Volume 1 — GREECE BEYOND PELOPONNESUS.

Attica and Megaris.

Attica and Megaris, if we look at their physical features, form but one country, and in this light they were viewed in the earliest times of which we still have the traditions. The tradition that all this country, from the Isthmus as far as the coast opposite to Euboea, was formerly called Ionia, and inhabited by Ionians, cannot be reconciled with the other, that the Ionians, when expelled from Achaia, went to Attica, and that through them Attica was changed into Ionia. If we wish to form any clear notion at all about the matter, it will probably be most correct to suppose, that originally both coasts, Aegialos and Attica, as well as the whole of the intervening country, Sicyon, Corinth, etc., were inhabited by one and the same Pelasgian branch, that is, by Ionians. This hypothesis gives consistency to the geography of those countries, and we obtain a definite idea of them, which has at least great probability in its favour. The column said to have been erected in the time of Theseus, with the strange inscriptions—

Τάδ’ ἐστὶ Πελοπόννησος οὐκ Ἰωνιά,

and

Τάδ’ οὐχὶ Πελοπόννησος ἀλλ’ Ἰωνία,

is an invention of a comparatively very late period. When Attica and Megaris are taken as one country, it is designated by the name of Ἀκτή. This, however, is not a proper name, but, as we have seen before, an appellative designating a country running out into the sea, without being united with the main land by means of an isthmus. I consider this name to be very ancient, because there can be no doubt that Ἀττικὴ was formed from Ἀκτικὴ on the same principle on which the Italian language substitutes tt for the Latin ct. In the earliest traditions, however, the country has several names, the exact meaning and age of which we are unable to ascertain, but which, though they are preserved only in late writers, mostly Alexandrian poets, we ought not to disregard, for these authors fondly adopted those very things which were rare, and which were preserved only in ancient poems. The country, to mention one example, was also called Mopsopia, a name of which we can say absolutely nothing, though the country certainly bore it at one time. However, even though the Acte formed one whole, it does not follow by any means that it also formed one state.

Much may be conjectured respecting the early history of Attica, if we rid ourselves of the later traditions about Cecrops and the Pandionids, which were transferred from the Atthids to the works of the Alexandrians, and have been handed down by them to our time,—if, I say, we rid ourselves of them so far as not to regard them altogether as history, and, on the other hand, not to indulge in too artificial and subtle explanations, but so as to take only certain facts which are clearly implied in the stories, and to let these speak for themselves. One tradition about the Acte, in which it extends as far as the Isthmus, is, that it was divided by the Pandionids into four states; and why should not this have been the case? Another division refers apparently to Attica, in the narrower sense of the name. I allude to that ascribed to Cecrops; here, too, we have a kind of tetrapolis, and thus far it agrees with the earlier division though the detail is different, for according to it Attica consisted of twelve (3 × 4) states. We accordingly find in Attica an historical trace of a division into twelve, like that of the Ionian Aegialos; it was also historically remembered, that these towns became united in Athens. The boundaries of Attica, as an Athenian state, stand in relation to those of Megaris, which, however, were changeable, and were moved sometimes forward and sometimes backward. At the time when Megaris was an extensive country, and Attica small, Salamis belonged to the former. Other changes in the Athenian possessions occur on the Boeotian side. But there certainly is some gap in our history of Attica, which we can hardly wonder at, seeing that the political history of the Greeks in general is very fragmentary. What I mean is this: in very ancient times all Attica did not form one state, and the boundary must have been altered in some sense, so that during the time after Cleisthenes, the country districts, formerly occupied by perioeci, obtained the full franchise, as was the case, for example, with Salamis. Herodotus attests, that, in his topical division of Attica into ten phylae, Cleisthenes gave to every phyle ten demi. But at a later time Attica contained 174 demi. Strabo is not the man to write down such a statement thoughtlessly; and moreover the correctness of the number may be calculated from inscriptions and grammarians, especially from Harpocration. It is, therefore, probable that, as at Rome, when its territory was extended, the towns which received the full franchise, were constituted as new local tribes, so also at Athens new demi were formed under similar circumstances, without there being any change in the number of the phylae. We might also explain the change by the supposition that at first Cleisthenes allowed the ancient γένη to continue, so that the φυλαὶ τοπικαί originally did not contain the Eupatrids and the demi together; but afterwards, and even before the Persian wars, this constitution was so altered, as to change the most distinguished among the ancient γένη, of which only very few remained, into separate demi, and incorporate them with the phylae, in order to prevent their sinking into utter insignificance, and especially their losing the right of voting. Thus the Butadae are mentioned both as a γένος and as a δῆμος. Within such a γένος, which had become a δῆμος, the real descendants of the ancient race were distinguished, by the addition ἐτεο, from those who had become members of the same demos by accident. This is the sense in which we have probably to understand the often-mentioned Eteobutadae.

Megaris.

I shall treat of Megaris very briefly. It is that part of the Cecropian Acte which was taken possession of by the Dorians when they extended their dominion beyond Peloponnesus, in the hope of subduing all Attica, which was then very weak. If we look at it within the limits which it had at the time of the Peloponnesian war, it was as thoroughly Doric as any part of Peloponnesus, and even in its dialect, notwithstanding the probably small number of immigrants who, perhaps, formed only a military colony. The town of Megara was, according to all appearances, built by the Dorians; previously there existed no Megara. The version of the passage in Homer, with which the Megarians opposed the proof of the Athenians, does not mention Megara, but only Polichna, Nisaea, Tripodes, and Aegirussa.⁠[40] It was not an important town, and its whole territory was small; if, however, we credit Herodotus’ account of their contingent in the battle of Plataeae, it must have been extremely populous.

Nisaea, the port of Megara, was older than the city, and is connected in the traditions of the poets with Nisus and his daughter Scylla or Ciris; and when the poets in this fable mention Megara, it must be regarded as mere prolepsis. The Megarians were a maritime people, but not of great importance; they had a small fleet at Nisaea, which was rather more than a mile from the city, and was connected with it by two long walls (σκέλη); the city itself was situated on a hill. The long walls were built by the Athenians after the Persian wars, when they were masters of Megaris. Pagae or Pegae was another town of Megaris on the Corinthian Gulf, and contained a ship-wharf; it likewise had some ships, and was strongly fortified.

The history of Megaris is not uninteresting; it is, in fact, that of all the Greek peoples. In the earliest times it was governed by an aristocracy, or rather oligarchy; then the demos rose, and the old inhabitants, oppressed by the conquerors, were led by a man of the highest rank, who set himself up as tyrant. This man was Theagenes. The period of the overthrow of the aristocracy in all the states of Greece and the rising of tyrants falls between Olymp. 30 and 70, a period which may be likened to the 15th century in the middle ages. These τυραννίδες were of a very different character from those of later times; they always belonged to the first families, and were mere usurpations, without the odiousness which generally attaches to the name. Their rule accordingly was by no means hated, as it is when the tyrannis is the result of general anarchy, or of the degeneracy of liberty. The ancient tyrannides arose from a natural want, and from the consciousness that the state could no longer be governed in the way in which it had been done before; they were not cruel, because the sovereignty was not claimed by more than one, so that there was no cause for making him bloodthirsty. If we bear in mind this ancient meaning of the name, we cannot view the tyrannis in an odious light. The tyrannis of later times is very different, for it no longer helps to develop, but rules with cruelty over a mass which cannot control itself. The later these tyrants are the worse they are; and the worst of all are those after the time of Alexander, such as Aristodemus of Elis, Agathocles and Apollonius of Cassandrea. After the fall of Theagenes, the democracy ceased, and Megara, notwithstanding its Doric character, was governed by an oligarchy, just as Corinth after the fall of the Cypselids. During the Persian wars it was a flourishing state, but afterwards it became involved in disputes with its powerful neighbours, the Athenians; and by all kinds of insults offered to them, it drew upon itself their anger; this was senseless, as it always is when the weaker provokes the stronger. The Spartans undertook the Peloponnesian war ostensibly to protect the Megarians, but Megara fared ill in that war. Previously, the Athenians had left them alone, but they now made frequent inroads into their country, and cruelly ravaged it; and the marches of the Peloponnesians through it seem to have completely ruined it. Afterwards it was a place of no importance. Its situation, which, if Peloponnesus had formed one state, might have made it an excellent bulwark, appears to have always exposed it to ravages. It was taken and destroyed by Demetrius Poliorcetes; Antigonus Gonatas carried on a severe war against the country, to obtain in it a place for a Macedonian garrison. Such a garrison was at that time the most fearful scourge for a Greek town; it generally consisted of barbarians, such as Gauls, Thracians, or Getae, who conducted themselves entirely according to their own discretion, and against whom it was impossible for any individual to protect his property, unless the governor took pity upon him, as was the case at Athens, which had the good fortune of having in Antigonus Gonatas a humane commander. Hence Megara, like the other places, was in a wretched condition. During the first great period of the Achaeans, Megara, together with Corinth, became free again; but afterwards it was so insignificant, that it is not even mentioned as to whether, when Corinth became Macedonian, Megara experienced the same fate or not: it had probably joined Boeotia. Before the battle on the Isthmus, the Romans again destroyed everything that was still standing. Ser. Sulpicius, in his consolatory letter to Cicero, mentions Megara, too, as one of the “corpses of towns” which he saw on the Saronic gulf; according to Strabo, however, it still existed in his time ἀμῶς γέ πως, though it had sunk very low: it still contained some ancient buildings and temples, and among them, within the ring-walls, a small Population. The devastation of Greece under the Romans can scarcely be conceived too fearful: Pausanias misleads us on this point; the true description is furnished by Dion Chrysostomus, who states, that a person might travel about in Arcadia and Thessaly for a whole day without seeing a human being, except a few shepherds. My belief is, that in the time of Pausanias, Peloponnesus, with the exception of a few districts, had no more inhabitants than previously to the Venetian conquest in the year 1650.

