C H A P . X V I.
O f Scio---- Its modern hijiory----- Reduced by the Turks----- ; The
town — Greek women — Number of dogs — Manner o f bathing
— The conful &c. — Antiquities o f Scio -— The temple o f
Cybele — Wines — The Lentifcus or majiic-tree.
T H E ifland Chios, now Scio, is by Strabo reckoned nine
hundred ftadia, or one hundred and twelve miles and a half, in
circuit; and about four hundred ftadia, or fifty miles, from the
ifland Mitylene. The principal mountain, called antiently Pe-
linasus, prefents to view a long, lofty range of bare rock, re-
fledting the fun; but the recedes at its feet are diligently cultivated,
and reward the hufbandman by their rich produce. The
Hopes are clothed with vines. The groves of lemon, orange,,
and citron-trees, regularly planted, at once perfume the air with
the odour of their bloffoms, and delight the eye with their golden
fruit. Myrtles, and jaffmines are interfperfed, with olive and
palm-trees, and cyprefles. Amid thefe the tall minarees rife,
and white houfes glitter, dazzling the beholder.
Sc i o lhared in the calamities, which attended the deftruc-
tion of the Greek empire. In the year 1093, when robbers and
pirates were in pofleflion of feveral confiderable places, Tzachas,
a Turkiih malecontent, took the city. The Greek admiral endeavouring
to reduce it for the emperor Alexis, made a breach
in the wall, and he came to its relief from Smyrna with a
fleet and eight thoufand men, but fopn after abandoned it in the
night. In 1306 this was one of the iflands, which fuffered from
the exactions of the grand-duke Roger, general of the Roman
armies. The city was then feized by the Turks, who came before
it with thirty {hips, and put the inhabitants to the fword.
In 1346 fome gallies were fitted out by thirty noble Genoefe,
which
which took the City. A fleet of fixty veffels was lent by the
Saltan in 1394 to burn it and the towns adjacent, and to. ravage
the iflands and fea-coaft. Scio experienced evil, but if it be
compared with the fufferings of fome other places in thefe times
of rapine and violence, fortune will feem to have concurred
with the partiality of nature, and to have diftinguilhed this as a
favourite ifland.
T he Genoefe continued in pofleflion of Scio about two hundred
and forty years. They were deprived of it in 1566, during
the fiege of Malta, by the T.urkilh admiral, who garrifoned it
for Sultan Solyman; but the Chiotes in general were ftill indulged
with numerous and extraordinary privileges. They con-
fifted of two parties, differing in their religious tenets; one of
the Greek perfuafion, which acknowlege the patriarch of Con-
ftantinople as their head; the other of the Latin, or papifts,
which enjoyed a free toleration under the Turks, their priefts
celebrating maft as in Chriftendom, bearing the facraments to
the lick, going in folemn proceffion, habited, beneath canopies,
with cenfers in their hands, to the year 11694. The Venetians
then attacked and took the caftle, but abandoned it on a defeat
of their fleet near the Spalmadore iflands, which lie in the channel
between Scio and the continent. The Latins, who had af-
•lifted them, dreaded the punilhment, which their ingratitude
deferved; and the prime families with the bilhop fled and fettled
in the Morea. The Turks feized the churches, abolilhed the
Genoefe drefs, and impofed .on their vaffals badges of their fub-
jedtionj obliging them, among other articles, to alight from
their horfes at the city-gate, and at the approach of .any, even
the meaneft, muffelman.
T he town of Scio ' and its vicinity refembles from the fea
Genoa and its territory, as it were in miniature. The antient
-cityLad a good port, and ftations for eighty Ihips. The prefent,
which occupies.its.fite, beneath Pelinaeus, is large, well-built and
■ * ScrViews.' Le Brun p. 168.
G populous.