Son of Arcas, joint ruler of Arcadia, father of Stymphalus and Pereus, father of Ischys, founds Elatea, likenesses of.
Elatus, (Elatos). A son of Areas by Leaneira, Metaneira, or by the nymph Chrysopeleia. He was a brother of Azan and Apheidas, and king of Arcadia. By his wife Laodice he had four sons, Stymphalus, Aepytus, Cyllen, and Pereus. (Apollod. iii. 9.1, 10.3; Paus. viii. 4.2.) He is also called the father of Ischys (Pind. Pyth. iii. 31) and of Dotis. (Steph. Byz. s. v. Dotion.) He is said to have resided on mount Cyllene, and to have gone from thence to Phocis, where he protected the Phocians and the Delphic sanctuary against the Phlegyans, and founded the town of Elateia. (Paus. l. c., x. 34.3.) A statue of his stood in the market-place of Elateia, and another at Tegea. (Paus. x. 34.3, viii. 48.6.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Oct 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Cranaea (Kranaia), a surname of Artemis, derived from a temple on a hill near Elateia in Phocis, in which the office of priest was always held by youths below the age of puberty, and for the space of five years by each youth. (Paus. x. 34.4)
Delphi, I say, is famous because of these things, but Elateia, because it is the largest of all the cities there, and has the most advantageous position, because it is situated in the narrow passes and because he who holds this city holds the passes leading into Phocis and Boeotia. For, first, there are the Oetaean Mountains; and then those of the Locrians and Phocians, which are not everywhere passable to invaders from Thessaly, but have passes, both narrow and separated from one another, which are guarded by the adjacent cities; and the result is, that when these cities are captured, their captors master the passes also.
This extract is from: The Geography of Strabo, ed. H. L. Jones, Cambridge. Harvard University Press
Cited Aug 2002 from Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks
He (Philip) lost no time, collected his army, pretended to march to Cirrha, and then bade the Cirrhaeans and the Locrians alike good-bye and good luck, and seized Elatea.
Therefore he suddenly seized the city of Elateia, concentrated his forces there and adopted a policy of war with Athens. He expected to have no trouble in defeating them, since their reliance on the existing peace treaty made them unprepared for hostilities; and that is how it worked out. For after Elateia had been occupied (...)
The army of Xerxes, burning down certain of these, made them better known in Greece, namely Erochus, Charadra, Amphicleia, Neon, Tithronium and Drymaea.
The barbarians. . .overran the whole of Phocis. All that came within their power they laid waste to and burnt, setting fire to towns and temples. Marching this way down the river Cephisus, they ravaged everything that lay in their way, burning the towns of Drymus, Charadra, Erochus, Tethronium, Amphicaea, Neon, Pediea, Tritea, Elatea, Hyampolis, Parapotamii, and Abae . . .
This extract is from: Pausanias Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., Harvard University Press. Cited Aug 2002 from Perseus Project URL bellow, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks
Philip put an end to the war, which was called both the Phocian War and the Sacred War . . .The cities of Phocis were captured and razed to the ground. . .and their people scattered in villages.
The first city of the ancient region, not counting the Delphic sanctuary. Controlling the natural route from the N into the Kephisos valley, Elateia was repeatedly attacked, sacked, burned, occupied; earthquakes destroyed what enemies had spared. The one attempt at excavation of the Classical town revealed few remains; only the Temple of Athena Kranaia, located some 3 km SE of the city, yielded important remains. Numerous inscriptions, including grave stelai from plundered cemeteries, complement the textual evidence concerning Classical Elateia. However, the wellwatered valley attracted primitive men and many mounds attest their early settlements. Those near modern Drachmani, below ancient Elateia, were explored early in this century and one of these mounds was again excavated in 1959. Occupation here began about 6000 B.C. and lasted the three millennia of the Neolithic Period, establishing stratigraphically its three main phases.
S.S. Weinberg, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Sep 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
Eth. Elateus. A city of Phocis, and the most important place in the
country after Delphi, was situated about the middle of the great fertile basin
which extends near 20 miles from the narrows of the Cephissus below Amphicleia
to those which are at the entrance into Boeotia. (Leake). Hence it was admirably
placed for commanding the passes into Southern Greece from Mt. Oeta, and became
a post of great military importance. (Strab. ix. p. 424.) Pausanias describes
it as situated over against Amphicleia, at the distance of 180 stadia from the
latter town, on a gently rising slope in the plain of the Cephissus (x. 34. §
1.) Elateia is not mentioned by Homer. Its inhabitants claimed to be Arcadians,
derivingu their name from Elatus, the son of Areas. (Paus. l. c.) It was burnt,
along with the other Phocian towns, by the army of Xerxes. (Herod. viii. 33.)
When Philip entered Phocis in B.C. 338, with the professed object of conducting
the war against Amphissa, he seized Elateia and began to restore its fortifications.
The alarm occasioned at Athens by the news of this event shows that this place
was then regarded as the key of Southern Greece. (Dem. de Cor. p. 284: Aeschin.
in Ctes. p. 73; Diod. xvi. 84.) The subsequent history of Elateia is given in
some detail by Pausanias (l. c.). It successfully resisted Cassander, but it was
taken by Philip, the son of Demetrius. It remained faithful to Philip when the
Romans invaded Greece, and was taken by assault by the Romans in B.C. 198. (Liv.
xxxii. 24.) At a later time the Romans declared the town to be free, because the
inhabitants had repulsed an attack which Taxiles, the general of Mithridates,
had made upon the place.
Among the objects worthy of notice in Elateia, Pausanias mentions
the agora, a temple of Asclepius containing a beardless statue of the god, a theatre,
and an ancient brazen statue of Athena. He also mentions a temple of Athena Cranaea,
situated at the distance of 20 stadia from Elateia: the road to it was a very
gentle ascent, but the temple stood upon a steep hill of small size.
Elateia is represented by the modern village of Lefta, where are some
Hellenic remains, and where the ancient name was found in an inscription extant
in the time of Meletius. Some remains of the temple of Athena Cranaea have also
been discovered in the situation described by Pausanias.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited May 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Stadium & armour-race, in the 235th Olympiad, in 161 A.D.
(...) In Runner Street at Elateia there stands a bronze statue of Mnesibulus.
Philoboeotus (Philoboiotos), a fertile woody hill in the plain of Elateia in Phocis,
at the foot of which there was water. (Plut. Sull. 16.) This description, according
to Leake, agrees with the remarkable insulated conical height between Bissikeni
and the Cephissus. (Northern Greece, vol. ii. p. 194.)
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