Strabo, Geography

After Boeotia and Orchomenus one comes to Phocis; it stretches towards the north alongside Boeotia, nearly from sea to sea; it did so in early times, at least, for in those times Daphnus belonged to Phocis, splitting Locris into two parts and being placed by geographers midway between the Opuntian Gulf and the coast of the Epicnemidians. The country now belongs to the Locrians (the town has been razed to the ground), so that even here Phocis no longer extends as far as the Euboean Sea, though it does border on the Crisaean Gulf. For Crisa itself belongs to Phocis, being situated by the sea itself and so do Cirrha and Anticyra and the places which lie in the interior and contiguous to them near Parnassus—I mean Delphi, Cirphis, and Daulis—and Parnassus itself which belongs to Phocis and forms its boundary on its western side. In the same way as Phocis lies alongside Boeotia, so also Locris lies alongside Phocis on either side; for Locris is double, being divided into two parts by Parnassus, the part on the western side lying alongside Parnassus and occupying a part of it, and extending to the Crisaean Gulf, whereas the part on the side towards the east ends at the Euboean Sea. The Westerners¹ are called Locrians and Ozolae; and they have the star Hesperus engraved on their public seal. The other division of inhabitants is itself also divided, in a way, into two parts: the Opuntians, named after their metropolis, whose territory borders on Phocis and Boeotia, and the Epicnemidians, named after a mountain called Cnemis, who are next to the Oetaeans and Malians. In the middle between both, I mean the Westerners and the other division, is Parnassus, extending lengthwise into the northerly part of the country, from the region of Delphi as far as the junction of the Oetaean and the Aetolian mountains, and the country of the Dorians which lies in the middle between them. For again, just as Locris, being double, lies alongside Phocis, so also the country of the Oetaeans together with Aetolia and with certain places of the Dorian Tetrapolis, which lie in the middle between them, lie alongside either part of Locris and alongside Parnassus and the country of the Dorians. Immediately above these are the Thessalians, the northerly Aetolians, the Acarnanians, and some of the Epeirote and Macedonian tribes. As I was saying before,² one should think of the aforementioned countries as ribbon-like stretches, so to speak, extending parallel to one another from the west towards the east. The whole of Parnassus is esteemed as sacred, since it has caves and other places that are held in honor and deemed holy. Of these the best known and most beautiful is Corycium, a cave of the nymphs bearing the same name as that in Cilicia. Of the sides of Parnassus, the western is occupied by the Ozolian Locrians and by some of the Dorians and by the Aetolians who live near the Aetolian mountain called Corax; whereas the other side is occupied by Phocians and by the majority of the Dorians, who occupy the Tetrapolis, which in a general way lies round Parnassus, but widens out in its parts that face the east. Now the long sides of each of the aforementioned countries and ribbon-like stretches are all parallel, one side being towards the north and the other towards the south; but as for the remaining sides, the western are not parallel to the eastern; neither are the two coastlines, where the countries of these tribes end, I mean that of the Crisaean Gulf as far as Actium and that facing Euboea as far as Thessaloniceia, parallel to one another. But one should conceive of the geometrical figures of these regions as though several lines were drawn in a triangle parallel to the base, for the figures thus marked off will be parallel to one another, and they will have their opposite long sides parallel, but as for the short sides this is no longer the case. This, then, is my rough sketch of the country that remains to be traversed and is next in order. Let me now describe each separate part in order, beginning with Phocis.