http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27114/27114-h/27114-h.html#toc29
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GRECIAN STATES
The northern part of this country of the Hellenes is traversed
by a range of mountains, commencing at
Acra Ceraunia, on the Adriatic, and tending southeast
above Dodona, in Epirus, till they join the Cambunian
mountains, near Mount Olympus, which run along the coast
of the Ægean till they terminate in the southeastern part of
Thessaly, under the names of Ossa, Pelion, and Tisæus.
The great range of Pindus enters Greece at
the sources of the Peneus, where it crosses the Cambunian
mountains, and extends at first south, and then east to
the sea, nearly inclosing Thessaly,
Situated in the same parallels of latitude as Asia Minor,
and the south of Italy and Spain, Greece produced
wheat, barley, flax, wine, oil, in the earliest
times. The cultivation of the vine and the olive was peculiarly
careful. Barley cakes were more eaten than wheaten.
All vegetables and fish were abundant and cheap. But little
fresh meat was eaten. Corn also was imported in considerable
quantities by the maritime States in exchange for figs,
olives, and oil.
The largest and most northerly State was Epirus, containing
four thousand two hundred and sixty square
miles, bounded on the north by Macedonia, on the
east by Thessaly, on the south by Acarnania, and on
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the west by the Ionian Sea. Though mountainous, it
was fertile, and produced excellent cattle and horses.
Of the interesting places of Epirus, memorable in history,
ranks first Dodona, celebrated for its oracle, the most
ancient in Greece, and only inferior to that of Delphi.
It was founded by the Pelasgi before the Trojan war
Doris was a small tract to the east of Ætolia, inhabited by
one of the most ancient of the Greek tribes—the
Dorians, called so from Dorus, son of Deucalion,
and originally inhabited that part of Thessaly in which were
the mountains of Olympus and Ossa
Bœotia was the richest State in Greece, so far as fertility
of soil can make a State rich. It was bounded on
the north by the territory of the Locri, on the west
by Phocis, on the south by Attica, and on the east by the
Eubœan Sea. It contained about one thousand square
miles. Its inhabitants were famed for their stolidity, and
yet it furnished Hesiod, Pindar, Corinna, and Plutarch to the
immortal catalogue of names. Its men, if stupid, were brave,
and its women were handsome. It was originally inhabited
by barbarous tribes, all connected with the Leleges. In its
southwestern part was the famous Helicon, famed as the seat
of Apollo and the Muses, and on the southern border was
Mount Cithæron, to the north of which was Platea, where the
Persians were defeated by the confederate Greeks under
Pausanias. Bœotia contained the largest lake in Greece—Copaias,
famed for eels. On the borders of this lake was
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Coronea, where the Thebans were defeated by the Spartans.
To the north of Coronea was Chæronea, where was fought
the great battle with Philip, which subverted the liberties
of Greece. To the north of the river Æsopus, a sluggish
stream, was Thebes, the capital of Bœotia, founded by Cadmus,
whose great generals, Epaminondas and Pelopidas,
made it, for a time, one of the great powers of Greece.
Argolis was the eastern portion of the Peloponnesus,
watered by the Saronic Gulf, whose original inhabitants
were Pelasgi. It boasted of the cities of
Argos and Mycenæ, the former of which was the oldest city
of Greece. Agamemnon reigned at Mycenæ, the most powerful
of the kings of Greece during the Trojan war.
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