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CHAPTER XXXII. Near the temple precincts is a handsome theatre. And as you ascend from the precincts you see a statue of Dionysus, the offering of the men of Cnidos. In the highest part of the city is a stadium made of the stone of Mount Parnassus, till the Athenian Herodes embellished it with Pentelican marble. I have now enumerated the most remarkable things still to be seen at Delphi. About 60 stades from Delphi on the road to Mount Parnassus is a brazen statue, and from thence it is an easy ascent for an active man, or for mules and horses to the Corycian cavern. It got its name, as I pointed out a little back, 1 from the Nymph Corycia, and of all the caverns I have seen is best worth a visit. The various caverns on sea-coasts are so numerous that one could not easily enumerate them : but the most remarkable whether in Greece or in foreign lands are the following. The Phrygians near the river Pencala, who originally came from Arcadia and the Azanes, show a round and lofty cavern called Steunos, which is sacred to the Mother of the Gods, and contains her statue. The Phrygians also, who dwell at Themisoninm above Laodicea, say that when the army of the Galati harried Ionia and the neighbouring districts, Hercules and Apollo and Hermes came to their aid : and showed their chief men a cavern in a dream, and bade them hide there their women and children. And so in front of this cavern they have statuettes of Hercules and Hermes and Apollo, whom they call The Cavern-Gods. This cavern is about 30 stades from Themisonium, and has springs of water in it, there is no direct road to it, nor does the light of the sun penetrate into it, and the roof in most of the cavern is very near the ground. The Magnesians also at a place called Hylae near the river Lethaeus have a cavern sacred to Apollo, not very wonderful for size, but containing a very ancient statue of Apollo, which supplies strength for any action. Men made holy by the god leap down rocks and precipices unhurt, and tear up huge trees by the roots, and carry them with ease through mountain passes. But the Corycian cavern excels both of these, and through most of it you can walk without needing torches : and the roof is a good height from the ground, and water bubbles up from springs, but still more oozes from the roof, so that there are droppings from the roof all over the floor of the cavern. And those that dwell on Mount Parnassus consider it sacred to Pan and the Corycian Nymphs. It is a feat even for an active man to scale the heights of Parnassus from it, for they are higher than the clouds, and on them the Thyiades carry on their mad revels in honour of Dionysus and Apollo. Tithorea is about 80 stades from Delphi via Mount Parnassus, but the carriage road by a way less mountainous is many stades longer. Bacis in his oracles and Herodotus in his account of the invasion of Greece by the Medes differ as to the name of the town. For Bacis calls the town Tithorea, but Herodotus calls it Neon, and gives the name Tithorea to the summit of Parnassus, where he describes the people of the town fleeing on the approach of the Medes. It seems probable therefore that Tithorea was originally the name for the entire district, but as time went on the people, flocking into the town from the villages, called it Tithorea and no longer Neon. And the people of the place say it got its name from the Nymph Tithorea, one of those Nymphs who according to the legendary lore of poets were born of trees and especially oak-trees. 2 A generation before me the deity changed the fortunes of Tithorea for the worse. There is the outline of a theatre, and the precincts of an ancient marketplace, still remaining. But the most remarkable things in the town are the grove and shrine and statue of Athene, and the tomb of Antiope and Phocus. In my account of the Thebans I have shown how Antiope went mad through the anger of Dionysus, and why she drew on her the anger of the god, and how she married Phocus the son of Ornytion, of whom she was passionately fond, and how they were buried together. I also gave the oracle of Bacis both about this tomb and that of Zethus and Amphion at Thebes. I have mentioned all the circumstances worth mention about the town. A river called Cachales flows by the town, and furnishes water to its inhabitants, who de scend to its banks to draw water. At 70 stades distance from Tithorea is a temple of Aesculapius, who is called Archegetes, and is greatly honoured both by the Tithoreans and other Phocians. Within the sacred precincts are dwellings for the suppliants and slaves of the god, the temple stands in the midst, and a statue of the god in stone, two feet high with a beard, on the right of which is a bed. They sacrifice all kinds of animals to the god but goats. About 40 stades from the temple of Aesculapius are the precincts and shrine of Isis, and of all the Greek shrines to the Egyptian goddess this is the holiest : for neither do the people of Tithorea live near it, nor may any approach the shrine whom Isis herself has not previously honoured by inviting them in dreams. The gods of the lower world have the same practice in the towns near the Maeander, they send visions in dreams to whoever they allow to approach their shrines. And twice every year, in Spring and Autumn, the people of Tithorea celebrate the Festival of Isis. The third day before each Festival those who have right of access purify the shrine in some secret manner: and remove to a place about 2 stades from the shrine whatever remains they find of the victims offered in sacrifice at the previous Festival, and bury them there. On the following day the traders make tents of reed or any other material at hand. On the next day they celebrate the Festival, and sell slaves, and cattle of every kind, and apparel, and silver and gold. And at noon they commence the sacrifice. The wealthier sacrifice oxen and deer, the poorer sacrifice geese and guineafowls, but they do not sacrifice swine or sheep or goats. Those whose duty it is to burn the victims in the shrine, first roll them up in bandages of linen or flax, after the process in use in Egypt. There is a solemn procession with all the victims, and some convey them into the shrine, while others burn the tents before it and depart with speed. And on one occasion they say a profane fellow, who had no right to approach the shrine, entered it with audacious curiosity at the time the sacrificial fire was lit, and the place seemed to him full of phantoms, and he returned to Tithorea, related what he had seen, and gave up the ghost. I heard a similar account from a Phoenician, of what happened on one occasion when the Egyptians were celebrating the Festival of Isis, at the time when they say she bewails Osiris: which is the season when the Nile begins to rise, and the Egyptians have a tradition that it is the tears of Isis that make the river rise and irrigate the fields. He told me that the Roman Governor of Egypt bribed a man to enter the shrine at Coptos during the Festival, and he came back, related what he had seen, and also died directly after. So Homer's word seems true, that the gods are not seen by mortals with impunity. 3 The olives at Tithorea are not so plentiful as in Attica and Sicyonia. They are superior however in colour and flavour to those from Spain and Istria : all kinds of ointment are produced from them, and they send these olives to the Roman Emperor. 1 See chapter 6, 2 And consequently called Dryads. 3 Iliad, xx. 131. Compare Exodus, xxxiii, 20.
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