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have been deterred by the reports of his engineers, who were persuaded that the surface of the Corinthian gulf was so much higher than the Saronic, that a channel cut between them would be useless from the rapidity of the current, and might even endanger the safety of Ægina and the neighbouring isles. Three centuries later, the dictator Cæsar formed the same plan, and was perhaps only prevented from accomplishing it by his untimely death. The above-mentioned inequality of the ground would always render this undertaking very laborious and expensive. But the work was of a nature rather to shock than to interest genuine Greek feelings: it seems to have been viewed as an audacious Titanian effort of barbarian power; and when Nero actually began it, having opened the trench with his own hands, the belief of the country people may probably have concurred with the aversion of the prætorian workmen, to raise the rumour of howling spectres, and springs of blood, by which they are said to have been interrupted.1 Pliny notices the disastrous fate of all who had conceived the project2; and Pausanias observes, that Alexander had been baffled, and the Cnidians stopped by the Delphic oracle, in similar attempts to do violence to the works of God. 3

The face of Peloponnesus presents outlines somewhat more intricate than those of northern Greece. At first sight, the whole land appears one pile of mountains, which, toward the north-west, where it reaches its greatest height, forms a compact mass, pressing close upon the gulf of Corinth. On the western coast it recedes further from the sea; towards the centre is pierced more and more by little hollows; and on the south and east is broken by three great gulfs, and the valleys opening into them, which suggested to the ancients the form of a plane leaf, to illustrate that of the peninsula. On closer inspection, the highest summits of this pile, with their connecting ridges, may be observed to form

1 Dio Cass. lxiii. 16.

2 N. H. iv. 5.

3 II. 1. 5.

an irregular ring, which separates the central region, Arcadia, from the rest. Thus the range of Artemisium, and Parthenium, which bounds it on the east, is connected, by a chain of highlands running from east to west, with the northern extremity of Taygetus; this again is linked with the Lycaan and Nomian mountains, which form the western frontier, and stretch on toward Pholoe, which meets the great northern barrier, including Olenus, Scollis, Erymanthus, Aroanius, and Cyllene. The territories which skirt the three principal gulfs, are likewise inclosed by lofty ranges, ending in bold promontories, and exhibit each a peculiar character. The northern and western sides contain no such prominent land-marks; and the states which possessed them were separated by artificial rather than by natural limits.

The mountains which encircle Arcadia are so connected, as to afford a passage for its waters only by one opening, the defile (below Caritena, or Brenthe) through which the Alpheus descends to the western sea. This is the principal feature which distinguishes the western from the eastern part of Arcadia. On the west, a number of valleys open into the basin of the Alpheus, bringing down tributaries, some of which are considerable rivers, as the Ladon, and the Erymanthus, which flow from the northern mountains; and several ancient towns in this region were built on heights near the confluence of the neighbouring streams: as Cleitor, Psophis, Methydrium, Brenthe, Gortys, and Heræa. On the other hand, the eastern portion of Arcadia is intersected by lower ridges, which completely inclose a great number of little plains, so that the streams which fall into them find no visible outlet. Such are the plains of Asea, Pallantium, Tegea, Mantinea, Orchomenus, Alea, Stymphalus, and Pheneus. Hence a great part of the country would be covered with stagnant pools, and its air generally infected by noxious vapours, did not the inland rivers and lakes find means of escaping through chasms and subterraneous channels, not uncommon in limestone mountains, but which

perhaps no where occur so frequently, within an equally narrow compass, as in Arcadia. So the Aroanius, even

after Hercules had cut a canal to guide its course into the lake of Pheneus, would have encroached on the surrounding plain, if it had not been received by a vast gap at the foot of a mountain, through which it descends to rise again under the more celebrated name of the Ladon. So the waters collected in the plain of Mantinea, at the western foot of mount Artemisium, gush up out of the sea near the eastern coast. So the lake of Stymphalus disgorges itself into a chasm, from which it issues again in the plain of Argos as the Erasinus. The Alpheus, above all, is a Protean stream, and acts at home a wonderful prelude to his fabled submarine adventures. According to a general, and apparently a well-grounded belief, it is the same river which, springing from several sources on the western side of mount Parnon, sinks underground at the foot of mount Cresium, and rises again in the plain of Asea, where it is thought to mingle with the principal source of the Eurotas.1 In this case, both are once more swallowed by the earth, and, after parting below its surface, re-appear the one in the plain of Megalopolis, the other in the north of Laconia. Many of the Arcadian legends were filled with the mythical history of these natural wonders, and with the changes wrought by the opening or the obstruction of the subterraneous watercourses. The land was a fit theatre for the labours of Hercules; and its peculiar features sufficiently explain the worship of the earth-shaking Poseidon, and his struggles with the offended Demeter.2 The mountains were clothed with forests, which abounded with game: the bear was frequently found in them, even in the days of Pauasnias; and it is probable that they may have afforded attraction for tribes of hunters or shepherds, while few of the plains were in a state to repay the labours of the husbandmen. In later times, the Arcadians, according to their countryman Polybius,

