SCOLUS
SCOLUS (
Σκῶλος: Eth.
Σκώλιος,
Σκωλιεύς), a town of Boeotia, mentioned by Homer (
Hom. Il. 2.497), and described by Strabo as a village of the Parasopia below Cithaeron (ix. p. 408). Pausanias, in his description of the route from Plataea to Thebes, says, that if the traveller were, instead of crossing the Asopus, to follow that river for about 40 stadia, he would arrive at the ruins of Scolus, where there was an unfinished temple of Demeter and Core (9.4.4). Mardonius in his march from Tanagra to Plataea passed through Scolus. (
Hdt. 9.15.) When the Lacedaemonians were preparing to invade Boeotia, B.C. 377, the Thebans threw up an intrenchment in front of Scolus, which probably extended from Mt. Cithaeron to the Asopus. (
Xen. Hell. 5.4. 49,
Agesil. 2.) Strabo says that
[p. 2.933]Scolus was so disagreeable and rugged (
τραχύς) that it gave rise to the proverb, “never let us go to Scolus, nor follow any one there” (ix. p. 408). Leake places Scolus just below the projection of Cithaeron, on a little rocky table-height, overlooking the river, where stands a
metókhi dependent on a convent in the Eleutheris, called St. Meletius. (
Northern Greece, vol. ii. p. 330.)
