CONTENTS (continued 4)

The broad straight streets of the new town of Piraeus must have formed a striking contrast to the narrow and crooked streets, lined with mean houses, which Athens itself seems always to have retained. Aristotle perhaps had this contrast in his mind when he recommended for his ideal city a mixture of the two modes of building, remarking that the new straight streets in the style of Hippodamus were handsomer and more convenient, but that the old crooked streets could be better defended against an enemy. Another advantage of the older style 206of architecture, at least in southern cities, is the shade and coolness of narrow lanes from which, as from the bottom of a well, we look up at a narrow strip of blue sky high overhead, instead of being exposed to the pitiless glare of the sun as we pace, with blue spectacles on our eyes and a white umbrella over our head, the broad open streets which, on the model of the Parisian boulevards, are rapidly springing up in the towns of southern Europe. Still, in spite of the ravages of municipal authorities and the jerry-builder, we can even yet remark in modern Europe a contrast between the towns that have grown up irregularly in the course of ages, and those which have been created at once on a regular plan by the will of a despot. The two most regularly built towns in Europe are probably Turin and Mannheim. Turin still stands on the lines laid down by Augustus, when he founded a Roman colony on the site; Mannheim was built by the Elector Palatine, Frederick the Fourth, in 1606. Something of the same difference may also be observed between Madrid, the new capital of Spain, with its thoroughfares radiating like the spokes of a wheel from the Puerta del Sol, and the old Spanish capital Toledo, with its narrow lanes straggling up and down the rocky hill whence the white, silent, seemingly half-deserted city looks down on the gorge of the Tagus. But 207Madrid, a creation of Philip the Second, does not equal Turin or Mannheim in mathematical regularity of construction.

There can be no doubt that the fortification of Piraeus and the transference to it of the port of Athens from the open roadstead of Phalerum constituted one of the most momentous steps in the history of Athens. Coupled with the construction of a large permanent war-fleet it made Athens the first naval power in Greece, and so determined her subsequent history. All three measures originated in the far-seeing mind of Themistocles, who thus in a sense created Athens, and proved himself thereby one of the greatest of statesmen. He saw that Piraeus was more important to the Athenians than Athens itself, and he often advised them, if ever they were hard put to it by land, to evacuate Athens and settle at Piraeus, where with their fleet they could defy the world. If they had taken his advice, Athens might perhaps have played a still greater part in history.

The man to whom Athens owed so much died an exile in a foreign land; but, if tradition may be trusted, his bones were afterwards brought and laid, with singular felicity, beside the sea at the foot of the frowning walls of that great fortress which formed his noblest monument. The exact spot has been described by an ancient writer. “At the great harbour of 208Piraeus,” says Plutarch, quoting Diodorus the Periegete, “a sort of elbow juts out from the headland of Alcimus; and when you have rounded this elbow, on the inner side, where the sea is somewhat calm, there is a large basement of masonry, and the altar-like structure on it is the grave of Themistocles. And Diodorus imagines that the comic poet Plato bears him out in the following passage:

'Fair lies thy tomb

For it will speak to merchants everywhere;

It will behold the seamen sailing out and in,

And mark the contests of the ships.'”

Tradition places the site of the tomb on the shore of the Acte peninsula, near the modern lighthouse, some way to the south of the entrance to the great harbour. Here a small square space has been levelled in the rock; and its outer margin has been cut and smoothed as if to form the bed of a wall. Within this area are three graves, and just outside it, on the side away from the sea, is a large sepulchre hewn in the rock. It has been suggested that when the square space was enclosed by its wall, and the interior was filled up with rubble, it may have been the “altar-like structure” described by Diodorus the Periegete, and that the rock-hewn tomb behind it, and sheltered by it from the surf and spray of the neighbouring sea, may 209have been what antiquity was fain to regard as the grave of Themistocles.

X. The Sacred Way.—Having completed his description of the Attic islands, Pausanias returns to Athens and sets out thence for Eleusis along the Sacred Way. This was the road by which the initiated went from Athens to Eleusis: the antiquary Polemo devoted a whole book to a description of the route. The present highroad from Athens to Eleusis follows very closely the line of the Sacred Way. This road, running in a north-westerly direction, soon passes on the left the Botanic Garden, conspicuous by its tall and stately poplars, and enters the broad belt of olive-wood which still extends, as it doubtless extended in antiquity, along both sides of the Cephisus for mile after mile. Through this wood of ancient olives, with their massive gnarled trunks and pale green foliage, the road runs for more than a mile, crossing several arms of the Cephisus, which are generally dry and dusty, the water being diverted in many petty rivulets to feed the olive-yards and gardens. Beyond the olive-wood the road at first gradually ascends through a bare stony tract where nothing grows but thistles; then it climbs more steeply the arid and rocky slopes of Mount Aegaleus, 210which it crosses by a narrow but easy pass, enclosed on both sides by low and desolate heights. Near the summit of the pass a round isolated hill, crowned by a church of St. Elias, rises conspicuously on the right. From this point of the road there is a famous view backward over the Athenian plain. The scene is especially striking at sunset, when the acropolis, rising high above the olive-woods, with its temples lit up by the dying splendour of the sun, stands out against a background of purple mountains. A little farther on the road turns and begins to descend, and Athens is lost to sight.

About a mile farther on we pass the deserted monastery of Daphni, which probably occupies the site of the sanctuary of Apollo mentioned by Pausanias. It stands on the left of the road enclosed by a high battlemented wall above which rises the dome of its Byzantine church. Beyond the monastery the road descends rapidly towards the shore. Here the ancient road may be traced for a long way on the north side of the pass, running parallel to the modern highway on the left bank of a dry water-course which descends from the monastery. The road was partly cut in the rock, partly supported by a wall of rough stones on the side of the water-course. As the road descends the sea appears at the farther end of it, framed between the 211stony slopes of the hills which enclose the pass. Farther on, the pass opening out, we see stretched below us, like a lake, the deep blue waters of the landlocked Gulf of Salamis, shut in on the south by the bare but beautifully outlined hills of Salamis, on the north by a graceful sweep of the Attic coast, and backed by the distant heights of Cithaeron and the mountains of Megara on the west. Through a dip between the hills of Salamis and the mainland may be seen in clear weather the far conspicuous peak of Cyllene in Arcadia with its crown of snow.

A mile or so after passing the monastery we see on the right of the road some ancient masonry and large blocks of stone at the foot of a rugged wall of rock, in the face of which many niches are cut. This is the sanctuary of Aphrodite mentioned by Pausanias. Soon after this point the hills retire on both sides and the pass ends in a little plain, barren and waterless but partially planted with olives, beside the shore. Here the road turns sharply to the right and, following the shore, runs northward, hemmed in between the sea on the one side and the grey arid slopes of Mount Aegaleus on the other. Soon, however, the hills trend inland a little, leaving between the foot of their declivities and the road a small lake or large pond of clear salt-water, fed by a 212number of copious salt-springs, the ancient Rhiti. The pond is formed by damming up the water of these springs by means of a stone dyke or embankment, beside which the modern road runs on a narrow strip of sand between the pond on the right and the sea on the left. Fiedler observed flying-fish of the size of herrings rising from the surface of the pool: he says their flesh is white and succulent, better than that of the sea fish in the neighbouring bay. In antiquity, as Pausanias tells us, the right of fishing here was strictly preserved by the priests of Eleusis. A strong stream, turning a mill, flows out of the pool into the sea. At the farther end of the pond Mount Aegaleus sends down its last spur close to the road; after passing it the road skirts on the right another salt-pool and enters the Thriasian plain. The stream which issues from the second of the two salt-ponds turns, or rather used to turn, another mill. Opinions have differed as to whether the ancient road ran, like the modern highway, between the salt-pools and the sea, or skirted the foot of the hills, making a circuit round the pools. In any case it seems probable that in antiquity the water of the salt-springs was not dammed up as at present so as to form pools, but was allowed to flow directly into the sea in brooks which hence received the name of Rhiti (‘streams’).

213After entering the Thriasian plain the road continues to skirt the shore. As the ground is here low and marshy, the road is raised on a causeway, which consists of ancient materials mixed with those of later ages. This causeway therefore marks the line of the Sacred Way. On the right of it, about half a mile beyond the salt-pools, where the road to Kalyvia branches off across the plain to the right, there are remains of an ancient monument, which appears to have consisted originally of a cubical mass of earth, cased with white marble and supporting a tombstone. An inscription proves that the monument marked the tomb of one Strato, his wife Polla (Paula) Munatia, and his son Isidotus. This sepulchre, one of the many sepulchres which lined the Sacred Way in antiquity, is not mentioned by Pausanias.

The Thriasian plain, through which the Sacred Way led to Eleusis, is surrounded by mountains and hills except on the south, where it is bounded by the Gulf of Salamis. It is about nine miles long from east to west, and five miles wide at the broadest part, from north to south. The northern and western parts of the plain are stony and barren. Nearer the sea there is a tract of fertile cornland, but it does not extend much to the north of Eleusis itself. The monotony of the otherwise treeless expanse is broken here and there by some 214scattered olive-trees and oaks. In spring and early summer the plain is gaily carpeted in places with anemones, red, purple, and blue.

