PANOPEUS
(Haghios Vlasis) Phokis, Greece.
On the frontier with Boiotia, S of and below the
Narrows of the Kephisos. Panopeus, called “kallichoros”
by Homer, was on the “Sacred Road” from Athens to
Delphi; Athenian women known as Thyiads danced there,
on their way to Delphi (Hom.
Od. 11.581;
Paus. 10.4.1-5). The Phokian king Schedios resided there (Hom.
Il. 17.306); Epeios, builder of the Trojan Horse, was son of the eponymous hero Panopeus (
Od. 8.493-5;
Il. 23.
665); and Mycenaean remains have been found on the acropolis.
Pausanias found the site a wretched hamlet (no administrative buildings, gymnasium, theater, agora, or fountains, very poor houses). He was, however, shown the burial mound of Tityos, and a mudbrick shrine of Prometheus, near which lay two huge stones, said to be remains
of the clay from which Prometheus molded mankind. He
was impressed by the city walls, which are still imposing,
especially on the S side of the hill. The curtains stand as
high as 5 to 6 m; one tower, with its screen-wall partly
intact, is ca. 9 m high; and in Dodwell's day some doors
and windows of tower-chambers were preserved. These
walls like others in Phokis, must be later than the destruction of 346 (during the Third Sacred War). N of the citadel, Leake traced much of the line of wall descending to the edge of the plain, and enclosing the lower
town; and grave inscriptions have been found around the village.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
J. G. Frazer,
Paus. Des. Gr. (1898)
v 216ff; E. Kirsten,
RE XVIII
2 (1949) 637-49
P; F. E.
Winter,
Greek Fortifications (1971) 146, 172-73, 248
I.
F. E. WINTER