About 20 stades from Elatea is a temple of Athene Cranæa, the road to it is uphill but by so gentle a slope that it is very easy and scarcely appreciable. But the crest of the hill at the end of this road is mostly precipitous on a limited area: and here is the temple, with porticoes and chambers, where various people that minister to the goddess reside, and especially the priest, whom they select out of the youths, and take great care that he ceases to be priest when he has passed the flower of his age. And he is priest for 5 continuous years, during which he resides with the goddess, and takes his baths after the ancient manner in bathing tubs.[148] The statue of the goddess was executed by the sons of Polycles. She is armed for battle, and her shield is an imitation of that of Athene in the Parthenon at Athens. [148] See for instance Homer’s Odyssey, xvii. 87-90. CHAPTER XXXV. For Abæ and Hyampolis you take the mountainous road on the right of Elatea: the high road from Orchomenus to Opus also leads to those places: but to go to Abæ you turn a little off that high road to the left. The people of Abæ say they came to Phocis from Argos, and that their town took its name from its founder Abas, the son of Lynceus by Hypermnestra the daughter of Danaus. The people of Abæ consider that their town was in ancient times sacred to Apollo, and there was an oracle of Apollo there. But the Romans and Persians did not equally honour the god, for the Romans in their piety to Apollo granted autonomy to the people of Abæ, but Xerxes’ army burnt the temple there. And though the Greeks resisted the barbarians, they did not think good to rebuild the temples that were burnt down, but to leave them for all time as records of national hatred:[149] and so the temples at Haliartia, and the temple of Hera at Athens on the way to Phalerum, and the temple of Demeter at Phalerum remain to this day half-burnt. Such also I imagine was the condition of the temple at Abæ, till in the Phocian War, when some Phocian fugitives who were beaten in battle fleeing for refuge to it, the Thebans, emulating the conduct of the Medes, set them and the temple on fire. It is therefore in the most ruinous condition of all the buildings injured by fire, for after first suffering from the Persian fire, it was next consumed altogether by the Bœotian. Near this great temple is a smaller one, erected to Apollo by the Emperor Adrian, but the statues are ancient and were the votive offering of the people of Abæ, Apollo and Leto and Artemis in bronze. There is also a theatre at Abæ and a market-place, both ancient.