Megara was important in a military point of view; two roads led thence to Corinth: the one, running along the sea-coast, and by the Scironian rocks, was very dangerous, for it passed between the precipitous rock and the shore, and formed a pass which no one would ever attempt to storm; the other led across the Oneian mountain, right through the middle of the country, towards the Isthmus.

Attica.

We shall consider Attica according to the extent it had at the time of the Peloponnesian war. Salamis, and many places on the Boeotian frontier, were evidently added to it at an earlier period, but its boundaries were reduced again during the Macedonian times: under Cassander, Salamis and Eleusis were separated from Attica, they received Macedonian garrisons, and formed small communities under Macedonian supremacy. To this period belong the coins with the inscriptions ΣΑΛΑΜΙΝΙΩΝ, ΣΑΛΑ; ΕΛΕΥΣΙΝΙΩΝ, ΕΛΕΥ, or ΕΛ; but the particulars cannot be clearly ascertained.

The people of Attica are called Ἀθηναῖοι in their relation to the state, and Ἀττικοί in relation to their manners, customs, and dialect; but the name for an Athenian woman is Ἀττική, and Ἀθηναία in this sense, is either affectation or said in joke.

The whole territory of Attica is a thoroughly mountainous country, like Megaris, with one considerable plain on one side and another on the opposite side. The length of the Acte from the Isthmus to Sunion, including Megaris, measured 680 stadia, or about 90 English miles, of which less than one-third belonged to Megaris. Some of the hills are off-shoots of those of Megaris, but, in reality, they are only continuations of the Boeotian chain of Cithaeron. All form, in truth, only one mountain range, which proceeds from the Boeotian and Megarian frontiers in the form of a semicircle behind Athens, and extends as far as Sunion. All these hills consist of a kind of limestone, which in Hymettus and Pentelicus becomes the most excellent marble. This marble is white with greenish veins, of smaller grain and less white than the Parian, and resembles the Carystian. At the extreme end of these hills, above Sunion, are the silver mines of Laurion. These mines, which are a great physical curiosity, were very productive, and were worked in very ancient times; but they became exhausted during the period from the time of the Gracchi, when they were still vigorously worked, to that of Strabo, when the produce was not worth the labour, and when only the ancient offal, which had been thrown away in better times, was smelted. At present they have entirely disappeared, just like the gold mines near Philippi. All names in Attica are classical. The most remarkable among the hills are those already mentioned, Hymettus and Pentelicus, on account of their marble quarries: they seem to have been the first of which the marble was wrought into statues, perhaps about Olymp. 50 or 60. The use of bronze for such purposes is easier and more natural, and hence more ancient. The other hills are Parnes and Brilessus, the former of which was a wooded mountain. Hymettus and Pentelicus may still be clearly identified, in consequence of the marble quarries, and Hymettus in consequence of its honey, which is still excellent. Such means of identification do not occur in the case of Parnes and Brilessus; and although these, too, are unhesitatingly named by modern travellers, yet all is arbitrary. All the Attic hills are at present barren; but in ancient times some were well wooded, as we may infer from the charcoal manufactures near Acharnae, mentioned by Aristophanes; but the greater part of them were not, like our hills, clad with heather, but with thyme, marjoram, and other aromatic herbs. The fact that Hymettus, even in antiquity, had no trees, may be inferred from the circumstance, that it was the habitation of bees, and the place in which their breeding was attended to.

Attica was well known to the ancients themselves as a country that was not fertile, and where the rocky ground was covered only with a very thin crust of soil (λεπτόγεων in Thucydides); it had two plains of a very different character, the one that of Eleusis and Thria (τὸ Θριάσιον πεδίον), which was fertile, whence Eleusis was justly the seat of the worship of Demeter; the other was the plain of Marathon, which was not fertile, and is at present deserted; it was covered only with wild fennel and such like herbs, nor was it as flat as the Thriasian plain.

Attica has little water, and is poor in rivers and springs; Athens itself had only one good spring. The rivers are so insignificant that in any other country they would not be mentioned at all; but in Attica everything has a general interest and cannot be forgotten, so that the Cephisus and Ilisus, though only small rivulets, are better known than the Oxus and Jaxartes. The Cephisus does not even reach the sea; it flows in a western and the Ilisus in an eastern direction. I spell both names with a single s, which is the ancient Greek orthography found in the good MSS. of Aristophanes and Plato, and in inscriptions. The spelling Κηφισσός and Ἰλισσός, however, likewise became common in antiquity, and was that generally received by the Romans; and when a Roman uses a single s, it must be regarded as his special choice.

The circumference of Athens was much changed in the course of time. According to the traditions, it was at first small like all the towns in Attica, when the lower hills all around were thinly peopled. The arx of Athens, we are told by Thucydides, was called the πόλις, though more probably ἄστυ;⁠[41] for everywhere πόλις and ἄστυ seem to stand in the same relation to each other as civitas stands to urbs or oppidum. As civitas, in good Latinity, is never used of the buildings, so πόλις in Greece, even at an early time signified the body of citizens, and ἄστυ the place they inhabited. In the most ancient times the ἄκραι alone were fortified in all parts of Greece, the places below them were inhabited κωμηδόν; such was the case in the Pelasgian times at Athens, and also at Sparta. When the town was surrounded with walls cannot be ascertained, but it was probably as early as the time of the Pisistratidae; that κύκλος, however, must have been feeble and unimportant, for if the town had been strong, we cannot conceive why the citizens, on the approach of the Persians, abandoned it without any thought of being able to defend it. After the evacuation of Attica, Themistocles restored the walls, and gave them a much greater circumference. This is, properly speaking, not mentioned anywhere expressly by the ancients⁠[42]⁠, but has long ago been assumed by the moderns from the context of the narrative and from the circumstances of the case, and that too with full justice: matters happened in a similar way at Cologne, Nürnberg, Frankfort and Florence. In building walls the ancients sometimes followed the lines of the suburbs, which were surrounded by palisades; but sometimes the circumference was made larger than was really needed, and such may have been the case at Athens. But what was the circumference of Athens? The walls of Themistocles cannot be traced with the same accuracy as the agger of Serv. Tullius at Rome. In the time of Pausanias they were still standing; they had been built by Themistocles in a very hurried manner, but still of such strength that their complete disappearance is a mystery. I have no doubt that the foundations might be discovered if it were possible to make excavations. All we know about the subject is the statement of Thucydides, that the city was forty-three stadia in circumference, exclusive of the empty space between the two long walls. This empty space is estimated in different ways, but there can be no doubt that it occupied only a few stadia, for there was no necessity for keeping those walls far asunder. Fauvel, who resided several years in Athens, declares that he cannot make out that the circumference of Athens was so large, and therefore assumes the passage of Thucydides to be corrupt. But his supposition cannot be admitted, for Dionysius of Halicarnassus states that the Rome of Serv. Tullius was about equal to the ancient ἄστυ: now the circumference of the agger of Serv. Tullius, with a small exception, is perfectly ascertained, and extends about five English miles, which perfectly agrees with the statement of Thucydides. But the topography of Athens is everywhere full of perplexities.⁠[43]⁠

Piraeeus was a second city. Its site is certain, but the detail of its topography cannot be determined. I do, indeed, believe that a person living on the spot with the privilege of making excavations, might discover some things, but never as much as at Rome, where we have the numerous documents, and where so many remains still exist. From the drawings of Piraeeus, which I have seen, the statements of the ancients cannot be explained; the line of coast has become very much altered, the harbour is filled with sand, and one or two of the ports seem to have completely disappeared; the ancient bays are at present marshes and morasses, which have no connection with the sea, and the outline of the coast is evidently changed. Piraeeus had separate fortifications, and was connected with the city by the μακρὰ σκέλη, which were constructed, not by Themistocles, but by Pericles. These fortifications are drawn in Barthélemy’s Voyages du Jeune Anacharsis, by Barbié du Bocage, with apparent accuracy, but they must be used with caution, and not as exact topographical drawings: they are not intended to give accurate and definite local views, but only to furnish the readers with a picture which is not essentially wrong, and which they may retain in their minds to form a living conception of ancient history. But the picture is not free from faults; one of them, e.g., is that Phalerus is drawn within the walls, which is not supported by a single ancient testimony; Phalerus was on the side of one of the walls, which was hence called the Phalerean.

