BOOK X — Phocis (Part 2)

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 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.

Iliad, ii. 519.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

On the right of the town at the distance of about 2 stades is a lofty rock, which forms part of a mountain, and on it is a temple of Artemis, and a statue of the goddess by Praxiteles, with a torch in her right hand and her quiver over her shoulders, she is taller than the tallest woman, and on her left hand is a dog.

Bordering on Phocis is the town of Bulis, which got its name from Bulon the founder of the colony, it was colonized from the towns in ancient Doris. The people of Bulis are said to have shared in the impiety of Philomelus and the Phocians. From Thisbe in Bœotia to Bulis is 80 stades, I do not know whether there is any road from Anticyra to Bulis on the mainland, so precipitous and difficult to scale are the mountains between. It is about 100 stades from Anticyra to the port: and from the port to Bulis is I conjecture by land about 7 stades. And a mountain torrent, called by the natives Hercules’, falls into the sea here. Bulis lies on high ground, and you sail by it as you cross from Anticyra to Lechæum near Corinth. And more than half the inhabitants live by catching shell-fish for purple dye. There are no particular buildings to excite admiration at Bulis except two temples, one of Artemis, the other of Dionysus; their statues are of wood, but who made them I could not ascertain. The god that they worship most they call Supreme, a title I imagine of Zeus. They have also a well called Saunion.

To Cirrha, the seaport of Delphi, it is about 60 stades from Delphi, and as you descend to the plain is a Hippodrome, where they celebrate the Pythian horse-races. As to Taraxippus in Olympia I have described it in my account of Elis. In this Hippodrome of Apollo there are accidents occasionally, inasmuch as the deity in all human affairs awards both good and bad, but there is nothing specially contrived to frighten horses, either from the malignity of some hero, or any other cause. And the plain of Cirrha is almost entirely bare of trees, for they do not care to plant trees, either in consequence of some curse, or because they do not think the soil favourable to the growth of trees. It is said that Cirrha got its present name from the Nymph Cirrha, but Homer in the Iliad calls it by its ancient name Crisa, as also in the Hymn to Apollo. And subsequently the people of Cirrha committed various acts of impiety against Apollo, and ravaged the territory sacred to the god. The Amphictyones resolved therefore to war against the people of Cirrha, and chose for their leader Clisthenes the king of Sicyon, and invited Solon the Athenian to assist them by his counsel. They also consulted the oracle, and this was the response of the Pythian Priestess, “You will not capture the tower and demolish the town, till the wave of blue-eyed Amphitrite, dashing over the dark sea, shall break into my grove.”

Solon persuaded them therefore to consecrate to the god the land about Cirrha, that the grove of Apollo might extend as far as the sea. He invented also another ingenious contrivance against the people of Cirrha: he turned the course of the river Plistus which flowed through the town. And when the besieged still held out by drinking rain water and the water from the wells, he threw some roots of hellebore into the Plistus, and when he thought the water of the river sufficiently impregnated with this, he turned it back into its ordinary channel, and the people of Cirrha, drinking freely of the water, were attacked with an incessant diarrhœa, and unable to man the walls, so the Amphictyones captured the town, and took vengeance on the inhabitants for their conduct to the god, and Cirrha became the seaport of Delphi. It contains a handsome temple of Apollo and Artemis and Leto, and large statues of those divinities, of Attic workmanship. There is also a smaller statue of Adrastea.

Iliad, ii. 520.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Next comes the land of the Ozolian Locrians: why they were called Ozolian is differently stated, I shall relate all that I heard. When Orestheus the son of Deucalion was king of the country, a bitch gave birth to a piece of wood instead of a puppy: and Orestheus having buried this piece of wood in the ground, they say the next spring a vine sprang from it, and these Ozolians got their name from its branches. Another tradition is that Nessus, the ferryman at the river Evenus, did not immediately die when wounded by Hercules, but fled to this land, and dying here rotted, as he was unburied, and tainted the air. A third tradition attributes the name to the unpleasant smell of a certain river, and a fourth to the smell of the asphodel which abounds in that part. Another tradition is that the first dwellers here were Aborigines, and not knowing how to make garments wore untanned hides as a protection against the cold, putting the hairy portion of the hides outside for ornament. Thus their smell would be as unpleasant as that of a tan-yard.

