The great Persian War and its preliminaries

by G. B. Grundy

If we may judge from the order of Herodotus’ description, it would seen as if his examination of the district was made in the course of a journey from North Greece southwards; for his enumeration of the natural features takes them for the most part in order from west to east. This hypothesis is supported, curiously enough, by the one mistake which he makes as to the topography of the region. He wrote evidently under the impression that the road through the pass ran from north to south, for he describes various features on either side as lying east or west of it (vii. 176). Coming from Lamia across the plain, the road would be due north and south. In those days also it is probable that the bend towards the west gate of the pass was more gradual than at the present day; and the change of direction would not be so noticeable.

Speaking of the region generally, he makes reference to (vii. 198) the ebb and flow of the sea in the Malian gulf. This is connected with the peculiar local tide-phenomenon in the Euripus. At Chalkis, where the channel is contracted to a width that may be measured by feet, the current induced by it is so strong that the Greek steamers have at times to wait several hours before they can get through the narrow passage. At the head of the Malian gulf, where the shore is very low and flat, the phenomenon is peculiarly remarkable, and in making the survey of Thermopylæ it was rather a puzzling feature in the situation, rendering it difficult to fix the exact position of prominent points along the coast.

Herodotus speaks of the Malian plain (vii. 198) as being divided into two parts by the projection of the mountain at either side. The greatest and highest mass of Œta, west of the Trachinian cliffs, extends northwards towards Othrys, and marks off the upper plain of Hypati, the ancient Hypata, from the lower plain of Lamia. The breadth of the plain where it is broadest, [which he states to be at the city of Trachis,] he gives at a figure which has been corrupted in the text. The actual breadth from the exit of the Asopos defile to Lamia is about eight miles, or about four hundred plethra.

His account of the natural features of the district begins outside the limits of the region which formed the scene of operations. The rivers Dyras and Melas may be identified with sufficient certainty under the modern names of Gourgo-potamo and Mavra-neria.

Herodotus now enters upon the description of those features which did have an influence upon the events of 480 B.C. “South of Trachis,” he says (vii. 199), “there is a cleft in the mountain range which shuts in the territory of Trachinia; and the river Asopos, issuing from the cleft, flows for a while along the foot of the hills.”

The Asopos, at the present day, after issuing from the ravine, turns eastwards through an angle of at least 45 degrees, and proceeds for a distance of about two and a half miles in the direction of the north foot of the hills which form the west gate of Thermopylæ. There is a sort of bay in the range between the ravine and the west gate of the pass. Herodotus’ description of it as flowing along the foot of the hills would be applicable to its course at the present day. Its bed, a broad stony channel, thickly sown with bushes of oleander and plane, is one which is liable to alteration; but I could not find any trace or evidence whatever of its having largely diverged from its present course within recent times; and the modern maps of this district which represent the river as running far out into the plain before turning towards Thermopylæ are certainly wrong. No really reliable map of the region as a whole at present exists. The best I have seen is one in Hauvette’s Herodotus; and that contains several palpable errors.

ROUTE OF HERODOTUS.

Before reaching the hills at the west gate, the river takes a bend slightly northwards of its former course, and passes the end of this promontory of the range at a distance of about one-third of a mile. After passing underneath the Lamia-Thermopylæ-Atalanta road, it falls into the Spercheios a few hundred yards below the Alamana bridge. Any consideration as to the exact position of its mouth in former times is so much dependent on considerations connected with the Spercheios, that they had better be left until the conjectural former course of that river is described. This may, however, be said:⁠—that the present course of the Asopos seems to resemble to a great extent its course in the time of Herodotus, though it must, in the interval, have passed through many modifications.

Of the Spercheios Herodotus tells us, unfortunately, very little. I venture, however, to think that it entered the gulf in those days at a point farther west than is represented in the modern maps which have conjecturally depicted the state of this region 500 years before Christ.

The description of Herodotus in Chapters 198 and 199 seems to be almost certainly of the nature of a verbal map. He is describing what he saw when travelling along a route from the north; and he begins his description, as it is his intention to describe Thermopylæ, at the Spercheios river. Whether the route he had traversed was that by Thaumaki or that by Thebes in Phthiotis, he must have passed by way of Lamia; for we know from Livy that that town blocked both those roads; in fact, the physical characteristics of the region were such as to render it practically certain that both must have passed that way. His knowledge of Macedonian history and also of the Vale of Tempe and of the sanctuary at Halos render it possible that he saw Thermopylæ in the course of a journey from Macedonia to Greece; he expressly says in Chapter 198 that he is describing the road from the point of view “of a traveller from Achaia.”