time did not less infest all those seas than robbers did the land. And this was one main cause why most of the ancient cities of Greece were situated at some considerable distance from the shore; but even in these, as all their safety consisted in the resistance they could make against an invader, their inhabitants were under a necessity of going constantly armed, and being ever on their guard. Another mischief arising from these continual piracies and robberies was, that they occasioned the far greater part of the lands to lie uncultivated, so that the people only planted and sowed as much as was barely necessary for their support; and, where there was so great a neglect of agriculture, there could be little room for any discoveries in other useful arts and trades. Hence when other nations, as the Jews, Egyptians, Midianites, Phoenicians, &c. had improved themselves to a very high degree, the Greeks seem to have been utter strangers to every useful art. During this period of savage barbarity, the most renowned Grecian heroes as Hercules, Theseus, &c., performed their exploits; which, however exaggerated by poetic fiction, no doubt had a foundation in truth. Some, indeed, are of opinion, that the Grecian heroes are entirely fictitious beings. Yet, considering the extreme degree of barbarity which at that time prevailed throughout Greece, it seems not improbable, that some persons of extraordinary strength and courage might undertake the cause of the oppressed, and travel about like the more modern knights errant in quest of adventures.

The first expedition in which we find the Greeks united, was that against Troy, for the particulars of which, see TROJA and TROY. Their success in this war (which happened about A. A. C. 1184), cost them very dear; vast numbers of their bravest warriors being slain, and great numbers of the survivors cast away on their return. It is probable, however, that their having staid for such a long time in Asia, might contribute to civilise the Greeks somewhat sooner than they otherwise would have been; and accordingly, from this time, we find their history somewhat less obscure. The continual wars, indeed, in which they were engaged among themselves for a long time, prevented them from making any considerable progress in the arts; while they preserved their liberty, and rendered them brave, and skilful in military affairs: at the same time they effectually prevented them from making permanent conquests, and confined them within the bounds of their own country. The states, too, were so equally balanced, that scarcely one of them was able perfectly to subdue another. The Spartans, however, having with great difficulty reduced the kingdom of Messene, and added its territories to their own, became the leading people in Greece. Their superiority was long disputed by Athens; but the Peloponnesian war at last determined that point in favor of the Spartans, when the city of Athens was taken, and its walls demolished by Lysander the Spartan general. See ATTICA and SPARTA.

By the battle of Leuctra, the Spartans lost that superiority which they had maintained for 500

years, and which now devolved on the Thebans. After the death of Epaminondas, the celebrated Theban general, however, as no person was found possessed of his abilities, the Thebans were again obliged to yield the superiority to the Spartans. But by this time the Greeks had become acquainted with the luxuries and elegancies of life; and all the rigor of their original laws could not prevent them from valuing these as highly as other people. This did not indeed abate their valor, but it heightened their mutual animosities; at the same time that, for the sake of a more easy and comfortable life, they became more disposed to submit to a master. The Persians, whose power they had long dreaded, and who were unable to subdue them by force of arms, at last found out, by the advice of Alcibiades, the proper method of reducing the Grecian power, namely, by assisting them by turns, and supplying one state with money to fight against another, till they should all be so much reduced, that they might become an easy prey. Thus the Greeks were weakened, though the Persians did not reap any benefit from their weakness. Philip of Macedon entered into the same political views; and partly by intrigue, partly by force, was declared generalissimo of Greece. His successor, Alexander the Great, completed their subjection; and by destroying the city of Thebes, and exterminating its inhabitants, struck such a terror throughout Greece, that he was as fully obeyed by all the states as by any of the rest of his subjects.

During the absence of Alexander in Persia the Greeks attempted to shake off the Macedonian yoke, but were quelled by his general Antipater. The news of Alexander's death was to them a matter of the utmost joy; but their mutual animosities prevented them from joining in any solid plan for the recovery of their liberties, and hence they continued to be oppressed by Alexander's successors, or other tyrants, till Aratus, the Achæan, about 268 B. C., formed a design of setting his country free from these oppressors. He persuaded a number of the small republics to enter into a league for their own defence, which was called the Achæan league; and notwithstanding that the republics, taken singly, had very little strength, they not only maintained their independency, but soon became formidable when united. This association continued to become daily more and more powerful; but received a severe check from Cleomenes III. king of Sparta, which obliged them to call in Antigonus to their assistance. This prince overcame Cleomenes at the battle of Sellasia, and afterwards made himself master of Sparta. Thus he became a more formidable enemy than the one he had conquered, and the recovery of the Grecian liberties was incomplete. Soon after this the Greeks began to feel the weight of a power more formidable than any which they had yet experienced; namely, that of the Romans. That insidious and haughty republic first intermeddled with the Grecian affairs, under pretence of setting them at liberty from the oppresion of Philip VI. of Macedon. This, by a proper union among themselves, they might have accomplished: but they acted as

though they had been infatuated: receiving with the utmost joy the decree of the Roman consul, who declared them free; without considering, that he who had thus given them liberty, might take it away at his pleasure. This lesson, however, they were soon taught, by the total reduction of their country to a Roman province; yet this can scarcely be called a misfortune, when we look back to their history, and consider their outrages upon one another: nor can we sympathise with them for the loss of that liberty which they only made use of to fill their country with slaughter and blood. After their conquest by the Romans, they made no united effort to recover their liberty; but continued in quiet subjection till the beginning of the fifteenth century. About that time they began to suffer under the tyranny of the Turks, and their sufferings were completed by the taking of Constantinople in 1453. Since that time they have groaned under the yoke of this most despotic government.

