This exhibits a retrograde march to a point lower than the description of the Odyssey, where Telemachus and Peisistratus drive their chariot from Pylus to Sparta. The remains of the ancient roads are still seen in many parts of Greece (Strong, p. 34).
[337] Dr. Clarke’s description deserves to be noticed, though his warm eulogies on the fertility of the soil, taken generally, are not borne out by later observers: “The physical phenomena of Greece, differing from those of any other country, present a series of beautiful plains, successively surrounded by mountains of limestone; resembling, although upon a larger scale, and rarely accompanied by volcanic products, the craters of the Phlegræan fields. Everywhere, their level surfaces seems to have been deposited by water, gradually retired or evaporated; they consist for the most part of the richest soil, and their produce is yet proverbially abundant. In this manner, stood the cities of Argos, Sikyon, Corinth, Megara, Eleusis, Athens, Thebes, Amphissa, Orchomenus, Chæronea, Lebadea, Larissa, Pella, and many others.” (Dr. Clarke’s Travels, vol. ii. ch. 4, p. 74.)
[338] Sir W. Gell found, in the month of March, summer in the low plains of Messenia, spring in Laconia, winter in Arcadia (Journey in Greece, pp. 355-359).
[339] The cold central region (or mountain plain,—ὀροπέδιον) of Tripolitza, differs in climate from the maritime regions of Peloponnesus, as much as the south of England from the south of France.... No appearance of spring on the trees near Tegea, though not more than twenty-four miles from Argos.... Cattle are sent from thence every winter to the maritime plains of Elos in Laconia (Leake, Trav. in Morea, vol. i. pp. 88, 98, 197). The pasture on Mount Olono (boundary of Elis, Arcadia, and Achaia) is not healthy until June (Leake, vol. ii. p. 119); compare p. 348, and Fiedler, Reise, i. p. 314.
See also the Instructive Inscription of Orchomenus, in Boeckh, Staatshaushaltung der Athener, t. ii. p. 380.
The transference of cattle, belonging to proprietors in one state, for temporary pasturage in another, is as old as the Odyssey, and is marked by various illustrative incidents: see the cause of the first Messenian war (Diodor. Fragm. viii. vol. iv. p. 23, ed. Wess; Pausan. iv. 4, 2).
[340] “Universa autem (Peloponnesus), velut pensante æquorum incursus naturâ, in montes 76 extollitur.” (Plin. H. N. iv. 6.)
Strabo touches, in a striking passage (ii. pp. 121-122), on the influence of the sea in determining the shape and boundaries of the land: his observations upon the great superiority of Europe over Asia and Africa, in respect of intersection and interpenetration of land by the sea-water are remarkable: ἡ μὲν οὖν Εὐρώπη πολυσχημονεστάτη πασῶν ἐστι, etc. He does not especially name the coast of Greece, though his remarks have a more exact bearing upon Greece than upon any other country. And we may copy a passage out of Tacitus (Agricol. c. 10), written in reference to Britain, which applies far more precisely to Greece: “nusquam latius dominari mare ... nec litore tenus accrescere aut resorberi, sed influere penitus et ambire, et jugis etiam atque montibus inseri velut in suo.”
[341] Xenophon, De Vectigal. c. 1; Ephor. Frag. 67, ed. Marx; Stephan. Byz. Βοιωτία.
[342] Pliny, H. N. iv. 5, about the Isthmus of Corinth: “Lechææ hinc, Cenchreæ illinc, angustiarum termini, longo et ancipiti navium ambitu (i. e. round Cape Malea), quas magnitudo plaustris transvehi prohibet: quam ob causam perfodere navigabili alveo angustias eas tentavere Demetrius rex, dictator Cæsar, Caius princeps, Domitius Nero,—infausto (ut omnium exitu patuit) incepto.”