CHAPTER V.
CAPITAL CITIES OF GREECE.—SPARTA.
From what has been said, the reader will, perhaps, have acquired a tolerably correct idea of the city of Athens, its splendour and extent. But the remaining fragments of Hellenic literature do not enable us to be equally clear or copious in our account of Sparta.[[281]] In fact so imperfect and confused is the information that has come down to us respecting it, so vague, unsatisfactory, and in many respects contradictory are the opinions of modern scholars and travellers, that after diligently and patiently examining their accounts, and comparing them with the descriptions of Pausanias, the hints of Xenophon, Livy, Polybius, and Plutarch, with the casual references of the poets, I am enabled to offer the following picture only as a series of what appear to me probable conjectures based upon a few indisputable facts.
The reader who has endeavoured to discover anything like order in Pausanias’ topography of Sparta,[[282]] will fully comprehend the difficulty of constructing from his information anything like an intelligible plan of the city. Nevertheless, by setting out from a fixed point, by laboriously studying the thread of his narration, by divining the secret order he seems to follow in enumerating and delineating the various public buildings of which he speaks, and by comparing his fragmentary disclosures with the present physiognomy of the site, I have formed a conception of the features of ancient Sparta which may, perhaps, be found to bear some resemblance to the original.
We will suppose ourselves to have passed the Eurotas, and to be standing on the summit of the loftiest building of the Acropolis, the Alpion for example, or the temple of Athena Chalciœcos,[[283]] from which we can command a view of the whole site of Sparta from the Eurotas, where it flows between banks shaded with reeds and lofty rose laurels[[284]] on the east, to the brisk sparkling stream of the Tiasa, and the roots of the Taygetos on the west. North and south the eye ranges up and down the valley,[[285]] discovering in the latter direction the ancient cities of Therapne[[286]] and Amyclæ,[[287]] celebrated for their poetical and heroic associations. Beyond the Eurotas eastward, occupying the green and well-wooded acclivities upwards, from the banks of the stream towards the barren and red-tinted heights of the Menelaion,[[288]] lay scattered the villas of the noble Spartans, filled with costly furniture and every other token of wealth,[[289]] while here and there, on all sides, embosomed in groves or thickets, arose the temples and chapels of the gods surrounded by a halo of sanctity and communicating peculiar beauty to the landscape.
Contracting now our circle of vision, and contemplating the distinct villages or groups of buildings of which the capital of Laconia anciently consisted,[[290]] we behold the encampments as it were of the five tribes, extending in a circle about the Acropolis.[[291]] The quarter of the Pitanatæ,[[292]] commencing about the Issorion and the bridge over the Tiasa on the west, extended eastward beyond the Hyacinthine road[[293]] to the cliffs overhanging the valley of the Eurotas above the confluence of that river with the Tiasa. Immediately contiguous to the dwellings of this tribe in the north eastern division of the city, opposite that cloven island in the Eurotas, which contained the temple of Artemis, Orthia, and the Goddess of Birth, dwelt the Limnatæ,[[294]] who possessed among them the temple erected by the Spartans to Lycurgus. North again of these, and clustering around that sharp eminence which constituted as it were a second Acropolis, were the habitations of the Cynosuræ,[[295]] whose quarter appears to have extended from the old bridge over the Eurotas to the temple of Dictynna, and the tombs of the Euripontid kings on the west. From this point to the Dromos, lying directly opposite the southern extremity of the Isle of Plane Trees, formed by the diverging and confluent waters of the Tiasa, lay the village of the Messoatæ,[[296]] where were situated the tomb of Alcman, the fountain Dorcea, and a very beautiful portico overlooking the Platanistas. The road extending from the Dromos to the Issorion formed the western limits of the tribe of the Ægidæ,[[297]] whose quarter extending inward to the heart of the city, appears to have comprehended the Acropolis, the Lesche Pœcile, the theatre, with all the other buildings grouped about the foot of the ancient city.
The prospect presented by all these villages, nearly touching each other, and comprehended within a circle of six Roman miles, was once, no doubt, in the days of Spartan glory, singularly animated and picturesque. The face of the ground was broken and diversified, rising into six hills of unequal elevation, and constituting altogether a small table-land, in some places terminating in perpendicular cliffs;[[298]] in others, shelving away in gentle slopes to meet the meadows on the banks of the surrounding streams. Over all was diffused the brilliant light[[299]] which fills the atmosphere of the south, and paints, as travellers uniformly confess, even the barren crag and crumbling ruin with beauty.
