Nonetheless, witnesses to the period suggest that this impression does not correspond to reality. “Athens, the City” was the setting for the recollections of Panagi Skouzes “between 1788 and 1796”, while Panagiotis Kodrikas visited his “ home city of Athens” in 17892. Arriving with Lord Byron in Athens in 1810, Baron Hobhouse, hearing their driver say “Affendi, i chora” [: “the town”], thought he heard “to chorio” [:“the village”]. But “we were not a little surprised, upon looking up, to see in a plain at a great distance before us, a large town rising round an eminence, on which we could also discern some buildings, and beyond this town, the sea”3.