Geography

​And after Boeotia and Orchomenus is Phocis, lying to the north alongside Boeotia, similarly from sea to sea, at least in ancient times. For Daphnus belonged to Phocis at that time, dividing Locris on either side and being situated in the middle between the Opuntian Gulf and the coast of the Epicnemidian Locrians; but now the territory belongs to the Locrians (and the small town has been razed), so that Phocis no longer reaches down there as far as the sea near Euboea, but is connected to the Crisaean Gulf. For Crisa itself belongs to Phocis, being situated on the sea itself, as well as Cirrha and Anticyra, and the places lying continuously above them in the interior near Parnassus: Delphi, Cirphis, Daulis, and Parnassus itself, which belongs to Phocis and limits its western side. And in the same way as Phocis lies alongside Boeotia, so also does each of the two Locris lie alongside Phocis. For it is twofold, divided into two by Parnassus, the one on the western side lying alongside Parnassus and occupying a part of it, and reaching down to the Crisaean Gulf, and the other on the eastern side ending at the sea near Euboea. And the western Locrians are also called Ozolae, and they have the evening star engraved on their public seal; while the others are also themselves divided somehow into two: the Opuntians, named after their metropolis, bordering on the Phocians and Boeotians, and the Epicnemidians, named after Mount Cnemis, adjacent to the Oetaeans and Malians. And in the middle of both, that is, the Western Locrians and the others, is Parnassus, extending lengthwise toward the north from the places around Delphi to the junction of the Oetaean and Aetolian mountains and the Dorians in between. For again, just as Locris lies alongside the Phocians, so too, along with Aetolia and certain people in between, Doris connects in a threefold way with each of the two Locris and with the Dorians. And above these and the Aetolians are already the northern peoples, and the Acarnanians, and some of the Epirot and Macedonian tribes; as we said before, one should conceive these mentioned countries as being stretched out parallel, as it were, from west to east. And the whole of Parnassus is sacred, having caves and other places that are honored and held sacred; of which the most famous and beautiful is the Corycian cave of the nymphs, homonymous with the Cilician one. And of the sides of Parnassus, the western side is occupied by the Ozolian Locrians, some of the Dorians, and the Aetolians near the Aetolian mountain called Corax, while the eastern side is occupied by the Phocians and the majority of the Dorians, who possess the Tetrapolis which lies somehow around Parnassus, but extends more toward the east. Thus, the sides along the length of each of the mentioned countries and strips are parallel to one another, one being northern and the other southern; but the remaining western sides are not parallel to the eastern ones, nor are the two coastlines—both the one of the Crisaean Gulf as far as Actium and the one facing Euboea as far as Sunium—parallel to each other, where the territories of the nations end; but one must accept the shapes of the regions as if they were several lines parallel to the base inside a triangle; for the intercepted shapes will indeed be parallel to one another, and will have their northern and southern sides parallel, but the remaining sides no longer so. Such then is the general outline of the remaining and subsequent tour; let us now describe the details in order, starting from Phocis.