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14-473: Ancient Elateia was situated about the middle of the great fertile basin that extends nearly 20 miles, from the narrows of the Cephissus River below Amphicleia , to the entrance into Boeotia . Hence it was admirably placed for commanding the passes into southern Greece from Mount Oeta , and became a post of great military importance. Pausanias describes it as situated over against Amphicleia, at

28-450: A post-glacial river, never had sufficient flow deriving from drainage to establish a clear channel to the Gulf of Euboea . Its main flow was seasonal melt water, which collected in a three-lake system in the lowlands of Boeotia. First it entered Lake Copais , which was never more than a wetland a few feet deep. Today it has been totally drained for agriculture, revealing katabothra, or caves in

42-556: A river in Greece is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Lake Yliki Lake Yliki ( Greek : Υλίκη Yliki , Ancient Greek : Ὑλίκη Hylike , Latinised as Hylica ) is a large natural lake of Boeotia , central Greece . Situated 8 km north of Thebes at 78 m elevation, it has been an important source of drinking water for the Athens agglomeration since 1958. It is surrounded by low mountains, which separate it from

56-498: A temple of Athena Cranaea, situated 20 stadia from Elateia: the road to it was a very gentle ascent, but the temple stood upon a steep hill of small size. The ancient city has been repeatedly sacked and destroyed in its history, and also subject to several earthquakes. For these reasons the one modern excavation of the classical site has not been much successful; the one exception was the Temple of Athena Cranaea. What has been attested

70-548: Is continuous occupation of the valley, that goes back to as far as 6000 BC. Cephissus (Boeotia) The Cephissus ( Ancient Greek : Κήφισσος ), called the Boeotian Cephissus to distinguish it from other rivers of the same name, or Kifisos ( Greek : Βοιωτικός Κηφισός ) is a river in central Greece . Its drainage basin is 1,958 km (756 sq mi). The river rises at Lilaia in Phocis , on

84-544: Is of strategic importance, connecting northern Greece via the passes of Mount Oeta and Mount Kallidromo (including Thermopylae ) to southern Greece and the Gulf of Corinth . As a result, in the Frankish period a chain of forts and watchtowers was established along its course by the rulers of the Duchy of Athens . [REDACTED] Media related to Cephissus (Boeotia) at Wikimedia Commons This article related to

98-605: The Romans invaded Greece, and was taken by assault by the Romans in 198 BC. At a later time, the Romans declared the town free , because the inhabitants had repulsed an 86 BC attack by Taxiles , the general of Mithridates VI . Among noteworthy sites in Elateia, Pausanias mentions the agora , a temple of Asclepius that contained a beardless statue of the god, a theater , and an ancient brazen statue of Athena . He also mentions

112-530: The Gulf of Euboea. It was never connected to the Gulf by surface channel, but some water is believed to have escaped via the katabothra . The artificial adjustment of the lake waters was an engineering problem of some magnitude in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the later 20th century the waters of the two remaining lakes were preempted by the Athens aqueduct. The city of Athens had grown to include one-third of

126-622: The distance of 180 stadia from the latter town, on a gently rising slope in the plain of the Cephissus. Elateia is not mentioned by Homer . Its inhabitants claimed they were Arcadians , deriving their name from Elatus , the son of Arcas. It was burnt, along with the other Phocian towns, by the Persian army of Xerxes during the Second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC. When Philip II of Macedon entered Phocis in 339 BC, with

140-433: The karst topography leading down to Lake Yliki as well as Bronze-Age works to stem the flow. There was never enough cross-section to totally drain the marsh, and no surface channels between lakes. The underground paths to Lake Yliki are now open, causing its level to rise sufficiently to drown all traces of Bronze-age settlement in its valley. Lake Yliki connects by undergound channels to Lake Paralimni , which hangs over

154-532: The northwestern slope of Mount Parnassus . It flows east through the Boeotian plain, passing the towns Amfikleia , Kato Tithorea and Orchomenos . It drained into Lake Copais , which was therefore also called the Cephisian Lake, until 1887, when the lake was eliminated in favor of agricultural land. An artificial outflow has been created to Lake Yliki (ancient Hylice), further east. The Cephisus,

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168-510: The population of Greece. Waters were being tapped from rivers as far away as western Greece through deep tunnels, which take advantage of the difference in altitude. The mountains are primarily of limestone, which is soft enough to present easy tunneling, whether under the Pindus mountains, beneath the passes of the Alps , or through the ridges of Italy . In Greek mythology, the river god Cephissus

182-461: The professed object of conducting war against Amphissa , he seized Elateia and began to restore its fortifications. The alarm this caused at Athens shows that they regarded Phocis as a key of southern Greece. The subsequent history of Elateia is given in some detail by Pausanias. It successfully resisted Cassander in 301 BC, but it was taken by the king of Macedon Philip V , the son of Demetrius II Aetolicus . It remained faithful to Philip V when

196-627: Was associated with this river. Pausanias records a Theban tradition that the river Cephissus formerly flowed under a mountain and entered the sea until Heracles blocked the passage and diverted the water into the Orchomenian plain. Pausanias also says that the Lilaeans on certain days threw cakes and other customary items into the spring of the Cephissus and that they would reappear in the Castalian Spring . The Cephissus valley

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