nevertheless great. Striking differences in the climate of different
localities are produced by the contrasts between mountains and plains,
woodlands and sterile valleys, coasts having a northern or southern
aspect. But even leaving out of sight these local differences, it
may safely be asserted that the varieties of climate which we meet
with in traversing Greece from north to south are scarcely exceeded
in any other region. The mountains of Ætolia, in the north, whose
slopes are covered with beech-trees, remind us of the temperate zone
of Europe, whilst the peninsulas and islands towards the east and
south, with their thickets of fig and olive trees, their plantations
of oranges and lemons, their aloe hedges and rare palm-trees, belong
to the sub-tropical zone. But even neighbouring districts occasionally
{40} differ strikingly as regards climate. In the ancient lake basin
of Bœotia the winters are cold, the summers scorching, whilst the
temperature of the eastern shore of Eubœa is equable, owing to the
moderating influence of sea breezes. Within a narrow compass Greece
presents us with the climates of a large portion of the earth, and
there can be no doubt that this diversity of climate, and the contrasts
of every kind springing from it, must have favourably influenced the
intellectual development of the Hellenes. A spirit of inquiry was
called forth amongst them which reacted upon their commercial tastes
and industrial proclivities.
The diversity of the climate of the land, however, is compensated for,
in Greece, by a uniformity in the climate of the maritime districts. As
in a mountain valley, the winds of the Ægean Sea blow alternately in
contrary directions. During nearly the whole of summer the atmospheric
currents of Eastern Europe are attracted towards the African deserts.
The winds from the north of the Archipelago and Macedonia then speed
the navigator on his voyage to the south, and on many occasions the
conquering tribes of the northern shores of that sea have availed
themselves of them in their improvised attacks upon the inhabitants
of the more southern districts of Asia Minor and of Greece. These
regular northerly currents, known as etesian or annual winds, cease
on the termination of the hot season, when the sun stands above the
southern tropic. They are, moreover, interrupted every night, when
the cool sea air is attracted by the heated surface of the land.
When the sun has set the wind gradually subsides; there is a calm,
lasting a few moments; and then the air begins to move in an inverse
direction—“the land begins to blow,” as the sailors say. Nor is this
regular wind without its counter-current, known as the _embates_, or
propitious south-easterly breeze of which the poets sing. General winds
and breezes, moreover, are deflected from their original directions
in consequence of the configuration of the coast and the direction
of mountain chains. The Gulf of Corinth, for instance, is shut in by
high mountains on the north and the south, and the winds alternately
enter it from the east or west—a phenomenon likened by Strabo to the
breathing of an animal.
The rains, like the winds, deviate in many places from the average,
and whilst the water pours down into some mountain valleys as into a
funnel, elsewhere the clouds drift past without parting with a drop of
their humid burden. Contrasts in the amount of precipitation are thus
added to those resulting from differences of configuration and variety
of climate. As a rule, rain is more abundant on the western shores of
Greece than on the eastern, and this fact accounts for the smiling
aspect of the hills of Elis, as compared with the barren declivities
of Argolis and Attica. Thunder-storms, driven before the winds of the
Mediterranean, likewise recur with greater regularity in the western
portion of the peninsula. In Elis and Acarnania the roll of thunder may
be heard in spring daily, for whole weeks, in the afternoon. No sites
more apposite could have been found for temples dedicated to Jupiter,
the god of lightning.
* * * * *
The ancient inhabitants of the Cyclades, and probably, also, those
of the coasts {41} of Hellas and Asia Minor, had already attained a
considerable amount of culture long before the commencement of our
historical records. This has been proved by excavations made in the
volcanic ashes of Santorin and Therasia. At the time their houses were
buried beneath the ashes, the Santoriniotes had begun to pass from the
age of stone into that of copper. They knew how to build arches of
stone and mortar, they manufactured lime, used weights made of blocks
of lava, wove cloth, made pottery, dyed their stuffs, and ornamented
their houses with frescoes; they cultivated barley, peas, and lentils,
and had begun to trade with distant countries.
