetus. The latter is more 
 grand and terrific. The first view of its dazzling snowy 
 peaks and black forests, crowning the huge masses of 
 rock which rise perpendicularly from the briUiant Spartan 
 
 * Seven thousand feet. 
 
PHOCIS. 
 
 209 
 
 plain in one row of colossal precipices, excited feelings 
 of awe and admiration such as I never experienced on 
 any similar occasion. The effect is, indeed, almost too 
 powerful, like that of the more stupendous class of Swiss 
 scenery, which oppresses by its very magnificence, and 
 affords subjects to the landscape painter greatly inferior 
 to the less striking but more graceful features of the 
 mountain region to the south of the Alps. Parnassus 
 possesses a more calm and majestic sublimity, the effect 
 of which is enhanced by its being concentrated around 
 one group of objects. The mild but desert character of 
 the open expanse of level green plain out of which it 
 abruptly rises, together with the stillness of a beautiful 
 evening, now shed also over the grandeur of the scene 
 that air of tranquil melancholy, which I have always 
 found in my own experience a finer ingredient of the 
 pleasure derived from the contemplation of the nobler 
 works of nature, than one of gay and festive brilliancy. 
 
 About half-way between Daulis and Cheer onea, we 
 leave the ruins of Panopea, now Agio Vlasio, to the 
 right. Some traces of its acropolis are still visible on 
 one of the higher summits of the ridge that bound the 
 plain on that side, overshadowed by a small tuft of ever- 
 green timber, apparently ilex ; a rare phenomenon in this 
 desert region. I did not visit these remains, as they are 
 said by various accurate travellers to possess no features 
 of interest. The village of Agio Vlasio consists of a 
 few straggling cottages at the base of the hill. 
 
 Homer designates Panopea by an epithet {xaXki-xp^ogy 
 " festive ?") both beautiful and expressive, although in- 
 capable of being rendered by any synonyme in our 
 own language. It denotes, like another cognate term, 
 (su^j;)^ogo$,) also of frequent occurrence with the poet, a 
 fair extent of open — and doubtless rich and flourishing 
 plain, such as that which Panopea commands may be 
 
 VOL. I. s 
 
210 
 
 PHOCIS. 
 
 presumed to have been in the poet's age, spread out at 
 the foot of the metropohs to which it belonged ; literally 
 a fair space for chorus and dancing ; either as a figure 
 of its flatness and smoothness, or with more immediate 
 allusion to the songs and dances of the villagers at the 
 vintage and other seasons of rustic festivity. 
 
 The description given by Pausanias * of the appear- 
 ance of this place in his day, will apply well to it at the 
 present. " Panopea," says he, " is a city of Phocis ; if 
 indeed that can be called a city which has neither se- 
 nate-house, nor gymnasium, nor theatre, nor agora, nor 
 fountain; and whose inhabitants dwell in a ravine, in 
 sheds similar to the wigwams of the mountain herds- 
 men." \ 
 
 We are habituated, from our schoolboy days, to con- 
 sider as one of the most interesting features of the history 
 of Greece, the contrast between the narrow limits of the 
 country and her boundless influence on the destinies of 
 mankind ; the surpassing glory that encircles, not only 
 the tiny land herself in her integrity, but many of her 
 petty subdivisions ; the number and celebrity of the great 
 men she produced, and the magnitude of the events 
 enacted on so confined a theatre. It is, however, only 
 through the medium of a visit to the country that the 
 full force of this reflection can be brought home to the 
 mind ; when one actually sees clustered within the ordi- 
 nary distance of English market towns from each other, 
 the ruins of cities, far better known to fame than many 
 a mighty empire with its countless myriads of square 
 miles or of population. A ride of less than twelve hours, 
 at a foot pace, enabled us to visit at least four places of 
 distinction in Homer's age, with an ease and rapidity 
 which cannot be better represented than by the flowing 
 lines in which he has recorded their names ; — 
 ^ Phoc. c. iv. 
 
PHOCIS. 
 
 211 
 
 The rocky Delphi, Crissa the divine, 
 Daulis and Panopea. 
 
 The three succeeding days would have sufficed a tra- 
 veller more favoured by the elements than myself, to tra- 
 verse with the same equipage, at the same pace — ^besides 
 numerous other small states of less distinction — ^the terri- 
 tories of Thebes, Platsea, Eleusis, and Athens. Argos, 
 Mycenae, and Tiryns — the cities of Danaus, Hercules, 
 Perseus, Agamemnon — with their colossal walls, bearing 
 living testimony to the gigantic energies by which those 
 heroes so well deserved the renown that still attends 
 their names — are all within the compass of a pleasant 
 day's walk to a tolerable pedestrian. The whole popu- 
 lation of the state of Athens, in its best ages, is computed 
 to have been about one-third of that of London; while 
 the whole of that of Greece proper at the present day, 
 which during eight years resisted the concentrated ener- 
 gies of the Mahommedan empire, is considerably less 
 than that of Constantinople, 
 
 At the mouth of the little valley that runs down 
 below the citadel of Panopea, Pausanias* mentions the 
 sepulchre of the giant Tityus, slain by Apollo, as 
 Homer informs us, for an insult offered to Latona when 
 on her way to Delphi through "the festive Panopea." f 
 On the right side of the road, at the foot of the hills, 
 are several large natural hillocks of a circular form, one 
 of which may possibly be the accredited tumulus of the 
 giant, whose body the poet tells us, when extended in 
 hell, covered nine plethra, or a third of a stadium of 
 ground. Pausanias describes the monument as upwards 
 of 200 yards in circumference. The torrent bed to the 
 
 * Phoc, X. 4. 4. 
 
 f Odyss, xi. 576. seq. 
 
212 
 
 B(EOTlA. 
 
 westward of the citadel was probably the frontier line 
 between Phocis and Bceotia. 
 
 The sun was about setting when we reached our des- 
 tination for the night, the khan of Kapourna, near the 
 village of the same name, the representative of the 
 ancient Chseronea. The city of Plutarch seems to have 
 been built chiefly on the level space at the mouth of a 
 small valley, forming the bed of one of the rivulets which 
 here open their way through the line of hills to the 
 Cephissus. The high projecting rock that bounds this 
 dell to the west, is crowned by the ruins of the citadel; 
 below, traces of the theatre are perceptible, excavated in 
 the face of the chff* that fronts the plain. 
 
 On the site of the lower town, the only existing re- 
 mains of ancient masonry are a few pieces of Roman 
 brick-work on the open plain towards the river. Yet 
 the quantity and quality of the loose rubbish of antiquity, 
 spread over a vast extent of ground in front of the valley, 
 rather exceeds than falls short of what one might expect 
 on the site of a city of this secondary character. The 
 soil is here raised many feet above the natural level of 
 the adjoining plain, by an accumulatian of fragments of 
 every age and style of masonry, and of every variety of 
 material; shafts of columns, massive blocks of stone and 
 marble, plain or sculptured; bricks, Greek, Roman, 
 Byzantine, and Turkish. This wilderness of rubbish 
 offers, at a little distance, very much the appearance of 
 that accumulation of large loose stones, gravel, and earth, 
 which marks the spot where one of the fierce mountain 
 torrents of the Alps or Apennines issues from their 
 recesses, into the plains of Lombardy or Piedmont ; and 
 in fact, I at first view supposed it to be the effect of a 
 similar cause, until undeceived, on a nearer approach, by 
 the insignificance of the streamlet by which it is watered, 
 and the nature of the materials of which it is composed. 
 
BGEOTIA. 
 
 213 
 
 Nearly in the centre of the mass is the village fountain, 
 consisting of two or three troughs formed of ancient 
 sarcophagi, into which the water of the brook is con- 
 ducted by a rude aqueduct, also constructed of ancient 
 materials. The village seems formerly to have extended 
 over a considerable portion of this stony region, but is 
 now confined to a few rows of straggling cottages at the 
 mouth of the valley. The only relics of modern struc- 
 tures on the open space, are the khan, and the little 
 church described by Dodwell, both in the immediate 
 neighbourhood of the fountain. The church is now 
 roofless and dismantled, with the side walls and one 
 gable nearly entire. Its materials are chiefly ancient 
 fragments, some of them bearing a few inscriptions of 
 little interest on their surface. As we rode across the 
 wilderness of rubbish, its whole surface was alive with 
 herds of ragged cattle — oxen, goats, and hogs — returning 
 from their daily pasture on the plain ; while in its centre 
 was a group of village girls, finishing off their occupa- 
 tions at the fountain. 
 
 On my return from the theatre — the furthest point of 
 my wanderings among the ruins — I sat down, before retir- 
 ing to the khan for the night, on a large marble block in 
 the centre of one of the most prominent heaps of rubbish, 
 hard by the little chapel, to take a general survey of the 
 scene of desolation, and watch the last beams of expiring 
 daylight gradually become fainter and fainter behind the 
 snows of Parnassus. It was a calm beautiful evening. 
 The sun had now set nearly half an hour; but the 
 western half of the sky still retained that brilliant mix- 
 ture of orange, purple, and gold, peculiar to the twilight 
 of southern latitudes, while, from the opposite horizon, 
 the shades of night had already begun to overspread the 
 landscape. The last few stragglers of the flocks that 
 had enlivened the surface of the ruins, were now slowly 
 
214 
 
 BCEOTIA. 
 
 disappearing in the gloom of the valley, towards the 
 hamlet, where a common abode for the night awaited 
 themselves and their masters. The interruption which 
 the tinkling of the bells, the occasional low of an ox, the 
 bleat of a goat, or the wild cry of the herdsmen, becom- 
 ing fainter and fainter in the distance, gave to the still- 
 ness of the scene, tended rather to increase than detract 
 from its effect, by the contrast that forced itself on the 
 mind between such symptoms of animated life, and those 
 which the same locality must have presented, about the 
 same hour on a fine fresh spring evening, at the period 
 when these loose stones were embodied as the habita- 
 tions of warriors, philosophers, and enlightened citizens. 
 
 Looking up the plain towards Parnassus, the first 
 object, a little to the left, was the fountain, around which 
 were still Ungering a few squalid but not inelegant female 
 figures. Beyond rose the Acropolis, with its broken 
 walls and towers looming in irregular masses on the 
 brow of the cliff, below which the position of the theatre 
 was marked by a bright mass of a yellow red or brown 
 colour on the face of the rock. Behind, was visible in 
 the distance, a corner of the tufted citadel of Panopea ; 
 and further on, in the same direction, a round lump at 
 the foot of Parnassus could still be recognized as the 
 acropolis of Daulis. At the extremity of the plain, more 
 broadly projected by the yet vivid rays of the departed 
 sun, the colossal summits of the sacred mountain itself 
 bounded the landscape. Carrying the eye round to the 
 right, along the opposite side of the valley, was seen the 
 entrance to the narrow gorge through which the Cephis- 
 sus "pours its fair-flowing waters from Lilsea.*" From 
 this point extends, as the northern boundary of the plain, 
 the long mountain ridge, called from its peculiar form 
 Acontium, or the javelin, and crowned at its eastern point 
 
 * Homer. Hymn. Apoll. 241. 
 
BCEOTIA. 
 
 215 
 
 by the citadel of Orchomenus. Below it, at the other 
 extremity of the panorama, were now scarcely distin- 
 guishable the yellow reeds of the Cephissian lake, back- 
 ed by the ridge of hills celebrated in fable as the haunt 
 of the Sphynx. The plain itself, in this direction, offer- 
 ed the field of several of the greatest battles ever fought 
 on the soil of Hellas, in one of which the death-blow 
 was given to her republican liberties.* There are few 
 spots, even in Greece, which present an amphitheatre of 
 objects combining so many claims on the sympathy of 
 the traveller. Nor can it be considered among the least, 
 that the ruins from whence I surveyed it were those of 
 the birthplace of perhaps the most universally popular 
 of the historians who have recorded her glory or her mis- 
 fortunes, and of the residence where the greatest part of 
 his works were composed. 
 
 As I sat wrapped in the train of thought suggested 
 by the occasion, my musings were interrupted by one of 
 those small hooting owls, already familiar to me in Italy 
 among ruins or old buildings, and which, by their tame- 
 ness and unconcern in the presence of man, seem, instead 
 of " complaining of such as wander near their secret 
 bower," to feel a sort of fellowship with the solitary 
 being who delights in contemplating, at the same hour 
 with themselves, the gloomy scenes selected as their 
 favourite haunts. By this time every sound of man or 
 beast had died away, and a perfect stillness prevailed. 
 The bird passed so near my head as almost to flap the 
 crown of my hat with its wing, as if to attract my atten- 
 tion, and perched on the gable end of the little ruined 
 chapel, within a distance of about fifteen yards. It sat 
 
 The first was that in which the Athenians were defeated by the 
 Boeotians, B. C. 447. The second, where the Boeotians and Athenians 
 were defeated by Philip of Macedon. The third was the victory of 
 Sylla over Mithridates. 
 
216 
 
 BCEOTIA. 
 
 looking in my face for a few seconds, and then turning 
 from side to side as if to take a survey of the surround- 
 ing desolation, commenced its dismal song. The note 
 of this little owl, apart from all incidental accompani- 
 ments of place or hour, has in itself a certain tone of 
 mockery combined with that of a more plaintive charac- 
 ter, as if one could figure to one's-self a medium between 
 the cry of the screechowl and the laughing woodpecker ; 
 but at this especial moment there was something ab- 
 solutely electrifying in the hoo-ha, hoo-ha of the little 
 creature, resounding shrilly amid the dead silence across 
 the ruins, its grotesque figure relieved by the still warm 
 tint of the western horizon, as it bobbed its head and 
 body from side to side at each repetition of the melan- 
 choly strophe. As the sarcastic or the plaintive tone 
 prevailed, one fancied to one's-self, at one moment, the 
 bird of desolation inviting to rejoice with it over the 
 desolate scene by which we were encompassed ; at an- 
 other, the bird of Pallas, demanding sympathy with its 
 lament for the fate of a once-favourite seat of the art 
 and science over which she presided. 
 
 After a short pause it again took wing, made one or 
 two circles in the immediate neighbourhood of its pre- 
 vious seat, and then disappeared in the direction of the 
 theatre. A few moments afterwards I again heard it, 
 perched, no doubt, on a projecting point of the cliff*, com- 
 mence the second canto of its interrupted dirge. 
 
 Although I have wandered among the ruins of all or 
 most of the illustrious seats of departed European great- 
 ness, at the hour, and under the circumstances, most 
 favourable to the impressions such scenes are fitted to pro- 
 duce, I scarcely recollect ever having felt their influence 
 so powerfully as on the present evening, amid the rub- 
 bish of this comparatively unimportant spot. 
 
 The change of scene that presented itself in the retire- 
 
BOSOTIA* 
 
 217 
 
 ment of the khan, was enough to throw a damp over the 
 warmest glow of classical enthusiasm. The accommo- 
 dation here differed little from that of other places of 
 the same class previously described ; with the exception 
 that the body of the low dark shed was filled with cattle 
 instead of men, a large detachment of the herds I had 
 seen crossing the ruins being congregated within its 
 walls. This was a fortunate circumstance, for as there 
 was no other human guest but our own party, I esta- 
 blished exclusive possession of the small wooden plat- 
 form or loft, here raised but two or three feet above the 
 ground, and of the mud hearth in its centre, and enjoy- 
 ed one of the few nights of tolerable rest with which it 
 was my lot to be favoured in similar quarters. My 
 slumbers were, however, a little disturbed by the mid- 
 night gambols of the more lively portion of my fellow- 
 lodgers, some of whom amused themselves at intervals 
 in chasing each other in a most riotous manner up and 
 down the building. My own person seemed also to 
 afford entertainment to the graver members of the herd ; 
 and several times, when startled by some more vehe- 
 ment burst of merriment on the part of their frolicsome 
 juniors, I observed, on looking up, a row of metopes 
 fixed on the verge of the wooden floor, and as many pair 
 of large round eyes glaring on me by the light of the 
 expiring embers. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 T 
 
218 
 
 B(EOTIA. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 FIELD OF CH^RONEA-MONUMENT OF BCEOTIAN SLAIN-ORCHOME- 
 NUS— LAKE COPAIS. 
 
 rXYi^i Xswv, arXTjra -roc^wv, TirMori h^Moj, — Incerti Epigr. 
 Lion ! with lion's heart, thy wrongs endure." 
 
 The next morning, March 6th, I walked up to the 
 acropohs, the remains of which present the same mix- 
 ture of archaic and of more recent Hellenic masonry, as 
 those of Daulis, Orchomenus, and other ancient citadels, 
 which, founded at a remote period, have been subjected 
 to repairs or alterations in later ages. In the village 
 below, the little church of the Panaghia is still entire, 
 with its white marble throne described by Dodwell, 
 called by the learned of Kapourna the throne of Plu- 
 tarch. The dedicatory inscriptions, illustrative of the 
 Egypto-Roman worship of Osiris, which have been 
 repeatedly published, are also still in their places, in the 
 front wall of the building, and on those of the httle court 
 contiguous. 
 
 About a mile or little more from the khan, on the 
 right side of the road towards Orchomenus, is the sepul- 
 chre of the Boeotians who fell in the battle of Chaeronea. 
 At the period when this district was traversed by Leake, 
 Dodwell, Gell, or any other previous traveller to whose 
 works I have had access, nothing was here visible but a 
 tumulus. The Hon by which Pausanias* describes it as 
 
 Bceot, xl. 
 
BGEOTIA. 
 
 219 
 
 having been surmounted, had completely disappeared. 
 The mound of earth has since been excavated, and a 
 colossal marble lion discovered, deeply embedded in its 
 interior. This noble piece of sculpture, though now 
 strewed in detached masses about the sides and interior 
 of the excavation, may still be said to exist nearly in its 
 original integrity. It is evident, from the appearance of 
 the fragments, that it was composed from the first of 
 more than one block, although not certainly of so many 
 as its remains now exhibit. None of the fragments, 
 however, seem to have been removed. The different 
 pieces are so scooped out as to leave the interior of the 
 figure hollow, with the twofold object, no doubt, of 
 sparing material and saving expense of transport. I 
 could obtain no authentic information as to the period 
 and circumstances of this discovery. The story told on 
 the spot was, that the celebrated patriot chief Odysseus, 
 when in occupation of this district, had observed a piece 
 of marble projecting from the summit of the mound, 
 which, he further remarked, when struck produced a 
 hollow sound. Supposing, therefore, according to the 
 popular notion, that treasure might be concealed in the 
 interior of the tumulus, he opened it up, and under the 
 same impression broke the lion, which at that time was 
 entire, into pieces ; or, as the tradition goes, blew it up 
 with gunpowder. Another account is, that the lion was 
 first discovered by that patriarch among the present race 
 of Hellenic archaeologers, the Austrian consul Gropius ; 
 Odysseus being only entitled to the credit of having severed 
 it in pieces. That the government, during the ten years 
 of comparative tranquillity the country has now enjoyed, 
 should have done nothing for its preservation,* is ano- 
 
 ^ It is stated in a letter from Athens, of date June 18, inserted in 
 the Literary Gazette of July 11, 1840, to be the intention of the 
 government to remove this lion to the capital, and erect it on a 
 
220 
 
 BCEOTIA. 
 
 ther proof how little the regeneration of Greece has done 
 for that of her monuments. It would appear that the 
 marble, with the lapse of ages, had gradually imbedded 
 itself in the soft material that formed its base, so as 
 finally to have sunk, not only beneath the surface of the 
 tumulus, but, to judge from the appearance of the exca- 
 vation, even of the plain itself — a remarkable instance of 
 the effect of time in concealing and preserving, as well 
 as in destroying, monuments of ancient art. 
 
 This lion may, upon the whole, be pronounced the 
 most interesting sepulchral monument in Greece — per- 
 haps in Europe. It is the only one dating from the 
 better days of Hellas — with the exception perhaps of the 
 tumulus of Marathon — the identity of which is beyond 
 dispute. It is also an ascertained specimen of the sculp- 
 ture of the most perfect period of Greek art. That it 
 records the last decisive blow beneath which Hellenic 
 independence sunk, never permanently, to rise again, 
 were in itself a sufficiently strong claim on our warmest 
 sympathies. But the mode in which it records that fatal 
 event renders the claim doubly powerful. For this 
 monument possesses the affecting peculiarity of being 
 erected, not, as usual with those situated like itself on a 
 field of battle, to commemorate the victory, but the mis- 
 fortune of the warriors whose bodies repose in the soil 
 beneath — the valour, not the success of their struggle 
 for liberty. These claims are urged by Pausanias with 
 his usual dry quaint brevity, but with much simple force 
 and pathos. " On approaching the city," says he, " is 
 the tomb of the Boeotians who fell in the battle with 
 Phihp. It has no inscription, but the figure of a lion is 
 
 suitable pedestal on some commanding situation. This plan will be 
 favourable, perhaps, to its preservation; but the monument never 
 can possess the same degree of classic interest on any other spot, as 
 that which now attaches to it on the one where it was originally 
 erected. 
 
BCEOTIA. 
 
 221 
 
 placed upon it as an emblem of the spirit of those men. 
 The inscription has been omitted, as I suppose, because 
 the gods had willed that their fortune should not be 
 equal to their prowess."* The word here rendered 
 spirit has no equivalent in our language ; but it describes 
 very happily the expression which the artist, with an 
 accurate perception of the affecting specialty of the case, 
 has given to the countenance of the animal, and of which^ 
 for the reasons Pausanias assigns, the monument was to 
 be the emblem rather than the record; that mixture, 
 namely, of fierceness and of humiliation, of rage, sorrow, 
 and shame, which would agitate the breasts of proud 
 Hellenic freemen, on being constrained, after a deter- 
 mined struggle on a field bathed with the blood of their 
 best citizens, to yield up their independence to the 
 overwhelming power of a foreign and semi-barbarous 
 enemy. 
 
 From this point we cross the valley, which here widens 
 considerably, and assumes a more cultivated character, 
 in a diagonal direction, towards the extremity of Mount 
 Acontium, the site of the ancient Orchomenus. In pass- 
 ing through a village about the centre of the plain, I 
 observed an old woman squatting in the sun, on a little 
 raised mud-bank in front of one of the cottages, midway 
 between the two rows of which the hamlet was composed. 
 She sat shrouded in her cloak, with her knees doubled 
 up as a rest for her elbows; and, holding her head between 
 her hands, uttered without intermission a sound betwixt 
 a scream, a howl, and a song. No person seemed to pay 
 any attention to her. Few of the villagers were within 
 
 a^gtfr/i', s/JbOi doTisTv^ on ovtc soixora rf} roXfifi cp/V/ ra sx rov bai(iovog 
 r})coXo'j9Yi(fi, — Loc. cit. 
 
222 
 
 BCEOTIA. 
 
 sight, and those I observed, busied about their own work, 
 did not appear to notice her. She seemed no less deeply 
 engrossed with her own occupation, and did not even look 
 up at our cavalcade as we passed, although she could not 
 have failed to observe us, engaged as we were at the 
 moment in mortal strife with the dogs. I was told it 
 was a lamentation for her daughter, who lay dead in the 
 neighbouring hut. There was something very touching 
 as well as characteristic in the whole scene. 
 
 As the plain widens towards the lake, the cultivation 
 increases ; the upper portion of it, near Chseronea, being 
 almost exclusively pasture. We here travelled over some 
 extensive tracts of land which appeared to' have lain waste 
 for several years, but, from the stumps still visible at 
 regular intervals, had evidently been vineyards. Here 
 and there groups of peasantry were engaged in restoring 
 them to fertility. I was informed they were portions of 
 the property of the ejected Turks, which, amid the scanti- 
 ness of the population since the war, had been allowed 
 to lie in this neglected state, but were now, as gradually 
 disposed of to new possessors, in course of being restored 
 to cultivation. 
 
 The Cephissus here flows not in the middle of the 
 valley, but close beneath the rocky height on which 
 stands the citadel of Orchomenus ; it then bends a little 
 outwards across the plain, and takes another turn round 
 the base of the hill into the village, where, realizing to ' 
 this day the description of Hesiod, it 
 
 " Winds like a serpent through Orchomenus/"^ 
 
 and discharges itself into the lake. 
 
 It is here, in regard to body of water, one of the most 
 
 * ^/ 'O^^ofMVOv ilXiyfj/svog shi d^d^Cfjv wg. — Frag. ap. Strab. 
 ix. 4. 
 
BCEOTIA. 
 
 223 
 
 respectable streams in Greece, and as deserving the name 
 of river as most of those of central England— the sluggish 
 Ouses and Avons, which it much resembles— being 
 neither hmpid nor rapid, but winding its way through 
 a ditchlike bed, invisible to the eye until one is close 
 on its banks. 
 
 About noon we reached the village of Skripu, situated 
 on the flat ground at the foot of the ancient town, 
 after crossing the river, which widens considerably on 
 approaching the lake, by a Turkish bridge of three 
 arches, the first structure of its class I had yet met 
 with in Greece. Having but httle time to spare, ^ I 
 requested Nicola, who I presumed would, at least in 
 the case of so remarkable a rehc, be competent to act as 
 my Cicerone, to conduct me at once to the celebrated 
 "Treasury;" but he disclaimed all knowledge of any 
 such monument; although he assured me— as was indeed 
 very evident from his familiarity with the other, to him 
 more interesting objects it contained — that he had been 
 many times at Skripu. I ordered him, therefore, to find 
 a substitute in the village; and in case the classical, 
 though false title, which this ruin bears among archseo- 
 logers, should not be equally famihar to the ears of the 
 modern Orchomenians, I gave him such a description of 
 it as I thought would be sufficient to ensure its discovery ; 
 but it was all in vain. No person seemed to have heard 
 of any other ruin but the palseokastro, or ruined tower, 
 on the summit of the hill. I therefore determined to 
 explore the ground for myself, starting in one direction 
 over the lower declivities among which I knew it to be 
 situated, and sending Nicola to hunt for it in another. 
 Whether from some imperfection in the pubUshed 
 accounts, or from my own dulness in apprehending 
 them, I found that my previous views of the topography 
 of the place corresponded but very remotely with the 
 
224 
 
 BCEOTIA. 
 
 reality: and after wandering about for nearly an hour, 
 I felt disposed to give up the matter in despair, while 
 Nicola, on his part, seemed very well satisfied that the 
 object of our researches existed but in the visions of 
 my imagination. As a last resource, however, while 
 sitting down to rest on the side of the hill, I sent him 
 once more to make enquiries among the villagers, and in 
 about ten minutes he returned with a boy, who professed 
 to be better acquainted than his elders with the curi- 
 osities of his native place, and who offered to conduct 
 me " Sten Plaka,"f that is, " to the Flag-stone." This 
 was sufficient ; for the large flat-topped marble architrave 
 of the door of the monument is certainly, at present, its 
 most remarkable feature, and in a few minutes we were 
 on the spot. It is situated at the eastern extremity of 
 the hill, towards the lake, in front of the old Byzantine 
 Church, and so concealed by cottages, or by the rubbish 
 of the tumulus with which it was formerly covered, as 
 not to be visible until the spectator is close upon it. 
 The future traveller, therefore, whose time may be as 
 limited as my own, would do well to ask for Ten Plaka, 
 and he will no doubt at once be conducted to the site. 
 
 The " Treasury of Minyas" as it has been vulgarly 
 called since the days of Pausanias, was a circular vault 
 of massive masonry embedded in the hill, with an arched 
 roof, surmounted probably by a tumulus. It had a side 
 door of entrance, the access to which was cut horizontally 
 in the flank of the slope. The whole of the stone-work 
 of the vault has now disappeared, but its formf is vouched 
 for by the circular cavity of the ground, the description 
 of Pausanias, and the curve horizontal and vertical of 
 the inner side of the existing architrave, which was also 
 
 t For the measurements, see Leake, N. Greece, ii. p. 149. The 
 diameter of the vault seems to have been from 50 to 60 feet. 
 
BCEOTIA. 
 
 225 
 
 a portion of the arch. The doorway, however, is entire, 
 though completely embedded in earth up to the base of 
 the architrave.^ 
 
 The city of Minyas occupied, it may be presumed, 
 the greater portion of the slope of the hill above the 
 " Treasury." At about half the distance towards the 
 summit, traces of the walls become visible, partly of 
 Hellenic, partly of more ancient masonry. The summit 
 itself, on which stood the acropolis, is now crowned by a 
 ruined tower of regular Hellenic style, and dating from 
 a comparatively recent period. The shape of the town, 
 like that of many other fortresses of the same age, was 
 triangular ; the walls branching from the citadel, and the 
 space between them widening as they advanced upon the 
 more level ground. The hill is flanked on the one side 
 by the plain and the bed of the river, on the other by the 
 lake, which in front is sufficiently remote from its base 
 to leave a flat space for the large straggling village of 
 Skripu, through which winds the Cephissus. The decli- 
 vities of the hill command extensive prospects over the 
 rich and fertile districts on the shores of the river and 
 lake. The situation is, therefore, one of the strongest 
 and best chosen in Greece ; and, together with the extant 
 remains of the primitive fortifications, and of the colossal 
 monument at their base, seems to vouch for the truth of 
 the mythical legends relative to the wealth and power of 
 the Minyean empire, of which it was the seat in the 
 ante-historical ages of Greece. 
 
 ^ The origin and destination of this, and of other monuments of 
 the same class still extant at Mycene and elsewhere, is a question of 
 some obscurity, which has given rise to a good deal of controversy 
 among professed archseologers. In an article on the subject, recently 
 inserted, in the German language, in the Rhemische Museum for 1839, 
 (vol. vi., p. 240, seq.) I have endeavoured to establish that they were the 
 family vaults of the ancient heroes by whom they were constructed. 
 
226 
 
 BOEOTIA. 
 
 The day was brilliantly clear, and I enjoyed a fine 
 panoramic view of the whole low country and the sur- 
 rounding amphitheatre of mountains. Of these the most 
 remarkable are Helicon — Cithaeron in the extreme dis- 
 tance — ThePtolis — Sphikium — and Cirphis. Parnassus 
 is hidden by the back of the hill. 
 
 I met with no object in all Greece which so greatly 
 disappointed my expectations as the celebrated Cephis- 
 sian lake. On the coloured Atlas of the Geographia 
 Antiqua^ which had formerly been the assistant of my 
 classical studies, I had been used to see it extended in 
 one fair, broad, blue expanse, like that of Geneva or 
 Constance in Keller's map of Switzerland. This flatter- 
 ing picture, combined with the equally flattering term 
 lake, by which it is familiarly known, with its celebrity 
 under this name among both poets and topographers, 
 and with a general impression of the superiority of Greek 
 scenery in all its departments to that of any other part 
 of Europe, naturally led to the conclusion, that a large 
 sheet of water in the heart of that country, encircled at 
 greater or less distance by the mountains of Helicon, 
 Cithseron, Parnassus, would be an object equal, if not 
 superior in beauty, to the most beautiful to which the 
 same name attaches in any other part of the world. It 
 is true, one might have been, in part at least, prepared 
 by the tenor of some of the published descriptions for a 
 disappointment. But early and agreeable impressions, 
 delusive as they may be, are not so readily efikced by 
 unpleasing truths. The reality, however, in this case, 
 went far beyond the amount of any deduction I had been 
 willing to make for classical predilections; and I was 
 certainly both surprised and shocked to find the far-famed 
 Cephissian lake, to speak without ceremony, but one 
 large green or yellow swamp — for either epithet will 
 apply, according to the season of the year in which it 
 
BCEOTIA. 
 
 227 
 
 may be visited — overgrown with sedge, reeds, and canes, 
 through which the river could be distinguished oozing its 
 sluggish path for several miles. At this time the waters 
 were at their full ; but although I had almost a bird's- 
 eye view of the whole surface, I found it difficult to 
 distinguish a clear expanse of liquid element, such as 
 could fairly deserve the name of a pond. Even where 
 the course of the stream could no longer be traced in one 
 uninterrupted line, the partial openings among the reeds 
 in the distance appeared but a continuation of its wind- 
 ings. Nor is the transition from dry land to water in 
 any place distinctly perceptible ; the only visible line of 
 boundary between them, unless where the mountains 
 stretch down to the shore, is the encroachment of the 
 reeds on the arable soil, or the absence of the little villages 
 with which the terra firma is here studded in greater 
 numbers than usual. The lake is said to be nearly dry 
 at midsummer. Even in winter it seldom attains a great 
 depth, being relieved of its superabundant waters by the 
 celebrated Katabothra, or subterranean channels, through 
 which it discharges itself into the sea.^ 
 
 Among the villages of Greece visited by me, Skripu 
 
 ^ My own arrangements, and the limited time at my disposal, did 
 not permit of my exploring the region of the Katabothra, which I the 
 more regret, owing to the new interest that attaches to these curious 
 Emissaries," in consequence of the late more accurate researches on 
 the subject. The prevailing opinion had been that they were merely 
 natural cavities, such as are to be found in many parts of Greece, as 
 well as of the rest of Europe. It is now, however, maintained, and 
 on very plausible grounds, that they are in part at least monuments of 
 the power and science of the heroic age, that mysterious and interest- 
 ing era of Grecian history. The future traveller in this direction will 
 find all the more recent and valuable information relative to their 
 origin and present state, in Colonel Leake's Northern Greece, vol. ii., 
 p. 185, seq. 280, seq. 809, seq. ; and in the work of the learned German 
 traveller, Forchhammer, entitled Hellenika. Berlin. Svo. 1837. 
 Part i., p. 159, seq. 
 
228 
 
 BCEOTIA. 
 
 is the one that appeared to have suffered least from the 
 ravages of the war. Scarcely any modern ruins are here 
 observable. The generation of cottages and hovels which 
 now exists, seems the very same as that represented in 
 the old drawings of the place. The meadows over which 
 they are scattered are adorned with groups and rows of 
 thriving timber-trees of considerable size, most of which, 
 being of an early species of willow or poplar, were already 
 partially clothed in green, and with the river meandering 
 through them, gave the whole site of the community, as 
 viewed from the hill, a lively and flourishing appearance. 
 The relief was the greater to the eye, as since we left the 
 banks of the Acheloiis, a well-grown tree of the deciduous 
 kind was an object to which it had been a stranger. The 
 great mountain forests of Greece have, as may be sup- 
 posed, for the most part survived the desolation of the 
 war ; but in almost every district over which it extended, 
 domestic timber has shared the same fate as domestic 
 buildings. The metropolitan church is also still in per- 
 fect preservation, both within and without. Its numerous 
 and valuable inscriptions are all, with the exception of 
 two carried off by Lord Elgin, and now in the British 
 Museum, apparently in the places they formerly occu- 
 pied, and as legible as when first copied. This building, 
 the largest and most respectable of its class that I saw 
 in Greece, is in the form of a Greek cross, and upon 
 the whole a good specimen of the Byzantine style of ec- 
 clesiastical architecture. The inscription on a stone of 
 the outer wall assigns the period of its construction to the 
 ninth century. I was unable to learn to what favourable 
 circumstances the representative of the ancient seat of 
 Minyas and the Graces — apart from the small degree of 
 favour and protection it may still lay claim to in that quar- 
 ter — owes its exemption from the common ruin, in which 
 almost every other town in this region has been involved. 
 
BCEOTIA. 
 
 229 
 
 CHAPTER XVIIL 
 
 LIVADIA-KHAIsr OF, AND ITS INMATES. ^ 
 
 ovx gV^' oTToog ov^ ri{jji^ojv rsrrdpoov to ^XsT(^rov, 
 
 vdcfj^ dvayxa/Cfjg s^ei rov hov 'jrotYi^ai, — Aristoph. Vesp, 260. 
 
 " A plenteous store of water in the air, 
 For four days' rain at least, the gods prepare." 
 
 From Skripu, recrossing the bridge, we traverse the 
 breadth of the Cephissian plain near where it borders on 
 the lake, and enter a small but fertile valley watered by 
 the brook Hercyna. At its extremity, on the lower 
 declivities of Mount Helicon, is situated Livadia, which 
 place we reach after a ride of about three hours, early 
 in the evening. The fate and present condition of this 
 town, which was, before the war — as perhaps it still may 
 be, with the exception of Athens — the largest and most 
 flourishing of Northern Greece, offers the very reverse 
 in all respects of the description above given of Skripu. 
 Nowhere else do I remember to have beheld a more 
 dreary mass of modern ruins. The aspect of the place 
 at the distance of a few miles is very curious. The late 
 city was built chiefly on an extensive slope, facing the tra- 
 veller as he approaches from the Cephissus. Over this 
 expanse, described by former tourists as presenting a gay 
 assemblage of mosques, minarets, houses, and gardens, 
 are now displayed the areas and foundations of the 
 ruined buildings, in a sort of bird's eye prospect, ofiering, 
 as seen from afar, exactly the appearance of a large 
 
230 
 
 BCEOTIA. 
 
 extent of small enclosures, such as garden plots, or 
 potato-grounds, for which I accordingly took them, and 
 had formed a high opinion of the horticultural industry 
 of the inhabitants, when on nearer approach the illu- 
 sion was dispelled by the too sad reality of rubbish and 
 desolation. 
 
 At the outskirts of the town, by theroad side as one 
 enters, is the best — the only tolerable specimen of a 
 Khan it was my lot to meet with in Greece ; a most for- 
 tunate circumstance for me, having been, as will appear, 
 under the necessity of halting four whole days at this 
 stage of my journey. As I found this establishment, 
 its construction, and the humours of its inmates, a source 
 of much entertainment, and a great means of enlivening 
 the period of my durance within its walls, I shall venture 
 here shortly to describe it. It is probably a very toler- 
 able specimen, in point of structure, of the better class 
 of old Turkish Khans, as represented in the descriptions 
 and drawings of travellers in Turkey proper, or in Greece 
 during the Turkish period. Its plan also corresponds 
 closely, by a curious enough coincidence, with that given 
 by Dodwell of the palazzo of a wealthy Greek, whose 
 hospitality he enjoyed in this same town of Livadia. 
 Hence, I presume, it may be taken as a fair sample 
 of the general arrangement of the better class of Tur- 
 co- Greek houses under the old dynasty. The building 
 forms a quadrangle, enclosing a spacious open court, 
 with a fountain-well in the centre. The gateway of 
 entrance is in the middle of the front facing the road. 
 This side, and each of the two contiguous, have an upper 
 floor, approached by a wooden staircase or ladder, with 
 a double flight of steps, constructed in the centre of the 
 principal side of the building, in a position within the 
 quadrangle corresponding to that of the gateway of entry 
 from without The ground floor of the same side of the 
 
BCEOTIA. 
 
 231 
 
 square comprised the shop and dweUing of the Khanjee, 
 together with the accommodation for the agoghiates, 
 and such other persons of the meaner class as may not 
 desire separate quarters. The opposite side, which alone 
 of the three had no upper story, was stable and cow- 
 house. The ground-floor of the two flanks seemed to 
 be chiefly used as magazines for farm produce, or goods 
 in general. The staircase led up to an open gallery or 
 portico of wood, running round the three principal sides 
 of the court, and giving entrance to the various apart- 
 ments of the upper floor. The two flanks, here as 
 below, were for the most part granaries or storehouses. 
 The front towards the street was subdivided into a row 
 of small square rooms, or rather wooden boxes, the 
 private apartments destined for the accommodation of 
 the better class of guests, each with its separate door 
 opening on the gallery, its windows — if a small square 
 aperture in the wall, unglazed, with a wooden shutter, 
 can deserve the name — and its alcove-formed fireplace, 
 with projecting hearth, similar to that described at Ka- 
 tochi. They had also their ceiling, or upper flooring of 
 wooden boards, hiding the roof, but not protecting the 
 space it covered from the rain, to which here, as else- 
 where, the roof itself was so constructed as to allow a 
 greater or less freedom of passage. 
 
 The correspondence of this edifice, in many essential 
 
232 
 
 BCEOTIA. 
 
 particulars, with the description of the private dwelUngS 
 of the ancients from the days of Homer downwards, has 
 been noticed by Dodwell, in his account of the last 
 generation of Livadian palaces, and is indeed obvious 
 enough. The portico, (a/^ouca,) with its staircase, or 
 rather ladder, (xXz/xccg,) for such, in fact, it may more 
 properly be called, having no railing, and requiring 
 consequently to be used with some caution, recalled 
 forcibly to my mind the description of the death of 
 Elpenor in the palace of Circe.* Heated with wine, 
 the unfortunate mariner preferred passing the night in a 
 cooler space, apart from his comrades, in the open gal- 
 lery no doubt; but neglecting, when roused in the 
 morning, to turn backwards in his descent of the stair, 
 as is still practised in the gangways of ships, he fell 
 headlong into the court below, and broke his neck. The 
 inner walls, or rather wooden wainscots of the granaries 
 of the flanks, were so constructed as not to reach the 
 beams which sloped from above, but were merely of 
 height sufiicient to prevent free access to the public from 
 the portico, leaving a sufficient space between their 
 upper extremity and the common roof of the building 
 for any one, who from motives of curiosity or of plunder 
 might be so disposed, to squeeze his person into the inte- 
 rior. At present, the only intruders were immense flocks, 
 of sparrows and other finches, which, however small, 
 were sufficiently numerous, I should imagine, to relieve 
 the proprietor, by little and little, of a considerable por- 
 tion of his stock of grain. This peculiarity also throws 
 light upon the obscure passage of the Odyssey, where 
 Melanthius, the treacherous goat -herd, obtains access to 
 the armoury of Ulysses, in the upper floor of the build- 
 ing, (v'Trs^oj'iov,) "through the crevices of the roof; "f from 
 Odyss. X. 550, seqq- 
 f Odyss. xxii. 143^ avos *^ooyag /Jbsyd^oio. 
 
BGEOTIA. 
 
 233 
 
 whence, it would appear, that the side walls of the palace 
 hall of Ulysses were not much better finished off than 
 those of the granary of the Khanjee of Livadia. 
 
 It is also not unworthy of remark, that the plan of the 
 great inn, (xam/w/zov), erected by the Thebans out of the 
 ruins of Platsea, for the accommodation of travellers be- 
 tween Boeotia and Attica, corresponds, in as far as 
 described by Thucydides, closely to that of this Khan, 
 It was a square court of 200 feet a-side, surrounded with 
 buildings " above and below," that is, doubtless, an edi- 
 fice of two stories. As the Turks inherited most of 
 these customs from their Byzantine vassals, and they, 
 in their turn, from their ancestors of more flourishing 
 ages, there is no reason to doubt that the modern Greek 
 buildings of this class are lineal descendants of those of 
 the time of Thucydides. f 
 
 After occupying our quarters, there remained day- 
 light sufficient for a general survey of the place and its 
 environs. The modern town of Livadia is situated on 
 two opposite declivities, rising on each bank of a small 
 stream, the sacred Hercyna, just where it issues through 
 a deep rocky gorge from the lower region of Helicon. 
 The greater part of the houses are on the western slope. 
 The upper extremity of this eminence, towards Helicon, 
 rises into a lofty and precipitous summit, with chffs over- 
 hanging the bed of the stream. It is crowned by the 
 Turkish citadel, a castle of the middle ages, now in 
 ruins, and presenting, with the deep glen and torrent 
 below, a very picturesque appearance. The more an- 
 cient site of the city, Pausanias informs us, was on lofty 
 ground ; but the inhabitants afterwards removed to the 
 lower region in the neighbourhood. Hence it may be 
 presumed that the height now occupied by the citadel 
 did not form part of the inhabited town in the days of 
 * Hist, Lib. iii. 68. 
 
 YOL I. U 
 
234 
 
 BCEOTIA. 
 
 that topographer. Owing to the complete ruin of the 
 old city, both walls and buildings, it is now difficult to 
 judge of its exact position or extent.* But the numerous 
 fragments of antiquity still scattered over the eminence 
 on the eastern side of the river, would lead to the suppo- 
 sition that its principal extent was in this direction, and 
 that the modern town has risen up on the free space on 
 the opposite bank, as more convenient for the erection 
 of new buildings. For a similar reason the better class 
 of houses are now again constructing on the eastern 
 declivity. 
 
 The present topography of the place presents but a 
 very general resemblance to the description given by 
 Pausaniasf of the sanctuary of Trophonius. According 
 to him, the Hercyna, the sacred stream of the hero, had 
 its sources in a cavern dedicated to a nymph of the same 
 name, fitted up as her sanctuary, and containing statues 
 of the patron divmities of the oracle. He afterwards 
 mentions two fountains of which it was necessary that 
 the persons about to consult the oracle should drink ; 
 from the one the waters of oblivion, from the other those 
 of memory ; but it is doubtful whether these springs were 
 the same described by him as the sources of the river. 
 Below the Turkish castle, on the left or western bank 
 of the river, and close to its bed, there still exists a small 
 
 There cannot be a greater paradox than Fallmereyer's attempt, 
 in support of his theory relative to the origin of the present Greek 
 race, to prove that Livadia is not the representative of the ancient 
 town of Lebadea ; or a greater fallacy than his proposal to derive the 
 modern variety of the name from the Sclavonic tongue. His only 
 argument, the assertion that the existing town occupies a totally 
 different site from that of Trophonius, is one which never would have 
 occurred to him, had he visited the ground himself. His work sup- 
 plies various other examples of the difficulty of writing correctly 
 upon Greek topography, without a personal knowledge of the locali- 
 ties. — Geschichte der Morea, vol. i. p. 323. seq. 
 f Bxot, 0. xxxix. 
 
BGEOTIA. 
 
 235 
 
 cave, exhibiting traces of having been artificially adorn- 
 ed, from whence, or rather from the cliff in which it is 
 pierced, issues an insignificant tributary of the main 
 stream. On the opposite bank are some much more 
 copious springs, bursting from numerous crevices in the 
 rocks, and supplying by conduits, partly artificial, partly 
 natural in the rock itself, conveniences for [washing 
 clothes, &C.5 to the inhabitants of the town. Neither of 
 these sources can deserve, in our acceptation of the term, 
 the honours of fountain-head of the river, the course of 
 which extends much higher, several miles probably, into 
 the recesses of Helicon. Even at the time I first saw 
 it, on this afternoon, previous to the commencement 
 of the rains, it contained a considerable stream of water, 
 which, on the repetition of my visit during a fair glimpse 
 of the second evening of my stay in the Khan, was swoln 
 into a mighty torrent, rushing with headlong impetuosity 
 and deafening noise over heaps of ponderous stones. It 
 is indeed probable, that during the summer season this 
 upper bed is usually dry, and in that case the lower 
 sources, if perennial, as there can be little doubt is the 
 case, at least with that on the eastern bank, would be 
 entitled, according to the common courtesy of Greek 
 sacred chorography, to be considered as representing 
 the fountain-head of the river.* It is evident, however, 
 that the cave of the prophetic god himself was quite 
 diflerent from the existing cavern. Of that mysterious 
 adytum no vestiges whatever are extant ; nor any data 
 which, by reference to existing appearances, can warrant 
 a satisfactory conjecture as to its site. I am disposed, 
 
 * I must refer those who may be disposed to enquire further into 
 this obscure point, as well as into the remaining details of the history 
 or topography of the joint sanctuary of Trophonius and Hercyna, to 
 the work of Colonel Leake on Northern Greece, where he has treated 
 the matter with his usual research and critical accuracy.— Vol. ii. 
 p. 120. seqq. 
 
236 
 
 BCEOTIA. 
 
 however, to agree with Dodwell, that it was on the sum- 
 mit of the height now occupied by the ruined citadel.* 
 
 As this Khan was the first tolerable quarter I had 
 found since I left Mesolonghi, I determined to make the 
 most of the comforts by which I was surrounded, even 
 for a single night, little anticipating the length of the 
 period during which I was destined to enjoy them ; and 
 on my return from my walk, busied myself in setting 
 my house in order to the best of my ability. A careful 
 scrubbing and sweeping rendered my little apartment 
 tolerably clean and quite free from vermin, and what 
 between an empty herring barrel, which was the only 
 table to be procured, my mattress, carpet-bags, writing- 
 case, and a small ledge or window seat, I managed to 
 furnish it very tolerably. As the chimney smoked, no 
 fire could be lighted, but some charcoal from a shop in 
 the town supplied a tolerable equivalent. The weather, 
 however, was so mild, that Nicola, as at Katochi, slept 
 the first night, like Elpenor, in the portico in front 
 of my door, " spreading his couch beneath the open 
 porch ;"t but during the remainder of our stay, his sense, 
 however small, of personal comfort, overcame his watch- 
 ful zeal, and he retired into a place of more effectual 
 shelter. I also purchased in the town a few of the small 
 wax tapers used in the religious ceremonies of the 
 churches. The only light to be had in the Khan was a 
 
 * Pausanias describes it as Ir/ rov o^ovg (Boeot. xxxix. 5.); from 
 whence Leake (p. 138) infers, upon what principle I confess I do 
 not understand, that it was situated at the foot of the MIL 
 
 If the views here expressed be correct, that the ancient city was 
 on the eastern bank of the Hercyna, and the cave on the other side, 
 where the castle now stands, there can be little doubt, that in the 
 defective passage of Pausanias — hni^yn h\ ai: ahrrig rb ak(Sog rov 
 T^opwv/ou — the term Trora/Mog^ or some other equivalent is to be sup- 
 plied as the nominative of the verb dis/^ysi. 
 
BGEOTIA. 
 
 237 
 
 small oval metal lamp, of purest antique form, but very 
 little use, owing to the badness of both oil and wick. 
 
 Towards dark it set in rain, and the whole of that 
 night and the next morning continued to pour in torrents. 
 Loss of time was a serious evil; but my object was to 
 see the country, and I might as well have travelled in the 
 dark, or blindfold, as when the atmosphere was enve- 
 loped in mists and storms. We therefore put off our 
 departure from hour to hour, looking for symptoms of 
 clearing, until it was too late to hope to arrive at Thebes 
 before nightfall. The rain continued without intermis- 
 sion the whole of that day and the next night ; and on 
 the second morning there was no appearance of improve- 
 ment. In despair I now thought of braving the worst, 
 but here the agoghiates objected, as it was probable the 
 torrents that pour from the mountains into the lake, along 
 the shore of which our route lay, would be so swoln as to 
 render traveUing difficult, or even unsafe. On the two 
 succeeding mornings, my reveil by Nicola was still the 
 same : " Piove, Signore, peggio di jeri." In short, during 
 four days and five nights in succession, it continued to 
 pour unceasingly, with the exception of about an hour on 
 the afternoon of the third day, when the steady rain gave 
 place to a sort of drizzle or Scotch mist. The streets 
 and paths in every direction were now but so many canals 
 or ditches of liquid mud ; so that even had one been 
 disposed to brave the storm overhead, the discomfort of 
 wet feet and filthy clothes damped all zeal for the enjoy- 
 ment of open air or exercise. 
 
 The misfortune, however serious, had yet its classical 
 interest, as affording practical illustration of the charac- 
 teristic qualities of the Boeotian atmosphere, which to 
 this day, as among the ancients, is proverbial for exces- 
 sive moisture. But I was more especially pleased by the 
 coincidence, that the rainy climate of Lebadea in parti- 
 
238 
 
 BCEOTIA. 
 
 cular, of which I had such fatal experience in the year 
 1838, was equally celebrated in the heroic age of Greece. 
 Of this there exists very satisfactory evidence in the 
 traditions relative to the foundation of the sanctuary of 
 Trophonius, as well as in the pecuhar forms of his own 
 worship, and of that of his kindred deities. Nay, it 
 would appear, that to this local pecuharity the oracle was 
 indebted, if not for its existence, at least for the first 
 origin of the extensive repute it enjoyed, and which, as 
 early as the days of Herodotus, was second only to that 
 of Delphi.*^ " The first acknowledgment of the oracle 
 or of its influence by the Boeotians," says Pausanias, 
 « took place in the following manner :—Theori had been 
 sent from each city to Delphi, in consequence of no rain 
 having fallen during two whole seasons, to enquire as to 
 the means of deliverance from the drought. The Pytho- 
 ness instructed them to go to Lebadea, and seek a remedy 
 from Trophonius."t Of the precise mode in which the 
 relief was administered we are not informed ; but judg- 
 ing from my own experience, they certainly could not 
 have gone in quest of rain to any part of Greece with 
 better chance of finding it. Hence too we learn from the 
 same topographer, that the most notable image in the 
 sanctuary of the oracle, the only one especially mentioned 
 besides that of the prophet himself, was a J upiter Pluvius t 
 
 or Rainy Jupiter; and as we know, from other sources, § 
 
 that the prophet was himself worshipped as Jupiter 
 Trophonius, there seems every reason to beheve that 
 the image above mentioned of the watery Jove was 
 
 * It was one of those consulted by Croesus ; and its efficacy, as we 
 learn from Plutarch, {DeDef. Orac. v.) survived that of every oracular 
 shrine in Boeotia, even of Delphi itself, being still acknowledged in his 
 day, as also in those of Pausanias. 
 
 f Bceot. c. xl. + Paus. I. c. c. 3. 
 
 § Liv. xlv. 27. Strab. ix. p. 601. Ed. Falcon. 
 
BCEOTIA. 
 
 239 
 
 merely emblematic of this especial department of his 
 influence.* 
 
 This four days' durance was also not without its value, 
 as afibrding opportunity of some additional insight into 
 the character and habits of the modern Hellenes, as 
 exemplified in the persons of my fellow lodgers. Four 
 of the small private apartments were occupied, besides 
 my own ; one by a leech merchant from Athens, who 
 spoke bad though intelligible Itahan, and was more 
 civilized in appearance and manner than the other 
 guests. He complained bitterly of the wet weather, 
 which by raising the waters of the lake to an unusual 
 height, prevented his fishermen from pursuing their 
 comfortless avocation, and suspended his own business. 
 The animals are caught by country people in his employ, 
 who wade with bare feet and legs into the water, and 
 seize them as they fasten on their skin. Another room 
 was occupied by a couple of Argive cotton merchants, 
 of rude demeanour, and uncouth ponderous persons, 
 enveloped in a vast quantity of coarse white woollen 
 drapery. A third was the quarter of two Albanian 
 veterans, belonging to a party of irregular hght infantry 
 stationed in the town. These troops are distributed in 
 detachments through the diflerent provinces, as a sort of 
 moveable armed poUce, liable to be called out to pursue 
 brigands, or otherwise support the civil authorities or 
 the regular gendarmerie. But from any thing I could 
 learn or see, I was not led to form a high opinion of the 
 
 * It were, perhaps, not an over-subtle conjecture, that the name 
 Trophonius, written also Trephonius in various Lebadean inscriptions, 
 may itself bear allusion to the nutritious effects of copious supplies of 
 moisture, which are so much more sensibly felt and appreciated in 
 these southern latitudes than our own. ^schylus (Sept. in Th, 
 V. 292) calls the Dirce, the waters of which were, and still are 
 extensively used for purposes of irrigation, in the same active sense. 
 
240 
 
 BGEOTIA. 
 
 value of their services ; and their employment seemed 
 generally to be considered as Uttle better than an expe- 
 dient to prevent them from relapsing into those habits of 
 predatory life from which they had, most of them, been 
 previously reclaimed. They were, like others of their 
 cloth whom I happened to meet, wild, ferocious-looking 
 fellows, and offensively dirty, in spite of their beautiful 
 though soiled and greasy uniform, of native fashion but 
 Bavarian colours, white and blue. Nicola was very 
 amusing on the subject of his two countrymen, speaking 
 of them with a mixture of compassion and contempt, 
 under the title of " questi poveri Chimariotti." Chima- 
 riote is the title they usually bear, derived from the 
 town and district of Chimara, on the Adriatic, distin- 
 guished for this class of warriors ; and which has been 
 extended in popular use to those of the whole Acroce- 
 raunian range. He gave a moving account of the 
 shabbiness of their pay, as well as of the filth and misery 
 of their persons, quarters, and mode of life, which was 
 indeed too self-evident to require any commentary. 
 They seemed to be very much their own masters, and 
 subjected to httle either of discipline, duty, or authority, 
 that I could perceive. One of them, a lean weather- 
 beaten veteran, amused himself during a great part of 
 the day in firing his musket around the Khan, a service 
 which I found was performed on my account. Amid the 
 scarcity of animal food that prevailed throughout the 
 land, owing to the rigour of the Greek Lent, I had con- 
 ceived a longing for a dish of the sparrows which I 
 saw daily fattening on the Khanjee's corn, and had 
 instructed Nicola to do what he could to catch a few of 
 them. He had engaged the miUtary services of his 
 countrymen for the purpose, and I was thus, at the 
 expense of a few oboh to myself, and a considerable 
 quantity of ammunition to his Grecian Majesty, well 
 
BCEOTIA. 
 
 241 
 
 supplied with small wild-fowl during the remainder of 
 my stay in the place. 
 
 The other palikar, who seemed to be the man of the 
 greatest consequence of the two, at least in his own esti- 
 mation, a fine athletic fellow, with a fierce sinister coun- 
 tenance and a free and forward manner, paid me a visit 
 on the second afternoon; and after shaking me cordially 
 by the hand, uttered with much vehement gesture, a long 
 and energetic harangue, scarcely one word of which I 
 understood, but which I interpreted to convey certain 
 anathemas against brigands and klephts, with offers of 
 his protection and services in case of emergency, and an 
 assurance of their value. My reason for putting this 
 construction on his address, apart from the tenor of 
 the few expressions I comprehended, was, that about the 
 time of our arrival, reports had reached the place of a 
 renewal or increase of brigandage in the neighbouring 
 districts, especially towards Thermopylae and the Turkish 
 frontier, always the more especial theatre of predatory 
 warfare, and in which direction he supposed we were 
 bound. These reports were in so far confirmed by the 
 arrival of the post-rider from Talanta at the Khan that 
 forenoon, on foot, having been plundered of his horse, 
 and stripped of every article on his person, with the 
 exception of a few woollen rags scarcely sufficient to 
 cover his nakedness. Nicola, on communicating this 
 piece of intelligence, observed in his sarcastic way, that 
 the travellers across the Turkish frontier, if they wished 
 to ride in security, had better wait until the season was 
 a little further advanced, when the government would 
 probably send up Generals Church or Gordon, or some 
 other of their commanders, to enlist the bands in their 
 own service, and bestow commissions of colonel, major, 
 or captain of light infantry, on their chiefs. I took this 
 for a jest at the moment ; but I afterwards found, to my 
 
 VOL. I. X 
 
242 
 
 BCEOTIA, 
 
 surprise, that there was as much truth as satire in the 
 remark, having been informed on high authority, that 
 this strange method of encouraging the evil it was sought 
 to check had in fact been frequently resorted to, and to 
 a considerable extent. As regards the proffered services 
 of the Chimariote warrior, considering the mode in which 
 the corps to which he belonged was habitually recruited, 
 they did not seem calculated to afford much comfort had 
 I really been likely to require them. 
 
 On retiring to their quarters at nightfall, these two 
 heroes used to entertain themselves with chanting their 
 native Albanian war-cries. Although neither air nor 
 voices were very melodious, yet both combined the wild 
 and martial with the plaintive character, in higher perfec- 
 tion than any other music of the kind I ever heard — and, 
 mingled with the howling of the wind and the pelting of 
 the storm through the courts of the building, and across 
 the dreary ruins by which it was surrounded, came home 
 with a singular effect of melancholy desolation to the fancy. 
 
 But the most curious inmates of the establishment 
 were my own next-door neighbours, a party of students 
 at the Academy of Livadia. They were five in number, 
 brothers, or near relatives of each other; the eldest a 
 fine tall handsome youth of about seventeen, the young- 
 est a boy about twelve years of age. The cell they 
 occupied was, like the others of the suit, of the same size 
 as my own, the dimensions of which I ascertained by 
 measurement to be about ten feet by eleven. In this 
 apartment they studied, slept, fed, and cooked their 
 victuals; the fire-place, at least, was destined for the 
 latter purpose, but during the Greek lent there is little 
 scope for the exercise of the culinary art ; and their food 
 consisted, like that of the population in general at this 
 season, for the most part, of coarse bread, garlic, leeks, 
 and preserved olives. Their room contained, as usual, 
 
BCEOTIA. 
 
 243 
 
 no article of domestic furniture ; but amends were made 
 by four oblong wooden chests of such bulk as to cover 
 the greater portion of its area. These were the reposi- 
 tories of their clothes, books, provisions, and valuables of 
 all kinds ; and also served them as desks for writing their 
 exercises, and for pillows when asleep. On the inter- 
 mediate space, they reclined, squatted, romped, and 
 reposed, upon their shaggy goat-skin cloaks or hair 
 capottes, which protected them from the storm by day, 
 and formed their mattress and bedding by night. They 
 never undressed, much less changed their attire, during 
 the period of my residence, nor probably in the course of 
 the year, unless when the decay of the suit they wore, 
 or the obligation of some great religious festival, might 
 require its partial or complete renewal. 
 
 In the midst of all this filth and misery there was 
 something exceedingly engaging in their temper and 
 demeanour. We were only separated by a thin partition 
 of boards, full of chinks, through which each party could 
 hear every thing, and see a good deal, of what was going 
 on on the other side ; and although, from daybreak 
 until about nine or ten o'clock at night, with a short 
 interval of absence at school hours, they kept up a per- 
 petual clatter, swelling every now and then into bois- 
 terous screaming and romping, I never heard a cross 
 word, or observed a symptom of quarrel or disagreement 
 among them. Their lessons, which were all carried on 
 in common — viva voce — and conjointly with their chat- 
 tering and merriment, comprised, in as far as languages 
 were concerned, the Greek, ancient and modern, and the 
 Italian, but no Latin. One of their chief exercises was 
 repeating and learning by heart portions of an Italo- 
 greek vocabulary. In the performance of this task, as 
 indeed of all others imposed on them, they had instinc- 
 tively resorted to the system of mutual instruction, 
 
244 
 
 BCEOTIA. 
 
 rehearsing to each other in turns their separate allot- 
 ments, every third or fourth sentence of which gave rise 
 to a jest and peals of laughter. The older ones acted 
 the part of tutors or monitors to their juniors, and occa- 
 sionally assumed— though throughout palpably in jest— 
 the functions of pedagogue, even to the extent of admi- 
 nistering chastisement with the slipper, to this day as in 
 ancient Greece* a common mode of infliction, accom- 
 panied with the proper amount of angry words on the 
 part of the castigator, and of entreaties, expostulations, 
 or lamentations on that of the chastised. They seemed 
 all to be gifted by nature with a quickness of capacity, 
 in the inverse ratio fortunately of the wretched means 
 employed for its cultivation. Half an hour was occasion- 
 ally devoted to reading aloud, subject of course to the 
 same interruptions. The works selected for this exer- 
 cise were chiefly in the Romaic, the exact matter of 
 which I could rarely follow, but they appeared almost 
 exclusively of a religious tendency. In the midst of 
 one of these lectures, while I was not attending, busied 
 with my own book, I was startled by a loud laugh from 
 Nicola, who happened to be occupied about something 
 in the room at the moment. When asked the cause of 
 his mirth, he said it was at what the boys were reading, 
 and which he said was "un libro di rehgione Greca 
 contro il Papa di Roma." From the tenor of the doc- 
 trines it inculcated, it would appear that the Roman 
 pontiff and his Eternal City are considered by the Greek 
 theologians, as they have been by a large portion of our 
 own for some centuries past, as the Babylonian beast, 
 and great source of heresy and corruption to the Uni- 
 versal Christian church. Nicola's merriment was suc- 
 ceeded by moral reflections, which, if not altogether ori- 
 
 * Aristoph. Lysistr. v. 657. Terent. Eunuch, v. 8, 4. Persius, 
 V. 169. LuciAN. Dial. Deor. xi. 1 ; xiii. 2. Juvenal. Sat- vi. v. 612. 
 
BfEOTIA. 
 
 245 
 
 ginal, were curious as proceeding from such a quarter: 
 « Eh, come," said he, " che cosa curiosa ! C'e un Dio 
 solo, e che si vuole, con tutte queste religioni ? lo non 
 capisco quest' imbrogho di tante rehgioni. Che si bat- 
 tono, ognuno per la sua ; e c'e un Dio solo !" 
 
 My appearance and habits, as may be supposed, were 
 matter of quite as great curiosity to these Boeotian aca- 
 demicians as theirs were to me. As the rain blew right 
 in upon the single window of our apartments, we were 
 obliged, both for the sake of air and light, to keep our 
 doors constantly open; and no small part of their leisure 
 time was spent in lounging in front of mine, contem- 
 plating my proceedings, or peeping round the comers of 
 the door-posts ; but without the least symptom of imper- 
 tinence or intentional want of breeding. It was with 
 much regret that I was obliged to forego cultivating their 
 closer acquaintance ; but after having been at such pains 
 to free my own quarters from filth and vermin, the terror 
 of fresh contamination, while it effectually excluded my 
 visits to them, rendered me little disposed to encourage 
 any similar compliment on their part. I therefore was 
 for confining my intercourse with them to a little con- 
 versation during our occasional walks on the portico. 
 But the elder one of the party, observing me one day 
 reading by the fire-side, took courage, and approaching 
 very respectfully, asked to look at the book. It was a 
 volume of the small Leipzig stereotype edition of Pau- 
 sanias. He both read and understood it tolerably, was 
 much dehghtedwith the topographical description of his 
 own native district of Phocis, and seemed lost in admira- 
 tion of the beauty of the volume, although of very ordi- 
 nary paper and homely binding. I was sorry I could 
 not spare him a present of a number or two of my set, 
 which I certainly would have done, had I known, as I 
 afterwards discovered, that I could easily have replaced 
 
246 
 
 BCEOTIA. 
 
 them at Athens. After this first inroad he renewed his 
 visits each successive day ; but had the good taste not 
 to make them very long, and when disposed to get rid of 
 him, I very easily succeeded by resuming my walk in 
 the gallery. The younger ones, emboldened by his 
 example, also once or twice attempted to effect a lodge- 
 ment ; but, observing with ready tact the signs of disap- 
 probation on my countenance, he put them to flight in 
 an instant by emphatically pronouncing the words " Ex6, 
 tetrapoda" — " get out, you brutes," literally, " you quad- 
 rupeds." He informed me that two of them were his 
 brothers, the other two his cousins, also brothers of each 
 other. His father was a Papa of Distomo, the ancient 
 Ambrysus in Phocis. He himself had been two years at 
 the Academy, the others a proportionally shorter time. 
 They had hired the room in the Khan as their perma- 
 nent lodging. They visited the Academy at stated hours; 
 but in other respects lived quite independently, subject 
 to no apparent control, except an occasional visit from 
 an old black-bearded Papa of the town, who seemed to 
 have, or rather to fancy he had, some charge of them, 
 either in the capacity of private tutor or religious in- 
 structor. The only perceptible efifect of his presence 
 was a certain addition to their habitual merriment, of 
 which he was himself not unfrequently the butt, but 
 always in the same spirit of good-humour that pervaded 
 their intercourse with each other. 
 
 I have ventured to enlarge on the habits of these 
 unsophisticated children of nature, (for such they were 
 in all essential respects as human nature exists in their 
 age and country,) from the interesting picture they offer 
 of some of the most agreeable features of the old Greek 
 character, combined with others of a less pleasing descrip- 
 tion which so many centuries of degradation have super- 
 added. On the bright side of the canvass we have native 
 
BGEOTIA. 
 
 247 
 
 talent, thirst for knowledge, vivacity, good-humour, and 
 instinctive good breeding ; on the reverse, levity, frivoUty, 
 filth, and idleness. I enquired of the elder lad whether 
 he and his brothers were intended for their father's pro- 
 fession. He rephed that they were not, unless it pleased 
 them; that the object of their parents was merely to 
 give them such an education as should qualify them to 
 follow out any respectable career that might open up, 
 whether civil, commercial, or ecclesiastical. Their ap- 
 pearance and mode of life bore sufficient evidence of their 
 poverty, and by consequence both of the anxiety of the 
 parents to cultivate the minds of their children, and of 
 the inadequacy of the means at hand for the purpose. 
 It seems indeed to be agreed among the best informed 
 persons whom I had the opportunity of consulting, that 
 the thirst for education is universal among the middle and 
 lower classes in Greece, and that in a very few years, 
 with proper encouragement, there will probably be few 
 countries in Europe where its first elements are more 
 universally spread. It is however, difficult, for our pre- 
 judiced minds at least, to comprehend how any thing 
 like real mental culture or literature can ever obtain a 
 solid or universal footing in the midst of so much physi- 
 cal brutahty ; or until they give up their Turco- Albanian 
 habits, of performing all the functions of life, both cor- 
 poreal and intellectual, like the beasts of the field, crawl- 
 ing on the ground. 
 
248 
 
 BCEOTIA. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 LAKE COPAIS—HALIARTUS— THEBES. 
 
 'n rrjv h a6r^oig oh^avoZ ts/JjVoov odh, 
 
 "HX/s, doaTg 'ittttok^iv i}Xi66Cf)v (pXoya, — 
 
 dKrTv sfrixag Eurip. Phoen. init. 
 
 " O thou who through the starry heaven dost cleave, 
 In chariot of gold, with flaming steeds, 
 Thy brilliant course, how dismal was the beam, 
 Which on that day thou sheddest upon Thebes ! " 
 
 On the fifth morning, March 1 1, although the weather 
 continued dark and threatening, the rain ceased, and we 
 started for Thebes. We returned to the lake by the 
 declivities that bound the vale of the Hercyna to the 
 eastward. Our road then lay along its shores as far as 
 the site of the ancient Haliartus. During a considerable 
 portion of the first half of our journey, we were wading 
 through marshes. On the more solid parts of the plain 
 are observable here and there the sites of ancient build- 
 ings of various periods, indicated by scattered fragments 
 or accumulated masses of masonry, occasionally com- 
 prising parts of columns and sculptured ornaments. 
 Some of these heaps are so overgrown with soil and 
 vegetation, as to present the appearance of sepulchral 
 tumuli. They are probably the monuments noticed 
 under that head by Gell, on this line of route ; but I 
 observed none that had any unquestionable title to such 
 
B(EOTIA. 
 
 249 
 
 a character. The traveller would indeed look in vain 
 for the greater part of the tumuU noted by that topo- 
 grapher in every portion of his Itinerary, unless he were 
 disposed to give the term a much wider acceptation than 
 usually attaches to it in the classical vocabulary, as it 
 may be presumed Gell himself has done ; for every pro- 
 tuberance in the soil above the dimensions of a well- 
 grown molehill, from whatever cause it may proceed, 
 such as heaps of stones gathered from the land by the 
 husbandmen, rubbish of insulated ruins, or mounds of 
 scoria from old mines or quarries, have been set down by 
 him under this rubric. 
 
 There were probably few tracts of country in Greece 
 more richly studded with towns, sanctuaries, and public 
 buildings, than that which extends from the lower ridges 
 of Helicon to the Cephissian lake. Besides the cities 
 of Coronea,Ocalea, Alalcomense, and Haliartus, to which 
 may be added, Onchestus, at a small distance from the 
 shore towards Thebes, there were the sanctuaries of 
 Jupiter Laphystius on a mountain to the right hand, and 
 nearer the lake those of Minerva Alalcomeneis and 
 Minerva Itonia ; the latter, the place of assembly for the 
 states of the Boeotian confederacy. There were also on 
 this line of route the celebrated sources of Tilphusa, 
 which play so prominent a part in the Homeric Hymn 
 to Apollo, and where the famous Theban seer Tiresias, 
 when on a journey from his native city to Delphi, died 
 after drinking of the fountain, and was buried by its side.* 
 The purity of its waters is celebrated by Pindar.f The 
 Tilphusian mount, also mentioned by Pausanias, is pro- 
 bably a lofty and picturesque cliff clothed with all the 
 more beautiful species of brushwood and shrubs common 
 in this climate, which forms the extreme point of the 
 
 ^ Pausan. Boeot. xxxiii. 1. Aristoph. ap. Athenceum, L. ii. p. 41, E. 
 -j" Ap. Athen. 1. c. 
 
250 
 
 BCEOTIA. 
 
 ridge of mountain where it approaches nearest to the 
 lake, and from below which gush copious springs of 
 water. 
 
 We have already had occasion to notice the number 
 of birds of prey that haunt every part of this desolate 
 land, and the easy and famiUar footing on which they 
 are with the human species. Of both these features of 
 Greek natural history I had here a very striking example. 
 As we passed close under this rock, I observed on the 
 small interval of terra firma between our track and the 
 lake, within easy gunshot, an enormous black eagle, 
 feasting on the carcass of a horse, and viewing our 
 cavalcade with the most profound indifference. On 
 looking up to the right, I saw, perched along the brow 
 of the cliff, three or four smaller eagles or vultures of a 
 brown colour. On each of their flanks were posted, at 
 some httle interval, as many large buzzards or falcons ; 
 while the wings of the ravenous phalanx were made up 
 by a host of light troops, sparrow-hawks, carrion crows, 
 magpies, &c. The whole of this motley party sat con- 
 templating at a respectful distance the meal of their 
 more powerful kinsman, with which they were evidently 
 afraid to interfere ; but in silence and with wistful looks 
 awaited its conclusion. I was much tempted to loiter 
 for a short time in the neighbourhood, to observe what 
 would have happened after the appetite of this black 
 prince among the eagle tribe had been satisfied, and 
 whether the same order of precedence would have been 
 followed out in the successive approaches of his inferiors. 
 But this — with many other more interesting matters of 
 research — my limited time obliged me to forego. 
 
 Of the cities in the foregoing list, Coronea and Ocalea 
 were situated at some little distance from the road. They 
 have been identified by Leake in some paleeocastra of 
 the neighbouring declivities. Alalcomenee, with its river 
 
BCEOTIA. 
 
 251 
 
 Triton, I thought I could myself trace in some of the 
 more imposing masses of ruin in the line of our route. 
 The site of Haliartus, however, is very conspicuous, 
 nearly at the point where the traveller quits the lake for 
 the interior, and the horse-track passes over it. I spent 
 an hour in examining the ruins, the greater part of 
 which lie to the left of the road. They present a quan- 
 tity of architectural rubbish of all kinds, spread over the 
 surface of a rocky slope rising in the direction of the 
 lake, where it terminates in a precipitous bluff rock over- 
 hanging the water, or, to speak more correctly, the morass. 
 For, here as elsewhere, it is not easy to distinguish be- 
 tween the terra firma and the lake ; send in spite of the 
 quantity of rain that had fallen, it was as difficult to dis- 
 cover, from the heights on this side^ as from those of 
 Orchomenus, any body of moisture which could fairly 
 claim a nobler title than that of swamp. The summit 
 of this bluff was the acropolis, and traces of its fortifi- 
 cations still remain, presenting here and there several 
 layers of stone above ground. They are chiefly of poly- 
 gonal masonry, but offer some novel varieties in the 
 adaptation of the blocks, which can hardly be compre- 
 hended under that name ; where the irregular sides of the 
 contiguous masses are fitted to each other in undulating 
 or waving lines rather than angles. I have observed this 
 
 curious style of masonry elsewhere, but never so remark- 
 ably exemplified. The sites of various ancient buildings 
 can also still be recognised by traces of their foundations, 
 in some places sufficiently extensive to give a distinct 
 
252 
 
 THEBES. 
 
 notion of their ground-plan. In the year 395, B. C, 
 Lysander, the celebrated Spartan commander and con- 
 queror of Athens, was defeated and slain by the Thebans 
 in front of the gate of this city. 
 
 On leaving these remains, a pass between two rocky 
 ridges leads into the plain of Thebes, which, as seen from 
 this point, somewhat resembles that of Chaeronea in 
 form and general appearance, although greatly inferior in 
 beauty. There is here no Parnassus, and the hills by 
 which it is bounded are low and tame, with a cold, 
 bleak, moorish surface. The left boundary of the pass 
 of entrance from the lake is the lower declivity of Mount 
 Sphikion, the favourite haunt of the celebrated mytho- 
 logical monster from which it derives its name. The 
 Homeric city of Onchestus, with its sacred grove of Nep- 
 tune, was situated at its base, near where the road passes. 
 Leake describes some vestiges of walls on the track; but 
 I saw none. Further on, in the open plain, are scattered 
 at the mouth of the walls some large drums of columns 
 and other remains of masonry — fragments possibly of the 
 temple of the Cabiri, which, from Pausanias, appears to 
 have been situated hereabouts. 
 
 Pliny asserts, that while moles cannot live in the soil 
 of Lebadea, they greatly abound on the plain of Orcho- 
 menus.* The remark, as I passed through the country, 
 was fresh in my memory ; so I amused myself in endea- 
 vouring to verify it. Not a single molehill, however, was 
 to be seen on any portion of the Cephissian plain. But on 
 entering that of Thebes, I observed the ground red with 
 them in every direction. Unless, therefore, the natural 
 history of Boeotia has undergone some change in this 
 respect, or that the Orchomenian and Theban moles bur- 
 row at different seasons, it may be presumed that PHny 
 has made some confusion, and that the contrast to which 
 * Hist. Nat, viii. 58. 
 
THEBES. 
 
 253 
 
 he alludes existed really between the Theban and the 
 Cephissian plains, not those of Orchomenus and Lebadea. 
 The Boeotian moles were so celebrated in antiquity as to 
 have become — or rather, it may be presumed, their skins 
 — an article of foreign commerce.* 
 
 There is, perhaps, no city which, during so long a 
 period, exercised so extensive an influence on the desti- 
 nies of Hellas as Thebes ; or which consequently oflers, 
 from the first dawn to the conclusion of her history, so 
 strong and uninterrupted claims on -our interest. The 
 Theban wars, during several successive ages, form the 
 heroic history of Greece ; and the walls of the city were 
 the chief rallying-point of Hellenic chivalry. Her mythi- 
 cal annals are consequently one of the richest sources in 
 which the greatest poets of antiquity have sought mate- 
 rials for the exercise of their muse ; and her name has 
 become a figure of speech, even among those of modern 
 times, for any theatre of dire poetical tragedies. Thebes 
 is the fountain-head from whence the use of letters, and 
 with them the seeds of every further advance in civili- 
 zation, have been distributed throughout Greece and 
 western Europe. The chosen seat of Cadmus, and of 
 Grseco-Phoenician culture, she is also the reputed birth- 
 place of the two most influential deities whose worship 
 can, with any historical distinctness, be traced home to a 
 native source, Dionysus and Hercules ; the one the type 
 of the jovial and festive element of the Grecian charac- 
 ter, the other that of its sterner martial features. Hence 
 Thebes is celebrated by Sophocles as "the only city 
 where mortal women are mothers of gods."t She is also 
 the native city of Tiresias, the father and most illustrious 
 master of the arts of divination among the Greeks, and 
 
 * Aristoph. Acharn. 879. 
 I 07iQag Xsysig /JjOi rag <it'Skag I'lrra^roiJ.ovgy 
 o{) dri [JjOVOV Tt%ro\j(Siv a) hrjrai hohg, 
 
 Fragm. ap. Dic^arch. St. Grwc. 
 
254 
 
 THEBES. 
 
 of Amphion, the first inventor and improver of their art 
 of music. Her subsequent career has also this remark- 
 able peculiarity, that of all the cities of first-rate cele- 
 brity in the poetical annals of Greece, she is the only one 
 which continued to possess a corresponding influence in 
 her historical ages. Athens, in spite of the efforts, in a 
 great measure successful, of her own illustrious poets and 
 historians of later times, to raise her in point of fabulous 
 celebrity to a level with her rivals or inferiors in political 
 power, occupies but an insignificant place in the genuine 
 page of primitive heroic tradition. Sparta is also com- 
 paratively in the background ; while Argos and Mycenae, 
 whose mythical celebrity rank next to her own, act no 
 very distinguished part in historical times. Thebes, on 
 the other hand, not only maintained her post, in every 
 age, among the states of highest rank, but ended as she 
 began with a marked ascendency over her neighbours. 
 While our earliest and liveliest associations of the poetry 
 and chivalry of Greece are concentrated around her 
 walls, the last brilliant epoch of the civil history of that 
 country is the age of Pelopidas and Epaminondas ; the 
 last expiring gleam of pure Hellenic freedom is the 
 destruction of her army at Chseronea. During the most 
 glorious period of the confederacy, from the first Persian 
 down to the latter part of the Peloponnesian war, she 
 falls, it is true, in respect to real political honour, into 
 the background ; and her desertion to the foreign enemy 
 is a foul blot in her annals. But in spite of this tem- 
 porary forgetfulness of her dignity— for which, indeed, 
 her native historians offer some not unreasonable apolo- 
 gies — she still continued to maintain her position by the 
 side of Athens and Sparta, as one of the three leading 
 powers of Greece. 
 
 In proportion to the number and force of the ideal 
 claims of this remarkable spot on the sympathies of the 
 
THEBES. 
 
 255 
 
 classical traveller, is the slenderness of those of a visible 
 or tangible nature, which she is now able to advance. 
 There is, in fact, no Greek city whose site and aspect 
 are so little in unison with the associations, either of 
 poetical or historical celebrity, that attach to them. She 
 has no majestic acropolis, no brilliant sea view, like 
 Athens, Corinth, Argos; no stern bulwark of rugged 
 cliffs or yawning precipices like Mycenae; no joyous 
 river, no snow-capped mountain that she can call her 
 own, no festive brilliancy of surrounding plain, like 
 Sparta. In addition to this poverty of natural features, 
 there is now no Greek city of any distinction so utterly 
 deficient in monumental evidences of its former gran- 
 deur. Mycense and Tiryns had already been moulder- 
 ing in ruins for nearly a century and a half; Argos and 
 Corinth had declined into humble members of the Sparto- 
 dorian confederacy ; and the Minyean Orchomenus was 
 but a petty provincial town of Bceotia, at the period 
 when Thebes was in the zenith of the political hemi- 
 sphere of Greece. Yet each of these cities, as well as 
 Athens and Sparta, can still adduce tangible evidence 
 either of her fabulous or historical greatness, in the form 
 of Cyclopian walls, temples, theatres, stadia, or tombs, 
 however ruined or degraded. But Thebes is of all 
 places of first-rate distinction in the page of Hellenic 
 history — with the exception perhaps of its great rival in 
 heroic celebrity, Troy — the one whose vestiges have been 
 most effectually swept off the face of the earth ; and its 
 site offers scarcely a trace of the existence of an ancient 
 town, but a few scattered fragments of masonry, for the 
 most part of the Roman period. 
 
 To the melancholy associations connected with the 
 complete disappearance of the ancient city, are now 
 superadded those which attach to the masses of modern 
 ruin that have lately been scattered over the accumulated 
 
256 
 
 THEBES. 
 
 rubbish of 3000 years of previous devastation. There 
 are, indeed, few places which more signally display the 
 desolating effects of the late war. Although inferior in 
 size and importance to Livadia during the Turkish era, 
 modern Thebes rivals her in the dreary effect of her re- 
 mains. The gardens for which she was then celebrated, 
 as in the days of Dicsearchus,* and which were said to 
 supply the markets of Athens, as well as her own, with 
 fruits and vegetables, are no longer to be seen. Her 
 elegant domes, minarets, and clustered cypresses, toge- 
 ther with the gigantic plane-trees that formerly over- 
 shadowed her bazar, have also disappeared; and the 
 traveller, desirous to perpetuate in his recollection the 
 dismal appearance of this sepulchre of ancient greatness, 
 v/ould now find it difficult to discover either tree or shrub 
 to enliven the dreary foreground of the picture. 
 
 On approaching from Livadia, httle or nothing of the 
 place is seen, until within a small distance of the nearest 
 houses. The road here coasts along the declivities on 
 the southern side of the plain ; and on gaining the sum- 
 mit of a small eminence, the whole length of the modern 
 town opens at once upon the view. About ten minutes 
 before our arrival at this point, to add to the melancholy 
 effect of the scene, the clouds which had gradually been 
 thickening overhead, again sent forth their torrents, in 
 the midst of which we rode into the town. Well might 
 Pindar say, that " water is the noblest of elements, "f 
 (API2TON 'MEN TAaP;) or, as a distinguished French 
 writer has rendered it in his translation, — " L'eau est 
 fort bonne;" for Pindar was a Boeotian and a Theban, 
 and although he indignantly repels | the sobriquet of 
 
 * Be Stat. Gr. pp. 15, 17. Ed. Huds. conf. Dodwell, &c. 
 f Olymp. i. V. 1.— The same sentiment is emphatically repeated in 
 Olymp. iii. 75. 
 X 01. vi. 90 
 
THEBES. 
 
 257 
 
 Hyoboeotus,* in the sense in which it was applied by his 
 lively Attic neighbour, as a reflection on the intellectual 
 powers of himself or his countrymen, if true to his own 
 muse, he would not have disclaimed it in the application, 
 which, by a striking enough coincidence, its equivocal 
 etymologyf admits, to the fecundity of his native climate 
 in that element of which he professes himself so great an 
 admirer. To the same property of this climate may be 
 referred another distinctive peculiarity of the Boeotian 
 race, also alluded to in the verse of an Attic satirist, J 
 who calls them "wearers of wooden shoes or clogs;" 
 this being the natural resource of the lower orders in 
 most countries against the evils of a wet climate or muddy 
 soil. § In one respect, however, Pindar's admiration for 
 the most ancient of elements might be taken in a sense 
 more comphmentary to his native city, since Thebes 
 always has been, and still is, remarkable for the copious- 
 ness and purity of its fountains. 
 
 The site of the town is now confined, as in the days of 
 Pausanias,!! to the Cadmea, or ancient AcropoUs. This 
 is an oval eminence of no great height, although the 
 most elevated portion of the Hellenic city, bounded on 
 each side by a small valley, running up from the Theban 
 
 ^ vojSoiojTog. 
 
 t The component Hyo signifies either rainy or swinish. 
 
 J o6toi (fvo^oicoroi x^ov'7rs'(o<p6^ov ysvog dvd^o^v — Cratin. 
 
 ap. Schol. PiND. Olymp, vi. 152. The phrase adopted in the text ap- 
 pears to me to convey the real signification of the epithet x^ovTTs'^oCpo^ov. 
 The allusion which some discover to the wooden pedals used by 
 Boeotian musicians rests on no sufficient authority, and is in itself 
 over-subtle and pointless. The clownish habits, not the talents of 
 the race are here what form the butt of the dramatist's satire. The 
 word (fvoQoiojToi also occurs in the variety voQoimtoL 
 
 § Of this latter peculiarity we have very distinct notice in the 
 description of the city by Dlcsearchus.— Stat. Gr. p. 17.— Ed. 
 Huds. 
 
