98 PLAIN OF TROY. 
CHAP, the first settlers were driven inward by new 
> adventurers, cities more mediterranean were 
established; but all of them possessed their 
respective plains. The physical phsenomena 
of Greece, differing from those of any other 
country, present a series of beautiful plains, 
successively surrounded by mountains of lime- 
stone ; resembling', although upon a larger 
scale, and rarely accompanied by volcanic 
products, the craters of the Phlegrcean Fields. 
Everywhere their level surfaces seem to have 
been deposited by water, gradually retired or 
evaporated ; they consist, for the most part, of 
the richest soil, and their produce is yet pro- 
verbially abundant. 
In this manner stood the cities of jirgos, 
Sicyon, Corinth, Megara, Eleusis, Athens, Thehes, 
jimphissa, Orchomenos, Chceronea, Lehadea, La- 
rissa, Fella, and many other. Pursuing the 
inquiry over all the countries bordering the 
jEgean, we find every spacious plain accom- 
panied by the rem.ains of some city, whose 
celebrity was proportioned either to the fertility 
of its territory, or to the advantages of its 
maritime position. Such, according to Homer, 
were the circumstances of association which 
characterized that district of Asia Minor, where 
Troy was situate. 
