278 T I T H O R E A. 
^yJ^^- thousand piastres. Poverty is very apparent 
' .1 .y- ' in their dwellings; but the cottages of Phocis 
are generally as much inferior to those of 
Bceotia, as the latter are to those of Attica. 
Nor can it be otherwise, where the wretched 
inhabitants are so oppressed by their lords. 
The whole of the earnings of the peasant is 
here taken from him ; he is scarcely allowed 
any means of subsistence. Add to this the 
frequent calamities of sickness and fire; and 
" plague, pestilence, and famine " will be found 
to have done their work. This village had 
been twice burned within one year, by banditti, 
who come generally from Epirus, or from the 
Straits of Thermopylce, or from Joannina, or from 
Zeitiin, or from the neighbourhood of Joannina 
and Zeitun. As one source of consolation, in 
the midst of so much misery, the inhabitants 
told us " they had no Turks resident among 
them." Such is the forlorn condition of the 
present inhabitants of Tithorea! It was 
widely different in former times ; although it 
began to decline soon after the Christian sera. 
Pausanias relates, that the Tithoreans began to 
experience an adverse fortune one generation 
before his time'. The vestiges of the Theatre 
(1) Pausanias, lib. x. c. 33. p. 879- ed. Kuhnii, 
