train of asses and mules came early down to to sea-side, with peasants to guide and attend them on foot. Our bark was ordered to wait in the port of Salona. The captain, with two or three sailors, accompanied us. We bestrode our beasts, and soon after began to ascend a lofty mountain by a steep road partly paved. We gained the summit, beyond which is Dystomo, where we refreshed at the house of an Albanian. We pursued our journey to the monastery of St. Luke, and returned to Dystomo in the evening; when we were told, that an inscription had been discovered in one of the cottages. I was pleased in copying it, by candle-light, to find it preserved the name of the antient inhabitants. It is on a pedestal of rough stone, which has supported a statue of the emperor Marcus Aurelius Commodus Antoninus, decreed by the senate, and erected by the city of Ambrussus.

The Athenians and Thebans restored Ambrussus and Stiris, with other cities of Phocis, which Philip had destroyed. The latter people, when the war distinguished by the fatal battle of Charonea commenced, surrounded Ambrussus with a double wall of the stone of the country, which was dark coloured and exceedingly hard; each circle wanting a little of an orgyia, or of six feet in width, the space between them one orgyia, and their height two and a half, when entire; without battlements, towers, and the accustomed ornaments, as constructed for immediate defence. This fortification ranked, in the second century, among the most noted for strength and solidity. Many of the statues of stone in the market-place, which was not large, were then broken. Remnants of the wall may still be seen without the village, which is situated, as the city was, under Mount Parnassus.

The road from Ambrussus to Anticyra is described as at

first up hill, but, after ascending about two stadia, or a quarter of a mile, the ground became level. On the right was a temple of Diana, with an image of black stone much reverenced by the Ambryssensians. The way from thence was down a declivity.

CHAP. LXI.

Way from Ambryssus to Stiris-Of Stiris-Inscriptions.

WE turned eastward from Dystomo, and in an hour and a half reached the monastery of St. Luke, beneath which in a valley, is the site of Stiris, now called Palæa-Stiri. This city was about sixty stadia, or seven miles and a half from Ambryssus, the way in a plain lying between mountains, the part belonging to Ambryssus planted chiefly with vines, and with a shrub by some called Coccus, disposed in rows, and producing a scarlet dye. The colour was the blood of a short insect bred in the berries, which were gathered before they were ripe, because it then took wing, resembling a gnat. The level is now without vines or shrubs, but cultivated. It is high above the sea, and encompassed with mountains reaching to the sky.

Stiris derived its name from a town in Attica, and the people, it was believed, were originally, Athenians expelled by Ægeus. It was subject from its situation to scarcity of water in summer; the wells, which were few, furnishing only such as would serve for washing, and for cattle. The inhabitants were supplied by a fountain hewn in the rock, about four stadia, or half a mile distant. They had a temple of

Ceres, of unbaked brick; the image of Pentelic marble. The place is now desolate, but not without some vestiges.

The monastery of St. Luke was raised with the materials of Stiris. Several inscriptions were fixed in the walls: some so high as not to be legible. One, copied by Wheler, records the persons, who defrayed the expence of making the channel for water, and of building the fountain; from which it was probably removed. We found a stone of the sepulchral class, inscribed only with the name of the deceased Pyrrhicus. Stiris was one hundred and twenty stadia, or fifteen miles from Charonea, in Boeotia, the way mostly rough and mountainous.

CHAP. LXII.

Summary of the life of St. Luke of Stiris.

ST. LUKE of Stiris flourished in the tenth century. He is commemorated by the Greek church on the seventh of February, and styled in the Menology, The glory of Hellas, or Greece; but the history given of him is superficial and unsatisfactory. The learned Combefis in 1648, published extracts of his life from a manuscript in the library of the French king. The holy father and wonder-worker was before so much forgotten, that he is unnoticed by Baronius. A translation of the whole record may be found in the Latin acts of the Saints. The author was a disciple of St. Luke, is diffuse, and inclines to the marvellous. The following summary will display the wretchedness of Greece after the decline of the Roman em

pire, and, like a mirror, reflect a portrait of the times, to which it refers.

St. Luke, junior, was so named to distinguish him from another saint, who lived under the same emperors. He was descended of a family, which had fled from Ægina, that island being harassed by the Saracens in possession of Crete, and settled first by the mountain of St John in Phocis, but pirates infesting the seas and coast, removed to a port called Bathys, where Stephen the father of Luke was born; and from thence to a village called Castorium. Luke was seized at an early age with the frenzy of the times, and resolving to be a hermit, retired about the year 908, when he was eighteen years old, to the above mountain, commonly called Johanitza; his mother Euphrosyne consenting with reluctance. He was invested with the divine and apostolical habit, as it was termed, by two aged monks on their way to Rome. In the seventh year of his abode in that solitude, the Bulgarians under Symeon, made an irruption into the empire. Eubæa and the Peloponnesus were filled with fugitives, and Luke, with a multitude, passed over to the neighbouring islands He escaped his pursuers by swimming, and arrived at Corinth, where, as he was illiterate, he went to school. At Patræ was one of the living statues, then not infrequent; a madman standing on a column. To this Stylites did Luke minister for ten years, fishing, getting wood, and dressing victuals; preventing him from starving, and enabling him to preserve his footing on his pedestal.

Peter, who succeeded Symeon, making Romans in 927, Luke returned te Johanitza. for greater privacy, he withdrew to Calabium.

peace with the From thence, In 934, some

of the Turkish race overrunning the country, he took refuge in an islet named Ampelon; and resided three years on that dry and barren rock, often distressed for food and water, when the winds were rough and the seas impassable. He removed next to the spot, which, says the biographer, saw him die, and is now enriched by his sacred reliques.* The companions of his late danger represented it to him, that he was continually disturbed on the islet by boats and passengers. They prevailed on him to leave it, and conducted him to a place delectable indeed, cool and silent, with plenty of limpid water to allay his thirst, or to promote vegetation; and scarcely accessible to man. Luke cleared the wood, planted a variety of herbs and trees, was hourly employed in improving and adorning his garden, and in rendering it a terrestrial paradise. He erected his cell afar off from it, and the fountain, for concealment, among some thickets.

Luke was now in high reputation, admired for his austerities, revered for the sanctity of his deportment, and regarded as a prophet. After seven years he called together his friends and neighbours, and taking an affectionate farewel, desired their prayers, for it was uncertain whether they should meet again. He returned to his cell, and lingered some months,

Many names of places in Greece were corrupted or changed in this century. Crissa, it is likely, is intended by the author, where he mentions re Xovou επaρxiaν-τa Te Xovσe μepη. Bathys, it is supposed, was opposite to Euboea, and, with Castorium, in Thessaly; Calabium, in Attica; Ampelon, one of the islets of the Saronic gulf. Luke retired finally, it is said, to win xwoov. The editor of Acta. S. S. supposes this name derived from the cures effected by the dead saint, and afterwards contracted into Ernpiov; but the true reading is, Ernpu xwpov. Thus in the lives of the Saints,, Luke, we read, γενομενος αιτιος σριας (sc. σωτηριας) φθάνει εισ τον τοπον το Στηρικ.. This place was Stiris..