Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume II.Pausanias, active approximately 150-175
History
Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume II.
Pausanias, active approximately 150-175
Greece -- Antiquities; Greece -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800
refer to those who farmed near the Cephisus, and not to the town
of Parapotamii. But this idea is not borne out by Herodotus in his
History, or by the records of the victors in the Pythian Games, which
were first instituted by the Amphictyones, and Æchmeas of Parapotamii
won the prize among boys for boxing. And Herodotus mentions Parapotamii
among the towns in Phocis that king Xerxes set on fire. Parapotamii
was however not restored by the Athenians and Bœotians, but its
inhabitants, owing to its poverty and want of money, were partitioned
out among other towns. There are now no ruins of Parapotamii, nor is
its exact site known.
From Lilæa is 60 stades’ journey to Amphiclea. The name of this place
has been changed by the natives, for Herodotus following the oldest
tradition called it Amphicæa, but the Amphictyones called it Amphiclea
in their decree for the destruction of the towns in Phocis. The natives
relate the following tradition about one of its names. They say that
one of their rulers, suspecting a plot of some of his enemies against
his baby boy, put him in a cot, and hid him in what he thought the
most secure place, and a wolf tried to get at the little fellow, but a
snake twined itself round the cot as a sure protection. And the child’s
father coming up, and fearing that the snake had harmed his little boy,
hurled his javelin at it and slew both child and snake: but learning
from some herdsmen that the snake he had killed had been the preserver
and guard of his child, he had a funeral pyre for snake and child
together. And they say the place to this day presents the appearance
of a funeral pyre blazing, and they think the town was called Ophitea
(_Snake-town_) from this snake. Noteworthy are the orgies which they
perform here to Dionysus, but there is no public entrance to the
shrine, nor is there any statue of the god. But the people of Amphiclea
say that the god prophecies to them and cures sicknesses by dreams, and
his priest is a prophet, and when possessed by the god utters oracles.
About 15 stades from Amphiclea is Tithronium, which lies in the plain,
and about which there is nothing remarkable. And 20 stades further is
Drymæa. At the place where the roads from Tithronium and Amphiclea to
Drymæa meet, near the river Cephisus, the people of Tithronium have a
grove and altars and temple to Apollo, but no statue of the god. Drymæa
is about 80 stades from Amphiclea as you turn to the left ... according
to Herodotus.[147] It was originally called Nauboles, and its founder
was they say Phocus the son of Æacus. At Drymæa is an ancient temple to
Law-giving Demeter, and the statue of the goddess, to whom they keep an
annual feast called the Thesmophoria, is erect in stone.
[144] The circumstances are narrated in ch. 2.
[145] ὦ ταυρόμορφον ὄμμα Κηφισοῦ πατρός. Eurip. _Ion._ 1261.
[146] Iliad, ii. 522.
[147] Hiatus hic est valde deflendus.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
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