XI. The Hall of Initiation at Eleusis.—The great Hall of Initiation, to which the paved road leads from the smaller portal, is a vast single chamber about a hundred and seventy feet square, the sides of which face north, south, east, and west. The whole of the west side, together with the western parts of the northern and southern sides, are bounded by the rock of the acropolis, which has been cut away perpendicularly to make room for the hall. The roof was supported by six rows of columns, seven columns in each row: the bases of all these columns except one are still to be seen in their places. Eight tiers of steps, partly cut in the rock, partly built, ran all round the chamber except at the entrances, of which there were six, namely, two on the north, two on the east, and two on the south. On these tiers of steps the initiated probably sat watching the performance of the mysteries which took place in the body of the hall. It is calculated that about three thousand people could find room on them. The steps, originally narrow, were widened at a later date by a 215casing of marble. That this marble casing of the steps is a late work appears from the use of mortar to fasten it on.

There are passages of ancient writers which seem to imply that besides the place to which the initiated had access there was an inner Holy of Holies called the anaktoron or megaron, which none but the high-priest of the mysteries might enter, and which, being suddenly thrown open, disclosed to the view of the awestruck beholders the most sacred objects of their religious veneration lit up by a blaze of dazzling light. But no trace of any inner chamber or enclosure has been discovered in the great Hall of Initiation. It may therefore be suggested that the anaktoron or megaron was perhaps nothing but the body of the hall, which may have been screened by curtains from the spectators sitting in darkness on the tiers of seats that ran all round it, till suddenly the curtain rose and revealed the vast hall brilliantly illuminated, with the gorgeously attired actors in the sacred drama moving mazily in solemn procession or giddy dance out and in amongst the forest of columns that rose from the floor of the hall, while the strains of grave or voluptuous music filled the air. Then, when all was over, the curtain would as suddenly descend, leaving the spectators in darkness and silence, with nothing but the memory of the splendid 216pageant that had burst upon them and vanished like a dream.

XII. Eleutherae.—From Eleusis the road to Eleutherae, which is at the same time the highway from Athens to Thebes, goes north-west across the plain. The olive-trees begin to appear soon after we have left Eleusis, and the road runs for three miles through thick groves of them to the large village of Mandra situated on a small height at the entrance to a valley; for here the mountains which bound the plain of Eleusis begin. The native rock crops up among the houses and streets of the village. The hills that rise on both sides of the valley are wooded with pine. Beyond the village the valley contracts, and the road ascends for a long time through the stillness and solitude of the pine-forest. A little wayside inn (the khan of Palaio-Koundoura) is passed in a lonely dale; and then, after a further ascent, the prospect opens up somewhat, and the tops of Hymettus and Pentelicus are seen away to the east, appearing above a nearer range of hills. Soon afterwards the road descends into a cultivated and fertile little plain or valley watered by the chief arm of the Eleusinian Cephisus, and bounded on the north by the principal range of Cithaeron, on the south by the lower outlying 217chain which we have just crossed. This no doubt is the plain in which stood the temple of Dionysus mentioned by Pausanias. At the northern end of the valley or plain there is now a police-barrack on the right of the road, and near it a public-house, the khan of Kasa. Here the pass over Cithaeron, in the strict sense, begins. It is a narrow rocky defile, up which the road winds tortuously between high pine-clad slopes on either hand. In the very mouth of the pass, immediately beyond the barrack, a steep, conical, nearly isolated hill rises up as if to bar the road. Its summit is crowned with the grey walls and towers of Eleutherae.

The ruins of Eleutherae, now called Gyphtokastro or ‘Gypsy-castle,’ form one of the finest extant specimens of Greek fortification. The circuit of the walls, which is but small, encloses the summit and part of the southern slope of the hill. The north wall, strengthened with eight square projecting towers, is nearly complete. It is about eight feet thick, and is built of blocks laid in regular courses, with a core of rubble. As the ground falls away to the north, the wall is higher on the outside than on the inside. The towers are about thirty paces apart. Most of them entered from the ramparts by two doors, one on each side of the tower. These doors are still to be seen, though the floors of the upper stories, having been of wood, 218have of course perished. Each tower has three small windows or loopholes, one in each of the sides which project outward beyond the curtain. Traces of the wall and towers on the other and lower sides of the hill can still be seen, but they are far less perfect than on the north side. The chief gate was on the south. The whole place is now an utter solitude. When I first visited it, on a day in May, the ground was carpeted with yellow flowers; goats were balancing themselves on the grey ruins; and the goatherd was sleeping in the shadow of one of the towers. On either hand the mountains, clothed in their sombre mantle of dark pine-forests, towered into the bright sky.

If from the ruins of Eleutherae we return to the highroad which winds along the western foot of the hill, and follow it for a few miles to the top of the pass, we obtain a commanding view over the wide plain of Boeotia stretching away to the line of far blue mountains which bounds it on all sides. Below us, but a little to the west, at the foot of the long uniform slope of Cithaeron, the red village of Kokla marks the site of Plataea. Thebes is hidden from view behind the dip of a low intervening ridge. The sharp double-peaked mountain on the west, beyond the nearer fir-clad declivities of Cithaeron, is Helicon. The grand mountain mass which, capped with snow, looms on the 219north-west, is Parnassus. The mountains on the north-east are in Euboea, but the strait which divides them from Boeotia is not visible.

XIII. Megara.—From Eleusis to Megara by road or railway is about fourteen miles. The road first passes along the northern side of the low ridge which formed the acropolis of Eleusis; then it turns down to the sea and follows the shore. The plain of Eleusis is divided from the plain of Megara by a chain of wooded hills which advances southward from Mount Cithaeron to the shore of the bay. The road skirts the foot of these hills, ascending and descending, traversing olive-groves, and winding round little bays and headlands, commanding views, ever shifting but ever beautiful, of the coast of Salamis across the blue and blue-green waters of the lake-like bay, which is here so narrow that the white monastery of Phaneromene, with its clustered domes and turrets, can be plainly seen standing among green fields on the opposite shore. Then, when the last spur of the hills is rounded, the plain of Megara, covered with olives and vines, and backed by high mountains, opens out before us. In the distance can be distinguished the picturesque oriental-looking town of Megara, with its white houses rising in terraces, one above the other, 220on the sides of two isolated hills in the far corner of the plain: the higher of the two hills used to be crowned by a square mediaeval tower.

The modern town is chiefly confined to the western hill, the southern slope of which it occupies to the summit. Its narrow steep streets, and white-washed, flat-roofed, windowless houses, with low doorways opening into courts shaded here and there by a fig-tree, have much the appearance of an Arab village. The dazzlingly white walls make, in the brilliant sunshine, an excellent background for the gay costumes of the women, the bright colours of which (red, green, blue, violet) add to the Eastern effect of the scene.

XIV. The Scironian Road.—The famous pass along the sea-cliffs, known in antiquity as the Scironian Road, is thus described by Strabo: “The Scironian cliffs leave no passage between them and the sea. The road from the Isthmus to Megara and Attica runs along the top of them; indeed in many places it is compelled by the beetling mountain, which is high and inaccessible, to skirt the brink of the precipices.” The dread of robbers, who here lay in wait for travellers, enhanced the natural horrors of the pass in ancient as well as in modern times. 221In recent years these horrors have been dissipated by the construction of a highroad and a railway along the coast; but down to the middle of the present century, if we may trust the descriptions of travellers, the cliff-path well deserved its modern name of Kake Skala or ‘the Evil Staircase.’ For six miles it ran along a narrow crumbling ledge half-way up the face of an almost sheer cliff, at a height of six to seven hundred feet above the sea. On the right rose the rock like a wall; on the left yawned the dizzy abyss, where, far below, the waves broke at the foot of the precipices in a broad sheet of white curdling foam. So narrow was the path that only a single sure-footed beast could make its way with tolerable security along it. In stormy or gusty weather it was dangerous; a single slip or stumble would have been fatal. When two trains of mules met, the difficulty of passing each other was extreme. Indeed at the beginning of the present century Colonel Leake pronounced the path impassable for horses; and at a later time, when it had been somewhat mended, another distinguished traveller, himself a Swiss, declared that he knew of no such giddy track, used by horses, in all Switzerland. In many places the narrow path had been narrowed still further by its outer edge having given way and slid into the depths, so that it was only by 222using the utmost caution that the traveller was able to scramble along at all. At one point, where it crossed the mouth of a gully, the road had completely disappeared, having either fallen into the sea or, according to another account, been blown up in the War of Independence. Here therefore the wayfarer was obliged to pick his steps down a breakneck track which zigzagged down to the narrow strip of beach, from which he had laboriously to clamber up by a similar track on the opposite side of the gully. One traveller has graphically described how his baggage-horses slid and slipped on their hind feet down one of these tracks, while their drivers hung on to the tails of the animals to check their too precipitate descent. Last century the path had ceased to be used even by foot-passengers. Chandler took boat at Nisaea and coasted along the foot of the cliffs, looking up with amazement at the narrow path carried along the edge of perpendicular precipices above the breakers and supported so slenderly beneath “that a spectator may reasonably shudder with horror at the idea of crossing.”

Nothing was easier than to make such a path impassable. Accordingly when word reached Peloponnese that Leonidas and his men had been annihilated by the Persians at Thermopylae, the Peloponnesians hurried to 223the Isthmus, blocked up the Scironian road, and built a fortification wall across the Isthmus. In modern times, though the path had fallen into decay, it still showed traces of having been used and cared for in antiquity. In many places the marks of the chariot-wheels were visible in the rock; in other places there were remains of massive substructions of masonry which had once supported and widened the road; and here and there pieces of ancient pavement were to be seen. These were probably vestiges of the carriage road which, as Pausanias tells us, the emperor Hadrian constructed along this wild and beautiful coast. At the present day, as the traveller is whirled along it in the train, he is struck chiefly by the blueness of the sea and the greenness of the thick pine-woods which mantle the steep shelving sides of the mountains.

