Book 9
23.5
From this point to Acraephnium is mainly flat. They say that originally the city formed part of the territory belonging to Thebes, and I learned that in later times men of Thebes escaped to it, at the time when Alexander destroyed Thebes. Weak and old, they could not even get safely away to Attica, but made their homes here. The town lies on Mount Ptous, and there are here a temple and image of Dionysus that are worth seeing.
23.6
About fifteen stades away from the city on the right is the sanctuary of Ptoan Apollo. We are told by Asius in his epic that Ptous, who gave a surname to Apollo and the name to the mountain, was a son of Athamas by Themisto. Before the expedition of the Macedonians under Alexander, in which Thebes was destroyed, there was here an oracle that never lied. Once too a mail of Europus, of the name of Mys, who was sent by Mardonius, inquired of the god in his own language, and the god too gave a response, not in Greek but in the Carian speech.
23.7
On crossing Mount Ptous you come to Larymna, a Boeotian city on the coast, said to have been named after Larymna, the daughter of Cynus. Her earlier ancestors I shall give in my account of Locris.See Paus. 10.38.1. Of old Larymna belonged to Opus, but when Thebes rose to great power the citizens of their own accord joined the Boeotians. Here there is a temple of Dionysus with a standing image. The town has a harbor with deep water near the shore, and on the mountains commanding the city wild boars can be hunted.
24.1
On the straight road from Acraephnium to the Cephisian, or as it is also called, the Copaic Lake, is what is styled the Athamantian Plain, on which, they say, Athamas made his home. Into the lake flows the river Cephisus, which rises at Lilaea in Phocis, and on sailing across it you come to Copae, a town lying on the shore of the lake. HomerHom. Il. 2.502 mentions it in the Catalogue. Here is a sanctuary of Demeter, one of Dionysus and a third of Serapis.
