Lectures on ancient ethnography and geography, volume 1 of 2

COMPRISING
GREECE AND HER COLONIES, EPIRUS, MACEDONIA,
ILLYRICUM, ITALY, GAUL, SPAIN, BRITAIN,
THE NORTH OF AFRICA, ETC.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN EDITION OF DR. ISLER, BY
DR. LEONHARD SCHMITZ, F.R.S.E.
RECTOR OF THE HIGH SCHOOL OF EDINBURGH;
WITH ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS FROM HIS OWN MS. NOTES.

LONDON:
WALTON AND MABERLY,
UPPER GOWER STREET, AND IVY LANE, PATERNOSTER ROW.
M.DCCC.LIII.

Independently of your merits as a profound historian and an inquirer into the institutions and languages of the Ancient World, whereby you have given a fresh impulse and a new life to the scholarship of this country, I cannot, as a pupil of the illustrious Niebuhr, call to mind what you have done to make British scholars familiar with his labours without a sense of deep gratitude. This feeling is heightened by the unvarying friendship with which you have honoured me during the last sixteen years, and which I have always found ready and willing to assist, in whatever circumstances it was appealed to. The very idea of publishing any of the Lectures of Niebuhr would, perhaps, never have occurred to me, had it not been suggested by your Lordship. Some fifteen years ago, when you inspected my MS. notes of the Lectures on Ancient, and especially on Greek, History, you at once perceived their value, and urged on me the desirableness of their publication. With a natural timidity I at first shrank from so arduous and responsible an undertaking; and it was not till I found that no one else would venture upon it, that I resolved to do my best to [vi]carry out your suggestion and to rescue those precious remains from oblivion. It is now pretty generally admitted that these Lectures are doing some service to the study of classical antiquity, and it affords me the greatest satisfaction to have this opportunity of publicly acknowledging that, in the first instance, the public is indebted to your Lordship for whatever benefit their publication has conferred upon the students of ancient history. My own humble but conscientious labour, in bringing them before the British public, will be amply rewarded, if the manner in which I have executed my task should meet with your approbation. With this hope I beg your Lordship’s acceptance of the present volumes as a small tribute to your genius and learning, and as a token of the veneration and gratitude with which I shall ever remain,

The Lectures here offered to the English public were delivered by Niebuhr in the university of Bonn during the winter of 1827-28, and were published by Dr. Isler at Berlin in 1851. The German editor, in a short preface, remarks, that for a time he hesitated as to the propriety of publishing the present course of Lectures unabridged, because from its very nature the historian had been obliged here to treat of many topics which are discussed in the Lectures already published. But a regard for those readers who may not be possessed of the volumes containing the other courses of Lectures, and at the same time a desire to keep each course complete in itself, induced him to give the lectures uncurtailed and as complete as he found them in the MS. notes. It must also be borne in mind that Niebuhr, delivering his discourses extempore, cannot be said exactly to have repeated what he had said on previous occasions; but that, generally, the statements made in one course of Lectures rather supplement and complete those put forth at another time.

The relation in which the present English version stands to the German original is precisely the same as that described in my Preface to the “Lectures on Ancient History”; but the present volumes differ from the previous ones in so far as they do not appear in the form of Lectures. [viii]This is owing to the fact that the division into Lectures is not marked either in the German edition or in any of the sets of notes which I had opportunities of collating. The want of such a division, in this instance, is perhaps scarcely to be regretted, because the subject itself renders division and subdivision absolutely necessary; and if the merely accidental division into Lectures had been added, it would frequently disturb rather than assist the reader.

Many of the localities and countries here described have been more fully explored since the delivery of these Lectures, and much information might accordingly have been added in notes; but I have thought it right to adhere to the principle which I have followed in the publication of the Lectures on Ancient and on Roman History, as it is not my object to furnish complete treatises on these subjects, but to preserve and bring before the public the views and opinions of a man who still stands unrivalled as an historical inquirer.

All history resolves itself into a knowledge of the circumstances in the midst of which events occur, and of the events themselves; in an abstract point of view, the two are conveniently kept apart, although concretely they can never appear separated. A history which does not enter into the development of circumstances at all, and altogether pre-supposes them to be known, is scarcely conceivable, unless indeed it were written for contemporaries alone. Nevertheless, however, the one side or the other predominates, according to the predilection of the individual historian. Livy gives scarcely anything but the narration of events; earlier historians were fond of occupying themselves with the description of circumstances, and the more ancient the historian the more striking is this peculiarity. Thucydides, the greatest of all historians, whenever he has an opportunity, as in his description of nations, dwells upon the representation of circumstances. In the earliest times, therefore, ethnography and chorography were always the principal objects of attention, while subsequently this tendency decreased more and more, and the narration of events alone was attended to. The two, however, ought not to be separated, for without a knowledge of the circumstances in the midst of which events take place, the study of history is altogether useless. The mere knowledge of a country, however, is not sufficient; the peculiarities of its inhabitants, its [2]products and the like, must be well known to the student; and without this history has no life. On the other hand, we are often unable to picture to ourselves even modern European nations from a mere narrative of events, unless we have at the same time some insight into their manners and customs. But the history of ancient nations more particularly cannot be understood without a knowledge of the circumstances arising from the peculiarities of their countries. Philological knowledge is the conditio sine qua non; but were a man ever so great a philologer, unless he be at the same time acquainted with the ancient constitutions, the political divisions, and the soil and climate of the countries, his ability to interpret the ancient authors would be nothing but “a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal”; he would be in the same condition in which we find the wretched grammarians of old.

A knowledge of the ancients may exist in an endless variety of degrees; a perfect knowledge is altogether unattainable. The time which separates us from them cannot be removed; but the difference of space presents no such insurmountable difficulty. The soil and the atmosphere of the classic countries have something so peculiar, and so utterly foreign to us, that to obtain a perfect familiarity with the ancient classics, it is necessary to know those countries and live in them, for unless we have seen them with our own eyes, we easily form erroneous notions; and this is required more particularly of him who wishes to understand the Latin poets. But still, even if a person cannot actually visit the countries, he may supply the defect, in a great measure, by a loving and diligent study. To initiate you into this, and at the same time to indicate to you those facts which are absolutely certain as points to start from, is the object of these Lectures. I shall give positive results which you may receive with confidence, and which I have arrived at by diligent and laborious research: they chiefly refer to changes of nations and countries, but at the same time topography shall not be excluded.

It is easy to perceive that this department of knowledge may be treated in various ways, for there are histories in which every thing that happened at the same period, is related synchronistically, while we may also look at events from the point of view of one particular nation. The same difference exists in ethnography and chorography. In the present Lectures it is my intention to give information about the classical nations of antiquity, and about the whole range of nations which are connected with them either by literature or by history, but I do not mean to treat of all the nations of antiquity in the widest sense of the term. I shall speak of the East and of Africa only so far as they come within the reach of the Greeks and Romans; I shall not touch upon the non-classical nations, though they are now better known from native accounts. I shall notice the migrations in Africa and those of the Scythians, as well as the Bactrian empire and other eastern countries. Of India I shall not speak according to Indian authorities, which were unknown to the ancients, but I shall follow the accounts furnished by the Greeks. Scandinavia will, for the most part, be dealt with in the same manner; the Finnian nations will be passed over altogether, as well as those parts of Africa which do not come in contact with the classical nations.

The time, which for us forms the boundary between antiquity and the middle ages, cannot be determined with absolute precision; ancient and middle-age history cannot, in their whole extent, be separated by a straight line; the line undulates without any definite law. With some nations it falls at an earlier, and with others at a later time, according as their countries were taken possession of by barbarous tribes at an earlier or later period. For most European nations, the migration of nations forms the line of demarcation, and the immigration of the Franks, Suevi, Vandals, Burgundians and others forms the close of antiquity, while in the eastern empire it lasted till the Arab conquest. It is but seldom that in this respect we shall be apparently inconsistent, when, for example, we describe the condition of [4]Rome and Ravenna during the period of the exarchate; for in point of fact, these two cities down to the restoration of the western empire, belong to ancient, and not to mediaeval history. Such lines of demarcation cannot be slavishly adhered to without pedantry.

We may further raise the question, as to whether the geographical knowledge of the ancients, that is, an examination of their notions about the earth, its parts and its inhabitants should come within our sphere. In so far as their notions were erroneous, such discussions would be tedious and disagreeable; and they form no part of our objective consideration of ethnography and chorography. This science, however, the creation of Voss, is a very essential part of the propaedeutics to a right understanding of the ancient authors: it belongs, in a subjective point of view, to the history of geography, and the gradual extension of geographical knowledge. We shall take into our consideration only those parts of that science which have a direct bearing upon our object, by shewing us the condition of the countries at the time, and the connections and relations among peoples distant from one another. Whoever treats of geography as a science, that is, whoever intends to give a history of geography, must dwell upon these points; but then he cannot confine himself to the Greeks and Romans, he must at the same time discuss the geographical knowledge of the Arabs, Scandinavians, and other nations.

The history of ancient geography and ethnography after the revival of letters, is the same as that of all other studies connected with the investigation of antiquity. After the restoration of learning, all information about ancient geography was sought exclusively in the ancient authors; the whole of the middle ages had added nothing to it; whatever advances were made, proceeded from practical men, and not from the learned. The consequence of this state of things was the unfortunate separation of dead learning from practical life: the knowledge of the learned had its root in their books, and was thereby spoiled in [5]its very beginning; it is true, all erudition is based on books, but it must be amalgamated with practical knowledge. To transfer that which was handed down in books to the actual, visible world was a very difficult task, and the acquisition of practical experience was no part of a scholar’s business. This state of things remained the prevailing evil until the 17th century; and during that period, the ἰδιῶται were much more learned than the λόγιοι. The first attempts of geographers consisted of lifeless compilations from ancient books; and only that which was not found in them was sparingly derived from the actual and living knowledge. The most striking example of this kind is Raphael Volaterranus, in that part of his Encyclopaedia, in which he treats of geography; for in describing the countries of Europe, which had become entirely changed, he copies Pliny and Mela, and it is not till they cease to furnish him with information, that he borrows a few things from the actual knowledge of his time. Although he lived at Rome, he describes it as it had been a thousand years before him. In the East, and especially at Constantinople, the maps of Ptolemy were used throughout the middle ages—whether the same was the case in Italy, I cannot decide; the earliest Italian maps are not older than the fifteenth century. The maps of Ptolemy were then brought over to the western countries; and from them the learned formed some sort of notion of the geographical and ethnographical knowledge of the ancients. But as early as the thirteenth century—the Arabs had done so even before—the Venetians, Genoese, and Catalanians had become acquainted with the Greek and Arabic maps, and it was these unlearned men that, in extending geographical knowledge, took these maps as their basis, and remodelled them into new and practical maps, especially sea-charts, which they had so much improved. But this was unknown to the scholars of the fifteenth century; and even in the sixteenth, their ignorance is almost inconceivable. It was not till the seventeenth century that the nations of western Europe arrived at the age of maturity; that century checked this [6]irrational philological tendency, and for a time, philology itself; it gave a different direction to scholarship, and thus laid the foundation of our modern philology. The time had now come, when a living account of ancient geography based on autopsy could be undertaken.

The first work of eminence was the production of a German, Philip Cluver, on Italy, Sicily, and Germany; it ranks very high, though all its parts are not equal in value, the Germania being very considerably inferior to the two others. The Italia and Sicilia must be regarded as one work; what he has done for these countries is excellent, and nearly all the passages of the ancients referring to them have been fully collected by him. When we are told, that he collected the materials for his work in the space of eighteen months, we must probably understand this to mean, that, after having previously read through all the ancient authors, he collected in his mature age his reminiscences within the short period alluded to. He was professor in the university of Leyden; and the states general of Holland, which were usually very active in their support of learned men, granted him permission for a journey to Italy, and at the same time allowed him the enjoyment of his salary.⁠[1] He had great tact in discovering and remembering localities; he knew how to see things with his own eyes, and at the same time had a clear intellect in examining things impartially. His reputation is firmly established, his work is immortal among scholars, it will always be great and classical, and there is but very little that can be added to it. But he did not rightly understand the ethnography and history of the Italian nations, nor did he sufficiently attend to the stages through which ancient history passes, and by which the nations ascend as by the steps of a ladder. Ancient history becomes confused by the supposition that no event is historical, which is not recorded in the extant ancient authors. Such a view can be entertained only by [7]timid minds. There are often manifest gaps in history, which are not noticed by the ancients, because they themselves did not perceive them, or because they did not find them pointed out in earlier writers. Even the great Perizonius combats such narrow views; and it is for this reason that Cluver’s accounts of nations are often full of mistakes. This is the defect in his excellent work, but its details are not the less valuable on that account. He did not live long enough to revise his work, for he did not attain an advanced age.

His example was followed by a no less distinguished man, who attempted to compose a chorography of Greece, which was even far more difficult than that of Italy. This undertaking was the more laborious, because there were scarcely any preparatory works that could be made use of; for Italy had been visited before, and the travels of Baptista Alberti furnished Cluver with a very good foundation. The maps of Greece, which were then in use, were very wretched; those of Ptolemy are badly projected, and only a few countries are treated with any degree of minuteness. In the middle ages, Greece was very little visited by Europeans, so that during that period it was almost as unknown as Ethiopia is now; and a geography of Greece was therefore a want that was seriously felt. Paulmier de Grentemesnil (Palmerius), a French nobleman of Normandy, undertook a journey to Greece. He, together with the two brothers Valois, closes the glorious array of the great French philologers, who combined the knowledge of language with that of things. Unfortunately he did not complete his work, because he had planned it on too grand a scale: his scheme also embraced Illyricum and Macedonia, and he completed only his account of these two countries, together with that of Epirus and Acarnania. He, too, has left much that requires to be rectified, but this does not detract from his greatness. The idea of continuing the work has occurred to no one, though at present there are men who possess all the qualifications for such a task. However, the completion of the [8]work in the form given to it by its author is now no longer a desideratum.

In the reign of Louis XIV, when a friendly intercourse with the Ottoman Porte commenced, and when the relations with it became more intimate, Greece was first visited by French travellers; maps were then drawn, which were not indeed quite accurate, but still tolerably good. Thus De la Guilletiere described Peloponnesus, but his work, which contains many a valuable observation, has no maps. The first real journey of discovery to Greece was that undertaken by Spon and Wheler; light was afterwards thrown upon the geography of Peloponnesus, about the end of the 17th century, by the campaigns of the Venetian admiral Morosini, who, for the purpose of his military operations against the Porte, caused charts and plans to be made of several places by Coronelli; the struggle for the possession of Candia also was beneficial. Then followed the excellent travels of Tournefort; some natives of Greece likewise collected important materials for a description of their country: thus the archbishop of Janina, known under the name of Meletias, gave a description of Greece. Yet the materials brought together were never wrought out in the manner in which Palmerius would have done it.

Italy and Greece therefore are the only countries which were at all made the subjects of any learned inquiries. In the meantime books of travels, which combined ancient and modern geography, also furnished many materials to increase the knowledge of other countries. Much was gained by the voyages of the English to India: Egypt was thus brought to light; and Syria and some of the countries of Asia Minor were laid open, by Richard Pococke; and many a discovery was made accidentally during the active intercourse with those countries. The travels of Shaw are an excellent work for the ethnography of northern Africa, especially Numidia and the Roman province of Africa: he did for those countries what Cluver and Paulmier before him had done for others. During the eighteenth century, [9]the great D’Anville, one of the most brilliant geniuses I know, without writing many books, contributed, by his maps, more than any other man to advance geographical knowledge at a gigantic rate. I cannot allow any opportunity to pass without avowing my admiration of that man’s greatness: by the light he has thrown upon ancient geography, he has acquired as much merit in historical philology as in ancient history. Major Rennell, who is still alive, has undeservedly been placed by the side of D’Anville; he has done much that is invaluable, he is diligent and indefatigable in collecting materials; but there is one point in which he differs from D’Anville, and in which he is far inferior to him. D’Anville possessed a peculiar power of divination and of estimating the value of his materials; he was not only extremely industrious in collecting them, but knew how to value each point most correctly, and how to use and combine his matter in the most sagacious manner, always clearly distinguishing between what he knew and what he did not know; while Major Rennell, on the other hand, has spoiled his best materials by his scrupulous attempts to reconcile what is incorrect with what is correct. D’Anville’s Mémoire sur la Mer Rouge, for example, is the most excellent chart of the Arabian Gulf. All the earlier ones were copied from the ancient Venetian ones; but all at once D’Anville furnished an accurate, detailed, and astronomically correct description of the coasts, islands, and countries, which he had compiled from the most different and wretched materials, furnished by Portuguese, Turkish, and other maps. He discerned with the most marvellous tact which statements were entitled to belief and which not. Any one knowing what geography was before the time of D’Anville, cannot sufficiently admire him. Two of his works, that on ancient and modern Egypt and that on Gaul, are particularly excellent; his little manual is of less value. But the whole series of maps in his Atlas of the ancient world will be unsurpassed, until another D’Anville arises who shall draw his maps according [10]to the improved geographical knowledge we now possess. Southern Italy is not yet perfect in his map; but whenever his representations are incomplete, he himself points it out; as, for example, in his map of Epirus, which country has now become much better known in consequence of several military officers of learning having resided in it. After D’Anville’s death, Barbié du Bocage unjustly made several alterations in his maps, but in subsequent editions he has withdrawn them.

Chorography thus made constant progress, but ethnography did not keep pace with it. The German work of Mannert, which is extensively used and has acquired great celebrity, arose out of the materials then accumulated; the author has worked at it for a period of more than thirty years, and new and improved editions of the first volumes were published before the whole was completed. It contains many valuable materials, but they are by no means wrought out as they should be. The author commenced his work with very slender scholarship, such as it was at the time, and without extensive reading. These disadvantages became the more dangerous, because he was not sufficiently conscious of them, and because he wrote with animation and interest: he has no survey of his subject, he wants the real historical tact, and has not read the ancients thoroughly. He has made many hasty combinations, without sufficient foundation. If any one wished to review the work, mistakes might be discovered in great numbers. Thus, e.g., he sets up the hypothesis, that the Herodotus who during the insurrection against Persia was sent as ambassador from Ionia to Greece, was the same as the historian, without considering that, in this case, he must have been at least ninety years old when he began to write his history, and accordingly must have lived at least to the age of one hundred and twenty years. The maps of Reichardt are thoroughly bad⁠[2]⁠.

A work on ancient topography is still a desideratum, and one of the many tasks which a good scholar might undertake; every year in our time furnishes means to make it more complete.

Ancient Authorities and Introductory Remarks.

Ancient chorography is not, like Roman antiquities, a department of knowledge created by modern philology; the ancient authorities for it are not inconsiderable, for they not only furnish the materials, but the work of Strabo, for example, is an ample digest of them. The Greeks in general took an intense interest in geography, and were in this respect quite different from the Romans; there is no nation that could have done more and that actually did less for geography than the Romans; they shewed a perfect indifference in regard to the knowledge of their immense empire. If we except the Germania of Tacitus, and a few passages in Caesar about Britain and Germany, which are indeed excellent, Latin literature furnishes nothing. Pomponius Mela and Pliny give only abridged summaries of the knowledge possessed by their contemporaries. We know the extent of Latin literature so perfectly as to be able to assert, that nothing of importance is lost; the Romans never had a great chorographical work like that which Strabo wrote for the Greeks.

But even before Strabo, the Greeks had great works of this kind; nay, their earliest work in prose, of which we have any knowledge (if we except the genealogies of Pherecydes, Acusilaus and others, the simplicity of which is almost beyond our conception), the γῆς περίοδος of Hecataeus the Milesian, was devoted to chorography. Its character is not accurately described by any of the ancient [12]authors, but we know that the titles of his works were “Asia” and “Europe;” and we know from Stephanus of Byzantium, that he mentioned an immense number of towns and nations, though probably not in a systematic manner. He seems to have connected separate narratives with one another, but his real objects were chorography and ethnography, and not history, whence he is scarcely ever quoted as an authority on historical matters. It is true, however, that he did not entirely exclude historical events; it is very possible also that he may have spoken of the revolt of the Ionians under Aristagoras, in which he himself had acted so unfortunate a part; and there can be little doubt that incidentally he also mentioned the history of the countries of which he was treating.

Descriptions or γῆς περίοδοι of this kind probably existed in Greece in great numbers; they were written in a lively manner to afford entertainment, and for such persons as wished to gain information about the earth and its inhabitants. But there also existed another kind of descriptions intended for the practical guidance of merchants and sailors; these men who had no ambition to investigate the interior of countries, could not but feel an interest in the descriptions of the coasts. As navigation was chiefly coasting, the want of such descriptions was felt, men being anxious to know in what manner town followed after town, harbour after harbour, and promontory after promontory. These are the περίπλοι: the most ancient is that by Scylax of Caryanda, a contemporary of Philip of Macedonia, as I have shewn by incontrovertible arguments⁠[3]⁠. Besides this description of the Mediterranean, there were others of the Euxine and the Erythraean Sea, which were composed at a much later period. Throughout the middle ages, these and similar περίπλοι were used, and the modern Greeks still have guides similar to those of their ancestors of old. Even till very recent times, sailors who confined themselves to the navigation of the Mediterranean, made use of what [13]are called Portolani del Mare, which, previously to the invention of printing, were circulated in manuscript. The ancients accordingly had two kinds of materials, descriptions of coasts and descriptions of countries.

After the time of Hecataeus, 150 years passed away before a real geography was written by Eratosthenes, whose object was to furnish a scientific chorography. In Herodotus chorography and history are combined, both are equally his object. He rarely combats Hecataeus, and not by name, but he often attacks his system, being conscious that he can give more accurate information. His work shows us the limits of the science in his time.

It is a very interesting inquiry—first undertaken and carried out in an admirable manner by J. H. Voss—to trace the different notions entertained by the ancients about the form of the earth, and to examine their geographical knowledge at the different periods. His merits in this respect will never be forgotten; but the more I, for my own part, look with reverence and gratitude upon his inquiries as real models, the more do I consider myself entitled to make a few observations regarding the mistakes into which he has fallen. The first is his supposition, that a thing which is not mentioned by an author, although it is not opposed to his other statements, must be regarded as if it had been unknown to him; but the fact is, that authors often knew things without mentioning them. If Aristotle, during his walks in Piraeeus, a place frequented by men from all parts of the world, questioned the ναύκληροι, he might have written a geography, which would excite our astonishment, as it is excited by his history of animals: the fact that he chanced not to write a geography does not entitle us to draw a conclusion as to his knowledge of countries and nations. It is this manner of viewing things that gave rise to the opinion, that the Greeks knew nothing about Rome; but there can be no doubt that even Hecataeus spoke of Rome; he was however not much read,⁠[4] and hence we cannot [14]infer that Rome was unknown to the Greeks. This inference, however, that a man is ignorant of a thing, because he does not mention it, is common even in earlier times. The second mistake of Voss is that he considers the opinions of a great writer as the standard of the knowledge of his age. This may indeed be said of Eratosthenes, whose works were in the hands of all who wished to gain information; and Eratosthenes, moreover, stands already within the sphere of what may be called a learned or literary period; but before his time circumstances were very different. We can form a clear notion of this, if we contemplate nations which have not yet arrived at definite notions about geography. Eastern people, for example, never have any scruples about geography; I am acquainted with Asiatics and others, with whom I have conversed much about ethnography, and who had never had a geographical book in their hands; they scarcely ever possess any broad geographical views, but are deeply interested in it; the one has a knowledge of one thing, and another of another. There is indeed a certain average amount of knowledge, which every individual may be supposed to possess, but apart from this, the knowledge of persons who in other respects are equally well educated, is very different according to the circumstances in which they are placed. Every inhabitant of Tripoli and Morocco knows of Bournou, but many are ignorant of everything beyond its name, and few are acquainted with the interior. In like manner the knowledge possessed by the learned in ancient Greece was of a very different kind from that diffused among the people, and every one might for himself acquire a certain range of knowledge. Some persons who had travelled in distant lands possessed an extensive knowledge of countries, and those anxious to learn derived their information from them. It is therefore generally impossible to say how much geographical knowledge an otherwise well educated man may have possessed. That which in later times was to be found in books which were generally read, was known also to every well-read Greek. But the living knowledge among the people was far more extensive [15]Herodotus became acquainted in Scythia with people who had made distant journeys, or had heard accounts from others extending as far as the Ural mountains; and in like manner, others who visited Massilia might have obtained equally accurate information from people that visited Britain; such knowledge, however, was not generally diffused, but was possessed only by navigators and some others. All knowledge was purely practical, until some curious inquirer in some much frequented port collected the scattered information, put together all the περίοδοι and περίπλοι, and thus formed a geography. Eratosthenes lived in a large port town, and possessing an extensive library, he was the first to draw up a general ethnography; before he wrote his work, the geographical knowledge of one man was immensely different from that of another.

The early Greeks and Asiatics entertained the notion that the earth was a circular plain, floating in the middle between heaven above and the nether world below. And this was the most natural conception: where there is no cause for assuming any other form, the circular is the most probable. The notion of Homer evidently is, that the plain is somewhat depressed in the centre, forming a basin in which the waters of the Mediterranean are collected, and that the world-river Oceanus flows round the upper edge of the plain. This opinion prevailed for a long time; it was entertained by Hecataeus as well as by Homer.

Another notion was, that warmth and cold were not to be explained by the relation of the sun to the earth alone. To this the ancients were led by the observations, so natural in the south, on the nature of the winds, which are altogether of a different character from our winds; their character cannot be traced to topographical causes. We in the north consider winds as currents of air which bring warmth or cold, according to the different quarters from which they blow; but a person who has lived in the south, or has conversed with southern people about the matter, knows that the winds there have something quite unaccountable. [16]In order to explain the different peculiarities of the north winds at Rome (due north, north-west, and north-east), one must assume essentially different characters in them in regard to the dispersing of clouds, to brightness of the sky, to the moisture, the effect on the thermometer, &c. In like manner the three south winds have their peculiarities. It cannot be explained why the east wind, which blows across the land, produces rain at Rome, while the west wind, which comes from the sea, is mild and for the most part dry. Such differences also exist in Greece, and this led the ancients into speculations. They conceived the winds to be distinct powers, with original properties which belonged to them alone. The peculiarities of the winds as described by Pliny may be recognised even now; I have, however, observed at Rome, that they have shifted a few points of the compass further west. I am personally firmly convinced of this; in the present state of physical science one need not fear to be laughed at, as about 40 years ago: I have mentioned the subject to several natural philosophers, and requested them to investigate it.

Before the rise of mathematical and physical geography, which Aristotle understood perfectly, though he did not work it out for others, and down to the time of Eratosthenes, the notion of the ancients was, that the north wind, which was so disagreeable to them, came from mount Haemus; to this belief they were probably led by the fact, that they heard of terrific winds blowing on the coast of Thrace—the Greeks told one another things about those winds, which made their hair stand on ends;—they were further told, that in the more northern countries, in Bulgaria, Wallachia, and in general on the northern slopes of mount Haemus, the violence of the winds was not to be compared with what it was in Macedonia and Thrace. Those mountains, therefore, were regarded by them as the abode of Boreas, and the countries beyond them were believed to be mild and lovely; in this belief they were confirmed by the stories about the paradise-like climate in [17]Wallachia. They did not take into consideration the height of the mountains, and conceived that countries were milder, the further they were removed from Boreas: the countries beyond Haemus were, in their opinion, protected against the Scirocco, which was the most troublesome to them. This is the simple and childlike story about the Hyperboreans. Herodotus thinks that, if they really did exist, there must also be Hypernotians, and this would be quite correct, if Notus had been believed, like Boreas, to dwell in a mountain; but the fact is, that Notus was conceived to roam over the endless sandy deserts of Africa which extend to the ends of the earth.

The maps which existed among the Greeks at a very early period, were made in accordance with these notions. Herodotus’ account of Aristagoras, who laid a map before Cleomenes, king of Sparta, is certainly authentic. We may regard Hecataeus as the author of a map, on which the measures which Herodotus made use of, were already indicated. As the Hebrews regarded Jerusalem, so the Greeks considered Greece, and more especially Delphi and mount Olympus, which lie about the same degree of longitude, as the centre of the earth. When Herodotus went to Scythia, and there learned how many days the merchants who traded with the savage nations, had to travel to the Ural mountain, and when, on the other hand, he heard at Massilia how near it was from that city to the Garonne and the ocean, he naturally extended the form of the inhabited earth in different directions and to different points so far, that his conception did not at all harmonize with that of the circular plain. On the one hand, he found at Massilia, that the world-surrounding ocean was not very far from the Mediterranean, while on the other side it was at an immeasurable distance, so that in the south and west it was nearer to Delphi than in the north and east; hence he says, “I smile at those who conceive the earth to be circular, as if it were made by a turner, and to be surrounded by the ocean.” His tendency [18]was quite different from that of his predecessors: it was the peculiarity of his nature minutely to examine the details, and not to be uneasy, if he did not find in the whole of his conception a place for every particular point. Some men feel the necessity of conceiving all things together as one whole, they cannot understand the parts otherwise than as portions of the whole, and in the part they even see the whole foreshadowed; but others, who are of an empirical nature, are the most fit persons to prosecute inquiries; they form distinct notions of details, distinguish that which they cannot yet comprehend, and discern the places where they must add something for the purpose of filling up a gap; they place one detail by the side of another, and put them in relation with each other, but are unconcerned about the place which every particular point occupies in the whole system. If they do reach the height from which they can command a general view, they survey accurately, but if not, they are aoristic. The latter might be called atomists, and the former dynamists. Herodotus belongs to the atomists, and in this respect my father bears a great resemblance to him; the highest perfection is implied in a complete combination of the idea of the whole with the most sober investigation of details, and this perfection we find in d’Anville. While, however, Herodotus wants to get rid of arbitrary outlines and fancies, he himself unconsciously invents some definite form in his own mind, though he does not set it forth externally. Hence, as I have shewn in the transactions of the Berlin Academy⁠[5]⁠, he conceives the Ister and the Nile to flow parallel but in opposite directions, and according to him, the Ister flows from north to south into the Euxine, just as the Nile flows from the south into the Mediterranean; in like manner the Indus and Araxes, according to him, flow from west to east, and the latter river, as conceived by him, is almost entirely fictitious. Geography, therefore, at that time was not universally known; its changeableness and [19]accidental character is no where more obvious than in Herodotus himself. His notion of the course of the Nile is, that above the first cataract it flows from west to east, and that near Elephantine it turns round; and yet he might without difficulty have informed himself of the true state of the case. From an inscription found near the cataract among the ruins of the temple at Ipsambul, and which belongs to some Ionians and Carians, who had gone into those parts either as soldiers or as ostrich-hunters⁠[6]⁠, it is clear that those Greeks went far beyond the cataracts, and were very well aware that the Nile flowed from the south. Another proof is furnished by the Attic orators: when Alexander had crossed the frontier mountains of India, Aeschines⁠[7] conceived that he had advanced as far as the polar circle. Such expressions about the polar circles do not occur in Herodotus, for he does not know that the earth is a globe; this notion was probably first formed in the East, whence Eudoxus, the astronomer, received it in forming his sphaera, even before the time of Aristotle; and many of the expressions referring to it may have found their way into the language of ordinary life. At Athens all this was very confused, and many men, according to their own experience, formed individually very different notions of the geography of the earth. But as Scylax was accurate in regard to the East, so others were well informed about other parts; and at Massilia, e.g., much was known about the north from the voyages of Pytheas and others. For a long time people did not know what conception to form of the sea beyond Massilia; at Athens many, in the time of Plato, still believed that the ocean commenced on the west of Italy: but Polybius is already well [20]acquainted with the road from Narbonne to the Ligeris, and thence to Britain. We must, therefore, not believe that this country was unknown to the Romans until the conquests of Caesar, and that it had no place in the maps of Eratosthenes.

Such was the reputation which Strabo enjoyed among the later Greeks, that he was always simply called the geographer (Eustathius never quotes him by any other name), just as Aristotle was simply styled the philosopher. It is well known that he was a native of Amasia or Amasea, in a distant part of Pontus, and although his birth-place was not a Greek town, he seems to have belonged to a Greek family. He was born in the reign of Augustus, and wrote under Tiberius. We see, from his work, that he was one of those men who have not chosen their pursuit with a due regard to their real natural talents: for by profession he was a speculative philosopher, a Stoic, while in reality he had a genuine historical mind, and a true historical tact. He composed two great works, one of which has perished in such an inconceivable manner, that I very much doubt whether it was ever published. It was a continuation of Polybius which he wrote, because he was dissatisfied with that of Posidonius, and the task was one for which he was most eminently qualified. His geography is an excellent work, and considering the loss of that of Eratosthenes, it is invaluable, for he was a man of great judgment; but unfortunately it has not come down to us quite entire. Until a late period of the middle ages, it existed only in a single manuscript, which is probably now at Paris; its outward damages seem to indicate that it is the source from which all the later MSS. were taken. It is a remarkable fact, that several such MSS. of Greek authors, from which all others are derived, are still in existence, so that it is superfluous to collate the others. I may mention, for example, Athenaeus and the orator Aristides; the MS. of the latter is at Florence, the library of which city appears to have been particularly rich in such original [21]MSS., and it is possible, that they were obtained directly from Constantinople. Eustathius and Stephanus of Byzantium still had complete copies of Strabo. This geographer has done all that his materials enabled him to do: the whole of geography, so far as it was known in his time, is laid down in his book, and that not only the contemporary geography, but also that of earlier ages with especial reference to the illustration of the poets, particularly Homer, whence from the very beginning we often meet with digressions, which do not seem to us to be in exact proportion to the whole work. We may assert that until the fourth and fifth century, the geography of the Romans did not extend beyond what had been known to Strabo; he did not indeed possess the information about Germany and Britain, which we find in Tacitus; but, generally speaking, we may say that, with few exceptions, geography during several centuries made no progress. In Ptolemy we see that the knowledge of the East, especially of India, had been advanced and extended by merchants, while in Strabo the knowledge about those countries is rather limited, commerce not having extended to them till a later period. The knowledge of the Romans about Egypt, though they had ruled over it for upwards of fifty years, was still very scanty. Strabo is altogether unmathematical, and Eratosthenes was farther advanced in this respect, so far indeed as it was possible for him, though he too, in regard to longitudes, was often satisfied with mere guesses, which sometimes entirely displaced the right point of view. All that Strabo knows on these points is derived from Eratosthenes, whose measurements were still highly imperfect. The division of the heavens into 360 degrees is very ancient, while that of the earth is of a very late date, Marinus of Tyre, who lived shortly before Ptolemy, being the first to introduce it into his maps. One great drawback in Strabo is an ungenerous hostility towards the great Eratosthenes; the cause of this desire to quarrel is unknown, and his censure is often very foolish.

Since the time that Bochart derived the name of Europe from the Phoenician ‎‏ערב‏‎, it has been generally assumed by all intelligent inquirers, that the name of our part of the world actually owes its origin to some Phoenician division of the countries of the earth; it is also well known that Europa is called a daughter of the Phoenician king Agenor. Owing to the ill-use which Bochart often makes of Phoenician etymologies, this one too has been disputed, but it is only those who throw away the wheat with the chaff that reject his derivation of the name Europe. Homer seems to have divided the earth into two parts, viz., πρὸς ἠῶ τ’ ἠέλιόν τε, and πρὸς ζόφον, but his not mentioning other parts may be merely accidental, and I should therefore not like to adopt Voss’ opinion, that Homer knew of no other division. The division, according to the quarters of the world, into Europe, Asia, Libya and Hesperia, seems to have been very ancient and general among the Greeks. Eratosthenes made the division according to the four great nations, which is less convenient, as these nations become mixed and amalgamated with one other. The opinion that Asia derived its name from the Asian marshes in Lydia appears to me unsatisfactory; for it was not customary with the Greeks first to use a name in a limited sense and afterwards to extend it in the manner in which the Latins⁠[8] gave the name Italia to the smallest portion of the country, and afterwards extended it instead of applying it to the whole country at once. Libya is evidently a Phoenician name, as is clear from Lilybaeum, which signifies “opposite to Libya,”—a name which the Carthaginians would not have given to a place unless they had called Africa Libya. The opinion which regards Hesperia as a fourth part of the world is only a hypothesis, but it is a fact that the name was applied to the whole of [23]western Europe. Afterwards it was united with Europe, just as Libya was for a time treated as a part of Asia, though afterwards it was again regarded as a separate part of the world, while Hesperia has ever since been considered as only a portion of Europe.

The boundaries of Europe accordingly likewise differed at different times. The most ancient mention of the name of Europe in Greek literature occurs in the hymn on Apollo (v. 251), where it is used in a very peculiar way: in the north, Europe is quite indefinitely separated from the barbarous countries, and seems to comprise only Greece exclusive of Peloponnesus, the islands, Macedonia, Illyricum and Italy. The poet accordingly applies the name to all the countries north of Peloponnesus. In Aristotle’s Politics the name is again used in quite a singular way: after having previously spoken of Asia, he mentions Europe as opposed to Greece. There may have been many more such designations, but they never acquired any great importance.

The river Phasis was probably the boundary between Europe and Asia at an early period: this remark of Voss appears to me to have a high degree of probability; in Herodotus, as we may see from his description of Scythia, the Tanais forms the boundary, but he entertains erroneous notions about its course, for he conceives that one-half of it flows from the north to the south. This boundary afterwards remained, as in Scylax of Caryanda and Eratosthenes, and in like manner the pillars of Heracles were commonly supposed to form the southern boundary between Europe and Libya. In regard to Asia and Libya, there existed various views as to how they should be divided; for a time, probably ever since the days of Hecataeus, they were regarded as separated by the Nile; in opposition to this Herodotus remarks, that by such a division Egypt was torn to pieces, and he justly asks to which of the two parts the Delta is to belong. The Arabian Gulf forms the true and natural boundary, and this is the view which was adopted even by Eratosthenes.

The geography of Greece presents great difficulties at the very outset. Hellas is not a country with natural boundaries; and the application of the name varies at different times. The ancients did not take it in the same sense in which we do; with them the names of countries are so intimately connected with those of the nations inhabiting them, that they called Hellas all the countries inhabited by Hellenes, including the Siceliot and Italiot towns as well as the colonies in Asia Minor, as far as Iberia and Scythia. The country to the east and south of Ambracia, until the time of the Romans, was not simply called Ἑλλάς, but ἡ συνεχὴς Ἑλλάς. This designation, however, so peculiar to the whole mode of thinking of the ancients, is too national, and for us inconvenient, and we unhesitatingly apply the name of Greece to the country called by the ancients ἡ συνεχὴς Ἑλλάς. It extends beyond the natural boundary of Mount Oeta and the Aetolian mountains which are connected with Oeta, because Thessaly must necessarily be included. We must choose the most convenient designation; and if in this we differ from the ancients, it is a necessary deviation made for the purpose of making ourselves understood.

The only countries which have natural boundaries are first Peloponnesus, and secondly those parts which are separated from Thessaly by mountains. But these boundaries are only partial, and the natural limits of the whole country ought to be extended as far as the north of Thrace, so as to include that country together with Macedonia and Illyricum as far as Mount Scardus, and the heights which separate Illyricum and Macedonia from [25]Servia. But only a portion of this extensive territory was inhabited by Greeks. Originally it was one united country, being inhabited by the race of the Pelasgians, while in the historical times the Hellenes became separated from them; but how this nation arose is one of the most mysterious points in history. All we can do is carefully to distinguish between Pelasgians and Hellenes, although there was a relationship between the two, which is perfectly obscure to us. In the historical period the whole is already in a state of confusion. The Hellenic nation, like that of the Latins in Italy, seems to have proceeded from a small centre; but how this came to pass is a question involved in impenetrable darkness. A nation calling itself Σελλοί, Ἑλλοί, Ἕλληνες, is said to have inhabited the highest mountains of Epirus, and thence to have spread over the whole country which was inhabited by Pelasgians. This nation was called by its neighbours by the name of Γραικοί which however was never employed by the nation itself.

The divisions of Greece are partly natural and partly accidental; natural is that into Thessaly, Peloponnesus, and the country between the two. This last, however, has no common name, that of Hellas proprie sic dicta is quite wrong, because it takes no notice of the islands and colonies. The question as to whether Greece in the earliest times had any common name or not, was discussed even by Strabo and others. My opinion is, that the Homeric names cannot be doubted; during the period represented by Homer, Argos is the name of the country from the coast of Peloponnesus as far as the frontiers of Macedonia, and we may therefore draw a distinction between Hellas and Argos. But that name lasted only till the development of the Hellenic character.⁠[9] The name Ἀργεῖοι, applies to the Greeks, who had not yet separated themselves as Hellenes; and Δαναοί seems to be the name of the Pelasgian inhabitants of Peloponnesus. When we read in Thucydides [26]that at the time of the Iliad, Greeks and barbarians were not yet separated, the expression may be variously interpreted; his opinion probably is, that in those times many parts of Greece were inhabited by nations, such as Caucones, Leleges, and others, which were not assimilated to the Greeks, but were distinct in language and manners; still, however, they are comprised under the name of Argives, i.e., Pelasgians, for Ἀργεῖοι is not a Hellenic name. The name Ἀχαιοί is not Hellenic either, and it must be remarked in general, that Hellenes and Pelasgians were not yet distinguished from each other, but were vaguely comprised under one name.

In the earliest times two of those natural divisions, Peloponnesus and Thessaly, though perfectly independent of each other, appear to have been of primary importance. We shall first direct our attention to Peloponnesus, as the purest Greek country, and the only one which forms a moral and naturally united community, and shows a vigorous nation, not only because it contained the seats and dominions of the ancient kings, but because for a long time after, Peloponnesians possessed the supremacy over the rest of Greece.

Peloponnesus.

The name Peloponnesus is singular; it is very ancient, and occurs as early as the Homeric hymn on Apollo. There can be no doubt that it has some reference either to a people or to some ruler; how far it may contain an allusion to the Pelasgians, is a question concerning which nothing can be said with certainty. Where names differ so widely, a healthy philology demands that we should abstain from any dangerous attempt. If we employ a rational method of exegesis, we cannot doubt that the Atreids were also called Pelopids, and that previously to the immigration [27]of the Heracleids and Dorians into the peninsula, there existed an historical dynasty under that name. But whether Pelops is the historical ancestor of that race, or some kind of hero, whether he is different from the Pelasgus in the “Supplices” of Aeschylus, who, according to different genealogies in the Arcadian traditions, is sometimes called the first man, and sometimes a son of Zeus, are questions about which, if we judge soberly and thoughtfully, we can say nothing. The opinion prevalent in the time of the tragedians, that Pelops was a Phrygian, belongs to a much later period, in which the Trojans too were regarded as Phrygians, which according to the views of the epic poems they never could be.

Another very ancient name, which the Greeks regard as the earlier and native name, is Ἀπία, for there can be no doubt that it is a proper name, though some Alexandrians declared it to be an adjective; ἐξ ἀπίης γῆς does not signify “from a distant,” or “waterless country” (from πίνω), but from the country of Apia. Those who are anxious to manufacture history out of etymologies, may find in this name various allusions as, for example, to the Opicans, but they are all equally hazardous. In general etymology is necessary; but we cannot be sufficiently on our guard not to fall into quibbles and fancies. Not to neglect the later times, I will at once notice the subsequent change of the name into Morea (ὁ Μορέας). This too has given rise to various etymologies: it is a very common opinion among the modern Greeks, that the name Morea is derived from the shape of the country; as the ancients often compared it to the leaf of a plane tree, so the moderns compare it to the leaf of a mulberry tree (mora), according to which the name would be of Italian origin. But I am convinced that, at the time when the Bulgarians ruled in Greece, and when the Slavonians, being pushed onward by them, inundated Peloponnesus, the country, being the maritime province of the Bulgarian kingdom, was called Morea from more (the Slavonian word for sea), and consequently, the name originally [28]was in all probability not confined to Peloponnesus. In the time of the Achaean league, the Romans called it Achaia, from one of its provinces,—a name, which in fact wholly and properly belongs to Peloponnesus, until it was extended to the rest of Greece.

Peloponnesus, in a physical point of view, is a very remarkable country: it rests upon a volcanic foundation; and although our history knows nothing of any eruptions, still we hear of formidable earthquakes. The island of Thera, in the Greek Archipelago, is the central point from which a volcanic chain extends below the sea to Peloponnesus, and as far as Epirus and Thesprotia, while on the other side, it proceeds to Sicily, Ischia and Mount Vesuvius. Hence earthquakes were very frequent and eventful occurrences in the physical history of the peninsula. When you come down from the precipitous heights of Arcadia, or from the opposite heights of Parnassus and Helicon, you at once see that the country falls off, and has been formed by the ground sinking in consequence of this volcanic nature; and I have no doubt that the Corinthian Gulf was likewise the effect of such causes, for the land on both sides of it breaks down abruptly. The range of Taygetus, of which Taenarus forms the southern extremity, is particularly renowned for its internal convulsions; the most fearful ravages are nowhere so frequent as there, and about the time of the 80th Olympiad, in particular, the earth was there in violent agitation: whether this is still the character of that district, I do not know. The Peloponnesian coast of the Corinthian Gulf is another scene of earthquakes; there Helice and Bura were swallowed up by the earth, and as far as history can be traced, one town after another was destroyed by convulsions of the earth, whence Ποσειδῶν Ἐνοσίχθων was specially worshipped there, and on Mount Taenarus. Those earthquakes give rise to lakes discharging their waters through subterraneous canals, which at times are filled up, and at others are opened again; hence the lakes are of varying extent, as for example, [29]the Stymphalian lake in Arcadia. Another effect is, that several rivers of Peloponnesus are interrupted in their course: they sometimes continue it under ground, as, for example, the Ladon, while at other times they change their beds, or disappear entirely in caverns or lakes. Hence also the quantity of water in some districts is different at different times; this was the case especially in Argolis, which in the days of Aristotle had lost all its waters.

The peninsula of Peloponnesus is properly a system of mountains of very different kinds; those by which it is connected with the main land of Greece, the Geranean and Oenean mountains, are of very different formation from the rest: they are more rugged and barren, and have little or no vegetation; those in the interior of the peninsula display the most luxuriant vegetation, and are far more fertile than the mountains of Italy. Few countries are equal to Peloponnesus in the abundance and beauty of its vegetation, which in spite of all devastations always revives with youthful vigour. Its mountains, although they contain districts without water, are on the whole abundantly supplied with it, especially in Arcadia, and it is this circumstance that makes the vegetation so splendid. I have been told by persons who had been in Arcadia, that no country on earth can compete with it in beauty on account of the forms of its mountains, its trees, etc., and the most magnificent Alpine vegetation is not richer than that of Arcadia. The highest points of the peninsula are the mountains which separate the maritime country of Achaia from Arcadia, in the neighbourhood of Stymphalus. In the ravines of those mountains snow is found even in summer, though not on the tops of the mountains, and there is not one mountain in all the peninsula, which is capped with snow. All Arcadia is a conglomeration of mountains, which, even with the assistance of maps can hardly be divided into their elements; whence it is a vain and useless attempt to fix the definite names which are mentioned by the ancients. We cannot, for example, define Mount Maenalus, and what is [30]generally described as the site of Erymanthus, is only conjectural. All we can say, is that Maenalus was perhaps the central, and Lycaeus the southern range of Arcadian mountains. All these mountains and rivers now have different names: a proof that the Slavonians entirely changed the ancient population. The traveller asks in vain where the Alpheus is; Mount Taygetus is now called Pentadactylon, and all the other names are barbarous. Taygetus is very high, but not quite so high as the highest Arcadian mountains; the name belongs to the whole range from the frontiers of Arcadia down to Cape Taenarus, now Cape Matapan.

Peloponnesus has but few plains which do not almost deserve the name of valleys: those of Elis and Argos—perhaps that of Sicyon also, though it is not quite plain—are the only ones which deserve special notice. Elis is a plain, encircled by a range of hills which are not high; Argos is properly still more spacious and less enclosed, though the mountains of Corinth are continued along the Acte. The district of Calamata, in Messenia, is a real valley, the work of the river Pamisus; and Laconia, along the Eurotas is a real river-valley. All these valleys are of extraordinary fertility, and the only barren portions of Peloponnesus are about Corinth, where the ground is very rocky, and the district in Argolis between ancient Mycenae, Epidaurus and Troezen; the plain of Sicyon is undulating and capable of cultivation. Achaia, on the northern slope of the Arcadian mountains is less hilly, if we except Cape Rhion; it has only low hills, but considerable valleys along the rivers.

Wherever in Peloponnesus the plough can be applied, the soil rewards the labour; the trees are magnificent, and most of them are fruit trees. The heights are rich in chesnuts and eatable acorns; the olive tree grows admirably in Peloponnesus, and for it the peninsula seems specially created; it is found upon all the lower hills, and extends even high up into the mountains; hence, the cultivation of olives [31]was the principal object of agriculture; the vine was not so much cultivated, though many districts produce good wine. When Peloponnesus was thickly peopled, it did not produce grain sufficient for its inhabitants, whence corn had to be imported from Sicily, and this necessity easily explains the settlements in Sicily and Italy. The Arcadian Alps afford very excellent pasturage, and although the Arcadian shepherd little answers to the ideas which were entertained of him some seventy or eighty years ago, yet the inhabitants, a strong and robust race of men, are still chiefly occupied in sheep breeding. Mutton is still eaten there in great quantity as in the East, while beef is a luxury. Cattle-breeding was also carried on on mount Taygetus, in Laconia, but with this difference, that the shepherds in Arcadia were free men, while those in Laconia were serfs.

The political division of Peloponnesus, or the geography of the population, as might be expected, was different at different periods, from the age of the poetical mythus down to that of the decay of ancient life. If I wanted to confine myself to the intermediate or really classical period, I should render an accurate survey a matter of considerable difficulty, as I should constantly have to refer to earlier and later states of things. I shall therefore notice the different divisions of Peloponnesus from the earliest times, beginning with the mythical geography so far as it is mentioned with any degree of certainty, and then pass on to that of the historical period. We shall accordingly commence with the survey given by Homer in the second book of the Iliad.

The Homeric Catalogue is a very remarkable document: it is a very ancient historical piece of composition, drawn up in the verse most favourable to being remembered, and in which the ancients preserved all their traditions; but it is quite foreign to poetry. Few subjects of the Iliad have engaged the attention of the learned in the same degree as this Catalogue; it was not Strabo alone that took it on every [32]occasion as the text of his book, as we see from his work itself, but a number of other writers had done the same thing before him. But our point of view is different from that which was taken about the time of Ephorus. We see that there was a time when the Catalogue was regarded as a historical document, as a conscientious, careful, and learned account of the state of Greece at the time of the Trojan war. I have no doubt that this opinion was the prevailing one at the time of Ephorus, who was a contemporary of Demosthenes and Philip of Macedonia; that it was regarded in this light at an earlier period, is attested by the statement, that in the time of Solon, the Athenians and Megarians endeavoured to establish their claims to the possession of Salamis by appealing to the Catalogue, a fact which at least proves its early historical authority, even though the story should not be true. But since we have arrived at more unbiassed views about Homer, and no longer bind ourselves to the superstition of his undoubted authenticity—an advantage which, though it may possibly be abused, should never again be abandoned—our point of view in judging of this part of the Homeric poems is likewise changed. We find in this Catalogue several statements which are irreconcilable with each other, which refer to different times, and betray a different origin. Thus we meet, for example, with the Heracleido-Doric colonies in Rhodes and the neighbouring islands of Cos and Syme, while according to our traditions those settlements are of a more recent date than those of the Ionians in those parts, and probably the most recent of all, which even if it were not attested by tradition, would in itself be more credible. Here we have an evident interpolation, introduced in a Doric or Rhodian recension, which itself, however, is comparatively speaking, very ancient. We are naturally tempted to trace the geography laid down in the Catalogue to a definite period: but this is impossible without falling into contradictions; all we can say is, that the author of the Catalogue intended to describe Greece, its inhabitants [33]and towns, as they were before the Doric migration, when the boundaries were indeed very different from what they were during the period subsequent to that migration. But although this intention of the author is manifest, yet it is not accurately carried out, and is opposed to other traditions. Such a contradiction occurs most strikingly in regard to the Ionians. The later country of Achaia on the Corinthian Gulf is said, in our traditions, to have been inhabited by Ionians, until the Achaeans, being expelled by the Heracleids from Argos and Mycenae, went to Aegialos, displaced the Ionians and established themselves in their country; in the Catalogue, on the other hand, we find a tradition which is irreconcilable with this account, the truth of which I must leave undecided.

Peloponnesus, in Homer—the name itself does not occur in his poems—is divided into six parts, as in later times, but in a different manner. The two principal parts are the kingdoms of the Atreids, that of Mycenae and that of Sparta: then follows the country of Diomedes and Sthenelus; the country of the Arcadians, that of the Epeans, and lastly that of the kings of Pylos of the house of the Nelids. The distribution of the countries is as follows:—

1st. The kingdom of Menelaus comprises the whole of Laconia, probably extending very far into Messene; it is possible that some verses of the Catalogue are lost, or that several towns were not mentioned at all.

2. The realm of Agamemnon, besides its capital of Mycenae with its territory, comprises Corinth, Sicyon and the whole of northern Achaia.

3. The dominion of the Persids, Diomedes and Sthenelus, embraces Argos, Tiryns and the Acte, together with Aegina.

4. Arcadia has the same boundaries as afterwards, except that Triphylia does not belong to it.

5. The kingdom of Nestor consists of western Messene, Triphylia, and the south of Elis as far as the Alpheus.

The later province of Argolis thus contained the kingdom of Diomedes and a portion of that of Agamemnon; the kingdom of the Epeans afterwards becomes Elis, but includes a part of the Pylian kingdom.

The historical importance which we can attach to this division is extremely small. We might indulge in speculations about the causes which may have led the author of the Catalogue to make this division, and there is much that might seem to recommend such speculations. It would not be difficult to show that this Catalogue was composed at Sparta and belonged to what is called the Lycurgian recension, because it assigns favourable boundaries to Sparta and unfavourable ones to Argos, but this would certainly be an abuse of historical speculation.

With the Homeric division, we may compare another ante-Doric division of which traces have come down to us;⁠[10] it differs greatly from the Homeric, and in all essential points agrees with that which became established in consequence of the Doric migration. Aegialos, afterwards called Achaia, is described as the country of the Ionians with its twelve towns; the remainder of the empire of Agamemnon and that of Diomedes already form one whole; Triphylia is separated from the Pylian kingdom of the Nelids and added to Arcadia, and the remainder of the kingdom of Nestor is united with that of Menelaus.

In regard to the division of Argolis Proper there are some difficulties. Homer says:—

The ancients are of opinion that Diomedes and Sthenelus ruled at Argos, and that Argos along with Tiryns was their capital. The historical explanations in the Scholiasts and Eustathius are extremely poor; still, however, among what are called the Little Scholia, we find Argos in this line explained to mean Peloponnesus, and this opens quite [35]a different view from that commonly entertained. It is inconceivable that Argos and Mycenae, the two capitals of two kingdoms, should have been only forty-three stadia, scarcely five English miles, distant from each other; and it is an equally unaccountable fact that scarcely anything is mentioned about Argos in the ancient legends. The above verse, therefore, must probably be taken as a general beginning of the description of Peloponnesus, to which is added a special account of the kingdom of Tiryns, as a reference to what afterwards follows:—

which is the designation of Thessaly. Argos, even in the opinion of many ancients, was only the name of a country. I am convinced, therefore, that, in the early times, it was nothing but the name of the country, and that, as the name of the city, it is of later origin. Just as Corinth was in reality newly built by the Dorians, and ought not, therefore, to be mentioned here, so Argos also was founded by Dorian settlers at a time when Mycenae and Tiryns had already fallen from their former eminence. Throughout all mythology, Tiryns alone is the capital of Diomedes and Sthenelus, and Mycenae that of the Atreids; these two cities alone are mentioned, no third ever occurs, and Argos is not spoken of until the Doric migration and conquest. In this manner it is clear that the tragedians, who, however, generally were not learned men, do not deserve the reproach which the Alexandrian grammarians made against them; as, for example, that Sophocles confounded Argos and Mycenae. Mycenae, before the existence of Argos, was a true Argos⁠[11]⁠, the capital of the whole country, though by no means identical with the later Argos.⁠[12] In this manner the outlines of those kingdoms acquire a more suitable shape: the Acte, or the eastern part of Argolis, was distinct from Argos Proper even at that time, just as it was afterwards; [36]the capitals, Tiryns and Mycenae, were still near enough to each other. When, accordingly, the grammarians found such contradictions as in Sophocles, they endeavoured to mediate by means of more recent myths, or even by inventing new ones, and that often in the most singular manner. The whole story, for example, how Diomedes was forced to go to Italy, and how Sthenelus gave up his kingdom, arose only from the circumstance, that in later and seemingly better historical authorities, the statement was found that the capital of Tiryns was united with the kingdom of Agamemnon; and the difficulty of accounting for the manner in which that kingdom had disappeared, was removed by a fiction.

