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The Topography of Boeotia and the Theories of M. Bérard1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2013

A. W. Gomme
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Extract

Ephoros remarked in his history that Boeotia was unique among Greek lands in having a coast well provided with harbours and fronting three seas, open to the West, the North, and the East, to Italy, Sicily, and Carthage, to Macedonia and the Euxine, and to Egypt, Cyprus, and the islands; and that it thus had ample opportunities for education, and was marked out by nature for rule over others. Strabo quotes this with approval, adding a remark of his own about the permanence of the success of the Romans due to the education they had received from contact with civilized countries: if only Boeotia had known how to educate her sons! The author of the Periplus which passes under the name of Skymnos of Chios (about 90 B.C.) says the same in almost the same words; and Stephanos of Byzantium repeats it.

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Research Article
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Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 18 , November 1912 , pp. 189 - 210
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1912

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References

page 189 note 2 Strabo, ix. 2. 1–2, pp. 400–1.

page 189 note 3 vv. 485–500.

page 189 note 4 s.v. Βοιωτία.

page 189 note 5 e.g. Tozer, , Selections from Strabo, p. 232Google Scholar (‘an excellent specimen of criticism applied to historical geography’); Tucker, , ed. Seven ag. Thebes, p. xiGoogle Scholar; Murray, , Rise of the Greek Epic,2 pp. 35–6Google Scholar (‘I suggest that these great fortress cities [Troy and Thebes] depended for their greatness entirely upon commerce’); cf. Cornford, , Thucydides Mythistoricus, pp. 32Google Scholar ff. Forchhammer, who knew the country, did not hold this view : ‘Boeotia, tribus maribus interposita, tamen portubus, qui quidem ex interioribus terrae partibus facilem praebeant accessum, minime excellit.’ —Topographia Thebarum, p. 6.

page 190 note 1 With regard to the theory of a Phoenician origin of the Kadmeans, cf. my article in J.H.S. xxxiii (1913)Google Scholar.

page 190 note 2 Les Phéniciens et l' Odyssée, i. p. 69Google Scholar.

page 190 note 3 Op. cit. pp. 78–79.

page 191 note 1 Leave out ‘ne … pas,’ and this sentence expresses clearly and exactly what I wish to suggest was the case with Boeotia.

page 191 note 2 pp. 224–6.

page 191 note 3 He names Ephoros among his authorities at the beginning of the work (vv. 109 ff.), and explicitly follows him in describing Greece proper (vv. 470–2). See Bunbury, Hist. Anc. Geogr. ii. p. 71Google Scholar (cf. i. p. 183, n. 6).

page 191 note 4 ‘The untrained historian,’ says ProfessorBury, (ed. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, Introd. p. xlvi)Google Scholar, ‘fails to recognize that nothing is added to the value of a statement by Widukind by its repetition by Thietmar or Ekkehard, and that a record in the continuation of Theophanes gains no further credibility from the fact that it likewise occurs in Cedrenus, Zonaras, or Glycas.’

page 191 note 5 This is one of the chief difficulties in the way of Bérard's explanation of a Phoenician Thebes (as in the case of Troy, Leaf, op. cit. p. 258): Why, when the conditions were similar, as Bérard recognizes, should the effects in prehistoric and classical times have been so different ?

page 192 note 1 He therefore says nothing about the Phocian ports, Krissa and Antikyra, as Bérard does; these would be important for trade, but would have nothing to do with Boeotian hegemony.

page 192 note 2 The idea that their ill-success was due to want of education may seem at first sight parallel to Isocrates' idea that the success of the Megarians was due to virtuous moderation, in which case it would equally well ‘illustrate the blindness of the Greeks to economic causes’ (Cornford, op. cit. p. 32), and this early Greek support for the modern idea of Boeotia as a centre of trade-routes, falls at once to the ground. But it is probable that Ephoros intended to give a much wider meaning to ἀγωγὴ καὶ παιδεία— as it were, a progressive as opposed to a provincial outlook generally.

page 192 note 3 At the head of his list of typical isthmic routes, M. Bérard (pp. 69–74, 233) places that from Eretria through Oropos and Dekeleia to Athens, of which we hear from Thucydides (vii. 27–8) and Herakleides (Descr. Gr., F.H.G. ii. p. 256Google Scholar): “Athènes, ville continentale, assise entre deux mers, avait en réalité deux ports, deux échelles, le Pirée sur la mer du Sud, Oropos sur la mer du Nord” (so too Cornford, op. cit. p. 33). But this does not mean that trade passed on through Oropos, Athens, and the Piraeus to other places; which would necessarily have been the case, had Attica been a real isthmus. This distinction is important. Goods for Athens from the North were landed at Oropos instead of being taken round Sunion by sea; goods from the South were landed at the Piraeus. But we do not hear that trade from Chalkis, intended for the South or West, passed overland through Attica by the Oropos-Piraeus route. So that when M. Bérard writes, ‘à travers l'isthme attique, les caravanes débarquées à Oropos viennent reprendre la mer au Pirée,’ these last words are an addition of his own, which begs the question and is not warranted by the ancient evidence. England also has ports on its three seas.

