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
LXXXI. PANOPEUS.—The space enclosed by the fortification walls and by
the rocky crests shows but few signs of habitation. On the highest point
of the hill, among some holly-oaks, are the scanty tumble-down ruins of
a mediaeval tower, built in the usual way of small stones with bricks
and mortar in the chinks. A little lower down, and farther to the east,
is a small chapel with remains of faded paintings on the walls.
Scattered about the hill, especially round the chapel, is a good deal of
broken pottery. A fine grove of beautiful holly-oaks now shades part of
the summit, growing on a grassy slope amid low plants and shrubs. It is
pleasant in the heat of the day to rest in the shade of these trees, to
smell the wild thyme which grows abundantly on the hill, and to enjoy
the distant prospects. To the north, across the broad Chaeronean plain,
we look straight into the defile through which the Cephisus flows from
Phocis into Boeotia; at the northern end of the defile the low hill is
visible on which are the scanty ruins of Parapotamii. To the west
Parnassus lifts his mighty head at no great distance from us, his middle
slopes darkened by pine-forests that look like the shadows of clouds
resting on the mountain-side.
LXXXII. NEAR HYAMPOLIS.—From the ledge of rocks which bounds the plateau
on the south, near a ruined chapel, a spring of beautifully clear water
gushes forth. Some ancient blocks lie tumbled about the spring, and a
tall poplar-tree grows opposite it. The day was very hot when I passed
it on my way to and from the ruins of Hyampolis; but the leaves of the
poplar rustled in the breeze, and the water flowed from under the rocks
with a soothing murmur. Parnassus loomed dim in the distance through a
haze of heat. On my return from the ruins I found a shepherd boy at the
spring who offered to share his bread with me. This picturesque spot, on
which a poet of the Anthology might have written an epigram, is perhaps
the site of the temple of Artemis mentioned by Pausanias.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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