Many circumstances have conspired to render the topography of Athens difficult. In the first place, we have no description of the city like that furnished by the Regionarii in regard to Rome; in the second place, the historians mention, indeed, particular buildings at Athens, but without stating their relative position to one another; the buildings, with few exceptions, were situated on a plain surface, the several eminences in the ἄστυ having for the most part no buildings. Hence the descriptions cannot be as exact as at Rome, where the hills afforded an easy means of stating the site of buildings and the direction of streets. The many buildings, moreover, some of which existed even in the middle ages, and most of which can even now be recognised in their ruins, are a great assistance in determining the topography of Rome; the study of these combined with that of the ancient topographical documents enables us to ascertain a great many points, and thus to trace the history of the city with great accuracy. If a person makes himself acquainted with modern Rome, tracing it back to its origin, and if, in addition to this, he endeavours to understand the ritual and the roads taken by certain processions, along which the ancient buildings are mentioned, he has already gained a considerable step in advance. The Itineraries of the seventh century are likewise a source of information on topography. In this way a person first comes to the Rome of the middle ages, and thence to ancient Rome. But the city of Athens has completely disappeared; some isolated ancient buildings do indeed exist, to which certain names are given, which are in some cases correct, but in others doubtful. From the middle ages, too, scarcely any thing but walls remain; Athens was several times destroyed and completely deserted; even the churches were demolished, and where anything of them remains, it does not lead us back to ancient buildings. Pausanias, who is our only authority, is an extremely confused writer, and the most different hypotheses may be based upon his statements. He proceeds from Piraeeus to the Ceramicus, thence to the Agora, and further on to the Acropolis; but what road he took it is impossible to make out. The accounts of the moderns of the sites of the ancient buildings are likewise extremely contradictory, and can scarcely be otherwise, considering their short stay on the spot. Stuart was there longest, but his whole object was to make architectural drawings. Fauvel’s and Stuart’s statements, for example, respecting the Areopagus, are in direct contradiction with each other. As matters now stand, a person may find his way on the Acropolis, and perhaps also determine the hill of the Museum; but otherwise nothing can be identified, neither the Areopagus nor the Pnyx. The city of Hadrian can be recognised by its gate. That emperor was a strange, wrong-headed man: though a Spaniard by birth, he was enamoured with everything Greek, but his whole tendency was not ancient Greek; he was in fact a Greek sophist of his own age: he dressed himself in the Greek fashion, and allowed his beard to grow in the Greek fashion, although the Romans had adopted the custom of shaving themselves even before the time of Hannibal. He was ambitious to shine among the Greeks as a Greek, and built several gigantic temples, as for example, the Olympieum, of which many ruins still exist. In like manner, he built an entirely new city by the side of ancient Athens, although the space occupied by the latter was no doubt deserted. The gate of this new city with two inscriptions still exists: ΑΙΔ ΕΙΣ ΑΘΗΝΑΙ ΘΗΣΕΩΣ, Η ΠΡΙΝ ΠΟΛΙΣ, and ΑΙΔ ΕΙΣ ΑΔΡΙΑΝΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΟΥΧΙ ΘΗΣΕΩΣ ΠΟΛΙΣ. All the other points in our plans, for example the site of the Ceramicus in that of Barbié du Bocage and others, are mere attempts to give something tangible.

The Acropolis was the ornament of Athens; it was situated on a steep rock, though scarcely 200 feet high, and surrounded with walls, that on one side being called the Κιμώνειον τεῖχος; and that on the other, the Πελασγικὸν τεῖχος. Why Cimon should have made additional fortifications to the Acropolis, especially in the days of the democracy, is to me a mystery; and I am almost inclined to suspect that the accounts about it must be explained in a different manner, and that some earlier Cimon is meant. Pericles constructed a flight of steps leading up the Acropolis under a portico, and at the entrance he built the Propylaea, of which now scarcely the site is discernible. The present fortifications of the Acropolis with double walls, were made in the middle ages, at the time of the French dukes and of the Catalani in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and in their construction many of the ancient remains were destroyed. The Propylaea were the triumph of Greek architecture. The chief buildings on the Acropolis were three temples, two of Athena, which must accordingly not be confounded with each other, namely, the Parthenon, and the temple of Athena Polias, in which was preserved the ancient image which had fallen from heaven (ξόανον, εἴδωλον), and thirdly, the temple of Erechtheus, which during the last unfortunate siege has been entirely destroyed; the same was probably the fate of the Parthenon also.⁠[44] All these temples were erected in the age of Pericles, and were built in the Doric style, while the Propylaea were Ionic. The Acropolis also contained the treasury of the republic: it was the Capitol of Athens, and fully as strong as that of Rome.

A place, concerning the site of which there can be no doubt, is the theatre, which can still be distinctly seen: it leans against the Acropolis, the rock itself forming its back wall. This is the sacred spot, where Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Aristophanes, produced their works; there the Athenian people crowned its great men for their merit; and there a golden wreath was given to Demosthenes for his faithful advice.

The site of the Agora, on the other hand, cannot be determined within a hundred paces; and I do not know in what direction to place it. In it was the Bouleuterion of the Council of the Five Hundred, the Prytaneion or Tholos, and the altars, which more than anything else show that the Athenians were animated by a different spirit from that of the other Greeks. I allude to the Βωμὸς Ἐλέους and the Βωμὸς Αἰδοῦς, that is, the altar of Mercy and of Modesty. These altars are characteristic, and shew the amiable nature of the Athenians: that people did not conceive mercy and modesty as demonlike ghosts, nor did they view them abstractedly like the Romans; they declared by those altars, that they had established mercy and the dread of everything that is vulgar, as rules to guide their own conduct. And it was not in vain that they had raised mercy to the rank of a divinity: he who found mercy nowhere, experienced it at Athens during the period of her power. With all their faults, and notwithstanding many acts that make our hearts bleed, the Athenians were the most amiable among the Greeks; and we cannot help asking: was there ever a powerful republic, completely left to itself, which restrained itself so much by its aversion against what is bad? They also had an altar of Report and Impulse (ὁρμή) to preserve their good report, and to prevent their being carried away by impulse.

The Pnyx was the hill where the popular assemblies were held, but it cannot possibly have contained the whole body of the people.

The hill of the Museum was regarded as the strongest point of the city next to the Acropolis, and after the Lamian war it was occupied by a Macedonian garrison, though previously it had not been a place of any importance. The account of the deliverance of Athens by Olympiodorus, shows that the Museum was not a real fort, but only an inaccessible post capable of containing a considerable body of troops. What was the real nature of the place, and what made it so strong, are questions to which no definite answers can be given.

The new town was the strange scheme of Hadrian, who planned buildings the splendour of which was to eclipse that of the ancient ones; but the Olympieum was not completed.⁠[45] Soon after Hadrian, Herodes Atticus, whose life has been written by Philostratus, constructed at Athens a whole stadium of Pentelic marble; his wealth is said to have been immense and almost fabulous, and his grandfather is reported to have found a treasure of Athena. Although the Pentelic marble was obtained in the vicinity of Athens, yet such a building erected by a private person was an amazing undertaking. The buildings of Hadrian and this stadium are still discernible in their ruins.

In the vicinity of Athens there were three gymnasia, the Academy, a park with trees and buildings in which gymnastic exercises were carried on; the Lyceum and the Cynosarges served similar purposes, but their sites cannot be determined.

Previous to the time of Themistocles, Piraeeus was a scarcely inhabited coast district; its natural advantages were neglected, because this port was farther off than that of Phalerus, the latter being two or three miles nearer the city; the few galleys which Athens possessed, and most of which had no decks, were in Phalerus. Themistocles, with the keen eye of a great man, selected Piraeeus as the site of a new town, and his intention was to induce the Athenians to abandon their city altogether and to settle in Piraeeus, which he intended to surround with walls of immense height and to fortify in such a manner as to render it impregnable by the arts of war as they were at the time. The wall, which was actually built, had only half the height to which he intended to raise it, and yet, until the time of Sulla, it defied every attack upon it. The thought of abandoning the place in which the citizens had lived honourably for centuries, was too painful to their feelings to be carried into effect. After the battle on the Hellespont, in the Peloponnesian war, such fortifications of Piraeeus could, after all, not have saved Athens, though at other times they would have been of great advantage, and might, perhaps, have exercised an influence upon the course of the Peloponnesian war. The second great plan, the building of the μακρὰ σκέλη, partly supplied this advantage, which they might have enjoyed at less expense.

The circumference of Piraeeus was nearly seven English miles: its nature and topography are the great problem for archaeologists. We can indeed conceive that, as we read in the ancients, it had three large harbours, but two of them are now choked up. Such deposits of sand are frequent in those parts of the coasts of the Mediterranean, where the current is not very strong.

The most difficult, nay, almost impossible, problem, is that of determining the site of Munychia. It is described as a peninsula almost surrounded by the sea, near Piraeeus, and as connected with the main land only by a narrow isthmus; it is further said to have been a very strong post; but as yet we have no correct drawing of it, and no description or statement leads us to the discovery of the site of Munychia; though we might fancy that such an eminence could not be mistaken. Strabo describes the place in the above manner, and beyond that we know nothing of it. If a person, intimately acquainted with the ancients, were to examine the localities, he might perhaps make some discoveries. Piraeeus was built along the shore, and surrounded on the landside by the great wall of Themistocles; but whether Munychia was situated within that wall, or was built against it like a citadel, no one can say: our topographers always regard it as a part of Piraeeus, but there can be no doubt, that the historians always distinguish the two places.

