I.

remains of trophies and marble monuments are CHAP. yet visible. Beyond all extends the sea, shewing the station of the Persian fleet, and the distant headlands of Eubœa and of Attica.

From the Village of Marathon we descended into the PLAIN, by the bed of the Charadrus river; and crossing it, came first to the village of Bey, and afterwards to another village called Bey. Sepheri. These names are written as they were Sepheri. pronounced. We endeavoured to ascertain the etymology of the last; and the inhabitants told us that the word Sepheri signifies The war. Very little reliance, however, is to be placed upon information so obtained. Near to this place is one of the antient wells of the country. The villages of Bey and Sepheri may possibly occupy the sites of Probalinthus and Enoa, cities of the TETRAPOLIS of ATTICA: they are situate at the foot of the mountain called Croton; along the base of which, between this mountain and the Charadrus river, extends the road to Athens, in a north-westerly direction'. Passing round the

(2) Within this district were the four cities of Enoa, Marathon, Probalinthus, and Tricorythus. Vid. Strabon. Geog. lib. viii. p. 555. Edit. Oxon.

(3) See the author's Topographical Chart of the Plain.

་

I.

BRAURON.

CHAP. foot of this mountain to the right, that is to say, towards the west, in a part of the plain which lies between Croton and another mountain called Agherlichi, lying towards the south-west, we came to the village of Branna, pronounced Vranna, and generally believed to be a corruption of the antient Brauron. To this village it was that Wheler descended, by a different route, as before mentioned, from that which we pursued; "over a ridge," he says', "where the mountains of Nozea and Perdeli meet." Owing to this circumstance, he does not appear to have travelled along the old road from Athens to Marathon, over which the Athenian forces must have passed, in their way to the plain; because we have already noticed the remains of an antient paved-way in the journey we took, and he mentions no appearance of this kind. Vranna, which he, more lyrically, calls Urania, is situate, as he describes it to be, "between Mountains two mountainous buttresses:" but they do not and Agher belong to the same mountain, there being a separation between them; and they bear the two distinct names of Croton and Agherlichi'.

of Croton

lichi.

(1) Journey into Greece, p. 453. Lond. 1682.

(2) They are distinctly alluded to by Chandler, who followed Wheler's route, and considers the mountain now called Agherlichi to be a part of Pentelicus. "We soon entered," says he, "between

two

No

I.

At Brauron, the Athenian virgins were con- CHAP. secrated to Diana, in a solemn festival which took place once in every five years. woman was allowed to marry until she had undergone this ceremony; the nature of which has never been explained. All that we know of it is this: the solemnity was conducted by ten officiating priests, who offered a goat in sacrifice; the virgins were under ten years of age; and they wore yellow gowns; which circumstance of their dress is the more remarkable, because the laws respecting festivals ordained, that, at the Panathenæa, no person should wear apparel dyed with colours'. A yellow vest is a mark of sanctity with the Calmuck tribes; among whom the priests are distinguished by wearing robes of this colour*. At this festival, they sang the poems of Homer. In the Brauronian temple there was preserved, until the second Persian war, the famous image belonging to the Tauri, which, from some

two mountains; Pentele ranging on our right and on the left one of Diacria, the region extending across rom Mount Parnes to Brauron." (See Trav. in Greece, p. 160. Oxf. 1776.) Chandler further says, that the two mountains are divided by a wide and deep water-course, the bed of a river or torrent antiently named Erasinus. (3) Lucian, Nigrino. See Potter's Archæol. vol. I. p. 145. Lond. 1751.

(4) See Vol. I. of these Travels, p. 436. Octavo Edition.

I.

CHAP. accounts, appears to have been of wood': but there are confused relations concerning it; and the tradition of its fall from heaven refers rather to its meteoric origin, as an Aerolite, or atmospheric stone. It was worshipped by the antient inhabitants of Taurica Chersonesus, under the name of ORSILOCHE; and was called by the Greeks, the Damon Virgin, or Diana*. When Iphigenia fled from Taurica Chersonesus, the Athenians maintained that this image was brought by her to Brauron. Here it remained until Xerxes conveyed it to Susa; whence it was again removed by Seleucus, and given to the Laodiceans of Syria; in whose possession it continued so late as the second century of the Christian æra'.

Antiquities in the Plain of Marathon.

Leaving Brauron, we began our 'search after the remains of antient monuments, tombs, and

(1) Τὸ ξόανον δὲ ἐκεῖνο εἶναι λίγουσιν, ὅ ποτε καὶ Ὀρίστης καὶ ̓Ιφιγένεια ἐκ τῆς Tavpixñs ixxλitrovoiy. Pausaniæ Lacmica, c. xvi. p. 248. Lips. 1696. (2) See Vol. I. of these Travels, p. 217, Note 2, Octavo Edit. There were many instances of a similar reverence being entertained for Meteoric Stones among the Antients. We find them described as 66 Images that fell from Jupiter." There was an image" of this description in the Temple at Ephesus. (See Acts xix. 35.) Another was preserved at Egos Potamos, where it originally fell: and, according to some authors, the Palladium of antient Ilium was of this nature, although by others described as a wooden image.

66

(3) Vid. Pausan. ubi supra. Edit. Kuhnii. Lips. 1696.