Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 2.djvu/112

 104 STRABO. CASAUB. 409. Thebans. (Other writers say, that Scolus, Eteonus, and Erythrse, are in the district of Platsese, for the Asopus flows past Platsese, and discharges its waters into the sea near Tana- gra.) In the Theban territory are Therapnae and Teumessus, which Antimachus has extolled in a long poem, enumerat- ing excellencies which it had not ; " There is a small hill exposed to the winds," &c. : but the lines are well known. 25. He calls the present place Thespiae 1 by the name of Thespia, for there are many names, of which some are used both in the singular and in the plural number, in the masculine and in the feminine gender, and some in either one or the other only. It is a city close to Helicon, lying more to the south. The city itself and Helicon are situated on the Crissean Gulf. Thespias has an arsenal Creusa, or, as it is also named, Creusia. In the Thespian territory, in the part lying towards Helicon, is Ascra, 2 the birth-place of Hesiod. It is on the right of Helicon, situated upon a lofty and rocky spot, at the distance of about 40 stadia from Thespiae. Hesiod has satirized it in verses addressed to his father, for formerly emigrating (to this place) from Cume in ^Etolia, as follows : " He dwelt near Helicon in a wretched village, Ascra ; bad in winter, in summer intolerable, and worthless at any season." 3 Helicon is contiguous to Phocis on its northern, and partly on its western side, as far as the last harbour of Phocis, which is called from its characteristic situation, Mychus, or the Recess. 1 There is some doubt respecting the modern name of Thespise ; the Austrian map places the ruins near Erimokastro. 2 Placing Ascra at Pyrgaki, there is little doubt that Aganippe, whence the Muses were called Aganippides, is the fountain which issues from the left bank of the torrent flowing midway between Paleopanaghea and Pyrgaki. Around this fountain Leake observed numerous square blocks, and in the neighbouring fields stones and remains of habitations. The position of the Grove of the Muses is fixed at St. Nicholas, by an inscrip- tion which Leake discovered there relating to the Museia, or the games of the Muses, which were celebrated there under the presidency of the Thespians. Pans. b. ix. c. 31. In the time of Pausanias the Grove of the Muses contained a larger number of statues than any other place in Boeotia, and this writer has given an account of many of them. The statues of the Muses were removed by Constantine from this place to his new capital, where they were destroyed by fire, in A. D. 404. Smith. 3 Works and Days, 639.