Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/304

 288 HISTORY OF GREECE. The Phokians were bounded on the north by the little terri* tories called Doris and Dryopis, which separated them from the Malians, on the north-east, east, and south-west, by the dif- ferent branches of Lokrians, and on the south-east, by the Boeotians. They touched the Euboean sea, (as has been men- tioned) at Daphnus, the point where it approaches nearest to their chief town, Elateia ; their territory also comprised most part of the lofty and bleak range of Parnassus, as far as its southerly termination, where a lower portion of it, called Kirphis, pro- jects into the Corinthian gulf, between the two bays of An- tikyra and Krissa; the latter, with its once fertile plain, lay immediately under the sacred rock of the Delphian Apollo. Both Delphi and Krissa originally belonged to the Phokian race, but the sanctity of the temple, together with Lacedaemonian aid, enabled the Delphians to set up for themselves, disavowing their connection with the Phokian brotherhood. Territorially speaking, the most valuable part of Phokis 1 consisted in the valley of the river Kephisus, which takes its rise from Parnassus, not far from the Phokian town of Lilsea, passes between (Eta and Knemis on one side, and Parnassus on the other, and enters Bocotia near Chaeroneia, discharging itself into the lake Kopais. [t was on the projecting mountain ledges and rocks on each side )f this river, that the numerous little Phokian towns were situ- ated. Twenty-two of them were destroyed and broken up into villages by the Amphiktyonic order, after the second Sacred War ; Abas (one of the few, if not the only one, that was spared) being protected by the sanctity of its temple and oracle. Oi these cities, the most important was Elateia, situated on the left bank of the Kephisus, and on the road from Lokris into Phokis, in the natural march of an army from Thermopylae into Bosotia. The Phokian towns 2 were embodied in an ancient confederacy, 46). This serves as one presumption about the age of the Periplus of Sky- lax (see the notes of Klausen ad Skyl. p. 269). These Lokrian towns lay along the important road from Thermopylae to Elateia and Bceotia (Pansan, vii. 15, 2; Livy, xxxiii. 3) 1 Pausan. x. 33, 4. the note of Wesseling. The tenth book of Pausanias, though the larger half of it is devoted to
 * Pausan. x. 5, 1 ; Demosth. Fals. Leg. c. 22-28 ; Diodor. xvi. 60, with