With respect to the bridge Babyx, if bridge it really was, it appears very difficult[[313]] to believe that it spanned the Tiasa, though we still find massive ruins of arches in the channel of that stream. There seems to be much stronger reason for supposing it to have been thrown over the Eurotas, where the road from the Isthmus traversed it.[[314]] We should then understand by the oracle which commanded Lycurgus to assemble his people between Babyx and Cnacion,[[315]] that he was to gather them together anywhere within the precincts of the city. Accordingly we find in the time of Lycurgus, that the Agora in the centre of Sparta was the place were the Apellæ[[316]] were held. This, too, is evident, by the sense in which the matter was understood by Plutarch, who, speaking of the victory of the Bœotians over the Spartans at Tegyra, observes, that by this event it was made manifest that not the Eurotas, or the space between Babyx and Cnacion alone produced brave and warlike men.[[317]] Now it appears to me, that a few meadows without the city on which assemblies of the people were occasionally convened could never be said to produce these people. I have therefore supposed that Babyx was the bridge by which travellers coming from the Isthmus entered Sparta.
[281]. The plan which accompanies the present chapter, based on the description of Pausanias, agrees in many of the main points with that given by Mr. Müller in his map of the Peloponnesos. M. Barbie du Bocage’s Essay on the Topography of Sparta, upon the whole faulty, is, nevertheless, in my opinion, right with respect to the portion of the bridge Babyx which Mr. Müller throws over the Tiasa, contrary to all the reasonable inferences to be derived from history. Colonel Leake’s plan, given in his travels in the Morea, conveys a different idea of Spartan topography; but I am unable to reconcile his views with the account of the city in Pausanias, though I very much regret that the plan I have adopted should not be recommended by the support of a writer so learned and so ingenious.
[282]. III. 11–20. Cf. Polyb. v. 22. Liv. xxxiv. 26. seq.
[283]. In the precincts of this temple, evidently the strongest place in the city, the Ætolian mercenaries took refuge after the assassination of Nabis.—Liv. xxxv. 36.
[284]. Plut. Instit. Lacon. § 10. Chateaubriand, Itin. xi. 110. Poucqueville’s description of the stream is striking and picturesque: “The banks,” he says, “are bordered with never-fading laurels, which, inclining towards each other, form an arch over its waters, and seem still consecrated to the deities of whom its purity is a just emblem; while swans, even of a more dazzling whiteness than the snows that cover the mountain-tops above, are constantly sailing up and down the stream.”—Travels, p. 84. The Viscount Chateaubriand, however, sought in vain for these poetical birds, and, therefore, evidently considers them fabulous.
[285]. Strabo’s brief description of the site deserves to be mentioned: ἔστι μὲν οὖν ἐν κοιλοτέρῳ χωρίῳ τὸ τῆς πόλεως ἔδαφος, καίπερ ἀπολαμβάνον ὄρη μεταξύ. viii. 5. t. ii. p. 185.
[286]. Xen. Hellen. v. 5. 2.
[287]. At this ancient city Castor and Polydeukes were worshipped not as heroes but as divinities. Isoc. Encom. Helen. § 27. Cf. Pind. Pyth. xi. 60, sqq. Nem. x. 56. Dissen supposes these tombs to have been vaults under ground in the Phœbaion.—Comm. p. 508.
[288]. Steph. de Urb. v. Μενέλαος, p. 551, a. Berkel.—Polyb. v. 22.