page 193 note 1 Leake, , Northern Greece ii. p. 220Google Scholar, accepted the more limited ideas of Ephoros.

page 193 note 2 I imagine he has not visited Boeotia, judging from the fact that he never gives the results of personal observation, but refers, before describing the country, ‘pour tout ceci’ to Herakleides, Pausanias, or Mr. Frazer (e.g. notes to pp. 69, 226, etc.). Cf. “M. Bérard, as I gather from his book, is not personally acquainted with the site of Troy, and his theory is evidently the product of the study.” Leaf, op. cit. p. 258.

page 194 note 1 Xen., Hell. v. 4. 16–8Google Scholar; vi. 4. 25–6; Bérard i. p. 232.

page 194 note 2 ix. 2. 3; Frazer ad loc.

page 194 note 3 Hell. v. 4. 14Google Scholar. There is a mule-track in use now from Aigosthena to Plataia : it climbs Kithairon, very steeply, in a north-easterly direction till it meets another track, and the rood from Vilia. It crosses the mountain high up (for some three hours above snow-level in winter-time) and descends not far from Kriekúki, whence it turns westwards to Kokla (by Plataia). It is seven to eight hours' journey. My guide told me there was a straighter path, which descended just above Kokla, but it was impassable on the day I was there (March, 1913) on account of the snow. Cf. Leake, , Northern Greece, ii. p. 334Google Scholar.

page 195 note 1 3rd ed. (1900), iv. pp. 80 ff.

page 196 note 1 Ancient Πεταλία (Strabo, x. 1. 2, p. 444).

page 196 note 2 M. Bérard himself notes the importance of these islands (omitting from his extracts from the ‘Sailing Directions’ the statement about the scarcity of water), and instances the voyage of Walpole from Sunion to Chalkis which took eight days; during which he took refuge at the islands, but after nine or ten hours was driven into the open sea again by contrary winds (pp. 186–7).

page 197 note 1 Med. Pilot,3 iv. pp. 326Google Scholar ff.

page 197 note 2 Sailing Directions, ed. 1852, p. 50Google Scholar.

page 197 note 3 Ibid. p. 51.

page 198 note 1 Sailing Directions, ed. 1852, p. 52Google Scholar.

page 199 note 1 As an instance of the dangers of the Euripos to ancient ships (and showing how passenger traffic, if not trade, in ancient as in modern times, kept to ‘routes de terre maxima et de navigations minima’), it may be noted that the embassy of the Hyperboreans to Delos travelled the length of Euboea by land (Hdt. iv, 33). Macan indeed in his note ad loc. says of this route from the centre of the Aegean to the North ‘up through Euboean waters (the Euripos) from Karystos to Malis;’ but it is clear that the journey was through Euboea by land: from the Maliac Gulf διαπορεύεσθαι ἐς Εῦβοιαν πόλιν τε ἐς πόλιν πέμπειν, μεχρὶ Καρύστου. τὸ δ᾿ ἀπὸ ταύτης, ἐκλιπεῖν᾿´Ανδρον Καρυστἴους γὰρ εῖναι τοὺς κομίζοντας ἐς Τῆνον Τηνίους δὲ ἐς Δῆλον

page 200 note 1 In early times the port of Thebes for Euboea seems to have been Aulis, not Chalkis (Hesiod, W. & D. 646–653). There are still traces of an ancient road by Aulis, Frazer, op. cit. v. p. 70.

page 200 note 2 Herakleides, , Descr. Gr. § 23Google Scholar (F.H.G. ii. p. 257Google Scholar) ὁδὸς πλαγία, ἁμαξήλατος δι' ἀγρῶν πορεία.

page 200 note 3 For these shafts, and the draining of the lake by the Minyans,‘see Kambanis, , B.C.H. xvi (1892) pp. 121Google Scholar ff., xvii. pp. 322 ff.; Curtius, , Gesamm. Abh. i. pp. 266Google Scholar ff.; Noack, , Ath. Mitt. xix. (1894) pp. 410–2Google Scholar; and esp. Philippson, , Der Kopaissee, Zeitschr. d. Berl. Ges. f. Erdkunde, xxix (1894), pp. 1–90Google Scholar.

