some columns of which still remain, whence the cape is now called Cabo Colonni. A long island lies opposite to it, called Helena, or Macris, which still preserves the name of Macronisi. Near Sunium was Laurium, celebrated for its silver mines. Proceeding upwards, along the northeastern side of Attica, we come to Brauron. Here was a temple of Diana, hence called Brauronia: and the statue of that goddess, brought from Tauris by Orestes, was preserved here, till it was carried off by Xerxes. North of Brauron is the glorious plain of Marathon, still preserving its immortal name, where the Athenians, under Miltiades, defeated the Persian host, Sept. 28., B.C. 490, Ol. 72. 3. Above it is Rhamnus (Eureocastro), celebrated for a temple of the goddess Nemesis, thence called Rhamnusia. It was built of the marble, brought into the field by the Persians to erect the trophy of their anticipated victory. Quitting the coast, south-west of Rhamnus is Decelea, held by the Lacedæmonians in the Peloponnesian Wars, Ol. 91. 3., B.C. 414. (Thucyd. VII. 19.) Between this and Athens was Acharnæ (Menidi), a deme or borough of Attica, which has given name to a play of Aristophanes. North-east of Eleusis is Thria, giving the name Thriasius to the great plain extending towards Boeotia; north-east of which was Phyle, the fort possessed by Thrasybulus and the Athenian exiles, who expelled the thirty tyrants from Athens, B. C. 401, Ol. 94. 4.; and a little west of it Eleutheræ. Next to Attica, on the north-west, is Boeotia, a flat country between the ranges of Mounts Eta and Citharon, intersected by a chain of hills extending from Mount Helicon, near the Gulf of Corinth, to the Euripus, and dividing the vallies of the Asopus and Permessus from that of the Boeotian Cephisus. These were the principal rivers of the country; but the northern plain had many lakes, the chief of which is that of Copais, now Topolias. This marshy * lake communicates with the Euboean Sea by several subterranean channels (katavothra), the principal of which runs underground four miles. These tunnels are partly artificial, and are supposed to be a work of the heroic age of Greece. A little north-west of Citharon is Platea (Kokla), were the Persians, under Mardonius, were defeated by the Lacedæmonians, under Pausanias (Sept. 22., B. C. 479, Ol. 75. 2.), and which was besieged by the Lacedæmonians in the Peloponnesian War, B.C. 427, Ol. 82. 2. (See Thucyd. III.) A little north-west of Platea is Leuctra (Lefka), where Epaminondas overthrew the Lacedæmonians, July 8., B.C. 371, Ol. 102. 2.; and east of this, on the Asopus, Potniæ, the abode of Glaucus, the son of Sisyphus, who was torn to pieces by his own mares, which became the subject of one of the lost tragedies of Eschylus. Following the course of this river, we come to Tanagra (Grimatha) and Oropus (Oropo), at its mouth. The Athenians and Thebans had many disputes for the possession of this place, till at last it was adjudged to the former by Philip of Macedon. The plain through which the Asopus ran was called Parasopias. North-east of Tanagra was Delium (Dramisi), where the Athenians were worsted by the Thebans, B. C. 421, Ol. 89. 4. (Thucyd. IV. 96.) Northwards, at the narrowest point of the Euripus, the name given to the channel between Euboea and the mainland, — opposite to Chalcis, was Aulis, where the Greeks were detained in their expedition to Troy, till Agamemnon had appeased Diana by the sacrifice of his own daughter Iphigenia. Still northwards is Anthedon, and north-west of this Copæ, giving name to the lake Copais, at the eastern extremity of which it stood. Near the western extremity of the lake was Glauci Potniades malis membra absumpsere quadriga. Virg. Georg. III. 267. Orchomenus (Scripou), antiently called Minyeia, celebrated for its wealth, and for a temple of the Graces, mentioned by Pindar. Westward was Charonea, memorable for the defeat of the Athenians by the Boeotians, B.C. 447, Ol. 83. 2., and much more for their overthrow by Philip, B.C. 338, Ol. 110. 3., which destroyed the liberties of Greece. It was also the birth-place of Plutarch. South-east of Charonea was Lebadea (Livadia), and near it the cave of Trophonius, those who entered which were never seen to smile afterwards. From Lebadea Boeotia has acquired its modern name Livadia. South-east of this, towards the lake Copais, is Coronea, where the Athenians were defeated by Agesilaus, king of Sparta, B.C. 394, Ol. 96. 