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

by James George Frazer

XXXVII. Sparta.—Ancient Sparta stood upon a broad stretch of fairly level ground, broken by a few low eminences, on the right bank of the Eurotas, where the river makes a bend to the south-east. Thus the city was bounded on the north and east by the wide gravelly bed of the river. Approaching from the north by the highroad from Tegea you cross the river by a new iron bridge, then traversing a flat strip of ground ascend through a hollow between two of the low eminences or hills which were included within the circuit of ancient Sparta. Leaving these eminences on the right and left you emerge to the south upon a level stretch of cornland, with olive-trees thickly dotted over it. When I saw it the wheat was breast high, and its waving surface, dappled with the shadows of multitudinous olive-trees, presented a rich and park-like aspect. This plain is about half a mile across; on the south it is terminated by the low broad-backed ridge, running east and west, on which stands the town of New Sparta.

This new town, which has sprung up since the War of Independence, is charming. The streets, crossing each other at right angles, are broad and pleasant. Many of the houses are surrounded by gardens, and the soft verdure of the trees peeping over the low walls is grateful and refreshing to the eyes. The gardens abound with orange-trees, which, when laden with fruit, remind one of the gardens of the Hesperides. In spring the air, even in the streets, is heavy with rich perfumes. On the south the town is bounded by the river of Magoula, which here flows from west to east, to fall into the Eurotas a little below the town, opposite the steep heights of Therapnae. Westward the plain extends three or four miles to the foot of the magnificent range of Taygetus, which rises abruptly with steep rocky sides to the height of nearly eight thousand feet. A conspicuous landmark to the west, viewed from Sparta, is the sharp conical hill of Mistra, leaning upon, but still sharply defined against, the Taygetus range. Though really a mountain over two thousand feet high, it is completely dwarfed by the immense wall of Taygetus rising at its back.

The country between Sparta and Taygetus offers points of the most picturesque beauty, especially if, instead of following the highroad, which is rather tame, you strike straight across for Mistra from the ruined theatre of Old Sparta. It was a bright evening in spring or early summer (towards the end of April, but summer is earlier in Greece than in England) when I took this walk, and the impression it made on me was ineffaceable. The orange-groves, the gardens fresh and green on all sides, men taking their ease in the warm evening air at a picturesque tavern under a great spreading tree, children playing in the green lanes, a group of Spartan maidens filling their pitchers at a spring that gurgled from a grey time-worn wall, a river (the Magoula) spanned by a quaint old bridge and winding through groves of orange-trees spangled with golden fruit, and towering above all the stupendous snow-clad range of Taygetus in the west, with the sunset sky above it—all this made up a picture or rather a succession of pictures, of which it is impossible to convey in words the effect. It was a dream of Arcadia, the Arcadia of poets, and of painters like the Poussins.

In this union of luxuriant verdure with grand mountain scenery the valley of Sparta recalls the more famed but not more beautiful Granada with its green spreading Vega, its lilac-tinted mountains basking under the bright sky of Spain, and the snowy range of the Sierra Nevada lying like a great white cloud on the southern horizon. But Taygetus towers above the spectator at Sparta as the Sierra Nevada certainly does not over the spectator at Granada. To see it on a bright day with all its superb outline—its sharp peaks and grand sweeping curves—clearly defined in the pellucid air, its long line of snowy summits glistering in the sun, and the deep purple shadows brooding on its lower slopes, is a sight not to be forgotten. A recent explorer of Greece has observed that of all Greek cities Sparta enjoys the most beautiful situation. So far as my experience goes, the observation is just.

XXXVIII. Mistra.—The scenery of the district at the eastern foot of Mount Taygetus, to which Pausanias here conducts us, is well described by Vischer as follows: “ While in Therapne, Amyclae, and the round buildings of Vaphio and Marmalia we met with vestiges of a very ancient civilisation which flourished in the plain of the Eurotas before the Dorian invasion; on the other hand when we reach the first line of the rocky heights of Taygetus, we find ourselves in the Middle Ages—in the days of the Franks and the Byzantines. The first stage of Taygetus rises abruptly from the plain in bold cliffs broken by many gullies, from which the mountain torrents issue. Crowning with its picturesque ruins the summit of one of these heights, an hour’s ride to the west of Sparta, is the fortress of Mistra, built by William de Villehardouin in the middle of the thirteenth century. Below the castle, on the mountain-side, is spread the extensive town, once a place of much more importance, now half in ruins, with its numerous churches and monasteries falling into decay. Yet for the traveller, in spite of its decay, Mistra must remain in virtue of its situation one of the most enchanting spots which he can find in Greece or anywhere; and the prospect from the castle height, on the one side over the whole plain, on the other side up to the snowy peaks of Taygetus, across the fruitful levels and wooded slopes of the first step in the mountain staircase, needs only a view of the sea to be second to none.

