Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/227

 HISTORY OF GREECE. PART II. HISTORICAL GREECE. CHAPTER I. GENERAL GEOGRAPHY AND LIMITS OF GREECE. GREECE Proper lies between the 3Gth and 40th parallels of north latitude, and between the 21st and 26th degrees of east longitude. Its greatest length, from Mount Olympus to Cape Tsenarus, may be stated at 250 English miles ; its greatest breadth, from the western coast of Akarnania to Marathon in Attica, at 180 miles ; and the distance eastward from Ambrakia across Pindus to the Magnesian mountain Homole and the mouth of the Peneius is about 1 20 miles. Altogether, its area is somewhat less than that of Portugal. 1 In regard, however, to all attempts at determining the exact limits of Greece proper, we may remark, first, that these limits seem not to have been very precisely defined even among the Greeks themselves ; and next, that so large a proportion of the Hellens were distributed among islands and colonies, and so much of their influence upon the world in general produced through their colonies, as to 1 Compare Strong, Statistics of the Kingdom of Greece, p. 2 ; and Kruse, Hellas, vol. i. ch. 3, p. 1 96.