DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1004#0048
20 ELATEA—DAULIS.
The position of this city gave it so much importance that, among the towns
of Phocis, it yielded alone to Delphi in this respect. It commanded the pas-
sage from Thermopylae over the heights of Mount Cnemis into the Cephis-
sian valley, and thence to the plains of Bceotia. It was the key of southern
Greece. Hence arose the panic and consternation which, as we learn from
the great Orator of the time, filled the city of Athens on the evening of the
month of June, in the year b.c. 338, on which a messenger came to the
Prytanes of that city with the news that Elatea had been taken by Philip of
Macedon, who had marched by the passage above alluded to. The capture
of this city was followed within a few months by the total defeat of the
Athenians on the neighbouring plain of Chaeronea.
The river Cephissus flows by the city of Abae, which stands on its left
bank. That place is now called Belisi, and was formerly famed for the
sanctity of its oracle. The river there enters the lake, to which it gave the
epithet Cephissian, at the foot of the lofty citadel of Orchomenus.
t the same distance from the Cephissus as the city
of Abae, but on the right branch of the stream,
and immediately below the point at which we now
stand,—the eminence of Parnassus, and in an
easterly direction from it, is the city of Daulis.
It still retains its ancient name.
Few of the cities of Greece can be compared
with this place in the grandeur of their position, or
in the extent and excellent preservation of their re-
mains. The line of the ancient walls of the city can still be traced almost
in their entire circuit along the crest of the rocky and isolated hill on which
the ancient Daulians dwelt.
What remains of its history is as insignificant as these vestiges of its
structure are remarkable. It has derived more renown from the mytho-
logical story of Procne, and has attracted more notice from the writers of
antiquity on her account and on that of her sister Philomela, than by means
of all the achievements in arts and arms of its former occupants. That
story itself is one of the indications which survive of the attention that was
paid to the habits of animals even by the earliest and rudest inhabitants of
Greece, and of the natural humanity of character which such an observation
of their customs, and sympathy with their sufferings, may fairly be s
The position of this city gave it so much importance that, among the towns
of Phocis, it yielded alone to Delphi in this respect. It commanded the pas-
sage from Thermopylae over the heights of Mount Cnemis into the Cephis-
sian valley, and thence to the plains of Bceotia. It was the key of southern
Greece. Hence arose the panic and consternation which, as we learn from
the great Orator of the time, filled the city of Athens on the evening of the
month of June, in the year b.c. 338, on which a messenger came to the
Prytanes of that city with the news that Elatea had been taken by Philip of
Macedon, who had marched by the passage above alluded to. The capture
of this city was followed within a few months by the total defeat of the
Athenians on the neighbouring plain of Chaeronea.
The river Cephissus flows by the city of Abae, which stands on its left
bank. That place is now called Belisi, and was formerly famed for the
sanctity of its oracle. The river there enters the lake, to which it gave the
epithet Cephissian, at the foot of the lofty citadel of Orchomenus.
t the same distance from the Cephissus as the city
of Abae, but on the right branch of the stream,
and immediately below the point at which we now
stand,—the eminence of Parnassus, and in an
easterly direction from it, is the city of Daulis.
It still retains its ancient name.
Few of the cities of Greece can be compared
with this place in the grandeur of their position, or
in the extent and excellent preservation of their re-
mains. The line of the ancient walls of the city can still be traced almost
in their entire circuit along the crest of the rocky and isolated hill on which
the ancient Daulians dwelt.
What remains of its history is as insignificant as these vestiges of its
structure are remarkable. It has derived more renown from the mytho-
logical story of Procne, and has attracted more notice from the writers of
antiquity on her account and on that of her sister Philomela, than by means
of all the achievements in arts and arms of its former occupants. That
story itself is one of the indications which survive of the attention that was
paid to the habits of animals even by the earliest and rudest inhabitants of
Greece, and of the natural humanity of character which such an observation
of their customs, and sympathy with their sufferings, may fairly be s