DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9840#0285
XIV.]
NOT NEAR THE SITE OF ARCADIA.
231
tiful and the richest convent of the island," at least
fifty miles west of Cnossos, than he takes it for all that
remains of the ancient city of which, as it appeared to
him, it had preserved the name. Sieber, too, thinks
that " without all doubt" that monastery occupies the
site of the ancient city3. This supposition is too absurd
to need any refutation; and nothing but the far superior
scholarship of the learned author of the " Description
of Ancient Greece" would induce me to detain my reader
with an examination of a point, on which his views are
almost as untenable and ungrounded as those of Tourne-
fort and Sieber.
It will be very easy to shew that Arcadia must have
been somewhere in the modern eparkhia of Mirabello,
or on its confines in the direction of Rhizdkastro or
Hierapetra. I have already mentioned the evidence of
the Peutinger Table. We know, moreover, from Pliny4,
that Arcadia was in a district abounding in rivers and
fountains, a description which cannot be applied to the
country near Arkadhi, but is applicable to many parts
of the mountains about Lassithi, and to the whole of
Rhizdkastro. Lastly, the diocese of the Greek bishop
of Arkadhia5 does not approach this village of Arkadhi,
but contains the district of Rhizdkastro, and borders on
the mountains of Lassithi and Mirabello. More might
be said about Arcadia, but while in this village we are
on ground so far distant from the probable site of that
ancient city, that it seems undesirable now to dwell any
longer on the question.
We leave Arkadhi at half-past ten, and, after
winding round a chain of hills, which run nearly east
and west, and cut off Juktas from our view, we ar-
rive at the village of Galene, where we are still in the
eparkhia of Temenos, and are said to be three miles
3 Sieber's Reise nach der Insel Kreta, Vol. n. p. 203. " Arcadia—ohnc
alien Zweifel auf der quellenreichen erhabenen Flaeche des Klosters Arcadi
am Fusse des Berges Ida."
4 Pliny, N. H. xxxi. 30, 5 See above, p. 206.
NOT NEAR THE SITE OF ARCADIA.
231
tiful and the richest convent of the island," at least
fifty miles west of Cnossos, than he takes it for all that
remains of the ancient city of which, as it appeared to
him, it had preserved the name. Sieber, too, thinks
that " without all doubt" that monastery occupies the
site of the ancient city3. This supposition is too absurd
to need any refutation; and nothing but the far superior
scholarship of the learned author of the " Description
of Ancient Greece" would induce me to detain my reader
with an examination of a point, on which his views are
almost as untenable and ungrounded as those of Tourne-
fort and Sieber.
It will be very easy to shew that Arcadia must have
been somewhere in the modern eparkhia of Mirabello,
or on its confines in the direction of Rhizdkastro or
Hierapetra. I have already mentioned the evidence of
the Peutinger Table. We know, moreover, from Pliny4,
that Arcadia was in a district abounding in rivers and
fountains, a description which cannot be applied to the
country near Arkadhi, but is applicable to many parts
of the mountains about Lassithi, and to the whole of
Rhizdkastro. Lastly, the diocese of the Greek bishop
of Arkadhia5 does not approach this village of Arkadhi,
but contains the district of Rhizdkastro, and borders on
the mountains of Lassithi and Mirabello. More might
be said about Arcadia, but while in this village we are
on ground so far distant from the probable site of that
ancient city, that it seems undesirable now to dwell any
longer on the question.
We leave Arkadhi at half-past ten, and, after
winding round a chain of hills, which run nearly east
and west, and cut off Juktas from our view, we ar-
rive at the village of Galene, where we are still in the
eparkhia of Temenos, and are said to be three miles
3 Sieber's Reise nach der Insel Kreta, Vol. n. p. 203. " Arcadia—ohnc
alien Zweifel auf der quellenreichen erhabenen Flaeche des Klosters Arcadi
am Fusse des Berges Ida."
4 Pliny, N. H. xxxi. 30, 5 See above, p. 206.