[29] “In succeeding ages the Athenians honoured Theseus as a demigod, induced to it as well by other reasons as because, when they were fighting the Medes at Marathon, a considerable part of the army thought they saw the apparition of Theseus completely armed, and bearing down before them upon the barbarians.”--Langhorne’s _Plutarch, Life of Theseus_. [30] “From Thermopylæ to Sparta, the leader of the Goths (Alaric) pursued his victorious march without encountering any mortal antagonist; but one of the advocates of expiring paganism has confidently asserted that the walls of Athens were guarded by the goddess Minerva, with her formidable ægis, and by the angry phantom of Achilles, and that the conqueror was dismayed by the presence of the hostile deities of Greece.”--Gibbon’s _Decline and Fall_, &c. vol. v. p. 183. [31] “Even all the _chief ones of the earth_.”--Isaiah, xiv. [32] “How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished!”--Samuel, book ii. chap. i. [33] For several interesting particulars relative to the Suliote warfare with Ali Pasha, see Holland’s _Travels in Albania_. [34] “It is related, as an authentic story, that a group of Suliote women assembled on one of the precipices adjoining the modern seraglio, and threw their infants into the chasm below, that they might not become the slaves of the enemy.”--Holland’s _Travels_, &c. [35] The ruins of Sparta, near the modern town of Mistra, are very inconsiderable, and only sufficient to mark the site of the ancient city. The scenery around them is described by travellers as very striking. [36] The inscription composed by Simonides for the Spartan monument in the pass of Thermopylæ has been thus translated:--“Stranger, go tell the Lacedemonians that we have obeyed their laws, and that we lie here.” [37] “In the Eurotas I observed abundance of those famous reeds which were known in the earliest ages; and all the rivers and marshes of Greece are replete with rose-laurels, while the springs and rivulets are covered with lilies, tuberoses, hyacinths, and narcissus orientalis.”--Pouqueville’s _Travels in the Morea_. [38] It was usual for suppliants to carry an olive branch bound with wool. [39] The olive, according to Pouqueville, is still regarded with veneration by the people of the Morea. [40] It was customary at Eleusis, on the fifth day of the festival, for men and women to run about with torches in their hands, and also to dedicate torches to Ceres, and to contend who should present the largest. This was done in memory of the journey of Ceres in search of Proserpine, during which she was lighted by a torch kindled in the flames of Etna.--Porter’s _Antiquities of Greece_, vol. i. p. 392. [41] The fountains of Oblivion and Memory, with the Hercynian fountain, are still to be seen amongst the rocks near Livadia, though the situation of the cave of Trophonius, in their vicinity, cannot be exactly ascertained.--See Holland’s _Travels_.