TRIPODISCUS
TRIPODISCUS (
Τριποδίσκος,
Thuc. 4.70;
Τριποδίσκοι,
Paus. 1.43.8;
Τρίποδοι,
Τριποδίσκιον,
Strab. ix. p.394;
Τριποδίσκη, Herod. ap.
Steph. B. sub voce s. v.
Τριποδίσκος: Eth.
Τριποδίσκοις,
Steph. B. sub voce Τριποδισκαῖος), an ancient town of Megaris, said to have been one of the five hamlets into which the Megarid was originally divided. (Plut.
Quaest. Graec. 100.17.) Strabo relates that, according to some critics, Tripodi was mentioned by Homer, along with Aegirusa and Nisaea, as part of the dominions of Ajax of Salamis, and that the verse containing these names was omitted by the Athenians, who substituted for it another to prove that Salamis in the time of the Trojan War, belonged to Athens. (Strab.
l.c.) Tripodiscus is celebrated in the history of literature as the birthplace of Susarion, who is said to have introduced comedy into Attica, and to have removed from this place to the Attic Icaria. (Aspas.
ad Aristot. Eth. Nic. 4.2;
Dict. of Biogr. Vol. III. p. 948.) We learn from Thucydides (
l.c.) that Tripodiscns was situated
[p. 2.1232]at the foot of Mount Geraneia, at a spot convenient for the junction of troops marching from Plataea in the one direction, and from the Isthmus in the other. Pausanias (
l.c.) also describes it as lying at the foot of Geraneia on the road from Delphi to Argos.
This author relates that it derived its name from a tripod, which Coroebus the Argive brought from Delphi, with the injunction that wherever the tripod fell to the ground he was to reside there and build a temple to Apollo. (Comp. Conon,
Narrat. 19.) Leake noticed the vestiges of an ancient town at the foot of Mt. Geraneia, on the road from Plataea to the Isthmus, four or five miles to the NW. of Megara. (Leake,
Northern Greece, vol. ii. p. 410.)
