ELATEIA in PHOKIS Greece PHOKIAN LEAGUE Apollo Bull Ancient Greek Coin i56223

Greek city of Elateia in Phokis  for the Phokian League Bronze 17mm (3.60 grams) Struck circa 200-100 B.C. Reference: HGC 4, 1143; Sear 2366; B.M.C.8,p.23,105-106 ΕΛ, Filleted bull head facing. ΦΩΚΕΩΝ, Laureate head of Apollo right.

The second town of Phokis in importance after Delphi. Elateia was located on an  important pass from Boeotia through Mount Oita. It served as the capital of the  Phokian League since around the time of the fourth century B.C. This city  boasted a wonderful market-place (agora) and the temples to Athena Krania and  Aclepius. During the Persian invasion of Greece, this city was plundered and  destroyed by Great King, Xerxes I. After which it passed into Macedonian  domination, however having revolted under king Kassander of Macedon. It was a  member of several leagues or confederations, intertwined with the politics of  the ancient times. By 27 B.C. this city became a part of the new Roman province  of Achaea.

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In Greek and Roman mythology , Apollo , is one of the most  important and diverse of the Olympian deities . The ideal of the kouros (a beardless youth), Apollo has been  variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; archery ; medicine and healing; music, poetry,  and the arts; and more. Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto , and has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis . Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as Apulu . Apollo was  worshiped in both ancient Greek and Roman religion , as well as in the modern Greco -Roman Neopaganism .

As the patron of Delphi (Pythian Apollo ), Apollo was an oracular god — the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle . Medicine and healing were  associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or mediated through his  son Asclepius , yet Apollo was also seen as a god  who could bring ill-health and deadly plague as well as one who had the ability to  cure. Amongst the god's custodial charges, Apollo became associated with  dominion over colonists , and as the patron defender of herds  and flocks. As the leader of the Muses (Apollon Musagetes ) and director of their choir, Apollo  functioned as the patron god of music and poetry . Hermes created the lyre for him, and the instrument became a common attribute of Apollo. Hymns sung to Apollo were  called paeans .

In Hellenistic times, especially during the third century BCE, as Apollo  Helios he became identified among Greeks with Helios , god of the sun , and his sister Artemis  similarly equated with Selene , goddess of the moon . In Latin texts, on the  other hand, Joseph Fontenrose declared himself unable to find any conflation of  Apollo with Sol among the Augustan poets of the first century, not even  in the conjurations of Aeneas and Latinus in Aeneid XII (161–215). Apollo and Helios/Sol  remained separate beings in literary and mythological texts until the third  century CE.

Phocis   is one of the regional units of Greece . It is part of the  administrative region of Central Greece . It stretches from the western  mountainsides of Parnassus on the east to the mountain range of Vardousia on the west, upon the Gulf of Corinth . It is named after the ancient region of Phocis , but the modern  regional unit also includes parts of ancient Locris and Doris .

Elateia was an ancient Greek city of Phocis , and the most important place in that  region after Delphi . It is also a modern-day town that is a  former municipality in the southeastern part of Phthiotis . Since the 2011 local government  reform, it is a municipal unit of the municipality Amfikleia-Elateia . Its population is 5,636  inhabitants (2001 census) and its land area is 154.361 km². The municipal seat  was the town of Eláteia (pop. 3,585); other towns are Zeli (910), Panagítsa (219), Lefkochóri (208),  Sfáka (167), and Katályma (26).

History

Ancient Elateia was situated about the middle of the great fertile basin that  extends nearly 20 miles, from the narrows of the Cephissus River below Amphicleia , to the entrance into Boeotia . Hence it was admirably placed for  commanding the passes into Southern Greece from Mount Oeta , and became a post of great military  importance. 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. Elateia is not mentioned by Homer . Its inhabitants claimed they were Arcadians , deriving their name from Elatus , the son of Arcas. It was burnt, along  with the other Phocian towns, by the Persian army of Xerxes in 480 BC. When Philip II of Macedon entered Phocis in 339 BC,  with the professed object of conducting war against Amphissa , he seized Elateia and began to  restore its fortifications. The alarm this caused at Athens shows that they regarded Phocis as a key  of Southern Greece. The subsequent history of Elateia is given in some detail by  Pausanias. It successfully resisted Cassander in 301 BC, but it was taken by the  king of Macedon Philip V , the son of Demetrius II Aetolicus . It remained faithful to  Philip V when the Romans invaded Greece, and was taken by assault  by the Romans in 198 BC. At a later time, the Romans declared the town free,  because the inhabitants had repulsed an 86 BC attack by Taxiles , the general of Mithridates VI .

Among noteworthy sites in Elateia, Pausanias mentions the agora , a temple of Asclepius that contained a beardless statue of  the god, a theater , and an ancient brazen statue of Athena . He also mentions a temple of Athena  Cranaea, situated 20 stadia from Elateia: the road to it was a very gentle  ascent, but the temple stood upon a steep hill of small size.

The ancient city has been repeatedly sacked and destroyed in its history, and  also subject to several earthquakes. For these reasons the one modern excavation  of the classical site has not been much successful; the one exception was the  Temple of Athena Cranaia, 3 km from the town. What has  been attested is continuous occupation of the valley, that goes back to as far  as 6000 BC.

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