Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 2.djvu/270

 GBAECIA. The nuon why the Romans gsre to Hollas the name of Groeda^ and to the Hellenee the name of GnuKij cannot be asoertained; bat it is a well-known fiust that a people are f reqnoitlj called by fbreignen by a name diffiuent from the one in use among them- flelves. Thus, the people called Etruscans or Tuscans by the Romans, and Tyrrhenians or Tyrsenians by the Greeks, bore the name of Rasena among them- selves; and the different names given to tibe Ger- mans in their own conntiy and among foreignsn snpplies a parallel instance in modem times. The wofd Grtmci first oocors in AristoUe, who states that the most ancient Hellas lay about Dodona and the Achelous, and that this ^strict was inhabited by the Selli, and by the people then called Qraeci Imt now Hellenes. (Aristot. Meteor* L 14.) The Selli are mentioned in the Iliad as the ministers of the Dodonaean Zeus. (Horn. IL xvi. 234.) By Fin- dar they were called Belli; and Hesiod spoke of the ooootry about Dodona under the name of Hellopia. (Strab. vii. pi 828.) We do not know what au- thority Aristocle had for his statemoit; but it was in (^position to the general opinion of the Greeks, who supposed the original abode of the Achaeans to have been in the Achaean Phthiotis, between Mounts Othrys and Oeta. According to another authority, Graecus was a son of Thenalus. (Steph. B. s. 9. rp€UK6s.) In consequence of the statement of Ari- stotle it has been inferred that the name of Graeci was at one period widely spread on the western coast, and hence became the one by which the inhabitants were first known to the Italians on the oppoeite side of the Ionian sea. (Thirlwall, vol. L p. 82.) After the conquest of Greece by the Romans the country was leduoed into the form of a province, under the name of Aekaiaj and did not bear the name of Gneda in official language. [Achaia, p. 17.] n. SXTUATIOir, BOUHOABIES, AND SxZE. Hellas is the southern portion of the most easterly of the three great peninsulas which extend firom the south of Europe into the Mediterranean sea. These peninsulas are very difierent in form. Spain is an irr^ular quadrangle, possessing very little of the character of a peninsula, except in its northern part, where it is united by an isthmus to the rest of Eu- rope. Italy does not commence with an isthmus, but projects from the continent in the shape of a long tongue of land, down which runs from north to south the back-bone of the Apennines, dividing it into two nearly equal parts. The most easterly of the three peninsulas commences with so large a breadth of country that one is hardly disposed to recognise at first its peninsular shape; but as it proceeds to the south it gradually assumes the form of a triangle. The base extends from the top of the Adriatic to the moutlis of the Danube; and the two sides of the triangle are broken into a number of bays and gulfs, which form a series of peninsulas, the last and most perfect being the peninsula of Peloponnesus. The great peninsula to which Hellas belongs is shut off from the rest of Europe by the lofty range of the Balhan MomUaxne^ known in ancient times by the names of Haemus, Soomius, and the Illyrian Alps, which extend along the base of the triangle from the Euxine to the Adriatic. South of these mountains dwelt the various Thracian, Macedonian, and Illyrian tribes; but these formed no part of Hellas, though many modem geographere have designated their country by the name of Nurthem Greece, and have given to Hellas Proper the name of Middle or GRAECIA. 1011 Central Greece. But Hellas Proper begins only at the 40th degree of latitude; and, indudmg Epeinis under this name for the sake of convenience, is se- parated from Maoedonia and Hlyria by a weU-defined boundary. At the 40th degree of latitude the pen- insula is traversed from east to west by a chain of mountains, commencing at the gulf of Therma, in the A^aean sea, and terminating at the Acrocerau- nian^promontory, on the Adriatic. This chain was known in its eastern half by the names of Olympus and the Cambunian mountains, and in its western by that of Mount Lingon. On every oUier side Hellas was washed by the sea. At that period in the history of the world when the Mediterranean was the great highway of commerce and dvilisatiooi no position could be more favourable than that of Hellas. It is separated from Asia by a sea, studded with islands vrithin sight of one another, which even in the infancy of navigation seemed to allure the timid mariner firem shore to shore, and rendered the inter* course easy between Hdlas and the East Towards the south it faces one of the most fertile portions of Africa; and on the west it is divided fran Italy by a narrow channd, which in some parts does not ex- ceed 40 geographical miles in breadth. An account of the seas which wash the Gredan coasts is given under thdr respective names. It is only necessary to mention here that the sea on the eastern dde bore the geneml name of the Aegean, of which the southern portion was called the Cretan; that the sea at the southern end of the Pdoponneeus was called the Libyan; and that the sea on the western dde of Greece usually bote the name of the Ionian, of which the northern extremity was called the Adriatic gulf, while its southern end oppodte Sicily was frequently named after that island. [ Aboabum Mark; lomux Marb; Adbiatioum Mare.] Hellas, which commences at the fortieth degree of latitude, does not extend further than the thirty - dxth. It is well remarked by Thirlwall, that in one respect Greece stands in the same relation to the rest of Europe that Eibope does to the other conti- nents, — in the great range of its coast compared with the extent of its sur£ue; so that, while its surfisoe is condderably less than that of Portugal, its coast exceeds that of Spain and Portugal put to- gether. Its greatest length, from Mount Olympus to Cape Taenarus, is not more than 250 English miles; its greatest breadth, from the western coast of Acer- nania to Marathon in Attica, is about 180 miles; and the distance eastward from Ambracia across the Pindus to the mouth of the Pendus is d)out 120 miles. (Grote, vol. ii. p^ 302.) Its area, as calcu- lated by Clinton from Arrowsmith's map, exdudve of Epdrus, but including Euboea, is only 21,121 square English miles, of which Thessaly contains 5674 miles, the central prorinces 6288 miles, Euboea 1410 miles, and Peloponnesus 7779 miles. (Clin- ton, F, H, vol. ii. p. 385.) The small extent of the surfiu» of Greece wiU be more fully realised by recoU lecting the area of some of the smaller states of modem Europe, — Portugal containing 36,268 square English miles, the kingdom of Naples 31,350, and the kingdom of Sardmia 29,102. When it is further recollected that the small area of Hellas was sub- divided among a number of independent states, >— Attica, for example, containing only 720 miles,— the contrast is striking between the grandeur of the deeds of the people and the inc<»)siderable spot of earth on which they were performed. (Comp. A. P» Stanley, in Classical Museum^ vol. i. p. 50.) 3t2