 II Arcad. c. xxxiii. 
 
 VOL. I. Y 
 
258 
 
 THEBES, 
 
 plain into the low ridge of hills by which it is separated 
 from that of Platsea. Although not a commanding citadel, 
 and far from deserving the title of " great rock" bestowed 
 on it by Pindar,* it may have been a strong one, from 
 its insulated character, and the steep though neither 
 rocky nor precipitous ravines, by which it is protected 
 on each side. Of these hollows, the one to the west is 
 watered by the Dirce ; that to the east by the Ismenus. 
 Both are insignificant streamlets, the dignity of whose 
 natural appearance is in the inverse ratio of their classical 
 celebrity. The bed of the Dirce, which we crossed on 
 entering the town, would seem to have reassumed, during 
 the late turbulent period, something of that natural ap- 
 pearance of which it had been deprived by the labours of 
 the husbandman in times of tranquillity, although scarcely 
 enough to merit the epithet of " fair flowing," conferred 
 on it by Pindar and Euripides ;t better, perhaps, that of 
 " most nourishing of rivers," w ith ^schylus ; :j: as its 
 waters seem, at all periods, to have been absorbed for 
 the purpose of supplying fountains or irrigating gardens. 
 It was now again being subjected to the unpoetical opera- 
 tions necessary to check its petty ravages on the neigh- 
 bouring soil, or to render its contents available for hor- 
 ticultural purposes ; and was already, by the usual pro- 
 cess of trenching, straitening, widening, or deepening, 
 converted, in the greater part of its course, into a formal 
 sandy ditch. The hills that surround the town are low, 
 dreary, and unpicturesque ; not unlike the bleak moor- 
 lands of the lower mountain districts of Scotland. The 
 plain below to the north is, however, broad, rich, and 
 green ; and there is a goodly outline of mountains on its 
 opposite side. From the lower extremity of the present 
 town, the ground slopes toward the plain in a succession 
 
 * Fragm. 101. Ed. Boeckh. 
 
 I xaAA/^^o?5 — no.K'KiitdrcLiMg Istlim. vii. 41. Phoeniss. 648. 
 
 f svr^s<ps(STaTov 'TTora/j^ojv. — Sept, in Theb, 292. 
 
THEBES. 
 
 259 
 
 of green declivities. The only remarkable edifice now 
 to be seen is a lofty square tower, the work of the Frank 
 princes during the middle ages, on the crown of an emi- 
 nence towards the northern extremity of the ridge. 
 
 From the height where we obtained the first view of 
 the town, we descend into the ravine of the Dirce, by a 
 track which, if it correspond with the ancient approach 
 from this point, must have led us past, if not over, the 
 site of the house of Pindar, the only private dwelling 
 spared by Alexander, when he took and destroyed the 
 dty.* Pausanias says,t its ruins were the first object to 
 be met with on crossing the stream in this direction. On 
 the opposite bank, mounting the flank of the Cadmea 
 by a tortuous path among the ruins, we pass a copious 
 fountain, on the steepest part of the ascent, still preserv- 
 ing the architectural facing with which it had been deco- 
 rated in Turkish times. These fountains, which are not 
 uncommon on the roadsides in different parts of the 
 country, are among the few monuments of Moslem archi- 
 tecture that have survived the expulsion of their con- 
 structors ; and by their form and arrangement, which are 
 not inelegant, recall to the mind the Turkish dynasty. 
 They consist of a recess or niche, formed by a back wall 
 within a projecting arch, round or pointed, as it may hap- 
 pen ; below is a basin or trough, commonly an ancient 
 sarcophagus, supplied with water from a spout in the 
 centre of the wall, which is sometimes adorned with a 
 slab of marble, containing an inscription in Arabic cha- 
 racters. Further up the side of the hill, we leave to the 
 left the ruins of a Christian church, containing a number 
 of columns of various orders, dimensions, and materials, 
 many of them still erect among the fallen fragments of 
 the roof and side walls, which are almost entirely ruined. 
 
 ^ Arrian, Exp, Alex. i. 9. Plxjt. in Vit, 
 ■f Paus. Boeot, XXV. 
 
260 
 
 THEBES. 
 
 On gaining the crown of the ridge, we enter the main 
 street of the new town, occupying, I presume, the same 
 position as the old Turkish bazar. It is of considerable 
 width, with some good new houses on each side, inter- 
 mingled with the usual number of hovels, wooden sheds, 
 ruins, and rubbish. Turning to the right, up a narrow 
 lane, into the heart of the ruins, we found our khan, 
 which, though very inferior to that of Livadia, afforded 
 better accommodation than usually fell to our lot. 
 
 In spite of the torrents of rain which continued with- 
 out intermission, I walked out for an hour on those por- 
 tions of the ancient site where the accumulated rubbish 
 afforded the driest footing, and the best supply of missiles 
 to hurl at the dogs, with whom here, as elsewhere, I had 
 to fight my way from place to place. Their courage, 
 however, was somewhat damped by the weather, against 
 which I was better defended. It was on this journey that 
 I first experienced the full value of the invention of my 
 worthy friend Mr M'Intosh of Glasgow. The notion 
 of travelling in Greece with an umbrella over my head 
 was something too shockingly unclassical to enter it for 
 a moment. I had therefore provided myself at Florence 
 with a cloak, of the stuff, the familiar name of which has 
 immortalized that of its ingenious inventor, and with a 
 broad-brimmed hat, furnished with an equally water- 
 proof covering. Thus protected, I have ridden for hours 
 under the fiercest outpourings of the wrath of Jupiter 
 Trophonius, and on arriving at my destination, and 
 throwing off my panoply, have found my inner garments 
 as dry as if I had been sitting the whole time by an Eng- 
 lish fireside. The main street, or bazar, of the new 
 town seemed destined to run the whole length of the 
 crown of the hill. Hitherto, however, but a portion of 
 its length had been cleared through the ruins, which still 
 obstruct its progress in dense masses, more especially 
 
THEBES. 
 
 261 
 
 towards its northern extremity. From the appearances, 
 both here, and in other quarters of the ruined town, its 
 destruction might, doubtless, be turned to good account, 
 in an archaeological point of view. The principal build- 
 ings of the Turkish city are described by former travellers 
 as composed in a great measure of ancient materials, with 
 sculptured ornaments and inscriptions, concealed in whole 
 or in part from view by the mode in which they were 
 incased in their new position. These blocks are once 
 more disengaged from their degrading office of keeping 
 together the poor rubble work with which they were 
 connected ; and, together with broken columns and other 
 architectural fragments brought to light in digging the 
 foundations of new houses, are now strewed in every 
 direction over the surface of the ground. Although 
 Thebes, we are told, was utterly destroyed by Alexander 
 the Great, yet there is every reason to believe, that the 
 Cadmea or Acropolis was in so far preserved as was 
 necessary to supply quarters to the Macedonian garrison- 
 That the same holds good of the principal rehgious 
 sanctuaries, both within and without the walls, appears 
 from the text of Pausanias, who describes the temples of 
 Minerva Onca, of Apollo Ismenius, and numerous 
 other remarkable structures from the period of the old 
 mythical dynasties down to that of the fall of the city, 
 with their most ancient and sacred monuments, as entire 
 at the epoch of his visit. Hence it is probable that a 
 well-regulated excavation, or even a small degree of 
 attention on the part of the authorities to the remains 
 occasionally brought to light, might be the means of se- 
 curing relics of great antiquity and curiosity. But here, 
 as at Delphi and elsewhere, it is to be feared that many 
 a valuable fragment will be reconsigned to the bowels of 
 the earth, or to an equal obscurity in the walls or foun- 
 dations of some new edifice. 
 
262 
 
 BfEOTlA. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 CITH^RON— BACCH^ OF EURIPIDES— PLAT^A— BATTLE OF. 
 
 Xi^ovng^ l^sQyj/Jbsv 'Ac^j-roD ^odg, 
 
 Xs^ag K/^a/^ojvs/ov s/VgCaXXo/xsv. — Eurip. Baccli. 1043. 
 
 " Clearing the frontier of the Theban land, 
 Asopus' stream we cross, and full in front, 
 The lofty steeps of dark Cithseron rise." 
 
 On the morning of the twelfth, after another ramble 
 among the ruins, I started for Plataea, leaving Thebes 
 by the same route as that by which Pausanias enters it. 
 Among the Seven Gates, the one which gave access to 
 this quarter of the ancient city was that of Electra, 
 around which were concentrated many of the most inter- 
 esting monuments of the old Cadmean period: the 
 temple of Apollo Ismenius — the fountain of the Dragon 
 — house of Amphiaraus — and others. ^ 
 
 After a gradual ascent of a mile or two among insig- 
 nificant declivities, we reach the open plain of Platsea, 
 elevated about as much above that of Thebes as the 
 Theban plain itself above the marshes of the Cephissus. 
 Beyond, as its opposite boundary, rises full in view the 
 long and lofty ridge of Cithaeron.f In advancing we 
 cross a number of small rivulets, or rather branches of 
 rivulets, sometimes running in a continuous course, some- 
 times stagnating in pools, or losing themselves in the 
 soil, which is here porous and swampy. These are the 
 * Pausan. Bveot. c. x. seqq. t ^^^^ 
 
BGEOTIA. 
 
 263 
 
 fountain heads of the Asopus, and of another small 
 stream which flows in the contrary direction towards the 
 Corinthian gulf. In front the site of Platsea can now 
 be distinguished on the furthest verge of the plain, imme- 
 diately below the loftiest ridge of the mountain. 
 
 Although Euripides is not only greatly inferior to the 
 other two illustrious triumvirs of the Attic drama, but is 
 even, in my humble judgment, positively deficient in some 
 of the nobler attributes of a tragic poet, it must be 
 admitted that, among other excellences, he possesses a 
 singularly happy power of selecting and adapting his 
 scenery to his subject, and of realizing its peculiarities to 
 the mind of his readers. Our visit to Delphi has already 
 led us to appreciate this power as displayed in his tragedy 
 of Ion. It is, perhaps, still more remarkably exemplified 
 in that of the Bacchae. The scene of the catastrophe 
 and of the leading adventures of that drama is laid in the 
 region we were now traversing; and nothing certainly 
 can be more graphic than the mode in which its cha- 
 racteristic features have been brought home by its author 
 to the imagination. Nor indeed could a district have 
 been selected better calculated to keep alive the excite- 
 ment of the maniac crew, or to give the fullest scope to 
 their excesses. 
 
 The plain of Platsea is the loftiest as well as the 
 widest tract of table-land in Boeotia. Its centre, across 
 which our path lay, forms the point of partition for the 
 waters which flow into the Euripus and Corinthian gulf 
 respectively, and is so far elevated as to present, without 
 interrupting the apparent continuity of the level, a sort 
 of crown or Belvedere, from whence the eye ranges across 
 its whole surface. Bare and bleak as is its general aspect 
 in its present degraded state, yet the view across it on a 
 bright sunny morning, with which we were now favoured, 
 is still one of dazzhng briUiancy. To the south it is 
 
264 
 
 BCEOTIA. 
 
 bounded in its whole length by Cithseron, rising some- 
 what abruptly from its level. On the opposite side, at a 
 greater distance, is the rugged Helicon. The lower 
 region of Cithseron here consists, partly of steep swelling 
 banks, covered with green turf of a richness and smooth- 
 ness such as I scarcely recollect having observed in any 
 other district of rugged Greece, or with dense masses of 
 3ine forest; partly of rocky dells, fringed with brush- 
 wood or stunted oaks. Towards its summit the moun- 
 tain, which was covered to about one-half of its whole 
 - height with snow, * becomes bare and stony. From its 
 declivities, in addition to the whole or the greater part 
 of the landscape already described, the prospect includes 
 a large portion of central Greece ; Parnassus, with the 
 whole highland region between it and Euboea; part of 
 the lake Copai's, with the mountains on its own shore 
 and that of the neighbouring lakes ; and doubtless, with 
 a somewhat clearer horizon than that of this morning, 
 the distant summits of the frontier range of Thessaly. 
 
 There is scarcely one of these features but what is 
 directly or indirectly alluded to by the author of the 
 Bacchoe, in such terms as prove how familiar he was with 
 the whole scene of his drama, and how well he appreci- 
 ated its adaptation to his subject. These grassy glades, 
 pine forests, and rugged glens, were the favourite haunts 
 of the Maenads, where they sleep by night or repose from 
 their fatigues by day, and from whence they rush with 
 devastating fury down on the plains below. The follow- 
 ing is the description given by one of the mountain herds- 
 men, of their first interview with the terrible colony that 
 
 * Unless the climate of Gi-eece has greatly changed since the days 
 of Euripides, he must be presumed to have taken a slight liberty 
 (v. 611) in describing the snow as lying throughout the year on 
 Cithicron. In summer, or even in the more advanced stage of spring, 
 it now disappears from every part of the mountain^ 
 
BCEOTIA. 
 
 265 
 
 had established its abode among their late peaceful soli- 
 tudes : — 
 
 " Over the surface of the drowsy earth, 
 The rising sun shot forth its vivid ray, 
 "When, slumb'ring on the naked mountain side, 
 Three female bands we see, dishevell'd, wild. 
 In dress and mien ; their bodies careless strew'd 
 Beneath the foliage of some bushy oak, 
 Or feather'd pine." — v. 677, seq. 
 
 Provoked to more than usual frenzy by the attempt of 
 these rustics to interfere with their orgies : — 
 
 " Like birds of prey or hostile skirmishers, 
 In tumult wild down rushing on the fair 
 Expanse of plain upon Asopus' bank, 
 Where fertile soil with bounteous crop repays 
 The labour of the Theban husbandman. 
 Swift devastation o'er the land they spread." . . . 
 
 V. 747, seq. 
 
 From the allusion contained in another passage, the 
 face of the plain, though doubtless far better cultivated, 
 would seem to have been nearly as open in the days of 
 Euripides as now : — 
 
 " On the green river bank, the timid fawn, 
 Rejoicing in the solitude, 
 Bounds o'er the wide expanse of verdant lawn, 
 Or hides its terrors in the shady wood." 
 
 V. 865, seq, ; 873, seq. 
 
 Shortly after, on their return from their foray, the Iran- 
 tic crew are found seated in a green dell, overshadowed 
 with pine forest, refitting their bacchanahan equipage, 
 nd entertaining each other with songs of triumph, in 
 honour of their late exploits. The following lines, 
 descriptive of the advance of the devoted Pentheus 
 to the scene of his destruction, admit of the closest 
 application to our route of this morning, and our halting- 
 place at the foot of the mountain : — 
 
 " Clearing the frontier of the Theban land, 
 Asopus' stream we cross, and full in front 
 The lofty steeps of dark Cithaeron rise. 
 There in a grassy glade, with rills refresh'd, 
 VOL. I, Z 
 
266 
 
 BCEOTIA. 
 
 And pines o'ershadow'd from th' impendant banks, 
 Our onward course we check ; the Msenad crew 
 ^Ye here behold in pleasing toil engaged." . . . 
 
 V. 1041, seq. 
 
 Here we have as graphic a description as can be desired 
 of the site of the httle village of Kokla, immediately 
 above the ruins of Plataea, in the centre of an open 
 bank of smooth green turf, overhung with pine forest,* 
 and which reminded me of many a hamlet on the lower 
 dechvities of the Swiss Alps. The state of the atmo- 
 sphere at the period of our visit, also corresponded, in all 
 respects, to that which prevailed during the fatal con- 
 summation of the career of the unfortunate Pentheus : — 
 
 " still was the air ; the silent grove restrained 
 The rustling of its leaves ; nor cry of beast 
 Was heard upon the mountain side."— v. 1082, seq. 
 
 The sunshine and silence of a perfectly calm, clear 
 morning, imparted indeed to the whole scene an air of 
 tranquil solemnity, well calculated to inspire feelings of 
 religious awe in any mind, and of wild enthusiasm in 
 those capable of taking pleasure iu the offensive rites 
 for which the Greek poetical mythology has selected this 
 region as the favourite theatre. 
 
 The ruins of Platsea occupy the table summit of a 
 projecting height on the verge of the plain, immediately 
 below Cithaeron, forming a continuation, upon a lower 
 level, of the declivity on which the village of Kokla is 
 situated. The walls are the only existing remains of 
 the city. They are in best preservation towards its 
 northern extremity, where they are entire in some places 
 to the height of several yards ; but their foundations may 
 be traced with more or less distinctness in one continued 
 peribolus of an oblong form, enclosing a circumference 
 
 * iToiriph vamg* (v, 1044,) or, as it is called in the quotation 
 below: g'j/,s///.og vacr^. 
 
PLATiEA. 
 
 267 
 
 of between two and three miles. There can, however, 
 be httle doubt that this area exceeds that of the more 
 ancient city destroyed by the Spartans during the Pelo- 
 ponnesian war, or even perhaps that which it occupied 
 at any subsequent period, and comprehends probably 
 the sites of the various towns that arose successively in 
 the course of the disastrous history of the place, each 
 on the destruction of its predecessor. The more ancient 
 Platsea was considered a very small city, which descrip- 
 tion could hardly apply to one of the full dimensions 
 indicated by the existing foundations. This opinion is 
 also borne out by the varieties of style observable in the 
 masonry of the walls, by the different state of their pre- 
 servation, and by the irregularities of their plan. At 
 the south-eastern extremity of the ruins, the traces of 
 the fortification are faintest, and exhibit at the same 
 time a more archaic character. It seems probable that 
 this was the position of the more ancient city. The 
 masonry of the north-western part, on the other hand, 
 is more entire, and of a regular Hellenic style which 
 indicates the Macedonian period. 
 
 Forty years subsequent to its destruction by the Spar- 
 tans in the Peloponnesian war, Platsea was rebuilt (387 
 B. C.;) but was again destroyed by the Thebans, after an 
 interval of thirteen years. Philip restored it a second 
 time after the battle of Chseronea, in 338 B. C. Fifty 
 years afterwards it is lampooned in an epigram of Posi- 
 dippus for its diminutive size, but complimented for it§ 
 love of liberty. It is described by him as possessing " a 
 name, two temples, a- stoa, a bath, a tavern, and a great 
 deal of waste ground."^ 
 
 * vaol d'j s/V/, xa^ (froa, %a} rouvo/^a, 
 
 %0Li TO l^aXavsTov, %ai ro 2yi^dfjbQo\j zXsog* 
 TO 'TToXu /Msv dxT/i) ToTg sXsvds^otg ^okig, 
 
 Apud Dic^ARCH, Stat. Gr, 
 
268 
 
 PLATiEA. 
 
 The general outline of the manoeuvres of the great 
 battle which gave the finishing blow to the Persian inva- 
 sion, may be followed with sufficient closeness on the 
 scene of action, to realize the more interesting associa- 
 tions connected with the event.* The first position occu- 
 pied by the Greeks was several miles to the eastward of 
 the city, or of that on which the battle was fought, on 
 the declivities of the mountain, above the neighbouring 
 town of Erythrae. The Persians were posted on the 
 plain below, along the banks of the Asopus, having their 
 intrenched camp on the opposite side of the river. From 
 this position the Greeks, harassed by the cavalry of the 
 enemy, who managed to cut ofl" their supplies both of 
 water and provisions,t made a movement to the left in 
 the direction of Platsea, and posted themselves on some- 
 what lower ground, in the neighbourhood of a fountain 
 called Gargaphia, where they expected their watering 
 parties would be safe from further disturbance. In this^ 
 however, they were disappointed, as the Persian horse 
 still continued to harass them ; and finally succeeded in 
 forcing them to retreat from this point also. The ground 
 selected for their third position was a spot called The 
 Island, formed by the divided course of the brook Oeroe, 
 where they considered themselves sure of an uninterrupt- 
 ed supply of water. This second movement was con- 
 ducted in so irregular and disorderly a manner, as rather 
 to resemble a flight or break-up of the host, than the 
 
 Serambus, or Sarambus, was a celebrated cook or tavern-keeper, fre- 
 quently mentioned by the Attic comedians. Hence the name was used 
 to denote figuratively any distinguished establishment of the kind. 
 (Vide Athen^um, 1. iii. p. 112: iv. p. 173, et not. ad loc.) Here 
 we have an evident allusion to the large inn, described by Thucydides 
 as having been constructed by the Thebans out of the ruins of the 
 town, for the accommodation of travellers between Attica and Boeotia. 
 ^Hlst. iii. G8. 
 
 * Herodot. ix. 19. t Herodot. ix. 50, seq. 
 
PLATJEA. 269 
 
 manoeuvre of a well regulated army. In fact, the whole 
 body of the lesser Greek contingents, who formed the 
 centre of the line, with the exception of those immediately 
 attached to the Spartans and Athenians, thinking only 
 how they might escape the annoyance of the Persian 
 horse, and heedless of the orders given by the com- 
 mander-in-chief, instead of marching to the Island, fled, 
 as Herodotus himself expresses it, to the temple of Juno, 
 close under the walls of the city. One of the Spartan 
 generals, named Amompharetus, refused to move at all, 
 or (in his own words) "to disgrace Sparta by flying from 
 the foreigners'' * After some altercation, Pausanias, 
 finding that nothing could be done with his refractory 
 subaltern, gave orders to the rest of the line to proceed 
 without him, supposing, and rightly as the event showed, 
 that he would not allow himself to be left behind. But 
 the delay and confusion to which the contumacy of 
 Amompharetus gave rise, so far deranged the Spartan 
 plans, that, instead of taking up their position on the 
 Island as had been proposed, after coasting along the 
 lower ridges of the mountain for fear of the hostile 
 cavalry, they halted at a place called Argiopius, on the 
 banks of another small stream — the Molois, within sight 
 of the temple of Juno. The Athenians, who alone from 
 first to last displayed judgment, discipline, and devoted' 
 valour, did as much as lay in their power to act in con- 
 cert with the right wing, although distrustful of the 
 caprice and selfishness of their Spartan allies. Less 
 alarmed for the hostile skirmishers, they continued the 
 retrograde march by their side upon a lower level, and 
 finally took up their station on the open plain. Upon 
 these, their third positions, the battle was fought by the 
 Lacedaemonians and Athenians, together with their re- 
 
 * This was the title habitually given by the Lacedsemonians to the 
 Persians. — (Herodot.) 
 
270 
 
 PLATiEA. 
 
 spective allies and companions in arms, the Tegeans, and 
 the Platseans and Thespians. The rest of the Greeks 
 kept aloof, and took no share whatever in the engage- 
 ment; but, after the victory was decided^ they rushed 
 down and joined in the pursuit in so tumultuous a man- 
 ner, that, if we may trust Herodotus, they experienced a 
 greater proportional loss from the resistance of the fugi- 
 tives, than had fallen to the lot of either the Athenians or 
 Lacedaemonians in the course of the battle. 
 
 This desertion of the Greek centre is a circumstance 
 which does not seem to have been taken into sufficient 
 account, either in the general estimate of the amount 
 and proportion of Hellenic valour and patriotism, as dis- 
 played at this epoch, or in its bearings on the plan and 
 conduct of the battle. It would appear that a consider- 
 able space was thus left vacant between the Spartan and 
 Athenian lines, which the latter, not being at first ap- 
 prized of the flight of their allies, had left for them to fill 
 up as usual. That such an interval existed, is proved 
 by the message of Pausanias to the Athenians just before 
 the engagement commenced. Observing that the chief 
 assault of the enemy was about to be directed against 
 himself, he sends to them, complaining of the desertion 
 of their countrymen, and requesting immediate support. 
 The Athenians forthwith commence a flank movement 
 in fulfilment of his order ; but, before they can reach the 
 Spartan lines, they are themselves attacked by the Greek 
 forces of the Median army; and each phalanx, in its 
 separate capacity, fights and conquers the foe opposed to 
 it. Were we not too familiar, from the details of this as 
 of most other engagements of the same war, with the 
 unskilful tactics of the Persians, and their vain and reck- 
 less confidence in their own numbers and prowess, it 
 might excite surprise that they should have neglected to 
 avail themselves of the opportunity that here offered, 
 
FLAT^A. 
 
 271 
 
 with their overwhelming superiority of force, to destroy 
 the Greek army in detail, by first concentrating their 
 attack upon the Athenians, whom they might the more 
 easily have surrounded and overpowered, being drawn 
 up, as the historian tells us, on the lowest part of the 
 plain, and beyond the reach of immediate assistance from 
 the Lacedaemonians. 
 
 If, then, the account of Herodotus be correct, this 
 great victory is the more honourable to the arms of the 
 Spartans and Athenians, by whom it was exclusively 
 achieved ; while it reflects little credit on the judgment 
 or tactics of the Persians, and disgrace, rather than hon- 
 our on the remainder of the Greeks, who can merit but 
 a small share in the glory of this the greatest national 
 exploit in their history.* The conduct of the Athenians 
 shines forth, above all, with that brilliancy which inva- 
 riably distinguishes it throughout this war, and on every 
 other great occasion where the common interests of Hellas 
 were at stake. Unblemished as is the Spartan valour 
 here and at all times, their dissensions and characteristic 
 selfishness had gone well nigh to mar the fortunes of the 
 day still more fatally than the backwardness or treachery 
 of their comrades. The Athenians, it must also be 
 remembered, were opposed to the Hellenic, the Spar- 
 tans to the Asiatic, portion of the enemy's forccf Mar- 
 donius and his Persians, vain of their own chivalrous 
 courage, and eager to display it against the Spartans, as 
 the soldiers who enjoyed the highest military reputation 
 on the Greek side, had from the first determined to 
 
 * Plutarch, indeed, {De Malign. Herod, c. xlii. seq.,) repels the 
 reflections cast by Herodotus on the conduct of this portion of the 
 Greek army ; but neither his authority nor his arguments can inva- 
 lidate the testimony of an impartial and more nearly contemporary 
 historian, whose account seems to have been universally admitted as 
 correct among his own contemporaries. 
 
 f Hekodot. ix. 46. ieq. 
 
272 
 
 PLATiEA. 
 
 direct their attack against the right wing of the enemy, 
 where they knew them to be posted. Pausanias, on the 
 other hand, conscious of the mihtary superiority of his 
 own nation, had regulated his plans in such a manner 
 that he should be opposed to the Boeotian troops. The 
 manoeuvres to which he resorted, in order to follow out 
 this arrangement, were interpreted by the vanity of Mar- 
 donius into cowardice and terror of the Persian arms; 
 and as the taunting message by which he expressed this 
 opinion to Pausanias had the desired effect, the battle — • 
 or rather the two battles — were fought, as we have seen, 
 between the Spartans and the Modes, and the Athenians 
 and apostate Hellenes, respectively. Hence, by the ad- 
 mission of Pausanias himself, the Athenians bore the 
 brunt of the action. They were opposed to the best, if 
 not the most numerous body of the enemy, and in a 
 much less advantageous position than that occupied by 
 the Lacedaemonians. The award, therefore, by the con- 
 federacy, of the first honours of the triumph to the 
 Spartans, can hardly be considered as an impartial deci- 
 sion ; but rather as a consequence, partly of the habitual 
 deference, amounting to flattery, which it was customary 
 to pay to the military ascendency of that people ; partly 
 as a compliment to the supreme command with which 
 their general was invested. To judge merely by the facts 
 of the case as transmitted to us, the greatest glory of the 
 victory justly belongs to the Athenians, and their allies 
 the Thespians and Plataeans. 
 
PLAT^A. 
 
 273 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 PLATJEA— CHARACTER OF ITS CITIZENS— ITS DESTRUCTION BY SPARTA 
 —REMARKS ON SPARTAN CHARACTER. 
 
 syoj ds fjji6cf) {JjSV Accxsdaijubov/ovg (f(p6d^ot, 
 
 (Tg/Vag d'TTadiv sfjt,QdXoi rdg olxlag, — Aeistoph. Ach, 509. 
 
 " I hate the Lacedaemonians, and wish the god, 
 That dwells upon cape Tsenarus, his three-pointed rod 
 Over their heads would shake, and with a big lump of rock 
 From Taygetus their houses about their ears would knock." 
 
 The next most remarkable event in the history of 
 Greece with which the name of Platsea stands pronii- 
 nently connected, is her own siege and destruction by 
 the Spartans during the Peloponnesian war ; an act as 
 disgraceful to the moral character of that people, as the 
 battle beneath her walls was honourable to their military 
 prowess. 
 
 There is perhaps no member of the Hellenic confe- 
 deracy which from first to last maintains so unblemished 
 a reputation, which is so free from all the prevailing 
 defects, and so distinguished by all the standard excel- 
 lences of the Hellenic character, as this little republic. 
 There is none, however, whose fate corresponded so 
 little to its merits. While her spirit led her to take a 
 forward part in all the great concerns of the Greek body 
 politic, her diminutive size, her long and steady alliance 
 with Athens, and, by consequence, her insulated position 
 in the midst of a hostile confederacy, rendered her the 
 
274 
 
 PLAT^A. 
 
 frequent victim of the unfavourable vicissitudes of inter- 
 national warfare, and her metropolis was repeatedly de- 
 stroyed, rebuilt, and destroyed again, in the course of 
 the turbulent period from the Peloponnesian war down- 
 wards. Constant in her friendships through good and 
 evil report, true to her engagements, open and upright 
 in all her dealings, and second to none of her fellow 
 states either in martial prowess or political energy, she 
 was more especially ennobled by her devotion, during the 
 whole course of the Persian war, Jbo the national cause, 
 when deserted by the remainder of the Boeotian states. 
 In acknowledgment of these extraordinary claims on 
 their gratitude and respect, both city and territory had 
 been formally invested with perpetual sanctity and invio- 
 lability at the conclusion of the battle, by a solemn decree 
 of the confederate powers, with the Lacedaemonians at 
 their head,* as the field on which the last decisive blow 
 had been struck in favour of Hellenic liberty — studded 
 with the tombs of the heroes that fell in its defence — and 
 as the seat of the race which had, perhaps above all its 
 rivals, been distinguished for zeal and disinterested suf- 
 fering in the common cause. 
 
 If this be a just estimate of the virtues of this com- 
 paratively insignificant community, it must be admitted 
 that the character of that overbearing enemy, who, in 
 contempt of their own vows, and of all these claims on 
 their sympathy and respect, wiped her ofl* from the face 
 of Hellas by one wholesale act of oppression and murder, 
 is no less signally marked by most of the opposite vices. 
 For my own part, I confess that among the states of 
 Greece, Sparta is the one for which I have always en- 
 tertained the least respect, or to speak more plainly, the 
 greatest dislike, either as regards the spirit of her insti- 
 tutions or the character of her citizens. As warriors, 
 I' Plutarch, in Aristid, xxi., Dioi>, Sic. xi. 29. 
 
PLAT^A. 
 
 275 
 
 they stand no doubt unrivalled; and if military prowess 
 is to be considered as making up the perfection of human 
 nature, it must be allowed that the Spartans were the 
 most perfect of our race. But considered in every other 
 light, as regards those higher qualifications which adorn 
 the man or the citizen, they ought to rank not only far 
 beneath the majority of their fellow Hellenes, but even 
 very low in the scale of civilized mankind at large. The 
 Spartan institutions are considered, and perhaps justly, 
 as embodying the very essence of patriotism ; and this 
 is the virtue to which, together with their valour, the 
 Lacedaemonians are chiefly indebted for their glory. 
 Patriotism, however, is an attribute which in the abstract 
 can enter as but a slender ingredient of excellence into 
 the estimate of national character. It is, in fact, viewed 
 in this light, to be classed less as a rational quahty than 
 a species of instinct, common to the animal creation at 
 large, and perhaps in the rule more powerfully exempli- 
 fied in the case of the barbarian than of the civihzed man. 
 The just value of any such quality must be estimated by 
 that of the institutions around which it is concentrated. 
 The object of all human institutions ought to be, to raise 
 man in the scale of intellectual beings— to eradicate the 
 baser animal impulses, to which he is subject in common 
 with the lower order of the creation — to cherish and re- 
 fine those which he enjoys in common with the divinity. 
 But the civil institutions of Sparta, and, by consequence, 
 the patriotism they inspired, had no such tendency. They 
 were entirely concentrated around themselves, without 
 any ulterior object beyond their own rigid maintenance. 
 The Fatherland, to use an expressive Germanism, was to 
 the Spartan what his treasure is to the miser; whose 
 only object is to maintain and defend — to count and 
 admire it, but never to apply it to any nobler purpose. 
 The whole scope of the education, as of the life of the 
 
276 
 
 PLATJEA. 
 
 Lacedaemonian, was but to foster and maintain this pa- 
 triotism in the abstract ; and the measures adopted for 
 the purpose, instead of tending to expand the minds of the 
 citizens, and promote their advance in the social and moral 
 virtues, had the opposite effect of confirming and perpetu- 
 ating much of what is most degrading and offensive in the 
 early and barbarous stages of humanity. Not only elegant 
 art and literature, with the refinements of social inter- 
 course, but even the fundamental laws of morality, were 
 deliberately and systematically neglected and violated, in 
 honour of this one idol of national worship. Vice was 
 criminal only in so far as its exercise might seem prejudicial 
 to the interests of Sparta, but encouraged as a means of 
 advancing her fortunes, or blighting those of her enemies. 
 Indelicacy and callousness to all the finer sensibilities of 
 female nature were inculcated on the women ; deceit and 
 fraud, even murder, were taught the men, as sciences, to 
 be practised at home on the unfortunate vassals of the 
 state, preparatory to their more extensive and efficient 
 application to its service against foreign rivals. Hence 
 generosity, a quality which may perhaps be considered 
 as comprising under one head most of what is beautiful 
 and amiable in the natural man, could find no place in the 
 Laconian list of virtues; bat was supplanted by a narrow 
 and exclusive selfishness, a vice which, in a correspond- 
 ing degree, implies much of what is low and contemptible. 
 If the Spartans succour a friend against a foreign enemy, 
 it is to keep him at a distance from themselves ; if they 
 interfere in behalf of the exile or the oppressed, it is to 
 establish a party favourable to themselves in the com- 
 munity to which they belong. In the state, no doubt, 
 this exclusive regard to self assumes a character different 
 from that which it presents in the individual ; since it is 
 the duty of every constituted government to execute its 
 trust with rigid and uncompromising fidelity ; nor con- 
 
PLAT^A. 
 
 277 
 
 sequently would it be justified in permitting any motives 
 of speculative philanthropy to interfere with the interests 
 of the people whose destinies are committed to its charge. 
 But the fulfilment even of this important obligation ought 
 to be combined with a due deference to the still higher 
 and more paramount duties of good faith, gratitude for 
 services rendered, and in the especial care of such a body 
 politic as the Hellenic confederacy, mutual accommoda- 
 tion and good fellowship, as equally essential to the com- 
 mon interests, and to those of the individual members. 
 
 In all these respects the character of the Spartans, if 
 weighed in a fair balance, will be found wanting; and in 
 no case, perhaps, was the deficiency more signally dis- 
 played than in the two most eventful periods of the 
 history of Platsea, in each of which they appear as the 
 leading actors. From the commencement of the Persian 
 war, they seem scarcely to have sought to disguise, that 
 the real scope of their pohcy was, not so much to save 
 Greece, as to save themselves, from foreign conquest or 
 the evils of foreign invasion ; that they co-operated with 
 their fellow-members of the confederacy, only in so far 
 as was conducive to this object; and that, when their own 
 safety was provided for, they were ready to leave others 
 to their fate. Nay, it is certain that they looked upon 
 the successes of the " foreigners," so long as they appre- 
 hended no bad consequences to themselves, with a 
 favourable eye, as tending to weaken their rivals at 
 home; and that from first to last they steadily kept in 
 view their favourite principle of aggrandizing themselves 
 by the calamities of their neighbours. 
 
 The details of this their course of policy are given at 
 length by Herodotus,* and place in a strong light the 
 unblushing effrontery with which they endeavoured to 
 cajole and flatter their Athenian rivals, whenever their 
 services were required; and the shameless manner in 
 * Lib. ix. 6. seq. 
 
278 
 
 PLAT^A. 
 
 which they abandoned them to their fate where it seemed 
 they could be dispensed with. This conduct is the more 
 offensive, from its contrast with the noble disinterested- 
 ness of the Athenians, and their steady devotion to the 
 national cause, amid sacrifices to which hardly any state 
 could be expected patiently to submit, situated between 
 an enemy of irresistible power, and friends on whom no 
 reliance could be placed. Even at the most critical 
 moment of the manoeuvres on the field of Plataea, so 
 palpable was the operation of this ruling principle of 
 Spartan policy, to preserve themselves at the expense of 
 their allies, that, as we learn from Herodotus, the for- 
 tune of the day was exposed to serious risk, owing to the 
 inability of the Athenians to fathom the designs of the 
 Lacedaemonians, after so long an experience, as the his- 
 torian* quaintly expresses it, " of their habit of saying 
 one thing and meaning another." 
 
 But the destruction of Plat9ea,t if judged by the 
 improved standard of moral and international law which 
 now prevails, must be considered as the foulest blot of 
 all in the history of Sparta. The barbarous practice of 
 the age, which, in some degree, authorized such out- 
 rages, is, no doubt, in so far a palliation of this act.:j: 
 Whilst, however, there are, as we have already seen, so 
 many specialties in the case of Plataea which gave it 
 
 %ai aXXoc \zy6vro)V. — ix. 54. 
 
 There is a remarkable passage of Euripides — Androm. 446, seq. — 
 containing in eight lines a pithy summary of the defects of the Lace- 
 daemonian character, the last clause of which offers a curious corre- 
 spondence with the above text of Herodotus : 
 oh Xsyovrsg aXka [jav 
 y\(X)(i<^ri — (p^ovovvng aXk\ s(psv^J(f%£6d^ as/; 
 
 f TnucYD. ii. c. 2, seq. ; 71, seq.; iii. 20, seq. ; 51, seq. 
 
 I The Athenians themselves were guilty of one of a somewhat 
 similar nature not long after, in their treatment of the island of Melos, 
 a colony and close ally of LaccdiJomon. But in this case the act, while 
 free from any peculiarly aggravating circumstances, had at least the 
 
PLAT^A. 
 
 279 
 
 unusual claims to the sympathy and indulgence of a 
 generous enemy, there are circumstances of cruelty and 
 iniquity in the mode in which the right of the strongest 
 was here exercised, that render the conduct of the 
 aggressors doubly odious. The only crime which could 
 be charged against this little nest of heroes, was fidelity 
 to their old and steady friends, and resistance to the 
 oppression of their habitual and unrelenting persecutors. 
 The victims of the outrage were the same Plataeans 
 who, under the walls of their city, had helped the Spar- 
 tans to check the advance of the foreign enemy towards 
 Peloponnesus. It was committed ostensibly to concili- 
 ate the same Thebans who had on that occasion fought 
 in the ranks of the common foe. The Thebans, it must 
 also be recollected, had provoked the quarrel in which 
 they were actually engaged by a clear act of perfidy, in 
 an attempt to surprise the city of Platsea at a moment of 
 truce between the two states. But it now happened to 
 be the interest of Lacedsemon to conciliate and support 
 her new allies, and to weaken or destroy the state of 
 Platoea; which, throughout the war, had adhered stead- 
 ily to the interest of the Athenians. Weighed against 
 such motives, oaths, gratitude, or humanity, were but 
 light in the scale of Spartan policy. The city is accord- 
 ingly invested by the combined armies ; and its defence 
 supplies one of the most brilUant chapters in the mili- 
 tary history of Greece. During two years, 480 men, 
 pent up within its walls, bafile the whole disposable 
 power of Sparta and Thebes. The successful attempt 
 of about one half of this little garrison, to cut their way 
 through the double line of hostile entrenchment, guarded 
 by the flower of the Spartiate warriors, is one of the most 
 brilliant examples of fortunate daring upon record. Even 
 
 poor justification of being a reprisal for the destruction, by the oppo- 
 site party, of their oldest and most faithful ally ; so that the blame 
 of it also may in some degree lie at the door of the Spartans. 
 
280 
 
 PLAT^A. 
 
 the remnant, of about 220 men, seemed determined to 
 hold out to the very last extremity. This result, how- 
 ever, for reasons assigned by Thucydides, would have 
 interfered with the policy of Sparta, which required that 
 they should be executed as criminals, rather than al- 
 lowed to die like freemen, with arms in their hands. They 
 were, therefore, inveigled into a capitulation, by a vir- 
 tual pledge on the part of the besiegers, that they should 
 be treated with the lenity to which, under the circum- 
 stances, the laws of Hellenic warfare entitled them. 
 
 Not contented with the mere sacrifice of their victims, 
 the Spartans determined to invest the last scene of the 
 tragedy with the mockery of a judicial process, in bur- 
 lesque fulfilment of the letter of the capitulation; it 
 having been stipulated, that none should be liable to 
 punishment but " such as could be proved guilty of in- 
 justice^^ which in the present case custom and reason 
 would interpret — violation of treaties or international law. 
 Five Spartan elders were accordingly appointed to act as 
 judges — the Thebans appeared as prosecutors — and the 
 question proposed to the plaintiffs, on the answer to 
 which was to depend their condemnation or acquittal, 
 was : " Whether they could show that they had rendered 
 any service to the Lacedaemonians or their allies in the 
 course of the war." As the Platseans had been from the 
 first the steady partisans of Athens, it is evident that the 
 very statement of the process was equivalent to a verdict 
 of guilty ; and would in every similar case authorize the 
 promiscuous massacre of prisoners of war, and, among 
 others, of the Spartans taken not long before, but spared, 
 by the Athenians, in the island of Sphacteria. Any 
 serious attempt to reason with such judges would have 
 been nearly as great a mockery as the trial itself. The 
 defence of the Platseans was therefore addressed chiefly 
 to their sympathies — a still less vulnerable quarter. They 
 first, however, in a few pithy sentences, showed the ab- 
 
PLAT^A. 
 
 281 
 
 surdity of the question, by observing, that if it was put 
 to them as friends of the querist, they would ask in reply, 
 where were the friendly offices on the other side which 
 gave claim to a requital ? if as enemies, where was the 
 injury they had inflicted by fairly fighting their battle ? 
 They appealed to their former services to the common 
 cause of national freedom against the foreign enemy, and 
 conjured the Spartans by the blood of their own ances- 
 tors whose bodies reposed on the plain beneath their city 
 walls, and whose graves they had ever since made it their 
 duty to protect and honour, not to sacrifice them to the 
 malice of the same Thebans, who had been a party to 
 their slaughter, when leagued on that very field with the 
 barbarous invader. They put them in mind of the origin 
 of their connexion with the Athenian party ; how, when 
 formerly driven by the oppression of these very Thebans 
 to look for succour abroad, they had applied, in the first 
 instance, to themselves, who, in declining their alliance 
 had advised them at the same time to have recourse to 
 the Athenians, as being in their own immediate neigh-^ 
 bourhood, and better able to afford them efficient protec- 
 tion.* They urged the late treacherous breach of faith 
 on the part of the Thebans, and their own right of self- 
 defence ; and finally appealed to the Spartans, whether, 
 
 * The following is the account given by Herodotus of this trans- 
 action. (Lib. vi. 108.) " The Platseans, persecuted by the Thebans, 
 delivered themselves up to the Lacedsemonians, who, however, refused 
 to receive them, giving them the following advice : — " We dwell far 
 from you, and our alliance would be but lukewarm. You might be 
 enslaved many a time before we could hear of your distress. We 
 advise you, therefore, to give yourselves up to the Athenians, who are 
 your neighbours, and good to help in time of need." Such was the 
 counsel of the Lacedsemonians ; not so much from any good-will 
 towards the Platseans, as from a wish to bring the Athenians into 
 trouble by embroiling them with the Boeotians." — Hence it seems that 
 the cruel fate of Platseawas but the conclusion of a sixty years' course 
 of the same system of Spartan machiavelism. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 A 
 
282 
 
 PLAT^A. 
 
 although the vicissitudes of Hellenic politics had since 
 brought them into collision with their own party — they 
 could, as men of honour, impute it to them as a crime, 
 that they had faithfully adhered to the friends and pro- 
 tectors to whom they themselves had recommended them. 
 
 In the reply of the Thebans to this address, not one of 
 the claims advanced was either disproved or obviated 
 Their only attempt at argument was an assumption, as 
 absurd as the whole of the rest of the proceeding, that 
 the Athenians were the enemies, the Spartans the friends 
 of Grecian liberty ; that it was now as much the duty of 
 the Plataeans to have deserted the Athenians and joined 
 with the Spartans, as it was formerly to desert the Boeo- 
 tian partisans of Xerxes and side with the rest of the 
 Greeks; and that, having failed to do so, they deserved 
 death. The Spartan judges decided that the Theban ora- 
 tors had prevailed, and that the Plataeans had lost their suit. 
 The prisoners were accordingly led forth, and after being 
 asked singly the same question as had before been put 
 to them collectively : " Whether they could show that 
 they had ever rendered any service to the Lacedaemo- 
 nians or their allies in the course of the war," were 
 butchered, one by one, to the number of two hundred. 
 To crown the brutal farce, twenty-five Athenians, whose 
 case by the very terms of the indictment could in no way 
 be classed under the same category as that of the Pla- 
 taeans, were involved in the common massacre. The 
 women were sold ats slaves, and the city was razed to the 
 ground, 
 
ADDITIONAL NOTES. 
 
ADDITIONAL NOTES. 
 
 Note to Chap. VL, p. 73. 
 
 As we shall have frequent occasion to use the technical 
 terms by which the various orders of Greek masonry are distin- 
 guished, but which are of somewhat vague application in the 
 popular antiquarian vocabulary, it may be proper to note : — 
 
 1. That by the term Cyclopiany is to be understood exclu- 
 sively that more primitive style of which the walls of Tiryns 
 and Mycene are the most remarkable examples, and to which 
 alone the name is ever applied by the ancient writers from 
 whom we derive it. Irregular blocks of stone are here 
 rudely adapted to each other, the larger interstices being 
 filled up with pieces of inferior size. 
 
 2. The second order is that of well-joined polygons. It 
 might, for the sake of variety, be called Pelasgic as well as 
 Polygonal; the best and most numerous specimens being pre- 
 served in Central Italy and Northern Greece, the principal 
 seats of the Pelasgic tribes. 
 
 3. A third style forms a sort of transition from the poly- 
 gonal to the rectangular lines of junction. The polygon is 
 here for the most part abandoned, and the quadrilateral block 
 substituted in its place, but without attention to the exact 
 symmetry of its form, or parallel course of the layers. 
 
286 
 
 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 
 
 4. The fourth is the regular square stone masonry of the 
 flourishing period of Grecian art, similar to that now in 
 universal use. 
 
 The third and fourth styles may therefore be called, com- 
 prehensively, Hellenic — or, with reference to their specific 
 varieties. Irregular, and Regular Hellenic. 
 
 As a general rule, the antiquity of these different styles may 
 be classed in the order in which they are here enumerated ; 
 but the rigid application of this rule to individual cases would 
 lead to erroneous conclusions ; much must here depend on 
 the custom of particular districts, and their respective ad- 
 vance in art and civilization. 
 
 Note to Chap. VL, p. 81. 
 (No. 1.) 
 
 f / A J N ® A 
 EniNAYTA 
 
 This inscription is curious, as dating from a flourishing 
 period of Greek literature, and yet containing a term, ^v(Sra- 
 unknown in the classical Greek vocabulary. 
 
 The word appears to be a provincial derivative from the 
 root icb&o), to enquire or investigate, and is probably here com- 
 bined with the preceding word into a composite noun, rnvra^v- 
 6ra%ig, " inspector of seamen." 
 
 The cognate term crst/^^iv is used in a similar sense in Luci- 
 an's PhalariS) (i. 10,) where the tyrant, in boasting of his 
 hospitality to seafaring strangers, says : <s%o7rovg s'tti toov 
 
ADDITIONAL NOTES. 
 
 287^ 
 
 Both plirases are doubtless mere dialectical varieties of ex- 
 pression, denoting functions connected with maritime police. 
 
 Another idiom of the same origin and import, ^'o(irig^ oc- 
 curs in an obscure and probably corrupt passage of Thucy- 
 dides, also with reference to nautical inquisitiveness. (Hist«<^ 
 I. 5. conf. Suid. v. ^b^iCfj'TTTj.) 
 
 This therefore was the tomb of an officebearer in the port 
 of Same. E//,/ is here the archaic orthography of £/>/ ; and the 
 whole epitaph may be rendered, " I am Diopeithes, son of 
 Philinthas— son of Silan— inspector of seamen." 
 
 The inscription is in perfect preservation, and the letters^ 
 as sharp and distinct as the day they were engraved ; so there . 
 can be no question as to the reading. 
 
 (No. 2.) 
 
 Note to Chap. X., p. 122. 
 
 « In respect of manly courage, and real Hellenic blood 
 and character," says General Gordon, {History of Greek Be- 
 volution, Vol. 2, p. 28,) " Western Greece justly claims a 
 superiority over the kindred provinces; the nature of the 
 country, and the valour of its people, having in a great mea- 
 sure preserved its verdant and shady valleys from foreign 
 intrusion. Neither the Crusaders nor Venetians, any more 
 than the Krals of Bulgaria and Servia, made permanent 
 settlements there. The Albanians have left few traces of 
 their passage and dominion; and the Turks, from the period 
 of their early sultans, rather sought to avert the troublesome 
 hostility of the mountaineers, than to bring them under the 
 yoke. Instead of drawing tribute from hence, the neighbour- 
 ing pashas sometimes expended money in purchasing truces ; 
 and although the Porte held some towns on the coast, yet it 
 entrusted the internal administration to captains of Greek 
 militia." 
 
 In regard to Hellenic descent, an exception ought here 
 
288 
 
 ADDITIONAL K0TE9. 
 
 perhaps to be claimed in favour of the small tribe of the 
 Zakones, on the east coast of Laconia, who are now admitted, 
 by even the warmest impugners of the purity of modern 
 Greek blood, to be genuine descendants of the ancient race. 
 Professor Thiersch of Munich, in an ingenious analysis of 
 their language, undertaken personally among themselves, has 
 shown it to abound in primitive iEolic, or still more ancient 
 and obsolete forms ; and his conclusion is, that they are de- 
 scended, not from the Spartans, but from the indigenous 
 Pelasgic tribes, who occupied the Laconian highlands pre- 
 vious to the Dorian invasion. — Transactions of Royal Academy 
 ofMunichy 3d November 1832. 
 
 Note to Chap. XII., p. 150. 
 
 It has been customary for those who take pleasure in de- 
 preciating the character and actions of the Greeks, to assert, 
 and with some show of plausibility, that their independence 
 was not really fought out by themselves, but was a work of 
 European diplomacy ; since, at the period when the triple 
 alliance interposed in their favour, they were already vir- 
 tually subdued. Let us, however, reflect, on the other side, 
 what was the immediate cause of this interference of their 
 powerful allies at the moment of their last extremity. Was 
 it not the previous interposition in favour of Turkey of an 
 ally much superior to herself, in the person of Ibrahim Pasha, 
 with the Egyptian fleets and armies ? At the moment when 
 he appeared, the cause of the Sultan seemed nearly a esp e- 
 rate as that of the Greeks previous to the battle of Navarin. 
 To talk of Egypt in this case as a mere satrapy of Turkey, 
 is a fallacy. Had Mehemet Ali from the first cordially co- 
 operated with his nominal lord, there might be something 
 specious in this argument. The Greeks might then, too, 
 have had some chance, while their energies were still fresh, 
 of baffling the joint effbrts of both their enemies. But the 
 Egyptians took no part until the insurgents were already 
 exhausted by the successful struggle against their equally 
 
ADDITIONAL NOTES. 
 
 289 
 
 exliausted foe ; and at the moment when they lay in this 
 helpless state, the whole resources of a new, and much more 
 formidable enemy, are suddenly brought forth against them. 
 The invasion of Ibrahim was therefore as plainly a foreign 
 interposition as the part taken by the European governments ; 
 and it were both unjust and ungenerous, by reference to any 
 of these latter transactions, to refuse the Greeks the credit of 
 having fought out their own liberty. 
 
 Note to Chap. XII., p. 168. 
 
 To revert for a moment to the rival claims on our sym- 
 pathy, of the ancient and modern assertors of Hellenic free- 
 dom, the following case may be quoted, among others of a 
 similar nature which the history of the war supplies, from 
 the parallel it affords to the Spartan defence of Thermopylae. 
 On the advance of Ibrahim with his formidable army into the 
 interior of the Morea, Dikaios Flessa, a Messenian, bred a 
 priest, and hence familiarly called Papa Flessa, one of the 
 earliest and most active Greek patriots, stationed himself, 
 with about eleven hundred men, at the pass of Pedimen, on 
 the road from Navarin to Arkadia ; for the purpose, at all 
 risks, of stemming the progress of the enemy. He was de- 
 serted, on the approach of the Egyptians, by about eight hun- 
 dred of his troops ; but with the remainder, amounting to 
 something less than three hundred resolute soldiers, he deter- 
 mined to stand his ground. After the battle had lasted nine 
 hours, Ibrahim found means to surround him, by occupying 
 both sides of the defile in which he was posted. He then 
 drove forward his troops to a general charge, and, in a 
 mortal struggle, hand to hand, with swords, bayonets, and 
 but-ends of muskets, all the Greeks were slain, except two, 
 who hid themselves among the dead bodies. The Egyptians 
 lost about six hundred men. When the head of Flessa was, 
 presented to Ibrahim, " admiring," says the historian, in 
 others the valour he was conscious of possessing, he kissed it 
 and expressed regret that he had not been taken alive." — 
 (SorJon, vol. ii., p. 215. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 B 
 
290 
 
 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 
 
 Note to Chap. XIII., p. 179. 
 
 I shall here take the liberty of proposing a correction of a 
 mutilated portion of this text, which has for centuries exer- 
 cised in vain the ingenuity of Homeric critics, from H. Ste- 
 phanus down to Hermann and Buttmann. In the extant 
 MSS., the concluding part of the passage is read as follows, 
 V.58:— 
 
 jcv/Vtfjj ds roi ad'jnrog ah) 
 y^ii^og air aXkor^irig — x.r.X. 
 
 Various attempts to remedy this ohvious corruption, all 
 equally devoid of plausibility, will be found in Hermann's 
 edition of the hymns, {Prmf. p. xxiv., seq. et not. ad loc) and 
 in still greater detail in the more recent edition of Franke, 
 {Lips. 1828, not. ad loc.) The passage may be restored to 
 sense by the following emendation of v. 59 : — 
 
 Kvi^dYi hi roi, a(f^srog a/s/, 
 yii^og air aXKor^irig 
 
 The use of the subjunctive for the future, without av or 
 %s, is here in conformity with familiar Homeric practice. 
 
 Note to Chap. XV., p. 205- 
 
 The view which here opened up from the declivities of 
 Parnassus, down the rich extent of plain, commencing at the 
 base of the Daulian citadel, and extending with little inter- 
 ruption to Thebes, Plataea, and the Euripus, suggested the 
 origin of the name Thrace, which attached in mythical times 
 to the mountainous region of Parnassus and Helicon. The 
 Greek term (d^axri — 0^77 xjj, Thracia, is evidently a substan- 
 tive formation from the epithet r^^a'/ua — r^riyfia^ rough or 
 rugged, by the customary enallage of the mute and aspirate 
 letters. This epithet, in whichever of its varieties best suited 
 
ADDITIONAL NOTES. 
 
 291 
 
 the local dialect, was precisely that by which the rugged 
 mountain district, bordering on any extensive tract of rich 
 plain, would be designated, in contradistinction to the vale or 
 level country. The Parnassian or Heliconian Thrace was 
 the mountainous region bordering on the Boeotian plam. 
 The Olympian or Pierian Thrace bounded to the north the 
 still richer and wider plain of Thessaly ; and from it the 
 name was afterwards extended to the whole region north of 
 Hellas ; just as the term Asia spread from a single valley on 
 the coast of the ^gsean to the whole eastern continent ; and 
 the name Italia, originally proper to a petty province of 
 Magna Gr^ecia, was extended over the whole peninsula. 
 Another intermediate mountain district, bounding Thessaly 
 to the south, was called, with slight dialectical^ variation, 
 Trachis, or Trachinia ; and various other localities, in dif- 
 ferent parts of the Hellenic world, received the^ same or 
 similar appellatives from the same natural peculiarity. 
 
 In this way may be explained the " Thracian" origin of 
 some of the early civilizers of Greece. Apart from historical 
 probability, even the letter of many of the traditions concern- 
 ing these sages, if critically analysed, warrants the inference 
 that they were natives of a Hellenic rather than a Hyper- 
 borean Thrace ; of the chosen seats of Apollo and the Muses, 
 rather than of a distant barbarous region. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 EDINBURGH : PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND 
 PAUL'S WORK, CANONGATE. 
 
JOUKNAL 
 
 or A 
 
 TOUR IN GREECE. 
 
JOURNAL 
 
 OF A 
 
 TOUE IN GREECE 
 
 AND THE 
 
 IONIAN ISLANDS, 
 
 WITH REMARKS ON THE RECENT HISTORY— PRESENT STATE-AND 
 CLASSICAL ANTIQUITIES OF THOSE COUNTRIES. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM MURE, OF CALDWELL. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. IL 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON. 
 M.DCCC.XLIL 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 VOL. IL 
 
 Page 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. Cittoon -Pastoral Brigands — Pirst im- 
 
 pressions of Attica, 1 
 
 XXIIl. Night in the Khan of San Ylasio— Greek do- 
 mestic habits, ancient and modern, . 8 
 XXIY. The Rarian Plain— Bay of Salamis — Boreas 
 
 in Attic Pahle — Graeco-Bayarian Roads, 28 
 XXY. Pirst View of Athens—Parallel of Athenian 
 Plain and Roman Campagna — Pirst impres- 
 sions of the city — Athenian Society. . 36 
 XXVI. Genius of Athens as typified in her extant 
 Monuments — Uncertainties of Athenian 
 
 Topography, 52 
 
 XXYII. The Pnyx, or Great Council-Hall of Athens, 60 
 XXYIII. Acropolis — State and Prospects of Athens 
 
 as regards Art and Antiquity, . . 65 
 XXIX. Olympium— Ilissus — Pountain of Ennea- 
 
 crunus, . 79 
 
 XXX. Stadium— Hippodrome — Theatre of He- 
 rodes — Monument of Lysicrates — Tower 
 of Andronicus — Remarks on Ancient and 
 Modern Houses, and House Accommo- 
 dation, 88 
 
iv 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 CHAP. XXXI. Excursion to Marathon — M. de Rudhart — 
 His Adventure on Mount Pentelicus and 
 Death — Ancient Greek Field Tactics — 
 Pentelic Quarries — King Otho and his 
 
 Queen, 100 
 
 XXXII. Piraeus— Voyage to Sunium, . . . 120 
 XXXni. To Salamis— Parallel of Homeric and Mo- 
 dern Greek Navigation — To Megara and 
 
 Corinth, 129 
 
 XXXIV. Cleonae — Nemean Forest — " Adventure with 
 Brigands" — Habits and Tactics of the 
 
 Greek Klephts, 142 
 
 XXXV. Nemea— Defile of Tretus— Turkish Bones, 154 
 
 XXXVI. Plain of Argos — Mycene — " Treasury of 
 
 Atreus " — Gate of Lions, . . . 160 
 
 XXX VII. Tiryns— The Herseum, . . . . 173 
 XXXVIII. Argos— Nauplia, 183 
 
 XXXIX. Lernaean Hydra — Pyramid of Erasinus — 
 Arcadia — Tripolizza — Graeco-Bavarian 
 Hospitality, . . . ' . . . 190 
 XL. Mantinea — Italian Revolutions and Refu- 
 gees — Foreigners in Greek Pay — Political 
 State and Prospects of Greece — Khan of 
 
 Kryovrysi, 206 
 
 XLI. First View of the Spartan Plain — Mainotes 
 
 — Sparta, 220 
 
 XLII. Hospitality of Spartan Commandant — Lace- 
 
 daBmonian Supper, .... 235 
 
 XLIII. Tumulus of Baphio — Bridge of Xerokampo 
 
 — Carriage Roads of Heroic Age, . . 245 
 XLIV. Messenia — Aristophanic Frogs — Triangular 
 Bridge of Maurozumeno — Ithome— Con- 
 stantin — Messenian Demarchus and Fa- 
 mily, 256 
 
 XLV. Arcadia — Temple of Bassae — Andritzena — 
 Vale of Alpheus — Mokritza — Lawless 
 State of the Country, . . . • 269 
 
CONTENTS. V 
 
 Page 
 
 CHAP. XLYI. Olympia—Pyrgo — Hospitality of Anglo- 
 Ionian Consul — Kemains of Ancient Greek 
 
 Manners, 280 
 
 XLVn. Klephtic Ferocity — Convent and Khan of 
 Ali-Tschelepi — Trait of Modern Greek 
 Character — Patras, . . . . 291 
 XLVni. Voyage to Ancona — ^Life in Lazaretto, . 306 
 
 ADDITIONAL Notes, . , . . . . , 315 
 
LIBRARY 
 OF THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF laiNOlS 
 
TOUR IN GREECE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIL 
 
 CITH^RON— PASTORAL BRiaANDS— FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ATTICA. 
 
 LuciAN. Timon, 
 
 " Let us then now cross over into Attica ; and if thou wilt be my fellow 
 traveller, I will accompany thee to the very extremity of the land." 
 
 The road across Cithaeron, from Platsea to Eleusis, 
 after leaving the ruins of the former city, coasts along 
 the declivities of the mountain to the eastward, and then 
 winds up through the passes to the right. Our track 
 over the higher regions was in many places covered with 
 snow to a considerable depth ; it seemed, however, to be 
 fresh-fallen during the late storms, was fast melting off, 
 and there was none visible even on the summit of the 
 mountain facing the Saronic gulf a fortnight afterwards. 
 The descent on the other side terminates in a narrow 
 defile, formerly guarded by the frontier fortress of Eleu- 
 therse — or OEnoe — as variously conjectured by Attic 
 topographers. Its ruins form a conspicuous object on 
 the summit of a height to the left of the road. They now 
 bear the name of Gyphtocastro, or Gipsy castle ; a title 
 
 VOL. II. A 
 
2 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 not uncommon for buildings of this class among the 
 modern Greeks. The walls and towers, of Hellenic 
 masonry, still remain in a high state of preservation, 
 but offer nothing of peculiar interest in an architectural 
 point of view. 
 
 Just below this ruin, where the pass it guards opens 
 into a barren rocky plain, is a khan, with a station of 
 gendarmes, where we halted to refresh at midday. A 
 fire was burning in the centre of the floor — around which 
 were sitting several of the soldiers ; and, stretched at full 
 length on one side, was a man muffled up in his cloak, 
 whom I at first supposed to be merely a traveller resting 
 from his fatigues. Observing him, however, to groan 
 and sigh, and to turn himself with difficulty in attempt- 
 ing to change his position, I asked if he was ill, and was 
 informed that he had just been attacked by robbers at a 
 few miles' distance, on the road from Athens, plundered 
 of what money he had about him, and so severely beaten 
 that he had hardly strength to crawl up to the khan. 
 It appeared that the poor fellow was a native of Thes- 
 saly, who had travelled to Athens in quest of service, 
 where he had been so successful as to scrape together 
 about thirty dollars, with which he was returning to his 
 native country. The thieves, four or five in number, 
 were described to be, as in the previous case of Talanta, 
 not regular brigands, but parties of shepherds or other 
 rustics, who combined for an occasional exploit of the 
 kind, on the roads in their immediate neighbourhood. 
 They were unarmed, that is to say, carried no weapons 
 but clubs, and the knives they habitually wear in their 
 girdles, but which they do not generally use unless 
 in cases of the last necessity. Hence, the Thessalian 
 being a stout fellow, loth to part with his hard-earned 
 treasure, and undaunted by the number of his assailants, 
 had made a vigorous resistance; which was the cause of 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 3 
 
 nis being so severely handled. This was Nicola's report 
 of the case, who acted as my interpreter on the occasion ; 
 and who, somewhat disconcerted at the evidence which 
 now began to thicken around us, of the inaccuracy of his 
 previous reports of the security of the roads, or at least 
 of the failure of his own boasted powers of ascertaining 
 their state in each district, was loud in his imprecations 
 against "these rascally shepherds," (questi birbanti di 
 pas tori) as he called them, and whom he described as a 
 new class of Klephts that had sprung up since the period 
 of his last tour. The whole evil he attributed to a law 
 of the new Bavarian code, which he denounced as — 
 questa maledetta legge dei testimonj, " this cursed law 
 of witnesses." The law in question was simply that in 
 usage among all civilized nations, that persons arrested 
 on suspicion of crime should not be punished without 
 competent evidence of their guilt. What may have been 
 the practice under the old system, I could not exactly 
 ascertain. A story is told of Pope Sixtus V., that he 
 was in the habit of publicly executing a murderer in the 
 city of Rome on a certain day of the year, in order that 
 the periodical return of the fatal solemnity might act as 
 a more impressive warning against the crime of which it 
 was the consequence. Upon one occasion, however, his 
 minister of police informed him that there was no crimi- 
 nal. The Pope directed him to send out his officers at 
 the Porta del Popolo, lay hold of the first roguish-look- 
 ing fellow they met, and bring him to the scaffold. The 
 order was obeyed — and no sooner was the victim seized 
 and informed of the object of his capture, than he ex- 
 claimed : " Alas, am I discovered at length !" and imme- 
 diately fell down on his knees and begged for mercy, 
 making a full confession of all the particulars of a homi- 
 cide of which he had been guilty some years before. It 
 may be, that had the Greek code of former years pro- 
 
4 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 ceeded upon this plan, it would not often have been tax- 
 able with injustice. 
 
 There was, however, no doubt, some plausibility in 
 Nicola's objections to the present system, which the 
 guards and other travellers present heartily concurred 
 with him in denouncing as both absurd and pernicious. 
 The ancient Turco- Greek law of property, which seems 
 to have established little more than what is praised in 
 our own popular tradition, as, 
 
 . . " The good old rule, the simple plan, 
 That they should take who have the power, 
 And they should keep who can," 
 
 was perhaps as well adapted to the circumstances and 
 habits of the country as the more refined European prac- 
 tice. Travellers went well armed; prepared, where not 
 too greatly outnumbered, to fight their own battle. If 
 afraid of assault on their proposed line of march, they 
 took a circuitous route, or put off their journey till a 
 quieter period, or until they could muster a strong cara- 
 van or a good escort. The Klephts, under these circum- 
 stances, were by necessity declared brigands and outlaws, 
 and were organized in bands which could only be dispersed 
 or annihilated by the systematic [employment of military 
 force. To put an end to this evil, a law has been passed, 
 and as far as possible enforced, rendering it illegal to 
 carry arms without a license — a privilege which, of course, 
 should only be obtained by honest men ; and as in Greece 
 it is exceedingly difiicult to distinguish between an honest 
 man and a thief, the number of persons so qualified is 
 but small. As, on the other hand, the predatory habits of 
 the peasantry have been rather increased than diminished 
 by the late political changes, they have been naturally 
 led to turn the present state of things to account ; and 
 two or three country fellows, provided with knives and 
 bludgeons, and possibly with a pistol concealed in the 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 5 
 
 folds of their drapery, will attack and plunder small par- 
 ties of travellers in an unfrequented pass, with little risk 
 either of resistance or detection. Their booty, accord- 
 ing to the usual mode of disposing of valuables in this 
 country, is forthwith buried, or stuffed into the crevice of 
 a rock. Assuming a criminal to be arrested and brought 
 before the judge — as the native peasantry are all dressed 
 very much alike — as the faces of the depredators are 
 usually concealed or disfigured, and as the individuals 
 concerned are, perhaps, the only indwellers in the land 
 for several miles around, how is it possible, as Nicola and 
 the rest of the company round the fire triumphantly 
 asked, that there should be a witness ? That one of a 
 party should peach seemed to be considered as out of 
 the question ; doubtless, because the state of the Greek 
 treasury does not admit of such a reward being offered as 
 to make it worth while. The consequence is, they fur- 
 ther observed, that a rustic or two on such occasions are 
 usually arrested on suspicion, and kept for a few weeks 
 in jail, while it is vainly attempted to collect evidence of 
 their guilt. They are then set free ; and, fully impressed 
 with the impossibility of a conviction in any future case 
 of the same kind, return with renewed zeal and confidence 
 to their old practices. 
 
 A party of the guards had been sent in quest of the 
 thieves — but, to judge by the firm conviction expressed 
 by their comrades of the impossibility of identifying the 
 offenders, were not likely to give themselves much unne- 
 cessary trouble in tracing them. We continued our 
 route, however, with the less apprehension, since the 
 moment immediately subsequent to the commission of an 
 outrage, when it is known the neighbouring police are 
 on the alert, is always the most favourable to the safety 
 of the succeeding passenger. 
 
 Few tracts of country could be better adapted for 
 
6 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 the scene of lawless adventure than that through which 
 our evening journey lay ; and it seems to have been 
 equally notorious as the haunt of banditti in ancient 
 times. * After crossing a bare dreary valley which sepa- 
 rates the upper and lower ridges of Cithseron, we ascend 
 another rugged declivity. The road here winds through 
 the mazes of a wilderness of the usual rich varieties of 
 Greek underwood, interspersed with stunted pine forest, 
 and extending for many miles around, so as to afford 
 every facility for ambush, with secure retreat to the neigh- 
 bouring mountain fastnesses. From this ridge we again 
 descend into a precipitous valley, down which the track 
 continues to wind without interruption to the Eleusinian 
 plain. The scenery here is the most beautiful of its 
 kind I had yet seen. Our track lay through a deep 
 gorge or glen watered by a noisy torrent. Its sides, with 
 the lower declivities of the lofty mountains which rise 
 above it in every direction, have just sufficient soil spread 
 over their rocky surface to afford root to dense masses of 
 coppice wood, consisting in great part of wild olive, the 
 degenerate descendants, no doubt, of rich gardens of the 
 same tree, which had anciently formed the wealth of some 
 Attic landholder. Further up the base of the mountain 
 the coppice gives place to forests of clustering pines, 
 which, distributed, sometimes in irregular masses, some- 
 times in dropping trees, over the sides and summits of 
 the surrounding heights, relieved on the sky-line by a 
 bright blue heaven, or lighted up by the rays of the set- 
 ting sun, produced a most brilliant effect, and afforded an 
 agreeable foretaste of the splendours of Attic scenery. 
 We fell in with several other parties of travellers in the 
 valley. The precipitous nature of the ground below, 
 rendered it necessary for the horses to follow a zigzag 
 path along the more open declivities, while the foot-pas- 
 
 * LuciAN. Dial. Mart, xxvii. 2. 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 sengers took short cuts from point to point through the 
 depths of the gorge. The appearance of the motley ca- 
 valcades winding their way above, with the picturesque 
 figures of the pedestrians scrambling from rock to rock, 
 or vanishing and reappearing amid the mazes of the wil- 
 derness below, and the wild cries and halloos with which 
 they enlivened their course re-echoing from the sur- 
 rounding chfFs, all supphed a scene of the most animated 
 and romantic description. 
 
8 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIIL 
 
 NIGHT IN THE KHAN OF SAN VLASIO-^GREEK DOMESTIC HABITS, 
 ANCIENT AND MODERN. 
 
 svff aXkoi ^dvrsg Xa^dvoig s<7fi %2/'^a^ /aXXov 
 
 Matron o ^nra^i^h, ap. Athenceum. 
 
 " Then all the rest their hands on potherbs laid, 
 But I their rules ascetic disobey'd, 
 For more substantial meal ; then on the ground 
 They sprawl, while loud debate and merry jest resound." 
 
 It was our original intention to have reached Lipsina, 
 the ancient Eleusis, that night; but the depth of the 
 ground on the plains, and the snow on the mountain, 
 had so far retarded our course, that we were obliged to 
 halt at a khan, called San Vlasio, not far from the 
 extremity of the valley — the poorest place of its class I 
 had yet seen. It was, as usual, an oblong shed, but 
 without subdivision or compartment of any kind. Three- 
 fourths of the area were occupied by stabling ; the re- 
 maining space, allotted for the accommodation of tra- 
 vellers, wanted the raised wooden platform which we 
 had hitherto found in similar establishments, and offered 
 nothing but a vacant extent of bare ground, slightly 
 raised into a hearth in the centre, with the shelf of the 
 khanjee in one corner, and the luggage of the travellers 
 deposited along the walls on each side. The place was 
 already occupied by several guests, and the number was 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 9 
 
 swelled by the arrival of fresh parties every two or three 
 minutes. There seemed to be many travellers on the 
 road, and this khan had been selected by the majority 
 as their halting-place for the night ; I know not by what 
 fatality, as it was but a halfway house from the capital 
 in this direction. The wretchedness of this night's lodg- 
 ing, and of several others, equally comfortless, with which 
 I was afterwards obliged to be satisfied, was amply com- 
 pensated by the opportunity they afforded of witnessing 
 scenes of a very curious description, and of obtaining an 
 insight into the habits of the population, of which I 
 should have been deprived, had I adopted the plan some- 
 times resorted to by travellers, of pitching my tent at 
 each resting-place ; the only one by which a tolerable 
 degree of personal comfort can be secured in a tour 
 through these regions. 
 
 The party within the khan consisted, on our arrival, 
 of an Albanian chasseur, of the same class and equipment 
 as my fellow-lodgers at Livadia, an Athenian barber, and 
 his travelling companion, a substantial-looking person, 
 who, from his excessive loquacity, in which he was only 
 surpassed by his comrade of the razor, I presumed to 
 belong to the same lively race. It was afterwards in- 
 creased to fourteen men, and at least an equal number 
 of horses or mules, by the arrival of new guests in rapid 
 succession, each of whom, after tying up his beasts, took 
 his place in the circle by the fire in the usual squatting 
 position. I had secured on one side space sufficient for 
 my mattress, and as I sat contemplating with dismay the 
 rapid accumulation of animal filth in the midst of which 
 I was to pass the night, I saw thrust through the entry 
 the head and neck of a camel ; which, however, after 
 gazing wistfully around, first at the stable, and then at 
 the fire, was withdrawn by its proprietor, convinced of 
 the insufficiency of the passage to admit the residue of 
 
10 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 his person, which had remained outside during the recon- 
 noitre. This apparition excited peals of laughter from 
 the party within, who all united in good-humoured en- 
 treaties to the landlord of the khan to extend its hospi- 
 tality to the poor foreigner. The thing, however, was 
 found impracticable; and he was obliged to pass the 
 night in the open air, meekly kneeUng on all fours under 
 an olive-tree, and munching a bundle of hay strewed on 
 the ground before him. 
 
 These hovels have no chimneys of any kind — a rare 
 luxury even in the better class of Greek cottages, the 
 smoke being allowed to escape through the roof. This 
 is very severe upon the eyes ; but as the wood used is 
 generally of a kind that emits but little smoke, and the 
 open spaces between the tiles are not only quite sufficient 
 to give it free issue, but even to afford a good view of the 
 starry heaven above, one suffers less from the incon- 
 venience than might be supposed. On the present 
 occasion, indeed, there was some danger of a practical 
 illustration of the old Greek proverb, — " Out of the 
 smoke into the fire." * The night was chill, and the 
 flames were soon increased by an accumulation of dry 
 pine and olive branches from the neighbouring forest, to 
 a furnace of terrific heat and power, crackling and blaz- 
 ing most furiously to the very roof-tree of the hovel. 
 This at first afforded much childish diversion to the rest 
 of the circle, but great discomfort to myself, from the 
 excessive heat and dazzling of the flames. I was besides 
 in momentary expectation of the khan taking fire, when 
 it would certainly have been burned to the ground — a 
 catastrophe which, with its consequences, would at least 
 have supplied my journal-book with an important adven- 
 ture. The khanjee, however, with several of his other 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 11 
 
 guests, also soon became alarmed, and took effectual 
 measures to reduce the flames. 
 
 Each man now pulled out his supper from his wallet^ 
 consisting of brown bread, garlic, leeks, preserved oliveSj, 
 and other dried vegetables,* with abundance of wine* 
 Every traveller or party carries his supply of liquor, in 
 one or more large round wooden bottles, with flat sides^ 
 in form not unlike a lady's flat-sided smelling-bottle, with 
 a short neck or spout at one end, and four little pegs or 
 feet at the other, to admit of its standing upright. Glasses 
 or mugs are dispensed with. The bottle, when common 
 to a party, is handed round, and each sucks his fill from 
 the spout in his turn. The practice of diluting with 
 water, so universal in antiquity that drunkard and " bib- 
 ber of unmixed wine" (aTt^arov mvojv) were nearly synony- 
 mous terms, is now quite obsolete. The khanjee is 
 expected to furnish little more than shelter, fireplace^ 
 and fuel. The remainder of the entertainment for either 
 man or horse forms part of the traveller's baggage. Mine 
 host has, however, generally a limited stock of the cus- 
 tomary fare for a case of emergency. The dried olives 
 chiefly belonged to his store,* and I seldom failed in 
 obtaining plenty of fresh eggs, or even a fowl from his 
 hen-roost. On the present occasion, as there appeared 
 a deficiency of bread, he set about providing a supply, in 
 a mode which realized to the letter the scripture account 
 of Sarah's baking. He " took quickly a measure of meal^ 
 kneaded it, and made a cake on the hearth." The loaf he 
 
 * A Greek meal in Lent is well described in the following verses 
 of Antiphanes, ap. Athenceum, L. ii. p. 60, c. 
 
 TO dsT'TTvov 2&rt iLCL^a xs^a^azoj/xsvfif 
 
 xai (3oXQog stg rig^ ^a^o-^/dig rmg, 
 (Sdy/og Tig^ ?5 t^'o^^ig Tig, 7^ roiav^^ a hi 
 
12 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 produced was in fact a large round flat cake or bannock, 
 of about twenty inches in breadth, and three in thickness. 
 When properly kneaded and shaped, it was laid upon 
 the hearth, completely imbedded in a nest of fine embers 
 deadened with ash, and was very soon ready for con- 
 sumption. This was a common kind of loaf among the 
 ancients, called Encryphias, or Pyriates,* and by other 
 varieties of name in different provinces and dialects. 
 
 The conversation, in the mean time, became exceed- 
 ingly animated, and would doubtless have been to me as 
 interesting as to those who took part in it, could I have 
 followed it out sufficiently, nor had I ever more reason 
 to regret my imperfect familiarity with the modern 
 Greek idiom. But although unable to keep pace with 
 the voluble rapidity of the discourse, I made out from its 
 general tenor, and the frequent recurrence of the word 
 Klepht, with some others of similar import, that the sub- 
 ject of one of the liveliest discussions was the " cursed 
 law of witnesses," in connexion with the robbery of the 
 morning, and others recently committed in the neigh- 
 bourhood under circumstances equally tending to evince 
 the bad effects of the new statute. AH agreed in repro- 
 bating so dangerous an innovation on old national custom, 
 though not without a good deal of altercation on collateral 
 points. Each man had his tale of predatory adventure 
 to relate, in which, doubtless, not a few had been actors, 
 as well as suffferers. From hence they proceeded to 
 politics at large, and the state and prospects of the coun- 
 try. The principal orators were the barber and his 
 fellow-traveller; the former, more especially, who ha- 
 rangued with surpassing grace and fluency, and with all 
 that air of conceit and authority which both his profes- 
 sion and nation entitled him to assume. His eloquence, 
 though addressed to his antagonist or the company at 
 * AthenceuSj L. iii. c. 25, § 74, seq. Lucian, Lexiph. 3. 
 
ATTICA, 
 
 13 
 
 large, I plainly observed, from his occasional side glances 
 in my direction, at the moment of his most pompous 
 periods, was chiefly intended to produce an eflect on my- 
 self. He was a short, slight, compactly built figure, 
 with lively black eyes, a swarthy complexion, and some- 
 what oriental cast of countenance ; dressed, not like his 
 neighbours, in the white fustanella or philibeg, but in 
 loose jacket and levant trowsers of a dingy olive colour, 
 fastened at the knee round a stocking of the same hue ; 
 and as he sat, with his body bolt upright, his head crowned 
 with his little conical skull-cap, and his legs tucked 
 under him, sawing the air with his arms in energetic 
 action, he put one very much in mind of an Indian jug- 
 gler, or of one of those little squatting bronze idols, re- 
 presenting, I believe, the god Budha, which became 
 common in our mythological cabinets after the last great 
 Birmese war. The Chimariote warrior and Nicola, who 
 resembled each other a good deal in temper and manner, 
 occasionally hazarded a few laconic or sarcastic remarks, 
 indicating the mixture of amusement and of contempt 
 excited by the garrulity of the Athenian; but scarcely 
 any one of the party ventured formally to enter the lists 
 with the two Attic orators. My Boeotian attendants said 
 little or nothing ; but with the characteristic phlegm of 
 their race, turned their eyes from the one speaker to the 
 other, as each took the lead in the argument, with looks, 
 whether of indifference, or of admiration at their elo- 
 quence, it was not easy to distinguish ; and during the heat 
 of the discussion, their physical wants having been satis- 
 fied, they lay down and composed themselves to sleep. 
 
 As the debate began to flag, their example was followed 
 by the rest of the company. The bed accommodation 
 consisted partly of rush mats, of which the khan supplied 
 a certain number, its only domestic furniture : partly of 
 their own shaggy goat-skin capottes ; while those who 
 
14 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 affected the luxury of a pillow, used their wallets, corn 
 sacks, or other articles of luggage best adapted to the 
 purpose. Each man, as successively overpowered by the 
 influence of the drowsy god, stretched himself out with 
 his feet to the fire and his head to the wall, so that their 
 arrangement might be compared to the spokes of a wheel, 
 of which the hearth was the axle. The symmetry of this 
 figure was, however, soon greatly disturbed. The space 
 was but confined for so large a party, and when some of 
 them, growing restless, began to turn or toss in their 
 sleep, the spectacle that presented itself was as curious 
 as it was degrading and offensive. Every here and there 
 the figures were to be seen promiscuously blended, so as 
 to render it difficult to distinguish to whom the splay 
 feet, brawny legs and arms, and bushy heads, sprawling 
 over each other, belonged. The snoring too was deaf- 
 ening, and the animal stench, independent of the fumes 
 of onions and garlic with which the air was previously 
 impregnated, most overpowering. I had managed to 
 keep my bed in a corner tolerably secure from the en- 
 croachments of the crowd; and, deprived of sleep by the 
 assaults of my cruel enemies the fleas, amused myself, as 
 I lay contemplating the scene, with the parody which 
 offered itself on Homer's description of the bed of Ulysses 
 among the seals, in the island of Pharos : 
 
 *EXX?5vwv (^7to^odor^s(psoov oXoojrarog od/ubrj, — Odyss, iv. 441. 
 
 " A fearful couch was there, where smells unclean 
 Salute the nose from garlic-fed Hellene." 
 
 Nor were we long in want of a Proteus to make up the 
 fulness of the analogy ; for in the midst of my Homeric 
 reveries, I was startled, together with my sleeping com- 
 panions, by a loud knock at the door, and on the latch 
 being drawn up by the khanjee, in walked a Chorophy- 
 lax, or gendarme, in full accoutrement, with a country 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 15 
 
 fellow behind him carrying a long gun upon his shoul- 
 der ; a detachment of the party engaged in unsuccessful 
 pursuit of the thieves. After reconnoitring with an air 
 of official authority the groups around the fire, the gen- 
 darme enquired, in a peremptory tone, who and whence 
 we were, and insisted on each man giving an account of 
 himself. The Albanian, and the stout Athenian, who 
 seemed to be considered the principal civilian present, 
 became vouchers for the respectability of their fellow 
 lodgers, explaining to the best of their knowledge, in 
 answer to his queries, the character and profession of 
 each, commencing with myself and suite ; and all to his 
 apparent satisfaction. His stern rigour of mien and lan- 
 guage gradually thawed ; and after swallowing a draught 
 of wine from the bottle next within his reach, and 
 exchanging a word or two with his Albanian comrade, 
 in which he described the inefficacy of their search after 
 the robbers, he warmed himself over the embers for a few 
 moments, and then taking his place in the circle, with 
 the remainder of the party, was soon fast asleep : 
 
 ojU^yi doXov slmi^ gVs/roc ^2 Xstcto %ai ahrog, — Odyss, iv. 452. 
 
 " Tlie whole he counts and passes in review, 
 Ourselves first reckon'd to the slumbering crew ; 
 Then all mistrust discarded from his breast, 
 He lays him down and slumbers with the rest." 
 
 Harassed by my feverish state of wakefulness, I walked 
 out to regale myself with the fresh air. It was a calm 
 clear night. The rays of a brilliant moon playing through 
 the silvery foliage of the olive groves, over the dark clus- 
 tering tops of the pines, and lighting up the mountain 
 glades and rocks which they clothed, made one feel one's- 
 self the more certainly in Attica, while they rendered the 
 contrast between the splendours of nature, and the de- 
 
16 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 graded condition of nature's lords in this fair desert, the 
 more striking. On a piece of smooth greensward, hard 
 by the door, under a large olive-tree, knelt the camel, in 
 the same humble posture in which he had been left by his 
 master five or six hours before. I made acquaintance 
 with him by gathering and presenting him with a few 
 fresh blades of grass, scratching his forehead, and other 
 little marks of attention. I had serious thoughts of taking 
 up my mattress and cloaks, and making my bed by his 
 side. The air, however, though clear and tranquil, was 
 damp and chill ; and preferring present discomfort to the 
 risk of catching a fever, and the consequent interruption 
 of my journey, I returned for the few remaining hours of 
 night to the warmth and stench of the khan. 
 
