Of all the possible approaches none can be happier than a drive on a moonlight night up from the little port of Itea, the inglorious terminus of the eight hours’ sail from Piræus through the canal and along the Gulf of Corinth. The comfortable carriage road winds through the “moon-blanched” olive orchards and vineyards of the ancient Crisæan plain, mounting gradually toward the steep slopes of Parnassus and its attendant mountains, and twisting in long courses among shadowy hillsides which only hint at rude crags and deep ravines. Perhaps it was some such night as this that led the writer of the Homeric Hymn to Artemis to see the sister of Apollo, “slackening her fair-curved bow and going to the mighty hall of Phœbus in the Delphians’ rich deme and arraying there the Muses’ and the Graces’ lovely dance.” The exquisite grace of the landscape, half hidden, half revealed through the fragile veil of silver light, seems like a gentle preparation for the epiphany, expected on the morrow, of the god of the golden blade. The carriage passes very early by Amphissa, the capital of modern Phocis as it was of ancient Locris, and an hour later halts, to rest the horses, at a dim corner of the village of Chryso, a name which preserves that of the Crisa of antiquity. All this drowsy territory has been the stage of one of the significant dramas of history. The modern demarch hospitably presses water from the village fountain upon modern wayfarers, but the Crisæans once used their strategic position as owners of the whole wide plain to plunder pilgrims on their way to the shrine. This evil monopoly gave way, early in the sixth century, to the powerful confederation of twelve Greek states, known as the Delphic Amphictyony, whose representatives met at Delphi twice a year and ruled the affairs of the sacred domain. During almost one hundred and fifty years, with unquestioned right, whatever internecine wars were in progress, delegates from Thessaly and Bœotia, from Athens and Sparta, from Phocis itself and from other lesser states could pass and repass through Crisa, while the fertile plain went untilled. Even after war invaded the protected territory the existence of the Council was not endangered. But the constitution of the delegates changed with the fortunes of battles. By the middle of the fourth century the Phocians were struck from the list and the Macedonians added. Philip had become the chief actor, seizing his opportunity when the men of Delphi, at the instigation of the Athenian delegate, Æschines, attacked the men of Amphissa because they were turning the consecrated wilderness of the plain into corn-fields and olive groves and filling up the empty places with prosperous houses and busy little potteries. A series of easy steps led to the overthrow of Greek freedom.