Piraeeus was a considerable town attracting all the wealth and commerce of Athens; it was a new place, having arisen after the Persian war; it had previously been a mere village, a δῆμος. This new town was constructed according to a regular plan, while Athens, with the exception of its public places, was an ugly city, with narrow, crooked, and angular streets; the private dwellings were insignificant, almost like our peasant houses, with walls of clay, or wicker-work covered with clay; the house of Pulytion alone, which appeared like a palace, formed an exception.⁠[46] Hence the Greek term for a thief, τοιχώρυχος, signifies one that breaks through a wall. Hence also we find no such ruins at Athens as at Rome, where the houses were built of bricks and puzzolano, at Syracuse, or any other Greek town. Piraeeus was planned by the Milesian architect Hippodamus in the time of Pericles, and it is possible that it may have had far more beautiful houses than Athens; the foundation of that town forms an era in the building of cities, which henceforth were always laid out according to definite plans. In Italy the streets of all towns were, from the earliest times, built according to certain schemes; Rome alone formed an exception in consequence of the haste with which it was restored after the Gallic conflagration. The arsenal (νεώσοικοι) was a curious edifice: each galley had its separate place, in which everything necessary for its outfit was kept in readiness. In modern times, the arsenal of Venice was similarly constructed, probably on the model of that of Constantinople. Piraeeus had two ἀγοραί, a theatre, and everything that was required of an independent town. It was the residence of merchants, mostly metoeci, and of the lower classes of the free citizens who gained their living by all kinds of trades connected with maritime affairs. The nobles who, without privileges, yet exercised a sort of power, and the ancient families, preserving their character, lived in the city, and not in the country. Hence the decided political colour of the city; οἱ ἐν ἄστει signifying the oligarchical faction, whose rallying point at the time of the Thirty Tyrants was in the city, while the democrats lived in the country and in the port town.

Piraeeus was connected with the city by the μακρά σκέλη, which must not be regarded by any means as a work of Themistocles, for they were built during the administration of Cimon and Pericles; of the fortifications of Piraeeus, too, only the smallest part was executed by Themistocles. One of these walls was forty and the other thirty-five stadia in length, but neither was as high as those of Piraeeus; the space between them cannot be regarded as a suburb, nor did it form a road, but consisted rather of open fields protected by the walls, so that in times of war as well as in those of most profound peace, Athens could receive all its supplies from the sea; but it was necessary in time of war to guard the walls. The space on both sides was principally occupied as burying grounds. After the Peloponnesian war, the Athenians were compelled to demolish on each side a portion of the wall of from ten to twelve stadia; but the Lacedaemonians were still more bent upon pulling down the walls of Piraeeus; it is true that not the whole of these latter were demolished, but still so large a portion of them, that on the return of Thrasybulus and his comrades from Phyle, Piraeeus appears as an open place. Athens itself retained its walls. The works which were executed by Conon, after the battle of Cnidus, with Persian money, contributed, among other things, to restore the fortifications of Piraeeus: he succeeded in accomplishing this with the treasures of the Persian king, and with the supply of workmen and money furnished by the maritime Greeks, such as the Corinthians and Boeotians, the same who, ten years before, had madly demanded the destruction of Athens. It is uncertain, however, whether the walls of Piraeeus restored by Conon were as enormous as those of Themistocles described by Thucydides. The rebuilding of the long walls occupied a longer time, for Athens did not possess the means of completing them speedily; in the time of king Philip, however, they were evidently restored. During the regency of Antipater, a Macedonian garrison was quartered in Piraeeus and Munychia, and if I am not mistaken, in the Museum also, just as under Demetrius Poliorcetes. At a time which it is impossible to determine, the long walls were again destroyed, and were not restored before the war of Antigonus Gonatas (Olymp. 127)⁠[47]⁠, so that they must have been destroyed either by Antigonus himself⁠[48]⁠, or even by Demetrius Poliorcetes, when he entered the city a second time and placed a garrison in the Museum. For the fact that at that time there was no communication between Piraeeus and the city, is clear from the circumstance, that during the siege of Antigonus, when famine was raging most fearfully, it was not he that commanded the sea, but the fleet of Alexandria. This fleet, however, did not venture to land, so that no provisions could be conveyed into the city, and the Macedonians must have been encamped between Athens and Piraeeus, though the latter place was not in their hands. In the last war against Philip III., Olymp. 145 (U.C. 551), the long walls, according to Livy, lay in ruins. So also during the unfortunate siege of Athens by Sulla, U.C. 666; he besieged the κύκλος of the city, and Piraeeus: the city was in the hands of the tyrant Aristion, Piraeeus in those of the troops of Mithridates, and Sulla was encamped between the two. It was a time of the most fearful misery, and those in Piraeeus scarcely ever succeeded in introducing provisions into the city, whence it is clear, that the walls could not then have been restored, which, considering the decay and wretchedness of the city, was in fact impossible. The numerous drachmae and tetradrachmae, consisting of copper with a thin coat of silver, belong to this period of decay; they are ancient, and of a peculiar coinage; the Athenians probably employed copper for the same reason for which paper has been used in modern times. Charles XII. of Sweden, too, once ordered copper coins to be issued. This is a proof of the great decay of Athens; even Xenophon says, that the city was full of unoccupied building grounds: it was not worth while to rebuild the houses; they were abandoned and allowed to crumble to pieces; the places were left as waste-land, and grass grew upon them. The state of the city resembled that of many towns in the East, as for example, Ispahan. Its whole outline, however, still remained the same during the siege of Sulla, and the splendid buildings were still uninjured, while the people lived in the greatest misery, and were very much reduced in numbers. The vessels dedicated in the temples, though they were still exhibited as the ancient originals, were probably counterfeited, the real gold and silver having been exchanged for other metals, just as the French at Loretto took away the precious stones, and filled their places with glass. We still possess the inventories of the precious treasures, which the Athenian curators handed over to their successors in office, and which belong to the Macedonian period; but during the subsequent times, there certainly was no longer any trace of them. As Aristion refused to surrender, Sulla took the city by storm and raged like Mummius against Corinth and the unhappy Achaeans: the Romans murdered every one that came in their way; a great number who had taken refuge in the Ceramicus, had their lives spared, but every tenth man among them was put to death. On that occasion a part of the city was consumed by fire.

But Piraeeus suffered still more severely; it was destroyed by Sulla quite intentionally, for he set fire to the arsenal (ὁπλοθήκη) and the νεώσοικοι, in which there were spaces for 400 galleys. Athens was in a state of the deepest distress: the survivors received, what the Romans in their official language called freedom, that is, they were allowed to choose their own magistrates, and had jurisdiction in criminal cases. But the city was like a wilderness, though it always retained the remembrance of earlier times. The people did not indeed forget the fearful calamities they had experienced, but in that happy climate man enjoys the present; the scenes of terror gradually ceased to be thought of, men soon assembled again, and Athens became one of the most delightful places to live in, to which Romans of education and rank, such as Atticus, withdrew from the political turmoils of the time, and cheered their life in a world of ideas and in dreams of the olden times. Under the emperors, Athens recovered several islands which it had formerly possessed, as Scyros, Lemnos, and Imbros, which to some extent enabled it to exist. In the reign of Hadrian the Ilisus flowed with gold; Herodes Atticus was indeed an acquisition for which the city had to pay dearly, for his vanity made him an unbearable and arrogant man, though he was withal empty-headed; but still it was a period of relative prosperity. The philosophical school of Athens acquired more consistency under Hadrian; it was a kind of university, where especially dialectics and speculative philosophy were pursued; but the exact sciences and grammar were less attended to. A residence there was still very beneficial to young men, for the ancient serene spirit of its inhabitants still survived in certain beautiful traits; men loved to dwell there; it was still the soil and the atmosphere of Athens, the vicinity of the monuments of classical antiquity, and with all its degeneracy Athens still preserved a shadow of its ancient urbanity.

This prosperity received a fearful shock under Decius after the middle of the third century, when the Goths, like a devastating torrent, spread over the coast of Asia and Greece from the Black Sea. Athens was now ransacked for plunder and partly burnt, and many took refuge in Piraeeus. After this calamity was over, the people returned. We do not know what was the condition of domestic life at this period, but Libanius, Himerius, and S. Basilius⁠[49] give us an interesting picture of another aspect of life at the time: from the mode of life of the young men who then studied at Athens, we see how insignificant the city was, how the people derived their means of subsistence solely from the university and a little traffic in the produce of the country, such as honey and olives. Justinian abolished the schools, and Athens thereby lost its last resources. Henceforth nothing can be said of Athens for a period of seven hundred years; this only may be gathered from all the circumstances of the times, that the transition to Christianity took place gradually, without any shock or violent dissensions, and in a very different way from that which we witness at Rome, where the collision between what was established and that which was struggling into existence was of a very violent character. At Rome the tombs of Christians and Pagans are always separate in the catacombs, and afterwards the bodies of Christians alone were deposited in them; but at Athens, where the tombs are in layers one above another, the Pagan ones are below, and above them those of the Christians, while on some of them we find a mixture of Christian and non-Christian emblems. Previous to the 13th century, not the slightest mention of Athens occurs. When the Franks had destroyed the eastern empire (1204), a Frenchman of the name of Otto de la Roche, as a vassal of the Emperor of Constantinople, founded a principality under the title of Grand-Duke (μέγας Δούξ), the seat of which was Attica and Boeotia. His family, however, became extinct, and by marriage the possession passed into the hands of the Briennes; this family possessed a considerable principality there, and governed unhappy Greece with the extreme severity of feudalism. The great company of the Catalani appeared in the 14th century, conquered the country, expelled the French dukes, and, like their predecessors, fortified the Acropolis of Athens. The many remains of buildings which do not bear the impress of antiquity, seem to belong to this period; it is surprising, however, that in Greece there are no buildings of the time after Justinian. There now followed the period when the Italians, the Neris and Acciajuolis, were in possession of the duchy; a descendant of the latter lived even recently as a common peasant in Attica. The Franks had completely become Greeks, but still remained Roman Catholics, and in possession of Athens, until it was conquered by Mahmood II. The feudal character which the city sometimes bears in modern authors, as for example the fact that in Boccaccio and Shakespere, Theseus is called Duke of Athens, arises from its being governed by dukes at that time. Subsequently Athens was alternately Venetian and Turkish until 1687, when unfortunately it was conquered by the Venetians, who on that occasion destroyed the temple of Theseus. The Turks in 1690 re-conquered it, and destroyed the Christian population. After this it was uninhabited for a period of thirty years, till about 1720. Its most recent fate is but too well known to us all.

