Studies in Greek Scenery, Legend and History / Selected from His Commentary on Pausanias' 'Description of Greece,'

by James George Frazer

An isthmus connects the peninsula with the mainland. Immediately on the landward, that is, eastern side of the isthmus, the massive and imposing rock of Palamidi, one of the strongest fortresses in Greece, towers up abruptly to a height of over seven hundred feet. The fortifications which crown its summit were built by the Venetians and Turks; they now serve as a prison. In their walls, as well as in the walls of Itsh-Kaleh, are built many Venetian inscriptions, some of them bearing the lion of St. Mark. Three sides of the mighty rock are precipitous, but on the south-eastern side it is accessible, being joined by a ridge to the hills. The ascent from Nauplia is by a long staircase at the north-western corner of the fortress; it begins close to the gate of the town. The name Palamidi is derived from Palamedes, the son of Nauplius. Palamedium was probably the ancient name of the fortress, though no classical writer mentions it. The prospect from the summit over the gulf and plain of Argos, with the background of mountains encircling the plain, is very fine. Nor is the view from the quay of Nauplia across the bay to the mountains of Argolis one to be easily forgotten, especially if seen by moonlight, when the sea is calm, the stars are shining, and the tall yard-arms of the lateen-rigged craft stand out like black wings against the sky, now blotting out and now disclosing a star as the boats heave on the gentle swell.

XXXIII. The Springs of the Erasinus.—From Argos the road to Tegea goes south-west. At first it skirts the foot of the steep Larisa, and then runs through the southern part of the Argolic plain. On the right rise the mountains, of no great height, which bound the plain on the west. About three miles from Argos we quit the highway and strike westward towards the hills through a beautiful avenue of fine silver poplars, plane-trees, and oleanders. It soon brings us to the springs.

The spot is very picturesque. A rugged mountain here descends in precipices of yellowish limestone to the plain, and at its foot a body of clear sparkling water comes rushing impetuously in several streams from the rocks, partly issuing from a low cavern, partly welling up from the ground. Under the rocks the water forms a pellucid but shallow pool, where water-plants of a vivid green grow thickly; then flowing through the arches of a wall, which partially dams up the pool, it is diverted into several channels shaded by tall poplars, willows, and mulberries, and so turns in a short space a dozen mills—the Mills of Argos, as they are called. After watering the rice-fields, the channels unite once more into a river, which finds its way into the sea through swampy ground, among thick tangled beds of reeds and sedge, some three miles only from its source at the foot of the hills. This river, the modern Kephalari, is the Erasinus (‘the lovely river’) of antiquity. It is the only river of the Argolic plain which flows summer and winter alike; and the opinion both of the ancient and the modern Greeks that it is an outlet of the Stymphalian lake in Arcadia appears to be well founded.

In the face of the limestone cliff, a few feet above the springs of the river, are the mouths of two caves. A staircase leads up to them. Passing through the mouth of the larger we find ourselves in a lofty dimly-lighted cavern with an arched roof, like a Gothic cathedral, which extends into the mountain for a distance of two hundred feet or more. Water drips from the roof, forming long stalactites. Some light penetrates into the cave from its narrow mouth, but even at high noon it is but a dim twilight. Bats, the natural inhabitants of the gloomy cavern, whir past our heads, as if resenting the intrusion. Several branches open off the main cave. The longest of them, opening to the left, communicates at its inmost end with the upper air by means of a windowlike aperture. In another branch, also to the left, there is a low, narrow, pitch-dark opening, which, if explored with a light, reveals at its far end a crevice descending apparently into the bowels of the mountain. The smaller of the two caves, to the north, is walled off and forms a chapel of the Panagia Kephalariotissa. The worship of Pan, which Pausanias mentions, may have been held in this or the neighbouring cavern; for Pan, the shepherd’s god, loved to haunt caves, and in these two caves shepherds with their flocks still seek shelter from rain and storm. The chapel of the Panagia, in which there are some ancient blocks, may very well have succeeded to a shrine of Pan, or perhaps of Dionysus, who was also worshipped here. A festival is still held annually on the spot on the eighteenth of April; it may be nothing but a continuation, in a changed form, of the festival of Dionysus called Tyrbe, which Pausanias mentions.

In summer the place is now a favourite resort of holiday-makers from Argos, who take their pleasure in a white-washed summer-house or covered shed at the mouth of the cave. The whole scene—the rocky precipices, the shady caverns, the crystal stream, the tranquil pool, the verdure and shade of the trees—is at once so beautiful and agreeable, that if it had been near Athens it would probably have been renowned in song and legend. But Argos had no Sophocles to sing its praises in immortal verse.

