The climate of Attica is what, in physical geography, would be called maritime. "Here are allied the continental vigor and oceanic softness, in a fortunate union, mutually tempering each other." [22] The climate of the whole peninsula of Greece seems to be distinguished from that of Spain and Italy, by having more of the character of an inland region. The diversity of local temperature is greater; the extremes of summer and winter more severe. In Arcadia the snow has been found eighteen inches thick in January, with the thermometer at 16° Fahrenheit, and it sometimes lies on the ground for six weeks. The summits of the central chains of Pindus and most of the Albanian mountains are covered with snow from the beginning of November to the end of March. In Attica, which, being freely exposed to the sea, has in some measure an insular climate, the winter sets in about the beginning of January. About the middle of that month the snow begins to fall, but seldom remains upon the plain for more than a few days, though it lies on the summit of the mountain for a month. [23] And then, whilst Bœotia, which joins to Attica, is higher and colder, and often covered with dense fogs, Attica is remarkable for the wonderful transparency, dryness, and elasticity of its atmosphere. All these climatal conditions exerted, no doubt, a modifying influence upon the character of the inhabitants. [24] In a tropical climate man is enfeebled by excessive heat. His natural tendency is to inaction and repose. His life is passed in a "strenuous idleness." His intellectual, his reflective faculties are overmastered by his physical instincts. Passion, sentiment, imagination prevail over the sober exercises of his reasoning powers. Poetry universally predominates over philosophy. The whole character of Oriental language, religion, literature is intensely imaginative. In the frozen regions of the frigid zone, where a perpetual winter reigns, and where lichens and mosses are the only forms of vegetable life, man is condemned to the life of a huntsman, and depends mainly for his subsistence on the precarious chances of the chase. He is consequently nomadic in his habits, and barbarous withal. His whole life is spent in the bare process of procuring a living. He consumes a large amount of oleaginous food, and breathes a damp heavy atmosphere, and is, consequently, of a dull phlegmatic temperament. Notwithstanding his uncertain supplies of food, he is recklessly improvident, and indifferent to all the lessons of experience. Intellectual pursuits are all precluded. There is no motive, no opportunity, and indeed no disposition for mental culture. But in a temperate climate man is stimulated to high mental activity. The alternations of heat and cold, of summer and of winter, an elastic, fresh, and bracing atmosphere, a diversity in the aspects of nature, these develop a vivacity of temperament, a quickness of sensibility as well as apprehension, and a versatility of feeling as well as genius. History marks out the temperate zone as the seat of the refined and cultivated nations.
[Footnote 22: ][ (return) ] Guyot, "Earth and Man," p. 181.
[Footnote 23: ][ (return) ] Encyc. Brit., art. "Greece."
[Footnote 24: ][ (return) ] The influence of climatic conditions did not escape the attention of the Greeks. Herodotus, Hippocrates, and Aristotle speak of the climate of Asia as more enervating than that of Greece. They regarded the changeful character and diversity of local temperature in Greece as highly stimulating to the energies of the populations. The marked contrast between the Athenians and the Bœotians was supposed to be represented in the light and heavy atmosphere which they respectively breathed.--Grote, vol. ii. pp. 232-3.
The natural scenery of Greece was of unrivalled grandeur--surpassing Italy, perhaps every country in the world. It combined in the highest degree every feature essential to the highest beauty of a landscape except, perhaps, large rivers. But this was more than compensated for by the proximity of the sea, which, by its numerous arms, seemed to embrace the land on nearly every side. Its mountains, encircled with zones of wood, and capped with snow, though much lower than the Alps, are as imposing by the suddenness of their elevation--"pillars of heaven, the fosterers of enduring snows." [25] Rich sheltered plains lie at their feet, covered with an unequally woven mantle of trees, and shrubs, and flowers,--"the verdant gloom of the thickly-mantling ivy, the narcissus steeped in heavenly dew, the golden-beaming crocus, the hardy and ever-fresh-sprouting olive-tree," [26] and the luxuriant palm, which nourishes amid its branches the grape swelling with juice. But it is the combination of these features, in the most diversified manner, with beautiful inland bays and seas, broken by headlands, inclosed by mountains, and studded with islands of every form and magnitude, which gives to the scenery of Greece its proud pre-eminence. "Greek scenery," says Humboldt, "presents the peculiar charm of an intimate blending of sea and land, of shores adorned with vegetation, or picturesquely girt with rocks gleaming in the light of aerial tints, and an ocean beautiful in the play of the ever-changing brightness of its deep-toned wave." [27] And over all the serene, deep azure skies, occasionally veiled by light fleecy clouds, with vapory purple mists resting on the distant mountain tops. This glorious scenery of Greece is evermore the admiration of the modern traveller. "In wandering about Athens on a sunny day in March, when the asphodels are blooming on Colones, when the immortal mountains are folded in a transparent haze, and the Ægean slumbers afar among his isles," he is reminded of the lines of Byron penned amid these scenes--
"Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild;
Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields,
Thine olives ripe as when Minerva smiled,
And still his honeyed wealth Hymettus yields;
There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds,