[13] Immediately on the sea-coast, next after Anticyra,1 and behind2 it, is the small city Marathus; then a promontory, Pharygium, which has a shelter for vessels; then the harbour at the farthest end, called Mychus,3 from the accident of its situation between Helicon4 and Ascra. Nor is Abæ,5 the seat of an oracle, far from these places, nor Ambrysus,6 nor Medeon, of the same name as a city in Bœotia. In the inland parts, next after Delphi, towards the east is Daulis,7 a small town, where, it is said, Tereus, the Thracian, was prince; and there they say is the scene of the fable of Philomela and Procne; Thucydides lays it there; but other writers refer it to Megara. The name of the place is derived from the thickets there, for they call thickets Dauli. Homer calls it Daulis, but subsequent writers Daulia, and the words “ they who occupied Cyparissus,8
” are understood in a double sense; some persons supposing it to have its name from the tree of the country, but others from a village situated below the Lycoreian territory.
1 Aspra-Spitia.
2 ὄπισθεν, ‘behind it,’ but Marathus is on the opposite side of the bay. The ruins are indicated in modem maps.
3 The bay of Metochi d'Hagia.
4 Zagora.
5 This place is represented in the Austrian map by ruins near Exarcho. But how does Strabo place ‘not far from’ the Crisæan Gulf, Abæ, which was certainly near Hyampolis, on the borders of the Locri Epicne- midii? It is on the authority of this passage only that geographers have placed a second Abæ behind Ambrysus, at the foot of Parnassus.
6 Distomo?
7 Il. ii. 519.
8 Daulia.
The Geography of Strabo. Literally translated, with notes, in three volumes. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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