This alluvial plain, situated at the hea_Studies in Greek Scenery, Legend and History Selected from His Commentary on Pausanias' 'Description of Greece,'

or arm of the sea, which opening on the Aegean gave ready access to the

islands of the Archipelago and the coasts of Asia, was naturally fitted

to become one of the earliest seats of civilisation in Greece. And in

point of fact legend and archaeology combine to show that in prehistoric

times Greek civilisation reached a very high pitch in the plain of

Argolis. It contained at least three fortified towns of great

importance, of which remains exist to this day, Tiryns, Argos, and

Mycenae (to mention them in the order in which they lie from south to

north). Tiryns and Mycenae stand on the eastern, Argos on the western

side of the plain. Of the three Tiryns is nearest to the sea, from which

it is distant not much more than a mile. It, or rather its citadel,

occupies a low rocky mound, not a hundred feet above the level of the

sea, and rising in perfect isolation from the flat. Farther inland Argos

lies at the foot of the last spur which projects into the western side

of the plain from the range of Artemisius. Its citadel, the Larisa, is a

fine bold peak nearly a thousand feet high.

Farther inland, nine miles from the nearest point of the sea, stands

Mycenae, near the northern extremity of the plain, but on its eastern

side. Its citadel, in respect of elevation and natural strength,

occupies an intermediate position between the low citadel of Tiryns and

the high mountainous one of Argos. It lies at the mouth of a wild and

narrow glen, which here opens on the eastern side of the Argolic plain,

between two lofty, steep, and rocky mountains. From the mouth of this

glen two deep ravines diverge, one running due west, the other running

south-west, and the triangular tableland which they enclose between them

is the citadel of Mycenae. The whole scene, viewed from the citadel, is

one of desolate grandeur. The ravines yawning to a great depth at our

feet, the rugged utterly barren mountains towering immediately across

them, the bleak highland glen winding away into the depth of these

gloomy and forbidding hills, make up a stern impressive picture, the

effect of which is heightened if one sees it, as the present writer

chanced to do, on a rainy day. Then with a lowering sky overhead and the

mist clinging to the slopes of the mountains, no sound heard but the

patter of the rain and the tinkling of sheep-bells from the glen, the

whole landscape seems to frown and assumes an aspect more in keeping

with the mist-wrapt stronghold of some old robber chief in Skye or

Lochaber, than with the conception which the traveller had formed of

Agamemnon’s “golden city.”

XXIV. THE END OF THE MYCENAEAN AGE.—The catastrophe which put an end to

the Mycenaean civilisation in Greece would seem to have been the Dorian

invasion, which, according to the traditional Greek chronology, befell

about the middle of the twelfth century B.C. That the end of Mycenae and

Tiryns was sudden and violent is proved by the conclusive evidence which

shows that the palaces were destroyed by fire and that, once destroyed,

they were never rebuilt. The date, too, of the Dorian invasion, so far

as we can determine it, harmonises well with this view; for the Egyptian

evidence of the existence of Mycenae comes down to about the time of the

Dorian invasion, and there significantly stops. The cessation also of

the characteristic Mycenaean pottery about the same date points to the

same conclusion. It is not indeed to be supposed that the Dorians swept

over Greece in one unbroken wave of conquest. The tide of invasion

probably ebbed and flowed; raids were met and repelled, but were

followed by incursions of fresh swarms of invaders, the new-comers

steadily gaining ground, encroaching on and enveloping the ancient

Mycenaean kingdoms till, the last barrier giving way before them, the

capitals themselves were stormed, their treasures plundered, and the

palaces given to the flames. The conflict between civilisation and

barbarism, the slow decline of the former and the gradual triumph of the

latter, may have lasted many years. It is thus that many, if not most,

permanent conquests have been effected. It was thus that the Saxons step

by step ousted the Britons, and the Danes obtained a footing in England;

it was thus that the Turks slowly strangled the Byzantine empire. Events

like the fall of Constantinople and the expulsion of the Moors from

Granada are only the last scenes in tragedies which have been acting for

centuries.

To attribute, with some writers, the creation instead of the destruction

of the Mycenaean civilisation to the Dorians is preposterous, since the

Dorian immigration did not take place till the twelfth century B.C.,

while the Mycenaean civilisation is known from Egyptian evidence to have

existed from the middle of the fifteenth century B.C. at least. But this

attribution involves other than chronological difficulties. The typical

Dorians were the Spartans, and no greater contrast can well be conceived

than that between the luxurious semi-Oriental civilisation of Mycenae

and the stern simplicity of Sparta. On the one side we see imposing

fortifications, stately tombs, luxurious baths, magnificent palaces,

their walls gay with bright frescoes or glittering with burnished

bronze, their halls crowded with a profusion of precious objects of art

and luxury, wrought by native craftsmen or brought by merchants from the

bazaars of Egypt and Assyria; and in the midst of all a sultan, laden

with golden jewellery, listening to minstrels singing the tale of Troy

or the wanderings of Ulysses. On the other side we see an open

unfortified city with insignificant buildings, where art and poetry

never flourished, where gold and silver were banned, and where even the

kings prided themselves on the meanness of their attire. The Dorians, if

we may judge of them by the purest specimens of the breed, were just as

incapable of creating the art of Mycenae as the Turks were of building

the Parthenon and St. Sophia.

Of the Greeks who were rendered homeless by the Dorian invasion most

fled to Asia. There, on the beautiful island-studded coast, under the

soft Ionian sky, a new Greece arose which, in its splendid cities, its

busy marts, its solemn fanes, combined Greek subtlety and refinement

with much of Asiatic pomp and luxury. By this long and brilliant

after-glow of the Mycenaean civilisation in Asia we may judge, as it has

been well said, what its meridian splendour had been in Europe.

XXV. MOUNT ARACHNAEUS.—Mount Arachnaeus is the high naked range on the

left or northern side of the road as you go to the Epidaurian sanctuary

from Argos. The most remarkable peak is Mount Arna, the pointed rocky

summit which rises immediately above the village of Ligourio to a height

of over three thousand five hundred feet. The western summit, Mount St.

Elias, is somewhat higher. From the summit of Mount Arna the mountains

of Megara and Attica are visible. It might well have been on its top

that the beacon was lighted which flashed to Argos the news of the fall

of Troy. The name Arachnaea is said to have been still used by the

peasantry in the early part of this century. The altars of Zeus and Hera

upon which, according to Pausanias, the people sacrificed for rain,

appear to have stood in the hollow between the two peaks, for there is

here a square enclosure of Cyclopean masonry which would appear to have

been an ancient place of worship.

Mount Arachnaeus and the mountains of the Argolic peninsula in general

are little better than a stony waterless wilderness. The climate is very

dry, and the beds of all the streams are waterless except after heavy

rain. The hardy little holly-oak and a few dun-coloured shrubs are

almost the only representatives of plant life. The eye of the traveller

is wearied by the grey monotony of these arid mountains and desert

tablelands, and his feet are cut and bruised by the sharp stones over

which he has painfully to pick his steps. Nowhere else in Greece,

probably, is the scenery so desolate and forbidding.

XXVI. EPIDAURUS.—The city of Epidaurus was five Roman miles distant from

the sanctuary of Aesculapius. But it takes about two hours and a half to

ride the distance, for the road is very rough. The scenery on the way is

extremely beautiful—a great contrast to the dull road from Nauplia to

the sanctuary. The path leaves the open valley by a narrow glen at its

northern end, and leads down deeper and deeper through luxuriantly

wooded dells into the bottom of a wild romantic ravine. Here we follow

the rocky bed of the stream for some distance between lofty precipitous

banks. Farther on the path ascends the right bank of the stream, and we

ride along it, with the deep ravine below us on the left and a high wall

of rock on the right. The whole glen, as far as the eye can reach, is

densely wooded. Wild olives, pines, plane-trees, Agnus castus, laurel,

and ivy mantle its steep sides with a robe of green. In half an hour

from the sanctuary another valley opens on the left, down which comes

the road from Ligourio. After joining it we continue to follow the glen

along a path darkened by trees and the luxuriant foliage of the arbutus,

while beside us the stream flows through thickets of myrtle and

oleander. In about half an hour more the valley opens out, and we see

the sea, with the bold rocky headland of Methana stretching out into it

on the right, the islands of Salamis and Aegina in the distance, and

farther off the Attic coast lying blue but clear on the northern

horizon.

Emerging at last from the valley we cross a little maritime plain,

covered with lemon-groves, and reach the site of the ancient Epidaurus.

Its position is very lovely. From the little maritime plain, backed by

high mountains with wooded sides, a rocky peninsula juts out into the

sea, united to the mainland only by a narrow neck of low marshy ground.

It divides two bays from each other: the northern bay is well sheltered

and probably formed the ancient harbour; the southern bay is an open

roadstead. The ancient city seems to have lain chiefly on the peninsula,

but to have extended also to the shores of the two bays. The rocky sides

of the peninsula fall steeply into the sea, and it rises in two peaks to

a height of about two hundred and fifty feet; the eastern peak is

somewhat the higher. On the edge of the cliffs may be seen in some

places, especially on the southern side of the peninsula, remains of the

strong walls which enclosed the city. They are built chiefly in the

polygonal style, of large blocks well cut and jointed.

The peninsula, now mostly overgrown with brushwood and shrubs, commands

fine views both seaward and landward. The coast southward in the

direction of Troezen is very bold and grand, the mountains rising here

abruptly to a great height from the sea. At the head of the bay, on the

other hand, the hills, wooded with pines, are lower, and between them

appears the mouth of the valley up which the path leads through thickly

wooded glens to the sacred grove of Aesculapius.

XXVII. THE TEMPLE IN AEGINA.—The temple stands on the top of a hill

towards the north-east corner of the island, commanding superb views

over the sea and the coasts of Attica and Peloponnese. It is distant

about two and a half hours from the town of Aegina. Travellers from

Athens who wish to visit the temple commonly land in the fine rocky bay

of Hagia Marina on the eastern side of the island. A steep declivity,

sparsely wooded with pine-trees, leads up from the shore of the bay to

the temple. I shall always remember how on a lovely day in spring we

landed here and lay under the pine-trees, looking down on the intensely

blue but crystalline waters of the bay. The air was full of the

fragrance of the pines, the yellow broom was in flower at our feet, and

visible across the sea was the coast of Attica. It was a scene such as

Theocritus might have immortalised.

XXVIII. THE SANCTUARY OF POSEIDON IN CALAURIA.—The sanctuary is situated

very picturesquely on a saddle between the two highest peaks of the

island, both of which are covered with pine-woods. A walk of about an

hour brings us to it from Poros, the modern capital of the island. The

path at first skirts the southern shore of the island for a short way,

then turns and ascends in a north-westerly direction through the

pine-forest. From the sanctuary, which stands at a height of about six

hundred feet above the sea, beautiful and wide prospects open between

the wooded hills both to the north and the south. We look down on the

sea with its multitudinous bays, creeks, promontories, and islands

stretched out before us and framed as in a picture between the pine-clad

hills on either hand. A fitter home could hardly have been found for the

sea-god whose favourite tree—the pine—still mantles the greater part of

the island.

XXIX. TROEZEN.—The plain of Troezen lies between the sea and a range of

rough and rocky hills, wooded with dark evergreens and stunted trees,

which shut it in on the west and south. The northern part of the plain

is marshy in places, and the marshes breed fever among the sallow

inhabitants of Damala, the wretched hamlet which nestles among trees at

the foot of the hills in the inmost corner of the plain, close to the

ruins of Troezen. Stretches of pasture-land, however, and of vineyards

alternate with the swamps; and eastward, toward the island of Calauria,

the plain is well watered, cultivated like a garden, and verdant with

vines, olives, lemon-groves, and fig-trees. Seen from the water of the

beautiful almost landlocked bay the green of this rich vegetation, with

the tall dark cypresses towering conspicuously over all, is refreshing

to eyes accustomed to the arid plains and hills of Greece. At Damala

groves of oranges and lemons yield the villagers a considerable return.

