Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 2.djvu/79

 820 ELIS. became subject to Some. The Olympic games, how- ever, still 8«cared to the Eleians a measm^ of proe- peritj; and, in consequence o£ them, the emperor Jnlum exempted the whole ooimtiy from the pay- ment of taxes. (Julian, Ep. 35.) In a. d. 394 the festival was abolished by Theodoeins, and two yean afterwards the country was laid waste with fire and sword by Alarie. In the middle ages Elis again became a countiy of some importance. The French knights at Parrot in- vaded the valley of the Penelos, wluare they established themselves with hardly any lesistanoa Like Oxylus and his Aetdian followers, William of Champlitte took ap his residence at AndrtAida^ in a fertile ' district on the right bank of the Feneius. Gottfried of Wlehardonin built (r&ireMBa, which became the most important sea-port upon the western coast of Greece; under his successors Cautro Tome$e was built as the citadd of Gtarenta, Gastftni and 'Santam^ri were also founded about the same period. Elis afterwards passed into the hands of the Ye. netians, under whom it continued to flourish, and who gave to the western province of the Marea the name of Bekwkre, from the citadel of Elis. It was owing to the fertility of the plain of the Peneius that the Venetians called the province of Beifedere the milk-cow of the Morea. But the country has now lost all its former prosperity. J^fr^oi is the only place of any importance; and in consequence of the malaria, tbe coast is becoming almost uninhabited. (Cnrtius, Fekpoimetosj voL iL p. 16, seq.) in. Thb Citt of EiJB. The podtion of the city of Elis was the best that could have been chosen for the ua]Mtal of the country. Just before the Peneius emerges from the hilb into the pUun, the valley of the river is contracted on the south by a projecting hill of a peaked form, and nearly 500 f^ in hdght This hill was the acro- . polls of Elis, and commanded as well the narrow valley of the Peneius as the open plain beyond. It is now called Kaiotkoplf which the Venetians trans- lated into Belvedere, The ancient city lay at the foot of the hill, and extended across the river, as Strabo says that the Peneius flowed through the dty (viii. p. 337); but since no remains are now found on the right or northern bank, it is prbbable that all the public buildings were on the left bank of the river, more especially as Pausanias does not make any alluaon to the river in his description of the city. On the site of the ancient dty there are two or three small villages, which bear the common name €£PahipolL Elis is mentioned as a town of the Epeii by Homer '(TL iL 615); but in the earliest times the two chief towns in the country appear to have been Ephyra, the residence of Augeias, in the interior, and Bu- prasium on the coast Some writere suppose that Ephyra was the more ancient name of EUs, but it appears to have been a diflbrent place, situated upon the Ladon. [Buprasiuii ; Ephtra.] Elis first became a pUce of importance upon the invasion of Peloponnesus by the Dorians. Oxylus and his Ae- tolian followere appear to have settled on the height of Kahtkopi as the spot best adapted for ruling the conntiy. From this time it was the residence of the kings, and of the aristocratical fiunilies who governed the country after the abolition of royalty. Elis was the only fbrtifled town in the country; the rest of the inhabitants dwelt in nnwalled villages, paying obedience to the ruling chus at Elit. ELU. Soon after the Perrian wars tbe «xdnaivs pshi^ leges of the aristocratical ftmiliea in EUs vera abolished, and a democratical goveroment wtahlt^hedi Along with this revolution a great change took phei in the dty of Elis. The dty appears to have bea originally confined to the acropdis; but the inha- bitants oif many separate townships, eight aocanding to Strabo, now removed to the capital, and built round the acropolis a new dty, which they left qd- defended by walls, relying upon the sanctity of thdr ooontry. (Diod. xi. 54; Strmb. viu. p. 336; Xeo. HelL iii. 2. § 27.) At tiie same time the Eldau were divided into a certain number of local tribes; or if the latter existed before, they now acquind fir the first time political righU. The Hdkmodicae, « presidents of the Olympic games, who had Ibnnsriy been taken from the aristocratical familiea, wen noir appdnted, by lot, one from each of the local tribes; and the fluctuating number of the HeUanodicae shom the increase and decrease from time to time of the Eleian territory. It is probable that each of the tiiree districts into which Elis was divided,— ^Hollow Elis, Pijtatis, and Triphylia, — contained four tribes This is in aoconlance with the fourfold andent diri* don of Hollow Elis, and with the twice (bur town* ships in the Pisatis. Pausanias in his acooont of the number of the Helhuiodicae says that there nen 12 Helhmodicae in OL 103, which wu immedialdy after the battie of Leuctn, when the Eleians leco- vered for a short time their andent dominions, but that bdng shortly afterwards deprived of Triphylia by the Arcadians, the number of their tribes was reduced to eicrht. (Pans. v. 9. §§ 5, 6; for details see K. 0. MQller, Vie Phglem wmEiieundFim, in Riemieehee Muteum^ fbr 1834, p. 167, seq.)- When Pausanias vidted Elis, it was one of the most populous and splendid dtiea of Greece. At present nothing of it remains except some masses of tile and mortar, several wrought bfecka of stone and fragments of sculpture, and a square building about 20 feet on the outside, which within ia in & fbnn of an octagon with niches. With such scanty nmams it would be imposdble to attempt any nconstructkm of the dty, and to assign to particnkr dtes the buildings mentioned by Pausanias (vi. 23 — ^26). Strabo says (viiL pw 337) that tiie gymnashm stood on the nde of the river Pendua; and it is pro- bable that the gymnannm and agon occupied the greater part of the space betweoi the river and the dtadel. The gymnadum was a vast indosure surrounded by a waU. It waa by fiff tbe bugest gymnasium in Greece, which is accounted for by the fibct that all the athletae in the Olympic games were obliged to undergo a month's previona tnunmg in the gymnasium at Elis. The indosure bore the general name of Xystua, and within it there were special places destined for the runners, and aeparsted from one another by plane-trees. The gymnadum contained three subdirisions, called respectively Plethrium, Tetragonnm, and llalco: the first so called from its dimendoos, the second from iti shape, and the third firom the softness of the sdL Inthe Maloo was the senate-house of the Eleians, called Lalichium from the name of its foonden: it was also used for literary exhibitiooB. The gymnadum had two prindpal eDtnnees, one leading by the street called Slope or Silence to the baths, and the other above the oenotaph of Achilles to the agora and the HeUanodicaeum. The agon was also called the hippodrome, becanse it was used for the exercisft of hones. ItwasbuUtintheancieiil