previous next

[19]

These rivers descend from the Phocian mountains, and among them the Cephissus,1 having its source at Lilæa, a Phocian city, as Homer describes it;

“ And they who occupied Lilæa, at the sources of Cephissus.2

Il. ii. 523.
It flows through Elateia,3 the largest of the cities among the Phocians, through the Parapotamii, and the Phanoteis, which are also Phocian towns; it then goes onwards to Chæroneia in Bœotia; afterwards, it traverses the districts of Orchomenus and Coroneia, and discharges its waters into the lake Copais. The Permessus and the Olmeius4 descend from Helicon, and uniting their streams, fall into the lake Copais near Haliartus. The waters of other streams likewise discharge themselves into it. It is a large lake with a circuit of 380 stadia;5 the outlets are nowhere visible, if we except the chasm which receives the Cephissus, and the marshes.

1 There were several rivers of this name. See below, c. iii. § 16.

2 Il. ii. 523.

3 See below, ch. iii. § 15. Elateia is represented by the modern village of Elefta.

4 See ch. ii. § 26.

5 It is impossible to make any exact statement respecting its extent, since it varied so much at different times of the year and in different seasons. On the northern and eastern sides its extent is limited by a range of heights, but on the opposite quarter there is no such natural boundary to its size. Smith, v. Bœotia, which contains also a useful map from Forschamer's Hellenica of the Basin of the Copais.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

load focus English (1924)
load focus Greek (1877)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: