E´PHYRA
E´PHYRA (
Ἐφύρη).
1.
The ancient name of Corinth. [
CORINTHUS]
2.
A town of Elis, situated upon the river Selleeis, and the ancient capital of Augeias, whom Hercules. conquered. (
Hom. Il. 2.659,
15.531: see below, No. 4.) Strabo describes Ephyra as distant 120 stadia, from Elis, on the road to Lasion, and says that on its site or near it was built the town of Oenoë or Boeonoa. (
Strab. viii. p.338, where, for the corrupt
κειμένη τῆ ἐπιθαλασσίωνα, we ought to read, with Meineke,
κειμένη τἧ ἐπὶ Λασίωνα..) Stephanus also speaks of an Ephyra between Pylos and Elis, Pylos being the town at the junction of the Ladon and the Peneius. (
Steph. B. sub voce Ἐφύρα.) From these two accounts there can be little doubt that the Ladon, the chief tributary of the Peneius, is the Selleeis, which Strabo describes as rising in Mount Pholoë. Curtius places Ephyra near the modern village of
Klisura which lies on the Ladon, about 120 stadia from Elis, by way of Pylos. Leake supposes, with much less probability, that the Selleeis is the Peneius, and that Ephyra was the more ancient name of Elis. (Curtius,
Peloponnesos, vol. i. p. 39, seq.; Leake,
Morea, vol. i. pp. 6, 7.)
3.
A village of Sicyonia, mentioned by Strabo, along with the river Selleeis, as situated near Sicyon. Ross conjectures that some ruins situated upon a hill about 20 minutes south-east of
Suli represent the Sicyonian Ephyra. (
Strab. viii. p.338; Ross,
Reisen im Peloponnes, p. 56.)
4.
A town of Thesprotia in Epeirus, afterwards called
CICHYRUS according to Strabo. Thucydides describes it as situated in the district Elaeatis in Thesprotia, away from the sea; and it further appears from his account, compared with that of Strabo, that it stood not far from the discharge of the Acheron and the Acherusian lake into the port called
Glycys Limen. (
Thuc. 1.46;
Strab. vii. p.324.)
It is placed by Leake and other modern travellers at a church, formerly a monastery of St. John, distant 3 or 4 miles direct from
Porto Fanári: the church stands on remains of Hellenic walls of polygonal masonry.
The Thesprotian Ephyra appears to be the town mentioned in two passages of the Odyssey (
1.259), 2.328) The Ephyri, mentioned in a passage of the Iliad (
13.301), were supposed by Pausanias to be the inhabitants of the Thesprotian town (
Paus. 9.36.3); but Strabo maintained that the poet referred to the Thessalian Ephyra (
Strab. ix. p.442). Some commentators even supposed the
[p. 1.840]Ephyra on the Selleeis (
Hom. Il. 2.659,
15.531) to be the Thesprotian town, but Strabo expressly maintains that Homer alludes in these passages to the Eleian town. [No. 2.] (
Strab. vii. p.328,; comp. viii. p. 338.) Pausanias represents Cichyrus as the capital of the ancient kings of Thesprotia, where Theseus and Peirithous were thrown into chains by Aïdoneus; and its celebrity in the most ancient times may also be inferred from a passage of Pindar. (
Paus. 1.17.4;
Pind. N. 7.55.) (Leake,
Northern Greece. vol. iii. p. 7, vol. iv. pp. 53, 175.)
5.
A town of Thessaly, afterwards called Cranon or Crannon. [
CRANON]
6.
A town of the Agraei in Aetolia, of uncertain site. (
Strab. viii. p.338,.)
7.
An island in the Argolic gulf, supposed by Leake to be
Spétzia. (
Plin. Nat. 4.12. s, 19.; Leake,
Peloponnesiaca, p. 294.)
