From such inconveniences the god was protected by placing his sanctuary “in the rocky Pytho,”—a rugged and uneven recess, of no great dimensions, embosomed in the southern declivity of Parnassus, and about two thousand feet above the level of the sea, while the topmost Parnassian summits reach a height of near eight thousand feet. The situation was extremely imposing, but unsuited by nature for the congregation of any considerable number of spectators,—altogether impracticable for chariot-races,—and only rendered practicable by later art and outlay for the theatre as well as for the stadium; the original stadium, when first established, was placed in the plain beneath. It furnished little means of subsistence, but the sacrifices and presents of visitors enabled the ministers of the temple to live in abundance,[114] and gathered together by degrees a village around it. Near the sanctuary of Pytho, and about the same altitude, was situated the ancient Phocian town of Krissa, on a projecting spur of Parnassus,—overhung above by the line of rocky precipice called the Phædriades, and itself overhanging below the deep ravine through which flows the river Pleistus. On the other side of this river rises the steep mountain Kirphis, which projects southward into the Corinthian gulf,—the river reaching that gulf through the broad Krissæan or Kirrhæan plain, which stretches westward nearly to the Lokrian town of Amphissa; a plain for the most part fertile and productive, though least so in its eastern part immediately under the Kirphis, where the seaport Kirrha was placed.[115] The temple, the oracle, and the wealth of Pytho, belong to the very earliest periods of Grecian antiquity; but the octennial solemnity in honor of the god included at first no other competition except that of bards, who sang each a pæan with the harp. It has been already mentioned, in my preceding volume, that the Amphiktyonic assembly held one of its half-yearly meetings near the temple of Pytho, the other at Thermopylæ. [114] Βωμοί μ᾽ ἔφερβον, οὕπιών τ᾽ ἀεὶ ξένος, says Ion (in Euripidês, Ion. 334) the slave of Apollo, and the verger of his Delphian temple, who waters it from the Kastalian spring, sweeps it with laurel boughs, and keeps off with his bow and arrows the obtrusive birds (Ion, 105, 143, 154). Whoever reads the description of Professor Ulrichs (Reisen und Forschungen in Griechenland, ch. 7, p. 110) will see that the birds—eagles, vultures, and crows—are quite numerous enough to have been exceedingly troublesome. The whole play of Ion conveys a lively idea of the Delphian temple and its scenery, with which Euripidês was doubtless familiar.