 In participating in such scenes as that here described, 
 one was led to moralize on the vicissitudes of human 
 affairs, by which the representatives of the most refined 
 and polished race of the ancient world had been reduced, 
 by many centuries of political degradation, and the 
 adoption of the filthy habits of the successive races of 
 barbarians by whom they had been overrun, not only to 
 a complete ignorance of every thing that can be called 
 domestic comfort, but to a state of squalid misery that 
 places them nearly on a level with the brutes. A Uttle 
 further reflection, however, may suggest a doubt, whether 
 it were fair to throw the whole blame of the present state 
 of things upon either time or destiny, the Sclavonian, 
 the Arnaut, or the Turk ; and how far these very habits 
 be not, among the middle and lower classes at least, an 
 inheritance transmitted from the glorious days of their 
 ancestors. I remember, indeed, to have heard a very 
 learned friend on the other side of the channel, whose 
 name occupies a high place in the annals of Hellenistic 
 science, maintain, in talking over our respective travels 
 in this country, that — in spite of the exterior dazzle 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 17 
 
 of art,' science, and literature, shed over the age of Peri- 
 cles —there is much reason to believe, that the domestic 
 manners which give such offence to those used to the 
 higher standard of modern European civilization, were 
 nearly the same then, among the class of society where 
 they now prevail. To this extent I am not prepared to 
 go; although, at first sight, there may appear something 
 in favour of his view. I was indeed forcibly struck at 
 the moment with the resemblance between the scene in 
 this very khan, (besides others, which I afterwards wit- 
 nessed in the private dwellings of the upper class of 
 peasantry,) and the description given by Homer, in the 
 Odyssey, of the routine of daily life in the cottage of 
 Eumaeus. While viewing, by the dim light of the 
 expiring embers, the architecture and furniture of the 
 apartment, and the brawny limbs of my fellow-lodgers 
 scattered in picturesque groups around the hearth — dero- 
 gatory as it may be to the dignity of a Homeric hero — 
 I could not help figuring to myself the evening circle in 
 the cottage of the hospitable swineherd, comprising, be- 
 sides himself and his landlords old and young, four or 
 five of his own subalterns, as presenting about the same 
 hour of night a very similar aspect. The dwelling of 
 the chief of one of the most important branches of the 
 rural economy of the wealthy king, must have been, as 
 in fact it is said to be, one of the best habitations of its 
 class. Yet its interior seems to have been very little 
 better fitted up than the khan of San Vlasio. Both 
 Ulysses and Telemachus are welcomed to the place of 
 honour on the hearth, the same on which their victuals 
 are afterwards prepared. They are here accommodated, 
 squatting there can be little doubt a la Turque, with 
 rush mats and shaggy goat- skins, which were spread on 
 the bare ground, as we are informed, for their more 
 honourable reception; and on which, after the repast 
 
 VOL. II. B 
 
18 
 
 ATTICA, 
 
 and the ensuing conversation give place to repose, they 
 are stretched for the night, surrounded by the inferior 
 members of the estabhshment* This, we are also told, 
 was considered by Ulysses as most excellent entertain- 
 ment. The following lines will still apply to the best 
 accommodation a Greek peasant can offer a stranger, to 
 whom he is especially anxious to do honour: — 
 
 " Within the hut the godlike swineherd leads 
 His unknown lord ; a carpet thick of reeds 
 Upon the hearth he strews ; above, the hide 
 Of shaggy goat his guest a seat supplied. 
 Pleased with his vassal's hospitable care, 
 The king with joy accepts the proffer'd fare." — Odyss, xiv. 48, 
 
 And on retiring to rest : — ^ 
 
 " Beside the cottage fire the heroes bed. 
 With sheep and goat skins, M^arm and soft he spread ; 
 In tranquil sleep the king forgets his woes,. 
 And by his side four rustic swains repose." — Odyss. xiv. 518. 
 
 Telemachus, on his arrival, is welcomed with the same 
 comforts, a rush mat and goat-skin, by the side of the 
 hearth** 
 
 The following affecting description of the careless 
 slovenly habits into which the old King Laertes had 
 relapsed, in the retirement of his farm, when oppressed 
 with age and grief for the loss of his son, proves these 
 manners to have been universal among all but the more 
 refined and luxurious classes : — 
 
 " No downy bed supplies his resting-place5> 
 No costly rugs his lowly pallet grace ; 
 Abroad, in summef,, careless he reclines, 
 On the dry leaves among the blooming vines ; 
 But when rude winter chills the midnight air^ 
 Within the house for shelter he'll repair ; 
 There M'ith his rustic hinds in poor attire. 
 He slumbers in the dust beside the fire,"—OG^s^. xi. 188, seq. 
 
 Another point of resemblance is worthy of remark. 
 
 * Odyss, XVI. 4T. 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 19 
 
 Homer, in making his heroes rise from their beds in 
 their own more luxurious dwellings, seldom fails to 
 describe their toilet, enumerating every leading portion 
 of their apparel. In the hut of Eumseus, in a similar 
 case, we are only informed that they put on their shoes^ 
 an article of attire which, as appears from the same 
 passages, it was not customary for persons of the rank 
 of Eumeeus to wear at all within doors. Thus, when 
 Telemachus sends the swineherd to the city, it is said, 
 that before setting out "he bound his sandals on his 
 feet."* This was in the middle of the day; and the next 
 morning, when the young hero rises early, to proceed 
 himself in the same direction, we are merely told that 
 he " drew his sandals on his feet, and took his spear in 
 his hand."f No mention here occurs, as on most other 
 similar occasions, of the rest of his clothes ; and naturally 
 enough, for he had slept in them, as his worthy host and 
 his domestics were in the habit of doing all the year 
 round. But his shoes he had pulled off, according to 
 the same custom which now prevails, and doubtless 
 for the same reason. The first and only change of 
 raiment with a Greek traveller of the present day, on 
 accommodating himself in hi& night's quarters, is to take 
 off his shoes, or rather slippers, which are laid aside 
 until required on resuming his journey* This is in 
 some degree necessary, for the more convenient tucking 
 up of the feet under the hams, and to prevent the upper 
 garments, in such a posture, from being defiled more 
 than necessary by the mud or filth contracted on the 
 road; and the foreground of the picture, in such a circle 
 as that above deseribed, consists of the ponderous bare 
 toes and heels of the squatters, projecting from* their 
 woollen socksj or rather gaiters^ which are usually in 
 rags, and evem when entire, are seldom so fashioned as 
 ^ Od2/m. xYi. 15f* 1 Mid. xvii. 2. 
 
20 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 to cover more than one half of the foot. The practice 
 was common, in Homer's time, to both gods and men. 
 Minerva and Mercury, setting out on their journeys 
 from the palace of Olympus, are both described as put- 
 ting on their shoes.* For the same reason the ancients, 
 in their more civilized ages, took off their shoes at meals, 
 after the fashion of reclining on such occasions became 
 prevalent,! 
 
 The dwellings of the upper class, indeed, in the heroic 
 age, as well as their own state of domestic refinement, 
 were on a vastly superior scale to that exemplified in the 
 hut of Eumseus. Their palaces, though of primitive 
 plan and structure, were commodious, or even splendid. 
 They used both beds, chairs^ and tables ; and attached 
 the greatest importance to regular ablution, and other 
 essential observances of personal cleanliness. Still, how- 
 ever, there are some curious points of analogy between 
 the internal arrangement and economy of their mansions, 
 and of the swineherd's hut, or the modern khan. The 
 want of a proper vent for the smoke in these cottages, 
 causes much importance to be attached to the use of dry 
 firewood ; that is, not merely well-seasoned, as we should 
 require it, but so completely arid as to be on the point of 
 rotting; and Nicola used to call the khanjees severely to 
 account when they failed in providing it. Fuel, when 
 thus prepared, especially if from the olive or pine tree, 
 emits in fact little or no smoke. Hence, in Homer, the 
 marked emphasis laid on the same precaution of using 
 perfectly arid fire logs.§ Although no mention occurs of 
 
 * Odyss. i. 96 ; v. 44. 
 
 t LuciAN. ; Herodot. 5; Tekent., Heaut, : Act. i. 72. 
 
 { Yet in their festivals celebrated out of doors, they seem to have 
 followed the more primitive fashion. At the banquet in honour of 
 Neptune, Odyss. iii. 38, Nestor and his court sat upon soft rugs on the 
 sands: — xwsC/v sv /j^aXaxoToiv stt/ -^^^af/jdOoig aX/T^tr/. 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 21 
 
 a chimney in the poet's description of his heroes' palace 
 halls, we shall assume that they had one, similar probably 
 to that described by Herodotus in the residence of the 
 king of Macedon ; a hole, namely, in the roof, above the 
 hearth, through which the sun shone on the floor of the 
 apartment.* The hearth, as in the modern khan, was in 
 the centre of the floor,! so that the smoke or vapour 
 from the fire curled round the roof before it escaped 
 through the aperture. Hence we find the epithet smoky, 
 or black with smoke,:]: familiarly applied to the roof and 
 joists of the saloon, while the arms hung around the 
 walls are described as blackened with smoke.§ Hesiod also 
 talks of hanging up his rudder for the winter in the 
 smoke. |1 In the Odyssey cleft wood is also used to give 
 light — a purpose for which, when selected and prepared 
 in the mode above described, it is not ill adapted. Three 
 tripods, covered with chips of the driest and best-seasoned 
 wood, were stationed in different parts of the hall, when 
 the suitors rose to dance. ^ The wood here used was 
 probably olive or daphne, which, with a bright flame, 
 emits but little smoke or vapour; yet that little must 
 have ranged freely through the apartment before it 
 reached the vent. 
 
 The " Works and Days " of Hesiod also supply evi- 
 dence that the state of domestic manners among the 
 agricultural classes, in his time, offered many points of 
 resemblance to that which now prevails in the Greek 
 cottage. Among the detailed descriptions contained in 
 that poem, both of the mode of living within doors and 
 of the comforts or furniture of their dwellings, there is 
 
 ^ Herodot. viii. 137. 
 
 f HoM. Hymn. Ven. 30. Orph. Hymn. Ixxxiv. 
 
 + ai^aXoiig, H ii. 415. Odyss. xxii. 240. 
 
 § Odyss. xvi. 288. || Op. et D. 629. 
 
 f Odyss. xix. 63. 
 
22 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 no mention of chair or table^ and much that tends to 
 show that they were httle, if at all, in use. It is probable 
 that the obs(mre proverb, in the last of the two following 
 verses, descriptive of the evils of poverty during winter, 
 alludes to the practice of sitting crosslegs on the floor: — 
 
 " Lest winter come, with hunger and distress, 
 W^hen skinny hand a big swoln foot shall press ; — Op. et D., 495. 
 
 For a common, and as any person who makes the 
 experiment will perceive, a natural and convenient mode 
 of disposing of the hands in such a position, when sitting 
 idle or reposing after fatigue, is to rest them, one or both, 
 upon the feet. 
 
 The text of Hesiod above cited is introduced with 
 especial reference to the Lesche, and its lazy lounging 
 habits. This place, coupled by both Homer* and Hesiodf 
 with the smithy, as the resort of the vagrant poor or the 
 idle, especially in cold weather, seems to have been very 
 similar to the common Greek khan of the present day ; 
 a cottage or shed namely, with a hearth, around which 
 the loiterers by day, and the houseless by night, gossiped, 
 ate, drank, and slept, in the same attitude, it may be pre- 
 sumed, as now. J 
 
 But whatever may have been the case in the days 
 of Eumseus or Hesiod, there is no reason to suppose 
 that the better class, even of the peasantry, in later 
 times, were strangers to the comforts or luxuries of more 
 advanced civilization. Such manners as those above 
 described, must have been common in remote and bar- 
 barous epochs to every people; and may have been 
 
 * Homer. Od. xviii. 328. 
 
 f Hesiod. Op.et D.4Q\, l^aXza Xs(^^7iv, Hesych.'m v. aXizmvg 
 
 \ The term in later times was familiarly applied to various places 
 of public resort, at Athens and elsewhere, such as with us would be 
 called taverns or coffee-houses, (Leake, Topogr, p. 388;) also to the 
 casinos or public saloons of Delphi and Sparta, &c. 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 23 
 
 retained among the inferior or servile class of Hellenic 
 peasantry. Helots, Penestse, Sec, transmitted by them to 
 their successors, and finally, in the progress of national 
 debasement, spread through the whole native population 
 in the new and inferior state of society, without the aid 
 of exotic example, from either Sclavonian, Turk, or Ar- 
 naut. The following extract from the graphic descrip-* 
 tion given by Aristophanes of the wretched lot of hm 
 countrymen, when the demon of poverty shall have 
 established her reign over the land, which applies with 
 such singular closeness to their present domestic habits^ 
 was, there can be little doubt, derived from those of the 
 lower orders in his own time : — 
 
 " Of fleas, and lice, and gnats, 'twere vam 
 
 To calculate the number, 
 That, softly buzzing round your head^ 
 
 Awake you from your slumber. 
 In gentle tones like these : ' 'Tis true^, 
 
 No morning meal doth greet you,. 
 Yet rise you must, to lie too long 
 
 In bed will overheat you.' 
 Then for a cloak a tatter'd rug 
 
 Shall from the storm preserve yon ; 
 An old rush mat, with many a bug 
 
 Alive, for couch will serve you ; 
 Another o'er your limbs to spread;, 
 
 W^ill make your bedding tidy ; 
 A block of stone beneath your head 
 
 For pillow she'll provide ye."- — Plufus, 536, seq^ 
 
 There are, it is true, some other passages of the same 
 author, which would seem to justify us in looking for the 
 original of a portion, at least, of this dismal picture in ^ 
 still higher quarter ; as, for example, where Strepsiades^ 
 son of a wealthy agriculturist, contrasts his former habits 
 of rural simplicity with those which he had been obliged 
 to adopt on taking to wife an Athenian fine lady :~ 
 
 Alas r how sweet my country life, when I 
 
 In wholesome filth did dwell — unwasb'd — unetHn'b'd^ 
 
24 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 And laid my limbs, fatigued with honest toil, 
 At will where suited best.* 
 
 Even here, however, there is perhaps as much of satire 
 as of truth. 
 
 One conclusive argument in favour of the cleanly 
 habits of the ancients, even of the lowest class, during 
 their best ages, is to be found in the fact, that personal 
 ablution, the simplest but the most important element 
 of all cleanliness, now all but unknown among the Greek 
 lower orders, (or which at least I never saw practised 
 by any of the company assembled on such occasions as 
 on this evening, except by myself,) was then carried 
 among all ranks to the highest perfection, or even to 
 excess. The use of the daily bath in Athens, as we 
 learn from numberless passages of the ancients — of Aris- 
 tophanes more especially — was universal ; and the public 
 accommodation for the purpose more than ample for the 
 supply of at least the whole free population, even for the 
 indigent and destitute poor. Xenophon tells us,t that 
 although it was customary for wealthy Athenian families 
 to have their houses fitted up with baths for their private 
 use ; yet the poor were still better off than the rich in 
 this respect, from the number and size of the public 
 establishments of the same kind which the democracy 
 
 * J/AO/ ya^ 7JV ay^oixog '!jd/(frog jS/og, 
 
 sv^c/jTiooVy aKo^yjTog, g/%$5 Tts/fxsvog. — Nub. 43. 
 The phrase Xiifxsvog is but a concise mode of expressing what 
 Homer says of the bed-accommodation of Laertes in the passage above 
 cited. That Daphnis and Chloe, in the romance of Longus, though 
 children of the upper class of peasantry, never undress from one end 
 of the year to the other, were perhaps scarcely a fair case to quote. 
 Pastoral heroes and heroines have the privilege of exemption from all 
 such unpoetical obligations, the observance of which would, indeed, in 
 this instance, have been more than usually detrimental to the spirit of 
 the narrative. Lib. ii. cc. 4, 5, 27, &c. 
 
 f Be Republ. Aihen. ii. § 9. Conf. Aristoph. Vesp. 141, Equit. 1060, 
 seq. 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 25 
 
 had taken care to provide for their own comfort. This 
 is also imphed by an allusion contained in the same 
 context above cited from the comic poet, where, among 
 the benefits poverty is allowed to confer on her votaries, 
 are "blisters from the hot bath;"* signifying, first, 
 that a person in want of every thing else could at least 
 obtain this luxury; and secondly, the little advantage 
 resulting from it to a squalid and unwholesome habit of 
 body. Of the inveteracy of the custom^ even among the 
 most degraded members of the community, we have a 
 curious instance in Lucian's romance of The Ass, where 
 the robbers, on arriving at their cavern, solace them- 
 selves, both chief and gang, by warm bathing.f The 
 Spartans alone seem, like the Palikars of the present 
 day, to have affected filth of person and contempt for 
 ablution, as an attribute of martial genius.f 
 
 That this usage was as old as the days of Homer 
 among the better class, we learn from passages of his 
 poems too numerous and familiar to render it necessary 
 here to quote them; and in the time of Hesiod, its 
 excess in the male sex is already stigmatized as a mark 
 of effeminacy. § In Athens, during her best ages, the 
 luxury seems to have been abused to an equal extent as 
 in the lower ages of Rome. It may, indeed, safely be 
 assumed, in spite of the arrogant pretensions of modern 
 civilization, that both Greeks and Romans in their best 
 days far surpassed even those nations of modern Europe 
 most distinguished for refinement, in this essential ele- 
 ment of civihzed life. This consideration is in itself 
 sufficient to free them from any general charge of per- 
 
 ^ (fv ya^ av ^op6ai ri dvvai' aya^ov 'ttXyiv <p(j!dMV sx jSccXavs/ov, 
 Plut. v. 534. 
 
 f LuciAN. Asin. 20, seq, 
 
 I Aristoph. Plut. 84, seq. et Schol. ad loc, Aves, 1281, seq. 
 § Op. et B., V. 753. Conf. Akistoph. Nub, 991, 1039. 
 VOL. II. C 
 
26 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 sonal filth. Washing the human body is the foundation 
 of all cleanhness; and a people so much alive to its 
 advantages, could hardly be callous to the contamination 
 of their habiliments or dwellings. 
 
 As regards the mode of taking food, the practice of 
 the Greeks, even in their days of greatest politeness, is 
 certainly not very congenial to our notions of delicacy. 
 Homer's familiar common-place — 
 
 " They laid their hands upon the meats prepared," 
 
 may safely be taken by the letter; nor is there much 
 reason to believe that either Pericles or Alcibiades were 
 acquainted with the use of a knife and fork. The witty 
 speech of the poet Philoxenes*^ to Dionysius of Syra- 
 cuse, recorded by Athenseus, could hardly have found 
 place at a table where the refinements of modern manners 
 prevailed. Hence the indispensable ceremony q£ the 
 chironiptron or hand-washing, both before and after 
 meals, which travellers describe as still prevalent in 
 Greece, but which I never happened to witness in any 
 native society into which it was my lot to be thrown. 
 
 That the travelling accommodation of the ancients 
 was but indifferent, there can be no doubt. In the large 
 
 * Supping one day with the tyrant, and observing that a very small 
 mullet was served on his plate, while that of his host contained a much 
 larger one, he took up his own in his hand, and held its head to his 
 ear. When asked the re^ison, he replied, that being about to compose 
 an ode to Galatea, he had been desirous to know how matters stood at 
 the court of Nereus ; that his fish had told him she had been caught so 
 young, that she could give him no information, but that her sister on 
 the plate of Dionysius was older, and would be better able to answer 
 his enquiries. The tyrant laughed, and sent him his own mullet. 
 ( Athen^us, lib. i. p. 6, E.) The same author (Lib. i. p. 6, D.) men- 
 tions an epicure named Pithyllus, who always came to table with gloves 
 on his hands, that he might be the better able to handle the meat when 
 hot from the kitchen. 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 27 
 
 towns the practice of mutual hospitality, public or private, 
 superseded in a great measure the estabhshment of inns ; 
 as it does to this day in Spain, the two Sicilies, and 
 other less frequented parts of southern Europe. Inns, 
 however, they had in plenty upon their roads, and of a 
 vastly superior description, no doubt, to any now to be 
 found;* yet those who wished to insure their comfort, 
 were anciently, as now, in the habit of carrying their 
 own beds and provisions. Aristophanes introduces Bac- 
 chus, in his journey to Hades, f with an equipage very 
 similar to that now customary among the less luxurious 
 class of tourists.ij: The better sort of inns, as we have 
 seen, were probably very similar to the Turkish khan as 
 represented by that of Livadia. 
 
 Such were the reflections on the past and the present 
 with which I endeavoured to beguile the tedious hours 
 of wakefulness, as I lay longing for the first dawn of 
 morning to emancipate me from my comfortless quarters. 
 As daylight broke in, the group around the fire grew 
 restless; and the separate parties, according to their 
 respective gifts of natural activity, or the urgency of 
 their affairs, arose drowsily and silently, set their equi- 
 page in order, and departed, each in their appointed 
 direction. 
 
 * Dic^AReHus, Be St. Gr, p. 11. Ed. Huds, 
 t Ran, init. conf. ^Eschin. Ed. Reisk. vol. iii, p. 273. Plutaecii, 
 in Cat. Min. c. xii. 
 
 X As exemplified in my own, described in ch^ip. vii. vol. 1, 
 
28 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE RAKIAN PLAIN— BAY OF SALAMIS— BOREAS IN ATTIC FABLE— 
 GR^CO-BAVARIAN ROADS. 
 
 TO ic^h^ drdo^ rors y ovri (ps^st^^iov dXXd sxriXov 
 B(^T7}7isi itavdfvXXov, — Hymn, Cer. 450. 
 
 " The Harian plain we cross, once fertile shore, 
 Now bless'd, alas ! with Ceres' gifts no more." 
 
 At some little distance below the khan the valley 
 begins to widen, and soon after we obtain a view of Sala- 
 mis and the landlocked bay of Eleusis. The foreground 
 is the celebrated Rarian plain, here barren and rocky, 
 or covered with brushwood and low straggling pine forest, 
 which, as we approach the sea, gives place to arable 
 land, in a poor state of cultivation. The quality of the 
 land where we crossed the plain seemed less rich, even 
 by nature, than might have been expected in the envi- 
 rons of the favourite abode of Ceres, and on the fields 
 where tradition places the first growth of wheat on the 
 soil of Hellas. The prospect is bounded, to the left or 
 north, by the ridge of -^gialeos, now called Daphne, 
 which hides the plain of Athens ; in front by Salamis, 
 with ^gina in the extreme distance. At the southern 
 extremity of the plain, the acropolis of Eleusis is the 
 principal object ; behind it is a conical knoll crowned by 
 a round tower of the middle ages, and connected with a 
 range of undulating heights of a peculiarly beautiful out- 
 line, projecting from the lower declivities of Cithseron, 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 29 
 
 and bounding the prospect in this direction. Although 
 there is nothing very striking in the features of this land- 
 scape, the whole presents a singularly graceful, and — as 
 forming a circle around the bay of Salamis — a no less 
 interesting composition. 
 
 Hitherto, with the exception of the four disastrous 
 days of Livadia, we had been, upon the whole, favoured 
 by the weather, which from the first commencement of 
 our journey had been for the most part not only bright 
 and cheerful, but remarkably mild for the season even in 
 this latitude ; and such as would not have disgraced a 
 fine summer in my own country. The alteration of tem- 
 perature we now experienced, on entering the genial 
 plains of Attica, affords a striking evidence how danger- 
 ous it is for the traveller to pronounce judgment, as he is 
 so apt to do, from the experience of a single visit, or even 
 a single season, on the climate of the regions he traverses. 
 During the previous winter at Florence, while making 
 piiparation for this journey, I happened one raw wet 
 evening to be walking home from a round of visits^ with 
 a friend who had lately returned from a tour in Greece, 
 and, having spent the previous winter at Athens, had 
 brought back an enthusiastic sense of the delights of its 
 atmosphere. While crouching under our cloaks, vainly 
 endeavouring to shield ourselves from the sleet that 
 drizzled in our faces, he exclaimed : — " Ah, how differ- 
 ent was it with the bright heaven and balmy air of the 
 Attic winter nights!" This remark was fresh in my 
 memory ; and having been favoured with so fine a spring 
 in central Italy and northern Greece during the month 
 of February, I expected at least a warm summer in Attica 
 towards the end of March. Great was my mortification, 
 therefore, at being welcomed into the genial clime by the 
 coldest weather by far which it had yet been my lot to 
 experience, since I left Florence on the last day of Jan- 
 
30 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 uary. The mornings like the previous night, though 
 sharp, was clear and calm ; but as the day advanced, the 
 sky was overspread with a dim autumnal haze, and about 
 the centre of the Eleusinian plain we were suddenly 
 greeted from the gully between ^gialeos and Parnes by 
 so fierce a boreas, that I was nearly blown off my horse, 
 and for the first time at so late a period of the day while 
 in motion and exercise, was obliged, not only to resort to 
 a cloak, but to accumulate several upon my shoulders, 
 and make every exertion to quicken the pace of my beast 
 into a jog-trot; no easy task, and one which the traveller 
 is seldom induced to undertake unless by some similar 
 case of extreme necessity. 
 
 It may be attributed to the singular inclemency of this 
 wind as experienced by the inhabitants of Attica, that he 
 plays so prominent a part in their early figurative tradi- 
 tion. His rape of Orithya, the " mountain vegetation," 
 and of Chloris, " the tender young grass," are plain 
 types of the fatal influence of his blast on the arid soil 
 of this region. Another nymph, Pitys, the " pine-tree," 
 struggling against his embraces, is dashed to the ground 
 and destroyed. The Athenians however, in later times, 
 acknowledged themselves under obligations to their fabu- 
 lous kinsman, calculated to make ample amends for his 
 habitual acts of aggression, and which were rewarded 
 by an addition to the divine honours he enjoyed among 
 them. The destruction of a part of the Persian fleet by 
 the north wind, ofl* the coast of Athos, was considered by 
 them as an answer to their supplication to him for as- 
 sistance and a new temple was accordingly erected to 
 him on the spot where he seized the daughter of Erech- 
 theus. Simonides,t in his poem on the battle of Salamis, 
 also makes mention of him, possibly in connexion with 
 his influence on the issue of the engagement fought in 
 
 ^ IIerodot. Hist. vii. 189. -f Fragm. clxxiv. Ed. Gaisf. 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 31 
 
 this beautiful gulf, whose waters were now agitated by 
 one of his keenest blasts as we passed along the shore. 
 
 Upon the whole, however, I have no just ground of 
 complaint against the climate of Attica. The weather 
 brightened into a fine clear sunset on the evening of this 
 very day, (March ISth,) after our arrival in the city. 
 During the whole of my sojourn in the province, there 
 was not a drop of rain, but with the exception of this 
 forenoon the sun shone brilliantly, in a cloudless sky, from 
 morning till night ; and although for the first eight days 
 the air was somewhat piercing, it afterwards softened 
 down into a fair English summer temperature. 
 
 As we approach the shore, the horse track joins a 
 good carriage road, made within the last few years by the 
 new government upon the remains of an old Turkish 
 causeway, and in some places on those of the sacred 
 Eleusinian way, of which Leake describes vestiges as 
 formerly visible, I saw none, and they have probably 
 disappeared in the course of the modern improvement. 
 This line is now completed from Athens to Lipsina, and 
 is intended, I believe, to be continued to Corinth, an 
 undertaking which would require the resources of a 
 Napoleon rather than those of an Otho. The other regu- 
 larly made roads which existed in Greece, complete in 
 whole or in part at this period, were one from Athens to 
 Piraeus, another between the same city and the marble 
 quarries of Pentehcus, a third from Naupha to Argos, 
 and a fourth from Argos to Tripohzza. How far these 
 undertakings be worth their expense, in the present 
 state of the country and its finances, seems very question- 
 able. In Turkish times such a thing as a wheel-carriage 
 was unknown in Greece proper. At present the leading 
 members of the court and diplomatic corps, with a few 
 other persons among the upper class of residents in the 
 capital, keep their equipages. There are also regular 
 
32 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 public conveyances between Athens and the Piraeus, 
 and a partial intercourse of the same kind between Argos 
 and NaupHa. A few carts or waggons, of German 
 construction, are also to be met with in the city or its 
 vicinity, chiefly or solely the property of the government; 
 but if such a thing exist at all beyond the immediate 
 environs of Athens, it is at least a phenomenon of the 
 greatest rarity in the country at large. Even on the 
 newly made roads, therefore, with these exceptions, 
 horses, mules, or asses, still supply the only means of 
 transport ; and it is likely that the poverty, as well as 
 the prejudice of the natives, will long prevent any other 
 from coming into general use. Of the four works above 
 mentioned, the first no doubt is not only useful but indis- 
 pensable, and the traffic upon it as brisk and constant 
 as may be expected between the metropolis and its port. 
 The second was constructed for the transport of mate- 
 rials for the mason-work of the new palace, and serves 
 apparently no other purpose of any importance. A certain 
 communication by carriage also exists between Argos 
 and Nauplia. But the two most extensive and most 
 costly undertakings, the fourteen miles of route from 
 Athens to Eleusis, and the thirty yet incomplete from 
 Argos to Tripolizza, are of little more apparent use, in 
 as far as the general commerce of the country is con- 
 cerned, than the old bridle tracks which they were meant 
 to supplant, but which the native traveller still prefers 
 whenever they afford the shortest cut. The modern 
 Eleusinian way, on emerging from the outskirts of the 
 capital, leads across an uninhabited waste, through not 
 a single village, scarcely to my recollection past a single 
 house, to an insignificant port, and a mass of ruined 
 hovels. It may, indeed, enable the classical tourist to 
 visit the site of Eleusis in a caleche, instead of on horse- 
 back ; and possibly the produce of the royal salt-ponds 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 33 
 
 which I observed to the left, on the marshy part of the 
 plain near the sea, may occasionally be conveyed to 
 Athens on a pair of wheels. But I saw neither carriage 
 nor wheel-track on the whole line. It is true that these 
 works must be presumed to have been undertaken for 
 the purpose of accommodating the traffic they were to 
 create, rather than that which already existed, and are 
 no doubt the first steps towards the encouragement of 
 commercial or agricultural communication on the im- 
 proved European system ; since no person, however well 
 disposed to the use of a carriage, will be willing to build 
 one, unless he has a road upon which to drive it, A 
 chief part of the labour is also said to have been done by 
 the German soldiers in the pay of the king, as a useful 
 and popular mode of employing the idle time of a most 
 unpopular class of pubhc servants; and in so far the 
 work may be considered worth its cost. Otherwise, in 
 the present state of the national finances, such under- 
 takings, unless, indeed, where they may be essential to 
 the establishment of a mihtary command of the country, 
 must be considered as altogether premature. In axom- 
 mercial point of view it would surely be for the present 
 far wiser pohcy, instead of making expensive roads which 
 no one uses, and which, unless maintained at a propor- 
 tional cost, will speedily fall to decay, to endeavour, by 
 diminishing the taxes, and otherwise improving the con- 
 dition of the people, to raise them to a state of prosperity 
 which may enable them to benefit the more by such as 
 shall hereafter be rendered necessary by their real wants. 
 
 These strictures apply, perhaps still more pointedly, 
 to the immense marble palace now constructing at Athens. 
 For many years to come it would have been far more 
 dignified, as well as more pohtic, for the newly created 
 sovereign to have contented himself with a homely dwell- 
 ing, in better keeping with the actual resources of his 
 
34 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 kingdom, and with the wretched state of domestic accom- 
 modation among his subjects. As matters now stand, 
 these pompous displays of European civihzation, con- 
 trasting so broadly with the semi-barbarism in the midst 
 of which they are exhibited ; fair wide carriage roads, 
 frequented by a few squalid pack-horses or mules, and 
 gorgeous palaces surrounded by hovels and rubbish; 
 instead of conveying an impression of the advancing 
 civilization and prosperity of the country, tend but to 
 display in a more glaring light its misery and barbarism. * 
 The apology, of encouraging art and industry, or 
 affording employment, is scarcely valid in the case of this 
 royal structure ; since the species of labour which forms 
 the great item of its expense, that of marble-cutting, 
 while it is one which cannot for many a year become one 
 of general necessity or utility, must for the present be 
 confined chiefly to foreign mechanics. Standing one day, 
 before dinner, with the lady of a distinguished foreign 
 diplomatist at Athens, on the balcony of her drawing- 
 room, I happened to notice a checquered marble pave- 
 ment with which it was adorned. In her reply to my 
 observations, she mentioned incidentally that it had been 
 imported by her husband ready-made from Carrara. At 
 this I expressed my astonishment, considering that the 
 outer courts of their own dwelling were strewed with 
 ancient fragments, of the finest produce of the native 
 
 * The reproaches placed by Aristophanes in the mouth of the 
 sausage- vender against the demagogue Cleon, for his indifference to 
 the comfort of the Athenians of those days, admit of a curious appli- 
 cation to their present rulers : 
 
 %ai 'TtZjg 61) (piXsTgy og rovrov o^ojv o/kovvt h ra7g '7nddKvai(^/v, 
 xai yvTTa^ioig, %ai ^v^yihtoig^ srog oydoov, ov7t sXiai^big. 
 
 JEquit. 792. 
 
 " Is this the way you show your royal pity for a nation, 
 Who dwell these eight long years in huts and holes amid starvation ? " 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 35 
 
 quarries. She assured me, however, that before sending 
 to Italy, they had made a calculation of the relative 
 expense of the two modes — the result of which was, that 
 the mere hewing of the ancient blocks to which I alluded, 
 would have cost as much as the whole charge from Car- 
 rara, including raw material, work, and freight ; that they 
 had, however, for the interest of the thing, employed a 
 native artist to operate upon one or two of the ancient 
 fragments ; but that the utmost his skill had been able 
 to effect was to shiver in pieces, or otherwise mutilate 
 them, so as to render them altogether unfit for the pur- 
 pose for which they were destined. Such is the present 
 state of this branch of elegant art among the descendants 
 of Phidias and Ictinus. 
 
36 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 CHAPTER XXy. 
 
 FIRST VIEW OF ATHENS— PARALLEL OF ATHENIAN PLAIN AND ROMAN 
 C AMP AGNA— FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE CITY— ATHENIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 aXX' oXoXv^ars (paivo/ULsvriffiv raTg d^^a/ai(fiv ^ A^Tjvaig, 
 V ral X/cra^oc/, xaiy to6TS(pavoi, xal a^iZy]X(/)Toi 'Arrival, 
 
 Aristoph. Equ* 1327. 
 
 " Then shout for joy, old Athens now appears, renown'd in story ; 
 O city fair ! desired of all, and crown'd with wreaths of glory." 
 
 At the point where the flat shore is bounded to the 
 east by the ridge of ^gialeos, the road, after coasting 
 along its base for a few hundred yards, strikes ofi* to the 
 left across the heights, through the pass of Daphne. At 
 its summit is the convent of the same name, now occu- 
 pied by a station of Bavarian soldiers. A little further on, 
 Athens — its mountains — and its plain — open suddenly 
 upon the view. Amid the most intense anxiety to 
 obtain a first sight of this celebrated region, I had not 
 formed any very exaggerated expectations of the impres- 
 sion it was to produce. I was so famihar, as I imagined, 
 with its site and principal features, through the medium of 
 so many pubhshed descriptions, and of still more numer- 
 ous drawings and engravings, by professors and amateurs 
 of every variety and degree of talent;; and I had both 
 heard and read so many ebullitions of the enthusiasm 
 which every well-educated man must experience, in a 
 greater or lesser degree, on his first personal introduc- 
 tion to a scene, around which are concentrated so many 
 associations of what is beautiful and glorious in the his- 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 37 
 
 tory of our species, that the claims, either classical or 
 picturesque, of Athens and its environs on my sympa- 
 thies, had become, in some measure, a hackneyed and 
 threadbare subject. I was consequently, as frequently 
 happens in such cases, prepared for disappointment or 
 indifference, on first acquaintance with the original of so 
 many high-drawn pictures. The disappointment, how- 
 ever, for such it may still in so far be called, was a most 
 agreeable one. To me Athens and the surrounding 
 landscape presented, not only from this pass, but from 
 every other leading point of view, features of novelty 
 almost as fresh as if I had never seen an outline of the 
 Acropolis. Nor have I ever known an instance in 
 which the efforts of artists, even of the most approved 
 skill, have so entirely failed in conveying any thing like 
 the real effect of their subject. 
 
 The great natural amphitheatre, of which Athens is 
 the centre, possesses, in addition to its beauty, certain 
 features of peculiarity, which render it the more difficult 
 to form any adequate idea of its scenery, but from per- 
 sonal view. The chief of these is a certain degree of 
 regularity, or rather of symmetry, in the arrangement of 
 the principal parts of the landscape, which enables the 
 eye the better to apprehend its whole extent and variety 
 at a single glance, and thus to enjoy the full effect of 
 its collective excellence more perfectly, than where the 
 attention is distracted by a less orderly accumulation 
 even of beautiful objects. Its more prominent character- 
 istics are: first, the wide extent of open plain in the 
 centre ; secondly, the three separate ranges of mountain 
 — Hymettus5Pentelicus,and Fames — to the eye of nearly 
 the same height, and bounding the plain at unequal dis- 
 tances on three sides, to the south-east, north-east, and 
 north-west ; thirdly, the sea on the remaining side, with 
 its islands, and the distant mainland of Peloponnesus; 
 
38 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 fourthly, the cluster of rocky protuberances in the centre 
 of the plain, the most striking of which either form part 
 of the site of the city, or are grouped around it; and 
 fifthly, the line of dark dense olive groves, winding like 
 a large green river through the heart of the vale. Any 
 formahty, which might be expected to result from so 
 symmetrical an arrangement of these leading elements of 
 the composition, is further interrupted by the low grace- 
 ful ridge of Turcovouni,* extending behind the city 
 up the centre of the plain ; and by a few more marked 
 undulations of its surface about the Piraeus, and the 
 neighbouring coast. The present barren and deserted 
 state of this fair, but not fertile, region, is perhaps rather 
 favourable than otherwise to its full picturesque effect, 
 as tending less to interfere with the outlines of the land- 
 scape in which its beauty so greatly consists, than a 
 dense population and high state of culture. 
 
 The analogy between the natural features, as well as 
 the present fate, of the Roman campagna and the Athe- 
 nian plain, cannot fail to occur to every one possessed of 
 the means of forming the comparison. I say analogy 
 rather than resemblance, because, however striking the 
 points of general correspondence, in many of the details 
 there is an equally marked difference. Each, no doubt, 
 has its peculiar excellences; but, upon the whole, the 
 palm of beauty must be awarded to Athens. The Alban 
 and Sabine mountains form boundaries to the vale of the 
 Tyber, less grand, it is true, but no less graceful and 
 ornamental, than Hymettus and Pentelicus to that of the 
 Cephissus. The resemblance, indeed, between the out- 
 line of Pentelicus and of the Mons Lucretilis or Monte 
 Gennaro, as seen from Athens and Rome respectively, is 
 very remarkable, and has frequently been noticed. But 
 the third great landward boundary of the Campagna to- 
 * Turk's hill. 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 39 
 
 wards Viterbo, is monotonous and tame, in comparison 
 with the Attic Parnes and ^gialeos. The sea view of 
 the Saronic gulf, for which the dreary hne of plain to- 
 wards Ostia forms so poor a substitute, were in itself 
 sufficient to turn the scale in favour of Athens, even 
 were all other claims equal. The Attic mountains too 
 have this advantage, that, while so far removed as to 
 admit of that width and extent of prospect so essential 
 to the higher species of landscape composition, they are 
 yet sufficiently near to produce, each in itself, its full 
 effect of mass and loftiness, which is but partially the 
 case with the Latin hills. On the other hand, the greater 
 breadth and more open character of the Roman plain, 
 with its graceful undulations, and beautiful varieties of 
 light, shade, and colouring, with its solitary groups of 
 ruined villas, temples, and tombs, and its aqueducts 
 stalking in broken fragments like a routed army of giants 
 across its level, give it perhaps, in its individual capacity, 
 a superiority over the arid vale of Athens, which even 
 the fine effect of the olive groves is not sufficient to coun- 
 terbalance. Another advantage of the Roman landscape 
 consists in the number and elegance of the modern 
 buildings scattered here and there over the face of the 
 Campagna; the castle and tower of the middle ages, the 
 lonely convent, casale, or villa farm, sheltered by its 
 groves of cypress or stone pine, together with the fair 
 white towns and villages of the lower mountain declivi- 
 ties. These are features which, while they impart a 
 certain air of cheerfulness and festivity to the melancholy 
 grandeur of that beautiful desert, contrast there, as else- 
 where in Italian scenery, most favourably with the 
 unseemly groups of hovels that disfigure more frequently 
 than they enliven the landscape of Greece. But then 
 those bold and varied natural features of the lower and 
 more central portion of the Attic vale, the Acropolis, 
 
40 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 the Museum, the Lycabettus, &C.5 are altogether want- 
 ing in that of the Tyber, where they are still more 
 required to relieve the greater extent and uniformity of 
 the plain. Nor does Rome herself, either ancient or 
 modern, add much to the general effect of her environs. 
 Instead of boldly standing forth with her temples and 
 palaces, as if proud of her own beauty and of the fair 
 region she commands, she is sunk in a hollow crater, the 
 boundaries of which, as seen even from within her own 
 hmits, are but tame objects, and altogether insignificant 
 as general features of the distant prospect ; while the city 
 itself, for the same reason, is scarcely visible from any 
 point without the walls, but in bird's-eye view from the 
 summit of the surrounding heights. It is, however, but 
 an ungrateful task to cast up an account of the respec- 
 tive claims on our admiration of two regions both so 
 replete with beauty and interest ; more especially where, 
 as in my own case, the balance is likely to be unfavour- 
 able to one endeared to the fancy by so many old and 
 delightful recollections. If the Attic plain must be 
 allowed to combine, more perhaps than any other district 
 in Europe, the higher excellences of classical scenery, as 
 little can it be denied that the panorama of the Cam- 
 pagna from Roma Vecchia, towards sunset on a bright 
 afternoon of autumn, is about as brilliant and inspiring a 
 prospect as the imagination can conceive. 
 
 The full perception of scenery of this class is in itself 
 an acquired taste — as in fact are all our finer tastes in 
 their more advanced stages. So at least I have found 
 in my own experience. It required, I well recollect, several 
 months' residence in Italy and Rome, and many a ride 
 across the Campagna, to initiate me fully into its beau- 
 ties. But the mind, through this very medium, was 
 already prepared to enter at once into the full charm of 
 the Attic landscape. With the majority of travellers, 
 
ATTICA* 
 
 41 
 
 however, this would not appear to be the case. I re- 
 member a resident Philhellene, of both taste and genius, 
 in the course of a walk I enjoyed with him in the envi- 
 rons of the city, expressing surprise that a stranger, on 
 first arrival, should appear so much alive to the beauties 
 of a class of scenery, the full value of which had forced 
 itself but slowly and gradually on his own apprehension. 
 The above remark apphes perhaps more pointedly to our 
 own countrymen, whose early ideas of perfect landscape 
 composition are inseparably associated with verdant 
 lawns, majestic oaks, richly wooded hills, and gothic 
 spires. Hence it will not uncommonly happen that an 
 honest Enghsh country gentleman, who in his own pro- 
 vince had estabhshed a high reputation for proficiency in 
 the art of landscape gardening, for laying off his planta- 
 tions in the most graceful lines, or thinning his park 
 timber into the most picturesque groups, on being pro- 
 pelled, by the national obligation to perform the grand 
 tour, into the classic regions of the Mediterranean, finds 
 himself quite unable to apprehend the merit of that 
 scenery which formed the favourite study of a Poussin 
 or a Claude, and makes little scruple in denouncing the 
 admiration expressed for it by his more advanced fellow 
 countrymen, as mere pedantry and affectation. 
 
 It may here indeed be urged, by the advocates for the 
 influence of fancy and classical prejudice in such matters, 
 that much of the admiration bestowed on scenes of this 
 description, originates in sources altogether distinct from 
 our abstract sense of their natural beauty—in the histo- 
 rical associations, namely, with which they are connected ; 
 that the desolation which is so inspiring in the cam- 
 pagna of Rome would be viewed with very different 
 feehngs in the neighbourhood of a city north of the Alps; 
 and that the arid hills and dark olive woods of AthenSj 
 VOL. n. ^ 
 
42 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 might appear gloomy and cheerless on the shores of 
 Africa or Spain. 
 
 There is much truth, no doubt, in this ; yet the impres- 
 sions themselves are not the less real or the less pure 
 from being traceable in some degree to such causes. 
 There is no part of the mechanism of the human mind 
 more difficult to fathom, than that which regulates our 
 perceptions of ideal beauty. It is certain, however, that 
 two of its most powerful organs are, association and sym- 
 pathy. And this law, like most of those affecting the 
 exercise of one branch of our imaginative faculties, 
 extends in a greater or less degree to all the others. It 
 is in the case of poetry, perhaps, that the principle is 
 most strikingly illustrated. As long as the poems that 
 still bear the name of Ossian were acknowledged the 
 genuine effusions of a Caledonian bard of the 4th century, 
 they were classed among the highest efforts of heaven- 
 born genius, and their author, by the award of the first 
 European critics, was assigned a place on the pinnacle of 
 Parnassus by the side of Homer, Dante, or Shakspeare. 
 No sooner was it estabUshed that they were for the most 
 part the productions of a Scottish bookmaker of the last 
 generation, than they were contemptuously laid on the 
 shelf, and the real beauties which cannot be denied them, 
 ceased to command either admiration or popularity. Why 
 is this ? The poems are the same, and the taste of the 
 age has undergone no essential alteration. The change 
 can only be explained, and at the same time vindicated,, 
 . by reference to the principle above mentioned. The 
 whole of that sympathy which had at first been felt with 
 both author and subject, resting on the conviction of an 
 equal degree of sympathy between his subject and him- 
 self, was found to be delusive, and the charm was at once 
 dissolved. This may at first sight appear an arbitrary 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 43 
 
 prineiplej and, like so many other questions of taste, may 
 be an inexplicable one; but it is one inseparably inter- 
 woven with the most delicate fibres of our ideal percep- 
 tions ; and by equal reference to its operation, could it 
 be established to-^morrow by some subtle train of topo- 
 graphical enquiry, that the ruins which we suppose to 
 represent Athens were really those of some favoured 
 colony of Hadrian, and that the Olympium, the The- 
 seum, and the Parthenon, (as the learned Spon maintained 
 of the principal sculptures of the latter,) were original 
 works of that emperor, the result would, and ought to be, 
 with every man of true taste, a proportional diminution 
 of the picturesque effect as well as of the historical in- 
 terest of her landscape. Could those disciples of the 
 romantic school, who attribute that admiration for the 
 scenery of Attica or Latium in others, which they them- 
 selves are unable to feel, to the delusions of classical 
 enthusiasm, be convinced that Fountain Abbey or Mel- 
 rose were but modern imitations of the Gothic style, 
 erected by some virtuoso of the last century to adorn his 
 park — would they contemplate them with the same feel- 
 ings as hitherto ? 
 
 The pass of Daphne is perhaps the most favourable 
 point for a first view of the city, as presenting the lead- 
 ing features both of its site and environs in the most 
 distinct and prominent groups. It possessed, to myself, 
 the additional advantage of novelty, as I do not recollect 
 having seen any view of Athens from this spot in the 
 pubhshed collections. The wind had fallen, and the 
 sky, though dull and overcast, was not altogether unfa- 
 vourable, being overspread with that hght blue haze which 
 tends less to conceal than to darken the bolder features 
 of a landscape, or, to use an expressive sea phrase, 
 causes the cliffs or mountains to loom in broader and 
 more prominent masses. The foreground is a deep cut 
 
44 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 in the hill, with sloping sides, through which the road 
 winds in its descent from the summit of the pass, form- 
 ing, as it were, a frame to the picture. Below, extends 
 the plain with the olive groves, and beyond it lies the 
 city, bounded to the right by the acropolis, to the left by 
 Lycabettus, which here, without forfeiting any of its 
 boldness, assumes a greater variety of outline than as 
 seen from any other point. Immediately to the right of 
 the acropolis rise the heights of the Museum. The 
 background is completely occupied by Hymettus; the 
 flatness of its outline on this side forms the only defect 
 of the landscape. 
 
 The new city really presents a brilliant aspect as 
 beheld from this point, and at this distance, the more 
 refreshing to my eye, after the dingy masses of hovels 
 and rubbish with which it had been familiar as the re- 
 presentatives of Greek towns, since my departure from 
 Ithaca — presenting a long line of glittering white edifices, 
 and displaying much of the elegance and gayety of a 
 fair Italian city. 
 
 On descending the hill, after a considerable stretch of 
 open plain, we enter the olive groves, scattered over 
 marshy fields irrigated by the Cephissus — once the 
 classic gardens of the Academy. As he emerges from 
 the thicket, and obtains a nearer view of the town, the 
 traveller is mortified to find what a change has come 
 over the fair vision which lately enlivened the prospect, 
 and is apt to think that he has been the dupe of some 
 Fata Morgana^ or optical deception, on observing, as he 
 advances, the previous broad expanse of cleanly edifices 
 gradually vanishing from his sight, and resolving itself 
 into the customary groups of ruins and hovels. The 
 illusion is easily explained. At the conclusion of the 
 war, modern Athens was one mass of rubbish, out of 
 which her previous inhabitants, on their return to the 
 
LIBRARY 
 OFTHE 
 DIVERSITY OF iUlNOiS 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 45 
 
 seat of their altars and hearths, threw up such structures 
 as were immediately necessary for the actual shelter of 
 their persons and goods. But since the selection of their 
 native town as the metropolis of the new state, a regular 
 plan has been formed for its reconstruction, to which all 
 the new private edifices must conform. Any settler, 
 however, is at liberty to fix his dwelling where he pleases, 
 provided he adhere to the alignement of the street or 
 square which he may select for its site. In this way a 
 considerable number of good houses have sprung up, 
 chiefly on the side of the town which fronts the Daphne 
 road. These, at a certain distance, exclusively engage 
 the eye, and impart to the whole city the gay appearance 
 above described. But on penetrating into the interior, 
 one speedily discovers that these fair palaces are but 
 pearls in a dunghill, scattered here and there at wide 
 intervals among cottages and ruins. Although the place 
 already contains many tolerable, and some few really 
 elegant buildings, not a single street can yet be said to 
 exist, unless an uneven expanse of bare earth and rub- 
 bish, bounded on each side by sheds and cottages, with 
 here and there a more substantial edifice, can deserve the 
 name. Even the bazar, or principal thoroughfare, has 
 no pavement or causeway of any kind. During my 
 residence in the city, the weather was dry; so that, with the 
 exception of clouds of dust on windy days, one walked 
 with tolerable comfort from place to place. But in the 
 rainy seasons the mad must be, and indeed, as I was 
 informed by the residents, is a most intolerable nuisance.* 
 
 * Here again, in contemplating the splendid pile of marble now 
 raising, for the accommodation of a prince whose whole state produces 
 scarcely the revenue of a wealthy English nobleman, one could not help 
 feeling the more forcibly how much more usefully, and even ornament- 
 ally, he might have employed this portion of his income, in rendering 
 the approaches from his city to the more homely residence with 
 
46 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 It may be questioned whether the ancient AthenknSy 
 even in their best days, had great reason to pride them- 
 selves on this department of their city pohce. In pick- 
 ing my steps through the mud, by the aid of a lantern, 
 in the lower parts of the town, on my return one evening 
 from a visit, my mind reverted to the scene in the Wasps 
 of Aristophanes, where the midnight visitors of Philo- 
 cleon are exhibited in the very same predicament ; * and 
 that also, as further appears from their own remarks, du- 
 ring a period of dry weather, f It would seem, indeed, 
 from several other pointed allusions of the same drama- 
 tist, that the internal economy of the city of Pericles, if 
 not quite in so low a state as that of its modern repre- 
 sentative, was little superior in these respects to that of 
 the filthiest towns of southern Europe at the present 
 day; and that her places of public resort, the purlieus 
 of her sacred edifices more especially, were among the 
 chief repositories of every kind of nuisance. | A bold 
 sceptic might, perhaps, even find reason to doubt whether 
 ancient Athens was regularly paved. Strabo seems to 
 assert the contrary, ascribing to, the Romans the first 
 introduction of this and other public conveniences of the 
 same class; and, although his testimony may here not 
 be admissible to its full extent, it is in itself probable, 
 that, in an age and country where wheel carriages were 
 so little in use, the pavement of cities may have been 
 confined to a few of the principal thoroughfares.§ 
 
 which for the present he ought to have been contented, permanently 
 passable. 
 
 ^ Vesp. 248, seq. t 260. ) 
 
 I Aristopii. Plut, 1183, seq. Nuhes, 1384, seq. Eccles. 320, seq. 
 Vesp, 394. 
 
 § Strabo, Lib. v. Edit. Falcon, p. 336.—" The Greeks," says he, 
 " in building their cities, attended chiefly to strength of site and for- 
 tification, convenience of ports, fertility of surrounding country, and 
 elegance of architecture. The Romans, on the other hand, provided 
 
ATTICA^ 
 
 47 
 
 Neither Athens, nor any other unfortified Greek 
 town has, as yet, either barrier or gate, but the entrance 
 is altogether free, as with us in England; nor is it, let 
 us hope, in contemplation to saddle the interior traffic 
 of the infant state with any of those semi-barbarous 
 restrictions, which still prevail in most of the civilized 
 countries of Europe. I felt rather ashamed of riding 
 into an European metropolis with so uncouth an equi- 
 page, but was soon comforted on observing nobody in 
 the principal thoroughfares much better appointed than 
 myself. Among the first symptoms of more advanced 
 civilization were several beggars, stationed at some of 
 the chief points of public resort. This is a class of 
 society to which, since my landing in Greece, I had 
 been a stranger. Amid all the external appearances of 
 abject poverty in the provincial towns and villages, men- 
 dicity is altogether unknown. One might be disposed 
 to explain this phenomenon by reference to the uni- 
 versal indigence of the people, which would render beg- 
 ging from each other but an unprofitable business, while 
 the number of passing strangers is not sufficient to have 
 introduced it as a new profession. I have, however, 
 been assured, that the outward appearances of pauperism 
 among the lower orders are delusive ; and that there are 
 few Greeks who have not, either on their persons or 
 buried under ground, a considerable amount of property 
 
 what the others neglected, paved ways, aqueducts, and common 
 sewers." This account, in so far as unfavourable to his own country- 
 men, must be taken with considerable modification. It is certain that 
 Athens, by whatever means, was well supplied with water. Otherwise 
 the allusions of Attic writers to the number of her baths, both public 
 and private, could not be explained ; and the existence of such esta- 
 blishments presupposes a proportional number of conduits and public 
 sewers. Of these, indeed, vestiges are extant at Athens as well as 
 other Greek cities ; although certainly on a scale inferior to those of 
 Rome. 
 
48 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 in specie or valuables. It is certain that a larger pro- 
 portion of the immense treasure, plundered from the 
 Turks on different occasions during the war, was distri- 
 buted among the population at large, than found its way 
 into the coffers of the provisional government. These 
 peculia were carefully hoarded ; and, as the Greeks are 
 naturally a provident and money-making people, in most 
 cases their store may be presumed to have since been 
 rather increased than diminished. 
 
 After threading the greater part of the town, I dis- 
 mounted about an hour after midday at Casali's Royal 
 Hotel, a good house, fitted up in the Italian style, where 
 I secured a handsome sitting-room, commanding a full 
 view of the eastern extremity of the Acropolis, with a 
 bed-room contiguous, at prices similar to those paid in 
 the most expensive capitals of Italy. After a couple of 
 hours spent in arranging my person and goods, and as 
 many more in a general survey of the site and remains 
 of the city, I found myself seated at the hospitable board 
 of Sir- Edmund Lyon, surrounded by every Enghsh 
 comfort, and in the midst of a most amiable family circle. 
 Sir Edmund is precisely what an Englishman, arriving 
 in the capital of a strange land, would desire to find as 
 the representative of his nation. To the manners of the 
 well-bred gentleman he adds the open frankness of the 
 British seaman, and is distinguished for politeness and 
 friendly attention to all classes of his countrymen. 
 
 Hospitality is said to be the virtue of barbarous nations, 
 a fact which may be accounted for by reference to two 
 very simple causes : first, the mutual dependence of the 
 members of such a state of society on the good offices of 
 each other, which renders its exercise in some degree a 
 matter of necessity ; secondly, the rarity of the visits of 
 strangers, which, by making them objects of interest and 
 curiosity, equally ensures their entertainment, as a matter 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 49 
 
 of inclination to their host. This rule applies, perhaps, still 
 more forcibly to colonies of civihzed men settled in bar- 
 barous regions, than to the natives, at least in so far as 
 regards their attention to travellers on the same grade of 
 social advancement with themselves. European visitors 
 are indeed no longer such a rarity in Athens as to admit 
 of the full operation of either of these causes^ and the 
 estabhshment of several tolerable hotels places the 
 stranger and the resident much on the same footing, 
 with regard to each other, in respect to lodging, as in 
 more advanced countries. Still, however, a foreigner 
 arriving in Athens with good introductions, finds himself 
 much more an object of attention than in any capital of 
 western Europe. During the ten days of my residence 
 there T never dined at my hotel, and on many of them, 
 had I been master of sufficient time and stomach, might 
 have eaten two or three dinners. But not to mention 
 these more vulgar and sensual advantages derived from 
 the letters with which I was provided, they were the 
 means of procuring me the society, and I trust I may 
 venture to say the friendship, of several persons as dis- 
 tinguished for their literary attainments as their social 
 virtues. Since the estabhshment of the present govern- 
 ment, numerous foreign men of letters have been lecl to 
 settle at Athens, for the most part in an official capacity. 
 Among these ornaments of modern Attic society, the first 
 place in my own catalogue belongs to the Chevaher de 
 Prokesch, the Austrian minister, whose pubhshed re- 
 searches in Greece and the Levant have obtained him a 
 high rank among German travellers and authors. I must 
 attribute it more to his own high-bred courtesy, and to 
 respect for the quarter from whence I was introduced to 
 him, than perhaps to a certain congeniality of tastes and 
 pursuits, that we were from the first on a footing of mti- 
 macy. During several days he was kind enough to act 
 
 VOL. II. ^ 
 
50 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 as my cicerone, and I could not readily have found so 
 agreeable or instructive a guide, or one more feelingly 
 alive to the interest of those scenes which are so elo- 
 quently described in his ov^n pages. His lady is no less 
 distinguished than himself for graces and accomplishments 
 of mind, and has few or no competitors in the society 
 she adorns in those of person and manner. Their house 
 is the best in the town, and every way worthy the resi- 
 dence of the ambassador of a first-rate court. It was 
 also my good fortune to become intimate with two other 
 distinguished Germans, Professors Brandis and Ross. 
 The former, well known by his writings illustrative of 
 ancient philosophy, the friend of Niebuhr, and his asso- 
 ciate in the direction of the first series of the Rhenish 
 Museum, was invited to Greece from the University of 
 Bonn, where he filled a professor's chair, and at the 
 period of my visit to the city, held the situation of Royal 
 Librarian. * The latter now occupies the chair of ancient 
 Greek literature in the University of Athens, and is 
 distinguished - for his researches into the topography of 
 the city, as well as in various other departments of Hel- 
 lenistic science. I found but two old friends at Athens, 
 Sir Richard Church and his lady, neither of whom I had 
 seen since their marriage ; the latter I had known inti- 
 mately as Miss Wilmot, we both felt ashamed to reckon 
 how many years before. Sir Richard's character and 
 services are too well known to require any comment 
 from me. He is now one of the most popular men in 
 Greece. If to this list be added the names of my own 
 more immediate fellow countrymen. General Gordon, 
 distinguished by his services in the war of independence, 
 and still more for his able and impartial history of its 
 vicissitudes, and Mr Finlay, author of some valuable 
 
 * This post he has since resigned, and returned to his academical 
 life at Bonn. 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 51 
 
 tracts on Attic topography — it will easily be understood 
 how much the society of modern Athens was calculated 
 to enhance the enjoyment of its classical interest, and my 
 regret for the shortness of the space I was enabled to 
 allot to so agreeable a residence. My introduction to 
 the natives consisted only of a few literary circulars to 
 correspondents of the Roman Archaeological Institute — 
 and the only one of them which possessed any value, was 
 that to Signer Pittakys, the Conservator of Antiquities, 
 to whom I was indebted for much kind attention. 
 
 My little experience of Athens led to the impression, 
 that, for a Frank, there €an hardly be said to exist any 
 society excepting that of the Frank residents. The 
 Greek ladies appear but little in public ; and as yet 
 neither their habits not their education fit them, gener- 
 ally speaking, for an European drawing-room. Lent 
 was not the season for large parties or public festivities, 
 and in the domestic circles which I frequented, the only 
 natives I met were a few men of letters at a private lit- 
 erary club, and one or two Greek families of distinction 
 at a soiree of Lady Lyon, where the native ladies, both 
 in costume and demeanour, seemed altogether strange 
 to the circle by which they were surrounded. An excep- 
 tion may, perhaps, be made in favour of those who have 
 married Franks, several of whom appeared well-bred and 
 agreeable women. 
 
52 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVL 
 
 GENIUS OF ATHENS AS TYPIFIED IN HER EXTANT MONUMENTS- 
 UNCERTAINTIES OF ATHENIAN TOPOGRAPHY. 
 
 ov rdds dsX^i/m^sXrig 'A/^p/ov/g yj^aro MoDca, 
 
 " No muse-inspired Amphion raised tliese walls, 
 Their structure no Cyclopian hand recalls." 
 
 Among the cities of first distinction in the historical 
 ages of Greece, Athens is perhaps the one which plays 
 comparatively the least important part in her heroic 
 annals. To those who have been accustomed, as is 
 doubtless the case with many, to form their notions of 
 early Greek history and mythology from the page of the 
 Attic dramatists, this may, perhaps, appear a somewhat 
 paradoxical opinion. But the genuine traditions of the 
 heroic age must be estimated by its genuine organs. It 
 requires but a very moderate share of critical acumen to 
 perceive, that many of the Attic fables which, on the 
 establishment of the political and literary ascendency of 
 Athens, were permanently invested with a national or 
 panhellenic character, similar to those of Thebes, Argos, 
 and Mycenae, were, in their origin, if not arbitrary corrup- 
 tions of the primitive legend, at the best mere local tra- 
 ditions, enlarged and adorned by the genius of her native 
 writers, anxious to maintain the celebrity of their coun- 
 try, at every period of her history, on a footing with that 
 of her neighbours ; and whose efforts have been crowned 
 
32 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVL 
 
 GENIUS OF ATHENS AS TYPIFIED IN HER EXTANT MONUMENTS- 
 UNCERTAINTIES OF ATHENIAN TOPOGRAPHY. 
 
 " No muse-inspired Amphion raised these walls, 
 Their structure no Cyclopian hand recalls." 
 
 Among the cities of first distinction in the historical 
 ages of Greece, Athens is perhaps the one which plays 
 comparatively the least important part in her heroic 
 annals. To those who have been accustomed, as is 
 doubtless the case with many, to form their notions of 
 early Greek history and mythology from the page of the 
 Attic dramatists, this may, perhaps, appear a somewhat 
 paradoxical opinion. But the genuine traditions of the 
 heroic age must be estimated by its genuine organs. It 
 requires but a very moderate share of critical acumen to 
 perceive, that many of the Attic fables which, on the 
 establishment of the political and literary ascendency of 
 Athens, were permanently invested with a national or 
 panhellenic character, similar to those of Thebes, Argos, 
 and Mycenae, were, in their origin, if not arbitrary corrup- 
 tions of the primitive legend, at the best mere local tra- 
 ditions, enlarged and adorned by the genius of her native 
 writers, anxious to maintain the celebrity of their coun- 
 try, at every period of her history, on a footing with that 
 of her neighbours ; and whose efforts have been crowned 
 
LIBRARY 
 OF THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLlNOia 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 53 
 
 with signal, and, it must be admitted, deserved success. 
 Athens, indeed, has scarcely a fabulous worthy, of any 
 universal celebrity, with the exception of Theseus ; who 
 certainly stands forth, from a very remote period, among 
 the giant heroes of the olden time. All the other pro- 
 minent legends of genuine Attic origin have a physio- 
 logical, rather than an historical character, while their 
 heroes are figurative personifications rather than represen- 
 tatives of a human agency. Athens plays but a sorry part 
 in the page of Homer, the fountain-head of the genuine 
 heroic fable of Greece. Her king, Menestheus, scarcely 
 occupies a secondary rank among the chiefs of the host 
 before Troy. He is, indeed, the only warrior of name 
 who is never represented as killing his man, or so much 
 as entering the lists with an adversary. Nor does the 
 Iliad present any other champion, among the Athenians, 
 distinguished from the vulgar crowd of combatants; 
 while the poet's incidental allusions to their concerns at 
 large, are no way compatible with the belief in that pro- 
 minent rank among the Greek states, at this early period, 
 which we see them occupy in the page of their own 
 poets five or six centuries afterwards. Homer's text 
 furnishes positive as well as negative evidence of the late 
 origin of some of the most popular Attic legends, in the 
 contradiction it offers to their most essential particulars,* 
 The national boast of the Athenians in later times, 
 that they alone, among the leaders of the confederacy, 
 could make good an indigenous origin, or an uninter- 
 rupted possession of their primitive seats, combined with 
 other traditions originating in this claim, seems indeed 
 to imply an acknowledgment on their own part, that 
 their virtues at that remote period were rather of a se- 
 dentary than an enterprizing character. While other 
 nations, whether as a consequence of their own rest- 
 * See additional note at the end of the volume. 
 
54 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 less ambition, or of the ordinary vicissitudes of a barbar- 
 ous state of society, wandered, or were driven, from 
 country to country, they gloried rather in the pacific 
 maintenance of their own boundaries, and in the op- 
 portunities it afforded them of showing kindness and 
 hospitality to their distressed neighbours. Hence the 
 prominent place assigned in their traditions to the refuge 
 afforded by them to OEdipus and to Adrastus, when 
 driven from Thebes; to the Heraclidae, when ejected 
 from Peloponnesus by the Pelopidse ; and to these last, 
 when fugitives in their turn from the Heraclidae. Hence 
 their fabulous tribunal of Areopagus, as the common 
 court of last resort in the graver class of criminal actions, 
 to litigants, both human and divine, from every part of 
 the Hellenic world. 
 
 This, however, is a feature of the history of Athens 
 which, if properly estimated, no way detracts from the 
 interest with which we contemplate her ruins. At an 
 early stage of this Journal we had occasion to remark, 
 that the power of the associations connected with a par- 
 ticular spot, may be rather enhanced than weakened, by 
 being concentrated around a limited period or train of 
 events. The feelings with which we wander among the 
 ruins of the Castle of Ulysses, or the Cyclopian acropolis 
 of Agamemnon, would not be improved, had either 
 Ithaca or Mycenae remained throughout historical ages 
 a powerful or a flourishing community. The converse 
 of this observation holds equally good in the case of 
 Athens. That city was destined to be the leader of 
 Greece and of Europe, not so much in the arts of war 
 as in those of peace. Hence, during the period when the 
 youthful energies of her neighbours and rivals were 
 wasted in barbarous adventures or acts of outrage, her 
 talents would appear to have been providentially trea- 
 sured up, in order that they might be ultimately brought 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 55 
 
 to bear, with unimpaired vigour and freshness, on the 
 period best fitted to derive the full benefit from their 
 exercise. This decree of destiny is figuratively shadowed 
 forth from her very infancy, in her selection as the chosen 
 seat and name-child of the goddess of science — an honour 
 which forms her most solid title to distinction among her 
 fellow states during the mythical ages, and of which no 
 rigour of historical criticism can deprive her. Accord- 
 ingly, by another singular enough coincidence, she is 
 indebted for the few more pointed marks of attention 
 with which she has been honoured by Homer, to the 
 worship of this deity in her city and territory.* 
 
 The character of her extant monuments is in happy 
 keeping with this feature of her history. Although 
 superior in number, variety, and elegance, to those which 
 the united cities of Greece can now show, there is not 
 one that can advance a reasonable claim to an heroic 
 origin. Here are no mysterious Treasuries, or massive 
 mausolea of semi-barbarous patriarchal chiefs ; no " Hea- 
 venly Cyclopian walls ; " f not even a fragment of poly- 
 gonal masonry to attest her own Pelasgic origin, or the 
 works of her Pelasgic architects. This defect, if such it 
 can be called, of her architectural remains, has been 
 concisely stated and admitted in the inscription still 
 legible on a remnant of an uncertain building among 
 her ruins, which has been placed at the head of this 
 chapter, as equally applicable to all those of Athens. 
 The one among her monuments whose claims to remote 
 antiquity, as resting both on its own appearance and on 
 reasonable probability, appear to be the strongest, is the 
 Pnyx, or great Athenian council-hall. This is as it 
 should be. The Pnyx, as representing the republican 
 constitution of Athens, is but a type of the genius that 
 
 ^ II, ii. 546, seq. Odyss. vii. 80. 
 
 t lL\)%K(liitzia ov^dvia rs/^rj* — Eurip. Troad. 1088. Electr, 11^^' 
 
55 ATTICA. 
 
 regulated her whole social and political career. The 
 history of this massive and simple structure comprehends, 
 in fact, her own. In her youthful and virtuous days, it 
 was the cradle of her power; in her old age, the source 
 of her corruption. It is the theatre on which the great 
 drama of her existence was acted; the birthplace and 
 the sepulchre of her glory. 
 
 Since the estabhshment of the present government, 
 the settlement of several distinguished Greek scholars at 
 Athens, together with the greater frequency of occasional 
 visitors of the same class, has rendered the topography of 
 the ancient city more than ever a subject of critical inves- 
 tigation. The present tendency of all historical enquiry, 
 more especially of that directed to classical subjects, is 
 not favourable to the durability of received opinions ; 
 and the monuments of Athens, in the fluctuating plans 
 of the present race of antiquaries, seem destined to 
 undergo the same vicissitudes of name and character to 
 which those of Rome have been subjected during the last 
 three centuries. Speculative varieties of opinion are 
 indeed almost as old and as numerous, comparatively 
 speaking, among the topographers of the one as of the 
 other city ; but those of more ancient date are here for 
 the most part of little value, otherwise than as affording 
 amusement by their frivolity or extravagance, when 
 tested by the more sound researches of our own times.* 
 It is to be feared, however, that many of the best accre- 
 dited theories of the present school, if more plausible and 
 ingenious, will hardly be found better able than their 
 
 ^ The Parthenon has been called the Pantheon, and the Temple of 
 the unknown God ; the Propylsea the Arsenal of Lycurgus ; the Olym- 
 pium the Palace of Hadrian. The choragic monument of Lysicrates 
 still bears the vulgar name of Lantern of Demosthenes. The Pnyx 
 has been taken in respectable quarters for the Areopagus— the Odeum 
 —-or the Theatre of Regilla. 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 57 
 
 predecessors to withstand the spirit of sceptical analysis 
 with which they are now destined to be assailed. 
 
 It is not my intention to enter very closely on the 
 more subtle details of Athenian topography. The small 
 degree of taste which I remember to have imbibed for 
 this species of research during a first visit to Rome in 
 early youth, has long been superseded by the habit of 
 concentrating my interest in ancient monuments around 
 the realities, rather than the speculative probabilities of 
 their history. An exception, no doubt, must be made in 
 favour of those uncertain monuments, which, either from 
 their own magnitude and beauty, from their remote and 
 mysterious antiquity, or their more especial tendency to 
 elucidate doubtful and interesting questions of history or 
 of art, derive a more powerful claim on the attention of 
 every intelligent student of antiquity. But the case is 
 different with questions regarding the exact line of a 
 wall, or the precise position of a gate, all traces of which 
 have been extinct for the last thousand years ; whether 
 a particular column of indifferent Roman style belonged 
 to a stoa, a gymnasium, or a basilica; whether there 
 were two agoras or one, in the time of the Antonines ; 
 or what may have been the exact site of each of the 174 
 demi or parishes of Attica, the names of many of which 
 have scarcely been transmitted with sufficient certainty 
 to afford positive evidence that they ever existed at alL 
 These are points in the decision of which, I confess, I 
 do not feel very deeply concerned. My own speculations 
 will comprise little more than such remarks as naturally 
 suggested themselves in the course of a ten days' survey 
 of the actual site and remains of the city, with an eye^ 
 perhaps, rather to their picturesque than their archaeo- 
 logical features, and with incidental allusion to the effects, 
 of which the late change in her political destinies has 
 been, or may be productive, on those of her monuments* 
 
58 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 Let not these observationsj however, be understood in 
 the least degree to reflect on the utiUty of such researches, 
 still less to disparage the zeal and ingenuity which so 
 many distinguished scholars have displayed in their 
 prosecution. Every addition, however small, to our 
 stock of knowledge, in whatever department of science, 
 has its value ; and it is hence the more fortunate, that 
 among the varieties of taste in historical pursuit, persons 
 of learning and talent are found willing to devote them- 
 selves to those particular branches which, to others, 
 appear most dry and laborious. The identifying a single 
 stone among the rubbish of an ancient city, or the deci- 
 phering a letter of a mutilated inscription, may lead to 
 as important results in the science of history, as the 
 measurement of a mathematical figure, or the analysis of 
 a chemical property, in the exact sciences. 
 
 To those who take a livelier interest in the picturesque 
 beauty than in the architectural remains of Athens, the 
 most important of the late innovations is that which 
 aifects the lofty insulated mountain, called the Hill of 
 St George, which bounds the site of the city to the east- 
 ward. This is not only the most prominent, but upon 
 the whole the most ornamental, among the natural fea- 
 tures of the immediate environs, and is in fact to Athens 
 what Vesuvius is to Naples, or Arthur's Seat to Edin- 
 burgh. Hence the traveller who, like myself, on his 
 approach to the city, was unacquainted with the recent 
 speculations concerning it, must have felt at a loss to 
 account for the insignificant part it plays in the accred- 
 ited systems of Attic topography, and still more for 
 the neglect which, if they were to be trusted, it must 
 have experienced on the part of the ancients themselves ; 
 accustomed, as they are, to dwell with such fondness, 
 both in prose and verse, on the beauties of their native 
 scenery, and amid the divine honours bestowed on the 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 59 
 
 streamless river that winds round its base, or the distant 
 hills that bound the landscape, of which it forms so noble 
 a foreground. 
 
 Till within the last few years, the classical title by 
 common consent assigned it, was Anchesmus, a name 
 which occurs but in one single passage of Pausanias, as 
 that of an undefined Attic hill distinguished for a sanc- 
 tuary of Jupiter. It has, however, lately been decided^ 
 with nearly equal unanimity on the part of the learned, 
 to transfer to it the title of Lycabettus,* hitherto very 
 undeservedly bestowed upon an insignificant piece of 
 rock at the foot of the Museum. This change restores 
 the hill of St George to its just honours ; Mount Lyea- 
 bettus being an object of no small celebrity, and a fre- 
 , quent and favourite subject of allusion with the standard 
 writers of the best ages.f 
 
 A still more startling innovation is the proposal of Dr 
 Ross, to transfer the edifice of white marble, familiarly 
 known by the name of Temple of Theseus, from the 
 worship of the Attic hero to that of the god Mars.^ If 
 his view be estabhshed — and the arguments in support 
 of it are certainly very formidable — the change will not 
 be hmited to this temple ; for its assumed identity with 
 the Heroum of Theseus forms a main pivot of every 
 system of Athenian topography, and more especially of 
 some of the most elaborate lately promulgated ; which, if 
 this prop he removed, must fall to the ground. 
 
 ^' The principal arguments and authorities on the subject, which are 
 as curious and interesting to the scholar as they are conclusive, will 
 be found in Leake's late article on Athenian Topography in the 
 Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, vol. iii. p. 211, seq. 
 
 f Strabo, among others, characterizes it in terms virtually the same 
 as those above employed, as the Vesuvius or Arthur's Seat of Athens, 
 coupling under the same category : " Athens and its Lycabettus— 
 Ithaca and its Neriton^Lacedsemon and its Taygetus— Rhodes and 
 its Atabyris."— Lib. x. p. 662, Ed. Falgon. 
 
 t See additional note at the end of the volume. 
 
60 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE PNYX, OR GREAT COUNCIL-HALL OF ATHENS. 
 
 s^rilMog 7) Trvv^ a'jryjt — Aristoph. Acharn. 20. 
 " The Pnyx itself is now a solitude." 
 
 If, among the monuments of Athens, the Pnyx * be . 
 not to every one, as for the reasons above assigned it is 
 to me, that to which the deepest interest attaches, it is 
 certainly the one whose existing features bring home the 
 associations from whence that interest is derived, with the 
 most powerful reality to the senses. It is a large semi- 
 circular area, on the level face of a rocky eminence, slop- 
 ing gently towards the city. The chord of the semicircle 
 is a wall or ledge of no great height, partly cut in the 
 solid rock, partly built of colossal masonry, to supply the 
 irregularities of the strata. It may thus be compared to 
 a theatre, the shell of which, instead of curving upwards, 
 slopes downwards from the orchestra. The upper part 
 of the area adjoining the wall is also solid rock; the 
 lower is forced earth, rendered necessary to complete its 
 level, and is supported by a retaining wall of the same 
 colossal character as that of the upper boundary. From 
 the centre of this upper wall or ledge projects a square 
 block, hewn out of the solid chff into the shape of a pe- 
 destal, to a considerable height above the level of the 
 area, and accessible by a flight of steps. This is the 
 
 * IIvj^; from ir/iy(/i — cri//§ — ^UTivog — crowding or squeezing. 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 61 
 
 pulpit or Bema, familiarly called " the Stone/' (Xi^og) 
 by Attic writers, from whence the orators addressed the 
 multitude. Hence the term is also used as a figure of 
 the state or government of Athens. The " master of 
 the stone " indicates the ruling demagogue of the day. ^ 
 The position and perfect preservation of this relic can 
 leave no doubt of its identity ; and the traveller who 
 mounts its summit may safely say, what perhaps cannot 
 be said with equal certainty of any other spot, and any 
 other body of great men in antiquity : Here have stood 
 Demosthenes, Pericles, Themistocles, Aristides, even 
 Solon ; for every feature of this monument authorizes the 
 belief that it dates from an epoch prior to that great 
 man. j 
 
 In standing upon the equally bare, though much 
 broader summit of the neighbouring Areopagus, he may 
 say — though not perhaps with the same degree of literal 
 exactness : Upon this spot stood St Paul, when he rea- 
 soned with the men of Athens on matters of still greater 
 moment than those of their democracy. It were difficult 
 to imagine two localities within the same narrow circuit, 
 calculated to draw more largely on the sympathies of the 
 classical or the Christian traveller. 
 
 It would scarcely appear that the Pnyx could ever 
 have been a very convenient place for its purpose. It 
 supplied no natural species of gallery, similar to the ca- 
 vea of the more regularly theatrical places of public 
 assembly ; while the tendency to convex in the form of 
 
 ^ Aristoph. Pa^. 680; EqmteSy956 ; Acharn. 683. Herein, too^ 
 lies the point of the allusion in v. 528, seq, of the Thesmophoriazusse : 
 
 f/jY} hdxYl pTjTOO^ d^^iTv. 
 
 f See additional note at the end of the volume. 
 
62 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 its arena was in itself rather unfavourable both for seeing 
 and hearing. Nor, up to a late period at least, was it 
 provided with seats, or any species of accommodation for 
 the assembled crowd of councillors, who either stood or 
 sat on the bare rock. * The Prytanes alone enjoyed the 
 privilege of wooden benches, t Herein we have further 
 evidence of the great antiquity of the monument, reflect- 
 ing the simphcity and hardihood of pubhc, as well as 
 private life, among the Greeks in primitive ages.J The 
 discomfort, however, seems to have been felt in the days 
 of Aristophanes, and furnishes him with one of the bur- 
 lesque arguments which, in the comedy of the Knights, 
 he places in the mouth of the sausage-vending antagonist 
 of Cleon, for the purpose of undermining the popularity 
 of that demagogue. The former appears with a cushion 
 in his hand, as an earnest of the greater attention to their 
 comfort, which the democracy may expect from him when 
 preferred as their leader, and when they shall no longer 
 DC obhged to squat on the bare rock, as they did in the 
 isle of Salamis, when they took refuge in its fastnesses 
 from the Persian invasion : 
 
 « To liim it matters not a wMt^ 
 How long on these bare rocks you sit ; 
 No cushion soft he ever brought you, 
 Like that which I, see here ! have wrought you ; 
 Then take and use it, lest once more 
 Your hinder parts be gall'd as sore. 
 As when upon the stony sides 
 OT Salamis ye rubb'd your hides."— v. 783. 
 
 It was customary in the theatres, and other places of 
 
 * %a/xa/, Aristoph. Vesp. 43. Hence the facility with which the 
 women in the Ecdesiaz. v, 99, expect to pass for men, by tucking up 
 their drapery under them, so that only the upper part of their person, 
 disguised with beard and male attire, should be seen. 
 
 f AmsTOPH. AcJiarn, 25. 
 
 t See PoUua;, viii. 133. 7iaTe(fxiva(tfj.svyiv xara r^v ^aXaiav 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 63 
 
 public assembly, for the spectators, who had any regard 
 for their personal comfort, to bring cushions along with 
 them. Hence Demosthenes is taunted by ^schines * as 
 a sycophant, for performing the same office to persons 
 with whom he wished to ingratiate himself, as the sausage- 
 vender is made to do by Aristophanes to the Demus. 
 
 It is probable, therefore, that the present appearance 
 of the whole lower portion of the area is very similar to 
 what it presented in the days of Pericles. On occasion 
 of my first visit, a few goats, stragglers from a herd 
 browsing on the heights of the Museum, were reposing 
 on its arid surface, fatigued, no doubt, with their search 
 after the scanty morsels of herbage it supplied; thus 
 realizing, in a very lively manner, the first two verses of 
 the dream of Sosias in the Wasps, which form the exor- 
 dium to a series of the most admirable touches of satire 
 to be found even in the works of Aristophanes : 
 
 " Methought I saw upon the Pnyx a flock 
 Of sheep in grave deliberation sit." . . . 
 
 Nor was the Pnyx provided like other theatres with 
 any species of shade or awning, to protect the assembly 
 from the rays of the sun, which, as reflected from its area 
 and the surrounding rocks, must have been insufferably 
 scorching. Hence, no doubt, the custom of holding the 
 councils at daybreak ; and persons more especially inter- 
 ested in the business of the day, or desirous of securing 
 good places, were obliged to rise in the dark for that 
 purpose, t I'his custom, so different from that which 
 now prevails, apprears, howevet, to be as old as th€ days 
 
 ^ Be Falsa Legat. xlii. 33, and Contr. CUsipli. Ixiv. 2*7. Ed. 
 Reisk. conf. Theophrast. Charact. 11. 
 
 f Aristoph. Ecdes. 20, 352. Acharn. 19, seq. 
 
64 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 of Homer. * The disasters of the Greek fleet on leaving 
 Troy, are ascribed to the circumstance of the council in 
 which the embarkation was fixed having been held, " con- 
 trary to estabhshed usage, towards sunset, when the eyes 
 of the Greeks were heavy with wine."t This latter rea- 
 son supphes a good argument in all ages for the early 
 sitting of parliament. 
 
 ^ II. ii. 48. Odyss. ii. init. viii. init. 
 t Odyss. iii. 138. 
 
ATTICA. 65 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIIL 
 
 ACROPOLIS— STATE AND PROSPECTS OF ATHENS AS REGARDS 
 ART AND ANTIQUITY, 
 
 ILiroL h\ ri^U)Ta £/ rig bti Xs/Vgroc/ roov dirh ^siS/ou, 
 
 Luc I AN, Icarom, 
 
 " He afterwards enquired who were the successors of Phidias, 
 
 The exertions of the Grseco-Bavarian Government 
 towards the discoyery, niaintenance, or restoration of 
 ancient monuments, have hitherto been concentrated 
 almost exclusively within the limits of the Acropolis ; 
 and thus far, it must be admitted, the result of its mea- 
 sures reflects credit on the zeal, industry, and judgment 
 of this department of administration. The walls of the 
 Propytea, with the extant columns of its portico, are in 
 a great measure disengaged from the unseemly masses 
 of Turkish masonry in which they were formerly im- 
 bedded I the original plan of the structure, which was 
 before matter of doubtful s^peculation, can now be recog- 
 nized nearly in its whole extent ; and the square bulwark 
 forming its left fiank, which was lately the basement of 
 a Turkish bastion, presents at least the skeleton of the 
 celebrated Pinacotheca, or picture-gallery, mentioned in 
 the description of Pausanias. 
 
 The oppo&ite or southern bulwark is still covered by 
 a lofty square tower, erected, probably^ by the Frank 
 princes of the middle ages. The future fate of this 
 structure was a matter under consideration at this 
 
 VOL. IL 
 
66 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 period, and one upon which some difference of opinion 
 existed ; but the predominant feehng seemed to be in 
 favour of its removal. It is built almost entirely of solid 
 blocks of marble, from the ruins of the Propyleea, or of 
 other ancient buildings in the neighbourhood. While 
 its materials, therefore, are the same, its masonry is also 
 so compact and substantial, as to require a somewhat 
 close examination, before any great difference can be 
 perceived between its style or merit, and that of the 
 contiguous works of the Periclean age. It forms, 
 whether as seen from the interior of the Acropohs, or 
 the immediate environs, a great addition both to its dig- 
 nity as a fortress, and to its picturesque beauty; and in 
 the distance gives its whole outline a relief and effect, 
 which the other more classical edifices on its summit fail 
 to impart. The ancient building on which it is erected, 
 the right wing or bastion of the Propylsea, is confessedly 
 but an unimportant constituent part of that edifice, 
 being much smaller than the one on the opposite side, 
 containing the Pinacothek ; nor is there good reason to 
 suppose that the materials of the tower itself comprise 
 any valuable remains of antiquity. Under all these cir- 
 cumstances, I cannot but think that its demolition would 
 be an act of Gothic barbarism, little short of that of 
 which its constructors may have been guilty, in the rob- 
 bery of the neighbouring buildings to procure materials 
 for their work. 
 
 The only argument I remember to have heard urged 
 in favour of the proposed plan, is the abstract propriety 
 of relieving the structures of Pericles from the encroach- 
 ments of the barbarous ages, and restoring them, in as 
 far as may yet be possible, to their original state ; a duty 
 the more imperative in the present case, as being neces- 
 sary to complete the work already begun in the excava- 
 tion of the rest of the Propylsea, and to enable us to 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 67 
 
 judge effectually of the entire plan and proportions of so 
 remarkable an edifice. Such arguments, no doubt, may 
 have weight with many. It is, however, very question- 
 able how far the real interest of a classic monument may 
 be in every case necessarily depreciated by its having 
 been combined, in its ruined state, with others of a more 
 barbarous period ; while it will hardly be disputed, that 
 such combinations are often in the highest degree 
 favourable to picturesque effect. Nor would even the 
 small addition that might be anticipated, in the present 
 instance, to our knowledge of the architecture of the 
 Periclean era, compensate for the destruction of so 
 striking a feature of the old Athenian Acropolis, with 
 which we are familiar since the days of Stuart and 
 Revett, and which has been immortalized on the canvass 
 of so many of the first landscape painters of our own age. 
 
