XVII. The Prospect from Acro-Corinth.—The view from the summit of Acro-Corinth has been famous since the days of Strabo, who has accurately described it. The brilliant foreground, indeed, on which he looked down has vanished. The stately city with its temples, its terraced gardens, its colonnades, its fountains, is no more. In its place there is spread out at our feet the flat yellowish expanse of the Isthmus, stretching like a bridge across the sea to the point where the Geranian mountains, their slopes clothed with the sombre green of the pine-forests, rise abruptly like a massive barrier at its farther end, sending out on their western side a long promontory, which cuts far into the blue waters of the Corinthian Gulf. Across the Gulf tower on the north the bold sharp peaks of Cithaeron and Helicon in Boeotia. On the north-west Parnassus lifts its mighty head, glistering with snow into late spring, but grey and bare in summer. In the far west loom the Locrian and Aetolian mountains, seeming to unite with the mountains of Peloponnese on the south, and thus apparently converting the Gulf of Corinth into an inland mountain-girdled lake. To the south-west, above ranges of grey limestone hills dotted with dark pines, soar the snowy peaks of Cyllene and Aroania in Arcadia. On the south the prospect is shut in by the high tablelands and hills of Argolis, range beyond range, the lower slopes of the valleys covered in spring with corn-fields, their upper slopes with tracts of brushwood. Eastward Salamis and the sharp-peaked Aegina are conspicuous. In this direction the view is bounded by the hills of Attica—the long ridge of Hymettus and the more pointed summits of Pentelicus and Parnes, while below them in clear weather the Parthenon is distinctly visible on the Acropolis nearly fifty miles away, the pinnacle of Lycabettus rising over it crowned with its white far-gleaming chapel.
XVIII. The Capture of Corinth by Aratus.—The story of the capture of Corinth by Aratus has been told by Plutarch with a wealth of picturesque details which he doubtless took from the Memoirs written by Aratus himself. The city, and especially the lofty and precipitous acropolis of Corinth, was held for King Antigonus by a Macedonian garrison. Aratus resolved to take the place by a night surprise. For this perilous service he picked out four hundred men, and led them to one of the city-gates. It was midsummer: a full moon rode in a cloudless sky, and the assailants feared that its bright beams, reflected from so many helmets and spears, might betray their approach to the sentinels on the walls. But just as the head of the column neared the gate, a heavy bank of clouds came scudding up from the sea and veiled the moon, blotting out the line of walls and shrouding the storming-party in darkness. Favoured by the gloom eight men, in the guise of travellers, crept up to the gate and put the sentinels to the sword. Ordering the rest of his men to follow him at the best speed they could make, Aratus now advanced at the head of a forlorn hope of one hundred men, planted the ladders, scaled the wall, and descended into the city. Not a soul was stirring in the streets, and Aratus hurried along in the direction of the acropolis, congratulating himself on escaping observation, when a patrol of four men was seen coming down the street with flaring torches. The moon shone full on them, but Aratus and his men were in shadow. Aratus whispered his men to stand close in the shadow of the houses. The unsuspecting patrol came on: in a minute three of them were cut down, and the fourth escaped with a gash on his head, crying out that the enemy were within the walls. A few minutes more and the trumpets rang out and the whole city was up. The streets, lately silent and deserted, were thronged with crowds hurrying to and fro; lights glanced at the windows; and high above the city a line of twinkling points of fire marked the summit of the acropolis. At the same time a confused hum of voices broke on the ear from all sides. Undeterred by these symptoms of the gathering storm, Aratus pressed up the winding path towards the acropolis as fast as the steep and rugged nature of the ground allowed.
