ἐκ πόντου, ‘in’ (‘rising from’) the sea; i.e., an isolated rock, not part of a promontory. This is better than to take the words with “ἀμφίκλυστον”, ‘washed on all sides by the sea’: “ἐκ πόντου” would then be too weak. The name ‘Lichades’ was given to some rocky islets just S. of C. Cenaeum, in the narrow strait dividing it from the promontory of Cnemīdes on the Locrian coast. Strabo 9. p. 426 “ἐνταῦθα καὶ αἱ Λιχάδες καλούμεναι τρεῖς νῆσοι πρόκεινται, ἀπὸ Λίχα τοὔνομα ἔχουσαι”. Cp. Aesch. fr. 29, quoted on 237 f. Ovid Met. 9. 226 “Nunc quoque in Euboico scopulus brevis emicat alte | Gurgite, et humanae servat vestigia formae; | Quem quasi sensurum nautae calcare verentur, | Appellantque Lichan.”—“Λίχας” perh.=“λίθος”: cp. “ὄρνιχος, ὄρνιθος” (Preller 2. 255 n. 2).
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Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part V: The Trachiniae. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1902.
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