The rivers of Greece, flowing within a narrow ter ritory, are much inferior in size even to the larger branches of the Danube. They may be fitly com pared with those of Great Britain for the length of their courses and the quantity of water they convey. The classical rivers, however, which are chiefly in the south, are generally mere brooks, such as would find a place only in a county map. The largest rivers in are the Axius, now the Vardar, in Macedonia ; the Drinius, now the Drino, in Northern Albania; the Peneus, now the Salympria, in Thessaly ; the Achelous, now the Aspropotamo, in /Etolia ; the Alpheus, now the Roufia, and Eurotas, now Va silipotamo, in the Mores. These and some others have permanent streams ; but the greater number are mere mountain torrents, short, but rapid in their courses, and dry in summer.
The general aspect of Greece is characterized by a very singular distribution of its mountains. These' are usually neither placed in parallel chains, nor in massive groups, but are so disposed as to enclose ex tensive tracts of land, which assume the appearance of large basins or circular hollows. The bottom of these basins consists of an alluvial plain of the rich est soil, and level as the ocean ; through which some times rise steep insulated rocks like the summits of vast natural columns. Nature had thus marked out the country into a number of distinct districts admir ably calculated to become the seats of small commu nities. The plain, with its rich alluvial soil, furnish ed subsistence for a dense population ; the insulated rock became the Acropolis or citadel of the chief town, a place of refuge in war ; and the surrounding mountains were barriers against invasion. In pro portion as access from without was difficult, internal communication was rapid and easy. A crowded population, dispersed over the sides and the area of this natural amphitheatre, lived, as it were, in the continual presence of one another. Their country,--a word of undefined import in large empires, conveyed to them as distinct an idea as that of their own homes. Its whole landscape, with its trophies, temples, monuments, and fields of renown, were constantly under their eyes. Their patriotism, concentrated within this narrow sphere,—attached to visible ob jects by early and habitual associations,—kept alive by frequent struggles with neighbouring communi ties, for independence or glory, and still more by the proud sense of individual importance, inspired by their republican institutions,—was not, as in larger empires, a vague and languid feeling, but an ardent and steady passion, of which nothing in the modern world can give us an adequate idea. The same cir cumstances had an influence on their political con dition. Conquest, which forces nations of different habits, characters, and languages, into combination, is the great parent of slavery. In such heteroge
neous masses union becomes impossible. The des pot, glittering in barbaric pomp, and surrounded by foreign guards, appears in his subject provinces like a being of another order, not to collect the senti ments, or redress the wrongs of the people, but to silence all complaints, and enforce obedience to his own lordly will. Though hated by all his subjects, he can still employ the wealth and the physical force of one nation to trample on the rights of another, and is thus able to hold the whole in slavery. But the small Greek communities, protected by the bar riers of their gulfs and mountains, escaped this evil destiny. The people, united by identity of man ners and language, by common interests, and conti nual communication, could combine with the ut most facility to resist the first encroachments of their rulers. They were able to apply freely the lights of reason to all their common concerns, to model their government according to their circumstances their views of common interest, and to make the end for which it existed, the measure of the powers bestowed upon it. The forms of government they adopted, though not contrived by absolute wis dom, were probably in principle better adapted to -their situation than any other that could have been suggested. And never did the powers of the hu man mind display themselves with such energy and grandeur under any other system in the history of the human race. (Clarke, III. 97, and VII. 69.) Of the plains we have mentioned, some terminate in the ocean, and seem to owe their existence to the retiring of the waters. Such are those of Macedo tria, Athens, Argos, Laconia, Messenia, and Ambra via. Others are completely surrounded by a ram part of mountains or high grounds, except at a single point where the waters have found or forced a pas sage. Of this description are the three remarkable of Thessaly, Bceotia, and Arcadia. Each of these forcibly suggest the idea of a vast inland lake, where the waters accumulating for a long period, had at length burst through the barrier that confined them, and left the bottom dry. There is also an ana logy between these willies and some of the inland seas of Greece, such as the Gulfs of Corinth, Arta, Volo, and the Channel of Negropont, which are marine lakes completely land-locked, and communi cating with the Mediterranean by a single passage, which may at one period have been closed. It may even be conceived that the Archipelago itself, at one period, was completely shut in by a barrier of high lands, of which Cerigo, Crete, Scarpanto, and Rhodes, are portions or fragments ; and that its numerous isles are either the summits of mountains which then diversified its surface, or of detached rocks like those of Meteors in Thessaly, which have resisted the in cessant action of the waters.