XV. The Isthmus of Corinth.—The Isthmus of Corinth, which unites Peloponnese on the south to the mountainous district of Megara and Central Greece on the north, is a low flat neck of land about three and a half miles wide at the narrowest part and about two hundred and sixty feet high at the lowest point, stretching roughly in a direction from 224south-west to north-east. The central part is a flat tableland, which shelves away in steep terraces to the sea on the southern side. Its surface is rugged, barren, and waterless; where it is not quite bare and stony, it is mostly overgrown with stunted shrubs and dwarf pines, or with thistles and other prickly plants of a grey arid aspect. There is no underwood and no turf. In spring some grass and herbage sprout in patches among the thistles and afford pasture to flocks. The niggard soil, where soil exists, is cultivated in a rude imperfect way, and yields some scanty crops, mostly of wheat and barley. But in the drought of summer every green blade disappears, and the fields are little more than a bare stony wilderness swept by whirling clouds of dust. This rugged barren quality of the soil was equally characteristic of the Isthmus in antiquity. It seems to have been customary to gather the stones from the fields before sowing the seed.

In ancient times ships of small burden were regularly dragged on rollers or waggons across the narrowest part of the Isthmus in order to avoid the long voyage round Peloponnese; hence this part of the Isthmus was known as the Diolkos or Portage. The Portage began on the east at Schoenus, near the modern Kalamaki; its western termination is not mentioned 225by ancient writers, but was probably near the west end of the modern canal. We read of fleets of warships being transported across the Isthmus; for example after the battle of Actium the victorious Augustus thus conveyed his ships across the Isthmus in pursuit of Antony and Cleopatra, and in 883 A.D. the Greek admiral Nicetas Oriphas transported a fleet across it to repel an attack of the Saracens. Some remains of the ancient Portage, which seems to have been a sort of tramway, may still be seen near a guard-house, at the point where the road from Kalamaki to Corinth crosses the northern of the two ancient fortification walls.

The lowest and narrowest part of the Isthmus, through which the Portage went in antiquity and the modern canal now runs, is bounded on the south by a line of low cliffs. Along the crest of these cliffs may be traced the remains of an ancient fortification wall stretching right across the Isthmus from sea to sea. It is built of large blocks laid in fairly regular courses, and is flanked by square towers which project from the curtain at regular intervals of about a hundred yards on the north side, showing that the wall was meant to protect the Corinthian end of the Isthmus against invasion from the north. The wall does not extend in a straight line, but follows the crest 226of the cliffs, wherever this natural advantage presented itself.

XVI. The Bath of Aphrodite.—The lower spring, which Pausanias took to be Pirene, has sometimes been identified with the copious springs now known as ‘the bath of Aphrodite.’ They issue just below the steep northern edge of the broad terrace on which the old city of Corinth stood. Here the rocks curve round in a semicircle and overhang so as to form grottoes under their beetling brows. From these rocks, overgrown with moss and rank creepers, the clear water bubbles and trickles in copious rills, which nourish a rich vegetation in the open ground through which they flow. The grotto, which is always fresh and cool, commands an uninterrupted view over the Gulf to the mountains beyond. Here in the days of the Turkish dominion the bey of Corinth had his gardens, where he led a life of Asiatic luxury. A staircase still leads from the grotto to the terrace above, on the edge of which stood his seraglio. All is now ruin and desolation. A few pieces of ancient columns of green and white streaked marble mark the site of the seraglio. The spring is frequented only by washerwomen, and its streams water only vegetable gardens 227and orchards. But the water is as sweet as in Pausanias’s time, and the grottoes under the overhanging ledge of rock might pass for “the chambers made like grottoes” of which he makes mention. ^[6]

XVII. The Prospect from Acro-Corinth.—The view from the summit of Acro-Corinth has been famous since the days of Strabo, who has accurately described it. The brilliant foreground, indeed, on which he looked down has vanished. The stately city with its temples, its terraced gardens, its colonnades, its fountains, is no more. In its place there is spread out at our feet the flat yellowish expanse of the Isthmus, stretching like a bridge across the sea to the point where the Geranian mountains, their slopes clothed with the sombre green of the pine-forests, rise abruptly like a massive barrier at its farther end, sending out on their western side a long promontory, which cuts far into the blue waters of the Corinthian Gulf. Across the Gulf tower on the north the bold sharp peaks of Cithaeron and Helicon in Boeotia. On the north-west Parnassus lifts its mighty head, glistering with snow into late 228spring, but grey and bare in summer. In the far west loom the Locrian and Aetolian mountains, seeming to unite with the mountains of Peloponnese on the south, and thus apparently converting the Gulf of Corinth into an inland mountain-girdled lake. To the south-west, above ranges of grey limestone hills dotted with dark pines, soar the snowy peaks of Cyllene and Aroania in Arcadia. On the south the prospect is shut in by the high tablelands and hills of Argolis, range beyond range, the lower slopes of the valleys covered in spring with corn-fields, their upper slopes with tracts of brushwood. Eastward Salamis and the sharp-peaked Aegina are conspicuous. In this direction the view is bounded by the hills of Attica—the long ridge of Hymettus and the more pointed summits of Pentelicus and Parnes, while below them in clear weather the Parthenon is distinctly visible on the Acropolis nearly fifty miles away, the pinnacle of Lycabettus rising over it crowned with its white far-gleaming chapel.

XVIII. The Capture of Corinth by Aratus.—The story of the capture of Corinth by Aratus has been told by Plutarch with a wealth of picturesque details which he doubtless took from the Memoirs written by Aratus 229himself. The city, and especially the lofty and precipitous acropolis of Corinth, was held for King Antigonus by a Macedonian garrison. Aratus resolved to take the place by a night surprise. For this perilous service he picked out four hundred men, and led them to one of the city-gates. It was midsummer: a full moon rode in a cloudless sky, and the assailants feared that its bright beams, reflected from so many helmets and spears, might betray their approach to the sentinels on the walls. But just as the head of the column neared the gate, a heavy bank of clouds came scudding up from the sea and veiled the moon, blotting out the line of walls and shrouding the storming-party in darkness. Favoured by the gloom eight men, in the guise of travellers, crept up to the gate and put the sentinels to the sword. Ordering the rest of his men to follow him at the best speed they could make, Aratus now advanced at the head of a forlorn hope of one hundred men, planted the ladders, scaled the wall, and descended into the city. Not a soul was stirring in the streets, and Aratus hurried along in the direction of the acropolis, congratulating himself on escaping observation, when a patrol of four men was seen coming down the street with flaring torches. The moon shone full on them, but Aratus and his men were in shadow. Aratus whispered his 230men to stand close in the shadow of the houses. The unsuspecting patrol came on: in a minute three of them were cut down, and the fourth escaped with a gash on his head, crying out that the enemy were within the walls. A few minutes more and the trumpets rang out and the whole city was up. The streets, lately silent and deserted, were thronged with crowds hurrying to and fro; lights glanced at the windows; and high above the city a line of twinkling points of fire marked the summit of the acropolis. At the same time a confused hum of voices broke on the ear from all sides. Undeterred by these symptoms of the gathering storm, Aratus pressed up the winding path towards the acropolis as fast as the steep and rugged nature of the ground allowed.

Meantime the three hundred men whom he had left behind, bewildered by the sudden uproar, the flashing of multitudinous lights, and all the tumult of the rudely awakened city, missed the path up the acropolis and, knowing not whither to turn, halted under an overhanging crag at the foot of the mountain. Here they remained in a state of the utmost anxiety and alarm. For by this time Aratus was hotly engaged with the garrison on the summit, and the noise of battle and of distant cheering came floating down to them, but so faint with distance, so broken and distorted by the reverberation 231of the cliffs, that the men below, listening intently, could not tell from which direction the sounds proceeded. While they were still crouching under the shadow of the precipice, they were startled by a loud peal of trumpets close at hand, and peering through the gloom they perceived a large body of men marching past them up the slope. It was the king’s troops hastening to the relief of the garrison on the acropolis. Instantly the three hundred charged out from their lurking-place, and taking the enemy completely by surprise, broke them and drove them in confusion towards the city. They were still flushed with victory when a messenger came hurrying down at breakneck speed from the citadel, telling them that Aratus was at it, cut and thrust, with the garrison, who stood bravely to their arms, and imploring them to hasten to his assistance. They bade him lead the way; and as they toiled upwards they shouted to let their comrades know that help was at hand. By this time the clouds had passed over and the sky was again clear; and so all up the weary ascent they could see the weapons of friend and foe glittering in the moonlight, as the fight swayed this way and that, and could hear their hoarse cries, multiplied apparently a thousandfold as they rolled down on the night air from crag to crag. At last they reached the top, and charging side by 232side with their friends, forced the enemy from the walls. Day was beginning to break when Aratus and his men stood victorious on the summit.

