The Greeks, indeed, were the greatest masters of exciting and impelling the tide of enthusiasm and genius, that ever existed. This is the cause why, with means so insignificant, they performed such transcendant actions; and it is impossible to recollect the general tendency of their public institutions, without an admiration of the knowledge of human nature which they display, and the great effects which they produced. If a warrior fell in battle, he was honoured with a public funeral and inscription; the survivors in consequence emulated the example. If an artist produced a work of talent he was declared to have ennobled the city of his birth; his performance was recited at the games or displayed in the temples, and the successful candidate presented to the gaze of applauding multitudes. These,' in the words of Demosthenes, were the expressions of the justice, the virtue, and the magnanimity of their " country.' In proportion as any one admires the Greeks for their efforts in favour of the works of art, will he bewail and deplore the coldness with which they are regarded in this country. The commercial spirit of the nation has infected every class with its coarseness. The immediate and transitory is preferred to the remote and permanent benefit. Every one understands why trade and commerce are useful; but few perceive the value of a painting or a statue. This may be excusable in the generality of mankind, who cannot be expected to look beyond the wants and occurrences of the day; but in the governors of an empire a little more prescience is certainly required. And yet it never seems to have entered into the conceptions of our statesmen that the arts are as deserving of public patronage and munificence as manufactures; and that the prosperity of a state is intimately connected with their advancement. If the operations of the loom are suspended even for the shortest time for want of encouragement, some croaking orator instantly predicts with oracular pomp the national ruin; but when the beautiful woof which fancy is weaving is interrupted for months and years by poverty and neglect, it occasions no alarm of disgrace and misfortune, it calls forth no efforts for relief. 1. 564. Painting suspended.] Pictures commonly adorned the walls of the 7 Pliny, B. xxxvi. • Demosth. in Leptin. p. 499. Ed Reiske. See also a discussion on the advantages of the Grecian public games, in Lucian, de Gymnasiis, Vol. ii. p. 891. Edit. Hemsterhus: temples. Pausanias has left us a description of the paintings which ornamented the temple of Theseus' at Athens, and the Lesche at Delphi. In the Ion of Euripides is also a splendid account of a picture or piece of tapestry which was suspended in the great Delphian temple. 1. 590. Here where Selinus.] I have taken my description of Xenophon's retirement at Scilluns, on the river Selinus near Olympia, from his writings." 1. 612. Philosophic tale.] The Cyropædia. 1. 614. Achaia's shores.] From Patrass to Corinth, along the shores of the Corinthian Gulph, is a ride of twenty hours. The scenery is of a different character from that presented in the other parts of Greece. The gulph has the appearance of a majestic lake, varying in breadth, broken by promontories and headlands, and backed by the wild mountains of Acarnania, and the bold ranges of Parnassus and Helicon. For the first fifteen hours the road on the southern shores of the gulph passes through very wild scenery. The mountains of Achaia, bleak and rugged at their summits, but wooded at the base, sometimes advance to the waves, and sometimes recede to the distance of a mile, leaving an intermediate space of flat ground, which is generally covered luxuriantly with woods of plane, and copses of myrtle and arbutus. Numerous streams and rivers descend from the hills, and rush across the road into the sea. They were shallow and inconsiderable when I first passed through Achaia, in the month of October; but when I returned along the same line of country in January, their gravelly beds had been filled by the torrents of winter, and they frequently rolled along a stream which was barely fordable by our horses. For the last five hours before we arrived at Corinth the scenery became much tamer, and a chain of low hills supplied the place of the mountains. The whole coast of Achaia is very unhealthy, abounding in marshes; and the sickly appearance of the natives whom I met was very striking. It is the most depopulated part of Greece, though anciently' abounding in towns, Between Patrass and Corinth, a distance of at least seventy miles, there is • See Paus. Attic. et Phocic. and a paper in the Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscript. T. vi. p. 445. • Xen. Anab. 1. v. c. 3. . 2 Paus. 1. vii, and Herod. i. c. 145. only one town of any importance, Vostizza, the ancient Ægium, and it does not contain 3000 inhabitants. Near it was situated Helice, which was overwhelmed by the sea' two years before the battle of Leuctra. 