Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/124

 108 HISTORY OF GREECE. their superiority over other contemporary nations in this resped being hardly less striking than it is in many others, as we shall have occasion to see in a subsequent stage of this history. Even at the most advanced point of their tactics, the Greeks could effect little against a walled city, whilst the heroic weapons and array were still less available for such an undertaking as a siege. Fortifications are a feature of the age deserving conside- rable notice. There was a time, we are told, in which the prim- itive Greek towns or villages derived a precarious security, not from their walls, but merely from sites lofty and difficult of ac- cess. They were not built immediately upon the shore, or close upon any convenient landing-place, but at some distance inland, on a rock or elevation which could not be approached without notice or scaled without difficulty. It was thought sufficient at that time to guard against piratical or marauding surprise : but as the state of society became assured, as the chance of sudden assault comparatively diminished and industry increased, these uninviting abodes were exchanged for more convenient sites on the plain or declivity beneath ; or a portion of the latter was in- closed within larger boundaries and joined on to the original foundation, which thus became the Acropolis of the new town. Thebes, Athens, Argos, etc., belonged to the latter class of cities ; but there were in many parts of Greece deserted sites on hill- tops, still retaining, even in historical times, the traces of former habitation, and some of them still bearing the name of the old towns. Among the mountainous parts of Krete, in JEgina and Rhodes, in portions of Mount Ida and Parnassus, similar rem- nants might be perceived. 1 1 'H na^aiH noTiif in JEgino. (Herodot. vi. 88) ; 'Acrn,'7ru/.a<a in Saraus (Polyaen. i. 23. 2; Etymol. Magn. v. ' AarvmiZata) : it became seemingly the acropolis of the subsequent city. About the deserted sites in the lofty regions of KrOte, see Theophrastus, De Ventis, v. 13, ed. Schneider, p. 762. The site of Ha^aiaicrj^if in Mount Ida, kiravu Ke^prjvof KorH rb fiereu- porarov rf/f "Idrjf (Strabo, xiii. p. 607); iiarspov <5e Karurepu aradiotf %- KOVTa elf TTJV vvv Ztcfjipiv fj.eruKia-&tjaav. Paphos in Cyprus was the same distance below the ancient Palae-Paphos (Strabo, xiv. p. 683). Near Mantineia in Arcadia was situated opoc iv T> ;r(5i<j, TO, IpziTria In TAavriveiaf e%ov TJ?C dp^mac Kafalrai 6e ret ^wpiov kty rifiuv HroXtf (Pausan. riii 12, 4). See a sivkr statement about the lofty sites of the aiw'*^