 A nearly twenty years' experience of the vicissitudes 
 to which the ruins of Rome have been subjected at the 
 hands of this practical school of classical dilettanti, has 
 led me, I confess, to contemplate with horror both their 
 principles and their performances. Among the chief 
 features that formerly attracted admiration in the Baths 
 of Caracalla, one of the grandest, if not the most elegant 
 of Roman monuments, and which formed its great excel- 
 lence as a study for the painter, were the forests of ever- 
 greens that clothed its otherwise bare brick walls, or 
 hung in rich festoons from the summit and sides of its 
 broken arches. During the last season I passed in 
 Rome, the whole structure was stripped of this beautiful 
 appendage, by order of the person who then officiated as 
 high-priest of the temple of archaeological taste in that 
 city, on pretext that the creepers were detrimental to 
 the preservation of the building. Every one familiar 
 with the arch of Titus in the drawings of Piranesi, must 
 have admired the effect produced by the combination of 
 
68 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 its solid masses of marble with the light brickwork of 
 the thirteenth century, into the baronial fortress of the 
 Frangipani, which, in those days, it still represented. 
 Nowhere, perhaps, are the desolating effects of this pru- 
 rient thirst for classical restoration more lamentably 
 exemplified, than in the paltry gateway of Travertine 
 stone, in which the same fragments of the sculptures of 
 the Flavian age are now encased, like a tattered robe of 
 rich brocade or damask patched up in a framework of 
 new spun cotton and worsted. There is perhaps more 
 excuse in the case of the Coliseum, where the repairs 
 were, in a great measure, necessary for the immediate 
 support of the building, although so tastelessly executed, 
 that its picturesque effect is completely sacrificed from 
 every point of view where even the least offensive of 
 them are visible. It is certainly a nice question, whether 
 it were not better to allow any such ruin to carry its 
 beauty along with it to the grave, into which, if left to 
 its natural fate, it might, perhaps a thousand years hence, 
 be destined to crumble, than to bolster up its existence 
 by such hideous expedients. 
 
 But the object which, on nearer approach, can hardly 
 fail, by its novelty as well as beauty, most forcibly to 
 attract the attention of the traveller familiar with the 
 Acropolis only through the medium of the older drawings 
 or descriptions, is the little Temple of Victory, situated 
 on the south-west edge of the precipice, immediately 
 below the tower. This building, which was still in exist- 
 ence when Wheler and Spon visited Athens in 1676, had 
 long disappeared before the days of the present, or even 
 the last generation of travellers. Some fragments of 
 masonry, however, supposed to belong to it, still remain- 
 ed visible on the ground in the neighbourhood of its for- 
 mer site ; and four slabs of its sculptured frieze, which 
 had been built into a neighbouring wall, found their way, 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 69 
 
 in the course of Lord Elgin's operations, to the British 
 Museum. One of the first undertakings of the Royal 
 Conservators of Antiquities, was the excavation and re- 
 composition of its materials. It has now, under the 
 magic auspices of Messrs Ross and Schaubert, risen like 
 a phoenix from its ashes ; and, as seen from a little dis- 
 tance, has much the appearance of a new but unfinished 
 edifice ; its white marble columns and walls glittering irs 
 the sun, with a splendour little short of that which they 
 displayed when fresh from the chisels of their original 
 constructors. The materials were found nearly complete^ 
 buried under an upper story of rubbish belonging to 
 Turkish buildings on the same site, ruined posterior to 
 itself. This temple is of very small dimensions, and of 
 the class called by Vitruvius amphiprostyle ; consisting 
 of a cell with four Ionic columns at each front, but none 
 at the sides. The walls of the cell, with the two por- 
 ticos, have been reconstructed in their integrity. The 
 remains of the entablature, comprising nearly the whole 
 frieze, with the exception of the pieces in the British 
 Museum, were lying in a neighbouring shed, preparatory 
 to being replaced. The reliefs are of the most perfect 
 period of art, representing Greeks triumphant over Per-- 
 sians, or other oriental barbarians, in a style somewhat 
 more easy and lively than that of Phidias, The epoch 
 of the construction of this temple is doubtful. Some 
 place it earlier ; but it cannot well be brought lower than 
 the Periclean era.* 
 
 A somewhat similar process of restoration was carry- 
 ing on in the case of the Erechtheum. Many of its lost 
 fragments had already been disinterred and replaced; 
 
 * Dr Ross dates it as early as Olymp. 78, about 460 B. C, and 
 supposes the subject of the frieze may be the Battle of Marathon — of 
 
 the victory of Cimon on the Eurymedon Acropolis von Athen» 
 
 Berl. 1839. 
 
70 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 and, as I understood from Signor Pittakys, who, since 
 the appointment of Dr Ross to the professorship of 
 Greek hterature, holds the office of Conservator of An- 
 tiquities, it was the intention of the government to make 
 good the remaining deficiencies to the extent of a com- 
 plete reconstruction of the building, walls, porticos, and 
 roof In a neighbouring workshop, a Swiss sculptor was 
 engaged in the execution of a new Caryatid of Pentehc 
 marble, to supply the place of that removed by Lord 
 Elgin. Capitals of columns and other ornamental pieces 
 of masonry were also in progress. Signor Pittakys also 
 expressed his conviction, that almost the whole of the 
 architectural materials of the ruined portion of the Par- 
 thenon were lying where they had fallen, and might be 
 replaced for a very small sum; and seemed sanguine 
 of being able, with the help of a few blocks from Pen- 
 tehcus, to carry into effect his project for its complete 
 renovation. I was unable to congratulate him with any 
 sincerity upon these prospects. The restitution of a 
 building under circumstances similar to those above 
 described in the Temple of Victory, ought doubtless to 
 be a subject of gratification to every lover of art or an- 
 tiquity. The same perhaps may be felt as regards the 
 replacing of the fragments dislodged, in the course of the 
 late devastations, from an edifice previously in so entire 
 a state as the Erechtheum. But there is a limit to such 
 projects ; and the case becomes altogether different as 
 regards the reconstruction of a ruin such as the Parthenon, 
 by the aid of foreign materials, and the efforts of modern 
 artists. 
 
 How far the restoration, even of a mutilated statue or 
 relief of first-rate ancient workmanship, be a commendable 
 object, has always been a doubtful question with men of 
 taste ; although the arguments on the affirmative side are 
 here perhaps stronger than in the case of mere works of 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 71 
 
 architecture. Even here, however, it seems at least to 
 be desirable, that the material employed in the repairs 
 should be of such a nature, and the restoration itself so 
 managed, that the adventitious parts should be easily dis- 
 tinguishable from the original work, and have no preten- 
 sions to be any thing more than a sort of stand or frame- 
 work, to aid our judgment of what may have been, rather 
 perhaps than what really were, its genuine proportions. 
 It is certainly very doubtful whether the practice that has 
 hitherto prevailed, of employing the greatest living artists 
 to replace the defective parts of the more excellent frag- 
 ments of ancient sculpture with precisely similar ma- 
 terial, prepared by all the trickery of the profession to 
 imitate, as closely as possible, both the form and colour, 
 even the decay of the marble, and render it difficult or 
 impossible for the unpractised eye to distinguish between 
 ancient and modern in the renovated figure, be conducive 
 to a more accurate perception of the character and spirit 
 of the original, as it existed in its integrity. It may 
 be said, however, that some of the most serious objec- 
 tions to the repair of works of statuary do not apply to 
 those of architecture. In the former, the previous posi- 
 tion or exact proportions of the deficient parts must 
 always, even in the simplest cases, be more or less matter 
 of conjecture, and the restored work, by consequence, 
 but a false or doubtful representation of the entire figure. 
 Hence the smallest increase or diminution of bulk in 
 the supplementary parts, or the least deviation from the 
 original attitude, might be sufficient to mar or extinguish 
 the genuine eflect of the whole. The case is certainly 
 diflTerent with a piece of architecture like the Parthenon, 
 of the plan of which, as regards the exterior at least, we 
 have, it may almost be said, as accurate a knowledge as 
 the artist who designed it, and where, by consequence, 
 the repairs could hardly fail faithfully to represent both 
 
72 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 its primary form and proportions. But, on the other 
 hand, it must be remembered, that while even the finest 
 statue, in a mutilated state, must always be compara- 
 tively an unseemly object, a mutilated building, or, in 
 other words, a ruin, is usually in itself a beautiful, in 
 many instances a far more beautiful, one than it was in 
 its integrity. It were indeed preposterous to institute 
 any comparison between the beauty of the ruined Par- 
 thenon of our own age, and the entire Parthenon of 
 Pericles, resplendent with all those decorative accessaries 
 which the genius of the first artists of Greece vv^as cap- 
 able of accumulating within the bounds of such an edifice. 
 These, however, no elfort of modern art can ever replace ; 
 mid without them, deprived also of the associations con- 
 nected with the vicissitudes of time and destiny which 
 its ruins, as they now exist, have survived, and of the 
 picturesque effect which, as a ruin alone, it possesses, 
 it is very certain that an entire Parthenon, as contem- 
 plated in the restoration of the modern directors of Attic 
 taste, would be an object very inferior, both in beauty 
 and interest, to the majestic remains that have inherited 
 the name. 
 
 That the picturesque effect of the building which now 
 forms so essential an element of its beauty, would be 
 sacrificed by the completion of the projected repairs, 
 there cannot be a doubt. A regular Grecian temple, in 
 its integrity, as the most perfect model of architecture, 
 in order to be justly appreciated, must be contemplated 
 solely as an architectural work. The same nice har- 
 mony and proportion of the parts, the same compactness 
 and solidity as a whole, which form its excellence as a 
 work of art, detract from its effect as a single feature of 
 a landscape. In its entire state, the most excellent struc- 
 ture of this class is perhaps a less picturesque object 
 than many a modern village church, convent, or villa, in 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 73 
 
 a comparatively corrupt and semi-barbarous style. 
 These remarks, it is true, must be limited to the 
 appearance of such edifices in our own day, and in their 
 solitary and isolated capacity. When grouped with 
 others of equal elegance and greater variety of form, the 
 case was probably very different. The fact itself, how- 
 ever, with this limitation, may be exemplified by a com- 
 parison of the Theseum, not merely with the gigantic 
 Parthenon, but with other rained temples of even infe- 
 rior size — those, for example, of iEgina, Girgenti, or 
 Psestum. The first view of this celebrated edifice, as 
 seen from a few miles' distance by the traveller approach- 
 ing from the west, is very disappointing. As contem- 
 plated from the point for which the effect of its architec- 
 tural combinations were calculated, it excites nothing 
 but admiration. But as an object in the general land- 
 scape, it possesses comparatively little of that adventi- 
 tious charm which imparts to the ruined portico, even 
 of many a much more diminutive temple, an air of vast- 
 ness and grandeur, altogether out of proportion to its 
 real bulk; and appears, in fact, but a middling-sized 
 oblong colonnade, supporting a roof. This remark ap- 
 plies, perhaps, more pointedly to the Doric than to the 
 other orders of architecture, where a superior loftiness 
 of proportion, and greater variety of light and shade, 
 afford a more effectual relief to the compact solidity of 
 the architectural whole. 
 
 The only considerable relic of modern structure now 
 in the Acropolis, besides the tower at its S. W. angle, is 
 the mosque in the centre of the Parthenon ; the removal 
 of which would not, probably, be detrimental to the 
 general effect of the ruin. Upon the whole, although 
 the summit of the Acropolis, since its area has been 
 cleared of its other Turkish appendages, presents a 
 
 VOL. IT. ^ 
 
74 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 somewhat bare and desolate aspect, and is probably a 
 far less picturesque scene than it was in Turkish times, 
 yet hitherto it may be said, that what has been done, 
 has been done well. But if the square tower be pulled 
 down — if the Erechtheum and the Parthenon be restored 
 and roofed in upon the new renovating principles — if 
 the surrounding area be then levelled, paved, and appro- 
 priated, as will doubtless be the case if the system now 
 in vogue continue to be acted upon, to displays of 
 modern Hellenic taste in architecture — the result will 
 hardly be such as to aiford matter of congratulation to 
 any true lover of art or antiquity. 
 
 It is indeed to be feared, that the mode in which the 
 anxiety of the new state to honour and preserve the 
 monuments of her ancient metropolis has hitherto been 
 exhibited, may not only tend to defeat, but may even 
 already in a great measure have defeated, its own object. 
 The selection of Athens as the capital, a tribute partly 
 to her pre-eminence in ancient history, partly, no doubt, 
 to the number and beauty of her extant remains, was 
 not probably, in any point of view, the most fortunate 
 that could have been made. That it was not so in 
 either a pohtical or miUtary respect, is a common, if not 
 a universal opinion, among those best qualified to judge 
 in such matters, upon grounds which it were foreign to 
 our purpose to recapitulate.* But to the antiquary or 
 the artist, the selection is still more to be deplored. At 
 the conclusion of the war the whole area of the city was 
 
 * The preferable claims of Nauplia, more especially, or the Argolis 
 at large, are such as to have forced themselves on several of the most 
 experienced veterans of the revolution, by whom I have heard them 
 urged ; persons, too, in whom a taste for classical antiquity, combined 
 with an accurate knowledge of the civil and miUtary geography of 
 Greece, afforded the surest guarantee that their judgment was im- 
 partial. 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 75 
 
 one heap of rubbish, strewed over the surface of a soil 
 composed, in many places perhaps to the depth of thirty 
 or forty feet, of fragments of ancient Athenian magnifi- 
 cence. There was never so favourable an opportunity 
 offered, on so favourable a spot, for antiquarian dis- 
 covery; and a well-conducted series of excavations, 
 however slowly carried into effect, would not only have 
 brought to light many treasures of ancient art, but have 
 uncovered, to a great extent, the plan of the ancient 
 city, its streets, and principal edifices. Here the cir- 
 cumstances are far more propitious than in the waste 
 grounds of Rome. In her case, after the destruction of 
 the old city, the inhabitants removed to the open space 
 of the Campus Martins, and the ruins of their former 
 habitations became, and have more or less remained ever 
 since, a quarry for the materials employed in the con- 
 struction of a large and splendid modern city. At 
 Athens, on the other hand, as the buildings of the old 
 city mouldered into ruins, the hovels of the modern 
 town sprang up on the same site ; and as the lightest 
 materials were preferred in their construction, it is to be 
 supposed that the more valuable remains of antiquity 
 liave been allowed to lie in a great measure undisturbed. 
 The selection of Athens as the seat of government, fol- 
 lowed up by the draught of a plan for a new town, and 
 the rapid spread of new structures over the portion of 
 the ancient site where the noblest echfices were formerly 
 accumulated, has permanently extinguished all hopes of 
 profiting by these favourable circumstances. As regards 
 the Acropolis, it may further be remembered, that the 
 natural features of this rock have at all periods rendered 
 its summit a dangerous position for the monuments that 
 adorn it ; and the wonder is, perhaps, how any portion 
 of them should have survived the vicissitudes to which 
 they have already been exposed. As long as the capital 
 
76 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 of the country surrounds its base, in spite of all the pre- 
 sent schemes to convert it into a great museum of art, 
 an Acropolis, in the military sense of the word, it must 
 still remain. While Greece continues to enjoy the unin- 
 terrupted blessings of peace, the improvements of Signer 
 Pittakys may continue to be successfully prosecuted; 
 but should she, as can hardly fail to be the case at no 
 very distant period, again become the theatre of war, 
 foreign or domestic, the site of the Parthenon will pro- 
 bably be one of the first victims of its ravages. On the 
 approach of an enemy, by sea or by land, it can hardly 
 fail to become, if not the chosen stronghold of a faction, 
 a place of refuge for persons and goods. Motives of 
 public or personal security will then outweigh all con- 
 siderations of taste and virtu ; its museums and temples 
 will afford, even in its present dismantled state, too con- 
 venient a material for its refortification, and will again 
 be converted into magazines or bastions, and their valu- 
 ables into weapons of defence. 
 
 The best mode of promoting the interests of Greek 
 art, as concentrated around Athens, would have been to 
 have made her, not the London or Paris, but the Wind- 
 sor or Versailles of the new court. The seat of govern- 
 ment might have been fixed at Nauplia, or in whatever 
 other position was considered most central and convenient; 
 Athens might have become the favourite villa or country 
 residence of the sovereign. The town, being then limited 
 to such buildings as were requisite for the accommoda- 
 tion of his court, might have been so planned as to 
 encroach as little as possible on the area of the ancient 
 city, which would thus have been left as one extensive 
 field for the prosecution of the most interesting of all 
 researches. 
 
 The mosque in the interior of the Parthenon has been 
 converted into a repository for the relics brought to 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 77 
 
 light, from day to day, in the excavations of the Acropo- 
 lis. Those discovered in the plain below, or in the pro- 
 vinces, are preserved in the Temple of Theseus, which 
 has also been fitted up as a museum. The collection of 
 the Parthenon is already so rich, as to require the addi- 
 tional accommodation of several temporary structures. 
 Among its more interesting contents, are the architec- 
 tural fragments of the old Hecatompedon or primitive 
 Parthenon, destroyed by the Persians ; which were found 
 imbedded in the rubbish employed, after the completion 
 of the new structure, to level the surrounding area. They 
 are of stone, of not very fine quality, covered with stucco, 
 on which the ornamental portions are painted of various 
 colours, chiefly blue, red, and yellow. There have also 
 been discovered, similarly buried, numerous large blocks 
 of marble, wrought and unwrought, among which are 
 some colossal drums of columns, originally destined for 
 the peristyle of the new temple, but thrown aside from 
 some defect in the material or the execution. A large 
 portion of the rubbish in which they are imbedded con- 
 sists of marble chippings, the same doubtless that once 
 strewed the workshops of Ictinus and Phidias. From 
 the midst of it have also been culled many of that minor 
 class of relics, which, by their very homeliness, realize 
 more effectually to the imagination the epoch from 
 whence they have been preserved, and thus speak more 
 directly and powerfully to the sympathies, than gigantic 
 ruins or high-wrought works of finished art. Such are 
 the fragments of the tools handled by the workmen, or 
 even perhaps by the great masters themselves, to whom 
 these precious models of the perfection of art are indebt- 
 ed for their existence; the lead pencils employed in 
 sketching the design, the chisel and mallet in its execu- 
 tion ; the wooden dovetails that connected the drums of 
 
78 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 the columns, and other contiguous blocks of the masonry 
 of the Hecatompedon ; pieces of charred wood, still fresh 
 from the flames of the Persian conflagration; besides 
 small bronze images, and other coeval fragments of the 
 inferior departments of art* 
 
 * See additional note at end of volume. 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 79 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 OLYMPIUM—ILISSUS— FOUNTAIN OF ENNEACRUNUS. 
 
 TO(^ovTOtjv srojv ' Tcoci ii TO ' OXvf/j'Tt/ov avToov sTtirsXsc^ai biavooZvrai. 
 
 LuciAN. Icarom. 
 
 " He afterwards enquired for what reason the Athenians had neglected 
 the rites of Jove during so many years, and whether they had any thoughts 
 of completing the Olympium." 
 
 Next to the Acropolis, and the region to the west- 
 ward, containing the Pnyx, Theseum, and Areopagus, 
 the most interesting portion of the ancient city is that 
 extending in an easterly direction from the theatre of 
 Herodes Atticus, at the south-west corner of the rock, 
 to the Panathenaic stadium on the south side of the 
 Ilissus. Between these limits are situated, nearly in a 
 straight line, besides the two monuments already men- 
 tioned, the Dionysiac theatre, the choragic monument of 
 Lysicrates, the Arch of Hadrian, the Olympium, and 
 the fountain of Enneacrmms. This, as we also learn 
 from Thucydides,* was the most ancient part of the 
 lower city ; in the days of Pisistratus, still its most distin- 
 guished quarter, and the one selected for the chief pub- 
 lic works — ^buildings, gardens, fountains — commenced or 
 completed by that munificent usurper, for the benefit or 
 ornament of his capital. We shall consider its existing 
 objects of interest in the order in which they attract 
 
 ^ L. ii. c. 15. 
 
80 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 our attention, rather than that in which they succeed each 
 other in the Une above described. 
 
 The grandest extant remains of Greek masonry are 
 the sixteen Corinthian columns of white marble on the 
 left bank of the Ilissus, to the S.E. of the Acropolis, 
 identified, to all appearance on unquestionable grounds, 
 as those of the temple of Jupiter Olympius. The greater 
 extent and better preservation of the ruins of the Par- 
 thenon, together with the late prejudice in favour of the 
 primitive Doric order, the associations connected with 
 the age of Pericles, and the brilliancy of its sculptured 
 appendages, have all tended to give that edifice so 
 powerful a hold on the sympathies of the classical tour- 
 ist, as to absorb, in a great measure, the claims of all its 
 rivals ; and hfence, while a page or two of rapturous 
 enlargement on the sensations produced by a first ap- 
 proach to its porticos, is a customary appendage to every 
 description of the wonders of Athens, these stupendous 
 columns are frequently passed over with comparatively 
 little notice. This circumstance may possibly have tend- 
 ed to enhance the effect of a first visit to them upon 
 myself, which was at least equal to what I experienced 
 in the case of the Parthenon ; and may serve as an apo- 
 logy for dwelling on them somewhat more closely than 
 were consistent with the general plan of this Journal in 
 similar cases. 
 
 These are the largest columns of marble now standing 
 in Europe, being 6^ feet in diameter, and upwards of 
 sixty in height. The temple to which they belonged 
 was the largest ever erected in Greece* — ever con- 
 
 The temples of Diana at Ephesus, and of Apollo at Brancliida9, 
 in Asia Minor, rather surpassed it in size. When complete, the Olym- 
 pium, according to Stuart's measurements, had a double row of ten 
 columns in each front, and of twenty on each side ; which, with the 
 four of each vestibule, give one hundred and twenty for the whole 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 81 
 
 structed in any part of the world of the Corinthian 
 order, (the head corner-stone of the perfection of Greek 
 architecture,) — or ever dedicated to the chief of the 
 Hellenic pantheon. The desolation of the spot on which 
 they stand, adds much to the effect of their tall majestic 
 forms ; and I scarcely know, in my own experience, any 
 ruin calculated to excite stronger emotions of combined 
 admiration and awe. An acquaintance, well qualified, 
 both in point of taste and feeling, to draw such compari- 
 sons, and who arrived at Athens, direct from Egypt, 
 nearly about the same period with myself, assured me 
 that he had experienced the influence of such impressions 
 more powerfully when standing beneath the columns of 
 the Olympium, than among the most stupendous remains 
 of Thebes or Dendera— a striking illustration of the 
 superiority of form and proportion over mere enormity 
 of mass. 
 
 It would seem indeed, that, in the estimation of the 
 ancients, this edifice was considered superior in archi- 
 tectural splendour to any other temple of Athens, and 
 second to none in Greece, with the exception, perhaps, 
 of that of the Ephesian Diana. Its fame, accordingly, 
 has been perpetuated by numerous authors of every age.* 
 Commenced by Pisistratus in the infancy of elegant art, 
 and finished by Hadrian in its old age, after numerous 
 suspensions, interruptions, and alterations of plan, the 
 work occupied a period of 700 years, hence called by 
 Philostratus, " a great struggle with time." t Thesa. 
 
 exterior portico of the building. Its length was three hundred and 
 fifty-four feet ; its breadth one hundred and seventy-one. The peri- 
 bolus, or outer court, which was also filled with smaller temples, sta- 
 tues, &c., was four stadia, or half-a-mile in circumference.— Paus an. 
 Att. 18. 
 
 ^ See Meursius. Athen, Att. ii. c. x. 
 
82 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 remains acquire an additional interest from the circum- 
 stance, that the temple to which they belong should 
 have been originally planned, and it would appear in all 
 the extent and magnitude, if not in the style and propor- 
 tions of its subsequent execution, by Pisistratus, a prince 
 who, (whatever his political delinquency,) as the first 
 great encourager of learning, and every kind of elegant 
 pursuit in his native city, may be considered as the 
 founder of her future superiority to her neighbours in 
 the arts of civilized life. The work was continued by 
 his sons ; but remained in the same unfinished state in 
 which it was left by them for near four hundred years ; 
 that is, throughout the whole flourishing age of Attic 
 power, wealth, and art. It seems strange that, during 
 this period, no anxiety whatever should have been dis- 
 played for the final consecration of an entire sanctuary 
 to the chief Hellenic deity, amid the immense sums ex- 
 pended on other pubUc buildings. Superstitious motives 
 alone would have been sufiicient, one might suppose, to 
 secure to Jupiter his proper share in the distribution of 
 these treasures. Possibly it was thought that amends 
 were made by the amount of those lavished on his 
 favourite daughter ; or the prejudice against the Pisis- 
 tratidse may have operated against the prosecution of 
 their unfinished monuments ; although no allusion occurs 
 in any writer to such a motive for the suspension of the 
 work. 
 
 To what extent the masonry had been carried by " the 
 tyrants," or of what material it then consisted, does not 
 appear. Although there can be httle doubt that the 
 building was at all times partially used as a sanctuary, 
 yet the assertion of those writers who record its com- 
 pletion by Hadrian, that this emperor first dedicated the 
 statue of the deity, would imply that even the cell was 
 not previously in such a state as to make it a fit recep- 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 83 
 
 tacle for so sacred an object.* Lucian^f also, in a pas- 
 sage apparently allusive to this edifice, seems to hint 
 that the rites of Jove were during a long period neglect- 
 ed by the Athenians. Strabo t describes it as having 
 been left half finished by the tyrant ; and Dicsearchus, § 
 who visited Athens prior to any renewal of the work, 
 speaks of it as a building, which, though incomplete, was 
 yet in such a state of advancement as to excite aston- 
 ishment and a4miration by the splendour of its plan. 
 Aristotle, \\ at a still earher period, classes its fragments 
 among the colossal undertakings of despotic govern- 
 ments, in the same category with the pyramids of Egypt ; 
 and with Livy,^ Vitruvius,^* Plutarch, ft and other writers, 
 it affords similar theme for hyperbolical eulogy. These 
 testimonies imply that the Olympium had suffered little 
 or nothing from the Persian invasion. There is, indeed, 
 every reason to believe that the ravages of Xerxes were 
 confined solely or chiefly to edifices susceptible of the 
 effects of fire, as was probably the case with most of the 
 principal m^onuments of Athens at that period. It may 
 therefore be assumed, that the work of the Pisistratidse 
 had not been carried beyond the sohd masses of masonry, 
 
 ^ Chandler and others state, on the authority of Suetonius, (Calig, 
 22,) that the Emperor Caligula transported the statue of the god from 
 this temple to Rome, and taking off its head, placed his own on its 
 shoulders. This is a mistake. The statue alluded to was not that of 
 the Athenian but of the Pisan Olympium. Nor does Suetonius describe 
 the outrage as having been carried into effect. That it never was--, 
 apart from the testimony of Pausanius, who found the statue m its 
 place at a much later period— we know from Dion Cassius (ix. c. 28) 
 and Josephus (xix. 1,) who give the whole story in detail, describmg 
 the manner in which the emperor's Yandalic schemes were frustrated. 
 
 f Icaromenipp^ § 23. + Lib. ix. c. 1. 
 
 § De Stat. Gr. p. 8. Ed. Huds. \\ PoUt. v. c. 11. 
 
 -p 20. ** P'i^^f- ^'ii- 
 
 Solon, ch. xxxii. 
 
84 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 which the enemy would hardly be at the trouble of 
 demolishing, especially in an unfinished building. 
 
 On the decline of Athens, the zeal of foreign patrons 
 of art led them to vie for the honour of completing this 
 her greatest and noblest monument, which her own citi- 
 zens during their days of prosperity had so strangely ne- 
 glected. The project was first taken up by Antiochus 
 Epiphanes.* The order preferred by him was the 
 Corinthian, which was adhered to in the subsequent 
 prosecution of the work. Ten years afterwards, the un- 
 dertaking was again interrupted by the death of its pro- 
 moter; and after another seventy years' interval of neglect, 
 it was robbed of some of its columns by Sylla, who tran- 
 sported them to Rome for the service of the temple of 
 the same deity in the Capitol, f In the reign of Augus- 
 tus, a society of princes, allies or dependants of the 
 Roman empire, undertook to continue it at their joint 
 expense. But the work was beyond their resources, and 
 the honour of its completion was reserved for Hadrian ; 
 an honour to which his love of Greece and of the arts 
 perhaps more justly entitled him than any other sovereign 
 of barbarous origin. 
 
 The splendour of the edifice completed by this em- 
 
 ^ ViTRUv. Prmf, Lib, vii, — This author states that the work was 
 entrusted by Antiochus to a Roman architect of the name of Cossu- 
 tius ; which seems strange, considering that the Romans were for long 
 after this period in a comparative state of barbarism in respect to 
 every branch of fine art, and dependant on Greek professors for the 
 decoration of their own city. The Cossutian family were also of high 
 patrician rank, which renders it the less credible that one of its mem- 
 bers should have deigned to enter the service of a foreign prince, in 
 what was then considered so degrading a capacity. Probably this 
 architect was a Greek, who, hke Ennius and others of that period, had 
 been honoured with the patronage and name of some noble Roman. 
 
 t Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxvi. 6. J Sueton. in Vit. c. Ix. 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 85 
 
 peror, on the plan of artists of a better period, contrasts, 
 curiously enough, with the poverty of the original monu- 
 ments of his architectural munificence still extant at 
 Athens, more particularly of the arch that bears his name 
 in the immediate neighbourhood. This paltry structure, 
 as its inscription ^ informs us, gave access to the quarter 
 of Athens containing the Olympium, and claimed by him 
 as his own city, from his services in extending or adorn- 
 ing it. The style of this arch is indeed so unworthy of 
 the real enlargement of taste which Hadrian is acknow- 
 ledged to have displayed in the fine arts, as to warrant 
 the suspicion that it may be a work eretted in his honour 
 by the Athenian municipality, or by some other class of 
 admirers or flatterers, rather than by himself. 
 
 To the S. E. of the columns of the Olympium, is still 
 visible a portion of the stone substruction of its peribo- 
 lus. From this point there is a slope to the bed of the 
 Ilissus, where are vestiges of the ancient fountain Callir- 
 rhoe or Enneacrunus, another work of the munificent 
 Pisistratidse. f Its structure, of which I had never been 
 able to form any distinct notion from descriptions, is 
 sufficiently evident on ocular inspection, and is somewhat 
 curious. The name Callirrhoe properly belonged to the 
 spring or source, that of Enneacrunus to the Fountain 
 in the architectural sense of the term. The waters took 
 their rise between the Ilissus and the Olympium, and 
 were conducted by artificial means into the bed of the 
 stream, just where it extends over a broad ledge of rocks 
 terminating in a cM of no great height. Here they were 
 made to pass into small channels or pipes pierced in the 
 rock, with orifices in the face of the cliff, whence they 
 issued into the pool below. Although the more classic 
 
 ^ See additional note at the end of the volume, 
 t Thuctd. ii. 15. Pausan. Alt xiv. 
 
86 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 term Enneacrunus specifies these pipes to have been but 
 nine, they are sometimes alluded to as amounting to 
 twelve; hence the fountain itself was sometimes also 
 called Dodecacrunus. Of these orifices I counted seven ; 
 more might probably be detected by closer examination 
 of the face of the chff. From this arrangement of the 
 pipes it may be inferred, that any httle moisture the bed 
 of the Ihssus occasionally aff'orded, was also made avail- 
 able for the supply of the fountain. Its purity, however, 
 could hardly fail to be disturbed by the waters of the 
 stream when in a swollen state. This is also implied in 
 a passage of the comic poet Cratinus,* who compares a 
 violent tirade of words to the " Dodecacrunus with Ihs- 
 sus itself rushing in its channel." The CaUirrhoe was 
 represented, at the period of my visit, by a small puddle 
 of stagnant water at the foot of the cliff. 
 
 The bed of the river is now perfectly dry, unless when 
 filled by heavy rains ; nor in spite of the allusions of poets, 
 ancient and modern, to " Ihssus' whispering stream," 
 does it ever appear to have been much better supphed. 
 Strabo, f a more matter-of-fact authority, describes both 
 Cephissus and Ihssus as torrents, the waters of which 
 failed entirely in summer. As regards, however, the 
 celebrated passage of Plato,:^ which, and, I beheve 
 it may be said, from which alone, we have any plausible 
 ground to infer that the Ilissus was a perennial stream, 
 perhaps somewhat more weight has been attached to it 
 than it deserves. All that Socrates is there made to say 
 is, that at the season and hour of his walk, it offered a 
 limpid stream very refreshing to persons strolling on its 
 banks in the heat of the day. The same might perhaps 
 
 Apud SuiD. V. doodsTcaK^ovvog, 
 t Ed. Falcon, p. 581. 
 
 I Ph^dr. c. 3. 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 87 
 
 be said by an Athenian of the present generation in the 
 course of any summer, after a few heavy thunder showers 
 in the neighbouring hills.* 
 
 The apology offered by Chandler for the present dry state of 
 the river, that it is now deprived of the waste water of the fountain, 
 will not hold good ; for the place of meeting between Socrates and 
 his pupil, where he praises its limpid stream, was three stadia, or 
 nearly half a mile above the temple of Diana Agrsea, which was itself 
 above the sources of the Callirrhoe. 
 
88 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 STADIUM-HIPPODROME-THEATRE OF HERODES-MONUMENT OF 
 LYSICRATES— TOWER OF ANDRONICUS— REMARKS ON ANCIENT 
 AND MODERN HOUSES, AND HOUSE ACCOMMODATION. 
 
 (zXXa ya^ 2/g irXridog l/j^'Tr/'TrrMV rwv 'tts^i rrig iroXsc^g ravrrig 
 fsc>soog l'/,7rs(^sTv tyiv y^a(prjv. — Strab. ix. c. 1. 
 
 " But I must make short in my description of this city, lest, "bewildered 
 by the number and celebrity of its objects of interest, I should be distracted 
 from the original purpose of my narrative." 
 
 STADIUM AND HIPPODROME. 
 
 On the opposite bank of the Thssus, a little further up 
 its course, is the Panathenaic stadium. Its present 
 appearance is probably not very dissimilar to what it 
 originally presented before being fitted up for gymnastic 
 purposes. It is now but a narrow valley or recess in a 
 ridge of rocky swells, once perhaps the bed of a petty tri- 
 butary to the river. During the flourishing ages of the 
 republic, it would seem that the only assistance nature 
 derived from art, in the further adaptation of the locality 
 to its destined object, consisted in the levelling of the 
 arena — the construction of the necessary apparatus for 
 goal and boundaries — and the arrangement of turf-seats 
 for the spectators on the side of the slope ; with perhaps 
 a parapet of more solid material for their support. 
 
 It is somewhat remarkable that the Greeks, who, 
 while comparatively indifferent to display or luxury in 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 89 
 
 their domestic accommodation, prided themselves on the 
 splendour of their public structures, should have re- 
 mained during the most glorious period of their history 
 so careless, not merely of ornament, but even of solidity 
 and convenience, in those of a class so essentially linked 
 with their whole political and rehgious system, as their 
 Stadia and Hippodromes. Even the more important of 
 the services above enumerated, are said to have been first 
 rendered to the Attic stadium by the orator Lycurgus, 
 in the 105 Olympiad, about 350 years B. C* It was 
 not till near 500 years afterwards, at a late period of the 
 Roman empire, that Herodes Atticus adorned it, in 
 common with the stadium of Delphi, with the coating 
 of white marble which called forth the admiration of 
 Pausanias.t The same author :j: describes the stadium 
 of the Isthmus, at the epoch of his visit, as similarly de- 
 corated ; but with these exceptions, the structures of this 
 class throughout Greece, as he himself informs us,|| in- 
 clusive of those of the distinguished sanctuaries of Olym- 
 pia§ and Epidaurus, were mere banks of earth. From 
 the greater size or extent of the Greek Hippodrome, it 
 
 ^ FjjVT.de decern oratt. in Vita. — Some have even gone the length 
 of interpreting this text as intimating that an Attic stadium was first 
 established by Lycurgus. But its terms seem merely to imply the 
 improvements made by him on a more rude locality. Dr Wordsworth, 
 J^Athens, &c. note to p. 158,] in rejecting this inaccurate sense of the 
 passage, urges, as an additional argument against the views of those 
 who adopt it, that Sophocles, in his Electra, [707, seq.'\ would never 
 have made an Athenian charioteer victor over nine competitors at 
 Delphi, had Athens not possessed a stadium in his time." Here there 
 is a misunderstanding. The chariot race was run in the Hippodrome, 
 not the Stadium ; which, neither in point of size nor arrangement, 
 was adapted to the purpose. The Stadium was used for the foot race, 
 and perhaps some other gymnastic exercises. Athens, however, as 
 may be seen by reference to the sequel of our text, had a Hippodrome 
 (and a fortiori a Stadium) long before the time of Lycurgus. 
 
 t Paus. Phoc. c. xxxii. I Corinth, c. xxvii. 
 
 II Pausan. ibid, % Pausan. Eliac ii. c. xx. 
 
 VOL. IL H 
 
90 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 was hardly to be expected that even equal care should 
 have been bestowed on its architectural embellishment ; 
 and accordingly none of them, not even that of Olympia,* 
 appear to have been any thing more than earthen em- 
 bankments, with the exception, perhaps, of the portion 
 allotted to the accommodation of persons of distinction, 
 which at Olympia was adorned with colonnades. The 
 Hippodrome of Athens was not, it may be presumed, of 
 any better structure than ordinary. It is passed over 
 unnoticed in the ancient descriptions of the city, and has 
 left no remains sufficient to attract the notice of the 
 modern traveller. Nor is the existence of such a monu- 
 ment so much as alluded to in any of our standard 
 treatises on Attic topography. It is certain, however, 
 that Athens possessed a Hippodrome, at least as early as 
 the days of Xenophon,t if not of Solon.:]: It was situated 
 at a sandy place called Enechelido5§ on the low marshy 
 ground between the Museum and the Piraeus, || where its 
 vestiges may perhaps still be found, if carefully sought 
 for, by those who have more time or diligence for the 
 purpose than myself. There was also one at Thebes,f 
 and doubtless in the neighbourhood of every considerable 
 Greek city. Apart from the popular ceremonies of 
 which they were occasionally the scene, such places were 
 necessary for the practice of the cavalry, and of the com- 
 batants in the great national games. They seem to have 
 been little more than exercising grounds, levelled and 
 fenced off in such a manner as to prevent the horses 
 from bolting. Hence they are never mentioned other- 
 
 ^ Pausan. loc. cit, 
 
 f JDe Magist. JEJqu. iii. 3, 10. Cf. Demosth. in Everg. p. 1155, 
 1162. Ed. Reisk. 
 
 I Plutarch, in Vit. c. 19. 
 
 ^ Etym. M. Hesych. et Stepii. Byzant. in v. 'Evsp^sX/^w. 
 
 II Xenoph. Mem. iii. 3, 6. f Pausan. Bceot. xxiii. 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 91 
 
 wise than incidentally in the notices of Grecian monu- 
 ments preserved by Pausanias and other writers. The 
 association of heroic simplicity and martial hardihood 
 with gymnastic exercises, may, in the better days of 
 Greece, have tended to prevent a more sumptuous deco- 
 ration of the localities set apart for their performance. 
 With the Romans the case was different ; the circus 
 being one of the first edifices which they were at pains 
 to fit up and adorn at any expense. 
 
 THEATRE OF HEBOBES ATTICUS, 
 
 The remains of the theatre of Herodes Atticus, other- 
 wise called the Odeum of Regilla, at the S. W. base of 
 the Acropolis, in spite of their extent, good preservation, 
 and the massive material of which they are composed, 
 have a poor appearance, owing to the defects of the Ro- 
 man style of architecture, especially of the rows of small 
 and apparently useless arches, with which the more solid 
 portions of the masonry are perforated, and the conse- 
 quent number of insignificant parts into which it is thus 
 subdivided. To such an excess is this defect carried in 
 the present case, that but for other evidence to the con- 
 trary, one were tempted to pronounce this theatre a 
 structure of the Byzantine age, rather than of a still 
 flourishing period of Roman art. 
 
 This building and the arch of Hadrian seem to have 
 been preserved as living witnesses of the inferiority of 
 the architectural taste of Rome to that of Greece. The 
 difference, indeed, is no less strikingly illustrated by a 
 comparison of the leading extant edifices of the two 
 cities, than of those which Athens herself contains of the 
 respective periods ; of the Propylsea, for example— the 
 tower of Andronicus— the choragic monuments, with the 
 
92 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 Coliseum — the Baths — the triumphal arches. The char- 
 acteristics of the former class are solidity and simplicity, 
 with elegance and aptitude for their purpose. In the 
 latter the chief apparent object is to enclose the widest 
 extent of space, often with the poorest description of 
 material, and to afford the greatest distraction to the eye 
 by an accumulation of subordinate parts, a varied surface, 
 or a broken outline. Subservient to these objects was 
 the great partiality of the Romans for the use of the arch, 
 with which the Greeks were familiar from the remotest 
 antiquity, but which, for reasons inherent in the funda- 
 mental principles of their art, they rarely employed during 
 their best period, unless in cases of actual necessity. 
 These respective characteristics of the two schools are 
 the more interesting, as reflecting the corresponding 
 varieties of social character in the nations themselves — 
 the simplicity and frugality of even the more luxurious 
 age of Greece, as contrasted with the wild ostentation 
 and extravagance of that of Rome. 
 
 CHORAGIC MONUMENT OF LYSICRATES. 
 
 Of the great Dionysiac theatre at the opposite or 
 south-eastern extremity of the Acropolis, there are un- 
 fortunately no remains sufiicient to enable us to compare 
 the genuine Attic taste in such structures with that of 
 Herodes Atticus. Little more than the site is now to be 
 recognised, by the form of the ground. Hard by stands 
 the elegant little trophy of the victory of Lysicrates on 
 its stage.* Diminutive as it is, it has weathered the 
 ravages of the late war as well as its more ponderous 
 
 * This monument has been imitated in the pavilion on the roof of a 
 chapel in Lower Regent Street, London, and in the monuments of 
 Burns near Ayr and on the Calton Hill of Edinburgh. 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 93 
 
 neighbours. There is indeed nothing which conveys a 
 more distinct idea of the excellence of the ancient ma- 
 sonry, than the almost complete state of preservation in 
 which we still find every fragment that existed at the 
 commencement of the revolution, amid the total and often 
 reiterated ruin of the surrounding modern edifices with 
 which they were in many cases connected as integral 
 parts, and in common with which they have been exposed 
 to all the recent vicissitudes of fire, battery, bombard- 
 ment, and wilful dilapidation. Yet there they stand, 
 both at Athens and elsewhere, each in its place, fresh 
 and entire, as drawn by the last generation of travellers. 
 I scarcely think I missed a single ruin, or even a single 
 stone, noted by either Dodwell, Gell, or Leake, on our 
 line of route, with the exception of such as have been 
 carried off by antiquarian plunderers. During the various 
 sieges of Athens, at least 6000 cannon shot or shells were 
 aimed at the Acropolis ; yet, by a strange enough fatality^ 
 the only very serious damage its buildings sustained, the 
 fall of the porch of the Erechtheum, was caused, not by 
 the shot, but by the precautions taken by Gouras, the chief 
 of the garrison, to render it harmless. Having selected 
 this edifice as his own quarters, he attempted to render 
 it bomb-proof, by heaping earth on its roof, which, after 
 his own death, sinking beneath the weight, buried under 
 its ruins his widow, so distinguished for her beauty and 
 virtue, together with some of the principal ladies of 
 Athens, who had sought the same place of refuge during 
 the bombardment. In a large number of cases, indeed, 
 the desolation of the war has been, in so far, beneficial 
 to the present race of antiquaries, by disencumbering 
 ancient relics of the Turco- Greek habitations under 
 which they were concealed. The successive sacks and 
 sieges have here performed the same service, in stripping 
 them of these unseemly appendages, as the aquafortis in 
 
94 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 cleansing the surface of a gem or vase from the filth 
 vvith which it had been encrusted in its subterranean 
 abode. Among the more pointed illustrations of these 
 remarks may be quoted, in addition to this elegant monu- 
 ment, which, from its diminutive size, tended more im- 
 mediately to suggest them, the neighbouring tower of 
 Andronicus Cyrrhestes, and the Doric temple of Corinth. 
 By reference to the old drawings of these remains, it will 
 be seen that, previous to the war, both were in a great 
 measure encased in modern masonry. Both now stand in 
 the centre of a considerable extent of free space. 
 
 TOWER OF ANDRONICUS CYRRHESTES. 
 
 This tower, vulgarly called also the Temple of the 
 Winds, although not without its celebrity among the 
 ancients, is perhaps the extant edifice of the old Attic 
 period least calculated to exalt our modern ideas of the 
 architectural splendour of the Greek cities. It is de- 
 scribed as having been both the public clock and the 
 w^eathercock of Athens. Such a building, unless placed 
 in a very commanding situation, may naturally be assumed 
 to have been so superior in height to the surrounding 
 structures, as to be, if not visible from any great distance, 
 at least a conspicuous object in its own immediate neigh- 
 bourhood. But this edifice stands on the lower part of 
 the site of the ancient city, with no apparent vantage 
 ground, even as regards the contiguous level ; while its 
 actual height from the foundation is but forty-four feet, 
 which, with a reasonable allowance for the Triton that 
 formerly acted the part of vane on its summit, would 
 make its whole elevation little more than fifty feet. 
 As therefore, for the reasons above given, this tower 
 must be supposed to have been one of the highest build- 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 95 
 
 ings of the quarter in which it was situated, it supplies a 
 practical proof of what indeed might have been inferred 
 from other general evidence, that loftiness of elevation 
 was the property of which the structures of ancient 
 Hellas, whether public or private, had least reason to 
 boast. 
 
 The private dwellings of the Greeks consisted at the 
 most of but one story above the ground floor, devoted 
 solely or chiefly to the sleeping accommodation. All dis- 
 play of architectural luxury or magnificence ; their vesti- 
 bules, saloons, and reception-halls, with the principal 
 family apartments, were on the level of the street, ranged 
 around a succession of open courts, partly fitted up as 
 halls or porticos, partly perhaps as flower gardens or 
 pleasure grounds ; which rendered each of the higher 
 class of private houses a small self-contained country 
 villa. Hence the staircase formed no part of the deco- 
 rative architecture of the building, being Httle or nothing 
 more than a convenient passage to the Hyperoon or 
 garret. Their temples, as we know from extant exam- 
 ples, even those of the greatest splendour, rarely equalled 
 in height an ordinary dwelling-house in any modern 
 European capital. They had no lofty steeples, domes, 
 obelisks, or even monumental columns, at least in their 
 best days, to make a show at a great distance ; and of 
 the height of their towers, even where height was con- 
 nected with utihty, this monument of Andronicus may 
 not unfairly be taken as a sample. The colossal statue 
 of Minerva Promachus, on the summit of the Acropolis, 
 seems alone among the Athenian works of art to have 
 attracted the eye from afar by its surpassing altitude. 
 
 This peculiarity tends, no doubt, much to detract from 
 the estimate we moderns may be disposed to form, either 
 of the architectural grandeur or the picturesque eflfect of 
 the cities of ancient Greece, as compared with the high 
 
96 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 square towers, lofty domes, and broad masses of masonryj 
 which vary the outhne of the more elegant European 
 towns of the present day, those of Italy more especially. 
 It must, however, be remembered that variety, rather 
 than mere height, is the attribute of those combinations 
 which conduce to the beauty of landscape composition ; 
 and in this respect we have no reason to suppose the 
 outline of the Greek cities to have been deficient ; while 
 the grace by which their edifices were individually char- 
 acterized, the predominance of open colonnades, and of 
 horizontal and perpendicular lines, in which the archi- 
 tectural picturesque mainly consists, as contrasting with 
 the undulations of the landscape, might have more than 
 compensated the want of loftiness. It is indeed very 
 questionable whether the excessive height to which our 
 towers and domes project, can in itself be considered as 
 a beauty in landscape composition ; nor has it been so, 
 if we may trust their extant works, by any of the stand- 
 ard modern masters of the art. 
 
 The habits of the Romans, in respect to the structure 
 and arrangement both of their domestic and public edi- 
 fices, corresponded in their earlier days to those of the 
 Greeks. The best houses of Pompeii have at the most 
 but one upper story, which is little better than a garret ; 
 and many consist but of a ground floor. In later times, 
 however, the case was different; and the remote cause of 
 the change that has since taken place in this department 
 of manners throughout civilized Europe, may perhaps be 
 traced back to the excess of pomp and luxury in the days 
 of Roman corruption, and to the overgrowth of popula- 
 tion in the Italian towns. The ancients, in their com- 
 parison of the size of Rome with that of Athens* and 
 other cities, dwell especially on the great height of its 
 houses, many of which are specified as consisting of three 
 * Lipsius, de MagniU urhis Eomce, L. iii. c. 4. 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 97 
 
 or four stories. These were chiefly the dweUings of the 
 middle and lower classes, crowded into this focus of Euro- 
 pean population, where each family occupied separate 
 floors one above another, as is still customary in the 
 towns of every part of Europe, with the exception per- 
 haps of England. It is probable that at this period the 
 palaces of the great men of the city were less elevated, 
 and that their principal suites of apartments were on the 
 level of the street. Yet there can be little doubt that it 
 is to this excessive accumulation of stories one above 
 another, and the consequent exclusion of air and light 
 from the lower part of the street, that we are to attribute 
 the revolution which has since taken place in the habits 
 even of the upper classes throughout Italy and the greater 
 part of Europe, by whom it is now considered undigni- 
 fied to occupy the ground-floor. This portion of the 
 building is consequently set apart chiefly or solely for the 
 shops and dwellings of the lower orders, or, in the houses 
 of the great, for servants' accommodation, stables, coach- 
 house, magazines, &c. Hence the staircase, of which one 
 hears so little among the ancients, and to which Vitru- 
 vius alludes but incidentally, and with mere reference to 
 its mechanical structure, is now become an important 
 element of architectural splendour. In proportion as the 
 arrangement of a modern house appears to us essential 
 to comfort, it would probably have been distasteful to an 
 Athenian. To one habituated to the freedom of air and 
 space, of sun or shade, provided for by the halls, porticos, 
 and terraces, which formed the principal apartments of 
 their dwellings, the inconvenience of mounting a stair, 
 and the gloom and confinement to which it led, would 
 have appeared intolerable. Hence too the custom, now 
 universal, for the purpose of imparting cheerfulness to 
 the principal rooms of a modern town residence, of 
 making their windows face the street; and a favourite 
 
 VOL, II. I 
 
98 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 amusement of the idle hours of its inmates is looking at 
 what is passing below ; an additional motive of preference 
 for the second floor, as commanding a better prospect, 
 and, at the same time, further removed from the noise, 
 publicity, and other inconveniences arising from a too 
 immediate contact with the public thoroughfare. A 
 Greek house of distinction, on the other hand, was en- 
 tirely shut out from all connexion with the public, beyond 
 that afforded by the door of entry to the premises. The 
 front towards the street was probably but a curtain wall, 
 relieved by a porch or some other variety of architectural 
 ornament ; as we still see exemplified in the principal 
 palaces of Pompeii. The publicity of life, which the 
 habits and duties of an Hellenic citizen imposed upon 
 him as regards the state, was such as to leave no desire 
 for its extension to the interior of his dwelhng. When 
 done with the Pnyx, the Agora, the Stoa, or the Gymna- 
 sium, he was glad to enjoy unmolested the seclusion of 
 his own social or domestic Circle. 
 
 There can, however, be no doubt, that the Greeks even 
 of the wealthier <jlasses, and during the best period of 
 their history, were, in comparison with their proud neigh- 
 bours and conquerors to the westward, but very in- 
 differently lodged. We hear of no sumptuous town 
 mansions or country villas among the Athenians, that 
 could compete with those of the Roman nobility from the 
 later ages of the republic downwards. Dicaearchus* 
 describes the private dwellings of Athens as s6 mean, 
 that to judge from them, apart from the public edifices, 
 no one on entering the gates could imagine himself to be 
 in so celebrated a city. What Horace said of the primi- 
 tive worthies of his own country, will apply with still 
 greater justice to the Greeks during their most flourish- 
 ing period : 
 
 ^ Bq Stat. Gr. p. 8. Ed. Oxf. 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 99 
 
 " Privatus illis census erat brevis, 
 Commune magnum." 
 
 The modest simplicity of their domestic accommodation 
 was honourably counterbalanced by the splendour of 
 their national monuments. * 
 
 * The remaining doubtful, or less interesting ruins — the gate of 
 theForum — Gymnasium of Ptolemy — Stoa of Hadrian, &c., here require 
 no comment in addition to those of which they have so often been the 
 subject, and the substance of which will be found in any of the popular 
 guide-books which it is to be presumed already abound in Athens, as 
 in every other European metropolis. 
 
100 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXL 
 
 EXCURSION TO MARATHON— M. DE RUDHART — HIS ADVENTURE ON 
 MOUNT PENTELICUS AND DEATH— ANCIENT GREEK FIELD TACTICS 
 — PENTELIC QUARRIES — KING OTHO AND HIS QUEEN. 
 
 On the forenoon of Saturday the iTth, calUng by ap- 
 pointment at the Austrian legation, for the purpose of 
 renewing an interrupted walk of the day before with its 
 hospitable chief, I found that, on the early part of that 
 morning, arrangements had been made for an excursion 
 on the day following to Marathon, Thebes, and back by 
 Platsea to Athens ; and that I was included in the party, 
 should my other engagements permit. As regards the 
 former place, the proposal was joyfully accepted: the 
 further extension of the tour into Boeotia did not, of 
 course, suit my plans. 
 
 This project, it appears, had originated in the unex- 
 pected arrival at Athens, that morning, of Monsieur de 
 Rudhart, ex-prime minister of King Otho, and whose 
 name had lately occupied so prominent a place in the 
 European gazettes, in consequence of his pohtical dif- 
 ferences with our own worthy minister. Sir Edmund Lyons, 
 It is scarcely necessary to mention that the result had 
 been his retirement from office, and he had since been 
 engaged in a tour in the Levant, before finally returning 
 to Munich. He was now on his route homewards, and 
 was anxious to devote the few days at his disposal to an 
 excursion, in the capacity of a private tourist, through 
 this interesting region, which, owing to the pressure of 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 101 
 
 public affairs, he had been unable to visit during the 
 period of his official career. 
 
 There are four roads of access from the plain of Athens 
 to that of Marathon.* The most northerly enters the 
 centre of the latter district near the modern village of 
 the same name. The next to the southward, at the 
 convent of Vrana, situated at the northern base of Pen- 
 tehcus.t The third leads over the higher ridge of that 
 mountain, to the east of its summit, passing close to the 
 marble quarries, and enters the plain between the sea 
 and Vrana4 The fourth, and most level, passing through 
 the valley between Pentehcus and Hymettus, follows 
 the shore for the rest of the distance. 
 
 It was arranged that our party should proceed in two 
 divisions. M. de Rudhart preferred the track over the 
 mountain, purposing to halt a few hours to examine the 
 marble quarries, and descend upon Marathon in the after- 
 noon. His detachment comprised himself and four ladies, 
 his wife, sister, and two sisters-in-law. Owing to the 
 length of time their journey was likely to occupy, their 
 departure was fixed for the first dawn of morning. The 
 other division consisted of Monsieur and Madame de Pro- 
 kesch ; the Austrian secretary of legation ; the Bavarian 
 minister, and his lady ; Dr Ross, whose professional avo- 
 cations only permitted of his accompanying us halfway ; 
 his brother, a young landscape painter, and myself. 
 
 We started soon after sunrise by the direct road for 
 Vrana, where all the accommodation the convent afforded 
 had been secured for the night. The first half of the 
 
 ^ See Sketch, infra, p. 108. 
 
 f These two lines branch off from the same point, about two hours' 
 ride before their respective entries into the plain. 
 
 % The situation of the ancient demus of Marathon is doubtful; 
 some place it at Vrana; others, in deference to the existing corre- 
 spondence of names, at Marathona itself. 
 
102 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 road, being the same which leads to the Pentelic quarries, 
 is practicable for carriages ; and the ambassador's equi- 
 pages accordingly conveyed us as far as Kiphisia, where 
 the horses and baggage were to be in waiting, with the 
 guides, guards, servants, &c. The muster took place 
 under a large platanus tree in the centre of this pretty 
 village, which still retains the name of the ancient Demus 
 it represents. It is the most thriving and cleanly in ap- 
 pearance that I saw in Greece, embedded in gardens, and 
 with well built, and for the most part whitewashed cot- 
 tages. The party, including guards and retainers of all 
 kinds, may have amounted to about a score — and our 
 cavalcade, by its varieties of character and costume^ 
 reminded one strongly, amid many broad points of dif- 
 ference, of Stoddart's picture of the pilgrimage to Can- 
 terbury. The road from Kiphisia lay chiefly over rugged 
 heaths, interspersed with patches of cultivated ground, or 
 through open forest glades, covered with numerous va- 
 rieties of beautiful shrubs — arbutus, oleander, myrtle — 
 rather than with wood. Here and there we passed small 
 clusters of ruins, originally, no doubt, those of Attic 
 Demi, but for the most part so blended with lower Greek 
 structures, as to present few or no distinct remains of 
 genuine Hellenic antiquity. Qn gaining the summit of 
 the rocky ridge connecting Pentelicus with the lower 
 ranges of mountain to the westward, there opens up one 
 of the finest prospects in Greece. The foreground is a 
 deep wooded ravine extending to the plain, at the foot of 
 which the convent is situated. On each side rise the 
 mountains in precipitous masses of rock, covered with 
 straggling pine forest, or with evergreen copse, and ter- 
 minating in bold projecting peaks. Below, the eye 
 stretches over the green expanse of level plain, so well 
 described by Aristophanes * as the " pleasant mead of 
 * >.a//j(/wva rov s^osvra Ma^adoovog, — Aves, 246. 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 103 
 
 Marathon" — in the midst of which the tumulus of the 
 Athenians is the most conspicuous object — ^backed by the 
 sea, and by a small sickle-formed cape, which jutting 
 with a graceful sweep into the channel^ supphes the 
 1^ Marathonian port. The prospect is bounded by the lofty 
 mountain ridges of Euboea, and the contiguous island of 
 Andros. 
 
 The convent of Vrana is situated in a small recess ot 
 the plain immediately below the steepest part of Penteli- 
 cus. It comprises a considerable range of buildings, 
 apparently quite unoccupied, and presenting a desolate 
 enough appearance. The accommodation for the party 
 was on an upper floor, and consisted of a large dreary 
 hall or gallery, with three small cells contiguous, all 
 opening on the wooden staircase and balcony by which 
 they were approached. The smaller apartments were 
 allotted to the married couples — the hall served as a com- 
 mon dormitory for the remaining male members of the 
 party. All were without windows or furniture, and the 
 common hall was without a door. The whole had, however, 
 the advantage of being comparatively free from vermin, 
 the chief bane of all comfort in these halting-places, not 
 having apparently been inhabited for some time past un- 
 less by fowls, wild or domestic. 
 
 After arranging our quarters we proceeded to the tu- 
 mulus, which we reached about two o'clock. This had 
 been agreed upon as the point of rendezvous with the 
 party from the quarries, upon whose arrival we had cal- 
 culated an hour or two after our own, as their road, 
 though more mountainous, was not longer than ours. 
 We remained several hours in the neighbourhood of the 
 monument, and amused ourselves for some time in pick- 
 ing up the small pieces of dark-coloured flint that abound 
 on its surface, vulgarly supposed to be fragments of the 
 Persian arrow-heads. The ladies now grew tired of 
 
104 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 waiting for their companions, and returned to the con- 
 vent. The gentlemen of the party, after riding across 
 the plain in different directions, and examining such ob- 
 jects of curiosity as it offers, once more returned to the 
 tumulus, where we waited another hour; but still no 
 appearance of the Rudharts. Night now began to close 
 in, and the melancholy cry of the jackalls to be heard on 
 the mountain side. We now also took our way back to 
 Vrana, confidently expecting that, owing to the lateness 
 of their arrival, or the fatigue of their journey, the moun- 
 tain party had proceeded at once to their quarters for the 
 night, and that we should find them safely housed in the 
 convent. In this, however, we were disappointed. We 
 waited supper for them another hour, but in vain. The 
 matter now became serious, and anxiety for the fate of 
 their absent friends tended not a little to mar the convivi- 
 aUty of the circle round the well spread board, supplied 
 from the household of the diplomatic heads of our expe- 
 dition ; for my invitation to join it had been coupled with 
 the condition that I should consider myself as their guest, 
 and all picnickery was strictly prohibited. Gendarmes 
 and peasants were sent in different directions to explore 
 the various paths leading across the mountain, but re- 
 turned at intervals, each with the same report of the bad 
 success of their mission. The case was therefore given 
 up as hopeless for the night, and all retired to rest, trust- 
 ing that the mystery would be cleared up in some satis- 
 factory manner in the course of the following morning. 
 
 These hopes were in so far reahzed, that, about seven 
 or eight o'clock, the hallooing of the peasants stationed 
 on the look-out announced the discovery of the party on 
 the upper ridge of the mountain ; and soon after they 
 appeared in view, scrambhng down a scarce practicable 
 zigzag track among the rocks. They arrived in miser- 
 able plight, wan and haggard with fatigue and want of 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 105 
 
 sleep, covered with dust and mud, their clothes torn to 
 tatters, and their faces and hands scratched by the 
 brambles and branches of the forest. 
 
 Owing partly to their having lingered too long at the 
 quarries, partly to the ignorance and mismanagement of 
 the guides, they lost their way, and were benighted 
 when scarcely through one-half of the second stage of 
 their journey. Whilst wandering up and down the 
 mountain, in their vain attempts to discover some direct 
 path of descent to the plain, they parted company with 
 their baggage-train, and, by consequence, with all their 
 provisions, warm clothes, and bedding. The night was 
 far from mild, with a fresh north wind even on the 
 plain below, as we ourselves had experienced in our 
 open dormitory ; and on the top of the mountain it blew 
 a storm. As the midday sun at this season in Greece 
 is as powerful as that of July in our climate, the ladies 
 were equipped in little better than light summer dresses ; 
 and in this state they were obliged to halt for the 
 night, fasting and shivering, and avail themselves of such 
 shelter from the blast as the foliage of the forest sup- 
 plied. To ensure what little comfort was possible in 
 such a predicament, wood was gathered, and a fire 
 lighted. The sparks communicated the flames to the 
 neighbouring trees ; and what with the drought of the 
 season, the force of the wind, and the combustible 
 nature of the pine timber, an extensive conflagration 
 ensued, which again forced them to shift their wretched 
 bivouac to another part of the hill. This episode of the 
 tragedy caused much entertainment to the gossips of 
 Athens ;— as, among the beneficial laws introduced and 
 strenuously enforced by M. de Rudhart while in power, 
 was one for the better preservation of the forests, with 
 heavy penalties against all wanton destruction or muti- 
 lation of the trees. 
 
106 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 The four ladies, however distressed and dispirited, 
 bore their misfortunes with great philosophy ; and the 
 ex-premier, a man of lively, animated manner, although 
 in a state of evident excitement, seemed also well satis- 
 fled, upon the whole, that so disagreeable an adventure 
 had ended so well. It was natural to feel apprehensive 
 for the consequences to a party of ladies, some of them 
 of rather delicate appearance ; but neither he, probably, 
 nor any one else, anticipated that it was to be, even indi- 
 rectly, productive of such fatal results to himself. His 
 voyage north preceded my own by a week or ten days ; 
 and while I was still detained in quarantine at Ancona, 
 a report arrived that M. de Rudhart had died in the 
 lazaretto of Trieste. This account proved incorrect ; 
 but it merely anticipated the truth : for he was at the 
 time dangerously ill, and on being released from qua- 
 rantine, he lingered and expired at a lodging in the 
 town, a few weeks afterwards. The remote cause of his 
 death, as I subsequently learned from his friends at 
 Munich, was the adventure of this night. He was evi- 
 dently a man of a very excitable temperament ; and the 
 bodily fatigue and exposure, added to mental irritation, 
 brought on a feverish cold, which ultimately ripened into 
 the illness that carried him off. 
 
 M. de Rudhart's political abilities were held in high 
 estimation at Munich, where he seemed also to enjoy 
 general popularity and respect. He was not a person of 
 birth, and was indebted to his own exertions for his suc- 
 cess in life ; nor did his personal appearance belie his 
 origin, bespeaking rather the substantial merchant or 
 tradesman than the prime minister; but a quick eye 
 and animated style of conversation gave earnest of con- 
 siderable talent. His first introduction to pubHc life 
 was as a member of the Bavarian chamber of represen- 
 tatives, where he distinguished himself as a debater on 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 107 
 
 the popular side during the short-lived reign of constitu- 
 tional liberty, or rather of zeal for its establishment, in 
 his native country. His ultra-liberal principles, by one 
 of those political paradoxes common even in other coun- 
 tries, where liberty is a more thriving plant than in 
 Germany, were the source of his courtly dignities. It 
 was chiefly for the purpose of disembarrassing themselves 
 of his interference with their well-directed and success- 
 ful attempts to stifle the chartered constitution in its 
 infancy, that he was promoted by the Bavarian rulers to 
 place and honour, and finally sent out as successor to 
 Count Armansperg in the presidency of the cabinet of 
 Greece, where he appeared as tlie steady and uncom- 
 promising assertor of monarchical privilege. A few 
 weeks before his death, he had been named plenipoten- 
 tiary to the court of King Otho. This appointment^ 
 while it evinced the satisfaction of his government with 
 the conduct that had led to his late retirement from 
 ofiice, was as flattering to himself, as it was httle com- 
 plimentary to our own minister at Athens, or the court 
 he represented. 
 
 As the road I had selected for my return was the 
 same which had been the scene of the late disastrous 
 adventure, and as I was anxious to avoid all risk of 
 similar mishap, at an early hour after the arrival of the 
 benighted party, I was under the necessity of bidding — 
 I regret to say, a final— farewell to my kind friends ; for 
 my own departure from Athens preceded their return 
 from their excursion. 
 
 The plain of Marathon, which is about six miles long, 
 and half that breadth in the broadest part, presents 
 somewhat the form of a half-moon, the inner curve of 
 which is bounded by the ba,y, the outer by the range of 
 mountains extending frgjn the maritime base of Penteli- 
 cus to the Cape of Cynosura. Within this cape, at the 
 
108 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 north-eastern extremity of the crescent, is a marsh, with 
 a few low pine woods towards the sea. The other 
 extremity gives entrance to the pass between Pentelicus 
 and the sea, forming the most easterly of the four roads 
 already described as leading from Athens to the plain. 
 Upon this corner of the plain, which is also marshy, are 
 extensive foundations, apparently of temples or villas. 
 Here may possibly have been the sanctuary of Minerva 
 Hellotia, already a favourite shrine of the goddess in the 
 days of Homer.^ In some stagnant pools among the 
 ruins, are several fragments of marble statues, columns, 
 &c. Through the centre of the plain runs the bed of 
 the brook, now called Marathona, (anciently Asopus,) 
 on the banks of which, a little way up the valley from 
 whence it issues, is situated the village of the same name. 
 
 In regard to the plan of the battle, all that can with 
 tolerable certainty be assumed is, that the Athenians 
 must have been drawn up at the extremity of the plain 
 nearest to Athens, in order to defend the roads of access 
 to the city.f The existing lofty tumulus, therefore, 
 identifies the point of collision between the two armies 
 more satisfactorily than any learned investigations are 
 ever likely to do. We have no certain knowledge of the 
 etiquette followed by the Greeks in the erection of 
 their polyandria^ or common sepulchres. The probabi- 
 lity is, that the spot here selected would be either that 
 where the greatest loss was sustained, or where the 
 
 ^ Odyss. vii. 80. 
 
 f Perhaps the most plausible of the attempts to identify more 
 closely the scene of action, is that of Mr Finlay, who maintains that 
 the engagement must have been fought at the south-west corner of the 
 plain, opposite the maritime road to the city, as the only one practi- 
 cable for the cavalry on which the Persians placed so great reliance. 
 This route, therefore, it would be the chief object of the enemy to 
 force, of the Greeks to defend. — Transactions of R. S. L., vol. iii. 
 pt. ii. p. 363, seq. 
 
LIBRARY 
 OF THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 109 
 
 general or principal warrior fell. In the former case, it 
 would mark the centre of the Greek line ; in the latter, 
 the position of the left wing, where the polemarch Calli- 
 machus, who was slain in the action, commanded.* 
 
 There are several curious details in the narrative of 
 Herodotus, which have, perhaps, obtained less attention 
 than they deserve, either as illustrative of the conduct of 
 this battle, or of the military tactics of the age. The 
 Athenians are described as having weakened their centre, 
 for the twofold purpose of extending their line, and of 
 increasing the weight of their flanks, upon whose success 
 they evidently rested their hopes of victory. This is a 
 stratagem as contrary to our notions of the art of war, 
 as it seems in itself bold and singular. One of the 
 standard principles of tactics in the pitched battles of 
 our own day is, that the strength of a line consists mainly 
 in that of its centre, as the rallying point of the whole ; 
 and hence the favourite manoeuvre of a bold and dex- 
 terous commander is, to break through this point, and 
 defeat the divisions of the enemy in detail. It is to this 
 manoeuvre, that on all occasions small bodies of well- 
 trained warriors have chiefly to trust, in opposing the 
 tumultuous attacks of undisciplined troops. By it the 
 British fleets have, for the greater part of a century, 
 defeated those of every enemy. By it the armies of 
 Napoleon gained most of their victories; and it was 
 mainly by an adherence to a similar line of tactics on the 
 part of our own generals, that he never was successful 
 against them, but was invariably defeated, as it were, by 
 his own weapons. An opposite plan was, however, here 
 pursued, and with signal success, on the part of Miltiades. 
 The centre of the Athenian army consequently gave 
 way; but each wing of the Persians was defeated and 
 
 ^ Lib. viii. Ill, seq. 
 
110 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 fled. The Greek victors, instead of pursuing, united 
 their force against the Persian centre, who, elated with 
 their victory, and in hot pursuit of the enemy, were 
 themselves forthwith put to the rout. 
 
 An additional motive with Miltiades for weakening 
 his centre seems to have, been the extension of his line, 
 to avoid being outflanked by the superior numbers of 
 the enemy. This may be inferred from another pecu- 
 liarity in the conduct of the action mentioned by the 
 historian : * that the Greeks, contrary to their previous 
 practice, here for the first time advanced to the assault 
 at full speed, and from no less a distance than eight 
 stadia, or about a mile. Herodotus does not assign any 
 motive for this change of method ; but it is explained by 
 the previous details he supplies. Had the Athenians, 
 after equalizing their line as nearly as was in their power 
 to that of their opponents, remained inactive, they would 
 have given them opportunity to deploy, which would have 
 defeated their purpose. Their policy therefore was, to 
 charge at once with such rapidity as should leave no 
 time for a counter manoeuvre on the part of the Persians. 
 
 There can, however, be little doubt, if not, as Mitfordf 
 supposes, that the flight of the Athenian centre was 
 feigned, that its weakness and consequent defeat formed 
 at least part of a stratagem of Miltiades, to lead the 
 mass of the enemy's force out of the field, and engage 
 them in unprofitable pursuit, trusting to the superiority 
 of his own wings to ensure the final success of the action. 
 Such a stratagem would show a singular confidence on 
 the part of Miltiades in the valour and steadiness of his 
 own troops, and the comparative ill discipline or unskil- 
 fulness of the enemy. For had the victory of his wings 
 been less decided, or had the Persians shown a little 
 
 * Herodot. vi. 112. 
 
 f Hist, of Greecv, ch. vii. sect. 4. 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 Ill 
 
 more judgment in the use of their temporary success, 
 considering their superiority of numbers and cavalry, the 
 consequence would, or at least ought to have been, the 
 cutting up in detail of the Athenian army. 
 
 It is indeed evident from the accounts both of this 
 and other engagements during the earlier and more 
 glorious part of their military career, that the Greeks 
 attached much greater importance to the strength of 
 their wings than of their centre, and seem to have had 
 scarcely a notion of the value of the modern system of 
 breaking the opposite line. The best troops were always 
 stationed in the wings ; and the critical turn of an action 
 depended mainly on the efforts of the two armies to out- 
 laank each other. This was the defect of the Lacede- 
 monian tactics, as compared with the improved system 
 of Pelopidas and Epaminondas, which involved the de- 
 feat of their armies by those generals. The great battle 
 of Mantinea, more especially, was gained by the modern 
 manoeuvre of breaking th^ line.*' The Macedonian 
 phalanx was also formed on the principle of concentra- 
 ting the whole weight of attack on a particular point of 
 the enemy^s line, so much so as to have been somewhat 
 unwieldy, and hence unable to withstand the still more 
 advanced science of the Romans, who appear to have 
 blended all the excellences of the previous systems into 
 one. 
 
 There can be no reasonable doubt that the tumulus in 
 the centre of the plain is the polyandrium or common 
 burial-place of the Athenians ; nor is it easy to under- 
 
 * Xenoph. miUn, vi. 4, 13 ; vii. 5, 22.---The historian describes 
 Epaminondas at Mantinea as collecting his best troops into the centre, 
 and there disposing them in the form of a " strong wedge/' (/(r%Li^oj/ 
 g>CoXov,) with which he charged the hostile line, "as a ship assails the 
 flank of its adversary with its tostritm.'' The manoeuvre of his cavah-y 
 was very similar. 
 
112 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 stand how various travellers should so confidently ascribe 
 it to the Persians, in the face of the distinct testimony 
 of Pausanias,* that although the victors had buried the 
 bodies of the enemy, no memorial was extant of their 
 place of sepulture; from which he infers that they had 
 been thrown into the grave, less as a mark of respect, than 
 in conformity with religious observance : he might, per- 
 haps, have added — in order to get rid of the nuisance of 
 their carcasses. It is not indeed to be supposed that the 
 Athenians should have been at pains to erect so bulky, 
 and, considering the labour it must have cost, so expen- 
 sive a monument, to their hated invaders, while they 
 themselves were contented with so much humbler a 
 mound, that the weather, or the labours of the husband- 
 man, should have since swept it from the face of the 
 plain. 
 
 The opinion that this tumulus indicates the burial- 
 place of the Persians, was suggested, apparently, by the 
 small pieces of polished flint that abound among the 
 earth of which it is composed, and have, upon grounds 
 that will not stand the test of criticism, been considered 
 as fragments of the arrow-heads used by the archers of 
 Artaphernes. The number of these curious relics is 
 very surprising. During the hour or two that our party 
 loitered on the side of the tumulus, I picked up about 
 forty, and several of my companions nearly an equal num- 
 ber. As most other visitors amuse themselves in the same 
 way, and with similar success, to judge from the propor- 
 tion already found, or daily brought to light on the sur- 
 face of the tumulus, those originally imbedded in its 
 earth must be incalculable. They abound, however, in 
 other parts of Greece and its dependencies, where no 
 Persian is even reported to have set foot ; while neither 
 at Thermopylae, where the Persian arrows — in terms of 
 
 * Attic, xxxii. 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 113 
 
 the celebrated Spartan apothegm — were so thick as to 
 darken the air, nor at Platsea, has a single one been 
 found; although Dodwell* assures us he sought them 
 carefully on the scene of both actions. They are not 
 uncommon in the waste grounds in the neighbourhood 
 of Athens, where I added a fragment or two to my stock. 
 The largest and most entire specimens I have seen, or 
 which I believe have yet been discovered, were found in 
 the island of Santorini, the ancient Thera, and are now 
 in the possession of Mr Finlay.j They are usually 
 formed like the point of a very small dagger, with the 
 surface shaped on each side into three flat faces or com- 
 partments. Some of those belonging to Mr Finlay are 
 slightly curved at the extremity, presenting the appear- 
 ance of a xystra or strigilis. These, it is evident, could 
 not have been used either for the point of an arrow or a 
 javehn, but were destined rather for domestic or me- 
 chanical, than military purposes. Hence it has been 
 more reasonably conjectured, that these supposed oriental 
 arrow-heads are but the remains of the old stone imple- 
 ments used by the Pelasgi and other aborigines of Hellas, 
 during its barbarous ages, before the greater extension of 
 the use of brass or iron. The extraordinary quantity 
 observable in and about the Marathonian tumulus must, 
 however, still remain a mystery. Assuming them to 
 have been the arrow-heads of the Persians entombed 
 beneath it, we must suppose, either that the greater 
 proportion of the barbarians slain in the action were 
 archers, and were cast into the grave each with a well- 
 stocked quiver, or that the Greeks had been at pains to 
 collect the weapons scattered over the plain, and heap 
 them up with the earth of the tumulus. Both these 
 hypotheses are obviously most improbable. It were, 
 
 ^ Vol. i. p. 280. 
 t See Op. sup, citi 392. 
 VOL. II. K 
 
114 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 perhaps, more reasonable to suppose, that the site acci- 
 dentally selected for the monument by the Athenians, 
 was that of a former magazine of cutlery in the days of 
 their barbarous ancestors. 
 
 The battle of Marathon is the most brilhant exploit 
 in the military annals of Greece. It was achieved single- 
 handed by a petty repubhc, against the hosts of the 
 mightiest savereign of the world at that period, on the 
 spur of the moment, and by the simple impulse of 
 genuine valour and patriotism, unsulUed by that intrigue, 
 chicanery, and cabal, which disgraced the conduct, and 
 marred many of the subsequent operations, of the con- 
 federacy against the Persians, under the guidance of the 
 Lacedaemonian system of selfish patriotism. It nipped in 
 the bud a project for the subjugation, not of Athens alone, 
 but of all Greece, which had been formed and matured 
 under the most favourable auspices ; and although, unhke 
 the more decisive battle of Plat8aa,far from putting an end 
 to the ambitious schemes of conquest on the part of the 
 « great monarch," it immediately led to their boundless 
 extension, yet its moral effects on the whole subsequent 
 destinies of the war were most important, by first open- 
 ing the eyes of the Greeks to their real superiority over 
 an enemy, with whom, whether in point of numbers, 
 prowess, ar tactics, they had hitherto imagined them- 
 selves unable to cope. At this period the Persian troops, 
 we learn from Herodotus, far fram being considered, as 
 afterwards, in the hght of undisciplined barbarians, 
 were objects of terror to every foe. In allusion to the 
 charge of the Athenians, he says : * " They were the first 
 of all the Hellenes, to the best of my knowledge, who 
 attacked an enemy at full speed, and the first who could 
 behold without alarm the dress of a Mede, still less the 
 man who wore it; for up to this day so much as the 
 * vi. 112. 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 115 
 
 name of a Mede was a terror to the Greeks." The 
 Persian arms, in fact, as we learn from the previous 
 details of his own history, had hitherto been favoured 
 with uninterrupted success against all the nations of 
 European blood* In their previous long-continued wars 
 for the subjugation of the Greek states on the coast 
 and islands of Asia Minor, now their own vassals, con- 
 sidered in those days no way inferior to their western 
 kinsmen in military conduct, and superior to them in 
 numbers and resources, although our accounts are de- 
 rived from Greek historians alone, we scarcely hear of 
 their ever having experienced any serious check. Yet 
 under all these apparent disadvantages, both moral and 
 physical, an army which cannot safely be rated much 
 above 15,000 men, without cavalry, assaulted in an open 
 plain a host of many times their number of these same 
 formidable warriors, combining every advantage of com- 
 position and equipment, and defeated them by one of 
 the boldest manoeuvres recorded in the annals of ancient 
 warfare. Apart, therefore, from the military credit of 
 this achievement, the moral co^rage displayed by the 
 Athenians entitles it to a higher rank in the list of 
 heroic exploits than any other of the subsequent battles 
 of Greek against barbarian, where all these unfavourable 
 circumstances were reversed. In each of these encoun- 
 ters, the only disadvantage on the side of the Greeks, if 
 such it can be called, was that of numbers. But the 
 heroes of Marathon had taught them that a small band 
 of experienced Hellenic warriors, opposed to an unman- 
 ageable crowd of half-rdisciplined irregulars, might look 
 with full confidence to their own valour and conduct for 
 an easy victory. 
 
 Athens indeed, in common with her Boeotian ally 
 Plataea, whose destinies and interests are at this period 
 so inseparable from her own, that the history of both 
 
116 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 forms but a single chapter in the annals of the confede- 
 racy, is justly entitled to the first honours as represen- 
 tative of the heroic genius of repubhcan Greece, during 
 the whole of this eventful era, in spite of all the preju- 
 dices, ancient and modern, in favour of the ascetic 
 prowess and selfish patriotism of Sparta.^ Ever ready, 
 at a moment's warning, to act or to suffer in her own or 
 the pubUc defence— patiently submitting, for the com- 
 mon good, to every evil that can befall a country— she 
 beheld her city burnt, her territory ravaged, her popula- 
 tion forced to seek refuge among barren rocks and 
 mountain fastnesses, without ever for a moment relax- 
 ing her energies, or allowing the very name of accom- 
 modation—still less of treachery— to be whispered in 
 her councils; although deserted or betrayed on every 
 side by those very aUies for whom, in a great measure, 
 those sacrifices were made, but to whom the severest of 
 her calamities were objects of indifference, or even of 
 secret satisfaction. 
 
 The alhance between Athens and her spirited little 
 ally on the other side of Cithaeron, gives an additional 
 interest to the part they were jointly destined to perform 
 during the more eventful periods of their common history, 
 by tinging it with a shade of romance, such as rarely 
 attaches to the details of international pohtics. There 
 are, indeed, few more striking examples of sincere and 
 constant friendship, either in pubhc or private life, than 
 this alliance. Nor can its influence or results, with 
 more immediate reference to the case in point, be more 
 touchingly characterized than in the simple but elegant 
 language of Herodotus. While their other neighbours 
 
 * At the period of the Gaulish invasion, the Athenians, though now 
 in the last stage of their corruption, were still foremost in the struggle 
 for Hellenic independence, (Pausan. 1. c.4;) and indeed on all other 
 occasions were the readiest to offer resistance to a foreign invader. 
 
ATTICA. 
 
 117 
 
 were lingering and temporizing, engaged in public festi- 
 vals, or preparing to make the best terms in their power 
 in case of the further advance of their formidable enemy, 
 " scarcely," says the historian,* " had the Athenians 
 taken up their quarters in the Marathonian sanctuary of 
 Hercules, than the Platseans joined them to a man ; for 
 the Plataeans had given themselves up to the Athenians, 
 who for their sake had already suffered much and often." 
 And much, as we have seen, the Plataeans, in their turn, 
 were destined to suffer for the Athenians. 
 
 Marathon was the field of a well-fought battle between 
 the Greeks and the Turks, on the 16th of July 1824, 
 in which the former, to the number of 800 men, com- 
 manded by Gouras, were completely victorious. 
 
 Our return from Vrana to Athens, over the higher 
 ridge of Pentelicus, past the quarries, was performed 
 with such ease and expedition, as to prove that the dis- 
 aster of the day before could only have been the result 
 of gross mismanagement. The route is rugged and pre- 
 cipitous, without much picturesque beauty, until the 
 traveller reaches the side of the mountain facing the 
 city, in the neighbourhood of the convent of Penteli, and 
 of the quarries. From both these points the landscape 
 combines all the more excellent features of Attic scenery. 
 The declivities of the hill, the plain, and the ohve- 
 grounds, form the foreground. Beyond appears the city 
 and its heights, backed by the gulf and its coasts and 
 islands. To the left the landscape is bounded by Hy- 
 mettus, the outline of which here combines boldness with 
 elegance in the happiest proportions ; to the right by the 
 lower declivities of Parnes, backed by the lofty peaks of 
 the Megarian range. The monastery of Penteh, which, 
 with one or two other establishments of the same kind 
 in other parts of the mountain, has survived the ravages 
 ^ vi. 108. 
 
118 
 
 ATTICA. 
 
 of the late war, consists of an extensive range of courts 
 and miscellaneous edifices, all in a sufficiently desolate 
 and dilapidated condition, and the principal use of which 
 is to accommodate travellers and picnick parties from 
 Athens. The marble quarries form a range of cliffs on 
 each flank of a deep ravine, which runs for upwards of a 
 mile in a north-westerly direction, towards the summit of 
 the mountain. A considerable part of the open space of 
 the ravine is formed by the ancient excavations, which, 
 extending here and there into the sides of the hill, as the 
 convenience of working or the quality of the marble sug- 
 gested, offer a succession of projecting angles and recesses 
 bearing the marks of chiseling quite fresh. The bed of 
 the ravine supplies now, as it did formerly, both the 
 channel for carrying off the water from the works, and 
 the carriage-road for the transport of the marbles. The 
 best material is found in the upper quarries, from which 
 the blocks for the structure of the royal palace are pro- 
 cured. 
 
 In the afternoon, I galloped across the level plain into 
 the city, with the rich rays of the setting sun in my face, 
 gradually becoming fainter behind the dark colossal 
 height of Lycabettus, I spent the evening with Sir 
 Edmund Lyous and family, who were as much diverted 
 with the ludicrous portion of his late political antagon- 
 ist's disaster, as they would no doubt have been distressed 
 could they have anticipated its fatal consequences. 
 
 The following evening I was presented to king Otho 
 and his queen, an honour which was not obtained with- 
 out some little management ; for, besides that their majes- 
 ties had returned but a few days before from a tour in 
 the provinces, it appeared that the etiquette of the infant 
 court was sufficiently matured, to allow of some demur 
 being made to the reception of a person travelling under 
 a military title without a military uniform. This was the 
 
ATTICA* 
 
 119 
 
 less to he wondered at, as the king himself seemed invari- 
 ahly to wear regimentals. The manner of both, especially 
 of the queen, is very affable. His majesty's appearance 
 and address convey a more favourable impression of his 
 temper than of his talents. He is a fair young man, with 
 a good figure, but a plain unmeaning countenance. The 
 queen is a fresh pretty German girl. Her beauty I had 
 previously heard more commended than it deserves. His 
 principal amusements are riding excursions, in which the 
 queen takes part, and playing at billiards ; but I was 
 assured that he had lately paid much attention to busi- 
 ness, and shown a great anxiety to take an active share 
 in the direction of his cabinet, however little qualified for 
 such duties. 
 
