Acknowledgements. This work formed part of a programme of archaeological survey organized by the Universities of Cambridge and Bradford and sponsored by the British School at Athens. I am much indebted to Professor Anthony Snodgrass and Dr. John Bintliff for inviting me to take part and for their support and encouragement in the field and in may other ways. It is a pleasure to acknowledge the enthusiastic companionship of Dr. Margaret Atherden: a specialist in pollen analysis, she contributed very extensively by insight and observation to the ecological field-work on which this paper is based; her perseverance as explorer and skill as motorist took us to many remote and instructive places. Dr. Clifford Slaughter sought out local information on land tenure and woodcutting and was most helpful in other ways. The parallels from Crete in this paper depend on my work in that island at the invitation, and with the generous help, of Professor Peter Warren and Miss Jennifer Moody. All these persons kindly read the draft of this paper and made many useful comments. The section on pollen analysis was revised in consultation with Dr. Judith Turner. I am indebted also to the kindly assistance of the people of Mavrommati and of many other members of the expedition.

¹ For detailed accounts of the physical geography see: (a) Philippson, A., ‘Der Kopaïs-See in Griechenland und seine Umgebung’, Zeitsch. d. Gesellschaft f. Erdkunde 29 (1894) 1–90Google Scholar; (b) Philippson, A., Die griechischen Landschaften Band I ii (Das östliche Mittelgriechenland und die Insel Euboea) (Frankfurt am Main 1951).Google Scholar For the geology and topography of the study area see the Geological Map of Greece, 1: 50,000, sheets Amflikia, Atalanti, Larymna, Levadhia, Vayia, Thivai, and Erithrai, 1962 to 1971.

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⁶ Philippson mentions similar destruction in the 1927–8 winter, op. cit. (n. Ib) Band I i.

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⁶³ The accompanying photograph of Pyrgos in 1939 shows that here, too, trees have grown up since that date, but most of these are an artificial plantation; this arid north side of Copais is still severely browsed and its wild vegetation has evidently changed little in forty years.

⁶⁴ Wallace, loc. cit. (n. 2).

⁶⁵ Statistics of what percentage of Greece is ‘forest’ are very sensitive to nuances of definition and should be treated with caution.

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⁷⁵ Ulrichs (see Table 4) i 192.

⁷⁶ K. G. Fiedler (see Table 4) 127.

⁷⁷ Life of Sulla xx 4.

⁷⁸ De vita Graeciae, under Anthedon.

⁷⁹ Geography ix ii 31.

⁸⁰ Description of Greece IX iii 4.

⁸¹ Ibid, xxxix 2.

⁸² Cartloads of birch have been expended over four centuries on beating into schoolboys the notion that πρίνος meant ‘holm-oak’. Theophrastus makes it perfectly clear that πρίνος, like the modern πρι;νάρι, meant ‘prickly-oak’; the commonest of the several words for holm-oak was ἀρία (Historia plantarum III xvi 1). All modern records of holm-oak in Greece should be scrutinized: foreigners, led astray by this mistranslation, commonly report large prickly-oak trees as being holm-oaks.

⁸³ Description of Greece ix xxiv 4.

⁸⁴ Ibid, xix 2.

⁸⁵ Dionysiaca v 60.

⁸⁶ Description of Greece ix xxiii 3.

⁸⁷ Rackham, op. cit. (n. 54) 133. In France wild swine are said to be most abundant in the maquis of the Mediterranean coastlands: Reder, J., ‘Des astuces pour chasser la bête noire’, Chasseur français (Janvier 1982) 38–40Google Scholar.

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¹⁰² iv x 7 to IV xi II.

¹⁰³ Natural History xvi 164–71.

¹⁰⁴ Life of Pelopidas xvi 3–4; Life of Sulla xx 4–5.

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¹¹¹ Beaujour 162–7.

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¹¹³ Mahaffy 171.

¹¹⁴ Dodwell ii 143; Lear in Tsigakou (see Table 4) Pl. 13.

¹¹⁵ Vischer 561; Ross i 21.

¹¹⁶ Ulrichs ii 34.

¹¹⁷ Vischer 554; Dodwell i 256.

