Phigalia
A remote Arcadian mountain town with an ancient cave sanctuary where Demeter in the form of a horse was worshipped.
The Story of Phigalia
At Phigalia in Arcadia, a cave sanctuary preserved one of the most archaic forms of Greek religion. Demeter was worshipped here with a horse's head — a survival of an age before the gods took fully human form. This was the cave to which Demeter had retreated in grief and rage after Poseidon assaulted her by taking the form of a horse. She remained in the cave refusing to let anything grow; the god Pan discovered her there and told Zeus, who sent the Fates to coax her out. The great temple of Apollo at Bassae nearby, designed by the Parthenon's architect Ictinus, stood on Phigalian territory.
Children
{}
Symbols
Explore Further
Diktaean Cave
🏛 placegeography
A sacred cave on Crete's Mount Dikte where Zeus was hidden as an infant to protect him from Cronus.
Amyclae
🏛 placegeography
An ancient Laconian town near Sparta, sanctuary of Apollo Hyacinthius and site of the hero Hyacinthus' cult.
Thespiae
🏛 placeSacred geography
A Boeotian city near Mount Helicon famous for its cult of Eros and the sanctuary of the Muses
Paphos
🏛 placeSacred geography
The chief sanctuary of Aphrodite on Cyprus, where the goddess was said to have first come ashore from the sea
Mount Ida
🏛 placeBirthplace cave of Zeus
Mount Ida was the highest peak in Crete, home to the cave where the infant Zeus was hidden from his father Kronos and raised in secret by nymphs and the Kouretes.
Methone
🏛 placegeography
A Macedonian coastal town where the archer Aster shot out the eye of Philip II — and mythologically associated with Ariadne.
Pieria
🏛 placeSacred geography
The region at the foot of Mount Olympus sacred to the Muses, who were sometimes called the Pierides
Epirus
🏛 placeregion, northwestern Greece
A mountainous region in northwestern Greece, home to the Oracle of Dodona and the legendary kingdom of the Molossians.
Sicyon
🏛 placeGeography
An ancient city near Corinth claiming to be one of the oldest in Greece and site of Prometheus's sacrifice trick
Corinth
🏛 placeCity of Sisyphus and Medea
Corinth was a wealthy trading city on the narrow isthmus connecting mainland Greece to the Peloponnese, associated with Sisyphus, Medea, Bellerophon, and Pegasus.
Hippocrene
🏛 placeSacred geography
The sacred spring on Mount Helicon created by the hoof of Pegasus, source of poetic inspiration
Thessaly
🏛 placeregion, northern Greece
The largest fertile plain in Greece, legendary homeland of Achilles, the Centaurs, and the Argonauts' leader Jason.