and companion, who was born and reared near the same stream, but who was then lying dead upon a funeral pile on the dreary coast of Troy.

Near the mouth of the Spercheius, on the left bank of it, is LAMIA, now called ZEITUN, which gave a name to a war kindled by the eloquence of Demosthenes, after the death of Alexander of Macedon, against his generals Antipater and Craterus, which ended in the total defeat of the Athenians on the Thessalian plain at Crannon. The orator survived the calamity of his country but a few months.

At the same distance as Lamia from the entrance of the Spercheius into the sea, but on the south side of it, is the rocky hill of TRACHIS, so called from the ruggedness of its soil, with its Lacedæmonian colony and suburb of HERACLEA. From the former of these, the surrounding district derives its name.

he whole TRACHINIAN province was, as it were, con

secrated to HERCULES. To Trachis he retired with his wife Deianeira, in quest of an asylum in his exile, after the involuntary homicide which he had committed in the family of his father-in-law Eneus, in Ætolia.

About this little village, as Trachis now is, and around its few cottages and small fields and vineyards, the verses of Sophocles have thrown an interest as lasting as the sea and mountains by which they are surrounded, by means of the beau

tiful recital which he has made of the cares and fears of Deianeira when dwelling on this spot, and counting the tedious days which had elapsed from the time of her husband's departure, and those which were yet to pass away before his return. We look upon the female peasants who stand at the doors of their cottages here with a feeling of regard, and almost of reverence, as the descendants of the TRACHINIAN WOMEN of the Athenian Poet.

From Trachis the fatal robe was sent to Hercules, who was sacrificing on the opposite promontory called the CENEAN, in the island of EUBA, beneath which is a small cluster of islands, which recall to mind, by their name, LICHADES, as the promontory itself does by its present appellation, LITHADA, the punishment inflicted by Hercules on LICHAS, the bearer of the poisoned garment,—a subject treated in ancient times by the muse of Sophocles, and in modern by the chisel of Canova.

16

HERCULES AND LEONIDAS.

Across this bay the hero was ferried, when suffering the agonies of approaching death. From the Trachinian shore he was carried to the summit of Eta, which hangs over the site of Trachis. He was then placed on a funeral pyre made of pines, and oaks, and lentisks,-trees and shrubs which have grown on from age to age on this majestic mountain; and here, on its summit, as on the noblest altar in the world, the Son of Jove, having performed a sacrifice to his father, was himself offered as a victim on his father's mountain; and having finished all his earthly toils, he thence ascended in a cloud of fire to the peace and joys of the Olympian heaven.

s exhibiting, in the person of Hercules the apotheosis of the heroic character,— in which the strength and dignity of the gods were conceived to consist, and to concur with the wants and weaknesses of humanity-to this scene the Greek looked with a feeling of awe which made the mountain to him not merely an object

of admiration, but a moral teacher both of meekness and of courage. This spot was therefore consecrated by the sanctions and solemnities of his religion, By the Greeks of an early age it was visited with the zeal and frequency of an ardent and regular devotion. It was the object of processions, and the scene of sacrifices; and in later days, even a Consul of Rome turned aside from the line of a military march to offer his homage to Hercules on the spot from which he was supposed to have passed from earth to heaven.

Such being the reverence with which the summit of Mount Eta was regarded by the inhabitants of this country, and even by those who came there from a distant land, we may well suppose that it exerted a very strong influence of the same kind upon those who could number the hero, who died and was adored here, among their own progenitors; and at no other time would this influence be more deeply felt by them, than when, like him, they were called to undergo toils, meet dangers, and struggle with difficulties, which would lead them, as they foresaw, like him, to death; and after it, as they hoped, like him, to glory and repose.

The Spartan kings traced their origin to Hercules through the Heraclidæ, Eurysthenes and Procles. Therefore we may well suppose that it seemed to the greatest of them, Leonidas,-when he stood with his three hundred

THE PASS OF THERMOPYLÆ.

17

Spartans near this spot, and knew that where he stood, both he and they must soon die,—to be a distinguished proof of the special favour of the gods towards himself and them, that he and his chosen few were called upon to fight and fall beneath the shade of Mount Eta at THERMOPYLE. He felt, we may well believe, no small satisfaction that this spot, above all others, was to be the scene of their glorious struggle and heroic death. The Spartans, on this site, in the last hours of their life, while they saw the countless hosts of Persia in their front, while the Immortals of Xerxes were rushing to the charge upon their rear, yet had above them the summit of Mount Eta; and thence they drew courage and hope from the reminiscence which it supplied of their great ancestor,—of the labours which Hercules had undergone, of the death which he had there suffered, and the glory which he had won.