Meantime the three hundred men whom he had left behind, bewildered by the sudden uproar, the flashing of multitudinous lights, and all the tumult of the rudely awakened city, missed the path up the acropolis and, knowing not whither to turn, halted under an overhanging crag at the foot of the mountain. Here they remained in a state of the utmost anxiety and alarm. For by this time Aratus was hotly engaged with the garrison on the summit, and the noise of battle and of distant cheering came floating down to them, but so faint with distance, so broken and distorted by the reverberation of the cliffs, that the men below, listening intently, could not tell from which direction the sounds proceeded. While they were still crouching under the shadow of the precipice, they were startled by a loud peal of trumpets close at hand, and peering through the gloom they perceived a large body of men marching past them up the slope. It was the king’s troops hastening to the relief of the garrison on the acropolis. Instantly the three hundred charged out from their lurking-place, and taking the enemy completely by surprise, broke them and drove them in confusion towards the city. They were still flushed with victory when a messenger came hurrying down at breakneck speed from the citadel, telling them that Aratus was at it, cut and thrust, with the garrison, who stood bravely to their arms, and imploring them to hasten to his assistance. They bade him lead the way; and as they toiled upwards they shouted to let their comrades know that help was at hand. By this time the clouds had passed over and the sky was again clear; and so all up the weary ascent they could see the weapons of friend and foe glittering in the moonlight, as the fight swayed this way and that, and could hear their hoarse cries, multiplied apparently a thousandfold as they rolled down on the night air from crag to crag. At last they reached the top, and charging side by side with their friends, forced the enemy from the walls. Day was beginning to break when Aratus and his men stood victorious on the summit.
XIX. Sicyon.—Few ancient cities were more advantageously or beautifully situated than Sicyon. Built on a spacious and level tableland, defended on every side by cliffs, abundantly supplied with water, at a distance both safe and convenient from the sea, which, lying beyond a strip of fertile plain, sends its cool refreshing breezes to temper the summer heat, the city possessed a site secure, wholesome, and adapted both for agriculture and commerce. Nor are the natural beauties of the site less remarkable than its more material advantages. Behind it rise wooded mountains and in front of it, across the narrow plain, is stretched the wonderful panorama of the Corinthian Gulf, with Helicon, Cithaeron, and Parnassus towering beyond it to the north, and the mighty rock of Acro-Corinth barring the prospect on the east. At sunrise and sunset especially the scene is one of indescribable loveliness. The ancients themselves were not insensible to the charms of Sicyon. “A lovely and fruitful city, adapted to every recreation,” says a scholiast on Homer, and Diodorus speaks of Sicyon as a place “for peaceful enjoyment.”
XX. Phliasia.—The valley of the Asopus above Sicyon is a deep and narrow glen shut in on either hand by mountains, the steep sides of which are thickly overgrown with bushes. In some places, where the road is hemmed in between the roots of the mountain and the white, turbid, rushing river, the bank is occasionally undermined and swept away by the stream, and the path disappears altogether. In its upper reaches the glen widens so as to admit of here and there a small riverside meadow, prettily situated among oaks and shrubbery, with now and then a patch of ploughed land. After we have followed the glen upwards from Sicyon for about four hours, it opens out into a broad and fertile plain, encircled by steep mountains, down which brooks flow on all sides to join the Asopus. This upland plain, some four miles long and standing about a thousand feet above the sea, is Phliasia, the district of which Phlius was the ancient capital. On the west its level expanse is bounded by the picturesque, rugged, woody mass of Mount Gavria (about five thousand feet high), above which appears the snowy top of the lofty Cyllene in Arcadia. The eastern side of the valley is bounded by the Tricaranian range, which with its three flat summits divides the Phliasian valley from the vale of Nemea. The Asopus rises among the southern hills and flows northward through the valley in a deep grassy bed. It is here a clear and tranquil stream, very different from the rapid and turbid river which it becomes in the glen below, where it takes its colour from the soil which is washed down into it by the numerous torrents from the white argillaceous mountains through which it threads its way. About the middle of the plain it is joined by a tributary, longer than the Asopus itself, flowing from the mountains which enclose the south-western corner of the plain. The soil of the Phliasian valley is excellent; the central part of it is given up almost exclusively to vineyards which furnish now, as they did in antiquity, a fine fiery wine like Burgundy. In autumn the red and golden foliage of the fading vines lends a richer glow of colour to the beautiful landscape.