We do not know whether these men were of the same race as the Hellenes;
but thus much is certain—that at the earliest dawn of history the
islands and coasts of the Ægean Sea were peopled by various families of
Greeks, whilst the interior of the country and the western shores of
the peninsula were inhabited by Pelasgians. These Pelasgians, moreover,
were of the same stock as the Greeks, and they spoke a language derived
from the same source as the dialects of the Hellenes. Both were Aryans,
and, unless natives of the soil, they must have immigrated into Greece
from Asia Minor by crossing the Hellespont, or by way of the islands
of the Archipelago. The Pelasgians, according to tradition, sprang
from Mount Lycæus, in the centre of the Peloponnesus; they boasted of
being “autochthons,” “men of the black soil,” “children of oaks,” or
“men born before the moon.” All around them lived tribes of kindred
origin, such as the Æolians and the Leleges, and these were afterwards
joined by Ionians and Achæans. The Ionians, who, in a subsequent age,
exercised so great an influence over the destinies of the world, only
occupied the peninsula of Attica and the neighbouring Eubœa. The
Achæans for a long time enjoyed a preponderance, and in the end the
Greek clans collectively became known by that name. Later on, when
the Dorians had crossed the Gulf of Corinth where it is narrowest,
and established themselves as conquerors in the Peloponnesus, the
Amphictyons, or national councils, sitting alternately at Thermopylæ
and Delphi, conferred the name of Hellenes, which was that of a small
tribe in Thessaly and Phthiotis, upon all the inhabitants of the
peninsula and the islands. The name of Greek, which signifies, perhaps,
“mountaineer,” “ancient,” or “son of the soil,” gradually spread
amongst the nation, and in the end became general. The Ionians of Asia
Minor, and the Carians of the Sporades, emulated the Phœnicians by
trading from port to port amongst these half-savage tribes, and, like
bees which convey the fecundating pollen from flower to flower, they
carried the civilisation of Egypt and the East from tribe to tribe.
[Illustration: Fig. 9.—MAINOTE AND SPARTAN.]
Phœnician merchants and Roman conquerors scarcely modified the elements
composing the population of Hellas, but during the age of migrations
barbarians in large numbers penetrated into Greece. For more than two
centuries did the Avares maintain themselves in the Peloponnesus. Then
came the Slavs, aided, on more than one occasion, by the plague in
depopulating the country. Greece became a Slavonia, and a Slavonian
language, probably Servian, was universally spoken, as is proved by
the majority of geographical names. The superstitions and legends {42}
of the modern Greeks, as has been remarked by many authors, are not
simply a heritage derived from the ancient Hellenes, but have become
enriched by phantoms and vampires of Slav invention. The dress of the
Greeks, too, is a legacy of their northern conquerors. But, in spite
of this, the polished language of the Hellenes {43} has regained by
degrees its ancient preponderance, and the race has so thoroughly
amalgamated these foreign immigrants, that it is impossible now to
trace any Servian elements in the population. But hardly had Hellas
escaped the danger of becoming Slav when it was threatened with
becoming Albanian. This occurred during the dominion of Venice. As
recently as the commencement of the present century Albanian was the
dominant language of Elis, Argos, Bœotia, and Attica, and even at the
present day a hundred thousand supposed Hellenes still speak it. The
actual population of Greece is, therefore, a very mixed one, but it is
difficult to say in what proportions these Hellenic, Slav, and Albanian
elements have combined. The Mainotes, or Maniotes, of the peninsula
terminating in Cape Matapan, are generally supposed to be the Greeks of
the purest blood. They themselves claim to be the descendants of the
ancient Spartans, and amongst their strongholds they still point out
one which belonged to “Signor Lycurgus.” Their Councils of Elders have
preserved from immemorial times, and down to the war of independence,
the title of Senate of Lacedæmonia. Every Mainote professes to love
unto death “Liberty, the highest of all goods, inherited from our
Spartan ancestors.” Nevertheless, a good many localities in Maina bear
names derived from the Servian, and these prove, at all events, that
the Slavs resided in the country for a considerable time. The Mainotes
practise the _vendetta_, as if they were Montenegrins. But is not this
a common custom amongst all uncivilised nations?
