Chapter VII: Part 7

The only river, besides the Peneus, which is of any historical importance, is the SPERCHIUS or SPERCHEUS in the south, which falls into the Euboean sea about four miles north of Thermopylae. Of poetical interest are the APIDANUS and the ANAURUS near Iolcus, on the banks of which Jason is said to have lost his shoe. In the west, in the territory of Pherae, we may notice lake Boebeis.

The Thessalians are regarded as an Epirot people, that is, as Thesprotians, who, under their chief Thessalus, conquered Aemonia. Along with the Lapithae, it is said, Aeolian tribes occupied the country, Boeotians living in the valley of Arne, and others elsewhere. Thessaly is sometimes also regarded as the real Αἰολίς. It is impossible to ascertain the true history of the Thesprotians, for our accounts of them directly contradict each other. Thessalians are said to have migrated from Dodona into Thessaly, and Peraebi again are reported to have penetrated from Thessaly into the mountains of Epirus, whence it is probable that here too the identity of the nations gave rise to the traditions about immigration. I do not mean to deny the immigration, but our accounts of it are completely devoid of authenticity. I lay, however, great stress upon the fact, that Thessalians and Pelasgians are synonymous in the ancient poems and genealogies, which are known to us, at least substantially, from the scholiasts on Apollonius Rhodius and the Iliad. This is a grand discovery, and one from which new treasures are still to be gathered: the Alexandrian school always deserves to be spoken of with the greatest respect; the statements contained in these scholia make up for the loss of the poetical lays. At Cyzicus Thessalians and Pelasgians are mentioned; in Lemnos we find Thessalian Minyans, and the Pelasgians of Ravenna and Agylla are likewise called Thessalians. Somewhat later genealogists, as Hellanicus in his Phoronis, account for the Pelasgians dwelling in the most distant countries by emigration from Thessaly under Pelasgus and his son[66] Nanas, which is to us only a hint. But the statement that the Thessalians in the valley of Thessaly were foreign immigrants, is credible on account of their internal constitution and their system of servitude, which suggests the subjugation of the ancient population. A system of servitude so fully developed as in the Wendish parts of Germany, occurs nowhere in Greece except in Thessaly; I do not mean to say, that it did not exist in many other parts also, for traces of it are found in the notes of Ruhnkenius on Timaeus. In Greece proper helotism is well known; at Athens it never existed, though we find it in Ionia, Chios, Argos, Crete, Syracuse, and Magna Graecia; but it was nowhere so permanent as in Thessaly, where it continued down to the time of the Romans. Its name is πενεστεία, which expresses both the body of the serfs and the relation in which they lived; it does not seem to have originally been the name of a nation, but must probably be derived, as was done by the ancients, from πένομαι, and πένης, a poor man.[67]

There existed in Thessaly a number of towns forming independent states by themselves; but that at the same time they were united by political bonds, is evident partly from the coins with the inscription κοινὸν Θεσσαλῶν, and partly from the fact, that in the πεντηκοντετηρίς, before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war, kings of Thessaly, such as Orestes and Echecratides, are mentioned. We must, therefore, infer, that Thessaly formed one state; but at times the inhabitants of Larissa, Pharsalus, Pherae, and Cranon appear as citizens of independent towns, whence we may conclude that the bonds which connected them were extremely loose.

Thessaly, in its narrower sense, was divided into four parts, Phthiotis, Hestiaeotis, Thessaliotis, and Pelasgiotis. The principal passage on this subject is Strabo, ix. p. 430, _b._ and _c._; which, however, as printed in our editions, is senseless, and the beginning alone is correct. I will, therefore, mention to you the emendation I have made, for even the unrivalled Casaubonus was mistaken here. Instead of καλούμενοι δὲ Πελασγιῶται, we must read, in accordance with the MSS. cited by Casaubonus, καλούμενοι δὲ _Θεσσαλιῶται_; and immediately after this we must read, συνάπτοντες ἤδη τοῖς κάτω Μακεδόσι, καὶ οἱ _Πελασγιῶται_ ἐφεξῆς τὰ μέχρι Μαγνητικῆς παραλίας ἐκπληροῦντες χωρία, so that Πελασγιῶται is restored in the latter passage. Strabo, however, here confounds Phthiotis, the country of the Phthiotian Achaeans, with that part of Thessaly which the Thessalians had separated from the ancient Phthia and united with Thessaly. Phthia, in the sense of the Achaean country, is never any other than the district between the Malian gulf and the valley of the Peneus; but if we take it as the portion of Thessaly which the Thessalians had torn from it, and incorporated with their own country, it cannot have extended down to the gulf. Thessaly embraced the land from Pharsalus as far as Hestiaeotis, that is, as far as the upper part of the valley of the Peneus, in the neighbourhood of Tricca. The extent of Phthia was not rightly understood by the ancients themselves in their explanation of Homer. The passage in the Βοιωτία:—

Νῦν αὖ τοὺς ὅσσοι τὸ Πελασγικὸν Ἄργος ἔναιον
οἵ τ’ Ἄλον, οἵ τ’ Ἀλόπην, οἵ τε Τρηχῖν’ ἐνέμοντο,
οἵ τ’ εἶχον Φθίην ἠδ’ Ἑλλάδα καλλιγυναῖκα,

reads entirely as if Phthia and Hellas were towns. This fancy, for it is nothing but a fancy, took a firm hold even of the Alexandrian grammarians; but the verses must be transposed, οἵ τ’ εἶχον must follow directly after the line beginning with Νῦν αὖ. Both Hellas and Phthia are countries, and stand in apposition to the Pelasgian Argos.