120 
 
 SAEONIC GULF. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 PIR^IJS— VOYAGE TO SUNIUM. 
 " With heavy hearts our onward course we sail." 
 
 There are few things more painful than the sudden 
 interruption, after so brief a period of enjoyment, of social 
 relations which have been the source of much pleasure, 
 and which one would fain have rendered permanent, 
 without any apparent prospect of their renewal. Such 
 was my case at present; and my regrets in quitting 
 Athens were at least as much for the many kind friends 
 I left behind, as for the shortness of the time I had been 
 able to devote to its objects of local beauty or interest. 
 
 On the forenoon of Saturday, March 24, we started 
 for the Piraeus, where we had engaged a bark to take 
 us, wind and weather permitting, to the Sunian pro- 
 montory, and from thence, by way of ^gina, to the 
 Corinthian isthmus. The port of Piraeus has a more 
 animated and flourishing aspect than any other I visited 
 on the Greek coast. Its excellence as a harbour is, I 
 believe, generally admitted by the learned both in the 
 ancient and modern science of navigation ; and the jus- 
 tice of their opinion is fully borne out to the eye of the 
 less skilful observer, by the beauty and tranquiUity of 
 its capacious basin. The town has already many toler- 
 able streets and houses, and the eastern shore is lined 
 with magazines of respectable size and structure. Within 
 
SARONIC GULF. 
 
 121 
 
 the port, besides many large-sized traders, were moored 
 several French and Russian men-of-war, while a great 
 part of its interior circumference was thickly fringed 
 with inferior craft of every size and denomination. The 
 whole scene offers a most agreeable contrast to the 
 " silent sepulchral gloom of the Piraeus" in the days of 
 Dodwell; when a few hovels were the whole town, and 
 frequently not a boat was to be seen in the harbour. The 
 extant relics of the ancient grandeur of the place, are but 
 a few cyclopian or polygonal foundations on the heights 
 to the eastward, the shell of a theatre, and some broken 
 columns and sarcophagi near the point which bounds the 
 entrance of the port to the right, in approaching from 
 the sea. Among these the imagination is at liberty to 
 identify the remains of the tomb of Themistocles, sup- 
 posed to have stood upon this cape.* 
 
 After a walk over the desolate range of peninsulas 
 and promontories, formerly covered by the ancient town, 
 and encircling the once still more animated, but now 
 deserted ports of Munychia and Phalerus, I ate a bad 
 dinner at a trattoria, which professed to be all 'Italiana — 
 retired to rest on board our bark — and at daybreak, 
 March 25, found myself coasting slowly along the shore 
 of Hymettus. The day was fine, but not favourable to 
 our progress, and the wind towards evening freshened 
 into a gale, for weathering which the harbour of Sunium, 
 now about eight or ten miles distant, even could we have 
 reached it, would not have been a safe station. We 
 therefore withdrew into a little bay or cove, sheltered by 
 a projecting headland, and by a small but lofty and 
 precipitous island. This is the bay called Anaphlystus 
 by Herodotus and Xenophon,t and Hyphormus by 
 
 ^ Leake, Topogr. 317, seq. 
 
 f Herodot. iv. 99. Xenoph. De Yectig. iv. c. 43. 
 
 VOL. n. ^ 
 
122 
 
 SARONIC GULF. 
 
 Ptolemy ; * the promontory by which it was sheltered was 
 named Astypalaea ; the island Eleussa. It was, together 
 with the corresponding inlet of Thoricus on the east 
 coast of Attica, strongly fortified, for the protection of 
 the silver mines worked in the surrounding hills of 
 Laurium. 
 
 I walked up to the summit of the rocky height imme- 
 diately above our station, to obtain as extensive a view 
 as the twilight would permit of the interior of the coun- 
 try. It were difficult to conceive a more dreary scene of 
 desolation than here presented itself, or indeed than that 
 offered by the whole of this once populous region, as far 
 as the eye could stretch in coasting along its shore from 
 Athens to the Sunian promontory. With the exception 
 of a small deserted hovel, whether cottage, chapel, or 
 magazine, it were 'difficult to decide, immediately above 
 our moorings, not a symptom of human life or industry 
 could be descried — nothing but a barren waste of rock, 
 heath, or mountain, unrelieved by forest or tree. Not 
 even the bleat of a goat, the tinkling of a sheep bell, or 
 the evening call of the herdsman, sounds which seldom 
 fail to enliven even the most desert mountain solitudes of 
 Greece, were here to be heard. The only sign of ani- 
 mal existence that offered itself in the course of my 
 ramble was a solitary owl, which I disturbed from a cre- 
 vice in the hut in passing ; as if in satirical fulfilment of 
 the satirical prediction of Aristophanes : f 
 
 TXavKsg vjubag outtot s'7ti\zi'^o\j(ii Aav ^iooTiKa/\ 
 " In Attica the Laurian owl shall never fail." 
 
 We were again under weigh a little after sunrise, (26th,) 
 and a two hours' sail brought us to the little bay below 
 
 * Ptolem. L. iii. 
 
 t Aves, 1106. In allusion to , the silver coin stamped with the 
 figure of an owl. 
 
SUNIUM. 
 
 123 
 
 the Sunian promontory, where we leave our bark at an- 
 chor, while we mount to the ruins. The day was bright 
 and warm, and the cheerful prospect over a fair blue 
 sea studded with islands, compensated for the still deso- 
 late features of the interior. Sophocles calls Sunium a 
 woody promontory,* a description no longer apphcable. 
 But a few stunted fir bushes, straggling over the decli- 
 vity below the temple, would seem still to vouch for its 
 propriety in his own age. 
 
 Next to the grandeur of their situation, the pecuUarity 
 of the Sunian columns which chiefly attracted my atten- 
 tion is their milky whiteness. The marble of which they 
 are composed is by nature of a much lighter colour than 
 that of the Pentehc quarries, and the perpetual action of 
 the spray, while it corrodes and bleaches their surface, 
 prevents the formation of that fine yellow crust which we 
 admire in the Parthenon. As seen from a distance, ght- 
 tering in the sun across the blue sea, they look hke pillars 
 of snow or salt, rather than stone, f The traveller just 
 arrived from Athens cannot fail also to be struck with 
 their diminutive size, as contrasted more especially with 
 the celebrity of the edifice to which they belonged. 
 
 In the afternoon, we pursued our voyage towards the 
 isle of ^gina. Our progress was again but slow. During 
 the last few hours of our course, the columns of the 
 iEginetic temple were in full view in front of us ; but we 
 reached the shore too late to admit of a visit to them that 
 evening, and again took up our moorings for the night 
 in the little port below. In the morning, I was upon the 
 
 ^ Ajaoj. 1235, 
 
 t This supplies an item to the catalogue I have collected, of the 
 infidelities to nature of which professional landscape-painters are 
 guilty, in their treatment of Greek subjects. In all or most of the 
 many beautiful drawings I have seen of these columns, they are repre- 
 sented very much of the same mellow colour as those of the Parthenon 
 and Olympium. 
 
124 
 
 esplanade of the temple in time to see the sun rise out of 
 the waters of the ^Egaean. 
 
 It seems now to be established on satisfactory grounds, 
 that the title Panhellenium, which has attached to these 
 ruins at least since the days of Wheler and Spon, is mis- 
 applied, and that the inscription by which, in our own 
 time, it has been attempted to sustain its accuracy, is a 
 forgery. The conical mountain top towards the southern 
 extremity of the island, now called the " oros," or moun- 
 tain, of St Elias, which is by far the highest point of land 
 within its bounds, and forms so striking an object of 
 view from every part of the gulf, is supposed, with far 
 greater justice, to have been the real site of this cele- 
 brated sanctuary. It presents considerable traces of an- 
 cient masonry. The title Panhellenium appears in itself 
 to bear allusion to the conspicuous character of the peak, 
 as forming the centre of the prospect from some point or 
 other of each of the most influential subdivisions of the 
 old Hellenic territory. * 
 
 The claims of Minerva to supplant her father as the 
 real patroness of the existing temple, though not per- 
 haps altogether beyond the reach of controversy, are very 
 strong. That she had a distinguished seat of worship in 
 the island, we know from Herodotus ;t and that it was 
 situated, not in the town, but in the open country of 
 ^gina, may be inferred from the text of Pausanias, J 
 
 ^ The other arguments in favour of this view have been stated by 
 Dr Wordsworth, (Attica, p. 270, seq.,) and still more fully by M. de 
 Klenze, (Aphoristische Bemerkk. p. 182, seq.) To the authorities there 
 quoted, one may here be added which has escaped their notice. The 
 Scholiast of Pindar {Nem. v. v. 17) designates the Panhellenium by 
 the term a%^wr?j^/ov, which, unless we render it promontory, a sense 
 inapplicable to either site, must here be understood, as it is famiHarly 
 used by Herodotus, (vii. 117,) to denote the highest point of land in 
 a district. 
 
 \ X Corinth, xxix. 
 
^.GINA. 
 
 125 
 
 who in his list of the buildings of the city and its envi- 
 rons mentions no temple of this goddess. The evidence 
 of the sculptured groups that adorned the pediments — 
 those noble specimens of ^ginetic art, * in each of which 
 Pallas occupies the central and most conspicuous position, 
 as directress of the combat that takes place in front of 
 her, also tends powerfully to establish her claims. It was, 
 in fact, the disinterment of these marbles that first excited 
 doubts of the accuracy of the popular title of the ruins* 
 They have, however, in spite of all argument or evidence 
 to the contrary, retained, during the twenty-seven years 
 that have since elapsed, and will probably long continue 
 to enjoy, in popular usage and belief, the name and hon- 
 ours of the shrine of Jupiter Panhellenius. 
 
 The picturesque beauty of this ruin is too universally 
 known and appreciated to require either description or 
 commentary. In the small portion of the island which I 
 had opportunity of visiting— although I saw neither 
 house nor human being— I was struck with appearances 
 of agricultural industry, to which I had lately been a 
 stranger. A great part of the rugged declivity between 
 the temple and the sea was laid out and cultivated, where 
 practicable, in the same form of plots and terraces already 
 described in similar locaUties at Ithaca and elsewhere, 
 and under circumstances perhaps still less favourable to 
 so laborious an operation. The inhabitants of this island, 
 so remarkable for its barren soil and mountainous sur- 
 face, have in all ages been distinguished for their indus- 
 trious habits. They were so even in Turkish times, and 
 to the same cause must chiefly be attributed the high 
 
 ^ Now in the gallery of Munich. Dr Wordsworth's theory, 
 {Athens, p. 170, seq.,) that this temple was a work, not of the native 
 ^ginetes, but of their Athenian conquerors during the Peloponnesian 
 war, is completely set aside by the style of these sculptures, of which 
 there are casts in the British Museum. 
 
126 
 
 iEGINA. 
 
 pitch of prosperity and power attained in the flourishing 
 days of Greece, by a territory of so limited extent, and 
 so little favoured by nature. If we may trust Aristotle,* 
 ^gina at one time contained 470,000 slaves. The slave 
 population of Corinth in her greatest prosperity was 
 rated at only 4605000;f that of Athens itself at the com- 
 mencement of her decline, at but 400,000. J The popu- 
 lation of this island must therefore have equalled or 
 exceeded that of Attica, a country which, even exclusive 
 of several dependencies whose inhabitants were probably 
 comprised in the above estimate, boasted a ten times 
 greater extent of surface, ^gina, on the other hand, had 
 no dependencies, while Salamis alone, among those of 
 Athens, was superior in size to herself. This rugged 
 little state, therefore, supplies one of the most remarkable 
 instances on record of the effect of talent, industry, and 
 commercial enterprise, in conquering natural difficulties, 
 and promoting wealth and power. In modern times, the 
 neighbouring islands of Hydra and Spezia offer examples 
 on a smaller scale of the same union of sterility and opu- 
 lence. The JEginetes may, indeed, be considered as the 
 flower of the Dorian race. They united to its sterner 
 martial features, of valour, simplicity, and independent 
 spirit, the vivacity, grace, and expansion of mind, proper 
 to their Ionian kinsmen. One-fourth of all the victors 
 in the great national games celebrated by Pindar, were 
 citizens of JEgina. The rivals of Athens, during several 
 generations, in naval and military power, they were also 
 the founders of the school of sculpture to which Hellenic 
 art was indebted for the first decided steps towards its 
 perfection; and the specimens of which still form the 
 noblest ornaments of some of our great modern collections. 
 
 ' Ap. Atiienveum, L. vi. c. 20. Cf. SchoL Pind. OL viii. v. 30. 
 
 f Epitimoeusy ap. AxiiENiEUM, 
 X Ctesides, ap. Athene um, ibid. 
 
127 
 
 The maritime commerce of ^gina, however, was doubt- 
 less the immediate source of her pohtical power. Aris- 
 totle* assigns her commercial navy the first rank in 
 Greece ; and hence the island was called the " Eyesore of 
 the Piraeus" — a saying as just, perhaps, in a pohtical, as 
 it is false in a picturesque point of view.t A large pro- 
 portion, however, of her multitude of slaves must have 
 been agricultural serfs, and the whole island, no doubt, 
 was cultivated Uke a garden, its rugged mountain steeps 
 every where laid out in terraces, covered with vines and 
 olives, studded with villages or country houses, and in- 
 tersected with roads and enclosures. To the over-popu- 
 lation of the country may perhaps be traced the sense of 
 an obscure allusion of Plato, indicating an excess of 
 strictness in its rural police. In condemning the prac- 
 tice of unreasonable digression from the direct line of an 
 argument, he adds : " lest we should be Uable to a pen- 
 alty, like those found wandering late at night in the roads 
 in ^gina."J 
 
 As a general rule, I observed, on my route through 
 Greece, that agricultural industry has a greater tendency 
 to flourish in rugged mountain districts than in fertile 
 plains. This may be owing partly, perhaps, to the pro- 
 verbial cause, that necessity stimulates the energies of 
 mankind ; partly, however, to the circumstance, that the 
 richer lands were chiefly the property of the Turks. 
 These tracts, since the expulsion of their ancient posses- 
 sors, form part of the crown domains ; and as it is diffi- 
 cult, in the present low state of population and capital, 
 to find purchasers or cultivators, they are allowed for the 
 
 * Politic, iv. 28. 
 
 t This saying is ascribed by some to Pericles, by others to the 
 Attic rhetor Demades. — See Mueller, JEginet., p. 3 
 
 68ov, — Cratyl, p. 443. 
 
128 
 
 ^GINA. 
 
 present in a great measure to lie waste. On the other 
 hand, the native Greek population of the mountain com- 
 munes, whose numbers had been less reduced by the 
 vicissitudes of war, on the estabhshment of tranquilhty 
 and security of property, were stimulated, by the natural 
 reaction subsequent to a long suspension of settled habits, 
 to more than usual exertions. 
 
SARONIC GULF. 
 
 129 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIIL 
 
 TO SALAMIS— PARALLEL OF HOMERIC AND MODERN GREEK 
 NAVIGATION— TO MEGARA AND CORINTH. 
 
 ov 'TTavrog dvdfog s/g Ko^ivkv hd' 6 itXovg, 
 " Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum." 
 
 We were again under sail several hours before mid- 
 day, (March 27th5) hoping to reach Corinth that evening. 
 But the wind proved unfavourable, and we were once 
 more obliged to put in for the night at the cove of 
 Peristera, near the southern extremity of the isle of Sa- 
 lamis. Some amends were made for the loss of so much 
 valuable time, by the lively reality with which these Httle 
 halts and interruptions of our course brought home to 
 the fancy the ancient system of navigation, as exempli- 
 fied more especially in the spirited passages of the Odys- 
 sey, descriptive of the successive arrivals, departures, 
 debarkations, and disappointments of the hero and his 
 fleet, among the coasts and islands of the seas, real or 
 imaginary, across which lay their adventurous course. 
 The following series of extracts,^ if it be permitted to 
 
 * As the passages in the original occur at intervals, blended with 
 or interruped by the remaining details of the narrative, they are here 
 subjoined in continuous order, to guarantee the fidelity of the ver- 
 sion: — 
 
130 
 
 SALAMIS. 
 
 compare small things with great, are little more than a 
 poetical paraphrase of the account already given of the 
 leading vicissitudes of my own voyage from Athens up 
 to this point : 
 
 " Down to the shore our parting steps we bend, 
 Where lies our bark, and straight on board ascend ; 
 The mast the seamen raise and spread the sail, 
 The helm directs her path before the gale ; 
 The livelong day we plough the watery plain. 
 Till night's descending shades our course restrain. 
 
 Now in the bosom of a hollow bay. 
 The ship we moor till morn's returning ray. 
 Their meal the crew make ready on the shore, 
 Whilst I walk forth by twilight to explore 
 If human voice within the coast resound. 
 Or trace of man's abode or works be found. 
 The summit of a lofty crag 1 gain, 
 But gaze across the dreary land in vain ; 
 Where far and wide no living signs appear 
 Of man or beast, the solitude to cheer. 
 
 Refreshed with frugal fare and generous wine. 
 Our weary limbs to slumber we resign. 
 But when again the rosy-finger'd morn 
 Beams o'er the east, my trusty crew I warn 
 To mount the deck — the sails aloft to rear — 
 And o'er the sea our onward course we steer." 
 
 On the present occasion, however, as the weather was 
 
 Yiiiz&cc rrjv avs/ubog rs Tcv'^s^vyjryjg r 7hvsv 
 TTjg ds ^avTj/Ms^/Tjg rsrad' idria '7rovTo^o^ov(ry}g, 
 
 7][jjog risXiog xarsdv %ai s'ttI xvs(pag ^Xhy 
 (fr7}(ra/j^sv sv Xifhsvi yXa(pv^u} shs^ysa vyja, 
 ^7X ^^ccrog yXvxs^oTo, nai s^a^s^7}(fav sraT^oi, 
 ai-^a bs bsT'Ttvov sXovro &ofi <7ta^d vrjf ju>sXa/V7}, 
 avrd^ syuj cra^a vrihg dvri'iov sIg 'TTs^/W'^t^v, 
 s/ TTajg s^ya 7bo//M jS^orojv svo'7t7]v rs 'Trvhi/Jbriv 
 s(Try}v bs 6xo7Ci7i\) s/g '7taiitaXds(S(Sav dvsX^m^ 
 svhv b ovrs (Socov ovr dvb^cov (paivsro s^yoc. 
 
 avrd^ s^si (Shoid rs ^aG^a^sQ' r^bs ^oroTo^ 
 svQab' aTTolS^/^avrsg sfjbsjmfMsv 'Hw bTav. 
 TlfJ^og b' ri^tysvstcc (pdvrj pobobdxrvXog 'Hwg, 
 by] ror sydjv srd^oi6iv s'lror^vvag snsXsvda^ 
 )(Srovg 6r7ic>a(i&ai dvd rs Tt^vfJbvyjtfia Xvdar 
 0/ b' a/'-vJy' a(jj^atvoVy dvd idria Xsvn s^v(Savrsg 
 SVOSV IJjSV 'TT^ors^M '7rXso/j!,sv. , . , 
 
SALAMTS. 
 
 131 
 
 fine, and we were still making some progress, however 
 slow, I took the liberty to remonstrate against this plan 
 of anchoring for the night, and urged the continuance of 
 our voyage, in the hope of at least reaching Corinth the 
 next morning. To this proposal, however, I could not 
 persuade our Navarch to agree ; and his arguments on 
 the other side, if versified by Homer, would have sound- 
 ed very much like those addressed by Eurylochus to 
 Ulysses on a somewhat similar occasion, of which the 
 following is a tolerably faithful version : — 
 
 « Thou reckless man ! can thy stern breast of steel 
 No pity ? or thy frame no hardship feel ? 
 Wilt thou thy comrades, sore with toil opprest, 
 And want of sleep, deny a short night's rest, 
 Upon this sea-girt isle, where from the blast 
 Secure we might prepare a sweet repast ? 
 What profits it to wander thus in vain, 
 At midnight— blindfold— o'er the boundless main ? 
 Night is the mother of the wintry gale, 
 And if some sudden storm our bark assail, 
 Of south or west wind, whose impetuous rage 
 The seaman's art or prayers can least assauge— * 
 From swift destruction whither should we flee ? 
 The ocean's bed full sure our grave would be. 
 The hours of darkness let us then beguile 
 With food and slumber on this friendly isle ; 
 Keady, with morn's returning light, once more, 
 The distant paths of ocean to explore."— Oc^yss. xii. 279, seq. 
 
 There could be no reasonable doubt that the decision 
 was right, or at least consistent with the rules of good 
 boat navigation under similar circumstances ; for timi- 
 dity could hardly be laid to the charge of a Hydriote 
 seaman, while self-interest would induce him to shorten 
 the voyage; the stipulation being, that he was to take 
 us to Corinth for a fixed sum. Our passage from Ithaca, 
 it is true, was performed chiefly by night ; but then we 
 were becalmed, and could not help ourselves. 
 
 * See additional note at the end of the volume. 
 
132 
 
 SALAMIS. 
 
 As we approached the island, I observed that they 
 were about to avoid the mainland of Salamis, and an- 
 chor behind a reef of small projecting rocks in the deep 
 water, about a stone's throw from the shore. Here, 
 again I interfered, being anxious to avail myself of this, 
 the only opportunity I had, of setting foot on the " divine 
 island." The objection, danger from the Klephts, struck 
 me at the moment as altogether visionary in so deserted 
 a spot. I therefore, in the best Greek I had at com- 
 mand, of which the following, after Homer,* is an epic 
 paraphrase, persuaded them to set me on shore, for the 
 purpose of an hour's ramble among the heights, after 
 which they might push off and moor the vessel wherever 
 they pleased : — 
 
 " Abide ye by the ship, my comrades true, 
 If thus ye will, whilst I the country view. 
 Which from our toils affords a resting-place, 
 And try the temper of its native race ; 
 Be they barbarians, cruel, fierce, and rude, 
 Or men of godly hospitable mood. 
 
 I spoke ; obedient they to my command, 
 The vessel ground, and on the coast I land. 
 Upon a height I stood, and thence descried 
 An isle encircled by the boundless tide." 
 
 I saw nothing living in the course of my ramble but a 
 goat-herd and his flock. 
 
 On farther consideration, it appeared that the appre- 
 hensions of the Navarch were not so unreasonable ; for 
 as these little ports are the customary places of refuge 
 by night for the small traders or passage-boats in the 
 gulf, they obviously hold out very favourable opportu- 
 nity for the enterprise of land pirates ; with less risk of 
 alarm or detection than on the roads of the interior. On 
 some former occasions I had observed, that where there 
 was no secure anchorage in the open port or roadstead, 
 
 * Odyss. ix. 172; x. 194, e# alibL 
 
SALAMI S. 
 
 133 
 
 they fastened their vessel to the beach with a rope ^ of 
 sufficient length to allow it to float in deep water, and 
 which could be slipped or cut away in case of necessity. 
 This precaution, in fact, they preferred in the present 
 instance to the trouble of shifting their moorings to the 
 point previously selected. There is consequently this 
 difference between the practice of the modern Greek 
 navigators and those of the heroic age, that the former 
 sleep and take their refreshment on board their vessel, 
 however small it may be, instead of on shore, as with 
 Homer is invariably the case. His descriptions, how- 
 ever, must be presumed to apply only to fine summer 
 weather ; on cold or rainy nights, it is not to be supposed 
 that his heroes would desert even such shelter as their 
 vessels supplied, for a bed on the open beach. 
 
 This celebrated island was, by an interesting fatality, 
 during the late war, as on the invasion of Xerxes, the chief 
 place of refuge for the families of fugitive patriots from 
 Attica and the neighbouring countries. They nestled 
 among the rocks in winter, while in summer the native 
 proprietors realized a small income by letting the shade 
 of the olive-trees for their accommodation. 
 
 The next day (Wednesday the 28th March), was 
 equally beautiful ; but the wind still continued contrary, 
 blowing from the Isthmus right in our teeth. We there- 
 fore determined to make for Megara, and proceed thence 
 to Corinth by land. I had here a somewhat pointed 
 verification of the old Greek proverb-— 
 
 ov ^avrog dvd^og s/g Ko^iv&ov 1(5'^' o irXovg^ 
 
 with which possibly the majority of my readers may be 
 more familiar through the medium of the Latin version : 
 
 ^ These ropes now, as in ancient times, are usually made of reeds 
 or sedge — (^^oiviov, Hom. iSvjSXivov oirXov, 
 
134 
 
 SARONIC GULF. 
 
 " Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum." 
 
 This version, however, is more elegant than faithful; 
 since the original Greek signifies that " not every man 
 is lucky enough to sail to Corinth," whereas in the para- 
 phrase it is said, that " not every man is lucky enough 
 to visit Corinth." ^ Assuming the adage to be, as it pro- 
 bably is, of Attic origin, there can be little doubt that 
 the real point of the allusion is to be sought in the 
 capricious and fluctuating nature of the atmosphere in 
 this gulf, and the consequent difficulty of navigating 
 in a direct course from any one of its extremities to 
 another. 
 
 The passage in the letter of Sulpicius to Cicero, de- 
 scriptive of the objects that present themselves to the 
 contemplation of the traveller on his voyage from ^gina 
 to Megara, is too celebrated and too hackneyed to admit 
 of its being either necessary or desirable that I should 
 assign it a place in my text.! Its chief interest arises 
 from the circumstance, that its application should be so 
 much more pointed at the present day, than at the period 
 when it was composed. There is certainly some little 
 exaggeration in the statement it contains, that all the 
 celebrated places it mentions were then complete ruins ; 
 now, however, it holds good in the strictest acceptation of 
 the terms. The melancholy associations connected with 
 the scene, besides being more real, have also the advantage 
 of being less mortifying to the modern classical moralist 
 
 * The origin vulgarly assigned to this proverb, the costliness of a 
 residence in the city of Corinth, owing to the seductions of her cour- 
 tesans, is both lame and pointless. Hesychius, v. oh itOLVTog^ quotes 
 Aristophanes as its author. 
 
 t Adfam. L. iv. Ep. 5, 4. Quum ab ^gina Megaram versus navi- 
 garem, coepi regiones circumcirca prospicere. Post me erat iEgina ; 
 ante Megara ; dextra Pirseeus ; sinistra Corinthus ; quae oppida quodam 
 tempore florentissima fuerunt, nunc prostrata et diruta ante oculos 
 jacent. 
 
MEGARA. 
 
 135 
 
 than to the Romans of the age of Cicero. For it must 
 be remembered, that it was to the Vandahsm of their 
 own commanders, that, in the cases where the remarks of 
 Sulpicius are most pointed and most affecting — that of 
 Corinth, for example — the desolation so feelingly de- 
 scribed is to be attributed. 
 
 As the wind was favourable for Megara, we reached 
 it in a few hours. We moored at some distance from 
 the town to the westward, under a lower ridge of rocks, 
 forming the eastern extremity of the Scironian range. 
 The place offers no remains of any importance; and 
 as neither its natural features nor its historical associa- 
 tions were such as to allure to a closer inspection, I sent 
 up Nicola alone to provide our equipage, and sat down 
 upon the rocks, under a warm sun and a bright blue sky, 
 feasting my eyes with another rich variety of the scenery 
 of the gulf, and my appetite with a most unclassical 
 breakfast of red herrings and Gruyere cheese. It seemed 
 to be washing-day with the Megarensian dames and 
 damsels; and a large assemblage of both were busily 
 engaged on the beach in cleansing their family ward- 
 robe, with asses and ponies in waiting for the transport 
 of their baggage. There was no river mouth visible, the 
 operation being performed in the briny sea itself ; and I 
 looked in vain for a figure, which, either as to face or form? 
 could claim even a remote resemblance to Nausicaa. 
 The modern Greek women indeed appeared to me, upon 
 the whole, about the most ill-favoured race I have met 
 with in any country. I had not imagined the sea water 
 to be adapted to their purpose ; but, judging from the 
 colour of the garments they wore, a very small amount 
 of bleaching would be sufficient to satisfy their notions of 
 cleanliness. Sea water, however, would seem in ancient 
 times also, to have been considered as preferable. One 
 of the nice questions, mentioned by Plutarch as occupy- 
 
136 
 
 MEGARA. 
 
 ing the choice spirits among his countrymen, was : Why 
 Nausicaa should have washed her clothes in the river, 
 rather than in the sea, when so close at hand?* 
 
 Nicola returned in about an hour with guides and 
 horses ; and we bade adieu to our Hydriote navigators, 
 highly satisfied, not only with their zeal and good- 
 humour, but their disinterestedness — a virtue one is not 
 led to expect in this class of people, and least of all 
 among Greeks. Although their fare was moderate, they 
 asked for no drink-money, and were very grateful for the 
 trifle they received. 
 
 From our point of debarkation we enter almost imme- 
 diately upon the celebrated maritime pass of the Kake- 
 skala, the Scironian rocks of antiquity. This is the 
 finest coast scenery I saw in Greece. A range of lofty 
 and nearly perpendicular rocks, or rather rocky moun- 
 tains, extends for many miles along the shore, rising for 
 the most part immediately out of the sea, and adorned 
 with pines, wild olives, and a rich profusion of aromatic 
 shrubs. Soon after starting, the road runs for several 
 miles along a narrow ledge or terrace, cut in the rock 
 halfway up the sides of the clifiB, and evidently of an- 
 cient workmanship. It is broad enough, where most 
 entire, to admit of the belief that the pass, in spite of its 
 present rugged state and the natural difficulties of the 
 ground, was formerly practicable for wheel carriages. 
 That it was so, in fact, in the days of Pausanias, we learn 
 from that author, who attributes the merit of the work 
 to the Emperor Hadrian.f From this higher level we 
 descend to the brink of the water by a most rugged and 
 precipitous path cut between walls of rock ; the Kake- 
 skala, or Bad Ladder, by pre-eminence. Here we were 
 obliged to dismount and lead our horses; a matter of 
 some difficulty, as a good pedestrian finds it not very 
 
 * Sympos. I. qu. ix. 1, 2. t ^i^'^G- xliv. 
 
CORINTH. 
 
 137 
 
 easy to keep his own footing, even when not responsible 
 for that of his beast. These rocks are no less celebrated 
 as the haunt of banditti at the present day, than they 
 were in the age of Theseus. Just before our departure 
 from Athens, intelligence arrived of an extensive rob- 
 bery having been committed at the Kakeskala, on a 
 caravan of merchants from Peloponnesus ; and along the 
 most suspicious parts of the route were now stationed 
 patroles of gendarmes and civic guard. 
 
 It was dusk before we reached the little port of Kala- 
 maki, on the shore of the narrowest point of the Isthmus, 
 across which we rode, much to my regret, in the dark, 
 and did not reach Corinth until the night was far ad- 
 vanced. The inn to which I was conducted has pre- 
 tensions to a certain small degree of European comfort ; 
 but its accommodation was upon the whole scarcely equal 
 to that of the better class of khans. 
 
 March 28.— The Acrocorinthus — whether in point of 
 majesty or singularity — is by far the most striking object 
 of its class that I have ever seen, either abroad or at 
 home. Neither the Acropolis of Athens, nor the Larissa 
 of Argos, nor any of the more celebrated mountain for- 
 tresses of western Europe — not even Gibraltar — can 
 enter into the remotest competition with this gigantic 
 citadel.* It stands, nearly insulated, in the midst of a 
 plain gently sloping to the sea on each side, from the 
 level of which it rises abruptly— in many places almost 
 perpendicularly — to the height of nineteen hundred feet. 
 Occupying the centre of the narrow isthmus that con- 
 nects the two grand divisions of Hellas proper, and 
 commanding her two principal seas, it looks as if made 
 for a seat of empire. It is one of those objects more 
 frequently, perhaps, to be met with in Greece than in any 
 
 ^ Well described by Livy, as " Arx inter omnia in immanem alti- 
 tudinem edita." — -xlv. 28. . 
 
 VOL. II. M 
 
138 
 
 CORINTH. 
 
 other country of Europe, of which no drawing can con- 
 vey other than a very faint notion. The outhne, indeed, 
 of this colossal mass of rugged rock and green sward, 
 interspersed here and there, but scantily, with the cus- 
 tomary fringe of shrubs, although from a distance it 
 enters into fine composition with the surrounding land- 
 scape, can in itself hardly be called picturesque ; and the 
 formal line of embattled Turkish or Venetian wall, which 
 crowns the summit, does not set it off to advantage. Its 
 vast size and height produce the greatest effect, as 
 viewed from the seven Doric columns, standing nearly 
 in the centre of the wilderness of rubbish and hovels that 
 now mark the site of the city which it formerly pro- 
 tected. These columns indeed seem, by their own Her- 
 culean proportions, to emulate its grandeur, and to attest 
 the influence of the natural objects by which he was 
 surrounded, on the genius of the primitive Dorian artist 
 by whom they were designed. 
 
 The mythical history of the Acrocorinthus, as trans- 
 mitted by Pausanias,* where it is described as a present 
 from Briareus to the Sun, and from the Sun to Venus,f 
 expresses by an appropriate and concise allegory the 
 vastness of its natural features, and the proverbial beauty 
 and splendour of the city over whose destinies it presided. 
 There is still a brilliancy in the surrounding scenery, 
 even in its present degraded state, which contrasts finely 
 with the solemn majesty of this its principal feature. 
 From the base of the rock, an expanse of green plain 
 slopes gradually to the shore of the gulf, clothed at its 
 southern extremity, where it meets the Sicyonian moun- 
 tains, with dark green olive groves, bounded to the north 
 
 * Pausan. Corinth^ iv. 7. 
 
 f Corinth is also called the city of Venus by Euripides, (ap. Stjrab. 
 viii. c. C);) a compliment, partly to its own charms, partly to those of 
 the race of courtesans for which it was so celebrated. 
 
CORINTH. 
 
 139 
 
 by a lofty range of precipices, in front by the sea, while 
 the summits of Helicon, Parnassus, and Cyllene, tower 
 in the distance. It was with much regret, that owing 
 to circumstances unnecessary here to detail, I was ob- 
 liged to forego my purpose of ascending the Acropolis. 
 The loss of a day's journey, which might have been the 
 consequence had I carried it into effect, would have been 
 a serious derangement of all my future plans. The dis- 
 appointment was in some degree modified by the spread 
 of a heavy mist over the distant mountains a few hours 
 after dawn, although the day still continued bright and 
 genial. 
 
 I looked in vain among the ruins, and over the sur- 
 rounding plains, for the celebrated Acanthus plant, 
 fabled to have first suggested to the Corinthian archi- 
 tect the design of the beautiful order which still inherits 
 the name of his native city. The ground in many places, 
 in the neighbourhood of the columns more especially, 
 was covered with a rich profusion of other wild herbs 
 of great size and luxuriance ; but I was unable to dis- 
 cover a single specimen of the one I was in search of. I 
 was equally unsuccessful at Athens, Sparta, and through- 
 out the remainder of Greece, although this was the 
 favourable season for its growth. Besides the Palatine 
 hill of Rome, many parts of which are thickly clothed 
 with this beautiful plant, the only other site where I 
 have ever observed it in a natural state, is among the 
 ruins of the Pelasgic city of Cossa, on the coast of the 
 Tuscan maremma. 
 
 With the exception of the seven Doric columns, I 
 observed no remains of the Hellenic period at Corinth. 
 The shaft of each of these columns consists of a single 
 stone. Their diameter, five feet ten inches, is greater 
 than that of any others of the same order now standing 
 in Greece, both in itself and in proportion to their 
 
140 
 
 CORINTH, 
 
 height, which, inclusive of the capital, is little more 
 than four times their greatest thickness. From this 
 circumstance it has been inferred, perhaps on somewhat 
 too theoretical grounds, that the temple to which they 
 belonged was the most ancient, as being the rudest and 
 most massive specimen of the order in existence. Others, 
 however, on the strength of the historical accounts of 
 the complete destruction of Corinth by Mummius, have 
 run into the opposite extreme of assuming them to be 
 but an archaic imitation, of the Roman period. In their 
 neighbourhood are some fragments of Roman brick- 
 work ; and in the open country, about a mile to the east- 
 ward, the shell of an amphitheatre, the masonry of which 
 has almost entirely disappeared. In the surrounding 
 plain I observed some ditches, lately cut by the pea- 
 santry as enclosures for their fields, to be intersected at 
 little intervals, and at no great depth below the surface, 
 with ancient sepulchres, composed of blocks and flags of 
 stone rudely arranged in the form of coffins. This leaves 
 no doubt that the cemetery of the ancient city extended 
 in this direction, and a systematic excavation of the 
 ground might be attended with valuable results.* Here 
 accordingly it was that I obtained, for a trifle, the first 
 object of any great rarity or interest which had yet been 
 offered to me in the course of my travels. For although 
 I was in the habit of giving notice wherever we came, 
 
 ^ Yet, if Strabo's authority be worth any thing, it is not likely that 
 any very extensive discoveries will be made in the sepulchres of Corinth. 
 " The Romans," he says, when sent to colonize the town, happening 
 at the commencement of their building operations to light upon some 
 tombs, charmed with the beauty of their contents, ransacked the whole 
 cemeteries of the place, not leaving a single grave unopened." This 
 statement may perhaps help to account for the little value of the terra, 
 cotta vases — as compared with those excavated in the Italian cemeteries 
 — that have yet been found at Corinth, in spite of its high celebrity 
 as a seat of the manufacture. 
 
CORINTH. 
 
 141 
 
 that 1 should be glad to treat for the purchase of such 
 curiosities as the villagers might possess, and was fre- 
 quently surrounded by clamorous customers, they sel- 
 dom brought any thing but a few medals of httle beauty 
 or value. This rehc is a small silver ring,* in a perfect 
 state of preservation, carved with a curious device, and 
 an unintelhgible inscription of considerable length, in 
 the oldest Greek character. I purchased it at the door 
 of a cottage situated between the amphitheatre and the 
 town, of a peasant who had himself extracted it from 
 one of the tombs above mentioned. 
 
 * See note at the end of the volume. 
 
142 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV- 
 
 CLEON^— NEMEAN FOREST— « AD VENTUHE WITH BRIGANDS "—HABITS 
 AND TACTICS OF THE GREEK KLEPHTS. 
 
 TikoTrfi XM^ojdovvrai.— SjjiD. in v, ex Aristoph. 
 
 « < Argive Kobber ' is a proverb denoting the most barefaced of the 
 f)rofession j for the Argives are notorious thieves." 
 
 Early on the forenoon of Thursday, (March 29,) we 
 started for Argos by the route of Nemea. The road 
 passes along the upper part of the plain below the Acro- 
 corinthus, with the gulf on the right hand. At the west- 
 ern extremity of the Isthmus, in the neighbourhood ot 
 the olive groves which here extend over the low grounds 
 towards the sea, it diverges to the southward, up the 
 course of a small stream, with the bed of which it identi- 
 fies itself for a considerable distance. Along the banks 
 are some ruined and deserted water mills. In a few hours 
 we reach a small plain, strewed with the ruins of the an- 
 cient Cleonae. The citadel, where some courses of Cy- 
 clopian wall are still visible, occupies an eminence to the 
 right. Beyond is a khan, comprising also a station of 
 gendarmes, where we halted to refresh. I entered into 
 conversation with the non-commissioned officer in com- 
 mand, who described the route towards Argos as per- 
 fectly safe. About half a mile further on there is a 
 division of the road, at the extreme point of a long low 
 hill, which here juts forward towards the khan from the 
 
NEMEA, 
 
 143 
 
 great Nemean range, now rising in heavy dark masses in 
 front of the traveller. The track to the right of this 
 eminence leads direct to the ruins of the Nemean tem- 
 ple, that to the left is the high-road to Argos; from 
 which, however, there is also a branch to the plain of 
 Nemea, a few miles further on. 
 
 According to my usual practice, on continuing our 
 route from the khan, I had ridden on before the rest of 
 the cavalcade, and by Nicola's instructions followed the 
 track to the left. Happening, however, after proceeding 
 about a mile, to look into Gell's itinerary, which I gene- 
 rally carried in my pocket, I observed that the road to 
 Nemea is described by him as branching off to the rights 
 after leaving Cleonae. I therefore stopped some travel- 
 lers who happened to come up at the moment, and en- 
 quired whether I was in the direct road to Agio Giorgio, 
 (St George,) as Nemea is now called. They informed 
 me that I had left it to the right, and recommended me 
 to cross in that direction over the brow of the eminence 
 above described, and that I should rejoin it on the other 
 side. Upon this I halted until the rest of my party came 
 up, when, it having been agreed that the other was the 
 better route to the temple, we crossed over the height 
 as directed, and again turned southward up a valley 
 which leads into the heart of the Nemean forest. While 
 we were making this deviation, I observed a man running 
 at some distance along another part of the eminence, 
 apparently watching our motions, and whom I supposed 
 at the moment to be some country fellow, who seeing a 
 party of travellers in difficulty about their hne of route, 
 was preparing to offer his services as guide. In a few 
 minutes, however, he disappeared, and the circumstance 
 left no further impression upon my mind. 
 
 We now entered one of the wildest and most dismal 
 sohtudes which it has been my lot to traverse in any 
 
144 
 
 NEMEA. 
 
 country. The road lay up a steep glen, between moun- 
 tain ridges of uncouth form and gloomy colour, with bare 
 rocky summits; their sides perforated here and there 
 with caverns, the fabled haunts of the Nemean lion. 
 The ravine itself is thickly clothed with brushwood, 
 which overtops in many places the head of the traveller. 
 In toiling up this dreary pass, Nicola and myself had gained 
 considerably on the agoghiate, who, with the baggage- 
 horse, was coming up slowly in the rear, when we heard 
 him calling to us in the distance. Nicola, who happened 
 at the moment to be in front of me, without stopping, 
 turned his head and made him repeat what he had said. 
 He then laughed and sent back an answer, which I did 
 not understand. To my question, what the man wanted, 
 he replied, that " he had said there were people hallooing 
 after us from the bottom of the glen ; " but that he, Ni- 
 cola, had told him, " he was a blockhead," and bid him 
 " never mind them, but get on, and keep closer up with 
 us." A few moments afterwards my companion again 
 suddenly turned his head, his fierce countenance became 
 fiery red, and immediately after deadly pale, and, with an 
 expression of mixed alarm and fury, he poured forth a 
 volley of the choicest Greek imprecations towards our 
 rear. After a short pause, during which he seemed 
 again to listen, the same ceremony was repeated, all as 
 if in reply to some provocation from a distance; but 
 during the whole time I heard no voice but his own, and 
 the only part of his address intelligible to me, besides 
 the term kerata, and one or two other elegant morsels of 
 Hellenic blasphemy, was the concluding part, in which 
 he asked, " whether they took us for women." He then 
 quickened his pace, making a sign to me to follow his 
 example, and once more called to the driver, who was 
 now not far distant, to come up quickly. It was evident 
 that something was wrong; but thinking the best plan 
 
NEMEA. 
 
 145 
 
 would be to let my companion manage the affair his own 
 way, I said nothing until we had nearly gained the sum- 
 mit of the pass, when I ventured to ask what was the 
 matter. He answered, that there were some scoundrels 
 at the bottom of the glen calling out to us to stop, that 
 " they wanted to rob us, and took us for women." I 
 expressed incredulity ; but he assured me there could be 
 no doubt on the subject, as he understood the language 
 of the Klephtic profession too well to be mistaken. The 
 Greek thieves have a set form of words for ordering tra- 
 vellers to stand: Ston topo, (more grammatically, sg rov 
 roVov) " on the spot;" which means, that their victims, 
 on pain of death, are to stand motionless, or rather to lie 
 down on their faces, until their property has been dis- 
 posed of. This salute corresponds to that of the Italian 
 brigands, " suUe faccie," which expresses the same thing 
 somewhat more to the letter. It was this terrible watch- 
 word that, first catching Nicola's ear, caused the sudden 
 change in his demeanour and language. Considering 
 the distance at which the enemy must have been from 
 us, and knowing it to be the common custom of the 
 Greek robbers to assault travellers from ambush, I still 
 felt incredulous. This he explained, however, by the 
 circumstance, that these were not professional Klephts, 
 but, like those of whose operations we had previously had 
 experience on Cithaeron, gangs of dissolute peasants or 
 shepherds ; and that they no doubt supposed, and per- 
 haps sometimes they might not be mistaken, that such 
 would be the effect of the terrible words on a small party 
 of what they probably took for quiet timid travellers, 
 that, rather than risk worse consequences, we would have 
 halted and allowed them to rifle us ; and he again burst 
 forth into anathemas against them for supposing us to 
 be women. I could, however, still with difficulty bring 
 myself to believe that any thing serious was intended^ 
 
 VOL. II. N 
 
146 
 
 NEMEA. 
 
 until I found afterwards that my military friends at 
 Argos, who had also extensive experience of the preda- 
 tory habits of the country, on hearing the details, acqui- 
 esced in his view. It would seem that some plan Vv^hich 
 had been laid for stopping us on the direct road to Argos 
 had been disconcerted, by the alteration of our route at 
 starting; and thQ appearance of the fellow running on 
 the height now connected itself naturally with the sequel 
 of the adventure. It is probable, however, that their 
 attempt was ultimately directed chiefly against the bag- 
 gage horse, to them perhaps the most valuable part of 
 our caravan ; as we were almost at too great a distance 
 to have stopped from panic, even if we had been women. 
 Nicola's volley of abuse and defiance, by persuading 
 them that they were likely to meet with more serious 
 customers than they expected, may have induced them 
 to retire. 
 
 No other act of robbery was either committed or at- 
 tempted, to my knowledge, on this line of route, in the 
 course of this day or about the same period ; from which 
 it would seem that the plot, such as it was, had been 
 laid exclusively in honour of our party. It may indeed 
 appear, that the equipage of an English traveller ought 
 to be at all times a more tempting bait than that of a 
 country caravan. But this is not the case ; on the con- 
 trary, it is notorious that classical tourists, and Frank 
 travellers in general, are much less exposed to assault 
 than any other class of passengers. This is said to be 
 owing partly to a popular belief among the lower orders, 
 that the Franks never carry any considerable amount of 
 hard cash, but have circular letters, by showing which 
 they can procure in each town credit sufiicient to supply 
 their immediate necessities, but which would be of no 
 value to any but the lawful proprietor ; on the contrary, 
 would rather serve as a clue for detection, of the pur- 
 
NEMEA. 
 
 147 
 
 loiners. They are also more afraid of the sensation 
 which an assault on an Englishman, or a Frank of any 
 other leading European country, would excite, and the 
 more energetic measures that would be taken for the 
 discovery and punishment of the offenders. It is only by 
 reference to some such causes that we can explain the 
 actual rarity of the outrages committed on this class of 
 travellers, amid the numbers by whom Greece is now 
 traversed every season. During my short tour, there 
 came to my knowledge from ten to fifteen authenticated 
 cases of highway robbery, not a few of them attended 
 with murder, on my own immediate hue of route, which 
 would, on a fair average, give some hundred each year 
 for the whole country. But of fifty Frank tourists who 
 cross its surface, there is perhaps scarcely one whose 
 personal experience can supply even as near an approach 
 to an " Adventure with Brigands" to deck the pages of 
 his journal-book, as the very insignificant one just re- 
 corded. A native trader who, they have reason to suppose, 
 has been concluding a good bargain, collecting his out- 
 standing debts, or otherwise realizing a small peculium^ 
 and on his way home to bury it — the usual mode of 
 banking in Greece — is a far preferable victim. As a 
 case in point, may be quoted that of the poor Thessahan, 
 whom we found lying in the khan of Cithseron ; and in 
 the sequel I was eye-witness of another far more tragical 
 illustration of the same rule. 
 
 Another peculiarity of this affair is, that the whole 
 took place within little more than a mile of a station of 
 gendarmes, who had assured me not half an hour before 
 that the country was perfectly secure. Two or three 
 miles further, on the road to Argos, where it is joined 
 by the cross-road from Agio Giorgi, above alluded to, 
 there is another station ;— sufficient evidence of the dan- 
 gerous character of the defiles of Nemea, and of the 
 
148 
 
 NEMEA. 
 
 audacity with which outrages are attempted, in spite of 
 all the precautions of the police. 
 
 I had here practical evidence of what I had frequently 
 heard remarked, by persons familiar with the habits of 
 the Greek and Albanian mountaineers, regarding the 
 high perfection in which they possess the physical senses. 
 During the whole of Nicola's dialogue with the thieves 
 at the bottom of the ravine, although I was rather nearer 
 them than himself, and, as may be supposed, listened 
 attentively, I heard not so much as the sound of their 
 voices. Probably their salute, being addressed not to 
 ourselves but the agoghiate, was not very loud. It is, 
 however, certain that Nicola heard distinctly every syl- 
 lable they uttered; but to me he appeared to be conversing 
 with the rocks and mountains. When my attention was 
 first called to what was passing, by his answer to the 
 agoghiate, I could just distinguish the man's voice in the 
 distance, but it came so faintly on my ear, that even had 
 I been perfect master of his dialect, I could not certainly 
 have understood what he said. In these respects this 
 hardy race of mountaineers enjoy the same advantages 
 as that which occupied their native country three thou- 
 sand years ago, and which, whether descended from it 
 or no, they in many respects so closely resemble. To 
 make up the perfection of a barbarous warrior or hunts- 
 man, the deficiency of intellectual resources was com- 
 pensated by a vastly superior allowance of those in 
 which the human species are surpassed by the wild 
 animals, against whom their first wars are waged. Be- 
 sides a piercing eye and a delicate ear, swiftness of foot 
 is to this day, as in those of Achilles, considered as one 
 of the most valuable qualities of a soldier, and one in 
 which the hero of Troy might perhaps have found his 
 match among those of the late Turkish war. Two of its 
 most celebrated chiefs, Marco Bozzaris and Odysseus 
 
NEMEA. 
 
 149 
 
 Androuzzos, were particularly distinguished in this de- 
 partment of martial accomphshment ; and various cases 
 are recorded, of the latter more especially, where he was 
 indebted to its exercise for almost miraculous escapes 
 from his pursuers. 
 
 Several curious details respecting the habits of the 
 Greek brigands in their more organized state, were sup- 
 phed me by some veteran Philhellenes at Argos, from 
 experience furnished in the course of their own mihtary 
 career. Their system of organization is very complete. 
 Each band is distributed into three, or at the most, four 
 classes. The first comprehends the chief alone— the 
 second his officers, or more accomphshed marauders— 
 the third the remainder of the gang. The booty is dis- 
 tributed into a corresponding number of shares. The 
 chief is entitled to one for himself, and each subdivision 
 of his force to another respectively. As the number of 
 each rank is in the inverse ratio of their merit, the emo- 
 luments of the various members are thus in the propor- 
 tion of their services. When acting in detached parties, 
 for the more ready communication with each other, or 
 with head-quarters, they have a system of signals, which 
 consists in piling stones in small cairns or pillars, con- 
 veying, according to their variety of form and arrange- 
 ment, or the number of stones employed, like the cyphers 
 of our telegraphs, each a different signification to the 
 initiated. When on the march, and anxious to observe 
 secrecy in their movements, they are careful never to 
 follow the beaten track for more than a certain distance 
 at a time, but every two or three miles the whole party 
 strike off at separate tangents into the mountains, and 
 remuster at a preconcerted point on a more advanced 
 stage of their journey. While on the road, they travel 
 in single file, one in front of the other, and the last two 
 or three of each party drag a bush behind them to efface 
 
150 
 
 NEMEA. 
 
 the mark of their footsteps in the dust. Similar precau- 
 tions are taken at their bivouacs to destroy all trace of 
 their movements. Their fires they manage in such a 
 manner as to leave no black spot on the ground, by pla- 
 cing a thick layer of green wood below, on which the dry 
 is piled and lighted, as upon a hearth ; and before leaving 
 the place, they lift the lower stratum in one mass, with 
 the ashes on the top of it, carry it to some distance, and 
 strew it in the recesses of the forest. 
 
 In laying their ambush, their tactic is to entrap their 
 victims into the very centre of their body, and then, start- 
 ing suddenly out upon them from their lurking places, 
 to hem them in on every side with a chevaux de frise of 
 muskets pointed at their breasts, so as to prevent the 
 possibility of either resistance or escape. The travellers 
 receive at the same moment, (unless the object is to kill 
 or make prisoners, rather than mere plunder, ) the order 
 to lie on their faces, when a portion of the gang stands 
 guard over them while the remainder dispose of their 
 baggage. The art they possess of concealing their per- 
 sons, on such occasions, is said to be most extraordinary ; 
 doubling themselves up behind stones or bushes, often 
 to all appearance scarcely large enough to cover their 
 bodies, studying the form and colour of the surface of the 
 ground, and adapting it to that of their own clothes, so 
 that an inexperienced person might even cast his eye 
 over them, and yet pass them unobserved like a hare or 
 rabbit in its form. One of my informants assured me, 
 that he had in one instance suddenly found himself en- 
 compassed by a body of a dozen or fifteen armed men, 
 on ground where he could scarcely before have thought 
 it possible a single one could have found a hiding-place ; 
 so that, on looking around afterwards, it appeared almost 
 as if his enemies had sprung up, like the Cadmean 
 heroes of old, from the bowels of the earth. Skill and 
 
NEMEA. 
 
 151 
 
 boldness in the conduct of an ambush were as essential 
 in the tactics of the ancient heroes as of the modern 
 Klephts ; and there can be little doubt that these very 
 arts were as carefully studied, and as successfully prac- 
 tised, by a Diomed, as a Kolokotroni. The best pre- 
 caution against this danger is a little dog trained to range 
 the ground in front of his master, and whose instinct 
 will effectually baffle the utmost perfection of klephtic 
 wisdom or ingenuity. 
 
 They have also an organized system of espionage, and 
 their means of obtaining inteUigence as to the plans of 
 their enemies, in the cabinet or the field, are very won- 
 derful. An o&cev of distinction, who had at various 
 timxcs been extensively employed against them, told me, 
 that in one very troublesome campaign, where he had 
 taken all the ordinary precautions to conceal his designs 
 or movements, he afterwards ascertained, by the confes- 
 sion of the captured chief, that many of the most impor- 
 tant had been perfectly well known and anticipated by 
 him. Apart from the natural acuteness of the race, there 
 are other circumstances favourable to the success both of 
 their pohtical and military manioeuvres. In this, and in- 
 deed in most other countries, any regular system of bri- 
 gandage is usually connected with intestine war or civil 
 dissension. In times of pohtical tranquillity, the mere 
 spirit of outlawry would hardly be sufficient, even in a 
 country so imperfectly civihzed as Greece, to draw together 
 hundreds of individuals who might gain a livelihood by 
 industrious habits, for the purpose of plundering the 
 traveller, or preying on the peaceful population; and 
 even if the government were unable to check it, the 
 spirit of self-preservation would induce the citizens to do 
 their best to put down such a nuisance. But where 
 robbery and murder are cloaked under the pretext, real 
 or imaginary, of self-defence, or reprisals on an enemy, 
 
152 
 
 NEMEA. 
 
 or the maintenance of a good cause, there is a great 
 salvo to tender consciences ; and each corps of outlaws, 
 fighting under such colours, is seldom without a sufficient 
 body of partisans among the peaceful inhabitants of the 
 district it haunts, who furnish a medium of access to the 
 secrets of the poUce or mihtary. This was the case in 
 the Turkish time, when, in spite of their own sufferings 
 at the hands of the Elephts, the peasantry had always 
 a certain sympathy with them, owing to the fact of their 
 being solely or chiefly Greeks, and of their operations 
 being carried on in defiance of a hated government, and 
 mainly directed against the Turkish aristocracy, as the 
 more wealthy portion of the community. To such an 
 extent was this spirit prevalent at the period of Dod- 
 well's visit to Greece, (1803-6,) that the remedy of last 
 resort for the evil on the part of the Turkish rulers, was 
 to assemble the heads of the Christian clergy, and cause 
 them to issue a general edict of excommunication against 
 whoever should in any shape aid or abet the proceedings 
 of the outlaws ; a step which had an immediate effect in 
 reducing, if not altogether destroying the evil. Similar 
 was the case during the late violent party feuds, towards 
 the close of Capo d'Istria's career; and even now the 
 success of the Mamotes against the Bavarian regulars, 
 or of other bands of freebooters organized here and there 
 under pretext of resistance to the unpopular law of Con- 
 scription, appeared matter of general congratulation with 
 the natives. The leaders of these bands in more turbu- 
 lent times, it must also be remembered, unhke the Ita- 
 lian Capi di Comitiva, who are usually base-born dissolute 
 knaves, or renegade monks, frequently belonged to the 
 leading feudal nobility of the district, who took the field 
 at the head of their followers, and may be compared, less 
 to the common herd of banditti chiefs, than to the Auto- 
 lyci or Sisyphi of old, or to our own border heroes, Rob 
 
NEMEA. 
 
 153 
 
 Roys, Johnny Armstrongs, and Belted Wills. The cha- 
 racter of robber, as appears from Homer's account of 
 the grandfather of Ulysses, if well supported, reflected 
 rather honour than disgrace on a prince of those days. 
 Indeed there is much reason to believe, from the general 
 tenor of the poet's descriptions, that the spirit of plunder 
 was little less prevalent among the petty chiefs of his own 
 age than among their successors of the last generation.* 
 The state of society in the north and south of Scotland, 
 as illustrated by Sir Walter Scott's Waverley and the 
 Minstrelsy of the Border^ resembles that which existed 
 in the Greek mountains, both in the heroic age and in 
 modern times, as nearly as can well be imagined. 
 
 ^ In Northern Greece, as we learn from Thucydides (i. 5) and 
 Polybius, (iv. 67,) the same habits continued inveterate in more civi- 
 lized ages. 
 
154 
 
 NEMEA. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 NEMEA— DEFILE OF TRE TITS— TURKISH BONES. 
 
 . . . f3ah'7rsd(fj 'NifMsa . . . 
 
 PiND. Nem, iii. SO ; vi. 73. 
 
 " Deep in a hollow plain Nemea lies, 
 Around, the dark Ogygian mountains rise." 
 
 Towards the extremity of the pass, the features of the 
 scenery became for a moment less gloomy. The valley 
 now opens out a little, presenting here and there patches 
 of greensward, aiid some tufts of luxuriant coppice wood, 
 the only remains I saw of the forest of Nemea, from 
 which Hercules cut his club. Its whole stock of timber 
 would now scarcely supply a riding switch adapted to 
 the use of such a hero. But on emerging into the open 
 country, at the summit of the pass, the desolation of the 
 prospect is still more striking than in the gorge itself. 
 The foreground is a flat expanse of black rocky moor, 
 bounded on every side by hills of the same character and 
 colour, and intersected by dry water-courses, forming 
 deep bushy ravines. Nicola's previous contempt for 
 alarm of robbers had, for the present at least, given place 
 to an equal degree of zealous caution ; and, before ap- 
 proaching any one of these suspicious passes, he made 
 me halt fifty yards behind, until he had advanced alone 
 to explore the ground. After crossing this moor, a 
 gentle descent brings us to the site of the Nemean tem- 
 
NEMEA. 
 
 155 
 
 pie. The solitude, if here less dark and hideous, is still 
 more profoundly melancholy, as well from its tamer and 
 more tranquil features, as from the contrast which natu- 
 rally forces itself on the mind, between the present state 
 of so celebrated a spot, and the scene it once presented 
 The ruins consist of three tall solitary columns, rising 
 from an extensive bed of fragments, nearly in the centre 
 of a plain of moderate extent, level, green, and apparent- 
 ly fertile, but altogether uncultivated ; nor was a single 
 village, house, or living creature, rational or brute, to be 
 seen ; not a tree or a shrub, with the exception of one 
 slender sapling among the rubbish of the temple, and a 
 bhghted fig bush sprouting from the wall of a Christian 
 chapel constructed from its ruins, and now itself a ruin. 
 The surrounding hills, while equally dark and barren, 
 are perhaps the more dismal, from being less bold in out- 
 line, and less wild and rocky in surface, than those we 
 had passed. Never in any spot do I remember to have 
 had the feehng of sohtude and desolation so powerfully 
 brought home to my mind. 
 
 The site of the sanctuary is finely described by Pin- 
 dar as a plain, " deep-seated under dark Ogygian moun- 
 tains."* The term Ogygian implies any thing awful or 
 mysterious from its antiquity or gloomy character. The 
 epithet here rendered dark, is commonly interpreted 
 shady, but, by an appropriate coincidence, may equally 
 signify shadeless ; a description much more applicable to 
 the present appearance of the Nemean range. 
 
 The most remarkable feature of the distant landscape 
 is a high mountain of a somewhat formal shape, tower- 
 ing above its neighbours. It has a broad table top, from 
 which the sides slope, at first but little off the perpendi- 
 cular, and then more gently with a gradual sweep towards 
 
 ^ See title to this chapter. Elsewhere Pindar speaks of the leafy 
 Nemea/' V. 89. 
 
156 
 
 NEMEA. 
 
 the plain. This is evidently Mount Apesas, C30iTectly^ 
 described by Pausanias ^ as " altar-formed ; " where Per- 
 seus first sacrificed to Jupiter Apesantius, and which is 
 also mentioned by Hesiodf as a favourite haunt of the 
 Nemean Hon. 
 
 The remains of the temple, besides the three Doric 
 columns still erect, consist of a wide field of prostrate 
 masonry, comprising a large portion of the materials of 
 both colonnades and entablature. One of the extant 
 columns belonged to the peristyle ; the two others, still 
 supporting a piece of their architrave, to the antse. The 
 former is upwards of thirty-four feet in height, by five 
 feet three inches in diameter; the other two are of 
 proportionally less dimensions. These ruins present the 
 same phenomenon, in a shghter degree, as those of Seli- 
 nus in Sicily. The drums of the subverted columns are 
 strewed, in many instances, in straight lines in front of 
 each other, so as to occupy the same relative position in 
 their prostrate state, as they formerly did when the 
 columns were entire. These appearances are usually ac- 
 counted for as the eflects of an earthquake. The capital 
 of the larger pillar now standing is also dislodged from 
 its position, so as to project nearly half its breadth over 
 the side of the shaft. 
 
 The most remarkable feature of these columns is the 
 slenderness of their shafts. Their height is about six 
 and a half diameters, a measure unexampled in any other 
 Greek edifice of the Doric order ; and their consequent 
 poverty of effect affbrds, by the exception, a living evi- 
 dence of the excellence of the standard rules laid down 
 by the Greeks for the proportions of the different orders 
 of architecture. It was essential to the elegance of the 
 Ionic and Corinthian respectively, that their greater 
 height and slenderness should be reUeved by the addi- 
 ^ Pausan. Cor. XV. f Hes. Theo^. 331. 
 
ARGOLIS. 
 
 157 
 
 tion of a base, and a corresponding extension and deco- 
 ration of the capital. But, by reference to the same 
 fundamental principles of art, the simplicity of the Doric 
 column is incompatible with any but solid massive pro- 
 portions. These rules, so obviously grounded on the 
 elementary laws of architecture, are all violated in the 
 case of the Nemean temple. The unseemly effect of 
 these long narrow stalks, topped by a diminutive slab of 
 stone, is still further increased by a paunch-like protu- 
 berance of their centres, which gives them a top-heavy 
 and tottering appearance. We have no record of the 
 epoch at which this sanctuary was constructed ; but from 
 whatever period it may date, it is certainly the most 
 unfavourable extant specimen of native Greek archi- 
 tecture. There are no vestiges of any other ancient 
 building in its immediate neighbourhood. Leake has 
 described indistinct remains of the stadium, which I did 
 not observe, at the foot of the hill, approaching from the 
 north.* 
 
 Proceeding to the left, eastward, along the plain, near- 
 ly to its extremity, and crossing a ridge of hills, we 
 rejoin the direct road from Cleonse to Argos. Near the 
 point of junction is the other station of gendarmes, al- 
 ready mentioned. I suggested to Nicola the propriety 
 of notifying to these guardians of the public peace the 
 late attempt to disturb it within their own immediate 
 jurisdiction. But the wily Albanian remarked, it were 
 wiser to say nothing about it, as it could do but little 
 good to any one, while, if the delinquents were appre- 
 hended upon our information, it might be a source of 
 delay or trouble to ourselves. The readiness with which 
 I acquiesced in this argument, shows how easily one's 
 ideas of police and public duty are swayed by the influ- 
 ence of habit or circumstance. 
 
 ^ Morea, vol. iii. 331. 
 
158 
 
 ARGOLIS. 
 
 The Argos road at this point enters a long narrow 
 pass between high mountains, at the foot of which it 
 follows a dry water-course for several miles. This de- 
 file, now called Dervenaki, is the ancient Tretus, men- 
 tioned by Hesiod* as another of the fabulous haunts of 
 the Nemean lion. Through it passed the carriage-road 
 from Argos to Cleonse in the days of Pausanias.t It is 
 celebrated in our own times as the scene of one of the 
 most remarkable occurrences of the late war, the destruc- 
 tion of the army of the Pasha Mahmoud Dramali in the 
 year 1822. This force, the most formidable equipped 
 by the Turks against Peloponnesus, is variously rated 
 at from 20,000 to 45,000 men. It advanced almost 
 without opposition from Thessaly to the Argolis. After 
 a tumultuous campaign in this district they were reduced 
 to the necessity of a retreat, less by any great exertion 
 of prowess on the part of the insurgents, than by the in- 
 dividual conduct and patriotism of Demetrius Ypsilanti 
 — the cunning tactics of Kolokotroni — and above all, the 
 mismanagement of the Turkish commander, with its 
 natural consequences, famine, sickness, and insubordina- 
 tion. The Greeks, foreseeing the result, had previously 
 occupied all the passes in the direction of the enemy's 
 retrograde march, which the Pasha in his stupidity had 
 neglected to secure. Blindly attempting to force them, 
 he lost several thousand men, together with his whole 
 treasure and baggage, 2000 horses, and 600 camels. 
 " The captors," says General Gordon, " afterwards sold 
 camels at half-a-crown a head, and fine steeds at three 
 or four shillings ; and for a month afterwards the towns 
 of the Morea resembled auction marts, dresses and 
 arms being hawked about the streets from morning to 
 night." The chief slaughter took place in this pass, 
 and the carcasses of the Turks were left as usual to rot 
 ^ TUeog. 331. f Corinth, c. xv. 
 
ARGOLIS. 
 
 159 
 
 on the ground where they fell. A few bones are still 
 observable here and there on the surface of the road, or 
 scattered among the bushes ; and I was assured, both 
 by Nicola and others, who traversed it within a few 
 years after the catastrophe, that at that time the whole 
 defile was strewed with skeletons and skulls, both of 
 men and horses. 
 
 The Greeks, far from emulating the delicacy of their 
 ancestors, as to the decent disposal of the bodies of their 
 fallen enemies, however hateful, or however different in 
 race and religion, of which we lately had occasion to 
 quote an instance in the case of the battle of Marathon, 
 seem to have made a point of leaving the dead bodies of 
 the infidels to rot on the ground, even on the public 
 roads, to the risk of their own health and personal com- 
 fort, as the most satisfactory trophies of their victory. 
 The bones of the remnant of this same host, which only 
 escaped the sword in these defiles to perish by starva- 
 tion at Corinth, though unobserved by me, were still visi- 
 ble a few years ago scattered over the plain between the 
 acropohs and the sea. The coast in the neighbourhood 
 of Navarin, where the Turkish garrison was butchered 
 on the first surrender of the place in 1821, with a neigh- 
 bouring island, where three hundred Greeks were mas- 
 sacred in their turn by the Egyptians, remained white 
 with the skeletons of the sufferers for many years after- 
 wards ; and their mouldering remains have probably not 
 yet entirely disappeared. Similar memorials of victory 
 or of massacre are to be found scattered more or less 
 abundantly in every corner of Greece. 
 
166 
 
 ARGOLIS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVL 
 
 PLAIN OF ARGOS—MYCENE—" TREASURY OF ATREUS"— 
 GATE OF LIONS. 
 
 2/ xai l^riiJjaiYi xzyyiMCct xovig svda MvxTjvyj, 
 "iXov Tig Ka^o^ojv nXsiVTiv ^oXiv ^ g s^drrj(foc 
 
 vQ^Kfsv, d^'Aov/Jbai fjbd^rvoi Maiov/dy}* — Incert. Epigr* 
 
 " If lowly in the dust Mycene lies, 
 
 A barren rock deserted and forlorn, 
 Yet think on Ilium where by her the prize 
 
 Of valour from proud Asia's host was borne. 
 Though fallen her towers, extinct her race divine, 
 Her glory still lives fresh in Homer's line." 
 
 The pass now gradually widens, and the distant pro- 
 spect of the green plain of Argos affords a welcome re- 
 lief to the eye, after the dismal horrors of the Nemean 
 forest. As we advance, every object that opens on the 
 view is replete with associations of the deepest interest, 
 those which attach to the most brilliant period of Greek 
 chivalry and song ; the Trojan war — the exploits, crimes, 
 and misfortunes of the Pelopidan race, and the page of 
 the Iliad and Odyssey. Each mountain, rock, or stream, 
 has been the scene of some heroic adventure, or the site 
 of some famous city ; is immortalized in the line of some 
 illustrious poet, or personified in some lively form in the 
 briUiant allegory of Grecian fable. As we are clearing 
 the defile, the dark round summit of the citadel of My- 
 
ARGOLIS. 
 
 161 
 
 cene appears on the left, backed by a lofty peaked 
 mountain, but frowning itself above the lower eminences, 
 towards the plain, that bound the retired valley in which 
 it is embedded: hence so well described by Homer as 
 " in a recess of the Argive land." ^ At the base of the 
 lowest of these declivities is the village of Karvata; 
 and hard by, on the road-side, to the right, the khan of 
 the same name. The road here completely emerges 
 into the open plain. After about an hour's ride, we 
 cross by a bridge a small stream of muddy water, con- 
 fined between two low gravelly banks. This is the cele- 
 brated Inachus, now called Vanitza. The dry torrent- 
 bed which we cross immediately before entering Argos, 
 usually mistaken for it by travellers, in spite of its greater 
 width, and the more impetuous character of the stream 
 it occasionally brings down, cannot compete for the 
 honour of this name with a neighbour whose course is 
 longer, more directly through the heart of the district of 
 Argos, (for the Inachus was the river, not of the city 
 but the district,) and whose waters, if not perennial, 
 seldom leave their bed altogether dry. Leake,t there- 
 fore, seems to be right in supposing this torrent to 
 be the Charadrus, where, according to Thucydides, 
 the armies of the republic, on their return from an ex- 
 pedition, were obliged to undergo a court of enquiry 
 before being admitted into the city. The name Charadrus 
 — Uterally "torrent"— certainly characterizes very appro- 
 priately its broad but commonly empty channel. It now 
 bears the equally appropriate name of Xeria or the Dry 
 river. Pausanias, however, seems to have considered it 
 as the principal branch of the celebrated stream. 
 
 At Argos I found a very passable lodging above the 
 
 ^ IJ^vx^ " A^yzog I'j'Tto^oroio, Hence too, doubtless, the etymology 
 of the name My cene. 
 •j" Morea, vol. ii. 365. 
 
 VOL. II. O 
 
162 
 
 ARGOLIS. 
 
 principal coffeehouse of the bazar, a small square room, 
 or rather wooden booth, with the luxury of glass case- 
 ments, which I had not seen in any other place of public 
 accommodation, with the exception of Athens. I pro- 
 cured a rickety chair and table, and found means to 
 construct a bedstead ; and was thus secured unusually 
 sumptuous quarters for the five nights I spent in the 
 place. Argos was at this ^time the headquarters of my 
 countryman. General Gordon, who commanded in chief 
 in the Peloponnesus. His arrival from Athens had 
 preceded mine by several days, and a general invitation 
 to his table, during the period of my stay, ensured me 
 both agreeable society and excellent fare on my return 
 from my daily rambles. The General, in addition to his 
 extensive knowledge of the country and people, is an 
 accomplished antiquary ; and his long residence in this 
 district had rendered him more especially familiar with 
 its objects of interest. His house was also the evening 
 rendezvous of several intelligent and agreeable Phil- 
 hellene officers of the garrison. It thus became to me 
 not only a pleasant, but a profitable resource, during the 
 time I spent at his headquarters, which I also selected 
 as my own for the period of my abode in Argolis, as the 
 most convenient and central point for prosecuting my 
 researches in the neighbourhood. Although there is no 
 made road across the plain, except the one to Nauplia, 
 and that scarcely practicable in the rainy season, yet in 
 fine weather the fields may be traversed by carriages in 
 every direction, and Argos supplies several, both single 
 and double-horse vehicles, at moderate fares. I secured 
 for daily use a light German caleche and pair, in which 
 I drove out and spent the day, in whole or in part, at 
 Mycene, Tiryns, Nauplia, or the Heroeum, as it might 
 happen. The distances between these famous spots are 
 so short, that it were no very difficult matter to devote an 
 
ARGOLIS. 
 
 163 
 
 hour or two to each of them in the same day. From 
 Argos to Karvata, the village below Myeene, is about six 
 miles ; from the same place to Nauplia, between seven 
 and eight. Tiryns is close by the side of the Naupha 
 road, about two miles short of the latter town. The dis- 
 tance by the direct road, from Naupha to Karvata, is 
 about eleven miles. The Herceum lies about a mile to 
 the right of this road, two miles short of Karvata. The 
 direct distance from Argos to the nearest point of this 
 road, below the Herceum, exceeds four miles. 
 
 The objects which first claim the attention of the 
 traveller are the site and ruins of Mycene. This city, 
 the favourite seat of the Pelopidan princes, and in some 
 sense the metropolis of Peloponnesus, or of Greece itself 
 during their dynasty, was destroyed, together with the 
 neighbouring Tiryns, a work of the same age and character, 
 soon after the Persian war, and was never rebuilt. Hence, 
 while there are few Greek cities that can compete with 
 her in the number and mass of her remains, there is none, 
 with the exception perhaps of Tiryns, where they can, 
 by reference to distinct historical data, advance preten- 
 sions to so remote an antiquity. The internal evidence 
 of structure and character in her principal monuments, 
 is indeed in itself sufficient guarantee that they existed 
 long prior to the age when Homer celebrates her spacious 
 streets, that are now a rocky wilderness, and her colossal 
 walls,^ which still strike the traveller with astonishment 
 and admiration. 
 
 The drive from Argos in favourable weather scarcely 
 occupies an hour. On turning to the right from the 
 
 * Such was tlie strength of these walls, if we may trust Pausanias, 
 that the Argives, finding it . impossible to take the city by force or 
 surprise, reduced it by famine. The inhabitants, however, effected 
 their escape without a surrender, and settled, some at Cleonse, some in 
 Macedonia, others in Achsea — (Achaia. e. xxv.) 
 
164 
 
 ARGOLIS, 
 
 khan of Karvata, through the village of the same name, 
 and clearing the brow of the lower declivity on which its 
 houses are scattered, the whole locality opens at once on 
 the view. It were difficult, certainly, to imagine a group 
 of objects of an appearance more in unison with the his- 
 torical associations attached to them, than that of which 
 this venerable citadel is the centre. The general character 
 of the scene is a bare, but not a gloomy wilderness, of 
 rugged pasture land, interspersed with green slopes and 
 precipitous cliffs, and rising behind into lofty mountain 
 peaks. The features of this region would seem to have 
 undergone little or no alteration during the last twa 
 thousand years. The site and environs of Mycene, in 
 the latter days of ancient Hellas, are described in nu- 
 merous poetical apostrophes to her fate, by successive 
 generations of rhymers, as being in their time, as in our 
 own, a wild pastoral desert.^ 
 
 Mycene consisted of a citadel and an outer town, each 
 defended by a wall. The citadel occupied a strong 
 rocky height, projecting from the foot of the mountain 
 behind it, in the form of an irregular triangle, the base 
 of which fronts to the west. Its wall, with the excep- 
 tion of a small space at the verge of a precipitous cliff on 
 the south side, can be distinctly recognised in its whole 
 circuit. This cliff overhangs a deep gorge, protecting 
 the whole south flank of the fortress. Through the 
 abyss below winds a torrent bed, usually dry. At the 
 north-west corner of the citadel is the Gate of Lions. 
 
 The outer line of wall is built on the crest of a long 
 narrow ridge, which forms a continuation on a lower 
 level of the rock occupied by the citadel, stretching from 
 its north-west corner, in a gentle curve opposite its wes- 
 
 Antholog, 1. ix. Epigr, 28, 101. seq. 
 
MYCENiE . 
 
OF THE 
 
 UMiVERSlTYOF ILLlNOiS 
 
ARGOLIS. 
 
 165 
 
 tern front, so as, with it, to enclose a deep valley or 
 recess in the hills. The side of this valley, formed by 
 the citadel, is steep, and in parts precipitous ; the opposite 
 side is less so, and broken into undulating grassy slopes. 
 The wall itself runs for the most part along a low 
 ledge of rocks, which crow^ns the outer face of the height 
 towards the open country. Though little more than a 
 few stones are in any place preserved, yet its vestiges 
 are distinctly traceable over a considerable portion of the 
 ridge. 
 
 The masonry of both walls is chiefly of the same rude 
 Cyclopian character common to Tiryns, the Heroeum, 
 and other fortresses of this age and district. Some parts, 
 however, of the peribolus of the citadel are of the poly- 
 gonal order, and have the appearance of being later re- 
 pairs. The approach to the Gate of Lions, on the other 
 hand, is constructed of blocks of nearly quadrangular 
 form, though rudely shaped and put together. As there 
 can be no reasonable doubt that this part of the fabric is 
 of the same remote antiquity as the remainder, it would 
 appear, from this and other examples, to have been the 
 custom with these primitive builders to pay some little 
 more attention to symmetry and regularity in the more 
 ornamental portions of their work. 
 
 Within the outer wall, on different parts of the slope, 
 substructions of buildings are visible, chiefly of the same 
 archaic character. It is, however, remarkable, that simi- 
 lar traces of habitation are also to be seen in still greater 
 numbers without its limits. This circumstance, coupled 
 with the disappearance of all vestiges of its foundations 
 to the southward, and with the improbability (as whoever 
 inspects the ground must be satisfied) of its ever having 
 been carried round in that direction to a second junction 
 with the citadel, warrants the conclusion that it never 
 formed a complete enclosure of an ^outer town, as most 
 
166 
 
 ARGOLIS. 
 
 writers on Mycenaean topography have assumed, but 
 was merely an exterior rampart or breastwork, covering 
 the citadel, and affording, perhaps, some sort of protec- 
 tion to the houses in its neighbourhood. Of the precise 
 nature and object of such works, our limited knowledge 
 of the primitive art of defence renders it difficult to 
 judge ; of their existence there is evidence in the fortifi- 
 cations of several other Greek cities.* 
 
 Hence it may be inferred that the population of My- 
 cene, and probably of most other Hellenic towns of the 
 same epoch, dwelt chiefly in straggling suburbs, which 
 sprang up on strong points of ground in the immediate 
 neighbourhood of the fortress of the chief, as did the vil- 
 lages and tov/ns of our own middle ages around the castles 
 of the feudal nobility whose protection they enjoyed, and 
 into which they retired with their valuables, when assailed 
 by an enemy against whom their own means of defence 
 were insufficient. The actual citadel of Mycene is of so 
 limited a size, that it could have contained little more 
 than the usual contents of a royal residence — the dwell- 
 ing of the sovereign; including, perhaps, those of his 
 immediate retainers, and the chief religious sanctuaries. 
 
 With the exception of a few fragments of the outer 
 wall, the first object of human art that presents itself, in 
 following the path along the summit of the ridge, is the 
 subterranean vault, commonly called the " Treasury of 
 Atreus." The plan of this building corresponds, in all 
 essential respects, to the description above given of that 
 of the " Treasury'^ of Minyas at Orchomenus; and the 
 remarks offered on the onef apply in a great measure to 
 
 * At the north corner of the Acropolis of Ithaca, for example, 
 may be observed a projecting rampart, carried to a considerable dis- 
 tance along the crest of the hill 5 in such a manner and such a direc 
 tion, that it could not be destined to form a junction with any other 
 part of the wall. 
 
 •j" See chap, xvii, supra. 
 
ARGOLIS. 
 
 the other. The Mycenaean structure has, however, the 
 advantage of being in a nearly perfect state of preserva- 
 tion. The great vault has also a side door, giving access 
 to a small chamber excavated in the solid rock. This 
 was probably the burial-place ; the outer vault, the he- 
 roeum or sanctuary of the deceased.* The doorway of 
 the monument was formerly decorated with pilasters and 
 other ornaments, in marbles of various colours, sculptured 
 in a style partaking more of the oriental than of any 
 primitive Hellenic school, and affording strong evidence 
 of the influence of Asiatic art in the erection of these 
 monuments. One of these fragments now forms the 
 architrave of a building at Nauplia— formerly a Turkish 
 mosque, in which the courts of justice hold their sittings. 
 Several others are in the Elgin collection, in the British 
 Museum. 
 
 Following the traces of the outer wall along the brow 
 Oi the hill towards the citadel, I cross the ruins of a 
 modern Greek village, said to have been deserted by its 
 inhabitants some generations ago, owing to the dreari- 
 ness of the situation and the distance from water, for 
 the site of the present hamlet of Karvata on the verge of 
 the plain. Beyond it are the remains of a smaller vault 
 of similar structure, in a totally ruinous state, and a few 
 steps further on I find myself in front of the Gate of Lions. 
 
 This is perhaps the monument of ancient Greek art 
 which the majority of travellers are accustomed to ap- 
 proach with the most intense feelings of curiosity and 
 interest. In no case, however, where the imagination 
 had been previously on the stretch for the first view of 
 some remarkable object, do I remember the reality to 
 
 * The great vault is about fifty feet in width, and forty in height. 
 The exterior architrave of the great doorway is upwards of twenty- 
 seven feet long, nineteen broad, and three feet nine inches thick, and 
 has been computed to weigh one hundred and thirty-three tons. 
 
168 
 
 ARGOLIS. 
 
 have so far exceeded the expectation, as when, turning 
 an angle of the wall of the acropolis, these mysterious 
 figures suddenly presented themselves, at the extremity 
 of the little court in which they seem to be enshrined, 
 like the living genii of the place in their especial sanc- 
 tuary. I sat down involuntarily at some little distance 
 from the gate, on one of the colossal blocks strewed at 
 the entrance of the court, and gazed on them for many 
 minutes, lost in a maze of recollections, before venturing 
 on a nearer approach. The mind wandered back to the 
 days of the Pelopidse; to Agamemnon, to Troy, and 
 beyond that date to the dark old Pelasgic period, to the 
 unknown Phoenician, Egyptian, Lycian, Cyclopian au- 
 thors of these extraordinary works ; from thence back 
 to Homer, to Sophocles, to Thermopylae and Platsea, 
 where the last glow of patriotism in the breasts of the 
 citizens of Mycene, seems but to shed a ray of bright- 
 ness on the extinction of their place and nation, which 
 was its immediate consequence.* Presiding over the 
 gate through which the ruler of the united armies of 
 Greece marched forth to the most glorious enterprise 
 of her heroic ages, this pair of figures stand to her 
 art somewhat in the same relation as the Iliad and 
 Odyssey to her Uterature. The one, the only extant 
 specimens of the plastic skill of her mythical era — the 
 other, the only genuine memorials of its chivalry and its 
 song. Both have been preserved, alone and insulated, 
 amid the same mysterious uncertainty as to the period, 
 the author, or the state of society that produced them, 
 and in nearly the same wonderful state of integrity, amid 
 the wreck of every thing around them. 
 
 ^ The destruction of Mycene by the Argives is said to have been 
 dictated by jealousy at the prominent part taken by its citizens in the 
 struggle against Xerxes, from which they themselves kept aloof. — 
 DiOD. Sio. xi. 05. Pausan. Cor, xvi. 
 
LIBRARY 
 OF THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF lUINOiS 
 
ARGOLIS. 
 
 169 
 
 The accessaries of situation and scenery here all com- 
 bine to aid the power of these historical associations. The 
 desolate grandeur of the surrounding landscape, the sin- 
 gular freshness of the figures as contrasted with the shape- 
 less masses of mouldering ruin with which they are con- 
 nected, the retired nook they occupy in the line of colossal 
 masonry, and the dismal sighing of the wind through the 
 grass and bushes that cover the broken fragments strewed 
 in the court below — all tended to enhance the previous 
 impressions of awe and mystery ; and one almost felt as 
 if one could have expected to see them descend from their 
 pedestal, and challenge the right of the curious barbarian 
 of the nineteenth century to disturb their ancient solitary 
 reign. 
 
 The gate is approached by a recess in the wall of the 
 fortress, forming a sort of court or corridor in front of it. 
 Above the block which forms the architrave of the por- 
 tal is a triangular gap in the masonry of the wall, formed 
 by an oblique approximation of the side courses of stone, 
 continued from each extremity of the lintel to an apex 
 above its centre. The vacant space is occupied by the 
 block, ten feet in height by twelve in breadth,* sculp- 
 tured with the figures from which the gate derives its 
 name. A similar gap exists over the door of the Trea- 
 sury : it is now unoccupied; but the general analogy of 
 plan in the two works can leave little doubt that it also 
 formerly contained some decorative appendage. The 
 great gate of Tiryns oflfered the same peculiarity, if we 
 may trust those who saw its ruins previous to their en- 
 tire demolition. This, therefore, may be considered as a 
 distinctive feature of the Cyclopian architecture of the 
 Argolis. Its object was obviously to lighten the pres- 
 sure of the superincumbent wall upon the flat lintel, a 
 simple enough expedient, adopted in similar cases, under 
 * Plate V. See additional note at the end of the volume. 
 
