Mount Oeta

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Mount Oeta (modern Kotawthra) is a mountain to the south of Thessaly, in Greece, forming a boundary between the valleys of the Spercheius and the Boeotian Cephissus. It is an offshoot of the Pindus range, 7080 ft. high. In its eastern portion, called Callidromus, it comes close to the sea, leaving only a narrow passage known as the famous pass of Thermopylae. There was also a high pass to the west of Callidromus leading over into the upper Cephissus valley.

In mythology Oeta is chiefly celebrated as the scene of Heracles' death. Prepared to die, he ascended Mount Œta, where he built a funeral pile of trees, gave his bow and arrows to Poeas, father of Philoctetes, and laid himself down on the pile, his head resting on his club, and his lion's skin spread over him, and commanded Philoctetes to apply the torch to the pyre.

Milton thus alludes to the frenzy of Hercules:

As when Alcides (i.e., Hercules) from Œchalia crowned With conquest, felt the envenomed robe, and tore, Through pain, up by the roots Thessalian pines And Lichas from the top of Œta threw Into the Euboic Sea.