Lilæa is a winter day’s journey from Delphi: you descend by Parnassus: the distance is I conjecture about 180 stades. The people of Lilæa, when their town was restored, had a second reverse at the hand of Macedonia, for they were besieged by Philip the son of Demetrius and capitulated upon conditions of war, and a garrison was put into their town, till a townsman, whose name was Patron, incited the younger citizens to rise against the garrison, and overcame the Macedonians and compelled them to evacuate the town on conditions of war. And the people of Lilæa for this good service put up his statue at Delphi. There is at Lilæa a theatre and market-place and baths: there are also temples to Apollo and Artemis, whose statues, in a standing position, are of Attic workmanship in Pentelican marble. They say the town got its name from Lilæa, who was one of the Naiades, and reputed to be the daughter of the Cephisus, which rises here, and flows at first not with a gentle current, but at mid-day especially roars like the roaring of a bull.[145] In spring summer and autumn the air of Lilæa is salubrious, but in winter the proximity of Parnassus keeps it cold.
About 20 stades further is Charadra, which lies on a lofty ridge. Its inhabitants are very badly off for water, as their only water is from the Charadrus three stades down the hill side, which falls into the Cephisus, and which no doubt gave its name to the place. In the market-place are some altars to the Heroes: some say Castor and Pollux are meant, others say some local heroes. The land near the Cephisus is out and out the best in Phocis for planting, and sowing, and pasture: and this part of the country is mostly portioned out into farms, so that some think Homer’s lines,
“And those who near divine Cephisus dwelt,”[146]
refer to those who farmed near the Cephisus, and not to the town of Parapotamii. But this idea is not borne out by Herodotus in his History, or by the records of the victors in the Pythian Games, which were first instituted by the Amphictyones, and Æchmeas of Parapotamii won the prize among boys for boxing. And Herodotus mentions Parapotamii among the towns in Phocis that king Xerxes set on fire. Parapotamii was however not restored by the Athenians and Bœotians, but its inhabitants, owing to its poverty and want of money, were partitioned out among other towns. There are now no ruins of Parapotamii, nor is its exact site known.
From Lilæa is 60 stades’ journey to Amphiclea. The name of this place has been changed by the natives, for Herodotus following the oldest tradition called it Amphicæa, but the Amphictyones called it Amphiclea in their decree for the destruction of the towns in Phocis. The natives relate the following tradition about one of its names. They say that one of their rulers, suspecting a plot of some of his enemies against his baby boy, put him in a cot, and hid him in what he thought the most secure place, and a wolf tried to get at the little fellow, but a snake twined itself round the cot as a sure protection. And the child’s father coming up, and fearing that the snake had harmed his little boy, hurled his javelin at it and slew both child and snake: but learning from some herdsmen that the snake he had killed had been the preserver and guard of his child, he had a funeral pyre for snake and child together. And they say the place to this day presents the appearance of a funeral pyre blazing, and they think the town was called Ophitea (Snake-town) from this snake. Noteworthy are the orgies which they perform here to Dionysus, but there is no public entrance to the shrine, nor is there any statue of the god. But the people of Amphiclea say that the god prophecies to them and cures sicknesses by dreams, and his priest is a prophet, and when possessed by the god utters oracles.
About 15 stades from Amphiclea is Tithronium, which lies in the plain, and about which there is nothing remarkable. And 20 stades further is Drymæa. At the place where the roads from Tithronium and Amphiclea to Drymæa meet, near the river Cephisus, the people of Tithronium have a grove and altars and temple to Apollo, but no statue of the god. Drymæa is about 80 stades from Amphiclea as you turn to the left ... according to Herodotus.[147] It was originally called Nauboles, and its founder was they say Phocus the son of Æacus. At Drymæa is an ancient temple to Law-giving Demeter, and the statue of the goddess, to whom they keep an annual feast called the Thesmophoria, is erect in stone.
[144] The circumstances are narrated in ch. 2.
[145] ὦ ταυρόμορφον ὄμμα Κηφισοῦ πατρός. Eurip. Ion. 1261.
[146] Iliad, ii. 522.
[147] Hiatus hic est valde deflendus.