Amphissa

AMPHISSA(Ἄμφισσα: Ἀμφισσαῖος, Ἀμφισσεύς: Amphissensis: Adj. Amphissius: Sálona), the chief town of the Locri Ozolae, situated in a pass at the head of the Crissaean plain, and surrounded by mountains, from which circumstance it is said to have derived its name. (Steph. B. s. v.) Pausanias (Paus. 10.38.4) places it at the distance of 120 stadia from Delphi, and Aeschines ( in Ctesiph. p. 71) at 60 stadia: the latter statement is the correct one, since we learn from modern travellers that the real distance between the two towns is 7 miles. According to tradition, Amphissa was called after a nymph of this name, the daughter of Macar and granddaughter of Aeolus, who was beloved by Apollo. (Paus. l. c.) On the invasion of Greece by Xerxes, many of the Locrians removed to Amphissa. (Hdt. 8.32.) At a later period the Amphictyons declared war against the town, because its inhabitants had dared to cultivate the Crissaean plain, which was sacred to the god, and had molested the pilgrims who had come to consult the oracle at Delphi. The decree by which war was declared against the Amphissians was moved by Aeschines, the Athenian Pylagoras, at the Amphictyonic Council. The Amphictyons entrusted the conduct of the war to Philip of Macedon, who took Amphissa, and razed it to the ground, B.C. 338. (Aesch. in Ctesiph. p. 71, seq.; Strab. p. 419.) The city, however, was afterwards rebuilt, and was sufficiently populous in B.C. 279 to supply 400 hoplites in the war against Brennus. (Paus. 10.23.1.) It was besieged by the Romans in B.C. 190, when the inhabitants took refuge in the citadel, which was deemed impregnable. (Liv. 37.5, 6.) When Augustus founded Nicopolis after the battle of Actium, a great many Aetolians, to escape being removed to the new city, took up their abode in Amphissa, which was thus reckoned an Aetolian city in the time of Pausanias (Paus. 10.38.4). This writer describes it as a flourishing place, and well adorned with public buildings. It occupied the site of the modern Sálona, where the walls of the ancient acropolis are almost the only remains of the ancient city. (Leake, Northern Greece, vol. 2. p. 588, seq.)