ARCADIA held a unique place in the Peloponnesus, both as regards its physical features and the character of its inhabitants. It occupied the very centre of the peninsula, and was the only province that had no direct access to the sea. Its area was greater than that of any other, being about equal in extent to the county of Cumberland. The rural charms with which it was credited by the Latin poets, and by Sir Philip Sydney among ourselves, were largely the product of imagination, as the scenery is generally of a bleak and stern character, and the people, in consequence, are disposed to take life seriously. There are some smiling plains in the south and west, but the most of the country consists of rugged mountains and marshy valleys. A remarkable feature is the number of basins enclosed on all sides by the hills, where the streams can find no visible outlet, and either form a lake or take a subterranean course through some chasm or crevices in the porous limestone, in many cases never to reappear. The only river which forces its way through all obstacles till it reaches the sea, and has a perennial supply of water, is the Alpheus, which we have already met at Olympia. It was believed by the ancient Greeks to hold on its course after it reached the sea, and to mingle its waters with the fountain of Arethusa at Syracuse. In proof of this it was said that a cup which had been thrown into the river had afterwards been discovered in the fountain!

In classical times the Arcadians had been so long settled in the land that they were generally believed to be indigenous, and their chief city, Lycosoura, was regarded as the oldest city in Greece. On its site some colossal heads have recently been discovered that are supposed to represent Despoina (that is, Persephone), who had a temple here, Demeter, Artemis, and Anytus the Titan. The city was close to Mount LycÆus, the fabled birthplace of the Arcadian Zeus; and perhaps this fact and the similarity of the names may account for the belief in its antiquity. Here, as on Mount Ithome, Zeus seems to have been worshipped in primitive fashion without temple or image. On Mount LycÆus Pelasgus was also believed to have been born, the reputed ancestor of the primitive race which was in possession of the country before the AchÆans or the Dorians made their appearance. A story is told of his son, King Lycaon, which seems to reflect the memory of a time when human sacrifices were sometimes offered. It was said that Zeus had come to detect the royal family in their wickedness, and was received with reverence by the rest of the community,

but Lycaon, being sceptical of his guest’s divinity and wishing to put it to the test, caused his grandson Arcas to be cut up and served at his table, whereupon the indignant deity at once destroyed him, his sons, and his palace with a flash of lightning, and restored Arcas to life, to take possession of the throne and give his name to the country. There were other versions of the same story. According to Pausanias “Lycaon brought a human babe to the altar of LycÆan Zeus and sacrificed it, and poured out the blood on the altar; and they say that immediately after the sacrifice he was turned into a wolf.” Pausanias’ comments on it are interesting, as an illustration of the religious views of a well-informed Greek in the second century of the Christian era. “For my own part I believe the tale: it has been handed down among the Arcadians from antiquity, and probability is in its favour. For the men of that time, by reason of their righteousness and piety, were guests of the gods, and sat with them at table; the gods openly visited the good with honour and the bad with their displeasure. Indeed, men were raised to the rank of gods in those days, and are worshipped down to the present time.... So we may well believe that Lycaon was turned into a wild beast, and Niobe, daughter of Tantalus, into a stone. But in the present age, when wickedness is growing to such a height, and spreading over every land and every city, men are changed into gods no more, save in the hollow rhetoric which flattery addresses to power; and the wrath of the gods at the wicked is reserved for a distant future, when they shall have gone hence.” By far the greater part of the observations made by this writer on Arcadia relate to its religious customs and traditions; and from the vague nature of the information he obtained regarding many of its deities and the peculiar rites with which they were worshipped, it is evident that Arcadia contained more distinct traces of the old Pelasgic religion, anterior to the theogony recognised by Homer and Hesiod, than almost any other part of Greece. It was difficult for a votary of the Hellenic religion like Pausanias to arrive at a definite conception of the names, the functions, and the outward symbols of not a few of the objects of Arcadian worship.

According to tradition Arcas had three sons, of whom the second, Apheidas, was the founder of Tegea, an aggregate of nine villages, and for a long time the most famous city in the district. He was the ancestor of Atalanta, immortalised by Euripides in connection with the Calydonian Hunt, which ranks with the Voyage of the Argonauts, the Siege of Thebes, and the Trojan War, as one of the heroic legends of Greece. It is the same Atalanta who is known to us by the story of her conquest in the foot-race by one of her suitors, Melanion, through the seductive influence of the golden apples of the Hesperides, which she stooped to pick up when he threw them in her path. After the hunt she was said to have brought home with her to Tegea the head and skin of the wild boar which Artemis had sent to ravage the Calydonian kingdom

on account of a slight offered to her in sacrifice. Whether genuine or not, the relics of the boar, in the form of a great hide, and tusks three feet long, were exhibited for centuries in the temple of Athena Alea, and a sculptured head of the boar has recently been found among the ruins, from the size of which it is calculated that the animal was six and a half feet long. The tusks were carried off to Rome by the Emperor Augustus, along with an ivory image of the goddess, but the well-worn skin was shown to Pausanias when he visited Tegea. He also saw a relief executed by the great sculptor Scopas, representing the famous hunt, on the pediment of the temple, which was rebuilt of marble after a fire, in 394 B.C., and was considered the most beautiful building of the kind in the Peloponnesus.

