Home life in Hellas, Greece and the Greeks - eBooks4Greeks.gr

CHAPTER XATHENSATHENS became the capital of Greece in 1834.il It was not the first capital. Nauplia precededit, and for a time ^gina, whilst Corinth wasthe seat of government during a period of thewar. Some thought the choice was not a wiseone.importance.Patras was a place of far greater wealth andIt had long maintained commercialrelations with Europe, it was in touch with thecivilisation of the Ionian Islands, it was a seaport,and behind it and on either side lay the mostfertile region of Greece. Corinth had its advocates,and its geographical position certainlyseemedto mark it out as the centre of thekingdom. It commands the traffic between thenorth and south through itsnarrow isthmus, andthe two seas make it the natural place of exportfor both east and west. But the fortune of itsyouth seems to have fled for ever, and Corinthremains now, as it has been for centuries, littleelse than a large Albanian village.Men's mindshad been occupied with a waterway through theisthmus since the days of Periander, two thousandfive hundred years ago. Demetrius Poliorcetes290