PARAPOTA´MII
Eth.
PARAPOTA´MII (
Παραποτάμιοι, Strab. Paus.;
Παραποταμία,
Steph. B. sub voce: Eth.
Παραποτάμιος), a town of Phocis on the left bank of the Cephissus (whence its name), and near the frontier of Boeotia. Its position is described in a passage of Theopompus, preserved by Strabo, who says that it stood at a distance of 40 stadia from Chaeroneia, in the entrance from Boeotia into Phocis, on a height of
[p. 2.550]moderate elevation, situated between Parnassus and Mount Hedylium; he adds that these two mountains were separated from each other by an interval of 5 stadia, through which the Cephissus flowed. (
Strab. ix. p.424.) Parapotamii was destroyed by Xerxes (
Hdt. 8.33), and again a second time by Philip at the conclusion of the Sacred War. (
Paus. 10.3.1.)
It was never rebuilt. Plutarch in his life of Sulla (100.16) speaks of the acropolis of the deserted city, which he describes as a stony height surrounded with a precipice and separated from Mt. Hedylium only by the river Assus. (Leake,
Northern Greece, vol. ii. pp. 97, 195.)