OF THE TURKISH MONARCHY. 



13 



Greece have been frequently destroyed by earthquakes.* Athens 

 and other cities on the coasts of Natolia and Greece supplied Con- 

 stantine, and succeeding Emperors, with materials to enrich and adorn 

 the capital. • 

 7.' " It is a consequence of the depopulated and neglected state of 

 " Greece, Asia, and Syria, that there is no considerable district 

 " which is not exposed in some degree to the effects of a bad and 

 " corrupted atmosphere. The putrid miasma, arising in the summer 

 " and autumn from bogs and marshes and irrigated grounds, is 

 " attended in the north of Europe with simple agues or intermittent 

 " fevers ; but the Mal-aria is the scourge of the south of Europe ; 

 " there the intermittents are of the worst description, and so violent 

 " and obstinate, mixed perhaps with typhus fevers, as to be fre- 

 " quently mortal. The spots in Greece where the mal-aria is most 

 " noxious are salt-works and rice grounds ; and we meet with a 

 " striking example of the influence of the former at Milo, where 

 " since the beginning of the last century, when the island was 

 " visited by Tournefort, four-fifths of the population have been lost 

 " in consequence of the establishment of a small salt-work. Patrse, 

 " a place celebrated in the time of Cicero for the salubrity of the air, 

 " has become unhealthy, because the plain around it is subject to 

 " irrigation. In Attica, a country once distinguished for the purity 

 " of its air f and climate, the effects of the disorder are felt at Ma- 

 " rathon ; and the streams of the Cephissus, which are wholly con- 

 " sumed in irrigation, diffuse it through the plain of Athens." 

 (Mr. Hawkins.) In the most flourishing periods of ancient Greece, 

 we find the people of particular districts suffering from fevers J, and 



* Quoties Asiae, quoties Achaiag urbes uno tremore ceciderunt ! Quot oppida in Mace- 

 donia devorata sunt ! Sen. Epis. xci. 



f See the passages of Euripides and Aristides quoted by Casaub. in Athen. p. 405. 



% " The people of Onchestus in Bceotia," says Dicaearchus, " though placed on a 

 " high spot were subject to fevers;" the miasma arising from the marshy plains on the 

 borders of the Copais may have affected, Mr. Hawkins supposes, the health of the inha- 

 bitants. The site of Sparta was insalubrious, partly from the swamps in the vicinity 



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