10.4.1 Such were the memorable exploits of the men of Phokis. From Khaironeia, it is twenty stadium-lengths to Panopeus, a city of the people of Phokis, if one can give the name of city to those who possess no government offices, no gymnasium, no theater, no marketplace, no water descending to a fountain, but live in bare shelters just like mountain cabins, right on a ravine. Nevertheless, they have boundaries with their neighbors and even send delegates to the assembly of Phokis. The name of the city is derived, they say, from the father of Epeios, and they maintain that they are not people of Phokis but were originally Phlegyans who fled to Phokis from the land of Orkhomenos.

10.4.2 A survey of the ancient circuit of Panopeus led me to guess it to be about seven stadium-lengths. I was reminded of Homer’s verses about Tityos,^* where he mentions the city of Panopeus with its beautiful dancing floors, and how in the fight over the body of Patroklos, he says that Schedios, son of Iphitos and king of the people of Phokis, who was killed by Hector, lived in Panopeus.^* It seemed to me that the reason why the king lived here was fear of the Boeotians; at this point is the easiest pass from Boeotia into Phokis, so the king used Panopeus as a fortified post.

10.4.3 The former passage, in which Homer speaks of the beautiful dancing floors of Panopeus, I could not understand until I was taught by the women whom the Athenians call Thyiads. The Thyiads are Attic women, who with the Delphian women go to Parnassus every other year and celebrate orgies in honor of Dionysus. It is the custom for these Thyiads to hold dances at places, including Panopeus, along the road from Athens. The epithet Homer applies to Panopeus is thought to refer to the dance of the Thyiads.

10.4.4 At Panopeus, there is by the roadside a small building of unburned brick, in which is an image of Pentelic marble, said by some to be Asklepios, by others, Prometheus. The latter produce evidence of their contention. At the ravine, there lie two stones, each of which is big enough to fill a cart. They have the color of clay, not earthy clay, but such as would be found in a ravine or sandy torrent, and they smell very like the skin of a man. They say that these are remains of the clay out of which the whole lineage of humankind was fashioned by Prometheus.

10.4.5 Here at the ravine is the tomb of Tityos. The circumference of the mound is just about one-third of a stadium-length, and they say that the verse in the Odyssey:

10.4.6 Kleon of Magnesia-on-the-Hermos used to say that those men were incredulous of wonders who in the course of their own lives had not met yet greater marvels. He declared that Tityos and other monsters had been as tradition says they were. He happened, he said, to be at Cadiz, and he, with the rest of the crowd, sailed forth from the island in accordance with the command of Hēraklēs;^* on their return to Cadiz, they found cast ashore a man of the sea, who was about five roods in size and burning away, because he was blasted with a thunderbolt sent by the god [theos].

10.4.7 So said Kleon. About twenty-seven stadium-lengths distant from Panopeus is Daulis. The men there are few in number, but for size and strength, no men of Phokis are more renowned even to this day. They say that the name of the city is derived from Daulis, a nymph, the daughter of the Kephisos. Others say that the place, on which the city was built, was wooded, and that such shaggy places [dasea] were called daula by the ancients. For this reason, they say, Aeschylus called the beard of Glaukos of Anthedon hypene daulos.

10.4.8 Here in Daulis the women are said to have served up to Tereus his own son, which act was the first pollution of the dining table among men. The hoopoe, into which they say Tereus was changed, is a bird a little larger than the quail, while the feathers on its head rise into the shape of a crest.

10.4.9 It is noteworthy that in Phokis swallows neither hatch nor lay eggs; in fact, no swallow would even make a nest in the roof of a house. The people of Phokis say that even when Philomela was a bird, she had a terror of Tereus and so kept away from his country. At Daulis is a sanctuary of Athena with an ancient image. The wooden image, of an even earlier date, the Daulians say was brought from Athens by Procne.

10.4.10 In the territory of Daulis is a place called Tronis. Here has been built a shrine of the founder hero. This founder is said by some to have been Xanthippos, a distinguished soldier; others say that he was Phokos, son of Ornytion, son of Sisyphus. At any rate, he is worshipped every day, and the people of Phokis bring victims and pour the blood into the tomb through a hole, but the flesh they are accustomed to consume on the spot.