This division into four parts applies only to Thessaly in the narrower sense, and is not so much of geographical interest, as it is of real political importance: there must at one time have existed four real Thessalian states standing to one another in the relation of isopolity, like the Romans and Hernicans, and the Samnite nations among one another. But this point, like all that concerns Thessaly, is involved in very great obscurity. This much, however, is certain, that the division was restored under Philip of Macedonia, who, for the purpose of breaking the power of Thessaly cut it up into four different states, just as afterwards the Romans did with Macedonia, and as, in 1812, Napoleon, while making the Poles believe that he was restoring their state, divided their country into three parts, in order to prevent its rising, at a great distance from him, to the rank of a powerful state. This is the tetrarchy of which Theopompus in Harpocration gives the well known explanation. Demosthenes (_Philip._ ii. p. 71, ed. Reiske), however, states that Philip divided Thessaly into decadarchies: this reading occurs indeed in all the MSS., but they are of little authority, as all of them are founded upon a single recension, and are perhaps derived from one original manuscript. From Harpocration, too, an author of the second century, we see that in his time this reading already existed, and puzzled him as well as other archaeologists. It is historically certain, that the Lacedaemonians, in every town that became subject to them, established a decadarchy, as at first they did at Athens, though they there increased the number to thirty; but how we have to view the statement in regard to Thessaly, is, as Harpocration admits, a matter of doubt. The explanation, however, is not so very difficult. The δεκαδαρχίαι in the second Philippic are, if we examine the context, quite the same as the tetrarchies in the third (p. 117). The fault arose from the compendious mode of writing: Δ in ancient Greek writing has, as a number, a double meaning; according to the common Phoenician practice it signified _four_, and according to the Attic system of writing _ten_. In nearly all the earlier inscriptions, where it occurs as a number, Δ signifies _ten_, as Π signifies _fifty_; when, therefore, Δ with a line (Δʹ) occurred before ἀρχία (ΔʹΑΡΧΙΑ), the reader knew that it indicated a number, but he made it either _ten_ or _four_, according as he imagined that he had before him an Attic or a common number; and if he was familiar with the Lacedaemonian decadarchy, he read in this passage also δεκαδαρχία. This division into tetrarchies, then, existed in the Macedonian period, but we do not know how long.

I will now put together the few fragments of Thessalian history which have come down to us. The family of the Aleuadae, a Heracleid family, was the most celebrated of all, and ruled at Larissa; it formed an oligarchy even within the ruling nation; at the time of the Persian wars it was so powerful as to be in possession of the whole government, and it is probable that the Thessalian kings mentioned by Thucydides belonged to it. The Scopadae were another great and noble family at Pharsalus. The nobility of Thessaly, like that of the Sarmatians and that of the middle ages, were numerous, whence the best part of the Thessalian armies consisted of horsemen; they scarcely had any infantry at all; a Thessalian phalanx does not occur anywhere, and peltasts are not mentioned till later times. Notwithstanding the state of dissolution in which we find Thessaly, there still existed a bond among the different states, which embraced even the neighbouring nations, the Magnetes, the Achaeans of Phthia, and the Peraebians; it is possible that the Thessalians, may have ruled over the tribes which touched upon their borders, but the latter were never really subdued by them, and the Peraebians seem to have been under the direct supremacy of Larissa. About thirty or forty years after the Peloponnesian war, when the disorganisation had increased, the town of Pherae, which had formerly been insignificant, rose into importance, and Jason, a man of great parts, came forward there as tyrant, and was elected dictator by the whole of Thessaly under the title of ταγός, in which capacity he ruled over Thessaly and even over the countries dependent on it. He was succeeded by his brothers, and then by his nephew Alexander; but his dynasty, like those of all usurpers in Greece, passed away, and afterwards Thessaly was in a state of greater dissolution than ever. The Aleuadae now renewed their claims, but the Thessalians happened at the time, in common with the Boeotians, to be involved in the unfortunate war against the Phocians, and Magnesia on that occasion recovered its independence. In these circumstances, Philip of Macedonia appeared among them under the mask of a friend, pretending that he would assist them, that he would subdue the Phocians, and reduce Magnesia to obedience; he was accordingly appointed tagus, and intrusted with the administration of their revenues arising from port dues and the tribute of their dependencies. Philip abused this ridiculous confidence, which was in reality an act of treason of the Thessalians against themselves, and put himself in permanent possession of the common domain of which he had undertaken the management, especially the Thessalian port of Pagasae, from which the revenues were very large. Thessaly, which was now divided into four parts, henceforth belonged to the crown of Macedonia. Very feeble attempts only were made by the Thessalians to recover their independence: in the Lamian war they endeavoured in vain to shake off the yoke, and the same was attempted in the subsequent wars against Cassander and Demetrius Poliorcetes. Thessaly, in the narrower sense, however, remained subject to Macedonia until the second Roman war of Philip. Under Antigonus Gonatas and Demetrius, the father of Philip, the Aetolians gained Achaia Phthiotis, which thus became separated. Philip recovered indeed a portion of it (Olymp. 140), but the greater part remained in the hands of the Aetolians, who even conquered parts of Thessaly Proper, such as Pharsalus, which, though it was recovered by the Macedonians, yet remained for a time in the hands of the Aetolians. Thessaly, however, even in its connection with Macedonia, continued to form a state by itself, with the exception of Magnesia, which was regarded as part of Μακεδονία ἐπίκτητος, and where Demetrius Poliorcetes built the great fortress of Demetrias, which often served the Macedonian kings as a place of residence; it was very strong, and possessed a military port with arsenals for both the land army and the navy. When the Romans took Greece from Macedonia, Thessaly, as far as Mount Olympus and the Cambunian mountains, was separated from Macedonia, and obtained autonomy. It now formed a separate state, probably including the Peraebians and the Achaean Phthiotians; but Magnesia, which remained separate, surrendered to Antiochus, and afterwards remained in the possession of Philip, who had conquered it together with Demetrias, and with the sanction of the Romans retained it, a fact which has often been overlooked. Many believe that Philip was confined within the boundaries of Macedonia; but this is erroneous; his dominion extended over several other countries besides, for he was rewarded by the Romans with possessions, which afterwards they took from him. The fasti of the Thessalian strategi have come down to us in the Armenian translation of Eusebius; and from them we learn that the strategi were appointed for the whole of Thessaly in common, that Larissa not only had no privileges, but that they were sometimes chosen from smaller places, nay even from districts, as Phthiotis and Orestis, which had formerly been subject to Thessaly. One strategus belonged to Argos, which must have been Argos in Orestis, and not the Amphilochian Argos. During the war against Perseus, the Thessalians were in disgrace with the Romans; whether at that time they lost their autonomy cannot be proved with any degree of probability. In the war of the Pseudo-Philip, one part of the Thessalians joined him; but the history of that war is so obscure, that we cannot say whether they were independent or not. They seem, however, to have had, or at least to have recovered, a kind of autonomy, for during the war between Caesar and Pompey, the Thessalians appear as a state or κοινόν with a strategus (_praetor_). The Achaeans then had no common strategus, and this accordingly appears to prove the autonomy of the Thessalians. After this their history cannot be traced.

