10.37.1 About two stadium-lengths off the city there is, on the right, a high rock, which forms part of a mountain, with a sanctuary of Artemis built upon it. The image of Artemis is one of the works of Praxiteles; she carries a torch in her right hand and a quiver over her shoulders, while at her left side there is a dog. The image is taller than the tallest woman.

10.37.2 Bordering on the territory of Phokis is a land named after Boulon, the leader of the colony, which was founded by a union of emigrants from the cities in ancient Doris. The people of Boulis are said of Philomēlos and the men of Phokis … the general assembly. To Boulis from Thisbe in Boeotia is a journey of eighty stadium-lengths; but I do not know if in Phokis there be a road by land at all from Antikyra, so rough and difficult to cross are the mountains between Antikyra and Boulis. To the harbor from Antikyra is a sail of one hundred stadium-lengths, and the road by land from the harbor to Boulis we conjectured to be about seven stadium-lengths long.

10.37.3 Here a torrent falls into the sea, called by the natives Herakleios. Boulis lies on high ground, and it is passed by travellers crossing by sea from Antikyra to Lekhaion in Corinthian territory. More than half its inhabitants are fishers of the shellfish that produces the purple dye. The buildings in Boulis are not so wondrous; among them is a sanctuary of Artemis and one of Dionysus. The images are made of wood, but we were unable to judge who was the artist. The god worshipped most by the people of Boulis is named by them Megistos ‘the Greatest’, a surname, I should think, of Zeus. At Boulis there is a spring called Saunion.

10.37.4 The length of the road from Delphi to Cirrha, the port of Delphi, is sixty stadium-lengths. Descending to the plain you come to a race-course, where at the Pythian Games the horses compete. I have told in my account of Elis^* the story of the Taraxippos at Olympia, and it is likely that the race-course of Apollo too may possibly harm here and there a driver, for the superhuman force [daimōn] in every activity of man bestows either better fortune or worse. But the race-course itself is not of a nature to startle the horses, either by reason of a hero or on any other account.

10.37.5 The plain from Cirrha is altogether bare, and the inhabitants will not plant trees, either because the land is under a curse, or because they know that the ground is useless for growing trees. It is said that to Cirrha … and they say that from Cirrha the place received its modern name. Homer, however, in the Iliad,^* and similarly in the hymn to Apollo,^* calls the city by its ancient name of Crisa. Afterwards the people of Cirrha behaved wickedly towards Apollo; especially in appropriating some of the god’s land.

10.37.6 So the Amphiktyones determined to make war on the Cirrhaeans, put Cleisthenes, tyrant of Sikyon, at the head of their army, and brought over Solon from Athens to give them advice. They asked the oracle about victory, and the Pythian priestess replied:—

10.37.7 Solon invented another trick to outwit the Cirrhaeans. The water of the river Pleistos ran along a channel to the city, and Solon diverted it in another direction. When the Cirrhaeans still held out against the besiegers, drinking well-water and rainwater, Solon threw into the Pleistos roots of hellebore, and when he perceived that water held enough of the drug he diverted it back again into its channel. The Cirrhaeans drank without stint of the water, and those on the wall, seized with obstinate diarrhoea, deserted their posts,

10.37.8 and the Amphiktyones captured the city. They exacted punishment from the Cirrhaeans on behalf of the god, and Cirrha is the port of Delphi. Its notable sights include a temple of Apollo, Artemis and Leto, with very large images of Attic workmanship. Adrasteia has been set up by the Cirrhaeans in the same place, but she is not so large as the other images.