Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/360

 352 THE VENETIAN REVIVAL IN GREECE July actually mooted, but the council decided to postpone that for the present, and to remove the Greek population, estimated at over 6,000, besides the Albanians, into the Morea and grant them lands in the new Venetian territory there as compensation for the loss of their old homes. A further council, held on 2 January 1688, decided, in view of the spread of the plague from the Morea to continental Greece and some of the islands, to hasten the departure of the Athenians, so as to remove the army, and in the meanwhile to organize a sanitary administration of the town. The decision to remove the Athenians filled them with dismay ; the ' elders ', the vecchiardi, as they were styled in Italian, in vain offered to contribute 20,000 reals and to maintain the garrison at their own cost, if they were allowed to remain and men were left to defend 'the castle '.* The plague and Turkish raids continued to harass the Venetians and the auxiliaries, while those mutual recriminations, usual among allies of various nationalities, so greatly disturbed the harmony of the expedi- tionary force that Morosini formed five companies of Albanians, who might enable him to dispense with his grumbling German troops. Koenigsmark on 30 January made another proposition, to leave a garrison of 300 men on the Akropolis with provisions for sixteen months, but Morosini calculated that this would involve the presence of another hundred servants, and that for all this force a large quantity of biscuit and wine would be needed. But the argument which weighed most with the decisive council of 12 February was the water-supply. The sixteen cisterns of the Akropolis, it was said, held water for only three months, and of these the great cistern under the Parthenon had probably been damaged by the explosion, and the still larger one in the theatre of Dionysos could easily be cut off, and the water-supply of ' the castle ' thereby reduced to what would suffice for only fifty days. It was, therefore, unanimously decided to leave intact, but to remove all the guns and munitions, trusting to Providence for its ultimate recapture. The council justified its resolve to abandon the place by stating that the only object of attacking Athens had been to push back the enemy from the neighbourhood of the isthmus of Corinth. Morosini determined, however, to carry off to Venice some memorial of Athens which could vie with the four bronze horses, taken thither after the capture of Constantinople. He ordered the removal from the western pediment of the Parthenon of the statue of Poseidon (whom Morosini thought to be Zeus) and the chariot of Victory (whom the Venetians mistook for Athene) ; but the recent explosion had disarranged the blocks of marble, ' Laborde, iL 90 ; Mateses apvd Sathtis, i. 216.
 * the castle ' of Athens for the present as it was, with its walls