3.; south-east of Coronea is Ascra, the birth-place of Hesiod. A little above this is Haliartus (Micro Koura), destroyed by the Romans in the first Macedonian War. South-east was Onchestus, sacred to Neptune; and south-east of Onchestus, almost in the centre of Boeotia, on the little river Ismenus, was Thebes, founded by Cadmus, hence called Cadmean, the scene of the sufferings of Edipus, and birth-place of Pindar, whose house and descendants were spared in the destruction of the city by Alexander, Ol. 111. 2., B.C. 335. It was rebuilt by Cassander more than twenty years after. the citadel of Thebes, which retained the name of Cadmea, sprang the fountain of Dirce. South-west of Thebes, was Thespia, at the foot of Mount Helicon (Zagarovouni), the abode of Apollo and the Muses, where were the fountain Aganippe and the river Permessus. This was the southern extremity of the Parnassian ridge. Upon Mount Helicon was the fountain Hippocrene, which sprung from the stroke of the hoof of Pegasus, of which those who drank Ecce deas vidi non quas præceptor arandi On Viderat, Ascræas cum sequeretur oves. Ov. Fast. VI. 13. were endowed with poetical inspiration. Mount Libethrus, a branch of Helicon, whence the Muses are called Libethrides, struck out northward towards the lake Copais. West of Boeotia is Phocis, bounded by the Sinus Corinthiacus on the south, and reaching to the coast of the Euboicum Mare. Its principal mountain was Parnassus, nearly in the centre of the country, sacred to Apollo and the Muses. At its foot was the fountain Castalia, whence the Muses were called Castalides. Parnassus is remarkable for its double summit, Lycorea and Tithorea, sacred, the one to Apollo, the other to Bacchus; and whoever slept upon it became either an inspired poet or mad.* Near the summit of Lycorea (Lakura), which is visible from the Acropolis of Corinth, sixty miles distant, was the Corycian cave, sacred also to the Muses. In a deep bay on the coast of the Sinus Corinthiacus lay Anticyra, a peninsula, celebrated for its hellebore, the great remedy for madness among the antients; above the head of this bay was Ambrysus. A second bay (westward) was the Sinus Crissæus, from Crissa, a city near its head; a little north of which lay the renowned city of Delphi, now Castri, at the foot of Mount Parnassus. Another name of this place was Pytho, from the serpent so called, killed by Apollo, in honour of whom the Pythian games were celebrated every fifth year: the port of Delphi was Cirrha. North-east of Delphi was Tithorea, now Velitza; and beyond it, at the foot of Mount Cnemis, the city of Elatea, the largest in Phocis, the surprise of which * Persius alludes to the traditions about Hippocrene and Parnassus in the Prologue to his Satires : Nec fonte labra prolui caballino ; Nec in bicipiti somniasse Parnasso by Philip produced a shock at Athens, so finely described by Demosthenes in his speech De Corona. East of Delphi, on the confines of Boeotia, was the pass of Daulis, where Laius was killed by Edipus. North-east of Phocis are the Locri Opuntii and Epicnemidii; south-west of it, the Locri Ozolæ, extending to Mount Corax. These latter were said to be so called from the poisoned arrows of Hercules, having been buried in this district by Philoctetes, from which a mephitic vapour arose. They occupied a narrow strip of land, broadest at the eastern end near Phocis, and extending along the Sinus Corinthiacus to its narrowest point. Their chief city was Amphissa (Salona), north-east of Crissa, whence the Sinus Crissæus is now called the Gulf of Salona. Just within the entrance to the Sinus Corinthiacus was Naupactus, a celebrated naval station, the possession of which was often contested between the Locrians and their more powerful neighbours the Ætolians, who ultimately gained it. It is now called by the natives Nepactos, but the modern Italians have given it the name of Lepanto, from Levant, the east or sun-rising. North-east of Phocis were the Locri Opuntii, so called from their capital Opus, on the Sinus Opuntius, in the channel of Euboea; and north-west of them the Locri Epicnemidii, also a small tribe, so called from their vicinity to Mount Cnemis. Their chief town was Thronium, now probably Longachi; and in their northernmost point is the famous pass of Thermopyla, on the Sinus Maliacus, where the ridge of Eta approaches the coast and is fronted by a morass. The pass between the mountain and the morass was only twenty-five feet broad in its narrowest part, but from the deposits brought down by the river Sperchius, is now much wider. The glorious defence of this pass by Leonidas against Xerxes took place B. C. 480, Ol. 75. 1. The Spartans were lost by the treachery of the Thessa |