Through the immigration of the Heracleids, Peloponnesus acquired a new form: the countries and their inhabitants became changed; in Arcadia alone the ancient population remained the same; all other parts received either new inhabitants or new rulers. During that period there arose the three great Doric kingdoms of Messene, Sparta, and Argos, and the Aetolian kingdom of Elis; and Aegialea, which had been an Ionian country, became Achaean. This state of things remains the foundation of geography till after the Macedonian period, when it became completely changed; but although the principal divisions remained until that period, yet their boundaries underwent considerable modifications, which will be explained in the account of each particular country. The three Doric kingdoms in particular did not preserve the same boundaries, for Messene perished, and was united with Laconia; Argolis had originally a much greater extent in the south, but afterwards its frontier in that direction was narrowed, while, on the other side, the three or four cities on the Acte, as well as Corinth, Phlius, and Sicyon, also became separated from it. In this manner Argos, the greatest of those three kingdoms, extending from Malea to Sicyon, and containing one-third of all Peloponnesus, was greatly reduced. Afterwards Messene again rose from its ruins, Argos extended [37]its frontier towards Sparta, Arcadia regained what it had lost, though the towns remained separate, and the boundaries of Achaia were again widened, until its name extended over all Peloponnesus.

Argolis, Argos.

Argos, as I said before, was originally the largest of the three Doric states. The fact that Lacedaemon afterwards appears as the first state of Peloponnesus, is only owing to the good fortune and the pride of the Lacedaemonians, and to the circumstance that they retained their royal dynasty, while the others, especially Argos, lost theirs, in consequence of which the unity of their state was broken. But Argos never recognised the pretensions of Sparta, and this struggling against what was an actual fact, did great harm to Argos, and led it to form most hateful alliances against the rest of the Greeks.

In the subsequent dismemberment of the Argive empire, we find the elements of its origin, which, in the two other Doric states, are indeed likewise visible, but produce the opposite effect. In all the three Doric states, the principle of the constitution is that of feudalism, a term which may be offensive to some, because it is not usually applied to the affairs of early Greece. These kingdoms were divided into several principalities, where Dorian chiefs had settled as vassal princes with a colony, or ruled over the ancient Achaean inhabitants; in some instances they were ancient Achaean principalities, whose rulers maintained themselves by submitting to the power of the Dorians. The number of such principalities seems to have been particularly great in Argolis, in consequence of which the country could afterwards be divided into so many separate towns. As such we find the two ancient capitals, Mycenae and Tiryns, [38]Corinth, Sicyon, Troezen, Hermione, and Epidaurus, for even these smaller towns of the Acte had formerly had their own vassal princes, as is attested by the unanimous mythical accounts of their kings, especially in the case of Troezen and Epidaurus. It was essentially the same relation as that between the Lombard kings and their dukes; a parallel to the case of native princes occurs in the fact, that the Frankish kings, at the beginning of the middle ages, sometimes appointed Gauls and Romans as their vassal princes in Italy. The same system occurs in Laconia: the ruling tribe and the chief king settled in one town, but there existed six principalities. These constitutions, however, in their development, took quite opposite directions. In Laconia, as in France, the vassal princes disappear, and all the country becomes united under one government; while in Argos, as in Germany, the union is broken up into small principalities. Corinth, for example, which, before the Doric conquest, cannot be regarded as an independent state, is known to have risen to the rank of a state through the Dorians, and Prumnis, the father of Bacchis,⁠[13] was the first Doric prince there. In like manner we know, from scanty notices of Ephorus, Scymnus, and others, that Doric chiefs were the founders of dynasties at Troezen and Epidaurus: Mycenae and Tiryns alone continued to exist as native Achaean states under the supremacy of the king of Argos. This kingdom of Argos was weaker than, for example, that of the Franks, for the Heracleids were only commanders in war, whose power was by no means unlimited; each tribe had its own king, and accordingly the three Doric tribes had three. It is clear that such a distribution of the country could not remain free from disturbances; hence the power of the kings of Argos could not last long, and a conflict necessarily arose as soon as one of them ventured to step beyond the bounds of his prerogatives. This was done by Pheidon, who ruled first as king, and afterwards as tyrant. He was indeed still ruler of all Argolis, but after him the [39]state broke up into its parts. Several vassal princes then usurped the sovereignty, and for a time there existed in Argolis partly principalities and partly aristocracies. But Argos thereby became so weak as to be unable to defend the western coast of the Argolic gulf as far as Malea against Lacedaemon; Cythera also was lost, and not even the territory of Thyrea could be maintained. At the same time the Spartans extended their dominion farther and farther; the nominal dependence of Corinth and Sicyon had ceased long before, as well as that of the towns in the Acte and of Aegina, which had likewise belonged to Argos. Here we have another evidence showing that the Homeric Catalogue was composed after the Doric period, for it represents Aegina as belonging to the eastern part of Argos; Aegina was naturally foreign to Argos, and became connected with it only as a Doric colony.

The country about Argos is a plain, fully deserving the name πολυδίψιον Ἄργος which it bears in Homer, for in the autumn it usually has no water at all. This is the natural consequence of the physical structure of Peloponnesus. In the interior of Arcadia the waters accumulate, and there are in that part large natural reservoirs, as, for example, the lake of Mantinea, which discharges its waters through passages in the mountains which separate Arcadia from Argolis, into the plain of Argos. These passages, however, are not always open, nay, people in the Morea assert, that the waters find their way through them only once in five years, and then plentifully supply the rivers and springs of Argolis. This alleged regularity is probably fabulous. But on the whole, the territory of Argolis, in its widest extent, as far as the northern slope of the hills, is scantily supplied with water; in the neighbourhood of Sicyon there are some small streams, whence the plain there is rich and fertile. The whole of the central part of Argolis, however, that is, the hills between Mycenae and Tiryns on the one side, and the towns of the Acte on the other, which are traversed by the pass of Tretos, consists [40]of very barren and rocky heights, which admit to some extent of the cultivation of olives only in the lower valleys. Argos, therefore, when confined to Mycenae and Tiryns, was but a weak state, a circumstance which, together with the recollection of its former greatness, placed it, in later times, in a false position.

The city of Argos, as I have already stated, was not founded till after the time of the Doric immigration; but its castle Larissa (Larissa is the Pelasgian name for castle) was older, and was situated on a considerable height; we may even now discern the Cyclopian walls described by Pausanias. The city had a great circumference, and was built around the castle of Larissa, stretching from that hill through a plain, and up another hill. It was not strongly fortified, nor is its natural position of any particular strength. Argos is one of those cities which did not suffer much from the calamities of Greece, if we except the one devastation by the Spartans under Cleomenes before the period of the Persian war. But it decayed, and appears to have suffered particularly during the war of Pyrrhus. Pausanias does not say, whether the Romans, after the destruction of Corinth, visited Argos in the same way, but the verse of Virgil⁠[14] (Eruet ille Argos) leads us to believe that they did. Under the Roman emperors, it sank so low as to be obliged to petition the emperor Julian to exempt it from its contribution to the Isthmian games. In the middle ages, during the tenth and eleventh centuries, Argos was a considerable manufacturing town, and was particularly distinguished for the manufacture of silk. Afterwards it was destroyed by Robert Guiscard, and then a second time by the Turks. Subsequently a colony of Albanese established itself there, and last year (1826) it was completely reduced to ashes.

Mycenae, at a distance of forty-three stadia from Argos, was situated on a hill; at the time when Greece was most flourishing, Mycenae was no more than a name, for after [41]the Persian wars, the town, together with Tiryns was completely destroyed by the Argives. The inhabitants of the two towns had availed themselves of the Persian war for the purpose of gaining their independence, by sending a small band to assist the Greeks at Plataeae. The Argives, who took no part in the Persian war, afterwards punished them for it, while the other Greeks, contrary to their promise, did nothing to prevent it; and the two places became the victims of an inconsiderate act. The ruins of Mycenae and Tiryns, which still exist, are about the same as those seen by Pausanias: they are the grandest Cyclopian structures in southern Europe. The lion-gate of Mycenae, constructed of huge blocks of stone, with its pointed arch and the two rudely carved lions above it, may still be seen. These remains, as well as those of Orchomenos are striking proofs, that the greatness of the ante-Doric period, which is immortalised in the works of the poets, is not a mere dream. The circumference of the walls of Mycenae is still considerable, and the city was well suited to be the residence of the king of kings.

Tiryns, in the earliest times the rival of Mycenae, as is frequently intimated in the mythical stories, has likewise left traces of extensive walls, justifying the epithet τειχιόεσσα, which it bears in the Iliad. It was situated on the eminence above Nauplia, which, no doubt, was once the port of Tiryns.

Within the territory of Argolis, there were two small states, which as late as the Persian war enjoyed a kind of political existence, but stood in the same relation to Argos, Mycenae, and Tiryns, as Winterthur does to Zurich, or the towns of Aargau to Berne. They were, in a certain sense, republics; but could enter into no negotiations with foreign powers without the sanction of Argos. I allude to Cleonae, an Argive state, and Orneae, which Herodotus calls a Cynurian state. The Cynurians, whom we also meet with in Thyrea and in the Dryopian territory, are a real mystery. It is said that they were Dryopians, perhaps [42]a non-Dorian people, but accompanying the Dorians in their migrations; we may perhaps compare them with certain bands of Saxons, who accompanied the Lombards to Italy and settled in Parma and Modena. In like manner, we find Bulgarians in the principality of Beneventum; and there are distinct traditions, that Aetolians accompanied the Dorians.

The whole peninsula to the east of the Argolic gulf was, in the best age of Greece, commonly called Acte, which must be borne in mind, especially by the readers of Thucydides; the earlier commentators have often misunderstood this name. We have no term exactly corresponding to the Greek Acte; it is more than peninsula, which is a very indefinite term, nor is it the same as chersonesus. The Greeks would not call Italy or Spain a chersonesus, but they would apply to them the term of Acte. A chersonesus is a peninsula, connected with the main land by a very narrow isthmus, whereas Acte is a country, the greater part of which is coast-land. Such was the case with Attica; which was originally called Acte, a name which is often used as a proper name, especially by Latin poets, who even formed from it an adjective, as Actaea tellus, which is unknown to the Greeks.

This Acte contained two, or we may even say three, considerable Doric cities, and one whose origin is unknown. The two most ancient places are Epidaurus and Troezen; Hermione arose somewhat later; and at a still later period, though we do not know when, was built the town of Haliae, which is not marked in our maps, not even in that of D’Anville. Troezen and Epidaurus appear, in the Greek traditions, among the most ancient places; we find them mentioned along with Eïonae⁠[15]⁠, and they are certainly more ancient than the Doric migration. In Scymnus⁠[16]⁠, indeed, [43]the Doric chiefs appear as founders, though the traditions of Troezen went back to Pelops; but this only alludes to the fact, that a new order of things began at the time of the Dorian conquest. All those towns, in developing their constitutions, passed through the same process as Rome and other cities: they begin with an aristocracy of conquerors, under whom the original inhabitants occupy the position of clients, or penestae; but afterwards the latter become free, the conquered rise to the rank of a demos, the ancient aristocracy gradually dies away, and the subject country people gain the ascendancy. In the case of Epidaurus, we have the proof in the tradition about the Artyni and Conipodes, the former of whom were Dorians, and the latter the Achaean country people. All these places of the Acte were maritime towns; whereas Argos never had any navy and was quite a stranger to the sea. The Greeks are almost everywhere born sailors, even in their Italian colonies; and so it has ever been down to the present day. The Italian, on the other hand, is born for agriculture; no real Italian is a navigator, for Venice is inhabited by Slavonians, and Genoa by Ligurians who do not belong to the race of true Italians; the Greek colonists in Italy, as at Naples, are fishermen, and often carry their fish to Rome from a distance of several hundred miles. Those places of the Acte, if we bear in mind the small extent of their dominion, had a considerable number of galleys; at Salamis their number, which was not small, does great honour to the patriotism of the people, and we can easily see that their power was not insignificant.

Hermione is also called Hermion, and we cannot say which of the two names is the older one; in Thucydides we only find the ethnic name of the people when they come forward with others; for in the place itself no occurrence is mentioned.

Haliae, situated between Hermion and Nauplia, arose from a settlement of fishermen, whence the ethnic name [44]Ἁλιῆς or Ἁλιεῖς in Thucydides and Scylax. The place has been overlooked, because most geographers were but indifferent Greek scholars, and because the Latin translation of Thucydides renders Ἁλιῆς by piscatores.

These four towns still existed in the time of Philip of Macedonia, and were well disposed towards Athens, exerting themselves on its behalf, according to their feeble powers, in the Lamian war. Haliae is afterwards no longer mentioned, and the others became members of the Achaean confederacy. The temple of Asclepios, about four miles from the town of Epidaurus, was celebrated as a place to which pilgrimages were undertaken; and in times of distress, this circumstance furnished to the impoverished Epidaurians the means of living.

Opposite to Troezen is the island of Calauria, where Demosthenes died a free man in the temple of Poseidon, an asylum for all Greece, but which was not respected by the Macedonians.

Not far from the coast of the Acte are the islands of Tiparenos and Hydrea (Speizza and Hydra), which in antiquity were quite insignificant, but have become important in our own age. The latter of them has preserved its name. Hydrea does not even appear to have had a town, but its harbour was used in antiquity.⁠[17]⁠

Corinth is, under this name, not an ancient place; its original name was Ephyra, and the greatness of Corinth belongs to the later or historical period. There is not a single important tradition of the early times that refers to Corinth, and it is quite manifest that only in later times legends were transferred to Corinth. The situation of Acrocorinthus is such, that from the remotest period the inhabitants of the country must have used it as a stronghold, as the Isthmus itself is a strong natural fortification [45]for the defence of Peloponnesus, and was afterwards the boundary between the Ionians and the peninsula. According to tradition, Acrocorinthus was in the possession of the Achaeans, and was taken by the Dorians only after a protracted blockade.

Corinth is perhaps the first of all Greek towns that became great and wealthy through commerce. There are only two places which in the earliest times deserve to be noticed as commercial towns, namely, Corinth and Crissa; after the destruction of Crissa, Aegina, though more as a country of sailors, stepped into its place. These last two towns carried on commerce chiefly by sea, while Corinth gave itself up more to traffic by land. Its situation was most favourable for commerce, being distant, on the one hand, twelve stadia from Lechaeon and the Corinthian Gulf, and, on the other, forty stadia⁠[18] from Cenchreae and the [46]Saronic Gulf. The place for the Isthmian games was in the neighbourhood of Corinth, on the Isthmus, which is there forty stadia in breadth. But the most important point at Corinth was Acrocorinthus, a rock which according to Strabo, rose perpendicularly to the height of three and a-half stadia, or 2,100 feet: this statement seems to be based upon actual measurement; at present it is impossible to measure it on account of the jealousy of the Turks. The [47]rock is inaccessible on the side of the country, and below it was situated the city of Corinth, in the form of a trapezium; the town was about five miles in circumference, and one of the largest cities of Greece: Athens was not larger. It was built on hills and in the intervening valleys, and surrounded by a strong wall. Towards the city Acrocorinthus was open, but there was only one gate communicating with it. On the top of it a wall ran round its precipitous sides; and the remains of these walls have even in our days been seen from a distance. It was altogether impregnable, at least in the ancient mode of warfare; it was taken once by famine, and twice by surprise. At present it is no longer so strong, and on one side it can be reached by guns from a neighbouring hill.

In the Homeric Catalogue, Corinth is called ἀφνειός; it was wealthy even under the Bacchiads, and under Cypselus and his son; its commerce, however, was at different times disturbed by the navy of Athens, and this is one of the earliest examples of commercial jealousy. Corinth was greater by its land commerce than as a maritime power; but still it had a navy, and founded numerous and splendid colonies, as Syracuse, Corcyra, Ambracia, Leucas, and a number of towns on the western coast of Greece, partly with, and partly without the co-operation of Corcyra. But the planting of these colonies belongs to the period of the Corinthian aristocracy and tyrannis; during its democratic government, the city lost its bold spirit of enterprise and its warlike character, just as was the case at Florence. From the amount of contingents furnished by Corinth in times of war, it is clear that it was populous, though not in proportion to its extent. But the Corinthians never shewed themselves noble; as early as the Persian wars they displayed malice and envy towards Athens; and Plutarch is unjust in blaming Herodotus for speaking against Corinth. The Corinthians were the chief instigators of the undertakings against Athens, which afterwards they had reason to repent, when Sparta exercised her power with an utter [48]disregard of every one else; the Corinthians then brought about a reaction to ruin Sparta, which, by the wretched manner in which she had used her supremacy, brought upon herself a heavy responsibility with her contemporaries no less than with posterity. During the Macedonian period Corinth is mentioned only as a wealthy commercial city; in the troublous times, when the Greeks were involved in maritime wars, when Illyrians and Etruscans rendered the sea about Malea and Taenarus (which were inhabited by the ancestors of the Mainots) unsafe, and when the Cretans also carried on piracy, people preferred going to Corinth, instead of sailing round Peloponnesus; the continuity of the voyage was sacrificed, and the merchandise was conveyed to Lechaeon, and thence to Corfu and Illyricum.⁠[19] Corinth thus became a principal staple of commerce. The different phases of the commerce of the Corinthians may be traced a priori from its historical relations. Corinth rose and sank; the time of its highest prosperity was that in which Athens, like modern Venice, was in a state of utter decay, about Olymp. 180, in the reign of Antigonus Gonatas. All commerce then became concentrated at Corinth, just as the whole commerce of the Adriatic has in modern times become concentrated at Trieste. Though it was under the supremacy of Macedonia, the city became very wealthy, and was in comfortable circumstances. A Macedonian garrison was quartered in Acrocorinthus. Corinth, however, was not only a commercial place, but also had manufactures, which had been transferred thither from Athens, on account of its more favourable situation. The χαλκὸς Κορινθιακὸς is neither more nor less than works in bronze, which were made there with particular elegance; its alleged origin at the burning of the city is a silly story, as has long been universally acknowledged.

After the Peloponnesian war, the Corinthians were opposed to Sparta for wishing to introduce an oligarchical form of government among them. This attempt of Sparta to make Corinth aristocratic was foolish, and could not but fail, for the city was essentially democratic, and not the soil in which an aristocracy could succeed. During the reign of Philip of Macedonia, Corinth was one of those ill-disposed places which attacked the Athenians in every possible way for the purpose of increasing its own commerce by their ruin; but afterwards, during the Lamian war, it appears vacillating, and receives a Macedonian garrison. It is surprising to find that subsequently Corinth became a separate Macedonian principality under Craterus, the step-brother of Antigonus Gonatas, and his son Alexander.⁠[20] Afterwards, Aratus, who took Acrocorinthus by surprise, drew the city into the Achaean confederacy; and twenty years later he delivered it up to the Macedonians as the price for the assistance furnished him by Antigonus Doson against Cleomenes. It now remained for twenty-four years in the hands of the Macedonians, until it was evacuated according to the terms of the peace between Philip and the Romans. For fifty years it was then at the head of the Achaean league, and this was the period of its greatest wealth, for Athens was decayed, Aegina annihilated, and all relations were changed. The life in Greece at that time was quite different from what it had been in the age of Thucydides: it was extremely prosaic, and every one was bent upon becoming rich by commerce, and upon enjoying the good things of this life. Throughout its existence Corinth had been distinguished for its manufactures, industry, wealth, splendid buildings, and everything that riches can afford; and its manufactures were no less celebrated than the English are at the present day. But during the whole period that it was in the enjoyment of republican institutions, that is, ever since the reign of Periander, Corinth never produced a single man of genius, either as an author or as an orator. Timoleon [50]is, perhaps, the only eminent statesman that was born at Corinth. We may observe, in general, that very few places have a share in the literary glory of Greece. The arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture flourished at Corinth, and treasures of art were accumulated there in great numbers, which shows that these arts may flourish, even where that is wanting which is the highest in man. A beautiful dirge on Corinth by Antipater is contained in the Greek Anthology.⁠[21]⁠

The destruction of Corinth is a painful event, and excites our horror, although the Corinthians have no claim upon our affection: the barbarity of Mummius was far worse than that of Alaric, its second destroyer. For a period of one hundred years the city lay in ruins, until it was restored by Julius Caesar; but the colony was one of freedmen, and for centuries afterwards it remained a Latin town, of which many coins with Roman names, and the inscription Colonia Laus Iuli Corinthus, have come down to us. Pausanias says, that, although it was the centre of Greece, it was yet a foreign city with a foreign population. It was, comparatively speaking, a small place without any important buildings;⁠[22] but, like all Italian towns, it had a forum, and the temples all around the place, which had been destroyed by the savage Mummius, lay in ruins. In the middle ages, at the time of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Corinth was of some importance as a manufacturing town; it was taken by Robert Guiscard under the last despots of Peloponnesus. When in 1204 the peninsula came into the hands of the Franks, it had sunk very low, and was sinking still more during the repeated wars, ever since 1460, down to its conquest by the Turks under Amurath II., until at length, ten years ago (1817), even the village of Corinth (called Cordos by the Turks) was completely reduced to ashes. Its two [51]harbours are entirely filled up with sand, and unfit for large vessels, so that the sources of the prosperity of Corinth seem to be dried up for ever. At present, when ships sail to Europe, they steer round Peloponnesus, and no one can think of Corinth as an intermediate staple of commerce.

Julius Caesar, properly speaking, had restored Corinth only to gratify his own feelings, but he ought to have peopled it with Greeks; it would, however, have been impossible to make it a great city. Delos had taken its place in commerce, the sea had become unsafe in parts, Greece was desolate and deserted, commerce had altogether taken a different route, the great commercial roads had taken other directions, and the chief places were in Egypt, Syria, and on the Euxine; Alexandria and Italy were now the central points; and it was impossible for Corinth to rise again. Its whole prosperity now depended upon the productiveness of its olive plantations, and even very recently a person might walk for hours among olive trees, which grow there wild; but few parts of its territory are fit for agriculture.

A misunderstanding may easily arise in regard to the well Pirene: it is not situated below the rock, but on the acropolis, though not on the summit of it. At the foot of the rock there is another spring, which was believed to be connected with Pirene by subterraneous passages.

Several small places in the territory of Corinth do not deserve the name of towns. Tenea was a hamlet which enjoyed the favour of the Romans and was not destroyed, but even obtained a portion of the Corinthian territory. Lechaeon was connected with Corinth by means of two long walls (σκέλη), but not so Cenchreae.

The fabulous tradition about Sicyon, which by a strange accident has been made a part of Greek history, ascribes to the kings of that city a greater age than to those of any other people. This tradition became incorporated with the tables of Africanus, from which it was taken by Eusebius and Hieronymus, and has thus passed into modern works. [52]These alleged ages deserve absolutely no consideration; the very name of Sicyon is of recent origin, and its ancient name Mecone occurs in Hesiod’s Theogony: in the Homeric Catalogue it is already called Sicyon.

Even at an early period, Sicyon was a great and considerable town, and furnished important contingents to the common expeditions, e.g., to Plataeae. Its territory is one of the most fertile districts in the north of Peloponnesus; it consists of low, pleasant hills which descend down to the sea; it has neither plains nor rough mountains. It is particularly distinguished for its olives, which were very highly valued by the ancients; even now they are thought much of, though they have lost much of their former excellence, for olive trees degenerate very easily, and from this we see how even trees may change in a general catastrophe. The acropolis of Sicyon was situated on a comparatively high hill; while the city lay at a considerable distance from it in a plain towards the sea, whence its situation was not naturally strong, but its walls and fortifications protected it; hence its conquest by Demetrius Poliorcetes after a long siege gained for him great honours. This conquest is spoken of in Plautus’ “Miles Gloriosus,” which circumstance enables us to fix the age of the Greek original, which must have been composed after Olymp. 122. After the conquest, Demetrius induced the inhabitants, who were obliged to receive a Macedonian garrison, to settle on the top of the hill.

Sicyon was celebrated for its school of painting. If we may form a judgment of this school from the time at which it arose—for a trustworthy history of the progress of art does not exist—it belongs to that period when the skill and talent of individuals created a new era in art, but when real art had already lost its free development; it was a learned school, perhaps resembling that of Bologna in the time of the Caracci, and flourished during the Macedonian period until the commencement of the reign of [53]Antigonus Gonatas; afterwards, in the time of Aratus, it was already extinct, and we hear only of paintings of deceased masters.

Sicyon is also remarkable as a place which was at an early time, and for a long period, governed by tyrants. Its first tyrants were Orthagoras and his family; for when the ancient aristocracy fell in its struggles with the democracy, the leaders of the democrats usurped the tyrannis. In the time of Philip and Alexander, it likewise had several tyrants, whose rule you may regard as an interlude, if you like. But it had also military tyrants, as in the time of Demetrius Poliorcetes, when one family established itself as such, until Aratus delivered the city. Aratus himself is considered by Strabo in the light of a tyrant; but this is unfair, if we consider the mild manner in which he managed affairs, and the odium which attaches to the name, though it is not altogether incorrect in as much as Aratus personally was actually more powerful than the magistrates and the laws. At the time when the Achaean league was broken up by the Romans, Sicyon too suffered very much; in the days of Pausanias, however much he may try to conceal it, Sicyon was only a village, though it still possessed some great buildings, but others lay in ruins or had crumbled away. Afterwards, so far as I know, it is no longer mentioned in history. At present the site of ancient Sicyon is occupied by the village of Wasiliki.

Phlius, situated between Sicyon and Argos⁠[23]⁠, had, like Sicyon, arisen out of the Argive kingdom. In the Homeric Catalogue it does not bear this name, but is called Ἀραιθυρέη. The town was situated in a beautiful valley between the ranges of hills which stretch from the north of Arcadia to the Isthmus and the Onean and Geranian mountains, but are here considerably extended. Phlius has no great reputation in the history of Greece; it was less important than Sicyon, though it was an independent place as early as the Persian wars. From Xenophon’s Hellenica, it is evident that in his time Phlius was very populous, if we [54]may judge from the number of hoplites and of the emigrants during the disturbances. But afterwards it sank and shared the general fate of Greece, so that perhaps the great population in the time of Xenophon may have been accidental, owing to the distracted state of Argos. The ethnic name is Phliasius, for which Cicero in one of his letters writes Phliuntius; but when reminded of the error by his friend, he apologises, by saying that he had allowed himself to be misled by a false analogy.⁠[24]⁠

Aegina, though not in Peloponnesus, belongs to it more than to any other country out of Peloponnesus. According to the statement which makes its circumference largest, it amounted only to 180 stadia, or about twenty-two English miles; it is therefore probably much smaller than it is generally drawn in our maps, and its importance is to us a real mystery, seeing that as a maritime power it was not only equal but superior to Athens. Yet the mystery may perhaps be solved. Hydra and Spezzia are barren rocks, which Aegina is not; they are also smaller than Aegina, and yet their maritime pursuits procured them a population of several thousands; the soil of the small state of Ragusa is rocky, and produces no more corn than is required for a few months, and yet Ragusa as a republic kept many hundred ships, and even during the present revolution it has had many ships, some of which were well armed. When, however, we read of an Aeginetan fleet of from seventy to eighty galleys, each of which required about 200 marines, we cannot suppress our astonishment. Still more surprising is the statement of Athenaeus, that the island once had 470,000 slaves, for which he refers to no less an authority than Aristotle. There must be some error here, or else Athenaeus had misunderstood Aristotle, for the statement is absolutely impossible. The highest prosperity of Aegina belongs to a period when slavery did [55]not yet prevail very much in Greece; and at other times, as I shall show presently, Aegina was by no means populous. We may indeed well understand that the island, which at an early period had a democratic form of government, may have had a navy more powerful than that of Athens before the time of Themistocles, as Athens had so long been governed by its great aristocratic landowners. During the period between the Pisistratids and the Persian wars, the struggle for the supremacy was carried on between Athens and Aegina with great exasperation and varying success, until Themistocles decided it by inducing Athens to apply all her energy to her navy, to make Phaleros a good harbour, and to build an imposing fleet. During the period between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, the Athenians had the upper hand and subdued the Aeginetans; at the commencement of the Peloponnesian war, the Athenians expelled the inhabitants of Aegina from their island, because they did not trust them, and the Lacedaemonians gave up Cythera (Cerigo) to them.⁠[25] The fact that they maintained and supported themselves there is a proof that their number was very small. After the Peloponnesian war they were led back, but although Athens was so much reduced, Aegina never recovered its former importance. During the first war between Philip and the Romans, P. Sulpicius took Aegina, and reduced the whole population to slavery, from which they were afterwards ransomed by the kindness of their friends on the mainland.⁠[26] Afterwards it fell into the hands of the kings of Pergamus; but we do not know whether it remained under their dominion until the overthrow of the Achaean confederacy. Aegina is one of those places whose destruction Serv. Sulpicius laments in his consolatory letter to Cicero. It seems to have been during such a devastation that the temple of Zeus Hellenios perished, among the ruins of which were found the celebrated Aegina marbles, which are at present in the museum of Munich.

Laconia.

Laconia was of different extent at different times. Laconia, in the reign of Aristodemus and his sons, or the country such as it was originally at the time of the Heracleid conquest, was very far from being as large as the land afterwards bearing the same name; it was not even as large as the Laconia in Strabo or Pausanias, but perhaps similar to what it was during the Macedonian period, especially after the death of Nabis, when the fate of Lacedaemon had been determined by the Achaeans. The Heracleid Laconia, therefore, at the first distribution of the peninsula, could hardly be compared with the Heracleid Argos.

As regards the origin of the kingdom of Sparta, the tradition that Eurysthenes and Procles were twin-sons of Aristodemus, is altogether mythical.⁠[27] Any one familiar with the spirit of ancient legendary history, can clearly see the process through which the narrative has passed. Both Herodotus and a fragment of Alcaeus have preserved the statement, that, according to the common tradition, Aristodemus himself reigned at Sparta and died there. But later writers represent him as having died before he arrived with the Heracleids in Peloponnesus, being killed by Apollo at Pytho. The fact is, that as his name was not found among those of the Doric chiefs, tradition made him the father of the two kings, for as Argos had three, so Sparta had two kings corresponding with the two highest among the phylae; and the two Spartan kings are nothing but the heads of the two γένη of the Eurypontids and Agiads, belonging to two different phylae; one of them is designated as the οἰκίη ὑποδεεστέρη, because it belonged to the less noble phyle; whence we cannot be surprised at their not being called Eurysthenids and Proclids. Aristodemus is merely a mythical name, signifying that his descendants [57]are the noblest among their people. The conquerors of Sparta, on their arrival, are said to have found Tisamenus, the son of Orestes. Those who looked upon this tradition as a piece of genuine history, felt that it was difficult to see, how the son of Orestes had come from Mycenae to Sparta; and the ancients extricated themselves by the story, that Orestes, succeeded to the throne of Menelaus by marrying Hermione—a story which is unknown to the author of the first part of the Odyssey, for he speaks of Megapenthes, a son of Menelaus, which again is only an expression of the general idea, that the house of Menelaus ended in sorrow. There can be no doubt that the most ancient form of the tradition is this, that Temenus, the Doric king of Argos, possessed the same supremacy over the sons of Aristodemus at Sparta, and over Cresphontes in Messene, as had in former times been exercised by the king of Mycenae over the whole of Achaean Peloponnesus. But Spartan pride, at an early time, endeavoured to cast this humiliating tradition into the shade. Hence also the statement that Cresphontes drew lots, as to whether he should obtain Laconia or Messene, Argos being altogether out of the question.

It is only from a fragment of Ephorus in Strabo, that we know anything about the feudal principalities of the Dorians in Laconia. This piece of information once hung upon a thread, and was nearly destroyed by a mutilation of the passage in the manuscript from which all the others are derived; if the book were lost, or but a little more mutilated, we should know absolutely nothing about this feudal system—so much our knowledge of the most important circumstances often depends upon a mere accident. Hence it is quite legitimate, in case of such information being wanting, to supply the deficiency with rational boldness, in accordance with the general principles of historical development. Now, according to Ephorus, the Dorian kings divided Laconia into six principalities. The first was Sparta, where they themselves exercised the supremacy over the other principalities, just as the Capetingian kings of Paris and [58]Orleans, who ruled over the country as far as Orleans (Isle de France) as a distinct principality, and were recognised as kings in the rest of France, but in such a manner that their vassals again, within their own territories, were true princes or kings. In regard to the other principalities, Strabo (p. 424, D)⁠[28] says, that Amyclae, at a distance of about five miles from Sparta, was given to the Achaean who, by his faithless counsel, had induced the Achaean king of the time to capitulate and quit his country; he is elsewhere called Philonomus.⁠[29] The text of Strabo is here much mutilated; there is one line of which the greater part is legible, and of the next only a few words. I am convinced, however, that I have discovered the meaning, namely, that the remaining four kingdoms were Las, Helos, Aepys, and Pherae, the two last of which subsequently belonged to Messene.⁠[30] These five states then stood to Sparta in the relation of isopolity, and their citizens might exercise the Spartan franchise; but the sovereignty in all foreign relations belonged to Sparta, so that the Spartan conquest at that time imposed no heavy yoke upon the feudal principalities. This relation was altered by Agis I.⁠[31] The Spartan [59]Dorians broke through the relation of these isopolite states in such a manner as boldly to deprive them of their rights, to depose the kings, and reduce the inhabitants to the condition of περίοικοι, in which they remained indeed free, but became dependent and lost the right of exercising the Spartan franchise. The people of Helos refused to submit to these terms, in consequence of which their town was destroyed by the Spartans.⁠[32] The Homeric Catalogue mentions some other places in Laconia, as Bryseae and Messe, of which afterwards not a trace occurs, and which may have been destroyed at that time. Many towns probably perished before the Spartans were masters of one-fourth of the whole country.

The geographical relations of Laconia are likewise extremely obscure; but I have very little doubt that if a person were without bias and carefully to distinguish the different periods, he might arrive at more satisfactory results than have as yet been gained.

The name Lacedaemon was, in antiquity, not applied to the city but to the country, especially the valley of the Eurotas. In the Catalogue, it is clearly distinguished from Sparta.

The Alexandrian grammarians rightly say that the κοίλη Λακεδαίμων refers to the valley of Lacedaemon, just like κοίλη Ἦλις. Sparta, on the other hand, always remained the proper name of the city, and it is only in [60]later writers, such as Polybius, that Lacedaemon is used as the name of the city; wherever it occurs in this sense in earlier authors, it must be regarded as an exception to the rule.

The middle of the south of Peloponnesus, from Arcadia downwards, is formed by Mount Taygetus (now Pentedactylon), which ends in Cape Taenarus. This mountain, as I have already observed, is the seat of frequent volcanic commotions. Porphyry, the stone of which it consists, is found most commonly in volcanic mountains; the green serpentine, likewise peculiar to Taygetus, is found there in great masses, whence we meet in Roman poets with the expressions, metalla Taygeti, metalla Laconica, virides lapides Taygeti; Taygeti virent metalla. Mount Taygetus is full of caverns; the most important are those near Taenarus (now Cape Matapan), whence the legend that the entrance to the lower world was there. Just as this mountain runs between the rivers Pamisus and Eurotas, so another runs between the Eurotas and the Argolic Gulf; the latter is of no less importance, though lower than Taygetus, and terminates in Cape Malea. Taygetus is wild, and large tracts on its top are incapable of cultivation; but in its lower parts it has fertile valleys. The valley of the Eurotas (now Vasilipotamos), is broad and beautiful, and the river itself, both in length and depth, is the most important in all Peloponnesus.

Sparta, situated on the Eurotas, was a royal city from the earliest times; according to tradition, it was the residence of Menelaus, and afterwards of the Heracleid kings. From its beginning down to the Macedonian period, it remained an open place; but, like all other Greek cities, it had an acropolis, whence the expression which is applied to Sparta as well as to other places, that it was inhabited κωμηδόν, does not exclude the existence of an ἀκρόπολις. On the heights of Epirus, too, traces of Cyclopian walls and earthen ramparts have been discovered, although it was inhabited κωμηδόν, which shows that towns thus described were [61]not surrounded by walls, but built round a fortified central point. In this condition Sparta remained until the Macedonian period. For a long time the Spartans, no doubt, lived in their open city, as it were unconsciously, but afterwards the feeling of their own greatness and security told them that it was not worth while to build walls. When however they were visited by the Macedonians, Sparta was surrounded with walls which remained until the city was united with the Achaean confederacy, when they had to be pulled down again.

The houses at Sparta were built in an irregular and poor manner, almost all being made of clay; such was indeed the case in other Greek towns also, but at Sparta it was pre-eminently so, and the city appears to have had no regular streets at all. There were, however, a few notable buildings, though they cannot exactly be called magnificent. Under the dominion of the Romans, Sparta was the most important city in Peloponnesus, for during the Achaean war it had joined the Romans, and had thereby afforded them a welcome pretext for destroying Achaia. Ancient Sparta seems to have perished at an early part of the middle ages, when the unfortunate Peloponnesus was ravaged by the Slavonians. The building of the town of Misitra is ascribed to a prince of the family of the Palaeologi, but the probable fact is that he only restored it. There are few places of which so scanty ruins are discoverable as of Sparta. Limnae was a suburb of Sparta.

About five miles from it was situated Amyclae, which was older than the Doric conquest, and was respected by the Spartans.

Little can be said about the other places in Laconia. Gytheion was the ἐπίνειον of Sparta even during the maritime supremacy of Athens, and remained what it then was as long as Sparta occurs in ancient history; but it is not by any means a particularly good harbour.

It is not worth while to enumerate the places along the coast, for we can say nothing about them, absolutely nothing [62]being known except their sites. The most important among them is Epidaurus, surnamed Limera (now Monembasia or Napoli di Malvasia), to distinguish it from other towns of the same name, with a very beautiful and safe harbour, which was especially protected by a rock within it; on it was built the citadel, which from its natural position was extremely strong. But Epidaurus was too far from Sparta, and too much separated from it by mountains ever to become its port town.

Sellasia, in the interior of the country, situated between Tegea and Sparta, in a pass where mount Taygetus and the other range of mountains come close together, was a place of great historical reputation. It was important as a military post, for it was occupied by Cleomenes in the war against the Macedonians and Achaeans, and he there suffered his unfortunate defeat. It seems at all times to have belonged to Lacedaemon. But the case of Pellana, Belemina, and other places between Megalopolis and Sparta was different; they originally belonged to Arcadia, just as Epidaurus Limera, Prasiae and others belonged to Argos, to which in the end they were restored. Such change in the boundaries of Laconia took place in the time of Philip of Macedonia, in consequence of a decision which he made at Corinth after the battle of Chaeronea. Such at least must be our inference, for we afterwards find the Achaeans and Argives, without any war, in the possession of those parts, so that the Spartans must either have ceded them of their own accord, or the Achaeans and Argives were put in possession of them by force. However much, therefore, the Spartans may boast of never having stooped under the power of Macedonia, it is nothing but one of the many untruths they have uttered.

The district about Taenarus and the coast-country from the borders of Messenia to Malea, afterwards bore the name of Eleutherolacones. This tract of country is mentioned by Strabo and Pausanias with praise, and it is said to have contained eighteen towns, the inhabitants of which were [63]designated by that name, because they had made themselves independent of the supremacy of Sparta. Strabo refers the origin of this emancipation to Augustus, but it probably arose from other circumstances. When T. Quinctius Flamininus entered Laconia, and Nabis indulged in several acts of insolence, the Romans, believing it dangerous to wage war against him, connived at it; meantime he committed all possible cruelties against the unfortunate Peloponnesians, and insulted the Romans into the bargain: in short, he carried matters so far, that Flamininus, contrary to his own inclinations, was forced to punish him; and although Flamininus was unwilling, utterly to annihilate him, yet Nabis was afterwards unable to recover himself. The consuls then proceeded to the towns on the coast (the modern Maina, as far as Malea, now St. Angelo), which renounced Nabis, and were constituted by the Romans as free and independent towns. If afterwards, when the Achaean confederacy was broken up, they were restored to Sparta, and remained subject to it until the time of Augustus, the Romans must have given them up at that time; and Strabo’s expression can refer only to a second constitution. But on the whole, those towns were insignificant.

The island of Cythera (Cerigo) is separated from Laconia by a channel of the sea; in antiquity it was the same as it is now, a rugged, volcanic island, presenting a dismal aspect on account of its dark, burned rocks. Aesthetic historians, anxious to have a more beautiful place for the temple of Cytherea, have described the island as a paradise, and supposed that a devastating change had taken place at a later period. But not a trace of this is found among the ancients. The island was thinly peopled. When the Athenians had expelled the Aeginetans from the island, the Spartans gave up Cythera to them, and from this, as I have already observed, we may infer that, as the island contained but little fertile land, the number of Aeginetans must have been small. If, therefore, Aegina once actually [64]had an enormous population, it can have been owing only to some accidental circumstance, as was the case with Pisa at the time of the conquest of Sardinia.⁠[33]⁠

The real central point of the volcanic mountain-range of Peloponnesus and of the Archipelago, is the island of Thera; one branch of the volcanic range proceeds from Thera northward in the direction of Lemnos; another turns to the East towards Rhodes and the coast of Ionia, whence the frequent earthquakes in those parts. The whole district from Delos to Lemnos, thence to the Asiatic coast, and thence again to Thera, forms as it were a circle.

The ancients imagined that Laconia once contained within its boundaries 39,000 farms; but this statement is not well authenticated. The greater part of the country as far as the sea was agricultural land in the possession of the Spartans, and cultivated by their serfs or helots.

Messene, Messenia, Messeniaca.

The third of the Dorian kingdoms is Messene, Messenia, or Messeniaca, for all these three names are applied to the kingdom of Cresphontes. The boundaries in the mythical age cannot be accurately defined, but so far as we can see, they were about the same as in the Macedonian period; it perhaps extended to the very top of Taygetus and the sources of the Pamisus. Although it was likewise a mountainous country, yet owing to the splendid valley of the [65]Pamisus (valley of Calamata), which is one of the richest in the world, and to other fertile coast-districts, it enjoyed the reputation of being a particularly wealthy country, whence, according to tradition, it was so much the object of the cupidity of Cresphontes, when lots were drawn for Lacedaemon and Messene, that he used a false lot. At present the country is in an unspeakably miserable condition. The name Messene is said originally to have belonged to the country only, and not to a city.

Messene, too, originally consisted of one sovereign principality and several dependent ones, the Achaean princes being in a relation of dependence on the Dorian kings. But while at Sparta the ancient inhabitants were deprived of the actual exercise of their rights, they rose in Messene to a condition of equality with their Dorian conquerors, and the latter became amalgamated with the ancient inhabitants into one compact nation. The two states also differed in other respects: Sparta was ruled by two kings, while in Messene a Heracleid monarchy was established. The early history of Messene is as uncertain as that of the Roman kings; the traditions about the destruction of the kingdom are anything but authentic, and we cannot fix the time of that event within a hundred years. This observation is too important not to be repeated in this place. The colony of Messenians which is said to have been established at Zancle, is probably nothing but an inference from the subsequent name of that place; for the foundation of that colony, if we assign it to the time in which alone it can be conceived to have been established, would be separated by more than a century from the events in Messene, to which it is said to owe its origin. The only historical fact is, that the last Messenian war belongs to the period about Olymp. 80; some towns were then reduced to the condition of perioeci, but the great body of the country people became helots, and the land was divided among the Spartans. The war ended with the capitulation of the helots, who had withdrawn to the citadel of Ithome, whence the besieged obtained a free [66]departure to Naupactus; in this latter place they afterwards lived under the protection of Athens. The chronology of the early history of Greece is so uncertain, that, although we are here speaking of the period subsequent to the Persian wars, the exact year in which the last Messenian war was brought to a close cannot be determined; its outbreak is known to belong to about Olymp. 80, as at that time Taygetus was shaken by a violent earthquake. The war lasted at least ten years. From that time till about the battle of Leuctra, a period of about eighty years, Messene remained for the most part a wilderness, as the Morea was under the dominion of the Turks, even during the time that it had already somewhat recovered (1670-1680). In this condition, the country was found by the Athenian fleet which, during the Peloponnesian war, appeared before Sphacteria; the ancient towns lay in ruins. It was a well-deserved punishment for Sparta’s tyranny and cruelty, that this was the very point at which the Athenians entered the Spartan dominion and established themselves about Pylos.

After the battle of Leuctra, Epaminondas collected all those who gave themselves out to be descendants of the ancient Messenians; and they were joined by numbers of Arcadians, Boeotians, perioeci of Sparta, and helots who had shaken off the Spartan yoke, and he led them back into Messene. This restoration of Messene was unquestionably just, and Sparta had well deserved the infliction; but for Greece it was an unfortunate event, for in the circumstances of the time, when the danger was threatening from Macedonia, the only thing which might have saved Greece, was concentration and strengthening, but by no means a going back to the ancient times. Hence Macedonia declared in favour of Messene, as well as of Argolis and Arcadia, for the purpose of weakening Sparta. Had the latter been able to renew and consolidate itself, as was subsequently attempted by Cleomenes, and had it been joined by all the Peloponnesians, Greece might still have defied Macedonia for centuries, and all the subsequent scenes of misery would not have occurred.

At the time of its restoration, Messene was not at once made so large a state as it originally was, and as it subsequently became again through the mediation of Macedonia. We still have an accidental statement in Scylax of Caryanda respecting the extent of Messene during this intermediate period between the Boeotian restoration and the later extension under Philip of Macedonia, which we know from Strabo and Pausanias. The influence of Epaminondas was brief, he established only the town of Messene itself, with which were connected the western coast and the valley of the Pamisus, but not quite as far as the sea. The towns, however, which had been built by the Spartans, as Asine, Methone, and others, were still in the hands of the Spartans, and inhabited by Dryopians, ancient subjects of Argos, who had declared themselves in favour of Sparta. Afterwards, when the boundaries of Messenia were extended, these towns also became Messenian, standing, however, not in a relation of dependence but in that of isopolity. The Messenian people during the Macedonian period, therefore, was quite a different nation from what it had been before. Some descendants of the ancient Messenians were perhaps still living in the interior; they may have returned from Naupactus, and from other parts of the world over which they had been scattered. On the sea-coast, there were a few Boeotian and Argive colonies, and also some Laconian perioeci and a number of helots, who had emigrated from Laconia and established themselves there. It was natural enough for the Messenians to represent themselves in a different light; they took into consideration only the pure germs of their origin, and to them they referred the story of Aristomenes; but ethnographers ought not to have imitated them, for the Messenians were a new people.

The Pamisus, the river of Messenia, is only a few miles in length, but carries a great mass of water, being probably fed by subterraneous tributaries from Arcadia.

Messene was situated about ten English miles from the sea, its situation is very justly compared with that of [68]Corinth; for it, too, had its ἄκρα upon an inaccessible rock (Ithome) surrounded by a wall, which connected it with the lower town. The remains of these walls belong to the grandest of all the remnants of Greek antiquity; they consist of blocks of five feet in length and two and a half in breadth, and these are placed in such a manner as to turn their smaller side outward. It is very doubtful whether this wall was constructed in the time of Epaminondas, or whether it is a relic of an earlier period; even the ancients observed that the towers at the corners were a later addition; and modern travellers state, that this observation is evidently correct. Hence it is conjectured, that the towers were built in the time of Epaminondas; but that the fortification itself belongs to an earlier period. It can hardly be believed that, in the age of Epaminondas, such a style of building should have continued to be employed, since Megalopolis, in the building of which a whole people exerted itself, did not possess such walls. Messene and Corinth were the strongest points in Peloponnesus; and whoever was in possession of them, could control the whole peninsula. The cause of the great strength of Ithome was the circumstance that, like Acrocorinthus, the rock had a well furnishing an abundant supply of water, which was wanting in many other Greek acropoleis, as, for example, in that of Athens.

A town Messene did not exist before the time of Epaminondas. Some years ago a French antiquary asserted that Messene was more ancient, but this cannot be proved. Ithome, on the other hand, appears in the traditions of the earliest times; and during the first Messenian war, it was the centre of the country; that fortress, containing the temple of Zeus Ithomatas, was the place of refuge of the Messenians; there the treaty with the Lacedaemonians was concluded; and in the war of Aristomenes, too, it appears in the same light and under the same circumstances.

All that is related about the first Messenian wars, attests the fearful devastation which must then have taken place. [69]Even as early as the Peloponnesian war, we no longer find any traces of the many towns that are mentioned, and which must be regarded as historical (for names of towns are not invented), such as Stenyclaros, Andania, Aepy, Pedasos, and many others. In the east of Messenia, a few places survived, and for a time belonged to Laconia, but the western part of the country was completely devastated. In the Homeric Catalogue⁠[34] we find only a few places in the west; in the east we have Cardamyle and Pherae, and Cyparissia is the only town in the west that remained, being mentioned in the Periplus and elsewhere, as a very good harbour for small vessels. The little modern town of Arcadia is not far from the site of the ancient Cyparissia: the country around it is very fertile.

Corone (now Coron) was built, according to an account which appears credible to me, at the time of the Boeotian interference, and named after Coronea in Boeotia, from which town it also appears to have received settlers.

Asine was built by the Spartans at the time of the destruction of Messene, and was peopled by Nauplians.⁠[35]⁠

In the Catalogue, all western Messenia belongs to the kingdom of Nestor, and the Pylos in the Odyssey, where Telemachus visits Nestor, cannot be the Triphylian, as Strabo thinks, but must be the Messenian on the sea-coast; we have to look for it in the vicinity of Navarino. Sphacteria formed the harbour of Pylos, and that island has in our days again attracted the eyes of the world.⁠[36] It is remarkable in antiquity from the circumstance that the Spartans, inconsiderately enough, occupied it with 300 of their own citizens, and that these men were cut off and compelled to [70]surrender by the Athenians, who had taken helots into their service, and were thus enabled to bring about negotiations for peace. Pylos is still called Pylo; Navarino is situated on the other side of the splendid gulf, where it is broadest, while ancient Pylos was situated at the point where the passage between the mainland and Sphacteria is quite narrow. We recognise the devastations caused by the Spartans in those districts from the excellent description given by Thucydides of the attack upon Pylos.

The boundaries of Messenia, as I have already mentioned, were fixed by Philip of Macedonia. The Spartans for a long time refused to recognise the independence of the country, but such obstinate resistance against actual circumstances ruins a state, and this was the cause of the ever increasing weakness of Sparta. The Messenians themselves likewise acted a sorry part in Peloponnesus, and their continued hostility against Sparta is very singular. They brought much misery upon the peninsula, and they themselves at times had to pay dearly for it; they received the last Philip at Ithome, and were on the point of becoming for ever the slaves of Macedonia. They were always jealous of the ruling power, at first of Sparta, and afterwards of the Achaeans: their constant opposition led to nothing but false steps, for they were too weak to carry out any independent policy.

Arcadia.

The frontiers of Arcadia, on the side of Laconia, as I have already observed, were at first contracted, but afterwards extended again; in like manner, the boundary line between Elis was changed on account of the varying possession of Triphylia. The Triphylians regarded themselves as real Arcadians, but were always an object of ambition to [71]the Eleans, by whom they were several times overpowered. They were a remnant of the former state of Pisa, which, if we may express an opinion at all on so obscure a subject, must itself be regarded as originally Arcadian.

The nature of the country has already been described in general terms; a minute description of the complicated mountains, would give you no definite view, but only confound you. According to the general belief of the Greeks, the Arcadians⁠[37] were the most ancient inhabitants of Peloponnesus, that is, Pelasgians: in the history of nations, Arcadia is regarded as the original seat of the Greek Pelasgians. The Arcadian traditions are the only ones in Greece, that go back to the creation of man, and their Azan necessarily reminds us of Adam; but whether they had a similar tradition, or whether the resemblance of the names is only accidental, is a question which I cannot venture to decide. They considered themselves, however, as autochthons in the strictest sense of the term; though this belief referred to the rulers rather than to the whole nation. While the adjoining countries changed either their rulers or their inhabitants, the population of Arcadia remained quite intact. In the most ancient traditions we hear of no important towns, but we know three races, the Azanes (Ἀζῆνες in Herodotus), the Maenalii and Parrhasii; whether, however, they are to be regarded only as three tribes, or as three distinct nations, I cannot say. Greek history, at the time of the Messenian wars, speaks indeed of Arcadia as one entire state, under a single head, but such is not the case in the Homeric Catalogue; it is probable that they formed one whole only through the relation of isopolity. Afterwards, about the 40th Olymp., we find the first traces of towns, the importance of which, however, cannot be determined. In a war with Sparta, the inhabitants of Tegea appear as a separate [72]state of Tegeatans, and they must have had the supremacy among the Arcadians, for otherwise we cannot explain how they could have claimed at Plataeae the supreme command of the whole army, on the ground of their being the most ancient Greeks, in opposition to the Dorians, who had immigrated. How Arcadia was divided among its three peoples, is unknown. It is surprising that, previous to the foundation of Megalopolis, the whole of southern Arcadia, which formed nearly one-half of the whole country, appears to have contained no towns of importance, owing to which very circumstance Megalopolis became conspicuous. All the more important towns were situated on the eastern frontier; near the northern boundary there also were towns, which afterwards appear as small states, but the towns themselves, though strong from their natural position, were unimportant. But this was the fate of all Greek nations, where they were not grouped round a common centre: the division increased more and more, and single towns rose by their favourable position, and isolated themselves from the Κοινόν. The most ancient and most important town of Arcadia was in the east.

This was Tegea, situated on the frontier of Laconia. In contemporary history its territory is small, and the town decayed; but from what is related about Tegea, we can see, that it was once a great city, which afterwards lost its power. The Arcadian districts united with Laconia, had probably been taken for the most part from Tegea, whence the Laconian frontier passed so near by Tegea. In the Persian wars it was still great and populous, if we may trust the numbers in Herodotus, which, however, we are hardly justified in doing, especially in his account of the campaign of Plataeae. I do not mean to say that he intended to deceive, but I consider his numbers to be very uncritical; he was probably not correctly informed. We must make a distinction between his ethnographical and geographical inquiries, and his historical criticism, for in the latter he took [73]matters too lightly. His statements about the numbers of Spartans must be received with particular caution, for in regard to Sparta he was ill informed.