GREECE, MODERN. Of this country, so intensely interesting to the scholar, the artist, and the antiquary, we have been, as lord Byron observes, more neglectful than it deserves;' ancient recollections and associations have so much influence, as completely to absorb the attention of the traveller, and render him almost unconscious of the present race of mortals, and careless of the existing state of Greece.

Yet are her skies as blue, her crags as wild, Sweet are her groves and verdant are her fields, Her olive ripe as when Minerva smiled, And still his honied wealth Hymettus yields; There the blythe bee his fragrant fortress builds, The free-born wanderer of her mountain air; Apollo still her long, long summer gilds, Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare: Art, glory, freedom fail, but nature still is fair. As a proof of the little attention that has been paid to this country and the want of taste and feeling prevalent in some quarters, it has been observed that Pinkerton has devoted only one page of his three huge quarto volumes to the whole of Greece, about six lines to the description of Attica, and half a line to inform the reader that Atini, the ancient Athens, is thinly populated.

A general sympathy was manifested from one end of Europe to the other, when, in the year 1820, the first symptoms appeared of a rising of the enslaved Greeks; all civilised nations seemed disposed to aid the oppressed, and to pay back to the descendants some part of what the world owes to their ancestors. If, indeed, this movement has not at present produced much of permanent effect, we may attribute it to the insensibility of statesmen, whom the voice of humanity can only move when it accords with their political views: we may observe that the same policy, which in 1813 and 1814 sympathised with an oppressed people, and encouraged them to shake off the yoke, in 1822 doomed them to submit to a prolongation of their calamities under pain of being declared rebels. The wish of certain cabinets to furnish a counterpoise to American liberty, in fact, has paralysed this noble effort of humanity. In vain,' as one of her eloquent French advocates observes,

'ravaged and ruined Greece stretched its imploring hands towards Europe, and entreated its compassion, in the name of that merciful religion which is common to all Christians; in vain it exhibited to the view of independent nations its degradation and misery; it was abandoned to despair. Posterity will hardly believe that, in an age in which statesmen have made so much parade about peace and order, men, to whom it would have been easy to stop the fury of the Turks, have insulted misfortune by disgracing with the name of rebellion the patriotism of the Greeks, and suffered the barbarians to assuage their thirst of vengeance on a handful of Christians already crushed by their exactions. it seem astonishing that the Greeks should sink in a struggle, in which Turks and Christians were leagued against them? It must be left to time to disclose the issue of this struggle; in the mean while it is interesting to retrace its past events, to examine this classic soil, on which the ancients exhibited so many sublime examples of patriotism and all the civic virtues, to contemplate the ruins which recal to our minds their civilisation, their arts, their superstitions, and their exploits; and to gain some tolerably exact idea of the theatre of so many great events, and which is destined perhaps to present others not less astonishing.

Can

We shall then give, I. A rapid and general description of the countries inhabited by the Greeks; then treat of Greece properly so called under the divisions. II. Of Great Greece, or Livadia. III. Of the Peloponnesus or the Morea; and IV. Of the Archipelago, of which our notice must be very slight.

I. The peninsula of Greece juts out into the Mediterranean Sea, like the peninsula of Italy, but extends several degrees farther to the south. It may be assumed to be contained between the parallels of 41° 30' and 36° 20′ N. lat., and 18° 10° and 22° E. long., commencing from the head of the gulf of Salonica on the east, and that of Aulona on the west, and reaching to Cape Matapan on the south. It consists properly of two peninsulas, one extending from the northern limits already mentioned to Cape Colonna (the ancient Sunium) in the south, being about 200 miles in length, and 100 in breadth, with an area of about 20,000 square miles, and united to the other, or that of the Morea (the ancient Peloponnesus) by the isthmus of Corinth; this peninsula contains a surface rather less than half of the former country. The islands of the Archipelago may be about equal in extent to the Morea, stretching more than four degrees farther to the east. The entire district is bounded on the north by the Turkish provinces of Roumelia and Albania (see ALBANIA); on the west by the Adriatic Sea, which separates it from the southeastern part of Italy; on the south by the Mediterranean Sea, and on the east by the Archipelago.