XIX. Sicyon.—Few ancient cities were more advantageously or beautifully situated than Sicyon. Built on a spacious and level tableland, defended on every side by cliffs, abundantly supplied with water, at a distance both safe and convenient from the sea, which, lying beyond a strip of fertile plain, sends its cool refreshing breezes to temper the summer heat, the city possessed a site secure, wholesome, and adapted both for agriculture and commerce. Nor are the natural beauties of the site less remarkable than its more material advantages. Behind it rise wooded mountains and in front of it, across the narrow plain, is stretched the wonderful panorama of the Corinthian Gulf, with Helicon, Cithaeron, and Parnassus towering beyond it to the north, and the mighty rock of Acro-Corinth barring the prospect on the east. At sunrise and sunset especially the scene is one of indescribable loveliness. The ancients themselves were not insensible to the charms of Sicyon. “A lovely and fruitful city, adapted to every recreation,” says a scholiast on Homer, and Diodorus 233speaks of Sicyon as a place “for peaceful enjoyment.”

XX. Phliasia.—The valley of the Asopus above Sicyon is a deep and narrow glen shut in on either hand by mountains, the steep sides of which are thickly overgrown with bushes. In some places, where the road is hemmed in between the roots of the mountain and the white, turbid, rushing river, the bank is occasionally undermined and swept away by the stream, and the path disappears altogether. In its upper reaches the glen widens so as to admit of here and there a small riverside meadow, prettily situated among oaks and shrubbery, with now and then a patch of ploughed land. After we have followed the glen upwards from Sicyon for about four hours, it opens out into a broad and fertile plain, encircled by steep mountains, down which brooks flow on all sides to join the Asopus. This upland plain, some four miles long and standing about a thousand feet above the sea, is Phliasia, the district of which Phlius was the ancient capital. On the west its level expanse is bounded by the picturesque, rugged, woody mass of Mount Gavria (about five thousand feet high), above which appears the snowy top of the lofty Cyllene in Arcadia. The eastern side of the 234valley is bounded by the Tricaranian range, which with its three flat summits divides the Phliasian valley from the vale of Nemea. The Asopus rises among the southern hills and flows northward through the valley in a deep grassy bed. It is here a clear and tranquil stream, very different from the rapid and turbid river which it becomes in the glen below, where it takes its colour from the soil which is washed down into it by the numerous torrents from the white argillaceous mountains through which it threads its way. About the middle of the plain it is joined by a tributary, longer than the Asopus itself, flowing from the mountains which enclose the south-western corner of the plain. The soil of the Phliasian valley is excellent; the central part of it is given up almost exclusively to vineyards which furnish now, as they did in antiquity, a fine fiery wine like Burgundy. In autumn the red and golden foliage of the fading vines lends a richer glow of colour to the beautiful landscape.

Some light is thrown on the topography of Phlius by the events which followed the battle of Leuctra. The Phliasians had been friends of Sparta when Sparta was at the height of her power; and after the disastrous day of Leuctra, when Sparta was deserted by allies and subjects alike, the Phliasians stood loyally by their old friends. This drew down on them 235the hostility of the victorious Thebans and their allies. In 368 B.C. a body of Arcadians and Eleans, marching through the pass of Nemea to join the Thebans, were induced by some Phliasian exiles to make an attempt to surprise and capture Phlius. Six hundred men, supplied with ladders, being sent in advance, concealed themselves by night at the foot of the citadel walls. Next morning the sentinels on Mount Tricaranum, to the east of the town, signalled the approach of the enemy from the valley of Nemea. The eyes of the citizens were thus turned to the hills, over which they momentarily expected to see the enemy appearing. Taking advantage of their distraction the six hundred men under the acropolis planted their ladders and were soon masters of the almost deserted citadel. But the citizens rallied, and after a fierce struggle drove the enemy with fire and sword over the ramparts.

Next year the allies made a more determined attempt to get possession of Phlius. The Theban commander at Sicyon marched from that city against Phlius at the head of his garrison and of a body of Sicyonian and Pellenian troops. He was supported by Euphron, tyrant of Sicyon, with two thousand mercenaries. The attack was again made from the hills on the east of the town. On 236the neck of land which joins the citadel of Phlius with the hills a detachment of Sicyonians and Pellenians was posted, to prevent the Phliasians from ascending the hills and taking their enemies in the rear. The rest of the army then descended from the hills in the direction of a sanctuary of Hera, meaning to ravage the corn-fields and vineyards in the valley. But the Phliasian cavalry and infantry met them and prevented them from carrying out their intention. Skirmishing went on most of the day with varying fortune. At one time Euphron with his mercenaries drove the Phliasians over the broken ground. But as soon as they reached open ground, where the Phliasian cavalry could come into play, they were in turn driven back up the hills as far as the sanctuary of Hera. At last the assailants abandoned the attack and retreated up the hill, purposing to join the detachment of Sicyonians and Pellenians, which they had left on the neck of ground leading to the citadel. To reach them they had to make a long detour up the hill, for a ravine lay between them and their friends, the ravine namely along which the city walls were built. The Phliasians pursued them up hill a little way, then perceiving the enemy’s intention of forming a junction with the detachment on the neck they turned back, and taking a short cut close 237under the town walls hastened to attack the detachment of the enemy before the main body could come up to their assistance. In this race the cavalry outstripped the infantry and charged the Pellenians alone. The latter stood to their arms and repelled the cavalry, till the Phliasian infantry came running up. Then, attacked by horse and foot simultaneously, the Pellenians and Sicyonians gave way. The victorious Phliasians erected a trophy and sang a loud paean. The enemy watched the scene from the hills; then, drawing together his beaten and scattered forces, fell sullenly back on Sicyon.

XXI. Nemea.—Between the valley of Cleonae on the east and the valley of Phlius or St. George on the west is interposed the valley of Nemea, running like its sister valleys from south to north. It is a narrow dale, some two or three miles long, and from half to three-quarters of a mile broad. At its northern end it contracts to a mere gully. Through the bottom of the valley, which is almost a dead flat, meanders like a thread the brook Nemea, fed by the numerous rills which descend from the neighbouring hills. When swollen by heavy rain, these tributaries, having an insufficient outlet through the gully at the 238north end, keep the bottom of the valley green, moist, and marshy. The dale is thus better adapted for pasturage than tillage; indeed from the rich pastures which clothe its bottom and the lower slopes of the hills it received its name of Nemea, ‘the pastoral vale.’ But if the valley itself, especially after rain, is green and smiling, the surrounding hills, scarred and seamed with the beds of torrents, are of a dark and melancholy hue, and, combined with the absolute solitude—not a human habitation being visible through the length and breadth of the dale—affect the mind with a sense of gloom and desolation. ^[7] The solitude is only broken by the wandering herds of cattle, and from time to time by a group of peasants, who come over from St. George to till their fields in this secluded valley. A white track winds up the western slope to the mouth of a glen which opens in the hill-side. Through this glen is the way to St. George and Phlius.

XXII. The Pass of the Tretus.—At the southern end of the valley of Cleonae there rises like a wall of rock the mountain of Tretus, which forms the watershed between the Corinthian and the Argolic gulfs. A straight 239toilsome path led from Cleonae in antiquity, and still leads past the village of Hagios Vasilios, over the mountain, descending into the Argolic plain at the ruins of Mycenae. But the more convenient way from the valley of Cleonae to the plain of Argos bends round to the west, where the mountain is not so high, and runs up a gradually ascending gully. This was the pass of the Tretus, the chief line of communication between Corinth and the south. In antiquity it was, as Pausanias tells us, a driving road, and the ruts worn by the chariot-wheels can still be seen in many places. The defile, though long and narrow, shut in by high mountains on either hand, is nowhere steep, and the rise is not considerable. The road runs by a deeply worn watercourse, at the bottom of which a clear and shallow stream finds its way amid luxuriant thickets of oleander, myrtle, and arbutus. The lower slopes of the mountains are also green with shrubs, but their upper slopes are grey and rocky.

The pass is easily defended. On both sides, towards Cleonae and towards the plain of Argos, may be seen traces of ancient works built to defend the defile. Near the highest point of the pass, where the road begins to descend towards Argos, there are low Turkish watch-towers called Derweni on both sides, and 240rough stone walls such as the Greeks threw up in many passes during the War of Independence. In 1822 the Turkish army under Dramali Pasha, retreating from the plain of Argos, was caught by the Greeks in the pass of the Tretus and nearly annihilated; for years afterwards the defile was strewed with skeletons and skulls of men and horses.

“Every part of the Argolic plain,” says Leake, “is considered unhealthy in summer, and the heat is excessive; that of the ravine of the Tretus, in the mid-day hours, is said to be something beyond bearing, which I can easily conceive, having passed through it in August, at an hour in the morning when the heat was comparatively moderate. Not long since a Tartar, after having drunk plentifully of wine and raki at Corinth, was found to be dead when the suriji held his stirrup to dismount at the khan of Kharvati (Mycenae), just beyond the exit of the Tretus.”

The name Tretus (‘perforated’) was supposed by the ancients to be derived from a great cave in the mountain where the Nemean lion had his lair. As to the ancient name of the pass, and the supposed wheel-marks in it, W. G. Clark says: “This is the road known by the name of Tretos, or ‘the perforated’; not, I conceive, in consequence of the caverns in the neighbouring rocks, which are not more 241numerous hereabouts than elsewhere, but because the glen is, as it were, drilled through the rock. And drilled it has been by the stream which flows at the bottom. We saw, or fancied we saw, frequent wheel-marks in the rocks, and we know that this was the direction of a carriage road. But from my subsequent observations I learned to distrust these marks. The ordinary mode of carrying wood in Greece is to tie the heavier ends of the poles on each side to the back of the horse or donkey, and suffer the other ends to trail along the ground, thus making two parallel ruts which in course of time may attain the depth of and be mistaken for wheel-tracks. When a depression is once made, it becomes a channel for the winter rains, and so is smoothed and deepened.”

