Description of Greece

The city lies over against the ruins of Medeon. I have mentioned in the beginning of my account of Phocis that the people of Anticyra were guilty of sacrilege against the sanctuary at Delphi.[*](Paus. 10.3) They were driven from home by Philip, son of Amyntas, and yet once more by the Roman Otilius, because they were subjects of the Macedonian king Philip, son of Demetrius. Otilius had been despatched from Rome to help the Athenians against Philip.

The mountains beyond Anticyra are very rocky, and on them grows hellebore in great profusion. Black hellebore sends those who take it to stool, and purges the bowels; the nature of the other, the white kind, is to purge by vomiting. It is the root of the hellebore which is used as a purging drug.

In the market-place at Anticyra are bronze statues, and at the harbor is a small sanctuary of Poseidon, built of unhewn stones. The inside is covered with stucco. The image, which is made of bronze, is a standing figure, with one foot resting on a dolphin. On this side he has one hand upon his thigh; in his other hand is a trident.

Opposite the gymnasium, in which the baths have been made, is another gymnasium, an old one, in which stands a bronze statue. The inscription on it says that Xenodamus of Anticyra, a pancratiast, won an Olympic victory in the match for men. If the inscription speaks the truth, it would seem that Xenodamus received the wild olive at the two hundred and eleventh Olympic festival.[*](67 A.D) But this is the only festival omitted in the Elean records.

Beyond the market-place there is in a well a spring of water. Over the well there is a roof to shelter it from the sun, with columns to support the roof. A little higher up than the well is a tomb built of any stones that came to hand. Here they say are buried the sons of Iphitus; one returned safe from Troy and died in his native land; the other, Schedius, died, they say, in the Troad, but his bones also were brought home.

About two stades off the city there is, on the right, a high rock, which forms part of a mountain, with a sanctuary of Artemis built upon it. The image of Artemis is one of the works of Praxiteles; she carries a torch in her right hand and a quiver over her shoulders, while at her left side there is a dog. The image is taller than the tallest woman.

Bordering on the Phocian territory is a land named after Bulon, the leader of the colony, which was founded by a union of emigrants from the cities in ancient Doris. The Bulians are said of Philomelus and the Phocians...the general assembly. To Bulis from Thisbe in Boeotia is a journey of eighty stades; but I do not know if in Phocis there be a road by land at all from Anticyra, so rough and difficult to cross are the mountains between Anticyra and Bulis. To the harbor from Anticyra is a sail of one hundred stades, and the road by land from the harbor to Bulis we conjectured to be about seven stades long.

Here a torrent falls into the sea, called by the natives Heracleius. Bulis lies on high ground, and it is passed by travellers crossing by sea from Anticyra to Lechaeum in Corinthian territory. More than half its inhabitants are fishers of the shell-fish that gives the purple dye. The buildings in Bulis are not very wonderful; among them is a sanctuary of Artemis and one of Dionysus. The images are made of wood, but we were unable to judge who was the artist. The god worshipped most by the Bulians is named by them the Greatest, a surname, I should think, of Zeus. At Bulis there is a spring called Saunium.

The length of the road from Delphi to Cirrha, the port of Delphi, is sixty stades. Descending to the plain you come to a race-course, where at the Pythian games the horses compete. I have told in my account of Elis[*](Paus. 6.20.15) the story of the Taraxippus at Olympia, and it is likely that the race-course of Apollo too may possibly harm here and there a driver, for heaven in every activity of man bestows either better fortune or worse. But the race-course itself is not of a nature to startle the horses, either by reason of a hero or on any other account.

The plain from Cirrha is altogether bare, and the inhabitants will not plant trees, either because the land is under a curse, or because they know that the ground is useless for growing trees. It is said that to Cirrha...and they say that from Cirrha the place received its modern name. Homer, however, in the Iliad,[*](Hom. Il. 2.520) and similarly in the hymn to Apollo,[*](See HH Apoll. 269, 282, 438.) calls the city by its ancient name of Crisa. Afterwards the people of Cirrha behaved wickedly towards Apollo; especially in appropriating some of the god's land.

So the Amphictyons determined to make war on the Cirrhaeans, put Cleisthenes, tyrant of Sicyon, at the head of their army, and brought over Solon from Athens to give them advice. They asked the oracle about victory, and the Pythian priestess replied:—

1. You will not take and throw down the tower of this city,
2. Until on my precinct shall dash the wave
3. Of blue-eyed Amphitrite, roaring over the winedark sea.

Solon invented another trick to outwit the Cirrhaeans. The water of the river Pleistus ran along a channel to the city, and Solon diverted it in another direction. When the Cirrhaeans still held out against the besiegers, drinking well-water and rain-water, Solon threw into the Pleistus roots of hellebore, and when he perceived that water held enough of the drug he diverted it back again into its channel. The Cirrhaeans drank without stint of the water, and those on the wall, seized with obstinate diarrhoea, deserted their posts,

and the Amphictyons captured the city. They exacted punishment from the Cirrhaeans on behalf of the god, and Cirrha is the port of Delphi. Its notable sights include a temple of Apollo, Artemis and Leto, with very large images of Attic workmanship. Adrasteia has been set up by the Cirrhaeans in the same place, but she is not so large as the other images.