LXXX. THE PLAIN OF CHAERONEA.—The plain of Chaeronea—one of the largest plains in Greece—stretches in an unbroken sweep from the foot of Mount Parnassus eastward to what used to be the Copaic Lake. Its length from east to west is about twelve miles, and its breadth from north to south about two. The plain is a dead flat, covered with fields of cotton and maize, and enclosed by bare, stony, barren hills both on the north and on the south. Seen on a bright summer day, with the mountains beyond the Copaic plain appearing blue in the distance and Parnassus towering grandly on the west, the scene is beautiful enough; but on a grey November morning, with the mists down on the distant mountains, it wears a cheerless aspect that well becomes a battlefield where a nation’s freedom was lost.
LXXXI. PANOPEUS.—The space enclosed by the fortification walls and by the rocky crests shows but few signs of habitation. On the highest point of the hill, among some holly-oaks, are the scanty tumble-down ruins of a mediaeval tower, built in the usual way of small stones with bricks and mortar in the chinks. A little lower down, and farther to the east, is a small chapel with remains of faded paintings on the walls. Scattered about the hill, especially round the chapel, is a good deal of broken pottery. A fine grove of beautiful holly-oaks now shades part of the summit, growing on a grassy slope amid low plants and shrubs. It is pleasant in the heat of the day to rest in the shade of these trees, to smell the wild thyme which grows abundantly on the hill, and to enjoy the distant prospects. To the north, across the broad Chaeronean plain, we look straight into the defile through which the Cephisus flows from Phocis into Boeotia; at the northern end of the defile the low hill is visible on which are the scanty ruins of Parapotamii. To the west Parnassus lifts his mighty head at no great distance from us, his middle slopes darkened by pine-forests that look like the shadows of clouds resting on the mountain-side.
LXXXII. NEAR HYAMPOLIS.—From the ledge of rocks which bounds the plateau on the south, near a ruined chapel, a spring of beautifully clear water gushes forth. Some ancient blocks lie tumbled about the spring, and a tall poplar-tree grows opposite it. The day was very hot when I passed it on my way to and from the ruins of Hyampolis; but the leaves of the poplar rustled in the breeze, and the water flowed from under the rocks with a soothing murmur. Parnassus loomed dim in the distance through a haze of heat. On my return from the ruins I found a shepherd boy at the spring who offered to share his bread with me. This picturesque spot, on which a poet of the Anthology might have written an epigram, is perhaps the site of the temple of Artemis mentioned by Pausanias.
