378 
VALE OF TEMPE. 
CHAP. 
IX. 
Value of 
1. ivy's 
obsena- 
tions. 
extended to the Pencus from the Convent of St. 
Demetrius, at the distance of two leagues, 
through the middle of which flowed no river 
whatsoever : and afterwards *' a valley, two miles 
ivide\'' It is difficult to believe that a scholar, 
such as Pococke was, could have been ignorant 
of the descriptions which antient authors have 
left of this celebrated station. It appears from 
Polybius^ that Tempe was the only passage 
from the Lower Macedonia into Thessaly ; but 
the description given of it by Livy is so scru- 
pulously exact, and withal so characteristic of 
the scenery % that it is impossible to mistake 
it. Even the particular fortification where we 
found the inscription now given, is mentioned 
by him ; for he says % "it was garrisoned in 
(1) " On the twenty-second we came into a valley about two leagues 
long, and two miles broad, &c. It is much to be doubted whether these 
were not the fields of Tempe." (Ibid.) What author has ever described 
Tempe as Qoni&\x»ng fields? 
(2) Polyhii Hist. lib. xvii. 
(3) " Sunt enim Tempe saltus, etiamsi non bello fiat infestus, transitu 
difficilis: nam prater angustias per quinque millia, qua exiguum jumenlo 
onusto iter est, rapes utrinque ita abscissae sunt, ut despici vix sme 
vertigine quadam simul oculorum animique possit : terret et sonitus et 
aititudo per medium vallem fluentis Penei amnis." Livii Hist. lib. xliv. 
c. 6. torn. III. p. 684. Paris, 1738. 
(4) " Hie locus, tarn suapte natura infestus, per quatuor distantia loca 
prsesidiis regis fuit insessus: unum in priiuo aditu ad Gonnum erat: 
alteruni 
