BOOK IV.] History of Nature. 5 



Mountain Parnassus, the most illustrious Place upon Earth 

 for the Oracle of Apollo. The Fountain Castalius, the River 

 Cephissus, running before Delphos, which ariseth in a former 

 City, Liloea. Moreover, the Town Crissa, and together with 

 the Bulenses, Anticyra, Naulochum, Pyrrha, Amphissa, a 

 free State, Trichone, Tritea, Auibrysus, the Region Drymaea, 

 named Daulis. Then, at the bottom of the Bay, the Angle 

 of Bceotia is washed by the Sea, with the Towns Siphae and 

 Thebae, which are surnamed Corsicae, near to Helicon. The 

 third Town of Breotia from this Sea is Pagse, from whence 

 projecteth the Neck of Peloponnesus. 



CHAPTER IV. 

 Peloponnesus. 



PELOPONNESUS, called formerly Apia and Pelasgia, is a 

 Peninsula, worthy to come behind no other Land for noble- 

 ness ; lying between two Seas, ^Egeum and Ionium : like 

 the Leaf of a Plane Tree 1 , in regard of the indented Creeks 

 thereof: it beareth a circuit of 563 Miles, according to 

 Isidorus. The same, if you comprise the Creeks, addeth 

 almost as much more. The Straits whence it passeth is 

 called Isthmos. In which Place the Seas above-named, 

 bursting from various ways, from the North and the East, 

 devour all the Breadth of it there : until, by the contrary 

 running in of such Seas, the Sides on both hands being 

 eaten away, and leaving a Space between, five Miles over, 

 Hellas, with a narrow Neck, meeteth with Peloponnesus. 

 The one Side thereof is called the Corinthian Gulf, the 

 other, the Saronian. Lecheum on the one hand, and Cen- 

 chreae on the other, are the Bounds of the Straits : where 

 such Ships as for their bigness cannot be conveyed over upon 

 Waggons, make a great compass about with some Danger. 

 For which cause, Demetrius the King, Caesar the Dictator, 



1 Dionysius, the geographer, also compares the form of the Morea, or 

 ancient Peloponnesus, to the leaf of a plane-tree, making the footstalk to 

 be the isthmus by which it is joined to Greece. And in Martyn's " Virgil," 

 a figure of this leaf is engraved to illustrate the subject. Wern. Club. 



