HELICON, MOUNT

Modern Greek ros Elikn mountain of the Helicon range in Boeotia, Greece, between Lmni (lake) Kopas and the Gulf of Corinth. A continuation of the Parnassus range, which rises to about 8,000 ft (2,400 m), the Helicon range reaches only about 5,000 ft. The mountain was celebrated in classical literature as the favourite haunt of the Muses, and its eastern, or Boeotian, side was particularly sacred. On those fertile eastern slopes stood a sacred temple and grove adorned with numerous statues, eventually taken by Constantine the Great to adorn his new city, Constantinople. Nearby were the fountains Aganippe and Hippocrene, the latter in legend created by the imprint of the hooves of the winged horse Pegasus. The 2nd-century-AD Greek geographer Pausanias described Helicon as the most fertile mountain in Greece. His descriptions made it possible to reconstruct the classical topography and led to the discovery of an ancient theatre at Thespiae (modern Thespia).