Note 339 — Chapter I · GENERAL GEOGRAPHY AND LIMITS OF GREECE.

The cold central region (or mountain plain,—ὀροπέδιον) of Tripolitza, differs in climate from the maritime regions of Peloponnesus, as much as the south of England from the south of France.... No appearance of spring on the trees near Tegea, though not more than twenty-four miles from Argos.... Cattle are sent from thence every winter to the maritime plains of Elos in Laconia (Leake, Trav. in Morea, vol. i. pp. 88, 98, 197). The pasture on Mount Olono (boundary of Elis, Arcadia, and Achaia) is not healthy until June (Leake, vol. ii. p. 119); compare p. 348, and Fiedler, Reise, i. p. 314.

See also the Instructive Inscription of Orchomenus, in Boeckh, Staatshaushaltung der Athener, t. ii. p. 380.

The transference of cattle, belonging to proprietors in one state, for temporary pasturage in another, is as old as the Odyssey, and is marked by various illustrative incidents: see the cause of the first Messenian war (Diodor. Fragm. viii. vol. iv. p. 23, ed. Wess; Pausan. iv. 4, 2).