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
Ambrosus lies under Mount Parnassus, and opposite Delphi, and got its
name they say from the hero Ambrosus. In the war against Philip and the
Macedonians the Thebans drew a double wall round Ambrosus, made of the
black and very strong stone of the district. The circumference of each
wall is little less than a fathom, and the height is 2½ fathoms,
where the wall has not fallen: and the interval between the two walls
is a fathom. But, as they were intended only for immediate defence,
these walls were not decorated with towers or battlements or any other
embellishment. There is also a small market-place at Ambrosus, most of
the stone statues in it are broken.
As you turn to Anticyra the road is at first rather steep, but after
about two stades it becomes level, and there is on the right a temple
of Dictynnæan Artemis, who is held in the highest honour by the people
of Ambrosus; her statue is of Æginetan workmanship in black stone. From
this temple to Anticyra is all the way downhill. They say the town
was called Cyparissus in ancient times, and Homer in his Catalogue of
the Phocians[150] preferred to give it its old name, for it was then
beginning to be called Anticyra, from Anticyreus who was a contemporary
of Hercules. The town lies below the ruins of Medeon, one of the towns
as I have before mentioned which impiously plundered the temple at
Delphi. The people of Anticyra were expelled first by Philip the son
of Amyntas, and secondly by the Roman Otilius, because they had been
faithful to Philip, the son of Demetrius, the king of the Macedonians,
for Otilius had been sent from Rome to protect the Athenians against
Philip. And the hills above Anticyra are very rocky, and the chief
thing that grows on them is hellebore. The black hellebore is a
purgative, while the white acts as an emetic, the root also of the
hellebore is a purgative. There are brazen statues in the market-place
at Anticyra, and near the harbour is a small temple of Poseidon,
made of unhewn stone, and plastered inside. The statue of the god is
in bronze: he is in a standing posture, and one of his feet is on a
dolphin: one hand is on his thigh, in the other is a trident. There are
also two gymnasiums, one contains baths, the other opposite to it is
an ancient one, in which is a bronze statue of Xenodamus, a native of
Anticyra, who, as the inscription states, was victor at Olympia among
men in the pancratium. And if the inscription is correct, Xenodamus
will have won the wild-olive crown in the 211th Olympiad, the only
Olympiad of all passed over by the people of Elis in their records. And
above the market-place is a conduit: the water is protected from the
sun by a roof supported on pillars. And not much above this conduit is
a tomb built of common stone: they say it is the tomb of the sons of
Iphitus, of whom one returned safe from Ilium and died in his native
place, the other Schedius died in the Troad, but his remains were
brought home and deposited here.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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