On higher ground, to the north-west of the village, are the ruins of

Troezen. The glorious prospect over plain and mountain and sea is

unchanged; but of the city itself, which, if we may trust Pausanias, its

people regarded with such fond patriotic pride, nothing is left but some

insignificant ruins overgrown with weeds and dispersed amid a wilderness

of bushes. An isolated craggy mountain, rising steeply on the farther

side of a deep ravine, was the ancient acropolis. The ascent is

toilsome, especially if it be made at noon on an airless summer day with

the sun blazing pitilessly from a cloudless sky, the rocks so hot that

you cannot touch them without pain, the loose stones slipping at every

step, the dry withered shrubs and herbage crackling under foot and

blinding you with clouds of dust and down. The wonderful view from the

summit, however, makes amends for the labour of the ascent, ranging as

it does across the green fertile plain at our feet and away beyond a

bewildering maze of islands, capes, and bays to Sunium on the north-east

and the snowy peak of Parnassus on the north-west.

Another picturesque bit of scenery, of a different kind, may be seen by

following up the ravine to the point where at a great height it is

spanned by a single small arch of grey stone, which the peasants call

the Devil’s Bridge. It carries the path and a tiny aqueduct, hewn out of

one block of stone, across the narrow but profound abyss. High beetling

crags rise above the little bridge; ferns and ivy mantle thickly one of

the rocky sides of the lyn beneath it; and trees droop over the stream

that murmurs in the depths below. This is the stream which Pausanias

calls the Golden River. Luxuriant lemon-groves now line its banks where

it issues from the ravine on the plain of Troezen.

XXX. FROM TROEZEN TO EPIDAURUS.—We left the ruins of Troezen at

half-past twelve in the afternoon, and rode northward across the broad

flat neck of land which connects the mountainous peninsula of Methana

with the mainland. In fifty minutes we reached the shore of the lagoon

which is formed at the head of the Bay of Methana by the Potami river,

the Golden River of Pausanias. After making a detour round the lagoon we

came, at half-past one, to the beach at the point where the stream flows

out of the lagoon into the sea. Thence we rode for some way along the

beach, then over a rocky point, after which the path kept inland a

little from the sea. But all through our journey from Troezen to

Kato-Phanari the mountains rose at no great distance from us on the

left. By half-past two we were opposite Lesia, a hamlet at the foot of a

high rocky mountain, with a glen on its eastern side, down which comes a

stream. But the bed of the stream, when we crossed it, was dry. Below

the hamlet in the plain are olives. A little before four o’clock we came

to a ruined mediaeval or modern tower perched on an eminence to our

right, between us and the sea. Near it stands a small chapel beside a

fine carob-tree. The mountains now advanced to the water’s edge, and our

path led along their bushy and rocky slopes, winding round bays and

headlands at a considerable height above the sea. Here we enjoyed fine

views across the spacious bay to the high, mountainous, and rugged

peninsula of Methana, which wears a sombre aspect due perhaps to the

dark colour of its volcanic rocks. Farther on the path, though never far

from the sea, trended inland and we passed over a great deal of stony

ground mostly planted with olives. At many places along our route in the

course of the day the peasants were at work gathering the olives from

the trees. Another feature in the day’s ride was the great number of

carob-trees we passed, some of them very fine trees, with dark, smooth,

glossy leaves. Finally the path ascended a steep rocky slope and brought

us at half-past four to the village of Kato-Phanari, very picturesquely

situated high on the side of a mountain, which a short way above the

village rises up in rugged precipices of grey rock. Twilight was coming

on, but enough of daylight remained to allow me to appreciate the beauty

of the prospect from the loftily situated village across the sea to the

islands, the high conspicuous peninsula of Methana, and the long line of

headlands stretching away towards Epidaurus, all bathed in the warm

though fast fading light of a winter evening.

Next morning we left Kato-Phanari soon after eight o’clock. The path

rose steeply up the mountain-side in view of the sea. In a little less

than an hour we reached Ano-Phanari, a village overlooking the sea,

situated far up the side of a lofty rocky mountain which faces southward

to the still higher precipitous mountain on whose seaward face, below

the precipices, stands the lower village of Kato-Phanari. On this latter

mountain, or rather on the summit of the range to which it belongs,

called Mount Ortholithion, certain ceremonies are said to have been

performed, time out of mind, by the peasants in seasons of drought and

pestilence.

At Ano-Phanari I heard of remains of an ancient fortress in the

neighbourhood, and set off with a guide to visit them. A walk of a few

minutes in a north-easterly direction brought us to the top of the

mountain, where the remains are to be seen. The situation is a

remarkably fine one. Precipices descending towards the sea encircle the

summit on the north and north-east, and the views across the Saronic

Gulf to Aegina, Salamis, and Megara are magnificent. Some mediaeval

remains, comprising walls and two or more ruined chapels, are to be seen

on the summit, and on its southern side, towards the village, there is a

ruined fortification wall built of large irregular blocks. Thus the

ancient fortress which occupied this commanding situation appears to

have been repaired and inhabited in the Middle Ages. What the name of

the place was in antiquity we do not know.

The villagers called my attention to several holes in the rocks between

the fortress and the village from which streams of warm air issue. The

air from one of the holes was hot enough to warm me, though the morning

was cold. In this particular hole, too, I could hear a rumbling sound as

of water boiling or wind blowing underground.

We left Ano-Phanari about ten o’clock and descended westward, out of

sight of the sea, into a small trough-like plain or valley surrounded on

all sides by rocky and barren mountains. Passing some insignificant

ruins in the little plain, we ascended the mountains northward by a

steep rocky path that led into a narrow upland valley running north and

south and enclosed by hills, the sides of which were shaggy with bushes

of various sorts. This dale we traversed from end to end. Through a

narrow opening or gorge in the mountains on its eastern side we obtained

a striking glimpse of part of the promontory of Methana, mostly in

shadow, but with gleams of sunshine resting on it here and there. At the

northern end of the valley, ascending a ridge, we saw stretched out

below us at some depth a wide open valley of roughly circular shape. Our

path, which was again very rugged, did not descend into the valley, but

skirted its eastern side, keeping up on the mountain, till it turned

eastward through a gap in the hills. On passing through the gap a view

of the sea with all its coasts and islands shining in the sun (for after

a dull morning the day had brightened) suddenly burst upon us. Salamis

was conspicuous to the north, and to the east of it appeared Mount

Pentelicus with the marble quarries visible even at that distance as

white patches on its side. Far below us lay Epidaurus, its little

peninsula stretching out into the blue bay. We were at a great height

above the sea, but now gradually descended to it in the direction of

Epidaurus by a steep rugged path running obliquely down the bushy side

of the mountain. Thus we came at last into a little maritime plain,

traversed it from south to north, and passing some lemon-groves reached

the modern village of Palaea Epidauros or Old Epidaurus about half-past

two.

The village stands on the shore at the head of a deep narrow sheltered

inlet formed by the peninsula of ancient Epidaurus on the south and a

higher promontory, wooded with low green pines, on the north. Beside the

village a little headland runs out into the water; it is crowned with a

white-washed chapel of St. Nicholas, which stands in a large walled

enclosure with two cypress-trees growing in front of it. The church

seems to occupy the site of the sanctuary of Hera mentioned by

Pausanias.

XXXI. METHANA.—Methana is still the name of the mountainous peninsula

which runs far out into the sea from the coast of Troezen, forming a

very conspicuous landmark in the Saronic Gulf. The isthmus which joins

it to the mainland, about a thousand feet wide, was fortified in the

Peloponnesian war by the Athenians, who established a fortified post on

the peninsula, whence they ravaged the coasts of Troezen and Epidaurus.

Remains of the wall across the isthmus may still be seen with the two

castles on the opposite shores. These fortifications were renewed in the

Middle Ages; and the Greeks attempted to make use of them in the War of

Independence. The peninsula itself is a mountainous mass of grand and

picturesque outline. In the heart of it the chief peak, the conical

Mount Chelona, rises to a height of between two and three thousand feet.

Most of the peninsula is of volcanic origin, the prevailing rock being a

dark red or brown trachyte. The general character of the scenery is one

of barren desolation, the whole region, with the exception of a few

narrow strips on the coast, being occupied by the sharp mountain-ridges

which radiate from Mount Chelona. Narrow gullies divide these ridges

from each other. Water is scarce, and the air dry and hot. The

inhabitants, however, contrive to cultivate patches of ground, supported

by terraces, high up on the mountain sides. The contrast is great

between this desolate and arid mountain-mass, and the rich and

well-watered plain of Troezen which adjoins it on the south.

XXXII. NAUPLIA.—Nauplia, now a busy flourishing seaport, and one of the

chief towns of Greece, occupies the northern side of a rocky peninsula

which juts out westward into the Argolic Gulf, near the head of the gulf

and on its eastern side. The northern side of the peninsula is flat, and

here the narrow and not too savoury streets of Nauplia are crowded

together. Thus the town looks across the harbour to the Argolic plain

and has no sea-view. The southern side of the peninsula, at the back of

the town, is a long and lofty rock called Itsh-Kaleh, which seems to

have been the original citadel of Nauplia; for ancient walls, built in

the polygonal style, may be seen in places serving as foundations for

the mediaeval and modern fortifications. Other remains of antiquity

exist in the shape of rock-cuttings, staircases, cisterns, and so forth.

The steep southern slope of the rock is thickly overgrown with cactus.

On the northern side of the peninsula, between it and the shore of the

Argolic plain, stretches the harbour which gives Nauplia its commercial

importance. Though spacious, it is very shallow; large steamers have to

anchor far out.

An isthmus connects the peninsula with the mainland. Immediately on the

landward, that is, eastern side of the isthmus, the massive and imposing

rock of Palamidi, one of the strongest fortresses in Greece, towers up

abruptly to a height of over seven hundred feet. The fortifications

which crown its summit were built by the Venetians and Turks; they now

serve as a prison. In their walls, as well as in the walls of

Itsh-Kaleh, are built many Venetian inscriptions, some of them bearing

the lion of St. Mark. Three sides of the mighty rock are precipitous,

but on the south-eastern side it is accessible, being joined by a ridge

to the hills. The ascent from Nauplia is by a long staircase at the

north-western corner of the fortress; it begins close to the gate of the

town. The name Palamidi is derived from Palamedes, the son of Nauplius.

Palamedium was probably the ancient name of the fortress, though no

classical writer mentions it. The prospect from the summit over the gulf

and plain of Argos, with the background of mountains encircling the

plain, is very fine. Nor is the view from the quay of Nauplia across the

bay to the mountains of Argolis one to be easily forgotten, especially

if seen by moonlight, when the sea is calm, the stars are shining, and

the tall yard-arms of the lateen-rigged craft stand out like black wings

against the sky, now blotting out and now disclosing a star as the boats

heave on the gentle swell.

XXXIII. THE SPRINGS OF THE ERASINUS.—From Argos the road to Tegea goes

south-west. At first it skirts the foot of the steep Larisa, and then

runs through the southern part of the Argolic plain. On the right rise

the mountains, of no great height, which bound the plain on the west.

About three miles from Argos we quit the highway and strike westward

towards the hills through a beautiful avenue of fine silver poplars,

plane-trees, and oleanders. It soon brings us to the springs.

The spot is very picturesque. A rugged mountain here descends in

precipices of yellowish limestone to the plain, and at its foot a body

of clear sparkling water comes rushing impetuously in several streams

from the rocks, partly issuing from a low cavern, partly welling up from

the ground. Under the rocks the water forms a pellucid but shallow pool,

where water-plants of a vivid green grow thickly; then flowing through

the arches of a wall, which partially dams up the pool, it is diverted

into several channels shaded by tall poplars, willows, and mulberries,

and so turns in a short space a dozen mills—the Mills of Argos, as they

are called. After watering the rice-fields, the channels unite once more

into a river, which finds its way into the sea through swampy ground,

among thick tangled beds of reeds and sedge, some three miles only from

its source at the foot of the hills. This river, the modern Kephalari,

is the Erasinus (‘the lovely river’) of antiquity. It is the only river

of the Argolic plain which flows summer and winter alike; and the

opinion both of the ancient and the modern Greeks that it is an outlet

of the Stymphalian lake in Arcadia appears to be well founded.

In the face of the limestone cliff, a few feet above the springs of the

river, are the mouths of two caves. A staircase leads up to them.

Passing through the mouth of the larger we find ourselves in a lofty

dimly-lighted cavern with an arched roof, like a Gothic cathedral, which

extends into the mountain for a distance of two hundred feet or more.

