Kirrha

Kirra or Cirrha (Greek: Κίρρα) is a village in Phocis, Central Greece. It is part of the municipal unit of Itea, to which it is adjacent. Kirra is the point where the Pleistos river, starting at the Castalian Spring near Delphi, meets the Gulf of Corinth.

In ancient times Kirra existed as a fortified city that controlled access to Delphi from the Corinthian Gulf. This strategic location of Kirra allowed its citizens to rob pilgrims on their way to the Delphic Oracle. This behavior prompted many of the other tribal entities of the adjacent regions to form the Amphictionic League, an alliance for the protection of the cult of Demeter in Anthele (initially) and of Apollo in Delphi. The Amphictyony consulted the oracle for advise on dealing with Kirra, and the reply was a call for war. Tradition goes that they added a curse in the name of Apollo: that the soil should bring forth no crops, that the children of the women and livestock should be deformed, and that the entire ethnic group that inhabited the city should be eradicated. The ensuing war lasted for ten years (595 BC-585 BC) and became known as the First Sacred War.

A leading figure of the attack was the tyrantCleisthenes of Sicyon, who used his powerful navy to blockade the city's port before using an allied Amphictionic army to besiege Kirra. What transpired after this is a matter of debate. The earliest, and therefore probably most reliable, account is that of the medical writer Thessalos, who in the 5th century BC wrote that the attackers discovered a secret water pipe leading into the city after it was broken by a horse's hoof. An asclepiad named Nebros, or, according to another version the Athenian Solon advised the allies to poison the water with hellebore. The hellebore soon rendered the defenders so weak with diarrhea that they were unable to continue resisting the assault. Kirra was captured and the entire population was slaughtered. Nebros was an ancestor of Hippocrates of Kos, so this story has caused many to wonder whether it might not have been guilt over his ancestor's use of poison that drove Hippocrates to establish the Hippocratic Oath.

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