After the description I have already given of the physical features of Thessaly in the narrowest sense of the name, I have only to add a few remarks on some other points.

LARISSA was the most important town of Thessaly both in antiquity and the middle ages; and it is so still. Its situation is extremely favourable, the district around it being unusually fertile. Neither Larissa nor any other Thessalian town has a distinct history.

PHERAE, next to Larissa the greatest town, was situated in the plain towards the bay; it was not indeed as great as Larissa, but still a respectable town, and is renowned in mythology for the story of Admetus; in the historical times, Jason and his family gave a certain celebrity to it.

PHARSALUS, remarkable for the ever memorable battle which decided the fate of Rome, belonged for a time to the Aetolians.

TRICCA, a town of which considerable ruins still exist, was celebrated for the worship of Asclepius. At least twenty other Thessalian places are mentioned, but I will not detain you with an enumeration of their names, as they are not sufficiently known.

PAGASAE was the sea-port of Thessaly. The country, in its narrower sense, extended only thirty stadia along the sea-coast, beginning with the gulf of Pagasae or Iolcos; the Thessalians, therefore, had no fleet, though they may have had a few ships to keep up their commerce by sea. Pagasae had been united with their country for the sake of commerce; in the earlier times it is mentioned on several occasions, but it disappears during the Macedonian period, as Demetrius Poliorcetes transplanted all the inhabitants of the towns in that neighbourhood to his new fortress of Demetrias.

PERAEBIA, one of the three countries subject to Thessaly, extended along the foot of mount Olympus towards Macedonia; its mountainous parts were for a time independent, but afterwards surrendered to Thessaly; they did so, however, on more favourable terms than the Aeolian inhabitants of the plains; for, though they lost their political independence, they did not become serfs. The inhabitants were Epirots of the tribe of the Peraebians dwelling in the neighbourhood of Dodona.

The MAGNETES also belonged to the race of the Pelasgians. The Greek form of their name is Magnetes, though we are accustomed to say Magnesians, which is in reality incorrect. Their country embraced the whole coast of Thessaly from mount Ossa and the mouth of the Peneus down to the sea which separates Thessaly from Euboea, and the bay of Iolcos. The whole of mount Pelion belonged to Magnesia, which has few harbours on its coast, the most important being that in the bay of Iolcos. In the map of D’Anville and others of an earlier date, a considerable town of the name of Magnesia is marked near the end of the promontory; but this town never existed, it is a mere blunder, arising from a misunderstood passage of Apollonius Rhodius, who, in describing the voyage of the ship Argo along the coast, mentions Magnesia in such a manner that a person who is not a scholar might mistake it for a town. Scylax and Herodotus, who give a very accurate enumeration of the towns on that coast in their natural succession, do not mention one of the name of Magnesia, which they apply to the country alone. In Demosthenes, too, Magnesia is not a town.

According to their genealogy, the Magnetes belonged to the Pelasgians, but of their history nothing is known. In very early times, however, they also occur in Asia, either because they had emigrated thither, or because the Pelasgian races in Meonia bore the same name: and why should not the Magnetes in Europe have undertaken voyages from their coast to the East?

IOLCOS on the Anaurus in Magnesia, is the place from which the Argonautic expedition is said to have sailed. In the ancient story it appears as an important place of the Minyans, but afterwards it was only a very small town, which subsequently disappears altogether.

