DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1031#0065
?. v.]
NAME OF RHAMNUS.
43
further licence, he would perhaps have imagined as
appearing at the verge of this glen and descending
from it, the scholar of Antipho, the historian of the
Peloponnesian war. But he must have left it to the
spectators of his landscape, to imagine that Thucydides
was then arriving from Athens, having crossed, as he
would have done, the field of Marathon, to come and
listen here, in such a scene as this, to the words of
such a master.
We return toward the temple by the ridge above
mentioned; it was fortified by walls parallel to itself
both on the north and south. Their bearings it is not
easy to explore, the whole surface being overgrown
with a very thick prickly shrub, which prevents our
progress. It at the same time suggests the reason
for the ancient name by which the city was called.
On this hill the propriety of the name of Va/xvovs
is felt1
ev yap opei pafxvoi re Kai aawaXaOoi ko/uooovti.
For the sharp rhamnus mantles o'er the hills.
1 From papvoeis,—oDs. Compare the remark of Schol. Aristoph.
Plut. 586. on the similar botanical names of the Attic Demi Mvppwous,
'Ayi/ous, &c. to which may he added ^ijyous, 'Axpadous, 'Avayvpovs,
and 'EXaioui. The modem name of Rhamnus is 'Oflpio-TfLacrTpo, for
'EfipaTo-KdiTTpo, Jews-Castle. (See Koray. Atakta, I. p. 55. \eyovv
'O^yotos dvTi too 'Eppaios, as oxQpos, for ex®P°*i °£<° f°r ^w)* The
term 'E^pato seems to be applied to persons or things in a wandering or
desolate state. 'O/3/aio vij<ri is a desert island east of Corinth: so ofipto
•jroxa'ym. In the same way the term Fu<j>To-Kd<rTpo (or, Gypsy-Castle)
is now applied in Greece to a ruined and uninhabited fortress.
NAME OF RHAMNUS.
43
further licence, he would perhaps have imagined as
appearing at the verge of this glen and descending
from it, the scholar of Antipho, the historian of the
Peloponnesian war. But he must have left it to the
spectators of his landscape, to imagine that Thucydides
was then arriving from Athens, having crossed, as he
would have done, the field of Marathon, to come and
listen here, in such a scene as this, to the words of
such a master.
We return toward the temple by the ridge above
mentioned; it was fortified by walls parallel to itself
both on the north and south. Their bearings it is not
easy to explore, the whole surface being overgrown
with a very thick prickly shrub, which prevents our
progress. It at the same time suggests the reason
for the ancient name by which the city was called.
On this hill the propriety of the name of Va/xvovs
is felt1
ev yap opei pafxvoi re Kai aawaXaOoi ko/uooovti.
For the sharp rhamnus mantles o'er the hills.
1 From papvoeis,—oDs. Compare the remark of Schol. Aristoph.
Plut. 586. on the similar botanical names of the Attic Demi Mvppwous,
'Ayi/ous, &c. to which may he added ^ijyous, 'Axpadous, 'Avayvpovs,
and 'EXaioui. The modem name of Rhamnus is 'Oflpio-TfLacrTpo, for
'EfipaTo-KdiTTpo, Jews-Castle. (See Koray. Atakta, I. p. 55. \eyovv
'O^yotos dvTi too 'Eppaios, as oxQpos, for ex®P°*i °£<° f°r ^w)* The
term 'E^pato seems to be applied to persons or things in a wandering or
desolate state. 'O/3/aio vij<ri is a desert island east of Corinth: so ofipto
•jroxa'ym. In the same way the term Fu<j>To-Kd<rTpo (or, Gypsy-Castle)
is now applied in Greece to a ruined and uninhabited fortress.