Description of the attraction
Helikon is a mountain in the Boeotia region, about 20 km from the administrative center of the Livadia region and 10 km from the northern coast of the Gulf of Corinth. The height of the mountain is 1749 m above sea level.
Mount Helikon has long been known as the abode of the muses, and it was here, as the legend says, that there were two sources of poetic inspiration sacred to the muses - Aganippus and Hippocrene (Hippocrene). The latter, according to an old legend, appeared in the place where the mythical winged horse Pegasus, favorite of the muses, struck with his hoof. The sanctuary and grove of muses, decorated with many beautiful statues, a significant part of which were taken by Constantine the Great to Constantinople, were located on the eastern slope of Helikon. It is also believed that it was on Mount Helikon that a source once beat, looking at the mirror surface of which and unable to break away from his own reflection, Narcissus found his death, whose name later became a household name and symbolizes narcissism.
The famous ancient Greek poet and rhapsodist Hesiod wrote that in his youth, when he grazed sheep on the slopes of Helikon, the muses and Eros danced on the top of the mountain, after which the Helikon muses appeared to him and not only endowed him with a poetic gift, but also handed him a rod of magnificent laurel as rhapsode insignia. Probably, since the time of Hesiod, the glory of the "symbol of poetic inspiration" was firmly entrenched in Helikon.
On the western slope of Helikon, near the village of Distomo, there is one of the most famous and revered shrines of Greece - the Monastery of Osios Lukas, founded in the 10th century by the Monk Luke Styriot. The holy monastery is a beautiful example of Byzantine architecture and is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
