man. In spite of all the advantages of nature, he was degraded by debasing
superstitions, and by the degeneracy which wealth and ease produced. He
was enslaved by vices and by despots. The Assyrian and Babylonian kingdom,
that "head of gold," as seen in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, became inferior to
the "breast and arms of silver," as represented by the Persian Empire, and
this, in turn, became subject to the Grecian States, "the belly and the
thighs of brass." It is the nobler Hellenic race, with its original
genius, its enterprise, its stern and rugged nature, strengthened by toil,
and enterprise, and war, that we are now to contemplate. It is Greece--the
land of song, of art, of philosophy--the land of heroes and freemen, to
which we now turn our eyes--the most interesting, and the most famous of
the countries of antiquity.

(M282) Let us first survey that country in all its stern ruggedness and
picturesque beauty. It was small compared with Assyria or Persia. Its
original name was Hellas, designated by a little district of Thessaly,
which lay on the southeast verge of Europe, and extended in length from
the thirty-sixth to the fortieth degree of latitude. It contained, with
its islands, only twenty-one thousand two hundred and ninety square
miles--less than Portugal or Ireland, but its coasts exceeded the whole
Pyrenean peninsula. Hellas is itself a peninsula, bounded on the north by
the Cambunian and Ceraunian mountains, which separated it from Macedonia;
on the east by the AEgean Sea, (Archipelago), which separated it from Asia
Minor; on the south by the Cretan Sea, and on the west by the Ionian Sea.

(M283) The northern part of this country of the Hellenes is traversed by a
range of mountains, commencing at Acra Ceraunia, on the Adriatic, and
tending southeast above Dodona, in Epirus, till they join the Cambunian
mountains, near Mount Olympus, which run along the coast of the AEgean till
they terminate in the southeastern part of Thessaly, under the names of
Ossa, Pelion, and Tisaeus. The great range of Pindus enters Greece at the
sources of the Peneus, where it crosses the Cambunian mountains, and
extends at first south, and then east to the sea, nearly inclosing
Thessaly, and dividing it from the rest of Greece. After throwing out the
various spurs of Othrys, OEta, and Corax, it loses itself in those famous
haunts of the Muses--the heights of Parnassus and Helicon, in Phocis and
Boeotia, In the southern part of Gr