Greece; but which the natives always designated Hellas. It was in the centre of the most cultivated portions of the three continents; a short passage by sea divided it from Italy; and the voyage to Egypt, Asia Mi'nor, and Phoni'cia, though somewhat longer, seemed scarcely more dangerous. Its extensive coasts, indented with bays, landingplaces, and natural harbours, compensated for the absence of large rivers, and pointed it out in the earliest ages as the country best situated for commerce; and though Phoni'cia was the parent of navigation, that art is indebted to Greece for its most material improvements. 2. The nature of the country afforded the inhabitants other advantages equally striking; watered in every direction by an infinite number of small streams, intersected by ranges of lofty hills alternating with fertile plains, and enjoying a warmer climate than any other part of Europe, the Greeks were enabled to pay equal attention to the different branches of cultivation, and to pursue a diversity of occupations. 3. Its extent from north to south, viz. from the promontory of Tæ'narum to the Cambu'nian mountains, is about two hundred and twenty-five miles; from its eastern extremity the promontory of Su'nium, in Attica, to the Leucadian cape, its most western headland, the distance is about one hundred and sixty miles. Its superficial content was about 29,600 square miles, not quite two-thirds of the extent of the modern kingdom of Portugal.

4. Nature still further subdivided the country into three nearly equal portions, by separating the Peloponne'sus from the mainland, and intersecting the latter by the chain or Mount Eta, which runs nearly parallel to the northern boundary. The countries in northern Greece were Thessaly on the east, and Epi'rus on the west.

5. Thessaly was the portion of Greece most favoured by

1 Macedonia was not reckoned a part of Greece, until a very late period; it is therefore omitted here, but its geography and history will be found in the first section of the twelfth chapter.

nature. It was on three sides surrounded by mountains. the continued chain of Eta, O'thrys and Pin'dus, bounded it on the south and west, the Cambu'nian mountains limited it on the north; and on the east the peaks of Ossa and Olym'pus rose above them along the coast of the Æge'an sea. Olym'pus was the fabled residence of the Grecian gods; and the poets, who thus described it, could scarcely have made a better choice, for there is no mountain range in which so much beauty appears, united to sublimity.

The country was watered by the magnificent river Pe'neus, which, rising in mount Pindus, flowed through it from west to east; and by a number of tributary streams which joined this river from the north and south. 6. The traditions of the ancients, confirmed by the geological appearance of the country, related, that the Pe'neus had stagnated for several centuries, until an earthquake divided Ossa from Olympus, and opened for it a passage to the Æge'an sea through the delicious vale of Tem'pe. Thus the soil of Thessaly had been long subjected to a fertilizing process,

1

and rose from the floods ready to reward the cultivator by the most luxuriant harvests. 7. It was divided into five provinces; 1, Estiæ'otis, whose chief cities were Gom'phi and Aro'zus: 2, Pelasgio'tis, in which the most remarkable places were Laris'sa, Gon'ni, and the vale of Tempe : 3, Thessalio'tis, which contained the city of Phar'salus, and the memorable plains of Pharsalia: 4, Phthio'tis, the country of Achilles, containing several towns, of which Phe'ræ was the most important: and 5, Magne'sia, a district on the sea-coast, with a capital of the same name. There were several smaller districts named from the tribes, not of Greek descent, by which they were inhabited, such as Perrhæ bia, &c. On the north side of the Pe'neus, the pure Hellenic race was not be found; the tribes who resided there were of Illyrian descent, of whom some considered themselves as belonging to the Thessalian and others to the Macedonian nation.

8. Thessaly presented many facilities for internal navigation, but none of them were improved by art; in the heroic ages it produced the best soldiers in Greece; but the fertility of the soil proved the ruin of the inhabitants. They rioted in sensual enjoyments, and were proverbial for their intense selfishness. "Though Olympus, the habitation of the gods, stood on their land, nothing godlike was ever unfolded within its precincts 1." Their cities, alternately the prey of anarchy and tyranny, never produced men conspicuous for their love of freedom; and though the country was populous, and studded with excellent military positions, it submitted without a struggle, first to the yoke of Xerxes, and subsequently to that of Philip.

9. Epi'rus was next to Thessaly the largest, but it was the least cultivated division of Greece. Its inhabitants were of the Illyrian rather than Hellen'ic race, but the royal family claimed to be descended from Achilles. Its principal divisions were, 1, Molos'sis, of which the chief city

1 Heeren.

was Ambra'cia, on the gulf to which it gave name, and 2, Thespro'tia, whose capital was Buthro'tum. In the interior of Epi'rus, was Dodo'na, celebrated for the oracle of Jupiter, the common object of veneration to all the Hellenic tribes.

10. Central Greece, or Hellas, had the chain of Mount Eta on the north; the Mali'ac bay, and the Euri'pus on the east; the Saron'ic and Corinthian gulfs on the south, and the Io'nian sea on the west. It contained nine districts.

11. I. Attica, a foreland extending towards the southeast, and gradually diminishing. Its length was about sixtythree miles, and its greatest breadth, in a north-westerly direction, about twenty-five miles, but it tapers more and more to a point, till it ends in the rocky promontory of Su'nium. On the summit of this remarkable headland was a temple of Minerva, of which some columns still remain, and give to Su'nium its modern name Cape Colonna. It is a spot peculiarly interesting to Englishmen, having been the scene of the shipwreck so powerfully described by the unfortunate Falconer, in his poem of that

The land in Attica is naturally barren; indeed it never produced corn sufficient for the support of its inhabitants; but the climate is salubrious: the Ilis'sus, Cephis'sus, and other small streams, afforded a plentiful supply of the purest water; and the plains were particularly adapted to the culture of the olive. Its chief, indeed its only city, was 1 Athens; the other towns, such as Marathon, Eleu'sis, Decelia, &c. were little better than villages. The country was very mountainous, but the mountains were not of excessive height; the most remarkable were, 2 Hymet'tus, Pentel'icus, and Lauʼrium,

12. II. Meg'aris, the smallest of the Grecian countries, lay between Attica, of which it once formed a part, and the Corinthian isthmus. It contained the city of Meg'ara and the celebrated sea-port Nisa'a. Meg'aris was wrested from the Ionic inhabitants of Attica by a 3 Doric colony.

13. III. Bœo'tia lay to the north-west of Attica, and exhibited in almost every respect a different character. It may be generally described as a large plain shut in by the chain of Parnas'sus, Hel'icon, and Citha'ron on the west and south. Mount Cne'mis joined it on the north, and Pto'us lay between that and the sea. Numerous rivers, of which the Cephis'sus was the chief, descended from these mountains, and stagnating in the plains, produced several marshes and lakes; among which, Copa'is, celebrated for its delicious eels, is the largest and most remarkable. The soil of Boo'tia was among the most fruitful in Greece, and the country was the most thickly .inhabited. Besides Thebes, the capital, it contained Platæ æ, Tanag'ra, Thes'piæ, Charonei'a, Lebadei'a, Leuc'tra, and Orchom'enus; names which we shall frequently

1 See next chapter.

3 See History, chap. I.

5

2 Ibid.

This must not be confounded with the Cephissus in Attica.
See next chapter.