page 200 note 4 That the Ἀθαμάντιον πεδίον was the bay at the N. E. end of the Kopais, and not the inlet S.W. of Akraiphnion, as is generally supposed (see Frazer, vol. v. p. 130–1), is shown by Pausanias (ix. 23. 5–24. 1). He is travelling (by the route here described) from Thebes to Larymna viâ Akraiphnion. Arrived at the latter town he says, προελθόντι ᾀπὸ τῆς πόλεως ἐν δεξιᾷ is the sanctuary of Apollo Ptoos; ὑπερβαλόντων δὲ τὸ ὄρος τὸ Πτῶον ἔστι . .Λάρυμνα . . . . ἐξ ᾿Ακραιφνίου δὲ ίόντι εὐθεῖαν ἐπὶ λίμνην τὴν Κηφισίδα . . πεδίον καλούμενόν ἐστιν ᾿Αθαμἀντιον. . . καὶ διαπλεύσαντί είσι Κῶπαι. Going from Akraiphnion to Larymna, you first travel northwards, then turn round sharply to the right over the shoulder of the mountain; if you continue straight on you descend to the Kopais and ultimately arrive at Kopai on the opposite shore. That Pausanias did not himself travel by this way to Kopai is shown by his failure to mention the fortress at Gla which he would have passed (cf. Ridder, de, B.C.H. xviii. p. 271Google Scholar, n, 2).

page 201 note 1 Those belts of green and fertile looking soil which Mr. Grundy's map, for instance, gives to Kopai and Aspledon, did not exist before the lake was drained.

page 202 note 1 A slightly shorter path from Atalanti leads up a gorge to the S.W. of that town and high over moors and hills—past a spring for the traveller—and down into the valley at the north end of the ‘street.’

page 203 note 1 Sailing Directions, ed. 1852, p. 31Google Scholar.

page 203 note 2 Medit. Pilot,3 iv. p. 426Google Scholar.

page 203 note 3 Ibid. p. 427–8. Cf. Bérard, i. pp. 430 ff.

page 203 note 4 Ibid. p. 428. Cf. Paus. ix. 32. 1 for the violent winds of this gulf.

page 203 note 5 See Paus. x. 5. 5; 36. 5. Frazer, v. pp. 222–33.

page 203 note 6 The route from Orchomenos was probably the same, especially as the Sacred Way to Delphi went by Livadia; but the easier, if longer, road would have been through Chaeroneia and Daulis, to join the other at the Schiste.

page 204 note 1 Paus. ix. 32. 2 πλέοντι δὲ ἐκ Κρευσίδος οὐκ ἄνω, παρὰ δὲ αὐτὴν Βοιωτίαν, πόλις ἐστὶν ἐν δεξιᾷ Θίσβη. πρῶτα μὲν ὔρος ἐστὶ πρὸς θαλάσση.τοῦτο δὲ ὐπερβαλόντα πεδίον σε ἐκδέξεται καὶ μετὰ τοῦτο ἄλλο ὔρος ἐν δὲ ταῖς ὑπωρείαις ἐστὶν ἡ πόλις.

page 204 note 2 See Skias, Παρνασσός, iv. (1900) pp. 114–139, with a map.

page 204 note 3 If Plataia ever had a harbour, it was probably that now called H. Vasilios, S.E. of Kreusis, to which a rough path over the mountains S. of the Oëroë leads. The olive groves here and at Kreusis (in the small valleys of arable land) belong now to the inhabitants of Kaparelli, a village not far from Leuktra, not to those of Kókla, the village near Plataia (Skias, loc. cit. p. 120).

page 205 note 1 Paus. ix. 32. 4; x. 37. 2; Frazer v p. 134. The inhabitants of Tipha were known as the best seamen in Boeotia: a poor honour, and they made a virtue of necessity. See Skias, op, cit. p. 116, n. 2.

page 205 note 2 Mr. Grundy in his map marks main straight roads between Pagai, Aigosthena, Kreusis, Tipha, Thisbe, Korsiai, Bulis, Antikyra, and Kirrha, all the way along this mountainous coast. Except between Antikyra and Kirrha, where the path is a fairly easy one and goes over some cultivated ground (through Desphina), there is not now, nor ever was, any sort of direct land connection between these places, other than the roughest of Greek mountain paths. Cf. Paus. x. 37. 2, on the way from Antikyra to Bulis— ἐξ ᾿Αντικύρας δι ᾿ ἠπείρου μὲν καὶ ἀρχήν ἐστιν οὐκ οῖδα οὔτω δύσβατα ὄρη καὶ τραχέα τὰ μεταξὺ ᾿Αντικύρας τέ ἐστι καὶ Βουλίδος ἐς δὲ τὸν λιμένα σταδίων ἐξ ᾿Αντικύρας ἐστὶνἑκατόν The same is not so true of the ports on the north-eastern coast. Oropos, Aulis, Chalkis, and Anthedon are not difficult to connect by road; nor Larymna, Halai, and Opus.

