in ancient geography, the name of a mountain in the neighbourhood of Parnassus and Cytheron, sacred to Apollo and the muses, who are thence called Heliconides. It is situated in Livadia, and now called Zagora or Zagaras.—Helicon was one of the most fertile and woody mountains in Greece. On it the fruit of the adranthus, a species of the arbutus or of the strawberry-tree, was uncommonly sweet; and the inhabitants affirmed, that the plants and roots were all friendly to man, and that even the serpents had their poison weakened by the innocuous qualities of their food. It approached Parnassus on the north, where it touched on Phocis; and resembled that mountain in loftiness, extent, and magnitude.—Here was the shady grove of the muses and their images; with statues of Apollo and Bacchus, of Linus and Orpheus, and the illustrious poets who had recited their verses to the harp. Among the tripods, in the second century, was that consecrated by Herodot. On the left-hand going to the grove was the fountain Aganippe; and about twenty Itadia, or two miles and a half, higher up, the violet- HELICONIA violet-coloured Hippocrene. Round the grove were houses. A festival was celebrated there by the Thespians with games called Musae. The valleys of Helicon are described by Wheler as green and flowery in the spring; and enlivened by pleasing cascades and streams, and by fountains and wells of clear water. The Boeotian cities in general, two or three excepted, were reduced to inconsiderable villages in the time of Strabo. The grove of the mules was plundered under the auspices of Constantine the Great. The Heliconian goddesses were afterwards consumed in a fire at Constantinople, to which city they had been removed. Their ancient seat on the mountain, Aganippe and Hippocrene, are unascertained.