Emitted from the oracular central tree, Caught up my heart, and bore it swift along At the time that the Macedonian kings contemplated the establishment of their chief port and arsenal on this coast, it is not unlikely that most of the more antient towns and villages, which lined it, were falling into decay; the concentration, therefore, of their populations into one point, by Demetrius Poliorcetes, was not only politic, but necessary for the welfare of the province. The value which the Romans attacht to the possession of this city is a plain evidence of its successful establishment and military as well as commercial importance; and when we consider the comparative lateness of its existence, it would seem a strange exception to the rules of antiquarian probabilities, that its exact position should be as uncertain, as that of Apheto, Pagasœ, or Iolcos, names coæval with the dimmest infancy of Greece, and lispt in almost inarticulate voices. Yet such has been the judgment of the most distinguisht travellers, whose researches in this district have been given to the public. Now, in asserting that the site of Demetrias is accurately determinate, I can only avoid the reproach of insolent contradiction by devoting a few lines to a topographical accuracy, forein to, and perhaps above, the general tenor of these random pages. My learned companions had no hesitation in fixing Demetrias on the hill of Gonitza, which rises directly from the sea, about one mile and a half from Volo, where preceding writers have placed Iolcos. The vestiges are precisely those which one would, à priori, sup H pose to remain of a populous and mercantile town of the latter days of Greece. A large cave on the shore with steps leading to a subterranean passage, now blockt up, but probably communicating with the city above,-walls strong, of fine masonry and great length, but with no very antient peculiarities,—an immense cistern cut in the rock of the citadel, and in the city an under-ground aqueduct of most perfect construction, above two feet broad and above seven high,-extensive sepulchres, hewn in the rock, one above another, like steps, these are surely not the natural traces of a town which never had any reputation for magnitude, and which, in Strabo's time, “ κατεσκάπται ἔκ παλαίου. Again, there is no single example of any very old Greek town, whose remains come down quite to the shore; and Strabo particularizes Iolcos as lying above (gr) Demetrius; but every thing must fall before the simple testimony, that this part of the coast is still called by the peasantry Demetriatha, that the church on the hill is dedicated to St. Demetrias, and that the Greeks hold a feast here on his day. The river of Lyconeia, which flows near, will answer to the "Anavron." It is only fair to allow that the range of wall which runs up from the sea to the mountains a little way on the other side of Volo, (with tumuli formed by ruins of turrets), indicative of the commonly received Demetrias, is immense, and totally disproportionate to any historical account we have of the dimensions of any other city; but no theory can be founded on this ignorance, while there is so much certainty on the other side. Inscriptions in the living rock make always a serious impression on me; however dull, or trivial, or fragmentary their import may be, I always hold them to be written for eternity. They may be only the vain scratches of an insect's hand, but the tablet is the great rolling world; they are the literal "sermons in stones;" they are a breath of intelligence sent up out of the brute mass, not indeed, so awful as letters on flowers, or the outline of faces and artificial shapes in geological formations, but, yet, I ever fancy that the words or letters wrote themselves, rather than were placed there by any human handywork. No doubt the rarity of the object, in Europe, at least, has much to do with the vigor of the effect; in India, where whole cliffsides are laid out in monstrous carvings of gods, and men, and beasts, and bristle with arrow-headed chronicles, and grottos go far within, pillared and statued out of their own unsevered stone, the very elaborateness of the workmanship must diminish this feeling of the miraculous; the mechanic is to be there traced as easily as in the mason's yard; but not so where a chance inscription or device suddenly arrests your notice in these less remote countries. A little further from Volo than the long line of wall, I have just mentioned, on a lightly-shelving rock, at whose extremity runs the southward road, are many such worn and broken "ygaμμára;" the only one of many I saw (and a diligent search would probably elicit many more) which offered any thing intelligible, was the bare word "EMAOZI,” in two lines of letters, near a foot high; it is almost on the path, and can hardly escape the most careless eye. What this isolated word could pretend to mean, this simple "assignment" of property or something else, is beyond my conjecture: from the forms of the letters, neither this nor any of the others appeared to be of any very distant date. IN GREECE PROPER. From a Letter. OUR senses are so subject to the authority of the common meanings of words and phrases, that, I would venture to say, nine out of ten travellers have been strangely surprised to find the Pass of Thermopylæ nothing more than a magnificent line of mountain-coast, a broad extent of reedy morass, and a dull and shallow sea. But this very feeling may often serve as a protection against any impression of disappointment; when the reality is so different from the imagination, there can be no comparison of the respective merits. After all, every one must feel that the scene is as sublimely adapted to the historical recollection as he could ever have desired. The range of Æta, (worthy of being the step by which Hercules rose from common earth to heaven), whose severest and loftiest outline stretches directly over the memorable ground, descends to the marsh and sea in deep folds and majestic sinuosities; the heights are all oak, plane, and mastic, but many spaces of verdant pasture and corn land swell out of the lower thicket. Of the nature and the perils of the marsh, we ourselves had unpleasant experience, for the information, that a formidable troop of robbers were prowling about immediately to the south of Zeitoun, inclined us to attempt to disembark on one of the tongues of solid land, into which process of time has converted part of the swamp, but these we soon found totally unapproachable by any thing in the shape of a boat, for at least a hundred yards; there was nothing, therefore, left but to wade for it, which, with some time and care, was happily accomplished; but, even after this, an error in our path took us far into the morass, where we long floundered on, in the midst of gigantic reeds, in the hope of a successful exit; fortunately, however, our fears at the probability of sharing the fate of the many proud Persians forced us to retrace our perilous steps, and get to the sure road again, but I have at least gained from this adventure a full zest for another topic of ancient history, I shall always feel an almost personal interest in the misfortunes of Marius. You will easily perceive from the character of the locality, that the narrowness, or broadness, of the Pass, must depend on the relation between the marsh and the mountain-side; where the uplands are gradual and unbroken by sudden rocks, the passage must be comparatively easy, even for large masses of men, and practicable by cavalry, when the bushes are cleared away; where, on the contrary, the cliffs are projecting and precipitous, the path is not only in many places not above the "one-carriage" breadth of Herodotus, but often only exists, at all, by the artificial assistance of a bank or bridge. This must have been the case just as much in the time of Herodotus as now, and, indeed, it appears to me that the changes in the face of the country are much less considerable than Dodwell and others have represented; the marsh have extended itself farther into the sea, and some parts of it have been consolidated into cultivated land, but the part which immediately bounds the Pass, and is exposed to the continual flow of the hot-springs, and affected by the course of the Sperchius, (which runs for some miles before it meets the sea, almost in a parallel line to the mountain ridge) cannot be materially altered in any of its features. You would suppose, may |