Water drips from the roof, forming long stalactites. Some light

penetrates into the cave from its narrow mouth, but even at high noon it

is but a dim twilight. Bats, the natural inhabitants of the gloomy

cavern, whir past our heads, as if resenting the intrusion. Several

branches open off the main cave. The longest of them, opening to the

left, communicates at its inmost end with the upper air by means of a

windowlike aperture. In another branch, also to the left, there is a

low, narrow, pitch-dark opening, which, if explored with a light,

reveals at its far end a crevice descending apparently into the bowels

of the mountain. The smaller of the two caves, to the north, is walled

off and forms a chapel of the Panagia Kephalariotissa. The worship of

Pan, which Pausanias mentions, may have been held in this or the

neighbouring cavern; for Pan, the shepherd’s god, loved to haunt caves,

and in these two caves shepherds with their flocks still seek shelter

from rain and storm. The chapel of the Panagia, in which there are some

ancient blocks, may very well have succeeded to a shrine of Pan, or

perhaps of Dionysus, who was also worshipped here. A festival is still

held annually on the spot on the eighteenth of April; it may be nothing

but a continuation, in a changed form, of the festival of Dionysus

called Tyrbe, which Pausanias mentions.

In summer the place is now a favourite resort of holiday-makers from

Argos, who take their pleasure in a white-washed summer-house or covered

shed at the mouth of the cave. The whole scene—the rocky precipices, the

shady caverns, the crystal stream, the tranquil pool, the verdure and

shade of the trees—is at once so beautiful and agreeable, that if it had

been near Athens it would probably have been renowned in song and

legend. But Argos had no Sophocles to sing its praises in immortal

verse.

XXXIV. THE LERNEAN MARSH.—Mount Pontinus, which rises above the village

of Lerna, is a hill of no great height, but of broad massive outline. On

its crest are seen from below against the sky the walls and towers of a

mediaeval castle crowning the summit. The slope of the hill towards

Lerna is on the whole even and uniform and tufted with low plants, but

toward the south-east it is broken by some high lines of rocks. The

carriage road from Argos skirts the foot of the hill and traverses the

village. Beside the road rise the springs both of the Pontinus brook and

the Amymone; and between the road and the sea is the Lernean marsh. In

approaching Lerna from Argos and entering the pass between Mount

Pontinus and the sea we first come to the rush-fringed spring of the

Pontinus on the left side of the road. The stream is a mere brook of

clear water bordered by rushes and tall grasses and almost choked with

green water-plants. A great part of the water is diverted at the spring

to turn a mill which stands on the shore. The whole course of the brook

from its source to the sea is only a few hundred yards.

After passing the source of the Pontinus and traversing in a few minutes

the village of Lerna we come to the springs of the Amymone, which rise

beside the road at the southern end of the village, a few yards to the

north of a white-washed chapel of St. John. The springs are copious and

issue from under rocks, forming at once a shallow pool of beautifully

clear water, from which the stream flows towards the sea in a bed

fringed with reeds. Great beds of reeds, marking the site of the Lernean

marsh, grow also beside the pool and in the narrow stretch of flat

swampy ground between it and the sea. A fig-tree has rooted itself among

the rocks from which the springs flow, and a few yards farther off are a

mulberry-tree and a silver poplar.

Some eighty yards or so to the north-east of the springs but completely

hidden by a screen of trees is the Alcyonian Lake described by

Pausanias. It is a pool of still, dark, glassy water surrounded by great

reeds and grasses and tall white poplars with silvery stems. Though

distant only about thirty yards from the highroad and the village, the

spot is as wild and lonely as if it lay in the depths of some pathless

forest of the New World. I sought it for some time in vain, and when at

last I came upon it, in the waning light of a winter afternoon,

everything seemed to enhance the natural horror of the scene. The sky

was dark save for one gleam of sunlit cloud which was reflected in the

black water of the pool. The wind sighed among the reeds and rustled the

thin leaves of the poplars. Altogether I could well imagine that

superstitions might gather about this lonely pool in the marsh. Of such

a spot in England tales of unhappy love, of murder and suicide, would be

told. To the Greeks of old it seemed one of the ways to hell. The man

who drove me from Argos said, like Pausanias, that the pool had never

been fathomed and was bottomless.

XXXV. THE ANIGRAEAN ROAD.—South of Lerna the road skirts the shore for

some distance. Leaving the village of Kiveri the path runs along the

slope of Mount Zavitza, which falls steeply to the sea on the left. This

is the district called Anigraea by Pausanias. The road is still, as it

was in his days, very rugged and bad. Now and then we come to a little

cove with a beach at the mouth of a narrow glen which cleaves the

mountain-side; elsewhere the sea is bordered throughout by sheer cliffs,

above which the path scrambles up hill and down dale. The sides of the

mountains are chiefly clothed with lentisks and wild olives, with a

patch of corn-field here and there. In about two hours and a half from

Kiveri the path arrives opposite the Anavolo, the ancient Dine. It is an

abundant source of fresh water rising in the sea, about a quarter of a

mile from the narrow beach under the cliffs. The body of fresh water

appears to be fully fifty feet in diameter. In calm weather it may be

seen rising with such force as to form a convex surface, disturbing the

sea for several hundred feet around. It is clearly the exit of a

subterraneous river of some magnitude, and thus corresponds with the

Dine of Pausanias. After clambering along the Anigraea for nearly three

hours, we find that the mountain abruptly ceases, and the maritime plain

of Thyrea stretches out before us to the south. This is what Pausanias

describes as “a tract of country on the left, reaching down to the sea,

where trees, especially olives, thrive well.” The plain is about five

miles long, but nowhere more than half that in breadth; its soil is a

rich loam; corn-fields and olive-groves cover its surface.

XXXVI. THE BATTLEFIELD OF SELLASIA.—At the present day the track from

Arachova to Sparta follows the bed of the Kelephina river (the ancient

Oenus) for some seven or eight miles. Path there is none. You ride in

the stony bed of the river, crossing its scanty water backwards and

forwards again and again. The scenery is picturesque, the river winding

between high banks, which are generally green with shrubs and trees.

Indeed many trees grow in the very bed of the stream, and the traveller

in riding has sometimes to be careful not to be knocked off by their

boughs. In front of us, as the valley widens, we get glimpses of the

high, blue, snowy range of Taygetus. The point at which, quitting the

bed of the stream, we ascend its western bank, and the whole magnificent

range of Taygetus appears in full view across the valley of the Eurotas,

was the scene of the battle of Sellasia.

XXXVII. SPARTA.—Ancient Sparta stood upon a broad stretch of fairly

level ground, broken by a few low eminences, on the right bank of the

Eurotas, where the river makes a bend to the south-east. Thus the city

was bounded on the north and east by the wide gravelly bed of the river.

Approaching from the north by the highroad from Tegea you cross the

river by a new iron bridge, then traversing a flat strip of ground

ascend through a hollow between two of the low eminences or hills which

were included within the circuit of ancient Sparta. Leaving these

eminences on the right and left you emerge to the south upon a level

stretch of cornland, with olive-trees thickly dotted over it. When I saw

it the wheat was breast high, and its waving surface, dappled with the

shadows of multitudinous olive-trees, presented a rich and park-like

aspect. This plain is about half a mile across; on the south it is

terminated by the low broad-backed ridge, running east and west, on

which stands the town of New Sparta.

This new town, which has sprung up since the War of Independence, is

charming. The streets, crossing each other at right angles, are broad

and pleasant. Many of the houses are surrounded by gardens, and the soft

verdure of the trees peeping over the low walls is grateful and

refreshing to the eyes. The gardens abound with orange-trees, which,

when laden with fruit, remind one of the gardens of the Hesperides. In

spring the air, even in the streets, is heavy with rich perfumes. On the

south the town is bounded by the river of Magoula, which here flows from

west to east, to fall into the Eurotas a little below the town, opposite

the steep heights of Therapnae. Westward the plain extends three or four

miles to the foot of the magnificent range of Taygetus, which rises

abruptly with steep rocky sides to the height of nearly eight thousand

feet. A conspicuous landmark to the west, viewed from Sparta, is the

sharp conical hill of Mistra, leaning upon, but still sharply defined

against, the Taygetus range. Though really a mountain over two thousand

feet high, it is completely dwarfed by the immense wall of Taygetus

rising at its back.

The country between Sparta and Taygetus offers points of the most

picturesque beauty, especially if, instead of following the highroad,

which is rather tame, you strike straight across for Mistra from the

ruined theatre of Old Sparta. It was a bright evening in spring or early

summer (towards the end of April, but summer is earlier in Greece than

in England) when I took this walk, and the impression it made on me was

ineffaceable. The orange-groves, the gardens fresh and green on all

sides, men taking their ease in the warm evening air at a picturesque

tavern under a great spreading tree, children playing in the green

lanes, a group of Spartan maidens filling their pitchers at a spring

that gurgled from a grey time-worn wall, a river (the Magoula) spanned

by a quaint old bridge and winding through groves of orange-trees

spangled with golden fruit, and towering above all the stupendous

snow-clad range of Taygetus in the west, with the sunset sky above

it—all this made up a picture or rather a succession of pictures, of

which it is impossible to convey in words the effect. It was a dream of

Arcadia, the Arcadia of poets, and of painters like the Poussins.

In this union of luxuriant verdure with grand mountain scenery the

valley of Sparta recalls the more famed but not more beautiful Granada

with its green spreading Vega, its lilac-tinted mountains basking under

the bright sky of Spain, and the snowy range of the Sierra Nevada lying

like a great white cloud on the southern horizon. But Taygetus towers

above the spectator at Sparta as the Sierra Nevada certainly does not

over the spectator at Granada. To see it on a bright day with all its

superb outline—its sharp peaks and grand sweeping curves—clearly defined

in the pellucid air, its long line of snowy summits glistering in the

sun, and the deep purple shadows brooding on its lower slopes, is a

sight not to be forgotten. A recent explorer of Greece has observed that

of all Greek cities Sparta enjoys the most beautiful situation. So far

as my experience goes, the observation is just.

XXXVIII. MISTRA.—The scenery of the district at the eastern foot of

Mount Taygetus, to which Pausanias here conducts us, is well described

by Vischer as follows: “ While in Therapne, Amyclae, and the round

buildings of Vaphio and Marmalia we met with vestiges of a very ancient

civilisation which flourished in the plain of the Eurotas before the

Dorian invasion; on the other hand when we reach the first line of the

rocky heights of Taygetus, we find ourselves in the Middle Ages—in the

days of the Franks and the Byzantines. The first stage of Taygetus rises

abruptly from the plain in bold cliffs broken by many gullies, from

which the mountain torrents issue. Crowning with its picturesque ruins

the summit of one of these heights, an hour’s ride to the west of

Sparta, is the fortress of Mistra, built by William de Villehardouin in

the middle of the thirteenth century. Below the castle, on the

mountain-side, is spread the extensive town, once a place of much more

importance, now half in ruins, with its numerous churches and

monasteries falling into decay. Yet for the traveller, in spite of its

decay, Mistra must remain in virtue of its situation one of the most

enchanting spots which he can find in Greece or anywhere; and the

prospect from the castle height, on the one side over the whole plain,

on the other side up to the snowy peaks of Taygetus, across the fruitful

levels and wooded slopes of the first step in the mountain staircase,

needs only a view of the sea to be second to none.

“ The whole neighbourhood, too, is one of indescribable beauty. The way

from New Sparta by the village of Magoula, which lies scattered among

fruit-trees of every sort, is delightful enough. It passes through a

plain watered by fresh brooks, where the drooping branches of the

olive-trees and fig-trees often literally bar the way, and in riding one

has to take heed not to be hung by the head among the boughs. But all

this is almost forgotten when we ride from Mistra by Parori and

Hagiannis along the foot of the mountains to Sklavochori. On this ride

all the beauties of the Eurotas valley are crowded together; for here we

have wild magnificence combined with the luxuriant loveliness of a rich

southern vegetation. Parori, which lies close to Mistra and was formerly

a suburb of it, is at the mouth of a dark and deep gorge, from which a

stream comes brawling. This gorge is pointed out to travellers as the

Caeadas, the gully into which the Spartans used to throw prisoners of

war and afterwards malefactors; and certainly the Caeadas, as well as

the Apothetae, where weakly children were exposed, is to be sought in

one of the ravines of Mount Taygetus, of which hardly any appears so

stern and awful as the one at Parori. At the mouth of the gorge, just

above the village, there is a very lovely spot. From a Turkish fountain

there pours a copious stream of water, which trickles through creeping

plants of all sorts into a large basin, and before it stand some fine

plane-trees.