But instead of it there arose DEMETRIAS, on the modern bay of Volo, a splendid harbour in the neighbourhood of Iolcos: this town is one of those creations which shew the practical and keen eye of its founder. We have seen that the establishment of Megalopolis was an unsuccessful undertaking; Demetrias was a rude, immoral, detested, and odious man, but of uncommon ability, which he shewed in his great discoveries in mechanics and in the art of engineering; the same talent was manifested here also, for he chose a spot which had been neglected for centuries for the purpose of founding a capital of Greece, which he intended to govern as a kingdom. The fact that his son, Antigonus Gonatas, was enabled to maintain himself as king, without having a definite kingdom, was owing to Demetrias, for it was his place of residence, and his whole strength lay there; it became the capital of Magnesia which was governed by Macedonia as a province in a manner which is somewhat strange to us; for under those despotisms, small countries often had a republican form of government, in which the kings interfered but seldom. In like manner, the small islands of the Archipelago, before the outbreak of the present war, were governed by Constantinople: when a Turkish vessel appeared, the people trembled, the magistrates were called out, and if the commander was so minded, he put them to death. The relations in the Macedonian empire were of a similar kind; the provinces were bound to pay tribute and furnish troops, but otherwise they lived quite under democratic institutions; and when a king founded a city like Antioch or Alexandria, it received a mixed population of Greeks and Macedonians, and a republican municipal constitution. Demetrias, as I have already said, became the capital of Magnesia, when after the war of Philip the country became free, but it then threw itself into the arms of Antiochus. As a punishment for this, the Romans allowed it again to be subdued by Macedonia, and we find Perseus still in possession of it. We are perfectly ignorant as to the manner in which the Romans decided the fate of Magnesia and Demetrias because the last book of Livy has come down to us incomplete; it is not probable that they incorporated it with Thessaly or with Macedonia; it is more likely that, on account of the strength of Demetrias, they reserved for themselves the supremacy over it, and occupied it by a garrison.

The third dependent state was ACHAIA (Phthiotis). We are surprised to find this name here again; and the ancients unhesitatingly assume that emigrants from Peloponnesus had come to these parts, for which there is no authority at all. A thoughtful ethnographer is content with the observation that people of the same name lived in both countries, and that accordingly they were of the same origin, but he refrains from the attempt to explain the particular manner in which they were connected. Achaia formed a state under Thessalian supremacy, and it may have been somewhat more or less important than Brescia, Verona, or Padua under the supremacy of Venice. Brescia, _e.g._, was governed by a senate of forty persons, consisting of its own nobility; but the town was obliged to pay a certain tribute to Venice. The territory of Brescia again consisted of smaller states under the supremacy of Brescia. The government of Brescia in regard to the administration of justice, was subject to Venice, to which an appeal was open in criminal cases, and which, when appealed to, sent commissioners (_proveditore_) to re-examine the case. These gradations of dependence are quite obscure to us, and we cannot see our way clearly in them. We are apt to think only of a government from above, which makes the laws, but such was not the case in antiquity nor in the middle ages. Thus previously to the year 1798 there existed within the papal dominions several places, which stood indeed under the protection of the popes, but had their own laws, and even carried into execution sentences of death without the sanction of the sovereign. A person making himself familiar with the variety of the Swiss constitutions is going through an excellent course of preparation for a profound knowledge of ancient history.

The case of Achaia was precisely the same: it had the administration of its internal affairs, but no political independence; it was not allowed to carry on war on its own account, but was obliged to serve in the armies of Thessaly, and to pay a certain tribute according to the terms of its capitulation, and in extraordinary cases even more.

THEBE, the only important town of Phthiotis, was one of the strongest fortresses of Greece, being well fortified both by nature and by art. For a time it belonged, like the rest of Phthiotis, to the Aetolians, but was taken from them by Philip, and was one of the places out of which the Aetolians wanted to cheat the Romans, although the latter had well-founded claims to it. Hence their exasperation was natural enough, but the manner in which they gave vent to their rage and fury was senseless.

The MELIANS, a little people, dwelt on the Sperchius in the corner of the gulf called Μαλιακός or Πυλιακὸς κόλπος. It is strange to find a distinction made there between the Malians and Melians, though the difference appears to be only one of dialect. They are in reality but one people, and that too a very small one; the doubts cannot be satisfactorily solved. TRACHIS, the capital of the Melians, plays a prominent part in poetry for being the seat of Ceyx, and in the Heracleiae it was a place of great importance. In the time of the Peloponnesian war, the Lacedaemonians established there the colony of Heraclea; it was a Doric place and had Doric νόμιμα, although its population was a mass of people driven together from all quarters, but it had Spartan oecistae, that is, commanders who made the laws and established the constitution. This town of Heraclea maintained itself down to the latest times; during the Macedonico-Aetolian period, it belonged to Aetolia, and was called Ἡρακλεία ἡ ἐπὶ Τραχῖνι, but often simply Ἡρακλεία. It was taken by the Romans after the defeat of Antiochus.

The OETAEANS, likewise a very small people, lived in mount Oeta; they are generally overlooked in our geographical books and maps. But although they were a small people, they enjoyed perfect political independence, just like Jersey, with its 1,800 inhabitants previously to the revolution. They occur as an independent people even in Herodotus and Thucydides; but we know nothing further about them, for afterwards they disappear.

The AENIANIANS, a somewhat more important people, dwelt above the Melians and Oetaeans, but more to the west; they are called Αἰνιᾶνες in Thucydides, Xenophon and others, but Herodotus calls them Ἐνιῆνες. This is the most ancient instance of the Attic αι being expressed in another dialect by ε, which is the modern Greek pronunciation of αι. The termination αν is Pelasgic, and also appears in Italy as _ans_ or _as_. The Aenianians, like the Melians, do not seem to have been among the subjects of Thessaly; for Aristotle, in speaking of the internal commotions among the Thessalian subjects does not mention them. Their small capital, HYPATA, occurs in the wars of the Romans and Aetolians, and is also interesting, from the circumstance of its being the scene of the romance of Apuleius, who considers it as belonging to Thessaly. The Thessalian women were believed to be skilled in witchcraft; but this belief referred more particularly to the women of Hypata, and in this respect they are spoken of by Apuleius.

THE DOLOPIANS.

