Cirrha (Kirra), a nymph from whom the town of Cirrha in Phocis was believed to have derived its name. (Paus. x. 37.4)
Port of Delphi, war of Amphictyons against.
After the people of Cirrha had been besieged for a long time because they had attempted to plunder the oracle (Delphi. About 590 B.C.), some of the Greeks returned to their native cities, but others of them inquired of the Pythian priestess and received the following response:
Ye shall not seize and lay in ruins the tower
Of yonder city, before the plashing wave
Of dark-eyed Amphitrite inundates
My sacred precinct, here on these holy cliffs.
The port city of Delphi, confused even in antiquity with Krisa, leading to speculation in modern times as to whether there were indeed two separate cities. Krisa was known to Homer and Pindar; it has been identified with fortification walls at Haghios Georgios on a mountain spur near modern Chryso, several km from the sea. Pindar locates the hippodrome, also seen by Pausanias, at the foot of the acropolis; although he refers to the Kirrhan Games, the plain and gulf continued to take their names from Krisa. Since excavation it has been concluded that Haghios Georgios was occupied only in the prehistoric period, except for small sanctuaries indicated, for example, by a double altar with an archaic dedication to Hera and Athena. Kirrha is known to have thrived in the 7th c. B.C., levying tolls on pilgrims to Delphi until the city was destroyed by the Amphictyonic League in the First Sacred War about 600 B.C. The site of the archaic city has not been located; it was probably close to the shore between the modern towns of Itea and Kirrha (formerly Xeropigadi) to the E. Excavations at Kirrha produced nothing earlier than the second quarter of the 6th c., when the necessity for a port presumably resulted in the rebuilding of the town. At Magoula, on the N or landward side of Kirrha, excavations produced material from early prehistoric periods as well as remains of the 4th c. wall. A large sanctuary, surrounded by colonnades providing accommodations for pilgrims, may be the Temple Precinct of Apollo, Artemis, and Leto seen by Pausanias at Kirrha. Various naval buildings and Roman baths have been discovered near the sea.
M. H. Mc Allister, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
Perseus Encyclopedia
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