1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Parnassus

PARNASSUS (mod. Liákoura or Likeri), a mountain of Greece, 8070 ft., in the south of Phocis, rising over the town of Delphi. It had several prominent peaks, the chief known as Tithorea and Lycoreia (whence the modern name). Parnassus was one of the most holy mountains in Greece, hallowed by the worship of Apollo, of the Muses, and of the Corycian nymphs, and by the orgies of the Bacchantes. Two projecting cliffs, named the Phaedriadae, frame the gorge in which the Castalian spring flows out, and just to the west of this, on a shelf above the ravine of the Pleistus, is the site of the Pythian shrine of Apollo and the Delphic oracle. The Corycian cave is on the plateau between Delphi and the summit.