Emperors, ANTONINUS PIUS, did not scorn the tradition which deduced the primæval colony of Rome from the soil of the Mænalian mount; and that he showed to the humble Pallantium the respect and gratitude that was due to the old city, from which the friend of Æneas and father of Pallas was believed to have come to that Roman hill, which derived its name from Pallantium, and on which the Emperor himself dwelt.

The road from Tripolitza to Argos passed along a narrow defile between the hills of ARTEMISIUM on the north, and PARTHENIUM on the south. It was near this spot, that the Athenian Courier, Pheidippides, in his way between Athens and Sparta, whither he went to implore her succour before the battle of Marathon, was accosted, as he said, by the Arcadian deity Pan, who desired him, on his arrival at home, to assure the Athenians of his good will towards them, of his regret that his favourable dispositions had not been acknowledged by them with due honour and gratitude, and of his intention to be present and to assist them in the great conflict in which they were about to engage; a promise which, having been duly fulfilled by the pastoral deity, obtained for him a shrine in the grotto consecrated to his honour at the north-west corner of the Athenian Acropolis.

The best view of the ARGOLIC plain, to which we now pass, is that which is obtained from the citadel, anciently called LARISSA, of ARGOS its capital city. This Acropolis stands on the summit of a lofty and insulated hill, about four miles distant from the northern shore of the Argolic Gulf. Here the spectator may contemplate the sites which have rendered the soil of Argolis illustrious for thousands of years in the history and poetry of Greece.

To the south of him, is the bay in which Danaus landed with his daughters from Egypt the subject of one of the earliest dramas of the Athenian stage. On the western edge of the same bay, is the LERNEAN pool; at a point nearer the city, the river ERASINUS falls into the sea, having passed through a subterraneous chasm from the north of Arcadia, and thus connects the lake of STYMPHALUS, in which it rises there, and which was the scene of one of the Labours of Hercules, with the site of the Argolic Lerna, which was also the witness of a similar feat of the same hero.

Nearer still to the city from which our view is taken, flows the famous stream of Inachus, connected with Argolic history from the earliest times. It descends, in fact, from the frontier of Arcadia; but, according to the mythical accounts of Greek poets, who delighted in uniting distant lands

MYCENE.

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with each other by means of rivers, and who, therefore, scrupled not to give them the course which was most convenient for such a purpose, it was no other than a stream of the same name, which flowed in the country of the AMPHILOCHIANS, on the eastern shore of the Ambracian gulf, and which, having mingled its waters with those of the Etolian Achelöus, passed under the earth, and emerged from a cavern at the roots of Mount CHAON, near the southern foot of the citadel of Argos.

In this fiction, we recognize the trace of a very natural and not unpleasing attempt to connect the inhabitants of a colony with those of their mother city, by such sympathies as would arise notwithstanding their distance from one another, from the circumstance of their dwelling on the banks of the same river. The Amphilochian Argos was peopled and named from the Argos of the Peloponnesus; and by the supposition above mentioned the two kindred Cities were kept in perpetual alliance and communion with each other; their hearts were tied, as it were, to each other by the silver chord of the same stream.

On the northern margin of the Argolic plain, stands the city of MYCENE. Its site is visible from the Acropolis of Argos. It remains nearly in the same state as it appeared in the days of the Athenian historian, who deduced from the extent and condition of its remains, as they then were, an argument with respect to the magnitude of the power of the house of its sovereigns, the ATRIDE, compared with that of more recent dynasties.

We look with a feeling of awe on a city which was in ruins in the time of THUCYDIDES. Nor is it without a sensation of delight, that we contemplate the same venerable monument of antique sculpture which was seen here in later times by the traveller PAUSANIAS, to whose taste and diligence all persons who feel an interest in the geography and antiquities of Greece are deeply indebted, and which still stands in our days, as he describes it standing in his own, over the principal, and, indeed, the only gate, with the exception of a small postern, of the city of Mycena.

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TREASURY OF ATREUS.

In exploring the site of this town, and in contemplating the structure and ornaments of this, the GATE OF LIONS, at the north-west angle of the city, we seem to become the companions of these two Authors, who saw what we now see. Nay, more,-carried on, as it were, down the stream of their faith, and resigning ourselves to the current of feelings by which they were impelled, we appear to recognize here the same objects with which, in their imagination, this place was peopled in earlier times.

