Islands and islets are scattered in seeming disorder over the Ægean Sea, the name of which may probably mean “sea of goats,” because these islands appeared at a distance like goats. By a singular misapplication the modern term {70} Archipelago, instead of sea, is now used to designate these groups of islands. The Sporades, in the north, form a long range of islands stretching in the direction of Mount Athos. The island of Scyros, farther south, the birthplace of Achilles and place of exile of King Theseus, occupies an isolated position; the large island of Eubœa extends along the coast of the continent; and in the distance rise the white mountains of the Cyclades, likened by the ancient Greeks to a circle of Oceanides dancing around a deity.

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Fig. 23.—EURIPUS AND CHALCIS.

Scale 1 : 220,000.

All these islands are so many fragments of the mainland. This is proved by their geological structure, or by shoals which attach them to the nearest coast. The Northern Sporades are a branch of Mount Pelion. Eubœa is traversed by limestone mountains of considerable height, running parallel to the chains of Attica, Argolis, Mount Olympus, and Mount Athos. Scyros is a rocky mountain mass, whose axis runs in the same direction as that of the central chain of Eubœa. The summits of the Cyclades continue the ranges of Eubœa and Attica towards the south-east, and the same micaceous and argillaceous schists, limestones, and crystalline marbles are found in them. They are, indeed, “mountains of Greece {71} scattered over the sea.” If Athens may boast of the quarries of Mount Pentelicus, the Cyclades produce the glittering marbles of Naxos, and the still more beautiful ones of Paros, from which were chiselled the statues of heroes and of gods. Curious caverns are met with in the limestone of the islands, especially that of Antiparos, the existence of which was not known to the ancients, and the Cave of Sillaka, on the island of Cythnos, or Thermia, celebrated for its hot springs. Granite is found on some of the islands, and particularly in the small island of Delos, dedicated to the worship of Apollo and Diana. In the south, finally, the Cyclades are traversed by a chain of volcanic islands, extending from the peninsula of Methana, in Argolis, to Cos and the shores of Asia Minor.

Eubœa may be looked upon almost as a portion of the continent, for the strait which separates it from the mainland resembles a submerged longitudinal valley, and is nowhere of great depth or width. At its narrowest part it is no more than two hundred and fourteen feet across, and from the most remote times, Chalcis, the capital of the island, has been joined to the mainland by a bridge. The irregular tidal currents flowing through this strait were looked upon as marvellous by the Greeks, and Aristotle is said to have flung himself into it because he was unable to explain this phenomenon. The Italian name of the island, Negroponte, is formed by a series of corruptions from Euripus, by which name the ancients knew the strait between the island and the mainland. Eubœa has at all times shared in the vicissitudes of the neighbouring provinces of Attica and Bœotia. When the cities of Greece were at the height of their glory, those of Eubœa—Chalcis, Eretria, and Cerinthus—enjoyed likewise a high degree of prosperity, and dispatched colonies to all parts of the Me­di­ter­ra­nean. Later on, when invaders ravaged Attica, Eubœa shared the same fate, and at present it participates in every political and social movement of the neighbouring continent.

In Northern Eubœa there are forests of oaks, pines, elms, and plane-trees; the villages are embedded in orchards; and the surrounding country resembles what we have seen in Elis and Arcadia. But in the Cyclades we look in vain for charming landscapes. Foliage and running water abound only in a very few spots. Arid rocks, more arid even than those on the coast of Greece, predominate, and only in a few favoured spots do we meet with a few olive-trees, valonia oaks, pines, and fig-trees. Everywhere else the hills are naked. And yet these islands arouse feelings of devotion in us, for their names are great in history. The highest summits of most of them have been named after the prophet Elias, the biblical successor of Apollo, the god of the sun; and justly so, for the sun reigns supreme upon these austere rocks, and his scorching rays destroy every vestige of vegetation.

Antimilos, one of the uninhabited islands of this group, still affords an asylum to the wild goat (Capra Caucasica), which has disappeared from the remainder of Europe, and is met with only in Crete, and perhaps Rhodes. Wild pigs likewise haunt the rocks of Antimilos. Rabbits were introduced from the West, and abound in the caverns of some of the Cyclades, and especially on Myconus and Delos. The ancient authors never mention these animals. It is a curious fact that {72} hares and rabbits never inhabit the same island, with the sole exception of Andros, where the hares occupy the extreme north, whilst the rabbits have their burrows in the southern portion of the island. As a curiosity, we may also mention that a large species of lizard, called crocodile by the inhabitants, is found on the islands, but not on the neighbouring continent, and we may conclude from this that the Cyclades were separated from the Balkan peninsula at a very remote period.