Village of Tithorea
Ancient Tithorea was a Phocian city, built on the slopes of Mount Parnassus, on the exact location of the modern village of Tithorea. The ancient city was built after the destruction of the nearby cities by Xerxes' Persian army in 480 BC. According to Herodotus, inhabitants from ruined cities located on the banks of the Cephissus fled to the foot of the Parnassus around Tithorea. After the Persians left, the Phocians settled around Tithorea where a fortress was built, the city flourished and assimilated the older ancient cities of Neon, Tritaea and Parapotamioi. The city reached its peak in the 3rd century BC, when it minted its own coins.
Modern Tithorea is a traditional settlement with stone houses, an ancient wall, a castle, and a water mill. Other landmarks includes Avva Zosima, Agiarsali and Agios Georgios (Saint George) churches, a forested area part of NATURA 2000, a monument in the town square and an early Christian mosaic at Saint John dating from the 3rd to 4th century AD. Of special interest is Odysseas Androutsos' square, with a breah-taking view of the steep gorge of Kahala with the caves of Odysseas Androutsos and of an impressive waterfall. Before 1926 it was known as Velitsa (Βελίτσα), a Slavic toponym.
Nearby places include Kato Tithorea to the northeast and Agia Marina to the east.
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Famous quotes containing the word village:
“A village seems thus, where its able-bodied men are all plowing the ocean together, as a common field. In North Truro the women and girls may sit at their doors, and see where their husbands and brothers are harvesting their mackerel fifteen or twenty miles off, on the sea, with hundreds of white harvest wagons, just as in the country the farmers’ wives sometimes see their husbands working in a distant hillside field. But the sound of no dinner-horn can reach the fisher’s ear.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)