LXXIX. The Boeotian Orchomenus.—

Orchomenus, one of the oldest and most famous cities in Greece, occupied the eastern extremity of a sharply-marked chain of hills—the Mount Acontium (‘javelin’) of the ancients—which extends east and west for about six miles, bounding the broad level plain of the Cephisus on the north. Beginning nearly opposite to Chaeronea, which lies at the foot of the hills on the southern side of the plain, the ridge rises gradually to a considerable height, runs eastward at this level for some miles, and then slopes down into the Copaic plain. From beginning to end it is the stoniest, barest, barrenest, and most forbidding chain of hills that can well be conceived; looking up at it you wonder if the foot of man has ever trodden these rugged and pathless solitudes. Close to the southern base of these desolate hills the Cephisus—a fairly broad and deep stream of turbid whitish water—flows between low banks fringed with tall willows; ducks disport themselves on its surface, and pigs wallow in the mire on its banks. According as the weather has been dry or rainy, the current is sluggish or rapid. Riding beside it under the willows on a grey November day you might fancy yourself on the banks of an English Ouse or Avon, if the cotton-fields by the river-side and the towering ridge of naked rock beyond did not remind you that you are in a foreign land.

At its eastern end the ridge descends in a long and gentle slope, expanding fan-like as it descends to the Copaic plain. This long slope was the site of Orchomenus. The position is one of great natural strength. On the south and north it is protected by the steep and rugged sides of the ridge which form, as it were, a first line of defence. At the foot of these declivities the waters of the Cephisus on the south and of the Melas on the north constitute a second line of defence; while on the east, where the descent to the plain is gradual, the site was till lately rendered secure by the great Copaic swamp which advanced to within a few hundred yards of the end of the slope. The ancient walls, of which considerable remains exist, started from the broad eastern foot of the hill, and followed its northern and southern brows upwards, converging more and more as they rose till at the upper end of the slope they were within about thirty yards of each other. Here at the head of the slope the walls end at the foot of a cliff which rises like a wall to a considerable height. Its small summit, reached by a long, steep, and narrow staircase hewn out of the rock, was the ancient acropolis. Yet this cliff, which presents such an imposing appearance on the east, is separated on the west only by a shallow depression of a few feet from the long rugged ridge of the hills. This, therefore, was the weak point in the circuit; and art had to be called in to supply the want of a natural defence. Accordingly the little citadel, protected by precipices on the east and north, was fortified on the west and south by immense walls of massive masonry, the remains of which are amongst the finest specimens of ancient Greek fortification in existence. The fortress thus formed is so small that it resembles a castle rather than an acropolis of the ordinary Greek type. But the splendid style of the masonry leaves no room to doubt that it is a Greek fortress of the very best period, probably of the fourth century B.C.—the golden age of Greek military engineering.