Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/230

 214 HISTORY OF GREECE. the celebrated Pentelikus, abundant in marble quarries, consti- tutes its connecting link, to the south of Parnes with the chain from Kithaeron to Sunium. From the promontory of Antirrhion, the line of mountains crosses into Peloponnesus, and stretches in a southerly direction down to the extremity of the peninsula called Taenarus, now Cape Matapan. Forming the boundary between Elis with Mes- senia on one side, and Arcadia with Laconia on the other, it bears the successive names of Olenus, Panachaikus, Pholoe, Erymanthus, Lykaeus, Parrhasius, and Taygetus. Another series of mountains strikes off from Kithaeron towards the south-west, constituting, under the names of Geraneia and Oneia, the rugged and lofty Isthmus of Corinth, and then spreading itself into Peloponnesus. On entering that peninsula, one of its branches tends westward along the north of Arkadia, comprising the Akrokorinthus, or citadel of Corinth, the high peak of Kyllene, the mountains of Aroanii and Lampeia, and ultimately joining Erymanthus and Pholoe, while the other branch strikes south- ward towards the south-eastern cape of Peloponnesus, the for midable Cape Malea, or St. Angelo, and exhibits itself under the successive names of Apesas, Artemisium, Parfhenium, Parnon, Thornax, and Zarex. From the eastern extremity of Olympus, in a direction rather to the eastward of south, stretches the range of mountains first called Ossa, and afterwards Pelion, down to the south-eastern corner of Thessaly. The long, lofty, and naked back-bone of the island of Eubcca, may be viewed as a continuance both of this chain and of the chain of Othrys : the line is farther prolonged by a series of islands in the Archipelago, Andros, Tenos, Myk- onos, and Naxos, belonging to the group called the Cyclades, or islands encircling the sacred centre of Delos. Of these Cyclades, others are in like manner a continuance of the chain which reaches to Cape Sunium, Keos, Kythnos, Seriphos, and Siphnos join on to Attica, as Andros does to Eubcea. And we might even con- eider the great island of Krete a? a prolongation of the system of mountains which breasts the winds and waves at Cape Malea, the island of Kythera forming the intermediate link between them. Skiathus, Skopelu?, and Skyrus, to the -north-east of Eubcca, also