MILITARY ARCHITECTURE OF GREECE. 



321 



the incursions of the Barbarians. On Parnassus, and in the plain 

 of the Cephissus, at the roots of the mountain may be enumerated 

 eight fortified places as remarkable for the strength of their position 

 as the durability and excellence of their workmanship. These for- 

 tifications were generally placed on a rugged height naturally difficult 

 of access ; walls with square or round towers at intervals were con- 

 tinued along the irregular contour of the hill, which served as an 

 acropolis or citadel, while the slope of the mountain with a portion 

 of level ground at the bottom was enclosed, and contained the houses 

 and buildings of the city. * Sometimes heights are fortified for the 

 defence of a pass in the mountains ; we see an instance of this in the 

 palaio-castro in the oSog o-%<o-tij, and another on the road to Parnassus 

 from the upper part of the plain of the Cephissus, which leads to 

 Salona, and Delphi. The fort of Phyle on Mount Parnes, and one 

 near a gorge in Cithseron, conducting from the plains of Eleutherse 

 into Bceotia, may be added. Sometimes the walled enclosures are 

 entirely in the plain, as in the remains of Plataea, and the oval 

 fortifications of Leuctra. 



* Colonel Squire remarks, that the plural termination of the names of some Greek 

 cities, as ©>j/3«(, 'A^vxt, refers to the united cities ; the Upper, or the Citadel, and the 

 Lower city. This observation may be confirmed by a parallel remark of Bishop Lowth : 

 When the prophet (Isai. lxiv. 10.) speaks, he says, in the plural number of cities, Sion and 

 Jerusalem may be meant, as they are divided into the Upper and Lower city. 



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