“Farther on, the way winds through wood and thicket, where fruit-trees

alternate with tall oaks, elms, and plane-trees, to the village of

Hagiannis, hidden among groves of oranges, lemons, fig-trees, and

olives. Amongst the woods dark cypresses rise singly like columns; many

Judas-trees stood in full blossom, forming with their rosy red a

pleasant contrast to the various shades of green, while the oleanders,

growing as high as trees beside every rill, had not yet unfolded their

buds. Wild vines climb to the very topmost boughs, and many other

creepers, such as ivy, bindweed, and clematis, often weave trees and

shrubs into an impenetrable thicket. In wealth of vegetation this

district is unsurpassed in Greece, and no one who has set foot on Greek

soil should fail to visit it. Yet it often happens that travellers,

satisfied with having visited Sparta, turn back from it immediately, and

then, full of the impressions left on them by the plains of Tripolitza,

of Argolis, and of the neighbourhood of Athens, complain that there are

no trees in Greece.”

The present writer, though he was not farther south than Parori, can

confirm the general accuracy of this description. The view of the

beautiful valley of Sparta from the steep hill of Mistra, crowded with

monuments of the Middle Ages, and dominated by the towering mass of

Mount Taygetus, which rises like a wall behind it, combines almost every

element of natural beauty and historical association. Immediately below

the Frankish castle, which crowns the summit of the hill, are the ruins

of a spacious Byzantine palace, once the residence of the governor of

the Morea, who ranked next after the emperor. Its great hall opened on

the palace garden, from the terrace of which the wonderful view is to be

had over the valley. Again, the fountain, described by Vischer, at the

mouth of the tremendous gorge, is a scene not to be forgotten. The water

gushes from many mouths in the face of a wall built against the rock. A

stone seat encircles the trunk of the great spreading plane-tree which

fronts the fountain. All this, with the gloomy gorge behind, makes up a

picture such as is oftener seen in dreams than in reality. Once more,

the village of Trypi, situated a little to the north of Mistra, at the

entrance of the famed Langada pass over Mount Taygetus, is one of

idyllic beauty. It is embowered among woods and orchards on the

mountain-side; and entering it from the south you pass the mouth of a

narrow glen carpeted with ferns and overarched with trees.

XXXIX. ON THE ROAD FROM SPARTA TO ARCADIA.—Pausanias now returns from

Mount Taygetus to Sparta and sets off northward by the road which led to

Megalopolis in Arcadia. As far as the Arcadian frontier the track

follows the valley of the Eurotas, keeping on the right or west bank of

the river and generally running close to the stream, the banks of which

are fringed with oleanders, fig-trees, and planes. For the first three

miles the valley is open and possesses that combination of charms which

renders the vale of Sparta the most beautiful region of Greece. The

river flows on the whole at the foot of the somewhat bare hills which

rise on the eastern side of the valley, dipping their rocky declivities

in many places in its water. But on the other side low rolling hills,

covered with excellent soil and intersected by streams, stretch away to

where the long range of Taygetus stands up against the western sky, its

majestic snowy peaks contrasting finely with the dark woods of its lower

slopes and the luxuriant vegetation of the valley. In this open part of

the valley must have lain all the places and objects mentioned by

Pausanias between Sparta and the image of Modesty; but no one has yet

ventured to identify them. About three miles from Sparta the valley

contracts and the scenery changes. We are no longer in a great open

valley covered with luxuriant vegetation and enclosed by grand

mountains. It is a narrow dale through which we are passing, hemmed in

by low hills, at the foot of which the river flows between banks thickly

wooded with willows, poplars, oleanders, and plane-trees. Well-tilled

fields lie on the gentle lower slopes of the hills and occupy the

stretches of flat land where the hills retire from the river. The bare

upper declivities are dotted here and there with a few olives.

XL. CAPE MALEA.—The sides of Cape Malea, the south-eastern extremity of

the Greek mainland and of Europe, are formed by dizzy crags, about a

thousand feet high, of dark bare rock, seamed and scarred in places by

cracks and fissures. At the extreme end of the cape there is a great

natural recess in the cliff; and here in the face of the bluff, about

two hundred and fifty feet above the sea, there is a tiny terrace

sloping to the perpendicular edge of the precipice. Two chapels are

built on the terrace, and close by, partly hewn in the rock, is the cell

of a half-naked and nearly savage hermit. From the terrace you may

clamber down, at the risk of your neck, to a cave opening on the foam of

the great rollers which break here eternally. In the inmost corner of

the cave is a heap of human bones. The sense of utter solitude and

isolation from the world which the spot is fitted to evoke in the mind

is broken by the sight of passing vessels. In fair weather steamers of

all nations pass continually; and small Greek sailing-boats, with their

reddish-brown or white lateen sails, skim along close under the cliffs.

But the cape has a bad name for storms and heavy surf; at times even

large steamers are unable to weather it for a week together. There was

an ancient proverb, “When you have rounded Malea, forget your home.”

XLI. MONEMVASIA.—The ancient Minoa[8] is now Monemvasia, an island about

half a mile long, close to the shore, with which it is connected by a

long old stone bridge. The island is a lofty precipitous rock,

resembling Gibraltar, or the Bass Rock and Dumbarton Rock in Scotland.

The summit, crowned by the ruins of a mediaeval fortress and a mass of

tumble-down roofless churches and houses overgrown with weeds, is now

only a sheepwalk. From the summit the rock falls away in sheer and lofty

precipices, especially on the north. The modern town lies huddled up at

the foot of the cliffs on the southern side. Strong walls encircle it,

which are connected with the ruined fortress on the top of the rock.

Within the walls everything is fast falling to decay. Fine churches,

high archways, great private houses, all deserted and in ruins, testify

to the former prosperity and the present decline of the town. Trade has

quite deserted it; the coasting steamers call only at rare intervals.

From the town a zigzag path leads up the face of the rock to the old

citadel on the summit.

-----

Footnote 8:

The reference is to Minoa on the eastern coast of Laconia, not to the

better known but less picturesque Minoa near Megara.

-----

In the Middle Ages Monemvasia was one of the chief places of the

Levantine trade and one of the strongest fortresses in the Morea. It

gave its name to Malmsey wine, which was grown in the Cyclades,

especially Tenos, but was called after the port whence it was shipped to

the west.

XLII. MAINA.—The great central peninsula of southern Greece, which

Pausanias describes in detail, has been known since the Middle Ages by

the name of Maina or Mani. The backbone of the peninsula is the great

range of Taygetus, which runs south till it terminates in Taenarum, the

modern Cape Matapan, the southern extremity of Greece. The scenery of

the peninsula is wild and savage; the villages, hedged in by

impenetrable thickets of cactus, cling like eagles’ eyries to the faces

of apparently inaccessible cliffs, and are reached by stony and

exceedingly toilsome footpaths—the only semblance of roads in these

secluded highlands. Almost everywhere the surface is nothing but the

naked rock. Wood there is none, but a few bushes and here and there some

tufts of grass have rooted themselves in the crevices of the rocks, and

furnish a scanty pasture to the sheep and goats. The miserable stony

soil, wherever it exists, is carefully husbanded by means of terraces,

and under the soft southern sky of Laconia yields a tolerable return.

There are no springs or brooks; water is obtained only from cisterns,

which are kept closed by their owners, and leave to draw from them has

to be paid for.

The inhabitants, the Mainotes, Mainiotes, or Maniates, are a hardy and

warlike race of mountaineers, who claim to be descended from the ancient

Spartans. In the fastnesses of their rugged mountains they are said to

have retained their primitive heathenism till the latter half of the

ninth century; and the Turks never succeeded in subjugating them. As

pirates they were greatly dreaded. They are still notorious for the

relentless ferocity of their blood-feuds, which are so common that every

family of importance has a tower in which to take refuge from the

avengers of blood. In these towers persons implicated in a blood-feud

have been known to live for many years without ever coming out. To this

day many heads of families dare not quit their shelter except under a

strong guard of armed retainers. A village will contain twenty to thirty

of such strongholds. Each tower is surrounded by a few low huts, which

serve as workshops and as the lodgings of the subordinate members of the

household. Frequently tower and huts together are enclosed within a

fortification wall strengthened with turrets and loopholed. Bitter feuds

often rage between the towers of the same village.

XLIII. PHARAE AND THE MESSENIAN PLAIN.—The ancient Pharae, or Pherae,

probably occupied the site of the modern Kalamata, an industrial town

situated on the left bank of the broad stony bed of the Nedon, a mile

from the sea. Telemachus, in search of his father, lodged for the night

at Pharae on his way from Pylus to Sparta, and again on his return. It

is a long day’s ride from Sparta to Kalamata, by the magnificent Langada

pass over Mount Taygetus. Pausanias does not mention the name of the

river on which Pharae stood, but from Strabo we learn that it was the

Nedon. It is a torrent which issues from a rocky gorge in Mount

Taygetus, about a mile to the north-east of a steep hill that rises at

the back of the town. This hill is crowned with a mediaeval castle,

built or occupied successively by Franks, Venetians, and Turks. The

presence of ancient hewn stones in the walls, as well as the whole

arrangement of the fortress, seem to show that a castle stood here in

antiquity also. There are no other relics of antiquity in Kalamata.

The town, with its narrow winding streets and lively bazaar, lies in the

great Messenian plain, near its south-eastern extremity. This plain,

open to the south and sheltered from the north by mountains, is the

warmest part of Greece, and on account of its wonderful fertility was

known to the ancients as Makaria or the Happy Land. Its natural wealth

and delightful climate were celebrated by Euripides in a lost play, of

which some lines have been preserved by Strabo. Here at the present day

groves of oranges, lemons, fig-trees, olives, and vineyards succeed each

other, all fenced by gigantic hedges of prickly and fantastically-shaped

cactuses and sword-like aloes, which, with the hot air, remind a

traveller from northern Europe that he is in a sub-tropical climate.

XLIV. MESSENE.—From Kalamata, the probable site of the ancient Pharae,

the road to Messene runs north-west across the fertile Messenian plain

between hedges of huge fantastically-shaped cactuses and groves of

fig-trees, olives, and vines. In front of us loom nearer and nearer the

twin peaks of Ithome and Eva rising boldly and abruptly from a single

base on the western side of the plain, and forming the natural citadel,

as it were, of the whole country. As we near their base we quit the

dusty highway and strike westward up the mountain-side by devious and

rocky paths. This brings us in time to the monastery of Vourkano, where

visitors to Messene generally spend the night.

The monastery is beautifully situated on the eastern slope of the

mountain, about a quarter of an hour’s walk below the saddle which

unites the twin peaks. The buildings, arranged in the form of a

quadrangle round a little church, stand on a fine open terrace among

cypresses, oaks, and wild olives, commanding an unimpeded view over the

Messenian plain southward to the shining waters of the gulf and

northward to where the plain ends at the foot of the hills. Ithome and

its sister peak rise from the plain about midway between these northern

hills and the gulf. Mount Eva, the lower of the two peaks, lies to the

south or south-east of Ithome, with which it is connected by a ridge or

saddle about half-way up the two mountains. The eastern wall of Messene

stood and still stands in ruins on this saddle. The city itself lay on

the western side, in the cup formed by the converging slopes of the two

mountains. The site may be compared to an immense theatre, of which the

back is formed by the saddle in question and the wings by Mount Ithome

and Mount Eva. The wretched hamlet of Mavromati lies nearly in the

middle of this theatre-like hollow; there are many remains of antiquity

in its neighbourhood. But the site of the ancient city is now chiefly

occupied by corn-fields, vineyards, and olive-groves.

