Oeta - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

OETA (mod. Kotavothra), 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 the funeral pyre on which Heracles burnt himself before his admission to Olympus.