DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1755#0138
~M/
OF NATURAL CAUSES.
97
battles of Greece would never have been fought against a national foe within
the limits of the Peloponnesus. In the pass of Thermopylae, upon the plain of
Marathon, on the field of Plateea, in the Straits of Salamis, the cause of the
Hellenic Nation was nobly defended : but not on the Isthmus of Corinth. It
could not have been so.
The Peloponnesus indeed has, by the Greek Geographer Strabo, been
styled the Acropolis of Greece: and as such it might seem to offer within
itself the best means for the defence of the national cause. The character
- Z&. vjfi
wm
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which he has assigned to it
might reasonably appear to arise from its position and
local advantages: but, in fact,—from its possession of
numerous mountain passes and isolated piles of rock,
such as those, for instance, which overhang the castellated monastery of
Megaspelion,—this Acropolis contained within itself too many minor and
independent citadels, and these citadels were too well fortified in themselves,
to render their inhabitants very solicitous about the general welfare and
security of the great national fortress, whose legitimate defenders were too often
engaged in besieging the castles of their neighbours, to regard the defence and
<8%
OF NATURAL CAUSES.
97
battles of Greece would never have been fought against a national foe within
the limits of the Peloponnesus. In the pass of Thermopylae, upon the plain of
Marathon, on the field of Plateea, in the Straits of Salamis, the cause of the
Hellenic Nation was nobly defended : but not on the Isthmus of Corinth. It
could not have been so.
The Peloponnesus indeed has, by the Greek Geographer Strabo, been
styled the Acropolis of Greece: and as such it might seem to offer within
itself the best means for the defence of the national cause. The character
- Z&. vjfi
wm
•w'
which he has assigned to it
might reasonably appear to arise from its position and
local advantages: but, in fact,—from its possession of
numerous mountain passes and isolated piles of rock,
such as those, for instance, which overhang the castellated monastery of
Megaspelion,—this Acropolis contained within itself too many minor and
independent citadels, and these citadels were too well fortified in themselves,
to render their inhabitants very solicitous about the general welfare and
security of the great national fortress, whose legitimate defenders were too often
engaged in besieging the castles of their neighbours, to regard the defence and
<8%