the public has consequently been indebted to him for many important discoveries in illustration of its ancient history and topography, it would perhaps be ungrateful to accuse him of indolence, or want of enterprise; but he cannot so easily be excused for having omitted to cite the ancient authorities in any of those very numerous passages of his works in which he had recourse to them, as the omission renders it often difficult to judge of the accuracy of his conclusions.

The researches of Stuart and Chandler upon the topography of Athens have cleared up much that had been left obscure and faulty by Spon and Wheler, and in some instances Chandler's superior learning enabled him to correct the mistaken impressions of Stuart; but others he has left uncorrected, and he has added many errors and negligences of his own, as well in the application of ancient evidence, as in regard to the actual condition of the ruined buildings.

The changes which occurred in the state of Athens, between the Venetian siege and the time of Chandler, were so small that Chandler found it sufficient for the explanation of his topography to insert a copy of the plan of Athens, published by Fanelli from the Venetian engineers.

The dilapidations produced in the half century which has elapsed since the visit of Chandler have been more considerable. Five years afterwards, the descent of the Albanians into Greece, which followed the insurrection excited in the Moréa by the Russians, obliged the Athenians to surround their city with a wall. In this operation the two Ionic columns belonging to the frontispiece of the aqueduct of

Hadrian, at the foot of Mount St. George, were demolished, and its inscribed architrave was placed over a neighbouring gate in the modern walls. The temple of Triptolemus, designed by Stuart, and found by Chandler somewhat impaired, with one of the columns prostrate, was destroyed upon the same occasion; so that a few years later nothing but the site and a part of the pavement were to be seen 1. The Roman bridge leading to the stadium was swept away by the same occurrence, as well as the remains of the monastery which had been attached to it.

It would be highly unjust, however, to accuse the Turks as the sole dilapidators of the ancient works of Athens, or of any other part of Greece. Their hatred of images has indeed been peculiarly destructive to every work of sculpture representing the animal form; but the Greeks themselves, although often anxious to preserve inscribed or sculptured marbles, and for that purpose depositing them in the churches, have generally been too unenlightened not to prefer the claims of temporary convenience to a desire of preserving the works of their ancestors. In fact, there is scarcely a Greek village that does not bear marks of having been built or repaired with the materials of ancient edifices, the squared blocks of the ancient walls furnishing convenient materials to the mason; while the finer marbles which the ancients employed for their sculpture, or for the

'The original cause of its destruction was a mass celebrated, according to the Latin rites, in the temple, which was then a Greek church of the Panaghía, by the Marquis de Nointel, in 1674. The Greeks having desecrated the church in consequence, it fell into neglect and gradual dilapidation.

more decorative parts of their architecture, have supplied him with the choicest substance for his cement or coatings'. Many works of ancient sculpture have in this manner disappeared, nor ought we to forget, as a cause of the more recent diminution or degradation of Greek monuments, the depredations of travellers and collectors, often destroying more than they carry away.

In those cities which have never ceased to be inhabited, the remains of antiquity have been continually disturbed and applied to purposes of modern construction. Where the chief population of the district has established itself at no great distance from the ancient site, the same cause of destruction has been almost equally in operation. The ancient cities therefore which, having been abandoned or reduced to a very small population at an early period, have at the same time been at too great a distance from any modern town to be largely resorted to for materials, are those which are most likely still to preserve valuable remains of antiquity below the surface of the soil2.

1 It frequently happens indeed that the wrought stones of the ancients are too massy for the artisans of the present day; but the magnitude of the masses has not always saved them, for the finished materials of the ancients are often broken into smaller masses, for the convenience of transportation.

2

Perhaps the reader will not be displeased if I take this opportunity of naming the places which appeared to me to be most remarkably in the latter predicament. In the Peloponnesus were Corone (at the modern Petalídhi), Messene, Thurium, the city of the Tænarii, or Cænepolis of the Eleuthero Lacones (at seven or eight miles to the north-west of Cape Matapán), Gythium, Amycle, Prasiæ, Thyrea, Asine of Argolis, Her

But the situations which afford the best prospect of finding productions of the ancient masters, are the aλon, or sacred groves, which were generally removed from the ordinary habitations of men, sometimes in sequestered valleys or mountain solitudes', and hence comparatively secure from spoliation; for in some of these places the works of the most renowned artists were originally more abundant than any where, except in cities of the first rank.

The sea-coast has generally been unfavourable to

mione, Trozen, Epidaurus, Phlius, Mantineia, Megalopolis, Orchomenus, Clitor, Phigaleia, Psophis, Elis, Dyme, Pallene, Sicyon. Beyond the Isthmus were Eleusis, many of the Demi of Attica, Eretria and Histiæa in Euboea, Platæa, Tanagra, Thespiæ, Haliartus, Coroneia, Charoneia, Orchomenus, Stiris, Cirrha, Opus, Elateia, Thronium, Heracleia of Mount Eta. To these may be added many cities in Thessaly, Epirus, Acarnania, Ætolia, and Macedonia, particularly the following:-In Thessaly, Theba Phthioticæ, Pagasa, Demetrias, Metropolis, Pelinnæum, Gomphi, and Cyretiæ. In Epirus, Phoenice, Gitanæ, Pandosia, Cichyrus, Cassope, and Nicopolis. In Acarnania, Argos Amphilochicum, Thyrium, Stratus, and the city of the Eniada; and in Ætolia, Thermus, and Calydon. In all these places the state of the soil appears to indicate that the sites have been little disturbed since the respective places fell to ruins, and to promise a rich harvest of ancient remains.

'It is hardly necessary to name Olympia, Delphi, Nemea, and the Isthmus, as places to which I particularly allude. To these may be added the Grove of the Muses on Mount Helicon, the sanctuaries of Jupiter Lycæus, and of Despœna in Arcadia, the Heræum of Argolis, the Hierum of Epidauria, the oracular fane of Apollo in Mount Ptous, the temples of Minerva Itonia in Boeotia and in Thessaly, Actium, and a very remarkable hierum to the south of Ioánnina in Epirus, of which the ancient name is unknown. The sites of many insulated temples in various parts of the country might also be mentioned, though little now remains of their buildings above ground.

the preservation of remains of antiquity, on account of the facility which it afforded of transporting materials for the construction of new buildings in other places near the sea. Many modern towns, churches, and monasteries, have thus been built or repaired at the expense of the ruined cities on the coast, which have greatly suffered also from the spoliation or wanton violence of Turks, Genoese, Venetians, French, and other nations, who have carried on war or commerce in the Grecian seas during the last eight centuries.

In some instances the magnitude of the ancient city has been such, that its materials are not yet exhausted, even although placed in a situation very much exposed to modern depredations. Such are Sparta and Tegea, which, although they have served for ages as quarries to the neighbouring towns of Mistrá and Tripolitzá, yet still retain numerous remains of antiquity.

But above all the cities of Greece, Athens, although it has never ceased to be a large inhabited place, still affords the best prospect of discoveries interesting to the artist and antiquary. Here every fragment that is found bears testimony to the pre-eminent taste and skill of the ancient people; every inscription throws light on history or philology. The buildings of the modern town may forbid researches throughout a great part of the site, but all the southern and western parts of the Asty, the suburbs of the Gardens and of Agræ, the Longomural town, and the entire Peiraic city, are open to the excavator, whose labours, if they are increased by the depth of soil, which the successive ruins of buildings, during a long course of