 VOL. IT. P 
 
170 
 
 ARGOLTS. 
 
 different varieties of method, in every age. The prin- 
 ciple itself is very distinctly laid down by Vitruvius.^ 
 Among other reasons, he also urges the facility it affords 
 for replacing or repairing the lintel if from any cause 
 broken or damaged. Strong, therefore, must have been 
 the zeal for classical mysticism, which could lead Clarke 
 and Gell,t overlooking a thing so simple and obvious, 
 to speculate on the typical connexion between this tri- 
 angle and the cones, pyramids, &c., of the Persian and 
 Indian fire- worshippers. 
 
 The most remarkable feature of these figures,:}: consid- 
 ered as works of art, is their distinctive originality of 
 character. In spite of the confident manner in which 
 Dodwell and others, under the influence of the old pre- 
 judice, pronounce them to be in the Egyptian style, I 
 could discover no trace of Egyptian design in any por- 
 tion of the group, nor do the emblems it contains offer 
 a single feature of analogy with those familiar to us on 
 the symbolic monuments of the banks of the Nile. The 
 animals, indeed, have little or nothing of that dry linear 
 stiffness w^hich characterizes the earlier stages of the art 
 of sculpture in almost every country, and present conse- 
 quently as little resemblance to the archaic style of the 
 Hellenic works of a later period, as to those of Egypt 
 itself. They are, in fact, in a style proper and peculiar 
 to themselves, and which fixes the attention at first sight 
 both by its singularity and grandeur, like the first view of 
 a noble edifice in some altogether new but majestic style 
 of architecture.§ 
 
 ^ Lib. vi. c. 11. 
 
 t Clarke's Travels, pt. ii. sect. 2, p. 706. Gell, Argolis, p. 40. 
 X See Plate v.. No. 1. 
 
 § Since writing the above, I am happy to observe, that both Leake 
 and Klenze— far more competent judges than either Dodwell, Gell, or 
 Clarke— coincide in this opinion. 
 
ARGOLIS. 
 
 171 
 
 The special peculiarities of their execution are a cer- 
 tain solidity and rotundity, amounting to clumsiness, in 
 the limbs, as compared with the bodies. The hind legs 
 indeed, are more like those of elephants than lions ; the 
 thighs, especially, are of immense bulk and thickness. 
 This unfavourable feature, however, is compensated by 
 much natural ease and dignity of attitude. The turn- 
 ing of the body and shoulders is admirable, combining 
 strength with elegance in the happiest proportions. The 
 bellies of both are slender in comparison with the rest of 
 the figure, especially of the one on the right of the bcr 
 holder. The muscles, sinews, and joints, though little 
 detailed, are indicated with much spirit. The finish, 
 both in a mechanical and artistical point of view, is ex- 
 cellent ; and in passing the hand over the surface, one is 
 struck with the smooth and easy blending of the masses 
 in every portion of the figure. 
 
 Various attempts have been made to explain the mys- 
 terious signification of these curious emblems, but with 
 no successful results ; owing chiefly to the too prevalent 
 error of wandering into the regions of Egyptian or ori- 
 ental mysticism, from the far surer path which the native 
 antiquities of Greece supply for the prosecution of such 
 researches. To enter at large upon this question would 
 be foreign to the purpose of our text, and would far ex- 
 ceed the limits of a note. Suffice it to say, that the 
 column or cippus between the animals is the customary 
 symbol of Apollo Agyieus, or Thyrseus, the Janus of the 
 Greeks, protector of doors, gates, and public thorough- 
 fares. This emblem is described by the ancients as a 
 round pillar or altar, surmounted by a cone or pyramid, 
 just as it is here represented, * and appears in similar 
 form on the coins of various cities devoted to the worship 
 
 * See the numerous authorities <ipud Mueller, Dorier. ii. 6, 5, 
 and ZoEGA d& Obelise, p. 210. 
 
172 
 
 ARGOLIS. 
 
 of Apollo.* That deity was the patron god of the Ar- 
 golic states, in his more especial capacity of Lyceus, to 
 which probably the animal on each side of the column 
 may bear reference. Apart from internal evidence, the 
 allusions contained in the Electra of Sophocles and the 
 Agamemnon of ^schylus,f in both of which tragedies 
 the scene is laid in front of this gate, to the sacred sym- 
 bols with which it was adorned, can leave no doubt on 
 the subject. 
 
 * See Comb. Num. Mus, Brit, Tab, viii. fig. 4, and Mus. Hunter, 
 Tab. vi. Nu. Q, 7. Copies of these two figures are given in Plate v., 
 Nos. 2, 3. 
 
 t ^scHYL. Agam., 1078, 1083, 1271. Sophocles, FAectr., 1374, 
 seq. This passage seems to be parodied in the Wasps of Aristophanes, 
 (869, seq.) in the invocation of the Agyieus in front of the gate of 
 Philocleon. 
 
ARGOLIS. 
 
 173 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 TIRYNS— THE HER^UM. 
 
 EuRiP. Iph. in Aul, v. 534. 
 
 " Upon the very Cyclopean walls, 
 They plant their gardens and they build their stalls." 
 
 The impression which Tiryns cannot fail to produce 
 on first view, by the grandeur of its ruins, and the inter- 
 est of the associations attached to them, is enhanced in 
 no small degree by the singularity of its site and plan. 
 This colossal fortress is certainly the greatest curiosity 
 of the kind in existence. It occupies the table summit 
 of an oblong hill, or rather knoll, of small extent or ele- 
 vation, completely encased in masses of enormous stones, 
 rudely piled in tiers one above another, into the form 
 alternately of towers, curtain walls, abutments, gates, 
 and covered ways.* There is not a fragment in the 
 neighbourhood indicating the existence of suburb or 
 outer town at any period ; and the whole, rising abruptly 
 from the dead level of the surrounding plain, produces 
 at a distance an effect very similar to that of the hulk of 
 a large man-of-war floating in a harbour, f Both in the 
 
 * The whole length of the fortress is 250 yards ; the breadth varies 
 from eighty to fifty. The greatest height of the surface of the hill 
 above the plain is about fifty feet. 
 
 t The boldest part of the fortification is the great tower defending 
 
m 
 
 ARGOLTS* 
 
 size of the stones, and in the general effect of the gal- 
 leries, I was disappointed. This I am disposed to attri- 
 bute, partly, to the exaggeration of the popular drawings 
 of the ruins, through the medium of which both the eye 
 and the imagination are more apt to be influenced than 
 by measurements or descriptions. The deception here 
 alluded to is usually produced by a very simple applica- 
 tion, or rather abuse, of the powers of contrast, by which 
 a very moderate-sized cavern or cloister can easily be 
 magnified at once into a cave of Fingal. Close to the 
 object to be enhanced is placed a man, a goat, or some 
 other familiar figure, the natural dimensions of which, if 
 taken as a scale of measurement for the principal object, 
 will increase its apparent size to any desired extent. The 
 same license has been extensively employed in regard to 
 the antiquities of Rome, more especially in the standard 
 works of Piranesi and Rossini ; and hence probably the 
 reason why a first view of the forum, and indeed of most 
 of the other rem^arkable remains of that city, is usually 
 a disappointment. 
 
 The object of these galleries — works apparently pe- 
 culiar to the fortresses of this remote period— is very 
 doubtful. The circumstance that the two principal 
 ranges are constructed, one on each side of the great gate 
 of the place, would seem to imply that its protection was 
 their chief object. Owing to the ruinous state of the 
 fortress at this point, it is not easy to judge in what pre- 
 cise mode their outer issues were contrived; but they 
 were doubtless so constructed as to enable portions of 
 the garrison, from the heart of the fortress, to sally forth 
 
 the right flank of the eastern gate ; it is also the loftiest piece of wall 
 now standing. It was probably this structure which obtained for the 
 Tirynthians the credit of having been the first inventors of towers. — 
 AiiisTOT. et TuEOPHR. ap. Plin. H. N. vii. 56. 
 
ARGOLIS. 
 
 unobservedj and take the enemy in the rear at the most 
 critical period of an assault on the gate, or even after 
 its outer defences were in their possession.* 
 
 The Tirynthians were celebrated for their laughing 
 propensities, a feature of their character which stands in 
 strange contrast with the gloomy grandeur of their me- 
 tropolis. To such an extent did this weakness prevail, 
 if we may trust TheophrastuSjf as to render them incap- 
 able of attention to any serious business. They therefore 
 had recourse to the Delphic oracle for a remedy. The 
 answer of the Pythoness was, to sacrifice a bull to Nep- 
 tune, casting the victim into the sea, and that, if they 
 could perform the ceremony in serious mood, they would 
 be delivered from their infirmity. In order the better to 
 insure a fortunate issue, all the children were ordered to 
 be kept at a distance. One little fellow, however, man- 
 aged to make his way unperceived into the crowd, and 
 as they were driving him away, he exclaimed, " Aha ! I 
 see you are afraid lest I should swallow up your fat ox.'' 
 This was too severe a trial of their assumed gravity, 
 and a general burst of merriment was the consequence. 
 Perceiving, as the narrative concludes, that the god had 
 merely taken this way of showing how difficult it is for a 
 people to change their natural disposition, they continued 
 to laugh on as before ; until, it may be presumed, a stop 
 was put to their gibes and jests, on the destruction of 
 their own city by the Argives, and their removal to the 
 less mirth-inspiring atmosphere of that of their con- 
 querors. 
 
 Count Capo d'Istria entertained, and in part carried 
 into effect, the project of converting the ground enclosed 
 by these venerable ruins into an experimental farm, 
 which was to form the centre of an extensive agricultural 
 
 * See additional note at the end of the volume, 
 f Ap. A THEN. Deipn. vi- c. 79, p. 261, D. seq. 
 
176 
 
 ARGOLIS. 
 
 establishment. The interior esplanades are still divided 
 into beds or compartments, set apart for the culture of 
 cotton, carrots, potatoes, &c. Few spots of ground could 
 have been selected of a nature apparently less adapted to 
 such a purpose, partly owing to the accumulation of 
 stones and rubbish on its surface, partly to the impossi- 
 bility of irrigation, which in this climate one would 
 suppose indispensable to the success of any such under- 
 taking. It is to be feared, therefore, that there may be 
 some truth in the imputation thrown out by persons 
 unfriendly to the late President, that the real object which 
 dictated his choice was the opportunity afforded, with 
 less risk of observation or odium than might otherwise 
 have been incurred, for quarrying materials from these 
 Cyclopian masses for the house and court of offices 
 erected by him hard by on the plain below. The conse- 
 quence has been the dilapidation of the larger galleries 
 on the left of the great southern gate of entrance, with 
 a considerable extent of the contiguous wall; portions 
 of the work which, in the plans and descriptions of the 
 old travellers, are represented as in tolerable preserva- 
 tion. The gallery that still remains in its former state 
 of integrity, is said to have been indebted for its escape 
 to its convenience as a cowhouse or sheepfold. 
 
 In spite of these spirited agricultural enterprizes, the 
 land in the neighbourhood of the ruins displays no great 
 symptoms of improved cultivation beyond the remainder 
 of the plain. The only visible fruits of the civihzed 
 Vandalism of their author is a square villa, or large 
 farm-house, several stories high, surrounded by a range 
 of low sheds. The whole of these edifices are constructed 
 of the usual rubble masonry, for the materials of which 
 the great blocks of the fortress were broken into small 
 pieces ; they are all crowned with formal red tile roofs 
 of dazzling brightness, and all falling rapidly into the 
 
ARGOLIS. 
 
 177 
 
 same state of decay as their Cyclopian neighbour, from 
 whose carcass they derive their origin. The contrast 
 between ancient semi-barbarous splendour and modern 
 utilitarian meanness, can hardly be more strikingly dis- 
 played, than by the juxtaposition of these two specimens 
 of Hellenic architecture. I was, however, favoured with 
 a still more practical illustration. While wandering 
 along the summit of the esplanade, immediately above 
 the farm, I was startled by a sudden crash, like the 
 emptying of a heavy cart-load of stones, and, looking in 
 the direction of the sound, perceived a cloud of dust 
 issuing from one of the outbuildings. As it cleared off, 
 I saw that the roof had fallen in. There was the more 
 cause for alarm, as my equipage had put up on the pre- 
 mises. On enquiry, however, I found that there had 
 been no damage of life, the building fortunately having 
 been empty at the moment, as indeed seemed to be the 
 case with the greater part of the neighbouring structures. 
 The catastrophe was owing to no other cause but the 
 natural progress of decay, which, in Tirynthian archi- 
 tecture, it must be admitted, has been considerably 
 accelerated since the days of the Cyclopians. 
 
 THE HERiEUM. 
 
 It was not until after my arrival at Athens that I 
 learned that the site of the Herseum, or temple of Juno 
 Argiva, perhaps the most important sanctuary of ancient 
 Greece, after those of Olympia and Delphi, and hence 
 so long, so anxiously, and so vainly sought for by tra- 
 vellers, had been discovered by General Gordon, several 
 years before. It would seem as if fortune had amused 
 herself in baffling the efforts of the curious to estabUsh 
 this point of classical topography. Pausanias has de- 
 
178 
 
 ARGOLIS. 
 
 scribed the position of the sanctuary with his usual 
 exactness, specifying several features of local peculiarity, 
 of such a nature as almost to guide the antiquary by the 
 hand in his researches ; and which are to this day easily 
 identified with existing appearances. Even the remain- 
 ing fragments of the structure are calculated to attract 
 the attention of the passenger from a considerable dis- 
 tance. And yet, although ever since the geography of 
 ancient Hellas has seriously occupied the attention of 
 the European public, each successive visitor has spent, 
 if we may trust their own accounts, a considerable time 
 in roaming in quest of it, with Pausanias in his hand, 
 around the very spot where it is placed by that author, 
 it has eluded the observation of them all. The General, 
 who at the period of the discovery had already been 
 for some time in command of the district, assured me, 
 that the various excursions h^^ had made for the express 
 purpose of exploring its remains, had been equally un- 
 successful, and that at last he had only stumbled upon 
 them by accident while on a shooting party, and no way 
 occupied with archaeological research. 
 
 Pausanias* describes the Herseum as situated at the 
 distance of fifteen stadia from Mycense, to the left of 
 the route between that city and Argos, on the lower 
 declivities of a mountain called Euboea ; and adds, that 
 below the sanctuary flowed a river called the Asterion, 
 which, falling into an abyss, disappeared. These details 
 are all verified on the ground explored by General Gor- 
 don. It is a rocky height, rising in somewhat insulated 
 form, from the base of one of the highest mountains that 
 bound the plain toward the east, distant about two Eng- 
 lish miles from Mycenae, which corresponds nearly to the 
 fifteen stadia of Pausanias — about three-fourths of a 
 mile to the left of the road leading from the khan of 
 
 Cor. xvii. 
 
LIBRARY 
 OF THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
HERi«UM. 
 
 J M'ftlvtreiift . 'Ihm, 
 
ARGOLIS. 
 
 179 
 
 Karvata to Nauplia, and by consequence considerably 
 further in the same direction from that leading from 
 Karvata to Argos. The form of this eminence, of which 
 the accompanying sketch, without any pretensions to 
 geometrical accuracy, will give a fair general idea, is 
 nearly that of an isosceles triangle, with its apex point- 
 ing to the mountain and its base to the plain. The 
 surface is divided into three esplanades or terraces, rising 
 in gradation one above the other, from the lower to the 
 upper extremity. The central one of the three is sup- 
 ported by a massive Cyclopian substruction, still in good 
 preservation, to a considerable height, and a conspicuous 
 object from some distance. It was this wall, accordingly, 
 which first attracted the General's attention. On the 
 lowest of the three terraces he made an excavation, 
 which fully confirmed his previous suspicion that this 
 was the site of the Herseum. Besides many fragments 
 of ornamental masonry, both in stone and mxarble, he 
 disinterred various pieces of sculpture. Among these 
 was the tail of a peacock in white marble, possibly a 
 fragment of that which Pausanias describes as dedicated by 
 Hadrian to the goddess, with several small votive images, 
 some of them bearing distinct allusion to her worship ; 
 besides lamps, vases, and other articles in bronze and 
 terracotta. Among the fragments of columns are none 
 which could be considered worthy of having belonged to 
 the porticos of so noble an edifice. The greater part of 
 the masonry, it may be presumed, has been removed 
 during the lower ages, for the construction of modern 
 edifices, sacred or profane. Around the mouths of the 
 wells on the plain below, and on the site of several ruins 
 of the Byzantine or Turkish periods, are strewed massive 
 drums of columns of the Doric order, with other frag- 
 ments of a similar description. The lower terrace had 
 also its substructions of regular Hellenic masonry, form- 
 
180 
 
 ARGOLIS. 
 
 ing a breastwork to the base of the triangle towards the 
 plain. The excavation was conducted at the General's 
 own cost, and upon a limited scale ; but, to judge by its 
 success, were it to be followed up on a more extended 
 plan, it could not fail to be productive of valuable results. 
 
 The length of the surface of the hill may be about 
 two hundred and fifty yards ; its greatest breadth about 
 half its length. It is protected on its eastern flank by 
 steep precipices, beneath which is the bed of a small 
 torrent descending from the mountain behind, as indi- 
 cated by Pausanias. It was completely dry at this time ; 
 but by examination of the ground, I satisfied myself of 
 the correctness of his statement, that its waters, even 
 when plentiful, are engulfed or rather absorbed in the 
 earth, at a small distance from the sanctuary ; for the 
 traces of its bed, as it approaches the plain, gradually 
 disappear altogether, without leaving a symptom of pos- 
 sible communication with the sea or any of the larger 
 streams of the district. The fact is, however, that the 
 fate of the Asterion is common to all or most of the 
 small torrents flowing from the mountains that surround 
 the Argolic plain. They are all drunk up by the thirsty 
 soil, on quitting their rocky beds for the deep arable 
 land. This fact offers a palpable explanation of the 
 epithet " very thirsty," * applied by Homer to the land 
 of Argos; as also of the fable of the fifty nymphs, 
 daughters of Danaus,| condemned perpetually to pour 
 water into a tub full of holes. Accordingly we find that 
 the name assigned to one of these unfortunate maidens, 
 Asteris, J is essentially the same as that of the stream 
 below the Herseum. 
 
 t The etymology of the name Danaus — from A AN 02, aridus — 
 dry or parched — here also naturally suggests itself. 
 I Apollod. ii. \, 5. 
 
ARGOLIS. 
 
 181 
 
 In further evidence of the accuracy of this interpreta- 
 tion of the fable, we may appeal to the case of Amy- 
 mone, the only one of the fifty who was exempted from 
 the laborious task. This nymph is described, in addi- 
 tion to that privilege, as having been presented by Nep- 
 tune, in reward of her favours, with the fine perennial 
 stream bearing her own name, at the southern extremity 
 of the Argolic plain ; and which, gushing in one copious 
 body of water from the foot of the neighbouring moun- 
 tain, forms in its way to the sea a portion of the Lernaean 
 marsh. In other accounts it is said, that the honour 
 was conferred on her as a reward for her services, in bear- 
 ing water for the supply of the city of Argos, during a 
 season of drought.* 
 
 Pausanias, after describing the sanctuary as it existed 
 in his time, adds : that " the foundations, and whatever 
 else remained of the more ancient temple," (destroyed 
 by fire B. C. 423, )t "were still visible above the existing 
 edifice." Hence it may be conjectured, that the Cyclo- 
 pian wall now remaining is a substruction of the old 
 building, which must consequently have been situated 
 on the central terrace, while the site of the new temple 
 and its dependencies was limited to the lower esplanade. 
 This is the opinion adopted by General Gordon, on the 
 strength of which he was led by preference to excavate 
 on the lower level ; and it seems to be confirmed both by 
 the result of his researches, and by the difference in the 
 style of the retaining walls by which the two terraces 
 are respectively supported. The upper one of the two 
 betrays a high period of antiquity, while the other is 
 evidently of later date. The situation of the new build- 
 
 ^ Apollod. Bihl. ii. 1, 4. Lucian. Dial, Mor, vi, Hygin. Fdb, 
 169. 
 
 t Conf. Thucyd. iv. c, 133. 
 
182 
 
 ARGOLIS. 
 
 ing would thus have been far from favourable, at the 
 lower extremity of a long irregular declivity, by the 
 upper ridges of which it was both confined and com- 
 manded. 
 
] 
 
 ARGOLIS. 
 
 183 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIIL 
 
 ARGOS—NAUPLIA. 
 
 EuRip. Phoen. v. 664. 
 " Some fame hath Argos in Hellenic lore." 
 
 Argos has never in modern times presented many 
 or important objects of interest to the antiquary; but the 
 devastations to which it was subjected during the war, if 
 they have not supphed, as in some other cases, additional 
 matter for his researches, have at least not deprived him 
 of any that previously existed. This place, indeed, af- 
 fords a pointed illustration of the remark already made 
 on the extraordinary manner in which the remnants of 
 primitive antiquity stand their ground, amid the succes- 
 sive destructions, renovations, and redestructions, of the 
 modern edifices with which they are connected. Every 
 stone or brick of ancient masonry described by Dodwell, 
 Gell, or Leake, is, I think I may safely say, still in its 
 place, although since their time the town has been three 
 times sacked and destroyed, and the greater part of its 
 area is to this day, as in most other cities of Greece, a 
 mass of ruins. Among the new structures, however, 
 are some houses of better appearance than are to be seen 
 in any other town, with the exception of Athens. 
 
 The venerable Larissa, an insulated conical mountain 
 of nine hundred feet in height, with steep rocky sides, 
 diversified with grassy slopes, though not equal in ma-- 
 
184 
 
 ARGOLIS. 
 
 jesty to the Acrocorinthus, is yet a grand and a pictu- 
 turesque object from every point of view. As a fortress 
 it is for the present abandoned, and the fine old Gothic 
 castle on its summit is in ruins. The walls of this 
 building, a remnant of the Frank dynasty of the middle 
 ages, rest for the most part on old substructions ; whence 
 it would appear that the Hellenic, like the modern cita- 
 del, consisted of an outer wall or rampart, with an inner 
 keep or castle, preserving nearly the same plan and 
 foundation at every period. The masonry of the an- 
 cient parts of the building is solely or chiefly in the more 
 regular polygonal style. There are, however, consider- 
 able vestiges of other lines of wall, of massive Cyclopian 
 structure, on the sides and base of the hill connecting 
 the citadel with the lower town. 
 
 Two of the largest stones of one of these fragments, 
 at the base of the hill, in the neighbourhood of the 
 theatre, are each sculptured with tablets containing 
 emblems apparently of a choragic character, with muti- 
 lated inscriptions, in which names resembling Cratilas 
 and Dionysius may still be decyphered. Gell, in an 
 engraving of this fragment among his specimens of Ar- 
 golic masonry, has transformed one of the tablets into 
 something very like the hieroglyphic title of an Egyp- 
 tian king, with two figures of deities squatting opposite 
 each other in the usual attitude, one of which has its 
 head crowned with the horns of Isis. Were this a faith- 
 ful representation of the group, the monument would 
 assume a very interesting character, connecting itself so 
 obviously with the fables of Egyptian settlement in Ar- 
 gos. But the liveliest imagination could hardly discover 
 a trace of resemblance between his drawing and the ori- 
 ginal. 
 
 The great theatre excavated on the rocky slope of 
 the Larissa, and the smaller tiers of seats in the neigh- 
 
ARGOLIS. 
 
 185 
 
 bourhood to the westward, probably belonging to an- 
 other lesser theatre, together with the brick ruins of the 
 Roman period, and the Byzantine church on the plain 
 below, are all very much in the state described by Leake. 
 On the face of the rocks round the back and sides of 
 the theatre, are several other small sculptured compart- 
 ments that have escaped the notice of travellers. They 
 are in low relief, of rude execution, and for the most 
 part much effaced. One represents a man leading a 
 horse. Upon another may be distinguished a figure 
 standing by the side of a couch or bier, on which a human 
 body is extended. 
 
 I sought in vain for the archaic inscription* copied 
 by Dodwell and others from a stone of the polygonal 
 wall of the Larissa. Both my Argive and Athenian 
 authorities described it as still in existence, but could 
 give no exact indication of the spot. The unfavourable 
 state of the weather, a drizzling rain and thick fog, during 
 the few hours I spent on the summit, rendered a personal 
 search round the base of the outer walls so dangerous, 
 that I was obliged to abandon it; as a roll from top 
 to bottom of the hill, which would have been the pro- 
 bable consequence of a false step, could hardly have 
 failed to be attended with loss either of life or limb. 
 
 Nauplia, the ancient port of Argos, is distant about 
 two hours' drive from the metropolitan city. It now 
 contains little to interest the classical tourist, and as it 
 rained without intermission during the half day we spent 
 within its walls, my opportunities of appreciating even 
 that little were but limited. One object of our visit was 
 to purchase arms, it having been decided by Nicola that 
 some such precaution was necessary for our defence 
 against the " maledetti pastori;" for he still persisted in 
 laying all the acts of brigandage of which we had yet 
 * JBoeckh, Tom. i. Pt, 1. Nu. 2. 
 
 VOL. II. Q 
 
186 
 
 obtained— or were likely to obtain — either knowledge or 
 experience, at the door of this class of society alone ; and 
 as a considerable portion of the remainder of our route 
 lay through Arcadia, the pastoral district of Europe by 
 pre-eminence, our case was proportionally the more 
 serious. Argos, celebrated in Pindar's time*" among 
 the cities of Greece for its military cutlery, could not 
 furnish any weapon of defence ; we therefore determin- 
 ed to try the shops of Nauplia. It is considered more 
 prudent not to travel armed in these countries, where 
 danger is apprehended from professional brigands, unless 
 indeed the caravan be formidable in number as well as 
 equipment. The display of defensive measures by a 
 small company, while it implies that their baggage is 
 valuable, and in so far increases the temptation to as- 
 sault, is at the same time an additional inducement to 
 the robbers to provide for their own safety, by shooting 
 the proprietors from their ambush, before laying hands 
 on the goods. Upon Nicola's view of the matter, how- 
 ever, the precaution was more feasible ; since the class 
 of persons against whom alone he considered protection 
 to be necessary, seldom carry any other weapon than 
 their clubs and knives, with which it was not supposed 
 they would venture to assault a party of well armed 
 travellers. He had engaged for the prosecution of our 
 journey the services of a Naupliote agoghiate, an old 
 acquaintance, whom he described as a spirited lad who 
 would prove a valiant comrade in any case of emergency; 
 and if provided with a pistol a-piece, his proposal was, 
 that the next time we were called upon to stop we should 
 obey, and await the approach of the enemy, and he 
 seemed to anticipate much amusement at their disap- 
 pointment on meeting with so unexpected a reception, 
 and perhaps some credit from the capture of one or two 
 * Frag. op. Athene um, L. i. p, 28, A. 
 
ARGOLIS. 
 
 187 
 
 of the delinquents. But after examining the best hard- 
 ware shops the place contained, without finding any 
 weapon on which reliance could be placed, while for 
 such as were to be had enormous prices were demanded, 
 we gave up the project entirely. I was upon the whole 
 well satisfied with the result, being neither so apprehen- 
 sive of danger from the pastoral brigands, nor so mar- 
 tially disposed towards them as my companion ; and was 
 rather inclined to prefer the plan of taking miUtary es- 
 cort, wherever we found from the local authorities that 
 there was any serious ground to suspect the security of 
 the route. This plan my attendant held in great dishke, 
 partly as being derogatory to our personal prowess, partly 
 owing to the expense or delay in which it might involve 
 us. I had not, however, come to Greece in quest of 
 heroic adventures of my own, but for the purpose of ex- 
 amining, with as much ease and security as the state of 
 the country would admit, the localities where they had 
 formerly been achieved. 
 
 Naupha has more the air of a real town than any place 
 now existing in Greece under that title ; having conti- 
 guous lines of houses and streets, and offfering, upon the 
 whole, much the appearance of a second-rate Itahan sea- 
 port. It is indeed probable, that many of its buildings 
 date from the period of the Venetian occupation. Owing 
 to a concurrence of favourable circumstances, although 
 it occasionally changed hands during the war, it was never 
 sacked or destroyed ; and as trade revived in its port, 
 many of the ruined or decayed edifices have been gradu- 
 ally replaced by others of a more substantial description. 
 In this way the old Turkish houses have disappeared, 
 with the exception of a few in the upper part of the town, 
 of a very picturesque structure, and ofiering with their 
 arched windows, balconies, and some ornamental tra- 
 cery, good specimens of the Byzantine or Saracenic style 
 
188 
 
 ARGOLIS. 
 
 of architecture. The substructions of the ancient Acro- 
 naupha, now the lower citadel of the place under the 
 Turkish name of Itschkali, exhibit some fine specimens 
 of polygonal masonry, the only remnants of classical an- 
 tiquity of which the town can boast. The advantages of 
 its position seem to have been but little appreciated by the 
 ancients, with whom it was at all periods a place of se- 
 condary importance, a mere appendage of Argos. At a 
 comparatively early period it went to decay, and was 
 completely deserted in the days of Pausanias. 
 
 The upper citadel is one of the strongest fortresses in 
 Europe, as well from its natural advantages, as from the 
 lines of defence with which it was surrounded by the 
 Venetians. It is now known even in inveterate vulgar 
 usage by the highly poetical name of Palamidi. No trace 
 of such a title occurs in the page of any ancient writer 
 as belonging to a locality of the Argolis. It connects 
 itself however, so obviously, with that of the celebrated 
 Naupliote hero Palamedes, that it may very naturally be 
 supposed to represent the original appellative of his na- 
 tive mountain. It has, accordingly, been quoted by Leake 
 among the instances where modern tradition has pre- 
 served genuine old Greek names, unnoticed by Greek 
 authors. The fortress however, if I do not err, is an 
 original work of the Venetians, undertaken at a period 
 when classical literature was in a very flourishing state 
 in Italy. Unless, therefore, the name can be traced back 
 with certainty to an epoch prior to the Venetian occu- 
 pation, it may perhaps with better reason be conjectured, 
 that some classic-minded commander, or state commis- 
 sary of the republic, had baptized their new citadel with 
 the name of the local hero, so celebrated in his own time 
 for his talents as a military engineer. 
 
 At Nauplia, I had the pleasure of making the acquaint- 
 ance of Mr Masson, a Scottish gentleman, who some 
 
ARGOLIS. 
 
 189 
 
 years ago acted as attorney-general to the Greek go- 
 vernment. He conducted the prosecution against Kolo- 
 kotroni for treason in 1 834, and astonished the natives 
 by pleading for four hours in their own tongue with great 
 fluency and eloquence. He had since retired from office ; 
 and was engaged in editing a small periodical, tending 
 to the moral and political improvement of the people, to 
 whose service he has devoted his time and talents with 
 so much disinterested philanthropy. 
 
190 
 
 ARGOLIS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 LERN^AN HYDRA— PYRAMID OF ERASINUS— ARCADIA— TRIPOLIZZA— 
 GRJECO-BAVARIAN HOSPITALITY. 
 
 XBifLa)va. ^scHYLus, Prom. 652. 
 
 " Come, let's explore the deep Lernsean marsh." 
 
 On the morning of Monday the 2d of April, we took 
 the route of Tripohzza on our way to Sparta. I was 
 provided by General Gordon with circulars to the dif- 
 ferent authorities, and with a private letter to Lieutenant 
 Morandi, commandant of the gendarmerie of the Tripo- 
 litan district, a Modenese refugee, and a personal friend 
 of his chief. The road to Tripolizza was considered se- 
 cure; but the General advised me, on arrival there, to be 
 guided by Morandi as to the propriety of taking escort 
 in the prosecution of our journey. Our track lay along 
 the upper part of the plain, below the heights that bound 
 it to the westward, leaving to the left the extensive Ler- 
 nsean marsh, which forms its southern extremity. Our 
 equipage was the best, at least in appearance, that we 
 had yet met with, and my own horse was provided with 
 the luxury of a good saddle, the first I had bestridden 
 on a Greek road, except on the excursion from Athens 
 to Marathon. Nor did the character of our agoghiate 
 belie Nicola's description. He was a tall handsome ac- 
 tive young fellow, full of life and spirits, and exceedingly 
 good-humoured and obliging. After about an hour's 
 
ARGOLIS. 
 
 191 
 
 ride we reach the sources of the Erasinus, now called the 
 Kephalari. This fine stream, issmng at once in a large 
 body of clear water from a cavern in the base of Mount 
 Chaon, turns numerous mills in its course through the 
 plain to the sea, being distributed a little below its source 
 into a variety of channels for that purpose. 
 
 The curiosity of this marshy district, chiefly dwelt on 
 by Pausanias and other ancient topographers, as possess- 
 ing the strongest claim to be considered the former 
 abode of the Lernaean Hydra, was a bottomless pool 
 called Halcyone, in the neighbourhood of which flowed 
 a river bearing the name of Lerne. Both these objects 
 have been identified by travellers in the vicinity of an- 
 other group of mills, nearer the sea-shore, at the furthest 
 extremity of the plain, and distant about two miles from 
 the Kephalari, whence a road leading to them branches 
 off to the left. Neither Nicola nor the agoghiate seemed 
 to have any clear idea of the general site of the localities ; 
 but no sooner did the latter hear me mention the bot- 
 tomless pool, than he at once declared his acquaintance 
 with it, and broke out into energetic declamation on its 
 wonders. This appeared a suflicient guarantee of his 
 qualifications as cicerone, and I accordingly put myself 
 under his guidance. I proceeded on horseback, while 
 he ran before on foot, leaving Nicola at the fountain in 
 charge of the other beasts till our return. 
 
 For about half a mile we threaded our way through 
 the line of mills, crossing and recrossing the water-leads, 
 which, though in some places of considerable depth, my 
 horse forded without difficulty, while my companion 
 dodged and skipped backwards and forwards with won- 
 derful alertness, in search of bridges or stepping-stones. 
 At length, finding that these manoeuvres involved delay, 
 he denuded himself of all clothing below his fustanella, 
 which he tucked up round his thighs, and then took the 
 
192 
 
 ARGOLIS. 
 
 lead himself, wading through the fords in front of my 
 beast. Our appearance and motions excited, as may be 
 supposed, a good deal of sensation among the groups of 
 females engaged in washing along the banks, and still 
 more among the dogs, through whom we had to fight 
 our way with more than ordinary exercise of prowess. 
 On gaining the open country towards the sea, we con- 
 tinued to follow the course of the river, by a track 
 running along the summit and sides of the embankment 
 by which its waters are here confined ; their level being 
 apparently higher than that of the surrounding morass. 
 As our route was still on the left bank of the stream, 
 and in a direction very dififerent from that in which I 
 knew the southern mills to be situated, I began to suspect 
 there was some misunderstanding. Soon after, my guide 
 quitted the dry path on the dyke, and turned sharp to 
 the left across the marsh, which, although exhibiting 
 here and there traces of a rice or cotton crop of the 
 past season, was yet in many places rather deserving the 
 name of a lake ; the stagnant water reaching above my 
 horse's fetlock joints, with deep pools and ditches at 
 intervals. My suspicions were now turned into convic- 
 tion, that I had set out on a fool's errand ; but having 
 once embarked on the adventure, I determined to see it 
 to its issue. My companion beckoned to me to follow 
 him in a direction offering the most favourable appear- 
 ances of terra firma. But after we had proceeded about 
 a hundred yards, happening to miss the precise track, 
 partly from its indistinctness, partly from the intracta- 
 bility of my beast, who seemed to forebode some disaster, 
 a sudden plunge precipitated us both into the ditch by 
 which it was bounded. Had I fallen under the animal, 
 the consequences might have been fatal, as the depth of 
 the water, combined with the narrowness of the bed of 
 the ditch, would have rendered it difficult to extricate 
 
ARGOLIS. 
 
 193 
 
 myself. I managed, however, by an instinctive spring 
 at the moment of the plunge, to alight with my hands 
 and body on the inner bank ; so that I escaped at the 
 expense of a general wetting and filthifying of my person, 
 and the complete soaking of its lower parts considerably 
 above the knees. On gaining my legs, the ludicrous 
 element of the adventure got the better of all other feel- 
 ings for the moment, and forced from me a hearty laugh, 
 in which my companion, who at first looked distressed 
 and alarmed, as if conscious of being the primary cause 
 of the misfortune, cordially joined. The next point was 
 to extricate my steed, of which nothing but the head and 
 fore legs were visible over the brink of the ditch, to all 
 appearance as bottomless as the pool we w^ere in quest 
 of. I had managed, in disengaging myself, to retain 
 hold of the bridle, and by this means kept above water 
 the head of the poor animal, who, with his paws clinging 
 to the bank, and his hinder parts writhing in uncouth 
 contortions in the gulf below, presented a most piteous, 
 as well as comical appearance. With some difficulty we 
 succeeded in dragging him out, and, wiping the saddle, 
 I remounted, determined, after all the sacrifices I had 
 made, not to be disappointed of my ultimate reward- 
 After proceeding more cautiously another hundred yards 
 into the heart of the morass, my companion stopped at a 
 large circular pool of clear water, surrounded by lofty 
 bulrushes, from whence the neighbouring ditches seemed 
 to diverge, like the leads from a decoy-pond. This he 
 pointed out, with much self-satisfaction, as the object of 
 our researches. We then turned, and retraced our steps 
 in safety to the Kephalari. 
 
 Although disappointed of the object I had in view, it 
 is very probable that this expedition gave me as clear an 
 idea of the true spirit of the mythical topography of the 
 district as could have been obtained by a visit to the 
 
 VOL. II. ^ 
 
194 
 
 ARGOLIS. 
 
 real lake of Halcyone. The pool my companion showed 
 me seemed to be the largest of numerous copious springs, 
 or natural wells, which abound in this extremity of the 
 Argive plain, and, together with the streams that inter- 
 sect it, tend to maintain its marshy character, and to 
 baffle or bewilder every attempt made since the days of 
 Hercules to drain its surface. The lake Halcyone, in 
 the neighbourhood of the maritime mills, appears, from 
 the description of travellers, to be but another larger 
 pool of similar nature, and it is probable that the pre- 
 tensions of my honest friend Dimitri's abyss to a bot- 
 tomless character, are as well founded in fact, if not in 
 ancient tradition, as those of its larger and more cele- 
 brated neighbour; while the general features of the 
 ground, and its position in the more immediate centre of 
 the marshes, render it perhaps, in the true spirit of the 
 fable, the more appropriate haunt of the two for the 
 Lernaean Hydra. How obviously many of these legends 
 concerning the exploits of Hercules interpret themselves, 
 by reference to the struggles of infant agricultural enter- 
 prize against local obstacles, we have already seen in the 
 case of that hero's combats with Achelolis and Nessus ; 
 and the illustrations above offered of the legend of the 
 Danaidse, show how much fables of a similar character 
 were in vogue in Argive tradition. The victory of 
 Hercules over the fifty-headed watersnake, can therefore 
 only be understood of a successful attempt of the an- 
 cient lords of the Argive plain to bring its marshy 
 extremity into cultivation, by draining its sources and 
 embanking its streams, however frequently baffled by 
 their number and pertinacity. The restriction of the 
 name Lerna, as the abode of the Hydra, to one distant 
 corner of the morass, is probably but a caprice of the 
 later mythology, originating, perhaps, in the greater size 
 or beauty of the pools in that particular part, or the 
 
ARGOLIS. 
 
 195 
 
 greater distinction of the neighbouring district, as the 
 seat of a sanctuary of Ceres, around which were concen- 
 trated various other popular superstitions.* 
 
 Well satisfied with my actual experience of the mahg- 
 nant powers of the monster, I felt the less disposed to 
 devote any more time to an encounter with its remaining 
 heads. I therefore abandoned my previous plan of a 
 visit to the maritime mills, and, changing my lower gar- 
 ments, proceeded in quest of the 
 
 PYRAMID OF THE ERASINUS. 
 
 The connexion between Egypt and the Argolis, so 
 celebrated in Greek tradition, in whatever mode it may 
 have been formed, appears to derive support from the 
 existence on the soil of the latter country, of several 
 sepulchral monuments of very remote antiquity, in a 
 style which, above all others, we are in the habit of 
 associating with the banks of the Nile, and of which 
 there are no extant examples in any other part of Greece. 
 The best preserved of these pyramids is that which I 
 now visited and examined. Another, in a more ruinous 
 state, is described by Gell,t on the road between Nauplia 
 and Epidaurus ; and a third, no longer existing, is 
 mentioned by Pausanias,:}: on that between Argos and 
 Tiryns. 
 
 * Paus. Cor. xxxvi. 
 
 f Gell, Itinerary of Greece, (Argolis,) p. 102. 
 
 X Corinth, xxv. It is also a coincidence worth noticing, that 
 Danaus is reported to have landed near the southern extremity of the 
 Argive plain, at a place called Pyramia, although its exact situation 
 seems to have been further down the coast, in the Thyrean territory. 
 (Plutarch in Pyrrho. c. 32. Pausan. Cor. c. 38 ) Possibly the 
 existence of another pyramid in that neighbourhood may have sug- 
 gested the tradition. 
 
196 
 
 ARGOLTS. 
 
 The pyramid of the Erasinus^ occupies the summit 
 of a rocky eminence, itself somewhat of a pyramidal 
 form, among the lower declivities of Mount Chaon, 
 which here bounds the Lernaean plain to the westward. 
 It is situated about half a mile to the right of the tra- 
 veller, when he has proceeded nearly double that distance 
 from the Kephalari, along the road towards Tripolizza. 
 We reached it, however, by a path branchings off from 
 the Kephalari in its own direction. I was fortunate in 
 finding a native who knew the ruin, and recognised it 
 from my description, otherwise I might have passed it 
 unnoticed; for neither Nicola nor the agoghiate had 
 ever seen or heard of it, and although so near the direct 
 road, it is concealed from the view of the passenger by 
 intervening acclivities. 
 
 The masonry of this edifice is of an intermediate style 
 between the Cyclopian and polygonal, consisting of 
 large irregular blocks, with a tendency, however, to 
 quadrangular forms and horizontal courses; the ine- 
 qualities being, as usual, filled up with smaller pieces. 
 The largest stones may be from four to five feet in 
 length, and from two to three in thickness. There are 
 traces of mortar between the stones, which ought, per- 
 haps, to be assigned rather to subsequent repairs than to 
 the original workmanship. The symmetry of the struc- 
 ture is not strictly preserved, being interrupted by a 
 rectangular recess cutting off one corner of the building. 
 In this angle there is a doorway, consisting of two per- 
 pendicular side walls, surmounted by an open gable or 
 Gothic arch, formed by horizontal layers of masonry 
 converging into an apex, as in the triangular opening 
 above the Gate of Lions and " Treasury of Atreus." 
 This door gives access to a passage between two walls. 
 At its extremity on the right hand is another doorway, 
 * See Plate vi. 
 
ARGOLIS. 
 
 197 
 
 of which little or nothing of the masonry is preserved, 
 opening into the interior chamber or vault.* 
 
 There is much reason to believe that these Argive pyra- 
 mids are monuments of the same primitive school of art 
 as the Gate of Lions and Royal Sepulchres of Mycenae. 
 Tradition assigned that mentioned by Pausanias to the 
 heroic age. He describes it as the tomb of those who 
 fell in a battle between Proetus of Tiryns and Acrisius 
 of Argos ; nor is there any reason to doubt, from Gell's 
 description, of the remote antiquity of the one observed 
 by him. 
 
 In crossing the open country to rejoin the lower road 
 to Tripolizza, we pass a square Cyclopian foundation, 
 
 * The drawings of this building, both in Leake's Morea, (vol. ii. 
 p. 339,) and in Cockerell's Jnedited Antiquities, are inaccurate, and 
 convey a very false impression of its masonry. In the former work 
 the order is represented as polygonal, of very mean style, and the 
 stones not half the size of those of the original. In the latter it 
 assumes a regular Hellenic character. In the subjoined sketch of its 
 principal front, (plate vi.,) I have been careful to assign every stone 
 its exact form and proportions— a precaution absolutely necessary to 
 convey any just impression of these various styles of ancient masonry. 
 
198 
 
 ARGOLIS. 
 
 which may be the base of another pyramid, or possibly 
 the remains of the wall alluded to by Pausanias, as en- 
 closing the place at which Pluto descended with Pro- 
 serpine into the infernal regions.^ From hence, after 
 traversing a wild heath, we begin to ascend Mount Ar- 
 temisium, by a line of carriage road skilfully engineered 
 in curves and zigzags along the steep sides of the moun- 
 tain, in the style — to compare small things with great — 
 of a Mont Cenis or a Spliigen. The surface for a good 
 many miles is marked out, levelled, and in many places 
 supported by lofty retaining walls. There is no practi- 
 cable carriage road from Argos to the foot of this ascent ; 
 while, towards the other side of the mountain, that which 
 here exists gradually dwindles into a horse-track or a 
 torrent-bed. For the present, therefore, being inaccessible 
 from either end, with a surface ungarnished by solid 
 material, and in many places offering so spungy and 
 insecure footing to a horse that the old bridle-track still 
 remains the safer, as well as the more expeditious route 
 for the equestrian traveller, the work may be pronounced 
 little better than useless. There are indeed few points 
 between which an improvement in the line of communi- 
 cation would be a more proper enterprize than between 
 Argos, or rather Nauplia, and Tripolizza; the one the 
 chief port on this side of Peloponnesus, the other the 
 Mediterranean metropolis of the whole district. But it 
 were surely much more judicious to have completed the 
 two extremities, before breaking ground in the centre. 
 A good carriage road from Nauplia by Argos to the 
 Mills, through a comparatively flourishing district, were 
 in itself a great advantage, even without any prospect of 
 its further continuance. But an insulated piece of cause- 
 way over the summit of an uninhabited mountain, where 
 no carriage exists or can find access, and which, for want 
 
 * Corinth, xxxvii. 
 
ARGOLIS. 
 
 199 
 
 of either traffic or repair, is rapidly falling into decay, 
 seems a somewhat unprofitable waste of the funds of the 
 infant state.* Pausanias describes the ancient carriage 
 road over this whole rugged district, between Argos and 
 Tegea, as remarkably commodious.j 
 
 On gaining the summit of the pass, the road winds 
 for several miles among the upper ridges of the moun- 
 tain, through an open wild country. At about a third 
 of the distance between Argos and Tripolizza, it crosses 
 some lines of Cyclopian foundation, indicating the site 
 of a small fort or polis, possibly of Cenchreae, mention- 
 ed by Pausanias, where was the tumulus of the Argives 
 slain in the battle of Hysiae, in which they defeated the 
 Lacedaemonians.J In a little dell immediately beyond, 
 are vestiges of a temple, or perhaps of a Christian church 
 composed of ancient materials. Two small columns of 
 CipoUino are standing, but not apparently in their ori- 
 ginal position. Five or six miles beyond these ruins, on 
 a green rocky height to the left, are those of Hysiae, 
 now Achladokampo, offering but a few foundations of 
 Cyclopian walls. To the right is a stunted grove of 
 ilex, overshadowing a modern cemetery. 
 
 A little further on, in a deep dell, is the khan where 
 we stop to refresh. Distant about a mile up the steep 
 side of the mountain which overhangs it, is a village em- 
 bedded in evergreens, olives, ilex, and cypress — a beauti- 
 ful spot, the first I had seen in Greece possessing any 
 claim to admiration on the score of similar charms. The 
 houses scattered over the declivity, with their gables 
 facing the valley, have an elegant effect ; and judging 
 
 * The chief object of this undertaking was probably to secure the 
 military command of the country ; and perhaps the line of route, even 
 in its present state, may be calculated to facilitate the passage of 
 troops, or the transport of artillery, over these rugged steeps. 
 
 f Arcad. liv. + Corinth, xxv. 
 
200 
 
 ARCADIA. 
 
 from this distance, the place would seem to have escaped, 
 doubtless from its sequestered situation, the ravages of 
 the war. The nakedness of the towns and villages of 
 Greece is, upon the whole, the most serious blot on the 
 surface of her otherwise beautiful landscape. There is 
 a sad falling off in this respect since the Turkish times, 
 as may be seen by a comparison of the drawings or de- 
 scriptions of Thebes, Argos, Athens, Corinth, in the 
 works of the last generation of travellers, with the ap- 
 pearance they now present. Many of these places, now 
 so bare and dreary, seem then to have combined on a 
 more extensive scale the graces I admired in this little 
 mountain hamlet. The war, no doubt, is the original 
 cause of the change ; yet the fault must now be in a 
 great measure attributed to want of industry or taste for 
 ornamental gardening on the part of the present lords 
 of the soil, as compared with the old Turkish aristo- 
 cracy ; for although ten years of freedom and compara- 
 tive tranquilUty have elapsed, scarcely a symptom can 
 be discovered of any effort to relieve the general naked- 
 ness of their dwelling-places by plantation of any kind^ 
 whether for shelter or ornament. 
 
 On quitting the khan, we descend, cross a green val- 
 ley, and again mount a lofty precipitous ridge on the 
 other side. This height is the ancient Parthenium, 
 where Pan, to whom it was consecrated, announced to 
 the Athenian courier Philippides the successful result 
 of the battle of Marathon.* It still bears the name of 
 Partheni, (the virgin,) derived, as the modern Greeks 
 believe, from a church dedicated to Saint Mary, which, 
 however, no longer exists to confirm their etymology. 
 To the left, along the brow of a lofty precipice, above 
 which several eagles were soaring majestically, are ex- 
 tensive lines of ruined wall, apparently of lower Greek 
 
 * Pausan. Att. xxviii. j Arcad. liv. 
 
ARCADIA. 
 
 201 
 
 or Turkish masonry. Near the summit of the pass are 
 the remains of a paved causeway, and of a Turkish 
 fountain by its side. Soon after we descend, when the 
 road turns to the right, and the plain of Tripolizza or 
 I Tegea opens on the view, presenting a wide extent of 
 naked arable land, the richer portion of which seemed 
 in a tolerable state of cultivation. We now enter upon 
 another stretch of several miles of well-made road, reach- 
 ing from the base of the hills to the city, but as yet ap- 
 parently unfurrowed by wheel of any kind. Owing to 
 the great elevation of this plain above the level of the 
 sea, the mountains by which it is surrounded, though 
 not less lofty in reality, are less so to the eye than those 
 which bound the champaign country of Attica, Boeotia, 
 or Argolis; hence, upon the whole, the first view of 
 Arcadia is but little in unison with our classical associa- 
 tions, where this retired pastoral district occupies the 
 same place in relation to Greece, as Switzerland to the 
 rest of Europe. 
 
 The evening was gloomy, and the dreary aspect of 
 the landscape was but little relieved by the appearance 
 of the dismal-looking town in the distance. As usual, 
 I had ridden in advance of our party, and a cold wind 
 springing up induced me to force out of my animal the 
 fastest jog-trot of which a Greek hack is capable, so that 
 I soon lost sight of them altogether. On approaching 
 Tripolizza, however, I slackened my pace, to enable 
 them to overtake me. But seeing no appearance of 
 them as far back as the eye could stretch over the plain, 
 I proceeded alone into the town in quest of my host Mo- 
 randi's quarters. The street of entrance has a very 
 respectable appearance, being broad, straight, and level, 
 and well garnished on each side with houses, for the 
 most part of two stories ; but not a living creature was 
 to be seen on its surface. Observing, however, at a 
 
202 
 
 ARCADIA. 
 
 balcony an ofBcer in the Graeco-Bavarian uniform, whom, 
 from his complexion and appearance, I presumed to be 
 a native of Germany, I saluted him in the language of 
 his country, with a request to be directed to the quar- 
 ters of Lieutenant Morandi. He iriimediately came 
 down and accompanied me to the lodging of that gen- 
 tleman, who, however, was from home, supposed to be 
 out visiting, and not likely to return till late. But my 
 German friend, to whose cordial hospitality, apart from 
 the ordinary claims of a traveller under such circum- 
 stances, my knowledge of his country and language was 
 an immediate passport, insisted on my taking up my 
 quarters with him, to which I readily consented. As 
 his house faced the street, we set a watch to observe the 
 entry of Nicola and his detachment, which did not take 
 place until a full hour after my own. The baggage horse, 
 it appeared, had fallen amiss on the road soon after I 
 quitted them, which had been the cause of the delay. 
 
 My host, I found, was staff-surgeon to the garrison, an 
 honest open-hearted Suabian. His dwelling and fare were 
 homely enough ; but he gave me the best of what he had, 
 and freedom from filth and vermin were now luxuries 
 far surpassing all the delights of a first-rate Paris or 
 London hotel. We soon became better acquainted, part- 
 ly through the medium of a bottle of rum, which I gen- 
 erally carried with me to mix with water as my beve- 
 rage at meals. This is the only species of foreign, or 
 consequently of drinkable aquavitse, to be found in this 
 country, but the bazar of every town supplies it abun- 
 dantly. The Greek wine, although in its genuine state 
 it appears to be generally of fine quality, is strongly 
 impregnated with rosin or turpentine, which, added to 
 the taste of the skin, renders it unpalatable to the un- 
 initiated. I found some difficulty in ascertaining the 
 object of this practice, nor indeed would it be easy to 
 
ARCADIA. 
 
 203 
 
 trace it back to its origin, being of very remote anti- 
 quity, and familiarly alluded to by the ancients.* The 
 mixture is said to favour the preservation of the liquor, 
 and may at the first have been resorted to with this ob- 
 ject; but what was originally a matter of utility is now 
 become one of taste, and the wine is not palatable to the 
 natives in its unalloyed state. I never could relish it at 
 meals, but found a draught of it pleasant enough on the 
 march when hot and thirsty ; and it has something tart 
 and pungent which renders it perhaps at the m^oment the 
 more refreshing. The after-taste, however, was always 
 offensive, although it became less so upon each succes- 
 sive experiment. Hence I can readily understand how 
 foreigners, as I observed to be the case, acquire a taste 
 for it after long residence in the country ; and the Bava- 
 rians like it, because, as they say, it puts them in mind 
 of their own Suabian beer. To return, however, to the 
 bottle of rum ; a neighbouring shop supphed lemons, my 
 host's estabhshment sugar and a jug of hot water, so we 
 made ourselves punch, and had a very agreeable sympo- 
 sium. As the night was cold, a large pan of live char- 
 coal was produced and set down in the centre of the floor^ 
 
 * The authority of most ancient date, is an epigram — if genuine — 
 of Rhianus, {Anthol Append. No. 72, Vol. iii. Edit. Lips, stereot.) 
 who describes wine and rosin as mixed in equal quantities in his 
 flagon : 
 
 'A^X/v ar^sKsoog 7}ds Xdyvvog ^X^i' 
 
 Pliny (xiv. 19; xxiii. 1) says it was both to preserve the wine and 
 impart to it medicinal properties. Plutarch (Symp, v. 3, 1) supposes 
 the custom to be of such ancient date, as to have suggested that of 
 adorning the Bacchic thyrsus with pine-tops, in honour of the tree from 
 which the ingredient was produced. He also describes it as both 
 preserving the wine, and rendering it more wholesome. 
 
204 
 
 ARCADIA. 
 
 apparently with the intention of being left during the 
 night, much to my alarm. But the Doctor placed one 
 or two pieces of iron, garnished with lemon peel, over the 
 flame, a sufficient guarantee, as he assured me, against 
 all danger from the effluvia. This was the first time I 
 had ever seen or heard of such an expedient, which 
 proved, however, perfectly efficacious. 
 
 My host was an inteUigent observer of men and things, 
 and his opinions and anecdotes relative to the state of 
 the country, dehvered with the straight-forward simpli- 
 city of his nation, and tempered with a proper amount 
 of honest prejudice against every thing Greek that was 
 not German, were both instructive and entertaining. His 
 anatomical museum was a somewhat curious one, con- 
 sisting chiefly of bones picked up in dificrent parts of 
 the country, exhibiting specimens of the art of Greek 
 or Turkish warriors in inflicting sabre wounds, or of the 
 effect of their weapons, or of gunshot, on the different 
 parts of their respective persons, their pericrania more 
 especially. One sample on which he deservedly set a 
 high value, was a skull, recording with much preci- 
 sion the circumstances which led to its separation from 
 the shoulders it formerly adorned. Right down the centre 
 of the back of the head — or, to speak more scientifically, 
 the occiput — was a cut or hack, of about an inch and a 
 half long, clean through the bone; and a httle to one side, 
 a sUce about as large as half-a-crown, cut smoothly off* its 
 outer surface. It was evident, as the Doctor remarked, 
 that the fallen hero was killed in his flight. His enemy 
 coming up with him, had probably given him a chop from 
 behind, and, to make sure of his victim, had thrown in 
 the side blow as he was falling. The cleanness of the 
 cut in both instances bore testimony to the good temper 
 of the blade, as well as to the hardness of the skull. 
 
ARCADIA. 
 
 205 
 
 Before composing ourselves to sleep, we arranged a 
 party to Mantinea for the next morning, I was to mount 
 him on one of my beasts, and as he knew the ground, he 
 was competent to act as both guide and cicerone, with- 
 out other attendants. 
 
206 
 
 ARCADIA. 
 
 J 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 MANTINE A— ITALIAN REVOLUTIONS AND REFUGEES —FOREIGNERS IN 
 GREEK PAY— POLITICAL STATE AND PROSPECTS OF GREECE- 
 KHAN OF KRYOVRYSI. 
 
 The morning (Tuesday, April 3) was brilliantly clear, 
 but sharp, and the plain thickly covered with hoar frost. 
 This was the utmost extent to which I experienced the 
 inclemency of an Arcadian winter, being more fortunate 
 in this respect than many of my predecessors, in whose 
 journals I find a snow storm in the TripoHtan plain, 
 even after the spring is well advanced, forms a familiar 
 episode. But the evidence supplied of the comparatively 
 ungenial climate for which this lofty region is proverbial 
 in Greece, was perhaps no less strong in the present 
 case, if we consider that the winter of this year, although 
 one of the coldest ever remembered in the north of Eu- 
 rope, was as remarkable for mildness in its southern 
 latitudes. 
 
 My companion was dressed in full uniform, and as we 
 rode out of the town, we were hooted by the children as 
 " Bavari." The compliment, however, was to his nation 
 rather than his person, for he described himself as having 
 acquired favour among the town's people by some suc- 
 cessful cures, and general attention to their medical 
 wants, although seldom called in until the case appeared 
 to those interested in the patient to be growing despe- 
 rate in the hands of the native empirics. 
 
 The vale of Mantinea is a retired nook of the great 
 
ARCADIA. 
 
 207 
 
 Tegean plain, and as its table-land is both narrow, and 
 deeply embedded in the loftiest portion of the surround- 
 ing highlands, has a much more poetically Arcadian as- 
 pect than the remainder of the district. The soil, though 
 apparently richer, is less well cultivated than that around 
 Tripolizza. Its surface is chiefly greensward, over- 
 grown in many places with low brushwood, here and there 
 advancing claim to the character of a grove of trees ; and 
 the road for a short distance lay between two hedgerows, 
 the first I remember to have seen in this country. These 
 features, together with its snug sequestered situation, 
 impart to it an air of warmth and amenity, which, added 
 to the graceful lines of its mountain boundary, still en- 
 titles it, even in its present state of desolation, to Homer's 
 epithet of " pleasant Mantinea." The only symptoms 
 of population or industry on its surface, were a few huts 
 upon or near the site of the city, and one or two pea- 
 sants tilling the ground below its walls. 
 
 The ruins cover a flat marshy piece of ground near the 
 extremity of the plain, backed by a lofty green knoll of 
 pyramidal form. The traveller, on approaching them, 
 may feel certain that his path lies across the field on which 
 Epaminondas fell, and which was also the scene of other 
 four of the most important battles in the annals of Greek 
 international warfare ;* but there is nothing to identify 
 the exact position of the armies in either case. From 
 
 * The first was in 418 B.C., when the Spartans and Arcadians 
 under Agis beat the Athenians, Argives, and Mantineans. The second, 
 twenty years afterwards, was the battle of Mantinea by pre-eminence, 
 where Epaminondas was slain. The third was that in which Deme- 
 trius Polyorcetes defeated Archi damns and the Spartans, in 296 B.C. 
 The fourth was fought in 242 B.C., between the Achaean league and 
 the Spartans, in which the latter were beaten and their king Agis 
 slain. In the fifth, 206 B.C , Philopoemen, the Achaean general, 
 defeated the Spartans under Machanidas. — See Leake, Morea, iii. p. 
 67, seq. 
 
208 
 
 ARCADIA. 
 
 Pausanias * it would appear, that the brunt of the action, 
 in the most celebrated of these engagements, was at the 
 distance of about thirty stadia, 3^ miles, from the city, on 
 the road towards Tegea, (or Tripolizza,) consequently but 
 a little within the pass which separates the Mantinean 
 from the Tegean plain. Leake conjectures, with appa- 
 rent reason, that the place called Scope, from whence 
 Epaminondas after his wound continued to view the battle 
 until he expired, was a ridge of rocky ground projecting 
 into the plain from the height which forms the western 
 boundary of the pass. 
 
 Man tinea is one of those ruined cities that interest 
 the traveller, by the distinctness with which the existing 
 remains, although presenting not a single edifice in a 
 tolerable state of preservation, except the cavea of a small 
 stone theatre, and scarcely a vestige of elegant art, real- 
 ize its ancient state of integrity to the imagination. The 
 wall is more or less entire in its whole circuit to the 
 height of a few feet from the foundations. The interior 
 area of the city is intersected in every direction with 
 foundations, or strewed with shapeless fragments of 
 masonry, of a ruder description than might have been 
 expected in a place of so great eminence during the flour- 
 ishing ages of Greek art. The wet ditch by which the 
 ramparts were surrounded, is also distinctly represented 
 by a marshy hollow running beneath^the whole extent of 
 their outer circumference. The existing fortifications 
 are, like those of Messene and Megalopolis, a work of the 
 engineers of Epaminondas, rebuilt, it would seem, on the 
 foundations of those destroyed fifteen years before by the 
 Spartans ; and may be considered as the most finished 
 specimen of the art of defence as it existed during the 
 flourishing period of Greek military tactics. The gates 
 
 * Arcad, xi. 
 
ARCADIA. 
 
 209 
 
 more especially, of one of which a plan has been given by 
 Leake,* are of very complicated structure. 
 
 No advantage seems to have been taken, in planning 
 the city, of the steep height which rises in the immedi- 
 ate neighbourhood, and which in any more ancient forti- 
 fication upon this ground would doubtless have formed 
 the acropolis. The site consequently, apart from the 
 circumstance of its being completely commanded by this 
 eminence, rather resembles that which the laws of modern 
 than of ancient warfare prescribe for a fortified town. 
 Accordingly, we learn from Pausanias, f that the more 
 ancient city of Mantinea occupied a very different posi- 
 tion. He describes its remains as still visible in his time, 
 on a height in the northern extremity of the plain, which 
 Leake has identified with a spot still called Polis, or the 
 City4 At what period the Mantineans abandoned their 
 more ancient metropolis does not appear. 
 
 We reached Tripolizza, on our return, about noon, 
 and soon after I received a visit from Signer Morandi, 
 with offers of service, and many expressions of regret that 
 his absence the evening before should have deprived him 
 of the opportunity of doing honour to a friend of General 
 Gordon. To my enquiry as to the state of the roads, 
 he answered, that two days before he himself had nar- 
 rowly escaped falling into the hands of a troop of bri- 
 gands. This adventure occurred on the road to Karitena, 
 
 ^ Morea,^.10Z,seq, t Arcad.idi. 
 
 % Morea, vol. iii. p. 96. Xenophon, however, describes the Man- 
 tineans in ancient times, before the foundation of their city on its 
 present site, (the old brick walls of which were destroyed by Agesi- 
 polis of Sparta,) as having inhabited >e i^i7%65, into which they were 
 again obhged by their Spartan conquerors to disperse, until restored 
 to liberty and to their metropolis by Epaminondas. Histor, Hellen, 
 V c 2- conf. DiOD. Sic. Bib. Hist, xv. c. 4, 6. Possibly Polis may 
 have been a castle or citadel^as in the case of Mycense above lUus- 
 trated ; a central fortress of the five villages or suburbs. 
 VOL. II. ^ 
 
210 ARCADIA. 
 
 whither he was bound on military duty, the enforcement, 
 namely, of the new and unpopular law of conscription, 
 with a small party of mounted escort Just as they were 
 entering a defile, his suspicions were excited by the mo- 
 tions of his dog in front of him, and, a moment after, one 
 of his men remarked, that he thought he perceived the 
 figure of a man among the bushes. They instantly drew 
 up, when from fifteen to twenty armed men started from 
 their ambush, and fired several shots at them, but with- 
 out effect. The numerical superiority, however, was so 
 great, that there was no alternative for the chief of the 
 gendarmerie at the head of his men, than, after return- 
 ing the salute, to scamper off as they best could, pur- 
 sued by the enemy so long as the ground continued as 
 favourable to infantry as to cavalry movements. This 
 was not encouraging as regards our own prospects. He 
 assured me, however, that the attempt was rather of a 
 political than a predatory nature, and directed against 
 himself personally in his official capacity ; but that on 
 our route towards Sparta, a couple of mounted dragoons, 
 with which he promised to provide us, would be sufficient 
 security against any danger we were likely to meet with. 
 
 The Commandant was a tall dark mihtary-looking 
 man, full of Itahan vivacity, and speaking his native 
 tongue with a strong Lombard accent. He was engaged, 
 as he informed me, in a free translation of General Gor- 
 don's History of the Revolution, with an apphcation of 
 the case of Greece to the circumstances of his own coun- 
 try ; tending to show how a nation, if united and deter- 
 mined, may, under numerous disadvantages, fight out 
 their freedom against an overwhelming superiority of 
 foreign oppressors. There is, however, it must be allowed, 
 but very little analogy between the two cases. When 
 the whole population of the luxurious cities and highly 
 cultivated plains of happy Italy, shall be content to make 
 
ARCADIA. 
 
 211 
 
 their abode for years in the forests and caves of the Apen- 
 nines, and to be hunted like wild beasts from fastness to 
 fastness, descending perhaps occasionally to till their val- 
 leys with the sword in one hand and the spade in the other, 
 and with more than an equal chance of seeing the pro- 
 duce of their labours swept off when ripe by the forage 
 of the enemy ; when the sway of Austria shall be changed 
 from a mild monarchy into a tyrannical despotism, and 
 the tactics of her soldiers shall be reduced to the same 
 level as those of the Turks ; then indeed it may come to 
 pass, that after resisting single-handed during six or seven 
 years the concentrated energies of that empire, Italy 
 may, by a general interference on the part of the other 
 great powers, be established as an independent member 
 of the European confederacy. These, however, are scenes 
 which none but the most sanguine, or perhaps it may be 
 better said sanguinary, spirit of ultra-liberalism can either 
 hope or wish ever to see enacted on her stage. The po- 
 litical regeneration of the Italians must be effected, if 
 such a result be possible, in a different manner, and under 
 different auspices, from that of the Greeks. The very 
 advantages which the former race enjoy over the rude 
 mountaineers or piratical mariners of Hellas, are, in fact, 
 the chief obstacle to the attainment of the object they 
 profess to have so deeply at heart. They have wealth, 
 commerce, numbers, talents, and personal courage ; they 
 have even large native armies, well equipped and disci- 
 plined. They are, in fact, a flourishing, civihzed nation, 
 and, as long as they are so, no such sacrifices will be made 
 as would be required to work out such a revolution as 
 the Greeks have achieved. Whatever may be the case 
 with a few hot-headed patriots, the majority of a nation 
 so situated, will hardly be willing to abandon their com- 
 forts, properties, or lives, for the sake of a change of go- 
 
212 
 
 ARCADIA. 
 
 vernment, which would, even if practicable, in the first 
 instance infallibly be attended with a very unfavourable 
 change in their personal affairs. They will, in the midst 
 of so many blessings, still be content rather " to bear the 
 ills they have, than fly to others that they know not of." 
 
 No one, indeed, seemed to be more sensible of the 
 truth of all this, when candidly placed before him, than 
 Signer Morandi himself, or more deeply to regret those 
 reckless attempts to excite revolt, in one of which his 
 youthful zeal had led him to engage, and which had been 
 the cause of his banishment from his own delightful 
 home to a region oficring so little to compensate for its 
 loss. The result of such projects, his judgment as well 
 as his experience had now convinced him, could only be 
 to ruin those concerned, and to reflect discredit on the 
 cause. He even agreed with me in an opinion which, 
 paradoxical as it may at first sight appear, is, I believe, 
 common to the more sagacious class of Italian politi- 
 cians, that the best means of ultimately promoting the 
 cause of national independence would be to encourage, not 
 to impede, the extension of the Austrian supremacy over 
 the whole of his native country. For unity, by whatever 
 means attained, is what is here chiefly required. The 
 people would thus be insured for the present of a mild and 
 paternal government, instead of being exposed, as now, 
 to the caprices of numerous petty sovereigns, temporal 
 or ecclesiastical. Time and opportunity would be afforded 
 for centralizing the national resources, and consolidating 
 the now conflicting interests of the separate provinces; 
 so that, on the first favourable opportunity of a general 
 war, or some great revolutionary explosion in the rest of 
 Europe, the Italian nation, by one combined effbrt, not 
 by desultory and convulsive struggles as hitherto, might 
 have some hopes of success in an attempt to estabhsh her 
 
ARCADIA, 
 
 213 
 
 right to govern herself, and some reasonable prospect of 
 maintaining her position as an independent European 
 power. 
 
 It may be said of the Italian patriots of the present 
 day, as of the Hebrew prophets of old, that their credit 
 is least in their own country. Signer Morandi, in his 
 new residence and office, seemed to enjoy universal re- 
 spect and esteem, as a good citizen and a man of honour, 
 as well as an officer of talent and activity. On a journey 
 across the Apennines in the ensuing autumn, it was my 
 misfortune to pass the night at a wretched little inn on 
 the frontiers of Tuscany and Modena, attached to which 
 was a military post of the latter state. I entered into 
 conversation with the sergeant in command, in the course 
 of which it occurred to me to ask, whether he had ever 
 known a person of the name of Morandi. I could not 
 have applied in a better quarter, as my gossip, an old 
 soldier, a stanch loyalist as befitted his station, and 
 strenuous in his abhorrence of the late attempts to dis- 
 turb the mild dynasty of Francis the Fourth, had him- 
 self been actively engaged in their suppression. No 
 sooner had the name reached his ear, than he broke out 
 into such virulent invectives against its owner, that I 
 almost felt afraid to confess that I had known him in 
 the capacity of commandant of gendarmerie under King 
 Otho. He denounced him as himself a brigand, traitor, 
 and assassin, and informed me that a reward of 500 
 crowns had been set on his head, which he himself had 
 been narrowly disappointed of securing. 
 
 In the afternoon, every thing being in readiness for 
 our departure, I proceeded, accompanied by the Com- 
 mandant, the Doctor, and three or four other German 
 officers who had honoured me with a visit at my quarters, 
 to view the town, directing my equipage to await me at 
 the issue of the road towards Sparta. It must be ad- 
 
214 
 
 ARCADIA, 
 
 mitted that the Greeks have some reason to complain of 
 the number of foreigners who feed on the scanty supply 
 of loaves and fishes provided from the stores of their 
 annual budget. With two exceptions, the Governor 
 of Mesolonghi and the Commandant of Gendarmerie at 
 Sparta, I scarcely remember to have come in contact 
 with a single public functionary of note, in the course of 
 my journey, that was a native of the soil. At Mesolonghi, 
 the commandant, the chief engineer, and the military 
 surgeon, Germans ; at Argos, the military head-quarter 
 of the Morea, the general commanding in chief a Scotch- 
 man, his aide-de-camp German, and the only other 
 officers I met at his table, Frenchmen ; at Tripolizza, 
 the chief of the gendarmerie an Italian, the staff-surgeon, 
 and all the other officers of the garrison whom I saw 
 there, Bavarians ; at Patras, the town commandant a 
 Swiss. It is probable that this preference may in many 
 cases insure a more efficient discharge of the duties 
 attached to the respective offices ; for some of which the 
 native population could hardly be expected to furnish 
 any considerable number of persons even moderately 
 qualified ; and where the favoured parties are old Phil- 
 hellenes, who had stood by the cause through evil as well 
 as good report, there is less disposition to grumble. Our 
 own distinguished countrymen, Church and Gordon,* in 
 spite of the high stations they have occupied, are still 
 two of the most popular men in Greece. The undue 
 preferment of Bavarian adventurers is what the natives 
 object to ; and although the evil in their complaints is of 
 course exaggerated, yet it is no doubt crying enough. 
 The ultra-malecontents even go the length of denouncing 
 
 ^ Since writing the above, I have to lament the death of my dis- 
 tinguished friend, which took place in the spring of this year, (1841,) 
 at his own place in Aberdeenshire. He had retired from the Greek 
 service the year after my visit, and returned to his native country. 
 
ARCADIA. 
 
 215 
 
 the German dynasty as but the old Turkish oppression 
 in a diiferent form, and the more cruel and mortifying, 
 as being exercised under the specious disguise of that 
 national independence which they have endured so many 
 years of war and hardship to establish ; while the court 
 is considered as but a rallying point for hungry cormo- 
 rants from every part of Germany, to come down and 
 fatten on the carcass of their extenuated body politic. 
 The vast idea they have so naturally conceived of their 
 own martial prowess, renders this partiality the more 
 galling perhaps in the military appointments, where it is 
 chiefly displayed ; and several stories were current, ap- 
 parently on good authority, of instances in which heroes 
 of many fights had been laid on the shelf, to make way 
 for some inexperienced martinet from the military schools 
 of Munich. I have even heard it gravely maintained, 
 that a large proportion of the aliens preferred to com- 
 missions are Jews, (a nation for whom the Greeks have 
 a still greater horror than for the Turks,) and that the 
 Hellenic army is used as a drain to clear the native coun- 
 try of King Otho of this odious race. False and absurd 
 as many of these stories may be, they are yet in them- 
 selves strong evidence of the mischief of the system that 
 has given rise to them, and which, exaggeration apart, 
 there can be little doubt has been acted upon to a most 
 iniquitous and impolitic extent. 
 
 The system itself, however, is doubtless, in some de- 
 gree, a necessary consequence of the anomalous circum- 
 stances under which the regenerate state has been estab- 
 lished. In ordinary cases, where a province of some 
 great empire asserts its separate independence, the act is 
 that of the inhabitants in the mass. None but the deter- 
 mined personal or political adherents of the dominant 
 power are ejected. The native population remains en- 
 tire, both in its numbers and national spirit, and presents 
 
216 
 
 ARCADIA. 
 
 all the elements requisite for the formation of a new body 
 politic, with the usual distinction of classes, each abound- 
 ing in persons trained within their proper sphere to the 
 ordinary functions of police and civil administration. In 
 Greece, on the other hand, there was a dominant race 
 and a subject race, broadly distinguished from each other. 
 The lords of the soil are ejected, and with them the great 
 mass of the aristocracy or upper class. The vassals pass 
 at once from bondage to independence, and to the duty 
 and necessity of self-government, for which they are both 
 unprepared and unfit. 
 
 Here, therefore, many of the primary ingredients of a 
 nation were altogether wanting from the first, and can 
 be but slowly and imperfectly supplied from indigenous 
 sources. It must also be borne in mind, with reference 
 to the existing state of affairs, that even the few native 
 Greeks who had any experience of the arts of govern- 
 ment, had been trained to a system altogether foreign to 
 that of Western Europe, which they were now called upon 
 to adopt. Politically speaking, the Greeks were Asia- 
 tics, and all their oriental idea§, whether social or politi- 
 cal, required to be corrected or eradicated, before they 
 could be expected to form a civilized people, upon civi- 
 lized European principles. 
 
 Under these circumstances, there can be little doubt 
 that it would have been far better for Greece, on shaking 
 off the Turkish yoke, to have been contented, for a sea- 
 son at least, with something short of complete inde- 
 pendence, and rather to have passed under the tutelage 
 of some great European power, as the Ionian islands are 
 now held by England, in order to be trained to the arts 
 and usages of civilized government, and still more per- 
 haps to those of regular military discipline, as an inter- 
 mediate stage to the full enjoyment of that dangerous 
 privilege, on which they naturally set so high a value. 
 
ARCADIA. 
 
 ' The attempt in the first instance to establish a purely 
 Greek constitution, produced a state of confusion as 
 fatal to the national prosperity as the iron rod of the 
 Turk. The next expedient, that of selecting a sovereign 
 from a royal house distinguished for its Philhellenic prin- 
 ciples, has been attended, it may be said as a matter of 
 necessity, with the unpopular results which suggested 
 these observations. The European dynasty finds it im- 
 practicable to carry on the European system of govern- 
 ment by native machinery alone. The employment to 
 a certain extent of foreign men, to carry into effect foreign 
 measures, became necessary. The practice, once intro- 
 duced, could not fail to be carried to an abusive excess ; 
 while its prevalence is still more galling to the citizens 
 of a nominally free and independent state, than it would 
 have been in one partially subjected, for its own benefit, 
 to a more powerful and highly civilized protector. 
 
 Political prophecies are always hazardous; but cer- 
 tainly existing appearances are not favourable either to 
 the prosperity or the permanence of the Bavarian dy- 
 nasty. 
 
 Tripolizza is a place of modern origin; but its site 
 has been supposed to correspond with that of Palantium, 
 the native city of Evander, the fabulous colonist of the 
 Palatine hill, and civilizer of Latium. It was the Turk- 
 ish capital of the Morea, and its siege and capture in 
 the year 1821, was one of the first signal successes of the 
 insurgents. To describe its present appearance would 
 be little else than a repetition of what has been said of 
 Thebes, Livadia, Argos, and other Greek towns of the 
 same rank. The only relic of the Turkish period is an 
 arched gateway, through which Ibrahim Pasha entered 
 when he recaptured the place in 1825. It was spared 
 in commemoration of this event, when every thing else 
 was laid in ruins by the Egyptians, on the subsequent 
 
 VOL. II. T 
 
218 
 
 ARCADIA. 
 
 evacuation of their conquest ; and now seems to be che- 
 rished by the Greeks, in their turn, as a memorial of their 
 triumph. 
 
 We were to proceed that evening but half the dis- 
 tance to Sparta, leaving, however, so short a journey for 
 the following day, as to admit of my devoting the whole 
 afternoon to its remains. After a two hours' ride, we 
 leave the site of Tegea distant a mile or two to the left. 
 It offers no ruins of suflScient interest to demand a visit. 
 On the right is a lake, which, though small, is really en- 
 titled to the name ; as presenting a clear Uquid expanse 
 to the eye, not a reedy marsh, with here and there a pool 
 or stagnant river, like the famous Copais. Soon after 
 we begin to ascend the course of a stream, called Sa- 
 randa Potamo or " Forty Rivers," which, losing itself in 
 a chasm beneath a neighbouring mountain, is said to 
 reappear as the Alpheus, at a place called Frankovrysi, 
 the ancient Asea, after a subterranean course of eight or 
 ten miles. About sunset we reach the khan of Kry- 
 ovrysi or Cold- Spring. This place takes its name 
 from a source in the neighbourhood, said to be the foun- 
 tain-head of the river just mentioned, and by consequence 
 of the Alpheus. Its situation is wild and picturesque ; 
 the khan itself as miserable as any I had yet seen, but 
 possessing two signal advantages; first, that from the 
 Alpine nature of the chmate it was quite free of vermin ; 
 secondly, that the accommodation for man and beast was 
 separate. The scene round the fire was, on a smaller 
 scale, something similar to that described at SanVlasio; 
 but the party was less jovial. The respect of my miU- 
 tary escort for myself, and of the remainder of the guests 
 for both them and me, seemed to throw a ceremonious 
 gloom over the circle. 
 
 About nightfall we were joined by two Herculean 
 figures in the accoutrement of herdsmen, but whose cos- 
 
ARCADIA. 
 
 219 
 
 tume and general appearance struck me as different 
 from that of the native peasantry of the same class, 
 while their address was remarkable for a clownish blunt- 
 ness and simplicity, unlike the brisk vivacity which 
 usually characterizes the demeanour of the Greek popu- 
 lation. One of them entered into conversation with 
 Nicola, who seemed to have found some instantaneous 
 means of ingratiating himself ; for after exchanging a few 
 words, each of the strangers shook him heartily by the 
 hand, and kissed his cheek, a ceremony which was re- 
 peated at parting. On enquiry, I found they belonged 
 to the same race of Wallachian nomads who had been 
 my first acquaintance on the soil of Greece. They had 
 been pasturing their flocks during winter on the Pelo- 
 ponnesian plains, and the source of the sudden friendship 
 between them and my Albanian was his intimacy with 
 their brethren of the north, and his account of our late 
 interview with the colony of Petala. Though not so 
 tall as some of their Patagonian cousins of the Acheloiis, 
 they were both most ponderous athletic personages. I 
 could not help greeting them by gestures (for we could 
 make little speed by words) as old acquaintance, and 
 they returned the salute in a manner that showed they 
 perfectly understood the motive from which it was offer- 
 ed. After warming themselves at the fire for half an 
 hour, they rose and continued their route across the 
 mountains in the dark. There were, I was told, several 
 moveable colonies of them in the Morea, and in the 
 sequel of our own travels we fell in with one, journey- 
 ing, like the patriarchs of old, with their flocks and herds, 
 wives, children, and whole domestic apparatus. 
 
220 
 
 LACED^MON. 
 
 CHAPTER XLL 
 
 FIRST VIEW OF THE SPARTAN PLAIN- MAINOTES— SPARTA. 
 
 Find. 01. vi. 46. 
 
 " This day Eurotas' ford I cross betimes." 
 
 The morning (Wednesday, April 4th) was again 
 bright and clear, with sharp frost. Pursuing the ascent 
 for some miles, we reach the summit of the ridge, a 
 stony heath, interspersed with straggling groups of stunt- 
 ed pine and oak, through which there suddenly opened 
 up a view of the whole higher region of Mount Tay- 
 getus, a stupendous range of snowy peaks glittering in 
 the morning sun. Here began the descent towards the 
 vale of the Eurotas, by tracks often so precipitous as to 
 render it necessary to dismount and lead our horses. 
 In the woods I heard, for the first time, the note of the 
 cuckoo. One of the dragoons also called the attention 
 of his comrade to the sound, and on enquiry I found 
 that it was equally new to the rest of the party. The next 
 day, in the Spartan plain, I also first heard the song of 
 the nightingale. I have heard numbers singing in chorus, 
 even in the colder regions of Italy, ten days earlier ; yet 
 this was a genial spring in Greece. After four or five 
 hours' ride, we halt to refresh at the khan of Vourla. 
 
 From this point we obtain the first view of the plain 
 of Sparta, and no words can describe the dazzling bril- 
 liancy of the prospect. It combines all the beauties of 
 
LACEDJEMON. 
 
 221 
 
 Greek, Swiss, and Italian scenery. Lacedaemon is one 
 of those cities which Homer so appropriately charac- 
 terizes by the elegant epithet formerly illustrated,* de- 
 noting the wide expanse of joyous plain, in the midst 
 of which it is situated ; and which, if not equal in extent 
 or actual fertility of soil, is certainly vastly superior in 
 beauty and luxuriant vegetation to any I had yet tra- 
 versed, being covered in part, and studded in every di- 
 rection, with a rich variety of forest and fruit trees. 
 The foreground of the landscape is a succession of 
 woody declivities, extending nearly to the brink of the 
 Eurotas, which is seen winding its silver course through 
 the vale into the extreme distance. The western boun- 
 dary of the valley in its whole length is the ridge of 
 Taygetus, which, whether from its real height,f from the 
 grandeur of its outline, or the abruptness of its rise from 
 the plain, created in my mind a stronger impression of 
 stupendous bulk and loftiness than any mountain I have 
 seen in Greece, or perhaps in any other part of Europe. 
 Homer seems to have viewed it with the same eyes — as 
 to it alone, among his native mountains, he applies a 
 distinctive epithet,:]: signifying a superiority of altitude 
 to all its fellows. It is indeed to Greece what the Bern 
 Alps are to Switzerland ; and the first view of its line of 
 snowy peaks, brought home forcibly to my mind that 
 from the terrace of Bern cathedral, certainly the grand- 
 est Alpine prospect in Western Europe. 
 
 The base of the ridge, immediately above Sparta, con- 
 sists of a row of huge projecting masses of precipitous 
 rock, rising almost perpendicular from a gentle declivity, 
 which by a graceful sweep connects them with the level 
 
 * ev^v^o^og. Odyss. xiii. 414 ; xv. 1. See ch. xvi. supra, 
 t 7000 to 8000 feet ? 
 
 X 'irs^ifjbyjxsrov. Odyss. vi. 103. The highest summit is now called 
 Makryno, a term of somewhat similar import. 
 
222 
 
 LACED^MON. 
 
 plain. These stupendous heights, each in its individual 
 capacity equal or superior to a Lycabettus, or even an 
 Acrocorinthus, and each with its separate summit, crov^^n- 
 ed perhaps by a ruined tower or sanctuary, look like a 
 succession of bulwarks thrown forward to protect the 
 vale from the snow that covers the upper region of the 
 mountain ; or rather perhaps like a Cyclopian substruc- 
 tion to a gigantic edifice of white marble. Over the in- 
 termediate ridges are scattered forests of dark green pine, 
 sometimes in dense masses, sometimes in broken strag- 
 gling groups — in Homer's time the favourite haunts of 
 Diana.* The snow, which appeared to extend over about 
 a fourth of the whole altitude of the mountain, from its 
 brilliancy, the distinctness of its boundary line, and the 
 apparent density of its mass, produced an effect more re-^ 
 sembling that of an Alpine glacier than any I had yet 
 witnessed in the Greek highlands, and conveyed the im- 
 pression of its being here also a permanent ornament of 
 the whole summit. This however, I believe, is not the 
 case; during summer, it only remains in the more seques- 
 tered ravines, or the spots least exposed to the rays of 
 the sun. 
 
 The site of ancient Sparta is now clearly to be distin- 
 guished, by the new buildings lately erected on one of its 
 most conspicuous points. It forms the extremity of a 
 long low range of hills, which, projecting in the form of 
 a wedge down the centre of the upper part of the plain 
 from its inland boundary, splits this portion of it into two 
 secondary valleys. Of these, the one to the eastward is 
 watered by the Eurotas, the other by one of its principal 
 tributaries, joining the main stream a little below the city. 
 Misitra, in Turkish times the capital of the district, is 
 situated a little further up the vale than Sparta, on the base 
 of the mountain, at the entrance to one of the deep gorges 
 • Odyss. loc. cit. 
 
