The Site of Hysiæ.
Tradition gives the site of the modern Kriekouki as that of Hysiæ. Water being so important in this region, it is worthy of notice that, except in case of prolonged drought, Kriekouki is well supplied in this respect, which would render it likely that the site or its immediate neighbourhood would have been chosen for habitation in ancient times. As I have already indicated, I think Hysiæ stood just outside the area of the modern village, to the south of it, i.e. higher up the hillside. There is a mound there with a more or less circular enclosure at the top, quite close to the great bend of the loop-road above the Kriekouki. The enclosure may possibly mark the site of the foundations of an ancient φρούριον. Other remains I could not find. Hysiæ was at best but a little place, and, if it stood on that site, whatever remnants of it survived till modern times would inevitably be swept away for the building of the large village of Kriekouki, in whose walls, too, are stones which appear to have been taken from pre-existing buildings. This site accords with the little that is told us in ancient authors of the position of Hysiæ. It lies east of the line of road from Athens to Platæa, at a distance of something less than half a mile. To the traveller coming along the road from Eleutheræ it would therefore be, as Pausanias says (ix. 2, i), “a little to the right of the road.” It is also west of the site of Erythræ, as Herodotus (ix. 15) indicates Hysiæ to have been.
MOVEMENT TO THE SECOND POSITION.
After moving some distance westward along the foothills the Greek army must have turned in a north and north-westerly direction to reach the position which Herodotus describes. H. ix. 25. He mentions the spring of Gargaphia and the precinct of Androkrates[197] as the two points defining the position, and indicates clearly what that position was, for the spring may be identified at the present day, and the precinct is referred to in Thucydides’ account of the escape of the two hundred and twelve from Platæa, in such a way that its site must lie somewhere within a comparatively small area of ground.
The Spring of Gargaphia.
The spring of Alopeki or Apotripi, at the head of the brook A 1, is pointed to by local tradition as the ancient Gargaphia. This spring does not give a very copious supply of water. I believe it does not always run dry in summer; but in August, 1899, after the long drought of that year, it was yielding no water whatever. The state of things in that month was such that the inhabitants of Kriekouki were absolutely dependent for water for themselves and their cattle on a group of springs lying east of Apotripi, distant from it about three-quarters of a mile, and forming the source of Stream A 4. These are the springs which Colonel Leake, rightly, as I firmly believe, identified with Gargaphia. The chief of these springs has, in modern times, been enclosed in a wall. What is quite certain is that one of these two groups is the Gargaphia.
Herodotus says (ix. 49) that the whole Greek army watered from the springs. As the battle took place in September, the greater yield of water from the eastern group of springs supports its identity as against Apotripi.
Herodotus also says (ix. 51) that the “Island” was ten stades from the spring.