page 205 note 3 This is the principal reason why the trade of Livadiá, which used to go to Antikyra (Medit. Pilot 3 iii. p. 426Google Scholar), now goes to the Piraeus since the opening of the railway. It is not so much that the time taken is shorter, as that, once at the Piraeus, you are already at a centre of exchange. The inhabitants of Antikyra are now all agriculturists or fishermen; and the carefully engineered road which connected it with Distomo, and had more turns and bends in its short but steep course than any other road in Greece, is now falling in ruin; grass grows over it, and a bridge has broken down. The peasants of course prefer the steep mule-track mentioned above.

page 206 note 1 Geologically this is also true. Neumann-Partsch, , Physikalische Geographie v. Griechenland, pp. 174–6Google Scholar.

page 207 note 1 The only east coast harbour is Kyme, whence there is a long and circuitous road to Chalkis. No one who has watched the unloading of ships, by hand labour only, will imagine that any trader unloaded goods at Kyme, sent ‘caravans’ across Euboea, embarked his goods again at Eretria or Chalkis, unloaded them on the Boeotian shore, sent them across Boeotia, and then re-embarked them at Thisbe or Antikyra, all in order to avoid sailing as far as the isthmus of Corinth.

page 207 note 2 How far the Hellespont and the Pontus were open to traffic in the Mycenaean age, is very doubtful. M. Bérard assumes that the Phoenicians were there before the Milesians. See MrAllen's, T. W. remarks on this matter, J.H.S. xxx (1910) pp. 308, 319Google Scholar; and Leaf's Troy.

page 207 note 3 Thucydides (i. 13. 5) thought that in early times Corinth was only a link between two continents not between two seas; though according to Cornford (op. cit., p. 33) ‘this is a modern view; we naturally think of the isthmus as a land-link, “opening up a range of territory”; we travel along it by the railway which takes us from Patras, through Corinth, to Athens.’

page 208 note 1 Tradition perhaps supports this view of the comparative unimportance of this land-route in early times. Neither of the two great early invasions from the North into the Peloponnese, the Achaean and the Dorian, is said to have touched Boeotia. When the Boeotians of Thessaly made their conquest, they came for the sake of the land itself; they did not march through it on their way southwards.

page 208 note 2 ἔνθα Βοιωτῶν ἐν μεσογαίᾳ πόλις Μυκαλησσὸς ἦν Paus. i. 23. 3. This is said from the point of view of the sailor in the Euripos, which is significant. The language is similar to that used in the sailing hand-books of the time.

page 208 note 3 Thuc. vii. 29. 3 (ἀπροσδοκήτοις μὴ ἄν ποτέ τινας σφίσιν ἀπὸ θαλάσσης τ ο σ ο ῦ τ ο ν ἐ π α ν α ϐ ά ν τ α ς ἐ π ι θ έ σ θ α ι).

page 208 note 4 Hdt. viii. 1 (ἄπειροι τῆς ναυτικῆς ἐόντες); Thuc. iii. 54.4 (ἠπειρῶται ὄντες).

page 208 note 5 Pausanias (ix. 26. 2) gives a rationalistic form of the Sphinx-legend, according to which she led a pirate-band which landed at Anthedon and ravaged the Thebaid.

page 208 note 6 Ulrichs, (Reisen, ii. p. 258)Google Scholar suggested the lake of Harma (from Aelian) and the lake of Hyria (from Ovid). No earlier writer mentions it.

page 208 note 7 Paus. v. p. 62Google Scholar.

page 209 note 1 See Herakleides, , Descr. Graeciae, 6Google Scholar (F.H.G. ii. p. 256Google Scholar).

page 209 note 2 Those legends (of Nykteus and Lykos) which connect Hyria with Thebes suggest rather an early conquest of the latter by the former, than vice versâ.

page 209 note 3 See especially Eur., Phoen. 638Google Scholar ff; Theophr., , Hist. Plant, viii. 4. 4–5Google Scholar; Caus. Plant, iv. 9.1–6Google Scholar; Pliny, , Nat. Hist., xviii. 7. 12Google Scholar §§ 63, 65–6 (wheat); Herakleides, , Descr. Gr. 8–9Google Scholar (vines at Tanagra); Paus. ix. 28. I; Theophr., Hist. Plant, ix. 10. 3Google Scholar (the soil of Helikon.)

page 210 note 1 But some mid-European fruit-trees flourish that are unknown in the rest of Greece: Philippson, , Der Kopaissee, p. 78Google Scholar.

page 210 note 2 Now the Mavro-potamos: so-called both in ancient and modern times, according to Mr. Frazer (v. p. 193) ‘from the dark colour of its deep clear water, in contrast to the light-coloured and muddy water of the neighbouring Cephissus’—itself called Mavro-Nero; the names are often interchanged.

page 210 note 3 ix. p. 415.