ONCHESTOS
Boiotia, Greece.
A town NW
of Thebes with a very ancient cult of Poseidon, the center of an amphictyony. It was the meeting place for the
Boiotian confederacy in the Macedonian period. The
town was burned by the Persians under Xerxes, and
probably again by the Romans in 171 B.C. when nearby
Haliartos was destroyed. Among the ruins, Pausanias
saw the Temple of Poseidon, whose worship as inventor
of the chariot was combined with that of the hero Hippodetes (Horsebreaker); divination was based on the behavior of unguided horses hitched to a chariot. The site, described by Pausanias as 15 furlongs (3 km) from the
mountain of the Sphinx (Mt. Phaga), is generally agreed
to be on the ridge between the two Boiotian plains. The
road and railroad use the S and N passes over it; in the
former there are a few blocks of an ancient wall at an
angle to the road. Here Lauffer reported finding the limestone foundations of the temple.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Strab. 9.2.33;
Livy 42.63;
Paus. 1.39.5;
W. M. Leake,
Nor. Gr. (1835) II 213; C. Bursian,
Geographie von Griechenland (1872) I 231; J. G. Frazer,
Paus. Des. Gr. (1898) V 139; S. Lauffer in
Arch. Anz.
(
JdI) 55 (1940) 186; A. Philippson-Kirsten,
GL (1950-59) I
2 469, 712.
M. H. MC ALLISTER
