“Hephæstus, on from Ida sending brilliant gleam, And hither beacon beacon sped with courier flame. First Ida to the Hermæan crag of Lemnos sent, Then from the island was received the mighty flame By Athos, Zeus’s mount, as third: this over-passed— So that it skimmed the sea’s broad back,—the torch’s might, A joyous traveller, the pine’s gold gleam, sun-like, To watching Mount Macistus brought its flashing news. Macistus then, delaying not, nor foolishly Foredone with sleep, as messenger pass’d on his share. The beacon’s gleam unto Euripus flowing far Then came and signal to Messapium’s pickets made. They too gave back a flame and ever onward sent The news by lighting up a heap of heather gray. The Torch then, strong to run, nor dimm’d as yet, leap’d on Like radiant moon across Asopus and his plain And came unto Cithæron’s crags, awaking there A new relay of courier flame: nor did the guard Disown the far-escorted light, but escort flame In turn made soar aloft into the ether high. Then over Lake Gorgopis smote the gleam and came Unto Mount Ægiplanctus urging that the flame Ordain’d should fail not. Lighting with ungrudging strength They send a mighty beard of fire. O’er the height That overlooks the Saronic Gulf it onward flared, Until, when it had reach’d the Arachnæan steep, It lighted on the outposts neighbour to our town; Then on this roof of the Atreidæ falls this light, The long-descended grandchild of the Idæan flame!” From the very smallness of Greece results the overcrowding of associations that almost oppress the spectator standing at one or another place of vantage. But if his historic horizon is as clearly defined as the physical he will come back to the sea-level with a clearer understanding of the interdependence between the scene and the action of the great dramas here enacted. The country is not only a background but a cause for the literature. Neither can be fully understood without the other.