Jupiter, with an eye more than common, having one in the forehead. This statue, it was said, was once placed in a court of the palace of Priam, who fled as a suppliant to the altar before it, when Troy was sacked.

Above

Argos retains its original name and situation, standing near the mountains which are the boundary of the plain, with Napoli and the sea in view before it. The shining houses are whitened with lime or plaster. Churches, mud-built cottages and walls, with gardens and open areas, are interspersed, and the town is of considerable extent. the other buildings towers a very handsome mosque shaded with solemn cypresses; and behind, is a lofty hill, brown and naked, of a conical form, the summit crowned with a neglected castle. The devastations of time and war have effaced the old city. We inquired in vain for vestiges of its numerous edifices, the theatre, the gymnasium, the temples, and monuments, which it once boasted, contending even with Athens in antiquity and in favours conferred by the gods. We tarried in a miserable khan during the heat of noon, and toward evening set out, with an additional baggage-horse, for a place called the Columns.

CHAP. LV.

MYCENE NEAR ARGOS-AGAMEMNON SLAIN AT MYCENÆTHE CITY RUINED-THE TEMPLE OF JUNO-WE MISS THE SITE.

THE kingdom of the Argives was divided into two portions by Acrisius and his brother Protus.

Argos and Mycena were their capitals. These, as belonging to the same family and distant only about fifty stadia, or six miles and a quarter, from each other, had one tutelary deity, Juno; and were jointly proprietors of her temple, the Heræum, which was near Mycenæ.

Agamemnon enlarged his dominions by his valour and good fortune. He possessed Mycena with the region about Corinth and Sicyon, and that called afterwards Achæa. On his return from Troy he was slain with his companions at a banquet. Mycenæ then declined; and, under the Heraclidæ, was made subject to Argos.

The Mycenæans, sending eighty men, partook with the Lacedæmonians in the glory acquired at Thermopyla. 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 seventyeighth 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

In the year before Christ 466.

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 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 reascended Tretus," says Pausanias," on the left hand of the road to Argos "are the ruins of Mycena." We crossed the wide bed of the torrent-river, and the Inachus, and then travelled in a dusty road in the plain, and about sunset 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 watercourse, which was filled with thickets of olean

der, myrtle, and evergreens; 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 enclosed by a stone fence, within which were altars; and a heap of earth marked the burial-place of his father Lycurgus. The horserace 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, 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 Adrastean, 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,