The name of Thermopyla itself is connected with the history of Hercules. The warm springs, which flow across the pass from the foot of Mount Eta toward the Malian Gulf on the north, were brought out of the earth for his use by the hand of Minerva.

This passage was the scene of numerous struggles at various periods of Greek history: it was defended by the Phocians against the Thessalians; subsequently, by Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans against Persia; again, by the Ætolians against Philip, by Antiochus against the Romans, and by the Greeks against Brennus and the Gauls. In the three latter instances, the same manœuvre-namely, the detachment on the part of the aggressors of a force which, having scaled the heights of ANOPEA OF CALLIDROMUs, was to fall on the rear of the defenders of the pass-was uniformly resorted to, as it had been employed by the Persians, and with the same success.

The pass of Thermopyla was never stormed by main force. Its conqueror, and its only one, has been Nature. So great is the change that has been effected by her means in the character and features of the place, that it has ceased to be an object of military importance. While the river Spercheius has brought down in its channel a copious supply of alluvial deposite on the coast, the waters of the Malian Gulf have retired so far to the north-east as to extend what was once a narrow defile of a few yards into a broad and swampy plain.

When such a revolution has been wrought in the grander features of this remarkable place,-when the rivers which flowed through the pass of Thermopylae have formed for themselves new beds,-when fields of rice and saltpits occupy the space which was once sea, it is agreeable to observe that the

D

18

HERODOTUS-ANTHELE-LOCRIS.

smaller objects which were characteristic of the spot in the time of Leonidas, are still visible here, to call to the mind of the traveller that he is treading the soil of Thermopylæ.

The hot springs which supplied a name to the place, and which are connected with the history both of Hercules and Leonidas, still flow from the earth, and expand their streams into pools of the clearest blue, as they did in the ages of the Demigod and of the King, while the broad Spercheius has wandered from his course, and while it is no longer possible to trace upon the spot the ancient coast line of the Malian Sea.

Yet still, although here they have strayed from their place, they may be said in another spot to remain constant to it. Such is the fidelity and minuteness with which the ancient historian of the battle has described the localities in question, that in spite of the changeful operations of Nature he may be asserted, as it were, to have fixed the river and the sea in their old positions for ever. Thermopyla is now no longer Thermopylæ, except in the pages of Herodotus. There it will never cease to be so.

The choice of Thermopyla as the seat of the Congress of the Amphictyonic Council is remarkable. Its meetings were held near the Temple of Ceres on the plain of Anthele, which extends itself at a small distance within the pass. The session of a deliberative assembly composed of the chosen representatives of the confederate powers of Greece, convoked to such a place as Thermopylæ, presents to the imagination a picture of much interest. This spot was the Vestibule of Greece. And as in the patriarchal times the grave Councillors of a state or city took their seats before the towers and gate which led into their town, and there held their deliberations on matters which concerned the weal or woe of their own country, so these august Councillors of the great Commonwealth of Greece might thus be regarded as sitting in the front of the confederate Metropolis of which they were all citizens, and for whose interests they were providing by their deliberations in the spot where it might be most necessary to defend them with their arms.

The country to the south of Thermopylæ, as far as the town of Daphnus on the coast, belonged to the tribe of Locrians called Epicnemidian, from their neighbourhood to Mount Cnemis, a ridge thrown out by Mount Eta: separated from them by a small interval of Phocis were the Locrians who were termed Opuntian, from their capital city Opus, which was the residence of Ajax Oileus. The modern name of this district is TALANTA: it is derived from the little

VALLEY OF THE CEPHISSUS.

19

island of Atalanta, which lies at a short distance from the shore, and was once united to it. The town of Opus itself was placed in an open and level country of a few miles in circumference, which from its fertility was called the Happy Plain. As Ajax was regarded as an object of national pride by this small city, so were the productions of its prolific soil. It therefore exhibited on its coins a record of both: while on one side of them is a cluster of grapes, the other exhibits the athletic form of the Opuntian hero.

The Boeotian frontier was at Larymna, a town on the coast a few miles to the south of Opus: the modern village of Puntzomadi, which is near the site of Larymna, seems to contain in its name a vestige of the former extension of the Opuntian power to this point.

Following the course which we have hitherto pursued, we pass from TYмPHRESTUS along the ridge of Pindus in a southerly direction: at a distance of sixty miles to the south-east of Tymphrestus is the summit of PARNASSUS.

Here we enjoy a panoramic view of PHOCIS, of which province this point is nearly the centre. To the north-west we have the rugged tract of DORIS :