However this may be, in spite of invasions and intermixture with other
races, the Greeks of to-day agree in most points with the Greeks of
the past. Above all things, they have preserved their language, and
it is truly matter for surprise that the vulgar Greek, though derived
from a rural dialect, should differ so slightly only from the literary
language. The differences, analogous to what may be observed with
respect to the languages derived from the Latin, are restricted almost
to two points, viz. the contraction of non-accentuated syllables and
the use of auxiliary verbs. It was, therefore, easy for the modern
Greeks to purify their language from barbarisms and foreign terms,
and to restore it gradually to what it was in the time of Thucydides.
Nor has the race changed much in its physical features, for in most
districts of modern Greece the ancient types may yet be recognised.
The Bœotian is still distinguished by that heavy gait which made him
an object of ridicule amongst the other Greeks; the Athenian youth
possesses the suppleness, grace of movement and bearing which we admire
so much in the horsemen sculptured on the friezes of the Parthenon; the
Spartan women have preserved that haughty and vigorous beauty which
constituted the charm of the virgins of Doris. As regards morals,
the descent of the modern Hellenes is equally evident. Like their
ancestors, they are fond of change, and inquisitive; as the descendants
of free citizens, they have preserved a feeling of equality; and,
still infatuated with dialectics, they hold forth at all times as
if they were in the ancient market-place, or Agora. They frequently
stoop to flattery: like the ancient Greeks, too, they are apt to rate
intellectual merit above purity of morals. {44} Like sage Ulysses of
the Homeric poem, they well know how to lie and cheat with grace; and
the truthful Acarnanian and the Mainote, who are “slow to promise,
but sure to keep,” are looked upon as rural oddities. Another trait
in the character of the modern and ancient Greeks, and one which
distinguishes them from all other Europeans, is this—that they do not
allow themselves to be carried away by passion, except in the cause of
patriotism. The Greek is a stranger to melancholy: he loves life, and
is determined to enjoy it. In battle he may throw it away, but suicide
is a species of death unknown amongst the modern Greeks, and the more
unhappy they are, the more they cling to existence. They are very
seldom afflicted with insanity.
[Illustration: Fig. 10.—FOREIGN ELEMENTS IN THE POPULATION OF GREECE.]
In spite of the diverse elements which compose it, the Greek
nationality is one of the most homogeneous in Europe. The Albanians,
of Pelasgian descent like the Greeks, do not cede to the latter in
patriotism; and it was they—the Suliotes, Hydriotes, Spezziotes—who
fought most valiantly for national independence. The eight hundred
families of Rumanian or Kutzo-Wallachian Zinzares who pasture
their herds in the hills of Acarnania and Ætolia, and are known as
Kara-Gunis, or “black cloaks,” speak the two languages, and sometimes
marry Greek girls, though they never give their own daughters in
marriage to the Greeks. Haughty and free, they are not sufficiently
numerous to be of any great importance. To foreigners the Greeks are
rather intolerant, and they take no pains to render their stay amongst
them agreeable. The Turks—who were numerous formerly in certain parts
of the Peloponnesus, in Bœotia, and in the {45} island of Eubœa, and
whose presence recalled an unhappy period of servitude—have fled to
a man, and only the fez, the narghile, and the slippers remind us of
their former presence. The Jews, though met with in every town of the
East, whether Slav or Mussulman, dare hardly enter the presence of the
Greeks, who are, moreover, their most redoubtable rivals in matters
of finance: they are to be found only in the Ionian Islands, where
they managed to get a footing during the British Protectorate. In this
same Archipelago we likewise meet with the descendants of the ancient
Venetian colonists, and with emigrants from all parts of Italy. French
and Italian families still form a distinct element of the population
of Naxos, Santorin, and Syra. As to the Maltese porters and gardeners
at Athens and Corfu, they continue for the most part in subordinate
positions, and never associate with the Greeks.
* * * * *
The homogeneous character of the population of Greece does not admit
of that country being divided into ethnological provinces, like
Turkey or Austro-Hungary, but it consists geographically of four
distinct portions. These are (1), continental Hellas, known since the
Turkish invasion as Rumelia, in remembrance of the “Roman” empire of
Byzantium; (2), the ancient Peloponnesus, now called the Morea, perhaps
a transposition of the word “Romea,” or from a Slav word signifying
“sea coast,” and applied formerly to Elis; (3), the islands of the
Ægean Sea; (4), the Ionian Islands. In describing the various portions
of Greece we shall make use, in preference, of the ancient names of
mountains, rivers, and towns; for the Hellenes of our own day, proud of
the glories of the past, are endeavouring gradually to get rid of names
of Slav or Italian origin, which still figure upon the maps of their
country.[13]
II.—CONTINENTAL GREECE.