The structures that occupied the summit of the Acropolis appear to have been neither numerous nor magnificent. The central pile, around which all the others were grouped, was the temple of Athena Chalciœcos,[[300]] flanked on the north and south by the fanes of Zeus Cosmetas and the Muses. Behind it rose the temple of Aphrodite Areia, with that of Artemis Cnagia, and in front various other edifices and statues, dedicated to Euryleonis, Pausanias, Athena Ophthalmitis, and Ammon. Somewhere in the neighbourhood of the temenos of Athena stood two edifices, one called Skenoma and the other Alpion. The relative position of all these it is now extremely difficult, if not impossible, to determine. Let us therefore descend into the agora, and having briefly described the objects which there offered themselves to the eye of the stranger, endeavour to thread our way through the various streets of Sparta, pointing out as we go along the most remarkable monuments it contained.
In all Greek cities the point of greatest importance, next to the citadel, was the market-place, where the body of the citizens assembled not only to buy and sell, but to transact public business, and perform many ceremonies of their religion. Thus, in the agora of Sparta, in the centre of which probably stood an altar, surrounded by the statues of Apollo, Artemis, Leto, and the soothsayer Hagias who foretold the victory of Lysander at Ægospotamos, sacred chorusses and processions were exhibited during the Gymnopædia in honour of Phœbos Apollo, in consequence of which, a part at least of the place obtained the name of Choros: here, likewise, was a colossal statue, erected in honour of the Spartan Demos, with a group representing Hermes bearing the infant Dionysos in his arms, and a statue of King Polydoros, doubtless set up in the neighbourhood of his house, Boonetos, lying between the street Aphetæ and the steep road leading up to the citadel. The edifices by which the agora was encircled, though in most cases, perhaps, far from magnificent, when separately considered, presented a grand coup-d’œil. This will be made evident if, placing ourselves near the central altar, we enumerate and briefly describe them in the order in which they followed each other in the great circle of the agora. First, beginning on the right-hand corner of the street Aphetæ we behold the palace of the Bidiæi, the five magistrates who watched over the education of the youth; next succeeds that of the Nomophylaces, or guardians of the laws; then that of the Ephori; and, lastly, the senate-house, standing at the corner of the street leading to Therapne. Crossing over to the south-eastern side of the Agora we behold a spacious and stately portico called the Persian, because erected from the spoils of the Persians. Its columns of white marble were adorned with bassi relievi representing Persian warriors, among others Mardonios and Artemisia daughter of Lygdamis queen of Halicarnassos, who fought in person at the battle of Salamis. Beyond the road to Amyclæ, we meet with a range of temples to Gaia, Zeus Agoræos, Athena, Poseidon the Preserver, Apollo, and Hera; and traversing the western street opening into the Theomelida, and affording us a glimpse in passing of the tombs of the Agid kings we arrive at the ancient halls of the Ephori, containing the monuments of Epimenides and Aphareus. To this edifice succeed the statues of Zeus Xenios and Athena Xenia. Next follows the temple of the Fates, near which was the tomb of Orestes lying on the left hand of the road leading to the sanctuary of Athena Chalciœcos. On the other side stands the house of King Polydoros, which obtained in after ages the name of Boonetos because purchased of his widowed queen with a certain number of oxen. With this terminates the list of the buildings by which the Agora was encompassed.
Quitting, now, this central point, we proceed northward through the street called Aphetæ, and observe on the right hand at a short distance from each other three temples of Athena Keleuthia, together with the heroa of Iops, Lelex, and Amphiaraos. On the opposite side apparently, stood the temenos of Tænarian Poseidon, with a statue of Athena, erected by the Dorian colonists of Italy. We next arrive at a place called the Hellenion, probably nothing more than a large open space or square in which the deputies or ambassadors of foreign states assembled on extraordinary occasions. Close to this was erected the monument of Talthybios. A little further on were the altar of Apollo Acreitas, the Gasepton, a temple of earth, and another altar sacred to Apollo Maleates. At the end of the street, near the walls of the late city, was a temple of Dictynna, with the tombs of the kings called Eurypontidæ.