per home of that tree; but in this second area the true plants of the south, such as the cactus and aloe, are only seen here and there, and are kept up with great labour and difficulty. It is the remaining portion of Italy, which, as being the country occupied by Greek settlements, is called by Niebuhr Greek Italy, that this semi-tropical vegetation is found, growing naturally and almost wild; and the palm is found at Naples, and increases in frequency as we proceed farther south. Now in Greece the Alpine region, corresponding to the mountains and valleys of Switzerland, is that which lies north of the Ægean and the parallel of Mount Olympus, comprising the Scardus district, upper Macedonia, and Thrace. You may pass through this from the Adriatic to the Egean without seeing a single cypress tree, and it is only when you have descended the Axius for some distance from the highlands of the interior that the plane-tree begins to appear. In the plains of Thessaly, which correspond to those of Lombardy, and in all but the seacoast of Epirus, the olive is wanting, and appears first in Phthiotis, and in the peninsula of Magnesia, where it is cultivated with great success. But Attica, as we know from the enthusiastic praises of Sophocles,96 is the land in which it flourishes best; yet that favoured air will not allow the orange, much less the palm, to grow without especial care, whereas on the southern coasts of the Morea and in the islands, these trees are 96 Ed. Col. 700. The forests. much more abundant. In Greece, however, the great variety of elevation causes the products of different districts to be much less regular than in Italy; and the mean temperature of the whole country is lower. It is in ascending the lofty mountains that abut on the sea, that the zones of vegetation can be traced in the most impressive manner. Thus the shore of Mount Athos is fringed with myrtles, and its dells are filled with luxuriant plane-trees; as you mount its steep slopes, you are embowered in an undergrowth of arbutus, ilex, and branching heather, frequently festooned with creepers, or interspersed in the clearings with vineyards and groups of dark cypresses; but above the height of 1500 feet the region of chestnuts and other forest trees is entered, and the ridge of the peninsula is found to be thickly clothed with beeches. Still higher, on the great peak itself, the beech forests are again surmounted by pines, and from these the bare summit emerges, on the sides of which are found the violet and the pansy, and on its crest tiny saxifrages and other alpine plants. We have ample evidence that Greece was, in parts at all events, a well-wooded country in ancient times. The trees, shrubs, and plants were so fruitful a source of nomenclature, that, even if other information were wanting, we might almost reconstruct the flora of the country from the names of places, as I hope to show on a future occasion. But the subject is often alluded to by ancient authors. Parnassus is called by Homer 66 a mountain clothed with wood” (ὄρος καταειμένον ὕλῃ Пagvnoo), and Euripides addresses it as "wooded rock of the Pythian god" (IIubíou devôguri Térga); 98 and here and there the remains of noble pine-forests may be seen on its sides at the present day. Of Helicon Pausanias tells us that it was especially fertile and rich in trees (ἐν τοῖς μάλιστα εὔγεως καὶ δένδρων ἀνάπλεως), and the woods of Citharon form a graceful background to the silvan scenes in the Baccha of Euripides. From Parnes, again, came the wood which caused the deme of Acharnæ to be famed for its charcoal—the ἄνθρακες Παρνήσιοι of the Acharnians of Aristophanes.100 The districts which were most famous for their oak-forests were Arcadia and Boeotia. In the oracle about Arcadia in Herodotus, the inhabitants are described as "acorn-eating ment men” (βαλανηφάγοι avogss),101 and one part of the country was called Drymodes for the same reason. Pausanias in this part of his peregrination is continually mentioning them, and regards them as the cover for the wild animals that abounded there: 102 in one place he distinguishes several kinds, one of which is the cork-tree.103 Nor was this dense woodland confined to the hill-sides; in the plain of Mantineia he describes the road from that city to Tegea as passing through an extensive forest named Pelagos, or the sea,104 apparently from 97 Od. xix. 431. 100 Acharn. 348. 98 Herc. Fur. 790. 103 viii. 12, § 1. 99 ix. 28, § 1. 102 viii. 23, § 9. 104 viii. 11, § 1. its waving foliage; and again he speaks of these trees as numerous in the level ground between Tegea and the foot of Mount Parthenium.105 He also notices those of Boeotia; 106 and in that country and Phocis we meet with the names Drymos, Drymia, Dryoscephalæ, etc. The beech does not appear to have been familiar to the Greeks; at all events its name, ğa, does not occur in their writings in the same way as the other forest trees: it was found on Pelion,107 but not in the same abundance as at present, for now it has driven out almost every other growth on the upper parts of that mountain. It is also plentiful in modern times on Pindus and Athos. The value of these forests for the timber they yielded was soon discovered Aristotle speaks of it in the Politics as an important article of export,108 and he also mentions Awgo or commissioners of woods and forests,109 who were appointed after a time in various states to see to the proper administration of them. There is no need for us to enter at greater length into the different kinds of forest trees;110 let us confine our attention to those trees, whether wild or cultivated, which had some special importance in ancient times. 107 Descriptio Montis Pelii, in the Geographi Græci Minores, ed. Müller, vol. i. p. 106. 108 iv. (vii.) 5, § 4. 109 vii. (vi.) 8, § 6. 110 For further information on this subject see Fiedler, Reise, i. 513, foll. trees ir The pine of the Isthmus must always have been Important famous from its connection with the Isthmian games. antiquity. On that occasion it composed the crown that was placed on the head of the victor, and this it is which St. Paul refers to when he says, writing to the neighbouring Corinthians, "Know ye not"-ye of all men may be expected to know-"that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize?"111 The feathery light-green foliage of this tree must have been formerly, as it still is, one of the most graceful features in Greek scenery. It is also a useful tree, for from it, as from the other pines, the resin is obtained which is mixed with the wine to preserve it : in passing through a forest you will often notice a slit in the bark, down which the resin exudes into a cup hollowed out in the trunk below. We have evidence that resin was put to the same use in ancient times, and this custom was believed to account for the presence of the pine-cone on the top of the thyrsus of Bacchus.112 But the most imposing of all the trees in Greece is the plane, which grows to an immense size, and in some districts is very abundant, especially in Euboea and in the valley of the Neda in Messenia. Pausanias speaks of the extraordinary growth of some that he had seen,113 and regards them as among the 111 1 Cor. ix. 24. 112 Pliny, xiv. 19, xxiii. 1. Plutarch, Symp. v. 3, 1 ; quoted by Mure, Tour in Greece, ii. 203. 113 vii. 22, § 1. |