LACEDiEMON. 
 
 223 
 
 that run up into its interior. Its Gothic castle crowns 
 one of the lowest of the row of colossal heights above 
 described, and with the ruined houses of the town, scat- 
 tered on the declivities beneath, has a very picturesque 
 appearance. The plain does not extend to the sea or the 
 horizon, but is cut off by a range of lower eminences, 
 projecting in softly undulating lines from the southern 
 extremity of Taygetus. Before reaching their base, the 
 Eurotas, taking a turn to the eastward, enters a narrow 
 gorge, separating the vale of Sparta from the marshes 
 of Helos, through which it discharges itself into the sea. 
 The eastern boundary of the valley, on the declivities of 
 which I was now standing, is Mount Msenalion, running 
 parallel to Taygetus. Along its base winds the Euro- 
 tas, seldom diverging in the course of its meanderings far 
 into the heart of the plain. This mountain, though offer- 
 ing some bold precipices towards the river, is not remark- 
 able either for height or variety of outline; but rising 
 gradually in a succession of gentler ridges, allows the eye 
 to range freely to a considerable distance across its sur- 
 face. These milder features, while they render it a happy 
 set-off to its gigantic opposite neighbour, have also the 
 effect of giving extent and variety to the general land- 
 scape. 
 
 Sheltered on every side by mountains from the blast, 
 and itself but slightly raised above the level of the sea, 
 the vale of Lacedsemonis as remarkable for the geniahty 
 of its climate as the beauty of its scenery, and has accord- 
 ingly been most appropriately characterized by Homer 
 as a " hollow pleasant valley."* There is perhaps no 
 region in Greece where the poet has been more fortunate 
 in his epithets, or where they so well bespeak his personal 
 knowledge of the country. The soil of the plain, unless 
 
 * xoiXr, ham-Il. u. 581 ; iii. 443. Odyss. iy. 1 ; xiii. 414 ; xy. 1. 
 Compare the description of the plain, Odyss. iv. 602, seq. 
 
224 
 
 LACEDiEMON. 
 
 where disturbed by the stony beds of the torrents from 
 the mountain, which indeed is the case on a great part of 
 its surface, is of fine quaUty, and supphes every produc- 
 tion of this favoured latitude in the highest perfection. 
 Its olives are, in the present age at least, preferred to 
 those of Athens. The orange groves of Misitra are 
 equally celebrated ; while in silk, both for quantity and 
 quality, the Spartan plain excels every other district in 
 Greece. 
 
 Upon the whole, the scenery of the vale of Eurotas, 
 though offering, no doubt, a less classical study to the 
 painter than may be found in other parts of Greece, is 
 yet the most dazzling on first view to the eye of the be- 
 holder that I have met with in that or any other country. 
 I have ventured to be thus particular in describing this 
 region, partly in deference to its own surpassing beauty, 
 partly from a desire to impress on the mind of the reader 
 the contrast, which forced itself so powerfully on my own, 
 between its natural features and the character of the race 
 by whom, in its more prosperous days, it was possessed. 
 A sea view alone is wanting; with this single exception, 
 there can scarcely be imagined a district combining, in 
 greater number and perfection than Lacedsemon, all the 
 properties generally considered best calculated to glad- 
 den the hearts — to warm the imagination — to soften the 
 manners — or even to enervate the energies of its inhabi- 
 tants. Yet the Spartans are proverbial among the na- 
 tions of the earth for their exemption from all the influ- 
 ences, for good or for evil, to which the fair paradise that 
 fell to their lot might be supposed to subject them ; for 
 their contempt of all its sensual delights ; for the stern 
 ferocity of their habits, both public and domestic ; for de- 
 ficiency of talent and taste for every branch of imagina- 
 tive pursuit ; for an iron insensibility, in short, to all the 
 finer impulses or affections of our nature. 
 
LACED^MON. 
 
 225 
 
 This fact may be adduced, as one among many strong 
 evidences, of the fallacy of the prevailing theories rela- 
 tive to the dependence of national character on the pecu- 
 liarities of the soil or climate in which it may be develop- 
 ed. These theories, indeed, supply one of the best 
 illustrations of what Aristotle so aptly characterizes as 
 the favourite error of superficial reasoners ; that, namely, 
 of framing general maxims out of incidental cases — of 
 confounding the circumstances under which events take 
 place, with the causes that produce them. It has become 
 with us moderns a trite maxim of elementary geography, 
 that the present effeminacy, moral or political, of the 
 inhabitants of some of the fairest regions of southern 
 Europe, is a consequence of the seductive influences of 
 their climate; while the martial and enterprizing genius 
 of the nations to the north, is attributed to the invigora- 
 ting power of a temperature more favourable to activity 
 and exertion. If this rule hold good of the last two 
 thousand years, how happens it to have been so strangely 
 contradicted by the two thousand that precede them^ 
 during which the inhabitants of these enervating regions 
 were not only themselves distinguished for enterprize and 
 endurance, but were in the habit of stigmatizing us 
 northern men of iron as deficient in the same quahties in 
 which it is now our boast to excel them ? How do we 
 reconcile with this rule, that the three races of Europe, 
 who in the history of the world have at least never been 
 surpassed in vigour of character — the Athenians, Spar- 
 tans, and Romans— should have been nurtured in three 
 of its most deUcious regions ? This error is common to 
 the ancient statistical writers with our own. If it was 
 climate that enervated Sybaris and Capua, how did 
 Athens, Lacedaemon, or Rome escape ? 
 
 The same theory will be found equally fallacious in 
 
226 
 
 LACEDiEMON. 
 
 other cases to which it is familiarly applied. Constitu- 
 tional liberty, we are told, is a plant only adapted to 
 temperate zones, and requiring the nourishment of the 
 same hardihood of character denied by nature to the 
 inhabitants of warm and voluptuous latitudes. And yet 
 the republican form of government had its origin in Syria, 
 and had been carried to a high degree of perfection in 
 the sands of Libya, before it reached those genial shores 
 of the JEgaean where we have the first notice of its being 
 reduced to theoretical principles. The imaginative arts, it 
 is said, on the other hand, require to be fostered by the 
 same amenity of soil and serenity of atmosphere, so pre- 
 judicial to the more abstract intellectual energies of our 
 species; and this point of the system is, perhaps, the 
 most plausible, as being in some degree confirmed by 
 the fact, that these arts were first carried to perfection in 
 Greece, and when driven from her shores by the de- 
 generacy of their ancient patrons, took refuge in Italy, 
 the country which, next to herself, seemed to hold out 
 the greatest encouragement to their culture. Yet it is 
 not easy to reconcile with this theory the fact, that the 
 genius of original design, in its progress from east to 
 west, should have passed with contempt over the fair 
 plains of France, to settle among the mists and swamps 
 of the region on its northern frontier, combining most of 
 the natural features which might be expected to act as 
 antidotes to the working of every species of poetical 
 inspiration, whether displayed through the medium of 
 the pen or the pencil. 
 
 It is a fine observation of Dante, in allusion to the 
 rarity with which virtue descends from father to son in 
 hereditary succession, that " so it has been willed by 
 him who bestows so noble a gift, that it may appear to 
 proceed entirely from himself:" — 
 
LACED.EMON. 
 
 227 
 
 " E-ade volte risurge per li rami 
 L'umana probitade, e questo vuole 
 
 Quei che la da perche da lui si chiami." — Purg. vii. 121. 
 
 The remote sources of human excellence are no less 
 mysterious in nations than individuals. In each case, 
 however, it is originally a boon conferred by Providence 
 in one case and denied in another. In each the opera- 
 tion of external causes is occasionally traceable, but will 
 never be found sufficiently constant to supply a general 
 rule, or even to justify our ascribing to them more than a 
 mere incidental agency. A man naturally devoid of talent 
 for painting, will not be made a skilful artist by being 
 placed in a picturesque country ; nor will a race deficient 
 in native genius for art or literature, be much more hkely 
 to distinguish itself in either, merely by being placed in 
 the situation most favourable for their cultivation, than 
 barley seed sown in a rich soil will be to produce wheat. 
 Had the Hellenes, in the course of their early migrations, 
 fixed their abode in the steppes of Scythia, we might 
 now be under as httle obligation to their poets or artists 
 as to those of the ancient barbarians of that region. But, 
 on the other hand, had Greece, amid the same vicissi- 
 tudes of primitive history, fallen to the lot of a horde of 
 Tartars, centuries of briUiant sun and balmy air would 
 never have moulded such uncongenial stuff into a Homer 
 or a Phidias. And even here the anomaly observable in 
 individual cases tends to confirm the principle to which 
 they are all ultimately to be referred ; for the Spartans, 
 though emanating from the same stock, and planted in 
 the soil most favourable for bringing its growth to ma- 
 turity, prided themselves on their barrenness in those 
 qualities which were the chief glory of their fellow 
 Greeks. 
 
 But if the popular theory be fallacious as regards the 
 imaginative faculties, it is altogether false as bearing on 
 
228 
 
 LACED^MON. 
 
 the civil and political energies of mankind. The former 
 indeed must, from their very nature, be in some degree de- 
 pendent on visible and sensual objects for the mode and 
 extent of their exercise. But the talents requisite for 
 the framing of social or civil institutions, being concen- 
 trated around man himself alone in his moral and intel- 
 lectual capacity, are placed much further beyond the 
 reach of any external or material influences. That they 
 should in some degree be subject to them may indeed 
 be granted, as a necessary condition of the connexion 
 between the corporeal and the intellectual element of our 
 nature. Extremes in climate, as in^ every thing else, 
 cannot fail to be prejudicial. The stupifying eflects of 
 cold on the Esquimaux, can as little be denied as of heat 
 on the Nigritians. But the examples already quoted, 
 vrith numerous others that might be adduced from dif- 
 ferent chapters of universal history, are sufficient evi- 
 dence that undue importance has been assigned to such 
 influences, within the latitudes in which the human spe- 
 cies can be considered as a healthy and flourishing part 
 of the creation. 
 
 The true causes of power or prosperity in those races 
 which have exercised the greatest sway on the destinies 
 of mankind, whether Greeks or Romans, Persians or 
 Arabs, French or Enghsh, are, first, the native force of 
 character implanted in them by the Creator; secondly, 
 the youthful vigour with which their powers are exercised; 
 for nations, hke individuals, have their periods of in- 
 fancy, manhood, and old age. Where these two favour- 
 able circumstances are combined, the influence of a deli- 
 cious climate will probably act as a stimulant rather than 
 a check, as was doubtless the case in Greece ; where they 
 are wanting, it may be equally pernicious as an incen- 
 tive to sensual indulgence, the sole or chief scope of 
 man's existence in his state of corruption, as in his state 
 
LACED^MON. 
 
 229 
 
 of barbarism. In the familiarly quoted eases of this 
 latter class, it is to the imbecihty or the degeneracy of 
 the population, not to the peculiarities of their native 
 district, that the primary source of the mischief is to be 
 traced. Local influences, if operative at all, are of quite 
 a subordinate nature. 
 
 The natives of the Laconian highlands, however, 
 would seem to supply an exception even to this latter 
 rule ; as exhibiting a greater ferocity of character, and a 
 more indomitable spirit of independence, in their dege- 
 nerate than in their youthful state. We hear of no 
 stand made, and no independence maintained, by the an- 
 cient occupants of the fastnesses of Taygetus, against 
 the successive conquests of the Herachdse, the Macedo- 
 nians, or the Romans. They seem, on each of these 
 occasions, to have meekly submitted to the fate of the 
 metropolis. In modern times the case is different ; and 
 these mountain tribes,^ calculated to comprise, under the 
 general term Mai'notes, a population of between 60,000 
 and 60,000 souls, with from eight to ten thousand fight- 
 ing men, have for many centuries steadily and success- 
 fully resisted a foreign yoke from whatever quarter at- 
 tempted to be imposed. During four hundred years 
 the Turks were never able to subdue them. Their only 
 recognition of the signorial rights of the sultan was an an- 
 nuaftributeof I7,000piastres,or aboutL.940, (threepence 
 or fourpence per head,) irregularly paid ;t a very trifling 
 equivalent for the advantage of freedom from any further 
 annoyance on the part of the infidels, and the greater 
 leisure it afforded them for prosecuting their favourite 
 
 ^ Opinions are mucli divided as to the real origin of this remark- 
 able people ; some maintaining them to be lineally descended from the 
 ancient Laconians, others from the Sclavonic tribes by whom the 
 Morea was overrun during the middle ages. 
 Leake, Morea, vol. i., p. 245. 
 
230 
 
 LACED JEMON. 
 
 pursuits of robbery and piracy against both Turk and 
 Christian. Ibrahim Pasha made several determined 
 efforts to force their passes, in all of which he was igno- 
 minously defeated ; and although party divisions, or the 
 conflicting interests of some of their chieftains, seem for 
 the present to have baflled their hopes of still continu- 
 ing to assert a separate independence, yet the efibrts of 
 the Bavarian dynasty to exact from them a greater de- 
 gree of submission than they were willing to pay, have 
 on several occasions met with a similar fate. 
 
 The termination of the descent into the vale brings 
 the traveller at once on the banks of the Eurotas, just 
 where the narrow glen within which its upper course is 
 confined begins to expand. As the ford at this place 
 was pronounced not practicable, we ascend a few hun- 
 dred yards to a bridge, situated at a point where the bed 
 of the stream is overhung by cliffs, in which the road is 
 excavated on each side. This bridge is the most re- 
 spectable modern Greek structure of its class I had 
 seen, and is somewhat similar in style, though vastly in- 
 ferior in size and fabric, to the Ponte della Maddelena, 
 near the Baths of Lucca. It consists of one wide arch in 
 
 the centre, with two of smaller size, one above the other, 
 on each flank. The crown of the principal arch is 
 raised to a great height above the level of the road at 
 each end, so as to render the causeway inconveniently 
 steep. The cliffy on the left bank of the river, just be- 
 
LACEDiEMON. 
 
 231 
 
 low the bridge, exhibit evident tokens of having been 
 used as quarries, being cut into perpendicular faces, in 
 the same manner, and with the same marks of chisehng, 
 as the marble quarries of Pentehcus. The road, after 
 crossing the river, follows its right bank, parallel to the 
 ridge of low hills which here divide the valley of the Euro- 
 tas from that of Misitra. In a ravine to the right are the 
 ruins of an aqueduct of the lower Roman or Byzantine 
 period. The river, as it approaches the town, becomes 
 broader, and its course more stragghng, while its banks 
 and the dry parts of its bed are overgrown with a profu- 
 sion of reeds. This pecuhar feature of the Eurotas is a 
 favourite subject of allusion with the ancients.* 
 
 Soon after we turn to the right, through another simi- 
 lar ravine. Fragments of masonry now become visible on 
 the brow of the declivity which overhangs the road to the 
 left. This is the western extremity of the site of Sparta, 
 occupied by the remains of the theatre. Another sharp 
 turn to the left brings us into the inner area of the an- 
 cient city, which is now partly a wilderness of ruins, 
 overgrown with creepers and brushwood, partly a disor- 
 derly range of garden grounds, or ill cultivated land, 
 studded with groves of olives, mulberries, and poplars, 
 with a few cottages scattered here and there. As we 
 rode past one of these groups of dwellings, we had the 
 most determined encounter with the dogs in which our 
 cavalcade had hitherto been engaged; and both here and 
 in other parts of Laconia and Messenia, the animal 
 amply supports its ancient character for ferocity and 
 courage. One of them actually sprang up and fastened 
 on the tail of the horse of one of the dragoons, who 
 pulled out his pistol from the holster in a fury, much to 
 my alarm, as I was immediately in the rear. He would 
 certainly have shot the animal, had it not been called off 
 
 * Theogn. v. 782. Euripides, IpUg^ in Aul. 179, et alib. freq. 
 
232 
 
 LACEDiEMON. 
 
 by a virago, the proprietrix probably, who was spinning 
 at the door of the hut, and who also maintained the 
 credit of her nation and sex for boldness of spirit, by 
 giving vent to a torrent of abusive language against the 
 man for the undue severity of his threatened measures 
 of defence. The ancient Lacedaemonians were no less 
 jealous of the honour of their dogs. An encounter very 
 similar to that above described, during the heroic age, 
 was attended with the most fatal results. When Her- 
 cules visited Sparta, in order to purify himself from the 
 blood of Iphitus, he was accompanied by his cousin 
 CEonus, a lad under age. Walking out to view the city, 
 and happening to pass the palace of Hippocoon, the 
 reigning chieftain of the place, the youth was attacked 
 by one of the house dogs. Resorting to the usual mode 
 of defence in such cases, he seized a stone and felled 
 the animal. The sons of Hippocoon immediately rushed 
 out upon him and beat him to death with clubs. The 
 consequence was a bloody feud between Hercules and 
 Hippocoon, which ended in the extermination of the 
 latter with his whole family.^ 
 
 On clearing the thickets, we reached an open level 
 meadow, at the extremity of which, on a green acclivity, 
 are the buildings already completed of the modern city 
 of Sparta. 
 
 Several centuries before Greece began to be frequented 
 by classical tourists, Lacedsemon had ceased to be a town. 
 The scanty remains of its population had, during the tur- 
 bulent ages, emigrated to Misitra, which, with its strong 
 castle on one of the cliffs at the base of the mountain, 
 offered a more secure dwelHng-place, and finally became 
 the capital of the district. Since the establishment of 
 the national independence, it has, however, been deter- 
 mined to transfer the metropohtan honours of the pro- 
 • AroLLOD. Blbl. ii. 7, 3. Pausan. Lacon. xv. 
 
LACEDiEMON. 
 
 233 
 
 vince to their ancient seat. The measure originated, as 
 I was informed, with the inhabitants themselves, but met 
 with the approbation of the government. Although 
 something may be attributed to classical associations, it 
 is probable that motives of utility were more influential 
 in its adoption. Misitra, hke other Greek towns, was 
 but a heap of ruins at the conclusion of the war. The 
 unhealthiness of its site had long been matter of com- 
 plaint ; the marshy grounds below exposed it to noxious 
 vapours, and the gorges running up into the mountain 
 behind, to sudden chills and changes of temperature. The 
 site of the ancient city, on the other hand, a range of dry 
 airy heights in the centre of the plain, is said to be as 
 remarkable for salubrity as for amenity and beauty. 
 
 The spot selected as the centre of the new town is an 
 open green eminence, sloping to the level plain, at the 
 southern extremity of the ruins, and which, as it exhibits 
 few or no fragments of antiquity on its own surface, may 
 be presumed to have been either beyond the bounds of 
 the ancient city, or a void space within them. A good 
 number of houses are already completed, including most 
 of the public offices. The place, from being perfectly 
 new, and free from the usual chaos of rubbish, has an air 
 of cleanliness or tidiness — to use a homely but expressive 
 phrase— of which no other Greek community can boast. 
 The houses already built are chiefly of the better class ; 
 the zeal for emigration having, as may be supposed, first 
 led to any practical results among the upper ranks. The 
 poor would but follow in the wake of their patrons and 
 employers. Some of these structures are large, several 
 stories high, and at a distance of rather imposing exte- 
 rior, but altogether devoid of either solidity or elegance. 
 They are compact square masses of rubble masonry, en- 
 cased in a framework of wood, with sloping tiled roofs 
 of bright vermilion hue, without cornice or ornamental 
 
 VOL. II. u 
 
234 
 
 LACED^MON. 
 
 moulding of any kind, and in spite of the partial relief to 
 the eye afforded by outer staircase and balconies, alto- 
 gether deficient in either architectural or picturesque 
 effect. The contrast in this respect between modern 
 Greece and Italy, two countries so very similar in climate 
 and soil, and in many points of manners, is very striking. 
 In the latter country, the cottages of the poorest rustics, 
 erected by the common native masons, scarcely ever fail 
 to present, both single and in groups, so graceful an out- 
 line, as to have all the appearance to the eye of having 
 been destined by art for the effect they produce ; and 
 offer to the landscape painter the most excellent studies 
 of rural architecture. In Greece, with the partial ex- 
 ception of a convent or hamlet hanging on the steep side 
 of a mountain, and of some of the new palaces of Athens, 
 the houses both of high and low are little better than 
 eyesores on the face of the land. Those of the rich have 
 the air of warehouses, or manufactories; those of the 
 poor, of cow-sheds or hog-styes. The evil has probably 
 been rather increased than diminished by the introduc- 
 tion of the German taste for high sloping roofs. Of this 
 a conspicuous example is supplied by the principal edifice 
 of Sparta, an immense silk manufactory, lately erected 
 for the encouragement of the staple trade of the district, 
 at some little distance from the main group of houses ; 
 and which, with its lofty blue covering, apparently of some 
 tarred material, looms hideously in the prospect, Hke one 
 of the great sheds that cover the ship-building stocks in 
 our naval arsenals. 
 
LACEDiEMON. 
 
 235 
 
 CHAPTER XLIL 
 
 HOSPITALITY OF SPARTAN COMMANDANT— LACEDAEMONIAN SUPPER. 
 
 fSiitra hi %ai rag %o/X/ag, 
 
 ourw 6(p6b^' Yjv a^yjuog — Athen. 1. i.,p. 12. 
 
 " The very entrails roasted he would eat, 
 So antiquated was he in his ways." 
 
 On arrival, I presented my credentials from the General 
 to the commandant, requesting a billet for a couple of 
 nights in such quarters as were to be procured. He re- 
 ceived me in a most friendly manner, and forthwith ceded 
 to me the best of his own two rooms, furnished, more or 
 less in the European style, with table, chairs, bedstead, 
 and mattress— and not deficient in cleanliness. I then 
 proceeded, attended by one of his men as a guide, to in- 
 spect the ruins. They are far more considerable in point 
 of extent than I had been led to expect from the descrip- 
 tions of my predecessors, but for the most part of a very 
 sorry description. Almost the only remains of the Hel- 
 lenic or Roman periods that make any appearance above 
 ground, are the theatre, and a small piece of stone ma- 
 sonry, of ponderous square blocks, among the bushes, 
 not far from the new town. This latter rehc, probably 
 part of the cell of a temple, now bears among the learned 
 of Sparta, the title of Tomb of Leonidas. The site of 
 the theatre has already been noticed; the only portions 
 of its masonry still remaining entire are of stone ; but on 
 the surface of the cavea, which now bore a crop of wheat. 
 
236 
 
 LACED^MON. 
 
 were visible a few blocks of the white marble with which 
 Pausanias describes it as formerly adorned. All the 
 other remains appeared to be of a very low period, chiefly 
 composed of the ruins of former edifices. Among them 
 are several Christian churches.* The best structure of 
 this inferior class is a long quadrangular enclosure, with 
 the greater part of its outer wall entire, and which, from 
 the arrangement of its interior into numerous small arched 
 chambers, would seem to have been a bath or gymnasium, 
 converted perhaps in later times into a barrack or maga- 
 zine. There is a paltry little amphitheatre, of very 
 wretched masonry, but tolerably well preserved, in a hol- 
 low not far from the river, and in its neighbourhood a 
 ravine of a form which indicates the site of the stadium. 
 No part of the ancient city extended to the eastward of 
 the Eurotas. 
 
 The site of Sparta resembles that of Rome, compre- 
 hending a number of contiguous hills of httle height or 
 boldness of character. As the Dorian Spartans affected 
 to despise all means of defence but their own valour and 
 the terror of their name, this was a very appropriate po- 
 sition for their capital. It was not, however, of their own 
 choice, but transmitted to them from the heroic age, and 
 oflfers therefore a rare exception to the rule usually ob- 
 served in those early times, that the hmits of a city should 
 comprehend a commanding acropohs. Dorian Sparta 
 had no acropohs in the ordinary sense of the word, al- 
 though the loftiest eminence of the group was famiharly 
 called by that name. It is not now easy to decide which 
 of them it may have been, as several present nearly the 
 same elevation to the eye. The law against artificial 
 
 * Since writing the above, I find that Colonel Leake (Morea, vol. i., 
 p. 187,) denies the existence of any ruins of Christian churches at 
 Sparta ; but in spite of the high respect I entertain for his authority, 
 I must abide by my own opinion. 
 
LACEDJEMON. 
 
 237 
 
 defences was first departed from on occasion of the attack 
 made on the city by Demetrius Pohorcetes, when a few 
 works were hastily thrown up. The fortifications were 
 improved and extended by Nabis, but destroyed by Philo- 
 poemen, and finally restored and completed by the Ro- 
 mans when they took possession of the place. The stone 
 substructions observable on the face of the heights be- 
 hind the theatre, may be the remains of these works. On 
 several portions of the ancient area, where the soil is less 
 encumbered with ruins or trees, chiefly in the neighbour- 
 hood of the new town, excavations have lately been made, 
 but to little depth, and solely, or chiefly, it would seem, 
 for the purpose of obtaining building material. Here 
 and there, however, foundations of considerable extent 
 have been brought to light, together with portions of 
 columns and other architectural fragments, of good 
 marble, but for the most part of small dimensions. 
 
 On my return to the quarters of the commandant, I 
 perceived some of his retainers busy in skinning an 
 animal, which, on nearer approach, I found to be a lamb 
 just slaughtered, and hung upon a peg on one of the 
 posts of the staircase. I felt some surprise at the sight, 
 as Nicola, in the exercise of his purveyorship, was not 
 in the habit of " honouring me with perfect lambs and 
 goats;" and I knew that, amid the rigours of Lent, it 
 could not be intended for the table of my landlord. On 
 enquiry, however, it appeared that the victim really was a 
 firstling of his own fold. In the genuine spirit of pa- 
 triarchal hospitality, immediately on our arrival he had 
 " fetched a lamb from his flock, tender and good, and 
 given it to a young man, who hasted to dress it;" and a 
 very delicious meal it aflbrded on each of the two days I 
 remained in his quarters. This was the first and only 
 occasion on which I experienced, on the part of a native 
 Greek, a disinterested exercise of hospitality. It is true 
 
238 
 
 LACED^MON. 
 
 that I scarcely ever had occasion elsewhere to appeal to 
 that of any other class than the clergy or the peasantry, 
 both of whom are accustomed to speculate on the annual 
 visits of the foreign tourist as a source of revenue ; and 
 their chief object is, to extort from their guests as exor- 
 bitant a price as possible for the poor accommodation 
 they supply. 
 
 My host, in the present instance, not only insisted on 
 providing my repast, but, in the zeal of his friendly po- 
 liteness, even went the length of waiving the rites of his 
 religion in favour of those of hospitality, by partaking of 
 it himself. Our table was soon served. The first dish 
 realized, still more effectually than the slaughter of the 
 lamb. Homer's account of a patriarchal Greek supper, 
 and that on the scene of one of the most remarkable of 
 the banquets described in his poems, the house of a 
 Spartan chief — perhaps on the very spot where Menelaus 
 entertained Telemachus. It was a delicate portion of 
 the entrails, but not one familiar to me before as an 
 article of diet, white, clean, and daintily dressed, and 
 served up twisted in numberless coils* round the wooden 
 skewer on which it was roasted : " warm with the spit 
 itself." t After this followed, also roasted, some of the 
 choicest morsels of the flesh. With the ancients, espe- 
 cially in primitive ages, the entrails were considered, and 
 justly as far as my experience goes, among the most 
 delicate articles of diet.:j: Accordingly, as we find point- 
 edly stated in the Odyssey, they were the portion selected 
 
 * The same probably called the 'TtoXh'Ttruyov syKarov by Lucian, 
 Leociph, 3. 
 
 t ^s^/x-' axjToTg d^sXoTcfi, — Odyss. xiv. 77. 
 
 I Numerous testimonies in their honour have been collected by 
 Athenseus, lib. vii. and viii. Hence the humorous epigram of Alexis, 
 ap. Athrn. 1. iii. p. 100.) concerning a famous epicure : — 
 bm^ Trdr^ag /msv ^ag Tig d'7rodv7j(fxsiv ^sXg/, 
 
LACEDiEMON. 
 
 239 
 
 to confer honour on a newly-arrived guest.* Hence 
 " tasting the entrails" was also the first symbolic rite of 
 a sacrifice.f The custom of serving meat on the spits 
 or toasting-prongs on which it was dressed, is also fre- 
 quently alluded to by Homer. 
 
 " Roasting the entrails" was considered as a peculiarly 
 antiquated and Homeric custom by the Greek epicures 
 of civilized ages, with whom they seem to have been in- 
 variably boiled or otherwise prepared.:): Hence it is said 
 by the comic poet Antiphanes, that " Homer never made 
 soup or boiled his meat," but " roasted the very entrails, 
 so old-fashioned was he in his ways."§ The same remark 
 may equally apply to my host, whose cookery was a 
 genuine representative of that of Menelaus. 
 
 Lent is, in many respects, the most unfavourable 
 season for the traveller in Greece, who is interested in 
 tracing the analogy between ancient and modern customs, 
 owing to the restrictions it imposes on both diet and 
 amusement. Hence I do not remember in the course of 
 my journey to have heard a single note of music, still 
 less to have witnessed the performance of the Romai'ka 
 dance, which has been so frequently remarked for its 
 close correspondence with Homer's description of that 
 popular among his countrymen in his own day ; and, if 
 we may trust him, since the days of Theseus and Ari- 
 adne. |1 At any other period I should probably have 
 also had many more and better opportunities of obser- 
 ving the correspondence between the present mode of 
 preparing the more substantial articles of food, and that 
 with which we are familiar in the pages of classic writers, 
 and of Homer in particular. A distinguished German 
 scholar and Philhellene, who passed several years in 
 
 * iii. 40. t See II and Od. passim. 
 
 X Athen. iii. p. 94. c. Aristoph. Paw. 717. 
 
 § Athen. 1. i., p. 12. c. 11 11- xviii. 590, seq. 
 
240 
 
 LACED^MON. 
 
 Greece during the unsettled period immediately subse- 
 quent to the emancipation, and whose lot it had been, on 
 various occasions, to bivouac with parties of Palikars 
 when on service, assured me that their mode of dressing 
 their animal food corresponded, almost to the letter, 
 with that described by the poet in numerous familiar 
 passages of his works.* A large fire of wood is kindled, 
 and allowed to burn to embers, which are strewed in a 
 circle on the hearth. Both flesh and entrails of the 
 animal are then cut into small pieces, and fastened on 
 wooden spits or skewers, which are either stuck in the 
 ground, so as to expose the meat to the eflect of the fire, 
 or held over it in the hands like toasting-forks. The 
 entrails on such occasions are served first, as at the table 
 of my Spartan landlord. But for the restrictions of 
 Lent, some of the nights we spent in the khans would 
 doubtless have enabled me to witness the same cere- 
 mony. 
 
 Trifling as may be the influence of genuine Christi- 
 anity on the population of this country, whether laity or 
 clergy, yet the superstitious veneration for the letter of 
 their own church discipline, is certainly one of the most 
 prominent features of their character. This is a conse- 
 quence no doubt, in part, of the centuries of persecution 
 and contempt to which their worship and its ordinances 
 have been exposed, and which, by a very natural reaction, 
 tend to attach the minds of men the more strongly to 
 habits, of little or no value in themselves, and likely, if 
 left unmolested, speedily to become extinct. The clergy, 
 certainly a most degraded class, are personally objects of 
 no esteem whatever ; yet in their spiritual capacity, each 
 village papa or beggarly monk is as infallible as the pope 
 in the Vatican. The same man who would, without re- 
 morse, cut the throat of a passenger for the sake of a few 
 ♦ IL i. 463. ^ ix. 210., et alibi. 
 
LACED^MON. 
 
 241 
 
 dollars, would not dare to spend an obolus of his ill-gotten 
 gain during Lent, on any more substantial food than 
 bread, garlic, or dried olives. Dispensations from the 
 rigour of this observance, on account of health or other 
 reasonable causes, are unusual, and far less ""easily ob- 
 tained than in the Roman church; and instances are 
 not uncommon of delicate persons sacrificing their lives 
 to this absurd article of their religious discipline. Even 
 fish, which with the Catholics is exempted from the 
 general interdict against animal food, is here little less 
 strictly forbidden than beef or mutton. 
 
 Herein may also perhaps be discovered a remnant of 
 ancient manners. The partiality of the Greeks, during 
 their best ages, for fish as an article of subsistence, is 
 evinced by the whole tenor of that portion of their extant 
 literature which bears allusion to their domestic habits ; 
 and several kinds of fish bore the palm among the an- 
 cient epicures over every other class of delicacy. In these 
 maritime countries it was also as common as it was a 
 popular food, and seems to have been to the population 
 at large very much what butcher meat is to us. Hence 
 it was, as we learn from the most profound gastronome 
 of antiquity, ^ that the term opson^ or opsarion^ literally 
 any species of seasoning to the bread or vegetables that 
 formed the ordinary diet of the middle and lower class, 
 and which, with the ancient epic writers, signifies flesh - 
 meat, came in the familiar usage of later times to be 
 exclusively applied to fish. It was, therefore, the more 
 natural that the Greeks, in establishing their rules of 
 fasting, should class this article of diet, like animal food, 
 under the head of luxuries or solids, rather than of ab- 
 stemious living. 
 
 The Spartan commandant was much the best speci- 
 men of a native Greek that I met with on my passage 
 
 *Athen. Lib. vii. c. \., § 4. conf. Aristoph. Equit. 649, 816, &c. 
 VOL, IL X 
 
242 
 
 LACED^MON. 
 
 through his country. By birth a Hydriote, he had 
 served through the war in the navy, chiefly as a brulo- 
 teer, the most distinguished branch of that distinguished 
 service; and his appointment, on the reduction of the 
 maritime estabhshment, to a permanent mihtary situa- 
 tion on shore, may be considered a sort of guarantee of 
 his own personal merit. His manner and conversation 
 displayed but little of the vivacity, still less of the garru- 
 lity, common to his race ; but, with much natural good 
 breeding, were marked by a laconic gravity and simpli- 
 city that well became his new ofiice of Spartan magis- 
 trate. When speaking, however, on any more exciting 
 subject, especially on the national destinies, either past 
 or present, he became more animated, and displayed 
 much patriotic enthusiasm, untinged, however, with any 
 sort of bombast or fanfaronnade. He entertained me with 
 v^arious interesting anecdotes of his past services, and 
 with just and original remarks on the present state of 
 public affairs. My practice in the modern Greek tongue 
 was never sufficient for carrying on what could be called 
 a connected discourse, while he was altogether unversed 
 in the ancient dialect, and knew but a very few words of 
 Italian. Yet we managed, how I can scarcely tell, to 
 maintain a constant if not a very coherent conversation, 
 during several hours of each evening that we spent to- 
 gether. It happened, however, occasionally, that we 
 found ourselves completely at fault, and came to a dead 
 stand-still, the awkwardness of which I endeavoured to 
 relieve by a laugh, in which he heartily joined ; we then, 
 if unsuccessful in our efforts to resume the old scent, 
 endeavoured to start a less puzzling game. My bottle 
 of rum was here of httle service ; for although familiar- 
 ized with the sort of beverage on board the ships of 
 Cochrane and Hastings, under each of whom he had 
 served, he did not seem much to relish it, partaking of it 
 
LACEDiEMON. 
 
 243 
 
 but sparingly, as a matter of compliment rather than 
 taste. Of Hastings he spoke in warm terms of admira- 
 tion, but had less to say in favour of Cochrane ; and cer- 
 tainly the Greek cruises of that celebrated officer will 
 not be recorded as the most successful portion of his 
 career. 
 
 He professed the most loyal attachment to the person 
 of his young sovereign, but criticized with freedom, al- 
 though with good temper and feeling, some of the mea- 
 sures of his court, and the prevailing system of foreign 
 innovation on the native customs and privileges. The 
 day on which I left him was that of a grand ecclesiastical 
 festival, with procession and parade, when the public 
 functionaries, both military and civil, were to appear in 
 gala dress. The night before, he produced his full dress 
 uniform, which he had been putting in order for the oc- 
 casion, and displayed with a mixture of pride and aver- 
 sion its richly mounted silver epaulette and shoulder 
 knot, which he condemned as glittering baubles, no way 
 to the taste of Hellenic warriors. O/ "EXXm^, said he, 
 dh dsXov(fi ravra ra ^^a/zAocm, — " The Greeks do not want 
 these things." He then crossed the passage to his own 
 room, and re-entering with his shaggy goat's-hair capote 
 thrown over his shoulders, continued : rovro sJmi rh bitohv 
 6iXo\j(iiv 0/ "'EXXrivsg — /Jbsra rovrov sxdfMO/MBV raZra^ — " This 
 is the dress that suits the Greek warrior; with this I 
 have watched or slept many a night on the ship deck or 
 the mountain side ; with this we have gained these others, 
 which serve for little other purpose but to empty our 
 pockets." If, as I am led to understand, the cost of these 
 articles, which, as being of distant foreign manufacture, 
 are dearer than in western Europe, was a deduction from 
 his own pay, he certainly may have had cause to com- 
 plain. His reflections, however, on the Frank system of 
 mihtary dress, as compared with that authorized by na- 
 
244 
 
 LACED^MON. 
 
 tive usage, though sincere no doubt, and in so far just, 
 as limited to his own case, were scarcely fair in a more 
 general application ; for the Greek palikars, even in their 
 wildest and most disorganized state, have always been 
 remarkable for a childish love of gaudy and expensive 
 accoutrement. 
 
LACED^MON. 
 
 245 
 
 CHAPTER XLIIL 
 
 TUMULUS OF BAPHIO— BRIDGE OF XEROKAMPO—CARRIAGE ROADS 
 OF HEROIC AGE. 
 
 %a} rahrav [Jj\v <7ra\ai6ri^oi 
 
 odov a/J^a^iTov sS^ov, — Pind. Nem- vi. 90. 
 
 " This bridge and carriage way- 
 Were framed by builders of an ancient day." 
 
 The next morning I was on horseback soon after sun- 
 rise, anxious to have the whole day at my disposal, for the 
 purpose of exploring two monuments of great interest. 
 The first of these was a " Treasury" of similar character 
 to those already described at Mycenae and Orchomenus, 
 situated at a place called Baphio, about one and a-half 
 hour's ride down the plain ; the second, a rehc of a still 
 more remarkable description. At Athens, I had hap- 
 pened in conversation with Dr Ross to express my con- 
 viction, grounded partly on the evidence of the remains 
 of (Eniadse, partly on speculative arguments, that the 
 regular arch of concentric blocks, the knowledge of which 
 is generally supposed to have been first communicated 
 to the Greeks by the Romans at a comparatively late 
 period, had really been practised by the former people 
 from the remotest antiquity. I was glad to find that his 
 opinion coincided with my own, and he mentioned that 
 in the course of his excursions in the interior of the coun- 
 try, he had observed specimens of this style of structure, 
 ruined or entire, which he felt convinced must date from 
 a period long prior to any influence of Roman customs 
 
246 
 
 LACEDJEMON. 
 
 upon Greece. The one to which he attached the great- 
 est importance was a bridge of Cyclopian masonry, not 
 far from Sparta, with an arch in a complete state of pre- 
 servation. As, however, the remote architectural anti- 
 quities of Greece were not with him an object of especial 
 research, he had neither taken a sketch of it, nor any par- 
 ticular note of its dimensions or general character. I 
 was therefore the more bent on fully exploring and ex- 
 amining so curious a monument. 
 
 Attended by Nicola and the soldier who had acted as 
 my cicerone the day before, I proceeded southwards 
 through mulberry and olive groves direct for Sklavochori, 
 the ancient Amyclae, distant about an hour's ride. This 
 is a poor hamlet, exhibiting no other traces of its former 
 distinction than a few massive blocks of masonry scat- 
 tered among the trees. Beyond, the plain assumes a 
 more open champaign character. To the left, not far 
 from the village, is a Turkish pyrgo or tower, deserted, 
 but apparently in tolerable preservation. It is situated 
 in the midst of a small park or pleasure ground^ planted 
 with evergreens, and surrounded by a ruinous wall. I 
 observed several other similar structures in ruins in dif- 
 ferent parts of the plain. They are lofty narrow build- 
 ings, with very few small windows, and pepper-box tur- 
 rets at the angles, bearing a considerable resemblance to 
 the Scottish baronial residences of the sixteenth century ; 
 and like them combining the character of fortress and 
 country seat. The name Baphio was marked on my map, 
 so that I had no great difficulty in finding the site of the 
 " Treasury," about a mile to the south of the tower. It 
 is, like that of Mycenae, a tumulus, with an interior vault, 
 entered by a door on one side, the access to which was 
 pierced horizontally through the slope of the hill. Its 
 situation, on the summit of a knoll, itself of rather coni- 
 cal form, while it increases the apparent size of the tumu- 
 
LACED^MON. 
 
 247 
 
 lus, adds much to its general loftiness and grandeur of 
 eifect. The roof of the vault, with the greater part of 
 its material, is now gone, its shape being represented by 
 a round cavity or crater on the summit of the tumulus. 
 Count Capo d'Istria enjoys the credit of its destruction. 
 The doorway is still entire. It is six feet wide at its 
 upper and narrower part. The stone hntel is fifteen 
 feet in length. The vault itself was probably between 
 thirty and forty feet in diameter. 
 
 Menelaus is said to have been buried at Amyclse. 
 This, therefore, may have been the royal vault of the 
 Spartan branch, as the Mycenaean monument was of the 
 Argive branch of the Atridan family. 
 
 The discovery of the bridge was not so easy a matter. 
 The only information communicated by Dr Ross was, 
 that it lay at the foot of Mount Taygetus, about three 
 hours' ride to the south of Sparta, and traversed one of 
 the streams that descend from the mountains to the Eu- 
 rotas. We proceeded, therefore, from Baphio to the 
 base of the mountains, and coasting along it to the south- 
 ward, enquired from cottage to cottage, and from viUage 
 to village, but for long without success. Every country 
 fellow we met had his own favourite bridge, which he 
 was sure must be the one we were in quest of; and m 
 the course of my researches it is probable I mspected 
 the greater part of the small number of miserable Turk- 
 ish bridges, over brook or ditch, in this portion of the 
 Spartan plain. At length we fell in with a man who 
 said he knew of one, the stones of which were as large 
 as chests, and laid without mortar. This piece of mtel- 
 ligence at once conducted us to the spot. On emergmg 
 from a thick grove of olives, and turning up a ravme to 
 the right, the object of our pursuit presented itself full 
 in front; and, with the exception perhaps of the Lion 
 gate of Mycenae, I scarcely know a monument, the first 
 
248 LACED^MON. 
 
 view of which produced so powerful an impression on 
 my mind. 
 
 No entire ancient bridge of any kind — still less an 
 arched bridge of a genuine Hellenic period, had hitherto 
 been known to exist within the limits of Greece ; and 
 even the ability of the Greek masons to throw an arch had 
 been very generally questioned. Here I saw an arched 
 bridge of considerable size and finished structure, and in 
 a style of masonry which guarantees it a work of the remo- 
 test antiquity — probably of the heroic age itself. This 
 monument, therefore, while it tangibly connects us with 
 a period of society separated from our own by so wide a 
 blank in the page of history, reahzes to our senses a 
 state of art to all appearance proper and pecuhar to itself; 
 and which, but for the existence of this and a few other 
 venerable remains of the same class, might be consi- 
 dered (as the men by whom they were constructed have 
 been, by some modern schools of sceptics) to be but the 
 unreal visions of a poetical fancy. The beauty of its 
 situation adds much to its general effect. It is built 
 just were the stream it traverses, a respectable tributary 
 of the Eurotas, issues from one of the deepest and dark- 
 est gorges of Taygetus. I could learn no other name 
 for this river than that of the neighbouring village on its 
 banks, which is called Xerokampo, (Dry-field.) It brings 
 down a considerable body of water, dammed up imme- 
 diately below the bridge for the supply of the village 
 fountain. For the general character and appearance 
 oi the structure, I must refer to the annexed drawing.* 
 The masonry of the arch, the piers, and the portions of 
 wall immediately connected with either, are ancient, and 
 in good preservation. The parapet is modern, of poor 
 rubble work, and where the outer Cyclopian facing of 
 the retaining wall at the extremity of each flank has 
 * Plate vii., No. 1. 
 
LIBRARY, 
 
 OF THE 
 DIVERSITY Of HUNOIS 
 
LACEDiEMON. 
 
 249 
 
 fallen away, traces are also visible of Turkish repairs. 
 The span of the arch is about twenty-seven feet ; the 
 breadth of the causeway, between the parapets, from six 
 to seven. Each parapet is about one foot three inches 
 in thickness, giving nine or ten feet for the whole breadth 
 of the arch. There are no visible remains of pavement. 
 Although the precipitous nature of the ground rendered 
 it impossible to obtain any full view of the upper or 
 western front of this monument, I was yet enabled to 
 ascertain that the masonry is at least as well preserved 
 on that side, as on the one represented in the annexed 
 engraving. 
 
 The largest stones are those of the arch ; some of them 
 may be from four to five feet long, from two to three in 
 breadth, and between one and two in thickness. In 
 size and proportions they are nearly similar to those 
 which form the interior hning of the Heroic sepulchres 
 of Mycense, and the whole character of the work leads 
 to the impression of its being a structure of the same 
 epoch that produced those monuments. Even those 
 who may not be willing to acquiesce in this view, will 
 scarcely venture to dispute its genuine Hellenic, or ra- 
 ther Spartan antiquity. Apart from the style of the 
 masonry, it is hardly in a situation to admit of its being 
 a work either of the Macedonian or Roman periods ; 
 lying as it does in this remote corner of the peninsula, 
 where in later times it is httle likely there could have 
 been a thoroughfare of sufiicient importance to warrant 
 such expensive undertakings. Its existence, therefore, 
 seems sufficient in itself to establish the use of the arch 
 in Greece at a very remote epoch.* 
 
 The preservation of this monument also tends to 
 
 ^ Apart from the evidence adduced here and in previous portions 
 bf this journal, some additional arguments in favour of the opinion here 
 advocated, have been advanced in an article in the Annals of the Roman 
 
250 
 
 LACED^MON. 
 
 throw light on another point of some interest in the his- 
 tory of early Greek civilization. It is generally sup- 
 posed, and to a certain extent perhaps with justice, that 
 the Greeks, amid all their advance in abstract science, 
 were comparatively backward in some of the most im- 
 portant practical arts of civilized Hfe, more especially 
 in all that relates to interior communication by means 
 of roads, bridges, &c. This was indeed in some measure 
 a natural consequence of certain pecuUar features, both 
 of the geography of their native land, and of their social 
 system. In a country intersected in every direction by 
 the sea, and inhabited by a people partial to a maritime 
 life, the facilities of water communication would in some 
 de gree supersede the necessity of roads on a grand scale, 
 while the lofty mountain ridges of the interior offered 
 formidable obstacles to their construction. Other diffi- 
 culties arose from the political subdivision of the Helle- 
 nic territory. Even under more favourable circum- 
 stances, the combination of numerous small bodies poli- 
 tic, for the purpose of great national undertakings, must 
 always be attended with difficulty. But the interests 
 and prejudices of the petty states into which Greece was 
 separated by these very mountain ridges, disposed them 
 perhaps rather to impede than to facihtate the regular 
 traffic across them. Convenient roads for wheel car- 
 riages through such a country, could only be the work of 
 a powerful empire ; and even the great undertakings of 
 the Romans seem to have been limited to comparatively 
 level districts. Such routes as those which now lead across 
 the Alps, were reserved for the accumulated necessities 
 and more extensive resources of modern civiHzation. 
 
 Archaeological Institute, (vol. x. p. 141 ;) where I have endeavoured 
 to show, by reference to the text of Pausanias, compared with the 
 existing remains, that the " Treasury" of Minyas at Orchomenus was 
 vaulted on the principle of the arch of concentric layers. 
 
LACEDiEMON. 
 
 251 
 
 There are, however, many strong evidences, both of 
 a practical and a speculative nature, that under all these 
 disadvantages, this branch of internal economy was, ac- 
 cording to the use and fashion of the age, carried, even 
 at the remotest period of antiquity, to a much higher 
 degree of perfection in Greece than has usually been 
 supposed. Travellers have long been in the habit of 
 remarking the frequent occurrence of wheel ruts in every 
 part of that country, often in the remotest and least fre- 
 quented mountain passes, where a horse or mule can 
 now with difficulty find a track. The term rut must not 
 here be understood in the sense of a hole or inequahty 
 worn by long use and neglect in a level road, but of a 
 groove or channel, purposely scooped out at distances 
 adapted to the ordinary span of a carriage, for the pur- 
 pose of steadying and directing the course of the wheels, 
 and lightening the weight of the draught, on rocky or 
 precipitous ground, in the same manner as the sockets 
 of our railroads. Some of these tracts of stone railway,* 
 for such they may in fact be called, are in a good state 
 of preservation, chiefly where excavated in strata of sohd 
 rock. Where the nature of the soil was not equally 
 favourable, the level was probably obtained by the addi- 
 tion of flags filling up the inequalities. It seems now 
 to be generally admitted, by persons who have turned 
 their attention to the subject, that this was the prin- 
 ciple on which the ancient Greek carriage roads were 
 constructed on ground of this nature. 
 
 But independently of this fact, there are historical 
 arguments to warrant the belief, that Greece must have 
 been intersected with carriage roads in every direction 
 from the earliest period. How else could the numerous 
 
 * In the streets of the steeper parts of some of our own towns, 
 Glasgow, for example, recourse has been had to the same expedient. 
 
252 
 
 LACED^MON. 
 
 chariots that periodically flocked from every corner of the 
 country to the great national games, have reached their 
 destination? The evidences are here perhaps still stronger 
 in favour of the heroic than of the historical period. 
 It were difficult to understand how the poetical tradi- 
 tions concerning the extensive use of chariots, both in 
 war and on journeys, could have suggested themselves, 
 unless carriage roads had been common at the epoch to 
 which they refer, or at least at the one little less remote 
 in which they were embodied. How, for instance, could 
 the story of Lai'us being on his way from Thebes in a 
 chariot to consult the oracle of Delphi, when met and 
 slain by his son CEdipus in the defiles of Parnassus, 
 have come into vogue, unless a practicable carriage road 
 had led across the mountain to the sanctuary ? — a work 
 which it would require many long years of flourishing 
 finance to enable the present Greek government to under- 
 take, even should it ever be found practicable. Nor is it 
 easy to see how the block of Pentelic marble, which forms 
 the architrave of the Minyean vault, and which cannot 
 weigh much less than fifteen or twenty tons, could have 
 been transported from the quarries of Attica to Orcho- 
 menus, unless by a similar facility of communication. 
 Among the numerous other illustrations of this point 
 which Greek fable supplies, we shall be satisfied with 
 here directing our attention to one more immediately 
 bearing on the origin or history of the monument which 
 first suggested these observations. 
 
 Homer describes Telemachus, on his visit to Menelaus, 
 as performing the journey from Pylos (now Navarin)* 
 to Sparta in two days, reposing the first night at Pherse, 
 
 * Odyss. iii., in fine, iv. initio. For the explanation of any diffi- 
 culties that might here occur relative to the identity of the Homeric 
 Pylos with the bay of Navarin, the reader is referred to Leake's 
 Morea, vol. i., p. 416, seq. 
 
LACED.EMON. 
 
 253 
 
 now Calamata, in the Messenian gulf. From Pylos to 
 Pherse is an easy day's journey, but that from Pherae to 
 Sparta offers greater difficulty, in consequence of the in- 
 terposition of the formidable ridge of Taygetus. I had 
 myself a personal motive for enquiring into the merits of 
 this case, while engaged, on the evening of our arrival at 
 Sparta, in chalking out, with the aid of my landlord, the 
 route to be pursued on resuming our journey. I was 
 anxious, if possible, to cross over the Taygetus to Cala- 
 mata, on my way to the ruins of Messene, instead of 
 following the easier but more circuitous route up the 
 Eurotas, by Leondari ; partly from a desire to explore 
 the recesses of that noble mountain, partly for the pur- 
 pose of becoming personally acquainted with the Mainote 
 tribes in their own inexpugnable hold. The ordinary 
 route from Sparta to Calamata I found to be in the direct 
 line between the two places, over the loftiest and most 
 precipitous region of the mountain. The journey in fa- 
 vourable seasons is habitually performed in a day. The 
 track however, at all times difficult, was now pronounced 
 to be dangerous, if not impracticable, from the snow ; so 
 that our passage, even had we succeeded in effecting it, 
 would, in all probability, have occupied at least two days, 
 which was more than I had to dispose of. I was there- 
 fore reluctantly obliged to abandon the plan. The next 
 point was how to save the credit of Homer, since it seemed 
 evident, from the description given, that the difficulties 
 of this line must have been beyond the resources even of 
 an heroic engineer. On looking along the mountain, 
 however, to the southward, as laid down on a very ex- 
 cellent map, for the use of which on my journey I was 
 indebted to the kindness of Sir Howard Douglas, I ob- 
 served, at about one-third of the distance towards Cape 
 Matapan, indications of a considerable hollow, or valley, 
 extending over the crown of the ridge, in the centre of 
 
254 
 
 LACED^MON. 
 
 which was marked a village called Kumusta. Here, 
 therefore, I was willing to suppose might have been a pass 
 capable of affording a carriage road from Pherse, by a 
 somewhat more circuitous line. The next day we dis- 
 covered the bridge of Xerokampo, the dimensions of 
 which, it has been seen, prove it to have been intended 
 for the use of wheel carriages ; and, on enquiry, I ascer- 
 tained that the track of which its causeway is now the 
 lower extremity, is in fact at this day a common, though 
 less direct, bridle-road across the mountain, to the Messe- 
 nian plain. There can therefore be little doubt, that this 
 is the line of route which Homer makes Telemachus tra- 
 vel; and every thing warrants the behef, that the poet 
 himself, if not his hero, may have passed over this very 
 bridge. The distance to Calamata by this line may be 
 about fifteen hours, or near forty miles ; a long journey, 
 no doubt, in such a country, but not probably beyond 
 the force of a pair of steeds from the mews of the " Ge- 
 renian horseman, Nestor." 
 
 The village of Xerokampo has an unusually pleasing 
 aspect. It is embedded in a grove of olives, and seems, 
 from the appearance of the cottages, to have escaped, 
 like some of its neighbours in this remote corner of the 
 country, the ravages of the war. As we sat eating our 
 luncheon on a carpet of smooth greensward, under the 
 shade of the trees, I was struck with the fine forms of the 
 women as they passed to and from the fountain. They 
 were certainly the tallest and best-looking I saw in this 
 country. Other travellers have remarked the beauty of 
 the Laconian women.* That this district was similarly 
 distinguished in early times, we learn from the epithet 
 xaXXiyhmixa, appUed to it by Homer; and from the 
 circumstance that it was the native land of Helen, the 
 eponyme heroine of Grecian beauty. 
 
 * Leake's Morea, vol. p. 149. 
 
LACED JEMON. 
 
 255 
 
 On our return we followed a track running nearer to 
 the base of Taygetus, leaving Sklavochori to the right, 
 and reached Sparta about sunset. I can remember but 
 few days of more unalloyed enjoyment than that which 
 I spent in wandering over this fair region, in search of 
 monuments of the greatest rarity and interest, under a 
 bright and balmy heaven, and surrounded by every ob- 
 ject calculated to enchant the eye, or to warm the imagi- 
 nation. 
 
256 
 
 LACEDiEMOI^. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 MESSENIA— ARISTOPHANIC FROGS— TRIANGULAR BRIDGE OF MAURO- 
 ZtJMENO— ITHOME-CONSTANTIN— MESSENIAN DEMARCHUS AND 
 FAMILY. 
 
 The next morning, (Friday, April 6th,) the lame horse 
 of our cavalcade was pronounced unfit for further use. 
 We were therefore obliged, much to our regret, to part 
 with our good-humoured Nauplian agoghiate, my com- 
 rade in the engagement with the Lernsean Hydra, and 
 to procure other beasts from Misitra for the prosecution 
 of our journey by Leondari to Messene. A still more 
 serious loss was that of my Enghsh saddle ; and I again 
 resumed my exalted position on the summit of a pile of 
 cloaks. Our new attendants, three in number, brothers, 
 and all fine athletic youths, seemed to be genuine repre- 
 sentatives of the Scythian tribes by whom this district 
 was overrun during the middle ages. I never saw three 
 sets of more regular Tartar features. During the first 
 half of our day's journey, the route lay up the right bank 
 of the Eurotas. The country has no very striking fea- 
 tures, off'ering a succession of open glades, bounded by 
 hills partially clothed with wood. To the right, within 
 two hours' distance of Sparta, the summit of a projecting 
 height on the left bank of the stream, overhanging one 
 of the narrowest defiles, exhibits vestiges of Hellenic 
 walls, the remains, it may be presumed, of one of the 
 castles protecting the passes from Arcadia into the Spar- 
 tan plain. A little way on, the margin of the same 
 
LACONIA. 
 
 257 
 
 bank of the river is faced with a parapet of Cyclopian 
 masonry, evidently for the protection of a meadow of rich 
 alluvial soil. 
 
 The Spartan Commandant seemed to have no doubt 
 of the security of the roads, at least for the first half 
 day's journey. He had, however, given us the escort of 
 the same man who had acted as my orderly since my first 
 arrival at his headquarters ; with instructions to accom- 
 pany us as far as we might need him, or until relieved at 
 another station; to enquire into the state of the country 
 as we passed ; and to take additional escort where neces- 
 sary, or where it could be procured. Our new protector 
 was a swarthy hard-featured Asiatic Greek, who had 
 served through the war with his chief, and was most de- 
 votedly attentive to my comfort and safety, never allow- 
 ing me to be a moment out of his sight in places where 
 danger was apprehended. He wore neither gaiter nor 
 stocking, but, in other respects, was dressed and equip- 
 ped in the European fashion ; his arms, a carbine, pistol, 
 and sword. Some conversation took place on the road 
 as to the proper place for halting to refresh, in the course 
 of which, hearing Nicola utter an expression of surprise 
 and concern, I asked what was the matter. He said he 
 had been proposing to rest at a certain khan, his former 
 halfway house on this journey, but was informed that, in 
 consequence of his old acquaintance the khanjee having 
 been murdered, and the estabhshment plundered by the 
 Klephts about a year before, it had been abandoned. 
 The agoghiates indeed asserted, that the route was now 
 far from safe, several caravans having been robbed the 
 day before within the hmits of our present day's journey; 
 I afterwards had evidence, that their authority was as 
 much to be depended on as that of the Commandant. 
 
 Soon after, we passed the khan, shut up and deserted, 
 and it was proposed that we should halt at a place called 
 
 VOL. II. Y 
 
258 
 
 LACONIA. 
 
 Platano or the Plane-tree. This name I supposed to be 
 that of a village, or perhaps of another khan. But on 
 arriving at our destined place of refreshment, I found it 
 was in the literal sense what its title denoted, an enor- 
 mous plane-tree, from the roots of which flowed copious 
 streams of fine water, realizing to the letter Homer's de- 
 scription of the scene of the ominous sacrifice of the 
 Greek chiefs before leaving Aulis for Troy : 
 
 " Beneath a beauteous plane, from whence a stream 
 Of purest water flow'd." 
 
 It was the first of this classic species of fountain I had 
 yet met with, but each succeeding day's journey presented 
 several others. Throughout the whole of Messenia and 
 Western Arcadia, a striking feature of the scenery are these 
 copious perennial springs, gushing from the base of the 
 mountains. They are for the most part similarly adorned 
 with gigantic plane-trees, the fibres of whose roots are 
 interlaced with the separate channels in which the water 
 finds issue. The oriental plane every where prefers a 
 situation where it can bathe its roots in fresh water ; and 
 hence, throughout the countries where it chiefly flourishes, 
 and which I believe are Southern Greece and Asia 
 Minor, they are commonly to be seen by the side of 
 rivers and fountains. The only respectable tree of this 
 class I had previously seen, was that in the village of 
 Kiphisia, where our party mustered on the expedition 
 to Marathon. With the exception of a few ragged 
 forests of pine or oak on the mountain tops, almost every 
 species of timber has disappeared from the face of the 
 remainder of the country we had hitherto traversed since 
 leaving the banks of the Acheloiis. But Messenia, Wes- 
 tern Arcadia, and Elis, besides these fine ornaments of 
 the banks of their streams, are covered with noble forests 
 of oak and fir in every direction. 
 
 * It. ii. 307 
 
MESSENIA. 
 
 259 
 
 After leaving the Platano we were assailed by torrents 
 of rain, which lasted several hours, when the sky again 
 partially cleared, and on reaching the summit of a long 
 ascent of rugged forest ground, a fine view opened up of 
 the rich vale of Megalopolis, backed by the Lycean moun- 
 tains. Turning to the westward, we soon after reach 
 Leondari, or rather its ruins. To judge from them, this 
 place must have been the residence of wealthy Turks — 
 as the yet standing walls of many of its houses are several 
 stories in height, with pointed windows and arabesque 
 tracery, offering some favourable specimens of Byzantine 
 or Saracenic architecture. On descending into the valley 
 below, we enter an extensive forest of oaks, remarkable - 
 both for size and picturesque beauty ; but for the most 
 part in a state of decay. In riding through its mazes, in 
 the dusk of the evening, about a hundred yards ahead of 
 the .cavalcade, I found myself suddenly in front of a 
 troop of ten or twelve armed men. The alarm excited 
 by this apparition was allayed on observing them to be 
 headed by a gendarme. On the rest of our party coming 
 up, a parley ensued, when we found that they were a 
 detachment of civic guard, on the look-out for a band of 
 nearly an equal number of Klephts, who had infested 
 that district since daybreak, and robbed every caravan 
 that fell in their way. Congratulating ourselves on our 
 own escape, we soon after reached the khan of Derveni, * 
 situated in a hollow pass immediately above the plain of 
 Messene. This establishment boasted an upper cham- 
 ber or loft, full of lumber and agricultural implements, 
 which was allotted to me for my private accommodation, 
 
 * Derveni is a common Turkish noun, signifying literally a guard- 
 house ; and, by courtesy, the passes or defiles, which, in Turkish 
 times, were generally occupied by such establishments. In the present 
 instance, however, it seemed to attach as a proper name — for I could 
 learn no other — to the group of cottages to which the khan belongs. 
 
260 
 
 MESSENIA. 
 
 but sv. armed with fleas to such an excess as to place 
 sleep out of the question. 
 
 The next morning (April 7) was again bright and 
 clear, and though piercing cold, the forerunner of a hot 
 day. On emerging from the pass, the traveller enters 
 upon the flat green plain of Stenyclerus, bounded by 
 the range of mountains which formed the stronghold of 
 the Messenians in the Spartan wars. Rising abruptly 
 in a somewhat insulated cluster from the level valley, 
 they have a very majestic appearance. The two princi- 
 pal features of the ridge are Mounts Ithome and Evan, 
 contiguous to each other. The former and loftier of the 
 two, as seen from this point, is a colossal mass of rock 
 and greensward, with a flat top and precipitous sides. 
 The latter, forming the southern extremity of the range, 
 rises in the form of a cone. Its summit and sides, with 
 those of the intermediate ridge connecting the two, .are 
 sprinkled with forest and brushwood. 
 
 At the foot of the defile, on the verge of the plain, we 
 pass the khan of Sakona, an hotel of some celebrity in 
 the journals of Gell and other old travellers, and from 
 thence continue in as straight a line as the partial inun- 
 dation of the meadows, and the brooks and ditches by 
 which they are intersected, will admit, for the point of 
 the mountain from whence the ascent commences to the 
 ruins of the city. The plain of Messenia was celebrated 
 above all others in Peloponnesus for its fertility, and to 
 all appearance justly. The soil seems to be of the richest 
 quality, and is capable of being thoroughly irrigated. 
 The number and copiousness of its streams and sources 
 is indeed a distinctive peculiarity of this region, and one 
 much dwelt on by the ancients.* It is, however, but 
 
MESSENIA. 
 
 261 
 
 very partially cultivated ; in few districts, indeed, have I 
 observed a greater apparent want of agricultural indus- 
 try. A large portion of its surface is overgrown with 
 that rank bulbous plant which, among the ancients, bore 
 the name of Asphodel, called, I believe. Squill in our 
 own tongue, and which, in every part of Greece, springs 
 up indigenously as the most inveterate weed, wherever it 
 can fasten its root undisturbed by the labour of the 
 husbandman. It forms the chief clothing of the stony 
 mountain sides, both of Greece and southern Italy^ 
 nestling itself in every patch of soil in the clefts of the 
 rocks. The mountains of western Locris were so cover- 
 ed with it, that the strong smell of its flower was ad- 
 duced as one among the various explanations of the 
 uncourteous epithet " Stinking," (Ozolian,) by which 
 that region was designated.* But I never saw it in such 
 quantity and luxuriance on any portion of arable land 
 as on this plain, where its long stalks and bushy tufts 
 offered a considerable impediment to the progress of our 
 beasts. An explanation here suggests itself of the ob- 
 scure title of " Aspodel meadow," applied by Homer to 
 the region on the banks of the Tartarian river Ache- 
 ron. There could not certainly be a more appropriate 
 mode of imparting to the fields of Erebus that dreary 
 dismal character which in Homer's mythology attaches 
 to them, than by figuring them as low deep land, over- 
 grown with the rank weed, which, on the soil of his own 
 native country, was the mark of desolation and neglect. 
 
 Not far from the base of the mountain, we pass through 
 a village fortified on every side by hedges of Cactus, a 
 plant more familiar perhaps to some of my readers by 
 
 OUT av nd^l'TTTroig yjXiov k^/Mriv ayctv. 
 
 EvRiF. frag. ap. Stkab. viii. 6. 
 
 * Pausan. Phoc. xxxviii. 
 
262 
 
 MESSENIA. 
 
 the name of prickly pear, or Indian fig, forming the in- 
 closures of its courts and gardens. They are the loftiest 
 and strongest of their kind I have ever seen, rising to 
 such a height as to overtop and conceal the houses they 
 protect. In Greece this plant is not common, however 
 well adapted to its soil. Theophrastus * says it was un- 
 known within its bounds in his time, but very common 
 in Sicily. These were larger and more luxuriant than 
 any I ever saw in that island. Just before reaching this 
 village, we cross one of the numerous tributaries of the 
 Maurozumeno, the ancient Balyra, and the chief river of 
 the Messenian vale. Its banks are covered with tortoises, 
 which, as we coast along in search of a bridge or ford, 
 throw themselves in successive detachments with a loud 
 splash into the water. 
 
 Here it was that I first had my attention called to the 
 peculiar croak of the Greek frog, which now began with 
 advancing spring to be heard in the marshy grounds, 
 and which, while not altogether strange to my ear, struck 
 me at the same time as different from that of the same 
 animal in any other country where I had happened to 
 hear it. It consists of two varieties of note, the first of 
 which cannot be better described than by comparing it 
 to the famiUar sound made between the tongue and the 
 gum or palate, in order to excite the speed of horses. 
 The second is a mixture of a croak and a quack. These 
 two sounds, whether proceeding both from the same 
 frog— or proper, the one to the old, the other to the 
 young frog — the one to the male, the other to the fe- 
 male — I was unable to ascertain, succeed each other at 
 intervals with great regularity, the first being repeated 
 rather oftener than the second ; nor were it possible to 
 convey them more accurately to the apprehension by 
 written language, than has been done by the Vrekekehex, 
 * Ap. Athen. 1. p. 70. D. 
 
MESSENIA. 
 
 263 
 
 koax^ koax^ of Aristophanes, This coincidence caused 
 me a sort of gratification which none but an enthu- 
 siastic Hellenist will be able to appreciate ; and the 
 song of these sons of the morass" formed a most agree- 
 able relief in the sequel, to many a dreary hour's march 
 on the swampy plains of the coast of Elis. 
 
 Passing the village, and crossing some green knolls 
 beyond it, we reach the celebrated triangular bridge over 
 the Maurozumeno. This work is remarkable, as well 
 from its curious form, as from offering, if I am not mis- 
 taken, the only remains of a genuine Hellenic bridge 
 now extant, with the exception of that of Xerokampo. 
 The pecuharity of its plan has been suggested by the 
 circumstance, that the river at this point, besides receiv- 
 ing a tributary, is divided into several channels, over 
 which the communication could not have been so easily 
 provided in a direct line, while the intervals of terra 
 firma offered a convenient foundation for the piers. It 
 consists of three branches or arms, meeting in a com- 
 mon centre, one of which has four openings for the pas- 
 sage of the water, the second three, the third* but one. 
 
 All are arched, with the exception of the smallest of 
 the four belonging to the longer branch, which is entire- 
 ly of ancient masonry, and covered with a flat architrave 
 of a single stone. The piers and retaining walls of the 
 remainder of the structure are also in whole or in part 
 
 It seems doubtful whether this branch be a portion of the original 
 structure. The present work is apparently modern, but may be on 
 ancient foundations. 
 
264 
 
 MESSENIA. 
 
 ancient, and from the resemblance of their masonry to 
 that of the walls of the neighbouring Messene, may be 
 presumed to be the work of the same period. The 
 arches are entirely modern, nor is there any trace of what 
 may have been the style of the covering which they have 
 supplanted. Several of them at this time were over dry 
 land. The smaller branch indeed is not so much itself 
 a bridge, as a causeway, to give convenient access from 
 the meadows to the principal line, and pierced with an 
 arch for the escape of the waters at periods of inunda- 
 tion. 
 
 Soon after commences the steep ascent up the side of 
 Ithome to the ruins of the city. About midway, on the 
 crown of a projecting precipice, is situated the monastery 
 of Vurkano, by far the most elegant and picturesque 
 modern structure of this, or indeed of any other class, 
 that I saw in Greece. Its outline of flat roofs, well pro- 
 portioned gables, and light cupolas, reheved by cypress 
 and orange groves, would do credit to a slope of the 
 Apennines. It also commands a fine prospect of the 
 plain of Kalamata, bounded by the sea and Taygetus. 
 
 The site of the Messenian capital, as restored by Epa- 
 minondas, seems to be an extension of that occupied by 
 the ancient fortress of Ithome, celebrated for its twenty 
 years' resistance to the Spartan besiegers. The lower 
 portion of the city was embosomed in a hollow somewhat 
 in the form of a shell, extending on the west side of a 
 sharp ridge, that connects Mounts Ithome and Evan at 
 about one-half their height. The former of these moun- 
 tams, from which the more ancient city derived its name, 
 became its citadel when restored, and the line of wall is 
 still to be traced, stretching up its nearly perpendicular 
 sides, and over its summit. Mount Evan shows no symp- 
 tom of ever having been occupied by buildings. The 
 circumference of the walls, following the irregularities of 
 
MESSENIA. 
 
 265 
 
 their line, may be about five miles. They enclose, how- 
 ever, a large space altogether unfit for the site of buildings. 
 Here and there stone substructions of temples and other 
 pubUc edifices are to be seen, but no remains of orna- 
 mental architecture or of valuable building material. 
 Neither here, at Sparta, nor at Mantinea, could I find a 
 single fragment of the painted pottery which at Athens, 
 Argos, Mycense, Corinth, and indeed almost every other 
 Greek city of distinction, forms a main ingredient of the 
 rubbish that covers their foundations. Great part of the 
 walls, with many of the square towers by which they are 
 strengthened at intervals, are standing almost entire. 
 Their masonry is of the most perfect Hellenic style. 
 Pausanias* describes them as the finest specimens of 
 military architecture he had seen in Greece, or even in 
 Europe, The chief object of interest they now present 
 is the principal gate towards the west, the most elegant 
 extant monument of its class. It consists of an outer and 
 an inner portal, separated by a circular place d'armes, all 
 of large size and beautiful structure. The outer portal 
 is flanked by two strong rectangular bastions. The 
 whole is, comparatively speaking, in a fine state of pre- 
 servation. Neither gateway, however, retains its cover- 
 ing, but the enormous flat architrave of the inner one 
 lies, resting in an oblique position, upon the ruins of the 
 wall by which it was formerly supported.! 
 
 After halting for our midday repose at the village of 
 Mauromati, in the centre of the ruins, we quit the enclo- 
 sure of the city on the opposite side, by the gate just 
 described, and winding round the back of Mount Ithome, 
 rejoin our previous starting-point at the triangular 
 
 ^ Messen. xxxi. 
 
 t It is eighteen feet eight inches in length, by four feet two inches 
 in breadth, and two feet ten inches in thickness. 
 
 VOL. II. ^ 
 
266 
 
 MESSENIA. 
 
 bridge, from whence we proceed up the plain to our night's 
 quarters at the village of Konstantin, situated on a rocky 
 slope at its upper extremity. I v/as once more lodged 
 in the house of the Demarchus, or mayor, a substantial 
 stone structure just completed, with date and inscription 
 on a slab of the gable, and which may therefore be taken 
 as a fair sample of the dweUings of the upper class of 
 Messenian peasantry at this period. It was a single ob- 
 long building, with a gable roof projecting at right angles 
 to the hill, so as to comprise a lower floor at its outer 
 extremity, with a separate entry destined for the accom- 
 modation of cattle. The upper story consisted of one 
 room, extending the whole length of the building, and 
 serving the family " for kitchen, and parlour, and bed- 
 room, and all." The floor of one end was the natural 
 soil of the hill, left for a hearth ; the rest was planked. 
 It contained no furniture, except a wooden chest or two 
 ranged along the wall, and a few filthy rush mats. The 
 roof of the room was the same as that of the house, the 
 bare rafters and tiles forming the only ceiling. There 
 were a few small windows, or rather apertures in the 
 wall, with wooden shutters, but no chimney, the smoke 
 escaping through the tiles. The door, which opens at 
 once on the apartment, is approached by a terrace on its 
 own level, supported by a retaining wall at right angles 
 to that of the house. This plan is more or less common 
 to the whole cottage architecture of the mountain dis- 
 trict of Messenia, most of the towns and villages being 
 situated on similar ground ; and, if reheved by a few 
 respectable pubhc edifices, the exterior effect would be 
 picturesque enough. 
 
 The family consisted of the Demarchus and his wife, 
 both elderly persons; two nearly full-grown daughters, 
 pretty girls, with elegant forms, but not classical features; 
 
MESSENIA. 
 
 267 
 
 several small children, and a fine-looking young man, 
 who called himself clerk to the Demarchus. Later in the 
 evening they were joined by one or two other men, 
 whether in the capacity of servants, relations, or guests, 
 I did not ascertain. As night fell in, the party collected 
 round the fire in the usual squatting posture; cooked and 
 ate their supper ; and after chatting for about an hour, 
 lay down on their respective mats, or portions of mat, 
 huddled together, old and young, male and female, and 
 slept till morning. It was Saturday night ; but neither 
 before nor after repose was there any preparation, either 
 in the way of ablution, change of raiment, or devotional 
 exercise, for the Sunday. Such is the domestic life of 
 this people all the year round. In the khans, or in the 
 dwelhngs of the very lowest class, these swinish habits 
 need excite no surprise. But in a country which claims 
 to have taken rank among the nations of Christian Eu- 
 rope, in the family of the chief magistrate of a consider- 
 able community, and of a respectable landed proprietor, 
 as I was assured my landlord was, one expects to find the 
 scale of human comfort raised a slight degree higher above 
 that of the brutes. As regards personal cleanliness, in- 
 deed, the inmates of the ground-floor of this primitive 
 estabhshment may be said to possess the advantage, that 
 their nakedness preserves them from much of the filth 
 that accumulates on the load of unchanged and unwashed 
 drapery with which their masters above stairs are adorn- 
 ed. Both the Demarchus and his clerk were well bred 
 and obliging, and persons of some education in their way. 
 The latter, as may be supposed, was the better scholar 
 of the two, and possessed sufiicient knowledge of the an- 
 cient tongue to read with considerable interest Pausa- - 
 nias' description of his native district. I arranged my 
 couch at the furthest extremity of the apartment; but all 
 
268 
 
 MESSENIA. 
 
 precautions of sweeping and watering the surrounding 
 floor were vain against the assaults of myriads of fleas. 
 For this accommodation I paid, the hospitahty of the 
 Demarchus being altogether venal, about double the 
 price of a good bed-room in a first-class Itahan hotel. 
 
ARCADIA. 
 
 269 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 ARCADIA— TEMPLE OF BASS^— ANDRITZENA— VALE OF ALPHEUS— 
 MOKRITZA-LAWLESS STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 
 
 aXX' ov d-jm/m^ai ds/Xaiog avdnv haxvn^ivog' 
 
 Aristoph. Nub. Init. 
 
 " Alas ! I'm bitten sore— I cannot sleep. — 
 Ye gods, how long the nights are in this land ! 
 Will daylight never dawn ? And yet the cock 
 Eoth oft and loud hath crow'd." 
 
 The next day (Sunday, April 8th) we reached the 
 temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassse, called five hours 
 distant, in about nine. This uncertainty of calculating 
 distance by hours of march, I had frequent occasion to 
 experience. The agoghiates, however, in the present 
 case, were not fully acquainted with the route, and we 
 were obhged to procure guides from village to village. 
 Nicola's memory had also betrayed him in his estimate 
 of the length of the journey. The country we traversed 
 is singularly wild and romantic, covered to about half its 
 extent with forest. The valleys are narrower and more 
 precipitous than usual; and our route, instead of winding 
 along, lay for the most part across them, alternately up 
 and down precipitous ridges, deep ravines, and brawling 
 water- courses. The population of the district is marked 
 by a rudeness, or even ferocity of appearance and man- 
 
27a 
 
 ARCADIA. 
 
 ner, in good keeping with the stern features of their 
 native scenery, but little in unison with the general cha- 
 racter of the Greek peasantry. The dogs, as formerly 
 observed, seemed to emulate the spirit of their masters. 
 About halfway to the temple, we pass the rocky hill of 
 Kakaletri, supposed to be the famous Ira, the last strong- 
 hold of the Messenians, and the scene of some of the 
 most brilliant achievem^ents of their great struggle for 
 liberty. In the distance towers Mount Lyceum, now 
 Dioforti, partially covered with snow. The summit of 
 this mountain, which is of easy access, is well worth a 
 visit from the traveller more favoured by time and oppor- 
 tunity than myself. It still exhibits remains of the sta- 
 dium, and other edifices connected with the worship of 
 Jove, to whom it was consecrated, and is strewed in part 
 with burnt bones, remnants, no doubt, of the victims 
 sacrificed to the deity, and which by some singular favour 
 of atmosphere have been so long preserved.* Soon after, 
 from a lofty ridge of rocks overhanging the glen of the 
 Neda, we descry, on another similar ridge on the oppo- 
 site side, the columns of the temple. But close as they 
 appear to the eye, it takes several hours to reach them, 
 owing to the great depth and steepness of the glen, which 
 requires to be traversed in long lateral courses parallel 
 to each other. 
 
 The temple of Bassae is situated (as its name denotes) 
 in a recess or hollow of the summit of a long table-topped 
 mountain, in the midst of a wilderness of rugged rocks, 
 studded with knotty old oaks, thickening here and there 
 into masses of forest. There is certainly no remnant of 
 the architectural splendour of Greece more calculated to 
 fascinate the imagination than this temple; whether by 
 
 * The same phenomenon is said to be observable on the summit of 
 Mount (Euos, now Megalovouni, in the island of Cefalonia ; where was 
 also formerly an altar of Jupiter. 
 
ARCADIA. 
 
 271 
 
 its own size and beauty, by the contrast it offers to the 
 wild desolation of the surrounding scenery, or the extent 
 and variety of the prospect from its site. Looking to- 
 wards the south, the view extends to the left, across the 
 glen of the Neda and the lower ridges that bound it, to 
 the summits of Mount Lyceum. In front, the eye ranges 
 as far as the sea, across the Messenian plain, with the 
 huge mass of Ithome rising from its level. To its right 
 stretches the range of promontory which separates the bay 
 of Kalamata from that of Navarin; and a little farther 
 in the same direction, the latter gulf itself becomes visi- 
 ble, surrounded by the plain and mountains of Pylos. ^ 
 
 Any detailed description of the temple were inconsis- 
 tent with the plan of this narrative. The subject is one 
 of considerable extent, and has already been exhausted by 
 one of the best antiquaries of the age.* Suffice it to say, 
 that it is of the Doric order, and, among the extant Greek 
 ruins of its class, the next in extent and preservation to 
 the Parthenon ; while, by a curious coincidence, it was 
 constructed by the same architect. Pausanias pronounced 
 it to be, with one exception— that of Minerva Alea at 
 Tegea— the temple of Peloponnesus most distinguished 
 for the beauty of its stone and the accuracy of its masonry- 
 The first part of this eulogy is scarcely justified by exist- 
 ing appearances, as the stone now presents a somewhat 
 coarse surface. There are in all five-and-thirty columns 
 of the peristyle now standing,t together with some re- 
 mains of those of the antse, and of the interior pilasters 
 of the edifice. Most of the columns still support their 
 architrave. Of the cell httle or nothing remains. A 
 
 * Stackelberg; der Apollotempel zu Bassce. 
 
 t The columns of the peristyle were originally thirty- eight ; fifteen 
 on each side, and six in front. They are three feet eight inches in 
 diameter at the base, and about twenty feet in height, including the 
 capital. 
 
272 
 
 ARCADIA. 
 
 considerable portion of the white marble sculptures that 
 adorned the building, excavated by Baron Haller and 
 Mr Cockerell in the year 1812, are now in the British 
 Museum. They bear no comparison with those of the 
 Parthenon, either in point of design or execution, and 
 show that the artists entrusted with the decorative part 
 of the structure, were of a school very inferior to that 
 which produced the architect who planned it. 
 
 The most remarkable object among these ruins, in the 
 estimation of my attendants, and to which they insisted 
 on conducting me, immediately on our arrival, with an 
 air of mystery and importance, was a drum of one of the 
 broken columns, upon which King Otho and his Queen 
 spread their table in this wilderness, when they visited 
 the temple in the course of their late progress through 
 Peloponnesus. 
 
 From hence we reach Andiitzena, our halting-place 
 for the night, and a town of considerable size, after a 
 ride of about three hours through a country similar in its 
 general features to that we had traversed in the morning. 
 Here again I enjoyed the venal hospitality of one of the 
 most respectable famiUes of the place. The house in 
 which lodged was new, and, comparatively speaking^ 
 commodious. I was allotted the principal apartment for 
 my sole use, with some glass in the windows, and a raised 
 divan or sofa of red cloth, extending along one side. But, 
 in spite of the superior air of external cleanhness, I found 
 the enemies to my repose quite as numerous as in the 
 humbler dwelling of the chief magistrate of Konstantin. 
 
 The next morning, (April 9,) on descending from the 
 declivity on which the town is built, we travel through a 
 more open champaign country, bounded to the north by 
 a precipitous ridge, which we traverse by a narrow defile. 
 The brow of the height above the pass is crowned with 
 hues of wall, the remains of the ancient Alij herse, now 
 
ELIS. 
 
 273 
 
 called Nerovitza. On emerging from the defile, a new 
 extent of low country presents itself, richly wooded and 
 well watered. This is the vale of the Alpheus. We ^ 
 coast for some distance along the northern base of the 
 same mountain, the declivities of which on this side are 
 of the finest description of rock scenery, beautifully 
 clothed with forest^trees and evergreens. Every half 
 mile gushes a copious fountain of pure water from the _ 
 roots of gigantic planes, forming so many tributaries to 
 the sacred stream that flows in the vale below. The 
 featuies of the landscape now gradually undergo a com- 
 plete change. The common deciduous oak gives place 
 to the ilex, and soon after to the black round-headed 
 pine, which covers the country on each side of the river 
 in scattered groups, to some distance north of the plain 
 of Olympia. The soil becomes sandy, and the hillocks 
 and rocky eminences which enliven the surface of the 
 valley, assume a variety of fantastical forms, often pre- 
 senting so close a resemblance to ruined forts or towns, 
 that the illusion is scarcely dispelled till the traveller 
 reaches the spot. 
 
 This region is described by Pausanias as precisely 
 similar in character in his own age. In the midst of it, 
 on the left bank of the river, a few miles to the east of 
 Olympia, was Scillus, the favourite retreat of Xenophon, 
 the property of which had been made over to him by the 
 Lacedaemonians, on his banishment from his native state. 
 As it abounded in game, his choice would seem to have 
 been dictated by its adaptation to his favourite pursuit 
 of the chase. Here, accordingly, he dedicated a temple 
 to Diana, the patroness of sportsmen, with the tithe of 
 the spoils acquired by the army of the Ten Thousand,* 
 
 Beneath a grove of pines, scattered over the surface 
 * Pausan. Eliac^ i. c. 6 ; Xenoph. Anab. v. c. 3. 
 
274 
 
 ELIS* 
 
 of an arid waste, we pass the humble tumulus of a dis- 
 tinguished brigand, slain on this spot by the government 
 troops in the course of the civil disturbances subsequent 
 to the war, and of whose exploits and hair-breadth 'scapes 
 my attendants told some marvellous tales. 
 
 About sunset we reached the picturesque village of 
 Mokritza, imbedded in olive groves, about a mile distant 
 from the bank of the Alpheus. As we entered the place 
 we observed groups of peasants armed with long guns, 
 sitting at their house doors, or lounging under the trees. 
 On enquiry, I found that the whole neighbourhood was 
 in a state of alarm, in consequence of the outrages of a 
 troop of banditti which had infested the district for a 
 week past, and against whose assaults the country people 
 felt themselves insecure even in their houses. The 
 depredations of these outlaws, it appeared, were of a 
 more desperate character than usual, having been almost 
 invariably attended with bloodshed. They were sup- 
 posed to amount to fifteen or twenty in whole ; but their 
 operations were chiefly conducted in smaller detachments. 
 Two travellers had been assassinated, within a day or two 
 of our arrival, in the defiles in the immediate neighbour- 
 hood of the Olympian plain, distant about an hour's ride 
 on the other side of the river.' One was killed on the 
 spot, the other was lying in a dangerous state in a khan 
 near the place where he was assaulted. The house of 
 the Demarchus of a neighbouring village had also been 
 plundered, and its master, a man advanced in years, so 
 cruelly tortured, for the purpose of forcing him to reveal 
 his secret treasures, that his death had been the conse- 
 quence. The mode of torture was described as pouring 
 boiling butter on his stomach. A fourth murder had 
 been committed, as I afterwards learned, the day before 
 we reached this place, about ten miles off; on the road 
 
EL.IS. 
 