The view from the top of Ithome is magnificent. The whole of the rich

Messenian plain lies stretched out beneath us. To the south the full

sweep of the Messenian gulf is seen, with the glorious snow-capped range

of Taygetus bounding both plain and gulf on the east. High up on

Taygetus is visible the gap through which the Langada pass runs. Over

this pass, which forms the direct route between Sparta and Messenia, the

Spartans must have often marched to attack their ancient foes; and it

seems just possible that the gleam of their burnished arms in the

sunshine, as the army defiled over the pass, may have been visible to

the sentinels on Ithome. Farther to the north we see the mountains of

Arcadia, with the Lycaean group conspicuous on the north-east. Westward

the view is in general bounded by nearer and lower hills, but where they

dip on the north-west and again on the south-west we catch glimpses of

the Ionian or, as the ancients also called it, the Sicilian sea.

XLV. ON THE ROAD TO OLYMPIA.—The Erymanthus, descending from the lofty

mountains of north-western Arcadia, flows between hills into the broad

open valley of the Alpheus and joins that river on its northern bank. At

its junction with the Alpheus it flows over gravel between abrupt cliffs

of pudding-stone. Its water, seen at least from the southern side of the

wide valley on a sunny day, is of a bright blue colour. After fording

the river and climbing the farther bank, the path leads through open

pastures, and then, to avoid a great bend of the river, ascends a pass

or woody gorge, where fine oaks and pines, now singly now in clumps, are

scattered in wild variety. When we have reached the summit and begin to

descend again towards the Alpheus, a series of magnificent views of the

river winding between wooded hills opens up before us. For beyond the

meeting of its waters with the Erymanthus, the valley of the Alpheus

assumes a softer and gayer aspect. Moderate heights rise on the right

bank, their gentle slopes thickly wooded with trees and shrubs of the

most varied sorts. Pine-trees, maples, planes, and tall lentisk bushes

succeed each other, varied here and there by fields and green pastures.

Across the Alpheus lie the beautiful wooded hills of Triphylia, where

many a picturesque village is seen nestling among pine-woods, and many a

height, crowned by church or ruins, stands out abruptly and

precipitously above the river. The whole country, with its woods and

streams, and the broad river flowing majestically through the middle of

the landscape, is like a great park. The illusion, however, is broken by

the path, which scrambles up hill and down dale, struggles through

thickets, and splashes through streams and torrents, in a fashion which

resembles anything rather than the trim well-kept walks and avenues of

an English park. Such is the scenery and such the path by which

Pausanias is now moving westward towards Olympia.

Dio Chrysostom has described how he lost his way in this charming

country and fell in with an old dame of the Meg Merrilies type who

professed to have the gift of second sight. He says: “Going on foot from

Heraea to Pisa by the side of the Alpheus, I was able, up to a certain

point, to make out the path. But by and by I found myself in a forest

and on broken ground, with many tracks leading to sheepfolds and

cattle-pens. And meeting with no one of whom I could ask the way I

strayed from the path and wandered up and down. It was high noon; and

seeing on a height a clump of oaks, as it might be a grove, I betook

myself thither, in the hope that from thence I might spy some path or

house. Here then I found stones piled carelessly together, and skins of

sacrificed animals hanging up, with clubs and staves, the offerings, as

I supposed, of shepherds; and a little way off, seated on the ground,

was a tall and stalwart dame, somewhat advanced in years, in rustic

attire, with long grey hair. Of her I asked what these things might be.

She answered, very civilly, in a broad Doric accent, that the spot was

sacred to Hercules, and as for herself, she had a son a shepherd and

often minded the sheep herself; that by the grace of the Mother of the

Gods she had the gift of second sight, and all the herdsmen and farmers

of the neighbourhood came to ask her about their crops and cattle.”

XLVI. OLYMPIA.—Olympia lies on the right or north bank of the Alpheus,

where the river meanders westward through a spacious valley enclosed by

low wooded hills of soft and rounded forms, beyond which appear on the

eastern horizon the loftier mountains of Arcadia. The soil of the

valley, being alluvial, is fertile; corn-fields and vineyards stretch

away in all directions. The whole aspect of the scene, without being

grand or impressive, is rich, peaceful, and pleasing. The bed of the

Alpheus is wide; but in summer the water is scanty and is divided into

several streams running over a broad gravelly bed. The sacred precinct

or Altis of Olympia lies between the river on the south and a low but

steep hill, thickly wooded with pine-trees and shrubs, which rises on

the north. This wooded hill is the ancient Mount Cronius. Immediately to

the west of the precinct the Cladeus flows between steep sandy banks

into the Alpheus from the north.

In the close hot climate of Olympia the need of a good supply of

drinking water is especially felt. For months together rain hardly

falls; between May and October a shower is a rarity. The great festival

was always held in summer (July or August), when the weather at Olympia

is cloudless and the heat intense. Hence the multitudes who flocked to

witness the games must have been much distressed by the dust and the

burning sun, against which the spreading shade of the plane-trees in the

sacred precinct could have afforded only an imperfect protection. Indeed

Lucian, doubtless with a strong touch of exaggeration, speaks of the

spectators packed together and dying in swarms of thirst and of

distemper contracted from the excessive drought. The water of the

Alpheus is not good to drink, for even in the height of summer it holds

in solution a quantity of chalky matter. The water of the Cladeus, on

the other hand, is drinkable in its normal state; but even a little rain

swells it and makes it run turbid for a long time. Hence it was

necessary to sink wells and to bring water from a distance. This was

done even in Greek times. Nine wells, some square, some round, some

lined with the usual shell-limestone, others with plaques of

terra-cotta, have been found at Olympia; and water was brought in

aqueducts from the upper valley of the Cladeus. But in Roman times the

supply was immensely improved and extended by the munificence of the

wealthy sophist Herodes Atticus. Lucian tells us how the mountebank

Peregrinus denounced Herodes and his aqueduct for pandering to the

luxury and effeminacy of the day. It was the duty of the spectators, he

said, to endure their thirst, and if need be to die of it. This doctrine

proved unacceptable to his hearers, and the preacher had to run for his

life pursued by a volley of stones.

XLVII. PHIDIAS’S IMAGE OF OLYMPIAN ZEUS.—The testimony of antiquity to

the extraordinary beauty and majesty of the image is very strong. The

Roman general Paulus Aemilius was deeply moved by the sight of it; he

felt as if in the presence of the god himself, and declared that Phidias

alone had succeeded in embodying the Homeric conception of Zeus. Cicero

says that Phidias fashioned the image, not after any living model, but

after that ideal beauty which he saw with the inward eye alone.

Quintilian asserts that the beauty of the image served to strengthen

religion, the majesty of the image equalling the majesty of the god. A

poet declared that either the god must have come from heaven to earth to

show Phidias his image, or that Phidias must have gone to heaven to

behold it. The statue was reckoned one of the seven wonders of the

world, and to die without having seen it was deemed a misfortune. The

rhetorician Dio Chrysostom, a man of fine taste, extolled it in one of

his speeches. He calls it “the most beautiful image on earth, and the

dearest to the gods.” He represents Phidias speaking of his “peaceful

and gentle Zeus, the overseer, as it were, of united and harmonious

Greece, whom by the help of my art and of the wise and good city of Elis

I set up, mild and august in an unconstrained attitude, the giver of

life and breath and all good things, the common father and saviour of

mankind.” And again in a fine passage he says: “Methinks that if one who

is heavy laden in mind, who has drained the cup of misfortune and sorrow

in life, and whom sweet sleep visits no more, were to stand before this

image, he would forget all the griefs and troubles that are incident to

the life of man.”

XLVIII. THE HERMES OF PRAXITELES.—Hermes is represented standing with

the infant Dionysus on his left arm, and the weight of his body resting

on his right foot. His form is the perfection of manly grace and vigour;

the features of his oval face, under the curly hair that encircles his

brow, are refined, strong, and beautiful; their expression is tender and

slightly pensive. The profile is of the straight Greek type, with “the

bar of Michael Angelo” over the eyebrows. The left arm of the god rests

upon the stump of a tree, over which his mantle hangs loosely in rich

folds, that contrast well with his nude body. His right arm is raised.

The child Dionysus lays his right hand confidingly on the shoulder of

Hermes; his gaze is fixed on the object, whatever it was, which Hermes

held in his right hand, and his missing left arm must have been

stretched out (as it appears in the restoration) towards the same

object. As most of Hermes’s right arm is wanting, we cannot know for

certain what he had in his right hand. Probably it was a bunch of

grapes. In a wall-painting at Pompeii a satyr is represented holding the

infant Dionysus on his left arm, while in his raised right hand he

dangles a bunch of grapes, after which the child reaches. It is highly

probable that this painting is an imitation, not necessarily at first

hand, of the work of Praxiteles; and if so, it affords a strong ground

for supposing that the missing right hand of the Hermes held a bunch of

grapes. The only objection of any weight to this view is that in the

statue Hermes is not looking at the child, as we should expect him to

be, but is gazing past him into the distance with what has been

described as a listening or dreamy look. Hence it has been suggested

that Hermes held a pair of cymbals or castanets in his hand, to the

sound of which both he and the child are listening; and a passage of

Calpurnius has been quoted in which Silenus is represented holding the

infant Dionysus on his arm and amusing him by shaking a rattle. This

certainly would well explain the attitude and look of Hermes; but on the

other hand cymbals or a rattle would not serve so well as a bunch of

grapes to characterise the infant Dionysus. The same may be said of the

suggestion that Hermes, as god of gain, held aloft a purse and was

listening to the chinking of the money in it. In his left hand Hermes

probably held his characteristic attribute, a herald’s staff; the round

hole for it in the hand is still visible.

On his head he seems to have worn a metal wreath; the deep groove for

fastening it on may be seen in the back part of the hair. Traces of dark

red paint were perceived on the hair and on the sandal of the foot when

the statue was found; the colour is supposed to have been laid on as

ground for gilding. The back of the statue, which would not be seen

well, is not carefully finished; it still shows the strokes of the

chisel. Otherwise the technical finish is exquisite. The differences of

texture between the delicate white skin of the god, the leather straps

of the sandals, the woollen stuff of the cloak, and the curly hair of

the head, are expressed in the most masterly way.

A late distinguished critic was of opinion that the Hermes is an early

work of Praxiteles, executed before he had attained a full mastery of

his art. Such a view, it would seem, can only be held by one who knows

the statue solely from photographs and casts. But no reproductions

afford an adequate idea of the beauty of the original. Engravings of it

are often no better than caricatures. Again, the dead white colour and

the mealy texture of casts give no conception of the soft, glossy,

flesh-like, seemingly elastic surface of the original, which appears to

glow with divine life. Looking at the original, it seems impossible to

conceive that Praxiteles or any man ever attained to a greater mastery

over stone than is exhibited in this astonishing work.

XLIX. LASION.—Pausanias has omitted to mention an ancient town that lay

in the wild upper valley of the Peneus, in the heart of the Elean

highlands, not far from the Arcadian frontier. This was Lasion, a place

which, from its proximity to the Arcadian boundary, was the subject of

border feuds, the Arcadians claiming possession of it, though in fact it

appears to have belonged properly to Elis. It changed hands several

times in the fifth, fourth, and third centuries B.C. The ruins of this

secluded little town were discovered by G. F. Welcker in 1842 near

Koumani, a village at the head waters of the Peneus. They may be visited

on the way from Olympia to Psophis, though the visit necessitates a

short detour to the west.

The route first follows the valley of the Cladeus through soft woodland

scenery of the richest and most charming kind, between low hills crowned

with clumps of pines. Then, still following the glen of the Cladeus, we

ascend through romantically beautiful forests of pines and ancient oaks,

and emerge on a wide breezy tableland, backed on the north by the high

mountains of northern Arcadia. In the middle of the plateau, which is

open and well cultivated, lies the scattered village of Lala. Crossing

the northern end of the tableland, which is here carpeted with ferns, we

again ascend a steep slope, and find ourselves on a still higher

tableland, covered with fine oak forests. After traversing the forest

for some time we quit the path to Psophis, which continues to run

northward, and take a path which strikes westward. The time from Lala to

the parting of the ways is about two hours. Another half-hour’s ride

through the forest, which grows denser as we advance, brings us to

Koumani, a trim well-to-do village, beautifully situated among

oak-woods. The time from Olympia is about six hours.