XXXIV. The Lernean Marsh.—Mount Pontinus, which rises above the village of Lerna, is a hill of no great height, but of broad massive outline. On its crest are seen from below against the sky the walls and towers of a mediaeval castle crowning the summit. The slope of the hill towards Lerna is on the whole even and uniform and tufted with low plants, but toward the south-east it is broken by some high lines of rocks. The carriage road from Argos skirts the foot of the hill and traverses the village. Beside the road rise the springs both of the Pontinus brook and the Amymone; and between the road and the sea is the Lernean marsh. In approaching Lerna from Argos and entering the pass between Mount Pontinus and the sea we first come to the rush-fringed spring of the Pontinus on the left side of the road. The stream is a mere brook of clear water bordered by rushes and tall grasses and almost choked with green water-plants. A great part of the water is diverted at the spring to turn a mill which stands on the shore. The whole course of the brook from its source to the sea is only a few hundred yards.

After passing the source of the Pontinus and traversing in a few minutes the village of Lerna we come to the springs of the Amymone, which rise beside the road at the southern end of the village, a few yards to the north of a white-washed chapel of St. John. The springs are copious and issue from under rocks, forming at once a shallow pool of beautifully clear water, from which the stream flows towards the sea in a bed fringed with reeds. Great beds of reeds, marking the site of the Lernean marsh, grow also beside the pool and in the narrow stretch of flat swampy ground between it and the sea. A fig-tree has rooted itself among the rocks from which the springs flow, and a few yards farther off are a mulberry-tree and a silver poplar.

Some eighty yards or so to the north-east of the springs but completely hidden by a screen of trees is the Alcyonian Lake described by Pausanias. It is a pool of still, dark, glassy water surrounded by great reeds and grasses and tall white poplars with silvery stems. Though distant only about thirty yards from the highroad and the village, the spot is as wild and lonely as if it lay in the depths of some pathless forest of the New World. I sought it for some time in vain, and when at last I came upon it, in the waning light of a winter afternoon, everything seemed to enhance the natural horror of the scene. The sky was dark save for one gleam of sunlit cloud which was reflected in the black water of the pool. The wind sighed among the reeds and rustled the thin leaves of the poplars. Altogether I could well imagine that superstitions might gather about this lonely pool in the marsh. Of such a spot in England tales of unhappy love, of murder and suicide, would be told. To the Greeks of old it seemed one of the ways to hell. The man who drove me from Argos said, like Pausanias, that the pool had never been fathomed and was bottomless.

XXXV. The Anigraean Road.—South of Lerna the road skirts the shore for some distance. Leaving the village of Kiveri the path runs along the slope of Mount Zavitza, which falls steeply to the sea on the left. This is the district called Anigraea by Pausanias. The road is still, as it was in his days, very rugged and bad. Now and then we come to a little cove with a beach at the mouth of a narrow glen which cleaves the mountain-side; elsewhere the sea is bordered throughout by sheer cliffs, above which the path scrambles up hill and down dale. The sides of the mountains are chiefly clothed with lentisks and wild olives, with a patch of corn-field here and there. In about two hours and a half from Kiveri the path arrives opposite the Anavolo, the ancient Dine. It is an abundant source of fresh water rising in the sea, about a quarter of a mile from the narrow beach under the cliffs. The body of fresh water appears to be fully fifty feet in diameter. In calm weather it may be seen rising with such force as to form a convex surface, disturbing the sea for several hundred feet around. It is clearly the exit of a subterraneous river of some magnitude, and thus corresponds with the Dine of Pausanias. After clambering along the Anigraea for nearly three hours, we find that the mountain abruptly ceases, and the maritime plain of Thyrea stretches out before us to the south. This is what Pausanias describes as “a tract of country on the left, reaching down to the sea, where trees, especially olives, thrive well.” The plain is about five miles long, but nowhere more than half that in breadth; its soil is a rich loam; corn-fields and olive-groves cover its surface.

XXXVI. The Battlefield of Sellasia.—At the present day the track from Arachova to Sparta follows the bed of the Kelephina river (the ancient Oenus) for some seven or eight miles. Path there is none. You ride in the stony bed of the river, crossing its scanty water backwards and forwards again and again. The scenery is picturesque, the river winding between high banks, which are generally green with shrubs and trees. Indeed many trees grow in the very bed of the stream, and the traveller in riding has sometimes to be careful not to be knocked off by their boughs. In front of us, as the valley widens, we get glimpses of the high, blue, snowy range of Taygetus. The point at which, quitting the bed of the stream, we ascend its western bank, and the whole magnificent range of Taygetus appears in full view across the valley of the Eurotas, was the scene of the battle of Sellasia.