“ The whole neighbourhood, too, is one of indescribable beauty. The way from New Sparta by the village of Magoula, which lies scattered among fruit-trees of every sort, is delightful enough. It passes through a plain watered by fresh brooks, where the drooping branches of the olive-trees and fig-trees often literally bar the way, and in riding one has to take heed not to be hung by the head among the boughs. But all this is almost forgotten when we ride from Mistra by Parori and Hagiannis along the foot of the mountains to Sklavochori. On this ride all the beauties of the Eurotas valley are crowded together; for here we have wild magnificence combined with the luxuriant loveliness of a rich southern vegetation. Parori, which lies close to Mistra and was formerly a suburb of it, is at the mouth of a dark and deep gorge, from which a stream comes brawling. This gorge is pointed out to travellers as the Caeadas, the gully into which the Spartans used to throw prisoners of war and afterwards malefactors; and certainly the Caeadas, as well as the Apothetae, where weakly children were exposed, is to be sought in one of the ravines of Mount Taygetus, of which hardly any appears so stern and awful as the one at Parori. At the mouth of the gorge, just above the village, there is a very lovely spot. From a Turkish fountain there pours a copious stream of water, which trickles through creeping plants of all sorts into a large basin, and before it stand some fine plane-trees.

“Farther on, the way winds through wood and thicket, where fruit-trees alternate with tall oaks, elms, and plane-trees, to the village of Hagiannis, hidden among groves of oranges, lemons, fig-trees, and olives. Amongst the woods dark cypresses rise singly like columns; many Judas-trees stood in full blossom, forming with their rosy red a pleasant contrast to the various shades of green, while the oleanders, growing as high as trees beside every rill, had not yet unfolded their buds. Wild vines climb to the very topmost boughs, and many other creepers, such as ivy, bindweed, and clematis, often weave trees and shrubs into an impenetrable thicket. In wealth of vegetation this district is unsurpassed in Greece, and no one who has set foot on Greek soil should fail to visit it. Yet it often happens that travellers, satisfied with having visited Sparta, turn back from it immediately, and then, full of the impressions left on them by the plains of Tripolitza, of Argolis, and of the neighbourhood of Athens, complain that there are no trees in Greece.”

The present writer, though he was not farther south than Parori, can confirm the general accuracy of this description. The view of the beautiful valley of Sparta from the steep hill of Mistra, crowded with monuments of the Middle Ages, and dominated by the towering mass of Mount Taygetus, which rises like a wall behind it, combines almost every element of natural beauty and historical association. Immediately below the Frankish castle, which crowns the summit of the hill, are the ruins of a spacious Byzantine palace, once the residence of the governor of the Morea, who ranked next after the emperor. Its great hall opened on the palace garden, from the terrace of which the wonderful view is to be had over the valley. Again, the fountain, described by Vischer, at the mouth of the tremendous gorge, is a scene not to be forgotten. The water gushes from many mouths in the face of a wall built against the rock. A stone seat encircles the trunk of the great spreading plane-tree which fronts the fountain. All this, with the gloomy gorge behind, makes up a picture such as is oftener seen in dreams than in reality. Once more, the village of Trypi, situated a little to the north of Mistra, at the entrance of the famed Langada pass over Mount Taygetus, is one of idyllic beauty. It is embowered among woods and orchards on the mountain-side; and entering it from the south you pass the mouth of a narrow glen carpeted with ferns and overarched with trees.

XXXIX. On the Road from Sparta to Arcadia.—Pausanias now returns from Mount Taygetus to Sparta and sets off northward by the road which led to Megalopolis in Arcadia. As far as the Arcadian frontier the track follows the valley of the Eurotas, keeping on the right or west bank of the river and generally running close to the stream, the banks of which are fringed with oleanders, fig-trees, and planes. For the first three miles the valley is open and possesses that combination of charms which renders the vale of Sparta the most beautiful region of Greece. The river flows on the whole at the foot of the somewhat bare hills which rise on the eastern side of the valley, dipping their rocky declivities in many places in its water. But on the other side low rolling hills, covered with excellent soil and intersected by streams, stretch away to where the long range of Taygetus stands up against the western sky, its majestic snowy peaks contrasting finely with the dark woods of its lower slopes and the luxuriant vegetation of the valley. In this open part of the valley must have lain all the places and objects mentioned by Pausanias between Sparta and the image of Modesty; but no one has yet ventured to identify them. About three miles from Sparta the valley contracts and the scenery changes. We are no longer in a great open valley covered with luxuriant vegetation and enclosed by grand mountains. It is a narrow dale through which we are passing, hemmed in by low hills, at the foot of which the river flows between banks thickly wooded with willows, poplars, oleanders, and plane-trees. Well-tilled fields lie on the gentle lower slopes of the hills and occupy the stretches of flat land where the hills retire from the river. The bare upper declivities are dotted here and there with a few olives.

XL. Cape Malea.—The sides of Cape Malea, the south-eastern extremity of the Greek mainland and of Europe, are formed by dizzy crags, about a thousand feet high, of dark bare rock, seamed and scarred in places by cracks and fissures. At the extreme end of the cape there is a great natural recess in the cliff; and here in the face of the bluff, about two hundred and fifty feet above the sea, there is a tiny terrace sloping to the perpendicular edge of the precipice. Two chapels are built on the terrace, and close by, partly hewn in the rock, is the cell of a half-naked and nearly savage hermit. From the terrace you may clamber down, at the risk of your neck, to a cave opening on the foam of the great rollers which break here eternally. In the inmost corner of the cave is a heap of human bones. The sense of utter solitude and isolation from the world which the spot is fitted to evoke in the mind is broken by the sight of passing vessels. In fair weather steamers of all nations pass continually; and small Greek sailing-boats, with their reddish-brown or white lateen sails, skim along close under the cliffs. But the cape has a bad name for storms and heavy surf; at times even large steamers are unable to weather it for a week together. There was an ancient proverb, “When you have rounded Malea, forget your home.”