some understand a small town, called Under-Thebes, others Potniæ, for Thebes was abandoned after the expedition of the Epigoni, and took no part in the Trojan war. Others say that they did take part in it, but that they lived at that time under Cadmeia, in the plain country, after the incursion of the Epigoni, being unable to rebuild the Cadmeia. As Thebes was called Cadmeia, the poet says that the Thebans of that time lived “under Thebes” instead of “under Cadmeia.” 33. The Amphictyonic council usually assembled at Onchestus, in the territory of Haliartus, near the lake Copaïs, and the Teneric plain. It is situated on a height, devoid of trees, where is a temple of Neptune also without trees. For the poets, for the sake of ornament, called all sacred places groves, although they were without trees. Such is the language of Pindar, when speaking of Apollo: “He traversed in his onward way the earth and sea; he stood upon the heights of the lofty mountains; he shook the caves in their deep recesses, and overthrew the foundations of the sacred groves” or temples. As Alcæus is mistaken in the altering the name of the river Cuarius, so he makes a great error in placing Onchestus at the extremities of Helicon, whereas it is situated very far from this mountain. 34. The Teneric plain has its name from Tenerus. According to mythology, he was the son of Apollo and Melia, and declared the answers of the oracle at the mountain Ptoum,[391] which, the same poet says, had three peaks: “At one time he occupied the caves of the three-headed Ptoum;” and he calls Tenerus “the prophet, dwelling in the temple, and having the same name as the soil on which it stands.” The Ptoum is situated above the Teneric plain, and the lake Copaïs, near Acræphium. Both [CAS. 413] the oracle and the mountain belonged to the Thebans. Acræphium[392] itself is situated upon a height. This, it is said, is the place called Arnē by the poet, having the same name as the Thessalian Arnē. 35. Some say that Arnē and Mideia were swallowed up by the lake. Zenodotus, however, when he writes the verse thus, “they who occupied Ascra abounding with vines,”[393] does not seem to have read Hesiod’s description of his native country, and what has been said by Eudoxus, who relates things much more to the disparagement of Ascra. For how could any one believe that such a place could have been described by the poet as “abounding with vines?” Neither are those persons in the right, who substitute in this passage Tarnē for Arnē, for there is not a place of the name of Tarne to be found in Bœotia, although there is in Lydia. Homer mentions it, “Idomeneus then slew Phæstus, the son of Borus, the artificer, who came from the fruitful soil of Tarnē.”[394] Besides Alalcomenæ and Tilphossium, which are near the lake, Chæroneia, Lebadia, and Leuctra, are worthy of notice. 36. The poet mentions Alalcomenæ,[395] but not in the Catalogue;