The modern name of the defile is Dervenaki. The railway from Corinth to Argos runs through it. Towards the northern end of the pass the khan of Dervenaki stands in a little glade overshadowed by tall poplars, cypresses, and mulberry-trees, beside a murmuring spring. At the southern outlet of the pass the whole plain of Argos, with the mountains on either hand and the sea in the distance, bursts suddenly on the view. On the left, nestling at the foot of the hills, are Mycenae and Tiryns, with Nauplia and its towering acropolis rising from the sea and bounding the plain on this side. On the 242right is Argos with its mountain citadel, and beyond it the Lernaean lake glimmers faintly in the distance. In the centre of the picture, beyond the long foreground of level plain, stretches the blue line of the Argolic Gulf.

XXIII. Mycenae.—Passing southwards through the pass of the Tretus, we see the spacious plain of Argolis stretched out before us. Mycenae lies to our left at the roots of the mountains which bound the eastern side of the plain, not far from the point where the pass of the Tretus opens out on it. The Argolic plain may be roughly described as a great triangle, the base of which, on the south, is formed by the Argolic Gulf, while the eastern and western sides are enclosed by the ranges of mountains which converge northwards till they meet in Mount Tretus. The length of the plain from north to south is about twelve miles, the greatest breadth from east to west perhaps not much less. The mountains which shut it in are barren and rocky, the highest being those on the west which form the boundary between Argolis and Arcadia. The whole expanse appears to have been once a bay of the sea, which has been gradually filled up by the deposits brought down from the surrounding mountains. The Gulf of Argolis, a 243broad and beautiful sheet of water winding between mountains, must originally, before its upper waters were expelled by the alluvial deposit, have resembled still more closely, what it still recalls, a fine Scotch sea-loch or a Norwegian fiord.

This alluvial plain, situated at the head of a deep and sheltered frith or arm of the sea, which opening on the Aegean gave ready access to the islands of the Archipelago and the coasts of Asia, was naturally fitted to become one of the earliest seats of civilisation in Greece. And in point of fact legend and archaeology combine to show that in prehistoric times Greek civilisation reached a very high pitch in the plain of Argolis. It contained at least three fortified towns of great importance, of which remains exist to this day, Tiryns, Argos, and Mycenae (to mention them in the order in which they lie from south to north). Tiryns and Mycenae stand on the eastern, Argos on the western side of the plain. Of the three Tiryns is nearest to the sea, from which it is distant not much more than a mile. It, or rather its citadel, occupies a low rocky mound, not a hundred feet above the level of the sea, and rising in perfect isolation from the flat. Farther inland Argos lies at the foot of the last spur which projects into the western side of the plain from the range of Artemisius. 244Its citadel, the Larisa, is a fine bold peak nearly a thousand feet high.

Farther inland, nine miles from the nearest point of the sea, stands Mycenae, near the northern extremity of the plain, but on its eastern side. Its citadel, in respect of elevation and natural strength, occupies an intermediate position between the low citadel of Tiryns and the high mountainous one of Argos. It lies at the mouth of a wild and narrow glen, which here opens on the eastern side of the Argolic plain, between two lofty, steep, and rocky mountains. From the mouth of this glen two deep ravines diverge, one running due west, the other running south-west, and the triangular tableland which they enclose between them is the citadel of Mycenae. The whole scene, viewed from the citadel, is one of desolate grandeur. The ravines yawning to a great depth at our feet, the rugged utterly barren mountains towering immediately across them, the bleak highland glen winding away into the depth of these gloomy and forbidding hills, make up a stern impressive picture, the effect of which is heightened if one sees it, as the present writer chanced to do, on a rainy day. Then with a lowering sky overhead and the mist clinging to the slopes of the mountains, no sound heard but the patter of the rain and the tinkling of sheep-bells from the glen, the whole landscape 245seems to frown and assumes an aspect more in keeping with the mist-wrapt stronghold of some old robber chief in Skye or Lochaber, than with the conception which the traveller had formed of Agamemnon’s “golden city.”

XXIV. The End of the Mycenaean Age.—The catastrophe which put an end to the Mycenaean civilisation in Greece would seem to have been the Dorian invasion, which, according to the traditional Greek chronology, befell about the middle of the twelfth century B.C. That the end of Mycenae and Tiryns was sudden and violent is proved by the conclusive evidence which shows that the palaces were destroyed by fire and that, once destroyed, they were never rebuilt. The date, too, of the Dorian invasion, so far as we can determine it, harmonises well with this view; for the Egyptian evidence of the existence of Mycenae comes down to about the time of the Dorian invasion, and there significantly stops. The cessation also of the characteristic Mycenaean pottery about the same date points to the same conclusion. It is not indeed to be supposed that the Dorians swept over Greece in one unbroken wave of conquest. The tide of invasion probably ebbed and flowed; raids were met and repelled, but were followed by incursions of 246fresh swarms of invaders, the new-comers steadily gaining ground, encroaching on and enveloping the ancient Mycenaean kingdoms till, the last barrier giving way before them, the capitals themselves were stormed, their treasures plundered, and the palaces given to the flames. The conflict between civilisation and barbarism, the slow decline of the former and the gradual triumph of the latter, may have lasted many years. It is thus that many, if not most, permanent conquests have been effected. It was thus that the Saxons step by step ousted the Britons, and the Danes obtained a footing in England; it was thus that the Turks slowly strangled the Byzantine empire. Events like the fall of Constantinople and the expulsion of the Moors from Granada are only the last scenes in tragedies which have been acting for centuries.

To attribute, with some writers, the creation instead of the destruction of the Mycenaean civilisation to the Dorians is preposterous, since the Dorian immigration did not take place till the twelfth century B.C., while the Mycenaean civilisation is known from Egyptian evidence to have existed from the middle of the fifteenth century B.C. at least. But this attribution involves other than chronological difficulties. The typical Dorians were the Spartans, and no greater contrast can well be conceived than 247that between the luxurious semi-Oriental civilisation of Mycenae and the stern simplicity of Sparta. On the one side we see imposing fortifications, stately tombs, luxurious baths, magnificent palaces, their walls gay with bright frescoes or glittering with burnished bronze, their halls crowded with a profusion of precious objects of art and luxury, wrought by native craftsmen or brought by merchants from the bazaars of Egypt and Assyria; and in the midst of all a sultan, laden with golden jewellery, listening to minstrels singing the tale of Troy or the wanderings of Ulysses. On the other side we see an open unfortified city with insignificant buildings, where art and poetry never flourished, where gold and silver were banned, and where even the kings prided themselves on the meanness of their attire. The Dorians, if we may judge of them by the purest specimens of the breed, were just as incapable of creating the art of Mycenae as the Turks were of building the Parthenon and St. Sophia.

Of the Greeks who were rendered homeless by the Dorian invasion most fled to Asia. There, on the beautiful island-studded coast, under the soft Ionian sky, a new Greece arose which, in its splendid cities, its busy marts, its solemn fanes, combined Greek subtlety and refinement with much of Asiatic pomp and 248luxury. By this long and brilliant after-glow of the Mycenaean civilisation in Asia we may judge, as it has been well said, what its meridian splendour had been in Europe.

XXV. Mount Arachnaeus.—Mount Arachnaeus is the high naked range on the left or northern side of the road as you go to the Epidaurian sanctuary from Argos. The most remarkable peak is Mount Arna, the pointed rocky summit which rises immediately above the village of Ligourio to a height of over three thousand five hundred feet. The western summit, Mount St. Elias, is somewhat higher. From the summit of Mount Arna the mountains of Megara and Attica are visible. It might well have been on its top that the beacon was lighted which flashed to Argos the news of the fall of Troy. The name Arachnaea is said to have been still used by the peasantry in the early part of this century. The altars of Zeus and Hera upon which, according to Pausanias, the people sacrificed for rain, appear to have stood in the hollow between the two peaks, for there is here a square enclosure of Cyclopean masonry which would appear to have been an ancient place of worship.

Mount Arachnaeus and the mountains of the Argolic peninsula in general are little better than 249a stony waterless wilderness. The climate is very dry, and the beds of all the streams are waterless except after heavy rain. The hardy little holly-oak and a few dun-coloured shrubs are almost the only representatives of plant life. The eye of the traveller is wearied by the grey monotony of these arid mountains and desert tablelands, and his feet are cut and bruised by the sharp stones over which he has painfully to pick his steps. Nowhere else in Greece, probably, is the scenery so desolate and forbidding.

XXVI. Epidaurus.—The city of Epidaurus was five Roman miles distant from the sanctuary of Aesculapius. But it takes about two hours and a half to ride the distance, for the road is very rough. The scenery on the way is extremely beautiful—a great contrast to the dull road from Nauplia to the sanctuary. The path leaves the open valley by a narrow glen at its northern end, and leads down deeper and deeper through luxuriantly wooded dells into the bottom of a wild romantic ravine. Here we follow the rocky bed of the stream for some distance between lofty precipitous banks. Farther on the path ascends the right bank of the stream, and we ride along it, with the deep ravine below us on the left and a high wall of rock on the right. The whole glen, as far as 250the eye can reach, is densely wooded. Wild olives, pines, plane-trees, Agnus castus, laurel, and ivy mantle its steep sides with a robe of green. In half an hour from the sanctuary another valley opens on the left, down which comes the road from Ligourio. After joining it we continue to follow the glen along a path darkened by trees and the luxuriant foliage of the arbutus, while beside us the stream flows through thickets of myrtle and oleander. In about half an hour more the valley opens out, and we see the sea, with the bold rocky headland of Methana stretching out into it on the right, the islands of Salamis and Aegina in the distance, and farther off the Attic coast lying blue but clear on the northern horizon.

