Greek Texts & Translations

The plain from Cirrha is altogether bare, and the inhabitants will not plant trees, either because the land is under a curse, or because they know that the ground is useless for growing trees. It is said that to Cirrha...and they say that from Cirrha the place received its modern name. Homer, however, in the Iliad
, ^note and similarly in the hymn to Apollo, ^note calls the city by its ancient name of Crisa. Afterwards the people of Cirrha behaved wickedly towards Apollo; especially in appropriating some of the god's land.

So the Amphictyons determined to make war on the Cirrhaeans, put Cleisthenes, tyrant of Sicyon, at the head of their army, and brought over Solon from Athens to give them advice. They asked the oracle about victory, and the Pythian priestess replied:— You will not take and throw down the tower of this city,
Until on my precinct shall dash the wave
Of blue-eyed Amphitrite, roaring over the winedark sea.
So Solon induced them to consecrate to the god the territory of Cirrha, in order that the sea might become neighbor to the precinct of Apollo.

Solon invented another trick to outwit the Cirrhaeans. The water of the river Pleistus ran along a channel to the city, and Solon diverted it in another direction. When the Cirrhaeans still held out against the besiegers, drinking well-water and rain-water, Solon threw into the Pleistus roots of hellebore, and when he perceived that water held enough of the drug he diverted it back again into its channel. The Cirrhaeans drank without stint of the water, and those on the wall, seized with obstinate diarrhoea, deserted their posts,

and the Amphictyons captured the city. They exacted punishment from the Cirrhaeans on behalf of the god, and Cirrha is the port of Delphi. Its notable sights include a temple of Apollo, Artemis and Leto, with very large images of Attic workmanship. Adrasteia has been set up by the Cirrhaeans in the same place, but she is not so large as the other images.

Others believe that Nessus, ferrying on the Evenus, was wounded by Heracles, but not killed on the spot, making his escape to this country; when he died his body rotted unburied, imparting a foul stench to the atmosphere of the place. The third story says that the exhalations from a certain river, and its very water, have a peculiar smell; the fourth, that asphodel grows in great abundance and when in flower...because of the smell.

Another story says that the first dwellers here were aboriginals, but as yet not knowing how to weave garments they used to make themselves a protection against the cold out of the untanned skins of beasts, turning outwards the shaggy side of the skins for the sake of a good appearance. So their own skins were sure to smell as badly as did the hides.

One hundred and twenty stades away from Delphi is Amphissa, the largest and most renowned city of Locris. The people hold that they are Aetolians, being ashamed of the name of Ozolians. Support is given to this view by the fact that, when the Roman emperor ^note drove the Aetolians from their homes in order to found the new city of Nicopolis, the greater part of the people went away to Amphissa. Originally, however, they came of Locrian race. It is said that the name of the city is derived from Amphissa, daughter of Macar, son of Aeolus, and that Apollo was her lover.

The city is beautifully constructed, and its most notable objects are the tomb of Amphissa and the tomb of Andraemon. With him was buried, they say, his wife Gorge, daughter of Oeneus. On the citadel of Amphissa is a temple of Athena, with a standing image of bronze, brought, they say, from Troy by Thoas, being part of the spoils of that city. But I cannot accept the story.