Parnassus - Illustration from Views of Greece by Edward Dodwell

Parnassus is an illustration from the collection Views in Greece from Drawings published by Edward Dodwell in 1821.

The majestic Mount Parnassus dominates the landscape of central Greece with its towering peaks. Considered the home of the Muses, it offers spectacular panoramas and an enchanting setting that has inspired artists and poets for centuries, standing as a symbol of beauty and creativity.

The literal transcription of the notice accompanying this plate is reproduced below:

This view, taken from below the village of Daulia, offers Mount Parnassus in a highly advantageous light. The icy and uneven flanks of this mountain are in several places covered with trees, while its highest peaks, which the snow never entirely abandons, are of a dazzling whiteness and bristling with pines.

The line drawing of this mountain is exact and perfectly resembles Olympus in Thessaly. It deserves the epithet "monugetos," or many-peaked mountain, more than that of "didymos," or double hill. This last name is only applicable to the Phaedriades which are above Delphi. It is in the latter of these senses that Parnassus is called Sixeukopo; by Euripides, and Dixeos by Sophocles, although its form has never been well determined by the generality of poets. Herodotus, Catullus, and Statius represent it with a single peak: Ovid, Persius, Lucan, Silius Italicus, and Lucian, have adopted the common error in giving it two, while on the other hand Servius places Parnassus in Thessaly, and divides it into Cithaeron and Helicon!

The cavities which surround the various summits of Parnassus being constantly more or less filled with snow, have given it, by Homer, the name of "snowy", and, by Euripides, that of "snowy".

Lykorcia was a very ancient name for Parnassus, and history records that a town of that name was founded there at the time of Deucalion's flood. The modern name of this mountain is Lyakoura, and a village bearing that name exists today three hours' walk above Kastri; but its icy situation makes it uninhabitable during the winter; it is said to contain vestiges of antiquity.

Parnassus has as its base, on the left, Mount Kirphis, now Limeno, on which is a cavern formed by the hands of nature, and which, it is said, once served as a retreat for the monster Lamia or Sybaris. This other, under the modern name of the cavern of Jerusalem, very little compensates the curious for the fatigue he must undergo to reach his difficult situation.

The nearest village to the mountain is Malta; the most distant is Daulia. The noble majesty of the reverse side of Parnassus is, for the inhabitants of the latter village, a very slight compensation for the coldness it brings them during the winter. No olive tree bears fruit in its vicinity: only a little wheat and wine are harvested there: there are, however, some rice fields at the foot of the mountain. The city, which was never very populous, is built on the site of the ancient Daulis; some inscriptions, and several fragments of architecture, have remained there as if to attest this fact. The Acropolis is further to the left, and is seated on an oblong rock. As it was taken and broken by Xerxes, and was again destroyed in the Third Crusade, it follows that the masonry of its walls is necessarily of a modern style. The Acropolis had only one gate, and that looked towards Parnassus; It was defended by a wall and square towers, placed projecting from the edge of a steep rock, which led the historian Livy to cite it as a strong military position.