An uninterrupted range of mountains runs down the middle of the greater peninsula, in a parallel line to its eastern and western coasts, varying in elevation from 7000 to 8000 feet in the northern and central part, to those in the south, which are about 700 or 800: among the former may be reckoned the loftiest ridge of

Pindus and Parnassus; and, among the latter, Parnes, Pentelicus and Hymettus, in Attica. From this central chain different ridges branch off towards the coast on either side; eastward the celebrated Olympus, near the northern part of the gulf of Salonica, rising to the height of 6000 feet, forms part of an interior chain, extending through the island of Negropont, consisting of Ossa and Pelion, Ota and Othrys, and mount Delphis the most remarkable of them all. The mountainous countries of Epirus, Ætolia, and Acarnania, constituted part of what is now called Albania. In the Morea, near the western coast, is the lofty Cyllenian range, while towards the south rises the Taygetus. 'These mountains enclose plains of considerable elevation, of which Thessaly, Boeotia, and Arcadia, still maintain their ancient appearance, and are watered by mountain streams and the numerous branches of the Peneus and Salympria, which, after intersecting the plain of Thessaly, unite, and flowing through the famous valley of Tempe, discharge themselves into the Gulf of Salonica; while the Alpheus fertilises the verdant plains of Arcadia, Elis, and Achaia. To these may be added a multitude of other streams of less importance, which would not have been noticed in any other country than Greece, where every rivulet has its verse, and as Spon observes, these smaller rivers make more noise, dans les livres que dans leurs lits.'

There is but one lake of any considerable extent, the Copaïs, now called Topoglias, which receives the waters of the Cephisa, after they have traversed the plains of Phocis, besides those of a number of other rivers. It is situated near the north-eastern coast of Boeotia, and its incessantly increasing waters would long since have inundated the country, and rendered it uninhabitable, had it not been for the gulf of Katabathron, which, at the foot of a chain of chalk hills, receives the overflowings, and this lake probably finds a passage under the hills; for the waters spring up abundantly on the opposite side, and form a river, which at a short distance discharges itself into the sea between plantations of cotton. The inhabitants call this river Larmi: it may be regarded as the outlet of the Cephisa, which, after crossing the lake, runs about a league under ground. It is uncertain whether the Katabathron be the work of nature alone, or whether art has completed what nature has begun; this subterraneous canal was obstructed in its course, under the reign of Alexander, by earthquakes and the crumbling of the ground; and there are still visible the extremely deep wells, which were then dug to facilitate the course of the waters. Another operation of this kind will perhaps soon become necessary, as the banks of the Copais, continually assailed by the winter torrents, present nothing but a series of unhealthy marshes. Surrounded by rocks and half-cultivated hills, behind which, on the western side, the mountains of Phocis are seen rising in different shades of coloring, the Copaïs presents one of the finest scenes in Boeotia; in summer the roses almost cover its banks; the river Hercyna, dashing from rock to rock, falls into this vast basin, foaming over the blocks of

stone which arrest its progress. Precipitous rocks, covered with wood, rise on either side of the bay, into which the waters of the lake discharge themselves on issuing from their subterraneous abyss. Buzzards and other birds are seen constantly flitting over this liquid plain, while the vultures are ever hovering on the mountains which bound it to the west.

The coast of the peninsula, especially in the southern part, is considerably indented with gulfs and bays, several of which afford commodious and sheltered anchorage for vessels, and furnish great facilities for maritime commerce. The principal of these are the gulfs of Salonica, Talanta, Athens, and Napoli on the east; those of Aulona, Prevesa, Lepanto, and Arcadia on the west; and those of Coron and Kolokythia on the southern coast; that of Talanta is more properly a channel, separating the island of Negropont from the mainland, to which it makes so near an approach, that Chalcis, the principal town, almost touches it. Of course there are many capes or headlands, some of them projecting far into the sea; the most remarkable of these are capes Lingua, Leucadia or St. Maura, and Konella on the west; capes Gallo, Matapan, and Maloa to the south; and capes Sunium or Calona, Manteio, and Phalasia, on the east.

The climate of Greece, according to the latitude in which it is placed, and its exposure to the sea, which almost surrounds it, should be similar to that of Italy; it is, however, in many parts colder in winter, and warmer in summer. In the centre of the country the tops of the mountains are for three parts of the year covered with snow, which in some of their deeper recesses may be always discovered. Mount Parnassus was formerly thought to be impassable on account of its perennial snow, but Dr. Sibthorp relates that it was perfectly free when he crossed it in the month of July. Some plains of considerable elevation are said to be as cold as the west of England, particularly that of Ionnina, about 200 feet above the level of the sea, between the middle range of mountains and the western coast; in the Morea, further to the south, the elevated plains are still colder, and Tripolitza is said to be sometimes covered with snow to the depth of eighteen inches. At no great distance from Tripolitza, the capital, Dr. Holland found the temperature at six in the morning as low as 16° of Fahrenheit. He adds,

the degree and continuance of cold were such as I scarcely recollect to have experienced in England, and this in the very centre of Arcadia; but this was in 1813, a winter remarkable for its severity in every part of Europe. In summer, however, the blooming vales of Arcadia present a continuance of scenery equal to any thing which has been described or imagined in poetic song. Luxuriance and beauty may be pronounced to be the general characteristics; flowering valleys, winding streams, and hills shrouded nearly to their summits with wood, are the objects which commonly awaken our admiration.'

Haygarth. In the lower regions of Attica the air is more moderate, and the climate more equable, the cold being less intense, the heat less oppressive, and the rain less abundant. In