Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/278

 262 MANTINEIA. Orchomenus and Caphyae on the N., and that of Tet:;ea and Pallantinm on the S. The distance be- tween Mantineia and Tegea is about 10 English miles in a direct line. The height of tlie plain where Mantineia stood is 2067 feet above the level of the sea. Owing to its situation, Slantineia was a place of great military importance, and its territory was the scene of many important battles, as has been already related. It stood upon the river Ophis, nearly in the centre of the plain of Tripolitzd as to length, and in one of the narrowest parts as to breadth. It was enclosed between two ranges of hills, on the E. and the W., running parallel to Jits. Artemisium and Maenalus respectively. The eastern hill was called At.esium ('AAt'jct-""', Paus. viii. 10. § 1), and between it and Artemisium lay the plain called by Pausanias (viii. 7. § 1) rh apyov treSiov, or the "Uncultivated Plain." (viii. 8. § 1.) The range of hills on the W. had no distinct name : between them and Jit. Maenalus there was also a plain called Alcimedon {' AKifx.e5wi', Paus. viii. 12. §2) . ., Mantineia was not only situated entirely in the plain, but nearly in its lowest part, as appears by the course of the waters. In the regularity of its forti- fications it differs from almost all other Greek cities of which there are remains, since very few other Greek cities stood so completely in a plain. It is now called PaleopoU. The circuit of the walls is entire, with the exception of a small .space on the N. and W. sides. In no place are there more than three courses of masonry existing above ground, and the height is so uniform that we may conclude that the remainder of the walls was constructed of unbaked bricks. The city had 9 or 10 gates, the approach to which was carefully defended. Along the walls there were towers at regular distances. Leake reckoned 118 towers, and says that the city was about 2|- miles in circumference ; but Ross makes the city considerably larger, giving 129 or 130 as the number of the towers, and from 28 to 30 stadia, or about 3j English miles, as the cir- cuit of the city. The walls of the city are surrounded by a ditch, through which the river Ophis flows. This stream is composed of several rivulets, of which the most important rises on Jlt. Alesium, on the E. side of the city : the different rivulets unite on the NW. side of the town, and flow westward into a katavothra. Before the capture of JIantineia by Agesipolis, the Ophis was made to flow through the city : and it is probable that all the water-courses of the surrounding plain were then collected into one channel above the city. Of the buildings in the in- terior of the city, described by Pausanias, few remains are left. Nearly in the centre of the city are the ruins of the theatre, of which the diameter was about 240 feet ; and west of the theatre, Ross observed the foundations of the temple of Aphrodite Sym- machia, which the Mantineians erected to com- memorate the share they had taken in the battle of Actium. (Paus. viii. 9. § 6.) The territory of Mantineia is frequently described by the ancient writers, from its having been so often the seat of war ; but it is difficult, and almost im- possible, to identify any of the localities of which we find mention, from the disappearance of the sanc- tuaries and monuments by which spots are indicated, and also from the nature of the plain, the topography of which must have been frequently altered by the change of the water-courses. On the latter subject a few words are necessary. The plain of Tripolitzd, MANTINEIA. of which Jlantinice formed part, is one of those valleys in Arcadia, which is so completely shut in by mountains, that the streams wdiich flow into it have no outlet except through the chasms in the moun- tains, called katavothra. [Arcadia.] The part of the plain, which formed the territory of Mantineia, is so complete a level, that there is not, in some parts, a sufficient slope to carry off the waters ; and the land would be overflowed, unless trenches were made to assist the course of the waters towards some one or other of the katavothra which nature has provided for their discharge. (Pol. si. 11.) Not only must the direction of these trenches have been sometimes changed, but even the course of the streams was sometimes altered, of which we have an interesting example in the history of the campaign of 418. It appears that the regulation of the moun- tain torrent on the frontiers of JIantinice and Tege- atis was a frequent subject of dispute and even of war between the two states ; and the one frequently inundated the territory of the other, as a means of annoyance. This was done in 418 by Agis, who let the waters over the plain of Mantineia (Thuc. v. 65). This river can only be the one called Ophis by the Geographers of the French Commission. It rises a little N. of Tegea, and after flowing through Tege- atis falls now into a katavothra north of the hill Scope. In general the whole plain of Mantineia bears a very different aspect from what it presented in antiqttity ; instead of the wood of oaks and cork- trees, described by Pausanias, there is now not a single tree to be found ; and no poet would now think of giving the epithet of " lovely " (Jpa-rnvri) to the naked plain, covered to a great extent with stagnant water, and shut in by gray treeless rocks. (Ross, Reisen im Peloponnes, p. 128.) About a mile N. of the ruins of Mantineia is an isolated hill called Gurtzuli; north of which again, also at the distance of about a mile, is another hill. The latter was probably the site of the ancient Man- tineia, and was therefore called Ptolis (IlrdAis) in the time of Pausanias (viii. 12. § 7). This appears to have been one of the five villages from the inha- bitants of which the city on the plain was peopled. There were several roads leading from Mantineia. Two of these roads led north of the city to Orchome- nus: the more easterly of the two passed by Ptolis, just mentioned, the fountain of Alalcomeiieia, and a de- serted village named Maer.v (Ma?f)a), 30 stadia from Ptolis ; the road on the west passed over Mt. Anchi- sia, on the northern slope of which was the temple of Artemis Hymnia, which formed the boundary be- tween Mantinice and Orchomenia. (Paus. viii. 12. §§ 5 — 9, comp. viii. 5. § 11.) A road led from Mantineia on the W. to Methy- drium. It passed through the plain Alcimedon, which was 30 stadia from the city, above which was Mount Ostraciua ; then by the fountain Cissa, and, at the distance of 40 stadia from the fountain, by the small place Petrosaca (J] TlirpoaaKa), which was on the confines of the Mantineian and Megalopolitan territories. (Paus. viii. 12. §§ 2- — 4.) Two roads led from Mantineia southwards, — the one SE. to Tegea, and the other SW. to Pallan- tinm. On the left of the road to Tegea, called Xenis (Hey(s) by Poly bins (xi. 11. § 5), just outside the gates of Mantineia, was the hippodrome, and a little further on the stadium, above which rose Mount Alesium : at the spot where the mountain cea>ed was the temple of Poseidon Hippius, whicTi was 7 stadia from the city, as we learn from Poly*