Parapotamii

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography

PARAPOTA´MII(Παραποτάμιοι, Strab. Paus.; Παραποταμία, Steph. B. s. v.: Eth. Παραποτάμιος), a town of Phocis on the left bank of the Cephissus (whence its name), and near the frontier of Boeotia. Its position is described in a passage of Theopompus, preserved by Strabo, who says that it stood at a distance of 40 stadia from Chaeroneia, in the entrance from Boeotia into Phocis, on a height of moderate elevation, situated between Parnassus and Mount Hedylium; he adds that these two mountains were separated from each other by an interval of 5 stadia, through which the Cephissus flowed. (Strab. 9. p. 424.) Parapotamii was destroyed by Xerxes (Hdt. 8.33), and again a second time by Philip at the conclusion of the Sacred War. (Paus. 10.3.1.) It was never rebuilt. Plutarch in his life of Sulla (100.16) speaks of the acropolis of the deserted city, which he describes as a stony height surrounded with a precipice and separated from Mt. Hedylium only by the river Assus. (Leake, Northern Greece, vol. ii. pp. 97, 195.)