Hercules was believed to have turned the river, to cleanse the stable of Augeas. A little south of cape Araxus, the river Larisus was the common boundary of Elis and Achaia. On the western side of Achaia, between cape Araxus and the straits of the Corinthian gulf, the high mountains which occupied the confines of Achaia and Arcadia leave some comparatively broad plains open to the sea. But on the Corinthian gulf they either descend abruptly on the shore, or are separated from it only by narrow levels. These small maritime plains, and the slopes immediately above them, are however for the most part highly fertile; and the soil is peculiarly adapted to some kinds of produce. They are watered by streams issuing from the heart of the mountains, through deep and narrow gorges, which are the only approaches by which the country can be invaded from the south. The coast is deficient in harbours, which abound on the opposite side of the gulf. When the necessary deduction has been made for the inequalities of its surface, Greece may perhaps be properly considered as a land, on the whole, not less rich than beautiful. And it probably had a better claim to this character in the days of its youthful freshness and vigour. Its productions were various as its aspect: and if other regions were more fertile in grain, and more favourable to the cultivation of the vine, few surpassed it in the growth of the olive, and of other valuable fruits. Its hills afforded abundant pastures: its waters and forests teemed with life. In the precious metals it was perhaps fortunately poor; the silver mines of Laurium were a singular exception; but the Peloponnesian mountains, especially in Laconia and Argolis, as well as those of Euboea, contained rich veins of iron and copper, as well as precious quarries. The marble of Pentelicus was nearly equalled in fineness by that of the isle of Paros, and that of Carystus in Euboea. The 1 The currant vine appears to thrive here better than in any other part of Greece. Grecian woods still excite the admiration of travellers, as they did in the days of Pausanias, by trees of extraordinary size. Even the hills of Attica are said to have been once clothed with forests; and the present scantiness of its streams may be owed in a great measure to the loss of the shades which once sheltered them. Herodotus observes, that, of all countries in the world, Greece enjoyed the most happily tempered seasons. But it seems difficult to speak generally of the climate of a country, in which each district has its own, determined by an infinite variety of local circumstances. Both in Northern Greece and in Peloponnesus the snow remains long on the higher ridges; and even in Attica the winters are often severe. On the other hand, the heat of the summer is tempered, in exposed situations, by the strong breezes from the north-west (the Etesian winds), which prevail during that season in the Grecian seas; and it is possible that Herodotus may have had their refreshing influence chiefly in view. Greece lies in a volcanic zone, which extends from the Caspian if it does not extend still further east to the Azores, and from the 45th to the 35th degree of latitude2, the greater part of the world known to the Greeks. Though no traces of volcanic eruptions appear to have been discovered in Greece, history is full of the effects produced there by volcanic agency; and permanent indications of its physical character were scattered over its surface, in the hot springs of Thermopyle, Trozen, Edepsus, and other places. The sea between Peloponnesus and Crete has been, down to modern times, the scene of surprising changes wrought by the same forces; and not long before the Christian era, a new hill was thrown up on the coast near Træzen, no less suddenly than the islands near Thera were raised out of the sea. Earthquakes, accompanied by the rending of mountains, 1 Plato, Critias, p. 111. 2 Hoff, Gechichte der Veraenderungen der Erdoberflaeche, vol. ii. p. 99. 3 Ovid, Metaph. xv. 296. Strabo, i. p. 158. 3 the sinking of land into the sea, by temporary inundations, and other disasters, have in all ages been familiar to Greece, more especially to Peloponnesus. And hence some attention seems to be due to the numerous legends and traditions which describe convulsions of the same kind as occurring still more frequently, and with still more important consequences, in a period preceding connected history; and which may be thought to point to a state of elemental warfare, which must have subsided before the region which was its theatre could have been fitted for the habitation of man. Such an origin we might be inclined to assign to that class of legends which related to struggles between Poseidon and other deities for the possession of several districts; as his contests with Athené (Minerva) for Athens and Troezen1; with the same goddess, or with Heré (Juno) for Argos where he was said, according to one account, to have dried up the springs, and according to another, to have laid the plain under water 2; with Apollo for the isthmus of Corinth. 3 We might be led to put a like interpretation on the poetical traditions, which spoke of a period when several of the islands between Greece and Asia-as Delos and Anaphe4, and even Rhodes, and Cyprus 6, were yet covered by the sea, out of which they rose at the bidding of some god. And still greater weight may seem to belong to a tradition preserved by the priests of Samothrace, an island famous for its ancient mystic worship, who told of a great convulsion, which had burst the barriers that once separated the Euxine from the Ægean, and had opened the channels of the Bosporus and the Hellespont. 7 It would not be difficult to connect this tradition with a poetical legend, in which Poseidon was said to have struck the land called Lycaonia, or Lyctonia, with his trident, 1 Paus. ii. 30. 6. 3 Paus. ii. 1. 6. 5 Pindar, Ol. vii. 7 Diod. v. 47. 2 Apollod. ii. 1. 4. 9. Paus. ii. 22. 4. and to have scattered its fragments, as islands, over the sea. But the vast magnitude of the changes described by these legends, may reasonably awaken a suspicion. that they were mere fictions, which did not even spring out of any popular belief, but were founded on an opinion which prevailed in the Alexandrian period of Greek literature among the learned, and which was adopted in its full extent by the elder Pliny. Thus we find Callimachus speaking generally of islands, as formed of the fragments which Poseidon had severed with his trident from the mountains. 2 Pliny is more explicit: he does not hesitate to deliver, as a notorious fact, that nature had torn Sicily from Italy; Cyprus from Syria; Euboea from Boeotia; and again, Atalanté, Macris, and Ceos4, from Euboea; and that the sea had not only burst through the straits of the Bosporus, the Hellespont, Rhium, and Leucasthough in this last instance the channel was notoriously artificial; but that it had taken the place of the land in the Propontis, and in the gulfs of Corinth and Ambracia We may perhaps most safely conclude, not that these late writers had access to any better information than we now possess on this subject, but that they were less afraid of raising a great pile of conjecture on a very slender basis of facts. 1 Orph. Arg. 1287. 3 N. H. ii. 90. 2 H. in Del. 30-36. 4 N. H. iv. 20. CHAP. II. THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF GREECE. ALL we know about the earliest inhabitants of Greece, is derived from the accounts of the Greeks themselves. These accounts relate to a period preceding the introduction of letters, and to races more or less foreign to that which finally gave its name to the country. On such subjects tradition must be either vague and general, or filled with legendary and poetical details. And therefore we cannot wonder that, in the present case, our curiosity is in many respects entirely disappointed, and that the information transmitted to us is in part scanty and imperfect, . in part obscure and confused. If we only listen to the unanimous testimony of the ancients, we find that the whole amount of our knowledge shrinks into a very narrow compass: if we venture beyond this limit, we pass into a boundless field of conjecture, where every step must be made on disputable ground, and all the light we can obtain, serves less to guide than to perplex us. There are however several questions relating to the original population of Greece, which it may be fit to ask, though we cannot hope for a completely satisfactory answer - if for no other purpose, at least to ascertain the extent of our knowledge. This is the main end we propose in the following inquiry; but we shall not scruple to pursue it, even where we are conscious that it cannot lead to any certain result, so far as we see any grounds to determine our opinion on the most interesting points of a dark and intricate subject. The people whom we call Greeks - the Hellenes were not, at least under this name, the first inhabitants of Greece. Many names have been recorded of races |