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The Phoenix is ‘a little stream which issues from the rocks of the west gate, whose bed is of a ruddy-brown colour, owing no doubt to its being impregnated with oxide of iron’ (Grundy, p. 284). It now joins the Spercheius rather more than half a mile below the point where that stream receives the Asopus. It is almost exactly fifteen stades from the Middle Gate and principal hot-springs at Thermopylae.

δέδμηται. The word implies an artificially constructed road, probably as now on a causeway (cf. ii. 124. 3 n.), contrasted with ὁδὸς τετμημένη (iv. 136. 2 n.).


Anthele was placed by Leake on a great accumulation of débris brought down by the stream which issues from the great ravine about half a mile west of the hot springs. But this site is impossible, for it is traversed in every direction by ever-shifting branches of the torrent, so that anything built on it would soon be carried away, and it would be excessively malarious. It should be placed on the fairly level piece of land just inside the West Gate, under the old Turkish cavalry barracks. The temples and the seats of the Amphictyons may have been above the village on the projecting shelf of hill, where the barracks stand. (Grundy, p. 284.)

Ἀμφικτύοσι: cf. c. 213. 2 n.

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