There remains one people, the Dolopians, who in the earliest history of Greece are scarcely mentioned at all. They must have occupied a very extensive country, but it was of an Alpine character, and embraced the part where mount Pindus turns round towards the Aetolian frontier: there they must have lived in the valleys in scattered villages. They are mentioned in the Iliad as by no means foreign to the Greeks, any more than Dodona in the Catalogue; but still the poet of the Iliad can scarcely have regarded them as real Hellenes: their name is one of those by which a branch of the multiform and undefinable race of the Pelasgians was designated. The passage in which Thucydides says (i. 2), that in the Iliad Hellenes and barbarians were not distinguished, and which refers to such nations as the Dolopians, must be understood to mean, that Homer mentioned as Hellenic, nations which Thucydides in a strict sense included among the barbarians, for the Homeric geography is based more upon geographical masses than upon the identity of nationality, the latter of which is more carefully attended to by Thucydides. Such also is the meaning of Strabo. Scyros is called Dolopian, and the inhabitants of Euboea and the neighbouring Cyclades are called Dryopians, who in point of origin are the same nation as the Dolopians. Here again we need not have recourse to a migration, which would have had to traverse the mountains and the territories of so many nations: the Dolopians on the Achelous and the Dryopians in the Aegean are names of the same nation, in the same manner in which we find Thessalians in Italy and in Greece.

The Dolopians are not mentioned in history except in a passage of Thucydides, where he says that the Achelous flows from mount Pindus through the country of the Dolopians, and in Xenophon’s Hellenica, where we find that they were governed by Jason of Pherae. Afterwards they appear alternately under the supremacy of Macedonia and the Aetolians, until in the end Philip, in his war against the Aetolians and Antiochus, again subdued them. In this condition they are found in the war of Perseus, afterwards they disappear in the general catastrophe of Greece.

We have now passed through Greece from the southernmost point of Peloponnesus as far as mount Olympus, the Thessalian mountains and Tempe.[68] In casting our eyes back upon Greece, it is surprising to find how few of those nations share in the great renown of the Greeks in literature and the arts. In the earliest times poetry was the common property of all rather than of individuals: epic poetry was chiefly cultivated among the Ionians in Asia Minor; lyric poetry among the Aeolians, in Lesbos, Boeotia, Sicily, and Magna Graecia (Himera, Rhegium), and afterwards also among the Dorians; dramatic poetry was in reality confined to Athens. After Pindar, no part of Greece, except Athens, produced poets, prose writers, and orators, until the latest times again wrought a change; for then, after the real life and flourishing period of the arts had already disappeared, there came forward Polybius, a most respectable author indeed, though not beyond the point which we ourselves may attain. The renown in the plastic arts was shared by Corinth and Sicyon, at an earlier period also by Boeotia and Aegina, and in a less degree by Argos. Thessaly is a perfectly rude country, in which genius has created nothing.

I shall now pass on to the Greek islands, first to Euboea, next to the islands in the Aegean, and then to Tenedos and Lesbos, whose whole character is Asiatic, the Cyclades, Crete, and the Sporades. I shall then discuss the Ionic, Doric, and Aeolic settlements in Asia Minor, the colonies on the coast of Thrace, on the Euxine, and on the southern coast of Asia Minor. Of most of the islands very little can be said.

EUBOEA.

Euboea, the largest island in the Aegean, is situated close to the continent of Greece. This island is often mentioned, especially by later poets, Callimachus, Apollonius Rhodius (with his scholiast), and others under antiquated names. Such names, however, are not to be overlooked, for they are not fictitious or arbitrary designations, but must be dealt with cautiously, and neither too much nor too little importance ought to be attributed to them. But we must above all things be on our guard against drawing too hasty conclusions from them, as is done by a certain school of philologers, who from names and a few facts draw inferences which are repulsive to a strict philologer, especially when he considers that there is so much that is clear and true, if they would but take the trouble to search for it. Thus, e.g., it is not an unimportant statement, that Euboea was formerly called Macris, which contains an allusion to the Pelasgian Macrians on the Propontis, who are mentioned by Apollonius Rhodius; Corcyra also is said to have been called Macris. Such things must be known to us, as they were known to the Alexandrian grammarians. Dionysius Thrax[69] mentions emendation and the interpretation of the writings of antiquity as the objects of a grammarian and philologer: a noble object, which you, too, must set before yourselves. Whoever wants to be a grammarian, sets before himself a high aim, which requires a knowledge of antiquity, of mythology, legends and traditions; in short, he must know everything that was known to Apollonius, Eratosthenes, and the grammarians of the second Alexandrian school. A philologer must strive to become master of all the legends and traditions to such a degree as to be able, after a moment’s thought, to give an account of what he finds in a poet. This knowledge also comprises that which is found in isolated notices of the scholiasts.

In the Homeric Catalogue, Euboea belongs to the group of Argive states, but Abantes also dwell in the island. Respecting the origin of these Abantes nothing can be ascertained. Afterwards we find the island divided into five states, three of which are called Ionic and regarded as Ionic colonies; the fourth is Dryopian, and the fifth, Hestiaean, both evidently of the same race as the ancient inhabitants of Thessaly about mount Pindus, that is, Pelasgian. CHALCIS and ERETRIA are said to have been founded by Ionians from Athens; the former was situated on the Euripus, the latter, to the south-east of it. In the early history of Greece, between Olymp. 20 and 40, a period which is so much neglected, both places were of great importance. It is perfectly clear that, though we cannot explain how, they possessed a power far superior to that of Athens at the same time; the great power of the Colophonians also belongs to that period of which the history is lost to us. We only know accidentally, that those two states carried on a long, protracted, and fierce war against each other, in which nearly all the states of Greece joined either the one or the other of them. This shows but too plainly how little the history of Greece is known.

