being described by Strabo as by nature fortified'; and Livy, relating an attack made upon the two last towns, speaks of the difficulty to which Flaccus was exposed, in his attempts to scale their citadels'. Perhaps, after all that has been urged, it will be plain that Bodonitza was THRONIUM. At the same time, something should be said of Cnemis; for the mountain of this name, whence the Locri Epicnemidii received their peculiar appellation, was contiguous to Mount Eta, and to the Gulph of Malea; and the characteristic description given of the town of Cnemis in two words (xwgiov iguuròv) by Strabo may be considered applicable to the situation of the present citadel; but the position of Bodonitza, respecting the XEIMAPPOZ flowing by it to the gulph, added to the correspondence of its appearance with the evident etymology of THRONIUM, and the difficulty of assigning to the latter any other situation, afford strong presumption for believing that it stood here. It must however be confessed, that this is not the spot where Thronium is placed, according to the observations of Melétius, in his Geography. He would infer, from an inscription found at a place called Paleo-castro, that THRONIUM was situated elsewhere. The references we have already made to Ptolemy and Strabo decidedly prove that it was not upon the shore; but the latter CHAP. VIII. (3) Vide Strabon. Geog. lib. ix. pp. 617, 621. ed. Oxon. (4) "Flacco non eadem fortuna ad Tichiunta et Rhoduntiam, nequicquam subire ad ea castella conato, fuerat." Livio, lib. xxxvi. c. 18. tom. III. ed. Crevier. (5) Θρόνιον, τοῦ ὁποιοῦ ὁ τόπος καλεῖται κοινῶς Παλαιόκαστρο εἰς τὰ Μάρμαρα. Melétius says he saw there this inscription: ΤΑΙΒΟΥΛΑΪΚΑΙΤΩΙΔΑΜΩΙΘΡΟΝΙΕΩΝ, CHAP. VIII. latter mentions a port, distant twenty stadia from Cnemis, above which, at an equal distance of twenty stadia (xarà rǹv proóyalar), THRONIUM was situated; and there may have been the inscription to which Melétius alludes'. We now set out upon the most interesting part of all our travels,—an expedition to the STRAITS OF THERMOPYLÆ : and we began the day's journey with increased satisfaction, because we had already discovered, that, in quitting the usual track of travellers by the coast, we were actually following the antient military way, mentioned by Livy, as it was prepared and paved by the states of Greece for the passage of their armies; and, consequently, that we were now treading in the footsteps of those Spartans who with Leonidas guarded this defile at the invasion of Xerxes. The remains of the old paved road will long continue; because it is the common practice of passengers to avoid the pavement; preferring an easier path, by the side of it. Although the whole of this road is a descent from Bodonitza, we nevertheless continued to proceed at a considerable height above the level of the marshy plain of Mola and the sea. The hills around us were covered with trees; and we found some rare plants growing beneath them, both among the rocks, and over the rest of this narrow valley'. We had journeyed in (1) Vid. Strabon. Geog. lib. ix. pp. 617, 618. ed. Oxon. See also for Thronium, what Pausanias says in his Eliacs, cap. 22. p. 435. ed. Kuhnii. (2) The following Note contains the Plants we collected in the Defile of Thermopyla: Common Phillyrea-Phillyrea media, Linn. Scarlet Oak-Quercus coccifera, Linn. Rough Bindweed-Smiler aspera, Lin. Common Rue-Ruta graveolens, Lin. Ground in this manner for about an hour, when, having passed CHAP. VIIL several stadia of the antient pavement, we suddenly found ourselves Ground Germander-Teucrium Chamaedrys, Linn. Common Chick-Pea-Cicer arietinum, Linn. Common Olive-Olea Europea, Linn. Heath-leaved St. John's Wort, supposed to be the Kópis of Diosco rides-Hypericum Coris, Linn. Some of these plants were gathered at the Hot Springs in the narrowest part of the Pass close to the Via Militaris. Here we also found a very aromatic little shrub, branching almost from the ground, the younger branches quadrangular, and rough, with short hairs pointing downwards; the leaves linear, very blunt, a little channelled above, closely pierced on both sides with little concave dots, and ciliated with a few strong bristles at the edges, and disposed close to each other in four rows on the small branches, the large ones being always leafless as the leaves grow older, many of their ciliæ fall off, and they appear nearly naked. The inflorescence is terminal in a kind of spike an inch and a half long, and composed of about five whorls of flowers, the uppermost of which are so close as to touch each other, but the undermost gradually a little more distant: the bracts are lanceolate and ciliated at the edges, and extend beyond the whorls, but fall off soon after the season of flowering; the calyx is bilabiate, and a little compressed, with two prominent ciliated edges, and sparkles with numerous little fiery-coloured dots; the' mouth bilabiate, ciliated, and thickly set with long white hairs; the upper lip divided to the base, into two very narrow segments; the upper lip tridentale; the seeds four, naked in the bottom of the calyx, but one of them only appears to come to maturity, which is of an inversely ovate form. Unfortunately, all the flowers were fallen before we saw it. It will however appear, from the above description, that the plant (with the exception of the corolla, which is yet unknown) hath the essential character both of THYMUS and THYMBRA; and even when the blossom is discovered, unless it shall prove different from that of either of the above genera, must still remain ambiguous. As the compressed sharp edges of the calyx, however, are certainly a more decided character than the hairs at the mouth, which we have observed in plants of this order, otherwise very different both in character and habit; and as the habit of our plant approaches considerably to that of THYMBRA; that the knowledge of it may not entirely be lost, suffice it at present to describe it as a dubious species of that Genus, by the name of THYMBRA? AMBIGUA. -THYMBRA? Aoribus verticillatis spicatis, spicis elongatis; foliis quadrifariam imbricatis, linearibus, ciliatis, utrinque punctatis obtusissimis; bracteis lanceolatis flores excedentibus. CHAP. VIII. ourselves in a small plain surrounded by mountains, just before the descent to the narrowest part of the Straits falls off abruptly, by a steep and uninterrupted declivity. Here we observed, close to the antient way, upon our right, an antient TUMULUS, whereon the broken remains of a massive pedestal, as a foundation for some monument, were yet conspicuous. In its present state, it is sufficiently entire to prove that the form of this pedestal was square, and that it covered the top of a conical mound of earth; which is the shape common not only to antient sepulchres in general, but in particular to those of Greece; as appears in the examples already adduced of the Tomb of the Athenians in the Plain of Marathon, and the Tomb of the Thebans in the Plain of Charonéa. It consisted of large square blocks of a red marble breccia, some of which remained as they were originally placed: others, dislocated and broken, were lying by, with a considerable fragment of one of the wrought corners of the pedestal. The surface of this red marble breccia was entirely encrusted with a brown lichen; and the stone itself, by weathering, was so far decomposed upon its surface, that it resembled common grey limestone; proving thereby the great length of time it has thus remained exposed to the action of the atmosphere'. It is hardly necessary to allege any additional facts to prove to whom this tomb belonged: being the only one that occurs in (1) It is however susceptible of a very high polish; and then it appears of a brownish red, spotted and streaked with white. We have preserved specimens of the stone. |