Echemus was another illustrious Tegean of prehistoric times, married, according to Hesiod, to a sister of Clytemnestra. He commanded the contingent of troops raised by the city to join the allied forces, Arcadian, AchÆan, and Ionian, which came forth to repel the Heracleids when they were crossing the Isthmus for the purpose of invading the country. Instead of a general engagement it was agreed to settle the question by a single combat between Echemus and Hyllus, the eldest son of Heracles, from whom the challenge had come. In the encounter Hyllus was overcome and put to death, whereupon the Dorian invaders retraced their steps, and, in accordance with an agreement come to, did not again attempt the conquest of the Peloponnesus for three generations. Even when victorious they left Arcadia alone, and it continued to retain its independence for many centuries afterwards.

The Arcadians, as known to us in history, have generally been distinguished by the rude simplicity of their manners and the sturdy vigour of their physique. Intensely conservative in their ways, they were always ready to do their duty bravely when called upon to defend their country; and, like the Swiss, whom they resembled in some other points, they supplied many neighbouring states with mercenary soldiers, who were always looked upon as a valuable force. It was one of the ambitions of the Spartans to reduce them to subjection. With this view they are said to have once consulted the Delphian oracle, which gave them an unfavourable answer as regards Arcadia generally, telling them that there were many acorn-eating men there, but appeared to encourage them to try their strength against Tegea, foretelling that they would dance there and measure out the plain with a rope. Taking this in a favourable sense they advanced against Tegea, but were utterly defeated, and many of them were taken prisoners and compelled to work in the fields, wearing the very chains which, with undue confidence, they had carried with them from Sparta for the purpose of securing their expected captives. Both Herodotus and Pausanias mention having seen these chains in the temple of Athena. In the same sanctuary there was also deposited the horse’s manger, made of brass, which was found in the tent of the Persian general Mardonius by the Tegean troops who took part in the battle of PlatÆa, and who on that occasion claimed the place of honour next to the LacedÆmonians, on account of the signal services which had been rendered by their ancestor Echemus.

In his history (i. 67-8) Herodotus tells a curious story of the way in which the Spartans succeeded at a later time in getting the better of the Tegeans, with the help of the friendly oracle at Delphi. They were directed to bring back to Sparta the bones of Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, whose resting-place was enigmatically described. By the combined sagacity and good luck of a Spartan, named Lichas, the body, contained in a coffin measuring about seven cubits in length, was discovered in a blacksmith’s premises at Tegea, and was brought back to Sparta and buried there. The consequence was that the Spartans soon proved the stronger, compelling the Tegeans to become their allies for nearly two centuries, to which they were less averse than the rest of the Arcadians, owing to their liking for an oligarchic form of government. They still remained faithful to the general cause of Greek independence and sent 500 men to fight at ThermopylÆ. For centuries after the loss of Greek liberty Tegea continued to be a place of importance. Strabo, writing in the first century A.D., speaks of it as the only city in Arcadia worth mentioning, and when Pausanias visited it he found it in a flourishing condition. There is now little to mark its site, save the scanty ruins of its famous temple and its theatre. The foundations of the temple were discovered in 1879, buried deep underground, to the west of the Church of St. Nicholas, where many fragments of Doric columns of marble had long been lying exposed to view. The inner columns were Ionic and Corinthian. The workmanship, so far as any specimens of it exist, fully justifies the admiration expressed by Pausanias.

Thirteen or fourteen miles north of Tegea, on a somewhat lower level of the same great central plain, stood the city of Mantinea, long a rival to Tegea, and possessing more of a commercial character, with a consequent leaning to the democratic form of government. Originally built on the top of a low conical hill (Gourtsouli, or Ptolis), rather less than a mile to the north, it was constituted on its later site by the union of five villages, which were amalgamated by the Argives (who dwelt only a day’s journey to the east) for the purpose of counteracting the Spartan sympathies of Tegea. It was the scene of two great battles—the one fought and gained by the Spartans under King Agis, with the help of Boeotian and Corinthian troops, the other by Epaminondas at the head of the Theban confederacy. On the former occasion a striking proof was given of the value of Spartan discipline. Though taken by surprise when he found the enemy drawn up and ready for the conflict, Agis succeeded in gaining such a victory as went far to restore the prestige of his country, which had been tarnished by recent events in the Peloponnesian war. About thirty years later