Both cities founded an endless number of colonies, and Chalcis more particularly on the Thracian coast (the Chalcidian towns in Epithrace), in Sicily and Italy (Cumae, Himera, Zancle, Catana, Naxos, Rhegium, and others). It cannot be supposed, that these numerous colonies contained an efflux of population commensurate with the size of the place, but only oecistae went out with a fleet under the protection of Chalcis, and a multitude of people then assembled from all parts of Greece, who were in want of a home; the Chalcidians however were the leaders, and the colony, out of gratitude, formed the noblest phyle from the Chalcidian oecistae, who made the laws. These colonies are another great proof of the deficiency of our knowledge of that stirring period, and show how much we should know, if we possessed Ephorus or only the portion of the work of Diodorus from the sixth to the tenth book. Our information is principally derived from Strabo and Heraclides Ponticus. The last occurrence in which Chalcis appears as a great state, is related by Herodotus, and belongs to the period subsequent to the expulsion of the Pisistratids. The Chalcidians, in conjunction with the Boeotians, carried on war against Athens, but were defeated. The numbers mentioned by Herodotus on that occasion show to what extent precision is lost and how delusive accounts become, even within the space of a century. But certain it is, that Chalcis was conquered by Athens, and that cleruchi were sent to it, of whom, however, subsequently not a trace appears, whence it must be supposed that they had been expelled. The Eretrians are mentioned as being in alliance with Athens; hence we may perhaps assume, that this alliance had existed even in the early times, when Chalcis and Eretria were at war with each other. During the Persian war, Chalcis was not a place of much consequence, and afterwards still less so.

Eretria sent out colonies to Corcyra even before the Corinthians, also to Ischia near Naples, and had its share in the colonisation of Naples itself. It maintained its power longer than Chalcis, and during the insurrection of Aristagoras, it had spirit enough to carry out the expedition against Sardes; but in the campaigns of Datis it was completely (ἄρδην) destroyed, and its inhabitants carried away as slaves into Persia; there the king of the barbarians assigned to them habitations in the distant interior of Bactria. The new Eretria, built under the protection of Athens, remained unimportant.

CARYSTOS, the third town, is renowned for the beautiful striped marble found in its neighbourhood; it is white, with greenish veins, and occurs in large strata. The Italians, from its resemblance to the layers of an onion, call it _cipollino_. Mineralogy, metallurgy, and technology are studies which no philologer ought to neglect; they are extremely instructive to him.

STYRA was quite insignificant; it is called Dryopian, that is, the ancient inhabitants remained there. It was situated on the southern extremity of the island.

HISTIAEA, on the north-eastern point of Euboea, had a Pelasgian population. In the time of Pericles, it was subdued by the Athenians; all Euboea had then renounced the connection with Athens, but was re-conquered; the Histiaeans were overpowered, and an Athenian colony was established among them. Athenian colonists are otherwise rarely mentioned, and wherever they occur, the expression is generally not to be taken in its proper sense, Ionian colonists alone being mostly meant by it. The new colony was called OREOS, and was founded for the purpose of keeping Euboea in obedience, and of preventing it from keeping up a connection with the northern part of the sea. These colonists, as well as the Attic inhabitants of Lemnos and Scyros, appear to have been expelled after the Peloponnesian war; whether they returned, is not known, but Oreos continued to exist as a town. In the maritime war of the Romans and Macedonians, it was ravaged and completely destroyed, so that it never recovered again.

The most interesting physical phenomenon connected with Euboea is the EURIPUS, the channel between Boeotia and Euboea; the sea there had its tides every day, but in a very irregular manner. This was a great puzzle to the natural philosophers among the Greeks, and would be so still, were it not that that part of Europe is so much withdrawn from the observation of the inquirer. The south-east of Euboea presents a rocky and dangerous coast; it may be said in general, that Euboea has no harbours, and the greater part of its coast is _infamis duris naufragiis_; the Capharean rocks deserve to be noticed in particular, for, according to tradition, the Greek fleet, on its return from Troy, was dashed against them, and Ajax, the son of Oileus, perished there. The northern part of this harbourless coast is called the κοῖλα of Euboea.

CHALCIS, about whose ancient greatness I have already spoken, was situated to the north of the neck of land (στενά), which separates the northern from the southern portion of the island. It was for the most part deserted as early as the time of Dicaearchus; its walls enclosed a space of upwards of five miles in circumference, but the place was comparatively desolate. The Macedonian rulers soon made themselves masters of it for the purpose of keeping Greece in subjection. In the newly-discovered fragments of his work, Polybius speaks of an insurrection of Chalcis against Macedonia, of which the consequence was, that a Macedonian garrison was placed in the town. I have not yet been able to find out in which war this occurrence took place, though it was probably in the Lamian war, or perhaps at a later time, under Demetrius Poliorcetes. From the time of this Demetrius, the island was in the hands of the Macedonians, though not always as a part of the Macedonian empire. Under Antigonus Gonatas, his brother Craterus, and, after him, his son Alexander, were princes of Euboea. At a later period it was again dependent on Macedonia. In the war of Philip, Chalcis suffered severely during a predatory expedition of the Romans, for it was taken by surprise, plundered, and reduced to ashes. After this it rose again, for it was always easy for those Greek towns to be restored, if their public buildings were not destroyed, because the private dwellings were of a very humble nature and could easily be rebuilt. The city then became the head quarters of Antiochus. Such things were not forgotten by the Romans, for their hatred was implacable; they did indeed restore Chalcis to independence, because they had not yet gained as firm a footing in those parts as afterwards; but when Corinth had been taken, Chalcis was one of the towns which, according to the decision of the _decem legati_, were destroyed. It was not till several centuries later that it was partially restored; and its situation is so favourable, that, in the course of time, when the earlier circumstances had been forgotten, a new town again rose there under the name of Egribos, from which the modern name Negroponte has been formed.