1.626. O Corinth.] The situation of Corinth is pleasant. It is built on a gentle declivity, and slopes gradually from the foot of the Acro-corinthus to ' its ancient port Lechæum, and the Sinus Corinthiacus. The Acro-corinthus ' rises abruptly above the town; it is steep, rocky, and precipitous, towards 'the Isthmus. The town, though small, stands on a considerable extent of ground, being built in a straggling manner, and its different parts sepa'rated by wide intervals, laid out in fields, and adorned with cypress and ' other trees. Of its former grandeur and magnificence, nothing now remains 'but seven columns of a Doric temple, each of which is formed of a single 'block of coarse porous stone. From their proportions they appear to be of very remote antiquity. They are in the court of the house of a Turk, and 'the communication between three of them and the rest is cut off by a modern Turkish wall. The Turkish proprietor would by no solicitations be persuaded 'to allow me to look at the columns in his inner court, but I scrambled over an 'outer enclosure to take a view of the others. The proportion of the diameter 'to the height is much greater in these columns than in any other in Greece, ' and the capitals are larger. Under the columns are what now appear ' square plinths, but they are probably only the remains of the upper steps.* 'In the bazar is a fountain, probably Pirene. Its source is in the Acro'corinthus,' which no strangers are now permitted to see. Strabo says that ' a stream descended from Pirene to the town.' Journal. says that Strab. viii. p. 557. See also Callim. Hymn. in Del. 102. with Spanheim's note upon it, who has collected every thing known respecting Helice. • M. Chateaubriand has a confused idea (Itinéraire, T. i. p. 169.) that the English have carried off the ruins of the temple at Corinth, described by Spon, Wheler, &c. The ruins, whose departure for England M. Chateaubriand deplores, are those which I have described above; they stand in the most conspicuous part of the town (though M. C. says, they were near the sea), nor is it possible for any one to pass through Corinth without seeing them; unless their vision was as confused as M. Chateaubriand's idea. 5 Paus. ii. c. 5. • Strab. viii. p. 550. 7 Athen. 1. ii. c. 18. N n Ancient Corinth (that is, Corinth in Jason's time) probably occupied only the rock on which is now the citadel. In the Medea of Euripides, transactions are noticed as occurring near the water of Pirene, which was in the citadel: ενθα δε παλαιταλοι Θασσεσι σεμνον αμφι Πειρηνης ύδωρ. There the elders sit Close by Pirene's sacred stream. It was notorious for its wealth, its luxury and dissoluteness, whence the proverb Ου παντος ανδρος ες Κορινθον εσθ' ὁ πλες. Its opulence is attributed by Strabo, not only to the favourable situation of its two ports, but also to the celebration of the Isthmian Games, which attracted a great multitude. It is called by Pindar,''the vestibule of the Isthmian Neptune :' Ταν ολβιαν Κόρινθον, Ισθμιε Corinth was taken by Mummius the Roman general; some of the finest works of art were destroyed by the wanton fury of the soldiery; and the remainder shipped off for Rome; when Mummius uttered to the captains of the ships that notable threat, 'That if any of the pictures or statues were lost, they 'should be obliged to replace them with others of the same value.' Corinth was restored to a temporary splendour by Julian.3 3 1. 628. The graphic art.] The invention of painting is by some attributed to a native of Corinth, and the story of the Corinthian maid is well known. 1.638. Thy double sea.] Corinth is situated about a mile from the Sinus Corinthiacus, on which was its port Lechæum, and about seven or eight miles from the Sinus Saronicus, on which it had two ports, Cenchreæ and Schænus." In the road from Corinth to Cenchreæ the remains of the walls which connected the town with the port are considerable. Cenchreæ is a small retired bay. Vestiges of walls are to be traced, and on a narrow neck of land running into the bay is a small square tower, probably ancient; Cenchreæ had formerly many public buildings." From Cenchreæ to Schænus we rode for about two or three miles over a very rugged tract of rocky ground. Here was the narrowest part of the Isthmus, forty stadia (five miles) in breadth, and here the ships were drawn across from one sea to the other.' The temple of the Isthmian Neptune was near Schænus, and near it the games were celebrated.' After the battle of Thermopyla the Isthmus was fortified by the Peloponnesians,' a circumstance which did not escape the taunts of the Athenian orators. A rampart and fosse were made across it by Cleomenes King of Sparta, in his war with the Achæans." 1 The Isthmus, reckoning from Corinth to Megara, must be nearly thirty miles. The part nearest Corinth is rugged, and irregularly broken into a number of small hills. The road then ascends Mount Eneus, and proceeds along a considerable elevation for some distance, whence there are prodigiously fine views at first of the two seas, and afterwards of the Sinus Saronicus only, and its islands. This road is the best I saw in Greece, and in some parts passable for a carriage. It is well wooded, and is the only part of the Isthmus to which we can apply the description of Euripides: The Isthmus is called by Pindar the bridge of the sea: Again: Πονία Γέφυρα. 6 Γεφυραν ποντιάδα Προ Κορινθε τειχεων. The road when Wheler travelled it was bad and dangerous, and called xxxn Exxλa, passing by the Scironian rocks, which overhung the sea, and as much infested, he observes, by ambuscades of corsairs, as of old by Sciron. The Isthmus has been surveyed by a British officer of engineers with the view of ascertaining the practicability of its defence. 1. 498. Where thy chieftains sat.] Εν δε τῳ Ισθμῳ εσαν άλισμενοι προβάλοι της Ελλαδος, αραιρημένοι απο των πολιών των τα αμείνω φρονεύσεων περι την Ελλαδα. |