10.35.1 To reach Abaiand Hyampolis from Elateia you may go along a mountain road on the right of the city of Elateia, but the highway from Orkhomenos to Opus also leads to those cities. If then you go along the road from Orkhomenos to Opus, and turn off a little to the left, you reach the road to Abae. The people of Abaisay that they came to Phokis from Argos, and that the city got its name from Abas, the founder, who was a son of Lynkeus and of Hypermnestra, the daughter of Danails. Abaifrom of old has been considered sacred to Apollo, and here too there was an oracle of that god.

10.35.2 The treatment that the god at Abai received at the hands of the Persian [Persēs] was very different from the honor paid him by the Romans. For while the Romans have given freedom of government to Abai because of their reverence for Apollo, the army of Xerxes burned down, as it did others, the sanctuary at Abai. The Greeks who opposed the barbarians resolved not to rebuild the sanctuaries burned down by them, but to leave them for all time as memorials of their hatred. This too is the reason why the temples in the territory of Haliartos, as well as the Athenian temples of Hērā on the road to Phaleron and of Demeter at Phaleron, still remain half-burned even at the present day.

10.35.3 Such, I suppose, was the appearance of the sanctuary at Abai also, after the Persian invasion, until in the war of the people of Phokis some of their men, overcome in battle, took refuge in Abae. Whereupon the Thebans gave them to the flames, and with the refugees the sanctuary, which was thus burned down a second time. However, it still stood even in my time, the frailest of buildings ever damaged by fire, seeing that the ruin begun by the Persian incendiaries was completed by the incendiaries of Boeotia.

10.35.4 Beside the large temple there is another, but smaller in size, made for Apollo by ‘King’ [basileus] Hadrian. The images are of earlier date, being dedicated by the Abaeans themselves; they are made of bronze, and all alike are standing, Apollo, Leto and Artemis. At Abai there is a theater, and also a marketplace, both of ancient construction.

10.35.5 Returning to the straight road to Opus, you come next to Hyampolis. Its mere name tells you who the inhabitants originally were, and the place from which they were expelled when they came to this land. For it was the Hyantes of Thebes who came here when they fled from Kadmos and his army. In earlier times the city was called by its neighbors the city of the Hyantes, but in course of time the name of Hyampolis prevailed over the other.

10.35.6 Although Xerxes had burned down the city, and afterwards Philip had razed it to the ground, nevertheless there were left the structure of an old marketplace, a council-chamber (a building of no great size) and a theater not far from the gates. ‘King’ [basileus]Hadrian built a portico which bears the name of the king [basileus] who dedicated it. The citizens have one well only. This is their sole supply, both for drinking and for washing; from no other source can they get water, save only from the winter rains.

10.35.7 Above all other divinities they worship Artemis, of whom they have a temple. The image of her I cannot describe, for their rule is to open the sanctuary twice, and not more often, every year. They say that whatever cattle they consecrate to Artemis grow up immune to disease and fatter than other cattle.

10.35.8 The straight road to Delphi that leads through Panopeus and past Daulis and the Cleft Way, is not the only pass from Khaironeia to Phokis. There is another road, rough and for the most part mountainous, that leads from Khairōneia to the city of Stiris in Phokis. The length of the road is one hundred and twenty stadium-lengths. The inhabitants assert that by descent they are from Phokis, but from Athens, and that they came from Attica with Peteοs, the son of Orneus, when he was pursued from Athens by Aigeus. They add that, because the greater part of those who accompanied Peteοs came from the district [dēmos] known as Stireis, the city received the name of Stiris.

10.35.9 The people of Stiris have their dwellings on a high and rocky site. For this reason they suffer from a shortage of water in summer; the wells are few, and the water is bad that they supply. These wells give washing-water to the people and drinking-water to the beasts of burden, but for their own drinking water the people go down about four stadium-lengths and draw it from a spring. The spring is in a hole dug into the rocks, and they go down to it to fetch water.

10.35.10 In Stiris is a sanctuary of Demeter surnamed Stiria. It is of unburned brick; the image is of Pentelic marble, and the goddess is holding torches. Beside her, bound^* with ribbons, is an image of Demeter, as ancient as any of that goddess that exists.