Tithorea (Phocis)

Tithorea (Ancient Greek: Τιθορέα, Τιθοραία, Τιθόρα, or Τιθόρρα) was a city in ancient Phocis, the successor settlement to Neon. Whether Tithorea occupied the same, or a nearby spot, to Neon is a matter of some doubt. Pausanias regards Tithorea as situated on the same site as Neon; and relates that Tithorea was the name anciently applied to the whole district, and that when the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages were collected in the city, the name of Tithorea was substituted for that of Neon.

History

In accordance with the statement of Plutarch, the Tithorea in the time of the Mithridatic War, was a fortress surrounded by precipitous rocks, where the Phocians took refuge from Xerxes I. He further states that it was not such a city as the one existing in his day. If the view of Plutarch is correct, that the fortress, the site of which was afterwards occupied by the city Tithorea, was the place where the Phocians took refuge from Xerxes, we may conclude that Tithorea and Neon were two different places.

The city, which existed in the time of Plutarch and Pausanias, was a place of some importance, though it had begun to decline for a generation before the time of Pausanias. The latter writer mentions, however, a theatre, the enclosure of an ancient agora, a temple of Athena, and the tomb of Antiope and Phocus. A river flowed by Tithorea, called Cachales (Καχάλης), to which the inhabitants had to descend in order to obtain water. The city also produced a remarkable quality of olive oil that whilst smaller in quantity than that of Attica or Syconia was considered to be superior in quality to that of the Iberian Peninsula and that of Istria.

It was also told that, when the sun passed through Taurus, the inhabitants of Tithorea took earth from the supposed tomb where Amphion and Zethus were buried, which was in Thebes; if this earth was put in contact with the tomb of Antiope, the people of Tithorea would have good harvest and the Thebans bad, for that reason the Thebans had put sentinels in the tomb.