not but believe he would rise elsewhere, and if anywhere likely as in this spot, the only scene which could be to his earlier stage of existence? To speak generally thrown by the geography of Sicily on its early poetical cannot better be described than in a passage of Goe quoting in itself for its excellent delineation of the islan regard to Homer, a veil seems to have fallen from The descriptions, the comparisons, come before us in form, yet are unspeakably natural; but delineated with and vividness which almost startles one. Even the m lous and purely imaginary events have a naturalness a which I have never felt so much as in the vicinity of described. * "Now all these coasts, gulfs, and creeks, islands and rocks and sand-banks, wooded hills, soft meadows, fe neat gardens, hanging grapes, cloudy mountains, consta ness of plains, cliffs and ridges, and the all surroundin such manifold variety are all present in my mind; Odyssey for the first time become to me a living word. Italienische Reise. May 17, 1787.) These illustrations of Greek history might be ca almost any length. But enough has been said to show truth of the connexion between it and its topography. only add, that as the singular physical corresponden Greece as compared with other countries, and Europ pared with other continents, (Thirlwall's Greece, 1. p. ably agrees with the intellectual position which Gree as a miniature Europe, so the station which it stills graphically as well as morally, between Europe and serve to shadow forth the destiny still perhaps in store Greece, if she has ever strength in herself to attain to it, of which a glimpse seems to have flashed across the m stantine when he founded his first city on the shores porus-viz. that as the Greeks were once the means on the light of civilization from the East to the West, s yet again, in however inferior a degree, become links by which the West may be called to repay her debt by anywhere, where so ge of Goethe, worth llen from my eyes. ralness about them cinity of the objects nds and peninsulas, t be carried on stills holds, geo- ing the civilization of the East. (See also Col. Leake, second edition, 1.450). it Such being the importance of the study of Greek topography, may not be uninteresting to point out the basis on which it rests, and the expectations which we may form of its advance. Now, in the first place, we must not look for help, either in the past or the present, to local traditions. Wonderful as has been the preservation of the Greek nation and language through so many centuries of degradation, yet as a general rule the historical link between themselves and their ancestors, has been as entirely severed as if they were two distinct races. A few remarkable exceptions indeed are to be found, the enumeration of which will show their rarity. The church of St. Dionysius, on the slope of the Areopagus, is perhaps the only standing traditional witness to the identity of the scene of any fact (Leake's Athens, I. 165), besides what is afforded in the preservation of names, as at Athens of Academia (ib. 1. 195), and Callirhoe (ib. 1. 175). The names of towns have also been generally retained, as might be expected from a population so civic as the Greeks-and in some instances an ancient name is thus handed down to us, of which there is no direct mention in any extant Greek writers— as e.g. in the existing names of Palamedi (Leake's Morea, 11. 358), Trachys, Coroni (ib. II. 457), and Cotroni (Leake's Athens, second edition, 11. 21). And when the names have, through the process of time, become corrupted, it is always possible to detect them through their modern disguise. Some have suffered merely under the influence of the general decay of the Greek languagewhich it is not here within our purpose to consider―e. g. Leusina for Eleusis, Marusi for Amarusia, &c. &c. Others have been superseded by names formed out of the preposition eîs and the accusative, as if given by foreigners, who, receiving such an answer in reply to their inquiries as to the place to which they were going, had mistaken the whole sentence for a proper name. Of this, Stamboul (εἰς τὴν πόλιν), Stalimene (εἰς τὸν λιμένα), Ολυμπιακοὺς ἀγῶνας for Olympia, Satinas (eis 'Anvas), which was in Wheler's time the common name for Athens, are obvious instances. And others have been slightly modified for the sake of giving them a meaning in the actually spoken language, of which Dr. Ulrichs has given catalogue at the beginning of his tract on Crissa and Cirr But during the long course of degradation and slav Greece has undergone for the last three centuries, it is prising that the scanty knowledge which existed in the b of the preceding six centuries should have entirely vanishe and mountains, which in most countries retain their name all political convulsions, have here lost them almost u With regard to rivers, the only exceptions which occur the moment, are the Glaucus in Achaia, whose name sti in the form of Leucus, and the Alpheus at Olympia : lation of the river itself has usually been merged in th appellation of the district through which it flows; of whic the most striking instance is the Sperchius, in whose "Ellada, thus returning to the same narrow limits with it was originally confined, was, for some centuries, to the only trace of the glorious name of Hellas. The r always comparatively uninhabited, would naturally lose tinctive names, when the vocabulary of the people who their feet became gradually more and more limited, attention fixed more and more exclusively on the obje diately within their reach. Whether the present name of "Trelo Vouni" (the Turkish words for "Mad Mount ginated in the Italian corruption of "Mont' Imetto" int Matto," depends on a question which seems not quite to whether "Trelo Vouni" or "Monte Matto" be the point of time. But most of the other names of mountai corruptions of the original names, but totally new one as would be expected, from a half-civilized people living. understand, by a slight alt would give them a meaning language, appears in the Gr times. Thus, the Hebrew (dark) is altered into Kéop Cedars ;" and Kison (hard) as if "of ivy;" and in Italy into Θρασύμενος. has given a curious and Cirrha. and slavery which aries, it is not surd in the barbarism y vanished. Rivers eir names through almost universally. ch occur to us at name still appears mpia: the appel ged in the general of which perhaps whose name of mits within which uries, to be found The mountains, ally lose their dis ople who dwelt at limited, and their the objects imme name of Hymetus Mountain") ori etto" into "Monte t quite settled, as be the earlier in mountains are not ew ones, derived living in villages, ight alteration which meaning in their own n the Greeks of earlier Hebrew word Kidron nto Κέδρων, as if wor on (hard) into Kicow, in Italy Trasimenu, either from some external peculiarity, or from some adjacent town or village. Of the first kind, "Elatea" (the mountain of pines), as applied to Citharon, or Zagaro Vouni (camel's hunch), as applied to Helicon, are instances;-of the second, Liacura, as applied to Parnassus, from the ancient village of Lycorea, which has itself perished; Pani, as applied to the western part of Hymettus, apparently from the sanctuary of Pan, near Anaphlystus, (Leake's Athens, second edition, 11. 61). And the beginning of the process is to be discerned in the name Pentelicus, still preserved in the modern 23 Mentele, which as early as the time of Pausanias had begun to supplant the earlier and only classical name of that mountain-Brilessus. The only instance which occurs to us of the name having been preserved entire, is in the case of mount Parthenium in Arcadia; where, however, its preservation is partly to be attributed to the mistaken notion of the inhabitants, that it is connected with a church of the Virgin, which, however, as Leake (Morea, 11. 330) well observes, would have been called, not Ἅγια Παρθένος, but Ἅγια Θεοτόκος, or Παναγία. One of the cases where tradition is thought to be of the most weight in Greek topography, is to be found in the common notion, that the Greek Christians selected for the churches of particular saints the temples of those gods who either in name or character seemed to them their fittest predecessors. That the same position which was in pagan times occupied by a temple, would in Christian times be occupied by a church, is probable not only from the natural inducements which the place and the materials would hold out, but also from the analogy of Italy, where the change of temples into churches was almost universal, and from the appearance of its having been the case in Greece wherever we have means of judging. It would also follow that there would generally be a coincidence of situation on the sea-coast between temples of the sea-god and churches in honour of the patron-saint of sailors, St. Nicholas→→→ between temples of any God on "high places," and churches dedicated to Elijah, which are naturally almost always to be found on the tops of hills. And, further, if there was any striking, 25 The change of P into M is such as we see also in "Pindarus" and "Mindarus." though only superficial, similarity either of name or exte bute, between the saint and the ancient worship, it is that the connexion would be preserved; and hence Dr. Wo conjecture, that the dedication of the church on the shore to the ἅγιοι Ἀπόστολοι, is an indication of its having been th of Oropos (árórroλos), seems not without ground (Ath the rude paintings of St. George mounted on his hors walls of one of the chapels at Colonos, may perhaps sugg nexion with the inóra Koλavoù of Sophocles; and whilst of Artemis has perished, her epithet, Amarusia, is still pr Attica, in the name of the village Marusi, as that of retained, we have been told, in a church or village near But beyond this it seems useless to venture. Even th tion of the Parthenon to the Panaghia, and the temple o to St. George, which are generally adduced in support versal connexion of ideas in the succession of saints deities, seems accounted for adequately by the consider the two most remarkable edifices at Athens would nat dedicated to the most remarkable objects of Greek Hag and it is surely unwarrantable, with Dr. Wordsworth, t a confirmation of the supposed site of the temple of hellenian Jupiter in Ægina, in the similarity of certa between the history of Elijah and the legend of acus worth's Athens, 270), or to imagine that an inland St. Nicholas must have of necessity succeeded to a Poseidon, as at Colonos. (ib. 236.) As a general rule, therefore, but little is to be lea local tradition. The same ignorance which prevailed with regard to the monuments of antiquity, must have much more deeply here during the middle ages; a name of the Forum was lost first in that of Tria Fata three statues which so long remained there, and afte that of the Campo Vaccino; so the most famous places a in Greece received their appellations from some accident stance, such as would naturally fix itself in barbarian the expulsion of the older names, which had ceased to meaning to them. The Piraeus became Port Draco, fro which lay on its shore; Munychia, Port Fanari, probabl |