The strength of Napoli is the citadel, which is called the Palamadi, over whose turreted walls a few cypresses raise their sombre heads. It stands on the easternmost and highest elevation of the promontory, and completely overhangs and commands the town. To all appearance it is impregnable, and, from its situation and aspect, has been termed the Gibraltar of Greece. It is seven hundred and twenty feet above the sea; and has only one assailable point, where a narrow isthmus connects it with the main land; and this is overlooked by a rocky precipice.
Mr. Dodwell made fruitless inquiries in respect to the caves and labyrinths near Nauplia, which are said to have been formed by the Cyclops; but a minute examination is neither a safe nor easy undertaking. “The remains that are yet unknown,” says he, “will be brought to light, when the reciprocal jealousy of the European powers permits the Greeks to break their chains,[19] and to chase from their outraged territory that host of dull oppressors, who have spread the shades of ignorance over the land that was once illuminated by science, and who unconsciously trample on the venerable dust of the Pelopidæ and the Atridæ.”
Nauplia is a miserable village; the houses have nothing peculiar about them, but are built in the common form of the lowest habitations of the villages of France and Savoy. The inhabitants are indolent. “The indolence of the Napolitans,” says M. La Martine, “is mild, serene, and gay—the carelessness of happiness; while that of the Greek is heavy, morose, and sombre; it is a vice, which punishes itself.”[20]
NO. V.—NEMEA.
A town of Argolis, greatly distinguished by the games once celebrated there. These games (called the Nemean games) were originally instituted by the Argives in honour of Archemorus, who died from the bite of a serpent; and, afterwards, renewed in honour of Hercules, who in that neighbourhood is said to have destroyed a lion by squeezing him to death.
These games consisted of foot and horse races, and chariot races; boxing, wrestling, and contests of every kind, both gymnastic and equestrian. They were celebrated on the 12th of our August, on the 1st and 3rd of every Olympiad; and continued long after those of Olympia were abolished.
In the neighbouring mountains is still shown the den of the lion, said to have been slain by Hercules; near which stand the remains of a considerable temple, dedicated to Jupiter Nemeus and Cleomenes, formerly surrounded by a grove of cypresses.
Of this temple three columns only are remaining. These columns, two of which belonging to the space between antæ, support their architrave. These columns are four feet six inches and a half in diameter, and thirty-one feet ten inches and a half in height, exclusive of the capitals. The single column is five feet three inches diameter, and belongs to the peristyle. The temple was hexastyle and peripteral, and is supposed to have had fourteen columns on the sides. The general intercolumniation is seven feet and a half, and those at the angles five feet eleven inches and a quarter. It stands upon three steps, each of which is one foot two inches in height. The capital of the exterior column has been shaken out of its place, and will probably ere long fall to the ground. “I have not seen in Greece,” continues Mr. Dodwell, “any Doric temple, the columns of which are of such slender proportions as those of Nemea. The epistylia are thin and meagre, and the capitals too small for the height of the columns. It is constructed of a soft calcareous stone, which is an aggregate of sand and small petrified shells, and the columns are coated with a fine stucco. Pausanias praises the beauty of the temple; but, even in his time, the roof had fallen, and not a single statue was left.”
No fragments of marble are found amongst the ruins, but an excavation would probably be well repaid, as the temple was evidently thrown down at one moment, and if it contained any sculptured marbles, they are still concealed by the ruins.