The ruins of Lasion, now called Kouti, are to the north of the village,

apparently on the same level with it, but a profound ravine divides them

from the village, and half an hour’s laborious descent and ascent of its

steep sides are needed to bring us to the ruins. The site is an

exceedingly strong one. Two tributaries of the Peneus, coming from the

higher mountains to the north-east, flow in deep ravines, which meet at

an acute angle. Between them stretches a long, comparatively narrow

ridge or tongue of land, which on three sides falls steeply down to the

glens; only on the east the ascent is gentle. The top of the ridge is

quite flat, and well adapted to be the site of a city. At one point it

narrows to a mere isthmus or neck which divides the level summit into

two parts, an eastern and a western. The western and smaller part was

doubtless the ancient citadel; a finely-built wall of ashlar masonry,

extending across the narrowest point of the neck, divides it from the

rest of the city. The eastern and larger part of the ridge is more or

less covered with ruins, and at its eastern end, where the ascent is

easiest, a very fine piece of the city wall is still standing. Square

towers, about seven feet broad, project from it at intervals. Walls and

towers are built of well and regularly cut blocks; the masonry resembles

that of Messene. There seem to be no traces of fortification walls on

any other side of the plateau; perhaps none existed, the inhabitants

thinking the deep ravines a sufficient defence.

The situation of Lasion is not only strong but beautiful. Tall

plane-trees overhang the streams in the deep glens far below the ruins.

To the north and north-east rises at no great distance the grand and

massive range of Mount Erymanthus; while westward the view extends,

between the heights that hem in the narrow valley of the Peneus, away

over the lowlands of Elis to the distant sea.

L. THE ERYMANTHUS.—The first sight I had of the Erymanthus, among the

mountains of northern Arcadia, is one of the scenes that dwell in the

memory. We had been travelling for hours through the thick oak-woods

which cover the outlying slopes and spurs of Mount Erymanthus on the

south, when suddenly, emerging from the forest, we looked down into a

long valley, through which flowed, between hills wooded to their

summits, a shining river, the Erymanthus. At the far end of the valley

high blue mountains closed the view. The scene, arched by the bright

Greek sky, was indeed Arcadian.

LI. THE MONASTERY OF MEGASPELEUM.—The ancient Buraicus is the stream now

called the Kalavryta river because it descends from the town of that

name. The valley, which is broad and open at Kalavryta, contracts to the

north of the town into a narrow defile flanked by huge rocks. In this

narrow valley is the great monastery of Megaspeleum, the largest and

wealthiest monastery in Greece, and indeed one of the largest and

richest monasteries of the Eastern Church. Formerly it had dependencies

even in Russia. The building and its situation are in the highest degree

picturesque. It is a huge whitewashed pile, with wooden balconies on the

outside, eight stories high, perched at a great height above the right

bank of the river, on the steep slope of a mountain and immediately

overhung by an enormous beetling crag which runs sheer up for some

hundreds of feet above the roof of the monastery. It is this overhanging

cliff which gives to the monastery its name of Megaspeleum (‘great

cave’). So completely does it overarch the lofty building that when in

the War of Independence the Egyptian soldiers of Ibrahim Pacha attempted

to destroy the monastery by letting fall masses of rock upon it from the

cliff above, the rocks fell clear of the monastery, leaving it unharmed.

The steep slope of the mountain below is occupied by the terraced

gardens of the monks, which with their rich vegetation, and the

cypresses rising here and there above them, add greatly to the charm of

the scene. A single zigzag path leads up this steep terraced slope to

the monastery. The bare precipices above, crowned with forests, the deep

wooded valley below, and the mountains rising steeply on the farther

side, make up a landscape of varied delight and grandeur, on which a

painter would love to dwell.

LII. THE GULF OF CORINTH.—After describing the view from the monastery

of Troupia on the hill of Bura, Leake makes the following remarks on the

scenery of the Gulf of Corinth, which are worth transcribing because

they convey the impression made by this wonderfully beautiful gulf on

one who in general was not given to dwell on the charms of nature. He

says: “I doubt whether there is anything in Greece, abounding as it is

in enchanting scenery and interesting recollections, that can rival the

Corinthiac Gulf. There is no lake scenery in Europe that can compete

with it. Its coasts, broken into an infinite variety of outline by the

ever-changing mixture of bold promontory, gentle slope, and cultivated

level, are crowned on every side by lofty mountains of the most pleasing

and majestic forms; the fine expanse of water inclosed in this noble

frame, though not so much frequented by ships as it ought to be by its

natural adaptation to commerce, is sufficiently enlivened by vessels of

every size and shape to present at all times an animated scene. Each

step in the Corinthiac Gulf presents to the traveller a new prospect,

not less delightful to the eye than interesting to the mind, by the

historical fame and illustrious names of the objects which surround him.

And if, in the latter peculiarity, the celebrated panorama of the

Saronic Gulf, described by Sulpicius, be preferable, that arm of the

Aegaean is in almost every part inferior to the Corinthian sea in

picturesque beauty; the surrounding mountains are less lofty and less

varied in their heights and outlines, and, unless where the beautiful

plain of Athens is sufficiently near to decorate the prospect, it is a

picture of almost unmitigated sterility and rocky wildness exhibited in

every possible form of mountain, promontory, and island. It must,

however, be admitted that it is only by comparison that such a scene can

be depreciated.” I can only confirm this estimate of the superior charms

of the Gulf of Corinth. Its waters seemed to me of an even deeper blue;

and the delicacy of the morning and evening tints—azure, lilac, and

rose—on the mountains is such that it is hard in looking at them to

believe they are of the solid earth; so unsubstantial, so fairy-like do

they seem, like the gorgeous phantasmagoria of cloudland or mountains

seen in dreams.

LIII. ON THE COAST OF ACHAIA.—Pausanias continues to move eastward along

the coast of Achaia. Beyond the Buraicus river, where it issues from its

romantic gorge, the strip of fertile plain which has skirted the coast

all the way from Aegium comes to an end. The mountains now advance to

the shore, and the road runs for a short distance along the summit of

cliffs that border the coast. Then the mountains again retreat from the

shore, leaving at their base a small maritime plain clothed with

olive-groves. A stream, the river of Diakopton, crosses the plain and

flows into the sea. It comes down from a wild and magnificent gorge,

thickly wooded with tall firs and shut in by stupendous precipices of

naked rock. Seen at nightfall under a lowering sky, with wreaths of

white mist drooping low on the black mountains, the entrance to this

gloomy gorge might pass for the mouth of hell; one could fancy Dante and

his guide wending their way into it in the darkness.

Eastward of this little plain the mountains, covered with pine forests,

again rise in precipices from the sea, hemming in the railway at their

foot. A line of fine crags runs along the face of the mountains for a

long way, their crests tufted with pine-woods, and the lower slopes at

their feet also clothed in the same mantle of sombre green.

LIV. PELLENE.—The scanty and insignificant ruins of Pellene are situated

on the summit of a mountain which rises on the western side of the river

of Trikala (the ancient Sythas), near the small hamlet of Zougra. It is

a ride of two hours and a half from Xylokastro, the little town at the

mouth of the river, to Zougra. We cross the river by a large stone

bridge not far from its mouth, and then ascend the valley on the western

bank of the stream. The bottom of the valley is fruitful; vineyards and

fine groves of olives occupy the greater part of it, and tall cypresses

rise here and there, like dark spires, above the greener foliage. The

hills which enclose the valley on the east and west are not very high,

but they are gashed and tortured by great scaurs and precipices of white

and whity-brown earth. On the western side of the valley in particular a

long line of high white precipices runs almost unbroken along the brow

of the hills. The white, probably argillaceous, earth, which is thus

cleft and gouged into precipices, is the same which forms the great

precipices on the eastern side of Sicyon. Indeed it prevails nearly all

the way along the southern coast of the Gulf of Corinth from Sicyon to

Derveni, near Aegira. This chalky earth forms a plateau of varying

height, separated from the shore by a stretch of level plain which

averages perhaps a mile in width. The seaward face of the plateau is

steep, high, and white; its edges are sharp as if cut with a knife, and

ragged like the edge of a saw. Every here and there it is rent by a

stream or torrent which has scooped a deep bed for itself out of the

friable soil. The valley of the Sythas, up which we go to Pellene, is

nothing but one of these water-worn rifts on a gigantic scale. As we

ascend it through vineyards and olive-groves, between the rugged broken

hills with their long lines of white precipices, the massive Cyllene,

with its high, bare, pointed summit, looms in front of us at no great

distance, blocking the southern end of the valley. After riding up the

valley for an hour or more along a road which, for Greece, is excellent,

we begin to climb a mountain on the western side of the river. A long,

toilsome, winding, dusty, or, in rainy weather, muddy ascent, impeded

rather than facilitated by a Turkish paved road of the usual execrable

description, brings us in time to the little hamlet of Zougra. As we

rise up the steep slope, our fatigue is to some extent compensated by

the fine prospect that opens up behind us to the Corinthian Gulf and the

mountains beyond it.

LV. THE ROAD FROM ARGOS TO ARCADIA.—From Argos two main passes lead

westward over the chain of Mount Artemisius to Mantinea. The southern

and more direct of the two is for the greater part of the way nothing

but a rough bridle-path; in places it crosses the deep beds of torrents,

which at the time of my journey were dry. The path turns round the

northern foot of the lofty acropolis of Argos, and skirting the wide

Argolic plain enters the valley of the Charadrus or Xerias, as it is now

called. This is a long narrow valley of somewhat monotonous aspect,

enclosed by barren and rocky hills, and barred at the farther end by a

steep mountain, on which, when I saw it far away on a bright April

morning, purple shadows rested. The bed of the river is broad and stony,

sometimes several hundred yards in width; it is generally dry, but after

heavy rains the spates that come roaring down it from the mountains are

much dreaded. Flocks of sheep and goats feed in the valley; the herdsmen

carry the usual long staves tipped with crooks, and sometimes a gun.

Trains of laden mules or asses, conducted by peasants, also met us. The

head of the valley, immediately under the mountain barrier, is very

picturesque. The bottom is partly covered with shrubs and trees, among

which (for the place was then in its spring beauty) I noticed the broom

and the hawthorn, both in flower, also wild roses, and a tree with a

lovely purple bloom, which I believe to have been the Judas-tree. Beyond

the small hamlet of Mazi, consisting of a few wretched stone cottages,

the path begins the long ascent and winds up the face of the

mountain-wall in a series of zigzags. The view backward from the summit

of the pass is magnificent, embracing a wilderness of mountains with the

sea and the islands of Hydra and Spetsa in the distance. From the top of

the pass the path drops down very steeply, almost precipitously, into

the flat sodden expanse of the Fallow Plain, across which we look to a

bleak chain of grey limestone hills. The village of Tsipiana stands at

the foot of the pass, its red-roofed houses, with a large church in

their midst, rising in tiers on the steep mountain-side. On a ledge high

above the village is a monastery among cypresses, and higher still there

shoots up a huge fantastic pinnacle of rock. The traveller who has

reached Tsipiana is in Arcadia, and if this is his first glimpse of that

poetical land, he may find the reality to answer to his expectations, if

not to his dreams.

From a low rocky hillock, which runs out like a promontory into the

flat, he looks northward over the Fallow Plain, fallow no longer, but

covered with a patchwork of maize-fields, and intersected by a stream

meandering through it in serpentine curves. Southward the eye ranges

away over the level expanse to where it terminates in low blue hills, at

the foot of which, dimly perceptible in the distance, lies the town of

Tripolitza. In the middle distance, on a projecting hill, appears a

ruined mediaeval castle. The rural solitude of the landscape with its

green spreading plain, its winding river, its lonely hills, and the

silence and peace brooding over all, is not unworthy of Arcadia.

LVI. MANTINEA.—The ruins of Mantinea are situated in a flat, marshy, and

treeless plain about nine miles north of the present town of Tripolitza.

The plain is about seven miles long from north to south, but in the

latter direction it melts into the plain of Tegea; the division between

the two is marked only by the protrusion of rocky hills on either side,

which here narrows the plain to about a mile in width. On the east the

plain is bounded by the chain of Mount Alesius, bare and high on the

north, low and bushy on the south; between the two sections of the chain

thus marked off from each other is the dip through which the path goes

to Nestane and so by the Prinus route to Argos. On the west of the plain

rises the high rugged range of Mount Maenalus, its lower slopes bare or

overgrown with bushes, its higher slopes belted with dark pine-woods.

