Travels in the Morea
By William Martin Leake, published at London in 1830.
Volume I, Chapter XIX, pages 356-363. Nauplio.
 

   [Previous - Tiryns] ...I return to Tiryns; leave it at 4.47, and at 5.27 enter the gate of Anapli.  A pleasant kiosk, belonging to an aga of Anapli, is curiously situated on the side of the rock to the left entering the fortress.  A little beyond it is a cavern, which was, perhaps, one of those mentioned by Strabo as containing works of the Cyclopes.
    Nauplia seems never to have attained, in ancient times, an importance equal to that which it acquired during the Byzantine empire, and which was even augmented when it became the chief town of the Morea under the Venetians and the Turks.  As its name is not mentioned by Homer, and very rarely occurs in the history of Greece, it was probably never any thing more than the naval fortress or arsenal of Argos.  This was its condition in the time of Strabo; in that of Pausanias the place was deserted.  He remarked only the ruins of the walls, a temple of Neptune, the source of water called Canathus, and certain ports, by which he meant, probably, such artificial basins as the ancients were in the habit of employing.  He observed also the figure of an ass upon a rock, which had been placed there in memory of the origin of the pruning of vines:-a vine which had been cropped by an ass having been found to produce grapes much more plentifully than any others.  During the time of the Greek empire, the name “he Nauplia” assumed the form “to Nauplion” or “to Anaplion,” or the same words in the plural number.  The bishop of Argos is still entitled bishop of Anaplia and Argos.
    The modern town stands upon the north-eastern side of a height, with a tabular summit, which projects from a steep ridge at the south-eastern angle of the bay of Argos.  This height, naturally a peninsula, was made an island by the Venetians when they excavated a wet ditch for the fortifications which they constructed for the defence of the land-front.  There are still some remains of the Hellenic fortifications of Nauplia to be seen on the brow of the table-summit, which forms the south-western portion of the peninsula; towards its eastern end the modern ramparts are in part composed of the ancient walls, which are constructed very much like those of the citadel of Argos, and appear to be of equal antiquity.  There is a large piece of Hellenic wall, also, towards the north-western end of the same height, and another smaller, not far from the middle.  But the most curious relic of antiquity at Nauplia, perhaps, is the name Palamidhi, attached to the steep and lofty mountain which rises from it to the south-east; for Palamedes having been a native hero, the reputed son of Nauplius, who was son of Neptune and Amymone, the name is so connected with the ancient local history of the place, whether true or fabulous, that we cannot but infer that Palamedium has been applied to this hill from a very early period, although no ancient author has had occasion to notice it.
    Before the year 1790, the Pasha of the Morea resided at Anapli, which brought the agas to Anapli and the Greek primates to Argos, and made the former town the Turkish, and the latter the capital of the Peninsula; many Greeks were attracted also to Argos, as I have already said, by the privileges which the place then enjoyed.  Much of the commerce of the Morea then centered at Anapli, and there were several French mercantile houses.  The moving of the seat of government to Tripolitza in 1790, was followed by a plague, which lasted for three years with little intermission; it prevailed in almost every part of the Morea, but was particularly fatal in Anapli.  Since that time the town has not prospered; it is now only inhabited by the agas who possess lands in the Argolis, by soldiers of the garrison amounting to about 200, commaded by a Janissary aga, who resides in the fort of Palamidhi, and by some Greek shopkeepers and artisans.  The governor is a mirmiran, or a pasha of two tails, whose authority does not extend beyond the walls of the fortress;  but there is also resident here a voivoda for the vilayeti, a kadi, or judge, and a gumruktji, or collector of the Customs, which last office is generally united with that of voivoda.  The houses are, many of them, in ruins, and falling into the streets; the French consulate, a large house like the Okkals at Alexandria, is turned into a khan.  The port is filled up with mud and rubbish, and capable only of admitting small polaccas, and to complete this picture of the effects of Turkish domination, the air is rendered unhealthy on one side by the putrid mud caused by the increasing shallowness of the bay, and on the other by the uncultivated marshy lands along the head of the gulf.  In the midst of these miseries, however, the fortifications and store-houses of the Venetians still exhibit a substantial grandeur never seen in a town entirely Turkish, and testify the former importance of the place.
    March 16. – It is pretended at Anapli that the women are generally handsome, and those of Argos the contrary, and it is ascribed to the water, which, at Argos, is drawn entirely from wells, and at Anapli from a fine source in on of the rocky heights near Tiryns, which is conveyed to the town by an aqueduct.  This tale is derived, perhaps, from the “muthos,” relating to the Nauplian spring called Canathus, by washing in which Juno was said to have renewed her virginity every year.  I inquired in vain, however, for any natural source of water in Anapli; and could only find an artificial fountain, now dry in consequence of neglect, near the Latin church by the Custom-house: but this source having been supplied from the aqueduct which I have mentioned, could not have been the Canathus which Pausanias describes as a “pege,” or natural spring.
    Notwithstanding a buyurdi of the Pasha of the Morea, which I bring with me, as well as a general firmahn of the Porte, I find some difficulty in obtaining permission to see the fortress of Palamidhi.  Before the Pasha had read the order, and the kadi had summoned the ayans to take it into consideration, all the forenoon had passed.  But at length an order is issued, and in the afternoon I ride up, by a circuitous route, to the southern extremity of the castle, and entering by the gate on that side, find the Janissary aga and his staff waiting for me at the gate; he accompanies me round the fortress.  It is of remarkable construction: the interior part consists of three cavaliers, or high redoubts, entirely surrounded by an outer and lower inclosure.  There are many brass-guns mounted on the ramparts, some of which carry stone-balls of a foot and a half in diameter.  The outer wall is low on the side towards the sea, and the rock, though very precipitous on that side, is not inaccessible to a surprise: the profile of these outer works is low also towards the heights on the south, and they have no ditch; but there is an advanced work adjoining the rocks at the southern extremity, the salient angle of which is as high as that of the principal cavalier.  Under the sea-face, at the foot of the precipice, there is a road leading along the shore.  The rock on the sides towards the town and the plain is nearly as precipitous as towards the sea, and more difficult to ascend: from the town there is a covered passage of steps up to the fort, and on one side of it an open flight, mounting zig-zag, the latter for common use, the former for security in war.  From the south-eastward only is the hill accessible.  There are nine cisterns of water in the fort about thirty feet long, six wide, and six deep.  There is a better provision of powder and artillery here than is usual in Turkish fortresses.  The body of the ramparts, both of Palamidhi and of Indje Kalesi, as the Turks call the lower fortress, are built of stone, with merlons of brick.  The table-height surrounded with cliffs, forming the summit of the peninsula of Anapli, and around which are the remains of the Hellenic fortress, is unoccupied with houses, and is fortified towards the sea only with a low wall, the steepness of the cliffs furnishing a protection on that side of the peninsula.  These cliffs are covered with cactus, from whence, perhaps, has been derived the name of Indje Kalesi, in allusion to the fig-like fruit of that plant.  The small island of St. Nicolas, three or four hundred yards off the north-western point of the peninsula, is occupied by a castle; a little within this the anchorage is deepest.