PREHISTORIC ENGINEERING AT LAKE COPAIS. 211 



lies Platsea, its soil enriched with the blood of Mardonius and his 

 Persians ; and not far away Leuctra, fatal to Sparta's power, and 

 Cadmean Thebes, home of QEdipus and of Antigone, birthplace 

 of Heracles and of Dionysus, where Amphion sang and the Epig- 

 oni fought. 



The Copaic basin itself and its surrounding hills are dotted 

 with ruined cities. On the west shore of the lake Minyean Or- 

 chomenus, from whose colony of lolcus sailed Jason and the 

 Argonauts, still dominates the plain with its acropolis, its walls 

 two miles in circuit. Its temple of the Graces, with its musical 

 festivals, drew thither poets and singers from all the Hellenic 

 world. Homer compares its wealth with that of the Egyptian 

 Thebes, and so powerful was it that it held subject all the sur- 

 rounding region until Heracles slew its king and made it vassal 

 to Thebes. A little west of it is fatal Chseronea, where Philip of 

 Macedon rang the deathknell of Greece, and where, two and a 

 half centuries later, Sulla overthrew Mithridates. Between it and 

 Helicon lies Lebadea, where Croesus and Mardonius sought their 

 fate from the oracle of Zeus Trophonius ; and hard by is Coronea, 

 famous for its temple of the Itonian Artemis and the Pamboeotian 

 festival. Near the lake is Tilphusium, with its fountain of Til- 

 phusa, where blind Tiresias drank and died ; Alalcomense, which 

 claimed to be the birthplace of Athene; Haliartus, under whose 

 walls Lysander fell ; Onchestus, founded by Poseidon's son, meet- 

 ing-place of the Amphictyonic Council ; Acraephise, noted for its 

 oracle of Apollo ; and Medeon, Copse, Holmones, Hyettus, Hyle, 

 Peteon, and Ocalea, each famous in ancient story, and most of 

 which sent ships and troops to Troy. 



With all these evidences of pre-Homeric prosperity, one is 

 tempted to ask, What has changed the conditions in this once 

 favored and still fertile land, which to-day supports but a few- 

 thousand souls in scattered villages and hamlets ? We find the 

 answer in Strabo, who says : " The spot which the present Lake 

 Copais occupies was formerly, it is said, dry ground, and was cul- 

 tivated in various ways by the Orchomenians, who lived near it." 

 This traditional account, about the only record of the prehistoric 

 condition of the Copaic basin we possess, would seem to imply that 

 it was kept dry artificially, and we find a partial explanation in 

 other passages in which he describes certain subterraneous cav- 

 erns and fissures through which the waters were carried off. " If 

 the subterranean passages are stopped up, the waters of the lake 

 increase so as to inundate and cover cities and whole districts, 

 which become uncovered if the same or other passages are again 

 opened." The memory of such a catastrophe, caused by the stop- 

 page of the natural conduits, the result of seismic disturbances, as 

 Strabo intimates, or from want of care in consequence of political 