Emerging at last from the valley we cross a little maritime plain, covered with lemon-groves, and reach the site of the ancient Epidaurus. Its position is very lovely. From the little maritime plain, backed by high mountains with wooded sides, a rocky peninsula juts out into the sea, united to the mainland only by a narrow neck of low marshy ground. It divides two bays from each other: the northern bay is well sheltered and probably formed the ancient harbour; the southern bay is an open roadstead. The ancient city seems to have lain chiefly on the peninsula, but to have extended also to the shores of the two bays. The rocky 251sides of the peninsula fall steeply into the sea, and it rises in two peaks to a height of about two hundred and fifty feet; the eastern peak is somewhat the higher. On the edge of the cliffs may be seen in some places, especially on the southern side of the peninsula, remains of the strong walls which enclosed the city. They are built chiefly in the polygonal style, of large blocks well cut and jointed.

The peninsula, now mostly overgrown with brushwood and shrubs, commands fine views both seaward and landward. The coast southward in the direction of Troezen is very bold and grand, the mountains rising here abruptly to a great height from the sea. At the head of the bay, on the other hand, the hills, wooded with pines, are lower, and between them appears the mouth of the valley up which the path leads through thickly wooded glens to the sacred grove of Aesculapius.

XXVII. The Temple in Aegina.—The temple stands on the top of a hill towards the north-east corner of the island, commanding superb views over the sea and the coasts of Attica and Peloponnese. It is distant about two and a half hours from the town of Aegina. Travellers from Athens who wish to visit the temple commonly land in the fine rocky bay of 252Hagia Marina on the eastern side of the island. A steep declivity, sparsely wooded with pine-trees, leads up from the shore of the bay to the temple. I shall always remember how on a lovely day in spring we landed here and lay under the pine-trees, looking down on the intensely blue but crystalline waters of the bay. The air was full of the fragrance of the pines, the yellow broom was in flower at our feet, and visible across the sea was the coast of Attica. It was a scene such as Theocritus might have immortalised.

XXVIII. The Sanctuary of Poseidon in Calauria.—The sanctuary is situated very picturesquely on a saddle between the two highest peaks of the island, both of which are covered with pine-woods. A walk of about an hour brings us to it from Poros, the modern capital of the island. The path at first skirts the southern shore of the island for a short way, then turns and ascends in a north-westerly direction through the pine-forest. From the sanctuary, which stands at a height of about six hundred feet above the sea, beautiful and wide prospects open between the wooded hills both to the north and the south. We look down on the sea with its multitudinous bays, creeks, promontories, and islands stretched out before 253us and framed as in a picture between the pine-clad hills on either hand. A fitter home could hardly have been found for the sea-god whose favourite tree—the pine—still mantles the greater part of the island.

XXIX. Troezen.—The plain of Troezen lies between the sea and a range of rough and rocky hills, wooded with dark evergreens and stunted trees, which shut it in on the west and south. The northern part of the plain is marshy in places, and the marshes breed fever among the sallow inhabitants of Damala, the wretched hamlet which nestles among trees at the foot of the hills in the inmost corner of the plain, close to the ruins of Troezen. Stretches of pasture-land, however, and of vineyards alternate with the swamps; and eastward, toward the island of Calauria, the plain is well watered, cultivated like a garden, and verdant with vines, olives, lemon-groves, and fig-trees. Seen from the water of the beautiful almost landlocked bay the green of this rich vegetation, with the tall dark cypresses towering conspicuously over all, is refreshing to eyes accustomed to the arid plains and hills of Greece. At Damala groves of oranges and lemons yield the villagers a considerable return. On higher ground, to the north-west of the village, are the 254ruins of Troezen. The glorious prospect over plain and mountain and sea is unchanged; but of the city itself, which, if we may trust Pausanias, its people regarded with such fond patriotic pride, nothing is left but some insignificant ruins overgrown with weeds and dispersed amid a wilderness of bushes. An isolated craggy mountain, rising steeply on the farther side of a deep ravine, was the ancient acropolis. The ascent is toilsome, especially if it be made at noon on an airless summer day with the sun blazing pitilessly from a cloudless sky, the rocks so hot that you cannot touch them without pain, the loose stones slipping at every step, the dry withered shrubs and herbage crackling under foot and blinding you with clouds of dust and down. The wonderful view from the summit, however, makes amends for the labour of the ascent, ranging as it does across the green fertile plain at our feet and away beyond a bewildering maze of islands, capes, and bays to Sunium on the north-east and the snowy peak of Parnassus on the north-west.

Another picturesque bit of scenery, of a different kind, may be seen by following up the ravine to the point where at a great height it is spanned by a single small arch of grey stone, which the peasants call the Devil’s Bridge. It carries the path and a tiny aqueduct, hewn out of one block of stone, across the narrow but 255profound abyss. High beetling crags rise above the little bridge; ferns and ivy mantle thickly one of the rocky sides of the lyn beneath it; and trees droop over the stream that murmurs in the depths below. This is the stream which Pausanias calls the Golden River. Luxuriant lemon-groves now line its banks where it issues from the ravine on the plain of Troezen.

XXX. From Troezen to Epidaurus.—We left the ruins of Troezen at half-past twelve in the afternoon, and rode northward across the broad flat neck of land which connects the mountainous peninsula of Methana with the mainland. In fifty minutes we reached the shore of the lagoon which is formed at the head of the Bay of Methana by the Potami river, the Golden River of Pausanias. After making a detour round the lagoon we came, at half-past one, to the beach at the point where the stream flows out of the lagoon into the sea. Thence we rode for some way along the beach, then over a rocky point, after which the path kept inland a little from the sea. But all through our journey from Troezen to Kato-Phanari the mountains rose at no great distance from us on the left. By half-past two we were opposite Lesia, a hamlet at the foot of a high rocky mountain, with a glen on its eastern side, 256down which comes a stream. But the bed of the stream, when we crossed it, was dry. Below the hamlet in the plain are olives. A little before four o’clock we came to a ruined mediaeval or modern tower perched on an eminence to our right, between us and the sea. Near it stands a small chapel beside a fine carob-tree. The mountains now advanced to the water’s edge, and our path led along their bushy and rocky slopes, winding round bays and headlands at a considerable height above the sea. Here we enjoyed fine views across the spacious bay to the high, mountainous, and rugged peninsula of Methana, which wears a sombre aspect due perhaps to the dark colour of its volcanic rocks. Farther on the path, though never far from the sea, trended inland and we passed over a great deal of stony ground mostly planted with olives. At many places along our route in the course of the day the peasants were at work gathering the olives from the trees. Another feature in the day’s ride was the great number of carob-trees we passed, some of them very fine trees, with dark, smooth, glossy leaves. Finally the path ascended a steep rocky slope and brought us at half-past four to the village of Kato-Phanari, very picturesquely situated high on the side of a mountain, which a short way above the village rises up in rugged precipices of grey rock. Twilight 257was coming on, but enough of daylight remained to allow me to appreciate the beauty of the prospect from the loftily situated village across the sea to the islands, the high conspicuous peninsula of Methana, and the long line of headlands stretching away towards Epidaurus, all bathed in the warm though fast fading light of a winter evening.

Next morning we left Kato-Phanari soon after eight o’clock. The path rose steeply up the mountain-side in view of the sea. In a little less than an hour we reached Ano-Phanari, a village overlooking the sea, situated far up the side of a lofty rocky mountain which faces southward to the still higher precipitous mountain on whose seaward face, below the precipices, stands the lower village of Kato-Phanari. On this latter mountain, or rather on the summit of the range to which it belongs, called Mount Ortholithion, certain ceremonies are said to have been performed, time out of mind, by the peasants in seasons of drought and pestilence.

At Ano-Phanari I heard of remains of an ancient fortress in the neighbourhood, and set off with a guide to visit them. A walk of a few minutes in a north-easterly direction brought us to the top of the mountain, where the remains are to be seen. The situation is a remarkably fine one. Precipices 258descending towards the sea encircle the summit on the north and north-east, and the views across the Saronic Gulf to Aegina, Salamis, and Megara are magnificent. Some mediaeval remains, comprising walls and two or more ruined chapels, are to be seen on the summit, and on its southern side, towards the village, there is a ruined fortification wall built of large irregular blocks. Thus the ancient fortress which occupied this commanding situation appears to have been repaired and inhabited in the Middle Ages. What the name of the place was in antiquity we do not know.

The villagers called my attention to several holes in the rocks between the fortress and the village from which streams of warm air issue. The air from one of the holes was hot enough to warm me, though the morning was cold. In this particular hole, too, I could hear a rumbling sound as of water boiling or wind blowing underground.

