Studies in Greek Scenery, Legend and History: Selected from His Commentary on Pausanias' 'Description of Greece,'Frazer, James George
History
Studies in Greek Scenery, Legend and History: Selected from His Commentary on Pausanias' 'Description of Greece,'
Frazer, James George
Greece -- Antiquities; Greece -- Description and travel
on, but enough of daylight remained to allow me to appreciate the beauty
of the prospect from the loftily situated village across the sea to the
islands, the high conspicuous peninsula of Methana, and the long line of
headlands stretching away towards Epidaurus, all bathed in the warm
though fast fading light of a winter evening.
Next morning we left Kato-Phanari soon after eight o’clock. The path
rose steeply up the mountain-side in view of the sea. In a little less
than an hour we reached Ano-Phanari, a village overlooking the sea,
situated far up the side of a lofty rocky mountain which faces southward
to the still higher precipitous mountain on whose seaward face, below
the precipices, stands the lower village of Kato-Phanari. On this latter
mountain, or rather on the summit of the range to which it belongs,
called Mount Ortholithion, certain ceremonies are said to have been
performed, time out of mind, by the peasants in seasons of drought and
pestilence.
At Ano-Phanari I heard of remains of an ancient fortress in the
neighbourhood, and set off with a guide to visit them. A walk of a few
minutes in a north-easterly direction brought us to the top of the
mountain, where the remains are to be seen. The situation is a
remarkably fine one. Precipices descending towards the sea encircle the
summit on the north and north-east, and the views across the Saronic
Gulf to Aegina, Salamis, and Megara are magnificent. Some mediaeval
remains, comprising walls and two or more ruined chapels, are to be seen
on the summit, and on its southern side, towards the village, there is a
ruined fortification wall built of large irregular blocks. Thus the
ancient fortress which occupied this commanding situation appears to
have been repaired and inhabited in the Middle Ages. What the name of
the place was in antiquity we do not know.
The villagers called my attention to several holes in the rocks between
the fortress and the village from which streams of warm air issue. The
air from one of the holes was hot enough to warm me, though the morning
was cold. In this particular hole, too, I could hear a rumbling sound as
of water boiling or wind blowing underground.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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