THE GEOGRAPHY OF GREECE. 65 



purple shell fish, so much in request with the Phoeni- 

 cians for their manufactures, was found upon the coasts 

 of Greece. A trade was opened up hetween the two 

 lands, and with trade there came arithmetic and let- 

 ters to assist the trade, and from these a desire on the 

 part of the Greeks for more luxury and more know- 

 ledge. All this was natural enough. But how was it 

 that whatever 'came into the hands of the Greeks was 

 used merely as raw material, that whatever they 

 touched was transmuted into gold ? How was it that 

 Asia was only their dame's school, and that they dis- 

 covered the higher branches of knowledge for them- 

 selves ? How was it that they who were taught by 

 the Babylonians to divide the day into twelve hours 

 afterwards exalted astronomy to the rank of an exact 

 science ? How was it that they who received from 

 Egypt the canon of proportions, and the first ideas of 

 the portraiture of the human form, afterwards soared 

 into the regions of the ideal, and created in marble a 

 beauty more exquisite than can be found on earth, a 

 vision, as it were, of some unknown, yet not unima- 

 gined world ? 



The mountains of Greece are disposed in a peculiar 

 manner, so as to enclose extensive tracts of land which 

 assume the appearance of large basins or circular hol- 

 lows, level as the ocean, and consisting of rich alluvial 

 soil, through which rise steep insulated rocks. The 

 plain subsisted a numerous population ; the rock be- 

 came the Acropolis or citadel of the chief town, and 

 the mountains were barriers against invasion. Other 

 districts were parcelled out by water in the same man- 

 ner ; their frontiers were swift streaming rivers, or 

 estuaries of the sea. Each of these cantons became 

 an independent city state, and the natives of each 