We left Ano-Phanari about ten o’clock and descended westward, out of sight of the sea, into a small trough-like plain or valley surrounded on all sides by rocky and barren mountains. Passing some insignificant ruins in the little plain, we ascended the mountains northward by a steep rocky path that led into a narrow upland valley running north and south and enclosed by hills, the sides of which were 259shaggy with bushes of various sorts. This dale we traversed from end to end. Through a narrow opening or gorge in the mountains on its eastern side we obtained a striking glimpse of part of the promontory of Methana, mostly in shadow, but with gleams of sunshine resting on it here and there. At the northern end of the valley, ascending a ridge, we saw stretched out below us at some depth a wide open valley of roughly circular shape. Our path, which was again very rugged, did not descend into the valley, but skirted its eastern side, keeping up on the mountain, till it turned eastward through a gap in the hills. On passing through the gap a view of the sea with all its coasts and islands shining in the sun (for after a dull morning the day had brightened) suddenly burst upon us. Salamis was conspicuous to the north, and to the east of it appeared Mount Pentelicus with the marble quarries visible even at that distance as white patches on its side. Far below us lay Epidaurus, its little peninsula stretching out into the blue bay. We were at a great height above the sea, but now gradually descended to it in the direction of Epidaurus by a steep rugged path running obliquely down the bushy side of the mountain. Thus we came at last into a little maritime plain, traversed it from south to north, and passing some lemon-groves reached the modern village 260of Palaea Epidauros or Old Epidaurus about half-past two.

The village stands on the shore at the head of a deep narrow sheltered inlet formed by the peninsula of ancient Epidaurus on the south and a higher promontory, wooded with low green pines, on the north. Beside the village a little headland runs out into the water; it is crowned with a white-washed chapel of St. Nicholas, which stands in a large walled enclosure with two cypress-trees growing in front of it. The church seems to occupy the site of the sanctuary of Hera mentioned by Pausanias.

XXXI. Methana.—Methana is still the name of the mountainous peninsula which runs far out into the sea from the coast of Troezen, forming a very conspicuous landmark in the Saronic Gulf. The isthmus which joins it to the mainland, about a thousand feet wide, was fortified in the Peloponnesian war by the Athenians, who established a fortified post on the peninsula, whence they ravaged the coasts of Troezen and Epidaurus. Remains of the wall across the isthmus may still be seen with the two castles on the opposite shores. These fortifications were renewed in the Middle Ages; and the Greeks attempted to make use of them 261in the War of Independence. The peninsula itself is a mountainous mass of grand and picturesque outline. In the heart of it the chief peak, the conical Mount Chelona, rises to a height of between two and three thousand feet. Most of the peninsula is of volcanic origin, the prevailing rock being a dark red or brown trachyte. The general character of the scenery is one of barren desolation, the whole region, with the exception of a few narrow strips on the coast, being occupied by the sharp mountain-ridges which radiate from Mount Chelona. Narrow gullies divide these ridges from each other. Water is scarce, and the air dry and hot. The inhabitants, however, contrive to cultivate patches of ground, supported by terraces, high up on the mountain sides. The contrast is great between this desolate and arid mountain-mass, and the rich and well-watered plain of Troezen which adjoins it on the south.

XXXII. Nauplia.—Nauplia, now a busy flourishing seaport, and one of the chief towns of Greece, occupies the northern side of a rocky peninsula which juts out westward into the Argolic Gulf, near the head of the gulf and on its eastern side. The northern side of the peninsula is flat, and here the narrow and not 262too savoury streets of Nauplia are crowded together. Thus the town looks across the harbour to the Argolic plain and has no sea-view. The southern side of the peninsula, at the back of the town, is a long and lofty rock called Itsh-Kaleh, which seems to have been the original citadel of Nauplia; for ancient walls, built in the polygonal style, may be seen in places serving as foundations for the mediaeval and modern fortifications. Other remains of antiquity exist in the shape of rock-cuttings, staircases, cisterns, and so forth. The steep southern slope of the rock is thickly overgrown with cactus. On the northern side of the peninsula, between it and the shore of the Argolic plain, stretches the harbour which gives Nauplia its commercial importance. Though spacious, it is very shallow; large steamers have to anchor far out.

An isthmus connects the peninsula with the mainland. Immediately on the landward, that is, eastern side of the isthmus, the massive and imposing rock of Palamidi, one of the strongest fortresses in Greece, towers up abruptly to a height of over seven hundred feet. The fortifications which crown its summit were built by the Venetians and Turks; they now serve as a prison. In their walls, as well as in the walls of Itsh-Kaleh, are built many Venetian inscriptions, some of them bearing the 263lion of St. Mark. Three sides of the mighty rock are precipitous, but on the south-eastern side it is accessible, being joined by a ridge to the hills. The ascent from Nauplia is by a long staircase at the north-western corner of the fortress; it begins close to the gate of the town. The name Palamidi is derived from Palamedes, the son of Nauplius. Palamedium was probably the ancient name of the fortress, though no classical writer mentions it. The prospect from the summit over the gulf and plain of Argos, with the background of mountains encircling the plain, is very fine. Nor is the view from the quay of Nauplia across the bay to the mountains of Argolis one to be easily forgotten, especially if seen by moonlight, when the sea is calm, the stars are shining, and the tall yard-arms of the lateen-rigged craft stand out like black wings against the sky, now blotting out and now disclosing a star as the boats heave on the gentle swell.

XXXIII. The Springs of the Erasinus.—From Argos the road to Tegea goes south-west. At first it skirts the foot of the steep Larisa, and then runs through the southern part of the Argolic plain. On the right rise the mountains, of no great height, which bound the 264plain on the west. About three miles from Argos we quit the highway and strike westward towards the hills through a beautiful avenue of fine silver poplars, plane-trees, and oleanders. It soon brings us to the springs.

The spot is very picturesque. A rugged mountain here descends in precipices of yellowish limestone to the plain, and at its foot a body of clear sparkling water comes rushing impetuously in several streams from the rocks, partly issuing from a low cavern, partly welling up from the ground. Under the rocks the water forms a pellucid but shallow pool, where water-plants of a vivid green grow thickly; then flowing through the arches of a wall, which partially dams up the pool, it is diverted into several channels shaded by tall poplars, willows, and mulberries, and so turns in a short space a dozen mills—the Mills of Argos, as they are called. After watering the rice-fields, the channels unite once more into a river, which finds its way into the sea through swampy ground, among thick tangled beds of reeds and sedge, some three miles only from its source at the foot of the hills. This river, the modern Kephalari, is the Erasinus (‘the lovely river’) of antiquity. It is the only river of the Argolic plain which flows summer and winter alike; and the opinion both of the ancient and the modern Greeks that it is an outlet of the 265Stymphalian lake in Arcadia appears to be well founded.

In the face of the limestone cliff, a few feet above the springs of the river, are the mouths of two caves. A staircase leads up to them. Passing through the mouth of the larger we find ourselves in a lofty dimly-lighted cavern with an arched roof, like a Gothic cathedral, which extends into the mountain for a distance of two hundred feet or more. Water drips from the roof, forming long stalactites. Some light penetrates into the cave from its narrow mouth, but even at high noon it is but a dim twilight. Bats, the natural inhabitants of the gloomy cavern, whir past our heads, as if resenting the intrusion. Several branches open off the main cave. The longest of them, opening to the left, communicates at its inmost end with the upper air by means of a windowlike aperture. In another branch, also to the left, there is a low, narrow, pitch-dark opening, which, if explored with a light, reveals at its far end a crevice descending apparently into the bowels of the mountain. The smaller of the two caves, to the north, is walled off and forms a chapel of the Panagia Kephalariotissa. The worship of Pan, which Pausanias mentions, may have been held in this or the neighbouring cavern; for Pan, the shepherd’s god, loved to haunt caves, and in these two caves shepherds 266with their flocks still seek shelter from rain and storm. The chapel of the Panagia, in which there are some ancient blocks, may very well have succeeded to a shrine of Pan, or perhaps of Dionysus, who was also worshipped here. A festival is still held annually on the spot on the eighteenth of April; it may be nothing but a continuation, in a changed form, of the festival of Dionysus called Tyrbe, which Pausanias mentions.

In summer the place is now a favourite resort of holiday-makers from Argos, who take their pleasure in a white-washed summer-house or covered shed at the mouth of the cave. The whole scene—the rocky precipices, the shady caverns, the crystal stream, the tranquil pool, the verdure and shade of the trees—is at once so beautiful and agreeable, that if it had been near Athens it would probably have been renowned in song and legend. But Argos had no Sophocles to sing its praises in immortal verse.

XXXIV. The Lernean Marsh.—Mount Pontinus, which rises above the village of Lerna, is a hill of no great height, but of broad massive outline. On its crest are seen from below against the sky the walls and towers of a mediaeval castle crowning the summit. The 267slope of the hill towards Lerna is on the whole even and uniform and tufted with low plants, but toward the south-east it is broken by some high lines of rocks. The carriage road from Argos skirts the foot of the hill and traverses the village. Beside the road rise the springs both of the Pontinus brook and the Amymone; and between the road and the sea is the Lernean marsh. In approaching Lerna from Argos and entering the pass between Mount Pontinus and the sea we first come to the rush-fringed spring of the Pontinus on the left side of the road. The stream is a mere brook of clear water bordered by rushes and tall grasses and almost choked with green water-plants. A great part of the water is diverted at the spring to turn a mill which stands on the shore. The whole course of the brook from its source to the sea is only a few hundred yards.

