mountain-girt plateau on the road from Lacedæmonia to Corinth, upon which stood the cities of Tegea and Mantinea, and which was made by nature for a field of Mars, became the scene of strife. The Peloponnesus, with its sinuous shores, forms a remarkable contrast to Attica. Its characteristics are essentially those of a continent, and anciently the Peloponnesians were mountaineers rather than mariners. Except in Corinth, where the two seas nearly join, and a few towns of Argolis, which is another Attica, there were no inducements for the inhabitants to engage in maritime commerce; and in their mountain valleys and upland plains they were entirely dependent upon the rearing of cattle and husbandry. Arcadia, in the centre of the peninsula, was inhabited only by herdsmen and labourers; and its name, which originally meant “country of bears,” has become the general designation for an eminently pastoral country. The Laconians also, separated from the sea by rocky mountains which hem in the valley of the Eurotas at its point of issue, preserved for a long time the customs of warriors and of cultivators of the soil, and took to the sea only with reluctance. “When the Spartans placed Eurotas and Taygetus at the head of their heroes,” says Edgar Quinet, “they distinctly connected the features of the valley with the destinies of the people by whom it was occupied.” In the very earliest ages the Phœnicians already occupied important factories on the coasts of the Peloponnesus. They had established themselves at Nauplia, in the Gulf of Argos; and at Cranaæ, the modern Marathonisi or Gythion, in Laconia, they purchased the shells which they required to dye their purple {66} cloths. The Greeks themselves were in possession of a few busy ports, amongst which was “sandy Pylos,” the capital of Nestor, whose position is now held by Navarino, on the other side of the gulf. At a subsequent date, when Greece had become the centre of Mediterranean commerce, Corinth, so favourably situated between the two seas, rose into importance, not because of its political influence, its cultivation of the arts, or love of liberty, but through the number and wealth of its inhabitants. It is said that it had a population of three hundred thousand souls within its walls. Even after it had been razed by the Romans it again recovered its ancient pre-eminence. But the exposed position of the town has caused it to be ravaged so many times that all commerce has fled from it. In 1858, when an earthquake destroyed Corinth, that once famous city had dwindled down into a poor village. The city has been rebuilt about five miles from its ancient site, on the shore of the gulf named after it, but we doubt whether it will ever resume its ancient importance unless a canal be dug to connect the two seas. The high-roads from Marseilles and Trieste to Smyrna and Constantinople would then lead across the Isthmus of Corinth, and this canal might attract an amount of shipping