Εικόνες σελίδας
PDF
Ηλεκτρ. έκδοση

Corinth and Scyon, and that called afterwards Achæa. On his return from Troy, he was slain, with his companions, at a banquet. Mycena then declined; and, under the Heraclidæ, was made subject to Argos.

The Mycenians, sending eighty men, partook, with the Lacedæmonians, in the glory acquired at Thermopylæ. The jealousy of the Argives produced the destruction of their city; which was abandoned after a siege, and laid waste in the first year of the seventy-eighth Olympiad.* The wall was said to have been a work of the architects, who constructed that of Tiryns, and was so strong, it could not be forced by the Argives. Some part of it remained in the second century, with a gate, on which were lions; a fountain; the subterraneous edifices, where Atreus and his sons had deposited their treasures; and, among other sepulchral monuments, one of Agamemnon, and one of his fellow soldiers and sufferers.

Argos was forty stadia, or five miles, and Mycenæ ten or fifteen stadia, about a mile and a half from the Heræum. This renowned temple was adorned with curious sculpture, and numerous statues. The image was very large, made by Polycletus, of gold and ivory, sitting on a throne. Among the offerings was a shield, taken by Menelaus from Euphorbus at Ilium; an altar of silver, on which the marriage of Hebe with Hercules was represented; a golden crown and purple robe given by Nero; and a peacock of gold, set with precious stones, dedicated by Hadrian. Near it were the remains of a more ancient temple, which had been burned; a taper setting some garlands on fire, while the priestess was asleep. The ruin called The Columns, we had been informed, was

* In the year before Christ, 466.

near the direct road to Corinth. We supposed the building to have been the temple of Jupiter at Nemea, and it was expected that, on the way to it, we should discover Mycena and the temple of Juno "Having re-ascended Tretus," says Pausanias," on the left hand of the road to Argos are the ruins of Mycenae." We crossed the wide bed of the torrent-river and the Inachus, and then travelled in a dusty road in the plain, and about sun-set arrived at Tretus. On reviewing our journey, I found with regret, that Mycena was at no great distance on our right, when we entered between the mountains.

CHAP. LVI.

We arrive at Nemea-Of the temple of Jupiter-The Nemean games-Ruin of the temple-Mount Apesas, &c.-A village and monastery.

THE pass of Tretus is narrow, the mountains rising on each side. The track is by a deep worn water-course, which was filled with thickets of oleander, myrtle, and ever-greens; the stream clear and shallow. Some Turks keep guard on it, to apprehend fugitives and suspected persons, living under a shed covered with boughs. Three of them, on seeing us, came to the way-side with water, which civility we requited with a few peraus. Soon after we turned out of the road to the left, and by a path, impeded with shrubs, ascended a brow of the mountain, in which are caves, ranging in the rock, the abode of shepherds in winter. One was perhaps the den of the Nemean lion, which continued to be shewn in the second century. From the ridge above them may be seen Nauplia,

Argos, and the citadel of Corinth. We descended on the opposite side into a long valley, and had in view before us The Columns, or the ruin of the temple, by which the village, called Nemea, anciently stood.

The temple of Jupiter Nemeus is mentioned by Pausanias. as worth seeing. The roof was then fallen, and the image had been removed. Round it was a grove of cypress-trees. The priest was chosen by the Argives, who sacrificed in the temple, and at the winter congress proposed a race for men in armour; joining this deity in their solemn invocations with Juno. One Bito, it was related, seeing them leading the victim, which was a bull toward Nemea, took it up and carried it thither on his shoulders. A statue at Argos represented him performing this feat.

The Nemean games were triennial, and celebrated in the grove, in memory of Opheltes or Archemorus, a child whom his nurse, while she conducted the Achæan captains, going against Thebes, to a fountain, placed on the grass, and, on her return, found with a serpent folded about his neck: His tomb was inclosed by a stone-fence, within which were altars, and a heap of earth marked the burial-place of his father Lycurgus. The horse-race for boys, which had been dropped, was restored to this and to the Isthmian festival by the emperor Hadrian. The Agonothetæ or presidents were elected from the neighbouring cities Argos, Corinth, and Cleonæ.

Their apparel was black. The reward of victory was a crown of parsley, which herb was fabled to have sprung from the blood of Archemorus.

The temple of Jupiter was of the Doric order, and had six columns in front. The remains are two columns supporting their architrave, with some fragments. The ruin is naked,

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

and the soil round about it had been recently ploughed. We pitched our tent within the cell, on the clean and level area. The roof, it is likely, was removed soon after its fall.

A wild pear tree grows among the stones on one side, but our cook found it necessary to shelter his fire with bushes of mastic, to prevent its being extinguished by the sun. We were supplied with milk and lambs from a mandra or fold in the valley, and with water from a fountain, once named the Adrastéan, at a little distance on the slope of the hill.

Beyond the temple is a remarkable summit, the top flat, and visible in the gulf of Corinth. This was probably the mountain above Nemea called Apesas, on which Perseus was said to have sacrificed to Jupiter. On one side is a ruinous church, with some rubbish, perhaps where Opheltes and his father were said to have been interred. Near is a very large spreading fig-tree. To this a most simple goatherd repaired daily before noon with his flock, which huddled together in the shade, until the extreme heat was over, and then proceeded orderly to feed in the cool upon the

mountain.

Between the temple and the church is a road, which, branching from that on Tretus, crosses the valley, and passing through the opposite ridge, turns to the right to a village called Hagio Georgio, or St. George, from whence we procured tools to dig, and wine, with other necessaries. Near are vestiges, perhaps of Bembina; a village, from which, as well as from Nemea, the region was sometimes named. On the left hand, at a distance from the road, is a small romantic monastery, fixed, as it were, against the side of a steep moun

tain, high up. It possesses a most transparent water, and an old picture of the Panagia, or Virgin Mary, which performs

miracles and is covered, except the face and hands, with silver. The priest shewed me in the wall a Greek sepulchral inscription, AEONTIE XAIPE, Leontis farewell.

CHAP. LVII.

To Cleona-Arrive at Corinth-The_situation-The portsThe city destroyed and re-peopled-Described by Strabo-By Pausanias-Taken by Alaric and the Turks-Its present state-A ruin.

WE passed by the fountain at Nemea to regain the direct road from Argos to Corinth, re-ascending Tretus. We then travelled over a mountainous tract among low shrubs; the hills with their tops washed bare, some shining, and with channels worn in their sides; the way crossed by very deep water-courses and shallow streams. We came to a small plain, in which are some vestiges of Cleonæ; a city once overspreading a knoll or rising rock, and handsomely walled about; deserving, in the opinion of Strabo, the epithet wellbuilt, bestowed on it by Homer. It is mentioned by Pausanias as a place not large, with a temple of Minerva. It was eighty stadia, or ten miles from Corinth, and fifteen stadia or near two miles from Nemea. Two ways led to Argos, which was a hundred and twenty stadia, or fifteen miles distant; one fit for couriers, and short; the other that on Tretus, likewise narrow, being inclosed by mountains, but more proper for carriages.

We continued our journey, and, coming in view of the gulf of Corinth, had on our left a plain, covered with vines and

« ΠροηγούμενηΣυνέχεια »