The Pindus, which forms the central chain of Southern Turkey, passes
over into Greece, and imparts to it an analogous orographical
character. On both sides of this conventional boundary we meet with the
same rocks, the same vegetation, the same landscape features, and the
same races of people. By dividing the Epirus and handing over Thessaly
to the Turks, European diplomacy has paid no attention to natural
features. The eastern portion of the boundary is made to follow the
line of water parting over the range of the lofty Othrys, commanding
the plain of the Sperchius. Westward of the Pindus the boundary {46}
crosses transversely the valley of the Achelous, and the hills which
separate it from the Gulf of Arta.
[Illustration: Fig. 11.—MOUNT PARNASSUS AND DELPHI.]
The isolated summit of Mount Tymphrestus, or Velukhi, which rises where
the grand chain of the Othrys branches off from the Pindus, is not the
culminating point of continental Greece, but it is a centre from which
the principal mountain spurs and rivers radiate. Within its spurs lies
hidden the charming valley of Karpenisi, and an elevated ridge joins
them, towards the south-east, to the most important mountain mass of
modern Greece, viz. the group surmounted by the snow-clad pyramids of
the Vardusia and Khiona, whose slopes are covered with dark firs, and
to the superb Katavothra, the Œta of the ancients, on which Hercules
built his funeral pile. The mountains of Vardusia and Khiona are face
to face with the fine mountain masses of Northern Morea, likewise
wooded and covered with snow during the greater part of the year.
The mountains of Ætolia, to the west of the Velukhi and the Vardusia,
are far less elevated, but they are rugged, and form a veritable chaos
of rocks, savage defiles, and thickets, into which only Wallachian
herdsmen venture. In Southern Ætolia, on the shores of the lakes and
along the rivers, the country is more accessible, but mountains rise
there likewise, and by tortuous ridges they are brought into connection
with the system of the Pindus. Those on the coast of Acarnania,
opposite to the Ionian Islands, are steep, covered with trees and
shrubs; they are the mountains of the “Black Continent” mentioned by
Ulysses. {47} To the east of the Achelous there is another coast
chain, well known to mariners: this is the Zygos, the southern slopes
of which, arid and austere, are seen from off Missolonghi. Still
further to the east another range comes down to the seashore, and,
together with the promontories on the opposite coast of the Morea,
forms the narrow entrance to the Gulf of Corinth. Close to this
entrance, on the Ætolian side, there rises bold Mount Varassova, a huge
block of rock. Local tradition tells us that the Titans endeavoured to
throw this rock into the sea, so that it might form a bridge between
the two coasts; but the rock proved too heavy, and it was dropped where
we now see it.
Towards the Ægean Sea the mountain mass of the Katavothra is continued
by a coast range running in a direction parallel to the mountains of
the island of Eubœa. This range should be described rather as a series
of mountain-groups separated from each other by deep hollows, extensive
depressions, and even by river valleys. These mountains, though low
and intersected by numerous roads, are nevertheless difficult of
access, for their slopes are steep, their promontories abrupt, and
their precipices sudden, and in the times of the ancient Greeks a small
number of men repeatedly defended them against large armies. At one
extremity of this range is the passage of Thermopylæ; at the other, on
the eastern foot of the Pentelicus, the famous plain of Marathon.
The mountain groups on the northern shore of the Gulf of Corinth, and
to the south of Bœotia, may be looked upon as a range running parallel
with that following the channel of Eubœa, but far more beautiful and
picturesque. Every one of its summits recalls the sweet memories of
poetry, or conjures up the image of some ancient deity. To the west we
find ourselves in the presence of “double-headed” Parnassus, to which
fled Deucalion and Pyrrha, the ancestors of the Greeks, and where the
Athenians celebrated their torchlight dances in honour of Bacchus.