Mantinea is much more celebrated; it was a large and respectable city, which both during and after the Peloponnesian war, acted with energy and independence, and without any regard to the rest of the Arcadians. After the peace of Nicias, the Mantineans, together with the Argives and Eleans, joined the coalition which was brought about with such skill by Alcibiades among the Peloponnesians with the view of drawing them away from Sparta. Thirty years later, they were punished for this by the Spartans: Agis appeared before them demanding that they should destroy their city and disperse in villages. They refused, and Mantinea experienced the same fate which Milan, in the middle ages, suffered at the hands of Frederic Barbarossa, for it was demolished, and its inhabitants distributed among five villages. After the battle of Leuctra it was restored; and owing to the fertility of its territory, it remained a flourishing city for a period of 150 years, that is, down to Olymp. 139, 2, when, during the war of Cleomenes, it was taken by the Achaeans and Antigonus Doson, because it had thrown itself into the arms of Cleomenes. I will not excuse its conduct on that occasion any more than the general morality of the Greeks during that period; but its fate was fearful. The town was completely destroyed, and afterwards a new one was built on its site, by Antigonus, under the name Antigonea. Officially the name Mantinea then ceased, but in common life it still continued, and Polybius calls it by its ancient name; but on coins struck at the time of the destruction of Corinth, the inhabitants are called Ἀντιγονεῖς. Hadrian, who was fond of playing in Greek matters, restored the ancient name. Mantinea is celebrated on account of three great battles, which had more or less influence in deciding the destiny of Greece: 1. the one during the peace of Nicias, in which the Spartans [74]gained a victory over the coalition of the Peloponnesians; 2. the battle of the Boeotians against the united Athenians and Spartans, in which Epaminondas fell; 3. the battle of Agis against Antipater, in the unfortunate attempt (Olymp. 112, 2) to restore the liberty of Peloponnesus, while Alexander was engaged in Asia. To these we may add a fourth, the battle of Philopoemen against Machanidas, tyrant of Sparta. The cause of so many battles lies in the importance of the site of the town, in a military point of view, for it is situated in a fertile plain suited for great manoeuvres, on the other side of the passes leading from Arcadia into Argolis, and commands the road which leads by Orchomenos to Corinth.

Orchomenos cannot be compared in importance with the two towns just mentioned; it, too, had an independent political existence as a city at an early period, and was distinct from the three Arcadian peoples.

The fourth town on the eastern frontier is Stymphalus, a small place in the extreme corner of the territory of Phlius and Argos. It was situated in a hollow among mountains, on the border of a lake, with subterraneous outlets. Tradition ascribed the construction of these passages to the heroic age, and apparently with great justice. This is one of the many traces which show that Greece must have had a history which went back much farther than the current history, and which is so unintelligible to us, just because we join the poetical traditions of those nations directly to the historical ages. Such is the case, for example, with the Minyans, who are so utterly mysterious to us; but it would be mere infatuation to deny that they once were a great historical people; their subjugation of Thebes, and the numerous other traditions, have a real historical foundation, as is still attested by the ruins of the Boeotian Orchomenos, and by the tunnel carrying off the water of lake Copais. The lake itself may be of volcanic origin; but the tunnel, at all events, has at least been completed by the hand of [75]man. The same is the case with lake Stymphalus, the carrying off of the water from which is ascribed in tradition to Heracles.

Some of the northern towns, as Pheneos, Psophis, and Cynaetha, are ancient but insignificant.

Megalopolis was the most recent among the Arcadian towns, for it was built after the expedition of Epaminondas. He, like many others, saw the great defect of separate and isolated peoples, whose strength was broken, and he was bent upon forming and enlarging several central points which, in the end, necessarily led to a complete division. Hence he conceived the idea of uniting all the Arcadians against the Spartans, for it was not yet clear at the time that Sparta had permanently fallen in the battle of Leuctra. The new city was built by the Arcadians themselves, under the direction of Epaminondas. These late occurrences are enveloped in strange obscurity, for we do not know whether it was intended also to draw the great Arcadian towns, Mantinea, etc., into this κοινὸν βουλευτήριον; this intention, however, was pre-supposed, and hence the undertaking was generally disliked. People looked upon it with distrust; the form prescribed to them was disapproved of, and even if it had not been insisted on, the spirit of independence of those people seemed to suffer in the undertaking. The form, moreover, in which it was intended to carry out the plan seems to have been extremely absurd. The undertaking had been announced as something grand, yet it proved to be ill-devised and useless, and did not by any means succeed as well as had been anticipated. The circumference of Megalopolis was only about five English miles, and in this space it was contemplated to crowd together the inhabitants of more than thirty places, and no one seems to have perceived that such a scheme could not succeed. The Arcadians were country people (αὐτουργοί), whose fields were not tilled by slaves; they would have been obliged to carry on their rustic pursuits at a great distance, which, as they had to live in the city, with civic institutions, was a [76]matter of impossibility. Epaminondas was indeed a great man, but this scheme does him no credit; taking all in all, I do not think that he was as great a man as he is generally believed to have been. The population dispersed, and the coercion employed was felt to be more galling than the Spartan dominion, against which the whole plan was directed. Hence Megalopolis remained the union of only a portion of Arcadia. It had to fight against the Spartans at an early time, and, therefore, threw itself into the arms of Philip, who endeavoured to protect it by a strong frontier on the side of Sparta. After the time of Alexander, in the war of Polysperchon, it suffered severely, and had to sustain a vigorous siege; but the greatest misfortune was its capture by Cleomenes, from which it never recovered. Cleomenes took the town by surprise, because the walls were too extensive for the population, and, therefore, could not be defended; the inhabitants partly fled, and others were put to the sword. From that time Megalopolis, notwithstanding its circumference, had no more importance than an ordinary town of the Achaean confederacy, and was afterwards almost entirely deserted. Polybius was a native of Megalopolis, and although he did all he could to save his native city, it seems yet to have suffered greatly from the Romans after the destruction of Corinth, and then it was justly said Ἐρημία μεγάλη ’στὶν ἡ Μεγάλη πόλις; in the days of Strabo it was completely reduced to the rank of a village. As it had been built at a late period, Megalopolis, like all the towns which arose under the Macedonian dominion, had no great buildings, whence no ruins of it are found.

I might mention also Phigalea, Melaeniae, and other towns, but it is hardly worth while. Phigalea has become celebrated through the well-known sculptures, which are excellent in their way, and belong to the period of archaic art, that is, to the period of the Persian wars and a short time after; they were found in the ruins of a temple, and are now in England.

Elis.

The name Elis is of more recent date than the Trojan times; the town of that name was a recent structure, and the population also is not ancient. The most northern part of Elis was inhabited during the Trojan times by the Epeans; the middle part, Pisatis, extended as far as the Alpheus, and the country south of that river belonged to the Pylian kingdom of Nestor. This division continued to exist at a later period. The Doric name for Elis was Alis, and we should, properly speaking, adopt this pronunciation, which occurs in Plautus’ Prologue to the “Captivi” (vendidit in Alide), and upon all ancient monuments. On coins we find ϜΑΛΕΙΩΝ, which by a strange mistake has been referred to the Faliscans, until at length some English scholar, I think it was Knight, explained it rightly, the nature of the digamma having become clear. The Pisatans were probably Arcadians. Respecting Triphylia, between Pisatis and Messenia, there are strange traditions: in the most ancient of them it is said to have been inhabited by Caucones, itself a mysterious name, which is described by some as signifying a race of Carians; according to others, the country was inhabited by Minyans, who, though they are traced to the Minyans in Lemnos, are perhaps nothing else but Pelasgians, that is, a people likewise belonging to the Arcadians. Afterwards Triphylia always was a part of the ἔθνος Ἀρκαδικόν, although the Arcadians were never united under one strategus. The Epeans were expelled by the Aetolians; the Aetolian Oxylus is said to have accompanied the Dorian Heracleids, to have guided them by way of Naupactus into Achaia, and to have received Elis as a reward for this service. This tradition must be left to stand on its own grounds: certain it is at least that Elis was Aetolian, as the three states were Dorian; but the name of the Aetolians had a different meaning in the early times from that which we attach to it at a later period, and of which I shall speak hereafter.

The history of Elis may be well put together from different documents.⁠[38] The Aetolians ruled in the city as an oligarchy, and even as late as the Peloponnesian war the city appears as sovereign, and the perioeci as subjects; in Aristotle’s Politics, the Aetolian γένη are still described as a body of oligarchs. But this state of things was probably altered even in the course of the Peloponnesian war: the oligarchy was reduced in numbers, and was unable to maintain itself; the commonalty, on the other hand, acquired consistency, and the old citizens were united with the country population. Thus Elis became a compact state, acquiring the extent which we see in our maps, and all the free inhabitants of the country became Eleans. They were divided into twelve tribes, four of which were afterwards lost, together with a portion of the country. Further particulars will be mentioned in connection with the several towns. Elis had coal mines which were worked, but according to Theophrastus, the smiths preferred the Massilian coal.

The original Elis, then, after the Doric migration, comprised only the country of the Epeans; its capital, Elis, was founded by the Aetolians. This town, like the Eleans in general, does not act a brilliant part in history; but it was not insignificant, and was situated in a very fertile and thickly peopled valley, the κοίλη Ἠλις. There is only one other town in Elis proper, Cyllene, the ἐπίνειον for the small fleet of Elis, standing to the capital in the relation of perioeci, similar to that subsisting between Lausanne and Berne.

For a considerable period, Elis was the most peaceable and most undisturbed country in Greece, and was chiefly inhabited by small landed proprietors. Polybius too mentions the long peace, but we cannot say precisely during what period it prevailed, and, at all events, must not extend it too long. The Eleans were involved in the Peloponnesian war no less than all the other Greek states; in earlier times [79]they had even been conquerors. Pisa, situated on the Alpheus, enjoyed great reputation in ancient times, but was destroyed by the Eleans at an early period (about Olymp. 90), and its territory was incorporated with that of Elis. This secured to the Eleans the prostasia at the Olympic games.

All maps have the same mistake, representing Olympia as a town; it was nothing but a place containing the temple of the Olympian Zeus and the localities required for the games, a stadium, theatre, and the like. There never were Olympian citizens, nor a βουλή or a δῆμος; and there exists no ethnic name formed from Olympia. There may have been some inns for strangers, but with the exception of the season of the games, the place was never visited.

Triphylia, in the corner between Pisatis, Messenia and Arcadia, was the third part of the country, though it did not always belong to the Elean territory. Its capital was Lepreon, but it contained a number of small towns besides, one of which was Scillus, where the Spartans gave a house to Xenophon. Triphylia was repeatedly taken by the Arcadians, as in Olymp. 102, when they attempted by force to assume the management of the Olympic games. But as early as Olymp. 96, it had been seized by the Spartans, and for a time remained under their protection. Scylax (Olymp. 106) calls it a part of Arcadia, but afterwards it was again in the possession of the Eleans, until in Olymp. 140 it fell into the hands of Philip III. of Macedonia, who, when his policy required it, gave it up to the Achaeans.

Achaia.

Previous to the Doric migration, Achaia was called Ionia, and as such was divided into twelve towns. All the Ionians, it is said, emigrated on the invasion of the [80]Achaeans, who had obtained from the Lacedaemonians a free departure from Laconia—an account which appears to me very problematical, but which I cannot remove by substituting a better one. On that occasion the Achaeans are reported to have become possessed of the twelve towns. The intentional and artificial character of this division is obvious: when people meet together with a view to satisfy their natural wants, we never find such exact calculations. The Waldstädte in Switzerland were originally three in number, but this number increased more and more, until it amounted to thirteen. The United States of North America have increased from thirteen to twenty-four, and they will increase still more. A design similar to that in Achaia appears in the Doric part of Asia Minor, where we find the number six, and among the Romans we find three tribes and thirty curiae. The Doric immigration corresponds with what we find in Laconia and Messene, and it was probably the same in Argolis. In the same manner arose the twelve Achaean towns, according to a designed division among the Ionians, and the same was preserved under the Achaeans. Helice, on the coast of the Corinthian gulf, was the capital of the Ionians, but whether it occupied the same rank under the Achaeans for any length of time, is unknown. Helice and Olenos are two of the twelve towns which occur in the list of the Achaean towns, and besides them the following ten are mentioned: Patrae, Dyme, Pharae, Tritaea, Leontion, Aegira, Pellene, Aegion, Bura, and Cerynea.⁠[39] We here meet with a difficulty: how is it, that we have the differing lists in Strabo and Pausanias, in which, besides these towns, Aegae and Rhypes are mentioned? The solution of the mystery is this: for the very reason, for which originally twelve towns had been [81]instituted, attempts were made, when two towns perished to supplement the number by introducing two others; hence these last are sometimes mentioned, and sometimes not, the writers themselves not being clear about the matter.

The whole coast sinks rapidly down towards the Corinthian gulf, which itself seems to have been formed by a sinking of the whole ground, which is further indicated by the abrupt descent of the mountains that come down from Arcadia; the props which once supported the ground must have given way. That part of the country is still the seat of violent subterraneous fire, whence Helice was regarded as one of the principal seats of Ποσειδῶν Ἐνοσίχθων, who however could not save it from destruction. Whether Olenos, as Polybius states, likewise perished by an earthquake, or whether he is mistaken on this point, cannot be decided. It certainly was not swallowed up by the sea, like Helice, which sank down with the coast and all its buildings, for ruins of it were seen at a late period. It is very probable, that if the site of Helice could be ascertained, very important antiquities might be brought to light by diving. Eratosthenes was informed on the spot, that, according to the belief of the neighbouring people, the place had not been destroyed by a shock, but that it had simply sunk; they related that a statue which had formerly stood in the market place, was still standing upright in the sea, and that fishermen took care not to entangle their nets in it.

These twelve towns formed a league or confederacy under a common strategus, and of all the Greek confederacies this lasted the longest; but the union was so loose that in the Peloponnesian war Pellene alone joined Sparta, while all the other towns remained neutral, and for a time were even allied with Athens. Afterwards, however, all the Achaeans were in alliance with the Lacedaemonians, though then again Pellene acted independently and by itself. Even at a later period, under Philip and Alexander—the time referred to in [82]the speech περὶ τῶν πρὸς Ἀλέξανδρον ξυνθηκῶν, which is printed among those of Demosthenes, but is undoubtedly the work of Hyperides—Pellene still stood aloof. The dissolution of the Achaean state was then very manifest, and lasted, according to Polybius, until Olymp. 126, when the three westernmost towns again formed an alliance among themselves. As early as the reign of Antigonus Gonatas, Achaia, though then a poor and weak country, had formed itself into one state, and that even before Aratus had delivered Sicyon. At the time when this Achaean confederation rose from its tomb, the real seat of government was at Aegion, and Pellene lost its former importance, which may have been partly the consequence of the ravages made during the war of Demetrius Poliorcetes. Aegion became the new rallying point, probably on account of its situation on the Corinthian gulf; hence it acquired an importance which it had never had before. Pellene was situated on a hill of considerable height, the termination of the northern range of the Arcadian mountains, and was accordingly a strong place.

In later times, Patrae was of greater importance as a commercial town; in the earliest ages it is not mentioned as a place of any consequence, though its harbour is beautiful. It acquired its importance, which it retained until its destruction in our own days, at the time when Pompey established a colony there, which was increased by Augustus. Pompey restored it as a maritime town, for it had been destroyed in the Achaean war. He compelled some of the Asiatic pirates to settle there, and Augustus made it a Roman colony, whence, like Corinth, it issued coins with Latin inscriptions. Throughout the middle ages, under Constantine Porphyrogenitus, as well as under the Frankish and Venetian dominion, Patrae was the most flourishing city in all Peloponnesus. The other places are too unimportant to engage our attention.

The coast of Achaia bore the peculiar name of Aegialos. What is said of it in the Homeric Catalogue, remained [83]essentially the same after the destructive immigrations; hence its case was quite different from that of other countries of Peloponnesus, especially the coast of Messenia, where nothing remained except Cyparissia. Its topography also underwent scarcely any change on account of the uniformity of its history: thus the course of events is often marked in the geography of a country.

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—

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 [85]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, [86]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 [87]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 [88]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 [89]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, [90]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 [92]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, [93]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 [94]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; [95]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 [96]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 [97]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 [98]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 [99]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 [100]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 [101]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 [102]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 [103]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 [104]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 [105]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 [106]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 [107]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 [108]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 [109]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 [110]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 [111]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 [112]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.

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 [113]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 [114]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 [115]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 [116]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 [117]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 [118]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 [119]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 [120]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 [121]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 [122]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.

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 [123]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 [124]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. [125]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 [128]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 [129]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 [130]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 [131]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.

The Phocians are unimportant in Greek history, and [132]are mentioned only in connection with their misfortunes, first in the wars which they had to wage against the Thessalians,—for the Thessalians, after completing the conquest of Haemonia, also endeavoured to subdue Phocis, and its inhabitants had great difficulty in warding them off,—and afterwards in the Sacred War. The twenty-two Phocian towns, which were destroyed by Philip, were probably for the most part insignificant places. We are perfectly ignorant as to the relations subsisting among them, but they did not form a political community, with a common magistracy, a common commander in war, and the like; not a trace of such institutions is to be found. It is, in general, one of the most puzzling problems to state what were the bonds which kept an ἔθνος together: to acquire the name of an ἔθνος, no political band was needed; a co-operation for common objects is generally produced spontaneously through the power of circumstances. There are, however, traces to show, that in early times the Phocians formed a closer union among themselves. The case of their leaders in the Sacred War was of a different kind: they are generally called στρατηγοί, but sometimes also τύραννοι; Philomelus and Onomarchus were, in fact, not lawful magistrates; the circumstance that being elected in a lawful form, they were at the head of a numerous army of mercenaries, gave them a power which was limited by no laws, and was, therefore, formidable indeed.

The only important place in Phocis was Elatea, which was either spared in an inconceivable manner by Philip, or was soon afterwards restored on account of its excellent situation, and attained a high degree of prosperity; for during the Macedonian period it is mentioned as a considerable place, notwithstanding the general decay of the Greek towns; and in the same light it appears in Livy’s account of the Roman wars. It was situated in the rich valley of the Cephisus, which widens towards Boeotia, and this may have contributed to its prosperity. The valley formed a pass; and an enemy even after forcing his way through Thermopylae [133]had difficulties at Elatea, which was the key to Boeotia; hence when Philip occupied Elatea by a garrison, this act created at Athens the consternation which is so graphically described by Demosthenes.

Anticyra, also, had a kind of importance; and after the destruction of Cirrha, it was the real port of Phocis, whence a small trade was kept up with the gulf of Corinth. In the first war of the Romans against Philip, Anticyra was destroyed by the fleet which, under the command of Sulpicius, cruised along the coasts of Greece, and laid waste so many thinly-peopled places.

The well-known war called “The Sacred” has received that name quite improperly; it had been stirred up by the Thessalians and Boeotians to the misfortune of the Phocians, who were driven to despair and an infuriated defence, just like the Hussites in the 15th century; and the Phocians ravaged all the countries around, as the Hussites from Bohemia spread devastation far and wide in Bavaria, Franconia, and Saxony. They were completely outlawed, so that no quarter was given to any one; the dead were treated as accursed, and the wounded were run through with spears or nailed on crosses: the rage was quite savage and unpardonable. The Phocians were driven to such extremities, as to seize upon the sacred treasures of the Delphic temple, which enabled them to carry on the war for eight years, until Philip came forward as the champion of the Amphictyons, and, after the withdrawal of the Athenian troops from Thermopylae, advanced with irresistible force. The commanders of the Phocians were unskilful and faithless men, and the nation, losing courage, laid down its arms. Their fate was terrible, though it was called mercy: Philip granted to the troops a free departure; all the towns were destroyed, and their walls demolished; all arms and horses were taken; the inhabitants dispersed in villages, and, in a condition of servitude, placed under the supremacy of the temple of Delphi, which itself stood under the supremacy of Macedonia. They were obliged to pay an annual tribute [134]to the temple, to refund the treasures; but they seem to have neglected this duty, or the money was pocketed by the Macedonians, for Brennus found no gold at Delphi, but only works in bronze. This is again a remarkable instance of the uncertainty of history, even at so late a period: some say that Brennus did not enter Delphi at all, while other historians state that he was at Delphi and plundered it, but that he found little to take. However, the Phocians showed great valour; they withdrew into the highest mountains, and thence made great havoc among the formidable host of Gauls, especially during their retreat. For this reason it was resolved to make amends for what had been done: they were again admitted into the Amphictyony, and allowed to restore their towns; but, like the Locrians, Chalcis, and Corinth, they remained under the supremacy of Macedonia, and when the Romans appeared, they did not belong to Greece, but were Macedonian subjects. Afterwards, they also shared the last two calamities of Greece: the flight of Critolaus from Thermopylae led the Romans through Phocis, and on that occasion the country was ravaged by the conquerors, and Elatea had to suffer severely; lastly, the campaign of Archelaus, who had his head-quarters at Chaeronea, also extended to Phocis, which for this reason was then completely devastated by Sulla.

Doris.

Doris was that district where the highest parts of Parnassus extend towards Pindus. Its towns formed the Doric tetrapolis, or rather tripolis, for the names of only three places are certain, viz., Boion, Cytinion, and Erineos, and they are described by the Greeks themselves as very small places (πολίχνια). The general Greek tradition is, that the Dorians who conquered Peloponnesus came from [135]these three towns; but this is impossible. It is true no traveller has yet visited that district, but we are able to determine at least its extent, which is not as large as that of the Swiss canton of Uri; and as the latter has about 12,000 inhabitants, we may be sure that Doris had not by far as many, for the country in those parts of Parnassus is extremely mountainous, and contains only few valleys that are inhabitable to Alpine shepherds. The Dorians must at one time have occupied a far more extensive country: the little district of Doris stands in the same relation to the former seats of the Dorians, as the present district of Angeln in the duchy of Schleswig stands to the extensive countries once occupied by the ancient Angli. We should be forming a very erroneous estimate, if we were to calculate the number of Angli who invaded Britain from the district at present bearing their name. After the emigration of the great body of the Dorians, the little country of Doris retained their name, while the earlier Doris may perhaps have embraced all Phocis and other neighbouring countries. According to the express testimony of Herodotus,⁠[60] they had formerly dwelt on mount Pindus, and had migrated from north to south. The little tribe maintained itself in the impassable mountains, but we do not know how; it may have been by alliances. They boasted of their pure Doric origin, and regarded themselves as the μητρόπολις of the Peloponnesians, though the latter were mixed with the earlier inhabitants of the peninsula. The Peloponnesians, however, showed them the respect and attachment which everywhere in Greece colonists used to show to their mother country. The Dorians were often involved in wars with the Phocians, and even before the Peloponnesian war they had once been subdued by them, but a Spartan army quickly coming to their rescue, chastised the Phocians, and restored the Dorians to freedom.

It is quite uncertain what afterwards became of the little people. During the period when the administration of [136]Greece was in the hands of the Romans, the Dorians are not mentioned at all; so that they must have been united either with the Phocians, or, which is not improbable, with the Aetolians. If that part of Greece should ever become accessible, much may be discovered that is of importance for ancient history and geography; with the exception of the coasts, scarcely anything is accurately known; the upper countries of Parnassus have scarcely been visited at all, and our maps are arbitrary. It will hardly be possible ever to ascertain the sites of the towns from the want of inscriptions. Beyond the mountains of Doris there is a grand Alpine country.

Aetolia.

In the later history of Greece, the Aetolians are a people of the highest importance, and so they are in the earliest traditions, but during the best period of the Greeks, they sink completely into the background. Their peculiarity is very perplexing to the inquiring historian. We find them mentioned in the Homeric Catalogue, and in the legends of Calydon and Pleuron, and there can be no doubt as to their being a Greek people, for the Curetes as well as the Aetolians themselves are called Greeks. Thucydides too⁠[61] considers them in this light, though only conditionally; he calls them Ἠπειρωτικὸν ἔθνος, and where he mentions their separate tribes, they appear as different from all the other Greeks; he speaks of their language being unintelligible (ἀγνωστότατοι γλῶσσαν), which is a strong expression with Athenians who, like all Greeks, were very tolerant in regard to dialects. The Laconian dialect was quite as different from the Attic, as the Swiss German is [137]from the Low German, and the Athenians scarcely understood one third of it. The Aetolian dialect, accordingly, seems to have already become so barbarous, as to require great attention to guess the meaning when it was spoken. In these circumstances, therefore, the Aetolians appear as non-Greeks, and still more so in Polybius, who says that most of the Aetolians were barbarians. In one passage, Thucydides also classes them with the barbarians, when he states that they, like the Acarnanians, went about in time of peace armed with knives (σιδηροφορεῖν); he also asserts that they were ὠμόφαγοι. Such statements appear to us extremely strange, and seem to suggest a degree of barbarism similar to that of the Abyssinians; but a French traveller has given an excellent explanation of the matter. The inhabitants of those countries are to this day shepherds, for agriculture is scarcely possible there. They kill their cattle, and sometimes cook the meat, but they also smoke it for the purpose of keeping it, and such smoked meat they eat raw, which is not done in the other parts of Greece. Sometimes also they act like the savages in America: they cut the meat into very thin slices, dry it in the air, and then eat it.

As far back as we can trace history, we always find the Aetolians and Curetes as two nations dwelling by the side of each other in the south of Aetolia: such is the case in the Iliad. Afterwards the Curetes disappear, and all the country is occupied by the Aetolians alone. But that country is only a very small portion of what is subsequently called Aetolia, for it embraced only the district of Pleuron and Calydon, about the Evenus. These two towns play as prominent a part in the legends as Mycenae and Tiryns, and Oeneus and Meleager are as familiar to you as Agamemnon and Menelaus. This was Aetolia proper, and a truly Hellenic country: from it proceeded the emigration of Oxylus, which must not be viewed as if Oxylus had served the Heracleids as a guide and joined them; but the Aetolian migration to which Elis owed its origin, was an occurrence quite distinct from the migration of the Dorians into the [138]other parts of Peloponnesus. The Aetolians farther inland were subsequently joined by other Pelasgian tribes of Epirus. As early as the Peloponnesian war, Aetolia was a country of considerable extent, and Thucydides mentions the Bomians, Ophians (Ophionians), and Eurytanians, as its greatest tribes; but these names are uncertain, at least the first two. Within these limits the Aetolians were united during the Peloponnesian war. Their union may be conceived as a relation of isopolity, in which each nation formed an independent community, but on certain emergencies they united and acted as one state. They seem to have met in common sanctuaries, and to have mutually had the perfect right of isopolity, a connection which was however extremely loose, and did not oblige the several members to join one another in offensive operations. In the Peloponnesian war, the Aetolians resisted the Athenians; they were hostile to Naupactus and allied with Ampracia⁠[62]⁠; but beyond their own territory they were weak, and the expedition of the Athenians into Aetolia did the country much harm. The Aetolians showed themselves equally independent towards the Spartans, for when the latter, after the battle of Leuctra, wanted to interfere in their affairs, they were repulsed by the Aetolians. They did not, however, rise to any importance till after the death of Alexander. During the latter part of his life, they took Oeniadae, expelled its inhabitants, and colonised the place anew. Alexander, whose fate was that of all other conquerors, did not know in the end whither to turn; he conceived the unfortunate idea of interfering, from Babylon, in the affairs of Greece, and of coming forward as mediator. Whether it was that he actually wished to restore peace, or whether he had any other motives, in short he issued a proclamation ordering the Greeks to restore all φυγάδες in the widest sense of the term; and the order was even made retrospective, so as to embrace the φυγάδες who had been in exile for many years, and in many cases, as in that of Oeniadae, the φυγάδες [139]consisted of the entire population of a town. This measure, perhaps adopted with a good intention, threw the firebrand of war into Greece. All were in consternation, because it was expected that the exiles would return with their old pretensions, and that the tranquillity which had only just been restored, would be disturbed again. The Athenians were exasperated because the amnesty was in favour of many who had been exiled as traitors and partisans of Macedonia, and whose banishment they had effected with great determination, and under circumstances which rendered the recall scarcely possible. The Aetolians were called upon to evacuate Oeniadae, and this led them to ally themselves with the Athenians in the Lamian war, and to display the greatest perseverance. When the allied army in Thessaly was broken and the Athenians were disabled, the Aetolians alone held out, resisting the great power of the Macedonians, a perseverance which ever after remained the great object of their national pride. All the Macedonian forces under Polysperchon and Antipater now turned against them: with moveable columns they entered the country, and carried on a very cruel war, devastating the country in the same fearful manner as the barbarians did in Peloponnesus, and as the French have frequently done in modern times: they advanced gradually chasing the whole population before them, and all who fell into their hands were either murdered or sold as slaves; all the cultivation of the country was destroyed, towns were reduced to ashes, and all trees rooted out. In this manner, they drove the inhabitants from one valley into another, and into the highest mountains, where they maintained themselves. But here they would have perished from cold, hunger and snow, had not a change of circumstances produced a diversion in their favour: the feuds among the Macedonian generals in Asia saved them. Antipater, who envied Perdiccas for his power, thought it advisable for the present to conclude a truce with the Aetolians, with the intention of completing the devastation of their country afterwards. But God [140]disposed things differently. Amid the perplexities in Asia, Antipater forgot the Aetolians, and the war was not resumed. They now returned from their mountains, and this forms the commencement of a new era in their history.

Several of the nations of Greece had, even as early as that time, begun to feel an instinctive want of uniting with each other for the purpose of increasing their strength. Such had been the case in Arcadia and Thessaly (where Jason of Pherae fostered the feeling) before, and it was now awakened among several other nations. From this time forward two political terms acquired importance in history; the relations they designate were not indeed new, but their import in an extended sense was. At an earlier period, I mean at the time of the Peloponnesian war, this tendency to unite had shown itself at Olynthus on the coast of Thrace, where the Chalcidian and Bottian towns, which until then had stood isolated, united with that city which had become great; and thus they became καθάπερ δῆμος. This is the relation called by later writers ἰσοπολιτεία⁠[63]⁠, which two towns established between each other, as was the case in Switzerland and in the league of the Swabian towns; in former times it had been called πολιτεία. A citizen of such a place was entitled to take up his abode in the other, without becoming a mere resident alien; the ancient Italian law was of the same kind. There can be no doubt that in earlier times the Aetolian tribes were united only by the relation of a common πολιτεία; but they did not form one state, the establishment of which, with one common strategus and one common council (ἀπόκλητοι), belongs to a much later period; it was probably not till after the war with Antipater that the Aetolian state was constituted; but we do not know much about its origin.

The relation of συμπολιτεία was different; it is very necessary to distinguish the two, and great attention is required [141]not to confound them. Sympolity was the relation subsisting between Rome and its municipia, it was the connection of one place with another on a footing of inequality; the citizens of the subordinate state had not the same rights with those of the chief state, their advantage consisting in the close alliance with a powerful head, but they had no share in the election of magistrates (civitas sine suffragio), and the relation was altogether one-sided. Isopolite states, on the other hand, generally stood to each other in a relation of perfect equality, and were quite independent in their transactions with foreign countries; it is only in a very few instances that in later times we find them in a subordinate relation to a chief state. Sympolite states could not, on their own responsibility, enter into negociations with foreign countries, as had been the case of isopolite states only in earlier times. It may perhaps be assumed that all sympolite places were at one time in the relation of isopolity, and that their citizens were entitled to the general franchise in every one of the allied states. Isopolity, therefore, may have existed with several states, which among themselves had no isopolity, as, for example, the Hernicans were in a relation of isopolity with the Romans and also with the Samnites.

At that time the Aetolians increased their connections in both ways, and many distant towns joined them and became Aetolians. Of this we have evident proofs in inscriptions, in which the Aetolians grant to the inhabitants of such places letters of safety against robbery, as for example to the inhabitants of Crete, Carthaea in the island of Ceos, and others, ὡς ὄντων Αἰτωλῶν. Others, seeking the direct protection of the Aetolians, entered the relation of sympolity; but this must not be understood, as if they had taken upon themselves duties as subjects towards the Aetolians; the towns were too distant; but if they did, the great distance at least prevented the relation from becoming oppressive. In the case of isopolity a town could not claim to be protected by the more powerful one. Aetolia thus extended [142]chiefly through the relation of sympolity, and Cephallenia, e.g., joined it. In the earlier times, and down to the sixth century of Rome, Olymp. 135, we can trace the extension only with difficulty; we cannot indeed doubt that the Aetolians extended beyond their own frontiers, but we are unable to say how or how far. The newly added part was called Αἰτωλία ἐπίκτητος, but it is wrongly marked in our maps, for the part beyond the Aetolian mountains, on the coast of Locris, belongs to ancient Aetolia.

The first accession gained by the Aetolians consisted in the alliance with Alexander of Epirus, the son of Pyrrhus (not to be confounded with Alexander the Molottian, the brother of Olympias), against the Acarnanians. On his unfortunate death, Pyrrhus had left to his son a still splendid empire. The two allies divided Acarnania between themselves, and from this time a large portion of that country belongs to Aetolia, especially Stratos, a very important town, the ruins of which still attest its former greatness. I cannot say, whether the acquisition of Naupactus and perhaps the whole country of the Ozolian Locrians belongs to this or to a later period; but Naupactus certainly was united with Aetolia, for about Olymp. 140, a strategus is mentioned who was a native of that town. During the decay of the Macedonian empire, that is, in the latter years of Antigonus Gonatas, the Aetolians greatly extended their empire; a part of Phocis appears to have been in their hands, and in alliance with the Achaeans they carried on a successful war against his son Demetrius, the father of the last Philip; they conquered Phthiotis and a part of Thessaly proper which then became united with them partly by isopolity, and partly by sympolity. The nations on this side of Thermopylae, the Trachinians and Aenianians, became so completely incorporated with them, that Heraclea even was one of their chief cities. At the same time they extended their power in Epirus, after the Epirots had murdered the last member of the royal family of the Aeacidae; they did not, however, confine themselves to [143]that country, but also took possession of Cephallenia, Zacynthus and probably Ithaca also, nay, they even crossed over into Peloponnesus. Elis stood in the relation of isopolity, and several places in western Arcadia, as Phigalea, Heraea, Psophis and others, were connected with them by sympolity. Many towns also stood to them in the relation of isopolity, even the Athenians did so for a time. Aetolia reached the highest point of its power about Olymp. 140, where Polybius commences his history: that was the time of the outbreak of the social war, which the last Philip, in conjunction with the Achaeans, carried on against the Aetolians, who then lost their possessions in Thessaly and Phthiotis. But they were still very powerful, ruling over the country as far as the Spercheus, over the greater part of Acarnania, and Cephallenia, besides being on terms of isopolity with many places. Afterwards, in the second Philippic war, they lost still more, but we know nothing definite about it. In the third war of the Romans against Philip, which ended in the battle of Cynoscephalae, they again recovered many places, but the Romans, contrary to the compact entered into, deprived them of some which belonged to them. The claims they then made led to the war with Antiochus, in which they lost Cephallenia, Heraclea, and other places. They now lived in a state of nominal independence, for they did not, like the Achaeans, form a Roman province; but in point of fact they were dependent upon the Romans, though they did not lose their autonomy, that is their own political constitution and jurisdiction. Their frontiers were very much narrowed, though their territory was still greater than it had ever been during the best period of Greek history. Such is a brief sketch of the various vicissitudes of that remarkable people.

It is difficult to say how we should judge of the character of the Aetolians; it is not easy to arrive at a clear and precise result. But it is a point beyond all dispute that at the period during which we know them, they show a great resemblance in character to the Greek Clephths: they never [144]were a regularly organised people with a civil constitution; their state was only of a military character, and their whole government was military; in the interior, there must necessarily have been great anarchy. Alexander is the only Aetolian whose name occurs in the whole range of Greek literature, and he lived at Alexandria; but he deserves no more to be despised than Callimachus. It is a well-founded charge that the Aetolians were faithless, so that treaties concluded with them were not safe,—hence the disgraceful attack upon the Pamboeotians,—that they disregarded the public law established among the Greeks, which ordained that in the midst of war a truce should be observed during the celebration of the national games. In war they indulged in devastation and robbery, the latter always being the principal motive of their undertakings. It must also be said, to their disgrace, that in regular and open battles they were good for nothing. Their cavalry was excellent, which, considering the nature of their country, is rather surprising; but they never formed a regular phalanx, and their peltasts were no better than the most ordinary ones; if these latter had been well trained, they might have become very efficient, but they never went beyond the first steps of military training.

In geography we treat of Aetolia within its ancient boundaries, and without regard to its later acquisitions. Aetolia has the largest river in Greece within Mount Oeta and Thermopylae: I allude to the Achelous, which for Greece is a very considerable river, though in other countries it would not be so. Its sources are in Mount Pindus, and it is properly a χειμάῤῥους, for although it has always water, yet in winter, during the rainy season, and in spring, after the melting of the snow in the mountains, it is much larger. During these latter seasons of πλήμμυρα it is a mighty river, whereas in summer it may be forded in several places without danger. Where it comes forth from the Dolopian mountains, its bed is very broad and covered with gravel, over which it flows in many arms; at Stratos it is divided, [145]at the season of high water, into seven arms, and in summer perhaps into three or four, which flow between high islands. Its modern name is Aspropotamo, the white river, perhaps from the white mud which during the rainy season it carries with it, and not from its clear water as is commonly supposed. In summer its water is clear, but in spring it is θολερός or muddy, whence it formed a Delta which was constantly increasing. The Echinades were islands at the mouth of the river, but owing to the continual deposits they are now parts of the main land; in like manner Ravenna, in the time of the Roman emperors, was surrounded by the sea, whereas at present it is a few miles distant from it. Such alluvial land as that formed by the Achelous is in modern Greek called βάλτος. A little to the side of the mouth of the river, we have the town of Oeniadae, whose position was as strong as that of Missolunghi, which is situated in the same lagoons, but somewhat more towards the cape and the river Evenus.

In the ancient Greek legends, the Achelous is celebrated on account of the contest with Heracles, in which the river-god metamorphosed himself into a bull, and Heracles broke one of his horns. Some very silly allegorical explanations of this mythus have been proposed.

Evenus, the second river of Aetolia, is much smaller, and flows from the north; it discharges its waters at the point where the Achelous formed its deposits. It is in itself not of much consequence, but the country about its mouth, that is, the district of Calydon and Pleuron, is the ancient and original Aetolia, which is called Aeolis by Thucydides, and perhaps also by Herodotus. This certainly is an ancient and remarkable name, though for our history it is a matter of indifference. Calydon and Pleuron are among the most ancient towns in Greek history, but in later times they were decayed and insignificant, and in the days of Strabo they were completely destroyed. Modern travellers assure us that they have discovered the Cyclopian walls of both towns, but I cannot say whether they are [146]right: their site is indicated with tolerable precision by the ancients; it was not very far inland.

Respecting Dulichion, which occurs in the Odyssey, nothing can be ascertained. The opinion of modern geographers, that it was an ancient Delta, and afterwards disappeared in consequence of further deposits, is erroneous. The modern Greeks are probably no less mistaken in their belief that it was swallowed up by the earth; the sand-banks are in a different place. It is possible that Dulichion may have been the coast of Acarnania, which the Homeric poet, who was not altogether well informed about the western countries, erroneously called an island.

Thermon, the later capital of the Aetolians in Polybius, was situated in the interior. The building of this place pre-supposes that Aetolia at the time was a more extensive country, so that the more ancient towns were situated too near the frontier. Its site cannot be mistaken. No traveller has yet visited it, and I do not believe that any considerable ruins are to be found unless excavations be made; inscriptions do not exist there any more than in Epirus. It was about three miles distant from the great lake, which is situated in the centre of Aetolia in a hollow surrounded by mountains, and separates the waters of the Achelous and Evenus. This lake, which is upwards of twenty-five English miles in length and tolerably broad, now consists of several smaller lakes, which are connected by marshes. Polybius calls it Trichonis, and it forms the receptacle for the waters which flow from the neighbouring mountains and are not carried off by the Evenus. Thermon was not fortified, but was an open place like Sparta; Philip, the son of Demetrius, ravaged it twice, without the Aetolians attempting to defend it. It was there that the Aetolian people assembled and held their general diets: the hot springs were another and still more direct temptation to build the place. Aetolia is, in general, rich in hot sulphureous springs, and I here remind you of what I said on a former occasion respecting the volcanic veins which extend [147]from the Corinthian gulf to Epirus, and especially to Thesprotia. The account of Polybius does not enable us to say whether it was a large city, but I am inclined to believe that it was not very important as a town. It contained a temple of Apollo, government-buildings, and extensive halls, probably adorned with works of art and other costly decorations, being destined as places of meeting for the Παναιτώλιον. These public buildings were set on fire by Philip. After this first conflagration, they were restored by the inhabitants, but ten or twelve years later they were destroyed a second time, and afterwards the place is no longer mentioned.

The walls of the other towns noticed by Polybius still show that they must have been very strong places; they were of considerable extent, but as there are no inscriptions, it is very difficult to determine their names, and it cannot be done without acting in an arbitrary manner.

According to Polybius, the Aetolians were joined by nations which Thucydides still distinguishes from them; some of them are pure Epirot tribes, such as the Amphilochians and Agraeans. I shall speak of them afterwards when I come to Epirus, to which they belong, both ethnographically and geographically. They were probably the first that joined the Aetolians, although in the time of Pyrrhus they still belonged to Epirus, to which they had been ceded by Macedonia.

Acarnania.

Acarnania is the country on the western bank of the Achelous. The earliest notices of the Acarnanians in Thucydides down to those of the latest times, exhibit them in constant collision with the more powerful Aetolians, who [148]endeavoured to unite them with themselves, and, as they resisted, tried to destroy them. They are not mentioned in the Homeric Catalogue; they regarded themselves as the youngest among the Greek peoples, and set it forth as a merit of their own, that they had taken no part in the expedition against the Trojans, the ancestors of the Romans. But we must not infer too much from this: it is certain that at the time when the Catalogue was composed, the interior, or principal part, of the country was inhabited by Epirots, that is, Pelasgians, while the coast was, in my opinion, occupied by Greeks. The people over whom Odysseus ruled were certainly not confined to the little island of Ithaca; they extended far and wide, and their common name was Cephallenians, which also embraced those who lived on the ἤπειρος, that is, in Acarnania, on the coast near the Echinades, in Leucas, and in the Echinades themselves. In the ante-historic times they are mentioned under the name of the Taphians, who afterwards disappear, but seem to have equalled the Minyans in greatness and power. Whether, on the destruction of the empire of Odysseus, the Cephallenians and Arcananians separated, whether they gained strength to extend their dominion towards the interior, or whether a Hellenic immigration peopled the country, are questions on which we cannot decide. The last, however, is the most probable, and is supported by the mythus about Alcmaeon, who is said to have gone to the Echinades; but, however this may be, in the earliest times they are not mentioned under the name Acarnanians. Herodotus speaks of Acarnanians (Ἀκαρνὴν ἀνήρ) even before the time of the Persian wars, in which they took no more part than the Aetolians: their distance seems to have separated them from the rest of the Greeks, so as to prevent their having any share in their doings. Afterwards, in the Peloponnesian war, they sided with the Ionians against the Dorians, being the allies of the Athenians from hatred of the Corinthians, who had established themselves on the coast of Acarnania, had there founded the colonies of Leucas, [149]Anactorion, Alyzia, and the powerful town of Ambracia on the opposite coast, and were severely oppressive to the Acarnanians. This induced the latter to seek the assistance of the Athenians, which was effective, also, against the Aetolians, and brought on the war against them. The Aetolians themselves thereby became connected with the Ambraciots and the Dorians.

In this condition the Acarnanians remained until the time of the Macedonian supremacy; but when the Macedonian empire gained consistency, the Acarnanians thoughtlessly placed themselves under its protection. Philip favored them greatly, and assigned to them Oeniadae, which had previously belonged to the Achaeans, and also Leucas; whether the latter place remained in their possession or not, we do not know. Fresh hostilities now arose with the Aetolians, who were enemies of the Macedonians. The severest blow was inflicted upon the Acarnanians in the reign of Alexander of Epirus, the son of Pyrrhus, for their country was divided between him and the Aetolians. The latter retained the possession of the principal towns which they received; but at the time of the disputes about the succession among the Aeacidae, the Epirot dominion was shaken off, and the Acarnanians again threw themselves into the arms of Macedonia. We must distinguish Acarnania in its earlier and in its later condition: Acarnania in Polybius is considerably reduced on the east near the Achelous, for it there possessed only Oeniadae, but on the coast it was increased through the Corinthian colonies. In this condition it remained, until, in the war between the Romans and Macedonians, its population, having sided with the latter, had to suffer greatly. Leucas was taken and separated from Acarnania. But although the Acarnanians were pardoned by the Romans, they thenceforward completely disappear in history.

The country forms no contrasts, and has no deep valleys with lakes like Aetolia; it has no high mountains, but is a fertile hilly country, with alluvial soil, though not to any [150]great extent, on the coast and the Achelous: the soil is throughout light and good. As regards the political constitution of the Acarnanians, even Polybius speaks of the κοινὸν τῶν Ἀκαρνάνων, so that they must have formed a regularly organised state, no doubt with a common strategus. As far as their manners are concerned, the same historian classes them among the less civilised tribes, for they went about in arms. They did not, like the Aetolians, consist of tribes that were essentially foreign to each other, but of kindred settlers in towns. Nations which, like the Aetolians, are destined by nature to lead a pastoral life, cannot have any important settlements in towns any more than the little cantons of Switzerland; but Acarnania is a thoroughly agricultural country, producing corn and olives, and towns accordingly arose from the nature of circumstances; pastoral life prevailed only in the mountains. These towns had no separate existence independently of the common government of the state; each of them had no doubt its own municipal freedom, but in their relation to foreign countries, they were dependent. This is implied in the term τὸ κοινόν, Latin, commune.

In the Peloponnesian war, Stratos was the capital of the country, but it was taken by the Aetolians, to whom it belonged in the time of Polybius. Its walls are still preserved, and they not only show that, as Thucydides says, it was the largest town of Acarnania, but absolutely a large town of an astonishing circumference. But these countries are so different from those of the intellectual Greeks, that no ruins are found attesting the existence of splendid buildings. Stratos is the only one among the genuine Acarnanian towns, that deserves to be noticed.

Oeniadae, at the mouth of the Achelous, is often mentioned as an Achaean town, and its true character is therefore a real puzzle. Xenophon calls it Achaean, and Scylax of Caryanda applies the name Ἀχαιοί and Ἀχαία to the whole coast from Cape Rhion as far as the Achelous, so that not only Oeniadae, but the other coast-towns, as for example, the little [151]Chalcis, were connected with the Achaeans. Afterwards Oeniadae was taken by the Aetolians; it recovered indeed its independence, but was then conquered by the Acarnanians, and finally taken from them by the Romans. Whether on this last occasion the Achaeans again established their claims, cannot be ascertained. It is not impossible that it may have been an Achaean colony, as we find another in Zacynthos.

The Corinthian colonies, the most remarkable of which were Leucas, Anactorion, Alyzia, and Action, were separated from Acarnania proper at an early period.

Leucas, according to the opinion of the Alexandrian grammarians, who are great authorities in these matters, is mentioned in the Odyssey and the Homeric Catalogue under the name of Neriton, and was at that time still inhabited by Cephallenians. At a later period it was a Doric settlement of Corinth, when this latter city founded colonies on the Ambracian gulf, in Corcyra, and other islands, with a care which shows that it intended to establish its maritime supremacy in those parts. Those settlements belong partly to the period of the Bacchiadae, and partly to that of Cypselus and Periander. Leucas was formerly connected with the mainland by an isthmus, which was cut through by the Corinthians when they established themselves there. Afterwards the isthmus was sometimes restored and sometimes broken through; and these changes frequently occur, even in the middle ages, for the rivers which flow into the Ambracian gulf, carry with them as much mud as the Achelous, and as Leucas was situated close to the shore, and was separated from the mainland only by a very narrow channel, the mud there accumulated by the current which is very strong in that part. This isthmus was very inconvenient to the navigation of the Leucadians to the Ambracian gulf, as they had to sail round the whole promontory; nothing therefore is more natural than that the canal should have been re-opened from time to time. The opinion of those who [152]imagine that the isthmus was an artificially constructed causeway is absurd, though it is quite conceivable that at the time when the isthmus was uninterrupted, a road may have been made upon it; but this has quite a different meaning. The name Leucas has a double nominative, Leucas and Leucata, of which so many instances occur in Latin in the case of Greek proper names,⁠[64] as Croton and Crotona, Ancon and Ancona, the latter of which is the genuine Latin form. It is said that ὁ Λευκάτας was the rock of Leucas; but there is no foundation for this, it is a mere expedient to get over a difficulty. On Cape Leucas stood the temple of Apollo, and from its precipitous cliff Sappho and others are said to have leapt into the sea because their passionate love was not returned.

Anactorion was a very small and insignificant place, as we see from the notices about it during the Peloponnesian war, for it furnished only one trireme.

Action can scarcely be called a town, and is remarkable only for the battle fought there, and the temple of Apollo.

Alyzia was likewise unimportant, and deserves to be noticed only as a Corinthian colony, and as an example of the manner in which the Corinthians detached the coast from Acarnania.

By the side of Action, on the spot afterwards occupied by Prevesa, there arose Nicopolis, which was built by Augustus as a monument of his victory. The Greek population was then so reduced, and the violence of the Roman generals so truly oriental, that Augustus transplanted to Nicopolis the nation of the Aetolians and most of the Acarnanians; for I have no doubt that, to a certain extent, this was really the case. Owing to its situation, [153]the place was during the middle ages regarded as a fortress, and new buildings were erected, whence the ancient ones have for the most part disappeared. The ruins of Nicopolis however are extensive, for Augustus adorned it with splendid buildings. The Byzantine emperors defended it for a long time against the conquests of the Bulgarians, who had subdued a great part of Epirus and the adjoining countries of Greece. We cannot say at what time the name Nicopolis disappears; in the tenth century it still existed, and is mentioned by Constantine Porphyrogenitus.

The Cephallenian Islands.

Under this name, following the example of the Alexandrian grammarians, we comprise those islands which in Homer form the empire of Odysseus, namely, Ithaca, Cephallenia or Same, and Zacynthos; I have already intimated that I have nothing to say about Dulichion. This empire of Odysseus entirely disappears in our history. If we had Ephorus or ample extracts from his work, we should be able to proceed more safely. The Greeks had ancient records about many places and subjects connected with their early history, as we see from Thucydides, but they cannot be called history; Ephorus, however, anxiously endeavoured to collect them all, and all that is quoted from them, is excellent. After the time of the Odyssey those islands are scarcely mentioned at all. Cephallenia is noticed in a passing remark at the time of the Peloponnesian war, Zacynthos too is mentioned once, and in the war of the Romans and Aetolians they are brought forward more particularly; Ithaca, on the other hand, does not occur at all in ancient history. Mythology says, that after Odysseus was slain by Telegonus, [154]his own son by Circe, Telemachus and Penelope quitted the island from fear of the vengeance of the relations of the suitors. This statement when translated into history, means, that the empire was completely broken up, and the dynasty of Odysseus disappeared.

As to Ithaca, we do not even know what was the name of its town; near the port distinct traces of a town and Cyclopian walls are still visible; and a modern English traveller, Sir William Gell, I do not know whether in joke or in earnest, states that they are the remains of the palace of Odysseus. It cannot be ascertained whether the island existed by itself, or whether it was connected with Cephallenia.

Cephallenia had four towns which are mentioned at the time of the Peloponnesian war under the names of Pale, Cranii, Same, and Proni; they were quite independent of one another and allied with Athens. In later times we find them in the relation of sympolity with the Aetolians. The name Cephallenia is of more recent origin, the island being, in early times, called Same. During the Aetolian war, the Romans completely subdued it on account of its situation, which was favourable to navigation. Its inhabitants were notorious as pirates even in very early times.

Zacynthos (the Z must be pronounced as softly as possible), the southernmost of these islands, is entirely of a volcanic nature, and remarkable for its springs of naphtha; it has suffered much from earthquakes, which have continued even in modern times. Otherwise it is a real paradise, and must have been the same in antiquity: its fertility, beauty, and climate are almost fabulous. During the Peloponnesian war, it was taken by the Athenians; it is mentioned at that time as an Achaean colony, so that the Achaeans must have established themselves there as they did at Oeniadae, and thus extended the boundaries of their own country. Afterwards it fell into the hands of the Macedonians, and [155]ultimately into those of the Romans. The Achaeans wanted to unite it again with Peloponnesus, but Flamininus resisted them; but whether they, nevertheless, carried their plan, is unknown, for all information is wanting.

Thessaly.

The name Thessaly is used in two senses: in its proper sense, for example in Scylax, it comprises the country of the ruling tribes of the Thessalians dwelling within their natural boundaries, a circumstance of which no notice at all is taken in our maps and geographical manuals. In this sense Thessaly touches upon the sea only by a line of coast thirty stadia in length, and the remaining coast which we are in the habit of calling Thessalian, does not belong to it. In the ordinary or wider sense, in which the name can be proved to have been used even by Herodotus, Thessaly extended as far as the Aenianians and Malians, perhaps even as far as the Dolopians, in the south. The tribes inhabiting it, the Phthiotans, the Magnetes, Peraebi, and others, were subjects of the Thessalians, and in so far the use of the name which comprises them also is well founded, for they belonged to the state of the Thessalians.

In its narrower sense, Thessaly is the valley of the Peneus, which is said, in Herodotus, to have once been one continuous lake, but afterwards discharged its waters into the sea by breaking through the heights between Ossa and Olympus. This clearly shews that the tradition applies to the valley of the Peneus alone, for the valley south of mount Othrys, for example, could not have been inundated, whereas the fertile plains of Pherae about lake Boebeis as far as the Pagasaean gulf, from which it is separated only by a few hills, may very easily have been [156]inundated. The statement, therefore, is evidently correct; its truth may even now be seen, and the ancients judged correctly. However, to refer the draining, which cannot have been the work of human hands, but must have been effected by revolutions of the earth, to the historical ages is a mistake, because we are accustomed to compress the events of many centuries within the small space of our historical knowledge. The opposite mistake consists in assuming, within the sphere of history, longer intervals than really exist. The duration of a century seems to be very short, but if we examine it more minutely, it is a long period for historical changes. If, for example, we look at Germany and our ancestors 150 or 160 years ago, how different do we find them from ourselves in their mode of living, in their ideas, their occupations, and maxims, and that too in the highest as well as in the lowest classes of society! People have imagined that Rome, from the time of Servius Tullius to that of Cicero, remained in its forms essentially the same; but this is quite impossible, and the difference must have been enormous. Even when we look at nations which seem to admit of no change, for example, the Hindoos, great differences are still manifest at different times: life is ever changeable. I do not believe that this remark is superfluous; it is very important to the historian to have it always present before his mind; it is impossible successfully to treat of ancient history without a thorough knowledge of modern history.

In its wider sense, Thessaly presents the immense contrasts of the excellent plain (τὸ Θεσσαλικὸν πεδίον) and the mountains. On its western side, we have mount Pindus (now Mezzowo, probably a Wallachian name), the highest of all the Greek mountains, which has only very few passes; that of Gomphi, leading from Epirus into Thessaly, is the most convenient, and very easy to defend, on account of the nature of the country. On the south of the Peneus we have mount Othrys, a tame mountain, to use a Swiss expression, which is, indeed, covered with wood, but is, [157]nevertheless, capable of being cultivated, and is used in some parts as pasture to a very great height; it is a smiling and beautiful mountain, with excellent underwood, whereas the higher parts of Pindus produce only firs. Pindus, consisting only of rocks and forests, is a lofty mountain, and a continuation of the great Illyrian Scardus, which extends from the Julian Alps in Carniola, through Bosnia and Dalmatia, as far as Constantinople, rising higher and higher, until, on the coast near Scutari, it reaches its highest point, and forms its real central knot. Although Scardus is not covered with snow all the year round, it is, at any rate, very close to the region of perpetual snow; its ravines and summits are covered with it during the greater part of the year. The mountain then suddenly sinks down, and geographically, though not ethnographically, separates Illyricum from Macedonia, and runs out into Pindus and Othrys. At this point Pindus begins, which is joined in the east by mount Othrys. The Dolopian and Aetolian mountains, for which no general names are mentioned by the ancients, run parallel with mount Othrys, and mount Parnassus is an off-shoot of them. On the southern frontier of Thessaly, in its widest sense, we meet with mount Oeta, which is not so much a mountain as a series of separate hills; the name Oeta is not applicable to it in the interior of the country; the pass of Thermopylae runs between its foot and the Euboean sea. Oeta is a sublime mountain, and renowned in Greek mythology on account of the death of Heracles.

