Book 9
24.1
On the straight road from Acraephnium to the Cephisian, or as it is also called, the Copaic Lake, is what is styled the Athamantian Plain, on which, they say, Athamas made his home. Into the lake flows the river Cephisus, which rises at Lilaea in Phocis, and on sailing across it you come to Copae, a town lying on the shore of the lake. HomerHom. Il. 2.502 mentions it in the Catalogue. Here is a sanctuary of Demeter, one of Dionysus and a third of Serapis.
24.2
According to the Boeotians there were once other inhabited towns near the lake, Athens and Eleusis, but there occurred a flood one winter which destroyed them. The fish of the Cephisian Lake are in general no different from those of other lakes, but the eels there are of great size and very pleasant to the palate.
24.3
On the left of Copae about twelve stades from it is Olmones, and some seven stades distant from Olmones is Hyettus both right from their foundation to the present day have been villages. In my view Hyettus, as well as the Athamantian plain, belongs to the district of Orchomenus. All the stories I heard about Hyettus the Argive and Olmus, the son of Sisyphus, I shall include in my history of Orchomenus.Paus. 9.34.10 and Paus. 9.36.6. In Olmones they did not show me anything that was in the least worth seeing, but in Hyettus is a temple of Heracles, from whom the sick may get cures. There is an image not carefully carved, but of unwrought stone after the ancient fashion.
