CITHAeRON, or as it is now called from its pine forests, Elatea, a famous mountain, or rather mountain range, in the south of Boeotia, separating that state from Megaris and Attica. It was greatly celebrated in Grecian mythology, and is frequently mentioned by the great poets of Greece, especially by Sophocles. It was on Cithaeron that Actaeon was changed into a stag, that Pentheus was torn to pieces by the Bacchantes whose orgies he had been watching, and that the infant Oedipus was exposed. This mountain, too, was the scene of the mystic rites of Dionysus; and the festival of the Daedala in honour of Juno was celebrated on its summit. The carriage road from Athens to Thebes crosses the range by a picturesque defile which has at one time been guarded on the Attic side by a strong fortress, the ruins of which are known as Ghyphto∙kastro or Gipsy Castle.