Seen from the plain to the north of Mantinea on a bright autumn day,

this fine range, with its dark blue lights and purple shadows, presents

the appearance of a tossing sea of billows petrified by magic. Finally,

on the north the plain of Mantinea is divided from that of Orchomenus by

a low chain of reddish hills.

A great part of the plain, including almost all the southern part, is

covered with vineyards, the rich green foliage of which, when the vines

are in leaf, contrasts with the grey arid slopes of the surrounding

mountains. But the site of Mantinea itself is now mostly cornland. Not a

single house stands within the wide area, and hardly one is within

sight. In spring the swampy plain is traversed by sluggish streams,

little better than ditches, the haunts of countless frogs, which sun

themselves on the banks and squatter into the water with loud flops at

the approach of the wayfarer. The whole scene is one of melancholy and

desolation. As the plain stands about two thousand feet above the sea,

the climate is piercingly cold in winter as well as burning hot in

summer. The marshes now render the site unhealthy at all times, but in

antiquity it was doubtless better drained. Of the oak-forest, through

which the road ran from Mantinea to Tegea in the days of Pausanias,

nothing is left. Indeed the oak has long ago retreated from the plains

to the mountains of Arcadia.

LVII. THE ROAD TO STYMPHALUS.—The road to Stymphalus, after diverging

from the road to Pheneus, continues to skirt the foot of the mountains

in a north-easterly direction. Behind us we leave Mount Trachy, which

seen from the north is an imposing mountain, its steep sides rent by

parallel gullies. Gradually the hill and plain of Orchomenus disappear

behind us, and the path leads into a savage glen, hemmed in by wild

rocky mountains, bare and desolate, towering high on either side. Away

up in the face of a precipice on the right of the path is seen the

little monastery of Kandyla, hanging in what appears an almost

inaccessible position. In winter a torrent flows down the middle of the

glen to swell the marsh in the plain of Orchomenus. A mile or so beyond

the monastery we reach the village of Kandyla, straggling in the wide

gravelly bed of the torrent, shaded by plane-trees and mulberry-trees,

and shut in on all sides by high rocky mountains, their sides covered

with fir-woods and their summits tipped with snow for a good part of the

year. From the upper end of the village a pass leads eastward over the

mountains to Bougiati and the ancient Alea; the path, which is very

rough and steep, ascends a wild gully overhung on the south by a huge

beetling crag; the descent on the eastern side of the mountains, towards

Bougiati, is so steep as to be almost impassable for horses.

But at present we are following the path to Stymphalus, which, leaving

the village of Kandyla in a northerly direction, ascends the mountain by

zigzags along the edge of precipices. The snow sometimes lies deep here

as late as March, making the ascent difficult and dangerous. The pass

runs north-east between the lofty Mount Skipieza, nearly six thousand

feet high, on the left, and the sharp-peaked Mount St. Constantine,

crowned with a Frankish castle, on the right. From the first summit of

the pass a path branches off to the right, descending into the narrow

valley of Skotini which we see stretching eastward beneath us. Half an

hour more takes us to a second summit, whence we look down on the plain

and lake of Stymphalus and across to the majestic mass of Mount Cyllene

towering on the farther side of the valley. The way now goes down a

ravine shut in on both sides by lofty fir-clad mountains and known as

the Wolf’s Ravine from the wolves that are said to abound in it. Thus

descending we reach the valley of Stymphalus and the western end of the

lake.

LVIII. THE LAKE AND VALLEY OF STYMPHALUS.—The valley of Stymphalus lies

immediately to the east of the valley and lake of Pheneus, from which it

is divided only by the ridge of Mount Geronteum. The general features of

both valleys are alike. Both are shut in so closely on all sides by

mountains and hills that the water which accumulates in them has no

outlet except by underground chasms, and forms in the bottom of each

valley a lake which shrinks in summer. But the valley of Stymphalus is

smaller and narrower than the valley of Pheneus, and its lake is quite

different. Instead of a deep sea-like expanse of blue water, we have

here a small lake of the most limpid clearness, the shallowness of which

is proved to the eye by the patches of reeds and other water-plants that

emerge from the surface of the water even in the middle of the lake. The

palm of beauty is generally, I believe, awarded to the lake of Pheneus;

but the charms of Stymphalus are of a rarer and subtler sort. Blue lakes

encircled by steep pine-clad mountains may be found in many lands; but

where shall we look for the harmonious blending of grand mountains and

sombre pine-forests with a still, pellucid, shallow, but not marshy

lake, tufted with graceful water-plants, such as meets us in Stymphalus?

The lake of Stymphalus may be a mile and a half long by half a mile

wide. On the north it bathes the foot of a ridge or chain of low

heights, covered with rugged grey rocks and overgrown with prickly

shrubs, which reaches its highest point on the west and descends

gradually in terraces to the east, where its last rocks are elevated

above the plain and lake by only a few feet. On the crest of this rocky

ridge, towards its eastern end, are some remains of the citadel of

Stymphalus. At the back of the ridge a stretch of level ground divides

it from the steep slopes of the majestic Cyllene, which rises like a

wall on the northern side of the valley. The sides of this great

mountain are mostly bare and of a reddish-grey hue; but the grey

shoulder of its sister peak on the east, joined to it by a high ridge,

is mottled with black pines. The mountains on the southern side of the

lake are also steep and high; low bushes mantle their lower and dark

pine-forests their upper slopes. Conspicuous among them, between immense

pine-covered slopes, is the deep glen known as the Wolfs Ravine, through

which the road goes to Orchomenus.

Solitude and silence, broken by the strident cries of the water-fowl

that haunt the mere, reign in the valley. A few hamlets nestle in the

nooks and glens at the foot of the mountains; but in the wide strath and

on the banks of the lake not a human habitation is to be seen. The

impression left by the scenery on some minds is that of gloom and

desolation. Yet on a hot day, when all the landscape is flooded with the

intense sunlight of the south, it is pleasant to sit on the rocky ridge

of Stymphalus, looking down on the cool clear water of the lake and

listening to the cries of the water-fowl, the drowsy hum of bees, and

the tinkle of distant goat-bells. In such weather even the dark

pine-forests on the mountains, gloomy as they must be under a bleak

cloudy sky, suggest only ideas of coolness and shade; and we can well

imagine that the ancient Stymphalus, with its colonnades and terraces

rising from the lake, must have been a perfect place in which to lounge

away the languid hours of a Greek summer. For the high upland character

of the valley contributes with the expanse of water to temper the heat

of the summer sun. The traveller who passes, as he may do, in a single

day from the cool moist air of the valley to the sultry heat of the

plain of Argos is struck by the contrast between the climates. In the

morning he may have left the cherry-trees in blossom at Stymphalus; in

the evening he may see the reapers getting in the harvest in the plain

of Argos.

LIX. THE LAKE OF PHENEUS.—The lake of Pheneus (for what was a plain in

the time of Pausanias is now a lake) is a broad and beautiful sheet of

greenish-blue water encircled by lofty mountains which descend in rocky

declivities or sheer precipices to the water’s edge, their upper slopes

clothed with black pine-woods and their summits capped with snow for

many months of the year. Right above the lake on the north-east towers

the mighty cone of Cyllene, the loftiest mountain but one in

Peloponnese; while on the north-west Dourdouvana rears its long serrated

crest, culminating in a sharp bare peak of grey rock, at the foot of

which, embowered in trees and gardens, nestles the village of Phonia,

the representative of the ancient Pheneus. Here on the north, between

the village and the lake, is the only stretch of level ground that

breaks the mountain ring, and the luxuriant green of its vineyards and

maize-fields contrasts pleasingly with the sombre hue of the

pine-forests all around. The first sight of this blue lake embosomed

among forest-clad mountains takes the traveller by surprise, so unlike

is it to anything else in Greece; and he feels as if suddenly

transported from the arid hills and the parched plains of Greece to a

northern land—from the land of the olive, the vine, and the orange, to

the land of the pine, the mountain, and the lake.

So completely is the lake fenced in by mountains on all sides that no

stream can issue from it above ground, and the water escapes only by two

subterranean emissaries or _Katavothras_, as they are called by the

Greeks, at the south-eastern and south-western ends of the lake. Through

the latter emissary the water passes under the mountain, and issuing on

the other side, about six miles from the lake and eight hundred feet

below its level, forms the source of the Ladon. On the state of these

emissaries it depends whether the great mountain-basin of Pheneus is a

fertile plain or a broad lake. From antiquity down to the present

century the periods in which the basin has been completely drained have

alternated with periods in which it has been occupied by a lake. In the

time of Theophrastus (the fourth century B.C.) the bottom of the valley

seems to have been generally dry land, for he mentions that once, when

the emissaries had got choked up, the water rose and flooded the plain,

drowning the willows, firs, and pines, which, however, reappeared the

following year when the flood subsided. In the following century part of

the valley at least would seem to have been a lake, for the geographer

Eratosthenes, quoted by Strabo, informs us that the river Anias formed

in front of the city of Pheneus a lake which was drained by subterranean

passages, and that when these passages were closed the water rose over

the plain, but that when they were opened again it was discharged into

the Ladon and hence into the Alpheus in such volume that the sacred

precinct at Olympia was flooded, while the lake on the other hand

shrank. Strabo himself mentions that the flow of the Ladon was once

checked by the obstruction of the emissaries consequent upon an

earthquake. According to Pliny there had been down to his time five

changes in the condition of the valley from wet to dry and from dry to

wet, all of them caused by earthquakes. In Plutarch’s age the flood rose

so high that the whole valley was under water, which pious people

attributed to Apollo’s anger at Hercules, who was said to have stolen

the prophetic tripod at Delphi and carried it off to Pheneus about a

thousand years before. However, later on in the same century the waters

had again subsided, for Pausanias found the bottom of the valley to be

dry land, and knew of the former existence of the lake only from

tradition.

From the days of Pausanias down to the beginning of the nineteenth

century we have no record of the condition of the valley. In 1806, when

Leake and Dodwell visited it, the great valley was still a swampy plain,

covered with fields of wheat or barley except at the south-western end,

where round the entrance to the emissary the water formed a small lake

which never dried up even in summer. But in 1821, doubtless through the

obstruction of the emissaries, the water began to rise over the plain,

and by 1829-1830, when the French surveyors mapped the district, the

whole basin was occupied by a deep lake five miles long by five miles

wide. On January 1, 1834, the emissaries suddenly opened again, the

Ladon became a deep and raging torrent, the valley was drained, and

fresh vegetation sprang up on the rich slimy soil. But when Welcker

visited Pheneus in 1842 the valley was once more occupied by a lake, and

had been so, if he was correctly informed, since 1838 at least. And a

lake it would seem to have been ever since. In 1853 the Swiss scholar

Vischer found a great lake, exactly as the French surveyors had

represented it on their map; the hill on the north-west side of the

valley, on which are the scanty remains of the ancient acropolis,

projected like a peninsula into the lake, and the site of the ancient

city was deep under water. W. G. Clark in 1856 describes with enthusiasm

the “wide expanse of still water deep among the hills, reflecting black

pine-woods and grey crags and sky now crimson with sunset”; according to

him the lake was seven miles long and as many wide. In June 1888 Mr.

Philippson found a broad clear lake of deep green colour; and in the

autumn of 1895 I viewed with pleasure the same beautiful scene, though I

would describe the colour of the water as greenish-blue rather than

green. The lake has shrunk, however, a good deal since the middle of the

century. A long stretch of level plain, covered with vineyards and

maize-fields, now divides the ancient acropolis of Pheneus from the

margin of the lake.

LX. FROM PHENEUS TO NONACRIS.—The route from Pheneus to the Styx, at

least so far as the modern village of Zarouchla, is one of the most

beautiful in all Greece. The grandeur of the mountains, the richness of

the vegetation, the fragrance and charm of the pine-forests, the distant

views of the blue lake of Pheneus, all contribute to render the

impression which the day’s journey leaves on the memory one of the most

agreeable that the traveller brings back with him from Greece.