In the north of the valley of the Peneus, a range of very high mountains, some of which are not distinguished by particular names, extends towards Olympus; a part of them is called by Livy montes Cambunii, but we have no distinct information as to the extent to which this name is applicable, though from our maps it would seem as if we had. These mountains issue from the high ranges which, on the extreme borders of Thessaly, in its widest sense, proceed from Macedonia, and form another ramification of the Illyrian Scardus, terminating in mount Olympus, which [158]towers far above the clouds, and is always covered with snow. Every one knows that Olympus is the abode of the Homeric gods; but it is not so generally known, that the Roman poets, Ennius, Virgil, and others, when applying the name Olympus to the vault of heaven, confound Greek mythology and Roman theology. The Greeks conceived the gods as dwelling on the top of the mountain, while the Romans imagined that they lived beyond the heavenly vault, whence Ennius has the expression maxima porta Olympi, a conception quite foreign to the Greeks. I shall hereafter explain why the Greeks called this mountain the centre of the earth, and that, too, before Delphi was described in these terms; for it is strange indeed, Olympus being properly beyond the boundaries of Greece.

Mount Ossa, opposite to Olympus, is not quite so high; the river Peneus flows between these two mountains through the valley of Tempe into the sea. This valley, τὰ Θεσσαλικὰ Τέμπη, was celebrated in antiquity for its beauty. The ancients, on the whole, do not often speak of the beauties of nature, for they are not sentimental; and if they do so, it is always in reference to pleasing and smiling scenery. The description of Tempe in Aelian, taken from Theopompus, is perhaps the most accurate we have in any ancient writer. Dodwell also describes it as equally wonderful; it is from four to five miles in length, and forms not a smooth and splendid district with a luxuriant vegetation, but majestic scenery, resembling, for example, that on the Eisak between Botzen and Brixen in the Tyrol, or that grand scenery in the valley of the Inn: its beauty is manly and sublime.

Mount Pelion extends to the south-east of Ossa, and is one of the most beautiful mountains in the world: it is lovely and fertile up to its top; it is covered with chesnut-trees, and is probably the place from which they have spread over the world, for their nuts are called nuces Castaneae, from the town of Castanea on the Pagasaean gulf. Among the Greek botanists, Pelion is celebrated for its richness [159]in medicinal plants, and for the variety of its trees. Previously to the present wretched state of the country, many large villages existed about mount Pelion; it was the happiest district; its inhabitants enjoyed great privileges, and as they were very industrious and under the special protection of the sultans to whom the district belonged as a fief, they were enabled to pay a large tribute, but lived in the interior quite undisturbed and without suffering any ill usage. Their excellent warehouses, which were known also to German merchants, are now entirely destroyed, although the inhabitants have not risen against the Porte.

This is the physical outline of the mountains. Phthiotis is an entirely mountainous country between Othrys, the Euboean sea and the gulf of Iolcus; but the mountains are not high. The remaining part of Thessaly is not absolutely a plain, for the mountains rise gradually, and the country is intersected by ranges of hills. Thessaly has two gulfs, that near Thermopylae called Μαλιακός or Πυλαϊκός, and the Παγασητικός or Ἰωλκίτης.

I shall now proceed to consider the population. According to the most ancient traditions, Thessaly was inhabited by all kinds of people of quite different names. The poets are fond of applying to the country, in the ancient mythical period, the name Aemonia, which in those times is not an inappropriate name for Thessaly.⁠[65] Among its earliest inhabitants, we have mention of the Lapithae, who dwelt on mount Pelion, I do not exactly know where, and are said to have expelled the Centauri. It is quite clear that the Greeks, in their mythology, conceived the Centaurs only as mythical beings; the explanation of a race of men living on horseback, is of late origin, and altogether [160]uncertain; such a race, moreover, belongs to a plain and not to the mountains.

The only river, besides the Peneus, which is of any historical importance, is the Sperchius or Spercheus in the south, which falls into the Euboean sea about four miles north of Thermopylae. Of poetical interest are the Apidanus and the Anaurus near Iolcus, on the banks of which Jason is said to have lost his shoe. In the west, in the territory of Pherae, we may notice lake Boebeis.

The Thessalians are regarded as an Epirot people, that is, as Thesprotians, who, under their chief Thessalus, conquered Aemonia. Along with the Lapithae, it is said, Aeolian tribes occupied the country, Boeotians living in the valley of Arne, and others elsewhere. Thessaly is sometimes also regarded as the real Αἰολίς. It is impossible to ascertain the true history of the Thesprotians, for our accounts of them directly contradict each other. Thessalians are said to have migrated from Dodona into Thessaly, and Peraebi again are reported to have penetrated from Thessaly into the mountains of Epirus, whence it is probable that here too the identity of the nations gave rise to the traditions about immigration. I do not mean to deny the immigration, but our accounts of it are completely devoid of authenticity. I lay, however, great stress upon the fact, that Thessalians and Pelasgians are synonymous in the ancient poems and genealogies, which are known to us, at least substantially, from the scholiasts on Apollonius Rhodius and the Iliad. This is a grand discovery, and one from which new treasures are still to be gathered: the Alexandrian school always deserves to be spoken of with the greatest respect; the statements contained in these scholia make up for the loss of the poetical lays. At Cyzicus Thessalians and Pelasgians are mentioned; in Lemnos we find Thessalian Minyans, and the Pelasgians of Ravenna and Agylla are likewise called Thessalians. Somewhat later genealogists, as Hellanicus in his Phoronis, account for the Pelasgians dwelling in the most distant countries by emigration from [161]Thessaly under Pelasgus and his son⁠[66] Nanas, which is to us only a hint. But the statement that the Thessalians in the valley of Thessaly were foreign immigrants, is credible on account of their internal constitution and their system of servitude, which suggests the subjugation of the ancient population. A system of servitude so fully developed as in the Wendish parts of Germany, occurs nowhere in Greece except in Thessaly; I do not mean to say, that it did not exist in many other parts also, for traces of it are found in the notes of Ruhnkenius on Timaeus. In Greece proper helotism is well known; at Athens it never existed, though we find it in Ionia, Chios, Argos, Crete, Syracuse, and Magna Graecia; but it was nowhere so permanent as in Thessaly, where it continued down to the time of the Romans. Its name is πενεστεία, which expresses both the body of the serfs and the relation in which they lived; it does not seem to have originally been the name of a nation, but must probably be derived, as was done by the ancients, from πένομαι, and πένης, a poor man.⁠[67]⁠

There existed in Thessaly a number of towns forming independent states by themselves; but that at the same time they were united by political bonds, is evident partly from the coins with the inscription κοινὸν Θεσσαλῶν, and partly from the fact, that in the πεντηκοντετηρίς, before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war, kings of Thessaly, such as Orestes and Echecratides, are mentioned. We must, therefore, infer, that Thessaly formed one state; but at times the inhabitants of Larissa, Pharsalus, Pherae, and Cranon appear as citizens of independent towns, whence we may conclude that the bonds which connected them were extremely loose.

Thessaly, in its narrower sense, was divided into four parts, Phthiotis, Hestiaeotis, Thessaliotis, and Pelasgiotis. [162]The principal passage on this subject is Strabo, ix. p. 430, b. and c.; which, however, as printed in our editions, is senseless, and the beginning alone is correct. I will, therefore, mention to you the emendation I have made, for even the unrivalled Casaubonus was mistaken here. Instead of καλούμενοι δὲ Πελασγιῶται, we must read, in accordance with the MSS. cited by Casaubonus, καλούμενοι δὲ Θεσσαλιῶται; and immediately after this we must read, συνάπτοντες ἤδη τοῖς κάτω Μακεδόσι, καὶ οἱ Πελασγιῶται ἐφεξῆς τὰ μέχρι Μαγνητικῆς παραλίας ἐκπληροῦντες χωρία, so that Πελασγιῶται is restored in the latter passage. Strabo, however, here confounds Phthiotis, the country of the Phthiotian Achaeans, with that part of Thessaly which the Thessalians had separated from the ancient Phthia and united with Thessaly. Phthia, in the sense of the Achaean country, is never any other than the district between the Malian gulf and the valley of the Peneus; but if we take it as the portion of Thessaly which the Thessalians had torn from it, and incorporated with their own country, it cannot have extended down to the gulf. Thessaly embraced the land from Pharsalus as far as Hestiaeotis, that is, as far as the upper part of the valley of the Peneus, in the neighbourhood of Tricca. The extent of Phthia was not rightly understood by the ancients themselves in their explanation of Homer. The passage in the Βοιωτία:—

reads entirely as if Phthia and Hellas were towns. This fancy, for it is nothing but a fancy, took a firm hold even of the Alexandrian grammarians; but the verses must be transposed, οἵ τ’ εἶχον must follow directly after the line beginning with Νῦν αὖ. Both Hellas and Phthia are countries, and stand in apposition to the Pelasgian Argos.

This division into four parts applies only to Thessaly in the narrower sense, and is not so much of geographical [163]interest, as it is of real political importance: there must at one time have existed four real Thessalian states standing to one another in the relation of isopolity, like the Romans and Hernicans, and the Samnite nations among one another. But this point, like all that concerns Thessaly, is involved in very great obscurity. This much, however, is certain, that the division was restored under Philip of Macedonia, who, for the purpose of breaking the power of Thessaly cut it up into four different states, just as afterwards the Romans did with Macedonia, and as, in 1812, Napoleon, while making the Poles believe that he was restoring their state, divided their country into three parts, in order to prevent its rising, at a great distance from him, to the rank of a powerful state. This is the tetrarchy of which Theopompus in Harpocration gives the well known explanation. Demosthenes (Philip. ii. p. 71, ed. Reiske), however, states that Philip divided Thessaly into decadarchies: this reading occurs indeed in all the MSS., but they are of little authority, as all of them are founded upon a single recension, and are perhaps derived from one original manuscript. From Harpocration, too, an author of the second century, we see that in his time this reading already existed, and puzzled him as well as other archaeologists. It is historically certain, that the Lacedaemonians, in every town that became subject to them, established a decadarchy, as at first they did at Athens, though they there increased the number to thirty; but how we have to view the statement in regard to Thessaly, is, as Harpocration admits, a matter of doubt. The explanation, however, is not so very difficult. The δεκαδαρχίαι in the second Philippic are, if we examine the context, quite the same as the tetrarchies in the third (p. 117). The fault arose from the compendious mode of writing: Δ in ancient Greek writing has, as a number, a double meaning; according to the common Phoenician practice it signified four, and according to the Attic system of writing ten. In nearly all the earlier inscriptions, where it occurs as a number, Δ signifies ten, as Π signifies fifty; when, [164]therefore, Δ with a line (Δʹ) occurred before ἀρχία (ΔʹΑΡΧΙΑ), the reader knew that it indicated a number, but he made it either ten or four, according as he imagined that he had before him an Attic or a common number; and if he was familiar with the Lacedaemonian decadarchy, he read in this passage also δεκαδαρχία. This division into tetrarchies, then, existed in the Macedonian period, but we do not know how long.

I will now put together the few fragments of Thessalian history which have come down to us. The family of the Aleuadae, a Heracleid family, was the most celebrated of all, and ruled at Larissa; it formed an oligarchy even within the ruling nation; at the time of the Persian wars it was so powerful as to be in possession of the whole government, and it is probable that the Thessalian kings mentioned by Thucydides belonged to it. The Scopadae were another great and noble family at Pharsalus. The nobility of Thessaly, like that of the Sarmatians and that of the middle ages, were numerous, whence the best part of the Thessalian armies consisted of horsemen; they scarcely had any infantry at all; a Thessalian phalanx does not occur anywhere, and peltasts are not mentioned till later times. Notwithstanding the state of dissolution in which we find Thessaly, there still existed a bond among the different states, which embraced even the neighbouring nations, the Magnetes, the Achaeans of Phthia, and the Peraebians; it is possible that the Thessalians, may have ruled over the tribes which touched upon their borders, but the latter were never really subdued by them, and the Peraebians seem to have been under the direct supremacy of Larissa. About thirty or forty years after the Peloponnesian war, when the disorganisation had increased, the town of Pherae, which had formerly been insignificant, rose into importance, and Jason, a man of great parts, came forward there as tyrant, and was elected dictator by the whole of Thessaly under the title of ταγός, in which capacity he ruled over Thessaly and even over the countries [165]dependent on it. He was succeeded by his brothers, and then by his nephew Alexander; but his dynasty, like those of all usurpers in Greece, passed away, and afterwards Thessaly was in a state of greater dissolution than ever. The Aleuadae now renewed their claims, but the Thessalians happened at the time, in common with the Boeotians, to be involved in the unfortunate war against the Phocians, and Magnesia on that occasion recovered its independence. In these circumstances, Philip of Macedonia appeared among them under the mask of a friend, pretending that he would assist them, that he would subdue the Phocians, and reduce Magnesia to obedience; he was accordingly appointed tagus, and intrusted with the administration of their revenues arising from port dues and the tribute of their dependencies. Philip abused this ridiculous confidence, which was in reality an act of treason of the Thessalians against themselves, and put himself in permanent possession of the common domain of which he had undertaken the management, especially the Thessalian port of Pagasae, from which the revenues were very large. Thessaly, which was now divided into four parts, henceforth belonged to the crown of Macedonia. Very feeble attempts only were made by the Thessalians to recover their independence: in the Lamian war they endeavoured in vain to shake off the yoke, and the same was attempted in the subsequent wars against Cassander and Demetrius Poliorcetes. Thessaly, in the narrower sense, however, remained subject to Macedonia until the second Roman war of Philip. Under Antigonus Gonatas and Demetrius, the father of Philip, the Aetolians gained Achaia Phthiotis, which thus became separated. Philip recovered indeed a portion of it (Olymp. 140), but the greater part remained in the hands of the Aetolians, who even conquered parts of Thessaly Proper, such as Pharsalus, which, though it was recovered by the Macedonians, yet remained for a time in the hands of the Aetolians. Thessaly, however, even in its connection with Macedonia, continued [166]to form a state by itself, with the exception of Magnesia, which was regarded as part of Μακεδονία ἐπίκτητος, and where Demetrius Poliorcetes built the great fortress of Demetrias, which often served the Macedonian kings as a place of residence; it was very strong, and possessed a military port with arsenals for both the land army and the navy. When the Romans took Greece from Macedonia, Thessaly, as far as Mount Olympus and the Cambunian mountains, was separated from Macedonia, and obtained autonomy. It now formed a separate state, probably including the Peraebians and the Achaean Phthiotians; but Magnesia, which remained separate, surrendered to Antiochus, and afterwards remained in the possession of Philip, who had conquered it together with Demetrias, and with the sanction of the Romans retained it, a fact which has often been overlooked. Many believe that Philip was confined within the boundaries of Macedonia; but this is erroneous; his dominion extended over several other countries besides, for he was rewarded by the Romans with possessions, which afterwards they took from him. The fasti of the Thessalian strategi have come down to us in the Armenian translation of Eusebius; and from them we learn that the strategi were appointed for the whole of Thessaly in common, that Larissa not only had no privileges, but that they were sometimes chosen from smaller places, nay even from districts, as Phthiotis and Orestis, which had formerly been subject to Thessaly. One strategus belonged to Argos, which must have been Argos in Orestis, and not the Amphilochian Argos. During the war against Perseus, the Thessalians were in disgrace with the Romans; whether at that time they lost their autonomy cannot be proved with any degree of probability. In the war of the Pseudo-Philip, one part of the Thessalians joined him; but the history of that war is so obscure, that we cannot say whether they were independent or not. They seem, however, to have had, or at least to have recovered, a kind of autonomy, for during the war between Caesar and [167]Pompey, the Thessalians appear as a state or κοινόν with a strategus (praetor). The Achaeans then had no common strategus, and this accordingly appears to prove the autonomy of the Thessalians. After this their history cannot be traced.

After the description I have already given of the physical features of Thessaly in the narrowest sense of the name, I have only to add a few remarks on some other points.

Larissa was the most important town of Thessaly both in antiquity and the middle ages; and it is so still. Its situation is extremely favourable, the district around it being unusually fertile. Neither Larissa nor any other Thessalian town has a distinct history.

Pherae, next to Larissa the greatest town, was situated in the plain towards the bay; it was not indeed as great as Larissa, but still a respectable town, and is renowned in mythology for the story of Admetus; in the historical times, Jason and his family gave a certain celebrity to it.

Pharsalus, remarkable for the ever memorable battle which decided the fate of Rome, belonged for a time to the Aetolians.

Tricca, a town of which considerable ruins still exist, was celebrated for the worship of Asclepius. At least twenty other Thessalian places are mentioned, but I will not detain you with an enumeration of their names, as they are not sufficiently known.

Pagasae was the sea-port of Thessaly. The country, in its narrower sense, extended only thirty stadia along the sea-coast, beginning with the gulf of Pagasae or Iolcos; the Thessalians, therefore, had no fleet, though they may have had a few ships to keep up their commerce by sea. Pagasae had been united with their country for the sake of commerce; in the earlier times it is mentioned on several occasions, but it disappears during the Macedonian period, as Demetrius Poliorcetes transplanted all the inhabitants of the towns in that neighbourhood to his new fortress of Demetrias.

Peraebia, one of the three countries subject to Thessaly, extended along the foot of mount Olympus towards Macedonia; its mountainous parts were for a time independent, but afterwards surrendered to Thessaly; they did so, however, on more favourable terms than the Aeolian inhabitants of the plains; for, though they lost their political independence, they did not become serfs. The inhabitants were Epirots of the tribe of the Peraebians dwelling in the neighbourhood of Dodona.

The Magnetes also belonged to the race of the Pelasgians. The Greek form of their name is Magnetes, though we are accustomed to say Magnesians, which is in reality incorrect. Their country embraced the whole coast of Thessaly from mount Ossa and the mouth of the Peneus down to the sea which separates Thessaly from Euboea, and the bay of Iolcos. The whole of mount Pelion belonged to Magnesia, which has few harbours on its coast, the most important being that in the bay of Iolcos. In the map of D’Anville and others of an earlier date, a considerable town of the name of Magnesia is marked near the end of the promontory; but this town never existed, it is a mere blunder, arising from a misunderstood passage of Apollonius Rhodius, who, in describing the voyage of the ship Argo along the coast, mentions Magnesia in such a manner that a person who is not a scholar might mistake it for a town. Scylax and Herodotus, who give a very accurate enumeration of the towns on that coast in their natural succession, do not mention one of the name of Magnesia, which they apply to the country alone. In Demosthenes, too, Magnesia is not a town.

According to their genealogy, the Magnetes belonged to the Pelasgians, but of their history nothing is known. In very early times, however, they also occur in Asia, either because they had emigrated thither, or because the Pelasgian races in Meonia bore the same name: and why should not the Magnetes in Europe have undertaken voyages from their coast to the East?

Iolcos on the Anaurus in Magnesia, is the place from which the Argonautic expedition is said to have sailed. In the ancient story it appears as an important place of the Minyans, but afterwards it was only a very small town, which subsequently disappears altogether.

But instead of it there arose Demetrias, on the modern bay of Volo, a splendid harbour in the neighbourhood of Iolcos: this town is one of those creations which shew the practical and keen eye of its founder. We have seen that the establishment of Megalopolis was an unsuccessful undertaking; Demetrias was a rude, immoral, detested, and odious man, but of uncommon ability, which he shewed in his great discoveries in mechanics and in the art of engineering; the same talent was manifested here also, for he chose a spot which had been neglected for centuries for the purpose of founding a capital of Greece, which he intended to govern as a kingdom. The fact that his son, Antigonus Gonatas, was enabled to maintain himself as king, without having a definite kingdom, was owing to Demetrias, for it was his place of residence, and his whole strength lay there; it became the capital of Magnesia which was governed by Macedonia as a province in a manner which is somewhat strange to us; for under those despotisms, small countries often had a republican form of government, in which the kings interfered but seldom. In like manner, the small islands of the Archipelago, before the outbreak of the present war, were governed by Constantinople: when a Turkish vessel appeared, the people trembled, the magistrates were called out, and if the commander was so minded, he put them to death. The relations in the Macedonian empire were of a similar kind; the provinces were bound to pay tribute and furnish troops, but otherwise they lived quite under democratic institutions; and when a king founded a city like Antioch or Alexandria, it received a mixed population of Greeks and Macedonians, and a republican municipal constitution. Demetrias, as I have already said, became the capital of Magnesia, when after the war of [170]Philip the country became free, but it then threw itself into the arms of Antiochus. As a punishment for this, the Romans allowed it again to be subdued by Macedonia, and we find Perseus still in possession of it. We are perfectly ignorant as to the manner in which the Romans decided the fate of Magnesia and Demetrias because the last book of Livy has come down to us incomplete; it is not probable that they incorporated it with Thessaly or with Macedonia; it is more likely that, on account of the strength of Demetrias, they reserved for themselves the supremacy over it, and occupied it by a garrison.

The third dependent state was Achaia (Phthiotis). We are surprised to find this name here again; and the ancients unhesitatingly assume that emigrants from Peloponnesus had come to these parts, for which there is no authority at all. A thoughtful ethnographer is content with the observation that people of the same name lived in both countries, and that accordingly they were of the same origin, but he refrains from the attempt to explain the particular manner in which they were connected. Achaia formed a state under Thessalian supremacy, and it may have been somewhat more or less important than Brescia, Verona, or Padua under the supremacy of Venice. Brescia, e.g., was governed by a senate of forty persons, consisting of its own nobility; but the town was obliged to pay a certain tribute to Venice. The territory of Brescia again consisted of smaller states under the supremacy of Brescia. The government of Brescia in regard to the administration of justice, was subject to Venice, to which an appeal was open in criminal cases, and which, when appealed to, sent commissioners (proveditore) to re-examine the case. These gradations of dependence are quite obscure to us, and we cannot see our way clearly in them. We are apt to think only of a government from above, which makes the laws, but such was not the case in antiquity nor in the middle ages. Thus previously to the year 1798 there existed within the papal dominions several places, which stood indeed under the [171]protection of the popes, but had their own laws, and even carried into execution sentences of death without the sanction of the sovereign. A person making himself familiar with the variety of the Swiss constitutions is going through an excellent course of preparation for a profound knowledge of ancient history.

The case of Achaia was precisely the same: it had the administration of its internal affairs, but no political independence; it was not allowed to carry on war on its own account, but was obliged to serve in the armies of Thessaly, and to pay a certain tribute according to the terms of its capitulation, and in extraordinary cases even more.

Thebe, the only important town of Phthiotis, was one of the strongest fortresses of Greece, being well fortified both by nature and by art. For a time it belonged, like the rest of Phthiotis, to the Aetolians, but was taken from them by Philip, and was one of the places out of which the Aetolians wanted to cheat the Romans, although the latter had well-founded claims to it. Hence their exasperation was natural enough, but the manner in which they gave vent to their rage and fury was senseless.

The Melians, a little people, dwelt on the Sperchius in the corner of the gulf called Μαλιακός or Πυλιακὸς κόλπος. It is strange to find a distinction made there between the Malians and Melians, though the difference appears to be only one of dialect. They are in reality but one people, and that too a very small one; the doubts cannot be satisfactorily solved. Trachis, the capital of the Melians, plays a prominent part in poetry for being the seat of Ceyx, and in the Heracleiae it was a place of great importance. In the time of the Peloponnesian war, the Lacedaemonians established there the colony of Heraclea; it was a Doric place and had Doric νόμιμα, although its population was a mass of people driven together from all quarters, but it had Spartan oecistae, that is, commanders who made the laws and established the constitution. This town of Heraclea maintained itself down to the latest [172]times; during the Macedonico-Aetolian period, it belonged to Aetolia, and was called Ἡρακλεία ἡ ἐπὶ Τραχῖνι, but often simply Ἡρακλεία. It was taken by the Romans after the defeat of Antiochus.

The Oetaeans, likewise a very small people, lived in mount Oeta; they are generally overlooked in our geographical books and maps. But although they were a small people, they enjoyed perfect political independence, just like Jersey, with its 1,800 inhabitants previously to the revolution. They occur as an independent people even in Herodotus and Thucydides; but we know nothing further about them, for afterwards they disappear.

The Aenianians, a somewhat more important people, dwelt above the Melians and Oetaeans, but more to the west; they are called Αἰνιᾶνες in Thucydides, Xenophon and others, but Herodotus calls them Ἐνιῆνες. This is the most ancient instance of the Attic αι being expressed in another dialect by ε, which is the modern Greek pronunciation of αι. The termination αν is Pelasgic, and also appears in Italy as ans or as. The Aenianians, like the Melians, do not seem to have been among the subjects of Thessaly; for Aristotle, in speaking of the internal commotions among the Thessalian subjects does not mention them. Their small capital, Hypata, occurs in the wars of the Romans and Aetolians, and is also interesting, from the circumstance of its being the scene of the romance of Apuleius, who considers it as belonging to Thessaly. The Thessalian women were believed to be skilled in witchcraft; but this belief referred more particularly to the women of Hypata, and in this respect they are spoken of by Apuleius.

The Dolopians.

There remains one people, the Dolopians, who in the earliest history of Greece are scarcely mentioned at all. They [173]must have occupied a very extensive country, but it was of an Alpine character, and embraced the part where mount Pindus turns round towards the Aetolian frontier: there they must have lived in the valleys in scattered villages. They are mentioned in the Iliad as by no means foreign to the Greeks, any more than Dodona in the Catalogue; but still the poet of the Iliad can scarcely have regarded them as real Hellenes: their name is one of those by which a branch of the multiform and undefinable race of the Pelasgians was designated. The passage in which Thucydides says (i. 2), that in the Iliad Hellenes and barbarians were not distinguished, and which refers to such nations as the Dolopians, must be understood to mean, that Homer mentioned as Hellenic, nations which Thucydides in a strict sense included among the barbarians, for the Homeric geography is based more upon geographical masses than upon the identity of nationality, the latter of which is more carefully attended to by Thucydides. Such also is the meaning of Strabo. Scyros is called Dolopian, and the inhabitants of Euboea and the neighbouring Cyclades are called Dryopians, who in point of origin are the same nation as the Dolopians. Here again we need not have recourse to a migration, which would have had to traverse the mountains and the territories of so many nations: the Dolopians on the Achelous and the Dryopians in the Aegean are names of the same nation, in the same manner in which we find Thessalians in Italy and in Greece.

The Dolopians are not mentioned in history except in a passage of Thucydides, where he says that the Achelous flows from mount Pindus through the country of the Dolopians, and in Xenophon’s Hellenica, where we find that they were governed by Jason of Pherae. Afterwards they appear alternately under the supremacy of Macedonia and the Aetolians, until in the end Philip, in his war against the Aetolians and Antiochus, again subdued them. In this condition they are found in the war of Perseus, afterwards they disappear in the general catastrophe of Greece.

We have now passed through Greece from the southernmost point of Peloponnesus as far as mount Olympus, the Thessalian mountains and Tempe.⁠[68] In casting our eyes back upon Greece, it is surprising to find how few of those nations share in the great renown of the Greeks in literature and the arts. In the earliest times poetry was the common property of all rather than of individuals: epic poetry was chiefly cultivated among the Ionians in Asia Minor; lyric poetry among the Aeolians, in Lesbos, Boeotia, Sicily, and Magna Graecia (Himera, Rhegium), and afterwards also among the Dorians; dramatic poetry was in reality confined to Athens. After Pindar, no part of Greece, except Athens, produced poets, prose writers, and orators, until the latest times again wrought a change; for then, after the real life and flourishing period of the arts had already disappeared, there came forward Polybius, a most respectable author indeed, though not beyond the point which we ourselves may attain. The renown in the plastic arts was shared by Corinth and Sicyon, at an earlier period also by Boeotia and Aegina, and in a less degree by Argos. Thessaly is a perfectly rude country, in which genius has created nothing.

I shall now pass on to the Greek islands, first to Euboea, next to the islands in the Aegean, and then to Tenedos and Lesbos, whose whole character is Asiatic, the Cyclades, Crete, and the Sporades. I shall then discuss the Ionic, Doric, and Aeolic settlements in Asia Minor, the colonies on the coast of Thrace, on the Euxine, and on the southern coast of Asia Minor. Of most of the islands very little can be said.

Euboea.

Euboea, the largest island in the Aegean, is situated close to the continent of Greece. This island is often mentioned, especially by later poets, Callimachus, Apollonius Rhodius (with his scholiast), and others under antiquated names. Such names, however, are not to be overlooked, for they are not fictitious or arbitrary designations, but must be dealt with cautiously, and neither too much nor too little importance ought to be attributed to them. But we must above all things be on our guard against drawing too hasty conclusions from them, as is done by a certain school of philologers, who from names and a few facts draw inferences which are repulsive to a strict philologer, especially when he considers that there is so much that is clear and true, if they would but take the trouble to search for it. Thus, e.g., it is not an unimportant statement, that Euboea was formerly called Macris, which contains an allusion to the Pelasgian Macrians on the Propontis, who are mentioned by Apollonius Rhodius; Corcyra also is said to have been called Macris. Such things must be known to us, as they were known to the Alexandrian grammarians. Dionysius Thrax⁠[69] mentions emendation and the interpretation of the writings of antiquity as the objects of a grammarian and philologer: a noble object, which you, too, must set before yourselves. Whoever wants to be a grammarian, sets before himself a high aim, which requires a knowledge of antiquity, of mythology, legends and traditions; in short, he must know everything that was known to Apollonius, Eratosthenes, and the grammarians of the second Alexandrian school. A philologer must strive to become master of all the legends [176]and traditions to such a degree as to be able, after a moment’s thought, to give an account of what he finds in a poet. This knowledge also comprises that which is found in isolated notices of the scholiasts.

In the Homeric Catalogue, Euboea belongs to the group of Argive states, but Abantes also dwell in the island. Respecting the origin of these Abantes nothing can be ascertained. Afterwards we find the island divided into five states, three of which are called Ionic and regarded as Ionic colonies; the fourth is Dryopian, and the fifth, Hestiaean, both evidently of the same race as the ancient inhabitants of Thessaly about mount Pindus, that is, Pelasgian. Chalcis and Eretria are said to have been founded by Ionians from Athens; the former was situated on the Euripus, the latter, to the south-east of it. In the early history of Greece, between Olymp. 20 and 40, a period which is so much neglected, both places were of great importance. It is perfectly clear that, though we cannot explain how, they possessed a power far superior to that of Athens at the same time; the great power of the Colophonians also belongs to that period of which the history is lost to us. We only know accidentally, that those two states carried on a long, protracted, and fierce war against each other, in which nearly all the states of Greece joined either the one or the other of them. This shows but too plainly how little the history of Greece is known.

Both cities founded an endless number of colonies, and Chalcis more particularly on the Thracian coast (the Chalcidian towns in Epithrace), in Sicily and Italy (Cumae, Himera, Zancle, Catana, Naxos, Rhegium, and others). It cannot be supposed, that these numerous colonies contained an efflux of population commensurate with the size of the place, but only oecistae went out with a fleet under the protection of Chalcis, and a multitude of people then assembled from all parts of Greece, who were in want of a home; the Chalcidians however were the leaders, and the colony, out of gratitude, formed the noblest phyle from the [177]Chalcidian oecistae, who made the laws. These colonies are another great proof of the deficiency of our knowledge of that stirring period, and show how much we should know, if we possessed Ephorus or only the portion of the work of Diodorus from the sixth to the tenth book. Our information is principally derived from Strabo and Heraclides Ponticus. The last occurrence in which Chalcis appears as a great state, is related by Herodotus, and belongs to the period subsequent to the expulsion of the Pisistratids. The Chalcidians, in conjunction with the Boeotians, carried on war against Athens, but were defeated. The numbers mentioned by Herodotus on that occasion show to what extent precision is lost and how delusive accounts become, even within the space of a century. But certain it is, that Chalcis was conquered by Athens, and that cleruchi were sent to it, of whom, however, subsequently not a trace appears, whence it must be supposed that they had been expelled. The Eretrians are mentioned as being in alliance with Athens; hence we may perhaps assume, that this alliance had existed even in the early times, when Chalcis and Eretria were at war with each other. During the Persian war, Chalcis was not a place of much consequence, and afterwards still less so.

Eretria sent out colonies to Corcyra even before the Corinthians, also to Ischia near Naples, and had its share in the colonisation of Naples itself. It maintained its power longer than Chalcis, and during the insurrection of Aristagoras, it had spirit enough to carry out the expedition against Sardes; but in the campaigns of Datis it was completely (ἄρδην) destroyed, and its inhabitants carried away as slaves into Persia; there the king of the barbarians assigned to them habitations in the distant interior of Bactria. The new Eretria, built under the protection of Athens, remained unimportant.

Carystos, the third town, is renowned for the beautiful striped marble found in its neighbourhood; it is white, with greenish veins, and occurs in large strata. The Italians, [178]from its resemblance to the layers of an onion, call it cipollino. Mineralogy, metallurgy, and technology are studies which no philologer ought to neglect; they are extremely instructive to him.

Styra was quite insignificant; it is called Dryopian, that is, the ancient inhabitants remained there. It was situated on the southern extremity of the island.

Histiaea, on the north-eastern point of Euboea, had a Pelasgian population. In the time of Pericles, it was subdued by the Athenians; all Euboea had then renounced the connection with Athens, but was re-conquered; the Histiaeans were overpowered, and an Athenian colony was established among them. Athenian colonists are otherwise rarely mentioned, and wherever they occur, the expression is generally not to be taken in its proper sense, Ionian colonists alone being mostly meant by it. The new colony was called Oreos, and was founded for the purpose of keeping Euboea in obedience, and of preventing it from keeping up a connection with the northern part of the sea. These colonists, as well as the Attic inhabitants of Lemnos and Scyros, appear to have been expelled after the Peloponnesian war; whether they returned, is not known, but Oreos continued to exist as a town. In the maritime war of the Romans and Macedonians, it was ravaged and completely destroyed, so that it never recovered again.

The most interesting physical phenomenon connected with Euboea is the Euripus, the channel between Boeotia and Euboea; the sea there had its tides every day, but in a very irregular manner. This was a great puzzle to the natural philosophers among the Greeks, and would be so still, were it not that that part of Europe is so much withdrawn from the observation of the inquirer. The south-east of Euboea presents a rocky and dangerous coast; it may be said in general, that Euboea has no harbours, and the greater part of its coast is infamis duris naufragiis; the Capharean rocks deserve to be noticed in particular, for, according to tradition, the Greek fleet, on its return [179]from Troy, was dashed against them, and Ajax, the son of Oileus, perished there. The northern part of this harbourless coast is called the κοῖλα of Euboea.

Chalcis, about whose ancient greatness I have already spoken, was situated to the north of the neck of land (στενά), which separates the northern from the southern portion of the island. It was for the most part deserted as early as the time of Dicaearchus; its walls enclosed a space of upwards of five miles in circumference, but the place was comparatively desolate. The Macedonian rulers soon made themselves masters of it for the purpose of keeping Greece in subjection. In the newly-discovered fragments of his work, Polybius speaks of an insurrection of Chalcis against Macedonia, of which the consequence was, that a Macedonian garrison was placed in the town. I have not yet been able to find out in which war this occurrence took place, though it was probably in the Lamian war, or perhaps at a later time, under Demetrius Poliorcetes. From the time of this Demetrius, the island was in the hands of the Macedonians, though not always as a part of the Macedonian empire. Under Antigonus Gonatas, his brother Craterus, and, after him, his son Alexander, were princes of Euboea. At a later period it was again dependent on Macedonia. In the war of Philip, Chalcis suffered severely during a predatory expedition of the Romans, for it was taken by surprise, plundered, and reduced to ashes. After this it rose again, for it was always easy for those Greek towns to be restored, if their public buildings were not destroyed, because the private dwellings were of a very humble nature and could easily be rebuilt. The city then became the head quarters of Antiochus. Such things were not forgotten by the Romans, for their hatred was implacable; they did indeed restore Chalcis to independence, because they had not yet gained as firm a footing in those parts as afterwards; but when Corinth had been taken, Chalcis was one of the towns which, according to the decision of the decem legati, were destroyed. It was not till [180]several centuries later that it was partially restored; and its situation is so favourable, that, in the course of time, when the earlier circumstances had been forgotten, a new town again rose there under the name of Egribos, from which the modern name Negroponte has been formed.

The four or five towns of Euboea, which had formerly been separate states, had each quite a distinct history of its own; but afterwards when the Greek nations united in larger masses, they, too, like the Phocians, are mentioned as a κοινόν, and that, too, as early as the time of Flamininus; they brought about their own ruin by taking part in the unfortunate Achaean war.

Let us now pass on to the northern islands. The nearest to the Thessalian coast, to the north of Oreos, are Sciathos and Scopelos, which were no doubt Dolopian islands; but nothing particular can be said about them.

Scyros is interesting on account of the legends about the youth of Achilles, about Lycomedes and Deïdameia. Theseus, too, is said to have been buried there, and his remains were brought thence to Athens by Cimon. The island remained in the possession of the Pelasgian Dolopians, its ancient inhabitants, until the time when Cimon established an Athenian cleruchia there, that is, a number of Athenian citizens obtained each a certain amount of land, as it were by a lottery. They accordingly became landed proprietors there, but might dwell in Scyros or remain at Athens, if they pleased; in the former case, they did not form an independent state, but only a community under the laws of Athens. Such was the case at Aegina, Naxos, Samos, Melos, Lesbos, and elsewhere. This was the system adopted during the period of the supremacy and tyrannical sway of Athens, and was one of the means of enriching the multitude. Sycros, Lemnos and Imbros in particular became in this manner so completely Athenian, that those who dwelt there, though they had an independent administration, yet did not form a state, but were members of the Attic phylae, and belonged to the number of Athenian [181]citizens. In the Peloponnesian war, the Lacedaemonians expelled the Athenian cleruchi from Scyros and other places, but after the battle of Naxos they were restored. After the peace with Philip, these islands, and especially Scyros, remained under the protection of Athens, at least they were restored to it; even when Rome decided the fate of Greece, Scyros preserved its connection with Athens, and continued to do so until the time of Augustus, and probably even much longer.

The small island of Peparethos, not far from Scyros, was celebrated for its wine.

Halonnesos owes all its importance to the fact, that it was the occasion of the beautiful speech of Demosthenes. It had been taken by the tyrant of Pherae, and the dispute was as to the terms on which it was to be restored to Athens. Otherwise both these small islands shared the fate of Scyros.

Lemnos and Imbros have both the same political history as Scyros. Lemnos, however, is much more interesting to us, on account of its volcanic nature, whence it was sacred to Hephaestus. It is essentially a volcanic island, and the ancients speak of a volcanic mountain having existed there down to the commencement of the historical period, which, however, has now been extinct for upwards of 2000 years. Volcanic productions, as terra sigillata and meerschaum, and several volcanic springs, are of frequent occurrence there. The beautiful fragments of the Philoctetes of Attius, which Hermann has collected and emended, refer to that island. It contained two towns, Hephaestia and Myrina. According to tradition, it was inhabited by Pelasgians, who are also called Tyrrhenians; they are said to have first migrated to Athens, and thence to Lemnos. There is probably no more foundation for the belief that Tyrrhenians migrated to Lemnos, than that they went to the Asiatic coast of Aeolia. Lemnos was taken by the Athenians at the time when they founded their colony in Chersonesus; it was taken from them by [182]Antipater, but after being restored to them, they lost it again. Respecting Imbros, nothing particular need be said.

Samothrace is celebrated in the ancient legends for the worship and the mysteries of the Cabiri, whence it has been much discussed by the moderns: the unfortunate passion to solve all difficulties which cannot be solved, has also extended to Samothrace. Whether and when it received a Greek colony, is not stated by any Greek author. The remark, that it was a Samian colony, seems to have been made merely on account of its name; but it appears to have been a hellenised Pelasgo-Tyrrhenian settlement. The Samothracians had traditions going as far back as the time when the Hellespont and the Bosporus had not yet burst their chains, and when the Aegean was not yet a sea, which it became when the Pontus broke through its barriers. But these are mere speculations. The island was important as a connecting link among ancient nations, and I am convinced that it was the focus from which a great number of ancient traditions proceeded. It seems to have been a resort of pilgrims, like Mecca, or at least a place where the Pelasgians from the most different parts of the world met, and which they regarded as the real centre of their religion. It would be very interesting to know more particulars about the history of the island, but this does not justify the attempts to build castles in the air out of insufficient data.

Thasos, the northernmost of these islands, had a Parian colony, and, as Paros was inhabited by Ionians, it was an Ionian colony. Before the Greeks took possession of it, it was like Cythera, one of the many settlements of the Phoenicians, whence in Cythera the worship of Mylitta, and in Thasos that of Melkarth, continued to exist. We must conceive, that in the very earliest times the Phoenicians were established on the coasts of Greece in settlements as numerous as in the historical ages were those on the African and Spanish coasts and in Cythera. Thasos has quarries of beautiful marble, but is not suited to the growth [183]of corn, and is not a fertile island, whence it is ill spoken of by Archilochus. But Thasian wine was much esteemed. The island had also silver mines, which had been worked even by the Phoenicians, and it possessed still richer ones on the opposite coast of Thrace.

For a time Thasos was powerful and wealthy in consequence of its mines and its commerce; and by this wealth the Thasians established their influence among the sea-faring nations. But when they were forced to submit to the Athenian supremacy, they found it difficult to live in that state of dependence, and twenty years after the Persian, and thirty years before the Peloponnesian war, they revolted, but were subdued by the Athenians. From that time Thasos began to decay.

All these maritime places, though their lands were barren, had a numerous population as long as their navigation was flourishing; but as soon as the current of commerce turned in other directions, the population decreased with extraordinary rapidity. Such was the case at Chalcis and Aegina, and also in Thasos.

The Cyclades.

It is very convenient in treating of such a multitude of islands to consider them in certain groups, which is a great assistance to the memory. It is no trifling matter to impress upon one’s mind geography in such a manner as to know it completely, and it was a happy idea to divide the southern islands of the Aegean into Cyclades and Sporades.

The Cyclades are twelve in number, and in the early times no doubt formed one confederacy, of which, however, we know no particulars. But traces of such a union occur in the Homeric hymn on Apollo. Delos was the centre. [184]These islands, according to Thucydides, were partly inhabited by Phoenicians, but for the most part by Carians. He proves this in the case of Delos in an excellent manner by the fact, that the arms found in the newly opened tombs were Carian. However, these islands were not altogether Carian; for we find that in later times the inhabitants of Cythnos were Dryopians. This is stated by Herodotus, and the Dryopians, as we have seen, were Pelasgians. In this case, we cannot think at all of a migration; the Dryopians were a remnant of the Pelasgians.⁠[70]⁠

The names of the twelve islands, going round the circle in a north-western direction are:—Ceos, Cythnos, Seriphos, Siphnos, Paros, Naxos, Delos, Rhenea, Myconos, Syros, Tenos, and Andros. Delos was the smallest, but at the same time the most illustrious among them. The notion of the ancients was, that it formed the centre, round which the others were grouped in a circle, and that hence they were called Cyclades. But this is erroneous, for Delos rather forms the circle together with the others. In the earliest times, it was the seat of a common panegyris for the twelve islands and of ancient agones, as we see from the hymn on Apollo, of which the first part at least is so ancient that its composition may be regarded as contemporaneous with that of the Iliad and Odyssey. The dissolution of that union is one of the mysteries of ancient Greek history.

The ancient names of Delos are Asteria and Ogygia. The statement that it was at one time a floating island, is of course fabulous, but it is not improbable that it may have been raised above the sea by volcanic agency.

Wherever we meet with notices of the Cyclades in the [185]historical times, they are at first all independent of one another; with the exception of Cythnos, all received Ionian colonists from Athens, whence we there find the relation of masters and serfs, as for example at Naxos, where Lygdamis was tyrant. Wherever we have a trace of history, we catch a glimpse, as it were in the twilight, of an oligarchical relation. After the Persian wars, the Cyclades came under the supremacy of Athens, for each by itself was too weak: even Miltiades had tried to subdue Paros and Naxos, and afterwards the plan succeeded. Naxos, which revolted, received a cleruchia. Delos was changed by the Athenians into a national sanctuary; the ancient inhabitants were expelled, and a colony was sent thither. In obedience to the command of an oracle, the Athenians dug up all the dead bodies in the island, and conveyed them to Rhenea; but even for many years previously it had not been allowed to bury any one there. Although the islands were fertile, yet they were powerless, and after the battle of Naxos, again acknowledged the supremacy of Athens. In the Macedonian period, Delos alone seems to have remained in the hands of the Athenians, and after the war of Perseus, it was given back to them by the Romans; whether the Romans had a right to do so, I know not. During the Roman period, Delos, which had formerly been venerable for religious reasons, acquired a different kind of importance: it became the place of the greatest fair in those parts, being the entrepot between Alexandria and the towns on the Euxine; it was resorted to by merchants from the most distant countries, and even by the Romans so far as they carried on their commerce from Puteoli. To Athens it was of great importance on account of its harbour dues. It was also a central point for the slave-trade, and on one occasion 10,000 slaves are said to have been sold there in one day. From this fact some modern authors have made out, that this was the number of slaves sold there every day all the year round. At a later time Delos lost this importance; the piracy of the Cilicians and Cretans seems to have inflicted on Delos a deadly blow, [186]and in the time of Augustus and Strabo it had lost its commercial importance, trade having taken a different direction.

Paros is celebrated for its white marble, the most beautiful for purposes of sculpture: the Carrara marble which enjoys a great reputation, is of a much inferior kind, containing more lime, while the Parian is more like crystal and precious stone, nor has it the disagreeable suggary whiteness of the Carrara marble, which becomes a little yellowish only by exposure to the air. Opposite to Paros is the small island of Antiparos, remarkable for its grotto with its stalactites, the most celebrated in the world, though the ancients do not mention it. In early times, the town of Paros was one of the most enterprising, and, in a commercial point of view, one of the most important places; besides the island itself, the Parians had colonies extending far into the interior of the Adriatic, and the town of Paros there is said to have been of Parian origin; they also took part in the establishment of a colony on the Liris. Archilochus, one of the greatest poets of Greece, was a native of Paros. Some Greeks whose judgment is of great weight, placed him by the side of Homer: and legendary stories say, that the gods were so favourably disposed towards him as to order Corax, who had murdered him, to quit their sanctuary and not to return to it, until he had propitiated the shade of the poet. Paros also possesses an excellent harbour, suited even to great ships of war; but it is little noticed in ancient history. It may be said in general that those islands were rich in harbours.

Siphnos, remarkable in a mineralogical point of view, is not far distant from Paros; previous to the Persian period, it had silver mines, through which it became wealthy; but when they were exhausted, it sank into the greatest wretchedness, for it is a barren island.

The neighbouring Serīphos (not Serĭphos) is still more barren, being a mere rock; it acts a prominent part in the mythus about Perseus. The Romans in after-times banished their criminals to Seriphos and Cythnos.

Ceos, not far from Attica, was beautiful and populous; it contained four towns, of which I will mention Carthaea and Iulis. The latter was the birth-place of Bacchylides, and probably also of his uncle, the elder Simonides. The site of Carthaea has been ascertained only in modern times by Bröndstedt and Haller of Nürnberg, who caused excavations to be made there and found ruins and inscriptions. I only trust that these inscriptions may not prove to be forgeries; for a friend at Athens sent me them long before they were known in Europe, having probably been copied by some Greek; but those people are too unscrupulous about truth, and you cannot trust them. These inscriptions, however, are very important; a few only belong to the early period during which Athens was free; most of them were made in the Macedonian and Aetolian times. I have supplemented the deficiencies, and Bröndstedt has published them with my emendations and additions, without even intimating that they are only probable conjectures, and he has altered the mistakes in writing without informing his readers as to whether they occur on the stones or not. This is a violation of historical fidelity. The ancient traditions about Ceos contain strange stories. The moral purity and the severity of the Ceans are much praised, and in the descriptions of manners in the comedies of Menander, they are spoken of in the highest terms. The other statement, that they killed their old men, in order to save them from the miseries of decrepitude, is, I hope, founded on some confusion, or is limited to one particular instance. The land is fertile.

Syros is remarkable as the birth-place of the philosopher Pherecydes, the instructor of Pythagoras.

On the one side of Delos was the island of Rhenea, and on the other that of Myconos; the former is insignificant, but Myconos is somewhat larger.

Naxos is the most splendid of all the Cyclades, and was [188]justly regarded as the favourite isle of Dionysus. Its form is like that of most volcanic islands in the south sea, rising from the waters like a cone: it is a mountain with broad sloping sides, and fertile to its very top; it does not indeed produce corn all the way up, but it is clad with vines and olive groves. The island is a real paradise, and even at this day one of the most flourishing in the Archipelago. Its summit was crowned with a temple of Zeus, though the island itself was sacred to Dionysus. In the early times it was powerful, especially during the age of Pisistratus; at the period of transition, it fell into the hands of Lygdamis, who protected the demos against the aristocracy; he became a usurper, but was a mild ruler, and beneficial to his subjects. During the Persian period, Naxos was still important and rich, but soon after came under the supremacy of Athens. It then revolted, but was subdued and received cleruchi, who however were expelled after the Peloponnesian war. During the period which then followed, nothing is known about Naxos. When the power of the Macedonians in Egypt was at its height, that is, in the reigns of Philadelphus and Euergetes, all the Cyclades were governed by the kings of Alexandria. After the fourth king, when the empire was decaying, those islands had no ruler and no protection, for which reason they endeavoured to enter into the relation of sympolity with the Aetolians as early as the time of Euergetes, and those who did not form this relation were infested by Aetolian and Illyrian pirates.

These are the Cyclades as we find them enumerated by Scylax, a highly respectable authority. But wherever a whole consists of a definite number of parts, the same number not unfrequently embraces different parts at different times, new parts being introduced in place of earlier ones; if you remember this, it will help you out of many an historical labyrinth. Such also was the case with the twelve Cyclades; they were not the same at all times, but the southern islands, which are not included by the ancients, were regarded as belonging to them at a time which cannot now be defined, so that some must have [189]been omitted, which, accordingly, had either abandoned the connection or were forgotten on account of their insignificance. The same is the case with the twelve Achaean towns, and the seven hills of Rome, two of which are sometimes regarded as one, so that a new one is added. In this manner we have four more small islands, which are classed among the Cyclades, for which we must suppose that others, such as Seriphos and Rhenea, were omitted from the list. Delos, however, was always regarded as the centre, whence the phrase was, “Delos and the Cyclades.” The number twelve might thus be kept up in a variety of ways. The four islands before alluded to are Melos and Thera, which were Doric, and Ios and Amorgos, which were Ionic; Scylax includes them all among the Sporades.

Melos was a Lacedaemonian colony, but during the Peloponnesian war it was conquered by the Athenians at the instigation of Alcibiades. The discussion of this subject in Thucydides is an ever-memorable masterpiece of the development of conflicting opinions; the transaction itself is a stain upon Athenian history; fortunately the number of such stains is but small. The inhabitants of Melos were sold as slaves; after the Peloponnesian war the island was indeed restored, but it remained insignificant. It is a beautiful volcanic island with hot sulphureous springs and the like, and contains much fertile land. Its modern name is Milo. The ruins of the theatre excite our astonishment, especially considering that it was a Doric place; they are evidence of a numerous and wealthy population. The excellent torso of Aphrodite, which is now in Paris, was found in Melos.

Thera, according to tradition, was colonised in the very earliest times by the guardian of the kings Eurysthenes and Procles, belonging to the family of the Labdacidae. This account, however, is purely mythical; it reads very pleasantly in Herodotus, but has not the least historical foundation. This much only we see from the whole series of Dorian colonies, that they belong to a period, when most [190]of the Dorians, with the exception of Corinth and Aegina, had no maritime power, while Sparta must still have possessed a navy, since without it the colonies could not have subsisted. The most important point in the history of Thera is, that it became the metropolis of Cyrene, which reflected its lustre upon it. Thera had formerly been a Phoenician colony, and the name of Membliaros, whose family resided there, is entirely Phoenician. The island is particularly remarkable in a physical point of view; historically it is of no importance. There is not a spot on the earth that is so much subject to earthquakes as Thera; hence new islands have been formed in its vicinity at different periods. The ancients mention an island of the name of Hiera, which was raised up by volcanic agency, and in this manner three new islands have appeared there, the last of which rose up in the year 1707. This, accordingly, is one of the points where the fire burning in the bowels of the earth shows its direct agency. The name of Anaphe, a small island in the vicinity, also alludes to this.

Ios is known from the very ancient tradition, that Homer was buried there. It was an Ionian colony,like Amorgos, which was celebrated for its textures, for the vestes Amorginae were prized as highly as the Coae; it is very probable that cotton may have been cultivated there, but it is possible also that it was imported from Egypt and Syria.

Crete.

The antiquities of Crete are as much a mystery to us as those of ancient Boeotia and several other countries. Minos is to us a mere name, but we may believe the statement of Thucydides, that the recollection of Crete having once ruled [191]over the Cyclades was connected with the period represented by Minos. But what connection there existed between Minos and the later Cretans, is a question about which we know nothing at all. He can scarcely have been a Greek, and the subsequent Greek population of Crete has no more to do with him than the Tyrrhenians have with the Etruscans. I am convinced that he was connected only with the Eteocretans, as is clearly stated by Herodotus. These earlier Cretans probably continued to live in the island as subjects of the later inhabitants, and only two of their towns, Praesos and Polichna, maintained their independence. All the other towns of Crete are Dorian, Argive, or in general Peloponnesian colonies. What are called the laws of Minos, unquestionably belong to the Greek immigrants, and if the question be raised, as to whether the Spartans obtained their laws from Crete, I do not hesitate for a moment to assert, that the laws of both nations are originally Doric, and that the Dorian immigrants introduced them among the Cretans; though the later inhabitants boasted of having preserved the ancient laws of the conquered original inhabitants. I believe no more in the historical personality of Minos than I do in that of Lycurgus. We must not, however, imagine, that the subsequent Cretans were an entirely new population, for they were in fact only the ruling party. If we compare the history of different nations we find several instances of conquerors adopting the name of the conquered people: thus the Spanish tyrants of Mexico called themselves children of Montezuma; in Peru this is still more common, though nearly all the Peruvians are hybrids. In like manner the Dorian conquerors did not go to Crete with their wives and children, but the later population was descended on the mother’s side from the ancient Cretans. Those whom we call Ionians, were descended in the same manner from the Carians.

I cannot say much that is satisfactory about Crete; in my opinion, this is another of those points in regard to [192]which a sober inquirer must be content with very few results. I feel it my duty to caution you against all those Ogygian inquiries in ancient Greek history; they are very often no inquiries at all, but mere gossip about notions taken up at random and vaguely conceived—things which rouse the indignation of a genuine philologer. I cannot accordingly, in the case of Crete, go back to the earliest times, simply because we have no information. Cnosos and Cydon, according to some obscure account, were Argive colonies; of Lyctos it is certain that it was a Dorian colony, though neither time nor circumstances are mentioned; respecting most of the towns, no information at all has come down to us. The statement in the Odyssey,⁠[71] where Crete is spoken of accidentally, is very singular; it does not afford us much assistance, but only leads us to the conclusion, that all the statements in the Odyssey are much more recent than those in the Iliad, and that the conclusion of the Odyssey is even of much later origin than the rest: the part I allude to must have been composed at a time which we cannot place farther back than the commencement of the Olympiads. Odysseus there says, that he comes from Crete, which was inhabited by the Dorians, Pelasgians, Cydonians, and Eteocretans. The Eteocretans are here mentioned as the most ancient inhabitants; next come the Cydonians, without any remark being made as to their nationality; the Pelasgians are otherwise not mentioned at all in those parts; and the Dorians, of course, are the later immigrants from Peloponnesus. Another and more probable statement, in Herodotus, is, that the Cretans were either Carians or Lycians, or Carians mixed with Lycians. These nations, whom we regard as barbarous, are said to have emigrated from Crete, which implies nothing beyond the fact that they belonged to the same race. The ancient inhabitants, as I have already said, afterwards appear partly in subject places, and partly as serfs in the larger towns.

