At its eastern end the ridge descends in a long and gentle slope, expanding fan-like as it descends to the Copaic plain. This long slope was the site of Orchomenus. The position is one of great natural strength. On the south and north it is protected by the steep and rugged sides of the ridge which form, as it were, a first line of defence. At the foot of these declivities the waters of the Cephisus on the south and of the Melas on the north constitute a second line of defence; while on the east, where the descent to the plain is gradual, the site was till lately rendered secure by the great Copaic swamp which advanced to within a few hundred yards of the end of the slope. The ancient walls, of which considerable remains exist, started from the broad eastern foot of the hill, and followed its northern and southern brows upwards, converging more and more as they rose till at the upper end of the slope they were within about thirty yards of each other. Here at the head of the slope the walls end at the foot of a cliff which rises like a wall to a considerable height. Its small summit, reached by a long, steep, and narrow staircase hewn out of the rock, was the ancient acropolis. Yet this cliff, which presents such an imposing appearance on the east, is separated on the west only by a shallow depression of a few feet from the long rugged ridge of the hills. This, therefore, was the weak point in the circuit; and art had to be called in to supply the want of a natural defence. Accordingly the little citadel, protected by precipices on the east and north, was fortified on the west and south by immense walls of massive masonry, the remains of which are amongst the finest specimens of ancient Greek fortification in existence. The fortress thus formed is so small that it resembles a castle rather than an acropolis of the ordinary Greek type. But the splendid style of the masonry leaves no room to doubt that it is a Greek fortress of the very best period, probably of the fourth century B.C.—the golden age of Greek military engineering. LXXX. THE PLAIN OF CHAERONEA.—The plain of Chaeronea—one of the largest plains in Greece—stretches in an unbroken sweep from the foot of Mount Parnassus eastward to what used to be the Copaic Lake. Its length from east to west is about twelve miles, and its breadth from north to south about two. The plain is a dead flat, covered with fields of cotton and maize, and enclosed by bare, stony, barren hills both on the north and on the south. Seen on a bright summer day, with the mountains beyond the Copaic plain appearing blue in the distance and Parnassus towering grandly on the west, the scene is beautiful enough; but on a grey November morning, with the mists down on the distant mountains, it wears a cheerless aspect that well becomes a battlefield where a nation’s freedom was lost.