LXXXIII. Tithorea.—

The site of Tithorea, first identified by Clarke in 1801, is occupied by the modern village of Velitsa, which stands very picturesquely among trees on the north-eastern slopes of Parnassus, overlooking the broad valley of the Cephisus. About two-thirds of the village are enclosed within the ancient ivy-mantled walls, which rank with those of Messene and Eleutherae as among the finest existing specimens of Greek fortifications. At the back of the village to the south rises a huge mountainous cliff of grey rock, its ledges tufted with pines. Between the foot of this great cliff and the village there intervenes a very steep slope, mostly overgrown with holly-oak bushes. On the east the village as well as the site of the ancient city is bounded by a very deep rocky ravine, which winds southward into the heart of the mountains. At the bottom of the ravine a torrent flows from Parnassus over a broad gravelly bed to join the Cephisus in the plain below. This torrent, now called Kakorevma or Evil Stream, is the ancient Cachales. In the time of Pausanias, the townspeople, he tells us, had to fetch their water in buckets from the depths of the lyn. Nowadays a portion of the water of the stream is diverted higher up the glen and brought in a conduit to the village, where it turns two mills and waters the gardens and orchards. As Tithorea was thus naturally defended on two sides, namely by the great cliff on the south and by the deep ravine on the east, it needed walls on two sides only, the west and the north. These walls, starting from the foot of the cliff, first descend the steep slope in a straight line above the village, then follow the gentler slope within the village, still in a direction due north, till they turn round at an obtuse angle and run eastward to the brink of the ravine. Here they stop. Along the edge of the ravine a number of ancient blocks may be observed, but whether they are the remains of an ancient fortification wall is not clear. Perhaps the deep precipitous side of the ravine may have been considered a sufficient defence by itself. The walls so far as they exist are finely and solidly built of regular ashlar masonry, and are flanked by massive square towers constructed in the same style. Walls and towers are best preserved in the lower ground among the houses and gardens of the village, but on the steep slope above the village the remains are also considerable.

The investigation of the ruined fortifications on this slope, it may be observed, is a matter of some difficulty, for the slope is not only very steep but overgrown with prickly shrubs and cumbered with huge fallen blocks. The antiquary who picks his way painfully among these obstacles is mortified by the contrast between his own slow progress and that of the village urchins who accompany him; for they climb and skip like goats on the top of the walls, now appearing suddenly on the highest pinnacles and then again leaping from stone to stone with wonderful confidence and agility.

The remains of the walls in the village, on the other hand, can be examined without discomfort, and they better repay study. Here on the north and north-west the wall, flanked by square towers, is standing in an unbroken line for a considerable distance. As a whole, the masonry of the walls and towers is splendid, massive, and almost quite regular, without being absolutely so. The beauty of these venerable walls is much enhanced by the thick green veil of ivy and other creepers which clothes their sides and droops in graceful festoons from their summits. Such a mantle of clinging verdure is very rare in Greece, where the ancient temples and fortresses, unlike the ivy-clad abbeys and castles of England, remain for the most part to this day as bare as when they were built, without even a patch of moss to soften their hard outlines and to tell of the lapse of ages.

Distant views complete the charm of Tithorea. From its ivied walls, rising among the gardens and houses of the village, we look up at the huge grey crag that hides the higher slopes of Parnassus, or down the long gradual declivity to the wide valley of the Cephisus and across it to the hills, somewhat low and tame, at whose foot lie the scanty ruins of Elatea.