Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/495

 DELPHI. KIRRHA. 46? spoils of Kirrha itself, to the Pythian festival. How this wan! was at first supplied, while the remembrance of the oath was yet fresh, we are not informed. But in process of time Kirrha be- came reoccupied and refortified by the western neighbors of Del- phi the Lokrians of Amphissa on whose borders it stood, and for whom probably it served as a port not less than for Del- phi. These new occupants received the guests coming to the temple, enriched themselves by the accompanying profit and took into cultivation a certain portion of the plain around the town. 1 At what period the occupation by the Lokrians had its origin, we are unable to say. So much however we make out not merely from Demosthenes, but even from -ZEsehines that in their time it was an ancient and established occupation not a recent intrusion or novelty. The town was fortified ; the space immediately adjacent being tilled and claimed Uy the Lokrians as their own. 2 This indeed was a departure from the oath, sworn by Solon with his Amphiktyonic contemporaries, to consecrate Kirrha and its lands to the Delphian god. But if that oath had been literally carried out, the god himself, and the Delphians among whom he dwelt, would have been the principal losers ; be- cause the want of a convenient port would have been a serious discouragement, if not a positive barrier, against the arrival of visitors, most of whom came by sea. Accordingly the renova- tion of the town and port of Kirrha, doubtless on a modest scale, together with a space of adjacent land for tillage, was at least tol- erated, if not encouraged. Much of the plain, indeed, still re- mained unfilled and unplanted, as the property of Apollo ; the boundaries being perhaps not accurately drawn. While the Lokrians had thus been serviceable to the Delphian temple by occupying Kirrha, they had been still more valua- ble as its foremost auxiliaries and protectors against the Phokians their enemies of long standing. 3 One of the first objects of Phi 1 JEschines adv. Ktesiph. p. 69; compare Livy, xlii. 5 ; Pausanias, x 37, 4. The distance from Delphi to Kirrha is given by Pausanias at sixtj Bt&dia, or about seven English miles ; by Strabo at eighty stadia. 'A.[ipiaaeic aQuv avruv yeupyslv tyaaav, ov~0f tie (^Eschines) 7% upuf ^/-fl> TjTtar-) dvai, etc. 8 Biodor. xvi. "24; Thucyd. iii. 101. VOL. xi. 40
 * jEschines, 1. c. ; Dcmosth. De Corona, p. 277. TJ)V x^pav f/v ol uet