At no period of our history did Crete form one connected [193]state; it consisted of a number of independent towns which, tradition says, amounted to one hundred; this is at least a proof of a very dense population.

The Eteocratans, as a nation, disappear in history, without there being any definite mention of the immigration of their later rulers, and stories were invented in ancient times to account for this disappearance. According to one tradition, all the old Cretans, with the exception of two tribes, emigrated, in order to avenge the death of Minos, and all perished; while, according to another, they were all carried off by a plague, which occurred after the Trojan war. But all this is foolish.

Crete is a large island, presenting a grave, and not an Ionian aspect, but in many parts it is rich and fertile. The great woody mountain Ida (Ἴδη is the Ionian name of a woody mountain) extends through the whole length of the island. Mythology describes this mountain as the birth-place of Zeus, and the other statement that he was born on mount Ida near Troy arose only from a confusion. The Cretan Ida is covered with most magnificent forests, and furnishes not only timber for shipbuilding, but is also rich in medicinal herbs. The coast contains a number of the most fertile plains. All the promontories of Crete are branches issuing from mount Ida.

In the historical times, the number of Cretan towns, if we gather the names from the different writers, amounts to thirty. How many of them were sovereign and how many subject, is a question which can be answered only approximately.

The greatest towns were Cnosos (better than Cnossos) and Gortyn, or in Latin poets Gortyna, like Cortona and Ancona. The Latin language does not recognise the termination on, whence in names of male persons the Greek ων is shortened into a single o; hence the Romans in the earlier times did not say Solon, but Solo, and the editors of Cicero should always write the name in this manner. In later times this practice was forgotten; and Pliny has Hieron [194]and Solon; but names of towns are generally lengthened by the addition of a. Both Cnosos and Gortyn were very ancient Cretan towns, but were taken possession of by later settlers. The magnitude of the ruins of Gortyn, situated on a beautiful table land, points to a brilliant period, which must have been a very early one. Near them is the labyrinth, the construction of which is ascribed to Minos; it is however not fabulous, but a mighty palace-like building of the heroic age. Cydonia reminds us of the people of the same name in the Odyssey. Lyctos is expressly mentioned as a Spartan colony.

I point out these places to you because they are of some historical importance; I might add a great many others, but they are only empty names.

During the Peloponnesian war, when all Greece was divided between Athens and Sparta, the Cretans sided with neither. There are a tolerable number of Cretan monuments with inscriptions, belonging to the period of the power of the Aetolians; they are for the most part treaties by which they were admitted by the Aetolians into the relation of sympolity.

The Cretan towns are spoken of, especially by Aristotle, as if all of them had had one common constitution (πολιτεία Κρητῶν). Every Cretan town, even the subject places, seems according to the constitution to have been equal to the largest; all had a close aristocracy and ruling houses (a patriciate), and this proves that the country had at one time been conquered. Their highest magistrates, eligible only from among the gentes, were called κόσμοι; they were five in number, and possessed despotic power; they seem to have been elected annually. Insurrection was lawful in Crete, as in Poland, for when the oppression became too severe, the nobles refused obedience to the magistrates, and elected new ones. The greatest anarchy was thus legalised, and this was the consequence of a constitution, which had in itself no organic protection: a proof of the barbarous character of the people. The Cretans were the worst of all the Greek [195]nations; they were an object of detestation and indignation. You remember the expression of St. Paul, in the Epistle to Titus; their character gave rise to the verb κρητίζειν. Polybius confirms this judgment with an undisguised hatred of the Cretans, a hatred which is even stronger than that of the Aetolians. In his time they were completely devoid of all sense of honour; treason and faithlessness towards their superiors being no disgrace among them. Thus they treacherously delivered up the unfortunate Achaeus who had revolted against Antiochus; they shewed, in fact, all the degeneracy which we now find among the unhappy Greeks in their enslavement. The Cretans, however, had no foreign tyranny as a palliation, for no part of Greece remained so free from foreign oppression, and they never were under the supremacy of Macedonia, except in the reign of the last Philip, who was chosen by them as arbitrator; he had, however, no garrison in the island, but exercised only his personal influence. Crete then remained independent, and the Romans were altogether indifferent about it. But the pirates of the Asiatic coasts established themselves among them, and the Cretans even took part in the trade, whence in A.U.C., 685 they were conquered by the Romans. In the earlier times they sold their services as mercenaries, serving as light-armed troops and forming a peculiar kind of infantry. At their conquest by the Romans, they were chastised, and many of their towns were destroyed. After this they are no longer mentioned in Roman history, so that we cannot even say to what province they belonged. It is only occasionally, when disturbances broke out, that a praetor was sent to them.

Carpathos is situated in the north-east of Crete, towards Rhodes; in the same direction we have Astypalaea and Nisyros. All three were Dorian settlements; Carpathos in the end came under the supremacy of Rhodes.

Rhodes.

Rhodes was a state of which the Greeks, in the last period of their history had reason to be proud; its peculiarity was its freedom from all that for which otherwise the Greeks are justly censured. Its character is honesty, conscientiousness, and thoughtful prudence, like that of the Dutch republics, the Swiss cantons, and the free cities of the German empire in their best times; nor was literary and intellectual culture foreign to the Rhodians. Their greatest prosperity belongs to the time when the sun of Greek intellect had already set; but they still had, comparatively speaking, a happy period.

Rhodes was an ancient Dorian settlement, but it is foolish to suppose that it existed even before the time of the Trojan war, as is stated in the Homeric Catalogue in the account about Tlepolemus, for at that time the Dorians did not inhabit any country from which they could have sent a colony to Rhodes. The reason of the interpolation is apparent.⁠[72] The true tradition probably is that the Dorians went thither after the conquest of Peloponnesus; but this too is very obscure, for the period subsequent to the Doric migration is not clearer to us than that which preceded it.

Rhodes had three towns which formed the three tribes in the island; this is expressed in a passage of the Catalogue: τριχθὰ δὲ ᾤκηθεν καταφυλαδόν; these towns were Lindos, Ialysos, and Camiros. The soil of the island is excellent, and the country being equally adapted for agriculture and navigation, we find both from early times. Hence its power had a much more secure basis than, e.g., that of the Aeginetans, who had no agriculture at all, for agriculture is the only foundation of permanent happiness. Until the time of the Peloponnesian war those three towns remained in the same condition; they formed together one state, which, [197]however, was without a common centre. During the war, the Rhodians distinguished themselves by their prudence, remaining faithful to Athens, and not allowing themselves, like the Naxians and others, to be drawn into unfortunate insurrections; but when Athens abused her power and the Lacedaemonians were gaining the upper hand, the Rhodians, accommodating themselves to the change of circumstances, joined the latter, and that the more readily because they were Dorians. Henceforth a consciousness was awakened in them, that they might raise themselves to a higher position, and they determined to remove from their small towns into one great city. They accordingly founded the city of Rhodes on the splendid harbour which the first settlers had overlooked. This place now became the centre of the country, and the other towns καθάπερ δῆμοι, but were not destroyed, and even at this day we hear of villages called Lindo and Camiro. The earliest inhabitants were undoubtedly Carians, who, on receiving a Dorian aristocracy, became at first serfs, but afterwards rose to the rank of free communities; the productive commerce rendered it impossible for the aristocracy to maintain itself for any great length of time. There then followed a period of internal discord, of which only obscure accounts have come down to us. After the war, which was occasioned by the expedition of Cyrus the younger, and in which they joined the Lacedaemonians, they fell, in consequence of their internal divisions, into the hands of the Carian dynasty of Mausolus. The younger Artemisia, the wife of Mausolus, who resided at Halicarnassus, was enabled, by the factions in the island, to take possession of it. One of the first youthful productions of Demosthenes refers to this event. In this manner, Rhodes was for a time connected, through Halicarnassus, with the Persian empire; according to the peace of Antalcidas, this ought not to have been, but that peace was observed only where it was advantageous to the Persians. Before Rhodes came under the rule of Artemisia, it had, in conjunction with Chios and Byzantium, taken part in the Social war [198]against Athens, from which we see that the Rhodians were anxious to throw off the dominion of the Athenians and to establish a maritime power of their own. There now rose among them the family of Mentor and Memnon, which acquired unprecedented influence at the court of Persia; they governed Rhodes nominally as satraps, but in point of fact, as sovereigns, as in the fifteenth century the Medici governed Florence. But they fell with the Persian empire. Both were Greeks, but barbarised in their sentiments and possessing all the passions of barbarians; they had, however, the advantage of Greek intelligence and culture. Memnon, especially, was a distinguished man, and his death alone rendered the success of Alexander’s undertaking possible, and but for this event, it would appear in history as foolhardiness: that which now appears as great and is considered as great, would be looked upon as foolish; Memnon would have cut off Alexander’s return from Persia, and his fate would have been like that of Charles XII. in the Ukraine; nay Memnon would have attacked him in Macedonia and overthrown his power in Greece. I will not decide as to whether this would have been better for the Greeks. After Memnon’s death, Rhodes also submitted to the Macedonians, and it would seem that a republican party there was anxious to bring about this connection with Macedonia. Rhodes now openly showed itself to be what it really was, viz., the connecting link between Europe and Asia, for Tyre was destroyed and Alexandria had not yet risen to greatness. The commerce between the two continents was thus established at Rhodes, which became great soon after Alexander’s death, twenty-eight years after that of Memnon (Olymp. 119). Its siege by Demetrius Poliorcetes is the grandest thing in ancient history: it is as bold as it is distressing and elevating. The inhabitants of a single little island, or rather a small city, had the courage not to allow themselves to be intimidated by the ruler of Asia Minor and Syria, who poured his fleets and his armies upon them, and what is still more, employed against them all the strength of his [199]talent; they resisted him so boldly and so gloriously, that he was obliged to grant them an honourable peace. Rhodes, however, suffered severely on that occasion, and the whole island was fearfully ravaged; but it soon recovered; and, owing to the great confidence which it inspired, and to the obligation which the Egyptian king Ptolemy incurred towards it, the island rose so much in the esteem and respect of all, that, comparatively speaking, it stood as high as Athens did after the Persian wars. From this time, Rhodes, notwithstanding the general confusion, became powerful and respected, not through good fortune, but through the industry and exertions of its inhabitants. It was they who destroyed the Etruscan pirates, and their squadrons sailed as far as the Aegean, securing the freedom of navigation for the good of all Greece. As commerce increased more and more at Alexandria, and as Egypt was not a country fit for shipbuilding, the Rhodians became the freighters for the greater part of the ancient world. Such nations are universal benefactors, and all are concerned in the preservation of their navigation. This accounts for the fact, that at the time when Rhodes suffered from inundations and earthquakes, nations and princes vied with one another in helping and benefitting them. For the good luck which favoured Rhodes did not remain unmixed, for it had to sustain many serious calamities. The city was built in the form of a theatre, but in such a manner that towards the harbour it was protected by a lofty and strong wall. Once during the Macedonian period, when a heavy fall of rain had inundated nearly the whole city, the swollen streams poured down upon it, without finding an outlet into the sea, until in the end they fortunately threw down the mighty wall, and thus ran off. This is one of the most fearful events in Greek history, and was the consequence of an earthquake. The earthquakes by which Rhodes has been visited have been terrible. About the end of Olymp. 138, or at the beginning of Olymp. 139, in the reign of Euergetes, it was almost wholly destroyed by an earthquake, [200]during which the Colossus was overthrown, which was never set up again. In the time of Antoninus Pius, the city was visited by the earthquake, which reduced nearly all the towns on the Asiatic coast to heaps of ruins, and in which Rhodes lost its last splendour, its whole fleet, its arsenals, its trophies and monuments: on that occasion it was thoroughly destroyed. It was then, of course, not restored to what it had been; its navigation henceforth was insignificant, and agriculture formed the principal occupation of its inhabitants.

Rhodes preserved not only its political independence, but also its great importance throughout the Macedonian period. At the time when all the other Greek states were quite servile, and got on only by manoeuvring, the Rhodians stood forth as a princely people, whose friendship was courted by kings, and whose enmity was dreaded. While their state was in this illustrious position, they formed connections with the Romans; they seem to have entered into friendly relations with them as early as the fifth century, not long after Alexander’s death, probably on the occasion of their proceedings against the Etruscan pirates, because both nations aimed at the same objects, but the Rhodians—and this is a proof of their great prudence—never concluded a formal treaty with the Romans; their fleet co-operated with that of Rome, but they undertook no obligations. Their assistance in the war against Antiochus was liberally rewarded by the Romans who gave them Caria and Lycia. But the Romans afterwards harboured ill-feelings towards them, because in their relations with Rome they shewed a spirit of independence and no servility; hence in the war against Perseus the Romans tried to interpret every step taken by them as hostile towards themselves. The Rhodians, it is true, did not wish for the downfall of Perseus, they no doubt wanted to have an equipoise in those parts against the Romans, and some men of influence may have secretly espoused the cause of Perseus; the Romans, moreover, had even before that time taken back a part of the presents they had made to them; they had hurt their feelings and so much [201]offended them, that the Rhodians believed the Romans to be hostile towards them; but they never really did anything that could be laid to their charge. After the fall of Perseus, many Romans were impatient to destroy Rhodes; but Cato, though otherwise not favourably disposed towards the Greeks, was actuated by such respect for their conduct, that he exerted his whole influence with the senate to save them. They retained their independence, but became allies of Rome and lost their subjects; still, however, they shewed prudence, they were free, and had no Roman commander over them. Eighty years later, the Mithridatic war afforded the Romans an opportunity of congratulating themselves for having followed the advice of Cato; for the Rhodians held out faithfully and heroically against Mithridates, and did not allow themselves to be prevailed upon by the Thessalians to enter into an alliance with the king. For this the Romans again rewarded them with territories. After the murder of Caesar, Cassius who was unworthy to be the associate of Brutus, took possession of the town of Rhodes, and treated it very harshly and cruelly. The Rhodians, however, continued to enjoy their freedom and the esteem of the nations until the time of Antoninus Pius. At this period we find, from a speech of Aelius Aristides, that they possessed autonomy, and criminal jurisdiction, and the neighbouring islands as well as the Caunians on the continent recognised as subjects their supremacy. Aristides, in order to cheer them after the terrible earthquake, reminds them of the beautiful story of a Rhodian sailor whose ship perished in a storm, but who clung to the helm to the last, and sunk with the words: “I call upon thee, Poseidon, as my witness, that the ship went down standing upright.”

The arts and literature also were cherished at Rhodes, though in the earlier times there are not many Rhodian names that can be called great. Cleobulus of Lindos is mentioned as one of the seven sages. But Apollonius is a poet who certainly ought not to be despised; we read his work with pleasure and can learn much from it, though he [202]cannot be compared with Callimachus who lived before him. The wealth of the Rhodians and their taste for the beautiful and magnificent gave great encouragement to the arts. When oratory had died away at Athens, and all vital energy had withdrawn from that city, it took refuge in Rhodes; it had indeed already assumed the character of old age, but still at a time when in Greece proper no good speech was heard, when in the towns of Mysia and Caria literature had degenerated into mere bombast, a sanum loquendi genus was preserved in Rhodes, which is no small praise, though the sanum was sometimes a siccum.

The constitution of Rhodes is difficult to make out. The part of Cicero’s work, “De Re Publica,” where he spoke of it, is wanting, so that we can form only conjectures; but it would lead me too far to explain them here. Certain it is, that Rhodes, by the peculiarity of its institutions, was so far democratic, that all its citizens took an active part in the administration, and a large number of them in the council. The manner in which this was done is the obscure point. The magistrates, as Polybius says, had very great powers, both the strategi and the nauarchi. There existed an arcanum imperii, of which the Athenian constitution knows nothing, and to which the Roman state alone presents something analogous: in certain circumstances the nauarchus had the power to conclude treaties, which, however, it would seem were valid only during his term of office, the state not being bound by them for the future. This arose from the fact of the Rhodian fleet being generally very far away from home. Owing to this peculiarity of the constitution, things required by the force of circumstances might be done even contrary to the letter of the law. The republic contrived to make excellent use of this expedient, whenever it wished to enter into a relation without making it permanent. The nauarchus was a kind of plenipotentiary representative of Rhodes with foreign nations.

The language of the Rhodians was Doric. Cicero went to Rhodes to cultivate his intellect, and under the first [203]Roman emperors the young Roman nobles very frequently resorted to Rhodes as they had formerly done to Athens.

According to the Homeric Catalogue the Rhodians dwelt τριχθὰ καταφυλαδόν. When at a later time the phylae appear in the city, they occupy different districts. The Dorians, to whom the division into three was natural, were also in possession of the opposite mainland. This division was the reason why they did not attach to themselves places which were situated at some distance, such as Phaselis. Halicarnassus, Cos, and Cnidos formed the second Dorian triad by the side of the Rhodian.

Among these three places, Halicarnassus is particularly interesting to us as the birth-place of Herodotus. It is strange, however, that he wrote his work in the Ionic dialect, and that, too, in such perfection. Although Halicarnassus was excluded by the Dorians, it lost nothing of its prosperity, nor of its peculiarly Greek character. It was deprived of its freedom like the other Greek towns on the coast of Asia Minor, but it is doubtful whether after the expedition of Xerxes it recovered it, or whether it remained in perpetual dependence upon Persia. Certain it is, that it was the seat of the Carian dynasty, which established itself there, and attached itself to Persia: it was the residence of Mausolus, and afterwards of his widow Artemisia, who there built the famous mausoleum to him. But this Carian family did not introduce barbarous customs at Halicarnassus; for its members spoke Greek, received a Greek education, and had a taste for the beauties of Greek art. But the misfortune was, that through its splendour the city became too large and too influential; it was strongly fortified, thoroughly devoted to the interests of Persia, and one of the chief stations of the Persian forces; for which reason it offered an obstinate defence during the siege of Alexander, who ravaged it in such a manner that it never recovered from the blow, but ever after remained an insignificant place. This defence of Halicarnassus was very brilliant, for there still existed men inspired with a love of freedom, [204]and actively opposed to the dominion of Macedonia. Ephialtes, the friend of Demosthenes, who everywhere tried to thwart Alexander, there fought against him and was killed.

Cnidos was situated on a peninsula which was wholly occupied by the town; the Cnidians once strangely wished to cut through the isthmus which connected it with the main land. The Aphrodite of Praxiteles shed a peculiar lustre over the place, and attracted many strangers, but was afterwards carried away by the Romans.

Cos is the third Dorian place in Asia Minor; it was at once a town and an island, and possessed a considerable navy down to the time of the Romans, though it was not to be compared with that of the Rhodians. In the earlier times it was allied with Rhodes, and remained for a long time in a state of independence. It contained a celebrated temple of Asclepius and the family of the Asclepiadae, who regarded Asclepius as their ancestor.

Rhodes and the opposite continent accordingly had together six Dorian towns, as there were six feudal principalities in Peloponnesus. Let us now pass on from Doris to

Ionia.

According to the universal tradition of the Greeks, Ionia was a δωδεκάπολις, established by Neleus and Androclus, the sons of Codrus, who, after their father’s death, when the royal dignity ceased, emigrated from Athens to Asia Minor. These Ionians, on their arrival, found the coast occupied partly by Carians and partly by Meonians, while Chios and Samos were inhabited by Pelasgians. We must not conceive these colonies as purely Greek in their origin in the same manner as the inhabitants of the states of North America are purely English and German. Herodotus [205]himself says, that four dialects were spoken among the Ionians, and, what is very important, that the Ionians did not go across with their wives and children, but as soldiers; that they conquered the country, and married the captive women, as the Spaniards did in what were afterwards the Spanish colonies of America. But as the Greeks, Carians, and Meonians, although differing from one another, still belonged to the same race, their mixture was no longer discernible in the features and forms of the body of their descendants, and thus the New-Ionians could not be distinguished from the ancient and original ones. The ancient population had not withdrawn as in the states of North America, but remained in the country as subjects. Such was the case especially in Chios: there is an ancient story according to which slavery took its origin in that island; and this is quite natural, for the old Ionians established themselves there, and the ancient inhabitants not being able to get out of the island, were reduced by the new settlers to a state of servitude; and for this reason a completely aristocratic constitution was developed: the towns were the rulers, and the rural population were their subjects. The same may be supposed to have been the case in other islands as well as on the continent. But whether on this account servitude was more ancient there, than, for example, the penestia in Thessaly, cannot be decided.

The division into twelve states here likewise suggests the existence of some regulating power, which, however, cannot be historically demonstrated, and in regard to which we must be on our guard against mere fancies. We know from Herodotus, that in the earliest times the Ionians had kings. The country appears to us remarkable for its misfortunes at an earlier period than any other Greek state, if we except Messene; and this misfortune arose from the extension of the Lydians, a conquering nation from the interior of Asia Minor. This people, conjointly with the Mysians and Carians, expelled the Meonians, for this must be understood when we read that the dynasty of the Mermnadae [206](that of Gyges) supplanted that of the Heracleidae (that of Candaules). When these Lydians immigrated with the fresh power of conquerors, they subdued the Ionian cities; first (Olymp. 25) Colophon, which, according to unequivocal indications, was at that time the capital of Ionia. In regard to the greatness of Colophon, the Greek authors, whose works have come down to us, contain only vague traditions; but allusion to it is made in the newly discovered fragments from the beginning of the Margites and in the Paroemiographi (Κολοφῶνα ἐπιθεῖναι); the city is said to have been so powerful, that upon its decision everything depended. It was not indeed destroyed by the Lydians, but reduced to a place of no importance. One of the obscure statements is, that about the beginning of the Olympiads, Colophon carried on an obstinate war against Erythrae.

Ionia does not form a compact country, it is only a strip of land, and whatever, therefore, is to be said about its chorography, refers also to the neighbouring countries, especially Lydia.

The Maeander discharges itself into the sea in the south, near Miletus; it is a very muddy river like all others in Ionia, and hence it alone has filled up the whole bay of Miletus, which was several miles in breadth, but the cleaning out of which has been neglected for thousands of years. Accordingly the island of Lade, which Herodotus mentions there, is now only a hill rising in the midst of marshy meadows. Such is the nature of all the rivers of that coast, and the most beautiful countries have thereby been changed into pestilential swamps. In the north, a range of mountains, extending from mount Taurus to the coast opposite to Chios, forms the peninsula on which the towns of Clazomenae and Erythrae are situated. Chios itself is a continuation of those mountains, separated from the rest by the sea. What Herodotus says of the nature of Ionia, holds good also of the greater part of Aeolis: it is the pearl of creation. The present marshes, which have been formed [207]by the deposits of the rivers in consequence of the neglect of barbarous ages, form the only exceptions. Nowhere in all the world is the splendour of a southern climate more thoroughly felt than there; nowhere are the seasons so healthy, and yet the country suffers neither from excessive heat nor drought; and nowhere are fruits, such as grapes, figs, and pomegranates, produced in such perfection. The Scirocco is unknown there (though it exists in Rhodes), but the mildest west winds prevail, and the south winds are not in the least injurious, while at Rome they are very much so. Hence we cannot wonder, that, during the period of the weakness of the states in western Asia, Ionia attained to such prosperity and greatness.

While Colophon is important to us only in legendary history, Miletus is the most illustrious city on the Ionian coast during the period of accredited history. It was itself a great place, and also founded a great number of colonies, which are said to have amounted to eighty. As the maritime states of Greece in their colonisation, as it were, divided the different seas among each other, so that Corinth chose the Adriatic, Chalcis and Eretria the seas about Sicily, and Athens the Hellespont, so we find the Milesians in the Euxine sea. There they founded Cyzicus, from which they exercised their power over the greater part of the Propontis; they then established themselves on all the coasts of the Euxine, and thereby opened to themselves inexhaustible sources of wealth. The commerce in those parts was certainly the most lucrative, and must have yielded them immense riches. The Doric town of Byzantium might have shut them out from the sea, but the Milesians had already become too powerful through their colonies. The large rivers and the shallow sea yielded them the fish which are so necessary for a Greek, and they also were the means of conveying the supplies of corn from the Crimea, the Ukraine, and the Dnieper, that is, from the country which now contains the great corn-market of Odessa. But the inhabitants of those coasts not only sold their own products, [208]but purchased Greek merchandise with native gold from the country of the Arimaspae, where at present gold mines are again worked,—a fact which corroborates the tradition in Herodotus. They took in exchange wine, Greek woollen cloth, Egyptian linen, Persian robes, and many other costly things. Owing to this double commerce, Miletus was wealthy and great during the time of the Lydian kings, and remained so during the first period of the Persian dominion. Then it was plunged into the deepest misery by misfortunes which succeeded one another in rapid succession. Miletus had been obliged to submit to the Lydian kings, but their rule seems to have been limited to the exacting of tribute, and not to have disturbed its autonomy—a relation like that in which Ragusa stood to the Turkish empire, to which it paid tribute, though otherwise it enjoyed many advantages and privileges. This was the period of the greatest prosperity of Miletus. It submitted to the Persians without vehement opposition. Afterwards Aristagoras allowed himself to be tempted by Histiaeus to induce Miletus to rise against the overwhelming power of Persia. This insurrection was commenced without deliberation, and carried out without a well digested design and without character: the city was taken, and its inhabitants carried into Persia as slaves. This event was the subject of the historical drama (Μιλήτου ἅλωσις) of Phrynichus. Afterwards the city was again taken by Alexander, and thenceforth remained an insignificant place; its harbour may have been filled up at an early period.

Miletus was the original home of the Ionian philosophy: Thales, Anaximenes, and Anaximander were born there; it was also the native city of Arctinus, the greatest among the cyclic poets. During the Roman period it is often mentioned on account of the woollen cloths which were manufactured there; when Strabo wrote, it still existed indeed, but as a place of no importance at all.

In its neighbourhood, and within the boundaries of ancient Caria, were situated the two towns of Myus and [209]Priene, the latter of which is known as the birth-place of Bias, who wisely advised the Ionians to unite into one state, that they might be able to resist the barbarians.

The promontory of Mycale is in the neighbourhood of Priene, opposite to Samos; it is a branch proceeding from mount Taurus. There the Athenians, under Xanthippus, gained a victory over the Phoenician fleet of the Persians, on the same day on which the battle of Plataeae was won; whereby the independence of the Greeks, and especially of their Asiatic colonies, was established.

Samos is great in history, and, like Miletus, was for a time mistress of the sea, but its greatness passed away early and quickly. Pythagoras, according to tradition, was a Samian, though little reliance can be placed upon it: Creophilus, the poet of the Οἰχαλίας ἅλωσις, too, is called a Samian, and tradition describes him as a son-in-law of Homer. The island was particularly celebrated at the time of Polycrates, who ruled far and wide over the sea and the islands. After him his brother Syloson attempted with a Persian army to conquer the island: the expedition inflicted the first blow upon it, for the Persians carried off a large number of its inhabitants as slaves. Samos then became connected with Athens, but shortly before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war it rose against the supremacy of Athens, and being re-conquered after a siege of ten months was severely chastised, and a portion of the island became subject to Athens. During the latter period of the Peloponnesian war, Samos was the head quarters of the Athenian fleet in that part of the sea, and the scene of fearful disturbances caused by the aristocratic or Spartan party as well as by the democratic or Athenian. Although weakened, the Samians afterwards took part in the social war of Rhodes, Chios, Cos, and Byzantium against Athens. I have not been able to make out anything about the part which Samos took in that war, except that the island was conquered and received cleruchi (Olymp. 108); it was a lucrative possession to the Athenians, and therefore of [210]importance to them. After the battle of Chaeronea, Philip left them in the possession of Samos, that they might not be driven to extremes and throw themselves into the arms of Persia, the affairs of which were then managed by the brave Memnon. But after the Lamian war the island was taken from them, and restored to the Samians. Under Ptolemy Philadelphus and Euergetes, a division of the Egyptian fleet was stationed near Samos. The most interesting object in the island was the Heraeon, the temple of Hera, which was rich in the finest works of art, such as statues by Myron, Polycletus, and Praxiteles.

The island of Samos is very fertile, and was celebrated as such in antiquity. It is strange that the wine of Samos was thought bad by the ancients, for it is now valued very highly; no person from our northern countries would consider the wine of Chios bad either.

The nearest city on the coast was Ephesus, in antiquity celebrated for its temple of Artemis, as Samos was for that of Hera. During the great period of Grecian history, it is mentioned as a distinguished city, and in the early times it was rich in great men: it was the native place of the philosopher Heraclitus, the iambic poet Hipponax, and of Apelles and Parrhasius. But notwithstanding its famous temple of Artemis, Ephesus was not of great political importance: it was situated on the Caÿstrus, which is very muddy, and has now changed the whole district into a pestilential marsh. Attalus of Pergamus was well disposed towards the city, and caused a pier to be built there, making the entrance of the harbour quite wide, while towards the interior, it grew narrower and narrower, in order that the current might become stronger; but his plan was ill calculated, for the current became weaker, and the harbour was more and more filled with mud, and only a roadstead remained. Ephesus was situated in three different places: the most ancient town is almost mythical; the second, near the temple, existed until the time of the successors of Alexander; and the third, lastly, which was built by Lysimachus close [211]to the sea, was at a considerable distance from the temple, and the inhabitants of the old town were forced to remove to it. This New-Ephesus was for a long time the capital of Ionia, and was increasing even as late as the time of Augustus and Tiberius; it was an emporium for the whole country far and wide, though it had no longer a harbour. It was commonly the residence of the Roman governor. The origin of Ephesus, like that of most of the Ionian towns, is mythical. Artemis is a genuine Greek goddess, but her temple at Ephesus was specially revered by the Persians, as eastern nations often shewed a partiality towards foreign religions: they altered the ceremonial of the temple, and the employment of eunuchs in its service is of Persian origin. The temple was also known as an asylum: whoever in times of danger wished to protect his property, might deposit it, as we learn from Xenophon’s Anabasis,⁠[73] in the treasury of the temple of Ephesus, whence he might afterwards take it back without loss. This sanctity of the temple also continued, after its restoration, during the Macedonian period and under the Romans. In the time of the Macedonian dominion, the city was one of high rank. When, under Ptolemy Euergetes, the coasts of Ionia and Thrace were in the possession of the Egyptians, the Egyptian governor had his seat at Ephesus. Antiochus Theos and Antiochus the Great also resided there, whence we must infer that the city contained a palace. John the Evangelist lived and died there.

In the neighbourhood of Ephesus, there were several small towns, one of which was Lebedos, which, in the time of Horace, was quite desolate, and more deserted than Gabii and Fidenae, for its inhabitants had been driven by Lysimachus to Ephesus, when he rebuilt that city: still, however, Horace wished to be able to spend his whole life there.

Teos was the native place of Anacreon, and in other respects, too, of comparative importance, as it sent out [212]colonies, such as Abdera. It was situated upon the isthmus.

Colophon was situated between Ephesus and Lebedos. I have already spoken of its ancient greatness. We there meet with the incomparable poet Mimnermus, the loss of whose productions is to us the most deplorable in ancient literature, and who composed his splendid poetry at a time when the rest of Greece was still slumbering. Thucydides, and Aristotle in his politics, mention Notion as the port of Colophon. This place owed its origin to a feud among the citizens of Colophon, in which the democratic party seceded and settled on the sea-coast. At the time of the Peloponnesian war, an implacable enmity existed between the two.

Erythrae on the gulf of Chios, which separates this island from the continent, was in ancient times the seat of a Sibyl. At an early period it carried on protracted wars with Colophon, which shows that it must have been a powerful state.

Clazomenae was situated on an island,⁠[74] whence in the peace of Antalcidas it became independent of Persia. Otherwise it is of no political importance, nor did it found any colonies. It was the birth-place of Anaxagoras.

Phocaea was very far removed from the other towns, Smyrna being situated between them, though the latter did not become an Ionian city until a later period. Phocaea refused to submit to Cyrus, and was, therefore, besieged and finally taken by his general Harpagus. Its inhabitants, however, had escaped to their ships; a great number of them wished to emigrate, but some returned to Phocaea and submitted to the Persians, while others founded Elea in Oenotria. Before this time, the Phocaeans were among the boldest navigators; they visited more especially the coasts of the western seas, Baetica, Tartessus, and the south of Gaul. In the latter country they founded Massilia, which [213]afterwards established other colonies partly by itself, and partly in conjunction with the Phocaeans. The foundation of Massilia has sometimes, but unjustly been connected with the emigration in the time of Cyrus. Phocaea recovered to some extent, and continued to exist down to the middle ages, for it was situated in a fertile territory; but its navigation passed into the hands of the Smyrnaeans.

Chios is one of the most splendid islands in the world, for with the exception of a few desert and rough districts, it combines all the blessings of Ionia: it has excellent wine, and its soil produces in fact everything that agriculture demands of it; it had a beautiful harbour, and its inhabitants have at all times been active and enterprising men. Before the time of the Peloponnesian war, they showed wisdom in their relation to Athens, and took no part in the senseless insurrections of Samos and other islands, but conscientiously adhered to the treaties with Athens and remained quiet, whence they were treated by the Athenians with great respect. While the other towns had to pay money as contributions towards the Athenian fleet, Chios and Lesbos still retained their navy; Lesbos lost its fleet in consequence of its thoughtless revolt in the Peloponnesian war, but Chios remained faithful to Athens till after the Sicilian disaster. The Chians then wanted to place themselves at the head of an Ionian maritime confederation, which, however, was never realised. Afterwards they headed the the Social war (Olymp. 106). During the Macedonian period the Chians behaved with great prudence, and, like the Rhodians, preserved their republican independence. This state of things remained until the war of Mithridates, when they supported him, and were punished by the Romans in consequence. But the island soon recovered again. The great renown of Chios arose out of the belief, that Homer was a native of the island, and had lived there, because a genos of Homerids existed there until a late period. In my opinion, Homer is a mythical hero; the genos of the Homerids must be viewed in the same light as all such [214]γένη, e.g., that of the Asclepiadae and Butadae; a common origin of such a genos from one ancestor is altogether out of the question.⁠[75] The author of a great portion of the Homeric poems, especially of the ground-work of our present Iliad, seems to have belonged to Smyrna; the testimony of those who call him Melesigenes is, in my opinion, entitled to the best consideration, although the author of the Hymn on Apollo calls himself a Chian.

About Smyrna wonderful stories were current in antiquity. According to one of them, it was originally an Ionian settlement, and, considering its situation between Ephesus and Phocaea, this is most probable; afterwards it is stated to have passed into the hands of the Aeolians, from whom it was taken again, according to Herodotus, by the Ionians. It is then scarcely mentioned at all until after the time of Alexander. Antigonus the one-eyed in reality built Smyrna anew; nearly all that is related about its early history is legendary. Its site was so happily chosen, that among all the towns on that coast it was the most imperishable, and continually increased. Its harbour is very excellent, but had been overlooked in an unaccountable manner ever since its destruction by the Lydians. It was, particularly during the period that Ephesus was governed by Egypt, that Smyrna, being under the dominion of Syria, rose to eminence. During the unfortunate times of the Roman wars, the Smyrnaeans behaved with great prudence, as we see particularly from their treaty with the Magnesians. Under the Romans, and that even under the first emperors, Smyrna, alternately with Ephesus, was often the seat of the proconsul. The Romans procured its admission into the Ionian confederacy as the thirteenth town. According to the ancient notions, the Ionians would not have ventured to go beyond the sacred and established number, and in case of emergency, they would have incorporated a smaller town with a larger one, e.g., Lebedos with Ephesus or Colophon; but those scruples were then easily got over, and [215]hence we now find thirteen Ionian towns mentioned in inscriptions, coins, etc. In like manner, Athens, in later times, had thirteen tribes, and a senate of the corresponding number of 650. Smyrna was often destroyed, once in a very fearful manner by Tamerlane, but it soon recovered. The correct orthography of the name, both with the Greeks and the Romans, is Zmyrna, in the same manner as they wrote Zmaragdos.

The meetings of the twelve Ionian towns took place at a spot called Panionium, below the promontory of Mycale, which formed about the central point among them. These meetings gave rise to a permanent town with a prytaneum, in which the meetings were held. This union among the Ionians was not of a political nature, though it seems to have been the original intention that it should be; but the autonomy of the individual states did not permit this, and hence Panionium was only a place for agones.

There were several more small towns in Ionia, which I will pass over here. Mount Mimas, a branch of mount Taurus, rises precipitously above Erythrae (ἠνεμόεις Μίμας in Homer).

Aeolis.

The number of Aeolian towns in Asia Minor and the neighbouring islands amounted to thirty, but they formed several separate groups. One of these groups, the real Αἰολὶς δωδεκάπολις, had Cyme for its capital. There was also an Αἰολὶς ἐν Ἴδῃ in the interior of the country, which probably included Tenedos and Hecatonnesoi. Lesbos contained six towns. These Aeolian towns (the name is applied in its most proper sense to the first group or the dodecapolis) cannot, generally speaking, be compared in importance with the Ionian and Dorian settlements; they [216]were μικρὰ πολίχνια; Smyrna’s importance belongs to the time when it had ceased to be Aeolian. It would lead me too far here to enumerate all the Aeolian towns whose names are mentioned only by one author or another, for they are otherwise unimportant; hence I shall notice only the most celebrated, and in point of fact there are only two out of the eleven (after the separation of Smyrna) that deserve to be noticed.

The first is Cyme, with the surname Phriconis, which cannot be explained. The foundation of this place is assigned to an extremely early period, the report being, that it was built soon after the Trojan war. But not too much value must be attached to this tradition, any more than to most of the things belonging to the time anterior to the beginning of the Olympiads. Cyme is always spoken of as the greatest and most important among the Aeolian towns, but history does not justify this reputation, for the place nowhere appears possessed of power or influence. The historian Ephorus, who was born there, sheds considerable lustre upon it; the loss of his work is irreparable, and perhaps the most serious that we have to lament in ancient history. He cheerfully took the greatest pains to investigate the obscure periods of antiquity, and must be regarded as the first critical inquirer into the early history of Greece. He thoroughly deserves the respect paid to him by his contemporaries, although his style, according to the testimony of Isocrates, was dry and inferior to that of Theopompus: perhaps we should judge differently of him if we had his work. The opinion that Hesiod was a native of Cyme, seems to be a gross delusion, the origin of which, however, is not clear to me.

We must also notice Gryneon with its celebrated temple of Apollo, who is for this reason called Gryneus by Virgil and Ovid.

Temnos remained a somewhat important place even in later times. The other towns are quite insignificant.

The whole history of these Aeolian colonies is involved [217]in singular obscurity. Penthilus, a son of Orestes, is said to have first settled with Aeolians in Lesbos, and Gras, his son or grand-son, is reported to have founded Cyme on the mainland; he was worshipped there as archegetes, which, however, means nothing else, than that the foundation was ascribed to Orestes himself. Gras here is probably nothing but the eponymus to Graecus, standing to the Graeci in the same relation as Helen does to the Hellenes. The matter is so obscure that we ought to approach it with the utmost caution; I for my part cannot understand how Agamemnon’s grand-son should have gone into that country with such a miscellaneous race as the Aeolians, and with a colony which is said to have consisted chiefly of Thessalian Aeolians. I am much more inclined to believe, that after the Trojan war the race of the Pelopids or Agamemnonids remained behind as rulers in those parts; and this is not improbable in itself, since the fact of the Trojan war certainly cannot be doubted: the poetical account of Helen, of the siege, and the wooden-horse, is not historical, but the war and its final issue cannot be denied. I suppose, therefore, that Greeks under the Agamemnonids remained behind in the conquered Teucrian country. If this be so, we here have another instance of that change of the poles of a tradition, to which I have repeatedly drawn your attention: Pelops is transferred from Phrygia to Peloponnesus, and the Pelopids from Peloponnesus to Asia. But the chief point is this, we must regard the Greek inhabitants of that coast as a people of the same race as the western Hellenes, as in fact even in tradition all the country was originally Pelasgian, whence at a later period it likewise became identical with the Hellenic countries. The barbarous tribes on that coast, the Mysians, Lydians and Carians, did not arrive until a latter time. But we must not go too far in tracing this origin of the Aeolian colonies.

The northern part of Aeolis embraced the πολίχνια ἐν Ἴδῃ, in what was properly the Teucrian country; and to it belonged Abydos, Tenedos, and Hecatonnesoi. Although [218]these towns were Greek, yet they were viewed by the ancients in a very different light. Some of them play rather a prominent part in the later wars of the Greeks, as for example Scepsis, the native place of the grammarian Demetrius, an historical commentator of Homer; the town is mentioned in Xenophon’s Hellenica. We must here also mention the Aeolian Ilion, which arose after the destruction of ancient Ilion. Assos was situated at the foot of mount Ida, shut in between the mountains and the sea; some mysterious ruins of it are still extant. Abydos stood on the narrowest part of the Hellespont, where it is only seven stadia, about one mile, in breadth. Tenedos was flourishing in consequence of its situation at the entrance of the Hellespont; it was a commercial place, populous and industrial, and derived advantages from its situation even as late as the time of the Romans. The town in Hecatonnesoi is mentioned only by Herodotus.

That this part of Aeolis was likewise a dodecapolis, is indeed no more than a conjecture, for we cannot make out the names of all the towns; but it is at least very probable partly from analogy, and partly from the words of Strabo; for out of the number of the thirty towns which he calls Aeolian, twelve belong to the southern dodecapolis and six to Lesbos.

Lesbos is the pearl of the Aeolian race; in the Trojan times it is called Pelasgian, but in such a manner that the Pelasgian Macar in Homer is an Aeolian.⁠[76] Lesbos is a blessed country, and excellent for the cultivation of the vine and grain, like Chios; it is only wanting in mastix, and its wine too is somewhat inferior to that of Chios; it has, however, no rough districts like Chios, but only pleasing hills and numerous plains, many excellent harbours, and bays entering far into the country. It had originally six towns, among which, however, Arisba was destroyed at an early period by the Methymnaeans; its name reminds us of the town on the mainland known from Homer; it had disappeared as [219]early as the time of Herodotus. Among the remaining five, two are towns of importance, Mitylene and Methymna; the three others are Pyrrha, Eresos, and Antissa.

Mitylene: the orthography of this name is very uncertain; on coins and inscriptions we find Mytilana,⁠[77] while in Greek MSS. and even in more recent Latin inscriptions, it is invariably written Mitylene. The former is in all probability the more ancient mode of spelling, yet it is difficult to introduce it into printed books. Mitylene rose to the rank of one of the greatest and most splendid cities, and Alcaeus called it ἁ μεγάλα Μιτυλάνα. No place in Greece has produced greater geniuses, for Alcaeus and Sappho are among the most excellent lyric poets in Greek literature. The history of Alcaeus is connected with that of his time, for he fought in behalf of the liberty of his country against usurpation. There, as everywhere else, members of the order of the nobles set themselves up as tyrants, and the demos, supported by Pittacus, rose against these δυναστεῖαι. Alcaeus, belonging to the aristocracy, was opposed to Pittacus, whom he unjustly attacked for his low birth and his usurpation, for Pittacus laid down his dictatorial power as soon as he had given laws to the state. Mitylene, being an insular city, together with the other towns spontaneously submitted to the Persians. Under the Pisistratids, the Mityleneans carried on war with the Athenians for the possession of Sigeum on the Hellespont, and afterwards took part in the insurrection of the Ionians in Asia Minor. After the battle of Salamis, they asserted their independence of Persia, and placed themselves under the protection of Athens. During the Peloponnesian war, they at first yielded to circumstances, but then allowed themselves, by Spartan influence, to be led to insurrection. Paches reduced the city, and Cleon wanted to raze it to the ground; a decree was passed that all its inhabitants should be made [220]slaves and the country laid waste; but the city narrowly escaped the most frightful devastation; and cleruchi were sent into the island to whom the inhabitants had to pay tribute. At the end of the war, the Mityleneans joined Sparta, and in the Macedonian period they were allied with Byzantium, Chios, and Cos against Athens, and throughout the time of the Macedonian ascendancy maintained their republican independence. In the reign of Mithridates they were mad enough to take part in the murder of the Romans, and shewed on that occasion greater cruelty than any other people. After a long resistance on the part of its inhabitants, the Romans took the city, destroyed it, and sold its citizens as slaves; it was, however, restored through the influence of Theophanes, the favourite of Pompey. Mitylene had a double harbour.

Methymna was the only Lesbian town that did not take part in the revolt against Athens, for which reason it was favoured by the Athenians. Otherwise little is to be said of this place, except that Arion, the dithyrambic poet, was born there.

Eresos, or Eressos, was, according to some, the birth-place of Sappho. This, however, is a doubtful point, but certain it is, that Theophrastus, the last genuine Greek classic, was a native of Eresos.

The two Asiatic towns of the name of Magnesia, the one on the Maeander, and the other at the foot of mount Sipylus, have this in common, that their origin is not accounted for in any of the Greek traditions about the migrations into Asia. It is a surprising phenomenon, that a people like the Magnetes should have settled there, far away from the coast and from the other Greek towns. But if we bear in mind, that the Magnetes decidedly belong to the Pelasgian race, and that in other parts of that portion of Asia, too, Thessalian Pelasgians occur, we can scarcely entertain a doubt, that the two Magnesias in Asia must be regarded as remnants of a Pelasgian population in those districts. In the earliest Graeco-Asiatic history, both towns act a prominent part; but we know nothing definite about their fate; one [221]of them, it is uncertain which, is said to have been destroyed during the great migration of the Cimmerians or Treres. Afterwards, during the period of the earliest Ionian traditions, the Magnesians were powerful through their cavalry. Magnesia, near mount Sipylus, was a considerable town as late as the time of the Macedonian and Syrian dominion, and in the war of Antiochus against his brother, it was allied with Smyrna and displayed great vigour and valour.

This may suffice about the Greek settlements in western Asia from Cnidos to the Propontis. Cyprus is isolated, and does not properly belong to the Greek nation; I shall have occasion to speak of it hereafter, as well as of the Greek settlements in Phrygia.

The Kingdom of Pergamus.

On the same coast, we meet with the city of Pergamus, the origin of which is similar to that of Antioch and Alexandria, though Pergamus, in language and manners, was more completely hellenised than Antioch ever could be, because of the predominance of the Syriac population, which was deeply interested in the preservation of its own language. The extent of the ruins still attests the ancient splendour of the place. When Alexander was conquering western Asia, and even during the time when his successor Lysimachus governed those parts, Pergamus was not a town, but only a castle on a precipitous rock, celebrated for its strength; the rock is called στροβιλοειδής, from its resemblance to a pine-cone. After the battle of Ipsus, when Lysimachus had obtained Phrygia on the Hellespont and Lydia, he deposited in that castle his treasures, amounting, it is said, to 9,000 talents, about £1,935,000. During the later years of this unhappy prince, when, owing to [222]the intrigues of his second wife Arsinoë, who wished to secure the throne to her own children, the Furies entered his house, and when he commenced persecuting his children by his first wife, and even ordered Agathocles to be put to death, there arose such a commotion in his dominions, that many parts refused obedience to him, and the whole kingdom fell into a state of disorganisation. Seleucus Nicator attacked it, and Philetaerus, the governor of Pergamus, declared himself independent, and opened the gates to Seleucus. Philetaerus had for a long time been in possession of what had been intrusted to his care, and at first probably with honest intentions towards the house of Lysimachus. But when the whole family of the latter had become extinct, Philetaerus remained the ruler of the country. He was succeeded by his brother Eumenes as dynastes, a title which was then commonly given to those who would in former times have been called tyrants. With the assistance of Gallic mercenaries, he extended his dominions towards Syria, defeated Antiochus Soter, the son of Seleucus Nicator, and founded a regular principality. His son Attalus assumed the title of king, though he had but a small kingdom. But he extended it, and although it was at first reduced by the Romans, they afterwards favoured and raised him to the rank of king of Asia.

The city of Pergamus, or Pergamum (for both forms occur, the Greeks commonly preferring Πέργαμον, and the Romans Pergamus), arose under the successor of Philetaerus, at the foot of the rock on which the castle continued to exist. The city seems to have been an open place; the inhabitants probably felt the inconvenience of a fortified town, and owing to the progress which the art of besieging had then made, not much confidence was placed in the protection of walls. The city was beautiful and wealthy, and remained prosperous until the Pergamenian dynasty became extinct, and the kingdom was made over to the Romans as a province. During the rebellion of Aristonicus, the city suffered but was not destroyed; thenceforth, however, it [223]became deserted and dull, though it still remained a respectable provincial city. During the period of its kings, literature was flourishing at Pergamus, and there existed a rivalry between it and Alexandria, as well as between their grammatical and poetical schools: but those of Pergamus were not able to equal their rivals. They must, however, be mentioned with respect, especially the grammatical school, and Pergamus during the best period took an active part in grammatical studies. Nicander belongs to the Pergamenian school; he is indeed a poet of an inferior order, but still ought not to be despised. Julius Caesar transferred the library of Pergamus to Alexandria as a compensation for the one destroyed by fire in the latter place. It is strange that even a man like Caesar was not free from a certain barbarism, and that he did not carry those literary treasures to Rome.

Atarneus, in the neighbourhood of Pergamus, had formerly belonged to the Chians, who possessed several places on the mainland; they had received it from the Persians as a reward for the treachery of a deserter. It was a Mysian town, but subsequently became hellenised, though without receiving a Greek colony: such places must be carefully distinguished from real Greek towns. It was very strongly fortified, and afterwards made itself independent of Chios. In later times we find Hermias as an independent prince of Atarneus; his daughter Pythias was married to Aristotle, who himself lived with him for three years.

Greek Settlements in Macedonia and Thrace.

We shall now proceed on the north of mount Olympus along the coast of the Aegean to consider the Greek colonies there. The συνεχὴς Ἑλλάς, according to Dicaearchus, who has hitherto been our guide, extends as far as mount Olympus. He has indeed some doubts as to whether Thessaly should be included, but he decides after all in the affirmative, because Greek was spoken in Thessaly. Thessaly was evidently a hellenised country, just like the east of Germany, where formerly Wendish was spoken, while now pure German prevails, though rivers and mountains still have names which are completely Wendish. This hellenisation, however, did not extend beyond the boundaries of Thessaly; it scarcely reached as far as Peraebia, which was partly Macedonian and partly Thracian, the country beyond Olympus being inhabited by Macedonian and Thracian tribes. In the Homeric Catalogue, Thessaly extends beyond the Axius, a most beautiful river, as far as Pieria, which was regarded as part of ancient Thrace.

Pieria forms the slope of the range of mountains of which Olympus, at the mouth of the Peneus, is the highest peak, rising to the height of the snow-line; this charming coast country extends from mount Olympus as far as the Thermaic gulf. The most important among the several Greek towns along this coast were Pydna and Methone, which are called Chalcidian. It is very surprising to find, that the whole coast, from the foot of mount Olympus to the Strymon, though not continuously, yet for the greater part, is occupied by Greek, and, if we except the Dorian Potidaea, by Ionian [225]towns, which are called Chalcidian, whence Thucydides’ expression, Χαλκιδῆς ἐπὶ Θρᾴκης. If the population of all these towns had come from Chalcis in Euboea alone, that city, nay the whole of Euboea, would have been drained; we must assume that there was only a nucleus of Chalcidian ctistae, who brought with them Chalcidian νόμιμα and took possession of the places; all the rest consisted of adventurers from all parts of Greece. Those towns were for the most part μικρὰ πολίσματα. Until the time of Philip, when Macedonia was a small and weak state, though more weak than small, they had in the most wonderful manner contrived to remain independent of Macedonia. The places on the western coast of the Thermaic gulf had no political connexion with those on the eastern side. In the reigns of Perdiccas and Archelaus, Pydna and Methone seem to have been allied with Macedonia, but only for a time; it is possible that they may have paid a tribute as a recognition, but they were free towns. Little can be said of them: Methone was conquered and destroyed by Philip, and Pydna was taken and changed into a Macedonian town. More about this will be said when I come to speak of Macedonia.

Proceeding from the coast of Pieria along that of Emathia and Bottiaea, we meet with several towns of which it is doubtful whether they were Chalcidian or Bottiaean: Therma, subsequently called Thessalonica, appears to have been Chalcidian, but I shall say more about this when I come to Macedonia.

Aenea on the promontory where the smaller and larger Thermaic gulfs separate, is called by Herodotus a Greek town, but seems to have originally been Pelasgian and to have afterwards become hellenised. Farther on the Greek towns are more closely together, though nearly all of them are without historical importance, whence I shall not enter upon an enumeration of them.

The Bottiaeans, who, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, rose against the Athenians, were a Pelasgian [226]people, akin to the Greeks, like the Epirots and Thessalians, but not Greek. I shall say more of them hereafter. If you will understand the first book of Thucydides, you must have a thoroughly clear notion about them, which the early commentators had not. The Bottians and Bottiaeans must be distinguished.

From the projecting Acte of Macedonia, three peninsulas run out into the sea: the easternmost contains mount Athos, which extends in a south-eastern direction, and is highest at the point where it reaches the sea; this mountain must be conceived to extend below the sea, first to Lemnos and thence to mount Ida. Pallene, the western peninsula, forms the eastern shore of the Thermaic gulf, and is connected with the Acte by a narrow isthmus. The middle peninsula is called Sithonia. The interior of the broad Acte was never inhabited by Greeks, but only by barbarians, except a few isolated points, such as Apollonia. Sithonia itself was likewise occupied by barbarians, and Μιξέλληνες existed only here and there. Pallene, on the other hand, was thoroughly Greek. This country is one of the most fertile in all Europe; it was also, like Campania, called Phlegra, a name implying a volcanic district of immense fertility. The use of manure in Pallene would be injurious and cause the wheat to shoot up too high. There are districts in that peninsula where tobacco, which otherwise exhausts the most fertile soil, is grown in ordinary corn-fields; but if it were not for the tobacco, everything would be overgrown with weeds, and it would require great labour to destroy them. Wheat there grows to a height of from five to six feet, and it is nothing uncommon to see it rise even to seven or eight feet. Hence that country was a χώρα περιμάχητος. Potidaea, one of the faces malorum of the Peloponnesian war, was situated on the isthmus of Pallene. Potidaea and Syracuse, the two ill-fated places that brought ruin on Greece in this war, were colonies of Corinth.

The towns on this coast are called τὰ πολίσματα τὰ ἐπὶ [227]Θρᾴκης, or πόλεις Χαλκιδικαὶ ἐπὶ Θρᾴκης. It is only in an improper sense that we speak of a country of the name of Chalcidice; wherever that name occurs, it is incorrect and belongs to a late period. We must not, however, believe that none but Chalcidian towns existed there; they only formed the majority; the towns were not even all Greek. Besides the Dorian Potidaea, there existed Andrian and Eretrian towns, though they were few in number. But the Hellenic character was communicated to the neighbouring tribes, not only to the Bottiaeans and Pelasgians of mount Athos, but also to the Thracians, so that in the time of Philip many places are called Greek, which at an earlier period did not bear that name. The thirty-two Greek places on the Thracian coast, so often mentioned by Demosthenes, which were conquered and destroyed by Philip, cannot be taken as Greek towns in the strict sense of the term, but there were among them some which are called by Thucydides δίγλωττοι. I must here notice an error which is found in most maps, and even in those of D’Anville; namely, Chalcis is marked as a large town in that district, though not a trace of it occurs in our authors. It is a mere invention from the name of the Chalcidian towns, and is based on no better authority than the alleged town of Magnesia in Thessaly.