After passing the source of the Pontinus and traversing in a few minutes the village of Lerna we come to the springs of the Amymone, which rise beside the road at the southern end of the village, a few yards to the north of a white-washed chapel of St. John. The springs are copious and issue from under rocks, forming at once a shallow pool of beautifully clear water, from which the stream flows towards the sea in a bed fringed with reeds. Great beds of reeds, marking the site of the Lernean marsh, 268grow also beside the pool and in the narrow stretch of flat swampy ground between it and the sea. A fig-tree has rooted itself among the rocks from which the springs flow, and a few yards farther off are a mulberry-tree and a silver poplar.

Some eighty yards or so to the north-east of the springs but completely hidden by a screen of trees is the Alcyonian Lake described by Pausanias. It is a pool of still, dark, glassy water surrounded by great reeds and grasses and tall white poplars with silvery stems. Though distant only about thirty yards from the highroad and the village, the spot is as wild and lonely as if it lay in the depths of some pathless forest of the New World. I sought it for some time in vain, and when at last I came upon it, in the waning light of a winter afternoon, everything seemed to enhance the natural horror of the scene. The sky was dark save for one gleam of sunlit cloud which was reflected in the black water of the pool. The wind sighed among the reeds and rustled the thin leaves of the poplars. Altogether I could well imagine that superstitions might gather about this lonely pool in the marsh. Of such a spot in England tales of unhappy love, of murder and suicide, would be told. To the Greeks of old it seemed one of the ways to hell. The man who drove me from Argos said, like Pausanias, 269that the pool had never been fathomed and was bottomless.

XXXV. The Anigraean Road.—South of Lerna the road skirts the shore for some distance. Leaving the village of Kiveri the path runs along the slope of Mount Zavitza, which falls steeply to the sea on the left. This is the district called Anigraea by Pausanias. The road is still, as it was in his days, very rugged and bad. Now and then we come to a little cove with a beach at the mouth of a narrow glen which cleaves the mountain-side; elsewhere the sea is bordered throughout by sheer cliffs, above which the path scrambles up hill and down dale. The sides of the mountains are chiefly clothed with lentisks and wild olives, with a patch of corn-field here and there. In about two hours and a half from Kiveri the path arrives opposite the Anavolo, the ancient Dine. It is an abundant source of fresh water rising in the sea, about a quarter of a mile from the narrow beach under the cliffs. The body of fresh water appears to be fully fifty feet in diameter. In calm weather it may be seen rising with such force as to form a convex surface, disturbing the sea for several hundred feet around. It is clearly the exit of a subterraneous river of some magnitude, and thus 270corresponds with the Dine of Pausanias. After clambering along the Anigraea for nearly three hours, we find that the mountain abruptly ceases, and the maritime plain of Thyrea stretches out before us to the south. This is what Pausanias describes as “a tract of country on the left, reaching down to the sea, where trees, especially olives, thrive well.” The plain is about five miles long, but nowhere more than half that in breadth; its soil is a rich loam; corn-fields and olive-groves cover its surface.

XXXVI. The Battlefield of Sellasia.—At the present day the track from Arachova to Sparta follows the bed of the Kelephina river (the ancient Oenus) for some seven or eight miles. Path there is none. You ride in the stony bed of the river, crossing its scanty water backwards and forwards again and again. The scenery is picturesque, the river winding between high banks, which are generally green with shrubs and trees. Indeed many trees grow in the very bed of the stream, and the traveller in riding has sometimes to be careful not to be knocked off by their boughs. In front of us, as the valley widens, we get glimpses of the high, blue, snowy range of Taygetus. The point at which, quitting the bed of the stream, we ascend its western bank, and the 271whole magnificent range of Taygetus appears in full view across the valley of the Eurotas, was the scene of the battle of Sellasia.

XXXVII. Sparta.—Ancient Sparta stood upon a broad stretch of fairly level ground, broken by a few low eminences, on the right bank of the Eurotas, where the river makes a bend to the south-east. Thus the city was bounded on the north and east by the wide gravelly bed of the river. Approaching from the north by the highroad from Tegea you cross the river by a new iron bridge, then traversing a flat strip of ground ascend through a hollow between two of the low eminences or hills which were included within the circuit of ancient Sparta. Leaving these eminences on the right and left you emerge to the south upon a level stretch of cornland, with olive-trees thickly dotted over it. When I saw it the wheat was breast high, and its waving surface, dappled with the shadows of multitudinous olive-trees, presented a rich and park-like aspect. This plain is about half a mile across; on the south it is terminated by the low broad-backed ridge, running east and west, on which stands the town of New Sparta.

This new town, which has sprung up since the War of Independence, is charming. The 272streets, crossing each other at right angles, are broad and pleasant. Many of the houses are surrounded by gardens, and the soft verdure of the trees peeping over the low walls is grateful and refreshing to the eyes. The gardens abound with orange-trees, which, when laden with fruit, remind one of the gardens of the Hesperides. In spring the air, even in the streets, is heavy with rich perfumes. On the south the town is bounded by the river of Magoula, which here flows from west to east, to fall into the Eurotas a little below the town, opposite the steep heights of Therapnae. Westward the plain extends three or four miles to the foot of the magnificent range of Taygetus, which rises abruptly with steep rocky sides to the height of nearly eight thousand feet. A conspicuous landmark to the west, viewed from Sparta, is the sharp conical hill of Mistra, leaning upon, but still sharply defined against, the Taygetus range. Though really a mountain over two thousand feet high, it is completely dwarfed by the immense wall of Taygetus rising at its back.

The country between Sparta and Taygetus offers points of the most picturesque beauty, especially if, instead of following the highroad, which is rather tame, you strike straight across for Mistra from the ruined theatre of Old Sparta. It was a bright evening in spring 273or early summer (towards the end of April, but summer is earlier in Greece than in England) when I took this walk, and the impression it made on me was ineffaceable. The orange-groves, the gardens fresh and green on all sides, men taking their ease in the warm evening air at a picturesque tavern under a great spreading tree, children playing in the green lanes, a group of Spartan maidens filling their pitchers at a spring that gurgled from a grey time-worn wall, a river (the Magoula) spanned by a quaint old bridge and winding through groves of orange-trees spangled with golden fruit, and towering above all the stupendous snow-clad range of Taygetus in the west, with the sunset sky above it—all this made up a picture or rather a succession of pictures, of which it is impossible to convey in words the effect. It was a dream of Arcadia, the Arcadia of poets, and of painters like the Poussins.

In this union of luxuriant verdure with grand mountain scenery the valley of Sparta recalls the more famed but not more beautiful Granada with its green spreading Vega, its lilac-tinted mountains basking under the bright sky of Spain, and the snowy range of the Sierra Nevada lying like a great white cloud on the southern horizon. But Taygetus towers above the spectator at Sparta as the Sierra Nevada certainly does not over the spectator at Granada. 274To see it on a bright day with all its superb outline—its sharp peaks and grand sweeping curves—clearly defined in the pellucid air, its long line of snowy summits glistering in the sun, and the deep purple shadows brooding on its lower slopes, is a sight not to be forgotten. A recent explorer of Greece has observed that of all Greek cities Sparta enjoys the most beautiful situation. So far as my experience goes, the observation is just.

XXXVIII. Mistra.—The scenery of the district at the eastern foot of Mount Taygetus, to which Pausanias here conducts us, is well described by Vischer as follows: “ While in Therapne, Amyclae, and the round buildings of Vaphio and Marmalia we met with vestiges of a very ancient civilisation which flourished in the plain of the Eurotas before the Dorian invasion; on the other hand when we reach the first line of the rocky heights of Taygetus, we find ourselves in the Middle Ages—in the days of the Franks and the Byzantines. The first stage of Taygetus rises abruptly from the plain in bold cliffs broken by many gullies, from which the mountain torrents issue. Crowning with its picturesque ruins the summit of one of these heights, an hour’s ride to the west of Sparta, is the fortress of Mistra, built by 275William de Villehardouin in the middle of the thirteenth century. Below the castle, on the mountain-side, is spread the extensive town, once a place of much more importance, now half in ruins, with its numerous churches and monasteries falling into decay. Yet for the traveller, in spite of its decay, Mistra must remain in virtue of its situation one of the most enchanting spots which he can find in Greece or anywhere; and the prospect from the castle height, on the one side over the whole plain, on the other side up to the snowy peaks of Taygetus, across the fruitful levels and wooded slopes of the first step in the mountain staircase, needs only a view of the sea to be second to none.

“ The whole neighbourhood, too, is one of indescribable beauty. The way from New Sparta by the village of Magoula, which lies scattered among fruit-trees of every sort, is delightful enough. It passes through a plain watered by fresh brooks, where the drooping branches of the olive-trees and fig-trees often literally bar the way, and in riding one has to take heed not to be hung by the head among the boughs. But all this is almost forgotten when we ride from Mistra by Parori and Hagiannis along the foot of the mountains to Sklavochori. On this ride all the beauties of the Eurotas valley are crowded together; for here we have wild magnificence combined with the luxuriant 276loveliness of a rich southern vegetation. Parori, which lies close to Mistra and was formerly a suburb of it, is at the mouth of a dark and deep gorge, from which a stream comes brawling. This gorge is pointed out to travellers as the Caeadas, the gully into which the Spartans used to throw prisoners of war and afterwards malefactors; and certainly the Caeadas, as well as the Apothetae, where weakly children were exposed, is to be sought in one of the ravines of Mount Taygetus, of which hardly any appears so stern and awful as the one at Parori. At the mouth of the gorge, just above the village, there is a very lovely spot. From a Turkish fountain there pours a copious stream of water, which trickles through creeping plants of all sorts into a large basin, and before it stand some fine plane-trees.