Cyphanta
Ancient city · Greece
- Abandoned
- unknown
- Founded
- —
- Population
- —
- Coordinates
- 36.968, 22.992
Why it was abandoned
🏛️ Ancient ruins
Detected automatically from the text: ancient city
History
Cyphanta or Kyphanta was a town on the eastern coast of ancient Laconia, belonging to the Eleuthero-Lacones. It was in ruins in the time of Pausanias, but from the notice of it in other writers, it was evidently at one period a place of some importance. Pausanias describes it as situated 6 stadia from Zarax, and 10 stadia inland; and Ptolemy speaks separately of the port-town and city. Pausanias adds that Cyphanta contained a temple of Asclepius, called Stethaeum, and a fountain issuing from a rock, said to have been produced by a blow of the lance of Atalanta. The numbers in Pausanias, however, cannot be correct. At the distance of 6 stadia from Zarax, there is no site for a town or a harbour; and it is scarcely conceivable that, on this rocky and little-frequented coast, there would be two towns so close to one another.