Potidaea, a Corinthian and the only Doric settlement in that part, is one of those places, the situation of which is so fortunate, that in spite of all calamities they always recover. It was conquered by the Athenians and received cleruchi, who were no doubt expelled by Lysander like the cleruchi in all the other places; it would appear, however, that the ancient Corinthian inhabitants who had been scattered in all directions, scarcely returned at all, and the few who did return became subjects of Olynthus, with which they afterwards formed a relation of sympolity. During this period, therefore, Potidaea was insignificant, and was conquered by the Athenians at the time when they recovered their maritime power; it was then probably re-conquered [228]by the Olynthians, and finally came into the permanent possession of Macedonia. It may then have been destroyed, but it was restored from its ruins by Cassander, and called Cassandrea,⁠[78] under which name it was one of the most important Macedonian cities, and at times was the capital of the whole empire. The foundation of Cassandrea and the enlargement of Thessalonica shew that Cassander had a quick eye in discovering the appropriate sites of towns. It is a remarkable fact that these cities, although for a considerable time the kings resided in them, still were tolerably independent republics under the supremacy of the very kings who had founded them. Under Ptolemy Ceraunus and Lysimachus, Cassandrea was one of the capitals of Macedonia. After the death of the former, it was separated from Macedonia, and fell into the hands of the terrible tyrant, Apollodorus. During the wars of the Romans it was an important city, and maintained that rank throughout the middle ages down to modern times; six years ago (1822) it was destroyed, but it will undoubtedly recover from this calamity also.

Among the six towns in Pallene, only Mende and Scione, which were destroyed in a fearful manner by the Athenians, deserve to be mentioned. This is one of the cases in which we cannot say that the Athenians did not abuse their excessive power.

Olynthus, situated on a hill beyond the isthmus, about five miles north of Potidaea, is one of those places which, however familiar their names may be to the reader of Demosthenes, are yet historically very obscure; information about them does not readily present itself to us, and it is only with difficulty that we can gather their history. Olynthus is one of the little Chalcidian places, which are mentioned at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war. During that war, when the Chalcidians rose against Athens, they formed the determination, for the purpose of being better able to defend [229]themselves, to give up their old and indefensible towns, and to unite in one place, to form a συνοικισμός, in which undertaking they were supported by Perdiccas and Brasidas. In this manner Olynthus became a large town, a new city being formed around the old place and the acra. It speedily rose to great power, and had scarcely existed fifty years, when we hear it spoken of as ruling far and wide over the neighbouring country. The expedition of Brasidas had overthrown the supremacy of Athens in those parts, and the Macedonian towns were yet too weak to be able to avail themselves of this opportunity: hence a great power was there imperceptibly developed. The old towns were reduced to the rank of demi. They did not limit themselves to the pedantry of admitting only Greeks, but received Bottiaeans, Macedonians, and other neighbouring tribes into their alliance, and this is the first great example of a sympolity.

After Olymp. 100, Xenophon, in his Hellenica,⁠[79] mentions the fact, that the Olynthians were already ruling over a great part of Macedonia; they were even in possession of Pella, and their eastern neighbours, the Apolloniats and Acanthians, being attacked by them, applied to Sparta for assistance. The whole of the northern country was independent of Olynthus, but we do not know whether the towns of the middle peninsula were so likewise: the peninsula of mount Athos was, with few exceptions, quite barbarous, and the eastern coast of Sithonia was likewise inhabited by Thracians and Tyrrhenians, who, however, in the time of Scylax of Caryanda, had already adopted the Greek language, whence he includes them among the [230]Greeks. Olynthus was the centre of all that country, owing to the great extension of its power. During the disputes about the succession in Macedonia, one town after another was ceded to it as a reward for its decisions. Those towns accordingly applied to the Spartans who sent them assistance for the purpose of weakening Olynthus before it should be too late. This expedition, however, failed, and the Olynthians maintained themselves. It was at that time that the Cadmea had been treacherously seized by the Spartans, and thus the expedition gave the Thebans and Boeotians an opportunity to shake off the Spartan yoke. Further accounts are now wanting—so scantily is the history of Greece known to us! Yet, if we steadily look at the circumstances of the time, we may discover at least so much as to be able to fill up the principal gaps. At the time when Philip came forward, Olynthus was still a powerful city, ruling far and wide, though we do not know how far its dominion extended eastward; it was one of the first cities, and is called by Demosthenes a πόλις μυρίανδρος. But its conduct in history does not appear honourable; the Olynthians were quite infatuated and foolish, and without any idea of the danger threatening from Macedonia, which was then governed by a man who knew how to make use of them. For the purpose of obtaining some petty, miserable advantages, they allied themselves with Philip, and when he cast off the mask and was evidently aiming at their destruction, they were seized with the greatest terror and despair; and then, when it was too late, imploringly prostrated themselves at the feet of the Athenians, and begged their pardon. The Athenians, forgetting everything, immediately supported them on the advice of Demosthenes, but through the detestable treachery of Eurycrates and Lasthenes the city was delivered up to Philip. He could not possibly allow Olynthus quietly to continue its existence, but consistently with the principles of his diabolical policy, he was obliged to destroy it, that he might rise higher: he acquired a beautiful country [231]and a large revenue; he ruled without any formidable neighbours, and was thus enabled to mature his cherished scheme of marching against Hellas. Olynthus was never restored.

The only Greek town in the middle peninsula was Torone, on the western coast of the Toronean gulf; the towns on the eastern coast and in the interior were Thracian. Sithonia (Σιθωνία), the name of this peninsula, is sometimes used by Latin poets for Thrace, but the o is made short, the ear of the early Roman writers probably not catching the name correctly.

The whole of the interior of the northern part of the peninsula containing mount Athos is a hilly country with few plains; even its isthmus is hilly, but then the ground rises higher and higher till it reaches the top of mount Athos, the height of which has not yet been measured. This peninsula was inhabited by barbarians, that is, by Thracians and Tyrrhenians of Lemnos and Imbros, mixed with Greeks, whence they were δίγλωττοι, just as, previously to the reduction of Greece, both Greek and Romaic were spoken, e.g. by the Albanese at Castri (Delphi) and Marathon.

Acanthus, an Andrian colony, was situated on the gulf near the isthmus; it is remarkable on account of the canal which Xerxes caused to be dug near it—a senseless undertaking worthy of a barbarian.

East from mount Athos the Greek towns are found at greater intervals from one another. Apollonia (there are at least a dozen towns of this name), an important city, maintained its independence of Olynthus. Near it was situated Stagira, the birth-place of Aristotle, which was destroyed by Philip, but was restored in consequence of the entreaties of Aristotle.

The district then following is now called the country of Seres, a town situated at the mouth of the Strymon, and mentioned in the middle ages under the name of Serrae; it is an important place, but did not exist in antiquity. The river Strymon was, for a time, regarded as the boundary of Macedonia, but it belongs, properly speaking, to [232]Paeonia. The country about its mouth, like that of Pella and Pallene, is one of the most productive districts, and particularly fit for the growth of cotton and tobacco, whence it was a χώρα περιμάχητος at an early period. It was as important to the Greeks as the ports of the Baltic are to the Dutch and English.

Eion, an ancient Greek town at the mouth of the Strymon, was probably a factory of Thasos. From it Athens and the other maritime cities obtained the timber for shipbuilding, which was brought down the river in rafts. Cyprus, however, also furnished timber. Eion was a very strong place; it was long in possession of the Persians, and Boges maintained himself there long after the great forces of Xerxes had been defeated at Mycale and Plataeae; it was afterwards delivered by Cimon. In former times the Milesians had attempted to establish themselves in those parts, and now the Athenians did the same, at first without success, as the Thracians destroyed their colony. But in a second attempt they were more fortunate. They established themselves near the mouth of the river Strymon, about five miles from Eion, and founded the genuine Attic colony of Amphipolis. It derived its name from the fact of its being situated on both banks of the river and being surrounded by two arms of it; the city was planned with great skill, and built on an excellent site, which nature itself had destined to be a great commercial place, like Riga. The Athenians treated it with especial favour: it was not founded like other places which merely received cleruchi, or, according to the Roman fashion, did not possess municipal jurisdiction, but was a true colonial town, and, to a certain extent, independent of the supremacy of Athens. But the Thracians were dangerous neighbours, especially the Edonians; and in order to defend themselves against them, the colonists admitted Chalcidians as their fellow-citizens, who soon formed the majority, because the Chalcidian towns were not far distant, and because Amphipolis offered more attractions than other places. The Amphipolitans exported timber, corn, tar, [233]pitch, iron, and other Thracian products: it was a necessary mart for the Paeonians and other neighbouring nations. At the time of the Peloponnesian war, when the exasperation between the Athenians and Chalcidians had risen very high, the latter succeeded in treacherously overpowering the Attic colony, and in securing the assistance of Sparta. Brasidas defended it against Cleon, and fell in the battle, but the possession of the town was nevertheless for a long time withheld from the Athenians, and Amphipolis henceforth remained a Chalcidian town. In the time of Timoleon, when the maritime power of Athens was again extended, Amphipolis was obliged to acknowledge her supremacy, but soon renounced it again, and the Athenians being then in an unwarlike condition were unable to re-conquer it. The possession of Amphipolis then became one of the baits by means of which Philip for a long time deceived the Athenians; but he took it for himself, and thenceforth, as long as the Macedonian empire existed, it remained one of its chief towns. Early in the middle ages (in the seventh century), it was destroyed by the Slavonians and other barbarians, and never recovered. The town of Seres stepped into its place.

The towns of Abdera and Maronea, both Ionian colonies of Teos, were situated on the coast of Thrace proper. Abdera is celebrated from the tradition about the silliness of its inhabitants, which has been carried to the height of absurdity in the romance of Wieland. These stories have almost made us forget, that Democritus, one of the greatest geniuses of Greece, was a native of Abdera. Maronea was an ancient seat of the worship of Bacchus, for the southern coast of Thrace is one of the countries in which the nobler kinds of wine were produced at a very early period.

Aenos, an Aeolian town, was situated at the mouth of the river Hebrus. All these countries afterwards belonged for a time to the kingdom of Egypt. If my intention of editing Polybius conjointly with Bekker should ever be realised, I contemplate adding a map of that coast.

The Chersonesus, which, between forty and fifty miles in length, extends between the κόλπος μέλας and the Hellespont, is connected with Thrace by an isthmus of about five miles in breadth, and was formerly a Thracian country, whence its name of Chersonesus Thracica. Such it appears in the cyclic poems, and the faithless tyrant, to whom Hecuba entrusts her son, is placed in this peninsula; but in the course of time Greeks settled there, and hence arose the colonies of Sestos, Eleus (Ἐλεοῦς, Ἐλαιοῦς), and Alopeconnesus on the coast of the Hellespont; but all of them, with the exception of Sestos, were unimportant. The interior contained the Thracian country of the Doloncians. When these latter were attacked by the Thracian tribes, they, in common with the Greek towns, applied to Athens for protection, for Athens was then already rising, and fought with the Mityleneans for the possession of Sigeon. At that time, the Athenians under Miltiades took possession of Chersonesus, and protected it by a line of fortifications against the Thracians, on which occasion they must have founded Cardia. The Thracians who formerly dwelt there, now became allies and subjects, in which relation they remained until the extension of the power of Persia. We must not imagine that the first taking possession of Chersonesus was not the work of Pisistratus; the tendency to refer to the people that which was done by the tyrants alone, is one of the later republican vanities. Yet it does not follow, that Athens at that time had a consolidated dominion over Chersonesus, unless indeed it was broken after the expulsion of the Pisistratids.

It contained twelve towns. The wall of Miltiades was long preserved, though it was often broken through and restored. Near it was Cardia, according to tradition, an ancient Greek town, which only received new strength through Miltiades. It was destroyed by Lysimachus, perhaps not in anger, but, as was often done by the rulers of that time, for the purpose of enriching a favourite town with inhabitants. Thus Mahomed I., in order to raise Constantinople, transplanted to it many thousands of Christian Armenians and [235]other people. For Lysimachus founded Lysimachia by the side of Cardia, and this no doubt became his capital, though this is nowhere expressly mentioned, for it is in the spirit of the times; think only of Alexandria, Antioch, Demetrias, and Cassandrea! Lysimachia was great and splendid; it was afterwards under the dominion of Syria; in the wars between Seleucus Callinicus and Ptolemy Euergetes it passed from the hands of the Syrians into those of the Egyptians. The latter either set the town free, or it emancipated itself, and entered the relation of sympolity with the Aetolians. As the latter were unable to protect it, it was destroyed at the time of the Philippic war by the Thracians, for the Thracian tribes were then very powerful and tyrannical towards the Greeks. Being poorly restored by Antiochus the Great, it thenceforth was little more than a name, until in the end it disappears altogether. Cardia produced the historian Hieronymus, who wrote a history of the successors of Alexander and their descendants (Epigoni); he was an historian of great value, an able man, and a companion of Eumenes. The latter, too, was a native of Cardia, a man of a better kind than the other generals of Alexander; he was the only non-Macedonian who raised himself to the rank of a prince; he had a real enthusiasm for the house of Alexander, of which not a trace is to be found in any of the others.

All the remaining places were either Athenian or Ionian, and Alopeconnesus and Sestos alone are called Aeolian. Sestos is celebrated through the legend of Hero, and in history on account of the long siege which the Persians sustained there even after the battle of Mycale. This is the site of the ancient Dardanelles; the Hellespont there is only seven stadia in breadth.

I ought to have mentioned Abydos on the opposite coast, when speaking of Aeolis. It is renowned for its desperate defence against Philip, the son of Demetrius, and Antiochus, in their war against young Ptolemy. It is inconceivable what made the people of Abydos so determined not to exchange one master for another: they made [236]away with themselves in order not to fall into the hands of Philip.

At a later time, Callipolis (now Gallipoli) arose in the neighbourhood of Sestos; it was an important town under the Byzantine emperors, and even as early as the reign of Justinian. In antiquity it was so insignificant, that it may be doubted as to whether it really existed.

The Chersonesus appears gradually to have become completely hellenised, although the Thracians were otherwise very obstinate. They entirely disappeared there, either because they quitted the peninsula or because they became amalgamated with the Greeks, for in the time of Philip all the people were Greek, and from the time of Timotheus onward, for a period of several years, the country was completely Athenian. But as the Athenians sent cleruchi into it, the Thracians revolted: hence the interference of Philip, who took possession of the peninsula. This was the occasion of Demosthenes’ speech, περὶ τῶν ἐν Χερσονήσῳ.

We shall now proceed along the Thracian coast as far as the mouth of the Pontus, and then cross over to the coast of Asia. The sea between the Hellespont and the Bosporus was called Propontis. The continuous line of coast of this sea never was entirely in the hands of the Greeks, but they possessed the most important points. On the Thracian coast, between Chersonesus and Perinthus, they had but few places, but the whole of the Bosporus was in their hands. The most important of these places is Perinthus; but before we come to it there are several smaller ones, which I will pass over.

Perinthus, a Samian colony, if we consider the course of the history of Samos, cannot have been founded after the time of the Persian war, and must probably be assigned to the time of Polycrates. This is a point which is self-evident, though no writer mentions it. The town is rarely noticed in history, and is remarkable only on account of the siege of Philip in Olymp. 109, when it was saved by the energetic assistance of Athens, which was afforded to it on the proposal of Demosthenes.

The Byzantine colony of Selymbria (bria with the Thracians signified a town, as in Mesembria) was situated between Perinthus and Byzantium.

Byzantium, a colony of the Megarians, was situated between the Propontis, the Bosporus, and the bay called Ceras. Under the Byzantine emperors, this bay was called the Golden Horn (τὸ χρυσοῦν κέρας), and is situated between Pera and Constantinople, forming the great port of the city extending about five miles into the country; a river empties itself into its μυχός. It is not known at what time the Megarians were powerful enough to found such a colony, but, according to all accounts, it was at an early period, perhaps during the tyrannis of Theagenes, or even earlier. Megara probably acted only as mediator for the efflux of the surplus population of the Dorians, for itself was too small. The original name of Byzantium was Βύζας, of which the most distinct traces occur in the antiquities of Constantinople, as you may see in Codinus, De originibus Constantinopolitanis, a work which contains some important matters concerning mythology; but its language is miserably bad. All traditions go back to a hero Byzas, who is said to be the founder of the place, and is represented on coins, just as Taras in the case of Tarentum. A still older form was no doubt Βύζανς, like Antians, Romans, Campans, ans being a genuine Pelasgian ending. The πολιτικὸν is Βυζάντιος, the citizens are called Βυζάντιοι, and the city τὸ Βυζάντιον (supply πόλισμα) in Thucydides.⁠[80] In the earlier writers, such as Herodotus, οἱ Βυζάντιοι is far more common, for instead of the names of places with the unusual terminations as (ans) and us (uns), the names of the citizens are generally employed, as Λεοντῖνοι in Sicily from Λεοῦς, which does not occur at all. Such forms are used even where topically the place alone is meant. In like manner, we find in the middle ages Tusculana or Tusculanum (supply civitas or oppidum), Lanuvina or Lanuvinum; and many of these things have descended to our own times, as Palestrina [238]for Praenestina. The Romans called the city Byzantium, and from it they formed the new adjective Byzantinus, which remained indeed foreign to the Greeks, but is the only correct form in later times, when Byzantium was restored under the name of Constantinople.

I have made these observations, because even a grammarian like my dear friend Buttmann⁠[81] has been mistaken on this point. In order to decide such questions, it is necessary to make investigations and to search even in the inelegant corners of the literature of the fifth and sixth centuries, and to be as familiar with it, as were Joseph Scaliger and J. F. Gronovius. In our time scholars move within too narrow limits; but we ought not to be satisfied with a knowledge of the elegant literature, but must go down to the middle ages; there are many points in the language, which receive the necessary light only from mediaeval writings.⁠[82] Buttmann is right so far as the classical period is concerned.⁠[83]⁠

Byzantium was destined by nature to be one of the most important cities; and it was so much designed to become a large place, that the oracle commanding the settlers to establish themselves opposite to the coast of the Blind, said nothing but the plain truth. Chalcedon on the opposite coast was probably a Megarian settlement, but founded from [239]Byzantium at its very earliest period, and not 150 years before the foundation of Byzantium by the Megarians. Byzantium controls the Bosporus and the whole of the Euxine, and it is inconceivable how the Greeks could settle on the Pontus, without previously taking possession of Byzantium. Its harbour is extremely safe and fit for the largest vessels; and even on the south side of the city, ships may anchor in the Propontis with great safety and without being exposed to the winds. The current from the Black Sea through the Hellespont affords a safety of defence, which is of great importance in case of an attack from the west, and that even without any necessity of fortifying the pass of Sestos. The climate is extremely healthy, the situation most beautiful, and the country all around the most fertile in the world. Not to leave unnoticed what is apparently accidental, I may mention that the sea there abounds in fish, which are a great advantage to those countries. The Black Sea is in general very rich in fish, and from it, from the Palus Maeotis, from the Don and Dniepr, large shoals of fish proceed annually through the Bosporus and the Hellespont towards the Aegean Sea; but the current always throws a great many into the harbour of Byzantium, where they find no outlet and are caught with the greatest facility, especially tunny fish and anchovies. When the Ionian cities became weaker, the Byzantians, availing themselves of their situation, levied a toll upon ships passing through the Bosporus, but were unable permanently to exact it, and became in consequence involved in serious wars.

Byzantium was conquered by a Persian general of Darius, and for a time was nothing but a Persian fortress: the Greek inhabitants of the place then dispersed, but the whole of the Bosporus and the country on the other side of the Ceras as far as Selymbria, consisted of Byzantian προάστεια. The circumference of the ancient city was not great, occupying only about double the space of the present Seraglio. During the Macedonian period, Byzantium, with extraordinary skill, preserved its independence. In Olymp. 106, [240]it undertook, in conjunction with Rhodes, Chios, and Mitylene, the Social war against Athens. Under Lysimachus, it appears to have formally maintained its political existence, paying homage to him only by presents, and thus throughout all changes it remained free until the time of the Romans. In the age of Cicero, for example, Byzantium, as we see from his speech against Piso, was a completely free city and in alliance with the Romans. As commerce was constantly increasing in the Roman empire, Byzantium also rose in prosperity, as is clear from certain statements of Tacitus. In the war of Pescennius Niger against Septimius Severus, Byzantium stood out against a desperate siege which lasted for three years; Niger had no hope of conquering Severus and the West, and this seems to have suggested to him the idea of dividing the empire, and of maintaining himself in the East, of which Byzantium was to be the capital. When the city was taken, Severus destroyed it completely, a piece of revenge which was otherwise opposed to the character of that prudent emperor. The unfortunate consequence was, that those seas were now thrown open to the barbarians. The Goths, without any obstacle, penetrated into the Propontis, overpowered the claustra of the Hellespont, and spread over Greece. At length Constantine restored Byzantium under the name of Constantinople; he saw the necessity of founding a strong capital there, if he was to maintain himself in the East. This determination of Constantine has been censured, and the course of events seems to justify the censure; but people overlook the fact that, if Constantine had not acted as he did, the East would have been conquered first and much earlier, that part of the empire being then much more in danger than the West. The Goths were on the Danube, and the Huns were pressing on from the East, while the Germans had been completely overpowered by the victories of Aurelian and Probus; and in Gaul, too, not a man thought of making war against Rome. The fact that afterwards circumstances turned out differently is no proof that Constantine was wrong. Had not Constantinople been [241]so strong a place at that time, the eastern empire would have been lost.

The gradual extension of Constantinople is a subject which would lead me too far; but if, after I have given you the topography of Rome, there he still time left, I shall add that of Constantinople.

Let us now proceed to the southern coast of the Propontis. I will only state in general, that the whole of the Asiatic side of the Hellespont, as far as the entrance into the Propontis was completely covered with Greek towns, nearly all of which, like Lampsacus and Dardanus, were Aeolian; a few only were Ionian. But Cyzicus, on the south coast of the Propontis, was a town which enjoyed great celebrity both in the earlier and the somewhat later periods of antiquity. It is a disputed point whether originally it was situated on a peninsula connected with the mainland by a narrow neck, or whether it was in reality an island which was artificially connected with the opposite coast by means of a causeway. It was a Milesian colony, protected against the barbarians by its isolated position, and it acquired importance at first by agriculture, and afterwards by navigation and commerce. It is mentioned by Thucydides and Xenophon, but its real greatness belongs to the Macedonian period, when, to judge from its ruins and the vast number of coins found there, it must have been a very large and wealthy city. It is historically important on account of the siege during which its inhabitants defended themselves bravely, resolutely, and heroically, against Mithridates; the Romans rewarded them for it with distinctions and favours of every kind; and Cyzicus, under the Romans, continued to be a considerable city. It seems to have been destroyed during the Gothic invasion in the third century; under the Byzantine emperors it was only a small provincial town.

There were several other little Greek colonies on the same coast, such as Cios, Astacos, and others, which were subsequently conquered by the Bithynian kings, in consequence [242]of which their names were changed. I shall say more of them when I come to speak of Bithynia.

Chalcedon, opposite to Byzantium, was according to tradition older than it; it may have existed before, but certainly not as a Greek town. It is likewise said to have been a Megarian colony; but it never was of any historical importance. On coins it is called Καλχεδών, but in many MSS. we find Καλχηδών, whence it is often confounded with Καρχηδών.

The Greek towns on the Thracian coast from the Bosporus onwards are in themselves of no historical importance. Mesembria was built by the Byzantians at the time when, during the Ionian war, their own city had been taken by the Persians. Nearly all settlements in those parts were Ionian colonies sent out by Miletus, with the exception of Calatis which was a Dorian colony of Heraclea; but Apollonia and all places further on as far as the Borysthenes are Milesian. All these towns as far as Olbia, as I said before, are of no importance in history, if we except Tomi, which derives its interest from the fact that Ovid lived there in exile.

Tomi is also called Τομεῖς, which is another instance of the variety of adjectives. Τομεύς (Τομεῖς) is an adjective, from which is formed Τομείτης, and from it again the Latin Tomitanus, so that we have three forms of the ethnic name. The description which Ovid, in his Tristia, gives of his sufferings in that place, as well as the Βορυσθενιτικὸς of Dion Chrysostomus, is of historical interest, because it furnishes us a picture of the mode of life in that country. Those distant Greeks maintained themselves as Greeks down to the times of the Romans, but they had enough intercourse with the barbarians to adopt many of their manners and customs, nay, even some peculiarities of language, so that they really were Μιξέλληνες.

The coast of Thrace as far as mount Haemus is beautiful, but in the north of Haemus as far as the Ister, it is inhospitable, for it is rocky, and the country a mere steppe. [243]North of the Ister as far as the Crimea, the coast, though high, is a perfect steppe; the country is flat and often well adapted for agriculture, but unfit for trees, because the soil which is often very fertile is only a few feet deep, and rests upon a stony stratum of ochre, which destroys the roots of trees.

The coast to the north of the Ister as far as the Dniepr or the town of Tyras is called Γετῶν ἐρημία, either because it had been a desert at all times, or because it had been changed into a wilderness. At the mouth of the Dniepr, Tyras, near Akermann, was the only town, and probably even this was only a factory. Odessos, which must not be confounded with the distant Odessa, was situated near the Ister. I will remark here by the way, that the name Odessa has been quite unreasonably adopted from the ancient town Odessos.

The ancient city of Olbia, once, as its name indicates, a wealthy town, was situated between Odessa and Oczakow; it was also termed Borysthenis or Borysthenopolis, but the city is generally called Olbia, while its inhabitants are spoken of under the names of Βορυσθενοπολῖται, Ὄλβιοι, and Ὀλβιοπολῖται. It was a great emporium for the Greek corn trade with the countries about the Dniepr. That trade was carried on from two points, first from the Ukraine and the Dniepr, and secondly from Phanagoria, the Cimmerian Bosporus, the Don, and the Taurian Chersonesus. As apparently unimportant circumstances often supply the place of historical information, so the decay of Olbia justifies the inference that the commerce of the Dniepr, to which Olbia owed its greatness, must have been destroyed, and that too in consequence of the invasion of those countries by the Gauls on the one hand, and by the Sarmatians on the other. Agriculture must have been ruined, and nomadic tribes appear to have settled there. The Bosporanian towns retained their importance, but Olbia was insignificant compared with what it had been, and never rose again. When a place, after its destruction, continues to be inhabited, the stones and especially marble, are ill preserved: Olbia had received its [244]death-blow, and though it continued for a time to be inhabited by the Greeks, it was afterwards completely destroyed by the barbarians, and never restored. Innumerable inscriptions are thus buried in the ground, from which we can gather information about the condition of Olbia; one of them⁠[84] refers to the period preceding the appearance of the Sarmatae. From Dion Chrysostomus, we know that in Caesar’s time the Sarmatae came across the Dniepr, and took and destroyed Olbia. In his own time Olbia was a thinly inhabited and decayed place of large circumference. Afterwards it is no longer mentioned. From Herodotus, who himself visited the place, we can best see how great it was in his time.

From Olbia, we proceed to the Crimea, the Chersonesus Taurica, in modern times sometimes called Tauris,—a name of which it has been justly remarked, that it was unknown to the ancients, but it does not follow that we too should not use it; only in writing Latin we should not employ it, but follow the practice of the ancients. The correct name is Ταυρική; and Ταυρίς, though correctly formed, does not occur, but the country was called from its inhabitants Ταῦροι, whence Ἰφιγένεια ἐν Ταύροις, and not in Tauride. This Taurian Chersonesus consists of two halves which are separated nearly equally by a diagonal running from north-west to south-east. The southern half has an excellent range of hills, whereas the other is a steppe. The former was inhabited by Taurians, the latter by Scythians; the Taurians were, as Herodotus says, foreign to the Scythians. The Greeks formed settlements on the coast of the Taurian country, and also on the Cimmerian Bosporus.

The great town called Chersonesus was situated on the promontory of a small island, as the isthmus could easily be defended by fortifications; it had an excellent harbour, for which reason it had been chosen as the site of a colony. [245]The town was a colony of Heraclea in Bithynia, whose greatness belongs to the period previous to the Mithridatic wars; its vicissitudes are manifold; it must have been founded after the time of Herodotus, as he does not mention it. The passage in which he speaks of those countries, shows that he would have noticed it, if it had existed. But whenever it may have been founded, it became important at an early period, and was known under the name of Ἡρακλεία ἐν Χερσονήσῳ, or simply Χερσόνησος. In consequence of attacks from barbarous tribes, it was obliged to place itself under the protection of Mithridates Eupator. This was the beginning of happy times for the Greeks in those parts; the whole of the Crimea was united under one government, and the barbarians were excluded by fortifications on the isthmus. The kings of Bosporus, descendants of Mithridates, governed the peninsula as a splendid little kingdom under the protection of the Romans, who never introduced their provincial institutions there, but were satisfied with the recognition of their supremacy and presents. Under this government the Chersonesus retained its importance, and when the kingdom of Bosporus was broken up, Chersonesus, which now assumed the name of Cherson, became a republic. As such it existed not only in the reign of Justinian, when the Romans protected the inhabitants as their allies and in that of the descendants of Heraclius, but even afterwards under Constantine Porphyrogenitus (see his detailed article Χερσῶν in the work De Administrando Imperio). The constitution of this republic cannot be satisfactorily ascertained, but its magistrates were called πρωτεύοντες. The place was then still Greek, and Greek was spoken there, and national chronicles were kept in the Greek language, which the author of the work just mentioned made use of. Afterwards the peninsula was taken by the Russians under their prince Wladimir, the first great conqueror who aimed at the possession of Greece. The town was not indeed destroyed on that occasion, but many things of value were carried away, as for example, the bronze gates of the [246]churches. Soon after, the Chazars and other barbarians came and took possession of the town, which then disappears from history. In 1784, when the Russians took the Crimea, the town no longer existed, but only extensive ruins. Regular and systematic excavations might have led to important discoveries, but the Russians built a harbour for their navy; everything was rudely demolished for the purpose of using it as building material; all the iron was torn away, and the bricks employed elsewhere, so that at present not a trace appears of what forty years ago promised certain reward for suitable exertion. Inscriptions, as far as I know, have not been found; but a large number of coins of the Byzantine period have been brought to light, from which we see that the town, like Venice, even then had its own right of coinage under the protection of Constantinople.

Larger or smaller Greek settlements existed near most of the harbours. Theodosia or Theudosia in the neighbourhood of Kaffa, formed the western frontier of the kingdom of Bosporus. At present the name Theodosia (in Russian, Feodosia), has been transferred to Kaffa, but I believe that those are right who consider this transference to be without foundation.

Phanagoria, in the eastern part of the Crimea, was situated on an eminence, and was the chief Greek city in those parts. Although the antiquities there have been destroyed in a barbarous manner, the place still is an inexhaustible mine, and the remains show a degree of beauty which excites our astonishment; the Bosporan coins are beautiful, and the vases, statues, and the like are exquisite. Phanagoria was a very ancient Greek colony of Miletus; it rose to greatness at an early period, and was governed by a γένος bearing the name of Archaeanactidae, so that its form of government was at first aristocratic. The Archaeanactidae were probably succeeded by a democracy, and this by a tyrannis. Among the tyrants, Leucon is of some interest to us, because Demosthenes, in his speech against Leptines, speaks of an honorary right conferred upon him for having [247]done service to Athens. He was succeeded by Satyrus and others, who completely undermined the republican constitution, which was perhaps not suited to those countries. The Greek inhabitants were really much indebted to those princes for preserving their wealth and happiness in the midst of impetuous barbarians. Their names show distinct traces of a connection with Persia; thus we often meet with the name Parysades, which is nothing else than Perisades, the son of a fairy (Peri); according to the Greek pronunciation the resemblance is stronger than according to ours.

The kingdom of Bosporus embraced the whole of the eastern Crimea as far as Theodosia, and the opposite island of Taman, Tamacan, or, as Strabo calls it Tamyrace. It formed settlements also on the Palus Maeotis and on the Euxine. In the time of Mithridates Eupator, it was governed by king Parysades, who, being unable to check the invading Sarmatae, surrendered his kingdom to Mithridates; the latter then undertook an expedition into the Crimea, partly for the purpose of extending his empire, and partly for that of training his army for the war against the Romans. As long as he lived, Bosporus was his province; it then passed into the hands of his family, which, like himself, had become completely hellenized, though they were of Persian origin. We can trace the names of the princes down to the fourth century from their coins, the later ones of which show on one side the head of the reigning emperor of Rome, and on the other that of the Bosporan king.

I cannot at this moment give you an accurate account of the towns in the island of Taman, but they were without importance. The town of Tanais, which may have been very ancient, was situated at the mouth of the river Tanais.

This small kingdom, ever since the time of Mithridates, comprised the whole of the Crimea; across the isthmus, a line [248]of fortifications had been constructed to defend the Crimea against the northern barbarians.

An ancient Περίπλους περὶ Πόντον Εὔξεινον, the beginning of which is lost, is a compilation from the earlier Greek Περίπλοι and from the work of Scymnus of Chios, and contains the distances. But it is very doubtful when it was composed; I believe that it is a late production, perhaps of the time of Justinian, or even later, for all the distances are given in stadia and Roman miles, and the town of Chersonesus is called Cherson.

Greek towns existed not only there, on the coast south of mount Kuban, about the promontory of mount Caucasus, but even in the easternmost corner of the Black Sea. On the eastern coast we find Colchis, which exported the products of those parts, which are extremely wealthy, and form one of the most fertile countries in the world. In the upper part it contains wide and beautiful valleys, but the land is too high and not as rich as in Mingrelia. Dioscuria, a port town on a gulf, Phasis, and several other places on the south coast of the Euxine, were likewise founded by Greek colonists.

If we proceed further west in this direction, we come first to Trapezus, a place well known from Xenophon’s Anabasis, to which it owes its celebrity; afterwards it is not prominent again, until the time when a dynasty of the Comneni established itself there, which even survived the fall of the empire of Constantinople. In the earlier times it is not very important. It did not belong to Cappadocia, but was situated in the country now occupied by the Lazes, a people speaking a peculiar Caucasian language. At Trapezus, the Greek language has maintained itself among the Christians, while otherwise it is almost extinct in Asia Minor. The statement made in the oral traditions of the Greeks, that the Doric dialect was spoken there, is very doubtful.

Amisos, a Milesian colony⁠[85] on the Euxine, the birth-place [249]of Strabo, was an important Greek town in Cappadocia proper. It is strange that such a distant corner of the Greek world should have given birth to a Strabo; the number of faults that can be pointed out in his Greek diction is very small, and even these may be only dialectical; otherwise he writes excellently, for he thinks correctly; the loss of his history is ever to be lamented, for it was assuredly a first-rate work.

The whole country of Trapezus rests on rough Armenian mountains; it is a beautiful country, and to us northern people it would appear excellent, but it is, nevertheless, very different from the blessed fields of Asia Minor. The district containing Amisos and Sinope, on the other hand, is a paradise; its fertility even in antiquity reached a height which we can scarcely imagine in an ideal land, and such is the whole of the north coast of Asia Minor as far as Constantinople. The winters, however, are comparatively severe; the south winds from the Armenian mountains are indeed bracing, but do not much impede the growth of the most exquisite fruit of the south. All Greek towns in that part were free and independent, until the kings of Pontus became powerful and subdued them all, even Amisos.

Sinope, north-west of the mouth of the Halys, and geographically within the boundaries of Paphlagonia, was in ancient times the greatest Greek town in those parts. Its site is one of those which must be noticed on account of its great excellence; it was situated on a peninsula connected with the main land by a narrow isthmus; the coast in the neighbourhood is rocky, so that foreign ships cannot easily land. The peninsula was of considerable extent, so that the town embraced large districts, which were used by the inhabitants as gardens, vineyards, and fields, and which in [250]time of war furnished means of subsistence. The tunny fish from the sea of Azow arrive there first, and the Sinopians have the first advantage; these fish always pass along the coast, and in the end, as I have already remarked, go into the harbour of Byzantium. The advantages of its situation made the town great and prosperous, and its inhabitants maintained their independence till towards the end of the Hannibalian war, when Pharnaces, king of Pontus, took possession of it. From that time it was the capital of Pontus; the kings resided in it, and Mithridates Eupator adorned it with splendid buildings of every kind. It was then conquered by Lucullus, and though it was not destroyed, its fate was terrible. Under the Romans it was again a wealthy provincial town of considerable importance.

The Greek towns Cytoros, Cromna, Tion, and Sesamos anciently existed on the west of Sinope. Amastris, a daughter of a brother of the last Darius, and the wife of Dionysius of Heraclea (she was afterwards married to Lysimachus), united all these towns into one, which she called Amastris, and which became Greek, although she herself was a barbarian. Tion afterwards revived as a separate town.

Heraclea, a colony of Megara, and consequently a Dorian place, was founded at an early period in the country of the Mariandynians, who afterwards became the serfs of the Heracleotae, and stood to them in the same relation as the Helots did to the Spartans. The city ruled over an extensive and fertile country, took an active part in the navigation of the Black Sea, and founded the town of Chersonesus. During the Persian dominion it maintained its independence, and the satraps were unable to exercise much influence upon it. The later history of Heraclea is the same as that of all other towns, of which the constitution was not modified according to the exigencies of the time: the ancient forms could not be maintained, and the town fell into the hands of tyrants, who governed it uninterruptedly until the Macedonian [251]period. Several of these tyrants were extremely mild, as, for example, Clearchus in the time of Plato, whose mind was cultivated by the study of philosophy, and several members of his family afterwards reigned in the same spirit. Amastris, too, ruled there for a long time, and through her the town became subject to Lysimachus. Afterwards a republican constitution was again established there, and remained until the time of the Romans. Heraclea was allied with Rome at an early period, and was favoured by her; but in the war against Mithridates, Heraclea unfortunately declared itself in his favour, in consequence of which it was taken and cruelly treated by Cotta, and the Romans even sent a colony to it, a measure which otherwise they never adopted in those countries. Thenceforth it always remained a considerable town, as is still attested by its ruins. We know the history of Heraclea from the extracts made by Photius from the local history of Memnon, whose work was based on that of Nymphis.

Epirus.

Epirus is one of the few names which, being originally adjectives, have by accident become proper names. Ἤπειρος, as is well known, occurs in the Odyssey as opposed to the Cephallenian islands. In this sense the meaning of the name is almost of indefinite extent, but afterwards, and ever since the Macedonian period, a definite usage, of which traces are found even before, became established; such a trace occurs particularly in Xenophon’s Hellenica, where the name Epirus is applied to the country north of the Ambracian gulf. But in the earlier times, and even in Thucydides, it comprises a tract of country of far greater extent, at least as far as the entrance to the [252]Corinthian gulf; nay, it even reaches beyond, embracing Aetolia and the country of the Ozolian Locrians. This indefiniteness arises from the fact, that the towns in those districts were so far removed from the other Greeks, and were accordingly very little known to them. In all great nations consisting of many tribes, some of which form the real centre, there are others which are scarcely noticed at all; and such also was the case with the Greeks in those parts, as well as in Apulia in Italy. This is proved by the colonization of those coasts, which I have already mentioned, just as if they had been inhabited by barbarians; I need only recall to your recollection the colonies of Anactorium, Leucas, Alyzia on the Acarnanian coast, and Chalcis on the Aetolian. Those nations were even more foreign to the Greeks than the Thessalians, so that the Aetolians and Acarnanians did not belong to the Amphictyonic league, though it included even Malians, Dolopians, Aenianians, Magnetes, and others. These are antiquarian points, to which we must direct our attention, in order to obtain a clear and distinct view.

We shall speak of Epirus in its narrower sense. Its new and narrower frontiers were formed especially at the time when the great Pyrrhus became king of Epirus, and when the kingdom founded by him gained consistency. In later times it was of a still more limited extent. As those tribes, when they did speak Greek, spoke in the Doric dialect, they called themselves Ἀπειρῶται, as we see from their coins, both regal and republican. This form also remained the most familiar to the Romans, and has been preserved down to our own time in the word apricots (mala Apirotica); in like manner, we find in Plautus Alis and Alii for Elis and Elii. Later writers indeed used Epirus and Epiroticus, but these are changes of the literary language, while the genuine and more ancient form continued to be used in the popular and spoken language. The Epirots must also have had a real national name of their own; and this name has been preserved by Mnaseas, a pupil of Aristarchus, in a scholion on the Odyssey. It was Siceli, like that of [253]the Oenotrians in Italy, and of the inhabitants of Sicily. I have published a short essay on this subject in the Rheinisches Museum,⁠[86] and have shown that the Siceli mentioned in the Odyssey must be those of Epirus, that the ancient grammarian is perfectly right in this respect, and that for this reason the last rhapsody of the Odyssey is of quite a different origin from the rest. Satisfactory results in the higher kind of criticism, regarding the age of authors, may be arrived at in many cases either by mere grammatical, or by mere historical philology, but it is infinitely better if both can be combined, and such is the case here, the one supporting the other. Bentley’s investigations on the Epistles of Phalaris and the Fables of Aesop are models of inquiries, in which historical and grammatical philology go hand in hand. Much that is excellent has already been done for the Homeric poems; but there is still much to be removed, and all the details must be treated of in connection with one another. I am not speaking here of that which has already been done by Wolf.

The name Siceli, as I said before, is ancient; but how long it was in actual use is a different question. The correctness of the statement, however, cannot be doubted. Another statement, from Theopompus, a writer who notwithstanding many faults contains much that is instructive, declares the Epirots to be Pelasgians. As regards the Pelasgian nations, I think I may refer you to what I have said elsewhere;⁠[87] I will defer the discussion of this subject until I have made more progress in these Lectures; I should like here to explain my views, but the time would thereby become too short for the task I have proposed to myself. I will therefore compress what I have to say in few words. The Pelasgians were a race distinct from the Hellenes, but sprung from the same root as they, and essentially and nearly allied to them. The difference was not distinctly understood in the earliest times, whence many [254]nations are called by one author Hellenes, and by another Pelasgians. The statement that the Hellenes in the Iliad are not yet mentioned by a common name, that Hellenes and non-Hellenes were first properly distinguished by Thucydides, refers to the difference existing between the Hellenes and Pelasgians. Thus, e.g., Dodona in the Homeric Catalogue is called Hellenic, and Herodotus calls the Molottians and Thesprotians Hellenes, and so also the Epirots, as he was guided by their religion. But Thucydides, who judged from the language of a nation, considers the Epirots as different from the Hellenes, nay, he expressly calls them barbarians. We understand by Epirots the nations extending from the frontier of Illyricum as far as upper Macedonia (without as yet deciding upon the name Macedonia), and then along mount Pindus as far as the Achelous. To these nations we shall apply the name Epirots. I will first mention what points they have in common, and then determine which of them are to be regarded as Epirots and which not. These nations, at least their educated classes, had so far adopted the Greek language, as to employ it everywhere in public and written transactions. This accounts for Polybius always distinctly including them among the Greeks; and he does so even in regard to those who lived beyond the boundaries of Epirus fixed by Pyrrhus: though on one occasion he makes Philip, the son of Demetrius, say of the Aetolians, that they ought not to boast too much of their Hellenic character, nor to distinguish the Macedonians from the Hellenes, since the greater part of them were descended from non-Hellenes and barbarians. And the nations there spoken of were Epirot tribes. In this manner, Polybius somewhat contradicts himself. But it is only critics fond of hair-splitting that can attach any weight to such a contradiction; an author like Polybius, even without scrupulously weighing his words, can not mislead a sensible reader.

Epirus, with the exception of the district on the Ambracian gulf, is altogether a mountainous country. The [255]mountains coming down from the north rise, as in Illyricum, between the district of the Drino and the frontier of Epirus, where they remove considerably from the coast, so that this part consists of low hills on the coast, and of undulating river districts of great extent. The mountains which separate Macedonia and Illyricum, and which there form such gigantic masses, extend in the south towards the sea, and hence constitute the boundary between Epirus and the country, from which the Illyrians on their progress towards the south, were unable to expel the native tribes. The Ceraunian mountains, running parallel with the coast of Corfu, extend into the Adriatic Sea, and end in a promontory without having any continuation in Italy. The opposite mountains in Calabria (the modern Terra di Lecce) form a high plateau of limestone, whereas on the east of the Adriatic they consist partly of slate and partly of primary rocks. In the east of Epirus, Pindus extends in a series of parallel ranges, and rises to its greatest height in those very parts, its summit separating Epirus and Thessaly. The mountains there are in a high degree volcanic, whence the name Ceraunian, for it is literally a perpetually thundering mountain. The ancients knew very well, what modern natural philosophers for a time disbelieved, that thunder-storms may arise from the earth as well as from the atmosphere; and the former is the case especially in volcanic districts. Aristotle and Pliny knew this quite well, but about fifty years ago it was unknown to our natural philosophers. Even at times when there is no volcanic eruption of mount Vesuvius, not only subterraneous but real thunder is often heard, and a person looking without prejudice may see flashes of lightning issuing from the volcano. Hence those mountains are described as seats of lightning. Those terrible mountains, infames scopuli Acroceraunia, fully deserve this name, because they form a rocky and harbourless coast. The scirocco, the destructive south wind, dashes the ships against those rocks, and there is no port far and wide in which they might take refuge. That part of [256]the Adriatic is still notorious for numerous shipwrecks. Another circumstance which makes it dangerous, and which was known to the ancients, but of which moderns are ignorant, is the Syrtes. The accounts of the ancients about them are by no means fabulous: they are dangerous on account of the currents which flow straightway into both the larger and the lesser Syrtis; if a sailor gets into them, he knows not where he is, and during a north wind it is impossible for him to work his way against it and the Syrtes. The ancients understanding this, sailed closer to the coast; at present, when sailors keep more to the middle, there is less danger. If the countries east of the Adriatic should ever become the seat of commerce and exports, shipwrecks would again be very common. There are two currents, the one a continuation of that from the Black Sea, meets that from the Adriatic in the south-west of Malea; they then move on diagonally in a curve, and thus enter the Syrtes. The current from the Adriatic increases the danger of the Ceraunia. From the head of the Ceraunia, the inhospitable coast extends a considerable distance till opposite Corfu. The heights then extend inland towards Pindus, and the southern districts present fertile hills covered with cork-oaks; these hills are lower, and only a few lofty peaks rise out of them, which are very difficult of access. The country about the Ambracian gulf, to a very considerable extent, is mostly alluvial land (in modern Greek βάλτος). The marshes, now called Valtos, are formed by the sea, the Arachthus, and the other rivers; they are constantly increasing, yet the increase amounts to less than what is lost at the mouth of the Achelous.

Thesprotia, the southern and lower country, is the true seat of subterraneous commotions, whence in antiquity it was the land of terrors, and was believed to be connected with the dismal regions of the lower world: in the autumn, scarcely a day passes on which the ground does not tremble under the feet of its inhabitants. From the Acherusian lake (the lake of Janina) a river issues, which is soon lost [257]in the earth, but afterwards re-appears and discharges its waters into the sea. This re-appearance was naturally enough doubted by the ancients, and is a disputed point even now, though I for one have no hesitation in saying that it is the same river. This river is the Acheron or Styx (for in some accounts the two are the same); these are the muddy waters of the lower world, for the soil of Thesprotia is loose and rich, and the rivers are heavy with mud; hence the country is wonderfully fertile, and a real storehouse of grain for Europe, but it is unhealthy, and, with the exception of the mountainous parts, the water is bad.

That country was until very recently a terra incognita to Europeans; the ancients mention very few towns in it, and their descriptions are unsatisfactory. Before the year 1798, when the Ionian islands came into the hands of the French, no European traveller had ever visited the interior of Epirus. It was, therefore, an unknown country, the interior was a complete blank in geographical maps, and the rivers were drawn at random. D’Anville complains of the total want of information, and with his slender means he accomplished all that could be accomplished, but he himself says, that he drew his map of the country with great uncertainty. He did not know, e.g., the site of the lake of Janina, and imagined that it was somewhere near the coast. The geography of Melitios, archbishop of Janina, contains a very respectable description of Epirus; it was written at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and from it the excellent Barbié du Bocage made the first comparatively correct map of Epirus, which accompanies Barthélemy’s Voyage du jeune Anacharsis. Afterwards the country was much visited by French and English officers, and Vaudoncourt and the English consul⁠[88] ... have immensely increased our knowledge of the country, so that now it is perfectly well known, and the obscurity in which many of the statements of the ancients were involved is now sufficiently removed; our [258]present maps of Epirus, too, are quite satisfactory. The first map of this kind was one of the Turkish empire by a modern Greek, which was published at Trieste; it was made for Greeks, and in the modern Greek language; I received it with great pleasure, and Epirus appeared in it in quite a new light.

The exploits of the Suliots have made Epirus hallowed ground to every one who is not devoid of human feeling and sympathy. Their deeds of valour described in the history of Major Perrevos, and in the excellent abridgment of Fauriel, a Frenchman, surpass everything that is related in epic poetry, and transfer us from our artificial age, so thoroughly devoid of character, into an age of heroes. They are among the most remarkable people of our time: their sufferings have stirred up our keenest sympathy; to them we are indebted for the delight of having witnessed a heroic age, while our own life has become so uniformly European, that everything has assumed a general and vague character; the Suliots will have an interest for all succeeding ages. The Epirots, on the testimony of Thucydides, were formerly considered as barbarians, with the exception of Pyrrhus, and I myself have looked upon them in the same light; but they are now dear to us, and we honour them. For this reason, I shall here enter more into detail than elsewhere, and perhaps more than the relative importance of the country requires.

A country so near to a mighty internal power of the unfathomable earth may be expected to be distinguished for extraordinary fertility. Few parts of Greece have an honos montium et silvarum like that of Epirus; it contains the most beautiful mountains, covered only in a few places with fir-wood, but for the most part with the most splendid foliage. The fertility in the valleys is almost fabulous. The fuller’s earth in the country of the Stymphaeans contains traces of volcanic decomposition. But the animal creation too is very rich: the Molottian dogs are the strongest in all Greece; the herds of cattle appear to have [259]reached their perfection in antiquity by careful breeding, for at present they are much inferior. The flourishing farms resembling those of Switzerland have perished under the dominion of barbarians; in Buthroton alone they still are equally good. The horses are small, robust, and strong, but not lasting.

Epirus was full of small tribes; fourteen or fifteen are enumerated, some which occupied large, and others small districts; I shall speak only of the more important among them. The most prominent in what may be termed the history of Epirus Proper, are the Chaonians, Thesprotians, and Molottians, to which I may add the Amphilochians and Orestians, both of which are to some extent beyond the boundaries of Epirus in its narrower sense. In the earliest times they did not form a definite union, but in one part of the country some tribes had a predominating influence at an early period, first the Chaonians, then the Thesprotians, and in the historical times the Molottians. We must not, however, imagine that these tribes subjugated the others, or reduced them to the condition of perioeci; but their relation resembled that of the free allies of Rome, and they recognised the majesty of the ruling people only by presents and fidelity. Several of these tribes had a regal government (the most ancient among all the Greek and kindred nations) down to very late times. One member of a γένος was either elected by the people, or enjoyed a hereditary right to the throne. This sacred hereditary principle continued for a long period; to it those tribes owed their importance in later times, and without it they never would have had the power and influence with which they afterwards appear in history. When all forms had become obsolete and effete, those nations which still adhered to the hereditary regal power, were enjoying a great advantage. This was the only reason why Sparta maintained itself so long: when its royal family perished, the Spartans, too, were lost. We find, however, in Epirus the same stages of development as among other nations, and royalty was [260]succeeded by the dominion of the γένη. Traces of this occur in Thucydides; in speaking of the Chaonians, he mentions an ἀρχικὸν γένος, and I think I have found distinct evidence that the Καμπυλίδαι were this ruling γένος.

The Chaonians occupied the extreme north-west of the country, in and about the Ceraunian mountains, which is now inhabited by the Cimariots. They were, no doubt, the same as the Chonians in southern Italy, and of Pelasgic origin. Although they are said in the earliest times to have enjoyed a kind of supremacy, yet the Thesprotians are very conspicuous in the most ancient Greek records, because their country contained in its high mountains the oracle of Dodona, the centre of the public religion of the Pelasgians, as Samothrace, in the east, was the centre of their mysteries. The Greeks, as a kindred nation, were not excluded from either. Dodona must not be conceived as an important town; many inquiries have been made in Epirus to ascertain its site, but traces of a real town have not been found anywhere, and Epirus in general was inhabited only κωμηδόν, and not κατὰ πόλεις. The place, however, where Dodona stood has been discovered with some degree of certainty: the summit of a hill or mountain surrounded by Cyclopian walls, so that its sides are quite precipitous, is commonly supposed to be the site. The mountains of Epirus were no more fortified than Suli; whereas the idea of a πόλις is a place surrounded by a wall. The hill of Dodona was the κρησφύγετον, that is, the place to which, in times of war, women, children, old men, and moveable property were conveyed for the sake of safety. The sanctuary was situated in an ancient and immense oak-forest on mount Tmarus; but from a statement in Servius, we learn that this sanctuary was disturbed by Illyrian robbers. The passage of Servius is corrupt, and I have emended it, because it is of great interest in regard to Greek history. Our knowledge of Dodona is extremely defective; it was situated beyond the sphere of Greek culture, so that it is always mentioned only by the [261]way, just as is the case with Delphi. What should we know of Delphi, had not Pausanias left us a description of it? The article in Stephanus Byzantinus contains the most important information about Dodona; and more may be elicited from it than has yet been done; the article has not yet been made quite clear. Bells, or pieces of metal, which were struck with hammers, seem to have been suspended from the trees around the sanctuary. Wagons in ancient times were likewise provided with pieces of metal or bells, in order that in the narrow streets timely warning might be given to others to make room; such things are still found among the antiquities of Herculaneum.

In the time of the Peloponnesian war, the Thesprotians were without kings, but the Molottians had a regal government; the fact of their race being traced to Achilles was only an accommodation to Greek legends, and they did not call the hero Achilles, but Aspetus.⁠[89] Their genealogies are very obscure. They regarded themselves as Pelasgians, and traced their ancestors back to the flood of Deucalion. They were insignificant until the time of their king, Tharyps,⁠[90] who was said to have been educated at Athens, [262]and introduced among them, at the time of the Peloponnesian war, Greek manners and culture, Greek gymnasia, buildings, language, etc., and gave them the Hellenic unction. From this time onward the Molottians rose, though slowly, to importance, and gradually became the predominating people in Epirus, in which they were assisted by various circumstances. The extent of the power of the Molottian kings, whose right was based upon their γένος, was not greater than that of the kings of the Greek tribes, or of the German chiefs before the migration of nations. But just like these latter, they had absolute power over conquered tribes, and the same Molottian kings, who in their own country were in reality no more than magistrates, and to whom the people might lawfully refuse obedience, ruled over the neighbouring Epirot tribes and the Greek cities under their dominion with unlimited power. In like manner, king Clovis was limited in his power over the Franks, but was a complete despot in regard to the Roman provincials. When, therefore, such a people made conquests, the king, notwithstanding the letter of the constitution (if we may use this term here for something which was not written), became absolute master of the conquered. Such was the case of Alexander, and such also was that of Pyrrhus, who was further strengthened by the splendour of his victories. The Spartan kings, too, would have liked to make themselves absolute masters of the perioeci, but the Ephors stepped in to prevent it.

