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II.—Topography: § 2.—Taenarum and Southern Maina

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2013

Extract

Writing in the year 1817 Sir William Gell says: ‘The southern district of Maina has never been thoroughly explored by any English traveller except Leake.’ After nearly a century has elapsed this remark is still practically true. Pouqueville, Boblaye, and Le Bas have, among others, given us accounts of their travels in French. German research is represented by such names as Bursian, Curtius, Weil and Philippson, but with a single exception no account of the district has appeared in English since Leake's. The work in question was published in 1869, and is an edition of a selection from the diary kept by Lord Carnarvon on his travels in Maina and other parts of Greece, in the year 1839. References to archaeology are, however, few and far between in its pages, and it does not profess to aim at completeness, since Lord Carnarvon, who penetrated, it is true, as far as Taenarum, returned, as he went, by the track on the west coast, leaving the east coast of the peninsula unvisited.

Type
Laconia
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1907

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References

Page 238 note 1 Itinerary of the Morea, p. 238.

Page 238 note 2 I wish to record my thanks to the following for their hospitality and olher services: Professor Gregorakes of Gythium; Messrs. Prasitakos and Kyriakoulakos of Pyrgos, Perimenes of Geroliména, the light-house superintendent at Cape Matapan, the demarch of Lagia, Mr. Manolakos of Kótrones, and especially Mr. Stathios Malevrés of Kouloumi, who gave me much interesting information about the customs, traditions, and dialect, as well as the antiquities of his neighbourhood.

Page 239 note 1 See map: the coast-line and contours are taken from Philippson's map of the Peloponnesos.

Page 239 note 2 On Greek maps it appears as Πόρτο Καίο.

Page 240 note 1 Apud Pausanias, iii. p. 396.

Page 240 note 2 Der Peloponnes, i. p. 224.

Page 240 note 3 There is some doubt as to the origin of the name, which is given sometimes, incorrectly, I think, as Κακοβουνία, vide Leake, Peloponnesiaca, p. 171.

Page 240 note 4 B.S.A. x. p. 158.

Page 241 note 1 (a) Broken male torso life-size: local marble (white, with grey veins and patches); round dowel hole for head, r. arm missing, and J. arm below elbow; upper 1. arm covered with cloak hanging from shoulder in front and behind, roughly rendered in deep folds. From proportions and muscular type probably a Herakles, standing with the body inclined slightly to r. Surface much weathered by exposure, date probably 3rd century B.C. (b) Fragment of drapery, similar treatment in similar marble, badly damaged, possibly legs of standing female figure, life-size. Other fragments were of similar marble and even less recognisable.

Page 241 note 2 Itinéraire de l'Attique et du Péloponnèse, p. 343.

Page 243 note 1 Travels in the Morea, i. p. 287.

Page 243 note 2 viii. 5. 3.

Page 243 note 3 Loc. cit. i. p. 307.

Page 245 note 1 This identification is uncertain, no two writers agree on the point; Bursian puts the μέγαρον of Demeter here and the temple of Aphrodite on the top of the hill. Weil puts the latter at the church of τοῦ Σωτῆρος, which I could not find at all.

Page 246 note 1 Collitz-Bechtel, No. 4596.

Page 246 note 2 iii. 25. 9.

Page 247 note 1 viii. 5. 2.

Page 247 note 2 Periplus, c. 46.

Page 247 note 3 Frazer in his note on Pausanias iii. 25. 4, cites all the references and gives the correct identification.

Page 247 note 4 I was told on the spot that it is very little used now, and quite unsafe in westerly winds.

Page 248 note 1 s.v. τοῦ Σωτῆρος.

Page 248 note 2 Recherches, p. 89.

Page 248 note 3 I saw no complete painted vase: one, with neck missing, was a tall-necked, wide-bellied jug with ring foot, with yellow bands round the top of the shoulder and a design like an Irish harp in yellow on the shoulder, all on a fine matt-white slip. For these vases see Zahn's list in Wiegand-Schrader, Priene, pp. 399, 400. There is also one in the museum at Chalkis, and one in the Château Borély at Marseilles, both unnumbered. One striking sherd was of good black glaze with a white band across it and on this band a crimson maeander pattern. The unpainted ware, which predominated, was typical of Hellenistic sites.

Page 250 note 1 Strabo, viii. 5. 1.

Page 250 note 2 Pausanias, ii. 25. 4.

Page 250 note 3 Thucydides, i. 133.

Page 250 note 4 ii. 3. 49.

Page 250 note 5 Peloponnes, ii. p. 283. Leake, , op. cit. i. p. 297 Google Scholar, had come to the same conclusion.

Page 250 note 6 Ueber das Vorgebirge Tainaron, p. 777.

Page 251 note 1 Bull. dell' Inst. 1857, p. 155. Frazer (apud Pausanias, iii. 25. 4) has no authority for saying that one represented Arion.

Page 252 note 1 Loc. cit.

Page 252 note 2 Plutarch, De sera numinum vindicta, c. 17.

Page 253 note 1 iii. 25. 4.

Page 253 note 2 Bursian (op. cit.) discusses the problem whether these are the quarries alluded to in ancient writers; see also Philippson's geological note on them: Peloponnes, i. p. 267.

Page 253 note 3 Bibliography; Boblaye, Recherches, p. 89; Curtius, , Pelop. ii. p. 277 Google Scholar; Bursian, , Geog. ii. p. 149.Google Scholar Plans: Le Bas, Voyage archéologique, Architecture, II. i.-ii. (N.B. Apparently Curtius merely copies the account given by the French explorers.)

Page 257 note 1 The dimensions were: metope, ·13 m. wide; triglyph, ·14 m. wide, ·22 m. high, ·285 high from bottom of ‘guttae’ over all. The building this came from, whether it was the shrine of Issorian Artemis or not, must have been on an unusually small scale, for these measurements are very little more than half those of the entablature from the smaller temple at Kourno.

Page 258 note 1 I have not thought of trying to collect all references to Arion.

Page 265 note 1 I wish to thank Mr. M. N. Tod for much valuable assistance in the elucidation of this inscription.