The question as to the population of Athens, which so naturally presents itself to us, cannot be answered at all. The statements we have respecting the number of citizens are not limited to the inhabitants of the city, but comprise the whole territory of Attica, there being no perioeci. We have several statements. Herodotus mentions 30,000 Athenian citizens, which seems to be the number of the ἔφηβοι, about the time of the Peloponnesian war: if, according to this, we calculate the population in the usual proportion, it consisted of about 120,000 souls. But the numbers fluctuate very much. Afterwards, in the time of Philip, the mean average is 20,000; but besides them there were the metoeci and the slaves, the former amounting, in the Peloponnesian war, to about 10,000: of the slaves we know nothing at all. Athenaeus has preserved the extraordinary statement—Ctesicles is mentioned as the authority for it—that in the census of Demetrius Phalereus it was found that Athens contained 21,000 citizens, 10,000 metoeci, and 400,000 slaves. This last number is something quite incredible, however strange it may seem to doubt a statement apparently so official. As regards the number of citizens and metoeci, who included strangers, country people standing under a patronus, and emancipated slaves, we have no reason to doubt its correctness, for they agree with all the earlier accounts; but it is impossible to see how there could have been such a large number of slaves: how could they have found employment? It is impossible to conceive it, if we assume the commerce and industry of Attica to have been ever so great, especially at that period. The proportion is not, indeed, as enormous as that between the blacks and the whites in the West Indies; but this is altogether a different state of things. Wherever domestic slavery exists, as in Italy, Greece, and the East, the number of slaves is always smaller than that of free men. It must further be observed, that all the numbers of slaves in Athenaeus seem to be exaggerated. I have already drawn your attention to the case of Aegina; at Corinth, where the number is said to have amounted to nearly half a million, it is almost ridiculous. If the number were correct, very different and more brilliant results would have been achieved; for at a time like that succeeding the Peloponnesian war, when in quite desperate circumstances it was resolved to raise the metoeci to the rank of citizens, and to set the slaves free, a formidable host of soldiers would have come forward at once, and the Athenian army would have been increased by at least 100,000 men. Such a population, in a country like Attica, would have perished of hunger, for the country certainly never produced as much as 150,000 inhabitants required in six months in the shape of bread alone, not to mention times of war. It is possible that a combination may be found, by which this strange statement obtained credence among the Greeks; but I am convinced, that moderns who have based their conclusions upon it are altogether in error.

But even if we were able to ascertain the whole population of Attica, that of the city cannot be discovered, for there is nothing which might guide us as a standard. We do not know whether the houses were built close together, whether they were surrounded by large courts, etc., though I believe that the former was the case. The houses were not six or seven stories high, as was the case at Rome in the time of Augustus, and in the three principal streets of Carthage; they generally had only one, or at the utmost two stories, and a house of the latter kind was a very respectable one in Greece. But in consequence of this, the houses must have occupied a larger space than those of Rome. The probability is, that the population of Athens was far below 100,000 souls.

Piraeeus, at different times, had its own civic magistrates; when they acquired higher authority, it gave rise to different divisions, as at the period of the Thirty Tyrants, when there were ten men in Piraeeus and eleven at Athens.⁠[50]⁠

The only important town in Attica, besides Athens, was Eleusis, and in Latin authors sometimes Eleusina,⁠[51] as we find Crotona together with Croton. Able men have thought it necessary to correct such forms; but they are instances which show that the flection of the modern languages derived from the Latin, in which the oblique cases are used as the nominative, was even then not uncommon in the language of ordinary life. Eleusis was remarkable for its temple of Demeter, and tradition related that in ancient times it had formed a state independent of Athens. We cannot form an opinion as to its size, but it must have been well fortified, as it was not laid waste by the Spartans during their invasions at the time of the Peloponnesian war. Under Cassander, Demetrius Poliorcetes, and probably also under Antigonus Gonatas, it was severed from Athens, but afterwards, we do not know when, it was again added to it.

Rhamnus, known through its temple of Nemesis, was situated on the coast; it seems to have had some importance as a small town. All these places are called δῆμοι, and not πόλεις, because they did not form civic communities, having no independent political existence, but were only parts of the Athenian state. It does not follow, however, from this that some of them may not have been places of considerable extent.

The temple of Athena Sunias, of which ruins are still extant, stood on Cape Sunion (Cape Colonna).

On the eastern coast we find Marathon, which is remarkable only on account of the battle-field in its neighbourhood. Its plain is not as level nor as fruitful as that of Eleusis; its surface is only not quite so rocky as in other parts of Attica, and covered with small hills. Among these hills, which are still visible, many are no doubt artificial, and are the tumuli under which the Persians and their attendants were buried. Sometimes arms and slings are still found there, some of which must have belonged to the barbarians and others to the Greeks.

The interior of Attica contained several large places. The most important among them was Acharnae, whose population in the Peloponnesian war, as described by Thucydides, is almost incredible. If his statement is correct, the place must have had a considerable territory. Its inhabitants were charcoal-burners, and carried on other similar occupations.

At a distance of seventy stadia from Athens there may still be seen on a hill the walls of the fort of Phyle, which are almost uninjured. It was not a town, but only a hill surrounded with a wall (τεῖχος) within which in time of war the inhabitants of the surrounding country sought shelter for themselves and their property. It was taken by Thrasybulus. A second important frontier fortress was Oenoe, and a third Panacton, all of which were built especially against the inroads of the Boeotians.

Decelea, within sight of Athens, and situated on a hill, was an ancient and fortified place, of which, during the Peloponnesian war, the Spartans, on the advice of Alcibiades, took possession. They fortified it, for the purpose of having a safe place, from which they might lay waste the country around.

The island of Salamis, a prize of long struggles with the Megarians, must be regarded as belonging to Attica, though not to its territory, in the proper sense of the term. I must here mention the pleasant story of the law which is said to have forbidden to renew the discussion about the war, and of the feigned madness of Solon, who re-kindled the war that had been given up long since. This is so manifest a fable, that one cannot help wondering how it can ever have passed as history. According to another tradition, the Athenians and Megarians must have pleaded their case before judges, for they are said to have appealed to the Homeric text of the Βοιωτία: the Athenian version made out that Ajax of Salamis had joined the Athenians, while the Megarians showed that he had been ruler of Salamis and the country of Megara. This difference is a remarkable fact for the criticism of the text of Homer, for it shows how changeable and pliable it still was at that time, the Βοιωτία being recited in different ways in different places. At the time of the Persian war, Salamis belonged to Athens; it formed a separate demos, and constituted part of a phyle. Leon is always called the Salaminian; but its relation was somewhat different from that of the other demi, for the chief place of the island, which was likewise called Salamis, is mentioned as a town, although the island itself is spoken of as only a single demos: the relation of the Roman municipium consisted there in the fullest enjoyment of the franchise. Afterwards it was severed from Attica, probably by Antipater; and there are numerous inscriptions, in which it is mentioned as a state with its own peculiar organisation, just as Piraeeus, in the Macedonian period, appears with its own archons, its council, etc., everything being an imitation on a small scale of the state of Athens. Subsequently, Salamis was again united with Athens.

Cranaë, the island of Helena, is insignificant.

The Ἀθηναῖοι Βοιωτοί of Eleutherae and Oropus, were not united with Attica in the same manner as Salamis; both were Boeotian towns, which had renounced the supremacy of the Boeotians, and placed themselves under that of Athens. Eleutherae had, perhaps, originally been Athenian, and had subsequently been taken by the Boeotians. In regard to the relation subsisting between this place and Athens, we may assume that it was the same as that between the Plataeans and Athenians, that is, that its inhabitants were citizens, but ineligible to certain offices. Oropus, on the other hand, was entirely subject to Athens; its importance to the Athenians can be fully understood only on the supposition that it had a small harbour, by which the communication with Chalcis and Euboea in general was kept up. Even before the Peloponnesian war, Oropus, which seems to have preferred the dominion of the Athenians, belonged to them, and after the war, too, it was recovered by them; subsequently, it was taken by a tyrant of Eretria, and then again by the Boeotians after the battle of Chaeronea. Philip, who did everything to please the Athenians, if they would but allow him to take his own course, strangely restored the place to Athens, although the Boeotians claimed it. Afterwards it was, no doubt, again taken from the Athenians by Antipater, and during the latter part of the Macedonian period it again belonged to Athens. The manner in which the Athenians, in the time of their distress, ill-used the unfortunate town, was one of the causes that led to the outbreak of the Achaean war. Afterwards it is no longer spoken of; it was destroyed, and not a trace of it is now to be seen: the modern Oropo does not occupy the same site.⁠[52]⁠

Boeotia.