The four or five towns of Euboea, which had formerly been separate states, had each quite a distinct history of its own; but afterwards when the Greek nations united in larger masses, they, too, like the Phocians, are mentioned as a κοινόν, and that, too, as early as the time of Flamininus; they brought about their own ruin by taking part in the unfortunate Achaean war.

Let us now pass on to the northern islands. The nearest to the Thessalian coast, to the north of Oreos, are SCIATHOS and SCOPELOS, which were no doubt Dolopian islands; but nothing particular can be said about them.

SCYROS is interesting on account of the legends about the youth of Achilles, about Lycomedes and Deïdameia. Theseus, too, is said to have been buried there, and his remains were brought thence to Athens by Cimon. The island remained in the possession of the Pelasgian Dolopians, its ancient inhabitants, until the time when Cimon established an Athenian cleruchia there, that is, a number of Athenian citizens obtained each a certain amount of land, as it were by a lottery. They accordingly became landed proprietors there, but might dwell in Scyros or remain at Athens, if they pleased; in the former case, they did not form an independent state, but only a community under the laws of Athens. Such was the case at Aegina, Naxos, Samos, Melos, Lesbos, and elsewhere. This was the system adopted during the period of the supremacy and tyrannical sway of Athens, and was one of the means of enriching the multitude. Sycros, Lemnos and Imbros in particular became in this manner so completely Athenian, that those who dwelt there, though they had an independent administration, yet did not form a state, but were members of the Attic phylae, and belonged to the number of Athenian citizens. In the Peloponnesian war, the Lacedaemonians expelled the Athenian cleruchi from Scyros and other places, but after the battle of Naxos they were restored. After the peace with Philip, these islands, and especially Scyros, remained under the protection of Athens, at least they were restored to it; even when Rome decided the fate of Greece, Scyros preserved its connection with Athens, and continued to do so until the time of Augustus, and probably even much longer.

The small island of PEPARETHOS, not far from Scyros, was celebrated for its wine.

HALONNESOS owes all its importance to the fact, that it was the occasion of the beautiful speech of Demosthenes. It had been taken by the tyrant of Pherae, and the dispute was as to the terms on which it was to be restored to Athens. Otherwise both these small islands shared the fate of Scyros.

LEMNOS and IMBROS have both the same political history as Scyros. Lemnos, however, is much more interesting to us, on account of its volcanic nature, whence it was sacred to Hephaestus. It is essentially a volcanic island, and the ancients speak of a volcanic mountain having existed there down to the commencement of the historical period, which, however, has now been extinct for upwards of 2000 years. Volcanic productions, as terra sigillata and meerschaum, and several volcanic springs, are of frequent occurrence there. The beautiful fragments of the Philoctetes of Attius, which Hermann has collected and emended, refer to that island. It contained two towns, _Hephaestia_ and _Myrina_. According to tradition, it was inhabited by Pelasgians, who are also called Tyrrhenians; they are said to have first migrated to Athens, and thence to Lemnos. There is probably no more foundation for the belief that Tyrrhenians migrated to Lemnos, than that they went to the Asiatic coast of Aeolia. Lemnos was taken by the Athenians at the time when they founded their colony in Chersonesus; it was taken from them by Antipater, but after being restored to them, they lost it again. Respecting Imbros, nothing particular need be said.

SAMOTHRACE is celebrated in the ancient legends for the worship and the mysteries of the Cabiri, whence it has been much discussed by the moderns: the unfortunate passion to solve all difficulties which cannot be solved, has also extended to Samothrace. Whether and when it received a Greek colony, is not stated by any Greek author. The remark, that it was a Samian colony, seems to have been made merely on account of its name; but it appears to have been a hellenised Pelasgo-Tyrrhenian settlement. The Samothracians had traditions going as far back as the time when the Hellespont and the Bosporus had not yet burst their chains, and when the Aegean was not yet a sea, which it became when the Pontus broke through its barriers. But these are mere speculations. The island was important as a connecting link among ancient nations, and I am convinced that it was the focus from which a great number of ancient traditions proceeded. It seems to have been a resort of pilgrims, like Mecca, or at least a place where the Pelasgians from the most different parts of the world met, and which they regarded as the real centre of their religion. It would be very interesting to know more particulars about the history of the island, but this does not justify the attempts to build castles in the air out of insufficient data.

THASOS, the northernmost of these islands, had a Parian colony, and, as Paros was inhabited by Ionians, it was an Ionian colony. Before the Greeks took possession of it, it was like Cythera, one of the many settlements of the Phoenicians, whence in Cythera the worship of Mylitta, and in Thasos that of Melkarth, continued to exist. We must conceive, that in the very earliest times the Phoenicians were established on the coasts of Greece in settlements as numerous as in the historical ages were those on the African and Spanish coasts and in Cythera. Thasos has quarries of beautiful marble, but is not suited to the growth of corn, and is not a fertile island, whence it is ill spoken of by Archilochus. But Thasian wine was much esteemed. The island had also silver mines, which had been worked even by the Phoenicians, and it possessed still richer ones on the opposite coast of Thrace.

