GREECE, besides the ordinary products of other European countries, yields in considerable quantities wine, olives, cotton, and the small grapes called Currants, (raisins de Corinte,) because shipped in the Corinthian Gulf, but grown chiefly in the Phliasian Plain near Argos. Of these, in the prepared state, above 8,000,000 lbs. are annually exported from Patras.

There were mines of silver at Laurium, and quarries of fine marble in Mount Pentelicus, both in Attica.

The population of modern Greece is estimated at 2,700,000 over a surface of 59,000 square miles, which is almost exactly the area of England. The ancient divisions of the Peloponnesus and Greece Proper, such as Attica, Boeotia, Laconia, &c. did not exceed in extent the middle-sized English counties.

Historical Epochs.-GREECE, during the earlier ages, had no common appellation. Of the names of tribes used in a sense more or less extensive by the poets, in imitation of Homer, such as Argivi, Pelasgi, Achivi, Danai, the last is perhaps the most ancient. HELLAS, (inhabitants Hellenes,) was at first the name of a district in Thessaly, (vid. Hoм. IL. II. 681.*) but by degrees acquired a more enlarged signification, so as to comprehend Græcia Propria and Thessaly, and sometimes Peloponnesus also; and at last, in a still wider and looser sense, Epirus, Acarnania, Macedonia, and even, but improperly, Illyricum and Thrace.

1. The first great epoch in the annals of Greece, is the long period of the Heroic and Homeric ages, amidst the fabulous obscurity of which there are a few prominent points of authentic history. Such, for example, are two events which were the principal means of civilizing Greece, the establishment of the Amphictyonic Council,-and the institution of the Olympic Games. The Council of the AMPHICTYONS, the earliest representative body of which we have any record, consisted of deputies from a number of small states, who met to settle disputes among themselves, and to consult for mutual defence against common enemies. They met twice a year at Anthēla, near Thermopyla; afterwards the vernal meeting was held at Delphi. The general meeting of the Greeks at OLYMPIA, every fifth year, was not less distinguished by the cele

* Yet Aristotle makes Hellas the district about Dodona and the river Achelous ; περι την Ελλαδα την αρχαίαν (αύτη δ' εστιν ἡ Δωδώνην και τον Αχελωον.)

περι την

bration of games and religious ceremonies, than by giving publicity to whatever it concerned the scattered members of the Greek nation to know-such as treaties between the several states. It thus supplied, in some degree, the want of a common capital, more particularly after the institution of the Delphian, Isthmian, and Nemean Games, all of which being celebrated also every fifth year, and no two the same year, secured a general festival every summer, accompanied with an armistice, which enabled all to attend who had a mind. These bonds of connection were farther strengthened by the early character for truth and sanctity acquired by the Oracle of Delphi, which linked all the Greeks together by the tie of a common temple and a common worship.

2. The second epoch comprehends-the rise of the Greek Republics—the mutual jealousies and petty warfare among the different states, which gave alternate supremacy to Athens and Lacedæmon-the two invasions of the Persians, that which led to the battle of Marathon, and that under Xerxes, which ended in the sea-fight of Salămis.-This period carries us down to the 83d Olympiad, b. C. 449, when Athens under Pericles reached the summit of her greatness and glory,—an era nearly contemporaneous with the fall of the Decemviri at Rome, and the establishment of the laws of the Twelve Tables, A. U. C. 302.

3. The third epoch, beginning with the golden age of Athens, includes the history of Greece down to the defeat and capture of the Athenian fleet at Egospotami, by Lysander the Lacedæmonian, b. C. 405. This includes the twenty-seven years of the Peloponnesian war.

4. A period of sixty-six years carries us from the demolition of the fortifications of Athens, and the establishment of the Thirty Tyrants, which followed the battle of Ægospotami, to the battle of Charonea in Boeotia, b. C. 338, which gave Philip of Macedon the command of Greece. This period comprehends the events that led to the peace of Antalcidas, b. C. 386; and the political rise of Thebes, and its short-lived pre-eminence in Greece, from the battle of Leuctra to that of Mantinea.

5. A fifth period extends from the battle of Charonea to the final submission of Greece to the Roman yoke, after the taking of Corinth by Mummius, A. U. 607, b. C. 146.

From this time Greece followed the fates of the Republic and Empire of Rome, till the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, A. D. 1453: and since then it has been in bondage to them till

the insurrection of 1820. Subsequent events have led to the establishment of a kingdom of Greece, comprehending the Peloponnesus and Græcia Propria, under a Prince of the House of Bavaria.

Antiquities. Some curious specimens of the colossal architecture called Cyclopian, much more ancient than the classical times of Greece, still remain at Mycenae, Argos, Tiryns, &c. : it is rude in its form and gigantic in its dimensions, and probably the work of the same people, who have left still more numerous and striking examples of it in Italy. Of the classical age, the remains are principally temples, and the most remarkable of these are in and about Athens.* On the Acropolis, are still to be found the ruins of the Propylaa, the Parthenon, or Temple of Minerva, that of Victory, the united Temples of Neptune Erectheus and Minerva Polias, built on the spot where the contest between Minerva and Neptune was supposed to have taken place; the Pandroseion, in honour of Pandrosos, daughter of Cecrops. On the plain below the Acropolis, the Temple of Theseus, Theseion; and near it, the comparatively modern arch of Hadrian, and the Temple of Jupiter Olympius, Olympicion, begun by Pisistratus, and dedicated 700 years after by the Emperor Hadrian.

In the topography of ancient Athens, the most remarkable points were, the Areopagus; the Pnyx, where the assemblies of the people were held; the Ceramicus, including the Agora or Forum; the Theatre of Bacchus; the Prytanēum; and, without the walls, the Schools of Philosophy, the Academia of Plato, Lyceum of Aristotle, and Cynosarges of Antisthenes and the Cynic sect,

* Exornata eo genere operum eximie terra Attica, et copiâ do

mestici marmoris, et ingeniis artificum.-Liv. xxxi. 26.

The party first named was victorious.