¹¹⁸ Dodwell i 275; Leake; Hobhouse 273, 284; Welcker 32.

¹¹⁹ Ulrichs ii 88, 102.

¹²⁰ du Loir 336.

¹²¹ du Loir 307.

¹²² Wheler 446.

¹²³ Chandler 7.

¹²⁴ Wheler 442, 478, 452.

¹²⁵ Wheler 320.

¹²⁶ Beaujour 168.

¹²⁷ Ross i 25, 110.

¹²⁸ Vischer 568–9, 577.

¹²⁹ Dodwell ii 53, i 239, Views.

¹³⁰ Dodwell, Views; Wyse 171–2.

¹³¹ Dodwell ii 54.

¹³² Dodwell i 252.

¹³³ Wyse 81.

¹³⁴ Ulrichs ii 94; Welcker 35; Wyse 70; Schaub 126.

¹³⁵ Clarke II iii 138, 172.

¹³⁶ Dodwell, Views; Ulrichs i 148.

¹³⁷ Fiedler 132.

¹³⁸ Leake.

¹³⁹ Leake; Ulrichs i 228.

¹⁴⁰ Ulrichs i 232, 235; Dodwell ii 55.

¹⁴¹ Beaujour 168–71.

¹⁴² Wheler 334, 346, 412.

¹⁴³ Dodwell ii 148; Walker in Tsigakou (see Table 4) Pl. 22.

¹⁴⁴ Ross i 18.

¹⁴⁵ Dodwell i 219, 227.

¹⁴⁶ Clarke II iii 34; Dodwell i 286, ii 164; Hughes i 313.

¹⁴⁷ Ulrichs ii 55; see also Clarke II iii 46; Hettner 202.

¹⁴⁸ Mahaffy 111; cf. du Loir 309.

¹⁴⁹ Ross i 111.

¹⁵⁰ Vischer 577.

¹⁵¹ Clarke II iii 97.

¹⁵² Leake ii 491.

¹⁵³ Ross ii 197.

¹⁵⁴ Vischer 557–8.

¹⁵⁵ Ulrichs ii 89.

¹⁵⁶ Ulrichs ii 95.

¹⁵⁷ Hobhouse 258.

¹⁵⁸ Schaub 123.

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¹⁶⁰ Chateaubriand, F. R., Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem, ed. Malakis, E. (Baltimore 1946) i 321Google Scholar.

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¹⁶³ Wheler 334.

¹⁶⁴ Wheler 474, 430.

¹⁶⁵ Wheler 446.

¹⁶⁶ Wheler 422–3.

¹⁶⁷ Wheler 465.

¹⁶⁸ Wheler 473.

¹⁶⁹ Wheler 446, 461.

¹⁷⁰ Thompson i 361.

¹⁷¹ Bartholdy ii 163.

¹⁷² Clarke II ii 781; Dodwell i 513; Hobhouse 371.

¹⁷³ Dodwell i 284–5; see also Holland 405, Fiedler 95. Resining of wine, though less widespread in Greece than now, was already practised in Levadia (Dodwell i 212).

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¹⁷⁶ Ulrichs i 2.

¹⁷⁷ Dodwell i 504; Leake; Hobhouse 285–7, 435.

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¹⁸⁰ Ross i 98.

¹⁸¹ Dodwell i 259; Leake.

¹⁸² Dodwell ii 155; Leake.

¹⁸³ Ulrichs ii 31.

¹⁸⁴ Pouqueville v 178.

¹⁸⁵ Forchhammer 26, 33.

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¹⁸⁷ Neumann and Partsch, op. cit. (n. 40) 359.

¹⁸⁸ Wheler 218.

¹⁸⁹ Wheler 474, 478.

¹⁹⁰ Beaujour 108.

¹⁹¹ Ulrichs i 118.

¹⁹² Dodwell, Views; Hettner 212.

¹⁹³ Ulrichs i 146.

¹⁹⁴ Holland; Wyse 74–5.

¹⁹⁵ Leake.

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¹⁹⁷ Ulrichs ii 92–9.

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²⁰⁰ 200 Mure i 264; Schaub 131.

²⁰¹ Dodwell i 487, 498; Leake 420; Hobhouse 400.

