Description of Greece

There is beyond the city a crag called Petrachus. Here they hold that Cronus was deceived, and received from Rhea a stone instead of Zeus, and there is a small image of Zeus on the summit of the mountain.

Here in Chaeroneia they distil unguents from flowers, namely, the lily, the rose, the narcissus and the iris. These prove to be cures for the pains of men. The unguent from the rose, if it be smeared on wooden images, prevents their decaying. The iris grows in marshes, is in size as large as a lily, but is not white in color, and smells less sweet.

It is plain that such part of Phocis as is around Tithorea and Delphi was so named in very ancient days after a Corinthian, Phocus, a son of Ornytion. Not many years afterwards, the name established itself as the received title of what is today called Phocis, when the Aeginetans had disembarked on the land with Phocus the son of Aeacus.

Opposite the Peloponnesus, and in the direction of Boeotia, Phocis stretches to the sea, and touches it on one side at Cirrha, the port of Delphi, and on the other at the city of Anticyra. In the direction of the Lamian Gulf there are between Phocis and the sea only the Hypocnemidian Locrians. By these is Phocis bounded in this direction, by Scarpheia on the other side of Elateia, and by Opus and its port Cynus beyond Hyampolis and Abae.