Down to the time of Philip, who, while the succession was disputed, raised Alexander, his brother-in-law, the son of Neoptolemus, and brother of Olympias, to the throne, the Molottians had as yet little extended their power. But Philip [263]gave Alexander the territory called Cassiopea containing three Greek towns; at that time the Thesprotians also came under the power of the Molottians. But notwithstanding this, the Molottian kings were obliged every year, at Passaro, the capital of their country, to promise on oath, that they would obey the laws of the land, and the people in return took a corresponding oath. Alexander, the son of Neoptolemus, may have extended his dominion a little in the west, he may even have made the Chaonians⁠[91] his subjects; but I cannot decide these points, though it is probable that he penetrated into the northern parts. Ambracia which, geographically speaking, belongs to Epirus, is likewise mentioned as dependent upon the Epirots; and so also the Parauaeans and Amphilochians with their large towns; Philip possessed only the fortresses, Ambracia and the Amphilochian Argos, by means of which he kept his foot on the neck of the Epirots, for he took good care not to promote the independence of his brother-in-law, just as Napoleon kept his brothers in constant dependence on himself. For this reason he left Epirus as a state open on all sides, and put himself in possession of the principal fortresses without which the country could offer no resistance; it accordingly consisted of the beautiful western districts, while the eastern parts were under the dominion of Macedonia. In this condition things remained for a period of about forty years, until Pyrrhus established his supremacy and independence, and united the whole country under his sceptre. The earlier and more careful writers, e.g., the Attic orators, do not even call Alexander king of Epirus, but Alexander the Molottian: Justin and Livy call him king of Epirus, an [264]inaccuracy with which we must neither charge Trogus, whose work Justin abridged, nor Livy, though the former might have been more careful; but Livy was not much concerned about the history of that country.

I will not here enter into the detail as to how Pyrrhus fled from his country, how he returned, and what were his misfortunes. He availed himself with great adroitness, nay even with cunning, of the circumstances of the time to take vengeance on his arch-enemies, the house of Cassander, which from his infancy had wronged him in every possible way. He avenged his own house and Alexander of Macedonia not only as an instrument of heaven, but at the same time following the impulse of his own heart. Alexander⁠[92] was seen by his contemporaries in all his hideousness, while posterity saw him in the light of an undeserved glory. This glory, however, belonged to him in so far as great things were accomplished by him. He found in his contemporaries a miserable race; his war against Persia was only a struggle against a rotten empire; and as he attacked it vigorously, great things, of course, were done and great things were destroyed. His greatest deed was the foundation of Alexandria, and yet, if we judge soberly, the hurried Hellenisation was only injurious to true Hellenism. The beautiful still continued to linger among the Greeks, and was uncorrupted; but when the Lydians, Carians, Syrians, and others, became Hellenised, when they appeared as Greeks and wrote Greek, the little of Hellenism, which still stood forth in broad outlines, perished. I may here mention another great historical instance, but I beg you will not misunderstand me: previous to the time of Constantine, Christianity had been spreading in consequence of the conviction of its truth; but the fact that he compelled whole provinces to profess it with their lips, without the belief having taken root in their hearts, was followed by evil consequences. All mighty changes in the world, which take place with extraordinary rapidity, are injurious. Such [265]also was the influence of Alexander. Still, however, we must not be unjust, and we must understand how a spirited youth like Pyrrhus, with a deep poetical mind, idealised Alexander; he was an instrument of vengeance upon Cassander and his family, the detestable diadochi. Pyrrhus is one of the most splendid, noble, and amiable characters in all history. Often have I, when a young man, exclaimed in full enthusiasm with Hesiod: εἰ μετ’ ἐκείνοις ἐγενόμην! at such times one has the feeling, that one would be greater by coming in contact with such men. I have collected much about the history of Pyrrhus, and I know him thoroughly; I hope one day to represent him in his true light and in his indescribable splendour.⁠[93] To be great as a general is certainly one of the highest distinctions in the world: he was not always quite just, but always noble and generous, far from petty egotism, and free from everything that degrades man; he had a full, large, and warm heart; he looked upon his country not as a domain, but loved his people with his whole soul. Dear as Roman history is to me, I must nevertheless assign a higher place to the two greatest enemies of Rome, Pyrrhus and Hannibal.

Pyrrhus, as I said before, availed himself of the circumstances of the time for the purpose of gaining the eastern part of Epirus for his country. The sons of Cassander were obliged to cede to him Orestis, Parauaea, Ambracia, and Amphilochia, and the Epirots now, being masters of their country in its full extent, showed themselves as a great and powerful people. But this greatness did not become consolidated, too great demands were made upon the strength of the people, and they lost their best blood in the wars. Still, however, Alexander, the son of Pyrrhus, not only preserved the extent of his kingdom,⁠[94] but added Acarnania [266]to it; and this continued to constitute the kingdom of Epirus for a period of about fifty years. Pyrrhus made Ambracia his capital, and adorned it with splendid temples and palaces; Alexander kept it as such, and he, too, was a very distinguished man. After his death, when the government came into the hands of minors, and his house became extinct by a series of the greatest calamities, the state also broke to pieces. Ambracia, the Amphilochian Argos, and eastern Epirus, were lost, and threw themselves into the arms of the Aetolians. After about A.U.C. 515 we hear of an Epirot republic under strategi; this republic embraced only western Epirus, and was still of considerable extent, but internally it was weak, and was visited by the most fearful misfortunes. The Romans admitted the Epirots as their allies, but I am convinced that they never forgot that Pyrrhus had frightened them, that he had advanced as far as Praeneste, and that after the gates of that town had been thrown open to him, he had seen the towers of Rome. This was the reason why, after their war against Perseus, they treacherously wreaked their hoarded and terrible vengeance upon the unhappy country, just as the English under William III. extirpated in one massacre the clan of the Mac Gregors, the English officers, on a given signal, murdering their hosts and letting in the soldiers. The Roman legions under Aemilius Paullus were quartered upon the Epirots, who had previously been ordered to deliver up all their arms, and their gold and silver, and then, on an appointed day, a fearful massacre was made throughout the country among the Molottians, Thesprotians, Chaonians, etc. From that time Epirus remained under the Romans, who confiscated the country like a conquered domain, and Epirus with its splendid Alps was, like the interior of Sicily, let as pasture [267]land. Hence the fact that Atticus, as is stated by Varro, possessed such large herds at Buthroton. From such a devastation the country was unable to recover, and remained a wilderness. In the middle ages, and perhaps even before, the Illyrians (now Albanese) pushed forward from the north and spread over Epirus, being themselves pressed by Slavonian tribes, so that even now the greater part of the population is Illyrian and Slavonian; they occupy the whole of the western country and are δίγλωττοι. Slavonian tribes also entered Epirus and settled about the lake of Janina; a small part only is inhabited by Greeks, and the heights of Pindus are occupied by Wallachians, some of whom are descendants of the ancient Pelasgian tribes, but are to some extent Latinised. The country beyond mount Tmarus is inhabited by Bulgarians.

Among the Epirots proper, as I have already stated, there were no towns surrounded with walls; those which are found, are either of later origin, or Greek colonies on the coast. The only place in the interior, where ruins of Grecian buildings (baths, theatres, and temples) are found, though without any inscriptions, is in the country of the Molottians, about fifteen miles from the Ambracian gulf; the ruins are very extensive, but belong to a late period. There can be no doubt that this is the site of an important city, but what city it was, can only be conjectured, as the ancients do not mention a single town in Epirus. The supposition that it was the town of Passaro appears to me very probable. It is mentioned twice as the principal place of the Epirots, once in Plutarch’s life of Pyrrhus, as the place where the kings and the people took their mutual oaths, and a second time in Livy as the locality where the Epirots assembled. When the country was a republic, it must have had a capital, but it cannot have been Ambracia, since this town was separated and belonged to the Aetolians.

Phoenice was another important town on the Adriatic; at the time of the Epirot republic it was considerable, and [268]continued to be so till late in the middle ages; whence many ruins are found there belonging to the Byzantine period.

Among the other towns, I may mention Oricos, a port in the bay at the foot of the Acroceraunia, and of Hellenic origin.

Pyrrhus built several places, such as Antigonia (Antigónia, according to the Macedonian pronunciation), named after his wife Antigone, by the side of the passes leading from Illyricum. You will remember my saying, that Illyricum, from the Aöus, till far up into the mountains, is a hilly country. The στενὰ τῆς Ἀντιγονείας (claustra Epiri) lead from thence into the mountains of Epirus. The spot is of great importance in the wars of Pyrrhus and his son Alexander against Macedonia; and in universal history, these claustra are celebrated in the expedition of the Romans against Philip of Macedonia. After the Romans had endeavoured in vain, with the Aetolians their allies, to advance into Macedonia through Illyricum and across the Candauian mountains, in order to attack the Macedonians, they marched through Epirus. Philip opposed them for a long time; but it has been proved that all passes are invincible to those only who make a direct attack upon them; they present no difficulty to any one who does not mind spending some time in marching round them. This the Romans did. The Macedonian army then retreated, being compelled to abandon Epirus. Argyrocastro at present occupies nearly the same site. Berenice also was built by Pyrrhus, and he named it after his great patroness, Berenice, the wife of Ptolemy Soter, and the mother of his own wife Antigone.

I cannot refrain here from making a short grammatical observation. We generally speak of Molossians, and the Roman authors, too, said Molossi, but the Greeks said Μολοττοί, which is the genuine ancient pronunciation and not an Atticism. As people in later times imagined that it was only an Attic form, they changed the name into Molossi. From Lucian’s Judicium Vocalium, however, we [269]see, that ττ was essentially Thessalian, and the Thessalians were only Hellenised Epirots. Aristotle, who never Atticizes, always writes ὁ τῶν Μολοττῶν βασιλεύς.

I have as yet mentioned to you only three tribes, and I might add many more, but will notice only the most important. In the north we have the Atintanians on the slope of the Epirot mountains towards Illyricum. They were, properly speaking, not so completely subdued by the Illyrians as the Hyllians and Pelagonians who lived farther north, but they were subject only ἐς φόρου ἀπαγωγήν. The Atintanians were the first people that yielded obedience to the Romans on their crossing the Adriatic.

Next follow the Pelagonians, who likewise dwelt in those parts, and maintained themselves only with difficulty. Beyond the lofty Epirot mountains, north-west of Pindus, we meet with the Orestians, a true Epirot people; in the expedition against Ambracia, they were united with the other Epirot tribes, the Atintanians, Thesprotians, Molottians, and others. The name Ἄργος Ὀρεστικὸν shews their Pelasgian origin. They were subdued by the Macedonians, and became part of Μακεδονία ἐπίκτητος. The Romans again separated them from it, and in order not to stand isolated, they appear to have joined the Thessalians, for as among the Thessalian strategi one is mentioned who was a native of Argos, it seems to me that this must be referred to the Orestian Argos.

Coming down from the country of the Orestians and ascending the heights of Tmarus, between the beautiful lake of Janina and mount Tmarus (sometimes called Tomarus, the same mountain, of which Callimachus speaks so beautifully), and then descending the river Arachthus, which flows into the Ambracian gulf, we pass through the country of the Parauaeans and Stymphaea (Tymphaea). All these small mountain tribes were included in Μακεδονία ἐπίκτητος during the period from the time of Philip to that of Pyrrhus. Still further down in the plain, we have the Amphilochians in the very μυχὸς of the Ambracian gulf; [270]they were an ἔθνος βαρβαρικόν, that is, of Pelasgian origin, but some μιγάδες Ἕλληνες lived among them, whence they were outwardly Hellenised, as their coins shew. Their town of Argos was a considerable city, and hostile to the Ambracians who had attempted to colonise it. It is connected with Argos in Peloponnesus in the legends about Amphilochus, but we must not infer from this, that it was a colony from Argos, or a Greek city at all. The Agraeans on the Achelous, in the time of Alexander, son of Pyrrhus, were probably, like the Amphilochians, connected by sympolity with the Aetolians, who were just then at the height of their power.

Ambracia or Ampracia. The latter is the diplomatic orthography in Thucydides, and on all coins and inscriptions, for here we again meet with inscriptions, it being a Doric city; in Aetolia and the interior of Epirus none are found at all. Polybius and all the Latins write Ambracia, which is again a proof, showing the agreement between the pronunciation there and the modern Greek, in which the π after μ is pronounced softly; hence in inscriptions μ is used instead of ν, if it is intended that the following π should be softened. The accusative of πόλις, e.g., was pronounced βόλιν, whence it was written εἰς τὴμ πόλιν. Ambracia was the largest city in those parts, and had been founded by the Corinthians in the time of Periander, the Cypselid. It became extremely great even at an early period, but in the Peloponnesian war it suffered a defeat near Olpae, from which it did not recover for a long time. Afterwards it lost its historical importance, as its inhabitants allied themselves with barbarians: it renounced the general Greek idea of reducing barbarians to dependence, because it was content to live in that fertile country within its own boundaries. Philip subdued it by intrigues; after his death it revolted, but as it was Alexander’s interest quickly to pacify the restless Greeks, it received tolerable terms, though it continued to have a Macedonian garrison for forty years longer. During the Lamian war it again revolted, but again without [271]success. The son of Cassander, seeking aid against his brother, ceded Ambracia as a part of Μακεδονία ἐπίκτητος to Pyrrhus, who now transferred his residence to it and adorned it. The ruins which still exist at Rogus, belong, no doubt, for the most part, to this later period. After the dissolution of the Epirot kingdom, Ambracia became Aetolian, and remained so until, after the war against Antiochus, the Romans conquered the Aetolians. It then sustained one of the most remarkable sieges, and by their manful defence, its inhabitants gained the advantage of being able to conclude a peace before they were conquered by force; the city was not ravaged, but many works of art, with which Pyrrhus had embellished it, were carried off to Italy. The statement in Ovid’s Ibis, that the remains of Pyrrhus were dragged from a tomb at Ambracia and scattered about, renders it probable that this was done by the Romans out of revenge—a terribly unworthy revenge upon a great hero.⁠[95] It is possible, however, that this may have been done during the disgraceful madness of the nation in its rebellions against the successors of Pyrrhus. Afterwards the name of Ambracia disappears; its acropolis has now for a considerable time been called Rogus.

Buthroton or Buthrotos, a Greek colony, was [272]regarded as a Trojan town, founded by Helenus: it was to the Romans what Calais is to us, for to it they sailed across the sea from Tarentum, Hydruntum, Brundusium, and other ports. It was the place of residence of Atticus, a man in whom much may be censured, though he was of an extremely amiable character; he lived at an unhappy time, according to the rules of a philosophy which he considered to be the most suitable. He had there his large estate and his Alpine farm.

We are now in the neighbourhood of one of the most illustrious Greek islands, I mean

Corcyra.

The difference between the more ancient form, Cercyra and the later Corcyra, is purely dialectical; the Attics always have Cercyra, while later writers, as Polybius, and the Romans always say Corcyra. The history of this island goes back to that which is dearest to a scholar, for what could be dearer to him than the Odyssey? In the account of the reception of Odysseus, among the Phaeacians, we see how distant this island was to the Greeks in Ionia, and how they knew it only by report. It was then certainly not yet colonised by Greeks, and the ancient inhabitants were Liburnians. In the second edition of the first volume of my Roman History, I have shown that the Liburnians were not an Illyrian people, but belonged to the ancient Pelasgian race. Scheria was an ancient and genuine name of the island. We will not inquire into the origin of the name Corcyra, because such inquiries lead to nothing. Other names are Drepane and Macris; all these ancient names must be known in order to understand the poets; and they are also useful in writing poetry in the ancient languages, for it would be unfortunate, if that custom should become entirely extinct; even if among hundreds of attempts that are made, only a few have any poetical value, still it is [273]an excellent exercise for those who wish to cultivate their minds; it leads to a great familiarity with the ancient writers, and a critical understanding of the poets.

The first Greeks who settled in the island, were Eretrians, and this event belongs to the period when Chalcis and Eretria were rivals at sea. As Chalcis directed its attention to the coast of Thrace and Sicily, so Eretria, though it was much weaker, partly looked to the same countries and partly to the Ionian and Adriatic seas, and hence they may have been led to settle in Corcyra. They were established there for a considerable time without destroying the ancient inhabitants, until the Corinthians sent a colony thither, either during the latter period of the Bacchiads, or in the first years of the reign of Cypselus. This colony grew incredibly prosperous; the ancient inhabitants were made perioeci, and the Eretrians, as troublesome neighbours, seem to have been expelled, although the Corinthian colony was, no doubt, only small.

The greatness to which Corcyra now rose, is best attested by the colonies which it founded on the Adriatic, such as Epidamnus and Apollonia, the latter of which it established in conjunction with Corinth. How these colonies led to disputes between the haughty Corcyra and its mother-city, and how Corcyra was affected by them, is described in Thucydides, and it is unnecessary for me to repeat it, my intention being to relate only that which has to be gleaned from various authors. In the same Thucydides you may read of the convulsions and internal horrors to which that war led, and which finally ruined the island itself. After the Peloponnesian war, the Corcyraeans are not mentioned again until Olymp. 101, in the time of Timotheus, when the Athenians recovered their supremacy, though it was of a different kind from the earlier one; the fleets of Athens then again appeared in several seas, and Corcyra joined her. The island now showed incredible weakness, but how it became so reduced, is a question about which history leaves us in the dark. Afterwards, owing to its fortunate [274]position, it remained unassailed for a long time until the period of Demetrius Poliorcetes. Cassander made an attempt to take the island, but failed. Cleonymus, the Spartan prince and adventurer, who went to Italy and entered the service of the Tarentines, conquered it, and established himself there for a time; but he was expelled by Agathocles, from whom it passed into the hands of Pyrrhus, and afterwards into those of Demetrius; but after his fall, it appears to have again been under the supremacy of Pyrrhus. Afterwards it was independent indeed, but in such a state of weakness as to be unable to repel the Illyrians, who, under their queen Teuta, made a descent upon the island. The Corcyraeans, therefore, placed themselves under the protection of Rome, and were thus delivered from the Illyrians. They now formed a libera civitas, probably also immunis, and down to the latest times it was altogether impossible for them to rid themselves of the dominion of the Romans. In the middle ages they became subject to the Normans in Sicily under Robert Guiscard; they were next conquered by the Byzantine emperor, Manuel Comnenus, and then by the Venetians, under whose dominion they remained until the most recent times. The modern Greek name is Αἱ Κορφοί (pronounce hai Corfi), that is, the summits (αἱ κορυφαί), and refers either to the peaks of mountains or to the acra. The name Corcyra is unknown to the modern Greeks, and was so even in the middle ages to such an extent, that in a Greek Menologium (in the Acta Sanctorum) we find the legend of a Greek princess Corcyra, the daughter of a king, who is said to have reigned in Corfu in the time of the emperor Claudius, or even Tiberius; and she is reported to have died the death of a martyr for the Christian religion. It would seem that here we still catch a glimpse of the popular tradition about Nausicaa.

The island is traversed in its whole length by a mountain, which runs parallel with the Chaonian mountain, and is also of the same structure. It is evident that this mountain [275]is a continuation of those of Epirus, and that the sea between Corcyra and Epirus has been formed by some gigantic revolution of the earth in those parts. The mountain is of considerable height, but not so high as to be wild, nature has rather destined the island to be a country for the cultivation of trees and olives, but it is not ἀρόσιμος, and does not produce as much grain as is required by its inhabitants. The oil is excellent, and the wine, which is good, was valued also in antiquity.

The town of Corfu does not stand on the site of the ancient Corcyra, but several miles from it; at the time of the Peloponnesian war, the ancient town, as we learn from Thucydides, was very large and beautiful.

I might easily say a great deal more about Corcyra, as it is now so frequently visited; but I must proceed.

Macedonia.

The first questions that have to be answered are:—What nation were the Macedonians? To what race did they belong? How far can they be regarded as Greeks, and how far not? I still remember the time of the very uncritical treatment of ancient history, when, in spite of the express testimony of the ancients, no one would have dreamed of doubting that both the Epirots and Macedonians ought to be regarded as Greeks; this belief was so firmly rooted, that the great Palmerius even thought Illyricum a Greek country. Afterwards, however, disputes arose as to the nationality of the Macedonians. Critics at first went to the opposite extreme, and from a passage in the Epitome of Strabo, it was inferred, that the Macedonians were Illyrians. The subject has been discussed in an excellent little treatise by [276]C. O. Müller of Göttingen. The matter may perhaps be determined still more accurately by entering into minute investigations. The extent of country to which we generally apply the name of Macedonia, embraces later enlargements; in its narrowest sense, it was but a very small country with a peculiar population. Macedonia is the country of the Macedonians, just as Italy is the country of the Itali. The boundaries of the original kingdom of Macedonia and their gradual extension have been described nearly forty years ago by Gatterer, an excellent man, whose merits are no longer as fully appreciated in Germany as they ought to be. His ancient history, owing to the large scale on which he undertook it, has great defects; but he commenced it at a time when the way was altogether unprepared by preliminary inquiries, and when so much was still unexplained; his history of the eastern nations, therefore, could not be otherwise than imperfect. But this should not prevent us from acknowledging his very great merits. His smaller essays, especially that on Macedonia and Thrace, are extremely valuable; they are printed in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Göttingen, where maps also are added, in which he shows the gradual extension of Macedonia.

Macedonia, in its most proper sense, did not touch upon the sea. We have to distinguish two parts, viz., Upper Macedonia, inhabited by the people about the western range of mountains, extending from the north as far as Pindus, and Lower Macedonia, about the rivers which flow into the Axius, in the earlier times, however, not extending to the Axius itself, but only as far as Pella. From this district the Macedonians extended themselves, and partly repressed the ancient inhabitants. The whole of the sea-coast was occupied by other tribes, which are mentioned by Thucydides in the excellent episode on the expedition of the Thracians against Macedonia. The word ἐκβάλλειν which he uses in regard to the ancient inhabitants, must not be taken literally, or in the sense in which [277]the Persians drove together and carried away the Eretrians—such a thing was, generally speaking, never done by the ancient nations—but a great part of the original inhabitants were subdued. The original Macedonians in the west, therefore, embrace the Lyncestians, Elimiotans, Pelagonians, and what are called the real Macedonians dwelling about Edessa or Aegeae; the inhabitants of Emathia, Pieria, Bottia, and Mygdonia on the east of the Axius and towards the Strymon, were conquered countries, or, if at a later period their inhabitants were Macedonians, they had become so in the course of time. These original Μακεδόνες or Μακηδόνες are mentioned by all the ancient poets and in the fragments of epic poetry; they dwelt among tribes which we regard as Pelasgian, and were connected with the Magnetes, Magnes and Macedon being called brothers. None of the Macedonian words we know are Greek, though some are akin to it, but at the same time, they show decidedly barbarous peculiarities. When Strabo says that a great portion of the Macedonians were Illyrians, because they had the same customs, the same costume, the same method of cutting the hair, the same language and the like, we must take this to apply to tribes occupying parts of Macedonia in the extended sense, and dwelling in the western half, just as a large part of eastern Macedonia was inhabited by Thracians, some of whom were free, while others had been subdued by the Macedonians: at the time when the Macedonian kingdom became consolidated, they were still unmixed Thracians. If we understand the passage of Strabo in this manner, it presents no difficulty. We often weigh the words of ancient authors too scrupulously; I admit, that on the whole they wrote with far more care than we do, but if we consider without prejudice so many passages containing errors, we must own that their heads too were not always equally clear, and we must also bear in mind that they dictated their works, whence much that is surprising to us, is only mis-written. Many a faulty or corrupt construction may have originated with the scribes, [278]but sometimes the authors themselves, with their immense stores of thought, may have dictated somewhat confusedly. I once found a passage in Pliny written so confusedly, that at first I thought a transposition of the words necessary; but when I commenced making the emendation, the thought flashed upon me, that Pliny might have dictated wrongly, perhaps inserting a clause and not finishing it; as the clause stands, it is quite out of place.

Macedonia proper consisted of several small states. The Lyncestians and Elimiotans had their own rulers called kings, and so also the people of Edessa or Aegeae. The two former, like the Epirots, remained within their boundaries without spreading themselves; but those in the plain gradually overpowered the kings of the other tribes, and expelled their royal families. The history of Lower Macedonia is important, that of Upper Macedonia is not, for nothing remarkable can be related of the Lyncestians, Elimiotans, and Pelagonians. Lower Macedonia is great in the history of the world: its kings called themselves Heracleids, and traced their descent to the Temenids of Argos. How far the ancient and simple tradition may have been misunderstood, can only be conjectured; but the probability is, that the Argos here mentioned is not the Argos in Peloponnesus, but the Pelasgian Argos in Thessaly, which was situated in the neighbourhood of Macedonia. Later persons only half-learned erroneously connected this with the Peloponnesian Argos, and accordingly the story of the Temenids is probably of recent origin, the ancient tradition stating only that they were Heracleids from Argos. Respecting the royal family, there were two different legends; according to the one, the kings were descended from Caranus, and according to the other from Perdiccas. There can be no doubt that the latter is only a symbolical representation of the national constitution; for the founders of the monarchy, Perdiccas and his two brothers, are the archegetae of three tribes.

This kingdom had acquired considerable power even [279]before the outbreak of the Persian war; after that war, during which Amyntas had been obliged to submit, affairs were for a time stagnating; Perdiccas at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war was but a very contemptible enemy of the Athenians. After the Peloponnesian war, too, Macedonia was so powerless and so much inferior to Olynthus, that this city was enabled to take from it all the country about the Thermaic gulf. Amyntas, the father of Philip, was pressed extremely hard by the Illyrians, and was on the point of giving up his country altogether: he implored the assistance of the Thebans, and sent them his son as a hostage. These circumstances render it all the more wonderful, that Philip raised his kingdom in so extraordinary a manner: a greater contrast can hardly exist. Terrible as the history of Philip is to every friend of Greece, it must nevertheless be owned that he was an extraordinary man. In the very first year of his reign he laid the foundation of the greatness of a state which was almost annihilated. Although only twenty-four years old, he ascended the throne with mature thoughts, and immediately set about carrying them into effect, not scrupulous as to what means were most desirable, but only thinking how he could make the best use of those at his command. And he did this with uncommon surety and adroitness. He was quite aware that he lacked the means of overcoming the Greek tactic by a higher one, as the Romans did; he therefore endeavoured to overpower them with greater masses, and in this he was successful. He did not, however, confine himself to this course, but, like the Italian and Spanish courts of the sixteenth century, became powerful by means of cunning, intrigues, faithlessness and bribery. His plans, though favoured by the circumstances of the time, would have been checked by great and towering difficulties, if he had not carried them out by infamous means; he could not have destroyed Olynthus, to mention one example, had he not deceived the Olynthians and hired traitors in the place. At Philip’s death, Macedonia was [280]already a compact empire; its boundaries had been extended into Thrace as far as Perinthus, and the Greek coast and the Greek towns belonged to it. The Odrysian princes maintained themselves in the mountains of the interior, in the neighbourhood of Adrianople. Thessaly had chosen Philip as its protector, and the towns of eastern Epirus, Ambracia and Amphilochia, had Macedonian garrisons. Every one knows in what manner Alexander extended this empire. After his death, a new Macedonian kingdom arose under the dynasty of Antipater, which, however, no longer embraced Thrace, for that country then belonged to the dynasty of Lysimachus. We know nothing about the boundaries of Macedonia and Thrace at that time; it may have been the Strymon or the Nestus; we have nothing but the scanty information in Diodorus. Afterwards Lysimachus united the two states, and Ptolemy Ceraunus appears still to have possessed the greater part of the empire of Lysimachus in Thrace. Then follows the great invasion of the Gauls, who made themselves masters of the whole of the northern parts, until they established themselves in Thrace and Upper Macedonia. Antigonus Gonatas restored Upper Macedonia and extended it as far as the river Nestus, and Magnesia also belonged to it, though Thessaly was only under the protection of Macedonia, just as Napoleon distinguished between France and Italy.⁠[96] We now have to draw a distinction between Macedonia proper and Μακεδονία ἐπίκτητος. The latter comprised all the country east of the river Strymon, that is, Magnesia, Orestis, and probably also several small tribes in the Thessalian mountains, though not the peninsulas of Pallene, Sithonia, and Athos, which were again regarded as parts of Macedonia proper. Philip III. lost Magnesia and Orestis, which fell into the hands of the Romans; but he recovered the former, and for a time was in possession of the country of the Dolopians and Athamanians.⁠[97] This was the extent of [281]Macedonia at the time when the Romans conquered Perseus. They now separated Magnesia, and divided the remaining country into four parts. Livy has here translated Polybius somewhat hastily, but on the whole he has stated the division rightly; the editions, however, are faulty, on account of the Vienna MS.; criticism has yet much to do here, for the passage contains several obscurities. These four districts would not interest us at all, were it not that they are important in a numismatic point of view; we have an extraordinary number of tetradrachmae belonging to them, although the division into four districts did not exist longer than about twenty years. The Roman governors, even after the abolition of autonomy, in consequence of the revolt of the Pseudo-Philip, must have continued to coin money with the same matrices, or else the barbarians, who otherwise imitated Greek coins in quite a ridiculous manner and with numerous faults, must in this instance have employed Greek die-cutters for the purpose of imitation; this may have been the case, for example, with the Gauls and other nations.

Macedonia prima, Μακεδόνων ἡ πρώτη (so on coins, and not Μακεδονία ἡ πρώτη), is the country on the east of the river Strymon as far as the Nestus, comprising the towns of the interior on the eastern bank of the Nestus. The Romans divided the country in such a manner as to make rivers the boundaries, in order to tear the races to pieces, the same as was done in modern times, when what are called the natural boundaries began to be talked of.⁠[98] By this process the Romans produced that state of dissolution, which was the [282]object of their policy. They further abolished the commercia, that is, no one was allowed to have property in another district, in order that people of different parts might become entirely estranged from one another; the ἐπιγαμία, lastly, was probably likewise prohibited. The result is the strongest refutation of the doctrine, that rivers form the natural boundaries. Mountains are the true barriers between nations; think, e.g., of the Alps in Wallis, which separate Germany from Italy; for, although on one side or the other there may be a little village of people from the opposite side, still the inhabitants are distinctly marked by their language, manners, and mode of dress. Now in Macedonia prima, Greeks, Thracians, Paeonians, Macedonians, and others, were jumbled together as one nation; the second division again contained Greeks, many Paeonians, a few Thracians, and some Macedonians; the third consisted almost wholly of Macedonians and some Greeks; while the fourth contained many Macedonians, but at the same time a great number of Gauls and Illyrians. The first division of Macedonia, as I remarked before, was on the east of the river Strymon, bounded on the east by the river Nestus, though some parts beyond it also were included. The second, with its capital of Thessalonica, extended between the rivers Strymon and Axius, along the entire length of these rivers. The country west of the Axius was again divided into two parts, forming the third division, which comprised Lower Macedonia and Pieria with the capital of Pella; and the fourth comprising Elimiotis, Lyncestis and the Illyrian and Gallic districts belonging to it. The whole of the Chalcidian Acte, the coast of which was occupied by Greeks, was thus included in Macedonia. These are the four parts into which, in all probability, Macedonia was divided when it was a Roman province, and in which it continued to enjoy some kind of existence. This we must infer from the number of coins; those belonging to Macedonia prima are far more numerous than those of all the Macedonian kings together.

In the Epitome of Strabo, the name Macedonia is used in a very singular sense, for it is made to include Illyricum. He considers Macedonia as a parallelogram, of which mount Scardus forms the northern, and the river Hebrus the eastern side; in the south is the via Egnatia, a line drawn from Epidamnus to Thessalonica. This outline excludes southern Macedonia, and embraces many countries which do not belong to it. He may have regarded this as the extent of the Roman province; but it never had such boundaries. No one can say what his thoughts were; but it is possible that he made a mistake in copying. We know, on the contrary, that Thessaly was added to Macedonia as part of the province. When I come to the survey of the Roman state, I shall speak of the boundaries and the differences of the provinces at different times, a subject which must not be overlooked, because on this point great errors still prevail.

The extent which Macedonia acquired under the Antigonids,⁠[99] (that is, from the time of Antigonus Gonatas and his successors until the reign of Perseus, a period of about a hundred years), with tolerably natural boundaries, embraced the countries as far as the ridge of the high mountains, but Orestis, though situated beyond the chain of these mountains, also belonged to it. The geography of these countries has as yet been very little inquired into by Europeans, whence the maps are still as confused as they were about fifty or sixty years ago. No modern traveller, as far as I know, has yet visited all the countries on the side of Skupi (Uskup?) and the high mountains. The notices contained in the ancients of these countries, cannot be applied with certainty, the names of the mountains being too indefinite; those countries are quite beyond the reach of classical literature, and we know mounts Orbelos and Rhodope scarcely more than by name. These north-western mountains [284]may be most correctly conceived as a western continuation of mount Haemus, which is itself a continuation of the Alps. The Alps pass through Carniola close by the Adriatic, and enter into southern Bosnia; another branch runs through Styria to the north; on the borders of Hungary its breadth is not great, and it forms a hilly country until it disappears in the great plain of Slavonia and Lower Hungary; but in Bosnia the mountains again extend as far as the Save. All Bosnia and Servia is a mountainous country, while Slavonia opposite has rich and fertile plains and but few mountains. In the neighbourhood of Belgrade, the mountains approach the Danube, extend again, and occupy nearly the whole space between the Danube and the Adriatic; they then, shutting in the Danube, extend to the territory of Widdin, retreat into the splendid country of the Bulgarians, and there leave an extensive and extremely fertile space between the river and mount Haemus. From Illyricum and Dalmatia the mountains proceed, so as to form a hilly country in the neighbourhood of Scutari. Between the Drino and mount Haemus, Scardus is the highest point on the road from Ragusa to Constantinople. The Macedonian dominion extended to this point; here dwelt the Dardanians, the north-western people of Macedonia. The mountains then following are probably Scomios and Orbelos, which seem to be parts of the mountains proceeding from Haemus. Rhodope, a mountain between the Strymon and Nestus, is probably a branch of mount Haemus. Pangaeos seems to be a southern continuation and extremity of Rhodope.

The whole of the Thracian mountains running parallel with the sea between the Strymon and Nestus are rich in gold and silver mines. They were taken possession of at an early time by the neighbouring nations, especially the Thasians, and it appears that the Phoenicians, at a very remote period, also had settlements on the southern coast. Afterwards many Greeks established themselves there, and Thucydides, e.g., is known to have possessed a mine in [285]those parts. The richest mines were in mount Pangaeos, but the other mountains as far as Haemus also contain many precious metals. I know for certain, that Bosnia and the mountains near Skupi also contain silver mines, which are known but not worked. Should those countries ever pass from the hands of barbarians, and come under the dominion of Europeans, it will be seen that the ores of precious metals extend even much further. The silver mines were worked even before the Peloponnesian war, under Alexander I., the son of Amyntas; but where they existed is uncertain. The gold mines of Pangaeos were first worked, but not vigorously, by the Athenian Callistratus,⁠[100] but afterwards by Philip with great industry: he is said to have annually derived from them 1000 talents; they existed in the neighbourhood of Crenidas, where afterwards the mountain-city of Philippi was built.

In the west, a mountain branches off from Scardus, which we know under the name of the Candauian (not Candavian, according to a passage in Polybius) mountains; the name is familiar to us from the unfortunate expedition of P. Sulpicius Galba; it forms the boundary between upper Macedonia, parts of which are situated in the valleys of the mountain, and Illyricum. This is a cold mountain, not that the more northern ones are not still colder, but the latter were thinly, and the former thickly peopled. According to the accounts of travellers, those mountains must be very cold and ungenial. But as soon as you come to the part where the mountains descend towards the sea, and where the rivers empty themselves into it, the climate becomes all the more splendid, and the valleys more lovely and mild: the whole country changes into the most beautiful plains with smiling hills.

Macedonia thus forms the greater part of a circle, of whose periphery about one-third is cut off by a line from mount Olympus to the river Nestus.

The Axius, οὗ κάλλιστον ὕδωρ ἐπικίδναται αἶαν, is the most important river of Macedonia, though it flows beyond the real country of Macedonia in its narrowest sense. In its upper course it is a rapid torrent; further down it becomes muddy, whence its water is, in point of fact, not particularly excellent. For this reason, attempts were made even in antiquity to emend Homer, because it was thought impossible that he should have made any mistake at all. Connected with the Axius were the Ludias and the Haliacmon, a beautiful river descending from the western mountains. The Strymon is altogether a Thracian river, and is called so by the poets; its banks, at least in later times, are more particularly the seats of the Thracians, but at an earlier period Paeonians also dwelt there. The Strymon is a mighty river without any fords, whence it was crossed only by bridges, as at Amphipolis. The Nestus has nothing that is particularly remarkable.

Gulfs to be noticed are:—the Pierian, and the gulf of Therma or Thessalonica; the Toronaean, the Strymonian, and Singitian gulf.

The hilly districts of Macedonia produce everything that is grown in those southern countries; they are among the most fertile parts of the earth, especially in the neighbourhood of Thessalonica and Pella; such also is the narrow Pierian country, from Olympus as far as the sea: it is a real garden. At present the chief products there are cotton and tobacco, which of course did not grow there in ancient times, though cotton may have been cultivated during the later Macedonian and the Roman period in some islands of the Aegean.

Having spoken of the Macedonians inhabiting the western country, we now proceed to Macedonia proper, also called Emathia, with its capital Aegeae. I have no doubt that you will be convinced, that what I am going to bring forward as a hypothesis, is not said lightly nor without full persuasion, or that such a persuasion has been arrived at without much labour. It is my opinion, that the [287]Thracians did not spread themselves in those countries until a later period: the Pelasgian race which we find in Asia as far as Bithynia and the Maeander, undoubtedly once occupied the whole of the southern coast. To that period we have to refer much of what is related about the Thracians, as for example, the tradition about Orpheus, who is conceived to have dwelt in Pieria, on the slope of Olympus, near the well Pimplea. It is opposed to all our feelings, and it can have no historical meaning to conceive him as a Thracian; but the matter becomes intelligible, if we suppose that the Thracians immigrated into those countries at a later period, and that the recollections connected with the places which fell into the hands of the Thracians, were transferred to this people. Mount Olympus was considered as the seat and centre of the gods, because it was situated, in a measure, in the midst of the great Pelasgian nation, which we must conceive to have extended farther northward. It is not likely that the Greeks should have assigned to their gods a habitation at the extreme end of their father-land. We must therefore suppose that the Thracians spread over these countries from the Strymon and Nestus. Now, as in the west, we find the Macedonians as a Pelasgian people, so we meet in the central part, about the Axius and Strymon, the Paeonians, whom Herodotus expressly mentions among the Teucrian Trojans, who were as much a Pelasgian people as the Siceli. The statement of Herodotus that they were ἄποικοι τῶν Τευκρῶν, means nothing else than that they and the Teucrians belonged to the same race. I consider these Paeonians to have been a remnant of the ancient inhabitants, who maintained themselves against the invading Thracians. Before the Macedonian kings, the so-called Temenids, established their kingdom, the Thracians occupied the country down to the borders of Thessaly, not only as far as the river Strymon, but also the country on the west of it: the Crestonaean, Crossaean, Mygdonian, and Pierian countries were in fact all inhabited by Thracians, before the Macedonians of Aegeae spread over those parts. [288]This gradual conquest of Mygdonia and Pieria belongs to a period previous to the Persian wars, certainly that of Pieria, and it is highly probable that the conquest of Mygdonia also belongs to the same period. Perdiccas was extending his empire as early as the time of the Peloponnesian war, but it was as yet ill consolidated. Archelaus did most, he first fortified towns, made roads, and prepared Macedonia for that career which it completed under Philip; still, however, after the death of the latter, the state of Macedonia was powerless. But Archelaus, nevertheless, has the merit of having laid the foundation.

The name Pieria is sufficiently familiar to us from the poets. It is odd enough that the country, which was afterwards inhabited by the barbarous Thracians, and at a still later period by the Macedonians, who after all were always an ἄμουσον ἔθνος, should in the remotest ages have been the seat of the Muses, who are hence called Pierides, and from the wells of the country, Pimpleides, Libethrides (Pimplei dulcis, in Horace: Λειβηθρίδες). The Bottiaeans, a kindred people, dwelt east of the Macedonians proper; being expelled by the Macedonians from the neighbourhood of Pella, originally a Bottiaean place, they went to the Chalcidians, to whom they were no doubt welcome, as they must have preferred a kindred people in their neighbourhood to the Thracians. Then follow the Paeonians about the Axius and Strymon, who were pushed away from the coast into the interior. Herodotus relates that during the expedition of Darius Hystaspis, the nations dwelling about the Strymon as far as the sea, were carried away by the Persians, and received settlements in Phrygia: these are the Paeonians of the lower districts, and their country was thereupon taken possession of by the Thracians. Hence it cannot be surprising that afterwards no Paeonians were found there. Mygdonia, the lower country, east of the Axius, about the Thermaic gulf, was, previously to the extension of the Macedonians, inhabited by Thracian Edonians. The Edonians are remarkable on account of the many [289]allusions to them in the Latin poets, especially in reference to the worship of Bacchus (Non sanius ego Bacchabor Edonis, says Horace). This worship is, in a certain sense, Thracian, especially in regard to women, and existed by the side of the Phrygian. Following the narrow tract of land along the coast, we first arrive in the most southern province, Pieria; next follows Bottiaeis, with Pella, as far as the Axius; then Mygdonia along the coast, beginning with the cape forming the entrance to the bay of Thessalonica, and extending to the town of Aenea; the country, from this point to the neighbourhood of Potidaea, is called Crossaea, and had an ancient Thracian population. During the subsequent extension of the Macedonians, those nations were not expelled, nor did they become serfs, but were only reduced to the condition of subjects.

All this is correctly indicated in the maps of D’Anville and Barbié du Bocage; but Anthemus is erroneously marked in all maps, for, instead of a country, it is put down as a town. It is a district of small extent, but plays a prominent part in the history of Olynthus.

The capital of Pieria was Dion, a native Macedonian town, not Greek, but adorned with beautiful buildings, prosperous and handsome, until it was destroyed by the Aetolians on a predatory excursion. Pydna and Methone, both Greek towns, were situated to the north of it. Pydna was the first conquest of Philip; both towns had until then preserved their independence, which is a proof of the great weakness of the Macedonian kings. Philip is said to have destroyed them both; in regard to Methone this is certain, for during its siege he lost one eye, and for this reason gave vent to his barbarous rage against the town; but Pydna, if it was destroyed, must have been restored, for it is mentioned under the later Macedonian kings; in history it is remarkable especially on account of the decisive battle fought there, in which Perseus lost his kingdom and his crown.

The real Emathia is in the interior of Macedonia.⁠[101] This lower Macedonia, in its proper sense, below the slopes of the Candauian mountains, does not extend to the sea, from which it is separated by Pieria and a narrow strip of the ancient Bottia. This was ancient Macedonia proper, the kingdom of the ancestors of Alexander, and contained the ancient Macedonian capital of Aegeae,⁠[102] which was the residence of the kings before the reign of Philip. There is a story about the name of this town, according to which it is derived from αἶγες: the founder of the Macedonian kingdom is said to have conquered the town by following, during a thunder-storm, close behind a herd of goats, and thus entering the open gates with a small band of followers. The royal sepulchres existed there as late as the time of Pyrrhus, but the Gauls in his army plundered them. When at Rome, I heard a very vague report: an English traveller, it was said, had discovered in 1819 or 1820, by excavations, the tombs of Macedonian kings; but Aegeae was not mentioned in the report. The person who told me this, was too ignorant to invent such a thing; but whether there is any truth in it, I do not know; I have never heard anything more about it. This place [291]has two names, Edessa and Aegeae; the former has been transferred to several other places, and above all to the very ancient town of Roha in Mesopotamia. It is with these places as it is with Boston, which in England is an insignificant town, while the Boston in America is a great city. In like manner, Edessa in Syria is far more important than Edessa in Macedonia. The names of many other Greek and Macedonian places, as Beroea, Cyrrhos, Chalcis, Amphipolis, and others were similarly transferred to places in Syria. Even names of Macedonian districts re-appear there. This shows a peculiar attachment to Macedonia, and characterises the sentiments of the founder of the Syrian empire. If we compare Seleucus with Ptolemy Soter, the former is far more attached to Macedonia; in Egypt we find nothing of the kind, everything there beginning anew.

Beroea (now Veria) is the second place in Emathia; its name-sake in Syria was far more important, but both still exist. Beroea was a flourishing place throughout the middle ages, and continued to be a wealthy town until its present destruction. Edessa is at present only a village.

Whenever the ancient seat of the Macedonian kings is mentioned, when you read in Thucydides of Perdiccas and Archelaus (the latter is spoken of also by Plato as a prince who drew to his court the wits and talents from Athens, just as German princes formerly invited Frenchmen), and even when Amyntas, Philip’s father, is spoken of, you must always conceive them as residing at Aegeae. Philip was the first to make Pella on the Ludias great; it was previously a small Bottiaean place, which was conquered by the Macedonians, when they drove the Bottiaeans into Chalcidice; Herodotus calls it a πολίχνιον. The district lost its name Bottiaeis, which in Herodotus it still bears, and became part of Macedonia. Philip, who, like Peter the Great, from the moment of his accession, set about raising the kingdom from its obscurity, took the first step towards this object in transferring his residence from the distant Aegeae to Pella, which was near enough to the sea [292]to carry on commerce. The rivers in that part of the country, especially the Ludias, were then navigable, but they are now filled up with sand. Pella, however, was not so near the sea as to enable the Athenians to take it by surprise in a maritime expedition. Its situation on a hill surrounded by waters (τόπος χερσονησοειδής) was very strong. It was now quickly changed into a considerable city, though we must not conceive it to have been very large. Had Alexander not become estranged from Macedonia, it would probably have risen to still greater importance; but it remained the capital of an empire which was at all events considerable. Antipater lived there as regent of Macedonia in his barbarous and cynic simplicity, the picture of an Albanese or Illyrian chief in his affected wretchedness: he had a disgust for regal splendour, and his government certainly added nothing to the beauty of Pella. He appeared in public as a common Macedonian soldier, wrapped up in his cloak (τρίβων), wearing the καυσία (the Illyrian cap), and a stick. Cassander spent less of his time at Pella than at Thessalonica and Cassandrea; but the Antigonids resided there, and from the time of Antigonus Gonatas till that of Perseus, a period of nearly a century, Pella remained the capital, and was a splendid town, though not to be compared with the great cities of Antioch and Alexandria. After the wars of Perseus, the Romans took it without resistance, and carried off a large number of works of art, with which Alexander had adorned the city; the masterworks of Lysippus, which were erected at Pella, were carried away by Aemilius Paullus. Dion Chrysostomus,⁠[103] in his [293]very excellent Tarsian oration, says that Pella was a heap of ruins. The destruction must have taken place either after the war of the Pseudo-Philip (of whom we scarcely know anything, except a few traits occurring in the newly-discovered ἐκλογαὶ περὶ γνωμῶν published by Mai), or about sixty years later, during the campaigns of Archelaus and Taxilas, the generals of Mithridates. It is afterwards not mentioned again. Pella is one of the places which I have often suggested to travellers as a place where excavations ought to be made, and where undoubtedly a rich harvest might be made. Felix Beaujour, the late consul-general at Salonichi, states in his excellent description of Macedonia, that the whole district is covered with ruins, a proof that no excavations have been made there for many years. Certain it is, that the Romans did not carry away everything, that works of art of the most exquisite kind, nay perhaps even works of Lysippus himself, might be discovered there; inscriptions, too, may exist there, although, as I have already remarked, inscriptions are not found in any other part of Macedonia.

Thessalonica, the ancient Chalcidian Therma, in the innermost recess of the Thermaic gulf, greatly impeded by its excellent situation the further growth of Pella, even when the latter was still the capital of the Antigonids. Cassander founded the new city, and, according to the custom of the time, made it great by compelling the inhabitants of [294]the neighbouring towns to remove to it (συνοικισμός). Such a plan was afterwards often resorted to in the East, and such also was the method adopted by Peter the Great in the foundation of St. Petersburgh: he ordered people to be summoned from other parts of his dominions; as they arrived even before the houses were finished, they were obliged to build huts for themselves and died from disease; the survivors became beggars. In antiquity, when towns were not so far distant from one another, the process was easier. Thessalonica had agricultural citizens; and Cassander named it after his wife, the daughter of Philip; by this marriage he intended to make his children legitimate in the eyes of the Macedonians, as he himself was looked upon as a usurper, and was subsequently treated as such. But his family perished in a miserable manner. The idea of founding a city there was a happy one, for there are few places on the Mediterranean that have such a beautiful situation. How often was Thessalonica destroyed! and yet it always recovered, because it was the natural emporium of the rich products of Macedonia; it has an excellent harbour, and no marshes, and is accordingly a healthy place. The town quickly rose into importance, and remained so under the Romans and throughout the middle ages, in spite of many severe calamities. It was taken by the Bulgarians, and afterwards by the Turks; but so long as nature does not change, Thessalonica will remain wealthy and prosperous. It was the capital of Mygdonia, which had formerly been inhabited by the Thracian Edonians. It is well known that a Christian community was formed there at a very early period.

I have already spoken of the projecting Acte ἐπὶ Θρᾴκης, and I will not here repeat what I have said; I shall only observe, that Cassandrea, the second great city founded by Cassander, was probably his capital, and built on the site of the ancient Potidaea, on the isthmus of Pallene; we know little about it, and much is only matter of conjecture.

Amphipolis, which was subdued by the Athenians during the period between the Persian and Peloponnesian [295]wars, was situated on both sides of the river Strymon; it was previously called Ἐννέα ὁδοί. During the Macedonian period it was of great importance, being the capital of Μακεδόνων πρώτη. Although built at a distance of about five miles from the sea, it was a sea-port, and ships sailed up the Strymon. This was the great place for the extensive trade in timber, for the timber of Macedonia was exported not only to Athens, but Ionia, Chios, and in later times even to Alexandria. It was conveyed down the Strymon in rafts.

The mountain-city of Philippi, the neighbourhood of which contained the large gold mines, was situated between the Strymon and the Nestus. Its previous name was Crenidas, and the new town was built by Philip. There, as in Thessalonica, a Christian congregation existed at an early period. The place is celebrated for the battle which decided the fate of Rome. As the mines ceased to be worked, it afterwards fell into decay. How long they continued to be worked, and whether they were still productive in the time of the Antigonids, cannot be ascertained. The fact that they still were worked, and continued to be worked until the overthrow of the Macedonian kingdom, cannot be doubted; but whether they repaid the expenses, is another question. Gold mines nowhere remain equally productive; but their working is continued, because people always hope to discover richer veins. They were most productive in the time of Philip. Athens, too, continued working her mines almost to the seventh century of Rome, but was afterwards obliged to give it up. The Romans forbade the Macedonians the digging after precious metals, in consequence of which Philippi necessarily decayed: but we see from the epistle of the apostle Paul, that it still remained an active and industrial town. It was situated on the outskirts of mount Pangaeos; its neighbourhood was fertile, and it may have maintained itself by an extensive territory.

The interior between the Strymon and Nestus, with the exception of a few Greek towns, was occupied by Thracians. [296]The Agrianians alone, about the Strymon, are considered as Paeonians. Their importance consists in the fact that, in the wars of Alexander, they are mentioned as a distinct corps, and as belonging neither to the phalanx nor to the peltasts, which is not the case with any other Macedonian tribe. It is impossible now to determine, whether this arose perhaps from their being allies and enjoying special privileges, or from their having a peculiar kind of armour, which it was thought advisable to retain.

The Paeonians, according to Herodotus, extended as far as the mouth of the Strymon and about lake Prasias, which is now unknown, because the geography of Macedonia has received so little light from travellers; its existence, however, cannot be doubted, although it is somewhat fabulously described. The Paeonians who, according to Herodotus, were carried by the Persians into Asia, are those who lived about the lower parts of the Strymon, and not the upper Paeonians. In Thucydides and Livy (from Polybius), we find Paeonians on both sides of the Axius, and in regard to them the Romans made an exception⁠[104]⁠, those on the west of the Axius being included in Macedonia Secunda. The passage of Livy⁠[105] here alluded to must be emended, and instead of Vettiorum⁠[106] we must read Bottiorum. Concerning these Paeonians, I can mention to you only a few points. In the time of Cassander and Pyrrhus, it was probably this people, on both banks of the Axius and as far as the Strymon, that had in the person of Audoleon an independent prince, whose daughter was married to Pyrrhus (he was also married to an Illyrian princess, for polygamy was then prevalent). There still exist coins of this Audoleon, though they are very rare; I possess one which was dug up at Tivoli; it was difficult to recognise it, but I succeeded in reading the characters. Afterwards we hear no more of Paeonian kings, so that their importance must have been [297]only transitory; but certain it is, that during the troublous times of Macedonia, that is, in the reign of Cassander, the principality of the Paeonians did exist, and that afterwards it disappeared. If we want to supplement history from other circumstances, we may say, that it must have been incorporated with Macedonia by Antigonus Gonatas, for Antigonus Doson carried on war even with the Dardanians who dwelt beyond the Paeonians.

The Greeks (Strabo and Dion Cassius) assume that the Paeonians and Pannonians were people of the same stock; in Strabo this is the prevailing opinion, and at that time the truth could still be ascertained; nor is the opinion at all improbable, if we suppose that the Illyrians immigrated at a later period. But neque probare, neque refellere in animo est. Gauls, under Brennus, also penetrated far into the west of Upper Macedonia; they were afterwards subdued, but not expelled, and were retained by the Macedonian kings as very useful soldiers.

I shall now pass on to Illyricum, whence we shall afterwards proceed to Italy. I shall then speak of the western countries within the Roman empire, and thence pass on to the East. Although the northern countries are important to us, yet in an account of the ancient nations, no complete description of them can be given, which must be reserved for the particular histories of the northern countries; still, however, I shall not pass them over.

Illyricum.

Illyricum is a somewhat embarrassing name. We sometimes say Illyria, a form for which there is no authority at all; the Greek name is Ἰλλυρίς, and the Latin [298]Illyricum. The more ancient writers always employ the name of the people, οἱ Ἰλλύριοι, ἐν Ἰλλυρίοις, in Illyricis, while Illyricum does not occur till the time of the later emperors. But with this preliminary remark, I shall not scruple to use the name.

The Illyrians are one of the very great nations of antiquity, and are mentioned as early as the time of Herodotus. The Roman Illyricum was of very different extent from the Illyris or οἱ Ἰλλύριοι of the Greeks, and was itself not the same at all times, for at first it was not as extensive as afterwards. At a later period, when it was a praefectura, it was one of the four great divisions of the Roman empire, governed by a Praefectus Praetorio, and included even Greece. At a somewhat earlier time, when we also meet with the designation Illyricus limes, e.g., in the “Scriptores Historiae Augustae,” it comprises Illyricum proper, Pannonia, Noricum, and Vindelicia. The name Illyricum, in this extent, is one of the artificial and political ones, which arise when out of a given number of names one is selected as a make-shift, but has no historical association. The Greeks use the name in a much narrower sense, but even with them, it is not always applied in the same manner. The later immigration of the Gauls disturbed the Illyrians in their habitations; and inaccurate writers, like Appian, frequently mix Gallic and Illyrian nations together. For this very reason, the ethnography of those nations is most obscure. Our accounts are scanty; and those we have, cannot be referred with certainty to their different periods, because the Gallic immigration changed every thing. If we compare the Periplus of Scylax and that of Scymnus of Chios, which is taken from Theopompus or perhaps from Timaeus, with the later descriptions of the coasts in Strabo and the Roman historians, it is impossible to make them harmonise. I cannot, therefore, give you a distinct notion of this vast country, which extends from the frontier of Epirus to that of Pannonia, and stretches even [299]into modern Austria; a clear geographical view is unattainable. Still many points can be discerned, and Est quadam prodire tenus, si non datur ultra.