According to tradition, the Boeotians were a wandering people; they are said first to have been driven by the Cadmeans into the Thessalian valley of Arne, which therefore cannot well have been as small as it is drawn in our maps; and afterwards they returned from Thessaly to Boeotia. This narrative shows essentially the same paralogism which so often occurs in the history of ancient nations: wherever two nations of the same stock appear in different places, they are connected with each other by means of migrations to and fro. If the Boeotians and the ancient Thessalians belonged to the same race, one tradition may have stated that the Boeotians migrated into Thessaly, and another, that they proceeded from Thessaly to Boeotia; both statements combined produce the before-mentioned result. I do not mean to say that during the immigration of the Emathians into Thessaly, the Boeotians did not go to Boeotia; but if this should be the case, still I cannot imagine that they should previously have been driven into Thessaly. The early history of Boeotia is mysterious and confused; ancient tribes are there mentioned under the strangest and altogether un-Hellenic names, as for example, the Aones, the Hyes, or Hyantes, who are said to have been Thracians. The tradition that there existed a Phoenician settlement at Thebes, is in my opinion more historical: the name Cadmus is Phoenician, and according to all appearance seems to be the representative of the Phoenician colony which was established at Thebes. This trace is too distinct to allow of anything being said against it. In times which lie beyond the history of Greece, the Phoenicians had settlements in the Greek islands, as in Cythera, Thasos, the Cyclades, and many other parts of the country; it is therefore not difficult to believe that they should also have formed a settlement at Thebes, though some miles distant from the sea. Besides this ancient Phoenician colony, there existed in Boeotia the ancient kingdom of the Minyans of Orchomenos, the existence of which is certain, and is loudly attested even at the present day by the indestructible ruins of Orchomenos, which are as gigantic as those of Tiryns and Mycenae. I am quite disposed to ascribe these structures to the Minyans, concerning whom we still possess mythical traditions, as well as the enormous works by which lake Copais was drained; those who built Orchomenos were a mighty people like that which constructed the tunnel of Alba and the buildings of ancient Rome. But the beginnings of Boeotian history are hidden in impenetrable darkness; and the fall of Orchomenos, although in the Homeric Catalogue the city is still distinct from Boeotia, belongs to so early a period, that fable describes it as the work of Heracles. In the Heracleia there is the legend that Thebes paid tribute to Orchomenos, and that Heracles reversed the relation. These are, no doubt, the fundamental outlines of a true history: and the stories of the wars for the possession of Thebes are likewise symbolical, and personified indications of actual wars which devastated Boeotia. I allude to both the earlier war and that of the Epigoni in which Thebes was laid waste, but we cannot arrive at any historical detail. The real history of Thebes does not begin till the time of the Persian wars; in the case of Athens and Sparta, we know many things before that period, though they may be doubtful and falsified; but our information about Thebes does not begin until the time I have just mentioned.

We then find Thebes standing in the same relation to Boeotia in which Alba stood to the early, and Rome to the later Latium; Thebes and Boeotia form two connected masses, of which the great city was originally, both in right and in might, equal to the collective body of Boeotians; but it then aimed at a supremacy which in all essential points it actually gained, except over a few places. The Boeotarchs were the common magistrates for all Boeotia; their number is uncertain; but in some instances it amounts to eleven. They seem originally to have been elected in common, six by the Thebans and six by the Boeotians;⁠[53] but afterwards Thebes assumed to itself the right of appointing them, and raised only Thebans to the office. This struggle is the nucleus of Boeotian history from the time of the Persian wars down to the battle of Leuctra. After that battle, most of the Boeotian towns submitted to Thebes. Thespiae and Plataeae alone did not stoop; and being powerful towns, they joined Athens, a step which was unfortunate for both places. The Plataeans went to Athens and were received there; but they returned and were expelled a second time, so that in the Macedonian period Plataeae was quite a desolate place, in which there was only one temple and a few inns.

So long as Sparta had not overthrown Athens, she supported the claims of Thebes, but afterwards declared herself in favour of the autonomy of the Boeotian towns; hence the unexpected seizure of the Cadmea, after which Thebes rose with its well-known energy. From that moment until the battle of Leuctra matters were in utter confusion. At first when the Thebans shook off the Spartan yoke, they were joined by the other Boeotians; but when the latter did not obtain equal rights, the struggle began afresh, and in the end the Boeotians were obliged to submit. It was not till Thebes had been destroyed by Alexander, that a relation of perfect equality was restored; the city rebuilt by Cassander was without importance, and the whole country henceforth plays a subordinate and miserable part in the history of Greece.

Boeotia, in its whole political and geographical extent between the Crissaean gulf and the Euboean channel, is surrounded on all sides by mountains. Mount Helicon proceeds from Parnassus in a direction parallel with the Crissaean gulf; and the mountains coming from Oeta and the country of the Locrians, extend along the sea as far as the frontier of Attica. Between these latter mountains, which have different names, and Helicon, we have mount Cithaeron, so conspicuous in the traditions of the ancients and in their tragedies, as Boeotia in general is an important part of the classic soil in legendary poetry. Helicon is considerably smaller than Parnassus, nor is it as wild; it is rather what the Swiss call a “tame mountain,” covered with wood and prolific herbs even at its top; it is a beautiful mountain, and we cannot wonder that it was dedicated to the Muses. The mountains branching off from those of Locris are not so high as Helicon, and on the whole capable of cultivation. Cithaeron was a woody mountain, but it is difficult to say, whether this was the natural result of its physical constitution, or whether it was the consequence of its situation between two nations that were hostile to each other.

The only river within this country that finds its way to the sea, is the Asopus, which flowing between Thebes and Plataeae empties itself into the Euboean sea. A larger river, the Phocian Cephisus, discharges itself into lake Copais. Boeotia has two large lakes, which communicated with each other, the lake Copais and the lake of Haliartus. The former was, in ancient times, a lake of very large extent; as it had no outlet to prevent the excessive accumulation of water, a tunnel was constructed to carry off the surplus; and this tunnel was probably built by the Minyans for the purpose of reclaiming the land for cultivation. In the time of Alexander, the tunnel was partly destroyed by an earthquake; but the attempt to clear it was found to be beyond the strength of all the Boeotians. As the lake had now no longer any outlet, we naturally expect that it should have again acquired its former extent; but it is surprising to find, that although nothing was ever done to drain it, it forms only a large marsh filled with reeds, and a few stagnant pools here and there. This must be the result of some revolution in the bowels of the earth, of which we know nothing; either other subterraneous outlets were opened, or the supplies of water to the lake were diminished. The lake of Haliartus⁠[54] is connected with lake Copais, but has an outlet towards the sea.

Lake Copais is surrounded by a magnificent plain, which, however, like other soils that are too rich, is unhealthy, and now forms the valley of Livadia: the ancients regarded it as belonging partly to Haliartus. Another plain is that of Thebes, which, though not as level as the other, is yet a very fertile and beautiful district. Boeotia is altogether a rich country; its waters abound in fish, its plains yield abundant corn, its hills are covered with olives, and in the neighbourhood of Anthedon excellent wine is produced. The Boeotians themselves, on the other hand, had the reputation of being dull and rude (pingue sub aëre nati). Nevertheless, however, the country produced Pindar; before him, Corinna; and, in later times, Plutarch, of whom we may justly say μωμήσεταί τις μᾶλλον ἢ μιμήσεται. He now no longer enjoys the same reputation as in former times, but notwithstanding all the charges that may be brought against him, he is an extremely amiable man and a pleasing author, and his writings are rich outpourings of plain wisdom; they contain no profound speculations, but are the lively productions of an extremely ingenious and well-read man. In his moral treatises he shows himself to be possessed of great depth of feeling. Pindar is one of those authors of whom we may say, that it is a man’s own fault if he takes no pleasure in him. What Quinctilian says of Cicero, may be applied also to Pindar: the more he pleases us, the farther we are advanced. Among the active statesmen of Boeotia, Epaminondas and Pelopidas are preeminent, especially the former, whose personal character is entitled to high esteem; considering the wretchedness of the time in which they lived, they were truly extraordinary men; but their misfortune was, that they belonged to a state, the rise of which necessarily involved the downfall of Greece. Subsequently, during the Macedonian period, which is described by Polybius, the Boeotians are the most senseless, the most powerless, and characterless of all the Greeks, and share the misfortune of the Achaeans: when their policy had become quite miserable, they threw themselves into relations in which they could not but perish.

Thebes consisted of the upper town (Καδμεία) and the lower town. The acra had a considerable circumference, though not as it appears in the plan of Barbié du Bocage in St. Croix’ work on the historians of Alexander the Great; that plan is thoroughly misleading, for its author imagines that the acra was situated in the centre of the city, and that the lower town was built concentrically around it. According to the description of the siege by the Macedonians, given by Diodorus and Arrian, this is impossible: one side of the acra unquestionably faced the open fields, and only about two-thirds or three-fourths of it were surrounded by the lower town. The acropolis was called Καδμεία, but the ancients gave it the name of Thebes, so that in the Homeric Catalogue, the city of Thebes below the then destroyed Cadmea was called Ὑποθῆβαι. The seven gates which have become so renowned from the tragedy of Aeschylus, and the Phoenissae of Euripides, existed in the Cadmea: the gates of the lower town may not have corresponded with them, or may have been made to correspond in later times.

