“Copæ, and Eutresis, and Thisbe, abounding with doves.”[383]
We have spoken of Copæ. It lies towards the north on the lake Copais. The other cities around are, Acræphiæ, Phœnicis, Onchestus, Haliartus, Ocalea, Alalcomenæ, Tilphusium, Coroneia. Formerly, the lake had no one general name, but derived its appellation from every settlement on its banks, as Copaïs from Copæ,[384] Haliartis from Haliartus, and other names from other places, but latterly the whole has been called Copaïs, for the lake is remarkable for forming at Copæ the deepest hollow. Pindar calls it Cephissis, and places near it, not far from Haliartus and Alalcomenæ, the fountain Tilphossa, which flows at the foot of Mount Tilphossius. At the fountain is the monument of Teiresias, and in the same place the temple of the Tilphossian Apollo.
28. After Copæ, the poet mentions Eutresis, a small village of the Thespians.[385] Here Zethus and Amphion lived before they became kings of Thebes.
Thisbē is now called Thisbæ. The place is situated a little above the sea-coast on the confines of the Thespienses, and the territory of Coroneia; on the south it lies at the foot of Cithæron. It has an arsenal in a rocky situation abounding with doves, whence the poet terms it
“Thisbe, with its flights of doves.”
Thence to Sicyon is a voyage of 160 stadia.
29. He next recites the names of Coroneia, Haliartus, Platææ, and Glissas.
Coroneia[386] is situated upon an eminence, near Helicon. The Bœotians took possession of it on their return from the Thessalian Arne, after the Trojan war, when they also occupied Orchomenus. Having become masters of Coroneia, they built in the plain before the city the temple of the Itonian Minerva, of the same name as that in Thessaly, and called the river flowing by it, Cuarius, the name of the Thessalian river. Alcæus, however, calls it Coralius in these words,
“Minerva, warrior queen, who o’er Coroneia keepest watch before thy temple, on the banks of Coralius.”