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GEOGRAPHICAL VIEW OF GREECE. 13livening commercial crowd and it seemed; perhaps evenmore animated than Athens. 1 Its harbour, well providedwith docks and magazines, was spacious enoughto hold inits three divisions four hundred triremes ;whilst the Phalereusand Munychius could each accommodate only about2fifty.coast ;Allthree were formed naturally -by the bays of thebut the Piraeeus excelled the others not only in extent,but also in security.The plain of Athens was surrounded on three sides bymountains, which formed its limits within no very greatdistance of the city.The prospect from the Acropolis andthe Parthenon commanded on the east the two peaks of Hymettus;on the north, Pentelicus with its quarries of marble ;to the north-west, the Cithaeron was seen at a great distance,rising above the smaller mountains and; Laurium, rich insilver mines, layto the south-east almost at the end of thepeninsula but towards the; south-west, the eye could freelyrange over the harbours and the Saronic bay, with the islands of Salamis and .ZEgina,as far as the lofty citadel ofCorinth. 3 Many of the chief places of the cantons (%*0into which Attica was divided, (and of these there were morethan one hundred and seventy,) mightalso be seen ;and thesituation was distinct even of the towns, which the mountainscovered. No one of these was important as a city,and yetthere were few which had not something worthy of observation, statues, altars, and temples ;for to whatever part of hiscountry the Athenian strayed, he needed to behold somethingwhich might remind him that he was in Attica. Therewere many, of which the name alone awakened proud recollections ;and no one was farther than a day's journeyfrom Athens. It required but about five hours to reach4the long but narrow plain of Marathon, on the oppositecoast of Attica, It was twenty-four miles to Suriium, which1The Pinxjeus was sometimes reckoned as a part of Athens jand this explains how it was possible to say, that the city was two hundred stadia, ortv\eiuy miles, in circumference. Bio Chrysost. Or. vi.*The rich compilationsof Meursius on the Pireoeus, no less than onAthens, the Acropolis, the Ccramicus, etc, (Gronov. Thes. Ant. Gr. vol. iiiii.) contain almost all the of the ancients passages respecting them.3Chateaubriand, Itinerant, tc. i. p. i206.4 Chandler's Travels, p. 163. Clarke, Plates ii. 2, PI. 4. 5,, gives notonly a description, but a map and view of the country.