Thebes continued to increase until Olymp. 111, 2, when it was destroyed by Alexander. The city is said to have had a circumference of 80 stadia, that is, ten English miles; but this is incredible: all we know about the fate of the city shows that it is impossible, or else we are not allowed to draw any conclusion from the circumference of a Greek city as to its population; for Diodorus expressly states, that the number of all the prisoners, after the capture of Thebes, was 30,000, including every age and sex, and probably also every rank, free men, metoeci, and slaves. I have already expressed my opinion concerning the foolish supposition about the enormous number of slaves. I admit the possibility, that at Athens, especially in the city, the number of slaves was greater than that of free men; I admit this with special reference to the anecdote, that the proposal made at Athens, that slaves should wear a particular kind of dress, was rejected for the purpose of preventing their seeing how great their numbers were. But the same reason would have been valid if the number of slaves had been less. The Attic peasant was αὐτουργός, he certainly had no slaves, and the majority of the Athenians were altogether too poor to be able to keep such numbers of slaves. If their numbers had been as excessive as is stated, the institutions at Athens would have been quite different.

The Cadmea is said to have been built by Cadmus, to have been destroyed by the Epigoni, and to have remained in ruins until the Boeotians returning from Arne restored it. In the Homeric Catalogue, Boeotia is inhabited by Boeotians, but according to other accounts, the Boeotians were then still dwelling in Arne, and the country was lying waste—again a sign that the Catalogue does not agree with the other traditions. Thebes then was a great city till Olymp. 111, 2; afterwards it lay in ruins for a period of sixteen years, until it was restored by Cassander from hatred of Alexander and his family. The territory of the city had been given by Alexander to the Boeotians. Cassander carried out the restoration notwithstanding the opposition of the other towns; but it was only an insignificant place, and never gained the ascendancy though it was the seat of the government and the capital of the country. At a later period, however, it was visited by misfortune after misfortune. In the Achaean war, U.C. 608, it was taken by the Romans, and though it was not destroyed, it received a deadly shock. During the Mithridatic war, of which Boeotia was the scene, it was entirely ruined, so that Pausanias saw only a village within the precincts of the ancient Cadmea; the old city contained only a few remains of temples amid heaps of rubbish.

It is difficult to enumerate the other towns of Boeotia in any definite order; we shall be guided by the locality and proceed from Plataeae to the left towards Tanagra. Mythology knows many places in ancient Boeotia which are not mentioned in the historical ages; some of them must have perished, and others were united with the territories of larger towns, as for example, Erythrae, Scolos, Hyle, etc.

Plataeae will ever be memorable on account of the battle in which the destruction of the Persian army and the liberation of Greece were completed; the account of this battle in Herodotus, however, is more poetical than historical; its whole course was different, and the forces were not by any means as formidable; but we know nothing better, and his narrative is so beautiful that we gladly accept it as a poem. Certain it is, however, that the Greeks under Pausanias destroyed the army of the Persians. During that war, Thebes, owing to the influence of its aristocracy, acted a disgraceful part. Plataeae and Thespiae maintained themselves against the arrogance of Thebes, and found sympathy among the other Greeks; and in this manner Plataeae in particular formed a small independent democratic state under the protection of Athens until the time of the Peloponnesian war, which the Thebans commenced with the treacherous attack during the night, which led to the destruction of Plataeae. The account of this occurrence shows us the smallness of Greek towns; the population of Greece is generally estimated too high, a mistake into which we may easily be led by the statements of the ancients. Subsequently Plataeae was restored; but after the battle of Leuctra it was again destroyed by the Thebans. The inhabitants then withdrew to Athens, and when the restoration of their town was sanctioned by Alexander, a small number only returned, and formed a village with a few temples which preserved the remembrance of better days, especially the temple of Zeus Eleutherios. Dicaearchus gives us a most vivid picture of what Plataeae was in later times.

Thespiae, near mount Helicon, was on the whole an insignificant place, and became still more so when, after the battle of Leuctra, it was destroyed by the Thebans. At the time of the Macedonian supremacy it was restored, and acquired great reputation on account of the Eros of Praxiteles, which secured to the place its existence, for it was visited by strangers from all parts, who came to see that work of art. In like manner some small places in Italy were celebrated for a single picture. Otherwise Thespiae was a deserted and decayed place.

Leuctra was situated in the territory of Thespiae; there the numerical superiority of the Spartans was overpowered by the military skill of the Thebans.

Haliartus on the lake is known from the battle which was gained there by Lysander over the allies. In the war with Perseus it was destroyed by the Romans, and as the Athenians had been unable to obtain its preservation, they made the unbecoming request that the Romans should give them the territory. The Romans with a Machiavellistic policy sometimes gave away such districts for the purpose of fostering divisions and animosities.

Coronea, Chaeronea, and Lebadea formed a triangle on the frontier. The last of these was an important place under the Byzantine empire, but less so in earlier times. It belonged to Haliartus. Coronea is remarkable in the war of Agesilaus against the allies, and Chaeronea on account of the battle of Philip, which decided the fate of Greece; 250 years later Sulla gained a battle there against the general of Mithridates, who had foolishly established himself in Greece.

Orchomenos, of which I have already spoken, was situated on the very borders of Boeotia; in the historical ages it was an insignificant place, called in Aeolic Erchomenos, as we find in inscriptions and coins. Coins bearing the inscription ΕΡΧ belong to this place; in former times antiquaries were greatly puzzled by them. In its neighbourhood was also found the Orchomenian inscription, first published by Melitios, which is the largest and purest of all the Aeolian monuments.

Copae is remarkable only as the place from which lake Copais derives its name.

Anthedon is celebrated for its excellent muscat wine. Mycalessus, which was destroyed in the Peloponnesian war, was situated in its vicinity.

Tanagra was situated on the Asopus, near Oropus; it is known through the defeat of the Athenians under Tolmidas before the fourteen years’ truce, which preceded the Peloponnesian war.

Delion, situated on the Euripus, must be noticed, on account of the battle which the Athenians lost against the Boeotians during the Peloponnesian war. The place is also mentioned in mythical history: for the 1,000 ships of the Achaeans, destined to sail against Troy, were detained there by a calm, until the sacrifice of Iphigenia.

The Locrian Tribes.

Proceeding from the Boeotian frontier towards Thessaly, we arrive among the Locrian tribes—the Epicnemidian and Opuntian Locrians in the east, and the Ozolian in the south-west. They are very puzzling, as, in general, there is no lack of mysterious points in the history of the Greek nations. The ancient tradition is that they were Leleges, who are described as a branch of the Carians: this is a point which must leave as we find it. It is surprising to meet with them on both seas, the Euboean and the Crissaean, the coast of the latter being occupied by the Ozolae, the larger tribe. Between the two we have the Phocians, and among the heights of Oeta and at the foot of mount Parnassus, the Dorians. My directing your attention to this probably leads you to guess my opinion, which is this: the manifest fact of these tribes being torn asunder, as is clear from a mere glance at the map, is probably the result of immigration. As, according to tradition, the Boeotians immigrated from abroad, and as the empire of the Minyans fell, so it happens in all migrations of nations: one people pushes another onward—the Goths are expelled by the Huns, the Huns again by other nations, and so we are led back to the interior of Asia. Hence I regard the Locrians as the ancient inhabitants of the whole country from one sea to the other, and as severed and torn asunder by the immigration of the Boeotians, while the latter may have been pushed on by the Phocians, these again by the Dorians, and the Dorians, lastly, by the Thessalians. Respecting these migrations we can only form conjectures; but the more we consider them in connection with one another, the more we become convinced, how little we know about the ancient history of Greece: we are much better acquainted with the settlements on the coast of Asia.

We shall unite the three Locrian tribes, the Ozolae, Epicnemidii, and Opuntii; the country of the Ozolian Locrians was by far the most extensive. Their principal town, situated at the foot of the Aetolian mountains, in the west of Phocis, was Amphissa, not far from Delphi; it was a regular town, while the other places along the shore were, like those of Aetolia, only κῶμαι. The Ozolian Locrians formed together an ἔθνος, in which Amphissa possessed the supremacy, though in several circumstances it stood by itself. At the time of the Peloponnesian war, there were, besides Amphissa, many Ozolian tribes, extending from that town to cape Rhion, at the entrance of the Crissaean gulf. The only notice of them occurs in Thucydides, when he describes the campaign of Demosthenes in those parts. The places are insignificant, and not worth mentioning; the ἔθνος appears in a state of complete dissolution. Naupactus, the modern Lepanto,⁠[55] is the only place worthy of note. It is prominent in the Greek mythus as the place where the Heracleids built the ships, with which they sailed over to Peloponnesus, whence its name was traced to that event. During the period of the great activity of Athens after the Persian war, under Cimon and Pericles, it was taken by the Athenians, probably by accident, as Gibraltar was taken by the English, who did not see its importance till afterwards. Thus Naupactus, with its excellent harbour, became an important point to command the Crissaean gulf. There they received the insurgent perioeci and helots, who, after the earthquake in Olymp. 79. 2, at the time of king Archidamus, endeavoured to separate Messene from Laconia, and, when failing in this, capitulated for a free departure. After the Peloponnesian war, the Spartans again expelled them from Naupactus, for they were implacable, and never laid aside their hatred; Naupactus was restored to the Locrians. At a later period, when the Aetolians rose, the town belonged to them; in the Macedonian times, the whole coast of the Locrians, perhaps Amphissa itself included, was united with Aetolia; there is even an inscription, according to which the Aetolians had the superintendence of the Delphic oracle. The Locrians of Opus and Cnemis were at that time governed by Macedonia.

The Ozolian Locrians, according to Thucydides, completely resembled, in their rude manners, the Acarnanians, Aetolians, and Epirots; even in times of peace they were always armed with a sword, which, however, must not be conceived as a long sword for war, but as an Albanese knife. This σιδηροφορεῖν had fallen into disuse with the other Greeks, as soon as they had attained a certain degree of civilisation.

