Pausanias Analysis

From Stiris to Ambrossos is about sixty stades; the road crosses a plain situated between the mountains. Most of this plain is planted with vines; and in the land of the Ambrossians, though not as continuous as the vineyards, grows also a shrub. This shrub is called "kokkos" by the Ionians and the rest of the Greeks, but the Galatians, who live beyond Phrygia, call it "hys" in their native tongue. The "kokkos" shrub is similar in size to the plant called "rhamnos"; its leaves are darker and softer than those of the mastic tree (schinos), but otherwise resemble them.

Its fruit is similar to the fruit of the nightshade and is about the size of a vetch-seed. Within the berry there develops a small creature; once the fruit ripens, if this creature should reach open air, immediately it flies away and would appear very much like a gnat. For this reason, before the creature stirs, they pick the fruit of the berry, and the dye used for wool is made from the blood of this creature.

Ambrossos lies at the foot of Mount Parnassus, beyond Delphi. They say the city received its name from the hero Ambrossos. When the Thebans were preparing for their war against Philip and the Macedonians, they surrounded Ambrossos with a double wall. This wall is made of a native stone, black in color and exceedingly strong; each circuit of the wall is just under a fathom wide, with a height of two and a half fathoms, except in places where the wall has suffered damage.

The interval from the outer of these circuits to the inner one equals one fathom; as for the building of towers or battlements or any other decorative feature of the wall, they omitted all of these, since their fortification had only immediate defense as its purpose. The Ambrossians have an agora, which is not large, and in it stand statues fashioned from stone, most of which are now broken.

Turning towards Anticyra, the road at first leads uphill. After ascending about two stades, you find level ground, and on the right side of the road is a sanctuary of Artemis, surnamed Dictynna. The Ambrossians hold this goddess in the highest honor. The statue is of Aeginetan workmanship and is made of black stone. From the sanctuary of Artemis Dictynna, the road leads entirely downhill into Anticyra. They say that the city's more ancient name was Cyparissus; Homer himself, they say, wished to use this name in the Catalogue of the Phocians, although by his time it was already called Anticyra, for Anticyreus lived in the age of Heracles.

The city indeed lies in ruins near Medeon; and I have already indicated at the beginning of my account of Phocis that the Anticyreans had committed sacrilege against the sanctuary at Delphi. Philip son of Amyntas had previously ruined the Anticyreans, and afterward the Roman Otilius destroyed them again, because they had also become subject to Philip, the son of Demetrius, king of the Macedonians. Otilius had been dispatched from Rome to assist the Athenians against this Philip.

The mountains above Anticyra are extremely rocky, and it is there especially that hellebore grows. Its black variety is suitable for human use and serves as a purgative for the stomach, whereas the other, white hellebore, causes purification through vomiting. The medicinal purging agent lies in the root of the hellebore plant.

In Antikyra there are bronze statues in the agora, and by their harbor there is a small temple dedicated to Poseidon, built from selected stones, with its interior covered in stucco. The statue is of bronze, standing upright; it rests one foot upon a dolphin, and the hand on this side is placed upon the thigh. In the other hand he holds a trident.

Beyond the gymnasium in which they have built their baths is another ancient gymnasium. In it stands a bronze statue, bearing an inscription saying that Xenodamos of Antikyra, a pankration-wrestler, won the Olympic victory among men. If this inscription is truthful, then Xenodamos would seem to have won the wreath at the two hundred and eleventh Olympiad. This Olympiad alone of all is omitted from the records of the Eleans.

Above the marketplace there is a spring of water in a well, and the well has a roof and columns supporting the roof to provide shade from the sun. Not far above the well is a tomb constructed of stones gathered at random. They say that here the sons of Iphitus were buried: one, having returned safely from Ilium, died at home, while Schedius, they say, met his end in Trojan territory, but his bones also were brought back home.