(386 B.C.) Mantinea again incurred the hostility of Sparta and experienced its military skill. The river Ophis (so called from its circuitous windings farther north), which at that time ran through the city, was diverted from its course by the Spartan general Agesipolis, and so dammed up that its waters overflowed the brick-built walls, which soon gave way, compelling the inhabitants to surrender. The community was then dissolved into the five villages of which it had been composed, a high-handed act on the part of Sparta, which was characteristic of its policy when it thought its ascendency to be in danger. One of the first results of the great Theban victory achieved by Epaminondas at Leuctra (371 B.C.) was the reunion of the scattered population. But though the Mantineans were at first in sympathy with the policy of that great soldier and statesman in seeking to create an Arcadian federation for the defence of the country against Spartan aggression, the rise of a new capital at Megalopolis excited their jealousy, and it was partly owing to their defection that Epaminondas had to undertake his last campaign in the Peloponnesus. It was in a great battle fought in the immediate vicinity of Mantinea that he met his death. Never was there a more striking proof of the influence that may be exerted by a master-mind upon an army, than when Epaminondas was suddenly struck down while fighting with heroic energy at the head of his men. As soon as they knew that he had fallen, their victorious advance ceased, and the enemy were allowed to retire without suffering the usual penalties of defeat. He was carried out of the field with a lance sticking in his breast; and a rising-ground is still pointed out (Scopas) from which he is said to have watched the close of the battle. He named two men to succeed him in the command of the forces; but, on learning that they had both fallen, he advised that peace should be concluded with the enemy. Having ascertained that his shield was safe, he ordered the javelin to be extracted, and as the blood rushed out he breathed his last. He was buried on the spot, and a monument was erected over his grave, of which no trace has yet been found.

Even if there were no such names in Greek history as Hesiod, Pindar, Pelopidas, and Plutarch, the memory of Epaminondas would be sufficient to redeem Boeotia from the reproach so often cast upon it as a land of dullards. He was not only a consummate general, whose name will always be associated with the irresistible phalanx which anticipated that of Macedonia,[2] but was in every respect a great man—the greatest of the Greeks, according to Cicero. Distinguished in music and philosophy, he was also a good speaker, and if he had had more opportunities for the practice of eloquence, he would probably have been found a match for the greatest orators of his day. We may judge of his readiness in debate from the answer he gave to Callistratus, the renowned Athenian orator, when the latter, pleading with the Arcadians to form an alliance with Athens rather than with Thebes and Argos, sought to excite prejudice against these states by asking, “Were not Orestes and AlcmÆon, who were both murderers of their mothers, natives of Argos? Was not Œdipus, who slew his father and married his mother, a native of Thebes?” “Yes, they were,” said Epaminondas, in his reply, “but Callistratus has forgotten to tell you that these men, while they lived at home, were innocent or were reputed to be so. As soon as their crimes became known they were banished; and then it was that Athens received them, stained with blood.” On another occasion, when he was accused by a demagogue of trying to emulate the glories of Agamemnon at the risk of his country, by sailing from Aulis to the Hellespont at the head of a great fleet, he replied, “By the help of Thebes I have already done more than Agamemnon. He with the forces of Sparta and all Greece besides, was ten years in taking a single city; while I, with the single force of Thebes and on the single day of Leuctra, have crushed the power of the Agamemnonian Sparta.” This was answering a fool according to his folly; but, in general, he was as remarkable for his modesty as for his great powers. It was said of him by one who had been in early life a companion of Socrates that he had never known any one who understood so much and spoke so little; and when he was reduced in rank, even after the great battle which deprived Sparta of its military supremacy, he did not disdain to serve his country for a time in a comparatively humble position. That the Spartans knew how formidable he was as an adversary is evident from the honours which, as Plutarch tells us, they heaped on the man who slew him, even ordaining that his descendants in all time coming should be exempted from the payment of taxes. Like Aristides the “Just” and Delyannis, the recently-assassinated Premier of Greece, Epaminondas was so free from the love of money that he did not leave enough even to pay his funeral expenses.

Very few remains of the ancient city of Mantinea are to be seen, but the lower courses of the encircling walls, measuring more than two and a half miles in circumference, are plainly visible, with eight different gates and more than 120 towers, separated by intervals of fully 80 feet, while the course of the Ophis can also be traced, which served apparently as a moat, with its two arms running round the city. In 1887 three marble slabs were discovered in the floor of a Byzantine church within the walls, with reliefs representing the musical contest between Marsyas and Apollo, which have been identified with those mentioned by Pausanias as adorning a pedestal supporting images of Latona and her children, by Praxiteles. In the present aspect of the place, which is very much of the nature of a swamp, there is little to justify its ancient reputation as the “lovely city” mentioned in Homer.

Tegea and Mantinea and another ancient city in the neighbourhood (Pallantion) are commemorated in the city of Tripoliza (or Tripolis, the threefold city), which was founded by the Turks about two hundred years ago.

The east ramp of the Theatre is in the foreground to the left, from which we see remains of the proscenium and colonnade. Beyond are a few drums of columns, probably belonging to the Thersilion or Town Hall. The river Helisson shows in the distance. Sunset.