The Locrians on the Euripus formed two states, that of Opus and that of Cnemis. In the east of Epicnemidian Locris is mount (the town of?) Naryx, whence the Locrians are called Narycii. Virgil has been much censured by the ancients for calling the Locrians in Italy Narycii, but it appears that he regarded all the Locrians, and consequently those in Italy also, as belonging to one and the same race. Opus was, comparatively speaking, an important town, though it was small. During the first war which the Romans, allied with the Aetolians, carried on against Philip, the son of Demetrius, Opus was taken and laid waste by the Roman fleet and king Attalus.

Phocis.

Phocis in our maps embraces Delphi, but as far as we can trace history backwards, Delphi is separate from Phocis. I will not venture any conjectures as to whether the Delphians were a different people, but politically they did not belong to the Phocians. The history of Phocis begins at the time of the Persian wars; and thenceforth until the Peloponnesian war, the Phocians are constantly seen endeavouring to unite Delphi with their country, in which at times they succeeded; the Spartans, however, took it from them, and left Delphi in a state of independence. Afterwards the two states were again united, but our authorities on this subject are very scanty. Herodotus contains tolerably certain indications, that the Delphians formed an independent state by themselves; wherever Thucydides takes notice of the rest of Greece, his information is very trustworthy;⁠[56] besides him we have only Xenophon and Diodorus Siculus; even these two do not enable us to fix the time of the union; but it is very probable that it did not take place before the Sacred war, for the chastisement was inflicted upon the Phocians alone, the Delphians being on the side of the allies. It is impossible to follow the traces any farther. Delphi stood to the Phocians in a relation similar to that in which Thebes stood to the Boeotians, Alba to the other Latin towns, and afterwards Rome to all the Latins, only with this difference, that in this division there existed not only no unity, but no connection at all. If there ever existed an alliance between Delphi and the Phocians, it certainly ceased at an early period, and was never permanently renewed.

It is possible that Delphi may have been a remnant of the ancient mysterious state of Cirrha, which was foreign to the Phocians. Many moderns relate a great many things about that state—the forms Cirrha and Crissa are only dialectic differences of the same name—as, for example, about its connection with Crete and the like. I confess that I know nothing of all this; the existence of the town alone is beyond doubt. Cirrha was a great commercial place on the Corinthian gulf, and against it a general religious war of the united Greeks was carried on in the early historical times, apparently about Olymp. 40 and 50. In that war the town was taken and destroyed. These events alone are historical, all the rest is mythical. The observation of these and similar circumstances is of importance, to prove how late our history of Greece commences. There is no necessity for pushing everything mysterious back beyond the commencement of the Olympiads, for even great events belonging to the period between that era and the Persian wars are buried in obscurity. We need not, therefore, push the great changes of early history back into remote antiquity as is commonly done; it is a mere delusion to believe that the space for changes in antiquity must be so very large. To mention an example, the time from the commencement of the Olympiads to the legislation of Solon is a period of 200 years, and the period from the Persian wars until the age of Pyrrhus is of the same length; and what immense changes did Greece experience during this latter period! An expedient equally illogical is the readiness with which certain critics distinguish, when they have to deal with different traditions about a person or a thing, and assume two persons or things of the same name. The late Professor Heyne, whose merits I readily acknowledge, was labouring under this delusion, for he invented, e.g., a double Minos, an idea which never occurred to any ancient writer. Minos is not an historical personage, the years of whose reign can be stated. Another bad expedient is to divide different accounts of the same subject, which do not agree with each other, so as to treat them as separate events. The Doric tradition and several ancient authors, and among them even Timaeus, stated that Lycurgus founded the Olympic games; now as Lycurgus, according to the calculation of generations, belongs to a period far beyond the time of the Olympiads, it was assumed that the Olympic games were instituted at two different times, first by Lycurgus, and when afterwards they fell into oblivion, they were restored by Coroebus. But Lycurgus is probably no historical person at all, as was believed even at the time after Alexander; it is impossible to assign him to any period: the intention was to fill up the period subsequent to the migration of the Heracleids, but in attempting this the ancients went too far back, by making three generations amount to a century; in order to remove the incorrectness, one account was then changed into two. Whoever tries to harmonise these statements falls into inextricable difficulties.

Delphi, previously called Pytho (Πυθοῖ ἐν ἠγαθέῃ, as Homer has it), was situated at the foot of biceps Parnassus. This mount Parnassus extends from the mountains which separate Thessaly from Phocis (they are likewise called Parnassus, and reaching a considerable height, join Pindus on the one side and Oeta on the other), as far as the Gulf of Cirrha. Its highest peak is near Delphi; it then turns to the south-east, and becomes less and less wild where it passes into Helicon. The situation of Delphi cannot be mistaken, notwithstanding the scanty accounts we have of it: above it there rose a twofold rock, which during the greater part of the year was covered with snow; it rises in two peaks, between which there is a considerable chasm; towards the sea it turns in the form of a theatre, within which Delphi was situated. It was built high up on the slope of the mountain, like many towns of the ancient Latins, so that the upper streets were higher than the roofs of the houses below, and a man might from an upper street step upon the roof of a house below. Delphi was not fortified and had no walls, but it was nevertheless difficult of access, foot-paths only leading up, which it was easy to defend; no real acra is mentioned. About the size of the town nothing can be said; the ruins are too unimportant; it is scarcely possible to recognise the temple of Apollo, and I do not believe that the statements of travellers on this point are altogether trustworthy. Delphi was in all its relations a mysterious place; the question as to the nature of the προμαντεία, and a number of others cannot easily be answered. The well Castalia may still be recognised by its icy coldness. The chasms in the rock of which the ancients speak, and from which the intoxicating vapours rose, have never been discovered; it is possible, however, that by careful examinations they may yet be found, though it is not unlikely that they may have been closed by earthquakes, as they owed their origin to them. I readily believe that vapours may have risen from the earth, which produced a certain intoxication or inspiration; I also consider it possible that there may have been a time when the Pythia believed that she was inspired, and when even those consulting the oracle were convinced that they consulted the god himself; but subsequently, and during the greater part of the period of which we know anything, neither the people nor the priests believed in it, and the Pythia was a mere improvisatrice. Such things, however, rarely begin as impositions; and how it can have been that originally there was no imposition, no one is able to say on mere reflection.

Delphi was under the protection of the Amphictyons, who once in every year assembled there, and a second time at Thermopylae. It seems to have stood as directly under the protection of the senate of the Amphictyons, as Washington, in a very anomalous manner, stands under the municipal administration of the congress of the United States of North America.

I have here mentioned the Amphictyony, for the purpose of noticing some results at which I have arrived respecting its misunderstood constitution. In former times it was generally regarded as a federative government, and this opinion is still prevalent in France, where it is said, that the seven United States of Holland and the United States of North America are Amphictyonies; but an Amphictyony and a federative government are by no means identical, for a confederation forms a political whole with one head directing its foreign relations. An Amphictyony is indeed a union of nations, but of quite a peculiar kind, to which nothing corresponding is found either in the middle ages or in modern times. Under this name twelve nations were united, who sent deputies twice every year, in the spring to Delphi, and in the autumn to Thermopylae. These meetings were attended by deputies from every people, each of which had one vote.⁠[57] But not only deputies went thither: the citizens of all the peoples also might appear if they chose, and they too formed an Ἀμφικτυονικόν; those who thus came of their own accord, voted in a body, each people having only one vote, so that all the Dorians, and all the Ionians respectively voted together. In all the transactions among Greeks a βουλή and an ἐκκλησία were necessary; the former consisted at these gatherings of the deputies, and the latter of the αὐταγγελτοί. This constitution points to something very different from what we know about the later condition of Greece: the division was made simply according to nations, and without any regard to political importance; all had the same right, nay tribes which were subject to the Thessalians voted on an equality with the Thessalians themselves. The connection with the temple of Delphi is undeniable; the nations were united together, all standing for one and one for all, for the purpose of protecting the integrity of the sanctuary; nearly all the most ancient instances of their activity have this for their object, as in the war of Cirrha and down to the one occurring in Olymp. 125, which is mentioned by Justin.⁠[58] Another statement, which probably refers to very ancient times, seems surprising to us. There the legislations of the various states were confirmed, just as at Rome the auspices seemed to express the will of the gods; but the Delphic oracle appears, above all things, to have had the power of watching over the exercise of humanity in the wars among the Greeks. And this is the point where the character of the Greeks shows itself most nobly. The Amphictyons did not by any means prevent war, but they made laws regulating the manner in which it should be conducted; there were laws, which no one was allowed to violate in any war; and it is possible that the expression ὁ κοινὸς τῶν Ἑλλήνων νόμος refers to them. It was ordained, e.g., that the Greeks should not carry on among themselves any internecine war, that the inhabitants of a Greek town should not be sold as slaves, that fruit-trees should not be cut down,⁠[59] and that the supply of water should not be cut off from any town. All these laws originated in the Delphic Amphictyony, and were maintained without being written. We must carefully bear in mind, that they could not possibly prevent every outrage; but their express object was that war should be carried in a humane manner. The fact that England insists upon abolishing the slave trade, leads to smuggling those unhappy creatures, who are, in consequence of this, treated with all imaginable cruelty. In like manner an interdict forbidding war in Greece would have been of no avail, and hence it was better to inflict heavy penalties upon acts of inhumanity. These rules were not indeed always observed, the nature of man does not admit of it; but even if they were violated as often as they were observed, we still must own that they were in the highest degree salutary.