Thus, for instance, while halting before the principal portal, to which we have just alluded, of the city of Mycenae, and which is still flanked by the walls and tower of its massive and heroic masonry, and is surmounted by the architectural and sculptural ornaments of its earliest days, we picture to ourselves AGAMEMNON, the King of men, arriving before it in his car, on his return from his expedition to Troy; we behold him resigning the reins to his attendant, and descending from his chariot, and planting his foot on the tapestried road, which, in the description of the dramatic poet, conducts him to the palace of his ancestors, in the citadel, which he is now about to revisit, after an absence of ten years. Or again, we seem to behold Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, arriving at day-break with his friend Pylades, and visiting the tomb of his dead father, which was seen here by the Grecian traveller of whom we have just spoken; we have then a vision of the procession of the Virgins, passing from the street of the city through the same gate, and bearing their libations and garlands to the same tomb; we hear the lamentations of the sorrowful Electra, and are present at her recognition of her brother, Orestes, which changes her sadness into joy.

We imagine this vaulted apartment as it probably appeared in the fancy of Pausanias to have existed in the times of Atreus, to whom he assigns it. We see cars of excellent workmanship, whose sides are embossed with figures in curious relief, hanging on the walls, which were then sheathed with metallic plates; we behold vases and tripods of bronze and gold, the gifts of Greek or Asiatic sovereigns, piled upon the floor: helmets and bucklers, swords and lances, the insignia and weapons of ancient heroes,-some of them believed, it may be, to be the works of Vulcan, or the gifts of Minerva,-suspended upon nails, or ranged along the walls: there are bits and bridles, trappings of horses, and ivory frontlets dyed by women of Mæonia; and in the chests placed beneath them, lie embroidered tunics and cloaks, bright with purple and with gold; webs woven by honourable women, and noble princesses of the house of PELOPS, of PERSEUS, and of ATREUS. Such are some of the pictures which will exhibit themselves to the imagination of the traveller, as he treads the soil and contemplates the monuments of Mycena.

To complete the panorama which is presented to the eye of the spectator, on the summit of the citadel of Argos:

Looking to the north-east, he sees, at a distance of four miles, and on the slope of the hills which gradually sink from the east into the Argolic plain, the site of the HEREUM, or temple of Juno, the tutelary goddess of Argos. The hewn masses of its substructions still remain.

It is worthy of observation, that a spot so distant from the capital city itself should have been selected for the position of the edifice consecrated to its patron deity. Thus removed, however, as the temple of Juno was from the

haunts of men, placed upon a quiet and solitary hill, visited by shepherds and their flocks, surrounded by groves of trees, watered on each side by a mountain stream, with a long ridge of lofty hills rising at its back, and with the wide Argolic plain stretching itself at its feet, this sacred building inspired more of that particular feeling of awe and veneration which was specially due to the stately dignity of the Dorian goddess, the wife of Jove, and the queen of the Gods, than if it had stood on a less sequestered spot, or had been exposed to the daily gaze of man amid the noise of streets, or in the crowd of the agora of the Argolic capital itself.

The road which leads from Argos to this temple, and which we can trace with the eye, from the spot where we suppose ourselves now placed, has gained a lasting interest,-similar to that possessed by the PLAIN OF THE PIOUS, on the sides of Mount Etna,-from the act of filial affection of the two brothers, who drew along it with their own hands, from the gates of Argos to the door of the temple, a distance of forty-five stadia,-the car of their mother, who had no other means of going in due state on the festal day, to join the joyful concourse of her countrywomen, who had then assembled in that place. Having been crowned as victors in the gymnastic contests, the two youths were welcomed on their arrival at the Heræum, by the congregated people, who congratulated the mother on her sons, and the sons on their strength and virtue. The mother, rejoicing in her own happiness, and in her children's deeds, repaired to the shrine of Juno, and, standing before the statue, prayed for her sons the greatest blessing which the goddess could give, and they receive. It happened, after their mother's prayer, and when they had offered their own sacrifices, that the two brothers, overcome with fatigue, reclined in the temple, and fell together into a sound sleep, from which they never awoke. Their statues were erected at Delphi, by the hands of their admiring countrymen; and their lot was declared, by the wise Solon to the wealthy Croesus, to be only inferior in happiness to that of the Athenian Tellus.

South of the Heræum, or Temple of Juno, and at the north-east corner of the Argolic gulf, placed on a low oblong rock, is the remarkable city of TIRYNS. Exhibiting, as it does, the most ancient remains of the military architecture of Greece, and exciting the wonder of the beholder, by the hugeness of the rude blocks with which its walls and galleries are constructed, and which called forth an epithet expressive of admiration, even from the mouth of Homer himself-it survives as a striking monument of the