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Pylos and Sphacteria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Ronald M. Burrows
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Extract

In my first article on Pylos and Sphacteria I made the rash promise that in an early number of this Journal I would support my theories by documentary evidence. It is with shame that I realise that this is now two years ago. Various circumstances have delayed me. I have been unable to visit Greece again myself, and the friends who were kind enough to do the work for me were constantly baulked by the storminess of the place. Not only was it often impossible to set up a camera ὁπότε πνεῦμα ἐκ πόντου εἴη but even to reach Sphacteria at all. Of the Pylian boatmen, as I know from my own experience, it cannot be said that ἀφειδὴς ὁ κατάπλους καθέστηκε It is only as a patchwork of the results of three different expeditions that I am now in a position to publish a plan of the παλαιὸν ἔρυμα and a fairly complete collection of photographs. In the present article my business will be to act as showman to this series; I have little new to add, and, happily, no fresh opponent to meet. My collaborators have, I think, on practically every point on which they have expressed an opinion, given their support to my views.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 18 , November 1898 , pp. 147 - 159
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1898

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References

page 147 note 1 J.H.S. vol. xvi. pt. I. p. 55.

page 147 note 2 Mr. Lindsay's one exception is noticed p. 151. Mr. Bosanquet thinks Thucydides never visited the spot. For the extent to which I attach importance to this point, see C.R., Feb. 1897, p. 9.

page 147 note 3 The bibliography of the subject is as follows:—

(a) Athenaeum, April 11, 1896.

Paper read before the Hellenic Society by G. B. Grandy. Criticism by R. M. Burrows.

(b) J.H.S. vol. xvi. pt. I., April 1896. Articles by G. B. Grandy and R. M. Burrows.

(c) Classical Review, Nov. 1896. Criticism by G. B. Grandy.

(d) Classical Review, Feb. 1897. Answered by R. M. Burrows.

(e) Classical Review, April 1897. Further criticism by G. B. Grundy.

(f) Classical Review, Dec. 1897. Further criticism by G. B. Grundy.

A lucid, and to me very gratifying, summary of my position is contained in vol. v. of Mr.Frazer's, Pausanias, pp. 608–613Google Scholar. (Addendum to vol. iii.)

page 148 note 1 They may compare for instance J.H.S. vol. xvi. p. 47 line 6 with ibid. p. 42 line 29, C.R. Feb. 1897 p. 9 note 3 and C.R. April 1897 p. 158 bottom of first column and top of second.

page 148 note 2 Thuc. iv. 13, 3.

page 148 note 3 Cp. J.H.S. xvi. pt. I. pp. 17 and 25, C.R. Feb. 1897 p. 4 and C.R. April 1897 p. 157

page 148 note 4 It is possible that this groove was seen by de St. Vincent, Bory (Rélation, p. 147Google Scholar).

page 148 note 5 J.H.S. xvi. pt. I. p. 64.

page 148 note 6 Thuc. iv. 9, 2 and 3. 10, 4.

page 149 note 1 Thuc. iv. 12, 1.

page 149 note 2 See J.H.S. vol. xvi. pt. I. pl. II. and CR. Feb. 1897 p. 3.

page 149 note 3 J.H.S. vol. xvi. pt. I. p. 57. I shall often for clearness sake refer to the lettering of this plan.

page 149 note 4 J.H.S. vol. xvi. p. 64 and C.R. Feb. 1897, pp. 2, 3. See too Mr. Bosanquet's notes, infra.

page 149 note 5 C.R. April 1897 p. 156.

page 150 note 1 I have argued—C.R. Feb. 1897, p. 4—that the sand must have drifted to the S. E. corner before what we may call the West Centre of the Sand-Bar filled up, and that the present state of the two emissaries confirms this view. Mr.Grundy, —C.R. April, 1897, p. 157Google Scholar—answers that they are artificial. It would be more strictly accurate to say that they are weak points in the sand-bar, artificially turned into regular openings. Mr. Grundy himself gives the reason why they are where they are. It is because if made close under the cliffs they would become choked by the sand forming on the inner side of the Sikia Channel. This is what has actually happened, he proceeds to say, with the emissary marked on Plate VIII., Fig. 4, as running half way through the sandbank near the South-East corner of Pylos. His arguments are surely all for me. The causes which operate now may have operated then. None the less the movements of currents are an insecure basis for argument, and I am glad that my theory can, if necessary, dispense with it. See J.H.S. Vol. xvi. Pt. I. p 69.

