SIPHAE
SIPHAE or
TIPHA (
Σῖφαι,
Thuc. 4.76;
Scylax, p. 15;
Steph. B. sub voce Ptol. 3.15.5;
Plin. Nat. 4.3. s. 4;
Τίφα,
Paus. 9.32.4: Eth.
Γιφαῖος, Eth.
Τιφαιεύς), a town of Boeotia, upon the Corinthian gulf, which was said to have derived its name from Tiphys, the pilot of the Argonauts.
In the time of Pausanias the inhabitants of Siphae pointed out the spot where the ship Argo anchored on its return from its celebrated voyage.
The same writer mentions a temple of Hercules at Siphae, in whose honour an annual festival was celebrated. (Paus.
l.c.) Thucydides (
l.c.), Apollonius Rhodius (1.105), and Stephanus B. (s. v.
Σίφαι) describe Siphae as a dependency of Thespiae; and it is accordingly placed by Muller and Kiepert at
Alikés. But Leake draws attention to the fact that Pausanias describes it as lying W. of Thisbe; and he therefore places it at port
Sarándi, near the monastery dedicated to St. Taxiarches, where are the remains of a small Hellenic city. On this supposition the whole of the territory of Thisbe would lie between Thespiae and Siphae, which Leake accounts for by the superiority of Thespiae over all the places in this angle of Boeotia, whence the whole country lying upon this part of the Corinthian gulf may have often, in common acceptation, been called the Thespice. (Leake,
Northern Greece. vol. ii. p. 515.)