No one has ever asked whether anything can be discovered regarding the history of the Illyrians; no one has ever thought of enquiring into it. But Herodotus alludes to traditions of that country, apparently as if they were well known, and he speaks of an expedition of the Illyrians and Encheleans, who invaded Greece and plundered the temple of Delphi. According to another tradition, Cadmus and Hermione, quitting Thebes, went to the Encheleans and died there. These are again, as elsewhere, two countries which are put in connexion by migrations in opposite directions. This allusion to a great expedition with an enormous army, leads us to pay attention also to some other facts, as for example, that the Liburnians, in the innermost μυχὸς of the Adriatic, were quite different from the Illyrians, and are mentioned in relations, in which elsewhere we find the Pelasgians on the coast of Italy; further, among the Illyrians in the neighbourhood of Ragusa, there dwelt a people called Hyllii, who are said, by the compilers of legendary history, to have originally been Greeks, and to have become barbarians (ἐκβαρβαρωθῆναι); lastly, the coast of Dalmatia was inhabited by Pelagonians, whom we also find among the Macedonians and Epirots. Accordingly we here meet with remnants of a Pelasgian population, which survived after the immigration of the great race of the Illyrians. Among these latter are included also the Breunians and Genaunians in Tyrol, and the Iapydes on the northern side of the Alps, in the modern Carniola, and further on beyond the Alps. We may, therefore, look upon it as almost an historical fact, that they were a people that immigrated from the north, conquered the Dalmatian mountains, and penetrated as far as the heights of Epirus, which formed a barrier to their further progress.

The descriptions we have of the manners of the Illyrians, prove that they were—half savages would be too strong a [300]term—at least very rude: they tattooed themselves, and were pirates⁠[107] at the time when the power of Athens had sunk, and when Corcyra, and in fact all Greece was broken down. They were divided into numerous tribes. In the earlier times kings are nowhere mentioned, that might be regarded as kings of all Illyricum, or of a great part of the Illyrian tribes: the Illyrians seem rather to have had a democratic constitution. In their wars with Macedonia previous to the time of Philip, an Illyrian king is not mentioned anywhere. In the reign of Philip, Theopompus speaks of one Bardylis who from a robber raised himself to the rank of an independent prince, but who is noted for his personal character as a robber rather than as a prince. It is unknown whether the subsequent princes of Illyricum were descendants of his; but certain it is, that we can trace the kings far back till the time after the death of Alexander, that is, to Admetus the Taulantian. During the childhood of Pyrrhus, again we meet with Glaucias, also a Taulantian. It is impossible to determine the extent of Illyricum at the time it came in contact with the Romans; the few statements about it in Polybius pre-suppose a knowledge which we do not possess, and cannot supply; but the Illyrians seem to have had considerable power at that time. They never were closely united among one another, not even under their kings, of whom a whole series is now known: Pleuratus, Agron and his widow Teuta, Pinnes, Scerdilaïdas, Pleuratus, and Genthius, under whom the kingdom was destroyed, because he allowed himself to be prevailed upon by Perseus to share his fate. This kingdom of the Illyrians cannot have extended far north; it embraced the Parthinians, perhaps also the Ardyaeans, the [301]Taulantians, Bulionians,⁠[108] Dessaretans, and the southern tribes which were afterwards under the dominion of Rome, probably also belonged to it. The residence of the kings, at least in later times, was at Scodra, the modern Scutari. The Illyrians were robbers both by land and by sea, until the Romans in the first war against them, between the time of the first Punic and the Cisalpine wars, put an end to their proceedings; but before that time they roved over Epirus and Greece, laying waste the country with great cruelty; and at sea, they ventured even into the Aegean, plundering all the Greek coasts, and especially the defenceless Cyclades. The tactics, the ships of war, and the battle order of the Illyrians, however, were excellent: they were not phalangites, but fought with short spears and light javelins; their chief weapon, however, was the μάχαιρα, or the Albanese knife. With this they fought as peltasts (with light shields), but not as ψιλοί; they rather formed a middle class between the phalangites and ψιλοί. In this respect they differed from the Romans, and were infinitely inferior to them.

The Illyrians are unquestionably the ancestors of the modern Albanese or Arnauts. This opinion was expressed long ago, but has been disturbed in a very strange way by objections; the one, that this people could not have maintained itself among so many other nations, during great immigration, is worth nothing. This objection gave rise to the belief that the Albanese were an Asiatic people. Their language is quite peculiar and akin to no other, neither to the Celtic, as I formerly believed, nor to any other. In the earlier times, it is true, Celts did enter Illyricum, and so did afterwards the Bulgarians and other nations, whence it cannot be denied that northern and Asiatic nations did establish themselves in the country. But I have discovered a proof which clearly shows, that the modern Albanese are the same people as the ancient Illyrians. The name of the town of Dimalon, the strongest among the Illyrian places, [302]with two acras on two heights, connected by a wall, as described by Polybius, shows this; the Albanese still call it so. Now I have found in several glossaries, that the word mal signifies a hill, and di two, so that dimal is a double hill. This proof is quite convincing. The origin and nationality of the Illyrians have given rise to the oddest conjectures. As the Dalmatian Slavonians have adopted the name Illyrians, the Slavonian language spoken in Dalmatia, especially at Ragusa, is likewise called Illyrian, and this designation has acquired general currency. In the sixteenth century, about the time of the reformation, a Slavonian Bible was printed at Tübingen, and called Illyrian. This opinion is firmly rooted among the learned in Carniola, and we even find it entertained by the excellent Kopitar, librarian at Vienna, and a very distinguished man, who possesses great discernment and very extensive knowledge; but he cannot get over the notion, that the ancient Illyrians were Slavonians. This is, as it were, an article of the religious creed of the Slavonians, just as the modern Greeks fancy that their language is identical with the most ancient Greek. Wherever this singular opinion has once become established, an angel from heaven would not be able to upset it; learned men show an obstinacy on this point, which is really a psychological curiosity. This opinion goes so far with them, that they look upon St. Jerome, who was an Illyrian, as a Slavonian, and ascribe to him the Slavonian translation of the Bible; for the same reason, they call the artificial Glagolitian alphabet, which is derived from the Cyrillian, invented in the ninth century, likewise Slavonian. Cyrillus and Methodius, the apostles of the Slavonian nations, must have been eminent men, for, with a wonderfully fine feeling for their language, they invented an alphabet, as well defined and complete as possible; this is the modern Servian alphabet, which is the foundation of that of all the Slavonic languages. The Russian alphabet is the most complete I know, unless the oriental languages form an exception; but I do not understand [303]them any more than the Sanscrit. When the Roman see wanted to press the Latin language upon the Illyrians, they did not use the Roman alphabet, but devised a new one, the Glagolitian (from glagol, language), the same which is still used by the Albanese. This matter was made by the Church of Rome the subject of a strange transaction: she was willing to allow the use of the new alphabet, on condition that divine worship should be conducted in the Latin tongue.⁠[109] This happened under Pope John XII. or John XIV., about the year 1000;⁠[110] at the same time books were brought forward, which were asserted to be productions of St. Jerome. This is still firmly believed; and in the Vatican library you may see St. Jerome represented as the inventor of writing with the Slavonic alphabet. All kinds of etymologies of Illyrian words have been pressed into the service to confirm that opinion; but they are so irrational, that it is painful to see intelligent men so fettered by hereditary prejudices about national honour. They attempt, e.g., to derive the name Salona in Dalmatia from Slavona, “a place of honour.” I have often wished that the passion of etymologising could be altogether suppressed, for among a hundred etymologies you scarcely find one that is good; people are easily satisfied, instead of entering into a healthy and thorough inquiry. You will become convinced, that the Illyrians are not Slavonians, when you consider the Sarmatae; for you will then see at how late a period these nations came into Europe; in the meantime you may rely upon what I have said, for it is the result of long researches. As I am not unacquainted with the Slavonian languages,⁠[111] I have been able myself to study the [304]Slavonian authorities. Among all the places within the whole extent of Illyricum, there is not one whose name is properly derived from the Slavonic. Whoever understands Slavonic, cannot possibly be mistaken in a Slavonic word; the Slavonic languages are so marked and characteristic, that no word can be disguised. In Frioul, which was once inhabited by Slavonians, in the eastern half of Germany, and in the greater part of the circle of Upper Saxony, places occur everywhere, the etymology of which instantly strikes those who understand Slavonic. Many years ago, I publicly discussed the migrations of the Slavonians, from the age of Herodotus down to the great migration of nations, and I shall soon publish the discussion.⁠[112]⁠

When reading Pliny and Strabo on Illyricum, we see that their knowledge as to its boundaries is as uncertain as our own. Appian, who undertook, I know not on what authority, to give a national genealogy of the Illyrians, got so confounded either through his own fault, or the fault of his authority, that he jumbled together Illyrians, Gauls, Paeonians, and Thracians in a most absurd manner. I think it my duty to tell you, that he is no authority at all. In regard to some nations we are in the greatest difficulty, and are unable to assert anything with certainty. The Dardanians were probably Illyrians; but the Scordiscans were undoubtedly Gauls. The Liburnians were certainly different from the Illyrians; but I shall say more of them when I have done with the Illyrians.

In speaking of the Macedonian mountains, I have already directed your attention to the connexion of that whole range of mountains with the Alps. The Illyrian range of mountains, which traverses Dalmatia and branches off in Carniola from the Julian Alps, and then, at a considerable distance from the sea, stretches towards Venetia, approaches the sea beyond Aquileia, in the neighbourhood of Trieste, and forms Istria; it passes through Istria as a mighty and lofty [305]mountain, though it does not reach the snow line, then traversing Dalmatia, which it separates from Bosnia, it extends into Albania. It is altogether a limestone mountain, and like all mountains of this kind, it is very much broken up; hence the numbers of promontories and islands off the coast of Dalmatia. This mountain is all full of petrifactions and extremely interesting in a geological and geognostic point of view; it is also well suited for cultivation, and very fertile, but uninhabited, and accordingly for the most part covered with wood to its very tops. It runs from west to east, with a small range towards the south-east, then in a somewhat more southern direction into Macedonia, and is separated from the sea by the hilly country of Albania. Dalmatia is not at all volcanic, whereas in Southern Illyricum or Albania we have a continuation of the volcanic nature of Epirus, whence in the neighbourhood of Apollonia on the Aous we find hot springs of asphalt. I take this opportunity of recalling to your mind the passage of Strabo, which contains the words πηγαὶ χλιαροῦ ἀσφάλτου: the MSS. have καὶ ἀσφάλτου, but the καὶ has been thrown out by editors. I believe that by some mistake ὕδατος is omitted, and that we must read: πηγαὶ χλιαροῦ ὕδατος καὶ ἀσφάλτου. Innumerable emendations have yet to be made in Strabo, and it is to be regretted, that his work has not yet found an editor possessing a thorough knowledge of the Greek language, for Casaubonus edited it with too much haste. In the above passage no one has remembered the fact that ἄσφαλτος is feminine, and that accordingly Strabo could not have said χλιαροῦ ἀσφάλτου.

The accounts of the Greeks respecting the Illyrians are very different from the later ones of the Romans. The Greeks, e.g., mention the Manians, Nestians, Hyllians, and, on the south of Lissos, the Taulantians as the most important among the Illyrian nations; but during the time of the Romans they do not occur at all, although Dalmatia acts a considerable part in history: in their place Dalmatians are mentioned all along the coast, whose name does not occur [306]at all in the geography of the Greeks. Thus the Taulantians are not spoken of in the wars against Teuta, Demetrius of Pharos, and afterwards in the first war against Philip, although Apollonia and Epidamnus act a very prominent part; in their stead we hear of Ardyaeans and Parthinians. Whether these latter did not exist during the Greek period under these names, is a question which I will not decide. In early times the Alemannians and Franks do not occur under these names, and the other nations which do occur, are different from them; this justifies the inference, that several of the latter united into one people: in the same manner the Taulantians may either have divided themselves, or other tribes may have united under that name. I say this to prevent your falling into the mistake of believing that all these statements refer to the same period. It is this error which has made of the topography of Rome such a chaos, that no man can find his way out of it, unless he takes the trouble of commencing the investigations afresh from the very beginning: in this manner alone he can find his way, for in Roman topography buildings are mentioned by the side of one another, which are separated by four or five centuries. It is evident, that the mighty invasion of the Gauls threw the whole country of Illyricum and all its tribes into confusion, in consequence of which the Scordiscans permanently established themselves in Sirmia (Slavonia), Servia, and Bosnia, and expelled the Triballians, so that other nations penetrated into Upper Macedonia, partly subduing and partly expelling its inhabitants, who then formed settlements in Thrace. This great convulsion accounts for the difference between the earlier and later condition of Illyricum.

I shall begin in the south. Next to the frontier of Chaonia we find the small town of Amantia and the people of the Amantians and Bullians (Bulliones). They are mentioned in Caesar’s Bellum Civile, iii. 40, a work which throws great light upon the geography of Illyricum, [307]and the borders of Macedonia and Thessaly. We then have the Taulantians, who occupied the country north of the Aous as far as Epidamnus. The river Aöus, also called Aeas, flowing down from the ridge of the Macedonian mountains towards the Adriatic, is one of the most important rivers of southern Macedonia. As an instance of the great confusion and perplexity which one false statement of an ancient author may produce, I will mention the following fact:—Hecataeus had stated that the rivers Inachus and Aöus sprang from one mountain near Argos Amphilochicum, and that then they flowed in different directions. This remark, which Strabo found and copied, has produced the greatest confusion in the geography of Epirus, and scholars have been at the greatest pains to clear it up. Pouqueville, a man whom I greatly esteem, but who is not a philologer,⁠[113] in consequence of the above statement, confounds the Inachus and the Arachthus, and mistakes the ruins of Ambracia for those of Argos Amphilochicum. The cause of the error no doubt lies in Hecataeus.

Apollonia was a colony established by the Corcyraeans and Corinthians conjointly. I have said that the nature of the country is volcanic; Strabo, Antigonus Carystius, and the Pseudo-Aristotle, in the work Θαυμάσια ἀκούσματα, state that near the neighbouring Nymphaeon the earth was burning, that there existed springs of earth-pitch and hot water, and that flames were seen at night, as is the case at Pietramala. Apollonia maintained its freedom in the midst of the Epirot towns, though it was no doubt under the protection of Macedonia. In the year 522, when the Romans first appeared on that coast, it was still an independent Greek town, but had at an early time gained the favour of its powerful western neighbours by sending an embassy to them. The Romans delivered the town from a [308]siege of the Illyrians, and from that time it was a humble place under the supremacy of Rome. Such towns, as far as depended on the Roman senate and people, were very favourably treated, and were very well off, unless they had the misfortune of being ruled by a governor like Piso, who is described by Cicero. Apollonia, probably, enjoyed a great reputation, and became for the neighbouring nations, and even for the Italians, who endeavoured to Hellenise everything, a seat of Greek culture and education, just as Lausanne and Geneva are for those who believe French culture to be the best, and are visited even by princes. Thus Augustus, at the time of the murder of Caesar, was living at Apollonia for the purpose of learning to speak Greek.

The Taulantians, who afterwards no longer occur in history, dwelt between Apollonia and Epidamnus.

Epidamnus or Dyrrhachium. The latter name was, according to tradition, adopted by the Romans to avoid the ominous meaning of the former, quasi in damnum ituri, in case of the senate ordering the legions to cross over to it. I imagine that, if the Romans had felt the necessity of changing the name, they would have substituted a syllable, as they did in changing Maleventum into Beneventum; but they would not have completely altered it. In Thucydides and the other Attic writers, the place is always called simply Epidamnus, but the native name must have been Dyrrhachium, for it bears this name on innumerable non-Roman coins. Epidamnus was the causa contingens of the Peloponnesian war; it usually happens, that a thing, when called forth by the force of circumstances, must in the end come to pass, and this town only lent its name as the occasion. This is beautifully expressed by Polybius where he explains the true cause of the Punic wars and their apparent occasion. Epidamnus was likewise taken by the Romans under their protection, and surrendered to them, after having previously been compelled to acknowledge the supremacy of the Illyrian kings. I have already mentioned [309]that a vast number of coins are found there. It is a well-known observation, that about twenty years ago a person travelling through the Rhenish provinces, found French crowns to be the current coin; and in like manner Illyrian quinarii (half-drachmae) were the current coin at Rome for a long time; according to Pliny, they had been introduced at Rome as merchandise, and afterwards victoriatae were substituted for them. But Pliny, as is so often the case with him, takes the matter rather lightly and hastily. The Illyrian half-drachmae were probably somewhat inferior to the double sestertii of the Romans, and at the same time were convenient as a simple coin. But the Romans very rationally now made a similar coin, and thereby got completely rid of the Illyrian. Those Illyrian coins also have the name of a magistrate, which explains a statement of Aristotle, who says that Epidamnus contrary to the custom of other Greek towns, had a single dictator or praetor. During the middle ages, in the time of the Comneni and the Norman kings, Dyrrhachium acted a very prominent part, but at present it is decayed, though it still possesses the advantages of its happy situation on a narrow isthmus, which almost forms a promontory.

In the interior, near the Macedonian frontier, there is a considerable lake from which the Drino issues. In the same part we find, ever since the middle ages, the town of Achrida, which was the capital of the Bulgarian empire at the time when it extended from the Black Sea as far as the interior of Aetolia, and comprised southern Illyricum, Epirus, Acarnania, Aetolia, and a part of Thessaly. It has been thought that this town is the ancient Lychnidos. During the Roman period the Dessaretans dwelt there; the neighbouring country was occupied by the Autariatans, who are said to have been driven from their country in the time of Cassander, when they removed as fugitives with their women and children into Macedonia. According to the story, which we read in Justin, they were compelled to quit their country, because the frogs had increased there to an intolerable extent. In the common editions of Justin, [310]however, we read, owing to a blunder of the transcriber, Abderitae instead of Autariatae, from which Wieland has made the lengthy and absurd story, that the people of Abdera delighted in breeding frogs, and that in the end they were driven by these animals out of their own country. Little as has yet been done by criticism for Justin, still it is sufficiently clear, that he is speaking of the Autariatae, and not of the Abderitae. Diodorus of Sicily quite plainly relates the true history of this expulsion of the Autariatae; but they were not all driven from their country; some of them remained behind, and became subjects of the Gauls, for we find Autariatae under the banner of the Gauls during their expedition against Delphi. But after that time they disappear, and in this disappearance the Greeks saw their punishment by the deity.

The mention of this expedition leads me to speak of a subject, which requires special explanation in order to avoid misunderstandings. You here have a national emigration with women and children, and this is most commonly the case with emigrating nations: a part of the nation sets out with all it possesses, and the part remaining behind comes under the dominion of the invaders. Emigrations are very rarely spontaneous, most of them are undertaken by the pressure and compulsion of other nations; pastoral tribes and those living on the chase alone form exceptions, as we see in the case of all the inhabitants of the steppes in Asia, who, in consequence of their mode of living, with all their property undertook long expeditions into countries many hundred miles off: witness the Scythians, who according to Herodotus took with them all they possessed on innumerable wagons, the Mongole and Tartar tribes, and the Huns. When a people immigrates, it very rarely happens that all the ancient inhabitants quit the country, most of them remain behind and submit to their new masters. But this is not by any means always a matter of choice. When a conquering people advances, under the hoofs of whose horses all life is destroyed, as was the case with the Huns and the hordes of Jinghis Khan, which [311]burnt and murdered every thing before them (and the Gauls on their expedition into Greece did not act otherwise), every one who finds a place of safety, or hopes to find one, takes to flight. When the poor inhabitants of la Vendée fled from the armies of the Convention, the whole population crossed the Loire, carrying their women and children before them, and whoever could move broke up, and whoever was able carried his feebler relatives with him, so that the whole country was deserted. They met with opposition, and their migration could not proceed farther: if there had been small tribes on the frontiers of France, unable to offer them any resistance, the Vendéeans would have broken through, and sought a place to settle in. Such also was the case in most of the migrations of antiquity, as well as in the great migration of nations during the fourth and fifth centuries; and the Gallic and Sarmatian migrations were certainly not less important than they. When the Goths had been defeated by the Huns in Dacia on the Dniestr, they crossed the Danube in a body, and implored the Romans to receive and protect them in their empire; and their requests were granted. There are, however, a few instances of non-nomadic nations emigrating in a body without being pressed in any way. The most striking instance is that of the Helvetii, in the time of Caesar, a case which no one can doubt, and which is literally true: they emigrated, having been seduced by evil advisers, and even destroyed their own towns in the hope of conquering a country in which they might live as lords and nobles, and where they hoped to have vassals that would till the ground for them.

The Ardyaeans and Parthinians dwelt north of the Autariatae, though not at the same time, but only during the Roman period. These tribes, the Illyrians and Atintanians, had been subdued by the Romans in the first Illyrian war, and were again reduced to obedience in the second. Agron and his widow Teuta had ruled as far as the borders of Epirus; but the Romans took from them [312]southern Illyricum and the islands of Issa and Pharos. Then Philip also took a part of the same country, I allude to the district of the Atintanians; but the Romans left that of the Parthinians to Pleurates, the king of the Illyrians. How far the Illyrian kingdom extended in the north, we cannot say; but the southern frontier, previous to the time when the Romans gave away the Parthinians, was the mouth of the Drino, which flows by Scodra and issues from lake Labeatis.

Scodra was the capital of the kingdom; its situation is very favorable, mild, and pleasing; the country around is capable of every cultivation; it is a locus apricus, accessible to the mild winds from the south, and protected against the north winds.

Lissos, situated at the mouth of the Drino, was fixed upon by the Romans as the border-town of the Illyrians in the south, and beyond it they were not allowed to sail with their armed ships. This must be regarded as a great blessing for Greece, which was thereby delivered from Illyrian pirates.

Dalmatia, in the north-west, consists partly of the mainland and partly of a countless number of islands near the coast, some of which are mere rocks, while others are capable of cultivation. On this coast there are at least two Greek colonies—a third is doubtful—the islands of Issa and Pharos. The latter known through Demetrius of Pharos, the shameless intriguer, is said to have been a colony of Paros. Issa was colonised by Dionysius of Syracuse who, at the time of his greatest prosperity, contemplated to establish a power on the Adriatic, whence he also sent a colony to Adria, in the country of the Veneti; it is possible that the Greek colony of Heraclea, on the Liburnian coast, must likewise be ascribed to him.

The country of the Dalmatians (more correctly Dalmatans) extends from Illyricum, in the Greek sense of the term, as far as the frontier of the Liburnians, who inhabited the whole of the north of what was once Venetian [313]Dalmatia. The name Dalmatia is unknown to the Greeks, and is applied to the country in which they place the Hyllians, Nestians, and Manians. The inhabitants were no doubt under the dominion of the Illyrian kings; after the reduction of the Illyrians by the Romans, Dalmatia, too, was unquestionably intended to come under the supremacy of Rome, and a few maritime towns actually seem to have done so, but the interior, if it did fall into the hands of the Romans, appears soon to have thrown off the yoke. It was not till the year 640, that Metullus permanently subdued those coast countries, after the Romans had waged war against them for a long time. Thenceforth the neighbouring country of the Liburnians was a distinct Roman province; the southern districts of Dalmatia being occasionally under the control of the proconsul or propraetor of Macedonia; the northern parts do not appear to have had a Roman imperium, except when legions were stationed there. This was frequently the case, until the Scordiscans were conquered: when after their destruction peace was established, and when, after the time of Sulla, the province of Gaul was formed, those countries belonged to the imperium of the governor who had the administration of Gaul, as we see in the case of Julius Caesar.

The most important town in Dalmatia was Salona or Salonae (Salonae longae, in Lucan, the place probably consisting of one long street along the coast); it was the seat of a Roman conventus, that is, the Roman citizens resident in the province formed a rustic community, which had its administration at Salona. This is the real meaning of a conventus civium Romanorum, which is left obscure in our manuals on Roman antiquities, though it is perfectly clear from Cicero’s speeches against Verres, from Caesar’s Bellum Civile and Africanum, and also from the Bellum Hispaniense. Salona gradually became a genuine Roman city; but it owes its greatest celebrity to the fact that Diocletian, after resigning the imperial dignity, took up his abode there and [314]built a palace, which extended into the modern town of Spalatro, and is an example of the decay of taste in the arts at that time, as much as the Thermae of Diocletian at Rome; the palace is not more beautiful than the edifices built in the time of Charlemagne; marble and costly materials of every kind were lavished on it, and such outward ornaments then constituted almost all that was left of art. The ruins of this palace have been described by Englishmen.

About other places in Dalmatia nothing can be said, for they are of no historical importance. The islands have already been spoken of. Pharos produced Demetrius, whose villany and faithlessness are very characteristic of that age; he was only half a Greek, or rather a barbarian. He spent a great part of his life at the court of the barbarian queen, Teuta, and afterwards he went to that of Philip of Macedonia. The traits related of this man are terrible. Pharos is called Greek, but we must not imagine that its inhabitants were of pure Greek blood or had Greek manners, and Greek modes of life; they were Μιξέλληνες as in other similar places.

Corcyra Melaena, the modern Curzola, cannot with certainty be called a Greek colony.

Melite may be noticed here because, according to some, it was the island where St. Paul, on his voyage to Rome, suffered shipwreck. But this is improbable, St. Luke would probably have been more explicit about it, and St. Paul would have crossed from thence to Ancona or some other port in the neighbourhood. We must in all probability refer the event to Malta, which was likewise called Melite.

I now pass over the Iapydes, Istrians, Liburnians, Carnians and Venetians, as I intend to return to these nations from the West and from Noricum.

FOOTNOTES

[1] “The first journey of this kind was undertaken in the sixteenth century, by George Fabricius, but it produced only very insignificant results.”

[2] The MS. notes contain very little about these maps, but what I recollect Niebuhr to have said agrees in the main with the opinion expressed in the Lectures on Rom. Hist. vol. iii. p. xciv., except that in the present Lectures he treated the matter more with ridicule, saying, e.g., that such men are immortalised even by having their portraits engraved on copper (in some Geographical Journal).—Ed.

[3] See Kleine Schriften, vol. i. p. 105, foll.

[4] “It would be an interesting philological problem to show, how certain books gradually disappeared and ceased to be read.”

[5] See Klein. Schrift., vol. i. p. 132, foll.

[6] “It is written on white stone, and belongs to the time of Psammetichus II., that is, about the end of the Peloponnesian war. The λόφοι in Aristotle probably signify ostrich-feathers.” See Corp. Inscript. Graec., vol. iii. fasc. 2. n. 5126. I owe this reference to the kindness of the late Professor Franz.—Ed.

[7] In Ctesiph. 77 (p. 140, 9 ed. Dindorf).

[8] The word “Latins” is only my conjecture. In all the MS. notes, the words are directly opposed to what the lecturer intended to prove; whence we may perhaps suppose, that Niebuhr himself made a lapsus linguae.—Ed.

[9] Comp. Lectures on Anc. Hist., vol. i. p. 200.

[10] See Paus. vii. 1.

[11] Lect. on Anc. Hist., vol. i. p. 204.

[12] Ibid., vol. i. p. 232.

[13] Paus. ii. 4, § 4.

[14] Aen. vi. 838.

[15] This name has been substituted by me from the Iliad, ii. 561, for one which occurs only in a single set of notes, and is altogether mis-written.—Ed.

[16] Verse 533.

[17] “The part of Laconia, which forms the western coast of the Argolic gulf, but which, by the division of Philip of Macedonia was restored to Argos, will be spoken of when I come to describe Laconia.”

[18] “A stadium measures 600 Greek feet, and eight stadia make a Roman mile; 606 feet and 9 inches English are equal to a stadium. This is a well known fact, requiring no proof. But it is a very debatable question, as to whether the ancients, when reckoning by stadia, always adopted the measure of the Olympian stadium, or whether we have sometimes to understand others. The latter opinion has been very generally spread by the moderns, especially in consequence of an error committed by the excellent D’Anville. It very often occurs, that the distances mentioned by the ancients are irreconcilable with modern measurements; whence it has been inferred that sometimes different stadia must be meant, and the statement that the Pythian stadium was shorter than the Olympian, appeared to support this supposition. But there is no other hypothesis which has been set forth equally often, and is yet so devoid of all foundation: the ancient writers do not furnish a single passage in support of the assertion; an endless confusion, moreover, would be introduced into all statements, if we were to suppose that the ancients reckoned according to different stadia without informing their readers of it. Wherever the stadia mentioned are irreconcilable with correct measurements, the cause is no other but either an error in our calculation, or some inaccuracy in the statements of the ancients, which arose in a very natural manner; for the high-roads in Greece were, not like those of the Romans, made in a straight line, but had various turnings, because they had been gradually formed out of the common paths across the fields. In some instances, on the other hand, it has been found that, where the ancients were charged with inaccuracy, too much confidence has been placed in modern travellers, so that the statements of the ancients are, after all, not as inaccurate as some have supposed.

“A question of the highest importance in history and geography is that concerning the proportion which the side of the pyramid bears to the measured degree of the earth and to the Egyptian cubit—a question to which French mathematicians, who were no scholars, have first directed attention. These numbers are such exact multiples of one another, that we must either assume the most marvellous coincidence, or else an artificial calculation. The immortal Laplace set great value upon this discovery, and inferred from it that the elements of mathematical geography were known at a very early time. When the new French system of measures was introduced, the measure of a degree was taken as the standard, and thus the framers of the new system arrived at the same foundation as the ancients. When a degree of latitude was measured in Egypt, the result was perfectly safe; but the French wanted to establish a measure for the whole world, and in this case it is illegitimate to make use of the degree of latitude, for though in a metre the inaccuracy was not great, yet it was so in larger measures. The ancients proceeded from degrees which were not too large, and could be measured with accuracy. Now the degree is a multiple of the Greek stadium, as it is of the Egyptian measure: 600 Greek feet make a stadium, 600 stadia make an equatorial degree, that is, 360,000 Greek feet make a degree; and this system of measurement is derived from Egypt. As the Egyptian foot was larger than an ordinary human foot, the Greeks invented the fable, that the foot of Heracles had been taken as the standard in measuring the stadium. The pace of the Romans is likewise an ideal measure, for it is the thousandth part of one seventy-fifth of a degree.”

[19] “Much has been written, and much nonsense too, about the history of commerce. One must first be acquainted with commerce, and the course it takes, before attempting to write about it. The subject is not foreign to me, but I have no time to work it out.”

[20] See Kleine Schrift., vol. i. p. 225, note.

[21] Anthol. Palat. ix. 151.

[22] “Herodes Atticus restored the theatre which had been destroyed by Mummius; and this building, together with the Odeum and gymnasium, was seen by Pausanias.”

[23] One MS. has Ornae instead of Argos.—Ed.

[24] “We include Megaris among those countries which lie beyond Peloponnesus, though it belongs to Argolis, if this latter name be taken in its widest sense.”

[25] Compare Thucyd. iv. 57.

[26] Polyb. ix. 42.

[27] Compare Lect. on Anc. Hist., vol. i. p. 185, foll., and p. 231.

[28] This reference was given by Niebuhr himself, and as all the good MSS. agree in the number, there can be no doubt that the notes are correct; but I do not know to what edition it refers. According to Casaubon’s edition, it is p. 364, foll., and Alm. p. 560, foll.—Ed.

[29] Strab. viii. p. 365, ed. Casaub.

[30] The restoration of this passage from the notes has been particularly difficult. From the Lect. on Anc. Hist., vol. i. p. 234, it seems clear that Niebuhr had somewhere publicly expressed his opinion on the passage of Strabo above referred to; but I do not know where he has done so, and I have not been able to avail myself of anything except the notes taken in the lecture-room, some of which are very good. I am firmly persuaded that Niebuhr uttered the words as they are given in the text, though his opinion differs from that now generally adopted, which is based upon the restoration of the text of Strabo, partially the work of C. O. Müller (Dor. vol. i. p. 110). The name Aepys seems to be based upon Iliad, ii. 592, and that of Pherae upon the original text of Strabo himself.--Ed.

[31] “Whether the list of the Spartan kings is correct or not, I do not know; their number may be historical, but the years of their reigns are very uncertain. Agis has quite the appearance of an historical personage.”

[32] “The derivation of the name Εἵλωτες, from Ἕλος, is extremely uncertain. Helos was certainly destroyed, but I cannot see how Εἵλωτες could have been formed from Ἕλος. I cannot imagine that a neuter name in ος should form its ethnic name in ως, nor do I know any instance in which an initial ε is changed into ει.”

[33] The words of Sardinia have been inserted by conjecture. The MS. containing the clause as was the case, &c., has the words by the Saracens. But it is well known, that in the eleventh century, that is, about the time of the conquest of Sardinia, Pisa had 150,000 inhabitants, whereas at present it scarcely has the tenth part of that number.—Ed.

[34] This should probably be “the Homeric poems.” Cardamyle is mentioned, Iliad ix. 150, among the seven towns which Agamemnon offers to give to Achilles.—Ed.

[35] Herod. viii. 73, calls them Dryopians; so also Pausanias and Strabo.—Ed.

[36] The 20th of October, 1827.

[37] “Their name, from its termination άς, reminds us of Italian ethnic names, such as Antias and the like; but in the former the α is short.”

[38] See Hist. of Rome, vol. i. p. 418, n. 975, vol. ii. p. 317; Lect. on Rom. Hist. vol. i. p. 203, n. 4; 3rd edit.

[39] This list is given from Polybius, ii. 41; Niebuhr here forgot that Aegae and Rhypes had been mentioned even by Herodotus, i. 145, who omits Leontion and Cerynea. This requires the statement in the text to be modified, though it does not affect the explanation given by Niebuhr.—Ed.

[40] Strab. ix. p. 394, c. Instead of the verse Στῆσε δ’ ἄγων ἵν’ Ἀθηναίων ἵσταντο φάλαγγες, the Megarians read Αἴας δ’ ἐκ Σαλαμῖνος ἄγεν νέας, ἔκ τε Πολίχνης, Ἔκ τ’ Αἰγειρούσσης, Νισαίης τε Τριπόδων τε.—Ed.

[41] The statement of Thucydides is confirmed by the document of the official treaty about the fifty years’ peace of Nicias in Thucyd. v. 18: στήλας δὲ στῆσαι—ἐν Ἀθήναις ἐν πόλει.—Ed.

[42] Niebuhr here overlooks Thucyd. i. 93: μείζων γὰρ ὁ περίβολος πανταχῆ ἐξήχθη τῆς πόλεως.—Ed.

[43] The reader must bear in mind, that all Niebuhr says about the topography of Athens was said before any of the numerous recent investigations of this subject had been commenced.—Ed.

[44] “The temple of Theseus was destroyed as early as 1687; the Turks had a powder magazine there, and the Venetians were barbarous enough to bombard it; one front of it is left standing.”

[45] Dion Cassius, lxix. 16, however, says ἐξεποίησε.—Ed.

[46] Aeschin. Socr. Eryx. c. 7 and 24.—Ed.

[47] “This war is a memorable occurrence on account of the misfortunes of men who had deserved a better fate.” (See Kleine Schrift. vol. i. p. 451, foll.)

[48] Comp. Kleine Schrift. l. c., p. 458, note 10.—Ed.

[49] “Basílius, not Basilīus, for at that time Greek was spoken only according to accent.”

[50] “The seventh among the Platonic letters was no doubt written soon after the time of Plato and before the death of Alexander; it is written in the vivid style of one who knew things from hearsay, but had not witnessed them himself.” (Comp. Ulrich, Die Eilfmänner in Athen, p. 258, note 3.)

[51] Cic. De Nat. Deor. i. 42.

[52] This statement is not the same in all the MSS., whence the text cannot be regarded as quite certain.—Ed.

[53] These numbers, though not agreeing with what precedes, occur in all the MSS. We must therefore probably suppose, that Niebuhr in his thorough-going view of the symmetry of numerical relations in antiquity, regarded the eleven Boeotarchs as the remnant of the earlier number twelve, and divided this latter into two equal halves; but I cannot at this moment say on what this division is based. The statement that afterwards the Boeotarchs were exclusively Thebans, occurs in a set of notes, which do not seem to be quite trustworthy.—Ed.

[54] I have no doubt that Niebuhr here meant Lake Hylice, although I do not know that it is connected with Lake Copais. Respecting its outlet into the Euripus, see Müller, Orchom. p. 38, 2nd edit., who doubts its existence. The name of “lake of Haliartus” belongs only to the part of lake Copais near Haliartus.—Ed.

[55] “Lépanto, not Lepánto, according to the modern Greek pronunciation, just as Sífanto (the modern name for the island of Siphnos), Táranto, Ótranto. This originally Greek accent differs from that of Italian names.”

[56] The MSS. give nothing but these words, which are evidently defective, and must be supplemented from Thucyd. i. 112, iv. 118, v. 18. Compare Boeckh, Publ. Econ. of Athens, p. 161. foll. 2nd. edit.—Ed.

[57] This statement can only be regarded as an inaccurate expression of the right possessed by every people to vote at the Amphictyonic council, for it is well known that each nation had two votes. Comp. Lect. on Anc. Hist. vol. i. p. 244, fol.—Ed.

[58] xxiv. 1.

[59] “The reason for this is, that the olive-tree requires many years to grow and bear fruit.”

[60] i. 56.

[61] i. 5, iii. 94.

[62] “Ampracia is the more ancient orthography, and not Ambracia.”

[63] “Landrecht, as it was called in the middle ages; Burgrecht is something different, referring to the individual who has the right of becoming a citizen of a place.”

[64] “It would be an excellent subject for an essay to collect the differences in the names of nations and places among the Greeks and Romans; it would be very important in the critical treatment of ancient authors, as the old Latin forms have often been misunderstood.”

[65] “MSS. and editions of Latin poets frequently have Haemonia, but I cannot venture to decide as to whether it is right or wrong. The Greeks have generally Αἰμονία, and rarely Αἱμονία; in like manner Αἶμος is more common than Αἷμος, and it is doubtful whether the former is not a change made by editors.”

[66] Dionys. Hal. Ant. i. 28, calls him a great great-grand-son.

[67] In some MSS. the following words are here added: “Such also was the case in the Netherlands, in the official language of the fifteenth century.” It is possible that Niebuhr may have alluded to the Geuses.—Ed.

[68] “We ought to say the Tempe as a plural, for the Greek is τὰ Τέμπη, and signifies a glen or a pass.”

[69] In one MS., which however is interpolated in some parts, we find the following statement: “Dositheus Magister, the most ancient Latin grammarian, whose works we possess complete (?), imitated Dionysius Thrax.”—Ed.

[70] “Whether Dryopians and Dolopians be the same name cannot be proved, although it is possible. I do not like the attempts to prove such things; people easily believe that they arrive at positive results, and accustom themselves to play with names. This is unfortunately the case in Germany so much, that we cannot be sufficiently on our guard against it. It is quite a different thing to examine what was the generic name of a great nation.”

[71] xix. 175.

[72] See above, p. 33.

[73] v. 3, § 6.

[74] In one MS. I find “On the slip of land extending into the sea opposite Chios”; one main part of the town was afterwards in the island.—Ed.

[75] Comp. Lect. on Rom. Hist., vol. i. p. 70, fol. 3rd edit.

[76] Μάκαρος ἕδος Αἰολίωνος, Hymn in Apoll. 37.

[77] “Athens too is written with ε on the drachmae of later times (ΑΘΕ).” The connexion between this remark and the statement in the text is not clear.—Ed.

[78] “During the Macedonian period and afterwards this name certainly was never pronounced otherwise than Cassándrea.”

[79] “Xenophon’s Hellenica is one of the most corrupt among ancient works; the text is in a very bad condition, and requires a most thorough critical revision; the history itself, though bad, is indispensable to us. In the fifth book, he states that Olynthus had 800 hoplites and an equal number of peltasts, but this is impossible. It has been proposed to read 8000, but this is too much, and is, moreover, not plausible, as the numbers were written in the characters of the alphabet. Demosthenes speaks of 5000 hoplites; his expression πόλις μυρίανδρος only signifies a large town in general.”

[80] In Thucydides i. 94 and 128, we have Βυζάντιον without the article.—Ed.

[81] Ausführl. Griech. Gram., vol. ii. p. 428, foll. 2nd edit.

[82] “Thus we find mention of a Roman Church S. Agnolo in Pescivendolo in an ancient chronicle [in the Beschreib. der Stadt Rom, iii. 3, p. 468, this is referred to the history of Cola di Rienzi, which was formerly ascribed to Fortefiocca], and that church is now called S. Angelo in Pescaria; there must have been a fish-market in the neighbourhood. Piscivendulus is unquestionably an ancient Latin word, in which the termination ulus is purely an adjective termination without the meaning of a diminutive, as we sometimes find in Plautus.” [One otherwise very good MS. here has the word nuculendulus, for which I am unable to restore the correct word, unless nucifrangibula (Plaut. Bacch. iv. 2, 16) be meant].

[83] Niebuhr has discussed this same subject in an advertisement about the progress of the edition of the Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae, which was published in the 4th vol. of the Rhein. Museum, and was directed against Professor Heinrich, who had censured the form Byzantinae.—Ed.

[84] The inscription of Protogenes; see Kleine Schrift., vol. i. p. 382, foll.—Ed.

[85] “In consequence of the numerous Milesian colonies on the Euxine, M. Von Köppen has brought forward the strange hypothesis, that the Milesians were a nation on the coast of the Euxine, who founded the colony of Miletus. Being a native of Russia, he perhaps wanted to gratify his Russian patriotism, by assigning a Russian origin to so important a Greek city.”

[86] Reprinted in Kleine Schriften, vol. ii. p. 224.

[87] Hist. of Rome, vol. i. p. 25, foll.

[88] The name is wanting, and I am unable to supply it.—Ed.

[89] Hist. of Rome, vol. iii. p. 456.

[90] “Others call him Tharypas or Tharypos. If we examine this name carefully, we find already a trace of the change, seen in the modern Greek, of an oblique case into the nominative, as ὁ πατέρος—it is one of the many traces which shew that, properly speaking, Epirot and Macedonian forms constitute the foundation of modern Greek, and that the latter is not the same as the popular language of the ancient Greeks, as is commonly imagined by the modern Greeks. My dear friend, Count Capo d’Istria, is not free from this prejudice, though he admits that, e.g., at Athens a different dialect was spoken. The Italians in the middle ages, especially Aretinus, entertained a similar opinion; they maintained that Cicero spoke Italian, that Latin was only the language of the learned, an artificial and improved Italian; and that Latin was indeed written, but that the people spoke Italian. But the Greeks confound the circumstances, and pretend to know more than is generally true. Many proofs, for example, may be adduced that a kind of modern Greek was spoken at Alexandria in the time of the first emperors; but that language was derived from the Epirot, Macedonian and Thessalian dialects; it is pure Greek, but at the same time has many peculiarities, many of which have passed into the Latin language. Thus Areus, the name of the Spartan king, is written Areas in Livy, which, therefore, should not be altered, but is quite correct; in the same manner we have Crotona for Croton, and in German Mailand for Milano.”

[91] One MS. here has “the Ambracians and Chaonians;” the probable reading is, “the Thesprotians and Chaonians,” according to the geographical succession. The apparent contradiction in the statement that Ambracia was dependent on Epirus and at the same time in the power of Philip, must be understood of successive periods, the former being the earlier, and the latter the subsequent condition. Comp. Hist. of Rome, vol. iii. p. 165.—Ed.

[92] Comp. Lect. on Ancient Hist. vol. ii. p. 346.—Ed.

[93] Comp. Hist. of Rome, vol. iii. p. 457, foll.; Lect. on Rom. Hist. vol. i. p. 421 foll. 3rd edit.

[94] “The whole of this part of history is still obscure; I mean the period from the death of Alexander until the time of Polybius. If God spares my life, I contemplate writing this history as a supplement to ancient history.”

[95] “I have here mentioned the Ibis, on account of this historical fact, which is not the only one in that poem. I recommend its study to any scholar who wishes to ascertain whether he is thoroughly conversant with poetical mythology and ancient history. One of the most difficult problems is to explain the allusions; there is not much poetry in it, but a great deal of wit. We admire Jean Paul, on account of his allusions and of his wit, but we speak slightingly of the wit of the Alexandrians, though they, and especially Callimachus, ought not to be despised. We are not sufficiently familiar with them; it is also true that there are few poetical geniuses among them: Callimachus is not without talent (witness, for example, the Lavacrum Palladis); Apollonius Rhodius is indeed a feeble mind, but the loss of Philotas is much to be lamented. Although Propertius equals neither Callimachus nor Philetas, still even he is excellent; he, too, may be used as a means of self-examination.”

[96] See Niebuhr’s Gesch. des Zeitalters der Revolution, vol. ii. p. 281.

[97] “I ought to have spoken of Athamania before, but not having any maps before me as guides, I forgot it. It was situated between Molottis and Thessaly, and was a small Epirot principality. In the earliest times it was not important, but subsequently it became remarkable, because it maintained its independence of Epirus as well as of Aetolia. Their king, Amynander, was early allied with the Romans, but then went over to the Aetolians. This brought great distress upon the country, though it was afterwards pardoned by the Romans and was restored to its former condition.”

[98] “In like manner the Romans abolished the concilia populorum in Italy.”

[99] “This name, though formed according to good analogy, is not used by the ancients; but I do not see why we should not employ it upon the analogy of others.”

[100] This is the name in all the MSS., though there can be no doubt that Callias is meant.—Ed.

[101] “It deserves to be noted that in several of the later Latin poets the genuine usage in the application of rare names disappears. The beginning of Lucan is no doubt known even to those who are unable to work their way through the whole; in explaining it we may assume two possibilities: he either intended to compose a poem on the whole Civil war down to the battle of Philippi, or he unwittingly confounded Macedonia and Thessaly. If he wanted to use such a poetical name, he ought to have said Bella per Aemonios plus quam civilia campos.”

[102] “Not Aegae, as you find in most maps and in modern editions of ancient authors. In the older editions the name is correctly given, Αἰγαῖαι, pronounced according to the modern Greek Αἰγέαι, and the inhabitants are called Αἰγεεῖς. Moderns have unfortunately taken it into their heads that this is a mistake, and have unceremoniously altered it without saying anything about it: as the altered form was found in the maps of D’Anville and Barbié du Bocage, it was thought to be the correct one.”

[103] “I take this opportunity of saying a few words about this not sufficiently valued author. There are writers whose works are read, without their containing any substance, and without their being at all comparable to others, merely because they have once got a name. Others deserving of respect are now neglected, while formerly they were studied. Dion Chrysostomus is one of these latter. He is indeed sophistical, but there is among his works a whole series of thoroughly beautiful orations, showing great intellect, which is, after all, the main thing. Sidonius Apollinaris’ Latinity is very rustic; but he is a man of talent; so also Libanius, although he is already too sophistical. Others, as Aelius Aristides, who are so devoid of talent and so absurd, that we feel inclined at once to throw their works among the rubbish, are placed on an equality with the former. To the same class belong Themistius and Fronto, the latter of whom does nothing but pile up words. In regard to talented writers, we must not allow ourselves to be prejudiced by the fact that they belong to a late period. The language of Dion Chrysostomus is very good; it is a fine imitation of Attic Greek, and this is not only my opinion, but the judgment of Valckenaer, Hemsterhuys, Ruhnkenius, and others; his style is like that of Xenophon, who, after all, is read and studied in schools only on account of his language.”

[104] Namely in their division of the country according to what are called the natural boundaries. See above, p. 282.—Ed.

[105] xlv. 29.

[106] xlv. 30.

[107] “The lembi were privateers of the Illyrians with one very large lateen sail; they were probably very quick boats, able to sail very sharply with the wind, and requiring a strong crew and bold sailors. They were the same ships as those called by the Romans Liburnicae, which more and more supplanted the place of triremes, quadriremes, and quinqueremes.”

[108] This name is not quite certain; I have supplied it from Pliny; the MS. notes having some such name as Voelnii.—Ed.

[109] Niebuhr probably meant to say—“in the Slavonian tongue but according to the Roman rites.”—Ed.

[110] More correctly: under Innocent IV., A.D. 1248. See Dobrowsky, Glagolitica, p. 16.

[111] According to a letter of his father, dated Dec. 1807, Niebuhr understood Russian, Slavonic, Polish, Bohemian, and also Illyrian. See Life and Letters of B. G. Niebuhr, vol. i. p. 27.—Ed.

[112] It is published in Kleine Histor. u. Philol. Schriften, vol. i. p. 352, foll.—Ed.

[113] “If a man is not a thorough philologer, he cannot enter upon the study of ancient history at all; to do so without an intimate familiarity with philology would be the same as if a man were to write about Germany from French authorities.”

NIEBUHR’S LECTURES ON ANCIENT HISTORY.

Comprising the History of the Asiatic Nations, the Egyptians, Greeks, Carthaginians, and Macedonians. Translated from the German by Dr. L. Schmitz. With additions from MSS. in the exclusive possession of the Editor. 3 vols. 8vo. £1 11s. 6d.

The reader will find brief but graphic accounts of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Egyptians, and other Eastern nations; and in each case Niebuhr, before entering upon the history itself, gives a critical analysis of the authorities on which our knowledge is based. The history of Greece and other European countries is treated more minutely, and occupies more than half of the whole work. Literature, the arts, and the social and political conditions of the people, are described more graphically and minutely than in many other more voluminous works. In reference to Babylonia, Assyria, and Egypt, it is particularly interesting to notice, how clearly the historian foresaw and anticipated all the great discoveries which have since been made in those countries. A thousand points in the history of ancient nations, which have hitherto been either overlooked or accepted without inquiry, are here treated with sound criticism and placed in their true light.

NIEBUHR’S LECTURES ON THE HISTORY OF ROME.

From the earliest times to the Fall of the Western Empire. Edited by Dr. Schmitz. Second Edition, enlarged and greatly improved. Three volumes, 8vo. Portrait. £1 4s. cloth.

⁂ The present Edition of Niebuhr’s Lectures on Roman History contains every word and statement that is to be found in the German Edition of Dr. Isler, with which it has been compared throughout. But as Dr. Schmitz, in preparing his edition, was in possession of some valuable sets of MS. Notes, which were inaccessible to Dr. Isler, the present work contains a variety of remarks and observations as made by Niebuhr, which do not occur in the German Edition, or any mere translation of the German. Almost every page of the present work contains some interesting remark of the Roman historian, which is not to be found in the German Edition.

These Lectures form a history of Rome from the earliest stages to the overthrow of the Western Empire. Their subjects are concurrent (up to the first Punic war) with those of Niebuhr’s great work “The History of Rome,” and comprehend discussions on the sources of Roman history, with the criticism and analysis of those materials. The Lectures differ from the History, in presenting a more popular and familiar exposition of the various topics of investigation, which are treated in the History in a more severe style. They may be used, either as an introduction to Niebuhr’s Theories, or as a running commentary on his History.

The last two volumes are an indispensable Sequel to Niebuhr’s History of Rome, from the point where that History terminates.

NIEBUHR’S HISTORY OF ROME.

From the earliest times to the First Punic War. Translated by Bishop Thirlwall, Archdeacon Hare, Dr. Smith, and Dr. Schmitz. New and Cheaper Edition, 3 vols. 8vo. £1 16s.

“It is a work,” says the Edinburgh Review, “which of all that have appeared in our age, is the best fitted to excite men of learning to intellectual activity; from which the most accomplished scholar may gather fresh stores of knowledge; to which the most experienced politician may resort for theoretical and practical instruction; and which no person can read, as it ought to be read, without feeling the better and more generous sentiments of his common human nature enlivened and strengthened.”

A HISTORY OF ROME.

From the earliest times to the Death of Commodus, A.D. 192. By Dr. L. Schmitz, Rector of the High School of Edinburgh, Editor of “Niebuhr’s Lectures.” New Edition. One thick volume, 12mo. 7s. 6d. cloth.

The immense progress made in investigating Roman history and antiquities within the last thirty or forty years, having materially altered the whole complexion of that study, has rendered indispensable a new manual, for the use of schools, removing the old errors and misconceptions which have long since been exposed and exploded by scholars. This compendium is designed to supply the want, by condensing and selecting out of a voluminous mass of detail, that which is necessary to give rather a vivid picture of the leading epochs of the history, than a minute narrative of the particulars recorded in the authorities. The author has availed himself of all the important works on the whole Roman history, or portions of it, which have appeared since Niebuhr gave a new life and new impulse to the subject. A copious Table of Chronology and Indexes are added.

QUESTIONS ON SCHMITZ’S HISTORY OF ROME.

It has been justly objected to school-books, written in the form of question and answer, that, as they may be completely learned by an unintelligent exercise of memory, they fail in drawing forth the more active powers of the mind. It is far otherwise with questions to which the pupil must find the answers for himself; as, by this mode of interrogation he is compelled to exert his intellect in considering the subject of the text on which he is questioned. He is thus prevented from reading cursorily and remembering vaguely; he can no longer have the appearance of knowledge without its reality; and if he learns his lesson at all, he must learn it well.

This book consists of several thousand questions, with indications of the pages where the answers are to be looked for. Every important circumstance mentioned in the history is involved in the questions, which are arranged, as far as possible, in a complete and uninterrupted series. The answers are not always obvious, the learner being occasionally expected to elicit them by drawing inferences from the facts stated in the history; and it is recommended that he should be encouraged, in all cases, to give the answers rather in his own words than in those of the author.

	PAGE
Preliminary observations	1
History of ancient Ethnography and Geography	4
Ancient authorities and introductory remarks	11
GREECE.
Greece in general	24
Peloponnesus	26
The Homeric Catalogue	31
Divisions of Peloponnesus	33
Argolis, Argos	37
Aegina	54
Laconia	56
Cythera	63
Messene	64
Arcadia	70
Elis	77
Achaia	79
GREECE BEYOND PELOPONNESUS.
Attica and Megaris	84
Megaris	87
Attica	90
Athens	93
Acropolis, Κιμώνειον τεῖχος, Πελασγικόν, Propylaea	97
The Theatre, Agora, Buleuterium, Prytaneum	98
The Pnyx, Museum, the New Town, Olympieum	99
Academia, Lyceum, Cynosarges	99
Piraeeus, Munychia	100
The Long Walls	102
Population of Athens	107
Salamis	111
Boeotia	113
The Locrian Tribes	123[x]
Phocis	126
Doris	134
Aetolia	136
Acarnania	147
The Cephallenian Islands	153
Thessaly	155
Peraebia (Magnesia)	168
Achaia (Phthiotis)	170
Melians and Malians	171
The Dolopians	172
Euboea	175
Northern islands, Sciathos, Scopelos, Scyros	180
Peparethos, Halonnesos, Lemnos and Imbros	181
Samothrace, Thasos	182
The Cyclades	183
Delos	184
Paros, Siphnos, Seriphos	186
Ceos, Andros, Tenos, Syros, Rhenea, Myconos, Naxos	187
Melos, Thera	189
Ios, Amorgos, Crete	190
Carpathos, Astypalaea, Nisyros	195
Rhodes	196
Dorian Tripolis in Asia Minor	203
Ionia	204
Samos	209
Chios	213
Panionium	215
Aeolis	215
Lesbos	218
Magnesia on the Maeander	220
The Kingdom of Pergamus	221
Greek Settlements in Macedonia and Thrace	224
Chersonesus Thracica	234
Chersonesus Taurica	244
The north coast of Asia Minor	248
Epirus	251
Thesprotia	256
The Suliots	258
The Chaonians	260
The Molottians	261
The Atintanians	269
The Pelagonians	269
The Orestians	269
The Parauaeans	269
The Amphilochians	269
The Agraeans	270[xi]
Corcyra	272
Macedonia	275
Athamania	280, n.
Macedonia prima	281
Emathia	286
Pieria	288
The Bottiaeans	288
The Paeonians	288, 296
Mygdonia	288
The Edonians	288
The Agrianians	296
Illyricum	297
The Amantians	306
The Bulliones	306
The Dessaretans	309
The Autariatae	309
Migrations of Nations	310
Ardyaeans and Parthinians	311
Dalmatia	312
Pharos	314
Corcyra Melaena	314
Melite	314

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Lectures on ancient ethnography and geography, volume 1 (of 2)

TO THE RIGHT REVEREND CONNOP THIRLWALL, D.D., LORD BISHOP OF ST. DAVIDS, ETC., ETC.

PREFACE.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

LECTURES ON ANCIENT ETHNOGRAPHY AND GEOGRAPHY.