The most remarkable objects in Ægina were placed at the angles of the island. The city and harbour towards the west, on the east looking towards Attica the temple of Athena, and, near its southern extremity, “a magnificent conical mountain, which from its grandeur, its form, and its historical recollections, is the most remarkable among the natural features of Ægina.”[[209]] An eminence so lofty and in shape so beautiful would naturally be an object of much interest in so small an island. The local superstitions would necessarily cluster round it, as around Ida in Crete and Olympos in Thessaly. Accordingly on the summit of this mountain the fables of Ægina represent King Æacos praying, in the name of the whole Hellenic nation, to Zeus for rain, as the prophet prayed for the Israelites, and with equal success. Here, therefore, a recent traveller has with great judgment fixed the site of the Panhellenion, near the spot where a chapel, dedicated to the prophet Elias, now stands. In dimensions Ægina, according to Scylax, ranked twelfth among the isles of Hellas. Strabo attributes to it a circumference of one hundred and eighty stadia; but Sir William[William] Gell, in his Argolis,[[210]] considers its perimeter, not including the fluctuations of the bays and creeks, to be not less than two hundred and ten stadia, and its square contents three thousand one hundred and sixty-four stadia, or forty-one square miles.[[211]] The interior is rocky, rough, and perforated with caverns, in which, according to fabulous legends, the Myrmidons resided, and Chabrias afterwards lay in ambush for the Spartan Gorgopos and his Æginetan allies.[[212]] A light thin soil nourishes but sparing vegetation on the mountains, but several of the small valleys, filled with earth washed down by rains from the uplands, are rich and fertile, watered by springs and rivulets, and beautified with groves of imperishable verdure.[[213]]
Much has been written on the extent and population of Attica, respecting which most of the philosophers of the last generation entertained very erroneous ideas. An examination of their statements might still, perhaps, be interesting; but it would lead me far beside the scope of my present work, and occupy space that can be better filled up. According to the most careful calculation Attica contained seven hundred and twenty square miles, or taking into account the island of Salamis seven hundred and forty-eight. The whole of this extremely limited space swarmed, however, with population; for even so late[[214]] as 317 B. C. after all the calamities which the republic had undergone, Attica still contained five hundred and twenty-seven thousand six hundred and sixty persons, or nearly seven hundred and seventy-three to the square mile, a proportion much higher than is found in the most thickly peopled counties of England.
This, however, taking into account the form of government, the industrious habits, and extreme frugality of the people, is entirely within the bounds of probability. But in what is related of the population of Ægina, the calculations current among learned authors are so extravagant as to exceed all belief. Müller and Boeckh,[[215]] who on other occasions, and sometimes very unseasonably affect scepticism, unhesitatingly admit the account in Athenæus, which attributes four hundred and seventy thousand slaves to the Æginetans.[[216]] To these the former adds a free population of forty thousand, making the whole amount to upwards of half a million, or twelve thousand four hundred and fifty-seven to the square mile. Mr. Clinton,[[217]] clearly perceiving the absurdity of this calculation, proposes to read seventy thousand, which will leave a population in the proportion of two thousand six hundred and eighty-two to the square mile. The passage in Athenæus is no doubt, as Bochart suspects,[[218]] corrupt, and this being the case nothing is left but to determine from analogy the population of Ægina, which, supposing it equally dense with that of Attica would have amounted to something more than thirty thousand souls.
[167]. Cf. Hermann, Pol. Ant. § 6. Müll. Dor. ii. 425.
[168]. Varro gave the preference to the soil and climate of Italy, where everything good was produced in perfection. He thought no barley to be compared with the Campanian, no wheat with the Apulian, no rye with the Falernian, no oil with the Venafran. The whole country was so thickly planted with trees that it seemed to be an orchard. Not even Phrygia itself abounded more in vineyards; nor was Argos so fertile as parts of Italy, though it was said to produce from ten to fifteen pipes the juger. De Re Rustica, i. 2. p. 46. b.
[169]. “Woodcocks and snipes, I am informed, visited the neighbourhood of Attica during the winter in considerable quantities. I heard the curlew and the red shank cry along the marsh to the right of the Piræus.” Sibth. in Walp. Mem. i. 76.
[170]. Cramer, Desc. of Greece, i. 8.
[171]. Βοιωτία ὗς. Pind. Olymp. vi. 151. Cram. ii. 200.—Thick and foggy atmosphere. Hipp. de Aër. § 55. Plat. De Legg. v. t. vii. p. 410. seq—Cicero observes:—“Etenim licet videre acutiora ingenia et ad intelligendum acutiora eorum, qui terras incolant eas, in quibus aër sit purus ac tenuis, quàm illorum, qui utantur crasso cœlo atque concreto.” De Nat. Deor. ii. 16. “The purple and the grey heron frequent the marshes of Bœotia.” Sibth. in Walp. Mem. i. 76.
[172]. I never saw the Pleiades appear so large as on the coast of Messenia. See Coray, Disc. Prel. ad Hipp. de Aër. et Loc. § 115.