Note 9 — Chapter III · CAVE DEITIES: SUBTERRANEAN TRANSLATION

The ancient site of the Oracle of Amphiaraos was near Thebes at the place (Knopia) where according to the epic story he sank into the earth. Paus. 9, 8, 3, Str. 404. Even at the time of the Persian war the envoy of Mardonios inquired of him there, near Thebes, as Hdt. viii, 134, unmistakably says. (That the oracle lay in Theban territory is shown also by the addition of the words, otherwise pointless, Θηβαίων οὐδενὶ ἔξεστι μαντεύεσθαι αὐτοθί. A similar rule is found at the temple of Herakles in Erythrai which may be approached by Thracian women but not by Erythræan women [Paus. 7, 5, 7–8]; and in the same way the Lampsakenoi were excluded from the funeral games of Miltiades on the Chersonnese: Hdt. vi, 38.) Oropos also claimed to harbour Amphiaraos under its soil; Sch. Pi., O. vi, 18, 21–3; differently in Paus. 1, 34, 2–4. But the oracle must have been moved there afterwards—hardly before the end of the fifth century (μεθιδρύθη, Str. 404); to suppose that it had always been confined to Oropos is contrary to all the traditional evidence.