About 120 stades from Delphi is Amphissa, the largest and most famous town of these Locrians. The inhabitants joined themselves to the Ætolians from shame at the title Ozolian. It is also probable that, when Augustus removed many of the Ætolians to fill his town Nicopolis, many of them migrated to Amphissa. However the original inhabitants were Locrians, and the town got its name they say from Amphissa, (the daughter of Macar the son of Æolus), who was beloved by Apollo. The town has several handsome sights, especially the tombs of Amphissa and Andræmon: with Andræmon his wife Gorge, the daughter of Œneus, was buried. In the citadel is a temple of Athene, and statue of the goddess in a standing position, which they say was brought by Thoas from Ilium, and was part of the Trojan spoil. This however I cannot credit. I showed in a previous part of my work that the Samians Rhœcus, (the son of Philæus), and Theodorus, (the son of Telecles), were the first brass-founders. However I have not discovered any works in brass by Theodorus. But in the temple of Ephesian Artemis, when you go into a room containing some paintings, you will see a stone cornice above the altar of Artemis Protothronia; on this cornice are several statues and among others one at the end by Rhœcus, which the Ephesians call Night. The statue therefore of Athene at Amphissa is more ancient and ruder in art. The people of Amphissa celebrate the rites of the youths called Anactes (_Kings_): different accounts are given as to who they were, some say Castor and Pollux, others say the Curetes, those who think themselves best informed say the Cabiri.

These Locrians have other towns, as Myonia above Amphissa, and 30 stades from it, facing the mainland. Its inhabitants presented a shield to Zeus at Olympia. The town lies on high ground, and there is a grove and altar to the Mild Deities, and there are nightly sacrifices to them, and they consume the flesh of the victims before daybreak. There is also above the town a grove of Poseidon called Poseidonium, and in it a temple, but there is no statue there now.

Myonia is above Amphissa: and near the sea is Œanthea, and at no great distance Naupactus. All these towns except Amphissa are under the Achæans of Patræ, as a grant from the Emperor Augustus. At Œanthea there is a temple of Aphrodite, and a little above the town a grove of cypress and pine, and in it a temple and statue of Artemis: and some paintings on the walls rather obscured by time, so that one cannot now see them clearly. I think the town must have got its name from some woman or Nymph. As to Naupactus I know the tradition is that the Dorians and the sons of Aristomachus built a fleet there, with which they crossed over to the Peloponnese, hence the origin of the name. As to the history of Naupactus, how the Athenians took it from the Locrians and gave it to the Messenians who removed to Ithome at the time of the earthquake at Lacedæmon, and how after the reverse of the Athenians at Ægos-potamoi the Lacedæmonians ejected the Messenians, all this has been related by me in my account of Messenia: and when the Messenians were obliged to evacuate it then the Locrians returned to Naupactus. As to the Poems called by the Greeks Naupactian, most attribute them to a Milesian: but Charon the son of Pytheus says they were composed by Carcinus a native of Naupactus. I follow the account of the native of Lampsacus: for how is it reasonable to suppose that poems written on women by a Milesian should be called Naupactian? There is at Naupactus a temple of Poseidon near the sea, and a brazen statue of the god in a standing posture; there is also a temple and statue of Artemis in white stone. The goddess is called Ætolian Artemis, and is in the attitude of a person hurling a javelin. Aphrodite also has honours paid to her in a cavern: they pray to her for various favours, widows especially for a second husband. There are also ruins of a temple of Æsculapius, which was originally built by one Phalysius, a private individual, who had an ailment in his eyes and was nearly blind, and the god of Epidaurus sent to him the poetess Anyte with a sealed letter. She dreamed one night and directly she woke found the sealed letter in her hands, and sailed to Naupactus and bade Phalysius remove the seal and read what was written. And though he was clearly unable to read from his blindness, yet, having faith in the god, he broke open the seal, and became cured by looking at the letter, and gave Anyte 2,000 gold staters, which was the sum mentioned in the letter.

The Greek word for branch is _Ozos_. Hence the Paronomasia. All the four other unsavoury traditions are connected with the Greek verb _ozo_, I smell.