For a time Thasos was powerful and wealthy in consequence of its mines and its commerce; and by this wealth the Thasians established their influence among the sea-faring nations. But when they were forced to submit to the Athenian supremacy, they found it difficult to live in that state of dependence, and twenty years after the Persian, and thirty years before the Peloponnesian war, they revolted, but were subdued by the Athenians. From that time Thasos began to decay.

All these maritime places, though their lands were barren, had a numerous population as long as their navigation was flourishing; but as soon as the current of commerce turned in other directions, the population decreased with extraordinary rapidity. Such was the case at Chalcis and Aegina, and also in Thasos.

THE CYCLADES.

It is very convenient in treating of such a multitude of islands to consider them in certain groups, which is a great assistance to the memory. It is no trifling matter to impress upon one’s mind geography in such a manner as to know it completely, and it was a happy idea to divide the southern islands of the Aegean into Cyclades and Sporades.

The Cyclades are twelve in number, and in the early times no doubt formed one confederacy, of which, however, we know no particulars. But traces of such a union occur in the Homeric hymn on Apollo. Delos was the centre. These islands, according to Thucydides, were partly inhabited by Phoenicians, but for the most part by Carians. He proves this in the case of Delos in an excellent manner by the fact, that the arms found in the newly opened tombs were Carian. However, these islands were not altogether Carian; for we find that in later times the inhabitants of Cythnos were Dryopians. This is stated by Herodotus, and the Dryopians, as we have seen, were Pelasgians. In this case, we cannot think at all of a migration; the Dryopians were a remnant of the Pelasgians.[70]

The names of the twelve islands, going round the circle in a north-western direction are:—CEOS, CYTHNOS, SERIPHOS, SIPHNOS, PAROS, NAXOS, DELOS, RHENEA, MYCONOS, SYROS, TENOS, and ANDROS. Delos was the smallest, but at the same time the most illustrious among them. The notion of the ancients was, that it formed the centre, round which the others were grouped in a circle, and that hence they were called Cyclades. But this is erroneous, for Delos rather forms the circle together with the others. In the earliest times, it was the seat of a common panegyris for the twelve islands and of ancient agones, as we see from the hymn on Apollo, of which the first part at least is so ancient that its composition may be regarded as contemporaneous with that of the Iliad and Odyssey. The dissolution of that union is one of the mysteries of ancient Greek history.

The ancient names of Delos are ASTERIA and OGYGIA. The statement that it was at one time a floating island, is of course fabulous, but it is not improbable that it may have been raised above the sea by volcanic agency.

Wherever we meet with notices of the Cyclades in the historical times, they are at first all independent of one another; with the exception of Cythnos, all received Ionian colonists from Athens, whence we there find the relation of masters and serfs, as for example at Naxos, where Lygdamis was tyrant. Wherever we have a trace of history, we catch a glimpse, as it were in the twilight, of an oligarchical relation. After the Persian wars, the Cyclades came under the supremacy of Athens, for each by itself was too weak: even Miltiades had tried to subdue Paros and Naxos, and afterwards the plan succeeded. Naxos, which revolted, received a cleruchia. Delos was changed by the Athenians into a national sanctuary; the ancient inhabitants were expelled, and a colony was sent thither. In obedience to the command of an oracle, the Athenians dug up all the dead bodies in the island, and conveyed them to Rhenea; but even for many years previously it had not been allowed to bury any one there. Although the islands were fertile, yet they were powerless, and after the battle of Naxos, again acknowledged the supremacy of Athens. In the Macedonian period, Delos alone seems to have remained in the hands of the Athenians, and after the war of Perseus, it was given back to them by the Romans; whether the Romans had a right to do so, I know not. During the Roman period, Delos, which had formerly been venerable for religious reasons, acquired a different kind of importance: it became the place of the greatest fair in those parts, being the entrepot between Alexandria and the towns on the Euxine; it was resorted to by merchants from the most distant countries, and even by the Romans so far as they carried on their commerce from Puteoli. To Athens it was of great importance on account of its harbour dues. It was also a central point for the slave-trade, and on one occasion 10,000 slaves are said to have been sold there in one day. From this fact some modern authors have made out, that this was the number of slaves sold there every day all the year round. At a later time Delos lost this importance; the piracy of the Cilicians and Cretans seems to have inflicted on Delos a deadly blow, and in the time of Augustus and Strabo it had lost its commercial importance, trade having taken a different direction.

PAROS is celebrated for its white marble, the most beautiful for purposes of sculpture: the Carrara marble which enjoys a great reputation, is of a much inferior kind, containing more lime, while the Parian is more like crystal and precious stone, nor has it the disagreeable suggary whiteness of the Carrara marble, which becomes a little yellowish only by exposure to the air. Opposite to Paros is the small island of Antiparos, remarkable for its grotto with its stalactites, the most celebrated in the world, though the ancients do not mention it. In early times, the town of Paros was one of the most enterprising, and, in a commercial point of view, one of the most important places; besides the island itself, the Parians had colonies extending far into the interior of the Adriatic, and the town of Paros there is said to have been of Parian origin; they also took part in the establishment of a colony on the Liris. Archilochus, one of the greatest poets of Greece, was a native of Paros. Some Greeks whose judgment is of great weight, placed him by the side of Homer: and legendary stories say, that the gods were so favourably disposed towards him as to order Corax, who had murdered him, to quit their sanctuary and not to return to it, until he had propitiated the shade of the poet. Paros also possesses an excellent harbour, suited even to great ships of war; but it is little noticed in ancient history. It may be said in general that those islands were rich in harbours.

SIPHNOS, remarkable in a mineralogical point of view, is not far distant from Paros; previous to the Persian period, it had silver mines, through which it became wealthy; but when they were exhausted, it sank into the greatest wretchedness, for it is a barren island.