Silver Medals of the Locri Opuntii. CHAP. IX. PHARSALIA, TO THE VALLEY OF TEMPE. Appearance of the Country after passing Thermopyla-Boundaries and notions notions of Tempe Descriptions given of it by antient authorsPococke and Busching-Value of Livy's observations - Pliny and Ælian. AFTER CHAP. IX. Appearance of the country, Thermopyla. FTER leaving the old boundaries of Græcia Propria, the traveller, in the wider fields of THESSALY, finds an altered region, and an altered people. The difference is perceivable after passing from the instant that he has passed the heights behind Zeitûn. THESSALY was the Yorkshire of Antient Greece, as to its country and its inhabitants. A vulgar adage in England, maintaining that "if a halter be cast upon the grave of a Yorkshireman, he will rise and steal a horse ;" and the saying, "Do not put Yorkshire upon us," as deprecating fraud; express the aphorisms antiently in use respecting the Thessalians, who were notorious for their knavish disposition; inasmuch that base money was called Thessalian coin, and a cheating action Thessalian treachery. Do not these facts tend to validate former observations concerning the effect produced by different regions upon the minds of the natives' ?—for Thessaly has not forfeited its archaic character; and with regard to the shrewd peasantry of Yorkshire, however we may be disposed to make the exception, and to dispute the application of an illiberal pleasantry, we shall not be able to banish it from the language of common conversation. The boundaries however of Thessaly have varied as often as the appellation it has received'. Its most antient Thessaly. denomination Boundaries and names of (1) See Chap. II. of this Volume, p. 49. (2) Vid. Stephan. de Urbib. p. 305. Not. 46. edit. Gronovii. Amst. 1678. CHAP. IX. Pharsalus. denomination was Pelasgia; wherefore Homer always calls it Pelasgicon Argos. He does not once mention it under the name of Thessaly. It has also borne the various names of Pyrrhæa, Emonia, Pandora, Nesonis, and lastly Thessaly. It is divided by Strabo' into the four districts of Phthiotis, Estiæotis, Thessaliotis, and Pelasgiotis; all of which Ptolemy' ascribes to Macedonia. We found but few antiquities remaining of the antient PHARSALUS. Like other towns and villages of THESSALY, Pharsa is so entirely under Turkish domination, and has been so long in the hands of Moslems, that if they have not destroyed the reliques of its former state, they have always, hid them from a traveller's view. The name alone remains to shew what it once was. South-west of the town, indeed, there is a hill surrounded with antient walls, formed of large masses of a coarse kind of marble. There is also the lower part of a Gate. And upon a lofty rock above the town, towards the south, are other ruins of greater magnitude; shewing a considerable portion of the walls of the Acropolis, and remains of its Propylaa. This place, as it is usual, is Palapharsalus. called Palæo-castro. Livy mentions a PALÆPHARSALUS'; and Strabo notices the new and the old city. The modern town is situate at the foot of a mountain commanding a very extensive view towards the north of the Plain of Pharsalia, extending (1) Vid. Strabon. Geog. lib. ix. (2) Ptolemæi Geog. lib. iii. cap. 13. (3) "Castra eo tempore A. Hostilius in Thessalia circa Palæpharsalum habebat.” ̧ Vid. Liv. Hist. (Epitome), lib. xliv. c. 1. p. 678. Paris, 1738. (4) The Te naλaias kai rūs vías. Strabon. Geog. lib. ix. p. 625. ed. Oxon. CHAP. IX. of Pharsa. extending east and west. In the court of the khan, and in other parts of the town, we saw some steps made of enormous blocks of stone. Pharsa contains two thousand Population houses; but, for its inhabitants, a far greater proportion of Turks than of Greeks. There are four mosques; and the cistern, within the courts and inclosures of these sanctuaries, and of the houses, do doubtless contain inscriptions; but we could not procure a sight of any one of them. This place is an Episcopal See, under the Archbishopric of LARISSA'. Strabo mentions the old and the new town. It is also often noticed by Livy, and by other writers'. Monday, December 21, we left Pharsalus, in a thick fog. In a quarter of an hour we saw a Tumulus, or Polyandrium, the usual indication of a field of battle; as in the instances already so often adduced. We came to a bridge of fourteen arches; five whereof were large, and the rest of inconsiderable and disproportioned size. The situation of this bridge, with respect to Pharsa, very accurately agrees with a remark made by Appian as to the interval between Pharsalus and the river ENIPEUS. We cannot possibly therefore have a better beacon for the situation of the contest between (5) Vid. Annot. in Stephan. de Urbib. ed. Gronov. p. 691. Not. 53. (6) Ibid. Strabon. Geog. lib. ix. (7) Ibid. Cæsar (8) “ Διὸ δὴ καὶ τετταρακισχιλίους τῶν Ἰταλῶν φύλακας τοῦ στρατοπέδου καταλιπῶν, παρέτασσε τοὺς λοιποὺς, ἐς τὸ μεταξὺ Φαρσάλου τε πόλεως καὶ Ἐνιπέως ποταμοῦ, ἔνθα καὶ ὁ Καῖσαρ αντεδιεκόσμει. i. e. Quapropter relictis quatuor millibus Italorum, qui castra custodirent, cæteros deduxit in aciem inter Pharsalum urbem et Enipeum Ubi et Cæsar ex adverso constitit, castris dispositis." Vid. Appian. de Bell. Civil. lib. ii. vol. II. p. 278. Ed. Schweighaeuser. Lips. 1785. amnem. Field of the Battle of CHAP. IX. the Plain, Cæsar and Pompey; as indeed the tomb shews, marking the heap raised over the dead upon that memorable occasion. Mr. Walpole is also of this opinion; although he does not notice the tomb in his Journal; neither did we observe the cotton plantation which he mentions: but this is of little moment. He mentions the course of the river, and the situation of the field of battle, in his Journal'. From Pharsa to Larissa, the road is excellent. It is almost entirely over plains covered with fine turf, without a single stone, but sometimes interspersed with a fine gravel. Appearance of The soil is very rich. The Plain of Pharsalia, which we crossed first, riding during an entire hour at a jog-trot, resembled the scenery in Cambridgeshire; so much so, that we could not avoid noticing the circumstance; being similarly flat and dreary, without inclosures, exhibiting pasture mixed with ploughed land, and dykes near the road, beyond which were shepherds with their flocks: only, instead of the Royston crows, we had nobler flights of eagles and vultures. A dense fog, concealing the distant mountains, rendered the similitude more striking. After we quitted this plain, we crossed over some hills of trifling elevation; and then descended into the immense campaign of LARISSA, once the greater plain of the Pelasgi. The soil here is the finest that can be imagined; the land, although in many parts uncultivated, Pelasgiotis. (1) "The traveller cannot miss finding the field of battle, now overgrown with cotton : it is, says Appian, μεταξὺ Φαρσάλου τε πόλεως καὶ Ἐνιπέως ποταμοῦ. The Enipeus flows into the Apidanus, which is received by the Penëus." Walpole's MS. Journal. |