²⁰² Ross i 29.

²⁰³ Ulrichs ii 92.

²⁰⁴ e.g. Welcker 39.

²⁰⁵ Fiedler 516.

²⁰⁶ Ulrichs i 120.

²⁰⁷ Ulrichs i 179 ff; Welcker 36.

²⁰⁸ Ulrichs i 197.

²⁰⁹ Pouqueville iv 187. Dug-out boats were also used at sea; among his other escapades, du Loir crossed to Euboea in a μονόξυλον (p. 325).

²¹⁰ Ulrichs i 108 ff.

²¹¹ Aristophanes, Achamians 882–3.

²¹² e.g. Dodwell i 237; Gell; Fiedler 103; Vischer 580.

²¹³ Ulrichs i 200.

²¹⁴ e.g. Ross ii 133; Mahaffy 187.

²¹⁵ Dodwell i 212.

²¹⁶ Vischer 500–1.

²¹⁷ Foreign visitors, even in the 1830s, repeatedly tried to persuade the Government to drain the lake, at the same time as regretting that there was already too much arable land to be fully used.

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²²⁸ Wyse 110.

²²⁹ Russegger 117.

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²³⁴ It might be argued that the core happened to have been taken from a spot that for some reason was locally unfavourable for peat formation. This possibility could only be disproved by a detailed stratigraphic survey; however, Dr. Atherden and I, as well as Dr. Turner, have searched the Copais ditches diligently for peat, and it is not of general occurrence at such depths.

²³⁵ J. L. Bintliff, op. cit. (n. 3) 80–3, has argued, on the contrary, that the bed of Copais at this time was exposed, slightly dissected in its topography, and covered with ‘magnificent oak forest’. This argument is based on the subsequent decline of oak and rise of grass pollen; Bintliff, interpreting the Gramineae pollen as that of dry-land grasses (and cereals), attributes the change to ‘deforestation’ of the basin floor by Neolithic agriculture. He does not, however, mention the probability that much of the increased grass pollen is that of Phragmites, known to have been one of the commonest plants of the Copais fen in historic times. Against Bintliff's hypothesis it may be urged that if the bed of Copais in general was dry enough for trees, and especially oaks, to grow, it could not have been wet enough for pollen to have been preserved, still less for a stratified deposit of lake clay to have accumulated. Such a deposit would have been formed, if at all, only in small lakes in hollows in the basin floor. Even if, by good fortune, Greig and Turner happened to hit upon the site of such a depression for taking their core, we should expect—because of the small extent of the lakelet—that much of the pollen would have come from its fringing reed-beds: there would be a large percentage of Cyperaceae and Typha or Sparganium, and the Gramineae count would be increased by a large percentage of Phragmites. This is not so. I find the Bintliff hypothesis difficult to reconcile with the pollen evidence; if tenable at all, it would depend on complex geomorphological changes which could only be established by detailed stratigraphical survey.

²³⁶ Rackham, loc. cit. (n. 42).

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²⁴¹ Keele, flight 64838 (see n. 67).

²⁴² Turrill, op. cit. (n. 24).

²⁴³ The monoclimax theory is criticized in more detail by Forbes and Koster, loc. cit. (n. 58).

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²⁵¹ Latin names are given as in Flora Europaea (Cambridge, 5 volumes, 1964–80).Google Scholar Some well-known synonyms are given in parentheses.

²⁵² Most vernacular plant names are of genera rather than species. Where the English name is marked^* the plant so named in England is a different species or subspecies from that occurring in Greece, though usually of the same genus.

²⁵³ This is not intended as a complete or authoritative list of Greek names. I am indebted to Miss J. A. Moody for many of them.

²⁵⁴ T tree c conifer

TS tree or shrub e evergreen broad-leaved

S shrub d deciduous

U undershrub p perinnial

WC woody climber a annual

G grass

th thistle or thistle-like plant

H herb (i.e a plant which is not woody) other than a grass or thistle

²⁵⁵ This word also includes Arundo donax, the giant reed, not important in Boeotia.

²⁵⁶ The common bramble of Boeotia, although identified by Flora Europaea as R. ulmifolius, is markedly different from that species as found in England.