The view from hence is exceedingly fine; whatever beauties other countries may boast, Greece is unrivalled in her coast scenery. The foreground is rich with rock, bushes, and sometimes with trees; beyond these is a fine cultivated plain, and a succession of mountain distances follows, with the sea occasionally intervening. After all, I doubt if an Englishman immediately transported here from his own country, would enjoy the full effect of this scenery. The eye gets accustomed to a certain style of beauty, and when we observe a deficiency in some particular to which we have been habituated, even though the want should be compensated by equal or superior excellences, yet the first feeling is that of disappointment. The gentleman’s seat embosomed in tufted trees, the neat cottage and comfortable farmhouse, the scattered village, “with taper spire that points to heaven;” every thing in short which constitutes what may be called the moral beauty of the English landscape, is wanting in Greece. Instead of these, our associations are all of a melancholy cast, connected as they are with the history of a people once so glorious, now so fallen! And is it the Turks who have effected this? Why then did a country so extensive, so populous as it once was, so rich in natural productions, fall a contemptible sacrifice to barbarian power? The evil was already inflicted; Greece, no longer free, lost under a despotic government every noble sentiment, and then fell an easy prey. The Turkish yoke is more galling because it is imposed by foreigners, of a different language, and of a different religion; and oppression exercised thus by a stranger nation, increases from year to year; for power necessarily encroaches where it meets no effectual resistance. Yet if the Greek empire had continued to the present day, it may be doubted if the condition of the subject would have been essentially better than it is at present. We have fine extensive plains, covered with corn or vines, possessing a beauty quite their own, and contrasting in the most pleasing manner with the rugged mountains; groves of olive-trees, and the dark blue sea, and a sky of almost as deep a colour; yet reflecting a strong clear light. Nor do there want clouds to vary the effect of the landscape; but rarely, and then but for a short period, the continued gray covering so common in England. Change all your dull, cloudy days, and your fogs, into a clear sunshine, and you may imagine the climate of Greece, except that seldom or never will you see in England the bright, but intense colour of the sky. Sharp and myself would have been very glad to stay longer at this temple, but we were drawn away by our companions, and sailed in the night towards Sunium, which was in view when we rose in the morning. The situation is perhaps even finer than that of Egina, but I can give you no idea of the beauty of these scenes, so unlike in character to any thing you have about you. In our climate a mountain is generally an object of gloomy magnificence. Rocks, mountains and storms, go much together in imagination, but here such an association is completely broken, and the barren mountain, and the naked rock, seem only objects for the sun to shine on. All nature looks cheerful and happy, and our melancholy recollections are almost driven away by the brilliancy of the prospect.
At Sunium eleven columns remain in their places, and the marble is kept rather of a raw, and overbearing whiteness by the action of the sea air. This stone seems to belong to the neighbourhood; it is white, with somewhat of a conchoidal fracture, less beautiful than the Pentelic, from being less translucent, yet it is a handsome material, and the building is a noble object. The order as you know is Doric, and as it is one of the examples cited by Vitruvius at the end of the fourth book, it may possibly explain his expression of columns being added “dextra ac sinistra ad humeros pronai,” but the arrangement here is like that at the temple of Theseus, and not resembling any thing we know in the Acropolis, to which Vitruvius also refers. The minuter parts are too much corroded by the action of the sea air, to furnish good materials for drawing the mouldings. Some barbarians of the English and French tribes have been daubing on the ruins in great letters the names of their respective vessels. Terrace walls and other fragments add to the apparent importance of the edifice. Among them are the foundations of a Propylæum, but we could not stay long enough to enter into the details of the neighbourhood. The hills are covered with bushes, (shrubs you would call them in England) among which is a great quantity of the Quercus coccifera, but I did not observe any of the Quercus Esculus, or Vallonia oak, which Dr. Clarke noticed here.
After spending some hours among these objects, we redescended to the ship, and turning round the extreme point of Attica, arrived in the evening at Porto Mandril, which is sheltered by Macroneesi, or Long Island. The ancient Thoricus was situated in this bay, and we find the remains of a temple, or, according to the Dilettanti society, of an open portico, with fourteen columns on each side, and seven at each end. They also state, that on the longest sides, the middle intercolumniation was larger than the others, which is I dare say correct, though in my hasty view of the place I did not notice this peculiarity; and they imagine a row of columns along the centre. I have nothing to add to their account, except that the building never was completely finished, and does not appear to have been very well executed. There is also an ancient theatre at Thoricus, of very rude workmanship and irregular form; and two square towers, likewise of very rustic execution. On the opposite side of the valley, there are many foundations, and at a little distance, great heaps of slag and scoriæ from the ore of the ancient silver mines, still untouched by vegetation. I could learn nothing of the mines themselves, nor did I see any traces which would lead me towards them, but they are probably not far from the shore, for as the mountains are covered with wood, the advantage of smelting the ore near the spot where it was dug is very obvious. The whole country here seems to belong to a formation of mica slate abounding in marble, (should not this composition have a name of its own?) and the superincumbent beds are very partial and trifling, both in thickness and extent. At Sunium, on the contrary, and along the whole western coast, the rock belongs to later formations.
We staid at Porto Mandril all the 23rd, and on the 24th beat up against the wind to Marathon. On the 25th we landed, and after a long ramble over the plain, returned to breakfast in a tent prepared for us on the shore. Here we took leave of Capt. M. and his officers, to whose attentions we were so much indebted, and proceeded to a little village called Vraunon, where we procured a large room in a convent.
It is very disagreeable to doubt about the locality of such a victory as that of Marathon, and fortunately, as far as the plain is concerned, there is no room for hesitation, but the appropriations of particular objects do not probably deserve much confidence. Near the shore, a reedy slip of land, with small pools of water, extends along the southern half of the bay; behind this, the ground is apparently flat for near a mile, after which it rises gradually towards the hills. Quite at the southern extremity of the plain, there is a marsh formed by a little stream of water. On the rest of the coast a sandy tract follows the shore, the southern part of which is partially covered with bushes, but as we proceed along it towards the north-east, we meet with a wood of the Pinus maritima, containing also a few trees of Pinus Pinea, intermixed: behind this sandy tract there is a dead flat, which seemed to have been recently covered with water; and at the extremity of this, directing our steps northwards, and immediately under the hills, are two little lakes, and not far from them a pool, supplied by a spring of water, beautiful to the eye, but as we were assured, of a bad quality.
A.B. Clayton del. from Sketches by J. Woods.
Edwards. Sculp.
Plain of Marathon.
London. Published by J & A Arch. Cornhill, March 1st. 1828.