It is scarcely necessary to remark that the wall attacked by the Peloponnesians after the armistice was not wall 1 at all, but that which the land army had from the very first attacked on the north. Mr.Grundy, (C.R. Dec. 1897, p. 448Google Scholar) should contrast Thuc. iv. 9, 2, 11, 2 and 23, 2, with iv. 13, 1. See also C.R. Feb. 1897, p. 4, col. 2, on τὸ κατὰ τὸν λιμένα τεῖχος

page 150 note 2 C.R. April, 1897, p. 158, cp. C.R. Feb. 1897, pp. 8 and 9. Though still feeling that the arguments against Mr. Grundy's revised theory are overwhelming, I grant that I spoke too strongly when I said he had not one argument for it. He has pointed out that the land forces would thus have been kept in touch with Sphacteria. See, however, J.H.S. Vol. xvi. pp. 74, 75. Sphacteria was safe so long as the Athenians could not anchor.

page 150 note 3 Prote was near enough for it to be quite clear if a fleet were making for it, even if the actual anchoring could not be seen.

page 150 note 4 It might also be argued that the time they could have had at their disposal for doing this was limited. For some part of the day immediately preceding the arrival of the Athenian fleet they were still attempting to effect a landing on the S.W. (Thuc. iv. 13, 1). For this they would not only need all their ships, but also a free passage through the Sikia Channel. Besides it is evidently part of a different policy.

page 151 note 1 Thuc. IV. 13, 3. See C.R. Feb. 1897, p. 9.

page 151 note 2 J.H.S. Vol. xvi. pp. 67, 68. See, however, Mr. Bosanquet's notes, infra.

page 151 note 3 C.R. Nov. 1896, p. 373.

page 151 note 4 C.R. Feb. 1897, p. 5.

page 151 note 5 It is only at this fall of the ground that there are the number of stones of Cyclopean size that can be seen in Fig 6.

page 151 note 6 J.H.S. Vol. xvi. Plate II., cp. ibid. p. 65.

page 151 note 7 Mr. Crowfoot sends me a note to say that he thinks he has rather underrated the bulge on the north-west corner of the wall round the summit. This agrees with my own remembrances of the subject. See my original plan, J.H.S. vol. xvi. pt. i. p. 57. On this point, and in regard to the position of the S. wall of the Hollow (p. 155), I have thought safest to leave the plan as Mr. Crowfoot made it.

page 153 note 1 See J.H.S. vol. xvi. pp. 58, 59; also Mr. Bosanquet's notes, infra.

page 154 note 1 Mr. Bosanquet did not see it, because he left his search for it to the end, when the weather became unfavourable.

page 155 note 1 For my argument that the Spartans must have held wall CC as well as wall BB, see J.H.S. vol. xvi. pt. 1, pp. 60, 61.

page 155 note 2 J.H.S. vol. xvi. pt. 1, pp. 61, 62; C.R. Feb. 1897, p. 2. Cp. C.R. April 1897, pp. 155, 156.

page 156 note 1 J.H.S. xvi. 66. Cf. Expéd. de Morée, Architecture i. p. 4, and Bory de St. Vincent, Rélation p. 154, cf. p. 63 and his plan, Pl. iv.

page 156 note 2 Vischer, , Erinnerungen u. Eindrücke aus Griechenland (1857), p. 438Google Scholar.

page 156 note 3 SirGell, W., Journey in the Morea, p. 5Google Scholar.

page 156 note 4 Leake, , Travels in the Morea i. p. 408Google Scholar.

page 157 note 1 Ath. Mitth. xiv. 132.

page 157 note 2 Randolph, , Present Stale of the Morea (1686), p. 25Google Scholar.