From the lower village of Phonia we ascend through the luxuriant gardens

and lanes of the village to the ridge which bounds the plain of Pheneus

on the north-west. On reaching it, a grand view westward of the mighty

Mount Chelmos (the ancient Aroanius), with its bare summit and pine-clad

lower slopes, bursts upon us. The mountain is seen rising above a deep

basin-like valley, the bottom and sides of which are clothed with the

richest vegetation. High up on the slope of the mountain to the

north-west (Mount Crathis), among trees, is the delightfully-situated

monastery of St. George. Our path leads down into the valley; on the

slope grow white poplars and cypresses, and the ground is partly

carpeted with ferns. From the bottom of the valley, which is chiefly

occupied by a charming grove of plane-trees, we ascend through fine

woods, mostly of oak, to the monastery of St. George. Still ascending

after we have passed the monastery, we plunge again into a maze of

beautiful woods and dense tangled thickets, threaded by rills of

sparkling water. Vegetation of such rank luxuriance is rarely met with

in Greece. On emerging from these delightful woodlands we traverse,

always ascending, a stretch of bare bushy slopes which intervenes

between the verdant glades below and the sombre pine-forests higher up.

When these slopes are passed, we enter the pine-forest, through which

our way now goes for several hours.

Few things can be more delightful than this ride through the pine-woods.

It was a bright October day when I passed through them on my way to

Solos; in many places the forest was carpeted with ferns, now turned

yellow, and between the tree-trunks we could see across the valley the

great slopes of Mount Cyllene, of a glowing purple in the intense

sunlight. From time to time, too, we had views backward over the blue

waters of the lake of Pheneus embosomed in its dark pine-clad mountains.

Added to all this were the delicious odour of the pines and the

freshness and exhilaration of the air at a height of about six thousand

feet. But the culmination of beauty, so far as distant views go, is

reached on the summit of the ridge, before we begin to descend the

northern slope towards Zarouchla. On the one side, toward the

south-east, we look back to the lake of Pheneus and the great mountains

which encircle it, Mount Cyllene above all. On the other side, toward

the north-west, we gaze down into the long narrow valley of the river

Crathis, hemmed in on either hand by high mountains, above which soars

the bare sharp peak of Mount Chelmos on the south, while at the farther

end of the valley the view is closed by the blue Acarnanian mountains

across the Gulf of Corinth.

From the ridge we now descend through the forest by a steep, winding,

stony path, till we reach the bed of a stream flowing among romantic

rocks and woods to join or rather to form, with other streams, the

Crathis. In the bottom of the valley the richness of the vegetation even

increases. We rode through thickets of planes, growing as great bushes

or small trees, so dense that we had constantly to stoop to the horses’

necks to prevent our faces from being brushed by the branches. Other

trees and plants, of which I did not know the names, grew in profusion

around us. And above all this Eden-like verdure of woods and lanes and

thickets shot up the huge sharp peaks of Chelmos and its sister

mountains, blue and purple in the sunlight. In this paradise lies the

village of Zarouchla. Beyond it the path follows the valley of the

Crathis, keeping for the most part on the right bank of the stream. The

valley is very narrow, and is enclosed by immense steep mountains, the

sides of which, wherever it is practicable, are terraced for vines or

other cultivation. The Crathis, when I saw it, was a clear rushing

stream, easily fordable at any point. At first the path runs in the

bottom of the valley through tangled thickets. Here and there, where the

dale is wide enough to admit of it, a patch of maize is grown. But soon,

as we proceed, the valley contracts too much to allow even of this, and

so the path, often rough and difficult for horses, ascends and leads

along the barer mountain-side at some height above the stream.

Thus advancing we at last arrive opposite to the mouth of the deep glen

down which the Styx comes to join the Crathis on its western bank. Here

we cross the Crathis and strike up the glen of the Styx. The scenery of

the profound and narrow glen is almost oppressively grand. The mountains

are immense and exceedingly massive; above they are bare and rocky; but

their lower slopes are terraced so as to resemble gigantic staircases,

and on the terraces are perched several very picturesque villages, the

houses scattered at different levels and embowered among trees. At the

upper end of the glen soars the mighty cone of Mount Chelmos. The

grandeur of the scenery, which would otherwise be almost awful, is

softened by the wonderful luxuriance of the vegetation in the glen. The

horse-chestnut trees especially, with their enormous gnarled and knotted

trunks, are a sight to see. The nightingales are said to be very common

here and to sing from February to June. A long laborious ascent by a

winding path brings us to the prosperous village of Solos on the eastern

side of the glen. The villages on the opposite side of the glen,

dispersed over the terraced slopes, form, with Solos, almost a single

settlement. One of them probably occupies the site of the ancient

Nonacris.

LXI. THE FALL OF THE STYX.—The village of Solos stands, as we have seen,

on the right bank of the Styx, near where that stream falls into the

Crathis. But the source of the stream is at the head of the glen, some

miles to the south, where the water tumbles or trickles, according to

the season, over the smooth face of an immense perpendicular cliff, the

top of which is not far below the conical summit of Mount Chelmos, a

mountain nearly eight thousand feet high. The walk from Solos to the

foot of the fall and back is exceedingly fatiguing, and very few

travellers accomplish it; most of them are content to view the fall from

a convenient distance through a telescope. For the first two miles or so

the path is practicable for horses, and travellers who are resolved to

make their way to the waterfall will do well to ride thus far and to

have the horses waiting for them here on their return. It is also

necessary to take a guide or guides. The path winds up the glen, keeping

at first high on the right bank. The bed of the stream is here prettily

wooded with poplars and other trees and is spanned by a bridge with a

single high arch. For a considerable distance above the village the

water of the Styx, as seen from above, appears to be of a clear

light-blue colour, with a tinge of green. This colour, however, is only

apparent, and is due to the slaty rocks, of a pale greenish-blue colour,

among which the river flows. In reality the water is quite clear and

colourless.

In about twenty minutes from leaving the village we come in sight of the

cliff over which the water of the Styx descends. It is an immense cliff,

absolutely perpendicular, a little to the left or east of the high

conical summit of Mount Chelmos. The whole of this northern face of the

mountain is in fact nothing but a sheer and in places even overhanging

precipice of grey rock—by far the most awful line of precipices I have

ever seen. The cliffs of Delphi, grand and imposing as they are, sink

into insignificance compared with the prodigious wall of rock in which

Mount Chelmos descends on the north into the glen of the Styx. The cliff

down which the water comes is merely the eastern and lower end of this

huge wall of rock. Seen from a distance it appears to be streaked

perpendicularly with black and red. The black streak marks the line of

the waterfall, to which it has given the modern name of Mavro-nero, ‘the

Black Water.’ The colour is produced by a dark incrustation which

spreads over the smooth face of the rock wherever it is washed by the

falling water or by the spray into which the water dissolves before it

reaches the ground. In the crevices of the cliffs to the right and left

of the fall great patches of snow remain all the year through. I saw

them and passed close to the largest of them on a warm autumn day, after

the heat of summer and before the first snow of winter.

About twenty-five minutes after leaving Solos we cross the Styx by a

ford, and henceforward the route lies on the left or western bank of the

stream. Five minutes from the ford bring us to a mill picturesquely

situated among trees, where a brook comes purling down a little glen

wooded with willows and plane-trees. Just above the mill the Styx

tumbles over a fine rocky lyn in a roaring cascade. Beyond this point

the steep slopes of the hills on the opposite bank of the stream are

covered with ferns, which when I rode up the glen were tinged with the

gold of autumn. In front of us looms nearer and larger the cone of Mount

Chelmos with its long line of precipices.

Ten or twelve minutes beyond the mill the horses are left and the

traveller sets forward on foot. As we advance the glen grows wilder and

more desolate, but for the first half-mile or so it is fairly open, the

track keeps close to the bed of the stream, and there is no particular

difficulty. A deep glen now joins the glen of the Styx from the

south-east. Here we begin to ascend the slope and cross an artificial

channel which brings down water to the mill. All pretence of a path now

ceases, and henceforward till we reach the foot of the waterfall there

is nothing for it but to scramble over rocks and to creep along slopes

often so steep and precipitous that to find a foothold or handhold on

them is not easy, and stretching away into such depths below that it is

best not to look down them but to keep the eyes fixed on the ground at

one’s feet. A stone set rolling down one of these slopes will be heard

rumbling for a long time, and the sound is echoed and prolonged by the

cliffs with such startling distinctness that at first it sounds as if a

rock were coming thundering down upon the wayfarer from above. In the

worst places the guides point out to the traveller where to plant his

feet and hold him up if he begins to slip. Shrubs, tough grass, and here

and there a stunted pine-tree give a welcome hold, but on the steepest

slopes they are wanting. The last slope up to the foot of the cliff—a

very long and steep declivity of loose gravel which gives way at every

step—is most fatiguing. As I was struggling slowly up it with the

guides, we heard the furious barking of dogs away up the mountains on

the opposite side of the glen. The barking came nearer and nearer, and

being echoed by the cliffs had a weird impressive sound that suited well

with the scene, as if hell-hounds were baying at the strangers who dared

to approach the infernal water. However, the dogs came no nearer than

the foot of the slope up which we were clambering, and some shouts and

volleys of stones served to keep them at bay.

At the head of this long slope of loose gravel we reach the foot of the

waterfall. The water, as I have indicated, descends the smooth face of a

huge cliff, said to be over six hundred feet high. It comes largely from

the snow-fields on the summit of Mount Chelmos, and hence its volume

varies with the season. When I visited the fall early in October, after

the long drought of summer, the water merely trickled down the black

streak on the face of the cliff, its presence being shown only by the

glistening appearance which it communicated to the dark surface of the

rock. At the foot of the cliff it formed a small stream, flowing down a

very steep rocky bed into the bottom of the glen far below. The water

was clear and not excessively cold. Even when, through the melting of

the snows, the body of the water is considerable, it is said to be all

dissolved into spray by falling through such a height and to reach the

ground in the form of fine rain. Only the lower part of the cliff is

visible from the foot of the waterfall, probably because the cliff

overhangs somewhat. Certainly the cliffs a little to the right of the

waterfall overhang considerably. With these enormous beetling crags of

grey rock rising on three sides, the scene is one of sublime but wild

and desolate grandeur. I have seen nothing to equal it anywhere. On the

third side, looking down the glen and away over the nearer hills, we see

the blue mountains of Acarnania across the Gulf of Corinth; my guide

said these mountains were in Roumelia. In the face of the rock, a few

yards to the right of the waterfall, are carved the names or initials of

persons who have visited the spot, with the dates of their visits. Among

the names is that of King Otho, with the date 1847.

LXII. THE VALLEY OF THE AROANIUS.—After traversing the upland plain of

Soudena in a broad stony bed, which in autumn is dry, the river enters a

defile at the south-eastern corner of the plain. Through this defile,

formed on the east by the slopes of Mount Chelmos and on the west by the

hills that close the plain of Soudena on the south, the Aroanius and the

road to Clitor run side by side. At first the space between the hills is

broad and level, dotted here and there with trees. Soon, however, the

valley contracts and begins to descend, affording a beautiful prospect

of range behind range of mountains in the south, shading away according

to the distance from dark purple to pale blue. The path runs at first on

the east bank of the river-bed, which was dry when I saw it early in

October. But after being joined by a tributary, which comes down from

Mount Chelmos in a deeply-excavated bed between slopes of red earth, the

river attained the dimensions of a good-sized Scotch burn. Gradually as

the mountains close in on either side the valley becomes a glen, through

which the stream flows among plane-trees in a prettily-wooded bed. Here

the path crosses to the right or west bank, which it follows

henceforward. Farther on the glen contracts into a deep rocky gorge

between steep mountains, but only to expand again and allow the river to

flow, with a pleasing murmur, in its wooded bed through a stretch of

cultivated ground. Thus gradually the valley opens out into the plain of

Clitor. Vineyards and maize-fields occupy its lower reaches. It was the

time of the vintage when I traversed this beautiful valley. Bunches of

ripe grapes lay as offerings before the holy pictures in the little

wayside shrines; we met strings of donkeys laden with swelling

wine-skins or with panniers of grapes; and in the vineyards as we passed

the peasants were at work pressing the purple clusters, with which they

insisted on loading, for nothing, the aprons of our muleteers.

Studies in Greek Scenery, Legend and History Selected from His Commentary on Pausanias' 'Description of Greece,' · 第 10 / 11 章

This alluvial plain, situated at the head of a deep and sheltered frith