From the summits of the Parnassus, which rival in height those of the
Khiona, raising its pyramidal head towards the north-west, nearly the
whole of Greece, with its gulfs, islands, and mountains, lies spread
out below us, from the Thessalian Olympus to the Taygetus, at the
extremity of the Peloponnesus; and close by, at our feet, lies the
admirable basin of Delphi, the place of Peace and Concord, where Greeks
forgot their animosities. The mountain group towards the east next to
Parnassus is quite equal to it. The valleys of the Helicon, the seat of
Apollo and the Muses, are still the most verdant and the most smiling
in all Greece. The eastern slope of the Helicon is more especially
distinguished for its charming beauty, its woods, its verdant pastures,
gardens, and murmuring springs, which contrast most favourably with the
bare and arid plains of Bœotia. If Mount Parnassus may boast of the
Castalian spring, Mount Helicon possesses that of Hippocrene, which
burst forth from the ground when struck by the hoof of Pegasus. The
elongated summit of the Cithæron, the birthplace of Bacchus, joins
the mountains of Southern Bœotia to those of Attica, whose marble has
become famous through the neighbourhood of the city which they shelter.
Mount Parnes rises to the north of Athens; to the east of it, like the
pediment of a temple, rises the Pentelicus, in which are {48} the
quarries of Pikermi, rendered famous through their fossil bones; on the
south appears Mount Hymettus, celebrated for its flowers and its bees.
Farther away, the Laurium, with its rich argentiferous slags, stretches
towards the south-east, and terminates in Cape Sunium, consecrated in
other days to Minerva and Neptune, and still surmounted by fifteen
columns of an ancient temple.
Another isolated mountain group to the south of Attica, and occupying
the entire width of the Isthmus of Megara, served the Athenians as a
rampart of defence against their neighbours of the Peloponnesus. This
is the mountain group of Gerania, the modern Pera Khora.[14] Having
passed beyond it, we find ourselves upon the Isthmus of Corinth,
properly so called, confined between the Gulfs of Athens and of
Corinth. It is a narrow neck of land, scarcely five miles across,
whose arid limestone rocks hardly rise two hundred feet above the sea.
This neutral bit of territory, lying between two distinct geographical
regions, naturally became a place for meetings, festivals, and markets.
The remains of a wall built by the Peloponnesians across the isthmus
may still be traced, as may also the canal commenced by order of Nero.
* * * * *
The limestone mountains of Greece, as well as those of the Epirus and
of Thessaly, abound in lakes, but all the rivers are swallowed up in
“sinks,” or _katavothras_, leaving the land dry and arid. Southern
Acarnania, a portion of which is known as Xeromeros, or the “arid
country,” on account of the absence of running water, abounds in
lake basins of this kind. To the south of the Gulf of Arta, which
may not inaptly be described as a sort of lake communicating with
the sea through a narrow opening, there are several sheets of water,
the remains of an inland sea, silted up by the alluvial deposits of
the Achelous. The largest of these lakes is known to the natives as
Pelagos, or “big sea,” because of its extent and the agitated state of
its waters, which break against its coasts. This is the Trichonius of
the ancient Ætolians. Reputed unfathomable, it is, in truth, very deep,
and its waters are perfectly pure; but they are discharged sluggishly
into another basin far less extensive, and surrounded by pestilential
marshes, and through a turgid stream they even find their way into
the Achelous. The hills surrounding Lake Trichonis are covered with
villages and fields, whilst the locality around the lower lake has
been depopulated by fever. The country, nevertheless, is exceedingly
beautiful to look upon. Hardly have we passed through a narrow gorge,
or _klisura_, of Mount Zygos before we enter upon a bridge over a
mile in length, which a Turkish governor caused to be thrown across
the swamps separating the two lakes. This viaduct has sunk down more
than half its {49} height into the mud, but it is still sufficiently
elevated to enable the eye freely to sweep over the surface of the
waters, and to trace the coasts which bound them. Oaks, planes, and
wild olive-trees intermingle beneath us, their branches hung with
festoons of wild vine, and these, with the blue waters of the lake and
the mountains rising beyond it, form a picture of great beauty.
[Illustration: Fig. 12.—LOWER ACARNANIA.
Scale 1 : 800,000.]