PLAIN OF TltOV, 
Aif 
the ocean, surrounded by mountains, or having lofty rocks in 
its centre or sides, serves to denote the situation of ruius prov¬ 
ing to be those of some ancient capital. Many of these plains 
border on the sea, and seem to have been formed by the re- 
tiring of its waters. Cities so situated were the most ancient; 
Argos, Sicyon, Corinth, are of the number. The vicinity of 
fertile plains to the coast offered settlements to the earliest co¬ 
lonies, before the interior of the country became known. As 
population increased, or the first settlers were driven inward 
by new adventurers, cities more Mediterranean were establish¬ 
ed! but all of these possessed their respective plains. The 
physical phenomena of Greece, differing from those of any 
other country, present a series of beautiful plains, successively 
surrounded by mountains of limestone; resembling, although 
upon a larger scale, and rarely accompanied by volcanic pro¬ 
ducts, the craters of the Plilegriean 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 proverbially 
abundant. 
In this maimer stood the cities of Argos, Sicyon, Corinth, 
Megara, Eleusis, Athens, Thebes, Amphissa, Orchomenus, 
Chaeronea, Lebadea, Larissa, Pella, and many others. Pur¬ 
suing the inquiry over all the countries bordering the ASgean, 
we find every spacious plain accompanied by the remains of 
some city, whose celebrity was proportioned to the fertility of 
its territory, or the advantages of its maritime position. Such, 
according to Homer, were the circumstances of association 
characterizing that district of Asia Minor, in which Troy w as 
situated. 
With these facts in contemplation, it is unreasonable to sup¬ 
pose, that a plain, boasting every advantage which nature could 
afford, would offer an extraordinary exception to customs so 
general among ancient nations; that it should remain unte- 
nanted and desolate; and no adventurers occupy its fertile 
soil It is still more difficult to believe, w hen the monuments 
of a numerous people, and the ruins of many cities, all having 
reference, by indisputable record, to one more ancient, as their 
magnaparens, have been found in such a plain, that the com¬ 
positions of any bard, how ever celebrated, should have afford¬ 
ed the sole foundation of a belief that such a people and city 
did really exist. Among the gems, vases, marbles, and medals, 
Pound in other countries representing subjects connected with 
