DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4098#0213
186 MOUNT KIRPHIS, CAVE OF SYBARIS.
Having rested some time, and almost dried myself in the sun,
which, although in the month of March, was very powerful, I pro-
ceeded amongst the olive-groves, towards Mount Kirphis ; but I Was
soon so bewildered by the marshes and ditches of the Pleistos, that
I should probably have been obliged to return, had not some voices
excited my observation. I perceived several Greeks working in the
fields; and their astonishment at seeing a Frank alone in such a
place, and covered with mud and dirt, could not be readily de-
scribed. They were however civil, and assured me, that there were
no ruins whatever in the plain. I begged one of them to accom-
pany me to the cave on Kirphis, to which he consented upon the
payment of twenty paras.
We proceeded straight up the rough and difficult side of the
mountain, which was covered with rocks and bushes, and at length
reached the cave, which is called tvj$ lepovtruXiip to o-tttiXcciov, the Cave
of Jerusalem. It is the work of nature; its entrance is nearly square,
but smaller than it appears from Delphi; nor does it merit the epi-
thet vsregpeysOsg, which was given to it by Antoninus Liberalis. It
does not penetrate above forty feet into the rock, and contains only a
few fragments of loose wall, which constitute a Greek rustic chapel.
It is necessary to inform future travellers that it is by no means
worth seeing; and I regretted that I had to so little purpose em-
ployed so much labour, and wasted so much time.
No author with whose works I am acquainted notices this cave,
except Antoninus Liberalis;1 and as his fable relating to it is little
known, I give it at some length.—He says, that " at the foot of
Parnassos, towards the south, is Mount Kirphis; in which is a
spacious cavern, once the abode of a monster of enormous size, by
some named Lamia, and by others Sybaris. Every day the monster
devoured men and flocks, and the Delphians, who were thinking
1 Metamorph. c. 8.
Having rested some time, and almost dried myself in the sun,
which, although in the month of March, was very powerful, I pro-
ceeded amongst the olive-groves, towards Mount Kirphis ; but I Was
soon so bewildered by the marshes and ditches of the Pleistos, that
I should probably have been obliged to return, had not some voices
excited my observation. I perceived several Greeks working in the
fields; and their astonishment at seeing a Frank alone in such a
place, and covered with mud and dirt, could not be readily de-
scribed. They were however civil, and assured me, that there were
no ruins whatever in the plain. I begged one of them to accom-
pany me to the cave on Kirphis, to which he consented upon the
payment of twenty paras.
We proceeded straight up the rough and difficult side of the
mountain, which was covered with rocks and bushes, and at length
reached the cave, which is called tvj$ lepovtruXiip to o-tttiXcciov, the Cave
of Jerusalem. It is the work of nature; its entrance is nearly square,
but smaller than it appears from Delphi; nor does it merit the epi-
thet vsregpeysOsg, which was given to it by Antoninus Liberalis. It
does not penetrate above forty feet into the rock, and contains only a
few fragments of loose wall, which constitute a Greek rustic chapel.
It is necessary to inform future travellers that it is by no means
worth seeing; and I regretted that I had to so little purpose em-
ployed so much labour, and wasted so much time.
No author with whose works I am acquainted notices this cave,
except Antoninus Liberalis;1 and as his fable relating to it is little
known, I give it at some length.—He says, that " at the foot of
Parnassos, towards the south, is Mount Kirphis; in which is a
spacious cavern, once the abode of a monster of enormous size, by
some named Lamia, and by others Sybaris. Every day the monster
devoured men and flocks, and the Delphians, who were thinking
1 Metamorph. c. 8.