Some light is thrown on the topography of Phlius by the events which followed the battle of Leuctra. The Phliasians had been friends of Sparta when Sparta was at the height of her power; and after the disastrous day of Leuctra, when Sparta was deserted by allies and subjects alike, the Phliasians stood loyally by their old friends. This drew down on them the hostility of the victorious Thebans and their allies. In 368 B.C. a body of Arcadians and Eleans, marching through the pass of Nemea to join the Thebans, were induced by some Phliasian exiles to make an attempt to surprise and capture Phlius. Six hundred men, supplied with ladders, being sent in advance, concealed themselves by night at the foot of the citadel walls. Next morning the sentinels on Mount Tricaranum, to the east of the town, signalled the approach of the enemy from the valley of Nemea. The eyes of the citizens were thus turned to the hills, over which they momentarily expected to see the enemy appearing. Taking advantage of their distraction the six hundred men under the acropolis planted their ladders and were soon masters of the almost deserted citadel. But the citizens rallied, and after a fierce struggle drove the enemy with fire and sword over the ramparts.
Next year the allies made a more determined attempt to get possession of Phlius. The Theban commander at Sicyon marched from that city against Phlius at the head of his garrison and of a body of Sicyonian and Pellenian troops. He was supported by Euphron, tyrant of Sicyon, with two thousand mercenaries. The attack was again made from the hills on the east of the town. On the neck of land which joins the citadel of Phlius with the hills a detachment of Sicyonians and Pellenians was posted, to prevent the Phliasians from ascending the hills and taking their enemies in the rear. The rest of the army then descended from the hills in the direction of a sanctuary of Hera, meaning to ravage the corn-fields and vineyards in the valley. But the Phliasian cavalry and infantry met them and prevented them from carrying out their intention. Skirmishing went on most of the day with varying fortune. At one time Euphron with his mercenaries drove the Phliasians over the broken ground. But as soon as they reached open ground, where the Phliasian cavalry could come into play, they were in turn driven back up the hills as far as the sanctuary of Hera. At last the assailants abandoned the attack and retreated up the hill, purposing to join the detachment of Sicyonians and Pellenians, which they had left on the neck of ground leading to the citadel. To reach them they had to make a long detour up the hill, for a ravine lay between them and their friends, the ravine namely along which the city walls were built. The Phliasians pursued them up hill a little way, then perceiving the enemy’s intention of forming a junction with the detachment on the neck they turned back, and taking a short cut close under the town walls hastened to attack the detachment of the enemy before the main body could come up to their assistance. In this race the cavalry outstripped the infantry and charged the Pellenians alone. The latter stood to their arms and repelled the cavalry, till the Phliasian infantry came running up. Then, attacked by horse and foot simultaneously, the Pellenians and Sicyonians gave way. The victorious Phliasians erected a trophy and sang a loud paean. The enemy watched the scene from the hills; then, drawing together his beaten and scattered forces, fell sullenly back on Sicyon.
XXI. Nemea.—Between the valley of Cleonae on the east and the valley of Phlius or St. George on the west is interposed the valley of Nemea, running like its sister valleys from south to north. It is a narrow dale, some two or three miles long, and from half to three-quarters of a mile broad. At its northern end it contracts to a mere gully. Through the bottom of the valley, which is almost a dead flat, meanders like a thread the brook Nemea, fed by the numerous rills which descend from the neighbouring hills. When swollen by heavy rain, these tributaries, having an insufficient outlet through the gully at the north end, keep the bottom of the valley green, moist, and marshy. The dale is thus better adapted for pasturage than tillage; indeed from the rich pastures which clothe its bottom and the lower slopes of the hills it received its name of Nemea, ‘the pastoral vale.’ But if the valley itself, especially after rain, is green and smiling, the surrounding hills, scarred and seamed with the beds of torrents, are of a dark and melancholy hue, and, combined with the absolute solitude—not a human habitation being visible through the length and breadth of the dale—affect the mind with a sense of gloom and desolation.[[7]] The solitude is only broken by the wandering herds of cattle, and from time to time by a group of peasants, who come over from St. George to till their fields in this secluded valley. A white track winds up the western slope to the mouth of a glen which opens in the hill-side. Through this glen is the way to St. George and Phlius.