Cirrha

Coordinates: 38°25′47″N 22°26′44″E / 38.4296°N 22.4455°E / 38.4296; 22.4455
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
This article is about the ancient port of Phocis. For other uses, see Cirrha (disambiguation).

38°25′47″N 22°26′44″E / 38.4296°N 22.4455°E / 38.4296; 22.4455 Cirrha or Kirra (

ancient Phocis on the coast, which served as the harbour of Delphi.[1][2] Pausanias erroneously supposes that Cirrha was a later name of the Homeric Crissa.[3]
They were two separate towns, with interlinked histories.

Pleistus,[4] and at the foot of Mount Cirphis.[5]

In course of time the sea-port town of Cirrha increased at the expense of Crissa; and the sanctuary of

Siege of Cirrha) and succeeded in taking the city, which was razed to the ground, and the plain in its neighbourhood dedicated to Apollo, and curses imprecated upon any one who should till or dwell in it. Cirrha is said to have been taken by a stratagem which is ascribed by some to Solon. The town was supplied with water by a canal from the river Pleistus. This canal was turned off, filled with hellebore, and then allowed to resume its former course; but scarcely had the thirsty Crissaeans drank of the poisoned water, than they were so weakened by its purgative effects that they could no longer defend their walls.[8][9]
This account sounds like a romance; but it is a curious circumstance that near the ruins of Cirrha there is a salt spring having a purgative effect like the hellebore of the ancients.

Cirrha was thus destroyed; but the fate of Crissa is uncertain. It is not improbable that Crissa had sunk into insignificance before this war, and that some of its inhabitants had settled at Delphi, and others at Cirrha. At all events, it is certain that Cirrha was the town against which the vengeance of the Amphictyons was directed. The spoils of Cirrha were employed by the Amphictyons in founding the

Amphissa
was taken by Philip, to whom the Amphictyons had entrusted the conduct of the war, in 338 BCE.

Cirrha, however, was afterwards rebuilt as the port of Delphi. It is first mentioned again by Polybius;[12] and in the time of Pausanias (2nd century) it contained a temple common to Apollo, Artemis, and Leto, in which were statues of Attic work.

Between Crissa and Cirrha was a fertile plain, bounded on the north by Parnassus, on the east by Cirphis, and on the west by the mountains of the

Ozolian Locrians. On the western side it extended as far north as Amphissa, which was situated at the head of that part of the plain.[13][14] This plain, as lying between Crissa and Cirrha, might be called either the Crissaean or Cirrhaean, and is sometimes so designated by the ancient writers; but, properly speaking, there appears to have been a distinction between the two plains. The Cirrhaean plain was the small plain near the town of Cirrha, extending from the sea as far as the modern village of Xeropegado, where it is divided by two projecting rocks from the larger and more fertile Crissaean plain, which stretches as far as Crissa and Amphissa. The small Cirrhaean plain on the coast was the one dedicated to Apollo
after the destruction of Cirrha. The name of the Crissaean plain in its more extended sense might include the Cirrhaean, so that the latter may be regarded as a part of the former. The boundaries of the land dedicated to the god were inscribed on one of the walls of the Delphian temple.

The site of ancient Cirrha is identified at a hill called Magoula Xeropigadas near the modern village of Kirra, which reflects the ancient name, within the bounds of the municipal unit of Itea.[15][16] As of the mid-19th century, the remains of walls, enclosing a quadrangular space about a mile (1.6 km) in circuit, could be traced; and both within and without this space are the foundations of many large and small buildings.

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1854–1857). "Crissa". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray.

References

  1. ^ Polybius. The Histories. Vol. 5.27.
  2. Ab urbe condita Libri
    [History of Rome]. Vol. 42.15.
  3. ^ Pausanias (1918). "37.5". Description of Greece. Vol. 10. Translated by W. H. S. Jones; H. A. Ormerod. Cambridge, Massachusetts; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann – via Perseus Digital Library.
  4. ^ Pausanias (1918). "8.8". Description of Greece. Vol. 10. Translated by W. H. S. Jones; H. A. Ormerod. Cambridge, Massachusetts; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann – via Perseus Digital Library.
  5. ^ Strabo. Geographica. Vol. ix. p.418. Page numbers refer to those of Isaac Casaubon's edition.
  6. ^ Aeschin. c. Ctesiph., p. 68; Athen. 13, p. 560.
  7. ^ Strabo. Geographica. Vol. ix. p.418. Page numbers refer to those of Isaac Casaubon's edition.
  8. ^ Pausanias (1918). "37.7". Description of Greece. Vol. 10. Translated by W. H. S. Jones; H. A. Ormerod. Cambridge, Massachusetts; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann – via Perseus Digital Library.
  9. ^ Polyaenus, Strategemata, 3.6; Frontinus Strategemata 3.7.6.
  10. ^ Pausanias (1918). "37.4". Description of Greece. Vol. 10. Translated by W. H. S. Jones; H. A. Ormerod. Cambridge, Massachusetts; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann – via Perseus Digital Library.
  11. ^ Pindar, Pyth. 11.20, 73.
  12. ^ Polybius. The Histories. Vol. 5.27.
  13. ^ Herodotus. Histories. Vol. 8.32.
  14. ^ Strabo. Geographica. Vol. ix. p.419. Page numbers refer to those of Isaac Casaubon's edition.
  15. ^ Lund University. Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire.
  16. ISBN 978-0-691-03169-9
    .
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