 275 
 
 to Patras. A watch and ward had consequently been 
 estaWished for the protection of the village, consisting of 
 members of the community licensed to carry fire-arms, 
 and bound in terms of their privilege to act as armed 
 police or civic guard. 
 
 I was accommodated with a sm.all loft to myself in a 
 private cottage, but was again no better off in my soli- 
 tary dignity, as regarded my night's rest, than on other 
 previous occasions. Perhaps the best qualification for 
 a tourist in Greece, is an indifference to the bite of 
 domestic vermin. For my ov/n part, the only serious 
 discomforts of which I had to complain in the course of 
 this journey, were those consequent on extreme sensitive- 
 ness to the venom of the flea, and of the flea alone ; for to 
 the appetite of other creepers that shall be nameless, my 
 blood holds out no temptation. I had here the strongest 
 evidence, from personal experience, how much fatigue a 
 healthy vigorous frame can undergo without sleep. This 
 was the fourth night I passed in succession, without 
 being conscious, when I rose in the morning, of having 
 closed my eyes for a quarter of an hour. But the state 
 of feverish irritation during the wakeful hours, was far 
 worse than the mere insomnolency. I might possibly, in 
 the midst of the sort of delirium it produced, have slum- 
 bered for a moment, but was not sensible of having done 
 so, either at the time or afterwards ; and mounted my 
 horse in the morning with a still heavier weight about 
 the eyes and head, than when I descended the night be- 
 fore, after a ride of twelve or fourteen hours. But a little 
 of the sharp morning air, a bright sun, a doze on the back 
 of my beast, and the never-faihng excitement of a suc- 
 cession of new objects of beauty and interest, proved un- 
 failing restoratives, and before midday I was as fresh and 
 lively as ever. 
 
276 
 
 ELIS. 
 
 This midnight restlessness, on the present occasion, 
 was not confined to myself, but shared even by the ani- 
 mal portion of the community of which I was a tempo- 
 rary member. Whether from sympathy with the alarm 
 of their masters for the dangerous state of the neighbour- 
 hood, or from their own habitual love of clamour, the 
 village dogs and cocks kept up an incessant barking and 
 crowing the livelong night. This discordant hubbub 
 rose and fell at intervals, sometimes subsiding to a single 
 bark or crow, or even to a temporary silence, and then, 
 on the occurrence of the least noise, a gust of wind, or 
 the voice or footstep of the guards on patrol, again 
 freshening into a full cry of the motley pack. One of 
 the leaders of the feathered portion of the chorus was 
 roosted on the outer ledge of the window of the loft, im- 
 mediately above my head, and crowed and clapped his 
 wings, upon an average, once every quarter of an hour 
 in the course of the night ; each alarum being the signal 
 for a long succession of responses, first on the part of his 
 companions in the immediate neighbourhood, and so gra- 
 dually dying away in the distance. I was so much di- 
 verted by the recollection of the opening address in 
 Lucian's dialogue of « the Cock," and so well convinced 
 from experience, that the exertions of my small black bed- 
 fellows would be quite sufficient in themselves to murder 
 sleep without aid from any other quarter, that the music 
 of my noisy sentinel, instead- of a disturbance, was per- 
 haps rather a rehef to the tedium of the wakeful hours. 
 I was also well satisfied that it should not be superseded 
 by any more serious alarm, in the shape perhaps of a 
 discharge of muskets, announcing an engagement be- 
 tween the Klephts and the village patrol; nor could I 
 therefore, with any fairness, have addressed him in the 
 same terms of reproach with which his ancestor was as- 
 
ELIS. 
 
 277 
 
 sailed by Lycippus on the occasion alluded to."^ Although 
 I have seldom passed a more comfortless night, yet, owing 
 to the interest of the locality, the oddity and novelty of 
 the circumstances in which I was placed, and a sense of 
 the danger, however slight, to which I could not but be 
 sensible I was exposed, and which tempered with a small 
 tinge of romance the more vulgar and ludicrous peculi- 
 arities of my position, there are few to which I now look 
 back with greater pleasure or interest. For as Homer 
 says, with equal truth and elegance : J 
 
 " The thought of bygone sorrow joy procures, 
 To him who travels far, and much endures." 
 
 Our Spartan hoplite, whose word was law among the 
 Helot population of the present day, wherever we came, 
 to nearly an equal extent as that of his predecessors in 
 authority among the same class in the olden time, had 
 placed in requisition the services of three or four file of 
 the armed villagers as additional escort on our visit to 
 Olympia. The district around that celebrated spot be- 
 ing embedded in thickets and defiles, and having been 
 the scene of several of the most glaring of the late out- 
 rages, seemed to be considered as the headquarters of 
 the outlaws. This man, with whose zeal and intelli- 
 gence I was well satisfied, managed to stick by me 
 during five days' march ; far beyond the bounds of the 
 province to which he was attached, and in contraven- 
 tion, no doubt, of the regulations of his service, which 
 prescribe that escort should be relieved from post to 
 post. But the humours of the journey, apart even from 
 
 ^ aXkd (Tg, w %d%i6ri dXixr^vm, 6 Zivg avrog l^/T^i^eis, 
 
 « O, thou accursed cock ! May Jupiter himself confound thee, and 
 thy spiteful envious throat/' &c. 
 
 oG^rig dri ihd'Ka. 'KoXkd itd^ji xai ^oXX' l^aXTjdfi* — 
 
 Od^ss. XV. 400. 
 
278 
 
 ELIS. 
 
 the prospect of an accumulation of fees at its termina- 
 tion, were so agreeable a relief to the monotony of the 
 daily duties at headquarters, that he made no serious 
 attempt to procure a substitute at any of the interme- 
 diate stations ; and even if called to account by his chief, 
 the slenderness of the force scattered throughout the 
 country might give validity to the pretext that none was 
 to be found. 
 
 The Alpheus at this point, though not apparently 
 swoln to any unusual size, was both broad and deep. 
 It is certainly the most respectable of Hellenic streams, 
 with the exception of the Acheloiis. The waters of both 
 are nearly of the same yellowish cream colour, consisting 
 in each, at this season, in a great measure of melted 
 snow. Next to them, the Greek rivers crossed by me 
 may rank in the following order : the Eurotas — the 
 Boeotian Cephissus — and the Elean Peneus, which last 
 I forded next day, on the road to Patras. The appa- 
 ratus of the ferry of Mokritza is of the most primitive 
 description ; the boat, a large monoxylon, or canoe, in 
 the literal sense of the term, scooped out of the bole of 
 an immense plane-tree. It was the property of one of 
 our guards, son of the Papa of Mokritza, to whose en- 
 terprise I understood the village and neighbourhood to 
 be indebted for the first formation of such an establish- 
 ment at this point. The bark was rowed, or rather 
 paddled, across, by a single pair of hands. Nicola and 
 myself, with the luggage and horse equipage, were first 
 landed on the other side. On the return, two persons 
 entered, each holding the halter of one of the horses, 
 which were driven into the water by those on shore, and 
 forced to swim across behind the boat. Owing to the 
 breadth of the river, and the strength of the current, the 
 place of landing is necessarily at a much lower point 
 than that of embarkation, and at each trip the vessel 
 
279 
 
 loses so much way as to require to be dragged by ropes 
 along-shore for some distance up the stream, to regain 
 its original point of starting. This operation, with the 
 unpacking and repacking of the horses, &c., occupied a 
 considerable time ; on re-mustering on the opposite shore, 
 we continue our course up the river for a short distance, 
 and then strike off to the left into the woods, on emer- 
 ging from which I obtain a full view of the Olympic 
 plain. 
 
280 
 
 ELIS. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVL 
 
 OLYMPIA—PYRGO— HOSPITALITY OF ANGLO-IONIAN CONSUL- 
 REMAINS OF ANCIENT GREEK MANNERS. 
 
 OvXv/jLTria. Pind. 
 
 « Olympia ! Mother of the golden prize, 
 The fairest in the Hellenic athletes' eyes." 
 
 There is a distinctive peculiarity of character in the 
 scenery of this celebrated spot, as compared with any 
 other part of Greece or of Europe visited by me, which 
 adds much to the effect of its real beauty, and to the 
 interest which a first view of it cannot fail to inspire in 
 every cultivated mind. The Alpheus, its banks fringed 
 with sapling planes, here meanders through a small, and 
 not altogether level plain, of a soil naturally rich, but 
 swampy in part, owing to the encroachments of the river, 
 and bounded on every side, except that from which we 
 entered, by hills of no great height, but in many places 
 abrupt and precipitous.* Their surface presents a suc- 
 cession of sandy cliffs of light yellow colour, interspersed 
 with grassy slopes, and studded in every direction with 
 clustering groves or dropping trees of dark green pine. 
 
 * From the summit of one of the loftiest of these cliffs, on the left 
 bank of the river, it was ordained that women found guilty of intrud- 
 ing upon the games, or even of crossing the water during their cele- 
 bration, should be precipitated. This law, however, it was never 
 found necessary to enforce. Pa us an. Uliac, i. 6. 
 
281 
 
 Some of these heights project from the main ridge, hke 
 capes or promontories, towards the river, enclosing as it 
 were small bays or inlets of the level soil. At the east- 
 ern extremity of the plain, the lower hills are backed 
 in the distance by the lofty ridge of Cyllene. The whole 
 scene has an air of mingled wildness and amenity, of 
 cheerfulness and melancholy, which can be better felt 
 than described. 
 
 The traditions followed by Pindar,* relative to the 
 ancient state of the Olympian vale, are strangely at 
 variance both with its own natural history and the geo- 
 graphy of the rest of Europe. According to him, Hercules, 
 observing the sacred region to be bare of trees, and 
 parched for want of shade, introduced the olive plant 
 from the banks of the Danube. Olympia is now by 
 nature a remarkably well wooded country, while the 
 Danube is certainly not fertile in olives. Strabo says 
 the temple was situated in a grove of wild olives; but no 
 such tree is now to be seen in the neighbourhood. 
 
 On entering the open valley from the west, the most 
 conspicuous object is a bold and nearly insulated emi- 
 nence, rising to the left from the level plain in the form 
 of an irregular cone. This height identifies itself at 
 once with Mount Cronius, in the description of Pausa- 
 nias,t also frequently noticed by Pindar, and well cha- 
 racterized by him as " genial," t having a full south 
 exposure. At its base flows a small tributary of the 
 Alpheus, the ancient Cladeus, which, descending from 
 a retired pastoral dell to the north, forms the western 
 boundary of the Altis or sacred territory of the god. 
 Crossing its bed, the traveller arrives at the ruins of the 
 temple, situated in a central part of the cultivated plain, 
 in a hne between Mount Cronius and the Alpheus. This 
 « Olymp. iii. 25, 29. t 21 ; ii. cc. 19, 20. 
 
 X 01. i. 179. ihhhXov. 
 VOL, II. ^ ^ 
 
282 
 
 mouKt fcrms the western limit of one of the recesses of 
 the plain above mentioned, bounded on the other side 
 by a projecting cape, which supplies in its turn the 
 boundary of another long narrow inlet. Here there can 
 be little doubt was the Stadium, the form of the recess 
 being distinctly marked out by nature for the purpose. 
 Its opposite limit is another similar cape or neck, cross- 
 ing over which one again finds a third much larger 
 recess of level ground. 
 
 At some distance to the eastward of the ruins of the 
 temple, there is a sudden fall or dip in the surface of the 
 plain, forming a bank, stretching in an oblique curve 
 along the base of the projecting heights. Below, ex- 
 tends another stretch of plain, of a marshy desolate cha- 
 racter, hable to inundation, and overgrown in part with 
 bushes and water plants. Here the hippodrome has been 
 placed in the received topography of the place, and the 
 authority of Pausanias is perhaps upon the whole favour- 
 able to this view. When well embanked and drained, 
 the ground may, no doubt, have been made serviceable 
 for such a purpose ; but, in its actual state, it appears 
 about as little adapted to it as can well be imagined.* 
 
 The site, plan, and dimensions of the temple have 
 been well ascertained by various excavations, especially 
 that undertaken by the French commission of the Morea. 
 The foundations are still exposed to view, strewed, hke 
 the neighbouring ground, with massive drums of stone 
 columns, square blocks, marble fragments, and heaps of 
 rubbish. The building was hexastyle, contrary to the 
 rule of Vitruvius, who specifies the octastyle or de- 
 castyle portico as proper to the temples of Jove. This 
 circumstance might warrant doubts of its identity, were 
 It not that these rules of Vitruvius are shown, by various 
 examples, to be but fallacious; while we have other con- 
 
 * Sec additional note at end of volume. 
 
ELIS. 
 
 283 
 
 elusive evidence that this really was the temple described 
 by Pausauias. Several fine fragments of the sculptures 
 mentioned by him, representing the labours of Hercules, 
 were brought to light in the French excavation, and de- 
 posited in the museum of the Louvre. The columns are 
 upwards of seven feet in diameter, surpassing in thick- 
 ness those of any other Greek temple of which remains 
 are extant. The only other ruins now visible are a few 
 fragments of brickwork, on the banks of the Cladeus, 
 and near the slope or terrace which separates the upper 
 from the lower level of the plain. 
 
 The ancient name of this region, and of its principal 
 town, was Pisa.* That of Olympia was originally pro- 
 per to the sanctuary; but in the courtesy of later usage 
 came also to comprehend the town and district, of which 
 the sanctuary itself was once but an appendage. There 
 never was a distinct town of Olympia. Pisa was situ- 
 ated at the eastern extremity of the sacred plain. It 
 was destroyed at an early period by the Eleans, who 
 usurped the presidency of the games formerly enjoyed 
 by its inhabitants. The sanctuary and the town, how- 
 ever, are still alluded to as distinct places by Herodotus.t 
 In the ninety-fifth Olympiad, Pisa is described by Xeno- 
 phont as a poor village ; and in the days of Pausanias§ 
 no remains of it were extant, but the site was covered 
 
 * For this name two etymologies suggest themselves, both so 
 appropriate and so expressive of the natural features of the district, 
 that although there can be little doubt but that one or other of the 
 two is correct, it were difficult to decide which. The one connects 
 itself with the word TT/^ffo?, a low marshy irrigated plain, or with the 
 same root from whence it derives [Hin, ; the other with 
 
 -^leaa, the name of the black fir orpine-tree. It is remarkable enough 
 that the Tyrrhenian Pisa is situated in a precisely similar region— 
 namely, a low, warm, marshy flat, interspersed with pine forest. 
 ^ jj 7_ t Hellen. iii. 2, 31 ; vii. 4, 29. 
 
 § Eliac. ii., c. 22. 
 
^84 
 
 ELIS. 
 
 with vines. Yet Lucian,* although he mentions its de- 
 serted state, still speaks of Pisa as the lodging-place of 
 the visitors at the games, where booths and tents were 
 erected for their accommodation. 
 
 The richest part of the plain is in the neighbourhood 
 of the temple. Prom one of the peasants engaged in 
 tilhng its surface, I purchased a bronze helmet, lately 
 dug up by himself in the course of his labours. It is of 
 the natural size and usual form. The crown is gone, 
 but the lower part is well preserved, and pierced at the 
 edge with rows of small holes, still retaining some of the 
 nails for fastening on lining or other appendages. Traces 
 of gilding are distinct in several places. 
 
 The road to Pyrgo, a town on the coast destined as 
 our night's quarters, lies a little to the north of that which 
 brought us from Mokritza. In one of the darkest re- 
 cesses of the wood, we are shown the spot where one of 
 the late murders was committed. After an hour's ride 
 we emerge from the forest into a wide open plain, which, 
 bare, uncultivated, and studded here and there with 
 shepherd's encampments, reminded me much of some of 
 the more dreary parts of the Roman campagna. Our 
 village escort is here dismissed, as no danger seems ever 
 to be apprehended from the Greek Klephts in an open 
 country. Considering, however, the state of the popula- 
 tion and of the poHce, one might suppose it as easy and 
 safe a matter to plunder a caravan in the one case as in 
 the other; for, by retiring at once with the booty into the 
 neighbouring fastnesses, concealment would be equally 
 well ensured. • 
 ^ Soon after it sets in rain for the evening, and as we 
 ride into the town it pours in torrents. Pyrgo occupies 
 the summit of a long gentle eminence, commanding an 
 extensive view, both inland and towards the mouth of 
 * De Sacrif. ii. 8. IIerodot. 8» 
 
ELIS. 
 
 285 
 
 the river and the surrounding coast. The bazar, lined 
 on each side with the customary wooden sheds, has a 
 busy appearance, partly from a considerable commerce 
 which the town carries on with the Ionian islands and 
 along the neighbouring shore, partly from the prepara- 
 tions making for the approaching festivities of Easter 
 week. The place is situated at some distance from the 
 sea ; its maritime trade being carried on through the me- 
 dium of a small port called by its own name, Porto di 
 Pyrghi. 
 
 Nicola conducts me at once to the house of the British 
 consul. Signer Zaccaria, an Ionian by birth, and an old 
 servant of our government, under which he officiated in 
 this capacity before the septinsular republic fell to our 
 lot. His house is a large substantial structure, several 
 stories in height, surrounded by a walled court, and fitted 
 up both without and within in the Italian style ; with a 
 spacious saloon or common hall in the centre of the first 
 floor. The old man is superannuated, sickly, and appa- 
 rently in his second childhood; but, in consideration of his 
 long service, continues to hold his office on full pay, the 
 duties being performed by his son, who receives me po- 
 litely, and entertains me with disinterested hospitahty. 
 On his proposal to allot for my separate use a small 
 room, hitherto occupied by a female servant, and not of 
 very tempting appearance, I venture, under the pressure 
 of the case, to explain to him candidly, that I had already 
 passed four sleepless nights, and from what cause; that 
 I much feared the consequence of a fifth to my health ; 
 and that I should greatly prefer being allowed to spread 
 my couch on the sofa of the saloon, (which appeared 
 fresh and cleanly,) after the party had separated for the 
 night. He takes the compliment to his bed-room accom- 
 modation very good-humouredly : it is arranged as I 
 wish, and I enjoy a good night's rest. 
 
286 
 
 ELIS. 
 
 It was reported, as I afterwards learned at Patras, by- 
 persons unfriendly to the family, that the old man was 
 dead, and that the son concealed his death for the enjoy- 
 ment of his emoluments, amounting, as I was informed, 
 to three or four hundred pounds per annum, a large in- 
 come in this country. To the falsehood of this calumny 
 I was happy to be able to bear ocular testimony, having 
 myself been introduced to the presence, I can hardly say 
 to the acquaintance, of the old gentleman, in his private 
 apartment ; for, if able to recognise, he is altogether past 
 the power of conversing with a stranger. 
 
 Signer Zaccaria, the younger, confirmed the accounts 
 I had already received of the state of the country, and of 
 the murder committed two days before on the Patras 
 road. He described wanton bloodshed as having become 
 more frequent of late, which he attributed to a greater 
 degree of embitterment among the class of persons by 
 whom the outrages are committed ; a consequence of the 
 new law of conscription. He seemed, however, to treat 
 the matter with indifference ; and his brother, a smart 
 young beau, dressed in the latest style of Frank dandy- 
 ism, arrived about an hour after myself, by land, from 
 Patras, alone, unarmed, and without escort. One is 
 at first disposed to feel surprise at the callousness dis- 
 played by the natives of this country to the risks they 
 incur from the defective state of their police. The tra- 
 veller hears of a robbery or a murder on the route he is 
 about to pursue a few hours before starting, yet he 
 neither delays his journey, nor makes any provision for 
 his own security. The phenomenon, however, is, after 
 all, nothing more than what is constantly exemplified in 
 the everyday life of civilized Europe. Habit and ne- 
 cessity create indifference to every kind of danger, as to 
 all the other evils of human existence. Hence, as the 
 experience of whosoever has led an active life will bear 
 
ELIS. 
 
 287 
 
 out, danger of every sort, when contemplated at a dis- 
 tance, seems greater than when present. As a husband 
 and a father of a family, had I previously known the state 
 of this province of the dominions of Otho, I might never 
 have ventured to penetrate its interior ; but when once 
 on the journey, although I was not foolhardy enough to 
 neglect the ordinary precautions enjoined by the local 
 authorities, yet I may safely say, that there were few 
 matters that occupied me less, even in the most suspicious 
 parts of the route, than the expectation or the fear of 
 being assaulted. The Greek merchant, who thought- 
 lessly sets out on a path still red with the blood of the 
 passenger of the previous day, would perhaps find it dif- 
 ficult to understand how an English country squire could 
 continue to follow the hounds regularly from season to 
 season, after seeing several of his acquaintances break 
 their necks, or maim themselves for life, in pursuit of the 
 same diversion. The fatal accidents that annually occur 
 in the fox and steeple hunts of England, are probably as 
 numerous, in proportion to the number of those who take 
 part in them, as the assassinations on the Greek roads, 
 in proportion to those by whom they are frequented. 
 Yet no one with us attaches the notion of danger to the 
 amusement of fox-hunting, or admires those devoted to 
 it as more distinguished for courage than their neigh- 
 bours. The same remark applies perhaps still more 
 pointedly to travelling by stage-coaches, steam-boats, or 
 rail-roads. I remember a burlesque turn being given to 
 the terror of a party of ladies, in a coach driven at a 
 speed somewhat more rapid than appeared to them con- 
 sistent with their safety, by the remark of a dry humour- 
 ist, that he never felt alarmed on such occasions, because 
 one never read in the newspapers of any accidents of 
 this kind happening to one's-self, it was always to other 
 people. For the same reason the Greeks and Calabrians, 
 
288 
 
 ELIS. 
 
 who are in the habit of hearing of their neighbours being 
 robbed or murdered on the roads, seldom calculate on 
 meeting with a robber or a murderer themselves. 
 
 My young landlord, as he himself informed me, had 
 married the daughter of one of the oldest and wealthiest 
 families of the Morea, the name of which, though familiar 
 to me at the moment, has escaped my memory, but which 
 formerly, as he also assured me, exercised, either during 
 the Byzantine or early Turkish period, a sort of sove- 
 reignty or viceroyalty over a great part of the penin- 
 sula. The lady, a buxom, good-looking, middle-aged 
 woman, in very homely attire, appeared but once, pass- 
 ing through the saloon in the performance of some do- 
 mestic office. The party at meals, as well as the even- 
 ing circle, comprised the gentlemen of the household 
 alone. This, to our notions, semi-barbarous custom is a 
 remnant, probably, as much of ancient Greek as of mo- 
 dern Turkish manners. Among the ancients, the female 
 members of the family were allotted a separate accom- 
 modation in the most retired part of the dwelling, the 
 Gynseceum, o'c female quarter, in contradistinction to the 
 Andron, the male, or public part of the house. Nor does 
 it appear that ladies of respectable character ever shared 
 in the conviviality of the table when strangers were pre- 
 sent. The same peculiarity of manners prevails, or at 
 least did prevail, on the opposite coast of Southern Italy, 
 the inhabitants of which can claim descent from the 
 Italiote Greeks, with as good or perhaps a better right 
 than the Moreotes from those of the mother country, 
 and among whom I have in my own experience found the 
 Gynseceum and the Andron as broadly distinguished as 
 at any period of antiquity. During a tour many years 
 ago through this region, I was hospitably entertained 
 at Croton, in Calabria, the birthplace of Milo, and resi- 
 dence of Pythagoras, in the house of a leading noble- 
 
ELIS. 
 
 289 
 
 man of the place, by name Don Beppo O . I had 
 
 letters, from a friend in another province, to his sister, the 
 mother of my host, and who, according to another more 
 agreeable custom of these countries, still continued in 
 her dowager state to preside over the domestic estabhsh- 
 ment of her son. On my arrival Don Beppo was from 
 home ; but on enquiring for the old lady I was shown 
 into a room where she was sitting with two younger ones. 
 She received me with much politeness, and offered me 
 all the hospitahty her house could afford. After chat- 
 ting a quarter of an hour with herself and the two other 
 ladies, who seemed well bred and intelligent young 
 women, I went down to the piazza to bring up my lug- 
 gage. I was there joined by Don Beppo, who, having 
 been apprised of my arrival, had proceeded in quest of 
 me, and renewed the hospitable invitation of his mother. 
 I spent several days in the house. The old lady used 
 to pay me a formal complimentary visit each forenoon 
 in my own apartment; but I never saw her at any other 
 time. The circle in the saloon, at meals, and on all 
 other occasions, was confined to the male members of the 
 establishment, comprising two uncles of the landlord, 
 and occasionally reheved by the presence of his only 
 daughter, a lively little girl about ten years old. In the 
 course of the second day, I enquired of Don Beppo who 
 the two ladies were that I had seen the first evening of 
 my arrival, sitting with his mother. He answered that 
 they were his daughter's governesses. I observed, that 
 with us one governess was considered sufficient for four 
 or five full grown young ladies, and expressed my sur- 
 prise that he should find it necessary to be at the expense 
 of two for a child of ten years of age. He rephed that 
 it was the custom of the country—" cosi si costuma fra 
 noi." A few days afterwards, in the course of conver- 
 sation with one of the uncles, assuming that Don Beppo 
 VOL. n. 2 B 
 
290 
 
 ELIS. 
 
 was a widower, and happening to ask how long it was 
 since he had lost his wife, I was informed that she was 
 still living. On my expressing surprise, and enquiring 
 whether she was unwell or from home, he asked me whe- 
 ther^I had not seen her myself sitting with her mother- 
 in-law on the evening of my arrival. I answered that I 
 had understood the two younger ladies present on that 
 occasion, to be the persons entrusted with the education 
 of the little girl ; at which he laughed, and assured me 
 that the one was the wife the other the sister of my host. 
 
 This custom, so contrary to our notions of European 
 civilization, of which I had some other examples in the 
 course of the same journey, was then, as I was informed 
 at the time, gradually wearing out, being only to be met 
 with in the more old-fashioned families even of this re- 
 mote district, and is, it is to be hoped, by this time quite 
 extinct 
 
ELIS. 
 
 291 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIL 
 
 KLEPHTIC FEROCITY— CONVENT AND KHAN OF ALI-TSCHELEPI— 
 TRAIT OF MODERN GREEK CHARACTER— PATRAS. 
 
 A1 olJ to dovXov ojg Tiaxov ^s(pvx as/. — Eurip' 
 « Of ills the greatest — to be bom a slave. " 
 
 The next morning, (Wednesday, 11th of April,) we 
 parted with our Spartan orderly, who, not venturing or 
 caring to extend his travels further northward, had re- 
 lieved himself by a substitute from the station at Pyrgo, 
 very like himself both in person and habits. We set 
 out escorted by two muskets besides his own, until we 
 should have cleared the dangerous parts of the route. 
 After travelling a few miles across the open country, we 
 halt to load, before entering a heathy district shghtly 
 raised above the level of the plain, and intersected by 
 narrow gullies, through one of which our track lay. 
 Whilst occupied in this manner, the Chorophylax called 
 our attention to a spot of ground hard by, which, on ap- 
 proaching, we found to be stained with blood for several 
 yards around. This was the place where the murder 
 already noticed had been committed two days before. 
 On the intelligence reaching Pyrgo, our guard had been 
 the person sent to take official cognisance of the affair. 
 He found the body lying on the spot where it had fallen, 
 swimming in blood— stabbed in several places, and the 
 throat cut so as nearly to sever the head from the 
 
292 
 
 ELIS, 
 
 shoulders. The poor sufferer was a Laconian cotton- 
 dealer, who had been collecting his debts in the north, 
 and was returning quite alone on foot to his native place, 
 with about a hundred dollars in his pouch. The fol- 
 lowing were the circumstances of the case, as gathered 
 partly from an examination of the locahties, partly from 
 the testimony of eye-witnesses : — The first assault took 
 place within the thicket, at some distance from the open 
 plain, where the road, scarcely broad enough to admit of 
 two horses passing conveniently, is confined between 
 steep banks rising on each side, about as high as the 
 head of a mounted traveller. The ruffians, of whom two 
 only were seen, had laid their ambush on the summit of 
 these banks, one on each side, among the brushwood, 
 and fired a pistol-shot at their victim as he passed, but 
 missed him. He then took to flight in the direction of the 
 plain, pursued by his assassins, who, on regaining sight 
 of him on the open country, fired at him a second time 
 with a carbine, but again without efiect. They con- 
 tinued their pursuit, however, across the fields, and 
 coming up with him at the spot where the body was 
 found, attacked him with their knives. The poor fellow 
 defended himself valiantly ; but after receiving several 
 stabs, fell, and they immediately cut his throat, rifled 
 him, and made off* for the interior of the country. Several 
 countrymen at work in the fields, at no great distance, 
 witnessed the whole scene. They had been used to hear 
 shots in the neighbouring heath, which was the occa- 
 sional resort of sportsmen; and when they saw three 
 young men chasing each other, imagined it was but play, 
 until the last moment, when the fatal blows passed and 
 one of them fell. On examining the ground within the 
 defile, where the first shot was heard, a discharged pistol 
 was found, the barrel of which, on inspection, proved to 
 be of wood ! 
 
ELIS. 
 
 293 
 
 This whole day's journey, and indeed the greater part 
 of the route to Patras, is through a flat country, with the 
 sea at no great distance to the left. On emerging from 
 the heath we dismiss the guard, the road being now pro- 
 nounced secure. We halt to refresh at Dervitzi, a vil- 
 lage embedded in olive groves. From the open ground 
 on the bank of a small stream immediately beyond, I 
 enjoy a fine view of the coast of Ehs, and the neigh- 
 bouring island of Zante, bearing west at about twenty 
 miles' distance. Its outline is remarkable for elegance 
 rather than boldness. The centre of the prospect is 
 occupied by a long ridge, forming the back of the pro- 
 montory of Cyllene. On its summit towers a Gothic 
 fortress, the principal seat of the Frank dynasty during 
 the middle ages, called by the natives Clemouzzi, by the 
 Franks Castel Tornese. Immediately below this height 
 is the port of Clarenza, the ancient Cyllene, once the 
 naval arsenal of the Eleans, and capital of the Morea 
 under the Frank princes. From hence the ducal title 
 of Clarence, habitually borne by one of the junior mem- 
 bers of our royal family, is said to be derived. Beyond, 
 to the N. W., is seen in the distance the lofty round sum- 
 mit of Cefalonia, with the lower heights of Ithaca to 
 its right. After traversing a dreary extent of marshy 
 heath, our journey across which is agreeably enlivened 
 by a well-sustained Aristophanic chorus on the part of 
 the frogs, its only apparent inhabitants, we ford in suc- 
 cession two other streams, the first of which, the ancient 
 Peneus, is both broad and deep. To the eastward, at 
 some miles' distance, the site of ancient Elis is now 
 visible. It forms the boldest point of a range of low hills 
 bounding the plain in that direction. Beyond them rises 
 an insulated rocky mountain, of considerable height and 
 boldness of outline, the Scollis of Strabo, and probably 
 the Olenian rock of Homer, now called Sandameri. 
 
294 
 
 ELIS. 
 
 Among its fastnesses, Nicola informed me, some thou- 
 sand families of Greeks had found refuge from the de- 
 vastations of the Turkish war during several years. About 
 sunset we enter a forest of noble oaks, through which 
 our road lies for the greater part of the remaining dis- 
 tance to Patras. In the midst of it is situated the village 
 of Ali-tschelepi, where we are to pass the night, and 
 which we do not reach until long after nightfall. The 
 name of this place, according to Nicola's interpretation, 
 signifies All's Delight ; from its having been formerly a 
 favourite residence of a pasha of that name. 
 
 My host of Pyrgo had sent an order to the monks of 
 a convent on the outskirts of the village, of the old do- 
 main of which he is part proprietor, to receive and enter- 
 tain us. Their establishment, comprising, in as far as 
 could be judged in the gloom, a considerable range of 
 whitewashed structures, seemed to hold out hopes of 
 tolerable accommodation. On arriving, therefore, we left 
 our horses at a khan in the immediate neighbourhood, 
 and proceeded to beat up the quarters of the kalogheri. 
 But all our efforts to obtain admission were vain ; so, 
 after calling and knocking for about a quarter of an hour 
 at the outer gate, we gave up the matter as hopeless, and 
 returned to the khan. 
 
 I had frequently heard it said by inteUigent foreigners 
 settled in Greece, that its inhabitants, in spite of their 
 obstinate struggle for independence, and amid a good 
 deal of native spirit and ferocity, had not yet been able 
 to shake off some of those defects, which Homer, as if in 
 prophetic anticipation of the future fate of his own coun- 
 trymen, assures us slavery never fails to entail on the 
 character of its victims;* that the same abject cringing 
 
 dvs^og, -cVT dv iJ.iv nard dovXtov ^/xa^ sXri(f/v 
 
 Od. 322. 
 
El.IS. 
 
 295 
 
 to any thing in the shape of a superior, which during the 
 Turkish despotism had been a matter of necessity, still 
 continued to display itself towards rank, or constituted 
 authority, as a matter of habit; and that to this day, con- 
 sequently, the proper mode for a traveller to secure jus- 
 tice or respect in his dealings with the natives, was the 
 employment of the cane or the horsewhip. As my infor- 
 mation came chiefly from Bavarians, who for the most 
 part return with interest the hatred and contempt which 
 the Greeks so cordially entertain for them, I had some 
 doubts how far their reports were to be relied on : nor 
 was I likely to bring the question to an issue from per- 
 sonal trial. But this latter part of our journey, it must 
 be admitted, offered several incidents tending greatly to 
 confirm the correctness of their statements, the most re- 
 markable of which occurred on the present occasion. 
 Allusion has already been made to the dictatorial de- 
 portment of our military attendants towards the peasantry, 
 and indeed towards all classes of their fellow-citizens 
 whose status in society gave them no especial claim to 
 personal respect. Nor did this overbearing spirit appear 
 to depend on the genius of the individual stratiote, but 
 was common to them all, as part and parcel of their just 
 and proper dignity of office. If a ford was sought, the 
 nearest countryman was not requested, but peremptorily 
 summoned to conduct us to it; if the way was intri- 
 cate, he was ordered to act as guide, or forthwith to find 
 a substitute; and the least hesitation or delay seldom 
 failed to bring down a volley of the most approved mih- 
 tary anathemas on the head of the offender. To return, 
 however, to the case immediately in point; on reaching 
 the khan, I found our escort, who had quitted the con- 
 vent gate a few minutes earlier, busy in inflicting the 
 most humihating species of corporal punishment on the 
 person of the khanjee— a handsome, athletic, and rather 
 
296 
 
 ELIS. 
 
 respectable-looking young man— belabouring his back 
 and shoulders with the flat of his sword, and at intervals 
 bestowing virulent kicks on that part of the hinder 
 quarter where a blow is supposed to convey the severest 
 wound to personal honour. On occasion of any mo- 
 mentary respite from the fury of the attack, the sufferer 
 attempted, with mild voice, and gentle but earnest ex- 
 postulation, to convince his enemy of the unreasonable- 
 ness of his conduct; and then, as the assault recommenced 
 with redoubled fury, he again turned his back till the 
 shower of blows was overpast, when he once more faced 
 about, and with the same calmness renewed the thread 
 of his argument. I immediately interfered, and enquir- 
 ing the cause of the dispute, was informed: that the monks 
 had for some time past been in the nightly habit of 
 leaving the convent, which, as already said, was on the 
 outskirts of the commune, for fear of the robbers, and 
 taking up their abode till morning in a more central part 
 of the village ; that the Chorophylax had proposed to 
 go m quest of them, and summon them to return and re- 
 open their establishment for my accommodation; that he 
 had ordered the khanjee to act as his guide to the place, 
 but that the man had declined compliance, urging the 
 lateness of the hour, and the necessity of attending on 
 his other guests, of whom several besides our party were 
 already assembled within the hut. Nor indeed was it 
 reasonable to expect that the poor fellow would be the 
 wilhng instrument of depriving himself of a customer, 
 from whom he doubtless expected to realize the ordinary 
 receipts of several days. I settled the dispute by de- 
 claring my intention of remaining at his khan, rather 
 than subject the reverend gentlemen to any inconvenience, 
 or myself to the delay and trouble of preparing new 
 quarters. The matter being thus concluded, mine host, 
 lur from bearing any apparent ill-will to his castigator, 
 
ELIS. 
 
 29T 
 
 seemed neither mortified nor disconcerted by what had 
 passed ; and ten minutes afterwards, the two were con- 
 versing together by the fireside, upon general topics, with 
 as much ease and good-humour as if nothing had hap- 
 pened. 
 
 The conversation round the hearth turned, very natu- 
 rally, upon ecclesiastical politics. Radical principles 
 were in the ascendant, and most of the arguments against 
 monastic estabhshments, which for the last two or three 
 centuries have become stale and hackneyed common- 
 places in western Europe, were here urged as ingenious 
 novelties, with all the pom.p and pride of intellectual 
 ultra-liberalism, by the m_ajority of the assembly, headed, 
 as was to be expected, by Nicola, and seconded by the 
 Chorophylax. Monasteries in general were pronounced 
 to be mere hives of useless drones ; the government was 
 commended for what had been already done towards 
 their suppression, and hopes were expressed that the 
 country would soon be rid of them altogether. The 
 monks of Ali-tschelepi were denounced in their in dividual 
 capacity, as traitors to the only useful duty they had to 
 perform— that of afl^ording hospitality to the traveller. 
 From all this, an elderly substantial-looking merchant, 
 who sat by me, and who seemed to be the only stanch 
 Conservative of the party, scarcely ventured to dissent 
 by an occasional shake of the head, or an expression or 
 two of simple disapprobation. There is, indeed, this to 
 be said in favour of the regular clergy of the Greek 
 church, as compared with their Cathohc brethren, that 
 however useless or even pernicious they may be in a 
 spiritual sense, they are not by any means a burden to 
 society in a statistical point of view; as their clerical 
 dignity does not interdict them from gaining their hve- 
 lihood through their own industry, whether by agricul- 
 tural labour, or the exercise of mechanical and commercial 
 
298 
 
 ELIS. 
 
 professions. The Greek church does not, I believe, 
 recognise any estabhshment of mendicant friars ; nor do 
 I recollect ever to have met with a clerical beggar — or 
 indeed, I may almost say, a beggar of any description — ■ 
 in the course of my tour. 
 
 Our agoghiates were exceedingly anxious to be back 
 at Pyrgo early on Friday morning, in order to lose as 
 little as possible of the ceremonies and festivities of that 
 and the ensuing days of Easter week. It was therefore 
 proposed that we should remain no longer at this place 
 than was required for such refreshment or repose as was 
 indispensable to carry on our horses to Patras, without 
 risk of knocking up. This plan was readily agreed to 
 by me, for whom the interior of the khan of Ali-tschelepi 
 had as few charms as any of its predecessors. We 
 therefore started by moonhght, about a couple of hours 
 before sunrise. The road for more than halfway to 
 Patras was still through the same beautiful woodland 
 scenery. I seldom remember to have seen finer oaks, 
 never, perhaps, so great a number of equal dimensions in 
 continued succession. The whole country, for many 
 miles, recalled to mind the wilder parts of Windsor park. 
 At mtervals of a mile or two occurred pastoral settle- 
 ments, of the usual romantic character, in the midst of 
 the extensive glades of green pasture or ferny heath, 
 which opened up from time to time through the mazes of 
 the forest. 
 
 The resemblance between the habits of pastoral hfe, 
 as prevalent to this day in Greece, and those described 
 by Homer, has already been incidentally noticed. No 
 one, indeed, familiar with the works of the poet, can fail 
 to be struck with the correspondence between these 
 numerous little colonies of shepherds, with their ferocious 
 and vociferous packs of dogs, interspersed here and 
 
ELIS. 
 
 299 
 
 there throughout the less cultivated parts of the country, 
 and the establishments of the same class whose concerns 
 are so frequently brought forward in the illustrative 
 imagery of both poems. Several coincidences of this 
 kind have been remarked, in connexion with the adven- 
 tures of our day of disembarkation on the shore of Greece; 
 and this, our last day's journey on its soil, supplied an- 
 other no less interesting. At the moment when the purple 
 aurora of a beautiful spring morning scarcely permitted 
 of our distinguishing objects at a few hundred yards' 
 distance through the glades, we passed one of these en- 
 campments, just as it was beginning to show symptoms 
 of a renewal of the daily routine of occupation. The 
 men were emerging from the huts, and the sheep from 
 the folds, snuffing the morning air, and slowly spreading 
 in groups over the neighbouring sward. On a sudden 
 the peaceful character of the scene gives place to bustle 
 and alarm. The dogs rush forth in a body towards a 
 certain point, fiercely snarling and barking; both men 
 and women follow with such weapons as are more imme- 
 diately at hand, and cries of Xixos, X-Mog—the wolf ! the 
 wolf! 
 
 dnehg axo'jdavns x^ars^of^om otsri xa/ uXjjv 
 
 avl^MV ri^i xvvcHv. — II- x. 184. 
 
 " Prowling within the wood, the hungry brute 
 Is heard ; when clamour loud, and keen pursuit. 
 Of men and dogs arise." 
 
 Looking towards the point in which their sally was 
 directed, I observed accordingly a wolf, that had been 
 lurking doubtless during the night around the fold, watch- 
 ing an opportunity of carrying off a straggler on the 
 unpenning of the flock in the morning, slink off disap- 
 pointed, with his tail between his legs 
 
300 
 
 PATRAS. 
 
 " So beast of prey for murderous theft prepared, 
 
 By dogs and herdsmen from the sheep-pen scared, 
 
 AVith weapons and with voice — his spirit bold 
 
 Subdued — slinks oiF reluctant from the fold." — //. xvii. 110. 
 
 On quitting the forest, we coast along the gulf for an 
 hour or two, and at length reach Patras, the final limit 
 of my Hellenic travels. This place appears to be rising 
 from its ruins with greater rapidity and regularity than 
 most other Greek cities. But of the gardens of oranges, 
 almonds, figs, and pomegranates, in which its houses 
 were formerly imbedded,* not a leaf is now to be seen. 
 The main street, built parallel to the shore, contains 
 some rows of good houses ; and several others running at 
 right angles to it, are lined on each side with neat and 
 well garnished shops. The Turkish citadel, formerly 
 the Acropolis, and now a picturesque castellated ruin, 
 occupies a precipitous and nearly insulated height, pro- 
 jecting from the lofty Mount Panachaicusf— now Voidhia 
 — which rises immediately behind. The great beauty, 
 however, of the site of this town, is the sea view, unsur- 
 passed by any thing of its kind in Greece, or perhaps in 
 Europe. The outline of the land on the opposite side 
 of the gulf, extends from the snowy tops of Parnassus in 
 the east, to the more distant mountains of Acarnania in 
 the opposite direction ; while full in front, in the centre 
 of the prospect, are the colossal pyramids of Kakescala 
 and Varassova, rising in huge perpendicular masses from 
 the brink of the water. The planner of the new city 
 has, however, done his best to deprive it of this, its chief 
 ornament, and, it may be presumed, one of its greatest 
 advantages as a seaport. Instead of a broad extent of 
 quay, backed by a single line of buildings, to front so 
 noble a prospect, the ground along the shore is laid out 
 as an ordinary street, which, when completed, will have 
 a continuous row of houses on each side for nearly its 
 * Leake's Morea, ii. p. 140. f 6300 feet.—LEAKE. 
 
PATRAS. 
 
 301 
 
 whole length; so that the voyager, on his arrival, in 
 place of an open terrace, sees nothing but the back pre- 
 mises of the outer row of buildings, mingled, perhaps, 
 with fishermen's huts, and other structures of an equally 
 unseemly appearance, in their rear ; while the inhabitants 
 of the town enjoy on their chief promenade about as 
 much benefit from their fine sea view, as those of Thames 
 Street do from that of the river whose name it bears. 
 
 The most considerable structure of the town is the 
 church of St Andrew, rebuilding at its western extre- 
 mity on the site of the ancient sanctuary, which had lain 
 in ruins for generations. It is of substantial stone ma- 
 sonry, and, when complete, will be about the best edifice 
 of its class in Greece. Its patron saint is supposed to 
 have suffered martyrdom at Patras, and his remams to 
 rest beneath its pavement. St Andrew was one of the 
 most distinguished miracle-workers of the Byzantme 
 church, and obtained the credit, justly due to the valour 
 of its own citizens, of having delivered the town from the 
 Sclavonian conquest in the eighth century. When hard 
 pressed by the barbarians, the besieged sent to demand 
 aid from their alhes the Corinthians. If, on his return, 
 the messenger carried his banner erect, it was a sign that 
 no succour could be expected. If he lowered it, assist- 
 ance was at hand. The application was unfavourably 
 received at Corinth ; but, as the messenger approached 
 the walls of the besieged city, his horse stumbled and his 
 banner fell. The citizens took heart, saUied forth, and 
 repulsed the enemy. The Corinthian reinforcement un- 
 expectedly arrived, the barbarians were dispersed, and 
 the place delivered. The stumbling of the horse was 
 attributed to the miraculous interposition of St Andrew, 
 who was also seen fighting in the foremost ranks in the 
 last decisive engagement. 
 
 In the year 1460, Thomas, despot of the Morea, when 
 
302 
 
 PATRAS. 
 
 forced to fly before the Turks, carried ofi^ with him, 
 among other treasures, the head of this saint, which he 
 disposed of to the Pope for a pension of 6000 ducats. 
 The procession of the relic into Rome is commemorated 
 by the pretty chapel on the left hand of the Flaminian 
 way, between the Ponte MoUe and Porta del Popolo, 
 erected by Pius the Second on the spot where he first 
 encountered it in its progress. 
 
 But the possession, or the miraculous virtues, of the 
 fragments of this holy corpse, were not confined to Greece 
 or to Italy. In the year 370, as we learn from Boece, 
 a monk called Regulus, ( St Reule,) was sent by the em- 
 peror Constantius to Patras, to pay homage to the relics 
 of St Andrew. " And when the said Reule," says the 
 historian, " had done his devotions with much reverence, 
 he was commanded by a heavenly vision to take the arm 
 of St Andrew, with three fingers, and three toes of his 
 feet, and to pass with the same into the far nook of the 
 world named Albion," in order to convert the barbarous 
 natives of that country. Having suffered shipwreck on 
 the coast of Fife, he founded the monastery of St An- 
 drew's, and established the domicile of the relies on the 
 .spot where he escaped to land; and from thence the 
 Christian religion was spread throughout Scotland, to- 
 gether with the worship of the apostle, who has ever 
 since remained the tutelar saint of the Scottish nation. 
 
 By the side of this building is shown a subterranean 
 fountain, identified with that where Pausanias* describes 
 the oracle of the mirror. Patras, though a place of 
 great antiquity, was never one of leading historical cele- 
 brity, and can boast of proportionally few and trivial 
 monuments of its classical ages. The only visible relics 
 of the ancient city are a few Roman substructions, with 
 some fragments of sculpture in the masonry of the castle 
 
 * Achate, xxi. 5. 
 
PATRAS. 
 
 303 
 
 wallsj and a broken arch or two within the water-line; 
 remains, apparently, of a pier or quay. The place boasts 
 several inns, or, to give them their full dignity of title, 
 hotels, fitted up in the Italian style, and offering tolerable 
 accommodation. The one which I inhabited, the best in 
 the town, is kept by a young man whom Nicola intro- 
 duced to me as patronized by General Gordon, who^ 
 having taken a fancy to him when a boy, educated and 
 established him in life. If this be true, he does but little 
 credit to his benefactor ; as his dealings with the public 
 are notoriously a systematic course of extortion and 
 knavery; carried on, however, in so barefaced and ex- 
 travagant a manner, as in a great degree to defeat its 
 own object. 
 
 Good Friday is, I believe, with the Greeks, as in most 
 other Christian churches, nominally a day of penance. 
 If so, its rites are certainly the most tumultuous species 
 of fasting and humiliation I have happened to witness. 
 While the more mysterious functions were performing 
 in the interior of the cathedral, (formerly a Turkish 
 mosque of considerable size, which has survived the gen- 
 eral ruin,) its outer courts, with the neighbouring thor- 
 oughfares, were crowded with people, apparently in a 
 high state of jovial excitement, and whose most serious 
 occupation seemed to be ringing a bell, hung on a scaf- 
 folding over the gateway of entrance, in which service 
 they relieved each other at intervals. The shops were 
 open the whole forenoon, and doing extensive business ; 
 the streets crowded with loungers ; while during the 
 greater part of the night the town resounded with reports 
 of guns, pistols, and fireworks. The most interesting 
 part of the festival to a stranger, was the display of cos- 
 tume on the promenade. Every man who possessed a 
 change of raiment was in his best attire ; and it may be 
 presumed that this was the day of renewal with those 
 
304 
 
 PATRAS, 
 
 who are in the habit of disembarrassing their person of 
 its drapery but once in the course of the year. Some of 
 the dresses of the more respectable class were remarkable 
 both for richness and beauty. There are, indeed, few 
 things in Greece more apt to strike the eye of a foreigner, 
 than the contrast between this occasional splendour of 
 personal attire, and the general filth and misery of do- 
 mestic habits. One frequently sees figures, who might 
 pass on the stage of Paris or London for the first officers 
 of state of an oriental court, if not for the sultan him- 
 self, issuing from the door of a habitation which a re- 
 spectable artisan in either of those towns would be 
 ashamed to call his own. The expense of many of these 
 suits of clothing is enormous ; and this species of extra- 
 vagance is spread among all classes of the community. 
 The full costume of a Greek bishop, I was assured, often 
 costs a sum, the tenth part of which a dignitary of the 
 same rank in our own hierarchy would probably grudge 
 to spend on his canonicals. 
 
 Although in respect to the number of vessels that 
 annually frequent its harbour, Patras may yield to the 
 Piraeus, it is yet considered, I understand, as the port of 
 Greece most distinguished for the extent of its commer- 
 cial relations. If so, the reality is strangely belied by 
 external appearances. During the two days I spent 
 there, I saw neither arrival nor departure of any kind to 
 attract attention, but that of our own steam-packet; 
 nor did I ever at any one time observe more than one or 
 two floating objects in the roadstead that could deserve 
 the name of vessel, and those but small brigs or schooners ; 
 together with a very scanty sprinkhng of boats of various 
 sizes. Nor indeed does the place present the appear- 
 ance of a port or harbour to the eye of a landsman, hav- 
 ing neither cove, headland, pier, or breakwater, nor any 
 other of the features, natural or artificial, which one is 
 
PATRAS. 
 
 305 
 
 in the habit of considering indispensable for the shelter 
 of shipping. To me it seemed but an open shore ; but 
 must, I presume, be more effectually protected than it 
 appears, by some peculiarity in the general form of the 
 gulf that bears its name, and which I was not seaman 
 enough to appreciate. 
 
 VOL. 11. 
 
306 
 
 ANCONA. 
 
 CHAPTER XL VIII. 
 
 VOYAGE TO AlSTCONA— LIFE IN LAZARETTO. 
 
 a(SitaCpiJ.ai Menandri fragm, 
 
 " Hail ! favoured land— long absent from thy shore, 
 With joy I greet thy dark blue hills once more." 
 
 We embarked for Ancona in the Austrian steam- 
 packet, on the afternoon of Sunday, the 15th April, 
 with dark gloomy weather, and reached Corfu on the 
 day following amid torrents of rain. There I parted with 
 Nicola, I cannot say with very deep regret; as, in spite of 
 the real value of his services, there was but httle in the 
 mode of their performance, or in the habits of the man, 
 calculated permanently to engage the affections of his 
 employer. The vessel remained in port scarcely time 
 sufficient to permit of my visiting and taking luncheon 
 with my friends at the palace. The weather continued 
 more or less unfavourable the whole of that afternoon 
 and of the next day, but cleared up the morning (April 
 18) of our arrival at Ancona. 
 
 It had never yet been my lot to be the inmate of a 
 Lazaretto, and I had heard much of the discomforts of 
 such estabhshments. I was therefore the more agreeably 
 surprised to find, that the only serious inconvenience of 
 which I had to complain in the present case, was the de- 
 lay interposed to my rejoining my family at Florence. 
 The company that disembarkedfromthesteamerconsisted 
 
LAZAF.ETTO. 
 
 30T 
 
 of but nine persons, including myself; the place on our 
 arrival was empty, nor did it receive any accession of 
 lodgers during the period of our residence. In addition 
 to the advantage of limited numbers, our party was very 
 well composed. It comprised the French consul, recently 
 promoted from Patras to Ancona, with his family ; an- 
 other young Frenchman, returned like myself from a 
 tour in Greece; a Pesarese count, a fine lively agreeable 
 fellow, enthusiastically devoted to field sports, in pursuit 
 of which he had been wandering, accompanied by a brace 
 of handsome setters, over the Ionian islands and part of 
 continental Greece; and two Corfuote citizens, one of 
 them- a person of some celebrity in his own country, Sig- 
 nor Coraggio, whom the Enghsh acquainted with the 
 island will perhaps better know under the title of Mr 
 Courage. The whole estabhshment being at our dis- 
 posal, we enjoyed all the freedom and comfort compatible 
 with its limits and regulations. We had each as much 
 house-room as we cared to occupy. Our meals were 
 served at reasonable rates from the best hotel in the town, 
 and I procured the services of a smart clever lacquey 
 during the period of our durance. My journal, sketch- 
 book, and epistolary correspondence, afforded me ample 
 employment; and, as the weather was fine, what between 
 in-door occupation, and walking and chatting with my 
 companions in the court, the time passed rapidly and 
 agreeably. 
 
 The Lazaretto of Ancona is, I believe, considered 
 about the best in the Mediterranean, and it is creditable to 
 his Holiness, that, at least in the principal part of his 
 dominions, some consideration should be shown for the 
 comfort of travellers, in a case where they are so fairly 
 entitled to claim it; more especially as the wretchedness 
 of quarantine life, in some of the more distinguished 
 emporia of the Levant trade, is a subject of general com- 
 
308 
 
 ANCONA. 
 
 plaint. This edifice is situated on an island, (the surface 
 of which it completely covers,) so near the mainland as 
 to be connected with it by a drawbridge, and has been 
 originally built for the purpose to which it is now ap- 
 phed, on a large scale and a regular plan. It consists 
 of a spacious pentagonal court, encompassed on all sides 
 with buildings, presenting five architectural fronts, cor- 
 responding to the sides of the court. In the centre is a 
 small chapel, also of pentagonal form, and very elegant 
 structure, in which mass is performed for the benefit of 
 the inmates. One side of the court is occupied by the 
 offices of the establishment; the front of each of the four 
 others by the apartments of the prisoners ; behind which, 
 greatly overtopping the roof of the front buildings, are 
 the magazines, vast open lofty halls, into several of 
 which, being now quite empty, we had hberty to extend 
 our promenades. This afforded an agreeable variety to 
 our habitual perambulations of the court, as their win- 
 dows command a view of the town and part of the har- 
 bour. ^ The walls of one of these saloons, which seemed 
 at all times to have been more used as a lounging-place 
 for the prisoners than for any other purpose, were com- 
 pletely covered with inscriptions, by which successive 
 
 generations of the contumacious or filthy, (contumaci 
 
 sporchi,) as the Lazaretto prisoners are familiarly styled in 
 the Adriatic, had endeavoured to beguile their hours 
 of captivity. The great majority of these productions 
 are in Greek and Italian, emanating, no doubt, from the 
 youthful genius of the Ionian students who flock to the 
 Itahan universities. The next, in point of number, with 
 a wide interval, are the French and German. Those in 
 our native tongue hold but the fifth place ; at which I 
 felt surprise, as our own countrymen are perhaps as 
 much, or more infected with this mania for wall scrib- 
 bling than any other nation. Let us flatter ourselves, 
 
LAZARETTO. 
 
 309 
 
 that even a temporary suspension of liberty may have 
 the effect of cramping the Uterary genius of a people 
 proverbial for their impatience of slavery. The speci- 
 mens of original composition interspersed here and there 
 among the chaos of names, dates, &C.5 and illustrated in 
 many instances by original drawings, were, as usual in 
 such cases, remarkable for little else than folly, dull sen- 
 timentality, or obscenity. In the latter respect were 
 more particularly distinguished those emanating from 
 Italo- Greek authors; bent, it would seem, on proving their 
 worthinesss of the elegant titles above mentioned, which 
 their residence within the walls they took such pains to 
 adorn had procured them. 
 
 One of the windows of this saloon looks across the 
 narrow channel which separates the island from the quay, 
 full upon the exterior front of the northern or prin- 
 cipal gate of the town, a gorgeous, and, upon the whole, 
 a favourable specimen of the Borrominesque style of 
 pontifical architecture ; with the arms, image, and super- 
 scription of the Pope under whose reign it was erected, 
 in the frontispiece, supported by the usual number of 
 winged cherubs, trumpeting Fames, &c. During several 
 hours, on each of the two first days of our captivity, I 
 stood at this window, for the mere purpose of gazing on 
 the everyday objects, animate or inanimate, of a great 
 public thoroughfare, a species of idleness of which I do 
 not feel conscious of being often guilty. But there was 
 something delightful in the simple act of thus famihar- 
 izing the eye — through the medium of hats, coats, and 
 breeches; of wheel carriages, sohd buildings, paved 
 streets, smooth broad roads; and, above all, of well- 
 dressed and finely-formed women of all classes, who 
 abound along this coast more perhaps than in most other 
 districts even of Italy — with that genuine European 
 civilization to which it had so long been a stranger. 
 
310 
 
 ANCONA. 
 
 During the duller part of the day, an occasional source 
 of amusement was watching the mode in which the 
 French corps de garde, in occupation of the gate, ma- 
 naged to beguile their hours of idleness. The restless- 
 ness of their persons, and unceasing clatter of their 
 tongues ; the frequent recurrence of good-humoured 
 practical jokes ; the occasional quizzing, with equal good- 
 humour, of certain of the party who seemed to be the 
 acknowledged butts of their more facetious comrades; and 
 when these more solid sources of diversion were exhaust- 
 ed, the mercurial quickness and suddenness of their mo- 
 tions, in their ordinary mode of pacing up and down for 
 the purpose of killing time till the moment of relief — all 
 supplied both an amusing illustration of the proverbial 
 liveliness of the Gallic race, and a striking contrast 
 to the phlegm of the Germans, of even the more dig- 
 nified vivacity of the Italians, with whose demeanour I 
 was then more familiar, as placed in similar circum- 
 stances. I never saw a poorer set of men than the fifteen 
 hundred of which this garrison was composed. Many 
 of them looked more like dwarfs or monkeys in military 
 travestie, than real heroes of the grande nation. The 
 officers themselves, I was told, complained much of the 
 shabby appearance of the recruits sent out to them. The 
 dress of the French line, though convenient and service- 
 able, is also little fitted for concealing or softening down 
 the personal deficiencies of its wearer ; and although the 
 French are proverbially a military nation, they certainly 
 have not a military air. Upon the whole, the govern- 
 ment of Louis Philippe is not very likely to inspire 
 either the minds of its Austrian rivals with much terror, 
 or those of its Italian proteges with great respect, by the 
 personal appearance of its warriors ; who are as inferior 
 as men, as they are doubtless superior as soldiers, to the 
 
LAZARETTO. 
 
 311 
 
 papal municipal guard who shared the duty of sentinel 
 with them at the gate. 
 
 Our just period of quarantine was fourteen days. 
 But as the fete of Louis PhiUppe occurred a few days 
 prior to the lawful term of our emancipation, the French 
 general exerted himself in procuring a remission of the 
 intermediate space for his countryman the consul, to en- 
 able him to take part in the festivities. His application, 
 being favoured by the mildness of our case, was successful ; 
 and as the benefit of any such indulgence always extends 
 to the immediate companions of the favoured party, we 
 were all set at large on the morning of the fete. It was 
 with much regret that, from anxiety to rejoin my family 
 circle at Florence, I was under the necessity of refusing 
 the hospitable invitation of my worthy friend Mr Moore, 
 the British consul, to prolong my stay at Ancona, and 
 enjoy the humours of the French festival.* After see- 
 ing the regiments of the garrison march past the Gene- 
 ral in full dress parade in the piazza, I started for Tus- 
 cany on the same afternoon, April 30th, by way of Fano, 
 Pesaro, Forli, and the fine Apennine pass of the Falte- 
 rona. I travelled the whole of the two next days, and 
 on the morning of the 3d of May, breakfasted in my 
 own lodgings at Florence. 
 
 * I am happy to take this opportunity of recording my sense of the 
 kindness and courtesy of that gentleman, a testimony in which, doubt- 
 less, those of my countrymen who have had similar occasions to appeal 
 to his services, will readily join. Though personally a stranger to him, 
 yet, from the period of my first appUcation by letter, for information 
 as to conveyances on the Adriatic, up to that of my final departure 
 from Ancona on my return, I found him unwearied in his attention to 
 my interest in many smaU and troublesome matters, where the good 
 offices of such a functionary can least be claimed as matter of duty, 
 but are more especially valuable. 
 
ADDITIONAL NOTES. 
 
 VOL. II. ^ ^ 
 
ADDITIONAL NOTES. 
 
 Note to Chap. XXVI., p. 53. 
 
 The evidence derived from the Iliad of the insignificance 
 of Athens at this early period becomes the more conclusive, 
 if its author be admitted, as usually supposed, to be a denizen 
 of the colonies founded under Athenian auspices and by 
 Athenian chiefs, on the coast of Asia Minor. It is hardly 
 credible that a native poet of these settlements would treat the 
 state from whence they emanated with such marked neglect, 
 in a poem descriptive of the great national enterprize, which, 
 by first establishing the ascendancy of the tribes of the west- 
 ern over those of the eastern side of the ^gsean, was the 
 primary cause of the occupation of this fine country by the 
 colonies of the former. But the Ionian origin of Homer is 
 one of the most questionable points of the popular traditions 
 concerning him. 
 
 The following examples will here suffice of the discrepan- 
 cies between Homer and later Attic tradition. The adven- 
 tures of GEdipus at Athens ; the asylum he found there from 
 the persecution of his own country and family ; his decease 
 in the temple of the Furies, and the portentous influence of 
 his fate on the future destinies of the republic, have obtained, 
 through the muse of Sophocles, a standard celebrity among 
 
316 
 
 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 
 
 tlie vicissitudes of this tragical history. But Homer's simple 
 and natural allusions {II, xxiii. 679 ; Odyss, xi. 270,) to the 
 concerns of the old king, after the discovery of his uninten- 
 tional guilt, and to his subsequent life, death, and funeral 
 honours in his own native city, warrant the suspicion, that the 
 Attic version of his story is a corruption of the genuine fable, 
 devised to enhance the glory of Athens and of Theseus. 
 
 Homer's account of the tragical adventures of Philomela 
 and Itylus, or Itys, {Odyss. xix. 518,) is also quite difiPerent 
 from that popular on the Attic stage ; and the latter has 
 much the appearance of having been invented by the Athe- 
 nians, in order to establish their own fair country as the birth- 
 place of the bird of song.. 
 
 Note to Chap. XXVI. p. 59. 
 
 As Dr Ross's pamphlet on the Theseum, (in the modern 
 Greek language,) is rare, or perhaps scarcely knov/n in this 
 country, the following summary of the principal heads of evi- 
 dence on the question may not be unacceptable to the archseo- 
 logical reader. My own knowledge of the contents of Dr 
 Ross's work is indeed only derived from a hasty perusal of a 
 copy belonging to a friend. 
 
 I. Plutarch, {Vit. Tlies, c. 36,) describes the Theseum as in 
 the middle of the town ;* and that his words are to be taken 
 in a literal sense may be presumed from the circumstance, 
 that the sanctuary was the public asylum or place of refuge 
 for unfortunate criminals, as well as the customary place of 
 muster for the troops of the Asty on occasion of hostile alarm : 
 purposes, both of which imply a central locality. But the 
 existing temple is near the western extremity of the ancient 
 city. 
 
 II. That this edifice bore the name of Temple of Mars up 
 to the middle of the 15th century, appears from the testimony 
 
 * si^ fiiffr) TV cro?vg/. 
 
ADDITIONAL NOTES. 
 
 317 
 
 of Cyrlacus of Ancona, wlio travelled in Greece in 1436, and 
 mentions it under that title. This was prior to the Turkish 
 conquest ; at a period consequently when, together with some 
 small remains of ancient learning, the genuine traditions re- 
 lative to the names or character of ancient buildings may not 
 yet have been extinct. 
 
 III. As another argument in favour of the claims of Mars 
 may be adduced the recent discovery, immediately below the 
 " Theseum," of a row of marble statues or Caryatids, repre- 
 senting human figures, with serpents' tails for their lower 
 extremities. This is the form in which we know Erechtheus, 
 Cecrops, and other mythical Attic heroes to have been repre- 
 sented, in their capacity of Autochthons, or Sons of Earth ; 
 and, in fact, the emblems on the pedestal of one of the sta- 
 tues bear distinct reference to the worship of Erechtheus. 
 We have therefore every reason to believe, that these are the 
 statues of the " Eponym.e heroes " of the Attic tribes, men- 
 tioned by Pausanias as in the immediate neighbourhood of 
 the Temple of Mars. 
 
 At the period when Athens was first generally frequented 
 by the scholars of western Europe, this title had become ex- 
 tinct, and they were very naturally led to identify the build- 
 ing as the Theseum, from the tenor of a considerable number 
 of the sculptures of the frieze, representing the exploits of the 
 Attic warrior. The real argument supplied by this circum- 
 stance in favour of the popular opinion, Dr Ross sets aside 
 very ingeniously, by showing : first, that the ornaments of 
 this portion of a temple, according to the established courtesy 
 of Greek art, rarely if ever bear direct reference to the history 
 of the deity worshipped within; secondly, that the joint 
 achievements of Theseus and Hercules, as figured on this 
 building, are precisely the subjects which the Athenians would 
 be likely to select as the most appropriate decoration for a 
 Temple of the God of War. 
 
318 
 
 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 
 
 Note to Chap XXVII. p. 61. 
 
 The proposal to connect, in so tangible a manner, the ex- 
 isting " Stone" of the Pnyx with the name of any of the ear- 
 lier Athenian statesmen, may perhaps seem at variance with 
 the popular tradition relative to the change of its site by the 
 thirty tyrants, subsequent to the battle of iEgospotamos. 
 This tradition, however, has very much the appearance of a 
 fable. Plutarch (Vit. Themistod. c. xix.) is the only author 
 who mentions it, and that but vaguely ; nor is it possible by 
 any casuistry to reconcile the terms of his allusion with ex- 
 isting appearances. In speaking of the democratic tendency 
 of that love of the sea and of nautical affairs, with which The- 
 mistocles had inspired the Athenians, he adds, that from this 
 consideration " the Bema of the Pnyx, which was formerly 
 so constructed as to look towards the sea, had been turned 
 by the Thirty so as to face in the direction of the country.'' 
 That the present Pnyx, however, is a work of far more an- 
 cient date than the age of the thirty tyrants cannot be doubt- 
 ed ; and it must be equally clear to any one who examines the 
 ground, that no rostrum from whence an audience assembled 
 on its area could be addressed, ever could have been so con- 
 structed as to have looked towards the sea. 
 
 Perhaps the most plausible of the attempts to explain the 
 difficulty is that of Colonel Leake, {Topogr. of Ath. p. 42,) 
 who supposes that Themistocles, in his zeal for nautical affairs, 
 had induced the people to desert the ancient Pnyx, (that which 
 we now see,) and hold their assemblies on some other portion 
 of the same eminence, which fronted the gulf; but that the 
 Thirty had restored it, from the motive above assigned, to its 
 former position. This theory, however, is at variance with 
 the statement of Plutarch, who, while he alludes to no change 
 whatever by Themistocles on the ancient Pnyx, describes the 
 regulation of the Thirty as an alteration, not a restoration 
 of its former site. There is indeed an esplanade or terrace 
 on the summit of the rock, behind the present " Stone," 
 which has evidently been artificially levelled ; and near one 
 
ADDITIO]NAL NOTES. 
 
 319 
 
 of its extremities are appearances on the ground whicli some 
 have supposed to betoken the existence of a former Bema. 
 This esplanade, however, is a great deal smaller than the ac- 
 tual Pnyx ; so small as to render it scarcely credible that 
 it could have accommodated the ordinary assembly of the 
 citizens ; or that they should ever have been induced, by what 
 was after all but a whim of Themistocles, to desert their an- 
 cient more commodious place of assembly for so indifferent a 
 substitute. It is more probable that the ground on this upper 
 level was used for purposes subordinate to the business of the 
 great assembly, covered perhaps in part with buildings or 
 booths, for the convenience of the Prytanes, scribes, and other 
 public functionaries, or of the orators themselves. Some such 
 range of offices there must have been in the neighbourhood 
 of the great council of Athens, and there is no place so con- 
 veniently situated for the purpose, or which exhibits greater 
 appearance of having been so occupied, than this esplanade. 
 
 An allusion to such appendages occurs in the scene of the 
 Thesmophoriazusw of Aristophanes, where search is made by 
 the women, among the booths and passages of their Pnyx, 
 for disguised male intruders on their assembly : 
 
 rr^v TlvhTici 'iramv xai rag (^xrimg xccl rag diodovg ha^^n^ai 
 
 V. 659- 
 
 1- 
 
 It is true, that the term Pnyx is here used in burlesque appir 
 cation to the Thesmophorium or Sanctuary of Ceres, where 
 these female assemblies were held. But this circumstance 
 does not destroy the point of the allusion. 
 
 Another difficulty occurs in the way of any such mode of 
 reconciling the words of Plutarch with existing appearances 
 in the fact that the city wall ran immediately behind this 
 upper esplanade ; and its foundations, which are still visible, 
 are so nearly on the same level, that, allowing a respectable 
 height to its masonry, it would have effectually interrupted 
 any such view of the sea as could have suited the purpose of 
 the hero of Salamis, or given just cause of alarm to the thirty 
 tyrants. 
 
320 
 
 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 
 
 There seems, therefore, no ground for belief that the popu- 
 lar assemblies were ever held in anj other Pnyx than that 
 which we now see ; and the story of Plutarch is doubtless one 
 of the many anecdotes, of what may be called the moral and 
 political mythology -of Greece, invented to give zest to the 
 narrative of interesting events, or the actions and characters 
 of illustrious men. 
 
 Note to Chap. XXVIIL, p. 78. 
 
 A curious discovery relative to the more subtle mechanism 
 of the structure of the Parthenon, has recently been an- 
 nounced, by Mr Metzger, a Bavarian architect, as the result 
 of researches which were in progress at the period of my 
 visit to Athens. This gentleman asserts, that by a series of 
 observations carried with great nicety through everv portion 
 of the edifice, he has ascertained, that there is not a straight 
 line of any considerable length in its whole extent, with the 
 exception, if I mistake not, of those of the gable of the pedi- 
 ments. ^ That the vertical lines of the building have a certain 
 mclmation outwards, was already well known, and is indeed 
 apparent to the eye of an ordinary observer. His investiga- 
 tions apply more especially to the horizontal lines of the ar- 
 chitrave, and by consequence of the parallel portions of the 
 entablature, frieze, cornice, &c., together with the basement 
 or platform on which the columns stand. The masonry of all 
 these portions of the edifice has been found to be arched or 
 curved upwards, though in a degree so slight as not to be 
 perceptible, unless on very accurate inspection ; but by pla- 
 cing the eye, for example, at the extremity of any one of the 
 principal lines above mentioned, the deviation from the hori- 
 zontal will be very apparent. This peculiarity of structure 
 he found to be carried through every portion of the fabric, in 
 so uniform a manner as to prove it to be the result of system. 
 These observations are said to have since been verified by 
 several other members of the same profession. 
 
ADDITIONAL NOTES. 
 
 321 
 
 In considering wliat may liave been tlie object of this ap- 
 parent anomaly, one is naturally led, in the first instance, to 
 take into account the liberties in which the ancient architects 
 occasionally indulged, in aid of the optical effect of their 
 buildings. It is not, however, easy to see how any advantage 
 of this sort could have been either proposed or attained in the 
 present case. The object, it maybe presumed, was here 
 not elegance, but solidity; and thus the Parthenon itself, 
 there can be little doubt, supplies another evidence in addi- 
 tion to those adduced in different parts of this journal, of the 
 familiarity of the Greek masons with the principle of the 
 arch. In a country subject to earthquakes, the smallest de- 
 gree of concentric pressure, such as wouM result from this 
 peculiarity of structure, if carried through the whole edifice, 
 would be greatly conducive to its durability, while not so per- 
 ceptible to the eye as to affect its symmetry. 
 
 In a letter from Athens, read by Mr W. Hamilton to the 
 Royal Society of Literature, on the 13th March 1840, it is 
 stated that the same peculiarity is also observable in the The- 
 seum. 
 
 Note to Chap. XXIX. p. 85. 
 
 The two lines of inscription still legible, one on each side 
 of this gateway, describe it as dividing '< Athens, the ancient 
 city of Theseus," from <' the city of Hadrian." On the west 
 side : — 
 
 On the east : — 
 
 aih' g/c' Ah^iavov %'ou%/ ©^^Cswg 'iroXig, 
 The somewhat ambiguous terms of this distich have led to 
 doubts as to which may have been the city of Hadrian here 
 alluded to ; and whether it really was on the Olympian side 
 of the arch as usually supposed. In spite of the services ren- 
 dered by the emperor to the sanctuary, the claim were cer- 
 talnly somewhat presumptuous, with reference both to the 
 affirmative and the negative tenor of the inscription, consi- 
 
322 
 
 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 
 
 dering that we have the oldest and best authority for the fact, 
 that the most " ancient city of Theseus" was precisely that 
 portion of Athens within which the Olympium was situated. 
 — Thucyd. Lib. ii., c. 15. 
 
 It is surprising that so respectable a Hellenist as Chandler 
 (p. 73) should be the author of a proposal still further to 
 mystify the sense of these two lines, and the question of fact 
 which they involve, by reading, in the two first words of 
 each, instead of AIA' EI2' {This is,) A IAEI2, which (as 
 interpreted by him) would signify, What you see is. Even 
 a schoolboy of the upper classes should know that the ano- 
 malous verb sJdov has no present form, the deficiency being 
 supplied by o^doi. The inscription is but a paraphrase of 
 that said to have been formerly engraved by Theseus himself, 
 on corresponding sides of a boundary column on the Isthmus 
 of Corinth : 
 
 rd ov^i T[tXo'7^6vr/](fog dXX' 'iwv/a. 
 The analogy between the copy and the original were in itself 
 sufficient, even apart from grammatical reasons, to set aside 
 Chandler's view; which, however, has not been without its 
 influence on the less critical class of Attic topographers. 
 
 Note to Chap. XXXIII. p. 131. 
 
 In all our editions, vv, 289, 290, of this passage are 
 read : 
 
 VTjcc biaohaiov(Si, kZjv di%Yi7i dvdnrm. 
 
 In V. 290, km ought evidently to be corrected, in conformity 
 with familiar Homeric phraseology, into knv. 
 
 The notion of the winds destroying ships " against the will 
 of the Gods" is repugnant to the whole mythology, both 
 physical and moral, of the Greeks, and of Homer in parti- 
 
ADDITIONAL NOTES* 
 
 323 
 
 cular, where they are invariahly described as completely sub- 
 ject to the control of the divine power, (conf. Odyss. v. 131^ 
 221, sq. vii. 249, sq. Hesiod 0pp. 665, sq.) The am%Tig 
 are here, as elsewhere, the pilots or navigators ; whether as 
 masters or lords of the vessel, or simply as heroes or war- 
 riors, by the common epic courtesy. Euripides (Cycl. 86,) 
 calls seamen xd^^rig amxng, and elsewhere {Frag. Telephi)h^s 
 the expression xdo'iryig dvd(^(^eiv. 
 
 Note to Chap. XXXIII. p. 141. 
 
 This ring is aliout two-thirds of an inch in diameter, of 
 the form exhibited in the annexed drawing. On its outer 
 surface is an inscription divided into two parallel lines. These 
 lines are separated by a species of band or fillet, each end of 
 which terminates at a common point in the centre of the ring, 
 in a curl or crotchet, held together by the fore paw of a small 
 animal of grotesque form and doubtful species, and which 
 may represent either a hare, rabbit, rat, squirrel, or other 
 similar quadruped. The letters are for the most part Greek, 
 of the most ancient character, with the exception of one or 
 two, which are not easily referable to any variety of the Cad- 
 mean alphabet. Both letters and ornaments are executed 
 with sharpness and spirit, and the figure, though grotesque, 
 has a considerable liveliness of character and expression. The 
 language is not Greek, nor any other intelligible to me, or 
 to other more competent judges by whom the inscription has 
 been seen. 
 
324 
 
 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 
 
 This relic is in a perfect state of preservation, witli the 
 exception of a break, or rather cut, extending completely 
 through the narrowest part of its circumference, but so 
 straight and clean as not even to render the letters through 
 which it passes less distinct than their neighbours. 
 
 Note to Chap. XXXVI. p. 169. 
 
 This block is of the same palomhino, or dove -coloured 
 limestone, of which the native rock in this as in most other 
 parts of Greece mainly consists. Yet it is described, strange- 
 ly enough, by several of our most accurate travellers, in- 
 cluding Leake himself, as of g^^een WMrUe. This erroneous 
 impression has been derived from the colour of the polished 
 surface, which has received from time and the weather a 
 bluish green hue. But whoever is at pains to climb up be- 
 hind, and examine the unwrought portion of the stone, will 
 be convinced of the accuracy of the description here given. 
 
 The heads of the animals are gone, together with the apex 
 of the cone that surmounted the column. The broken sum- 
 mit of the stone offers some peculiarities, which have escaped 
 the notice of previous observers^ leading to the belief that 
 these deficient parts were of different pieces from the rest of 
 the block. The evidences of this are, in regard to the heads, 
 two sharp rectangular cavities in the upper part of the neck 
 of each figure, apparently intended for fitting in another 
 piece of material ; also, contiguous to these incisions in each 
 case, two round holes, evidently artificial, and destined, no 
 doubt, for the reception of some species of nail or bolt, either 
 to aid in fixing the head on the shoulders, or for appending 
 some species of ornament. The other holes in the stone, as 
 indicated in the sketch, are but the natural cavities frequent- 
 ly observable in this species of rock, and which there is no 
 danger of confounding with those artificially bored. 
 
 The same conclusion results in regard to the apex of the 
 cone, now wanting, above the four balls, from the circum- 
 stance that the stump, unless where injured bj violence, which 
 
ADDITIONAL NOTES. 
 
 325 
 
 is only tlie case at the corners,, has a smooth polished surface, 
 no way reconcilable with the fracture of a solid block by the 
 falling of the wall from above, to which cause apparently the 
 existing damage is to be ascribed, but which must have been 
 produced by art, to favour the adaptation of another piece. 
 It is not improbable that these upper and nobler portions of 
 the group may have been of more excellent material — pos- 
 sibly metal, or some precious kind of marble. An excava- 
 tion would probably throw light upon this point; as it is 
 probable that the heads have lain embedded in the rubbish 
 of the court since the destruction of the city. 
 
 It is not very easy to understand how there ever could 
 have been room for the heads of the animals at all, at least for 
 that of the one on the left side of the spectator. The upper 
 stones of the side masonry of the triangular opening are evi- 
 dently in their original position ; and, between them and the 
 abacus of the central column, it were difficult for the liveliest 
 imagination to find a place for a head at all in proportion to 
 such a body. 
 
 Down the centre of the three lower divisions of the pedes- 
 ta,l of the column runs a small clean incision of several inches 
 in depth, and having so much the appearance of a junction of 
 two stones, that superficial observers have hen^e been led to 
 the opinion that the relief was sculptured on more than one 
 piece ; but a careful inspection shows it to be merely a groove 
 in the solid block — the object of which is. not very apparent.. 
 
 Note ta Chap. XXXVLI. p» 175. 
 
 There is another smaller gallery, in a ruined state, on the west 
 side of the fortress, which appears to have been little else than 
 an ordinary sally port. (See Plate VII. No. 2. ch. xliii.) This 
 work, of which I do not remem.ber to have seen any special 
 notice either in the plans or descriptions of travellers, offers a 
 peculiarity of some interest, as 'bearing on a question frequent- 
 ly noticed in this journal — the origin and primitive use of the 
 arch in Greece. It runs at right angles to the wall, instead 
 
326 
 
 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 
 
 of parallel to it, like the other galleries, and has its issue in 
 a semicircular projection, in full view of the traveller as he 
 passes along the Nauplia road. The roof is formed on the 
 same general principle as that of the other galleries, with 
 this difference, that the summit of the cone or arch, instead 
 of being completed by the junction of the two upper side 
 stones into an apex, has a sort of key-stone between them. 
 The principle of a key-stone, which involves in fact that of 
 the arch, is, that it should be essential to the support of the 
 blocks with which it is connected on each side, and which, 
 were it removed, would at once fall in. Here this can hard- 
 ly indeed be said to be the case, for although the side courses 
 are not quite horizontal, their inclination inwards is so slight, 
 that their own weight would probably maintain them in their 
 present position, even were the central stone to be removed. 
 Judging, however, from the section of the interior masonry, 
 where the roof has fallen in, (in so far as its present dilapi- 
 dated state would admit,) I was led to doubt whether the 
 side stones in other portions of the work possessed a similar 
 degree of independent equilibrium, either from their weight 
 or position ; and where this is not the case, the gallery was 
 constructed on the principle of a gothic arch. 
 
 In the north wall of the back part of the citadel of Mycenae, 
 not far from the point of the angle which the peribolus here 
 forms towards the mountain, there is a gallery of similar cha- 
 racter with those of Tiryns, with that just described more espe- 
 cially, issuing at right angles to the wall. This work, which 
 has escaped the notice of previous travellers, is the only other 
 genuine specimen of the kind I have yet met with. The " Ti^ 
 rynthian galleries," mentioned by Gell, Dodwell, and others, as 
 existing in other cities, both of Greece and Italy, have little 
 or no resemblance to the original from whence this name is 
 derived ; but are fragments for the most part of aqueducts or 
 sewers, or even of those subterranean magazines common on 
 the sites of ancient Greek cities. I should not probably have 
 noticed the one here alluded to, which is in a little-accessible 
 corner of the fortress, and not likely to meet the eye of the 
 traveller unaware of its site and existence, but for the infor- 
 
ADDITIONAL NOTES. 
 
 327 
 
 mation previously received at Nauplia from M.Gropius, by 
 whom it was first discovered. 
 
 Note to Chap. XL VI. p. 282. 
 
 Leake (Morea, voL i. p. 40,) observes, with apparent jus- 
 tice, that there is no space elsewhere for so large an area as 
 that of the hippodrome, which he states at two stadia in 
 length. In venturing to dispute the accuracy of his opinion 
 relative to^the size, I shall add force to that concerning the 
 site of the monument. 
 
 A general view of the testimonies on the subject leads to 
 the inference, that the Greek hippodrome wsisfour stadia in 
 length. This is in fact the import of the text of Pausanias, 
 quoted by Leake, {Eliac, ii. 16 :) d^o/ubov u<St rov )it^io\) iJjYi%og 
 (Av d/avXot dvo. The length, not the circuit, is here specified 
 as two diauli or four stadia. Hence the Etym. M. makes the 
 whole circumference of the Attic hippodrome eight stadia : 
 'Evi^sXiboj' TO'TTog Ady}V7j(^i (Trad/cav oxroo, sv w i^^oh^ofi>iat. conf, 
 Hesych. vv* "l^^s/og d^S/juog, and 'Bvs^sXidojv. This explains 
 an otherwise not very intelligible measure of distance, called 
 the Hippicum, mentioned by Plutarch in Vit Solon, c. 22. rb 
 
 /^TTiTiov did(^ry}/jLa rs(^(^d^m jjv Cra^/wv; a breadth, not a cir- 
 cuit, of four stadia. 
 
 The measurement of the hippodrome was usually quoted 
 with reference to its length, rather than its circumference, 
 just as the measure stadium implies the length of that loca- 
 lity, unless the diaulus or double length be specified. In the 
 same way there was a distinction in the chariot race between 
 the straight, or single, and the circular, or double course ; 
 the svdvg d^o/xog and xdfjjirnog d^o/xog ; or, as Pollux calls it, in 
 the text quoted by Leake, (iii. c. 30,) the h^o^og b xafMirfi, I 
 find no passage in Pollux implying, as quoted by Leake, that 
 the hippodrome was but two stadia in length. 
 
 THE END. 
 
EDINBUKGH : PRINTED BY BALLANTTNE AND HUGHE 
 PAUL'S WORK, -CANONG ATE. 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 VOL. L 
 
 Page 40, line 21, /or peculiar rites, read peculiarities. 
 " 63, " 12,/(?r Planota, rea^/Plancta. 
 
 " 102, foot note, /or Plate II., read Plate 1. 
 
 " 107, sqq. foot notes, /or Plate III., read Plate II. 
 
 " 168, line 2, /or Bazzaris, reac? Bozzaris. 
 " " " " for Diamondopoulos, read Diamandopoulos. 
 
 " 188, line 14, /or Cassino, read Casino. 
 
 " 231, " 1 7, /or windows, reatZ window. 
 
 " 277, " 7, for care, read case. 
 
 " 113, line 1,/or apothegm, read apophthegm. 
 " 127, " 18, /or in the roads, read on the roads. 
 " 152, " 1,/or or, reac? for. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 for Lyon, read Lyons. 
 
 for Heroeum, read Herseum. 
 
 " 167, 
 " 307, 
 
 u 
 
 6, for heroeum, read heroiim. 
 30, for part, read port. 
 
DIRECTIONS FOR PLACING THE PLATES. 
 
 Vol. I. 
 
 The Continent of Greece . to face 
 
 Ithaca after Leake 
 
 Mouth of the river Achelous 
 
 Ruins of (Eniadae 
 
 Delphi after Leake 
 
 Parnassus from plain of Panopea 
 
 Vol. IL 
 
 Athens from Pass of Daphne . ... 44 
 
 after Wordsworth . ... 5^ 
 
 Plain and Bay of Marathon . ... 108 
 
 Mycenae ... 164 
 
 Sculpture over Gate of Mycenae ... 168 
 
 Heraeum ... 179 
 
 Pyramid near Argos . . ... 195 
 
 Bridge of Xerokampo . . ... 248 
 
 Olympia after Leake . . ... . . ... 280 
 
 Title 
 Page 61 
 
 102 
 
 107 
 
 185 
 
 207 
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
 3 0112 084314019