Page 309 - Beholding Liberty!

HALL OF THE TROPHIES
II.8.Α.2
Ground plan of the Thermopylae pass
caption: PLAN DU PASSAGE / DES THERMO-PYLES / accomodé au temps de l’invasion de Xerxès dans la Grèce.
/ Pour le Voyage du Jeune Anacharsis, / Par M. BARBIÉ DU BOCAGE. / Novembre 1784.
illustration in Jean-Denis Barbié du Bocage
Recueil de cartes géographiques, plans, vues et médailles de l’ancienne Grèce, relatifs au Voyage du jeune Anacharsis, précédé d’une analyse critique des cartes. Seconde edition.
A Paris, Chez DE BURE, l’aîné, Libraire de Monsieur Frère du Roi, de la Bibliothèque du Roi, et de l’Académie Royale des Inscriptions, hôtel Ferrand, rue Serpente, no. 6. M. DCC. LXXXIX. Avec approbation, et privilège du Roi. Library of the Hellenic Parliament
THE ANTIQUARIAN SCHOLAR Abbé Jean-Jacques Barthélemey (1716-1795) describes Thermopylae in his historical novel Travels of Anacharsis the Younger in Greece [cat. no I.1.3], in which Anacharsis, a young Scythian, visits classical Greece of the 4th century BC. The lavishly illustrat- ed book was accompanied by an atlas, designed by Jean Denis Barbié du Bocage (1760-1825), a prom- inent historical cartographer of the time. It shows the Gulf of Malia and the narrow passage of Ther- mopylae, based on both ancient sources (Hero- dotus, Thucydides, Strabo, Pliny, Titus Livius) and eighteenth-century travellers’ accounts: George Wheler, Francis Vernon, and Jacques Foucherot are mentioned by name in the foreword to the atlas. The latter, an engineer in the service of Count Cho- iseul-Gouffier, is also noted by Barbié du Bocage on the map (on the right), mentioning a first-hand sur- vey of the region in 1781. Barbié du Bocage drew his own map in November 1784, first published in Anacharsis in 1788; this is the second edition, of 1789. Titled “Plan of the passage of Thermopylae as it was during Xerxes’ invasion of Greece for the journey of the young Anacharsis”, it is the second drawing that illustrates the foreword. This is the first detailed map of the historic site of Thermopy- lae. It was included by Rigas as one of the “charts” in the second sheet of his Charta (Map of Greece) [cat. no I.2.26].
SCENES AND FIGURES OF FREEDOM The phenomenon of Philhellenism 309