Leake, iii. p. 42, 43.

2 Paus, viii. 25.

enjoyed a high reputation among the Greeks for hospitality, kindness, and piety: but he ascribes these qualities to the success of their social institutions, in counteracting the natural tendency of a rugged climate, which, while it inured them to toil and hardship, disposed their character to an excess of harshness.

The other great divisions of Peloponnesus are Argolis, Laconia, Messenia, Elis, and Achaia. Argolis, when the name is taken in its largest sense, as the part of Peloponnesus which is bounded on the land side by Arcadia, Achaia, and Laconia, comprehends several districts, which, during the period of the independence of Greece, were never united under one government, but were considered, for the purpose of description, as one region by the later geographers. It begins on the western side with the little territory of Sicyon, which, beside some inland valleys, shared with Corinth a small maritime plain, which was proverbial among the ancients for its luxuriant fertility. The dominions of Corinth, which also extended beyond the Isthmus, meeting those of Megara a little south of the Scironian rocks, occupied a considerable portion of Argolis. The two cities, Sicyon and Corinth, were similarly situated — both commanding important passes into the interior of the peninsula.1 The hill which was the site of Sicyon, probably in the earliest as well as the latest period of its history, rose near the openings of two ravines, or valleys-those of the Helisson and the Asopus. The latter river descended from the plains of Phlius and Orned. The lofty and precipitous rock, called the Acrocorinthus, on which stood the citadel of Corinth, though, being commanded by a neighbouring height, it is of no great value for the purposes of modern warfare, was in ancient times an impregnable fortress, and a point of the highest importance, both for the protection of the Isthmus, and of the pass which led up to the plain of Cleone, and thence to that of Nemea. From the vale of Orneæ a rugged road crossed the 1 Leake, Morea, iii. p. 372.

But the more fre

mountains into the plain of Argos. quented approach from the north was the narrow, rocky, glen of the Tretus, the fabled haunt of the Nemean lion, which branched off to Cleonæ and Nemea. A third pass, a little to the east of these, called the Contoporeia, or staff-road, was accessible only to foot passengers. 1

The plain of Argos, which is bounded on three sides by lofty mountains, but open to the sea, is, for Greece, and especially for Peloponnesus, of considerable extent, being ten or twelve miles in length, and four or five in width. But the western side is lower than the eastern, and is watered by a number of streams, in which the upper side is singularly deficient. In very ancient times the lower level was injured by excess of moisture, as it is at this day: and hence, perhaps, Argos, which lay on the western side, notwithstanding its advantageous position, and the strength of its citadel, flourished less, for a time, than Mycena and Tiryus, which were situate to the east, where the plain is now barren through drought. A great mass of Argive legends owed its origin to these local features, and especially to the marsh of Lerna, and the fathomless Alcyonian pool, which bordered the western shore of the gulf, where popular tradition placed one of the monsters overpowered by the strength of Hercules. On the

eastern side, the Argolic plain was bounded by the insulated rock of Nauplia, at the foot of which lay the port of Argos, not a very commodious shelter even for the ancient shipping; its road appears to be much better adapted to a modern fleet.

The peninsula which parted the Saronic from the Argolic gulf, and which was sometimes called the Acté of Argolis, is almost wholly occupied by a chain of hills, which, in the northern and loftiest part, bore the name of mount Arachnæum. The territory of Corinth extended along the eastern coast, till, near the harbour salled Peiræus, it met the confines of Epidaurus, which, 1 On these passes, see Leake, iii. p. 228., and ii. p. 415.

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